Chapter 1: New Game+
Chapter Text
Ruby should have picked a better time. It was just a passing fancy, an overwhelming sense of nostalgia that drew her back to her childhood JRPG this night. She started playing around 9 pm after a late dinner, figured she’d mess around until around midnight and call it quits. By the time she took notice of the time, it was already past 3 am the next day. Looks like tomorrow’s gonna be another day off – another day where she struggles to break even with rent.
She doesn’t get moments like this very often anymore. Living on her own as a freelance coder is a tough sell in these times. Between the nigh unpaid volunteer hours and the occasional commissions she undertakes, she doesn’t have much time left over to relax. At the same time, there are also those days when business is slow and she finds herself with nothing to do but wait. Today was one of those days, and by nighttime with no new offers available, she was ready to do anything to alieve herself from the suffering. Besides, her old Playstation was right there. She had left it out in the open in front of the TV ever since she first moved in a few years ago, and she was always caring for and cleaning it of dust, always waiting for a chance to relive to her childhood.
It can’t be helped, after all. The Chocobos were calling to her. What kind of Final Fantasy fan wouldn’t give those big, silly, adorable birds all the love in the world?
But thinking about it, how the heck did she manage to drag out this play session from just a few Chocobo races to grinding points in Battle Square, to grinding EXP for her Materia and to filling out her inventory, and even challenging the endgame dungeons and boss rush again? It’s not like she had no opportunities to end it – all she had to do was put down the controller – but it’s inevitable with her. Whenever she dives deep into the flow of a session, it becomes an insatiable obsession that won’t stop until it can’t go any further, and then it just dies off rapidly; like yeast that had eaten their fill of sugar until none was left. This game isn’t just a fun time despite its age. It was her childhood growing up and her escape well into adulthood. She’s not much of a people person anyway; as far as she’s concerned, the outside world is an unforgiving place that she’d rather interact with as little as possible.
The save file she ran for tonight was the one where she had completed just about everything in the game already – all the sidequests, extra dungeons and superboss battles, maxing out her characters’ levels and stats, even maxing out the game’s displayed timer and money – everything except maxing out her inventory, which would have been such a tedious grind that she never had the time for. And yet, she still progressed with that goal she thought she’d never actually bother with. She’s actually, genuinely hopeless and does feel ashamed about how awful her time management is… but that shame doesn’t last long before it’s replaced by the innocent pride of her inner child. No regrets. This is entirely for her youth’s sake.
This is it. She hits the Circle button to input the final attack upon Safer Sephiroth. How appropriate that Cloud happens to be the one to get his turn. He rushes in and swipes at his archenemy one last time, and it’s all over. The screen flashes briefly, and Safer Sephiroth begins to fade away into pixelated pieces.
Ruby lets out a sigh in relief. Though her party was well over-leveled, the battles still took quite a while just hitting nothing but the Circle button and sometimes the Up and Down buttons to access healing items. This time, she had no Materia or Accessories equipped whatsoever, but her plethora of Megalixirs and Remedies made short work of any damage or negative status effects that would affect her party. It wasn’t even that she had planned to do a challenge run – not much of a challenge when everyone is maxed out, after all – but just that she had trouble deciding how she wanted to approach the final battles. She settled on the least-thought-out method, which happened to be brute-forcing all attacks. At the very least, she chose Yuffie and Vincent as Cloud’s other two allies, so they could still hit the enemies if they were “out of reach”, but that was pretty much the extent of her tactics going in. The battle ended so anticlimactically, as expected by employing such a foolproof strategy equivalent to a toddler throwing her Legos around. If only she could input taunts in this game, she would definitely use them, but this is plenty enough to rub salt in the One-Winged Angel’s wounds.
There’s not much else of the game left to play. All that remains is the final confrontation with half-naked Sephiroth in Cloud’s mind (not like that), and she doesn’t even need to press any buttons to win. It’s actually a few seconds faster if she doesn’t, since Cloud automatically counterattacks Sephiroth once he’s hit, and one hit is all that’s needed, regardless of his level. But, she’s already gone this far; might as well complete the game the more satisfying way.
As she waits for Cloud’s Limit bar to rise until it flashes rainbow, the game gives a few flashes onscreen and dramatic camera angles between the two enemies. Ding. The Limit Break is ready. She hits Circle twice so fast that the battle menu barely has time to show up. Like for an actor appearing onstage, the camera swings toward Cloud as he begins to charge up his attack. And then, he charges forward with an all-consuming rage and unleashes everything on the bane of his existence until the two are lost amid the flurry of blows. And on the 16th hit, he leaps into the air with one final extra-charged attack and slams it down with all his might. The last thing Ruby sees play out is the look of utter defiance that remains on Sephiroth’s face as the screen goes black.
And as if the timing was right on cue, the light of her lamp by the TV flickers and goes out. Or rather, it’s not just her lamp. The TV, the Playstation – everything – has gone out in an instant. Looks like it’s a blackout.
A BLACKOUT!?? OH MY GAHD, SONNOVA BITCH!!
Ruby gently sets down her controller and pushes it aside to safety before scrambling over to her console. But there’s nothing to be done; it’s gone. Her run has dropped dead, killed so suddenly like a certain female lead with so much promise. No cheats to bring it back now. All she can do is wait until the power comes back and the game will still be here waiting for her. But this particular session is no more.
She drops limply to the floor and buries her face in the carpet, pretending to have just died herself. She lies still for a moment, only to move her head to the side when she needs to breathe. A blackout in the middle of the night, on a day when she could finally be fully invested in a dear hobby of hers… If there is a God, He is cruel and unrelenting in the sickest way possible. She curses the name of this God for baiting her with this prime opportunity to achieve the inner peace she has constantly sought, only to deprive her from ever attaining it at the last possible moment. It’s as if she were stabbed in the gut with a sword and its blade was twisted in her wound, and she could do nothing but be left hung.
Wait a second. That sounds perfectly in character for the villain of this game. Damn, to think that God was actually the most iconic silver-haired bishonen hunk of a fallen angel. Why does He suddenly seem so cool? …No, that can’t be right.
She gets back up and sits with her arms propping herself up. Now that she remembers, she’d saved the game before she made the final descent. All those hours spent on minigames and Chocobo racing beforehand have been preserved, at least. Really, that’s all that matters. She can end Sephiroth a million times over and it still won’t hold a candle to the one true challenge of this game: beating that nasty piece of work in the Chocobo races fair and square. Damn Cheatin’ Joe and his steroid-packed Teioh! Which of those insane developers thought basing his stats on being the players’ Chocobo but better would be fun!?
Ah, well. Ruby mentally pats herself on the back with a proud smile. She may have abused the dumb AI by ramming other Chocobos in Teioh’s face, but hey, that’s just part of the game and a win is a win.
Enough mock-ranting, it’s time for bed. After sitting here in the pitch-black dark for a little while, her eyes have started to adjust to the ambient lighting. Nevertheless, that only goes so far and she’s still going to be stumbling around without any other light source. She left her phone in her room and on silent so she wouldn’t be bothered by notifications while she played. (In hindsight, she probably should have kept it around as an alarm.) She gets up to her feet and wobbles a bit, realizing the ever-growing fatigue coming over her. She stumbles around for a bit as she makes her way to the nearest storage closet and digs out a spare flashlight. When she turns it on, she almost blinds herself and has to wait to readjust her vision.
At least for a quiet moment, everything else seems to proceed smoothly. She stops by the bathroom beside her room. Water is still running just fine. It’s just a blackout, after all. She leaves her flashlight aside so it isn’t directly beamed onto the mirror before her. Then, she does a quick brush of her teeth and wets a face towel to wipe away any remaining frustration from her face. She takes a deep breath to calm her nerves and begins to clean up here.
But it seems trouble is never too far. She’s startled by some kind of sharp shearing noise crack the air, followed by a strange whooshing noise, coming from outside down the hall. Now that she has a flashlight, she no longer has her natural night vision, so she can’t make out anything in the darkness. Weird; she’s living alone, so there shouldn’t be anyone else. She also lives on the third floor, so it’s pretty unlikely that someone would have thrown something up here or anything – not that she would have any reason to be targeted. She always tries to keep a low profile whenever she goes outside. Not to mention, the landlady of this apartment wouldn’t let her tenants bring in pets, so that’s out. It’s too bad, since Ruby would have moved in with her pet dogs if she had her way. It can get a little lonely in here sometimes, but she’s come to live with it.
The only possibility remaining is that some boorish bird or rascally rodent has raided her. She slumps against the countertop with an exasperated groan. This is a pretty cheap place in a cheap neighborhood, so she doesn’t have too many options to guard against Mother Nature. This honestly wouldn’t be nearly as bad a problem if she could keep her dogs around. Some of them may be troublemakers, but there are no better guards around when intruders come by. No matter; she decided to choose this place and she’s going to live with it and all its consequences. She claps her cheeks and looks at her reflection with a determined face, and then finishes putting everything away. With flashlight in hand, she steps back out into the living room to make sure nothing fell over or broke.
As she cautiously steps out into the living room, she prays quietly to herself that she won’t actually have to deal with a real wild animal. The kitchen side of things looks clear. The window is open just a crack for air, just as she had left it. The cupboards and the countertop are completely undisturbed; same goes for her sink and the water filter beside the faucet. At the very least, this pest didn’t seem to be interested in scavenging for food…
Holy hell! There’s someone in the living room waiting for her. Her light reveals a tall, long silver-haired man dressed completely in black, and in his left hand he wields a sleek and very long katana. It’s so long that had he held it upward, it likely would have scratched the ceiling. The man stares back with an ominous, piercing look that would send chills down the spines of even the most hardened of soldiers. Just behind him, there’s a giant, weird-looking hole in the fabric of reality instead where her TV should be. It’s filled with a dark, swirling energy and a thin rim of white light. If she had to guess, it may be a very sinister, very magical portal to another dimension. Needless to say, she is completely speechless – or rather, dumbfounded. It’s as if he somehow popped into existence from the game she was just playing.
Oh, no. Not another isekai anime! What the hell, she never asked to be the protagonist of one either! It just had to be for FF7, one of the most popular and thus (maybe) most toxic fan communities out of any gaming fandom! And why is he here? She beat him fair and square. Surely, he hasn’t shown up just to whine and be a sore loser? Who even writes this stuff?
She shakes her head in disbelief. It’s time for bed and she’s so tired that she’s starting to hallucinate. Before she can even turn around and walk away, though, Sephiroth acts true to character and catches her with his sword right at her neck.
His eyes narrow dangerously as he speaks up, “…Pardon the intrusion. If you don’t mind, I have a few questions for you…”
Great. Now she’s also hearing things. His voice matches perfectly with how his Japanese voice actor sounds, but he’s clearly speaking in English. But that’s only expected. She often watches videos about this game in both languages since she’s fluent enough, and they end up mixing together in her dreams… Wait. Is this just a dream? When did she fall asleep, and why is she still so exhausted?
“If you refuse to answer, however, I will not hesitate to cut you down here and now.”
Of course, he’s just a figment of her imagination. What can he possibly do if she just ignores him? She gives him an unamused look and tries to back off, but he pursues her with the tip of the blade. Now she can even feel the sharp edge just touch against her skin. Well, that’s impressive. This is one crazy-vivid dream.
“Hold it. You’re not going anywhere… not yet.”
Now she’s getting annoyed. Even vivid dreams are only so fun as long as she has the choice to leave. She’s also had dreams before where she would “die”, only to wake up later just fine. If anything, it’s an even faster way to get to bed. Heh, just like in a video game, there seem to be warp strats for the real world too.
She lets off a sigh and raises her arms in surrender. “…What do you want?”
“I could ask you the same thing. After leaving the planet in such a mess, you conveniently make your escape to a neighboring pocket dimension where you can watch the chaotic aftermath unfold? Just what are your intentions…?”
“Uh, excuse me? This is just my apartment. I’ve lived here for the past few years. Why are you here?”
He makes an indignant scoff. “Hmph. Are you feigning ignorance, or have you really forgotten everything?”
“Neither. Mind telling me what you’re even talking about?”
“…” He watches her carefully for a moment, but she keeps an impatient glare on him and refuses to back down. He then replies rather coolly, “Your stray Remnants.”
“My what?”
“Still doesn’t ring a bell? How about the name, ‘Rubia’…?”
She blinks. Hold up. Who told this giant crow her online username? Has he been stalking her? No, wait, how could he even obtain that info? Do they even have access to the Internet of this world from Gaia? Well, there’s a scary thought…
He shakes his head. “To think that there would be another foreign entity that would appear from its depths to plague the planet, and it even dares to intrude on my realm of influence…”
She shrugs. “Sorry. Still no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Not in the slightest?”
“No! How do you know me? How did you get here? Why are you even attacking me??”
“…”
“What did I ever do to you, man… Write some silly comment on social media that you didn’t like? Complain about your latest game or Square Enix too much? Are you here on their PR control or something?”
“…”
“…You’re awfully quiet all of a sudden.”
After a tense moment of silence, he finally lets his sword aside. She lets off a sigh in relief as she can move again and rubs at her neck. To her slight dismay, she can still feel a tiny dent. It may not be bleeding, but being pressed up against the tip of a sword would naturally leave some kind of mark.
He now glances around the room and makes a particular pause upon the gaming console behind him, and then turns back to her with a rather disappointed look on his face. “You really don’t have any idea…”
“Finally, you get it. Whatever your problem is, clearly you’ve got the wrong person. Now could you please leave? I need to sleep…”
He turns away for the portal without another word, but reconsiders his next move. Then, something seems to come to mind and he smirks smugly to himself. He even dismisses his weapon in a wisp of black smoke, and turns back to her with a more relaxed smile.
“…Actually, that makes things easier.”
“Huh? Makes what…?”
“Let’s talk.” He now moves to take a seat on the sofa nearby. “Sit down. We may be here for a while.”
What… Seriously, what is this guy’s deal? One moment he’s being overly cautious and the next, he’s completely looking down on her. Pick an approach and stick with it, you fickle child.
“Don’t just help yourself in here. You’re not a guest.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t be here any longer than I have to. I just have a few things I need to be clarified.”
“No! You’re not staying!” She points at the portal and scolds him, “Get your bum ass and your dank portal out of my house! I didn’t invite you. You are intruding on private property and I will call the cops if you keep refusing.”
“Sorry, but it’s much too urgent to put off. This concerns the very fate of the planet, after all…”
“Don’t make excuses. Get outta here.”
“Hmph…” He passes her an apathetic glance. “Believe me, if I had any other choice, I wouldn’t even be here.”
“Yeah, yeah. That’s what they all say. I lower my guard for even a moment, and the next thing I know, I’m gonna be stuck with you in this bizarre daydream…” She gives him a dismissive wave of her hand. “I’m going to bed. You better not still be here when I wake up.” And she turns away for the hall.
“Hey… I’m willing to hear you out now. If you insist on being difficult, we can go back to having my blade against your neck.”
She stops in her tracks and turns back slowly with a scowl. “Honestly, I’m surprised you haven’t cut me down yet. What’s stopping you? Are you that threatened by my mere presence?”
He shakes his head. “It’s not that simple. The problem I speak of is on a much greater scale. As it happens, you may be the only one who can resolve everything.”
“What? What do you even want with me? What can I do?”
“For starters… you can take a seat so I can explain some much needed context.”
“…”
At first, she intends to leave again, but he’s so persistent that she worries he might actually follow her into her room, and things will only get more awkward. She makes a defeated groan and turns back around.
“Man… Why did you pick now of all times to show? Do you know what time it is?”
He doesn’t even glance toward the clock on the wall as he answers, “It’s half-past 3 in the morning.”
“So you just want to make me suffer…”
“It doesn’t matter. Time as you perceive it in this world is irrelevant.”
She takes a few aggressive steps toward him and plants a firm hand on the armrest. “What did you say to me, you little shit? Just because you came from a different time zone…”
“Have you even considered that this other life you lead is but an illusion?”
“You’re even doubling down…”
“Though you may try to escape it, there’s no use denying the plague you’ve left on our world.”
She throws up her arm in exasperation. “And now you’re just making stuff up.”
“Not at all. I’m only here to seek the truth…” He gives her a stern frown. “After all, you forced my hand through your own inaction.”
“Hah. So whatever this ‘plague’ is, it’s my fault because I didn’t do anything…?” She then slowly raises her hand before him and flips him off. “Get out of my house.” And she stomps off for the hallway again.
“Wait.”
“What!?” She spins around and snaps furiously, “Let me sleep! If you wanna talk, do it tomorrow or something!”
“Don’t worry about sleep. I can clear it up for you.”
“Huh? No, I don’t want…”
He then mutters something under his breath and snaps his fingers. Before she can even move another step, Ruby finds herself surrounded by a green wisp of magic, which disperses into a faint white light as soon as it comes into contact with her. In an instant, it feels like all the fatigue that had been building up to now has vanished and she feels a sense of calm fill its place. She suddenly feels so light in body and mind, as if whatever burden she had been bearing was removed.
“…” She blinks a few times and looks down at herself, noting how much easier it is to move her body. She then turns back to him with a very confounded look. “What did you do?”
“Esuna. You should feel relieved of your fatigue, if only temporarily.”
“Magic? Wait. You can cast magic in this world…?”
“I hope this has cleared up any doubts you may still have had. Now take a seat and let’s discuss.”
“…”
Ruby stares off into the corner as she tries to process what just happened. All of the strange disturbances up to now have gradually built further upon each other and are now starting to get to her. At first, it was all so absurd that it couldn’t be real. She was sure that she was just seeing and hearing things since she was dead tired. Even after he threatened her, she still couldn’t believe it. Then, she figured she had already fallen asleep, but she could never get rid of that intrusive fatigue no matter how much she denied it. And now, this guy casts a magic spell on her and it works just as intended, as if spitting in the face of all logic and reason. It’s as if he’s really, actually existing before her – like she’s no longer home and has come to the world of Final Fantasy without realizing it. Maybe he’s right after all. This place she calls home is actually the illusion.
“Ruby. Don’t overthink it. Sit down already.”
…No, wait a sec. She clearly remembers getting busy earlier today – er, yesterday – and made the conscious choice to play the game herself. No brainwashing or magical trickery here. No gaslighting allowed either.
She shakes her head. “Screw off. I’m going back to bed… or, to bed. Whichever it is.”
“You’re still tired? Surely, the spell should have taken effect…”
She points the flashlight directly in his face, to which he calmly averts his gaze. “Don’t give me that crap! I don’t know or care what you want! I’m just hallucinating because I haven’t gotten any sleep tonight!”
“You’re still in denial?”
“Shut up! ARGH! Nothing made sense from the moment you appeared! If you don’t get out right now, I’m calling the cops!!”
He turns away with a sigh, but doesn’t move.
“That’s it. You’re asking for…” She reaches down in her pockets, but then remembers her phone is back in her room. With an awkward pause, she lowers the flashlight, but gives him a watchful eye. “Stay here. I’m gonna get my phone.”
She leaves him in the dark again and hurries back inside, up the stairs to her room. She doesn’t take long to locate her phone and snatches it up. She’s tempted to start dialing right then and there, but before she hits any buttons, she hesitates and reconsiders the consequences. How would she even explain the situation? “A mad wizard-swordsman broke into my apartment by a magic portal and attacked me!” They’d be in the right mind to ignore her, and on the off-chance they do come, she’ll probably be the one who’s arrested for a “false” report. Above all else, she’d rather not take any chances if there’s even the slightest possibility that she’ll end up with actual bodies to clean up. In any case, she shouldn’t waste any more time and find some answers, no matter how ridiculous they may be. She hastily stuffs her phone back in her pocket and hurries back out to catch him again.
To her mild relief, Sephiroth has remained in the exact same spot where she left him. He’s cast another spell, a small Fire, in his hand to light up the area. It’s not an ordinary fire, though. There seems to be something that is appearing within its fiery tendrils and he watches it with a stone-cold gaze. When she steps back out, his eyes glance over to her oh-so nonchalantly.
“Did you make the call?”
“No. Cops would just make things worse.”
There’s that smug smile. “Well, then. It looks like you’ll be stuck with me for some time.”
She heaves a quiet groan. “…You’re lucky I’m taking the day off tomorrow.” She finally takes a seat beside him, trying to keep some space between them, and sets her flashlight upright on the coffee table before them. “Man… What even is my life anymore? I just wanted to game for once and now it won’t let me stop…”
He brings his hand bearing the dancing flames toward her. “Look into the fire.”
“Uh… Nice fire?”
“Look closer. You ought to see something appear…”
Ruby gives the mysterious fire a good, judgmental stare, but slowly widens her eyes as she sees a certain scene play out before her. In all honesty, all of it feels familiar, as if she’d seen it happen in a dream before, however long ago it was.
~
A white dragon, whose scales shone brilliantly in the dark of night, lit up the skies as it soared majestically. However, down below there is no stir whatsoever. The once lively towns that she had visited during her worldly travels when she was young were now silent and abandoned. This was a time of war, after all.
It wasn’t just any war, though. This war was one that has spread across the world, pitting friend and foe alike against each other. The finger of blame had been thrown everywhere. Some said it began with the arrival of a certain Calamity from the Skies that no one had anticipated would bring about their end. Others said it actually went back even further, as the proud Cetran capital had become rife with corruption and complacency. Even others laid the blame on a certain cult that worshipped a world-ending power that would turn out of their control: the Black Materia. Ultimately, everyone largely agreed that the disappearance of a certain dragoness marked the true end of times, as it was through her act of rebellion against the once proud Summon Guardians that exposed the extent of the corruption in the ranks.
No one knew where this dragoness would disappear to. In fact, it wasn’t a matter of where, but when. While she lived among the Cetra, she was well-respected as an honorary Summon Guardian under the tutelage of the Lord of All Dragons himself. However, she always had a rebellious streak that led her into many a times in trouble, but she would often be let off thanks to her friends in the nobility. It was inevitable that she would draw her own list of enemies because of that, but no one dared to cross her in fear of inciting the wrath of her fellow dragons.
That was all a tale of the long past by now. Even after skipping through time itself for greener pastures, she instead discovered that this great war would not be one to end swiftly – not because the two primary sides, often simply labeled “good” vs “evil” were evenly matched, but because there was no escaping the “evil”, no matter where it cropped up. Rather, it was a looming question as to which side was the “good”, if any.
The white dragon then arrived upon a cave in the mountains, on an island far from any town. This place was once a prison that held a Great Wolf that had been feared since ancient times to be capable of bringing the end times, according to prophecy. However, to this dragon, it marked a fateful encounter between star-crossed friends that would eventually lead to tragedy. She simply wanted to find out for herself why everyone feared this wolf so much, and in the end, she saw through the lies and rumors to find a hapless soul who was sealed away by no particular fault of his own.
The Great Wolf wasn’t here. He was somewhere out there after she had released him from an eternity in hell. Naturally, that was the moment when she went from being an honored Guardian to an outcast and a fugitive of the law. But she felt no regrets to turn her back on the society that once raised her. Now that this great war had broken out, several times had some people dared to approach her again to seek her aid and every time, she turned them down. Now, she simply lived on her own as little more than a feral beast with many memories she wished to leave behind for good. This cave was but one of the few places she still had to escape from all the chaos and rest, if just for a moment.
~
The scene ends as abruptly as it began and the flames return to dancing erratically as before. Sephiroth then dismisses the fire with a flick of his hand. Ruby blinks for a bit from the sudden shift in lighting. Now the flashlight’s beam is the only light that remains. Once her eyes adjust again, she then turns back to him with a very lost expression on her face.
“…What did I just watch?”
“A certain memory… one among many that you had left behind.”
“You keep saying I did things that shouldn’t even be possible. I’ve never been to your world for starters… At least, not that I know?”
“But you do remember seeing something like this before, yes?”
“Uh…” She scratches her head with her knuckles as she tries earnestly to remember. “…Maybe I might have seen it in a dream long ago? I don’t remember.”
“Dreams… Yes, perhaps that is where the secret to your power lies.”
“Stop that. They’re just regular, silly nonsense from my brain. I don’t only dream about FF7 anyway… Er, you do know that game, right?”
“The one you were playing earlier? Quite familiar.”
“Yeah, of course you would. It’s your whole origin…” Her cynical tone drifts off when she realizes something and turns back to him. “Wait. How long have you been here?”
“Not long.” He turns his head toward the yet open portal. “When you came out, I had just stepped out from there.”
“Tch. Lucky guess…”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say ‘luck’.”
“Huh?”
“I’ve done my research…” He makes the same eerie smile as before. “You’re Ruby Liu, better known by her online handle name, Rubia Ryu the Royal.”
Ruby is visibly shaken by that. “W-what the…?”
“You’re a freelance programmer, correct? I hear you also translate works in several languages and write fiction for commissions on the side.”
“I… What the hell, man? Have you been stalking me from across universes or something?”
“I’d rather put it as ‘observing at a distance’.”
She slumps back. “That’s a yes. You were supposed to say ‘no’…”
“You would have been impossible to find otherwise. I would be remiss to let an opportunity like this slide.”
She looks off with a dead-looking expression on her face. “Gee, I never knew someone I knew from my childhood would want to see me in person… Am I some kind of celebrity in your alternate universe?”
He turns away himself. “More than that. You were an ancient deity worshipped as one of the summoned guardians of the planet.”
“Pfft. Well, now I know for sure that this was something out of a dream or my fanfics.”
“Precisely.”
“Huh?”
He turns back to her and speaks with a straight face, “In this world, you may have been writing stories for your own entertainment, but the world you created took form in an alternate reality that became merged with ours.”
“What? No. That’s not how anything works.”
“I also found it difficult to believe, but after deciphering the origins of your Remnants, my search led me directly here… to this pocket dimension built on an illusion of your own creation.”
“Again, it’s not an illusion! This is just where I live, damn it!”
“You can continue to deny everything, but the fact remains that I was able to travel here and confront you.”
“…” She rubs at the temples of her forehead as she feels a headache come on.
“This isn’t a dream and you’re not asleep. In fact…” His eyes narrow threateningly too. “If I hadn’t shown any restraint earlier, you wouldn’t be sitting comfortably right now.”
She whines pitifully and collapses on the other armrest, defeated. “Lemme alone… I don’t get why any of this is happening. Nothing makes sense anymore…”
“It doesn’t have to make sense. Simply put, you – or this alternate version of you – are an entity that defies logic. Crossing dimensions and merging worlds seem to be little else but play to you.” He casts aside a wayward glance. “It might not be a stretch to say that you wield the power of ‘absurdity’ itself…”
“…” She peeks back behind her with a frown. “Then why is this the first time I’ve heard of this?”
“I don’t have an answer to that. It’s you who should figure it out.”
She looks off again, mumbling aloud to herself, “Man… When did I ever become a reality-warping God? What a pain. I just game and write and code. That’s all I need…”
“…”
“But, okay, let’s say I am the person you’re looking for…” She sit back up and turns back to him with another glare. “Then why do you get to show up out of nowhere and bully me? Where’d my almighty power go, huh?” She even gets in his face. “I wish I could just throw you out this portal with the power of my mind and be done with you…”
He calmly looks away to ponder in silence.
She pulls back and drops against the sofa with a soft whine. “…For once one of my stupid dreams actually comes true, and it’s in the worst way and at the worst timing. I can’t fight back, I can’t run, I can’t even die in peace! Instead, I’m burdened with even more shit that I don’t know how to deal with…” She clasps her head in both hands and groans. “Ughhh! Why is it that even in an ‘illusionary’ world or alternate universe, I’m always being shoved into situations I don’t understand!? Is that just my Destiny? To be eternally frustrated!?”
“…” He waits for her to finish ranting before he answers, “…Regardless, the point is: if you had never abandoned those memories, they wouldn’t have become the plague they are now.”
She flops back violently against the sofa cushions with her eyes shut, and then slumps like her life force has been all but drained. After an awkward silence, she starts whimpering like a sad pup. “…I give up. Don’t care. I’ll hear you out to the end…” She then drowsily opens her eyes again and turns back to him. “So, uh… what even is this ‘plague’ you keep bringing up?”
“An amorphous mass of stray thoughts that have spread throughout and corrupted the Lifestream from within. They were once memories that belonged to you, but have been discarded ever since you disappeared from that world. And yet, they never faded away. They were lost souls without an identity or purpose, but they could still gather together and move as one as if they had a collective will of their own. They refused to heed the planet’s will and rejoin the Great Flow, so were sequestered within the deepest depths of the core, to be lost to time. In fact, it seems they’ve been lingering undisturbed for millennia – perhaps even before Mother had arrived on this planet.”
“Okay… so why are they still there if alternate-me isn’t?”
“I’m still trying to figure that out myself. At first I suspected that their foreign origins – or even their creator from afar – was preventing them from disappearing…” He passes her a suspicious glance.
She looks away to avoid him. “Who knows…”
“In any case, despite being mere memories, they shared a singular will and acted only in their interests. Any attempts at controlling them were futile.”
“You honestly tried, huh.”
“I didn’t have many options. As they were abandoned memories, it was inevitable that they would be drawn to the Terra Corrupt. But they couldn’t be absorbed either… Instead, it was the opposite.”
“Hm?”
“I cannot say for certain when it happened, but your Remnants have awakened from their stasis. They’ve begun to feed on their surroundings and merge with them to propagate further. As these Remnants have no purpose to their existence, any unfortunate soul they meet will lose all sense of existence as well.”
“Well, that sounds… bad.”
“It’s not just the Terra Corrupt; it consumes any and all living energy that comes into contact with it like an insatiable black hole. If nothing is done, this plague of ‘void’ will destroy everything that the planet has created and preserved throughout history since its very birth…”
“Damn… So Gaia’s cancer got so bad it got cancer, and they’re both in stage 4.”
“…And that leads us back to you.” He now turns to face her directly. “As their creator, you hold the responsibility to clean them up before they cause any further decay.”
“Wait, before that… If it’s gotten so bad, why not just turn back time? You can do that, right?”
He solemnly shakes his head. “That doesn’t matter. Your Remnants exist in a form that is completely independent of the Great Flow and thus exist outside the flow of time itself.”
She rolls her eyes in disbelief. “In that case, what can possibly be done about them? They’ll just continue to exist regardless.”
“As I said, you exist in a form that can defy all reason, and it means you’re the only one capable of resolving this.”
“Uh, sure…” She glances off idly. “It’s not like I’ve just learned a moment ago that my alternate self exists as a ‘God of the Void’ or anything. Where do I even begin? Because nothing is coming to me just by putting myself in that mindset and I’ve been trying. More specifically, trying to rid of you…”
“Then search for your answer. Return to our world and see for yourself how things are. Learn as much as you need about the past lives you once led. You might just learn what’s needed to be done…”
“…”
Ruby drifts off into a pensive mood and takes the moment to take it all in. The more she thinks about it, though, the more confused she becomes. It’s apparently not enough that her alternate self is even more irresponsible than she is with abusing omnipotence. She’s also gone and disappeared without a trace and left a giant bird-winged problem here for her. And yet, as little sense as all that makes already, there is one little question that lingers in mind.
“…Wait. You said something about my Remnants escaping stasis? What happened? Was there something that kept them contained all this time that was destroyed or something?”
“…” He turns away to drift into his own thoughts.
“I mean, there had to have been something the planet could do to keep them there. Something like… a Weapon? Would that have been enough, though?”
“…”
“Or possibly a higher authority… like an Arbiter of Fate…” She drifts off and soon she’s hit upon a realization. She then turns back to him and gives him a suspicious look. “Hey… You know something about that, don’t you?”
He closes his eyes and rests back against the sofa with a sigh of his own. “…A certain suspicion did come to mind.”
“Yeah?” She scoffs. “I bet a certain someone led some people to said Arbiter, where they helped him destroy it.”
“…”
“And then he absorbed the power of the Arbiter before it dissipated. But, he ran into a problem: he was suddenly overwhelmed with these lost Remnants that wouldn’t listen to him.” She then shakes her head with a sigh. “So he made his way here to me to complain…”
“…”
“‘I cannot say for certain when it happened,’ he said…” she says mockingly. “Frankly, I’m surprised you weren’t swallowed up yet. How’d you manage to escape?”
He finally turns back to her with a genuinely troubled look. “To be honest, even I’m not sure… I figured that the first contact was all that was necessary to be engulfed, and yet I was able to view those scattered memories without consequence…”
“Ah, so you’re just special…” She pauses with a dry smirk. “Special needs, more like.”
For once, he actually looks irritated as if he was stung. “You’re in no position to mock me when you so haphazardly discarded them in the first place.”
“Shut up, you dumb bird-rat-cat. Don’t push your problems onto me just because you didn’t think things through. You now have the Arbiter’s power, for crying out loud! You figure out what to do about them.”
He grumbles, crossing his arms. “Unfortunately, I can’t help. Once the seal was broken, the Arbiter’s power held no sway. We have no other options. You have to do it.”
“And I’m telling you, I’m just a normal human living in a completely different universe! I can’t do anything either!”
Now he’s getting impatient too. “Even now, you continue to deny it? What else must be said to convince you to take responsibility?”
“How about just going back to your world and finding alternate-me so she can fix everything? I’m not her! Leave me alone!” She throws up her arms in a huff and moves to get up.
That may not have been the best move from her. Suddenly, Sephiroth seizes her by the neck and presses her back into the sofa. He leans in close with a rather intimidating glare that immediately cows her into submission.
“…Don’t make me repeat myself. The whole reason I’m here is because your ‘alternate self’ no longer exists anywhere in or on Gaia.”
Ruby grunts as she begins to choke. His grip on her neck is especially tight now that he’s actually getting angry. He stares her down for a moment longer before releasing her and letting her gasp for air.
“You are the only one that has a connection that can be traced back to the lost Remnants. In other words, there’s no one else but you.”
“…Guh…” Ruby coughs a bit, rubbing her sore neck, and eventually finds her voice again, albeit a little hoarse. “…That’s so unfair… What can I do…?”
He now gets up from his seat, but then turns back to her with a sharp glare. “I just said it: return to our world and discover its secrets. The way there is ready before you…”
“…Agh.” She clears her throat and manages to regain her normal voice. “Okay, then… If I go, will I get to follow you around or what?”
He raises an eyebrow. “Do you mean to accompany me everywhere? That might be more tedious than it’s worth…”
“Then how do I fend for myself? Monsters and enemies are everywhere. I can’t fight to save my life. I just know I’m gonna end up dead somehow…”
“If you need to prepare yourself before you enter the world, that can easily be arranged at your next destination.”
“My next destination? Where am I going if I step through that…?”
“You’ll know when you see it.” And with that, he heads directly to said portal.
Just before Sephiroth steps on through, though, he hesitates and turns back around. To his growing impatience, Ruby remains where she’s seated. She has her eyes closed, but isn’t asleep yet. Whatever she’s busy thinking, she’s clearly not intending to budge until after he takes his leave.
“…Hey. What are you waiting for? Come along.”
“No? Never said I was going.”
“…”
Up to now, he’s been trying to be patient with her as he has no other leads, but there’s only so much to a stubborn overgrown child that even he can stand. But if he returns to Gaia without her in tow, all of this time and effort spent would have been for naught. He promptly draws up another scheme to try to get her to move, and his eyes trail off toward the edge of the portal, where he stops upon the silent gaming console near his feet. Just like that, he’s found his answer. He then turns back to her with one more question.
“…Just one more thing, if you don’t mind.”
“Huh?” She snaps back to attention. “What now!? Just go!”
He peers over to the gaming console again. “So, this is the classic Playstation…”
“What do you want with it? It’s just got my game in there.”
“How often do you play?”
“Uh… why do you wanna know?”
“Just curious.”
“Hmm… not that much anymore. I’ve been busy with my job and all…”
“That’s too bad. So you finally got a chance tonight, huh…”
“What’s with you all of a sudden? Why the awkward small talk?”
“…” He kneels down and hits the eject button on the machine, and it pops open the lid, revealing the third disc of FFVII.
“Wait. What are you doing…?” By now, Ruby is starting to get a bad feeling.
Without a word, he pops out the disc from its slot and holds it up in his right hand exactly where she can see it.
“Hey! Put that back! It’s not yours!” She hurries over to stop him and grabs him by the arm. “What are you, a sulking child!? Don’t just take things!”
He easily shakes her off and turns back around to face her. She freezes when she sees that his maniacal smile is back. And then, it gets worse when he summons back his sword in his other hand.
“No… Don’t you dare.”
He raises the sharp edge of the blade up and slowly lowers the disc in his other hand toward it.
“NO! DON’T YOU DARE!”
Ruby lunges at him, but he swiftly sidesteps her. She manages to catch herself before crashing into the TV ahead, but by the time she turns around to face him again, she hears the high-pitched screech of metal scratching plastic. There it is; even with the poor lighting from just the flashlight, she can see the deep cut that runs across one half of the disc. It goes so deep that it cracks through to the top layer.
For that instant, time seems to slow down around Ruby. She rushes in toward him again, but is so flustered by what she’d just witnessed that she stumbles over her own feet and drops to the carpeted floor as time picks back up again. The carpet is soft enough that she can avoid a nosebleed after she face-plants, but as she gets back up, the her face has flushed a bright red and her eyes have hardened into full killing intent.
“You BASTARD!! What the hell was that for!?”
Once again, she charges at him, but this time he doesn’t avoid her. He simply tosses the broken disc aside and blocks all her attempted swings with just one hand. He’s even lowered his sword aside so it won’t be in the way.
“What the %&^#!? Why are you here!? Why are you doing this!? You were my childhood, you asshole, and you destroyed it! You owe me a new copy!!”
“…You said you wanted me out. I’m just covering all the bases.”
“%^&# you, you %&#$&^@ %&^#@!! #%&#!! %&$-Graaaaah!!”
After every one of her wild flailing punches were nullified, Ruby then throws a hard right with all her might, and he catches it without breaking a sweat.
After taking a moment to catch her breath, she gives an exhausted sigh. “…Well, shit. I’m out.”
He then reveals another sinister smile. “So you are.”
“?”
At this moment, Ruby realized she dun goofed. For just an instant, the pupils of his eyes flicker and thin into slits. Then, she feels an intense burning pain where he’s grasped her and yelps helplessly like a frightened pup. He releases her shortly after and she stumbles to the floor. She curls up in a fetal position, clutching her aching hand, and continues to whimper softly. To her surprise, though, the pain rather quickly subsides. She lifts her other hand off and takes a peek at it, and gasps in horror at the black patches that have formed on it.
She looks back up to him with a look of utter disbelief and disgust. “…You bitch. What’s the meaning of this?”
“It’s insurance… since you keep refusing to cooperate.”
She turns back to her blackened wrist again and feels a few nerves pop aggressively in her head. This bitch really just infected her with his disgusting germs. It’s a disease wrought by his will and spurred by one’s own negative emotions. The stronger the emotions, the worse the disease will grow. It has no known cure, aside from the blessings of a certain white mage… who doesn’t exist in this world. So she’s just screwed.
“Whether or not it develops into a full outbreak will depend on you. I’m sure you’re aware, but severe symptoms can develop quickly in people who are often alone, so I would advise that you find yourself some good company.”
As soon as he mentions that last word, Ruby flops to the floor lifelessly. “…I’m just gonna die.”
“Ideally for everyone and the planet’s sake, you should try not to.”
“Why would you care, huh? You just like to torture random people as a hobby?”
“…” He looks back with such disappointment that it seems to emit off of him. “…We’re not going through this again. Haven’t you been listening?”
“Yeah, yeah… I’m your only clue to these ‘Remnants’ you won’t shut up about. But seriously, what good will it do if I go to your world? I can barely keep myself together here…”
“Anything can change once you step on through. You just have to take the chance.”
“Ughhh…”
Ruby rolls over again and grits her teeth as she seethes quietly. So what now? Is she just going to be another puppet for him to play with? Is she going to become so braindead – well, even more so than she has been – that she’ll just be throwing herself off a cliff somewhere in a certain Northern Crater? Man, eff that. She still has a sense of independence, dang it all.
“You know you don’t have a choice. If you continue to deny it, your Geostigma will continue to spread throughout your body until it completely shuts down. Needless to say, that death will not come quietly and easily…”
Of course. He just had to twist the metaphorical blade again. But that’s just it, isn’t it? It doesn’t matter what she says or does in this life or the next. She’s just doomed to be dragged into some kind of mess that people blame her for and she never has any idea why. That’s always how it is and how it’s always been, even across alternate universes.
“Don’t keep me waiting. Call me when you’re ready and we can discuss what to do next.” And finally, he moves toward the portal without further delay.
Just as things seemed to settle down again, further trouble is never too far from trouble. Before he can step through, Ruby lets off another high-pitched squeal in frustration. She has HAD it. This night has just been awful mishap after awful mishap, each one worse than the last, and now she can’t even go to bed in peace anymore. Building on all the rage she’s kept pent up until now, that nerve in her head finally pops and she snaps at him.
“No! NO! No way!! You aren’t just going to leave after the absolutely HORRID shit you’ve done!” She finally crawls back to her feet and stomps over to him. “I don’t care that you’ve attacked me, accused me of causing ‘cancer’, or given me Geostigma! You broke my only copy of FFVII, you damn brat!!”
“…” He doesn’t even look her way.
“AUGH!! Now where am I gonna get another vintage disc 3 for a good price!? This game has aged like dog water, but it’s still the most expensive Final Fantasy! I’m barely getting by as is! Do you want me to starve just so I can buy another copy!?”
Now he does, but only to offer her a smart remark: “All your problems at the moment can be solved if you step this way…”
“No, shut up! As soon as I do, I’m gonna be stuck doing your bidding! And I’m gonna die anyway when I stop being useful!”
“Hmph. That depends on what you accomplish while you’re there. In fact…” He then reveals a rather coy smirk. “This could be a good opportunity.”
She shudders even before he says it. “For what…?”
“Why don’t we make a game out of it?”
There’s the magic word that seems to trigger a switch in her mind, and she immediately calms down as if all her rage fizzled out in that instant. “Huh? A game?”
“Yes, a battle of wits, you could say. I’m sure you’ll find it interesting enough, but you’ll only get to hear more if you come along…”
Ruby then reconsiders her options, now that she’s actually tempted to proceed. Thinking over them again leads her to realize something else entirely and she gives him a suspicious look. “…Jesus, man. How many ways are you gonna try to get me to come with you? You’re almost starting to sound desperate. Don’t tell me you’re that down bad?”
“Hmph… I’ve said my piece. The rest is left to you…” And with that, he steps forward and disappears through the portal.
“…Agh, %&#@ my life,” she groans aloud now that she’s finally alone again, “That giant dick screws with me from the outset and I doubt he’s gonna stop screwing me over. At what point is he gonna make it official…” She pauses and cuts off her own train of thought. “No. Bad brain. Out, out… Ugh. The last thing I need is to start up some Stockholm’s. Let’s just go…”
She faces the still open portal before her, takes a deep breath, and takes the plunge herself. As soon as she dives in, she begins to tumble around like she’s entered a place free of gravity. She’s hit by an overwhelming and disorienting lightheadedness, and the ever swirling motion of the tunnel spins her into a dizzy spell. She shuts her eyes to avoid losing all sense of direction, but it’s a moot point when everywhere around her has started to converge into the same endless void. And then, it’s nothing but darkness.
What a strange night it’s been. After having it prolonged for so long, Ruby finally gets her chance to rest and relax, and she now notices just how tired she’s really been. Not physically tired – the Esuna already worked its magic – but she’s mentally and emotionally drained to exhaustion. As she continues to drift off into the unknown, she finds herself in a strange state somewhere between being awake and asleep.
Chapter 2: Before the Beginning
Notes:
Disclaimer: I do not explain any coding jargon for the uninitiated. Fortunately, I don't think I dive too deeply into the technical stuff, but viewer discretion is advised.
4/28/25 edit: Added name trivia and FF1 references in the end notes. Now we're consistent.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Ruby suddenly snaps into focus as if she had just woken up from a prolonged dream, but for some reason, she can’t see anything. It’s completely pitch black in here. In fact, everywhere she turns is nothing but pitch-black. She can’t even feel the ground beneath her feet. It’s as if she’s floating in the middle of nowhere, or is about to witness the very birth of a new universe.
However, nothing happens when she waits. She lifts a hand and reaches out in front of her, hoping there would be something nearby to touch so she can get her bearings straight. And miraculously, she does touch something. A pale blue light pops into existence before her and grows brighter as it seems to spread out from that initial point. She has to shut her eyes from the sudden light that has appeared, but when she opens her eyes again, the light has neatly formed a rectangular panel before her, like a holographic interface out of an augmented reality.
And even more curiously, she finds a menu with options laid out in a ring on the screen, labeled “Final Fantasy VII Debug Room”.
The Debug Room? The rumored room of legend that only the most hardcore of FF7 fans would know about and look into? The place where every other location in the game is connected to via the game’s hard code? The place affectionately known as “Hades”??
She had once done a little digging into the game’s secrets and hidden files many years back, especially around the time of the franchise’s 10th anniversary, but her research never went anywhere because she could only view them and was too inexperienced to create her own mods. And now that she’s a freelance coder, she never went too far into the modding community thanks to her increasingly busy schedule. She always wanted to try her hand at it some time, but that time never came.
And now here it is, right in front of her, with complete access at the touch of her fingers. Now she knows for sure that she’s dreaming. Or in Hell, if that in-game “Hades” joke is any indication.
That said, even though it is a faint light, she would expect to be able to see her own hand touching the screen at least, but she can only make out the movement of a cursor, represented by a white gloved hand, where she touches the screen. It’s as if she doesn’t even have a body to exist yet.
Then, it hits her. She’s not accessing the Debug Room as she would normally. Normally, she would have an avatar that looks like Cloud and would be able to move around and interact with these mostly empty maps as if he were there. But there’s no one, not even a temporary mimic, for her to use at the moment. In other words, she’s going to have to create her own image from scratch. What a bother, but she can’t keep going as a bodiless spirit like this.
After a bit of digging around for options, she conveniently find a separate menu to customize her appearance. That’s weird; she never found something like this during her old Debug Room adventures. Maybe this world’s GUI has undergone some extreme updates since she last checked it, ha. Whatever, that’s not important here. She gets to work, starting with Yuffie’s model as a base.
First of all, she’s taller and older than Yuffie, and she has long hair instead, tied up in a ponytail. She also has no need for that oversized armguard or giant shuriken. While she isn’t too sure what sort of weapon she wants to use, she’s not gonna rip off Yuffie’s role as the resident ninja. But she also prefers to wear light. Perhaps a rogue would fit her better? And any classic rogue would need some kind of knife or dagger.
No, before she gets into that, she needs to finish making her outfit. Since this game came out in 1997, it was an earlier time when character designer Tetsuya Nomura wasn’t quite as eccentric of a fashionista as he is now. The designs of the characters, while quirky in their own rights, were much more toned down than his later designs. There were also a lot less belts, chains, and zippers that he’s now infamous for. Think late 90s, Ruby…
She forms an image in mind in an instant: a short-sleeved white tee and tan vest over it, matched with loose brown shorts, crew socks, and humble black loafers… well, maybe she’ll go with work boots, just in case she needs to do some climbing. And for a little flair, she puts a couple of red clips to hold up her frontmost lock of hair and leaves a couple wavy strands hanging by her cheeks, and finally adds a beautiful ruby pendant around her neck. Looking cute.
But that black mark across the back of her right hand is a real eyesore. Maybe she could use some kind of glove… or even a gauntlet? Oh! How about a black fingerless glove that extends onto her forearm? And then she can add a metal wrist guard over it. It does seem a little dull on its own, though. Hey! How about a hidden compartment to unsheathe a knife from its front end? Hmm, scratch that. It’d be easier if she just wields a dagger instead. Or, she can turn this wrist guard into a portable computer with a hatch that opens up a miniature keyboard, so she can access the Debug Room at any time! Yes, this is the way.
Now that she thinks about it, this equipment is basically her starting armor piece. In other words, it’s only fair that she makes some room for Materia slots! So where would be good? Ah, of course: just behind the keyboard, also under the hatch. She may have room for, ah, three slots. It’s an impressive amount, considering that Cloud’s party only gets one or two slots per weapon or armor at the very beginning. Heck, while she’s still at it, she might as well integrate some Materia fusion functions in her computer. And that’s just what she codes in next… Whew, this is turning out rather thoroughly planned even by her standards.
Finally, to match her armor, she needs a weapon: her trusty dagger. She had previously designed a beautifully crafted decorative dagger, themed around dragons, for her character back when she was designing “Rubia the Radiant”, though that was from an early draft when Ruby was once a noble among the Cetra. Still, it wouldn’t hurt bringing back that design with some tweaks. Rather than make it too gaudy, she simplifies it to a sleek, double-edged tactical knife with an slender handle made of polished ebony, but also adds a tiny ruby shard adorning the pommel so it doesn’t look too plain. She fits it into a strap sheathe by her waistline. Just for a little more convenience, she replaces her plain black belt with a utility belt and adds to it a small satchel on the other side. And as any good programmer would do, she doesn’t forget to save. She gives it one more overview to double-check and submits the changes. In an instant, her new image loads in and she can finally see herself on the screen, and of course, her arms right before her.
Finally. She might just roughly fit into a beginner’s DnD campaign like this.
Jokes aside, she does still have the rest of the Debug Room to play around with. For example, one can’t be a playable character in an RPG without some level of fighting experience to start off with. Besides, she’s itching to swing her dagger around at some test enemies before she enters the world for real. Thanks to her old Debug Room adventures back in the day, she knows exactly where her first stop is. She searches the catalog of battle fields and pulls up the one with just a single enemy to fight: an immobile yellow pyramid that doesn’t attack, has only 10 HP, and gives a whopping amount of EXP – over a million, in fact.
Would this be cheating? Yes, but she’s already in the Debug Room. One cannot possibly enter this location without cheating in the first place.
She activates the battle, and in an instant, her field of vision blurs. When she opens her eyes again, she finds herself in a nondescript forest area, and there’s the single yellow pyramid sitting there before her. She gets into position, and with another deep breath to get ready, she lunges in. Swipe, swipe, swipe… She cuts and jams her dagger repeatedly into the pyramid. It looks like her attacks are going straight through it as if it were just a hologram itself, but that’s only expected. It’s a dummy enemy and doesn’t have a damage animation. But upon the tenth blow, she realizes that it’s still standing.
Now, she realizes what’s wrong: after creating her model, she forgot to input her knife’s stats and attack output. She just spent a bit of time swiping at an untargetable shape and doing nothing to it. No wonder the pyramid didn’t even display numbers to register the hits. Groaning in frustration, she opens up the keyboard on her wrist guard computer and dials in the command to return to her spot in the Debug Room, exiting the battle.
Once she’s back in the pitch-black void, she returns to her character setup and defines a lot of factors – not just for her equipment, but also her character stats, limit break abilities, etc. She does a quick check to confirm that she has a character profile in the game’s default menu, and she adds one last touch: access to the Debug Room from anywhere via her fingertips, in case she ever wants another change of wardrobe.
Alright, back to the battle. This time, it should work. She loads it back up again, takes her position, and lunges in again to strike. This time, she finishes the job in one hit. Since this enemy doesn’t have a death animation either, it stays still, but she can see the glowing UI from earlier blink into view to signal the end of the battle. And with that, she jumps from level 1 straight to level 73 in an instant. Now, the only things that could possibly be a threat to her are in the final dungeon of the game, and that’s not exactly her next destination.
Speaking of which, where is she planning to go? She’s in the Debug Room. Time and space are irrelevant. Everything is just a black void that connects every single event and location in the game. If anything, she should be figuring out what to do now. And where in the world is Sephiroth? That insolent pest raids her home, busts her game, brands her, and just leaves her without elaborating further. Talk about a terrible first date.
She teleports away back to her original spot in the void once again to return to the main menu. So what now? With the rest of the Room still open to her, she begins to click around. Most things seem to be in order; character data, locations and maps, event sequences, etc. But then, she comes upon a different folder with a new list of locations and cutscenes that aren’t available in the original game. This Room really does feel like it’s been updated and remade. It actually gives her the creeps with how conveniently everything has been set up already, as if it was left here just for her to find. Did Sephiroth do this, or is it something else entirely?
She clicks into the folder to dig deeper, and is stunned to find video files labeled with not only her character’s name, Rubia, but a few others that feature the Cetra. Ruby figures they may be about the past life that Rubia had supposedly once led, going all the way back to those ancient times. There’s even one labeled, “Prison”, and judging by its thumbnail, it seems to take place somewhere in the Temple of the Ancients. Curious, she accesses it and the scene in question begins to play onscreen.
~
Deep in the jungle, a group of travelers foreign to this region had arrived upon the Southern Temple, where it was rumored that it hid and safeguarded the legendary Black Materia. However, this group hadn’t come seeking the materia itself. They were only here to visit a certain someone who had been stationed here as one of the guardians of the temple. However, when they arrive, there was no one to greet them at the entrance. All that remained was a large stone set on the altar in the back – the Keystone that opened up the rest of the temple. It was almost as if whoever had left it here was expecting visitors today. The travelers gathered together before the altar and said their prayers. The temple then seemed to graciously open up a door below their feet that they slowly sank through to gain entry.
It was a massive sprawling maze of walkways and stairs that seemed to lead to nowhere; ladders both bare and fully dressed in vines, scattered in seemingly random places. And yet, along certain paths was a trail of bright lights – free-floating fiery wisps of white – that led further into the depths of the temple’s great labyrinth. While confused and wary of potential traps, the party proceeded smoothly and confidently. There were many wild monsters that roam these many twisted and turning paths, but the party was well equipped and trained for explorations like this one and made short work of any enemies.
After following the trail to its end, though, the group found themselves in another room where a mysterious pool of spiritual energy was emanating a faint glow. Unfortunately, it seemed like their search came to naught, as there was no one else here. The leader of the group, a woman with short blond hair in elegant, noble-looking robes, stepped forth toward the pool.
It appeared that someone had already awakened the voices of the pool prior, though none of them were currently speaking. Instead, upon receiving a new visitor, the pool silently replayed the scene for whomever had asked of them earlier.
It was a scene of an earlier time when two young girls were regulars at a church, often being watched over by the local nuns. One was an orphan of unknown origins who was delivered here by – of all people – the Lord of Dragons himself, Bahamut. The other was the daughter of a well-respected noble family who resided in the upper echelons of the capital. Despite their starkly contrasted backgrounds, the two got along so well that they were inseparable like sisters. While the girls were good-natured and usually got along with everyone at the church, they were also well-known miscreants with the rest of the townsfolk. Often whenever either of them would end up in trouble somehow, they’d make it a habit to disappear back in the church to hide from their angry pursuers. Time and time again, the sisters of the church would have to convince said pursuers to forgive them and forget, and even the most obstinate wouldn’t want to stir matters with honest members of the clergy. And time and time again in the aftermath, the girls would be forced to do community service by the sisters to make up for their mistakes. But life was generally good.
The woman couldn’t help but feel a melancholic nostalgia for those days. Even though she had been scolded by her parents many times for frolicking with “riff-raff” when she should be focused on her home duties and studies, she never once regretted sneaking out in the evenings to find her old friend. Yes, she would have been a notorious scamp who loved to pull pranks on anyone new or familiar and had little respect for courtesies. Sometimes, those pranks would even involve inviting dangerous beasts into town, but she never meant any real harm. Yes, no one really knew where she came from, but the church would be remiss in their mission if they turned her away just because of that and the sisters did their best to educate and discipline her to be a good Cetran citizen. She could still have been a bit rebellious from time to time, but ultimately she knew how to right her own wrongs if she ever crossed a line. Yes, she never received any formal schooling like noble friend did, but she was quick to pick up on weapon skills, martial arts, and even various forms of magic as if they all came naturally to her. She was definitely not an “uncultured idiot”, even if she often pretended to be as an excuse for her mischief.
However, all that was long in the past. These days, her old friend had slowly but surely distanced herself from everyone she once knew. She was once a prolific writer of letters and kept her old friend updated on her adventures and exploits around the world since she left the city one day. Then, a certain incident at a faraway prison where an eternally damned convict was somehow released, this old friend was caught right in the middle of it and a trial was held in secret, unbeknownst to the rest of the world. The only reason this woman came to know about it was that her old friend had admitted to her that she had been arrested and was to be imprisoned down in this faraway ancient temple. That was the final letter she had ever received from her, and since then, it had been nothing but silence.
Now that this noblewoman had grown to be a well-respected priestess and white mage, she was free to travel the world herself, and she had gathered a respectable party of her own to accompany her. It was when they arrived at a small town at the outskirts of the great forest that surrounded the temple that she were reminded of her old friend. It was an overwhelming sense of nostalgia that led her to seek her out once more, just for old times’ sake.
Her pensive thoughts were shortly broken when her allies called out to her again.
“Elicia! What is it? Do you see something in the pool?” one man asked. He appeared to be a knight fully clad in shining armor, and he bears a mighty greatsword on his back.
“She must have… Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been standing there for some time,” another man replied rather smartly. He was completely clad in red and donned a gentlemanly white-feathered hat, while he bore his thin blade by his waist.
“You know what I mean…”
Elicia walked back to them and smiled to reassure them. “Don’t worry about me, guys. I just happened to be reminded of some good times with my old friend when we were still young.”
“Oh? The pool showed you memories of you two? That’s strange…” the third man remarked with surprise. He w as cloaked in a blue robe and his large pointed, matted hat covers a good deal of his face.
“What’s strange?” the knight asked him.
“We had just arrived here. That the pool would be awakened already means that someone else must have done it.”
“Indeed… and whoever it was must have known the both of them,” Cerbal added, “Perhaps it was Elicia’s old friend, as we suspected?”
“It would make sense. She’s one of the guardians of this temple, after all.”
Elicia nodded. “Yes, but it’s even stranger that she would just leave this pool like this for anyone else to come across. It feels like she’s been leading us here…”
“…Who’s there!?”
A sharp female voice broke their friendly conversations. They all turned to the other door, the one they hadn’t come from, and saw someone in a white hooded cloak. Her hood was covering her eyes, and yet they shined out from the shadows with an ominous-looking bright red.
However, Elicia was rather elated to hear that voice. She waved and called out, “Rubia! Is that you?”
She didn’t respond right away; instead, lowered her head and hid her face as if in contemplation.
“It’s been so long! Do you still remember me, old friend?”
“…How could I forget you, Elicia…?” Rubia unveiled her head from her hood and returned her a solemn, almost dispirited expression. She looked exactly like Ruby herself with her straight black hair down, aside from those bright red eyes that would make anyone think she was a demoness.
“Yes! I’m so glad we can finally meet aga-”
“Get out. You’re not supposed to be here.”
“Huh?”
She turned to give the rest of the party an unflinching, intimidating glare. “I’m not expecting visitors today. Leave at once.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t send you a notice, but it hasn’t been easy for me to reach you either…”
“Don’t make me repeat myself…” Now, she revealed a set of sharp fangs amid her bared teeth. “BEGONE.”
“…” After an awkward silence, Elicia sighed and returned to her party. “…What a way to greet an old friend you haven’t seen in years…” she muttered to herself.
“Are you sure that’s really her, Elicia? Something about her doesn’t seem right…” the knight remarked, returning Rubia’s glare with a wary but still unfazed look.
“I’m sure it is. No one else would have eyes like that.”
The red mage nodded. “Certainly… but we should always be wary of imposters. You never know these days, with all the rumors around a certain ill-renowned cult.”
“Oh, dear… I was hoping we could avoid bringing them up again…” the black mage said with a sigh.
Yet, Elicia stands her ground. “Guys, we talked about this. Have a little faith. Rubia of all people wouldn’t be caught by those types…”
“She may be an old friend of yours…” the man in red continued, “but after being fated to exile, it can change anyone.”
“Cerbal, enough. It was still worth a try to come here…”
“…Perhaps I can try something?” The knight then stepped forward.
“Hector? What are you going to do?”
Hector then calmly tread the path and approached Rubia without an ounce of dread or fear. Likewise, she did nothing to stop him from approaching, but kept a stern watch and frown on him. Then, he kneeled down and made an honorable bow.
“Lady Rubia, Your Radiance… Please pardon our insolence, but we’ve come to ask you for your aid.”
“…”
“The plague that began since the Calamity arrived has only spread further, and unfortunately, even we in the capital have been unable to avoid cases of the infected.”
“…”
“As it happens, your previous sentence has been lifted and pardoned. You are welcome to return to the capital at any time. Please! We ask of you not for your forgiveness, but for your mercy.”
“…”
“If you come with us, we will make sure your good name and faith is restored. It will be as if your crime were erased-”
“I never committed a crime.”
As soon as she answered, anything else he planned to say had been cut off entirely.
“Nor should anyone even know of my trial…” Her glare darted over to her old friend. “Elicia, I thought I told you long ago to never mention it to anyone.”
“I didn’t tell them! The news of your exile was eventually broadcast to the public.”
“What…?” That came as alarming news to her and she scowled under her breath, “Those traitors…”
“But it’s okay, Rubia! The people now understand and are largely sympathetic! You don’t have to stay here any longer-”
“I don’t stay here to honor the decision of a council of hypocrites…” She suddenly snapped back with a furious snarl, fangs bared. “I stay because I’m never returning to that forsaken place again!”
“W-what?”
“The capital can burn in the deepest bowels of Hades for all I care! That goes for the rest of you!!”
“Rubia!” she gasped, “What are you saying!?”
She snorted angrily like a beast ready to fight. “I’ve done nothing wrong… Fenrir was a good friend of mine, put to death for no reason other than some stupid prophecy that scared away any common sense! I won’t take any flimsy apology from a substitute either! If those old fogies were actually honest about anything, they would come meet me in person themselves… but they wouldn’t dare…!”
“But, I never agreed with them or the rest of the nobles about any of that! I didn’t even know what happened until you told me yourself!”
“Exactly… You knew nothing and thus did nothing.”
“That’s… that’s so unfair! How could I have done anything if I didn’t know what was wrong!?”
“Was my absence not alarming enough for you!?”
That point hit a little close, but Elicia tried to stand strong. “But… the last I saw of you was the day before it all started. We had no idea that your father would come to take you away. I even thought you’d be back the next day…”
“Don’t give me excuses… It’s been 7 years since that day, Elicia! SEVEN YEARS!! And in that time, all you thought to do was write to me!? I’ve been imprisoned here, only to serve labor in a civil war I had no business being in, and now that things have gotten so bad that everyone’s dying to this new ‘plague from the skies’, those abominable hypocrites decide that now would be a good time to release me! I’m just a convenience to use to clean up the trash and be disposed along with them!!”
“…” By now, even Elicia had come to a loss of words. She had been nothing but honest to Rubia now, just as they used to be to one another, and yet she couldn’t deny the consequences of her past indecision and naïve ignorance. Though she still wasn’t entirely sure what had gone on in that trial all those years ago, now she understood why Rubia stopped making contact.
Rubia stopped snorting and tried to regain her composure, as if to restrain herself from reckless transformations. Nonetheless, she sighed miserably and turned away again.
“…Pardon the interruption in these tense times, Lady Rubia,” Cerbal spoke up once again, politely removing his hat, “I understand your history with the Grand Council may run deep, but if you insist on abandoning the capital, I’m afraid you won’t get another chance after this.”
“…”
“Are you sure you wish to leave things as they are? If you do come with us, you will at least have a chance to mend those broken bridges.”
“There’s no point. I have no reason to return there.”
“Rubia… What about us?” Elicia pleaded once more, “I know I haven’t been the best friend you needed, but I promise I won’t ever make the same mistake again. Anytime, anywhere, I’ll be there for you. Please, come back to us… Come back to me.”
“…” Rubia turned just her head back toward them, but her eyes didn’t seem to be staring at them anymore. “I have friends no more…”
“Rubia!”
She left them with one final word before she went: “Get out before I throw you out.”
Just as she was above to step out of the room, though, she suddenly stopped. She turned to look off somewhere, as if confused over something, and then winced from a sudden onset of severe headaches. She clutched her head in pain and nearly stumbled over her own feet.
“Rubia! What’s wrong!?”
Elicia ran over to help her, but by the time she got there, Rubia stopped still and drooped limply while not quite dropping just yet. As Elicia reached out a hand to help her old friend steady herself, though, Rubia suddenly whipped around with a frenzied snarl on her face. Now it wasn’t just the eyes that make her demonic; her entire face looked warped ugly in her demented rage.
“Huh!?”
Before she could even react, Elicia found herself being knocked aside and nearly fell off the elevated path. It would be a far, far way down if she had fallen off. She was too stunned by that surprise attack to fight back at the moment, and Rubia stood over her menacingly as if she intended to kick her off herself.
“Elicia!” Hector called out, drawing his sword right away.
Before even he could hurry to her aid, though, Cerbal dashed in just in time to pull her out of the way of an incoming strike.
“Watch out!” the black mage cried out, pointing toward Rubia.
The next several moments flashed by in a blur of action and melodrama. What seemed to be a summoning circle then appeared on the floor around Rubia, and there was a menacing whirl of dark energy – quite unbecoming of the Holy Dragoness – that surrounded and engulfed her completely. It was followed by a burst of light from within, and she transformed into a regal pure-white dragon and roared to challenge them.
“Rubia!?” Elicia gasped again, still totally frozen by her own confusion and indecision.
Unfortunately, the time for words had passed. Whatever had happened, Rubia had gone into an uncontrollable rage and unsatiated bloodlust. She lunged at them indiscriminately with fangs, claws, and even her sharp-as-blade wings. Without a moment to lose, the party armed themselves for battle; yet even as the battle had begun, Elicia continued to ponder to herself in disbelief.
“Rubia… What happened to you? Was it just that trial that turned you away? Or was it my absence? Or even, something else…?”
She was lost in her thoughts while the clashing fray of wingbeats and claws to swords and magic ravaged around her. She quickly snapped back to attention, though, when Rubia suddenly swooped at the black mage and snatched him high into the air.
“Aaaaah!!”
“Tom!” Hector yelled, cursing himself for not keeping a better guard of their most vulnerable fighter.
“Not so fast, you miserable beast!”
Cerbal muttered hastily under his breath to cast a spell that manages to slow the dragon’s movements, but just as he was about to leap in to save his friend, Rubia immediately broke out of the status and easily evaded him.
“What!? How is that even possible?”
“Cerbal! Move!” Hector yells again.
Cerbal just managed to dodge out of the way when a huge laser beam fired in his direction. “Unbelievable… she anticipated my spell and cast her own counterspell beforehand!”
“Hooowaaahh!! …!?”
Hector crashed into the dragon with a mighty swing while she had her attention turned away, but to his shock, she had caught his sword in her claws, thus stopping its momentum just before it could reach the rest of her. In a grip that would easily crush bone, she wrenched the sword out of his hands and butted him in the side with the sword’s handle, sending him crashing into the ground.
“Hector!”
Before Rubia could stomp down on him, Cerbal rushed in with his own rapid-fire strike to avoid getting it caught in her hands, but unfortunately, her naturally scaly body was built tough enough to deflect those quick and light cuts, and she clotheslined him with a spiked elbow. She then fell right onto Hector, likewise crushing him beneath her feet. And in quick succession, she flattened Tom on the ground too with the same claw that snatched him.
“Guys! Rubia, stop!”
It all happened in just a few blinks of an eye. One moment the adventurers had a full party ready for battle. They had made their way through the temple relatively unscathed and easily thwarted any of the monsters that were roaming freely. And now, all three of the warriors laid beaten and battered on the ground in just a few solid blows from this menacing beast. They weren’t even the strongest attacks she could muster, and none of them were still moving.
They probably could have put up a better fight if only they had realized that despite being known as the “Holy Dragoness”, she didn’t specialize in white magic. Rather, it was the opposite; she mastered the dark arts and had a touch of Death on every part of her body. In fact, whether or not she could wield the power of Holy had yet to be witnessed.
Fortunately for the party, Elicia was still unharmed so far. She cast her revival spell upon all three of them and managed to help them recover somewhat, but a mass revival spell would be expensive. It took a lot out of her and left her incapacitated for a little while. And yet, even when presented with a chance for another easy kill, Rubia seemed to hesitate for a moment.
Nonetheless, she ddidn’t have time to think it over. As soon as he was brought back, Tom let fire a barrage of spells that distracted her. She easily evaded them all, but it was just enough so that the other two could pick him up and make a run for it.
“Elicia! Come on! We have to run!”
“We came totally unprepared for this battle…”
“She’s too strong! Too scary!”
“Rubia…”
As soon as she saw them take flight, the dragon didn’t bother to chase after them. It seemed something else had come up and required her attention. She returned to her spot by the pool, and with an unspoken command, she sealed away the pool. The glowing light gradually faded away and the murmuring voices were silent once more.
Shortly after that short kerfuffle, though, Rubia then received yet another visitor, who entered from the same door by which she had arrived. Her eyes immediately darted in that direction with a burning glaze. This visitor was another figure in a white cloak similar to her own, but while the hood mostly obscured the face, one could make out the features of an elderly woman with short white hair.
“…It’s been a long time, hasn’t it, Lady Rubia…?”
Rubia didn’t waste any time. She opened her mouth and let fire a bright and explosive beam at the old woman. When the dust settled, there was no sign of the cloaked figure anymore. However, her voice continued to echo throughout the room.
“You’ve been through so much… You deserve a rest…”
She darted back and forth, scanning the area for any other appearances of this old phantom, and even took off into the air and circled around from above, but she couldn’t find her again.
“There’s no need to worry, my child… Sister will take care of you while you sleep…”
She roared in defiance as if telling the voice to shut up, but even she realized that it was to no avail.
“When you return, I will be waiting for you…”
She was snorting and snarling viciously like a feral animal, but then took a nosedive straight into the pool she had just been gazing into with a loud splash. Perhaps it was just in a bout of temporary insanity, or perhaps it was just desperation to drown out the voice haunting her, but in any case, the old phantom’s voice seemed to fade into obscurity as the many voices of the past enveloped her in a noisy clamor. Despite them getting louder, though, she suddenly felt at ease amid the crowd; not bothering to listen to any particular voice, just appreciating the indiscriminate murmurs like the mundane bustle of city life. And in her moment of peace, she naturally returned to her human form and continued to drift down into the depths. It was so peaceful, in fact, that she could just forget to breathe.
~
That’s where the video ends, and Ruby sits, well, floats where she is, taking a moment to take in all that she’d just witnessed. Yes, now that she thinks about it, she may have come up with an opening scene to her story like this before, but she isn’t sure about the details from so long ago. She’s pretty sure she scrapped it too, since she decided to take the story in a different direction, and then… at some point, she just stopped updating it. Revisiting a concept scene like this, watching it play out on a screen before her is frankly so surreal.
Back in those days, she was just throwing ideas out like a blindfolded kid playing darts. And yet, her once vague and immaterial concepts have somehow been manifested and recorded into the very history of Gaia. But she never visited this world herself before… or at least, she doesn’t remember doing so. Was Sephiroth onto something, after all? Is there some alternate version of her that is, in fact, a reality-bending God? Apparently, “Rubia” has enough power and influence to even challenge Sephiroth out of his control of his part of the Lifestream.
It’s pretty funny; turns out Ruby has a secret identity as an almighty mosquito who bullies false Gods and feeds on their life essence. Now if only she can figure out how to put that trolling power to good use…
On that thought, said false God dude has uncovered this story too. He even traveled to her world to grill her and probably kill her. He instead killed a part of her childhood that won’t be recovering any time soon… unless she somehow overpowers him and forces him to compensate! But that aside, why would he go so far just to bring her here? What purpose would she serve? Does he intend to rewrite history by bringing a foreign entity into this realm? Why wouldn’t he be able to do that himself, with all the power to traverse space-time and dimensions as he already wields?
With ever growing questions in mind, she hopes them to be answered, but only silence returns her wishes. Then, she recalls that he did say to call for him. Alright, then, she’ll call him.
“Hey! Sephiroth, you dumb scab! Show yourself! You are here, aren’t you!?”
“…Settle down. There’s no need to yell.”
Whoa. She’s a little spooked when she suddenly hears the man’s voice behind her. Sephiroth appears from the darkness as if he’s walking on an invisible surface, and for once he doesn’t have his huge sword with him. Once she realizes there is a floor, she feels herself land softly onto the same plane.
“Don’t tell me not to yell. I’m still waiting on a new copy of my game.”
“All that you’ve lost will be repaid in due time… For now, shall we discuss this other game between us?”
“No! I’m not done complaining! Do you have any idea how long it took me to grind out five frickin’ Gold Chocobos!? And, no, I didn’t use the cheat method because I didn’t know about it back then! That was pure grind!”
“…”
“I don’t even know what I’d use them for, but it just looked really nice, okay? Like getting straight A’s across your report card… The old game didn’t have any achievement trophies, so I just came up with my own.”
He turns away again. “…I had assumed you called me for some answers. If you have nothing substantial to say, I’ll take my leave.”
“Wait. I still have to kick your ass. And now that I have fighting skills and ancient dragon genes, you’re getting pile-driven from twenty stories up.” She hops back and gets into a fighting pose.
He turns back to her. “I haven’t come to fight. As things stand, we’re in an eternal deadlock.”
“Like hell we are? You’re only level 50. I’m up to 73 now. I’m folding you easy.”
“But as long as your Remnants and mine continue to exist and compete, a little scuffle here won’t change a thing. Though, I can’t say the same for the rest of the Lifestream…”
“…”
“At the very least, you do want to discuss how to resolve that, yes?”
“…Fine, I’ll give you one.” She relaxes again, casually flipping the knife in hand, and slips it back. “So I still have no idea what my Remnants are doing or what they even are, but at least I now know why Rubia was so depressed that she would bring out a plague of ‘void’.”
“Have memories from your past life returned to you already?”
“I just saw one scene so far and it’s completely out of context, but I do remember writing something like it before. It was from an earlier time when I was in an ‘edgy’ phase of my teen life. Sort of. I was never an edgy kid; just really quiet. It was just in my writings where I could experiment with it and run wild. Eventually, I grew out of it and never turned back.”
“Is that so… That’s interesting.”
“What is? It’s pretty normal to have that sort of phase growing up.”
“No, I mean that these Remnants seem to relate to the part of your childhood you left behind.”
“Uh, sure… But instead of fading away in the back of my mind, they’ve somehow ended up here in your world and spread everywhere as a thought cancer? Why? And on that thought, how will I find out how that happened by exploring this world? It seems more like an extradimensional thing that can only be understood from outside of it.”
“As it is your own doing, it will be up to you to rediscover.”
“So you don’t know shit either…”
“In any case, coming here is still the best decision. You’re in a much better position to reconnect your roots.”
“No, I’m not? I mean, it’s fun messing around in this bizarre version of the Debug Room, but I don’t see how I’m any closer to understanding anything.”
He chuckles quietly. “So this is what you call this realm, do you?”
“That’s how it looks to me. So where are we, really?”
“The Edge of Creation.”
She frowns in disappointment. “What? You mean the desert-night-looking place that you took Cloud to that one time?”
“It may look different for every person. For now, it seems to be based on your predisposed impressions of the Lifestream.”
“But there’s nothing here! I know how the Lifestream is supposed to look. It’s this free-flowing stream of green or blue-white light, right?”
“That is how most people view it… but it’s never defined as any one thing. It is a collective of everyone’s thoughts and memories, after all.”
“Okay. So what makes me so special that I wouldn’t even get to see any pretty lights?”
“Well… For starters, there’s a holographic interface that has appeared before you.” He points a hand toward it.
“Did it appear like this to you?”
“Not at all. This is the first I’ve seen of something like it.”
“Really? So you haven’t touched anything in these menus?”
“No.”
“Huh… And here I thought you sneaked a peek at my alternate self’s past through this… menu interface? Whatever it is. What is it… No, how is it even running? How much power would a potential reality simulator need to run? Does it have its own OS? Is this Linux? Raspberry Pi? Something else entirely…?”
He looks away to leave her to her own thoughts.
She pauses amid her scattered ideas and retraces her mental steps to redirect course. She then comes upon another realization and turns back to him. “…Ah. Is that why?”
“Why, for what?”
“Why you wanted me to come. It’s because I can access stuff like this, isn’t it?”
He smirks back. “Though you’ve just arrived, you’ve already managed to unlock the variables that make up the fabric of our reality. Even I’m impressed.”
“Yeah…” She raises a suspicious eyebrow. “You know, you’re acting awfully confident for someone who just admitted that he let a stranger hack into all of reality. I could command you however I like while we’re here, and you wouldn’t be able to do a thing about it.”
“Sorry to tell you, but there is only so much that you can control as it is now.”
“What would you know? You’ve never seen this ‘Debug Room’ before.”
“I think it’s plain to see by our current whereabouts. You may have just discovered the limitless potential of your newfound abilities, but everything is still concealed in complete darkness. Open your eyes and it will further open up to you…”
“Well, it is pretty boring right now, that’s for sure…” She looks around idly, and then catches on and turns back to him. “Oh, wait. You mean I have more to unlock in this place?”
He offers a relaxed smile as if to reassure her. “I look forward to your progress, Ruby.”
“Oh, come on…” she groans, “So that’s what you need me for? To be your tech support? I’m a freelance app coder, not IT.”
“All the better, as this is a test of creative potential. You are capable of creating more to fill this space, and it may just be the key to solving this crisis once and for all.”
“So now we’re just throwing out guesses to see what sticks? This is starting to sound like a startup where the CEO has a dream, a single coder ‘for hire’, and nothing else…” she mutters, looking rather irked. She pauses and says the first thing that pops in mind: “By the way, have you tried turning the planet off and on again?”
“…” He looks so unamused that it comes off as an impatient glare.
“Sorry, dumb joke. I’m at a loss of ideas, though. How is changing Fate supposed to work? Do I just butt into certain events in history, tweak them a little, and call it a day? Do I have to constantly course-correct them or build on these changes over time? Not to mention, would my interference just overwrite the present alternate timelines and leave them entirely inaccessible? But on the other hand, if I’m too cautious to change anything, then we’re right back at square one…”
“…I’ll leave the details to you. In the meantime, about that game I suggested…”
Once again, as if a switch were triggered, Ruby snaps from one train of thought to the next. “I’m listening…”
“It will be a battle of wits between us, one in which we will rewrite the very fate of this planet and see the future it holds.”
“Uh… You know, I’m the one accessing the freakin’ Debug Room. I can warp reality way more easily than you can.”
“We also share a connection through Mother’s cells, so the access you have applies to me as well.”
She snaps back rather loudly, “Does not! I’m the coder here! Get out of my lab!”
As if just to prove a point, his eyes flicker just for a moment again, and Ruby winces from the sting in her wrist. For some reason, though, the pain is duller than it had been earlier. Perhaps she’s already getting used to it? But then she notices that her right hand seems to have moved on its own and has tapped the screen before her and opened up a random file.
She blinks a few times and simply closes it as if that didn’t just happen. “…Well, that’s annoying.”
“As I said, we’re in an eternal deadlock as things stand. I cannot be rid of you, but you cannot be rid of me either.”
She rolls her eyes. “Okay, I get why you marked me and all… but ultimately, even if neither of us do anything, you’re still losing control of the Lifestream to me. So I’m the one winning here. Why do you think you’re in the position to make any demands?”
“Because you have no idea what is going on or who your alternate self really is.”
“…” Ruby was about to retort with a smart remark, but then she realizes that he’s correct. “…How much do you know, then?”
“Hmph. I just said it’s a game. Why would I hand over my pieces to you without due exchange?”
“Hmm…” she grumbles, but nods back in agreement. “Fine. So what’s the plan? How do we play?”
“We’ll start at the beginning of Cloud’s adventure, that which you may be familiar with, and we’ll take turns tweaking it however we wish. But for the sake of keeping some semblance of order, I suggest you proceed with some discretion, especially while you’re still figuring out your own mystery.”
“Yeah, I guess…”
“In the meantime, I have a simple mission for you. Search for Cloud and help him gather his friends, and then lead them to the Temple of the Ancients. I’ll be waiting for you there.”
“Wait. Why do I have to do what you say? I’m your opponent, right?”
“Yes, as players, but this is also a game that can be played through cooperation. Since you’re so new to this, it’s the least I can do to keep things fair.”
“Uh, I dunno… Something tells me you’re just trying to drag me into one of your schemes. What do I get if I listen to you?”
“Well…” His eyes drift off for a moment and back again. “Why don’t you follow along and find out? You might learn more that way.”
“No fair! That’s such a cop-out! Just because you know something I don’t, you think you can boss me around…”
He then glances toward her guarded hand. “I’m fairly confident about why.”
She quickly slips it behind her in embarrassment. “$*&% you.”
“Besides, with that mark, you’re officially invited to join the Reunion. Why not take up the offer?”
“Pfft. Why would I want to visit your boring-ass cave with your mindless drones who just throw themselves off a cliff to death?”
“This Reunion will be a little different from the one you remember.”
“Oh? What’s new? You got a DJ dropping the beat?”
He makes an amused scoff. “If you wish to volunteer, be my guest.”
“Come on… It’s not fun if you’re making me do it.”
“In fact, you’re going to be the star of the stage this time. Just this once, I’ll let you take the reins.”
She cringes. “You’re making me manage the whole thing!? I got no leadership skills, man! I told you, I’m just a coder!”
“Relax, allow me handle the details. All you have to do is show up.”
She rolls her eyes. “Whoo, can’t wait… What happened to Cloud? I thought he was your favorite victim.”
“Oh, don’t worry. He’ll have a very important role too… You just focus on learning as much as you can about this world beforehand.”
“Also, if you want me to bring Cloud to you, why bother dragging all his friends along? It’d be way faster if I pick him up and drop him off for you.”
He chuckles to himself before answering in a mysterious tone, “…To have an audience witness the Reckoning firsthand.”
“The what?”
He waves it away. “All will become clear when the time comes.”
“Tch… Even though you said you want to keep things ‘fair’, you’re being pretty unfair with how little you’re giving me to work with. Can you not at least give me a general direction to what I’m supposed to learn? Like, is my alternate self actually here in this world too or am I just going to be playing as her from here on, or…?”
He pays her last question no mind. “…Don’t you think it’s about time you get going?”
“How do I get going?”
“You have the tools in front of you.”
“Hmph…” she grunts. She opens up the list of locations and begins to scan through them. “So, should I start from the beginning of the game, like Mako Reactor No. 1, or a little before then in Sector 8 where Aerith was selling her flowers…?”
She waits for a response, but gets none. She turns back to check on him and is annoyed to see that he’s vanished without even a goodbye. While frustrated that she couldn’t get any more out of him, she obliges his suggestion and sets new coordinates for her next destination. And with a deep breath, she closes her eyes and hits the button to begin transport.
It’s a peculiar feeling to be able to warp to wherever she wants. One moment, she feels like she’s floating in an abstract space with no sense of direction or time; the next, she feels grounded as if all the assets of the physical world are “loaded in” as if the entire world itself were a program to be run. But the most convenient thing of all is how she doesn’t have to worry about any machine’s specs. Truly, the one thing that any programmer would sell their soul to have, without question. Or at least, she definitely would.
This is it. Ruby feels a child-like excitement bubble up to the surface again. A brand new adventure, coupled with many strange mysteries to be uncovered, has gotten to her. She can’t bring herself to rest now. Midgar’s nightlife awaits her, and so does a certain incident that opens a familiar chapter.
Notes:
Correction for accuracy to the original FF7 mechanics
The pyramid battle in the Debug Room awards a little over 1,000,000 XP. If Ruby follows Cloud's level up progression, she will have reached Level 73 instead. Apologies and corrected.
4/28/25 edit: Holy moly, how did I go this long without realizing I never provided name trivia? Gonna fix that real quick.
FF1 trivia time!
- The classes that Elicia's party follow are based on one of the most optimal party arrangements in FF1, consisting of Fighter/Warrior, Red Mage, White Mage, and Black Mage.
- Elicia is their White Mage. Her name actually has etymological stems in the name Alice, from old French Aalis, which in turn may have come from Adelaide, which means "nobility". I also chose it as it sounds like "elicit", which she certainly gets a response from Rubia in certain ways.
- Hector is their Fighter. His name is the Latinized form of Greek Hektor, which means "holding fast". A couple famous examples are the Trojan hero and enemy to Achilles, as well as the foster father of King Arthur. I thought it fitting for the hero archetype.
- Cerbal (pronounced "Korbal") is their Red Mage. His name is based on Cerball, which in turn is Old Irish and is pronounced closer to "Korwol". Cerb in Old Irish means "sharp, cutting". Its variant name is actually Caroll, like Lewis Caroll of Alice in Wonderland fame. I just thought that was a neat coincidence with Elicia's name origins.
- Tom is their Black Mage. While at first I thought it would be hilarious if one of the people in the crew had a simple three-letter name in homage to the old NES version of FF1, this name has its unique origins too. I actually based it off of the Hebrew name Tom/Tam, meaning "honest, innocent". He's the softie nerd of the crew despite being the Black Mage.
- These four have brief cameos here, but will show their significance way down the line when we get to learn more about Rubia. Stay tuned.
Chapter 3: Out the Gate
Chapter Text
The bustle of city life never dies even late at night. There are still people outside walking to and fro; some engaged in idle conversation, while others are hurrying along alone. Ruby opens her eyes again and finds herself standing in the middle of the street. It’s a small one where not many cars would pass through, so it’s more of a pedestrian crossing than anything. The spot where she stands is well within the glow of the plentiful street lamps. And yet, not one person seems to bat an eye at the fact that a person just appeared from out of nowhere – literally, as she simply blinked into existence.
She takes a look around. As she had arranged, she’s in a faintly lit shopping district on the upper plate of Sector 8. She’s standing right in front of an old theater where a certain classic romance play has been featured on a large sign above. However, the one person she’s expecting to be here hasn’t quite made her debut yet. Perhaps Ruby is a bit early? She had no idea what the exact time her awaited target would appear, after all. All she knows is it’s currently a little past 1 am, and according to memory, a certain bombing mission would begin about a quarter past the clock’s strike.
That being said, when she pulls out her phone to double-check, she realizes that her phone isn’t working properly. It still has power, but it only says “No Service”. Then again, it makes sense: her phone plan doesn’t cover extradimensional travel, after all. Looks like it’s not gonna be of much use here; at least until she finds a way to register her phone with a local plan.
Now that she thinks about it, that’s a lot harder than it sounds. Where could she even buy one? From what she remembers of the original game and its Remake, there is apparently no shop around the entirety of Midgar where the playable party can visit to buy phones. The only way they could stay in contact whenever they’d split up was through a device known as the PHS – which is a perfectly fine substitute for a phone, but they don’t get that until after the events that send them out of the city. Ruby can only guess the reason for that is because Avalanche wants to lay low and not have their calls be bugged by Shinra – at least, that’s one reason that would make sense in-lore.
Whatever. She’ll deal with that problem when she really needs to. For now, she should take a look around for this certain person. Fortunately, she’s timed her entrance just right and doesn’t have to wait long.
From out of one of the dark alleys nearby, a woman with braided hair and in a pink dress steps out, carrying a basket of flowers on her arm. She looks around lost as if looking for something, but can’t seem to find it. She turns her head up to the cloud-covered night sky with a rather pensive look. Even with the usual bustle of city life, it feels like the nights have only gotten quieter around her. Is it something about herself, or is there some hidden trickery at play?
“Aerith!”
She’s spooked by a sudden greeting coming from across the street. Ruby excitedly waves to her as she comes running at her. Before she can dodge out of the way, Ruby pounces on her with a tight bear hug and nearly knocks her over.
“Eek!”
“Aaaaaah! I’ve missed you so much!” Ruby wails with tearful joy, “It’s been so looong!”
“Ah… H-hello.”
The two have an awkward silence as Ruby continues to whine like a dog that has missed its owner all day. Then, the one known as Aerith makes a confused but polite smile as she speaks up.
“Um… I’m sorry, but have we met before?”
“Huh?” Ruby pulls away to give her a little room. “You don’t know me?”
“No… I don’t think so? Unless…” She pauses. “I think I may have heard your voice before?”
“My voice?”
“Yes, but just the voice. I’m not sure where, though…” She turns away to think it over a little more, but shakes her head. She turns back to Ruby with a friendly smile. “Well, I know my way around Sector 5 and pretty much everyone there, but I didn’t expect to find someone outside of it who would know me too.”
“…” Ruby lets her go and makes an apologetic bow. “Ah. Sorry about that. Guess I have to start from scratch, after all…” she says with a dejected sigh.
“Don’t worry about it. So what’s your name?”
“Ruby. I’m… a traveler on a journey around the world,” she answers after scrambling in mind for an excuse.
“Oh, wow… So what brings you to Midgar? I’m guessing this isn’t your first time being here?”
“Yeah, this old city brings back a lot of memories – both good and bad. I’m really just here to find people…”
“Hmm… Well, maybe I can help tip that balance toward the good.” She offers her basket of flowers. “Would you like one? They’re only a gil each, and they’ll brighten up your day in a jiffy!”
Her basket is filled with just one kind of flower, but they’re beautiful, dainty white lily-like flowers. Ruby takes particular note of the color because it’s not the exact same kind of flower as she remembers from the opening scene in the original game – but it is a perfect match with the flowers shown in that of the game’s Remake. That’s funny. How did that happen? Would crossing worlds and timelines change little details like this? This seems innocuous enough, but what would be the implications of that if true? How far can she stray from the canon before things go way out of hand?
To spare herself further confusion, Ruby decides not to raise any more questions. She shrugs and plays it cool.
“Heh. Nice pitch… but sure, it wouldn’t hurt.”
She then digs around in her pockets, but comes up empty. She already knew she hadn’t brought along her wallet, but secretly wished that it would have magically appeared on her. Then again, what exactly is the conversion rate between US dollars and gil?
“…This is awkward. I’m out of cash.”
“Ah…” Aerith then gives her a reassuring smile. “No worries! If you want, I can keep one for you when you’re ready.”
She waves a hand. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about me.”
“You sure? Would be a shame to just drop it…”
“Yeah. I’m sure you can find a better donor. I just stopped by on a whim… and forgot some important things.”
“Aw, okay…” Aerith hesitates for a moment, but then picks a flower out from the basket and offers it to her. “How about this? Just this once, I’ll give it away for free.”
“Huh? To me? But we barely met…”
“Yes, but I get the feeling you’re someone worth trusting. And besides,” she adds, while looking at her quiet companions, “these particular ones are perfect for reunions.” She turns back to Ruby with an earnest smile. “Even if I might not remember, you seem to know me.”
“Ah… T-thanks.”
Ruby accepts the gift and stares at the flower in her hand. As happy as she is to have become its new caretaker, something about it seems off. Though she isn’t entirely sure if she has Rubia’s genes as a part of her now, she can’t hear any magic voices. Maybe a lone flower’s voice is too weak to be heard on its own, or maybe it’s more to do with the state of the planet right now. Either way, its seemingly dead silence isn’t very reassuring. She at first intends to slip it in her satchel, but then changes her mind and slides it behind her ear – just in case she just missed its awfully quiet voice and it’ll come around eventually.
Aerith giggles. “Aw. It looks so cute on you.”
Ruby makes a nervous smile, as she only feels more uncomfortable the more she’s complemented. She instead tries to change the subject. “…Thinking about it, it’s kinda funny.”
“What is?”
“Our meeting here. It’s strangely both nostalgic and fresh at the same time. I’ve witnessed such an encounter many times before, but never expected to live through it myself…”
“…”
“…Ah, sorry. It must be really confusing for you. I sometimes say things to myself even when talking with other people. It’s a bad habit, really.”
Aerith shakes her head. “It’s okay, I don’t mind. In fact, I think now is a good time as any for us to ‘catch up’! Say, where did we first meet? Maybe it’ll jog my memory.”
“Uh…” Ruby rubs her head. “Before we get into all that, I think it’d be better if we found another place to talk in private.”
“Oh. So it’s some top-secret information we’re dealing with here…”
She gives a dismissive wave. “Nah, nothing like that. It’s just not gonna make sense without context, and there’s… a lot to cover. We might as well get comfortable first.”
“Ah. In that case…” Aerith’s face then lights up again. “I know just the place we can go!”
“Where?”
“My house in Sector 5. My mom also lives there, but she won’t bother us if I ask her not to.”
“Oh, I don’t mind if your mom hears us. What I have to say won’t make a lick of sense to most people anyway.” She glances aside with a frown. “In fact, it still doesn’t make a lick of sense to me. I’m still filling in a lot of that context myself…”
“Hmm… Sounds like you’ve got an amazing story to tell. I’m already getting excited just thinking about it!”
“It’s nothing that exciting… definitely more frustrating than anything.”
“Frustrating?”
“Ah… Long story short, my hand has been forced… in more ways than one,” Ruby replies with a grim smirk aside.
“…” Aerith takes a moment to think over that answer and then nods back reassuringly. “I have time tonight, so take as long as you need. And feel free to bring up anything that’s troubling you. I’ll hear you out.”
“Thanks. Then I’ll take you up on that offer…” Ruby then raises an offering hand herself. “But before we go, I have a favor to ask you.”
“Oh? What is it?”
“I’d like you to meet someone. You don’t have to do anything much; it’s just a sort of ‘first impressions’ kind of meeting.”
“Ah, just some quick introductions? Who is this person?”
“Mm… I’ll just let those first impressions speak for themselves.”
She looks just a little disappointed to hear that. “Hmm… alright, then.”
“Come on. Let’s head toward Sector 1… just in that direction. We don’t have to cross the gate or anything. I’ll tell you more along the way.”
“Sure thing. Lead the way, Ms. Ruby!”
Ruby nearly stumbles over her first step forward. She turns back to Aerith with a stern frown. “Save the formalities. I’m not your teacher or mentor or anything.”
“Haha! Okay, then… Lead the way, Ruby!”
The two head off together in a casual stroll as their conversation continues.
“Say, Ruby…” Aerith then asks, “You said that you’ve been traveling around the world, right?”
“I did.”
“Where else have you been? And what’s it like?”
“Ah…” Ruby shrugs. “All over the globe, really. From up north by the Cliffs of Gaia down south by the hot springs of Mideel; from a certain Chocobo ranch in the east to the sprawling tourist hot spots of Wutai…”
“Wow. So you’re really traveled…”
“You could say that. I have my ways of getting around.”
“You mean like some kind of plane? I’d imagine it’d be hard to do so just on foot.”
“Yeah…” She nods slowly. “‘Some kind of plane’ works.”
“Huh? What’s with that answer? Is it not a plane?” The further she asks, the more excited she becomes. “Oh, wait. Don’t tell me… do you actually have an airship or something?”
“Hah! You think I’d be a pilot to a huge aircraft like an airship?” She shakes her head. “Shinra would have tailed me long ago to hire me… or shoot me down. More likely the latter.”
“Not a fan of them, huh?”
“Nope. Can’t say I know too many people who do… especially down in the slums.”
“Yeah…” Aerith lets off a sigh. “At least outside of the slums, most people live some pretty peaceful lives up here.”
“Probably. Not being forced to live among the trash and industrial waste would be better on people’s psyches, I’d think.”
“That’s certainly true. But to be honest…” She makes an shy smile. “Maybe this is an unpopular opinion, but I don’t think it’s too bad living in the slums either. Well, I know my house is a bit different from everyone else’s… but I’ve been around Sector 5 long enough. Lived there for as long as I can remember, really. The community is just so friendly and close-knit all the same. Maybe it’s just because we’re all stuck in the same conundrum, so we try to help each other out.”
“Hmm… I think Sector 5 is a bit of a unique case.”
“Really? How so?”
“Well, for starters, you live there.” Ruby passes her a confident smirk. “I’d say anyone who has even a sliver of decency would naturally become kinder around someone like you. You have this aura of kindness that’s super infectious.”
“Haha! Aw, thanks. It’s nothing much, really. I just try to stay positive and spread the love to as many people as I can. There’s always a silver lining to every cloud, after all…”
“…” For a moment, Ruby stops in her tracks and even folds her lips inward. While it is a really common saying, she also realizes the irony in a certain someone’s case.
“Huh? Is something wrong? Was it something I said?”
Ruby promptly resumes walking and beckons Aerith along. “No, it’s not you. I just thought of something dumb…”
“What is it?”
“Don’t mind me. I just said it’s dumb.”
“Aw, don’t be like that. I’m sure it’s not as dumb as you think it is.”
“Uh… okay…” Ruby hesitates to consider how to best explain this in a way that won’t just spoil this awaited fateful encounter they’re heading toward. “…I just thought of a scenario where that ‘silver lining’ actually is more of a curse than a blessing for that cloud.”
“…” Aerith blinks, looking confused for a moment, and then giggles to herself. “Well, it does sound a bit silly if you take them literally. Silver doesn’t really react with water, I think, so it’s not like they could stick.”
“…” Ruby glances off and says nothing. This sweet, innocent summer child. Funny how her birthday is in February.
She makes a nervous chuckle. “Hehe… Ah. Sorry, that was supposed to be a joke. If you don’t want to talk about it, it’s fine. I won’t pry.”
“Boy… I really wish I could tell you everything right now, but there’s way more we need to have happen before we get anywhere close to that.”
“You don’t say… Are we talking, like, a book’s worth of contexts?”
“Oh, yeah. You could even say it’s a whole chronology…”
Aerith nods back in acknowledgement. “Well, it’s a good thing I like listening to stories! So don’t worry about losing me anywhere. I can keep up pretty well.”
“In due time, my fair lady…”
“Speaking of which,” Aerith is then reminded and asks, “Where is it that we’re supposed to meet this person? I notice we’ve been walking around for a while, but we’re not stopping by any particular place.”
“Because it’s not any particular place worth naming. It’s just a nondescript street intersection where a chance encounter is going to take place.”
“…”
Ruby slyly glances back to Aerith, hoping she’d catch on. By her a curious look, it seems she did, but she doesn’t look too concerned either. She passes it off casually, “…I like to think I have great intuition.”
“Hmm… I get the feeling you do.” Aerith passes her a suspect smile.
She grins cheekily back. “Hey, what’s with that answer? Don’t tell me you suspect me of lying.”
“No, not a lie… but you’re trying to get by with half-truths, aren’t you?”
She raises her arms in defeat. “Ack. You got me. We got a sharpshooter florist over here…”
The two exchange sly glances once more and then share a wholesome laugh.
Ruby then shakes her head with a sigh. “Man… To be honest, I really don’t like dancing around the point. It’s almost always better to have proper communication, but for now, I’m still learning as much as I can about this world before I can confirm I have the whole picture.”
“No worries. Just take your time. I’m sure there are some things that are better shown than told anyway. As you said, first impressions can speak for themselves…”
The pair have been making their way across town until they arrive upon a certain intersection in a nondescript shopping district near to the gate neighboring Sector 1. The eerie green light shining out from the ominous-looking mako reactor is in plain view from here. And even at this time of night, there are still some loose stragglers wandering about though a great deal of the shops here are already closed. Aside from that, nothing in particular seems out of the ordinary.
At last, they stop walking and stand along the narrow two-way street. Fortunately, it’s a small market street where not many cars come along, so most pedestrians can freely walk around.
“…Here we are,” Ruby announces.
Aerith looks around, unsure of what they should be looking for, and turns back to Ruby. “So it seems. Do we just wait here?”
“Yeah. Hope it’s not too chilly.”
“Oh, I’m fine. I live in the slums, after all.”
“Good to hear…” Ruby means to check her phone, but remembers that it’s not working. She’s so used to using it that she doesn’t have a watch. Well, guess it’s time to estimate again, though she isn’t the best at it when it comes to time. She turns off for the mako reactor in anxious anticipation.
Aerith follows her line of sight and then back. “…You’ve been really focused on that reactor since earlier. Is something going to happen with it?”
“…” Ruby hesitates over how to explain this. “…Yeah, I think so.”
“Like… something bad?”
She nods slowly. “It’s… pretty bad.”
“…”
She still tries to offer a reassuring smile, but it comes off as rather forced. “But don’t worry! You’ll be fine if you stick around here.” She looks off a different direction as she reconsiders her options. “…Hm. Speaking of which, I need to get ready myself.”
“Get ready? What do you mean?”
Ruby gestures toward the direction of the reactor. “I gotta be in position at the right time to find the guy I’m expecting. Oh, and Aerith?”
“Yes?”
“I suggest you find a place to take cover just in case. Don’t look at the reactor, and cover your ears in the next, ah… 3, 4 minutes or so.”
“Um, okay… But what about you?”
“I’ll be just fine. I’ll even be back before you know it. See ya soon!” And with little more than a casual salute, she takes off down the street in the direction of the reactor.
“Ruby, wait! Where are you going?”
“Don’t worry about me! Just sit tight!” she calls out, waving a hand behind her.
Any time someone tells someone else not to worry, they’re bound to be even more worried. Aerith lets off a sigh and finds a place out of the way of traffic to stand by and wait for her.
Ruby somehow managed to time it correctly right down to the last few minutes. The reactor explodes in a brilliant display of light, heat, and destructive force, and panic and chaos spill outward from the epicenter.
~
Some time has passed since Ruby left Aerith for her next mission. She’s been rushing around town on foot, following the trail by overhearing police reports on a manhunt for several unidentified characters that were suspected to be responsible for that massive bombing incident. After what feels like an eternity tracing said reports, she catches wind of one about a certain man armed with a large sword. About time.
But, it seems the reports were off by a bit as always, since when she arrives on the scene specified, she only find the remnants of the defeated. Some other officers are already here. She’d best leave them alone.
“Hey, you there! What are you doing here?”
Whoops. She’s been seen. Should she run now or stay and be questioned? The officers are already coming her way.
“Down on your knees! Hands where we can see them!”
Nope. She’s not waiting around to be arrested. She whips back around and makes a run for it.
“Hey! Stop! Don’t let her escape!”
“Sir, do we shoot?”
“Do what you have to!”
The platoon of soldiers begin firing on her. However, just as she prepares to make an effort to dodge, she finds she can just watch the bullets fly by her as if they were in slow motion… No, rather, it’s not the bullets that are slow. She’s just too fast for them. Well, she is already level 73. Even if their bullets could hit her, they’d have stung as hard as flea bites – and without the itching after. Before they can let fire for even a few seconds, she’s vanished into some back alley. By the time they try to catch up, she’s nowhere to be seen. The platoon begin to split up to continue their search, but no one is thinking of looking up.
Ruby leaps and climbs to the top of these buildings without having to transform. Maybe it’s her hidden lizard genes from being part-dragon – hah, just kidding. Everyone knows dragons are warm-blooded creatures! They’re kinda like dinosaurs… in many ways, now that she thinks about it. Anyway, from upon one of the taller buildings here, she scans the surrounding streets and alleyways, but it’s hard to tell with all the people running around. Just as she’s about to give up, though, she feels a familiar dull sting from her hand. As if meaning to guide her, she feels something immaterial come over her that turns her in the right direction. She snaps back to reality, and now that she looks this way, she finally catches sight of a certain spiky blond head and a massive sword on his back, hurrying into a certain dark alleyway. Bingo.
She leaps into the air from the roof and almost seems to take flight from just her jumps. Though she doesn’t have her wings out, she glides through the air gracefully as if she had. It doesn’t take her long to catch up with her target, and she drops down onto a nearby roof with a clean landing and roll as if for show. She rushes over to the railing on this rooftop and peeks down into the alley with an excited twinkle in her eyes. She’s about to leap down and give her old pal Cloud a friendly scare when she finds an unexpected sight.
“…You… can’t be real…”
Cloud isn’t alone. The ghostly apparition of Sephiroth has appeared before him once again. Ruby rolls her eyes, looking anything but surprised. She decides to sit back for now and watch how things unfold, but if it gets bad enough, she’ll be ready to intervene.
Sephiroth smirks. “Then what is it that you see before you?”
“…” Cloud grits his teeth, trying to fight back against the splitting headache. “…An illusion.”
“And yet, this ‘illusion’ has already led you off the beaten path. Even now, you cannot resist heeding the call…”
“Shut up. You don’t matter anymore. I killed you with my own hands…”
“Oh, you need not remind me. I have fond memories of all our encounters. It’s thanks to you that I’ve managed to come this far, after all…”
“I don’t care what you’ve been doing…” He draws his sword and readies for battle. “I’m not gonna let you win ever again.”
He chuckles to himself. “In the end, that’s what it all comes down to, doesn’t it… But, at ease, Cloud. I’m not here to fight… for now.”
“…Then what you do want?”
“To inform you of recent developments on the battlefield. As it happens, the game is afoot as we speak.”
What is he even doing, bringing this ‘game’ up? It’s way too early for events to culminate in any major turning point. And yet, he shows up here yet again just to taunt Cloud as always. Ruby swears he’s just doing this for shits and giggles by this point.
Cloud isn’t having any of it either. “What the hell are you saying? That this is all just a ‘game’ to you?”
“Whether it’s a game or all-out war, there is always a goal to achieve… and new players to join the fray.”
“Huh?”
“Allow me to introduce you to someone…” He then looks up toward the roof of a nearby building.
“…!” Now Cloud notices that someone else has been watching them.
Ruby blinks, looking just as confused about this sudden introduction. “Uh… hi?” she says, raising a hand.
“…” Cloud turns back to Sephiroth with a growing wariness. “Who is that?”
He passes him another sly smirk. “Ask her yourself. I’m sure you two will get along well.”
With that, Sephiroth envelops himself in a swirl of black fog and vanishes from sight. Cloud stares off where his foe had last stood, and then looks back down as he tries to process what the heck is going on here. He then looks back up to Ruby with a hint of caution.
“Hey. You there.”
“Yes?”
“…” He has so many questions that for just a moment, even he’s not sure what to ask her. “…How long have you been there?”
“I just got here.”
He frowns, looking even more suspicious of her.
She frowns too. “And now I find that Sephiroth is also snitching on me like the rat he is!” she snaps as if her fuse has finally blown, “What even was that!? I can’t have my own introductions now!?”
“…”
“The bastard always thinks he’s running the show! When I find him again, I’m shoving this knife down his throat! We’ll see how he’ll talk then…”
“…”
“And he has the gall to come to me to complain about his problems!? I don’t know why I even bothered hearing him out! He broke my childhood, damn it! I’m never gonna forgive him!!” By the end of it, she looks like she’s seething rabid with rage.
Up to now, Cloud has been struggling to keep up with her. “…Uh, are you okay?”
She flops limply onto the railing. “No… I want a buddy to talk about my problems…” She then peeks back over to him with a sad puppy-eyed look, as if asking him to be that buddy.
“…”
He’s a bit taken aback by her pleading face and looks away to reconsider his options. It’s clear that Sephiroth has plans for this girl, so he should keep a good eye on her, but she doesn’t seem to be a threat – at least, not that he can tell at a glance. If anything, it looks like she’s the one who needs help. Maybe it’s safe to lower his guard for now… He slides his sword back behind him and calls out to her again.
“…Look. I’m in a hurry, but if you make it quick, I’ll hear you out.”
“Really?” Her face lights up in an instant.
“Yeah. Hang tight. I’ll make my way up there…”
“Don’t bother! I got this!” Without warning, she climbs over the railing and hops right off the edge.
“Wha- Hey!”
He’s stunned and a little disturbed too as she rapidly scales down the side of the building like an oversized lizard and drops nimbly to the ground as if gravity didn’t affect her for just that moment. She claps her hands free of dust and gives him a smug smile.
“It’s fine. I’m used to being in high places.”
“…” He decides not to press further on that. He then strikes his familiar pose, leaning on one leg and a hand on his waist. “So who are you anyway? How are you and Sephiroth connected?”
That smile fades very quickly. “I’m Ruby… another of his victims.”
“Victim?”
“Yeah. He bullied me into coming here. Went on about how I’ve left some kind of ‘plague’ in this planet’s ancient history. Told me to search around and learn about my ‘past lives’ and all that to figure out what to do about said ‘plague’…”
“Ancient history… Past lives?” He gives her a rather judgmental look. “What are you, some kind of ghost back from the dead?”
“Man! If I were, it might be better! Maybe I’d actually know what’s going on…” she complains and then considers, “…unless I really have died at some point and been reincarnated without my memories?”
“…Somehow, I doubt it.”
She shrugs. “I dunno, then. But I have to be important enough to get Sephiroth’s attention, right?” She pauses to keep thinking. “So far, all I can guess is that I’m related to the Cetra somehow…”
“Cetra?”
“Yeah, or the ‘Ancients’, as people call them these days.”
“The Ancients…?” He looks more disturbed than surprised. He’s no stranger to hearing about the “Ancients”, but they haven’t left the best impression with him, thanks to a certain someone who ravaged his hometown based on some stupid ‘chosen one’ prophecy.
“I’m sure you have some idea of them, right?”
“…Yeah. They were people who lived on this planet long ago and could hear voices from the planet and talk with them… So you’re one of them?”
“Yeah, uh… Maybe?”
“Maybe? You can hear those voices even now, can’t you?”
Ruby takes a moment of silence to listen, but comes up empty. As always the flower by her ear remains as silent as ever. “…No, still working on it. It’ll come to me eventually… probably.”
“…” He looks so unimpressed. “So have you learned anything so far?”
“Well…” she begins, but again drifts off into thought.
“Or know what you’re supposed to be doing, for that matter?”
“Oh, that, I have an idea. It has nothing to do with Sephiroth. I decided it on my own, got it?” She gives him a confident smirk. “I’m gonna be your guide for the rest of your journey.”
“My what?”
“You heard me,” she scoffs, “You’re definitely not gonna beat him as you are now. Someone has to whip you back into shape.”
“Screw off. What would you know…”
She crosses her arms. “What don’t I know, Cloud Strife of Nibelheim?”
“…!”
“You left your hometown to chase your dream of becoming a hero like Sephiroth, but everything went awry since the tragedy 5 years ago when he went insane and burned down your hometown. You somehow managed to escape, a lot of things you might not remember happened, and now you’re a rogue mercenary working for Avalanche to fight the company that betrayed you. Unfortunately, you’ve just found out that Sephiroth is still not dead, and now you have to figure out how to bury him for good.”
“…”
She then shrugs. “What? You think I’d come all this way to find you and not know who you are?”
He grimaces to himself, now feeling like his privacy has just been violated. “…Fine. So you do know something. But what does my past have to do with you? Were you there when it happened?”
“Nope.”
“Then how do you even know all this? Did he tell you?”
“Nope again. I witnessed the events through a different lens.”
“Meaning…?”
“…” As tempted as Ruby is to outright blab about how she’s from a different dimension, perhaps it would be safer to narrow down her scope for now. She states with a coy smile, “The Lifestream.”
“What? …You can’t be serious.”
“Oh, I’m deadly serious. I even met Sephiroth down there and after a long spat, he dragged me out to the surface. He even branded me with his dirty germs so I’d be forced to listen to him, hmph…”
“Huh? ‘Germs’?”
“Geostigma. It’s a disease perpetuated by his will through Jenova cells. The symptoms can get really bad in people who are emotionally brittle or deeply troubled.” She looks down at her right arm, where her wrist guard has covered it. “He planted them in my hand here a while ago, but I got used to it pretty fast. Don’t even feel them anymore, but the black spots look ugly, so I covered them up.”
“…”
She then punches into her other hand. “But if he thinks I’m gonna be his latest would-be puppet, he’s got another planet-wide disaster incoming!” She growls cutely like a lapdog trying to puff itself up. “I came here to make my own decisions! Who I follow or what I want to learn is my choice and mine alone!”
“Uh… yeah.”
“This is all his fault anyway. On his quest to take over the planet, he ran into a problem that’s affecting said planet and wants me to ‘fix’ it for him. I don’t even know where to even begin…” She shrugs. “Well, while I figure that out, I thought I’d stop by and check on you too.”
“Whoa, hold up. A problem that’s affecting the entire planet… other than him?”
“Yeah…” She lets off a sigh. “I’ll admit, I’m also partly to blame.”
“What did you do?”
“…” Ruby is about to answer that, but thinks about it again and then shakes her head. “You know what, it’s gonna be a really long story. You’re in a hurry anyway, right?”
“Hey. You already told me this much. Can’t you keep it brief?”
“I’ve already been keeping it ‘brief’, but you either don’t believe me or don’t understand anything, so either way, I’m not gonna make any more sense!”
“Hmph. At least there’s something we can agree on.”
“Sorry for keeping you, by the way. If you want, I can come with you and help explain to your Avalanche buddies what’s the holdup.”
“…”
Even though he did say he’d hear her out, he’s already had enough listening to her go in circles. The more he tries to grill her, the less sense she makes, and he’s not being paid for this shit. That said, she still knows way too much to be let go. Who knows where she’d run off or whom else she’d blab all this to. Even scarier is if there may be someone out there who’d be willing to believe her nonsense.
“…Fine, we’ll save it for later.” He quickly adds, “But they’re not my buddies.”
“Cohorts, then. But I’m sure you’ll get to know them better soon enough.”
“Don’t group me in with them. When we get back, I’m leaving you to fend for yourself. Whatever they do to you, it’s none of my business.” He turns off for the street.
“Hey, where are you going?” Ruby points off a different way. “You should go this way.”
“Why? The station’s around the block. It’s more direct this way.”
“But you’ll get to meet a mysterious local florist waiting this way and you can buy a flower from her!”
“…” He heads off his way again. “Not interested.”
“Don’t give me that! You’re going to see her!” Ruby pursues him and drags him back her way.
He shakes her off and grabs her by the arm instead. “Don’t tell me what to do! You’re the one coming with me!”
She groans as she lets him pull her along. “God, you’re stubborn… Can’t even stop to do a sidequest to win Tifa’s favor…”
“!” As soon as she mentions that name, Cloud freezes up. He feels a cold sweat come on as he turns back to her. “…You even know about Tifa?”
“I know Barret too. He has a little girl named Marlene, who’s the sweetest thing ever. If you want, you can give her the flower instead. I won’t mind.”
“…” He looks very uncomfortable as a faint blush comes over him. It really is looking like there’s no secret that she doesn’t know. With a frustrated groan, he releases his grip on her and turns back to face her with his arms crossed again. “…Fine. Where’s this florist?”
She beams triumphantly. “Right this way, sir!”
She zips around and takes off in a blitzing speed, and he hurries to catch up so he doesn’t lose sight of her. But as she rounds a street corner out into the open street, it’s like she’s vanished into thin air. He looks around frantically to find her again, and while in a bit of a panic, he nearly runs into a young woman carrying a basket of flowers. She’s just as surprised to see him, but stops short of actually bumping into him. Fortunately, she’s kept an eye on her basket and her flowers are safe.
“Whoa! …Sorry.”
“No, it’s okay! I’m sorry I wasn’t looking. I’m in a hurry to find someone…”
“Ah… Actually, so am I…”
He drifts off as a realization hits him. A local florist, huh? This woman is carrying some flowers with her. Could this be who Ruby was talking about? But where the hell did she go?
Before he notices, he’s come to stare down this woman too, and she looks a little unnerved. “Um… can I help you, sir?”
“Uh? Ah, sorry…” He quickly turns away shyly. “Uh… I was just wondering if you’ve seen a Wutaian-looking girl with a ponytail and a guard on her right arm…”
The woman looks rather surprised to hear it. “Oh! That’s the person I’m looking for too!”
“Huh? You know her?”
“Yes… Well, actually, I just met her a little while ago, but she seems to know me pretty well.”
Cloud’s attention has been got and he gets serious. “She said the same thing to me too.”
“She did, did she…” And now, the woman catches onto something, and she breaks out a charming giggle.
“Huh?”
“Sorry. I just remembered that she wanted to introduce me to someone.” She then makes a gentle smile. “Well, looks like we’ve met now.”
“…” He blinks back blankly, finding himself at a total loss for words. Maybe it’s something about this lady that is naturally disarming, or maybe he’s just not used to talking with girls, but either way, he’s just a sitting duck when it comes to these moments.
Noticing his visible awkwardness, she moves on and asks, “By the way, where did you last see her?”
“…Uh? Oh.” He turns back toward the direction he’d come. “We met in an alley somewhere back there, but as soon as she rounded the corner, it’s like she vanished… Don’t know how.”
“I see. So she led you this way.”
“Seems like it…” He frowns to himself. “But this isn’t good. I have to find her. It’s urgent.”
“Is something wrong?”
“…” He hesitates over how to answer that, but then simply says, “Look, miss. I’m involved in some dangerous things, and that girl knows way too much for her own good. I need to find her so she won’t get into any trouble.”
“Oh…” The woman makes a worried look aside. “That’s what I feared…”
“Hm? You know something about her?”
“Well…” She turns back to him. “She was acting a bit weird earlier, how she said she had to ‘get ready’ and ran off on her own. And shortly after she left, the reactor…”
“…”
“Sir, by any chance, did you see her anywhere near the reactor?”
“…No. That alley was where I met her. Don’t know where she’s been before that.”
The woman lets off a discouraged sigh and then gets upset. “Honestly, that Ruby! She should be more considerate! Running off alone and then a big disaster like this happens… I’m never going to be able to sleep again like this!”
“…”
She then turns back to him with a polite bow. “I’m really sorry, sir! She can be quite the handful…”
“…You said you just met her earlier, right?”
“Yes?”
“And you’re already acting like she’s an old friend or something…”
“Hmm… maybe she is, and I just don’t remember?”
“…”
“I get the feeling she has her ways of knowing things and people… What a mysterious girl.”
He gives her a look in disbelief. So there really is someone who would believe her.
“Anyway, since we’re both looking for her, maybe we can go together?”
He firmly shakes his head. “Sorry, but no. I told you, I’m involved in dangerous things. I can’t go around picking up company.” He starts off on his own, but turns back to her. “It’ll be faster if we split up. You take that road and I’ll take this one.”
“Oh… okay. But we can meet back here if we do find her, right?”
“Yeah… but if you don’t, then don’t bother coming back. The reactor just blew and it’s not safe here either.”
“Right…” She nods with a look of determination. “And when you get the chance, can you bring her back safely to Sector 5? I wanted to talk with her about some things, but I can understand if your situation is more urgent…”
“…” He looks away with an almost guilty expression, given that he was ready to ditch Ruby the first chance he got, but decides to reply with: “Alright, I’ll try, but no promises.”
“Thank you.” She ends with a gentle smile. “Good luck, sir. Take care…”
Just before they both part ways, though, they hear a familiar voice yell out from above them. “HEY!” They look up, and seemingly out of nowhere, Ruby leaps off of the roof of another building and lands hard on the ground before them, but gets up and shakes the nerves out of her legs as if it were nothing.
“Ruby!?” the woman gasps.
“The hell are you doing, you stupid kid!?” Cloud yells, unable to contain himself. “You have a death wish or something!?”
Ruby can’t help but grin from ear to ear. She plays innocent as she says, “Nice, Aerith! Looks like you found him!”
“Where in the world did you go!? I was worried sick, you know! For a moment, I thought you were caught up in that explosion…”
Aerith’s stern motherly tone strikes Ruby right in the heart and she recoils. “Oof. Sorry… I said I’d be back soon.”
She crosses her arms too. “Ruby! You said that you were going to come back home with me! So what’s all this I hear about how you’re involved with this man’s business?”
She shrugs. “Uh… It’s not a big deal. I just wanted to find him for you, but then he took it on himself to drag me somewhere else…”
Ruby finds herself under fire of icy glares from the both of them, and she’s a little shaken by how she can actually feel a sudden chill run through her.
“O-okay, okay!” she whines as she cowers, “I know the kinds of things he’s involved in, so that’s why he thinks I’m a security risk. But I wasn’t going to blab anything to anyone else! Even I’m not that stupid!”
“With how you disappeared on us for no reason, there’s no telling how stupid you can be…” Cloud comments rather coldly.
“Ruby, apologize to him. He was really worried too.”
Ruby scowls to herself, but begrudgingly turns to Cloud with a polite bow. “Sorry.”
“You’re not forgiven. I’m not letting you out of my sight again until we get back.”
“Sheesh, man. I know I might not act like it, but I’m not a kid. In fact, I’m older than either of you.”
“Shut up. If you don’t act like an adult, you’re gonna be treated that way. Now come on.” He grabs her by the arm again. “We’ve wasted enough time here.”
“Wait. Did you buy the flower?”
“…” He swears under his breath and turns back to Aerith. “Uh… Sorry, before you go, can I have one of those?”
“Oh. The flowers?” She turns back to the pretty basket, and after a moment to think about it, she takes a dainty little flower and passes it to him. “Here, you can have it, free of charge.”
“Huh? Are you sure?”
She nods and slides the flower right between his shirt and one of his belt’s suspenders. “Don’t worry about it. I’m sure whoever it is will need it more than I do.”
“…A-alright.” He looks away shyly. “Thanks.”
Ruby smiles proudly. Even in this weird crossed timeline, Aerith still cares enough about Cloud to gift him despite not knowing who he is yet.
“Please take care of them, sir… the flower and Ruby.”
“Y-yeah, I will…” he replies awkwardly, but fires another glare in Ruby’s direction. “…As long as you don’t make any more trouble for me.”
Ruby rolls her eyes. “Yeah, yeah… I’ll be good.”
Aerith chuckles to herself, waves a hand goodbye to them, and heads off on her way to safety. Cloud and Ruby quietly watch her go, shortly disappearing around the corner along a different street, and then turn back to each other.
Ruby grins cheekily as she muses to herself, “Tonight sure is a good time to meet new faces…”
Cloud gives her a suspicious look. “Who are you kidding? You planned all of this, didn’t you?”
“It worked out pretty well, didn’t it? And now you have a pretty flower for Tifa!”
“When we get back there, don’t say a word about me and Tifa, got it?”
“Got it. But I’ll be happy to be your best woman when you two are finally ready!”
“You little…” He rather forcefully yanks her by the arm and hurries off down the road.
That being said, they don’t get too far before running into yet another squad of officers waiting by the bridge overlooking the train tracks.
“Hey! Those two!” one of them calls out, and the rest turn their way.
“Crap…” Cloud finally lets her go just so he can draw his sword.
“Put your weapon down, sir! Hands in the air! Or we’ll shoot!” the squad’s commanding officer yells.
He turns back to Ruby. “Hey, can you fight?”
She whips out her handy knife. “I have this.”
“You’re bringing a knife to a gunfight? Get serious…”
“This knife is all I need.”
Their conversation is cut short again: “Hey! Last warning! Drop your weapons!”
Finally, Cloud turns back to them with a vicious, menacing glare. “I don’t have time to waste on you. Outta the way.”
“That’s it! Fire away, men!”
The next instant would pass by in a blur to an outside observer, but in the midst of the chaos between volleys of fire, the two warriors move so swiftly it’s like they almost vanish from sight. Cloud and Ruby take turns swinging their blades at their enemies, and one by one, they drop like flies in a pool of their own blood. Even the officers who have brought in the riot shields are no match; Ruby easily leaps over the shields and lunges straight for their exposed necks, landing an unnecessary critical hit each time. The rest of the gunmen, meanwhile, are easy pickings for Cloud, who decimates anyone in his way with every swing of his mighty sword. By the end of it, there are but a few officers who scatter away, and then it’s just the commanding officer that remains.
For what it’s worth, even though he’s trembling, this officer still has the guts to stand up to this display of overwhelming force. “W-w-wait! Please! Let’s talk about this!!”
Neither of them reply. With their backs to the street lamps, their dangerous-looking eyes – a set of red and blue, like those from a pair of demons from the underworld – glow faintly in the dark of night. Altogether, it makes an absolutely horrifying image that would shake the resolve of even the most hardened of infantry.
“…I’m not being paid enough for this!!” the officer wails as he scrambles to his feet and runs away.
Cloud and Ruby watch him go and let off a collective sigh of relief. Cloud sheathes his sword and turns back to her.
“Huh… not bad, kid. Looks like you know how to use it.”
“Same with you. That giant slab didn’t get in the way after all.”
“What are you calling a giant slab!?” he snaps back, but then realizes he’s been caught up in her pace and turns away.
Before they can get moving again, though, he hears the rumbling sound of a train running along the rails below them. He turns back to look over the bridge and catches one of the last trains just as it zooms away.
“Shit… We wasted too much time. That was the last train! Now what…?”
Ruby peers over the edge with a curious look in her eyes and scans the area.
He turns back to her in a hurry. “Come on! We need to catch it at the next station!”
Before he can run off, though, she stops him by the shoulder. “Hang on. I know a shortcut.”
“Shortcut? Where?”
“Stand back and give me a bit of room.”
“…?”
Nonetheless, he steps back as she instructed. Ruby takes a deep breath and stretches her arms into the air. She then climbs onto the edge of the bridge and prepares to leap off of it.
“Hey! What are you doing? The train’s already…”
Before he can even finish talking, she makes the leap. He races back to the edge to check on her, but what he finds is nothing short of miraculous. For just an instant, she looks like she’s about to drop hard onto the tracks below, but then her body disappears in a flash of light that nearly blinds him. By the time he looks back down, she’s vanished yet again. Then, he hears the sound of heavy wingbeats overhead, and when he looks up, he gasps. A large pure-white dragon flutters in the air before him, looking like quite the regal sight. But what really gives her identity away is the little white flower slipped behind one of her ears and being held in place by that ear.
“You…” he begins, but quickly loses the rest of his words.
Not that it matters; he barely has time to process what’s happening when the dragon suddenly swoops down upon him and snatches him up in one of her claws.
“W-whoa! Hey! Ruby!?”
She then leaps off the bridge once more, but sails high into the air over the rest of the town, instead of following the train down its narrow tunnel. Before Cloud can even protest, they’re already flying off in a totally different direction for the edge of the city.
Chapter Text
“Ruby! Where are you going!?”
It all happened so fast that it feels like a blur, and yet, Cloud can’t deny what he just witnessed before his eyes. Ruby was already a weird one from the start. She appeared out of nowhere, with Sephiroth expecting her, and just asserted herself into Cloud’s business. She knows too much about him, but can’t tell him why for whatever reason. She even insisted on following him everywhere, even though she isn’t sure how that will help her on her quest. And now, he’s discovered that she can also transform into a dragon and is currently carrying him in one of her claws.
“Hey, can you hear me!? The trains are back there!”
“You’re taking a flight with a dragon and you still want to take the trains?”
“…”
As she has taken on the form of a much larger body, her voice drops a few pitches and reverberates a little as if speaking through a microphone. Or perhaps this is naturally the voice of any regal dragon using the power of telepathy… Either way, with such a commanding tone, even a casual comment like this can easily silence any hyperactive dog, or even a stubborn ex-Soldier.
“As I said, this is a shortcut. We’re headed for the Sector 7 slums, but I don’t want people looking up and seeing a dragon flying around. They’re in a panic already.”
“You even know where to go, huh…”
“Now you’re getting it. I won’t go wild, but hang on tight. It’ll be a quick trip.”
As much as he wants to object to this, he has nothing. They did just miss the last train, and he doesn’t have another way back to the slums that would be quick. He’s just gonna have to deal with this bumpy ride. Still, though he may be an ex-Soldier who can leap pretty high into the air, the only times his feet have left the ground for this long before were whenever he’d have to take a ride on some company truck. He’d sooner feel a little queasy than enjoy the ride, especially from all the swaying motions.
“…Ugh…”
He starts to feel his head spin as the cityscape and unfinished scaffolding below begins to blur together. Is it just because they’re traveling so fast through the air, or is it actually his own eyesight that’s blurring? He shuts his eyes and holds his head still, or at least he tries. He feels really nauseous after just a short while. If he has a say in it, this will be the last time he’s gonna be taking a ride like this.
“…Ah. Sorry,” she speaks up.
“Huh?”
As she’s caught onto his plight, Ruby then lays him out and carries him in both claws. Despite that deep voice, her tone seems to change for the gentler as she says, “Hang in there and rest your eyes. We’ll be landing soon.”
“…”
This is definitely the first time he’s ever been carried – almost caressed – in the arms of a creature that towers over him. He can’t help but feel a little detached from what he knew as reality and just a tinge of embarrassment, but says nothing more. He just wants this moment to end so he can pretend it never happened.
Once they reach the edge of the plate, Ruby adroitly zips back around and descends through the space between the upper plate and the outer city gates, past the unfinished scaffolding at the sector’s edge, and over the heaps of junk that have been left scattered for who knows how long. In just a few short minutes, they’ve arrived by the Sector 7 slums. She flutters to a halt at the outskirts of the town away from prying eyes, drops down as gently as she can muster, though it’s still a bit of a sharp swing down, and finally releases her passenger.
Cloud drops to the ground on all fours, gasping for air. Even before he realized it, he was holding his breath during the descent. Now that they’re back on solid ground, he’s not gonna leave it for a good long while.
“Hey. It wasn’t that bad, was it?”
“…Don’t talk to me.”
She rolls her eyes and decides to leave him alone for now. In another flash of light, she returns back to her human form and gives her body another all-around stretch. By the time she notices it, though, a stray white cat has been standing by and just witnessed her appear out of nowhere. It stares back in terrified silence, and the two have a silent stare-off.
Now that she thinks about it, there was a little girl who lived here who is constantly looking around for her runaway kitties. There are just a lot of cats around in this neighborhood; one of the few precious things that liven the otherwise depressing slump that this place is. Ruby gives the cat a curious head tilt, trying to soften the impression, but the kitty still doesn’t lower its guard. She doesn’t make any move toward it, just crouches down to meet it at a more even eye level, but the kitty then hisses and runs off. She sighs to herself and gets back up. Even when it’s a living creature that’s not a plant, it still doesn’t want to talk with her. She just has the best luck with other creatures sometimes.
Cloud holds his head as he recollects his bearings and gets back to his feet. He then stares off idly as if still processing what just happened.
With a cheerful smile, she says, “Well, by how quiet the town sounds, we’re here early. Barret and the others should be back soon, though.”
“…” He lets off a sigh and rubs his head. “Feels like no matter what I have to say, this won’t end well…”
“Huh? What’s wrong?”
He fires an irritated look at her. “Because of you, I missed the last train. They all probably think I’m dead.”
“Oh, yeah. You got some ’splaining to do too. Barret’s gonna be freaking out.”
“Hmph. Him? He’d probably care more about the dirt I’m standing on.”
“Aw. He may not seem like it, but he’s a big teddy bear on the inside.”
“Oh, come on. Don’t tell me you know everything about him too…”
“Haha! Don’t worry, you’re not alone. When we meet ‘the others’ on your journey,” she says with a wink, “I’ll be happy to spill their secrets too.”
He gives her a very disapproving look. “Do you have any sense of privacy?”
Ruby smiles all innocent-like, but casts a somewhat disheartened glance aside when reminded of her previous lifestyle. “…I think I’ve had too much of it until recently.”
“Hm?”
“Nah, never mind. No point stalling around here! Let’s go catch ’em at the station!” She breaks out into a run.
“…” He takes a brief moment to wonder about what’s wrong with this girl, but then hurries after her.
They quickly make their way through the town to the station on the other side… at first. Where Cloud tries his best not to make eye contact with anyone so they can streamline their route, after just barely a few steps into town, Ruby does the exact opposite. She insists on taking a look around to marvel at all the detail on everything – the buildings, the people, the pets, and even the trash on the ground. It gets so troublesome for him that he has to walk back and pull her away from idle conversation with the locals.
“What are you doing? You said it yourself that we shouldn’t stall.”
“I’m appreciating the detail on everything! It’s a nostalgic trip for me, leave me be…”
“When did you ever come here?”
“Never… but it’s one of those things where I’ve seen it before plenty of times.”
He rolls his eyes. “Of course… You and your ‘Lifestreaming’ or whatever you call it…”
“Ooh, that’s a good name. Can I steal that?”
“…Sure.”
Though it’s fairly late in the night and this is the slums, the train station isn’t empty at this time. Plenty of people have heard the news of the reactor explosion and have come by to wait for their friends and loved ones to return home safely. Cloud takes a look around at all the worried and anxious faces, and then back to Ruby, who stands out as the lone excited – almost giddy in a way – person here. It’s a little creepy; like she doesn’t even care that a huge bombing just happened. Just what has this girl been through to be this disillusioned?
Cloud asks her in a low voice, “Hey, Ruby…”
“Hm?”
“Where do you come from anyway?”
“Um… The Lifestr-”
“No. Where are you from, really? You have a hometown, right?”
“…” Ruby looks idly off into the distance. Just like that, her excitement is quashed in an instant.
“…Don’t you?”
Now isn’t the time to be bringing up her actual past. She shakes her head and plays to her persona’s lore instead. “Not that I know of.”
“…”
Cloud can’t say that he didn’t expect something like this, but it still strikes a deep chord with him. It only makes sense that someone who says they come from the “Lifestream” wouldn’t exactly have a particular place to return to on the surface.
“Do you at least have any family you know?”
She shakes her head again. “They’re not in this world.”
This conversation got depressing really fast. He decides to change gears.
“Um… You said earlier that you were going to see that florist, right?”
That seems to work. Ruby is back to smiling. “Yes. And I’m gonna bring you with me.”
And he’s back to frowning. “I never agreed to that…”
“I’m telling you because it’s in your best interest to come. I’m gonna drop some truth bombs when we see her again, and you might just find some answers you’re looking for.”
“Why her? Who is she anyway?”
“Hmm…” Ruby pauses to think it over, and then makes a content smile as she says, “I suppose, if I do still have someone to call ‘family’, it would be her.”
“Even though you just met her earlier?”
“Yeah, but time isn’t everything in a relationship! Sometimes, you just know you vibe with someone even at first impressions!”
“…”
“Mm, I know it doesn’t happen with everyone, but even you got that feeling when you first met her, right?”
“Huh? What feeling?”
“The feeling that she’s someone you can trust.”
He glances toward her and then away again. “…No. I didn’t get that feeling.”
“…” Ruby looks utterly disappointed in him. She sighs and mutters quietly, “So much for ‘cloud’… You’re more like a brick.”
He mutters back, “…Shiny dragon form aside, you’re just an unpolished rock yourself.”
“Ha!” Instead of feeling insulted, she’s amused. “Look at you, keeping up with wordplay! We might just get along after all.”
“Get real…”
Like between rival siblings, their supposedly meaningful conversation ends with yet another petty spat. After some quiet but tense few minutes later, even amid all the anxious mumblings and whisperings around them, Ruby picks up with her heightened senses the sound of the last train of the night rolling in at last.
“Come on!” she whispers excitedly to Cloud, tugging him along.
“What?”
“Let’s sneak to the front! The train’s coming!”
“Why are you so excited? It’s not going to be a fun time…”
Now that he listens carefully, though, he does make out the sound of a train chugging closer and closer. Soon enough, even the billows of smoke are visible. He follows her through the crowd to the platform before the tracks and waits with bated breath.
As the train comes in, the crowds begin to flood the platform. It comes to a screeching stop, releases one last great puff of smoke, and settles down into silence. At last, the train doors open, and the refugees flood out into the open. Ruby keeps a keen eye out for their awaited passengers and would have wandered off on her own again if not for Cloud keeping her in place. He’s not going through that again.
Eventually, as the stream of people begin to clear out, the last of the passengers finally step out. It’s Barret and the team, and they look like they’ve just come from a funeral. It might as well have been; even though they had just met their latest recruit, his disappearance since they left the reactor has weighed heavily on their minds. They’re hesitant to return to base like this. They aren’t even in the mood to look at each other.
“Heeey!” a young lady’s voice calls out to them.
“?”
They turn to see who it is, and seemingly out of nowhere, Cloud appears from the shadows into the street light’s moderate glow. Ruby stands beside him with bright red eyes glistening in the dark.
“…Took you long enough.”
“Cloud!?” they all gasp together.
“My God… It really is you! You’re alive! I-I thought you were…” Barret begins to gush, but as soon as he catches himself, he gets mad – no, not just mad, absolutely, dangerously livid. He marches up to Cloud, huffing up a storm. “Where the HELL were you, merc!? We didn’t see you at all since we last split up!”
“I made it back here just fine. Looks like you guys were a little late.”
“You cocky sonnuva bitch… I TOLD you to meet up at the station, and you run your ass back here by yourself!?”
“Just caught a different ride, is all. It’s no big deal.”
Barret points angrily at the train behind them just to make a point. “We waited at that station for you until the LAST GODDAMN TRAIN! And you never showed! What were you even thinkin’, huh!? You want your damn pay or not!?”
“I’m here, aren’t I? Isn’t that all that matters?”
“Shuddap!!” He shakes a fist in his face. “Just for that, it’s cutting into your pay!! We don’t need no renegade ex-Soldier runnin’ off playing hide n’ seek! You’re off the next mission, Goddamn it!”
“…” Cloud looks just a little irked, but silently passes a glare with all his frustrations onto the girl beside him, who is rather amused to see him get chewed out.
Finally, Barret seems to calm down just enough to notice said girl beside him. “And who the hell is this?”
Ruby makes a cute, disarming smile. “I’m Ruby. I’m the one who brought Cloud back.”
“…” He raises an suspicious eyebrow and confronts Cloud once more. “You didn’t say anything about someone who could pick you up…”
“I ran into her while I was giving the cops the runaround,” Cloud replies coolly, “We ended up talking for a bit too long, though, and I missed the last train.”
“Another of your childhood buddies?”
“Not at all. I’ve never met her before, but she knew way too much about me. In fact,” he adds, turning to the rest of them, “She knows about all of us.”
“Huh?” “What the…” “Really?”
“You mean, she knows about Avalanche…?” Jessie asks.
“Not just Avalanche.” He looks back to Barret. “She even namedropped you and Tifa.”
“What!? How would she…?”
“I tried to question her, but nothing she said made any sense. Don’t know if she’s bullshitting me or if she’s just delusional, but either way, I figured it’d be too risky to let her run off.”
“Not that I would have,” Ruby adds, with a mischievous glint in her eyes, “I sought out Cloud myself. He’s not going anywhere without me from here on out.”
He ignores her. “That’s why I went ‘missing’. That explanation work for you?”
“…” Barret doesn’t complain, but he still glares at him like a hawk.
“So how did you get back so fast?” Biggs then asks, “It’s not like we came with parachutes or anything, and that’s clearly a 300 meter drop…”
“I turned into a dragon and dropped him off,” Ruby replies rather casually.
For a moment, a still silence comes over them as everyone else stares in disbelief at her. Even Cloud is surprised that she’d just come out with it.
“What? Never heard of someone who can transform into other creatures?”
“Wait, you mean it?” Wedge unexpectedly seems to get excited. “The real deal? With huge wings and claws and fire breath?”
“Yeah, but my ‘fire breath’ is more like a giant laser.”
“Whoa! That’s awesome!”
“Now, wait a minute,” Biggs cuts in again, “I’ve heard stories of people working with dragons long in the past, but a person being able to transform into one?”
She raises an eyebrow in suspicion herself. “You guys can use magic through materia, though? How is ‘transformation’ too out there?”
“It’s not that we don’t believe it,” Jessie answers instead, “But we never dealt with someone with this power before. So you can just change forms, just like that?”
“Yep.”
“Oh, wow. That is pretty cool.”
“Yeah! It is cool, isn’t it?” Ruby jabs an elbow toward Cloud, but he just sidesteps her without a word.
Up to now, Barret’s been listening quietly to the conversation and frankly has been in so much shock that he hasn’t found the words to say. But eventually, when he does, he makes a stern expression and marches right up to Ruby.
“…Not to bring the mood down, guys, but this girl ain’t good news.”
“Huh? What’s wrong, Barret?” Jessie asks.
“Yeah. What’s wrong with having a dragon-girl as a pal?” Wedge follows suit.
“Did we all forget what the merc just said? She namedropped me and Tifa. How does she know? How much does she know…?” He adds, lowering his voice just so they can hear, “And what are the chances that she’s actually a spy…?”
As soon as he brings it up, the other three go quiet and exchange awkward looks.
Ruby shrugs back rather nonchalantly. “Yeah, I get it. But I assure you, I’m the last person in this whole world to be with Shinra. I’ll be happy to explain myself, but shouldn’t we stop by the bar first? Tifa’s still waiting for us.”
“Hmph…” He turns back to Cloud. “You watch her, merc.”
“Huh? Why me?”
“You’re the one who brought her here, ya idiot. It’s gonna be your responsibility. And besides…” he points a threatening finger in his face. “Just because I’m letting you off for missing the train don’t mean you’re entirely in the clear either.”
“…”
He turns to the rest of them. “Let’s go! Back to base. We got loads more to discuss, especially with this kid.”
“Yeah!”
Barret and the three then hurry off back to town without Cloud and Ruby. Despite the awkward tensions, though, Ruby is as relaxed as ever. She turns back to Cloud with an anticipating smile.
“That went well, I think.”
“…In what way?”
“They haven’t killed either of us yet.”
He scoffs. “Can’t say that’s a good sign. Are you really gonna tell them the same thing you told me, about seeing things from the Lifestream and all that?”
“Sure. What’s wrong?”
He shakes his head. “Do you even hear yourself? Who’s gonna believe you if you keep that up?”
“Well, someone has to, or I’d have no purpose being here.”
“Well, thanks for not explaining anything. Barret just dropped me off the next mission, so now I don’t either…”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. I’ll make sure to get you back on the mission.”
“You? Don’t make me laugh. What can you say to him after that awful first impression?”
“Ha. This coming from the guy who came out of nowhere and told his boss ‘Took you long enough’? No wonder he got mad.”
He looks away, just a little embarrassed. “Shut up… I didn’t see you coming up with anything better.”
“Nah, man. That was all on you. All you had to do was be a little humbler and apologize, and he’d actually listen.”
“…” He grumbles to himself in disagreement, but decides not to keep arguing.
From in the distance, they hear said boss’ angry shouts: “Yo, MERC!! Get yo’ slow ass over here!”
Ruby chuckles to herself. “Now that I think about it, this whole mess could have been avoided if you guys had just kept some walkie-talkies.”
“…”
“Maybe consider some next time? I’ll leave it to you to suggest it so it’s not like I’m doing everything for you.”
“What are you talking about? You haven’t done anything but cause trouble for me.”
“But at least you weren’t alone in getting yelled at…” She cuts herself off once she realizes it. “Oh. Well, you did take all the yelling. He just gave me a frown.”
He growls. “…After we’re finished here, I’m dragging you by the neck to Sector 5.”
She laughs. “That sounds tedious.”
He turns away without looking back and hurries off, and she skips along in tow.
~
“Daddy!”
“Oh! Barret! Guys! Welcome back!”
As soon as Barret and gang walk right up the stairs to 7th Heaven, a little girl in a pink dress comes running out to greet him, followed by a young woman with long black hair and a friendly smile. Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie exchange smiles and high-fives with her too as they head inside.
“Hey! Daddy’s back! How’s my baby girl been?” he laughs as he picks up the little girl and sits her on his buff bicep.
“I’ve been helping Tifa, Daddy!”
“Haha! Great! That’s what I like to hear.”
“Looks like the mission went well?” Tifa asks.
“Yeah, all according to plan… mostly.” He finishes with a concerned frown.
Her smile falters. “Mostly?” She peers around. “Where’s Cloud?”
“He’s on the way.” With little more than that, he gives the giggling Marlene a bright grin and proudly struts inside.
Tifa waits a little longer and finally catches sight of the guy hurrying on over. She’s surprised to find that he’s coming with someone else, but is relieved all the same.
“Will you shut up already? Don’t tell me what to do!” Cloud barks back at Ruby.
“This is important to get right! Your future depends on it!”
“Who asked you!?”
“Cloud!” Tifa calls to him with a friendly wave.
“Tifa?”
“Tifaaa!!” Ruby answers too, waving both arms in the air.
When they finally run up, Ruby jumps at her for a glomp and nearly knocks her over, but thanks to her martial arts discipline, Tifa manages to catch herself and this strange girl. Still, Ruby isn’t ready to let go and practically pins her arms by her sides in a tight hug.
“I’m so happy to see you!! You don’t know me, but I missed you!!”
“Ruby! Let her go! What are you doing!?”
Cloud tugs on her hard, and just as he does, she lets Tifa free. The two of them end up tumbling back to the ground, and while she’s laughing, he impatiently shoves her off. Though quite bewildered at this new encounter, Tifa can’t help but nervously laugh along.
“Cloud, who’s your new friend?”
He climbs back to his feet and dusts himself off. “She’s not… she’s a pest.”
“I’m Ruby!” She bounces back up. “I brought Cloud back safe and sound!”
Tifa gives her an amused look. “Oh? I hope he hasn’t been too much trouble.”
“Well, he’s been fighting with me every step of the way, but other than that, he’s been good.”
“Ah… That does sound like him.”
“It’s kinda annoying, though. Like earlier, I had some suggestions for how he can ask you out and he tried to lose me-”
“Hey,” Cloud cuts in, “Don’t you have more important things to tell everyone?”
“Sure, sure. Come on in, guys. The whole squad needs to hear this…”
Ruby gives them a quick salute and hops her way inside, leaving Cloud and Tifa in an awkward silence. For just a moment, they exchange glances, but he shyly looks away. She then notices the dainty flower that has been hanging safely against his chest.
“Oh. First a new friend and now a flower? Looks like you’ve had a fun night,” she teases.
“It wasn’t anything like that. I just ran into some odd people earlier. One thing led to another and…” He drifts off before he finishes, but then picks up the flower and passes it to her. “Anyway, I got this for you.”
“For me? Oh, Cloud, you shouldn’t have…” She accepts it with a sweet smile.
“No problem.”
Tifa watches the flower with a thoughtful look. “I also noticed that girl… Ruby, was it? She also had a flower like this.”
“Huh? Oh… With how hyper she is, I’m surprised she hasn’t dropped it yet.”
“Hmm… sometimes looks can be deceiving. She’s probably a very careful person to tend to the little things like that.”
“…”
“Anyway, I’m just glad that the mission was a success… though by the sounds of it, the explosion was bigger than we expected.”
“Yeah… but that’s Jessie’s problem to figure out.”
She doesn’t look too confident with that response. “Cloud… I hope you’ve been getting along with them.”
He glances away and mumbles, “…I’ve been trying.”
She watches him walk in and makes a little sigh to herself before she follows him inside.
Seventh Heaven has been closed early thanks to Barret and gang being away at work, and Tifa has been cleaning up the place with Marlene’s help, but they have left out a few glasses on the table for the returning victors in case they want to celebrate. Cloud helps himself to a seat at the counter while Tifa prepares some late-night drinks for everyone. Now that the gang’s all here again, one would expect the bar to be filled with a rowdy cheer once more, but there’s definitely something off about the atmosphere here. Whatever had happened, it’s obvious that there’s one thing that has upset the balance.
Ruby is looking around the bar in awe and excitement, bouncing around the room almost like she’s teleporting from place to place, and greeting everyone and everything, even saluting the picture on the fridge. As glad as Barret is to see his daughter again, the good vibes quickly fade when Ruby suddenly appears before them.
“Hi! How’s it going?”
Barret gives her an unamused frown, while Marlene looks completely lost. “What do you want?”
“Nothing much.” She offers Marlene the flower that she’s been carrying by her ear. “I’ve been meaning to give this to you. Here you go!”
“…”
“Ah, right. Stranger danger…” Ruby backs off and clears her throat. “I’m Ruby. It’s nice to meet you! Though we just met, I hope we can be good friends!” She offers her the flower again.
“…”
“…” Barret watches her carefully, but then turns to his daughter. “Marlene… What do you say back?”
“Um… T-thank you. Nice to meet you too.” Marlene accepts the flower in both hands, but quickly hides behind her dad again.
Barret nods back, proud of his girl, but turns back to Ruby with a raised eyebrow. “…So you know her too?”
“Yep. Your daughter’s so adorable.”
His frown doesn’t disappear, but he replies with an earnest, “…Thanks.”
As Ruby moves away again and joins Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie at their table to check on them, Marlene turns back to her dad with a curious look.
“Daddy, who is that?”
“…” He then makes a gentle smile and answers softly, “Just someone we met at work. We’re just getting to know each other. It’s nothing to worry about.”
She nods back quietly and keeps a steady, curious stare on Ruby.
Meanwhile at the counter, Tifa has pulled Cloud aside. “By the way, where did you meet Ruby?”
“After we left the reactor, somewhere in Sector 8. She was the one who found me.”
“Oh? Why was she looking for you?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out…”
“You don’t know?”
He shakes his head. “But she knows us… a little too well.” He then adds in a whisper, “She even knows what happened back in Nibelheim.”
“What?” she gasps softly. “But how…?”
“I tried to ask her, but nothing she said made sense. So she said to wait until we got back…”
Barret sets Marlene back down on the seats at one of the tables where Ruby has been chatting away with Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie. The other Avalanche members quickly quiet down when their boss comes up and takes a seat with them.
“So…” he says as he sits back, “You had some things to tell us?”
Ruby’s cheerful grin then fades into a calmer smile. “Yeah. You all should hear this…”
Everyone has gone dead quiet as they listen up. She pulls her chair back further to have a wider view of her audience and clears her throat.
“My name is Ruby, but that’s what I go by now. You see, I’m not just a freak of nature with magic powers. I once came from a very different time - from this planet’s ancient past, in fact. In those days, I went by a different name: Rubia the Radiant, daughter to Bahamut, and honorary Summon Guardian.”
By now, even Cloud has turned around to give her his full attention. This wasn’t what she told him before. Well, he still wouldn’t have believed her at first, but now it’s starting to make some surface-level kind of sense. It’s still not the straight answer that he had hoped from her, but he wonders why she didn’t just tell him from the beginning.
“‘Summon Guardian’?” Barret frowns, looking more confused than concerned. “You mean the Summon monsters that come from materia?”
“All that’s left of them now is in those materia, yes. But back then, they were real and they lived with the Cetra in harmony.”
“The Cetra…” he mutters as he dives back into deep thought, “…So they do still exist.”
“Whoa! Seriously?” Biggs then cuts in, “You’re one of that ancient race? With the power to listen to the planet and all that?”
“In short, yes. Here, as proof, I’ll show you a little trick…”
She then raises a hand before her, clasps her fingers together, and with a silent chant in her heart, emits a small shining ball of light from the palm of her hand, no bigger than a low-level materia. Now that really gets everyone’s attention and awe.
“As you can see, I earned that epithet for good reason.” She begins to juggle it around like a ball, but it flutters down gently like a feather. “Though, I will admit that I’m not the true daughter to Bahamut. He took me under his wing from my earliest memories, and it’s stuck ever since…”
Marlene is especially fascinated by the ball of light. Her eyes haven’t left it since Ruby first created it. Feeling a little playful, Ruby lets it float in the air and gently bumps it over in her direction, where Marlene catches the ball in both hands. Her face lights up when she touches it.
“Daddy, it’s warm! Here, touch it!”
“Oh, really?” He catches it when she drops it in his hand, and he nods back. “Hmm… It’s pretty comfortable.” He gives it back to her and turns back to Ruby. “What is this thing, anyway?”
“Haha. It’s just a sample of my light magic, but one adjusted for human touch. You can keep it as a lightbulb if you want.”
“Really?” Marlene blushes as she smiles. “Thank you!”
With his daughter completely enamored by Ruby, Barret starts to ease up on their visitor. After all, Marlene’s a sharp girl. If she could tell there was something wrong, she would say it. And to be fair, Ruby hasn’t done anything that suspicious yet.
“Wow… not only does she have laser breath, she can even do that?” Even Wedge’s eyes are now sparkling with delight.
“Never would’ve imagined something like this ‘light magic’ coming from something like a dragon,” Biggs remarks, looking impressed.
“Maybe she’s like a Holy Dragon? Those existed before, right?” Jessie suggests.
“I guess, but…” He turns back to Ruby. “Are you?”
She shakes her head. “Nah. I often get mistaken for one since I look pure white in that form, but I don’t follow enough religious texts to count as anything ‘holy’. Though, I was once raised in a monastery if that counts.”
“Uh…” He shrugs. “I wouldn’t know. The most involved we’ve been with religious stuff is some things we learned about planetology.”
“Ah… is that what it’s called now?”
“Yeah. Did it used to go by a different name?”
“Uh… I guess it’d be ‘biogenesis’? It was a part of everyone’s education back in the day…”
Barret then calmly recites something from his past studies: “‘We who are born of the planet, with her we speak. Her flesh we shape. Unto her promised land she well one day return. By her loving grace and providence may we take our place in paradise.’”
“Oh my God…” Ruby groans. “I’ve heard those lines more than enough times… People are still reciting them?”
“Oh, sorry… Was just wondering if you’d recognize them from somewhere.”
“Not just somewhere. It’s one of the beginning passages of the Vedas, the holy scripture with even more ancient origins. It was especially prevalent among the Cetra and was basically their go-to guide on how to be a proper person. It’s probably as old to me as the Cetra may be to people today…”
“Huh. Didn’t know that.”
“I’m sure a lot from those days have been lost to time. I also jumped across time, so I don’t know everything. It can’t be helped…” She shrugs. “But I’ll still try to answer any questions. It’ll be easier than just spilling my entire life story. Got any others?”
“Then, if you don’t mind,” he raises his hand as he raises another question, “So what happened to the Cetra anyway? And if all that’s left of the Summons is their materia, how did you end up as the last one?”
She tilts her head curiously. “I’m not sure, actually…”
“Not sure?”
“I’m still trying to figure out why, but there’s a lot of my memories that are missing, and I haven’t found a way to go back.”
“Your memories are missing?” Wedge asks, while still slurping from his cup.
“I can only recall certain events from the past, but I can’t see how they all connect yet. I’ve even traveled the Lifestream to rediscover those missing pieces, but have come up short.”
“Oh… wow.”
“How do you travel the Lifestream?” Jessie then asks, “I always thought that was just another way of saying that people ‘pass away’.”
“In my case, it’s pretty literal. I’ve found a place on the surface to dive down to the core. The Lifestream runs throughout the planet from within and sprouts life back up on the surface.”
“Wow… so there really is a place to go and a way to get there.”
“So does it really exist? The ‘Promised Land’ that the Cetra have spoken of in their texts?” Barret asks again.
“Hmm, yes and no… Usually it’s said in a metaphorical way, where people live and die and pass on into the afterlife, but there is an actual gateway into that ‘land’, which even among us back in the day, was a reference to the Lifestream itself.”
“I see…” He nods back thoughtfully.
“I’ve been traveling around the world to learn more about myself and this planet’s history to help fill the gaps, but it’s been slow going…” She lets off a sigh. “It doesn’t help that Shinra has been sucking up that life either.”
“Damn Shinra…” he snarls, “It’s not enough that they don’t care about the planet’s current well-being. They even gotta erase precious history that’s been lost to time! They really are good for nothin’…”
“You’re taking them down, right?” She takes a polite bow. “I’ll be happy to lend you guys a hand. My power is yours to command.”
“Heh. Spoken like a true ‘Summon’, alright.” He crosses his arms, looking a bit impressed. “Well, kid, you got me. You might just be a big help after all…”
Ruby’s eyes twinkle with excitement. “So does that mean I get to join you guys on your next mission?”
“Why not? Welcome aboard!” Barret raises a glass in toast to their new member. “Anyone who’s fighting Shinra is a friend in my book! What do ya’ll say?”
The rest of his crew raises their glasses in toast too. “Yeah!” “Alright!” “We’re still getting a little bigger by the day, huh?”
And just like that, Ruby has won over the hearts of this group of Avalanche. Tifa smiles and joins in the festive mood herself. Meanwhile, Cloud keeps to himself and sips his cup of booze moodily. However she managed to do it, she already redeemed herself in their eyes. Now if only she can keep her word and get him back on the mission…
“By the way, just for reasons, it’s really important that Cloud sticks with me. Do you mind if he stays for the mission too?”
“Huh? Ah… fine. Whatever,” Barret says with a sigh. “Kid’s hopeless without someone to keep an eye on him anyway.”
“…” Well, she kept her word after all, but somehow, he doesn’t feel any happier.
“Speaking of which, Boss, what is the next mission?” Biggs asks him, “You just gave us a quick mention that there’d be more after this…”
“Right.” Barret nods and turns back to the rest. “So our next target’s gonna be the No. 5 reactor, and ya’ll should know the plan by now. But just for our new recruit, let’s review.”
“Oh, don’t mind me,” Ruby replies, “I have a general idea of what you guys do.”
“You do?”
She grins. “Blow up Shinra shit, get the Avalanche name out there, rouse people to fight against the evil that has ruled over them with an iron fist…”
He returns her a confident smirk too. “…Yeah, sounds about right.”
Tifa then clarifies, “For the record, we’ve only recently started on the ‘blowing stuff up’. Times are hard, after all…”
Meanwhile, Barret moves on, “Jessie, you got enough firepower for another infiltration?”
“Hmm… To be honest, we’re running a little low. I’ve been trying to get in contact with our source, but there’s been no response lately.”
He frowns. “Then you know where to go to get more?”
“I have an idea, but it’s pretty risky… There’s a Shinra warehouse base on the upper plate, so we could probably snatch up some materials. It might be heavily guarded, though, so we should try to find some way in without alerting everyone.”
“Well, do what you gotta do. We got no time to be waiting around for your source to respond.”
“Right… Who knows if they’ve already been compromised…”
“Oh, boy. Looks like we’re in for a tough raid…” Biggs sighs.
“But we have Cloud and Ruby with us now!” Wedge suggests, “It shouldn’t be too bad, right?”
“…Sorry to disappoint,” Cloud then answers, “but Ruby is basically a huge glowstick when she’s a dragon. We’d be seen for miles if she joins us for this.”
Ruby simply replies, “Then I can join you as a human.”
“This isn’t just going to be a few riot squads. We’re heading into a Shinra stronghold. Expect much heavier artillery.”
“Ha! What are their hunk-a-junks gonna do against a freakin’ Summon? I bet even Carbuncle could ram them back into nuts and bolts.”
“Didn’t you just say you were gonna stay human?”
“Yes. I’m as strong as a Summon even as a human.”
He doesn’t look convinced.
“Look. Let’s say, hypothetically, that they do have some serious forces on guard. If push comes to shove, I can even blink us outta there!”
“Blink?”
“Teleport. Warp. Instant transmission. Whatever you wanna call it.”
He looks a little taken aback. “…You can use warp magic too?”
“I’m a Light Dragon. What else does light do but travel vast distances in no time at all?”
“Wow! It’s like the more we learn about her, the more amazing she becomes!” Wedge cheers.
“It’s almost too much to take in, to be honest…” Biggs admits, but then nods along. “But I’m just glad she’s with us and not against us.”
“Definitely. She might just be the X-factor we need to turn everything around,” Jessie agrees, looking a bit relieved. “Goddess knows we need it more than ever now…”
With his opinion backed against the wall, Cloud grunts and begrudgingly admits, “…Fine, you can come along.”
Ruby snickers. “Oh, don’t worry, Cloud. Even if you guys had some other ideas, I would have hitched along anyway.”
“…” He says no more and simply resumes drinking.
Barret looks around the team and nods again. “Alright! Looks like we got a working plan. Jessie, Biggs, Wedge, I’ll leave it to you guys to get those supplies asap, and then we’re headed off to Sector 5 the night after!”
“Yeah!”
“You got it, Boss.”
“Right!” Jessie then mumbles to herself, “Gotta make sure the calculations are exact to match…”
Ruby slips beside her with a whisper, “Don’t worry, Jessie. It wasn’t your fault the explosion was too big.”
“Huh?”
“It was Shinra. They set up a trap for you all and had the reactor self-destruct.”
“What? Seriously…?”
“Seriously. Nothing is too low for those types.”
“But how could you…” she begins, but then pauses and decides to let it be. She then nods back with a determined smile. “Thanks! I really needed that.”
Ruby returns a salute and satisfied smile of her own.
“It’s gettin’ late, ya’ll!” Barret calls out, “Everyone rest up! We got a lotta work to cover over these next days!”
“Yeah!” the rest including Ruby and except Cloud answer the call.
With the group meeting settled and disbanded, the various members return to business as usual and celebrate their first successful mission. Before Cloud can catch him to ask about his pay, Barret takes Marlene along down the hidden elevator behind the pinball machine. The others say their good-nights to each other and Tifa, and head out for their respective homes. And then, it’s just Tifa, Cloud, and Ruby.
“To think we’d actually recruit a new member after our first mission on our own…” Tifa says, looking somewhat troubled, “I don’t want to think of it like this, but it’s almost like we’re being rewarded for stirring up trouble.”
Ruby climbs onto the seat next to Cloud’s. “You’re stirring up trouble against a group that’s causing even more trouble, though.”
“Well, yes, but…” Tifa turns toward the TV, where the news has been playing on silent in the background during their meeting, and she lets off a quiet sigh. “The casualty count is still too high. I didn’t want to bring it up while we were talking the next mission, but we can’t keep blowing up reactors and endangering normal people.”
“I told Jessie this earlier, but it wasn’t her or anyone else here that’s at fault.”
“Huh?”
“Shinra set off the reactor’s self-destruct system themselves. The excessive casualties are on them.”
Now even Cloud tunes into this conversation. “They what? I don’t remember them having a system like that…”
“Must be a really secret system, then. If I recall correctly, a lot of the past reactor incidents were reported as ‘mishandling’ by the local populace, but there are too many times in history where the bigwigs just sweep those reports under the rug and feign innocence.”
“…”
“Even then… is it really okay?” Tifa asks sincerely.
“Hm? Is what okay?”
“I mean what we’re doing. Is it really justified to sacrifice some innocent lives just so the bad guys lose?”
“…”
“I know Barret would say ‘yes’. I joined Avalanche because I also shared his hatred of Shinra, but…” She pauses, trying to think of how to better say it. “I just wish we didn’t have to resort to such extreme measures.”
Cloud finishes up his cup. “…I know where you’re coming from, Tifa, but this is Shinra we’re talking about. They’re the types to make any sacrifices that aren’t themselves just so their enemies lose.”
“…”
“If we expect to fight that kind of power, we can’t stray from our mission.”
“…Right. I know.” Tifa finally concedes, but she doesn’t look happy about it.
“But, of course, if we can try to avoid casualties, we should.”
“Mm-hm…”
“And with me around,” Ruby then interrupts rather carefreely, “We can avoid way more casualties because I’ve seen the future and I’m gonna change it! Screw capital-D ‘Destiny’!”
“Yeah, yeah…” Cloud feels a bit drained from hearing her constantly inflated ego. But he’s also reminded of something that’s been bothering him: “Speaking of our mission… Hey, Tifa.”
“Hm?”
“When’s the paycheck coming? Barret and the others just hightailed it and I couldn’t bring it up.”
“Ah…” She sinks a little, as if disheartened. “Right, um… We’ll get it to you soon.”
“Soon?”
She shakes her head. “Sorry, Cloud. We’re running low on funds, so would you be okay with it coming in batches? I can come up with the first batch for now…”
“…How much is it?”
“500 gil.”
“…” He glances off. “The deal was 1500, up front.”
“If not, then could you at least wait a bit for it?”
“How long are we talking?”
“Uh… maybe in a few months?”
He looks stung by that. “Tifa… Barret’s already got the next missions lined up over the next few days. Can you guys really keep up with payment?”
“…” She looks away, feeling a little ashamed to answer that. “We’ll figure something out.”
“…”
“B-but, if it’s okay with you, I can help you find more work around here!”
He sighs. “…Fine. I guess I’ll take what I can get.”
“Oh, if you guys are short on cash, I know of a great way to go gil hunting!” Ruby chirps up.
“Huh?”
“Really?” Tifa asks too, “What is it?”
“Cactuars! Those little scuttlers got some huge bounties on them just for catching ’em!”
“Uh… Cactuars? You mean out in the desert?”
Cloud frowns. “Tch… Good luck finding any around here. There’s nothing outside the city other than Sweepers and the usual bandits.”
Ruby grins. “Don’t be silly, Cloud. I’m talking about the deserts around Gold Saucer. I hear the owner pays the big bucks. The bigger the Cactuar, the better!”
“If it isn’t obvious enough, Gold Saucer is across the sea on another continent.”
“If it isn’t obvious enough, I’m a dragon who can FLY.”
“Even then, it’d still take you some time to travel the world! What am I supposed to do in the meantime?”
“Tifa just said she’ll help you find work here. Just take the jobs for now. I’m sure she’ll be happy to provide room and board for free in the meantime.”
He groans, but says nothing. It’s not like he has any other choice in the matter.
“And to get you guys started, I’ll even order something!” She pats the counter a few times. “Say, Tifa! What’s on the drink menu tonight? Got something special for our new member?”
“Oh! You wanted something to drink? Alright…” She goes to fetch the menu.
Cloud turns back to her. “You drink too?”
“A bit, sometimes. Other times, I get hammered.”
“So you have yet another problem…”
“Ha! I may not look it, but I’m no lightweight. I can get a bit sleepy, but all that excess alcohol just drains out fast.”
“Too much info.”
“I didn’t mean like that. Get your mind out of the gutter.”
Tifa returns with a laminated page. “Here you go! By the way, it’s not listed here, but we do have a house special. Usually we don’t bring it up to customers until they’re regulars, but I can make an exception for you.”
“Ooh! I want that!”
“Haha. I thought so. But feel free to browse if you’d like any others.”
“To be honest, I don’t know much about liquor… Can I just order one of everything?”
“Can you pay for them?” Cloud brings it up.
She blinks. “…I can always go Cactuar hunting.”
“Will you stop?” He sighs. “Besides, you said you’re gonna be coming along for the raid, so I don’t need you hammered.”
“But I’m no lightweight.”
“I don’t care how much you can take. I’m not risking our safety for your stupid impulses.”
“Fine, fine… then you pick one for me.” She shoves the menu his way.
“Again, can you even pay for one?”
“Tifa, do you take IOUs? I can easily rack up bounties.”
She chuckles. “We do, but just this once, I think we can make it on the house.”
Ruby’s eyes glisten. “Really? Just for me?”
Tifa smiles warmly. “I heard you helped bring Cloud back safe and sound, after all.”
She grins cheekily toward his direction, but he just ignores her. So, she shoves the menu his way again. “Hey. Pick one.”
He casually points to a random entry on the list without looking at it.
She takes a look and shrugs. “Okay. What’s ‘The Bomb’ anyway? It sounds like a hot sauce.”
“Um, that’s…” Tifa’s smile fades into an awkward one and she takes back the menu. “You know what? Maybe just the house special will do, then. Save us all the trouble…” She proceeds to snatch up an inconspicuous bottle in the back, aside from the drinks on display, and pulls out a small shot glass before Ruby. “Would you like it straight, shaken, or stirred?”
Ruby tilts her head curiously. “Does it make a difference?”
“A little. Stirring helps chill and dilute a cocktail, but shaking can change the texture and aerate it, so it looks a little cloudier.”
“Hmm… I’m tempted to go with the latter just to piss Cloud off.”
“What?” he replies.
“At least I’d have something cloudy without the asshole.”
“…”
Tifa chuckles along. “Sure thing. One moment.” She first cracks an ice cube into the shot glass, and then picks up the shaker and whips up a quick performance. She gives the drink a pour, a shake, a twirl, and a final pour into the glass. “Here you go, the Cosmo Canyon, lightly shaken! Enjoy!”
“Thanks!”
The bright red drink while at rest now has a thin layer of bubbles floating atop, where the white and red mix, giving it a faint pinkish tone. The bubbles popping up to the surface even give the drink a bit of a fizz; reminds Ruby of a cider. She first gives it a sip for taste, beams with a giddy smile, and proceeds to chug it all down.
“Oh…” Tifa looks a bit startled at how quick she finished that, but lets it slide. “Well, at least it’s not too heavy on the alcohol, so you ought to be alright.”
“I’m fine. That was super refreshing… Thanks for the drink!” Ruby is smiling with a tune in her heart. In fact, she feels her heart tune itself to a familiar beat of drums from another land, and the memories of that place come flashing back in. She even begins to hum the classic tune to herself.
“You’re welcome. Glad you liked it!” Tifa then turns to the other. “It’s getting late anyway… Cloud, do you have a place to stay?”
“Huh? Uh… Not really. I figured I could just stay here…”
“I don’t know about that. Barret already has a place downstairs. I don’t think he’d be too happy with you around.”
“Ditto.”
“Well, then,” she offers with a smile, “maybe you can stay with me?”
“H-huh?” That suggestion catches him off-guard.
“Haha! It’s not like that. I stay at some local apartments, and I’m sure they have an opening. I’ll reserve a space for you.”
His heart settles back down. “Ah… right. Thanks, Tifa.”
“What about you, Ruby?”
She makes an unsure face, but answers, “Ah, don’t worry about me… I’ll find some place to rest on my own.”
“Hey, don’t be like that! I’ll try to find room for you too.”
“Is there another one open at your apartment?”
“Hmm… Actually, I’m not sure, but if you want, you can stay with me in my room? Just until I can find a place for you.”
“…” Cloud looks away, trying not to feel jealous.
But Ruby snickers back. “I appreciate it, Tifa, but nah, I’m staying with Cloud.”
He spins back around. “What!?”
Tifa blinks. “With Cloud? Are you sure? The apartments are pretty small. I don’t think they have separate beds or anything…”
He turns away as if meaning to get up. “Hell no. I’m not spending any more time with you than I have to.”
“But I have so much more to talk about, buddy!” Ruby whines, tugging on his arm, and then leans in with a whisper, “Especially regarding Sephiroth…”
“!” He turns to her with a look of surprise, but then he nods back quietly.
“Um… so you are okay with her?” Tifa checks with him.
“…For the record, I’m not making space for you,” Cloud insists, “You’re a dragon anyway. You sleep on the floor.”
“What a way to treat your guest, Cloud,” Ruby replies sarcastically.
“You’re not a guest. This is just going to be for one night…”
Tifa lets off a sigh. Just when she thought he was starting to open up to people, he goes and says that. In any case, she finishes up cleaning around the bar, and is ready to take them to their apartment room.
“Come on! I’ll show you the way. It’s not far at all.”
~
Tifa briefly introduced Cloud and Ruby to the landlady, who was at first concerned about leaving two young adults, especially of opposite sex, in the same room. But as soon as Ruby started poking Cloud over and over like a prank and he got so annoyed with her that he threw hands, the landlady decided that they might not be that big a concern and let them be. She left Tifa in charge to watch them, though.
“It’s not much, but make yourselves at home,” Tifa says as she welcomes them inside. “Unfortunately, Marle said they don’t have any extra beds, but do either of you mind sleeping in a chair? I can ask Marle for a recliner…”
“No need, Tifa. She’s sleeping on the floor.”
“Cloud…”
Ruby replies, “No, no, it’s okay. The floor is fine.”
“Um… You really sure about this? At least lay out a blanket or something. It can get a little cold during the night.”
“I know how to stay warm. I’m a dragon, remember?”
“Hmm… Alright, if you insist.” But Tifa leans in toward Cloud with a whisper, “There’s an extra blanket in the closet if you guys need it.”
“Yeah, yeah…”
“I’ve also checked the bathroom sink and it looks like it’s still running fine. Lately, we’ve been running low on replacement parts, though, so if there’s any chance of leak or anything, let me know ahead of time.”
“Sure, Tifa!” Ruby answers.
“Alright! I know it may be a little cramped, since this room was meant for just one person, but I hope you two will be fine?”
“We will!”
“…” Cloud glances off, but nods back too.
She turns to him again. “By the way, if you want the 500 gil for now…”
He hesitates for a moment, but then replies, “…I’ll take it.”
“Right… It’s in my room. I’ll go get it for you.” She turns back to Ruby. “As always, if you need anything else, let me know and I’ll get to it asap.”
“Gotcha.”
Tifa nods and heads out for a bit to fetch the payment. In the meantime, Ruby happily flops onto the bed before Cloud does, but his glare her way sends her sliding off again and she huddles on the floor. Tifa promptly comes back over with a polite knock, passing the gil to Cloud’s hand.
She also whispers, “If you have the time tomorrow, let’s meet up somewhere quiet. I have something to talk with you about, but it’s not too urgent.”
“Uh… sure.”
She then waves to them both. “Good night, guys!”
“Night, Tifa!” Ruby answers first.
“Night…”
And with a sweet smile, she leaves them alone and gently closes the door. Now that they’re alone again, Cloud gets back to business and confronts Ruby.
“…So, what was it that you wanted to talk to me about?”
“Yeah… um…” Ruby makes an awkward frown. “I know this may sound bad, but… All that stuff I told Barret and the others, I kinda came up with on the spot.”
“What? So you lied?”
“No, not a lie. All that about me being a magic dragon and ‘daughter of Bahamut’, that part is true. But I left out a lot of details between the me that was once Cetra and the me in the present.”
“So, then what are you? Are you Cetra or not?”
“To be honest, I’m still figuring that out. I’ve lived in their times, but I also don’t know that much about them either.”
“How does that work?”
“Eh…” She shrugs. “Time travel shenanigans?”
“…”
“Not to mention, all that backstory I said, Sephiroth knows too.”
He’s back to paying attention. “How much does he know?”
“A little more than I do, apparently. He was the one who dragged me out to the surface and told me to learn about my ‘past lives’.”
“Yeah, you mentioned that before. So the dragon is one of them, huh? But you can still change into that form even now.”
“Inherited power?”
He furls his brow. “Are you asking me?”
“Nah, I’m just making guesses here. Since Sephiroth isn’t gonna tell me anything until ‘the time comes’, I’m stuck doing the same with you.”
“But you do know some things about yourself that he doesn’t, right?”
“Um…” Ruby takes a moment to consider her options again. “What would you say if I said I also have memories of a totally different life in another dimension?”
“…” He stares back blankly and then frowns. “I’d say you were probably sniffing something you shouldn’t have.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought…”
“But…” He strikes his own thinking pose. “On the other hand, so much of what you’ve been saying has been so out there that I’m not sure what to think anymore. As stupid as it sounds, you coming from another dimension doesn’t seem totally impossible…” He pauses and lets off a sigh. “I really just said that, didn’t I?”
“Aw…” Ruby smiles proudly. “I’m glad you’re coming around to playing along with my delusions.”
“It’s not like you gave me a choice. I definitely didn’t just imagine that I took a ride with a dragon, for starters.”
“Haha! If you get used to it, I could take you for another ride sometime.”
He cringes a bit. “No, thanks. I’d rather keep my feet on the ground where they belong.”
“Ha. Knowing you, you’d sooner be falling from great heights than waiting at the foot of the mountain.”
“…” He raises an eyebrow toward her, suspecting that she just referenced another of his childhood memories.
She winks back. “But it’s also like you to not wait around when people may be in trouble, isn’t that right?”
She definitely was. He gives her a dismissive hand wave. “Would you quit that? It’s getting creepy how much you know…”
“Don’t sweat it. I’ve only seen some of your memories through visions. It’s not like I know what you did on X day at X time while you were still working for Shinra.”
“That’s not much relief, but thanks, I guess…” He leans against the bed, but hesitates for a moment and turns back to her. “So, do you need a blanket? Tifa said there’s an extra one in the closet.”
“Eh. I’ll have to turn into a dragon to be able to sleep somehow, and I don’t think a human-sized blanket would help much.”
“Then what, you wanna stay as a human on the floor?”
“No way. I’d never sleep like that.”
“Well, you’re not sleeping with me, that’s for sure.”
“Hmph. Stingy…”
With little warning, Ruby bursts forth with that familiar bright light and nearly blinds him again. But then, the two come to a troubling realization really quick: Ruby isn’t the biggest dragon ever, but she is still big enough that there’s barely any room for him to stand. Just by transforming, one of her unfolding wings knocks him backward onto the bed.
“Argh! Ruby! Watch it!”
She quickly reverts to human form and gives a miserable sigh. “I can’t even sleep here as a dragon…”
“…”
“And he’s not letting me on the bed either, hmph.” She turns away for the wall adjacent to the next room. “Maybe I should stop by Tifa’s room after all. I’m sure she won’t mind letting me sleep with her on her bed…”
“Hold it.”
She whips back around. “What? We’re both girls and it’s not like that!”
“You’re already a hassle to deal with. I don’t need you bothering anyone else.”
“Sheesh, I’m not some monster hiding under the bed or anything. What’s wrong with sharing a bed platonically with a pal?”
He doesn’t answer her; instead he heads over to the closet and fetches the extra blanket. He gestures toward her to scoot aside and then lays it out on the floor.
“What are you doing?”
“Laying down something so you’d stop complaining. Just roll up a corner and uses it as a pillow. The floor isn’t that bad.”
“You’re really insistent about this, huh.”
“Hey, you lost your chance earlier when you declined Tifa’s chair idea.” He steps away to climb onto the bed.
“Mmph…”
Ruby crouches down to give the blanket a feel-around to test its thickness, and then flops onto it and lies still for a moment. It’s not the thickest cushion, but it’ll have to do. She curls up into various positions, but can’t quite find the best one yet. So, she decides to pull up the blanket and fold it over to be more like a sleeping bag, but it’s still not quite right. Finally, she gathers the ends together into a rough ball of cloth, drops it on the floor, and hops onto it. She curls herself up into a ball too and snuggles in it until she forms a sort of “nest” under her. For once, she’s found a comfortable position, smiles cutely like a happy kitten, and begins to snooze off.
Cloud has been trying to avoid watching her, but with all the shuffling she was making, he couldn’t help but roll over to at least check on her. He didn’t expect to feel anything watching her basically turn into a cat, but once he realizes just how adorable it is, a faint blush comes over his face and he quickly turns away. He swears under his breath. They’re at a proper distance apart, so why is he still embarrassed!?
He plants a hand over his face and lets off a sigh. It’s not a big deal. It’s not even the first time he’s had to room with someone like this. Besides, it’s just for one night. After this next mission, he’s dumping her off at the florist’s place and that’ll be that.
~
But it seems trouble is always stirring around him. Cloud can barely get any rest when he hears some loud tumbling noise coming from the room next door – the other side, away from Tifa’s. He sits up grumpily, rubbing his tired eyes. Ruby seems to be fast asleep already. He’s tempted to just lie back down and pretend that he didn’t hear anything, but then he hears what seems to be some kind of muffled moaning from there. Now he definitely can’t sleep.
He quietly gets up from bed and goes to fetch his sword. Though he tries his best to not make a sound as he heads for the door, it seems Ruby isn’t quite as asleep as she looks.
“…Don’t take the bait…”
“Huh? Ruby… Are you still awake?”
“…”
“…” He’s about to turn the door handle when she speaks up a bit louder.
“I said, don’t take the bait.”
He whips back around. “So you are awake. What do you mean by ‘bait’?”
Without opening her eyes, Ruby snaps back, “Don’t bother our neighbor. It’s just another trick of Sephiroth’s.”
“What? What does Sephiroth have to do with…?”
“Just trust me, dummy. Get back to sleep.”
“…” He rubs his head awkwardly, but makes an acknowledging grunt as he steps away from the door. “You saw that in another of your ‘visions’ or something?”
“Yeah… It was pretty dumb.”
He raises an eyebrow, but obliges and takes his sword to set it back down. But just as he’s about to put it down, he’s suddenly struck by a piercing headache that nearly topples him against the wall. He manages to catch himself, but the headache doesn’t go away.
“Agh… what…?”
When he opens his eyes again, though, something doesn’t seem right. He can see his arms right in front of him and can feel that they’re there, but it’s like he can’t move them. No, it’s not that he can’t move; it’s more like he’s not in control.
“…What’s… happening…?”
His teeth are clenched, so he can only speak in his mind. His eyes are wide open and kinda bugged out like he’s in a panic. His body is trembling as he wrestles for any remaining semblance of himself, but it’s to no avail. And before he knows it, he finds himself taking that sword in hand again and bringing it over to where Ruby lies on her nest.
“…I… I’m not… doing this…!”
He’s completely helpless to resist, like his body is being puppeted by an invisible mastermind. His hands clasp together on the hilt as he brings the pointed end down and raises it over her.
“N-no! Stop! Don’t…!”
Before he drops it down, Ruby’s eyes flicker open. The next moment comes in a flurry of motions. She rolls out of the way and low sweeps him with a kick, knocking him off balance. She catches his sword by the blunt edge, strikes his elbow to make him release his grip, and bumps it aside, sending it sliding across the floor. While he’s still stunned, she swiftly knocks him down safely onto the pile, and pins him down by the neck.
“Grgh!”
Unfortunately, he can still move and is trying to pry her arm off. Wasting no time, she uses her other hand to open her wrist guard’s keyboard and hastily types in a command into the system. She shuts it back up and with her right hand firmly planted on him, she activates her code. In an instant, the light disappears from his eyes and he goes out cold. She finally releases him with a sigh and gingerly closes his eyes for him.
There’s a knock on the door. “Hey, guys! What happened?” Tifa’s worried voice is heard on the other side.
Ruby lays him down and hurries to open the door a crack. “Tifa?”
“Ruby! I heard a heavy thud… Are you guys okay?”
“Ah…” Ruby opens the door wider and glances behind her. “Cloud fell off the bed.”
“Huh?”
She turns back with an innocent smile. “Don’t worry! He’s okay. He landed on the nest I made.”
“Nest…?” Now she peeks behind Ruby and notices the blanket curled up in a pile. “Oh.”
“Yeah, I found out that my dragon form is too big for our little dorm, so I stayed as is and decided to turn the blanket into a nest! It’s surprisingly comfortable.”
“I-I see…” She smiles back politely. “That’s a good idea! I didn’t think of that.” Her eyes trail to the guy on the floor. “So… Is he okay?”
“Yeah, he’s still asleep.”
“Even after falling out of bed? I didn’t know he was such a heavy sleeper.”
“Eh, what can you do? He was really tired.”
“Hmm…” Tifa still looks worried, but she decides to let it be. She then nods and smiles back. “Next time, I’ll ask Marle to get you a recliner. Sorry that it’s so cramped.”
“No worries! It’s fine. It’s just for this night anyway. Sorry to wake you.”
“Oh, no. I’ve just had a lot on my mind… After you guys help Jessie, I’ll be coming along for the reactor mission too this time. I… just need to get myself ready.”
“Hey, don’t worry about a thing. With me around, pretty much nothing can go wrong!”
“Heh. Thanks for the assurance… Good night.”
“Night!”
And once Tifa heads back to her room, Ruby watches her go and quickly shuts the door. Her smile vanishes in an instant as she turns back to the unconscious Cloud. It was an emergency protocol she initiated and it can “disable” anyone or anything that’s active for a certain period of time, but she’ll have to check with him later to make sure he didn’t lose his mind or anything permanent. He may have lost memory of this moment, but it’s probably for the best that he not add yet another trauma to his checkered history.
She helps him back onto the bed and lays him down where he had been, and picks up the sword from where it had slid, checking to make sure it’s still unscratched and that it hasn’t broken anything. All clear. She sets it back where Cloud had left it against the back wall and finally returns to her nest. She curls back up until she’s back in that comfortable position, closes her eyes, and pretends to return to sleep.
But first, she needs to pay a visit to a certain phantom menace. With a quick dial into her wrist guard keyboard, she initiates another sequence and sets her next coordinates back to the ol’ Debug Room.
Notes:
Outdated A/N
Just a heads-up: I've been working on this for the past 10 or so months with many revisions over that time, so I can post two chapters at once in a short time. I do have chapter 5 done, but it also pairs well with 6, which is still in progress. This might not happen with every two chapters, though, so we'll see how my posting frequency will be.
P.S. Marlene is precious and I will spend as much time as I want squeeing at her scenes while I write. You don't have to, but I hope she brings you all a smile at least.
Chapter 5: Omens of Turbulence
Notes:
Note: I'd like to state for the record that this is officially the first work I have published where the main ship of this fic is an abusive relationship and it is very new territory for me. Though this story is ultimately a parody, so there will be some moments that are played for laughs, I by no means intend to make light of relationship abuse. I pray that it will work out moving forward.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Even though she hasn’t been here too many times so far, Ruby has already grown attached to this pocket space somewhere within the Lifestream. It’s still an empty void with nothing but a glow-in-the-dark menu interface and a reality with limitless potential to be shaped, but she feels right at home in the darkness and silence. Or rather, she would feel right at home if not for a certain someone’s constant interference.
“Sephiroth!! Get over here!”
Heeding the call once again, the man appears out of the darkness to meet her. “Yes?”
She draws her knife on him. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“…Regarding?”
“Just now! I spoiled your mean surprise for Cloud, so you tried to traumatize him by making him attack me!”
“Ah.” He smiles back remorselessly. “It’s the natural flow of the game. You made your move to impede me, so I offered a counterattack.”
“That was NOT a proportional response, asshole! If I didn’t take him out how I did, he would have been scarred for life!”
“Now, now. There’s no need to be overdramatic…”
“Shut up!” She throws her knife at him, but he avoids it. “We just started and you’re already messing with the timeline this much! Weren’t you the one who said I should ‘proceed with discretion’ in the first place!?”
“Yes, and it still stands. What I’ve contributed so far are merely trifles in the grand course… all with full intention, of course. It’s quite entertaining to see how you two react.”
She rushes over and dives past him to retrieve her knife, and now that she’s closed in the distance, she threatens him again with it at his neck. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t just destroy you right now.”
“Destroy me? In what sense?”
“What do you think this knife is for? Decoration?”
He shakes his head. “Don’t make me repeat it. There’s no point for us to fight.”
“If you really think so, then put ’em up. I’m calling your bluff.”
“…” He looks like he’s going to deny her again, but then he calmly smirks back. “If you insist… Show me what you’ve got.”
Without hesitation, she plunges her knife in, though he deftly evades and leaps back a fair distance. She lunges at him again and he summons his blade to his hand just in time to clash with her. She flips back and pursues once more. She tries again and again to land a blow on him, deliberately changing up her angle, power, speed, and even technique to be unpredictable, and yet he continues to deny her every time. Strange… don’t they have a huge level gap? He’s easily keeping up with her, as if he can read her every move. More than that, though: this bout isn’t even a proper fight. He isn’t bothering to counter her attacks or strike when she recoils; only passively guards against them and flings her away without ever drawing blood. He doesn’t even look particularly impressed. Becoming ever more frustrated, she finally leaps back to a safe distance.
“…What are you doing? Fight back.”
“Why? I’m just demonstrating to prove a point.”
“That you’re still so far above me even with all the power I now wield?”
He then smiles with an eerie look in his eyes. “Well… for starters, it wouldn’t be very responsible to let a ‘stranger’ hack into all of reality without some oversight, would it?”
Ruby glares back, growing ever suspicious. She then asks, “Wait. Have you been using the Debug Room while I didn’t notice and cheat yourself to a higher level?”
“Hmph,” he scoffs, “I have yet to even interact with your menu.”
She instead becomes disturbed. “Don’t tell me you’ve actually been grinding levels the normal way…”
He shakes his head. “Don’t forget where we really are.”
“…?”
“You may call it the ‘Debug Room’, but this is still the Edge of Creation. It is the resting place and culmination of everything – time and space; the Lifestream, with all of its collective souls; their thoughts, memories, wills… Thus, only the strongest wills may decide the outcome of any battle. Judgments based merely on numbers and hard data do not apply.”
She frowns, looking almost betrayed. “…Dude, unfair. I’m a programmer. I’m all about judging based on numbers and hard data…”
“…”
The joke aside, she quickly adds, “Besides, I don’t see my will losing to yours. You couldn’t even control my Remnants in the first place.”
“Yes… but you aren’t them. Not yet…”
“Huh?”
“As you are now, you’re still incomplete. You may have merged with the body of your alternate self, but you have yet to truly become one with her. That is why even though they had once been your own creation, you have no sway over your Remnants either.”
It is true that she hasn’t been able to make contact with them whatsoever so far, but she figured it was just a matter of time before she’d get to do that. She asks again, “By any chance… is it also because of them that I haven’t been able to listen to the voices of the planet?”
He nods back. “Most likely. May I remind you that they nullify entirely the life they consume? With every soul that disappears, that is another voice unable to return to the planet, and likewise all the memories associated with that voice, even from those that were once acquainted, disappear as well. This complex network of constant communication is henceforth irreparably damaged. Even a full-blooded Cetra would be unable to guide those lost…”
“…”
No wonder even Aerith’s happy flowers have been giving Ruby the silent treatment. Even if their voices were retained, it’s unlikely they could speak with her… or perhaps, it’s just as unlikely that they would want to speak with her, out of fear of being nullified if they made contact. If this keeps going, it may even be affecting Aerith’s own power too. She might as well be slowly transitioning out of being the last Cetra.
Ruby makes a worried frown. “Damn… I really need to find her ASAP. Hope she’s been doing alright…”
He proceeds to drive the point home: “Don’t forget that you’ve come to this world on a mission. I won’t tell you how to live your new life and what direction to take it. You may even take as long as you need to find your answers…” He then ends with a chilling warning: “But keep in mind: the longer you spend, the more I will have to stall… and who knows how much Cloud may suffer as a result.”
“Leave him alone, man. Can’t you find anything else to do while you wait?”
“I will also be guiding you so you can focus on what you need, but I can tell you’re the type to move at your own pace, regardless of the consequences. Thus, I’m forced to use Cloud as a hostage as ‘motivation’ for you.”
“Hmph…”
“And if even that isn’t enough, rest assured, I have plenty more ways to convince you… Make your moves wisely.”
“Wisely, huh… Am I really hearing this from someone who almost traumatized a guy by forcing him to try to kill someone, just for shits and giggles?”
He smirks to himself, looking rather proud of it too. “…That said, there’s always room for a little fun.”
“On behalf of Cloud, I’d like to say, ‘%&#^ you.’” She quickly adds, “And on my behalf, ‘%&#^ you in this dimension and the next.’”
He doesn’t look her way or seem to be paying attention.
“What the hell…” she groans, “I came here to beat you up, but I couldn’t even do that…”
He finally releases his blade and returns it to the ether, and confidently approaches her unarmed. “Well, now you know. This game isn’t going to be won that easily… not that it would have helped you if you were able to kill me.”
“I didn’t intend to kill you. I intended to smack you upside for backseat driving.”
“Oh, the intent came through very clearly. As for the execution…”
Ruby chooses to ignore him this time. She returns her knife to its sheath as well, feeling a bit underwhelmed that this cool fight scene didn’t turn into anything more. She calls over her glowing UI like a summoning of her own and returns to digging around. Now she’s curious to see if she can look up his current status and stats to compare with hers. To her disappointment, though, she doesn’t find anything that she hasn’t seen before. Like in the original game and even the Remake, his level has been specifically set at 50. It’s as if the system hadn’t been updated with these finer details. In other-other words, Sephiroth is on another level of bullshit even beyond what she can grasp at the moment.
“Ugh… What do I have to do to get this thing updated!?” she whines, blowing off steam, “And why can’t I just contact my Remnants? I can find the menu to customize my appearance to match my lore, but I can’t find a dial button to connect with them? What even is this shitty system…?”
“…”
She fires a nasty glare his way. “Don’t give me that look like you know the answer but won’t say it.”
He looks away again and says nothing. She returns to her screen, still fumbling about through the various menus, but still she finds nothing else that can help her. In the end, it seems like she’s still too early to access everything, and she has no idea how to “unlock” the rest. It’s not like the old Debug Room she remembers way back. Maybe it’s too early to jump to conspiracy theories, but it also feels like Sephiroth is the one who has all the access and he’s just showing her glimpses that he allows her to see. It would explain why the files about Rubia’s history, while collected in just one folder, are scattered pieces that don’t make a complete narrative at the moment. So in the end, she’s still stuck at square one and has no choice but to follow this “road map” he’s set for her. Now feeling extremely frustrated and even a little violated, she dismisses the screen entirely, drops to the invisible floor in a fetal position, and begins to mope in silence.
She isn’t moving from her spot. Sephiroth sighs to himself. This isn’t the first time they’ve been through this and it’s clear that it won’t be the last.
“…How long will you keep up with this act?”
“What act? I’m genuinely upset…”
“No, these pointless tantrums. Your problems aren’t going to go away just by waiting.”
“…”
“You already have the tools before you. You’ve even worked a few miracles, at that. What’s stopping you now?”
“…Because it feels like these tools are granted with your permission.” She now sits back up with a suspicious frown. “But you said you didn’t touch this menu at all…”
“Indeed, I haven’t.”
She looks up and eyes him suspiciously, unable to tell whether or not he’s telling the truth.
He then raises a hand in her direction, and with a sudden flicker of his eyes’ pupils, she feels that familiar sting as he freely manipulates her as a puppet. She finds that it doesn’t hurt at all if she doesn’t resist, so she lets him move her for now, if just out of morbid curiosity. She witnesses herself take the glowing menu in her hands and open the directory where Rubia’s video files have been collected. She stares idly at it for a moment, waiting for him to lead her to something, but then she realizes she can move herself again. She instead turns back to him.
“Why are you bringing these up again?”
“How many of them have you viewed so far?”
“…Just one.”
“Then, why not take this time to peruse your library? It’s entirely open to you.”
“I’ll take my time with them, thanks,” she snaps back, dismissing the directory entirely. She also gets back to her feet. “Even though her history may be based on my stories in the past, I’ve long forgotten the details, so this adventure is pretty much new and fresh in my eyes.”
“You have no problem cheating your way up to your current level, and yet you won’t even look through your past creations?”
“I’m not interested in spoilers.”
“Spoilers?” He frowns, looking rather disappointed. “Really, now… They’re from your own memories. It’s no different than being reminded.”
“I just want to go ahead completely blindly because it’s more fun that way! I don’t care if the stuff I’m going to learn may be something I’ve thought of long ago. There’s an intriguing mystery to solve and I’m pretty invested in these things.” She shrugs. “Besides, I’m going to learn way more when we reach the Temple of the Ancients and on, so what’s the rush?”
“…Very well. I was expecting you to gather as much available information as you can from the start, but I see you’d rather procrastinate until the climactic reveal… Either way is fine by me.”
“Anyway, would you quit taking over my body without my permission!? It feels icky! Like you’re getting handsy without actually touching!”
“…What a delayed reaction.”
“And why are you so pushy about this? Afraid that I’d unlock the secrets of divine ascension without you?”
He then makes an amused smirk. “Oh, don’t worry. There’s going to be a time and place for that eventually…”
“…Huh?” She stops in mid-thought, totally caught off-guard by that reply. “Uh… You want me to ascend to Godhood?” She frowns. “I WILL smite you the first chance I get, you know.”
“In the meantime, if you’re unsure of where to look next, would you be open to suggestions?”
“What now?”
“Again, it’s just a suggestion…” He pauses for a moment in case she has yet another snappy comeback, but for once, she seems to be listening. “I believe a visit to Mother at Shinra HQ will offer plenty of revelations for you.”
“Bah. I already figured that much. You got any other not-so subtle hints?”
“Oh, I don’t just mean in terms of ‘lore’. For example, you might get a better understanding of how to contact your Remnants.”
She narrows her eyes suspiciously. “Huh? What would Jenova…” she begins, but then drifts off as she thinks it over.
“…That will be all for now. Feel free to return to your post in the meantime.” He turns away again for the darkness. “If you have any more questions, whatever they may be, don’t be afraid to ask.” He looks back with that ever-so smug smile. “I’ll always be here.”
“Bastard… This was supposed to be MY private lab. I was the one who created this version of the Edge of Creation. Why do you act like you own the place!?”
By now, Sephiroth is familiar enough with her to sense when she’s about to enter into another rant. He coldly turns away and walks off, disappearing into the darkness once more.
“For once, when I thought I had something cool going on, it’s ripped from me all at once! So what do I even have!?” She groans in frustration, burying her face in her hands. “Damn it! What am I doing? I feel like I’ve been duped into playing a ‘game’ that can’t be won…”
The silence of this empty void is now the only thing that remains to keep her company. There’s not even an echo to answer her.
She miserably flops to the floor again. “What a bullshit ‘game’ anyway. It’s more like a puppet show where he’s the only actor… and I’m running around backstage like a headless chicken.”
Only more silence.
Now she feels a migraine come on and closes her eyes with a deep sigh. “…Why am I here? What even is this story? What do I have to contribute to this world… other than absolutely pointless chaos and nihilism? It’s not even the fun kind…”
…
She rolls back into her fetal position to clutch at her aching head. She whines more softly, “…It doesn’t even matter, does it? Doesn’t matter the time, the place, even the friggin’ universe… I’m still stuck in this cycle of losing something dear after I struggle to earn it…”
It’s a cycle of misfortune leading into a regressive depression that only spirals her further into unadulterated apathy. She has long been a lonely person ever since she was a lonely child. Day in, day out, her parents would be too busy to come up to her to check on her, to make sure she’s doing fine, to play with her whenever she was bored. Night in, night out, there would always be something they were arguing about.
“You went gambling again!?” “What would it matter!?” “Our money is what matters!”
or
“Would you quit smoking!? It’s so hard to breathe!” “Just open the windows!”
or even
“Where were you!? Ruby had a parent-teacher conference today!” “What? You went, didn’t you?”
And so forth…
Ruby had a few “friends”, but they were simply classmates that she would see every day. Because she was so quiet, a lot of people couldn’t hear her speak, or they didn’t think she was even listening. She wasn’t mute, but she didn’t emote all that much. Whenever they’d ask her for her opinion, she wouldn’t give a straight answer and they’d tune her out of the conversation. She would often have very vivid daydreams, so vivid that she could probably disappear completely into them. But by the time she’d notice it, everyone else would have left her behind.
She was an only child, but at least the family had a dog. She was an adorable little bichon frisé, 100% pure white floofy friend. She would follow her everywhere. She would join her whenever she’d be playing games or reading at night. She would be there seeing her off to school. She would even bother her while she was studying, so her mother would have to take her away for a while. The fluffy darling was a white light in Ruby’s otherwise dim existence.
A white light, indeed. That’s why she wrote her fanfic like how she had. She wanted to make a character who would be a “white light” for the people around her. But as the almost mute child that she was, she was too dim for others to notice whenever she would glow. And as if even Fate itself were mocking her, her white light happened to pass away the day after her 18th birthday. The old dog went in peace, but there was an emptiness in Ruby’s life that would never be filled again… at least, until many years later, but that’s another story for another time.
The migraine isn’t quickly passing. If anything, it’s only gotten worse. She even feels a familiar stinging sensation creep along her right forearm, and it joins her aches in a cacophony of distress. As expected of Geostigma; even when a different pain is evoked, it follows suit as the parasitic syndrome it is. But it doesn’t matter. When she gets like this, it’s already so tempting to just lay down and die…
…No, what is she doing? She can’t think like that. Once the despair comes over her, everything she’s done so far and written into this fresh adventure will become nothing. She’s finally gotten a chance to be someone that she once dreamed up, with all the fantastic powers that she imagined up as a child. It’s not nothing; it’s the exact opposite of “nothing”! She has effectively become a lesser God, for crying out loud!
Pelle dubia et timores! Exorire fortitudo denuo! Veniant aerumnae, dimicabit ac evincit!
(Begone, doubts and fears! Arise, resolve anew! Come hardships as they may, she shall fight and conquer!)
…Huh. Where’d that archaic-sounding mantra even come from? It just popped into mind out of nowhere. It sounds familiar, but she can’t quite put a finger on it…
Ah, well. Enough moping. It’s time to go back. Besides, Cloud is still comatose; she needs to restore him. She pulls herself back up into a slumped sitting and opens up her computer once more.
Cloud… Of course. How could she forget? His whole story from the outset was about his struggles to find himself and eventually overcome his self-doubts. No matter what tragedies he’d face, or how much Sephiroth pushed him down, bullied him, shamed him… he was still able to get back up and fight back. He couldn’t have done it without the help of his friends either. That’s the power of friendship, heh. She’s still trying to figure out what she has to do in this world, but if there’s anything that she should do first, it’s making some good friends. She may not have the best track record with that, but at least she’s not half the asshole Cloud can be.
Okay, that’s a lie. She can very much be that kind of asshole. They really do share a few things, don’t they?
Speaking of assholes, there’s a certain One-Winged raccoon still on the loose. What to do about him? With all the power that he’s come to amass, it seems like he’s not gonna stay dead, if he can even be killed. So far, the only one who can go even with him is her, and honestly, it still feels like she’s losing badly. But as long as she’s still in the game, there is a chance. If she can’t “beat” him, then they’ll just have to compromise. She’ll need a way to keep him trapped somewhere and at bay; somewhere where she can keep a constant eye on him. She might as well become his warden.
Suddenly, Ruby is struck by inspiration. Wait a sec… Somewhere where she can keep a constant eye on him? How about if she brings him to her world? He probably won’t be able to mess with Gaia that way, right? Hey, maybe they can even be roommates.
Okay, so it sounds like an absolutely awful idea. She’d just be bringing him into another world where he could kill off the masses and acquire more life energy to add to his collection. But on the other hand, the only way she would be returning home at all is if she can defeat or even overpower him. In other words, she has to become a true being of “absurdity” as he put it, and then she could make anything work out… probably. And, boy! If he so much as breaks another of her possessions, she’s gonna confiscate that sword and call up her mom to ask her for the “Dogs”. Then they’ll see who gets the last bark.
Ruby blinks in silent disbelief at herself. Man… is it really that simple to ascend to Godhood? Well, if anyone’s currently in line, it would be her. She already has some level of reality-bending power as is. It may be with Sephiroth’s permission, but it’s still reality-bending power. If he doesn’t like her enough to let her have total free reign yet, then she’ll just have to make him like her!
But does she dare? Does she dare tread the forbidden route of the “Mary Sue”? Well, she’s only gone so far without it. If becoming the most annoying thing in this world means she gets to hold even one thing over this “Villain Gary Stu” that has been bullying everyone he meets and getting away with it every time, then you know what? Fine. She does dare. She’s going to become the epitome of what anyone, even a false God as he, must fear: a rabid fangirl.
After a long and wild emotional roller coaster, Ruby sits up with a resolve anew and excited anticipation. Her computer is still waiting idly for her final input. She has the destination coordinates already set to return to Cloud’s apartment. She could just hit the submit button and move on with the story.
But no, not yet. She came here for a reason and it was to get back at Sephiroth.
She gently closes it for now and gets back to her feet again. She then cups her hands over her mouth and calls out in a rather sing-song voice.
“…Sephiroth~! I got a question for you!”
At first, there’s nothing but silence. To be honest, she hadn’t expected for the void to answer her. The phantom menace is quite the busybody with all the scheming that he does. But to her pleasant surprise, she then hears the sound of footsteps coming her way.
Sephiroth doesn’t look pleased; wary, if anything. Since he’s taken this place as his base of operations, he never left it entirely. So, he was able to listen in on her thoughts and follow her wild roller coaster of emotions, and by the end of it, he was becoming legitimately concerned. Nonetheless, even though he expects that she will be trying to waste his time as usual, he is keeping true to his word and answering her call.
“…What is it?”
Ruby offers a cute smile. “I was just thinking about how we got off on the wrong foot. Maybe we can start over?”
“…”
“See, I figured that you’re probably so bored just being here all alone all the time. So I thought, wouldn’t it be nice to have some company in this empty void?”
“…” He turns away with a look of growing weariness. “Are you offering yourself?”
“My, my. Reading other people’s thoughts without their permission again? You naughty boy!” She even gives him a flirty wink. “But, hey, why not? It could be fun! We can have sleepover parties too, so you won’t feel too lonely any time Cloud has to conk out for a night!”
“…”
“How about it, Sephy?” She narrows her eyes flirtatiously with a coy smirk. “Would you like me to sleep with you?”
“…”
He means to just ignore her and walk off, but he knows she’s dead set on making trouble for him and will not give in until he concedes or plays along. Even without waiting for his response, she hops over to him and leans in toward his face, to which he looks away.
“…If you want to sleep, do so in your own nest.”
“Haha! You’re so funny, Sephy!” She playfully slaps at his bare chest. “You’re basically everywhere Cloud and I am, so it’s like you’re already sleeping with us!” She even starts rubbing her hand on said chest in some sort of affectionate way. “But it’s okay~! I don’t mind keeping warm with a buddy or two…”
He swats her hand away. “Enough. You’re not fooling anyone.”
“Fooling? Whatever do you mean?”
He glares back. “This flirty act. I’m not about to let my guard down just because you’ve decided to switch to a different tactic.”
“Ah, sweet, naïve, Sephy. You think I’d be such a good actress that I’d be able to fake a crush I’ve had on you since I was stupid horny teen?”
“…”
“Hahaha! Ah, though I was but a fool, they were good times…” She glances off as she continues to ponder. “It’s kinda funny, really. I’ve never been romantically attracted to anyone in my whole life, but it would be a different story whenever I’d dive into fiction.” She even acts dramatic as she declares in shame, “And as Fate would have it, one of my earliest crushes just had to be on the main villain of one of the most popular JRPGs of all time… Ugh! So basic, so lame! So taken for granted… It makes me feel even more like a tool.”
“…”
Like a whip, she snaps back to her cheeky attitude. “Then again, you’d like that, wouldn’t you, you sneaky scamp? You’ve already been moving my body like you own it. Why not go the distance and make me entirely one with you, hmm~?”
“…Ruby, do you actually have a question for me? If not, I’m leaving.”
She cups a hand over her cheek, looking as if she’s embarrassed. “Aw. I’ve been asking you, but you wouldn’t answer!” She then peeks open one eye his way. “Though, it’s not like I’m giving you an option to refuse.”
He looks away again. “Hmph… Which of us really has the options here…?”
“Well, while you still aren’t gonna kill me, I’m gonna stick around, so you might as well get comfortable.” She throws out her arms. “We can start with a snuggle for warmth! Come ’ere, Sephy! It might even cure your chronic cold shoulder syndrome!”
By this point, Sephiroth’s gratuitous patience is starting to wane. He demands with a stern tone, “We’re done here. Go back to bed.”
He means to leave, but she just swings around to get in his way again.
“You’re not coming? Aw, but I worry about you. I mean, it must be pretty sad having no one but your dead alien mom’s head with you, and she even makes up your physical form, at that…” She shrugs, making a dry smirk aside. “Seriously, how does that even work? Is Jenova just putty and can stretch herself? Is she Play-do for vampires? Wait, or is that just a slime…?”
That’s it; patience has run out. He’s not having it anymore. He shoves her away, summons his blade in hand again and raises it threateningly at her neck.
“If you’d like me to facilitate your return to sleep, so be it…”
She remains unfazed and keeps on grinning. “Don’t be like that, Sephy. What would killing me now accomplish?” She pauses and then snickers. “Well, if you wanna cut me open, I guess that’s one way to learn about the female body, but I was thinking less as an anatomy lesson and more as a physiology lesson… if ya know what I mean.”
“…” Frustrated, he slowly lowers his blade, safely away from her. He then turns away again. “Come back when you’ve made more progress. If you still have any serious questions, you can bring them up then.”
She hops forward and glomps onto him for a hug from behind, and he even flinches.
“Sephyyy…” she whines, “Is it so hard to just play along? Lately – thanks to you – I’ve been having nightmares, so I need someone to snuggle so I can sleep! But Cloud’s in a coma right now, so he can’t help. I guess that just leaves you~!”
“…”
Now that every other avenue seems to be unavailable or impractical, he makes a last-ditch effort to silence her. With an intense glare her way and a flicker of his pupils, he calls to the cells that have spread to her through Geostigma to afflict her with an intense bout of pain.
“Augh!”
That seems to work for a moment. Ruby backs off, grasping at her gloved hand, which is now trembling from the sudden searing pain that has erupted throughout her hand and even running up to the back of her forearm. She even falters in her step a bit, but to his surprise, she doesn’t drop. Even through the pain, she manages to crack a grin. She looks back up, and while still gripping tightly onto her other hand, she gives him a strained smile. In a way, with the way her face is flushed from the pain, it almost has a bit of a lewd look to it.
“Hah… hahah… ah… heh. You’re so mean, Seph… but I kinda like that about you…”
This is the opposite of his desired effect. It actually stings him. He quickly dismisses the curse he laid on her and turns away to avoid meeting her line of sight. Unfortunately, once she has seen weakness from him, she won’t let off until he keels.
“Ugh… hehehe. I knew it. Tough guy exterior, but a total novice with women…” She returns to her innocent smile from earlier. “But don’t you worry! If you’d like to know more, I don’t mind teaching you a few things… if you do sleep with me.” This time, she dares to blow a kiss his way.
“…” He lets off a defeated sigh. “Even I hadn’t anticipated this from you… but you’ve exceeded my expectations of how insolent you can be.”
“Hahaha! Thanks, love ya, bae~!”
“But, don’t fool yourself into thinking that you’ve edged out any advantage.” Now there’s a dangerous look in his eyes as he turns back around. “It’s not the critical blow you think it is…”
“Oh?” She lets off a haughty laugh. “And what will you do, big boy? Actually take me up on my offer and learn the ways of the female body?” She even sensually rubs along her curves for added emphasis as she takes a full-body stretch. “Ah, but you’re not that kind of guy… Your Masamune would be courting a lady sooner than even you would.”
He lets off a confident scoff. “And who decided that?”
Ruby suddenly snaps out of her high and blinks a few times. “…Eh?”
Contrary to her expectations, he’s not staying as flustered as she thought he’d be. In fact, he’s already chuckling to himself. “…Hmph. So this is how you want to play it, do you… Very well, I accept your challenge.”
“…Uh. What?”
“If you insist on staying by my side, that would bode well for my plans anyway. I have no reason to object to gaining another ‘fan’… or should I say, a potential ‘love interest’?”
“…” Ruby blinks again. Now she’s the one in utter shock. What just happened here? Why is he back to being cocky? This wasn’t supposed to happen.
He begins to approach her, and she begins to feel a very real sense of danger. She steps back at a similar pace to keep some distance between them.
“What’s the matter, Ruby? You were just begging me to stay.”
“…”
The look in his eyes sharpen with an eerie glow. “Didn’t you say you were going to ‘teach’ me a few things if I were to sleep with you?”
She stares back with growing alarm. “…Sorry, but I was joking. Don’t take it so seriously.”
“That’s too bad… I’m not joking.”
“…!”
It’s not funny anymore. This guy really has gone off the deep end. Abort! Abort! She turns away and breaks out into a run.
She tries to get far enough to open up her computer’s hatch again, but before she can hit any buttons, he flashes before her the next instant. With a conniving grin, he seizes her by the other arm to stop her from simply warping away.
“W-wait! Time out!” she yells, trying to wrestle free. “What are you doing!? Just ignore it and move on!”
“Are you really so weak to feign strength in a situation way over your head? You’ve made your bed… Now lie in it and take what’s coming to you.”
“Don’t say it like that!” she wails, “It’s freaky coming from you! Let me go!”
His grip only solidifies further and he wrenches her close to him, wrapping his other arm around her waist to keep her there. Now that they’re face-to-face, his dangerous smile sends a chill down her spine and she cowers under his gaze.
“Hmm… Where have I seen this face before?” he muses to himself, “…Ah. It’s just like when we first met, isn’t it?”
“…”
“You were waiting for a moment like this, weren’t you?”
“…” Now that they’re way too close for comfort, she feels her face burning up. She looks aside, unable to meet his line of sight anymore. “…Can we do a do-over?” she asks meekly.
“For?”
“This whole conversation. Let’s just go back to that point where you left and I was on the ground moping. That was fine…”
“Hmm… I’d rather we keep to this.”
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me…” she mutters through gritted teeth and then yells in his face, “WILL YOU STOP!? It’s not funny anymore!”
“On the contrary, it’s the most amusing thing I’ve witnessed in a long time.”
“Shut up! What the hell is wrong with you!?” She tries to squirm free, but his grip on her is still too tight. “Stop being out of character! Go back to being cold and uncaring, you psycho! Just kill me while you’re at it!”
“I have a better idea…”
He instead raises her hand which he’s still grasped and loosens his grip just slightly to take her hand in a more gentle hold. It comes especially close to his face, almost that he could kiss it, and she feels that same chill from before run back the other way of her spine.
Before he does, though, he asks her a simple question, “Would you like to find out?”
“H-huh? Find out… what?”
“Where this turbulent relationship may lead.”
“W-w-what!? No! Stop that! We are NOT going to be a thing!”
“Well, then… maybe you ought to have thought through your plans more carefully.”
She sulks, “…I’m sorry. I’ll do better next time.”
He chuckles again. “Fret not, my dear. There’s no need for a ‘next time’…”
“AHH!! STOP IT!! Why!? What are you doing!? How would this benefit you in any way-”
Too late. As if marking the ceremonious start of a new chapter, he promptly places a tender kiss on her hand.
“!?”
“…The look on your face says it all.”
“!!??”
He finally lets her go, and she drops to the floor like a rock. She’s gotten even redder in the face and has buried her face in her arms as she curls up, trembling, in a fetal position once more. When she finally finds her voice again, she takes a deep breath and lets out a high-pitched squeal – out of rage, horror, or embarrassment; probably all three.
“I was wondering what I was to do with you… At first, I thought using Cloud to motivate you would have been more than enough, but you remained as stubborn as ever.”
“…”
“I hadn’t expected that your preference was elsewhere.” He then crouches down to one knee and offers a hand to help her up. “It seems, yet again… you’ve forced my hand by your own inaction.”
Without looking up at him, she seethes aloud, “…I cannot even begin to describe how much I hate you right now…”
“Haha… Is that the face of someone who truly loathes me? One would think Cloud would be flushed red in the face more often, then.”
“Just… shut up…”
She rejects his hand and pulls herself back up into sitting. She turns to face him with a fierce glare, but her eyes have begun to well up with tears.
“…Seriously, %*#^ you to high hell, Sephiroth.”
As unfazed as ever, he calmly takes a seat beside her. “My, how direct… Is that an offer?”
“Don’t play dumb. Why are you trying to turn our conflict into a makeshift romance? Just to mess with my feelings? You already can control me through your germs…”
“…”
She scoffs, turning away again. “All of this has been nothing but a game to you. Because I dared to question your authority on one thing, you took the chance to turn it back on me.”
He makes a sly smirk aside as if proud of himself.
She returns him a fierce glare through her wet eyes. “Don’t tell me… Is all that I see of this ‘Debug Room’ just what you want me to see? Do you have such complete control over me that I never had any freedom to begin with?”
He doesn’t respond. It’s unclear if he’s still listening or just ignoring her.
“Hey, answer me. What am I to you, huh? Just a new toy to play with? Got bored with Cloud, so you found someone else to take his place?”
“…”
“After you have your fun with me, you’ll just toss me aside like trash… Or even worse, force me to be your bride so I won’t ever escape you again.”
“…Not at all.” He turns back with a calm, somewhat reassuring smile. “I’m a practical mind. It wouldn’t serve me any purpose to resort to illicit sexual advances.” He then places a hand over her head and gives her an affectionate rub. “Though inexperienced with romantic relationships that I am, even I know to keep my boundaries.”
“…” She feels her face flush even redder from being petted. Though she hates to admit it, she actually does like it.
“That said…” His hand then slips down to lift her by the chin instead, and his smile turns for the sinister. “If you’re willing to take it further, I won’t object either.”
“…!?”
She flinches to what he says and is left visibly shaken. While she expected him to get forceful with her again, he actually removes his hand and leaves her be. Then again, by this point, he doesn’t need to do anything more. Just the way he so casually welcomed that intimacy was enough to leave some mental scars.
He gets back to his feet. “As long as you keep to your word to fix what you’ve started, it doesn’t matter what happens between us…” He then adds with his usual cocky smile, “But while you continue to entertain me with all forms of charades, I’ll take them in stride, no matter what they may entail.”
“…”
She stares back in stunned and bewildered disbelief. Her eyes are clouded with her tears, and just by blinking, she lets a couple of them fall. She’s in so much shock by now that she’s become at a loss for words. As he calmly walks off into the darkness once more, she turns away, growing ever redder in the face in a wild mix of frustration, embarrassment, and outright terror. It’s too much. He’s too powerful. No matter how she attacks him, he has the perfect counterplay. And now it’s starting to sink in that she’s really run out of options.
So, that’s it? This meeting was just a huge waste of time. All she got were confirmations of some suspicions she had, and against her will, a new abusive “boyfriend” who sees it as little more than a part of their game. She once joked about it, but now her developing Stockholm’s doesn’t seem that farfetched anymore. She’s come to regret this challenge she took up in the heat of the moment. She thought she’d just play along for a bit to see how things go, but it seems to be inevitable with her: she just can’t put down the controller for her life.
And yet, something – not sure if it’s in her head or her heart – tells her that this was “inevitable”. Shut up, brain! What was inevitable!? A toxic fake relationship!?
With her ever growing fatigue and nothing left to do but return to her nest, she opens up her wrist guard computer and weakly slaps the button.
~
Ruby wakes up with a start, finding herself curled up on her comfy nest again. It’s exactly the same night where she’s returned, but despite finally having a comfy place to rest, she only feels even more exhausted. The events that had occurred moments ago continue to circle in her mind. That didn’t just happen… She just woke up from a really weird dream. The next time they meet, Sephiroth’s gonna go back to being his usual uncaring self. He has to… or she is going to lose it.
Her worries continue to plague her, and she finds herself unable to sleep even though she’s so drained. She can’t sleep yet anyway; she needs to make Cloud not catatonic. With seemingly great effort, she pulls herself up again and saunters over to the bed.
Despite being comatose, Cloud looks like he’s completely at peace for once in his life. She opens up the wrist guard computer again to search for a way to “resume” him to his usual state. It’s ironic: in the still silence of this plain apartment room, her only company being a human vegetable, she feels more relaxed here than anywhere else in this world thus far. She maneuvers the menu with ease, and it’s not long before she finds the appropriate commands to input and implements them. She then places her hand onto his forehead. Using her hand as the medium of transfer, she restores him to his last state of mind before he’d gone to bed. No need for any fancy effects; just instantaneous results.
He wakes with a start and knocks her hand away. “…Ugh? What are you doing!?”
“…”
To his surprise, Ruby responds with silence. She looks relieved though deeply fatigued, and her face is a little red as if she’d been crying. Without a single utterance, she drags herself back onto her nest to flop onto it.
He watches her drop almost like a ragdoll, and when she doesn’t move again, he asks, “…What’s with you?”
“…Mmmph…” she makes a muffled groan. Still, it’s not a very comfortable position she’s in, so she curls up and closes her eyes, trying to get back to sleep.
“Uh… Ruby?”
She doesn’t answer, but he gets the feeling that she isn’t asleep yet.
Now, he’s starting to get worried. He tries to recall what just happened, but the last he can remember was that he had climbed on bed and closed his eyes. Everything else after that is a total blank, as if whatever may have happened was cleanly wiped from his memory. He stares off into space, completely lost, and then the panic starts to set in.
“Wait… What happened? I… don’t remember…?” He clutches his head. He feels a headache coming on as he struggles to recall. “Ruby… What did you do? What did I do…?”
She answers without opening her eyes, “…Sorry.”
“Huh?”
“I made it so you wouldn’t remember.”
“What? How did you… Why!?”
“Don’t worry about it. You just had a bad dream.”
He frowns. “I’m not gonna take that. What the hell happened here? Why do you look like…” He then blinks. “Wait. Have you been crying?”
She doesn’t respond, but he gets the feeling that she hasn’t fallen asleep yet.
His tone softens a bit. “Um… I didn’t did do anything to upset you, did I?”
“…No. It’s not you.”
He feels a tinge of relief from hearing that. “Then what’s bothering you?”
“…”
“Come on, just tell me… I’m not gonna be able to rest easy if you aren’t.”
Now, she turns back his way and opens her eyes, revealing that they’re still a bit red, wet and swollen. He’d recognize this kind of look anywhere. It isn’t just a puppy-eyed look pleading for a favor like before. This is real anguish.
She looks away again and closes her eyes. “…I’m so stupid…” she mumbles barely audibly, “I thought I could fix any problem myself, but I’ve just made things worse…”
“What did you do?”
She shakes her head in shame, but doesn’t answer.
“Ruby, please… We’ll have to deal with it one way or another, right?”
She lets off a sigh in acknowledgement, and opens her eyes again. “…I met Sephiroth again.”
“…!” As soon as he hears that name, Cloud feels a cold sweat come over him. “Here?”
“No, in a different place…” She hesitates over how to explain. “Um… Somewhere in the Lifestream, I think…”
“So… did he pull you back there or did you go meet him?”
“I went to him.” She clasps her hands over her head, making a frustrated grunt. “I shouldn’t have. I should have just ignored him…”
“What happened? What did he say… or do?”
Ruby flushes red in the face and returns to silence. She buries her frustrated and embarrassed face into the blanket and whines like she’s sobbing. Now that she’s brought him up again, Cloud isn’t just going to stay patient. He gets up off the bed to kneel beside her and give her a shake.
“Ruby. Don’t keep it pent up. Tell me.”
She only continues to whimper.
“Did he hurt you?” He takes a look around her body, but hesitates to move her for a better look. “…At least it doesn’t look like you’re bad off.”
She lifts her head briefly just to say, “He didn’t physically hit me… but psychologically, I’m completely battered…” before she buries her face back in.
“…?”
She keeps muttering, even while muffled, “…I hate him so much. He’s taken everything from me… my home, my childhood, my freedom, my identity… my purpose in life…” Her voice begins to crack by the end of it.
He turns away again and balls a hand into a fist, feeling a fire within bursting to life. It sounds just like that man to abuse his victims in all manners of torture until they’re merely hollow shells of their former selves. He almost fell victim to that himself. He just never expected that Sephiroth would bring his latest victim directly to him. It’s sickening how much it feels like a threat as much as it is a burden.
She then pulls up again to whisper with melancholy, “…even my heart.”
He whips back around to attention. “What?”
She buries her face again to hide her rapid-onset embarrassment. “No! Stop it, me! It’s not like that!”
“…”
“I… I’m not… falling for… him…” she mutters, but with every word uttered, she seems to get weaker and weaker, as the doubt sets back in.
Suddenly, Cloud feels an icy chill run through him, like he just took a hefty Blizzard spell head-on. That fire from earlier goes out in an instant and he feels an encroaching numbness replace it.
She begins to tremble as her voice cracks again between sobs. “I’m not… I can’t… I won’t lose… not like this…”
“…”
At this point, he’s in such a chilled shock that he begins to tune out. Unbelievable. How in the world did things come to this? It seems like it just came out of nowhere… No, wait, that can’t be it. They must have met for a while now, long before Sephiroth first reappeared before him, and unfortunately he wasn’t around to stop whatever has been developing between them. He figured she must play into Sephiroth’s plans somehow, but he didn’t expect that man to be so serious about her that he’s resorting to manipulation like this. Someone within his reach is in dire trouble, and unfortunately, Cloud has absolutely no idea how to help her – or if he even can help her.
“Ugh…” Finally, Ruby pulls up again from the blanket and says with a straight face, “If you wanna take your sword and end me, I won’t complain.”
He snaps out of his daze and replies with a stern frown, “Don’t be stupid.”
“…”
“You should know. Whatever that man’s scheming, it’s not a good thing. Don’t fall for his tricks.” He then gets back to his feet. “Get to sleep. We’ve got a lot to do tomorrow.”
He steps away to leave her be, but then he hears her mumble something between sobs while her face is buried again.
“Huh? Did you say something?”
“…” She then raises her head slightly and mumbles a little louder, “I don’t care anymore… I’m just a puppet…”
Cloud freezes up again as soon as he hears those words. He isn’t sure where else he’s heard them, but they sound strangely familiar. As he racks his brain for an answer, he’s suddenly hit by a piercing headache, and in a strangely informative flash, he’s reminded of the man who said just that to him once in a different time. Surprisingly, his ache doesn’t last long this time. He snaps back to attention when he hears whimpering beside him.
“Agh… Ruby?”
She’s slipped off her own nest, tightly clutching her right hand, and is trembling very visibly now. She’s struggling to detach her own wrist guard, reaching over and prying at some kind of latch on the bottom. He takes her arm in hand and quickly unlatches it for her, and finally slips it and the glove underneath off her arm. He gasps when he finds a grotesque sight: several large patches of black spread across the back of her hand down her forearm, leaking some kind of foul-smelling pus from the wounds.
“Shit. How long have you kept it bundled up…?”
He looks around frantically as he tries to figure out what to do. Without much thought to it, he carries her over to the bathroom sink. As soon as he turns on the tap to clean her arm, though, it stings her and she shrieks. She shoves him away and flees back to her nest.
“You idiot! That won’t help!” she wails and plunges head first into the cushion of the blanket.
He hurries out after her. “S-sorry… but how are you supposed to deal with that?”
“I just… let it be… It’ll go away on its own…”
“It’s not going away! Look how bad it is! I’m surprised you haven’t been freaking out since earlier.” He searches the closet for some kind of first aid kit, but comes up empty.
It seems their frantic noise has gotten someone’s attention, and they hear a hurried knock on the door.
“Guys! What happened?” It’s Tifa and she sounds worried. “I thought I heard Ruby…”
Cloud rushes to open the door. “Tifa! Where’s the first aid?”
“It’s in the closet under the bathroom sink… What happened? Is she alright?”
He rushes on over to fetch it as Tifa steps in. She’s a little shaken when she sees Ruby curled up on her nest, her exposed hand looking like it’s practically melting off of her. She quickly shuts the door before anyone else sees them like this, and Cloud brings over the kit.
“O-ow! Ow! Not so rough!” Ruby whines as he tries to disinfect her arm and bandage it.
“Don’t move! It’ll be over quick!”
Tifa quickly intervenes. “Let me do it…” She manages to have Ruby wrapped up quickly with little more than a few soft whimpers. “…There. It’ll have to do for now.”
Ruby glares at Cloud, who makes an awkward glance aside.
“But what happened to her? I’ve never seen a condition like that before… Is she sick?”
“Uh, sort of…?” He turns back to her, who’s still growling at him. “Hey… how do you wanna explain this?”
“…” She then droops miserably back upon the nest. “I’m sick with a disease unknown to man…”
Cloud doesn’t look satisfied with that answer, while Tifa only looks more worried.
“Cloud, have you seen something like this before?”
“Never… but she did mention it once.” He scratches his head. “Something called… Geostigma?”
“Geostigma? What’s that?”
“It’s…” He drifts off, unsure of how to tell her. Though Tifa may not be any stranger to Sephiroth, the last thing he needs is for her to start worrying about how that nightmare from the past is back to haunt them.
“It’s a curse of the planet,” Ruby replies, covering for him, “Some say it’s the planet’s way of fighting back after all the damage it’s taken…”
Tifa gasps, “Oh, no…”
Cloud looks a little surprised, not because of what she said, but because of how quickly she came up with something. She’s awfully quick when it comes to making up cover stories. No wonder she was a natural at convincing everyone else of her “amazing” albeit scattered history.
“But why would you end up having it? You’d think the ones who are draining the life energy away would be the ones first hit…”
She shakes her head. “I dunno… Maybe it’s something like payback for some sin I may have committed in the past?”
“A sin…?”
“…”
She looks away such with a pensive mood that even Cloud is starting to suspect that maybe she isn’t just drawing this stuff from nowhere. Now’s not the time to bring it up, though.
“…” Tifa, likewise deciding not to press further, nods thoughtfully. “Do you know if it can be cured somehow? Will we need to take you to a doctor?”
Ruby shakes her head again. “No doctor can help with this… but I do know of someone who might be able to.”
“You do? Who is it?”
“A local florist who lives in the Sector 5 slums.”
“A florist? Oh! You mean like an herbalist of some kind?”
“Yeah, she’s that kind too.”
“Well, I guess if we don’t have any other options… But Sector 5 is still a bit of a walk, and it’s already too late to take the trains.”
“It’s okay. We can go tomorrow.”
“But will you be okay? It looks pretty bad.”
“It’s fine. It hurt a bit earlier, but it’s better now. I don’t even feel it anymore.” Ruby even forces a smile.
“Hmm…” She still looks unsure, but honors her decision and nods back. She then turns to the other. “Sorry, Cloud. We were going to find some work for you tomorrow, but this is way more urgent. Let’s take her to see this florist first thing in the morning.”
“Don’t worry about me. But you’re coming too?”
“Of course. I can’t just wait around here knowing that she’s sick with some unknown disease.”
He nods back. “Right…” He also turns to Ruby. “That okay with you?”
“Yeah… Though, um, we also have a lot to talk about with this florist other than about me. Will it be okay with you, Tifa? It might keep us there for a good while.”
She smiles back. “It’s alright. I’ll just let Barret and the others know that we’ll be out for most of the day. You guys still have to come back to help Jessie and them later, after all.”
“Mm-hm…”
Ruby sits back up and picks up her wrist guard, wincing a little when she peeks inside the glove, and heads into the bathroom to clean it up. Meanwhile, Tifa and Cloud get back up, and she takes one last check around the room.
She peeks up at one of the wall lamps. “By the way, did either of you bump into the lamp? It looks a little bent…”
“Ah. That was Ruby. She transformed in here, but was too big.”
“Oh… That’s going to be tricky to explain to Marle…”
Ruby comes back out with the wrist guard and glove reattached, now safely separated from her wounds by fresh bandages. She makes a meek bow. “I’ll pay for it.”
“With what?” Cloud dismisses her with a hand wave. “I’ll pay for it.”
“You don’t even have your full pay yet, though.”
“…It’s just a lamp.”
“No, don’t worry about it, guys. I’ll pay for it,” Tifa says, making the final judgment. “You two should just get comfortable. And try not to make too much noise, okay? It’s really late and we don’t want to wake up the neighbors. Marle was already on the fence about this arrangement…”
Cloud nods back. “Got it.”
“Sorry,” Ruby says for both him and herself.
With everything else accounted for, Tifa then steps back out, taking the door by the handle. “Good night, guys. Get some rest.”
“We will,” he answers in Ruby’s stead.
Finally, she leaves and gently shuts the door. And once again, it’s back to the two of them. Ruby curls up on her nest to get comfortable, and Cloud sits back on bed. But there are only more worries that have come up, and as tired as he is, he isn’t ready to doze off just yet.
“…Hey, Ruby?”
“Hm…?”
“…”
He was going to ask her more about her encounter with Sephiroth, but now he isn’t sure if he should keep pressing. He hopes it’s not a big deal, but Ruby seems to be taking it pretty hard. Then again, even if he does know, what can he do about it? He’s not the guy to ask about stuff like relationships. Besides, just saying encouraging words at this point feels like a pointless gesture.
He rubs his head awkwardly. “…Forget it. Sorry to bother you. You’d better get some rest.”
“…” She looks away again.
He lies back down on bed and tries to get comfortable. He shuts his eyes, but sleep doesn’t come right away. Though he’s grateful that Ruby did answer him honestly, her answers have only left him with more heavy questions. What is Sephiroth planning now? He’s now gone so far as to shove another victim in Cloud’s way and leave her with him as if she’s his responsibility. But why involve another party who he doesn’t even know? She certainly knows way more than she should, so he can understand why Sephiroth would be wary of her, but then why wouldn’t the man just get rid of her? It seems like the most obvious answer. Instead, he insists that the two of them ‘get along’, whatever that means.
Wait… He’s not seriously trying to make him feel attached to her, is he? It wouldn’t work out, and she’s become attached to Sephiroth anyway. However that happened. How long have they known each other anyway? This isn’t going to turn into anything disastrous, will it? What would Sephiroth even do with her…?
And then, a deep-seated fear creeps up on him and chills him to his core: what if they’re actually in cahoots? Ruby is pretty quick when it comes to cover stories, and she has been working toward some goal that she won’t say. She just declared that she’d be Cloud’s “guide” out of nowhere for some reason. She even has some way to contact Sephiroth on a whim. And worst of all, she even admitted that she has something to do with the planet’s crisis…
He shuts his eyes tightly with a frown. No, now’s not the time for doubt. It’s too early to jump to conclusions. Ruby hasn’t actually done anything horrible; she’s just really lost and stirs up trouble sometimes. Besides, she came back here looking like she was just abused. That look in her eyes earlier didn’t seem like it was faked… So why did she go to meet him? She mentioned something earlier about a “bad dream” and that she “made it” so he wouldn’t remember. Did she somehow wipe a bad memory from his mind? Then, she confronted that man about it, but…
That old flame within his soul is rekindled once more. He was already dead-set on finding Sephiroth and ending him once and for all, but this is another good reason that he has now. He can’t keep wasting time wandering around to find himself. The time when they’ll meet again is going to come and it’s coming soon. As soon as he gets the chance, he’s swinging at him full-force with all the rage that he’s built up over these five years… and then some.
He opens his eyes again and turns back to Ruby, who hasn’t moved since he left her be. He isn’t sure if she’s fallen asleep already, but whispers to her anyway: “…Ruby?”
She doesn’t respond.
He looks back up at the ceiling again, but keeps going, “I think… I get it. I have an idea of what happened here.”
Still no response.
“Sephiroth did something to me. He would have left some real damage if you hadn’t done something to stop him. That’s why you went to see him, wasn’t it?”
Again, silence. By this point, he just hopes that she does pick up on something.
“If that’s how it is… Thanks. Next time when you’re gonna go see him, let me know. We’ll beat him down together.”
Another moment of silence passes, but finally she answers with a mumble, “Thanks, Cloud…”
He’s a little taken aback since he didn’t expect her to reply. “…No problem.”
“…but you’re not ready yet.”
That stings a little. “Why? What am I lacking?”
“…” She takes a moment to think before replying, “Experience and wisdom. A lot.”
“…What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I know, it doesn’t sound like an answer, but I mean it. Even with how strong I may be, he has an answer for everything. You wouldn’t even be able to touch him.”
“…”
“But I’m not giving up. I’m going to keep finding my answers and learning more about the bigger picture – about myself, my legacy, and the planet’s crisis. And when I find them at last, there won’t be anything he can do about it.”
“…” He then lets off a sigh and concedes. “Fine. I guess I’ll take your word for it. Since you’re gonna be sticking with me anyway, I don’t have a choice but to put at least some trust in you.”
She actually seems to chuckle to that. “Thanks, Cloud… I mean that genuinely.” She pauses again, and then adds, “…For more than just these words.”
“…” He blinks back, having no idea what she’s referring to, but turns away again. “Glad to help, I guess…”
“I think… I’ll be able to rest easy now. Good night.”
“…Night.”
She finally goes quiet once more, and this time, she actually seems to fall asleep. He tries to relax and closes his eyes again. So much has happened just on this night that even with his Soldier-enhanced stamina, he feels absolutely exhausted. And yet, he can’t help but feel that the next several nights are going to be just as busy. He’s never gonna get another good night’s rest any time soon, is he? Not to mention, Ruby said she still has some “truth bombs” to drop when they meet with the local florist again. Whatever is going on, he might finally get some real answers, and that’s still something worth looking forward to.
Notes:
From here on out, I'm not going to be keeping too faithful to the original game or even Remake, though the pacing will still generally follow that of Remake. That said, things are going to speed up dramatically once they head out of Midgar. Please look forward to it.
Update: My apologies. I went back to check on my guides to the original FF7 mechanics, and I made a mistake in assuming the calculations. Ruby at this point is level 73.
Chapter Text
Ruby wakes up with a start. Sunlight is streaming through the window shutters before her. She finds herself slumped over her desk in front of her computer. What the… She’s back in her own room in her apartment.
She drowsily pulls herself up and lets off a great yawn, and then stares at the monitor before her. It’s turned off after being left idle. She blinks a few times, trying to get the remaining drowsiness out of them. Did she fall asleep from working on something for too long?
She moves the mouse, but the computer doesn’t turn on. She stares at it for a moment, and then lightly knocks herself on the head as she remembers to turn on the monitor. She hits the monitor’s power button, and the computer flashes to life again. It seems to have been left off on a webpage for a charity organization. The mouse has been hovering over the “contribute” button. Oh, wait… This is her browser’s extension that runs ads that give to charity. It looks like they’ve recently updated something and this is just a notification page. Never mind, it’s all good.
Ruby racks her brain as she tries to remember what it was that led her here. It’s so weird… Wasn’t she supposed to return to Cloud’s apartment? How the heck did she manage to come back to her own?
Unless… her entire adventure in the world of Gaia has actually been the dream all along. She slumps back in her seat in a daze, staring off at the edge of the ceiling. What an incredibly vivid dream. It honestly felt like she was really there. All the excitement, the struggles, the pain… they felt real. It actually makes her feel a little sad to think that all that she went through was just the work of her overactive imagination. Well, at least the world is making sense to her again. She was back home all along.
Just as she moves to get up from her seat, though, she feels a low rumble beneath her feet. She stops for a moment to see what that was. Earthquake? The rumbling then continues in a periodic interval, getting stronger every time. Before she knows it, she hears what seems to be screaming and panic outside.
She finally opens up the window shutters and peeks outside. Yep, people are in a panic, running around like chickens in a coop with a fox. The rumbling continues to intensify until Ruby feels like her entire apartment complex is shaking. But it’s when she looks up into the sky that really gives her the biggest shock.
The skies are a deep red color, kinda like a sunset that has spread across the whole sky. Further away in the sky, she can even make out the shape of a giant meteor… and it’s coming down toward Earth.
What the… Is this actually her apartment, or is she still on Gaia after all? Why is there a planet-threatening meteor coming? Did she somehow mix up the coordinates and land herself at the climax of the original game? Wait, but the last she recalls, she definitely had the right coordinates…
Then, she hears a mighty roar of a gargantuan monster that rips through the panicked screaming. What now!? What the hell is going on!?
Ruby rushes out of her room and out the front door to get a better look on the balcony. She stops short just as she steps outside. The rumbling from before wasn’t an earthquake at all. Instead, there’s a massive mutant dino-lizard stomping around the city and screeching like a prolonged elephant’s outcry mixed with a symphonic crash.
“Run! It’s Godzilla!” she hears someone scream.
Ruby stands there, staring in dumbfounded disbelief at the scene. Suddenly, she doesn’t care that her apartment may be at risk of being stomped flat. In fact, she doesn’t even care that she’s even back in this world… because clearly, she’s still dreaming.
Before Godzilla can stomp all over her block of the city, a great slash resounds through the air. The monster roars in pain as it stumbles and topples onto the neighboring city block just across from hers. She simply closes her eyes calmly to guard them from the ensuing rush of wind, and opens them up again when she hears people shout below.
“Look! Up in the sky!”
“It’s a bird!”
“It’s a plane!”
“No… it’s a one-winged angel!!”
Cue the music. Sephiroth appears out of nowhere, hovering over the cityscape, with his sword gleaming under the sun’s rays. His eyes are cast over the crowds far beneath, and yet he still manages to locate the particular balcony where Ruby is standing. He even gives her that usual eerie smile.
“Is he here to save us?” someone non-descript asks.
“No… he may have slain the beast, but there’s only one reason why he’s come,” says a man who looks suspiciously like Ken Watanabe.
“Mama-mia!” a certain Italian plumber cries out, ducking his head for cover.
“Oh, no!” a little bald but well-dressed old man with a monocle cries out as well, “Someone call the Powerpuff Girls!”
Ruby leans against her arm on the balcony rail, looking quite done with everything. The only thing keeping her here is her morbid curiosity. Maybe there’ll be something interesting to come out of this chaotic multiversal crossover.
Then, a deep and handsome voice calls out from somewhere up in the sky. “Halt, evildoer! Send the meteor away and no one has to get hurt!”
“Look! It’s Superman! We’re saved!”
Everyone cheers and celebrates, but Sephiroth remains unimpressed as ever at his latest challenger.
“Have no fear, citizens! I’ve handled much worse villains than the likes of this one! This will be over quick!”
Ruby rolls her eyes. Where the heck was he when Godzilla was stomping around, then?
Superman flies up to Sephiroth and crosses his arms. “Now, what’ll it be? Will you give in nicely, or will we have to do this the hard way?”
“…” Sephiroth then chuckles to himself. “Ah, I remember now. The almighty superhero that has won the hearts of everyone the world over…”
“Hmm. I’m glad to hear you’ve heard of me. Now, if you know what’s best for you, stand down.”
But he doesn’t. Instead, he raises his free hand into the air as if preparing to cast a spell. “If I recall, you had a certain few weaknesses…” Then, he snaps his fingers and summons what seems to be a giant hammer above his head.
Superman frowns and gets into a fighting pose. “I’m sorry to say, but that’s not going to work. I’ve taken a lot worse beatings from objects many times greater than this.”
“Oh, no, I’m sorry to tell you… this is a Magic Hammer.”
Superman gasps and falls back in shock. “Ah! So that’s what you meant!”
Like out of a Saturday morning cartoon, Sephiroth swings that hammer and knocks Superman up and away through the sky. “Curses! Not magic! That’s one of my only weaknesses…!!” he cries out as he sails away into the distance.
Ruby watches him go with a disappointed look. Great, now she’ll have to deal with all the complaints from the power-scalers of the Internet. Maybe they can pretend this was the Superfriends version of Superman where he’s at one of his lamest iterations. It’s been a long time since she’s last seen it, though, so she isn’t entirely sure.
Sephiroth suddenly laughs out loud like a maniac as his theme song begins to crescendo into progressive rock. “There’s no one here who can stop me now! This world shall know despair…!”
And the crowds go back into a panic like headless chickens. Ruby sighs. Even in her stupid dreams, he still gets away with villainy, even when it’s super toony.
“We’re all gonna diiiie!!”
“Who’s going to save us now!?”
“It’s gonna be me!” another voice calls out from amid the panicking crowd. And by some miracle, even Sephiroth’s theme seems to be cut short.
Ruby gasps aloud at the latest newcomer. “Lance Bass of N-SYNC??”
Out of nowhere, a huge stadium pops out from underground, and the rest of the N-SYNC boys come out on stage. Lance jumps up to his place to join them and they pose for their crowd of fans, who have materialized out of nowhere as well.
“Let’s go, guys! We’ll save everyone… through the power of music!”
“OH, GOD, NO!” Ruby plugs her ears before the earworm gets to her.
The beat drops and kicks into high gear, and they begin to sing.
“Every little thing I do
Is never enough for you
You don’t wanna lose it again
But I’m not like them
Baby, when you finally
Get to love somebody
Guess what (guess what)
It’s gonna be me.”
By the time they finish the verse, Sephiroth has already charged up a Flare in his hand. He chucks it at the stadium, and the entire thing erupts into a bright blazing explosion. And then, silence.
Ruby lets off a sigh in relief. Well, that’s that, then. She’s had enough of the nonsense. Time to get back to sleep.
Before she can head back inside, though, she feels a hand placed on her shoulder and she jumps. She whips around and is shocked to find Cloud standing right next to her.
“…Hey. Time to get up.”
~
Ruby groans as she stirs awake. “Mmmgh… What do you want… I’m tired…”
Cloud had been crouching beside her, shaking her by the shoulder. He gets back to his feet with an unapologetic look. “You have an appointment today, remember?”
Ruby returns him a drowsy look like she doesn’t care and shuts her eyes again.
“Hey… Aren’t you supposed to be sick? At least worry a little more about yourself.”
“…”
He gently nudges her with his foot this time, but since she gives no further response, he then steps away and yanks the blanket out from under her, letting her head conk against the hard wooden floor.
“Cloooud!”
He takes it away and proceeds to fold it. “Come on. I know it was late last night, but you shouldn’t be that tired.”
She shuts her eyes and flops against the floor anyway. “I usually sleep for 9 hours… but since the night before, I’ve gone, like, 20 hours straight without sleep.”
He stuffs it back into the closet and shuts it in. “What have you been up to?”
“My business… and a bit of Sephiroth’s too, I guess…”
“…” He turns back to her with a suspicious look. “Speaking of which… how long have you two known each other?”
“Hmm…” She lifts up her head. “I dunno, a couple hours ago or something?”
“Huh, really? The way you were acting last night made it seem like you two went way back…”
“…”
Upon connecting the dots, he then looks disappointed. “…So you ‘fell’ for him in such a short time? What did he do that got to you?”
“It’s way more complicated than that! I don’t feel like explaining everything right now,” she snaps back with a huff.
He rolls his eyes. “…Anyway, get up already. Tifa’s waiting for us at the bar.”
“Gimme another 5 minutes…” she pleads with a whine.
“…” As tempted as he is to yank her off the floor, he refrains. “I’ll be in the bathroom, then. By the time I’m out, you’re getting up.”
Ruby grumbles inaudibly to herself while he heads inside. She doesn’t take the whole five minutes she requested, though, as it’s much harder to fall back asleep without her nest. With a great heave, she pulls herself back up and shakes her head to bring herself back in focus. She also takes a look around, rapidly blinking her eyes until they can stay open.
Her eyes happen to trail up toward the tilted lamp up on the wall. She then recalls that Tifa said she’d pay for it even though they were short on funds. With a determined frown, she nods to herself. She’ll just fix it right now and Marle will be none the wiser. So, she approaches and reaches up to grab at it, but she’s too short. Not to be dissuaded yet, she hops up into the air a few times with a silent chant in her mind, and her eyes begin to glow just slightly. With one last hop, she starts floating in the air and can finally reach the lamp. She then heats her hands with a bright glow of white light emitting from them and carefully shapes the lamp’s support back in place.
Apparently, the noise she was making by hopping around has caught Cloud’s attention. After a final check of his hair, he comes back out to tell her to settle down. He’s instead taken aback, as he finds Ruby floating in the air and readjusting the wall lamp. With her work done, she floats back down and the glow from her hands fades too.
“…How did you do that?”
“Hm?” She then turns to him. “What? Fix the lamp?”
“No, I mean… You can just float in the air without your wings?”
“Ah. That’s just a simple Float spell.”
“Float?” He frowns, trying to recall. “Is there even any materia that can cast Float?”
“Probably not, but rest assured, it’s a very real spell from ancient times.” Ruby was going to add, “And from other Final Fantasy’s,” but that reference would have gone way over his head.
“Hmm…” He decides not to question it. “So, you ready to go yet?”
“Yeah, we’re already dressed, so… Oh, wait!” Ruby then hurries into the bathroom. “Be right back!”
He rolls his eyes, but turns away and waits. Fortunately, she doesn’t take too long and comes back out with the sounds of a flush.
“Alright, let’s go.” He heads out the door with Ruby closely tagging along.
“Hmm… Hey! Do you know if Tifa has pancakes?” she asks as they descend the stairs.
“Pancakes?” He shrugs. “You can ask her.”
As they step out into the open, an elderly woman with her hair tied up calls out to them from the porch.
“Hey, there, kids! Sleep well last night?”
“Huh?” He turns to her. “Oh. The landlady.”
“What’s that ‘oh’ about!? If you’re gonna live here, then at least act like you belong!” Marle frowns. “Honestly, it’s only because Tifa asked me so nicely, but the ruckus you guys were making last night nearly woke the whole complex. The walls aren’t exactly soundproof, you know.”
He makes an awkward look and rubs his head. “Uh… Sorry.”
Ruby bows too. “Sorry! We just got into a bit of an argument, but we settled things…”
“Hmph. Consider this a warning for now. I won’t be so lenient if you two stir up trouble again.”
“Yes, ma’am,” they answer back in unison.
“Especially you, the spiky one.”
“Huh? Me?”
“I heard from Tifa this morning that the lamp in your room might be in need of repairs too? Sheesh. Went a little wild in there, didn’t ya?”
“…” He frowns, glaring toward the actual perp.
Ruby meanwhile makes a cheery smile. “Oh, don’t worry about that! I fixed it.”
Marle raises an eyebrow. “Huh? You ‘fixed’ it?”
“Yep! You can head in to check for yourself. Tifa doesn’t have to pay for anything!”
“…” To their surprise, she then makes an impressed smirk and seems to let it go. “Well, alright, then. At least that’s one less hassle…” She waves a hand to dismiss them. “Run along now. Don’t keep Tifa waiting, alright?”
“Sure thing! We’re headed there right now!”
“…”
And once again, Cloud feels like he’s been made the butt of a joke. Ruby, ever the consequence-evading rascal she is, returns his frown with her mischievous grin. Before he can say anything else, though, she runs off ahead and he hurries after her.
~
“We’d better be prepared, guys. Jessie said that she’ll need some more time to work on our new IDs, so we can’t use the trains again. We can still reach Sector 5 on foot, but we’ll have to pass through Sector 6 first, and if I recall, it’s been abandoned for years…”
After getting everyone breakfast, Tifa let Barret and the others know that the three of them are heading off. Though he was hesitant at first, he trusted her to watch over the other two and gave them the go-ahead. Jessie and the others will be able to hold down the fort in the meantime.
Cloud and Ruby are waiting for Tifa outside the bar. She said she just had a little more to do before she’d be ready to go.
“Sorry to keep you!” she announces, hurrying on out. “I just had to leave Marlene some instructions to keep the bar open while I’m gone.”
“You’re leaving Marlene in charge of the bar?” Cloud asks.
“Of course Barret’s going to stay with her! What, did you think I’d leave a 4 year-old all alone in a bar?”
He shrugs and leaves it alone. Ruby, meanwhile, makes an awkward look aside as she recalls something just like that happening once in a different timeline.
Tifa turns to Ruby to ask, “Hey. Are you doing okay now?”
“Huh? Ah, yeah…” Though still looking a little tired, Ruby gives a relaxed smile. “I’m okay. I got Cloud with me.”
She nods back with a kind smile of her own. “I can tell. You’ve been keeping a good eye on him for me.”
“Hey…” he replies, but moves on. “So what was the deal about Sector 6, Tifa?”
“It’s in complete disarray. I heard there was an accident many years ago that caused the plate to collapse, but Shinra hasn’t done anything to fix it since. But I’m not sure what the details are. It happened long before I came to Midgar.”
“The entire plate collapsed? Would we even be able to make it across?”
“I think so. Even if most of the sector is in ruins, there are still remnants of a town there. The roads are pretty rough, but I’m sure we can handle them.”
“Oh,” Ruby pipes up, “We won’t even need to worry about the roads. I can safely fly you guys over.”
Cloud frowns. “No. We’ve been over this. We can’t be spotted by Shinra.”
“Dude, Sector 6 is a dump. They’re not gonna have guards posted anywhere.”
“And how about the next sector over, where people actually live?”
“We don’t need to head into town. Our florist should be waiting for us at the old church at the edge of the sector. It’s not that far from the outer gate either, and there isn’t much security by the outskirts.”
He didn’t exactly get a good look at the ground during their flight before, but at the very least, it didn’t seem like they were noticed. He folds his arms with a frown, but lets it go. “Hmm… fine.”
Tifa nods. “Looks like a plan. But before we get there, we’ll first have to get past the Sector 6 gate. Those guards are always there, though, and I don’t think they’ve ever let anyone through…”
Cloud grabs at his sword’s hilt. “They shouldn’t be a problem.”
“No, Cloud, it’s okay. I know an easier route we can use to avoid them entirely.”
“An easier route?”
“There’s an underground tunnel that connects these two sectors. It used to be only for maintenance, but ever since the Sector 6 collapse, it’s been open to anyone passing through… if you know where to look.” She leans in closer to whisper, “It’s been a real help to Avalanche too. The guy guarding the entrance on this side is one of ours.”
“Ah… alright.”
“Come on, follow me. It’s been a while since we last used it, but if I recall correctly… Right, this way.”
They stop by a nondescript house on the northeast end of town, and Tifa guides them behind the house with the owner’s permission. What at first just looks like an empty lot where a lot of garbage has piled up turns out to have a secret manhole behind one of said piles. Fortunately, it’s not locked and she opens it up, beckoning the other two to follow her down the ladder.
It’s pretty dark for much of the descent, but soon enough they’re met with some faded lamps that still light up the tunnel below. Cloud notes that the tunnel extends two ways, and Tifa points the way they need to go.
“Watch your step, guys… It’s been a long time since the tunnel itself has been maintained. It’s kind of our secret weapon in a way, so we try not to bring any attention to it if we can help it.”
She tries one of the metal plates that acts like a small bridge over the gaps in the catwalk, and once assured that it’ll hold, she waves over to them to follow.
“All good! Looks like it’ll hold. Come on!”
Even in an old, abandoned, rust-filled underground tunnel, Ruby seems to be able to find fascination with just about anything. She’s bouncing around from place to place, admiring the details of the piping below the catwalk and along the walls, and even carefully inspects the extra metal and materials that have been left aside without much purpose anymore. Though they keep an eye on her to make sure they don’t lose her, she begins to trail behind. Tifa takes the chance to chat with Cloud in private.
“It looks like she’s doing well enough. It’s almost as if she isn’t ill anymore…”
“Yeah, but she’s always been like this.”
“How long has she had it?”
“I don’t know. She brought it up when we met for the first time, but I didn’t realize just how bad it really was.”
“Hmm… I hope she hasn’t been pushing it aside to try not to make us worry. It’ll just do the opposite.”
“Who knows what’s going on with her…” Cloud mutters with a sigh, “I just wish she’d be straight with us from the beginning…”
“Huh? What do you mean? Has she been keeping secrets or something?”
“Uh…” Now he realizes he slipped up. Well, it’s not exactly his job to keep her secrets for her, but this is going to be difficult to explain. He decides to go with: “…Not really. I’ve just got my suspicions, is all.”
“…” Tifa takes a moment to think it over to herself. She then asks, “By the way, Cloud…”
“Hm?”
“You mentioned before that she knew about Nibelheim, right?”
“Yeah. Still no clue how.”
“Could she have been there even though we didn’t know?”
“I asked her about it, and she said she wasn’t. Also said that she was able to see it in a vision… like through the Lifestream or something.”
“Ah. She did mention that she knows of a place where she can enter it.”
“She even said that’s where she came from.”
“Where she came from…” Tifa pauses. “Oh, yeah. She said she traveled through time to get here, right?”
“Yeah, but she also doesn’t have any memories from when she traveled. It’s just moments here and there from some other time in the past.”
“At first I thought it was because of Shinra’s doing, with how they’re draining the planet’s life… but do you think it’s actually because of something else?”
“Hmm…”
Before Cloud can come up with an answer there, they’re interrupted by a creature’s shriek from behind.
“Huh?”
“Oh! Ruby!”
Ruby is running to catch up, but is also hounded by a large squad of squealing Wererats that don’t take kindly to her prodding around. She was about to tread off the central path to follow her child-like curiosity, but instead ran into a den of them and was forced to retreat.
“Hang on! We’re coming!” Tifa shouts.
But just as they race over to lend a hand, the entire fracas seems to vanish into thin air like some sort of magic trick. One moment, Ruby was going to be pounced by the giant rats, but the next, all of them, including Ruby herself, are just gone.
“Where did she…?”
“Right here.”
“!”
Cloud and Tifa whip around and find Ruby standing behind them instead. She’s smiling like nothing had happened.
“What the… Where did all the rats go?” he asks.
“And are you okay?” she adds.
Ruby gives a dismissive wave of her hand. “I cleaned them up real quick. Don’t worry about it.”
“Huh? But we didn’t even see you move…”
“Heh. That’s Flash for you.”
“Flash?”
“It’s a high-level technique where you move so fast that anything that gets in the way is taken out in an instant. Since these guys aren’t anything special, I cleaned them up.”
Tifa simply blinks back in surprise, while Cloud remains unimpressed.
He sighs and puts his sword away. “There’s nothing you can’t deal with, huh…”
“It doesn’t work on things that resist instant death, though.”
“…Okay.”
Tifa lets off a relieved sigh. “…Well, it’s good to know that we’ll be fine crossing through Sector 6. I wasn’t sure what to do if we ran into something too tough to handle.”
“Anyway, sorry for interrupting whatever you two were gossiping about,” Ruby cheekily says with an innocent look.
“We weren’t gossiping,” he retorts.
“Ah. Don’t worry, it’s nothing important!” Tifa says, looking a little frantic as she comes up with an excuse. “I was just… wondering what kind of person this florist is.”
“And what did Cloud say?” Ruby asks.
“Nothing,” he replies instead.
“…” She returns him a fake smile and a piercing stare that could drill holes through solid rock.
“…She seems like a nice lady who sells flowers. What else can I say?” he then says, trying to avoid her stare.
“…” She then relents on her piercing stare and returns to a more genuine smile. “Well, it’s only natural you guys wouldn’t have a clue. I’ll let you in on a hint… I’m not the only remaining Cetra around.”
“Huh? Wait…” He’s reminded that she mentioned something about that lady being the “closest thing to family” that she still had. So this is what she meant.
“So this florist is…” Tifa repeats as she lets it sink in. “Oh! So that’s why she would know how to treat this? She can talk with the planet and all and help lift whatever curse there is, huh?”
Ruby nods. “That’s the idea.”
Cloud glances away, looking less convinced. If it were that easy, then surely Ruby would have gone to see her sooner. She can even fly, so it’s not like transportation would be an issue. Still, a meeting between Cetra in modern times – who knows what they may be able to reveal?
Now with Ruby leading the way, the rest of the route is a straight shoot where any potential enemies are instantly destroyed before they can even manifest. It doesn’t take them long before they reach the next ladder out.
“This one, right?” Ruby asks.
Tifa nods. “That’s it.”
They climb back up, and crawl out from under the large slide covering the manhole. It’s an old, abandoned playground from days past, and it’s confirmation that they’ve crossed the gate into Sector 6.
“Hm?” Cloud looks off into the distance in another direction. “Tifa, you said this place was abandoned, right?”
“Yes?”
He turns back to her and points a thumb back that way. “So what’s with the lights over there?”
“Oh. That’s just Wall Market. It’s a hidden market town that Shinra tends not to oversee. I hear there are some shady things that go on there, though, since they’re not under watch as much.”
“We don’t need to go there just yet,” Ruby adds, “but it’s a pretty lively place! Maybe we can visit it sometime later?”
“You’ve been to Wall Market?” Tifa then asks.
“A few times or so… It’s one of the places I stop by whenever I visit Midgar.”
“Hmm…” Tifa peeks over to Cloud, and when he notices her, she quickly looks back with a shy smile. “Well, maybe later if we have time…”
Ruby snickers quietly, catching on immediately. She knew Tifa was planning something for the two of them. It’s too bad that last night he had to spend it comforting Ruby instead, but there are just some things that can’t be predicted, even with her almighty foresight.
“So, Ruby? You said you’d carry us off to Sector 5, right?”
“Oh, yeah. Give me a bit of space and look away for a bit. It’s gonna be bright…”
Ruby hops off for an open area in the playground and stretches her arms up in the air. Then, she disappears in a big flash of light, and the moment it fades, they see a large white dragon, whose sleek scales seem to glow in the dark, spread its wings before them.
“Oh…” Tifa watches her in complete awe. “So that’s how you look like when you’re in that form.”
Ruby then drops to all fours and tilts her head back toward them. “Climb on.”
Cloud turns to Tifa, but she lets him go ahead first. He shrugs and hops on, but there’s not much to grab onto, as Ruby’s back is so smooth. He opts for one of her wings’ shoulders.
“Don’t grab there. I need my wings.”
“Where else can I grab?”
“Up here. At my actual shoulders.”
“Oh.”
Once he finds a comfortable position, he offers a hand to Tifa and pulls her up too. Without much else to grab onto, though, she hesitates over how to hold onto Cloud.
“Just hug him tight, Tifa. He’ll hang on.”
“Uh…” She gets a little nervous hearing that. “I-it’s okay! I can hang onto his shoulders instead.”
“You’re gonna fall off. I fly pretty fast, so you need to keep a firm hold.”
“Tifa, it’s fine. Just wrap your arms around my waist,” he suggests, moving his sword out of the way so it’d be easier for her.
“…”
Without any other options left to her, Tifa shyly nods back and holds onto him from behind, leaving a little space between them so it’s not too awkward. But as Ruby takes a stand and prepares for takeoff, the jostling shakes them and Tifa ends up falling right up against him. The two of them flush red real quick as they scramble to readjust themselves.
“S-sorry!”
“I-it’s okay…”
Ruby’s maws crack up into a subtle toothy grin. This is as good of a chance for their date as it’s gonna get until the party reaches Gold Saucer eventually. And with them secured, she soars off through the air over the collapsed highway.
~
Now this is a much more bearable ride. Being on Ruby’s back means Cloud can avoid looking down at the ground for the most part, so he isn’t that bothered by her swaying motions this time as she rides the air currents. However, he still can’t move very much, since Tifa is clinging tightly to him from behind like her life depends on it. To be honest, he isn’t sure if he’s more or less comfortable this way.
Ruby effortlessly swerves outward for the edge of the town as they near Sector 5, and with a quick “Brace yourselves. We’re landing…” as a warning, she promptly swoops down to the dirt path amid the junk piles that make up some artificial hills. Though she makes a gradual and gentle landing, she also sits upright rather abruptly, making her passengers slip off. Fortunately for them, she catches them with her tail and flicks them back to their feet.
“Warn us first if you’re gonna sit up!” Cloud scolds her, and then turns back to Tifa, who’s still clinging to him. “Uh, Tifa?”
“…Huh? Oh!” She lets him go with a nervous laugh. “Sorry. It’s pretty scary riding with a dragon without a saddle or anything. I felt like I was going to slip off at some point.”
“I’m never getting a saddle,” Ruby replies with a snort.
“I didn’t mean it like that…” Tifa then makes a relieved smile. “But thanks for the ride, Ruby! It sure is convenient to be able to fly from place to place.”
“Yeah… Now turn back into a human before someone sees you,” Cloud hastily beckons her while he returns his sword to his back.
Ruby obliges with another flash, and it’s like there was no huge dragon to be found. She then turns toward the church with a relaxed smile and fond memories pouring back into her mind.
“I didn’t realize there was a church this far out of town,” Tifa comments. “What kind of church is it?”
“Hmm…” Ruby shrugs. “I’m not sure either, but there is something familiar about the guardian angel statue inside. Maybe it’ll come to me eventually…”
Cloud then remarks, “It’s also pretty busted. Looks like no one’s been here in forever. You sure our florist is waiting in some old ruins like this?”
“It looks nicer on the inside. Come on.”
Ruby leads them through the large double doors, and they’re met with quite the marvel at first glance. While it is still pretty busted up inside, with the flooring broken and full of holes with age, the sunlight pouring in from a hole in the ceiling lights up the stained glass windows and the stone altar in the back in a resplendent glow. And at the center of the room, a large patch of dainty white flowers have been growing under the sun’s warm rays. As the church is situated near the edge of the town, it tends to get quite a bit more sunlight glancing off through the gaps between the upper plates.
“Aerith!”
And knelt before the flower patch is a young woman in a pink dress. She turns to look and gets back up to meet her new visitors.
“Ruby? Oh!”
Ruby runs right up to Aerith for another hug, and this time she’s ready for her. They let go with bright smiles and easy laughter, and Ruby excitedly introduces her to the others.
“Hey, guys! This is Aerith! She’s my bestie!”
“Haha! Hello! I’m just your neighborhood-friendly florist living in the slums.”
“It’s nice to meet you!” Tifa replies with a smile of her own. “Ruby’s told us a lot about you.”
“Oh, really?” Aerith giggles. “Couldn’t wait to see me again, huh?”
Ruby snuggles up against her like a pet waiting to be petted. “It’s always lonely without you around!”
“Aw…”
And she gives her the head rub that she was hoping for. If Ruby had her tail out, it would definitely be wagging happily. She finally lets her go to give her some breathing room.
“…So, we meet again,” Cloud says, playing it cool.
Aerith nods. “So we do.”
Tifa blinks. “Wait. You two have met?”
“Yeah. She was the one I got the flower from.”
“Ah.”
Aerith turns to Tifa and back to him, and then giggles. “I see now… So that’s who you gave it to. How nice.”
“…” He looks away, trying not to show his embarrassment.
“Though, it’s funny. Even though we talked for a bit, I never actually got your name.”
“It’s Cloud.”
“Oh. Cloud…”
“Hm? Something up?”
She shakes her head. “Sorry, I just thought I might have heard of it somewhere before… but it’s been a while.”
“?”
She turns to his companion. “And this is?”
“I’m Tifa,” she answers with a polite smile. “Thanks for helping out Cloud before.”
“Helping?”
“For the flower.” She leans in to whisper, “See, he’s not the most open guy, so it surprised me to find that he was making new friends all of a sudden.”
She laughs. “Oh, no! I didn’t do anything. It was actually Ruby who brought us together.”
“Ruby?”
“That’s me!” the little prankster pipes up too, “I’m Ruby, bringer-together of friends!”
They both get a bit of a chuckle out of that, while Cloud simply ignores her.
He then gets serious as he says to Aerith, “Sorry to drop in all of a sudden, but it’s pretty urgent. We have to ask you about Ruby…”
“Oh? Don’t worry, I’m not too busy. What is it?”
He pulls Ruby over and motions to her gloved hand to get her to remove it. She sighs, losing all that pep earlier in an instant, and obliges. She then shows Aerith her bandaged hand, but ever since last night, the wounds have continued to leak ever-so slowly and even the bandages are now stained black.
“Oh, dear.”
“Have you ever seen anything like this before? Know anything about it?”
“Hmm…” Aerith takes a moment to think it over, and answers solemnly, “I’ve never seen it up close like this, but I think I may have heard a little about it before.”
“What did you hear?”
“It’s a fairly rare but very terrible affliction that hurts the victim the most while they’re under great emotional stress. I don’t know what causes it, though.”
Tifa asks too, “Is there any way to treat it?”
Aerith shakes her head. “I’m sorry… I don’t know enough about that either. All I really know is that it’s been spreading around recently.”
“It’s even been spreading?”
“Unfortunately, yes. I think it mainly spreads through physical contact…”
Cloud looks at Ruby with a suspect look. “Have you been going around touching people?”
“What the hell! I may be annoying sometimes, but I don’t go around getting handsy! What kind of gal do you think I am!?”
“Of course, that might not be the only way it gets around,” Aerith adds to clarify.
Tifa then brings up, “Something I’m really confused about is how Ruby of all people would have caught it. I think she said it has something to do with the planet ‘fighting back’…?”
Aerith looks surprised. “Really? So is that’s what’s going on?”
“Oh. I thought you would know about that…”
“I don’t know everything, so it’s possible there are some things even I haven’t heard.”
Cloud curiously peers over to Ruby, who has gone suspiciously quiet and seems to be sweating. To help ease her pressure, he moves on, “Where have you been hearing about all this anyway?”
“Ah…” Aerith turns away toward the patch. “It may sound a little strange, but it’s from listening to these invisible voices all around us… Believe it or not, they actually come from the planet.”
“Right. You’re one of the Cetra, aren’t you?”
She turns back around. “Oh! You know about them?”
“Yeah. Ruby mentioned it to us earlier. She knew exactly who you are and wanted us to meet you.”
“I see. Though…” She then turns to Ruby. “I don’t think I ever mentioned that to you?”
“I’ve always known, Aerith. I’m one of them too.”
“What!?” She nearly jumps from hearing that. “You are too!? Well, why didn’t you say so before!” She lets off a sigh in relief. “I’m glad. All this time, I thought I was the last one on this whole planet…”
“Yeah… sorry that I didn’t say anything. I think it would have been a bit much to take in all at once when we first met.”
Aerith smiles back. “No worries! It explains a lot up to now.” She then turns back to her flowers with a gentler smile. “They really are perfect for reunions, huh…”
“Yeah… if only they’d talk with me too.”
“Huh?” She turns back to Ruby. “You mean… they’re not speaking with you?”
“Yeah… It’s weird, but I think I’ve been having trouble hearing the planet.”
“…” She casts a dispirited look aside. “You too, huh…”
Ruby frowns. “Aerith, it’s even been affecting you, right? How has it been?”
“I still do hear them from time to time, but sometimes, it becomes really hard to make out what they’re saying. For a while there, I thought I was starting to lose my powers…”
She shakes her head. “…I’m sorry. It’s actually my fault.”
“Huh?”
“It’s one of the things that I wanted to talk to you about, actually…” She takes a moment to think it over again, and then gives a shrug. “Well, I don’t think anyone will bother us here at this time, so it should be safe. Guys, take a seat and settle in. We got a lot to cover.”
“Alright, then…”
Aerith finds one of the benches that isn’t about ready to teeter and gives it a quick dust with her hand. She also beckons Tifa over to sit with her, who’s pleasantly surprised and thanks her. She also offers Cloud a spot, but he declines with a wave of his hand. This huge sword would probably just get in their way.
“Go on,” he replies, “We’re listening.”
Ruby approaches the flower patch and leans in to give one last check on them, but they remain as silent as ever. A little disappointed but not surprised, she then turns back to the rest and begins to speak. As she does, she paces back and forth before her audience.
“So, I’m still trying to figure everything out, but there are a few things I can say for sure… For one, the planet is facing a crisis worse than anything in its long history: a plague of ‘void’ that engulfs and consumes all energy it meets. It erases souls and memories entirely, and those who were once associated with those lost also lose their memories of them. In other words, this complex network that makes up the Lifestream is breaking apart little by little. If this continues, there’s no telling what will happen to this planet.”
The rest of them have gone completely quiet and exchange their looks of concern. Aerith looks down, making a solemn face as if she had been suspecting this all along.
“For another, I’ve arrived in this time period with a mission in mind; specifically, to learn about the current state of the world and to address the cause of the plague.”
“You even know what’s causing it?” Tifa asks.
“Yes. It’s a long story, but in short: This ‘void’ is made up of lost and abandoned memories that used to belong to my past lives.”
“…” She looks rather disheartened, almost regretful that she had asked it.
Cloud presses further, “You mentioned it to me before too, about those ‘past lives’. How many are there? And is your dragon form just one of them?”
“I haven’t counted, but at least a few across the millennia, I think.” Ruby pauses to try to recall some details from her past stories. “…In any case, even though it is a kind of ‘reincarnation’, they’re all just different iterations of ‘Rubia the Radiant’ or the more ambiguous ‘Holy Dragoness’ in some descriptions… though I can’t say why I’d be ‘holy’ in any way.” She adds that last part with a shrug.
“And… somehow, those memories of your past lives have lingered in the depths of the Lifestream until now?”
“Yeah, that’s how it seems.”
“How it ‘seems’? You aren’t sure?”
“Not sure of the details, like why that is or how it happened. Like I said before, I’m still learning everything myself.”
Tifa now recalls something and asks, “…Wait. In that case, how is it that you’ve managed to survive up to now even though all the other Summons have long disappeared?”
“That’s what I wanna know too,” Ruby agrees with a nod. “If I’m supposed to be one of them, why don’t I have my own materia? I figured that it’s probably because I’m able to reincarnate, so there wouldn’t be any of ‘me’ left in the Lifestream to form into materia… but it doesn’t explain why I’m the only one like this.” She pauses for a moment to think it over, and then looks up to the ceiling with a dejected sigh. “…Well, I do have one suspicion.”
“What’s that?” Cloud asks.
She looks back to them. “That I’m different enough from everyone that I can’t simply merge with the Lifestream.”
He strikes his thinking pose. “Different, huh… So, there’s something stopping you from joining the rest…?”
“…” Tifa hesitates to bring it up, but her curiosity has been piqued and she decides to ask anyway. “Um… I think you mentioned before that you had committed some kind of ‘sin’ in the past? Could that have had anything to do with this?”
Ruby glances off and taps her head as she makes a serious effort to recall more details. “I’m… still not sure exactly what that’s about, but at least in one vision I’ve seen, Rubia may have betrayed the Cetra of the time by unleashing a great evil on the world and was hence imprisoned in an ancient temple. Who knows what else could have happened between then and now, though…”
“Oh… Sorry to make you bring that up.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ve made my peace long ago.”
Tifa frowns to herself, looking more and more uncertain if she wants to keep prodding into some clearly awful memories. Cloud looks even more confused as he struggles to connect the dots linking this ‘plague’ and Sephiroth, but still comes up short. And throughout Ruby’s explanations, Aerith has been awfully quiet, as if she’s been contemplating over something.
She finally looks up again and speaks out, “Ruby… I think I remember now.”
“Huh?”
“The first time I heard your voice… it came from the planet.”
“…”
“It was a terrifying roar, like that from a dragon, but it was filled with pain and misery. I only ever heard it once when I was little and it gave me nightmares for years.” She looks rather sad in a sympathetic way. “But… at the same time, I knew I didn’t have to be scared of it. If anything, I got the feeling that it was a call of longing… like it wanted to be heard, but no one would listen. But then, it never got a chance to roar again…”
“…”
“So, it may not have sounded quite like you, but I was able to sense there was something similar between you and her.” Aerith then sighs. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hide my suspicions from you, but I wasn’t sure it would be a good idea to bring it up.”
Ruby shakes her head. “It’s fine, Aerith. If anything, I’m glad to hear that you were listening.”
“Ruby…”
“As I am now, I’m still incomplete. I don’t know how to contact Rubia. If I do figure it out, I’ll try to find out what’s been happening with her. I can only guess that it’s because of something with or about her that is acting like interference and making things harder for us to hear…” She shrugs. “So, again, sorry that I used to be such a nuisance.”
She shakes her head. “No, it’s okay. Don’t apologize. I don’t even blame Rubia for anything…”
“Really? Why not?”
She even makes a calm, reassuring smile. “Because I have to thank her.”
“…?”
She looks back down with a pensive expression and closes her eyes. “It’s a pretty heavy burden being one of the last Cetra. There are so many expectations set on you ever since you’re young, and it brings all sorts of trouble when people find out who you are…”
“…”
She then opens them again and turns back with a determined face. “But at the same time, it’s also strangely motivating in a way. Like, you have this special gift that lets you sense what others are feeling even when they don’t say anything, and you just know you can do something to help them, even if just a little bit.” Finally, she nods with assurance. “At least… that’s what I want to believe. Hearing your voice all those years ago pushed me to want to help as many people as I can.”
“…” Ruby lets her eyes wander off idly into space as she takes a moment to take it all in.
Aerith gives her a serene smile as she says, “I thought, maybe, just maybe, all that good karma will come back around and help relieve that pain and misery that you’ve been carrying all this time.”
“…” She closes her eyes as if diving deep into thought, or perhaps even savoring this moment.
Her smile then fades a little. “Well… maybe that’s a little too idealistic, huh? In the end, this ‘void’ has only been spreading and getting worse. There’s only so much optimism can do when we don’t really understand what the problem is…”
“Aerith.” Ruby finally turns back to her with a reassuring smile of her own. “Keep going. Your kind of optimism is very much on the right track.”
“Ruby…”
It turns into a bitter smirk and she turns away as if to hide her embarrassment. “Seriously! How are you always this amazing? And here I was worried that you were in some serious distress over this…” She lets off a tired laugh. “What a mood whiplash, but in a good way.”
Aerith regains her kind smile again. “Well, I don’t know about ‘always this amazing’, but it’s like I said since the beginning: No matter what troubles you’re dealing with, I’ll always listen… Even if it’s across time and space and beyond.”
“…” Ruby pinches at her forehead as she feels a headache coming on, but it’s more to do with how she’s struggling to hold back some sentimental tears. She can’t help but wonder if Aerith could still listen to her problems even in another dimension… however that would work.
She then looks off toward the flowers once more. “And even if they may seem rather quiet sometimes, I get the feeling that these little guys are still listening too. If they could tell us, they’d probably be saying, ‘Good work out there, guys!’”
“God! Aerith, please! Enough! You’re gonna make me cry!” Ruby bursts aloud with a whine and stomps off down the aisle.
“O-oh. Sorry.” She makes a light chuckle as she gets back up. “But really, Ruby, I mean it. Now that I know I’m not alone, it’s such a huge relief.”
Ruby stops in her tracks, but doesn’t turn back around just yet. She shakes her head as if ashamed over something and heaves a deep sigh.
“So, I’ve decided… From here on out, we’re going to look out for each other. No matter what hardships or struggles there may be, we’ll face them together.” She makes a proud smile. “After all, that’s what family is for, right?”
“…”
By now, Ruby has gone completely silent and is massaging her aching head rather roughly – even until her hands are starting to tremble. Aerith goes over to give her a rub on the back and her usual reassuring smile, and Ruby starts trembling even more as she buries her face in her hands. She suddenly lets off a wail in defeat as she drops her hands and whips around to give her bestie another tight hug. Tifa has looked away as if trying to hide her own tears. Even Cloud looks off on his own in silent contemplation. It feels like they’ve all been bitten by the sympathy bug.
Aerith waits patiently as Ruby recollects herself and lets go to wipe her tears. “…You okay?” she softly asks.
Ruby nods back and returns a somewhat exhausted smile. “Yeah. I didn’t think this little bit of sappiness would get to me, but I guess it has been a while since someone said these things to me…”
“You poor thing…” Aerith gives her another warm hug and head rub. “Don’t worry. Like I said, we’re sticking together no matter what. Anything you need, just let me know.”
Ruby blushes a little from being petted again. “…Thanks, Cuz.”
She winks back. “No problem, Cuz.”
They break off once again, and it looks like Ruby’s cheery grin is back. “This is why you’re my bestie!”
Aerith raises her hands. “High-five for besties?”
Ruby meets them immediately. “High-five for cousin besties!”
Just like that, they’re back to giggling together. Tifa turns back to Cloud with a warm smile.
“Cloud… this is too precious. We have to protect them.”
“Yeah. No objections there…” But he then frowns as he thinks it over again. “But as nice as this reunion is, we really haven’t solved anything.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“For starters, Ruby’s condition isn’t gonna go away just like that. I guess she’d be able to put it off for a while if she’s feeling better, but who knows when the next outbreak is gonna happen?”
And Tifa is back to worrying. “Ah… That is a good point.”
“For another, we also have Aerith to think about now. Shinra’s gonna be even hotter on our trail if and when they find out that the only two Cetra left have basically teamed up with Avalanche.”
“That’s… also a good point.” She sighs.
“And even if Ruby is strong enough to take on a small army by herself, she’s not entirely safe either…”
“Huh? What makes you say that?”
“…”
For just a moment, a glimpse of a certain phantom from behind flashes into mind. Cloud glances aside, mulling over how to put this so that it doesn’t sound so suspicious.
“I can’t help but get the feeling… that we’re heading right into a lot of trouble down the line.”
“…” Tifa nods along in agreement, but then she makes a determined look as well. “All the more reason why we have to protect them. No matter what, we can’t let Shinra catch either of them.”
“Yeah…” He decides not to bring up any more. For now, they should focus on the enemy that’s right in front of them.
Then, while caught amid their serious discussion, they hear a loud clap interrupt them. They turn to see Ruby and Aerith are back standing beside them.
Ruby shuffles her hands together with a rather conniving smirk on her face. “Guess what, guys… We just recruited a new party member!”
“…”
She leaves them behind her back and makes an innocent-looking face. “I mean, there’s no way we’re gonna leave Aerith alone here in Sector 5 like this, right? Shinra’s gonna come after her sooner or later. She has to come along and join Avalanche.”
Cloud frowns. “Actually, I was thinking it’d be safer that she stays here and out of our business.”
Ruby snorts angrily. “No way! I’m not leaving my cuz here, even if she can defend herself! If you guys aren’t taking her along, I’m not going with you on your next missions!”
“Don’t just decide that on a whim! We already discussed it with the others!”
“I don’t care! I’m never leaving her side again!”
“Ruby… will you stop acting like a kid and just think about it for a sec!?”
She blows raspberry in his face, to which he growls back.
“H-hey, Ruby,” Tifa tries to calm her. “I know where you’re coming from, but I’m not sure if it’s a really good idea to bring Aerith into our problems…”
“Et tu, Tifa? What’s the big deal? She can always help hold down the fort while we’re out on bombing missions and stuff.”
“Even then, it’d just be attracting unnecessary attention. The last thing we need is for anyone from Shinra to find out about the both of you.”
“I’m not afraid of Shinra.”
“It’s not about being afraid…”
Cloud steps in again, “Besides, what is Aerith going to do? She lives here in Sector 5 and has her own work to mind. We’ll just be risking everyone she knows if Shinra starts digging around here too.”
Ruby scoffs back, “Well then, if Shinra is gonna be out and about looking for us, how about we just meet them at the main stage?”
“The… main stage?”
“Where’s that?” Tifa asks too.
Ruby points upward through the hole in the ceiling toward the upper plate. “Shinra HQ.”
“W-what!?”
“What are you talking about!?” he snaps, “Why would we go there? To be arrested!?”
“Ha! You think with me around, you’d ever be turning yourselves in? I need to head there eventually anyway.”
“What for?”
“Hmm…” Ruby glances off, making a coy smirk. “I bet that if there’s anything major I can learn, it would be hiding up in their secret labs…”
“…You mean about how to deal with the planet’s crisis?”
“In short, yeah.”
He stares hard at her, unable to discern if she’s being serious or not. Knowing her, though, she’s absolutely dead serious, and it only concerns him even more.
Aerith then speaks up, “Um… can I say something?”
“Oh, sure. What is it?” Tifa replies.
“I may not be the best person to talk about fighting Shinra or raiding their HQ… but at the very least, if you guys need someone to act as another set of ears, I can help pick up on some info here and there!”
“Ah, well…” She looks rather unsure about that.
Cloud frowns. “We appreciate the thought, but again, we don’t need to put you in any more risk.”
“But Ruby has a point. Shinra is going to come after me at some point. They’ve already been sending agents to my house to convince me to come with them.”
“They have? How long has this been going on?” Tifa asks, growing concerned.
“Ever since I was young. They’ve long known I’m one of the last Cetra, but haven’t taken me by force yet for some reason…” She looks aside with a hint of worry. “But if they find out about Ruby, then who knows what they might do to capture her.”
“…” Tifa looks away as she thinks it over again.
Cloud still looks unconvinced. “Still… Ruby is strong enough to handle herself. She won’t be easily captured… but it’ll be a different story if you’re ever caught.”
Aerith shakes her head. “Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself too. I do live in the slums, after all.”
“…” He rubs his head awkwardly, having no proper retort to that.
Now, Tifa turns back to him with a new look of resolve. “Cloud, I think I have an idea on how to deal with this dilemma.”
“Huh?”
“Aerith can stay here, but we’ll be keeping in touch with her if anything else happens on her end.”
“Keeping in touch? Tifa, come on. It’s not like we can just call her phone. Shinra runs these cell towers.”
She then turns to Ruby with a vote of confidence. “Well, we do have a secret express messenger.”
Ruby beams with a smile. “Even better: I’m a telepath and a teleporter too. Cetra magic and all. Shinra won’t even be able to keep up with me.”
“…” He grumpily turns away, now that he doesn’t have any other arguments.
Tifa nods, looking a little relieved. “Then, it’s settled. Is this okay with you, Aerith?”
Aerith nods with an assured smile. “Of course! Anything to help my cuz and her friends! I’ll keep you guys posted!”
“Thanks! We’re glad to have you with us.” She then turns back to Ruby and the sulking Cloud. “Well, guys. Maybe we didn’t get everything we wanted from this visit, but at least we now know a bit more about what’s going on.”
Ruby shrugs. “No worries. The answers to the bigger picture will come around eventually. In the meantime, shall we head back to Sector 7?”
“Yes. Will you give us another ride?”
“Of course! In fact, if Aerith wants to take a ride too, I can take one more.”
“Huh?”
“Oh, really?” Aerith’s eyes twinkle with delight. “Wow, thanks, Ruby!”
“Hey,” Cloud interrupts, “Didn’t you hear Tifa just now? Aerith is staying here.”
“She can at least hang out around Sector 7 with us a bit. We still have a bit of time before we need to go on the raid.”
He takes a moment just to stare at her in disbelief again and he groans. “…Are you kidding me right now. Were you even listening!?”
“All aboard!”
“Ruby!”
Before he can stop her, she runs out of the church, and as soon as she exits the double doors, she bursts into light and returns to her majestic form. The other three hurry out after her, and she crouches patiently to let her passengers on.
“Cousins get first dibs!”
Aerith laughs. “Ruby, you don’t have to treat me like I’m special. I’m just tagging along for now.”
“You are special, though.”
“Aw. Thanks, Cuz!”
She hops onto Ruby’s back, but because it’s so smooth, she almost slips off. Fortunately, she’s caught by one of the wing’s arms, which pushes her back up. Once she finds a good spot, she calls to the other two.
“Alright, I’m set! Come on!”
Cloud lets off an exhausted sigh. “Why is Ruby like this…?”
Tifa chuckles. “I’m glad she is, though! It’s pretty refreshing having such a happy reunion after all the gloomy days lately.”
“…”
Aerith stretches out her hand toward them, and Tifa takes it, helping herself aboard. Cloud looks over to them and then back to Ruby.
“You sure you can carry all of us? Your scales are way too smooth. There aren’t too many places to hold on.”
Ruby then gives him a toothy sneer as a dragon. “You can always take the front-row seat.”
“Front-row? Where…?” And then he realizes what she means, and his face goes pale. “Oh, come on…”
“Hey, you lost your chance when you didn’t call dibs.”
He looks visibly stung by that. “You didn’t even give…” He then drops it with a shake of his head. This isn’t worth arguing. She hasn’t even been listening to the problems that he was warning them about.
It’s not like he has another choice now; that glint in her eyes seems to say that she’s making the decision for him. He quietly stands back and waits. Ruby stands back up, making sure her current passengers are still secure, and begins to flap her wings, scattering the dust and debris on the dirt road. The dust clouds would have nearly blinded him, but then he gets snatched right off the ground in one of her front claws.
No, it doesn’t matter how many times this happens. He’s never gonna get used to being treated as a toy in the hands of a giant beast. The most he can do is shut his eyes and ignore the rest of the world speeding by underneath him, and hopefully the ride will pass very soon.
“…Cloud, keep it together, man. Don’t hurl on me.”
“S-shut up… I’m taking a nap. Wake me up when we’re back on the ground…”
Notes:
It's been 17 years... and I still can't get over the fact that Lance Bass voiced Sephiroth in the first Kingdom Hearts.
For the record, no, the beginning of this chapter wasn't a dream I once had. It's multiple dreams I've had combined into one. But joking aside, it actually was because of this idea that I had to rework the entire mood of this chapter from one of mystery and intrigue to silly, wholesome vibes.
Outdated A/N
Chapter 7 is in the works.
Chapter 7: Rolling Stones
Chapter Text
“…Wow. So this is what Midgar looks like from up here…”
Despite it being her first time leaving the ground, Aerith is quite relaxed and letting her feet hang loose, enjoying the wind brushing against her soles. She hangs on firmly to Ruby’s shoulders, but her grip isn’t tense in the least. Seated just behind her, Tifa is still a little nervous about this saddle-less arrangement, but at least she isn’t clinging to the person in front of her. Maybe it’s because it’s the second time around, or maybe it’s because Ruby has taken a more stable flight route, but either way, this has been the smoothest ride with her yet. Even with Cloud resting in her arms up front, he’s been softly snoozing away as if without a care. Ruby is taking her time on this return trip, giving her passengers a moment of peace to take in the view from up here.
Aerith is looking around below them like an excited child. She giggles and says to Tifa, “Hey. Doesn’t it look like a pizza?”
“…Huh?” Tifa then snaps to attention and looks down where Aerith points. “Ah… Yeah. It kinda does, doesn’t it? A mostly black one…”
“I always heard people describe the city like one, but it still feels a little different actually seeing it for yourself.”
“Hmm…”
Tifa takes a moment to take in the sight. It’s quite the formidable-looking scape with the central Shinra tower looming tall at the center of its 8 massive plates that are folded out like a dish around it. And yet, during the day when most of the lights – at least for the upper plates – are turned off, it doesn’t look as intimidating as one would expect of a sprawling metal metropolis responsible for sucking up the life of the planet. Granted, it’s still not a good look; the desert grounds just outside of the city gates are completely barren of any life or even movement, after all, but it’s only to be expected.
She makes a somewhat wistful look. “…It’s a little strange, actually.”
“What is?”
“For the longest time, I’ve been seeing Shinra as this great threat looming over us that we have to fight bitterly to the end… but now that we’re up here and looking down on the city, it almost feels like… it’s just in a sorry state.”
“A sorry state?”
“Yeah… I mean, it’s not that this view completely changed my outlook or anything, but there’s something… pitiful about how Midgar looks, being in the middle of a huge desert.”
“Hmm… now that you put it that way, it does feel like a shame, doesn’t it? Like, there were so many other possibilities that this great metropolis could have been instead, but…”
“Yeah. That’s a good way to put it.”
The two ladies have another moment of silent contemplation while Ruby idly glides around in circles, on the occasion flapping her wings so she doesn’t sink too far. She’s gotten pretty used to gliding by now. She feels like she’s put herself in a very calm state with little thought to perturb her – kinda like a practice of zen through movement.
But they still have to get back to base. Aerith pats on the back of Ruby’s neck to get her attention.
“Thanks for the sightseeing tour, Ruby, but don’t we have somewhere to go?”
“…Ah, you guys ready? Hang on tight. The descent will be quick.”
And with that, she swoops downward and swerves back toward the cold steel scaffolding surrounding the outskirts of Sector 7. By the time they arrive back on the ground, it’s already afternoon. She swings around the edge of town and lands safely, taking care to lay Cloud down gently to the ground without disturbing him. The ladies slide right off of her too.
“…Whew! What a wonderful ride! I think I could get used to it, haha!” Aerith beams with joy.
Tifa nods and gives her own relieved smile. “It was a bit scary at first, but I think Ruby’s gotten better at flying! That was a pretty smooth ride back.”
Ruby returns to human form in another flash of light, swinging her arms around to massage her shoulders, and passes them a giddy grin. “You think so too, huh? I thought it would be way more restrictive having to carry people, but it’s not too bad.”
“How many times have you done it by now?” Aerith asks curiously.
“Um… like twice?”
“Only twice!?” Tifa gasps. “With the way you were flying, I thought you had done it plenty of times before!”
“Well, the first time you and Cloud got on, it was a pretty awkward feeling, so my flight pattern wasn’t exactly set… So, sorry that you felt like you were going to slip off. That might have been true a few times, haha.”
“Ah… Uh, well, at least you learn really quickly.”
“Heh, nice work, Cuz! At this rate, you might just be the best solo flyer in the world!”
Ruby laughs back. “Thanks, Cuz. Glad to serve.” It’s a good thing a certain world-renowned pilot isn’t around to hear that.
She turns back to the sleeping Cloud and starts patting his forehead repeatedly, even a little forcefully, to get him to wake up. He snaps awake in an instant and swats her hand away. He sits up, rubbing his head, but he’s pleasantly surprised to find that his head isn’t spinning wildly. He climbs back to his feet without a problem. He still isn’t too keen on taking these rides, especially being carried in her arms like that, but if he really has to do it again for whatever reason, at least he can manage.
“So this is Sector 7?” Aerith looks off for the town up ahead along this dirt road. “I’ve never been on this side of town before. It looks pretty different from the edge of Sector 5.”
“Really? The piles of junk and unfinished scaffolding out here seems pretty similar,” Tifa remarks, “They’re all over Midgar.”
“Hmm… Maybe it’s just because I’ve known 5 the most, so just a little difference can feel like a lot.”
“Oh, I see.”
Meanwhile, Ruby is about ready to take off on her own, but she turns back to call to them. “Aerith, come on! You have to meet Barret and Marlene and the others! Especially Marlene!”
“Hey! Wait for us, Ruby!”
The girls hurry after her, leaving Cloud alone to recollect himself. He takes one last look up to the bottom of the upper plate, where some sunlight sifts on through the gaps, and runs to catch up with them.
However, as the group enters town, something seems to be amiss. Ruby would have expected Biggs or Wedge or even Jessie to be going around town and lending a hand here and there while they’ve been gone, but none of them seem to be around. Even some of the residents are a little wary – not of them, exactly, but judging by their passing conversations, there may have been some sort of commotion around Tifa’s bar just earlier.
Suddenly, Wedge comes rushing on over and stops before her with a heavy panting.
“Oh! Hey, Wedge!”
“Ruby! I’m glad you’re here! Hah… Where are Tifa and Cloud?”
She peeks behind her, and the rest are soon to follow.
“Wedge? What are you doing out here?” Tifa asks, looking a bit troubled.
“You guys have to come by the bar, quick! We got a big problem…”
“Huh?”
“Come on!” And as suddenly as he arrived, Wedge throws himself back around and runs off again.
Tifa and Cloud exchange glances and nod in silence agreement. Ruby just zips off on her own. Aerith can’t help but feel like she’s just stepped into something she shouldn’t be a part of, but joins them anyway. Wedge leads them back to the bar, and with his job done, finds a spot to take a breather. Barret, Jessie, and Biggs are already here, but none of them look happy.
“…Good, you’re ba…” Barret begins, but then he notices the group has yet another newcomer. “Huh? Who’s this?”
“Oh! Don’t mind me! I’m Aerith, local florist and cousin to Ruby.”
“Huh? Cousin?”
“Yeah, we’re cousins,” Ruby assures him with a proud smirk.
Aerith nods too, but then gets serious. “We can talk about it later. So, we heard there was some trouble here?”
Barret nods back and moves on to the point: “Guys, when you headed off for Sector 6, you didn’t see anyone following you, right?”
“No…” Tifa answers, but she makes a worried frown. “At least, not that any of us noticed.”
“Well, then… What’s this about?”
Barret whips out an unknown phone and sets it on the table. There’s a photo shown onscreen, and Cloud, Tifa, and Ruby all gasp. It’s a little obscured by fencing and nearby rubble and none of the people’s faces can be clearly seen, but it’s definitely a picture of the three of them in the park, taken right at the moment when Cloud was offering a hand to Tifa to pull her up onto Ruby’s back. Judging by how far away this picture was taken and the powerful zoom that was added to it, the photographer probably wasn’t inside the park.
Even the ever stoic Cloud looks a little shaken. “What? Who could have…?”
“Must’ve been when you guys crossed over to Sector 6. After you left, some hoodlums showed up in town and started asking around for me and Avalanche. They even showed Jessie and the guys the photo.”
“We led them to one of the dead ends nearby, and Barret beat them down real quick. One of ’em dropped that they were sent here from Sector 6. Something about ‘the Don’s orders’… but they wouldn’t say who that is even with our guns in their faces,” Biggs explains.
“The real problem is this photo.” Barret taps at the screen and then turns back to them. “Seems like it was uploaded to this phone about an hour ago, so who knows where else it’s already been.”
Cloud turns away, swearing under his breath. They should have known better. Sector 6 isn’t exactly a safe place even without the usual police patrol. He always worried that Ruby’s transformations would be picked up by someone at some point, but he didn’t imagine that it would be this easy to be caught.
However, Ruby is somewhat less concerned, as if she suspected something like this would happen eventually. She’s just surprised that it happened this soon. But it’s not like this would change anything so drastically, like when the Sector 7 plate collapse would happen, right? Even assuming it does, surely she’d still have time to consider her options. There has to be something she could do to reduce casualties or even prevent it outright…
Almost as if tempting fate, she decides to ask, “By any chance, would ‘the Don’ that these guys mentioned be Don Corneo?”
Barret turns to her. “Huh?”
“Don Corneo?” Jessie asks, “Who’s that?”
“A fat cat mobster who works the black markets of Wall Market. He’s practically the town’s overlord with the way he runs everything from the shadows. He doesn’t exactly work for Shinra, but I’m pretty sure they have him on a tight leash. He’s their shady lapdog and in exchange for intel on the ground, Shinra turns a blind eye to what he’s up to.”
“Um… what he’s ‘up to’, meaning…?”
“The whole shebang, really. Gambling, extortion, money laundering, even human trafficking. The guy’s a real lecher and is constantly in the running for a new ‘wife’.”
“Oh, yeesh…” She cringes, regretting to have asked.
“How did his goons ever find out where we were based, though?” Biggs then wonders, “It’s not like any of us usually pass by Sector 6, and this photo doesn’t even show where you guys came from.”
Tifa thinks over it again, looking worried. “I’m not sure, but if they saw us coming out from under the slide, they might have found the tunnel leading back here…”
“But I didn’t even sense anyone was nearby when we reached the park,” Ruby comments, scratching her head. “This photo looks like it was taken at a good distance. If I’m onto something, it may be from near the entrance to Wall Market. It also had to have been high up to even get a shot from there. And this is a pretty powerful zoom effect; I doubt just a regular phone camera would catch a shot like this.”
Cloud passes a wary look. “Could it have been a hidden camera of some kind?”
“Probably, maybe even from a drone.” She cocks her head with a concerned frown. “Don’t know why Corneo would need this level of surveillance, but maybe Shinra pushed him to step up his game.”
“Ugh… We really screwed up this time. Now it’s only a matter of time until Shinra gets wind that we have a freakin’ dragon…”
“Yeah, pretty unfortunate…” She pauses and then shrugs. “Ah, well.”
“What do you mean ‘ah, well’!? This is a disaster!”
“Nah. Look, all that’s pictured here is some couple taking a ride on a white dragon. It doesn’t say ‘Avalanche’ anywhere, does it?”
“Um…” Tifa then reminds her, “I’m pretty sure there was leaked footage of Cloud and the others making their way into Mako Reactor 1 that aired on TV. If anyone happens to notice that it’s the same guy…”
Ruby blinks. “Oh, yeah. Cloud is pretty recognizable, isn’t he?”
He frowns back. “I don’t stand out that much, do I?”
“No. You really do, with that Chocobo head and the giant sword.”
“Who are you calling a Chocobo…”
Barret frowns at him too. “You just gotta be a pain in the ass somehow, don’t ya.”
“What? How is this my fault!? Ruby’s the one who glows in the dark!”
“She ain’t the one who had their identity aired on TV, though.”
“Tch… It’s not like you were able to avoid those cameras either.”
“But I didn’t get caught in another photo shoot! Why didn’t you move to a different spot so it ain’t so damn obvious!?”
“How was I supposed to know there was another camera!?”
“H-hey, guys!” Tifa steps in to break them up. “This isn’t the time to be arguing. We should calm down and think about what to do.”
“Hmph. The only thing we can do now is try to find this ‘Don Corneo’ and get some answers outta him,” Barret replies, raising his gun-arm. “If he’s Shinra’s lapdog, then he’s barking up the wrong tree by messin’ with us…”
“Um… you mean right ‘now’ or…?” Ruby asks.
“Of course I mean now! ASAP! Or else what, we gonna just sit around and pretend we don’t have enemies next door?”
“Uh, Boss? Wasn’t the plan to stop by the Shinra warehouse tonight?” Biggs asks.
Barret glares back at Cloud, who has turned away to simmer quietly. “Yeah, but thanks to this dumbass, it changes everything. We’re runnin’ on a tight schedule here.”
“But we still need to go on the raid for materials,” Jessie points out, “We were going to take Cloud and Ruby along since we’d be better off. If we split up now…”
“We got no choice, Jessie. We have to split up; one for the raid, the other to find this Corneo guy.”
“!” Ruby is getting a little wary of where things seem to be going. She expected a little divergence from the original timelines, but this is getting into uncharted territory. Then again, she did just insert some critical info herself. She didn’t just overstep her bounds, did she?
“You’ll lead the team on the raid, since you know what we need to get. And Ruby knows more about our target, so she’ll take the lead in Wall Market.”
“I guess…” Jessie replies, but she doesn’t look very sure.
“How many people do you think you’re gonna need?”
“Well, we’re gonna be sneaking in, so not too many. Biggs and Wedge already said they’re coming, but if security is really tight, it’ll be better if we bring Cloud along at least…”
Cloud nods. “I’ll be more than enough. Ruby might have wanted to tag along, but now she has better things to do.”
Ruby frowns. No, she definitely doesn’t like where this is headed. It’s one thing to split up so that they’d still meet back up later, but it’s another thing altogether to split up her and Cloud. At what point would they get back together, even she wouldn’t be able to say. The whole reason she’s been sticking to him like glue is to make sure Sephiroth doesn’t get any upper hand over them – more than he already does, anyway. And above all, if things keep going like this, she, Aerith, and Tifa won’t be able to see him dress up as a girl! What an absolute travesty of the ages. No, this won’t do. She needs to act fast.
She then pipes up with a suggestion, “Hey, guys. I don’t think we need to rush off to Wall Market just yet. I got a better idea…”
“Huh?” That got everyone’s attention real quick.
Barret raises an eyebrow. “What’s up?”
Ruby then smiles as if to ease their concerns. “Remember that I can teleport? The raid isn’t gonna take long at all if I go too. We could even go now and I’d be able to bring everyone back in time for dinner.”
“Huh? Wait… you serious? You can warp any time?”
“Yeah. It’s a high-level spatial spell, but I don’t have any restrictions on how to use it.”
He returns her a doubtful look. “What’s the catch?”
“There is none.”
Barret stares back, expecting her to drop some other tidbit or make some kind of confession, but it doesn’t come and he’s just left speechless in shock.
Meanwhile, Cloud catches on to a certain oddity and questions her. “Hey, Ruby.”
“Yeah?”
“In that case, why did you have to turn into a dragon and fly us to Aerith’s church? Couldn’t you have just warped us there and saved us all the trouble we’re in now?”
“…”
She blinks with an innocent-looking smile, but as she doesn’t have an excuse at the ready, it quickly fades away into a look of shame. While he does have a point, she doesn’t want to resort to warp spells if she can help it. It’s not even that they’d be too costly or that they’d take some time to get right. They just make the adventure way too easy! She’s already so over-leveled as is; she doesn’t need to cheat any more at this point. Though she may have entered this world expecting the journey to be a drag to hit all the same story beats yet again without some kind of fast-forward button, she’s instead discovered a world more unfamiliar to her than she anticipated – almost entirely new in some ways – and it’s gotten her curiosity engine revved up again. Besides, Cloud and Tifa were so adorable together while they took a ride on her.
But she can’t say any of that right now. She needs an excuse pronto. She bows her head in embarrassment and says the first thing that comes to mind: “…Sorry. I didn’t think we needed it.”
Even he looks disappointed in her. “That’s the best you can come up with?”
“I didn’t expect there would be some hidden camera there either! I told you, I don’t know everything…”
“It sure is convenient when you do or don’t, though.”
She turns away to pout. “Leave me alone. Even I don’t know what’s up with that.”
“…”
“Okay, so… what is the plan now?” Biggs asks, scratching his head, “When are we going on the raid?”
Ruby shrugs. “Eh. Whenever works.”
“What do you mean ‘whenever’? We’re not going out for a picnic here…”
Then, Jessie makes a look like a lightbulb just flickered on over her. “Wait a sec, guys. In this case, do the rest of us even need to go?”
“By ‘us’, you mean for the raid?” he opts to confirm.
“Yeah. If Ruby can just warp in and out of the warehouse, then all we have to do is tell her where to go and what to pick up.” She gives Ruby an inquiring smile. “Right?”
Ruby nods. “Sure. I can do that.”
An awkward silence in disbelief has now come over the entire room, and the rest of them exchange looks of confusion. It can’t really be that easy, can it?
She looks around at the crowd and shakes her head with a sigh. “Come on, guys. I said so before. If you’re taking on Shinra, I’m all in. You might as well take advantage of this huge surplus of power and convenience in your control… but tell me nicely, of course.” She then raises a finger to make a point. “Heck. If there’s anything else you guys wanna snatch, just say it. It’s no different from a drive-by pickup for me.”
“Now that you mention it…” Jessie then suggests, “One thing that’s really been bugging me is getting some radios or walkie-talkies. We could really use some way of staying in touch in case we have to split up again. And it’s not like we can just buy some…”
“But wouldn’t they be likely to be bugged if we take some from a Shinra warehouse?” Biggs points out.
“I can try to disassemble them so we can avoid that. Besides, I doubt we’d be able to get any just waiting on our old source.”
“If you need help dismantling anything, let me know too,” Ruby offers.
“Haha!” Jessie gives her a thumbs-up. “No worries. I think I can manage something like this on my own.”
She smiles back. Yep, it was a good idea to let Jessie know about the cause of the bigger-than-expected explosion. It looks like her confidence in her abilities is back up as it should be.
Finally, Barret snaps out of his stunned silence. It seems like he’s been thinking about something for a while now, and he has to say it out loud. “Hold on a minute, guys.”
“Huh?” Jessie responds.
“What’s up, Boss?” Biggs asks.
“While I’m grateful – really grateful – that Ruby can just dip in and out wherever without a problem, it still leaves us with another.”
“Another problem?” Wedge asks, getting a bit nervous. “Um, is there something else we have to watch out for?”
“Nah, that’s not it.” He folds his arms and looks up as he explains, “See, I’ve been thinking about all this over again, wondering how far we could go, what we could get away with, and all that…” He then turns back to the rest with a frown. “But, then I had to ask, why would we be stuck just sneaking around everywhere?”
“Huh? What do you mean, Barret?” Tifa replies, “If we let Ruby handle gathering supplies or information, we’d be able to lay low and out of trouble. It’s practically foolproof as long as she doesn’t get caught on camera again.”
“I mean, no matter what we do from here, we still got the main goal to reach. The whole reason we started these bombing missions was to catch everyone’s attention, right? Well, as you all know by now, it’s no easy choice, since it brings down a lot more than just Shinra property.”
He turns to Tifa, who looks a little surprised and confused that he’s taking this direction. She nods back.
“Right…”
“So, that got me really thinkin’… Is there something else we can do that isn’t so widely destructive? And then, it hit me. Yeah. We do have something.” He turns to Ruby. “We got our very own living nuke on our hands.”
Ruby snickers and takes it as a compliment. “Oh, you got that right, Boss.”
“Um…” Tifa looks a little wary. “You aren’t thinking of asking Ruby to take down those reactors instead, are you?”
“Ha! Maybe she could… But nah, that’s not what I’m getting at. The point is, we gotta get a lotta attention real fast. In other words, we have to put on a show.”
“A show…?”
“Yeah. And we can get it started with this raid.”
Now that wariness turns into alarm. “Wait. You don’t mean… we’re going to bring attention on ourselves?”
“That’s exactly it.” He looks around at everyone and speaks with a renewed fervor. “Listen up, guys! Ya’ll need to think bigger! If we can’t stop this photo from entering circulation, then we might as well embrace it. Let Shinra find out that Avalanche has a dragon God in their ranks and shit themselves scared! It’s about time they treated us like a real threat!”
“What? Barret!”
“I’m serious. Sooner or later, we’re gonna meet head-to-head with the executives, and they’d damn better know who we are by then. This would make for a pretty good wake-up call, I’ll say.”
“Even then, don’t you think we’d be leaving ourselves completely open if we reveal our trump card so early?”
“Don’t worry, I thought about that too. Obviously, it’s not a risk-free plan, but nothing we’re doing here is. Besides, weren’t you saying the other day that we keep the bombings to a minimum? With Ruby here, that ain’t a pipe dream no more! Think of all the options we have now! We might as well just bust right into Shinra HQ and make them apologize to the people!”
“Uh… Maybe it’d be better if we took a less direct route?” Jessie suggests nervously, “So it doesn’t look like we’re just terrorists barging in with violence…”
“Yeah, yeah… You know what I mean.” He turns back to Ruby. “So how about it? Think you’re up to put on this show?”
Up to now, Ruby has been quietly following along with the course of dicussion and was pretty quick to catch onto what Barret has been leading up. While she does still have some underlying concerns regarding a certain sector plate collapse event waiting in the wings, this whole new direction of infinite possibilities is inspiring her in a different way. Now she has to see where this leads. She smirks back with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes.
“Oh, yeah. Let’s blow some shit.”
He pumps his gun-arm too. “That’s the spirit!”
“…” Tifa turns away to think, and while she still has some reserved doubts as well, she nods back. “No, you’re right. We’ve already come this far. We can’t start backing out now.”
“You got it!” He turns to the rest. “How ’bout the rest of ya?”
Jessie shrugs and replies, “Sure, sounds like a plan.”
“Yeah! Let’s go! We got a freakin’ dragon!” Wedge throws up a triumphant fist in the air too.
“You know what… I’m in,” even Biggs comes around to agreeing, “If we’re just gonna run into more trouble anyway, we might as well get the ball rolling ourselves.”
Even Aerith joins in with a smile. “…Looks like everything will work out after all.”
It’s just Cloud who has been quiet for a while. He has been paying attention, and for a moment there, he also thought Barret had gone a little screwy in the head. But after hearing his reasoning, it does make sense. The only one out of the gang here who’s even seen her fight is him, and that was just with some scrawny grunts that he could take on by himself. But on the other hand, he can’t deny that a dragon of her size who picks him up like a toy has the potential to do some real damage. If there were any chance for her to show a little more of what she’s capable of, then this would be a good opportunity.
For once, he doesn’t have an objection. “So are we gonna get on it tonight?”
“No shit, it’s gonna be tonight. You wanna wait until tomorrow or next week?” Barret retorts in an almost taunting way.
“Hmph. I’m always ready for action.”
“Honestly, with Ruby leading the assault, we might not even need ya…”
Cloud gets a little irked by that. “I’m going too. Ruby’s way too clingy with me anyway. She’d start breaking down in seconds if I weren’t around.”
Ruby stares at him in complete shock, but it’s quickly replaced by swelling pride and comforted ease. To think that even he’s getting used to having her around… Maybe they’ll get along better after all.
Barret takes one last look around the room and announces in a final summary: “Alright, gang! It’s like I said before: this is just the beginning! The plan ain’t changing, it’s just evolving! We’re gunnin’ for Reactor 5 tomorrow, so you all better do what you gotta do and get ready!”
“Yeah!” “You got it, Boss!” “We got this!”
“Dismissed!”
With a final salute, Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie hurry out the door to get themselves ready for tonight. Cloud watches them go and turns back to the rest.
“Where are they going anyway?”
Tifa replies, “Oh. Didn’t you hear? They’ll be getting the bikes ready. You’re all heading up to the upper plate, after all.”
“Huh? Did they mention it before?”
“Yeah. Jessie mentioned it this morning… Oh. That’s right. You were waiting outside with Ruby at the time.”
“Ah. Figures.” He pauses. “Wait. But if Ruby’s coming along and going to ‘put on a show’, then wouldn’t it be easier if she just went there as a dragon? While she distracts security, we’ll just take what we need.”
Barret scoffs. “What are you talking about, ‘we’? You and Ruby are the distraction. Jessie and the rest are gonna do the sneaking.”
“What? Why do I have to be it too? She’s distracting enough even as a human.”
“Hey, you’re the dumbass who let himself get a whole-ass photo op. You might as well smile for the cameras.”
Cloud scowls. “Neither of those times did I even know where the cameras were, and now this shit follows me everywhere…”
“If it makes you feel better, we can put on a dance?” Ruby suggests with an innocent smile.
“No.”
“Not even a foot tap?”
“I don’t dance.”
Ruby rolls her eyes. If she has any say in what’s to come, it’s that he is definitely gonna dance. Might as well get some practice in before his debut at Honeybee Inn.
Aerith giggles too. “Actually, I’d pay good money to see that.”
Ruby whips around and shares a high-five slap with her. “Boy! Do I have an idea to share with you later!”
“Oh? What’s that, Cuz?”
She leans in with a whisper, “It’s a secret for now, but I’ll bring it up when we stop by Wall Market eventually.”
Her eyes glisten with excitement. “Can’t wait!”
“…” Cloud turns away, feeling rather apprehensive at their glee. For some reason, he feels like his pride was just severely wounded, but he can’t pinpoint why.
With the bar’s atmosphere returned to its normal lighthearted nature, Tifa begins to plan out what to do with the extra time they have before the mission begins. They were going to show Aerith around Sector 7, after all. And she did promise to find Cloud some jobs in the meantime. Maybe they can streamline the two together?
She turns back to Barret with her announcement. “Oh, Barret? Sorry to keep leaving the bar to you guys, but I’ll be taking Cloud, Ruby, and Aerith out in town.”
“Hm? Sure, do what you gotta. I’ll be here until Marlene comes back…” He then remembers what else it was he meant to ask. “Oh, wait a sec. Almost forgot to ask.”
“Hm?”
“This morning, you guys went off to see a doctor for Ruby’s illness, right?”
“Ah…”
As if a forbidden word were spoken, the cheery atmosphere is drained fast. Not just Tifa; but Aerith and even Cloud snap to attention and seem to sink back into gloom. Only Ruby remains unaffected and undeterred as usual.
“Yeah, we did.”
“So how’d it go? Is she alright?”
She sinks a little, looking a bit ashamed. “We don’t know.”
“Huh? You don’t know?”
She turns to Aerith, who shares her worry. “Ruby said Aerith was the only one who would know about her condition, but…”
Aerith takes a solemn bow as an apology. “I’m really sorry. I wish I knew how to treat it, but even I don’t know all that much.”
Barret legitimately looks crestfallen at the news. “But she will be alright, won’t she? Like, it’s not gonna affect her too bad if she joins us for later missions?”
“Well…” She turns to Ruby, who simply smiles back confidently. “She seems alright now. As long as she isn’t under too much emotional distress, it won’t act up, right?”
“Right. Don’t worry about me. I’m as chill as always.”
Aerith returns her smile and turns back to Barret with a nod. “That’s that, then.”
He glances back and forth between them. “Uh… That’s it? She just needs to stay positive?”
“Hopefully. It’s a very rare illness that is worsened by strong negative emotions, so doing the opposite should help in some way.”
“Hmm…” He turns back to Cloud with a watchful glare. “Hey. You heard that? If her illness acts up again and it’s your fault, I’m whoopin’ your ass ’til you’ll need healing. Got it?”
“Hmph. She’ll be fine. She’s not that fragile that she needs to be babied.”
“I said, GOT IT?”
“Got it…”
Even Ruby rolls her eyes. “Sheesh, guys. I said don’t worry about me. I’m okay. I can manage.”
“Right! Let’s not worry, guys!” Aerith then leans in with a whisper, “But if you want, I can try talking with the planet again to seek some answers. Maybe we’ll be able to cure it just yet…”
“If you can, please do. I’ve been lacking on my end so far…” she whispers back earnestly. “And while you’re on it, maybe you’ll have better luck contacting ‘you-know-who’…”
She nods. “Of course!” She then turns back to the others. “Well, I know you guys will be pretty busy, so if there’s anything else I can help with, let me know.”
Tifa smiles back warmly. “You’ve done more than enough for us already. I’m starting to worry about how we’d repay you, if anything.”
“No worries. I’m just glad that I’ve found my long-lost cousin.”
“Oh, yeah,” Barret is then reminded to ask, “What was that about you guys being ‘cousins’? Are you for real, like really related?”
“Well, distantly related, I think. We’re the only remaining Cetra that I know of.”
Barret’s eyes almost bulge out of his sockets. “W-what!? Why didn’t you say so!?” He throws up a pumped-up fist. “Welcome aboard!”
“Huh? Aboard, for…?”
“Avalanche, of course. We gotta keep up the good fight for the planet! Ruby joined just yesterday, but we’re always open to new recruits.” He then shrugs. “Of course, it’s up to you. We’re not gonna press you or anything.”
Aerith smiles warmly. “Oh, sure! Anything to help my cuz!”
Barret nods back, offering a proud smirk of his own. Tifa makes a more relieved smile, and Ruby is back to grinning excitedly.
Only Cloud remains with a scowl. Seriously, what is Barret’s deal anyway? These two ladies show up out of nowhere, say they’re a special race, and he just goes along with it without question. But he always gotta shit on Cloud for whatever reason. Anything the latter says that even slightly disagrees with Barret in some way, he gets shit. No one else, not even the other guys, get treated like this. What the hell? What did he ever do to deserve this!?
It’s around then when they hear some light footsteps come back into the bar, and the atmosphere bounces right back to normal again, almost as if even it were ignoring Cloud.
“Daddy!”
“Marlene?”
Marlene has returned to the bar, holding an adorable white cat. She isn’t alone. Another little girl is with her, and she too is holding another two kittens, one black, one gray.
“Look! Betty and I found the kitties!”
“They were hiding out in one of the coves. It turns out it’s a whole secret kitty base there!” Betty exclaims too. “There were so many kitties!”
“Oh! Kittens and kids, they’re so adorable!” Aerith says, clapping her hands together.
She approaches them, and to the girls’ surprise, the kittens don’t yowl or hiss any complaints. They even let her pet them and gently purr.
“Oh. Seems they like you, Miss,” Betty notes.
“Who are you, Miss?” Marlene asks.
Aerith nods politely. “I’m Aerith. I’m a florist who lives in the slums of Sector 5.”
“Sector 5? That’s pretty far!” Betty gasps.
“Really? How do they know you, Ms. Aerith?” Marlene asks again.
Aerith makes a gentle chuckle. “Actually, I don’t think we have met before. I’m just happy to be around such cute faces… You two really go well with them.”
The girls look surprised, but then they giggle and beam with gratitude and pride. Ruby can’t help but smile along too. If there’s anything that can cure chronic frowning, it would be something as precious as this.
However, when she turns back to Cloud, he’s already walking out on his own.
“Hey, Cloud, where are you going?”
He doesn’t answer her, so she quietly excuses herself from the scene and skips along after him.
~
“Sheesh, ya big baby. What do you have to pout about?”
Cloud didn’t have a particular place to go after leaving the bar. He just started wandering off eastward when Ruby sneaked up behind him to pester him as usual. He turns around, only to find nothing, and suddenly she’s right in front of him again.
“…Aren’t you gonna hang out with your cousin? You all seem to be getting along.”
“Nah, not if you’re gonna mope off in some corner of town.”
“Get off my case… We’re not even on the mission yet. Why do you have to keep following me around?” He steps around her, but she keeps by his side anyway.
“Look, man. It’s just really important for my mental health that we stick together.”
“What? Am I supposed to be your therapy or something?” He waves a hand dismissively. “Go talk to Aerith if you’re having problems with that arm of yours.”
“It’s not about the arm. It’s because of the last time I went off on my own…”
“…” He stops again. Anything that he was going to say has been cut off. He certainly doesn’t want to be reminded of that strange night, even if to him, it was all just a blank. Ruby’s face said more than enough.
“I feel like I’m gonna start having nightmares or something, and you’re the only one I can talk to about him, you know.”
“He hasn’t shown up anywhere else yet, has he?”
“Nope.” She smirks. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t be in such a good mood now, would I?”
“With you, you’re all over the place, so it’s kinda hard to tell…”
Their conversation is cut short when they hear some kind of scream coming from down a nearby road. It’s a little high-pitched, but it does sound like a man’s scream. They both turn that way, but neither one moves at first. It’s quiet again for a moment, and then the faraway hollering comes.
Ruby sighs. She’d recognize that scream anywhere. “I know who it is. Let’s go help him.”
“Someone you know? Or someone you’ve ‘seen’ before?”
“The latter, thankfully. But he’s not a bad guy… just annoying.”
“Sounds like you two would get along just fine.”
“Oh, if you think I’m annoying, see for yourself.”
They hurry off down the road, which leads them to a normally empty lot. Now, there are three people here: two of which are armed Shinra grunts in red and the third is a man with bright red hair that sticks up high. He has a jacket on, but is otherwise shirtless. Yep, there’s no one else it could have been. The poor sap also has his hands tied behind his back and has been blindfolded.
“Quit yelping!” one of the guards snaps back. “Do you or don’t you know anything about Avalanche?”
That catches Cloud’s attention. Before they run in to help the man, he grabs Ruby by the ungloved arm and pulls her aside behind some fences, so they can watch from behind cover.
“Why are we hiding?” she whispers.
“Shh.”
The red-haired man keeps babbling, to the growing anger of the troops. “I-I-I dunno! I mean, I think I did, but I dunno, man!”
“You either know or you don’t! Now spit it out already!”
“I DUNNO!! I’m just a guy who’s been around! Maybe I heard that name somewhere before? It’s kinda hard to remember…”
The other guard actually kicks him in the gut.
“Agh… O-okay! Okay! Take it easy, bro! I’ll talk!”
“Where did you hear that name?”
“I-it was just one time… Um… let’s see… So, I was at Tifa’s bar – uh, it’s called Seventh Heaven, by the way – and uh, I think… I might’ve heard someone in there mention something…”
Cloud winces. This isn’t good. If they let him keep blabbing, he’s gonna spill everything.
Ruby answers, “I’m on it.”
“Huh? On what…”
She then whips out her hands into some kind of prayer-like hand sign, as if she’s preparing to recite a sutra. She mumbles something under her breath and then emits a faint glow from her fingertips. The light from the magic spell she casts flies overhead over to where the squealing man is and hits him directly. For just an instant, there’s a faint glow in the shape of a star, and then it vanishes.
“I don’t remember who or what they were talking about… but uh… um… huh… Is it me… or is everything spinning…”
He slumps to the ground, face first. The two guards are quick to panic.
“What the!?”
“Hey! Did you see that light just now?”
“What was that… Magic?”
Before they can do much else, they’re also hit by the same spell, accompanied by their own little sleepy stars, and slump to the ground too. With the coast clear, Cloud and Ruby now approach the three unconscious men. He then turns to her.
“So who is this guy anyway?”
“His name’s Johnny. He’s just a guy who lives around here. Pretty big on gossip. Frequents Tifa’s bar too. He’s constantly fawning over her and always talks about confessing his love to her, but I don’t know if he’s ever actually done it… Anyway, she’s just been treating him like a friend of sorts.”
He looks so disappointed. “Really… that’s who we just saved?”
“What? You wanted to see him get shot? These guards were ready to silence him forever if they thought he was one of ours.”
“Hmph.” He turns back to Johnny, who starts to drool as he snoozes. “So what do we do with him?”
She shrugs. “I dunno… Take him back home, I guess.”
“You know where he lives?”
“Yeah… I think I do.”
“You think?”
“It’s been a while since I last saw it… I think it was somewhere off on the northwest end, though.”
“…You said you never came to Sector 7 before, but you know where this random guy’s house is? Or, is he supposed to be someone important?”
“Nah. He really is just some random guy. I’d only ever known him through Lifestreaming.”
He rolls his eyes. “Of course.”
“Hey, would you mind carrying him?”
“Aren’t you plenty strong enough? You’ve carried me several times already.”
“Yeah, but I don’t want to carry him.”
“…”
“Come on, man. It’s not far. Just pick him up and let’s go.”
He grumbles to himself, but rather than suffer through another meritless argument with this unpolished rock, he grabs Johnny and slings him over the shoulder like a ragdoll. She leads him around the block, checking every street they pass by and scratching it off a mental checklist when it isn’t the right road. And he begins to question if she actually knows where she’s going.
“Okay, maybe it’s actually over here…”
“Ruby.”
“Yeah?”
As tempted as he is to be a smart aleck and insult her again, he instead suggests, “Why don’t you get an aerial view or something?”
“What?” She leans in with a fierce whisper. “You want me to change into a dragon right now? There are civilians everywhere!”
“Since everyone’s gonna find out when our raid hits the news, they’re gonna know about it anyway.”
“Hmm…” She thinks about it for a bit, and then smartly replies, “Nah. I have a better idea.”
“What?”
She opens up the computer in her wrist guard to dial in something and then nods with confidence. “Okay, so I think I know which road to take…” And she’s gone right back to following the block.
“Hey.”
Whatever it was that she saw on her wrist guard’s device, it must have been some kind of map, since she finally does find the correct path to take. The house they’re looking for doesn’t particularly stand out compared to the rest of the neighborhood, being a plain-looking condo.
“Finally! I recognize this one!”
“Uh-huh… Hey, what was that just now?”
“What was what?”
“You opened up your wrist guard. Do you have some kind of computer hidden in there?”
“Yeah.” She smiles mischievously. “It’s my handy-dandy reality hacker.”
“…”
“Nah, but I can store quite a bit of info on it. Good thing I can access a map of the area.”
“You even have maps? Where did you even get one? The Lifestream?”
“…” She instead turns back to the door. “Anyway, maybe we can just leave him on the front step.”
He grunts back, saunters over, and drops the guy onto the ground like a knapsack full of weights. He then hits the doorbell and turns back to Ruby. “…Let’s go.”
Before they can get far at all, though, the door opens and a woman nearly freaks out.
“Oh! Johnny! What happened!?”
“Ah.” Ruby comes running back, waving her arm. “Sorry, ma’am! He just got a bit too much to drink, so we dropped him off!”
“But he looks bruised!”
“Uh… he might’ve ran into something. We’re not sure…”
“…” And just like that, the woman calms down. “Well, it did happen a lot since he was a child. Sometimes some habits are hard to quit…”
Cloud frowns in disbelief. Something tells him that Johnny might have picked up a few odd quirks from his parents.
“I’m really sorry, you two. I hope Johnny wasn’t too much trouble!” she apologizes with a polite bow.
“Uh… no worries.”
“Yeah! The bruising isn’t too bad, he’s fine. Just let him get some rest and he’ll be good as new!” Ruby says with a cheerful smile.
“Oh, I will. But would you two like to stay over for a bit? Since you came all this way to bring him to us.”
“Oh, we couldn’t. We’re actually a little busy…”
“Not even for a little while? I’ve been making some hot cocoa.”
“…” She then takes a thinking pose.
Sensing that she might be tempted, Cloud now walks over to take Ruby by the arm. “Sorry, ma’am, but we have to get going.”
Ruby swats his hand away without even looking at him. “Some hot cocoa sounds nice. We can stay for a bit.”
“Ruby.”
Now she turns to him. “Cloud, we’re getting hot cocoa for free.”
“You can just ask Tifa for some. It’s not like you’re gonna pay her either…”
“But I don’t want to keep abusing her charity! And this fair lady is giving it away as gratitude! We have to accept!”
“Will you stop acting like a kid, just for once? We have things to do!”
Then, the woman pipes up too, “Oh! Did you say ‘Tifa’ just now, sir?”
“Huh? Uh, yeah?”
“Ah, so you’re friends of Tifa! I see now. Please, do come in! Any friends of hers is welcome in our house!”
“You know Tifa, ma’am?”
“Oh, yes. Johnny is simply obsessed with her. Can’t stop talking with us and his friends about her. Says things like how she’s the ‘girl of my dreams’ and all that. Even hopes to get to marry her one day.”
“…”
The woman then leans in with a whisper. “But if you ask me, I don’t think it’ll work out. We’ve stopped by the bar before too to see her. Very nice and considerate girl, alright, but busy as a bee! I don’t think she’ll have the time to keep Johnny company all that much, and he can be a bit to handle sometimes…”
Cloud just stares blankly back. Not only does he not care in the least about this, he doesn’t need to hear the guy’s own mother shutting down his dreams too.
She leans back, returning to her hearty smile. “But I know my Johnny. He can be so devoted sometimes that it’s hard to talk him out of it. But if I may say as a mother, I think it’s still rather cute how straightforward he can be too.”
“…”
“Oh! Where are my manners, keeping you two out here? Come in, come in!”
The woman invites them inside and Ruby smiles graciously as she hops in through the door. The woman then turns to him, who hasn’t budged.
“Is something the matter, sir? I can understand if you’re really in a hurry, though…”
“…”
He groans in exasperation. The last thing he wants to be is a babysitter, but he can’t leave Ruby alone at a stranger’s house. It’s no problem if she can find him, but she’s also the type to wander around aimlessly if left to her own devices. And who knows how much of a fuse Barret will blow if he finds out they lost their trump card.
He gives in and nods back. “I’ll stay until she’s ready to leave.”
The woman chuckles to herself. “Aw, what a responsible young man. If only Johnny were awake to see this, he might even learn a lesson or two…”
Impressively, the woman then picks up her son from behind, by the arms, and drags his unconscious body inside. She may be a bit of a portly woman, but clearly there’s still some muscle behind those arms. “Dear! We got visitors! Don’t just watch TV!” she yells behind her.
Cloud steps inside, looking a bit lost. It’s a quaint little home on the somewhat compact side, but he gets a welcoming feeling nonetheless. It’s a real clutter with all the mats covering the floor, cushions flooding the living room, and paraphernalia lined up on the shelves against every wall, though. He feels like he he’s just walked into a large closet. There so happens to be a large display case in the back of the living room that is visible from the front door. On display seems to be some kind of golden statue, but he can’t quite figure out of whom it is.
It’s been a long time since he’s gotten invited into someone else’s home. In fact, when was the last time? It feels like… years. 5 years, perhaps. Back in his hometown… Actually, that’s not quite it. He invited himself into Tifa’s home at the time, but she wasn’t home. After all, she was out in town welcoming the newly arrived group from Shinra…
He shakes his head to clear out this creeping sense of unease. Now isn’t the time to be reminiscing. He’s only here to watch over Ruby, and he’s leaving. It’s way too compact for him to be too comfortable anyway.
A bit of a portly middle-aged man is seated on the couch in front of the TV when he steps by. “Oh! Hey, there! So I hear our son was in a bit of a drunken fit or something? Thanks for bringing him back.”
“No problem.” Cloud is about to head into the kitchen after Ruby, but the man continues talking with him.
“You know, he was always kind of a troublemaker, but the kid’s got a good heart behind all his antics.”
“Uh-huh…”
“Say, you know a girl named Tifa?”
He finally has his interest piqued, if ever so briefly. “Yeah?”
“Haha! Oh, that Johnny! He’s head-over-heels for that gal. We met her a while ago at the bar, and she was the sweetest thing ever. A real pretty face too. No wonder Johnny had a thing for her.”
That interest vanishes in an instant. “Yeah… your wife mentioned as much.”
“Ah, did she? Well, did she also mention that time Johnny actually brought a mariachi band to her bar?”
“What?”
“Oh, yeah. It was quite the talk of the town that day. Seems like it was just a traveling band passing by the city. I dunno how he did it, but Johnny somehow convinced them to make a quick trip to Seventh Heaven. It sure was quite the surprise for Tifa, I’ll tell you that much.”
“…”
“Ah, but it’s too bad she still had to reject his offer for a date. Understandable, though. The girl’s just too busy to be looking out for Johnny all the time.”
By now, Cloud has begun to tune out of this whole conversation and question what it is that led him to this point.
“Well, that’s just how life goes sometimes. Maybe he’ll be able to find the next girl of his dreams somewhere… Oh, that reminds me, Johnny did say he was planning to leave soon and head off abroad…”
Cloud has had enough. He quietly heads into the kitchen, leaving the old man to muse to himself. Ruby is seated at the dining table, playfully kicking her feet underneath. Just like a kid, alright. The woman then brings out a couple cups for them, each brimming with delicious-looking hot cocoa, just barely emitting steam. Ruby’s eyes are practically twinkling almost as brightly as her dragon body glows.
“Please, take a seat, sir! I’ve saved a cup for you too.”
“Uh… thanks. You didn’t have to…”
“No worries! We have plenty to spare, so please help yourselves!” She turns away to where her son is still lying on the floor. “As for you…” And she drags him off to his room.
“Thank you~!” Ruby snatches one of the cups and blows on it a few times before she takes a cautious sip. She then begins to blow bubbles into the already layered foam, making it even foamier.
“What’s with you and getting free drinks…” he mutters to himself, taking a seat beside her.
“Blurbbub burble burb bub bup…”
“…Talk or drink. Don’t do both.”
She pulls away, smiling with a milky moustache on her lips. “I wasn’t. I was just bubbling.”
He looks off again. This conversation isn’t much better than the last one, but unfortunately, he’s stuck with this one.
She was expecting this reaction anyway, and licks up the foam. She tries a change in topic. “Say, Cloud. When’s the last time you really got to relax?”
“…Huh?” Now he glances back. “Relax? Like…?”
“Just relax. Chill out, without a care in the world.”
“…” He looks off again. “Dunno. It’s been a while.”
“If you ask me, you could use some more of it. I think it’d be a good idea if we stop for moments of peace like this from time to time, get some treats or refreshments, and just… chill.”
“…”
They thus share a moment of silence together while Ruby blows on her cup. She takes another sip and smiles as it warms her up too.
“Or maybe I should say, warm.”
Cloud doesn’t reply. He idly takes a sip from the cup and is a bit surprised by how hot it is. The thick foam easily covers the cocoa underneath, so it didn’t look as hot as it was. Ruby actually laughs at him and he frowns back as usual.
She smiles as she repeats, “Warm.”
“…More like scalding. Agh… Did she have to make it this hot?”
“It is literally called ‘hot cocoa’.”
“Ugh, forget it…”
Fortunately, he wasn’t burned by it. He gives his cup a few blows too and this time when he takes a sip, it’s not nearly as bad. In fact, it’s a nice hot cup of cocoa. It’s not like he’s never had any before, but it has been a long time since he’s had it.
Thinking about it, the past 5 years for him have gone by in a blur. Just where has he been all that time? Whenever he tries to piece it together, it seems like there’s always something in his mind that automatically blocks him and he just can’t picture anything with any level of clarity. If only he can just… get a glimpse – just a glimpse – or anything at all…
“…Cloud, it’s okay.”
“Huh?”
Ruby shakes her head. “You don’t have to try to remember all that right now. We’re just relaxing here.”
He stares back suspiciously. Has she always been reading his thoughts? “…But, I want to remember.”
She then gives him an affectionate back rub. “Don’t worry, we’ll get there, buddy. Just take your time. You’ll make it through…”
At that moment, something seems to have been triggered in the back of his head. However, just as he feels like he’s going to remember something, a sharp headache racks his brain, stopping him in his mental tracks once more.
“Oops. Maybe I should have put it another way.” She quickly taps at his temple, and the headache seems to disappear in an instant.
“…” He turns back to her in utter confusion. “What did you do?”
“Um… Cetra magic?”
“…”
She shrugs back. “I dunno how to explain it, man. Just take it as is.”
He rolls his eyes and lets it go. He quickly finishes up his cup with another swig and sets it back down. “…Alright. We’ve had enough ‘warmth’ for now. Let’s get going. Tifa said she was gonna show us around town and all…”
Ruby follows suit and beams with a satisfied smile and a bit of a milky ’stache again. She licks her lips and turns back to him. “Yeah… This was nice, but I’m in the mood for some actual action.”
As suddenly as they appeared, the two are ready to leave. While Johnny’s parents insist that they stay a bit longer, as they have plenty more to chat about, Cloud politely declines and takes Ruby along out the door. She waves goodbye and thanks them again as she’s dragged away. And with that, they return back to the dusty streets of the town.
Chapter Text
As soon as they round the block again to return to the bar, they find Tifa and Aerith out on the front porch, keeping watch of a couple kittens – one white, one black. The kittens yowl and hiss as they approach and leap off to run off on their own.
“Guys! There you are!” Tifa exclaims, looking a bit upset. “Where did you go? We were about to start looking for you.”
“Sorry,” Cloud replies, glaring at his companion, “This one couldn’t help herself to some cocoa and ended up staying over at someone’s house.”
Aerith folds her arms with a stern frown. “Cuz… What did I say about wandering off on your own?”
“I wasn’t alone. Cloud stuck around for cocoa too.”
“Only because you wouldn’t leave,” he quickly adds to explain himself.
“So which house did you go to?” Tifa asks.
“Johnny’s.”
“Johnny?” She was definitely not expecting that answer.
“We ran into him along the way. He was being harassed by some Shinra grunts. Seems like he might have overheard something about Avalanche.”
“Uh-oh…” She winces. There were a few times when she suspected something may have leaked, but this is only confirms her worries. She then pauses and then asks again, “Wait. Cloud, how do you know Johnny? Did you two ever meet before?”
He points a thumb behind him at Ruby. “She knows him. Apparently, even he was a part of one of her visions.”
“I’ve collected some random as heck memories over time. Doesn’t make sense to me either,” Ruby replies with a shrug.
Tifa asks her with a hint of caution, “By any chance, you didn’t see any visions of him getting into worse trouble, did you?”
“Nah. This is probably the worst he’ll be seeing in a long time. The problem is…”
“What’s wrong?”
Ruby frowns. “We’ll probably be seeing him again sometime soon, probably even at Wall Market. I’ll need to reconsider our plans there…”
“Oh.” She lets off a relieved sigh. “And here I thought it was actually a problem.”
“Is it a bad thing to be seeing him again?” Aerith asks.
“No. Johnny means well, but he is a pretty big talker, so I’m not surprised if he ends up rubbing people the wrong way.”
“Nah, it’s nothing personal,” Ruby clarifies, “but the less we have to do with him, the better. We got a mission to do there and he’ll just get in the way.”
“Ah, that’s a good point.”
She smirks to herself. “Besides, if I don’t do anything, Cloud’s gonna be Tifa-less for a long while.”
He scoffs back, “He’s got a hell of a chance anyway…”
“Oh, you’d be surprised. I’ve seen visions of the two hanging out at Costa del Sol at some point in the future.”
“What?”
“What??” even Tifa responds, looking somewhat flustered.
“…”
“…Speaking hypothetically in another timeline, of course,” Ruby then adds after a long pause.
Cloud slowly reaches a hand out toward her neck, but by some miracle, he restrains himself and gives her a rough pat on the head instead. “How about you keep your ‘another timeline’ visions to yourself next time?”
Ruby goes quiet in an instant upon being petted again. She smiles cutely and nods back.
Tifa makes a tired smile. “Anyway… I think we can discuss Wall Market later. You two already have enough work to do tonight.”
“Besides, don’t we also have things to do in the meantime?” Aerith also suggests.
“Yeah. I was thinking about finding Cloud some jobs, but I didn’t want to leave you waiting here by yourself.”
“No worries! I can come with. If you need a hand, I can help too!”
“Oh, no. We don’t have to heap any more work on you if we can avoid it.”
“No, no. It’s not work; just a helping hand. It’s what I do back in Sector 5 too.”
“Well… if you insist.” Tifa then turns back to Cloud. “So I know a guy who offers a lot of odd jobs. He might know a few things about mercenary work too, like collecting bounties on monsters and such.”
Ruby pipes up, “Monster bounties? No problem! I can always go Cactuar hunting!”
“Enough with the Cactuars…” Cloud groans, “You aren’t seriously gonna fly off to Gold Saucer right now, are you?”
“Hm? You doubt me?”
“What?”
“Hmph. I don’t even need to fly. I can warp there.” She points right in his face, making the most determined of faces herself. “Give me five minutes. I’ll round up thirty thousand gil and bring it back here intact.”
“Ruby…”
He’s about to talk her out of it since they can’t afford to separate with her, but the more he thinks about it, the more he picks up on all the prospects of sending a Summon off to collect bounties. In a way, it’d almost be like having a passive income, and depending on what she collects, it could be quite a lot. A few ten thousand gil in five minutes is pretty ridiculous, but whatever she manages to gather by the end of today, they probably would become rather well off.
“…Knowing how easily distracted you can be, five is pushing it. I’ll give you twenty.”
“Ha! Easy bet! You’re taking me too lightly, man.”
“W-what? Cloud!” Tifa scolds him, “You’re supposed to talk her out of it!”
“Tifa, I know. I had the same thought too. But on the off-chance that she actually succeeds…”
“Cloud… I know we’re hurting for cash, but this is way too out there! We can’t risk losing our most powerful asset this soon.”
“I’m not going out on a kamikaze mission, Tifa. I’m just going Cactuar hunting.”
“Ruby, are you really sure about this? What if you run into any unexpected problems?”
“I can take on Sandworms all day, any day.”
“No, I mean, can you really be sure that you’ll be paid in full if you do manage to catch a lot of them?”
“Huh? You mean if Dio will back out on his end? Come on, I may not know him personally, but he’s a respectable guy.” She pauses before adding, “And if he gets any other ideas about the ‘fine print’, I’m stuffing the nearest poster down his throat.”
“…” Tifa gives in with a defeated sigh. “If you really want to go, we can’t stop you… but come back as soon as you can. We can’t go on with these missions without you.”
Ruby pumps a fist into the air. “Heck yeah! Leave it to me!” She taps her fingers together in a syncopated rhythm as she muses to herself. “It’s been a long time since I’ve stopped by the Gold Saucer. Who knows, maybe I’ll pick up a bunch of other things while I’m there…”
Cloud then moves into a thinking pose. “In that case, I’m thinking about bumping up the time limit to fourty minutes instead.”
“Shut up. Keep that up, and I’ll gun for five just to spite you.”
“Yeah, yeah… And if you come back after twenty minutes, I’m taking all of your winnings, no matter what you can get.”
“You’re on.”
Aerith has been looking back and forth between the three of them as they discussed these bounty matters, and fortunately, things seem to have settled down again. She then giggles quietly to herself and turns back to Ruby with her hand up and a vote of confidence.
“Good luck, Ruby! While you’re there, maybe you could get some toys and plushies too? The kids back in Sector 5 would love them.”
“Oh. Yeah, that’s a good idea. Sure thing, Cuz!”
“…Should we bump it up to an hour?” Cloud suggests sarcastically.
She whips back around seething through her teeth. “Five minutes, starting from now.”
With deliberations settled and bets conclusively set, Ruby steps back out from the porch into the open. She waves a hand to them as if to say, “bye for now,” and proceeds to strike her spellcasting signs with her hands. The next moment, a brightly lit spell circle forms below her feet, and she vanishes in a blinding flash of light.
Cloud watches her go, looking unimpressed. Even though he’s only seen her use magic a few times here and there, he already feels comfortable assuming that she just pulls all sorts of tricks out of nowhere. He turns back to the other two and continues discussions as if nothing had happened.
“So, who’s the guy you mentioned, Tifa?”
“Ah, his name’s Wymer. He usually has an open-air shop off on the west side of town…”
“Then, let’s get going.”
“You’re not going to wait for Ruby?”
“Why? She’ll find her way around.” He pauses and then admits aloud, “Besides, she’ll probably somehow make it back in five…”
She frowns sternly. “Cloud… Just walking around in Gold Saucer takes more than five minutes. The place is huge.”
“I hope she doesn’t push herself too hard,” Aerith agrees. “Even twenty minutes isn’t that long…”
Cloud shrugs. “Eh… what’s the worst that can happen? If she loses the bet, then she loses. It was her idea in the first place.”
But as the trio prepare to leave, they’re shortly approached by a boy with silver hair clad in a white lab coat.
“Excuse me, ladies and gentleman. I have an inquiry for you regarding the sudden spike in magical energy around this location…”
~
The deserts around Midgar are merely some badlands compared to the sprawling, blisteringly hot, sandy wasteland around the Gold Saucer. It’s miraculous how such a flashy, glittering, sparkling theme park designed to look like a cluster of giant golden mushrooms on an alien planet could exist in the dead center of this massive desert. The only way in and out of the Saucer is through a ropeway that connects to a nearby station in the much more ragged and dusty ruins of a once quaint desert town up north by the mountains. Now, there are but a small collection of tents and cracked buildings, and an equally sparce population of stragglers trying their best to get by.
Ruby has teleported herself onto a bench in a waiting area just west of the ropeway station by the Gold Saucer. There aren’t too many people who hang out in this corner of the place, so she can better get away with appearing out of nowhere. Wasting no time, she hurries out of the shadows and into the lights before the Moogle-shaped entrance arch. Looking up at it, her eyes begin to twinkle as she comes face-to-face with the magnificent theme park of her childhood dreams. It looks even bigger from up close like this, even more full of cheer and wonder and earworm-y tunes.
“Hello! Welcome to Gold Saucer!” the female receptionist calls to her as she approaches the gate. “Would you like to buy a ticket? It’s 3000 gil per entry…”
Ruby practically slams her hands on the desk, startling the receptionist. “Sorry, not now. I’m in a hurry. I need to speak to Dio.”
“Mr. Dio? Oh! Do you have an appointment with him? What time would that be?”
“Uh, I didn’t make any reservations beforehand…” Ruby swears under her breath. She forgot this detail in the heat of the moment of her bet, and now she is legitimately worried that five minutes might have been cutting it too close.
“I see. Well, I’m sorry to inform you, but Mr. Dio isn’t exactly open to walk-in visits. He’s quite the busy man, you see.”
“But it’ll be quick! I just have one question to ask. Or maybe you could answer it?”
“Oh, me? If I can, I’ll be happy to help. What is it?”
“Are you guys still putting out bounties on Cactuars? Like, 10000 gil for each?”
“Cactuars? Oh…” The vender takes a pause to think and then takes a polite bow in apology. “Ah, I’m sorry, Miss. I think I’ll have to confirm it with Mr. Dio if the bounty challenge is still on.”
“What? So you aren’t…?” she groans, sinking rapidly behind the countertop. Scratch her self-imposed five-minute limit, in this case the entire bet is off!
“You see, the last time Mr. Dio opened up the challenge, barely any entrants signed up. Cactuars are especially rare to find and said to be even more difficult to capture, so the bounty has gone unclaimed for a very long time. There were a few winners for less rare creatures, but ultimately, the contest only paid out a few hundred gil in total. Mr. Dio was quite discouraged by the results, so he announced that the challenge would be put on temporary hold until further notice.”
Ruby flops onto the counter with a sad puppy-like whine. “Then, could you call him and ask if he’ll open it just for today? I promise I’ll collect three Cactuars in the next few minutes.”
“Uh…” The vender stares back in complete stunned surprise, but Ruby’s pleading face is honestly making her uncomfortable. “I-I understand the sentiment, Miss. I’ll give him a call, but I can’t guarantee anything.”
“If he’s not convinced, I’ll come back here with the Cactuars in hand.”
“Er… If you do, then I can let him know…” the vender replies with a nervous, almost incredulous smile. She returns to her usual composure and asks again, “In the meantime, would you like to buy a ticket?”
She shakes her head. “It’s fine. I don’t have the money on me right now anyway.”
“I see…”
The vender gives her another polite nod. But as soon as she turns away to pick up the phone, that smile is quickly replaced by a confused and doubtful look on her face. She dials in the number and waits for a moment until the other side picks up.
“…Mr. Dio, sir? Yes, this is Emily at the front reception desk. I have a visitor who wishes to see you…” Beat. “No, she doesn’t seem to have an appointment set yet… Yes, I understand, sir. But it seems she intends to ask about the bounty challenge you had opened the other day…”
Ruby watches her with an intense stare, praying desperately to some higher being that she can get something done.
“…Yes, it seems like she’s willing to participate. In fact, she suggested that she would collect three Cactaurs in ‘a few minutes’…”
Ruby prays even harder and more desperately. If there’s anything that would catch his attention, it’d be something like that.
Suddenly, the vender perks up in surprise. “Oh, really, sir? You’d like to meet her?”
Ruby likewise perks up again with a triumphant smile. Finally, some headway.
“I-I see… Of course, sir. She’s here at the reception desk with me. Shall I ask security to escort her to you? …Oh, you’re coming down to see her? Very well, sir.”
The phone’s tone clicks off and the vender sets down the phone. She turns back to Ruby with that ever polite smile, but it’s not hiding her disbelief as well as before.
“Mr. Dio would like to meet with you. He’s coming down from his office at the moment, so please wait a moment here.”
“Yes! Thank you so much!”
“Of course…”
Normally, Ruby would easily be able to wait a few minutes by her lonesome, even without her phone to keep her preoccupied, but now, she’s running on a time limit and every second that passes is starting to get to her. She paces back and forth impatiently, occasionally slumping against a nearby pillar in her misery, and goes back to pacing around. She eventually throws herself rather forcefully onto a nearby bench and nearly cracks it apart.
It’s already a few minutes or so that pass by the time the mustachioed man dressed only in a green speedo steps out from the front gate. As soon as he does, there seems to be an abrupt change in the lighting of the area. It’s not that there’s a spotlight on him or anything, but somehow, the room just seems to have lightened up a bit? He’s accompanied by two security guards who are likely to be outsourced hires from Shinra.
“Mr. Dio!” Ruby jumps to her feet in a panic.
He gives a hearty chuckle. “Well, what a surprise! To think that my latest challenger is actually a petite young lady!”
She rushes to him with her hands in a prayer. “Sir, it’s a long story, but I have to get 30000 gil within the next minute. Please, if you have the money, bring it out now. I’ll be back very soon.”
“Oh, my.” He chuckles again and places his hands on his hips in a proud stance. “‘The next minute’ is quite the bar to set, but if you insist… Hm, I can wait here for another three. No more than that, I’m afraid…”
By the time he finishes speaking and looks at her again, she’s vanished into thin air. He blinks and turns back to the guards, who simply shrug back. Emily the receptionist shakes her head, as she didn’t see anything either. As suddenly as Ruby had appeared, she has vanished without a trace.
~
Back in the shadows, Ruby swears repeatedly under her breath. Why did she say “five minutes, starting from now”!? It already took more than four minutes just talking to reception and waiting for Dio to come out. There’s no helping it now. The only possible way for her to win this bet now is to cheat. She’s gonna stop time itself.
She has run back to the waiting area by the station. At this point, she doesn’t even have time to cast her warp spell. Fortunately, jumping back to the Debug Room is an administrative command that is effective immediately. This is probably one of the worst possible reasons to be returning there, but she has no choice. She’s committed to this speedrun now. She flips open the wrist guard hatch and hits that shortcut button.
Once again, Ruby has found herself adrift in the timeless black void, but now, she moves with extreme speed and efficiency. She pulls up the menu and searches for the appropriate code for the specific enemy encounter she needs. And when she finds it, she activates it immediately.
She reappears back on Gaia as the clock resumes ticking. This poor unsuspecting Cactuar had been chugging along its dusty trails as usual when the next it knows, it’s suddenly snatched up in her bare hands. Before it can react, she jumps back to the Debug Room with the critter in a tight grasp and repeats the process with a second unsuspecting Cactuar, and once more with a third.
But now she returns to the Debug Room to reopen the menu and track how much time had passed. As soon as she lets them go, the three Cactuars are in a panic to find themselves adrift in some kind of void. All at once, they unleash their signature 1000 Needles attack on her, and Ruby is bombarded with magic needles flying in at her like missiles. Nevertheless, as the dust settles and she reappears from the cloud with her head and shoulders bleeding, she remains focused on her task. But, she doesn’t just ignore them; her subsequent glare, fueled by her growing impatience, cows them into frozen silence. Maybe having dragon God genes also helped with that.
None of the Cactuars are trying to run or struggle anymore. On the contrary, they seem to be staring back at her with awe and respect and possibly admiration. They begin to hop in circles around her and dance for their new idol of worship.
She opens the event logs. The time thus far from the last warp she made? 4:41.724. She has less than 20 seconds.
She drops to the floor in a depressive slump. By some miracle, she will have to get through the remaining dialogue and wait for Dio to fetch the reward in less than 20 seconds. But wait… what if she just flies to the money and get it herself? Would it be stealing? Then again, she just needs to get his approval, that is, for him to say it. That can easily happen in less than 5 seconds.
The Cactuars slow down their hopping and close in to check on her. They freak out when she bounces back to her feet with this crazed grin on her face, and before they can run away again, she snatches them all up and teleports back to the Gold Saucer entrance.
~
“I’m back!” she declares, zipping back over to where Dio and the guards have been waiting.
“Oh! The young lady returns…” Dio cuts himself off when he sees her. “Oh, my.”
Ruby is still bleeding from the head and shoulders, as well as her chest and arms from hugging the very spiky Cactuars rather firmly. She even has this unstable, off-kilter look in her eyes that would scare children away. As soon as she appeared seemingly out of nowhere, the staff around her start freaking out too.
“Where’s the money?” she asks in a rather gruff voice.
“Ah… Still safely stored up in the vault in my office.”
“So it’s a deal? I can have it?”
“Sure! If anything, could I get you some Potions to help with your current condition?”
“I’m fine, thanks!”
She zips right on through the entrance so fast that the guards barely have time to fall back in shock. She blitzes through the tunnel slides leading to Battle Square, so fast she practically flies through the air, and zooms up past the square lobby into Dio’s office. She drops the Cactuars she had been carrying along and practically punches a hole into his vault to crack the lock. And with barely seconds to spare, she snatches the large sack of gil in hand, casts the warp spell once again even without using her hands, and disappears from the building entirely.
By the time Dio and the guards return to his office to catch up with her, they find her gone and the vault broken into. Only the three Cactuars she had captured remain, and they’re all just as confused as the people coming in on this scene. While the guards are considering whether or not to call up reinforcements, Dio then lets off a hearty laugh.
“There’s no need for that. The young lady completed her end of the bargain and even left them here for us to keep. If anything, she’s put on one of the best shows I’ve seen in a long time! Gentlemen, if anyone catches sight of her around the perimeter again, let her in, free of charge. I’m looking forward to meeting her again sometime.” He smirks to himself as he adds, “By any chance, if I could also recruit her for our next special Battle Square challenge…”
He drifts off, but continues to chuckle quietly as he muses to himself. He then struts right back out of his office in a calm, composed, somewhat regal manner. The two guards exchange confused looks, shrug together, and then head back out too.
~
“Huh… so this thing can set up a battle simulation anywhere?”
Cloud picks up a set of high-tech-looking goggles that this boy in a lab coat has offered him.
“That’s right. All you have to do is put on these VR goggles and you will be swept right into the experience. I do recommend starting it up in an open area with plenty enough room to maneuver, of course.”
“Hmm… I guess I could give it a shot.”
“Can we also participate in the same battle with him?” Tifa asks.
The boy nods. “Of course! All three goggles have been synched up. Just touch the button on the right-side panel on the goggles to enter the arena and start the simulation.”
“Wow. This is my first time joining a simulation!” Aerith says with an excited giggle.
The three of them exchange looks and nod together as if to agree that they’re ready. They step away from the bar to a more open area at the street intersection and get into position. They slip on the goggles and brace themselves for the first challenge, an all-out brawl against Shiva, the icy Titaness.
The boy watches them intently from a safe distance and is recording notes on a touchpad device he has in his hand. However, in the midst of the ensuing battle, he picks up on a sudden spike in magic energy levels nearby. There’s a flash of light where a warp circle has cropped up, and the original caster has returned.
Ruby is quite at the end of her ropes by now. She has lost track of the time and is wheezing to herself from all the strain and stress she’s had to endure just to meet some arbitrary deadline she set on herself. In her sparking, unfettered rage, she does the only thing that comes to mind: She chucks the sack she acquired at Cloud with enough force that could kill a man.
Or turn him into a ragdoll, for that matter.
“Cloud!?”
Tifa and Aerith exit out of the simulation right away and pull off their goggles. They run over to check on him, and when they take the goggles from his face, they find the guy has been knocked out cold. Despite that, he’s still managed to hang onto his sword. They’re just as shocked to find what seems to be a large, heavy sack of gil slumped over him. They turn to see who had thrown it and gasp.
“Ruby!” Aerith squeaks in fright, “Are you okay!?”
Ruby is heaving breaths and looking deranged like she’s been possessed by a demon, and combined with the wounds she’s had since earlier, she almost looks like she’s at death’s door. Her life may not be anywhere close to being in danger, but she isn’t mentally sound at the moment either.
“Oh, my. What a violent reaction upon returning,” the boy calmly remarks.
Ruby suddenly appears before him and seizes him by the shoulders. “Chadley!? What’s the time!?”
“W-w-what!?”
“Between the warps!! Time!!”
“Um… Calculating…” The boy taps at his touchpad and recovers the data he had recorded from the last warp. “It has been approximately 5 minutes and 1.347 seconds between the two spells.”
In that instant, Ruby blanks out. All the stress and strain built up to now have taken their toll on her and her mental stamina has been drained to her limit. She releases him gently, but then drops like a rock as if she had just tipped over and died herself.
“Ruby!?” Now Aerith and Tifa rush over to check on her.
“Oh! Miss? Are you alright?” Chadley asks rather curiously.
“One… second…” she mutters through gurgles as she spasms uncontrollably and even begins to foam at the mouth.
“Ruby! Hang in there!” Aerith cries, taking her in her arms.
“Aerith! Use this.”
Tifa whips out a Cure Materia for her. Aerith takes it and casts the spell repeatedly.
“Dear, dear… According to my assessment, she seems to have taken a moderate level of damage, but it most likely isn’t life-threatening. However, judging by her reaction, she seems to be in a state of heavy distress…” Chadley continues to report in his usual stoic manner.
“What even happened? How did she get like this?” Tifa asks.
“I’m afraid I cannot come to a conclusion on what the source of the damage is, but it may have been accumulated in a short amount of time.”
“…” Now she’s reminded of their earlier conversation. “Wait. Ruby left to go Cactuar hunting, didn’t she?”
“Yeah, she did,” Aerith confirms, “She also said she was going to do it in five minutes.”
“Oh, no…”
“I had a bad feeling when they started making bets, but I didn’t think it would get this serious.”
“Well, Chadley said it isn’t life-threatening, so she ought to be alright after a bit of rest. But she’ll probably be in a really bad mood after this… Both her and Cloud, really.”
“Hmm…”
Aerith manages to restore Ruby back to full health, and even the streaks of blood that have stained her clothes have disappeared. However, Ruby isn’t resting peacefully. She’s stopped trembling, but seems to have gone catatonic and is still foaming at the mouth. Aerith takes out a handkerchief and begins to wipe her mouth clean.
“Well, all we can really do at this point is let them rest. We’ll just have to leave it to them to sort out their troubles later.”
“Hopefully, they sort it out peacefully…” Tifa glances back to where Cloud lies. “I was pretty surprised that she knocked him out in an instant with just a sack of gil.”
Chadley returns to his touchpad and looks invested in searching for some information. “Most intriguing… I recall that there’s a certain battle technique, usually assisted with a higher-leveled Throw Materia, that would allow targets to be damaged through the use of one’s currency on hand.”
She turns to him with a couple blinks of her eyes. “Oh, really? I just thought it was a rather, uh, brutal swing.”
Nonetheless, Aerith makes a relieved smile. “Well, for what it’s worth, Ruby kept to her word! I don’t think we’ll have to worry too much about money going forward.”
Tifa still looks concerned, though. “Yeah… but next time she and Cloud get into another bet, we should probably step in before things get out of hand.”
“Oh, of course. We should also have someone accompany them from time to time too, just in case.”
She nods and then turns to Chadley again. “Sorry about that just now. I think we’ll have to set aside the training for next time.”
“Oh, it’s no problem, Ms. Tifa. I’m always on the lookout for promising candidates. If you’d like to try it again, please stop on by. I’ll be waiting here in this quarter of Sector 7 for the rest of today and tomorrow.”
She nods and gives him a thumbs-up of approval. Then, she returns to Cloud, and with Aerith’s help, they pull the heavy sack of gil off of him. It’s a bit much for Aerith to lift on her own, but Tifa can manage with both hands and slings it over her shoulder. Still, that leaves them with two incapacitated members, and Tifa’s hands are full.
Aerith makes a head tilt, but is still a little worried for her. “Ruby… are you okay? Can you hear me?”
Ruby doesn’t respond. She has stopped making gurgling sounds, but has also just stopped moving.
Chadley then suggests, “Would you two like me to request some help with carrying your friends and belongings to safety?”
“Yes, please,” Tifa replies with an embarrassed smile, “I think Wymer knows a few guys we can ask.”
~
It’s already sundown by the time Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge return, each riding on a motorbike. They took so long acquiring the bikes since Jessie once knew a guy, but that guy redirected them to another guy, and even that guy didn’t have bikes for sale, so they had to search around and around… It was a wild goose chase for a while there. It was by a stroke of luck that they happened to run into the right guy at one of their stops. It even turned out it was someone who Biggs once knew. Apparently, he used to be part of a gang in his teenaged years, but quickly left when he realized it wasn’t all that he thought it out to be. There was way more paperwork to manage than he thought, for starters. Anyway, this old acquaintance of his also left the gang life one day and started up a local auto shop of his own. Thankfully, he had some bikes for rent, so they didn’t have to steal any as Jessie feared they might have had to. Unfortunately, they were only able to get three bikes in all. Seems like Cloud and Ruby are gonna have to ride with someone – at least until Ruby becomes her own ride.
They arrive at the bar and are surprised to find their star duo just sitting on the steps of the front porch. They seem to be in a bit of a downer, though, and aren’t talking with each other. They’re just staring off at the ground together.
“Hey! What are you guys doing out here?” Jessie calls to them with a friendly grin. “You haven’t just been waiting all this time for us, have you?”
“…Ah. You’re back,” Cloud replies flatly, but then looks back down and resumes his silence. Ruby doesn’t even respond.
“Hey, uh, is everything alright?” Biggs asks.
Again, it’s just Cloud who answers, “…Not really.”
“Did something happen with you guys while we were gone?” Wedge asks, scratching his head.
“It’s no big deal…” he says, but the drained look on his face seems to indicate otherwise.
“…Anyway,” Jessie tries changing the subject, “You guys ready to go? I got your new ID cards here.”
She hands a pair of them to him, and he takes them without looking at her. He also flings the other toward Ruby, who doesn’t even react when it just bounces off of her head. She just leans forward to pick it up.
“It’s not that late yet, but we have one more stop to go before we head off to the warehouse.”
Cloud blinks and looks up again. “Where else are we going?”
Biggs explains further, “We’ll be heading topside so Jessie can see her parents.”
She nods back. “Yeah. My old pops used to work in the reactor, so if we just borrow his ID, we’ll have no problems getting inside.”
Wedge also adds, “Plus, her mom makes the best pizza in all of Midgar! You guys just have to try it!”
“…” Cloud looks off again. “Not interested.”
He looks almost betrayed to hear that. “Oh. Uh… I guess maybe next time, then?”
Jessie shakes her head with a sigh and gives Cloud a pat on the shoulder. “Come on, guys. We’ll be relying on you two when we get to the warehouse, remember? Let’s go! Time’s a wastin’!”
“Right…” He finally moves to get up and saunters forward as if with great effort.
“…” Now Ruby looks back up with an equally haggard expression. As she gets up to follow Cloud, she mutters in a low voice, “…It was just… one second…”
He whips around just to snap at her, “Will you shut up already!? You’re the reason we’re stuck out here!”
She resumes her slump. “Sorry…”
He growls at her and turns away with disgust, refusing to look at her again.
“…Looks like something did happen,” Wedge concludes with a sigh.
Biggs frowns, now legitimately concerned. “What’s going on with you two? Why were you just sitting out here looking like the world’s come crashing down?”
Cloud doesn’t reply right away, but with a deep sigh of his own, he then turns back to face them. “So, to make a long story short… Ruby volunteered to go Cactuar hunting in the deserts near the Gold Saucer. We made a bet that she took way too seriously, and by the time she returned, she was so frustrated at herself that she threw her winnings at me and somehow knocked me out cold. By the time I came to, Tifa and Aerith had taken us back to the bar and were discussing what to do with the money. Ruby did apologize at first, but when I told her off for being stupid, she went raving mad like a wild animal. We got into another argument and Barret kicked us out. Won’t let us back in until we ‘learn to get along’…”
The other three just stare back in stunned and very lost silence.
He turns away again, leaving no further comments, and crosses his arms. “…Anyway, these our rides? Are there only three?”
Biggs answers once he snaps out of his stupor, “…Ah. Yeah. The place we rented them from only had these three available.”
“Sorry, but it looks like you two will have to share rides.” Jessie then offers Cloud a sweet smile and an even sweeter wink. “If you’d like, you can sit with me?”
He shrugs. “Whatever works.”
Jessie cheers silently to herself in excitement. Biggs frowns at her but rolls his eyes and says nothing.
“Which of us do you want to ride with, Ruby?” Wedge asks, hoping to take her out of her gloom.
“…”
“Uh, Ruby? You okay?”
Finally, she snaps out of her stone-faced silence and shakes her head back into focus. She turns back to Wedge with a tired and somewhat forced smile. “Yeah, I’m good, just tired. You’re a real pal, Wedge, maybe I’ll sit with you this time… if you don’t mind me squeezing in a spot.”
“Haha! Don’t worry. I know I may be a little round, but there’s plenty of room for a second person.”
“Hope you can keep up to speed with a girl sitting with you,” Biggs teases him, “It’s nothing like taking your cats out for a drive.”
“Hey, I’ve been practicing bike riding since I was a kid! This is nothing!” he replies with good humor, “And joke’s on you anyway: I have taken my cats out for a drive before! They’re actually pretty chill about it even when we’re zipping on the highway.”
“Ah… sounds nice.”
“They sound adorable. I wanna meet them sometime too…” Ruby then makes a grim smirk aside. “Though, my record with cats hasn’t been the best so far.”
“Aw, sure! And don’t worry, my cats are very well behaved. They’re cautious around strangers, but they’ll open right up when they get to know you.”
“Heh. Thanks.”
They climb onto their respective rides, where the ladies get to sit behind the guys they chose, and with everyone ready to go, Jessie throws up an arm pointing the way to go. They rev up the engines with a low purr and zip along the road for the highway leading to the upper plate.
~
It isn’t all that late yet, but traffic has long cleared out. Thanks to the recent bombing that has put everyone on high alert, Shinra has issued a citywide curfew for the public after sundown, where patrol would be sent out on watch. There’s no one but these intrepid few that are taking the highway at this time. They enter into a dimly lit tunnel, out of sight of any potential helicopters roaming the skies. However, it’s in these tunnels where there would be ID scans, and they run straight through one. Fortunately, Jessie was prepared exactly for this, and the alarm isn’t triggered.
Once her view of the skies has been blocked off by concrete, Ruby prepares to take flight. “Wedge, hold it steady. I’m gonna jump off.”
“Huh? Already? Okay…” He maintains a firm grip on the handle bars, making sure they don’t wobble for even a second.
She pulls off the back end of the seat into a crouch and leaps off high into the air behind them. Mere moments before she would land back on the ground and face the rush of inertia meeting an unmoving object, she disappears in a flash of light. The next instant, two mighty wings propel herself away from the ground and she swerves back around to catch up with the rest. As soon as they all exit the tunnel, she propels herself high into the air to give herself some room to maneuver.
Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge take a moment to marvel at her in her majestic form. Though they had an idea of how she looked from the picture they’d seen earlier, it’s still quite the difference seeing her in action than just as a still image. Cloud doesn’t bother to look up, though. He’s had quite enough of her flying up to now.
Jessie snickers to herself and then leans in against Cloud’s back. “So that’s the ride you had before? Must have been nice.”
“…It wasn’t.”
“Really? She looks like such a graceful flier.”
“The first time she did it, she carried me in her claws.”
“Ah… that does sound a little rough.”
“…”
“But then you got to ride her again with Tifa, huh? You guys were on her back that time.”
“Yeah… but it still wasn’t a smooth ride.”
“You don’t say… Well, it looks to me like she’s been getting some practice.”
“…”
She grins mischievously. “Guess that’d make you her guinea pig, huh?”
“…Lay off.”
She laughs, but doesn’t let him go. “And I guess that’d make me your guinea pig for your driving skills.”
“Huh?” He frowns. “I’m great at driving. You got nothing to fear.”
“Aw, that’s reassuring. Glad I picked you as the driver, then! Go get ’em, tiger!”
And yet, he still feels like he’s being mocked.
However, as graceful a flight that Ruby has as she soars high above them, her brightly glowing body acts like a beacon in the middle of the night. It’s only inevitable that it would catch someone’s attention, and soon enough, the gang are hounded by patrolling motorcycles.
“Whoa!” Wedge cries, as one of them nearly runs into him.
“Heads up, guys! Incoming!” Jessie yells over the rushing winds.
“…Damn. They’re here already?” Biggs mutters.
“Pull over!” one of the officers yells through a handheld radio attached to a speaker on the motorcycle. “You’re not authorized to take this road!”
Without a word, Cloud then whips out his sword in hand.
“Targets resisting! Return fire!”
And as soon as the command was given, the officers begin to shoot.
“Yikes!” Wedge yelps as he and Biggs swings out of the way.
“Sheesh!” Biggs laments aloud, “Didn’t even hesitate for a second, huh?”
“What’d you expect? They came in with guns ready!” Jessie answers.
“And I got my sword,” Cloud retorts.
“Good point! Get ’em, Cloud!”
He swerves hard to get into position and lets fly a powerful swing, clocking a couple officers that came a bit too close.
“Whew! My hero…” She smiles proudly. “Now that’s how you do it, guys!”
“You talking to us?” Biggs responds with a frown.
“Who else?”
And yet, while it’s a fight on the highway, even he didn’t expect the battle itself to be that speedy. Just as another wave of patrol arrive, the initial group then promptly hear the screams of their fellow officers.
“What the?”
“Wait, what is that!?”
Suddenly, Ruby swoops down from the sky with her wings outstretched. Without even resorting to her claws, she zips in close to the pavement and clotheslines a few officers off their rides as she flies by. She raises one of her wings just out of the way to avoid hitting her crew, but drops it back down to hit the remaining officers in the way. She swings back up and recalibrates for a second dive and swoop.
“That’s our secret weapon!” Wedge shouts triumphantly, “Let’s go, Ruby!!”
“She’s coming a little too close for comfort, though,” Biggs says nervously. “Let’s move!”
“You heard ’em, Cloud!” Jessie cheers, “Gun it!”
“…Way ahead of you.”
All of the officers are armed with guns, but of course, they are of little use against this latest threat. The bullets harmlessly bounce off of her large body, if they even manage to hit her at all, and she resumes clotheslining all the officers around her crew.
“Retreat! Stay out of range!”
“Soldier’s en route anyway. Let him clean up.”
“Understood… Wait, you don’t think it’s him, do you?”
“If it is, then we don’t need to be here.”
The officers, realizing that they’re completely helpless against this show of force, quickly back off from pursuit. However, just up ahead is another tunnel and Ruby has to swing back up high to go over it, so she can’t keep guarding them. And just as they enter this tunnel, the gang then receive yet another visitor.
“Whooohoooo! Hahaaah!!”
“What the…?”
Now, a bright red motorcycle joins the fray, zooming up from somewhere in the tunnel, and even along the sides of the tunnel. A guy with a blond mullet whoops and cheers as he flips through the air and lands just beside where Cloud had been. As he closes in, he lets fly a swing of his sword, and Cloud blocks the hit just in time with his own, but the newcomer knocks him behind as he zooms ahead.
“Whoa! What’s with that guy!?” Jessie yells.
Cloud grits his teeth. “…Soldier.”
“Soldier!? They’re here?”
“‘Too quick for the eye, you cross him, you die!’ Mind if I… cut in, folks?”
The Soldier then zips by Biggs and Wedge and bullies their rides too, just narrowly swiping at their tires with his blade and causing them to stutter for a bit. Fortunately, it doesn’t look like he really hit them.
“Whoa! Watch it!”
“H-hey!”
“Hahaha!! Woo! Splendid! I’ve been looking for a new dance partner!” He flashes Cloud a haughty grin, but when the latter ignores him, he continues, “Private party, huh? That’s fine. I’ll settle for a race, then. Just one.”
Cloud continues to ignore him. He can see the tunnel exit up ahead. As soon as they reach it, they’ll be in the clear.
“My, my… Not the talker, hm? Or have you been so thoroughly intimidated by my presence that your tongue has escaped you?”
“…”
The Soldier rolls his eyes and turns his attention to Jessie instead. “Quite the disappointing display that your partner has provided. Perhaps you could use a new one?”
“Ew. Are you talking to me?” Jessie says as she cringes.
“None other! I can’t help but feel concerned for your sake, as this one seems to be quite lacking in the emotional and possibly mental space…”
“Outta the way,” Cloud growls, slamming on the throttle.
However, the Soldier easily whips back up to speed to match. “Oh! Now there’s the fire in your eyes! Yes, yes! This is the contest I’ve been waiting for!” He even winks at him. “Let’s go! Winner wins the lady’s blessings!”
“No thanks!” Jessie snaps back, “You weren’t even invited!”
“Hahaha! If the lady doth inquire, my name is Roche, but you may address me as the more accurate appellation: Speed Demon!”
“Didn’t ask…”
Finally, it’s here: they all zoom right out from under the long tunnel’s cover and back into open air.
“Here we are! The race is on, my friend!” Roche then kicks up his bike in a wheelie with a crazed grin. “Come on! Let’s push it past the red line!”
But just as he presses forward, he realizes Cloud and company seem to lag behind and don’t give chase.
“What’s this? Why so self-defeating? We’ve barely gotten started! …Say, has the moon’s faint glow always been this bright-”
Before he can even finish, Ruby descends from above like a looming omen of death and slams a mighty claw into the side of his bike.
“What!?”
Roche barely has time to utter a word in surprise before he and his bike are sent careening off the side of the highway and out of sight. Ruby then resumes her regularly scheduled art of flight.
Cloud and the rest watch him fly off the side and calmly look back ahead.
“…Welp. There he goes,” Jessie states, “So much for Soldier…”
“Hmph… He was just a Third-Class.”
“Huh? You can tell his class?”
“Uniform.”
“Ah…” She smirks. “So the First-Class Soldiers all get the elite black, huh?”
“Pretty much.”
She chuckles to herself and leans back against him again for a hug. “…I’m glad we brought you guys along.”
“…”
And they all continue along as if nothing happened. Their destination isn’t too far anyway.
~
The Shinra Employee Housing District on the upper plate of Sector 7 is a pleasant and quiet place to roam about at first glance. And yet, there’s a certain stiffness to the extremely tidy environment here. Houses line up in a grid as far as the eye can see, where each one has an ample amount of room to accommodate for front and backyards. It’s as if everything must be neat and orderly at all times; quite like the offices at HQ, actually. It’s quite the contrast compared to the cramped quarters nestled among the junk piles down in the slums, where it’s first-come, first-serve when it comes to space. The streets are also awfully empty as everyone seems to be inside their homes even though nightfall had just come a little while ago. But, it makes sense: thanks to recent events, everyone has been on edge about safety.
Jessie leads the gang by the outskirts of the neighborhood and asks them to park their rides here. “It’s not too far from here. We can just walk the rest of the way.”
“There a rule against parking in front of houses here?” Cloud asks.
She shakes her head. “No, but I’d rather we not draw too much attention. We’re just gonna make a quick stop by my parents’ place and then it’s onto the 7-6 Annex.” She climbs off their ride and points the way for him. “Come on. I’ll lead the way.”
It’s one thing to have a nice sightseeing tour around the suburbs of a great city for someone who’s never been topside, but when it comes to Ruby, practically everything she sees before her is worthy of closer inspection. Unfortunately to Cloud’s detriment, she begins to wander off on her own and he has to keep pushing her back onto the route they’re supposed to follow every time she sees something different. First, it’s a well-trimmed garden; then it’s a basketball court on someone’s driveway; and then, it’s a private swimming pool behind some fences… She even stops to check a local billboard, and by then, Cloud has enough of her and grabs her by the arm as they proceed.
“Yeah… This is the upper plate, alright,” Biggs notes, “Everyone’s got their own neat little plot. Folks probably make three, four times that us slum folks do.”
Wedge then turns to Cloud to ask, “Hey, Cloud! Is this how it’s like for Soldier too?”
“Huh? What is?”
“You know, housing and stuff. You were part of the elite forces, so you guys had to have stayed somewhere special, right?”
He raises an eyebrow. “Uh… Not really.”
“Oh. Then how is it?”
Biggs then cuts in, “Uh, Wedge? Wouldn’t that kind of info be classified? Since it’s ‘military affairs’ and all…”
Cloud shakes his head. “It’s not a secret. Shinra has another district in each sector just for Soldier. It doesn’t look as nice as this, though.”
“Oh… Well, alright, then. Shows how much I know.”
“Now there’s the Soldier difference,” Jessie then replies in a teasing way.
“Hey…”
“So what is it like?” Wedge keeps asking.
“Uh…” Cloud scratches his head as he tries to recall and conveniently comes upon some details: “We at least had our own private quarters in the bunkers, but I think that’s just for First-Class. Quality, room, and all that just goes down from there as you go down the ranks.”
Ruby blinks and muses to herself, “…I’ve never seen the Soldier bunkers before either.”
He frowns at her. “Obviously. You’ve never been a part of Shinra.”
“No, I mean, I’ve never even had any visions of the place either. Like, I can have random as heck memories of totally non-important NPCs, but not even a little flash or two about the quarters where Soldiers stay? Come on! It would at least be nice to know! The halls of Shinra HQ are so boring!”
“…Um.” His stern frown falters into a look of confusion. “Are you complaining about your own powers or something?”
She makes a pout aside. “Oh, I’m complaining, but it’s definitely not my powers that are at fault…”
He turns away again and decides not to ask. She’d probably go off on a tangent about how “Lifestreaming” is supposed to work.
“…Well, at least I have had visions of this place, so there’s that, I guess.”
He turns to her yet again with a look of disbelief. “The Shinra employee housing district came in a vision?”
“Like I was saying, it’s dumb that I’d see this, but not that, you know?”
“Uh-huh…” Cloud then comes upon another question when he thinks it over again. “Hm? Hey, Jessie. How did you end up joining Avalanche? Aren’t your parents Shinra employees?”
“Ah…” She makes a somewhat uneasy face. “It’s because of what happened with my dad, actually.”
“Oh, right. You said he worked in the reactors before?”
“Yeah. He was a supervisor for the maintenance team in charge of the reactor. But one day on the job, he somehow got locked in mako storage during some overtime and was trapped there overnight. By the time his team came back to check on him, he was comatose.”
“Mako storage?” The dots connect in a blink. “So his condition…”
“Exactly; mako poisoning. The stuff is extremely toxic, and it’s not like Shinra never knew. They’ve had these reactors in operation for years and never even told anyone on maintence about the harmful effects of being too close to mako. So, they’d constantly be putting themselves on the line every time they went to work. It’s no wonder it’s a job with so much turnover.”
He frowns. “So how’s your dad doing?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t really know… He’s been resting at home ever since, but it’s already been a few years since that accident, and he hasn’t woken up yet.”
He has nothing to say to respond to that. Biggs and Wedge also look aside with condolences. Jessie had told them before when they would stop by to visit her when they all were younger, and that’s just how it’s been with her dad ever since.
Jessie lets off a quiet sigh. “I’ve just been praying every night that he’ll one day wake up… but in the back of my mind, I didn’t really believe that it would happen…”
“…It’s okay, Jessie. At least he has my prayers,” Ruby then speaks up with a gentle, reassuring smile.
Jessie nods back at first, but then she stops walking when she realizes something. The others follow suit when they notice.
“…Wait. Ruby, you’re Cetra, right?”
“Ah. Yeah?”
Now there’s a bit of a hopeful look in her eyes. “Then, you can speak with the planet, can’t you? Maybe you can reach my dad’s soul somewhere in there…”
“Ah…”
Ruby makes an awkward frown. Of all the times that she would have wanted to be able to speak with it, she still doesn’t have that perk just yet. One would think living among the Cetra or being an ancient dragon God would naturally grant her that ability, but it just hasn’t been working out. She can only give Jessie an apologetic look.
“…Sorry. I wish I could help, but I’ve been having trouble with that…”
“Huh?” She looks so crestfallen to hear that.
“Apparently, there’s been some kind of problem with the planet,” Cloud explains in her stead, “Even Ruby has trouble talking with it. Might be some kind of interference going on.”
“Interference?”
“What the? Even the planet can have interference?” Biggs asks, completely taken aback.
“Does it have something to do with Shinra and how they’re sucking up mako?” Wedge suggests.
Cloud shakes his head. He turns back to Ruby, who gives him a nod in approval and a quick finger snap. Taking her cue, he then answers succinctly.
“It’s something that Ruby’s been investigating on her own. Actually, it’s the reason why she traveled through time to get here. Whatever is happening, it’s like a plague has infested the planet and she’s looking into how to stop and ‘cure’ it.”
“Whoa. So this is a problem that even spans across time?” Jessie asks too, looking even more nervous.
“But! When I do figure something out, I’ll let you all know!” Ruby tries to reassure them with a smile. She turns back to Jessie and says firmly, offering a hand as if expecting a handshake. “And I promise, I’ll help find your dad and bring him back to you. So you’d better keep your head up until then, okay?”
Jessie blinks back, just a bit startled by how forward she is about this, but then returns her a more relieved smile of her own and accepts her handshake. “Thanks, Ruby. Hope things will work out for us both.”
Ruby nods back and they let go. Jessie then turns to the rest and gestures to get them to follow her as usual.
“Come on, guys. It’s just down this street.”
She leads them to a homely two-storied house with a side yard leading into the back, guarded by a wooden fence. Biggs and Wedge share Jessie’s nostalgia as they look up at it. Ruby can only recall a little from the little that she’s seen from another timeline, but she remembers it fondly as well. It’s just Cloud who remains as uninterested as ever.
“Mom should be at home too. It’s almost time for dinner. I already called her to let her know we’d be coming over.”
“Awesome! I’m starvin’!” Wedge says with a tired laugh, “Midgar Special, here we come!”
“Honestly, we could all use some good food already. We’ve been running around a lot on almost empty lately,” Biggs agrees with a relieved smile.
Ruby smiles too, her eyes lighting up. “Sounds great! I haven’t had pizza in a long time!”
Wedge looks shocked to hear that. “What? Seriously? You’ve been missing out bad!”
She nods back and sighs. “I know, but lately I’ve been out on my own, so it hasn’t been the most convenient for me to get pizza…”
“Aw, don’t worry. You’re here with us now, so help yourself to as much as you want! Jessie’s mom just loves cooking for guests.” He chuckles. “It’s kinda why I ended up so roly-poly…”
“That’s just because you always forget you’ve already had your fill and keep asking for seconds,” Biggs retorts.
“Hehe… Yeah, I know. Bad habit I gotta kick…”
Ruby returns to her giddy smile. “Can’t wait! I’m always up for a good, hearty bite!”
“…Not to ruin the mood, guys, but aren’t we here for a ‘quick stop’?” Cloud then reminds them.
Jessie replies, “We are, but my mom wouldn’t let me bring my friends over without making something for them.” She also leans in to add in a low voice, “Besides, we gotta distract her somehow. It’s not like we can just tell her we’re taking Dad’s ID.”
“What’s up? Can’t you just go fetch it yourself?”
“Yeah, um… I was gonna do that, but…” She then makes an embarrassed frown. “I don’t think I’m ready to face Dad just yet. And there’s no way Mom would let us go if she knew what we did.”
“What does she think you do?”
“A theater stagehand at the Gold Saucer.”
“…”
“I-it’s a long story, okay? Anyway, I was hoping you’d do me a solid and fetch it for me.”
“Me?”
“Yeah. Just think of it like another merc job. I want you to rob my house for me.”
It’s not like he’s in dire need of money now, thanks to Ruby, but also thanks to her, he came out of it with more trouble than he ever needed. If they’re in serious need of dough, he can always ask her again, but he’d rather not count on it if he can help it.
She continues to explain, “So, the card you’re looking for should be in one of the pockets on my dad’s old uniform. It’s hanged up in his room by his bed. And if you sneak around the back through the side yard, you can enter the house from the back door. It’ll be the second room on the right.”
He glances off with a scoff. “…Fine. But you’ll pay me back for this?”
“Ah…” She pauses to think about it. “You know what? After we head back to the slums, stop by my place. I’ve got the perfect gift saved, just for you!” She finishes with a wink.
He raises a suspicious eyebrow, but doesn’t reply to that.
“Wait, so is Cloud not joining us for dinner?” Wedge asks her.
She shrugs. “Well, someone has to go get the ID while Mom’s not looking.”
“Oof… I feel kinda bad now. He’s gonna miss out on the Midgar Special.”
Ruby snickers. “Don’t worry, Cloud! I’ll leave you a slice. I can even reheat it for ya! Hope you don’t mind if it’s a little burnt, though. My laser gets pretty hot…”
He raises a hand to get her to stop. “I’ll pass, thanks.”
Jessie gives him an apologetic look. “Sorry about this, Cloud. I promise I’ll make it up to you sometime.”
“…We can talk about it later.”
“Anyway,” she says as she turns back to the rest, “Come on. Let’s not keeping Mom waiting.”
“About time! My tummy’s a rumblin’!” Wedge cheers.
On Jessie’s cue, Cloud heads off toward the side yard and out of view of the front door. The rest of them follow her to the front door, where she gives it a knock. A woman with short hair, dressed in green and a white apron, comes out to greet them.
“Oh! You must be Jessie’s friends! Come in, come in! I’ve made you all the usual…”
“Yes! Thank you so much, ma’am!” Wedge is first to reply, “It’s been a while since we last had it!”
She nods back with a reassuring smile. “Oh, and who is this?” she then asks, turning to Ruby.
Ruby nods back politely and smiles. “I’m Ruby. I just met Jessie and her pals a few days ago.”
“Oh! A new friend? Are you from around here, Ruby?”
She shakes her head. “From somewhere much further away…” She pauses as she considers where would be an appropriate direction to suggest. “Up north near the glaciers, actually.”
“Oh, wow. That’s quite far. It must have been quite the trip.”
“It wasn’t too bad. I have ways of quick travel.”
“Well, I’m glad you came all this way to join us! Come in, come in!”
She welcomes them all inside, with Wedge rushing on in first, followed by Biggs and Jessie, and finally Ruby.
She also calls on Jessie again. “I didn’t expect you’d be bringing in another friend. Could you get her a seat and the utensils too?”
“On it!” Jessie hurries into the kitchen and helps set up the table.
Ruby takes a peek around the house. As she didn’t get much of a sight of it when she went through Remake for the first time, now would be a good chance to admire the quaint backdrop for once. It’s very clean and neat in here, for starters. It’s also well decorated with a few flower vases atop some cabinets, bookshelves full of books, and other shelves lined with knickknacks and mementos of Jessie’s family from years past. There’s even a mirror sitting behind a decorative table in the foyer for people to check themselves as they come and go. Ruby finds herself looking fresh as usual – though those demonic-looking red eyes of hers almost seem to spoil an otherwise very inconspicuous face. To be honest, she had almost forgotten that her eyes were red since no one would even bring it up.
Wait a second. Have they been at this shade all this time? She knew Rubia had very red eyes, but now that she looks at herself again, they are a deep crimson color, as if they had somehow been saturated even further. What the heck? Surely, her eye color hasn’t been changing on its own, right? Now that’d be super creepy…
She blinks a few times, just to be sure she isn’t seeing any illusionary effects from a difference in lighting or anything, and it doesn’t seem to be. Thinking little more of it, she turns away and once again passes any lingering questions she has to her future self.
“Ruby! Come over! Let’s eat!” she hears Jessie call to her.
“Ah. Coming!”
Ruby hurries to take a seat beside Jessie. Her eyes are twinkling with anticipation and hunger. Jessie’s mother has just brought out the pizza, and it smells wonderful – pepperoni, salami, and ham, mixed with the fragrance of olive, sweet onion, and roasted tomato, all coalesced together with a warm, cheesy aroma that wafts across the entire room and into the next.
Wedge is struggling to keep the saliva from leaking out his mouth. “Thanks so much, Missus R! It looks delicious! It smells delicious!”
“It IS delicious!” Ruby declares on the spot.
“Took the words right outta my mouth!” he replies, and the two share a high-five as if completely in sync.
Jessie’s mother laughs. “Well, aren’t you all a bundle of energy tonight? Please, dig in! Be careful, though. It hasn’t been out of the oven for too long.”
And so they do – carefully, of course.
“Wedge said it all already, but we appreciate it, ma’am. It’s hard to come across generosity like yours in this day and age,” Biggs replies politely.
“Oh, it’s nothing much. I’m just glad Jessie has been doing just fine.” She then pauses and turns to Jessie with a somewhat concerned face. “Though… How has business been?”
“Huh? Oh, you know, the usual…”
She doesn’t look too pleased with that answer. “Jessie, that’s exactly what you said last time.”
“I know, but that’s just how it is.”
“Yes, I understand it’s busy work being a stagehand… but it’s nothing like being an actress on the stage. Do you even have any chance to move up to the stage sometime? Otherwise, I’d think it’s best that you leave Gold Saucer and come back here. I can always save you a spot at Shinra.”
Jessie rolls her eyes. “I’ll be fine, Mom. There are just slow days sometimes.” She then gives her a reassuring thumbs-up. “Besides, I get the feeling I’ll be due for a show debut sometime soon!”
“Huh? Really? Were you actually recruited by an agency?”
“Um… not an agency, exactly, but there was someone.”
“Meaning?”
“You know… My boss offered me a role in this, uh, spy action movie! It’s coming up real soon, so we’re all geared up from practice and all.”
Jessie’s mother still looks a little confused and concerned, but she sighs in defeat. “…Alright. I’ll give you another two weeks. But if it doesn’t turn out well, then I insist that you come back.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know… but I’ll make it work.”
She nods back, deciding not to raise the question further. She then notices that Ruby seems to have slowed down eating. “…Oh, Ruby? Is something the matter?”
Now everyone else notices and turns to her.
Ruby stares off into space while her slice has gotten only one bite. She’s drifted off into her thoughts again. It really has been a long time since she’s last had a pizza party with friends. In fact, the last time she can even recall having a party with “friends” at all was when one of their aunts from abroad returned back to the States to visit the family. However, this aunt was a single mother who had divorced long ago, and her kid had already grown up and moved out back to Taiwan to work, so she barely ever got to see him growing up. In fact, it was pretty much like that for most of her relatives. They were all just too far away to really get to know them.
“Ruby? What’s up?” Jessie asks.
“You okay?” Biggs follows.
“Do you not like it?” Wedge asks, already munching on his next slice.
She finally snaps out of her trance and shakes her head. She returns them all a relaxed smile. “No, it’s as great as I thought it’d be! It’s just been a while since I’ve sat down and had dinner with friends.”
“Oh… Do you not have these moments too often?” Jessie’s mom asks, looking genuinely concerned.
“Nah…” Ruby looks off into space again as her smile fades. “I’ve been alone for a long time… since I was young, really.”
“…”
Now there’s an awkward silence that comes over the room. Jessie then claps her hands to get everyone’s attention.
“Guys?” She raises her glass in a toast. “I think we all owe Ruby one.”
“Oh, sure!” Wedge obliges with his own.
“No complaints here,” Biggs says, following suit.
Ruby blinks. “Huh? Why are you guys raising a toast?”
“It’s a toast to you, of course!” Jessie replies with a grin. “For finding some good friends who would have a pizza party with you, just for being you!”
Jessie’s mother nods along. “You’re always welcome to come back and join us again.”
“…”
Ruby had thought she would be prepared for any casual conversation they’d have around the dinner table, but she hadn’t expected this kind of turn. She begins to flush a little red with embarrassment, and before she can help it, she already feels her eyes begin to water. She looks away shyly as she quickly wipes them, and Jessie offers her a rub on the back.
It’s good to have friends, alright. Even though Cloud had been sneaking around in the back, he couldn’t help but slip behind the wall leading to the kitchen and overhear the conversation. At first he didn’t want to, as he didn’t want to feel jealous for being left out of what sounds like a good dinner, but after witnessing Ruby’s minor emotional breakdown again, he starts to feel bad about earlier today.
He turns away to ponder to himself. Maybe he was a little too harsh on her. It might not have been a big deal in the first place – he just challenged her on a whim, really – but she took their bet like it was life-or-death to her. And when she fell short of her own expectations, she was crushed.
Now that he thinks about it, he can understand the sentiment. There was a time when he was young and brash and wished to reach the heights of greatness, like a certain war hero who had single-handedly slain a whole army and ended the war in a matter of days. But ultimately, it was an impossible dream. He couldn’t return home after making such bold statements, only to just turn out as a rank-and-file…
He freezes up as he’s hit by another piercing headache. Shit. What was that just now? Rank-and-file? He was First-Class in Soldier, damn it! How is that supposed to be “rank-and-file” anything?
He shakes off the nerves and lets off a sigh. What is he doing? He already got the key card. He should just go and wait for them to come back out. And so, he quietly slips back down the hall and out the back door once more.
~
It’s not too long after that Jessie and gang step back out, thanking her mom for the meal and everything. Cloud leans against a nearby lamp post for them, just out of view of the front door, but not too far that they wouldn’t see him either.
“Cloud! There you are!” Jessie calls to him as they hurry over. “Sorry, didn’t keep you too long, did we?”
“Nah.”
“So you got it?”
He whips out the card from his pocket and passes it to her. “Now it’s on you for your end of the deal.”
“Thanks! And no problems there. Like I said, I got just the thing for you when we get back.”
He then turns back to Ruby, who has been surprisingly meek ever since they left the house. She then notices he’s looking at her again and gives him a curious look back.
“What?”
“…It’s nothing.” He makes an awkward look and turns away again. At first he was gonna apologize, but maybe it’d be less weird if they found some other place to talk in private or something.
“…” She raises an eyebrow in suspicion, but then quietly giggles to herself as if she caught on.
In any case, their jobs are done here. The warehouse awaits, its front gates towering in the distance. The real show is about to start.
Notes:
To any artists out there, can someone please draw or animate just the moment where Cloud gets ragdolled by a sack of gil? I feel like it would be a very important footnote in our fandom's history.
Chapter 9: Night Before the Storm
Notes:
5/15/25 edit: I'm sorry. I went this long without giving a translation to the Latin phrases in this chapter. Corrected it.
Also, the "Eua!" chant is based off of the Latin word "euax", which is a general term of praise, like shouting "Yeah!" or "Great!" (This is Latin, so you do pronounce the x, but in my case, I think it sounds better without the x ending.)
5/19/25 edit: Okay, I straight up rewrote this chapter today. It has all the same story beats, but the conversation flows way better and is more consistent with the quality I have these days. And I added a bit more lightheartedness and expanded on Ruby's behavior before the raid started so a certain meme reference I was going for is way more obvious.
Chapter Text
“Now comes the hard part. I’m gonna use this to sneak into the Annex.”
Jessie and gang have been walking through the neighborhood toward the looming warehouse up ahead. There’s a bridge that separates the bounds of the residential area and the warehouse grounds. Across it is an empty lot before the solid, towering gate that blocks off any unauthorized access.
“Alright. Let’s do it,” Biggs replies.
Jessie waves it away. “Sorry, but only I know where to look. The rest of you are gonna stay outside.”
“What? Come on! Don’t tell me we came all this way just to eat pizza!”
“Oh, don’t worry! You guys can work off every slice by helping Cloud and Ruby stir up trouble. When you see a flare go up, that’s your cue. Rush the front gate and head for the warehouse plaza.”
Cloud replies flatly, “Ruby alone will be enough for a diversion. She already lights up the night, so even if she’s fast, she’ll be hard to miss.”
“Yeah, but the plan is to show that she’s working for Avalanche, so you guys gotta get in there with her! The more hell you raise, the more time you buy me.”
“How much time will you need?”
“Not much. I’ll be in and out. I’ll send up another flare when I’m done.” Jessie points up ahead. “We rendezvous at the vacant lot up ahead.”
“Got it.”
Jessie gives the rest a quick salute, and she’s off on a different road to find another way around the back. Meanwhile, the rest continue forward across the bridge and toward the lot in question. Ruby seems to be particularly distracted, though, idly looking around the area as if trying to find something to pique her interest.
“…Now that I think about it, how are we gonna do this diversion?” Biggs then asks.
Cloud raises an eyebrow. “What else? Like Jessie said, we rush in. Ruby can even blast down the gates or something.”
“I’d rather put it as ‘the gates and something else’ if I unleash my laser here,” she replies coyly.
He isn’t impressed. “Then take it easy. We’re not looking to blow the entire place into oblivion.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll temper it.”
Biggs explains, “No, I mean, I got a clear picture of you two already. Ruby can just do her thing. You’ll be on the ground trying to ‘command’ her like a Summon. But what about us?”
“Well, I’m on a full tank. I can run like the wind,” Wedge adds.
“Sure, but I think we’d be better off actually doing something other than running around.”
“Ah, yeah. But I don’t think Cloud or Ruby will need our help.”
Biggs makes an awkward frown. “Yeah, that’s the problem I’m talking about…”
Cloud shrugs back. “It doesn’t matter. Make some noise. We just need to let ourselves be caught on camera.”
“I’ll be thrashing around, though. They’re gonna need to be a little noisier than usual to match,” Ruby adds. She’s still looking around as a certain plan of her own is forming in her mind.
Biggs groans. “How about Wedge and I scout out the area first before you get to that? Wouldn’t want to end up accidentally running into Jessie before our rendezvous.”
“Oh, good idea!” Wedge then turns to the other two and nods with a determined look. “And just in case you guys do need backup fire, we’ll be ready!”
Cloud rolls his eyes, clearly not expecting to need it, while Ruby nods back with a thumbs-up of approval. And yet, hiding behind her innocent smile is some devious mischief. Since they’re gonna be putting on a show, why not push the silliness? Take things up to eleven! Maybe she’ll even take inspiration from a certain meme back in the day…
“Oh, and spare us some of the fight too,” Biggs requests, “This is supposed to be a team effort, after all.”
Ever confident, Cloud scoffs back, “Assuming you guys will have anything left to target.”
“Come on, man. You’re not gonna just stand around and let Ruby take all the credit, right? So think about how we’d feel if we’re just left hanging back.”
“…”
“Besides, when in doubt, we’d make great decoys!” Wedge laughs.
“Man…” Biggs replies with a sigh, “I hate that you’re right.”
They finally arrive at the lot where their rendezvous would take place, calming strolling in as if not too bothered by any potential threats or cameras to catch them entering. Then again, it is a pretty empty lot and they’re gonna be on camera soon enough. However, it’s actually a bit too empty. Even the doors to the front gate are opened just a crack, but there’s enough space that can allow any of them through.
“…Where are all the guards?” Cloud asks, looking a little wary.
“Looks like someone beat us here,” Biggs suggests.
“And I don’t think it was Jessie…” Wedge adds.
“Looks like they’re busy,” Ruby also chimes in. An innocent quip pops in mind too and she suggests, “Or maybe they knew there was trouble coming and hightailed it?”
Cloud frowns at her. “Then it means we were exposed earlier than we should’ve.”
She’s still smiling to herself. “Well, to be fair, we did give the highway patrol a preamble of sorts.”
That just concerns him more. He crosses his arms, feeling a little apprehensive. “…Hopefully, it wasn’t a mistake to have revealed our hand that early.”
“This isn’t gonna affect our plans, will it?” Biggs asks, feeling likewise.
“Doubt it.” He glances back toward Ruby, who smiles innocently. “So far the worst she’s had to deal with was when she went Cactuar hunting.”
Her smile very quickly fades into a frown of shame. “I made it way harder than it had to be, though.”
“Uh-huh…”
There’s another awkward silence between them.
She looks away with a pout. “…I said I was sorry.”
Cloud looks away too and doesn’t reply. They’re not getting into that conversation again.
They cautiously slip through the space in the doors to an open gathering area for the local workforce. There’s yet another inner gate here that is normally only accessible with an ID, but has also been forced open a crack – made all the more convenient for them. There seems to be a bench here to relax and even a vending machine on standby. There’s also a shoot-off ramp to the east that leads down into what seems to be an underground training ground, but they won’t need it. Not with the kind of team they have now.
Biggs looks around, growing even warier. “Don’t see anyone. What the hell happened?”
Wedge finds a map of the area on a billboard nearby. “So the plaza’s that way, and the warehouses are further in. Jessie should be coming around from the back, right…?”
He frowns and turns back with a shake of his head in disbelief. “This is too weird. We definitely need to scout the place.”
“But after we do, we’ll be heading for the plaza, right?”
“Right.” He then turns back to Cloud. “Hey, wanna go over the plan again?”
“…I got it.”
“Alright. Wedge and I will be sneaking around to find a higher vantage point, but we’ll be counting on you two to put on this show.”
He looks away grumpily. If Ruby weren’t here with them, he’d probably be able to shine on his own. But because she is here with them, he’s stuck with pet-sitting duty instead. Ruby notices him moping to himself again and slides right beside him with her usual mischievous smile, but he doesn’t pay her any mind.
And then, as if on cue, they see a single red flare shoot up into the sky.
“That’s the signal!” Wedge calls.
“All according to plan,” Biggs mutters.
Cloud grabs at his sword’s hilt. “Let’s go.”
Her time has come. Ruby cheers with pure excitement, throwing her arms up in the air, “Alright, guys! Let’s do this! Leeeroooyy Jennkins!!”
“What? Ruby!”
Before the other three can do anything about her, she bursts into white light and rises into the air with a single flap of her powerful wings. She zips off into the sky and begins to roam about, and the glow of another bright object up above easily catches the attention of some roaming guards.
“Hey! What is that?”
“What the!? A dragon!?”
“Never seen a dragon that white before…”
“Who cares! What’s it doing here!?”
Before they can do anything about it, Ruby dives down so fast she bombs their immediate area, sending all of the guards flying and screaming. This naturally alerts more of security.
“What was that!?”
“We’ve located the intruders!”
“Wait. What is that!?”
Another squad arrives and is promptly smacked away like a set of bowling pins.
“Requesting backup! The intruders have a dragon among their ranks! …No, this isn’t a drill! Aaah!”
The panic and chaos that ensues goes on for a little while like this as Ruby stomps about like a giant cat playing with a laser pointer. Meanwhile, the rest of her team stand back in stunned silence.
Cloud plants a hand over his face. “…This is how we’re starting?”
Biggs looks just as drained. “So much for scouting the area first…”
Wedge turns to the other two, just plain confused. “What was that she said at the end? Sounded like someone’s name.”
Biggs shakes his head. “Who knows?” He also turns to Cloud. “Anyone you know?”
Cloud pulls off the hand and frowns back. “Like I’d know everyone she does. I don’t even know what’s going on in her head half the time.”
Now that Wedge is watching the chaos ahead, he gets a little worried. “So, uh, shouldn’t we get going? We can’t just leave her alone.”
Cloud lets off a frustrated sigh, but hardens his resolve and returns his hand to his sword’s hilt. “Don’t fall behind.”
They rush off into the plaza to catch up with Ruby and split up according to plan. Meanwhile, she’s already surrounded by armed forces, but they’re likewise treated as toys and wooden blocks to be knocked about.
“Ruby!”
Her ears perk up at the sound of Cloud’s voice. He’s jumped into the fray to join by her side, slashing his way through enemy lines. No riot nor shock trooper can escape the brunt of his sword. He easily weaves around shields to strike them from behind, and he strikes a punisher stance to counter the electrically charged strikes and disengage them from the ground.
But as quickly as she had charged in, her initial excitement has also been retracted. Ruby finds herself feeling a little empty inside despite being the center of all the panic and chaos. Everywhere she turns, it’s just more of the same. Even if some have shields or stun gun-arms or whatever, they all get squashed the same. It’s all too easy – so much so that it’s becoming a little unsettling. This is just going to be how it’s going for the rest of the mission, isn’t it?
“Back off, men! This threat is too much! We need stronger reinforcements!”
Ruby lets off a dissatisfied snort. Already the battle has shifted phases. Now they’ve brought in the grenadiers too, but their grenades hit her like party poppers. The loud bangs are what annoy her more than anything else, so she casually swats the grenades back to her aggressors by her claws, wing tips, and tail – wherever the grenades had been thrown – as if she were playing a dangerous game of table tennis. And even when she isn’t even trying at all, the shrapnel from the explosions ricochet off of her anyway, leaving a zone of smoke, fire, and danger in her immediate vicinity.
Wait. While it is just some smoke to her, which she can easily look over thanks to her long neck, now she realizes that she’s lost track of Cloud. Uh-oh. She didn’t accidentally step on him or knock him away in her flurry, did she? Surely, he of all people would be able to avoid her, right?
Then, she hears the sounds of some snarling beasts nearby, which quickly turn to yelping in pain. Cloud slips out from the cover of the smoke, a safe distance from Ruby’s immediate reach, and lays on some punishment on any guard dogs too careless to approach him.
She lets off a sigh in relief. It’s okay. He’s just on dog duty. Thankfully; it would hurt her heart to have to claw at the canines too, even if they are kinda ugly and have tentacles sticking out of their heads. Never mind the fact that they’re technically trying to kill her guys. Man, the more she thinks about it, the more awkward it gets.
No, it’s not just that. There’s something else about this situation that bothers her more. As she peers around the battlefield, silently observing the disappearance of their defeated enemies back into the ether, she realizes how little she actually feels about her own rampage. Though the ones still alive are all masked, she can even smell their fear. But that’s only to be expected. These soldiers are still human, after all.
She never really put much thought into her and the gang’s actions since she’s been treating everything as if she were playing the game as always. But now, she isn’t just sitting behind a TV screen anymore. She’s come to this world in person, and the longer she spends in it, the harder it’s gonna become to distinguish between fantasy and reality. And whether or not consequences in this world would carry any weight after she returns home, as of now she’s basically turned herself into a murder machine. They’re enemies, sure, but this is getting kinda sad to watch.
This isn’t it. This isn’t the fun time she expected of finally being able to thrash around all she’d like. Even the meme she thought would be funny has petered out into a sad, awkward silence like a deflated balloon. Of course it wouldn’t fit. She’s too strong for this “dungeon”. She drops back to all fours with a discouraged sigh and sits idly as ammo and shrapnel continue to harmlessly bounce off of her.
“Ruby? What is she…?” Cloud mutters to himself and then yells at her, “Hey! We’re not done! Get up and keep fighting!”
She growls back with a defiant tone, but nonetheless whips up a strong gust of wind from a few powerful flaps of her wings and creates an ample ring of space between her and the enemies. If they can’t approach, then they won’t die, right?
“Ugh… we can’t even get in. This isn’t working! Where are the reinforcements!?”
“They’re loading the mechs, sir!”
“Still!? Dammit… Keep on the pressure!”
“Aim for the man! He’s gotta be controlling the beast!”
Cloud again dodges gunfire and lunges forth. Just as they try to surround him, though, a few of them are hit by bullets from above. Biggs and Wedge have found their way up to the catwalks above the plaza gate.
“They’re up there too!”
“More intruders!? Don’t let them escape!”
“Aw, crap…” Biggs mutters as another group of shock troopers rush around them.
“Time to get going!” Wedge yells.
But they find themselves forced back to back as they’re pinned in. These troopers are quite annoying with how their specialized suits allow them to even dodge point-blank gunfire. Fortunately for Biggs and Wedge, Ruby has leapt on over and shakes the ground as she lands. Her neck easily reaches up to their level and she takes a bite out of the railing, crushing out a hole and forming a makeshift bridge for them.
“Nice! We’re free!”
The duo safely slide down her neck and onto her back. Though the shock troopers try to climb on as well, she growls and flings her head off, ripping a big chunk of the catwalk apart and flinging off any unfortunate souls that were still on her. But she’s not done yet. Taking care not to completely crush the metal in her maws, she swings back around with the torn chunk of metal gridding and flings it the other way directly at the warehouse front, crashing a large hole in the central shutter door.
“Whoa!” Biggs gasps.
“Yikes… wouldn’t wanna be in there,” Wedge remarks with a wince.
“Damn. Dragons really are just demolition experts, huh?”
“Looks like they’re customizable too!” he laughs.
While those two are watching in awe, Cloud gets a bad feeling about this. The hole Ruby has left has revealed some shining lights and the sounds of whirring machinery from behind the door. While the central one is broken, the other two doors open up entirely. Several Sweepers and a Cutter march forward with their arms presented.
Biggs groans. “Of course they store mechs here…”
Cloud raises his sword. “You ready?”
He raises his rifle to match. “Hell yeah!”
“More than you know!” Wedge whips out a couple disc-shaped land mines. “Look what I found! Let’s give these jerks a taste of their own medicine!”
But then, just as the three get ready for a tough fight, Ruby pounces on the mechs all at once – with the side of her body. They’re crushed before her full-body clothesline and slammed back into the warehouse they came from. The ensuing collective explosion destroys almost the entire front of the building and it collapses onto her.
“Ruby!” Cloud yells, but stops himself to wonder why he’s even concerned.
“Geez! Forget about being a wrecking ball… She just turned into a giant Frisbee!” Biggs remarks, stunned.
“I dunno… I’d say it’s more like a steel beam,” Wedge replies.
“Nah, it’s definitely like a tank, but instead of shooting its gun, you shoot the whole thing.”
“Haha! Yeah, that sounds like it!”
Cloud looks at the other two as if he were the only sane one left. Yes, they’re just here to be a diversion so they can cut loose for a bit, but it feels like he’s the only one who’s actually taking the job seriously. And yet, he doesn’t even get much of a chance to show off his skills. Now he’s left questioning what he’s meant to do himself.
“Stay where you are!”
There are still some officers hanging around and trying to threaten them, but while the three guys do notice, none of them seem to care in the least. They turn back around and strike a team pose as they prepare to fight again. Ruby also bursts out of the rubble and shakes off any loose debris that might have fallen on her. She then joins the others to face the officers with a very smug and defiant frown, with just a bit of teeth bared in their direction.
“…Sir? Do we continue with pressure?”
“Urk… S-stand your ground! They have to be getting exhausted by now, right?”
“Um… They don’t seem to be, sir.”
“…” He groans. “Stay on standby until further notice.”
However, for just a moment, the tides seem to turn. Out of the blue, Ruby is struck by what seems to be lightning from the sky. She looks a little startled, but then shakes off the sting as if it were nothing. Then, they all hear the roar of an engine and a bright red motorcycle launches in on the scene out of nowhere. The troops scramble to get out of the way as it scratches some hot donut trails on the ground.
Roche is back and he’s laughing. “Well, aren’t we having a wonderful time kicking the hornet’s nest!”
Cloud groans quietly. Not him again. How the hell did he make it over here after Ruby swatted him away like he was a roach? Maybe he actually is one. He must be to have flown somehow.
The eloquently spoken madman slides his ride to a screeching halt and climbs off, drawing his sword. “Well, well! That was quite the thrilling first act you’ve run thus far, but this next dance will be the crown of tonight’s play!” He raises it toward Cloud. “You and me, my friend… the stage awaits. Let our engines roar with excitement and set it ablaze in glory!”
Before he can say or do any more, though, he then feels an angry snort of air brush him from above and he looks up.
“Ah… The resplendent Lunar Serpent! We meet again.” Despite his predicament, he grins in the face of overwhelming danger. “Did my entrance… shock you by any chance?”
She snatches him up in one of her claws, shoots up into the air, and flings him far, far away once again. And just so he won’t be lonely, she also chucks his bike after him as he sails off. She then drops back down with a grumpy-looking scowl.
Cloud watches him fly off without a word or even a hint of surprise. Well, that’s that, then… but he isn’t too pleased about being shown up by Ruby yet again. Seriously, she’s just stealing all of the harder fights for herself and she isn’t even trying! When is he gonna get his chance to shine?
Meanwhile, Biggs and Wedge turn back to each other and continue their conversation as usual.
“Well, what a way to end the show. We probably stalled long enough. I doubt we need to stay here any longer.”
“Yeah…” Wedge looks sadly at the mines he’s still holding. “It’s too bad we didn’t use these at all, though.”
“Eh, you got them from one of the warehouses here, right? Just toss ’em back.”
“Huh? You kidding me? We can still use them!”
He scoffs back, “What? You wanna use them to take out these guys? It’ll be easier to just let Ruby clean up.”
“Well…”
Cloud interrupts them, “Hey. Weren’t you just saying that you didn’t want to be left out of the fight?”
Biggs shrugs. “Yeah, but we at least got our turns… even if they were pretty short.”
“Seriously? You’re satisfied with just that?”
Wedge shrugs too. “Well, what else do we need to do with Ruby here?”
“Yeah. We’re just stirring up some trouble here, after all,” Biggs reminds him.
Cloud, not satisfied with that answer, gives Ruby a glare instead. She returns his glare with a totally unfazed look in her eyes, as if to wonder why he’s so serious.
The officers by this point are speechless. Not only are the intruders not paying any attention to them, they’re having idle conversations even with all these guns pointed at them. That being said, they’ve stopped firing because they’re honestly afraid to; the white dragon towers above them menacingly and can simply reflect any attack with ease. The warehouse before them has been decimated to the point that the rest of their mechs can’t be safely deployed. Even their local Soldier unit has been dealt with in the least flattering way possible. They’re frankly out of options.
“…Just who are these guys?” one of the commanding officers mutters aloud.
“We’re Avalanche!” Biggs declares proudly.
“And don’t you forget it!” Wedge adds, pumping a fist.
Cloud turns back to the troops with a cold, unrelenting stare. “Get outta here if you wanna live. No promises if you don’t run far enough.”
“Grrr…!” The officer then calls to the remnants of his platoon, “Fall back! We don’t need to be here!”
And with that, with no further complaints from them, the rest of the troops retreat as quick as they can. Biggs and Wedge cheer, while Cloud stands with his hand on his waist and that iconic stoic expression.
However, despite having “won” the battle, Ruby huffs again, still feeling quite annoyed. As silly as they’ve made this raid out to be, she isn’t laughing. She feels so unfulfilled and frankly a little guilty for essentially committing a massacre with her bare claws. Even though it was her idea to gambol about and even force Cloud to dance with her, now she’s not even in the mood for that. She steps out from the rubble and finds a flat plane to flop to the ground with a sad whine.
“Huh? Ruby? You okay?” Wedge asks, his grin fading.
“What’s up?” Biggs follows suit.
“…It sucks, doesn’t it?” Cloud then replies.
Ruby growls back, but doesn’t move.
“What does?” Wedge asks him.
“Yeah. What’s with you two? You’ve been at each other’s throats since earlier…” Biggs does too, looking a little concerned.
Cloud replies with a sigh, “She really is too strong for even her own good.”
“…?”
“I started to suspect something was up with her since we first met, but we never got any real way to measure the extent of her abilities. Then, I happened to get a ‘taste’ of her power after her Cactuar adventure… but I got knocked so fast, I wasn’t even sure what happened.” He crosses his arms and shakes his head. “And even then, I didn’t expect that this raid would be turned into an outright joke.”
“Ah…”
Wedge frowns. “You know, now that you mention it, we really did just spend most of the time running around, huh?”
Biggs gives a disappointed sigh. “Yeah. We really did. But at least it makes things way easier for Jessie.”
“Speaking of which, you think she’s ready to rendezvous now?”
“Yeah, should be. Like I said, we don’t have to stay here any longer.”
The three guys then begin to walk off from the site of destruction. However, Ruby still remains in her place sulking. Cloud stops and steps over to her.
“Hey. We’re leaving.”
“…”
“You heard me. Get up.”
Ruby frowns. Maybe she should make more trips overseas so she can find things that would be actually challenging for once. But on the other hand, now that she’s joined these guys, she can’t just run off and ditch the mission. What does she do now? She’s just so bored…
“Ruby. We’re gonna leave you behind.”
She snorts, but makes a sad, acquiescing face. Finally, she climbs back to her feet and begins to follow them out.
However, as her mind wanders again, another idea of mischief crosses her mind and she stops to think over it. It’s innocent in intention, really, but fairly risky in execution. As she recalls, it usually happens with games that have difficulty levels that adjust to the player’s skill level. If she displays such an overwhelming show of force that Shinra cannot ignore, then they’ll have to send in the top guns, right? Oh, but it may become much more difficult for her friends on the ground.
Well, it might not be difficult if they can just keep relying on her.
She makes a proud, almost cocky, toothy grin as she begins to scheme to herself. Cloud notices that she’s slowed down again and turns back to her with an annoyed look.
“Quit dragging your feet. I’m not saying it again.”
Instead, Ruby turns back toward the broken warehouse with that devious glean in her eyes. How suddenly it appears sends a chill down his back as the bad feelings begin to pile on.
“Ruby… what are you thinking about?”
Before he can stop her, she then leaps up high into the air and begins to circle about the warehouse grounds, finding a particular angle and point of view to prepare herself for the next attack.
“Ruby! What the hell are you doing now!?”
Biggs and Wedge come running back. “Cloud! What’s going on?” Wedge asks, now worried.
“I don’t know! She just flew off on her own!”
“Well, call her back!” Biggs suggests, now a little panicking.
“She’s not listening! Damn that brat! She always gotta make trouble for us…!”
Cloud uses the pile of rubble before them as a kind of rough ladder to leap off of, and he neatly lands atop the broken building. He frantically searches around for a place to find a higher vantage point, but there aren’t too many ways to leap across rooftops here.
Up above, Ruby has begun to stir up attention from the rest of the grounds. Alarms begin to blare all around. If the rest of the annex wasn’t alerted yet, they definitely are now. She snickers to herself. Get these suckers stirred up in a frenzy, threaten to blast down the place, and then bolt before things really go down. That prude Cloud would definitely not like this plan, so she didn’t say anything to him. But it’ll be fine. It’s just a little prank wake-up call, so to speak.
Once the search lights light up the sky and practically give her the spotlight, she seeks a place that she’d be satisfied with and lets out a mighty roar. And with her warcry as a public announcement, she begins to charge up a Megaflare – just for show, of course. She can just shoot it up into the sky as some brilliant fireworks.
But as she overlooks this annex from above, she gets a peculiar feeling. There’s a certain sense of familiarity that she has being in such a position, flying over a massive campus and charging up a powerful attack. Strange… what exactly is this sense of familiarity? Has she been in a place like this before?
And before she knows it, an old memory is triggered in mind.
~
A ceremony was taking place in some kind of castle at some time of night. Rubia, dressed in her white caped robes, had kneeled before the royal couple sitting on the throne. The king took a stand before the court and raised his hand.
“Bring me my knighting sword!”
Servants hurried out and back in, bearing a large wooden casket made of a deep, rich dark wood and rimmed with gold. They presented the casket before the king and respectfully bowed to excuse themselves. The king drew out a small key to the lock on the casket and inserted it. He then lifted open the lid, swinging it completely open and resting against the back, for the rest of the court to observe.
Resting upon its plump cushion was a magnificent blade, adorned with beautiful, shimmering gemstones in the fiery glow of the lanterns. It bore a clear white hilt, rimmed from crossguard to pommel with gold. As it was a sword of knighting, it was not sharpened on either edge, so would not cut anyone who held the blade, but it would be most profane to handle such a prestigious weapon with such thoughtlessness. Only the king and queen were allowed to even touch it.
“Ladies and gents of the Royal Court of Dunscaith, today is a hallowed day for our kingdom. A legendary warrior, one famed for her defeat of the Great Dragoness of Terror, has come to us to lend us her aid! She has recently severed all formal ties with the Kingdom of Ackard and now roams the world as a free agent. She bears a cross on her heart for the Ackardians, who had once raised her as their own, but eventually cast her aside and abandoned her in fear of her power! And to what end had they wrought this betrayal? Even the very monastery she had taken residence was mercilessly scorched to the ground!”
The court crowd was filled with gasps of disturbance and horror. Others nodded to each other in silent solemnity. Truly, the Ackardians would have no remorse in abandoning even their greatest assets if it meant that their corrupt Grand Council could stay their authority and reign.
“And thus, she has sought refuge from their lands as a fugitive of their warped law and turned to our kingdom for its charity and grace. How could we, the proud and earnest Cetra of the South, bear to deny her this refuge?” The king paused thoughtfully as he let his messages sink in. He then proceeded once more, “Let this day mark a new beginning! An alliance of the South with a forsaken legend of the North! This holy binding of two like-minded extremes shall lead our people to a glorious future where the corruption and sickness of the North shall terrorize us no more! We now have the power to match their forces! Rubia the Radiant, the Holy Dragoness herself, and her undyingly loyal partner, Fenrir the Apocryphal, have sworn to stand in unity with Dunscaith!”
“Eua! Eua! Eua! Eua!”
The king then took the ceremonial sword in hand and lifted it up in Rubia’s honor. She remained as still and quiet as stone as he rested the blade upon her shoulders.
He then recited the royal decree: “Benedicimus Rubia et Fenrir! Sic Sempre Luna Atra!”
(Blessed be Rubia and Fenrir! Long live the Dark Moon!)
“Eua! Eua! Eua! Eua!”
The crowds cheered with raucous abandon. It was done. The Kingdom of Dunscaith would falter no more in the wake of the terror of the North’s reckless and unjust crusades. Now that their prized Summon Guardian, the very daughter of Bahamut herself, had allied with their cause, there was no need to fear. They had a chance to push back in this civil war and even possibly reach their capital city of Ackard.
With his role completed, the king set the sword back upon its cushion. Unexpectedly, Rubia then stood up and stopped the king from shutting the lid once more.
The court members gasped. What was the meaning of this?
“Lady Rubia… is something the matter?” the king asked, raising her a dubious eye.
Without releasing her hand from the lid, Rubia spoke in a gentle but firm tone: “…The Kingdom of Dunscaith shall make history tonight, indeed.”
“What is your intent, Lady Rubia…?”
“Divine retribution.”
“What?”
Before anyone can stop her, she seized the sword for herself, and with a slash too quick for the eye, she cut down the king before her – with a sword that should not cut.
The court was aghast. The queen screamed. The guards rushed in to detain their rogue guest of honor. But it was too late. Rubia simply warped out of the throne room as the guards crashed upon where she once stood.
As the court panicked in their shock and confusion, they then heard a horrifying cry from outside of the castle. A Great Wolf stood atop a bluff of the hills overlooking the castle and howled to the moon above. The very next moment, a vast torrent of freezing air rushed into the throne room, capturing everyone inside in a thick sheet of ice. It was much too quick a flood of sheer cold that any mere mortal could escape.
High above the castle grounds, Rubia had returned to her dragon form. She floated silently in the sky, her wings still; no need to beat the air to stay her place. She watched the castle burst into a precipice of ice with eyes as cold as the freezing winds that surround Helheim Prison. And with preparations set by her faithful partner, she opened her maws and begins to charge the light of a very powerful Megaflare.
She unleashed the beam of light in a flash, and the next moment, the entire castle was enveloped in a blisteringly bright blue-white ball of flames. And as the winds blow overhead and when the smoke finally began to settle, there was nothing of the entire castle grounds that remained on this land. In fact, one could even say that the entire slope of the hill that the castle had sat upon was carved inward with but a dusty crater left to be seen.
Rubia then flew over to the bluff where her dear friend had been patiently waiting. She returned to human form and gave him an affectionate pet on his cheek and even behind his ear, to which he closed his eyes and quietly but happily received.
~
Ruby’s eyes have gone blank as she stares down the annex grounds before her. She has no thoughts; not because she is speechless after witnessing that vision, but also that her mind has completely blanked out as well. As if following up purely through instinct – or perhaps even just for old times’ sake – she releases her hold on the fully-charged Megaflare still in her maws.
Down below, Biggs and Wedge are waiting nervously for Cloud to come back down. He finally does, as he doesn’t want to be anywhere higher where things are going now.
“Cloud! What’s going on? S-should we wait for her?” Wedge asks, now panicking a little.
“What’s gotten into her? It looks like she’s gone insane or something!” Biggs says with a cold sweat.
“Let’s go!” Cloud barks, “We can’t be here!”
He hurries off for the exit with the other two scrambling after him. However, they don’t get too far when Ruby unleashes her deadly laser. It vanishes into an unspecified location on the grounds somewhere, and then the entire vicinity erupts into a familiar blue-white ball of death that expands across half of the entire grounds. The blast is so powerful that the following shockwave actually hits Cloud’s party reaching near the inner gate and knocks them all to the ground.
At least they’re still safe…ish. Cloud gets back up first, followed by the other two, and he is furious.
“What the hell is wrong with her!? Is she trying to kill us too!?”
Biggs and Wedge, meanwhile, sit up and stare behind them. “…Whoa.”
Cloud turns around to see what they do and his eyes widen. What had previously been a military base crowded with warehouses and bunkers now simply has a vast plain on one side opposite to where they had once stood. It’s not just that she blew them up; it’s almost as if she actually erased them from existence.
Wedge starts freaking out. “W-w-wait! What about Jessie!? She was going around in some of those warehouses, wasn’t she!?”
“Yeah, but…” Biggs replies, trying his best to keep calm, “Jessie should be fine! She ought to have made it out by now!”
“Y-you think so?”
“Y-yeah… Of course! This is Jessie we’re talking about!”
“…” Cloud continues to stare in silence at the huge conflagration that has erupted at the back half of the base. It brings all sorts of terrible, fearful memories to mind.
Such overwhelmingly terrifying power. It’s almost unbelievable that it comes from the silly prankster girl he had been hanging out with all this time. Even other Summons wouldn’t necessarily wreak havoc to this extent. For starters, Summons tend to reflect the power of the one that summons them in the first place. In Ruby’s case, though, she is completely unbound; not by any materia or by any spellcaster’s level of magic. Not even by herself.
This feeling of sheer awe, terror, and helplessness is all too familiar. It’s exactly how he felt the first time he saw Sephiroth in action when they were on a mission in Nibelheim. The entire memory from that time has practically been seared into his mind. And after all that he’s tried to deny it, at last the harsh reality sets in. As much as they bicker, Ruby isn’t just a little further ahead of him. The gap between them is so huge that it may as well be impossible to close as he is now. Everything around her is a joke, and though he hates to admit it, even he’s a part of it.
But a more terrifying realization follows: even with all this power, Ruby still struggles to keep up with Sephiroth. Just what kind of man are they going to face down the line? No, it wouldn’t even be fair to call him a ‘man’ anymore…
“…Cloud? Hey, Gaia to Cloud!”
He snaps back of his trance and shakes his head. Biggs and Wedge are still beside him, but they’ve already gotten back to their feet. However, they aren’t alone. Now, rather than being surrounded by Shinra troops, they seem to have met with a different group of armed soldiers dressed in brown.
“…So it was you guys.” One of the troopers steps forward. “You weren’t supposed to be here.”
Wedge shrugs. “Yeah, but you guys weren’t supposed to either.”
“What’s your cell doing here?” Biggs asks with a frown.
“That’s classified info we don’t need to share. But given the state that you and your monster seem to have left this place, we don’t have much reason to stay.”
“…”
The trooper then raises his rifle in hand, not pointed at them, but still in an almost threatening manner. “HQ is definitely going to be hearing about this. And there’s no way Shinra is going to let you be. Your cell sure has bitten off a lot. You’d better pray that it wasn’t too much to chew.”
“And what exactly is HQ going to do?”
“Again, that’s classified. Consider this a warning in good faith. Don’t be surprised if even worse trouble comes right to your doorstep any time soon.”
“…”
With that, the trooper returns to his squad and leads them out for the exit. The other section of the base may have been destroyed, but clearly there is going to be more backup for Shinra incoming from elsewhere. Cloud and his party need to get going too.
~
As it turns out, all the ruckus from the explosion that Ruby caused has made quite a stir in the residential area outside the base too. The local police have swarmed the scene, trying their best to keep the populace calm and unaware. By some miracle, the other Avalanche cell seems to have vanished into thin air.
They return to the lot with heavy expressions on their faces. Jessie has been waiting for them in a corner where it’s out of direct sight from outside. Now, she seems to have equipped a new shoulder bag, still with the Shinra logo on it, holding a few things she had gathered. She gives them all a concerned frown as they come by.
“…Sheesh! I told you guys to stir up trouble, not destroy half the base! It’s a good thing I made it out early.”
“Jessie!” Biggs gasps.
“You’re alive!” Wedge cries.
“Uh, yeah? Clearly. And I got our stuff as planned,” she replies, pointing to her bag. She then demands, “But what the heck happened? And where’s Ruby?”
Cloud looks up into the sky where a certain white dragon is still afloat and gazing upon her work. “There.”
“Then tell her to come back down!”
But he only shakes his head and frowns bitterly.
She blinks. “…Wait. Are you saying that you guys didn’t tell her to do that?”
“Of course not. We needed a diversion, not absolute destruction.”
“…” She stares at Ruby, who has yet to fly away from her place, and back in stunned silence. She then sighs. “What’s gotten into her?”
“Who knows. All of a sudden, she had this evil look in her eyes like she wanted to cause more trouble, and the next thing we know, she’s blasted half of the base.”
“Wait, seriously? She meant to do it?”
He shakes his head. “I can’t say anything for sure, but that’s what it felt like.”
“Um… Cloud, you didn’t say anything really horrible to piss her off, did you?” Biggs asks.
He whips back to him with an annoyed glare. “Of course not. You were all there with me. Did you hear me say anything problematic?”
Wedge rubs his head. “Er… well, you did say ‘it sucks, doesn’t it’ about how strong she is, so…”
He flinches. “That’s not what I… meant. I wasn’t trying to mock or aggravate her, okay? I was just being real.”
Biggs crosses his arms with a frown. “Well, you know her the most out of all of us, so I figured you would know how to best talk with her. But if you’re always using that tone, it’s no wonder she doesn’t like you.”
“Ugh! It’s not like that! If anything, she clings so much to me that I hate it!”
“So you try to push her away, huh…”
“I just said, it’s not like that!”
Jessie then steps in to break them up. “Uh, guys? I think we have bigger problems to worry about now.”
“Huh?”
“What’s up?” Biggs asks too.
She peeks out of their little alcove for the residential area past the bridge where a great collection of patrol cars, riot squad vans, and the like have congregated. “We’re gonna have to make our way out as quietly as possible through that mess.”
Wedge nods slowly. “Oof… That sure looks like a mess.”
“I figured that if we got in and out real quick, we could get outta here before all the cops showed up, but I guess that was a pretty tall order… But with the base a total mess like this, it’s no wonder the place is swamped.”
Biggs sighs. “Well, it’s not like we have a choice now. Since Ruby seems to be off doing her own thing, we’ll have to sneak our way through.”
“Huh? We’re not waiting for her?” Wedge asks.
“…No. We’re not,” Cloud replies firmly. “If she wants to go rogue, then that’s her problem. She’s just going to be a menace to everyone.”
“…”
A general sadness comes over the group. Never mind that their plans are seriously at risk; they may have just kicked up a lot more than Shinra’s nest this time around, given the response from the other Avalanche cell. And worst of all, the one person who could have been their shield from the worst case scenario is now unresponsive.
And just as they were about to give up on her, Ruby warps before them in a flash of light. She’s back to being human and she looks completely drained, like she’d just died on the inside. She might as well be a husk.
“Ruby!”
“Hey, uh… You okay?” Jessie asks nervously.
Ruby doesn’t respond right away, but then shakes her head and droops in shame. “…I’m sorry.”
Like a lit fuse, Cloud snaps at her, “‘Sorry’ isn’t gonna help anything! What were you thinking!?”
“…”
He steps forward to snatch her by the lapel of her vest. “Answer me, you little psycho. What are you trying with us?”
“Cloud!” Jessie calls out.
“Take it easy, man…” Biggs adds with a stern frown.
“…” Cloud backs off, takes a deep breath, and lets it out. He puts a hand to his forehead to massage this coming migraine as he continues with a softer tone: “Ruby. Answer me honestly. What happened?”
“…I don’t know.”
He only looks disturbed to hear that. “You don’t know?”
She shakes her head. “I feel like I blacked out for a moment. I think I had some kind of vision… of my past.”
“Your past…” He lowers his hand, now genuinely worried. “What did you see?”
“That I teamed up with someone to massacre a king and his people long ago. I don’t know when or why. It was like we were the harbingers of apocalypse or something…”
“…”
The rest of them stand by in complete silence and shock as well. What in the world is anyone supposed to say to that?
Yet, Cloud manages to keep his cool for as long as he can muster. “…So you felt like it was happening now and panicked?”
Ruby slowly nods back.
He then heaves a very deep sigh, rubbing his head awkwardly. He raises a hand as he tries to come up with something to say, but in the end, he comes up short. He simply puts a hand on her shoulder and says with a heavy heart, “That sucks.”
“…”
“Think you can try to stop it from happening ever again?”
“…” By now, her eyes have begun to well up with tears. Everything from her face seems to say, “I don’t know,” but she still nods back and says, “I’ll try.”
“Alright.” He moves his hand and gives her a soft rub on her head. “It’s a promise, yeah?”
“Mm-hm.”
“Good.” He finally lets her be and goes back to playing it cool. “Now could you warp us outta here? We’re kinda stuck between cops and the riot squad out there.”
“Sure. Gather around.”
She beckons the other three to step closer, and though still very confused and alarmed, they oblige without another word. She then makes the appropriate hand sign to cast her spell, and with a whisper on her lips, she lights up a magic circle underneath them all. And in but an instant, all five of them vanish without a trace.
~
The gang has returned to just outside the Seventh Heaven, and they’re still in shock over what had just happened. While the raid was technically a success – Jessie did get what they needed, after all – no one was prepared for what essentially became a disaster similar to the last bombing mission.
“Well, at least Jessie got the things and we all made it out without a scratch, I guess…” Biggs says with a sigh.
“And since we warped out, we should be in the clear, right?” Wedge asks to confirm, “There’s no way they can track where we went?”
“Yeah, we should be…” He then pauses and then panics a little when he remembers: “Aw, crap! We forgot something!”
“Huh? What’s up?”
“The bikes we rented! If Shinra finds them and tracks where they came from…”
“Oh. Uh…”
Jessie winces too. “Yeah, that’s not good.”
They turn back to Ruby with pleading looks. Biggs asks, “Sorry, but could you go back and fetch them for us? It’s gonna be a problem if we leave any loose ends.”
“On it.”
Ruby steps back from the group and recasts the same spell, vanishing from sight. It’s barely even a half a minute before she returns with the three bikes huddled together in front of her.
“Done.”
Biggs gives her a thumbs-up in approval. “Nice. Now we can take them back to the shop without anyone being the wiser.”
Jessie then turns off for the bar with her arms crossed. “Now, we just need to report in to Barret and the others… though chances are, they probably already heard something on the news.”
“Yeah, that was a pretty big explosion,” Wedge comments nervously. “You think they’re gonna be mad?”
“Oh, definitely,” Biggs replies, “Like, we’re all about getting back at Shinra here, but even that was just excessive.”
Cloud glances back to Ruby, who has been rather silent since they got back. She still looks dead inside and is staring off into space as if she isn’t entirely here. He hesitates over how to talk with her. Will she even take whatever he says right now? Then again, maybe “words” aren’t the answer to this.
With bated breath, the gang head back inside the bar to regroup, and as expected, Barret, Tifa, and Aerith are all still here. Their eyes are glued to the TV that has just broke the news of the “terrorist attack” that had hit the 7-6 Annex. There was live footage that was captured by cameras at the base on the side of the plaza where Cloud and the rest were. It also captured the very moment when Ruby flew up into the air and laid waste to the rest. It seems as a strange twist of fate, thanks to her wanton destruction, there was no camera footage that could be recovered from the back half of the base. In other words, though she doubted that she would have been seen, Jessie is completely off the hook regardless. That said, given the state of the place, a few walkie-talkies and a bit of blasting agent that went missing wouldn’t exactly be the biggest headline here anyway.
Now that he notices them return, Barret turns to them with a look of surprise and a stern frown. Tifa seems to have been beside herself and becomes relieved to see they’re all back. Aerith, meanwhile, looks even more concerned when she spots Ruby, who for some reason is hiding meekly behind Cloud.
“Ah. You’re back. Report in, team. What’s been happening?” he asks with a demanding tone.
“Er…” Jessie tries her best to stay calm and answer, “So, regarding the plan about getting the stuff we needed; the blasting agent and the walkie-talkies. They’re all in here.” She pats the bag she has slung over her.
Barret nods back. “Alright.”
Biggs then follows up, “Regarding the plan to get caught on camera and put on a show…” He turns to the others with a shrug. “That worked out well enough. We definitely got their attention.”
Barret nods again. “Yeah. The whole thing even hit the news.”
Wedge makes a nervous look as he then explains, “But just as we were getting out, something weird happened with Ruby.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Ruby? What’s up with her?”
Cloud looks behind himself, where Ruby has been trying but failing to hide behind him. She clings to him like a scared child and still has her eyes glued to an empty spot on the floor.
He answers for her instead, “She had another vision from her past. Apparently, she might have been some kind of ‘harbinger of apocalypse’ back in ancient times and destroyed a whole kingdom. Reliving the moment made her freak out and she accidentally blasted the place wide open.”
Barret blinks back, looking very lost. “Uh… Well, that’s too bad.”
Aerith frowns as she looks aside. She considers whether or not to talk about it now, but decides maybe she and Ruby could have a more private chat later. Tifa also looks a little confused and disturbed to hear that, but doesn’t say anything in reply, as if unsure of what to say.
Barret then looks around at everyone in the returning party, looking even more lost. “So… what’s wrong? What’s the bad news?”
“Huh?” The others snap to attention and stare back at him.
Cloud frowns. “Didn’t you just hear it?”
Biggs gives a raised eyebrow too. “And you even saw it on TV.”
Wedge fidgets again. “I think we made a way bigger mess out of things than we should have…”
Jessie asks, “What do you mean by that, Barret? Aren’t you concerned at all?”
Barret then shakes his head with a sigh. “Seriously, ya’ll… Think about it again. What was the plan for this raid?”
“Um… to get the materials and such.”
“And to put on a show… so big that Shinra would notice,” Biggs follows, putting a hand to his chin.
“Exactly. And you guys did that.” Now Barret folds his arms. “Sounds like the mission was a success, then.”
“…”
He releases his arms and throws up a hand. “What’s up with you guys? We should be celebrating!”
“But Ruby also leveled half of the whole warehouse base,” Wedge adds remorsefully.
Barret turns to him too. “And that matters because?”
“H-huh?”
Finally, Tifa speaks what she was meaning to say, “Barret, I know you hate Shinra that much, but we didn’t need this level of destruction!”
“The hell does it matter!? It’s Shinra property!”
“Yes, but what about the people who were there?”
“What, the troops? They knew what they were getting into by working for Shinra.”
“And the other innocent workers?”
“Tifa, come on. There was the public curfew that was announced since yesterday. Who in their right mind would still be working that late?”
“Even then! You never know if there was anyone doing overtime!”
“Well…” He pauses, making a slightly concerned frown, but replies firmly, “Yeah. That would be unfortunate. But that’s just part of the risks whenever we plan out these kinds of missions. We can’t always know who’d end up as innocent casualties. Doesn’t mean we have to sit back and wait, or we’d be waiting forever.”
She slowly recoils back into contemplative silence.
He gives a sigh and turns back to the rest. “Look, guys. I understand, Ruby’s got way more power than we ever dreamed of having. I was shocked too when I first heard the news. But either way, Shinra’s just gettin’ the flat end of the boot! They were gonna chase us down to the ends of the planet anyway! So nothing’s changed here!”
“…”
Then, Aerith also speaks up her concerns: “Though, by the looks of it, Ruby seems the most troubled by her own power.”
Barret cocks his head aside. “Ah, yeah. Dunno what’s going on with her. Probably some bad memories to be remembering. But when all’s said and done, she’s still the biggest help we’ve had up to now.” He now turns to Aerith. “Besides, maybe you might know something to help her work things out with her memories? See what’s up with them?”
Aerith looks down, feeling unsure. “I suppose…” She then lifts back her head with a determined look. “Well, we definitely have a lot more to talk about, so I’ll see what I can do.”
He nods back. “Good to hear. Hope things turn out for better. Wouldn’t want her to start up some trauma or something just to get that kind of power, of course. We’re just here to make Shinra pay.”
Cloud peeks back toward Ruby. She still hasn’t moved since they stepped inside; not even looked away from where she was staring. He’s honestly surprised she can actually keep herself in one place for so long. She really seems to be affected by what she saw.
After this awkward silence passes and the crew reconsider matters in a gradually more positive light, Wedge then speaks up once more about one other concern.
“Oh, um. By the way, Barret? We also ran into another Avalanche cell while we were there.”
He snaps to attention. “What?”
Biggs is reminded too. “Ah, yeah, that’s right. Turns out they were raiding the same place we were, though their cell got in before we did. And then half of the whole place went up in flames. That was when they finally showed themselves.”
“W-what!?”
Wedge frowns. “I wonder where they were all that time…”
Biggs shrugs. “Who knows, but it’s not like they were gonna show themselves if we didn’t make a racket.”
“What the hell, guys!” Barret suddenly snaps at them, “Why didn’t you start with that in the first place!?”
“Urk!”
“S-sorry… with all that happened, it kinda slipped my mind,” Biggs apologizes, rubbing his head.
“Goddamn it! If it turns out Ruby accidentally wiped out someone from that cell, we’re in HUGE trouble! The last thing we need is some internal conflict with our HQ!”
“Uh… you might not want to hear what they said, then…”
Barret huffs angrily. “What… did they say?”
Biggs gulps. “…That HQ is ‘definitely going to hear about this.’ They wouldn’t tell us anything else, though.”
“…”
Wedge gulps too. “Uh… Barret? So what do you think that means for us?”
“…” Barret stares off into space for just a moment as he continues to huff angrily. But by some miracle, he manages to hold back his rage from bursting and heaves a great sigh instead. “…Whatever it is, it’s not a good thing. We might even become enemies if we offed any of their guys by accident. But regardless, they’re gonna cut off any support we were getting since we’re ‘too extreme’ for ’em.”
“But didn’t they kick us out exactly for that before?” Jessie speaks up again.
“Yeah, but now we crossed the point of no return. Ruby’s the kind of power that people call ‘too much’ and we got that in our control. No wonder they’d see us more as a threat than an ally.”
“Limited control…” Cloud points out.
Barret slumps, looking pretty exhausted himself. “Man. This is some seriously bad news, alright. Don’t give a shit about Shinra, but now we gotta be careful dealing with main Avalanche too.”
The mood sinks down again as if following his lead. Just when things could have been looking up, all those wavering hopes are subsequently and ruthlessly crushed. And yet, their hopes would only sink further. After an incredibly tense silence, Ruby then steps back out from behind Cloud. She turns around to look at everyone and makes her own sobering announcement.
“…I know this sounds awful on top of everything, but I need to say it.”
“Huh?” Everyone’s attention is back on her.
She takes a deep breath and lets it out. She then says with a resolute tone, “I’m going to decline joining you all for the next mission in Reactor 5. I have plenty of inner demons to work out and I’ll be heading out; going my own way for a bit.”
“W-what!?”
Out of them all, Barret seems to freak out the most. “Ruby! Are you serious!? You can’t just leave!”
“Sorry, but I have to.”
“But why? We were ready to work with you again! What’s wrong?”
Aerith makes a worried frown. “Ruby, it’s okay. If you want to talk things over, I’ll listen. You don’t have to leave just yet.”
Ruby shakes her head. “Sorry, Aerith, but even you don’t have the answers I need. This is something I have to do myself. Bringing anyone else along will just slow me down.”
Even Cloud is disturbed. “Ruby. Don’t tell me, are you going where I think you’re going?”
But everyone else becomes confused about how he would know something like that.
“…” Ruby takes a moment to think over how she should put this answer and then nods back. “Back to that place… in the Lifestream.”
“W-what?” Tifa gasps, “Ruby! You aren’t saying what I think you’re saying!?”
“What’s gotten into you?” Jessie also asks in disbelief, “Do you mean literally or…?”
Ruby shakes her head, offering a gentler, more assuring look. “Relax, guys, I’m not talking about dying here. You’ll see me again eventually. But I have a mission to investigate into the planet’s situation and it relates to my missing memories. I’ve already spent long enough out of it.”
At that reply, they both settle down a little, though not entirely.
Biggs then asks, “So where are you going? You mentioned before that you know a place?”
“Yeah, but again, sorry. I can’t say where it is. I know you guys might try to follow me if I said it.”
“…Considering how far and fast you can fly, I doubt we’d be able to catch up anyway,” Cloud points out, feeling resigned himself.
She does get a little chuckle out of it, though. “There will be a time when you guys can catch up. I’m sure of it.”
He raises an eyebrow at that, but doesn’t ask further. As always when she says things like that, it’s bound to be something best witnessed firsthand.
“Anyway, it’s getting kinda late and you all need to prepare for this mission tomorrow, so I should get going.” Finally, she turns back to Aerith with a calm smile. “Cuz, would you mind me staying over for the night? I know we still have a lot to talk about.”
Aerith’s eyes light up and she smiles back in relief. “Ah, so that’s what you meant. For a moment, I thought you were going to leave right now.”
“Of course not. We need to get you home too. Your mom’s gonna be sick with worry.”
“Hehe. Yeah, we shouldn’t keep her waiting too long.”
The rest of them watch as Aerith gets up from her seat and walks up to Ruby. She then turns around to look at the rest of them with her hands clasped together and a gentle smile.
“It was really fun hanging out with you all! I hope we can meet up again sometime. And remember, if you need me to do anything, just say it! I’ll be glad to help!”
Jessie then jumps in. “Ah, wait! That’s right! I got the walkie-talkies here, but I haven’t worked on them yet, so they might still be bugged and all. When we meet up again, I’ll pass one to you too!”
Aerith nods. “Thanks! Then we can stay in touch any time.”
“When I’m ready, I’ll be right there when you need me,” Ruby also affirms. “It’s just going to be ‘goodbye’ for now.”
“Aerith, Ruby…” Tifa looks disheartened to see them go. “We hope that time will be soon. Take care of yourselves.”
“Yeah. Make sure you feel better, alright, Ruby? If anyone can beat those inner demons, it’s gonna be you!” Barret reminds her, “And remember, from here on out, you guys are part of our Avalanche! Don’t matter where you go. We’re counting on you too!”
Ruby fires back a thumbs-up. “Yes, sir. See ya soon.”
Aerith giggles and nods back.
And with just a wave of their hands, the pair then turn away to head back out of the bar. But as she moves, she passes by Cloud and leaves him with a message that can only be heard between their minds.
“Cloud… However it turns out with Sephiroth this time, I’ll be stopping by Shinra HQ to learn more about Rubia. I’ll be back for you when I’m done.”
Cloud’s eyes widen and he turns around to watch her go in stunned silence. He then frowns, feeling only more swamped with questions. He figured she was heading back there to see Sephiroth, but clearly, there’s way more to this rabbit hole around Rubia than she’s letting off right now. There’s just so much mystery around her and especially around Ruby herself that he can’t help but be drawn into it. Even if he still doesn’t understand how he fits into all of this, even considering that Sephiroth intends to bring them all together at some point for some purpose, even if what the truth may tell isn’t pleasant; he just has to know. But for now, all he can do is wait.
And with the two most mysterious of ladies disappearing into the night, the rest of them turn back to Barret. He then lets off another sigh and turns to Cloud.
“So, merc… You up for the next mission?”
“Yeah. Like I said, I’m ready any time. Ruby made things way too easy.”
“Oh, uh, guys? I just wanna ask one more thing…” Wedge then speaks up again.
“What now, Wedge?” Barret replies with a frown.
He then whips out the two mines he had been keeping in his pockets. “So, while we were at the base, I found these. Do you think they’ll be useful somehow?”
Biggs’ jaw drops. “You still had those on you all this time!?”
“Yeah. I figured we could keep them. Ruby warped us back, so they haven’t been in my pockets that long.”
He slaps a hand over his face. “And here I thought Ruby was the most ridiculous one in our group. How the hell did they not explode when we dove for cover? That’s insanely lucky.”
Wedge laughs back. “I dunno, but I’ll take that as a good sign!”
Jessie also laughs. “Well, when in doubt, they would make for some cool traps! Pass it here. I might be able to use them pretty well!”
He obliges and she takes a good, hard look at them as she schemes up some ideas.
Barret looks around the room at everyone still here and nods with a satisfied grunt. “Alright, gang! We’ve wasted enough time here. Go get some rest, and be back here tomorrow night, same time as the last meetup! Ya’ll better have made your beds by then ’cause where we’re goin’, there ain’t no goin’ back!”
“Yeah!”
The classic Avalanche team share their looks of resolve and determination, and so they scatter off for their places for the night. But Jessie in particular sticks by Cloud and taps him on the shoulder. She also gestures for him to follow her and even gives him a wink. He nods and passes a casual hand wave to Tifa before he leaves with Jessie. She did promise him that she had a special gift for him, after all.
~
This time, to save themselves the hassle of flying around, Ruby volunteered to warp Aerith and herself to Aerith’s house in Sector 5 directly. In a flash of magic and a blink in time, they find themselves in the flower-fraught garden outside her place. Everywhere they turn, there are flowers swaying about in the gentle night breeze.
“Hello, everyone! I’m back!” Aerith suddenly announces.
She crouches down to take a listen to her flower friends, and she’s relieved to be able to hear them return the greeting. Good, she’s still got it in her. Now they just need to work something out so Ruby can hear them too.
She turns to Ruby, who looks off with a forlorn expression. “Ruby? Can you hear them?”
“…” As expected, she shakes her head.
“It’s okay. I’m sure it’ll come to you again eventually.”
Ruby smirks grimly. “Who knows. Maybe they know something about myself that even I don’t.”
“Don’t think like that. They’re always so friendly! They wouldn’t be saying things about you that you wouldn’t want to hear.”
“I guess…”
“Besides, I’m sure whatever it is that you need to learn about yourself or Rubia, no matter how ugly or painful the truth may or may not be, we can always work something out and overcome the worst.”
Though she takes a moment to mull it over, Ruby then lets off a sigh and turns back with a relaxed smile. “Honestly, with you, it really does feel like we can accomplish anything.”
“Hehe! That’s the spirit!” Aerith then turns off for the house. “Come on! Let’s go meet my mom! She’ll be happy to know that I still have a family relative in this world!”
“Heh… Yeah. I’d like to see the look on her face.”
They follow the stone path laid between the beds of flowers that line every nook and corner of the garden and finally make it to the front door.
“Mom! I’m home! …Huh?”
However, just as they step inside, they realize that Aerith’s mom isn’t home alone. Two men in sleek black suits – one a bright redhead with his hair tied in a loose tail, the other a bald man with cool shades – are standing around the kitchen table, where her mother is seated.
“Aerith!” she gasps and looks nervously between the two men.
“About time you showed, lady… You know how long we’ve been waiting for you?” the redhead asks.
“Sorry for the impromptu visit… but HQ has been in quite a stir lately,” the bald man states for the record.
Time seems to freeze still as a new revelation sinks in. Thanks to this moment, Ruby realizes to what extent that she really done goofed this time.
Chapter 10: Overcast Skies
Notes:
Disclaimer: Starting from this chapter, I do on the occasion pull a few lines from the official English Remake script. However, it's just used as a prompt to lead into 100% original content.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Ruby stares off into space as she considers her next move. There are so many ways she could approach this situation, and her head starts spinning from trying to navigate all of the possibilities that could arise from this encounter. But before she can even step forward and say something, Aerith puts a reassuring hand on her shoulder and turns to their new guests with a much more amicable face.
“Gentlemen, sorry that you came all this way, but we’re not taking uninvited guests tonight. Could you please leave?”
“Aerith,” her mother advises carefully, “I really think you should hear them out.”
“Sorry, Mom, but I’m not ready to talk with the Turks yet.” She turns back to Ruby with a cheerful smile. “After all, we already have another guest tonight, and she’s staying over!”
The redhead in the suit has a long baton resting on his shoulder and taps its handle impatiently. “Hey. If it isn’t clear enough yet, we didn’t stop by just to hear a rejection.”
His partner adjusts his shades. “Again, apologies for the sudden intrusion. But in light of recent developments, Shinra’s plans have changed and may continue to change moving forward.”
“Yeah. First there’s the bombing at a reactor, and just a while ago, there was some kind of raid on one of the warehouses. Those guys sure move fast…”
“Security has been an especially serious issue these past several days. Word from above has strongly recommended that our ‘guest of honor’ be returned and safely secured in a safe ward at HQ as soon as possible.”
Aerith frowns cautiously, but doesn’t give them a response right away.
“We would appreciate it if you could cooperate with us and come quietly.”
But she stands her ground. “…Like I said, we have another guest tonight. I don’t have time to spend it talking with you or with Shinra.”
“Uh, Aerith…” Ruby mumbles behind her.
She whips back around with a finger to her lips and a reassuring wink, as if to say, “Don’t worry, I got this.” She turns back to the two suits. “I’m not changing my mind. If you still want to talk, try again tomorrow. It’s getting late anyway.”
The two men exchange unamused frowns and turn back to her.
“Hey, Rude… We got permission to use force if necessary, right?”
“Reno… take it easy. This is just a reconnaissance and escort mission.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m not gonna hurt her… but not my problem if she trips somewhere and falls.”
“…”
Aerith then crosses her arms. “What’s this? After all this time that your boss has treated me well and left me alone, now of all times you decide to strong-arm your way and force me to come? You know that’s not going to work.”
Reno shrugs. “Oh, don’t worry, we’re not gonna force you… but given who you’re with, you’re actually in a pretty dangerous situation. It’s only natural we have to act fast.”
“H-huh?”
Now, he draws a photo from his pocket and flashes it in front of them. Aerith gasps quietly, while Ruby frowns, having suspected the jig was up.
Rude continues, “Security cameras along the Sector 7 Interplate highway captured several people on motorbikes headed toward the warehouse site in question. One of them was the young lady standing next to you.”
Reno also adds with a smug look, “One shot, she was there, and the next shot, she wasn’t. And then there was a freakin’ dragon that was on the scene at the 7-6 Annex. You connect the dots.”
“…” Aerith looks off with a worried frown. It looks like they’ve been caught red-handed. It won’t be easy to worm their way out of this with just some common courtesy.
“In other words, lady, your ‘guest’ is a Class-A felon who’s under arrest… as soon as they get the damn warrant filed,” he adds with an annoyed frown.
“As a reminder, we do have permission to resort to force if necessary…” His partner tugs on his gloves. “And considering there is a dangerous actor in the vicinity who may possibly be a serious threat to our target, this situation should be ‘neutralized’ as soon as possible.”
Aerith stares hard at them. “You can’t be serious…” She also frowns with a pout. “If you know who you’re dealing with, then you should leave! Ruby’s really strong, you know. She could take you on any day!”
But to her surprise, Ruby then puts a hand to her shoulder and steps forward. “Gentlemen, I have a proposal.”
“Huh?”
Reno raises a suspicious eyebrow. “What now? You’re not in the position to negotiate.”
“Aerith is right, you know. I could just eliminate the two of you right here and now and Shinra won’t be any the wiser.”
“Um…” Aerith gives her a concerned frown. “I know they’re being mean, but you don’t have to go that far.”
“Or, as I’d recommend, we not fight at all, and you guys take me to Shinra HQ directly.”
“!?” A great shock seems to come over everyone in the room.
Aerith gasps. “Ruby! What are you saying!?”
Even Reno looks horrified and very confused. “What the hell? You want to be arrested?”
“Yeah. Take me in.” Ruby even offers them her hands together, wrists up. “I feel bad for smashing your base.”
“…”
Rude frowns suspiciously. “Surely, there’s a catch…?”
“I do have one condition: that you guys leave Aerith be. She has nothing to do with that or the reactor incident. I can testify to this because I was there both times and she was at neither.”
While that’s not exactly true, Ruby would rather not go into any more detail than she needs right now. It’s definitely the truth that Aerith wasn’t involved in either, though.
“Ruby…” Aerith looks almost betrayed to hear that, even if Ruby is defending her.
The two men exchange confused glances and then turn back to her.
Rude frowns. “That may be rather difficult… Our primary mission was to safely retrieve Ms. Aerith Gainsborough. That you happened to be with her was actually beyond the scope.”
Reno frowns too, but with a touch more irritated to his look. “We did get permission to beat the crap out of you if we ran into you, though. R&D said they only need you to be captured alive.”
“As it happens, it was an accident that I blew up half a base, but I can always arrange another with full intention,” Ruby suggests coolly and rather threateningly.
“Hey, hey… Don’t be like that, or we’d really have to detain you through other means.”
She snorts back. “What means would you even have?”
He then raises his baton forward and points it behind them. “Something like them.”
“?”
Ruby turns around and is startled to find what appears to be four eyeball-flower things – Monodrives, that is – floating outside the house. But wait… something’s weird about these ones. They’re not colored red like the ones found in Reactor 1. They’re not even blue, denoting the Mark II variant. They’re bright yellow. Are they new? Or some obscure variant that she forgot about… No. No way, is there even a Mark III!? That’s bullshit! She’s never seen or read up anything like that in either of the games! What the hell is this, spoilers for Rebirth!?
Ruby just stares at them in silent disbelief and fully captivated curiosity. She turns back to him and points at the odd machines awaiting her. “What those do?”
He grins mischievously. “You wanna know? Step out and say hi to ’em.”
“…”
It can’t be helped. Her curiosity is what drives her to do anything in this world, and this is not an exception. Without a care in the world, she heads right out and lets the things surround her.
“Ruby, wait!” Aerith cries, “What if it’s a trap!?”
Reno actually looks impressed. “Huh… she really went.”
As soon as she steps into position, he raises his baton forward and hits some kind of button on it. The Monodrives act immediately as if they were commanded. They fly into position, marking the corners of a tetrahedron and unleash some kind of yellow-tinted energy force-field that traps Ruby inside and lifts her off the ground as if she were cargo.
She whips out her knife and thrashes hectically at the force-fields, but even with her strength, they do nothing. She tries to cast magic, but the spellcasting circle doesn’t even come out, as if she had been Silenced. Finally, she tries to transform, but by some quirk of nature or something, she can’t even do that.
A few dots then connect in her mind, and she slowly nods as she pieces things together. Ah, so this is how it feels to be under the ‘Immobilized’ status. No matter what her numerical stats are, or what other boosts or abilities she may have, if she doesn’t have a buddy to break her out of this, she can’t do anything… Or rather, she wouldn’t be able to do anything if she didn’t straight up cheat.
“Ruby!”
Aerith hurries out after her, summoning her weapon to her side in a flash of magic. However, as much as she tries to strike the walls, her attacks simply bounce off harmlessly. She then steps back and begins to cast a spell, but before she can do it, Reno suddenly appears beside her and swats the staff out of her hands with his baton.
“Ah!”
“Reno, not so rough,” Rude says as he comes out after him.
He snatches the staff away and tosses it over to him. “I told ya, I’m not hurting her. But take care of that, would ya, pal?”
As usual, Rude keeps quiet, but holds onto the staff with a firm grip.
Reno steps over to Ruby and knocks on the outside of the force-field. “Ha. You might just be the dumbest criminal I’ve ever seen. Who the hell just walks up to enemy lines and lets themselves be caught?”
Ruby doesn’t even turn to him. If anything, she seems to be kneeling cross-legged like a kendo student being punished by their teacher and forced to sit things out. She’s just staring off into space, or maybe is deep in contemplation.
“Heh. Or did you think you’d be able to get away with taking a helicopter ride with us? Fat chance, kid. Not after what you’ve been up to.”
Rude then takes out a transceiver of some sort. “This is Rude, reporting in. We’ve encountered and captured the suspect behind the warehouse bombing. The suspect has admitted to the act. We’ll be reeling her in shortly… The primary target is also present. We’re taking her along now.”
Aerith, though a little stung in the hands from losing her staff, then runs right up to the force-field prison and knocks repeatedly on the wall. “Ruby! Please, fight back! Do something! Don’t let them take you away!”
Reno coolly rests his baton over his shoulder. “Hey, take it easy. You’ll still see each other for a while. You’re coming with us too anyway.”
As soon as he says that, though, Ruby snaps out of her trance and slams against the wall where he stood, sending the wall smacking into his face.
“Agh! What the hell!?”
Just as he raises his baton at her again, Rude calls to him, “Reno. The chopper’s coming. Secure our guest.”
“…” He safely lowers the baton with an annoyed frown. “Yeah, yeah. Gotcha.”
Even as he tries to approach Aerith, Ruby growls and slams the wall his way again, but this time he avoids it.
“You wanna go!?” he snarls back.
“Reno.”
“Ugh! I know! But the kid’s pissing me off!”
Rude shakes his head and sighs. “Then you hold onto the staff.”
“No! I got this!”
Reno tries a third time to seize Aerith by the wrist, but this time, Ruby acts so fast that none of them can catch her. She finally opens up her wrist guard keypad while their eyes are off of her and dials in a few things into her computer.
The next instant, all the Monodrives short-circuit and explode, releasing her from her prison.
“!?”
The following instant after that, Ruby bursts forth with a flash of light. Now as a dragon, she lunges at Reno and Rude, seizes them in each claw by their suit collars, and shoots up into the sky. In the flurry of the moment, Rude also drops the staff, which bounces lightly on the ground and rolls back to Aerith’s feet as if naturally drawn to her. She picks it back up and looks up at Ruby with a bit of apprehension as a bad feeling crops up.
“W-w-what!?” Reno yells, flailing freely in her grip.
However, she doesn’t drop them or fling them away. Instead, she remains airborne and waits for a certain helicopter to return to pick them up.
“Hey! What’s the big idea, ya big dumb reptile!?”
He continues to struggle to free himself, jamming his electric baton against her claw. And for a moment, it seems to do something, since Ruby starts to twitch a little. But rather than being painful, the stinging is just irritating. She then shakes her arm and swings it around as if trying to get some exercise in, sending Reno in a circular tumble that throws him into a tizzy. After seeing that, Rude decides to let himself hang loose.
“Aaaagh… Dammit… Let me go…!”
“Reno, I don’t think you should drop. We’re pretty high up…”
“…Huh?”
Now that he looks down, he stops struggling and joins his partner in hanging loose. He also looks around the area and passes a glance back to Rude. “So… any chance I could swing myself onto the junk piles there, nail the landing, and roll to safety?”
“Maybe… but she’d just pick you up again.”
He scowls. “Damn, you’re right.”
It’s obvious the “battle” is over. Aerith dismisses her staff back to the ether and calls to her from the ground. “Ruby! It’s okay! I think they get it now! Come back down and let them go!”
But she refuses to return. She knows that these two would just keep trying to take Aerith away by force. She separated them specifically to avoid any further interaction between them.
“Ruby! Can you hear me!?” She pauses, only to get no response, and then gets upset. “…Are you ignoring me!?”
But the next moment, Ruby relays a message to her through telepathy, safely out of the ears of anyone else: “Aerith. Sorry, but I’m gonna have to leave you a little sooner than planned. It’s gonna be annoying to deal with these guys again, so I’m heading to HQ with them.”
“What?” she gasps with a much softer voice.
“Don’t worry, I’ll be back once I find what I need there. Wait for me at the church as usual. Take care of yourself in the meantime.”
“…”
“I promise, we’ll have this long talk in private like I said since the beginning. But first, I need to be a little more proactive with my mission.”
Aerith looks down, feeling that apprehension grow heavier. Try as she might to set them aside, her old fears and doubts begin to sift back to the forefront of her mind. It’s definitely not the first time someone close to her promised that they’d be back after leaving for a while, only to return like they had been mistreated in further experimentation – or even worse, never returning at all.
“…I know you’ve been through a lot. I miss them too. But it’s okay,” Ruby reassures her, “I’m not just strong or lucky enough to get by. I can and will forge my own fate.”
“…” Aerith closes her eyes, taking in a deep breath as she pushes away those fears and doubts back to the memories they came from. She then opens her eyes again and nods. In her mind, she replies, “Okay. Please take care of yourself. I’ll be waiting for you.”
Ruby smirks. “Of course.”
Meanwhile, Reno and Rude continue to hang loose like wet clothing on a line.
“Hey, partner. What do we do now?”
“Well, there’s not much we can do.”
“Yeah, but it’s gonna suck if we report back like this! Boss can be such a stick up the ass sometimes! What if we’re stuck in the cabinets filing papers again!?”
“That would be unfortunate…”
Finally, the chopper they were waiting for arrives, and needless to say, the pilot is pretty startled to find the agents he was supposed to pick up hanging around in the claws of a big white dragon. He hesitates to close in, but Ruby approaches the helicopter herself, and though the pilot tries to enact evasive maneuvering, she casually follows it, rips open one of the doors with one of her hind claws, and tosses them inside. In another flash of light, she returns to human form and slips in as well, shutting the door back, but because she had been so forceful just earlier, it doesn’t quite shut correctly. She chooses to leave it.
“Hey! Don’t just toss us around!” Reno yells at her, but she ignores him too.
Before anyone of them can stop her, she barges her way into the front of the cockpit and makes a few demands of the pilot. “Take us back to HQ and leave the flower lady alone. If you dare to go back for her, I will find you and I will make sure you never fly again… Got it?”
The pilot freaks out and nods back without a word.
“H-hey! Come on! Don’t just listen to her!” Reno complains.
It’s too late. The helicopter is flying off and away from Sector 5.
Aerith watches the chopper go with a sad, longing face, but then snaps out of her gloomy spell and finds her resolve once more. As promised, she’ll be waiting for Ruby at the church. She’ll probably be back by tomorrow morning at the latest anyway. It’s getting late here. She should check in with her mom to see if she’s doing okay too.
And she heads back inside the house, closing the door tightly.
~
No one would have expected that the most dangerous threat to Shinra as of late would be detained in such an anticlimactic way. There’s no fanfare, no public announcement, no grandiose public execution that awaits Ruby as she’s taken away in handcuffs. It’s for the better, honestly; much less to worry about if everyone else remains blissfully ignorant. But more importantly, it’s also in Shinra’s best interests that the true identity of this dragon be saved for the upper echelons’ ears only.
It was by the personal request of a certain professor that she be captured alive and sent directly to the labs for further examination. Ever since the earliest reports from the night of the first bombing incident, of a mysterious white dragon that lights up the night like a second moon, this professor returned to the archives to retrieve some potentially relevant records and confirm his suspicions about a certain past unsolved mystery. Sightings of a pure-white dragon have been rare throughout history, but span across periods of time that stretch further back to precede the Cetra themselves. Historians have disagreed over whether or not all these sightings can even be attributed to the same dragon, though it is a popular theory that at least one of them may have been capable of time travel. And one common thread that can be drawn from scant existing records is a legend – the “Holy Dragoness” who was prophesized to bring the world to Armageddon, though the time frame of said prophecy remains unclear.
But there’s more to the legend than mere scattered stories passed down the generations. This white dragon continues to exist in the present day even when the rest of its fellow Summons have long disappeared and only live on through their respective materia. The professor is certain of this fact because he once had the mysterious creature held captive in an old lab of his in a little town further up north. However, as security measures were lacking at the time, the creature escaped with little notice other than the signs of a breakout and vanished into the wider world – perhaps even to a different time altogether.
And to think that she would finally return out of the blue… to be delivered right back to where they had left off those 30 years ago.
Ruby slumps back in her chair, looking up at the ceiling of the tank that she’s being kept in. She is so bored waiting around for a certain professor to show up. What’s taking him? Is he even going to show? She’s come to HQ way earlier than the original canon has gone, before anyone of the main party would have any reason to come. But again, if she expects to work on her mission, the answers should begin here. Sephiroth even suggested that she might find some way to contact her Remnants… by seeing Jenova? What does Jenova have to do with them? Will the answer just come to her in another vision? If so, why not just redirect her to one of the scenes that was loaded into the Debug Room?
Well, to be fair, it was her decision to not look at them, so if anything, it’s her own fault that she’s still ignorant of so much. Man… it sucks having to balance between freedom and responsibility.
She sighs and leans far back into her chair, causing it to tip back. She starts to rock back and forth using its hind legs as a pivot as she delves deeper into her own thoughts. So what exactly is the plan? She doesn’t even know what questions to ask, for starters. Would it be as simple as asking, “Who is Rubia, really?” And what will she do if it turns out that Rubia really is a Goddess of Destruction who’s bent on returning everything into the Lifestream, like how these visions so far have made her out to be? Or is there something else that she’s missing? Ugh… she’s just swarmed with questions. She grows more impatient as she wonders and finally stretches out her legs, pushing the chair a little far back than is stable.
“…Are you going to wait here until something happens?” a familiar voice then interrupts her thoughts.
“!”
She falls over, sending the chair tumbling over with her. Grumbling, she pulls herself back up and yells at her latest visitor.
“What the hell!? How long were you here, asshat!?”
Sephiroth is standing by idly just outside the tank and calmly replies, “I arrived just now.”
She even puts the chair back up. “Give me a warning at least, dammit! The last thing I need now is a jumpscare!”
He ignores her as usual and looks off toward the direction where they must tread. “Come along. Mother is waiting.” He begins to walk away.
She knocks on the tank’s door with both fists. “H-hey! At least open the door! I’m still being held in here!”
He stops and turns back with an unamused look. “You can come out on your own.”
“But won’t busting out set off the alarms?”
“You have warp magic.”
Ruby blinks and looks aside with embarrassment. “Well… yeah. I guess I do. But it feels weird to warp, like, two feet to the side. Can’t you just open the door and let me out?”
“…”
“Or…” She makes a smug sneer. “Don’t tell me you of all people wouldn’t know how to open a tank in Hojo’s lab? Mr. Raised-in-a-Lab-Since-a-Baby?”
He turns away again with a sigh. They’ve had this kind of idle conversation plenty enough, and no matter what he says, it never goes anywhere. He then turns back around to approach the tank once more. He hits a few buttons on the door’s panel lock and opens it for her, and she tumbles right out as the door slides out of her way.
“Let’s go. Don’t make me drag you along.”
She pulls up to all fours and growls back. “How about you carry me in your arms like a proper gentleman for once, asshole?”
“…” He actually stops and turns back to her with a raised eyebrow. “You aren’t serious, are you?”
“No.” She gets back to her feet again and stomps off ahead of him.
The 66th floor of Shinra HQ is the main floor of Hojo’s lab. There’s not a lot of space to walk around, as machines and containers of many sizes line the walls. There’s but a catwalk that stretches to the center of the room where the elevator awaits. There’s also a path to its right that leads to where a certain “specimen” has been held.
Ruby marches right into the other room in a huff with Sephiroth calmly following. As if for a nostalgic beat, when she finally steps before the catwalk leading right up to this particular tank, she gets an odd feeling that if there could be a camera overhead capturing the moment, it would gradually pan over the path to the tank and reveal the awaiting character in dramatic fashion. As expected, the tank only holds the body of Jenova; her head is still missing – though technically, it has returned at last.
“…Well, there she is.”
Sephiroth says nothing. He politely gestures in the direction as if leading her to step forward.
It’s strange. She hadn’t expected this moment to be anything that big a deal, but now that she’s finally here, she finds herself getting a little anxious. She shakes her head back into focus and then struts right up to Jenova.
“Hey, Jen. You wanted to see me? What do you want?” she asks with a rather demanding tone.
To her disappointment, there’s no response. Well, of course. She’s literally talking to a headless corpse. What the hell did she think was gonna happen? That she’d automatically be hit by another vision and be transported into a different time or something? She stares at said corpse for a little longer, growing ever impatient as nothing seems to be happening.
“This is stupid. What am I supposed to be doing? Hey…”
But when she turns back around, he’s already gone. In his place, a much smaller person in a black cloak approaches her instead. Suddenly, Ruby feels like she’s being crushed with an overwhelming sense of dread and backs off instinctually. The person lifts the hood off and is revealed to be a thin old woman with short hair who looks pale and sickly, but her eyes glow a bright and ominous green.
“Welcome back, my child.”
Just like that, Ruby is struck with a burning sensation erupt from within as her head feels like it’s about to explode. She drops to her knees as she clutches her head, and as if on cue, the flashback that awaited her crashes upon her mind with the force of a raging fire.
~
“General! Where are you going!?”
Rubia rushed out the door to her office on the top floor and leapt off the balcony, spreading her wings. Off in the distance at the outskirts of the Sleeping Forest, a great deal of smoke can be seen. She shot through the skies, clearing the great forest that surrounded the capital in a matter of minutes. To her fears, she found that the lone monastery of this little village at the entrance to the forest had gone up in flames.
The frantic villagers were rushing to carry buckets of water from the nearby shore to help put it out, but as if by some magical enchantment, the fire refused to die down, no matter how much water was poured.
“Get back! The fire’s still spreading!”
“Enough! The water isn’t working! We have to get away!”
“But there’s someone still inside, isn’t there!?”
“We don’t have a choice!”
Then, there was the beating of wings and the people looked up. Rubia swooped down to the ground and let out a commanding roar. Everyone, including the people who were still fetching more buckets, stopped in their tracks and hurried out of the way without question. Rubia returned to her human form in a flash, now dressed in a clean, sleek white brigandine tunic befitting of a commanding officer of the Royal Forces. She rushed into the still burning monastery. Most of the residents here have already fled, but she didn’t see one particular person among the refugees outside. Growing ever alarmed by the second, she scrambled about from room to room in search of any other missing people, but thankfully everyone else seemed to have cleared out already. That is, unless… No, not yet. She had to keep looking.
The building had weakened considerably. The wooden beams that held up the ceiling were already cracking under the pressure of the ever-consuming flames. Just as Rubia entered one of the last rooms – as it so happened, it was the same room that she had once lived in – the beams finally snapped like dry twigs. Even as she stood in the doorway, Rubia held them up over her head with her bare hands, paying no mind to the searing heat that left not even a scratch on them. With an impressive display of natural-born magic and raw strength, she forced the beams back up and began to float off the ground even without having to mutter a single spell. She returned the beams back in place, and by some miracle, they seemed to hold out a little longer as if she had restored some of their integrity.
She returned to her old room, clearing the fallen furniture out of the way, and gasped when she found someone collapsed by her old mirror dresser.
“Sister Anna!”
The poor old woman sat in the back corner where she had been trapped. She didn’t seem to be moving. Rubia dropped before her, shoving the dresser aside to free her, and pulled her up by the arm. However, the old woman hung limply in her grasp, and the moment her arm slipped out from her robe’s sleeve, Rubia discovered some black splotches spread across it. She panicked for a moment, dropping her arm and wiping the sludge on her waistcoat, but reached for the old woman again, taking her by the back and carrying her out of the corner.
Just as she was lifted up, though, the sister mumbled something. Rubia stopped and set her back down in a cleared space to listen.
“What is it, Sister?”
“…Rubia…”
The old woman’s voice was hoarse and weak, as if she had little time left to speak. Rubia gingerly took her by the hand and gave her full attention.
“I’m here, Sister. Let’s get you out.”
“…Leave me.”
“What?”
“I’m not long for this world…”
“Nonsense. I can restore even the most critical of wounds. You needn’t worry. Now let’s get going…”
“…The Black Death…”
“The what?”
“…It has arrived.”
“…” She then noticed that it’s not just her arm that has been stained black. For a moment, she had thought the sister was just a little singed from the flames, but her forehead and cheek were also stained with similar black splotches.
“Rubia… There are enemies everywhere in Ackard. Trust no one…”
“Sister, enough. We need to get you out of here. Let’s worry about this plague later.”
She took the old woman in her arms and caressed her as she stood back up. However, as she left the room, it seemed to be unfortunate timing. The wooden beams that she had held up prior had finally given in and snapped again in different places, and they crashed down upon them. Fortunately, Rubia shielded the sister and kept the broken supports in an arch upon her back. She was still unharmed, but now she found that the old woman is moving no more.
“Sister Anna! Sister Anna! Can you hear me!?”
Rubia began to panic. Did she get hurt when they tumbled? She was careful not to drop her, but she had to move her arms to hold up the ceiling that has crashed down on them. She growled and shoved the collapsed rubble off of her, took the sister in her arms again, and warped them both out of the building as the rest of the rubble collapsed further around where they had been.
However, it was too little, too late. The old woman didn’t wake ever since she had gone quiet. Rubia had left her in the care of the other sisters of the monastery, but they could do nothing more than pray for her departed soul.
Brokenhearted but ever vigilant, Rubia led the villagers away to safety. Even as she cast powerful ice magic to slow it down, the fire refused to die. This was no ordinary fire. Whoever had laid a curse on this monastery was sure that the curse would not easily be lifted. In other words, she had to find whoever had done this and slay them, just to be sure that it would not happen again.
But who could have done this? Who would dare to attack a monastery of all places, one close to the Ackardian capital as well? Is this an act of war? Terrorism? Something else entirely?
Questions continued to rack her mind without end. She wiped the sweat from her brow, but then remembered that her hands had been stained with the black stains from earlier. Oh, dear. She tried to wipe any traces off of her face, but it was not coming off. What was this damned sickly sludge? It was so persistent!
And then, a couple trickles happened to leak down into her eyes. At first contact, they burned her like a live flame that just met her sensitive eyes. She roared in pain, clasping her hands over her shut eyes, but the burning didn’t stop. And as her eyes welled up in tears, she could smell the scent of fresh blood.
~
Ruby yelps in pain, clasping her own eyes. When did she start crying? Her eyes are burning like they’ve been set on fire from the vision she had just witnessed. Was it really such a traumatic memory? It was quite sad, but… No, wait, these aren’t just tears. She finds that she can’t even open her eyes, almost as if they had been welded shut. And at first it was just a hapless thought, but now she realizes that she also smells blood.
“…What… What the *%#&. Am I bleeding tears?”
She flails her arms about to reach for something to support her as she tries to stand back up. At least there’s the railing to this catwalk. Her eyes are still burning. God, this sucks. What the hell happened? Why does she have to deal with this? Why did she even come here in the first place!? She learned nothing about her Remnants at all!
“Sephiroth!! You LIAR! Gimme back my time! AND my eyes! You’re paying my medical bills too, you bastard!! Aargh!!”
The pain is sharp like knives being jammed again and again into her eyes. It’s so disorienting too; she gets dizzy just taking a step forward and she struggles to stand. It’s taking her all just to prop herself up against the railing. Now that she recalls, she did once experience a bit of vertigo when she was young, joining her family on a mountain hike one time. But that’s from her real world timeline. This is a different timeline where she’s a freakin’ dragon God capable of destroying civilizations, and she’s now completely debilitated by some excess eye strain. Oh, who is she kidding? It’s at least 10 times worse… probably more.
The dread from earlier continues to creep over her. Her heart begins to race and she becomes increasingly flustered and frantic. What’s going on? Why is she freaking out now? She doesn’t even understand what is there to be scared of. Was it that old woman just now? She looked like the old sister in the vision, sure. She probably died there, so now she’s a ghost too. But Ruby was never scared of ghosts, so… huh?
She stumbles about, pulling along at the railing just so she can stay on her two feet. She reaches out ahead, but finds no one there anymore. Sephiroth just ups and leaves her while she suffers in agony. He really needs to learn how to be an actual boyfriend. Where else will this “turbulent relationship” lead if he’s not even around to have a relationship? Is he an idiot!?
“%&#^ that Clipped-Wing Opossum. I hope he gets pounced by a bigger hawk… Now what am I supposed to do!?”
As soon as the path widens up again, she realizes she has no more railing to lean on. She helplessly reaches forward into open air and finds nothing else to grab. Well, it makes sense that the catwalk would eventually end, but this is going to be a problem. Hopefully, it’s just temporary blindness.
“Ugh… No guide could have prepared me for Jenova’s corpse to come with a bullshit passive ‘Darkness’ affliction. Man! I’m a frickin’ Light Dragon! I should come with a natural immunity!”
Speaking of which, the old woman she met earlier didn’t look like Jenova. Their hairstyles are a little different too. But she definitely seems familiar. Where did she see…?
After racking her brain amid the very distracting pain, it finally dawns on her. It was that scene at the Temple of the Ancients, the one she happened to peek at when she arrived in the Debug Room for the first time. There’s something about this “Sister Anna’s ghost” that Rubia is absolutely terrified about… or maybe just pissed off about.
“Trust no one.”
What a last few words to go out on. Judging by how she’s been acting, Rubia must have taken them to heart. Wait… could it be? Does Rubia not trust anyone – not even herself? Is it actually that she’s been avoiding talking with Ruby? Well, maybe if there is someone she can still trust, it would be Fenrir… Wherever he may have gone.
So what does Jenova have to do with all this? It looked like that Sister Anna was infected with Geostigma; probably an ancient variation from Jenova herself. But what is the time frame of that scene? Ruby was under the impression that Jenova hadn’t arrived on the planet until much later in Rubia’s story, but it seems she’d been sneaking around for a pretty long time. She never stopped loitering around either. No wonder she was able to so thoroughly eradicate the Cetra lineage down to just one survivor in the present day.
Finally, it crosses Ruby’s mind that while she may be a time traveler who escaped the Cetra doomsday of Jenova’s rampage, she’s just been carrying J-cells in her body all this time, across time. Ah, so that was it. It wasn’t that Sephiroth infected her with Geostigma; she was already infected from the outset and he simply took advantage of that.
No, wait, what is she thinking? That happened when she was back home in her apartment! It was before she merged with Rubia since she came to Gaia! Goddammit. She really is getting mixed up between fantasy and reality.
But that aside, what was it that Sephiroth was referring to, by ‘a way to contact’ her Remnants? Is it the J-cell connection? Will she be able to work something out if she uses Jenova’s power or something? Ugh, of all times for him to disappear on her! She has questions and she needs answers! He’s the one who led her here in the first place!
But just as she opens up her wrist guard again to relocate herself to the Debug Room, she then realizes that it’s gonna be harder than she expected. For starters, she’s blind right now and doesn’t remember exactly where each key is and would have no way to double-check for typos. She also never added Braille to her keypad, though it wouldn’t have helped since she doesn’t know Braille. She wouldn’t be able to operate the Debug Room without visuals anyway. Oh, fiddlesticks.
“Sephiroth!! Get back here, ya damn brat! We’re not done talking!!”
There’s no response. She swears under her breath again. She has no idea where to go now. Doesn’t matter that she has access to maps of every relevant floor of Shinra HQ if she can’t see. Dammit. Can things get any worse?
Her eyes still hurt bad and it’s too distracting to even think straight. Throwing caution to the wind, she snaps into a feral fury and snarls like a beast gone mad. She breaks out into a wild dash to and fro, thrashing her arms out in front of her in case anything gets in her way. She’s still in Hojo’s lab in any case. She couldn’t care less about what happens to his stuff. She’ll just leave some scratches here and there, and maybe she could use them as guideposts or something.
Well, she’s right that she leaves scratches, but judging by the feeling of metal sheets tearing and the screeching as she runs her hands – claws, really – into anything nearby, they’re some pretty big gashes. Huh, when did her hands become dragon claws? The transformation happened so effortlessly that even she didn’t notice at first. She didn’t even need to strike a pose or light herself up. She just thought of it and it happened.
She was already overpowered; and now she’s shaping the world around her like an artist with a blank canvas. If this is what’s already happening, imagine how powerful she’d become when she fully integrates with Rubia.
There’s some loud beeping and the sounding of an alarm. Her thrashing has alerted the robotic guards on standby and they surround and swarm her. But even without seeing whatever it is that comes her way, her unrestrained, rapid swipes turn her into a metal grinder that shears apart even the toughest nuts and bolts. She does have an inkling of what it is she’s tearing apart, though, if what she’s holding in her hands now is a piece of a M.O.T.H. Unit’s sawblades. She chucks it aside; it’s just junk when her claws are sharper.
“Target located! Disable and re-capture her!”
Her ears perk up. More approaching enemies; and they have guns, based on the sounds of rifles cocking. Recalling where she is, these guys must be… Armored Shock Troopers. Normally, they’d be able to eject out of their mech suits in a pinch, but just a single swipe from Ruby plunges her fist straight through the armor and the subsequent man inside, causing the entire suit to explode. This only repeats with the others in the squad of four, and where there were once four soldiers, there are now four wisps of ether.
She snaps to attention and stops in her tracks. Shit. She didn’t mean to kill again. It was just so effortless, like punching holes in paper. It’s one thing to smash apart battle robots, but it’s another thing when it’s battle humans. Uh… Good effort, guys? Now she feels bad again.
There are more units and bots incoming. She sighs. All she wanted was to find her way out. As she’s surrounded yet again, she instead throws up her hands in surrender.
“Excuse me, guys. I’m blind right now and kinda lost. Can you show me to the exit?”
Their only response is to fire on her. And yet, even in her human form without her reflective scales, the bullets bounce off harmlessly as if she were made of metal herself. They proceed to switch to grenades, but they’re just as effective as the bullets.
“Alrighty, then… Peace was never an option, I guess.”
If she’s going to just keep murdering people as a Dragoness of Death, then she might as well embrace the role. She won’t deny that it’s technically her fault for intruding and they’re just doing their jobs, but she was also arrested and jailed in an experimental lab without any due process of law. Clearly, she’s just fighting for her right to self-representation and against Geneva Convention violations… Oh, wait. They don’t have a Geneva in this world. Do they even have an equivalent? Eh, whatever.
She lunges forth in a flash – or rather, with a Flash – and rips through the next four units in an instant. She even begins to bounce around, thrashing at even more machinery and enemy units as she uses each of the points she bounces off, which forms triangular paths, to calculate her current location. Soon enough, she figures out the general layout of this floor of the lab and lands back onto the floor with a confident grin. Who needs eyes when she’s just as kickass without them?
She strides forward with beaming pride and then nearly trips over some loose rubble. Welp, time to recalculate. Maybe take it slower while she’s at it.
She carefully makes her way to the elevator ahead. She reaches out for the button panel, finds it, and gives the button a light smack. The door opens right away as it is unoccupied, and she skips inside. She again feels around for a different panel of buttons, but becomes curious as to why there are only two. She hits the top button, and when the door simply opens again, she now realizes exactly which elevator she’s entered. This one is the intra-lab elevator, so it only goes between this floor and the 65th, the lower level of the lab.
No, wait, this is good. She doesn’t need to rush out of the lab just yet. She wants to reunite with an old friend and bust him outta here too. She hits the lower button and steps back as the door closes again and the ride descends.
The soft ding signals that the ride is over, and the door opens again. Ruby slips out with her ears perked at attention. There’s nothing but the low drone of machinery running and the faint noises of other creatures being stored on this floor. Knowing Hojo’s kinds of experiments, they’re all just itching to get out and wreak havoc. Joke’s on them, though, since that’s just what Ruby has been doing.
In any case, her old pal should be held somewhere on this floor. The question is, which tank was it again? Welp, nothing like a little destructive triangulation won’t solve!
Once again, she leaps from the floor and zips about, bouncing to and fro to gauge distance, angle, and direction, and all those handy measurements that one would need to form a 3D space in mind. This time, on a floor that’s quite rowdy as it holds a number of creatures, they all begin to get excited from all the noise and damage that Ruby is causing. She doesn’t care if she ends up letting out a few experiments here or there; nor does she care what happens to them if they dare to get in her way.
Sure enough, she leaves enough damage to break out a few monsters. Some are red and naked of fur, thin and lanky with huge spikes on their backs. Others are small with dual antennas and stand upright on their tails. Even others are big and round, with almost human-like heads poking out of their pots, and they spout lots of poisonous gas. All of which are torn to shreds in an instant as Ruby continues to bounce around like a free electron.
However, there’s one specimen on this floor in particular that is kept under much tighter lock, and unlike the rest, it only has a small window that is usually shut tight as well. It’s roused awake by her commotion, and there’s quite a bit of bubbling of the liquid that it’s being contained in. This tank is also made of a much tougher material, so her bouncing around barely leaves any dents.
And yet, as if it were activated from afar, a light above the tank flashes on. The liquid is quickly drained, the lock to this tank’s door is unlatched, and the door slides open. A monstrous Frankenstein-like chimera – with a head of an octopus and its tentacles, the tough body of a golem, and mismatching beastly arm with crustacean claw – stomps out to freedom and unleashes a bloodcurdling cry that is unlike mammal nor fish nor avian. Out from the small tanks beside it spill out three more small fleshy crab-like creatures that scuttle about.
And then, the moment Ruby lunges at its chest with her claw, she bores a large hole through it and rips its heart out. The next moment, multiple slash marks appear all across its segmented body and the creature disintegrates into a bloody, fleshy pile of chunky meat. It spills a green goo for blood all over the floor. And despite having just bored straight through all that mutant flesh, Ruby is barely splattered. She lands on all fours and shakes herself like a dog, flinging any splatter still on her. The three little ones are freaking out and scrambling around in a panic before they promptly keel over and die as well.
Well, there goes Experiment H0512.
A tank just opposite to where the battle was held has also been damaged thanks to Ruby’s efforts. With a few hard thumps against the door from inside, and it finally cracks and is smashed wide open. Yet another creature leaps out of his prison. It’s a bright red lion-like yet wolf-like beast with a flame at the end of his tail. He has a large patterned tattoo on his left front thigh and above it is a roman numeral XIII carved into his skin. He growls threateningly at his latest visitor and prepares to fight if he must.
“Nanaki!”
“!”
As soon as he hears it, the red beast stops growling and stares in disbelief. How does this girl know his name?
Ruby smiles back warmly. Her eyes are still closed, and though she is no longer bleeding from them, there still seem to be bright red streaks that hang from her eyes down her cheeks, almost as if she had just earned her own tattoos.
“I’m glad I ran into you. Let’s get you home.”
“…” But Nanaki refuses to budge from his spot. He glares back suspiciously. “Who are you? How do you know me?”
“I’m Ruby. But you may remember me by another name… Rubia.”
“Rubia…” He lets the name sink in for a moment, and then a certain memory floats up from the recesses of his mind. “…The dragon from the Ancient Forest…”
~
About 30 years ago, a young cub leapt across the dusty red canyon that surrounded his home. Though he was advised many times by his elders to not wander too far on his own, he dared to dream of adventure. There was no place he wouldn’t go; no foe too great to fear. For he was a proud warrior at heart and a fierce defender of the Valley of the Fallen Star.
As it so happens, there was a certain ancient – exceedingly ancient – forest on a high plateau to the east of the town. It was a dangerous place, he was warned, and should not approach. There were many wild creatures that live there, most of which are poisonous or toxic, and even the foliage that looked innocent were very much meat-eaters themselves. But it was just the kind of place that a young adventurer like him would love to explore.
However, even before the cub so stepped forth into the forest, he heard a reverberating roar from within. What in the world was that? He’d never heard such a sound before. His curiosity piqued, he dashed inside headlong into whatever danger would await him.
He didn’t get too far into it when he climbed up a bluff and spotted some kind of scene below. There was a white winged creature poking out from a massive flower, of which each petal spanned the entire length of the cub’s body. It seemed the creature had fallen into the flower, which seemed to be munching away at its prey. He snorted without a care; that was just what would happen when an animal got too careless in a place like this. It was a good thing that he came across it, though. That flower looked quite innocent otherwise.
Suddenly, the flower stopped moving. It then exploded in a burst of blue-white fire that incinerated it in an instant. The cub was nearly flung off his feet by the shockwave and ducked behind a moss-laden log for cover, accidentally rolling into some soft, wet grass. When the initial burst settled and all that remained was a black pit where the meat-eating flower once sat, the cub peeked out from his cover.
It turned out the creature that was caught was a white dragon! He’d never seen one so white before. It seemed to glow brightly even in the shade of the forest’s thick canopy. It also looked a bit smaller than what he’d expect of a dragon. Maybe it was just young? The dragon shook his head, scratching off any bits of plant acid that still clung to its neck and head. Well, it turned out that the dragon was never really in danger after all.
Finally, a worthy opponent! Their battle will be legendary!
The red cub leapt out of cover and pounced along the rocky outcrop to the ground below. He then growled with a challenge at this new encounter.
“I am Nanaki, son of Laha! Proud warrior and defender of Cosmo Canyon! You are an intruder on our lands! Prepare to fight!”
The dragon had been staring off into space as if lost in its own thoughts. Finally, the dragon snapped out of it, took one look at him, and turned away with a snort.
“!?”
The cub felt insulted. This dragon was too stuck-up! It didn’t even consider him worthy of its time, did it? He growled again, hopping to and fro as if performing some evasive maneuvers or a show of intimidation, and when the dragon still wouldn’t pay him any mind, he lunged and took a bite of its exposed rump.
Ouch! The cub rolled off with a whimper. The dragon’s scales were too hard to bite through. But he wasn’t going to give in just yet. He rolled back to his feet and growled again. This time, he tried to claw at the same area, but again his claws didn’t seem to scratch the scales. They were so incredibly smooth that it was almost like perfectly cut glass, but they were also tough as stone or maybe even metal.
Finally, the dragon got up from where it lied without looking at him and he slipped right off. When he tried to attack again, it flicked its tail at him and knocked him away.
Ouch, ouch, ouch… Okay, this opponent was quite difficult. Perhaps a different angle of attack would be easier. Maybe he could go at the wings? They looked much more fragile!
Before he could leap up at them, though, the dragon then spoke up with a warning tone: “Go home, kid. You’re not supposed to be here.”
“Huh!? You can talk!?”
“Of course. I’m not a feral dragon. I come from civilization.”
“Hmm… Then what are you doing here in this forest? There is no ‘civilization’ that I can see…”
“…” The dragon turned away with a sad look and said nothing.
“…” Now, Nanaki was starting to catch on that perhaps this dragon wasn’t a foe after all. He relaxed and sat back down. “Are you lost?”
“…”
“Where do you come from? I can look for help! My grandpa knows everything! He can help you get home!”
“…You’re noisy.”
“Hey! Don’t ignore me! I’m trying to help!”
“You also attacked me from the start.”
“…” Nanaki looked embarrassed and turned away. “Um… Sorry. I wasn’t sure what kind of creature you were, so I was just being careful.”
“…” The dragon sighed and turned back to him. “Well… at least you apologize. Usually when other beings attack me, they don’t even do that.”
“Huh? Have you been attacked before?”
“Many times… I come from a warring nation.”
“Really? So am I! My people are a proud race of warrior!”
“…”
“Where is it? I can take you there! Are there lots of other dragons like you too?”
“…” The dragon looked off into space again. “It doesn’t exist anymore.”
“Huh? You mean… your home?”
“Yeah… I’ve just been on my own.”
“Oh. That’s too bad… What happened to it?”
The dragon snorted. “I don’t know… or care.”
“What? How could you not care about your home!?”
The dragon then glanced back with a frown, though it wasn’t directed at him. “They betrayed me… so I abandoned them.”
“They… betrayed you?”
“…”
Nanaki curiously tilted his head aside. What a strange turn of events. It seemed like such a coincidence that he would run into another spirit who not only came from a warrior race but also had a sad history with its family. Or maybe it was not just coincidence, but Fate…?
He then asked, “What is your name?”
“…Why do you want to know?”
“I wish to know because it is the proper thing to know. I introduced myself earlier, but you didn’t respond. That’s pretty rude, you know.”
“…Hmph.” The dragon seemed to smirk for just a moment, but it quickly disappeared. It then turned to him with a serious face. “I am Rubia, daughter of Bahamut. I used to have a home, but the people who raised me were only after my power. I’ve left them far in the past…”
“Bahamut? …Wait. You mean THE Bahamut, King of all Dragons?”
“Yes. There’s only one Bahamut that I know of.”
“Wow…” Nanaki then frowned to himself.
“What’s wrong?”
“You’re pretty lucky, then. I don’t have a father.”
“You said a name before. Who is ‘Laha’?”
“Laha is the name of my mother. She cared for me alone since I was young. But my father disappeared one day and never returned.” He snorted angrily. “He was a coward who abandoned his people when they were attacked a long time ago. I cannot have a father who is a coward, so I’ve decided that he is not my father anymore.”
“Ah… That’s rough.” Rubia turned away again. “To be honest, I don’t care for my father that much either. He was never really around; I spent most of my life living among humans. There was only the time when I was named an ‘honorary Summon Guardian’ that he showed up for the ceremony, but he was supposed to show for it anyway. And he didn’t say much to me other than ‘Congratulations’, as if it were just a formality.”
“Oh, wow. I didn’t know that Bahamut was that uncaring… Actually, I don’t know much about him at all. He was always known as a legend to be passed down, and that he was a force to be reckoned just on his own. I think he even has his own materia.”
“Yes, as all the Summon Guardians do… except me.”
“Huh? Well, of course not. My grandpa told me that materia only form for a great being after they die. You clearly don’t look dead.”
“Oh, I know that… but I don’t think I’d ever get it even if I were to die.”
“Huh? How do you know that?”
Rubia turned away again in silence.
“…Do you not want to talk about it?”
“No.”
“Hmm…” But as much as he wanted to know, Nanaki decided to back off on pressing that. “Anyway, if you’re really the daughter of Bahamut, why are you out here by yourself?”
She still didn’t answer; simply made that sad, almost wistful look as before.
“You won’t talk about that either?”
“No.”
“Okay…” He paused and then changed the subject, “So do you just want to stay here? Or if you want, I can take you back to my home and you can stay there for a while. My people are always welcome to refugees.”
“…” She shook her head. “I don’t want to see anyone for a while. Please go home and leave me alone.”
“But it seems rather unwelcome here. There was a giant flower that was trying to eat you earlier…”
“I’ll be fine. You get out before you run into something worse.”
“Hmph! I’m not scared! I came here on my own to challenge this forest!”
“…Get outta here, kid.”
“My name isn’t ‘kid’! It’s Nanaki, son of Laha!”
“I heard you the first time…”
To make sure he didn’t just keep wandering in here, though, Rubia then got back to her feet and promptly picked him up in one of her claws.
“H-hey! What are you doing!? Unhand me!”
She began to take off and fly out of the forest as he continued to growl and yelp complaints. She dropped him safely at the foot of the mesa where the town sat and flew off back to her secluded place.
“Hey! Get back here! I’m going to come find you again, you know! And I’ll defeat that forest by myself!”
The voice of a young man then called out, “Nanaki! What are you doing out here!?”
“Huh?”
It was the guard at the entrance of the town. He hurried down to check on him. “You know you’re not supposed to be out on your own at night! And what is this green spot on your fur…” He gasped. “You didn’t go into the Ancient Forest, did you?”
“Um…”
“Nanaki… We’ve warned you over and over. You’re coming back home right now and you’re getting a bath.”
“Urf… Please don’t tell Grandpa. I don’t want him to worry…”
“Then you’d better not go back there again!”
Nanaki growled, but nods back and follows the man back up into town.
~
Nanaki sighs, shaking his head. Of all the times to be remembering something like that…
Ruby snickers. “So, did you ever go back to the forest?”
“…Once, many years later. But it seems you had been long gone.”
“Yeah…” She scratches her head awkwardly. “I just had a lot going on. Was busy roaming around the world, even crossing through time…”
“Through time?” Now he recalls a certain detail from the flashback. “Ah… You had mentioned once that you left your home ‘far in the past’…”
“Yeah?”
“Hmm…” He gives her face a closer look and nods thoughtfully. “I thought it was a little strange. It’s been 30 years and you still look quite young. Or do dragons simply age very slowly?”
“Heh. They do, but you’ve hit on the dot: I’m a time traveler. So while it was a long 30 years for you, it was barely a skip for me.”
He snorts. “It must be nice to be able to travel anywhere and whenever so freely.”
“It is, actually.” She smirks at first, but it fades a bit as she lets a realization sink in. “Though, I’ve also come to learn just how little I really know.”
“Hm?”
“I can brag about having lived in the past all I want, but actually I haven’t lived that long at all. The planet keeps growing and changing, and I haven’t been changing with it. I’m not sure what to make of everything yet…”
“…” Nanaki idly flicks his tail as if musing over something, and then replies, “If you’re ever in need of guidance, I know just who to ask.”
“Hmm…” She then regains her smirk. “I was just thinking about him too. There’s nothing your Grandpa doesn’t know when it comes to the planet, right?”
His eyes flicker alight with amusement. “Glad you remember him well.”
“Ah, but before we head off for your hometown, I still have a few friends I want to bring along there. They’ve been aching to visit Cosmo Canyon for a long time and learn a few things there.”
“Certainly, anyone who wishes to learn from our people is welcome.” He then tilts his head curiously with a concerned frown. “By the way, why are you keeping your eyes closed?”
Having been reminded, she slumps over with a pout. “They were bleeding earlier. They still hurt a bit, so I don’t want to open them.”
“Unfortunate. Was it the result of Hojo’s experimentation?”
“No, something else… Anyway, let’s go before the guy shows up. The last thing I need is to see him again. He’s so disgusting I’d probably become permanently blind just being around him,” she adds the last statement with a scowl.
“…I hope you recover soon. Will you need help getting around?”
“Nah, I got this. My other senses are doing just fine.” Ruby turns away for the general direction of the exit opposite to the elevator she came from. “Let’s go!”
With a confident smile, Ruby reaches forward with her arms as she wanders into open space, and once again bumps into some loose rubble and nearly trips over it. This repeats for a few times as she tries to recalculate the map she has in mind.
Nanaki shakes his head. He hops ahead of her before she bumps into any more. “I’ll lead the way. Follow my voice.”
“Wait.”
“What?”
“Before we head off to the escalators, can we first stop by a certain room? I just remembered there was something I wanted to pick up.”
“Which room?”
“The furthest one in, I think. It should have a certain Reinforced Staff that I’d like to gift to a friend later.”
As the pair make their way out, it so happens that a camera is still in operation in a corner of the ceiling where Ruby hadn’t hit while she was zipping about. On the other side of the camera, a certain professor sits safely in his private cabin on the balcony of a different floor. He had been watching Ruby all this time and was even amused to see Sephiroth briefly accompany her.
He smirks to himself, recalling a certain theory he had made long ago – my, how time flies – when he had his first chance to observe the white dragon. Even back then, thanks to analysis of a sample of the dragon’s DNA from her spilt blood, he formulated a theory that the two were indeed connected somehow, but it wasn’t quite clear exactly how. But now, he may have just acquired more relevant information to add to that old theory.
On the desk before him lies a binder with some classified documents. The one on top is simply titled, “Project R”.
~
Back in the Sector 7 slums, team Avalanche has finished discussing the plans for the next bombing mission. It’ll just be Cloud, Barret, and Tifa who will enter the No. 5 Reactor, but they’ll first take the train to Sector 4 and rouse a little attention to get patrol off their backs as they slip off for Sector 5. Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie will be leading the path for them after they jump off the train. No Ruby to help them this time; they’re on their own.
But like Cloud said, with her around, things would be too easy. Besides, knowing her, she’d probably make it back in time and change her mind about joining the mission. She’s always in such a rush too. Ironic that it was her who insisted they stay over at someone’s house to have hot cocoa.
But what really surprised him was that Tifa suggested he wait for her in his room later. So he’s been chilling on bed and staring off at the ceiling, lost in thought as he wonders what’s up. Despite the room being designed for one person, it feels awfully empty without a certain someone to curl up on her nest beside him.
He looks aside with a frown. Really? He’s getting a little sentimental just because Ruby left him alone for once? He should be grateful that he finally has time to himself… and with Tifa.
There’s a soft knock on the door. “Cloud?”
He gets up right away and steps out to open the door. “Hey, Tifa. So you wanted to see me?”
“Yeah. Could you close the door for a bit? I won’t be long, but I think we should keep it to ourselves…”
“Sure.”
She steps inside and he shuts it after her. She then takes a moment in silence as she leans against the wall opposite to the bed.
“What’s up? Something bothering you?”
“Yeah… I guess you could say that.”
“…?”
She shyly fiddles with her fingers. “…It feels like it’s been a while since we last had a quiet moment together, huh?”
“Ah… yeah. Between all the missions so far and Ruby causing trouble, it’s been a hectic few days, huh.”
“So.” Tifa then stops playing with her fingers and puts her hands behind her back. She gives him a curious smile. “You said we could catch up on a few things, didn’t you? Well, you have my undivided attention now.”
“Huh? Oh.” He rubs his head awkwardly as he recalls what he promised before. “Right.”
“After you left the village…?”
He shrugs. “Well, when we were kids… everybody wanted to be a SOLDIER, right?”
Tifa nods in reminiscence. “Yeah, I remember they were on the news every day during the war.”
“Thing is, by the time I finally made it in, they didn't need heroes anymore. It was nothing like what we'd dreamt of. It was just… working for Shinra. Just…”
He drifts off as he tries to recall some more details, but he then realizes he’s drawing up some blanks instead. Hold up. Obviously, he wouldn’t remember every single thing he did while he was under them, but why can’t he draw up any specific thing?
Tifa looks a little concerned and jumps in: “I'm sorry. I know it's a touchy subject.”
He quickly brushes it off. “Not exactly small talk. Some things are better off left alone.”
“I get it. Still, it's kinda funny. Us going our separate ways, thinking that must be it… that we'd never meet again – and then here of all places we do.” She pauses for a moment and then makes an awkward smile. “…I feel like I haven’t thanked Ruby enough.”
“Huh?”
She shakes her head. “It’s nothing, really. I’m just grateful she showed up when she did. It’s been pretty… well, a lot of surprises with her. It’s a bit much to take in, even. But it’s also been the most interesting of times since I first arrived in Midgar.”
“Ah, yeah… I’ve been meaning to ask. Why did you come here? Was it just Avalanche?”
“Oh, right… You wouldn’t know that.” She looks a little hesitant at first, but then proceeds to explain, “It was thanks to my master, Zangan.”
“Zangan?” He blinks. “Ah. That old guy with the cape. He was a martial artist, right?”
“Yep. One of the best there is in the whole world. I wouldn’t have gotten to this point without him… in more ways than one. After the incident, my master rescued me. I was really bad off, though. Like, some Cures wouldn’t have done the job.”
“…” He looks away, recalling some tragic memories.
“I needed a hospital, basically, and there wasn’t any that was big enough for my kind of operation except in Midgar. So he took me all the way there and even stayed with me by my bed while I was still out. Eventually, I came to.” She makes a nostalgic smile.
“He was so happy to see me recover that he wouldn’t stop crying. I was kinda overwhelmed with emotion too, and we ended up having a crying session together.”
“…”
“Yeah… I think it was a little after that my master said he would leave to go on a journey. He was no stranger to Midgar, but it wasn’t the kind of place that he wanted to stay in. I didn’t really get it at the time, but now I definitely do…”
“…” Finally, Cloud turns back with a look of shame. “Sorry.”
“Huh? For what?”
“I wasn’t there to see you when you were fighting to stay alive.” He sighs. “Some hero I turned out to be…”
“Cloud…” She offers him a reassuring smile now. “It’s okay. I’m sure wherever you were, you had a lot more important things to do.”
He grimaces to himself upon hearing that. What would have been more important to do than to make sure his childhood friend was doing okay? It’s not like he had too many friends growing up, so any he did make would have meant the world to him. But on that thought, he also feels like there’s someone else he’s forgotten about. Try as he might, he still struggles to remember much of those years between when they last met. Ow… there’s that annoying headache again, back to block his memory.
“Besides, one way or another, we both made it out alright.”
“…” He gives up and sighs. “I guess… At least we’re alive.”
“Yeah. And if you ask me, there’s no greater gift than being able to stay alive.”
“…”
“You know what? We should totally celebrate! Let's dress up and hit the town!”
“Huh? For what, ‘staying alive’?”
“Yeah!” Her smile has turned for the brighter now. “Why not? It’ll be fun! We could even stop by Wall Market too. I hear the nightlife there is a special experience that can’t be found anywhere else in the world.”
“Oh, uh… alright. But do you even have fancy clothes?”
“Not like fancy fancy, but I'll figure something out!” She backs off from the wall and puts her hands on her hips. “What do you think would suit me, huh?”
He looks away shyly as he tries to decide what to pick. Of all the things that would be asked of him, girl’s fashion has got to be the furthest from his fields of expertise. Maybe he could just pick something – anything pretty – and stick with it? Speaking of pretty things, Tifa seemed to like that flower he got for her, so maybe…
“Uh… something exotic?”
She makes an awkward smile. “Oh. Um… really? Then again, if we're making an effort…” She thinks it over again and then makes a more inspired smile. “Okay! I’ll see what I can find. Be sure to pick an outfit that goes with mine, okay?”
“Will do.”
She chuckles. “This is gonna be so much fun, you'll see!”
“Yeah...maybe.” But he casts an anxious look aside.
“What’s wrong?”
“…” He then turns back to her with a concerned frown. “I just remembered that Ruby was planning something for me at Wall Market. She and Aerith were super excited over something.”
Tifa lets off a relieved chuckle. “Ah, that… Hey! Why don’t we call them over too? The more, the merrier! They can dress up too!”
“What? Why?”
“Why not? Wouldn’t you like to see them dress up fancy too?”
Before he can help himself, the image of all three ladies in elegant-looking dresses pops into mind. He then realizes his face is flushing up and he quickly turns away.
He grumbles, “It’s gonna be really awkward if we’re all going. I don’t trust Ruby no matter what she’s wearing.”
“Aw. Don’t worry! I’m sure she means well.”
“No, really, Tifa. She threw a sack of gil at me and knocked me out.”
“Ah…” She shrugs. “At least you recovered.”
“…”
Their awkward silence is then interrupted by another knock on the door. They exchange confused looks. Who is that, at this time of night? Neither of them were expecting anyone else to show. And for just a moment, the mood turns to caution.
Cloud steps forward and opens the door, and is a little taken aback. It’s Marle, of all people.
She’s holding her phone, which seems to be playing live video. “Hey, there. Sorry to bother you two this late, but I think you might wanna see this.”
“Huh?” Tifa also comes out to take a peek.
The video in question is a news livestream, and there seems to have been a new story developing. The headlines read, “Shinra Company Under Attack!?” A reporter live on the scene at the foot of the company headquarters relays some facts and many questions about the incident in question. Apparently, there was some kind of ruckus on the 64th floor – where the executive conference room is held, in fact – that alerted security on the floor below. Out of nowhere, two unidentified suspects leapt down from the floor above via the escalators, which were locked off at the time, and burst their way out from the windows of that floor.
“It was somewhere back there…” Marle scrolls back along the timeline to find the corroborating footage that was captured by a patrolling helicopter. “Here.”
Cloud and Tifa are equally startled. Though the captured footage doesn’t have that close of a look at the suspects, it clearly shows some great gust of wind that blasts open the windows and two figures – one human, the other not – leaping out of the window. However, as the two fall out of the camera’s view, there’s an accompanying burst of white light from below the screen. The cameraman at the time tried to move the camera to see what it was, but by the time it was readjusted, the suspects were gone.
Marle frowns. “Look, guys. I’m not the type to pry into your personal affairs, but even I’ve heard about your new friend who likes to play with lights. It’s been the latest talk of the town, after all. But what in the world is she doing at company headquarters?”
They turn to each other with very alarmed looks and then back to her. Tifa shakes her head and answers, “We don’t know… She didn’t say anything to us.”
“Actually, she did say something to me,” Cloud confesses.
“Huh?”
“She wanted to head to Shinra HQ at some point, right? Well, she finally decided just earlier tonight that she would go. I guess it didn’t take her long at all to find what she wanted and bust out.”
“What? But it hasn’t even been an hour since…” She drifts off as she thinks it over again. “Wait. What about Aerith?”
“Huh? What about her?”
“They were together, weren’t they? Ruby took her home.”
He shrugs. “She must have then warped to HQ without Aerith. I doubt she would bring her along.”
“Maybe… but I can’t help but worry if something did happen to them.”
He frowns too, his concern growing to match. “Even then, we can’t visit Sector 5 right now without Ruby. It’s past the last train, and it’s gonna be tough to make our way through Sector 6 in the dark.”
She looks away, feeling defeated. “I know. We’ll just have to wait until tomorrow morning. Hopefully they’re doing fine, and Ruby can stop by as soon as she can.”
“Yeah…”
Marle has been silent for a while now, letting the other two discuss among themselves. Finally, she makes a sigh and gives them a wave of her hand. “Right. I think I’ll leave all that to you guys to sort. Hope things turn out for the better soon. I should be going.”
Tifa nods back. “Thanks for letting us know, Marle.”
“Don’t mention it. That Ruby girl sure knows how to find trouble… or maybe she’s just the type to be drawn into it.” Marle then glances over to Cloud again and rolls her eyes. “You sure know how to pick ’em, Tifa.”
“Huh? Ah…” She makes a little embarrassed smile. “It’s just how things turned out.”
Cloud returns the old lady an annoyed frown. Sheesh, she’s still on about that thing with the lamp? It wasn’t even his fault.
“Good night and rest easy.” She then points a finger toward him. “And remember: no roughhousing, got it? If you gotta swing your sword, do it outside on your own.”
He groans, but replies, “Yes, ma’am.”
Tifa chuckles quietly. “Good night, Marle.”
With a casual wave, the old woman hobbles back to her room of the apartment. Tifa then turns back to Cloud with a still worried look.
“It’s pretty late, so we’ll have to tell Barret and the others tomorrow. I hope Marle is right and things will just turn out for the better…”
“…They have to.”
“Huh?”
He folds his arms and makes a very serious face. “Whatever’s going on with Ruby, if she starts having freak out episodes or has trouble controlling herself, I’ll be sure to remind her where she is. Someone’s gotta watch out for the kid.”
Those words seem to do it. Tifa lets off a small chuckle in relief. “Thanks, Cloud. You’re right. We’re all in this together, so we can’t go doubting her now… Good night.”
“Good night, Tifa.”
And with that, she finally excuses herself from his room. Now alone again, he drops back onto the bed with a heavy sigh. Even though he said that to help Tifa relax a bit, he’s still wary and uneasy as usual. If only there were some way to clear out all these unknowns…
As he closes his eyes, he mutters under his breath, “…Ruby, you promised. See you soon…”
Notes:
Note: Nanaki's mother has not been named as of this date. I don't expect her to be named even when Ever Crisis comes out, but maybe we can look forward to some hints in Rebirth or the third Remake. For now, I'll substitute in my own take: "Laha", from "lahanon" (sp?), Hebrew for "amnesty".
P.S. "Exotic" dress is best Tifa dress. Fight me.
Chapter 11: A Brief Reprieve
Notes:
4/20/25 edit: Revised some of the dialogue between Ruby, Nanaki, and Bugenhagen to give reference to his change in voice.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Cloud starts awake. He finds himself standing in the middle of a street intersection of an entirely different city. There seems to be a general aquatic motif to it; where there are trees that look like large green seaweed and red and white coral sitting atop shelves of bedrock. The buildings are made of a smooth calcified stone and are largely shaped like seashells, decorated with splendid colors that glisten in the sun’s rays. There are people walking about on the stone-paved paths, all of whom are dressed plainly in some kind of long sashed robes or tunics, and everyone wears sandals of woven straw or boots of fresh animal hide. He’s so out of place here. It’s as if he jumped to a very different time in the far past or so.
But how did he get here? The last thing he remembers is being in his room in the Sector 7 slums, talking with Tifa. And now, he’s been transported to somewhere way out there. This isn’t Ruby’s doing, is it? Or wait… Is this actually a dream?
Everywhere he turns, there are people walking with their hands folded in prayer – some with a short gesture, others held in deep spiritual thought. No one pays any attention to him, as if he just didn’t exist. While there are some who are going about their own way, most of them seem to be headed toward the center of the city. It seems like there’s some sort of eventful gathering on this day. Drawn by curiosity, he decides to follow the crowd.
As he goes along, he notices more and more people headed this way, and the crowd seems to grow. Or is it just what it feels like thanks to the bottleneck of the cliffs that create an arch over the path? After following the crowd for a little while, he comes to a stop just before a massive spiky, spiraling shell tower that sits at the center of a large lake. Whatever it is, the tower may be some kind of important monument for the people here.
His curiosity continues to push him to explore further. He carefully weaves his way through the crowd, though it feels like no one even notices him anyway, and comes to the front of the crowd. There is a well-dressed priest here, clad in a white gown with golden fringes. He’s holding some kind of book in hand and is reciting a sermon to his audience, but for some reason, though the man opens his mouth, Cloud can’t hear a single word. It’s not even that he’s speaking a different language; he is just completely silent. Or is there something that is preventing him from hearing anything?
In any case, it’s probably something he wouldn’t care to listen to. He decides to step out of the front line of the crowd. No one stops him as he simply walks past the priest giving the sermon. It’s getting kinda eerie how quiet everything seems to be. He grows wary as he presses on, crossing the bridge and into the entrance of the shell tower.
Inside, there is an open library or something, as books upon books line the shelves. There are also tables where strange-looking artifacts rest undisturbed. But since the entire tower is a spiral shell, the floor swerves upward and around until it hits a dead end at the top of the shell. Sturdy coral-like railing adorned with seaweed patterns and glowing seashells set in the floor line the path, as if guiding anyone who enters to follow along. So, he takes their suggestion and proceeds up to the top.
He’s shocked to find that at the top, there is yet another staircase that leads down. But this is no ordinary staircase: it glows a translucent blue as if imbued with a mystic energy. He’s not sure why, but he gets the feeling that this staircase isn’t usually supposed to be here and has only been opened recently. But it’s already here waiting for him, so he might as well descend.
It’s a long way down into the depths; much more than just a basement. It looks like there’s a few more magic castle-like towers down here! And at the center of them is a very mysterious altar set in the middle of a slightly smaller lake where the entire altar circle sits. Where this lake’s water comes from, he isn’t sure. Maybe it’s pumped in from the outside through some underground system? Light that shines from above reflects and refracts against the crystal structures that stand in a circle around the altar and its towers. All in all, it’s a very outerworldly scene.
He finally descends the stairs that lead him to one end of the castle towers. Fortunately, there are bridges that connect all three, and he makes his way across. In the distance where the altar stands in the glow of the light, he can make out the shape of someone standing at the center.
When he finally approaches the altar in question, he then sees the person is clad in a pure white cloak that covers their face. In any case, it seems to be some kind of young woman, and she is kneeling, fast in prayer, facing the stairs that lead up to the upper platform.
Well, he’s already come this far. He might as well go up and meet this woman. He hops along the stone pillars that act like a walkway that leads up to the altar, and climbs up the steps. As he approaches, the woman seems to take notice and her prayer is interrupted. With a solemn face, she then takes a stand and turns to her unexpected visitor.
Huh? Everyone else didn’t seem to notice him. Why does this person? Now that he looks closer at her face under the hood… it’s not anyone he recognizes. This young woman has beautiful green eyes that glow even in the basking light and long, straight brown hair tied up in several loose rings that run down her hair. This woman seems to emanate mystic power even without him knowing a thing about her. In a way, she kind of reminds him of Aerith? Their faces are different, but there are similarities. So this is how a Cetra priestess of old looks like?
“…I have been expecting you… Rubia the Radiant.”
“!”
He definitely did not expect to hear that. Everything else was so quiet that he wasn’t prepared to respond. And of all the names to drop, it’s “Rubia the Radiant” – the name that Ruby used to go by.
Now that he realizes it, a different figure seems to have been following him all this time – or maybe it’s more like she was leading him here instead. And now, she walks right past him as if he weren’t even there. He’s stunned as she steps into his view. For just a brief moment, time seems to stand still. Though this other person is also cloaked in white, there’s no mistaking that face: it’s Ruby – er, Rubia, actually.
She looks deadly serious as she comes face to face with the priestess. From the recesses of her tunic gear, covered by the cloak, she draws a sleek katana adorned with wavy markings that run along the blade and wields it threateningly before her target.
Cloud is taken aback, but isn’t sure if he should do something. Does he just wait it out and see what’s this about?
The priestess, even in the face of supposedly impending death, remains resolute and calm. She does look a little sad, however, as if she were expecting this as well. She doesn’t move from her spot even as Rubia raises the blade to her neck.
“…I know why you are here.”
Rubia’s eyes narrow suspiciously, but she doesn’t say anything.
“I understand your plight and the suffering you have undergone. I am aware of all that the Great Wolf has done for your sake.”
“…”
“I have also realized my grave mistake… I should not have foretold the prophecy before a proper investigation had been undergone.”
“It’s not about ‘a proper investigation’, Grand Oracle.”
“…”
“I should have never trusted the Grand Council to hold my interests at heart. No matter what the rank I achieve, I have always been seen as an outsider.”
“Rubia…”
Rubia casts a guilty look aside, though she holds her blade firm.
“To be clear, I do not direct any ill will toward you in particular. You told the world of what you had seen, and your word has always been right. It’s only natural that you would be believed.”
The oracle then closes her eyes in pensive thought.
“But as a result, everything became painted in black and white. It was your word against Fenrir’s and mine. I was just fortunate enough to be under the care of Bahamut at the time.”
She opens her eyes again, and they show a face of shame and guilt. Nonetheless, she continues to speak with that resolute tone.
“I understand – I truly do. If I had the power to reverse the course of time, I would have done so already. But even as things stand now, I implore you… Do not proceed with this assassination. It will bring you no benefit whatsoever.”
“You speak as if we still have a choice.”
“Rubia, please, listen to me. There is always time for wrongs to be mended. Do not let this moment define who you are.”
But upon hearing that, Rubia bears her fangs in unbridled anger.
“This world has already defined me from the very beginning! I am branded a villain without reason or recourse. Everywhere I turn, I am not welcome! Even allies only seek to take my side whenever convenient for them!”
“Rubia…”
“So if I am to play the role of the villain, then so be it. I will forge my fate on my own terms.”
“…”
“I will not be stopped. Not by white, not by black, not by any feats of magic or strength. There is only one purpose to a Harbinger…”
For just an instant, her deep red eyes flicker into thin slits as she takes on a more demonic aura.
“…To bring Calamity from the Skies.”
At that moment, the scene seems to crack and glitch out as Cloud winces in pain. Why is he getting a headache now of all times? He has no idea what’s going on! Why is he seeing all this? What does Rubia even have to do with him?
The oracle has looked away, having been brought to tears herself in sympathy. And yet, Rubia shows no signs of holding back. She raises her blade into position, takes one last moment to wipe away all hesitation, and lunges for the strike.
Even amid all the confusion and the wringing pain, Cloud snaps to attention. Screw making sense! He’s not gonna stand here and let Rubia kill someone in front of him! Acting upon instinct, he jumps in the way with his massive sword to block the incoming strike. However, it’s all for naught. Rubia’s blade seems to fly straight through him, as if he simply weren’t here.
And yet, it seems to not even matter. The oracle then puts her hands together in prayer and declares in a vehement chant, as she summons the power of a most powerful ally.
“O Great Minerva! Please spare this child!”
Suddenly, a bright burst of light erupts forth from around the oracle, and Rubia is knocked back. Though unharmed from the blast, she loses her footing on the very smooth stone steps and tumbles into the water below the altar.
“Ruby!”
Cloud doesn’t even know why he’s now leaping after her. Surely, she’s more than capable of fending for herself, right? And yet, without even thinking, he’s jumped into the water to save her. Maybe it’s that he doesn’t want to see her so easily defeated, or maybe it’s just that he feels like he has an obligation to help her, no matter what.
The next thing he knows, they’re both falling further and further into the depths, as if this lake had no bottom. He reaches out a hand to reach Rubia, but she has gone completely limp as if she’d fallen unconscious. And then, she continues to sink further and further into the darkness faster than he can fall after her.
Before he knows it, he also begins to succumb to the darkness. It’s not a painful feeling at all; more of a soothing one. All he has to do is not care. It doesn’t matter. He never really knew her anyway. If she would disappear all of a sudden, that would be less worries he’d have to deal with.
He feels his body, once tense from fear and anxiety, relax into numbness as the apathy sinks into mind.
~
Thump. Cloud wakes up again with a start, now realizing that he’s somehow hit his head on something. Wait. This wooden floor… Oh. It’s the floor to his apartment room. There’s sunlight streaming in from the thin gaps in the door. And he finds that he’s actually slipped off the bed somehow. Okay, he really is awake now.
He groans, rubbing his sore head, as he pushes himself off the floor, slides back onto bed, and flops onto his back. What the hell was that dream? Everything about it felt like it came out of nowhere. There was nothing that he could understand or even needs to know, and yet it still felt like he had some cross to bear in all of it. But what that “cross” is supposed to be, he has no idea. All he knows so far is that Rubia looks exactly like Ruby, but they don’t act like each other at all. They might as well be two different people.
What is Rubia’s deal anyway? So this oracle said some kind of prophecy about this wolf – Fenrir, probably – and she got mad? Apparently, it was such a big deal that she wanted to kill the woman on the spot. And what was that about the “Calamity of the Skies”…?
No, wait, there was something else even weirder at the very end of the dream. Something about not caring? It’s kinda fuzzy, though, and he can’t quite remember what he was thinking.
He sighs. He was hoping that sleep would be able to save him from having to worry about all these questions, but they’ve come back around to smack him upside the head anyway. He’s never gonna get a break from all the history and drama, is he?
He then hears a knock on his door, and a familiar voice greet him from outside.
“Good morning, Cloud! Let’s get ready! We have to meet Barret and the others at the bar!”
“Ah… I’ll be there, Tifa!” he calls back.
He gets up and gives the crick in his neck a stretch, and rubs his head with an exhausted yawn. Well, whatever. When he meets up with Ruby again, he can ask her. How her past visions have come to invade his mind and what they have to do with him; it doesn’t matter right now. What does is that they have work to do and she isn’t here to help them cheat.
~
However, when Cloud and Tifa return to the bar, the atmosphere seems to be even tenser than it had been last night. While Jessie is busy working on something in her own corner, Biggs, Wedge, and Barret are seated around the tables watching TV. Needless to say, it’s not good news.
“…Due to safety concerns, Mako Reactor No. 5 has been shut down and put under strict surveillance as investigations are underway. Public Security has issued an evacuation advisory for residents of Sectors 4 and 5 in the meantime. They have yet to comment on when the reactor may be reinstated, but insist that the measures enacted will be temporary…”
“…Oh!” Wedge turns to greet them. “Good morning, Cloud, Tifa!”
“Morning, Wedge!” Tifa replies, but makes a worried frown. “But what’s this news…?”
Biggs also turns to them, but is also too worried to put on a smile. “Hey, guys… What a shocker, huh?”
Barret turns away with a very grumpy look on his face. Normally, he would also exchange the usual greets, but it’s clear he’s not in a good mood right now.
“‘Shocker’ is putting it mildly.” Tifa asks, “What in the world happened? First there was the news last night about Ruby escaping Shinra HQ, and now this…”
Cloud crosses his arms as he thinks aloud, “Do you think they could be related?”
“Huh? Wait. You don’t think she was the reason why, do you?”
“It doesn’t seem like coincidence. Ever since she went off on her own, a lot of convenient things have been happening.”
“That’s true… but she knew we’d be heading off to Reactor 5. Why would she go ahead and act on her own without letting us know?”
“…” He glances warily aside. “Well, if it’s not her, then I’m not sure what else it could be. I know word about us is getting out fast, but I didn’t think that Shinra would really take preventative measures like this.”
“Yeah…” She pauses to think it over and then adds, “Well, maybe this is for the best.”
“Huh?”
“This way, there will be way less collateral and more people saved. And besides, if Shinra is willing to shut down their own reactors, that could mean that they’re a little more willing to listen to our demands, right?”
“…”
The rest of them exchange unsure glances. While that would be the best case scenario, something about all this seems way too fishy and too good to be true.
“…Tifa.” Finally, Barret turns their way, shaking his head in disappointment. “If you really think that, then you haven’t been paying attention.”
She looks down in shame and nods back. “I know… That’s just wishful thinking.”
“This is Shinra we’re talking about. Those scum-suckin’ leeches couldn’t care less about shit like safety when their own damn workers get mako poisoning and are just ‘let go’ without any recompense. No, this screams ‘TRAP’ all over! It’s like they want to lure us into a false sense of security… and then, wham! Who knows what kinda nasty surprise they’ll throw at us when we don’t expect it?”
Then Biggs asks, “But why would they make it public? It would have worked out for them if we’d have gone ahead with the plan without knowing better, wouldn’t it?”
“Like hell would I know how those sacks-a shit think? They probably wanna make a big show out of it so they can come out as the ‘heroes’! Bah! Makes me sick just thinkin’ about it.”
“…”
Wedge shrugs and suggests on a whim, “Maybe they’re preparing something big?”
“Huh? Like what?”
“I dunno… I just get the feeling that whatever they wanted to do before had to change ever since Ruby’s big debut.”
He strikes a thinking pose. “Huh… You know, you might be onto something there.”
“I’m just making guesses here, though. It’s probably gonna get even harder from here on out, no matter how things are.”
“Yeah… but we all went into this expecting as much.” He then shakes his head with a worried frown. “I just hope that we didn’t stir up too much all at once and made things nigh impossible…”
Cloud glances around the room at all the uncertain faces, and coolly asks to confirm, “So what now? We still doing the bombing?”
“Sheesh. Talk about keeping your cool… He’s practically frozen cold,” Biggs mutters.
Tifa turns back to Cloud. “Would we need to? The reactor’s been shut down, even if temporarily. We’d just be charging into unnecessary danger.”
But Barret argues, “No, we are! I don’t trust Shinra propaganda for even a second! If they’re already saying it’s only ‘temporary’, then it might as well have stayed on! We can’t think that they’re just gonna call it quits.”
“But even you said it could be a trap. We can’t just walk right in. The reactor should be crawling with even tougher security by now.”
“Ha! Then bring it on.” He pumps his gun-arm defiantly. “We ain’t no pushovers here in Avalanche! Even without Ruby, we got more than enough firepower!” He gestures toward Cloud. “’Sides, Mr. Ex-Soldier here hasn’t had too many chances to show off what he can do since she showed him up.”
Cloud frowns, but doesn’t disagree. “Like I said, it’s way too easy with her around. She treats anything that comes at us like toys. It’s just sad to watch.”
“Guys…” Tifa sighs to herself, but she recognizes a losing battle any day. “Alright, then. At least the public has evacuated this time, so it won’t be so bad if our bomb goes a little haywire.”
“…Not a chance!” Suddenly Jessie pipes up and turns around with a proud thumbs-up. “I’ve gone over the measurements and everything way too many times to count! This won’t even be as big a pop as last time, but it’ll be enough to disarm a reactor pump!”
“Oh! Okay. That’s good to hear.” She tilts her head curiously. “Say, Jessie, what have you been working on there?”
“Just adding a few finishing touches… and done!” Jessie now whips around with a set of modified walkie-talkies. “Check these out! Hard to believe they were once Shinra stuff, huh?”
In place of where the Shinra logo had been, there’s now the familiar symbol of Avalanche – a skull and crossbones with a large “A” printed over the skull’s face, all plastered over a red background. It’s exactly like the poster in Barret’s room downstairs below the bar, in fact.
“Uh… yeah. They still look like normal walkie-talkies, though,” Cloud points out.
She snickers. “That’s what you’d think just by looking at it, but I made sure to rewire them so that our frequencies won’t cross with Shinra’s!”
“Really? So they won’t be able to trace our calls?”
“That’s right! I remembered that their cell towers all fell into a certain range, so I opted for one just out of range, but still okay for relatively short-distance calls. They won’t work too well if you head off to a different sector, though.”
“Huh? But wasn’t it the point that we could stay in contact in case we moved to other sectors? No point in giving Aerith one if she’s gonna be stuck in Sector 5 either.”
“Ha! Come on, you don’t really think I’d miss something that obvious, do you? Of course we can always change our frequencies! It’d be a dumb idea to just pick one and stick with it. Shinra would be on our tail in an instant.”
“Heh. Good thinking, tech genius,” Biggs teases her, “While you’re on a roll, maybe you can invent some kind of tracking device too in case we ever need to catch where Ruby’s gone?”
“Hmm…” Jessie turns away in serious contemplation.
“H-hey, relax! I was just joking.”
“Maybe you were, but I’m snatching that idea and running with it! Of course, it’s still up to Ruby if she wants to be tracked, but if she’s fine with it, then we’re good as the golden lights of Gold Saucer!”
Speaking of Ruby, she still hasn’t returned ever since the news of her escape broke last night. For someone who can just warp from place to place, she sure is taking her sweet time to come back. Where could she have gone? And what was that thing that was with her?
Cloud frowns to himself. It’s probably a moot point to speculate what she’s been up to. Besides, they shouldn’t just wait on her to find the answers they need or be the solution to their problems. She’s been helpful in some ways, sure, but she’s also been bringing them more and more uncertainties as time goes on. He was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt at first, but the longer they seem to get to know each other, the worse the problems they have to deal with crop up. It’s not just a coincidence, right?
Damn it. Why is he getting these doubts now? All this worrying over her is getting to him. He needs to let go and relax.
“Anyway…” Barret redirects the conversation back on track, “Tifa does have a point. There’s no telling what we’d be facing, so we’d better be prepared for anything. The merc here ain’t Ruby. We can’t just rely on him to sweep on through.”
“Hmph. I’d have a hell of an easier time doing it than anyone else here, though.”
He straight up ignores him. “Biggs, Wedge, Jessie! You guys remember the plan?”
“Oh, we got it, Boss,” Biggs replies with a smirk, “As soon as the train hits Sector 4, we’ll take over.”
Jessie pumps up a fist. “Yeah! We move on ahead to 5 and pave the way in for you guys!”
Wedge grins with excitement. “You can count on us! We’ll even help clear the way of trash and stuff!”
Barret smirks back, looking proud at his team. “Good. Then, let’s get going! The sooner we deal with this so-called ‘shut down’, the better!”
“Yeah!” they all answer.
But just as they’re all ready to move out again, they hear a knock on the saloon door.
“’Scuze me. Sorry to interrupt, but I hear this is the base of Avalanche?”
“Huh?”
An unexpected visitor steps on in, helping himself to a look around. He’s a rather inconspicuous-looking guy dressed in a short-sleeved jacket and jeans, though his slick and bright dyed-blond hair does stand out a bit. If anything, though, it’s that smug grin on his face that suggests way more than meets the eye.
Barret frowns. “The hell? Who is this guy?”
Tifa looks alarmed. “Did he just say, ‘Avalanche’?”
The man salutes them as he answers, “The name’s Zhijie. Long story short, I’m part of the cell of a certain organization that’s been told to keep an eye on you guys here. You know the one.”
Barret grunts, looking very displeased. Everyone else is just as wary at this sudden development.
He raises his arms up. “No worries. I’m not here to rat on you or anything. In fact, I’m putting myself on the line here for your benefit! Not exactly supposed to be here right now, you know.”
Barret scoffs back and asks, “What do you want?”
“I got some real cracked info that you might wanna hear, but before I say it, how about we agree to an exchange?”
“Exchange?”
“Yeah. You tell me something and I’ll tell you something. Like…” He points a finger out just to make a point. “For starters, what’s up with your newest recruit?”
“Huh? What, the merc?”
“Don’t play dumb, man! The dragon gal!” He curiously glances around the room. “Where is she anyway? You got some kinda hiding spot for her?”
“Hmph…” Barret folds his arms. “And why do we gotta tell you? Just ’cause we’re technically on the same side don’t mean we can trust you.”
“Heh. That’s fair.” He then shrugs, playing it cool. “Still, it’s not gonna help any of us if we just stay quiet. We are still on the same side here.”
Now Tifa steps up to speak, “If we do tell you, what are you going to do with that information?”
“Relay it back to whoever needs to hear, of course. That girl’s straight up a living nuke. It’d be problematic if Shinra gets their hands on her somehow… or worse, she goes rogue for whatever reason.”
Barret raises a suspicious eyebrow. “Not happening. Either of those options. Shinra doesn’t even have anything that can contain her. I’m sure you’ve seen what she made of that base.”
“Whew, yeah, don’t remind me. If it wasn’t a military base, just imagine how much damage she woulda caused…”
“Tch. She got a lot going on right now, but killing innocents ain’t a part of it.”
Cloud looks away, having been reminded of the strange dream he had just last night. He can’t say for sure who exactly in that exchange was really the ‘innocent’ one, but for a moment there, Rubia looked like she was ready to end all life on the planet. Of course, just because Rubia may have gone mad back then doesn’t mean it’d happen to Ruby too, but he can’t count out the possibility that the latter is at risk. Last time she said it was just an accident, but they don’t need a next time. If only there were some way that she could temper her power, she’d be less of a liability.
Zhijie gives Barret a look as if raising some doubt, but decides not to argue with him. “By the way, if you still won’t tell me, I’d have to report back to HQ eventually. And when they ask me why you guys won’t answer, I’d have no choice but to say that you didn’t want to work with us. So, ya know, things could get pretty touchy from there.”
Barret scowls bitterly at that vague threat, but he backs off from trying to match the guy’s tempo. “…For the record, we got no beef in particular with HQ. I still don’t agree with their decision to kick us out, but it is what it is. But the truth is: we got no idea where Ruby’s gone.”
“…” He sighs in disappointment. “Really? After all that, it turns out you just don’t know? Or are you really that stubborn?”
“It’s the truth. She went off on her own, saying that there was something she had to do first, like learning more about her past and all. Seems like staying here woulda just slowed her down.”
“Man… If that is the truth, then we’re all back in square one without a clue. You sure you guys don’t have a way to contact her or anything?”
“Well…” Barret hesitates over just how much he wants to reveal to this guy.
“…Hey, I get it. You don’t wanna play all your cards out on the table just yet. It’s a smart move.” He puts his hands on his hips with a dissatisfied snort. “But the little that you’ve given me isn’t enough for me to spill the beans on my end. So, you got anything else to share, or will we have to call it quits for now?”
“Hah. And what kinda info do you even have that we’d care about anyway?”
Zhijie raises an eyebrow at that. There even seems to be some kind of mischievous twinkle in his eyes. “Something about Shinra insider info.”
“What?”
“Yeah. Don’t you wanna hear? It could mean the difference between life and death, you know.”
“…”
Barret turns to the rest of the gang, who are just as unsure about what to do at this point. Instead, it’s Tifa who speaks up again.
“If we tell you about our contact with Ruby, can you keep quiet about it? The last thing we need is to involve anyone else with this person.”
“Tifa!”
“Barret, I know. But we can’t just keep playing cat and mouse with this guy. If he has insider info, it could be really important!”
“Yeah, but what about… you know who’s safety?”
“Yeah, um…” She makes a nervous look aside and turns to Cloud, who calmly nods back.
“Don’t worry. We’re gonna have to go meet her again sooner or later. We can just bring her back over so it’ll be safer for her.”
Zhijie looks around, now very confused, but also nods along. “If you guys are making such a big deal about it, fine. My lips are sealed. But this better be juicy info…”
“…Right. Okay.” Tifa turns back to him. “So, there’s this local florist who lives in the Sector 5 slums.”
“A florist?”
“Yeah. It turns out that she and Ruby are cousins. They have ways to communicate telepathically.”
“W-whoa! Telepathically? You serious?”
“Yeah.”
“Huh…” He scratches his head. “Well, I guess it kinda makes sense? Sorta? I mean, if there’s a girl who can turn into a dragon, then…”
“She came to visit us yesterday for a little while, but had to head back home. Ruby left with her, but we didn’t hear from them since.”
“…” Now he enters into serious thinking mode. “So, this florist and the dragon gal are cousins and can even link up telepathically?” After a bit, he finally hits upon a realization and nods. “Oh. Now that I think about it, I do remember that there was a certain VIP living there… So that’s how it is.” He then returns to his usual smirk. “Well, you got me. This is some pretty juicy info. I’d be the sucker now if I didn’t share what I know.”
“This ‘insider info’ better be worth it after all that we’ve spilled…” Barret warns him.
“Oh, don’t worry. I meant it when I said ‘life or death’…” Zhijie gets serious for once as he reveals, “Rumor says that they’re gonna drop the Sector 7 plate.”
“W-what!?”
Everyone collectively gasps at that info bomb. Even Zhijie is no longer joking around.
“Yeah. Sorry if you wanted good news, but this comes straight from the horse’s mouth… Our main source, I mean.”
“You can’t be serious!” Barret exclaims in disbelief, “Why the hell would Shinra wanna do something like that? This is their city!”
“Hey, don’t get mad at me! I’m just the messenger here. And for the record, given who the source is, it’s definitely not something to ignore.”
Tifa is thoroughly shaken. “No… But it’s just a rumor, isn’t it?”
“For now, yeah. But to be honest, even HQ isn’t sure what to do about it.”
“What’s up with HQ?” Barret asks in a rather demanding tone.
“It’s absolute chaos, to say the least. Ever since the news broke out that you guys have a freakin’ dragon God, leadership’s been split over what to make of your cell. Some want you back in, others want you to stay the hell away, and even others are thinking of sending you all off to Wutai under ‘strict supervision’.”
“Wutai!? Hell no! We got a mission to complete here, and we ain’t leaving until President Shinra is bowing to the people!”
“Hey, I get ya, but that’s out of my control.”
“And you gotta be kidding me… So HQ really has been teaming up with Wutai of all places? I thought the war was already over.”
“Nope. At least, not as far as HQ is concerned. Like I said, I’m kinda putting myself on the line here by meeting with you all. If word gets out that I’m the rat, oof… not sure if I’d be able to show up here again.”
Tifa is aghast. “What? They wouldn’t shoot you for this, would they?”
“What? No! I’m just saying they’re gonna demote me and send me back to Wutai! …Probably. And after I took the trouble to ‘naturalize’ in Midgar too, yeesh.”
“Ah.” She looks a little relieved at least.
“Anyway, it’s a deal, yeah? You promise to keep quiet about me being here, and my lips are sealed about your secret contact!”
“Of course! Thanks so much for letting us know.”
“No problem… Hope it stays that way for your guys’ sake.” He shakes his head again, and then raises a hand in a salute. “Anyway, I’ve overstayed my welcome. Gotta go! Our cell’s got a couple guests to welcome too while we’re at it. See ya!”
And with that, he slips back out and disappears outside again. Barret now turns back to the group.
“Well, guys… Looks like we’re gonna have a change of plans after all.”
“So, we aren’t going to do the bombing, at least for now?” Tifa asks.
“Yeah, for now. First, we gotta deal with this plate drop. If it’s really happening, then we can’t waste any time.” He points up toward the direction where the central hub of the city stands looming over everything. “We gotta find the president and make him stop.”
“And how are we gonna do that?” Cloud asks, unimpressed, “You think he’d say sorry and change his mind if we ask nicely?”
“Of course not! We’re gonna make him beg for mercy by the time we’re through with him! He’s gonna be groveling with tears on his face as he apologizes to the people and the planet, or it doesn’t count!”
“But how will we even be able to reach him? We can’t just run up to Shinra HQ and demand to see him?” Jessie suggests cautiously.
“Why not? It’d sure get his attention real fast!”
“What?” Not just Jessie, but Biggs and Wedge are equally as startled.
“Barret!” Tifa exclaims.
“I’m serious! Hell, maybe he’d even rethink dropping the plate if we’re already at his doorstep!”
“Wait a minute! If we barge in all of a sudden, it’ll just give them more time to run! We have to sneak in and catch him!”
“If we do that, who knows how long it’d take! We gotta bust in!”
Cloud frowns too. “If you wanna get us arrested, then sure. But I’d rather not.”
“Hmph! You think we’re that bad off? They probably moved most of their forces to Reactor 5 anyway. Now we can hit ’em where they don’t expect.”
“Even then, I doubt security would be so lax at HQ that we’d just be able to stroll in.”
“Good thing we’d be running in with guns blazing, then.”
“Seriously, are you hearing yourself? It’s not like we have Ruby to warp us right to the president’s office! Think about this for a second!”
“I did my thinkin’! And I’m sayin’ we don’t need her to kick Shinra ass, but she’s welcome to join us if she comes back!”
“That’s not the problem! We’ve already got more than enough trouble!”
“Guys! Enough!” Tifa pleads, pulling Cloud back. “Arguing isn’t going to help!”
“Yeah… maybe we should cool off and see if we can’t think up other options, just in case?” Biggs suggests, lightly tapping on Barret’s shoulder too.
Barret and Cloud are breathing up each other’s throats by now, but they back off to Tifa and Biggs’ suggestions. Jessie passes a nervous look around the room, and Wedge sighs to himself.
Jessie then brings up, “Besides, I think we already got enough attention as is. Never mind that Shinra’s on our tail, but even our own HQ is wary of us.”
Biggs frowns, jumping back into his thoughts. “Yeah… the guy earlier – Zhijie, right? – said he was putting himself on the line just to meet with us. We were treading on thin ice before, but now…”
“But like Zhijie said earlier, there is the side that wants us back,” Wedge points out, “So maybe we still got some kind of chance to redeem ourselves with them?”
“Maybe. But it’s not good any way you look at it if we’re just hinging on a ‘maybe’.”
“Yeah…”
Now, Barret jumps back into the conversation with a hefty harrumph. “Then, we’d better take the initiative and find out where we really stand.”
“Huh?” Everyone’s attention is back on him.
“Biggs, Jessie. You guys good for a secondary operation?”
“Uh, sure?” Jessie replies with a shrug.
“What’s this about, Boss?” Biggs asks too.
“You guys can leave the Shinra HQ business to us. Tifa and I got the merc, after all. In the meantime, I want you two to go find out what you can about the state of Avalanche, and what they got to do with Wutai.”
“What?” Biggs blinks, completely taken off-guard.
“You serious about this, Barret? Then we’d really be digging ourselves into a hole!” Jessie nervously pleads.
He shakes his head in disappointment. “It’s no better for us if we just wait, though. In fact, best case scenario would be if they didn’t get too close with another nation, especially one that we were just at war with a few years back. Like, I can understand if they’re running low on options, but this just makes it seem like Shinra’s propaganda is onto something! And we can’t have that.”
“Wait. If Biggs and Jessie are going to deal with that, and you, Cloud, and Tifa are headed for Shinra HQ, then what about me?” Wedge now asks.
“You’re staying to guard the bar and Marlene, of course.”
“Huh!? But I’m just as capable of sneaking around and digging up info! And I’m a great runner! I won’t slow anyone down!”
“Yeah, we know. That’s why you’re the perfect guy to hold down the fort. Besides, Jessie got our transceivers ready, so we can keep in touch.”
“Ah… right.”
“Yep! By the way, Wedge, if you do run into Ruby again, pass this to her, will ya?” Jessie hands him an extra walkie-talkie along with his own.
“Sure thing!” He nods back with determination. “And good luck! You guys all better take care not to get caught either!”
Jessie passes around the transceivers, and everyone is set with their own looks of resolve. Everyone in a place with a job to do. No Ruby to cheat their way with anything. It’s about time for this branch of Avalanche to get serious.
~
Across the sea, off in the depths of a grand red-tinted canyon, a certain lively town is a-bustle with an energy that could match the Lifestream’s constant flow. A certain drumming beat seems to emanate throughout the buildings and the culture of the people here. Even when they aren’t specifically dancing or drumming up some noise themselves, they listen quietly to the heartbeats of the planet from souls that have passed on into the afterlife. This is Cosmo Canyon, also known as the Valley of the Fallen Star.
Ruby has been snoozing away in peace on one of the beds in the inn. While she hadn’t exactly paid for a room here, just the very act of bringing Nanaki home seemed to warm the innkeeper enough to her to let her stay the night for free – just this once.
She actually hadn’t planned to jump right over, but since last night, she found herself in an odd conundrum. She completely expected that her visit to Shinra HQ wouldn’t have been a long ordeal, but she then realized she didn’t know what to make of what she learned. It would have been a bit embarrassing to return to Cloud and gang not knowing any better. Almost makes her dramatic departure seem like an afterthought. Not to mention, she promised to meet Aerith at the church at a later time when it’d be safer for her to be out and about again. With no better place to go, she offered to take Nanaki back home, but not before they had left a parting gift – some unexpected news for her friends to wake up to next morning.
At this moment, she’s rudely awakened when Nanaki suddenly rushes into the room with a loud, deep bark. And yet, his speaking voice seems to have changed for the softer, even younger.
“Ruby!”
She doesn’t respond. But he’s in a bit of a hurry here. He gently bites her blanket and gives it a tug. She shivers from the sudden chill that hits her.
“…Ugh. Whaaaat?”
“Come! Grandpa wishes to speak with you.”
“Mmmphh… Can’t I ever get a long, well-deserved rest…?”
“It’s been 7 hours. It’s plenty of time.”
“But I wanna go for at least 8…”
“Ruby, please. Let’s not keep Grandpa waiting.”
“…”
Once again, she seems to drift off again. Getting a little impatient, Nanaki then hops onto her bed and promptly lies on top of her chest.
“Oof!” Ruby sits up awake immediately, shoving him off. “Argh! You’re not a cat! Get off!”
He then hops off the bed, swaying his tail whimsically, though his tone remains serious. “You’re staying awake. Let’s go.”
As he walks out, she shakes her head to bring it back into focus. But now that she tries to open her eyes, she realizes that they seem to be stuck. She even tries massaging her eyelids, but they won’t open. And prying them open doesn’t seem like the best idea. She sighs. It’s not just a ‘Darkness’ affliction that she can get rid of with a night’s rest. She’s just straight up cursed.
She grumpily follows him out of the room and seems to glide down the stairs rather than step on any of them. She floats about ominously like a ghost and as they pass by, some townsfolk can’t help but stare after her as if she actually were a ghost.
They head up to the room before the entrance to the observatory where an old man with a long beard, dressed in blue robes sits atop what seems to be a large green materia-like hovercraft. Though he has sunglasses on, he has his eyes closed, deep in meditation, but when the door opens again and the pair step inside, he calmly opens his eyes and smiles.
“Good morning! Did you sleep well?”
“Yes, for once in a long time,” Nanaki replies politely. Ruby simply grunts in a dissatisfied way, but nods back.
“Ho ho! Yes, I’d imagine so. The two of you were so tuckered out last night, I couldn’t even thank Ruby properly!” He takes a meaningful bow toward her. “Thank you for bringing Nanaki back to us. You are always welcome here.”
She nods again, but now with a genuine smile. “It’s no problem, Bugenhagen, sir. I’ve been meaning to stop by anyway, and I couldn’t leave him alone in Midgar.” She then pauses as a certain question pops into mind. “Oh. By the way…”
He rises back to his sitting position. “Yes?”
Though her eyes are still shut, she turns toward Nanaki’s direction. “I swear this guy had a different voice when we met up…”
Bugenhagen reveals an amused smile. “Is that so?” He also peers over to him. “Nanaki, have you been keeping a certain air even with your friend?”
“Huh? Uh…” Nanaki grins sheepishly, looking a little embarrassed. “I didn’t mean to hide anything.” He also turns back to Ruby. “But yes, this is my normal voice. Whenever I’m out of town, I prefer to speak more deeply.”
“Huh. Sort of like putting on airs?”
“Yeah.” His voice moves to the deeper end. “It carries a sense of authority when speaking like this, wouldn’t you agree?”
She snorts back. “Yeah, can’t argue with that…” She then pauses as she reconsiders something and then adds, “I think it’s for the best you keep it up, at least while you’re out there.”
He blinks, returning to his usual voice. “Hm?”
She looks aside with a contemplative look. “Sometimes you have to put up a certain face to others, even more so if you aren’t sure about your own capabilities. Gives you a lot more leeway to talk so that people will listen.”
He nods along slowly and thoughtfully. “…Yeah, I was thinking that too.”
She turns back to him with an assured smile. “Well, I won’t mind either way you choose to speak. You’re still the same guy I like anyway.”
“Heh. Thanks.” He raises an eyebrow her way, but with an amused look. “Say, were you always this nice?”
She gives a soft chuckle. “Nah. You saw it yourself: I was a stuck-up brat back in the day.” She also shrugs. “Never outgrew that side of me, but the way I figure, keeping an inner child means there’s always room for a little fun, you know?”
He flashes a smirk. “Yeah. Even I know that there’s no going back once you’re grown up.”
“Ever the wise one, Nanaki.”
The two fall into a meaningful silence as if to keep up pretenses to match, but then crack up into laughter together. All the while, Bugenhagen has been waiting patiently as he listens to the two chat away like a reunion of old friends, and he can’t help but smile along. As vast as the world may be, Fate often seems to have a way to bring those who share a will to one another.
He then speaks up again to ask, “Incidentally, what had you two been up to, to come back feeling so tired?”
Nanaki replies, “Ruby and I did not leave Midgar right away after she helped me escape. We explored around Shinra headquarters at our leisure and then warped over to one of the mako reactors to put it out of commission.”
Ruby smirks proudly. “Just a parting gift for my friends there. They’ve been fighting against Shinra for a while now.”
Bugenhagen blinks. “Oh, my. You even put an entire reactor out of commission?”
“It was easy. Anything that got in the way got smashed.”
Nanaki nods. “Ruby is incredibly strong and proficient with magic! She would prove to be a most valuable ally.”
“I see…” The old man strokes his beard as he muses over something. He then turns back to Ruby. “So, what brings such a strong warrior as yourself to our lands?”
“To be honest…” She takes a seat at the table and kicks back her legs as she leans back onto it. “I’m not really sure where to go from here.”
“Oh? Something troubling you?”
“Many things… mainly questions about the planet’s current crisis.”
As soon as she brings it up, the old man’s face grows solemn but not surprised. “Ah… So you too are aware.”
“What is it, Grandpa? What has been happening to the planet?”
He shakes his head with a sigh. “It’s not good, to say the least. What was once a thriving stream of life and vibrant memories has slowly but surely grown quiet and sluggish. It is as if there were something that has been interfering with communications, like a dark fog that has set over the horizon and will not dissipate. If this ‘fog’ is not cleared away, the planet itself may face an even worse crisis: a worst-case scenario where the Great Flow is broken and life on this planet may simply disappear entirely. However, even I cannot explain the origins of this ongoing decay.”
Ruby casts a dejected look aside. “I think I can help fill in for a few blanks you may have.”
“Oh? Then we shall listen.”
“Okay…” She takes a moment to consider where to begin, and then sits back up. “So, what I’ve learned so far is that the planet has been plagued by a mass of ‘void’ that consumes all life and energy it meets. It’s been sequestered in the deepest depths of the planet for eons, but recently escaped and has been ravaging everything around it. Though, it’s been moving rather slowly.” She shrugs. “I guess it hasn’t gotten that far from its source if the planet isn’t enacting its latter stages of emergency.”
“I see.” He nods back thoughtfully, but gives a warning, “Though, it remains to be seen how long that may last.”
“Yeah, and I have to apologize.”
“Apologize? For what, may I ask?”
She crosses her arms with a frown as if disappointed in herself. “I don’t even know how it happened, but this crisis seems to have something to do with me and my past lives from ancient times.”
“Your past lives? Interesting…”
She then looks back to him. “Have you heard of the legend of ‘Rubia the Radiant’, sir?”
“Yes, a little here and there. She was one of the Summon Guardians of the past in the times of the Cetra, if I recall correctly.”
“Yeah… at least, until she wasn’t.”
“Oh? What do you mean?”
“I’ve only seen a few visions from the past, but they all involve Rubia’s conflicts with the Cetra of the time. It seems like something happened that led to her feeling betrayed by her people, so she abandoned everything to go on a conquest to exact retribution on everyone.”
“Ah. I do recall that there are scant details regarding Rubia’s existence that have been recorded across time. It is rather peculiar that out of all that we know of the Summons, only she has been left out.”
“Do you think it’s a case of censorship?”
“Perhaps… I can’t say it for certain.”
“That’s fair. But something else bothers me more. I’m struggling to figure out what it is about ‘Rubia’ that makes her so unique. Why is it that she hasn’t vanished along with the rest of the Summons? What keeps her here in the depths of the Lifestream that doesn’t let her fade away peacefully? Why has she started a plague of ‘void’ that consumes all life it meets?” Ruby adds, bearing her fangs just a bit, “And why can’t I just contact her and tell her to stop doing that?”
“…” Bugenhagen takes a moment to let the questions sink in before calmly replying, “Yes, those are veritable concerns; unfortunately, none of which that I am able to answer at the moment. It seems the answers you seek lie much deeper in those depths.”
“In the Lifestream? But I’ve been there already and couldn’t find anything that would help me connect with her.”
“But have you been there with the right mind?”
“The right mind?”
He nods again. “For the record, I do not wish to assert my opinions to be taken as fact. I am but a humble observer, but if I may propose a theory?”
“Of course, sir. What is it?”
“If you wish to contact Rubia, you must first determine whether or not she is ready to be heard.”
Ruby blinks. “When she’s ready?”
“There may be certain conditions that must be first met before she can appear.” He then shakes his head. “I can’t say what they are, though. You may have to look for them on your own.”
“…”
“That being said, if I can offer you something, it would be a simple piece of advice: There is a time and a place for everything. Do not rush the answers; they will come to you when they must.”
She tilts her head aside, making a perplexed frown. “Even so, I’m also on a kind of time limit here… How long do I have to wait?”
“Oh, no. It isn’t simply about waiting. As long as you continue to pursue the truth, you will find the trail that leads you to it. But to expect to find an end of that trail before you have even stepped onto it would lead you astray.”
She groans. “Sir, with all due respect… I’m still stuck at square one. I don’t know where to find the start of this ‘trail’. I don’t even know what it is I should be searching for.”
“You’ve come here already, haven’t you?”
“Well, yeah. I was hoping you’d be able to help guide me somewhere, but so far, I feel like I’m just lost in all these platitudes… no offense intended.”
“None taken. And as I said, there’s no need to rush. Take a moment of silence to ponder and listen… and perhaps a voice from the planet may just respond.”
“Actually, I’ve been trying to listen to the planet, but I can’t make out any voices.”
He shakes his head. “It matters not your origins or lineage; anyone is capable of listening to the planet. Please, feel free to settle in and make yourself comfortable, and above all, be patient.”
“…”
Ruby goes quiet to take in the sounds around her and carefully parses out the usual bustle of human activity from the serenity of the land itself. For a moment, there is nothing but silence. She continues to wait, but she still hears nothing. What’s going on? What is it that she’s missing? Hold on, let’s review. What was it that Bugenhagen suggested? To be of the “right mind”? And to not expect the “end” before the start…
Expect… the end…? Wait. Has she been too pushy about meeting with Rubia? It’s true that so far she’s been pressed one way or another to work toward her mission – as dumped onto her by a certain menace, on that thought – but maybe the issue does lie with how she needs to approach her. After all, if Rubia has been having trust issues all this time, it only makes sense that she wouldn’t want to talk with Ruby, even if they may be heavily connected. But what is she to do?
And at that moment, she then realizes something: in a way, this is like a matter of parenting, isn’t it? She always told herself that she wouldn’t be like her ultra-strict tiger mom – or her negligent dad either for that matter – with her kids if that ever happens, but before she even realizes it, that’s exactly what she’s been doing with Rubia. Bugenhagen is right. She needs to slow down; maybe also give Rubia some breathing room. It’s what little Ruby would have wanted too.
Finally, amid the silence, she now catches a hint of a faint voice. It’s incredibly soft, almost as if it were muffled and isolated, but she can make out the sound of weeping. It’s like that of a lost child who doesn’t know where to look to find help. And it’s all too familiar to Ruby that it hits her right in the feels.
That does it. Ruby’s never had a good role model for how to be a proper mother or even a big sister, but dammit, she’s now driven to be one. But first, she has to find someone who can help with that, and there’s just one person who comes to mind. It turns out that everything ends up leading back to her after all.
She’s been sitting still, almost like a statue, for long enough that when she suddenly whips around to the others, Nanaki actually gets a little spooked.
“I got it!”
“What is it, Ruby?” Bugenhagen asks.
“I was able to hear something just now.”
“Oh? That’s wonderful! What did you hear?”
“It was a lone voice… of a child weeping. I got the feeling that she was abandoned somehow.”
He looks somewhat taken aback by that and closes his eyes as he enters a pensive mood. “Hmm… I see. So that is how you perceive it.”
However, Ruby then makes a relaxed smile. “Good thing I know just the remedy for a crying child! There’s a certain young lady I want to meet again. In case you aren’t aware yet, I’m not the only Cetra that remains on this planet.”
“Ah… I figured so.” He looks rather proud of her too. “Very good. I’m glad that you’ve come to find the trail that you’ve been looking for.”
“Yeah… You were right. Whether it’s in this life or the previous, I’ve just been rushing from place to place and been impatient over something. Sometimes, it helps to just relax. Thank you for leading me here, sir.”
He puts his robed sleeves together and makes a courteous bow. “There’s no need to thank me. You arrived upon the solution by your own merit. I’m just glad to be good company.”
“If you insist… but I insist that you’re irreplaceable even among ‘good company’.” She puts a hand over her mouth as she chuckles rather elegantly. “You can be sure I’ll be back to see you again sometime. I’ll bring along a few more friends too – the ones I mentioned earlier. I’m sure they would love to come to the home of Avalanche too.”
“Ah. So that’s how it is. Of course! Feel free to bring anyone you wish.” He then raises an arm toward his quiet grandson. “If it would serve you well, you may even take Nanaki along to help you.”
“Grandpa?”
He turns to him with a confident nod. “Nanaki, it is certainly a wonderful opportunity to learn and grow by exploring the outside world, but you must remember that there will always be challenges out there for even the most prepared. It would be much safer to travel with a friend who can help keep an eye out, so to speak.”
“…” Nanaki nods back. “I understand. I’ll lend them a hand for as long as they may need me.”
“Very good.” He then turns back to Ruby with a chuckle. “After all, it’s the least we can do.”
She’s back to smirking. “Thanks again, sir. I promise I’ll be a good chaperone. If anything, it feels like I’m a teacher getting ready to pick up her students for a field trip.”
“Ho ho ho!” That seems to give him a good laugh. “Well, all the more to look forward to, I suppose. It has been a while since we’ve had visitors from abroad.”
“Hope it won’t be too noisy for all you folks.”
“Not at all! Knowledge is better shared when there are more minds to receive it, after all. Maybe I’ll be able to show off the old observatory for once in a long time… Ho ho.”
“Looking forward to it, sir!” Ruby then turns back to Nanaki with a confident smirk. “Well, we just got you home, but how about we get back to the action in Midgar? I’m sure my pals are in a bit of a knot without me.”
“Certainly. But is there anything we can do about your eyes first? Do they still hurt?”
“Eh… not anymore, but it’s kinda hard to open them.”
“Really? That’s strange.”
Finally, Bugenhagen takes notice. “Oh, dear. Has there been a problem with your eyes, Ruby?”
“Yeah, kinda… Uh, did you not notice at all, sir?”
He makes a sigh. “I’m afraid my eyesight isn’t what it used to be.”
“Ah…” She smirks back with a slick reply. “But with such long-ranged perception like yours, you make up for it with your bountiful wisdom!”
“Oh, thank you, you’re too kind. But it’s only natural. I’m soon to turn 139 later this year, after all.”
“That’s a real accomplishment right there. Keep on trucking, sir.” She then turns back to Nanaki with another shrug. “Well, when in doubt, I can always visit the lady I mentioned. She’ll be waiting for us at an old church in the Sector 5 slums. I’m sure she got some way to deal with it or something.”
Nanaki nods. “Hmm… If you insist.”
“Besides, I still gotta drop off this staff for her.”
She pats her little satchel beside her. However that large staff managed to fit in it, the world may never know. Actually, she may have an idea: game inventory logic.
“Not to mention, we need to figure out how to get the rest of my friends out of Midgar – safely but also after they’ve solved their beef with President Shinra. I can do a bit of heavy lifting, in many ways.”
Bugenhagen strokes his beard with a meaningful smile. “You lead quite the busy life! I’ll let you two be on your way, then. Feel free to return anytime you wish to see me.”
“Oh, you can count on it!” She gives him a thumbs-up. “Let’s go, Nanaki! Adventure awaits!”
His eye twinkles with excitement too. “Back to Midgar we go!”
Ruby then flicks her fingers in a snap, and the very next instant, the two have blinked out of the room. There’s not even a spell circle that appears; just a bright flash, and then they’re gone.
~
The old church is as quiet a place as ever. On the occasion, Aerith can get a few visitors – some welcome, like the schoolkids who volunteer to help her tend to the flowers here and there; but others unwelcome, like the ever pestering Turks who continue to insist that she come with them. But most of the time, it’s just her enjoying a passive conversation with her flowery friends. However, as of late, even her friends here have begun to grown quiet as their voices have weakened. She can still hear some voices, but it’s been getting harder and harder to make out what they’re saying. But she doesn’t give up. She waits patiently for those old voices to speak up, and maybe, just maybe, she’ll hear them again.
“Aerith!”
Aerith is neatly spooked when she suddenly hears the doors swing open and Ruby’s voice come bellowing out from nowhere, completely overturning the peaceful mood.
“Ruby!” She lets off a sigh in relief. “Thank goodness.”
Ruby giddily bounces in with a light step to her feet and stops right in front of her. “I told you I’d be back.”
She nods back with a smile. “So you did… Oh?”
She also notices that Ruby isn’t alone. A curious-looking furry creature with a red-hot flame on his tail calmly walks in beside her and takes a seat on the floor by the flower patch.
Ruby turns to him and back to her with a beaming smile. “He’s a friend.”
“I see. What’s his name?”
“Nanaki. But if you want, you can call him ‘Red’.”
“Red?” Aerith blinks. “Well, he sure is red…”
“Ruby and Red! The secret Anti-Shinra force, henceforth dubbed as ‘Code Red’!”
Nanaki shakes his head. “You’ve already come up with a team name?” he speaks as deeply as before.
Aerith jumps a bit upon hearing him. “You can talk!?”
“Yes. Fairly well, I might add.”
“Huh…” She gives him a curious glance over. “There really are lots of mysterious things in this world, aren’t there?”
“Incidentally, I’ve been held as a research specimen in Hojo’s lab until just last night. He gave me the denomination of ‘Red XIII’. Feel free to call me whatever you wish.”
“Oh, so that’s where the ‘Red’ comes from.” She then makes a polite nod. “Thanks for keeping her company, Red! Glad to see that my cuz is still making new friends!”
“Cuz?”
Ruby turns to him. “We’re Cetra buddies! Distantly related.”
“Ah, I see.”
She makes an amused smirk. “Heh. That has got to be the calmest response to the revelation so far.”
“It makes sense, coming from the ‘daughter of Bahamut’.”
“Oh! You know about her too?” Aerith asks him.
“Yes. We’ve been previously acquainted many years ago. She didn’t stay long, though, and I hadn’t seen her since.”
“Oh, wow. I guess that makes you guys ‘old friends’, huh?”
“Friends? Well…” He tilts his head curiously. “I suppose, if our brief encounter counts for something.”
Suddenly, Ruby drops onto him with an arm wrapped around him in a tight squeeze. He growls fiercely at her, but relents when he realizes she’s just giving him an unprompted hug.
“A reunion of old friends!”
“…Hmph.”
Aerith giggles to that. She then asks innocently, “By the way, Ruby, why have you been keeping your eyes closed?”
“Ah…” As soon as she brings it up, Ruby’s pep is quickly drained. She lets go of Red and drops to a sitting position on the floor with a sigh. “To be honest… I was kinda hoping you’d be able to help with this.”
“Huh?”
“So, like I mentioned before, I paid a visit to Shinra HQ and visited a certain, ahem, specimen in Hojo’s lab. Somehow, I triggered a vision and my eyes started acting up. Hurt real bad.”
“Uh, oh. Do they still hurt?”
“Not anymore, no. But I also haven’t been able to open them.”
“Really? What’s the matter?”
“Who knows? I can still blink, sort of, but it’s like they’ve been welded shut somehow. I don’t wanna pry them open, but…”
“Maybe for the best that you don’t. Let me see…” Aerith takes a moment to think it over. “I’m not sure I’ve ever run into a case like this. Does it have anything to do with the red streaks on your face?”
“Huh? Red streaks?”
“Yeah. You haven’t noticed them?”
Ruby puts her hands over her face and rubs. “I don’t feel any different. Where on my face?”
“They’re over your cheeks, hanging down from your eyes. At first I thought you just had some kind of paint there, but…”
“Ah.” She gives them a quick rub and removes her hands. “Are they gone?”
“Nope.”
“Hmm…” Ruby puts her hands back over them and tries again to feel them, but even with extra care, she can’t tell the difference. “I dunno. They weren’t there last I checked.”
Aerith makes a concerned look. “So will you be okay? Can you still get around?”
She gets back to her feet. “Oh, yeah. I don’t need my eyes that badly. But it is annoying that this is how I’m nerfed for a while.”
“…” She thinks it over once more and her face shifts over to a determined look. “You know what, Ruby? Let me try something.”
“Huh?”
“Stand still. I’ll see if I can’t help heal whatever ailment it is…”
Aerith carefully places her hands over Ruby’s eyes and closes her eyes as well. With a whisper of a prayer, she makes a wish to whomever may hear it to help her friend. At first, nothing seems to happen, but all of a sudden, Ruby feels like she hears some kind of voice in her ears. It’s a soothing voice, one like a mother’s with her child, and it puts her at ease. When Aerith finally moves her hands off, Ruby’s eyes flicker open and she blinks a few times.
Ruby stares at her in disbelief. “You did it.”
She looks just as surprised. “Huh… I really did.”
Red raises an eyebrow. “What did you do?”
“Um… All I know is that I made a prayer asking for help.” She then smiles, feeling quite relieved. “I’m glad whoever listened was able to, though!”
Ruby scratches her head. What even was that voice? It sounded familiar, but it’s also such a distant memory that she can’t quite put a finger on it. It doesn’t sound quite like Sister Anna’s voice either. Has she ever had another mother figure growing up in this world?
“Oh, just to be sure… Ruby, do your eyes still hurt or feel uncomfortable in any way?”
“No. They’re completely healed. Do I still have the red streaks, though?”
“Yeah. Seems like whatever happened, you’re stuck with them.”
Ruby frowns. Well, at least it doesn’t seem to affect anything else for now. She shrugs it off. Maybe she could just pretend they’re tattoos.
“But it’s okay! You look pretty cool this way.”
“How are my eyes, by the way? Still bloodshot?”
“Bloodshot? No, they don’t look bloodshot at all. They’re a deep red luster… kinda like your name, actually!”
Ruby grins shyly. Well, maybe her name actually has symbolic meaning after all. She’s just been winging it when it comes to a color palette, but this is a neat coincidence… if it even is a coincidence.
She snaps her fingers. “Oh! Right. I almost forgot. I got a gift for you too! It’s not as thanks or anything. Just wanna give you something.”
“Oh, really?”
She then digs into her satchel and manages to pull out a large metal staff with materia-like crystals caged in place at each end. She presents it to Aerith, who is a little taken aback, needless to say.
“Here you go. I picked it up while I was at Shinra HQ.”
“Wow, thanks… Wait.” Aerith blinks as she takes a closer look. “Hey, I think I remember this. Was it taken from Hojo’s lab?”
“Yeah. It was in your old room, in fact.”
“Ah…” She pauses briefly. “To be honest, I have mixed feelings with this thing.”
“What’s up?”
“It’s a really powerful magic weapon, but it was created in the first place to ‘enhance’ my Cetran abilities since I was young. At first, it was my mother who would wield it, but she passed it down to me.”
“Oh. Cool.”
“But…” Aerith then turns away as she continues to reminisce. “My mother only ever wielded it to protect me whenever we’d be put through some kind of ‘experimental’ battle simulation to test us.”
“Oh. Bugger.”
She shakes her head, putting those memories away, and turns back with her usual gentle smile. “But, thanks for bringing it to me! Maybe I can be even more of a help to you all!”
“Speaking of which, Aerith, what are you planning to do now? I think you ought to have heard the news about Reactor 5, right?”
“Oh. Yeah, it sounds like they’ve shut it down for now. So how is everyone else doing? Are they still going through with the mission and all that?”
Ruby shrugs. “I dunno. I left Midgar to take Red home after we busted up the place.”
“What!? Wait, you guys are the reason they shut it down?”
“It was easy.”
“Uh-huh…” But Aerith doesn’t look comfortable hearing it. “Was that really such a good idea? I’m sure Shinra is going nuts over what you’ve been up to.”
“That was the intention.”
“Yeah, but what are Cloud and the rest going to do? They were supposed to head there, weren’t they?”
“Meh. I’m sure they’ll work something out.”
She looks a little disheartened by that answer. “Ruby…”
“I know, I know. I’ll go check on them to make sure they’re not dying or anything.”
“Let me come too! I think it’d be a waste for you to come by and drop this off for me, only to disappear on me again.”
“Hah! Why would I ever leave you? You literally have the power to reverse curses. Knowing where I’m going, I’m gonna run into more of them down the line.”
“Curses? Was that what happened to your eyes?”
“Dunno. But it definitely felt like one.”
“Hmm…”
“Besides,” Ruby then grins excitedly as she announces, “I made a visit to a certain canyon valley town on the other continent. Their wisest elder gave me an idea about what I can do about ‘Rubia’.”
“Really? What did you find out?”
“Well, nothing too big. But I was finally able to hear her voice from the planet.”
Aerith gasps with joy. “Yes! I knew you could do it! So, what did she say?”
“Uh… she didn’t ‘say’ anything. I just heard some soft weeping, like that of a little kid. She wouldn’t respond to my thoughts either.”
“Oh.” That excitement fizzled out in an instant. She still makes a sympathetic smile. “Well, at least that’s a start. You’re making real progress, Ruby. I’m glad.”
“Thanks. Actually, I was reminded of what you once told me, about that roar of despair you heard when you were little.”
“Oh… yes?”
“Rubia is all alone and she’s in deep suffering. But she won’t open up even to me. If only there were some way to meet her on the same grounds…”
“Meet her on the ‘same grounds’? Do you mean in the Lifestream?”
“Probably? But I’ve been there before and couldn’t find a way to her. No links, no paths open, nothing…” Just then, a certain idea pops in and she makes a grim smirk aside. “Who knows, maybe if I die, she’ll have to deal with me somehow.”
Aerith puts her hands to her hips with a stern frown. “Don’t even joke about that, Ruby! That’s absolutely out of the question!”
“I know, sorry. But I can’t just drop you off into the core of the planet either. That’ll just make way more problems than it’d solve.”
Not to mention, there’s a certain someone still living in said depths who would not take kindly to Aerith being there without his permission. Man… if only there were some way to get HIM out of there safely that doesn’t straight up lead the planet to death by space rock or a blossoming supernova. Forget being a rat; he’s straight up a stain stuck behind the fridge or something.
“…” Aerith then gives a sigh, as she couldn’t quite figure out anything else they could do. “Well, at the very least, we’re making progress with Rubia, so that’s always a good thing. If you’re starting to hear her voice, you might just be able to talk with her soon.”
“Let’s hope to that.” Ruby then casually raises a hand as she suggests, “In the meantime, I think we oughta get going to check on Cloud and the rest. Back to the Sector 7 slums, alright?”
“Right! Will you fly or warp us there?”
“Warping is even easier for me now. I don’t even need a spell circle.”
“Oh. Nice.”
“Yeah. Gather around, guys.”
Ruby closes her eyes once more and with a wish on her heart, she twirls a finger in the air and Zwoop! They’re gone.
Notes:
There is at least one instance of Bugenhagen saying "Ho ho ho!" in this chapter and therefore it is now a Christmas chapter. Merry Christmas!
Okay, jokes aside, I spent extra time on this chapter because I had a writer's block halfway after following an outline and had to rewrite much of it and the outline so it actually flows well. So this chapter is way more meta than it may at first seem.
Outdated A/N
Next chapter will be coming along sometime next week as planned.
Chapter 12: When It Rains, It Pours
Notes:
Happy New Year 2023! Ruby comes with a beautiful firework display for you all. ;)
Sorry for the delays, everyone! Hope you enjoyed the holidays! California has been troubled by floods and while I'm doing just fine, our schedules were delayed one way or another.
Outdated A/N
Maybe I should just use my Twitter to post updates. Search up the tag @rubia_ryu and please ignore the fact that it's been a desert wasteland for several years. Thank you!
Chapter Text
Ruby, Aerith, and Red return to their destination right in front of Tifa’s bar. Ruby gives a stretch of her arms up in the air with a smile that’s proud of life itself.
“Hello, Sector 7, ye home sweet slums! Did anyone miss me?”
She looks around for friendly company, but quickly realizes that the streets seem even emptier than usual. Even the area around the bar, which is usually a central hub of this town, is awfully quiet. She had expected that Cloud, Barret, and Tifa would have headed off for the reactor by now, but surely Biggs, Jessie, and Wedge should be back by now? She isn’t keeping exact time, but it’s not that early in the morning anymore. Obviously, Seventh Heaven is closed for now, but there should still be some kind of lunchtime hubbub; yet it’s barely a whisper from the occasional loiterers still outside.
Aerith looks a bit concerned too. “There seems to be a lot of tension in the air this time around. I wonder what happened?”
Ruby shrugs. “Let’s listen and ask around.”
As they stroll around town, they overhear some passing conversations. There’s a general sense of unease around town today, alright. Rumors of the plate falling have begun to spread, and yet no one seems concerned enough to leave their homes. The people may just be too stubborn to believe that anyone would do such a thing, or they’ve long accepted their dreary fate to be stuck in this hellhole they still call home. Nonetheless, though it’s not the majority, a lot of people have cooped up themselves in their homes – just out of caution if anything. No matter which side of the coin they wanna bet, everyone agrees that it’s pretty suspicious that Shinra troops have been almost entirely absent on this side of town. Sure, it’s been like that for the longest time, so that in of itself doesn’t say anything, but it is worth noting.
After their quick survey of the area, the trio return to the front of the bar to discuss.
“Well… I can’t say I didn’t expect things would come to this,” Ruby admits with a soft sigh.
“But they’re just rumors for now, right?” Aerith asks nervously.
Red frowns. “For now, it seems… but it would be unwise to ignore them.”
“Right. But by the look of things, no one wants to evacuate just yet.”
“Hmm… Do the people here feel so attached to their homes, even in this… state of affairs?”
“Could be it. Or maybe they just don’t know where to go if they leave.”
Ruby then shrugs. “If they want or don’t want to go anywhere else, that’s their choice. I say we leave them be.”
Aerith looks a little disheartened. “Um, sure… I get it, but don’t you think that’s a little harsh?”
“Well, it’s not like the plate gonna come down under my watch.”
“Huh?”
Ruby pumps up an arm with a confident smirk. “If push comes to shove, I can just hold up the plate myself.”
“!?” Though they’ve come to expect a lot of odd things to come from her, even they’re shocked to hear something that bold.
“By yourself!? Ruby, I know you’re strong, but…” Aerith replies with a concerned frown.
“Would that even be possible?” Red honestly questions, “It’s one thing to have the strength, but another thing to have the size to match. I don’t think this would be a matter of simply ‘pushing it up’. There’s an entire town on the upper plate too to consider.”
“Oh, I’m aware. But I might not even need to do that. There’s just one big pillar at the center of the plate that holds up the whole thing right now. In that case, all I have to do is reinforce it and make sure it doesn’t fall.” She begins to muse to herself as she deliberates over options. “Like, for example, I got a big laser, but it doesn’t only have to blow things up. Why not use it to weld the cracks back together? And even if it’s still too weak that way, it just needs a bit of metallurgy magic. Hmm, hmm…”
The other two blink back and exchange surprised glances. Is it really that simple? Then again, this has been how the entire plate has been held for the longest time.
Aerith nods back with renewed faith. “Okay, then! If there’s anyone who can do it, it would be you!”
Red also nods with his vote of confidence. “Now that I recall, I’ve heard of many extraordinary tales of the Summons from the past. Bearing the weight of an entire city, needless to say a part of one, may not be out of the realm of possibility, in all honesty.”
Ruby grins back, pointing an approving finger at him. “Right? I got this. There’s no real reason to worry.”
Aerith chuckles with relief. “We’re lucky to have you, Cuz!”
Ruby casually waves it away as if to say, “Don’t mention it,” though she does wonder what “luck” has to do with her being here. But maybe it’s for the best. No other timeline of events she’s witnessed has had her so involved in it, after all.
They finally head inside the bar to find that it’s only Wedge and Marlene here. He’s been keeping her company and letting her play with his cats while the rest of the group has gone out again. Though he’s pretty anxious already, he tries to put up a strong face so she won’t start worrying too. As soon as he hears that door open again, though, he heaves a huge sigh of relief.
“Hey! How’s it going, guys?” Ruby barges in with a casual grin.
“Ruby, you’re back! Whew… I was getting pretty antsy with just us here.”
“Ruby! And the flower lady!” Marlene answers excitedly.
“Hello again! It’s good to see you,” Aerith replies with a sweet smile to match.
“…?”
Marlene then stops as she stares at the strange red beast that walks in after the other two. Wedge’s three cats are startled and duck behind the tables and chairs for cover, but their sharp eyes poke out from the shadows.
Ruby reassures her, “Marlene, this is Red. He’s an old pal of mine.”
“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” he replies.
Wedge and Marlene nearly jump in shock and the latter runs away to hide behind him, but cautiously peeks out too.
Red makes an awkward frown. “Excuse me. I didn’t mean to scare anyone.”
“Huh, you learn something new everyday.” Wedge rubs his head awkwardly too, but quickly gets over it. “That’s pretty cool! Anyone who’s a friend of Ruby’s is a friend of mine. Nice to meet you!”
“Likewise.”
Marlene simply continues to stare at Red, but he then turns off to find a comfortable spot on the floor to lie down so he won’t seem too intimidating.
Aerith chuckles to herself. “Sorry, Red. Looks like she’s a little shy around big cats.”
He gives her some dismissive side-eye, but leaves it alone. He’s had this conversation with people way too many times before. Now that he’s lain down, though, Marlene feels safe enough to approach him. Even Wedge’s three cats have come out of hiding and take a moment to stare at him as well. He stares back with a lax eye, though with a hint of curiosity behind it too. Before long, she’s actually petting him like with a dog, and even the cats are comfortable enough finding places to rest beside him, on him, or even pawing playfully at the pins on his mane. He glares firmly at the most annoying one to make it stop, though, and it ducks behind his hind leg. Aerith can’t help but chuckle quietly to the precious scene.
“By the way, Ruby, Jessie finished tweaking our walkie-talkies. This is for you!” Wedge passes her the extra one.
“Nice. Thanks.” Ruby fits the device onto her utility belt and moves onto business. “Speaking of which, where is everyone else?”
“Ah, yeah.” His smile then fades. “We split up to look into different things. Have you heard what’s been going around town?”
Ruby nods slowly. “Rumors of a plate collapse…”
“Right. To be honest, I’ve been going around talking with people about it. Trying to warn them to get ready just in case everyone needs to evacuate, but everyone I’ve talked to either ignored me or just didn’t care.”
“Yeah. We got that impression too. This is the only place that some of them know, after all. Moving always comes with its own troubles.”
“Of course, if the rumors are just that and the plate isn’t gonna fall, then that’s for the best.” He then shakes his head. “But I’m not really sure we should take that chance.”
“How did you guys hear about these rumors, though?” she asks, recalling that the message was originally delivered by a certain Mafioso under some genuinely scary threats.
“We got a visit from someone from another branch of Avalanche.”
“Avalanche?”
“Yeah. His name’s Zhijie, by the way. He said his source is usually pretty reliable, but…”
She blinks. “Zhijie? What’s he doing here?”
“Oh. You know him?”
“Ah…” She makes an awkward glance aside and back. “Not personally, no. I’ve caught wind of his group a few times in my past travels, though.”
“I see. Well, the guy was pretty serious when he delivered the news, so I don’t think he was messing with us. But it’s so out there that it’s kinda hard to believe. Like, it’s a whole eighth of the entire city! Even if Shinra wants to take extreme measures, this is way too excessive. Most of the people living here aren’t even interested in Avalanche at all.”
“Oh, I believe it, actually.”
“Y-you do?” He now starts fidgeting. “Wait. You mean… Is there something to these rumors after all?”
“Hmm. How should I put this…” She crosses her arms and taps her finger upon her arm as she thinks it over. “It’s not a guarantee to happen, of course, but I have seen visions of another timeline where things don’t go too well.”
He slumps. “Oh. That’s not good…” Then, he pulls back up with a tinge of hope in his eyes. “But that’s a different timeline, right? So, now that you’re here, you ought to be able to do something about it?”
As if on cue, Ruby regains her confident smirk. “Don’t worry. I have several ways to prevent such a terrible tragedy. It’s not happening if I have something to say.”
“Oh! There it is!” With that, Wedge regains his grin too. “That’s the Ruby Guarantee!”
“Huh? The ‘Ruby Guarantee’?”
“Yeah!” He makes a shy chuckle. “Lame name, I know. But whenever you show that look of confidence, we all have to believe it! That’s why I say it’s a guarantee!”
“Right?” Aerith pipes in too, “My cuz is way too strong to let Shinra have their way.”
Marlene watches her with awe too. “Wow, Ruby, you’re so cool!”
Ruby begins to feel awkward from all the praise that’s being heaped onto her. She did put on an air of heroism, so it’s to be expected, but it’s still a little overwhelming for her. Then again, it was always an option in the back of her mind that she take matters of ‘Destiny’ into her own hands. She’s just finally following through with it.
Nonetheless, Wedge continues explaining, “Still, if we can just stop any of that from happening, that would be the best-case scenario. So Cloud, Barret, and Tifa went off to find a way up to Shinra HQ to confront the president about it.”
Now, she gets a little alarmed. “They’re heading off to HQ already?”
“Yeah. Um, is something wrong?”
She makes an awkward glance aside as she puts a hand to her chin. “Not wrong, but I came back from there just yesterday.”
“What!? So you’ve been there already?” He gets anxious too. “Did you find what’s going on with the rumors and stuff?”
“I didn’t confront the president, so no. I was investigating the research labs a few floors below his office.”
“Oh. Then, what did you find?”
She peeks aside toward Red. “For one, I ran into Red and got him out. For another, I found a lot of unsightly things – so to speak – while I was there, but they’re not important.” She then turns back to him with a shrug. “In any case, those lower lab floors are gonna be out of operation for a while and might be barred off. If they’re planning to make their way to the top, they’re gonna have to find some way to skip past them.”
“Wow. You really tore the place up, huh?”
“Yeah. So, no matter what, they’re gonna need my help getting to the top.” She asks him again to confirm, “They should be making their way up to the upper plate by now, right?”
“Yeah. I think they headed off for Wall Market, since Shinra doesn’t usually look there. They brought along grappling hooks just in case too. It’s gonna be a long trek up there, though, so you should be able to catch up pretty quick.”
“Rest assured, even if they were already inside the tower, I could catch up any time.”
“Heh. That’s true.”
She then frowns as she recalls something: “Oh, wait. I just remembered… Shinra’s got some intense security patrolling its perimeters. They may run into some trouble if they aren’t prepared.”
“Uh-oh. What kind of security are we talking here?”
“Like, a killer heli-bot that fires on anything with a pulse. And it’s armed with a satellite laser, I think.”
“W-what? That’s some serious trouble, alright!”
“Then, we’d better go and help!” Aerith agrees.
“Do you know where this ‘killer bot’ usually patrols?” Red asks Ruby as he gets back to his feet. The cats mew sadly, knowing that their new big friend is going to leave soon.
She shakes her head. “Not exactly, but it makes sense that the Sector 6 ruins would still be heavily guarded near HQ. They’re just machines, but that also means they can’t be reasoned with.”
“Fair enough. Then we’ll proceed with caution.”
She instead makes a coy smirk. “Or recklessly with a giant laser of our own.”
“…In that case, try not to run too wild.”
She nods back casually as if not really paying attention. As she goes through a mental checklist and checks off some points, she then turns back to Wedge. “Oh, before I forget to ask: What about Biggs and Jessie? Are they also with Cloud?”
“Nah. Barret sent them on a different mission to look into main Avalanche.”
“Huh? Why?”
“Oh, uh, right. I didn’t say it yet, huh?” He scratches his head. “Sorry. I meant to say that when we met with Zhijie, he hinted that our HQ was pretty much in chaos since the warehouse base incident. Barret wanted to know what was the deal between them and Wutai, so that’s what they’re gonna check.”
Ruby blinks, looking even more alarmed than earlier. “Oh, no…”
“Huh? What’s up?”
She makes an uneasy frown. “I hope things work out there, but if anything goes wrong, Biggs and Jessie might actually be in worse trouble. You guys may not have anything to do with Wutai, but I can’t say the same for the rest of Avalanche.”
“Oh…” He bites his teeth nervously. “If they’re caught, you think they’ll be captured and put somewhere else, or worse…?”
“If my suspicions are on point, then at least them being captured is unfortunately likely. I have no idea where they’d be, though. We might even have to stop by Wutai at some point, just to be sure we don’t miss anything.”
“Oof…” he sighs. “Sometimes, it feels like we’re the only ones who know the war’s already over.”
“Well, for now, we can only hope they’re doing just fine. I know where to find Cloud’s party, so we’ll start with them.”
He nods. “Okay! Sounds like a solid plan. Good luck to you guys!”
“Thanks.” She then reveals a cunning smirk. “Besides, I need all of you to be back in my sights. After all’s said and done in Midgar, I got a special place in mind to go. We’re gonna have a cool-as-heck field trip overseas.”
“Huh? Field trip? You’re gonna take us somewhere, Ruby?”
She nods with a twinkle in her eye. “Yeah, but we can save that for later. I just know you’ll all love it, though.”
Wedge’s eyes are glittering with excitement now. “Wow, thanks! Can’t wait!”
It genuinely reminds her of a kid and she can’t help but chuckle quietly to herself. “Anyway, sorry to say, but we’re gonna have to leave you alone again with Marlene and the cats.”
“Don’t worry about us. We’ll be fine. If anything, the sooner you find them, the better!”
“We’re on it.” She returns him a quick thumbs-up and turns back to her party. “Heads-up, guys: get ready for a fight. I’m warping us directly to that one wall in Wall Market, and we’re flying up the rest of the way.”
“That one wall, huh…” Aerith nods. “I think I know the one, actually.”
Ruby returns her a smirk. “If you know, then you know.”
She passes Wedge and Marlene one last hand wave as goodbye, and with just her pointer finger pointed toward the direction of their destination, the three of them vanish in a flash of light.
~
Wall Market is usually most lively at night when all its shimmering lights decorate an oasis in the darkness, but even during the day, it’s still got more visitors and tourists from all over the city than its usual residents. Besides, daytime is a fair time to enjoy the family-friendly kind of shopping and dining experiences for those who prefer them – as long as one stays clean and doesn’t get involved with the Mafia that runs everything from the shadows. Not to mention, this is one of the few places around the slums of Midgar that gets any real sunlight ever since the upper plate collapsed.
Nonetheless, as much as she would love to, Ruby isn’t here to wander the market town. She’s brought Aerith and Red to an old, chipped concrete wall at the back end of town, a little off to the side of where a certain very eye-catching palace looms over the town. It’s quite out of the way, so not many people come by here, and is empty as expected when they arrive. This wall has been heavily graffitied with various works of art of locals and gangsters alike, and “Avalanche” is no exception. They’ve left the biggest and most noticeable mark on this wall, in fact – their proud logo in sharp black letters – standing out boldly among the rest as if to make a statement.
“It’s just as colorful as the first time I remember seeing it,” Aerith calmly remarks, admiring the various works of art.
Red looks up at some of the upper levels of graffiti. “How did people climb so high to paint all the way up there?”
“There used to be a really long pipe that ran from the bottom of the upper plate down to here. I don’t know what it was used for, though. I heard it was eventually removed because there were people who constantly climbed it and it became too ‘unsafe’.”
He sways his tail thoughtfully. “…Humans sure can go the distance just to be expressive.”
“Heh. That’s part of what makes us human, if you think about it.”
“…”
“Er, sorry. I didn’t mean to leave you out.”
“No offense taken.”
Then, a flash of light interrupts their idle conversation, and they’re joined by a regal-looking white dragon that gladly spreads her wings after a long absence. Ruby then sits back down and turns to them with a bored look on her face.
“I know the nostalgia’s cool and all, but don’t we have some people to find? Let’s rise.”
“Yes! I’ve been waiting for another chance!” Aerith excitedly hops back onto Ruby’s back and slides up to take back her seat as before. She also offers a hand to Red, but he simply shakes his head.
“I won’t be able to hold on. Her scales are too smooth for my claws.”
“Oh, right.” Aerith makes a concerned look. “How should we do this, Ruby?”
Ruby then gets back to her feet and suggests instead, “I’ll just have to carry him up front.” She turns back to Red and adds, “Hope you don’t mind, old friend.”
“Not at all. Just leave me enough room so I can lie down.”
With Aerith secure on her back, Ruby begins to flap her wings to lift off the ground. She then lays out her arms, cupping her claws together to form a makeshift platform for him. He promptly hops onto it and finds a comfortable position to enjoy the ride. And with all things set, Ruby then rises into the sky above the market town and zooms high toward the upper plate.
It doesn’t take them long before they reach the upper layers of the broken-off scaffolding between the slums and topside. With nothing in particular to block her view, Ruby scans the area for signs of activity. Shortly, she catches onto what seems to be a fray in action on the top layer of a broken tower and the sounds of exchanging gunfire.
Cloud, Barret, and Tifa had been making their way up with the help of their grappling hooks, but every so often, they would run into a few sentry bots that happen to be on patrol in the area. Fortunately, they weren’t anything that the party couldn’t handle. However, just as the trio climbed out into the light once more, they were quickly picked out and targeted by an unexpected visitor: the Valkyrie. The dangerously erratic helicopter mech immediately began to fire on the unauthorized intruders that have come within its range, and it’s kept them hiding behind some walls of scrap metal and concrete, but who knows how long that they will last.
Out of the three, only Barret can fire back directly. He’s been regularly ducking in and out of hiding to return fire, but the Valkyrie is surprisingly quick to react and adapt for a robot sentry. It even responds to magic attacks and swings right out of the way. It quickly gets a read on his pattern of movements and so happens to get in a few shots of its own.
“Argh!”
“Barret!”
He stumbles back behind the walls to safety, and Tifa tosses him a Hi-Potion to help with his injuries.
Cloud grits his teeth in frustration. “We can’t keep hiding here. The wall’s not gonna hold for much longer.”
Tifa frowns, feeling just as frustrated. “I know, but this thing’s so hard to hit even with magic!”
“Just keep trying. We can’t let Barret do everything… At some point, even his luck’s gonna run out.”
Barret is insulted by Cloud’s concerns. He snaps back, “We don’t need luck! We just need a good ol’ Fire in the Hole! Imma bust it right open!”
“…We’re running low on potions too.”
Barret ignores him and charges back into the open to return fire. He then makes a dodge roll behind another nearby wall to avoid the next volley of gunfire. Cloud watches him, as unimpressed as ever, but focuses to time his next spell. While Barret keeps the bot busy, he finally nails a good Thunder just as the Valkyrie is charging up a stronger laser. It’s decently effective – the bot is temporarily stunned – but not quite enough. Barret just barely has time to get out of there and back to them as the charged laser comes out anyway. In the ensuing explosion, it blows up a good chunk of the platform where he had just been.
“Close call…”
“The hell are you doin’, man!? Hit it with something stronger! That didn’t do shit!” Barret complains anyway.
“Something ‘stronger’ would have taken more time to cast, and we’d be down a guy,” Cloud snaps back.
“Tch. Like hell I’d be taken out just by that.”
“Even if you did take it, you’d be knocked off the edge.”
“Yeah? If you’re so sure, how about you give us a demonstration to prove it?”
“What? Just look where you were!”
“Guys!” Tifa cuts in, “Is this really the time to be arguing!?”
No, it isn’t, to say the least. The Valkyrie has locked back onto them and is charging up that same laser. They bolt out of there to avoid taking any chances or making demonstrations out of anyone. Once again, that area is also reduced to just a smoking cliff face where a broken wall had previously stood.
Cloud winces. “…Shit. We’re out of cover.”
Barret yells, “Rush ’im!” and resumes fire once more.
Tifa calls out, “Barret, watch out!”
This time, the Valkyrie flies out of his shooting range. It begins to menacingly spin up above them, and the drill bit at its bottom also begins to spin faster and faster until it’s blurring. All three jump out of the way as the machine pile-drives itself into the floor where they stood and actually spins so fast that it bores a large hole for itself. However, before they can even rush in with a barrage, the ground beneath them begins to crack apart. As the Valkyrie launches itself back out, the cracks split open and the ground crumbles. While Cloud and Tifa are quick enough to leap back far enough to safety, Barret lags a bit behind them and slips as the cracks catch up with him.
“Whoa!”
“Barret!!”
Tifa dives on over to throw out a hand, but Barret falls on through before she can reach him. Fortunately, Cloud whips out his grappling gun and fires a shot toward the guy’s arm, and he barely manages to catch it. However, before they can pull him back up, the Valkyrie resumes firing on them. Cloud tries to shield himself and Tifa from the fire with his sword, though he’s still hit by a few strays. Unfortunately, one of those strays also hits the cord of the grappling gun and it snaps cleanly in two.
“Shit! Barret!”
“Hang on!”
Now Tifa tries her grappling gun, but the Valkyrie’s oppressive fire prevents her from getting a good aim. She fires it anyway, but this time the hook doesn’t quite reach Barret in time.
“Barret!!”
“Argh!!!”
After quite the struggle, it seems their luck has finally run out. Barret takes a rough tumble down the sharp slope of debris, and unfortunately, there’s not a lot he can grab onto now.
But while luck may not be the answer, they’re not short on allies. Swooping in right on cue, a majestic white dragon catches him at the bottom of the slope, and a sturdy metal staff helps guard him from slipping off. The dragon then flings up a bright red beast from her arms, and he leaps to and fro back up to catch the other two under fire. With a running start and charging up his power, the beast then zooms so fast that he practically disappears for an instant. The next, he crashes into the Valkyrie with a mighty blow, knocking it off balance and stopping its fire for the time being. He then neatly lands back on the ground beside Cloud and Tifa.
“What the…?” Cloud gasps.
“It… saved us?” Tifa asks with a quivering lip from the shock.
The beast nods. “Don’t be alarmed. We’re here to help.”
“It talked!?” She nearly squeaks too.
Just then, they’re greeted with a welcome sight as the dragon flies back up from below and lands onto the platform.
“Ruby!” Cloud gasps again.
“Barret! …Aerith!?” Tifa does likewise.
“Hey, guys! Need a hand?” the lovely lady waves back to them from atop her ride.
Barret slides back to safe footing once more with a great sigh of relief. “…Whew. Nice catch. Really thought I was a goner…”
Aerith also slides off safely so Ruby can get back up. Taking note of their injuries and fatigue, she then casts a relieving Cure on the whole party to help restore them all to perfect health.
“What are you doing here? And who’s this?” Tifa asks.
“I’m here to help! And this is Red. He’s an old friend of Ruby’s.”
“Save the pleasantries,” Red warns, “It’s coming back.”
Sure enough, the Valkyrie is still in operation. While it has taken some damage from Barret’s constant barrage and now Red’s fearsome Sled Fang, it’s not done yet. Upon recalibrating its protocol, it has changed tactics and proceeded to the next step. Instead of engaging with the new intruders, it backs off and begins to spin menacingly high above them.
“What’s it doing?” Cloud asks warily.
“I ain’t waiting to find out!” Barret declares and fires back again. However, this time, his bullets don’t quite reach the bot. It’s a little too out of range. “…Well, shit.”
“Ruby!” Aerith calls on her.
“On it.”
She flies right at it and meets its spinning blades with her maws, crushing through each one. As the bot begins to wobble, she then snatches the rotor in her teeth and flings it away with a whip of her neck. The thing tumbles helplessly out of control as it flies off into the distance and crashes and burns in an explosion somewhere in the rubble ruins of Sector 6.
However, Ruby isn’t finished just yet. She turns her head up toward the sky where she anticipates that a certain Orbital Laser has been preparing to be fired. Her pupils shrink into slits and her eyes glow an eerie red as she hones her sight further beyond the skies above. There’s the satellite she’s looking for, poised and charging up its own laser, as commanded by the Valkyrie. But before it even can, she unleashes a searing white laser of her own from below. It shoots straight through the stratosphere in an instant – as lasers ought to do – and blows the satellite to pieces in an explosion that can’t be heard from the ground.
The rest of them watch the skies and witness a brief flash of light that glows even under the bright sunlight.
“Damn… she even took out the satellite,” Barret notes, looking impressed.
Tifa lets off a sigh in relief. “Well, it looks like we’re out of the worst for now.”
Cloud returns his sword to his back with a sigh as well, but more out of disappointment. Though it pains him to admit, this was one boss fight was a legitimate struggle. Ruby always makes it look so easy, though.
She swoops back down and flaps just once before landing with a hard thump. She then resumes her human form and greets all her friends with a warm smile.
“Glad to be back, guys! Did ya miss me?” she asks, raising both hands up.
“Did we ever! You know how to make an entrance!” Tifa exclaims, returning the high-fives. Now that she notices, though, she is a little taken aback. “Oh. Ruby? What happened to your face?”
She smirks, playing it cool. “Oh, this? Don’t worry about it. Think of it as a ‘tattoo’ for a new initiation.”
“A tattoo?”
“Hah! Don’t tell me you been havin’ fun without us, ya li’l prankster…” Barret replies, crossing his arms with a stern frown, but then reveals a grin and shares a fist bump with her. “Nah, but seriously, thanks. I owe you big time.”
Cloud simply crosses his arms, looking as unamused as always. “Where have you been anyway? You sure took your sweet time getting back.”
She snorts back. “I was on my own adventure, Cloud. I found my old pal Red in Hojo’s lab up in HQ, busted him out, paid a visit to Cosmo Canyon…”
“Whoa, hold up! Cosmo Canyon?” Barret cuts in, “You went all the way there?”
“Yeah. It’s Red’s hometown actually. I also wanted to chat with his grandpa about a few things.”
“Huh, whaddya know.” He turns to Red with a curious look and back. “So you gave her the tattoo or somethin’?”
Red shakes his head. “Do I look like someone who could give her tattoos?”
“…”
“Rather, she appeared to me with those marks already on her face.”
Aerith smiles at Ruby as she asks Tifa, “Well, I think they fit her, don’t you?”
Tifa nods slowly. “Actually, now that I look at them… they look kinda cool. Like the marks of a warrior.”
Aerith then laughs aloud. “Right?” She also offers Tifa a high-five, to which she accepts it with a smile of her own.
Cloud moves on, trying to squeeze Ruby for more info: “But why go all the way to Cosmo Canyon? Weren’t you saying you were headed back to the Lifestream or something?”
“Well, I was going to, but I ran into ‘you-know-who’ while I was at Shinra HQ…”
He snaps to attention. “What?”
“You ran into someone there?” Tifa asks. “Who was it?”
Cloud and Ruby exchange awkward glances, as if neither one wants to be the one to explain everything at the moment.
Ruby waves it away. “Eh, it’s not important. What matters is: I had a revelation and these marks are a sign of greatness.”
He frowns with visible doubt. “‘Greatness’, huh…”
She throws up a fist just to flaunt. “Heck yeah! I’m even stronger than I was before!”
He looks a bit stung. “Huh? But you were already overpowered! Why would you need a boost?”
“Hahaha! I guess I’m just naturally gifted.”
As much as he would like to keep arguing, her almost skeezy, smug smile only discourages him from doing so.
“Anyway, as I was saying, I stopped by Cosmo Canyon to chat with Red’s grandpa. He’s a really wise old man who knows a lot about the planet. He was even able to help me find an answer to one of my biggest questions.”
“An old man?” Barret asks, turning back to Red, “Huh… here I thought your grandpa was some kinda dog, uh, cat? Something-lookin’ thing like you…”
Red snorts. “I’m neither, for your information.”
Tifa then asks curiously, “So what are you?”
He takes a pause to sit back, swaying his tail thoughtfully, and then answers, “I am that which you see before you, nothing more, nothing less.”
The others blink back and exchange confused glances, but it seems like he’s not interested in giving an answer there.
“He’s a Nanaki, that’s what he is,” Ruby answers instead.
“What’s a Nanaki?” Cloud asks.
“Who knows. What’s a-Nanaki-n’ on your door lately?” she jokes with a snicker.
Suddenly, the entire atmosphere sinks a little as everyone stares back at her with a variety of expressions ranging from absolute confusion to utter digust. Red glares indignantly at her until she stops. No, he doesn’t appreciate her using his name to enact terrible humor.
She awkwardly clears her throat. “Anyway, he’s coming along with us to help any way he can.”
He relents and turns back to the rest. “She seeks to address the planet’s crisis, after all. It would only be right to aid her in her quest.”
“Agreed!” Aerith follows up, “Like I said before, there’s nothing I won’t do to help my cuz!”
Barret nods back. “Damn straight. We’re all in this together, after all.” He also raises a triumphant fist. “Now that Ruby’s back, we don’t gotta keep climbing floor to floor. Let’s just shoot straight to the top!”
“You mean, to the president’s office on the top floor?” Tifa asks, just to be sure.
“Yeah! What, did you have some other place in mind?”
She shakes her head with a relieved smile. “No. If we can avoid as much trouble as possible, that’s for the best.”
But then Ruby scratches her head and admits, “Actually, I do wanna go to some other floor…”
“Huh?” They all turn back to her.
Cloud frowns. “What now?”
“There’s a big ol’ library on the 63rd floor, if I recall. I wanna do a little reading.”
“Reading?”
“Yeah. I didn’t get much of a chance to do a lot of reading back in Cosmo Canyon, so I plan to head back there eventually. But while I’m still gonna be in Midgar, I might as well also check out the history books Shinra stole from everywhere else!”
“Oh!” Aerith is now reminded. “That’s right. They should have a lot of records stored up somewhere, shouldn’t they?”
Red makes an amused look. “‘Stole’, huh… Do you intend to return those books to their original locations?”
She smirks too. “Don’t know if I can do it for all of them, but if there’s something that belongs to Cosmo Canyon, then that’s a definite ‘Yes!’”
Tifa then asks her, “Wait. Do you have some way to hold all those books?”
Ruby slaps the side of her satchel. “I got plenty of room.”
“In that little bag?”
“You’d be surprised. I can fit a whole truckload of stuff in it.”
“…” She looks rather bewildered, but nods back anyway. “Well, if you insist.”
Barret asks with an excited grin, “Hey, Ruby! When you get back to the Valley, how about taking us all along too?”
Ruby shares his grin. “Of course! That’s the whole plan from the start! Once we meet back up with Biggs, Jessie, and Wedge, we’re all headed straight there!”
“Yeah! Now you’re talkin’!” He pumps his fist in the air. “Been meaning to take ’em there for the longest time, but you know how it is. We gotta deal with the president first before we start celebrating.”
“Yep. So, who’s going where? To the rooftop, or with me to the library?”
He tilts his head as he thinks it over. “Well, I gotta be there to confront the president.”
Tifa nods. “I’ll go too. I just have to know what’s they’re planning to do with Sector 7.”
Cloud replies, raising a finger to point, “I’m sticking with them. It’s what we planned from the start.”
Aerith then turns to Ruby with a twinkle in her eye. “Well, I guess that leaves me and Red with you again, Ruby.”
She smiles back, looking a bit relieved. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Red nods as well. “Then, it’s settled. Let’s meet back together somewhere where we won’t be found. Would it be safe going back to that alleyway in Wall Market?”
“Sure, should be. It’s pretty empty most of the time and Shinra won’t be looking there for us anyway.”
“Very well. Let’s get going.”
“Yeah! Leave it to me!” Ruby cheers and her whole eyes begin to glow a bright white.
“…!?”
With just with that motion, she has already worked her magic. The others are surprised to find that they all begin to glow, and even before they can react, the party is automatically split into two groups and they jump to their respective destinations.
~
There’s a cool breeze up on the rooftop of the company tower. Cloud blinks when he realizes he, Barret, and Tifa are now standing on the helicopter landing pad just outside of the top floor of Shinra headquarters. He’s still a bit rattled that they’ve been warped away even without witnessing a spell being cast. When did Ruby ever have the power to relocate others just by thinking about it? And how much further can she take her abilities?
“…There he is. The president of Shinra Corporation,” Barret mutters with a low growl.
“What’s going on there?” Tifa asks in a low voice.
“Let’s get a closer look and see if we can’t listen in,” Cloud replies.
The three sneak on closer to the windows of the building and hide just under them, but poke their heads up to take a peek. Fortunately for them, one of the windows is opened just a crack to allow them to overhear. Looks like there’s some sort of unofficial meeting between the president, the officer of public safety, and… wait, isn’t that the guy in charge of urban planning?
“Are we on schedule?” Shinra asks.
Heidegger laughs. “The Turks are on top of it. Yes, there will be no delays.”
Meanwhile, Reeve urgently pleads, “Please, Mr. President! I am asking you to reconsider – no, begging. The Sector 7 undercity is home to more than 50,000-”
“Director Tuesti.”
The president’s firm tone pressures him to back off. He still adds, “At least let us issue a warning, sir.”
Heidegger pinches his nose with a look of disgust. “The stench of the director's cowardice fills the room yet again.”
Shinra shakes his head. “Reeve. Progress requires sacrifice. Learn to live with it.”
“…”
Heidegger scoffs, “You should have flushed those personal problems in the morning! If you can’t take the heat, stay out of public affairs.”
Reeve glances aside, trying his best to pretend he didn’t hear that.
The scruffy man then salutes the president to excuse himself, and he leaves still snickering to himself. Reeve clenches his hands into fists, but can do nothing else at this moment. He knew this would have been the response, but he still had to say something. This isn’t even about his job. It’s almost as if he’s the only sane man left among the executives of this company.
The president sits back in his chair, sighing to himself as if tired of having to deal with Reeve. He then calls to him again, “Reeve.”
“Y-yes, sir?”
“You’ve had a long day. Perhaps a temporary leave would do you some good.”
“S-sir?”
He casually waves a hand toward him. “Go take the rest of the day off. You’re excused.”
“…”
“Is there a problem?”
Reeve is thoroughly shaken by that thinly veiled threat. He simply shakes his head and replies bitterly, “No, sir. Thank you for your time.”
He then takes a polite bow to excuse himself and steps away. Shinra watches him go with an ever apathetic look until he’s out of sight and then chuckles to himself without a hint of remorse.
At this point, Barret can barely keep himself still anymore. He’s huffing up a storm and is ready leap on out to charge in with gun, but Cloud and Tifa pull him back down and out of sight.
“Let me go, dammit!” he seethes, “He’s RIGHT THERE! I gotta go smack some sense into him!”
Tifa pleads, “Barret, please! We’re all mad here, but…”
Cloud growls, “If you show yourself now, we’re gonna be in a whole lot more shit. We have to get back to the slums asap!”
“If we go, who knows when we’ll get to catch him again!? The prez is gonna get away! We need to see him NOW!”
“And then, what? You got some miracle plan to change his mind?”
“Nothin’ a few stray shots won’t fix…”
“Barret!” Tifa pleads again, “Calm down! You said you wouldn’t hurt the president if we didn’t have to, remember?”
“Yeah, well, clearly we have to! Didn’t you hear that other guy try to argue and fail?”
“Yes, but…”
Cloud tries again, “Even then, we don’t have time! They’re sending in the Turks for this!”
But Barret insists, “We ain’t so helpless here! Just call Ruby to get back there and she’ll have us covered!”
“What?”
“But Ruby’s…” Tifa begins, but isn’t sure what to follow up with.
And as soon as the other two are stunned for the briefest moment, Barret wrestles himself free and charges right in through the nearest door.
“Barret!!”
“Hey, Mr. President!”
The president stares back with disbelief and suspicion at the fact that what he at first thought was just the rummaging of winds actually turns out to be something at all. However, even when Barret has his gun pointed and ready, said president still doesn’t look impressed in the least.
“Your evil schemes are coming to an end right now!”
“Barret! Wait!”
“You damn idiot…!”
Cloud and Tifa hurry inside after him and have no choice but to enter their own battle stances now that he’s blown their cover.
Shinra watches them all come in without moving a muscle and then calmly replies, “…Is this some kind of joke?”
“Hmph! You may be laughing now, but by the time we’re through with you, you’re gonna be on the ground in tears and begging for mercy!”
“Who are you and how did you get here?”
Barret pumps a fist in the air. “You’re speaking with Avalanche! And we don’t gotta tell you how we get around!”
“…”
“Now how ’bout you sit down and shut up while we ask the questions here?”
The president, who is clearly still seated, then makes an annoyed sigh. He then sits up, putting his hands together, and leans forward on his desk. “I’m listening.”
Barret keeps his gun-arm pointed right at his head. “We overheard your little plot about dropping the Sector 7 plate just now. You sure you really wanna go through with it?”
“And what of it?”
He growls. “That’s an entire damn eighth of your own damn city! What do you think you’re doing, huh!?”
The president’s face has yet to change from his bored look.
“You wanna stamp out Avalanche that bad? Well, we’re right here! Now I dare you to say you’re gonna drop the plate to our faces!”
“…” Almost as if on cue, the president then smirks and replies without a lick of shame: “We’ll be going ahead with the plan to drop the Sector 7 plate.”
“W-what?”
Barret is shocked, to say the least. He didn’t actually expect the president to just come out with it. Unfortunately, now that the latter has regained control of the conversation, he pushes it forward himself.
“Avalanche, you say? I’m sorry to tell you that I don’t have an appointment with you lot anywhere in my schedule today. I’m quite busy, you see. If you have any complaints to address, please refer them to my secretary.”
“Y-you…!” Barret stomps on over to his desk with the gun pointed right in his face. “You shameless prick! Don’t you know what your situation is right now? We aren’t here to play nice!”
“Oh, I understand. I’m not playing around here either.”
And with that vague threat, Shinra sits back again and opens up a drawer behind his desk. He then takes out what seems to be a small remote with a few small switches and a single large red button on it.
“What? The hell is that?” Barret asks, now getting a bad feeling.
“A remote detonator.”
“A bomb!? You gonna blow us up? You’re right in the line of fire yourself, you idiot!”
“Hmph. Rest assured, I have no intention to ruin my own office.”
By now, even Cloud and Tifa are shaken. “No… that bomb…!?” she gasps.
He grits his teeth in frustration. “It’s somewhere in Sector 7, isn’t it?”
The president then turns to him. “Ah, good. So you aren’t all so dim-witted.”
“What!?” Barret yells in both rage and indignant disbelief.
“To be precise, the bomb in question is located right at the heart of Sector 7: within the primary support pillar.”
Cloud had been expecting as much, but it still stings to hear it confirmed. Tifa is so stunned that she’s starting to tremble even while trying to keep her fighting stance up. And Barret, needless to say, is pissed.
“You dirty sonnuva bitch… Don’t you dare hit that button!”
But Shinra simply shakes his head. “Need I make myself clear? You have no authority here.”
“…!”
“I’d suggest that you all settle down for a moment and reconsider your actions. If you dare to shoot, it will ensure the destruction of the entire plate.”
But then, Cloud has to ask, “Wait. If you could detonate the bomb from your desk, why send the Turks at all?”
“Simple. It’s their job to do the dirty work.”
“…”
“I personally requested that I have a backup option just in case anything were to go awry. I hadn’t ever planned to use it, but as it turns out, you all just had to show up uninvited.” He then shrugs. “If you hadn’t, no one else would have needed to know.”
“You damn coward…!” Barret huffs, barely able to contain himself. “Using a slimy tactic like this…”
“It was an option available to me, so I took it. That’s how it always goes.” He then sets the remote down on his desk, but doesn’t move his hand away from it. “Now, if you could do us all a favor and submit yourselves to arrest, that would be for the best. You’re dismissed.”
“We’re not your damn employees! Who are you to tell us what to do!?”
With his other hand, the prez then reaches for the phone on his desk and hits a button. “Security, there are a few unattended intruders in my office. Please come take them away. They’re quite the eyesore.”
“I’ll show you a real sore eye, you bastard…”
“Barret, wait!” Tifa insists, pulling back on his arm. “Calm down. Let’s think about this carefully.”
“We don’t have a choice. We have to fall back and regroup,” Cloud adds, likewise pulling him back by the gun-arm.
He shakes them both off. “Are you kiddin’ me!? We didn’t come all this way just to back off! We still got options! What about Ru-”
“Shh!” Both of them try to quiet him.
“Not now! She’s our secret weapon, remember?”
“Like I said, we have to regroup. We can call on her later.”
“…Tch. Fine.” Barret finally relents and lowers his gun from the president’s face.
Shortly, security finally arrives in the form of several elite troopers and sentry bots flying in on rocket propulsion from the stairs behind them. They surround the intruders with guns raised, and the trio simply raise their hands in surrender as they let themselves be taken away.
As it happens, though, rather than being stuffed into some tiny prison cells, the trio find themselves being dropped off via the elevator into the highest floor of a certain section of Hojo’s laboratory simply known as “The Drum”. This is a place where everything that is moral or just is sacrificed for the sake of scientific progress. As far as the overseeing scientist is concerned, they are due to be test subjects for a particular scientific query very soon.
Namely, which will come first: the subjects fighting until they fall or the appearance of a certain dragoness to come to their rescue?
~
The 63rd floor of Shinra HQ is a large library archive of a great deal of records on the history and development of the company and its contributions to science and technology around the world. As it so happens, this is also the floor where the mayor and deputy mayor of Midgar hold their shared office. Despite being the legitimate mayor of the city, however, he holds no authority or sway over it. In fact, he might as well just be a glorified librarian working under the Shinra Corporation. So, when Ruby introduced herself and her friends as “the newest Avalanche recruits”, Mayor Domino was pleasantly surprised that they had arrived so soon. He was actually expecting to make contact with a different group, but these three were welcome to take a look around.
The library is quite expansive, with bookshelves lined with books, covering both the upper and lower strata of this roomy floor. Ruby had been zipping around from place to place as she identified which section has which fields of study and research. She easily located the one they were looking for: the history of the Cetra, classified under the category of “Research & Development”. She then found a few books of interest and pulled them off the shelves altogether, leaving a small pileup of books around her as she sat down and began to skim through them. Aerith and Red joined her in a small circle and basically started up their own little book club.
However, as Ruby has only been skimming the books, she goes through several books in just a few minutes. Nothing in particular stands out to her as she reads on; much of the history of the Cetra has indeed been lost to time, so many of the publications on the topic simply offer speculation – peer-reviewed, perhaps, but speculation nevertheless. There are even a few books that briefly mention legends around the existence of Rubia; be they by the vague descriptor “Holy Dragoness” or “Guardian of the Ancient Southern Temple” in one case. However, as Bugenhagen had mentioned before, there is too little that is known about her to come to any particular conclusions, besides the fact that she may have been referenced across various warring periods in the far past. In other words, Ruby learns nothing new here.
In her frustration, she flips her latest book closed and casually tosses it into the growing “already skimmed” pile beside her, and then flops to the floor with an exasperated groan. Aerith, just trying to be nice about it, takes the pile and reorganizes it so it doesn’t look so messy.
She also gives Ruby a comforting head rub. “Aw, Ruby. It’s okay. We can always look elsewhere to find what it is you need to learn.”
“…But when I get to those places of interest, I can’t help but worry that my time limit will have run out.”
“Your time limit? What’s the rush?”
“Hrmm…”
Ruby isn’t sure if she wants to come right out with admitting that a certain phantom menace has been pressuring her to hurry. She’s still hoping she would be able to say it after Cloud gets his chance to tell his story about Sephiroth first.
“I just have this sinking feeling that the planet’s crisis is only going to get worse the more time I take…”
Red shakes his head. “Remember what Grandpa suggested, Ruby, there is a time and place for everything. You can’t rush what can’t be rushed.”
“But even just a little clue or two somewhere would be good! I was hoping I’d even get reminded through another vision or something, but I’m still sunk.”
“…”
“Well, at least we can cross off this place as a dead end, so we don’t have to worry about it anymore,” Aerith suggests with a more positive spin on it. “Say, Red, do you recognize any of these books as being from Cosmo Canyon?”
He shakes his head. “There are a great many books that we keep at our library. I wouldn’t know which would have come from where.”
“Hmm… I guess we can leave them here for now, then.”
Ruby rolls over onto her back and sits back up with a sigh. She then pulls out her walkie-talkie and stares at it as if tempted to give Cloud a call just to see how things are going on there.
To her surprise, though, before she can even hit the dial button, she gets an incoming signal instead when the green light flashes on.
“Ruby, come in! Do you read me?”
She answers with a chipper greet, “Hey, Cloud! I’m so bored here! How’s it going with you guys?”
“Not good… We’re stuck somewhere in Hojo’s lab.”
Her smile fades immediately. “What?” The other two are also alerted.
“Long story short, Barret rushed into the president’s office and we confronted him, but it turns out he has a remote detonator to the bomb set inside the Sector 7 pillar.”
Aerith gasps and Red repeats with a frown, “A detonator?”
“He didn’t use it yet, but the Turks are already on their way to the pillar to set it off manually. We need you to get back there asap. Make sure the bomb doesn’t go off, but if it still does, try to fix it however you can. Do you think you can hold up the plate?”
Ruby casually replies, “Yeah. You doubt me?”
“Hmph. I wouldn’t be asking you if I did.”
“Hehe.”
Cloud goes quiet for a bit, presumably to listen to one of the other two. He then speaks again, “Try to evacuate everyone there just in case, though. Whatever happens, keep us posted.”
“Speaking of which, where exactly are you guys? I can just pick you all up and get you out of there.”
“Don’t worry about us. We’ll find our way out.”
“Oh, no. Don’t give me that. Where are you all?”
“Even if I wanted to say it, I don’t know. It’s one of the upper floors of his lab, the part where all his freaky lab monsters are being held.”
“That’s his entire lab, you dope! Do you mean the area where the catwalks run in a circle?”
“Uh, yeah. Something like that?”
“Then I think I know where. It’s called ‘The Drum’ and there are nine interconnected levels across two floors worth. They don’t look like they’re separate since it’s all one big space divided by platforms and catwalks.”
“Ugh, whatever,” he groans, “The point is, we’re fine. You need to hurry. Are Aerith and Red still with you?”
“Right here!” Aerith answers.
“Likewise,” Red follows suit.
“Go with her and help the evacuation. We’ll still meet up like we said when’s all said and done.”
“Okay, Cloud! Good luck!” Aerith wishes him well.
Before he signs off, though, Ruby cuts in, “Wait! Cloud!”
“What?”
“While you’re somewhere in the lab, check out the 3rd level from the bottom. There should be a chest on the west end of the platform. Check it out and thank me later.”
“What? …Uh, sure. Anything else I need to know?”
“That’s all for now. See ya! Watch out for the Swordipede!”
“The Swordi-what?”
Unfortunately for him, she cuts off comms before he gets a reply. She then turns back to the other two with a proud smile.
“Let’s go, Code Crimson! We got a sector to save!”
Aerith blinks. “Code Crimson? Is that us?”
Red shakes his head with a sigh. “I believe so.”
Ruby shrugs. “I mean, we all got a bit of red on ourselves. But I already used up the name ‘Code Red’, so I went with a different shade.”
“You don’t have to explain it. Let’s just go.”
“Let’s first clean up here. We made a bit of a pileup,” Aerith notes.
“Right… Oh, wait! I almost forgot!”
“Hm?”
Ruby instead hurries off by herself back to the mayor’s office. “Mayor Domino!”
“Oh! Yes? You’re quite the noisy young lady…”
“Where’s the deputy mayor? Mr. Hart?”
“He’s here; right across the hall.”
As soon as he had been called, the gentleman himself steps out of the room adjacent to Domino’s. “Yes? How may I help you?”
“I just wanted to check in with you guys, do you happen to have some cool gear I can take to my friends?”
“Gear? Oh, do you mean artillery and such?”
“Yeah.”
“Hmm… Well, I do have a couple things stored here for certain members of Avalanche, though I was expecting to save them for when the people in question arrive.”
“Those are my friends I’m talking about. Barret Wallace and Tifa Lockhart.”
“Ah, so you are with them.” He pauses to deliberate over something. “Well, under normal circumstances, I shouldn’t just take anyone’s word for it, but as of late, headquarters – that is, Avalanche – have been facing some delays in communication, so it’s only natural they wouldn’t have alerted us to your timely arrival.”
“Sir, I promise I won’t misuse them. I don’t even know how I’d use Barret’s gun anyway. He has a huge hulking arm to attach said gun.”
He makes an amused nod and beckons her to follow. “Very well. Come with me.”
She follows him inside his office and he shows her a couple of chests. “Here we are.”
“Sweet! Thanks!” She’s about to reach for them, but he stops her at a word.
“Not so fast, miss.”
“Huh?”
“Just to be sure that we’re on the same wavelength here… would you be willing to first offer up a lump sum of 18 grand for them?”
“18 grand!?”
“Yes. There are two weapons here: the EKG Cannon and the Purple Pain glove set.”
“…” Ruby does some quick calculations in her head as she notes some odd details. “Wasn’t the chest with the Purple Pain supposed to be somewhere on the 1st floor of Shinra HQ?”
“Well, I had considered placing it somewhere else, just to save us a bit of room, but ultimately decided it would be best to keep them both out of reach of anyone else.”
“Ah.”
“Of course, while I do believe you’ll be responsible enough, we’d be a bit out of luck if anything were to happen to the contrary. Hence, the payment for insurance.”
“…Mmph.” Ruby is now reminded of why it is that she, despite being a her own boss, hated working with businesspeople.
“Rest assured, I mean you no ill will. But you see, funds have been a bit scarce around here since our employer has been cutting us out of their plans as of late.”
“Yeah, yeah. I get it.”
Ruby digs a hand into her satchel and fetches 18000 gil. How she had acquired that money without even asking Tifa and the others… well, uh, actually that has nothing to do with “game logic”. She just took it and stashed it in her inventory while they weren’t looking.
Hart smiles. “Thank you for your patronage.”
She then opens up the chests, acquires both weapons and stuffs them into her magic satchel, and stomps off back to where Aerith and Red – mostly Aerith – have been busy putting away the books.
“Sorry to keep you guys. I’m ready.”
“Hey, Ruby! We’re about done here…” She finishes putting back the last book. “Done!” She turns back around with an accomplished smile, but then it fades when she notices Ruby’s grouchy face. “Is something wrong?”
“I got cheated out of 18 grand…”
“What?”
But then Ruby lightens up and pats her satchel. “But at least we got some cool gear for Barret and Tifa later. And if Cloud finds the thing I told him about, then we should all be caught up with our gear upgrades!”
“Oh, I see. So that’s what you were up to.” Aerith giggles. She then asks, “Say, what about you two?”
“Me and Red? We’re fine. We’ll make do with what we have.”
He nods. “Exactly. Now, I believe we have a bombing to prevent?”
“Right. Come on, guys. Get ready for another potential boss fight.”
She throws out a fist, as if expecting them to meet it, but while Aerith does, Red simply stares back and then whips his flaming tail against Ruby’s arm. She snickers, as the flame merely tickles her, but with a wink, she warps them all out and back into the action.
Chapter 13: Eye of the Storm
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The tensions that had hung over the slums of Sector 7 have finally burst into clamor. There’s an angry crowd of protesters that’s formed around the perimeter of the pillar at the center of town. Shinra troops have the place surrounded and are keeping everyone out beyond the fence.
“Get away from the pillar! We don’t need you here!”
“Is someone really gonna drop the plate!? Are they crazy!?”
“Avalanche? Shinra? Who cares!? No one should be near it!”
The troops remain as rigid as ever and ignore the slung insults and even dirt coming their way. Someone even picks up a rock and chucks it at one of the guards, and while it does rattle him a little, it harmlessly bounces off of his helmet. For now, they’re under orders just to guard the perimeter, but as soon as anyone dares to step past this arbitrary line they’ve set, they will start shooting. The people have been warned, but they refuse to leave. A few among them exchange glances as if ready to enact a plan.
Wedge sifts through the crowd and busts out the front. “Hey! Get these troops and bots outta here! You’re just asking for trouble like this!” When the guards still don’t respond, he dares to rush forward and plead with them up close. “Guys, think about it! Why would you even be under orders to-”
No sooner than he steps out of line, the guards draw their guns and begin to fire at his feet. He just barely avoids them, but won’t back off just yet. If anything, he seems rather bold to press closer.
“Hey! What’s the big deal!? We’re all just concerned citizens here- Argh!”
The warning shots are over. This time, they hit him directly in the chest and he falls over. The crowd panics and many of them scatter. Some shout over the outcry and fear.
“What the hell is their problem!?”
“They really are crazy!”
“Everyone, get out of Sector 7! It’s not safe!”
A trio of simply dressed working men carry Wedge to safety. They take him far away enough so the guards are out of range of hearing them, and then set him back down on the ground.
“Wedge, you alright?” one of them asks rather calmly.
“Ugh… yeah.” He sits back up and gives his chest a firm pat, knocking against something tough under his shirt. “Good thing we got these protective vests… It still stung a little, though.”
Another remarks in disbelief, “Ugh. I can’t believe they’d just start shooting! What if they actually injured any of the innocents?”
“That’s Shinra for ya. No mercy…” the third mutters.
The first man turns back to Wedge and says, “Just say the word, Wedge. We’ll go fetch the guns.”
But he waves his arm and gets back up to his feet. “Wait. Not yet.”
“Why? What are we waiting for?”
“The signal, of course.” Wedge grins back with confidence. “Wait for a certain bright flash of light near the bar.”
The other three simply exchange confused looks and shrugs, but Wedge seems pretty insistent about this. And almost as if on cue, a flash of light off by Seventh Heaven then catches their attention. Ruby, Aerith, and Red have returned and they rush on over toward the pillar.
“Guys! Over here!” Wedge calls to them, waving excitedly.
“Wedge, report!” Ruby demands.
He even gives her a salute. “Bad news: Shinra troops have the pillar surrounded!”
“Yeah. I can tell. Hey, weren’t you supposed to be watching over Marlene?”
“Oh, don’t worry! That nice old lady, Marle, volunteered to watch her for me. I couldn’t just wait back and let things get out of hand here, after all.”
“Ah.”
Aerith nods with determination. “Don’t worry. You guys can leave this to us. We’ll make sure the pillar won’t fall.”
“If anything, even you two can leave it to me,” Ruby insists with a smug smirk, “I’m more than enough to stop the bomb.”
Red raises an eyebrow in concern, though. “Are you sure? We can at least help give you some cover while you work on that.”
“Yeah. Go with Wedge and the rest to evacuate as many people as possible. I won’t let the plate fall regardless, but Shinra won’t be too happy to know that their plans will fail. At least, I get the feeling that the residents aren’t gonna be free from their wrath in the near future, so better safe than sorry.”
He nods back. “Alright. Good luck to you, Ruby.”
“Heh. Thanks, but I won’t need it.”
And with but a quick salute to everyone, she runs off for the pillar by herself. They all watch her go and then turn back to each other.
“Wait. Wedge, that was who you were waiting for? You sure we shouldn’t go in and help?”
“Yep! Don’t worry. When she says she’s got it, then she’s got it. That’s the Ruby Guarantee.”
“Hey… Wait a minute. I remember her now,” another of the men comments, “Wasn’t there some talk around town about a girl who uses light magic or something?”
“Oh, yeah. Now that you mention it, I think I remember hearing about a commotion in front of Seventh Heaven a while back. People say it was like some divine intervention type of stuff, but who knows…”
Ruby has run off far enough that their conversation drifts off into background noise. She guns straight for the fence around the pillar. The two guards on standby are frankly shocked that just a single young woman seems to be charging at them.
“Hold it! No one’s allowed near the pillar!”
“Stop or we’ll shoot!”
Before they can even aim their guns, though, they witness something quite bizarre: two mighty dragon wings pop out from her back in a flash of light and she leaps into the air. They’re too startled and busy panicking to even start firing on her as she sails right over them and the fence entirely.
“Intruder detected! All units, fire at will!”
The sentries and paratroopers that had been quietly patrolling the tower waste no time firing away as soon as she appears in their range. However, not a single one of them can get a hit in. With a single smooth motion, she shoots high into the air and soars straight to top platform. Plenty of them below give chase and the ones waiting for her at the top begin shooting at her as well, but they’re just annoying, buzzing flies at this point.
And then, she lays down a counterattack. As soon as she lands onto the catwalk before the pillar’s control system, she slams her hands onto the platform with a spell already ready to cast. Suddenly, several smaller pillars of light sprout from the ground below and shoot straight up through every level of rafters and stairs, immediately obliterating any mobile targets in her vicinity. The sentries, rocket launchers, and paratroopers alike vanish in an instant; swept away into the ether like leaves to a broom.
Ruby then helps herself to the central computer that controls the pillar’s self-destruct system. Now, normally, the computer would only register input from an authorized source – such as an elite agent working for Shinra – but she finally has a chance to flex her coding skills. See, there are a few simple ways that a hacker can access someone’s account. One of the most common ways is phishing, or acquiring a user’s information without the person’s express permission, but that doesn’t apply here. It’s not like she has data from Shinra’s internal databases on hand at the moment. Another simpler way is much more direct: Ruby probably could just mug Reno or Rude for their ID cards when they show up. But, that’s a little brutish even for her. And certainly not the last, but a sneakier alternative is through abusing the encryption format itself. Now, usually this method requires knowing or at least having access to a system’s means of encryption, but hey, nothing a little check through the Debug Room won’t fix.
But she’s not quite in the mood to deal with “that guy” just yet. She’ll just access it through her personal computer. She opens up her trusty wrist guard again and dials a few things in to help her search. In less than a second, she pulls up references regarding Shinra’s rather liberal usage of a single encryption format across many of their more outdated systems – including that behind the Sector 7 pillar. Seems like they haven’t updated this stuff in years; go figure with those penny pinchers. She then writes in a simple program to create a cypher based on said encryption data and lets it run. In the meantime, she also codes up the option for her computer to link up to this computer wirelessly. It’s all completed within a single minute, and then she simply plants said cypher program into the pillar control system.
Bingo. She’s in. From here, it’s just a matter of reprogramming the bomb so that it won’t go off.
However, just as she’s getting to that, a Shinra helicopter finally arrives on the scene, and without even a warning, it begins to fire on her. She leaps out of the way in an instant – not for her own sake, but for the safety of the computer – and turns to face the incoming aggressors.
“Of course we’d find you here…”
Reno leaps out from the chopper and lands with a smooth roll upon the catwalk. He’s not alone; those pesky Mark III Monodrives fly around him as if they were being commanded by his electric baton.
Ruby snorts back. “Really? You’re coming at me with those things again? You weren’t impressed with the last time I blew them all up?”
“Whatever you did last time doesn’t count. We’re not here for you anyway.”
“Uh-huh. You’re here to activate the bomb.”
“Heh. So you already know. That makes things easier.” He whips out his electric baton and gets into a battle stance. “Don’t think things will go as easy as last time! I’m not playing around anymore.”
She shrugs. “Funny. I was about to say that I’m still playing around.”
That does tick him off a little. “Then get serious!”
He’s the first to charge in, but even before he can get in a few steps, she moves so fast that he’s completely caught off-guard. She grabs him, spins about on one foot, and just flings him away off the platform.
“Whaaa!?”
By some miracle, the helicopter swerves over in time to let Reno catch onto one of its legs, so he doesn’t fall too far. However, Ruby’s not out of the worst just yet. As soon as she lunged at him, the Monodrives were set to trigger the trapping pyramid again. She hops back out of the way as the tetrahedral force field buzzes alive and whips out her knife. She jams it into one of the lower corners, letting it explode. Still too easy.
With one of them down, the Monodrives resort to plan B: they split off far apart and begin to zip about in the air erratically. Despite that, they still seem to maintain positions in a way as to preserve a triangular shape between them that seems to flash in and out. Out of curiosity, Ruby lets them perform their dance around her. It seems like they’re charging up some powerful attack. What’s the worst that they’d have anyway?
As it turns out, it’s Trine, the ultimate non-Summon lightning magic. As soon as the Monodrives finish zipping about, they unload a powerful shock at the center of their “tetrahedron”.
Ouch… this attack actually hurt her! If she could see her own HP bar, it might have been chipped enough to be noticeable for once. That said, it’s nowhere near as bad as that time when the three Cactuars fired their Thousand Needles all at once. Still, credit where credit is due; this one stung her a little more than she was expecting. She’s not paralyzed and simply shakes off the jitters.
The three Monodrives are still recovering from their combo attack, so it doesn’t look like they’ll be able to use the spell again any time soon. Ruby’s seen enough anyway. She jumps at each of them and cuts them apart one by one, and turns back to the chopper with a rather bored look, daring them to step close again.
Reno is still hanging off of the helicopter’s leg and is staring in stunned silence at what he’d just witnessed. Even Rude, who had been ready to keep firing from his chopper hesitates to make his move.
“For crying out loud, what kind of monster is she…?” Reno mutters to himself. He then calls up to his partner, “Hey, Rude! What’s the plan now?”
“…Plan B, I suppose.”
“Man… This sucks. It feels like we don’t even have a point being here.”
“Climb on. We have to fall back.”
Reno grumbles, but obliges. He swings himself back up into the cockpit and shuts the door as he drops onto the backseat with a grumpy frown. Rude swings the chopper back around and begins to fly off.
However, just as they try to fly off, the helicopter is suddenly stopped in midair and throws them both forward just by inertia. As they try to recollect themselves, they then freeze up when they realize that the helicopter’s tail has been seized by Ruby in both arms.
“W-whoa! Hey! What’s the big idea, you crazy kid!?”
She doesn’t answer him. Instead, she swings around the chopper by the tail until both of them fall out of it and back onto the catwalk. And checking one last time that no one else is left inside, she promptly cracks the chopper’s tail in her arms without snapping the whole thing in two and chucks it far away in the direction of a certain train graveyard. She doesn’t even watch it fly off and explode in the distance. Instead, she drops right back down onto the platform with some cool swagger as she spreads her wings to assert dominance.
“Argh…”
Reno and Rude climb back to their feet relatively unharmed, though Rude has to readjust his shades as they went a little lopsided when they fell. But as they face her again, they’re both thoroughly shaken and hesitant to keep fighting.
Reno is still pissed enough to yell at her, though. “What the hell!? Can’t we even retreat in peace, you bitch!?”
Rude asks more calmly, “…What do you want with us?”
At first, she doesn’t reply and simply dismisses her wings in another flash. Then, as she glances off to think it over, she makes a disappointed shrug and admits, “To be honest, I’m not sure what I was even expecting. Maybe I just had the inkling of hope that I could get some kind of challenge out of you guys, but here we are.” She looks back to them with a serious frown. “You wanna fight? I’m up. I won’t even call for back-up.”
“Seriously?” Reno snorts, “I think we got the message. You’re too much to tackle right now.” He waves it away. “Maybe check back with us later when we get better upgrades or something.”
“Yeah, that’s a fair point.” She shrugs. “Welp, I guess I could always just take you two hostage. How about you just wait here while I finish hacking this thing?”
“Oh, come on! You’re gonna make us watch you ruin our job even further? You’re even more ruthless than I thought.”
“The alternative is that I drop you two off in the train graveyard with your chopper – or what remains of it.”
He raises his hands in surrender, but still keeps his scowl. “Alright, alright! We give. You do your thing…”
Rude has been silent throughout this entire awkward conversation, but he simply takes off his shades and gives them a polish again. There’s nothing else to be said at this point anyway.
Ruby returns to the computer and accesses the system’s protocol to the self-destruct mechanism. If there’s one catch to the way it’s been programmed, it’s that any careless alteration of the code will still activate the mechanism. However, as with many types of code that have such a catch-all scenario, all she has to do is tweak the catch’s procedure. She returns to her wrist guard computer to edit said procedure and submits the changes.
As if on cue, the system protocol initiates and the self-destruct mechanism is activated. However, the program was originally set so that there would be a mandatory wait time before the actual activation of the bomb that takes place. Previously, this was a mere 10 minutes; just enough time for any Turks to get in and get out without much hassle. Now, thanks to Ruby, it’s been changed to, oh, 1 billion seconds sounds good enough – or in other words, 30+ years.
She turns back to the two Turks with a shrug and a satisfied grin. “Whoops, I guess I triggered the bomb anyway. Just give it 30 or so years, though. It’s a slow burner.”
“…”
Neither man is amused, but neither wants to argue with her either. Reno is just grinding his teeth in frustration. Not only does she make an absolute joke of them in battle; she can even make an absolute joke of the company they work for just by hacking into their systems. Never mind the potential overtime they’ll have to serve to clean up this shit; they might just be at risk of being fired or at least demoted to some chump service job where they can’t do anything.
Like a proper lady, Ruby brings a hand over her mouth as she chuckles and muses to herself. If things are going this easy, she wonders how things are going for the rest of her friends back at Shinra HQ.
~
It feels like there’s no end to the fighting. The moment Cloud, Barret, and Tifa were dropped off in the Drum, they were forcibly initiated into a series of back-to-back battles with just about all of Hojo’s robo-sentries and lab monsters. For the most part, their coordinated teamwork allowed them to take out every enemy they’ve encountered so far – M.O.T.H. Units, Sledgeworms, Zenenes on the loose and even a gaggle of Brain Pods – though things did get a little shaky there when one of those naughty Sledgeworms jumped Barret and knocked him for a spin with its hammer. In his confused daze, he started firing off wildly (and missing wildly) until Cloud smacked him back to sense with the flat side of his sword. From there, Tifa cleaned up and even mediated things between the two men.
However, it’s obvious that the constant battles has taken their toll on them. Cloud has a great affinity for magic and had been pinpoint with his Cure casts while he wasn’t laying on the pain himself. Tifa’s agility let her toss around Potions and Ethers in a pinch and strike hard with precision. And of course, Barret has been their damage sponge who tanked most of the hits and fired back every chance he got. However, it’s not a full-proof strategy; that incident with the Sledgeworm was a prime example of what could go wrong. But more than that, none of them have such powerful spells or even the right Support Materia that would allow them to break through these waves, so they’ve burned through their remaining Potions and Ethers a little too quickly.
Things are looking grim, to be honest. They knew to expect tough battles ahead, but they still underestimated how quickly their resources would run out. Maybe it was just coincidence or maybe it was actually karma; but since Ruby had been involved in so many of their battles up to this point, they’d been getting away with a lot of situations that would have been hard scrapes otherwise. Now that she isn’t here to cover them for once, Cloud has begun to realize how little “experience” they’ve gathered so far. In other words, they’re severely underleveled and underprepared for this particular arena.
After cleaning up yet another wave of Brain Pods and Zenenes, the noxious gases these creatures have left behind is suffocating. It’s already bad enough that they’ve run low on Antidotes, but all this running around between levels and being repeatedly ambushed by M.O.T.H. Units and Sledgeworms along the way has left them lost and disoriented. Not to mention, this place is already a maze of catwalks, transparent sealed gates, and dead ends everywhere. Just where is the exit to this place!?
Finally, the team arrive upon what seems to be a round metal door that’s sealed tight with a massive wheel to turn to get it open. It looks like it’s not designed for humans to operate, so even when the three of them work together to try to pry it open, it doesn’t budge at all. Nor does shooting at it or slashing it seem to work either.
“You sure this is the exit…?” Barret grumbles as he heaves in exhausted panting.
“No…” Cloud bitterly admits, likewise panting in exhaustion in this polluted air.
“But it is a door. It has to lead somewhere, doesn’t it?” Tifa suggests.
She looks around to see if they can’t find some kind of device to operate it. Unfortunately, while there is some kind of computer terminal nearby, she can’t access it at all. It’s blocked off by a transparent metal gate, almost as if it were designed to be extra frustrating to anyone who happens to be stuck in a place like this.
Instead, the trio are once again greeted by the sinister yet snarky voice of Hojo over the intercom: “My, my. Stuck already, are we? Perhaps you should reconsider opening that door…”
As there isn’t any particular place where the voice seems to be transmitted through, Barret looks around them and shouts, “Shut up! Stop throwing your damn experiments at us and show yourself, you damn coward!”
“What’s gonna be behind this door?” Cloud asks.
“Hehehe… If you’re so eager to find out, I’ll be happy to show you.”
Tifa winces. “That doesn’t sound good…”
Hojo’s voice then goes silent as the intercom shuts off once more. Instead, they’re met with the sounds of the round mechanical door whirring into action. As the three step back from it, it finally unlatches and swings open on its own. Inside, there’s a large empty-looking tunnel that stretches off to some other section of the lab.
However, they don’t dare step forward into it just yet. There’s still more sounds of whirring machinery coming from down the tunnel, as if something else were coming this way. They brace themselves for yet another tough fight. Shortly, they meet their latest adversary: a huge eel-like machine made up of green plates and sharp spikes down its entire body and a buzzing chainsaw for a mouth flies out from the tunnel as if on a mission to tear through anything that gets in its way.
Wait. Or is it supposed to be a centipede made of swords? Is THAT what Ruby was talking about!?
Its chainsaw revs up with a fury as it charges them. They all leap out of the way in time, but Cloud happens to be split off from Barret and Tifa.
“Cloud!”
He doesn’t even get time to consider his next move when the Swordipede swings right for him with that threatening chainsaw. He can only keep jumping back and out of the way as the thing slashes around him and buries itself into the catwalk where he stands. It smashes through, boring a large hole in the path that can’t be easily leapt over, and unapologetically swerves back up again to charge at him again.
Cloud has already had enough of this damn eel. As it lunges at him again, he leaps up high and with a front flip, smashes his sword into the machine’s head with a Braver. Be it luck or skill or just brute strength, he so happens to plant the sword deep into its head.
However, the thing doesn’t blow up. It instead grows even more erratic as if it were angered. It starts rapidly zipping back and forth in the air to shake him off, and Cloud ends up losing grip on his sword as he’s flung off and plunges into the depths of the Drum below.
“Cloud!!” Tifa rushes to the railing, but can only helplessly watch him fall.
“Tifa, get back!”
Barret pulls her back just in time for the Swordipede to smash into their side of the catwalk. He fires back with his own fury, but unlike with Cloud’s Buster Sword, his bullets don’t dig nearly so deep as to harm the machine very much. But that’s never stopped Barret from keeping up the pressure.
Tifa climbs back to her feet, swearing under her breath. They’ve come this far already; they can’t go losing Cloud now. They can’t wait for Ruby to show up either; she must still be busy back in Sector 7. They have to beat this thing by themselves. It’s now or never.
While Barret continues his barrage, the Swordipede tries to retreat from the incessant rattling of bullets. Tifa runs along the path to chase after it and to find a good place to leap off at the railing. When it swerves back around to target her, she climbs the rails and leaps off to meet it head-on. She just narrowly avoids the chainsaw blades, catapults herself over it using the Buster Sword as a pivot, and swings around to land onto the machine’s head. She then immediately drives a hard Dive Kick right at the back of its head, sending it crashing into the railing instead. She then neatly leaps off of it as it spirals downward, crackling with sparks and dented metal.
However, it’s not done yet. Now furious itself, the Swordipede swings back up once more in a higher arc and begins to spin horizontally with its massive sword-spikes pointed out all around. It’s essentially turned itself into a giant chainsaw blade, and it flies right at the duo. While they manage to duck out of the way, it’s a different story when the Swordipede boomerangs back around at a perpendicular slant and razes the catwalk like a giant pair of shears. Though Tifa still gets out of the way, Barret tries to block the thing with his Gatling Gun. It doesn’t protect him completely, but he’s able to knock it off-kilter and it continues to rip into another part of the walls instead. However, as he raises his gun to fire it again, he realizes the bullets don’t come out.
“Shit! A jam!? Now!?” he yells as he tries to knock it back into form.
“Barret! Watch out!”
“Whoa!”
He narrowly avoids the Swordipede swerving right back at him with blades pointed. While it’s still spinning like this, though, it’s impossible for either of them to get too close or even land on it. Talk about the worst timing for Barret’s gun to jam. The only silver lining here is that the Swordipede doesn’t have any long-ranged attacks of its own to be able to stay in the back and camp them out. It has to approach, and it does so with a vengeance.
As much as he hates to put his gun through the ringer like this, Barret can’t really dodge this thing’s attacks. However, as it comes at him again, suddenly Tifa jumps in to shove him aside.
“Tifa!?”
“Aah!!”
She’s likewise cut and flung back against the back wall. Barret still manages to smash his gun right into the machine’s head while it flies by and sends it spiraling back down again. He then rushes over to Tifa to check on her.
“Are you crazy!? Why’d you take that hit!?”
“Ugh… I… didn’t want your gun to take any worse. You still need it…”
“Get a hold of yourself! I still need you too! And Cloud’s not done! He’s coming back up right now!”
“…?”
Tifa sits back up and desperately looks around for the guy, but he still isn’t back yet.
Barret sighs and admits, “…Probably. He fell pretty far.”
She turns back to him with a fearful look. “Wait. Where’s the machine?”
They turn back out to find that the Swordipede isn’t coming back up as it has been. However, there are still the sounds of metal ripping against metal down below.
While Barret and Tifa were struggling against the thing, Cloud found himself having landed pretty far down the levels and hit the wider platform on level 3 hard. Ouch. But he can still get up and keep fighting… that is, if he still had his sword. Shit. Now what?
Then, as if there was still some hidden blessing left for him, he happens upon a nearby chest. Desperately hoping that it has something useful, he pries it open and digs out its contents. It is indeed something he can use. In fact, it’s a large dual-bladed sword which wavy blades weave together into an almost teardrop shape from the hilt – the Twin Stinger.
Now we’re talking. Cloud snatches it and rushes off for the stairs.
He doesn’t actually have to wait too long when he notices the metal beast spiraling back down from above. Even as its head seems to be badly dented and crackling with electricity, it locks its sights back onto him and lunges recklessly with a Live Wire. But even though he just got this sword, almost as if by instinct, Cloud strikes a Counterstance and parries the attack, knocking the thing back. He then leaps onto its head again to rescue his poor Buster Sword.
By now, the Swordipede is acting up so much as if it were ready to go on a kamikaze mission now. It flies right back up with Cloud in tow, who now keeps a firm grip on his old sword while still wielding the new.
“It’s coming back!” Barret yells.
Tifa climbs back to her feet. She may be bruised and bleeding now, but she still got some fight left in her. But they’re both shocked to see that the Swordipede is carrying new luggage.
“Cloud!?”
“Grraaaah!!”
He finally wrenches the Buster Sword free from its scrap prison and proceeds to whale on the machine that held it for so long with both his swords. He actually manages to strike it hard and fast enough that it can’t immediately return to spinning around for another round of its Saw-Toothed Spin. As it tries to rid itself of its passenger, the Swordipede rams itself headfirst into a nearby wall, to which Cloud simply leaps off of it and back onto the platform where Barret and Tifa have been waiting.
“Cloud!” Tifa looks overjoyed as if she’s ready to tear up already.
“Sorry to keep you waiting.”
“Forget about it! Let’s finish this thing!” Barret shouts triumphantly.
The Swordipede has once again flown back up and out of reach, but then resumes its spinning pattern once more. But by now, Barret has somehow fixed up his jam and is firing away again. His bullets hit the less armored body and are plenty more effective this time, but then are rendered ineffective again once the machine regains its wild spin. However, this time, he’s not messing around anymore. He had been charging up a different attack while he was firing away again, and now it’s ready.
“Eat this, ya damn fish!!”
Barret unloads a Fire in the Hole directly at the thing, and this huge shot blows it up right out of its spin. It crash-lands onto their platform in a smoking, sparking heap, but it can still get up again.
“Cloud! Let’s go!”
Not for long. Tifa rushes in first with a mad flurry of Beat Rush into a mighty Somersault that kicks it right over to Cloud, who catches the mess with both his swords. And as if he were suddenly a master chef, he rips at it from both sides in a mirrored Cross-Slash – or rather, perhaps one could even say, a W-Cross Slash – and shears the entire thing in two. At long last, the metallic beast gives in and ends with a glorious boom as Cloud jumps back and swings the Buster Sword overhead in victory.
“Yeah!!” Barret pumps a fist in the air. “Now that’s how you do it!”
Tifa is panting hard in exhaustion herself, but makes a relieved smile. “We did it…”
Cloud wastes no time depleting the last of his MP to cast one last Cure for her, and she can get back to her feet.
“Thanks, Cloud.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“Hey… how about sharing some of that magic here too?” Barret then asks.
Cloud snorts back. “Sorry, but I’m out. We’re gonna have to get outta here to rest and restock on Ethers.”
“Tch… fine. Tifa needed it more anyway.”
Their short victory lap is promptly interrupted by clapping sounds coming from the intercom, and they all return to being pissed off.
“Bravo, my newest experiments! You’ve done well to keep up this far.”
“Enough of your damn announcements! Get out here already so we can beat your ass!” Barret snaps back as usual.
“Hahaha… Sorry to say, I’m a fair bit busy these days, so I don’t have that much time to keep entertaining you. As a matter of fact, I’ve gathered enough data for now…” He pauses and then adds in a mutter that’s still audible, “Though I must say, I’m a little disappointed that the Dragoness didn’t even bother to show.”
“Hah! Shows what you know. We didn’t even need Ruby for your crappy hunk-a-junks!”
Hojo simply ignores him and moves on, “Perhaps that will have to wait for another time. Very well, you’re all dismissed.”
“Wait! Hojo!” Cloud calls after him, “Does the door that you opened lead back down to the main lab?”
The man has already left and the intercom goes silent once more. Cloud swears under his breath and turns back to the others.
“Well, looks like we’re on our own again.”
“Hmph! Don’t matter. We got through all the worst parts, so we should be in the clear now! Let’s blow this joint already!”
And without a hint of hesitation, Barret charges on ahead through the huge, poorly lit tunnel that awaits them. Cloud sighs and Tifa smiles as they watch him go.
She nods with a look of determination. “Well, we should still be careful in case there’s anything else, but he has a point. We ought to be alright from here. Let’s go, Cloud.”
And with that, they hurry after Barret down the tunnel.
~
Ruby nods to herself with an assured smile. Yeah… they’re probably doing just fine.
But now that she thinks it over again, maybe things have been going a bit too easy. Surely, not everything in this adventure is going to be this easy for the rest of the journey, right? Well, she did cheat herself to become all-powerful from the start, so that much was definitely on her. But then the weird encounter with Jenova seemed to awaken some other latent power in her that has something to do with Rubia. She was still able to get another boost to her abilities through what basically amounts to a plot device. At this rate, she really has to wonder what else they’ll be facing that would even remotely trouble her anymore. Boy, would she hate it if she’d effectively just turned the whole story boring.
On that thought, she even secretly wishes that Sephiroth would make a move already. It’s only been the occasional “prank” here and general asshattery there so far from him, and it doesn’t feel like he’s a real threat. Granted, he did creep her out that one time and made her question what the hell she’s even doing in this world, but fine, he got one over her. He gets one and only one. The next time they meet, she ought to already have gained resistance to his wiles.
Ruby has been staring off into space for a bit thinking it over when her musings are interrupted by a sudden change on the computer screen before her. It’s Tseng on video call from somewhere.
“Reno, Rude. Report.”
Reno groans and Rude shakes his head. Reno then speaks for the both of them: “Bad news, Boss. This kid got in the way and hacked the control.”
Ruby pulls down on her eye and sticks her tongue out at Tseng. “It’s not gonna blow for another 30 years. Hope you guys have a backup plan in the works!”
“…” Tseng gives the other two some threatening side-eye, but rather quickly moves on. “As a matter of fact, we do.”
Ruby stops and blinks. “Uh, you do?”
He nods back. “Incidentally, there is a backup protocol in the case that the primary self-destruct mechanism fails. A secondary set of smaller bombs set around the main one have also been planted in the central pillar of each sector.”
Ruby’s jaw drops in disturbed horror. “What!? More bombs!?”
“If you must know, these ones cannot be hacked. They’re set on a fixed time limit as soon as the corresponding main bomb is activated. In the case that the main one doesn’t go off on its own, the rest will still follow through and help detonate the main one regardless.”
“What the hell is wrong with Shinra!?” she freaks out, “Why are ya’ll so ready to blow yourselves up!? In every sector, even!?? Is the infrastructure of this city just made of bombs!!??”
“You have 15 minutes. Use them wisely.”
Reno then slides in with a frantic wave of his hand. “Hey, Boss? Sorry to butt in, but we got a problem here. The kid also took our chopper and threw it away.”
“I’ll be right over. We’ve just picked up our guest of honor, after all.”
Ruby snaps back to attention. “Guest?”
Then, Tseng reveals a slim smirk and pans the camera over to the person sitting beside him. It looks like he’s broadcasting this call from a different helicopter. Oh, but of course things would turn out like this.
“Aerith!”
“Ruby! I’m sorry, but this is as much as I can do now.”
“What happened? Where’s Red?”
“We ran into some trouble with those yellow orb-things and he got trapped in the pyramid. I couldn’t get him out.”
“Ugh, those things again?”
Reno snickers to himself. “Heh. The rest of you aren’t so tough without your dragon, are ya?”
Ruby fires off a vicious glare that nearly stuns him just by that alone. She then turns back to Aerith. “Did you guys stop by the bar, at least? What about Marlene and Wedge’s cats?”
“I asked Tseng to send them to my place in Sector 5, so they’ll be fine. But in exchange, I have to go with him.”
“Okay. Oh, and wasn’t Marle watching over them too?”
“She was. We were going to get them all out when we ran into Tseng. He also offered to give her a ride, but she refused. She’s gone to help with the rest of the evacuation.”
Suddenly, Tseng moves the camera back. “Rest assured, I take any deals I take with the utmost care and attention. I’ve requested for another helicopter to escort them. In the meantime, I’ll be accompanying Aerith back to HQ as planned. As for you…”
Ruby cuts him off with a disgruntled growl. “Yeah, yeah. You also want me to head back there, right?”
“Well, that would be ideal, but I understand that we might not be able to force you.”
“Glad we’re on the same page there. But if you dare lay a hand on Aerith…”
Tseng frowns. “I have no intention of hurting her. However, I can’t guarantee what may happen to her after I deliver her back to the labs.”
“Yeah, yeah. I get it. I’m not leaving her in there.”
“Ruby, wait!” Aerith’s voice comes through from aside even though the camera isn’t on her anymore. “It’s okay. You don’t have to worry about me. Just focus on saving everyone else first, and then you can come pick me up later.”
“Oh, that’s exactly the plan, Cuz. Just sit tight. I’ll be with you soon enough. Leave the rest to me.”
“Okay, good. Just checking.”
Tseng glances aside to her and back to Ruby, and sighs to himself. “…We may have to reconsider alternatives in the case of yet another escape.”
“Sure thing, Boss. If you know how to stop a dragon God who can warp everywhere, I’m all ears,” Reno remarks sarcastically.
“We can discuss that another time, Reno,” he replies with a subtle tone of disapproval at his snark. And with that, the video call ends.
Shortly, the helicopter with him and Aerith has arrived by the pillar from elsewhere in Sector 7. While Reno and Rude quickly hop on as soon as the door opens for them, Ruby remains outside. Aerith makes a sad smile and waves a hand to her, to which Ruby returns a salute, and the door closes up again. The helicopter then flies off.
Ruby runs off and hops over the railing to spread her wings once more. As she zips across town, she quickly returns to Seventh Heaven, where she spots another helicopter in the vicinity that has arrived as well, as Tseng had arranged per Aerith’s request. However, she also notices another squad of Mark III Monodrives nearby that have captured Red, and even before the backup chopper can reach the ground, Ruby shoots straight to the ground and blows up all of the Monodrives in an instant.
Red hops out from the collapsing force field. “Ruby! I’m sorry!” He bows his head in shame. “I let Aerith be captured.”
“Don’t worry about it. Cloud and the others are still back there too, so we’ll go back for them all later.”
“A-are you sure? You’re not troubled in the least by this…”
Ruby gives him a reassuring nod. “Relax. If anything, I’m more concerned that these people won’t have enough time to get out.”
“Were you able to do something about the bomb?”
“Yes, I even delayed it by 30 years. The problem is the backup bombs that will be triggered anyway if the main one doesn’t blow. We only have about 15 minutes.”
“Hmm, that is troubling…” He then glances off two different directions toward Sector 6 and then 8, and back to her. “In any case, Wedge and the other Avalanche members have been getting the word out, and aside from a few odd exceptions, the residents have begun to evacuate. However, it seems the gate to Sector 8 is sealed shut and cannot be opened, and there seems to be some sort of holdup at the entrance to Sector 6 as well.”
“I expected as much for Sector 8. Ever since the first bombing incident, that side’s been blocked off to anyone.” She strikes a thinking pose as she continues, “As for Sector 6’s side, if I recall, there are just a couple stubborn guards at the fence there. You can go help them through.”
“Me?”
“Yeah. Just yell at them to open up.” She snickers. “I’m sure they’d be shocked enough that the mob would be able to rush them. They are just two lone guards.”
“Well, alright. I’ll see what I can do. And you?”
“I’ll check by Sector 8’s side and blow a hole open.”
“I see.” He nods back. “Sounds like a working plan. I’ll be waiting for you in Sector 6, then.”
She salutes him too. “Yep. See you soon.”
And with that, Red dutifully leaps off in the direction as planned. Ruby watches him disappear around the corner and then turns away to jump back into the air once more, transforming completely into dragon form in another flash. It seems the pilot of the other helicopter was hesitant to even land while Ruby was present, but finally does so.
While there are normally guards who would be posted before the Sector 8 gate to prevent any stragglers from crossing over to this side, Ruby instead finds the area deserted. Most people of Sector 7 would know not to head this way, but it doesn’t hurt to have more options, especially when it comes to emergency evacuations. Fortunately for her, there don’t seem to be any civilians around either to get caught in the crosshairs.
So, Ruby gets down to business and charges up a much more manageable Flare to blast a hole in said door. The explosion startles security on the other side; many of whom definitely weren’t expecting anyone to even come this way.
“What the hell was that!?”
“Are we under attack?”
“Wait! Look! That’s…!”
The guards on post freak out as soon as they spot an ominously glowing white dragon fly out into the skies from the dust of the explosion. Word has been getting out about the incident at the 7-6 Annex base, after all. The last thing they’d want to do is be caught in something similar.
Ever since the first bombing incident, security has been on high alert in the immediate areas around the former reactor, but the slums themselves, while having been hit by some severe blackouts, were largely untouched and everyone down here remained where they lived. Nevertheless, under some vague pretenses for “safety”, another platoon of Soldier was likewise stationed down here as well. In a way, it were almost like Shinra had been hiding some of their stronger forces here in case they were ever needed to launch a “surprise raid” on Sector 7 in the near future.
All in all, as soon as Ruby enters into Sector 8 by herself, she finds herself being surrounded by an impressive amount of battle-ready Soldiers. However, judging by the color of their uniforms – they’re all 3rd class. Not even a single 2nd or 1st class. How disappointing. Granted, even if they were all 1st class, she would still sweep anyway, but this honestly feels insulting. The Turks are lucky enough to get their own shiny new Monodrive variants, but this side of town is still populated by the same level of threats as usual. She’s well aware that she’s still in the “early game” of this adventure – basically, still stuck on Disc 1 despite being at a level suitable to Discs 2 and 3 – but she could still use some variety or surprise sometimes.
As if to mark the start of the battle, an incoming lightning strike is the first attack to reach her. And in one fluid motion, she catches the bolt in one hand, cups the energy in both hands and molds it into a ball. She expounds on the magic, upgrading it straight to a Thundaga, and lets it fly back at her enemies in a wildly explosive burst. And even before her ball of lightning finishes crackling away, she’s already charged forth into their ranks with claws out.
Once again, she finds herself in a very familiar situation, almost to the point of mundanity. Enemies come to swarm her, but she swats them away not unlike with a flyswatter – but if the flyswatter was also loaded with bladed hooks. She’s getting so damn bored. How about a change of pace sometime, game?
~
High above all the chaos, the president’s office has a good view of the city. Things haven’t quite been happening all according to plan, however. President Shinra is comfortably seated at his desk, but he grows impatient at the lack of updates.
He toys with the remote detonator in his hand, musing to himself over all the power he wields in such a compact device. It isn’t just a big red button on a black box either. There is a small display screen just above the button that shows the number 7 in digital font, and there are a couple switches just below the button, as well as a smaller one on the side. With but a simple flick of a finger, one could potentially switch the number displayed and thus the direction of the remote’s signals. There is a number for every one of the Sectors, in fact – even the remains of Sector 6 in Wall Market have their own pillar – and a self-destruct mechanism built into each one.
The mechanism was there from initial design. They needed a simple way to deconstruct the city in case of “emergencies” or if they ever decided to move cities entirely. After all, the Neo-Midgar Project waits for no one. It also makes a nice convenience for a man who would rather sacrifice many innocent lives to crush any and all resistance from any rebel group that believes they can hide anywhere in this city.
He still hasn’t received a call of confirmation from the Turks or Heidegger. What’s taking them so long? While he has no qualms triggering the remote himself if he must, it’s almost insulting that such a simple operation would required his own action.
He finally gets up from his seat with the remote in hand and steps over to the window to get a better view of the situation – or rather, the ensuing show. He sets his arms behind him and lets off a bored sigh. It should be any minute now… but just in case there were any delays that have yet to be reported, he keeps a finger over the button.
Shink. Before the man can even react, he feels a long sharp blade shoot right through his chest from behind him. It happens so fast that he doesn’t even know how to react. One moment, he was at the height of his power, with a device in hand that could shape the future of this city – nay, the world – as he saw fit. And the next, he drops to the floor in completely numb shock and feels his consciousness quickly fade away. The remote bounces lightly as it hits the floor and lands by the feet of another man.
Sephiroth casually removes his katana from the old man’s body and crouches down to pick up the remote. He gives it a curious examination and then makes an amused smirk. Interesting. While he expected there would be a number of notable changes to the timeline thanks to Ruby’s interference, and a development such as the creation of this device was fairly predictable, it’s still a pleasant surprise that everything would fall right into his hands. It’s almost as if even Destiny itself favored him – well, it’s not like it would have a choice in the matter.
He idly plays with the switches to try out a few things, though it seems the switches up front are correlated to altering frequency and jamming purposes. However, there is one other switch on the side. He gives it a flick, and the number on display then switches from a 7 to an 8. With a conniving smile, he hits the button and then proceeds to crush the entire device in his hand, so it would not be used again.
For a brief moment of silence, he stares out the window toward Sector 8, and then turns off and strolls back down the stairs. He has one more place to be while he’s back at HQ.
~
Ruby sighs miserably. She has returned to her human form and sits atop the Sector 8 gate, facing away from Sector 7, and stares down at the absolute mess that she’s left. So much for her “heroic” act. This looks like the scene of a horror movie where the heroes come out from shelther and everyone else is dead. As the area begins to fill with the faint green glow of souls returning to the planet, she contemplates over questions of morality, and of the significance of life and death. Even though she came in with completely different intentions, she realizes that she’s still taking on the role that Rubia played long ago as a weapon of wanton destruction. And now in this “upgraded” body since her encounter with Jenova, it’s only gotten harder to temper herself. Even a soft jab with her elbow or a slap in the face has the touch of death.
But even in the case that she hadn’t killed them all, she would still have left a whole lot of unconscious bodies around, and no civilian in their right mind would want to come this way anyway. It’s just a lose-lose situation; a terrible lapse in her strategy. Why did she bother to come this way? Was it just to flex her skills on the plebs? Is that it?
Her thoughts are promptly interrupted when she receives a call on walkie-talkie and picks up. “Yo.”
“Ruby, where are you?”
“Hey, Cloud. I’m on the edge between Sectors 7 and 8.”
“You’re… what?”
“I’m literally sitting on the gate between them.”
“What are you even doing there- No, never mind that. What’s the situation? Did you stop the bomb?”
“The main bomb has been neutralized.”
“The ‘main’ bomb?”
“Apparently, it’s not just one. According to the Turks, there’s a secondary set of bombs around the main one that are due to go off in a few minutes.”
“What!?”
“No, no! It’s okay! I can just weld the pillar back together even if it blows. I promise, the upper plate’s not gonna fall.”
There’s a pause for silence on the other end, but Ruby can make out the sounds of someone sighing. Whether or not it’s of relief or disappointment, she can’t tell.
Now Barret speaks up, “Ruby, what about Wedge and the others? Did Marlene make it out yet?”
“Yeah. Marlene’s fine. Wedge and a few others are helping the residents evacuate. I asked Red to join them while I opened up a way into Sector 8 just in case… but uh, I found it’s not that safe here anyway.”
“Ah. Well, good work.”
Ruby shrugs. “Good work” might not be the most accurate phrase to describe what she’s done, but at least she’s done something good.
Then Tifa asks, “Wait. What about Aerith? She was with you guys, right?”
“Uh…” She grimaces as she reports, “She was, but she got caught by the Turks.”
“What!?” Cloud suddenly comes back to yell, “Ruby! How did that even happen? What were you doing!?”
“Stopping the bomb, of course. I single-handedly cleared the whole pillar of enemies.”
“…”
Tifa then asks again, “Then, is Aerith coming over here to Shinra HQ?”
“Yeah. They’re just taking her back to the labs, but given the state that I’ve left it in, who knows where they’ll be putting her.”
“Then, maybe we can run into her later?”
Cloud answers, “Who knows, we’re stuck in here too.”
Ruby quickly catches on. “Oh, right. You said you guys were in the Drum, right? Have you guys found your way out yet?”
“Nope. We managed to take out everything Hojo had for us and found our way to the bottom level. The problem is: the door to the elevator to floor 66 is locked. We can’t go back up either since some of the walkway was destroyed during our battles. Hojo’s not here anymore. We’re out of options.”
“Ah, that sucks. Did you try breaking it open?”
“What do you think we are, you? Just come over and get us out already.”
“Sure, soon as I’m ready to go. I’m still waiting on this big boom and all, so I can fix the pillar-”
She’s interrupted by a sudden explosion nearby. What the? That can’t be the Sector 7 bomb. It’s too soon. Then, this one is… No. Sector 8!?
“What was that? Did the bomb…?” Cloud asks, alarmed.
“No, worse.”
“Worse? What do you mean?”
“Can’t talk. Gotta go.”
“Hey!”
Ruby hangs up, putting it away, and transforms once again to shoot off in the direction of the Sector 8 pillar. Her mind and heart are racing. What the hell is happening right now!? Who would want to blow up Sector 8!? It’s got nothing to do with any of this mess in Sector 7! The Turks were just here, so it’s not them. No, unless… could it have been a spur-of-the-moment executive order? But as cruel and relentless as he is, why would the president do such a thing? It wouldn’t benefit him at all!
She comes to the burning and slowly crumbling pillar and fires a searing white laser at the broken structure to heat up the metal enough that it’ll melt and weld together on its own. Unfortunately, a quick fix like this won’t be able to hold off disaster for long. While the pillar doesn’t completely collapse in on itself, it’s not as strong or as tall as it had been. In fact, the gap is huge, and the massive plate above begins to creak and groan under its own weight. Ruby then flies up to meet it and holds it up with her own claws, and after a brief struggle with balancing the pressure as to not to push it too hard, she manages to help stop the creaking.
But this isn’t a solution. She can’t be stuck here; Sector 7 is still in danger and she’s the only one who can help. But what does she do now? There are still so many people living here in this sector. She can’t evacuate them all right now. While she’s in this form, she can’t access her radio. And though she can try to report to Aerith, her poor cousin has also been captured, so she can’t come to help either.
Goddammit! This is the worst possible outcome that could have arisen. Who the hell was the evil bastard!? Who would be insane enough to turn what could have been a manageable hassle into a catastrophe!? Only the most sadistic of minds could have possibly done this…
And that’s when it hits her. Oh, of course. She knows of a certain very sadistic mind, and sure enough, he would dare to put her in such a situation. As soon as the revelation had come to her, though, she feels oddly calm. Not a single F-bomb ready to fire. Rather, she’s simply in shock and awe over everything that led up to this moment. After all that has happened since the beginning, just when things were looking up and Ruby was about to complete yet another victory lap around Shinra and Midgar; it was about time that she would come to face an actual challenge. She almost forgot about it in all the chaos she’d been stirring up for these past few days, but she is still participating in a certain “game” for the fate of the planet.
And finally, Sephiroth has made his move, just like she was hoping. In fact, one could even say that this move has put her side of the chessboard in a check.
Now she feels ashamed too. It’s not just about “knowing better” or that she should have been “more careful”. It genuinely feels like she’s at least partly responsible for tempting fate, and now that the karma behind her arrogance has come to catch up with her, she has nothing to say to defend herself.
But there’s no time to be moping around in defeat. Sector 7 still needs her. Besides, she may have been checked, but it’s not checkmate. Sadly, she has no choice but to make a difficult castling move; to sacrifice one sector for another and for her own sake.
In the distance, she likewise hears the boom that she had been awaiting. Time’s up. As she releases her hold on the upper plate, it returns to creaking and groaning as if in agony. She makes a solemn bow to the undercity beneath her that is in absolute chaos and panic. Unfortunately, this is just how things have turned out.
Goodbye, Sector 8.
Notes:
A few details to note that I couldn't fit into the story itself:
Hidden for convenience
- According to data from the original FF7, Trine is actually not the strongest non-Summon lightning magic. Even with the 2/3x multiplier on linking Lightning == All, Bolt 3 is still stronger than Trine. Let us ignore this fact and pretend that Trine is actually on par with Aqualung or Beta, two other very powerful elemental Enemy Skills.
(So, just throwing out a guess without calcs here: Ruby probably took around 900 HP damage out of 6000+, assuming her HP is relatively close to OG Cloud's level up progress.)
- The helicopter flew toward the end of the train graveyard. Eligor haters rejoice.
- Interestingly, the Sledgeworms found in Remake are slightly different from their counterparts in the original (Hammer Blaster :D ). They can inflict Poison with their hammer strikes, rather than Confusion. In fact, "Confusion" isn't even listed among status effects in Remake. I wonder why that is? I've decided to keep to the original design because I had plenty of funny moments when I was playing OG FF7 where I'd have Cloud and Barret attack each other if they were confused. But I never hurt Tifa even when she was beating up the others. <3
- The layout of the Drum is incredibly confusing even with map screenshots in a walkthrough. I've tried my best to visualize their exact locations, but it's much too complicated to describe without another page of footnotes. My apologies.
- The joke about Midgar being made of bombs is an OLD throwback gag. I long had the headcanon that the real reason Sephiroth targeted Midgar during Meteorfall in OG was because it was like smashing a rock into a bomb to make it blow up.
- Following the general time frame of events, Episode Intermission should be underway around this point, but unfortunately, I couldn't find a place to squeeze in Yuffie and Sonon for now. But they will be appearing eventually!
- Finally, why did Sephiroth choose Sector 8 of all places? Was it just to bully Ruby? Was he not satisfied with Remake's events of the plate fall? Or does he actually have a vendetta against S8? There may be other reasons not listed as well. Have fun speculating!
(Anyone who suggests "Loveless" gets a free cookie of your choice of flavor.)
Chapter 14: Storm Surge
Notes:
FFVII Day edit
1/31/23 edit: Happy FFVII Day, everyone! Quick heads-up that next chapter will be a little late, but I'm working on it! The next two chapters will be a little "Intermission" if you will. ;)
3/26/23 edit: Oops. Forgot to correct this. It's the next 4 chapters. Sometimes I forget the chapters in Remake are almost twice as long.
--
Sorry for the long wait, everyone! Happy Lunar New Year! It's bunny boom season, and I cannot think of a good joke here. I guess Carbuncle looks enough like a bunny, but the one in FFVII Remake looks more like a cat... Ah, wait, the Vietnamese zodiac has a cat instead of a rabbit. It counts!
Boy, this one is definitely the longest chapter I've written so far and has undergone some huge revisions through writer's block. I don't think I'll make it a habit to write them this long, but sometimes it's tricky to find the best breakpoints. (Notes continued at end)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“Ruby! Damn… what the hell is going on out there?”
Cloud, Barret, and Tifa find themselves trapped at the bottom of the Drum in Hojo’s lab. Unfortunately, the door to the elevator that leads to the lower floors of this lab is also locked, and with the man in charge gone, they have no way to break through it. They pinned their hopes on Ruby to warp in and take them out, but clearly she’s too busy to help them right now. Who knows when things will settle down from here?
Tifa looks horrified. “That sound just now. Did Sector 7 really just…?”
Barret frowns, but tries to reassure her, “But Ruby’s on it, right? She said she’ll be able to fix things.”
“Yeah…” But she still remains deeply worried.
Cloud sighs as he puts the walkie-talkie away. “Well, it’s not like we can do anything but hope she does.”
Barret makes a low growl in frustration. “Of all the times to be stuck somewhere like this! Ruby, Red, Wedge… They’re all out there putting in real work, and here we are, beaten by a Goddamn maze! I didn’t even get to ask her about Biggs and Jessie.”
“Oh, gosh! With everything happening, I almost forgot about them,” Tifa admits with a guilty look. “They were looking into Avalanche’s main branch and what they have to do with Wutai, right?”
“Yeah, but whatever happened, they oughta be better off than we are. We might be treading on some thin ice with HQ, but at least they’re not that trigger-happy. At the worst, those two would just be caught and sent off somewhere outta the way.”
She makes a sigh. “Let’s hope so. We already have so much to worry about right now.”
Cloud then cuts back into the conversation, “So where does that leave us? We’re just sitting ducks waiting around here. Hojo might have called off his tests, but who knows what else we’ll run into…”
Barret replies matter-of-factly, “Like ya said, we don’t got a choice but to wait for Ruby. Unless you got some better idea of how to get outta here?”
“…”
An awkward silence comes over them three as they all try to figure out what to do now. Is there really nothing else they can do from here, but wait for Ruby or even Aerith when she makes it over?
Suddenly, an eerily calm voice joins in their discussion and startles them all: “Need a hand?”
Cloud feels like a rock was just forcibly plunged down his throat and he chokes up. No. That voice, it can’t be…
All three of them whip around and find it’s none other than Sephiroth who has arrived out of nowhere. They didn’t even hear his footsteps until his voice came in, and now the sounds to his almost ethereal steps finally follow. Cloud and Tifa gasp in horror, while Barret simply looks confused. They’re all speechless as Sephiroth walks right past them to the elevator’s door. He draws his long blade, and with a simple flick of his wrist, cuts the door apart. Then, he turns back to Cloud with a rather nonchalant look.
“You’re free to go wherever you may, but I would recommend that you make a stop on this next floor before you leave.”
Cloud and Tifa still seem to be frozen in shock, so Barret replies instead, “Uh, thanks? Who are you anyway?”
Sephiroth casually passes a glance toward the other two as if to direct him to ask them. And with that, he turns away again and walks off.
Before he goes too far, though, Cloud finally snaps out of it. He draws his sword and gives chase.
Tifa calls out after him, “Cloud! Wait!”
“Sephiroth!”
The man stops for a moment and turns back, only to be met with the Twin Stinger’s blades at his neck. Nonetheless, he remains totally unfazed.
“What are you doing here?”
“Opening the way for you.”
“No. What are YOU doing here?”
“…” Then, that eerie smile returns. “Keeping an eye on Ruby, naturally. If you know what’s best for you, you would do the same.”
“What the hell do you want with her? She’s not even here.”
“Yet. But if you wish to know more, then stop by floor 66. A certain someone will be there waiting for you.”
“What?”
Sephiroth says no more and turns away to walk off again. Cloud tries to catch him again, but a mysterious black wind begins to blow around the man and it knocks Cloud back. By the time he gets his bearings again, the sliver-haired phantom has disappeared as suddenly as he had appeared.
“Cloud!”
Tifa and Barret hurry over to catch up with him. She asks with a wavering lip, “Just now… that wasn’t just an illusion, right?”
“…” Cloud looks down in guilt. All the secrets he had been holding from her have been spilled, leaving him without a cover anymore. “Tifa… Ruby and I, we didn’t mean to keep things from you.”
“…”
He then nods back. “But yeah. Sephiroth is alive, and Ruby’s been confronting him for a while now. I’m still trying to figure out what they have to do with each other, though.”
Tifa looks down too with a heavy heart. “So, that time when Ruby said she was going to return to ‘that place’ in the Lifestream, she was going there to find him, wasn’t she?”
“Yeah. But by the sounds of it, she ran into him earlier when she was brought to Hojo’s lab yesterday. Something must have happened between them. The next time we saw her again, she had these weird marks on her face.”
She turns back to him with a soft gasp. “Wait. You mean those marks were because of their meeting?”
“I don’t know. But it sure is suspicious.”
“Ruby… She just passed it off like it was nothing. I had no idea.”
“Same here. She’s just always moving on like nothing happened. Even that time she was suffering from her Geostigma, she was just in a bad mood for a bit, but was all better the next morning.”
“…”
The two of them return to a rather solemn silence. Barret, now even more confused than ever, looks between them and crosses his arms as he tries to think about it all.
“So, if I got things right so far,” he begins, “Ruby’s been dealing with this ‘Sephiroth’ guy, huh?”
“Yeah,” Cloud replies dryly.
“And they’ve been meeting up somewhere in the Lifestream?”
“Yeah. At least, that’s what she told me.”
Barret pauses again and then makes an awkward frown. “But instead, the last time they met was somewhere in this lab, and that’s when he gave her some tattoos? What’s that all about?”
“…”
All the tension on Cloud’s face suddenly vanishes as he stares back in disbelief. Even Tifa looks a bit taken aback and shifts awkwardly.
“Hey, don’t give me that look, man. I don’t know anything about this guy, so fill me in. Is he a real piece of work that we should worry about, or is he just some weirdo that Ruby can deal with?”
“…” Not in the mood to spill his life’s story right now, Cloud simply returns his sword to his back and gives him an annoyed frown. “Whatever he’s up to, it’s bad news. If anything, we’re lucky that he wasn’t in the mood to kill.”
“W-what? He was gonna kill us!?”
“Who knows. I can never guess what he’s thinking.”
Barret snorts defiantly. “Hmph! Then he’s a damn idiot if he wants a fight! Next time we see him, I’m fillin’ his head fulla lead!”
Cloud ignores him and turns back to Tifa. “In any case, we have to meet up with Ruby asap. If he’s just wandering around freely, then something must have happened with her.”
She nods back with a look of determination. “Right.” It still has a hint of worry, though. “Cloud, we can’t let her meet with Sephiroth alone again. It’s too risky.”
“I was thinking the same thing. If she really has to meet with him, then we should at least be there with her.”
“All of us,” she asserts.
Barret nods along and pumps up his gun-arm. “Hell yeah! Whoever messes with Ruby messes with all of us! We’ve got her back!”
Cloud nods too. He then turns toward the door. “Anyway, the way’s finally open. Let’s go.”
The intrepid trio proceed into the elevator, which is thankfully still functioning despite how Sephiroth destroyed its outer gate, and they descend and finally escape the clutches of this unnecessarily perplexing maze of the lab.
They enter floor 66 with caution, fully expecting to be ambushed by more forces that may still be on patrol, but when they step out of the elevator and cross the catwalk, they find that the entire place is deserted. There’s the foul smell of mako leaking from some emptied tanks that once held more of those strange lab monsters, but the monsters themselves are gone – almost as if they had been removed from existence. There are also deep gashes that run across all the machinery and walls as if a terrifying beast had run rampant in here.
“Whoa…” Barret remarks with a raised eyebrow, “Looks like something wild happened.”
Tifa frowns, feeling a bit unnerved. “Whatever it was, it doesn’t seem to be here anymore.”
“Say, didn’t Ruby say she came by this lab before? You think she dealt with some kind of monster?”
“Maybe… By the looks of it, they had quite the fight. Even the metal looks like it’s been warped and torn apart like paper.”
But even stranger still, Cloud catches onto something that those two don’t seem to notice: the faint scent of blood. It doesn’t seem to be coming from the broken mako tanks, though. Instead, there’s a thin trail of blood spots that seems to come from some other room on this floor. He can’t quite explain it, but he feels like something is calling to him to follow this trail. As Barret and Tifa take a look around and continue discussing, he begins to wander off on his own.
There’s this indescribable sense of dread that creeps over him as he presses forward down the corridor, and yet as if there were some kind of spell that had come over him, he continues on without once turning back. And as soon as he rounds the corner into this other spacious room, he comes face to face with the source of that dread.
The enigmatic being known as Jenova has been sitting in her tank, waiting for him. She doesn’t even have her head at the moment, but her influence remains as palpable as ever.
As soon as Cloud realizes what he’s looking at, he’s hit with a piercing headache. And yet, he doesn’t step back or flee. Rather, he’s only further drawn toward the tank and continues to march on even amid the burning pain in his head. By the time he steps right up to the tank to meet Jenova up close, he starts to feel faint, as if his soul itself were ready to up and leave him.
“…M… Mother…”
With that single utterance under his breath, he tips over his own feet and collapses to the floor.
~
Cloud awakes with a start – that is, “awakes” in a manner as if he had just jumped from one place of thought to another. It’s happening again. He’s found himself in another weird dream where he has no idea where he is or what he’s doing here.
This time, he’s standing at the foot of a large golden temple in the shape of a giant pyramid. There are some people who have gathered here as well, but these people are all cloaked in black robes not unlike those unfortunate victims that he’s seen around in the slums. They all have their heads hung as if deep in prayer and are walking in a single line across the bridge and into the temple’s entrance.
However, among the crowd, he spots a familiar face – or rather, a familiar-looking white cloak. It may be Rubia. She silently walks past the line, moving as if gliding almost like an ephemeral spirit herself, and heads inside as well.
Out of morbid curiosity, Cloud follows her inside. As with last time, no one seems to pay him any mind. He slips past all the people and cuts ahead of the line. There’s just a single spacious room here, with large pillars marking the main walkway up to what seems to be a table with some kind of mystical-looking rock on it. Strangely, when the people in line walk up to the table, they then disappear into the floor. Rubia is already gone. Did she descend with the rest? He slips in front of the line and takes a step where the last robed figure had disappeared and too begins to sink into the floor as if it were quicksand. And yet, he remains oddly calm as he lets himself sink.
When he opens his eyes again, he’s dropped into a huge labyrinth of stone pathways that criss-cross each other in seemingly random ways and there are a number of paths that only seem to hit dead ends. Down below him, the line proceeds across the cobbled walkways, down ladders made of thick vines, and through winding tunnels that lead back out to different places of this labyrinth. And yet, the people in the line continue on their way along this preordained path as if they were obligated to a particular doorway all the way at the bottom.
As he keeps looking around, he spots Rubia taking her own path, a shortcut, down an invisible bridge that lights up the trail where she has tread. The path glows faintly, but doesn’t seem to be disappearing right away; like it’s waiting for him. No one else seems to notice it, though. Does he dare step off the trodden road?
Might as well. Rubia isn’t stopping for him, and he doesn’t want to lose sight of her. With a deep breath, he takes a step forward onto the faintly glowing “bridge” and is relieved to find that he can walk along it. However, as he takes a few more steps off the main road, he notices the bridge begins to fade behind him. So there’s no going back, huh? Fine, he wasn’t planning to retreat. He hurries along the lit-up bridge to catch up with her.
It leads him directly to the doorway that the long line has been heading toward. When they step on through, he finds himself in a completely different room – one that appears to be on an elevated platform hanging over an endless abyss – where a faintly glowing pool of magic lies at the back of this platform. The line continues on past this pool. He happens to catch Rubia’s robes disappear out the other door too. Though the pool does pique his curiosity, he decides to keep going.
Now, the setting changes again for the even stranger. Below his feet is an empty abyss to which he can’t see the bottom. Up ahead where the line of people are walking, they cross a narrow bridge from the door he stepped out from to one of the other eleven doors that seem to lead somewhere else. In a way, if viewed from above, the entire thing looks like a giant clock. Perhaps in a different time, this clock would be moving, but for now it has been stopped at the 10:30 mark. Rubia continues to cut through the line, so he does the same.
Through this next door he proceeds, and here, he finds himself on the top level of a massive chamber of tunnels. The people in line seem to be walking in and out of the tunnels in orderly fashion and without stopping. Even the tunnels seem to be magical in nature, as following the direction of the line, the people appear in different places and on different levels depending on the tunnel they enter. But for some reason, the line seems to loop right back to a different tunnel on this top level. What the heck is this? Why are they just wandering around endlessly?
Across the top level of this large chamber room is a brilliantly adorned gate with double doors, where Rubia has stopped. Almost as if she were waiting for him, she stares idly at the doors until he approaches. Once he’s come with a few feet, she then grabs the lock on the door handles, and by some silent incantation, the lock cracks open as if on command and the doors seem to open on their own for her. She then steps inside without looking back. Cloud watches her carefully from a reasonable distance, but realizes the doors are starting to close back up. Before they do, he rushes inside.
Now he finds just a single long corridor lit up with torches. The walls are covered entirely in murals that tell the history of an ancient people. These people in the murals look a little different from the Cetra he saw from the last visionary dream. They aren’t dressed the same and may be a different race of people entirely. Most of them look like commoners who are dressed very plainly in loose robes, and some only have waistcloths on, but the ones leading them tend to be adorned in gold and jewelry. By the looks of it, they are workers who helped construct the temple in the first place.
Rubia is looking at one of these murals with a sad, almost wistful face. Cloud steps up beside her, and now that he takes a closer look at her face, he notices the same red streaks running down from her eyes that had appeared on Ruby’s face. It’s as if the two were gradually merging into one in some ways. He also takes a look at the mural before her. This one seems to focus on some sort of black sphere of great importance – judging by how it’s set on a podium and seems to be emanating some sort of energy from it.
But then, Rubia suddenly speaks up and it spooks him a little: “How curious that we would meet again here of all places.”
“H-huh? Are you talking to me?” he asks.
“Yes. I led you here in the first place. Be glad that you didn’t have to tread the entire road by yourself.”
“…”
Though Rubia’s voice is identical to Ruby’s, there’s a certain regal air about her that easily distinguishes her from the latter. While Ruby can be a lot to handle sometimes, at least she’s pretty easy to approach. Rubia is the exact opposite; she has a certain intimidating presence to her that makes him feel uneasy just standing next to her.
“So what is this place?”
“An ancient temple with a name long forgotten. Even the people of this era simply called it the ‘Great Southern Pyramid’.”
“You mean, it’s even more ancient than even the Cetra?”
“…Incidentally,” she offers a more accurate correction, “The word ‘Cetra’ describes people of all kinds. Any people who have lived or still live on this planet, regardless of their differing cultures or races, may be called ‘Cetra’. In your present day, the equivalent term is ‘human’.”
He blinks. “Huh.”
She then shakes her head. “But such labels are completely arbitrary. I’ve traveled through time long enough to see it. Though most fail to realize it, there ultimately is no discernable difference.”
He crosses his arms. “Really? ’Cause most of us aren’t able to talk with the planet or anything.”
“That is because the people of your time have given up on the planet and refuse to listen to its cries.”
“Huh? ‘Refuse’? But even if we try to listen…”
“Have you really, sincerely tried? To cast away all your personal thoughts and troubles and dive into a deep meditative state? Only when your mind is clear will you be able to hear what you have missed.”
“…”
He pauses to take a moment to think it over. To be fair, when has he ever really considered doing so? Everyone just takes the planet for granted as the place where they all live. Even when people die, they just return to the Lifestream like some kind of afterlife and life moves on. But when the planet is in trouble, no one bats an eye – well, aside from a few people he knows.
Rubia turns away again for the murals. “To answer your earlier question, yes. The ones who built this temple long preceded those you had seen in your last vision.”
“You know about the vision I saw before?”
“Of course. I was the one who sent it to you.”
“Why? What do I have to do with it?”
“…” She passes him a curious glance as if mildly amused by that question, but then looks away again as she replies, “Depending on what you find out about yourself, the answer to that question may change.”
His mouth opens as if he wanted to reply, but he then realizes he doesn’t know what to say to that. What does he have to “find out” about himself? Does Rubia have something to do with who he really is? Or is she talking about something else he doesn’t know or understand yet?
Now, Rubia moves on to the next few panels and continues explaining, “Not much has remained from these people aside from this temple and the mysteries it holds. But these murals tell of a recurring tragedy that is as old as time itself.”
“A tragedy?”
“Look at the last panel at the end of the hall.”
He walks over there and makes a disturbed frown at the last picture. It looks like something huge is falling from the skies – a giant meteor, perhaps – and the people on the ground below look shocked and frightened.
“Is this showing some kind of world-ending apocalypse?”
“That’s certainly what it looks like, doesn’t it?”
“But it isn’t?”
Rubia shakes her head. “Even I can’t say for sure. However, there is something familiar to the scene that strikes a chord with me.”
“Uh… You mean you’ve seen something like it happen before?”
“…”
At first, Rubia doesn’t answer him. She silently moves on from this mural to the table at the back of the hall. There seems to be some kind of block-puzzle-like contraption set here. She stares at it for a bit, as if contemplating over something, and then turns back to him.
“I have returned to this temple many times in the past – some of which were from memories that stretch even further back than even the span of my current iteration.”
“Your current iteration… You mean your past lives?”
She slowly nods back and then turns back to the contraption.
He then steps over to take a look for himself. “…What is that?”
“The very foundation of this temple.”
“The foundation is a block puzzle?”
“If one were to solve this puzzle, it would unlock the temple’s true nature and put the entire world in ruin.”
“What?”
“This is not any ordinary temple. It is the Black Materia, that which calls upon the ultimate black magic, Meteor.”
“Meteor…” He looks back up to the last mural. “Is that what happened to those ancient people?”
“Yes. A great calamity from the skies befell them and their people were erased from the planet’s history almost in their entirety.”
“A calamity from the…” He stops short as soon as he remembers something he had heard from his last vision. He turns to Rubia in disbelief. He’s hesitant to even ask, but does so: “Hey. Didn’t you mention something like that before to the oracle?”
She doesn’t answer right away, but then turns to him again to explain, “At the time, I wasn’t speaking of Meteor, but it was of a ‘calamity’, nonetheless.”
He grows more and more alarmed. “What are you saying? That you called this ‘calamity’ on those people long ago?”
She calmly nods back.
Now he’s getting upset. “Rubia! Why? What would be the point!?”
“It was inevitable. It has happened many times throughout this planet’s existence, in fact. From time to time, it is due for a great renewal.”
“What?”
“That is to say, all life that the planet bears shall return to Her to restart the cycle and begin anew.”
“Restart the cycle? Wait. So this is natural? It’s actually the will of the planet?”
Disturbingly, Rubia then begins to chuckle grimly to herself. “Ironic, isn’t it? The very planet that breathes life into all its children is the same entity that wishes to destroy them all the same. Like a fickle child with a wild imagination, it creates and destroys on a whim and without recourse…” She takes a brief pause and adds, “Until recently.”
“What happened?”
“The current crisis of your time.” That bitter smirk on her face fades and her eyes flicker into those sharp dragon eyes. “I’ve decided, it’s time for the planet to suffer the consequences of its mundane existence. I’m going to put an end to everything.”
“What the hell are you talking about? What good would that do?”
“This planet has lived long enough already without a care or conscience, and it will not change as long as it lives. It has no purpose existing.” She returns to the contraption before her and raises a hand over it.
“Shut up! Do you even hear yourself right now!?”
For just a moment, she stops herself and lets him have his say.
“So you think the solution is to just abandon everything!? That doesn’t solve anything at all! You’re just dooming the rest of us and acting like you can decide our fates! Doesn’t that just make you sound like the ‘fickle child’!?”
“…”
“If you want this planet to be better, then stop and think about the ‘consequences’ you’re talking about! Who are you to decide what should happen!? You’re just as bad as Sephiroth!”
She lets his words sink in for a moment, but turns back to him with an apathetic expression all the same. “So be it.”
“What?”
“After all, it was Ruby’s decision to abandon me here. Now I have no purpose existing either.”
Cloud’s momentum is completely halted in its tracks. What did she just say? It was Ruby’s own decision? How the hell is that supposed to work? Wasn’t Rubia the one who preceded her?
Before he can stop her, she begins to move the pieces of the contraption. Suddenly, the entire temple shakes as pieces of its own architecture begin to move into place.
“Rubia! Stop! Don’t do this!”
She no longer heeds him, so he tries to seize her by the arm. Instead, he’s met with such a powerful repelling force that sends him flying straight through the walls around them as if he’d been returned to being a ghost.
When he opens his eyes again, he finds himself right back at the edge of the temple just in front of the crickety bridge that led him here. However, the temple itself begins to glow a dark purple aura and spark with black electricity, and then it starts to shrink down further and further until there is a massive crater left where the temple once stood. Down at the bottom, a single black orb floats just above the ground as if waiting for someone to pick it up.
Without a second thought, Cloud leaps down the rocky ledges of the crater to the bottom and fetches the Black Materia. He stares at it as he holds it in his hands. Despite being just a black orb, it has a looming presence of danger from just being held. All the power to summon a calamity upon this planet collected into this single orb of materia.
Suddenly, he feels a hand be placed on his shoulder and he jumps. He leaps away and whips around, already reaching for his sword. Rubia has returned as if completely unaffected by the temple’s transformation.
She offers him an open hand. “Give me the Black Materia.”
He draws his sword. “What happens if I don’t?”
She slowly shakes her head. “It may take time for you to realize your true nature, but I will not wait for you.”
“What are you talking about? You just expect that I’m going to help you?”
“You don’t have a choice anyway.”
“!”
At that moment, he’s suddenly hit by another piercing headache. For just a moment, Rubia’s image begins to falter and flashes of a different robed figure appear where she was. This one is cloaked in black like all the rest he’s seen until now, but it’s not just anyone. Struggling through the aches, Cloud freezes up when he sees. This person is a slightly older-looking woman with a pale complexion and long white hair hanging loose – the spitting image of Jenova. She makes an eerily calm smile and opens her arms to him as if to welcome him.
“There’s no need to fret, my child. We’ll be waiting for you.”
Cloud’s mind goes blank. In its place, he is wrought by an even fiercer headache that cripples him and drops him to his knees. He gets a few brief flashes of traumatic memories as if they were forcibly wrenched from the depths of his mind. His old hometown on fire. Sephiroth standing amid the flames. The blisteringly cold winds of Mt. Nibel. A young Tifa crouched over the dead body of her father. And finally, the sight of Jenova’s complete body with her head intact, floating in her tank at the end of the reactor.
He feels faint. As his mind blanks out and begins to drift off, he hears only one other voice that speaks to him. It’s Ruby – or maybe Rubia – and she says it as if it were a warning.
“The eclipse is coming.”
~
It’s just one problem after another. Not only did the Turks fail to complete their objective to drop the Sector 7 plate; it’s Sector 8 that has instead dropped without their involvement or knowledge. Though the possibility that the president had a sudden change of heart seems slim, the chance that it really was Avalanche seems even slimmer. After all, while there were a few known members of Avalanche from Sector 7 that were unaccounted for, it would be ludicrous to believe that a few rogue agents could take on the entire platoon of Soldier stationed in Sector 8. The only other possibility lies with the “Ancient Summon”, who simply refuses to be contained whatsoever. Whether it was by accident or intention would be impossible to prove at this time, though.
Aerith’s helicopter ride has returned to the rooftop of HQ, only to be met with a dreadful, almost deafening silence as they deboard. They obviously wouldn’t expect any fanfare, but this kind of silence is alarming in its own right. They don’t see the president in his office from the outside.
As soon as they step into the office, their suspicions are answered: the president is dead. His body is lying inert by one of the windows overlooking Sector 7; neither disappearing into the ether like most would, nor bleeding out profusely as anyone would expect of a fresh corpse that was stabbed through the chest. However, Tseng confirms that the man no longer has a pulse. While Reno and Rude are a little more unnerved at the news, Tseng calmly makes a very important call to a certain person of interest.
Aerith stands by in silence, unable to look at the body before them. She had always hated the man, given her family history with the company and its top brass, but actually seeing his corpse before her still shakes her. The man definitely had this coming, but she didn’t expect it to be so soon. And the way that his body is so unnaturally well-preserved but lifeless, as if his soul were unable to return to the planet, is even more worrying. It’s almost as if whatever will is keeping him in the physical world refuses to let him disappear – and probably not for the man’s benefit either.
“…Yes, sir. The corpse is still fresh. By my estimates, it shouldn’t have been much longer than within the past hour.” Tseng pauses to listen to the other end. “…Yes. As it happens, we’ve also safely retrieved one of the Cetra. Unfortunately, the other – the dragon girl – is still on the loose.” Another pause. “Very well, sir. As for the situation with Sector 8…?” Yet another pause. “Understood.”
Tseng finally closes the call once excused and turns back to the others. “Reno, Rude. Stand by and guard the former president’s body. An investigative team is on the way to look into the matter. I’ve notified the current president as well. He’ll be coming by soon.”
“Huh? Why do we have to watch a dead body?” Reno complains, “It’s not like it’s gonna go anywhere.”
“Reno,” Rude calls him out.
“What?”
Rude simply shakes his head and turns back to Tseng. “Understood. We’ll keep an eye out for any potential intruders. If I may ask, though…”
“Yes?”
“Will you be escorting Ms. Gainsborough back to the lab? I was under the impression that it would be temporarily out of operation.”
Tseng shakes his head. “It is, so we can’t send her there. But I’ve been informed that there should be space available in one of the underground labs.”
Rude raises an eyebrow. “The underground labs?”
Reno blinks too. “Wait. Isn’t that supposed to be where the Weapons Development stuff happens?”
Tseng then nods. “Yes, but it will have to do as a temporary holding until we can contact Professor Hojo. Unfortunately, he’s constantly left me on voice message. Even his staff has no idea where he’s slinked off to.”
He scoffs and shrugs. “That’s rough.”
Tseng then turns back to Aerith with a concerned frown. She has been completely silent ever since they’ve arrived, and he doesn’t blame her in the least. Though he loathes the idea of leaving her to the whims of either Weapons Development or R&D, it is unfortunately not their job to question orders. Then again, considering that Ruby can promptly stage a rescue as soon as she’s done in Sector 7, he may not even have to worry about anything. It would be as if he’s just keeping Aerith company so long until Ruby arrives to take her away. How ironic that someone like him in his position would rather bank on the efforts of the “enemy” than their own to keep their target personnel safe, but on the other hand, there is no one quite like Ruby.
He offers her a hand and a polite smile. “Would you mind coming with me? We don’t need to show you any more of this graphic scene.”
“…”
His smile then fades, as she isn’t even looking his way. He then lets off a sigh and admits, “Don’t worry. Ruby will be coming soon.”
“…?” Now Aerith perks up again, looking a bit surprised to hear that from him.
He makes a grim smirk. “It’s strange. I would have expected to be a bit more upset knowing that our plans will only continue to be foiled, and yet I feel no ill will toward her. It’s almost as if this is simply the natural order of things.”
She blinks back with a curious look. “Maybe it is.” She then smiles back and nods. “We may not be on the same side, but thanks for caring.”
“Don’t mention it.” He takes an awkward beat before adding, “I should also inform you: there’s been a change of plans. We’ll have to escort you to a different location.”
“Oh. Where to?”
“Unfortunately, I can’t specify the details, but you’ll see when we get there.” He then turns away toward the helicopter landing pad again and courteously raises an arm that way to guide her. “In the meantime, your carriage awaits.”
She frowns, now looking a little more suspicious, but obliges to follow him anyway. They head back outside, and once again, the helicopter takes off and away. Reno and Rude watch in silence as the chopper disappears out of view, but as soon as it does, Reno vents.
“Aaaagh!”
“Hm?”
“What in the hell is happening lately!? Everything’s gone to shit, I swear!”
“…”
“It all started when the reactor bombing happened and we got reports of a “white dragon” flying around the city. And the next thing we know, the president is dead!”
“There were definitely a few things that happened in-between, though.”
“Yeah, yeah. The point is, the company’s image has been taking blow after blow. I couldn’t give two shits about who did in the prez, but it’s gonna be a pain to deal with the backlash that’s gonna come. Everyone’ll be like, we’re so incompetent at our jobs that we let Avalanche walk all over us! Multiple times! But how is that fair? They got a freakin’ cheat code or whatever that dragon kid is! Where’s our cheat code, man…”
Rude takes off his shades to give them a quick clean and then suggests, “At least we still have the new president.”
Reno looks pretty disappointed. “No offense to the boss and all, but I don’t think he’s done anything on the same level.”
He puts the shades on again. “That wasn’t what I meant. In any case, we should stay here to make sure he arrives without any trouble.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He sighs, swinging his electric baton back over his shoulder. “Looks like we’re on guard duty again.”
~
The Sector 7 pillar has just exploded and the plate above begins to creak and groan as well. Ruby rushes to the scene and fires a searing hot laser to melt the shattered pieces of the pillar back into place, temporarily stopping the rest from collapsing. However, like with the the other pillar, it’s lost too much mass and Ruby must raise her arms to help keep the plate steady. It’s not enough to just weld the pieces together. She needs more material to stuff into the gaps.
To be fair, it’s not like Sector 8 will be needing their stuff anymore.
Ruby does feel a bit guilty for treating that fact so casually, but a fact is a fact. She can’t let another sector fall like this; especially not this one. Though she worries that the plate will tilt without her extra support, she can’t ask anyone else to take her place. She’ll just have to hope and pray that it will hold out just a bit longer. If only it could stay afloat long enough to give her time to search…
Wait a second. Float? She does have the spell. But can she cast a simple spell like that upon something so massive? She was under the impression that it wouldn’t work. Any instance she had used it in a different Final Fantasy was only ever available to her in battle. Then again, this isn’t the game where “Float” was ever a thing in the first place and she was still able to cast it. Now that she’s reminded herself, she’s gotten away with a lot of things that would normally be impossible too. In that case, she might be able to work a miracle after all. What if she tries a rapid-fire multi-cast? Will the effects stack? It may be a bit costly, but she has no other ideas to try, so let’s go with it. She closes her eyes and silently reads the incantation in her mind. For a brief moment, her hands glow and two spell circles erupt from them. Their effects spread across the rest of the enormous piece of architecture in but a few seconds.
Whew, she might have overdone it a little. She spent a lot of mana across such a wide area of effect that she feels a little light-headed. But it’s okay; she can shake it off. If anything, it does feel like the weight she was bearing feels a bit lighter too – a good sign. With a deep breath, she releases her hold on the plate.
The miracle has happened. It’s staying up. She doubts the spell will remain active for long, but she won’t take long to gather materials. But now that she thinks about it, she realizes something else: If she had just calmed down and thought things through, she could have done the same for Sector 8… No, wait. Even then, she would still need to find the building materials and it’s not like there’d be any lying around otherwise. It’s too late for those regrets anyway. She looks back up to this plate and waits a moment to see that it will hold – so far so good. She nods with renewed hope and flies back to the previous crime scene of Sector 8 and sees what she can scavenge from the ruins.
It’s a good thing that living beings that die in this world can quickly disappear and return to the Lifestream. It’d be a real horror show if she had to deal with rotting corpses underneath. The smoldering ashes of the broken upper plate already smell enough like death.
Ruby darts back and forth between the two sectors, carrying massive chunks of loose scrap metal and concrete, and haphazardly slaps them onto the Sector 7 pillar where there are still gaps. With every piece she brings, she welds them together to further reinforce the pillar, and then cuts off any awkward bulges and smooths out the rest to return the pillar to its original shape. What results is a rather ugly Frankenstein-looking patchwork of various hard materials, but at least it holds firm. But the only way to really test it is to release the Float spell’s effects. Just in case, she holds up the plate in both hands again. She closes her eyes, and with a silent prayer, she casts a Despell.
It’s not creaking anymore. She lets go. It’s staying up! Heck yeah!
She snorts triumphantly and flutters back to take a look at her handiwork. Yeah, nah. Giving it a moment doesn’t make it look any prettier. But she’s a coder, not a sculptor – it’ll have to do. The area on the ground below her is littered with scraps, loose concrete, and other material dust as a result of the bomb going off and her rough craftsmanship, but last she checked, there was no one left in that area. Even the guards beyond the fence have long fled. Maybe she should actually just leave the mess down there to discourage anyone else from approaching this pillar ever again.
Finally, a major job completed and checked off her to-do list since she started her adventure. She drops back down to the ground just outside the fence surrounding the pillar and returns to her human form. As she turns to walk away, she suddenly feels a bit woozy in her step and stops for a bit. She lets off an exhausted sigh. It’s been a while since she’s felt this tired. Was it because of all the magic she’s been using up lately, or just the stress from being Sephiroth’s victim as usual? Well, whatever. She just needs a night’s rest and she’ll be okay again.
Boy, does curling up in a ball in front of the Cosmo Candle sound enticing right about now. The thought makes her lips curl up into a relaxed smile too. It’s time to get going. She has a few “kids” to pick up for their field trip, after all. She claps her hands to her cheeks to snap herself out of her daze and hurries off to the edge of Sector 6.
Many of the escaped Sector 7 residents have fled off either to Wall Market or down into the underground tunnels to avoid having to cross Sector 6, but some people remained to watch an unimaginable miracle take place. Consensus around the white dragon’s reputation had been mixed since the warehouse base incident. Some suggested that it was entirely Avalanche’s fault, others more sympathetic to their cause believed it was just an accident, and even others who couldn’t decide who to blame insisted that Shinra should have just been more vigilant about letting monsters like that run loose. However, among those who have remained here, there is no longer any doubt about this dragon. It’s a hero who saved them all.
Ruby arrives to find a small crowd has gathered near where the gate to Sector 6 formally stood. They cheer as she comes up. The couple of Shinra guards who had previously been guarding the fence are still here as well. As she comes by, their lines of sight happen to meet, and both of them stand at attention and salute her. Though still weary, she nods in acknowledgement.
“Ruby!”
Wedge’s voice catches her ears and she turns to find him, Marlene, and Red rushing over.
“That was amazing! I knew you’d do it, but it’s still unbelievable to see you in action!” he exclaims.
“Wow!” Marlene cheers, “Ruby’s so strong and cool!”
“Thanks, guys…” Ruby replies, trying to pass off a forced smile, but finds that she’s so discouraged that she can’t keep one up.
Any excitement that still lingered is quickly snuffed out by the looming gloom. They look off toward the other side of town. Wedge heaves a sigh too and Red bows his head in silence. It’s a bittersweet ending thanks to Ruby’s efforts, but a great tragedy happened nonetheless.
Marlene looks around them all and then turns back to Ruby. She goes over to take her by the hand and offers a sad smile. “It’s okay, Ruby. You still saved us and our home.”
“…” Ruby can’t help but be moved and a genuine smile, thought brief, returns to her face. “Thanks, Marlene. I’m glad you guys are okay.”
Still, the looming question must be asked. Red decides to pursue it: “You were in Sector 8 at the time, correct? Did you see what happened?”
She shakes her head. “I was only there for a little while to clear away Shinra forces. The next thing I knew, the bomb in that pillar went off.”
“Hmm…”
“But, I suspect that someone in the president’s office triggered the remote.”
Wedge frowns. “Whoa! You mean it was the president who did it?”
“I doubt it. It’s not like he’d have any reason to take out Sector 8.”
“Ah, yeah, I guess. But then who could it be?” He scratches his head. “I can’t think of anyone who would even want this. Was it just an accident?”
She glances aside with a worried frown. “Actually, I have someone in mind, but if it really was him, then none of us are safe in Midgar.”
“Huh?”
Red perks up with alarm too. “Who was it?”
She turns back to him. “Someone with a vendetta against the planet. It’s a long story… In fact, I think Cloud would be able to tell it best.”
“Cloud knows this person?”
“Too well.” She turns toward the looming Shinra tower in the distance with a stern frown and back to him. “Cloud and the others must be getting anxious. Let’s go pick up the rest of them, shall we?”
Red nods. “Lead the way, Ruby.”
Wedge nods back as well. “Right! We’ll leave you to that. I think I’ll stick with the other Avalanche guys down here and spread the news. The people gotta get back to their homes, after all.”
Marlene smiles and raises her hand to volunteer. “I’ll help too!”
He chuckles. “Yeah! And you and Betty can watch over my cats while we’re running around getting the news out.”
“Okay! Your kitties will be safe with us.”
“Oh, I know they will!”
Ruby smiles to the both of them. “Thanks, guys. Oh, and speaking of Avalanche… keep an eye out in case Biggs and Jessie make it back, alright?”
“You got it! I can’t wait to tell them how you saved a whole sector!”
Marlene beams proudly. “Good luck, guys! Make sure Daddy’s safe!”
Ruby gives her a thumbs-up. “Yeah, we got this.”
With one last look around the place, feeling assured that things may turn out for the better after all, Ruby puts a hand atop of Red’s head and warps them away.
~
They’re back here once again in this forsaken lab, though she’s brought them to the bottom level of the Drum instead, where the 67th floor would have been. Ruby takes a curious peek around, but she quickly realizes that Cloud, Barret, and Tifa are nowhere to be found. In fact, there aren’t even any robot sentries that are coming this way. It’s almost as if even the Drum, like the two floors below it, has been abandoned.
“This is…?”
“The Drum. It’s the next two floors above the main lab.”
“Hmm…” He sniffs the air and frowns. “There are some awful smells in here… but I’ve picked up some familiar scents – that of Cloud and the others. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to be in the vicinity anymore.”
“But I thought they had trouble leaving?”
“They had some trouble?”
“Yeah. Cloud called me just a little before Sector 8 happened. Said they found their way to the bottom of the Drum, but got stuck at the gate to the elevator that would let them go down.”
“That is strange. Did something happen that they would have to move?”
“Maybe. Or maybe they did figure out a way to get past the locked gate? Let’s move.”
But as they approach the gate in question, Ruby then catches onto something alarming: it was actually severed apart – cleanly cut as if by a sword.
Red notices as well and raises an eyebrow. “It’s been cut open. Did Cloud do this?”
She frowns. “If he could, then he wouldn’t have called me.”
“Hmm…” He now looks concerned. “Perhaps something did happen to them after all.”
“Let’s hope not!” She retorts, but is just as concerned. She carefully inspects the cut, noting just how smoothly the metal was fractured. “Cloud’s pretty good with his sword, but his cuts aren’t this clean. I do recognize whose this is, though.”
“Who is it?”
“The guy I mentioned before who has a vendetta against everything.”
He blinks blankly and then frowns. “I see this person is quite the force to be reckoned with.”
She gives a deep sigh. “Boy, if that isn’t an understatement. I’m getting a lot of unsettling vibes. Let’s hurry and find Cloud and them.”
Ruby slaps the button to go down, but notices that the lift is already on this floor. As soon as the doors open, they come upon a horrifying sight: a pool of some sort of dark fluid sits at the very center of the lift.
“What is this?” Red asks, rather disturbed. He tries taking a closer sniff. “It’s similar to the scent of blood, but also not quite… It’s bizarre.”
“Either way, it’s not pleasant,” Ruby calmly replies, but she looks just as disturbed. “What is this doing here?”
“You recognize the substance?”
“Unfortunately. There was one particular lab specimen on the 66th floor that would ooze ‘blood’ like this. So it’s already escaped…”
“And it seems to have left through this elevator.”
“Yeah. But strangely, there’s no trail of blood that leads out of it; almost like it transformed and…” She drifts off as soon as she realizes it.
“What’s the matter?”
She makes a very bitter frown. “Of course. Not only do I have to deal with the ‘head’ going wherever it wants, now even the ‘body’ is out there somewhere.”
“?”
She takes a deep breath, but coughs when she catches a whiff of the noxious gases still lingering above them. “Ugh… Right. I still have a dragon’s sense of smell. How can you remain so calm even when having to smell all of that?”
He makes an amused scoff. “Welcome to my world. You get used to it.”
“Hmph.” She takes a smaller breath and snorts out the bad odors. “Anyway, I don’t think we should step into the elevator.”
“Why not? Are we not heading down?”
“No, we are, but I have a better idea.”
She then softly places a hand on his muzzle and silently casts a spell. Suddenly, Red finds himself feeling much lighter than before, and he realizes he’s started to float off the ground.
“H-hey! What are you doing?”
“Don’t worry. You can still move around while you float. Now give me a bit of space. I’m burrowing.”
“Burrowing?” He blinks for a moment, but then catches on. “Ah.”
He bounces back a bit and glides through the air as if taking flight himself. Now at a safe distance, he nods.
“Alright. Do your thing.”
“Heh. That asshole ain’t the only one who can break through anything as he likes!”
Ruby sneers as her pupils focus into slits once more and she calls upon her ancient dragon genes. Her hands instantly extend into sharp claws even without the need for any light effects, and a couple of powerful wings pop out from her back. She leaps into the air and takes a straight dive down with her arms crossed before her.
CRASH. Like a lightning bolt, she crushes and shears through solid metal and concrete as if they were little more than cardboard, making a decently sized hole in the floor that goes all the way through to the floor below. Red also leaps on through the hole and drops through it, but then slows down in a graceful arc as he glides through the air above the next floor.
As expected, the trail of “blood” continues along the catwalk that leads up to the elevator they just avoided taking. Ruby drops back down to solid ground and her eyes follow the trail back to the side room where it originated. Of course; it was obvious, but that’s the same room where Jenova was being held.
But wait, on that thought, what happened to Cloud and gang? They should have come down here, but did they run into Jenova as she was leaving, or did she leave after they had come by? And if by any chance Cloud happened to wander into that side room… Oh, no. Where is he? And where are Barret and Tifa? They should still be with him.
Red lands safely onto the ground where it hasn’t been stained. He also glances over to the trail and back to Ruby.
She takes a quick whiff of the place too. “Let’s head back down one more floor. I don’t think they’re here either.”
“Oh. Are you going to keep burrowing?”
“Heh. Why not? All I have to do is keep the floor plans in mind.”
She first takes a look around the floor, measuring the distances from point to point, and finds a suitable spot to mark her next bulls-eye. Without missing a beat, she proceeds to take another sharp leap and dive through this floor too.
CRASH.
“Cloooud! Barret! Tifa!!”
By some miracle, as if calling their names were a summoning spell, she hears the sound of a large man’s footsteps coming from one of the rooms in the hall of this floor.
“Ruby!? It is you!” Barret exclaims.
“Barret! Good to see you again!” She waves her hands excitedly as she drops down to the ground.
“Good thing you’re here…” He drifts off when he stares at Red, who also comes floating down from above. “The hell? When did you learn to fly?”
“Ruby lent me some of her magic.”
“Hmph. Good for you.” He turns back to Ruby with a serious frown. “Anyway, come over! Something’s up with Cloud.”
That snaps Ruby to attention. “Where is he?”
“We took him into that room back there. Was the only one that was open.”
“Ah. That’s Aerith’s old room,” Ruby notes, being reminded that she did leave it open when she last visited it.
“Oh. Really? Huh, what a coincidence.”
Ruby and Red follow him back to the room. Tifa is here with Cloud, keeping him company by the bed he lies on. She turns to see as Barret returns with familiar faces.
“Oh! Ruby! Red! Please, come quick!”
Ruby is first to slip on by next to her, followed by the other two. “What happened to Cloud?”
“I don’t know. We were just finding our way our of here, but then Cloud ended up going off in a different direction. By the time we found him, he had collapsed in front of a huge tank. We carried him off and happened upon this room that was left open…”
“Yeah, it’s Aerith’s old room. She won’t mind sharing.”
“It’s Aerith’s?” She pauses as she lets it sink in, and for just a moment, she seems a little bit relieved. “We brought him here to rest, but he hasn’t woken up since we found him.”
“I was boutta slap him silly, but Tifa wouldn’t let me,” Barret adds rather bluntly. “The guy’s just out cold.”
Red asks, “How long has he been out?”
“I’m not sure,” Tifa answers, “but it feels like it’s been a while.”
“It doesn’t matter. I can deal with this,” Ruby calmly reassures them.
Well, the last time something like this happened, she had to input a particular command into her pocket computer to “hack” into reality. But while she can try it again, it would be just a little awkward to show off something like that to everyone. Never mind trying to explain how her computer isn’t really just a computer; it’s something so outrageously bullshit that anything she tries to say to explain would cleanly sail over everyone’s heads. But, see, there’s a big difference between then and now. Now, she’s become fully integrated with Rubia’s abilities. That means there should be some other equally bullshit yet lore-acceptable approach she can take. Let’s try something new. Cloud won’t mind being a guinea pig, right?
She places a hand onto his forehead and closes her eyes for a moment as she focuses on a different power: telepathy. If she just calls to his inner voice, he ought to respond. For a brief moment, she tries calling his name to catch him. But she’s answered by silence. She tries again, and it’s likewise silence. Strange; she should easily be able to connect with him. What’s going on here? She tries a third time, practically yelling repeatedly at him through her own inner voice, and by now, she’s starting to get the impression that he’s actually ignoring her. When did he ever become such a heavy sleeper?
Finally, she loses patience. She instead snaps back awake and deals a hard slap on his face.
“Aah!” Cloud yells as he sits up. “Ugh, what…?”
“!?” The other three stare in stunned disbelief. Tifa almost jumped when Ruby slapped him out of nowhere.
Ruby lets off a relieved sigh and then smiles warmly. “Welcome back, Cloud! How are you feeling now?”
“Uh? What happened?” He rubs his sore cheek. “Why does my face hurt?”
“That was me. Sorry if I hit you too hard.”
“Huh…?”
Then, Barret snorts, “Hah! I told ya, Tifa, a good smack on his head woulda done the trick!”
She remains unsure. “Um, maybe. But I think Ruby did something else than just the slap?”
Ruby rolls his eyes. “Guys, he was fine. Just ignoring me as always… Had such a good dream that you wouldn’t wake, huh?” she asks him with an annoyed snort.
He grumbles under his breath. “More like a nightmare. What the hell was that all about?”
“Oh? What nasty surprises did you find?”
“Plenty. There was this ancient-looking temple and Rubia was there…”
“!”
He scratches his head as he tries to recall: “And she said something about a ‘calamity’? Not sure. It’s kinda hazy… Mmph!?”
She slaps a hand over his mouth to stop him. “Stop. Let’s talk about it later.”
He gives her a defiant look, but quickly takes it back. For just a moment, Ruby’s eyes carry a hint of genuine worry mixed with a touch of sadness in them. She quietly shakes her head and removes her hand from his face.
She turns back to the rest. “Anyway, we’re done here. Let’s go find Aerith and the others and get out of Midgar already.”
“Yeah, that’s what I was gonna…” Barret begins, but stops when he catches what she said at the very end. “Wait, what? We’re leaving Midgar?”
“Yeah. I said I’d take you all to Cosmo Canyon, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, and I’m grateful and all, but we still got business here! What about the president? He’s still up there being a piece of shit! He put us into that damn lab too when everything went down! We gotta return the favor, at least.”
“To be honest, I’m not sure if he is still there,” Tifa nervously admits, “We were trapped in there for a long time. Wouldn’t he have left by now?”
“Come on, Tifa! You can’t think like that! Let’s get back there and show him up! It’s time for round 2 with that %*&$@#!” He turns back to Ruby. “We got our way up there now anyway! And he better not get any ideas ’bout running away, or we’ll sic Ruby on him!”
Ruby passes an awkward glance aside. Though she isn’t exactly sure, if a certain phantom menace has already been wandering the halls of HQ, the president is probably already dead. But it doesn’t hurt to check.
“Hm? Oh, uh, sorry. Didn’t mean to make it sound like you’re our pet or anything. You do you.”
She shakes her head and offers them a confident smirk. “Oh, no. No offense taken. Let’s head up. Maybe we’ll even run into Aerith’s ride while we’re there.”
“Heh. Yeah! And once we get that public apology to all of Midgar, we’re outta here! Cosmo Canyon, here we come!”
Well, Ruby may not have said much, but seeing her confident look is honestly pretty reassuring in its own right. “Right. Look on the bright side…” Tifa nods to herself and makes a more relaxed smile. “Lead the way, Ruby.”
“Stay still for a moment, everyone.”
Ruby gently taps on each of them – on Tifa’s shoulder, Barret’s arm, Cloud’s hand, Red’s muzzle – and they begin to glow a faint white like with last time. Then, she makes a quick snap of her fingers, and they all vanish from the room together.
~
By the time they arrive back at the top floor, the investigation into the president’s murder is already underway – or at least, it’s being attended by more than just the Turks. Heidegger arrived with a few Shinra grunts in tow as soon as he heard the news. Though he was initially shocked and shaken upon seeing the crime scene for himself, he then became defensively enraged and started swinging at his own troops, who could do nothing but take the hits. He also scolded Reno and Rude for “not doing their jobs” and was venting on them about how everything’s gonna be thrown into chaos. And throughout it all, neither of them seems to pay much attention. The Turks don’t run under his orders anyway. They’re waiting on a different executive.
And then out of nowhere, there’s a bright flash of light and a whole other group of characters arrive.
“!?”
“Hey, Mr. President… huh?” Barret’s bravado is quickly drained when he realizes the man isn’t at his desk, but lying on the floor by the window.
Ruby shrugs. “Ah, so he is dead.”
Tifa gasps. “What?”
“What!?” Barret starts to panic too. “That wasn’t part of the plan! Now what are we gonna do? We can’t make a dead man apologize!”
“Uh, make the new president do it?” Cloud calmly suggests.
“And where the hell is he, smart ass!? Not here, clearly!”
“What’s going on here!?” Heidegger angrily demands once the shock fades, “How did these sewer rats make it up this far without alerting security!?” He looks around for anyone to answer him, but the troops with him all look just as shocked and confused, while the two Turks remain unsurprised. Since the Turks have just been ignoring him, he snaps at his own unfortunate troops. “You nincompoops! Don’t just stand there! Fire!!”
In a flustered, confused rush, the troops begin to fire at the intruders. But no sooner had they pulled the trigger, Ruby puts her hands up again and a magic Barrier pops up to deflect the bullets – or rather, completely stops them as if it were instead the ultimate Shield spell cast for cheap. Smirking to herself, she then slams the barrier in their faces and knocks Heidegger and his troops on their asses. She pins them to the floor by stepping one foot on the barrier.
“Gah!!” Heidegger screams in frustration, but realizes he can’t move. “G-get this thing off of me! Hey, Turks! Do something!”
Reno snorts back without a care while Rude silently adjusts his shades. Even if they had bothered to speak up, this would have happened anyway. They’re impressed that she had the restraint to not kill any of her targets this time.
“You useless louts!! When the vice president gets here, I’ll have you all fired!!”
Reno just shakes his head and coolly says to Ruby, “You’re a little late. She’s not here anymore.”
She raises a suspicious eye. “Huh? Where is she, then?”
Rude answers, “That’s classified.”
Unamused, she unleashes her claws in an instant and prepares to strike. The rest of the party follow up with their own battle poses.
He simply shakes his head. “Even if you try to threaten us, we don’t know her exact whereabouts. That was information given only to Tseng.”
Reno adds, “Besides, we’re doing her a favor like this. The rest of ya will have to deal with being chased around while you’re still somewhere in this city.” He then casually flicks his bangs aside with a sneer. “Well, with this kid, you could try hightailing it, but Shinra’s influence stretches far beyond just this city. You’ll be running for a long time.”
“You cocky bastard…” Barret steps forth in front of Ruby, throwing out an angry gun-arm. “Avalanche ain’t no cowards, and we sure ain’t leavin’ any of our friends behind! Go ahead and chase us; not like ya’ll can throw anything we won’t handle!”
He just rolls his eyes. “Whoa, there. You don’t wanna start anything right now, buddy. Someone could get hurt.”
“Yeah, I bet. You wanna see how quick you go from now to screaming?”
“Guys, guys!” Ruby says, slipping in-between them to help ease the tensions, “Relax. There’s no problem here.”
“Huh? Ruby, what are you sayin’? This is about Aerith, you know!”
She taps the side of her head with a finger. “Telepath. I can just contact her.”
He blinks. “Oh. Right.”
“What!? Seriously?” Reno now complains loudly, “Geez! How many cheats do you even have!?”
“Haha. Even I don’t know where’s the limit,” Ruby answers him with a cheeky grin.
“Come on! This is bogus! I didn’t even say anything yet about the underground lab and… uh.”
Reno then quickly cuts himself off when he realizes what he just spilled. Rude lets off a sigh as he readjusts his shades again from the cold sweat that has come over him.
“A-anyway! Even if you ask her, it’s not like she’d know the place! There’s a good reason why we don’t usually head down there. The place is a mess to navigate.”
Ruby shrugs. “Well, I could just tear the place up so it becomes easier to get around. Shinra infrastructure could always use some remodeling anyway.”
He’s seething by now. “You damn brat… Someone oughta put a leash on you. How do you turn off those cheats anyway?”
“Uh, I don’t? We are talking about my powers here, right?”
Now quite peeved that everyone seems to be ignoring him, Heidegger resumes his angry shouting. “HEY!! Will someone do their jobs for once and help me up already!?”
“Yeah, yeah…” Reno has had enough of the man’s nagging. He turns toward Ruby again. “Hey. Mind doing us a favor real quick?”
“You want me to let up so he can keep yelling at you?”
“Nah. Just thinking how he could use a nap.”
“W-what!?” Heidegger nearly blows his top. “How dare you! This is treachery!! The vice president won’t stand for this!”
“With all due respect, sir…” Reno replies in a mocking tone. He walks over to him and also puts a foot on the transparent wall. “That’s the president you’re referring to. The person who actually has direct command over the Turks.”
“!”
“If he hears you disrespected him like this, you might be looking ahead at a demotion sometime soon.”
“Grrr…”
He then steps off and turns back to Ruby. “Hey. Just put him to sleep, will ya? Save us all the headaches from hearing this hog squeal.”
Ruby raises an eyebrow, but looks rather impressed. “Fair enough.”
She merely flicks out a hand toward her hapless victims, almost as if making a literal attempt at “throwing out” a spell. Heidegger and the troops are struck by a spread Sleep spell and go out cold in an instant.
“Thanks.” Reno then pauses and adds with a wave of his hand, “Ah. For the record, you didn’t hear anything from me.”
She chuckles. “You really need to tell an enemy that? But fine, I’m no snitch.”
“Well, you sure are something…” He then turns toward the body they were attending. “By the way, you didn’t happen to stop by here earlier on your own, did ya?”
She frowns, disappointed. “Really? You suspect me?”
He shrugs. “Well, someone did it. I figured someone like you who can go anywhere she wants would have an idea.”
She snorts. “If it were me, his body wouldn’t even be here to be discovered.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought…” He finally turns back to Rude. “So, partner, what’s the plan now?”
“It hasn’t changed. We wait for the new president to arrive.”
Now Barret asks, “Wait a sec. Why would the vice prez – uh, new prez – even show up here? What’s he got to gain by seeing his old man dead?”
Rude simply replies, “That’s none of your business.”
Reno also shakes his head. “Yeah, I’m not saying anymore.”
Barret snaps at them, “What the hell! If you guys really wanna fight, then put ’em up!”
Before he can start up anything, though, there’s the sound of a helicopter arriving and landing on the pad outside.
Reno shrugs. “Well, time’s up. If you got some questions for the boss, then make it quick. We got other business with him.”
Rude also turns toward Ruby. “If you wish to know where Aerith is, you may ask him. We’d appreciate it if you don’t break anything more than needed.”
She rolls her eyes. “Fine, but no guarantees on ‘nothing’ being broken.”
The president – unofficially for now – steps out from his ride. As he walks over, Reno and Rude step back to open the door for him, and the young man in white calmly strolls into his old pops’ office. He passes an uninterested glance to the group of intruders and then toward the body in question, and finally back to Reno and Rude with a mild look of disapproval. The two Turks had been standing at attention, but they quickly deflate under his stern gaze.
“Uh, Boss? We can explain…” Reno begins.
“Save it. Tseng already explained.”
“Yes, sir.” He resumes his slump.
Suddenly, Barret runs up and yells at the newly arrived. “Hey, you’re Rufus, aren’t ya?”
“That’s correct.” Rufus then turns back to him. “And I assume you guys are Avalanche?”
The rest of the party catch up with Barret and try to make themselves presentable – that is, except for Ruby, who remains on the side as she contemplates her next move.
Barret crosses his arms. “Hmph. Glad you heard of us. We’ve been meaning to have a talk with you.”
“As it happens, so have I. You have some of the best timing I’ve seen of a ragtag rebel group.”
“Huh?”
“With the recent string of disasters, the public are in quite the frenzy. They’ve been demanding an end to the violence, you know.”
Barret frowns, looking suspicious of him. “Yeah, I know. So you gonna do something about it? Are you gonna go out there and be the better man than your pops? Gonna apologize to the people for all the wrongs that Shinra’s been doing to them and the planet?”
“What do you mean?” Rufus then casually brushes aside his hair as he makes a smug smirk. “Why would I apologize for problems that you all started?”
“W-what? You…!”
“You’re throwing everything that’s happened on us?” Cloud asks warily.
“But aside from the first bombing, we haven’t done anything else!” Tifa admits.
Rufus scoffs, “It doesn’t matter. The point is, the people want someone to blame for all their problems lately. You guys just make it too easy.”
“Shut up!” Barret snaps back, “You think that’s all it takes!? That all your problems can just be swept under the rug!? An entire Goddamn sector of the city is gone!”
“Yeah. That definitely wasn’t part of our plans. The Turks were after Sector 7, after all, but looks like it’s still standing.” He passes a disapproving look toward Reno and Rude, who flinch nervously.
“And that only happened ’cause of Ruby holdin’ up the plate herself! Don’t take credit for doing shit-all!”
“Was it really not Shinra who triggered the Sector 8 collapse?” Cloud then asks. “There’s no one else who could have been able to access it otherwise.”
Rufus turns to him now. “I wasn’t here when my old man got murdered, so I can’t answer that.”
Tifa frowns. “You don’t seem all that distraught over it.”
He shrugs. “He had it coming.”
“What…?”
Now, Rufus steps by where his old man lies still and simply stares at the corpse without a flinch. “If there was one thing my old man definitely knew how to do, it was to make money over anything else… but there was one thing that he always overlooked.”
“…”
“He underestimated the power of fear. If the people are terrified, then there’s no length they won’t go to seek out ‘safety’. Even if I were to put this city under martial law, they won’t complain. It’s all for the sake of stamping out enemies to the state, after all.”
Tifa gasps in horror. Cloud frowns, but stays silent as if he had been expecting as much. Red simply shakes his head in disbelief that the son is even more ruthless than the father.
And Barret is, once again, pissed. “The hell would that do!? You’re just gonna make everyone even more miserable!”
He turns back to him. “That’s the point.”
“What?”
“As long as you choose to remain in Midgar, the people won’t be able to feel safe.” He then glances off toward the girl in the back who has been thinking over something to herself. “Especially not with a rogue powerhouse like her.”
“…”
“So, if you know what’s best for you or the people you claim to care about, then you can submit yourselves to arrest or even permanently exile yourselves. Either way, you aren’t in the position to negotiate anything with me.”
“You sonnuva…”
“Or, does Avalanche actually care more about seeking revenge than helping others?” He shakes his head. “It’s your choice if you want to continue your rampage of violence, but rest assured, Shinra is done just waiting to respond.”
“…!”
By now, Barret is about to blow his top, but even he has to admit that he doesn’t have an answer here. It’s barely been a few minutes since Rufus has arrived to take up his new title, and he’s already shown himself to be even more dangerous than his old man ever was.
And then, like the monkey wrench into the system that she is, Ruby finally comes back out of her thoughts and walks on over. She even approaches Rufus with an innocent-looking smile, to the latter’s surprise.
“Hey, sorry for tuning out for so long. So does Shinra just want Avalanche out? ’Cause I can definitely help with that. Been meaning to take my friends off to a nice vacation spot and out of trouble.”
For once, Rufus feels a little uneasy being around this intruder. She seems to carry an air completely different from the rest – an unpredictability that should be treated with respect. He answers cautiously, “That’s not all there is to it, but if you do, it would relieve us of some issues, yes.”
“By the way, when I say ‘friends’, I mean Aerith too.” She continues to stare him down intensely as she asks, “Where did you send her?”
“…” Now sensing there’s a very real threat, Rufus begrudgingly decides to placate this demoness before things get worse. “Check the underground labs of Sector 0. It’s directly below this building. You’ll need an access key to activate the subterranean elevators, though.”
“Good to know, but I won’t need it.”
“Try not to force your way in. Everything’s pretty expensive down there.”
“Well, unless you’re willing to give me a map of the place, I’ll have no choice but to rampage through everything until I find her.”
He makes a soft snort in disbelief. “You got guts asking the president for classified company data…” He then approaches the desk and proceeds to sift through his old man’s classified documents until he retrieves a small flatscreen device. He then comes back around and safely hands it over to her.
“What’s this?”
“A DSN, or digital systems navigator. It comes with a lot of useful information regarding highly mechanized systems or machines, especially those that you’d find in our labs. Maps are automatically reproduced as soon as the device enters in range of the specified location.”
“Ah, cool. Thanks.” Ruby casually slips it into her satchel along with everything else and hops back over to join the rest of the party. “Come on, guys! Let’s go pick up Aerith! She must be getting worried and impatient.”
There’s an uncomfortable silence that has come over everyone else in this scene. While Rufus and the Turks are directly under threat and have no choice but to work with Ruby, the rest of her own party are in stunned disbelief too. It’s not just that she wields physical or magical prowess and is capable of feats impossible for any one person; but also that she wields such incredible power of coercion through her words and record of feats that she could overturn just about any situation imaginable into her favor.
Even the planet would be doomed if she would ever turn against it.
Cloud shakes his head as he tries to push back on the intrusive thoughts. He doesn’t need this now. He still doesn’t have context for these visions he’s been having, so he shouldn’t jump to conclusions. He’ll just ask Ruby when he gets the chance.
Barret snaps out of his daze and proudly pumps up a fist for her. “Yeah! Let’s go, Ruby! I knew you could make things work out! Now, if you can just make the prez here issue a public apology to the people, then we’re all set!”
Rufus returns him a vicious glare. “Unfortunately, I don’t think you understand the severity of the situation you’re in. What would a forced public apology do at this point?”
“Huh? Ain’t it obvious? If Shinra just confesses to all their crimes against the people and the planet, and put those damn life-sucking reactors outta commission, it’ll be for everyone’s benefit!”
He shakes his head, back to being disappointed. “And what do you think will happen, that everyone in the city will get along and learn to love and live in harmony with nature?”
“Uh… no. But at least it’ll be for the better in the long run.”
“Hmph. The ‘long run’, huh…” He turns back to Ruby, who is now busy playing around with her new handheld device. “I’m willing to placate your unshackled monster, but ultimately, nothing’s going to change even if you had her end me right now.” He then turns back to Barret with an even colder glare. “The people of this city are entirely dependent on this company from everything they own or use to basic necessities they need to survive. Taking away their only source of livelihood would be like sentencing them to execution by Mother Nature herself. Is that what Avalanche truly wants?”
“No, of course not! But that doesn’t mean we should just ignore what’s happening with the planet and move on. Shinra’s doing some real damage right now and one day, we’re all gonna suffer for it!”
“Well, then. I guess we’ll face that problem when we get there.”
“What!? That isn’t a solution at all!”
“I didn’t say it was. But clearly, the problem you’re talking about is on a much larger scale than just the Shinra Energy Company, and it’s one that doesn’t have a solution.”
“Don’t give me that! You’re just coming up with excuses to avoid taking responsibility!”
“Ah, so all that matters is picking someone to ‘take responsibility’, isn’t it?”
“Hey, don’t twist my words. It’s not just that, but Shinra sure takes up a huge part of it!”
“Well, then, you should be glad that I’m nominating you all as the scapegoat. You’ll fulfill your mission and sacrifice yourselves for the sake of the planet you love so much, and everyone else doesn’t have to lose everything. It’s a win-win.”
“Screw off! We’re not here to play your blame game! And we’re not leaving until Shinra actually comes clean and works to transition the city into something more eco-friendly!”
By now, Rufus has begun to tune out of the conversation. “Well, when you have a brilliant idea on how to do that, let me know. In the meantime, we’ve spent long enough on this chat.” He turns off to return to Reno and Rude.
“Hey! Get back here! We’re not done talking!”
Rufus is no longer answering him. He discusses some plans with his Turks privately in whispers, and with a wave of his hand, he dismisses them. Reno and Rude then approach the party and stand between their boss and their adversaries.
Finally, Rufus turns back to the party. “These two will be escorting you to the Sector 0 labs so you can go fetch your friend. Now get out of my office.”
“Hey!”
“You heard the man! Get moving,” Reno barks at them.
“We’ll be keeping an eye on you to make sure you don’t wander off where you shouldn’t,” Rude explains, “If at any point, Ruby decides to go wild and break anything down there, we can’t guarantee that you’ll find Ms. Gainsborough on your own.”
Barret huffs again in their direction. “Like hell we’re just calling it quits! We didn’t come all this way for nothin’!”
Tifa suggests, “Barret, maybe we should back off and try again next time.”
“Next time!? Then when’s it gonna end? We’ve been waiting long enough for Shinra to do something right, but they don’t! We even split off from the main branch ’cause they weren’t doing shit either!”
Cloud steps in to her defense. “Hey. I get it, but we’re not gonna get anywhere just butting heads. We need to retreat and come up with a better plan.”
“And what is this ‘better plan’, genius? We got the president right here where we want him! If he won’t listen, then we’ll have to make him! Ruby, back me up here!”
But for once, Ruby shakes her head. “Sorry, Barret. I think we have a much more important job to do than dealing with Shinra.”
“What!? Even you, Ruby…?”
Tifa is puzzled by that reply. “Wait. Ruby, what do you mean by that?”
“Rufus actually had a point. The problem we’re tackling is much bigger than just Shinra.” Ruby passes a serious glance toward Cloud and Red, who quickly catch on.
“Well, I understand there’s more to the planet’s crisis, but…”
“But shouldn’t we start with Shinra? They’re doing the most damage, aren’t they?” Barret pleads.
Ruby shakes her head. “When we get out of Midgar, we’ll have plenty of time to discuss everything. Our priority now is picking up Aerith and regrouping with Wedge, Biggs, and Jessie. We also need to make sure Sector 7 really is going to be safe from here on out. We can’t just up and leave Marlene alone, right?”
“…” That seems to do it. He finally gives in with a defeated nod and backs off. “No, you’re right. We still got loads of problems to deal with. Let’s go.”
Finally, the party quietly agrees to take their leave. The Turks accompanying them are somewhat relieved they can actually get going already, but one of them continues to complain to the other under his breath.
“Man, why is it that we’re constantly being made into babysitters? First it was the Cetra girl and then it was the dragon kid, and then it was even the old president’s body! And now we gotta deal with the dragon kid again and all her friends? When are we going to get a job that’s actually good!?”
“Reno, orders are orders.”
“Yeah, I know…”
And as they are all out of sight at last, Rufus takes one last look at the other people lying on the floor of his office – Heidegger and his cronies – and shakes his head in disappointment. He steps over to the phone on the desk and quickly dials up for security to come and take the guy supposedly in charge of public security out of his office. He also makes a different call to a different executive who has been strangely absent thus far.
“Operator, contact Scarlet. All company executives are required to attend the next presidential meeting. Tell her that matters concern the connections between Avalanche and Wutai.”
After hanging up the call, Rufus smirks to himself. Now that he’s president, he has no particular need to delay on erasing the organization known as “Avalanche”. And if Wutai doesn’t appreciate the emissaries he sends to investigate the rumors that they’re based there, well, that will complicate things. Who knows, Midgar may just have to resume the war.
Notes:
Hidden for convenience
I'll be honest, guys. I wasn't thinking about matching chapter releases to the holidays for the last two chapters, but this time when I thought it'd be funny if I caught Lunar New Year's, I got no joke. Ruby pulls a Carbuncle one time, I guess. It's just coincidence, I didn't have it planned like that, lol.
It was a sudden stroke of inspiration when I remembered there were the additional Shinra labs underground. I struggled for a while to consider how to integrate Intermission lore in here, but now everything's falling right in place. For once, I'm thankful that Dirge of Cerberus existed, just this once.
Help, I'm having too much fun writing Reno and Rude, they're starting to turn into main characters!
That said, I still nominate Barret as MVP this chapter. So many ugly scenes made beautiful because of this beautiful man.
Chapter 15: In the Shadow of the Mind
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
If one were to take a step back and take a breather, now would be a good time. Between all the rush of Ruby going to and fro to aid her friends and their loved ones, and the machinations of Shinra as well as those of Sephiroth, there hasn’t been a really solid moment to pause and let it all sink in. However, while Ruby has been having her fun and exciting plot twists and turns, there have been a few other developments brewing quietly in the background. Perhaps it would be a good idea to cut away for a bit, just for now, to earlier that day when the news of the Mako Reactor No. 5 shutdown was still fresh.
~
“He makes it sound so easy… but where the heck do we even begin?”
“Who knows. Maybe we should just look for HQ and ask for their opinions?”
“Cut it out, Biggs. That’d be super awkward.”
“I’m just saying…”
Biggs and Jessie sigh to themselves as they sit back in their seats in the now rather empty Seventh Heaven. It’s just them and Marlene, who is behind the counter organizing things as if she were the manager of the place.
Biggs curiously glances back to her. “I know after we broke off on our own, things haven’t been the best with HQ, but…”
“Come on. You aren’t thinking that we suck up to them and apologize, right?”
“No, of course not. But we could at least meet with them and make some kind of deal. It’s not like we got a lot of options now.”
“But you know how it goes. It’s either their way or the highway. And with what happened at the warehouse, there’s no way they’d just welcome us back in open arms.”
“Well, according to Zhijie, opinions have been split.”
“Yeah, but what does that really mean? You think he’s been going rogue while the rest of them don’t know?”
“Doubt it. He may be the sneaky type, but even he wouldn’t be able to get off scot-free if they didn’t want him to do that.”
She sits back up and leans against the table. “Right? So it got me thinking that maybe they are open to bringing us back in, but I get the feeling that if we accept, we’ll be stuck doing their bidding for a while.”
“Yeah… But the thing with going rogue is that we have to do everything ourselves. We thought we caught a lucky break since we picked up Ruby, but…” He then crosses his arms with a frown. “It feels like we’ve just been relying on her too much.”
“Hmm. Maybe we have…” Jessie admits, now that she thinks about it.
“Ever since we met her, things have been moving fast. It’s one thing after another. One moment she’s here, the next she’s gone; and suddenly even the other reactor we were gonna bomb gets shut down before we get to do anything.”
“Well, yeah. Ruby works fast and she always seems to know what to do too.”
“But it also doesn’t leave us with much, you know? Even though we’re the ones who recruited her, it feels like it’s actually the other way around.”
“…” Jessie takes another moment to think things over. “Hey, Biggs. You think Ruby’s been getting through everything in a rush because she has other plans for us later?”
“Hmm…” He pulls back to stare up at the ceiling and looks back to her with a nod. “Yeah, I kinda get that feeling too. Maybe it’s nothing for us to worry about, but she’s definitely on a mission of some sort, and I don’t think it’s just about self-discovery or saving the planet.”
Another awkward silence passes them by, and then suddenly the doors to the bar burst open.
“Sorry to keep you!” Wedge’s voice booms as he comes running. In his arms sit three adorable cats, each one wide-eyed with anticipation. “Biggums, Reggie, and Smalls took a little convincing to leave the house, but they’re here!”
“Welcome back, Wedge!” Marlene answers cheerfully. She also waves to the kitties. “Hello, Biggums, Reggie, and Smalls!” To her delight, they also all mew back.
“Oh. Hey, Wedge,” Jessie answers dejectedly.
“No worries. Glad you guys are fine at least…” Biggs answers likewise.
“H-hey! What’s with the super depressed mood in here? Shouldn’t you two be getting ready to pound the pavement?” Wedge asks as he sets his cats down to play with Marlene.
“Easy for you to say! All you have to do is babysit Marlene! And your cats too.”
“Hey, I know you guys have a lot of work cut out for you, but it’s also really important that Marlene and I keep watch of the bar while everyone’s out.”
“Yeah, yeah…” He slumps against his arm resting on the table. “At this rate, we might as well ask his cats what they think about Avalanche.”
“When you figure out how to talk with cats, then let me know so I can make a cat translator for everyone else,” Jessie replies.
“Haha. Very funny.” He turns to the other guy. “Anyway, Wedge, you got any ideas? We’re at a loss over how to approach this ‘investigate into Avalanche’ mission.”
“Um…” Wedge shrugs. “Maybe you could just ask someone at HQ?”
“See?” Biggs whips back to Jessie. “That’s what I was saying!”
“And I was saying no! It’s too risky.”
“Come on, Jessie!” he groans, “They’re the ones with all the connections. We don’t even know where the other cells are. And we can’t just keep stalling here.”
“What do you think will happen if we just march up to them? They’re not gonna listen!”
“But we do have Ruby, even if she isn’t here right now. If we play our cards right, they’ll have to listen!”
“But how would that work? They’re afraid of Ruby. It’d just come off as a threat.”
“Yeah, but… the whole point is to get them to listen, right?”
She rolls her eyes. “Besides, didn’t you say that we’re relying on her too much?”
“I meant it in the way that we’d be expecting her to show up and fix things. Using her track record is a little different.”
“Right,” she replies sarcastically, “So we just barge in and make our demands. There’s no way they’ll take it the wrong way.”
“…”
They return to their awkward silence again, and even Wedge slumps sympathetically from seeing how miserable and frustrated they are.
“H-hey, guys! What about Zhijie?” he suggests, “If we tail him, we might be able to catch them in the act of contacting Wutai agents or something.”
“That sure would be convenient,” Biggs replies with disappointment, “But we tried to earlier and lost him.”
Jessie complains too, “The guy’s so slippery! He’s like an eel. He probably swam away to sea already for all we know.”
Wedge scratches his head. “Well, uh… then maybe someone from around town might know where he’s been?”
Biggs shakes his head. “If you have an idea who we can ask about Avalanche when they’re all avoiding us, we’re all ears.”
“Not to mention, you guys had your faces plastered all over the news thanks to the warehouse raid,” Jessie adds.
He slumps a little. “Thanks for the reminder, Jessie. We’ll have to deal with Shinra at our necks too.”
Wedge sighs as well. “Sorry, guys. I really wish I had something, but I’m in the dark as much as you are. If only Ruby were here…”
“She’d probably know just what to do as usual. But we’re supposed to do this job without her, you know?”
“Yeah…”
Another awkward, miserable silence falls over the group. All that can be heard now is the soft mewing of cats and Marlene’s giggling. Suddenly, she turns to them and speaks to cheer them up.
“Oh, don’t worry, guys! I just had a great idea!”
“Huh?”
“Let’s ask the cats around town if they’ve seen a guy like that. Betty knows a lot of cats. I think we can ask her to help!”
“Cats?” Biggs asks in disbelief.
“Oh, yeah!” Wedge pumps up a fist in the air. “Of course! Why didn’t we think of that?”
Jessie makes a concerned frown. “Um, Wedge? Even if you are a cat owner, I don’t think any of us can speak ‘cat’ yet.”
“Haha! Don’t be silly! We don’t have to learn their language to get them to understand. Cats are super keen to pick up on details. I bet there may be some that have picked up a scent and can lead us right to the guy!”
“But I don’t think we have anything from him that we can track a scent with?” Biggs recalls.
“Maybe not, but shifty-looking people are sure to catch the attention of cats as they pass by. I bet we can give some kind of impression of the guy by acting it out or something.”
“Huh? Really? Are cats that smart to recognize people just by movement?”
“Well, maybe not all cats, but I’m sure we’ll find one that can!”
He looks a little less convinced, but moves to get up. “Uh, okay. We’re out of ideas anyway. Might as well try it out.”
Jessie shrugs and gets out of her seat too. “Alright. Sure beats sitting around here moping.”
They all turn back to Marlene, who’s surrounded by her little kitty brigade standing at attention. Wedge offers her a very trusting grin.
“Okay, Marlene, you’re up! Let’s go see Betty and her cats!”
She nods with a smile back. “Yeah! Come with me, guys!”
Wedge gathers his kitties back in his arms – well, two of them. The one known as Smalls hops onto his shoulder instead – and Marlene happily leads the way. They pass by a few familiar homes and find Betty outside hers, playing with a couple of cats they had seen before – one white and one black. The cats are a little spooked when they see more than just Marlene coming by, but Betty calms them down.
“Hey, Betty!”
“Oh! Hi, Marlene! What’s up? Why are your dad’s friends all here?”
“They’re looking for someone that stopped by the bar earlier. I thought maybe the cats would know something?”
“Oh, gotcha. Who are you guys looking for?” Betty asks them.
“Uh, not sure if you’d know, but his name’s Zhijie,” Biggs suggests, “Lanky guy. Has dark hair but he dyed it blond. Dressed in a dusty-brown jacket and jeans. Uh… I think he also had a wristband or something?”
“And a pendant, I think,” Jessie adds, “But the guy looks pretty ordinary otherwise.”
Betty makes a worried look. “Oh. Sorry. There are a lot of people that pass by here, so I don’t know if I’ve ever seen him before. It might be tricky to ask the cats this way. Is there something else about him that stands out?”
Wedge also suggests, “Well, if there’s one thing, it’s that sneaky-looking grin he usually has. I think he’s also the type to sneak around places a lot.”
Now she blinks. “Oh. Actually, that makes things easier. I’ll check with them!” She then bends down and whispers something to the cats. She also seems to make some kind of shifty-eyed look and even runs around from shadow to shadow of some nearby houses. She then hurries back and gives them a curious look.
At first, the cats stare at her blankly as if she had gone mad all of a sudden, but then they give each other an intrigued look and meow back excitedly.
“Oh! I think we got something.”
“What? Seriously?” Jessie gasps.
“Whoa. Who knew cats had a superpower all along?” Biggs mutters.
Betty nods back with a smile. “Maybe these two might not know who it is, but they’ll definitely look around and spread the word of someone who sneaks around in the shadows.”
Her two cats then meow toward Wedge’s cats, who likewise meow back. Suddenly, Smalls leaps from Wedge’s shoulder and the other two follow suit out of his arms. And just like that, they’re all off like a little cat patrol force.
“H-hey! Where are you all going!?” Wedge cries. He tries to hurry after them, but they split up.
“Maybe they’ve picked up on something?” Betty replies, “We should split up too and follow them!”
“Uh, alright. So we all meet up back here, then?” Biggs suggests.
“Sounds good! Catch you guys later!” Jessie answers with a wave of her hand as she picks a cat to pursue, which happens to be Biggums.
“Whoa! Wait up!” Biggs calls out to the one known as Reggie.
“Hey! Smalls? Where are you!?” Wedge calls as he runs off too.
“I think Goma and Shio went this way, Betty! Let’s follow them!” Marlene offers.
“Sure!”
And just like that, the five intrepid seekers tail after five individual cats across town. Soon enough, the cat information network grows at an incredibly rapid pace as the news passes from cat to cat to keep an eye out for anyone sneaking around and through crowds. And by some miracle, they find a particular cat that sniffed out some guy who left town toward the edge of the sector. The five of them regroup back to Betty’s home, and by now, Betty’s father has come out and is a little concerned at all the cats that seem to have gathered here.
“Um, Betty. What’s going on here?” he asks when he sees her and Marlene come back.
“Hi, Dad! We’re helping find someone and we asked the cats to help too!”
“Hello, sir!” Marlene answers too.
“Hello again, Marlene!” he answers politely and asks again, “So is it a cat-hunt we have here?”
“Well, we’re looking for a person, but the cats seem to know who! They’re going to lead us to him!”
“Haha! I see. Glad to know that they’re not here to ask us for food. That’d be a few too many mouths to feed.”
Wedge rubs his head awkwardly. “Sorry to bother you, sir. We were really running out of options.”
“Oh, don’t worry. Whoever it is you’re looking for, I hope they don’t mind being tracked down by a whole lot of cats.”
Biggs makes a sly chuckle. “Well, it’s not like he left us with much of a choice either.”
“Whew. Glad things worked out after all. Even if we may be the B team, we’re not totally useless after all!” Jessie quips.
“Hey. It’s not like they’re the ones doing all the work either.”
Wedge turns to the other two. “Welp, guess you guys better get going before you lose him! I’ll get back to the bar with Marlene. We’ll let you know if something comes up.”
Jessie passes him a thumbs-up. “Thanks, Wedge! Once we catch him, we’ll try to get back as soon as we can after we’re done talking!”
“Yeah, assuming that he would talk with us without some kind of bargaining chip…” Biggs mutters to himself.
And with just a few waves of their hands, Jessie and Biggs are off on the road, tailing after a curious grayish stray with black spots over its eyes.
~
The outskirts are an empty, bleak place filled with trash and scraps, abandoned homes and streets, and many, many lost dreams. It is a place where monsters are free to roam and pick off any hapless travelers unable to fend them off. It is a place where bandits call the rules and there’s only one that matters: every man for himself. And for some reason, it’s where their little stray has lead them.
“Whew, we came out pretty far. I think we’re almost at the edge,” Jessie notes. She also plugs her nose. “Ugh. It’s a great place to lose a scent trail too…”
“But we’re following a cat that picked up on a scent trail,” Biggs points out, “What happens if we lose it?”
“Well…” She takes a moment to think it over, but then shrugs. “Hope and pray that we’ll run into some good luck?”
“What a plan…”
“Hey, I don’t see you coming up with any genius ideas either.”
He grumbles to himself, but doesn’t argue there.
Unfortunately, as Jessie had expected, the smell of rot is quite strong and their little stray is getting uncomfortable. He was willing to lead them out of town, but the mingling scents of decay and danger are a little too much for his sensitive nose. He yowls miserably and means to leave, and yet he has a surprising amount of diligence for a cat and is hesitant to ditch them. He keeps circling back and forth as if beckoning them to head back together.
“The poor kid. Maybe we should just send him home,” Jessie suggests.
“I’m surprised he’s still here with us. I always thought cats would just up and leave if they don’t like something.”
“You’d think so, huh? But the way that Wedge’s cats are always bitter over something yet still stick tight with him makes me think otherwise.”
“Yeah, I guess. Seems like they should recast the old saying about how dogs are the most loyal of all animals.”
“Heh. Maybe that’s the real reason they’re always challenging each other. Like vying for the championship of loyalty!” She crouches down to meet the stray’s line of sight and offers a friendly smile and a wink. “Thanks for the lead, kid! You can go back without us.”
She waves her hand to shoo him away, and the little stray catches on that the two of them aren’t gonna be heading back with him. It stares back silently at their looks of confidence and then simply runs off on his own back to the safety of town. And once again, the pair are on their own.
“Still, where would we look for a guy who’s known to be able to sneak around?” Biggs mumbles to himself, “He probably knows the area even better than we do.”
“We can’t compete with him on those grounds, so might as well do the opposite and draw his attention!”
“What? Hey!”
Before he can stop her, Jessie hops off on a run into the open. She waves back at him to call him to follow and he hurries after.
“Jessie! Come on! We’re not like Ruby! What if we actually run into trouble!?”
“Sheesh, have a little faith. We’re not totally defenseless either.” She raises her hands over her mouth and calls out, “Heyy! Zhijie! We know you’re out here! Come on out!”
But there’s only silence that answers. The pair take turns scanning the area, but amid all the scraps and junk and incomplete infrastructure, it’s hard to make out the shape of anyone.
“Well, if I were a guy in hiding, I wouldn’t just hop on out like that,” Biggs notes.
“Yeah, but we came this far already. Can’t turn back now.” She tries again, “We’re not looking for trouble! We just wanna talk! We came alone too!”
Still more silence, but then they catch onto the sounds of low, threatening growling in the vicinity instead. By now, Biggs is getting antsy and reaches for the rifle slung on his back.
“I don’t think that was our guy.”
Jessie reaches for the dual pistols on her belt too. “Yeah, even if he’s upset, I doubt he’d be growling at us.”
The pair stand back to back to keep an eye out for any enemies. Suddenly, a pack of aggressive wild hounds leap out from somewhere in the scrap heaps to try to corner them. But they’ve come prepared. Jessie whips out a few flash bombs from her pockets and chucks them at the dogs, temporarily blinding them. She then whips out her pistols in hand, and the two leap back from the ambush ring into position. They begin to fire upon their stunned targets and the hounds scatter. At first, it seems like the duo have the upper hand in this battle, but then one of the hounds in the back howls for backup.
“Heads up! More incoming!”
“They’re just dogs. What else could they have?” he asks as if tempting fate.
And then, it shows up: a massive monster hound that towers over the rest arrives. The beefcake snarls at the intruders that dare to tread on their territory.
“Oh.”
“You just had to ask, huh!”
The beast then lunges at them with such speed and ferocity that they barely have time to jump out of the way. But they can’t keep dodging for long, and before she can get away, it pounces on Jessie to the ground.
“Jessie!”
Biggs lets fire, but even while it does sting, the hound seems to ignore his attacks for a moment and continues to snap and maul at her. It bites onto her arm and tries to tear, but even while caught, she bears the pain and pulls the trigger while her hand is inside the hound’s mouth. Firing inside the creature’s body does enough damage to stun it briefly, and she manages to worm her arm free. Biggs rushes in and slides with a kick that knocks the staggered beast down and lets them get back.
“Whew! Thanks for the save!”
“Here! Heal up!” He tosses her a Hi-Potion, which she catches and drinks up.
Unfortunately, the beast doesn’t stay down for long and is back to snarling ferociously. As they brace themselves for another feisty round, though, out of nowhere, a large four-pointed star shuriken zips on over and smacks the beast in the face, knocking it back. It bounces off and whirls back whence it came, and a ninja girl donning a Moogle cape snatches it out of the air. She had leapt off from a nearby platform and nails the landing on the ground.
“Have no fear! Yuffie, Materia Hunter Extraordinaire, is here!” she declares proudly as she strikes a battle pose.
Biggs and Jessie stop short of what they were doing and turn to stare. “Huh?”
“Get-a-long, ya mangy mutt! Hi-yah!!”
Despite her flashy introduction, Yuffie blitzes the beast with a series of rapid strikes and slashes, leaping to and fro so the beast can’t keep a good eye on her, and finishes with a searing uppercut that practically guts the beast from belly-up. It keeps snarling in pain and frustration as it topples and finally drops dead.
“Now who else wants some, huh!?”
The rest of the hound pack are sufficiently frightened that they turn tail and flee.
“Hmph. Scaredy-dogs.” She swings the giant shuriken back over her shoulder with a triumphant grin. “Heh. If all Midgar’s got now is just a bunch of rats and dogs, they’ve really sunk with all their trash.”
Biggs and Jessie stare at the newcomer in silent confusion. They aren’t sure what to make of this girl who seems to have popped out of nowhere. It’s almost like they just have that kind of luck with meeting people. But what’s with the giant shuriken? Wait, she couldn’t be the Wutai agent that HQ is mingling with, could she?
Yuffie bounds back over to the other two. “Hey! You guys okay?”
“Yeah, we’re good. Thanks for the help,” Jessie replies with a relieved smile.
“No problem! I could do this all day, but you’d better be careful out here. There are monsters everywhere.” She then proceeds to give the two of them a close inspection.
“Uh, can we help you?” Biggs asks, looking a bit uncomfortable.
“Hmm… no pom. Guess you’re not the ones.” She then hops back and waves a hand. “Anyway, I got someone to meet, so see ya!”
“H-hey! Wait!”
“Huh?”
They hurry to catch up with her before she runs off again. Jessie then asks, “Hold on! You said you’re meeting someone out here?”
“Yeah? What about it?”
“Well, we’re out here to find someone too.”
“You know anyone by the name ‘Zhijie’?” Biggs tries asking.
“Uh…” The name does ring a bell, but she errs on the side of caution and shakes her head instead. “Nope. Sorry. You sure whoever you’re looking for would be out here?”
“Probably. See, we’ve been chasing after the guy since we wanna ask him a few things.”
“You wanna ask him? About what?”
“Like…” Biggs passes an unsure glance toward Jessie, as if to ask if they should be honest about it. When she nods back, he continues, “For starters, we hear he’s been in contact with agents from Wutai.”
“W-what!?” She nearly jumps and resumes a battle-ready pose. “Hold up! Who are you guys? And what do you want with Wutai, huh?”
“H-hey! Take it easy!” He backs up with his hands up. “We’re not here to fight. We just want some answers.”
“What for?” Her eyes narrow. “You aren’t working with Shinra by any chance, are you?”
“No way! We’re practically the opposite!” he snaps back, almost looking offended.
“We’re Avalanche!” Jessie clarifies, throwing up a pumped-up fist. “At least one of the cells.”
Yuffie remains suspicious, though. “Oh, yeah? Prove it! Tell me why you’re chasing the guy!”
“Because…” Biggs tries to answer, but wants to avoid bringing up that they’re from a splinter cell. He shakes his head. “Look. We’re just trying to gauge what HQ’s been up to and that guy’s our best bet. Besides, who are you to ask?”
“Um, Biggs, maybe getting defensive here isn’t the best play? You’re making us sound extra suspicious,” Jessie mentions, noting the size of that shuriken.
“I know, but how should I put it? Besides, she’s the suspicious one here! If she’s really their Wutai contact, then where does that leave us?”
“Aha! I knew it! You’re working against Wutai, aren’t you?” Yuffie declares with a huff.
“What? No! We’re…”
“Alright, that’s it! Put ’em up! No one can know we met here!”
“You’re gonna silence us!? Wait a sec!”
Before she can whip out another ninja tech to scare them off, though, another voice shouts out to stop them.
“Hey! Hold your horses, everyone!”
“Huh?”
A man with brightly dyed blond hair finally shows and slips down from his hiding spot up on some rafters. He raises his arms in peace and tries to ease the tensions.
“Whoa, there. No need to get so riled up. I can explain everything!” He even raises up a Moogle-shaped hood with its signature pom hanging off from the top.
“Hey! There’s our pom!” Yuffie then slips the shuriken on her back. “About time! Do you have any idea how long I waited out here!?”
“Sorry, sorry! I just ran into a little problem earlier and was running late, is all.”
“And what’s the problem?” She peers back to the other two. “These guys weren’t giving you much trouble, were they?”
“Nah, it wasn’t them. I just happened to run into some Shinra troops on patrol earlier and had to give them the runaround.”
“Shinra? They had troops posted out here?” Jessie asks.
“No, just back in town. But I came this way since I had to meet with this kid.”
“Ahem. ‘This kid’ has a name, you know. I’m Yuffie, Materia Hunter Extraordinaire!”
“Yeah, I caught that. I’m Zhijie, by the way.”
“Oh! So you’re Zhijie…” She pauses and gets mad at the other two again. “Wait. So you guys were tailing my guy! What’s up with that?”
“Whoa, take it easy, tiger! They’re not the enemy.”
She whips back to him and hisses, and even he has to back off. He then turns back to them. “Though, I’m honestly impressed that you managed to catch me out here. With the help of a cat, even! Is there someone with you guys who can talk to animals?”
Jessie shrugs. “Nah. It’s just Wedge who’s the cat whisperer.”
“Don’t tell me it was your cat whisperer who brought along a freakin’ dragon too.”
“Nope! That was our merc.”
He blinks in disbelief and then rolls his eyes. “Okay, then. You all just have the weirdest luck.”
“Uh, hello?” Yuffie butts in again, waving her hand in his face. “Can you just tell me who the heck they are? And what was that about a ‘freakin’ dragon’??”
“Ah, yeah. See, they’re Avalanche too, but they’re from a splinter cell that we haven’t been in contact with until recently.”
“A splinter cell?”
“Yeah. They split off over some argument about ‘policy differences’, so to speak. We cut off ties for a long time until the warehouse base thing.”
“Warehouse base thing?”
He shakes his head. “Look, it’s a long story. Let’s not talk everything out in the open. We can take it back to base.” He also turns to the other two. “Hey. Would you mind sticking around with us too? We’ll be able to explain the whole thing with the W’s.”
“‘W’s? Sheesh, have you just been speaking in code all this time or something?”
“Nah, just now. The W’s are people who came from where you’re from.”
“Oh.”
He turns back to them. “Well, how about it? It wouldn’t do you much good to go back to your cell without knowing what’s going on, right?”
Biggs and Jessie still look unsure, but without better options, they also nod back.
“Just to be clear, we don’t want to start up a huge fuss with HQ.” Biggs points toward him with a stern look. “But you guys better have a good reason for working with the W’s. We’re already up to our necks in trouble dealing with Shinra.”
“I gotcha. We do have a good reason or few, even. Come on, I’ll show you there.”
~
The base to the self-proclaimed Avalanche HQ turns out to be just around the block from Seventh Heaven, in a repurposed clinic on the southern side of town. There are a few other members here: a young lady with short hair and glasses, a blond young man in a dusty green shirt jacket, and another blond long-haired man with a durag and dressed in a worker’s uniform. Needless to say, they’re quite surprised to find that Zhijie is back with a couple unexpected visitors.
He beckons them all in. “Here we are. Make yourselves at home.”
“Oh. We got a full caravan this time… huh?” the short-haired young man begins, but stops short when he sees them.
“Wait, these two…” the young lady frowns, looking concerned.
Jessie folds her arms and returns the frown. “Long time no see, Nayo.”
Now the rest of them look a bit nervous. Their cells weren’t supposed to make contact. They just needed Zhijie to do a little digging on their behalf, to get in and get out, while they continue to monitor them. How the heck did things come to this?
Nayo turns to him. “Zhijie, what’s going on? You weren’t supposed to bring them here.”
He shakes his head. “Believe me, I didn’t want to either, but things got a bit out of hand. Had to ditch some Shinra troops on my tail, for starters, so I showed up to the appointment late.” He turns toward Yuffie. “By the time I did, our secret operative had already engaged.”
“Well, it’s not like I had any idea! Besides, they were being attacked by wild dogs. I couldn’t just stand back and watch,” Yuffie argues.
“Hey, I get it. But thanks to that, I had no choice but to let them tag along. Would be for the best that we get these questions out of the way.” He then turns back to Biggs and Jessie. “I’m sure you got a lot, so they’ll be able to explain. I gotta go, though.”
“Huh? Where are you going?”
He whips back around to her. “To pick up your IDs, of course. They ought to be about ready by now. Can’t keep our contact waiting out there.”
“Ah. Gotcha. Should I come with?”
“Nah. You still gotta meet up with Sonon, after all. Besides, I’m sure they got loads of questions for you too.” He looks around at everyone and makes a quick salute, and with that, he’s out the door.
Nayo now approaches Yuffie. “Hey, sorry about that. We’re not blaming you for anything, but this definitely complicates things.”
She shakes her head. “No problem. It’s outta my hands anyway. Oh, right! I still gotta introduce myself!” She then steps back to present herself and whips out a green materia to put on an acrobatics show. “My name is Yuffie, materia hunter and elite special forces operative for the new Wutai government. I have orders to infiltrate Shinra HQ and steal their ultimate materia. To prove to our common enemy that Wutai is not to be trifled with. Members of Avalanche, with your full support… We got this!”
She’s met with a round of blank stares followed by somewhat amused looks.
“Well, nice to meet you. I’m Billy Bob. That’s Nayo, our coordinator, and this is Polk, our newest before you,” the man in the durag answers with a polite smile.
“Hey,” the other young man replies with a hand in the air.
“And those two are Biggs and Jessie,” Nayo explains, “They’re part of a splinter cell, though, so we haven’t been working together for a while.”
“Oh, Zhijie told me already. He said you guys split over ‘policy differences’?”
“Yeah.” She then turns back to them with a wary look. “In particular, how they’re a bit too extreme. They don’t care about civilian casualties as long as they can get back at Shinra.”
Jessie rolls her eyes while Biggs shakes his head. “Sure, we’re the extreme ones even though you got other cells in mil-spec gear,” she retorts sarcastically.
“That’s a necessary precaution. But at least we don’t go around blowing the city up.”
Biggs shrugs. “It’s not like the rest of you have been doing much either. Shinra hasn’t made a move whatsoever until recently when they got their wake-up call.”
“So you decided to blow up a whole warehouse base? That’s exactly what we mean by ‘extreme’!”
He waves it away. “Hey, for the record, that wasn’t the plan. Our newest recruit is just a bit… unique.”
“Recruit?”
Jessie answers instead, “Yeah. That dragon you’ve been hearing in the news is our newest member. Her name’s Ruby.”
Now Yuffie jumps in, “Wait! You guys recruited a freakin’ dragon!?”
Biggs helps clarify, “She’s actually human, but can transform into a dragon.”
She blinks just once. “Whoa. Cool.”
“Hold up,” Polk asks, raising a hand, “Did you just say she can ‘transform’? Like a shapeshifter?”
Jessie answers, “Yep. She’s not just as strong as a Summon; seems like she came from their time too.”
“Huh?”
“It may sound crazy, but she’s also a time traveler from the ancient past.”
Now everyone is completely caught off-guard and grows even more alarmed – except for Yuffie, who simply gets more confused. Where exactly is this conversation going?
“The ancient past… You mean, she’s one of the Cetra of yore?” Nayo asks.
“That’s the one.”
Polk looks off, stunned, as he lets it sink in. “Huh… I always thought that talk of ancient texts was mainly just myth. But they actually still exist?”
Billy then recalls something, “Speaking of which, there’s been talk around town about a new girl who hangs around Seventh Heaven and she’s been seen using some powerful warping magic. By any chance, are we talking the same person?”
“Ah. Figures the news would get out by now.” Jessie nods back. “Yeah, that’s her.”
He shrugs. “Huh. So she was Cetra all along. Explains how she got all that power.”
Nayo only looks more concerned now. “It’s a crazy amount of power too. How did you even meet her?”
“Suddenly,” Jessie explains, “It was the night of the Reactor 1 bombing when we were all getting out and split up. Our recently hired merc happened to run into her along the way, and she flew him back to base before even we could get back.”
Biggs then adds, “The weird thing was, she already knew who we all were. It was her idea that she tag along with us in the first place.”
“She already knew?” Polk asks, “Did you all meet before somewhere?”
“Not that we know of. Seems like she’s seen visions of us and many other things, so that’s how.”
“Oh. Wow.”
Nayo then pursues further, “But doesn’t that sound suspicious? She could have been anyone, and you guys took her along for a raid anyway?”
“It was her choice,” Biggs replies, “With her help, the raid was smooth sailing until just the end.”
“So what happened there?” Billy asks again, “You said it wasn’t the plan to blow it up, right?”
“Nope.” He strikes a thinking pose as he tries to recall. “We’re still a bit fuzzy on the details, but she might have had some kind of panic attack.”
“Uh-oh,” Billy calmly remarks.
“A panic attack?” Nayo asks again, growing ever more suspicious, “Does she have trouble controlling her power?”
Biggs shakes his head. “Don’t know, but last we heard from her, she said she’d go off on a journey to learn more about herself.”
Jessie points out, “But she said she’d be back soon. She can get around pretty fast, so…”
An awkward silence befalls the room. Everyone is still in shock and disbelief that someone like Ruby could possibly exist. It’s also just as concerning how she’s run off on her own after committing what is basically her own terrorist attack. It just seems like a recipe for disaster. Even if this loose cannon seems to be aimed directly at Shinra, she might still hit a lot more than just company assets.
Nayo lets off a disheartened sigh. “You know, guys, I think I see what’s going on now.”
“Huh?”
“So you happened to run into someone who you thought was your lucky break, but then it turned out she was just drawing more trouble than you expected. And now she’s basically on the run and you have no idea where she is.”
“Uh…” The pair share awkward glances.
“I believe you when you say it was an accident. But I think it’s probably for the best that you guys not associate yourselves with her anymore.”
“What? Hey…” Biggs begins, but is shortly cut off.
“We can’t do that!” Jessie argues, “Aside from that accident, she’s been a big help to us. And she’s not just a powerhouse; she’s got great knowledge and insight, not just about the planet, but even about things that Shinra has been keeping quiet about. It’d be stupid to let someone like her go.”
“But is it really worth it? You all saw firsthand what happens if she isn’t in control of herself. Of course Shinra would report that the base was ‘mostly empty’, but who knows how many casualties there really were?”
“Yeah, but…”
“Besides, even if she joined you with the best of intentions, it’s clear that she’s been stirring up too much trouble. At this rate, Shinra may even take drastic measures, and we’re all going to be in trouble!”
“…”
“I’m sure Zhijie already told you, but there have been rumors that they might just drop the Sector 7 plate. If they’re real, then we need to get everyone out asap.”
By now, even Biggs and Jessie have gone silent and are feeling just a bit guilty for not thinking that far. Nayo may be a real stickler to rules and all, but she has a point. Violence usually begets more violence, and they’re all well aware that Shinra wouldn’t mind churning out sacrifices for a war.
“…Ahem. Excuse me.” Following the silence, Yuffie clears her throat to gather attention and steps forward. She crosses her arms and gives the pair a judgmental frown. “So, what I’m getting from all this… is that Ruby is some kind of magic dragon-Summon-person from the ancient past, she can warp anywhere she wants, and she even knows a lot of stuff about Shinra.”
“Uh, yeah. That’s about it, I guess,” Biggs answers with a nod.
Then, an excited smile appears on her face. “Well, by the sounds of it, it sounds like we’ve just hit the materia jackpot!”
“Huh?”
“Think about it, guys! Like I said, I’m on a mission to steal Shinra’s ultimate materia. And as it turns out, there’s someone who matches the description of what such a materia would summon!”
“Uh…” Jessie looks unsure. “I mean, I can kinda see where you’re coming from, but Ruby said she never came from materia.”
“Well, whatever. The point is, whether or not that materia actually exists, we gotta bring Ruby back to Wutai too! She’ll make an amazing ally and there’s nothing Shinra would be able to do about it! We’ll stomp ’em even if they do try to start a war!”
“W-wait a minute, Yuffie,” Nayo interrupts her, “If you do that, then it won’t just be about fighting Shinra. The rest of Midgar will be dragged into it.”
“What about it? It’s all part of Shinra anyway.”
She shakes her head. “No, Midgar isn’t the enemy here. Shinra is. We shouldn’t do anything that might lead to unnecessary casualties.”
“Yeah, but it’s not like you guys can separate the civilians from the company. This whole city is their work, after all.” She then smirks to herself. “Besides, it’s not gonna be much of a war if Ruby can just blow up all their bases. I hear they don’t even have their so-called ‘great’ war hero from the old war anymore. They’ll have to surrender!”
Now realizing that there’s no talking her out of it, Nayo makes a defeated sigh. “Well, the point is, we’re trying to avoid war at all costs.” She turns back to Biggs and Jessie. “That’s why it’s important that Avalanche works with Wutai. We need to mediate the tensions between the two countries.”
They nod back in understanding. Nonetheless, Biggs brings it up, “Okay. We get where you guys are coming from. We don’t want to escalate things to that point either. But it’s not exactly easy to just tell Ruby off.”
“Yeah,” Jessie agrees, “She’s not just an avid supporter. She’s practically one of us now.”
“Besides, the last thing we need is to push her away. Even if she can stay out of Shinra’s hands, it’s not gonna help anyone if she goes rogue.”
“Not to mention, she has a cousin who’s also Cetra. They’re working to help with the planet’s crisis. What would be the point of Avalanche if we aren’t there with them on that?”
Nayo looks like she was about to come with a retort again, but then she stops and thinks it over again.
Billy is then reminded and takes the chance to speak up, “Ah, now that you mention it, you guys have been in contact with someone from Sector 5 too, huh? Seems like you got some luck when it comes to picking up the right people.”
Jessie makes a subtle smirk. “Yeah, seems like it. But I think it’s more to do with how Ruby just knows who we need.”
“By the way, what about the rest of you? Was it just you two who were tailing Zhijie earlier?”
“Yeah, just us. Barret and the others went off to Shinra HQ to confront the president about the Sector 7 plate.”
“What?” He looks pretty taken aback by that. “All of a sudden? But weren’t you guys planning to stop by Reactor 5?”
Biggs answers, “That was the plan, but then the reactor got shut down and we ran into Zhijie who told us about the rumors. So Barret said they were going up there.”
“What the heck?” Polk exclaims, “They’re just gonna march up to HQ and make some demands? But wasn’t it already attacked last night? Security should be swarming the place by now.”
“Yeah, to be honest, even we thought it was kinda crazy. But Barret was confident that Ruby would get back in time and lend a hand, so that’s why they went ahead on their own first.”
“Sheesh… There’s brave and then there’s blind faith.”
They just shrug back. Barret can be that guy sometimes – or a lot, actually.
“Wait, so what happened last night?” Yuffie asks.
Billy explains for her, “Apparently, someone broke into Shinra HQ without alerting anyone. It wasn’t until a camera crew that happened to be passing by caught a glimpse of someone escaping through the window from the 64th floor.”
“What? They just leapt out from that high!?” She quickly connects the dots, though. “Then it’s gotta be Ruby!”
“We thought so too. But whatever she was doing there, it doesn’t sound like she was after the top brass. And then, the next thing we heard from this morning, even Mako Reactor 5 was shut down.”
“Ha! She works fast!” She snickers with excitement. “Oh, we have got to meet already! Hey, if she’s gonna be meeting up with them, then maybe I should go and catch them.”
Nayo cuts in to temper her expectations, “Wait a sec, Yuffie. They’ll be running right into security. That’s not gonna help you guys get in…”
But Polk has been thinking over something and now brings it up: “Actually, it might still work out.”
“Huh? Polk, what are you talking about?” Nayo asks him.
“While they’re busy distracting all the guards and all, we could use the commotion to our advantage.”
“Oh. That’s a good point, actually,” Nayo agrees, catching on, “In all likelihood, this ultimate materia will be somewhere underground in the Weapons Development labs. Yuffie and Sonon could sneak in the other way.”
“Oh! So we’re going into the basement, huh?” Yuffie catches on too and she snickers to herself. “Well, guess we have to thank their cell for being full of hot-heads! This works out perfectly!”
Then Nayo insists, “In the meantime, I think it’s for the best that Jessie and Biggs stay with us for a while.”
“Huh?” “What?” they respond at the same time.
“Whoa, hold on. Why would we need to stick around?” Biggs asks, crossing his arms.
“Guys, don’t you realize it yet? Shinra’s going to be after you all. Just in case anything goes wrong and Barret’s group gets captured, at least the rest of you can still do something while laying low.”
“We get that much, but it’s just business as usual, then. Besides, we have to get back to Seventh Heaven. Wedge is still there guarding the place, and who knows if Ruby is already back and waiting for us.”
“Don’t worry about that. We can send some guys to let them know. In any case, the last thing we need is for more Avalanche members to be caught.”
He and Jessie share some unsure glances. Though Nayo is making a lot of sense here, she’s also the overly cautious type when it comes to these plans. Besides, they also have to call up the others to report in, but with Avalanche HQ breathing down their necks, that might be rather difficult. In other words, they’re gonna have to find a chance to escape.
“In any case, even with them being the distraction,” Nayo says, turning back to Yuffie, “You guys will be needing some fake IDs to get in.” Then, she’s reminded about one other thing. “Oh, yeah. Is Zhijie not back yet? He said he would meet the contact, so it shouldn’t take him that long.”
“Yeah, that is weird,” Yuffie agrees. She also gets a little impatient. “And where is Sonon!? I thought he’d be back by now too!”
“Ah. Sonon said he was doing a little recon off in Wall Market.”
“Wall Market?”
“Let’s just say it’s a place for people with ‘mature tastes’.”
“Mature tastes…”
“There’s lots of different establishments. It’s… kinda hard to explain.”
Yuffie scoffs, “No, I think I get it. Like bars filled with smoke so thick you can’t even see, and drinks so bitter you wanna spit ’em right back out!”
“Uh…”
“Where everyone gets drunk and complains about how ‘Kids just don't understand the value of hard work. They’ll be the death of society.’ Ugh, how can they not see that they’re the ones destroying it!?”
She makes a polite chuckle and passes a glance to the others, but no one seems to be interested in saying anything either.
“If he comes back wasted, I’m gonna fly this mission solo. Maybe if I run into Ruby somewhere, I’ll have her replace him!”
“Ouch… Seems like a ninja’s job is always on the line, alright.”
“Oh, yeah. He had better come in through that door with some really important info, or his goose is cooked!”
And as if fate had great comedic timing, they promptly hear the sound of someone rushing back in. It’s a young scraggy-haired man in light, sturdy armor who bears a large quarterstaff on his back.
“Hey, I’m back. You guys should hear this…” He stops short when he spots the new visitors. “Oh. You got more members?” He then gives Biggs a curious look. “Hey, wait, aren’t you…?”
“Oh, don’t mind them. We just had some things to talk about,” Nayo brushes it aside. “Anyway, someone else has been waiting for you.”
“About time! I was almost about to drop you off the mission!” Yuffie snaps at him.
“Oh, hey. You’re-”
“Don’t ‘oh, hey’ me! What kept you?”
“Er, sorry. Just doing some recon. And I got-”
“Yeah, right. I heard you were off in Wall Market of all places. Had some fun there, I bet. So, which bar did you go to do your ‘recon’?”
“Uh… huh?”
She leans into his space to give him a close inspection. “Hmm… well, at least you don’t reek of the stuff yet. You are sober, right?”
“Y-yeah, of course.”
“Hmph.” She folds her arms with a stern frown. “At least you sound okay. Fine, I’ll let you off the hook this time.”
“Uh… right.” He pauses to give her a curious stare.
“W-what?”
“Nothing. Just thinking how you’re nothing like your old man.” He strikes a very ninja-like salute. “Anyway, it's nice to finally meet you. I'm Sonon Kusakabe. I learned to fight under your-”
“Yeah, I don’t wanna talk about him. Let’s talk something else,” she cuts in to change the subject, “So… what have you been up to these past three days?”
“Oh.” He relaxes from his pose. “Well, I’ve scouted out the place and learned about day-to-day life of the citizens around town. I’ve also picked out a few places that would make pretty good meet-up spots, as well as some hotspots that people often talk about.”
She looks bored already. “You’ve just been playing tourist, huh…”
“I also caught up with the news lately regarding a rogue Avalanche cell that’s been causing a stir. And if I recall, one of the people who made the news…” He then turns off toward Biggs as he continues, “is right here.”
Biggs casually raises a hand as if to greet him. “Looks like my reputation precedes me.”
“You four were the headlines for a while there, after all,” Jessie quips along.
“Ah, so you’re not totally useless!” Yuffie snaps to attention. “Well, Sonon, guess what? I got some great news!” She whips back around to the pair beside them. “You see those guys?”
“Uh, yeah?”
She grins back to him. “They’re our ticket that’ll lead us to the ultimate materia!”
“W-what?” He glances over and back to her. “You mean they know where it is?”
“Nah. I mean we’re gonna look for their dragon friend. Her name’s Ruby, by the way. She would know a thing or two about it, I bet.”
“Really? How do you figure?”
“Well, for starters,” she says, counting on her fingers, “They say she’s a time traveling being from the ancient past, is as strong as a Summon, can warp anywhere she wants, and even knows some secrets about Shinra that no one else does! Like, how perfect a match can you get!?”
“Whoa! Slow down. Someone like that really exists?”
“Yeah. You saw the news about the attack on Shinra HQ last night, right? Then you should have seen her in action?”
“Um…” He takes a moment to recall. “Well, there were some brief flashes of a white dragon flying over a Shinra warehouse, followed by the absolute destruction. Is that who we’re looking for?”
“Exactly!”
“Huh… Turns out she’s even crazier than the news made her out to be.” Now he nods along. “It does sound like a match.”
“Right? So we gotta get her on our side! Wutai will be unstoppable!” When she gets a bunch of wary eyes on her from the others, she quickly adds, “For peace-keeping purposes, of course.”
“Hmm…” Sonon takes a moment to think it over, but nods along with her. “Okay, then. You’re the boss here.”
“Hehehe…” She stops short when she catches on. “Wait. ‘Boss’? Me?”
“Yeah. I've got a few years on you, I'll admit – but out of us two, you've done this longer.”
“I… I guess I have!” She goes back to chuckling. “‘Boss,’ huh? I could get used to that.”
“By the way, Boss, I really was doing some recon earlier and got something you should hear.”
“Huh? Oh, right.” She then clears her throat. “Report!”
He salutes her and proceeds, “I ran into some sleazy-looking guys while I was at the Market. By the sounds of it, they were working for a man by the name of Don Corneo. Seems like he’s the fat cat that runs most of the establishments there. He’s also known to be pretty shady himself and is said to have his own crime ring. Even got some kind of illegal coliseum where people bet on fights and all that.”
“Uh-huh…”
“But get this: it turns out their boss isn’t even in town anymore. I caught some of them chatting and they mentioned he had plans in Wutai.”
That snaps her to attention. “What? What’s Wutai got to do with him?”
“Not sure. But whatever he’s up to, I don’t think it’s a good thing.”
“Oh, that’s it! If he’s gonna try anything shady at our doorstep, I’ll make sure he gets a wallop! And maybe a blast of dragon fire too!”
“Oh, yeah. Speaking of dragons, his goons have been going around looking for some Avalanche members and their dragon. Sounds like Shinra got some high bounties on them.”
“Oh, are they? Too bad for them ’cause we’re gonna find them first!”
“You got it, Boss. So what’s the plan now? Do we still infiltrate Shinra HQ or do we just try to find Ruby?”
“Well, we did come here to raid their HQ, after all. We don’t know where she went. They said she’ll be back soon, though.”
“Soon? Like, how soon?”
“Uh, I dunno.” She turns back to the other two. “How soon?”
They shrug back. “She didn’t say,” Biggs replies.
“But she gets around fast. She might even be back at the bar already,” Jessie suggests.
“Uh-huh.” Yuffie raises up a pumped-up fist. “In other words, if we stick with you guys, we’ll run into her later?”
“Hey, wait a minute, Yuffie!” Nayo now cuts in. “I thought we went over the plan? We still have to go get your IDs.”
“Oh, I know. But after we get them, we can stop by their bar. What’s it called again?” She turns back to Jessie.
“Seventh Heaven. It’s around the center of town and a pretty popular spot for the locals. It’s been closed lately since we’ve been busy, though.”
“Then, that’s where we’re going!”
Nayo looks rather disheartened to hear her so excited about this sudden change of plans, but she understands she can’t talk her out of it. She turns back to the other two, who can only shrug back, and lets off a sigh.
“Alright, then. I see you guys are already set on this, so I can’t stop you. But be careful and don’t stick too close. Shinra’s got their sights right on them, after all.”
Jessie turns back to her with a concerned look. “You’re really just gonna let them go with us?”
“Yeah. It’s not like we can control them. They’re on their own mission, after all. We’re just here to lend a hand.”
“Right. Sorry about this. Maybe we can make it up to you guys eventually.”
She shakes her head. “No, it’s fine. Do what you have to do. And if you guys do run into Ruby again, watch over her so she doesn’t freak out like last time.”
“Gotcha.”
“But I still think it’s a good idea that you guys stick with us for a while. Bring Wedge over too. Even if it isn’t just like old times, we can still try to make something work.”
“Hmm…” She shares an unsure look with Biggs and turns back to her. “Well, we don’t wanna keep holding grudges or anything, but we already got some other plans of our own. But for now, I think we could settle on a truce.”
“A truce, huh…” Nayo looks a little sad to hear that. “I understand. We’ll agree to keep out of each other’s way as we’ve been doing, then. But just to be clear, we’re still on the same side. If we find something big, then we’ll let you guys know too.”
“Thanks. By the way, we’ve been meaning to make a call. Can you let us phone in so Barret doesn’t get the wrong idea and think we’ve been taken hostage?”
She nods. “Yeah, go ahead. They deserve to know what’s been happening.”
At last, Jessie can flick her walkie-talkie back on. However, as soon as she curates it to the signal she wants, suddenly she meets a whole lot of static. She tries to readjust the dials, but regardless, the static doesn’t go away. She gives it a violent shake, but that doesn’t help either.
“Come on! Really?”
“What’s wrong, Jessie?” Biggs asks.
“I don’t know. Seems like it’s run into a lot of interference. I can’t get a good signal!”
“What? So what does that mean? Are they doing okay?”
“Who knows… But I think they’ve entered into some area that has a load of jamming, so we can’t link up.”
“Huh? But where could they be that would have that?”
“If I had to guess… somewhere in Shinra HQ.”
“Wait. So, they made it in already?”
“Seriously!?” Yuffie exclaims. “That was fast! Sounds like security wasn’t a problem, then!”
“Either that, or they’ve already met with Ruby and she’s gotten them in.”
“Either way! If they’re moving that fast, then we gotta go before they finish what they’re doing!” She turns back to Nayo. “Hey, you said our High-Ds were ready, right?”
“Yeah, they ought to be. Oh, I should mention: you’ll need another set of IDs specifically to enter the Shinra building.”
“What? Why?”
“That’s just how it is. Shinra built this city, after all.”
“Ooh, those tyrants!”
“I can take you to the contact. Hopefully Zhijie will be back by the time we do.”
“You don’t think he got caught up by those troops that were after him, do you?” Polk asks warily.
“Hopefully not, but…”
Yuffie volunteers, “We can go after him too. He’s not far from where we have to go, right?”
“Probably. And thanks.” She then asks once more to confirm, “So, after you get your IDs, will you be coming back here, or are you just going to stick with their cell?”
“Hmm, I mean, is there anything else we’d need to come back here for?” She turns to Sonon just to be sure.
“Well, they may not be the group that has the ultimate Summon or anything, but they’re still Avalanche. We could check back just in case they find out anything else.”
“Alright, then! Sounds like a plan!”
Nayo nods back, feeling a bit more reassured. “Thanks. We’ll keep an eye out too if we catch Ruby anywhere. Good luck with your mission, guys.”
“Thanks! Same to you.” She turns for the door. “Now, let’s get going! And maybe save Zhijie’s butt while we’re at it!”
And it’s back to being quiet around here once Nayo leads them out. Jessie watches them go and turns back to Biggs with a concerned frown.
She whispers, “Well, I can’t say I didn’t expect this, but it looks like we’ve been roped back into HQ affairs…”
“Yeah, but if there’s anything we got out of this exchange, it’s that we now got ninjas on our trail too.”
“Ugh. The point was just to tail one of their guys and eavesdrop, then get back to base. But then we got found by the ninja girl first.”
“If I recall, it was a certain someone’s idea to march out into the open…”
“Hey! It’s not like I knew she was around! Or that we’d be stuck here for so long…”
Though they had been whispering, the place had gotten quiet enough that the other two could hear them anyway. And then, Billy Bob surprises them by speaking up.
“Hey. If you’re in that much of a hurry, you can go.”
“Huh?” They turn back to him.
He gives them a dismissive wave of his hand. “For the record, I don’t actually agree with Nayo about keeping you two here. Even without the warehouse incident, you guys just naturally draw trouble anyway.”
“Well… can’t argue with you there,” Biggs admits.
“Besides, like you said earlier, Ruby gets around fast. She could have stopped by the bar while we were talking and we’d be none the wiser. Go check in with Wedge.”
“But you sure about this?” Jessie asks, “Won’t Nayo get mad if she finds we just left?”
“Nah, don’t worry about us. Let’s just say you guys were better escape artists than we expected.”
Polk suggests with a wry smirk, “Maybe if you guys move fast enough, you can even get back here and we won’t have to explain anything.”
Billy shakes his head with a sigh. “Let’s face it, Polk. Nayo probably suspected us even before she left.”
He shakes his head and slumps back onto the back of his chair. “Man…”
Jessie and Biggs return some relieved smiles. She raises them a thumbs-up too. “Thanks, guys. And don’t worry! We’ll be back soon.”
“We owe you one. Stop by the bar sometime and drinks are on us,” Biggs offers with a quick salute.
And with that, the pair are free to dash. And good timing too; with their radios down and unable to make contact, they’re on edge to get back to work. All they can really do is hope that their suspicions are right and that Ruby’s got the A team covered. And maybe the sector plate drop too, if she gets the chance.
Notes:
Sorry to keep everyone! This chapter took many different revisions and otherwise complete overhauls before I could settle on one that I was satisfied with. I had to review over INTERmission and DoC stuff for a good while to decide what to actually use. It also took me several days into writing a good 2/3s of the chapter before I realized I mixed up Avalanche's org structure and had to go back and rewrite everything.
Outdated A/N
I won't be going back to change anything from chapters 11-14, though, since I was smart enough to write them in a way that was vague and gave me some wiggle room. Writing a novel week by week is hard.
Just a few things in this chapter to note:
Hidden for convenience
- I don't know why Remake has such a fascination with cats, but I took it upon myself to write a major segment of the story focused on cats. I'm not a cat owner, so I may have made up that fact about how cats recognize people, but I do at least know from a few encounters with friends' cats that they are super keen to nonverbal cues - even more so than dogs. They also prefer people who look directly at them.
- I don't remember how many cats Betty had, but let's pretend she's acquired an advanced database on just about all the cats in town. I need my CIN (cat intelligence network) to be a thing.
- The two cats I named in this chapter, Goma and Shio, are original characters. I don't think any of Betty's cats were named in Remake. They're both Japanese; goma means "sesame", usually black sesame but can be any kind, and shio means "salt".
- I did not come up with a name for the kitten that led Biggs & Jessie out of town. If anyone has a good suggestion, though, this is one of the few times I will be open to suggestions.
- I'm not Vietnamese, but for just this chapter, I'm going to pretend it's the Year of the Cat. Lunar New Year celebrations end tomorrow, as it happens. Yeowza, my mastery of brilliant timing strikes again!
- This last fact has nothing to do with cats, I'm sorry. But it is worth to note that the entirety of chapters 11-14 all lasted within the same afternoon to night. And by the time the party finally leaves Midgar, it'll be a wrap for the whole day. :32/16/23 edit: I'm a goofy goober. I forgot Yuffie mispronounces "ID" as "High-D". This terrible grievance has been corrected.
Chapter 16: Like A Running Hare
Notes:
Outdated A/N
2/24/23 edit: Sorry for the delay, everyone! I've run into a few sick days and haven't had the time to get as much done as I'd hoped. Also planning for the next two chapters has been difficult; we're coming close to the end of Midgar and I wanna end the first act with aplomb! Expect updates coming by Tuesday/Wednesday next week. Monday if I'm feeling lucky.
3/1/23 edit: Sick days have been extended. I hate pushing goalposts, but it is what it is. Chapter is finished and saved to be posted tomorrow. This has been the hardest chapter to write in terms of getting the timeline correct to match with original content. Also, was busy planning the next chapter in tandem, so hopefully it'll come sooner.
--
Just a clarification from last chapter since I forgot to mention: When Jessie tried to make the call, the interference she ran into wasn't from Cloud & gang entering Shinra HQ, but during the Valkyrie fight. Let's just say, its satellite comms was strong enough to interfere; not to mention how noisy it'd be from all the gunfire being exchanged.
Just putting this here to help keep track of current events.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“So, how’s the undercity for you so far, Yuffie?”
“Ugh… No offense, but it could use some work. Especially about the smell! You guys just live with it?”
“Yeah. After a while, you just get used to it.”
“Yeesh. The people around here really do have it bad. I mean, they’re literally living next to garbage. It’s surprising they don’t revolt against their corporate overlords more.”
“Yeah… but you know, it’s not all bad.”
“Really?”
“The people who live here grow up to be pretty resilient to most things. We count on each other to help where it matters, after all. Things like that help build up a strong sense of community.”
“Hm. I guess…”
Nayo leads Yuffie and Sonon through the Sector 7 slums, headed out toward their point of contact in an empty warehouse at the outskirts. While they roamed around town, she didn’t want to bring up anything too heavy of a topic, but after walking a fair distance away past the gates out of town, she feels the need to bring up the question that has been looming over them.
“At least, it was a strong sense until more recently. The string of attacks and threats around the city have put everyone on edge. It’s only gotten harder to rally support…”
“Ah, that’s too bad. But now that you have us, I think we’re more than enough!”
“Heh, yeah. And we’re grateful for it, really.” Nayo pauses before she continues, “You know, guys, I have to ask something.”
“What?”
“Are you really serious about working with the splinter cell later?”
Yuffie gives her arms a quick stretch behind her head. “Yeah, we are. What’s wrong?”
She makes a wary frown. “I know I can’t tell you what to do, but I think it’d be better if you keep some distance. With how things are going with them, they’re just running headfirst into dangerous gamble after another. You never know what other ‘accidents’ might happen.”
“Hmm…” But Yuffie still doesn’t look swayed.
Sonon’s interest is piqued too. “What sort of ‘accidents’ are we talking here?”
“Ah, right. You weren’t there when we discussed it, Sonon. Long story short, their cell may have just opened Pandora’s Box by recruiting someone like Ruby. After all, she let out that kind of power on the warehouse base on accident. And now they don’t even know where she’s gone. She’s just a loose cannon in all sorts of ways.”
“Ah. That sort of accident.” He nods along. “Yeah, no matter how you put it, having an ally like that is going to have its fair share of consequences.”
“Yeah, like crushing any hope that Midgar could possibly win one over us,” Yuffie cheekily offers.
“About that, Boss…” He raises her a suspect eye. “I know you’re all-in on getting her on our side, but it’s no guarantee she’ll help us. We haven’t even seen her outside of some rare news coverage. We don’t know her at all. You sure you wanna work with someone like that?”
“But we’re all fighting against Shinra here!” Yuffie argues, “Why not team up? It’ll make things way easier if we can coordinate strategies and stuff!”
“Well, yeah, I get that, but…” He rubs his head awkwardly as he asks further, “It just feels like you’re really invested in her for some reason. Is there some kind of history between you two?”
“Nope. Never met her before.” She then shrugs. “But I guess it is ‘some kind of history’.”
“What kind of history?”
“Um…” She thinks it over, but decides not to bring it up. “You know, just history in general. She is supposed to be an ancient being, right? She should know a lot of things about the past.”
“It sounds like it, at least…” He then pauses as he reconsiders a line of thought. “Huh. I never took you to be a history buff.”
“Huh?” She looks taken aback and gets indignant. “Hey! What’s that supposed to mean? I’m a certified ninja too! We gotta know these things, you know.”
“Y-yeah, I know. But you just strike me as a type of person who, well, doesn’t like listening to long-winding stories.”
“Hmph. Only if they’re boring and come from the mouths of drunk adults who don’t know what they’re talking about.”
“Okay, then. Point taken.”
Yuffie stomps off ahead of him as he watches her go. He turns to Nayo with a shrug while she simply smiles back. They hurry to keep up and the latter leads them further, but as the group approaches the gates to the warehouse, they find some unexpected loiterers. There are three men, each dressed like fashionably edgy punks, who start to snicker among themselves as their awaited guests arrive.
“Well, look what we have here, boys… Like moths to a flame.”
“Hehehe! Check out those smooth curves! Maybe when we’re done here, we take the lady back to base for another ‘interrogation’!”
“Ha! And who’s gonna be doing that, you?” a third one replies with snark.
“Hey, no need to be jealous…”
“I ain’t jealous! Just not sure you’re up to the task, haha!”
The first one cuts them off before the conversation goes haywire. “Hey, cut the crap, guys. We’re on a different kind of mission this time. Don’t %#&@ it up or you’ll be the next one the boss ‘interrogates’.”
“Ugh… no need to remind me.”
Yuffie frowns. “Who the heck are these guys?”
Sonon reaches for his staff on his back. “Trouble. I happened to run into a few of them while I was scouting Wall Market.”
Nayo keeps back beside the other two, but stands her ground. “They’re Don Corneo’s lackeys. Normally, they go around scouting for unsuspecting young women for their boss, but…”
“Then what are they doing out here?” Yuffie asks.
Sonon frowns. “…Something tells me I wasn’t the only one sneaking around.”
“Heh! Thought I heard someone spying on us. Ran away like a rat before we could catch ’im.” The first lackey sneers as he draws a knife and casually tosses it into the air with one hand. “As it happens, we’re busy looking around for people too. You guys know a thing about Avalanche or a guy with a gun-arm?”
Nayo returns a wary eye. “If we did know, what do you want with them?”
He catches his knife and brandishes it forward. “Nothing much. We just hear they got some nice bounties on their heads. After all, one of them’s gone ahead and starred herself in the news.”
“Man! It shocked me the first time I heard the rumors!” another lackey follows with a laugh, “A girl who can turn into a dragon and blow shit up? That’s like outta some kinda cheap fairy tale, but whaddya know!”
“The boss loves his freaks of nature, and this one even got a cute face attached to it,” the third one remarks, “Boy, would I do anything to see how she’d look in chains, hehehe…”
“Damn, man. You always gotta for that angle, huh?”
“Man, shut up! You were just goin’ on about that lady’s curves a moment ago!”
“Hey, it’s not my fault we got some eye candy just walking up to us!”
Ignoring his fellows, the first lackey raises up a phone with a photo displayed. It’s the same one that’s been circulating around; the one where a couple were sighted taking a ride on a white dragon. “Hey. Any of you seen the people in this picture lately? Or the dragon, while we’re at it?”
Though Yuffie doesn’t recognize either of the people, her eyes hone straight in on the white dragon. “So that’s what we’re going for, huh…” she mutters to herself.
Sonon shakes his head. “Sorry, but you’ve got the wrong crowd. All we know is what everyone’s already heard.”
The lackey remains unimpressed. “Oh? Sounds like what a rat would say when it gets caught by the cat and wants to get away.”
“Oh, don’t get the wrong idea.” He then draws his staff forward and wields it menacingly. “You’re not the cat in this situation.”
“Huh?”
Yuffie smirks confidently too. “Sorry to break it to ya, but we’re going after that dragon and we don’t have time for you losers! Now scram or we’ll have to scramble you!” She whips out her huge shuriken too.
“Right. I’ll leave the rest to you two,” Nayo says, quickly hurrying off to the side and out of the way.
“Hmph. Don’t go squeakin’ to your leader when we beat the answers outta you rats!” the lackey yells.
However, these three goons are not nearly as prepared as they thought they’d be. One moment the staff man and the kid were standing before them with their weapons drawn, and the next, they’ve vanished from sight. As they look around confused, the next things that hit them are the impacts of staff and shuriken to their backs and heads, promptly knocking them off their feet.
“Damn…!” he groans as he gets back up. “What the hell was…?”
But then, he takes a sweeping smack to the legs that cripple him, followed by a somersault kick in the face that tips him right back down. The other two goons aren’t any luckier. One gets a flurry of slashes for daring to lunge at her, and the other gets flung high into the air like a pole vaulter, but then smashed into the ground by said pole. The ninjas quickly hop back a safe distance as their targets struggle to get back up.
But the barrage isn’t done yet. When they look up again, they instead find that the girl has hopped onto the man’s staff, and like a catapult, he flings her toward them. She spins through the air, and together with her partner, they bomb them with an explosion of ninjutsu, scattering them in all directions.
Yuffie stands triumphantly where she had made a small crater. “Hahaha! Buncha idiots! Never let your guard down to the enemy! That’s how you’re asking to be ambushed!”
Sonon playfully spins his staff and catches it firm in a snap. “Well, that oughta do for now.”
“You betcha! The less competition we have in our dragon hunt, the better!” She hops back out and dusts herself off. “Though can’t say they were much competition anyway.”
“Hey, Boss! The big man rang in! Change of plans!” A fourth member of the goons comes running over, but stops to stare at the aftermath of battle. “Uh, you guys okay?”
“Urgh… this ain’t over…!” the first lackey grunts as he staggers back to his feet.
Yuffie scoffs, “Really? You still want more?”
The other two likewise struggle to climb back up too, and the ninjas pose to strike again.
However, the goons seem less interested in continuing the fight. Their lead then follows up, “…But we don’t have time to mess around here.” He waves to the others. “Let’s go. We gotta hear this…”
“Hold on a sec,” Sonon then steps in front of them. “Before you go, I got a question.”
“Huh?”
“Why’s your boss headed for Wutai?”
Yuffie blinks and gets mad. “Oh, yeah! He’d better not get any wild ideas!”
The lead lackey scoffs, “Hmph. Sorry, but you won’t get any answers outta us…”
Sonon glares back. “Yeah? Why’s that?”
He then shrugs. “’Cause we don’t know either. Ever since he first caught wind about the white dragon, he was all ready to get going. Didn’t tell any of us why he chose there.”
“…” Sonon sighs and steps aside to let them go.
And like wounded rats with tails between their legs, they all scurry away from the warehouse. The ninjas promptly stow away their weapons, while Yuffie snoots haughtily at them. Nayo watches them go with an amused smirk too and turns back to her allies.
“Nice work. You two seem to be in sync the moment the fighting started.”
“That comes with the territory!” Yuffie says with a cheeky grin, “Though, I guess Sonon’s not half-bad to be able to keep up.”
“Heh. Glad to be of help, Boss.” His smile then fades as he moves on. “Still, this is turning out to be a real nuisance. Seems like no one has any idea why Don Corneo just up and left.”
“Seriously!” Yuffie huffs, “What’s this Don man’s deal anyway? He’s not working for Shinra, is he?”
Nayo explains, “Not officially, but he might as well be. Sounds to me like he might know something about Ruby that we don’t.”
“Ooh! He already makes me mad! If they’re sending him there to spy on us, then he’s got another thing coming!” She swings an angry fist in the air a few times for good measure.
Sonon reminds her, “Agreed, but we’ll just have to deal with that later. For now, we got a mission here.”
“Yeah, yeah…”
Nayo waves a hand to beckon them. “Come on. The meetup point’s not far from here.”
They head inside the empty warehouse and wait, but as it so happens there’s another of those black robed figures wandering around. At least he doesn’t seem to notice them come in, so they decide to let him be.
“So who are we waiting for anyway?” Yuffie asks, getting a little bored.
“I don’t know, actually.”
“Huh?”
“We’ve never worked with this person before. The one who used to work on forging IDs ran off with the splinter cell, so we’ve been short on staff.”
“Oof… That cell sure seems popular. No wonder you guys need us.”
“I wouldn’t say ‘popular’, but…” Nayo drifts off, noting that Yuffie didn't even notice the slight she dealt. She's already off in her own thoughts.
It’s not too long a wait before their counterfeiter in a flat cap shows up. He passes them their fake IDs, warning about the train security system.
“Thanks! And no worries! Where we’re going, we might not even need to worry about that,” Yuffie replies with a smug grin.
“Huh? What’s that supposed to mean? You’re not taking the trains?”
Sonon shakes his head. “Don’t worry about that. We’ll keep ’em safe. You stay clear too.”
The counterfeiter shrugs and waves a hand as if to thank him, and he’s off.
Nayo then suggests, “Well, that’s it for now. We should head back to base and see if Zhijie hasn’t shown up yet.”
Yuffie throws up a triumphant fist. “And then, we’re off to see the splinter cell!”
Sonon gestures to call her back down. “Easy there, Boss. You’re not expecting that we just run into Sector 6 after them, are you?”
“Huh? Why not? They should have cleared the way.”
“It’s not about the security. I doubt the trains are gonna be stopping by Sector 6. We’ll need another way up.”
Nayo nods too. “If anyone would know a different way up, then it’s probably Zhijie. He really knows his way around the city.”
Yuffie swerves off toward the door they came from. “Then, let’s go get him already! He’d better not be caught by Shinra!”
She dashes off on ahead and the other two hurry after her. It’s a quick brush through the dusty roads back to town, but as they close in to the slums, the sudden appearance of a carrier pigeon over their heads brings them to a quick stop.
“What the? A bird?” Yuffie asks.
Nayo catches on and reaches out a hand for the bird to nestle upon. “Thought so. It’s one of ours.” She takes the little roll of paper from its clutches and opens it up. “‘Change of plans. Go to the inn at Wall Market. Will explain there. Hurry. – Zhijie’”
“‘Change of plans’?”
“The inn at Wall Market?” Sonon frowns with concern. “What’s he doing heading off for Sector 6?”
“He’s gone off to another sector!?” she gasps, “That’s not far, is it?”
“Not too far. I stopped by the place earlier, after all.”
“Oh, yeah. So why Wall Market now?”
Nayo makes a worried look as she slips the note away into a pocket. “This is just what I feared. Shinra’s already on the move.” She turns back to the others. “Sorry to drop this on you guys, but I don’t think it’s gonna be safe sticking around here in the Sector 7. Go after Zhijie. I’ll get the others back at base and we’ll be out.”
“Oh. Okay…”
With that, Nayo waves a hand and hurries off on her own through town. Yuffie watches her go, growing ever more confused and nervous, and turns back to Sonon.
“Uh, what’s going on here? Why are we all suddenly on the move?”
“Whatever it is, it’s not good. If Shinra might have caught onto where Avalanche’s base is…”
“What? No way! Do they also know about us too?”
“Don’t know, but we’d better not take it too easy. And we still have to catch up with the splinter cell, so let’s get going.”
“Right! Where to?”
“Follow me. I took an underground route to get to Wall Market. If I recall correctly…”
~
Meanwhile, back at 7th Heaven, Biggs and Jessie have met up with Wedge, who was overjoyed that they’re still alive. He also let them know that Ruby had dropped in, but that’s about where the good news ends. She warned that the Sector 7 plate drop rumors are real, and while she’ll try something to deal with it, they still ought to get out while they can. The big problem right now, though, is the increase of Shinra surveillance in town. They’re not gonna be able to move around freely.
“Hey, Jessie, you know of a good place around here we can hide out to pass the time?”
“Here in the slums? I dunno. We can’t stay cooped up anywhere for long anyway. I think it’d be better off if we got disguises or something. Our counterfeiter was constantly changing outfits every time we met, after all.”
“Right, that’s what I meant. Where should we go to get disguises, though?”
“Umm…” She tries to recall some nearby clothing stores, and finally recalls one where she had been before. “Oh! Of course! There’s this guy I met once before. He sells clothes with custom designs and even allows people to print pictures of Stamp.” She finishes with a wink.
Biggs chuckles. “Good ol’ Stamp making his rounds as usual… Sounds good. Lead the way.”
But Wedge then cuts in, “Wait! But what about Marlene? We can’t just leave her here.”
“What are you talking about, Wedge? You’re not coming with us.”
“Oh…” He looks genuinely distraught to hear that.
Biggs slumps too. “Hey, you know it’s not like that. Barret would kill us if we left Marlene alone.”
“I know, but…” He sighs. “With all the troops coming around, I’m just getting really antsy. Like, they could come in here any time and we wouldn’t be able to get away if they suspect us of anything.”
“You just gotta keep it cool. Besides, with Marlene and the cats here, there’s no way they’d try to arrest you!”
“Uh, you sure about that? I know they’re really cute, but…”
“Hope and pray, man.”
“Right…” He then nods back. “Good luck, guys! I’m sure once Ruby’s done helping them out, she’ll be back in no time! Then we won’t have anything to worry about!”
“Yeah! Think positive!” Jessie replies, returning him a thumbs-up.
But just as Biggs and Jessie are about to head out, they hear a gentle knock on the door to the bar. As it turns out, it’s Marle, the old landlady who watches Tifa and Cloud’s apartments.
“Oh, Marle! What are you doing here?”
The old woman looks rather troubled. “Well… I’m not exactly one to snoop around or anything, but I can’t help but feel that you youngsters have been getting into a lot of trouble lately.”
“Uh…” The trio exchange nervous glances. What now? They can’t get her of all people involved.
But then, Marle shakes her head. “No, don’t worry. I’m not gonna ask for details. It’s not any of my business. But I figured you guys might be getting busy, and I know you can’t just leave the little girl and the cats unattended.”
“Huh?”
Now Wedge’s eyes begin to glisten when he catches on. “Wait, do you mean…?”
She nods her head. “Go on. Get to whatever you need to. I’ll help keep watch of the bar for a bit. If any troopers get the bright idea to stop by, I’ll gladly turn them away for you.”
“Really, Marle!? Thanks so much!”
But Biggs can’t help but be concerned. “Yeah, thanks. But why are you doing this? It’s not a good idea for civilians to get confrontational with Shinra troops.”
She snickers quietly. “‘Civilians’, huh…”
“Uh…” He gets a bit flustered when he gets caught on that.
“Nah, it’s fine. If you ask me, Shinra hasn’t had the best track record lately either. Between the bombing and attacks on HQ, they sure don’t look like they’re on top of the world anymore. And now there’s even an increase in patrol around here. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that something’s been up.”
Jessie gets a bit worried too. “But if you think so, then why help us? It’d be safer if you keep away, I’d think.”
“Ha! And let Tifa’s business go to waste while no one’s watching? That girl’s been such a big help around town. I’d be the villain here if I didn’t return the favor from time to time.”
Now feeling reassured by the old woman’s good faith, the other three finally relax and graciously thank her.
Jessie nods. “Seriously, thanks a lot, Marle. We’ll definitely pay you back for this.”
She waves her hand dismissively. “Like I said, don’t worry about it. I’m the one repaying my dues here. If you’re in a hurry, then get going already.”
“Right! Come on, guys, it’s this way.”
Jessie leads the other two out the door, and Marle and Marlene watch them go. The old woman then lets off a sigh to herself and takes a seat at the table close to where Marlene has been playing with Wedge’s cats.
“You sure got some great friends, kid. They’re always looking out for you and each other.”
Marlene nods back with an adorable smile. “Mm-hm! And we’ll look out for you too, Ms. Marle!”
She chuckles without another word, but definitely appreciates it.
Now finally out of the bar and back on the road, the “B team” of Barret’s Avalanche find their way to the clothing store that Jessie mentioned. And after a quick glance through the catalog, while Wedge isn’t particularly picky about how he’s dressed, Biggs and Jessie are a bit less sure about picking from the stock items on display.
“But wouldn’t it be better as disguises if-” Wedge begins, but is promptly cut off by the other two.
Jessie stops by the counter and offers the guy standing by a charming wink. “Hey, Mike. Long time no see.”
“Jessie! Yeah, ‘long time no see’ is right. How’ve you been? Feels like it’s been, what? 3 years?”
“More like 4 by now, but yeah. I’ve just been really busy with work and all. And we usually wouldn’t need to do shopping around this part of town, so…”
“Well, glad you thought to drop in anyway! So, find anything you like here?”
“Heh. You know I promised to come back because you’re one of the only places around here that does real custom designs!”
He nods back, recalling. “Yeah, I remember you said that… So what’ll it be?”
She grins. “How about a T-shirt with a picture of Stamp riding a cloud, just for the heck of it?”
But Biggs then jumps in, “Jessie, come on. Do you want us to stand out?”
She laughs and salutes with a peace sign. “Psych! Nah, this time, we’re gonna go with something a little more down to earth. Do you tailor suits for men and women?”
“Oh, sure. We even got a selection of suits in the back aisle.”
“Oh, no. I’m not talking business or anything so formal. Just something slick and casual without looking like we’re headed to a beach party or anything.”
“So, slick but not formal… like for a dinner date or something?”
“Mm, sorta. Maybe more like we’re planning an old-school reunion.”
“Ah. Gotcha. Sure! Hang on, let me go get the color selection and all that…” He hurries into the back and calls loudly for his assistant, “Chelsey! We got new orders for custom! Where’d you put the things?”
Jessie blinks as she watches him go in. She then rolls her eyes with a disappointed sigh. “It sure has been a long time…”
“What are you getting sad about?” Biggs asks, remaining unimpressed.
“Nothing. But sometimes, a girl can wish that guys they once knew would still be charmed even after a long absence.”
“Yeah… good luck to any guy looking at you.”
“Hey!”
Jessie is tempted to snatch up the customer bell and throw it at him, but she refrains from damaging the shop’s property. Just the threat of it sends Biggs scurrying away, though he seems to do it with a mischievous grin. Wedge just rolls his eyes as he sees Biggs hop back beside him. It’s gonna be one of those long days, it seems.
With cash exchanged and a quick wardrobe change, the trio are almost unrecognizable – almost. With his signature red cap off, Wedge takes on a rather homely look with a simple white shirt and blue overalls that make him look just a bit younger. Biggs and Jessie, though, opted for classier looks. Between his deep maroon gentleman’s suit laid over a gray vest and black tie and her ruffled faint-blue blouse and slim khaki jeans with low heels, they make a good match. It’s all the more fitting with the shades they both wear.
Wedge sighs to himself. “You two sure know how to make me feel like the oddball out.”
Biggs snickers. “Hey, you lost out when you didn’t ask for your own custom design.”
“But I thought we were gonna go for more casual to blend in with the crowd!”
Jessie shrugs. “Well, at least one of us can. I was going for an independent journalist look myself. Not sure what Biggs was going for, though.”
Biggs looks down and around himself. “What? I look pretty nice in this, don’t I?”
She scoffs, “Yeah, I guess… for an interview. What are you trying to be, a lawyer?”
“Hey.” He whips out a comb and brushes his hair back. “Let’s not forget who asked for a fancy date back in the day.”
“Pfft.” But she decides to change the subject. “Anyway, I asked Mike to hold onto our regular clothes while we give these a ‘try’.” She adds in a softer voice, “Not sure when we’d get back, but at least we got a spot to hide out for now.”
“You sure it’ll be okay?” Wedge asks. “Wouldn’t want him to get caught up in anything.”
“Yeah, don’t worry about it. It’s not like we come here often. Shinra won’t know a thing.”
And it’s not a moment too soon that they acquired their disguises. Shortly after stepping out of the shop, they hear some commotion going on closer to center of town. It seems a platoon of Shinra troops have just barricaded and raided one of the buildings… Wait a sec, isn’t that the clinic where HQ had been!?
“Shit… what’s going on now?” Biggs mutters under his breath.
They sneak up behind the crowd of onlookers who have gathered, and the unit’s commander steps forward to make an announcement, raising up what seem to be a few wanted posters. However, they're not of Nayo & gang; but of Cloud, Biggs, and Wedge. The rest are obscured by the papers.
“Attention, everyone! I have unfortunate news. We’ve been tipped off that this empty clinic is actually a base for Avalanche! These are but a few of the names and faces that were reported. But rest assured, the Shinra Company has taken necessary measures to ensure that the criminals will not be running free!”
Nonetheless, the announcement does more to alarm the crowd than placate them, and murmurs begin to run wild.
“No way! So Avalanche was just sitting out here in the middle of town? And no one noticed!?”
“Those scoundrels! They must have been hiding among us all this time!”
“It’s thanks to them that we haven’t had a peaceful day all week! They’re just bringing everyone down at this rate!”
By now, Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge are getting uncomfortable. It looks like they’re in the clear for now, since no one recognizes them, but it’s probably not a good idea to hang around here any longer. All they can do now is hope that the HQ gang got out before they were discovered.
Several troopers come back out of the building to report to their commander, but it’s not exactly good news. “Sir! We’ve scoured the entire building, but it doesn’t look like anyone’s in.”
“What? They all got out!? What have you idiots been doing!?” their commander barks.
“Uh, we’ve been scouring the place like you told us to, sir…”
“No, forget that!” He shoves them aside away from the crowd. “What about evidence? Any secret plans, sketches, schematics, anything!?”
The troops turn to each other, and while they all have the same helmets on, they look just as confused. “Er… no, sir. Seems like they cleaned the place out before they left.”
“Ugh! You’re all useless, I swear… Now what am I supposed to tell the people!?”
By now, the crowd is even less assured that the big company has sent the right people. As people walk off and the crowd dissipates, murmurs continue as people grow wearier and wearier. After just a few minutes of this troupe of bitter laughing stocks, the crowd has dispersed until it’s just a few onlookers remaining.
“H-hey! Wait! Everyone, there’s no need to worry! Our men are already in hot pursuit of Avalanche!”
“Um, sir, we just got here, so we don’t know where they’ve sneaked off to…”
The commander whips back around to yell at him again. “Shut up! All of you, get going! Search all nearby buildings, and send a couple toward the station! They couldn’t have gotten far!”
And with their commander barking mad, the troops all scatter in every direction in search of more clues of their targets. Even the commander, still seething, yells at a couple of his troops to stay put and he too runs off to join the search as well. And then, it was just those two sad troopers left to guard an empty clinic.
Jessie turns to the others with a smirk. “Hey, guys. You thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Knock ’em out and hide the bodies?” Biggs casually suggests.
“Good thinking!” Wedge agrees, then asks, “So what’s the plan?”
“Well, since you look like the least harmful of us, you can be the distraction. Biggs and I can sneak up behind them.”
“Okay! I’m great at being distracting!” He pauses. “Wait, what do you mean by ‘least harmful’?”
The other two don’t answer. They duck away and round the back of the building in question. Wedge sighs to himself, but then claps his cheeks and makes a look of determination. He then hurries up to the two troops who are on guard.
“H-hey! Excuse me!”
Needless to say, the guards are taken by surprise. “Huh?” “What now? Can’t you see we’re busy here?”
Wedge rubs his head awkwardly with a sheepish grin as he puts on a faux country accent. “Gee, uh, sorry to bother you fellas, but I just saw a big crowd ’round here and was wondering what’s all the hubbub.”
“Oh.” One of the troopers waves a dismissive hand. “It’s nothing you need to worry about, sir. We’re just standing guard.”
The other trooper then mentions, “Have you heard about the recent news of the reactor bombing and attack on HQ? Word is that it’s all Avalanche’s doing.”
Wedge blinks as if he didn’t really hear them. “Oh, wow. That sure is some news… Who woulda thought an avalanche would hit the company building.”
“What? No! I’m talking about the ecoterrorist group called Avalanche!”
The first trooper stares at Wedge in disbelief. “Sir, are you from around here? Do you not even know who we’re dealing with?”
Wedge shrugs. “Oh, yeah, uh… I come from outta town. It’s my first time coming to Midgar, actually! Whew, when I first saw that huge tower, it blew my mind! Hehe…”
“Hmph. You sure picked a rough time to visit the city, then. Everyone’s been on edge since these terrorist rebels have been stirring up a mess.”
“My, sorry to hear that… Is it a common thing you fellas deal with all the time or somethin’? Ya know, the terrorism and all.”
“Uh… no. It’s all pretty recent, really.”
“It’s kinda weird, actually,” the other trooper comments to the other, “Like, we’re supposed to be the most impenetrable city in the world, and all of a sudden, we get these strings of attacks coming out of nowhere. Just what did Avalanche get their hands on to be able to move so fast?”
“Who knows. But from the footage of the warehouse base attack, they probably got something real powerful…”
“You think the rumors are real? That they’re working with Wutai?”
“Would Wutai have a monster like that? You’d think they woulda thrown that out when there was a whole war.”
“Huh, good point…”
As the two troopers continue to discuss, though, Wedge peers behind them and sees two familiar faces peek out from the shadows inside the clinic. They pass him a couple confident smirks, and Wedge returns them one of his own.
The first trooper then notices it. “Hey, sir. You laughing about something?”
“Maybe a country bumpkin like you wouldn’t know a thing, but this is serious business,” the other scowls.
Wedge still keeps his grin, but his accent is suddenly gone. “That’s too bad, guys. Good luck to ya!”
“Huh?”
And at that moment, the troopers get hard armlocks around their necks and are wrenched back inside out of view. Wedge quickly snatches up their guns and tosses them aside, and the guards are promptly suffocated until they faint.
He passes the other two a proud thumbs-up. “Good work, team! Couldn’t have done it better!”
Biggs chuckles. “Same to you, buddy. You sure put on a convincing ‘know-nothing country boy’ act. You sure you didn’t pick up any improv classes before?”
“Haha! Nah, Jessie’s the real star here. I just went with whatever came to mind.”
Jessie laughs. “Thanks, Wedge, but it’s been a long time since I stood on any stage. I might be getting a bit rusty, honestly.”
“Aw, you coulda fooled me with how you act around Cloud.”
“Cloud’s different, okay? There’s just something about him that really brings out the diva in me…”
“Oh, so it wasn’t just his face, huh?” Biggs teases with a hint of bitterness.
“That’s a big part of it! But he got a little more than just a pretty face, if you know what I mean.”
He looks off as if making a look of doubt, but decides not to press further lest he incite her wrath again.
They pull the guards aside and begin to search for places to stuff them where they won’t be easily found. The place had just been ransacked, so everything’s in a mess. Chairs shoved aside, tables with trinkets and papers in disarray; but just no sign of Avalanche-related things. Even Polk’s favorite Fort Condor board is gone, but he might have swiped it before they left. But even as the trio leave the guards under some unused beds, those uniforms are unmistakeable. If the rest of the squad comes back and finds them like this, they’re definitely gonna call for backup.
“You know… I got a better idea.” Biggs then pulls one of them back out and tries to remove his helmet.
“What are you doing, Biggs?” Jessie asks, a little startled.
“Or rather, better disguises.” He lets the guy’s head drop to the floor as he tries on the helmet. “Oof. These things are tight…”
“Huh, not a bad idea, actually.” Jessie does likewise with the guard she dragged.
“Wait. We're doing this now?” Wedge asks nervously, “The rest of them could come in any time!”
“Then keep an eye out for us,” Biggs replies, yanking off the guy’s uniform and slipping it on.
He stops midway, though, realizing that he might just ruin his new suit if he tries to force it. He promptly takes the uniform and hides behind one of the clinic’s curtained beds to rearrange his outfit. Jessie does likewise behind another curtain. And while Wedge keeps a cautious eye out for the door, the other two are back out.
“Hey, not bad at all!” Jessie cheers as she looks around at herself. “I thought these things would be uncomfortable, but it’s actually decent.”
But Biggs sighs as he sets aside his cool suit. “Well, so much for these. I guess we’ll have to stop by Mike’s and return them.”
“Yeah, but we were gonna return them anyway. Can’t stay in disguise forever, after all.”
“I know… Feel kinda bad for Mike, though, for how we’re using him.”
“Ah, he’ll be fine. We can let him keep the change for being a good sport.” She then pumps both fists forward and swings a kick. “Heh. Check it out. Bet you can’t tell if I’m a woman like this.”
“Yeah, you look just like a man…”
“Hehe.” She pauses and as she catches on, then turns back to him with a hidden scowl. “Wait. You stealth-mocking me?”
He quickly turns away to Wedge to change the subject. “Well, buddy. Sorry, but looks like you’re the odd one out again.”
Wedge shrugs. “That’s what I’m expecting by now. I’m kinda jealous, actually. You two really look convincing. So I guess the plan is you’re gonna stick here and wait it out?”
Biggs nods. “Yeah. After all, we don’t want yet another Shinra squad after us. And the less of them are going after our HQ guys, the better.”
Jessie then reminds them, “But we should also phone in with Cloud and the others to let them know we’re doing fine. As soon as I can get these things working, anyway…”
“Why don’t you just try again? Maybe it was just a bad connection?”
“I dunno. If they really are somewhere in HQ, then who knows when is a good time to call them.”
“Hmm… but we can’t just keep them waiting.”
Wedge then suggests, “Oh, I know! Since I’ll be running around free, I can try calling you guys as a test! Maybe we just need a better place around town where the connection is good?”
“I guess we could try it.” Jessie nods. “Thanks, Wedge.”
Biggs then asks to confirm, “But by ‘running around free’, do you mean you’re just gonna stay on the move?”
“Yeah, I guess. I’ll figure something out.”
He shakes his head. “I dunno. Even with that disguise, in case the troops catch you and suspect you of anything, they might just start shooting.”
“Well, uh… Hang on. Maybe there’s some equipment that HQ left for us?”
Wedge looks around the clinic and notices the bin-shaped chest in the corner is still shut, as if the troops hadn’t even bothered to check it. He opens it up and conveniently finds a bulletproof vest.
“Bingo!” Wedge snatches it up and slips behind the curtain too to get changed.
“What? Seriously?” Biggs stares at the chest. “This thing wasn’t even hidden. How did the guards miss it?”
Jessie shrugs. “It is kinda hard to see some angles with this helmet on.”
“Damn… no wonder they suck at aiming.”
But Wedge comes back out with an uncomfortable frown on his face. “Oof… this thing’s pretty tight with the suspenders over it. I’m not gonna be able to run well like this. Maybe I should just go back and get my old clothes…”
“You’re gonna be an open target, though,” Biggs warns him.
“Yeah, but that’s what the vest is for!”
“Sheesh. Then better watch your legs; you’re gonna need them.”
“Well, I’m two for two with being a distraction, so I think I’ll be good for a third if I have to!” Wedge laughs and then comes up with another idea. “Oh, yeah! That reminds me. Ruby said she’ll be back to help deal with the plate fall, so maybe I can keep ’em busy while she’s not back yet.”
“Yeah!” Jessie agrees, “We’ll leave it to her. All we have to do is stall until she gets back.”
Biggs nods too. “Normally, it’d be too risky to just leave something that big to one person, but Ruby’s shown herself to be worth way more than that.”
Wedge adds, “She also said that even if the pillar goes, she can hold up the plate herself.”
“Whew. Make that worth more than a thousand men, then.”
“Anyway, I’d better get going. I’m gonna have to call on a few others to help me set up the scene. Wymer might know a few who can help.”
Jessie then picks up the clothes that she and Biggs set aside and hands them over to Wedge. “Mind passing these back to Mike’s? Tell him that we’ll ‘stop by next time’, so he won’t feel like he’s been rejected again.”
Wedge accepts them. “Will do. Anything else you guys need before I go?”
She and Biggs exchange thoughtful glances and then shake their heads. He replies, “I think we’re good for now.”
“Remember to stay in touch!” Jessie reminds him.
“Yeah! And good luck to you guys!” Wedge waves a hand as he runs off with their old disguises in tow. It’s back to the shop for now, and soon, off to see some old friends back when Avalanche was a little more unified.
~
It’s closing into evening by the time Yuffie and Sonon arrive in Wall Market, and in the matter of the couple hours that Sonon had last seen it, the place had transformed from a quaint little marketplace into the beginnings of a bustling nightlife scene as shops have switched on their lights. The place already had a decent amount of people wandering about during the day, but mostly it was just locals doing some quick shopping trips or casual meetups with friends. Now, there are crowds that have begun to form and the real business kicks off.
“Hey, Yuffie. Since you’re new here, I suggest you keep close. Wouldn’t want you getting lost. It’s a pretty big maze in places.”
“Oh, shut it! Even if I do get lost, I can do just fine! I’m not a kid!”
“Er, not my point…”
Fortunately for Sonon, they don’t have to tread far from the shining entrance to find the inn in question. In fact, a rather loud barker cuts off their conversation and has pulled them right in.
“Hey, there! We got a special discount for tonight for couples staying the night! How ’bout you two?”
“Huh? Excuse you! We’re not a couple!” Yuffie snaps back.
Sonon waves it aside. “Sorry, we’re not here to stay that long. But we do have someone to meet here.”
“Ah, is that right? Well, hope you enjoy your stay anyway. We got some pretty good deals for limited time slots too!”
“Right…”
They ignore the barker and head on in, where the receptionist welcomes them with a bow and a friendly smile.
“Welcome to the Market Inn. Are you a party of two?”
“Actually, make that three. We’re here to meet someone. He probably hasn’t been here long.”
“Oh.” The receptionist makes a rather disappointed face, but keeps up the polite smile anyway. “Well, as it happens, there is a man who’s waiting off in the hall. Seems like he’s been expecting you.”
“Thank you.”
Sure enough, the man they’re looking for is just hanging out in the back near a few occupied rooms, and for some reason, he seems to be rather intrigued by the “mystery prizes” that a certain eccentric vending machine promises.
“Zhijie!”
“There you are!” Yuffie calls out too in a little more indignant way.
He whips around with a raised hand. “Yo. Glad you guys made it.”
“Don’t give us that! What the heck are you doing here? And what’s going on with the others?”
“Ah, yeah. Don’t worry, I’ll explain everything.” He gestures toward the door to one of the rooms. “Let’s slip inside. Don’t want anyone else listening in.”
“You reserved a room here?” Sonon asks.
“Nah. They just don’t leave the doors locked, so anyone can stroll in. But you gotta sign in at the front desk if you wanna lock the door since they don’t lock from the inside either.” He waves a hand to beckon them over. “Anyway, come on in. I promise it won’t take long.”
They step inside and Zhijie shuts the door. With a sigh, he turns to them with a serious frown for once.
“So, you probably figured it out by now, but ever since the warehouse base attack, Shinra’s gone full-send with troops in S7. It kinda sucks that the splinter cell decided to pick the 7-6 Annex to raid when there are six other bases like it, but I’m guessing they got a lot more than they bargained for when Ruby went awol?”
Sonon nods. “Yeah. That’s what we heard too.”
“Figures. No one in their right mind would just wanna blow up part of a city like that. Either way, though, that leaves the rest of us scrambling for cover or escape. The guys at HQ were among the last to ditch town, by the way.”
“Explains why there don’t seem to be too many Avalanche contacts around.”
“Yeah. S7’s practically an active warzone now. I can’t say where the other cells ran off to, but HQ is gonna move to 5 in the meantime. With the recent evacuation advisory, most of the people who wanted to leave already did, so that should mean the ones that stayed will probably be more welcome to us.”
“Makes sense.”
“Honestly, I was tempted to get out sooner myself, but ah…” He shrugs and returns to his usual coy smirk. “This little thing called a ‘conscience’ just kept me around, I guess.”
“Heh. Well, you sure can get around. Did you run into any troops on the way here?”
“Oh, yeah. But the suckers fell for the oldest trick in the book! All I did was point up and say, ‘Hey, what’s that in the sky?’ and they bolted. Heh, seems like Ruby’s scared them spineless.”
Yuffie snickers too. “As it happens, that’s our plan too! Scare the bejeezus out of Shinra by recruiting Ruby to fight for Wutai! And there’s nothing they can do to stop us!”
Suddenly, Zhijie stops chuckling and stares at her like she’s just said something impossible. He turns to Sonon and asks, “What happened with her? She alright?”
She snaps back in a huff, “I’m doing fine, thank you! And I’m not talking crazy either. I’m sure Ruby’s our ticket to bringing Wutai to its former glory!”
Sonon sighs and explains to him, “She’s just been really excited to meet Ruby ever since she first heard about her. Thinks that she might have something to do with the ultimate materia we’re gunning for.”
“Huh.” Zhijie strikes his own thinking pose. “Now that you mention it, I can kinda see it. Interesting theory; can’t say I know much either way, though.”
“Oh, if we’re talking theory, I’ll give you more where that came from!” Yuffie argues, “See, I didn’t pull that connection out of nowhere. If Ruby’s supposed to be an ancient dragon that’s traveled to our time, then she should know a thing or two about how materia is made in the first place. So who knows, if she didn’t come from the materia herself, then maybe she made her own using whatever ancient magic she’s got! In other words, she’s like a whole materia factory!”
“Uh, I guess…”
She then folds her arms, making an unimpressed look. “Look, the point is: our mission may have begun with that materia, but Ruby’s basically our backup plan if it turns out the former’s just a bunch of lies. There’s no way we’re going back home empty-handed.”
Zhijie raises his arms in surrender. “Alright, alright. I get it. Sheesh, one shiny dragon blows a hole in Midgar and suddenly everyone’s after her…” He brings back that smirk. “Well, if you ask me, better that she head off elsewhere out of this city before she razes anything else by accident. Hope you guys have better luck reining her in.”
“Oh, don’t worry. We’ll figure something out!”
Sonon gives her a less convinced look. “Hope you know what you’re doing… Boss.” But she simply waves a hand in his face as if trying to make him shut up.
Zhijie then asks, “So, guess you guys are gonna be chasing after the splinter cell too, then?”
“That’s right! They’re the ones Ruby’s running with, after all. We heard they even made their way up the plate through these ruins.”
“Yeah, I heard as much too.” He whistles. “No wonder she ran with them. They might just be as crazy as her.”
“Heh. Like they say, crazy is as crazy does! So we’re gonna follow them into Shinra HQ.”
Sonon clarifies, “With the splinter cell creating a distraction, we’ll be better able to slip into the basement undetected.”
“And from there, that ultimate materia will be ours!”
Zhijie nods. “Sounds like a plan. But even if the way’s clear, the S6 ruins are gonna be a long climb. You’re gonna need some grappling guns to fly up there.” He then returns to his usual smirk. “Good thing I know a guy who sells them. He’s up in the weapons shop on the northern side of town. And here.” He tosses them a small sack of gil. “Take it as ‘compensation’ for making you guys run around.”
Sonon had caught it and nods back as he stows it away. “Thanks again. And no worries, we’re used to running around.”
“Right. Well, I gotta get going. The others are probably expecting me.” He gives them a quick salute. “See ya around. If you need us, drop by S5 sometime.”
“Gotcha. Good luck and stay outta trouble.”
“Heh. No need to tell me twice.”
With his job done, Zhijie is outta there like the wind. Sonon turns back to Yuffie, who makes a proud smirk to herself as she continues to scheme. Oh, the possibilities of acquiring what is essentially the materia factory of the ages…
“Hm? What’s up?”
She snaps out of her thoughts and shakes her head. “Nah, it’s nothing. So, next stop, the weapons shop!”
The pair slip out of the inn just as quickly as they had arrived, to the disappointment of the receptionist. But they got a mission or two to get to. Sonon recalls seeing some kind of weapons shop somewhere in town, and sure enough, as they roam off toward the northern side of town, there’s a building with a prominent “GUN” sign slapped right over it.
“That’s our shop,” Sonon comments plainly.
They head inside and the man at the front window greets them: “Hey! New customers? Welcome! If you got a need for some military-grade arms, we got everything in this city! What can I get for ya?”
“Do you have any grappling guns, by any chance?”
“Huh?” The shopkeep frowns. “Oh, come on. Don’t tell me you’re one of those damn delinquents.”
“Excuse me?”
“Ah, there are just some dumb kids who’ve been climbing up the wall on the northeastern end and graffiting the hell outta it. It used to be the divider between Sectors 6 and 7, so it’s close to the scrap heaps outside of town. They probably like climbing around there to show off or something. No one does a damn thing, though. If they slip, it’s their own fault for being stupid.”
“Ah, right,” Sonon recalls, “I think I know which wall you’re talking about.”
“You do?” Yuffie asks.
“Yeah. As I said, I did do some scouting around here.”
“Yeah, yeah. I get it.” She waves a hand. “Sorry for misjudging you before.”
“No worries.”
The shopkeep then mentions, “So, I’m guessing you two got business around there?”
“We do. We’re heading up, actually.”
He then smirks back. “Well, it’s nunna my business. But I don’t sell grappling guns. Check with Jerry in the back. He’s at the other window.”
“Alright. Thanks.”
They round around the corner in the shop and find a hunched-over bald man probably getting up there in age. He notices the pair come over and snickers to himself.
“Hey, there. I heard you’re goin’ up the plate.” He turns around to fetch something from one of the crates in the back and turns back with a couple of fresh grappling guns. “You’re gonna be needing these, then.”
“How much?”
“Ah… how about 200 gil for each? So 400 in all.”
“That expensive? They’re just grappling guns, aren’t they?”
“Hehe. Yeah, but thanks to those hotshot kids, they’ve been selling like hotcakes! So I always stick up a high price and watch ’em haggle for it.”
Yuffie lets off a harrumph. “You’d better not make us haggle for it. We’re running short on time here.”
Sonon checks the sack that Zhijie passed them. “…400 gil exactly. Huh, guess he was expecting this to happen.”
“Oh, nice!” She snatches it right out of his hands and forks it over to the old man. “Alright, 400 gil! And we’ll be taking these!” She snatches up the grappling guns just as swiftly and tosses Sonon one of them. “Thanks a bunch!”
The old man counts through the gil and slips it away. “Glad doing business with ya. Hehe.”
With that finally out of the way, the ninja pair can finally get moving onto their new mission: ascending Sector 6 after the splinter cell and sneaking into Shinra HQ’s underground. Sonon knows the way, so he leads them up further north. But as they close into the upper end of town, they near a rather gaudy-looking palace blankted in red and adorned with golden serpent dragons guarding the roof. And as it happens, right beside said gaudy palace is a crowded venue where another much less conspicuous building sits, but is no less presentable with the barkers yelling out over the crowd.
“Come one, come all to the Corneo Coliseum! If you’re feelin’ lucky, give it a shot or as many as ya want and see how far you can go!”
Yuffie makes a disgusted look. “Really? That guy again? Ugh, his name really is everywhere in this town, isn’t it?”
Sonon frowns. “The palace was one of the first things I noticed when I stopped by before, but I didn’t realize there was even a coliseum here.”
“What do you think, Sonon? Should we drop by and smack the guy up?”
“Hold up, Boss. We already got lots to do and not a lot of time to spare. Besides, I doubt the man himself would still be there. His lackeys we met earlier said he was already on the move.”
“Hmph.” She throws an angry fist in that direction. “Just you wait, Corneo! Under the watchful eye of the single white rose of Wutai, your spying days are numbered!”
“…Heh.”
“What?”
Sonon shakes his head. “It’s nothing. Come on. The wall the old man mentioned is just up ahead this way.”
They come across the old, partially crumbling, graffitied wall down an unassuming path outside the reach of the market town’s neon lights. It’s much more quiet around here as people rarely stop by, and the perfect place for some eco-friendly rebels and their Wutaian allies to sneak around.
Yuffie is surprised and delighted to see the familiar Avalanche logo in stark black letters etched across the wall like they own it. “Yep! This looks like it, alright.”
Sonon looks up toward the top, scanning for a good place to fire their hooks. “Yuffie, over here. This part doesn’t look too damaged.”
“Right. Let’s do this!”
They aim and shoot their grapples at the same time, which quickly clank one after the other upon hitting the less crumbling edge of the wall, and they zip right up. From there, it’s all up to their climbing skills. Good thing ninjas excel at that.
~
What seemed like a straight shot to the upper plate turns out to be quite the slugfest, though. While the pair can keep up and bounce along the terrains, run across walls as if defying gravity, and on the occasion swing up different levels of rubble like graceful fliers, it becomes a matter of grit and strategic weaving when they run into some scattered sentry bots still on patrol. Nonetheless, they make short work of them, as they aren’t anything too notable. These are stragglers that couldn’t keep up with the splinter cell that had passed through earlier, after all.
Yuffie reaches a protruding ledge from chunks of a what used to be a tower and stands atop the broken scaffold as she looks out over the rest of the city. Wow, what a view! There’s a beautiful sunset on the horizon as it slowly sinks beneath the mountains, though it’s somewhat tainted by the cold steel metropolis that stretches far out into the distance, as well as the vast, dusty and mostly dead desert that surrounds it.
She frowns to herself and crosses her arms. Sonon slips up to where she stands and looks out there himself.
“You see something, Yuffie?”
“Nah. I’ve just been wondering what it is about this city that makes people like it, but so far, all I’ve been getting is how much they have to endure living here.”
“Yeah. It’s definitely not a happy place to be. But everyone has to find comfort in something to be able to survive, no matter how small the blessing.”
“Hmph. But with Shinra in control, it’s only a matter of time that those small blessings are taken away too.”
“Exactly.” He frowns too. “There’s no end to the insane greed of a company like this. Doesn’t matter how many good people are here or what they do. They’ll just be swallowed up or trampled upon eventually if they don’t fight back.”
“Makes me think about Nayo and those guys, and how out of place they feel,” Yuffie adds, “They’re supposed to be Avalanche, but they still try to take the peaceful road even with something like Shinra. It’s almost like the opposite of what Avalanche used to be.”
“Used to be, huh?”
“Yeah.” She turns to him. “You remember those days when a group calling themselves ‘Avalanche’ were hiding out in Wutai? They were all anti-Shinra too, but they were nothing but troublemakers. Even if it were just Wutaians who wanted to be left alone, they’d harass anyone who didn’t agree with them or their extreme methods. And in those days, ‘extreme’ meant blowing up even the Da-chao mountains if they so suspected that there was a reactor there. Talk about crazy.”
“Yeah, that is extreme. Why would they suspect the Da-chao mountains to hold a reactor? Wutai never held any hard construction in that area; never mind a reactor from Shinra. It’s supposed to be a holy place.”
“Who knows? I think it was just a load of baloney. They were after something else, but I don’t remember what.” She then shrugs. “Ah, well. Clearly, it was just a different group that were that insane. None of the people we’ve seen here come close…” She pauses and corrects herself, “Well, except maybe Ruby, but more in terms of her insane power.”
“…” Sonon gives her a suspect look. “Speaking of her again, what was that bit about ‘history’ that you mentioned before? Did you read up about her in a book or something?”
“Ah, yeah. I guess I can tell you…” Yuffie looks off again as she recalls. “It was when I was little, actually. I was looking through my old man’s secret library of scrolls for some cool ninja tech when I found out that they weren’t about tech at all. They were history of old myths and stuff. I was about to put it all back when I noticed one of them was a legend about our country’s greatest guardian spirit, the Water God, Leviathan.”
“Leviathan? Does He have something to do with Ruby?”
“Not sure, actually. But it was a creation myth about how Wutai was said to have once formed long, long ago. Leviathan raised the seas to split off our island from the rest of the western continent. It was to protect the people from a greater threat.”
“Hmm…”
“I don’t think the scroll mentioned what sort of threat it was, but I do remember it mentioned something about someone who warned Leviathan and asked him to do so.”
He blinks as he realizes something. “Wait. You don’t mean…?”
“Yep. It was a white dragon from a distant land that ‘shone like the moon’, it said.”
He slowly nods back. “I see. That’s why you’re so interested in Ruby.”
“Yeah, pretty much. The scroll didn’t give any names or anything, but as soon as I heard those guys talk about her, I was sure that it was the same dragon! After all, it’s not like we can find white dragons just anywhere. Usually they’re pretty dark-colored and definitely not that smart.”
“If she actually has history with Wutai, then you might be heading the right direction. We definitely should ask her to help us.”
“That’s what I’ve been saying! But you all look at me like I’m the crazy one!”
He raises his hands in surrender. “Sorry! I didn’t know what you meant, but now I know better.” He smirks, also adding, “That’s why you’re the Boss.”
She snickers to herself and proudly stands with her hands at her waist. “That’s right, and don’t you forget it!” She then drops them and looks off ahead for the inner edge of the broken plate. “Now, come on! We stalled enough around here!”
And they’re off again, dashing from broken slab to slab, sliding right over massive holes in the ground – including the area where a certain boss fight took place – and slipping up scaffolding until they arrive at a place with much better footing: the catwalk at the inner edge of the plate lit up by massive lights that shine over the area where the upper plate used to be. And just across the crisscrossing highways below sits the massive looming tower of Shinra HQ.
Though they have to wait to hitch a ride on a vehicle, it doesn’t take too long before a passing Shinra truck carrying troops cruises on by, and they safely hop right onto its roof. They drop down and lay still as the men below wonder if they just heard a sound, but let it go when the truck makes a dull thump as it runs over some loose gravel on the road. Good, all’s according to plan.
Shinra HQ, here comes Wutai.
Notes:
I just got a few things to comment:
Hidden for convenience
- I'm aware I didn't include Yuffie's Da-chao beans so far. I had it in an earlier draft, but I had to scrap it because it was dragging out the scene. They will make an appearance later, though!
- Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie get new disguises! Wedge's in based on his disguise from OG FF7 when Cloud & gang were jumping off the train in Sector 4, but Biggs' and Jessie's are completely original. I did include them dressing up as Shinra troops to reference their disguises in OG as well.
- This scene also definitely explains where Wedge got body armor in this timeline. They really should have gotten him more armor in Remake.
- It was a shame to cut out the coliseum section in Wall Market, but it would have run too long and also made the time mismatched. Besides, it gave me an excuse to talk more Rubia lore, heh.
- Likewise, I haven't forgotten Melphie either. Sonon's gonna bring up more about her later.
Chapter 17: Strike from the Shadows
Notes:
Game Mechanics Integration
So I had a silly revelation as I was going back through these latest two chapters while planning out the next few. There's a game mechanic from the OG that determines a future party member's level before they join. It's a little different for each character, but generally follows the same formula based on the party's average level.
The funny thing is, despite being a dirty cheater and a Summon, Ruby is still in the party. Iirc, Yuffie's level begins at 25 at the start of Intermission, so I think it's safe to assume that's the expected average level for the main cast of Remake at the time. In Remake, Red XIII's level isn't included, but at this point in my story, he is. After plugging in the numbers, I have found that Ruby has directly pushed up the party average to level 33. So, I guess that's around where Yuffie and Sonon are, just to match.
In other news, I went back through the previous chapters and reformatted any instance of "materia" that isn't specific or used as a gaming term to be more inline with Remake's script. I realized how annoying it got to change it every time after this chapter relies so much on said script. But at least most of the scenarios are original.
3/31/23 edit: Did the same for "mako". I don't know why it didn't occur to me to do this together.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“Are we on schedule?” Shinra asked.
Heidegger laughed. “The Turks are on top of it. Yes, there will be no delays.”
Meanwhile, Reeve urgently pleaded, “Please, Mr. President! I am asking you to reconsider – no, begging. The Sector 7 undercity is home to more than 50,000-”
“Director Tuesti.”
The president’s firm tone pressured him to back off. He still added, “At least let us issue a warning, sir.”
Heidegger pinched his nose with a look of disgust. “The stench of the director's cowardice fills the room yet again.”
Shinra shook his head. “Reeve. Progress requires sacrifice. Learn to live with it.”
~
Shinra Headquarters sits upon its massive metal throne and looms over the city, and yet internally, things aren’t nearly so sturdy. With the recent developments, between the news of terrorist attacks and an entire reactor shutdown, priorities of the company have shifted away from being actually responsible for their citizens and sending in aid to help those in need to protecting themselves and hunting down their scapegoats. And needless to say, the enhanced security level even at the front gates of the building makes no effort to hide itself.
While crowds of Shinra employees are leaving their workplace at this time – it is about the time to get going anyway – much of the frantic atmosphere is very much due to the recent news and updates to the company’s guidelines. Now, it’s not just a matter of having employee IDs; any visitors coming or going must undergo a body check as well.
Yuffie and Sonon have been hiding amongst the crowd of people to avoid detection from the guards, and for a moment there, a particularly nosy journalist asking too many questions about the latest Sector 7 plate collapse rumors was promptly escorted out and provided them just the cover they needed to get by the initial round of security. However, as they near the building itself, they realize there are more guards inside as well, and judging by the use of guard dogs, they’re not just relying on metal detectors. The pair slip aside back into the shadows of an emergency escape route alley to discuss their plans.
“Sheesh. Talk about paranoid. Has Shinra always been this uptight about security?” Yuffie asks in a whisper.
“Who knows. But since the splinter cell might have made it in, there has to be a way in for us,” Sonon replies as quietly.
“Yeah, but by the looks of it, it’s definitely not through the front doors.” She turns off to stare down the poorly lit alleyway, which is lit up only by the lights of the building up above shining down through openings in the ceiling. “Hey, Sonon. Where do you think this way will lead us?”
“Around the back, maybe? But we’d better be careful. Even the back door might be guarded.”
“Well, at least it’s not gonna be a whole mess like up here. Let’s get going!”
They hurry down the alley, disappearing between shadows and reappearing in the faint glow, until they come upon an emergency escape route outside the building to its west. However, by the looks of it, these steps haven’t been used in a long time. The rust is piling up even on the lower rungs of the railing, and who knows how many long flights of stairs there are going up. However, it’s worthy to note that because of the staircase’s showing age, the access has been barred off by chains and a sign denoting danger. These days, employees clearly have an alternate emergency escape route.
Yuffie stares up at the stairs that seem to lead up into the sky. “What are these stairs? They look unending!”
“Well, it’s been blocked off, so no one’s gonna be taking them anyway. Besides, we don’t need it. We’re headed the opposite way.”
“Boy, do I feel sorry for any poor suckers who would have had to take this route back then. I’ve trained since I was young climbing all over the Da-chao Mountains, but even I might get exhausted just looking at all that…”
“Well, then, how about we save ourselves the trouble and head in through this door instead?”
Sonon gestures toward the door on the first floor at the base of the stairs. Yuffie hops with joy.
“Ha! They really did have a convenient side door here. So much for their security.”
Now that he gives it a closer check, though, the door is locked tight. “…Hmm. Didn’t think it would be that easy.”
“No problem! I’m a master lockpicker, so let me at it!”
He wipes the dust off of the window and peers through it. “Oh. Sorry, Ms. Master Lockpicker, but it looks like it’s not just the handle. There’s something blocking the way behind the door too.”
“Good thing I’m great at smashing things too.”
“No doubt there.”
He steps aside and lets Yuffie at the door. She whips out a convenient set of lockpicking tools and gets to work. These old keyhole types of locks are easy pickings with tools like these… Click.
“Heh. I’m in.”
Yuffie puts away her tools and tries to tug the door open, but finds that it’s still stuck. Like Sonon mentioned, there seems to be something blocking the way. She tries a few times more, but it doesn’t budge.
Sonon raises a hand. “Hey. Need a hand?”
“Nah, I got this!”
Frustrated, she then switches in her giant shuriken and slashes at the door’s rusty hinges too. Amazingly, she manages to break them open and finally charges forward to kick the door down.
“Yaaah!”
Ironically through brute force, Yuffie manages to crack down the whole door and the wooden board that was barred behind it. She stands tall and proud at her accomplishment while Sonon glances around nervously, hoping that no one else heard them. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem like anyone else is coming by.
“Hahaha! Take that, Shinra! Your doors are nothing to the great and powerful Yuffie!”
As she hurries on over the downed door, though, the lower end of her Moogle cloak so happens to snag onto a protruding piece of broken wood and she is jerked back.
“W-whoa!”
She slips and nearly falls, but catches herself before she falls. However, a small brown bag drops from under her cloak and bounces harmlessly to the floor.
“You okay?” Sonon asks.
“Yeah, I’m fine…” She puts away her weapon and turns around to free herself from the snag. “Ugh. That was embarrassing. Can’t believe a freakin’ piece of wood would be the thing to catch me.”
“Maybe it’s for the best that you leave the hood behind?”
“Huh? Aw, do I have to? It’s pretty comfortable.”
“Well, we may be in the clear for now, but you definitely wouldn’t want this to happen again anywhere else, right?”
“Ugh… fine.” She reluctantly takes it off and folds it up in her arms. “What a waste of a good hood. Well, sometimes sacrifices have to be made, I guess.” She slips the hood into a corner behind the door where people won’t see it.
Sonon steps in after her and notices the small bag that she had dropped and goes to pick it up. “What’s this?”
“Huh? Oh! My beans!”
“Your beans?”
She grins. “Da-chao beans! You want some?”
“Oh. You brought Da-chao beans too?”
“Yeah. I figured I might as well snack on something while I waited for you to show.”
“Heh. Well, don’t mind if I do.” He helps himself to a few and crunches away as he returns the bag to her.
She slips out a few for herself too and puts the rest into a different pocket. And for a moment of temporary peace, it’s just the sounds of eager, crackling crunches.
“Nothing like a bite from home to ease the nerves…” He is then reminded to ask, “By the way, did you share any with the Avalanche guys earlier?”
“Uh…” Yuffie blinks. “Whoops. Thought I forgot something. We jumped right into some important talks, so it kinda slipped my mind.” She then smirks. “Well, I can give ’em a few when we meet up again. We’d better not stall around here, then!”
He nods back. “Right. Got everything?”
“Yep. Let’s go.”
Fortunately for them, the rusted door seemed to be the only obstacle in their way. They slip through the thin hallway that leads them to a room of pipes and ventilation where usually only maintenance staff are allowed. With her ingenious lockpicking skills, Yuffie makes short work of the next door too. And just like that, they’re inside the building’s first floor. Now all they need to do is lay low and find the elevators.
As expected, thanks to the upped security level, there’s a bigger crowd of people inside the building waiting in line to be able to enter or leave the building. The pair take this chance to slip on by without the guards taking notice and sneak onward to the elevator lobby.
Sonon mutters with a hint of triumph, “Here we are, and not a moment too soon.”
“Come on, High-D! You’re up!” Yuffie whips out her fake ID and slaps it over the scanner. In a short few seconds, the reader accepts and unlocks the elevator door next to it. She grins and the two of them step inside.
However, just as the elevator doors begin to shut, they hear a ding and the doors open right back up. At first confused, they become aghast when they see a different group of people join them inside. It’s a trio of Shinra guards and they’re accompanying a certain lady of authority. This blonde woman in an elegant backless red dress looks rather frustrated over some matter and pays the other two guests no mind at first.
One of the guards standing by the button panel then asks the other two, “Which floor?”
Sonon replies firmly, “The basement. Advanced Weaponry.”
The guard nods back and hits the button where they were headed too. The elevator doors finally shut, with an announcer’s voice delivering the order requested, and the lift descends into the dimly lit depths.
The woman shuffles impatiently and mutters aloud to herself. “Perfect. Just perfect. Not only do I have to clean up after that big oaf’s mistake, they all make it like it’s no big deal to just ‘hurry up’. As if conquering the Ancients’ mastery over materia would be so simple…”
She looks around bored at her men to see if any of them could possibly show some sign of empathy for her troubles, but then again, of course they’d just respond with the usual flattery, the useless stooges. She sighs and happens to turn the other way to the other two guests, and for once, her eyes light up as a scheme pops into mind. She turns away again and resumes muttering aloud as if she hadn’t noticed them yet.
“And to think that now of all times, Wutai would dare to bring something like that to our doorstep! My goodness. I thought Wutaians to be an honorable people. Well, they used to be. But clearly, it wasn’t enough to ally themselves with our local terrorists. They would even dare unleash that roguish beast upon us and act as if it were some sort of ‘divine intervention’! Honestly, it’s baffling to think about. What do they think they’ll accomplish by restarting the old war? That they won’t be flattened again just like before?”
By now, Yuffie is about ready to pounce on her and choke her out from behind, but she holds herself back. By the time they catch up with Ruby, it’s all over for Shinra anyway. She just gotta be patient.
But suddenly, the woman turns back to them with a sinister smile. “Don’t you two agree? Given our recent developments, I mean.”
Yuffie hesitates to answer, but then notices Sonon is about to take a step forward like he means to give her an honest answer, and she holds him back too. Instead, she forces an awkward grin and replies, “Of course, we agree! 100%! Hehe…”
The woman smirks back. “What a lovely smile.” And as she looks away again, Yuffie’s grin reverts to a fierce scowl.
As the elevator descends, the tension in the atmosphere grows so thick that one could potentially cut it apart with a Cactuar’s needle. Even with the lights in the shaft shining in over the lift as it passes them, the scene only seems to grow darker in other ways. And finally, the elevator reaches its destination with a proper ding, and opens its doors again.
It’s a narrow hallway of metal walls everywhere around them as they step out, and the two ninjas are forced to follow the woman and her posse until they meet a three-way intersection. As the woman proceeds on ahead, the ninjas decide to break away down the other way to avoid any further confrontations with this insufferable lady. However, before they even can get too far, they suddenly hear the blaring of an alarm that startles them.
“What!?”
Just then, a large glass gate shuts itself behind them, blocking them off from the rest and the way back to the elevator. Yuffie rushes back and pounds on the door, but it’s no brittle thing.
“Hey! What’s the big idea!? Let us out!”
The woman returns a haughty scoff. “I think not! Foreign visitors should take the scenic route… and savor the opportunity to meet our latest autonomous weapons.” She waves a hand dismissively and strolls off as she laughs away.
“You…!”
Sonon also pounds a fist on the door. “Damn it! I’m never gonna get a better chance! I should have taken her out right there!”
“Ugh. I wanted to shut her up too, but…”
“That was Scarlet, head of Advanced Weaponry. It was one of her machines that killed my sister in the war!”
“Huh? Your sister?”
He gives a disheartened sigh as he recalls. “Melphie Kusakabe. She was a rising star who also studied under your father. We worked hard to join the ranks of Wutai’s finest, but when the war began, we were sent out to the front lines in such a rush. We barely had time to even process what was happening and then…”
“…”
He then pounds the door again in frustration. “If only I weren’t so slow to react, she wouldn’t have had to throw herself in the line of fire!”
“Sonon. It’s okay. I get it.”
He’s trembling with rage by now, but takes a deep breath and lets it out to calm down a bit. He turns back to Yuffie with an apologetic look. “No, I should be sorry. I’ve been treating you like you were my little sister even without asking you first.”
“I said it’s okay.” Yuffie frowns sternly. “But we’re here on a mission.”
“Right.” He stands back up with a proper salute. “Apologies. I let my emotions get the better of me.”
She shakes her head. “No need for all that formal stuff either! Just take it easy.” She then makes a confident smirk as if to help ease his worries. “Besides, it’s not all bad. Clearly, Shinra thinks it was Wutai who sent in Ruby to lay waste! At this rate, they might as well wrap her up as a gift and dropped her right at our doorstep! Heh, if they can even catch her in the first place, of course.”
He does relax a bit and return a smirk of his own. “…Yeah. They may have just shot themselves in the foot for jumping to conclusions. Shinra’s days are numbered. They deserve what’s coming to them.”
“Yeah, they do.” She raises up a pumped up fist. “And we’ll be there to make sure they can’t run!”
He meets her fist with his own in a friendly fist-bump. He then turns off the way they were headed. “So where does this lead?”
She does likewise with a determined look. “Only one way to find out. I’m sure we'll get to Materia Research eventually.” She snickers to herself. “Just a little longer, my precious…”
And the pair proceed down the hall and around the corner to Section B16 – Inspection. This is the site where Shinra’s latest developed weapons are installed before they’re ready to undergo production. As soon as the doors open and they step on in, they find a room with wall-to-wall full of weapons and machines looking ready to be deployed.
Yuffie actually looks impressed at all the stuff they may be about to smash apart. “Just look at this place. Weapons here, weapons there, weapons everywhere! Makes you think they’ve been preparing for war even before the new government was set up…”
“They probably were. It was them that started the war in the first place, after all. They didn’t like how Wutai wanted to remain independent and not be a prisoner to their mako energy schemes.”
“Definitely. I wonder how many people in Midgar even know about the string of disasters that their reactors have caused around the world. You’d think that people would steer clear of those things after even one or two of them had blown up.”
“Hmph. I’m sure Shinra made sure those places kept quiet. Those who still refused to, well, they’re either like us and keep up the good fight, or they’re just gone.”
“Yeah…” She then frowns to herself. “Pretty much what happened to Pops. He didn’t want to keep up the good fight, so he was made gone too.”
He raises an eyebrow toward her. “Uh, wasn’t he just arrested, not killed?”
“Pfft. Like it matters? He’s not leading Wutai anymore either way. It’s for the best. The old fart probably doesn’t even remember where he comes from anymore.”
“Hey. I know the decisions he made were pretty controversial and all, but this is still my master we’re talking about. Mind laying off him a little?”
“Hmph. Fine, don’t wanna talk about him anyway. Just thinking about it again makes me mad.”
“…”
She throws out a few jabs as she pumps herself up again. “In any case, once we finish this mission, Wutai will be back on its feet! It’ll be like a grand return to our golden age!”
But then they’re interrupted by a familiar voice on the intercom: “My god, you people are deadly boring. Is your pet dragon the only thing that Wutai has left that’s worthy of attention?”
Yuffie snaps back with her own snark, “Ha! You should be scared. Shinra can’t even handle a single dragon? So much for the world’s superpower.”
To her surprise, though, Scarlet remains unfazed. “Oh, don’t worry! A petty sneak attack on one of our bases won’t knock us down. It’s not like you’ll be getting another of those.”
“Tch. We don’t need the element of surprise to take you on! Bring out your worst!”
“Ha! Well, if you insist, I know exactly how to liven things up… with a little experiment. Just don’t go dying on me – that wouldn't yield very interesting results, now would it?”
She hisses, “You’re gonna regret it, lady.”
The intercom goes silent again and the labs’ automated announcer is the only voice that responds: “Unit calibration complete. Initiating combat data-collection sequence.” Suddenly, one of the other large doors slides open and a Sweeper and a couple Slug Rays appear, ready to fire.
However, no sooner than had they appeared, the ninjas are on the move. They move so fast that they seem to vanish for a split second, and the next, the machines blow up in tatters. The survey sequence proceeds without delay, but the next waves of enemies – Monodrives, Shock-rays, and more Slug Rays – all likewise are smashed into oblivion just as quickly as the last.
Then, the intercom speaks up once more: “Credit where credit is due. You exceeded my every expectation.”
“Hmph! Is that really your worst? Shinra’s looking more and more desperate.”
“Patience, dear. There’s plenty more to come. But while we’re still chatting, I’d like to share something with you.”
“Huh? What now?”
“You see, I’ve had a little theory for a while now. It’s about how Wutai doesn’t actually have control over the white dragon.”
“H-huh!?” Yuffie hops back into a defensive pose. “What are you talking about?”
“Hmph. As I thought… you two really are just simpletons.”
“Hey!”
Even Sonon speaks up, “So what you said earlier, about Wutai unleashing the dragon…?”
“It was a lie, something I made up on the spot. Seems like you ate up the bait, hook and all. Was it tasty?”
“You…!”
She laughs again. “Oh, but Wutai would wish they had control over such a beast, wouldn’t they? Then they wouldn’t be still be a backwater country who refuses to keep up with the times.”
He growls quietly to himself, “Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice… this woman is dead.”
Yuffie opts for the more direct approach: “Well, you’re one to talk! If that dragon’s actually one of your experiments gone awry, then you’re the simpletons for letting her run free!”
“Hmm? And where have I ever suggested that it was ‘one of ours’?”
“Huh? Wait, you mean…”
“It’s just a wild creature. An aspect of nature that happened to be flying over our city. I doubt it’s even capable of higher intelligence.”
“Hey! You take that back! There’s a real person behind that firepower! And her name’s-”
But Sonon jumps in to grab her by the shoulder. “Yuffie, wait! We don’t have to tell her if she doesn’t know…”
However, once again they hear that haughty laugh. “Oh? So you claim to know a thing or two about it? Do tell more.”
“Guh…” Now Yuffie keeps quiet.
“What’s this? Dragon got your tongue? That’s too bad… I have no questions for silly children who think playing with fire is fun.”
“Shut up already! We don’t have to tell you squat!”
“Alright, dear. Thanks for playing along. You may now leave.” At last, her voice cuts off, and there is no other elevator that arrives for them to guide them toward any exit.
“Ugh, I can’t stand her! First she just insults us out of nowhere, and then she messes with us with her stupid mind games!”
Sonon clenches a fist too. “I can’t believe she got us with that cheap reverse psychology. Should’ve known that Shinra wouldn’t know anything about Ruby. She’s got them in a panic already.”
“Well, they sure aren’t doing anything to make peace with her, so she’s practically one of ours! Then we’ll see who’s laughing…” Yuffie peeks around the room, looking for the exit. “…So, uh, where to next?”
He takes a look around too and notices a nearby cargo container at the level where the touring catwalk above is laid out. “Hey. Up there. If we can knock it down…”
“On it!”
She flings her shuriken at it, snapping the cables that had been holding it up, and it drops with a loud crash. The container is just tall enough for one of them to leap up to the catwalk. Sonon offers to give her a lift on his staff, and he flings her up there. She climbs onto the catwalk and finally kicks down a nearby ladder for him to catch up. Together, they make their way through the door to the next room.
In a safe room elsewhere, Scarlet sits back in her director’s chair with a dissatisfied sigh. One of her subordinates approaches her with a warning.
“Madam Director. The intruders are about to reach the research facility.”
She casually waves a hand toward him without looking at him. “And we’ll let them. Meanwhile, find out what it is they want.”
“Uh…?”
Now she passes him an annoyed glare. “You do have eyes, don’t you? Then you can see that, even with increased security measures, they’ve made it further than any normal Wutaian ever could. Clearly, they are ninjas.” She adds with a scoff, “Teenage ninjas. Chasing after an untamed dragon of all things.” Then, she smirks to herself. “At least they could make a useful distraction to keep the beast at bay. Besides, they’ve come such a long way. We simply must roll out the red carpet. My trusty steed should provide a fitting welcome, I think.” She turns back to him. “Keep me apprised, would you?”
The subordinate salutes her. “Ma’am.” He whips back around and begins ordering around his own subordinates: “Cut system power to the research facility. Bar access to confidential data, then retrace their steps. Find out why they're here. Above all, do not let them out of your sight.”
The rest salute him as well. “Sir!” And they scatter.
~
Tensions have begun to reach a boiling point in the Sector 7 slums as people grow alarmed at the increased troop presence around town. These aren’t your normal troops either; paratroopers and sentry bots fly in to surround the pillar. A couple scouting helicopters fly on by to keep an eye on the town from above. However, Avalanche remains out of sight.
Biggs and Jessie have parted ways with Wedge for now and remain in disguise among the ground troops. They’re gonna have to find a good chance to bolt when they can and contact their own cell soon. But while they’re still here, it doesn’t hurt to do a little spying. The particular squad they’ve joined has been running around town in their search for Avalanche, only to come up with nothing. Under orders from their commander to continue elsewhere, they’re sent off to check around Sectors 5 and 6 just in case. Oddly enough, there aren’t any orders to check by Sector 8 even though it’s closer.
While Shinra isn’t usually supposed to post troops around Wall Market, given the deal that the company has made with the Don who runs these parts, the increase of troop presence outside of town has been somewhat alarming to the residents here. Not only are there rumors that said Don has long fled, other rumors about a certain plate falling have been exacerbating fears around the safety of this town too. There are still plenty enough civilians here, as Wall Market is the town that never sleeps, but fewer are willing to loiter around outside.
Biggs and Jessie have followed one group to Sector 6, but not everyone is so enthusiastic about their jobs. A couple of the troops who have grown tired of the search have sneaked off to Wall Market despite orders otherwise. Sounds like the right kind of people who’d spill some important company secrets. And sure enough, the pair are in luck. They find the troopers relaxing at a bar near the southern entrance of town, and they’ve already had a few drinks to loosen their lips.
“Man, why do we still bother? It’s obvious they all ran away. Probably left for the next sector or even out of the city by now.”
“Yeah, but we are under orders… Well, were. Good thing Sarge isn’t here.”
“Eh. Even if he does find out, he’ll get mad and smack us a bit, but it’s not like he has anything better going on either. Lately, the company’s been transferring more units out of S7.” He then shakes his head with a sigh. “But I guess it would scare the civvies if we all left, so that’s why some of us are still posted there. We just happen to be the unlucky suckers this time.”
“I thought that was really weird. Like, for a while, S7 was supposed to be a hotbed of rebel activity, but suddenly, the bigwigs want out and nothing to do with it? It’s totally suspicious.”
“Definitely. If you ask me, we don’t really have to be there. It’s not like we’re being treated as heroes or anything. Even Avalanche wouldn’t be stupid enough to stick around for you-know-what.” The trooper then lowers his voice and leans in to say, “You heard about the rumors that have been going around, right?”
The other trooper agrees in a whisper, “Yeah. Sounds like they’re sending the Turks. It’ll probably be tonight.”
“Yeah… Thank the Gods we don’t have to be there when that happens.” He then stands back up as normal as he continues, “Anyway, all we gotta do now is keep an eye out for any ‘suspicious activity’.” He also chuckles to himself. “Well, Wall Market’s as suspicious as they come, ya know?”
“Yeah…” But his partner is still feeling uneasy. “Still, don’t you think it’s weird that we’re even posted here in S6? There’s nothing but trash outside of this town. Even if Avalanche were sneaking around here, they wouldn’t be able to set up a base, right? It’s bandit land anyway.”
“Yeah, but who cares at this point?” He takes another swig of his drink and leans in again with a whisper, “Though my real guess is that we’re just gonna be standing by until you-know-what and then rush in pretending to be the rescue.”
“Meanwhile, the Soldier unit’s supposed to be waiting off in S8, I think.”
“Yeah… Seems like the latest news got even the bigwigs spooked. They’re sending in a freakin’ army against that dragon.”
“You think that’d be enough? People say it’s as strong as a Summon. But I heard all the 1st and 2nd-Class Soldiers were moved elsewhere.”
“Yeah, sounds like it. Haven’t really been seeing a lot of their uniforms around here either lately.” He shrugs. “Well, if it isn’t enough, then you won’t hear me complaining… ’cause I’d be outta there asap!”
“Same.” The other guy then sighs. “I just hope we won’t have to be dragged into any of the actual fighting. Just the thought is making me freak out inside.”
“Man, why’d you even join the force, then?”
“Well… I used to think that it was the cool thing, but even civvies don’t look at us like that anymore.” He shakes his head. “Guess they wouldn’t unless we were Soldier or something. Figures… I was gonna try out myself, but I chickened out at the last minute.”
“Don’t worry. After seeing how insane some of those guys get from getting juiced up on mako, it’s probably for the best.”
By now, their conversation begins to drift off for the unimportant. But Biggs and Jessie grow worried at the info they’ve uncovered and slink away in the shadows to discuss in private.
He frowns under his helmet. “Well, it’s like Ruby suggested… seems like the plate fall is going on ahead after all.”
“Yeah… but she did say she’d take care of it. But what actually worries me is the other thing they mentioned – about the Soldier unit waiting in Sector 8?”
“Yeah, I clearly heard that too. Shinra’s actually taking Ruby more seriously than I figured they would.”
She scoffs. “But not seriously enough, if you ask me. They’re all just 3rd-Class. Even Cloud could sweep through them if he really tried.”
“Uh… yeah.” Biggs decides not to argue with her there and moves on, “But either way, it’s gonna be more trouble for us. While Ruby’s dealing with the plate fall, if the Soldiers make their move while she’s still holding up the plate or whatever, that means we’re the ones who have to deal with them. And as great a team as we make, I don’t think we hold a candle to those guys yet.”
She then frowns too. “Ugh. Yeah, that’s a good point. Ruby could easily sweep through, but not if she has to deal with two different problems at the same time.”
“In other words, we gotta figure out a way to stall the pillar bomb long enough so that Ruby can take care of them first and then she can clean up the rest.”
“Heh. Just what I was thinking, Biggs! And hey, didn’t Wedge say that he was gonna be that distraction for us?”
He can’t help but chuckle too. “We’re really putting him through the wringer like this. I almost feel sorry for him, but he doesn’t mind.”
“Still, it’d be a good idea to let him know about the Soldier unit too, just in case.” Jessie then whips out her walkie-talkie. “Now if only I can get these babes to work already…”
“Wedge said he’d be running around town for a bit. Why not test it out now? There shouldn’t be much interference around here, right?”
“Maybe…” She then nods. “Okay. Let’s give it another shot.”
With bated breath, she turns it on again and calibrates it to attune to relatively closer signals, and to her relief, the annoying static noise from before seems to have quieted down. However, before she can hit the connect button, the squad’s commander returns with that booming voice.
“Hey! What are you idiots doing here!?”
Biggs and Jessie are startled and she quickly hides their radio. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem like the guy has noticed them. He’s busy yelling at some other troopers who got caught also trying to sneak off to Wall Market.
“Your orders were to remain out of town in Sector 6, privates! What about this place is ‘out of town’!?”
“Er… Question, Sarge.”
“What!?”
“Don’t mean any disrespect, but why are you here in town?”
“…” For a brief moment, the sarge is unable to answer, but then he just gets mad again and comes up with a quick excuse. “To watch over you idiots, of course! I just knew some of you would try to sneak in! And where is the rest of your group!?”
As the commander keeps yelling at them to search Wall Market for the rest, Biggs and Jessie sigh to themselves. While they were just about ready to ditch their “posts”, this commander just happens to be a pain in the rear at all times.
“Yeesh… So what do you think, Jessie?” he mutters to her, “What’s the escape plan now?”
“Hmm… Well, I was thinking that we could try sneaking off to S5.”
“Huh? Why 5? Didn’t Ruby already pick up Aerith?”
“Yeah, but we’re definitely gonna be stuck out here for a while, and things could get crazy if they get the orders to rush back into S7. Besides, where else could be a good place for Avalanche to hide out? All the people who wanted out of 5 are already out, so that leaves the rest who don’t fear us. I bet that’s where the HQ guys went too.”
“Yeah, now that you mention it, that town could work for us if we ever need another base. But then what do we do? Meet with HQ again?”
“Might as well. I’m getting tired of being interrupted whenever I try to make a call. I’m sure Ruby’s already caught up with Cloud and the others, so they’ll be fine. But it does feel like we’ve been missing from the picture long enough.”
“Yeah, but at least we can say we were busy.”
She pouts to herself. “Busy waiting around where we don’t have to be anyway.”
He shrugs. “Well, by the looks of it, that’s pretty much what these troops do, so I’d say we’re doing a great job so far.”
“Haha…” she laughs bitterly. “Anyway, let’s get outta here before our ‘boss’ finds us and yells at us too.”
~
Back in the underground labs, things have been rather smooth sailing despite all the twists and turns that Yuffie and Sonon have had to take to make it through Materia Research. If anything, the facility’s complicated layout is the greater threat than any security they’ve run into. Be they machine or armored trooper or even Soldier (3-C), nothing stands in the way of these two overleveled main characters. Well, they have been training for a long time for a mission like this, but one may just wonder where those extra levels came from. Perhaps it’s yet another strange quirk of fate thanks to Ruby’s interference…
As the ninjas explore the Materia Development room where a certain failed experiment went awry, Scarlet continues to watch them through surveillance cameras. Though up to this point, it hasn’t been all that exciting a watch seeing their upstart intruders run down through every threat. This won’t do. They’ll need to turn up the difficulty.
She hears a knock on the door as her subordinate steps inside. “So, have you found out what they want yet?”
“We think so. We can’t say for certain, as their behavior is… erratic. But they appear to be searching for materia.”
She raises an eyebrow in disbelief. “Excuse me? You mean to say that these savages have gone to all this trouble for materia?”
“So far as we can tell, yes.”
“How very dull. First they think they can play dragon tamer and now they’re on a scavenger hunt. It seems the new Wutai government is turning into a real playground.” She shakes her head in disappointment. “Be that as it may, I suppose I should talk to them.”
He salutes her again. “Ma’am.” And he’s off to tell his subordinates to set up the hologram.
Quite upset that they found no particularly special materia in a room specifically designed to hold and produce artificial materia, Yuffie stomps out of the room, with Sonon tailing with a bit of caution, after they smashed through yet another ambush by security. As they proceed through the hallway leading to the testing grounds, though, the holographic projectors light up to greet them.
“Enjoying yourselves, I trust?”
Yuffie screams and doubles back into a defensive pose. Scarlet has suddenly popped in their faces, and to Yuffie’s frustration, she finds that she can’t hit the image.
Scarlet chuckles. “Awed by a simple hologram? How precious. But I know just what you need – to loosen up a little. After such a long journey… you must be so tense!”
Yuffie snarls. She looks around to see where the hologram is even coming from so she can break it.
Scarlet shakes her head. “Just like a little monkey…”
Sonon snaps back, “What do you want!?”
“Oh dear. Is that any way to talk to your host? Really though, as guests, it’s more about what you want. And I think you’ll find it just up ahead. Hurry now. Don’t keep me waiting.”
And with that, the hologram disappears and Yuffie finally finds where the projector is. She throws her shuriken at it to smash it so it won’t show up again.
Sonon keeps his staff ready too. “So, Boss. What’re you thinking?”
“That we’re walking into a trap, I guess.” She gives a snooty snort, though. “But with how easy it’s been so far, I’m starting to doubt that Shinra even has anything worth a decent fight.”
“Yeah. They’ve been underestimating us…”
“Too bad for them, then. We’ll just walk all over them and out with that materia. Who knew this mission would be smooth sailing from start to finish?”
“Still, maybe it’s just me, but I get the feeling they’ve been saving something bigger for us toward the end.”
“Then bring it on! It’s nothing we can't handle, right?” She passes him a cheeky grin.
He returns hers with a smile of his own. “Couldna said it better myself.”
As they arrive upon the testing grounds, yet another open area that’s wall to wall with metal and machine, they’re greeted by Scarlet’s voice over the intercom.
“Welcome to our state-of-the-art weapons testing facility. This is where we push every piece of ordnance to its limits… and beyond. Such tests are an invaluable part of the development process. Go on, see where the magic happens.”
There are a couple of those similar-looking holographic projectors above their heads, lying in wait as if expecting to be hit. But taking it in stride, Yuffie accepts the challenge and sends her shuriken flying at one of them. The moving platform escalator under their feet begins to transfer them along to the next platform, and thus testing begins.
Up to this point, the level of resistance has been disappointing, so when they come upon what seem to be two yellow-colored floating bulbs with mossy green “tentacles”, Yuffie is honestly quite disappointed.
“So much for ‘bigger’. Looks like they shrank.”
But Sonon keeps a wary eye. “Hold on, Boss, something isn’t right with these things.”
“Huh?”
The two floating bulbs, instead of approaching their targets, seem to hang idly by, swaying to and fro as if dancing in the air without a care. Taking the chance to scan them, Sonon whips out a Sense Materia and identifies the targets.
“Mark III Monodrives… Level 32? Weak to Wind, but absorbs Lightning magic. Incredibly mobile and quickly switches between offense and defense modes. Can’t be slowed or paralyzed either.”
“So, just hit ’em hard when they’re attacking.”
“Yeah, but that depends on if we can hit them.”
“Ha! Then let the master show you how it’s done!”
“Boss, wait!”
Yuffie flings her shuriken at them as usual, but the two Monodrives easily dodge it. Grunting in frustration, she then charges in, forcing Sonon to rush in too. However, as soon as they’re in line of the bots’ attack range, the bots unleash a high-pitched frequency noise that catches them off-guard.
“Agh!”
They shut their ears as they flinch, but that’s when the trap is activated. Suddenly, the bulbs of the Monodrives begin to glow and sync up their movements.
“Yuffie! Move!”
“H-huh!?”
The two barely jump out of the way as a searing lightning bolt flashes between the two bulbs and remains charged. But that’s not all; the bots then pursue after their targets, like wielding a dangerous laser jump rope that remains just as elastic as one. It crackles as it hits the ground or any other surface that it comes into contact, leaving a burn even in the metal flooring.
“What the heck is that!?” Yuffie squeals as she rolls out of the way of an incoming strike.
“Doesn’t matter. Just don’t get hit!”
“What do you think I’m doing!?”
But as the bots’ frivolous antics continue, the ninjas begin to notice a pattern to their otherwise unpredictable movements. Though it’s hard to know when or where they’ll strike, anytime they do, the “rope” moves in a predictable manner. If one of them can just jump in at the right time and get a good hit in, they can disrupt the bots’ attacks for a bit and lay on the carnage.
“Sonon! Give me a boost!”
“Alright, come on!”
She leaps onto his staff and with a short burst of enhanced power, he shoots her like a human bullet right into the gap between the ends of where the laser rope is flailing about. And in that split second, Yuffie spins and slashes at the closer bot, landing a hard crit. She flies out of the way as the rope bounds back up and the bot that was hit sparks with electricity as its bulb powers back down. And like that, the laser rope dissipates.
“Now give ’em hell!” she yells.
She leaps back at the bot she targeted earlier with another flurry of slashes. The other bot, sensing its partner is in danger, tries to unleash its noise barrier again, but is promptly swatted flying by Sonon’s staff. And taking that chance, Yuffie bombs the first bot with a Windstorm and sends it into a hectic tumble and crashes to the floor with a small boom.
Now alone, the remaining Monodrive gets quite defensive. It now unveils its own yellow-tinted force field barrier and stays out of their range as its bulb begins to flash as if it’s charging up another laser. Unfortunately, this time Sonon can’t quite reach it and Yuffie’s shuriken bounces harmlessly off of the barrier.
“Now what?”
“Now… we wait for it to drop its shield, I guess.”
“Wait, doesn’t that mean letting it charge up its laser?”
“Yeah, but we just gotta keep dodging, right?”
“Hmph. That goes without saying.”
The Monodrive, upon charging up its strongest laser to full, beeps loudly as if with joy. It finally drops its shield and unleashes the large beam at its targets. This time, the laser doesn’t just burn the floor, it leaves some noticeable ditches. It’s not even a straight laser either, lashing around like some kind of laser whip. And on top of that, it’s also a homing laser so it continues to chase them down even as they keep running.
“Yipes!”
She does a few dodge spins, but is forced to jump higher just to avoid the incoming beam and thus lands harder. And for just that split second as she recovers, the laser swings right back and catches her, knocking her back.
“Aah!!”
“Yuffie!”
The laser flails about as it traps her in the corner against the wall. Without even thinking about it, Sonon dares to jump in the way, and wielding his own staff as a lightning rod, he draws the laser away from her. But that means he takes the electrocuting sting instead.
“Gaagh!!”
“Sonon! You idiot!”
“Ugh…”
At least thanks to his efforts, Yuffie can sneak in another up-close critical hit, stunning the bot and temporarily knocking out the laser rope. That’s all she needs; she bombards it with another flurry of slashes and kicks it away, sending it into a tumble and crash on the floor like its fellow bot.
Yuffie throws him a Mega Potion, which he immediately downs and gets some sweet relief.
“Whew. Thanks… You alright?”
“I just got stung a little, is all. You didn’t have to take the brunt.”
“Yeah, well… At least you were able to take it out while it was distracted.”
“…” After an awkward beat, she adds, “Thanks for the save.”
“Don’t mention it.”
After having a taste of the more advanced machines they’re going to face from here on, the pair proceed to the next several tests with a bit more caution. Fortunately, it just seems to be more Blast-rays, a Cutter, a M.O.T.H. Unit, and more Armored Magitroopers – some of which they haven’t quite encountered before, but nonetheless go down relatively easily.
But this time, Yuffie employs a little more discretion as they come upon the last of the holographic machines: a little known weapon that Shinra has yet to deploy even in other sites. While it looks kinda like and moves like a Sweeper, it isn’t any ordinary Sweeper.
“The Death Machine Prototype?” Sonon reads from his Sense scan. “It’s level 33. Weak to Lightning, but it’s built tough and can probably take some blasts. Extra aggressive and armed with a variety of artillery.”
“Another of these supped-up hunk-a-junks?” Yuffie asks, now getting a bit sick of them.
Needless to say, they get their answer immediately when it unleashes its massive pack of rocket launchers from its back.
“…Yeah,” Sonon simply answers.
“Oh, you gotta be kidding me!” she wails.
It lets fly its assault of rockets and turns what had been a rather pristine-looking platform into a war zone with clouds of dust and debris from every explosion. Though they try to dodge all the rockets, the ensuing smoke has separated the two and left Yuffie coughing up a fit. And the next thing she knows is the sound of gun fire, which she ducks and jumps to narrowly avoid the incoming shots. But while she can deal with regular bullets, she can’t help but notice these bullets aren’t the rounded shells, but much thinner – like needles? They’ve stuck deep into the floor and make it look like a spike trap that no one would want to end up falling on.
She then hears the sound of those bullets clashing with metal nearby, followed by a pained grunt.
“Sonon!”
Through the cover of the smog, she lunges at the giant machine. But just as she gets int a few hits, a great deal of smog spills from its front exhaust that further blinds her. As she jumps back in search of fresh air, though, the machine is hounding her with even more gunfire.
“Hey! Over here!” Sonon then yells, waving about his staff.
As it happens, a property of the Djinn Staff is to be able to draw aggro from enemies, even if they are machines, and as if it were triggered, the Death Machine promptly swerves back around to charge at him with rocket-propelled boosters. Though injured and temporarily paralyzed from the needle bullets earlier, he still manages to vault himself out of the way as the thing crashes into the wall.
Unfortunately, this machine doesn’t seem to be damaged much by that crash. It gets back to its feet and turns around again with guns ready. But this time, Sonon had just enough time to stick one end of his staff under one of its feet, and flips the thing aside by using the power of leverage. The Death Machine wobbles awkwardly as it tries to regain footing, but just that moment, Yuffie comes in from above and bombs it with some good lightning-charged Art of War. As if all the right conditions lined up, the thing trips and tumbles into stagger.
By now, the short paralysis from those needles wears off. Without a word, Yuffie and Sonon rush in at the same time and unleash their Limit Breaks in sync that they had been holding back until now. Like an elegant dance of autumn leaves in the wind and the swift streak of a dragon up a waterfall, they promptly pound the once stubborn Death Machine Prototype into a brick-hard rice cake… so to speak. And as they leap back out of the fray, the machine crackles and bursts into flame as it drops to the floor.
As the smoke of the warzone clears and the two stop to catch their breaths, they hear a slow clap from the intercom.
“My, my, how impressive! Seems I may have underestimated how resilient you ninjas can be. I was sure you two weren’t going to escape that one.”
“‘May have’!? How ’bout ‘did’, you old hag!?”
She simply chuckles back. “You Wutaians, so feisty. But let’s see how you fare against what I have in store for you next. It’s quite the treat, I assure you. Only the best for our honored guests, after all. Whenever you’re ready.”
The intercom goes silent once more, and there’s the low hum of a nearby elevator being activated. The pair take a moment to share a couple of Mega Potions between them and brace themselves for what’s awaiting them on the next floor. If Shinra has weapon prototypes like these ready for mass production, they might be in for some trouble if they ever get the idea of reopening the old war.
“But they’re still nothing compared to our sacred guardians Leviathan and Ruby!” Yuffie snickers aloud, “When they have something that can actually break a whole city, then maybe we might be concerned…”
“You’re already counting her as one of our country’s guardians, huh.”
“Heck yeah! I was just thinking, if we can crush the competition when we sync up our attacks, imagine how cool it’d be to see Summons sync up theirs!”
“Huh. Now that you mention it, that would be cool to see.”
“Right? Now, let’s get this dumb ‘tour’ over with, get the materia, and go find her!”
Yuffie hurries off for the elevator with Sonon trailing closely behind and they proceed with resolute confidence. If this really is Shinra showing them their “worst”, then it really has been pretty disappointing, all things considered. Where are the real threats, if there are any?
But as they arrive on the next floor and follow the hallway to the door, they come upon a rather imposing blood-red mech standing before them upon the final open platform. Scarlet is already here and she gives one last checkup of the mech’s systems. As it so happens, this new mount of hers has seen some very recent upgrades following the disaster that was the scrapped Airbuster.
She smirks to herself as her guests arrive and stare in wary awe at her proud new toy. “At long last, Wutai’s finest deign to join us. You've performed admirably.”
Yuffie snaps back, “Quit acting all superior. We both know you're afraid of us!”
She chuckles. “Is that so? Well, maybe I am!”
“You can laugh now all you want, but once we get Ruby on our side, then you’ll be begging us in tears to spare you!”
“Oh my! We must do something right away!” she exclaims as she calmly helps herself up into the seat.
“Well, you can’t! There’s nothing that Shinra can produce that will ever match a real Summon!”
“Don’t say that. Won’t you at least give us a chance?” Scarlet then hits a button and starts up the massive mech with a low rumble.
“What the-” Yuffie jumps back, startled.
With the spouting of exhaust as it gets into motion, the machine’s core begins to glow as it rises to its feet and unfurls a set of mighty-looking rocket-powered wings from its back. It also opens up a pair of heavy machine guns on its arms. And as if having called up the vanguard, several Sentry Rays fly in as well.
“Allow me to present the latest innovation in Shinra battle armor… Designed by yours truly. This’ll be a memory to cherish for the rest of your lives. All thirty seconds of them.”
“Oh look, we’re surrounded!” Yuffie says with a smirk of her own as she draws out her shuriken.
“But not for much longer, eh, Boss?” Sonon replies as he swings his staff forward.
“Right on! They’re as good as scrap!”
Like with their many battles up to this point, the ninjas seem to vanish ever-so briefly once they get moving, and within seconds, those Sentry Rays are indeed reduced to scrap. However, it seems Scarlet had anticipated as much and remotely deploys Sentry Launchers that open up in the walls around them. Likewise, a few other windows open up too and send in even more Rays. And with the two adequately surrounded, she lunges in on the offensive.
With its recent upgrades, the Crimson Mare is a lumbering beast no more. It’s gained the mobility of its former comrade the Airbuster and propels itself on boosters as it zips around the battlefield and lets fire in rapid succession. In fact, one could even say that with those wings on its back, it’s not just a “Mare” but a “Pegasus”.
While the Sentry Rays aren’t a big deal no matter how numerous they are, those Launchers can be quite annoying with how they’re constantly launching rockets at them. Yuffie smacks them with a few good throws of her shuriken, while Sonon cleans up the Rays and dodges further gunfire from the Crimson Pegasus.
Well, it’s certainly faster and more mobile like this, but aiming those guns have actually turned out a bit more difficult than she expected. A little peeved at the lackluster results, Scarlet opts to swap her weapons for close-combat with a mechanized claymore and shield instead.
“!?”
Sonon is just barely able to dodge the next attack as the Crimson Pegasus boosts and flies right at him with the huge glowing sword. She unleashes a flurry of swipes at him, which he either dodges or blocks, and he leaps back by Yuffie’s side as she finishes up cleaning out the Launchers.
“Careful, Boss! This thing is a lot faster than it looks!”
“Oh, so it’s a speed battle, is it!?” she retorts indignantly.
They rush at the mech together - Sonon smashing up the arms and Yuffie threatening Scarlet herself – but she manages to duck behind the shield and move out of the way with another boosted propulsion.
“Sneaky little roaches, aren’t you…?”
The Crimson Pegasus lunges in again with full slashing fury as the ninjas once again dodge them and Yuffie even sneaks in a somersault by a hand upon Scarlet’s head. Now quite insulted, the lady is getting more and more impatient with how hard it seems to be to hit a couple of people. After another couple of failed attempts to cut them down, she pulls back to reposition herself and switches tactics yet again. This time, she activates the wings and launches the mech itself into the air. She even swaps out the claymore and shield for mako cannons on each arm.
“What!?” Yuffie gasps.
“Hmph! I should have resorted to this from the start! Try dodging this, you pesky fleas!”
Scarlet lets fire her cannons like laser gatling guns, and the ninjas scatter as they’re hounded by the trailing energy shells. Sure enough, with the Pegasus flying around, it does become a bit easier to hit her targets, and those shells sting quite a bit too.
“Aaah!!”
“Yuffie! Argh!”
Scarlet laughs proudly. “Now that’s more like it! Burn alive! Hahahaha! …Hm?”
But in her brief celebratory mood, she happens to overlook the shuriken that has flown through the air and whipped back around to smack her in the back of the head.
“Aah!”
Yuffie catches her landing in a roll and likewise catches the returning star. She grins as she says, “Hurts, doesn’t it?”
Scarlet feels her sore head and realizes that she’s actually bleeding a little from that stray hit. And now, the lady is no longer smiling. She pushes the mech’s mobility into full throttle and flies at Yuffie with a vengeance.
Fortunately, Sonon is on it. As Yuffie dodges out of the way again, he comes in and catches one of the cannon arms with the tip of his staff, and with a quick mutter under his breath, unleashes a blast of Thundara from that tip. The cannon short-circuits and blows as he leaps away again.
“Ugh!”
Scarlet tries to swap out the broken cannon, but finds that it’s become jammed. Frustrated, she fires at him with the other arm, but once again, Yuffie’s trusty Four-point Shuriken comes in to jam itself into the cannon’s shaft, causing it to jam as well and the trapped energy shells explode and smash the cannon apart. Meanwhile, the shuriken is launched away again and safely lands back in Yuffie’s hands, though it’s still smoking a little from taking the explosion. She gives it a quick check and a brush of the ashy dust, and it’s still good to go.
“Oh, for crying out loud! What else can this thing do!?”
Scarlet, unable to get the arms functioning normally, scrambles to switch modes yet again. The glowing core of the body then opens up a window as it charges up a mighty laser. But as with most mighty lasers, it’s incredibly obvious and well-telegraphed, and even as the mech unleashes the beam, the ninjas easily dodge it. It does leave a huge dent in the metal floor as the intense temperatures begin to warp even tempered steel, but that doesn’t quite satisfy her when she can’t even hit her targets.
And as one last coup de grace, Yuffie casts a simple Fire spell on the core right as it charges up another blast. Now that she gets a reading that the core is beginning to overheat, Scarlet has little choice but to eject from her seat. Now without a pilot, the mech becomes unstable and its systems shut down as it loses power and promptly crashes into the ground with a nice boom. As Scarlet lands safely via a small parachute, she’s neatly caught by the two ninjas who have her surrounded.
She turns back toward the broken mech with a scowl. “Useless! Mobility is no longer an issue, but coordination is severely lacking. I should have known the Airbuster’s parts were a poor match…”
“Hellooo!”
“Hm?”
Sonon’s staff whips around low and knocks her down to her knees.
“Agh! Undignified brutes…”
“Look who’s talking.”
Yuffie sneers. “Hehehe. Not so high and mighty without your silly toys, huh?”
“Hmph.” Still, even in defeat, Scarlet holds that pretentious air about her. “So you’ve defeated me. Proud of yourself, little savage?”
“Huh? You’re still acting like you don’t care? You really don’t get your situation, do you?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that…”
As she had been forced to kneel, her hand had also slipped down to her thigh. With a flick of her hand, she hits a hidden button tied to her leg under her dress. And all of a sudden, an alarm blares out.
“A-wha-wha!?” Yuffie blubbers.
“What'd you do? Tell us!” Sonon yells.
But Scarlet sighs to herself. “Is this how it's done in Wutai? You just howl until you get what you want?”
He grunts in frustration when he doesn’t have a retort, and Yuffie slides in again.
“That's enough, Sonon. I got this.” She folds her arms to try to look more professional. “Alright, lady, out with it. Tell us where you’re hiding the new materia. Don't play dumb now. We know you've been cooking up something super-powerful.”
“Well, well. Wutai must have some highly skilled intelligence operatives.” Scarlet then makes a grimace aside. “That… or we have a mole in our midst.”
Just then, there’s the sound of doors opening up in the next room and the muffled noise of something shuffling behind the other door across this room.
“What was…?” Yuffie asks cautiously.
“I’ll check on it,” Sonon offers.
“Alright, but make it quick.” As he heads off, she turns back to Scarlet with a stern frown. “Well?”
The lady rolls her eyes. “You are correct that we’re in the process of creating an exquisite new materia. However, it is far from complete.”
Yuffie scoffs back, “Yeah, right. Ruby just shows up out of nowhere in Midgar while you’re working on this new materia, and you think I wouldn’t be able to connect the dots?”
“Ruby?”
“The white dragon that Shinra’s going wild about.”
“Ah. That thing again.” Scarlet then gives an amused scoff herself. “It’s like I said before, it’s not one of ours. Where it came from or what it’s doing here has nothing to do with us.”
“You don’t say?” Yuffie drops her arms and steps up. “Then why else has an ancient deity shown up at your doorstep? Surely, it’s not because it’s just curious, right?”
“Ancient deity?” Scarlet blinks a few times and then turns away with chortling laughter.
“Hey! What’s so funny?”
“Hahaha! Oh, dear, you’re serious?”
“Yeah, I am! With Ruby on Wutai’s side, there’s nothing that Shinra has that can stop us! So you’d better start saying your prayers if you really wanna start this war!”
Scarlet shakes her head with a sigh. “You really are just a child.”
“Excuse me!?”
“Chasing after fairy tales of a magic dragon from the ancient past? Surely, even you have to admit something like that has to be a hoax?”
“What?”
“Did it never occur to you? Where did you even hear about it to believe it so much?”
“Hmph. Nice try, but I don’t need to tell you my sources.”
“Ah. Playing coy now, are we?”
“Besides, all you Shinra executives need to know is that you made a big mistake underestimating Ruby. She’s more than just a dragon, and that attack on your base was just a taste of what she can really do.”
“My, my, how terribly frightening… What other fairy tales will you bring up, I wonder?”
“Tch…” As tempted as she is to slap her in the face, Yuffie then backs off. “Well, if you really are telling the truth about the materia, then we don’t need to hear you anymore.”
“Oh? Is that a threat? Are you going to kill me now?”
“As tempting as that may be, no. It’s not part of our mission.”
“How charming. But I assure you, I’m no liar. Regrettable though it is, other plans have been deemed a higher priority.”
“What other plans?”
“Well…” Scarlet then chuckles sinisterly. “Just between you and me, my colleagues and I are going to drop Plate Number 7 on the slums. And then we’re going to blame it on Avalanche and Wutai.”
Yuffie raises an eyebrow. “I don’t get it. You're gonna drop a plate? And?”
Scarlet looks unamused and shakes her head.
“Well, whatever your plans, you really should rethink blaming Wutai for anything. Wouldn’t wanna have Ruby dropped on your bases again like last time.”
“Ah. Regarding your precious little dragon… For whatever reason, one of my colleagues even suggested a failsafe in case that thing happened to get in the way somehow.”
“Huh? A failsafe?” Yuffie snorts. “Pfft. What do you have to pit against Ruby?”
“How about an entire unit of Soldier raiding Sector 7 in the meantime?”
“What?” Now a sense of dread comes over her.
Scarlet chuckles, a little relieved that something was able to get through into her skull. “Imagine this scenario: Sector 7 under attack by Avalanche and Wutai agents, followed by a valiant effort from Soldier to defend the town… only for a tragic disaster to strike! And who knows what would come next…”
“Y-you… That’s playing dirty!”
But before their conversation can continue, they hear the sound of gunfire from the other room.
“What the…?”
“Oh dear. I think your friend might’ve run into trouble. Aren’t you going to save him?”
Yuffie grits her teeth as she returns the lady a fierce glare, but runs off to check on Sonon. As she goes, Scarlet laughs aloud.
In the next room over, she finds Sonon in the middle of a fight with a number of strangely dressed troops in suits with bright blue lines and with helmets that only have a single blue eye over their faces. They have him surrounded, but he can still hold his own for a bit and keep them at a distance with his staff out.
“Sonon!”
“There you are!”
Yuffie cuts a path through the crowd to join him by his side. “Who’re these assholes!?”
“No clue. They just appeared!”
The troops fire at their targets once again, and the pair easily dodge and strike back. Yuffie peers off back toward the room they had just been in, getting a bit nervous that they’ve left Scarlet alone for too long.
“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but…”
“Just hit me with it.”
“There is no ultimate materia – not yet. She said it’s still in the works.”
Even more troops arrive, but are taken out just as quickly.
“Bummer. But what about Ruby? Does she know anything?”
“Nope. Still thinks she’s just a wild beast.”
“Works for us, then.”
Another of the troops tries to sneak up on them from behind, but is promptly smacked in the face and knocked flying by the twirling staff.
“Yeah. And she mentioned somethin’ else. They’re gonna drop Plate Number 7.”
Sonon snaps back to her. “They’re gonna do what?”
“They’re gonna drop Plate Number 7 on the slums, apparently.”
“But that’s the whole upper part of the sector!”
She blinks. “Wait! So Zhijie was being serious!?”
Yet another trio of troops rushes in at them and Yuffie cuts them down in a row with her shuriken.
“This is bad.”
“What the heck! Then why’s Shinra sending in Soldier too? Are they trying to kill everyone!?”
“Huh? What’s Soldier got to do with…?”
“She also said they’re planning a raid of Sector 7 as a ‘failsafe’ or something.”
He grits his teeth. “What in the world… Forget ‘bad’; this is just crazy! We need to get out and spread the news!”
“Let’s go! Force a way through!”
“Right behind ya!”
They burst out from the crowd of troops with weapons swinging and try to make a break for the door from which they had come. Unfortunately, they instead run into even more of these guys from there and are forced to take a detour.
“Don’t let them escape!” one of the Soldiers orders.
“They’re cornered. Box ’em in!” another shouts.
They’re pursued by the crowd that still fires on them. One even throws a grenade their way and the ensuing boom nearly catches Yuffie. They burst on through another door that was about to shut on them and hide behind it as it does. The sound of more grenades go off, but they’re out of reach for now.
Yuffie sighs and asks, “Is it over?”
“Somehow, I seriously doubt it…”
Now that they find themselves in a different room, they realize it’s one that’s closed off and there seems to be only one exit in and out of here.
Yuffie grumbles to herself. “Man, I so don't wanna go back out there...but I don't think we’ve got a choice.” She tries the panel by the door, but it doesn’t respond. “Work, you stupid…” But further attempts come to nothing. “No good. Door won't budge.”
“Meaning we're trapped.”
“But we’re not down! Maybe there’s a secret access somewhere…”
He sighs. “Well, it doesn’t hurt to stay positive, I guess.”
Meanwhile, in a separate room keeping a surveillance of the room that the pair have ended up in, Scarlet is accompanied by several staff members and a nurse checking her condition. It seems like she was barely nicked by Yuffie’s shuriken, but the fact that she was hit at all was the greater sting. She stares down the camera focused on the two ninjas with an intense hatred in her eyes.
“I want them… to suffer.” She turns to the staff manning the controls. “The rest, I leave to you.”
As she takes her leave, the staff operate the system accordingly. The Combat Simulator Prototype has its own announcer that reports: “Pain Sensation Level set to: maximum.”
~
Back in Sector 7, as tensions have begun to boil over and Shinra forces seem to have taken over the town, there’s a bright flash of light that temporarily lights up the night sky overhead. It’s bright enough to be seen from the next town and startles some people who notice it, though most civilians seem to pay it little mind. However, what is much more noticeable is the stark contrast in the mannerisms of the patrolling troops temporarily stationed around Wall Market. One moment, they were mostly bored and hanging around the town like unwelcome loiterers; the next, they seem to have all left in a panic.
“You gotta be kidding me! We’re supposed to deal with something like that!?”
“No way! I don’t care what Sarge tries to do to us, I’m not going back in there! Not with that dragon still there!”
Sure enough, the strange flash of light from earlier was indeed the work of the lately infamous white dragon. According to the two guards standing by the gate to Sector 7 put it, it was like a magic show; one moment, the pillar’s forces were being swarmed by sentry bots and paratroopers, and the next, they all vanished into the ether as if they had been incinerated in an instant in that flash. Needless to say, the troops posted around here are all thinking twice about stepping foot back there.
Even their squad commander is spooked enough. “On second thought, men… I hear we got new orders.”
“What ‘new orders’, sir?”
“To stay out of Sector 7 until the threat is gone! Move out!”
And with that, the commander blows his whistle and he and all the other troops from his squad run out the gate and away from the scene. No one is bothering to keep an eye out anymore, so no one bothers to question why two of the troops have remained near the Sector 6 gate. They stare off toward the Sector 7 pillar in the distance in a moment of contemplative silence.
“…You know, Jessie. Maybe I’m not one to talk, but I think we’ve all been overthinking things.”
“You mean about Ruby?”
“Yeah…” He then smirks to himself. “She’s a loose cannon, alright, but at least she’s our loose cannon.”
“Heh. About time you came around.”
“What do you mean? I’ve been trusting her.”
“Yeah, but I also know you’re the type to overthink things and worry about the what-ifs and what her end goal could be and all that. She’s right there. Let’s just go ask her and clear up the confusion.”
“What? Right now?”
“Well, duh! When else? After she’s gone again?” She takes off on a running headstart. “Come on!”
“Wait, Jessie! Wasn’t the plan to stop by S5, though?”
“Those guys can wait! Ruby’s a celebrity, you know! We gotta catch her!”
And with that, the two hurry off back into Sector 7 without a peep from the guards at the gate there. Even if they weren’t still in disguise, the guards are too stunned to bother to move from their places. It’s not too long before the guards are then swarmed by evacuees fleeing Sector 7 thanks to the ensuing battle atop the pillar.
As the pair make their ways through the town, panic seems to have taken a hold, and yet there are still some odd stragglers around who simply refuse to leave or can’t be bothered even with the looming threat over their heads. And then, there are those who actually support Avalanche. Some have been going around town too to lend a hand with the evacuation, and a few others have been gathered near the pillar. However, no one dares to actually enter the pillar grounds for one simple reason: Ruby is currently dealing with the Turks at the top. If anything it’d probably be safer if no one else got in the way. So, it comes as a surprise when they notice two supposed Shinra troops are running on over.
“Hold it! You’re not getting near the pillar!” one of the men shouts.
The Avalanche supporters prepare to draw their guns, ready and willing to defend it with their lives, but suddenly Wedge jumps in front of them with his arms waving wildly.
“W-wait! Wait! Guys, calm down! I know them!”
“Huh?” “Wedge, what are you doing!?” “He knows Shinra troops?”
He grins with reassurance and turns to the two new arrivals. “About time you guys got back!”
Sure enough, Biggs and Jessie remove their helmets with their own relieved smiles, stunning the rest of the group.
“Wait. What’s going on here?” “Yeah, why are you two dressed like that?” “Oh, that’s how he knows them.”
“It’s a long story, guys. No time to get into that!” Jessie turns back to Wedge. “And what are you guys doing just standing around here?”
“Ruby’s guarding the pillar right now, so we’re just keeping an eye out down here. Uh, is something wrong?”
Biggs frowns. “Unfortunately, yeah. While we were spying on the troops, we overheard some bad news.”
Jessie explains, “By the sound of it, Shinra’s got a whole unit of Soldier waiting off in Sector 8. Seems like they’re planning to raid 7 after the plate drops.”
“W-what?” Wedge gasps, “But Ruby’s not gonna let the plate drop, so what does that mean for us?”
“Not sure, but it could still be trouble if they decide to raid us anyway,” Biggs warns.
Jessie nods with a frown. “Ruby’s pretty reliable – mostly – but even she’s gonna find it hard to keep the plate up and protect the town at the same time.”
“Ooh, yeah. That might be tricky…” Wedge nervously agrees.
“Which is why we gotta let her know! We can help keep the Turks preoccupied for a bit while she can head off to S8 to deal with Soldier!”
“Yeah, but I dunno if we should go up now…”
“What? Why?”
They all look back up the pillar, and around this moment, Ruby has snatched up the Turks’ helicopter and chucked it far away into the distance. She keeps them cornered while she returns to the pillar’s computer to resume hacking.
Wedge turns back to them with an innocent-looking face. “Ruby said she didn’t want us to follow her in.”
“…”
An awkward silence comes over them as everyone begins to reconsider what the plan is now. In fact, is there actually anything to worry about?
Biggs takes a moment to think it over. “You know, maybe we can just wait for her to come back down instead. It’ll probably be faster.”
Jessie lets off a disappointed sigh. “Probably. But I don’t want to just wait around here. Is there anything else we can do in the meantime?”
“Well, you did say we were gonna stop by S5 too, right?”
“Oh, yeah.”
Wedge then asks, “Sector 5? Why do you guys have to go there?”
“We think that’s where Nayo and them went. It’s as good a base as any for Avalanche, now that this town isn’t a guarantee anymore.”
“Ah, gotcha. Should I come with?”
But Biggs suggests, “Nah. You stay here when she gets back down and relay the news. We’ll be waiting for her over there, just in case we find out anything else.”
“Oh. Alright.”
“Heh. Don’t worry, man. Once everything’s settled around here, we won’t need to split up anymore.”
“Right. Okay, guys. Good luck out there!”
The trio exchange their casual goodbyes for now, and Biggs and Jessie are on the move once again. It’s been a pretty busy day for Avalanche and their supporters, alright. One way or another, they just can’t seem to be able to stick together for long before something else comes up to split them apart again. It almost feels like this timeline of events has been following some sort of script where every piece of the puzzle seems to fit together neatly, with a distinct role for each player in the puzzle.
Except for Ruby. Like a nail that refuses to be hammered down, even when she doesn’t have a reason to be in a given place or time, she somehow always finds a way to correct one problem and replace it with another.
Notes:
~A sneak peek of the boardroom meeting regarding the Sector 7 plate~
Reeve: With Sectors 4 and 5 safely evacuated, we can begin work on repairs of Mako Reactor 5...
Shinra: We're not repairing it.
Reeve: Um, sir?
Shinra: Leave Mako Reactor 5 as is. We're moving on to the plan to deal with Avalanche.
Heidegger: Those useless idiots! I told them to get a move on, but the Airbuster was constantly being "delayed"! And now look what happened! And you said it was "state-of-the-art"...
Scarlet: Oh, turn the other cheek, would you? If there's anything worth salvaging from the scrap heap, it will be put to much better use.
Shinra: Indeed. Then we'll leave the cleanup there to Advanced Weaponry.
Scarlet: Hmph.
Shinra: In the meantime, what shall be done about Sector 7?
Heidegger: If you ask me, we don't need that rat-infested dump. Just eject the whole lot!
Reeve: Don't be ridiculous! This is an entire town filled with innocent people!
Heidegger: Ha! Innocent...
Shinra: Can the entire sector be demolished?
Reeve: W-what? Sir...
Heidegger: Hahaha! Of course, sir! We'll just send in the Turks on that. They'll be sure that the pillar goes one way or another!
Reeve: Wait a moment! This is absurd! How can we sacrifice an entire town just to stamp out a small rebel group!?
Shinra: Very well. But in the case there are any potential issues or delays that come along, I would like some sort of insurance.
Reeve: S-sir...
Heidegger: What potential issues, sir, if you don't mind me asking?
Shinra: Perhaps the reports of the dragon are merely trifles, but I'd rather see it buried and out of mind before it turns into anything more.
Heidegger: Hmph. That dragon is nothing more than a fly! We'll just send Soldier on it.
Shinra: How many will you need?
Heidegger: Eh. There's a spare unit of 'em in Sector 8. We might as well put them to use.
Scarlet: Really? You're sending in an entire unit for just one dragon?
Heidegger: They're just 3rd-class. It'd be a different matter if there were any 2nd or 1st available.
Shinra: Very well. Then we'll leave that matter to Public Safety. As for that insurance...?
Scarlet: I suppose I could ask the engineers to come up with something. A remote detonator would suffice, I presume?
Shinra: That will do. Notify me as soon as it's ready.
Scarlet: Of course, sir.
Heidegger: Hahaha! One way or another, Sector 7 is a goner, and we'll be the heroes to send in the rescue!
Reeve: ...
Palmer: Wowee! What a plan! I sure hope the Space Program is somewhere on the agenda too!
Shinra: This concludes our meeting for now. Dismissed.
Palmer: Aw.
Reeve: *cries internally*
Chapter 18: A Flash in the Dark
Notes:
4/25/25 edit: Added a bit more detail to Ruby's materia to be conistent with its particular design that will come into play much later.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“‘Even in the darkest of nights, a radiant light of hope will shine upon the darkness and bring justice to those most in need.’ …Or however it goes.”
A young lady in a blue cap, with crop-top, shorts, and striped stockings, sits atop the graffitied outer wall that surrounds Wall Market. She has a pair of binoculars in hand as she overlooks the town in the Sector 7 slums and scans the area for any noteworthy activity. And would she be in luck tonight! Off in the distance, she easily spots the flash of white light that erupts from around the pillar that holds up the sector plate.
“Man… Still can’t believe a stodgy ol’ saying that geezers use to tell off their kids turned out to be real. And it even shows up when the rumors about the plate falling were putting everyone on edge.” She snickers to herself as she comes up with a new scheme. “Boy, is this scoop spicy! ’Specially now when everyone’s all doom and gloom and needs a picker-upper. Lately the news has just been terrorists this, Avalanche that, yada yada fear-mongering… Heh. Who woulda thunk that the dragon that bombed their base would end up saving the dang town? Makes you wonder who really are the good guys…”
The girl slips back down a broken pipe that is barely clinging to the wall and starts off on a run through the market town. Though this place isn’t exactly her usual joint – though she’s definitely no stranger to it either – she’s come here to find a good spot to view current events at someone else’s request. Not one to pass up an opportunity to make some quick cash, she accepted it in a heartbeat. After all, all she has to do for this job is observe and report. Now that’s done with, it’s time to get back to Sector 5.
~
Off in the underground labs, Yuffie and Sonon have found themselves in quite the conundrum. They’re anxious to get out and get the word out of what they’ve learned, but ran into a few unwelcome threats that forced them on a detour – more specifically, being trapped in some kind of combat simulation. After an exhausting series of battles against unholy freaks of nature, they finally are able to bust their way out. However, they would quickly learn that it wasn’t because the simulation concluded unclimactically.
“Who could’ve done this?” Sonon asks, stunned and disturbed.
As they step out of the room, they find some soldiers that had previously been pursuing them are now scattered on the ground like corpses. A general uneasiness hangs in the air, and there are traces of some unknown purple gas trailing on the floor, shifting about as if it were alive. Even more disturbingly, as the gas floats over the bodies, they seem to vanish in the fog and don’t come back out. The pair carefully steps past the icky-looking stuff, but anywhere they try to go, the eerie gas seems to linger. There’s only one particular door that hasn’t been locked down or blocked off. As ominous as things may seem, they are clearly out of options and proceed through the hallway into the next room.
As they enter, a few scientists on supervision duty watch them from afar in a different safe room.
“Subjects on site. It’s time. Initiate the Tsviet field test.”
“Sir.”
And with a few miscellaneous procedures enacted, this new simulation is officially online.
Back in the room where it’s to take place, Yuffie and Sonon meet a rather grotesque scene. There’s a man with messy black hair, suited up like the soldiers they met earlier, who has his arms tied back over his shoulders like some kind of asylum patient in a straight jacket. Even his face is entirely bandaged up leaving only his eyes and hair poking out, and he has some skeletal-looking black wings protruding from his back that also glow a faint blue. He’s cornered several other soldiers, who try to fend him off by shooting back, but it’s to no avail. The strange man easily blocks the bullets with just his wings and even skewers one of them with those pointy wing tips. As the poor soldier struggles, a pool of some sort of purplish-black substance bubbles out from the floor around the man’s feet. It swarms and captures the rest of the soldiers, who start to scream in pain as soon as they come into contact. As they try but fail to get away, it sucks them in. Then, the man casually tosses his latest victim into the pool and takes an unsettling glee in watching them all disappear into the darkness.
Unable to contain her disgust, Yuffie yells at the guy: “What are you doing? Aren’t you all on the same team?”
Apparently, the masking doesn’t muffle the man’s voice. He laughs as he turns to his newest prey on the chopping block. “‘Team’? Fool. There are no ‘teams’ in Deepground.”
“Deep…ground?”
“The place where my brother and I like to play.”
She simply raises a suspicious eyebrow. “Cool. Now, mind moving aside? We’re in a hurry.”
Though his mouth is covered, he makes a look as if he’s sneering. He clearly isn’t stepping aside as she hoped either.
Sonon steps forward with his Marshalist’s Staff at the ready. “Let’s take a different tack.”
Yuffie sighs, but draws her shuriken too. “Well, can’t blame a girl for trying.”
The masked man then unfolds his wings wide as if to welcome them. “Now… let the games begin.”
“What’s with this company? They have a ‘freaks only’ policy?”
Sonon warns her, “Careful. This freak’s no pushover.”
“You got something through a scan?”
“No, and that’s the problem. I can’t get any reading on him. All I could find was his name, ‘Nero the Sable’… apparently.”
“What? Even materia doesn’t work right? What kind of freak is he!?”
No sooner than had she asked, she would receive an answer. Though the ninjas are pretty used to getting in the first blow in battle, as they land their first strikes in perfect sync, they quickly realize they don’t even make the man flinch. If anything, he only seems to get more excited the more they wail on him. It’s disturbing how the guy just seems to tank the hits like they’re nothing. And he’s still laughing.
“What’s so funny!? Is he a masochist!?”
“Yuffie, watch out!”
“Wha!?”
She nearly gets caught as his wings suddenly fold out and try to grab her, but she flips back out of range. Sonon charges in again at Nero from behind to try to crush them, but these wings aren’t dainty despite being so thin. From a safe distance, Yuffie chucks her shuriken too to help keep up the pressure as she charges up some ninjutsu, and as it returns, she catches it and throws it again. This time, she jumps back into the fray and bombs Nero with a good ol’ Art of War.
However, as the pair back off and the smoke settles, Nero remains unfazed. With an excited glint in his eyes, he actually rips through the binds that held his arms back and unleashes a wave of dark energy that spans the whole field and fills it in a purplish haze. Apparently all the wailing that the two did ended up weakening those binds more than hurting him.
“Ah… freedom at last.”
“Uh… Was that supposed to happen?” Yuffie asks nervously.
“Either way, it’s not a good sign…” Sonon replies warily.
In fact, the burst of dark energy is putting excessive strain on the system that is supposed to contain it. The scientists on supervision are in a panic to try to save the system and initiate the protocol to restrain him.
“Abnormal readings detected. The control program’s been compromised!”
“Containment protocol!”
Said protocol simply involves pumping pain signals into Nero’s suit to subdue him, but unfortunately for them, all that does is piss him off further. With a threatening grunt, he busts through the window into the control room and seizes a couple scientists by their collars. As they scream and the rest scramble to flee, they’re all surrounded by and sink into the darkness that has begun to fill up this room too.
“How dare you? How dare you stand in my way?”
“No, please- Aaaah!!”
He drops them into the pool to join the rest whose screams can still be heard briefly before they’re drowned out and disappear as well. As he returns to the battlefield where Yuffie and Sonon remain, they stare in disbelief and horror at him.
Nero greets them with open arms as if to thank them for their patience. “Now then… where were we?”
Now, that pool of darkness he had released before shoots up from the ground and forms into floating tendrils that form a ring around the room that prevents them from escaping.
Yuffie cringes. “Ew. What even is that stuff?”
Sonon answers firmly, “Whatever it is… you don’t wanna touch it.”
“That goes without saying! It’d better be gone after we beat the crap out of him!”
Without hesitation, the pair resume their barrage, but now that his arms are free, Nero is also free to make his moves. From the outset, he leaps back to avoid them and whips up a quick Haste spell that doubles his speed. Even before the two can bounce away again, he draws a pair of long-barrel guns from their holsters at his belt and fires back. Well, bullets haven’t had the best track record with hitting these ninjas, but now that they’re powered by the darkness, even being anywhere near them will inflict some nasty draining effects. The two are nearly hit, but already they can feel a bit of their strength being sapped.
This isn’t working out as well as they hoped. Even with their well-coordinated strikes from two fronts, Nero is easily keeping up with the pressure and swinging to keep them from getting too close. Even the shuriken throws from afar do too little as he knocks it back with his wings. Yuffie flips in the air to catch it again and hops back to rethink their approach, but their nasty foe is relentless. He unleashes a wave of Chaotic Pulsars that launch pillars of darkness around the field that the pair barely dodges, but gets separated. As she tries to find some solid footing, she realizes she’s come a little too close to that icky darkness ring and its tendrils bind around her.
“Argh! Get off!” She rips through them with her shuriken and wrenches free, ducking safely into a roll. “Ugh… That was close. Better watch my step.”
Suddenly, Sonon shouts, “Yuffie! Move!”
“Wha-!?”
Unfortunately, it’s a little too late to react. Nero suddenly blitzes her with those sharp wings, knocking her flying.
“Aaah!!”
“Yuffie!”
She tumbles back to the floor, but catches herself before she slides right back into more of that black stuff. “Ugh… cheap shot…”
Sonon dives at him from behind, but Nero effortlessly dodges aside and catches the staff with his guns in a cross. Just as the former realizes his mistake, he’s too late to pull back. The latter knocks it away and unloads several heavy blasts directly in his chest.
“Gaagh!! Augh…!” Amid the pain and his strength being drained, Sonon drops to his knees.
“Sonon!”
Nero then smacks him away with a slap from his gun as he turns back to the girl with that eerily distant look in his eyes. As he slowly approaches her, their lines of sight meet and his eyes hone in like those of a hungry predator. For just an instant, Yuffie’s heart wavers. She freezes up and her mind races into a panic as she struggles to figure out what to do. But just as he raises a gun point-blank in her face, she reacts on instinct and rolls out of the way just in time.
“Hey! You okay!? Can you hear me!?” She races over to Sonon, who struggles to climb back to his feet.
“Ugh… Yeah, I can…”
“Come on! Get a hold of yourself!” She passes him another potion, but he stops her. “Huh?”
“I’m fine. Save it for yourself!”
“What!? But…”
Before they can keep arguing, though, Nero doesn’t give them any time to breathe. After a quick reload of bullets made up of dark energy, he resumes rapid fire upon them again, and in the heat of the moment, Sonon knocks Yuffie out of the way, but takes the shots and they cripple him.
“Guh…!”
“Sonon!”
Again, Nero lunges in a blitz, but Sonon just barely manages to catch the swinging guns with his staff to avoid being shot at yet again. However, the latter only lays on the pressure, pushing Sonon down to his knees again as he struggles to resist, and those sharp-looking wings clasp around him and puncture him in the back, preventing him from escaping. As the darkness rises into floating streams that surrounds them, Sonon quickly finds himself unable to keep pushing back.
Nero cackles as he suggests, “Surrender to the darkness. Embrace it.”
“Get off of him, you asshole!”
Yuffie charges in again to help, but the streams block her way. Try as she might to cut through them, she can’t get close enough to break her partner free. And with a quick flick of his hands, Nero disarms his victim and happily gouges him in the chest – right where he had already been injured.
“Gaagh…!”
“No!! Let him go!”
In a desperate attempt to break through, Yuffie hops back a bit and summons a Windstorm to blow away the streams. And for a brief moment, it seems to work. She lunges at Nero with a ferocity unseen before, striking him over and over as if painting a scene of bloodbath, and eventually it gets him to let go of his victim. Nero shoots up into the air and hovers menacingly over them and returns fire, but she snatches up Sonon and dodges out of the way again. She flings her shuriken again to distract him while she finds a spot still untouched by the darkness.
“Take the damn potion already!” She unbottles it and pours the stuff directly onto his chest, and to her relief, it helps restore him so he isn’t left with a permanent scar.
Sonon gasps for air as he comes back around. “T-thanks…”
No sooner than had he been restored, they have to get moving. Confused as to why her shuriken isn’t coming back around again, she looks back and gasps. Nero has caught the shuriken with his wings again and casually flings it away.
“Hey!”
She dives over to fetch it. However, in that moment, Nero tries to unleash another wave of darkness at the place where she would be – if not for Sonon once again coming in to stop him. They clash again with staff against guns.
“Don’t stop! Keep moving!” Yuffie yells at him as she gets away again.
“Grraaah!” Sonon knocks Nero back this time and lands in a few heavy hits from the fortified ends of his staff.
In turn, she throws her shuriken again blasts the guy with another Windstorm, not just blowing him away but also the streams that try to close in on them again. And while he’s stunned for just a moment, they find a chance to lay on the counterattack. As Yuffie continues to bomb him with ninjutsu, Sonon charges up his own powerful Limit Break. He smacks Nero around in a flurry of blows, retracting briefly before the final hit as Yuffie lands her own techniques, and they both leap into the air and smash him back to the ground.
Nero gasps in pain and starts muttering to himself, “It hurts, Brother. It hurts… so much…” He’s even writhing on the ground as if he were suddenly unable to pull himself back up.
“Now let’s get out of here already!” Yuffie yells.
However, the darkness that has swept the field only continues to grow and blocks the way to the exit.
“No!”
Nero has gotten back to his feet, but rather than be upset at the pain he’s suffered, he keeps laughing to himself. “This is where you die.”
Yuffie hops away from the writhing black tendrils. “Gross! It’s everywhere!”
Sonon braces himself for yet another torturous round. “Let's end this before it swallows us too.”
But just as the two seem to have gotten a tailwind to press on further, the winds quickly seem to change. By now, the two are quite drained and Yuffie’s run out of Mega Potions to spare. And Nero still remains unyielding. As one last hurrah, they manage to knock him back with a Synergized Windstorm and simultaneously clear the darkness that had ended up in their way.
“Let’s go!”
“Right!”
But before they can get the door open, suddenly the atmosphere around them seems to sink in further depravity. Nero suddenly stops short in midair from being knocked back. His wings burst into a glowing purple aura and extend out even further, giving him the appearance of a full-blown devil.
“What now!?” Yuffie exclaims.
“Forget it! The door’s open, go!” Sonon yells.
“It’s time I brought this to a close. Behold the true beauty of darkness!”
Nero summons the loose dark streams back into his hands and collects them into a giant swirling ball of darkness. With a manical laugh, he unleashes it before them and it explodes, covering the entire battlefield. There’s nowhere to run, and the pair are both caught up in the energy-draining pool and quickly drop to their knees as its effects have only intensified. If this keeps up, neither of them are going to be able to keep fighting.
With the last of his strength, Sonon wrenches himself back up and grabs Yuffie by the arm.
“H-huh? Sonon…?”
“Go…”
He flings her out the door and slams a fist on the control panel to shut it. Stunned, Yuffie bounces right back up and bangs on the door.
“Sonon! What are you doing!?”
“Go… Find Ruby…”
“Shut up! We’re going together! Open the door!”
To her horror, he doesn’t seem to answer now. She searches around for the panel on this side of the door, but as she tries to get it open again, the door refuses to budge. Apparently, whatever button Sonon hit, it’s an emergency lock.
“You idiot! You could have jumped out of there too! Sonon!!”
She continues to bang on the door, but now, there’s no further response. And shortly after, she hears the sound of a pair of shear-like wings skewering a body and a heavy thud against the door.
“…!”
And then, it’s nothing but silence aside from the slight scratching of blades against metal. Yuffie freezes up and her mind goes blank again, like that moment of panic from before. Again, it’s that feeling of panic and helplessness that she absolutely hates, but now can’t help herself. Completely shaken and exhausted, she drops to her knees as she begins to break down into tears.
“You asshole… Why do you keep doing this? I’m not a kid… I’m not your sister!”
Just then, there’s a rattling behind the door as if it were being shaken loose. She freaks out again, and without thinking, bolts from the scene. By now, the labs have been cleared of people since the Tsiviet program was initiated. No one is around to stop her from escaping, and though still very frantic, she manages to make her way out the way they came.
It seems like an eternity has passed as she hurries from room to room in search of an exit – any one will do. She doesn’t even know exactly where she’s run off to, but eventually, she does find a shorter path out that leads her to a small lobby with a few elevators. Is this the same place that they came from? Probably not. But it doesn’t matter. She just needs to get out of here.
As the elevator doors open, she hurries in and anxiously slaps the close button and hits the one for the 1st floor. Now alone in the elevator, she collapses against the back railing with heavy panting. Whether it was from the exhaustion of battle or from the fear that she’s felt since earlier, she’s totally drained.
She bites her lip in frustration. How the hell did things come to this? It was just supposed to be a simple infiltration mission, but they got a little lost and ran right into a trap. But they were strong together and could deal with anything that came their way. Or at least, that’s what she believed until Sonon stayed behind. And now she’s alone in a place where everything is out to get her.
The tears that had welled up in her eyes finally begin to fall. Sonon, that idiot… They were going to find Ruby together. But he just had to pull a stunt like that and now he’s no longer here.
The elevator now stops with a soft ding and the doors open. She quickly wipes her tears on her arm and hurries out. By now, the crowds of employees from earlier have cleared out, and strangely enough even the guards are no longer here. She could just walk out the front door. What happened to security? Did they leave for somewhere?
Never mind that; it’s not her problem. She runs out the door and finds a panicking crowd outside of the building. People are running about in a frenzy to scramble to safety, and a few stragglers worry about some people they know who would have been down there in the danger zone. And before she can ask anyone what’s going on, she witnesses a horrific sight beyond the edge of Sector 0.
An entire upper sector plate crumbles before her eyes and collapses in its entirety. As if it were the last straw to be laid upon her, Yuffie drops to her knees in shock.
“This is just wrong…”
She falls further onto her hands, still trembling. It’s all wrong. Nothing seems to be right anymore. It’s like the end of the world has come crashing down all of a sudden and there’s no stopping the deaths from rolling in like numbers. And for some reason, she’s still here to witness it all. She feels a latent rage swell from within until it’s ready to burst out. She can’t take it anymore. She throws herself back up and screams to the heavens.
Everyone’s already in a panic and trying to get away. No one’s here to pay her any attention; not even as she cracks and lets the tears spill down her face. This sucks. She should never have come to Midgar. If she wasn’t here, Sonon wouldn’t have ended up like that. There was no “ultimate materia” to be stolen in the first place. All they learned was that Shinra was just as psycho as they thought it was, willing to sacrifice thousands of their own people just for whatever stupid personal gain. And there’s nothing they could do to stop it either.
“…Unbelievable. Everyone was freaking out over Sector 7, but it was 8 that went! Who would have guessed!?”
“I dunno what’s going on anymore. Was it Avalanche or something else? Were they supposed to target 7 or 8 or wherever? No matter what, I’m not going down there anymore. I don’t think it’s safe anywhere in the slums.”
“Wouldn’t be safe on topside either if everything’s just gonna fall…”
“That does it! I’m leaving Midgar! It’s just too dangerous living in this city!”
Yuffie just happens to overhear a passing conversation between two men who had stopped to watch the plate fall, like some out-of-place tourists experiencing a live horror show. She blinks a few times as she clears her eyes of tears and lifts her head up again to look out at the plate that had fallen. Wait a second… Now that she really thinks about it, that is a different side of town than the one they had been.
Sector 8 was the one that fell? What the hell is going on here!?
She gets back to her feet and tightly clasps her head as she feels a migraine coming on. Nothing makes sense anymore! Did that Scarlet lie after all? To throw them off the scent of Shinra’s real plans? That dirty bitch! They were gonna run out there and warn everyone of a false alarm!
But wait. Why would she even lie about which sector was gonna fall? And why would they take out Sector 8? Didn’t those troops find out where Avalanche HQ was? It was in 7…
Just as she had gotten back to her feet, she suddenly feels a bit of rumbling beneath her and she freaks out again. What’s going on now!? There are even more people screaming and panicking, if they hadn’t already been before. And sure enough, she gets her answer right away: there are large cracks that begin to form in the ground of the upper plate of Sector 7. No… no way! They’re BOTH going!? What is this hellscape!?
But then, just as it feels like the maelstrom keeps churning, there’s a sudden break in the doom and gloom, like a light that parts the clouds. One moment, it looked like Sector 7 was going to fall too, but the next… it’s not falling? Something’s still holding it up. But how could that be? Wasn’t there just one pillar to support the thing…?
At that moment, the revelation hits her: Ruby. It’s got to be Ruby! Yuffie has no idea how she’s doing it, but there’s no one else that it could be who would hold up an entire town!
That does it. She needs to get down there. There might be something that she can do to help. And even if Ruby doesn’t need the help, Yuffie still should go meet her. There may not be such a thing as Shinra’s ultimate materia, but Ruby is definitely real. In other words, the mission is still on. She can’t be stuck here moping. She wipes the last of her tears from her face and replaces her look of shame with one of renewed determination. Come on, Yuffie, you can do this. It’s what Sonon would have wanted. And without further doubts or fears to haunt her, she rushes through the panicked crowds, off for the catwalk that surrounds Shinra HQ’s grounds, and back to Sector 7.
~
Off in a different corner of the city, the girl in a cap and striped stockings has made her way back to Sector 5 safely. She checks behind her one last time, noting that no one seems to have followed her, and smirks to herself. She whips out a wallet from her pocket – one that clearly isn’t her own – and is disappointed to find that it’s barely got a few gil left. The only other thing in it is a photo of that dumb-looking shirtless redhead she happened to bump into while she was passing through Wall Market and a an older couple that are probably his parents. She sighs as she folds it back up and stuffs it back into her pocket. There really aren’t too many shmucks around with a lot of cash these days. She would have tried the town on the upper plate, but thanks to a certain group of rebels, security is at an all-time high lately and she really doesn’t want to deal with Shinra troops more than the next guy.
Well, whatever. As luck would have it, she’s run into a different group of rebels this time and they’re actually willing to pay her to do some over-the-wall spying on their behalf without having to actually deal with the troops. Talk about an easy 200 gil. Maybe she could get used to doing these types of gigs from time to time. It could break up the monotony of pickpocketing the poor.
She calmly makes her way around town to a local clinic on the west side of town. It’s a small little place where there’s only a single doctor and his wife who work here. She marches on in and the lady at the reception desk is surprised to see her back already. She asks if the people she’d come in with earlier are still around, and the lady nods back without saying another word. She guides the girl toward the back room and leads her to a set of stairs that descend into the basement. The girl gives a quick thanks and hops right down.
As it happens, this is the new secret base of Avalanche HQ. Nayo, Polk, Billy Bob, and for once even Zhijie is here waiting. They welcome the girl back.
Nayo looks genuinely relieved. “Kyrie! There you are.”
Polk asks, “How’s Sector 7 now? Did you find anything about Ruby and the splinter cell?”
“Ha! You think I’d be back here if I didn’t?” Kyrie scoffs, folding her arms. “That Ruby lady sticks out so much that I didn’t even need to step foot in 7 to see her.”
“So did you see what’s been happening there?” Billy asks to be sure.
“Yeah. I didn’t go much further than the gate, but climbed up the wall and had a pretty good view. The pillar’s still standing, for starters, but looks like Shinra troops have the whole place on lockdown.”
He sighs. “Guess we won’t be heading back there in a while…”
Nayo frowns too. “That’s about what I expected. Even if their cell made it out alright, there’s no way that Shinra would just wait around with Ruby still on the loose.”
“Yeah, about that… I doubt Shinra’s even got the forces to deal with her.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“Well… how about the way she just cleared the entire pillar of troops in an instant!? There was this huge pillar of light about the same size as the dang pillar, and suddenly, it was empty! Crazy, huh?”
Kyrie tries to make a big deal about it, but is disappointed to see that everyone else reacts rather coolly or is mildly surprised.
“…What the heck, guys? Don’t tell me you already knew!”
Nayo shakes her head. “We didn’t know, but it does sound like something she’d be capable of.”
“Whew. Scary to think what we’d be up against if we weren’t on the same side,” Polk remarks rather calmly for what he says.
“I’ll admit, I was teetering between the battle going quick in minutes or seconds, but shoulda known the answer would be ‘instantly’,” Billy muses to himself.
Kyrie stares around at them all and then slumps. “Really… If you knew something like this would happen, why’d you even send me out to spy on them?”
“Just keeping tabs. We’re still responsible for watching over their cell,” Nayo replies frankly.
“Ugh. Whatever… At least that’s done with.” She then turns to Zhijie, who has been quiet but amused for a while now. “Hey. I made my end of the deal. Now how about you do yours?”
“Ah, yeah.” He digs around in his pockets and tosses over a small sack of gil.
She catches it, but then realizes the sack is a lot lighter than she expected it to be. She peeks inside and gives it a quick count, and looks back up with an upset frown. By now, Zhijie has started to walk out for the door.
“Hey! The deal was 200 gil! There’s only half of that here!”
He stops and whips back around with a carefree shrug. “Sorry, but we’re running a bit low on funds right now. Mind waiting another day or two until we fetch the rest?”
“You kiddin’ me!? I didn’t do this job just so you guys could cheat me! Hand it over, or I’m ratting you out to Shinra!”
But he just snickers. “Well, that sure would be troublesome… especially for you.”
“What?”
“Yeah. I met a nice old lady who happens to be the town gossip ’round these parts. Seems like lately there’s been a string of thefts going on between Sectors 5 and 7, and Wall Market too, of course.”
She flinches. “H-huh?”
“Well, by the sounds of it, she knew you too.”
“Uh…”
“And she’s been looking for you ever since she caught wind that you’ve been going around those places doing a little pickpocketing.”
She gasps in horror. “Hey! What the hell!?”
“You heard me.” Now his grin fades a bit into a stern frown. “In fact, you just came back from Wall Market after pickpocketing someone again, didn’t you?”
“…”
“Yeah, you did.” That frown quickly flicks back into a cheeky grin. “I also told her that we’d run into you later and pass the message. Your grandma’s waiting out by the schoolhouse.”
Now Kyrie flushes up red with embarrassment. She snaps back, “You bastard… How much did you tell her, huh!?”
“Oh, I didn’t tell her anything! She was the one who saw you in Wall Market earlier.”
“W-what?”
“If you don’t believe me, you can ask her yourself.”
She looks rather stung by that. “Ugh. I knew I shouldn’t have taken this job. Now she’s gonna be mad…”
“So, that’s how it is. You’ll just have to wait on the rest next time.”
“Grrr…” Though Kyrie looks ready to smack him in the face, she holds back and turns away again, fuming. “Fine! But you’d better keep good on the deal!”
“Yeah, don’t worry about that. Heck, if you do us another solid, I’d be happy to double up on that deal again.”
“What? Another job? After you can’t even pay me for one?”
“Hey, it’s not like I run on a salary of 100 gil. Relax. I know where to get the funds. It’s just that finding my source is a little tricky, what with all the security lately, ya know?”
“Hmph…”
Zhijie turns back to Nayo with a proud smirk. “She’s all yours, ma’am.”
Nayo rolls her eyes, but thanks him anyway. “Good work.” She then turns back to Kyrie. “Yeah, sorry about that, but it’s as he said. We’ll get you the money, as promised.”
She snorts with her hands on her hips. “Yeah, yeah… So what’s the next job?”
“How about helping us stand guard by the Sector 6 gate? You never know when some faces we know might show up.”
“Huh? You want me to stand out by the gate? There are troops right there!”
“We know, but you don’t have to be where they can see you. You can stay around town. We just want you to help keep an eye out for anyone coming in from that side.”
“Hmm…” She crosses her arms and thinks it over. Finally, deciding that she could still play it safe, she then agrees. “Okay. But that’s another 200 gil you guys owe me, got it?”
“Got it. And thanks! You’re a big help.”
“Whatever…”
Kyrie looks around the room at everyone else’s hopeful faces and shakes her head. And with that, she’s gone back out. Though, she definitely isn’t looking forward to meeting her grandma in such awkward circumstances.
~
The Sector 7 slums is a hotbed of activity as always these days. If it’s not acting as the base of operations for an ecoterrorist group rebelling against a greedy, unrelenting corporatocracy, then it’s an active warzone between the two sides. Case in point: following the aftermath of Ruby’s patchwork solution to keeping the upper plate in place, plans for the raid on the town proceeded anyway under the guise of an investigation into the Sector 8 collapse. The problem is: the “raid” in question no longer has the involvement of Soldier, as the expected unit to be called in is no longer responsive, and it quickly turned into a plain old military occupation. Though, to be fair, who could have possibly expected that it’d be just two independent actors who would ruin Shinra’s plans in the most outlandish of ways?
Despite most of the town having been evacuated for their safety, and then later notified by their fellow residents that the town was spared from total annihilation, many of the residents would return to find their town thoroughly infested with troops. In several infuriating cases, some troops have even stationed themselves in people’s homes without their permissions, but the civilians can do nothing about them. Naturally, tensions would only rise further. No one wanted them around the pillar to begin with, and in the end, they didn’t even accomplish much of anything when a mysterious monster suddenly appeared to attack them.
Though there has been an uptick in public opinion regarding the infamous “Dragon of Avalanche”, as there were some number of former skeptics who changed their tune real quick after witnessing it saving the town, many others still don’t believe the rumor and would rather it never show itself in this town again. Nevertheless, most of everyone can at least agree that Shinra troops barging in on everyone like some overbearing supervisors would be to everyone else’s detriment. Even the most loyal of Shinra employees who happen to live here have to admit that stationing troops all over town may be a bit excessive as far as public safety measures go. It just risks attracting the worst kind of attention, and that’s now the entire slums’ cross to bear.
It’s well into the night by the time Yuffie reaches the slums, but as a ninja, she is very used to traveling in the dark. She makes her way through to Sector 7 from the ruins of Sector 6 via the mostly abandoned underground tunnel and pops back out already in the cover of a dimly lit neighborhood. Though to be honest, after her adventures in Shinra’s underground labs, she could use a little light for once. She still keeps a Fire Materia with her just for the occasion.
But it’s as she expected; the rumored white dragon has long vanished, and she’s returned to find herself in a very unwelcome place. The last thing she needs now is to be caught by more Shinra troops. But on the other hand, she can’t leave just yet. She needs information regarding Ruby’s whereabouts. Surely, there has to be someone around here who knows. She peeks out from the shadows to overhear some idle conversation between a few locals complaining about the troops.
“…Man. The whole reason I came to live down here was so I wouldn’t have to worry about these guys loitering around the neighborhood.”
“Well, it can’t be helped. Turns out it really was the base of Avalanche. They’ve been questioning everyone.”
“Yeah, me too. It was annoying. I even heard that there was something serious going on around that bar at the center of town. ‘Seventh Heaven’, I think?”
“Oh, yeah. Nice bar and nice patron. Went there from time to time until it closed up recently. Who knows where the owner went.”
“Yeah, but by the sounds of it, there was Avalanche hanging around there too.”
“Seriously? Man… they really gotta ruin everything, don’t they? Hope Ms. Tifa was spared. She was one of the best things about going there…”
“…Don’t you have a wife, though?”
“Hey! It’s not like that!”
Still well hidden, Yuffie nods to herself. That’s right, Jessie and Biggs mentioned that was the place their cell were hiding out. Speaking of which, after they split up from the former HQ base, they didn’t get another chance to meet up. Would they still be there now, though? Seems like there are gonna be troops posted around there too. Still, it’s not like she has too many ideas of where to look. Might as well start there.
She scuttles away under cover and after exploring around for a bit, finds her way back to the center of town. Sure enough, the bar in question is still there, and sure enough, it looks like there are a couple troops already waiting outside it. Who knows how many more are inside. But, well, since they already suspect something’s up with this place, might as well help get rid of them. Who knows, maybe it’ll actually draw the splinter cell back over.
The two troopers standing guard look less than eager to be doing that. It almost feels like there isn’t really anyone, even among the troops, who want to be here. Well, they won’t have to worry about that for long. Yuffie whips out a Boomerang and flings it, smacking down both guards in quick succession and knocking them out right away. It swings back around and she catches it, and apparently no one is any the wiser.
She also takes care as she slips up to the front saloon doors and peeks inside. There are just another couple of troops here, and it seems they are busy questioning an elderly woman who also has a little girl with her. The poor kid is terrified and hiding behind the old lady, who is standing her ground.
“I don’t know what else to tell you. I don’t know anything.”
“Yeah, we heard you the first time. But it’s pretty suspicious that someone like you would just be waiting around in an empty bar.”
“And where’s the crime in that? I’m just helping the owner and this little girl keep watch of the place. Wouldn’t want any hooligans coming by to mess around.”
“Now, now. We’re not charging you with anything, ma’am. But we’d really appreciate it if you wouldn’t be so… upset?”
“Upset? You two barge in all of a sudden asking me questions like I’m some kind of suspect and you don’t want me to be ‘upset’? Maybe you should think about why that is before expecting other people to listen to you, huh?”
The two troops continue to struggle to calm her down and she gives them a real naggy lecture. Yuffie makes an amused smirk. Though she usually doesn’t care much for this city or the people living in it, even she has to admit that it’s great seeing an old lady snap at some dumb troops who shouldn’t even be here. Still, it is weird that it’s just the two of them here at the bar. The old lady might actually be some kind of secret informant. Yuffie flings her Boomerang with a low sweeping throw under the saloon doors and it promptly knocks out the troops, who comically fall into each other and to the floor.
She then steps on through, startling the other two here. With a triumphant grin, she poses like a hero.
“Hey, there! Looks like they were giving you some trouble, so I cleaned them up. No need to thank me.”
The old woman and the little girl exchange confused and awkward glances and then turn back to her.
The old woman then asks, “Well, thanks anyway. They really were getting on my nerves. So who might you be?”
“Ah. Just a passerby who’s new in town. I’m looking for someone by the name of Ruby. You know her by any chance?”
“Ruby?” She blinks in surprise and then reveals a smirk. “Ah, so that’s what going on.”
“Huh?”
The little girl, upon hearing that name, then steps out from behind the old lady. She gives Yuffie a curious stare and also speaks up to ask, “Are you a friend of Ruby, Miss?”
“Oh, uh, yeah!” She chuckles nervously. “Yeah, I’m a friend of sorts. We haven’t met in a really long time, actually.”
“Really?” The girl then smiles back, looking genuinely relieved. “Thank you for helping us.”
The old woman nods. “Yeah. As far as I’m concerned, if you’re with Ruby, then you’re good company. The name’s Marle, by the way, and this is Marlene.”
Marlene nods too. “It’s nice to meet you!”
Yuffie’s a little taken aback by just how cute this little girl is and she replies with a flustered, “Y-yeah, nice to meet you too. I’m Yuffie.”
“Ms. Yuffie!”
“…”
Marle chuckles a bit, but then she resumes her concerned frown. “It’s pretty sad to hear all the talk around town, though. Only some of us stuck by to see what she did to save the whole sector.”
Yuffie snaps to attention. “Oh! Yeah, I was actually on topside when I saw the whole plate was about to drop. But it didn’t! That’s how I knew Ruby was around. But it doesn’t look like she’s here anymore…”
“Ah, yeah. She said she had some friends to pick up. Seems like they might’ve gone up to Shinra HQ.”
“Right! That’s where the splinter cell guys went!”
Marle blinks. “Splinter cell?”
“Huh? Oh, uh…” Yuffie backtracks a bit. “Do you not know who I’m talking about?”
“Not exactly. I’m just a good friend of the bar owner and met some of her friends.”
“Oh. Then forget that I said anything like that, hehe…”
“Nah, it’s fine.” She lets off a sigh. “I’ve known for a while that they were a part of some kind of group stirring up trouble. Avalanche, specifically. I keep up with the news. Ruby’s the same dragon that attacked the warehouse the other day, isn’t she? It was just one of a string of recent incidents that have been targeting Shinra property.”
“…”
She then shakes her head. “But none of that matters. I saw with my own eyes how Ruby stopped the plate from falling. Everyone else may label them as ‘terrorists’, but I can see who the real heroes are.”
Yuffie then smiles back with relief. “Yeah. Anyone who’s fighting Shinra is definitely a hero in my book. That company’s even more ruthless than the rumors say. It was their fault that the plate almost fell, after all.”
“Yeah, I figured as much. Was already suspicious with all the military force here before the incident with Sector 8. And we even got a visit from a gentleman in black who was after one of Ruby’s friends. Nabbed her while Ruby was busy, the sneak.”
“Oh, so that’s why she left in such a hurry.” Yuffie frowns. “But this is a problem. Now how am I supposed to catch up with her? I can get around fast, but she can literally warp everywhere!”
Marle shrugs. “Well, you could always wait somewhere for her to come meet you.”
“You think she’ll be coming back here?”
“Maybe. She did say she was just gonna ‘pick them up’.” She then shakes her head. “But to be honest, with the town occupied like this, it’s not gonna be pretty if they do show up.”
“Well, if they’re with Ruby, then I think they’ll be fine no matter what Shinra sends.”
“Ha! Nah, I don’t mean their safety. But there are still plenty of people around here who don’t trust Avalanche. Even if they don’t know that Ruby is the dragon, they won’t exactly be welcoming them. Pretty suspicious that they’re getting around by warping, after all.”
Yuffie blinks. “Oh. Yeah, that might be a problem.” She then suggests, “But what about Sector 5?”
“Sector 5? What about it?”
“I heard that’s where their HQ is being moved to. We could meet up there.”
“Ah.” Marle takes a moment to think it over and now remembers, “Oh, right. Now that you mention it, I think I heard something about that too. You know Biggs, Wedge, or Jessie?”
“Yeah. I met them a little while ago. Well, two of them, anyway.”
“Good to know. Biggs and Jessie said they’d be laying low there too for the time being. Wedge said he’d stick around for a bit to help people return to their homes and catch up with them later, but with all the troops around, he had to leave earlier too.”
“In other words, if I go there, I’m bound to meet up with them all, huh? Convenient.”
“Yeah, pretty much. Oh, and another thing: Sounds like Jessie’s been meaning to give the rest of their friends a call, so that’d be a fine place to try.”
“Oh, yeah! They tried to before, but ran into some weird interference. So we figured they already were inside Shinra HQ somewhere. We meant to stick with them, but things got busy and we couldn’t catch up again.”
“Sorry, but who’s ‘we’?”
“Uh…” Yuffie stops herself when she realizes she so casually threw out that pronoun. Now that she’s been reminded again, she sinks back into a solemn silence.
“…” Catching on that she might have hit on something she shouldn’t, Marle backs off. “Right. If you don’t wanna talk about it, it’s your call.”
She shakes her head. “Thanks. It’s for the best.”
Marlene, being one who easily picks up on people’s sadness no matter how subtle, also sinks a bit in sympathy. She had been quietly listening for a while, though not quite understanding everything, and now she decides to speak up again. She pulls out her favorite glowing white ball and steps up to Yuffie, offering it to her.
“Ms. Yuffie? You can have this.”
“Huh? What’s this?”
“It’s a gift that Ruby gave me. She said it has a bit of her power in it. I keep it as a good luck charm! But I was thinking, you might need it more right now.”
“Uh, thanks, but…” Now that she looks at it more carefully, though, Yuffie then realizes something. “Wait. You said it has Ruby’s power?”
“Mm-hm.”
At that moment, something flickers in her mind as she connects the dots. A small, glowing ball of magic with a bit of Ruby’s power? Isn’t that just materia!? No, it’s not just any materia; it’s Ruby’s materia! Oh, my God… it’s the “ultimate materia” she’s been looking for all this time! Turns out it wasn’t Shinra who had it, but it was in Midgar!
Yuffie startles Marlene as she whips back to her with a somewhat frenzied look in her eyes. “Hey, you mean it? I can have this?”
“Um… Yes? If you want. You can give it back to me later.”
“Thanks!”
She snatches it from the little girl’s hands and holds it up to give it a closer look. It may be glowing, but it’s crystalline just like how materia is, and it’s about the right size too. But unlike most materia she's come across, it seems to have a bit of a pattern to the swirling magic contained within, which looks kinda like a white serpent. Huh, that's weird but also cool. Must be a sign of its ultimate-ness! Curious, she then finds a place on her shuriken – the central slot, in particular – to fit the little orb, and it slides in perfectly. As it does, it begins to glow brighter for a moment as it adapts to its new purpose and even makes her shuriken faintly glow along with it. Then, the light fades and it returns to its faint glow as before.
“Whoa. Where were you keeping that on you?” Marle asks, a little stunned that Yuffie seemed to whip it out of nowhere.
“I got a space for it,” Yuffie replies without turning to her. Her attention is still on admiring the beautiful little orb set on her weapon. Now, her mood has swung a full 180 and she’s giggling mischievously to herself. After all the struggle they’ve gone through, she finally did it! She finished the main mission! If Sonon were here, he’d be so proud. Turns out that his sacrifice wasn’t in vain after all. Now all she has left to do is to recruit Ruby, and they can declare this mission a total success.
Marlene simply stares at her, looking a little lost. She nods back and offers a kind smile. “I’m glad you like it so much! Hope it helps you too.”
“Oh, don’t worry, it will!” She makes a conniving grin as she begins to scheme over what she could possibly do with this bad babe. “I bet I could even… and then… and they wouldn’t even know what hit ’em! Hehehehe…”
Marle looks between the two of them, likewise just as lost, but shrugs it off. “Well, looks like you got some kind of plan in mind. So are you heading off to Sector 5?”
“I got a better idea. Think I’ll give it a shot and try it out on some local monsters.”
The old lady makes a concerned frown, but doesn’t try to argue. “Well, alright. Take care and don’t push yourself.”
“I’ll be fine! Thanks again for everything, guys!”
And with a quick wave of a hand, Yuffie hurries back out the door. By now, she’s so excited to try out her new materia, she doesn’t even bother sneaking around under cover anymore. As she zips through town on foot, her movements catch the attention of some patrolling troops. However, before they can even catch up to her, she disappears around some corner. And with a single flash, Yuffie casts a warp spell on herself – by another name, it’s known as “Escape”.
The next thing she knows, she’s been transported back to the outskirts of the town where Nayo had previously shown them on the way to the abandoned factory. She gasps in shock and is a little stunned that it worked, and then gets giddy as she rolls with it. There are still some scattered monsters around the area. Perfect, she was looking for target practice.
This time, rather than lunge in on the offensive, she chooses to remain passive and charge up a new casting – this time of the “Remove” spell. In an instant, a couple of unruly Grashtrikes ready to pounce on her vanish in a burst of light that surrounds them, and just like that, they’re gone. Yuffie cheers, hops, and spins around in victory. This is going as well as she’d hoped. She tries it again on some roaming hounds who look a little familiar. They snarl ferociously as soon as she comes into view, and in another flash of light, they’re gone.
But after a few rounds of this, she realizes she’s starting to feel a bit sapped. These spells are amazing, but they’re pretty costly. After a just a few casts, she’s already started to run low on MP. Good thing she got a few Ethers to spare. To think that Ruby can use them without any hassle… she really is just like a Summon.
Now that she really thinks about it, if only she and Sonon had stopped by Seventh Heaven earlier, they could have run into Marle and Marlene already and gotten this ultimate materia. They’d still check by the underground labs anyway, just to be sure Shinra didn’t have any particular threat to worry about. But with this kind of power at her disposal, even that freak Nero wouldn’t have stood a chance… maybe. And maybe Sonon would still be here…
She shakes her head to push away the regrets. No time for that now. She can’t change what happened. She can only change what’s to come, and from here on out, there’s no way she’ll ever lose or run away from a fight ever again. And if by any chance that Shinra dares to go to war with Wutai, then they’ll be prepared. After all, if Ruby just copies a number of this materia, there’s no stopping the sweeping tsunami of magic that will crash down on Midgar should they dare try anything. Deepground or not, they won’t stand a chance.
Well, that’s enough of that. So what’s the plan now? Should she stop by Sector 5 and pay another visit to Avalanche HQ? Maybe even wait on Biggs and Jessie to stop by? Or… maybe she could just warp right back to Shinra HQ and see if she can’t just find Ruby and the splinter cell herself? Who knows, if she spreads the word, maybe they can even help her find Sonon again and rescue him. The guy is a lot stronger than he looks. He’d better still be alive.
With her mind made up, she means to cast the warp spell one more time, but then she hears someone coming and instinctively dives into the shadows for cover. Good on her instincts; it turns out there were a couple of Shinra troops patrolling around here too. But that’s weird; she’s come pretty close to the abandoned factory. What are they doing out here? Surely, they don’t think this is where Avalanche went? She sticks by to overhear their conversation.
“Whew. I heard that Sector 7 was a ‘hotbed of rebel activity’, but who knew there’d be this much support for Avalanche? We rounded up quite a few people.”
“If you ask me, though, they’re just civilians who got the wrong impression. No one in their right mind would support them if they knew how much damage they’ve caused up to this point.”
“But wasn’t there a pretty big crowd around the pillar when the Turks were handling things up there?”
“Yeah. There mighta been some real Avalanche members among them, but I think most of them were just civilians too.”
Yuffie blinks. No way. Did these guys just admit to arresting civilians just for protesting or supporting Avalanche? It’s not like they’re the ones who were a part of the attacks, so why are even they being targeted? Sounds like whoever has been issuing the orders is a real stick-in-the-mud. Not only does Shinra not care for its people, it won’t even let them talk back when they don’t like something. The more she learns about this place, the more she has to wonder why people still live here.
She waits until the patrolling officers walk off far enough and she sneaks off toward the factory. As she makes her way to the old warehouse she had previously visited, she slips behind an open door and peeks inside. She finds there are several Sector 7 residents – some ten or so in all from what she can tell – who have been captured, tied up, and left in a circle at the center of the empty warehouse. There are a couple of guards too keeping watch of them. The poor people look haggard as if they hadn’t been able to eat anything for a while now. They don’t look injured, at least, but this could still count as torture.
Yuffie whips out her trusty Four-point Shuriken once again with the white materia fit in its center slot. Rather than cast a costly Remove again, she could try some other ability… like blowing them up with some light beams or something. That shouldn’t be too hard on her MP, right? So, she gives it a try.
Out of nowhere, there are a couple beams of light that burst out from the ground where the guards had stood, and the next thing they know… well, they don’t know anything anymore ’cause they’re just gone. As the people in there stir to attention, some begin to panic and wonder what’s going on or what will happen to them.
“Don’t worry! You’re safe with me!” Yuffie busts onto the scene and strikes a triumphant pose once again. “The great and honorable Yuffie! Here to save the day!”
She’s met with a collective look of confusion from the group, and some of the men mutter among themselves about what a kid is doing here. One of them even suggests ignoring her. Nonetheless, she ignores their comments and goes on over to cut them free.
“Get back to town, everyone! You’re free to go. The way back has been cleared too, so don’t worry about running into any trouble!”
Several of the people are just grateful to be free and quickly thank her as they hurry on out. A few others are wary and worry about the monsters or any other cops on patrol, but they head off anyway. And then there’s one guy who was among them who stops in front of her and points at her with a curious look.
“Hey. Didn’t we meet up before?”
“Huh? Oh, hey! You’re the, um, counterfeiter, right? For our High-Ds?”
“Uh, you mean IDs? And yeah, I’m the guy. So what are you doing back here?”
“Still working on my mission. Just happened to notice you guys were stuck here so lent a hand. No biggie.”
“Sure… but what the heck were those beams of light before? Did you do that?”
“Yeah.” She grins. “Cool, huh?”
“Whoa. I knew you Wutaians were weird, but that’s a crazy technique. Or did you just cast magic or something?”
“It’s magic, but it’s cooler magic than the usual!”
“Uh-huh…” He then looks around and turns back to her. “So are you alone? Where’re the others?”
At that moment, all the pep in her seems to drain out. She turns away with a silent pout. “The Avalanche guys moved off to Sector 5, and my partner, well…” She pauses and turns back to him again with a stern frown. “He’s just busy. We got split up, is all.”
“Ah. That’s too bad. Hope you can reunite with him again. Anyway, thanks for the help. If we cross paths again sometime, feel free to ask me for anything if you need something else made. I’m off to lay low too.” The counterfeiter then gives her a quick wave goodbye and hurries out the door too.
Now alone again, Yuffie finally lets off a sigh – one of relief mixed in with a bit of sadness. She may not know for sure what happened with Sonon, but she has to keep believing. She didn’t see his lifeless body yet, so there’s still a chance. But someone has to go save him, and now she has the right tool on hand to do that. She shouldn’t delay anymore. His life might still be hanging in the balance somewhere. Time to go.
With one last deep breath, she prepares to make one more casting of the warp spell. She recalls the particular place where she had last seen Sonon, keeps an image in mind as if to hold it steady, and unleashes the magic. And just like that, she’s gone – efficiently warped far away quite like a certain idol of hers.
Notes:
Hidden for spoilers
Let me have a show of hands: who saw this other plot twist coming that Yuffie would actually succeed in her mission and acquire the power to break continuity herself? If you did, give yourself a pat on the back or a nice snack to feast, since even I didn't see it coming, haha! It was a last-minute addition that I slipped in there. Made the chapter round out nicely so it wouldn't be too short, and I can start on my plans to bring this entire world into chaos. Just as planned.
I'm anticipating that the end of Midgar is coming along in the next two chapters. So from start of the game to end of Midgar, that's 18 chapters. I really did just speed-write the entirety of Remake, wow. Hopefully, it'll be just in time before Square Enix announces more Rebirth news this late spring / early summer. (I'm guessing.)
Now please excuse me. It's been several days, but I'm still reeling from "Ms. Yuffie".
Chapter 19: Don't Look Down
Notes:
4/24/25 edit: Reworked a few sentences to be clearer and added in the detail of where Ruby's wristguard went. Not sure how I went this long without correcting it.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Aside from a few “minor” bumps, things sure have been going smoothly. Ruby just fixed the Sector 7 pillar and caught up with her friends still stuck at Shinra HQ, and here they are, in the president’s office meeting the new president Rufus. Also thanks to her, the head of Public Safety lies on the floor unconscious along with a few of his hapless officers. The gang are busy chatting away with Rufus while she turns off for the window and looks off into the distance.
She senses a disturbance in the Lifestream… or whatever it is that just gave her a strange feeling just now. Why does she feel like her mana is being drained away somewhere? It’s like her magic is being used, but she’s not the one who’s doing it. There’s even a mysterious force that seems to be tugging at her soul, as if she’s being called – or even summoned – by someone far away.
Wait a minute. Didn’t she once share a piece of her magic and shape it into a ball that glows like materia? Yeah, and she gave it to Marlene. But why would Marlene be using it…? Now hold on a sec. For someone to even be able to cast magic, that person would need plenty of mana to spare in the first place. Though she houses great potential, Marlene is still too young and inexperienced. So it must be someone else. Did she take it away, or was it taken from her? Either way, she wouldn’t even show it to someone she doesn’t trust.
Well, it’d be a little awkward for Ruby to just disappear right now just to check on her. It’s Marlene, she’s a smart kid; she’ll be fine. The last thing they need right now is for any concern over the little girl to reach Barret. The guy’s looking ready to shoot up a man and Rufus is pissing him off.
Ruby closes her eyes for a moment and focuses her mind. Maybe she might be able to pick up from a distance who is calling her and from where. First, clear your mind; then when your heart is calm, listen carefully to the voices beyond just the ones nearby…
And for just a brief flash in her mind, Ruby picks up on something: a fierce clash of light and dark energy, as well as the sounds of whirling slashes versus gunshots.
She blinks her eyes open again, growing alarmed as she finally remembers what she had been forgetting all this time. How did she even forget? She has one other – or perhaps, make that two party members – to fetch before they all leave the city. If she recalls correctly, they should have been somewhere in the underground labs and stayed long enough until when a certain sector plate was due to fall. But she doesn’t know where they would have gone since. After all, as of what she knows so far, the next game in the Remake series isn’t out yet.
But never mind that now; she’s shaped this timeline off the beaten path so far that she has no idea where it will go. In any case, it must be Yuffie who has her materia equipped, and she’s fighting one of the Tsiviets. Unfortunately, Ruby gets the feeling the poor girl may be struggling anyway. At the time she shaped the materia, Ruby didn’t account for what conditions or limitations it would have to be used as one. It was simply “made of her magic”. But as it is still a piece of her, it also bears a piece of her war-torn battle history since ancient times. It’s not something that just anyone can master control over. She needs to get down there before Yuffie overexerts herself, or anything worse that follows.
With a new plan set forth, Ruby comes back out of her thoughts and joins her friends in confronting Rufus.
“Hey, sorry for tuning out for so long. So does Shinra just want Avalanche out?”
~
Back in Deepground, Yuffie has found herself in quite a predicament. She had warped right back to the room where she and Sonon were last together, but found the room empty. Taking her chance to freshen up with a few Ethers, she braced herself for another round of a tough fight and scouted the area in search of her darkness-loving adversary.
However, she quickly realized how lost she had become, with no foe in sight. Her search happened to bring her to a strange room with computer monitors and machinery laid out all around the room, with just a single chair in the middle of it all. Unfortunately, she arrived a bit late to the scene, finding it empty aside from what looks like the fresh corpses of the staff who had been manning the systems. The only thing she could make out from one of the monitors that was still on were just several words: “Synaptic Net Dive – Engaged.”
And before she could even make sense of everything, the room was suddenly enveloped in a wave of that familiar dark energy. She blasted it away with a wave of light magic and hurried out of the room for better fighting grounds, and as she suspected, Nero had reappeared to challenge her once more. He was rather excited to meet her again, especially now that she had a shiny new materia to play with, and even admired how beautiful the light appeared.
But the fight was brief – even more so than the last round. While Yuffie’s new materia could keep away the darkness for a little while, she soon found out the hard way that she couldn’t keep it up for too long. These spells are rather taxing on her, and Nero’s darkness only continued to flow as if he had an endless supply himself. And before she knew it, he shot away that shuriken from her hand and had her pinned to the floor by his wings.
“Your friend is waiting for you in the depths… Would you like to join him?”
And with that, he opened up the pool of darkness as before and dropped her in, watching her scream as she fell fast into the abyss, and then there was just silence.
…
Once again, Nero is alone in an empty room, with just the scratch marks remaining of his latest hunt, and he’s quite unsatisfied that it ended so quickly and easily. He calmly steps over to the shuriken left behind, which still glows a faint white thanks to the shiny orb imbedded in its center. It was because of this thing that he even got excited in the first place, but perhaps his long-awaited fateful rivalry was simply not to be. With a look of disgust, he aims a gun at it to shoot it away.
The next few instants pass by in a blur, however, too quick for even him to react. No sooner than is the bullet stopped in mid-flight by two fingers, Nero likewise faces a strong kick in the face that sends him flying into the next wall. He coughs as he falls back to his knees and only now realizes that he’s bleeding from his nose, staining the bandages covering his face. Finally, he opens his eyes again and looks up to find someone else is standing by where the shuriken lies.
Even at rest in Ruby’s grasp, the darkness imbued in the bullet quickly fizzles away. She chucks it aside and drops down to pick up the shuriken. The poor thing looks so lonely without its owner, though that friendly glow of light has been trying its best to keep it company. Well, no worries; its owner will be returning soon enough.
He’s cackling again, with a particularly crazed look in his eyes. “Could this be… the worthy opponent I’ve been looking for?”
Paying him no mind, Ruby gets back up with the shuriken in hand. On a whim, she decides to remove the white materia from its slot and slips it back into her pocket. She’ll have to stop by the bar later to return it to Marlene. But first, Ruby has a few jobs to finish up here, and the next task on her list is to swat the giant fly in the way. She gently sets the shuriken back down in a corner where it’ll be safer.
“Hehehehe… I can see you’re no ordinary person. The light that the girl borrowed… It was from you, wasn’t it?” Now that he’s really excited, Nero spreads his Abyssal Wings once more. “I’ve been waiting a long time for a true showdown. Show me what you’ve got.”
Finally, Ruby turns back to him with a bored look. “You have two friends of mine. Spit them out or I will make you.”
“Haha. Let’s see… Why don’t you come and get them?”
He whips out his guns and unloads rapid fire with bullets of darkness, but before they can even reach the other side of the room, suddenly Ruby vanishes. The next instant, she’s up in his face again and seizes him by the neck. And the instant after that, she slams him into the ground and drags his body along the floor like she were a bitter custodian. Of course, unlike a custodian, she’s actually trying to dirty up the place. Conveniently, the darkness only keeps spilling out even as she literally mops the floor with him.
“That wasn’t a suggestion; it was an assertion.”
She flings him into another wall so hard that he leaves a cartoonishly stiff impression in it. As he falls back out with a breathless gasp, she steps up and cracks her knuckles.
“If you won’t open that portal yourself, I’ll just rip you apart. The darkness will come out on its own, yeah?”
Nero coughs for a bit as he struggles back to his feet. Those proud wings of his that were a brilliant display before are now cracked like dead twigs. And yet, even between haggard gasps, he still manages to crack a chuckle.
“Such overwhelming power… Haha… hah… Brother… I’ve finally found it…!”
She makes a disgusted look. “Please shut up.”
She snatches him by his neck again and rams him headfirst into the same wall, leaving even more cracks.
“Open. The damn. Door.”
She keeps shoving him into the wall until even the reinforced metal plating can’t withstand the pressure and gives way. And she stuffs him into a hole of his size and leaves him hanging out of the wall like a mounted prize. No, wait, that’s not quite right. His read end is what’s poking out.
She pulls him out again and drops him on the floor to check on him. Whoops. Already he looks like he’s been knocked out cold. It only took her 4 hits – all of which she held back too. She sighs. Then again, Nero wasn’t exactly known to be the toughest of the Tsiviets. She doesn’t remember that much from DoC, but what she does recall is the impression that he’s basically that annoying kid who’d spam the same command over and over in a multiplayer game and wail to his big bro when he gets banned from that server. Speaking of which, where is his brother?
Well, never mind that now. The battle may have ended sooner, but now the field has been fully enveloped in the eerie purple haze. Maybe she can still slip into that realm from here? She steps through the haze, looking about as if searching for some secret entrance or shortcut that she can take. Fortunately, she doesn’t have to wait long before that familiar-looking pool of darkness bubbles out from beneath Nero’s body. However, she then realizes that he’s the one who starts sinking into it.
“Sonnuva bitch!” she swears, rushing on over. “You’re not getting away!”
She dives right into the pool as he disappears below the surface, and they’re both sucked away into another fantastic realm – one that resides well within the depths of a part of the Lifestream known as the Terra Corrupt.
~
“…The hell is she thinking, that damn brat?” Cloud scowls to himself.
He and the rest of them have come down to the labs via the elevators because a certain young woman suddenly ditched them by warping away herself. At least she left him the DSN so they aren’t completely lost, but between the similar-looking platforms and ladders, indistinguishable machinery, and the occasional autonomous weapons that they’ve had to get through, the general look of the place makes it all too easy to lose track of where they are. Though, it’s to be expected, as it’s not a place that Shinra expects to welcome tourists – needless to say, the uninvited ones.
Tifa sighs too. “Well, Ruby does like to move at her own pace. We’ll just have to wait for her to come back.”
“Where would she even go? We’re here to look for Aerith, and she’s the only one who can contact her.”
But Barret just shrugs. “What’re ya so worried about? She’ll be fine.”
“I know she can take care of herself, but it’s still a bad idea to let her run off. She might get lost and we’d have no way to find her.”
“Well, she got her walkie-talkie, right? We can call her.”
“I tried calling earlier, but she didn’t answer.”
“She didn’t?” Tifa asks.
“I couldn’t get a signal. It’s like her radio’s turned off.”
“But why would she turn it off?”
“Who knows… or maybe she wasn’t the one who turned it off.”
Tifa gasps, “You don’t think she ran into anything really bad, do you?”
Cloud doesn’t answer, but his look gives her more reason to worry.
Barret scoffs, “Ha! More like anything that ran into her has it really bad!” He then frowns as he considers, “Though still could be a pain if she dropped it somewhere.”
“Dropped it?” Tifa asks.
“Ya know, like she got caught up in a fight and it came loose or something.”
She passes an unsure glance aside. “Let’s hope it’s that simple.”
“Come on, guys! This is Ruby we’re talkin’ about, the one who saved the whole damn sector! If she got lost, she could just blow a big enough hole and we’ll run into her eventually!”
“…” Cloud shakes his head with a frown. “Let’s just hope that whatever she was fighting isn’t anything to worry about. The last thing we need is someone like Sephiroth to show again.”
“Tch. Again with that Sephiroth guy. Can’t she smack him up too?”
“I doubt it. The last few times they met, she just came back pissed off or in tears.”
“It’s because of her Geostigma, right?” Tifa recalls, “It was really bad when we found it.”
“Geostigma?” Barret asks.
“The disease in her right arm. We went to see Aerith if she could help.”
“Ah, yeah. Now I remember. But didn’t Aerith say that she’ll be good as long as she stays positive or somethin’?”
“That can change fast once Sephiroth comes into the picture,” Cloud retorts.
“Ya don’t say…” Barret then scoffs, “So, if it wasn’t for the Geostigma, then Ruby would be able to kick his ass, no prob?”
“…” Cloud is about to answer sarcastically when he passes a glance to Tifa, who remains quiet in her own thoughts. He then tries a more tolerant reply: “Dunno. But I’m not taking any chances. It’s best that we stick together anyway.”
“Yeah, no doubt about that.” He then glances around with a raised eyebrow. “So… where are we now?”
“We just passed through Materia Research. Bioweapons Development should be down this way.”
“Why we going there? You think Aerith would be held in a place like that?”
“Might as well try, right? Not like she’d fit in the other weapons-testing labs.”
He nods back. “Fair enough.”
But as they step through a large gate that seems to welcome them into the Bioweapons Development wing, they instead find a disturbing scene in the next room. It’s a rather spacious room with plenty of container tanks lining the walls, all holding some kinds of experimental monsters. However, unlike the creatures that they ran into in Hojo’s lab up in Shinra HQ, every one of the experiments here look at least somewhat human in size and shape. And for some reason, Cloud suddenly stops in his tracks and stares off into space as if he were just reminded of something.
Barret raises an eyebrow as he looks around. “Damn… What’s this place supposed to be, where they make Soldiers?”
Tifa snaps back, “Don’t be silly! If anything, these people look like those in the slums who were mako… poisoned…” She trails off when she realizes the implications of what she just suggested.
“Hmm. You think this is where some of ’em were taken?”
“Maybe… but why-”
“Urghh!” Suddenly, Cloud winces and clutches his head as a familiar headache hits him.
“Cloud!” She hurries back to his side. “You okay?”
“Aaggh…” He only keeps groaning as if unable to answer, and nearly drops if not for Tifa to catch him.
Red’s eyes narrow in suspicion. “Is there something to this place that affects him?”
“I don’t know.” Tifa keeps a firm hold of him. “Cloud, it’s okay! Hang in there!”
Barret frowns. “He was once Soldier, right? Maybe he knows something about this kinda stuff?”
“Now’s not the time for that! We need to get him out of here!”
Without further ado and Tifa carrying him by the shoulder, they help Cloud back out and away from the scene. She sets him down and stays by his side while the other two keep a watch out. After a moment for him to recover, Cloud finally comes to again.
“Ugh… Tifa…?”
“Cloud! Thank goodness…” She lets off a sigh. “You alright?”
“Yeah… now I am.”
“What happened? You were temporarily incapacitated,” Red notes.
Cloud shakes his head as he gets back to his feet, and Tifa does likewise. He replies, “Not sure… I just blanked out for a moment.”
“Did you try to remember something?” Tifa asks.
“Maybe… ugh. But I can’t remember what it was I was looking for.”
Barret sighs in disappointment. “Come on, man. Pull it together. Aerith might be down this way, right? We can’t be dealin’ with your problems when we’re so close.”
“Y-yeah…”
Tifa turns to Barret with a worried frown. “Maybe we should find another way in.”
“What other way? The sooner we find her, the sooner we can get out! And it’s right down this path!”
“But we can’t just leave Cloud behind!”
“Then we’ll drag his ass through.”
“We can’t do that either! Not when he gets like this.”
He throws up his hands. “Come on, Tifa! We don’t have time to argue about this! Aerith could be in danger for all we know!”
“I know, but we should think about this carefully…”
Then, Cloud shakes his head. “Guys, it’s fine. I can handle it.”
She turns to him. “You sure? The aches seem pretty intense this time.”
“That doesn’t matter. What does is Aerith’s safety.”
Barret grins, looking proud. “Yeah! That’s more like it! Come on, we’ll rush in, guns blazin’, and you won’t even have time to think about where we’re going! If it’ll help, you can even holler!”
Cloud puts a hand back to his head. The throbbing seems to have abated for now. Maybe they can just hurry through and he doesn’t have to think about it.
“Cloud…” Tifa insists, “We’ll take your word for it, but let us know if it gets really bad.”
“Tifa, it’s okay. I’m alright.”
She nods back. “Okay. Then let’s get going.”
Barret rushes on ahead, and a slightly concerned Red hurries after him to make sure he doesn’t just run headlong into trouble. Cloud passes Tifa a reassuring nod and runs off after them, with her close behind. They’re already so close to the end for them to be worried about such details now. Just focus on ahead; the past will catch up on its own.
Besides, they don’t even get that far before they run into another fight with a legion of blue humanoid creatures with just a single appendage on each of their backs. Strange; it’s almost as if someone had been expecting them and released this wave upon them.
~
Meanwhile, Ruby has found herself sinking far into the depths of a weird realm not quite like the Lifestream she’s accustomed to. Everywhere she looks, it’s pitch black aside from the ominous purplish glow of streams of dark energy that swirl around her. There’s a cacophony of voices that scream into the void, all in pain or terror. It’s honestly quite distracting, even interrupting her own calm thoughts. The streams seem to have a life of their own, and as she drifts near, they clump into tendrils and attack and try to constrict her.
She casually lets off a burst of her white light, and immediately, the tendrils fizzle out and she is left alone. Nonetheless, even with her aura of light around her, it’s still pitch black out in the distance beyond where her light stretches. Damn, she knew this place was endless, but it’s gonna be even more of a pain to find two individuals in here.
Unlike in the Debug Room, Ruby can’t even find solid footing in here. Well, it’s a good thing she took swimming lessons as a kid. At least she doesn’t have to worry about holding her breath; the darkness is too scared to come close.
But as she dives deeper, she comes upon a strange feeling – one that makes her think she’s been in the dark depths like this once before. But that can’t be right. She’s never been in this side of the Lifestream. As she tries to recall where this feeling could have come from, her mind wanders back to her old home in another world.
She was never the best swimmer. Her parents – well, one parent, at least – strictly enforced a schedule on her that included attending various afterschool clubs, including the swimming team. But with her petite little body, she never scored high enough to make the cut, so instead, she was always left back with the other failed tryouts. But she also didn’t share any classes with them, so she didn’t recognize a single face. Even while they chatted amongst themselves, no one would approach her on their own and she didn’t dare approach them either. So, she was a part of a club that she wasn’t actually a part of. Those days of loneliness were long and drawn out until she would be allowed to leave for the day.
Ruby frowns to herself. That wasn’t the memory she wanted to recall. Surely, there are better memories she’s had playing in a pool… specifically one with her beloved bichon frisé. Yeah, now she recalls further, she actually loved playing in the kiddy pool that one time her family went on vacation to a resort in Las Vegas. It was from an earlier time before her dad really picked up a gambling addiction, and needless to say, they never went back to that city since.
God, this sucks. Even the good memories are stained with bad ones. Does she have any memories that are just pure and wholesome!?
And as she tries her darndest to remember some other experiences, she then picks up on one more memory – one where she was much older and had an excitable bunch of 5 puppies that she had taken along for a nightly trip to the seashore. It was plenty late and far out beyond the nearest city. She just wanted to be alone that night, but as it’s pretty risky going alone, she brought along her pups to help keep an eye or nose out. She had even set up a tripod camera to take some snapshots of the seascape. She may have been there without any family or human friends, but she was at peace.
She was at peace, that is, until two of her pups ran off all of a sudden, those dang troublemakers. Then, it was a whole other trek for her and the other three just to find them. And before she knew it, she found herself atop the cliffs near the beach, with the rough high-tide waves crashing against them.
Bzzt.
What was that? The high tide? What about the high tide?
Ruby is suddenly hit by a fierce headache. What just happened? She was just looking for happy memories, to combat the utter hopelessness of a mob of voices that just won’t shut up. But anyway, what was that about the high tide?
Her headache only grows worse the more she struggles to recall. Why can’t she remember? Why is this humble memory is being blocked out? What is even there to block out? It was just a wholesome outing with her pups. They were running around, enjoying the view, getting into play fights…
And as if it were a fashionably late arrival, her Geostigma also kicks back up. Ruby grasps her arm to hold it still, but the pain is too much and she can’t stop herself from trembling. What the hell is this!? Why is it acting up now of all times!? Why can’t she remember a damn thing about that night!?
Now quite beside herself with frustration, it boils over into a rage. Ruby screams into the void so hard that it seems to warp the very light around her ever so slightly, and her voice transforms into that of a dragon’s mighty roar.
Screw it all! She doesn’t have to remember! She was just here to fetch some friends! Now where the hell are they!? Open up, you stupid, useless abyss!! She will burn brighter than a thousand suns and sear you into a realm of light!!
Without even thinking of it, she’s transformed into a dragon once more. She roars again and thrashes around like a feral beast, releasing a great burst of light like the birth of a new star in the night sky.
Back in the lab, the pool of darkness continues to linger even without its master to guide it, almost as if it were waiting for something to happen. But suddenly, it begins to bubble violently as if freaking out. A bright light shoots out from the depths, boiling away the edges of the pool. But before it disappears too quickly, a hand shoots out from the depths to grab the ledge. Nero pulls himself back out, but while he is no longer bleeding, he looks as if still in great pain. His once proud wings have completely wilted and are still disintegrating as he struggles.
“Ugh… aghh… So bright… It… it burns…! Urgh…”
He collapses onto the floor, pale-faced and still trembling. Shortly, the pool bursts open again and the form of a white dragon carrying two others steps on out with little trouble. The shining light emanating off of Ruby is even sharp enough to dissipate away any lingering darkness, as well as the purple haze that had long held this room captive. Once all is clear, she sets down her friends and returns to human form with an annoyed sigh.
Yuffie gasps and coughs as she catches her breath. Sonon is still unconscious, but his breathing seems steady. And Ruby is totally unharmed, aside from the black stains that have run down her right hand, but she seems more upset at her inability to remember things. Maybe she really is getting old.
“Ugh… I thought I’d never get outta there.” Yuffie turns to Sonon, who still hasn’t gotten back up. “H-hey! Sonon! You okay? Wake up!” She gives him a hard shake, but he’s still not responsive.
“He’s been in there for a while. Might need some more time to rest before he can wake up,” Ruby answers.
She lets him go. “Really? But he’s gonna be okay, right?”
“He should be. I’ve already restored him to full health. It’s his mental that I’m not sure about…”
“Ugh. Sonon, you’d better wake up soon! We didn’t drag you out of there just so you could stay sleeping!” She then turns back to Ruby. “But what about your hand?”
Ruby gives it a little shake, but notes that it doesn’t seem to be dripping anymore. “I’m good.”
“Uh. That’s ‘good’? It doesn’t look like it, though…”
She chooses to not argue there and changes the subject. “Well, I’m sure he’ll be fine too. Now, where did my other buddies go…?”
“Uh, hello? I was asking about you!”
Before Ruby can decide what’s the next step, they then hear the sound of footsteps coming from one of the doors that had been smashed open. They have a new visitor: a man with wild-looking hair that’s completely white. He dons a mostly white waistcoat as well, but leaves his bare chest to the open. His pants are lined with the same glowing lines as the rest of Deepground’s forces.
Yuffie asks nervously, “Another of them? Who’s this guy?”
Ruby remains unfazed and as bored as ever. “The big brother.”
“The what?”
“‘Weiss the Immaculate’, as he’s known. Probably the strongest guy they have around here.”
“Seriously? What’s he doing here?”
“Who knows…”
Weiss takes a look around the battle-torn room and stops by where Nero lies, effectively crippled and still trembling. He shakes his head with a sigh and turns back to the rest with a smug smile.
“I should have known that wouldn’t be enough to stop you.” He peers down to her injured arm. “But it looks like you didn’t escape unscathed either.”
Ruby rolls his eyes. “Sheesh, suddenly everyone’s interested in my injury. Is this part of Deepground the care inspection ward?”
He makes an amused scoff. “Hmph. Even having just escaped the darkness, you’re playing as smug as ever. No wonder my brother took such interest in you.”
She makes a wry frown. “Yeah… Too bad your bro’s an idiot who fell into his own pool and nearly drowned. Fortunately, I was able to light the way so he could actually see where he was.” She adds with a smirk, “You’re welcome, by the way.”
“Is that so…” He chuckles to that. “Then, you have my thanks. He is a bit much to handle sometimes.” He then draws his gunblades in hand and raises one of them at her. “But now that you’re here, why don’t we go a round or two? It’s been a while since I’ve had a good fight… and you’re still looking quite fresh.”
Yuffie groans. “What’s with you Deepground freaks? Do all you think about is fighting? How about tending to your brother or something? He’s still hurting, you know!”
He doesn’t even look back over. “He’ll be fine.”
“That’s ‘fine’!? What is wrong with you guys? Am I the only one who notices these things!?”
Ruby cuts back in, “Sorry, but I’m too busy. I have someone in a coma here and we need to get going.”
“That’s too bad…” He shakes his head with a cocky sneer. “But you see, that was a rhetorical question. It’s not every day that I’d find a light bright enough to match my own, and I’m not going to let such a prime opportunity slide.”
“And why should I care?” She narrows her eyes, and for just a brief flicker, the pupils in her eyes rapidly switch between thin slits and back. “You’re not even here, for starters.”
“Huh? Ruby, what are you talking about?” Yuffie asks.
“He’s just a simulation.”
“What?”
“But I’m guessing that his actual body is somewhere nearby. He was watching us for a while and is able to respond live.”
“So he’s not really here…?” She then smirks. “Guess he’s scared of you.”
“Eh, what can you expect? He’s just an armchair warrior. A lot of those types online.”
“Ick. Sounds gross and pathetic.”
She snickers. “You’re not wrong.”
But to their surprise, Weiss also laughs, though for a different reason. “Hahaha… I can see it in your eyes. We’re not too different, you and I…”
Ruby whips back to him with an annoyed glare. “What? Aside from being white-themed, how are we alike?”
“Don’t you hear the call to arms? You’re itching for this battle as much as I am.” He brings both guns back in as if readying himself for a quickdraw. “Come. Show me what you’ve got.”
She groans in frustration at talking with what is essentially a brick wall. She draws her knife with her left hand and flips it around into position. “If I must.”
Yuffie checks with her again, “You sure you’re gonna be okay? Your hand…”
“It’s fine. I only need one hand.”
“Uh, okay… But if you need another hand, just give me a shout!” Yuffie hurries off to go fetch her shuriken that has been set aside. As she picks it up, though, she realizes the materia in it is gone. “Huh? Hey, where did it go?”
Before she can even turn back to Ruby to ask, she’s blinded by a bright flash as Weiss goes straight on the attack. However, even with his infamous blitz techniques, he’s shocked to find that Ruby has blocked his blade with just a knife in her left hand. She shoves him off and hops back, letting her other arm hang loose.
He grins. “Well played.”
He lunges in again swinging, but she continues to dodge or block his strikes with just her little knife, never bringing her other arm into the fray. And as he starts to get impatient, he switches tactics and starts firing away. Again she skips and flips around, and easily dodges all the attacks. But whenever she tries to close in to swipe at him, he wisely jumps back and counters with several rapid shots.
As Ruby observes the ongoing battle, she can’t help but be reminded of a previous fight she had with Sephiroth. No matter how she attacked him, he would always be able to guard against it, and with the absolute range of his Masamune, he could easily keep her at a distance. While Weiss’ gunblades aren’t nearly as long, she’s noticed that his acrobatics are likewise keeping some distance between them. It’s kinda annoying how he avoids her every time she tries to close in. But the main difference here is: Sephiroth wasn’t even trying to fight her, while Weiss is actively trying to kill her. What a gap in capabilities; it’s that revelation that almost makes her pity the latter.
But Weiss catches on to the change in her expression, and he backs off the assault for just a moment. He still keeps one of his guns pointed at her, but takes a moment to speak.
“You aren’t taking this seriously, are you?”
“That obvious, huh?”
“…” He then retracts his gunblade and returns her a cocky frown. “What is your name?”
“Hm? What’s with the niceties all of a sudden? You wanted a fight. Come at me.”
“No… It’s not just about the fight. You lack purpose.”
“Excuse me?”
He then smirks confidently, as if he’d hit a bullseye. “Why do you fight? To be strong? To be famous? Or to be feared?”
“…” Ruby casts an increasingly irritated look aside. Did he really just pause their fight to start monologuing? And it’s about philosophy too. Oh fellow Gods, please spare her.
“Or perhaps, you fight because you enjoy it?”
She groans. He’s probably not gonna let her go until she answers him; might as well humor him for a bit. She turns back to him and calmly replies, “I fight to get fools like you off my case.”
“Heh. Still playing coy, huh…”
“Don’t give me that crap, waxing poetry about what it means to be a warrior. Maybe when you and your little underground squad of frogs actually go out there and learn about the world, then you may have an opinion worth hearing.”
Now he’s starting to get a bit annoyed too. “And who are you to make that judgment?”
Still, not one to miss an opportunity to flaunt, she swipes down with that knife and stands her ground. “I am Rubia, one of the last Cetra and honored Summon Guardian from the ancient past. I’ve seen my share of real wars over the ages, not through practice simulations. You aren’t even here to face me in person. Why would I take this fight seriously?”
“…” He shakes his head with a sigh. “It’s regrettable, but as things stand, we’re currently in the midst of certain technological developments, so we won’t be ready to face the world at this time.” He then rests that gunblade back over his shoulder with a smirk. “But rest assured, when we are ready, the world will meet a new beginning… one planet cleansed of the filth that has long plagued it, where only the strong and worthy live to carry on the future, and the weak and diseased die and are forever erased from the Great Flow.”
“…”
He points that gun back at her. “As one of the Cetra, you must be aware, yes? Of the looming crisis that this planet faces. Where there once was an abundant flow of life and voices of the past and present, they are now silenced into obscurity, only to be forgotten with time.”
Ruby now makes an awkward look. At first, she was just trying to humor him, but now she’s reminded of exactly why she’s even here in this world. Figures that someone like him would also take note of the planet’s situation.
“I’ll admit, it has been a few years since my brother and I have ventured out of this city. But let me tell you, we are far from the ignorant well-dwellers that are the majority of civilians residing here.”
“Yeow, shots fired. Can’t say I don’t agree, though.”
“Then we have something else in common after all.” He now returns to his battle pose, as if ready to resume. “However, if there’s one thing I may say regarding the Cetra…”
“Hm?”
“You’re a pretentious lot stuck in the past who have long outlived your purpose. You of all people don’t deserve to see what the future will behold.”
Despite that brazen insult, Ruby simply grins. “Ha! And you’re a stupid bitch with incredibly short-sighted views about the future. Glad we had this talk.”
And with that exchange of verbal slings, they get right back into the physical swings of things. Knife clashes against blade, gunshots ring out against metal plating around them, and still Ruby refuses to use more than one hand against him. In fact, she’s still not going all out as he hoped.
Enough; time to switch tactics. Weiss backs off for just a moment and raises his gunblade before himself. Charging up another burst of energy, he activates a Phase Shift and for just an instant, he seems to flash blue. He goes for a powerful swing, aiming for her weakened arm, but she easily evades. Not missing a beat, he shifts again with a flash of red, and the next instant, he blitzes her again with a trailing streak of red lightning. This time, she doesn’t evade but can simply deflect the weaker strike. And even as he backs off again to resume rapid fire, she only continues to block or avoid being hit. There’s just no holding her down, is there?
Yuffie just kneels by Sonon in the corner, out of the way of the battle, and watches it in silent awe. Their movements are so quick that even a ninja like her is having trouble keeping up with them. It also is a little annoying that every one of that douchebag’s shots explode like mini-artillery shells, so the light and noise is rather distracting. But now that she’s finally gotten to witness her hero in action, she only grows more excited.
“Get ’im, Ruby! Wipe that idiot’s grin off his face!”
Unfortunately, as soon as she’s called out a cheer, it’s as if she’s also thrown herself into the fray, and Weiss is not interested in the yapping of spectators. Out of nowhere, he makes a feint toward his opponent and whips his gun out to fire at the girl. Fortunately for her, Ruby is on that; she knocks aside his gun barrel and in a smooth arc, proceeds to shank him up close.
He drops to one knee as he gasps in pain, but he’s not about to let that sneak attack slide. Before she can jump back, he jabs his other blade right into the glove under her wrist guard, and lets fire an explosive burst.
“!!”
The explosion rips her glove and bandages apart and burns the open wound underneath. For once, Ruby cries out and leaps back a good distance. She drops her knife and drops to her knees as well, clutching her bloodied arm. It was already stinging from the Geostigma since earlier; now it’s also burning like a live flame against her skin.
Now both fighters are down to their knees, clutching where it hurts most. But unlike Ruby, who is swearing under her breath, Weiss starts to laugh even amid the pain.
“Hahahaha…! Not so invincible now, are you…”
But she isn’t looking his way. Ruby is fixated on the smashed wrist guard that had once been firmly attached to her arm. It’s a sturdy wrist guard, so it would have been fine if that explosion was above the guard. In fact, even now, the actual guard part of it is still holding up well. The problem is, there was a hidden computer under the latch. She carefully pries it open and gives the keypad a few taps. The screen is cracked and unresponsive. Even if it were still working, she wouldn’t be able to read it. It’s by all effects and purposes dead.
Never mind that it was a pretty cool idea she had and was proud of; now she can’t be sure if she can safely return to the Debug Room any time soon. And while that fact alone doesn’t bother her that much, she worries that leaving it be for too long would mean that Sephiroth can just set up camp there and fiddle around all he likes. Reality as she knows it could start to unwind and she wouldn’t be able to do a thing.
“…What’s this? Sentimentality for a piece of equipment…?” Weiss sneers. “That’s too bad. It looks like it was one-of-a-kind.”
There's no helping it. She gingerly lifts the broken straps off her exposed arm and tosses the whole wristguard aside aside with a soft clink. Now she turns back to him, thoroughly pissed off, with a raging fire in her eyes that shifts into those of a dragon. “You dumbass. You have no idea what you just did.”
“Heh… Then, enlighten me. What is that device…?”
“Doesn’t matter now; it’s dead.” She gets back to her feet and goes over to fetch her knife again. She then turns to him with a fatally vicious glare. “Now it’s gonna be even more of a pain to deal with that asshole.”
“Hah…” After a moment to catch his breath, he then dares to ask, “Who are you talking about?”
“Here. I’ll show off a technique of his. Let me know if you recognize it.”
Ruby disappears in an instant and reappears behind him, holding her knife by the side of her waist as if she had been wielding a sword. And the next moment he knows, Weiss is struck in the chest – slashed as if by a long katana – a total of eight times in quick succession.
“Grrrgh…!!”
He catches himself before he collapses to the floor, panting heavily and bleeding profusely. But his eyes are now wide open. She was right; he definitely recognizes that move. Anyone who had ever been a part of Soldier 1st-Class would have heard about their former general’s signature move. Lurching through the pain, he turns back to look at her with a stunned expression.
“You… You’re ‘dealing’ with him?”
She returns her knife to its holster and turns back around, casually letting her limp arm hang loose. “Unfortunately. I don’t know where he’s gone. I just know he’s around since he left a huge mess out there that I couldn’t clean up.”
“…”
“That ‘equipment’ was one of the only ways I had to keep tabs on him, and you ruined it. I don’t have any way to get another at this time. Probably not in a long time.”
“…” He frowns, but actually looks somewhat regretful for once. “I see. That is unfortunate…”
She then sighs and makes a pout. “Well, whatever. I’ll just have to see what I can do from here on out.”
“…Shame, really.”
“Huh?”
“If we weren’t stuck down here, he would have been my number one target to eliminate.” He smirks to himself. “Heh… If it were by any other circumstance that we met, we might have been able to work together.”
She cringes at the mere thought. “…No. It doesn’t matter the circumstances. I would never work with Deepground. You can all stay buried for another three years.”
And as if making a poetic farewell to end the battle, she unleashes a pulse of light upon the machinery in the next room, setting it to disintegrate into the ether like everything else it touches. And with that, the simulation goes dead. The model for Weiss gradually dissipates into pixels. And yet for a moment there, it looks like he’s actually smiling.
And from the corner, Yuffie jumps and cheers. “Yeahhh!! That’s the power of a living Summon, baby!”
Finally done with him, Ruby drops the bravado and swears up a storm under her breath as she clutches her arm. God, it hurts so much. It took almost everything she had to pretend that it didn’t bother her, but it really feels like her forearm has just begun to detach itself from the rest of her arm. She can’t even feel her hand through all the searing pain.
“Ruby! Hang on!” Yuffie hurries on over to check on her and whips out a Cure materia. “Here, let me help with that.”
“Save it,” she mutters through gritted teeth.
“Huh?”
“This isn’t something that can be healed with normal magic.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“It’s… a curse, you could say,” she sighs and tries to explain, “It won’t ever heal until the curse is lifted.”
“A curse? Wait, how are you cursed? Who did that?”
“Someone I don’t want to think about right now.”
“…”
“Anyway… Step back a bit, will you? I’m cauterizing this wound.”
“H-huh? Oh, uh, okay…”
She obliges by taking a few steps back, and Ruby turns back to her broken arm. With a silent spell in mind, her other hand begins to glow a hot white. And with a deep breath, she plunges the white-hot hand against her wound. Fighting through the pain, she holds her hand firm despite all the trembling, and after a short minute or so, she finally releases her grip with a haggard sigh. In place of where the open wound had been is now a black, cratered scar. It really doesn’t look good, but she doesn’t have any extra bandages or that glove to be able to use to cover it.
Yuffie flinches and looks away as she did that, and now cautiously peeks back at it, but quickly looks away again to avoid commenting on how it looks.
“…Yeah, not my best work. But it’ll do.”
“Man… Not gonna lie, that was pretty metal how you just went for it.”
She smirks. “I didn’t have any other option, so I went for it. No point in hesitating in that case, right?”
Yuffie blinks and then nods with her own smirk. “Right! You know, Ruby, I’ve been thinking that we could get along, and I think I’m starting to see why that is!”
“Oh?”
“You’re a badass, that’s why!” She throws up a thumbs-up. “Glad I found the right person to idolize!”
“Heh. Thanks.” Ruby then turns back to Sonon, who’s been left alone in the corner. “Sorry about him, though. I’m not in the position to speak to him while his soul’s pretty lost like that.”
“Well, yeah… But it’s not like we can do anything about it. Just gotta wait until he wakes up, right?”
“Pretty much. But we should find a good place for him to rest.”
“I got a place in mind!” Yuffie raises a finger to make a point. “You know Avalanche, right?”
“Yeah?”
“I heard their HQ moved to Sector 5 since all the people who didn’t like them already moved out, so it’s just the friendlies left! We could stop by there real quick.”
“Ah… but see, the guys I was traveling with are based in 7, so…”
“Wait. You mean the splinter cell, right? You guys can’t go back to S7. It’s too risky.”
“Why not?”
“Shinra’s got the place on lockdown. Troops are everywhere. I ran into an old lady at the bar and even she was being questioned about Avalanche.”
Ruby blinks. “You met Marle at Seventh Heaven?”
“Yeah. She was with a little girl too.”
“Ah, Marlene. That’s how you got my materia…” She pauses as she thinks back. “So did she give it to you or did you take it?”
“Hey! Of course she gave it to me! I may be a materia hunter, but even I wouldn’t stoop to robbing a kid.”
She snickers. “Even if said materia turned out to be the most powerful one you’ve come across yet?”
“…” Yuffie hesitates to answer that and decides not to. “Ahem. Anyway, I had it equipped on my shuriken earlier. Did you take it?”
“Yeah. I’m giving it back to Marlene. It was a gift to her in the first place.”
“You’d just give away the ultimate materia to a little girl!?”
She scoffs back, “Why not? I can trust her to keep it safe.”
“…” Yuffie slumps a bit. “Are you saying you don’t trust me to keep it safe? I actually know how to use it.”
“Haha! It’s nothing personal.” Ruby’s smile then fades as she gets serious. “You see, it’s not something that’s meant to be used.”
“Huh?”
“Long story short, anyone who casts magic with it draws from my pool of mana. I could actually feel it every time you cast a spell.”
“Oh.” She blinks. “Well, what’s wrong with that? You’re a Summon. You got plenty more where that came from.”
“Hey.” Ruby now actually looks annoyed. “I don’t mind sharing the magic, but it’s not a toy for anyone to play with. We’re talking magic from a seasoned war vet across many wars in the past. You were drained after just a few spells. Imagine if I wasn’t around to help you.”
“Oof… Okay, I get your point.”
“So that’s that. We need to drop by 7 anyway to catch up with the rest of our cell.”
“Oh, yeah. I heard that Biggs, Jessie, and uh, Wedge were heading off to S5 too. All the troops kinda forced them to leave.”
“Oh, really? Ah, that does make sense.” Ruby nods. “Okay. Then we’ll stop by 5, and I can always drop in to 7 on my own.”
“Right, sounds like a plan! Now, come on, where’s the splinter cell you were with? Let’s go get them and get outta here! You can warp around no problem, right?”
“Yeah. That’s how I got here so fast, after all.” Ruby pauses for a bit. “But because I did, I kinda ditched my gang. Now I’m not sure where they’ve gone.”
Yuffie’s grin fades just a little. “Huh? Can’t you just call them? You do have a way to contact them, right?”
“Of course I do. I’m not an idiot.” Ruby whips out her walkie-talkie from her belt with a smile.
“Oh! You guys got your own walkie-talkies? That’s cool!”
But as Ruby flicks the transceiver on, she realizes that it’s not turning on. She tries it again and waits for a moment, but it still doesn’t respond. She flicks the switch a few more times as she starts to feel a cold sweat come on.
Yuffie’s excited smile now fades away entirely. “Is it broken?”
Ruby flips it over and checks the batteries. There are two AA-size batteries in place as expected, and they seem to be oriented the same way. They also look alright, but unless she has some kind of voltage/ampere meter, she can’t tell if they’re out of juice or not.
“Or are the batteries dead?”
“They may be…”
She then blinks as she realizes. Wait a sec. If they just need a charge, she can charge them! She takes one out of the casing and holds it between a finger and thumb.
“But it’s no problem! They may not be rechargeable batteries, but I could always play with a little electricity.”
“You can cast other types of magic?”
“Yep. Check it out.”
And with a glint in her eye and a flick of her hand, she releases a small shock from her fingertips and into the battery. However, as soon as she discharges the flow, she then notices the battery begin to smoke.
“…”
“…”
Ruby casually flicks the battery away and recovers the transceiver’s back as she returns it to its place. “Change of plans.”
“Oh, my God. Did you really just kill it?”
She forces a smile. “It’s no problem. Just a minor setback. I swear I know what I’m doing!”
But Yuffie remains unconvinced. “Saying it aloud only makes you sound more suspicious…”
“Anyway, why worry about the details? Even without a map, we could just keep going straight.”
“Huh? Go straight where? This place is a maze.”
“Not for someone like me. I make my own paths. Hey, could you step back a bit?”
“Uh… Okay.”
And as if to prove a point, Ruby walks over to the nearest wall, and with her left hand glowing white with her magic, she punches a hole in it so hard that it blasts a tunnel straight through to the next room that wasn’t exactly connected.
“Whoa.”
Ruby grins as she points the way. “I have no idea where this will lead us, though.”
Yuffie goes back to frowning. “So in the end, we’re stuck wandering around.”
“At least where we wander is of our own choice!” She walks back over to pick up Sonon and sling him over the shoulder. “Come on, let’s go. They shouldn’t be too far.”
Yuffie sighs, but hurries over to carry Sonon’s other arm over her shoulder. “Boy… When they say ‘never meet your heroes’, turns out it’s true.”
And as they disappear out of sight, Nero groans as he stirs awake again. Well, that was a pretty good hunt while it lasted.
~
Cloud’s party may have been ambushed shortly after they entered into the Bioweapons lab, but between the four of them – slashing, shooting, clawing, and punching their ways through the crowd of monsters – they enter into an unspoken synchronicity that seems to create a wave of violence that peters out around them like rings on a pond when disturbed by a single drop of water. And eventually, despite their initial numbers, the last of the mutants are slain and freed from their miserable mortal coils.
However, it doesn’t seem like it’s over just yet. Before they can relax and take a breather, another alarm blares and they all brace for more incoming waves. However, they don’t meet another wave of the same enemies. Instead, when the shutter doors open, it’s just a few other monsters that have been released. They’re not much bigger than the last ones, but these are shaped like floating jellyfish – or squids? – and shelled nautiloids that crawl on the ground.
Barret raises an eyebrow. “The hell? Just these five things get their alarm?”
Cloud poises to strike again. “Careful. If they’re few in number, that means they’re not easy to take down.”
Red has activated his Sense Materia and nods along. “Bad Raps and Poodlers. They’re incredibly strong and fast enemies. Take care not to get too close as their fangs and tentacles will be painful.”
Tifa grimaces. “Unfortunately, I’m all about getting in close…”
“Any elemental weaknesses?” Cloud asks.
Red shakes his head. “None. The Bad Raps even absorb Poison.”
“Damn. Well, blast them with anything, but keep your distance!”
“No need to tell me twice!” Barret replies, getting even more pumped.
Extra caution would be confirmed necessary, though. As the four try to land hits on these creatures, they realize they’re in for a doozy of a battle. The Bad Raps are incredibly hard to hit as they sway, while the Poodlers are rather sturdy even at their tentacles. And unfortunately, as soon as they’re hit by magic attacks, both species of monsters likewise counter with their own attacks: poisonous sprays and Fire spells? Apparently, there are sea creatures who can utilize fire.
Tifa just barely dodges a spray and tries to weave around to find a better position, but she then finds herself ensnared by a passing Poodler that drags her down by the leg.
“Aah!”
“Tifa!”
Cloud leaps in swinging, but the Poodler refuses to let go. It even tries to snag him, but he jumps away. Unfortunately, he happens to jump right into the way of a neighboring Bad Rap, which ensnares him in its tentacles. And as if working in tandem, the two creatures unleash some powerful electrocuting stings.
“Aaargh!!”
“The hell are you guys doing!?” Barret yells, firing at the monsters that hold them captive, but the Bad Rap simply drops Cloud like a rag and evades, while the Poodler swerves itself to use its shell to deflect the bullets.
Having seen enough, Red charges up a vicious Sled Fang and crashes right into the Poodler, knocking it off balance and making it let go of Tifa. Unfortunately, just as Red means to jump away again, he’s ambushed from behind by the other Bad Rap that snags him and takes a big bite on his back.
“Grawwl!” Red roars, but it quickly shifts into a whimper. He’s been paralyzed and poisoned all at once and struggles to claw his way free.
“Goddammit! Get offa him!” Barret again aims for the Bad Rap that keeps clinging to Red, but the other two Poodlers snag him by the legs and drag him down too. He tries to kick them away, but the things are a lot heavier than they look and pin him down.
Well, this definitely isn’t turning out well. Cloud swears under his breath. Just as they thought things were looking up for once, their luck ran out fast. To think that Shinra had these kinds of monsters prepared. It’s insane how many weird secrets they keep under wraps even from those in Soldier. The paralysis is sweeping through his body and even locking up his lungs. Shit. He can’t breathe. He has to break free…
And as if on cue, a miracle comes in yet again to save them. Or rather, their resident miracle worker does. There’s a whoosh of a graceful white-tinted wind that sweeps down upon them, and all four of them are enveloped in its soothing magic. And just like that, not just their health but even their status conditions are restored to normal. They’re no longer in pain, but are still immobilized.
Not for long. A slim silhouetted figure warps overhead and whirls into the fray. Her grip crushes the beasts as soon as it comes into contact and rips them off of their victims. And yet, those moves aren’t quite deadly enough to wreck each of them in one hit – but this is fully intended. And with the cracking whip of a dragon’s tail, she whacks every one of them into a spin that magically morphs them into items.
“Huh…” Cloud shakes his head as he comes to, realizing that he’s been freed. “Ruby!”
“Ruby! Thank you…” Tifa cries, almost moved to tears herself.
“You big damn hero, you! Again!” Barret cheers. “Glad to have you back!”
Red sighs, but makes a relieved toothy smile.
And yet, instead of greeting any of her friends, Ruby hops off to collect the items that she had morphed the monsters into: 3x Speed Source and 2x Luck Source. She hastily stuffs them all into her bag.
Cloud’s look of pleasant surprise turns into an irked frown. Is she ignoring them after saving them? That disrespectful little…
Ruby whips back around with arms outstretched and a cheerful grin. “Glad you guys are okay! Made it just in time too!”
“Where the hell have you been? We’ve been trying to…” He drifts off when he notices that she no longer seems to be wearing a glove on her right hand. Instead, that ugly black scar is all that’s left.
She catches on that he noticed and quickly slips it behind her. When he means to ask, she puts a finger to her mouth to shush him.
His eyes narrow suspiciously, but he decides to let it be for now. “Anyway, we’ve been trying to call you, but you wouldn’t answer.”
“Oh, that?” She goes back to grinning. “My walkie-talkie somehow ran out of battery.”
He remains unimpressed. “…Really?”
“Really.”
“…”
“I couldn’t charge it back up, so that’s too bad. You got an extra battery?”
“Do I look like I carry batteries?”
“Maybe not… Or maybe we can just rub a battery against your lightning-rod head and it’ll charge up on its own!”
He looks a bit stung by that and groans. “Oh, come on!”
Before Cloud can keep arguing, though, Barret and Tifa come in to give her a firm slap on the back and an affectionate hug, respectively. Even Red comes up to take a seat and looks at her with genuine gratitude. Cloud pouts quietly to himself. Again, he’s the one who’s the odd one out.
“What the heck, Ruby! Don’t just ditch us like that!”
He snaps out of it and turns to find a girl armed with a large shuriken, carrying a man who has a staff on his back. She looks quite frustrated, while the man seems to be unconscious. The rest of them also take notice and let Ruby go.
“And who are these guys?” Cloud asks her.
“Friends!” Ruby simply answers.
Yuffie raises her free arm at them and points. “And elite agents from Wutai!”
“Wutai?” Barret asks with a frown. Tifa likewise looks nervous and unsure of where this is headed.
“That’s right! And you’re the splinter cell of Avalanche, huh? Glad we finally caught ya!”
“What are agents from Wutai doing in Midgar?”
She makes a confused look like wondering why he’d ask. “Infiltrating Shinra, duh.”
He crosses his arms. “Now hold on a sec, kid. This isn’t a game we’re playing.”
“Hey! Who are you calling ‘kid’!? I’m telling the truth here!”
Ruby then cuts in-between them. “Guys! Guys, it’s okay. I know things look weird right now, but we don’t have to worry about Wutai.”
“Ruby, what’s going on?” Barret demands, “Why are we involving them in this? It was just supposed to be Avalanche vs Shinra, remember?”
“Trust me, Barret. They’re solid allies and would complement us well. It doesn’t mean we’ll be waging war on all of Midgar if we bring them along.”
“Huh? I thought that was the plan. It’s not?” Yuffie replies.
“…” Barret casts a suspicious eye back to Ruby.
But she stands her ground and speaks calmly, “Guys, I mean it. I didn’t pick them up on a whim. I can answer questions, but we’ll have to get to them later. For now, we got my cousin to pick up. Okay?”
He grunts uncomfortably, but lets it slide for now.
“So this is what you’ve been up to…” Cloud peers back to the other guy. “What’s his deal? He okay?”
“He’s in a despair-induced coma,” Ruby quickly explains, “It’s a long story.”
“Mako poisoning?”
“Close, but not quite. I’d say worse.”
“But he’ll be okay after some rest, right? You said so earlier,” Yuffie points out.
Ruby nods with a reassuring smile. “I’ll see to that myself. You have my word.”
“Well, I’m glad we’re all back together,” Tifa then reminds everyone, “Now we just have to find Aerith.”
Cloud asks Ruby, “You can call her through telepathy, right?”
“Yeah, hang on…” She closes here eyes and takes a moment of silence to focus. And as if there were a switch in her mind that was flicked on, she makes the connection. “Aerith?”
A certain cheery voice enters her mind with an excited reply: “Ruby! I’m okay! Where are you?”
“We’re in the underground lab, somewhere in the Bioweapons Development wing. It’s just an inkling, but I think we’re pretty close. But I’ll need just a few more pointers to be sure.”
“Okay! Well, to be honest, I’m not really sure how much I can help with clues.”
“Anything will do.”
“Hmm… Well, for starters, it feels like I’ve been shut into a storage closet of some kind.”
Ruby opens her eyes again and blinks. “A closet?” she asks through her mind.
“Yeah. It’s just me and some boxes in here.”
She frowns with disappointment. “They’d put you in a closet? Talk about disrespectful.”
“Oh, I don’t think it’s disrespect, actually.”
“No?”
“Because it was Tseng’s idea.”
Ruby folds her arms. “Tseng?”
“Yeah. Even while he was escorting me down here, he was making this look as if he was nervous. I guess he didn’t want to put me somewhere where I’d be right next to a bunch of monsters. And he muttered something else about ‘Deepground’? Wanted to keep me away from all that too.”
She chuckles. “Well, good on him. Glad to hear he really is thinking ahead.”
“Yeah. Maybe we haven’t always been on the best of terms, but I can tell when he’s genuinely concerned for my safety.”
“But to be honest, this also makes sense that he’s our enemy, since it’s gonna be a lot harder for us to find you. Which closet?”
“I don’t know… I didn’t see a number or label or anything.”
“Aerith… Please don’t make me blow up the entire place to look for you.”
“Oh! But I guess, maybe it’s just a feeling…”
“Yes?”
“I can sense your presence too. You’re somewhere really close.”
“…” Ruby then peers off for a plain-looking hallway leading to an inconspicuous door at the side of this testing platform. She even says it aloud, “…It couldn’t be…?”
Tifa picks up immediately. “Ruby, do you have an idea?”
“Uh… This may sound weird, but I think so?”
Cloud frowns. “Why do you sound so unsure?”
Ruby shrugs back. “If my senses are correct, she’s just down this way.”
They all look toward where she points and turn back looking even less convinced.
Cloud frowns. “That looks like a closet.”
Ruby shrugs. “That’s what she said she felt like she was in.”
“But a closet?” he asks, “How would you even know which one?”
“I can sense her presence, okay!? She’s somewhere nearby!”
She rushes on ahead as the rest of her confused cast of allies exchange awkward glances, but they too hurry after her. As it happens, this side room is in fact a small collection of holding cells, seemingly for item storage more than anything, but Ruby is suddenly dead convinced that Aerith is here. She can sense a friendly spirit in the area in any case. And as the rest follow Ruby in, Yuffie gives an exhausted sigh and lowers Sonon back down so she can take a breather too.
“Aerith! You in here?” Ruby calls.
Inside one of the cells, the lady in question is a little startled but delighted. She comes up to the door and knocks on its small window. “Ruby! Over here!”
“Aerith!” Tifa calls out too.
“Oh! You’re all here! That’s great!”
Barret’s jaw drops. “My God, they really did put her in a closet…”
Ruby bounces on over and playfully slaps her hands against the door. “Hiya, Cuz! Miss me?”
“Did I ever! It was getting really boring just talking with some boxes.”
Red frowns, making a concerned look. “She may have been left here for quite a while…”
Cloud glances over to the lock panel beside the door. “Looks like it takes a code.”
“Can you crack it?” Barret asks.
“Not sure… but I can try-”
Then, Ruby announces, “Alright, everyone, step back! I’m ripping this thing off.”
Cloud whips back to her. “What? It doesn’t have any handles. What are you going to grab?”
Nonetheless, the rest of them quietly oblige, and Ruby places a hand against the flat side of the door. With a display of overwhelming grip strength, she crushes the metal in her hand, crumpling it as if it were paper, and wrenches it off completely from its frame.
Needless to say, Cloud goes speechless.
She casually chucks the door aside with a loud crash and peeks into the cell. “Aerith? It’s good now.”
“More than good!” Aerith cheers, bouncing out to meet her in a hug. “I have the best cousin in the world!”
She smiles with a cute blush. “Haha. Thanks as always, Cuz.”
As Aerith lets her go, though, she notices the odd mark on her right forearm and gasps when she realizes it. “Oh! Ruby, your arm…”
Ruby quickly pulls it away. “It’s fine.”
“It’s scarred really badly.”
“…”
Now Tifa notices it and gasps. “That’s right! What happened to your Geostigma? Are you okay?”
Ruby waves a hand dismissively. “It’s fine, I’ve dealt with it.”
Cloud passes a scant glance at the scar again. “Did you seal your own wound?”
“Yeah. So it’s fine.”
“Does it still hurt?” Aerith asks again, “Here, let me take a look.”
“I said it’s fine! Quit asking already!” Ruby snaps aloud, startling everyone. As they all stare back with a mix of surprise, concern, and disappointment, she catches herself and retraces her steps. “Sorry. Just thinking about what happened pisses me off. Don’t wanna talk about it, though.”
“…” She then nods back understandingly. “It’s okay. I’m sorry for bothering you so much.”
“…”
There’s an awkward silence that comes to pass. But rather than keep it feeling so down, Barret then pumps up an arm in triumph and calls out everyone’s attention.
“Alright, good work, ya’ll! Mission accomplished! Now let’s blow this joint!”
And with that proud declaration, the mood seems to lift up a bit again. Tifa turns to Cloud and Aerith and nods, returning to her smile.
“Right. We’re all back together. That’s what matters.”
“Yeah! That’s the spirit!” Barret then turns back to their VIP. “Ruby, if you’d do the honors, bring us home!”
She’s then reminded of what Yuffie told her. “Ah, right, um…”
“Hm? What’s up?”
“There’s been a change of plans. Sector 7 might not be the best place to return to right now.”
“Huh?”
Tifa frowns too. “What do you mean? What happened to 7?”
Cloud asks too, “Didn’t you say you stopped the bomb?”
“Oh, of course. Sector 7’s staying up for another 30 years at least. But the problem is, since it was Sector 8 that collapsed, Shinra’s been using it as an excuse to have their troops occupy the entire slums.”
“W-what!?” Barret exclaims, “They took it over? Shit! Then what about the bar? Marlene!”
“Calm down, Barret. Marlene’s fine. Marle volunteered to watch over her. They’ve been keeping the bar tidy too.”
“But what about Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie?” Tifa asks, getting nervous. “They were back there too, right?”
Yuffie then answers that, “Sounds like they moved off to S5. That’s where the HQ guys set up their new base.”
“They’re with HQ?”
Barret snorts. “What the hell are they doing there? I told Biggs and Jessie to investigate them, not join ’em! And even Wedge went!?”
Ruby shakes her head. “They were forced to leave. That should let you know that things aren’t gonna be easy sticking around Seventh Heaven.”
“Tch. Then let’s just get back there, and we’ll send all those troops packin’ ourselves!”
“Barret!” Tifa objects, “Come on, there’s clearly more to it than that!”
“What’s the matter? We can take some troops, and Ruby’s her own one-woman army. They ain’t got shit on us.”
She shakes her head. “No, please, let’s think about this again. If Shinra’s already started occupying Sector 7, what do you think will happen if we head back there? Everyone else living there who don’t have anything to do with us might get caught in the crossfire. The last thing we need is more unneeded casualties.”
He grunts, displeased, but nods back. “Yeah, actually that’s a good point. It’s one thing when we’re just blowing up Shinra machines and troops, but civilians are off the table. We don’t need another disaster like the first bombing or Sector 8 just earlier.”
Yuffie blinks. “Wait, you guys actually do care about them? I thought that bombing showed that you weren’t afraid to make some sacrifices.”
Barret, Tifa, and Cloud exchange awkward glances and turn back to her.
“Hmph. Yeah, ‘some’ sacrifices is right, but you’ve been hearing about us from HQ, right? Let’s just say they don’t think too highly of our branch.”
“Well, yeah… I got that much. But I also met up with Biggs and Jessie, and for a little while, it seemed like they were setting up some kind of truce.”
“Truce?” He scoffs. “Yeah… I dunno about that.”
“Huh? What’s wrong?”
Tifa shakes her head. “Unfortunately, we’ve been split from the rest of Avalanche indefinitely. If they’re trying to make a ‘truce’ now…”
“Yeah, I dunno. Seems pretty sketchy that they’re picking now of all times to want to play nice.” He then smirks. “Though, I guess it makes sense. Ruby musta scared the bejeezus outta them. Now they feel like they got no choice but to work with us.”
Tifa nods back. “That’s what I was thinking…” She then suggests to him, “But maybe it’s for the best? Even if we don’t agree on some things, we’d be much better off having them watch our backs.”
“Tifa. If it were really that simple, then we wouldn’t have split up in the first place.”
“…”
He then casually waves a hand. “But fine. If they wanna play nice, then we can return the favor. The less enemies we make, the easier it’ll be to move around.”
Cloud raises an eyebrow at him. “…Can’t say I expected those words from you.”
He whips back around to him with a vicious glare. “Can’t say I expected much from you either.”
The two get right up in each other’s faces again, and Tifa sighs. As it happens, Aerith now comes up between them and pats them both on the shoulders.
“Now, now. We’re all back together. We should be celebrating!” She turns to Ruby with a gentle smile. “And by the sound of things, it’ll be just a bit safer if we stop by Sector 5. I think it’s about time we let my mom know I’m okay.”
Ruby nods back. “Agreed.” She then shifts to a more serious face. “But I’m still not sure even S5 will be okay for long.”
“Huh?”
“Do you guys remember what Rufus said? He’s willing to put the entire city under martial law if it means that Avalanche will leave the city.”
Barret snarls, “Ah, yeah. The bastard would dare, wouldn’t he?”
Then, Ruby resumes her confident smirk. “But I got a plan to counter that.”
“Huh?” Now that gets everyone’s attention.
“See, I was thinking about it for a while now. If Shinra really wants Avalanche out, so much that they’d pressure their own citizens to want us out too, then we’ll comply.”
“Why?” Cloud asks, folding his arms.
“Yeah, I was gonna ask the same thing,” Barret adds, “I know you were gonna take us to Cosmo Canyon, but if we leave now, wouldn’t it be like we’re just giving up on Midgar?”
Tifa mentions as well, “Not to mention, we wouldn’t be able to come back here if we leave. We don’t have the support of the people, especially since Sector 8 was the one that fell. Everyone probably thinks we did it.”
Ruby shakes her head. “The point is: these tensions won’t let up as long as people are afraid. It may just be Sector 7 that’s occupied for now, but it’ll soon be 5 and the rest of the city later. It’s not gonna help anything if we don’t have someplace to set up base.”
“Yeah, that goes without saying,” Cloud replies, “So what do we do? Just pack up and leave?”
“Nah. That won’t be enough. As long as the big, scary ‘Avalanche’ is somewhere out there, the city won’t feel safe. So, we’re gonna have to make everyone think we’re gone for good.”
“‘Gone for good’…?” Tifa repeats warily.
Barret asks again, “What are ya thinking about, Ruby? You got some kind of plan?”
She grins cheekily. “Oh, yeah. I’ve been waiting for a moment like this for a long time now.”
“Ha! Look at you, ya big-time schemer… Then spill it.”
“We’ll put on a show. It’ll be an even bigger show than the warehouse incident. Let’s nab some rides and bust out of Shinra HQ and be in full view of the cameras. And when Shinra sends in their last lines of defense, we’ll pretend that we’re all taken out before we can escape the city.”
He blinks, looking a bit disturbed. “What?”
Yuffie sticks out her tongue too. “Ugh! That sounds like a terrible plan! Why do we have to make Shinra look good?”
“Ruby, come on! This ain’t time for jokes! What good would that do!?”
“It’ll get Shinra off our tail for a little while, and for the rest of Midgar, they’ll be relieved that their biggest threat is no more. Even if Rufus himself doesn’t believe it, he won’t be able to get away with putting the whole city under lockdown without a good reason.”
“…” All of a sudden, Barret finds himself without an argument. Now that she mentions it, that actually sounds pretty alright.
Yuffie snorts. “Well, I still don’t like how we’re supposed to just give in to Shinra.”
“Oh, don’t worry, Yuffie. Wutai will be spared the humiliation. You and Sonon can stay back in S5 with HQ for the time being. It’s us, the splinter cell, that have made all the headlines lately. So we’re gonna be the ‘sacrifices’.”
She blinks. “Oh. That actually works out alright.” She then snickers. “And then we’ll just sneak you guys back to Wutai without Shinra knowing a thing. We can hit them back when they least expect it!”
Ruby smiles back. “Of course…” That smile then warps into a stern frown. “But save the wartime strategies for later. I’m happy to help Wutai, but we gotta talk with your new government about de-escalating tensions, not the opposite.”
“What? Oh, come on! Not you too!”
“Not me too?”
Yuffie grumbles, “Yeah. You’re starting to sound like my old man. Even when Shinra was literally at our doorstep back in the war, he was going on about settling peace terms. Bleh. No wonder he got jailed.”
Ruby blinks. Oh, right. There was a little detail like that about Wutai from what she recalls of Remake’s Episode Intermission. Damn, Wutai really is going to be a pain down the line if she doesn’t do something about it sooner. Maybe they can pay the capital a visit after they settle down in Cosmo Canyon…
“Ruby, you’re supposed to be a cool Summon and all! Aren’t you guys all about fighting?”
“…” For once, she makes a solemn face deep in meaningful thought. She then turns back to her with a gentle smile. “Yuffie, let’s put it this way. As the only living Summon Guardian, I get to choose what conditions that I fight in. You can understand that much, yes?”
“Hmph…” She crosses her arms and pouts. “Fine. But you should really think about my offer. I wanted to recruit you since you’d win us a war.”
“Heh. Did you ever hear this proverb before? ‘The true victor is not the one who defeats the most enemies, but the one who achieves victory without laying a hand on a weapon?’”
“…You really are an old being, aren’t you? I almost forgot since you look so young.”
Ruby cackles. “Maybe I am an old fart. But this old fart got guns, so to speak, so you’d better listen for now.”
She turns back to the rest, who have been listening quietly, and some of them still look a little uncomfortable being with Yuffie, but at least no one is objecting to Ruby’s train of logic.
“In any case, guys, we got a plan to put into place! Yuffie, take Sonon. I’ll send you guys off to Sector 5. As for the rest of ya…”
Cloud coolly replies, “You’re taking us back to Shinra HQ?”
“Yep. In fact, we’re gonna go vehicle shopping! And by ‘shopping’, I mean nicking.”
Even he has to smirk to that. “Alright. We could do that.”
“But where will we be driving off to?” Tifa asks, “The roads on the upper plates must be stacked with troops by now.”
Ruby grins. “All the better! We’re running right through them.”
“Is… that so?”
Barret laughs. “That don’t sound too bad! Count me in!”
Red then looks to Ruby with a concerned expression. “Am I going to be a part of this too?”
“Why not? You can just chill in the back of a truck or something.”
“Hmm…” He flicks his tail playfully. “If I must.”
Aerith giggles. “Well, looks like we’re all gonna get busy.” She turns back to Ruby. “Though, I was hoping we could stop by to see Mom… The last visit was pretty awkward.”
“Speaking of which, Aerith, do you have a way to call Tseng or the Turks? When we get out on the highway, they might be able to ‘lend a hand’ in capturing the big, scary white dragon.”
“Oh!” She winks. “As it happens, I do have Tseng’s number. He gave it to me a long time ago.”
Ruby grins. “You’re the best, Cuz.”
She laughs. “Oh, no. You’re the mastermind here. I’m just happy to help!”
Notes:
One more chapter and we can finally leave this God-forsaken city. Midgar is cool and all, but the world out there is what I yearn to explore. Rest assured that with Ruby's broken af warp power, they won't be traveling even remotely the same path as you may be familiar with. Who knows what will come next?
I hope it isn't too awkward that I had to cut out some additional action to move the plot forward. Writing fight scenes is pretty fun, but I'll leave the spicy details to your imaginations~!
Chapter 20: The Moon Behind the Clouds
Notes:
Reminder for everyone to follow me on
Twitter @rubia_ryu ortumblr @rubiaryutheroyal
I post chapter updates every time a new one comes out, so you all can be notified sooner. I notice sometimes AO3 isn't always the fastest with notifications. Last time I got a kudos, it took a day n half later before I got notified.Outdated A/N
3/29/23 edit: I'm curious to know if anyone would be interested in joining me for a Q&A session sometime on Curious Cat? Please check my Twitter for when I'll be live. Thank you for all your support, everyone!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Though it’s now late enough that most of the Sector 5 residents would be shut up in their homes, a few people loitering outside are stunned to witness a bright white light burst out of nowhere at the center of town. Even more shockingly, there are three people who appear from it as the light quickly fades.
“What was that!?”
“Look! Someone’s there!”
A small crowd of curious onlookers begins to gather around. Ruby and Yuffie are carrying the still unconscious Sonon over their shoulders.
“Hey! Can anyone lead us to a clinic? We have a man down!” Ruby calls out to the crowd.
One woman suggests, “Oh, I think there was a clinic down south somewhere.”
The man beside her then clarifies, “Yeah, but I hear the doctor hasn’t been taking very many patients at the moment. Something about a shortage of space?”
The rest of the small crowd remain hesitant or nervous as if unable to offer anything constructive.
“Come on!” Yuffie yells impatiently, “He’s in serious condition! We need a bed for him! Any other place that’s good?”
“But we really don’t have other clinics around. Most doctors in Midgar live up on topside, not down here…” another slightly older-looking man explains.
“Ugh. Really? That sucks…”
Ruby nods back. “It’s understandable. Shinra would keep the best of their medical experts closer to their HQ.”
“Damn Shinra, those greedy jerkwads.”
Ruby turns back to the people who responded. “Thanks anyway! We’ll try there.”
Yuffie peeks back to her. “You know where it is?”
“It’s been a while since I last visited this town, but I think I do...”
By now, she picks up that Ruby may not always be the best judge of her own abilities. She makes a nervous frown as she asks, “So, by ‘think’, are you sure or not?”
Ruby tries to recall a map of the town in mind. “…Leaning more to the ‘sure’ side.”
“Eh… I guess that’s better than nothing.”
But before they head off, they then hear a voice call out to them.
“Hey! Hold it right there!”
A young lady in a blue cap and striped stockings pops out from the crowd. She's accompanied by an elderly woman who's dressed as a backpacker with hiking gear and dons a pair of goggles over her beanie.
“You guys heading to the clinic? We know the way! We can get you there!”
“And who are you?” Yuffie asks demandingly.
She tips her hat as if a courtesy. “The name’s Kyrie. My grandma and I are kinda like the local scouts, you could say. We keep an eye out around town and pick up on all kinds of news.”
The old woman nods along. “One of you wouldn’t happen to be Yuffie, would you?”
Yuffie blinks. “Huh? You know me?”
She nods and offers a reassuring smile. “I’ve heard of you from someone by the name of Zhijie. He and his pals have been waiting for you.”
Now Yuffie actually feels relief. “Zhijie! He’s here, huh?”
“Here in town, at least. The rest of ’em are gathered at that clinic. Come with us, it’s not far at all.”
Ruby passes an amused look at the chipper pair of ladies. That’s right; she remembers Mireille, the town gossip. If she also recalls correctly, she was the true identity of the infamous noble thief known as “The Angel of the Slums” who would steal from the rich (mainly gambling whales in Wall Market) and give back to the poor. But she doesn’t recall that she and her grandkid would be working with someone from Avalanche HQ. In fact, it seems like Kyrie has been productive and helpful for once. She might just lead the way to her future career soon… as long as she drops the whole pickpocketing scheme.
They lead the trio of weary travelers south to the clinic in question. When they first step foot inside, however, they find the place looks rather empty. There’s only the receptionist at the front desk. Apparently even the only doctor here is hiding out in the back.
“Hey! We’re back!” Kyrie announces.
“Oh! Welcome back…” But the middle-aged receptionist is alarmed to see their new visitors - one of which seems to be unconscious. “Oh, dear. What’s this?”
Ruby, unwilling to explain, hastily covers for it, “He just needs some rest. Passed out from exhaustion and all that. Got a bed to spare?”
“Oh. I see. Well, hope he’ll be okay. We’re actually closed at the moment, but…” she answers, passing a glance to Kyrie and Mireille with a nod, “we should have one in the back.” She then turns to the back room and yells out to her husband. “Dear! We have some old visitors! Get out here!”
A timid-looking doctor in a white coat comes scurrying out. “I’m here! Who is it?” He catches eye of Kyrie and sighs internally, but gives Mireille a silent nod. He then turns to Ruby and Yuffie carrying Sonon. “I see. Please come with me. I’ll show you all to a room in the back.”
But then Mireille raises a hand with a polite smile. “Oh, don’t worry about us. We’re just here to deliver them safely. Our job here is done.”
“Huh? We still haven’t gotten the pay yet?” Kyrie reminds her with a pouting frown.
But the elderly lady turns back to her with a stern frown. “Can’t you see, Kyrie? They got enough to deal with right now. Just check back tomorrow.”
“Ugh. I hate having to do free labor…”
“After the stunt you pulled earlier, I think you’ve gotten off easy with getting paid at all.”
“Grandma!” She pouts, “Fine, I won’t do that stuff anymore.” But she adds under her breath, “…For now.”
But Mireille, knowing her granddaughter too well, catches on anyway and rolls her eyes. She turns back to the rest. “Anyway, the rest of them are waiting for you guys inside. Go with the doctor, he’ll show you the way.”
Ruby nods back with a grateful smile. “Thanks as always, ma’am.”
She makes a somewhat surprised and amused look. “‘As always’, huh… Heh. No need to thank me. I know my ways around town, is all.”
With a casual wave of her hand, Mireille takes her grumpy kid along and heads back out.
Now, the doctor leads the remaining trio into the back room, where there’s a door that looks like a normal closet with a rug on the floor. However, there’s a secret latch under the rug that leads further into the basement. Ruby offers to carry Sonon down by herself, and switching him onto her back, she hops right down the hole with Yuffie sliding down the ladder.
“Whoa!”
“Ruby!?”
“Yuffie!”
As she expected, she finds the rest of Avalanche HQ hiding out in their new secret base, and she's glad to see Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie altogether again. Oddly enough, the guy who was said to have been waiting for them isn’t here. They're startled by the sudden double thump from when Ruby carrying Sonon on her back lands hard onto the floor below, shortly followed by Yuffie. The doctor, meanwhile, climbs down the normal way.
“Ruby! You made it!” Wedge cheers.
“Glad to see you all again.” She raises a fist and he accepts the fistbump. She also shares it with Biggs and Jessie.
“Sorry that we couldn’t keep in touch. Our walkie-talkies were bugging out for a while,” Jessie apologizes.
“No worries. I can tell you’ve all been busy.”
“We really need to catch up, alright.” Biggs passes a concerned look at the man over her shoulder. “So what’s-”
“So this is where you guys were!” Yuffie interrupts excitedly as she takes a look around at all the familiar faces, “I was wondering why the place was so empty even though people were saying there wasn’t space.”
“Figures it was just code for ‘Avalanche in hiding, do not disturb’,” Ruby replies with a smirk.
She whips back around as the man finally gets down. “Wait, Doc. Are you also a part of Avalanche?”
The doctor frantically shakes his head. “Oh, no, not at all! To be honest, I’m not exactly in the safest place keeping you all here. But I understand that you’re taking refuge from all that that’s been happening with Sectors 7 and 8.”
“Yeah. Even knowing who we were, he and his wife invited us in themselves.” Nayo explains. She turns to him too with a polite bow. “Again, sorry to put you into this situation, sir. We really appreciate it.”
Despite looking a little nervous, he waves it off. “It’s alright. The Sector 5 slums is a pretty tight-knit community because the rest of us who are still around have so much faith in each other.”
Yuffie blinks, looking impressed. “Wow. You’re doing this just because you want to? Thanks! You’re a good guy.”
He nods back. “Well, I am still a doctor. I can’t exactly be leaving people in need out to dry.”
Ruby nods back with a proud smile. “Well said. There should be more doctors like you in this world.”
“Thank you for the compliment. Incidentally,” he asks, giving her a curious look, “Have you been around here before? I seem to recall someone accompanying Ms. Gainsborough in her garden.”
“Oh? You saw us there, sir?”
“I think I did. I sometimes stop by her garden to pick some fresh herbs since she grows so many kinds. It’s quite a big help to everyone.”
“Heh. What a fun coincidence… that even you would come to be roped into Avalanche affairs.”
“So it seems… In any case, I’m happy to help anyway I can.” He turns back to Sonon with a concerned frown. “For starters, it’s probably for the best that we set him down.”
“Ah, right.” Ruby blinks, having just realized how effortless it is for her to carry him that she wouldn’t even notice a whole man slumped onto her back.
They find the reserve bed sitting in the back of the basement and lay Sonon down. The poor guy still seems to be rather restless and is wincing as if in pain. The doctor takes out his stethoscope and begins to give him a cursory checkup. But after looking around for a bit and even asking Ruby to help lift him onto his side, he’s a little surprised to find that the man is in perfect health despite the gaping hole in his tunic.
“Most interesting. Whatever may have caused these tears, it’s as if the wound he would have received has vanished entirely.”
Ruby raises a hand. “Oh. That was me, sir. I patched him up.”
“You?” He then nods. “I see. There’s not a sign of scarring tissue. Is this the work of magic?”
“Yep. Physical wounds are no problem for me. It’s the mental scars that are much harder.”
“Hmm… So you think his condition is due to a lot of emotional duress?”
Yuffie gives the man a look in disbelief. “Uh, yeah? You can tell that just by looking at his face. He’s clearly not sleeping soundly!”
He nods back, making a thoughtful expression. “Yes, he does appear that way.” He then lets off a sigh. “Unfortunately, I’m a general physician who also happens to be an herbalist, so psychiatry and emotional therapy are not within my field of expertise. I’ll be happy to lend a hand where I can, but I’m sorry to say I may be lacking in this area.”
“It’s okay…” She begins, and then turns back to Ruby with a determined look. “Because we still got Ruby! You can still fix him up further, right?”
“I can try.”
Her resolve falters a little upon hearing that. “Come on! What’s with the ‘try’? You’re a badass, remember? Put some more oomph into it!”
Ruby snorts a little to that. “If you insist.” But she gets serious as she adds, “But for the record, there’s no guarantee that he’d wake even if I use telepathy.”
“Huh?”
“The situation he’s in is actually a little different than that of someone with mako poisoning, for instance. While the latter can be recoverable with the right kind of contact, in this case it’s entirely up to the victim to pull through. Basically, it’s like he’s fallen into an illusion trap of sorts. I can try to call to him, but if he’s gone too deep, even I can’t do much.”
“What…” Now she’s starting to get worried. “But you seemed so sure earlier that you’d fix him! Why all the doubt now?”
“I always had it, but didn’t want to worry you with anything else while we were still in enemy territory.”
“…” Yuffie grimaces, now coming to the harsh realization that Sonon is much worse off than she expected. “Well, we can’t just keep waiting. Can you talk to him anyway?”
Ruby hesitates for a moment, but the girl’s earnest stare is putting on the pressure even more. She quickly caves in with a sigh. “Alright. Give me a moment and a little space.”
Yuffie steps aside to let Ruby step up, and the latter sets a hand upon Sonon's forehead. She closes her eyes and draws from her past self's pool of knowledge to contact a lost voice. And for just a moment of complete silence, everyone is watching her stand there motionlessly, though her spirit has already transferred into the receiving mind.
“Sonon Kusakabe. Can you hear me?” she asks aloud, as if to clue in everyone else around her.
There's nothing but silence that comes, however. As she drifts off further into a mind enveloped in darkness, she feels the familiar sensations of being back in Nero's magic screensaver. She's also promptly reminded of the frustrations she's had since earlier, but she brushes them aside. Not now. She needs to find Sonon... again.
However, what does one do for a man who is convinced that he is dead and has entered the afterlife? Especially one who continues to search for the lingering spirit of his late sister, the one who he loves most dear? As powerful and frankly nonsensical as Ruby's wide swath of abilities may be, this is one of those instances where a critical requirement has not yet been achieved: the social link. In other words, he literally doesn't know who she is and wouldn't respond to a random voice. It's even harder to reach him considering that he was supposed to be someone destined to die by the end of a single episode of the game he debuted in. No speedrunning strats for her to rely on when there isn't even a social link system that applies here. Well, bummer. This is going to be embarrassing to explain.
Ruby finally breaks off the connection and opens her eyes again, pulling her hand away. Yuffie gets right to the heart of the matter and asks the looming question.
“How'd it go?”
Ruby shakes her head. “I couldn't get through to him. No response whatsoever.”
“What!? Ruby! Aren't you the expert on these things? We’re not out of luck yet, right!?”
“Hey. There's only so much an ‘expert’ can do. The big problem is, he doesn’t know who I am.”
“But he does? He's heard all about you like the rest of us.”
“That's just hearing my reputation, not meeting me in person. He wouldn't recognize my voice. It's like trying to shout out from a crowd of strangers who are also shouting. You wouldn’t respond to any of that noise, would you?”
Yuffie looks ready to keep arguing, but then cuts herself off and sinks back down into a slump. “No, I wouldn’t.” She passes a look of regret to him again. “So, what now? He isn't going to be stuck like this, is he?”
“I do still have one other option, but it’s even less safe.”
She whips back to her, looking a little bug-eyed. “Anything will do! What is it?”
“I could try to return to the Lifestream and meet with him directly, but it may take me a while since I don’t know where he may have gone.”
She blinks, now caught totally off-guard. “Uh… huh? The Lifestream? Wait.” Now she starts to get awfully excited. “You mean you can do that? Just jump into the world of spirits at any time?”
“Yeah. I am a Summon, remember? And the only one that’s still living, at that.”
“Oh, right!” She throws up a pumped-up fist. “Then take me with you! I can help you call to him!”
“Ah… I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“What? Why not!?”
“Because the only physical gateway to the Lifestream is an extremely dangerous place. Moreover, humans who go down there don’t usually come back out, you know.”
“…” She sinks back down out of her temporary rush. Now a solemn expression comes over her and she glares back. “Yeah, well. I'm not just any ‘human’ either.”
“Yuffie, that's not what I meant.”
“Shut up! You're just like my old man! Always worried about me like I can't help myself! I'm not a kid anymore! If you won't take me, then I'll go find a way on my own! I’ll save Sonon with or without you!”
“Uh…”
And with a tantrum, she zips back up the ladder and out the hatch. Everyone else watches her go and then exchanges some awkward glances.
“Should we go after her?” Wedge asks.
Ruby shakes her head. “Leave her be. She just needs to blow off some steam.”
An uncomfortable silence comes over the room, as every individual remains reserved in their own thoughts. Jessie in particular has been deep in thought ever since Ruby brought up mako poisoning and it reminded her of her father. Also thanks to Ruby, all of Sector 7 including topside was saved. Now all they have to do is find a good time to pay her folks a visit and see if they’re doing alright.
She steps up again to ask, “Ruby? What you said earlier about mako poisoning being ‘recoverable’…”
“Yeah?”
“So, you think you’re ready now? Can you help my dad?”
“Ah.” Ruby looks off to think it over and then back again with a nod and a smile. “I may be able to help with that. My telepathy is getting pretty efficient with all the use I’ve been putting up to it.”
Jessie’s eyes twinkle with delight as she holds her holds in her own. “Yes! Thank you, Ruby! You’re a lifesaver – in more ways than one! I knew you could do it-”
“Hold up, Jessie,” Biggs then cuts in real quick.
“Huh?”
He raises an eyebrow. “I get the sentiment, but you guys might need to put that off for later. I mean, Cloud and the others aren’t even back yet.”
“Ah. Right… We still need to catch up with them.” She settles down again and lets Ruby go. “So what’s been going on?”
“Been smooth sailing for the most part. I caught up with the gang just in time and we paid a visit to the president’s office. Turned out they had sent Aerith down into some underground labs, so we stopped by there and picked her up. I also rescued this guy and Yuffie while I was there.”
“Wow. Busy.”
“Yeah. He was pretty bad off so we had to leave real fast, but I made sure to leave the others in a safer place.”
“Oh. Where’s that?”
“On the first floor of the building – aboveground, of course.”
“Huh?” Biggs raises an eyebrow. “Uh… You mean in the main lobby? But isn't security tight around there too?”
She smirks coyly. “Not anymore.”
He then nods back, catching on. “Ah. Thanks.”
“So why drop them there? Is there something else they have to do?” Jessie inquires further.
“Because we got another show to put on.”
All three of them blink in unison. “Huh?”
“It’ll spoil the surprise if I blab now, so let’s just say, I’ll be taking them for a joyride topside.” Ruby then makes a rather mischievous grin. “We’re gonna make such a big splash on the scene that every news-copter will want a piece of that scoop!”
They likewise remain as silent as a moment ago, but now share concerned looks with each other.
“Wait a minute. Ruby?” Nayo finally cuts in since she’s been overhearing them and her concerns have only grown the longer Ruby has been here. “What’s this about a ‘show’? We’re not talking about another disaster like the warehouse incident, right?”
“No, not at all. Complete opposite, even. That one was just an old-fashioned raid that led into a bigger accident. This one’s gonna be out in the open and is entirely premeditated. And rest assured, I won’t be the one blowing stuff up; it’s Shinra who will do the honors.”
“Shinra…?” She grows even warier. “Just what are you planning? And why are you trying to stir up more trouble?”
“Mm…” She then passes her a cheeky wink. “Well, if you tune into the news later tonight, you might see what will happen.”
Nayo doesn’t look pleased with that answer, but she recognizes that she can’t talk Ruby out of it. She folds her arms with that ever stern look in her eyes. “…Well, whatever you’re going to do, please keep in mind that not all of us are free to run around anywhere we like. If anything goes wrong, it’s not just going to be you guys who suffer.”
She nods. “I’m aware. That’s why I’m taking this plan as seriously as possible. No one has to die or live in fear. I’ll check back in with you all later just to be sure.”
“…”
Then, Wedge speaks up and raises a thumbs-up too. “There it is again! The Ruby Guarantee!” He chuckles as he turns to his other two pals. “Now we have no choice but to let her follow through. Right, guys?”
Biggs and Jessie exchange confused looks, but then quickly catch on as they see him wink too.
He gives a defeated sigh, but smirks along. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
She snickers to herself. “Yep. There’s no stopping Ruby when she goes for it!”
Nayo turns to her fellow group members, but they’re likewise confused. It’s as if it’s some secret code that’s only known to members of the splinter cell.
“She does say it with a lot of confidence, though,” Polk points out.
Nayo returns him an unimpressed glare, to which he quickly looks away. Billy even chortles to himself at that.
Ruby nods back with said confidence to match. “Anyway, how about you guys? I heard there’s been trouble down in the S7 slums.”
“Oof. Yeah, it’s kind of a big deal,” Wedge replies with a worried frown.
Biggs nods too. “Shinra’s got the entire place on lockdown. We had to ditch the place before things really racked up.”
“Yeah, but at least Marlene and the cats are doing fine. Marle’s watching over them for us…” He then pauses when he realizes it. “Oh. Uh-oh.”
“Hm? What’s up?”
“Aw, crap!” Wedge gets pretty nervous now that he recalls. “I had to leave in a hurry because some troops were on my tail as I was heading back to the bar. I hope they’re doing okay.”
“What!? You left them with troops?”
He bows apologetically with his hands together. “I-I know! I’m sorry! I should have been more careful!”
“Ugh.” Biggs slaps a hand over his face and shakes his head. “Well, let’s hope they won’t become suspects or anything… and that Barret doesn’t find out.”
He shudders at the thought. “Yeesh… Yeah, that’d be even scarier!”
“You know, guys,” Jessie then points out, “we could just ask Ruby to stop by the bar?”
“Huh?” Wedge blinks.
Biggs does too. “Uh… I dunno about that. Wouldn’t it be putting them at risk if they’re seen with her?”
Ruby offers, “I can just warp in and out. Take out a few guards. No one would know.”
“I guess so, since it’s you…” He starts to ramble in a low voice, “But if you’re going, be extra careful. Sure, Marlene is Barret’s kid, but they’re not really a part of Avalanche. The rest of us know how to deal with troops, but they’re just civilians. Who knows what…” Jessie then gives him a light pat on the shoulder and he turns to her. “Huh?”
“You’re doing it again,” she casually reminds him.
“Uh…”
Wedge chuckles too. “Aw, but that’s just like him! Always overthinking things.”
“…” Biggs cuts himself off and turns to their VIP with his own thumbs-up as his final answer. “Anyway, you got this, Ruby. Make sure they’re safe and free of suspicion.”
Ruby smiles sweetly. “Thanks, Biggs. I will.”
She then turns toward the rest as well and announces, “And on that note, guys, if there’s anything else you’d like me to help with, let me know now so I can get to it real quick. Once I meet back up with Cloud and them, we’ll be ready to head off on our way.”
“You’re asking us?” Nayo looks a little surprised that Ruby would even suggest it.
“Sure. You guys are still Avalanche, so you’re friends as far as I’m concerned. We gotta look out for each other, yeah?”
For a moment, Nayo goes speechless. While she looks relieved to hear it, it’s followed by a bit of shame that she had been letting her apprehensions cloud her judgment up to now. All the awful news around the splinter cell was coming directly from Shinra’s own new networks, so of course they would be portraying Avalanche in the worst light. She’d known this from the start, and yet she still fell into the same bias and propagating fear. It’s no wonder Polk and Billy have been a bit quieter around her lately.
Coming to this realization, she makes a more relaxed smile and answers earnestly, “Yeah, definitely. Thanks for the offer, though I don’t think there’s anything that we need to ask of you right now. Avalanche HQ is just going to lay low until the heat dies down a bit and then we’ll try to contact the other cells around the city. We already sent Zhijie to help scout around, though he hasn’t gotten back yet.” She pauses as she considers if she’s missed anything. “If whatever your plan is does work out, maybe it’ll help keep that heat down…” She then adds with a worried frown, “But if anything backfires, even we might not be able to stick around here for long.”
“I understand. I’ve been planning for something like this for a long time, so I got a backup plan for every possibility. Even in the worst-case scenario, I’ll be around to make sure that you guys and the rest of Avalanche don’t get caught up in worse.”
“Every one, huh…” She takes a moment to think it over again and lets off a sigh. She admits, “Hey, uh, sorry if I’ve been kinda rude with you. It’s been nothing but bad news every time we hear something about your cell, so I wasn’t sure what would really happen if we met up. But I should have known better than to jump to conclusions based on someone’s rep.”
“No worries, it’s only natural to have misgivings. I got plenty of past demons to settle, so I’m working on that. Probably for the best that I head out for the world and be out of everyone’s hairs. Fortunately, we're leaving tonight.”
She offers a kinder smile now. “Wherever you guys are headed, good luck. But if you ever decide to stop by again, feel free to check in with us. We’ll be happy to help.”
Ruby nods back, looking a little accomplished now. For once, even the stickler Nayo has lightened up. Polk and Billy collectively heave sighs in relief and share some smiles of their own. Looks like things might just ease up between their fellow members after all.
“Say, Ruby,” Wedge then asks, “After you guys put on your show and all, will you be coming back to pick us up? We all gotta head to Cosmo Canyon, right?”
Biggs and Jessie blink in unison. “Cosmo Canyon?”
“Yeah! Ruby said she’ll be taking us along too.”
“The birthplace of Avalanche? That Cosmo Canyon?” Jessie asks again, now with her eyes twinkling.
Biggs drifts off into imagination too with a smirk. “Ooh, nice. Barret always wanted to take us there. Guess that time’s coming up fast.”
Ruby chuckles and returns her own thumbs-up. “A step at a time, guys. I may be able to warp around freely, but it’s gonna be a hassle if I got a whole crowd. I’ll send Cloud and them off first, then drop back in for you guys, and Yuffie and Sonon when they’re ready.”
“Oh, even them?” Now Wedge blinks too. “Do they wanna come with us?”
“Heh. Things may be a little awkward with such a ragtag group, but we all got our own reasons to be together. I’m just making it easier as the proverbial bus.”
“Haha! Well, at least you’re a driver we can trust!”
“Speaking of Yuffie,” Nayo then speaks up again, “She might not exactly be the most wanted, but is it really a good idea to let her run off like that? She’s new to the city.”
“It’s fine. She couldn’t have gone too far. Though if she doesn't come back soon, I can fly up above and scan for her,” Ruby answers.
“Uh, maybe not? I don’t think we need the public freaking out again.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. I can turn invisible while I fly.”
“Huh?”
Now everyone’s attention is back on her and are shocked that she would drop something that big so casually. Wedge brings a big smile at the news, while Biggs stares at Ruby in disbelief. To think that they were coming around to getting to know her skill set; and then she reveals that there’s always more.
“You can even turn invisible!?” Jessie exclaims. “Then why didn’t you ever do that before?”
She shrugs. “Because I didn’t need to? Most of the time I just warp, and it’s not like everyone recognizes who I am when I’m in human form.”
“…Ah.” She settles back down. “I guess we have been using you more like a giant beacon than anything.”
“Didn’t Cloud and Tifa get a few rides with her too?” Biggs recalls.
“Yeah…” She passes Ruby a wink. “How about sharing that love with us sometime, girl? It’d be amazing to be able to fly!”
Ruby nods back. “Sure. Once we’re out of Midgar, we got plenty of time and plenty more room to wander.”
“Looking forward to it! Man, this road trip is gonna be a blast!”
“Maybe we should be treating her more like a genie than a Summon,” Biggs quips. “You grant wishes too, by any chance?”
“Ha! I might as well by this point.” She finally turns back to the rest with a nod and a calm smile. “Well, I’ll be off. I got a few places to be and a few faces to meet. Tune into the news later tonight to catch us on the big screen, will ya?”
“You got it.”
“Good luck, Ruby!” Wedge cheers.
“Make sure to wow ’em like the star you are!” Jessie encourages.
With a casual salute of her own, Ruby then steps away and hops directly up to the latched door above without even touching the ladder and opens it up as she flies off. Kinda like a magical fairy that one has to wonder if it was even there.
~
As Ruby steps out and considers her next step, she so happens to run into Zhijie making his way back over.
He raises a finger at her. “Oh! Hey, you’re Ruby, right?”
“Hey, and you’re Zhijie!” she answers with a grin.
“Heh. Guess my rep has gotten around enough for even a celebrity to notice me,” he jests.
“Oh, come off it. I’m more of an outlaw.”
“Same difference when it comes to our kind of people. So where are you headed?”
“Just checking around town to catch up with a few more friends. Also, did you happen to see Yuffie pass by?”
He then brings up, “Oh, Yuffie? I saw her run off to the southwest exit. And, uh, she looked pretty upset. Did anything happen between you guys?”
Ruby slumps a little. “She’s just having a tantrum. Sonon’s not doing well and she thought I would be able to fix him right away, but got disappointed and left.”
“Oh, gotcha. But he’s not ‘doing well’? What happened?”
“He’s in a despair-induced coma. It’s kinda like with mako poisoning where the victim’s in pain but won’t respond, but worse since even a telepath like me has trouble reaching him.”
“Oh, damn…” He winces. “That isn’t good. No wonder she’s pissed.”
“Yeah, but it can’t be helped. We’ll just have to take him with us out of Midgar and find a chance to return him home. Maybe being back in his homeland will make it easier for me to reach him.”
“Well, it’s as they say: ‘When in doubt, return to the source.’ Hope everything turns out for the better.” He hesitates to ask, but then leans in and whispers it, “So how did he get like that? You’d think someone of his caliber wouldn’t fall that easily.”
Ruby reciprocates. “Shinra. They got some nasty surprises underground and he and Yuffie were almost taken out. I happened to be in the area to help beat them back, but seems like he was trapped way longer than she was. Lots of illusion magic going on, it’s kinda hard to explain.”
Zhijie stands back up and shakes his head. “Figures. Honestly, if there’s anything worse than a Shinra executive’s huge ego, it’s the abominations they can create.”
“Pfft. Ain’t that the truth. I’ve been dealing with one of them even before I showed up in this city.”
He blinks. “Only one?”
“Only one that would be able to stand up to me,” she adds for correction.
“Whoa, scary. Let’s hope we don’t have to deal with that thing while you’re still here.”
“…” Ruby takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly as she forces an uneasy smile. “Yeah, let’s hope.”
“Anyway, if Yuffie’s headed off that way, I think the only thing out there would be… the old church, I think.”
Her eyes light up again. “The good place!”
“Huh?”
“Don’t worry. I know exactly where she’ll be going. She probably won’t be too happy to see me right now, though, so I think I’ll wait a bit until she calms down. She’ll be fine, she can handle herself in the meantime.”
He nods. “Alright, you do you. Just letting you know. Good luck with your friends.”
“Thanks again.”
He passes her a quick salute. “Oh, and uh, one more thing!” he adds before he goes.
“Hm?”
“I dunno how long you’ll be out after this, but if we don’t catch you again later, just wanna let you know: we got a hit!”
She blinks. “Hit?”
“Ya know, with another of ours in S4.”
“Sector 4? You have contacts there?”
“All around the city, really. S7’s gang was just the loudest of all. But thanks to you guys drawing all the aggression, it’s helped clear them, so they can roam around more. We’ve been meaning to hook up sometime.”
She smirks proudly. “Then, you’re welcome. Speaking of which, I told the others already, but I suggest you all tune into the news tonight. Things are gonna get even louder soon enough.”
“Ha! Sure thing.”
“Hm? No questions?”
“Nah.” He waves a dismissive hand. “Knowing you, it’s bound to happen. You and your guys reek of trouble. Heh. No wonder Yuffie was quick to take a liking to you.” He gives her that salute again. “Alright, now I’m off for real.”
Ruby waves goodbye and watches him disappear back into the clinic. She then turns off toward Aerith’s house in the distance on the northeastern end of town, but decides that she could leave Elmyra to Aerith. She should be calling her by now and letting her know about their plans – roughly. Hopefully, her poor ol’ mom doesn’t freak out. Well, she’ll get back to her. First, Marlene and the cats, and saving poor ol’ Marle from forever being babysitter.
~
Ruby immediately teleports into Seventh Heaven without a single thought, but to her dismay, she doesn’t find the ones she was looking for. Instead, there are several Shinra troops lounging around in the bar and messing around with the drinks. Marle, Marlene, and even the cats are nowhere to be seen. While the troops are in a drunken stupor from having one too many drinks without paying their tabs, they do notice that there’s suddenly someone else in here with them. But before they can even do anything about her, Ruby unleashes a ring of light that covers the entire room. And in an instant, all the troops are eliminated and vanish.
She snorts to herself. She hadn’t intended to come in and resort to “kill on sight”, but seeing the state of the bar frankly pissed her off. Empty bottles are scattered about the room, cards and dice lay out unattended on some of the tables, and the seats and cushions on the sofas are all in disarray. It’s like the troops found this bar empty and decided to make it their own.
Fortunately, she’s relieved to find that one picture hanging on the fridge to have been left untouched. It’s a fond memory; a photo of the bar before this place saw an upgrade in the form of FFVII Remake. She always found this little easter egg amusing; like when would Tifa ever have had a chance to take this picture of the bar, and even from a view of it from the ceiling to boot?
But now that she thinks about it further, what are the implications of such a picture existing in this alternated timeline she’s living in? Has the bar been like what’s shown in the photo, but was changed before the start of the bombing mission? Or is she just looking through a looking glass into some strange glitch in the matrix where parallel universes may have collided?
…On second thought, what is she doing right now? Marlene and the others aren’t here anymore. Where did they go? Maybe Marle was questioned and she had to return to her home. She may have just taken the little girl and the cats along. She’ll head there next, but first, she’ll give this place a quick cleanup. Now, how should she do this… eh, when in doubt, make up magic.
She claps her hands together in a firm hold, and they begin to glow with a white light emitting off of her palms. She releases them in a vehement swing forward, and a great gust of wind begins to blow inside the bar. Immediately, the gust picks up all the garbage and toys left out in a cyclone of tidiness, and it even pushes all the seats back in place. Even the cushions are returned to their spots and fluffed up as if by hand. The only thing she couldn’t restore back to normal was unfortunately all the alcohol that was already drunk. But then again, Seventh Heaven will have to be closed for a while. It’s for the best that they didn’t have excess stock.
On that note, she gives the shelves a quick scan: all of the good stuff has already been taken. There are just the cheap liquors left, as well as the really heavy proof stuff. Huh, maybe she could use some of that. Even if she doesn’t drink it, they could always have a few free Molotovs. Sneering to herself, she snatches up some of the half-empty bottles and stuffs them into her bag. She even checks the cupboards behind the counter for anything else, and while there are just the dishes and glasses down here, she couldn’t help but notice there’s a single energy drink left in the corner. She takes it out and spins it around to find a familiar logo: The Bomb.
Ah, so that’s what “The Bomb” was. It’s not even alcohol. Now that she thinks back to an earlier moment, Cloud ended up picking for her the one thing that wouldn’t get her drunk. Either he was extremely lucky or even subconsciously he’s always looking out for her. To be honest, the thought makes her feel a complicated mix of heartwarming and indignance for being treated like a kid. But then again, it’s pretty in-character of him.
She stuffs it into the bag too. Alright, that’s enough snooping around for now. It’s time to actually get back to business. She heads back out the door, making sure the closed sign is firmly in place. With one last nostalgic glance behind her, she hurries out the door and off toward the apartments nearby.
If she recalls, it’s one of the lower level rooms where Marle usually stays, but which one was it? She paces around the balcony as she decides which door to knock on, but as she does, she must have made a bit of noise from her boots hitting the wooden floorboards. The door on the far left opens up, and an elderly woman peeks out from it.
Marle waves a hand to her. “Hey! You there!”
She whips around. “Marle?”
“What are you doing!? Come in and be quiet!” the old lady whispers fiercely.
Ruby quickly slips inside the door and Marle shuts it up. The old lady puts her hands to her hips and shakes her head with a frown.
“Honestly, Ruby! Haven’t you heard what’s been going on in this town? You can’t just go running around in the open!”
“Well, to be honest, I did hear the news, but I also just warped into the bar earlier and cleaned up around there.”
“You…” Marle looks visibly concerned, but stops herself and changes her mind. “You know what, forget it. You’re the kind to stir up trouble no matter what, so it’s like talking to a brick wall.”
Ruby chuckles. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“In any case, what brings you back here? Did you forget something?”
“Not at all. I just wanted to see you and the kids.”
“The kids? Ah, Marlene and the cats, of course.”
Ruby glances around the quaint little home. Though Marle is a landlady, her apartment doesn’t have that much more space compared to her fellow residents, though with how tidy the place looks, it almost feels like there is a little more room to move. She even has a few amenities convenient for a woman of her age – an exercise pad setup as a miniature gym, a sliding ladder on rails along the bookshelf, even a digital clock that doubles as a scented candle among the mystical-looking lava lamps.
“Where are they? Are they not with you anymore?”
“Unfortunately, there’s just been trouble piling on since you’ve been gone. With the troops occupying the town, even we weren’t allowed to stay in the bar. Knowing their lot, those guys probably made a mess of the place.”
Ruby nods with a solemn face. “That’s why I cleaned up.”
“Yeah, I thought so. And thanks for that. Though, what’d you do with them anyway?”
She blinks and makes an awkward glance aside. “Um, I put them to sleep. It’s fine.”
“Well, whatever. Those hooligans better not show their faces around there ever again.” She moves on, “Anyway, it was also thanks to that Yuffie girl who messed up some of them while we were there that I was put under suspicion too.”
“Uh-oh. You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. They dropped the charges ’cause I’m apparently ‘too weak’ to have been able to do that. Pah. But I’m glad that was over quick. Still, they didn’t trust that I wasn’t entirely uninvolved, so they put me under house arrest. I had to send Marlene away with her friend’s folks. What was that girl’s name? Betty, I think.”
“Oh, so they’re at Betty’s. Alright, that’s good.” Ruby pauses and then asks, “Um, if I may I ask, house arrest? No one’s posted outside your door.”
“Hmph. That’s because those idiots couldn’t wait around and do their job. Ran off and joined their buddies ‘investigating’ the bar.”
“Ah. Well, they’re out of your hair now.”
“Yep. Good riddance.” Marle then nods again. “Anyway, them’s the breaks. I doubt I’d be good to drop back at the bar like this, though. Never know when more of them will show. I think I’ll be laying low for a while. These old bones aren’t what they used to be. Can’t be running around too much and all.”
“Don’t worry about it. Seventh Heaven will have to be closed for some time. The owner and all our friends are gonna be heading out soon.”
“Out? You mean you’re leaving the city?”
“Yep. We’ve caused enough trouble around here after all.”
“Heh. Yeah, and I’ve seen enough of ya too. You guys bring me nothing but worries.” She shoos her away with a wave of her hand.
“Hahaha! Aw, I’m gonna miss you too, Marle.”
“Now don’t you dare get sappy with me, young lady. Leave before the waterworks really start.”
“Yes, ma’am. I ought to go pick up Marlene and the cats anyway. Thanks for all you’ve done to watch over them.”
“Yeah, yeah. Hurry along now.”
Ruby returns her a polite bow and a gracious smile. With a quick salute, she takes her leave. Marle waves back with a soft smirk as she goes, but then returns to sighing. And not a moment too soon either; the old lady can’t help but feel a little wet behind her otherwise stern eyes. It’s gonna be a lot quieter around here for sure.
~
Despite Marle’s warnings, Ruby once again pays little mind to the troops roaming about. For once, she doesn’t go straight for the kill option, but it’s easy enough for her to sneak up and knock them out peacefully.
It isn’t long until she stops by closer to the residentials where she finds a familiar little home with six whole cats still out at this time of night. They all spin to attention and mew at her as she approaches. Now that she looks at them, oh! Biggums, Reginald, Smalls! Here they are. Seems like they've been busy playing with Betty's own cats. The trio mew in a friendly way at her, and even their three playmates don't just hiss at her. The white one from back when Ruby first showed up in town even approaches her with a curious sniff.
Wow, is this precious. Ruby never expected to become like Aerith and be so receptive to the cats. Guess even in the Cat Intelligence Network, they've heard of her heroism and now appreciate her. She drops down to offer them a hand to pat, and to her pleasant surprise, they all take turns to rub their backs against her hand.
Well, as much fun as this is, she’s already running the clock here. She had been planning to bring them back to Wedge, but looking at them like this, the cats are already doing just fine. She smiles and thanks them all with a kiss to the air, and stands back up. Getting back to business, she lightly knocks on the door and waits a moment. The door opens and a young man, likely in his 30s, steps out to greet her.
“Oh. Hello, Miss. Can I help you?” he asks, giving her a curious look.
“Sorry to bother you, sir. I’m with Marlene’s dad’s group.”
“Ah. Okay, I thought I might have recognized you from somewhere.”
“Oh? You know me?”
“Well, sort of. Anyway, please, come in.”
He welcomes her inside and she finds yet another quaintly decorated home. Unlike Marle’s, though, it’s a bit of a clutter like when she and Cloud visited Johnny’s place; items line the shelves and a long unused fireplace that's been kept clean for the most part. Like most of the homes here, the kitchen, dining room, and living room are all interconnected. Huh, they even have what seems to be a kotatsu in place of a table. And fortunately, they don’t have a gaudy-looking statue on display in the back. But Ruby does take notice of the adorable framed picture set on the kitchen counter. It's of Betty and her parents at what seems to be some kind of jukebox bar.
As he shuts the door, the man explains, “To be honest, I first heard of you from the news when some familiar faces popped up, so I wasn’t really sure what to think about you and your friends…”
She sinks a bit. “Ah. Well, that’s awkward… But you still invited me in?”
“Yeah…” He then shakes his head. “Journalism isn’t exactly what it used to be. Now all the news is, is just chasing headlines for profit. I wouldn’t be surprised if they covered up a few details here and there.”
She blinks. “Really, sir? You think so?”
“Hm? Am I off? I just figured the people that Betty liked to play with were still good people.”
She then makes an assured smile. “You’re not wrong there.”
“Thought so. Though many people around us might not agree, I figured it was about time more of us really stopped feeding into that media machine and really thought for ourselves. Like, I may not know you all that well myself, but I know my daughter. And she wouldn’t be hanging out with Marlene if she didn’t think the people around her could be trusted.”
“Betty’s a very smart girl, alright. You’ve done well.”
He chuckles. “Ah, thank you. But I can’t take all the credit. My wife carried her through her infant years before she passed away.”
“Oh. Sorry to hear that.”
“It’s fine. It’s been long enough and she deserves her rest.”
“Hmm…” Deciding it best to leave alone, Ruby quickly changes topic, “Speaking of Marlene, I’m here to pick her up. Her old pops has been worried sick, but unfortunately can’t drop by. I know where he is, though.”
“Ah, I see. Yeah, it’s been quite a long day, hasn’t it? The girls are already asleep… or at least I hope they are. Kinda hard to tell with little girls sometimes. Watching over one is already a big deal, but two? They probably got their own little pillow fort.” He shakes his head with a smile. “Well, I’m sure they’ll be sleeping soon.”
“Heh. It is starting to get late now. But I just had to stop by again.” Ruby then digs into her vest pocket and draws out a faint white orb.
“Oh? What’s that? Materia?”
“Yes, but it’s not one that’s meant to be used. I gave it to Marlene as a gift as her good luck charm. I don’t think she’d be too bad off without it, but it is still hers. Gotta return it to its owner.”
“Ah, that’s why you came by.” He takes a moment to think over something and nods to himself. “Yep, as I thought, people really ought to think for themselves more. You never really know someone until you meet them, after all.”
“That’s true.” She pauses for a moment and then asks him, “Excuse me, sir, but do you happen to have any plans to move out of Midgar sometime?”
“Out of Midgar? Oh, geez…” He makes a nervous frown as he looks off to deliberate over it. “I know that it hasn’t exactly been the best place to live, especially down here in the slums, but moving out there seems… Well, it’s a little intimidating in a way.”
“Ah. Yes, it may seem like that.”
“Well, we do have a few relatives who live out of the city, but it’s quite the distance away. I think it’d be at least a month of travel by car, and we’d have to transfer to a ferry across the sea.”
“I see.” As tempted as Ruby is to suggest that she just warp them out there, she decides, it’s probably for the best that she not drag too many people into her shenanigans. If anything, she’d probably just put a target on his back and he’d end up being “Avalanche” too.
“Why do you ask? Do you have plans to leave Midgar?”
“Yes, actually. We’re leaving tonight.”
“Tonight! Oh, wow.” He blinks. “Well, wherever you go, have a safe trip! It’s too bad we won’t be able to see each other again for too long, but if you ever happen to stop by Midgar again, we’ll be here.”
She nods back. “Thanks, sir. If we have the time, we’ll come by.” She then peeks off into the dimly lit stairway. “Do you mind if I head in, or should I wait out here?”
“Oh, no worries. Come with me.”
He leads her inside and up to the next floor to Betty’s room, where the two girls are staying. He carefully opens the door and peeks in, and for now, it looks like the girls are fast asleep. Marlene has borrowed an extra bed they had in reserve, and she and Betty look incredibly precious sleeping next to each other.
Ruby can’t help but smile. Though she never really considered herself the type to have or raise kids, she has to admit that at a certain age range, kids are quite cute. Babies may be wailing rage machines that demand to have their every need fulfilled or else, but after they mature enough into toddlers… No, wait, toddlers are also wailing rage machines. Okay, kindergarten. At least kindergarten. That’s when they start learning together and actually become smart… or at least that's the intent.
She carefully and quietly steps up to Marlene’s bed and slips the white orb in hand into Marlene’s own. Though the little girl doesn’t respond, she seems to instinctively grasp it firmly as if she knew what it was, and she even smiles in her sleep. Ruby gives her a pat on the head too.
She turns to Betty too with a sad look. It will be some time before they get to see each other again. As loathing as she is to disturb such a precious scene, Ruby carefully lifts the covers and caresses Marlene in her arms. The little girl feels so light and it’s effortless for Ruby to carry her. Maybe it’s just because of her overwhelming passive strength – never mind the active kind – but the girl almost feels like a feather in comparison to all the others she’s had to bear.
As she turns off for the door, though, she catches the slightest sound of Betty’s voice: “…Come back soon.”
Even Betty’s dad catches on and turns to her in surprise. “Betty? Are you still awake?”
But Betty doesn’t respond.
Ruby chuckles softly and whispers, “These girls sure are gifted. They’re well attuned to the presence of others.”
While the man simply scratches his head, he nods along as if unsure of how to respond to that. He then leads Ruby and the sleeping Marlene back out to the living room. Ruby thanks him for his help again, but before she sets off, he has just one more question to ask.
“Say, sorry to bother you again. I know you’re in a hurry, but…”
“Yes?”
“I’ve been meaning to ask. Were you also the dragon that helped save this town?”
“…” She simply blinks in surprise.
He backs off and rubs his head awkwardly. “I know it may sound strange, but…”
Ruby then returns him a serene smile. “Sir, with all due respect, I think you should forget about that dragon. It’s not going to show up in this city anymore.”
“Huh?”
“We may be leaving Midgar, but that’s not the only thing I’m leaving behind.”
“Oh. Uh… I’m not sure what you mean by that, but alright. Seems like you’ve made a decision.”
She chuckles rather elegantly. “No worries, it’s a personal thing. Again, thanks for everything.”
“Oh, no problem. Hope to see you again sometime. Take care, both of you.”
She helps Marlene rest against her shoulder, sitting her on one arm, and passes a quick wave of her other hand to Betty’s father. And with that, she steps out the door and shuts it for him. Once outside and out of sight, though, her eyes glow white once more and she and Marlene are gone in a blink.
~
It’s back to Sector 5. Ruby finds the streets empty once again, and there’s a gentle breeze that blows through. She holds Marlene close, making her she stays warm, and heads off with swift yet smooth hops, as to not shake the girl too much, and seems to glide through the air as if she were flying without wings. There’s only one destination left she has for tonight, and it’s where Marlene will be staying until Ruby is ready to pick her up again later. But in the meantime, she and the gang will be busy with work.
Aerith’s house has a mystical glow about it even at night. Where there would be sunlight shining through the gap between the upper plates, there is now just the faint moonlight, and it alone lights up the garden in a resplendent view. Ruby stops before the door and gives it a light knock. At first, there’s no response. She wonders if Elmyra is busy or out, though she isn’t sure what would make her leave at this time. And then, she hears the click of the lock and the turning of the handle.
Elmyra is currently on the phone with someone and has the phone held by her head. She gasps when she finds a familiar face with a little girl in her arms, and she hurriedly welcomes them inside and just as hurriedly shuts the door.
She resumes talking on the phone, “Sorry about that, dear… Yes, it’s Ruby. She’s dropped by with a little girl… Oh? Marlene?” She pauses as she makes a concerned frown. “Is someone crying? …Ah, I see. Yes, she’s doing fine. Ruby brought her here and she's sleeping… Mm-hm. I’m glad everything has worked out.” She then pulls it away without clicking off the tone and turns to Ruby with a relieved smile. “It’s Aerith. Would you like to talk with her?”
“Oh, you don’t mind? Sure.”
Elmyra passes the phone and also helps take Marlene off her hands so she’s freed up.
“Yo, Cuz.”
“Hey, Ruby! So, are you still busy, or can we get started soon? Cloud and Barret have been wandering around the place actively looking for more trouble since they’re so bored of waiting. They said they were on ‘patrol’, but really…” She pauses, as if listening to someone else – probably Tifa – beside her. “Yeah, we called them back just now. We’ve already got our vehicles marked, and it looks like they still have gas in them, so we’re good to go. Now we’re just waiting on you.”
“I think I’ve about covered what I need for now. After we’re done for the night, I’ll be back in town briefly to pick up Jessie and the guys, as well as our new ninja friends, but you know the deal.”
“Awesome! Okay, see you soon, Cuz.”
And with that chipper reply, Aerith cuts off the tone. Ruby returns the phone to Elmyra, who sets it back in its place.
The troubled woman lets off a relieved sigh. “I’m really glad to see you again. You’ve done so much for us.”
“Likewise, ma’am. You’re the perfect person we could ask to keep watch on this side of town.”
“Ah.” She glances down to the sleeping girl and back again. “You mean this little girl, Marlene, right? Aerith did let me know beforehand. I’ll be happy watch over her for you, but…” She then makes a worried look. “I’m not sure I really understand why.”
“Hm? Why we would ask you?”
“No. Why you all wouldn’t be able to come back to the slums any time soon. I understand you all have very busy lives to lead, but please, whatever it is that you’re planning, be careful and stay safe.”
Ruby pauses to reconsider how to approach this. It seems like Aerith gave her some hints here and there, but not everything. It makes sense; they wouldn’t want Elmyra wrapped up in what they’re going to do. But it’s a little awkward to leave it to Ruby to come up with a cover story. Then again, she’s been doing that for a while now, hasn’t she?
She nods back with a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry. We’ll be extra careful. I’ll be around to make sure nothing goes wrong, and we’ll be leaving Midgar later tonight. We’ve stirred up enough trouble as is, and have a big journey up ahead that we can’t put off for much longer. Of course, we can’t exactly have Marlene in harm’s way.”
Elmyra makes a sad face, as if she were expecting this. “…I see. Well, alright. Take care of yourselves and have a safe trip. But if you can make it back sometime, please do. We’ll be waiting for you all to come home safely.”
She smirks back. “Oh, don’t be silly, ma’am.”
“Excuse me? What’s silly?”
“Home is where the people are, not a specific place. Of course we’ll be coming home.”
“Ah.” She makes a relieved chuckle. “Yes, I believe you’re right about that.”
“In fact, would you consider leaving Midgar yourself? I can actually help you set up a safer place elsewhere. The neighboring town of Kalm also doesn’t have it too bad with housing prices.”
“Moving out? Oh…” She pauses to think it over. “Well, to be honest, I had considered it before when Aerith was young, but I could never decide where to go.” She then nods back. “But I agree that it may not be the safest place to stay here either. You never know what Shinra will do next.”
“Exactly why I’m concerned for you. But not to worry: I’ll be keeping an eye out from above!”
“From… above?”
“Yeah, I got wings. In fact, I have my ways to get around places extremely quickly. Shinra won’t even notice you’ve left. And though we may be leaving Marlene in your care, I can always drop by any time. In fact, I’ve been thinking about bringing her along to meet her dad where we’re going.”
“Where are you going?”
“Cosmo Canyon, the Valley of the Fallen Star.”
“Cosmo Canyon…” She takes a moment to recall. “Oh! You mean that town out west? Across the sea?”
“Heh. Glad you heard of it.”
“I may not have gone very far from Midgar myself, but I’m aware there’s a vast world out there. That’s quite far away. But you say you have ‘ways to get around’?”
“Yeah. I can warp anywhere I can think of.”
“W-warp? As in, magic?”
“Oh, yeah. I got it in spades.”
“I-I see…” Elmyra takes yet another moment to deliberate over something. Now, she finally seems to relax a little and nods back with a smile. “Well, I think I still need time before I just decide to move out, but I’ll give it some serious thought.”
“No worries. I can check by again in a day or two, or whenever is convenient for you. You can leave everything to me.”
“Alright, then. Thank you… for everything, really.” She then gives a genuine chuckle for once. “Aerith was right, you are the best cousin we could ever ask for.”
“Haha! Was there even any doubt?”
“I suppose not.” She then peers down to the little girl. “Well, you must be in a hurry. I’ll take her from here. You go on, help everyone get out safely.”
“Yes, ma’am. Thanks again.”
With a smiling wave of her hand, Ruby steps out the door again and closes it behind her. She closes her eyes and takes one last deep breath of the fresh air from the garden. Without even opening her eyes again, she thinks of her destination and she’s vanished yet again.
~
Up in the president’s office at the top of Shinra HQ, Rufus stands by the window, looking out over the city. However, unlike his old man, he’s not waiting on something nearly as catastrophic as a sector plate fall. Instead, he expects the Turks to be ready to welcome the ensuing “show” that Ruby and Aerith have relayed to them, who in turn have reported to their boss.
Rufus is honestly in a little disbelief that things would come to this, but Ruby is a whole other thing outside of anyone’s plans. There’s only so much that can be done to placate a character-and-a-half like her who wields not only a deity-level of power but the madness of one too. Nonetheless, he’s not a complacent fool like his old man. If this ragtag group of rebels want to put on a show where they make Shinra look competent and a force worth fearing, then so be it. Whether or not they come to regret this is no skin off of his back.
There are several of Shinra’s helicopters roaming the skies over the Sector 7 plate. While it’s expected given the military occupation of both topside and the slums following the Sector 8 disaster, there are still a few curious airborne news crews thirsty for their latest scoop that are lurking in the area as well. Though this escape plan is meant to be top-secret – known only to the president and the Turks, as well as the rebels that they’ve come to a shaky temporary alliance with – it’s clear enough to people in the know that something big is about to take place.
Tseng enters with a salute and reports in once again. “Sir, it seems they’ve gone ahead and started a commotion on the first floor.”
“About time.” Rufus turns back to him with a cool expression. “And those two?”
“Reno and Rude are already on patrol over the highways of Sector 7. They’ve brought along another set of Monodrives to prepare for Ruby’s capture.”
“They’d better be prepared to jump once Ruby comes into the picture. Even though she agreed to this, there’s no telling if she’d ever change her mind.”
“There are several more helicopters scouting the area as well, just in case they’ll need a ride.”
“Fair enough. But if anything turns for the unexpected, I believe we have the backup Soldier waiting out by the edge?”
“Of course, sir. He’s reported and ready.”
“Alright.” Rufus turns back out for the window. “Then, let’s stand back and enjoy tonight’s festivities. Check back in once the chase is over.”
Tseng takes a polite bow. “Yes, sir.”
~
It’s a fairly quiet night out tonight by Shinra headquarters. There aren’t too many people in or near the company building either. With the recent string of disasters, most employees have already left for safer places. Instead, the only ones still around would be the unfortunate troops who were ordered to stand guard. And even then, there aren’t too many left of them.
CRASH.
“AAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAAAAH!!!”
A motorcycle busts through the window and lands onto a neighboring road ramp to the neighboring highway overpass. It’s shortly followed by a blue three-tired pickup that wobbles as it lands, but safely swerves along the road and zips off. And in the distance, one could even see the broken remains of Sector 8.
While he was fairly chill at first taking Ruby along for a ride, Cloud would come to regret it. The young lady is howling like a maniac and seems unable to stay still in her seat, and her screams are nearly deafening when she’s sitting so close.
She waves both arms in the air like she just doesn’t care as they zoom past some patrolling officers, who immediately turn on the blaring sirens and give chase.
“Top of the morning, guv’na!!” she squeals.
And the officers rush on by in a flurry of words: “There they are! Stop them!” “Don’t let them slip off ramp! Block all exits!” “Get ahead and ram ’em! We’re authorized!”
“Aaaahahahaahaaaa!!”
And the chase is on. While Cloud can easily maneuver past the patrol bikes on his slick ride, Tifa realizes their little pickup is starting to tremble as if it’s struggling to keep up.
“They’re gainin’ on us! C’mon, step on it!” Barret yells at the driver.
“I'm trying, but it won't go any faster!” she yells back.
“How the hell'd we get saddled with this junker!? Tifa! You had time to choose!”
“I’m sorry! I thought a smaller one would be easier to steer!”
“We’re on a Goddamn escape mission! Go with what’s faster!”
Tifa has no response and can only make a guilty face, but at least Aerith gives her a sympathetic pat on the shoulder.
The patrol have now caught up. An angry patrolman orders them, “Pull over! Or we will use lethal force!”
But to his surprise, instead of the driver responding, it’s the passenger beside her who instead pulls down at her eye and sticks her tongue out.
“Cheeky little…” The officer then yells into his radio, “Suspects are resisting. Proceed to- Oof!”
Suddenly, the officer’s gut meets with the blunt edge of a huge sword. Cloud mercilessly flings him off his ride, which swerves out of control without its driver and crashes in a burst of flame. And Ruby keeps squealing in the background even as the others get chatting.
“Thanks, Cloud!” Aerith replies with a sweet smile.
He nods back, but then asks, “You really can’t push it, Tifa?”
“No… This is as hard as it goes.”
He makes a disappointed grunt. “Fine. Stick by me.”
“Yes, sir!” Aerith responds instead. “Lead the way, Hero!”
“Baaahahahahahaahahaaa!” Ruby howls again. Apparently, even the smallest joke is a trigger.
That does it. He makes an awkward frown with just the slightest blush and zips on ahead to avoid any more small talk. Aerith giggles while Tifa lets off a sigh.
“What happened to Ruby? It’s like she’s gone crazy.”
“Really? I thought she was just putting on a show,” Aerith admits.
“Is… she just acting?”
“Um… is she not?”
“…”
“Girls, I know you’re having fun and all…” Barret mutters threateningly and then raises it to a yell, “But we still got company!”
“!”
The next wave of patrol has arrived, but now there are no more warnings; they’ve begun to let fire. Just as Barret is ready to return with his own, though, Tifa swerves hard to just barely avoid the shots and it makes Barret nearly tumble onto Red. As Red growls, Barret pulls himself back in place.
“Sorry.”
“Keep yourself steady. There won’t be many chances for you to unload the heavy artillery.”
“What? Come on! Then what do we do, just sit back and get shot!? I’m returnin’ the favor!”
“Then do so when the truck is stable!”
Just as he says, though, Tifa’s forced to swerve hard again to avoid a patrolman coming in close to ram them. By now, Barret is quite peeved about being tossed around. Without unleashing fire, he simply takes a mighty swing with his gatling gun at one of the foolish patrolmen that dares to get too close and knocks him off his ride, sending him tumbling off too.
“Dumbass bitch.”
“…” Red stares off at the crippled man and shakes his head.
Finally, Barret gets his chance to unload a few shots, though the rest of the patrol swerve out of the way. They try to surround the truck, but are quickly scattered apart again when Cloud zips back in with another wild swing.
“Ta-tah! Ta-tah! Ta-tah! Wa-taaah!” Ruby caws repeatedly as she keeps laughing.
By now, Cloud has had enough. He finally snaps at her, “Ruby! Sit still! You’re making it hard to steer!”
“Aaaahahaahahaha!!”
“Shut up! What is wrong with you!?”
He lets swing his sword again before another patrolman can fire at the unhinged, cackling young lady.
“Stop bouncing!” he tries again, but she clearly isn’t listening. “You damn brat!”
Behind them, the wave of patrol just keeps mounting as more officers arrive. Further up ahead, another truck comes in from an off-ramp, and a few troops in red start to unload grenades on the road.
“!”
Catching on that Tifa might not be able to swerve safely through, Cloud zips ahead himself and smacks some of the grenades away before they blow. The rest blow up around them as they all zoom through the dust and shrapnel. He charges at the truck, swerving aside again to avoid regular gunfire from another gunman at the truck’s window, and swings to cut down the vehicle at its hind tires. The truck screeches as it runs wild, but this time, the driver brakes in time before the thing crashes and burns – but it still grinds along the bank.
“Cloud! Cloud! I just had an idea!” Ruby pipes up again, still bouncing.
“Uh…?” Now he gets a bad feeling.
“How about I blow up the road so we can get some cool ramp jumps!?”
His eyes nearly pop out of his head at that. “No! Shut up! Do you WANT to get us killed for real!?”
“Haaahahahahahahaa!!”
“Calm down already! Or I’m throwing you off!”
“YEEEEEEEEEeeeeee…” Her voice seems to rise into an extremely high pitch until she goes silent and out of range of the human ear. But then she coughs as she grows hoarse.
Poor Cloud could only bear the noise as both his hands are busy steering and wielding his weapon. “What happened to you? Are you going insane?”
“Urf… gh… Hrm.” She now clears her throat and lets off a sigh. She finally replies more calmly, “Sorry, I’m running off of a sugar high.”
“A sugar high!? What did you even eat to get like that?”
“I stopped by Tifa’s bar and found ‘The Bomb’!”
“What?”
She whips it out of her bag and gives a thumbs-up and a grin. “It’s an energy drink! ‘Pumps you up like you’re ready to blow!’”
Cloud feels like a piece of him just cracked. He groans, “Why is it always me who has to deal with you…?” He then panics when he sees her take another sip. “Ruby!!”
“Grrrrraaaaaahhhh!!!”
This time, she even takes a stand on the seat and roars rather cutely to the skies above, but Cloud’s blood runs cold anyway. Unfortunately, she picked a bad time to be standing, as one of the choppers that had been pursuing the racketeers finally closes in. This one isn’t any news crew; it carries other troops, and they seem to be geared up with what look like a rocket launcher. However, the launcher aren’t aimed at the party.
Cloud blinks, growing wary. Where are they pointing? And then, as he looks ahead again, he gasps in horror: they’re aimed at the surveillance system tunnel up ahead.
“Ruby! Stop the rocket!”
“Aaaaaaahh… Hm?”
The troops let fire, and the rocket flies straight and true. In an instant, Ruby vanishes from her seat. And the next instant, she’s seized the rocket mid-flight, and with its propulsion still running, she flips it back around at the helicopter instead. The crew aboard barely has time to swerve out of the way before the rocket returns and detonates, sending them all tumbling through the air. Before the thing can crash onto the same road, though, she snatches it by the tail and chucks it aside to a neighboring overpass.
Cloud lets off a sigh in relief. At least she’s still good for something.
“Yeaaah!” Barret cheers with a pumped-up fist in the air. “That’s how ya show ’em!”
But Red frowns, looking concerned. “Though I believe the plan was to let Shinra’s forces win in the end? Things seem to be going too well for us.”
“Tch. It’s not our fault that they’re just that bad at their jobs. Can’t even look good even when we give ’em a chance.”
“Hm?” Red then picks up on vibrations – not from their ride, but in the air. He growls, “Wait. It’s not over yet.”
“Huh?”
He turns off for another neighboring overpass that passes by theirs and merges in, and catches sight of a mightier-looking machine coming their way. “There!”
Barret now sees it too. “What the!?”
Out of nowhere, a giant tank-like machine with huge spiked wheels rampages onto the road. It has two huge exhaust tubes poking out in front as if they were like cannons, but rather than fire it off just yet, the machine bursts alive into a mech on wheels as it jumps out in front of them. Cloud pulls back in a hurry to just avoid running too close to those wheels.
It’s none other than the M.O.T.O.R. – though in another time, it was once known as “Motor Ball”. The mech then whips out its own firepower and immediately starts to gun them down.
“Bastard…” Cloud mutters as he races ahead again to return the unwelcome greeting.
But before he can even catch up with it, all of a sudden, the entire mech is lifted in the air. However, it’s not by its own propulsion. Cloud stares in disturbed shock as he catches Ruby suddenly atop the mech’s back.
“Raaaaaaagghh!!”
She lifts the whole machine off the road despite its own attempts to swing her off or grip the road, and she swings it overhead. She doesn’t even have her wings out and she’s just flying through the air in tandem with the rest of them. And with another mighty albeit cute roar, she chucks the whole thing off.
However, unlike the last time she tried that stunt, M.O.T.O.R. has propulsion rockets. Before it crashes into anything, it transforms its base and begins to hover in the air. And then, it charges at Ruby, who looks a little caught off-guard. And yet, despite having plenty of time to dodge out of the way, she doesn’t.
Thump.
The mech has practically punched her with a giant robot arm, which shortly detonates its artillery load as soon as it makes contact. She explodes and is sent flying off to a neighboring overpass instead.
“…Huh?” Cloud does a double-take at how that even happened.
“Ruby!?” Aerith gasps from her window.
“What happened?” Tifa asks, frantic, but afraid to keep her eyes off the road.
“She got knocked away!”
“What?”
“Hey! Incoming!” Barret calls out.
M.O.T.O.R. swings back around and unloads a great flamethrower on the road ahead, blocking their path forward. The party is forced to come to a screeching halt to avoid the wall of fire, and the mech lands back on the road behind them. They’ve been encircled.
“Shit! Now what?”
Cloud then gets off his ride. “We fight.”
“Hmph. About time. Been itchin’ to do some real damage.”
Barret hops off his ride too, followed by Red. The ladies reluctantly step out their respective doors too.
“Oh, Ruby!” Aerith calls out as she does.
“Huh?”
Sure enough, Ruby has returned in a burst of light and transformed once more. Now with a much more threatening roar, she rams straight into the mech in a shining, blitzing dash and sends it flying off the road again. But this time, she’s seized the mech in her grasp so it doesn’t just fly back over again. And suddenly, she gets the idea to reshape this thing into a more fitting shape: a ball.
“What is she doing?” Cloud asks in disbelief.
“Arts and crafts, looks like,” Barret suggests.
“No! What is she doing!? Stick to the plan, dammit! It was her idea in the first place!”
However, a certain helicopter nearby that has been keeping tabs on the group finally swings closer while she's distracted. Reno pops out the side door and swings his baton out. As directed, the four Monodrives Mark III swing out with his command and they zip after Ruby. Just as she finishes crushing Motor Ball into, well, a ball, she then notices the things have surrounded her. And on cue, the tiny bots capture her once again in a giant pyramid force-field, forcing her to drop her ball.
“Ruby!” Aerith gasps.
“They got her!?” Tifa does too.
“Hell naw!” Barret growls.
But it looks like Ruby really is trapped in that thing. She bangs against it and throws her weight around, but the pyramid won’t budge. Barret tries to shoot it down, but they’re out of range and his bullets won’t reach.
“Damn.”
“Can’t she just break out?” Tifa asks, growing genuinely worried.
Aerith frowns and shakes her head. “I don’t know. She did it once before, but she had her wrist guard at the time. I think she had a way to hack into the machines, but now…”
“What!? You mean she’s actually trapped? For real?” Barret asks, now finally alarmed.
She nods solemnly.
“Goddamn! Now what do we do? We can’t leave without her!”
The Turks chopper then swings off without even a word to the rest of them, and the pyramid takes her away.
“Hey!” Cloud calls out, but he isn’t sure what to do from here.
“Do we chase after them!?” Tifa suggests frantically.
Red shakes his head. “We wouldn’t be able to keep up from the ground.”
“But…”
Barret snarls, “Can’t do nothin’ from here. We just gotta wait until she gets a chance to pop back out.”
Aerith looks down with a worried frown. She honestly hadn’t expected that calling in the Turks would lead to this. Ruby suggested it herself, so maybe she did anticipate as much. But now that she’s been taken away, what is the plan from here?
Unfortunately, they don’t get much time to contemplate over their progressively dire situation. As it happens, there would be yet another nasty surprise to come. A great swing of a massive blade cuts through the wall of fire and makes a path, and a lone man steps out into view.
“What was that!?” Tifa almost squeaks.
Cloud grits his teeth. “Trouble…”
It’s not just any man; he’s dressed in a black Soldier uniform – a sign of a First-Class. He has a helmet on, so his face isn’t shown, but his buff, well-toned arms are visible and he’s of a darker skin than expected. He rests against his shoulder pad what looks to be a massive chunk of metal – so massive that it’s hard to call it a “sword”.
While everyone is confused, Barret in particular stares in stunned silence. He isn’t really sure, but something about this man seems familiar, but he can’t quite pin it down on a thought.
“Um, hello!” Aerith calls out politely, “Can we help you, sir?”
“I don’t think he’s here to talk,” Cloud warns her, drawing his own blade forward. “He’s Soldier… First-Class, it looks like.”
“First-Class?” Tifa gasps, getting into a fighting stance herself.
“Oh. It was worth a shot…” Aerith sighs, summoning her staff forth.
“Wait,” Barret calls out to them.
“Huh?” Aerith turns to him.
“What is it, Barret?” Tifa asks, doing likewise.
He now steps up to face the dark-skinned Soldier with a stubborn frown of his own. “Hey. Have we met somewhere before?”
The Soldier doesn’t respond. He simply draws his blade forward by just one hand, though wields it in two.
“Tch. Not the talkin’ type, huh…” Barret raises his gun-arm ready to match. Red likewise prepares himself to pounce.
However, before the battle can begin, suddenly the entire party is enveloped in a faint glow of white light.
“!?”
And without much explanation, they all disappear in a blink, as if they had been warped away to a much safer place, far away from even Shinra’s reach of influence.
The Soldier doesn’t say a word, but casually swings his massive blade back over his shoulder and walks off. Once again, he’s come to participate in a pointless job. Disappointing, but expected.
Up in the skies, Reno watches the scene through binoculars. He’s dumbfounded at what he had just witnessed.
“The hell…?”
He turns to Ruby sitting in the pyramid by the helicopter. She’s returned to human form by now, so it’s much more compact of a ride, but she’s not too bothered. If anything, she’s smiling to herself.
“Hey, how’d you do that? I thought you wouldn’t be able to do anything from here.”
And yet, she seems to ignore him. Reno gets a little annoyed and starts knocking against the force-field with his baton.
“Hey! I’m talkin’ to ya!?”
But Rude calmly calls to him, “Reno, the chase is over. We’re reporting back in. Take a seat.”
“Tch… Fine.” He slumps back in his chair with a sigh. At the very least, they got one of their objectives done tonight, even despite Ruby’s ever quirky and unpredictable nature.
Notes:
Hidden for spoilers and meta jokes
I'm the author and even I still can't believe this ending. No, I don't mean how Ruby seems to have been left behind or how there's a new Soldier in town or even that Reno and Rude actually did their job this time. It's that Shinra actually recruits black people in Soldier.
It's taken three separate timelines and THIS is the one where Shinra has a diversity quota. What the frick.
Okay, jokes aside, I have a very simple and honest reason why I made a new black Soldier... because it's cool.
10/13/22 edit: I just remembered that I made this joke and after learning a bit about the characters from First Soldier, it is no longer funny. Sigh.
4/25/25 edit: I forgot to mention but this marks the end of Act 1. I have added a few revisions here and there to incorporate Rebirth details, but for the most part, I'm leaving the rest intact. Have fun poking fun at Rubia_Ryu from the past who didn't know better.
I imagine I'll be back to this fic by the time the third Remake game is announced.
Chapter 21: Holding Your Thoughts in My Heart
Notes:
From this chapter on, I will be referring to the original FF7 game script from time to time, but due to the numerous typos and errors in translation that are scattered throughout the game, I will also be translating some of these lines from the Japanese script. Sometimes, I may even reference lines that aren't in the OG, but are hidden in its Debug Room code. As usual, most of the content and dialogue will still be my original work. This also extends to the creation of various locations, NPCs, and events that aren't canon to the original game nor mentioned in the rest of the Compilation.
For consistency's sake, I will be proceeding as if still following Remake's pacing, albeit shifted slightly faster, given how barebones some scenes and locations can be from the OG.
4/20/25 edit: Revised the dialogue around Nanaki's entrance into town and his conversation with Cloud in his bedroom to account for his voice change a la Rebirth.
5/7/25 edit: Added a bit more to the legend of the falling star and fixed up some of the dialogue to flow more smoothly.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Cloud blinks. One moment they were ready to face off against the latest of Shinra’s threats, and the next, they’ve been warped away without a second thought. Now, he finds himself and his crew at the foot of a long flight of stairs leading up to a town on a rocky plateau. Looming canyon cliffs with a deep red flush stand tall all around them, lit only by the lights from town. The vast starry sky looms over them, and there’s but the sounds of nightly winds that breeze on by. Everyone else seems to be just as confused – aside from Red, who seems to be relieved that they’ve finally arrived where Ruby had promised them.
He shakes his head to bring it back to focus, and then turns to the rest. “Hey. Everyone alright?”
“Yeah… seems like it,” Tifa replies as she looks around at the others, but still looks unsure of their situation.
Aerith nods. “Seems like we’ve been saved again by Ruby.”
“But where is she?” Barret asks, looking around as well. “And how’d she do that? Just warped us all away without herself?”
“Hmm…” Aerith tilts her head aside, resting it against her hand. “She is a master of magic. She must have found some way to cast the spell even before she got captured.”
“Uh, you mean like it’s on some kinda timer?”
“Really? Is there magic that can work like that?” Tifa asks curiously.
Aerith nods again. “I think it works like that for some kinds, but this is the first time I’ve experienced it with warp magic.”
Red then recalls, “Hmm… I did find it a little odd that she would be prancing about, tapping a hand on each of us before the chase began.”
“Ah-ha! That’s gotta be it!” She smiles proudly, clapping her hands together. “Way to go, Cuz! Always thinking one step ahead!”
Cloud snorts. “I thought it was because she was on a sugar high.”
Tifa turns to him. “A sugar high?”
“Yeah. After she calmed down a bit, she told me.”
“But what did she eat or drink to get like that?”
“Something called ‘The Bomb’.”
She blinks and then gasps. “Oh. Oh, no.”
“What is that stuff anyway? Some kind of energy drink?”
“Yeah. I’ve seen it advertised a lot on TV and bulletin boards, so I bought some to try it out. The stuff is pretty strong, though. I once went on a full jog around town with just one sip.”
“Just one sip!?”
“Yeah. And because it’s so strong, I didn’t want to put it out where kids would find it. So I slipped it somewhere under the counter.” She pauses. “I guess Ruby must have found it when she stopped by the bar. She did mention it was in a mess.”
Cloud slumps, feeling like an unfortunate victim. “Tifa… She drank the whole bottle.”
“Yeah, sounded like it. She was screaming all the way down the road.”
Aerith giggles. “Aw, but everything worked out in the end, didn’t it? So it’s fine!”
“I guess so… I just hope she won’t feel too bad with the crash.”
“Oh.” Her smile fades quickly. “That doesn’t sound good.”
Cloud grumbles to himself as he pokes a finger in his ear as if to clean out any remnant noise. “Whatever… She better not come back to me to complain.”
Meanwhile, Barret has been looking off into the distance as if he were still deep in thought about something. Red peeks curiously over to him.
“You’re awfully quiet. Is something the matter?”
“…Huh?” Now he snaps out of it. “Oh. Nah, I was just wondering where I’d seen that Soldier before.”
“An acquaintance of yours?”
He shakes his head. “Not sure. Just remembered there was a guy from my hometown who once said he’d join Soldier, but we hadn’t seen him since.”
“I see. Well, if we do ever meet again, you can ask him.”
“Hmph.” Barret crosses his arms. “Honestly, probably for the best that we don’t. Sometimes there are things that don’t need to be known.”
“…” Red nods back and leaves it alone. He then approaches the steps before them and calls out, “Everyone, come along. You’re all welcome in my homeland.”
Now everyone turns to him and looks up the steps as well.
Barret now smiles broadly. “Well, well. We really did make it over after all.”
Tifa has a look of wonder too. “So, this is it… Cosmo Canyon, the valley of legend itself.”
Aerith beams with excitement. “Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s go!”
“We’re not waiting for Ruby?” Cloud asks.
“She’ll be fine. Besides, didn’t she say she had some people to pick up first?”
Barret throws up a flexing arm. “Yeah! The rest of us gotta join us too! Biggs, Wedge, Jessie! Hell, even that ninja kid and the guy in a coma are comin’ too!”
“We keep picking up new people every day,” Tifa notes with a charmed smile. “Things sure have been busy.”
“To be honest, I’m still not sure what to think about Wutai, but I’m sure Ruby got her reasons for having them tag along. Besides, the more people we got fightin’ Shinra, the better.”
“Right.”
And with their worries cast aside for now, the gang venture up the steps with Red leading the way. He playfully prances along the steps like good ol’ times and presents himself with his head head high. Even his voice has returned to his youth.
“Everyone, I have returned! I’ve brought along a few friends.”
“Oh! Nanaki! Welcome back!”
A few townspeople who were nearby also rush on over to the entrance as the gatekeeper opens the gates to let their latest visitors inside.
“Nanaki! Welcome back!”
“How was your latest adventure?”
“Hey, where’s Ruby?” a little boy with a feather in his headband asks.
Red shakes his head. “Unfortunately, Ruby has been delayed, but she will be returning soon.”
“Aw. I wanted to show her something cool! Tell her I’ll be waiting at the summit, okay?”
He nods back. “Very well, Mukka.”
The boy then runs off back through the small crowd, and the people step out of the way as Red makes his way back up the slopes. Shortly, the rest of the party comes along with Cloud leading the way.
The gatekeeper greets them, “Welcome to Cosmo Canyon, the Valley of the Fallen Star.”
“Yeah! I knew it! We’re really here!” Barret cheers, almost giggling excitedly like a kid.
“Oh, have you been here before?”
“Just once, a long time ago. It was just me at the time.” He looks up to the sky as he returns to memory lane. “Came here on a journey of self-discovery and learned all I could about planetology. It changed my life forever.” He looks back with a proud smile. “Now, I’ve been on a mission to spread the good word, to wake people up and get them to understand this planet we all live on. It’s a living, breathing thing in its own right, after all.”
The gatekeeper nods back, looking a little impressed. “Ah, I see. Welcome back. And how about the rest of you?”
“We’re new here,” Cloud replies.
“Then, welcome! It’s a pleasure to meet new faces who seek to learn.”
He then passes a curious glance. “By the way, did you say ‘Nanaki’ just now?”
“Yes?”
He raises a confused look. “I’ve heard it once before, but what actually is a ‘Nanaki’?”
The gatekeeper stares at him in shock, as if he’d just said something quite mad. He then shakes his head. “Nanaki is Nanaki. That’s his name.”
“Huh?”
Now the gatekeeper cracks a smile when he realizes it. “Oh. You’ve been traveling with him all this time and you didn’t know?”
“Uh…” Cloud rubs his head. “Well, Ruby introduced him and she kept calling him ‘Red’, so…”
“Hahaha! That explains it.” He then waves a hand. “Oh, don’t worry. Sometimes Nanaki isn’t the most open about himself, so it’s understandable. In any case, that he’s traveling with you at all is a good sign. Please, make yourselves at home.”
“Yeah!!” Barret hollers as he runs off into town by himself.
Before Cloud can stop him, even Aerith hurries past him, tugging Tifa with her.
“Come on! Let’s take a look around!”
“H-huh? With me?”
“Yeah! Girls’ trip!”
And before Cloud can have any say, the party promptly scatters to the far reaches of town. Barret rushes up the steps to the west in search of a certain wise man he once met long ago. Aerith takes Tifa along to check out all the shops around town and mingle with the locals. Red has already gone ahead of everyone. And that leaves Cloud alone to his thoughts.
He looks up to the dark sky above. Looks like it’s gonna be one of those nights.
Now that he notices, he feels exhausted. What a day it’s been. Aside from having to deal with a very hyperactive Ruby up close, there’s been so much happening that all the events have started to clutter together in his mind. It was just this morning that they were heading off to Shinra HQ to confront the president in person. The next thing they knew, they were deposed of in Hojo’s labs for quite some time, and even more surprisingly, Sephiroth showed up out of nowhere to break them out. And by the time they returned to see the president again, they learned that an entirely different sector fell. Not to mention, they were smack dab in the middle of the hornet’s nest just moments ago, putting on a highway chase as if for TV. Now, they’ve escaped far, far away, safe from facing any intended consequences; and it happened literally in a blink of an eye.
He takes a deep breath of the fresh mountain air and lets it out. He still finds it hard to believe, but miracles do really happen. Pretty much everything that’s happened so far they owe to Ruby one way or another. Everything; from their sweeping victories and the smooth sailing that carried them all through to the end, to all the close-calls where they only made it by the skin of their teeth – at least until Ruby could come in clutch. And yet, he would never forget that one moment where she was the reason they had an uncomfortably close meeting with death. It’s almost like she’s managed to take charge of the flow of Destiny itself, as she once put it, and they’re all just along for the ride.
But despite all the trouble she’s brewed, Cloud is still glad that she joined them. He never really thought about what would happen since he came to Midgar with just this sword on his back and a strange fixation on being a mercenary for hire; and yet he hasn’t felt this alive in a long time. He isn’t sure where their journey will lead them next, but from here on out, they can focus on the real mission: to find Sephiroth and put an end to him for good. And so far, even with all the miracles that Ruby has granted them, this one feels like it’s gonna take a lot more than just miracles to overcome.
Sephiroth… Just what is he planning? And what does Ruby have to do with it all? Why did he choose her specifically, and why has he started moving now?
These are questions that won’t be getting answered just thinking about them like this. Even Ruby doesn’t have the answers either. So what do they do? Where can they go to figure them out?
Having been entranced in his thoughts, Cloud finally snaps out of it and realizes he’s been wandering around thoughtlessly. Somehow, he’s made it up the steps that Red and Barret had taken earlier. Now that he’s come into the caverns, he finds an extensive sprawl of interconnected rooms. That’s right. There are people who live in the canyon walls. It seems like each of these tunnels lead to a different home or place of work.
The first tier of caves he comes upon is where the Tiger Lily Arms Shop sits, with plenty of wares on display and resting in or on wooden crates along the back wall. There’s some kind of cloth draped on the wall to the right between a couple crates for some reason. There’s a flight of stairs leading up to another level and there’s a room in the back here, though it doesn’t seem like anyone’s home at the moment. There’s another passage to its left leads back outside.
On this next platform, he gets a higher view of the town, but one glance upward shows many more levels to traverse. Up above on the highest plateau, there sits a massive observatory that sticks out beyond the mountain slopes, its large telescope aimed high at the starry night sky. Well, the place is called “Cosmo Canyon”. There’s another cave entrance up ahead too.
Now, Cloud comes upon another tier of the caves, and this one is even bigger than the last. People come and go from these tunnels; some are standing by in idle chatter. There’s the soft scent of food nearby as well; probably some kind of kitchen or mess hall. And yet, there’s one area that no one dares to approach: a massive metal door in the back of this cavernous lobby that looks like it hasn’t been opened in ages. Well, that’s not ominous at all… nor is it his problem anyway.
In the back end, leaning toward the left side, there’s a ladder that leads up to the highest level where the observatory is. On a whim, Cloud climbs up there and finds that Barret is still here talking with an elderly man… who seems to be sitting on some kind of big floating green materia-like device? Whatever that thing is. Who is that old man?
Barret sees him come up and raises a hand. “Yo! Cloud! There you are.”
“Sorry to interrupt anything.”
“Ho ho. It’s nothing to worry about. Barret and I have just been catching up after a long absence,” the old man replies.
“And you are?”
He takes a polite bow. “My name is Bugenhagen. I am but a humble observer of the planet and its flow of history. I am also the grandfather to Nanaki, whom I believe you all refer to as ‘Red’?”
“Huh. So you’re the guy.”
“Hmph!” Barret cuts in with a scolding tone, “You’re talking with the town’s wisest elder here, Spiky! Show some respect!”
But the old man simply chuckles. “Oh, it’s fine. Any friends of Nanaki are welcome sights in my eyes. Incidentally, Ruby had paid us a visit earlier as well, though I don’t see her around at the moment.”
“Ah, yeah. Don’t worry about her, sir,” Barret answers instead, “She’s just got a few more of us to pick up and she’ll be bringing them over soon.”
“Oh, I see. It’s been a while since this town has seen such activity with visitors. Perhaps I should head out to meet everyone once you’ve all arrived.”
“It’d be an honor, sir! I got some old pals who have been dyin’ to meet you!”
“Ho ho! It’s nothing much, really.”
By this point, Cloud has gotten a pretty good idea of what their conversation has been like, and as happy as he is for Barret, he doesn’t care to listen more than that. He then takes his leave as the two continue to chatter and returns back down the ladder.
Curiosity leads him on and around the area. There are just a few other tunnels. One of them leads right back outside to an empty ledge with a great view of the town, as if to mark the most central place in this town on cliffs. As he suspected earlier, there’s the mess hall off toward the right where the cook is too busy with a huge pot of stew to have a chat. Next door is the materia shop, though the owner likewise seems preoccupied behind the counter. Cloud’s not in the mood to go shopping at this time anyway.
He finds his way back down to the previous level where the weapons shop was. This place is already a sprawling maze of tunnels. How does anyone get around like this without some kind of map? But now that he’s returned by the shop, he happens to notice that the cloth draped on the wall earlier is now flipped aside. There’s a small hole behind it, as if someone had recently entered. This one is a slightly smaller tunnel than the others. It leads to a three-way intersection, with one path leading down a set of stairs into darkness, while the other path leads ahead to a lit-up tent.
As it turns out, this is where Red has sneaked off to. He rests comfortably on a mat spread on the floor, and his ear twitches as he hears Cloud come in.
“Ah, Cloud. Welcome to my humble abode,” he greets him with the deep voice.
“Huh. So this is where you live?”
“The entire town is my home, but this would be where I sleep.” And as if on a dime, his voice switches up again. “Sorry if it feels a little cramped. Usually it’s just me here.”
Cloud blinks. He swears he heard something odd about his voice earlier when they arrived, but now there’s no mistaking it. “Uh… so what’s with the new voice?”
“This has always been my voice.” He then alternates back to the deeper one. “As has this one. It was Ruby’s suggestion that I maintain a certain composure while we were out of town.”
“Huh.”
“If you would prefer, I can keep to it.”
Cloud shrugs back. “It doesn’t matter with me. But the others probably would be surprised if you suddenly changed it up.”
“Hmm, a fair point.” He nods along. “Very well, I can keep it as is. You’ve all been comfortable with it all the same.” He asks on, “By the way, have you found the others yet?”
“Just Barret so far. Seems like he’s busy talking with your grandfather.”
“Oh, so you’ve met Grandpa. That’s good.”
“…”
“…” Red idly waves his tail. “Is something the matter?”
“No. But…” Cloud strikes a thinking pose. “I just remembered that Ruby mentioned she met with him. Do you know what they talked about?”
“Ah.” He nods. “Yes. I was there when they discussed. It seems she’s been concerned about the current state of the planet.”
“Yeah, thought so. She told me a bit here and there. Something about how the Lifestream’s been taken over by something, and that there’s someone in particular who’s at the center of it.”
“So it seems. Incidentally, is this ‘someone’ a person you know?”
He nods back. “Yeah.” He makes a bitter glance aside. “Too well, unfortunately.”
“Hmm… It’s up to you if you don’t want to talk about it.”
He turns back. “I don’t mind. But it’ll be easier to get to that when we’re all back.”
“I see. Then I’ll be waiting.” There’s a short beat. “Feel free to explore the rest of town and settle in. If you need to rest, the Shildra Inn is at the center of town, with the tavern on the first floor, the weapons shop on the next, and the resting area at the top.”
“Thanks.”
It’s clear enough that Red simply wishes to be left alone for now, so Cloud leaves him be. He still needs to find where the ladies ran off to anyway.
Though Aerith and Tifa did start off exploring the shops, he would find them settled in at a table in the tavern that Red had mentioned. They seem to be chatting away over drinks, and as Cloud comes by, the ladies wave to him.
“Cloud! Over here!”
“Take a seat!”
He stops by their table with a somewhat lost look on his face. They’re seated on opposite sides, and while that’s only expected, it leaves him in an awkward place to choose… That is, until Aerith tugs him over onto her side and takes him by the arm with a cheeky smile. Tifa is a bit taken aback by how forward Aerith is, but decides to let it go just this once. They did just have a nice girls’ trip together. Cloud remains looking uncomfortable, though.
“So, uh, how’s it going, girls?”
“It’s been fun! We explored around and got to talk with lots of people. The town’s a lot bigger than it looks!”
“It’s got such a wonderful atmosphere – both figuratively and literally. It made me realize how much I missed the fresh, open air,” Tifa adds with a chuckle. “The people all live so closely with the land and nature since they don’t rely on mako for energy. It’s no wonder this would be the birthplace of Avalanche.”
“It’s too bad they don’t have easy access to fresh water around here, though. I wish there was a lot more greenery around. I’d love to live here if there were gardens everywhere.”
“Oh. That’d be lovely. We could all use some more flowers in our lives.”
“Right? Glad we’re on the same vibe!”
“It’s also pretty quiet so you can really get a sense of the outdoors.” Tifa glances off toward the window over the door. “It’s been a while since I’ve come to a small town. It’s just so busy all the time in Midgar.”
“Oh, where is your hometown, Tifa?”
She turns back. “It’s a quiet little town called Nibelheim. I think it’s off to the north from here. There are a lot of sharp-looking mountains nearby.”
“I see… Oh!” Aerith then turns back to Cloud. “I just realized I never got to ask, but you two are old friends, huh? Are you both from there?”
He nods. “Yeah.”
“Ah, so that would make you two childhood friends.”
“Uh…” He makes a shy look aside. “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”
Tifa smiles to herself as she recalls, “Thinking about it, we also were neighbors.”
Aerith whips back to her. “What? Really? Oh, that’s cute…” She makes an embarrassed smile as she finally lets Cloud go. “Hehe. Sorry. I guess that makes me the third-wheel here.”
“Huh?” She gets a little flustered hearing that and shakes her head. “Oh, no. It’s not like that. We didn’t know each other that well. He just left town one day and it’s been years since we met up.”
“…” Suddenly, Cloud feels a nervous cold sweat come over him.
“Hm, is that so?” Aerith then looks between the two of them, noting their similarly awkward faces. Deciding to change the subject, she then asks, “Well, it’s nice that you two found each other again! So, how did you guys come to Midgar?”
“Ah…” Tifa shuffles a bit in her seat. “It’s actually a long story. Something terrible happened to our hometown some years ago, so I had to leave it in a hurry. I actually came to Midgar with my old martial arts mentor. He took care of me for a little while since I was new there, and eventually left on another journey. I haven’t seen him since, but I hear he’s doing fine. Probably moved out somewhere out west, though I’m not sure where.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear about your hometown. But at least everything turned out okay.”
She makes a thoughtful glance aside. “‘Okay’, huh… Yeah, I guess it’s been alright.”
Aerith turns back to Cloud. “And you?”
“…”
“Um, hello? Cloud?”
He has been listening to the conversation up to this point, but now that they’ve steered off into some uncomfortable territory – specifically regarding their histories – he isn’t really sure how to answer. In fact, it so happens to be the one thing he doesn’t want to talk about… because even he isn’t sure about what happened.
“Cloooud! Are you there?” Aerith waves a hand in his face and he snaps back to attention.
“Ah. Yeah. Um…” He rubs his head. “It’s also a long story… Maybe we can save it for some other time.”
“Aw, really? Don’t be like that! How about just a quick overview or so?”
“…”
By now, Tifa catches on to what he means and cuts in for his sake, “Ah, thinking about it, it has gotten pretty late now, hasn’t it?”
“Huh? Oh.” Now Aerith notices the clock on the wall. “Oh, wow. I didn’t even realize it’s already past 11. Time flies when you’re having fun, huh?” She pauses and then adds, “Well, we also had some not so fun times today, but still.”
“Yeah…” Now that Tifa mentions it, Cloud is reminded of how exhausted he is. He then moves to get up. “Don’t mind me. I think I’ll just turn in for the night.”
“Oh, okay. Good night!”
“Good night, Cloud. Rest well.”
“Thanks, guys.”
And with that, he turns for the steps and heads up to the top floor where the inn is. After chatting with the innkeeper for a bit and trying to haggle out a reasonable price, they settle on 200 gil for a night. Boy, does inflation hit hard these days. He heads into a room to himself and shortly collapses onto a bed with a groan. Apparently, he’s so tired that it doesn’t take too long before his mind drifts off. Nothing much left to do now but wait for Ruby anyway.
~
Cloud blinks as he comes to. He’s now at the foot of a long and winding trail up some familiar mountains. The landscape is full of green, with trees and bushes scattered about, but there's no mistaking those very sharp, pointed peaks and this naturally shaped mountain pass. No way. Mt. Nibel? What is he doing here? And how…?
No, wait. He doesn’t remember how he got here. Is this another dream? Or rather, another vision?
Up in the sky, he catches sight of a white creature in flight. Now that he looks at it again, it’s specifically a white dragon. Ruby? Or is it Rubia? The dragon isn’t landing where he is. She circles over the range as if searching for something.
Despite his apprehensions, he decides to call out to her. “Hey! Ruby!?”
She pays him no mind. Maybe he’s too far away, or maybe it is Rubia and she wouldn’t respond to being called “Ruby”. Anyone but her, even. He hurries off along the trail in search of higher ground. Maybe if he gets a little closer, he can call out again.
As he moves along, though, he seems to catch the sound of more footsteps nearby. He stops and whips around, his hand already at his sword’s hilt. But there’s no one there. There isn’t even a single monster to hop out and attack him. Weird, but this is supposed to just be a dream. In any case, he can’t hit something he can’t see. He decides to keep moving.
He comes upon a high ledge along the winding trail. He isn’t sure, but something seems to be missing from this picture. Oh, yeah. There should be a bridge that leads up from here to the next peak across the valley, but it’s absent. It’s not even that the bridge has broken; there are no wooden posts to tie ropes. It’s as if there simply is no bridge to exist. What exactly is this memory he’s seeing? Has he come here to a time long in the past or something? Thinking about it, it would explain why the trees seemed to be back.
There’s the sound of those swift footsteps again. He whips back around again, still finding nothing. Okay, this is getting annoying. Is he being followed? But even as he waits, nothing comes.
Just then, in the corner of his eye, he catches a shadowy figure running down the slope toward the valley below. What is that thing? It doesn’t seem to be shaped like a human; a beast of some sort? Led on by morbid curiosity, he decides to follow the shadow instead.
He makes his way down and finds the opening to one of the many caves in these mountains. It’s a glittering glow of green everywhere he looks. Natural mako crystals line the walls, floor, and ceiling; even poking out between the twisting rocky partitions. There seems to be a lot more of it than he remembers, though. There’s even moss – actual living moss – growing alongside as if showing the extent of life even in these dark tunnels. It’s as if they’ve been left here untouched for eons. Perhaps they were, as this seems to be a time long before people had come to live nearby and would end up disturbing the natural ecosystem.
Well, so much for an “ecosystem”; there are no wild creatures to be found. It does save him the trouble of having to deal with them, but it’s so quiet it’s getting a little creepy.
There’s a light shining in from the other end of the cave. He heads toward it and comes upon a familiar sight, indeed: a natural mako spring almost exactly like how he remembers seeing it once before. There doesn’t seem to be any shiny orbs that have popped out from the spring, though. Well, these things do take a long time to form.
“…The knowledge and wisdom of the Ancients is held in the materia. Anyone with this knowledge can freely use the powers of the land and the planet… Or so it’s been said.”
Cloud shakes his head. Why of all times is he recalling that now?
In any case, there’s no point in loitering around here. He needs to keep going. Following memory, he eventually makes his way out of these next caves into the open air again. Now there’s a long path that circles around the back of the mountains to the place where a certain mako reactor is supposed to be…
But as he takes the path up there, he realizes that there is no reactor in sight. Instead where it would have been, there’s a large and pristine-looking pool surrounded by mako crystals of various colors sprouting along its edge. It’s quite beautiful at a glance, but now he’s sure that this isn’t the same memory that he was expecting it to be. The landscape has been completely undisturbed so far that he’s seen. This must be from a time long in the past. So, that dragon he saw earlier must have been Rubia. What kind of vision has she sent him this time?
He approaches the pool and takes a curious peek at the surface of the water. However, he’s a little shaken to find not his usual reflection, but the image of a huge gray wolf staring back at him. He steps back and turns around; no wolf in sight. He looks back down at himself; he hasn’t turned into a wolf either. And he looks back to the pool – now he just sees his own reflection.
What was that just now? Was he just seeing things, or is there something more to this pool? It doesn’t seem to change anymore as he keeps staring at it. Well, whatever that wolf was, it’s gone now.
Just as he thinks it’s too quiet, though, he suddenly hears the pool begin to bubble before him. What’s going on now!? And as the bubbles rise and pop in the open air, he feels the ground tremble as if quaking in fear of something. And for just a moment, he swears he hears the sound of some kind of mighty roar from the depths. But how can that be? There’s nothing at the bottom of the pool. Surely, it’s not coming from underground, is it?
He catches himself from tipping over and waits cautiously for potential threats, but once again there’s nothing but silence that follows him. Now thoroughly vexed and quite wary, he decides he probably shouldn’t stay here and resumes wandering around. Where there should have been an old wooden door leading into a tunnel, he finds a tunnel that is naturally bored through the mountain slope. Or rather, at first he thought it was natural, but as he steps through it, he notices the rough, irregular shape as if it had been the work of a huge beast of some sort. Pressing on further, he comes upon another huge open cave which depths stretch far below to the base of the mountain. This is the area where Shinra would have laid those pipelines that were once used by workers around the reactor, but as expected they’re absent in this vision. But it seems like this cave was always this wide open. There are sharp cliffs that cascade roughly down to the bottom with no easy way down. Nonetheless, there are also natural materia crystals that seem to protrude out from the cliffs and offer a path down for him anyway. He carefully leaps from one to another and is surprised how easy it is for him to leap so far, even across gaps he hadn’t expected to make.
But he doesn’t get too far before he meets with even more eerie things happening. As he descends, he hears the sound of voices cackling, screeching, roaring around him. But as usual, he finds nothing that he can see. Whether it’s by some trick of the light of the incandescent materia, or something else entirely, he seems to catch on that there are now multiple shadows that surround him but quickly vanish as he turns toward them. What the hell is going on? Is he being followed or not? Now it’s just pissing him off.
He lands back to the lower levels on even footing once more and finds himself out in the open again. He reaches for the sword on his back and draws it forward, expecting a potential ambush, but as always, nothing comes at him. Still, he refuses to lower his guard. This wild goose chase has gone on long enough. What was that thing that was following him, what’s with all the noise he keeps hearing, and where the hell is Rubia?
The voices only continue to howl and jeer as if they were mocking him. Finally, having had enough, he snarls aloud.
“Whoever you are, show yourself!”
But the voices don’t stop and no one steps forward to challenge him. Then, to his surprise, he seems to begin to make out some messages from the garbled noise.
“…The time is soon…”
“…The Reckoning awaits…”
“…Her Majesty, the Empress of Calamity, shall rise again…”
…Calamity? Wait a sec. Are they talking about Rubia? But, “Empress”? He doesn’t remember if she was ever treated as royalty or anything. Even from a previous vision where she had met a “Grand Oracle”, that lady didn’t address her that way either. He takes a moment to keep listening, hoping to find more answers.
“…Curse upon the Cetra…!”
“…No prayer, no plea will prevent Her advent…”
“…By the hands of the children of Chaos, this world shall know the wrath of Tiamat…!”
What the…? That wasn’t the name he was expecting to hear. In fact, it’s not a name he could have anticipated. Who is Tiamat? And is she supposed to be this so-called ‘Empress of Calamity’? And what does she have to do with Rubia?
And yet, as confused as he is, Cloud can’t help but feel a latent fire stir alive and burn bright from within. What is this feeling of resolute, indignant rage? Why does he hate that name so much, as if he had once sworn revenge for the sake of someone close to him?
As he remains lost in his thoughts, he pays no mind to a shadowy figure creeping up on him from behind. It slowly and carefully looms over him, bearing sharp fangs and claws, ready to strike at the intruder who has left himself open.
However, Cloud did not really leave himself open. Upon instinct, he draws his sword and whips around to cut down the monster that dares to ambush him. There’s a mighty roar. It’s a huge green dragon!
And yet again, these mysterious caves continue to lead him astray. Before he can strike again, the image of the dragon begins to fade out. Another illusion. Goddamn it! Enough already! Where are all the damn enemies!? Let him fight already!
But just as he’s about to let out a scream in frustration, he’s shocked to hear what seems to be the roar of a different feral beast – almost like the vicious snarling of a wolf. He goes silent to gather his thoughts. Again with the wolf. What’s the deal anyway? How are they connected? Why him?
Even more surprisingly, the wolf’s roar does seem to silence the cacophony from earlier. Yet again, it’s just him and dead silence. However, this time the silence is broken by a different voice altogether – a very deep and threatening one that seems to growl and resonate throughout the walls of the cavern. It bears a mocking tone as it seems to taunt him.
“Foolish cur. Thee who knoweth nothing, dareth to tread in mine domain…?”
At that moment, all the other voices break out in cackling laughter once more. The next thing he knows, the entire cavern seems to shake like a massive earthquake has hit, and the entire place begins to crumble from the pressure of a sudden wave of intense, crushing gravity.
He falls into the depths of a great crevice that has opened up to swallow him. Once again, he’s falling and it feels like there’s no end to the abyss below. It’s pitch black. He can’t even see in front of his face. And yet, there are a couple of glinting lights in the dark.
No, wait. That’s no light. Those are eyes glowing in the dark with an eerie green glow, with pupils in thin slits. And then, it’s promptly accompanied by another four sets of eyes of a similar glow, but of various colors – red, blue, white, and a dark purple. There’s some kind of monster beneath him… and it’s absolutely enormous.
At this moment, he comes to a grim realization that he’s in way over his head to be facing this sort of enemy. Those five sets of eyes glare back at him with the full intent to kill. And before he can even do anything, a massive set of jaws lunge out from below and snap him in an instant.
~
Cloud snaps awake – for real this time. He’s back in bed at the Shildra Inn. There seems to be sunlight streaming in from a window near the ceiling by the back of the room. He must have really conked out. It’s already morning.
He lies on bed for a little longer, still in a daze after the dream he had just seen. Just as he thought he was getting somewhere with trying to reach Rubia, then this happens. Now he’s back to square one and has even less idea of what’s going on with her and all that noise. It really seems like the only one he can ask is Ruby.
Oh, yeah. Speaking of Ruby, did she already make it back?
He gets up, shaking his head into focus. Now that he notices, though, there seems to be someone else lying on a different bed nearby. When he steps up to check, he realizes it’s that Wutaian man that she had introduced before. Seems like he’s still in a coma, but at least he’s not writhing in pain anymore.
Okay, so Ruby has stopped by at least. No one else is here; did they all already head out?
Cloud hurries out the door and heads downstairs past the Tiger Lily Weapons Shop to the tavern below. To his surprise, the whole gang is here – Barret, Tifa, and Aerith are celebrating with Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie over drinks – except for their VIP herself. On that thought, it looks like the ninja girl isn’t here either, but never mind her.
“Oh! Cloud! Good morning!” Aerith calls out.
“Good morning, Cloud!” Tifa does likewise with a bit of a chuckle.
“Got your beauty sleep in, sleepyhead?” Jessie also teases him.
“Cloud! The hell you doin’!? Get down here already!” Barret’s booming voice yells at him.
He grumbles sleepily. What a racket this early in the morning. Nevertheless, judging by everyone’s happy faces, it seems like Ruby didn’t run into too much trouble escaping from Shinra’s grasp and gathering their friends. So where is she? She’s supposed to be their mighty heroine and she’s not even here to greet him. Wasn’t she the one who was always clinging to him? And why is he the only one who’s always concerned about her!? Damn. Let it go, let it go… It’s fine.
“Sorry I’m late,” he says as he comes down the steps.
“Cloud! It’s good to see you again!” Wedge cheers, throwing an arm around his shoulder.
“Now we’re really all here,” Biggs agrees with a calm grin. “How’s it been, man?”
“Uh… fine, I guess,” Cloud answers awkwardly, still trying to get used to this kind of atmosphere.
“While you were off in dreamland, the rest of us have been celebrating without you!” Barret laughs heartily. He raises his cup again. “Now, guys, once more with gusto! To Avalanche!”
“To Avalanche!”
And everyone except Cloud takes another swig. Great, he’s just woken up to come upon a drunken party. Unlike them, though, he’s still feeling anxious since last night. Enough wondering about her; he needs to go find Ruby.
“Hey. Does anyone know where Ruby went?”
Aerith giggles, looking just a bit flushed in the face. “She said she went off to see Bugenhagen. I guess it must’ve been really important!”
“Right. Thanks.”
Before he gets roped into another drunken conversation, he hurries out the door.
The town is a lot livelier in the day, though it’s certainly no match for the bustle of a big city like Midgar. There are still plenty of people wandering to and fro, engaged in idle chatter in a language that he isn’t exactly familiar with, and are busy with their own work. There are even some people who are carrying books around in the open. Oh, yeah. This town is also a place of study for planetology and all that. Makes sense that there would be plenty of bookworms too.
He makes himself scarce and quickly makes his way back up to the observatory where he had last seen the old man. And as he steps inside the observation deck, he’s relieved to find that Ruby is indeed here.
She turns to him as he comes in. “Oh. Hey, Cloud!”
“Ruby! There you are…”
He walks on over to the table where she’s seated with Bugenhagen floating beside it. The elderly man smiles to him as well.
“Good morning, Cloud. Did you rest well?”
“Yeah… sort of.”
“Hm? Is something troubling you?”
“…” He takes a seat beside Ruby and leans back against the table with a sigh. “A lot of things, actually.”
She rolls her eyes. “As moody as ever this morning, I see.”
He fires back with some defiant side-eye. “I’m ‘moody’ thanks to worrying about you.”
She chuckles. “Aw. You don’t have to worry so much. You know I wouldn’t have really been caught by Shinra.”
He shakes his head. “No, that’s not what I’ve been worried about.”
“Oh? Then what?” She smirks. “Don’t tell me you’ve actually been dreaming about me.”
“Not exactly.” He then turns to her with a serious look. “But I have been dreaming about Rubia.”
At that moment, the smirk on her face vanishes for a look of perturbed horror.
He now sits up again. “You said we could talk about that ‘later’, right? Well, I’m here. Let’s talk.”
“…” Ruby then turns back to Bugenhagen with her own serious look. “Sir, sorry to ask, but can we start the conversation over again? It’s only fair to him that he listen in too.”
The old man nods back with understanding. “Very well.” He then turns to Cloud and explains, “Ruby and I have been discussing a few matters regarding the current crisis of the planet, as well as the lost spirit of Rubia.”
She also adds, “I’ve been seeing dreams of her where I take on her role.”
“Huh?” Cloud blinks. “You’ve been having these kinds of dreams too?”
Ruby nods. “But it’s a little creepy. Not only am I unable to stop Rubia from doing anything that she’d regret, I don’t even feel anything when I’m in those dreams.”
“You don’t ‘feel’ anything? You mean you just don’t care?”
“Sort of. It’s like I can’t bring myself to care. There’s this general haze around us whenever we come together that seems to just sap away at my conscience. By the time I realize what’s actually happening, I’ve already woken up.”
He strikes his own thinking pose, but isn’t sure how to reply to that.
She sighs to herself. “So when you brought up that you were having those dreams too, it honestly scared me a bit. Like I somehow dragged you into something you shouldn’t have been a part of.”
“You’re always dragging me into something or other anyway.”
“Yeah, but this is different. Rubia is supposed to be my past self. That she’s reaching out to you too is suspicious. It’s as if she has some sort of use for you.”
He crosses his arms. “I was gonna ask you about that. So even you don’t have a clue?”
“I am her, but I’m also not her. I don’t always know what she’s thinking. I still can’t contact her either, but now I’m sure it’s because she’s avoiding me.” She turns back to the elder with a concerned face. “From the last time Bugenhagen and I chatted, I tried to listen to Rubia’s voice from the planet. But the feeling wasn’t mutual. I tried again just earlier and again, nothing. It’s like she’s holding some kind of grudge against me and I have no idea why.” She shakes her head and slumps a bit. “I’m starting to have doubts if I will ever get to speak with her.”
Bugenhagen then shakes his head. “Ruby, you mustn’t let those doubts cloud your mind. This is a matter between you and your past. You may ask for help whenever you need it, but in the end, it is still up to you to confront it.”
“I know, sir. I’m not backing off. The problem is that she is, further into the depths of the Lifestream. And like Sephiroth, she’s not disappearing any time soon.”
Now reminded, Cloud asks, “Speaking of Sephiroth, have you seen him anywhere since?”
She makes a cutely pouting face. “No. He’s been fairly quiet since he dropped the freakin’ sector plate on me.”
“He… what?” The way she so casually dropped that fact catches him off-guard.
“Yeah. It was his fault that Sector 8 went. Ironically, it was because it did that I was able to save Sector 7, since there was suddenly plenty of material for me to patch up 7’s pillar.”
“…” Cloud stares off into space as he tries to process that. “Why would Sephiroth interfere with Shinra’s plans to drop the plate? He wouldn’t care about casualties.”
“I’m just guessing here, but it was probably because I was there.”
“Huh?”
“I bet he wanted to test me to see how far I’d take my abilities. And make me eat humble pie…”
“…” He still doesn’t look convinced. “Is it really just that?”
“You got another idea?”
He shakes his head. “Dunno. But when it comes to him, he wouldn’t half-ass plans or come up with them spontaneously. Even if he did want to test you, surely he’d have other reasons than just making life harder for you, right?”
“…” Ruby casts a thoughtful glance aside, honestly questioning if the madman would. He seems to take pleasure in being the ultimate sadist.
“Besides, he also showed up in the labs where we were trapped.”
“Yeah, I thought so. I even saw the trail left behind by Jenova’s body.”
“It must have been him who released it. But where did they go? It’s like they just vanished into thin air.”
“I’m pretty sure they have access to warp magic like I do.”
There’s an uncomfortable twitch to his eyes now. “Then that’s a way bigger problem. He could be anywhere.”
“But he also is in the habit of showing up at times most inconvenient for us. So all we have to do is wait until we run into the next big crisis.”
“This isn’t the time for jokes, Ruby.”
She shrugs. “I’m not joking. I have no way to contact him now. We’re left to his discretion.”
“What do you mean? You were able to before, weren’t you?”
“Yeah.” She raises her scarred arm. “That was before I lost my wrist guard computer.”
“Uh… What does your computer have to do with it?”
She lowers the arm again. “Never mind. It’s too weird to explain.”
He then raises a suspicious eyebrow. “Hey. You’re not just making up excuses to hide something again, are you?”
She throws her arms out in indignation. “Come on, man! I’ve been totally frank with you every time we’re talking about Sephiroth. Why are you doubting me now?”
He waves it away. “Fine. So without that thing, you have no way to contact him. But you do know of a place where you can enter the Lifestream, right?”
“Yes. But like I said before, I’m not taking anyone else with me there.”
He makes a stern frown. “No way. You’re not heading down there by yourself. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten how you ended up in serious pain.”
She snorts. “He just knows how to rub me the wrong way.”
“Yeah, he does the same to me. That’s why we have to face him together, watch each other’s backs.”
“…” She makes a sad look aside. “To be honest, I’m not sure even that will be enough.”
“You still don’t think I’m strong enough to keep up, huh?”
“No, not just you. I’m starting to doubt myself too.”
“…” Cloud was not expecting that kind of answer. He stares at her in disbelief and then sinks a bit, looking crestfallen. “Ruby, don’t say that. If even you aren’t sure, then what can we do?”
As the two enter into an awkward silence, then as the wise elder he is, Bugenhagen takes his turn to speak up.
“If I may interject for a moment…”
They both turn to him. “Huh?”
“In times of indecision like this, it may be advisable to take a step back and retrace your steps to see the path you’ve taken up to this point.”
Cloud frowns in disappointment. “Retrace our steps? How far back are we talking?”
But Ruby takes a moment to think it over again. She replies more thoughtfully, “Back… to a little while ago. Okay.” She turns to him again. “You know when we were talking about Rubia?”
“Yeah?”
“If there’s anyone who can help us stop Sephiroth, it would be her. But I still haven’t figured out a way to reach her. She keeps avoiding me like she has a grudge or something. On the other hand, if she’s willing to bring you into all this, then she at least trusts you to some extent.”
“Me?” He shakes his head. “No way. The last time we met, she took me to an ancient temple where the Black Materia was held.” He then folds his arms again. “Also said something about how she wants to ‘end’ the planet’s cycle of life and death. It didn’t matter what I said. She wouldn’t listen.”
She nods. “Yeah, I figured as much. I’ve had a similar dream, but you weren’t there at all.”
“What happened in yours?”
“Um…” She glances off as she recalls, “I think there was some kind of ritual happening at that temple involving a cult that worships the Black Materia. They were celebrating that I – well, Rubia – was joining their cause to bring ‘calamity’.”
He looks off too as he recalls from his own. “Yeah… I think I might have seen some kind of cult like that too. But they were just walking around the temple in a big loop. I didn’t have a clue what they were doing.”
“Those people you saw were probably willing sacrifices to the summoning of the Black Materia. That’s why they’d all crowd into the temple together.”
“Does summoning it require sacrifices?”
“At least one person has to be there to transform the temple into the Materia, so yes, technically. It’s a security system that the Cetra of the time built into it to prevent any ol’ fool from acquiring it. But Rubia is more than capable enough to avoid the ensuing reconstruction. She wouldn’t even need to make any sacrifices if she so chose. But she simply chose to not care at all.”
He frowns back. “In other words, since long ago she was already on the path to total annihilation.”
“Yeah. I’d imagine she had plenty of past lives to live through before she came to that decision.”
“…” But now that she brings it up, he comes upon a curious question. “So what about you?”
“Huh? What about me?”
“Why are you different? Why is this reincarnation now fighting back against a decision your past self made?”
“…” She looks up to the ceiling as she ponders over it too, and then turns back to him. “Well, for starters, I’m a lot more self-aware.”
“Self-aware…?” He gives her an incredulous look. “What does that have to do with anything? Were none of your past lives like that?”
She shrugs. “Maybe. I’m still figuring out that mystery too.”
He doesn’t look impressed by that answer, but has no retort either, so decides to move on to the bigger question. “So, what do we do? How are we supposed to talk with her if she’s so hell-bent on her mission?”
“I dunno…” She then raises a hand to point out, “Still, it’s important to note that she would be sending these visions to you at all. I may take on her role in my dreams, but you take on an entirely different one – like that of an outside observer that she would be willing to work with. I wonder if you’re supposed to stand in for someone?”
“Who knows. I don’t even understand why she’d choose me. I knew nothing about Rubia before you brought her up to me. I don’t have any connection to the Cetra either. The most I’ve dealt with magic is just through materia. I’m a total stranger.”
“…”
“Why would she choose to trust a total stranger over someone like you, who basically is her, but as a different iteration?”
Ruby tilts her head to one side. “You know, I was just reminded of one other vision I had seen.”
“Another dream?”
“No. This one happened when I confronted Jenova before and got my eyes marked.”
“You confronted Jenova…?”
“Yeah. It hurt my eyes for a bit too. Anyway, in that vision some sort of tragedy befell the monastery that once raised her, and long story short, her main takeaway was that there was a traitor in her midst. She grew to not trust anyone she once knew.” She shakes her head. “With one exception: her loyal partner.”
“Who’s that?”
“…”
Now that Ruby mentions it aloud, she returns to contemplation, quickly connects the dots, and strikes upon a curious possibility. Her partner, huh? That big ol’ wolf Fenrir? It makes sense that she would want to find whom he would have been reincarnated as. But is that all? Does Rubia see Cloud as a potential candidate?
Hey, wait a second. Wasn’t there something that connected Cloud to Fenrir too? Ah, yeah. A couple years down the line, he would have his new bike named after the wolf of legend. Thinking about it, he also would have a small headpiece of silver engraved into his shoulder plate at that time too. Huh, what a strange coincidence… or is it just coincidence? The more she thinks about it, the more unbelievable it all seems.
Oh, my God. Cloud isn’t really a Chocobo after all; he’s a doggo!
Ruby has been staring off into space for a while now and by the end, her eyes are slowly popping out of her sockets. Cloud waves a hand in her face to bring her back to reality.
“Hey.”
She blinks and she’s back to normal. And yet, the first word she comes to say as she comes out of her spell is: “…Dog.”
“Huh?”
She then makes a precious smile with a bit of blush. “I think I’ve found one way we can reach Rubia.”
“Really? What is it?”
“Well, it’s more like…” She points in his face. “You gotta reach her first.”
He stares at her, getting even more confused. “Ruby. I just said that she ignored me completely. What else am I supposed to do?”
She snickers. “Just act more like her dog, man. I’m sure she loves dogs like I do.”
Now he just feels insulted. “I’m serious here!”
She then scoffs back, “Well, treating you like a dog would still be better than how she’s pretending I don’t exist, so…”
He groans. “Would you quit it? I’ve had enough of being called a dog…”
She certainly didn’t expect that to come from him. “Um. Has anyone else called you a dog?”
“…” Cloud looks like he wants to say something, but now stops himself as he wonders how he’s even supposed to make out what his latest dream was. In the end, he just shakes his head again. “Forget it. I’m just tired of seeing all these visions that don’t make sense.”
“Hmm…” Ruby tilts her head curiously, but decides to let it go. “Well, in any case, I think we made a little progress here. We ought to get back down to chat with the others.”
“Huh? About what?”
“About Sephiroth and the planet’s crisis, of course. What else?”
“Oh.” He nods. “Yeah, most of them still don’t know what’s been happening.” He then makes an annoyed scowl. “In fact, they’re at the bar celebrating and getting drunk.”
She grins at that. “Hahaha! We should join them then!”
“…”
And as if the flag for the next scene were triggered, the door to the balcony bursts open, and Red has arrived. He barks happily as if glad to find them all here.
“Grandpa! Ruby! Ah, even Cloud is here.”
Bugenhagen returns him his own smile. “Oh, Nanaki! What is it?”
“The townspeople are busy preparing for the ritual tonight. Everyone wishes to meet Ruby before the evening draws near.”
She blinks. “Huh? Me?”
“Of course. They’re celebrating our triumphant return.”
“Um… I can understand for you, but why me? I’m just a stranger like Cloud and the others.”
“Ho ho ho!” Now the elder laughs, catching her off-guard. “Ruby, do you remember from the last time we had talked, regarding the records we had of your legends of the past?”
“Uh, sure. You said there weren’t many records left and there may have been some censoring over the ages.”
He nods, but then adds a smile. “Indeed. But there not being ‘many’ does not indicate ‘none’.”
She instantly lights up. “Sir, did you really find something in the archives?”
“It may have just been a single logbook, but it is a log of our people’s history, and you are briefly mentioned in one of the entries.”
Her eyes are now nearly bulging from her sockets. “What does it say?”
“That there was once a witnessed sighting of a bright white star one fateful night that came crashing down. However, the impact area was never found. It's been said that the star vanished as it had arrived – in another bright flash.”
“Huh… I was a falling star?”
“It has been well over 100 years since that sighting.” He chuckles. “In other words, today is a momentous occasion worth celebrating.”
She claps her hands against her face in surprise. “Oh, my God… This place really does have everything I’d ever want to know!” She seizes his hands in a firm handshake and blushes cutely. “Thank you, sir! I knew I could trust you!”
“Ho ho! If you’d like to see it for yourself, you may stop by the secret library. Do you know where it is?”
“Um… mind giving me a refresher?”
“Head back down to the ground floor of town. Next to the tavern is the dwelling of Elder Bughe. Ask him and he will lead you to a secret room in the back, just behind the inn. That is where we keep our most precious archives. I’ve recently picked it out from the shelves and left it upon the front desk, as I figured you may have wanted to see it as well.”
“Yes!” She claps and giggles like an excited child. “Did you hear that, Cloud? I just found a new quest!”
He snorts back. “If you wanna go bookdiving, fine, but we all still need to meet up in the bar to discuss.”
She waves a dismissive hand. “Yeah, yeah. You can get started without me, then. I’ll be busy.”
But before she can step away, he seizes her by the arm. “Oh, no. You’re definitely going to be there from the beginning.”
She turns back to him with an exaggerated look of disgust. “Sheesh. I already know your story. Why do I have to stay?”
“Because I need you to help me fill the gaps.”
She blinks a few times and turns back with a genuine look of surprise. “You want me to help you tell the story?”
“Maybe not tell it, but I know I don’t have all my memories intact. If there’s something off, then you can point it out.”
“Um…” She makes a concerned frown and rubs her head awkwardly. “And if by any chance, there may be something off from the very beginning?”
“…” He only gets confused. “You mean, there’s something even before Nibelheim that I should bring up?”
“Hmm…” She looks unsure herself and turns away. “You know, forget it. It’s just gonna be really confusing no matter how I put it.”
“I don’t care how confusing it gets. I just need to know the truth.”
“Yeah, but…”
Now that she turns back, though, she’s surprised how earnest he looks. He asks without a hint of hesitation, “Please. You’re the only one I can ask about this.”
“…” That does it. Ruby doesn’t want to leave him hanging if he’s gonna go his version of “puppy-eyed”. She finally relents with a sigh and nods back. “Fine. But I have to warn you, Cloud. You’re in for some painful memories.”
“Yeah, I figured. But I’m not backing out.”
“No, I mean it.” She repeats with a genuine look of worry, “If I say the truth now – the whole truth – it may just break you.”
He blinks. “What do you mean?”
She then turns back to Bugenhagen and Red. “Sorry, but can you leave us be? I’ve got a few more words with him in private.”
They turn to each other in silence and nod back in understanding. Red then says, “We’ll be waiting outside, then. Come when you’re ready.”
“Thank you.”
And with that, the two take their leave, and it’s just Ruby and Cloud once again.
“What do you mean that it may ‘break’ me?”
She looks away again as she considers her next move. As much as she doesn’t want to tackle this now, she realizes that putting it off for much longer is just going to worsen things as they go. If he’s going to suffer, she might as well help him get through it sooner when Sephiroth isn’t the one pulling the strings yet. Though, she can’t help but get the feeling that he’s already been pulling some strings that she hasn’t seen so far.
“Let me be blunt, then.” She looks right in his eyes as she comes out with it, “You never joined Soldier.”
He’s definitely caught off-guard and just stares at her for a moment. “…What?”
“You heard me. You never joined Soldier.”
He stares even harder now and gets a bit indignant himself. “What are you talking about? I know I joined Soldier. I’m First-Class, even.”
“But you don’t remember when you joined, do you?”
“Of course I remember…”
But then he drifts off as he realizes he’s drawing a blank. The more he tries to recall, the more lost he feels. Bzzt. There’s the painful sting of that familiar headache again, and it only intensifies the longer he tries to hold out. He clutches his head. It’s gotta be there somewhere. Why can’t he remember? It’s like there’s always this impenetrable barrier in the back of his mind that prevents him from even knowing anything.
Ruby is on it immediately. She puts her right hand up to his forehead, catching him by surprise so much that he flinches, and with a silent wish from the heart, she makes the telepathic connection and jumps right into his mind once more. Now that it’s come to this, she’s going for it: she’s going to wrench those memories out of him herself.
“I know you’re in there. Wake up.”
As if she had a metaphysical presence in there, she tears through the fog and smashes that invisible barrier to reach for his innermost memories. However, things don’t go so smoothly just because she’s confident. Just as she thinks she can reach his hidden self, a sudden spark erupts between them, sending them flaring up in an intense bout of pain that courses through their bodies. Wait, both of them? Why’s she being hit too? No, wait, it’s not her head that’s cracking… Geostigma!?
Well, shit. Who knew Jenova would have such a strong anti-hacking security system built in? That paranoid bitch.
“…Argh!!”
Cloud can’t take it anymore. He feels like his head is going to split. On instinct, he shoves her off and she unexpectedly topples to the floor. But the pain doesn’t fade just yet. Something else is driving him to press further than where Ruby had reached. But the further he tries to dig, the further away his goal seems to get. Just as he feels like he’s drifting off course again, for just an instant, he seems to hear some kind of voice speak to him.
“Almost there… We’re almost there, Cloud. Hang in there, Buddy.”
What the… Like a candle flickering on upon being lit, Cloud suddenly experiences a flash of insight. The sharp pain from earlier quickly recedes, and he gets a strange feeling that he’s heard that voice from somewhere. He’s getting so close, but he’s still not quite there yet. It’s somewhere in the back of his mind.
“…Did you remember anything?”
Ruby’s surprisingly calm voice then speaks and he snaps back to reality. He finds her sitting on the floor, clutching her wounded arm. The black wound has reopened and is dripping black sludge once again. It already looked kinda rough since he first saw it, but now the scar seems to have gotten bigger and deeper, as if it were making a net of cracks in her skin. By the strained look and sweat on her face, she’s still in pain but is trying to ignore it.
“Ruby! What happened?” He drops down to check on her. Now that he thinks about it, he realizes that he also shoved her down. “Uh… Sorry. I don’t know what came over me. Did I just reopen it?”
“No. It wasn’t you. But more importantly…” She asks again with a firm tone, “Did you remember anything?”
“What?” He stares at her in disbelief and then shakes his head. “That’s not important now! We need to deal with your…”
But she defiantly growls under her breath and reseals her wound with another blast of light.
“Hey!”
It certainly does stop the leaking, but the scar only continues to grow more grotesque. It’s quite unsightly and could use some bandages to cover up. But now she’s also feeling faint and looks ready to drop again.
Cloud holds her still so she doesn’t fall. “What are you thinking!? You’re just making it worse.”
“Forget about it. I just wanna know if I suffered for a good reason.”
“Ruby…” he groans, growing ever exasperated with her. He swings an arm around her shoulder to help her up. “Come on. I’m taking you to see Aerith. She’s gotta have-”
“I’m fine!” She tries to shove him off, but he doesn’t let go. “Just answer the damn question!”
“Don’t be a brat! You need treatment!”
“No, I don’t! Now give me your answer already!”
“Shut up! Stop putting it off! It’s not nothing!”
Their raised voices now catch the wind of some people in the area, and shortly Red returns in a hurry as he too had caught whiff of something alarming: the scent of blood. He bursts back in.
“Cloud! Ruby! What happened?” His eyes grow wide as soon as he sees her arm and he makes a concerned frown. “Come with me. I’ll lead you to the infirmary.”
She tries to shove Cloud off again. “I said I don’t-”
By now, he’s had enough of her. He wrenches her off the floor and drags her along. “You’re going and that’s final.”
“Ugh. But it’s not a normal disease! What would we even do about it!?”
“Get it properly disinfected at least. Now shut up and walk, or I’m dragging you.”
“…”
They – or rather, Cloud who’s dragging an obstinate Ruby on the floor and down the steps – shortly arrive at the infirmary on the ground floor next to the materia shop. As they pass by, they happen upon Yuffie who seems to be behind the counter at the shop for some reason, and her discussion with the concerned shopkeep is promptly interrupted when they see Cloud dragging Ruby by the collar of her shirt. Yuffie even stops to stare at Ruby, who is clearly awake, but is pouting and refusing to walk on her own.
Red shakes his head. “Don’t mind us. We’re just passing through.”
The shopkeeper scratches his head and decides not to question it. When he turns back to the other girl, though, Yuffie seems to have vanished from her spot. It seems she’s run off and out, disappearing back into the unknown… or maybe just back to a more friendly crowd.
The infirmary is attended only by a couple of people, an elderly woman and a young girl, who are presumably grandmother and granddaughter. They’re startled when they see Red arrive with two, three others.
“Oh! Nanaki! And friends…” The elderly woman frowns with concern upon seeing Ruby being dragged inside. “Dear, dear. What is the matter here?”
“Oh, Ruby!” the little girl gasps. “Is she okay?”
“She’s in pain… but is too stubborn to admit it,” Cloud explains.
They nod as if understanding and guide him to an empty bed where he lays her down. The woman politely asks Ruby to lift her hand so she can see, and the latter reluctantly obliges.
“Oh, my…” the elderly lady gasps and shakes her head in sympathy. “That does look quite bad. But I’m sorry to say, I’m not familiar with a condition like this.”
“Even you don’t know, Grandma?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know everything.” She turns back to them. “Is this some sort of illness, by any chance?”
“It’s a disease. An incurable one,” Ruby answers.
Cloud asks, “Have you ever heard of Geostigma?”
“Hmm…” The doctor takes a moment to think it over, but can only give a sigh. “I’m sorry. Though I have certainly seen my share of ‘incurable’ diseases over the years, I’m afraid there are still many more mysteries to this world than humanity can unveil.” She then suggests, “Have you tried using materia or Potions already?”
Ruby shakes her head. “This isn’t something that any of that can affect. It’s more like a curse of sorts.”
“I see… Then, I’m sorry to say I’m not sure how we can help.”
Cloud shakes his head. “It’s fine. We’re not expecting a cure. But her wound keeps reopening. Is there anything you can do to stop it?”
The woman makes a rather unsure face. “Well, I wouldn’t be able to answer that if I don’t know the nature of this wound.”
“Right…” He then turns to Red and asks, “Hey. Can you bring Aerith over? She needs to see this.”
“No, she doesn’t-” Ruby interjects.
Red nods back. “I’ll go fetch her.” And he’s gone.
Ruby then sits up with a pouting frown. “Hey! I’m the patient here! Don’t I have a say?”
Cloud shoves her back down on the bed and mutters into her ear, “If you try to run off again, I’m cutting off your legs.”
She glares back. “How about my wings too while you’re at it?”
He snorts, remaining unfazed. “Sure, if you insist.”
The doctor and her granddaughter watch them have an intense glaring contest and decide not to intervene. It might be something best settled between them.
The old woman offers again, “Well, in the meantime, perhaps I may have something that can alleviate some pain.” She then turns away for her medicine cabinets and goes to retrieve some kind of herbal remedy. She comes back with a small circular jar filled with some kind of white ointment. “This is an old family recipe ours for general pains and sores. As materia and Potions are the much more popular choice, it hasn’t seen use in a long time. I’m not sure if it will work for you, but we can give it a try if you’d like.”
Ruby tilts her head curiously, though she isn’t sure if it would work. “Oh. Alright.”
It does still sting when the doctor applies the ointment, but she quickly finishes covering a good deal of her arm in the paste, which is quickly absorbed into her skin. Shortly, Ruby then notices a miraculous soothing sensation come over it. The ointment does nothing to change the appearance of the black stains or how far they’ve spread, but at the very least the pain seems to be abating, even if just temporarily.
Cloud’s stern frown softens now that she looks much more relaxed. “How are you doing?”
She blinks as she looks back at her arm, and then raises it up and gives it a bit of a relaxed shake. She then makes a content smile. “Yeah. Feeling better already.”
He actually looks impressed. “Huh. Alright, then.”
The doctor nods too. “That’s good to hear. Our people are well known for their homemade herbal remedies. While I understand why Potions are so popular, in my humble opinion, there’s always still room for other types of healing.”
“Grandma’s stuff is amazing! You can’t find it anywhere else either!” the little girl exclaims proudly.
“I’ll say,” Ruby agrees, giving her arm another lookover. “I dunno how long the relief will last, but it’s surprisingly effective so far.” She turns back to the elder. “Do you by any chance have any extra I could take to go? I don’t mind paying for it.”
She smiles back politely, but shakes her head. “We don’t have any other jars of this. It’s not too common that we would need it, after all.”
“Hmm. Fair enough.” Ruby now moves to slide her legs off the bed. “Well, thank you very much, ma’am. Do I owe you payment for this treatment?”
“Oh, no. It’s fine. I wouldn’t dare charge for treatment that’s just a bit of pain relief; needless to say, for our guest of honor.” The old woman takes a polite bow.
“Thank you for coming!” The little girl does likewise.
Ruby blinks and feels a slight blush come on. At first, it sounded pretty funny like a good joke that she would be honored thanks to her history, but now the realization that these people are taking it very seriously finally hits her and she can’t help but feel a little embarrassed.
“Ruby! Are you okay?”
Now Aerith comes by with Red leading her over. She gasps when she sees the state Ruby’s arm has come to and hurries over to the bedside.
“What happened here? How did it get worse?”
Ruby points at Cloud with a pout. “It’s his fault.”
“Hey! Don’t just leave it at that!”
“I was trying to crack through into his mind via telepathy, but ran into a rough patch that triggered my Geostigma. But fortunately, the good doc here had some excellent pain relief for me. I’m doing fine now.”
Aerith nods back solemnly. “I see. You should be a little more careful with your powers, Ruby. Something like mind diving will be especially taxing on both yourself and the other person.”
“Yeah, I know. Sorry to be so reckless.”
“…” Cloud stares at her, feeling just a little annoyed that she has yet to apologize to him for anything.
Ruby then turns back to him with a serious look of her own. “Cloud, how are you feeling?”
“Huh? What about me? I’m fine.”
“You still didn’t answer my question from earlier, though.”
“…”
“What question is it?” Aerith asks.
Ruby answers her, “I didn’t crack into his mind for no reason. I was trying to get him to remember some critical details. For example…” She turns back to Cloud. “What do you think of when I say the name, ‘Zack’?”
Aerith puts her hands over her mouth with her eyes in shock. She now realizes just what they had been talking about. A still silence now comes over the room as everyone’s attention turns to him.
Cloud closes his eyes and thinks it over once more. This time, he doesn’t suffer the usual headaches as before. Whatever Ruby had done just earlier, it seems like the fog in his mind that was preventing him from recalling has cleared up just a bit. It’s not perfect; he still has that general hazy feeling. But now that she brings it up again, he seems to recognize that name from somewhere.
“…Sounds familiar, like someone I used to know.”
Ruby nods back with a very satisfied and proud smile. Looks like he’s gonna be alright, after all.
“But I’m still not really sure-”
She puts a finger to her mouth to shush him. “At ease, Soldier. We’ll get there.” She then turns back to the other two. “Speaking of which, guys, how about we gather everyone for some story time? Cloud and I have a tale to share; about this planet and our awaiting fates.”
Notes:
Fun fact time!
- 'The Bomb' is indeed a canon easter egg, but it's not found directly in Remake. In one of their posts on the official Japanese Final Fantasy VII Twitter account, they once shared a news page as if taken directly from one of Shinra News Network's broadcasts. And in it, they featured an energy drink called 'The Bomb'. I don't remember the exact motto they had on there, as the image was too small and blurry for me to decipher. But I can imagine what Ruby said last chapter is pretty much on the dot.
- For the record, Nanaki's species name is never given, nor is the name of the local language. So I've been studying a lot of the Massachusetts language family, particularly of the Wampanoag tribe of Massachusetts. The problem is, this is very much a dying language that is largely carried on through tradition and has an extremely limited dictionary that is available online. I will be forced to take a lot of liberties, so any language buffs out there, please bear with me.
- Tiamat being hidden underneath Mt. Nibel came as a lightning bolt of inspiration. It's said from Norse myth that there was a great serpent/dragon that was trapped beneath the Tree of Life Yggdrasil, and it was known as Nidhogg. The "nid" part of the name was an attribute given to something that has been disgraced. It was only fitting that I'd reference it.
-No, I will not apologize for calling Cloud a "dog" multiple times throughout this chapter.
- Boy, I can't wait to dive into the Nibelheim flashback! I hear a certain First-Class Soldier will be joining our cast very soon! *Wink wink*4/24/23 edit: Came back to correct and clarify a few details about the layout of the caves. Nanaki's room is supposed to be connected to a tunnel leading from the back of the tavern, but for convenience's sake, I decided to craft a new tunnel that leads to that tunnel in a three-way intersection. It doesn't exist in the OG, but I figured I should expand on it. It's more convenient for Nanaki to get around from his room with multiple exits instead.
Chapter 22: On That Day, Five Years Ago
Notes:
It's just a few little minor details here and there, but I went back and dressed up Mt. Nibel in the previous chapter. I was reminded while going through the OG's game script avail only from the debug room that there was a little more to the setting than I remembered.
On that thought, I recycle a whole lot of the OG's script in this chapter, but rest assured, I add way more to the scenes than you'd ever seen from the Nibelheim flashback! Some of the details I cover are actually references to stuff found from the debug room, but many others I came up with on my own.
I also read up on "Traces of Two Pasts" the other day, so I'm ready to tackle any more character lore about Tifa and Aerith from here on out! Thanks, Nojima-san!
4/20/25 edit: Went through the entire flashback and converted to past tense to be consistent with all other flashback sequences in the fic.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Ruby looks around the tavern as she makes a mental rollcall. “…Okay. Aside from Sonon, looks like we’re all here.”
Aerith has been awfully quiet since the revelation earlier. Knowing where this discussion may lead them, Tifa is likewise apprehensive, but she tries to push off the doubts and checks in with Aerith, who appreciates the concern but insists she’s fine. Meanwhile, Barret and his Avalanche trio have been busy going around town helping out where they can for the awaited ritual around the eternal bonfire tonight, so when they heard that Cloud and Ruby have something important to discuss, some of that excitement fizzled fast. They crowd around their own table next to where Tifa and Aerith are seated and wait quietly for the rest to gather. Red has been waiting patiently as he said, lying down in the back of the room. And then, there’s Yuffie, who has slipped off to the inn on the second floor, but claims that she can hear them just fine from there.
Ruby immediately goes for the counter and asks the bartender for a cup of iced tea, and Cloud reluctantly joins her there. Since the last time he caught her with a drink brought him so much agony, he’s become a little wary around her with any beverage, alcoholic or not. But well, she did offer to help guide him along the story. He just hopes she’s not gonna be making any unnecessary racket – oh, who is he kidding? It’s Ruby, of course she will.
He turns to the rest. “Thanks for coming everyone.”
Barret folds his arms as he asks, “So, what’s up? You got something to tell us?”
“Yeah. It concerns Sephiroth and the crisis of the planet.”
“Ah, yeah. You mentioned it before.” He then relaxes and sits back. “Alright, we’re listening.”
Cloud nods and looks up toward the ceiling with a sigh. He then looks back to them with an awkward frown. “Before we begin, though, I have to say something first.”
“What is it, Cloud?” Tifa asks.
“I… have to apologize. I’ve been mistaken about something really important.”
Now, everyone looks serious or leans forward in anticipation.
“…” He makes a nervous glance toward Ruby, who seems more preoccupied with her drink than him. As disappointed with her as ever, he decides to just come out with it. “I’m not actually an ex-Soldier.”
He’s met with a round of blank faces, most of whom are confused as to where he’s going with this, but Tifa rightly becomes concerned.
“I wasn’t lying, though. I just didn’t remember it right. I’m not sure how it happened, but I was taking on someone else’s memories. Thanks to Ruby, I finally remembered who it was.”
Aerith blinks and then mutters quietly to herself, “So that’s why…”
Tifa cuts right in to ask, “Cloud, how much do you remember?”
“Some things… like how our mission to Nibelheim started. But I’m still unclear about the rest…” He turns back to Ruby. “So, she’s gonna help fill in those gaps.”
Ruby still doesn’t turn around and is much too preoccupied – or just enjoying her drink. It’s hard to tell with her sometimes. But she does offer them a thumbs-up in response.
“…I see.” Tifa has been feeling pretty anxious about all of this, but now she starts to relax a little. Keeping faith in her heart, she gives them a firm nod and a smile. “Okay. Then I’ll leave the rest to you two.”
“Whoa, hold up,” Barret now interjects, “Don’t leave us hanging over here.” He turns back to Cloud. “You said you were taking on ‘someone else’s memories’?”
“Yeah.”
He frowns. “And how the hell is that supposed to work? These are memories we’re talking, not some stage play!”
“I don’t know, but for a while there, it felt so natural – like they were my own.” Cloud turns back to Ruby. “Do you know what that’s about?”
Ruby doesn’t answer right away. She takes a moment to slurp through that straw as if lost in her own thoughts, but then pulls the cup away and turns back to him. “We’ll get there.”
“…”
She shrugs. “Hey, I don’t make the rules. We need to set the context first.” And with that, she goes right back to drinking.
Cloud shakes his head with a quiet sigh and turns back to the others. “Like she said, we’ll get there.”
Barret snorts back, folding his arms, but backs off. “Alright.”
Tifa nods too. “Cloud, you can start us off.”
He nods back and proceeds, “Back when I was working for Shinra, I was just your no-name grunt in the front lines. I did try to join Soldier, but… well, the process to becoming a Soldier is pretty strict. I did alright up to a point – until I reached the part where candidates had to be showered with mako. It was too much for me, and I got lost in it all.” He lets off a sigh and turning to Tifa, he adds, “It’s one of the reasons why I didn’t head back home for a while. I couldn’t show my face to anyone.”
“…” She turns away with her own melancholic look, now recalling a different time when the two of them had first met in a long time.
“Wait. So you were never actually in Soldier?” Biggs pipes up, “Then how’d you know about all the stuff a Soldier would know?”
Jessie comments, “And he’s built like one too. You don’t see too many Shinra grunts wielding a sword that big.”
Cloud rubs his head awkwardly. “That’s… where things get weird. Like how my memories got messed up.”
“They got ‘messed up’?” Wedge asks.
“Yeah. I had a friend named Zack who was a bonafide Soldier, First-Class. We became fast friends since we first met on a different mission.”
Aerith nods along, recalling those moments when the guy was still around in Midgar to tell her about his adventures. And among them, he mentioned he made a new friend that “looked kinda like him”.
“I didn’t get too many chances to work with him, since he was Soldier and all. But he would check back with me sometimes to chat about his past missions. And some of those missions, he got to work with Sephiroth directly. From what I could tell, they had an odd kind of friendship of their own.”
Barret raises an eyebrow. “Friends, huh…”
Cloud nods back understandingly. “Yeah, well, Zack was always that kind of guy to make friends with anyone. Sephiroth was older than him and didn’t really talk much, but they still trusted each other. So, I guess you could call them war buddies… And even though I came along later, Zack still trusted me just as much.” He pauses as he thinks it over. “Thinking about it, it must have been thanks to him that I’d end up working under Sephiroth too.”
“Oh, wow. So you were pretty lucky anyway,” Wedge remarks.
“Luck… No, I wouldn’t call it luck. Zack is just that guy who has a way to connect people.”
“Hmm…” Aerith chuckles and glances over to Ruby. “Kinda like my cuz in a way.”
Cloud glances over to her too, and Ruby now notices people are looking at her. She returns them with a nervous, shifty-eyed look.
“What?”
“Anyway…” He turns back to the rest. “Still, even though I worked under him, I never really got to know Sephiroth personally. It was through Zack’s memories that made me feel like we were closer. But things were alright between us… until one day…”
“…” Tifa looks down to hide a bitter frown. She knows exactly which day he’s talking about.
“One day?” Aerith asks instead.
“After the war ended, Soldier was tasked with cleaning up any enemy resistance in the aftermath. And around that time, there was a report about some kind of unrest going on around Nibelheim. At first, we figured it was just because of the monsters in the area, but…” He then shakes his head and closes his eyes. “It was five years ago. I was 16…”
~
A lone military truck zoomed along the country road in the midst of a fierce storm. Though the men aboard expected there would be rain, they hadn’t expected it to be this bad. Normally, it would have been an easy lift-in, lift-out mission by helicopter, but given the weather, that wasn’t an option.
“It sure is raining hard.” Zack peeked out the window at the back of the truck. He turned around and checks up on the sickly-looking grunt who’s sitting by another window behind some cargo. “Hey, Buddy. You doing alright?”
“…I’ll be okay.”
“You sure? I mean, I’ve never had motion-sickness before, so I wouldn’t know.” He struck a thinking pose. “Maybe you wanna take off your helmet and get some air?”
“…”
The grunt obliged, revealing a spiky, bright yellow head underneath. Young Cloud gave a sigh, but as the truck roamed on, he felt his stomach lurch.
Zack gave him a pat on the back. “Don’t worry, man. You’ll make it through. Hey, how about looking out the window too? Keep your mind off of it.”
Cloud quietly obliged and remained fixated on that window.
Zack nodded, leaving him be, and then headed over toward the front to check up on the other grunts. Everyone else seemed alright. Okay. He came back to the back end and leaned against that pile of cargo beside Cloud. There was another moment of silence among them, and it was all of five seconds before Zack started pacing around. God, he was so bored. Without much else to do, he found a place for himself and starts doing squats just to pass the time.
“…Hey.” Sephiroth’s firm voice cut through the silence like a sharp blade. He waved toward Zack. “Settle down.”
He grinned back. “They gave me some new materia. I can’t wait to use it!”
“…Just like a kid.” He rolled his eyes. “Sit down before you fall.”
“Hehe. Don’t worry! I’ve been training my quads like this for any occasion. I’ll be fine!”
As soon as Zack said so, though, the truck hit another small bump in the road and Zack nearly tipped over as he messed up his latest squat, but caught himself against the back doors. He pulled himself back up with a shy grin, while Sephiroth shook his head.
“Hey, Sephiroth.”
“Hm?”
“I’ve been wondering. I know we’re always using materia for things, but just how is the stuff made?”
Understanding that Zack would not shut up until he got an answer, Sephiroth obliged, “Natural materia comes directly from the planet, but it takes a very long time to form.”
“Long time?”
“Over eons, to be precise.”
“Wow. So all this materia we’ve been using is ancient stuff, huh?”
“Not exactly. Most of the materia seen around in Midgar is produced artificially. Shinra Company wouldn’t have been able to expand so far as it has if they only relied on what was natural.”
“Ah, okay.” He nodded back, thinking it over again. “Huh, then our company’s pretty impressive if it can make their own materia.”
“‘Our company’, huh…” Sephiroth looked out his own window for a moment. “Zack.”
“Yeah?”
He now turned back to him. “Have you ever considered… leaving Shinra?”
He blinked. “Leaving it?” He then tilted his head with an unsure frown. “Well… not really. I mean, yeah, there are some things that do worry me, but…” He rubbed his head. “I never really thought about what we’d do if we did leave.”
“…” Sephiroth nodded back. “Fair enough.”
“Besides, it’s not all bad, right? I mean, sure, there’s still the thing with Genesis, and Director Lazard has been-”
“Don’t give away classified info.”
“Er, sorry.” He then followed with a smile. “But I mean, at least we still got each other! Right, guys?”
His cheesy statement was answered by a rather cold silence from the rest of the group. It was cold enough that it made his grin falter just a bit. Zack let it go and gave a sigh. “…Yeah. It sure is raining hard.”
But the stormy weather would be the least of their problems shortly. Out of nowhere, there was the sound of a mighty roar from somewhere. While the dark sky did obscure some of the view up front, the driver noticed something like a shadow hanging overhead.
“What the…?”
Zack perked up again. “Hey! What was that?”
Before they could do much about it, though, the shadow revealed itself to be a huge dragon. It suddenly divebombed the road before them and unfortunately the driver didn’t have the time to react. He tried to swerve out of the way, but the muddy road made it hard to steer and the truck ended up crashing into the body of the beast. Cloud nearly hit his head, but Zack managed to catch him.
“Shit!” the driver exclaimed, “We’re stuck! It won’t budge!” He froze up when the eyes of the beast now honed in on the front window.
“Everyone, out!” Sephiroth commanded, but it was a bit too late.
With an angry roar, the dragon smashed down on the front of the truck, crushing it and the driver in an instant. Zack hurried to unlatch the doors and fling them open and tugged on Cloud’s arm to pull him up. The poor kid was still a little disoriented, but hung onto his helmet.
“Cloud! Let’s go!”
“R-right…”
Fortunately, he and the rest were able to jump out of the truck as the dragon thrashed at it and flipped the whole thing over. Zack gave the group a quick count: Cloud was here, and so was the other guy… Wait, where was Sephiroth?
Sheen. There was another angry roar from the beast, but now it was in pain. In an instant, Sephiroth was on it and had cut it down, knocking it back and away from everyone else. The dragon snarled and blasted him with an intensely hot flame, to which Sephiroth easily leapt out of the way. With another decisive blow, he made a clean cut with his long katana straight through the beast’s neck and decapitated it. And he safely landed back to the ground as the monster finally dropped lifelessly.
He turned around and walked back to the others. “Is everyone alright?”
“Yeah…” Zack answered, looking a little flustered. He always knew Sephiroth was an absolute unit even by himself, but the man moved so fast that even his fellow First-Class couldn’t keep up.
Sephiroth then turned back to the truck with a condoling frown. “Unfortunately, the driver is dead. This complicates things…”
Zack looked back to Cloud with a curious look. “Well, Buddy, looks like you’re up.”
Cloud nodded. “I’ll lead the way. We’re not too far from town.”
~
Everyone is stunned and a little impressed to hear Cloud describe the fight – if it can even be called a fight. Even Yuffie is poking her head out from beyond the guard rail on the next floor.
Cloud folds his arms as he continues, “Sephiroth’s strength is truly unbelievable. All the rumors you may have heard don’t do it justice.”
Biggs lets off a soft whistle. “Man. That’s who we’re going up against…?”
Wedge shudders. “Maybe it’s just me, but I kinda feel bad for the dragon.”
Jessie nods, drifting off in thought. “It would take someone like him to be able to end a whole war by himself.”
Yuffie, up above, makes a stink face as soon as she’s reminded of it and slips back from the rails. If she has anything to say about it, it’s that Wutai’s gonna have their own answer to someone like that soon.
“So… what about you?” Aerith then asks.
“Me?” Cloud makes an awkward frown as he crosses his arms. “I was mesmerized. Just a little-known grunt who was in the presence of the greatest hero I’d ever known.”
“And Zack?”
He snorts. “He was too. But he was also a little salty since he was always waiting for his big moment, but it never came. Sephiroth would clean up any monsters before he could do anything.”
Aerith can’t help but let out a small smile. That does sound like him, honestly.
And then, as she would, Ruby interrupts the tense moment with a loud slurping sound. Apparently, she’s run low on her tea and now asks the bartender for a refill. Cloud passes a cautious glance back to her, and she returns his with a cheeky smile.
“But only one of us has lifted an entire city plate.”
He cringes with a very disappointed frown. She just had to go there, didn’t she?
Barret nods confidently and speaks up, “She got a point.”
“No, she doesn’t!” He whips back to her. “If you got something to say, then say it. Am I missing something here?”
“No. I’m just saying.”
He groans. “Then keep it to yourself. This isn’t about you.”
“Hehehe…”
Tifa gives her a stern frown. “Ruby, please don’t interrupt. You can save those comments for later.”
Her motherly tone makes Ruby flinch and she slumps in shame. “Sorry.”
Tifa turns back to Cloud with a nod. “Okay, Cloud, you can continue.”
“Thanks, Tifa.”
~
It was a long, hard trek through the mud and rains, but at least the storm seems to ease off as they near the town. But as they arrived, the town was abnormally quiet. Everyone seemed to be hiding indoors, almost as if afraid of something. Or perhaps, even of them.
“Here we are…” Cloud said.
But as they close in, he caught sight of someone standing near the south gate. As soon as he realized who it was, he bolted and ducked behind Zack, who threw up his arms as if to surrender to suddenly being a shield. Cloud hastily put up his helmet back on his head and heaved a sigh. Zack turned to look ahead, but whoever it had been waiting there seemed to have left.
“Did you see someone?” he asked.
“…” Cloud shook his head. “It’s nothing.”
“Hmm…” Zack made a concerned look, but decided not to press it.
Sephiroth walked on ahead of them to take a closer view of the townscape. He looked off into the distance as if pondering over something and then turned to Cloud as well.
“How does it feel?”
“H-huh?”
“It’s your first time back to your hometown in a long time, isn’t it? So how does it feel?”
“It’s…” Cloud hesitated over his answer. “Complicated.”
“…I see.” Sephiroth turned away again. “I wouldn’t know. I don’t have one of my own.”
“You don’t have a hometown?” Zack then blurted out, “What about your parents?”
“I know very little of them. Since young, I was raised as a Soldier in Midgar.” Sephiroth turned back with a solemn expression. “All I was told was that my mother’s name is Jenova, but she passed away shortly after giving birth. As for my father…”
He drifted off as he hesitated to answer and turned away again. Then, to everyone’s surprise, he began to chuckle to himself and then laugh out loud.
He shook his head. “What does it matter?” He beckoned them to follow with a wave of a hand. “Alright, let’s go.”
~
“Yo, wait a minute!” Barret suddenly bursts aloud, “Isn’t that, uh…? The name of Sephiroth’s mother…” He then strikes upon it and nods to himself. “Right! I remember her. That’s the name of the headless spook living in the Shinra labs.”
Cloud nods back. “That’s right.”
He frowns. “The hell? He’s really callin’ that thing his mom? It ain’t even human.”
Now Tifa frowns in his direction. “Barret.”
He actually gets a little flustered now that she’s getting impatient. “Er, sorry.” He turns back to Cloud. “You were saying?”
~
“We leave for the reactor at dawn. Make sure you get to sleep early,” Sephiroth commanded, “We only need one lookout, so the rest of you, get some rest.” He particularly honed in on Zack. “Especially you.”
Zack grinned. “Don’t worry. I’ll be good.”
“…” Sephiroth remained unconvinced, but decided not to argue. He headed toward the inn, but before he walked in, he stopped. “Oh, and…” He then turned to Cloud. “You may visit your family and friends.”
Cloud, still with his helmet on, nodded back silently.
Zack turned to him. “It must feel great to be back, huh?”
“…Not really.”
“No?” He scratched his head. “Well, it is a pretty quiet town, but…” He looked off toward the long line of houses. “So, which one’s yours?”
“Um… the furthest one to the northeast.”
“Cool! You gonna go see your folks? Mind if I join you?”
He shook his head. “Zack…”
“What?” Zack took a moment to realize that he was intruding on the kid’s personal space. “…Oh. A-alright. You do what you gotta do. Catch ya later?”
“Yeah. We’ll meet back up at the inn.”
“Right!” He then turned off for the rest of the neighborhood. “Well, maybe I could explore around for a bit. It’s still early, after all…”
~
Cloud pauses as he hesitates over whether or not to continue with the details.
“What’s the matter, Cloud?” Tifa asks again.
“Yeah, aren’t you gonna tell us about your family?” Aerith asks too with a cheery smile. “And you did go see Tifa, didn’t you?”
He rubs his head. “Ah. All that stuff… it’s not really important.”
“Aw, don’t be like that! Tell us! I wanna hear!”
“Yeah! It was a long time since you saw ’em, right?” Barret calls out too.
Ruby prods him with an elbow. “Yeah, Cloud, tell them.”
He stares at her. “Uh… is there something I need to talk about?”
Now she turns to him with a rather intense look in her eyes. “Everything you remember. Say it all, or I swear I will throw you off the highest peak here.”
“…” He’s taken aback by how serious she seems to have gotten, but obliges. “I don’t know if you’d call it a ‘family’… My father died when I was young, so I don’t really remember him. That’s why my mom lived alone in this house.” He nods. “Yeah, I saw her that night. Seems like she was doing just fine…”
~
The young Cloud nervously knocked on the door. “Uh?”
“Yes~?” came the chipper answer and the door opened. His mother gasped with joy. “Cloud!? Welcome home, Cloud!”
He rubbed his head. “Hi, Mom.”
“Come, come! Let me take a look at you!” She pulled him right inside and peered around him, smiling proudly. “Hmm… You look so handsome. So is this a Soldier uniform?”
As soon as she asked it, though, he flinched. “…Mom, I…” But as he tried to explain, he drifted off.
“Hm? Is something the matter, dear?”
“…”
“…” Catching on, his mother then nodded quietly. “It’s okay. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
He looked down in shame. “…Sorry. I feel like I’ve disappointed everyone.”
“Oh…” She came in to give him a warm hug. “Cloud, you haven’t disappointed anyone. You’ve grown up to be such a strong young man. I’m glad to see you’re back safe and sound.”
“…” Though his helmet covered his face, the boy bit his lip as he tried his best not to tear up.
(There’s a sudden cutoff as another memory flashes in.) Now Cloud and his mom stood by the sink where she was cleaning up the dishes.
“Oh, Cloud. Have you been eating right?”
He nodded. “Yeah. The company takes care of me.”
“Is that so?” She still looked worried, considering how thin he looked. “I know you can’t cook, so I couldn’t help but worry.”
“I’m alright.”
(There’s another flash as another memory pops in.) “Cloud?”
(Again, another flash.) “You know, Cloud…”
(Flash.) “…Isn’t that right, Cloud?”
(A final flash.) “I’ll always be your mother…”
(The crackling of electricity in his mind seems to spark a vicious flame among his memories, and within the hazy fog, he can recall the weak pleading of his mother’s voice.)
“…Run away, Cloud… You have to leave. You have to live…”
~
By now, Cloud is overcome by those same intense headaches again, but this time, he also feels a deep throbbing pain in his heart. Before he can stop himself, he realizes his eyes have begun to water. Ruby lightly taps him on the side of the head, and once again, those aches dissipate. She then gives him a comforting rub on the back.
“That’s enough, Cloud. You can stop there.”
“…Thanks.”
He looks off to avoid anyone else’s gaze and wipes his eyes dry. All of a sudden, he feels sick in his stomach, like something inside him just lurched at recalling those little details. It’s as if he’d just crossed into some kind of forbidden territory. Is it just the grief of losing someone so dear, or is there something more?
“Cloud?” Tifa calls.
“You okay?” Aerith asks too.
He takes a moment to recollect himself and turns back. “…Yeah,” he replies.
Then, as if to swing the mood back around, Ruby returns to her usual cheeky grin. “Good to hear! Anyway, let’s get back to the story. It’s just getting exciting!”
He gives her a hard stare in disbelief. She knows where this story is going, doesn’t she? How can she be so cheery about it?
“Like I said, we’ll get there. There’s more to this story than just the tragedies.” She also winks.
He blinks. Now she’s got his curiosity running again.
“Anyway, can we get back to the fun stuff? Like that time you stopped by Tifa’s place.”
He makes an awkward frown. “I wouldn’t call that the ‘fun’ stuff, but…”
~
Young Cloud knocked on the door, but no one seems to answer. At first, he hesitated to step in, but taking a look around town, he couldn’t find Tifa. He swore he saw her at the gate as they arrived, but then she just ran off. Who knew where she ran off to?
Looked like Zack was busy keeping her dad busy chatting away. He did consider going up to meet him too, but considering their history, he probably wouldn’t be too happy to see him anyway. Well, in the meantime, if she was home, maybe they could talk in private or something.
He tried the door and was glad to see it wasn’t locked. He first took care to wipe his shoes on the mat before he stepped inside and quietly shut the door behind him.
“Tifa?” he called out nervously, but there was no response.
He poked around the first floor; into the living room, the kitchen, etc. And there was no one in sight. Well, he could still try the second floor.
As expected, there were just the bedrooms up here. The larger one was clearly the one for her parents – well, parent, since it had been a long time since her mother was around – and the other one was Tifa’s…
He got even more nervous as he approached it. He knocked once more on the door, just to be safe, but again, there was no response. He let off a sigh. Well, he’d already come this far. Might as well poke around to see what he’d find. He again made sure that he doesn’t have any lingering dust on his uniform before he stepped in.
He found the room completely empty like all the others. Tifa’s room was a neat and cute little place, full of a young girl’s secrets. Normally, this would be off-limits to someone like him, but now that he recalled, she had invited several other boys around town in here before. So it wasn’t like he couldn’t ever stop by in here either, right?
He noticed there seemed to be several letters left out on her desk. At first, he hadn’t intended to look, but he happened to notice that one of them mentioned his name. He went over to pick it up and realized it was just a letter from one of the lads she’d known. If he remembered right, this one was the one who was the son of the owner of the general store. The letter didn’t say too much; just about how the guy ended up in Midgar and kinda lied about how he found a great job there. There was also a sort of reunion of the guys from Nibelheim somewhere, but Cloud didn’t join in. Honestly, he wouldn’t have fit in anyway.
~
“Aw, that’s it?” Ruby muses.
“What? You got something actually important to add?” he asks.
“Yeah, like how about that letter Tifa wrote back asking about you?”
“Huh?”
At that moment, Tifa flushes up red. “R-Ruby! How did you know…?”
“Oh, I have my ways.” Ruby grins. “It wasn’t included in the pile on the desk, but I think she had hidden it somewhere in her room.”
Cloud stares at her. “How would you even know that? Just how detailed are your ‘visions’ of our past supposed to be?”
“Very detailed. Like I said before, they’ve covered some pretty odd things here and there.”
Aerith then smiles innocently as she asks, “So? What did Tifa say about Cloud?”
Tifa’s getting flustered. “A-Aerith! Do we really need to talk about this? It’s not important, is it?”
Ruby answers anyway, “Just a few things like wondering how he was doing and if he’d joined Soldier yet. Also something about waiting for him by the water tower again if he ever came back to town. Seems like their childhood promise really stuck with her all that time.”
“…” Tifa turns away into her own corner to hide her face.
Aerith giggles. “Aw! That’s so sweet.”
Meanwhile, Jessie sighs to herself. “It really is…”
Biggs makes a look at her as if he’s about to comment, but decides not to incur her wrath again.
“A-anyway!” Tifa now interrupts, “This doesn’t have anything to do with the story, so let’s just keep going!”
“What are you talking about, Tifa? This is Cloud’s story. It’s definitely relevant,” Ruby reminds her.
“Ruby…” She slumps.
Cloud then grabs Ruby by the collar of her shirt and gives her a serious frown. “Let it be. We’ve wasted enough time. Let’s just go back to what actually matters.”
“But what about the piano?”
“The piano?”
“Yeah. You jammed on it, right?”
“…” He raises an eyebrow. “Why would you care about the piano?”
As if he had said the wrong thing, Ruby gets surprisingly serious and delivers an even more intense stare than before. “You jammed on it, right?”
“Uh…” Sensing that this might not be a path he should dare cross, he lets her go and nods back. “Yeah. I didn’t get too many chances to play piano back then, so when I found the sheet music left on it, I decided to try it myself.”
“What song did you play?”
“Um…” He scratches his head. “You know, I don't remember what it was called… Just that it sounded familiar.”
And with that, she returns back to her cheery attitude and a silly smile. “Thanks, Cloud. We can stop by Nibelheim later. I got a few things of interest to check out there.”
“…” He shakes his head with a sigh. “I can never tell what’s going on in that head of yours.”
“Besides, you still gotta return that underwear you stole.”
“!!” Cloud feels like he just got slugged right in the gut by an invisible hand. He grabs her by the collar again and seethes in her face. “You little…!”
“Underwear…?” Aerith asks innocently.
Tifa’s face grows dark. “Cloud…”
“…” He doesn’t dare look her way as he answers, “It was an accident.”
“Like how it ‘accidentally’ ended up in your pocket?” Ruby remarks, looking unimpressed.
“Shut up! Why of all things did you have to blab about that!?”
An awkward silence comes over the entire room, and for a moment there, one could hear just the sounds of the bartender cleaning some glasses and the sounds of Yuffie shuffling things around in her inventory.
“…” Cloud snorts angrily and throws her off. “Let’s just get on with it.”
As if trying to help, Wedge then speaks up, “It’s okay, Cloud. We’ve all been there before.”
“Not helping, Wedge.”
“Sorry.”
~
The inn was quiet as expected, though it seemed like Zack was having a nice chat with a muscular grizzled-looking man in a red cape about martial arts. Cloud slipped on by to chat with the innkeeper instead.
“Wait. Is that you, Cloud?” He blinked and then made a nostalgic smile. “It must’ve been two years. Say, you’ve really moved up in the world, being under Sephiroth’s command.” He nodded to himself. “Wow… This is really somethin’. You used to be such a scrawny young lad…”
“…”
The innkeeper cleared his throat. “So, what do you need, Cloud?”
He thought it over for a bit, nodding to the fact that it had been a while. “How is the town?”
“The town, huh…” The innkeeper put a hand to his chin as he recalled. “A lot of monsters have been appearing in the last 12 months. Other than that, there's not much change. Nothing much exciting happens in a little town like this.”
“Yeah, I guess so…”
“It was all right when they were building the reactor… while they were still building it, anyway. But once it was completed, it's been bad. Within a few years, all the trees on the mountain withered away.” He shook his head. “I don't know if the reactor was good or bad…” He then looked back to Cloud, adding, “I mean, it's easy to say that it was a bad idea now. But what can you do about it?”
The boy shrugged. “Well, if it’s anything, we’re here to deal with the monsters at least.”
“Yeah, if you all can help get rid of them, then we’ll be able to relax a little bit.” He turned toward Zack off to the side, who seems preoccupied with showing the old man a few moves of his own. Then, he went back to Cloud with a whisper, “I'll let you in on a secret… Shinra isn't really popular here. You know what I mean, right? You're from here, so you know.”
“Yeah…” Cloud peeked over to Zack and back. “But that guy’s the last person anyone else has to worry about.”
“Oh, I wasn’t talking specifically about him. He’s fine.”
“Hey, Buddy! There you are!” Zack finally noticed Cloud and ran on over. “Guess what? Zangan taught me a few moves just now! Wanna see?”
Cloud rolled his eyes. “We need to get up early. Shouldn’t you be going to bed now?”
“Yeah, but a little pre-bed exercise never hurt anyone!”
“…Sephiroth’s gonna be mad if you sleep in.”
“…” The color drained from his face and he slumped. “I know…”
Cloud watched him climb upstairs with that same dejected look. The innkeeper then asked him, “Oh, Cloud, are you going to room here? I would think you’d be better off resting at home.”
“Yeah, I was thinking that too. I just wanted to check by again. Where is Sephiroth?”
“He’s upstairs.”
“Thanks.”
Cloud headed up there now and found the man standing by the window with Zack looking over his shoulder.
“What are you looking at?” the latter asked.
Sephiroth didn’t turn his way and kept staring off into the distance. “…This scenery… I feel like I know this place.”
“Huh, like you’ve been here before?”
“…” He then turned back to Zack with a change of topic. “…We have an early start tomorrow. You should get some sleep soon.”
Zack rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. I heard you the first time…”
Sephiroth looked off again. “I’ve hired a guide to the Mako reactor. I’ve heard she’s young, I hope we can rely on her…”
Cloud blinked. Wait a sec. He wasn’t talking about Tifa, was he? Well, she would know her way around Mt. Nibel and she would dare to head there again… But he couldn’t help but get a bad feeling about this. Still, what was done was done and it was already getting late. He would head back home and worry about it tomorrow.
~
“It was the morning after that. Everyone was gathered on the northeast side of town that led up to the mountains.”
“And Zack slept in,” Ruby adds.
“No one woke him up, but we couldn’t leave without him.”
“He still came out in time to meet up, though,” Tifa recalls. “There was even a photographer who wanted to take Sephiroth’s picture.”
Cloud nods. “Yeah…” He pauses. “It’s funny, though.”
“What is?”
“I was tempted to join in the picture, but I couldn’t bring myself to.” He makes a bitter smile. “Maybe I just didn’t think I deserved to be a part of it.”
“…”
“That picture turned out pretty well, thinking about it,” Ruby then muses aloud to herself.
Cloud passes an unamused glance to her. By this point, nothing she claims really surprises him anymore. “You’ve seen it too, huh?”
“Yeah. Too bad the guy who took it isn’t around anymore. Shame, really. We could always use more pictures in this world.”
“…”
“Maybe it’s pointless to complain about it now,” Ruby adds, “But I really think that photo would have been even better if you had been in it.”
Cloud blinks and stares back. What a surprise to hear something genuinely heartwarming coming from her.
Tifa does likewise, but she then smiles and nods back. “I think so too.”
“…Oh! That reminds me.” She turns to the rest of them to ask, “Hey, guys, you think we could all take a picture together sometime? And I mean ALL of us. Just for the heck of it.”
There’s a round of pleasantly surprised faces followed by smiles that seem to spread out to everyone in the vicinity.
Barret raises a pumped-up fist. “Yeah! Why not? Who says we gotta wait? We just need a camera!”
Wedge’s eyes glitter. “Yeah! I’d love to be a part of that picture!”
Aerith giggles. “Sounds fun! I don’t mind wherever, as long as we get to take more than just one picture!”
“I thought that was always in the plan,” Jessie admits. “It’d be great if we could record our journey somehow.”
Biggs smirks. “Sure, as soon as you figure out how to add camera functions to our radios.”
“You wanna bet? They don't just have to be radios.”
Tifa chuckles. “Sounds like we’re in good hands there.”
Cloud looks around at the sudden uplift of the mood in the room just because Ruby said something nice. He looks aside to his own corner as he thinks it over again. While he definitely expected Ruby to be all kinds of annoying upstart while essentially being a co-commentator on the story he’s telling, he honestly impressed how easily she manages to jump between a fair variety of emotions on such short notice. One moment, she’s just being snarky; another moment, she’s actually genuinely caring; and another moment, she goes right back to being a goofball and irritatingly, a snitch. But in the end, it’s all in good fun.
So, why does he only feel more anxious the longer they go?
Ruby curiously peeks back to him. “Oh, uh, yeah. You were in the middle of telling the story, right? Sorry, go on.”
“It’s fine. I’m not mad or anything.”
“Uh-huh…” She nods back with a hand to her chin, as if studying his facial expression. “Sometimes, it’s hard to tell with you because you’re so moody.”
There it is again; she’s back to her snarky phase. But for once, he can’t be bothered to get irritated. Maybe he’s finally starting to get used to her pace.
~
The frigid air about Mt. Nibel was nothing to scoff at. Despite being located in a place not that far up north of the equator, the mountains shot up into the sky like natural-born skyscrapers, and the winds blew and rammed fiercely at those peaks. A mako reactor was built far in its depths and away from the town where the source of energy was said to be the most plentiful. Long ago, these mountains were full of life, crystals, and even greenery, but that time was long lost since Shinra’s interference came to stay.
The young Tifa was the local guide that was introduced to the squad by the town’s leader, despite her own father’s trepidations and concerns. However, she was a regular around these parts. Not only did she have a rather full history of climbing this long, winding, rocky path over the years, she’d even trained under a master out here. To someone like her, navigating around the place was pretty much second-nature, even with all the monsters roaming about. But of course, she didn’t have anything to fear in this company. She had not only one legendary Soldier, but two to help protect her.
It was a long trek even along the already demarcated footpath through the mountains, but between Sephiroth slaying everything in their path and Zack (jokingly) accusing him of being a kill-stealer, the monsters they encountered were very short-lived. In any case, they eventually arrived at the foot of a long rope bridge that led up to the next peak and just across that one was where the reactor was established.
“It gets harder from here!” Tifa warned the party as they approached the bridge. “Follow me!”
But she got stopped by Sephiroth, who set a hand on her shoulder. “Wait.”
“Huh?”
He stepped forward to check the condition of the ropes on this bridge. “…This bridge has seen better days. The ropes may be quite fragile. We should take care as we cross.”
“You think it’ll hold?” Zack asked.
“I don’t know. But clearly, the fastest way to the reactor is this way.”
“Right! How about one of us crosses to give it a test? I’ll go!”
Now he got stopped by Sephiroth. “Watch our guide.”
“Huh?”
Sephiroth proceeded up the bridge, taking several cautious steps as he moves, but he got a fair distance along the bridge without much trouble.
“Yo! Sephiroth! Looking good so far?” Zack called out from below.
But as the man continued, he couldn’t help but get a sort of ominous feeling hanging over them. The higher he climbed, the stronger the drafts. If they all rushed up here at once, it could be too much for the bridge to take.
“Well, it looks like it’s holding just fine,” Tifa remarked.
Zack grinned. “Alright, then! What are we waiting for? Let’s catch up!”
“Right!”
“Wait!” Sephiroth barked back, “If you all come in like this…!”
But despite his concerns, Tifa, Zack, and the grunt who wasn’t Cloud all hurried up the bridge together. But down below, Cloud saw how much the bridge was swaying and was hesitant to rush in after them. And then, just as Tifa and Zack reached about halfway, the ropes along the edge began to stretch and twist thin until they finally snapped.
Tifa shrieked as she slipped off the spinning planks and Zack leapt off to catch her. In his panic, Cloud rushed up after them too, even as the bridge was collapsing. It wasn’t long until even the base of the bridge gave way and snapped cleanly apart.
Such reckless children… They were all going to end up in trouble like this.
“Aeroga!”
With a quick cast under his breath, Sephiroth unleashed a great twister of wind magic beneath them that miraculously lifted them up back into the air and then down safely to the depths of the valley below. He dashed through the air, as if riding the current, and seized Cloud by the arm before he got flung out of the twister’s reach. That was four of them accounted… Wait, wasn’t there a fifth? From the corner of his eye, Sephiroth spotted the other grunt, who was too unfortunate to have had his leg caught up in the flaying ends of the snapped ropes, and as a result, he just missed the magic air ride.
Zack landed hard onto the ground, carrying a frightened Tifa in his arms, but got back up and shook it off like it’s nothing.
“You okay?”
“Y-yeah… Thank you.”
He lowered her down gently, but for a moment, she was a little wobbly on her feet and clung to his arm for support. Meanwhile, Zack frantically looked around the place for signs of the rest of them.
Shortly, Sephiroth came back out from around a large mound of rock with Cloud trailing close behind. The kid was pretty shaken up, but it was actually more because of the way Sephiroth just grabbed him out of the air. Cloud swore his life was flashing before his eyes for a moment there. His heart still hadn’t quite settled down yet.
“Sephiroth! There you are!” Zack called, waving a hand. He and Tifa hurried over to meet with them, and he also checked with Cloud and gave him a comforting pat on the back.
“Everyone seems to be all right.” He turned to Tifa, who settled down by now. “Will we be able to get back?”
She let out a sigh in relief and nodded back. “These caves are intertwined, like an ant farm. We should be able to find another way up.” She then took another look at the current group. “Oh, and Sephiroth. One person seems to be missing…”
He closed his eyes and coolly shook his head. “It may sound cruel, but we’ve no time to search for him. We can’t go back, so we must go on.”
Tifa made a sad look aside, and now spotted Zack tearfully hugging the remaining grunt. He even lifted him off his feet with a grip that could almost crush him.
“First, Jack, and then Mack… Buddy, you’d better not end up dead too, you hear!?”
“I-I got it. Please let me down…”
“Ms. Guide, if you please…” Sephiroth’s voice caught her attention.
“Oh! Right. It’s this way.” She waved to the other two and then led the way onward with Sephiroth following closely.
They made their way around the block and into a glowing, mysteriously colored green cave. There were still materia crystals that line the walls, and although they weren’t as plentiful as they used to be since ancient times, they lit up the cave like incandescent lights.
As they made their way through and out the other end back into the open, they arrived at a picturesque scene. In the center of a shallow pool rose a large piece of glowing crystal, and the glittering green liquid that poured out from its tip seeped down like water in a fountain.
~
Cloud suddenly stops in the middle of describing their journey. Now that he’s revisiting this place, he’s reminded of the strange dream that he saw last night. It was from a very different time and the range around Mt. Nibel looked quite different from his own memories of the place. But if there was one thing that was consistent between the two scenes, it was this particular mako spring.
“Cloud! Why’d you stop?” Barret asks. “Sounds like you were getting to something interesting…”
“Ah, yeah. I just remembered something I wanted to ask Ruby, but it’s not related to this.”
“Then get on with this story! Save your chit-chat for later.”
“Right. Well… Mt. Nibel is a place where mako is abundant, so it makes sense for a reactor to be built there…”
~
After taking their time admiring the pretty fountain, it was time that they got back to the mission. Tifa led the party out of the caves to a long curving path that led directly to a plateau gorge between two high peaks, and there was where the awaited mako reactor had been established.
Tifa let off a relieved sigh. “We finally made it. We sure took the long way though.”
Sephiroth moved on ahead while she eyed up the honestly intimidating-looking reactor before them. She meant to head in after the others, but then Zack stopped her.
“Tifa, you wait here.”
“I'm going inside too! I wanna see!”
Sephiroth turned his head back. “Only authorized people are allowed in. This place is full of Shinra’s industrial secrets.”
“But!”
He then turned to the lone grunt. “Take care of the lady.”
Cloud quietly saluted him, and he and Zack proceeded up the steps. Before Tifa could hurry after, the boy got in her way with a firm shake of his head. She tried to side-step him a few times, but every time he still stood his guard. Finally, she pouted and stomped away a few steps with a huff.
“Mm, man!” She even blew raspberry in his face. “Better take real good care of me, then!”
~
Now, Tifa chuckles to herself. “I remember now… so that was you, huh?” She offers him a gentle smile. “Thanks, Cloud. Sorry I was such a brat.”
“…No problem.” Cloud looks away shyly. “Was just doing my job.”
There’s a still silence between them, which is promptly broken by Ruby’s loud slurping again. Welp, time for another refill… Actually, no, scratch that. She’s already drunk a lot and thinks she may need to go to the restrooms. Instead, she asks the bartender for directions to said restrooms.
“I’ll be back soon! You go on without me!” she calls, waving her hand behind her.
“…”
Barret snorts impatiently. “So, the reactor? You remember anything from there or what?”
Cloud clears his throat. “Yeah, I do… Not because Zack told me either. I saw everything from his perspective.”
~
“I feel kinda bad leaving the kids out there…”
Sephiroth and Zack proceeded inside, following a series of ladders, pipes, and catwalks leading further in. Sephiroth kept his attention ahead, but Zack took his time looking around. Though he was definitely no stranger to reactors, this one was an older build that wasn’t quite so high-tech-looking as those in Midgar. It had a much more steampunk look to it with all the moving gears around.
“…If you’re so concerned, then you’re free to stay with them.”
“Nah, I’m not worried. They’ll be fine. But I wonder what’s so secret about this place that we’d have to hide?”
Now he glanced back to him with an unimpressed frown. “Zack. Weren’t you there during Genesis’ attack on Midgar’s Reactor No. 5?”
“Uh, yeah?”
“Then you have your answer.” And he walked off ahead again.
“…” He rubbed his head awkwardly and nodded back. “Sheesh. I thought that was supposed to be the exception, not the norm…” He then hurried after.
They finally arrived at a mechanical bridge that separated the outer edge of the reactor from its depths. There was a button access panel just before the bridge and Sephiroth hit it. The old bridge hadn’t seen much use recently, so there was a sharp creak before both of its ends lowered to match up and a loud thud as they snapped into place to lay the path forward.
However, as they crossed the bridge, they seemed to catch onto a strange hissing noise nearby. It wasn’t steam being released from a valve or anything. But as Zack looked around them, he didn’t notice anything in the vicinity either. Instead, following intuition, Sephiroth glanced up above them.
“There.”
“Huh?” Zack squinted. “Wait, is that a bat or…?”
Now that it had been found out, a wild dark blue demon snarled at them and pounced from above with a divekick that amde a loud bang as it landed at the center of the bridge. The two Soldiers easily dodged out of the way, though they ended up on opposite sides.
“Alright, asshole. You wanna go!?” Zack yelled, drawing his faithful Buster Sword.
But before he could even swing it, there was a critical slash from behind. The demon fell flat and lifeless in an instant. Zack stared at the fallen creature in silence, while Sephiroth retracted his blade once more.
“Just a Valron. Let’s go.” And he walked off as if nothing happened.
Zack whined loudly, “Sephiroth! Man! Can’t I have ONE good fight!?”
But the man ignored him and headed through the doorway into the depths. Zack pouted to himself for a bit, watching the creature disappear into the ether, and crouched to check on the bridge. Seemed like the attack from the beast did leave a dent, but this bridge seemed sturdy enough to hold anyway. With a sigh, he slipped his sword back behind him and hurried to catch up.
Finally, they arrived in the back room of the reactor where quite a few pear-shaped tanks with round windows sat across several lines of steps that led up to the innermost chamber. Up above the doorway was a large plaque engraved into the wall that spelled out a name: J-E-N-O-V-A.
“Jenova…” Zack blinked. “Hey, wait. Isn’t that the name of one of those science projects that Genesis and Angeal were a part of…?”
“…”
“Uh, Sephiroth?”
Sephiroth didn’t answer him. Instead, he seemed more preoccupied with looking for the source of the reported malfunction. He walked over to check on one of the pipelines running behind one of the tanks in the front row. “This is the reason for the malfunction. This part is broken.”
“Um, Sephiroth…”
“Zack, close the valve.”
“…” Seeing that the guy wasn’t going to answer him, Zack obliged. He jogged over to the main pipeline running along the side of the room, found the valve in question, and screwed the wheel on tight.
Sephiroth glanced up to the window of the tank. “Why did it break?” With a short hop, he pulled himself up by the window’s guard to take a peek. With a disgusted scoff, he dropped back to his feet. “…Now I see, Hojo. But doing this will never put you on the same level as Professor Gast.”
Zack walked back over. “Huh? What’s up?”
“This is a system that condenses and freezes mako energy. Now, what does mako become when it’s further condensed?”
He folded his arms and thought it over. “Umm… Oh, yeah!” He raises a hand. “It becomes materia!”
“Right, normally. But Hojo put something else in there… Take a look.”
Zack shrugged and followed suit. He hopped up to peek through the window and gasped at the horror. Inside, there seemed to be something human-shaped, but aside from the general silhouette and the remnants of a face, the body was mutated blue with extra appendages sticking out from the person’s head as if it were an alien, almost tree-like creature. Zack was so shocked that he dropped right on his rear end.
“Wh-what is this!?”
“Normal members of SOLDIER are humans that have been showered with mako. You’re different from the others but still human. But, what are they? They’ve been exposed to a far higher degree of mako than you.”
Still in disbelief, Zack climbed back to his feet. “…Is this some kind of monster?”
“Exactly. And it’s Hojo of Shinra that produced these monsters – mutated living organisms produced by mako.”
Now he glanced back to him. “Normal members of Soldier? You mean you’re different?”
“…”
At first, Sephiroth looked as if he means to answer normally, but then he stopped himself as he came to think it over. And the more he thought about it, the more alarming the realization he came to. He looked back up toward the doorway to the innermost chamber with an expression that slowly shifted into one of horror.
“Uh, Sephiroth?”
Sephiroth clasped his head, suddenly feeling a little lightheaded, and faltered in his step as he walked away.
“H-hey! You okay?”
“No…” He lowered his hands as his eyes grow wide. “…Was I?” He glanced back to the doorway and now beared a rather disturbed, almost desperate look in his eyes. “Was I created this way, too?”
“What?”
All of a sudden, he’d overcome by an intense feeling of betrayal that brought a rage that laid dormant all this time. Those dirty, wretched Shinra scientists… After all that time he spent enduring the harsh training, experiments, and data collection in his youth, not one person ever thought to explain WHY he had to bear with it? In the end, that was all it comes down to, didn’t it? He was just a lab rat, designed since birth to be the “ultimate lifeform” that could be put on display like a trophy for those stock suits of the company.
He whipped out his sword and started hacking away at the tanks in a frenzied fury.
“Hey! Sephiroth!” Zack tried to close in, but that sword was way too long to safely approach.
“Am I the same as all these monsters?” He ran off to the next row to hack at them too.
“What the heck! What are you doing!?”
Clang, clang, clang. Normally, someone as strong as Sephiroth would make easy work of metal sheets like what these tanks are made of, but in his disoriented madness, he didn’t even have the right blade alignment to make his usual slicing work, so the blade clinked uselessly against the tanks.
By now, Zack had seen enough. He whipped out his own sword and met it against Sephiroth’s blade, knocking it aside. “Sephiroth! Calm down! What are you doing!?”
But the man was still unsteady as he backed off with a crazed grimace. “You saw it! All of them… were humans…”
“Human!? No way!” Zack shook his head. “What’s gotten into you? I’ve never seen you like this before.”
Now Sephiroth stepped away, clutching at his chest as if he’s having trouble breathing. “…Ever since I was small I’ve felt… that I was different from the others. Special, in some way.” He then shook his head. “But… not like this…”
“…Sephiroth.” Zack meant to offer something else to help comfort him, but he found himself short on ideas there.
And then, like an unwelcome omen of the past, they heard a familiar voice from the shadows. “…You’ve finally realized it.”
“!?”
Another man dressed in a red coat – with a face quite like that of a rock star’s – appeared from behind one of the tanks in the back. As if to show off, he extended a single black wing from his back. However, the man definitely saw better days. His once luscious brown hair had gone completely white and his skin had grown pale. His face was a little gaunt and his body was much more fragile than he used to be. Even his wing seemed to be losing its color.
“Genesis!” Zack drew his sword forward. “What are you doing here!?”
But Genesis paid him no mind. He walked down the steps, speaking with Sephiroth. “As is customary of all subjects of the Jenova Project, it is only a matter of time before we all return to the source – that is, the source of the cells that which make up our bodies.”
Sephiroth wasn’t in the right mind to talk earlier and he was even less so with this man now. He returned him a dangerous glare. “…What do you want?”
Genesis raised a violet-colored apple – a good ol’ dumbapple from Banora – in his hand and offered it to him as a peace offering. “To ask for your help.”
“…”
He opened his arms with a grim smirk. “As you can see, my body has been deteriorating. Unfortunate, but inevitable for the subjects classed under the G-Project. Unlike you who remains as the only successful attempt at integrating Jenova cells into a human body, the rest of us… are sadly incomplete. Almost as if from the very beginning, we were destined to fail…” He drops his arms and shakes his head with a sigh. “It seems the results of the S-Project have won out in the end. My due congratulations to the head scientist in charge…”
“…”
Genesis smirked to himself. “Oh, that’s right. It was Hojo, wasn’t it?”
“!” Sephiroth actually flinched. That stung a little.
He chuckled to himself. “My, how the Fates can be cruel! And here I thought I was the one chosen by the Goddess. But alas! It was not to be…”
Zack cut in again from the side, “For crying out loud! Are you really back just to spout crap about that book you’re always reading!?”
Genesis ignored him as usual. He placed a hand to his chest as if to make a pledge. “O Great Goddess! She who oversees the planet and the Great Flow within, ever wise to guide us in Her infinite providence, ever merciful to forgive us for our uncountable sins… may She lead us to the Promised Land to which we all will one day return…”
“Oh my Goood…!” he groaned.
By now, even Sephiroth had enough listening to this fool. He stomped away for the door, but Genesis swooped in again to get in his way.
“…Ahem. If you must know, not all hope is lost. I’ve discovered there is a simple solution to this problem of mine, and it requires your cooperation.”
He shook his head. “And what am I supposed to do for you?”
“Your cells.”
“…”
“If you offer me your cells, I may be able to reverse the degradation. After all, whatever had been done to you has yet to show its ill effects.”
Sephiroth brushed him aside and continued to walk for the door, but Genesis continued to pursue.
“Sephiroth. I know we haven’t been on the best of terms lately, but please, listen to me… as an old friend?”
Now he stopped and turned back with another vicious glare. “Get to the point.”
“Of course.” Genesis then offered that apple to him again. “I offer a truce. As a sign of our eternal brotherhood, let us cast off all our petty squabbles and unite as a force truly unstoppable! It’s time to break away from the shackles of Shinra. That black company has done nothing in our service but seek monetary gains for our services. But together, their days will be numbered.” He smirked as smugly as ever. “So? What do you say… old friend?”
Up to this point, Sephiroth had been trying to keep it together as to not just whip out his sword and stab this guy with it. Instead, he took a deep breath, let out a grieved sigh, and turned back to his “old friend” with a threatening warning.
“…As far as I’m concerned now, I have no more ties to Shinra. But that doesn’t mean I’ll be working with you either. Nor will I share anything with you. Whatever ‘petty squabbles’ you have left to start, I want none of it.” He coolly swatted the apple out of the other man’s hand and glared intensely. “You will rot.”
And with that, Sephiroth walked right out the door with a look of vengeance burning in his eyes. Genesis bent down to pick the apple up with a sigh.
“…So much for friends. He truly is a monster.”
Now Zack got mad again. “Shut up! You’re no friend! Why’d you say all that to him!?”
Genesis finally turned to him with a shrug. “I’m just being honest. It’s not my fault he can’t handle the truth.”
“You bastard…” He gritted his teeth as he adds, “No wonder he hates your guts! If it were me, I’d let you rot too!”
“Tsk, tsk. Is that any way to treat a dying man, Zack Fair?”
“You dug your own grave. Now lie in it.”
And with that bitter remark, Zack hurried out the door after Sephiroth. Maybe they just got off on the wrong foot there. He’d go talk some sense into him, and they could work it out as always.
~
Everyone around the room has gone silent. Wow, what a secret that Shinra had been hiding in one of their reactors all this time. It’s even more aggravating that such cruel secrets were being kept from even the elite of Soldier. But more than that, what the heck was going on at the end there?
“Damn Shinra!” Barret scowls, “The more I hear, the more I hate ’em!”
Tifa looks off again, still a little in shock. “…Who would have ever thought the reactor held a secret like that?”
Barret then scratches his head as he tries to recount the events so far. “Wait, but who the hell is that ‘Genesis’ guy? Another of Shinra’s lab rats or somethin’?”
Cloud shakes his head. “I… don’t really know, actually. But Zack knew him well enough to hate him.”
Aerith looks aside too as if trying to recall whatever the heck had happened back then. She does seem to remember being attacked once before by some weird winged soldiers, but she was also protected by a different winged dog or something… Okay, the more she thinks about it, the weirder it gets.
“Hey! I’m back!” Ruby announces, raising a hand in the air. She slides right back to her seat at the counter and swerves to turn to Cloud. “Sorry I took so long. What’d I miss?”
“Ruby, do you know who Genesis is?”
She blinks and then makes a cute smile. “He’s a Loveless nerd who thinks he’s the main character when he’s not. Don’t mind him, he’s not important.”
Cloud raises an eyebrow at that. “Uh, you sure? I thought he was the reason why Sephiroth descended into madness…”
“Nah, he was already on the path to destruction, but Genesis just rubbed salt in the wound. He’s a bully, but unlike Sephiroth, he’s not a threat.”
“…”
“So, anything else you wanna ask me, or can we get back to the story?”
Since she doesn’t seem willing to answer anything else about the mysterious man in red, Cloud nods back and continues where he left off.
Notes:
Quite a few details to cover this time...
Hidden for convenience
- As you can see, I'm skipping far ahead in Cloud's story to include Zack. I would not have been able to sit through the entirety of the Nibelheim flashback if I weren't allowed to mention anything about him. Zack is truly a legendary hero.
- Zack and Sephiroth's conversation about materia in the beginning was from some hidden script files in the OG. They never made it into the final cut, so I've brought them in here for everyone. I figured it'd be better than hearing Sephiroth's briefing of the mission we're all familiar with by now.
- Same goes for the dialogue where Sephiroth confirms the driver of the truck is dead. Why this segment never made it into the final cut, I have no idea. It actually explains a mystery why the team was cut down to two grunts by the time they reach Nibelheim.
- The extra bits I added to Cloud's flashback of his mom Claudia are two-fold: part of it is my original work, where I take a few liberties with young Cloud admitting to his mom about how he failed to join Soldier. The other part is at the end where I dropped the infamous line in Chapter 2 of Remake that Sephiroth used to mock Cloud. It was implied that they were the last words Claudia said before she died.
- The letter that Tifa wrote back to Emilio, the son of the owner of the general store, asking more about Cloud was actually originally found in the OG's hidden game files that also never made the final cut. It was one of the things featured in the secret 4th disc that released with some physical copies of the Japanese-only International version that covered a lot of game secrets and notes from the devs. Thanks to Lifestream.net for compiling the resources.
- Many of you may know this one, but the bit about the piano is a reference to an easter egg in the OG. Telling Tifa that Cloud "jammed on it" and then have him play the Main Theme of FF7 will net you an Elemental materia when you later stop by her house in Nibelheim.
- Also, many of you may know this too, but Cloud can find "Orthopedic Underwear" in Tifa's closet. The original Japanese translates to "Outstretched-to-the-Brim Panties", suggesting how long they've been worn. The game never explains where those panties went, but there is actually a flag in the game's code that marks for whether or not you stole those panties. Those of you who know, you know what happens in Disc 2.
- The conversation with the innkeeper about the town is again one of those instances of hidden game scripts that never made it to the final cut. I also don't know why they got rid of it, but I guess it would have been unnecessary dressing. Imo, it's a shame to be cut, so I've brought it in here.
- Shoutouts to Zangan. I'm excited to cover his story at some point down the line. For now, he's gonna have to stay as that old guy that Zack likes to talk with.
- Thank God I rescued Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie. Cloud and gang wouldn't have had the extra party members to do stuff like add cameras to their PHS so Cloud can take selfies at any time.
- The scene with the broken bridge is entirely my own imagination. I like to think that since Remake introduced the Wind materia, it only makes sense that Sephiroth would have had it too. Now it makes sense how they all survived just fine after dropping like 30 stories.
- The names of the other two grunts are definitely an in-joke I had with a friend. I wanted to name one of them "Mack", short for "mackerel", in reference to a joke from the devs revealed in an old Ultimania guide. They never had any names for the grunts that came along, but the one who fell off the bridge was dubbed "Zako", which is Japanese for "fishfry" or basically a grunt who isn't important. The name "Jack" just felt right. So we have Zack, Jack, Mack, and Clack. Er, Cloud. ;)
- In spirit of Remake, I added an extra scene during the time Sephiroth and Zack enter the Nibel Reactor. Since I figured I wouldn't have too many chances to introduce a certain monster I loved to grind my Limit Breaks on, I brought it in here too as a cameo.
- Also, Sephiroth is absolutely a kill-stealer and I won't take no for an answer.
- The entire conversation with Genesis is something I came up with off the top of my head. I don't exactly remember how the conversation went in Crisis Core / Reunion, so I winged it. I think it came out pretty good.
- 4/14/23 edit: Oh, I just realized I forgot to include the brief scene of the monster escaping its pod. Well, uh, let's just pretend it never happened and we can all move on for the better. :)
Chapter 23: The Tragedy of Nibelheim
Notes:
4/24/23 edit: While writing for the next chapter, I realized I was mistaken a little regarding the layout of the caves around town. Added a bunch more detail to Chapter 21 to fix that. Also, Nanaki's room is supposed to be connected to a tunnel leading from the back of the tavern, but for convenience's sake, I decided to craft a new tunnel that leads to that tunnel in a three-way intersection. It doesn't exist in the OG, but I figured I should expand on it. It's more convenient for Nanaki to get around from his room with multiple exits instead.
4/20/25 edit: Converted the entire flashback to past tense to be consistent with the rest of the fic.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The walk back to town would be incredibly tense. As much as Zack tried to plead and reason with Sephiroth, the latter refused to even look his way. Finally, taking the nastiest glare that he’d ever seen, Zack finally relented and lets Sephiroth walked ahead by himself.
Cloud and Tifa hurried after Zack, equally worried. She asked, “…Is he alright?”
Zack sighed and shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen him like this before. We’ve been through a lot of hard times in the past, but nothing would ever seem to phase him. But now…” He scratched his head. “He’s just… different.”
“What happened? There wasn’t any trouble between you two, was there?”
“I don’t think so? I was just asking questions about the stuff we found. But then he came upon some kind of realization and it made him freak out. And then…” Zack looked like he wanted to keep talking about Genesis, but understood that it wasn’t something he should get her involved with. Instead, he hastily ended it with, “Well, long story short, we found some disturbing things in there, so I guess it really got to him.”
“Oh. Poor Sephiroth…”
“Yeah. Hope he’ll be okay after a while.” Zack then raised a pumped fist with a look of resolve. “But if not, then I’ll do everything I can to work things out with him. I promise, things will be okay!”
~
“But Sephiroth was too much of a stubborn bitch to listen to facts and reason. For once in his life, he was overcome with emotion and it was like an addiction that he never realized he had.”
“Ruby, please don’t make me repeat myself,” Tifa warns her again, “Save the commentary for after Cloud finishes.”
But now that Ruby has brought it up, Cloud takes a moment to think it over. “…Actually, she’s not too off the mark.”
“Huh?”
“I mean, I wouldn’t put it the way she did, but it really felt like we were talking to a wall.”
“…” She then nods along. “Yeah, I guess so. You guys were supposed to leave town the next day, right?”
“Yeah, but he confined himself to the inn and wouldn’t come out. Zack had to room with me for a while there.”
“If I recall, he even disappeared all of a sudden.”
“We later found him inside the biggest building in town – the old, abandoned Shinra Mansion up north.”
“It was already empty by the time we were born,” she clarifies for everyone.
“Long ago, people from Shinra used to live in that mansion. We were able to find traces of scientific research going back decades…”
~
The dusty old mansion was surprisingly well kept despite its age. While squeaky floorboards were a given around here, the stairs held up as sturdy as they’d always been and the rooms, while layered in dust, were otherwise kept intact. Having trouble sleeping, Zack and Cloud would sneak out late at night and catch sight of Sephiroth heading into the mansion. But shortly after they tailed the man inside, they somehow lost him after he went up the stairs and to the right. The pair agreed to split up and look around. While Zack peeked around the other room, Cloud opted for the inner study that led into a bedroom. However, after a plainly unfruitful search, Zack found nothing but old furniture, books left on the shelves and on desks, and assorted classical-looking décor. This seemed to be an ordinary book study, alright. But there was no sign of Sephiroth. He decided to check back with Cloud in the other room.
“Found anything, Buddy?”
Cloud shook his head. “No… but we saw him head this way, right?”
“Yeah. But nothing but books and dust bunnies in the other room.”
“Well, no luck here either…”
Zack let out a disappointed sigh and walked around to take a look anyway. There was a bed and another bookshelf and an extra chair left beside the bed. It was a bedroom, alright; and judging by the size, it could have once belonged to a child. He leaned back against an indented face of a stony pillar at the back of the room.
Cloud came over to take another peek at it. “This place is the most suspicious, I think.”
“Huh? This wall? What’s wrong with it?”
“See, it’s a little indented in, almost like it could open.”
“Really?” Zack scratched his head. “It looks like an ordinary wall to me…”
But now that Zack leaned against it, Cloud decided to push on it again. And with their combined efforts – sort of – the door gave way and Zack nearly fell over.
“Whoa!”
“Oops. Sorry.”
Zack caught himself and peered down into the dark chamber they just happened upon. It was dimly lit from the surrounding ambient light from outside and they could make out the shape of a staircase leading round and round into some kind of underground passage. They turned back to each other in disbelief.
“Cloud!”
“Y-yeah?”
Zack gave him a rather forceful pat on the back. “You’re a genius! Great thinking!”
“Ow.”
He peeked down into the dark chamber once more. “Sephiroth definitely came this way! I’ll go fetch him!”
“Zack.”
He stopped before he would descend. “Hm?”
The kid made a worried frown under his helmet. “Sephiroth… he seems different. Be careful.”
He nodded back and offered a reassuring grin. “I’ll bring him out and back to normal if it’s the last thing I do!”
Cloud nodded back. “Good luck.”
And with that, Zack descended. It may have been dark along this spiral staircase, but there was just enough ambient light from above and some kind of light source below to make out the shape of the stairs. Not to mention, Soldiers were just naturally gifted when it came to seeing with night vision thanks to their glowing eyes.
It definitely looked like no one had been around here in a really long time until just earlier. As soon as he reached the ground floor and headed out the only doorway, he met a face-full of bats that were living here and promptly scared them all away with a great swing of his sword. As it happened, this tunnel was faintly lit up by some old lanterns that gave the place a reddish glow.
Zack also happened upon a door off to the side of the tunnel, but was disappointed to find it locked. Well, it seemed like Sephiroth didn’t come this way or he would have easily obliterated the lock. He turned off and kept heading down the tunnel. At the end, he found another door and this one wasn’t locked.
When he stepped inside, he was shocked to find what seemed to be some kind of underground lab, with scientific equipment and old books scattered all around the room. There were even a couple empty tanks by the wall to his right, looking undisturbed as with the rest of the mansion. But now that he checked the table, there were a few books laid atop that weren’t as dusty as he expected. And then, it clicked with him that Sephiroth must have been reading them. And sure enough, he heard the mumblings of a familiar voice down the hall that was lined with even more bookshelves.
“Hey! Sephiroth!”
But the man didn’t respond. Zack found him pacing around back and forth reading off of some books he picked off the shelves. There were other piles of books he laid on the floor on the side and there were a disturbingly great number of books that the man had already gone through.
“…An apparently dead organism was found in a 2000 year old geological stratum. Professor Gast named that organism, Jenova…”
Zack watched him from a distance with a mix of shock, worry, and confusion. How long had he been here? He thought when he and Cloud found him heading inside earlier, he wasn’t in too deep yet. But it seemed like he’d been at this ever since they came back to town.
“X Year, X Month, X Day. Jenova confirmed to be an Ancient…”
Sephiroth continued to read as if possessed. Not once since Zack stepped by and called to him had his eyes left the pages.
“X Year, X Month, X Day. Jenova Project approved. The use of Mako Reactor 1 approved for use…” For once, he stopped to look off to the ceiling instead. “My mother’s name is Jenova… Jenova Project… Is this just a coincidence?” He then looked back at the pages again and lowered the book in hand. “Professor Gast. Why didn’t you tell me anything? …Why did you die?”
Zack frowned to himself. Yeah, seemed like Sephiroth has been bothered by those suspicions ever since they went into the reactor earlier today. It wasn’t like he would have expected the guy to react so violently to an innocent question of his, but he did feel just a tinge of guilt for leading him to this crazed state.
Now that Sephiroth had taken a pause from reading, Zack approached him, raising a cautious hand. “Hey. Sephiroth?”
“…”
He rubbed his head. “Sorry about earlier. I think I might’ve said the wrong thing and-”
“You did nothing wrong.”
“Huh?”
Finally, Sephiroth turned to him with an incredibly sorrowful look. “It was just a matter of time that I’d learn the truth.”
“…”
He turned away again. “Let me be alone.”
“…” Zack nodded back. He then suggested with a friendly smile, “But when you’re ready, come out and meet up with us, alright? We’ll be hanging around town.”
Sephiroth didn’t respond. He’d gone right back to reading.
That smile quickly faded. Well, it wasn’t like anything Zack said now would change Sephiroth’s mind. Maybe it was best to just leave him be. He then quietly slipped away again, albeit slowly, as if to catch the last few bits of what the man was reading.
“X Year, X Month, X Day. Return trip to the Northern Cave yielded further mysteries. The specter of a pure-white dragon was sighted flying over the exact location where Jenova had been discovered. It disappeared before capture was attainable.”
~
“WHAT!?” Ruby’s shrill shriek neatly cuts off Cloud’s next line.
“Huh?”
She grabs him by the collar this time and stares right in his face. “Cloud! What the hell did you just say!?”
“I’m just telling it like it is… What’s wrong?”
Her faces grows pale as she realizes the implications of what she’s hearing. She then lets him go and sinks back into her own seat in a slump, with fingers prodding against the temples of her head.
“Ruby?”
She had been planning to stop by Nibelheim anyway for some odd errands here and there, but she hadn’t expected that there would even be some records about Rubia there too. Why that particular report wasn’t later ported over to Midgar’s library is the real mystery. Why would Hojo bother to hide it? Did he actually suspect there was some sort of link between Jenova and the white dragon? How much does that bastard know??
“…Hey. You okay? Your eyes are kinda bugging out.”
She claps her hands on her cheeks to snap herself out of it, and turns back to him with an awfully serious look – more so than earlier. “Cloud, we need to stop by Nibelheim later. I don’t know why some of Rubia’s history would have made it there.”
He blinks. “But the town…”
“It’s still there.”
“What?” He stares back, and Tifa likewise gasps.
“It was rebuilt by Shinra after the incident. They should have preserved those records. The mansion was largely spared from the destruction.”
“…”
“Uh… What happened?” Barret asks.
Cloud turns back to the others. “We’re getting there. As I was saying…”
~
Zack yawned as he woke up on the bed in another bedroom on the other side of the mansion. Cloud was here with him on a separate bed.
“Morning, Zack.”
Zack drowsily waved a hand back. “Morning, Cloud.” He dropped back on the bed and shut his eyes again. “Welp, guess we got to chill in this old place all to ourselves.”
“…”
“…” He then opened his eyes and turned back to him. “Worried about Sephiroth, huh?”
“Yeah.”
Zack then pulled himself up and swung his legs off the bed, getting to his feet. “Then, let’s go!”
“Huh?”
“Let’s go see him. He’s probably read himself to sleep after that long night.”
“…” Cloud then shook his head. “You go. I won’t help anything anyway.”
“Aw, don’t be like that, man! If anything, he probably doesn’t want my voice to be the first that he hears!”
“But you know him better. I’ve only recently come to work under him. He probably doesn’t even remember me.”
“Who, Sephiroth? He’s not the forgetful type.”
He looked aside. “I mean, I’m just a no-name grunt who couldn’t join Soldier…”
“…” Zack rubbed his head. “Well, you could always try again.”
“Zack. I failed at the mako testing phase. It’s not gonna change if I go for it again.”
“Ah. Yeah, that might be the toughest part about it…” He then raised a thumb for good measure. “Well, it’s kinda like a test of mental fortitude, right? So you just gotta train yourself to think positive! You can do it! You are strong enough! Keep up the good fight!”
“…”
Seeing that his frown wasn’t changing, Zack’s smile faded too. “Um… Yeah, it’s not that easy, huh? Well, in the end, it’s up to you. I still think you got what it takes, though.”
Cloud let off a sigh. “…Thanks, Zack.”
“No problem.”
He turned back again. “Anyway, you should hurry and find Sephiroth. I’m getting all kinds of bad feelings…”
“Right.”
With a quick casual salute, Zack ran out the door. It was just a short trip around the mansion down into the basement once more. However, Cloud’s apprehension would not be unfounded. As soon as Zack nears the old lab again, he caught the sound of Sephiroth… laughing? He wasn’t out here, so was he still in the back room?
Lo behold, he really was, and he was even seated at the desk at the center of the library. Sephiroth looked worse for the wear, with bags under his eyes like he hadn’t slept a wink since the night before, but there was this ugly and twisted grin on his face as he kept giggling maniacally to himself. In any case, he seemed to be a little more than delirious.
“Who’s there!?”
Zack raised a hand. “Uh, hey.”
Sephiroth’s crazed sneer faded into a scornful grimace. “Hmph… Traitor.”
“Traitor?”
“You ignorant traitor. I’ll tell you.” He climbed out from his seat and even wobbled a little as he got to his feet. He nonetheless began to pace around as he spoke, “This planet originally belonged to the Cetra. The Cetra were a itinerant race. They would travel about, speak with the planet, and travel again.”
“…” Zack simply blinked.
“At the end of their harsh, difficult journey, it was said that they would find their Promised Land and discover true happiness.” He then fired back an intense glare. “But, then there were those who disliked the journey. They stopped their travels, built shelters and elected to stay and live a life of enjoyment instead.” He pointed in his face. “Those are your ancestors.”
Now Zack was getting worried. “Sephiroth…”
“Long ago, disaster struck the planet. Your ancestors escaped… They survived because they hid.” He continued to pace about. “The planet was saved by sacrificing the Cetra. After that, your ancestors happily propagated and spread everywhere.” He then threw a gesture of contempt toward the books. “Now all that’s left of the Cetra is in these reports.”
“Okay… but what does that have to do with you?”
He whipped back around with an even more contemptible scowl in his direction. “Don’t you see? An Ancient named Jenova was found in a 2000 year-old geological stratum. The Jenova Project.” He began to strut up to Zack, only to walk past him again. “This project was designed with the intent to produce people with the powers of the Ancients… Or, as they’re properly known, the Cetra.” He then stopped in the hallway. “…I am what was produced.”
“Pr-produced!?”
“Yes. Professor Gast, leader of the Jenova Project and genius scientist, produced me.”
“But… how did he?” Zack then cut himself off. “Wait! Then, what about Genesis? And Angeal…?”
“Hmph.” Sephiroth turned back to him. “What about them?”
“Huh?”
“They were failures of another second-rate scientist that never lived up to the success of Gast. They were due to disappear sooner or later.”
“What!?” Zack was visibly upset. “Sephiroth! Even if they messed up, that’s too cruel even for you!”
Sephiroth looked off down the hall again and walked off without a word.
“S-Sephiroth?” He was about to pursue him, but the latter then stopped at the end of the hall.
Without turning back, he uttered a dangerously fateful last line: “Out of my way. I’m going to see my mother.”
“Hey! Come on, knock it off! This is all crazy talk! …Sephiroth!”
But before Zack could reach out a hand to stop him, Sephiroth whipped around and jabbed the butt of his sword right into the former’s gut, knocking him away and breathless. Before Zack could finish coughing and gasping for air, Sephiroth got the other elbow into the side of the chin, dropping him to the floor. By the time Zack’s head stops spinning and he recollected himself, the menacing man already left.
Not good. Definitely not good. The man was already looking delirious enough. Who knew what he was gonna do like this. Zack pulled himself back to his feet and made a mad dash out. Out the basement, through the dimly lit tunnel, back up the spiral staircase, and out the secret wall. Reminding himself that he left Cloud in the other bedroom, he hurried off that way to search for the kid. But when he got there, Cloud was already gone. Did he head out? Zack hurried back out and down the stairs; he had to catch up right away.
But as he came bursting out the front doors and into the courtyard, he gasped at the scene before him. The entire town was set ablaze. People screaming, running around, only to be swallowed up by the flames… or otherwise be cut down by a deathly blade.
Zack suddenly found himself out of breath again. “Sephiroth…” He gritted his teeth, took a deep breath, and yelled at the top of his lungs. “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!?”
He ran into town to find the man, but the fires were too intense to make out which of the moving bodies were which. Everywhere he turned, he heard screams of the poor civilians struggling to make their way out, to no avail. In a twisted irony, the fire seemed to have a life of its own as it greedily gobbled up its victims where they tried to flee. And for a brief moment, from the corner of his eye, Zack thought he could see the man in the black coat standing amid those flames. But when he drew his sword and jumped over to catch him, he’s vanished again. Sonnuva… Damn, he was fast. Where did he go!?
“Hey! You there!” A familiar voice called out to him, “You’re not insane yet, right?”
“Zangan!”
The old martial artist leapt out from a safer area not yet hit by the flames to meet him. “What a disaster… I’ve been running around to find as many people as I can, but the fire keeps getting in the way! It’s almost like it’s alive and trying to stop me!”
“Do you know where Cloud is? And Tifa!”
The old man shook his head. “Sorry. I haven’t seen them around yet. If you find them, please send them to safety!”
Zack anxiously bit his lip. Things only seemed to be getting worse by the minute. No Cloud, no Tifa, no sign of Sephiroth either… And yet the townsfolk were still getting brutally murdered.
“Damn! How did this even happen!?” he yelled, clutching his now aching head.
“No time to worry about the what-could-haves! I’ll check this house and you check the other!”
“Wait! The fire!”
“Don’t worry about me! I’ve dealt with much worse than this!”
And with that, the old master rushed into a neighboring burning house. Even as the flames seemed to leap out at him too, he whipped out a secret technique that seemed to create a whirlwind effect that knocked the flames back, and he successfully leapt on through. Zack nodded, reassured, and turned away for the other side of the neighborhood. Wait, this side was… It was where Cloud’s house was, right? Then, where was the kid?
As soon as he approached it, though, he found a familiar-looking grunt uniform on the ground.
“Cloud!” He dove to his side and helped lift him up in his arms. “Hang in there, Buddy!”
Cloud coughed up a stream of blood from his lips and gritted his teeth in tearful frustration. “…Z-Zack…”
“Hold on. I still got a Cure on me.”
Zack searched his pockets for said materia and whipped it out. With a quick incantation, he cast a strong healing spell that restored the kid to full health – well, sort of. Something about being cut down by Sephiroth’s blade somehow made it so even this healing magic wouldn’t work entirely. At least the kid wasn’t going to bleed out now, but he definitely lost a lot of blood.
“…Mo…m…”
“Your mom?” He looked back into the house with the door ajar.
“Help her…”
“Right! I’ll go check!”
He carefully lowered his head back down and runs inside. However, he stopped short as soon as he swung open the door and gasped in horror. W-what was this… He could barely recognize the face of this mangled corpse, but the hair color; it was definitely her. What the hell. She was just an ordinary civilian. Sephiroth did NOT have to do her like… Oh, God. Cloud shouldn’t see this. Scratch that, Zack shouldn’t see this either! He nervously stepped back out.
He shuddered. That was gonna be an image imprinted on his mind for a while. Sephiroth, you sick bastard. They were human beings, not monsters! At this rate, Sephiroth might as well have been a monster himself…
He hurried back to Cloud, who was still lying on the ground weak. “Cloud, I… I’m sorry.”
“…”
“I’ll check on Tifa’s house too! Which one is it?”
“N-next door…”
“Thanks! Oh! And here.” He also dropped the Cure materia into Cloud’s hand.
“!?”
“Get better soon, Buddy!”
“But…”
And Zack ran off again, leaving Cloud to helpessly flounder further. Great… what was he supposed to do with this? Only Soldier operatives were able to cast magic effectively. He wasn’t anywhere close to that… But now that he thought about it, Zack did say he honestly believed that Cloud had the potential, huh?
Meanwhile, Zack hurried into the burning house next door and rushed around the place in search of anyone who could still be trapped. No one’s on the first floor. What about the second? He cleared the dancing flames with a swing of his sword and leapt on through and up the stairs. Looking around, everything was burning up and already badly scorched. Even the once prestigious-looking piano in the corner of the girl’s room was pitch-black and smoldering, and it was just barely keeping its shape intact. But there was no sign of Tifa.
Praying that she already got out on her own, Zack ran back out again. Looking around frantically again, he caught the sound of some kids crying. It was coming from another house down there… Wait! Wasn’t that the place where he met those two fans of Soldier? Oh, no.
He swung his sword again to dismiss some persistent flames and leapt on through again. Following the sound of their cries, he discovered them hiding in a little alcove near the base of the water tower. Unfortunately, he was too late to save their mother, who lied as a burnt body just out of reach of the kids. She must have given her life to find a haven for them.
Zack offered them a hand. “You guys okay?”
The girl and younger boy nodded back, tears still streaming down their faces. With a focused mind, he poised with his trusty Buster Sword and let off a wave of energy along the ground that split into three streaks. The streaks blasted a much bigger space through the flames and for just a moment, the way was cleared. He helped the girl onto his back, carried the boy in his free arm, and jumped on ahead before the flames could meet back together.
The southern gate was dangerously close to collapsing, but it looked like it would still hold. He blitzed straight through with the two kids on him, and finally they were out of the reach of the flames. He dropped them one at a time.
“Thank you!” The girl cried and wept.
“Sank you!” The boy did too.
Zack looked off in the distance. He was glad to see that there were still a few stragglers that managed to get out of town in time. Zangan was among them too; looked like he was able to save some people. He waved to them to come pick up the kids. The old man and few other men and women hurried on over to meet him and thank him. Zack nodded and slid his sword onto his back again. With a quick salute and few words, he ran back through the gate once more. And it so happened that just as he made it back into town did the gate finally creak and crash to the ground. Well, he wouldn’t be heading back out this way. Then again, even if he didn’t know where Sephiroth was, he knew where the man would be headed.
He rounded back around town, cutting again and again through the flames until he found Cloud’s house again. The kid seemed to have passed out. Wait, not good! Zack pulled him up, but the Cure materia in his hand dropped. He picked it up again and dragged the kid away from the houses to a place where there was much less fire going around. With bated breath, Zack checked Cloud’s pulse… and it was still beating. Whew. Hopefully, he would be able to recover soon. He just needed to stay away from the fumes.
Zack left the Cure materia with him just in case he woke up later and needed it. In any case, he’d wasted enough time now. Where was Sephiroth, damn it!?
As he headed up north again, though, he would get his answer. Among the remaining panicking civilians trying to head up toward the mansion for some kind of refuge, Sephiroth was standing before the gates to the mansion like a vicious guard dog. He mercilessly let fly his blade and cut down multiple people with each swing. And soon enough, it was nothing but bodies that laid around him. No one else was around to challenge him, to dare to step forth in the site of Professor Gast’s work. It was the only place around town that wasn’t being reduced to ashes.
“Sephiroth!!”
Finally, Zack caught up. Sephiroth turned his attention to him now, but instead of attacking him directly, he seemed more interested in moving on. With an emotionless expression, he stared back at Zack in the eyes, unwavering in conviction, and turned away and calmly walked out. The flames harmlessly danced around him as if they were his loyal followers and opened up the way for him to proceed north.
Zack gave pursuit. He wasn’t gonna drop his guard again.
~
A cold, still silence falls over the otherwise warmly lit tavern. Even Barret, who is usually full of conviction and bravado, has little to say. That said, for as long as he’s known and opposed Shinra, it comes as no surprise to him that entire towns could just vanish one day for any reason thanks to someone involved with Shinra, formerly or otherwise.
He sinks a little in his seat. “…Damn. Sorry for your loss… Yours and Tifa’s.”
Cloud nods back silently, but doesn’t say anything. Tifa looks down again, still deep in solemn contemplation. And Aerith glances off, lost in her own thoughts too. She feels a strange mix of pride to learn of Zack’s heroism and anxiety to likewise learn of the concurrent tragedy. Cloud and Ruby haven’t even finished the story to the end, and she’s already feeling apprehensive. Zack disappeared for five years since this incident, and the last moment she sensed his presence, his spirit had returned to the planet.
Cutting through the silence to the matter of things, Ruby explains further, “Though I said Nibelheim was rebuilt, it’s merely a shadow of its former self. Everything in town – from the water tower at the center to all the individual houses running along the neighborhood – was rebuilt and replaced to an eerie degree of perfection. The only things that couldn’t be replaced were the people and the town’s spirit.”
Cloud now turns back to her with his own serious frown. “In other words, Shinra did all that to cover up everything that happened.”
“Exactly. If we visit it later, it won’t be the same town you and Tifa once knew.” She folds her arms. “But at the very least, we can recover the records still in the mansion.”
“You reacted pretty strongly earlier when I brought up the reports. Did you not know even with all the visions you’ve had?”
“Nope. I can see them to a significant level of detail, but it’s different with Rubia. Everything I see of her is vague or obscured.”
“I see…”
“But who knows, maybe for once I’ll be able to find something that helps clear up a lot of things.”
He nods. “I want to know too. Everything that happened since that time… what happened to Sephiroth, where Zack went… until I ended up in Midgar.”
“…” She makes an awkward pause to consider how to put it, and then turns back to him. “Like I said, Cloud, we’ll get there. Let’s first finish up to the end of this incident, shall we?”
“Of course.”
~
The relentlessly frigid air of Mt. Nibel was as unwelcoming as ever. But this time, Sephiroth wasn’t going to get away if Zack had anything to say. It seemed like the genocidal man cleared an entire path through the mountains, leaving trails of dead monsters in his wake that gradually vanished as Zack passed by. Well, he never had to worry about them anyway.
He rushed right into the reactor and followed the course that he had taken previously, practically leaping around to skim off even the most minute of seconds. However, as he neared the bridge that led into the back room, he promptly came to meet a gruesome scene that would play before him.
Tifa’s father somehow caught up with Sephiroth. He had been missing from town for a while and no one knew where he or his daughter had gone. Now, he confronted Sephiroth with an angry fist raised.
“What’s the meaning of this!? Why would Shinra go so far!?”
“…”
“Answer me, Sephiroth! Why did you do that to the town? What did we do to deserve it!?”
But Sephiroth would not respond to the angry pleas of yet another “traitor to the planet”. And before Zack could intervene, the man skewered him in the gut without a single hint of remorse. As Tifa’s father gasped with his last breath, he cruelly flung him off and left him in a crumpled heap near the bridge.
“H-hey!”
Sephiroth didn’t even react when Zack shouted at him again. He didn’t even bother to pull the sword out of his latest victim either. He simply turned toward the back room and went inside without a word. Zack hurried over to check on the man, but it was already too late.
“Papa!”
“Huh?”
To his shock, Tifa then rushed out from the shadows of the machinery behind Zack. She dropped to her father’s side, with tears spilling freely.
“Papa… Why… Why did he…?”
“T-Tifa?” Zack asked her, a little flustered, “What are you doing here? You shouldn’t be-”
She glared back at him. “Shut up! I don’t want to hear anything from a Soldier! You… You all can disappear for all I care!!” Her eyes were welled up red with tears as she cried over her father.
He was a little taken aback by her outbursts, but it wasn’t surprising. Wherever she had been, she probably followed him through Mt. Nibel without telling him. And unfortunately, she also just witnessed the same ugly death. It was too bad she just happened to come in when... No. No way. Sephiroth didn't actually keep him alive up to now knowing that Tifa was following them, did he?
Zack felt his gut sink, feeling remorseful even when it wasn’t his fault. He dropped to both knees and bowed his head to her. “Tifa… I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have let things come to this.”
But she wasn’t listening to him. She was instead overcome by rage swelling from within; a rage that seems almost uncharacteristic of the kind, sweet girl they had seen just the day before.
“Sephiroth… Shinra… Soldier… I don’t care anymore. I hate them all!”
Trembling, shaking her head and wiping her tears, she got back to her feet. She pulled the sword out of her father’s body and stomped off for the back room as well.
“Hey! Wait! It’s too… dangerous.”
He drifted off as he saw that she wasn’t turning back. With one last sympathetic look to her father, he helped close the man’s eyes and got back to his feet to hurry inside after her. But once again, Zack found himself in yet another helpless situation. Sephiroth was standing before the door to Jenova’s chamber and seemed to be finding some way to unlock the door.
“Mother, I’m here to see you. Please, open this door.”
Now, Tifa marched right up the stairs without a shred of fear – or perhaps she was actually so fearful that she’d looped back around to looking like she wasn’t afraid – brandishing the very sword that he wielded. “How could you… How could you do all that to the townspeople… and even my father!? After all we did to help you!”
Sephiroth shook his head. They just kept coming out of the woodwork like maggots.
“You… You sick bastard. You think you’re so above us that it doesn’t matter!? Huh!?”
Now he turned around, showing an incredibly bored face. His eyes were still a little red-shot from his delirium since earlier, but he showed absolute no concern for this… creature before him.
Tifa dared to get up in his face, raising forward that giant katana with a bit of effort. “I won’t forgive you… I’ll never forgive you! Give me back my home!”
She even dared to swing that sword at him. But with a quick flick of his wrist, Sephiroth snatched her by the wrist, threw her off and retrieved his blade, and let fly a great slash that cuts straight down her body. The motion alone sent her tumbling down the steps, followed by her cowgirl hat slipping off her head.
“Tifa!!”
Zack rushed to catch her before she hit the floor below. The poor girl looked like she was nearly cleaved in two from that attack. That was the biggest gash he’d ever seen on a person. If she wasn’t still coughing up blood, he would have thought she died instantly from it. How she managed to survive it was honestly a miracle. Apparently, Sephiroth’s effortless slash didn’t strike too deep into her vital organs despite the direct hit.
“Hang in there!”
She let off a weak whimper, looking off to the ceiling as if speaking to someone else. “…You promised… You promised that you’d come… when I was in trouble…”
He reached into his pockets again, but then remembered he left the Cure materia with Cloud. Well, shit. He was just worried for the kid, but thinking about it, it probably would have been better off in his hands. He turned back to Sephiroth with his own enraged look. As expected, the man remained entirely unfazed. He returned to his business and resumes decoding the door panel’s password. The door opened and he walked on through, letting the door shut itself once again.
Zack carried her off to the side away from the stairs, and with a grim frown, he set her down to the floor. So much for being a hero… What kind of hero wouldn’t act until it was too late and people were just dying left and right before him? He gritted his teeth, swearing in his mind. He shouldn’t have left Sephiroth alone like that. No one could have expected what would happen, but he still shouldn’t have let the crazed man off. He should have caught onto the signs since they had left the reactor…
“Tifa!”
Zack blinked and looked back toward the exit. Cloud was here at last, helmet off, panting like he too was on his last legs. Apparently, these kids both followed Zack in here. He dropped the helmet to the floor, staring wide-eyed at this scene and the blood splatter dripping down the steps.
“Cloud!?”
“Zack! Here!” he yelled breathlessly, chucking the Cure materia over, to which the latter catches it.
For once, Zack could finally crack a sheepish grin. “Thanks, man. I owe you for this!” He got right to work and cast that powerful healing spell on the girl. Like with Cloud, he managed to seal her huge wound again, but she’d lost too much blood to be able to move again.
Cloud dropped to his knees beside them. “Is… is she going to be okay?”
“…I hope so. At least the bleeding’s stopped. But she might still need a doctor.”
“Tifa…” His hands on the floor curled up into fists. “I’m sorry… I came too late.”
“Don’t give up yet. She’s still alive. But her wound is really deep. All I could do was help on the outside.” He nodded firmly. “We should take her to a hospital.”
“But… the nearest town is across the mountains,” he muttered, “And it’s still a really long trip by foot.”
“Well, we’ll have to find a place somewhere. Thinking about it, Midgar would definitely have a good one.”
“Midgar!? How are we gonna go back there?” he vented furiously, “The comms was broken when our truck got attacked! We have no way to contact anyone! And it’s across the sea! We can’t just take a ride!”
“…” Zack rubbed his head. “It’s just a suggestion.”
“…” Cloud panted for a little more, but then relented and drooped again. “…Sorry. It’s not your fault.”
“It’s fine. I get it.” He turned back for the door above. “Cloud, look after her for me, okay? And get out while you still can.”
“Huh?”
Zack got back to his feet with a confident nod. “I’ll go take care of Sephiroth. You guys take care of yourselves.”
“Wait! Zack!”
He then flashed his signature grin and pumped-up fist. “Don’t worry. I’ve trained a long time for a match like this. It’s about time I put these two years of training to the test!”
“Zack!!”
But he wasn’t listening. He rushed up the stairs, and without bothering to check the door panel, he drew his sword and rammed straight through the door with a decisive Cross Slash. As soon as the door crumbled away, he jumped on through.
“Sephiroth!!”
Now the man was standing before the huge cylindrical tank at the center of a massive pile of pipes and tubes all connected to it. And within that tank, a single humanoid body with red and purple tendril-like tentacles coming from its back floated motionlessly. It looked like the body of a fair-looking woman with long white hair drifting amid the current of the circulating liquid, but her skin was entirely blue. In any case, it was not human.
Without turning around, Sephiroth chuckled to himself. “They’ve come again, Mother.”
“What the hell is wrong with you!? Why take it out on the whole town!?”
And yet, he continued to ignore him, speaking with his mother as if there were no one else. “With her superior power, knowledge, Mother was destined to become the successor to this planet.”
“You’re not the only one who’s suffering, you know!” Zack seethed, “My family and friends… Gongaga was burned down too. Angeal… the entirety of Banora…! They’ve all been taken away!”
“But, they… These worthless ones took the planet from you. Didn’t they, Mother?” He then made an eerie smile. “But don’t be sad anymore.”
“What about MY sadness!? What about Cloud!? We’ve all lost something dear! It’s the same as your sadness!”
And then, Sephiroth finally lowered his arms and turned around, but he still beared that same eerie smile. “Hahaha… My sadness? What do I have to be sad about?”
“What?”
“I am the chosen one. I have been chosen by the planet.” He took his sword into both hands and presented it forward. “I have orders to take this planet back from you stupid people for the Cetra. What should I be sad about?”
“…”
By now, Zack had gone speechless in disbelief. Up to this point, he honestly believed that he could still reason with Sephiroth, even as delirious as he had become. But this… no, this was taking it another step too far. This man wasn’t the type to joke about things like this. He was absolutely, deadly serious.
He looked away with a crushed heart, balling his hands into fists. “Sephiroth… I trusted you…” He then opened his eyes again, and returning Sephiroth another fierce glare, he reached for his sword and drew it forward too. “No, you’re not the Sephiroth I used to know!”
“Hahahahahaha…!”
And with no further words exchanged, the two men leapt at one another to clash blades in an epic confrontation.
~
“…And that’s the end of my story,” Cloud concludes.
There’s a collective round of blank stares in disbelief at how abruptly it all ends.
Barret pounds a fist on the table, nearly hitting Biggs’s own nearby. “Wait a damn minute! That’s it? No more?”
He shrugs. “I don’t remember.”
“The hell!? You followed your pal’s adventures all the way up to this moment and you can’t even remember how the damn final fight went down!?”
“I can’t help it. It’s all a blur. All I really can remember is that it was a fearsome battle… and then, nothing else.”
Aerith tilts her head. “What happened to Sephiroth?”
He folds his arms. “In terms of skill, Zack was a fellow First-Class, but the difference between their levels was night and day. He couldn’t have killed him.” He turns to Ruby, who seems to be snickering to herself over something. “…What’s so funny?”
She turns back to him with a cheeky grin. “You killed him.”
“Huh?”
“This no-name grunt who failed to join Soldier absolutely decimated the ultimate Soldier First-Class and war hero by being too stubborn to die.”
“…” He slumps a little. “Ruby, we’re serious here.”
“I’m serious too.”
Now he gets upset. “Cut it out! You know it yourself. Sephiroth’s still out there somewhere. He’s definitely not dead!”
She gives him a casual wave of her hand as if to calm him down. “Yes and no.”
“Huh?”
“The one you last met in that reactor is dead. The one who has been reborn in present day is not.”
Now everyone’s attention has gone back to her, and like Cloud, they’re all just as confused.
“He was… reborn?” Tifa asks apprehensively.
Ruby nods. “Cloud, if you don’t mind, I can take over from here.”
“…” He sits back in his seat with a sigh. “Go ahead. Tell us the whole truth.”
~
Okay, so Zack and Sephiroth had a little tit-a-tat there and it was a cool fight, but Sephiroth was mocking him the whole way. Physical, magical damage; negated with mid-air dodges. Yeah, not really sure how at this point Seph managed to defy gravity, but it was a thing. And he spammed the hell out of that Octaslash move that always stun-locked his targets and it was absolute bullshit! Cheater-ass mother%$&#er. Even if it’d only take a few good Costly Punches from a maxed-out Zack to lay waste to that bitch, they were so frustrating to land-
~
Cloud lightly smacks Ruby on the backside of her head. “Take it seriously.”
She sulks, rubbing her head. “Ahem. Anyway…”
~
The fight appeared to be fierce and evenly matched at first glance, but in reality it was just a farce. With barely more effort than he had been putting out, Sephiroth flung Zack away and out the door, sending him tumbling down the stairs too. And finally, believing that he had completely wiped out every person within the vicinity, he dropped his sword aside and returned to the tank with that ever wide-eyed child-like delight.
“Mother, I’ve just had a great idea. Let’s go find the Promised Land.”
Back outside, Zack groaned. Pain everywhere. Sephiroth wasn’t the guy to hold back even in sparring sessions, but this was straight-up murderous intent. Zack gasped as he tried to pull himself back up, but his muscles had already given way and he’d lost a ton of blood too. He wasn’t sure how he was still alive, really. Sephiroth brutally slashed and stabbed him multiple times, all the while still laughing like a maniac. Even as Zack felt his consciousness slip away, he swore he could still hear the man’s laughter from here.
“Zack!” Cloud rushed over to him, shaking him back awake.
“C-Cloud…”
“Come on, get up! You can’t give in like this!”
“…”
“You got the Cure, right? Heal yourself already!”
“…I… I’m out of MP.”
“Huh?”
Zack grunted. “Sephiroth is too damn fast… Guh. Even with a Haste, I still couldn’t keep up…”
“W-what are you saying?” Cloud shook him again. “If you can’t keep up, then what about the rest of us!?”
“Ugh…” Even despite the pain, he turned his head to the kid. “Run.”
“What?”
“Get outta here… Sephiroth thinks you’re all dead. He won’t give chase…”
“But…!”
“Augh… D-don’t worry about me. I’ll live… somehow. You guys gotta be safe first…”
“Zack! Don’t be stupid! I’m not leaving you behind!” Cloud tried to pick him up, but he was a pretty heavy guy and Cloud struggled to move far with him on his back.
“Cloud…”
“Shut up! I’ve already lost too many! I can’t lose another one!”
“…” Touched by his perseverance, Zack then smiled back weakly. “Thanks.” He lifted up the sword to offer it to him.
“Zack…?”
“Take it. Kill Sephiroth.”
“What? Me!?”
He smirked. “He made it look so easy, but I can tell… He’s been wobbling. Lack of sleep and all that.” Zack looked him firmly in the eye. “Get him while his guard’s down. You can do it.”
“But…”
He shoved the sword into his hands. “Do it for me. For Tifa. For everyone…” And finally, his arm flopped back to the floor.
“Zack!”
“…I’m… sleepy…”
“…”
It was clear enough that Zack was exhausted to the brink. Tifa was already unconscious. Sephiroth was still inside laughing to himself. There was only Cloud left here. He had to do something. With an ever determined frown on his face, Cloud stepped back and took the Buster Sword in hand. Despite its massive size, it was a lot lighter than it appeared. He grasped it in one hand and hurried back up the steps.
Cloud wasted no time. As soon as he rushed inside, he raced up the long pipeline leading up to Jenova’s tank. And while Sephiroth was still turned away, with all his strength and built-up rage, Cloud plunged the blade right into the man’s back.
“!”
Sephiroth wavered for a bit, coughing up just a single trickle of blood. Now he stopped smiling. With those murderous bloodshot eyes, he turned his head back to see the familiar spiky blond head he’d overlooked all this time.
“Y…you…” he gasped.
“My family… my hometown… Give them back.”
Cloud pulled out the sword and the formerly invincible man stumbled. He backed off warily, but seeing that Sephiroth wasn’t getting back to his feet yet, Cloud took his chance to run, back to Zack and out of the crosshairs. He wasn’t sure if he’d done enough to “kill” him. He was frightened that he dared to cross Sephiroth of all people. But even amid his fears, Cloud had been waiting for this moment. He could finally take a stand, take back what was owed, and strike down the legendary ex-hero. No, not even that; he was just another monster that needed to be slain.
“Zack! I stabbed him. Now get up!”
Zack didn’t respond, but there was a faint smile on his face as if he’d heard him loud and clear.
“Come on, we gotta go…”
But before he could pull Zack along down the steps, he heard the crash of metal splitting and a tank exploding apart. Now, Sephiroth stepped back out, grasping his Mother’s decapitated head in his other hand. His long blade had been stained red for long enough, but now it was accompanied by some sort of purple-blue blood.
Cloud stood his ground and raised the Buster Sword in both hands again. He was trembling and very afraid at what he may have just unleashed, but he refused to leave Zack or Tifa alone. And yet, to his shock, Sephiroth didn’t bother to attack him. With but a disdainful glance, the man struted off and out the room, still limping a little from the hole in his stomach. Cloud watched him go in completely dumbfounded silence.
It was as if to say that even after Cloud made him bleed, he was still not worth the effort to kill.
Now he was even more pissed off. All this time, he always felt like he was just standing in the shadows, especially with the likes of Sephiroth and Zack showing off and being the stars of the show. But now that everything had come undone and this Sephiroth was no longer the same person they knew, he still remained as stuck-up as ever. Leaving Zack sitting up against the stairs’ rails, Cloud ran out the door with a renewed fire in his eyes.
“Sephiroth!!”
But the man continued to stomp off, driven by an obsession as if nothing – not even his own body’s weakened state – were to get in his way. Cloud charged in again with the Buster Sword. He may not have really known what he was doing; Soldiers got mandatory sword training, which he unfortunately missed out. But he didn’t care. He made Sephiroth bleed and he could do it again.
“…Don’t push your luck.”
Sephiroth whipped around with his own blade and skewered Cloud even before the kid could get close enough. He held him off the side of the bridge and left him dangling over the glowing vat of mako below. Cloud gasped and lurched, trying to regain his foothold, but he was hanging just out of reach.
“Who do you think you are, huh… To recklessly charge at me, even after seeing everyone around you fall?” He twisted the handle and Cloud gurgled in pain. “…I can’t believe I let my guard down around you.”
Cloud wasn’t responding. He was fighting for his life, trying to pull himself back to some kind of foothold, and Sephiroth simply raised his sword further away from the bridge’s railing.
“In fact… I know I cut you down earlier. And you still have enough fight in you to challenge me? It’s almost pitiful.”
“…” And Cloud returned him a defiant glare.
Sephiroth’s eyes narrowed in seething hatred. “You still do… I have to admit, I’m impressed you’re still alive. But clearly, not for much longer.”
At this point, he’d already won. Cloud was unable to pull himself back to solid ground, and he was due to bleed out soon enough. And yet, despite Sephiroth taking caution with keeping the stubborn kid at bay, a miracle would happen anyway. As he had raised Cloud slightly higher to avoid the railing, the pull of gravity slowly drew Cloud ever closer to the edge. Taking his chance, the boy seized the blade in both hands, and with the last of his strength, he pulled himself closer.
“!”
As soon as he did regain some footing, Cloud let out a vitriolic scream of a dying man. Even with the blade still in him, he pivoted and swerved, trying to take Sephiroth with him over the edge. In his panic, Sephiroth pulled back and they both fell back onto the safety of the bridge.
“You…!”
Cloud was still gasping and grunting in pain, but even despite everything, he wasn’t letting the sword go. Sephiroth tried to kick him off, but he still refused to budge. With his other hand still grasping his Mother’s head, he couldn’t quite get the torque to wrench his katana free. And after an intense tug-of-war, Sephiroth finally relented and released his hold on the sword. Cloud fell back and collapsed to the floor, still gurgling some almost demonic-like noise from the back of his throat.
By now, Sephiroth was stunned speechless. What in the manner of being was this child? Even after all that he’d taken, he still refused to die. And now that the reality began to dawn on him that he couldn’t do anything to a beast like this, his eyes grow wide and he backed off with an uncharacteristic sense of fear. True, genuine fear. Despite that he was supposed to be the chosen one, this pathetic little upstart still managed to keep him at bay this long. He even flinched a bit when Cloud pulled himself back to his feet.
“…What even are you…?”
Cloud’s bright blue eyes in his intense glare seemed to glow ever faintly against the backdrop of the reactor, lit up from below by the greenish glow of mako. And he staggered as he took a step forward, but then he made another. And another. By pure happenstance, one of his steps slipped against the dent that was left earlier in the bridge, and he dropped to the floor with a soft thump.
And yet, for a still silence, Sephiroth didn’t budge or dare to approach. But the kid’s body seemed to have finally given out and he wasn’t moving anymore. Finally, after another cautious staredown, Sephiroth stepped over to retrieve his blade. Now it easily slipped out of its victim and returned to its owner’s firm grip.
However, he continued to stare at Cloud in utter disbelief. Of all the years he’d worked for Shinra and fought on the front lines of war, he had yet to witness anyone not only last this long against him, but even still hold that bitter glare on his otherwise drained face even while unconscious. In all honesty, he had to admit that he was impressed.
“…Cloud, huh. I’ll remember you.”
But before he moved to step on, he realized that even his own step was wavering. Despite it being a supposedly insignificant wound, Sephiroth now realized that he’d been losing a lot of blood too. Between his lack of sleep and apparent anemia, it wasn’t too long before his body was going to give way too. He nearly stumbled and fell against the railing, still firmly clutching his Mother’s head.
“…Mother…”
And now that he’s reminded of his mission, he smiled. In fact, he didn’t just smile; he started to laugh again. After all the ridiculousness that had happened to this point, he vented out all his frustrations with an unfettered maniacal laugh that didn’t stop for a good while. Even as he was out of breath, even as his body was failing him at the most inopportune moment, even as the little upstart named Cloud still glared at him from beyond consciousness; Sephiroth just found it all too funny.
None of it mattered anyway. The time to reclaim the planet would come sooner or later. But he couldn’t do that with this rapidly weakening vessel of a human body for his greater soul. He needed to get rid of it and restart anew.
Sephiroth pulled himself up and looked down at the gargantuan vat of mako below them. He hopped onto the edge of the railing. Without a hint of hesitation or remorse, he made the leap and dove into the mako, still clutching Jenova’s head against his chest in an odd sort of embrace. And even as his body disappeared into the bright green light, there was still the sound of his laughter echoing throughout the reactor.
~
“…And that’s the actual end of Cloud’s story,” Ruby concludes with an innocent smile.
Everyone has gone silent and in awe. Even Yuffie up above has tuned back in and is nervously hiding behind the rail at the thought that this worldly threat is something they’d have to face down the line. Cloud looks off in his own corner as he processes the whole truth. Now that she brings it up, he also seems to recall something like that happening, somewhere in his memories. So that was it.
And then, Barret raises his hand again. “Uh… that’s it? So Sephiroth killed himself? But wait, didn’t we just see the guy?”
Tifa nods to him. “Right. In the labs of Shinra HQ.” She then asks Ruby, “You said earlier that he was reborn?”
Ruby nods. “Human beings, no matter how powerful they may be, are still creations of the planet and are due to return to it eventually. Their bodies would naturally disintegrate upon falling into the planet’s core; it’s just a matter of time. But Sephiroth is a little different; he has Jenova.”
“Jenova?”
“The headless spook?” Barret likewise asks.
Ruby explains further, “Despite initial impressions, Jenova is not and was never one of the Cetra. She came to this planet from afar and is an entity that exists outside of the planet’s influence. But that also means she can’t be affected by the Lifestream’s flow of life and death. Sephiroth too; he was experimented on since he was a fetus, so his body is full of Jenova’s cells. Taking her head with him was basically insurance that he wouldn’t disappear.”
Aerith looks away in thought again. Such a terrifying being is this Jenova. It’s no wonder she had been a Calamity since ancient times.
Barret makes an confused frown. “So you’re saying, he’s some kinda alien?”
Ruby nods. “Pretty much. His original body is long gone. What we see of him now is the power of Jenova’s shapeshifting nature.”
“Huh.”
Cloud then comes back out of his thoughts to ask her another question, “So, where is Sephiroth now? Is he still somewhere down there? Like, was the man we saw just an illusion?”
She shrugs. “He’s been in and out. But for the past five years, he’s been bathing in the collective knowledge of the planet. There’s no doubt that he’s learned the truth of his own origins, but he doesn’t care about any of that anymore. He’s fully embraced being an alien God and seeks to consume the entire Lifestream for himself.”
“And that’s why we have to do everything to stop him. I don’t care what his motives are. He needs to disappear for good.”
What follows is a round of determined looks and nods from the rest of the crew on the ground floor.
Barret huffs, “Damn straight! If he’s trying to rob the planet of life, it makes no difference if he’s Shinra or not! He’s goin’ down!”
Tifa nods too. “We have to stop him. It’s the only way any of us will truly be safe.”
Aerith smiles reassuringly. “Thankfully, we got some strong team players here! We can do this!”
Biggs rubs his head. “Well, I guess you could say that, but there’s definitely one of us who stands out the most.”
“Oh, don’t be like that. Ruby may be the MVP, but we’re all valuable here!”
Cloud adds rather snarkily, “Besides, we can’t let her do everything on her own. Someone has to watch over her before she runs into trouble.”
Ruby jabs him in the cheek with a prodding finger. “I don’t mind you treating me like a kid, but if you’re going that route, then you shouldn’t complain if I buy things on your tab.”
“Huh? What does that have to do with…?”
She swerves around again and slaps the counter. “A large iced latte, please!”
He groans. “Haven’t you had enough to drink?”
“I already went to the restrooms.”
“Not what I meant.” He moves back on topic. “Anyway, don’t you have something else to tell us?”
“Huh? Am I missing something?”
“How about what happened in the five years since the incident?”
“Oh, that? That’s not important.”
He stares so hard at her his eyes nearly bug out. “What do you mean!? I’m still missing those memories! You said you were going to help fill in the gaps!”
“But that’s just stuff between us. Maybe Tifa and Aerith may wanna know too, but everyone else is free to leave.”
“Yeah, but…”
“Oh, my God! Really!? Finally!” Yuffie suddenly exclaims, getting back up. And before anyone can stop her, she rushes on down the stairs and back out. Everyone watches her run off and turns back to each other.
“…Talking about team players, why did we invite her again?” Biggs asks.
“Pretty sure Ruby did,” Jessie reminds him.
“Right…”
Ruby watches Yuffie go with a suspicious eye. Now that she thinks about it, the kid was surprisingly quiet all this time they were telling the story, and she’s suddenly in a hurry to leave? Yeah, something’s up here. Knowing her, she might have just made off with some materia. Well, she’s get to that later. It’s not like Yuffie would just ditch Sonon here, so…
“…What a fascinating story.” Red finally speaks after a long silence and gets back to his feet. “Thank you for inviting us. I believe it’s almost evening now. The ritual will begin shortly at the crack of sundown.”
Ruby blinks. “Oh, yeah. Do I have to do anything to prepare?”
He smirks subtly. “Be present.”
“Gotcha.”
Barret raises a pumped-up fist in excitement. “Yeah! We still got that to look forward too!” He turns to everyone else. “Come on, Avalanche! Let’s get back to work! We still got a bit of time.”
Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie throw up their fists in support too. “Yeah!”
They all get up to leave their tables and follow Red out the door, though Tifa and Aerith still choose to stay behind for now. Cloud watches them all go and then turns back to the ladies.
“You aren’t going?”
Tifa reconsiders it for a moment. “Well, I did promise Aunt Macha that I’d join her to help with cooking.”
“Ooh!” Aerith beams with delight. “Sounds tasty! Maybe I’ll stop by too!”
She returns her smile with one of her own. “Sure! But before that…” She then turns back to Cloud with a more serious face. “I just wanted to ask one more thing.”
He blinks. “What is it?”
“Cloud, by any chance… do you remember that day when we met again in Midgar? Specifically, the Sector 7 slums.”
“…” He takes a moment to recall it, but then he nods back. “Yeah. It was by the train station, on a cold rainy night.”
“Right.” She then makes a little more concerned look. “At the time, I found you collapsed on the ground and you looked like you were suffering from something, like mako poisoning.”
“…”
“But it was really strange. One moment, you wouldn’t respond to anyone, but after we talked a bit, you suddenly snapped out of it as if you’d just woken up.”
Cloud now looks away again as he tries to recall further detail. And as it happens, he seems to pick up on something about mako. Like, he was stuck in it before. Wait… stuck…?
Finally, a certain few memories come back to him in a flash. Brief moments, but they come to him much clearer than ever before. The lab in the basement of the Shinra Mansion. The two once empty tanks, but now filled up with mako and two subjects under experimentation. The coming and going of a certain scientist in a lab coat as well as his several assistants regularly checking on them. And finally, the memory of scratching his fingers against the glass, spelling out a message for the other. Wait, the other guy was… Zack, wasn’t it?
Suddenly, he feels a sharp pain, but for once it’s not in his head; but in his heart instead. Suddenly, he’s overcome by another wave of deep sorrow, regret, and above all guilt. Survivor’s guilt. That’s right… Zack had been there with him all that time for those five years. Even when Cloud had become catatonic from all the mako treatment and experiments and seemed to have no chance of recovery, Zack never gave up on him. Even though it was a long, long winding road back to Midgar, he insisted that he was gonna drag Cloud along to meet his girl sometime. And they almost made it…
“…Cloud? You okay?” Tifa’s voice cracks through and brings him back.
“Huh? Ah, yeah.” He had been gripping at his own chest for a moment, and now relaxes again with a sigh. “I just remembered something else.”
“What did you remember?”
“Um…” He hesitates to describe those scenes to her.
Catching on, she then shakes her head. “It’s okay. You don’t have to say it.”
“No, it’s not that. Just… they’re not happy memories.”
“I get it.”
Ruby once again cuts into the mood with a loud slurp and whips back around again. “Oh, you got those memories back just like that? Cool.”
He returns her an unamused glare, but when she simply stares back blankly, he relents. “…Yeah. Guess after whatever you did earlier, things are able to come back to me more easily now.”
She finally sets the empty cup back down on the counter and gives him a genuine relieved smile. “Good to hear. Especially that I’ve permanently scarred myself for you.”
He nods with a subtle smile. “Yeah, thanks for that. I really mean it.”
She then grins. “Then you can pay for my tab!”
“…” His smile disappears in an instant, but he obliges and turns back to the bartender to ask for the bill.
But Tifa and Aerith exchange nervous frowns and turn back to her. Tifa asks, “Are you sure you’ll be okay, Ruby? It looks like your Geostigma has gotten worse.”
Aerith sighs. “I wish I knew more that I could do to help. There’s still so much about the Cetra that I don’t really understand myself.”
Ruby shakes her head. “It’s fine, Aerith. Things like knowledge take time to grow. We’ll be taking those steps together, so don’t you worry.”
She nods back. “Thanks, Ruby.”
Ruby also turns back to Tifa with a reassured smile. “At the very least, it’s not hurting me now. The local doctor sure has some effective pain relief. I don’t even notice it if I don’t pay attention to it.”
Tifa nods too, but still reserves some worry. “Well, that’s good. I hope it won’t break out again any time soon…”
After satisfying their debt to the bartender, Cloud now turns back to Ruby with a different concern. “Hey, Ruby.”
“Yeah?”
“Now that I think about it, where did we leave all the gil we had stashed?”
“Oh, that? I saved it in my satchel.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Your little bag holds that much?”
“Sure.”
“And where did you leave it?”
“By my bed in the inn.”
“…” He stares at her in shock when he comes upon a realization. “Wait a second. When Yuffie bolted out of here earlier, did it look like she was carrying some kind of bag too?”
“…” Ruby blinks blankly. “Oh, yeah. I guess that might have been mine.”
“What!? Wait. Then, what happened to our materia…?”
“Probably left with her too.”
“Ruby!” Now he snaps. “Don’t tell me, she just swiped our stuff and ran!?”
“But I didn’t see her drag Sonon out of bed, so I doubt she’s heading back to Wutai just yet.”
“Who cares! Where is she!?” He hops off of his seat and rushes toward the door. Before he leaves, he turns back to her. “Don’t just sit there! You got a dragon nose, right? Sniff her out!”
Ruby snorts. “Sheesh. Calm down. We’ll go find her shortly. She can’t have gone too far.”
But he’s already dashed out, and she shrugs.
Aerith then asks, “Um, should we come with you guys?”
But she passes her a casual handwave. “Don’t worry about it. You guys go help out around town. Cloud and I will be back shortly.” And with that, she hurries out the door after him.
Notes:
Boy, did I go ham on this chapter. I was so excited to write it out that even with some rewriting during editing to shift around some discussions between scenes, I still finished this relatively early and can actually post on time!
Anyway, there are just a few notes this time.
Hidden for convenience
- I added several sections into the flashback sequences that are wholly original and since I'm posting this long before Rebirth has any new announcements, no one can claim that I'm "ripping off" official content.
- Yes, I changed around a few details to the flashback as well, but while I considered following the canon events to a T, I decided to add my own flair to it. After all, Rubia's stark influence affects a lot more than just old books and reports in this timeline.
- On that thought, Rebirth had better put at least as much effort into the flashback for real as I have here. I'm setting a reasonable standard of quality here, Square Enix! Don't %&*# it up!
- Shout outs to how frustrating the Sephiroth battle was in Crisis Core, specifically the last phase. I don't know if it's been changed too much in Reunion, but I'd imagine it would basically play out the same either way. The trivia about the Costly Punches is just a running gag of mine at this point: "Costly Punch is the solution to all of life's problems."
- So, I realize it may seem odd that Cloud is able to recover his memories of those missing five years just like this, but rest assured, when we eventually get into those details, I'll be covering a little more than just what Cloud remembers. Take this as a little sneak preview.
- Aunt Macha is not an entirely new character. I refer to the woman who is usually seen standing by the large pot where Cait Sith would have been in OG. But I don't think she was ever named.Boy, I wonder where the gang are gonna go next after this chapter? Nibelheim? Wutai? Somewhere else entirely?? (Jk, I know the answer, but I'm not gonna tell. Feel free to leave your guesses in the comments below!)
Chapter 24: Restless Hearts
Notes:
Outdated A/N
4/29/23 edit: Hey all! Just curious to know if anyone wants to join me on Curious Cat for a love AMA session! I'll be avail for the next 9 hours.
https://curiouscat.live/rubia_ryu
If this nets me any feedback at all, I can set it up again tomorrow around the same time or for some future date too.
4/28/25 edit: Added a few more details to the beach scene and cleaned up the flow of the text.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Yuffie is gone. That little thief just ran off with their materia and gil. Cloud swears under his breath; when he finds her, there may just be a new war with Wutai. Ruby steps out of the tavern after him, looking as unfazed as ever. He nearly jumps when she pats him on the shoulder.
“Ruby, fly up high and scan the area. She can’t have gotten too far.”
“Take it easy, Cloud. We’ll find her.”
He turns back to her with a stiff scowl. “Unless you got some kind of tracking device on her or something, this IS a big deal!”
“Alright, alright. But first of all, you need to settle down. We can’t confront her if you’re ready to kill her, okay? She’ll just run off again.”
“…”
Seemingly with great effort, Cloud manages to hold himself back and heaves a sigh. Clutching his head from the ensuing migraine, he asks her, “…Ruby, remind me exactly why we need her in our party?”
“She’s a valuable ally. Quite the handful, yes, but valuable nonetheless.”
“Ugh… I know you see some kind of potential in her, but right now, she’s being more of a pain than anything. She’d better be able to prove her worth, or we’re leaving her behind.”
She gives him a pat on the back. “Hey, if I can prove my worth to you, then so can she. Have a little patience.”
“…”
“Now, let’s go ask around. She couldn’t have gone far.”
With that said, it seems like a few others are coming over to see them instead. A squad of small children have hurried on over as soon as Ruby had stepped out, their faces lighting up with delight and excitement.
“Ruby! Ruby!”
“She’s really here!”
“I’ve never met a real living Summon before!”
They swarm her before she can get moving. From the group of four, one of the slightly older kids steps forward.
“Ruby! I’m glad to finally meet you! I’m Mukka!”
“Oh, hello, Mukka.”
“I’m Paucau!” “I’m Mohtuk!” “I’m Memengwa…” comes the murmur from the rest of the kids. The last one seems to be the only girl among them and she seems a little shy.
“H-hey, all. Nice to meet you…” Ruby quickly reaches out and snatches Cloud by the bangle to make sure he doesn’t leave her like this.
“Is it true that you can change into a dragon?”
“I wanna see! I wanna see!”
“That’s amazing…”
She feels a cold sweat come over her. “Now, now, there’s a time and place for everything…” And she feels a little heavy when she hears them groan in disappointment. “Sorry, guys, but we’re a little busy right now.”
Cloud turns back to her, feeling a little out of place here. “Ever popular with the kids, huh?”
She returns him a stern frown. “You want to find Yuffie? Save me.”
He rolls his eyes and casually nods back. “Hey, kids, sorry to cut in, but… Have you seen another girl who was with us? She has short black hair, an armguard, shorts, and carries around a huge shuriken…”
Mukka replies, “I think I saw someone like that. She might have run out of town, though.”
Cloud swears under his breath out of the reach of their tender ears. “Do you know where she could have gone?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know. It’s a really big canyon out there, so there’s not much to see… Oh!” He then remembers something: “But when I want to find someone, I have a secret place I can go!”
“A secret place?”
“Follow me!”
Mukka leads them through the town and community, waving proudly to passersby amused to see their little train of travelers. They round around the back on the eastern edge and eventually come to a cliff with a very steep slope. Just ahead sits the second highest peak in this canyon town, a nigh vertical mountain at the outskirts that stands across a great chasm. There’s a rope bridge back here that crosses the chasm to a similar level on this mountain.
“Huh… Didn’t know there was anything out here,” Cloud muses to himself.
“Awesome! Always nice to find new secrets around town,” Ruby chirps excitedly.
“Come on! It’s just across the bridge.” Mukka hurries off with the rest of the kids in tow. The little girl with them hesitates for a moment, but takes one look at Ruby beside her and finds her resolve to run after them.
“Um… where exactly are we going?” Cloud asks, but Ruby just shrugs and follows after the kids. With a sigh, he does too.
The path around the mountain is a rather steep climb. The kids only get so far before they come upon the end of the relatively flat road, and from here on, the rest of the trek up the mountain is full of steep, sheer walls.
“Here we are,” the boy declares.
Cloud stares at him and then looks back down the trail they took to get here. He turns back to him. “So, how are we supposed to find our person from here?”
“Oh, don’t worry! We’ll help you with that if you help us first.”
He whips back around in disbelief. “What?”
The boy then turns back to Ruby with a smile. “Actually, I was planning to meet you here too for a different reason.”
She returns him a polite smile. “Oh? What is it?”
He points up toward the peak of this mountain. “You see how high that goes?”
“Sure. What about it?”
“Well, see, there’s this legend I remember hearing from the elders long ago. They said a young boy once climbed up to the highest mountain out of town and found a special treasure that turned him into a brave warrior!” His eyes start to glisten too. “I wanna see what that treasure is!” He then looks a little disappointed. “But no one lets us climb up there because it’s ‘too dangerous’. That’s not fair! I wanna be a brave warrior too!”
“Me too! Me too!”
“Me three!”
“Um… I’m okay.”
Ruby gives a soft sigh. “In other words, you want me to fly up there and confirm that there is that cool treasure up there, huh?”
Mukka nods. “Yeah! I wanna know if the elders are telling the truth or if they’re just making things up.”
She and Cloud exchange confused glances, which his shortly turns into disappointment. She remains unsure and thinks it over again.
“Ruby, do we really have to do this? You can just fly high and look around…”
She blinks as if having come to a realization. “Ah, yeah. I can.”
“Huh? Don’t tell me you just realized that?”
“No, what I realized was that it can net us two birds with one stone, so to speak.”
“Uh…” Now it’s his turn to blink. She does have a point.
Ruby turns back to the boy with a kind smile. “Okay. I’ll go.”
“Really? Thanks!”
The other kids chime in too with their own cheers. “Wow! Wow!” “Are you gonna turn into a dragon?” “Thanks. You’re really cool and nice too.”
And with a sly wink for the kids, she scoots them aside to give her some room. She then hops up to start the climb up the sheer cliffs, but then after a short few hops, she propels herself off the side without a moment of hesitation. The kids gasp as they watch her fall, but she keeps a calm expression as if to reassure them. In a flash of light, her great wings burst forth from her back and she flaps hard to shoot herself high into the sky. The kids all watch in sparkling awe and delight as she sails off. Even though it’s not a full transformation, it’s certainly something they’ve never quite seen before.
Cloud also watches her go, but is much less impressed than the rest. What was with the acrobatics? She could have just leapt off the edge here and spread her wings… And now, she’s circling the mountain just to show off. Of course.
Ruby swerves closer to the peak and flutters closer to land atop. Despite showing the kids a smile brimming with confidence, she honestly hadn’t expected to find anything. This legend sounds more like an old wives’ tale, after all. And yet, as she lands atop and crouches to take a closer look, she’s pleasantly surprised to find the slightest glint of something shiny poking out from a crack in the rocks. She does a little digging by clawed hand and discovers what seems to be a small hairpin?
Wait a second. This is no ordinary hairpin. Its sleek, handcrafted design is more fitting of a well-decorated warrior, like a badge of honor of sorts, and yet it’s a little small for a fully grown man or beast alike. Ruby blinks as she catches on. It looks like something that a young Nanaki could have had. So that was who the “boy” in the legend was. Makes sense that a creature like him would be able to scale these cliffs and and he would dare to climb all the way up here. But did he leave this pin up here or did he somehow drop it and never returned for it?
She rescues the lost pin and clamps it firmly in her hand. Well, she could always bring it up to him later. For now, let’s get back to the kids.
Down below, Mukka waits excitedly. He and the kids are busy speculating about what kind of treasure it is and wonder if any of them can guess what it is before Ruby returns.
“Maybe it’s a medal?”
“Don’t be silly! How could anyone throw a medal up there? It’s gotta be something small!”
“How about materia? That’d be cool.”
“But does just having materia make someone a warrior?”
The little girl among them has been quiet, but then turns to Cloud to ask him, “What do you think, Mister?”
He had been tuning out for a while now, scheming to himself of what he’d do when they find Yuffie, but now snaps out of his daze and turns to her. He blinks and rubs his head awkwardly. The kids probably don’t want to hear about his doubts, so he offers instead, “…Um. Maybe it’s some kind of heirloom or something?”
“Heirloom?”
“Hey! That could be it!”
“Wow! But what kind of heirloom is it?”
Cloud shakes his head. “I wouldn’t know. You’d probably be better off asking Red- er, Nanaki about it.”
“Aw, that old guy? But we asked before and he never answered.”
He shrugs. “Well, maybe it’s not something worth knowing.”
“Come on! It’s gotta be something awesome! Why would the elders talk about that story if it wasn’t real?”
“…” He glances aside, finding it ever the hassle to explain to kids about these things. But then, a certain idea pops in mind. “By the way, are you guys sure you want Ruby to just come back down with the treasure? If the story is true, then wouldn’t that just make her the ‘brave warrior’ instead?”
As if he had just spoken the unspeakable, the entire squad goes dead silent as they stare back at him. Then, they huddle together and exchange whispers amongst themselves, and suddenly, they all turn away for the tunnel behind them and cover their eyes. Even the little girl, who didn’t really mind either way, joined the boys.
“…What are you all doing? Is there something I’m missing here or- Whoa!”
Before he can even react, he feels himself being hoisted off the ground and left hanging in midair. He looks up behind him and finds Ruby with a fearsome snarl come his way.
“Ruby!? Hey! Put me down!”
“What did you just say to them?”
“Uh… nothing, really. They were just wondering what the treasure is.”
“Then why are they all covering their eyes like you put some kind of curse on them!?”
“I don’t know! They did that on their own!”
Then, Mukka waves a hand behind him without turning around. “It’s okay, Ruby! We’re fine!”
“Hm?”
“Your friend had a good point. He said that if you just brought the treasure to us, it wouldn’t make us warriors. So we’re not gonna look at it!”
“Yeah! We wanna find it ourselves!”
“We can do it! We just have to work together!”
“Mm-hm!”
Ruby blinks a few times and then turns back to Cloud, who now is returning her a fearsome snarl of his own. She gently lowers him back to the safety of solid ground, and he throws her off of him as he lands. “Sorry,” she says, but he doesn’t look her way either.
She sighs and nods to the kids. “Understood. I’ll go put it back.”
“Thanks, Ruby! Sorry to bother you.”
She then swoops back up and returns to the exact crack where she found the pin and sticks it back inside. She gives it one last check to be sure it won’t slip out again, and she hops of back in the air. But before she returns to the others again, she happens to catch in the corner of her eye there being movement around the front gate again.
It’s Yuffie. She’s sneaked back in and without the bag on her.
Ruby flutters back to the cliff’s edge and calls, “Cloud! Yuffie’s back!”
Now he whips back around. “What?” He also catches sight of her on the ground below and makes a bitter frown. Before he races back through the tunnels, though, he realizes that it might take them a while and they could lose sight of her again. Thinking fast, he turns back to Ruby.
“Ruby! Give me a lift!”
“Huh?”
Before she can process what he means, she and everyone else is shocked to see him leap off the edge of the cliff as well.
“What!?”
Ruby swoops in and catches him before he falls too far, and they sail down toward the ground in a smooth arc as if the two had somehow choreographed this move. Down below and back in town, Yuffie peeks around to check for any of the others, and is absolutely flabbergasted to find Ruby and Cloud coming right at her from above. She jumps out of the way as Cloud drops in and lands firmly on the ground, and Ruby circles around to catch Yuffie from behind.
“W-what the heck!? What are you guys doing!?”
But rather than answer her, Ruby snaps back at Cloud, “What are YOU doing!? I’m not a zipline, asshole!”
Cloud ignores her and focuses on Yuffie with an icy glare. He even reaches for his sword’s hilt behind him. “Alright, Yuffie. We need to talk.”
“W-w-what? What’s with you guys all of a sudden?”
“Don’t play dumb. We know you stole our materia and gil.”
Yuffie flinches. “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“Really? Then why did you leave town? Ruby even saw you run off with her bag.”
Yuffie whips back around to Ruby, who calmly nods back. Yuffie makes a nervous pouting face as she feels the sweat come on.
“…Any chance you mistook it for something else?”
Cloud growls, “How long are you gonna deny it? You’re not fooling anyone.”
Ruby lets off a sigh. “Yuffie, come on. I told you before that I’d be glad to join you for Wutai.”
Yuffie looks away with a guilty look, but hesitates to answer.
She then tries a firmer approach: “…But I may just change my mind if you don’t give them back. Sorry to Sonon.”
“!” Yeowch, that smarts. Yuffie groans and gives in with a slump. “F-fine! You got me. I’ll go get it.”
She starts to move, but Cloud cuts her off. “You’re bringing us too. We’re not letting you get away.”
“Yeah, yeah… Just follow me!”
Yuffie struts off toward the exit once more with him and Ruby in tow. They head down the stairs and out into the wild as their conversation continues.
Ruby shakes her head. “Why would you even do this? It’s not like you could run far enough to get away.”
“I didn’t do it to run away! But after that whole long story, it didn’t sound like you guys were heading to Wutai anytime soon! No one was doing anything about Sonon! We can’t just leave him like this!”
“I get it. But what would stealing our materia do to help?”
“I… just wanted insurance. Like, at any point, if you guys decided to keep putting it off…”
Ruby scoffs, “Yuffie, please. Have a little faith in your awesome Summon.”
“Huh?”
She then smirks. “I promised that I’d help him, and I don’t go back on my promises as long as there’s something I can do.”
Yuffie turns away again in silent contemplation. The plan was supposed to be straightforward; find Ruby, bring her to Wutai, and negotiate with the new government on the next steps. But the problem is, as Yuffie would quickly discover, is that Ruby is too busy with everyone coming to her for help for whatever reason. She wanted to have faith and trust that her idol would come around to help her too, but every time she’d stop by the inn again, she’d be reminded of how her partner is still suffering, even if he’s not actually injured anymore. And every time, it bites into her patience whenever she sees Ruby getting all the attention and distracting her from what’s important. But… well, maybe it isn’t really about what’s “important” so much as what they can get to at the moment.
“By the way, where did you go from here?” Ruby asks as they leave the steps behind.
“This way… There’s a rocky outcrop around the bend where I noticed it had a small hole under it. I think there’s actually a whole cave under the area.”
She perks up as soon as she hears there’s a mysterious dungeon in the vicinity. “Intriguing… Even I never picked up on that before.”
“I just discovered it yesterday. I figured I’d just do a little recon while I was on my own.”
“Nice.” She grins. “That’s actually really useful of you, Yuffie. Thanks.”
“Um… sure.”
They follow her along to said outcrop, and sure enough, there is a little hole that’s not easily visible to passersby, as it’s hidden right underneath the overhanging outcrop.
“Down here. You want me to go get it?”
Cloud crosses his arms. “No. Ruby can go get it. You stay out here where I can see you.”
“…”
With a quick salute, Ruby slides in under the outcrop and slips into the hole into the darkness. But of course, since it’s Ruby, she’ll be just fine with her own light. But out here with just Cloud and Yuffie, they end up in a pretty awkward silence.
Finally, Yuffie cracks from the discomfort and turns back to him. “…Look, um…”
“…”
“H-hey, take it easy already. I’m fully cooperating, alright? Can’t we just let bygones be?”
His glare only hardens further. “If you hadn’t tried to pull a fast one on us when we were at the inn, we wouldn’t have suspected you for anything. But look where it’s gotten you.”
She sighs. “Okay, I get it! You’re mad and I’m sorry, won’t do it again. But you can at least understand where I’m coming from, right?”
“No.”
She flinches to his very simple and flat answer. “Come on! Are you splinter cell guys really that cruel!?”
“It’s not about Avalanche. You don’t steal shit and expect help from the people you stole from.”
“I… I’m not, but…”
“That extends to Ruby too. This was her bag you took, after all. She just happened to be holding stuff for us.”
“…”
“For the record, even if she forgives you and wants to play nice, it doesn’t mean the rest of us will. If you really want to stick with us, you’ll need to prove your worth.”
Yuffie pouts. “Sheesh… I already lead you guys to where I left the stuff. What else do I have to do?”
“You think trust is that easily regained?”
“…”
Seeing that she’s at a loss for words, he shakes his head and lowers his arms again. “Look. I don’t care if you didn’t listen to the whole story and why we’re going after Sephiroth. But this isn’t just a personal vendetta of mine. The entire planet is at stake here. I don’t know what you or your partner are planning to do with Ruby when you head off to Wutai, but she’s one of us too. If she’s going, then we’re all going. And sorry to say, none of us are interested in being a part of your government’s war machine.”
Yuffie bites her lip for a moment as she reconsiders what to say. “…It’s not like we want to go to war for the heck of it. It’s just the threat of her power that would help protect us from Shinra if they ever do start something. That’s all.”
“If all you want is the threat, then just being next to Ruby whenever Shinra pokes around should already be the warning Wutai needs. She doesn’t have to go over there.”
“What? No! It’s not that simple!”
“And why not?”
“Obviously because I’m still an agent of my country’s government! I can’t just go running around pretending to be a ‘savior of the world’ or whatever when I got a duty to fulfill!”
“Well, sorry to break it to you, but unless Ruby volunteers to go herself, the rest of us don’t have to follow by your ‘duty’.”
“Well, in that case, you will since Ruby said she’d come! It’s really important that we take Sonon back home!”
“Fine… then you two can go back, Ruby can do her thing to heal him, and she can leave.”
“But…”
Before their conversation can continue, though, they’re promptly interrupted by a blast of solid ice crystals bursting out from the hole before them and climbing up some distance up the massive rock.
“What the!?” Cloud braces himself with hand to sword.
“Ruby was down there!” Yuffie gasps, likewise drawing her shuriken.
“Wait. Ruby was down there…” He pauses and then releases his grip with a sigh.
“Huh? What, you’re not gonna do anything?”
“She’ll be fine. Probably decimated whatever monsters she ran into. That explains the extreme amount of ice.”
“Wait… this was her work?” Yuffie then peers more carefully at the ice. “Whoa. What did she do, freeze the entire underground cave?”
Shortly, they would get their answer. There’s then a sudden trembling of the ground beneath them. Sensing some imminent danger, Cloud yells to her.
“Move! Something’s coming!”
They leap out of the way, and suddenly a huge figure comes bursting out from the underground. It looks to be some type of sand golem. However, just as the pair ready themselves for battle, the towering mass suddenly keels over and falls to the ground. And as the dust settles, someone else climbs out from behind the lumbering mass and hops back to the ground.
It’s a Desert Sahagin! But rather than fight them, it runs away in a hurry as if it were still being pursued. And then, another figure leaps out from the dust clouds and plunges her knife into the Sahagin’s neck from above. It flops to the ground, and Ruby steps out back in view as the bodies return to the ether. She looks a little dirtied in the face herself, but is otherwise completely unharmed.
“Hey, guys! Sorry for the wild arrival. You two got some time to talk things out?”
Cloud and Yuffie stare at her as they recall their weapons. He then frowns and demands to know, “Did you get the stuff?”
Ruby whips out her satchel from around her back. “Right here.”
“Cool.”
“Cool? More like ‘deep freeze’!” Yuffie exclaims, “What the heck did you run into down there?”
“A colony of Desert Sahagins. Interestingly, they even had a Golem among their ranks. Seems like there was some kind of breakthrough their colony had with utilizing Golems, probably as instruments for war of some sort. Too bad for them, divine intervention happened.”
“…”
“…” Cloud turns back to Yuffie. “Maybe you ought to rethink your government’s plans for war, huh?”
Yuffie frowns. “…Hmph.”
Ruby nods along. “Ah, so that’s what you guys were talking about.”
“That, among a few other things. But in any case, what exactly is the deal with that Sonon guy? Why does he have to return to Wutai to be treated?”
“It’s just a theory of mine that I haven’t proven, but I suspect that if there’s anyone who can help me wake up a lost soul, it would be someone important who can reach out to him.”
“Huh?”
“We need to find his old master.”
Yuffie gasps. “Wait, seriously? That’s what you meant!?”
She nods. “Yeah. I mean, if Sonon would respond to anyone, it would be him.”
“But… the guy’s still in jail and no one’s allowed to see him, not even me. How would we even…?”
“Then, we’ll break him out.”
“WHAT!? Ruby!”
“I’m serious. You want to see Sonon wake up, don’t you?”
She’s taken aback a little. “Y-yeah, of course! But if we do something like that, then WE’ll become Wutai’s most wanted!”
“Yeah, about that…” Ruby then frowns. “I was actually thinking about meeting this new government’s officials to discuss matters around him.”
“Ugh! So that was your plan all along?” she groans, “You really want him back? What’s that old man gonna do for Wutai anyway…?”
“Yuffie, I know you two don’t see eye-to-eye right now, but some day, you’ll understand why it’s for the best.”
“Ughhh…”
Cloud now is looking a little lost between them. “Um… What’s going on here? Why do you need to go to Wutai?”
“To clean up some dirty politics.”
He sinks a little. “Ruby… Do we really have to get involved in another country’s affairs?”
She snorts back. “We’re Avalanche, saviors of the planet. Of course we have to help keep the peace so that we don’t run into worse problems with a planet already in crisis.”
“…” He looks off with a bitter frown. He hates the fact that she actually makes a good argument there.
Then, she sighs to herself. “But as troubling as tensions may be, we can’t exactly go rushing into another country unprepared…”
“Obviously. What would we do, barge in and make demands?”
“…Which is exactly why we need an actual means of transportation if we expect to go there or anywhere from here on out.”
“Huh?”
Ruby smirks with a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “Cloud, Yuffie, would you two like to join me on a special errand?”
He cringes a little at that look of hers. “Ruby, where are you going with this…?”
“Uh, do I have to join in too?” Yuffie also asks.
“Of course! Think of it as a test to prove to us that you are trustworthy, so we can keep hanging out.”
“Hmph… Fine. So what are we gonna do?”
“We’re gonna steal an airship from Junon Harbor.”
At that moment, the other two freeze in place. What did she just say?
“We’re gonna steal an airship from Junon Harbor.”
Cloud snaps back, “Ruby! Don’t just say it again! What the hell are we gonna do with an airship!?”
“Uh, fly around the world, obviously.”
“And how? Don’t tell me you also know how to pilot one…?”
“Nope.”
He groans. “Then what are you even thinking?”
“I’m thinking we could use a pilot in the gang too. And I know just the guy.”
“…” By now, Cloud understands that he can’t argue against her when she’s made up her mind like this. All he can do is slap his hand over his face with a sigh.
But Yuffie isn’t any happier either. She pouts, “Why would we even want an airship from Shinra? You already can fly anywhere.”
“Yuffie, look. I may be big as a dragon, but not that big. I can’t carry everyone on my back, and warping this many people at once takes a toll on me too. This can’t work long-term.”
“But why would you need to bring everyone? Just a few of us need to stop by Wutai.”
“And what happens after Wutai? We’d be back to the same problem.”
Yuffie looks a little taken aback, as if she hadn’t expected to answer what would happen “after”. It wasn’t in the plan, after all. Now that she brings it up, she’s gonna have some serious thinking to do.
“Besides, if you join us for this errand, you’ll be able to repair your relations with Cloud at least a little. He’s still pretty peeved.”
She grumbles to herself. “…Fine. I guess I’ll go too.”
Ruby grins. “That-a girl!” She also turns back to Cloud with that grin. “So, it’s decided. We’re headed to Junon now.”
“Now?” He stares hard at her. “Don’t we have a certain ritual around here to attend?”
“We got a bit of time.”
“You call this ‘a bit of time’!? We’re headed to Junon to steal an airship, for crying out loud! At least we should let the others know we’ll be gone!”
“All aboard!” There’s the bright flash of white light in her eyes once again.
“Ruby! Will you just listen for one-”
~
Junon was once a humble port town on the westernmost edge of this great continent, but ever since Shinra came to establish their military base here, it’s been transformed into a sprawling metropolis of its own under the iron-fisted rule of a world power. Unfortunately, with great innovation and technological leaps come the dreary consequences for the old life of those who live in the shadow of this city. Between the pollutants from industrial complexes above and the frivolous attitudes of those living on the upper levels, the once homely town below has seen the gradual disappearance of life from its shores.
And rather than jump right to the harbor she mentioned, Ruby decided to take them here, at the edge of town.
“…second?” Cloud had just finished his sentence when he realizes they’ve warped to a completely different location.
Yuffie plugs her nose. “Ick… Smells like Midgar all over again… Except it’s wet too. Are we by the sea?”
Ruby beams, explaining almost like a peppy tour guide. “That’s right! Welcome to Old Junon, the quaint little town that once was before Shinra ruined everything again.”
“No wonder there’s that mako stank…”
“Why did you take us here?” Cloud asks, looking around. “You know where the airship is kept, don’t you?”
“Of course. But I wanted to drop by the old town sometime.”
“Someone you want to see?”
“You could say that. Come on, let’s go!” And without further elaboration, Ruby starts off into town.
“Hey!”
He and Yuffie give chase. It’s a sleepy little town where there aren’t too many people out and about. The few who are, though, don’t seem to show very welcoming faces to these strangers. It’s no surprise, though; in the back of the town there are several Shinra troops stationed on watch. They’re guarding a door to some kind of large elevator built for transporting cargo. Ruby does not run that way, though. She takes a sharp turn to the south end and leads them to a relatively pollution-free beach where the waters are still clean.
There’s just a little girl here, with her hair tied up in a bun, and she seems to be playing in the water. Accompanying her is a big gray dolphin who chirps happily along to her words.
“My name is… Pri-scil-la! Now you say it.”
“Fwee-woo-wee!”
She giggles and gives the dolphin a head rub. “That’s it! Good job!”
“Mr. Dolphin!!” Suddenly, Ruby comes blitzing down the shore in just three leaps.
“Huh?”
Priscilla stares at this stranger come pouncing in on them and jumps back a bit when the strange lady splashes into the water beside them. She gets a little scare when Ruby, now sopping wet, hops back to her feet with a crazed, almost maniacal laugh.
Ruby waves at them “Hi, Priscilla! Hi, Mr. Dolphin! How are you today!?”
“Um… Sorry. Who are you…?”
“Ruby!” Cloud and Yuffie come running along now. He yells at her, “What are you doing!?”
She grins and waves. “Visiting some old friends! Come in, the water’s great!”
Priscilla shakes her head in disbelief. “What are you talking about? Who are you people?” She glances over to Cloud with a suspicious glare. “You aren’t with Shinra, are you?”
Before he can answer, Yuffie blurts out, “Hey, watch your mouth! We hate everything Shinra!”
Cloud nods too. “…That’s how it is.”
But the little girl remains stubborn. “I don’t believe you! Shinra’s ruined this whole town! Get out!”
He sighs, rubbing his head. “Great…”
She turns back to Ruby too and gasps to find her right next to the dolphin. “Hey! Leave Mr. Dolphin alone!” She comes running to shoo her away and break them up, and Ruby relents with a sad puppy-eyed face and returns to the other two onshore.
Cloud rolls his eyes at her too. “…‘Old friends’, huh.”
Ruby pouts. “They’re old friends to me…”
“Don’t tell me… Lifestreaming?”
She nods.
Now Yuffie looks confused. “Huh? What’s ‘Lifestreaming’?”
“What she calls her visions of the past.”
She turns back to Ruby. “Wait. You saw this kid in a vision before? What’s so important about her?”
“Ah…” Ruby then rubs her head awkwardly. “It’s kinda hard to explain before anything’s happened yet…”
“What do you mean ‘happened yet’…?”
Now, she finally gets serious again. “Watch the waves.”
“Huh?”
Priscilla stays with Mr. Dolphin just in case to make sure Ruby didn’t touch him in any way, but it has left her open. Then, just as Ruby had anticipated, the waves begin to slosh about more wildly. This isn’t due to some change in tides all of a sudden. Instead, it’s the work of something else… and that something comes bursting out from the waves.
“W-what!? What is that!?” Yuffie shrieks.
“Hey! Watch out!” Cloud calls out to the little girl.
Priscilla squeaks in fright, but it’s too late. She is swept up and disappears in the growing turbulent waves. Suddenly, a massive sea serpent with a bright red head, vicious maws, and wildly darting eyes flies out from the waters with a mighty roar. It’s Bottomswell, the sea monster that patrols the coast of Junon and loves to throw his weight around. The dolphin cries for help as he nips onto the girl’s dress and tries to pull her ashore.
Ruby charges right back in, diving into the water to help him pull her out. Priscilla breaks the surface, still coughing and sputtering.
“Cloud! Catch!”
Ruby chucks the girl up the bank and he manages to receive her safely in his arms. Then, Ruby whistles to Mr. Dolphin as if speaking to reassure him and get him out of here. The dolphin zips off to a safe place underwater as the wild serpent roars again. It thrashes its huge tail against the waters as a threat and divebombs Ruby with a massive crunch.
“Ruby!” Yuffie cries.
However, even as it has bitten down, the serpent freezes still as if suddenly aghast and frightened. Ruby has caught his maws by the teeth, and she stares it down with an even more vicious glare and intimidating presence of her own. For just a moment, it looks like an aura about her shifts and transforms into an enormous figure of a white dragon that looms over the serpent. Their staredown barely lasts a few seconds, but those few seconds seem to stretch to an eternity as Bottomswell comes to the horrific realization that he done messed with the wrong being.
“Get lost,” she growls.
No need to tell him twice. The serpent whips right back around and dives into the sea once more, swimming away as fast as it can.
Back ashore, Cloud has let go of the girl, though they all watch in stunned silence at the sight before them. Seeing that they’re all fine, Ruby waves a hand to them with a grin. But even with the threat averted, she dives into the water again to check on the frightened Mr. Dolphin.
Ruby glides underwater as gracefully as if she were a marine creature herself. She had long been experienced with swimming at a young age, but with Rubia’s abilities in her repetoire, she can even hold her breath for hours. She follows the coast shelf down deeper and out into the open waters, and begins to scan the periphery for their friendly neighborhood dolphin.
However, a strange feeling comes over her the further she dives. Strange… as if this situation is all too familiar. When was the last time she felt like this? …Ah, wait. Wasn’t it when she was sinking deep into the Tsviet’s darkness while searching for Yuffie and Sonon? But why is she being reminded of that now? It wasn’t even a big deal…
As she keeps going further down and nears some underwater cliffs, though, she’s suddenly overcome by a long-buried sense of fear that has crept up from the back of her mind. She’s then hit by an intense pain in her arm… and forehead. And her other hand too. What the hell is this!? Why is she in so much pain!?
She chokes up as she loses her big breath of air from earlier. Even her lungs seem to be in pain, as if they had ejected all that air like it was toxic or something. She coughs by reflex, and then they really hurt as they’re filled up with water instead.
She’s drowning. Despite being perfectly fine in the water just moments ago, she’s actually drowning. Her body grows numb as she finds herself drifting. As her consciousness begins to fade away, she swears she can see some brief flashes of memories from some time in the past that she seemed to have forgotten about. The sweeping waves across the sandy beach. The high rocky cliffs just above that beach. The sensation of falling, scratching her hands and arms against the rocks, and losing all grip as she hits her head against them. Tumbling into the sea with the faint scent of blood nearby. The sounds of yelping, crying pups.
…
Back on the shore, Cloud looks off into the distance with a frown. “…Something’s wrong.”
“Huh? What?” Yuffie asks, “Ruby’s gonna be fine. You saw how she scared off that huge monster?”
“That’s not the problem. Why is she taking so long?”
“Oh, no…” Priscilla worries, “Did anything happen to Mr. Dolphin?”
“She’s still looking for it?” Yuffie frowns. “How long does it take to find one?”
“Mr. Dolphin’s not just any dolphin! He always comes by the shore and he’s super friendly with everyone! Everyone in town knows him too!”
“Uh, okay…”
“Priscilla!” Suddenly, they’re interrupted by the calling of a different man who has come running down.
“Oh! Dad!”
Her father hurries over in a panic. “I heard there was a monster attack! Are you alright?”
She nods. “I’m okay, Dad. These people helped me.”
He lets off a grateful sigh and turns to the other two. “Thank you for saving my daughter. These wild beasts are really getting out of hand. They’ve been scaring off all the local fish too. I just never imagined one would come this close to town.”
“Oh, um, Dad. There’s another person that was with them.”
“Oh? Where are they?”
“She dived into the water to look for Mr. Dolphin, but she hasn’t come back yet.”
“Uh-oh. With all those monsters out there? Will she be okay?”
Yuffie casually waves a hand. “Yeah, she’ll be fine. She deals with monsters like that all the time.”
“All the time? Goodness…”
And yet, Cloud can’t seem to settle down. He shakes his head, turning off for the horizon again. “…She’d better just be sidetracked and not actually lost.”
“Sidetracked? By what?” Yuffie blinks. “Wait, you think there are any cool materia around here?”
He returns her a scowl. “Do you think of anything other than materia?”
She turns away with her arms crossed. “I’m just saying… It’d make a cool treasure.”
But now that she’s looking off into the distance too, she spots something popping out from the waves. She shades her eyes from the sun to get a clearer view, and sure enough, she spots the shape of a dolphin swimming back over.
“Hey! Look!”
“Oh! Mr. Dolphin!” Priscilla calls out, waving her hands up in the air.
But as the dolphin comes closer, all their relieved looks turn to shock and back to worry. It is Mr. Dolphin, alright, but he’s carrying what seems to be an unconscious Ruby on his back. He swims up toward the shore with a sad whistle.
“Ruby!”
They all race down into the water again, and Cloud helps Ruby off of the dolphin. His eyes grow wide when he spots the wound on her arm has opened up yet again. He swears internally as he takes her away from the water and sets her down on the beach.
Priscilla’s father drops down to check her pulse and shakes his head. “Not good. Her pulse is weak and she’s not breathing…” He then blinks and whips back to Cloud. “Hey! Young man, you know CPR?”
“Huh? Uh, yeah.”
“Then get to it!” He steps aside.
“What?”
Yuffie barks at him too, “Hurry, Cloud! Don’t leave her like this!”
“But…”
Cloud looks back at Ruby’s pained expression locked upon her face. Damn, how did things even get to this? Of all people, he never imagined Ruby would end up needing… No, better yet, why is he getting butterflies in his stomach now? It’s just CPR. He needs to hurry. He drops down beside her, taking a deep breath to calm his own nerves, and starts applying pressure to her chest. She’s not making a sound even as he forces water from her lips. With little time to waste, he takes in a big gulp of air and leans in.
Before he can meet lip-to-lip, though, Ruby suddenly sputters water from her mouth with some aggressive coughing.
He lets out the air in a relieved gasp. “Ruby!”
And then, she sits up without warning and with a surprising amount of force. Wham. Their heads collide and Cloud drops to the sand like a sack. Ruby stays up, rubbing her sore head, and glances down at him with a very lost look.
“Ruby! You okay?” Yuffie asks instead.
“Ugh… Yeah,” she rasps, snorting out some excess seawater, and clears her throat. “…Who brought me ashore?”
Priscilla smiles, pointing to her now happily chirping savior. “It was Mr. Dolphin!”
“Ah.” Ruby nods toward the dolphin. “Thank you, Mr. Dolphin.”
“Fweet fweet!”
“But…” She looks down to Ruby’s wounded arm. “Are you really okay? What happened there? Was it a monster?”
Ruby clasps her hand over the wound. “Nah. I’ve just had this scar for a long time.”
Yuffie gasps. “Wait. Don’t tell me it opened up again?”
“It’s fine.”
“Ugh! We’ve been over this! Get help when you actually need it!”
Priscilla’s father shakes his head. “Dear, dear… It looks like a pretty bad injury. I’m not sure if we have anyone around here who can deal with this, but I can ask around if you’d like.”
Ruby shakes her head and gets back to her feet. “I said it’s fine. There’s no doctor that can treat a condition like this.”
“Are you sure? It might not be a good idea to just leave it.”
“You’ve done a lot for us already,” Priscilla says, insisting, “At least let us do something for you!”
Ruby casts off a glance as she thinks it over.
Yuffie huffs, “Ruby. Stop being stubborn and let them help you. What do you have to lose?”
Finally, she turns back and nods to the little girl. “Actually, there might be something you can do to help.”
“Huh? Me?”
“By any chance, do you have a shiny red crystal orb? Like a part of a pendant?”
“Um…” She blinks in total surprise. “Yeah, I do. But how did you know?”
“Can you go fetch it? I can use it to help seal this up.”
“The crystal can help? Okay…” Priscilla nods and then smiles. “Alright, wait here! I’ll be back soon!” And she hurries off back home.
Yuffie passes a curious glance to Ruby where her eyes gradually begin to twinkle. “Wait… by ‘crystal orb’, do you mean what I think it means?”
Ruby nods with a smirk. “Materia.”
“Yeah!” She jumps with a cheer. “I knew there was some cool treasure around here! And it’s a red one too!” She then pauses when she comes upon another realization. “Wait. Ruby, you’re basically a Summon, right?”
“Yeah?”
“Then, is it true? Can you communicate with other Summons through their materia?”
“I’d think so. Even if the Summons are long gone by now, their life force and spirits still live on within their materia.”
“Yeah! Yeah! That’s what I was thinking!” Yuffie then snickers to herself. “I knew I was onto something! Summons are just the coolest!”
Priscilla’s father looks between them, feeling a little lost, but then nods along with a polite smile. “…Well, it sounds like you two have things covered here.” He then turns back to the guy still lying on the sand. “But, uh, is he okay?”
Ruby passes a casual glance to Cloud. “Yo. How you doing?”
“…” He finally pulls himself back into a sit-up with a sigh. “I’m fine.” And he gets back up too.
She turns back to the older man. “He’s fine.”
“I-I see.”
“I got it!” Now, the little girl comes hurrying back to them, waving a pretty-looking pendant with a shiny red orb in one of her hands.
“Nice.” Ruby offers Yuffie a smug grin. “Wanna see what I can do with this?”
“Sure. Go for it.”
Priscilla hands over the pendant to her, and she grips the little materia in her hand. Ruby closes her eyes, and with a chant in her heart, she calls to the lingering spirit of the icy Goddess that resides within the orb.
“…Let this wild beast run no more. Be sealed away as long as this planet still lives…”
For a moment there, Ruby swears she just heard the voice of Shiva speak, but is it really the Goddess herself, or is it just an imprint left behind in the essence of this materia? By the sound of it, she probably isn’t speaking to her… right? As Ruby ponders over the question, she shortly receives another answer. Suddenly, a thin layer of ice forms upon her wound and spreads to cover the entirety of the grotesque black stain. But the ice doesn’t stop there; it grows thicker and covers a good portion of her hand and forearm. And just like that, her entire lower arm is captured in a sheath of ice that has shaped into the form of an icy gauntlet.
“W-whoa! What just happened?” Yuffie stammers.
Priscilla gasps too. “Miss! Your arm!”
Ruby then opens her eyes, gives her new arm a quick flex, and passes them a calm smirk. “I’ll be fine. Thanks.”
“Oh. Really…?”
Yuffie winces. “But it’s entirely frozen over! Can you even feel your arm?”
“Actually, it’s not that cold. This isn’t normal ice. It won’t melt even if it comes into contact with fire.”
Cloud folds his arms. “What happened to you anyway? How did your wound open again?”
“Ah…” Ruby’s smirk finally fades as she recalls. “Bad timing, I guess.”
“Bad timing?”
“I don’t know how to explain it. It just opened on its own,” Ruby replies, shifting her eyes away.
He returns her a suspicious look, but then drops his stance. After all the times that they’ve talked, she chooses to shut up and fib to him now? He’s gonna have to ask her again later in private.
“Anyway…” Ruby takes a look around at the rest of them, including Mr. Dolphin. “Good to see everyone’s okay.” She finally turns back to Cloud. “But we came here on a mission, remember?”
“Never forgot.”
“A mission?” Priscilla asks, “What are you all going to do?”
Ruby points a finger straight up. “We’re gonna go steal an airship.”
“What!?” Both Priscilla and her father exclaim together. He shakes his head in disbelief. “Please, Miss, that’s no laughing matter! There’s no way that Shinra wouldn’t respond!”
“I’m aware. But nothing they respond with is a concern to me.”
“Um, even then…”
“And rest assured, it won’t have anything to do with you good people. Let’s just pretend we never met here, shall we?” She finishes with a wink.
Cloud shakes his head. “Just leave it. You can’t talk her out of it when she’s made up her mind.”
The man looks between them both and then sighs. “Alright. But if you must know, we’re not going to forget what you did for us. If you ever stop by again, you and your friends are welcome here.”
Ruby nods back with an assured smile. “No problem, sir.”
“So, how are we getting up there?” Yuffie asks, “Can you fly us up?”
She shrugs. “I could.”
“You could… so will you?”
“I mean, if you want to alert the entire guard up there, I could.”
“What? No! We’re supposed to sneak around!”
“Can’t you just head up there yourself and clear the ‘entire guard’?” Cloud asks her on a whim. “If we’re taking the airship, there’s no way any of them wouldn’t notice the thing going. The less witnesses we have to worry about, the better.”
“Yeah, but that’s boring.”
“Boring!?” Now he gets impatient. “Ruby, it was your idea to come here in the first place! If you’re not gonna be efficient about it, then why did you rush over here?”
“Because I wanted to play with Mr. Dolphin!”
He chokes up and slumps over as if he’d just been punched in the gut. “…I can never win with you.”
She snickers. “Don’t you wanna play with him? He’s very good at jumping.”
“…” He stands back up with his arms crossed again. “What are you thinking now?”
Ruby turns back to Priscilla. “Hey, mind if we borrow Mr. Dolphin real quick? We wanna jump up there.”
“Huh? Wait, you’re really going to climb up the power lines?” She shakes her head. “No, no! It’s too dangerous! The voltage current runs all the way down underground too!”
“But there are some places where we can climb.”
“Well… yeah.” She pauses to think it over and then nods. “Since you’re so strong, maybe you’ll be fine. But what about your friends?”
Ruby passes them a quick glance and back. “One’s a ninja who’s an expert at climbing towers, and the other already looks electrocuted. They’ll be fine.”
“You wanna say that again, brat?” Cloud seethes.
“Alright… if you say so.” Priscilla then nods again and pulls out a whistle from her pocket. “Wait a minute. Let me show you something first.”
She blows a few times into the whistle. And suddenly, Mr. Dolphin leaps into action – literally, shooting so high out of the water it looks like he’s flying – and clears one of the lowest bars of the electric tower with an elegantly small splash back down.
Cloud and Yuffie blink, while Ruby smiles proudly. Wow, that’s actually pretty good.
Priscilla then hands him the whistle. “Here you go! You’ll need it if you wanna play with Mr. Dolphin.”
“Ah… You sure you don’t need it?”
She shakes her head. “I’ve known Mr. Dolphin long enough. He’d listen to my commands even without it.”
He nods back. “Alright, thanks.” He then turns back to the other two. “So, is it just me who’s going to get a ride with the dolphin…?”
Yuffie scoffs, “Well, I don’t need it.”
Ruby smiles. “And I can fly.”
He scowls at the latter. “If you just did that, then we wouldn’t still be down here.”
“I can fly a lot faster without having to lug you around.”
“You…!”
“Later! Catch ya guys at the top!”
And with that, Ruby leaps onto the side of the tower where the current doesn’t run through. Yuffie leaps on after her, taking note of where Ruby climbs as to avoid any potential problem spots as she climbs too. And Cloud just watches them both zip up the tower as if they were defying gravity like it’s nothing.
Priscilla curiously asks him, “Aren’t you going after them?”
“…Yeah. Um, give me a sec.” He takes the whistle in hand and flings the lanyard around his neck. “Oh. And uh, sorry that she just nabbed your pendant and ran off.”
She shakes her head. “It’s fine. It sounds like she could use it a lot more than I ever would. And she has a really cool arm now!”
“Yeah…”
“You’re really concerned about her, aren’t you, Mister?”
“Huh? Ah. I guess you could say that.”
She giggles cutely. “I think you two are a great pair together. I’m a little jealous, to be honest.”
“!?”
She waves to him. “Good luck! Try not to be caught by Shinra!”
“…”
Deciding it’s best not to start an argument with this kid about his romance options, he marches off into the water where Mr. Dolphin has been waiting patiently. And with a couple of whistle blows, Mr. Dolphin dives back down and leaps up high once more with Cloud taking a ride with him. When he’s in range, Cloud hops off the dolphin’s back and clings to the uncharged bar with one hand. He waves to the dolphin as thanks and pulls himself up onto it.
He looks up toward the top of the tower where Ruby and Yuffie have already ascended and they disappear over the edge. He takes a few leaps of his own and takes his time climbing up after them.
And lo behold, as he reaches the top, there’s the prized airship – the mighty Highwind – parked right near the edge of the harbor. He pulls himself up and over onto the platform. To his surprise, the place seems quite empty. Where are all the guards that were supposed to be watching the thing?
Ruby claps her hands together. “Target located.”
“Ruby… By any chance, did you pick this time because you knew it was going to be empty?”
“Hm? Ah.” She glances off and back. “Well, I figured it’s around the time that everyone would be preparing for Rufus’ inaugural ceremony and parade tomorrow, so they wouldn’t be staffed here.”
He frowns. “Then why did you make us climb the tower?”
She grins. “Wasn’t it fun riding Mr. Dolphin?”
“…” He looks off toward the ship again, but speaks to her. “Ruby, I just wanna say… I hate you so much.”
She laughs. “Thanks, Cloud.”
Notes:
Just a few notes this time.
Hidden for convenience
- Once again I have crafted a new path to travel in this town. I always wondered what we could find by rounding around the back from the east side, but the game never let us go further. So, I decided to make a certain large rock be a kind of centerpiece for a new "sidequest" if you will.
- The kids are all original characters. I've taken their names from certain Native American languages:
-- Mukka from mukkachouks, "son of someone";
-- Paucau from paucottauwat, "deer, great buck";
-- Mohtuk from mohtukquas, "rabbit, hare";
-- Memengwa from the Ojibwe word for "butterfly".
- For the record, Golems and Desert Sahagins are never seen together in the OG. They're entirely separate groups of enemies. But I don't care and wanted to imagine Sahagins riding a Golem like a mech. Too bad it was so short-lived.
- Anyone who guessed they'd end up at Junon next? ;)
- Mr. Dolphin SPEAKS! <3 Cetacean speak inspired by Ace Attorney, lol.
- Shout outs to One Piece. Ya'll who know, you know where that one scene is from.
- I think I accidentally made this a shipping chapter, oop.
Chapter 25: Once in a Blue Moon
Notes:
Outdated A/N + health notice
5/17/23 edit: Sorry for the extra delays, everyone. My recovery has been slow thanks to a delay in acquiring my prescriptions and I've been taking a few more days off. But I have been working on the next chapter and hope to finish it by tomorrow.
That being said, while the bronchitis is bound to clear up soon enough, my other condition must be monitored in the long term in case it ever turns cancerous or I ever have any other breakouts of pain in the near future. I hope it won't affect my schedule too much, but it's hard to say.
I may one day need to consider getting a co-writer. At this time, though, I'm still chugging along on my own.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The dusty old rocket at the far edge of town keeps leaning a little more every day. It’s a grim reminder of some people’s long lost dreams, a relic of the past of what-could-have-been. It’s little more than a prop on display these days, where only the occasional passing tourist would take an interest in it. But there is one man who keeps coming back to it from time to time to do his rounds of check-up and maintenance.
It’s not like anyone’s asking him to do it. But there’s no changing the Captain’s mind when he gets going, especially when it comes to this particular rocket. Even in the face of all reasonable and practical discourse, he refuses to give up on it entirely. It’s like an obsession with an almost deluded hope that one day, this old thing will meet the spotlight once more and see its purpose renewed. One day, the Shinra No. 26 will be able to sail the vast reaches of outer space, and when it happens, the Captain will be there to witness it firsthand.
But ever since the initial launch failed and the Shinra Company decided to abandon their prospects in space, things have only been a rolling stone downhill for the man. It wasn’t just that the space program’s budget kept getting slashed – to the point where everyone wonders why the company still has a space program at all. It was also the fact that the Captain’s prized airship was taken from him, and he was henceforth booted out of said program and unofficially dismissed from his job – and life’s mission, those bastards – for simply expressing his objections. Now, all he can do these days is wallow in his own misery in this uneventful town. He’s even stuck rooming with his old assistant since he can’t find a place of his own with the shit-all pay that they’re offering him to keep silent. But this man is a ticking time bomb in more ways than one.
With a disgruntled grunt, he shuts the door to the panel that he had been fixated on for the past twenty minutes, just staring into the intricate machinery that is otherwise ultimately unused and abandoned. At least it’s all still in working order. Well, good lot it’d do at this point, but it would hurt his old heart to see any of it growing rust or wear.
That was the last one for today. He wipes his brow of sweat and lets off a heavy sigh – not sure what he’s getting all riled up for when it’s just the same status quo ever since he started doing these rounds. And once he steps back out into the bright outdoors, he whips out a cigarette packet and a lighter and lights one up. Grumbling internally, he slips the lighter back in pocket and blows a wisp as he looks up to the sky above.
At least he still got the Tiny Bronco. He might just start a murder spree if Shinra ever dared to take the skies from him too.
As he looks back down again and starts off along the receiving platform bridge, from the corner of his ear, he catches wind of some commotion down on the ground. To his surprise, something’s actually happening in this graveyard of a town. But apparently, a crowd has begun to form at the outskirts of the south side.
But when he looks off that way, he freezes up. His jaw drops open, and the cig that was in his mouth drops right out too. He can’t believe his eyes. Out of nowhere, the Highwind has appeared in plain sight.
No way. His eyes have gotta be playing tricks on him. He blinks again, but it’s still there. He blinks a few more times, his expression growing from absolute shock into complete dumbfoundedness.
WHAT THE ACTUAL MOTHERLOVING #%&@ IS GOING ON!?
The Captain rushes back down the platform, sliding fast down the ladder, and leaps off the steps to the ground. As he races down to the scene where the crowd has gathered, several thoughts – a mix of apprehensive worries and desperate hopes – come to mind. Why is the airship here? Does Shinra actually have plans for him? Or rather, are they just here to take something else from him? No, he can’t think like that. If anything, this has to be his chance. He has to take things into his own hands if he expects anything to change.
But as he brushes aside the crowd to the front, he stops short in his tracks. There are just three people who step out from the descending ladder – and none of them are anyone he recognizes. Huh?
One of the girls – who apparently has an icy gauntlet on her right arm – notices him right away and comes running with her arms waving. “Cid!! There you are!”
“!?”
She jumps at him with a glomp, but with vehement effort, he shoves her off. Now that the initial shock has worn off, he’s just pissed.
“Who the hell are you!? What are you doing with my ship!?”
Ruby lets him go and grins back. “Just some thoughtful strangers. We brought it back for you.”
“Huh?”
“Ruby!” Now Cloud and Yuffie hurry over to catch up. As usual, Cloud has an earful for Ruby. “Would you quit running off on your own? What’s going on here?”
She turns back to them with an ever cheerful smile. “We found our pilot! He’s gonna join us!”
“Whoa! Hold up!” Cid objects, “Who said anything about joining anything! I don’t know you! How’d you bring the Highwind here!?”
“I warped it over.”
That simple and frank answer comes out so casually that for a moment, Cid loses his next words. “…What?”
“I have the power to warp anything anywhere.”
“…” Cid just keeps staring at her. “The hell you on, kid?”
Her smile fades, but her smugness remains. “It’s the truth. I don’t see how else the Highwind would have gotten here otherwise, do you?”
Cid still stares at her, and then turns to the other two. “She always like this?”
Cloud nods. “Yeah.”
Cid turns back to her, looking like he got a few more words for her, but then holds back and shakes his head with a sigh. He then turns back toward the very confused yet intrigued crowd around them and yells out at them.
“The hell are you gawkin’ at!? Get outta here! This is private business!”
And with that command, the crowd scatters to the far ends of the town once again. Cid then turns back to the visitors with a displeased scowl.
“Okay… Let me get this straight. None of you are with Shinra, are you?”
“Nope,” Ruby answers honestly.
“So this ship is stolen property.”
“Yeah.”
Cid glares at her, even with all her honesty. “You realize what you just did is a Goddamn crime, right?”
“Supposedly.”
“…” He lets off a scoff. “What’s yer name, kid?”
“I’m Ruby!” She turns to the other two. “The spiky one’s Cloud and the other one’s Yuffie.”
Cloud raises a hand as both a greeting and an apology. “Sorry to bother you, but she was really insistent that we come to pick you up.”
He returns him the same disconcerted scowl. “So whaddya want with me? I’m not on great terms with Shinra right now, so can’t help ya there.”
“That’s exactly why we want you, pal!” Ruby replies instead, “We aren’t on great terms with Shinra either. The opposite, really.”
“Yeah? What, you guys on some kinda mission to recruit people who hate ’em?”
“You could say that.”
He shakes his head. “Sorry, kid, but things aren’t that simple. I don’t give a rat’s ass who or what you are, but as much as I hate ’em, I’m still working for Shinra. And normally, it’d be protocol to report you for this… but you’re lucky I ain’t in the mood.”
“Why not leave Shinra, then?”
He huffs. “You outta your damn mind!? There’s no one else! You think I’m gonna jump ship and live off the land like a bum!?”
“It’s not as bad as it sounds. You really get a sense of the wonders of nature.”
“%&#@ your nature! I still got a job!”
Yuffie then turns to Cloud with a raised eyebrow. “Wait… Are we really living like bums?”
He shakes his head. “Don’t think too much into it.”
But Ruby insists, “But it’s not much of a job, is it?”
Cid growls, “You wanna say that again?”
Yet, she remains steadfast. “Shinra has shut down their space program and have no plans to revive it.”
“Shut your mouth before you say something you regret.”
“I know you’re planning to meet with the new president sometime, but he’s not the most receptive to people making demands of him.”
Once again, she catches him off-guard. “What… Hey. How do you know about me anyway?”
“I have my ways. You could say I’ve seen through past, present, and future.”
He raises a suspicious eyebrow. “Don’t bullshit me, kid. Who even are you?”
Instead of answering that question, though, Ruby just smiles and waves it away. She then starts running off for the town.
“Hey! Don’t run away! I’m not finished with you yet!” And Cid gives chase with that awkward run of his.
Yuffie again turns to Cloud. “Shouldn’t we go after them?”
He sighs. “Might as well.”
They hurry after the two. Ruby leads her pursuers through the otherwise quiet but quaint town to an unassuming house to the east and closest to where the rocket has been stationed. She gives a polite knock on the door at first, but rather than wait for the person inside to open it, she barges on in when she notices Cid charging on over looking like he’s ready to kill.
“Hi, Shera! Pardon the intrusion!”
The poor woman was nearly hit by the swinging door as she was about to open it. “W-what?”
“Get back here, you little runt!” Cid yells, bursting on the scene as well. “First my ship and now my house!? Stop barging into things that aren’t yours!”
Ruby is now standing next to a very lost Shera, and she politely asks her, “I realize this is a very awkward situation, but I assure you we mean no trouble. Say, is that lemon tea I smell? May I have a cup?”
“Oh, um…”
“Shera! Don’t just stand there, you idiot! This girl is uninvited! Get her out!”
Ruby shakes his head. “Don’t mind him. We were just having an argument.”
“You stole my ship from the harbor and you tried to ring me into your stupid gang! What the hell am I supposed to take from that!?”
“It’s for your benefit, though!”
“Benefit, my ass! Who asked you!?”
Shera looks between the two, still very unsure of what to make of this. And on top of this incredibly thick tension, they also get two more guests. Cloud and Yuffie have caught up, and while the latter looks around with a rather unimpressed look, the former marches over to Ruby and gives a firm pat on the shoulder.
“Ruby, maybe we should just leave?”
“What are you talking about, Cloud? We haven’t gotten our pilot yet.”
“He doesn’t want to join us! Let’s just find another.”
“There isn’t another, nor would I want anyone else! Why do you think I’m intruding on their private property? For shits and giggles?”
Cid cuts in, still furious, “I don’t give a shit why! Get out!”
Cloud shrugs. “Knowing you, it’s possible.”
Ignoring them both, Ruby turns back to Shera with her usual chipper smile. “…Oh, the kettle’s about to boil.”
“Oh!” Shera checks the pot on the stove, and sure enough, it’s just about to whistle. She switches off the heat and lets it sit for a bit as she fetches some cups. She then pauses and turns back to the others to ask, “By the way, would anyone else like some tea?”
Cid snarls, “Shera! Are you blind!? You think this is time for tea, woman!?”
Cloud shakes his head. “Really, don’t mind us. We were just leaving.”
But Ruby remains stubborn. “I’m not until Cid agrees to join.”
He groans. “Ruby…”
Cid’s vents just keep coming: “#%*@! Dumb little *#@$ bitch! Just because I’m not calling the cops doesn’t mean I won’t kick your ass myself!”
She turns back to Cloud. “Ya hear that, Cloud? He’s a fighter too.”
“Why are you trying to start a fight?”
“I’m not, but if he wants to, he’s welcome to try.”
“The hell you say? Cocky little brat…” To everyone’s surprise, though, Cid doesn’t immediately throw down with her. He takes a few heavy breaths and then lets out an indignant harrumph. “…Shera! I’m gonna be in the back.”
She nods. “Alright, Captain.”
He then stomps off for the back door, but before he leaves, he turns his head back with a stern frown. “Don’t forget to make ’em some tea.”
“Of course.”
And with that, he swings open the door and shuts it with a slam. Cloud and Yuffie stare in silence as he goes.
Yuffie then lets out a relieved sigh. “Sheesh! What’s his deal? He’s mad but won’t even call the cops?”
Cloud sighs too, peering over to Ruby. “I wonder who upset him…”
Ruby shrugs. “He’s always like that, though.”
“Then you should be more considerate if you know how he’s like.”
“Funny hearing that from you.”
He’s about to retort, but then cuts himself off with his own annoyed grunt. Instead, he turns back to Shera. “Anyway, sorry about all this. It was Ruby’s idea to find him, and we’re, uh, trying to keep her in control. Sort of.”
She shakes her head and offers a gentle smile. “It’s fine. It’s been a while since we’ve had visitors of any kind. This is a pretty quiet town most days. Even the Captain is usually fairly calm, so it came as a surprise to hear him so stirred up today.”
“Captain?”
She nods. “His name is Cid Highwind, but everyone calls him ‘Captain’. He’s a proud pilot and aeronautics engineer whose contributions to the field have earned him deep respect from people of all sorts. He was once viewed very highly even among his superiors at Shinra for his unparalleled talents.”
Yuffie snorts. “‘Deep respect’ huh… He sure doesn’t sound like he respects anyone else, though.”
She casts a sad look aside. “It’s only expected. It’s actually my fault…”
Cloud blinks. “Yours?”
She turns back with a shameful nod. “I did something terrible in the past and robbed him of his dream.”
“…”
Then, Ruby shakes her head and cuts in, “Shera, it’s not your fault. You were just doing what you were supposed to.”
She turns to her with a curious look. “How do you…?”
Ruby nods back with a reassuring smile. “I know the story. Cid dreamed to be the first man to go into space, right?”
“…” Shera blinks again, but then returns to her solemn expression and nods again. She looks off as she recalls the memories. “It was about ten years ago…”
~
A young, proud captain sat in his seat as he awaited the countdown to the launch. The team was still doing the last round of checks before they could get started, but this was it: the moment he always dreamed of. The day when he would be the first man to ascend beyond the grasp of the planet and reach the outer frontier that was only ever spoken of in myths and legends. He was about to make history.
A voice from ground support came over the intercom: “Instrument panel… all clear. Shinra No. 26, ready for launch.” Beat. “Engine pressure rising. Shinra No. 26, 3 minutes to launch.”
Cid let out a sigh. “…Finally.”
But just as he thought he was in the clear and busy imagining all the wonders that would await him up there, suddenly the alarms blared and snapped him back to reality.
“What the? What happened!?”
The intercom reports in: “Cid! We have an emergency situation! A mechanic is still in the engine room!”
“What!? Who is the little ^%$@!?”
“I don’t know. Activating the intercom to the engine room…”
“Hey, goddammit!!” Cid yelled right into his mic, “Who the &%$#’s still in there?”
And to his horror, he heard a familiar voice answer: “It’s Shera, Captain. Don’t mind me, go ahead with the launch.”
“Shera!? What are you still doin’ in there!?”
“I was still concerned. The results of the oxygen tank test weren’t satisfactory.”
“You stupid little $#^%! It’s gonna get so hot in there that there ain’t gonna be #$!% left when we blast off! You’re gonna be burnt to a crisp! You’re gonna die! You know that, doncha!?”
Her answer only terrified him more. “I don’t mind. If I can just fix this, the launch will be a success. I’m almost done.”
“Almost done!? You’re gonna die!”
Concerned voices from ground support also chimed in: “Cid, we must start the countdown.” “What are you going to do, Cid? If we cancel now, it’ll be another six months until the next launch!”
“GODDAMMIT, Shera… you wanna make me a murderer?” Cid seethed, clutching his migraine-filled head.
There seemed to be a murmur of consensus among those voices, and it was followed by another voice announcing, “Starting engine!”
“Hey, wait a minute! Shera’s still in here!”
But there was no response from the team. The rocket began to tremble a little as the engine roared into life. *#%&.
Instead, the automated announcement arrived: “30 seconds until ignition. Beginning countdown.”
Goddammit, Shera. Her dumbass was still trying to fix that damn oxygen tank. What the hell was wrong with the tank!? No, what the hell was wrong with her!? Any sane person would have long left that room, tests be damned!
“Captain!” her voice came back on the intercom.
“Shera!?”
“Tank Number 7 check is complete. Once I complete Tank Number 8, it’ll be all clear.”
He smacked himself in the face, burying said face into his hand with a miserable groan.
The automated voice ominously returned: “15 seconds until ignition. Internal temperature rising.”
Another frantic voice from the intercom called out as well, “Cid! Forget about her. We won’t make it in time!”
He flopped back in his seat with a frustrated sigh, clutching his aching head. “Come on, Shera… hurry up… You’re gonna die…”
However, there was nothing but silence from the engine room. Cid’s grip on his head tightened, but the migraine only kept getting worse. There was no time. They’d already started the countdown. The engine room would soon be scorching. Shera could just pass out from the heat before she’d be burnt up, but either way, she was just gonna be dead.
“What…what am I… What am I supposed to do?” he muttered helplessly, his eyes darting back and forth between the windshield and the emergency shutdown button. “Oh man, the moon… outer space… my dreams…”
And then, the worst panic hit as the intercom announced: “Ignite Engine!”
“SH-------#%!!” With all his might, he slammed his fist down on the emergency shutdown.
The rocket, for a brief moment, blasted massive amounts of exhaust as it began to rise. However, as soon as the shutdown was activated, the combustibles were cut off and there was no further fuel for the flames to consume. The rocket sputtered weakly as nothing but smoke trailed from its tail, and the pull of its own weight brought it slamming back down upon the launch pad. However, after being exposed to the intense heat of the initial blast, the pad’s platform had been weakened and gave way to the massive rocket. The entire thing began to tilt and creak like a scream in pain, but by some miracle, the rocket managed to stop just short of tipping over completely.
And that was where the rocket remained to this day.
~
Shera sighs. “He pushed the emergency shutdown switch, aborting the mission, to save my life. After that, the space program was cut back and the launch was canceled. It’s my fault his dream was destroyed…”
Again, Ruby shakes her head. “As I said, you were just doing your job. In the end, it was Shinra’s executives who had the last judgment and they chose to cancel all further launches.”
She turns back to her with those earnest eyes. “But none of that would have happened if I wasn’t there.”
“If you weren’t there, then Cid wouldn’t still be here.”
She looks a little taken aback. “What?”
Cloud passes her a curious glance too. “What do you mean? Was there really a problem?”
“Yes. Oxygen tank no. 8 was the problem child, wasn’t it, Shera?”
“Y-yes, it was. The results weren’t satisfactory. There was a real risk that it could explode if not attended to.”
“And as it happens, I’ve seen a future where that tank does explode after launch.”
“Huh?”
Cloud’s eyes narrow at attention. “Future? Another of your visions?”
Shera blinks. “What sort of visions?”
“The mystical kind that only certain entities are capable of,” Ruby answers rather straightforwardly.
“Wait. You mean… you’re really able to see into the future?”
She nods. “It’s why I already knew the story. I’ve seen both future and past of many different people over the ages.”
“Oh. Wow…”
Yuffie grins as she adds, “Ruby’s not just any weirdo. She’s the only living Summon that still exists on this planet.”
“S-Summon? You mean, like those creatures that come from materia?”
“Exactly. You could even call them ‘Gods’ in a way.”
“…” Shera stares off into space like she needs a moment to process all of this.
Suddenly, the back door opens and Cid comes back in. He looks stung when he sees the table is still bare.
“Shera! You still haven’t served them the tea!?”
She gasps. “I-I’m sorry!” She fetches the kettle, which has cooled considerably, and pours out the water into the cups.
“Goddammit. Your slow ass is why we don’t have guests!” He stomps around the kitchen and helps himself to one of the seats at the table. He turns to the others. “Hey. Sit down already! Or ain’t my hospitality good enough for ya?”
Cloud makes an awkward look aside as he considers what to do in this situation, but Ruby, being herself, plops right down on one of the other seats and waits with an excited smile as Shera nervously brings over the tea. Yuffie, shrugging, joins her in the next seat over, and Cloud finds himself without an extra seat to take.
“Sorry about the wait. The water cooled a bit, so it may take a little longer for the flavor to come out.”
Cid grumbles audibly, “Can’t even do tea right… This woman is useless…”
Ruby shakes her head. “It’s fine. I got a neat trick for situations like this.”
Shera readjusts her glasses. “A trick?”
Ruby raises both hands out and snaps her fingers. Suddenly, there’s several small blue wisps of flames that erupt within each of the cups and go out instantly. And just like that, the water is brought to a fair temperature and the lovely scent of lemon begins to waft through the air.
“Oh!”
Cid whips back around to stare at Ruby. “The hell was that?”
“A trick.”
“Shut up! What kind of magic is that? That wasn’t any old Fire spell! You hiding some special materia on you or somethin’?”
“Nah. I don’t need materia.”
“Huh… Then what? You some kind of witch?”
Ruby snickers. “Close enough.” She then takes a sip of the hot tea with a pleased smile.
“Tch…” He kicks back again in his seat. “Well, whatever you are, you sure got balls coming in like you own the place…”
“Well, I have been walking all over Shinra’s reputation as of late. You ever pay attention to the news?”
He waves a dismissive hand. “Don’t give a shit about what Shinra’s news reports these days. They don’t got anything to do with me or the space program…”
“That’s too bad. Otherwise, you’d have heard about how much of a tizzy they’ve been in recently.”
He scoffs. “Yeah? What, you make the news too?”
She snickers. “Yeah. I’ve been the star of the show.”
“Good for you,” comes the fully sarcastic reply.
Then, Yuffie jumps in too. “More than that! She’s got Shinra by their balls! They’re absolutely terrified of her.”
Shera then recalls, as she had been watching the news in his stead. “Oh! Wait a minute. I did hear about some recent news about this white dragon that had been terrorizing Midgar. But I think the last we heard, it was captured by the Turks.”
“Yep! Ruby’s that dragon.”
“She’s the dragon!?”
Cid simply grunts, as if not surprised or maybe just not caring.
Now reminded, Cloud turns back to Ruby. “What happened back there anyway? We saw you get taken away, but you still got out?”
“They let me go. It was part of the deal, after all.”
“Why would they agree to that, though? Wouldn’t it have been safer for them to keep you prisoner?”
“Oh, they did consider it, but ultimately, they were too afraid of what I could do while captured and decided the best course of action would be to let me leave the city.” She winks. “Besides, Tseng has a soft spot for Aerith, and she did ask them to let me be.”
“…”
“Speaking of which,” Shera mentions as she goes to find the remote to their TV, “Wasn’t there something big happening soon? I believe the new president’s inauguration was supposed to have aired earlier today.”
Cid grunts. “Don’t care, didn’t watch. You watched it, Shera?”
She nods. “I figured I should at least be informed.”
“Hmph. Let me guess, he said squat about the space program.”
“That’s… true, unfortunately.”
“Piece of shit. Figures that I’d have to go meet him in person to talk some sense into those people.”
“You want an appointment with the president?” Ruby suggests, “I can easily set that up.”
He turns to her with a doubtful look. “What now? You gonna warp me right to him or something?”
“That’s the idea.”
“Ha! Sure, and I’ll be put on the wanted list like the rest of ya while we’re at it!”
“I can always talk it out with him so that you don’t, but honestly, what does it matter by this point? You hate them, they don’t treat you seriously, and your job these days comes down to being a watchdog for this old rocket.”
He growls in low voice, “At least I still got a job. That means I’m still above board.”
“Barely. You know why they ejected you from the space program?”
“Of course! ’Cause those shitheads don’t think space is worth the investment! Almost like they were itching for any reason to cut us off! Just pisses me off more whenever I think about it…”
“Exactly. They wouldn’t care if an oxygen tank were set to blow up on launch day either.”
“…!” That definitely catches his attention. He slowly turns back to her with a hard stare. “What do you know about launch day, kid?”
“I know that it was almost a catastrophe that was thankfully averted by your quick judgment.”
“Tch. One moment you’re talkin’ shit and the next you’re praising me? Get your story straight.”
“If you ask me, though, it’s pretty suspicious that of all days for an oxygen tank to malfunction or fail the checkups, it would be on that day you were supposed to go.”
“…” He leans onto the table, his stare now trying to drill holes in her, but it seems to leave no mark. “What are you saying, huh… that the accident wasn’t really an accident?”
“I’m not saying anything for sure, but that is my conjecture.” She takes another sip.
“…” And now, he passes a suspicious eye toward Shera, who flinches to his glare.
Ruby rolls her eyes. “Come on. Shera had nothing to do with it. You think she’d be anywhere near the engine room if she tampered? She was ready to die for you, man.”
He relents and Shera lets off a relieved sigh. “Well, she ain’t stupid, I’ll give her that.”
“Besides, like you said, the bigwigs were ready to scrap the space program any time, regardless of what happened on that day. Hell, you think they picked someone like Palmer to lead that program because they think he’s competent?”
“…”
“I bet you my entire ancient lineage that Shinra would have come up with any other excuse if the launch was a success. An accident like this just made things easier for them.”
Now caught up in the potentials and possibilities, Cid has really started to think things over. The more they discuss that incident, the more his old suspicions have been churned up and risen back to the front of his mind. Fears, worries, and doubts that he long tried to suppress with ever increasingly desperate optimism and hope that all would eventually be settled if he just played the long game and waited things out. And for just a moment there, when he heard that the old president passed, that hopeful delusion burned on all cylinders.
Now, he grimaces and shuts his eyes tight in frustration as he feels he can no longer push aside those doubts. And yet, there’s still a part of him that keeps insisting that he shouldn’t listen to them. After all, in the end, even Ruby admitted that all she has here is conjecture. The only way to know the truth is to confront the new president himself, and even then, he won’t be admitting anything that would be inconvenient to the company image or whatever crap excuse he has.
“What are you thinking, Cid?” Ruby asks, cracking the ice.
“…” Finally, with a sigh, he answers frankly, “Look, kid. I know you’re trying your damnedest to make me leave Shinra, but unless you got concrete proof that anything you’ve said up to now is true, I ain’t buying shit.”
She nods back respectfully. “…I understand. It’s true that I don’t have evidence. A lot of the truths I speak of can’t be proven. It’s only certain visions that have been witnessed by someone other than me who would understand how difficult it is to describe them.”
“Hmph. Glad we actually agree on something for once.”
“Still…” She lets off a sigh. “I’m sorry to say, but I’m not giving up on recruiting you.”
He snorts. “Seriously? Don’t you have anything better to do?”
“Not really.”
Cloud now cuts back in, “Uh, Ruby? We do have something to do. You promised we wouldn’t be gone long, but we’ve taken our sweet time getting back.”
She simply waves a dismissive hand his way.
Cid still shakes his head and lowers his legs as he means to get up. “Well, whatever your deal, I’m not sold. Not that down bad yet that I’d sacrifice everything to go rogue.”
“Hmm…” Ruby looks at one of the unattended cups of tea still on the table. She turns back to him as he gets to his feet again. “You aren’t gonna have any tea?”
He frowns. “Don’t need it.”
Suddenly, Ruby’s face grows dark in an instant. She grabs Cid by the arm and yanks him back down into the seat. “Sit down and drink your goddamn tea. We’re not finished here.”
He looks completely caught off-guard by her sudden shift in tone. “Huh?”
But shortly after she says it, she then cracks the side of her lip upward and then blurts out in laughter. “Sorry. I always wanted to say it.”
“What?” Now he’s annoyed. “Did you, our uninvited guest, just tell me, the host, how I’m supposed to show hospitality?”
“Well, it would make a good host to not leave their guests hanging if they insist you participate in the same activity.”
“@&*$ you! Coming in here, in MY house, telling ME what to do about my life!? Who the hell do you think you are, some kind of God of Fate!?”
She grins. “Well, let’s just say that I know what’s coming up next for your fate.”
He growls. “Yeah? What’s that?”
Even while she still grins, she comes right out with it: “We’re gonna kidnap you.”
At that moment, a still silence falls over the entire room as everyone stares hard at her.
She takes one last sip from her cup and finishes it up, setting it back down. “Thanks for the tea, Shera!”
Now Cid asks in a dangerous voice, “What did you just say to me, you little bitch?”
“You heard me.” Ruby finally gets up from her seat and meets him at eye-to-eye with a smug smirk to match his gritted teeth. “You’re coming with us.”
Cloud shakes his head and cuts in again, “Ruby! This isn’t the time for jokes! Just leave him alone! If you still want to get him, then come back later! We got our own shit to do!”
But before anyone can stop her, Ruby casually folds one of her hands into a sort of meditative symbol, and with a whisper from her lips, she casts a Sleepel spell on her current opponent. Before he knows it, Cid is suddenly overcome by an intense drowsiness and flops over, and Ruby catches him before he falls onto her.
“C-Captain!?”
“Ruby!”
She simply spins around and hoists the unconscious man onto her back and turns to the other two with a satisfied grin. “We got our pilot.”
“Are you insane!? What are you doing!? Put him down!”
“Ruby! Come on! This is way too weird even for you!” Yuffie also pleads, “We’re not kidnappers!”
“I guess I am now. If you guys don’t like it, you don’t have to carry him. Now where did he put that thing again…?” She starts dragging the man along as she searches the nearby closets.
Shera anxiously follows her, asking, “Um, Ruby? What are you looking for?”
“His spear. Where does he usually leave it?”
“Ah…” Shera makes a sad look as she realizes what she means by taking the Captain along. “It’s in the back. Follow me.”
“H-hey! You don’t have to…” Cloud begins, but Shera shakes her head and he backs off.
She leads Ruby out the back door to the yard where the Tiny Bronco stands proudly. And leaning against the wall of the house is Cid’s other prized possession, his classic Spear. Ruby snatches it up in one hand and nods to Shera with a pleased smile.
“Thanks again, Shera! Don’t worry, we’ll bring him back safely. For now, though, he’s gonna be sticking with us.”
“A-are you sure? He probably won’t be happy when he wakes up.”
“Don’t worry about us. We’ve dealt with a lot worse than an angry man with a spear.”
Understanding that there’s no talking her out of it, Shera sighs and nods back. “Alright. Take care, of yourselves and the Captain. And be sure not to get in too much trouble with Shinra.”
Ruby nods too. “We will. Hope you’ll be okay on your own.”
She then makes a small smile. “Don’t worry. I’ve been fine on my own for a long time.”
With a quick salute and readjusting Cid on her back, Ruby steps back in to catch the others. Yuffie is now quite nervous and uncomfortable with how things seem to be playing out, while Cloud remains silently furious with her, but decides not to push the issue anymore. Ruby simply chuckles softly to herself and steps out the door. However, she doesn’t get too far out the door when she realizes Cid’s boots keep grinding against the ground and it’s quite awkward to move like this.
To her surprise, Cloud comes on by and helps her carry him by the other arm.
“Cloud?”
“…What?”
“Now you’re a kidnapper too.”
“…” He lets off a sigh. “I’m stuck with you, so it can’t be helped.”
She then smiles sweetly with a slight blush. “Thanks.”
“But when he wakes up, I’m not gonna be there for you.”
“Me neither!” Yuffie calls out from behind as she catches up. “You’re even crazier than I thought you were! I can’t believe you’d do this!”
Ruby smirks back. “Let’s put it this way, Yuffie… Since he’s still a Shinra employee at this point, we’re technically stealing from Shinra.”
“…” She blinks in disbelief at her logic, but now that Ruby mentions it, it kinda makes sense. “Well, maybe it’s not that bad, actually.”
Cloud frowns. “In the end, that’s all that matters, huh…”
Ruby laughs. “You’re darn right. Now let’s get back to the Highwind and back to our new HQ!”
~
It’s getting a little late. The sun has already been setting with remnants of a brilliant red-orange glow far on the horizon that puts the entire red-tinted town in an even bolder color – at least until the shadows grow long and cover the entire region in a blanket of shade. However, no matter how dark the night may become, the eternal flame, the Cosmo Candle, burns bright as it lights the night at the very center of town.
The whole gang has gathered around the bonfire as the awaited ritual is upon them… and yet, one of the stars of the evening event has mysteriously disappeared. Tifa and Aerith reassured everyone that they’d be back soon, as Cloud and Ruby had gone off on an errand to find Yuffie and their stolen goods. It even took a group effort from the members of Avalanche to stop Barret from stomping off on his own after them as soon as he heard the news. And so, as the sun has set, they’ve been waiting patiently for the trio’s return.
However, no one could have possibly expected that said return would bring such an ominous greeting. There’s a bright flash of light in the sky above the town, as if to let everyone know of Ruby’s warping magic at play, but rather than seeing a majestic dragon appear to flutter down gently, everyone instead is met with the sudden appearance of a massive aircraft that looms overhead. And as soon as the warping magic vanishes as the spell comes to its close, it begins to fall.
“!?”
Fortunately, Ruby is as swift to react as ever and snatches the Highwind by its nose. With a frosty breath, she blows a smooth incline made of a magical ice that lets the airship slide gracefully down to the ground just south of the town, where it nearly crashes into the ground. She promptly catches the thing at the last second before it makes contact and lowers it gently. With a dismissive wave of her hand, the magical ice scatters into a beautiful mist of snow and then back to ether, and she vanishes again in another flash.
This time, she steps back out from the gondola of the ship with three people in tow – one of whom is unconscious and apparently tied up in rope, and the other two who are quite aggravated but very motion-sick thanks to her antics. While they take a moment to recollect themselves, Ruby snatches up the poor pilot like a bundle of cloth and bounces cartoonishly up the steps into town.
“Hi, guys! Sorry I’m late!” Ruby announces as she comes running up to them.
“Ruby!” Aerith gasps.
“There you are!” Barret barks, getting to his feet, “What kept you!?”
“And, uh, who’s that you’re…?” Jessie means to ask.
Without explaining herself, Ruby just rushes on by and bounces off for the inn, taking the hapless stranger with her. Everyone watches her go again, looking just as lost as ever.
Tifa looks around. “Um, where are Cloud and Yuffie? Weren’t they with her?”
Barret scratches his head. “The hell have they been?” He also looks off in the distance where the Highwind rests and gestures toward it. “And ain’t that a whole damn airship!?”
Aerith blinks, looking excited. “Wow! I’ve never seen one before! It’s huge!”
Tifa tilts her head curiously. “Huh. Where did they even get it?”
He shakes his head in disbelief. “The only one I ever heard of was the one that Shinra had. Probably kept it at some military base somewhere…”
“Wait. They took Shinra’s airship!?” Now she panics a little and gets to her feet too. “What ARE they doing!?”
Now, Red’s ears perk up and he points his nose toward the gate. “…Here they come.”
“Hm?”
After having their moment, Cloud and Yuffie finally hurry into town after Ruby. The two look a little out of breath as they catch up to the rest around the bonfire. While Yuffie quietly finds herself a place here to sit down with a pout, Cloud sighs and apologizes to everyone.
“Sorry to keep you. We tried to stop Ruby, but well…”
“Yo!” Barret cuts him off, “Where’d you guys even go? And what’s with the airship?”
“Right… After we caught up with Yuffie and got our stuff back, we were discussing what to do about the situation with Wutai. But then Ruby said she wanted to nab that airship first, so she took us to Junon.”
“Junon…” He blinks as he tries to recall where that was.
“She even found a pilot for us.”
Biggs looks off toward the inn where Ruby had run off. “Wait… do you mean that guy she had tied up?”
Cloud makes a defeated frown. “That was her idea. He refused to come with us, so she put him to sleep and took him along.”
“What?”
“You mean, against his will…?” Jessie asks, cringing a little.
“What!? Isn’t that kidnapping!?” Wedge exclaims.
“It’s fine!” Yuffie interjects, “We’re just borrowing him! Once he’s done his job, we’ll send him back!”
“…” Cloud awkwardly rubs his head. “Who knows with Ruby. She’ll probably come up with some excuse to keep him around longer.”
Aerith makes a concerned frown. “I hope things will be okay between them…”
Tifa then asks, “But why steal an airship? I know we have a long journey ahead, but I figured Ruby could always fly us around anyway.”
He shrugs. “She didn’t want to do that. Guess the warping can be tiring for her too.”
“Besides, isn’t it Shinra’s property? There’s no way they wouldn’t know that a whole airship is missing!”
“Yeah… but we happened to find it unguarded at the time, so it was pretty simple for her to warp away with it.”
“Unguarded?”
“Hold up!” Barret interrupts too, “You said Junon? That’s one of Shinra’s military bases, right? Why wouldn’t it be decked with guards?”
Cloud explains, “Seems like we got lucky. Since Rufus was recently instated as the new prez, they’re going to hold some kind of parade ceremony there soon, so all the troops were moved.”
Barret gives an amused scoff. “Well, whaddya know… I’m guessin’ Ruby already knew and that’s why she went for it now?”
“Yeah.”
He smirks proudly. “Well, alright then. That’s why she’s our MVP! Always one step ahead of Shinra.”
Tifa still looks a little unsure, though. “Still, even if Ruby got away with it this time, there’s no way we’d be able to avoid being chased down. This is an airship, after all. We’d be spotted for miles.”
“Bah. Even if they do see us roamin’, what’re they gonna do about it? I doubt they got another of ’em just lying around.”
“Well, probably not… But this also means we can’t just wander into any old town anymore. We have to be prepared to meet Shinra forces at any point down the line.”
He cocks his gun-arm. “And that’s just how we roll.”
“…”
He then sets it back down with a concerned frown. “Though, it would still be kind of a hassle if we’re ever caught goin’ around in a large group. So, from here on out, we’re gonna need to be able to split up if we’re headed somewhere.”
Tifa nods back. “I was thinking the same thing.” She turns back to the rest. “How about you guys?”
“Fine by me!” Jessie chirps back with an assured smile.
“Same here,” Biggs adds.
“And here!” Wedge calls with his own smile.
Aerith chuckles. “Wow, now it really feels like we’re building up our team! Just let me know if you need me!”
Red calmly nods as well. “Indeed. I’ll be happy to help too.”
Yuffie sighs, rolling her eyes. “Yeah, me too, I guess… As long as Ruby’s not steering the ship.”
Cloud then looks around them. “Speaking of which, where is Ruby?”
Aerith replies, “She ran off for the inn with the pilot, I think.”
“Okay, but what’s taking her…?”
As if on cue, Ruby suddenly blinks into view. “I’m back!”
He snorts, crossing his arms. “Thanks for ditching us back there.”
“I just wanted to drop Cid off at the inn first.”
“So did he wake up yet? It’s gonna be hard for him to be our pilot if he’s out…”
“Almost, but I cast another spell to keep him asleep. Saves us the trouble of having to hear his outrage.”
“Speak for yourself. You dragged him out here as a hostage. You deal with it.”
“Ha!” She passes a cheeky grin. “As if you and Yuffie aren’t my accomplices now?”
“Hey! Don’t rope me into it! I didn’t touch him even once!” she complains.
Cloud shakes his head. “I still don’t get why we had to get an airship at all, but I guess this is what we’re doing now…”
“You don’t? I thought it was obvious. We have an airship, so I’m freed up to warp around anywhere I like!”
Cloud stares at her with an offended frown. “That was the reason!? Didn’t you say it’d take a ‘toll’ on you to keep warping us?”
“Yeah. I’d get bored of doing it.”
He slaps his face with a groan. “I should’ve known…”
“Ho ho ho ho!” Suddenly, Bugenhagen’s hearty laugh cuts in and seems to lift the entire atmosphere. He finally arrives to join them, and he’s accompanied by a couple more important-looking elders. “Well, it sounds like we’re all here at last.”
“Grandpa! Elder Bughe and Elder Hargo too, welcome.” Red nods. “Yes, Cloud, Ruby, and Yuffie have all returned. It seems they have brought another guest with them, though he’s currently resting at the inn.”
“I see. When he’s ready, he may be free to join us. For now, I believe it’s about time for the awaited ceremony to begin.”
“Everyone else will be joining us shortly. For now, I think we should get started,” Hargo insists with a firm tone.
“As soon as our resident offering-bearer comes along…” Bughe adds, glancing around almost lazily. Shortly, a young girl with her hair tied up in buns comes hurrying on over with a basket. “Ah, here we are.”
The girl remains quiet as she stares in curious awe at Ruby and is surprised to see her right arm veiled in ice. And yet, she remains calm… No, more than that; there’s a certain composure to Ruby’s stance that differs from the rest of her peers around the fire. Or maybe it’s just her being a revered idol that she would stand out even in a crowd of odd-looking strangers.
“Very good.” Bugenhagen nods and turns to everyone else. “Everyone, please take a seat. We will be beginning shortly.”
Barret and Tifa return to their places and sit back down, and Cloud and Ruby sit down next to each other at the front where a little space had been left for them. With everyone ready to be present accounted for, the little basket girl goes around passing small bundles of some sort of wild grass.
“What’s this?” Barret asks, giving it a curious look.
“Wekinashquash,” the little girl answers.
“Uh, sorry?”
Red helps translate, “It’s sweetgrass, a type of herb that grows perennially in lands up north. It has a nice sweet smell when burnt as incense.”
“Huh.”
“So… what exactly are we doing?” Ruby asks too.
Bugenhagen offers to explain, “It’s a tradition of ours to gather around the Cosmo Candle, tell stories, and make some offerings in prayer. I hope you won’t be too bored?”
“Oh! Cool!” She smiles and nods. “I love campfire stories!”
He chuckles, then turns back to the other elders and nods. Bugenhagen leads them off, followed by Hargo, and then Bughe, and so forth. As they proceed to narrate a brief history of the land, people from all around town begin to gather around as well – mainly to see Nanaki and Ruby again, though some of them also join in to listen to the old stories.
“Long ago, far away in ancient times, a young star was born. It burned bright in the darkness of the cosmos and had great ambitions to sail those vast seas in search of a habitable land. And upon coming here to this planet, it was a dry, lifeless place. Feeling pity, the young star reached out to the cosmos and grabbed a piece of its sea to put it upon the dry earth. And with that, the planet was flooded from end to end and softened to become malleable. The star then settled into the soft earth and began to spread its light across the entire land. And so, the first living beings would sprout out from the land and come to inhabit this world.”
“These Greater Spirits would come in all shapes and sizes, and each would do their part in shaping the planet. One was a mighty titan who could shift the earth and create mountains for the birds and valleys for the sheep. Another was a great serpent of the sea that would flood the lands further to create the oceans for the fish and shelled creatures. Yet another was a royal dragon of the heavens who stretched the skies far and wide for the sun to shine through. However, to avoid drying out the land, He would close it every night. In His place, His daughter would light up the night sky so the world would not be left behind in the darkness.”
Ruby blinks, looking a bit startled to hear that last part. Now she notices the kids are all staring at her again with those bright, awe-inspired eyes, and she shyly shades her face to avoid making further eye contact. She certainly expected that there would be mention of the Summons at some point, but she hadn’t expected to be mentioned right out. Or that Rubia would actually take on the role of the freakin’ moon. Great, now there are going to be people going around calling her the “Moon Spirit” and she can do nothing but take damage from embarrassment.
“However, while the planet lived in harmony with the plants and animals and people, one day, a great calamity from afar would strike the planet. Together with the help of the Greater Spirits, the planet would fight back against this calamity, and after a great war that ravaged the world, they would eventually defeat the calamity and seal it away for eternity… or so the legend goes.”
“It took the planet many years since that war came to an end to recover, and it was left a great scar that would come to shape this canyon. However, even in the heart of this great scar, there was still an oasis of life that flowed through it. Eventually, the first warrior tribe, together with the first of our people, would come to settle around this oasis and vow to serve their entire lives to protect this land.”
Red has been staring off into the bonfire in silence for a while now. He recounts his proud ancestral lineage up to now, even as his tribe’s members have slowly disappeared over history, and aside from one member of his family that he would rather forget, they have all followed their sworn duty diligently and will continue to as long as there is still blood in their bones.
“Now is a time of celebration, but also a time for reflection. Our two ‘stars’ of this evening have returned – one from a long journey around the world; the other from a long journey across time.”
As if he had been awaiting his turn, Red now lifts his head up and sits up straight as he addresses the crowd around them.
“My friends and families, thank you for setting up this occasion. Though I have many stories to share of my travels, I must first address an important matter. As Elder Hargo has said, this is a time of celebration, but it is also a time of reflection. Though we have returned safely, not all has been secure. There are many questions that linger – from personal worries and fears that must still be confronted to concerns for the state of this planet we all share. However, it is in the darkest times that we must hold onto the brightest of hope. There is always time for renewal and to recover bonds once thought lost.”
He turns to the rest of the gang around the fire and then to Ruby, who sits across from him. Now feeling even more disturbed that people are still staring at her, she droops and curls up, digging a fingernail into the dusty sand. Understanding that she doesn’t like having all this attention on her, he looks away again.
“Think of those that you once loved and those you have come to meet, and let their united strengths keep you moving forward. Now, let us have a moment of silence to all those that have passed on. Take your offerings and throw them into the fire, and hold those memories close to your hearts.”
Everyone seated about the bonfire then takes their turn to toss the grasses into the fire and make a silent prayer. Even the usually impatient Yuffie, who at first was getting bored out of her mind listening to this stuff, now takes her share and participates. After all, everyone here would have something or someone to pray for.
Cloud and Tifa reminisce separately and yet together about their hometown and the tragedy that they shared. Cloud and Aerith likewise pray for their best friend and beloved First-Class Soldier who valiantly sacrificed himself on the front lines. Tifa also holds out a thought for all the people of Sector 7 that had helped her come to settle into Midgar where she would meet Avalanche; as does Aerith for the people of Sector 5, especially Elmyra who was only ever another mother to her despite knowing Aerith’s history all too well.
Barret only ever wishes the best for Marlene after the tragedy that took their home from them and sent him fleeing from the disgrace that the remnant town has put on his shoulders. Jessie thinks back to her parents, worried how they’re doing following the Shinra occupation and desperately hoping that they haven’t been caught up in anything worse. Biggs thinks back to his younger days as a street rat and the old buddies he once called some kind of family, as well as the old schoolhouse he once helped raise from the dirt. Wedge hopes his dear cats are doing fine, as aside from the endearing company he shares with everyone now, he comes to realize how few people still exist in his life.
And despite still feeling a little distant with the rest of them, Yuffie has to admit that her mission wasn’t just about materia and fighting Shinra. She barely even knew Sonon until the other day, and now she finds herself desperately hoping that he recovers soon.
The sweet smell from the sweetgrass incense fills the air as it burns, putting the entire site in a very calming and almost mystical atmosphere. Ruby sits and stares at the old crackling flames with a sense of ease and tranquility that has been surprisingly absent for longer than she had expected. So many things that have happened that led them up to this moment in time, and so many more things that will await them that she would think would make her feel apprehensive, but perhaps the excitement that inner child of hers bears is just too strong to make her feel uncomfortable for more than a brief thought.
And yet, to her surprise, she begins to feel sleepy. Is it just the soothing scent of the incense that’s making her mind enter a temporary lull? Or has it just been that busy of a day and her initial excitement has finally faded that the fatigue starts to roll in at last? Either way, she soon finds herself drifting not just in her thoughts, but even away from consciousness.
Flump.
As her mind slips further, she may have picked up on the confused and concerned reactions of the rest of the gang, but now she’s gone too far away to jump right back to them. The next thing she knows, she’s falling into the darkness once more.
And for just a brief instant, she swears she hears a deep and familiarly haunting voice echo in her mind.
“…It’s time to wake up, my dear.”
Notes:
I just wanna say, I love Cid in FF7. Everything about him - his design, his dedication to his dream, his potty-mouth, his AMAZING theme track. I have been itching to write this chapter, both as a lover of tea and a lover of One Piece. But the Shera fan in me also cares for her, so I'm glad Ruby was here to help draw away some of that heat off of her.
It has been a blast researching various Native American cultures across North America! I've mainly focused on the Wampanoag and their fellow tribes in the northeast US, but there's clearly inspiration from all over even in the original game. Sweetgrass is one of the four major medicines in these cultures and is sometimes used in a smudge - that is, burning in a fire ceremony - in honor of the people's ancestors, as well as for good health, fortune, and peace of mind, among other blessings. There are many kinds of rituals when it comes to fire - too many to count - so I kept it simple to a more solemn remembrance this time in line with the OG.
Uh-oh... Is that Sephiroth being up to no good again? What will be coming next for Ruby? Find out on the next chapter of Code Radiant!
Chapter 26: Lost and Regained
Notes:
Outdated A/N + health notice
Sorry for the wait! In case you missed it, I've been busy dealing with a sudden case of bronchitis and intense pain and nausea from a non-cancerous cyst that needed me to be hospitalized for a day. But I've gotten my meds and my rest and am ready to get back to work!
This chapter ended up going even longer than I originally anticipated too, so that's why I kept making premature estimates on the release schedule. Apologies again.
5/25/23 edit: Next chapter has been delayed to tomorrow. Fortunately, it's not because of health issues, but just because I am stupid occasionally and had to rewrite the entire chapter from the beginning since I tried to squeeze in too many things at once that it'd kill the pacing. This has been rectified. Thank you for your patience.
4/20/25 edit: Added a sentence to clarify Nanaki's change in voice once they entered the Cave of Gi.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Stirred awake by a strangely distant yet familiar voice, Ruby drowsily opens her eyes. It’s completely dark out here, and she’s lying on what feels like a rather comfortable bed. She blinks a few times as her eyes adjust to the ambient moonlight coming from outside the shuttered window.
A window? Oh, there’s a ceiling. So she’s been taken indoors… But wait. The shape of this room doesn’t resemble anything like in the Shildra Inn or any other room in the caverns of Cosmo Canyon. In fact, now that she realizes, it doesn’t seem like her arm is covered in that icy gauntlet anymore. Wait again. She’s not even wearing her usual outfit either. She’s gone right back to her old hoodie and pants – just like that night before all this happened.
Now that her eyes have adjusted, she sits up on bed and takes a look around. There’s a familiar desk and bookshelf near the window, both of which are full of various books and folders and binders of various sizes. The desk is a little messy, but it’s just the right amount of messy for her tastes. It’s the kind of place where whenever she just wants to leave the outside world and duck back in her little den to focus on writing and other creative works.
Everything feels so familiar, like she’d been living here for quite a long time. It’s as if she’s come back to her own room…
WHAT!? It IS her bedroom! That is her desk, left exactly in the mess she remembered! The placement of the bookshelf, the shape and place of the lamp on a simple little nightstand by her bed, even where her dang wastebin is sitting! She’s back home!
Now her heart races in a panic. What’s going on? How did she get here? Why is she back here? What has Sephiroth been up to? Did he bring her here, or is something even weirder at play? So many questions!
She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly to help settle her nerves. She does it again a few more times for good measure. And when she opens her eyes again, she’s still here, awake, on her own bed.
Okay, calm down. This isn’t the first time she’s had a dream where she was back at her place. Maybe this is just another of those silly “ultimate crossover” types. Surely, this time when she steps outside, there’s just going to be another stupidly cartoony scene that she can just pretend never happened. And she’ll just wake up back where she left off with Cloud and the others.
She takes a moment to wait it out, just in case she can feel any traces of monstrous footsteps in the distance from another Godzilla or so. Nothing but silence and stillness – aside from her own jitters, anyway. Well, at least that rules out a copy of the same dream.
She climbs out of bed and wanders by the old desk, stepping beside it to reach for the window shutter string, but rather than tug on that, she decides to just lift up a corner of the shutters. Outside, it’s also nighttime, so the neighboring streets are pretty much empty, and it’s just the street lights that light up the scenery. She avoids looking right at them, as they’re quite bright to her eyes adjusted for the dark. But from what she can see, it’s just an ordinary-looking neighborhood in the suburbs of a small town in this crowded Silicon Valley. Yep, it’s exactly like she remembers. Heading down to the right would take her to the little parking lot outside this apartment complex, and then out to the main street.
She carefully drops the shutters back in place to avoid scattering any dust, and steps away again back into the darkness of her room. This sure is one vivid dream, alright. It’s giving her some serious deja-vu from that blackout night when it all began.
She returns to the bedside to find her phone resting on the nightstand. On a whim of curiosity, she decides to turn it back on. If she’s still on Gaia, she shouldn’t have a signal.
There’s a signal. Five bars of data too. Dammit. Of all the times that she wished there wasn’t a signal, there just had to be one.
Sighing to herself, she puts her phone back in standby and slips it into her pocket. And now that she notices it, there’s also the flashlight she had held. It’s been left on the stand beside her phone, almost as if someone put it there as a sort of reminder.
This is getting freakier by the minute. It’s as if she’d been transferred back to the very beginning of this story. But is there still a blackout? Her curiosity is only magnified by her growing desperation to make sense of all this. She reaches for the switch at the bottom of the lamp.
Flick. She’s taken aback by the fact that there’s electricity again and blinks a few times to readjust her eyes to the light. It doesn’t help her feel better now that she can see her room clearly, though. This just tells her that she’s either in so deep that she can’t wake up, or worse, she’s not dreaming. She blinks a few more times, feeling more tired by the passing second as she tries to work out the possibility of the latter. And she feels a tinge of unadulterated hatred. If this is all just an illusion or something by the work of that asshole, she swears she’ll…
Actually, what would she do? What could she do to him if they’re back in this world, where he still gets to play with magic and defy the laws of physics, while she’s back to being a normal human? He’s not the type to just politely excuse himself if she tells him to leave, and throwing a fit again will just ensure that she’ll be forcibly shut up.
Now she feels extra nervous. What will happen when she steps out of this room? Will it just be her apartment as usual, with everything left intact as if her encounter with the menace never happened? Or will she quickly discover that not all is as it seems and she’ll be meeting with another jumpscare? She feels a weight begin to form in her throat and knots tying up in her gut. She makes a nervous gulp and takes a few more breaths, praying fervently to whatever higher being is out there that she’ll be out of this nightmarish dilemma soon.
Enough shivering and trembling. It’s time to head out and settle the matter. She lets out a determined huff and reaches for the door handle.
It’s definitely quiet out there, but as she moves through the hallway for the stairs, she seems to pick up on the faint sound of some sort of electronic device – an old one by the sound of its low whirring – running smoothly. Did she leave anything on outside? She doesn’t remember ever returning to her room without turning off all digital screens. So, could there be anyone outside? Oh, God. Please don’t let it be him. Please…
When she steps down toward the 1st floor in view of the living room, she stops in her tracks. Her concerns are indeed founded. The light from the kitchen has been left on, as if someone else were here. The lamp by the TV and even the TV itself is on. As she suspected, the low hum she heard was her ol’ Playstation. By the looks of it, it’s the crew sitting around the Cosmo Candle in their glorious polygonal forms, and the game has been left paused in mid-dialogue.
No, wait. It’s not exactly the same. For one, the crew is a little different: Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge are seated among them where she would have expected to see a certain cat on a big Moogle. They never got their chance to visit Cosmo Canyon in the OG for obvious reasons, but here they are. And dead center of the screen, lying on the ground beside Cloud, is a rough model of herself. Her eyes are closed and everyone’s heads are turned her way. The classic blue text box above them is showing just four characters: “!?”
Her heart and body alike sink. Someone’s been playing a modded version of Final Fantasy VII, and she has a good idea who it is. In fact, the guy might just be in the kitchen now… Wait. What is he doing in the kitchen? Oh my God! If he’s actually scrounging through her cupboards like an actual rat… Argh! Where the hell does she find a human-sized mousetrap!?
As she seethes to herself in silence, the light from the kitchen goes out and a certain uninvited guest steps out, holding what seems to be a soda can in hand.
He doesn’t even look surprised to see her and greets her with an eerily warm smile. “Ah. Welcome home.”
“BITCH!!” Ruby screams and swerves right back up the stairs.
“…”
Sephiroth watches her stomp off, but calmly takes a sip and returns to his seat on the couch as if fully expecting her to come back shortly. To be fair, he’d be right. Ruby rushes back down the steps with the same enraged fire in her eyes.
“What are you doing here? What am I doing here? Why are we back in my home? Why the hell are you playing my game without me, you insufferable dick!?”
He patiently waits for her to finish before setting the can down on the table and replying, “…If you want answers, take a seat.”
She angrily obliges and stomps over to the couch, plopping down beside him. It really is deja-vu all over; they’re even seated in the same places as they had been before.
She passes him an unamused side-eye. “Also, where did you get the soda? I swear my fridge was cleaned out last I checked.”
“It was available.”
“No, it wasn’t! Where did you steal it from!?”
He shakes his head and reaches over to give it a spin so the label faces her. “Look familiar?”
She stares at the can and blinks several times in disbelief. At first she thought it was one of those cross-promotion labels on a Sprite can, but now that she looks at it again, the design is different… and awfully familiar. On it is a picture of Cloud in his Advent Children outfit, and its big bold Times New Roman lettering reads “Final Fantasy VII Potion”.
She now turns her hard stare back on him. “…You robbed a convenience store in Japan from the late 2000s?”
He lets off an amused scoff. “Already assuming I’m leaping through time and space in your world? How flattering.”
“I have no idea how you do anything. I don’t know how you could have brought me back here. I sure don’t remember falling through another dank portal.”
“Hmm…” He looks aside with that ever sly smile. “Let’s just say no portals were necessary this time.”
She shakes her head and turns away with a depleted frown. “Where are we?”
“The same place where you had entered this world… the Edge of Creation, or as you would put it, the Debug Room.”
She whips back to him with gnashing teeth, “Why does the Debug Room look like my apartment?”
“How this realm is seen is entirely dependent on those that perceive it…”
“Straight answer! Why does it look like my place!?”
He doesn’t answer right away, but when he does: “…I’ve been poking around in your modded files.”
“WHAT THE #%*&! Why are…” She then blinks as she now catches on to what he actually said. “My what?”
“As you would expect of a location designed to debug the program that hosts this reality we see, there would be plenty of data to explore. I’ve had some time to myself, after all.”
She turns away again, staring off into space. “…My apartment is a mod?”
“Even as you’ve become more and more integrated with Rubia, at your core, you still see yourself as an outsider of this world.”
“That’s because I am…” Before he can answer that, she quickly adds, “And don’t you go there about how my whole life was an illusion! I didn’t exist for 29 years out of a figment of yours or anyone else’s imagination!”
He shakes his head. “That wasn’t my intention.”
“Really? You were just saying that before.”
“No. What I said was the life that you’ve been leading in this place is the illusion.”
“This is where I live, dammit! Ugh! We are not going through this again!” She throws herself back into the cushions and slumps limply. “Why would you even pick this place to dress up the Room? There are plenty of other places actually on Gaia that you could have gone with…”
He passes her a sly smirk. “It’s your comfort zone, isn’t it? I figured you would feel more welcomed here if it weren’t simply a black abyss everywhere you turn.”
“Shut up! Who asked you to rummage through my personal effects!?” she shrieks, “I never wanted to see you in my house again and you bring me right back to that night we first met? What is your DEAL? You’re like a stalker fan who’s desperate to hook up!”
Not even missing a beat, he scoffs back, “Oh? I thought we settled that matter already. You offered me the invitation and I accepted. So we’re practically dating.”
“Hell no! You make a TERRIBLE boyfriend! You’re never there when I actually need you, I’ve had to deal with all sorts of crap you’ve thrown my way, and you don’t explain yourself for shit! How are we an item!?”
He looks away again with a smirk. “…That’s a good point. We might as well be married.”
“GAAAAAAGH!!”
She lunges at him trying to make some sort of chokehold, but he neatly deflects all her attempts and shoves her back in her seat. He shakes his head while holding her back.
“Now, now. No need to take it so seriously. I’m just playing along.”
“%&@* YOU with a tar-laced crowbar! That shit was traumatizing the first time! Don’t you dare bring it up again!!”
He rolls his eyes and lets her go, to which she throws up two middle fingers that he ignores.
“I just don’t get it…” she groans, clutching her aching head, “Like, I get the part that you’d want to infect me with Geostigma. It’s even more painful than I expected, really. I’d think that’s plenty enough to be able to control me or whatever. And yet on top of that, you also have access to this realm to do as you please!”
“…”
She whines sadly in defeat. “I’ve noticed it, you know. I’ve been losing more and more ground over this ‘game’ of ours. Sometimes I wonder if I should just throw in the towel early…” She then pauses and shakes her head. “But no, I’m too stubborn to give in yet. Not while I need to settle the score.”
“…Which score?”
She turns back to him with another intense glare. “I’m not gonna let you talk shit about me living in an ‘illusion’. What does that MEAN, you asshole? Now I’m too invested to let it go!”
He looks off again, as if thinking over something himself, but has no intent to share.
She crosses her arms and heaves another frustrated sigh. “Sephiroth, what are you doing? So many of the pieces in this ‘game’ are falling into place for you. I got the message when you dropped the freaking plate on me: You’re always around even when I’m not thinking about it.”
“…”
Her grip on her arms tightens and she tenses up as she admits, “I have no idea what’s going to happen down the line. The more I learn, the less sense anything makes. That hasn’t changed since the beginning. I’m really starting to dread the future…” She passes him a wary glance now. “So why do you have to mess with my feelings too?”
“…”
“I’m not Cloud. I wasn’t the kid who defied and ‘killed’ you those years ago. But it still feels like you have it out for me. What did I do? Is this just about the Remnants or is there something else…?”
Again, he doesn’t respond. There’s just the slightest rise at the corner of his mouth.
“And why would you even joke about stuff like romance? It seems a little out of character for you.”
He turns back. “What makes you say that?”
“Because you never saw me, or anyone for that matter, as a potential love interest in the first place. I may be ignorant, but I’m not stupid.”
He glances off yet again, but for just a moment there, she seems to catch some kind of… disappointment? No, that can’t be. She’s just seeing things again.
“Please. In your honest opinion, what do I seem like to you? Just a puppet? A tool? A means to an end?”
He takes a moment to consider his answer, and then gives her a relaxed smile. “A larva.”
She looks stung by that. “Not even an insect, huh…”
“You haven’t entered the pupating phase yet.”
“Ugh, of course. Why did I bother asking?”
“That being said…” Now there’s that ever sinister glint to his eyes. “I am interested to see what would become of you upon your metamorphosis.”
“…” She does a confused double-take at what he just said and shudders to that evil look. “I’m the older one, but why do I feel like I’m the one being groomed here?”
“Must I remind you? Though I may be acting as your guide of sorts, this is ultimately your story and it is your choice to see where it leads.” He then looks directly at her in the eyes and states firmly, “I have no opinions either way, but should you continue to pursue this romantic route to some sort of end, I won’t hold back either.”
She blinks a few times, still struggling to understand him, and offers a half-hearted shrug. “Why, though? What benefit would it bring you to play along with it? I first threw it out there as sarcasm and made it super obvious, so I’m shocked that you’d take it seriously.”
He closes his eyes with a soft chuckle. “Benefit, indeed… You’ll meet the truth eventually, my dear.”
She feels a cold sweat coming on. “Would you quit it? You’re freaking me out with answers like that.”
“Hmm…”
In complete defiance of her outrage, Sephiroth leans in even closer to her face so that their eyes meet directly. Ruby flinches still as her throat catches any words she was about to say, and she grow a little bug-eyed with cold sweat running down her face. For just a moment, she feels a little faint from this sudden fever that seems to have come over her in her panic. But as before, he doesn’t follow up with anything particularly dastardly; just a smug smirk and lets her go again.
“…Asshole,” she mutters when she finds her voice again.
Moving right along, he suggests, “If you’re curious, may I suggest where your next destination should be?”
“Oh, here we go again!” she growls, “Every time you’ve told me to go somewhere for whatever reason, I run into pain, suffering, and sometimes death! How about suggesting a different place where I can enjoy myself for once!? Why not Costa del Sol!? Gold Saucer! Snowboarding at Icicle Inn!”
“Sorry, but the moment you chose to look into Rubia’s history was the moment you sealed your fate. If you have disagreements with what you learn, perhaps you should leave those questions to Rubia herself?”
“I will complain to anyone who brings me suffering and that includes you, so don’t tell me to shut up!”
“In any case,” he proceeds, “I highly recommend you pay a visit to Nibelheim as soon as possible. You’ll certainly find something interesting.”
“I was gonna go there anyway. But now that you’re telling me to go there, maybe I won’t because I get the feeling you’re about to send something nasty my way again! Stop flinging your shitty mom or whatever at me and let me go at my own pace!”
“…”
“I didn’t only come to this world to find answers. I came to escape my old life for a chance at something new. And I’m not about to let some pretentious prick hellbent on the planet’s destruction tell me how I should play this game.”
He shakes his head with a sigh. “In the end, that’s all that matters to you…”
“Yeah. I never tried to hide it. What’s it to you?”
Now he turns back to her with a surprisingly concerned frown. “Then, you’re in for a very painful journey.”
She remains as defiant as ever. “Cool.”
“Let me be clear so that even you can understand. You can have your reasons for coming into this world, but if it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t even be here. And likewise, you have no way to ‘return home’. If you wish to learn the truth about Rubia, you have no choice but to heed my suggestions.”
“…”
“As I said, I’m willing to be patient with you as you adjust to your new life. But in the end, you serve a specific role in this story, and you will eventually realize your due purpose whether you like it or not.”
“Okay.”
He looks off with that smug affectation, as if musing to himself over something. “…The time draws near. Rubia will reawaken and enact her fated role that was set since her very creation…” He then peeks back to Ruby. “Or should I say, following the course that you’ve set for her since long ago, my dear author?”
“…”
With that, Sephiroth finally gets back to his feet. “I’ll leave the rest of the mystery to you to discover on your own.” He gives her one last warning before he leaves. “But keep in mind: Rubia isn’t nearly so patient. If she decides you’re taking too long, she may well seize back control of her body. And if that happens, even I can’t guarantee what will become of you…”
Ruby gives him some unimpressed side-eye again. “I never forgot. Now get out of my house.”
He takes a few steps away as if meaning to take his leave, but before he goes, he stops again as he recalls one more thing and turns back around. “…By the way.”
“WHAT? Do you have to repeat the same scene as in the beginning!? Don’t you dare start slicing anything else I own, asshat!”
“I see you’ve been playing with materia.”
She sinks in her seat as the bad feelings creep up again. “What about it?”
He chuckles to himself. “Using Shiva’s ice to trap the Geostigma in your arm may seem like temporary relief, but it’s futile. The cells have long spread throughout your body and can crop up anywhere.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I wonder… what will you do if another spot would appear? Would you continue to encase yourself in ice? Well, wouldn’t that be ironic…”
Yet, despite the obvious threat that he’s presenting to her, she lets her mind wander and a curiosity comes to mind. “…Thinking about it, if Geostigma shows up on genitalia, could it actually be considered an STD? Considering that contact is all that’s needed to spread.”
“…” He decides to ignore her and continue, “I was thinking more along the lines of, say… your other arm.”
“But it sure would be awkward dealing with it if it were down there. I wouldn’t want to make underwear out of ice.” She cringes. “Ugh. Imagine all the chafing. To think that this would be a way to torture me… It’s honestly too cruel.”
“…”
“Whew. It gets worse the more I think about it. We haven’t even done anything yet and Sephiroth somehow gave me an STD.”
“…”
She grins, taking obvious pleasure at his discomfort. “Hehehe. Cloud would freak if I told him that. ‘Oh, but it’s fine! He didn’t actually touch me like that. He’s not that lucky.’”
Normally, Sephiroth is not the type to let himself be drawn into another’s pace, but he realizes he has to make an exception of this buzzing little pest. His fist clenches up as his patience wears thin rather quickly.
“Though thinking about it, he’d probably just get mad at me again. For all the crap he says about how he doesn’t care, he really does worry. Never asked him to, but…”
With the mood having been ruined a little too thoroughly, he says no more and takes action instead. The mischievous grin on her face disappears in an instant when she’s suddenly struck with another intense pain in her other arm – the back arm, to be precise – and she drops to the floor gurgling and swearing under her breath.
He lets off a sigh and shakes his head. “For someone so furious at the idea that we could be an item, you have a strange habit of taking it down that path.”
“It’s precisely… because of this… that we aren’t!” she snaps between wheezes.
“…Love is quite the complicated emotion, indeed.” He calmly strolls over and drops down to one knee, offering her a hand. “Normally, it’s not standard to set new rules in the middle of a game, but considering this is a personal battle between us, I think we can have a little leeway.”
“What…?”
There’s a suspicious glint in his eyes as he suggests, “How about this? Anytime you steer our conversation off on the wrong topic, I get to torture you any way I so choose.”
“Urgh… Like hell… I’m gonna agree. You moron…” She swats his hand away and struggles to pull herself back up. “It’s my mouth, I say what I want! …Nnrghh!”
With just a flick of the pupils in his eyes, he silences her with another burst of searing pain and she drops back to the floor again. It hurts so bad… way more than the last few times. She didn’t even know it could get this bad. The pain itself is making her dizzy. She feels like she’s tumbling down even though she’s already on the floor. She also finds it hard to breathe, as if even her lungs are giving out again. She’s not even underwater. What is this…
And as if a switch were flipped, the pain from everywhere suddenly stops. Ruby gasps for air and coughs. And before she knows it, she’s found herself being held in the man’s arms.
He makes an eerily relaxed smile as he stares into her eyes. However, there isn’t a drop of affection in those cold steely eyes – it’s more like the look of a hungry predator, if anything. No, it’s not just the look in his eyes… his entire presence seems to emanate intimidation, towering over her like the long shadows of the night. All of a sudden, she shivers as if there were a chill that filled the room. It’s happening again. She feels afraid. Very afraid. His face is way too close for any sort of comfort.
But he said he wouldn’t doing anything untoward, right? He was just messing with her all this time, right? So, what is he going to do…? She shuts her eyes and flinches as his lips pass by her cheek to whisper into her ear.
“It’s a little too late for that.”
This pretentious sonnuva bitch. He’s so close he’s almost embracing her, and yet he leaves just enough room to make it seem like he’s not! …No, forget that. Why isn’t she doing anything!? The moment she realizes she can move again, she pulls back and throws a hard right at his face.
~
Whack. Ruby lands a resounding blow against the man that has her in his grasp, and to her surprise, he keels over. She blinks her eyes open again and sits up.
“Ruby!”
Everyone is shocked to see that she’s awake again. She’s just as shocked that she’s apparently back at the Cosmo Candle, with her usual gear and custom gauntlet as well. Now that she realizes it, the guy who was sitting next to her seems to be on the ground in a lot of pain.
“You okay?” Aerith asks.
Tifa gives Cloud a quick check too. At least he wasn’t knocked out cold in an instant this time, but there’s a very obvious red patch in the shape of a fist on his left cheek and just the slight trace of a nosebleed. Judging by the incredibly exasperated look on his face, he seems to be fine for the most part, though the shock of getting thrashed out of nowhere by the girl he thought was ill seems to have cut much deeper. How many times must he be her punching bag!? Dammit! If this happens one more time, he’s just leaving her to fend for herself!
“What happened to ya?” Barret asks her with a concerned frown. “You suddenly conked out.”
“Wait. What about your Geostigma?” Tifa asks likewise. “Did the wound reopen?”
“Huh? Didn’t she trap it in ice already?” Yuffie asks, raising an eyebrow.
But just as she does, Ruby winces and grasps at her left back arm. She quickly adds a layer of her magic ice to the new wound, but there’s still a trickle of black pus that escapes down her arm.
Aerith catches on and hurries over to take a closer look, sitting on her other side. “Did a new one open up?”
Ruby turns away to avoid her sight. “It’s fine. I got it covered.”
“Ruby… If it happens again, you can’t just keep covering it in ice.”
“I don’t have a choice.”
“…”
“Boy… With all that ice on her, it’s starting to look like battle scars,” Wedge admits sheepishly.
“Yeah. Normally, I’d say it’s pretty ‘cool’, but maybe now’s not the time,” Biggs adds, rubbing his head.
“Ruby, if it gets really bad, don’t keep it in, okay?” Jessie reminds her, “We’re all here for you. Talk to us.”
Ruby sighs. “Thanks for the concern, guys, I really do appreciate it. But it’s just gonna get tiring hearing well-wishes to an incurable disease…”
“Ruby. Whether it’s incurable or not doesn’t matter as long as you can still keep fighting it,” Aerith insists, “We’ll keep fighting it too, so don’t give up, okay?”
“…” Rather than keep arguing, she nods back but still doesn’t look very sure. She turns her attention back to Cloud and throws a quick Cure spell his way too. “Sorry.”
He sits back up, still rubbing his cheek to make sure the imprint is gone. “Don’t mention it… really, don’t.” He then looks her way. “What happened? Did anything come to you while you were out?”
“Huh?” Tifa looks a little taken aback. “Do you mean like some kind of vision?”
“They just pop in whenever, so I figured something must have caused her to drop out cold.”
Ruby shakes her head. “It wasn’t a vision; just a dream. A very vivid one.”
“What was it about?” Aerith asks.
“…”
Despite understanding her best of intentions, Ruby hesitates to describe anything. She passes a troubled glance back to Cloud and then looks back at the old flame to avoid making any further eye contact. He quickly catches on to her hidden message: “It’s Sephiroth. Let’s talk in private.”
“Ruby?” Aerith tries again.
Cloud shakes his head. “If she doesn’t want to say it, it’s fine.” He turns to the old flame as well. “Probably was the smell of all the grass burning that made her sleepy.”
“It smells a little sweet, sure, but I’m not just napping out of nowhere,” Yuffie rebuts.
“Hmm… Maybe she’s just exhausted. She has been warping around a lot,” Tifa offers her two cents.
“Hey. If you need a rest, go for it,” Barret adds with a firm nod. “Now that we got a whole-ass airship, we don’t have to wait on you to get us anywhere. You did good, kid.”
“Thanks, Boss. Always proud to serve.” Ruby then looks around at all the other faces, and noticing how worried everyone still seems, she discards her own and forces a cheeky sneer. “Honestly! What’s with you all feeling so down? We should be celebrating right now!” She raises her icy hand to wave in the elders’ direction. “How about some drinks to toast to my and Nanaki’s return?”
But then, Red shakes his head and gets back up. “Don’t mind me. It’s not a big deal concerning my return. You all go enjoy yourselves.”
“Huh? Where are you going?”
“For a walk. I need some time alone.”
“Uh. What’s gotten into you?”
Bugenhagen seems to catch on. “Nanaki… You still haven’t forgiven him, have you?”
Red stops and turns back to him. “No, I haven’t. I don’t see why I should.”
“Hmm…” To everyone’s surprise, the elderly man then begins to chuckle to himself. “Tonight is indeed a most fortunate occasion! We must thank the stars that Ruby is here with us now.”
“…?”
Ruby tilts her head curiously. “What is it, sir?” She then remembers this part of the ol’ game and regains that twinkle in her eyes. “Oh! Wait, do you have something for me to do?”
He nods back. “As it so happens, yes! It may be dangerous where we are headed, but with your help, this normally difficult task will become a breeze.”
Now Red is curious too. “What sort of task is this, Grandpa?”
“Nanaki, would you mind coming with me? I have something important to show you.” He turns back to Ruby. “If you’d like, you may bring along one other to join us. It would be for the best that we keep to a small group.”
She immediately points to her right. “This one.”
Cloud turns to her with an expected frown. “Haven’t you taken me around enough?”
She casually slaps him on the back. “Don’t be silly. We’re too buddy-buddy now to be separated!”
“Says who? I’m not gonna be there if you try to kidnap anyone else.”
She leans in with a fierce whisper, “You got my message earlier, didn’t you? We need some time in private to discuss.”
Now reminded, he nods back. “…I’ll go.”
Bugenhagen looks rather amused at their dynamic. “Then, it’s settled! Please, if you would all follow me…”
The elder leads the the three of them along toward the stairs up to the cavernous lobby that Cloud had found earlier while he explored on his own. And at the very back of this lobby is the ominous-looking metal gate that has been sealed tight. A little boy pokes around, giving the gate a very curious look, but when he realizes people are coming this way, he passes them as he bolts off. Still, Ruby catches on that he’s still hiding somewhere nearby, as she gets the feeling a number of curious eyes are on her now. It would be a little unnerving if she hadn’t known better.
“Here we are. This is the Gate of Naught. Normally, it would be forbidden to open this door, so we keep it sealed tight at all times.”
Red stares silently at the old and rusty gate, which had long been little more than a passing glance for anyone who comes by it, but now that they approach it again, it feels something different. Perhaps he’s just curious as to what could await them behind it.
Bugenhagen floats over to the access panel and reveals a large lever behind the metal shutter, giving it a firm tug. The old gate trembles and groans and puffs with dust as its door is forced apart from its frame, but quickly opens up to a very poorly lit tunnel ahead. There are undergrowth and creeper vines that line the walls of the tunnel. It’s obvious that no human has traversed through here in a very long time.
He then turns to Ruby and kindly gestures the way for her. “After you, Ruby.”
She smirks. “My pleasure, sir. Hope you all can keep up. Cloud, mind keeping the rear guard?”
He shrugs. “Sure. Don’t run too far and get lost.”
She sticks out a tongue, making a silly smile, and skips down the tunnel with a sort of flutter to her step. Where the tunnel would normally be poorly lit, suddenly the area is shortly brightened up as she passes through, but then she drops off some sort of cliff and disappears into the darkness.
“My, how convenient that she can even light the way. It’s almost as if she were perfectly fit to challenge this dungeon,” Bugenhagen remarks jokingly.
“Let’s get going. We shouldn’t leave everything to her,” Cloud insists and leads the others inside after her.
There are a series of ropes hitched to the edge of several ledges, and they lead the descent into the depths, appearing like gnashing teeth to all those who dare to proceed. The deeper they go, the further the drumming music from above gradually fades into silence. However, while it would normally get darker as well as they descend, Ruby’s passive aura of light keeps the way clear. She waits at the bottom, looking a little bored to be their living flashlight, but also seems to be scheming something to herself.
But before Cloud and the rest can drop down to meet her, she dashes off ahead into those dark caves. With her natural night vision, she finds some places where the old torches have been extinguished. Despite the ashes, there are still live wicks that she can dig out and she makes a few snaps, lighting them up once more and bathing the scene in a warm red glow. Now that she realizes, though, there are literal switches just below. Seems like whoever left these torches here were prepared to light them up anyway.
Ah, of course. She still remembers how the story here goes. It only makes sense they’d make the right preparations for when this day would come. Without further thought, she skips along and starts darting around from alcove to alcove in search of some cool treasure.
Meanwhile, as the others follow, Bugenhagen has begun to tell of a certain story: the tale of a certain tribe stopped in their tracks by the might of a fierce warrior in the not too distant past.
“This cave stretches far to the back of the canyon. We’ve kept it sealed for the longest time thanks to the dangers that the lingering dark spirits pose, but also for another reason.”
“Another reason…” Red’s eyes wander as he begins to wonder. His voice has returned to its natural state too.
“You could say it was to protect our people, of course, and yet there has been but a single metal gate that has separated the town from the depths of this cave. But there was a very good reason why that gate alone has remained.”
“…”
“What is this cave anyway?” Cloud asks.
“A long forgotten cove, a ward of sorts that holds the vengeful spirits of the tribe of Gi. They were all decisively defeated and killed in a certain battle.”
“Huh.” He glances back to Red, who has entered a meaningful period of silence. He then turns back to the elder. “But if they were killed, wouldn’t they have just returned to the Lifestream?”
“They were unable to. The leader of this tribe was especially strong-willed and extremely hateful – so much so that even on his deathbed, he refused to accept defeat. It wasn’t just him either; the tribe of Gi were a very proud race as well. Many of their fallen warriors have remained by the side of their leader and continue to haunt these walls.”
“They’re still here?” Cloud glances around at the mostly empty-looking tunnels and passageways. “But I don’t see anything.”
Just as he says, they then hear a ghoulish scream a not-too-far distance away. However, if one were to listen carefully, one could also hear the childish giggling of a young lady as well.
Bugenhagen makes an amused look in that direction. “By the sounds of it, it seems Ruby has taken care of them for us.”
“Of course…”
“Nevertheless, it would be wise to keep an eye out for anything else. You never know what may pop out from these sealed domes.”
“What are these domes? For a moment, I thought it was just a weird part of the rock formation.”
“Oh, they are indeed naturally formed. However, inside each one holds a secret.”
“A secret?”
“A strange-looking rock that may have once held some symbolic value. They may bear the lingering spirits of the Gi themselves, or they may just be the key to let us proceed further. In any case, if you must venture inside, take caution.”
“With Ruby running on ahead, she’s probably already searched them. We can just leave them to her.”
He nods. “That’s fair too and I wholly agree.”
“…In a way, these halls are like that of a prison, aren’t they?” Red then points out.
“Ho ho!” His grandfather swings back to him with a twinkle in his eyes. “Yes, you could put it like that. And as any prison would go, there must be some sort of ‘warden’ keeping an eye out on everything.”
Red nods back in understanding and glances off again as he continues to speculate as to where this line of reasoning may lead them.
Still, Cloud remains on the lookout. Like the elder said, there’s no telling what might pop at them if they aren’t careful. Anything that comes close to Ruby is gonna be dead – again if they already are – but she’s not an infallible defense. As they round around a few of the domes as they explore this room further, they only continue to hear the cries of monsters nearby, most likely being slain if anything. To be honest, it’s starting to get a little grating. Sure, he’s already used to her stealing his limelight, but it’s still annoying that she doesn’t even leave any scraps whatsoever. He’s starting to wonder why he had to come along. If she wanted to talk in private, couldn’t she have just picked some other time? Especially now that she’s too busy in her “scavenger hunt” to pay them any mind…
Suddenly, there’s a low rumble and the entire place begins to tremble under their feet. Cloud reflexively reaches for his blade, just in case they need to jump into battle, but no monster appears before them. The trembling quickly stops, and judging by the faint stream of light from there, it seems to be a new tunnel that has opened up on the northeastern side.
“Cloud!”
“Wah!?”
Ruby has appeared out of nowhere directly onto his path, and he reflexively draws his sword, but just manages to jump back before the blade would run into her.
“Ruby!” He slips it away with a disappointed huff. “Don’t jump us like that!”
There’s an excited twinkle to her eyes and a great big smile on her face. “Guess what I found?” she asks in a sing-song voice.
He frowns, feeling a little unsure if he even wants to ask, but has to admit that his curiosity is overwhelming him. “…What is it?”
She whips out a shiny blue orb in both hands. “It’s the Added Effect Materia! It’ll be a big help!”
And just like that, he stops being upset with her. “Oh. Nice. Where’d you find it?”
She hands it over to him. “It was just sitting out in the open on a higher ledge in the back. There was one of those Gi spooks that tried to ambush me when I got close, but I jammed his eye socket with his own spear.”
“Spare me your victory spoils.” He rolls his eyes and slips it away into the inventory. “Still, thanks. You find anything else interesting?”
“Does a secret passageway count?”
“That’ll do.”
“Hehe. Come on! This way!”
She beckons the other two to follow her too and zips off like the wind for the new tunnel that had opened up. In the next room, the group comes upon an intersection of maze-like paths, some of which seem to lead further on and others that simply bring them to dead ends. Furthermore, there also seems to be a path to the side that is laced with something slippery.
Red sniffs it out immediately. “Take care of the oil spill. There may be traps about.”
“Oil, huh?” Cloud drops down to inspect the floor and sure enough, his gloves finds something slick and he quickly wipes it off on the dry dusty ground and pats them off. Shaking his head, he then turns to Ruby to warn her, but then realizes she’s not next to them anymore.
Throwing all caution to the wind, the girl instead rushes down that path and has a fun time sliding across. “Wheeee!”
“…”
As anyone would expect, the trap is triggered and a massive wall of spikes at the end of the spill welcomes anyone foolish enough to slide this way… However, Ruby is a special sort who defies most logic. She meets the spikes with both hands, grabbing and swinging herself in an arc – gliding along the sides of the spikes with the help of the oil – and swerves off to the right onto the drier path down. And yet she continues to slide as if she were wearing skates.
Bugenhagen nods approvingly. “My, my! Such grace.”
“…If she slips and falls off, I’m not saving her,” Cloud adds with a rather bitter tone.
Red looks at him with a curious eye. “Is something wrong, Cloud?”
“Nope.”
“If you say so…”
The elder simply chuckles quietly to himself and decides to change the subject. “As you can see, this cave is quite expansive. Even though the Gi outnumbered us, they could not attack through here because the passage is too narrow. In other words, as long as there can be one who stands guard here, there is little to worry about future threats of the Gi.”
“…” Red now looks back down. “Grandpa, I think I’m starting to understand.”
“Ho ho. Patience, Nanaki. There is still more to learn.”
“?”
“Come. We can leave Ruby to explore the rest on her own, but the path forward is this way.”
Of course, as usual Bugenhagen lets Cloud move on ahead, though gladly guides them along. They tread carefully along the thin mountainous path, as there is a gaping hole at the center of the room where the bottom is difficult to see amid the darkness. In fact, though there seem to be old lamps that have been alight, they only cover so much of the path ahead. And it’s only darkness in the shadows of arches where the paths cross over one another.
There’s a snarling nearby. Cloud holds an arm out in front of the elder and he quickly steps aside. Cloud and Red together proceed with caution. As they expected, there’s an ambush waiting for them, but now that they cross through the shadows, they then find themselves surrounded by a couple of lanky skeletal-looking creatures with spiked backs and what appears to be a hooded ghost armed with a spear. Sneaky Steps and a Gi Specter, according to Sense/Assess.
As if following orders from the specter, the Sneaky Steps attack in a synchronized dance. They dash in and out, claws and fangs lashing out at their targets, who either deftly evade or block their strikes. However, if it were just the two of them, they wouldn’t be a hassle at all. The Gi Specter calls out in a wordless chant and suddenly, there are plenty more warriors where it came from.
“!”
The specters charge in from all sides. Red snarls ferociously and snaps his fangs at one spear while evading another. Cloud remains in Punisher mode and counters every strike that comes at him, unleashing a spinning attack where he leaps and slams down on one of them, smashing through that specter’s spear and making it vanish from view. However, as they are specters, vanishing doesn’t mean they’re gone.
Instead, the specters back off for a brief moment, and then Cloud realizes it a bit too late. The Sneaky Steps that they had been fending off have poised on both sides of the road and now unleash a clashing pair of waves of some black-colored gas. While Red is quick enough to evade again, unfortunately Cloud is hit by the suffocating gas and drops to his knees. Though the gas rather quickly dissipates, the curse it leaves behind does not. He already feels his body weakening, as if it takes effort just to move. Is this… a Death Sentence?
“Cloud! Watch out!” Red barks a warning.
Cloud just barely catches another strike from a specter that has lunged at him, but its partner gets a good gouge at him from behind. Cloud actually coughs up blood from the blow, but by some miracle, he wasn’t struck at a vital spot and manages to swing back around to smack that one away into vanishing once more.
However, Red isn’t in the clear either. The other specters hound him with lunges of their own, and he’s forced to keep away to keep dodging their strikes. However, then one of the Sneaky Steps happens to pounce him just as he tries to evade and they tumble into a fighting fit. Red throws it off after a struggle, but the other Step then pounces him too. And for just a moment, his lone good eye is face-to-face with the spearpoint of the original specter.
Cloud suddenly leaps into action, switching from Punisher to Operator in an instant, and blocks the specter’s strike before it gets Red. He retaliates with a flurry of slashes, knocking the specter back and it vanishes as well, but only out of sight. Taking his chance, Red throws off the other Step and counter-pounces, lunging in for a fatal crunch of its neckbone, snapping it. In turn, Cloud finishes off the other Step with his own Focused Thrust.
The specter is back and has gunned for Cloud’s open wound, but Red quickly pounces in the way, grabbing the spear in his maws and wrenching it out of the specter’s grasp. Seeming like it’s panicking, the specter pulls away again to try to call for further backup, and Red gives chase. It leads him out of the shadows and back into the faint reddish glow of the torches.
Cloud watches him go and leaves Red to it. Finally, he drops back to his knees; not from the wound, but from the curse. It’s getting harder to move or breathe. He can actually feel the seconds ticking by as the Death Sentence seals his fate.
And just in time, a refreshing breath of White Wind hits him first. He gasps for air as his health is restored to full. Even the open wound he had is completely sealed as if there had been none.
Then, Red hurries back to him, panting heavily. “Cloud! Are you alright?”
“Yeah…” Cloud then sheathes his sword. “Saved in the nick of time as usual.”
“Saved? Well, I did finish off that specter, but…”
“Ruby’s magic. Though, she isn’t even here right now.”
He lets off a relieved sigh and takes a seat. “I see. That’s good.”
“You doing okay? You also took a beating for a bit there.”
He whips his tail almost as if making an indignant gesture. “I’ve been restored to full health too. Besides, even if I hadn’t, I’d be fine. It wouldn’t be much of a journey if we didn’t get scratched up a bit from time to time.”
Cloud has to smirk to that. “Yeah. You were pretty good there.”
“Thanks. You fought well too.”
That smirk fades, though, as he takes a look around. “Still, where is Ruby? How did she send her magic all the way here?”
“Heyyy!” His question would promptly be answered when Ruby suddenly drops in from above them. For some reason, she seems to be holding a black megaphone.
“There you are.” He stops to stare. “…Is that a megaphone?”
“I see you’ve noticed.”
“Hard to miss. Where’d you get it and why?”
“It’s a nice weapon!”
“…It’s a megaphone.”
She continues to beam with pride. “Yeah, I know. Weird pick for a weapon, but I mean it! See, I’m not a regular user of megaphones in my arsenal, but I just discovered a neat trick with my abilities!”
“Really, now.”
“So, do you know how a megaphone really works? It’s a little different for electric megaphones, but for simple cones like this one, it comes down to the actual shape of the thing. Sound waves in the air stretch as they travel through this expanding hole, and as a result, it changes their frequency-”
He waves a dismissive hand. “I don’t need a physics lesson. Get to the point.”
“So I thought, if it works for sounds, what about other kinds of waves, like magic?”
“Huh? But magic doesn’t work in waves, does it?”
“Some spells do, actually! So I gave it a test and propagated a White Wind off to ya! Seeing how you’re not dead yet, it worked like a charm!”
“…”
“Anyway, fun hijinx aside, I’m definitely keeping this. You never know for what – or whom – it could be useful~!”
Leaving her to muse in her own thoughts, Cloud turns away and checks behind them, catching sight of Bugenhagen floating in after them. The elder claps his hands with a proud smile.
“Well done, all of you. That’s some fine teamwork.”
“Hehe! You guys really have gotten stronger! I didn’t even need to be there!” Ruby quips.
“And with that megaphone, you can just stay out of battle,” Cloud replies.
“Yeah! I’ll bet!” Beat. “…Wait, what do you mean by that?”
“…”
Bugenhagen chuckles again. “In any case, I believe we can move on. Ruby, as usual, you may lead the way.”
“Yes, sir!” And she’s off yet again like the wind she had just blown in.
They proceed into the next room again, and once again, the maze of paths only seem to get more complicated. There are now five tunnels that split the road, and each is as poorly lit as the rest. Ruby has once again disappeared on ahead, so they can’t rely on her to light the way, especially that she seems to be going all over the place in search of treasure. There are signs of her flashing in and out of view, almost as if she were setting her own glittering “stars” down in these depths.
Bugenhagen then resumes his story: “We’ve come quite far now. Few have ever traversed this deep into these caves, but there was one who reached the very end. A certain warrior went the full distance by his lonesome, fighting attackers one after another, in an almost unending battle until there was but one left standing tall.”
“Grandpa… That warrior…?”
He chuckles. “We're almost there, Nanaki. It’s just beyond that door in the back.”
Red nods back, keeping his thoughts close and trying his best to fight off any remnant anxiety.
Meanwhile, though he had been listening to the elder as well, Cloud glances around impatiently. Aside from a little snag back there, it’s been a rather pleasant stroll they’ve had through what was supposed to be “dangerous territory”. Surely, if Ruby wanted to chat in private, she could have at least mentioned to him when that would be. She made it seem like it was pretty urgent too, considering the subject matter, but then she goes off treasure hunting the moment they stepped forth in here. So is she doing okay or not? She can be so hard to read sometimes…
ROOOAARRRR!!
A dragon’s roar amplified like through a megaphone cracks the still silence. He hates to admit that he actually flinched for a moment there, but at least he wasn’t the only one who was startled. Red even jumped a bit and resumed battle stance for a moment. That roar could have only been Ruby, but what is she even doing? Scaring the locals into submission? Well, that may be one way to clear the room of ghosts.
Red then takes a seat again as he suggests, “…Hmm. Perhaps we should wait for her to clear the area and then proceed on?”
His grandpa nods. “Sounds like a good idea! The less hassle we have to deal with, the better.”
Cloud remains adamant, though. “I’ll give her 5 more seconds. If she’s not back yet, we’re going on without her.”
Red raises him another curious look. “Wouldn’t it be better to stick together? She also provides light for us.”
“We were just fine even in the dark.”
He gives him some suspect side-eye, but decides not to question it. This sounds like a matter best left to the two of them to settle.
“…Five. Alright. I’m picking. Let’s see…” He then strikes a thinking pose as he considers his next move. “Judging by the flashes of light from earlier, Ruby seems to have been wandering around the 2nd and 4th tunnels, so one of them might be our best bet…” With a shrug, he opts for the 2nd from the left. “If this is a dead end, we’ll just pick the other one anyway.”
And just as he means to head on, they hear another shriek of yet another monster up ahead. In other words, yet another hapless victim to the merciless White Ray from Hell that is Ruby. By now, Cloud has stopped reacting altogether. It all just feels so mundane.
“Hey! I’m back! Sorry to keep you!”
Ruby drops back in with what appears to be a stolen spear of another Gi Specter, but she also seems to have skewered the head of a giant greenish spider, judging by those massive poison-inducing pincers. And yet, she looks rather disappointed over something.
Cloud raises a suspect eye her way, but then gives a soft sigh. He decides to take the bait and ask, “What’s wrong now?”
“…I tried to fit three giant Stingers on a spear, but could only manage one. The other two heads fell off as I stabbed the third.”
“That’s too bad,” he answers in a completely flat tone.
“Stingers? You mean those demon spiders from the ancient past?” Red comments, “I seem to recall reading about them once before, but I had thought they were all extinct.”
“As it happens, these caves act as a sort of time capsule as well,” his grandpa explains. “There’s honestly quite a bit of archaeological treasure hoard to be found in here if it weren’t so haunted.”
“Seems pretty clear to me,” Cloud remarks.
“Ho ho! It certainly seems so with Ruby, doesn’t it?”
“…”
“If you ask me, they should stay extinct,” Ruby pouts, “I dunno how it happened, but I just realized I’m covered in cobwebs.”
“And the blood of your enemies. You’re absolutely filthy.”
She droops. “You don’t have to rub it in…”
“Don’t worry, Ruby. You’ve done plenty enough for us. Feel free to relax at the inn when we head back,” Bugenhagen kindly offers.
She lightens back up with a cute smile. “Thank you, sir! At least someone appreciates my assistance!”
“I do too, Ruby,” Red adds.
“I know, Nanaki. You guys are fine.”
She passes Cloud a laser-focused glare, to which he simply looks away and ignores her again. With a disappointed huff, she struts off for the 2nd tunnel from the left, flinging the spear aside as the Stinger’s head vanishes into the ether. The rest follow after her, but keep at a safe distance. Ruby’s still twirling that spear in her icy gauntlet hand and promptly skewers another unfortunate victim – a Heg this time, a rather poisonous viper otherwise – that happened to pop out from the ground with the worst timing imaginable. But aside from the last uninformed stragglers, no other monsters dare to approach them anymore. Her roar from earlier was as great a threat as anything, and the path to the final chamber is as clear and straightforward as can be.
The deepest chamber of these caves is a huge open area where there are no further winding or criss-crossing tunnels to confuse any approaching enemies, and instead there’s a stone wall with what appears to be a large angry face like that of a mask carved into it. And yet, Ruby pays it no mind and huddles into a corner as she tries to pull off any remnant cobwebs still attached to her.
Cloud glances around, finding no other exits. “So, is this it? I don’t see a way forward.”
But the elder then looks up at the face and gasps. “W-what is this?”
“Huh?”
Red growls too. “Grandpa, is this…?”
The elder nods back slowly. “After his passing, the ghost of the leader of the Gi Tribe was never able to move on. Like stagnant air, he lingered in the depths, thought to have been sealed away for good…” He shakes his head. “But this… is right out in the open!”
“!”
Suddenly, the stone face’s eyes light up in an ominous glow. It begins to move and shift among the stone as its angry look then shifts into a conniving grin.
“Grandpa, get back!”
“I’ll leave it to you all!” the elder wishes them well as he flees for cover.
The entire room begins to tremble as the stone wall before them crumbles into pieces. The vengeful spirit of Gi Nattak bursts out and brandishes a massive spear that dwarfs them all. He’s also accompanied by two Soul Flames that appear out from under his tattered cloak and they begin to circle about the pair. As he arms himself, Cloud peeks aside at Ruby, very confused that she’s not jumping right over to join them. What is she… Is she still trying to clean herself!? How is this the time!?
Gi Nattak lets out a haunting, thundering roar, which is then followed by the hollers of many voices that call out in unison. Some of the Gi Specters that had vanished earlier have returned to haunt again. With a menacing point of his spear, the ghostly leader commands his forces to attack.
And like clockwork, Ruby acts as the proverbial monkey wrench. She’s quite frustrated that the more she flails, the more the webs seem to stick. Now throwing a silent fit, she resorts to simply bathing herself in her own white light to sear off all remnants of the webs and bloodstains from herself. The blast of light likewise lights the entire room in a bright glow, and in an instant, all of the Gi Specters that were summoned poof up in smoke as if the illusion had been dispelled. Even Gi Nattak himself is knocked back by the mere glow. In a panic, he calls upon his Soul Flames to pounce on clearly the most dangerous threat.
“Ruby! Heads up!”
“Hm?”
Just as she was finishing inspecting herself, satisfied of her handiwork, Ruby then finds herself enveloped by not just one but two Soul Flames, who settle themselves in and possess her body. She blinks in mild surprise, yet remains completely unfazed as if anticipating what comes next.
Fwoom. Fwoom. Two blasts of Fira hit her in quick succession, lighting her amid a large pillar of flames.
“Hey!” Cloud calls out.
“Two direct hits…” Red observes cautiously.
But as the flames dissipate once again, Ruby remains standing in place, staring off in disappointment. Yeah, she did feel the blows, but she swears she’s felt worse stings from needles at the doctor’s office. No, worse yet; the fire wasn’t even hot enough to burn her. All it did was singe her clothes and now they’re dirty again! Just as she got herself clean! Damn it!
She whips around and complains, “What the hell! Why’d they target me? I’m not even in the battle!”
“Yes, you are! Stop standing around and fight!” Cloud yells back.
“…And barely a scratch, as expected,” Red concludes.
Despite her objections, though, Gi Nattak has already chosen her as his next target. He charges himself up with some sort of spell as if to bolster his own abilities, and charges at her with his spear clad in cursed magic.
Whack. She kicks aside the spear and stomps it into the ground, crushing the neck and sending the spearpoint bouncing away. And in that split second, her eyes meet and drill holes into the spirit’s eye sockets. Even when there are no eyeballs there to see, she can sense the dread that has filled those holes instead.
In any case, the battle is just about finished. Still glowing with her white light, she tackles Gi Nattak back into the pile of rubble from whence he came. But just as she draws her trusty knife in hand, she notices the malevolent spirit is already fading away for the ether. It’s as if mere contact with her light was enough to dissipate what remained of his spirit in this world.
What… She didn’t even get to stab him once. He died before she could even deliver on her normal Attack! Argh! This was even cheezier than the X-potion strat! And she’s dirty again! Gawd! As if she were being crushed underneath the weight of her own disappointment, she flops against the loose pile of rubble in another slump, causing a certain green materia orb to come rolling out from underneath.
“Huh?” Cloud raises an eyebrow in surprise.
“Ruby! Are you alright?” Red calls out.
They hurry over to check on her just in case, but find her lying on the ground awake with this emotionless look on her face. Cloud returns his own look of disappointment and Red, a look of genuine relief. Cloud then notices the mysterious orb that has appeared and picks it up; oh, it’s Gravity. How fitting.
“Masterfully executed, Ruby! Well done!” Bugenhagen returns from the sidelines, nodding with a quite satisfied smile. His smile fades a little when he sees her on the ground, though. “…Oh, dear. Is something the matter?”
But she doesn’t respond, not even turning her head to look at any of them.
Red shakes his head and replies instead, “She’ll be fine, Grandpa. Those flames merely singed her clothes.”
“Looks dead to me,” Cloud remarks.
“…”
“Ho ho! Well, she’s certainly put her share’s worth along the way. We can let her rest. In any case…” Now he turns toward where the stone wall had previously blocked their path, and there is but one more room ahead. “We’ve finally arrived.”
Red turns off for the back as well, and now that the way is clear, his eyes widen in shock. At the very end of this canyon valley is yet another sturdy stone wall, but this wall is clearly one that is not meant to be struck down. Shining under the bright moonlight, the silhouette of a familiar-looking figure stands atop the cliffs, looking down upon the grounds below as if he were keeping watch. And as Red rushes in and leaps up upon the rocks for a closer look, his suspicions are indeed confirmed. There’s no mistaking who that is.
Here stands Seto, the silent guardian of Cosmo Canyon past and present, and father to Nanaki. His entire body has been turned to stone, but he maintains a visage of pride and victory as he overlooks the fateful battlegrounds where he made his last stand.
Bugenhagen and Cloud follow along after. Despite having been only cursorily interested in the tale, even the latter is impressed to see this.
“Who is that?” he asks.
“The warrior who singlehandedly fought off the Gi. He kept them from taking even a single step into Cosmo Canyon.” The elder then shakes his head. “But he was never able to return to town…”
Red continues to stare in awe at the unyielding figure. “…That is… Seto…?”
“Yes, Nanaki.” Bugenhagen raises a guiding arm. “Seto continued to fight the Gi tribe here… to protect this canyon.”
“…”
“Even after the Gi's poisonous arrows turned his body to stone… Even after they all ran away…”
“…Even now,” Red states calmly as the profundity of the truth sets in.
He nods. “You thought that he was a coward and ran away. But he alone risked his life to protect Cosmo Canyon. That is the truth of your father, Seto.”
“He alone risked his life…” Red then realizes something else and turns back to ask, “Did Mother know?”
“Ho Ho Hoooo…” The elder nods again. “She knew. The two of them made me promise to keep this cave shut. They asked me to seal it myself and not to tell a soul, that we should just forget about this cave.”
“…”
Bugenhagen then turns to Cloud with his hands together for a polite gesture. “Cloud, sorry if this is sudden, but would you mind leaving the two of us alone?”
The latter nods back. “Sure. I should go check on Ruby anyway. She ought to have revived herself by now.”
Letting the old family reunion be, Cloud steps back out to the pile of rubble where they had left Ruby. She’s still here, now sitting back up, and has been listening into the conversation as well. Her expression has softened up considerably into a much more thoughtful and pensive one.
He passes her a casual hand wave. “…Hey.”
“Hey.”
“Good, you’re back.” He then takes a seat on the ground beside her. “What’s been going on with you anyway?”
“I’m just bored. Too strong for my own good and all.”
“No, I got that much. I mean…” He now lowers his voice so just the two of them can hear. “What happened to you back at the bonfire?”
“…”
Now, Ruby’s face grows melancholic as she’s reminded. Well, to be honest, she never forgot, but she tried to push those worries aside for a while there. Sure, this little cave excursion into the back of the canyon made for a nice escape at the time, but in the end, she can’t ignore what had just happened moments before they came in here.
“You wanted a chance to talk, right? Well, I’m listening.”
“…” She doesn’t answer right away, as if contemplating over her choice of words, and sinks into a slump. She proceeds to make a bold claim despite her drained tone, “Sorry, that was a lie.”
“Huh?”
“I’m not strong. I just pretend to be.”
“…” He stares back, looking very lost and doubtful, but as he thinks it over, he catches onto what she means. “You mean, relative to him, huh?”
“Not even relative. All this power I wield right now… it’s a loan. Up to now, I haven’t been using my own strength to fight.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about Rubia.”
“But you are her. She’s your past life, right?”
Ruby shakes her head. “It’s more complicated than that. In this world, we may very well be the same person, reincarnated over different generations, but in another world, I’m a completely different person who only ever dreamt up Rubia as a concept. It’s exactly why I can make such completely different decisions to her and why I’m not hellbent on the planet’s destruction like she is now.”
“…” Now he’s reminded of something she had mentioned a while back. “You said before that you remember living a different life, huh? In a different world?”
“Yeah… That’s what I dreamed about earlier.”
“That you returned there?”
“I guess so… or maybe not.”
“You’re not sure?”
She turns to him with a genuinely concerned frown. “Because Sephiroth was there too.”
“!?”
She looks off into space again as she continues to recall, “He once told me that the life I was living in that other world was an ‘illusion’. I didn’t believe him; still don’t, really. After all, I have too many memories from that life for it all to have been faked.”
“…”
“But… now that I’m here, borrowing Rubia’s body and taking on her role as a Summon, I’ve come to learn that I have so many more memories in this world that I didn’t realize I had – or maybe I had them all along and just forgot.”
Now he strikes his own thinking face. “So you think he had anything to do with how you forgot?”
“No. It’s not because of him. If anything, he reminded me of old memories that had been laying dormant. But there are just too many missing pieces. I don’t understand what became of Rubia and why she swore vengeance against the planet. And while the planet has been in crisis, I somehow managed to stay so clueless in that other world. I didn’t even think it was possible for us to come together in the first place.”
“Didn’t you say that Sephiroth dragged you out from the depths of the Lifestream, though?”
“He was just the catalyst. I highly doubt it was entirely by his efforts to break causality and intrude on a world he had no business showing up or even being able to exist.”
He blinks. “What? You mean, in that other world, he shouldn’t have been able to exist?”
She looks him in the eye as she confesses, “Actually, none of you would. In that world, you, Sephiroth, and everyone else that exists on this planet… You’re all fictional characters in a video game I played as a kid.”
He stares blankly, frankly a little taken aback at such an outlandish truth. And yet, Ruby is completely serious about it.
She then makes a grim smirk and turns off again. “But of course, that’s just silly, isn’t it? I’m on said planet, talking with you right now, so does that make me a fictional character too?”
“…”
The smirk fades back into sadness. “To be honest, I’m starting to wonder if Sephiroth was right. Maybe that life in that other world IS the illusion. After all, I’m still me, but also not really me anymore… if that makes any sense.”
Cloud looks off too, but nods along. “I… think I understand. You’ve been searching all over for information about this world because you don’t really know who you are – Rubia or someone else.”
“Exactly. But the more I learn, it feels like the less I know. I’m going around in circles, running into contradictions everywhere I look. It’s like I’m a little fish trapped in a bowl that doesn’t know which way to swim to escape.” She makes a miserable frown. “And just outside of that bowl, Sephiroth is the cat that keeps eyeing his prey, ready to strike if I ever try to push past my boundaries.”
“…”
She lets off a sigh and hangs her head. “I’m never gonna be able to avoid him… He’s just waiting for the right moment to snatch me out of the bowl and swallow me whole. But before then, he likes to toy with me, just to prolong my suffering.”
He turns back to her, ever concerned. “Ruby… You don’t have to face him alone. We’re still here for you.”
“I know, but at this point, it feels like you’re all just other fish trapped in the same bowl.”
He frowns, feeling a little stung. “Is there really nothing we can do to help?”
She takes a moment to reconsider multiple avenues, but in the end, she can’t come up with a single scenario where they could have the advantage. After all, it would be one thing if she still had access to the Debug Room and could just hack away at the battlegrounds all she’d like. But that room has now become Sephiroth’s personal office, and he’s made himself at home so much that he’s straight up adding new stuff to her apartment and taking them for himself. Bastard really just showed her some cool promotional soda and kept it all to himself. She now wishes the worst cavities on him… if that were even possible. It seems like nothing can ever phase him and his beautiful face. With how insane he’s become, he might as well be a sadomasochist and still manage to be a power bottom to the most dominating partner.
Dammit, why is she like this? She didn’t have to take it to the sexual, but she still did. Gah. Now the image is stuck in mind. Get it out, get it out!
No, seriously, what is she doing? There’s so much else to worry about and she’s still stuck on the fact that Sephiroth has been messing with her feelings. It’s not even a big deal. He’s not taking it seriously. She shouldn’t either. Don’t fall for it, don’t fall for it, don’t fall for it… It’s all just a game.
Cloud gives her a concerned look as Ruby viciously rubs her head in her frustration. At first he leaves her be, but when she starts smacking herself on the head too, he intervenes and catches her fists.
“Hey. Take it easy.”
“…”
He doesn’t let go of her hands, but she doesn’t yield either, and they enter into a stalemate where it looks like he’s holding her hands up over her head. And after a tense moment of silence, Ruby begins to tremble. Cloud then notices a single tear trail down, followed by another on the other side, and grows even more awkward. Um… now she’s crying? She was just a bundle of energy a little while ago. A little lost and flustered at this development, and without any better idea, he decides to let her go. At least she’s stopped hitting herself, but now she’s just buried her face in her hands.
Man… what is he supposed to do in a situation like this? Tell her it’s gonna be okay? Well, not really, given what she was just saying. Give her a hug? Or a back rub? Eh, it feels too patronizing, and she isn’t looking like she’s very receptive at the moment…
“…Pardon the intrusion.”
Cloud whips back around, finding Bugenhagen and Red have returned. He gets back to his feet too.
“Uh. Sorry, were we making too much noise?”
“Oh, no. You two were fine.” The elder makes an apologetic bow. “We had just finished discussing matters and happened to overhear your conversation instead.”
Ruby wipes her face of her tears. “That’s embarrassing… I didn’t mean to break down in front of you all.”
Red comes down from the loose rubble and circles around to Ruby’s other side, taking a seat beside her. “It’s fine. We won’t tell the others.”
“There’s no shame to be had here, Ruby,” Bugenhagen reassures her, “We’re all quite aware of the struggles you face.”
“Yeah, about the crisis of the planet and how I’m caught up in it…”
He shakes his head. “There is a concern even deeper than that.”
“?”
He gives his beard a slow and thoughtful stroke. “While Nanaki and I were discussing earlier, I was reminded of the first encounter the two of you had, many years ago. If I recall correctly, you even bonded over a mutual disrespect of your fathers, yes?”
Red makes a shameful look aside. “It was totally undeserving in my case, but yes, that’s true.”
“I have to wonder if it was undeserving in Ruby’s case as well.”
“Really?” He turns to Ruby with a curious look. “Though, from what I remember, she was always distant with him since he never seemed to be there for her.”
Now that Ruby thinks back to that flashback, Rubia really had been a lonely runaway type. But even she has to wonder if it was because Rubia kept running away or because Bahamut himself kept pushing her away himself. How did she write Bahamut back in the day? He was always supposed to be the noble lawful type ever since his origins in Dungeons & Dragons, and she was sure she kept up that sort of disposition for him. But did something else go awry in this universe?
Bugenhagen then nods along, as if he were able to read what she was thinking. “I believe it would be critical to the answers you seek – not just about Rubia, but of your own identity and calling – if you were to investigate further regarding the tales behind Bahamut. If there is some way for you to reach out to him as well, that would be best. In the meantime, though, if you need any other resources, perhaps a visit to our libraries would be of some help?”
Ruby blinks in surprise that he would even be able to read her so well at a glance, but nods back with a more confident smile. “Anything that can teach me will help. It was always the plan to reach out to Bahamut somehow, but I can start with smaller steps first.”
He returns her with his own smile. “Very well! As I said, you’re all welcome to stay for as long as you wish. Or, if you have a particular destination, do take care on your way. And though this may be a bit much to ask, could you also bring Nanaki along with you?”
Red nods too. “I want to help too. I swore to protect this canyon as long as I live, but now I realize there is much more to protect. It’s not just about names or places, but the people around us… no matter if they come from this town or not.” He gets back to his feet as he declares, “I swear on my Father’s honorable name, I will return home as a proud warrior who fought bravely for this planet, and I can only do so alongside you all.”
Ruby passes him a curious glance and chuckles softly. “Nanaki… you sound all grown-up now.”
He reveals a subtle smirk. “Maybe a little more… but there’s always room to keep growing, right?”
“Right. I’ve got plenty more growing to do myself, and I have to be ready to teach Rubia too.”
He nods back. “Ask me whenever you need me.”
Cloud raises a hand to her too. “So, where are we going next after this? You got a place in mind?”
She turns back to him with a bit of surprise. “Cloud. Are you really asking ME to take you somewhere?”
“You’re gonna be taking me along anyway. I might as well get an idea of where we’ll be going first.”
She laughs to that. “That’s fair. I think… we should stick with the plan and stop by Nibelheim. Sorry to Yuffie and Sonon, but we’ll get them back to Wutai soon after.” Her smile fades as she returns to being serious. “I just… really need to know what’s going on with Rubia.”
“We all do. She’s not just your problem when the entire planet’s at stake.”
“Yeah…”
Bugenhagen claps his hands together with a big, satisfied smile. “Well, then! It looks like you’re all set! Now, shall we head back out? We’re quite a ways out of town, and the others may be getting concerned waiting for us.”
“Oh, no worries, sir. We don’t even have to take the long way back. I can get us all back to the Cosmo Candle in a flash.”
“That would be most convenient. Thank you, Ruby.”
“Thank you, sir! Your words of wisdom never fail to solve some questions!”
With a few quick taps on each of their shoulders, Ruby’s eyes begin to glow white. She shuts her eyes with a soft smile and a familiar song in her heart. The Cave of Gi is a rather quiet and empty place, after all. But it’s in that silence when one’s true thoughts can be heard without distraction.
Notes:
I've been dying to post this chapter; not just because Sephiroth's back or that I get to finally tackle the Cave of Gi with one of my favorite backstories, but because I can't decide which line is my new favorite out-of-context quote. Which one is yours? Post it down in the comments below!
5/19/23 edit: FML. I can't believe I forgot what one of the monsters was. I mean, no matter what it is Ruby clean-sweeps, but this slight hurts my pride as a hardcore fan.
Chapter 27: Under the Candlelight
Notes:
4/20/25 edit: Revised a couple sentences from Nanaki and Deneh's meeting to clarify his voice change.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The winds seem to have shifted suddenly. A tan-furred wolf-like lioness stands atop the edge of a high-rising cliffs, pointing her nose up to test the air. It’s not just that they’ve shifted; there’s something entirely different in the vicinity. It smells… mechanical, different from the usual dry desert sands. It brings a certain distaste to her mouth, reminding her of a time past when she was nearly captured by people in black suits who worked under a certain company.
What an ominous sign. She hopes dearly that Cosmo Canyon is still safe. But though she would like to return to check on everyone, she hesitates. She had already taken a great risk departing from her place at the altar in a neighboring village, but trepidations have kept her restless. She didn’t mention it to anyone, but a certain premonition came to her in a dream. Though she was unsure of the details, something suggested to her that today would be a day of fateful encounters. And with just the slightest inkling of hope, she was resolved to leave her post – just for a little while.
And so, she returned to the great outdoors under the pretense of her usual patrol. Though she didn’t expect to find anything, she had in secret been awaiting the arrival of a certain familiar scent that would help ease those worries. However, as the winds shifted and blew this way, she was instead greeted by the cold, callous smell of metal and mako.
Does she simply return to the village and hope the threat passes? No, she’s already come this far. If there is any chance that the town is in danger, she can’t just sit on by and wait for help to arrive. Though it may be against tradition, she must act.
She rushes down the slopes toward Cosmo Canyon. And to her horror and apprehension, as she nears the town, she can make out the shape of a massive airship that has been sitting at the outskirts. Of course; there’s only one company who would have such an unnatural construct. She growls lowly under her breath as she repositions herself, slipping from cover to cover in case there may be enemies about.
She was wise to be careful. While she remains hidden a safe distance away from the ship, a group of strange people step out from its cabin below. However, to her bewilderment, the people who have stepped out are not dressed like the usual troops of Shinra, nor do they appear to be suited in black. The first one that bounds out into the open is an odd woman, who seems to be carrying a man bigger than her over her head, and she ascends the steps into town with but a few brisk hops. She’s shortly followed by two others – one of which is a man who wields a mighty blade on his back, and the other, an adolescent girl, is of an entirely different race. But what surprises her the most is their scents. Though she doesn’t recognize these strange visitors, she can still pick up traces of something definitely recognizable among them.
…Nanaki?
No, there’s no mistaking it. The first of the three has the strongest traces too, as if that woman had gotten close and even touched Nanaki as well. The lioness shakes her head in disbelief, but remains in her hiding spot. They don’t seem to be Shinra, but that ship most definitely is. Just who are these people?
~
After they returned from the Cave of Gi, Bugenhagen has stayed behind to shut the door and preferably get some rest, while the rest have gone out to meet with the rest of the crew around the Cosmo Candle. And with everyone together once more, Ruby calls to attention their plans moving forward. With her quick errand picking up their ship and pilot done, they can now focus on the primary objectives: 1, chasing after Sephiroth and discovering how he connects with Rubia, and 2, reconnecting with the rest of Avalanche and keeping up the fight against Shinra.
“Question… So when are we stopping by Wutai?” Yuffie interrupts.
Barret folds his arms with a stern frown. “You never gonna let that go, huh?”
“Of course not! I’m all for taking down Shinra with Avalanche, but we still gotta report back to our HQ! Not to mention, get Sonon back to normal…”
He lets off a troubled sigh. “Listen, kid-”
“I’m not a kid! The name’s Yuffie!”
“Yuffie. We appreciate all the help we can get, but you gotta call off the plan with recruiting Ruby. Maybe things mighta changed somewhere in our ranks, but I got a few concerns to raise with our HQ about bringing in Shinra’s old wartime enemies.”
Tifa nods too. “It’s just a matter of keeping the peace. It won’t help anyone if tensions keeping rising until war breaks out again. Then, it’s not just going to be about taking down Shinra anymore…”
“Yeah, yeah,” Yuffie pouts, “I get it already! I’m not trying to start any war here either. But that’s why we gotta stop by Wutai! I’m still an agent of the government, so I can try to talk with the bigshots and change their minds. ’Cause so far, those old farts are still gung-ho about saving face and honor and all that since the old war ended, and they really think going back to war will solve all their problems.”
“But will just talking with them really do anything?” Cloud raises the concern, “They’re still your superiors, aren’t they?”
“Well, yeah. But I’m not just any run-of-the-mill ninja, you know! I’m one of their elites! So I got some sway to what I say.” She peeks over to Ruby. “Besides, if Ruby comes with me, there’s no way they won’t at least reconsider their plans, you know?”
Ruby nods with a confident smile. “I have ways to convince people.”
“Yeah! If anything, when those old farts see that I’ve got an ally like Ruby, they can just sit back and deal with the paperwork while they leave the rest to us! We’ll protect Wutai all by ourselves as their mightiest guardians!”
That smile falters a bit. “Well, about that…”
“Sonon can be third, I guess. Anyway, doesn’t even matter if we go to war or not, Shinra’s days are already numbered! We can beat ’em through sheer dominating presence! Ha!”
“Yuffie.”
“Yeah?”
That smile disappears as she gets serious. “I’m sorry, but even though I will help you and Sonon with those matters, I’m not going to be sticking around for long.”
Immediately, all that bright color on her face drains away. “What? Why not?”
“I sympathize with you and your people and all, but despite my looks, I’m not Wutaian.”
“That doesn’t matter! You’re a freakin’ Summon! Of course you’d be well respected, no matter where you came from!”
Ruby shakes her head. “What I mean is, I have my own journey to rediscover my missing roots lost to time. For example, I don’t know why I look like your people when I’m not from Wutai.”
Yuffie stops short as she looks a little lost. “Huh? You don’t know your own roots? You mean, your ancestry and stuff?”
Ruby takes a pause to consider how to explain it. Obviously, she has no reason to doubt why she herself is of Asian descent, but the fact that Rubia looks exactly like her is the real mystery. Back in the day, the only reason she even had such a character design was just because young Ruby decided to be shameless and make a self-insert character in her fanfic. But the meta-context aside, surely there is some kind of in-universe lore that could provide some background? If only she could remember what she came up with…
She nods back. “My father is Bahamut and I come from the time of the Cetra. That’s all I really know so far.”
“…”
“No luck even with the book-diving you did?” Jessie asks.
Ruby shakes her head. “Nothing we could find from Shinra HQ’s library.”
“Didn’t you say you were gonna check out the library here?” Biggs inquires further, “That’s why you went to see ol’ Bugenhagen, right?”
“Yeah… but we chatted for a bit longer than I expected, and then Cloud showed up with his problems…”
Cloud cuts in, correcting her, “I had to talk with you about your problems.”
She smirks. “They’re yours too, pal.”
“Don’t foist it on me like you’re not involved.”
Yuffie has been sitting by, pondering over her own theories, and she folds her arms with a confused look. She asks Ruby again, “What about Leviathan?”
“Leviathan?”
“You know, the Summon Guardian of Wutai. He was even involved in the whole creation of the island… or so the old legend goes.”
“That sounds about right.”
“Yeah, and you were in that legend too! So you didn’t know?”
Ruby blinks. “What? I was even a part of Wutaian history…?”
Yuffie makes a rather incredulous frown. “Yeah. I thought you already knew, so I didn’t bring it up before.”
“…” She stares off into space, still blinking. Perhaps it would be a good idea to stop by there, more than just to deal with Sonon and Godo’s situations. Then, an inspired smile appears on her lips, and she turns back to Yuffie. “Tomorrow.”
“Huh?”
“We can get going tomorrow.”
Like a light that flickers on, Yuffie’s disappointment disappears. “What? Really? That soon?”
“Hold it,” Cloud cuts in, “Weren’t you just saying we were heading for Nibelheim next?”
“Yes. That can be tonight.”
“Tonight!? It’s already night!”
“It’s not morning yet, so it counts.”
He groans. “Haven’t you had enough to do today? I’m already exhausted just looking at you.”
“Well, you can just not look, then.”
“Ruby…”
“Wait, Ruby. I agree with Cloud. You don’t have to exhaust yourself,” Tifa suggests, likewise concerned, “We’ve just arrived. Maybe you should take some time to settle in?”
“I’m fine. I’m raring to go, in fact.”
“But earlier…”
“I took a quick nap. I’m good.”
“…” She frowns, looking no further convinced.
“Is there a reason you have to go tonight, Cuz?” Aerith asks too.
“I figured we could slip in a quick stop. Nibelheim is just north of here anyway.”
“Hmm…” She also looks a bit unsure. “Because I was thinking of checking out the library here too. There’s so much more I’d like to learn, and I’d prefer it if we could do a reading session together.”
“…” With a guilty look, Ruby asks her, “Maybe we can save it for later?”
“What’s the rush, though?” Barret then brings it up, “It’s not like we got Shinra right on our heels or anythin’. You warp us all over the place. No way they’d keep up.” He snorts. “I doubt they even know where we are now.”
“Yeah, but…”
“Um… Is there something you’re expecting to happen there, Ruby?” Wedge speaks up too.
“…”
She hesitates to answer that. While it’s true that she is anticipating something to happen, she has no idea what Sephiroth even intended when he suggested it to her. Is he just being impatient and egging her on to throw herself into some kind of trap, or is there actually something so critical that she must find there? It’s all this mystery around her past that has been the one thing spurring her on, even so more than just the excitement of the adventure. She’s so antsy just worrying about the near future that even the butterflies in her stomach seem to be pupating before she can. Ugh… speaking of pupating…
And out of the blue, her troubled thoughts are cut off with an answer from the guy beside her. “We’ll get there.”
“Huh?” Now she turns to him.
Cloud returns her his usual stoic yet serious face. “You were always saying it whenever I had so many questions. Why don’t you take your own advice for once?”
“…”
Tifa passes him a disconcerted frown. “Cloud, is that really the way to talk to her?”
“I’m just telling it like it is.”
“At least be nice about it!”
Ruby shakes her head. “It’s okay, Tifa. I get what he means.”
Tifa turns back to her. “Ruby, whatever is bothering you, you can tell us. No need to rush into things. If we’re all caught up, we can work through them together, okay?”
“Right…” she replies, but still looks pretty unsettled.
“This isn’t just a fight between you two,” Cloud goes on, “Don’t put it all on yourself.”
“…”
“Uh… between which two?” Barret then asks.
But Cloud doesn’t answer him, as he keeps a stern stare fixed on Ruby. Finally, she relents with a sigh and nods back.
“…Fine. I’ll let you guys share the burden too.”
Finally, he lets her be with a sigh of his own. For once, he actually managed to get through to her. It honestly feels like he’s digging through a brick wall with his bare hands just to get her to calm down.
Ruby turns back to Yuffie, who has deflated a little, and apologizes with a defeated shrug. “Like he said, we’ll get there.”
She pouts, but nods back. “Just… do what you gotta.”
Even Jessie pipes up, a certain person coming to her mind as well, “Hey, don’t sweat it! Ruby’s got a whole list of people to help after all, but she’ll definitely come through!”
Yuffie blinks, now that she’s reminded too. “Oh, right. You had someone in need too, right?” She sighs. “Yeesh, what is this, a line to a celebrity signing?”
“Well, we are dealing with a VIP of sorts.”
Ruby forces a smile, but passes a nervous glance aside. Now that she thinks about it, she really does have her work cut out for her, doesn’t she? Before she even knew it, she had been putting a lot more than she ever expected to on her shoulders. Boy, being a hero is hard… That dork would probably throw himself at it all, though.
Aerith then beams with a proud smile and claps her hands together. “Then, it’s settled! Come on, Cuz, we’ve got a library to explore!”
Ruby nods back and returns her own reassured smile. “Okay, Cuz!”
“There’s that spirit we know!” She also turns to the one beside her. “You wanna join us, Cloud?”
“Me?” He shrugs. “Sure.”
“Yippee! Thanks!”
“Oh.” Tifa blinks, taken a little aback, and offers an awkward smile too. “Um, mind if I join too?”
“Oh, you’re coming too, Tifa? Sure! The more, the merrier!”
That smile looks more relieved. “Thanks, Aerith.”
“Well, I’m happy for you guys and all, but uh, what are the rest of us supposed to do in the meantime?” Biggs finally gets the chance to mention it.
“I mean, we’re here in Cosmo Canyon. What wouldn’t we want to check out?” Jessie retorts sarcastically.
“No, I mean…” He rubs his head. “Is there something else other than just reading books or asking around that we could do?”
She rolls her eyes. “Oh, so that’s it…”
“Hmm…” Unexpectedly, Red then pipes up, “That reminds me. Grandpa did say he was meaning to set it up.”
“Huh?”
“If you’re interested, perhaps you could stop by the observatory at the top of the mountain? Ask my grandfather about the planetarium. I’m sure he’ll be delighted to show you.”
“Oh, yeah!” Barret then bursts aloud with a hearty laugh. “That was what I wanted to ask him!” He suddenly pumps his arm up, nearly swinging it into Biggs’ face, and raises it up in the air. “Come on, guys! If ya ain’t tired of planetology just yet, I got some great news for ya!”
“Oh, really? Awesome!” Wedge cheers.
“Sign me up! I’m not ever tired of learning new stuff!” Jessie agrees.
Biggs cracks out a nervous smile as he scoots away from the guy. “Sure, sounds good to me…”
But then, just as tensions seem to settle back down for a bit, they suddenly hear the slam of a door being shoved open nearby. A certain rather angry man bursts out from the inn, wielding his very sharp spear. And immediately, like a hawk staring down its target, he pinpoints Ruby among the crowd with utmost precision.
“You!!”
“Oh, hey, Cid!” She even looks pleasantly surprised to see him up.
He charges at her with a snarling rage, and she gets up and makes a dash away. Everyone else stares as they see the man bolt after her as they head out of town together, but no one seems to be getting up to go after them.
Tifa looks around at everyone else and asks, “…Shouldn’t we stop them?”
Cloud makes a wayward glance aside. “Nah. This is her problem. Let her deal with it.”
Despite being quite capable of escaping him at any time, Ruby instead jogs leisurely, letting the man catch up to her even before she reaches the outer gate. Even as confused onlookers stand by and stare, she deftly dodges every one of Cid’s attempts at skewering her full of holes.
“Cid, listen. I know you’re upset…”
“Shut up! What the hell is your problem!? ‘NO’ means NO, Goddammit!”
“As I said, this was for your benefit!”
“You call kidnapping a ‘benefit’!? I’m gonna beat you back into the damn egg you came from!!”
“Ah, well, uh…” Ruby finds herself unable to come back with a witticism for such a left-field verbal swing.
And yet, she still maintains her serene smile as she weaves around, which only further enrages him. But then, to Ruby’s surprise, Cid actually makes a feint with one of his strikes and instead clotheslines her with the side of the spear and actually knocks her down. Now quite startled, she rolls out of the way as he plunges the spearpoint into the ground where her head had been.
“Good God, man! Are you trying to kill me!?”
“Damn straight I am! And after I do, I’m diving down to hell and dragging your ass back out so I can kill you again!”
“Well, gee, that sounds like a hassle…”
Now the onlookers are getting a little concerned, but are still hesitant to interrupt them. After all, Ruby doesn’t seem too distressed – she almost seems to be dancing with joy, in fact – while facing this aggressive adversary. She even leaps onto his spear and he flings her off, sending her hurling through the air beyond the outer gate.
“!?”
Ruby waves a hand toward the stunned gatekeeper moments before she hits the stairs below, and somersaults herself a few steps down until she lands back on her feet. Before she can get moving again, Cid has raced on over to the front gate as well, but then stops dead in his tracks as he stares off into the open behind her, and a cold chill comes over him.
As it so happens, the Highwind has been left just out of the town, where it’s been sitting in the open in the face of the unrelenting desert winds. And unfortunately, there’s quite a bit of sandy pileup against the stern of the ship from the winds blowing dusty trails. Though the ship still stands firm despite being lodged, the poor thrusters and fans have been overtaken and clogged by sand. It’s an utterly nightmarish scene for any aero-engineer.
Ruby turns around and blinks blankly. “…Oh. So, that’s why we can’t park there.”
“You DUMBASS %*#@!! Go fix it already!!”
Without even a second of hesitation, Ruby leaps down the steps into a glide and sails down to rescue the poor ship. And Cid rushes down after her, still spilling expletives as if to egg her on further.
“What the #*@$ did you think was gonna happen, leaving her out in the GODDAMN desert!? If my ship isn’t back up and operational in the next #@%*& minute, YOU’RE gonna be buried next!! You hear me!?”
“R-Roger, Cap’n! I’m on it!” comes her distressed answer.
Ruby latches herself onto the roof of the airship’s hull with a soft thump of her own, as if trying to give the vehicle a hug in apology. With a flicker of the pupils in her eyes, she casts a compounded Float spell that spreads and covers the vehicle in its entirety. The Highwind begins to lurch slowly into the air at her command, carefully pulling itself free little by little from the sandy slope that had been slanted against it. And with a series of rapid-fire casts of Aero, she blows the excess sand and dust that had been holding the thrusters and fans hostage. With those gusts, the propellers begin to spin free from all burden. For just a moment there, it almost looks like the Highwind had just been brought back to life after a very long time of absence and neglect.
Cid had been hurrying down the steps in a rage, but as soon as he witnessed his darling beauty be resurrected and return to its former glory – even if just for a little bit – all that hatred from earlier seems to fizzle out in an instant, and a surprising sort of peace of mind comes over him.
Ruby finally lets go of the hull and slides down gently, taking care not to snag her clothes on any rough patch in the metal overlay, and drops back to the ground with a light tap. She turns back around to marvel at the sight of the good ol’ ship afloat, looking like it’s ready to take on the coming challenges.
But just as she’s taking in the sight, she catches a strange sound in the corner of her ear. Is it just her, or does it sound like the rushing of light footsteps upon the dusty, rocky ground?
“GRAWRR!”
“!?”
Ruby just manages to catch a firm hold of a white lioness who has pounced on her from the shadows of the Highwind. She reflexively throws the beast off of her, but the big girl adroitly lands upon her feet and lunges at her again on the attack.
“Whoa! What the…?”
As Ruby dodges the beast’s fierce thrashes and carefully deflects a snapping of jaws and grapples with her as to avoid hurting her, she then recalls exactly who this lioness is. Her lips curve up and she beams with a delighted grin as she calls out a familiar name.
“Deneh!”
“!?”
Immediately, the lioness pulls back and keeps her distance. She stares back at Ruby with a look of alarm and caution.
“You’re Deneh, aren’t you?” Ruby blubbers excitedly, “Oh my gosh! I can’t believe you’re here! I didn’t even know you’d be around! Actually, it’s been so long, I don’t even remember where you would’ve been, haha!”
“…”
But their awkward reunion – well, first encounter for the latter – would shortly be interrupted when the sound of Cid’s yell catches their attention. By some amazing feat of his own, the man had managed to leap from halfway down the long, long stairs down to where they stand. Deneh quickly leaps out of the way as his spear comes plunging in, and he stands in the way between her and Ruby.
“Hey, kid! Ya need a hand!?”
“Uh, no?”
“Hey, don’t be like that! I know we had a rough start…”
“No, no, you don’t understand!”
Deneh growls and resumes battle stance. He responds with his own snarl and readies his spear. The two are just about to clash when Ruby pops right in-between them and keeps them at her arm’s length.
“WHOA! Hold up!!”
“!?”
“No fighting! We’re friends!”
“Huh?” Cid pulls back, but keeps a wary eye on the beast. “You know this thing?”
Deneh keeps her wary eye on both of the humans, but is frankly quite perplexed with the female one.
Ruby lets off a sigh as she lowers her arms. “It’s a long story, but I know who she is, even if she doesn’t know me.”
“…What?”
She turns back to the lioness and takes a kneel so they meet at similar eye level. With a gentle smile, she addresses her rather courteously, “There’s no need to worry. I’m good friends with Nanaki.”
Deneh’s eyes flicker wide open and she hesitates, but then asks while still tense, “…Who are you?”
Cid blinks blankly and stares in silence at the strange creature. He’s not going crazy all of a sudden, right? Well, maybe he did go a little crazy earlier…
“My name is Ruby, but I used to go by the name Rubia. I am the last of this planet’s Summon Guardians who has lived on.”
“!” Now completely taken aback, Deneh takes a seat and sits at attention. “A living Summon! So the old legend is true?”
“Legend?”
“I once heard a legend about one of the ancient guardians of the planet… the Moon Spirit who had vanished without a trace and was thought lost to time.”
Ruby feels a little sting of cringe. Of course it would be that legend. What other legend would there be to talk about? Sheesh, at this rate, it feels like she’s the only Summon that’s left to history. Is that actually Rubia’s endgame? To be the last thing standing as the Void swallows everything else? It’s so diabolical it might actually not be too far from the truth…
She makes an bitter smirk aside. “Well, as far as I know, there were a lot of things that were lost to time…”
Deneh looks a little lost, to say the least. “What do you mean? Is it not true after all?”
“Oh, it’s true.” Ruby turns back to her a more confident smirk instead. “You’re speaking to the one and only ‘Moon Spirit’ who vanished in time.”
“…” The lioness then makes an embarrassed blush and lowers her head in shame. “M-my apologies. I had come by to investigate this strange vehicle and mistaken you for an enemy.”
She waves it away. “It’s fine. I know it’s really confusing given that this ship was stolen.”
“Stolen?” Deneh peers up curiously.
“Yep. I stole it from Shinra. Now it’s ours.”
Cid clears his throat. “You mean, it’s mine.”
She whips back to him, looking genuinely surprised. “You’re part of us now, Cid! Don’t we get to share?”
“Hey.” He points a thumb to the side to pull her back over. “You got a minute?”
She makes a curious look and nods, though she first helps Deneh sit back up. “Give us a bit. I’ll bring you to meet Nanaki later.”
With a stern frown, he speaks earnestly, “Look, kid. I’m grateful that you brought the Highwind back. I’ve been missing her for so long I just had a damn epiphany lookin’ at her fly again. I’m even gonna let you go for the whole kidnapping thing. But let’s get things straight: I never agreed to join you.”
Her smile fades in an instant. “Cid…”
“I know. I sound like a madman to still be clinging to the likes of Shinra. But you gotta understand, I can’t blow everything outta the water just yet. Until I hear the truth about the Shinra No. 26 incident from the damn president’s lips, nothing's settled. I got too much baggage to abandon everything I’ve built up to now.”
“Simply put, you need to meet with Rufus before you can decide.”
“Exactly. He probably doesn’t give a shit about me and I’m barely above board anyway, but I still need to know. If he decides I’m out just for asking, then good #%*&@$ riddance! I feel like I’ve been tied down like a dog for the past 10 years! But it’s gotta be in his own words, not anything you dragged out from the rumor mill.”
She nods. “I get it.”
“Right. So how ’bout a deal? I’ll stick around for now and fly you where ya need to go, but you gotta get me a meeting with the prez sometime, alright?”
Her eyes light up like candles that had just been lit. “Wait, what? What happened? You were ready to kill me earlier!”
“Yeah…” He rubs his head. “Sorry. Got a little too heated. But I figured someone like you wouldn’t die that easy.”
“Hm, true.” She smiles sweetly as she answers, “Well, then. Thank you for volunteering to be our hostage! I promise I won’t rough you up too much.”
“What? Hey! Who you callin’ hostage!?”
“Hahaha!” She gives him a cheeky grin. “If you wanna keep pretending you’re above board, you’re gonna have to play the part. So maybe we’ll tie you up again to make it convincing?”
He points a threatening finger in her face. “You try that again, I’m keeping you off my ship.” That said, he gives another scoff and adds, “But fine. I’ll play along.”
“Yes! Thanks so much, Cid!” She even glomps him, to his dismay. “I swear we’re gonna have so much fun!”
He shoves her off. “Yeah, yeah… But since it’s my ship, it’s my rules! I say where we can or can’t land. If we got trek 10 Goddamn miles on foot through the desert, that’s that! No questions, no complaints. Got it?”
“Yes, Cap’n!” She even fires off a salute and then mentions, “Oh, but I should warn you, we might be a while before we can set up that appointment.”
“Huh? What, you busy?”
“You could say that. Tonight, I got a book-reading session with my pals, and we’ll be there for a while. But tomorrow, I’m looking to stop by Nibelheim real quick for some research, and I did promise one of our gals that we’d be dropping by Wutai after that…”
“…” He looks rather annoyed to hear that, but waves a dismissive hand. “Fine, fine. I get it. Just call me when you need me.”
“Thanks! Seriously, man, I’m not sure what came over you, but you’re awfully nice all of a sudden.”
“Tch. You did bring my baby back to me, so I gotta be grateful… even if ya did leave her out in the sand,” he adds that last bit with a glare.
“Haha… Yeah, sorry about that. Won’t happen again.” She smiles again as she casually drops, “You know, I feel like you could be a good dad if you really tried.”
“W-what?” He looks caught totally off-guard. “The hell are you talking about? I ain’t that old yet!”
She laughs, but doesn’t answer. “Anyway, let’s head back to town! We keep getting more members by the day!”
But Cid turns back to the ship. “You go on ahead. I need a little more time with her.”
“Hm? Is something wrong?”
“Nah…” He looks behind to her. “Hey, whatever you did earlier, it’s gonna stay up, right?”
“Yeah. It won’t come down until I dismiss the spell.”
“Take it off. I’m gonna fly it outta here.”
“Huh? Where are you going?”
“Where the sand won’t catch. Need I repeat that we’re in a Goddamn desert?”
“Ah. Right.” She peers off toward the north side of the canyon. “There should be some nice patch of grass up there by the next town.” She then turns back with a curious look. “But isn’t it going to be a hassle for you to walk all the way back? I can fly you.”
“Ha!” Finally, that usual frown of his cracks upward into a smirk. “Who the hell do you think you’re talkin’ to? I’m the captain, remember? That means I gotta stay where my ship is.”
“Ah, yeah. That’s fair.”
He gives her a dismissive hand wave. “’Sides, I’m not about hanging around a backwater nature town like this. They’re probably anal about smokers too. If ya need me, fly on over yourself. Ya got wings, right?”
“Yeah.” She’s back to smiling and gives him a salute. “Well, then! Catch ya later, Cap’n! Hope you won’t be too lonely out there.”
“Don’t worry. It’s been ages since I had the Highwind to myself. I won’t even miss ya.”
“Haha! Nice.”
While Cid hops up and climbs the ladder onto the ship’s gondola, Ruby watches him go with an eye of admiration. She then beckons Deneh along.
“Come on, let’s go meet Nanaki!”
But as she’s about to hurry off, she notices the lioness isn’t following. She then hops back to her.
“Is something wrong?”
Deneh lowers her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean any disrespect, but I should not be here.”
“What do you mean?”
She looks back up to explain. “I come from another village to the east. There is a certain ritual that is meant to be held at a ceremonial altar, and I am not supposed to leave my place until the time is right.”
Ruby blinks blankly. Wait a second… was this something that was mentioned before, like in the canon of the games? Well, Deneh was introduced in Before Crisis, but her memories of that particular story are a little fuzzy. It has been a while since she’s gone back to it.
Deneh bows politely. “So, as much as I would like to see him again, until he is ready to meet me, I should not overstep my bounds…”
“…” She raises a suspect eyebrow. “But you’re already here.”
“Yes. I know I’m already crossing some lines that should not have been crossed, but…” She pauses as she hesitates to explain, “I was worried.”
“You felt like something was happening to Cosmo Canyon, huh?”
“Yes. I’m not sure how to say it, but I think… it was a premonition.”
“A premonition?”
“It came to me in a dream just yesterday. I don’t remember everything from that dream, but I think there was a voice of some sort suggesting to me that I had to come by the town.”
“Huh…” Ruby tilts her head curiously.
“At first, I was hesitant to believe it, but it would not leave my mind. The more I wondered, the more restless I became. Eventually, I decided to sneak out on my own and patrol the area just in case. Before I had realized, I wandered close to Cosmo Canyon.”
“And that was when you saw the airship.”
“I had suspected that some ne’er-do-wells arrived and posed some sort of threat to the town, but was surprised to find you and three others. One of them seemed to be the man from earlier.”
“Ah.” Ruby nods. “That must have been around when we got back after we stole the ship.”
“I heard you mention it. But how did you ‘steal’ such an enormous aircraft?”
She smirks smugly. “Warp magic.”
Deneh blinks and takes a moment to process it. “…You can warp?”
“Yep. Doesn’t matter where or how far, I can warp wherever, whenever I please, as long as I know where I’m going. It takes a bit longer for me to cast when I have a whole lot of something to warp with me, though.”
Now Deneh nods along. “So that was why the winds shifted so dramatically…”
Around now, they hear the sounds of the ship whirring into motion as it powers up and gets running once more. Ruby beckons Deneh to follow her so they stand out of the way. She leads them up the steps toward the town, encouraging the latter to go for higher ground to avoid the gusts of dust sweeping up around them. And they watch as the Highwind rise high into the sky and take off for greener pastures.
“Well, that’s that, then. You won’t have to worry about that huge machine blocking anything around here anymore. And since I warped the thing and all my pals – including Nanaki – here, we don’t even have to worry about Shinra giving chase either. They don’t have a clue where we could have gone.”
Deneh nods. “I see. You’re quite capable… but I suppose that’s only expected of a Summon Guardian.”
Ruby chuckles. “Pshaw…”
“By any chance, was it also you who rescued Nanaki?”
“Yep. I raided their HQ specifically so I could find him and get him out. He even joined me for a nice romp through one of their reactors, which has been put out of operation for a very long time.”
“Y-you even disabled a reactor!?”
“Yeah. It wasn’t ever broadcast on the news, but I don’t think this town cares too much about Shinra’s news networks anyway.”
“Oh, wow…”
“Anyway, don’t mind all that. Where is your village? I can always take you back there in an instant, so they won’t even know that you’ve gone.”
“Huh? You really would do that? For me?”
“Sure.”
But Deneh looks sad. “I… don’t know what to say. After our initial encounter…”
“Hey, like I said, I don’t mind!” Then, Ruby fires off a mischievous smirk. “But I’ll only do that on one condition.”
“Oh… What is it?”
“You gotta come meet Nanaki with me.”
“W-what!?” Deneh shakes her head. “No, I can’t! I mustn’t!”
“What’s wrong? Don’t you wanna see him?”
“Well…” She hesitates for a bit as she searches for a way to put it. “Yes, I would like to, but…”
“Then, that’s that. Let’s go!” Ruby swerves away.
“Wait!”
She swerves back. “Yes?”
“I would like to, but I cannot. It isn’t time yet.”
Her smile falters again. “You mean the ritual, huh?”
“Yes. It is a special occasion for our tribe that arrives every 50 years, to commemorate to the health and prosperity of the planet.”
“Ah…” Ruby pauses to think it over. “So does it arrive when the two of you reach 50 years of age, or…?”
“Yes, a similar celebration is held whenever one of our tribe is born. Though, it has been a long time since we’ve seen that…”
She then places a fist upon her other hand as if coming to a sort of understanding. “In other words, you would have to wait another 2 years, as Nanaki would be 48 this year.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“…” Ruby straightens back up with a rather smug smirk. “Well, I’m happy for you two and wish you well. But I must stress that it’s in 2 years, while today is now.”
“Um. Yes, but…” Deneh looks a little wary at that sudden out-of-place remark. “What do you mean by that?”
“I’m saying that you don’t have to hold the ritual now, but there’s no harm in a reunion that’s a couple years early, yeah?”
“What? No!” She looks legitimately horrified and recoils a little. “That’s so improper! The two of us shouldn’t meet until the ritual commences!”
“But not even a quick drop-in and greeting?”
“Absolutely not!”
“Hmm…” Ruby then makes an unconvinced frown. “I wonder, is such a rule really so strictly enforced, or is it simply a cordiality?”
By now, Deneh is starting to get impatient. “It is a rule, as the tradition has been passed down over the ages. It would be so disrespectful to our ancestors to treat it so flippantly-”
“I remember now.”
“Huh?”
“You previously met Nanaki once before when you two were younger, did you not?”
“W-what?”
Ruby nods confidently. “Yep, I definitely remember it. Even though the two of you were already chosen to be mates since very young and as per tradition, you were advised to not meet with him until the two of you were ready to perform in that ritual, you still chose to come by Cosmo Canyon to visit him.”
“…!” She looks a little spooked, so much so that her hair seems to stand on end. “W-what are you saying?”
“At first impression, he wasn’t exactly to your liking. He didn’t speak much, so you thought he was not interesting. He didn’t return your greetings or motions either, so you thought he didn’t care. And he even fled when he heard that he would be participating in the ritual, so you thought he wasn’t even brave.”
Her eyes grow wide with shock. She can’t believe what she’s hearing, which is exactly what had happened.
“However, that couldn’t be further from the truth. In the end, it was he who saved you when you were attacked by people out to capture you and sacrificed himself so you could escape.”
Now she recalls that time too, and she droops into a slump as the guilt of past days has returned.
“And since that day, you’ve been anxious to see him again, haven’t you?”
“…”
“I bet this isn’t even the first time you’ve come by on patrol in hopes of catching sight of him from afar. In other words, you had already broken the ‘rule’ that you claim would be disrespectful to treat so ‘flippantly’.”
She shakes with a jolt again as if Ruby struck bulls-eye, and stammers rather meekly, “H-how did you…?”
Seizing the perfect chance to flaunt, Ruby crosses her arms with a smug frown and declares, “If you must know, I’m no mere ‘Moon Spirit’. I have traveled across many different times and places around the planet, and gathered much knowledge and wisdom throughout the ages. And among the stories I’ve seen was yours when you and Nanaki first met.”
By now, Deneh’s eyes have grown so wide and her pupils so large in sheer awe and a little fear that she looks like she’d somehow de-aged several decades.
“Now, be honest with me. What’s the real reason why you won’t see Nanaki?”
“…” Finally accepting defeat, Deneh lets out a sigh and sits back up. With a shameful look in her eyes, she admits in a low voice, “I don’t think he would want to see me.”
“Why wouldn’t he?”
Now she gets a little indignant. “If you already know my story, then you know the answer!”
Ruby shakes her head. “No, I want to hear your answer from your own mouth. Why would he not want to see you?”
“Because…” She sinks again. “I treated him so poorly. It would be no surprise that he wouldn’t accept me as his mate.”
“But he agreed to participate in the ritual?”
“Perhaps, as a formality.”
“And he earnestly risked his life to save you?”
She shakes her head. “That goes without saying. He is a very brave and proud warrior who would not stand by if there’s someone in need of help.”
“And now that he’s returned home, he’s even discovered the truth of his father’s past, so he would have no reason to doubt himself any longer?”
“W-what?” Deneh is caught completely off-guard by that last question. “He… discovered the truth of his father’s past…?”
“Exactly. I suspect that the day you two first met and he fled in fear of the ritual, it wasn’t because he was a coward, nor was it because he didn’t like you. It was because he feared you wouldn’t like him, as he long thought his own father was the coward and had to bear the shame.”
“…”
“But as it turned out, his father was a legend in his own right: the great warrior Seto, who singlehandedly drove off the entire Tribe of Gi that threatened the entire town! And he continues to stand guard in the furthest depths of the canyon so that no enemy – living or dead – could attack the town ever again.”
“…That’s amazing.”
“So, I think Nanaki would have no reason to not want to see you. If anything, I’d bet on the opposite.”
“…”
“You’ve been waiting all this time for him to return, and now he has. It’s only fair that you go all the way and meet him, so he knows how faithful you’ve been to him. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“…” After a long, thoughtful silence, Deneh finally concedes and nods in agreement. “I understand. But there is one other thing…”
“What’s that?”
She then makes a bit of an embarrassed look. “I… I’m not sure what to say to him.”
“…” Ruby offers her a reassuring smile. “Just say ‘hello’. Everything else will follow from there.”
“Is… that so?”
“Yep. And relax! This is a casual reunion we have here, so the only ‘rule’ there would be is to just be true to yourself!”
“I… see. Very well, Great Moon Spirit…”
“Oh.” That title actually stings her a little, so she offers to correct, “Just call me Ruby.”
“Oh. You don’t mind?”
“I’d prefer you don’t address me like I’m some ‘higher entity’ or anything. It bores me to tears and makes me feel unwelcome.”
“Oh…” Deneh blinks again and flicks her ears to a side with a curious look. “This is the first time I’ve heard that formality would be ‘unwelcome’.”
“Deneh, girl. I know things may be rather prim and proper where you come from, but while I’m around, everyone gets to loosen up.”
“Um…” She still looks rather unsure. “Be that as it may…”
“Yes?”
“The people of Cosmo Canyon would be quite shocked to see me return. It may bring up some unwanted questions. Perhaps it would be better that I come by later…”
By now, Ruby is starting to get fed up with this girl’s excuses. She offers a polite smile and raises a hand. “Leave it to me. I can get you in without anyone else noticing.”
Before Deneh can respond with anything more, Ruby gently taps her on the head and in just a blink, she flashes them out of there.
Meanwhile, back in town, the crew has already disbanded and gone their separate ways. Cloud and Tifa joined Aerith in the library, and they went ahead with their search while they wait for Ruby. Barret and his little Avalanche gang left for the observatory. And Red, now left to his own, decided to return to his room to rest a bit. He’s got some time now; might as well settle in until they need him again. As he lies down on his bed with a content sigh, though, his long-awaited peace and quiet is shortly interrupted as soon as a familiar voice pops in out of nowhere.
“Nanaki!”
Red is startled and by instinct, he jumps to his feet at high alert. He then lets off a sigh when he sees Ruby.
“Ah, Ruby. What brings you…?”
His voice quickly drifts off when he realizes she isn’t alone. A certain tan-furred wolf-like lioness meekly peeks out from behind Ruby, and their eyes meet. Just like that, all tension in his voice scatters.
“…Deneh?”
“Nanaki… It really is you.”
Ruby steps aside as the pair come up to each other; their eyes wide in shock and disbelief, their noses seeking answers from each other’s scents, and their tails swinging in almost perfect synchronicity. Ruby can’t help but smile as the two begin to circle about the room in a harmonic rhythm, their eyes locked on each other. And for just a moment, the two share sweet smiles, as if their silent conversation had come to an agreeable consensus.
The two then take a seat on the mats together and turn to Ruby. Red asks her in his softer voice, “Did you go all the way to the other village to find her for me?”
Deneh shakes her head. “Actually… I came here on my own.”
He turns to her with wide eyes, looking rather impressed. “You came to see me? But it’s still a little early…”
She makes a shy smile. “Maybe it is… but I had a good feeling today would be an important day.”
“Deneh…”
“Besides, as Ruby suggested, this is just a ‘casual reunion’, so the only rule we have to worry about is to be true to ourselves.”
“Ah…” He nods back and passes a grateful glance toward Ruby. “In any case, you have my thanks. Would you mind leaving us alone for a bit? We have much to catch up on.”
“Sure. Deneh, I’ll be in the library with a few other friends. Drop on by if you need me to take you back.”
She nods back. “Thank you for everything, Ruby.”
Ruby passes them a quick salute and she spins around and heads back out the door. If she recalls correctly, Bugenhagen said the library would be somewhere behind the inn. If she recalls another thing correctly, Red’s room should be connected directly to the inn.
She then notices that the tight little tunnel she had remember from the original game seems to be bigger this time around. There are still several miscellaneous crates and barrels lined along the corridor, but she also notices the split in the road. Interesting… It looks like Cosmo Canyon has updated since she last visited it too. The more roads, the easier it is to navigate, after all.
Ruby quickly finds her way out to the door directly to the inn, and with a casual wave of her hand to the barkeeper, she swerves on over to a door further in the back, where there hadn’t been before from the old game she played. And sure enough, through this back door, she steps into a cavernous room in the mountain, where there are a few tables set up front, but the rest of it is just bookshelves filled to the brim with books that stretch all the way back. No one seems to be out here, though, so her friends must be somewhere inside.
She cups her hands over her mouth and yells aloud, “Guys! I’m baaack!”
“Ruby!” Aerith hurries on out into the open, still holding a book in one hand. With her other, she waves to beckon her over. “You’re just in time! We’re still looking around.”
Tifa shortly pops out after her. “No wonder they say Cosmo Canyon is the birthplace of Avalanche. It’s unbelievable they have so many books kept in here.”
Ruby dashes right over and gives the ladies each a warm hug. “And where’s Cloud?”
Tifa peeks back. “Seems like he’s gone further in.”
“Further in? But there’s nothing but books. What’s he gonna do, read?”
Tifa chuckles, a little grateful that the guy isn’t within earshot. “Why don’t you go see him? I’m sure he has lots of questions for you too.”
“Sure, sure.” She passes a curious glance between the two ladies. “What are you two reading anyway?”
Aerith raises up her book to show the title. “This one’s called ‘The People of Promise’! I figured there would be something about our fellow ancestors.”
Tifa raises her own too. “And this one’s ‘A Tale of Two Planets’. Seems like there’s been an old legend passed around that people once traveled the stars to come to settle on Gaia. I’m not sure how true it is, but it’s pretty interesting, to say the least.”
“Cool, cool. Anything on Summons I could peek at?”
Aerith turns toward the back. “I think those books were around where Cloud went.”
Ruby rolls his eyes. “Of course he’d go there.”
And with a quick wave to them, she hurries on in past the first two, three rows of shelves. Swerving back out into another aisle, she scans the next section until she finds the guy standing among a small pile of books. He seems to be studying the book in his hands rather intently.
“Cloud!”
“!”
He glances over to her as she comes running over, and simply returns to the book he was viewing.
“Sheesh, you’re awfully quiet. I know this is a library, but not even a greet for your good pal?”
He doesn’t answer her right away, but upon finding the end of the particular passages he was enraptured by, he then turns to her with a solemn look of concern.
“Ruby, do you know anything about ‘Tiamat’?”
She blinks, a little taken aback. “Tiamat… I’ve heard of her before, yeah. Big, angry, scary five-headed dragon.” She would also add that Tiamat never actually showed up in the original FF7 or any of its Compilation titles, but well, that’s a little out of the loop at this point.
“I’ve been trying to find as much as I can about her, but it seems like there aren’t too many records.” He then shuts up the book in his hand and sets it aside on the pile beside him, and turns back to the increasingly empty-looking shelf before him.
“Why are you looking for Tiamat, though?”
“…” He reaches out for another book and begins to scan through it as well. But he does answer her, “I heard that name in one of those visions that came to me in a dream.”
Ruby nearly jumps. “You heard her name…? What did they say?”
“Something about the ‘Empress of Calamity’ and ‘Children of Chaos’… Rubia once mentioned something about bringing a calamity too.”
“…”
Cloud shuts up this book too after another unsuccessful probe and sets it aside. He turns back to her. “Ruby, by any chance, do you know what’s going on with Rubia? Like, how she’s connected to some ‘calamity’ or even to Tiamat?”
“…”
Ruby’s eyes have grown wide and she stares off into space in total disbelief at where things seem to be developing. Now that she really thinks it over, hadn’t she once written up a draft for her fanfic back in the day featuring Tiamat’s history? She even wanted to experiment with writing an original character that would eventually be revealed that…
“Ruby.” Cloud’s sharp tone snaps her out of her thoughts again. “I know you’ve been trying to be honest with me, but do you think there’s something that you’ve forgotten about?”
“…”
He’s getting a little impatient with her, but keeps his tone level. “Hey… What are you thinking about right now?”
Ruby still doesn’t answer. Now that the initial shock and disbelief has begun to fade, her face grows dark. Her lips begin to tremble, a chill runs through her spine, and she covers her mouth with a hand as a pained expression comes over her.
Catching on that she’s just hit a huge revelation, his voice goes a little softer. “…Ruby?”
Her eyes begin to water as a long latent fear returns to creep over her. In a dreading whisper, she asks herself, “…What have I done?”
Notes:
This somehow became a ship chapter and a chapter about cats, but ahem, KITTY FIANCES. Guess who's been rewatching The Lion King movies? Lol.
Hidden for convenience
- Deneh has only ever appeared in one short chapter in Before Crisis and is never mentioned again. This chapter is a tribute to her and a fix-it fic because I don't accept the dumb reason in canon why she never appeared anywhere else.
- The "sister village to the east" is a headcanon of mine. It was never mentioned exactly where Deneh has been waiting, only that she was expected to stay at the altar for some more years. I have yet to come up with a proper name for it, though. Maybe if I ever feel the need to name it...
- I updated Cosmo Canyon to hold a huge library of archives because it just makes sense that there would be one. I hope to see a similar kind of expansion in Rebirth when we get there, but eh, it's no prob if they don't and keep things faithful to the OG.
- The book titles Aerith and Tifa bring up are totally made up, lol. For Tifa's book, I thought it neat to reference an old fan theory about how VII and X may actually share a universe. There was also a cameo reference to a character in X in Remake, so maybe it is canon after all?
- This version of Tiamat I'm writing into my fanlore is based on the Homebrew of D&D 3rd ed. The D&D fans out there can probably tell from a few details in the flashback vision in Chapter 21.
Chapter 28: Bearing the Cross
Notes:
Outdated A/N
6/7/23 edit: Hey, all. Sorry to say I've been busy this week with doctor appointments since my last hospital visit and some extreme writer's block too, so the next chapter will be delayed until next week. Maybe I can actually return to my regular upload schedule on Wednesdays, lol.
6/14/23 edit: I have not returned to my Wednesday uploads, sorry. :( Writer's block hit me bad this time as I've been scrambling to redirect the course if the current plotlines (there are so many, lol), but progress is going smoothly now. I expect it to be done by Friday.
Chapter Text
Ruby suddenly dropped to the floor on all fours, her eyes hallowed and empty, as if she had just stumbled upon a revelation that shook her to her core. Disturbed, Cloud helped her back up, but she hung limply in his grasp.
“Hey, what’s wrong!? What did you remember?”
She didn’t answer right away, but after a moment of silence, she muttered just audibly, “…I’m an awful mom.”
“…What?” When she didn’t respond, he tried to ask again, “What are you talking about? You have a kid?”
She buried her face in her hands with a whine. “No… that’s the problem. She’s not MY kid anymore…”
“…” He needed a moment to even process what she just said. “Who?”
“Rubia… I’m sorry.”
He didn’t quite expect that answer, but on second thought, he probably should have. “…Wait. But isn’t she your past self? How does that make her your ‘kid’?”
But Ruby refused to elaborate. She felt quite exhausted and just wanted to turn in for the night.
~
Cloud stirs with a sleepy groan to the sound of rapping on his door, but he forces himself to sit up at least. Ruby’s outburst from last night had kept him up late and it still sits with him even now. What the heck did she mean? It just sounds like a bunch of nonsense, but whatever she remembered seems to have affected her pretty deeply. She didn’t even say more than a “Good night” to Aerith and Tifa as she left the library. Just when they thought they were coming around to discovering the truth, what they learned has just led them on a wild goose chase after more questions that don’t have answers.
He goes to open the door, and to his surprise, he finds both Tifa and Aerith who have come to wake him up.
“Morning, Cloud!” Aerith pipes up with her usual cheer. “Had a good rest?”
“Huh?” He blinks drowsily. “Oh. Uh, yeah…”
Tifa nods. “That’s good to hear. After what happened last night, we were hoping that everything was still okay with you guys.”
“…” He makes a perplexed glance aside. “I still have no idea what was going on with her.”
“Just to be sure… you guys didn’t have any sort of fight, right?”
“Right. You asked me that before too.”
She makes an awkward smile. “Right. Just checking.”
“She actually got up earlier than any of us this time,” Aerith adds, “By the time Tifa and I went to check on her, she was already gone.”
“Gone?” Now he finally snaps fully awake. “Wait. Where’d she go?”
“Out of town. She told the barkeeper that she had an ‘errand’ and she’d be back soon.”
He frowns. “She always says that, though. Did she really just leave on her own?”
Tifa makes her own apprehensive frown. “Seems so… but according to the townspeople, they say she left to take Red’s friend back to her village. So if that’s all, then she should be.”
“…Let’s hope that’s all, then.”
“Yeah…”
“Anyway, we have to wait for her so we can go to Nibelheim together, right?” Aerith suggests, “Then, let’s go get a bite to eat! We’ll be ready when she’s back.”
The three of them stop downstairs in the pub, which is now mostly empty once again. Apparently, Barret’s gone off again in search of more elders to talk to, and Jessie went outside to meet with a local mechanic to discuss something about “tech stuff”. Biggs was pulled away by a female resident who needed help looking for some kids that had run off on their own, while Wedge volunteered to help the kitchen look for ingredients they need restocking. Yuffie’s also gone, but no one seems to know where she’s disappeared to. And as usual, Sonon is still resting in his own room, undisturbed for as long as most of them have known him. While Tifa orders some quick grub, Aerith pulls Cloud aside to a table with some questions on mind.
“So what happened last night? Did you guys find anything?” she asks.
“…” He crosses his arms as he tries to recall. “Not much. I once heard about this monster called ‘Tiamat’, and I think she has some kind of connection to Rubia, but I don’t know anything else. So I looked around, but all I could find were just a couple references mentioning her while looking up some info on Bahamut.”
Tifa now joins them while Aerith asks again.
“What did they say?”
“That she was once Bahamut’s greatest rival, but he defeated her and she disappeared, and there’s been no sign of her since.”
“Oh.”
“When I asked her, Ruby reacted like she might know something.” He sighs. “But she clammed up just as I was trying to get her to spill. She had this horrified look on her face and said something about being an ‘awful mom’.”
The ladies blink and exchange looks in surprise. “Um, mom? Does Ruby have a child?” Tifa then asks.
“I dunno. The ‘kid’ she was talking about was Rubia.”
“Rubia? I thought she was her past self, though?”
He shrugs. “I dunno. She wasn’t making any sense to me either.”
Aerith strikes her own thinking pose. “Hmm… Oh, wait!” She smiles as she explains, “I think Ruby might have mentioned it to me before.”
“Huh?”
“W-what? She really is a mom!?” Tifa gasps.
Aerith shakes her head. “Not literally. But Ruby’s been trying to find some way to contact Rubia, and she once was able to reach out to her.”
Cloud snaps to full attention. “What the? But she always told me she couldn’t…”
She blinks. “Oh. Well, I guess it’s more like she tried to? But Rubia didn’t respond.”
“Oh.” He settles back down. “That makes sense.”
“Instead, Ruby heard her crying like a little kid. So I think that’s what she means by being a ‘mom’.”
“She heard crying?”
“Like a little kid…?” Tifa asks as well.
Aerith nods. “Seems so.” She then makes a sympathetic look. “Poor Rubia is still down there somewhere, suffering all this time. She might be looking for someone to turn to, but doesn’t know who…”
Cloud passes a thoughtful glance aside, having been reminded of what Ruby had told him before. It sure is strange how Rubia would choose to involve him in matters that don’t seem to have anything to do with him. But she did so for a reason. Maybe Ruby was onto something with her theory about Rubia’s “partner” in the past. She might be reaching out to different people in search for where that partner could have reincarnated or something. But if that’s true, it puts her in serious danger. Whatever Sephiroth has been planning, he probably wants to use Rubia somehow.
The barkeeper calls out, announcing that their food is ready, and Tifa goes to fetch it. Aerith still looks lost in thought as if making a serious effort in coming up with ideas. And Cloud rubs his head, unsure of whether he should bring that up now, or wait until they’ve learned more before coming to conclusions. Maybe they can settle it after Ruby visits the mansion…
It’s a little while later when some townspeople outside notice the return of the great airship from before, and it hovers over the town with an overcast shadow. Though some of the younger kids are frightened, others are intrigued and run on out to see who’s arrived.
A long rope ladder drops down from the gondola, and Ruby drops all the way down without even using it. She slows her descent with a last-minute cast of Float and disables it to meet the ground. Though the townsfolk are ready to welcome her back, she zips past everyone and barges right into Starlet Pub.
“Guys! I’m back!”
“Oh! Ruby?” Tifa answers, a little startled.
“Cuz! Welcome back!” Aerith waves to her.
But rather than return the greetings, Ruby snatches up the entire tray of food and rushes back out with it, shouting along the way, “Come on! The ship’s here! Let’s go! Go, go! Cid’s on my ass…!”
The three watch her disappear out the door again as quickly as she’d come in. After an awkward silence, Tifa lets out a sigh, Aerith giggles, and Cloud scowls. He didn’t even get a single bite in. Well, it seems like they’re taking it to go.
~
It’s a quick trip aboard the Highwind to the quiet town up north. As usual, Cid elects to stay and stand guard while the rest get ready to head down. They have a clear view of the town just ahead as they step out on the gondola.
“Well, this is it…” Tifa mutters, putting on her battle-ready gloves. “Nibelheim.”
Aerith grips her trusty staff in both hands, a little anxious with anticipation. “Who knows what we’ll be meeting here…?”
Cloud nods back. “We’d best be prepared. Shinra had the town rebuilt, so we can expect their sympathizers everywhere. And who knows what else is waiting for us in that mansion…”
“Don’t worry! We’ve got Ruby for just about anything, and if she has a bad run-in with a certain someone, we’ll be there to back her up! Right, Cuz?”
“Right.” Ruby is busy shuffling through her bag and reorganizing their inventory.
“By the way, what took you so long to get back?” Cloud asks her, peeking over her shoulder. “Didn’t you just need to go and drop off Red’s friend?”
“Yeah, but when we arrived at the village, I was in my dragon form and startled everyone there. Deneh introduced me, and before I knew it, I was hounded by people asking me about the Moon Spirit legend and even foisting gifts on me.” With a quick job done, she slings the bag over her shoulder.
“Gifts?”
Ruby raises her fingers as she counts them out. “15 Potions, 6 Hi-Potions, 1 Elixir, 3 Phoenix Downs, 1 Dream Powder, 1 Mute Mask, 1 Loco Weed, 1 Vagyrisk Claw – nice – and this home-made dreamcatcher, which I’m not really sure what I’m gonna use it for.” She whips out the last thing from her bag too.
“…”
“Anyone else want it?”
Aerith raises a hand. “I’ll have it!”
“No prob, Cuz.”
Tifa gives Aerith a curious look. “A dreamcatcher? Is it like a kind of good luck charm, or something?”
She shrugs. “I think it’s supposed to be able to keep out bad spirits or so?”
Cloud snorts. “Then Ruby should keep it. She’s got the worst of them hounding her.”
She slips the dreamcatcher into a pocket in her jacket. “Well, it ought to be fine if we stick with her.”
“In that case… we’d better hurry.”
“Hm? What’s up?”
Cloud points out to the dry plains ahead of them, where Ruby is already running across, headed right for their destination. “She’s going.”
“Cloud! Don’t just stand there! Let’s go!” Tifa exclaims in a panic.
With Ruby clearing the path of any resistance whatsoever for them, the four of them shortly arrive in town. As she had described, everything’s just as how Cloud and Tifa remember. All the tall, sharp-looking houses lined up along the open cobblestone streets, the huge water tower at the center, and a still silence that permeates through every building, only occasionally broken by the sounds of the townspeople minding their own business and the muffled noise of TVs. Most people are hiding in their homes as expected. They must have heard the sound of the airship approaching… or perhaps, it’s just like this town to tread on the cautious side no matter what.
“So this is Nibelheim?” Aerith asks. “It’s very… quiet, but quaint. It’s kinda nice, actually.”
“Yeah…” Tifa answers, but then quickly adds, “Well, it used to be. Now it just feels a little creepy.”
“Ah.” Aerith looks around and nods. “Because it’s not supposed to be here, huh?”
Cloud remains silent, his eyes fixated at a few of the houses down a certain street. He then turns back to the others. “We should take a look around and get some answers.”
Despite the suspicious tension in the air, Ruby seems totally unaffected by any of it. “And while you’re doing that, I’ll be rounding up some cool items! Just leave it to me!”
“Wh- Hey!”
Ruby sprints off for the inn before he can stop her. He groans, but lets her go.
“Cloud? Where should we start looking?” Tifa asks.
He sighs and folds his arms as he thinks it over. “Anywhere would work, but as Ruby said, the people around town should be Shinra plants. They probably won’t say anything about what happened 5 years ago.”
“Yeah… but I think it’s still worth looking around and seeing if there’s anyone left that we can recognize.”
He lowers his arms. “That was what I was thinking.”
But even before they step foot in the inn, Ruby hops back out and guns for the General Store up north next. Shaking his head, Cloud ignores her and proceeds ahead.
The inn is exactly how it’s always been, from the front desk at the entrance to the boiler room in the back, to the stairs to the right that leads to the rooms on the next floor… Even the placement of décor by the entrance is exactly the same. Even when they more or less expected it, it’s still unnerving to see it all in person.
Of course, the innkeeper is a total stranger. He bears an uncanny smile that at first seems normal, but probably isn’t quite genuine. “Hi, welcome to Nibel Inn. What can I do for you?”
Cloud gets right to the point. “This town was supposed to have burnt down five years ago. What’s going on here?”
In an instant, the innkeeper’s façade cracks and his tone changes for the defensive. “Excuse me, sir! Please don’t say such awful things. I was born and raised in this town and what you say never happened.”
He returns him a glare. “Well, I was too, and I’ve never seen you before.”
The stranger shakes his head. “Sir, it’s not nice to lie.”
“He’s not lying.” Tifa now steps up too. “I’m from this town too and was there to see it all happen.”
He lets off a sigh. “With all due respect, sir and ma’am… you’ve just arrived in town and are making such outlandish claims. If you’re going to keep this up, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“…”
Clearly, this discussion isn’t going anywhere. They relent and take their leave with Aerith, returning outside to chat in private.
Aerith sighs. “No luck, huh…”
Tifa nods. “It’s just as Ruby said. Total denial.”
Cloud folds his arms as he thinks it over. “If everyone’s just going to be like this, maybe we should just narrow our search.”
In the distance, they still catch sight of Ruby rushing out of a different house into another one.
“Then,” Aerith pipes up with a smile, “Why don’t we check out your houses?”
“Huh?”
“Maybe there may be some clues left behind there?”
Cloud strikes a thinking pose. “Not sure about that. Both our houses were burned down too. If there’s anything left, people from Shinra probably left it, so we can’t trust ’em.”
“Well, you never know. It doesn’t hurt to try, right?”
“I guess…”
She looks around. “So, where are they?”
“It’s down this way. Come on.”
But just as they head down the other street on the eastern side, Ruby suddenly races on by and barges into the house next door to Tifa’s place.
“Cuz sure is busy.”
Cloud scowls. “Ignore her. She’s not important.”
They continue along to Tifa’s house, and Tifa nervously gives the door a knock. There’s no response, though.
“Is no one home?” Aerith asks, peeking through the windows, but doesn’t get a good look thanks to the curtains blocking some of the view.
“Seems like it?” Tifa hesitates, but tries the door and finds it locked. “Maybe we should come back later…”
“Then, let’s check out Cloud’s house.”
For some reason, Cloud starts to get a bad feeling as they approach his place next door. He gives the door a knock. There seems to be a shuffling from inside, indicating that someone is in. But when the door opens, he meets with a completely different face. The female stranger looks to be middle-aged and dons a frilly dress and apron, but is also a little on the chubbier side and looks nothing like his own mother. Well, of course she wouldn’t be…
“Yes? Who are you and what do you want?”
Cloud legitimately looks disappointed anyway. “Sorry to bother, ma’am, but do you have any history with this house?”
“What? Of course I do! I’ve always lived here!”
“…”
She folds her arms with an almost threatening look. “What’s that look, sonny? You got a problem?”
“…Nope.” He steps away and the woman shuts her door with a thud.
Aerith huffs, putting her hands to her hips. “What a rude woman! She’s nothing like I imagined.”
“What did you imagine?”
“I dunno. Maybe someone who could have at least acted like your mom?”
He cringes a little. “That’d be even worse. The last thing I’d need is some random woman pretending to be my mom…”
Just then, they hear the sound of something clinking against metal nearby. They turn to find Ruby at the door to Tifa’s house, and it seems like she just broke the lock. She waves to them to beckon them on over and heads in. He exchanges wary glances with the other two, and they proceed inside.
Tifa grows more and more anxious as she looks around. It’s not just that the general layout of the building is the same. All the furniture and decorations, the mounted clocks and even the ill-will-repelling charms that her mother used to hang around the home have all been preserved to nigh perfection. Of course, they don’t have much meaning anymore as shallow replicas like this.
Aerith calls out softly, “Sorry to intrude…?”
To their shock and disturbance, they hear some kind of soft moaning off to the side. Tifa lets out an audible gasp. A black cloaked figure quite like the people they’ve seen around Midgar is sitting at the foot of the stairs and moaning unintelligibly. She goes closer to check, but the man seems to be a total stranger. She also spots the numbered tattoo on his arm.
“…Re…union… Must… go to… Reunion…”
“Number 5… It’s just like the people we saw in the slums,” she remarks with a look of pity, letting the man go.
But it’s not only this guy. While Ruby quickly disappears into the kitchen and just as quickly reappears to head up the stairs without a word, Aerith stops by there too and also finds another of them in the kitchen. This one’s hunched over by the table, but isn’t even taking a seat.
“…Time… The time… is near…”
She pulls aside the seat to help him sit down, but he doesn’t even move to take her offer. Sad to be rejected, she scoots the chair back in place. Before she leaves, though, she takes a curious peek at the numbered tattoo showing through the man’s sleeve.
“…Number 11.”
When she comes back out, she notices Cloud is gone. Tifa mentions that he went upstairs after Ruby, and they follow suit as well. They find him with yet another cloaked man. This one’s standing by the window in Tifa’s parents’ bedroom, and disturbingly, he keeps uttering the same words over and over.
“…Sephi…roth… Great Sephiroth…”
“This one’s number 4.” Cloud blinks, noticing something in the man’s grasp. “Hm? Are these gloves?” As the other two come by, he turns and offers them. “Tifa, this is for you.”
“Huh? Oh.” She accepts the pair, realizing they fit her perfectly. The Platinum Fist has been acquired. Still, she has to ask, “But why would he have a weapon for me?”
“Who knows. You recognize any of them?”
She shakes her head. “No. Not at all. Whatever they’ve been through, they don’t seem to have any sort of identity anymore…”
Suddenly, a familiar voice interrupts them. “…All victims of the Jenova Project.”
“!”
They whip around to find Ruby coming back out from Tifa’s room. But to their surprise, where she previously had a silly grin on her face, she now looks serious for once.
“Done collecting stuff?” Cloud asks.
“Not quite. There are a few more things I want to find in Tifa’s room, but I’d like you all to come with me.” She turns to the lady in question. “Do you mind?”
She shakes her head, but asks her another question, “What did you mean by ‘victims’?”
But Ruby simply puts a finger to her lips and instead beckons them along as she steps into the other bedroom. Despite it being her old room, Tifa feels even less welcome in here, realizing that everything she remembers of the place is right here like where she had left it. Even the old piano – well, actually, it’s probably not that old, is it? – is sitting in the back of the room.
Ruby goes ahead and takes a seat there, uncovers the piano’s lid, and starts pressing into the keys to bring the dusty instrument back to life. While Cloud means to ask her what she’s doing, Tifa stops him and she begins to play a familiar tune.
Do – Re – Mi – Ti – La… Do – Re – Mi – So – Fa – Do – Re – Do…
As she does, Ruby not only recalls her childhood memories of hitting certain buttons to play this song in the old game, but also other less wholesome childhood memories where she was put through a harsh regiment of piano lessons since young that was forced upon her by her parents. Nonetheless, through rainy and sunny days, she did end up honing her skills, and this song in particular is one that she would have practiced to no end because it’s so close to her heart.
With a little flourish at the end, she ends the song. She also starts flipping through the sheet music out of curiosity, and as it would happen, a certain extra page falls out from the booklet. But this one isn’t sheet music; it’s a letter. At a single glance, she remembers who had penned this letter.
“Tifa.”
“Huh?”
She passes the letter to her. “Take a look.”
“A… letter?”
“What’s it say?” Aerith asks curiously.
“‘Tifa, what’s happened to this town? Was it all an illusion, or just a dream? No, it was neither…’”
As Tifa holds the paper in hand, her eyes drift over the familiar handwriting. And like a bolt of lightning, a revelation comes to her. She reads through the words in their entirety, absorbing every word with careful deliberation, and as she reaches the end, her lips start to quaver a little. And before even she knows it, her eyes have become a little wet.
“‘…But I hope you continue to sharpen your skills and remember what I taught you. To my most precious student, From Zangan.’”
Cloud’s eyes widen too. “The old master…”
Even Aerith looks a little emotional hearing it all. “He’s been thinking about you all this time.”
Tifa wipes her tears clean. “Looks like it… but what’s this about a gift?”
“I got it.” Ruby raises an old training manual. The cover looks a little scratched up with age, but on it are the words “Final Heaven”.
“Oh, what’s that?” Aerith asks.
Tifa blinks in surprise. “Wait… Isn’t that the secret technique that Zangan once told me about…?”
Ruby nods back, but puts it away into her bag. “I hope you don’t mind if I hold onto it for now, though. It may be a little too early to be taking this on.”
“Ah… Alright.”
Cloud raises an eyebrow. “You knew where that was?”
Ruby then gets up from her seat and begins to check around the piano. “Of course, there are many things I know by heart. Now where is… Ah-ha!” She digs behind the piano where many strings are visible and even whips out a hidden Elemental materia.
“…”
Finally, she leaves the piano alone and sets the lid back in place. She then offers Tifa a smile. “Thanks for letting me play. I think we’ve spent enough time around town.”
“Ready to stop by the mansion?” Aerith asks with her own smile.
“Yeah.” She turns back to Tifa and Cloud with an assuring nod. “If you want to know more about the Jenova Project. All the answers will be there in the basement.”
Cloud’s attention has been got. “Alright, then. Let’s go.”
Ruby nods back with a confident smirk. “Ladies and gentleman, the mission is back on.”
~
The Shinra Mansion sits up north of the town, separated from the rest by a prestigious-looking gate. It’s been long abandoned by its former residents, and yet no one before or after the infamous incident would dare to trespass on its grounds. It’s long been said that the place is actually cursed. After all, it has a long history of seeing people mysteriously vanish after crossing through those doors – be it the occasional nosy townsfolk who have no business getting involved, or even a certain Turk who had once come to investigate on his own – or even worse, come back out without sound mind.
And despite everything, Ruby casually pushes aside the old creaking gate and runs headfirst into those double doors without a hint of hesitation or apprehension. The rest of her friends trail behind to at least take in the sights and worry amongst themselves in her stead.
Tifa takes a deep breath and lets it out. “The old Shinra Mansion… Even though it’s still daytime, everything about this place is a little creepy.”
“Well, it does look pretty old,” Aerith comments.
“Um… actually, it’s more about how the place has always been said to be haunted. People disappearing without a trace… or coming back out not quite right in the head…”
“Aw, it’ll be fine! Ruby just ran in, so even if it is haunted or whatever, she’ll clear the way, no problem. We got nothing to worry about.”
“I guess so…”
Cloud doesn’t look so reassured, though. “But she has a bad habit of running off and we lose sight of her. In fact…” He glances toward the doors up ahead of the footpath. “With how fast she ran in, we might have just lost her again.”
“C-Cloud! Don’t jinx it!” Tifa pleads.
“Uh… sorry.” He clears his throat. “Anyway, let’s just get this over with. The sooner we find what we need, the sooner we can leave.”
The trio finally head in, with Cloud taking the lead and the two ladies following closely behind. The light from outside pours in through the many frosted windows in the back, giving the parlor an overall faded glow, but there are many more corners here and there that are thus cast in shadow. The place has certainly seen better days. It was already old enough from five years ago, but it definitely hasn’t been getting any refurbishments either. There are as many cobwebs as there are cracks in the flooring and peeling of the wallpapers. A general haze besets the place despite the light, and despite that there is no smoke to be had in here. And the ugliest truth of all is the fact that Ruby has indeed disappeared and is nowhere to be seen.
Cloud sighs. “…Of course. Where’d she go?”
“Ruby?” Aerith calls out, “Cuz! Where are you?”
“Ruby, please…” Tifa does likewise in a more fearful tone. “Don’t leave us alone like this…”
But to their collective disappointment and dismay, Ruby doesn’t answer.
He grunts, feeling a little irked now. “She wanted to come here in the first place! Why is she running off!?”
“Um… N-no pressure or anything, Cloud, but maybe you should lead us around,” Tifa insists.
“Yeah. You’re the one who knows where to go, after all,” Aerith reminds him.
“…”
As much as he’d hate to be stuck in front in a place like this, Cloud has no choice but to suck it up. While it’s true he’s the only one of the three who still remembers how to navigate it and would know where to go to reach the basement they seek, but those memories were from a time when he didn’t have to worry about anything other than Sephiroth’s growing disillusionment. Now, the atmosphere in this building is just a little different, like an invisible yet weighty curtain that has been draped over the scene, hiding any other unseen dangers that may be lurking about.
“Well, it’s not too far to reach the basement. Now if only that damn brat would behave and stick with us for once…”
No sooner than the trio had stepped toward the stairs up in front, they hear a strangely echoing sound of laughter. Tifa jumps and strikes a battle stance. Cloud reaches for his sword, and Aerith whips out her staff just in case.
“What was that?” Tifa asks, looking around frantically.
“Didn’t sound like Ruby…” Cloud replies warily.
“…Huh.” Aerith blinks curiously. “Why does it sound like kids?”
“Huh?” They both turn to her.
“I’m not sure, but I think I made out a voice that was saying ‘Let’s play!’ And it was pretty high-pitched too.”
“…” Tifa frowns. “Aerith, please, this is no time for jokes.”
“I’m not joking…?”
Then, there’s the creak of a door to their left as it swings open, but no one comes out from there. Suddenly, it feels like there’s some sort of draft, but the windows are all closed and it didn’t seem like the wind came from behind them. And just as the silence seems to return, suddenly the doors behind them shut hard as if someone had just slammed it.
“…Couldn’t you have said you were so I’d feel better?” Tifa whines.
“Oh… sorry.”
Suddenly, a horrible screech in the air rings out, followed by the deep growling of a wild beast and the snapping of jaws. Cloud is ready to draw his sword when he realizes Tifa is now clinging to his arm and kinda getting in the way.
“Um… Ruby?” Aerith asks, now getting a little worried.
“W-was that Ruby?” Tifa asks nervously.
“It could be…” Cloud answers, but definitely isn’t sure.
They all look around and wait for a response, but nothing comes. Taking a few steps backward, Cloud treads closer to the stairwell, hoping they can just get away before anything else jumps them. Once he reaches it, he whips around to head up, but out of nowhere he nearly runs into someone waiting on the steps.
“Whoa!?” He jumps back with a panicked gasp, but he then gets mad. “Ruby!”
But for some strange reason, Ruby doesn’t say a word. She simply smiles back with an empty-looking expression.
“Quit it with the practical jokes. We got a mission to do here, so let’s go!”
“Huh?” Aerith and Tifa turn to look, but then get confused. “Uh, Cloud, who are you talking to?”
“Huh?” He turns back to them, looking lost. “What do you mean? She’s right here…”
Now the girls are worried and begin to back off.
He whips back around, and “Ruby” still stands before him. But now there’s a warped grin on her face and before he knows it, her smile starts to stretch past her mouth, cracking along the sides of her cheeks like stitches being unlatched. Now he panics too and jumps back to draw his sword. Suddenly, her entire face starts to melt and warps into a dirty cloth rag as she lets out a terrifying screech as she pounces at him.
Boom. Suddenly the ghost is blasted with a Fire spell, and he turns to see Aerith already charging up another cast.
“Cloud! Get back!”
“Thanks!”
But the ghost isn’t alone. Tifa is spooked by another floating cloth popping out from behind her, and she freaks, throwing a fist in its face, but it quickly evades the strike. Aerith is promptly interrupted from casting when yet another invisible one howls right in her face and she has to jump back too. And one more creeps up behind Cloud with nothing but a floating mouth in a wide grin of very sharp teeth, to which he tries to hack away, but it avoids him too.
Now the trio are swarmed by all four specters that finally phase entirely into view, looking like floating pumpkin heads with white cloths dangling beneath them. Dorky Faces. They all start to cackle together and dance around the party. Now that they’re all quite pissed off, the party gather with their backs to each other and launch their counterattack.
Slash. Crack. Fwoom. While the ghosts certainly don’t like getting hit, they only continue to laugh in the faces of their adversaries even as they are, as if they don’t have any other emotion to express themselves. With every hit they take, they vanish, only to reappear again elsewhere. And this frustrating process goes on for a little while until the ghosts suddenly fly up high to avoid being hit anymore.
But they aren’t running away. Now howling and screeching in cacophony, the Dorky Faces altogether spew a deep purplish gas upon their targets. Catching on that it’s bad news, the trio leap out of the way, but the gas only keeps spreading and covering the entire lobby, cloaking it in a dense, noxious fog.
Cloud covers his face to stop himself from breathing any of it in, but he can’t hold his breath for too long. But he’s already lost sight of the ghosts. And before he knows it, he’s nearly hit by a rogue Fire spell, but dodges out of the way just in time. He rolls to a corner of the room where the gas hasn’t reached yet and whirls his blade to blow away some of the gas. And then Tifa appears as the gas dissipates.
“Tifa!”
But she doesn’t respond and is still holding both hands over her own face. He dashes over to her to help pull her out of the way. But as soon as he grabs a hold of her, she knocks him back and starts throwing hands.
“!?”
He avoids a few of her wild thrashes and blocks others with the flat side of his sword. And now he notices that Tifa’s eyes seem a little hazed over, and he realizes what’s happened. Confusion – not in general, the status condition. Tifa has no idea what she’s hitting.
Grunting in frustration, he backs off and tries to avoid her, and she keeps swinging wildly in a random direction. And just as he’s trying to figure out how to snap her out of it, he’s again nearly hit by another Fire. Crap. Aerith was casting the stuff. She might have also been hit by the status. Where’s Ruby when you need her, dammit!?
But he catches the sound of laughter nearby and without even looking that way, he lets fly a great slash in that direction. Suddenly, the laughter is cut off with a high-pitched wail. Huh, that actually worked. And now he gets an idea.
He shuts his eyes and tries to focus on the sounds of the battlefield. When he even so gets a whiff of the noxious gas, he whirls his blade around him to scatter the gas once more. And in a moment of clarity, he hears the sounds of the ghosts’s cackling. These guys really can’t shut up, can they? Sucks to be them.
Without even opening his eyes, he hacks and slashes away in those directions, and as he suspected, he lands multiple hits. These guys don’t seem to vanish as long as he isn’t looking at them. They continue to howl and screech as they’re hit, and frankly he’s had enough of all the noise. Even just the cackling seems to have brought him to his Limit. Taking one last whirl of his blade, he slides it back behind him and unleashes a torrential wind that blasts all four of the ghosts away at once. Some of them disappear in an instant as they hit the high ceiling; others drop back down and flatten into nothingness. And with that, the entire battlefield is cleared of that annoying gas.
“Tifa! Aerith! You guys okay?”
Finally, the ladies snap out of it and come to their senses. “Cloud?”
Tifa holds her dizzy head for a moment. “What happened? I just blanked out for a while…”
Aerith shakes her head and blinks a few times, still gripping her staff close. “I feel a little tired all of a sudden…”
He lets off a relieved sigh and returns his blade to his back. They’re gonna be fine. To be honest, he’s surprised that he was able to clean up the battle by himself and without any interference from Ruby this time. Well, it’s not that he was surprised by his own skills; just that he was fully expecting her to pop in at the last minute and save them again. So where the heck is she?
“Ruby!” Aerith calls out, waving to the stairs.
“Ruby!?” Tifa cries with a wave of relief.
“!” Cloud whips back around too.
Sure enough, Ruby looks normal again and is slowly walking down the stairs, though her attention is fixated on a pair of old, browned papers in her hands. Well, this one at least seems normal… but something about her really, really ticks him off too. Not taking any chances, he draws his sword again and charges at her with a full swing.
“Cloud!?”
“Wait! That’s…”
Before he can land the hit, Ruby catches the base of his sword’s edge with the side of her icy gauntlet and easily holds him back. Now her attention leaves the page and she gives him an indignant stare.
“The hell are you doing? Battle’s over.”
“The hell are YOU doing!? Where were you!?” he snaps back in a fury as he backs off again.
“Ah…” She smirks and flips the paper in her hand around. It seems to be a letter of sorts, but the last few lines have scratch marks where Ruby dug out thin holes in the shape of check marks. “Scavenger hunting.”
He stops in the middle of returning his blade and stares back. “What?”
“I solved the code to the safe on the second floor~!” she replies happily, “Now we can get back to business!”
“…” Cloud feels like a nerve in his head just popped. Now trembling with rage, he balls up a fist. “Ruby…”
She prances off back up the stairs to escape his wrath, and Tifa and Aerith come up to comfort him.
“Cloud, don’t worry about it. I’m glad we were able to hold our own,” Tifa offers, adding with a shy smile, “even if you did most of the work.”
“Yeah! You were amazing there, Cloud!” Aerith agrees. “You really saved us!”
“…” As if their words had a soothing effect, he manages to hold back his rage and lets off a deep sigh. “Let’s go after her.”
He starts up the stairs after Ruby and the ladies follow close, keeping an eye out for any other potential threats, though the sights seem clear for now. They shortly find the gal in question already at the safe, which is absolutely gargantuan. Whatever it is that she’s looking for, it had better be worth the time she spent running around and not helping them.
As Ruby carefully turns the dial on the lock, Cloud approaches her. “Hey.”
“Hm?”
“So… what’s in the safe?”
“Some cool things.”
“Uh-huh. Are they helpful?”
“Yes. Very.”
“…”
With one last tic, she hears the lock click open. She turns back to him with a coy smile. “Stand back. There’s a trap waiting inside for us.”
“It’s not a problem since you’re here…” But he obliges anyway.
She tosses aside the papers and pries open the door to the safe, shoving it aside. The rest of them are a little taken aback by what comes into view, though Ruby remains unfazed as always. Inside seems to be a huge tank holding what appears to be a cryogenically preserved monster. It’s a very strange one that seems to be split in half down the middle, where one side is a big, bulky purple body with lanky limbs and sharp claws, and the other is a slightly shorter red and yellow mass of tentacles. Both sides share a massive set of eyes and an even bigger toothy mouth. But in the meantime, it seems to be immobile.
Ruby frowns. She can see there’s some space behind the tank, but the dang thing is in the way. Nonetheless, with an incredibly limber body, she slides right past through the gap and sneaks in to investigate. Meanwhile, Cloud picks up the papers she dropped and the other two join him to take a look.
“What is that paper anyway?” Tifa asks.
“She said she was solving the code to this safe, but…” As he glances over the letter, his eyes widen as he realizes who had written it.
“What’s up? Do you recognize it?” Aerith asks too.
“Yeah…” He frowns, having been reminded of the distasteful author who penned it. “This is Professor Hojo’s writing.”
“Hojo!?” She gasps.
“What’s it say?” Tifa asks again, growing warier.
Cloud gives a quick summary of it: “He mentions someone from the Turks. Apparently put him through some experiments too and locked him away in the basement. And the other page is some kind of puzzle to solve the safe’s code, looks like.” He then frowns. “Of course Ruby would want to play along.”
“One of the Turks?” Tifa turns to Aerith. “Do you know who it could be?”
Aerith thinks it over, but then shakes her head. “I don’t know. This letter looks really old, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s talking about someone from long ago.”
Cloud casually tosses the papers aside as well. “But I bet it’s someone Ruby would know.”
Tifa gives him a curious look. “Really? I mean, she does seem to know a lot, but why would she be interested in finding someone like this?”
Aerith thinks it over too. “Maybe he’s actually hiding some kind of secret?”
“Secret…” Tifa then looks up toward the giant tank. “Like, something that might involve hidden experiments?”
“Hmm…”
But as the three take a moment of silence to speculate over possibilities, they’re shortly interrupted by some sort of sound like the release of pressure. Then, alarmingly it’s followed by the sound of whirring machinery and before they can do anything about it, the tank before them begins to heat up and thaw what’s inside.
“Get back!” Cloud warns.
“What about Ruby?” Aerith asks. “She’s still inside!”
“She’ll be fine! Move!”
The monster then begins to stir from its frozen slumber – first from just a few twitches of its fingers and tentacles, and then to the flickering of its monstrous eyes. It snarls as it wakes up and begins to thrash at the door that keeps it in. And to the trio’s horror, the monster manages to crush its way through the door, knocking it ajar. It finally stomps out and throws up its arms – or whatever is the equivalent – and lets out a mighty roar. Lost Number has awakened.
Despite its awkward design, the monster is surprisingly fast and immediately swipes and stomps at its targets, who scatter and get into battle positions. However, it’s not just the purple side that’s aggressive; the reddish side flails its tentacles about in the air and flicks them toward the party. Suddenly, a series of Thundaras strike around where they had been standing.
“It’s got brute strength AND powerful magic!? What is this thing!?” Tifa exclaims.
“Nothing good. Keep moving!” Cloud barks back.
“Uh… Eep!” Aerith tries her best to run around, but she is frequently stopped and nearly bombarded by rampant Thundaras. “Eeek!” she cries upon tripping over herself as she’s nearly struck by one.
“Aerith!”
Cloud and Tifa rush in together to slam the reddish side with blows, but the monster simply pivots aside to avoid the worst thrashing and counterattacks with claws from the purple side. They dodge again, but the monster’s hand easily crushes into the floor. There are already singe marks and broken boards all over the place. At this rate, the entire floor might just give way.
Meanwhile, Ruby pops back out from the depths of the safe with her usual cheer. “Found ’em! Now we can get-”
With another flick of its tentacles, Lost Number promptly seizes the door and slams it back shut. The safe automatically locks itself back up with a loud click.
“Ruby!” Tifa gasps in horror.
“Uh-oh,” Aerith gulps.
“That dumbass…” Cloud groans.
He dashes on over to try to get it open again, but Lost Number is a little more clever than it seems at first glance. Catching onto his intentions, the monster stomps in the way and thrashes. Even when blocking the swipe, Cloud feels like he’s just been slammed by a brick wall and is flung back.
“Cloud!”
He lands on his feet with a grunt, but switches stances as another blow comes his way, knocking away the hand and landing a few good hits in. But there’s a problem: the purple side’s skin is rather resistant to physical trauma. Even his Counterstance isn’t doing too much. And the monster’s hand comes swinging once again.
“Freeze!” Aerith yells.
She catches the monster’s arm and encases it in ice, slowing its strike just enough for Cloud to jump out of the way.
“That’s it!” Tifa calls out, “Let’s switch sides! Aerith, I’ll give you a lift!”
“Huh? O-okay!”
Tifa throws out both arms as Aerith hurries over and gives her a boost, catapulting her over to the other side just as another string of Thundaras strike the ground. Tifa is knocked back, but shakes off the temporary stun and rushes in with a barrage of fists and kicks against the red side. Even as the monster pivots again, she keeps up the pursuit.
Likewise, Cloud catches Aerith’s fall and leaps out of the way of further swipes. He deflects another blow from the monster’s arm, while Aerith charges up another cast and unleashes a more concentrated Blizzara. It’s a direct hit on the purple side’s face and half-blinds it.
“Ha! Take that!” Aerith taunts, blowing raspberry.
“Aerith, keep moving!”
“Huh?”
As Cloud suspected, the monster isn’t quite done just yet. If anything, Lost Number seems even more infuriated. The look in its other eye changes, flickering around wildly, and it lets out another great roar. Before they can react, it catches Tifa in a mesh of tentacles, immobilizing her, and swipes to grab at the other two. Cloud shoves Aerith out of the way, but is snatched and crushed in the monster’s iron grip.
“Aargh!!”
“Guys!”
Before Aerith can do much else, Lost Number swipes again, knocking her to the ground too. With a glint of devilish glee, the monster throws up its arms and is about to slam both of its prisoners into the ground.
“…!?”
Suddenly a strange portal-like entity appears above the monster and bright white light pours in. The next instant, a humongous spear drops down from amidst that light and pierces Lost Number right down the middle, killing it in an instant, and blows the entire floor beneath it apart. It fades away into ether even before it touches the floor below.
Tifa and Cloud drop back to the floor, gasping in pain and feeling sore all over. Aerith climbs back to her feet and helps relieve all their injuries with a Healing Wind. And with that, they’re back to their feet too.
“Thanks, Aerith,” Tifa says with a relieved sigh.
Cloud shakes his head in disbelief as he withdraws his sword. “What the hell was that just now?”
“A spear from the heavens… Did you do that?” she asks Aerith.
Aerith shakes her head. “I don’t have any spell like that equipped.”
And then, they hear a dull knocking on the safe door with a muffled voice. “Hey, guys! You can thank me by opening this door!”
“…”
And now it clicks. Once again, their backup party member has come to their rescue, but for once even Cloud is relieved. This might have been one of the toughest monsters they’ve run into yet just because of how overtly aggressive it was.
Aerith gives a relieved sigh too and calls back, “Hang on, Cuz! We’re coming!”
The trio get back to the safe, which has miraculously been left untouched since the monster locked her inside. As Cloud moves in to try the combination lock, he then pauses as he realizes something.
“…Wait. Ruby, can’t you just bust out on your own?” he asks.
“Well, I mean…” There’s an awkward pause and then she adds, “Yeah, I guess.”
Now he’s annoyed again. “How did you not realize it earlier!? We were stuck dealing with that monster by ourselves!”
“But it sounded like you all had a great time!”
“Shut up! Why are you always like this!?” Cloud leaves the door locked and stomps off for the exit.
“Um, Cloud, it’s still locked…” Aerith reminds him, but now he’s too upset to care. He just waits outside the door, stewing to himself.
“Yeesh. It wasn’t that bad was it?” Ruby asks.
“It was pretty rough, honestly,” Tifa admits.
“…” Ruby then apologizes. “Sorry to leave you guys in trouble.”
“It’s okay. Now come on out and don’t leave us again.”
“Right. Step aside.”
The ladies oblige, keeping a fair distance from the safe, and Ruby simply punches a hole through the reinforced plating of the door and rips a hole big enough for her to slip and roll out of. She gets back to her feet, dusting herself off, and then notices the huge hole in the floor.
“Huh? Where’d this hole come from?”
“From a giant spear from above,” Aerith answers matter-of-factly.
“Oh.” She grins sheepishly. “I knew that.”
“What was that power? You can just summon weapons?” Tifa asks.
Ruby whips out a red materia in hand. “Odin.”
“Summon materia! So that’s what you were after?”
“Yep.” She slips the materia back into her bag and also brings out another training manual. “And this one.”
“What’s that?”
“Limit Break manual for Red down the line. And finally…” She puts that into her bag and grins as she whips out the last of the items: a small key. “Bingo.”
“A key?”
“To the basement.” She hops around the hole toward the door. “Come on, guys! We got a new party member to recruit!”
“Party member…?” The ladies exchange equally confused looks, but follow her out.
For once, Ruby doesn’t just blitz off on her own and beckons them all to follow. But just as they’re crossing over to the halls on the other side, they hear some odd kind of creaking. Cloud stops and holds Tifa and Aerith back as he looks around. Ruby takes a few steps ahead, but also stops when she notices they have. The creaking continues, and the sound of something swooshing in the air seems to draw near. A wailing groan follows. Then, out of nowhere, a giant axe swings into their path from above and-
Ruby catches the axe blade in her gauntlet hand, yanks the creature down from its perch, and punches with a left jab into the face of the half-man, half-axe. She casually tosses the halfling aside, hurling him back down to the first floor where he lies still.
The others simply stare as the Ghirofelgo disappears from view and turn back to Ruby. Without even turning their way, she waves a hand to get them to follow her inside like nothing happened.
“You know… aside from all the creepy monsters, this place isn’t really too bad,” Aerith comments lightheartedly, trying to uplift their spirits.
But Tifa and Cloud simply return her surprised and a little incredulous looks. Cloud turns back to Ruby, who walks off again, and mutters aloud, “I think we already have the creepiest monster.”
Ruby whistles to get their attention, and they hurry to catch up. She leads them down the hall across the stairwells and into one of the bedrooms, where a familiar stone wall is set. With a gentle shove, Ruby pushes it open to reveal the hidden door.
“Oh! A secret entrance!” Aerith claps her hands with a smile. “So this is the way down there, huh?”
Cloud nods back. “It leads into the underground caves beneath the mansion, which lead to the basement lab.”
“And our guy,” Ruby adds with a smirk.
Tifa and Aerith peer down into the dimly lit spiral staircase leading down, down, down into complete darkness. They then turn to Ruby with expectant looks. With a shine of light from her hand, she lights the entire way down and startles some bats which promptly escape.
Aerith watches them fly away. “Wow. They really have bats too.”
Tifa makes a nervous gulp. “Let’s hope it’s just bats and nothing else.”
Cloud reassures her, “With Ruby leading the way, this mansion is more like a Halloween party. Just stick close and we’ve got nothing to worry about.”
“Right. Of course! Ruby, wait up!”
Without wasting another moment, Tifa hurries down the stairs to catch up with their VIP, and Cloud and Aerith follow after. The old staircase has come to see plenty of wear over the years, with moss growth visible on almost every step and the stone blocks having become chipped and cracked. But it looks like it’ll still hold just fine.
And yet, just as the going seems quiet and uninterrupted, there’s yet another click that breaks the silence. Tifa stops still and looks around frantically, trying to find where that came from.
Cloud asks, “Tifa, what’s wrong?”
“Didn’t you guys hear something…?”
Ruby stops too, making a confused look. “Huh. I think I did, but…”
Before any of them can react, as if a trap of some sort were sprung, the entire flight of steps beneath them folds in and turns into a slide.
“!?”
Tifa squeals as she latches onto Ruby, who seems more surprised at becoming Tifa’s ride than the suddenly transforming stairs. Aerith bumps into Cloud and clings a little tightly to his neck as well, and they all slip on down. And then, there’s another click that follows, which sets the steps back up again, causing Ruby to stumble and fall flat on her face with Tifa still atop her. As she pulls up, though, Cloud and Aerith crash into them, and they all end up tumbling off the side of the staircase.
“Eeek!”
“Ruby! Do something!”
On it, Ruby kicks some gusts – literally with her feet – that catches their fall, and they all land safely and gently at the bottom floor. Tifa still hasn’t let go of Ruby, but before even she knows it, Ruby suddenly teleports out of her grasp. As they look around, confused, they then hear the sound of a loud thump up above and look up.
Ruby has found the source of the prank: a tilting set of scales that is actually possessed by an impish nature, also known as a Jersey. It had been hiding among the unlit torch holders, pretending to be one, but actually was covering a hidden switch that activates the trap. She disposes of it with a firm stab of her knife into its heart, and promptly drops back down with a somewhat ruffled harrumph.
“We’re all good?”
“Y-yeah… thanks,” Tifa says with a quivering lip, still trying to calm herself.
Cloud keeps staring up where the creature had last been seen. He then turns back to her. “When did this place ever have a trap like that?”
Ruby shrugs. “Dunno. Hopefully it’ll be the last.”
But as she says so, they’re met with yet another mad cackle from some other creature nearby, but this one is shortly followed by a loud moan. And yet, even as they wait a moment, nothing seems to come out to meet them.
Aerith pats down her dress and turns back to Ruby. “Well, that’s that, then. Shall we be off?”
“Sure.”
And with that, the two head on into the dark tunnel, with Ruby still lighting the way. Tifa and Cloud exchange equally perturbed looks and hurry on after.
By some miracle, they aren’t stopped by or ambushed by any more monsters as they travel along the tunnel, and shortly arrive at a side door on the left of the path that leads further in to the basement lab.
“Here we are! Finally.”
Ruby goes ahead and tries the key she found to the door, but as soon as she sticks it in, she realizes it’s not turning. She gives it a firmer twist of her wrist, but now that it does turn a bit, it gets stuck midway. A cold chill runs through her as she comes to realize: while the key seems to be kept in pristine shape, the lock on this door has long rusted over, and now she finds the key jammed.
“What’s wrong? Doesn’t the key work?” Cloud asks.
“It does. The problem is the lock doesn’t.”
He blinks and rolls his eyes. “So much for the key… Time to bust it down.”
“Wait, hold on, I think I can still get this thing out…”
“Just leave it?”
“No, no, I got it.”
But while Ruby is busy finagling the key back out of its keyhole, to Cloud’s growing impatience, they hear the sound of that cackling again, followed by the same moan. Despite that Ruby has lit up the place with her mere presence, the party sans her is shocked to find that they’ve been followed. A horrible-looking creature with two heads that looms over them all slowly treads it way over to them. It walks with a lop-sided gait, as if it were actually struggling to hold itself up. One head is still moaning with a permanently etched frown, while the other is still cackling with a likewise permanently etched grin.
Cloud shakes Ruby by the shoulder. “Hey. We got another mess here.”
“Hold on. I’m still getting the thing out.”
“Ruby! Forget the damn key!”
“I got it! It’s almost out!”
Tifa and Aerith quickly hide behind the other two, and while Cloud is still tugging at Ruby’s arm to get her to turn around and look, they all watch in dread as the monster slowly but surely approaches them.
“Gotcha!” Ruby declares triumphantly, finally yanking the key back out. She wipes it clear of any loose rust dust and slips it back in her bag as a memento.
And now that the monster has come close enough, Cloud lets her go and moves to draw his sword, but before he even can do that, a single knife flies right into the creature’s heart with enough force to pin it against the opposite wall. He turns back to Ruby, who casually wrenches the door apart, and goes to retrieve her knife.
“Sheesh. This has been the slowest, most painstaking trip just to pick someone up,” Ruby complains, setting her knife back in its holster.
“…” He rests a fist against his waist, making his own frown. “Oh, now you get it. Didn’t we come by this place to look for some reports? What’s with all the sidequests?”
“I thought they’d be done easy!”
“This guy you’re looking for had better be worth it.”
They finally head inside. As if things weren’t creepy or morbid enough, they discover a room full of coffins laid one atop another, with just one odd one out lying in the center.
Cloud stares around for a bit. “In here? Is this guy still alive?”
“Yeah.”
“But all these coffins…” Tifa says, biting her lip. “They’re not filled with anything… bad, are they?”
Aerith quips, “Hmm… Well, it certainly matches the décor we’ve seen so far.”
“Aerith…”
“Hehe. Sorry. But it’ll be okay, guys! You all saw how fast Ruby deals with everything. What’s the worst that could come out?”
Ruby goes ahead and knocks repeatedly on the coffin up front. “Yo! Vincent! Wake up!”
At first, nothing happens. Then, she keeps knocking on it and calling out, “I’m not leaving until you get up! Come on! Up and at ’em! Up, up, up, up, up…!”
“Uh, Ruby… Are you sure that’s a good idea…?” Tifa asks.
Finally, the lid of the coffin is flung aside, knocking Ruby back. But she’s simply pleased with herself as she gets up again. To the others’ shock, someone inside actually sits up. It’s a man with long black hair, donning a dull red cape, and with some sort of bronze-colored gauntlet on his arm as well. He turns to Ruby with a drowsy glare and a dangerously low voice.
“…Who dares disturb my slumber…?”
“Me!” Ruby declares proudly, “It’s been 30 years, man! About time you got up!”
“…” He raises a suspect eye her way. “What do you know about these 30 years?”
“That you’ve spent lying around dead? A little bit here and there, you could say.”
“Hmph.” He then lies back down on his bed and closes his eyes again. “Uninvited trespassers are not welcome here. Begone.”
But before he can shut the lid back on, she stops it and leans over the side of the trunk. With a disappointed frown, she complains, “Come on, Vince, don’t be like that. We’re here to pick you up so we can go after Sephiroth.”
“!” His eyes flicker back open and he stares back. “…You know Sephiroth?”
“Know him? I hate his guts! The bastard has been doing nothing but bringing me pain and suffering ever since I’ve stepped foot in this world! We’re gathering up allies to come together to kick his ass, and I want you to join.”
“…” Now, with his curiosity piqued, Vincent then sets aside the lid of the coffin and sits back up with a sigh. “I’ll humor you. What has been happening as of late?”
But to be honest, he would shortly come to regret asking. Ruby goes ahead on a long rant about how the phantom menace has been an absolute nuisance to the world and even how it’s also partly her fault for leaving Rubia alone to have let the planet come to such a state it is in now. However, she speaks in a way that drones on with tangential, almost petty complaints about her interactions with Sephiroth and Jenova thus far, with a little self-referential humor that would fly over anyone else’s heads thrown in the mix, and by the end of it, Vincent has long tuned out.
“…So, that’s why we need you and the Death Penalty. Makes everything run way faster.”
“Enough.” He lies back down. “Your words mostly ring hollow… but amid that cascade, I can see how matters have worsened since I’ve fallen into this deep sleep…”
“Hey, if you agree, then come on out.”
“I refuse.”
“And why not!?”
“You’ve simply burdened me with worse sins that I must atone for. Let me sleep.”
“You’re not atoning for shit lying here!” she snaps back, “Get up and go do something if you actually want to atone!”
“The sins of my past cannot be resolved anywhere else. I have no intention to explain myself to you.”
“No! You’re the one who doesn’t understand! If you want answers, come with me! If you want to stop Sephiroth, come with me! I can even bring you to Lucrecia-”
“Enough!” And with that last bitter outburst, he slides the coffin lid back on.
She stops it again. “I mean it. I know where she is.”
“…”
“I have ways, you know. I can speak with those souls who have become lost in the Great Flow. In her case, though, she may have secluded herself out of it…”
But now a truly pained expression crosses his face. With a much softer tone, he asks of her, “…Please. Don’t bring her up again. I must sleep.”
“…”
Understanding he’s not going to budge, she lets off her own sigh and leaves him be to shut the coffin back up. She turns back to the others with a scowl and stomps off for the exit.
“What, you’re giving up?” Cloud asks, raising an eyebrow. “Not gonna try to kidnap him too?”
She stops and turns back. “This guy has way more burdens keeping him tied down. I’ll give him some time, but if even after we finish gathering intel in the library, I’m snatching him up, coffin and all.”
He doesn’t look surprised or impressed. “Of course.”
“Come on. Let’s actually get to finishing the mission.”
Ruby whisks herself out, and the rest, while exchanging uncomfortable glances, follow her out and down the hall. And at last, the party has arrived in the basement lab.
While she rushes on in to take a deep dive into the books, Cloud loiters around the lab. Noticing that he isn’t coming along just yet, Tifa and Aerith stick by too.
“Cloud? What is it?”
“Did you find something?”
He doesn’t reply right away, but turns his attention toward the two broken tanks in the back to their right. That’s right. All those missing years between the incident and when he and Tifa finally reunited – they all started from this lab. Thanks to Ruby, he was able to recover most of those memories, but now that he’s come back to the actual place, many of those painful and regretful memories have come trudging on back.
“Cloud…?”
After a pause, he then turns back to the ladies. “I’m fine. Just remembered some things…”
“What’d you remember?” Aerith asks innocently.
He looks aside with a despondent frown. “…About the last days I had with Zack.”
Her eyes widen and she goes quiet too, now having been reminded.
“Um…” He rubs his head. “I don’t know if you want to hear about it, or…?”
She takes a moment to think it over, but then shakes her head. “It’s okay, Cloud. I think I have a good enough idea of what happened.”
“You do?”
She nods. “Zack… He went out fighting, didn’t he?”
He blinks in surprise. “Yeah… How did you know?”
“That’s just the feeling I’ve had for a long time.”
“A feeling? So you knew he…?”
“Yeah. I knew even before they brought the official news to me.” She looks up to the ceiling as she recalls that moment. “…It was a pretty strange occasion, honestly. I was sad, of course. I really wished I could see him again, even after those missing five years.” She then looks back down with a sad smile. “But it was also happy in another way.”
“Happy?”
“Yeah. I think… I was glad that he was able to achieve his dream.”
“…” Cloud’s eyes widen as he realizes what she means, and the thought also brings a sad smile to his face. “Yeah… He did become a hero, didn’t he?”
“You being here is proof enough of that.” Aerith’s smile then returns to a more relaxed one. “By the way, Cloud?”
“Huh?”
“Did Zack say anything about me to you?”
He nods back. “He didn’t mention a name or anything, but he really wanted to see you again. He dragged me out from Nibelheim all the way to Midgar, but…” He sighs. “Well, he left the rest of the journey to me to finish for him.”
“I see…” Aerith lets the thought sit with her for a moment longer, and then returns him a grateful smile. “Thanks, Cloud. I think we can finally let Zack’s soul rest in peace.”
“…ERRRGHHUUURRRRR…”
Out of nowhere, a strange, rather strained growl interrupts them. It seems to have come from further inside. Thump. Thunk, thunk, tunk, tump… There are the sounds of what seem to be books being flung around wildly.
“Huh? Was that Ruby?”
He looks off toward the library. “What is she doing now?”
“I think we should check on her. She’s been awfully quiet since she went in…” Tifa suggests with a growing concern.
They hurry on inside and are in for quite the shock. Despite having dealt with everything up to now with barely any effort, Ruby is now grunting as if in pain and convulsing violently on the ground as if she were being electrocuted.
“Ruby!?” Aerith gasps.
“What happened!?” Tifa follows suit.
She’s uttering a guttural growl like a feral beast, biting so hard that it looks like her jaw is locked, and throwing herself into the ground repeatedly. She’s scratching at the floor with her bare fingernails, rather than with dragon claws, and has been doing it so viciously that she’s started to bleed from them. Even the wounds in her eyes seem to have reopened, and her face is now dripping with more red streaks. And she’s dragging herself across the floor with wildly flailing kicks that make it difficult for anyone to approach her.
“Hey! What’s going on with you?” Cloud calls out.
But she doesn’t respond. She simply keeps snarling, clawing around, stumbling over herself every time she tries to climb back to all fours. At first, Cloud comes upon the idea that she’d been possessed by something and is tempted to reach for his sword, but seeing her throw herself to the ground over and over is too unnerving for him to even draw it; let alone hit her with it.
“Ruby! Ruby, can you hear me!?” Aerith pleads. She tries to close in, but Ruby kicks herself away again.
Tifa rushes in, avoiding her kicks, and carefully subdues her, pinning her legs and back to the ground. Now Aerith and Cloud hurry over to check on her too. While he grabs her arms to stop her from ruining her fingers even more, Aerith kneels beside her and puts a soothing hand to her face.
“It’s okay. Ruby, It’s gonna be okay…” she whispers frantically.
As they hold her still, Ruby gradually goes from huffing and grunting to settling down into silence. Though her entire body is still trembling, she seems to have calmed down a little. And then, as if having finally exhausted all resistance, she falls limp.
“Ruby…?” Aerith removes her hand, which has been stained a little by the blood that had been leaking.
Ruby doesn’t respond. It seems like whatever had happened has passed, but she’s gone unconscious. Cloud and Tifa finally let her go, and Cloud helps take her into his arms. But just as he flips her over into a more comfortable position, he notices her eyes seem to twitch for a moment.
“Ruby?”
He blinks and looks closer at them. Then, her eyes slowly open, revealing a pair of very thin pupils on those deep red eyes. Crackle. Cloud flinches. What was that? His own head is suddenly hit by a familiar ache. And then, the aches intensify in a sudden explosion of pain.
“URGH!!”
“Cloud!?”
And suddenly, his sight goes out like a light.
~
“…Cloud! Cloud! Wake up!”
“Please, Cloud! Hang in there!”
“We have to help Ruby!”
The cries of the girls help him stir awake again. But when he comes to, he finds that they’ve come to some sort of black abyss. It’s completely black around here, and yet he can still make out Tifa and Aerith as if they were still standing under daylight.
“…What happened? Where is this?”
“I don’t know… It was like this when we woke up too.”
“And Ruby?”
But Tifa shakes her head and Aerith looks down with deep worry. They have no idea either where she’d gone.
But they soon realize they aren’t alone in here. Just then, a white wisp appears out of thin air, expanding and taking on the shape of a huge tentacle that has popped out of some invisible ground. It’s shortly followed by many others like it, and they surround the trio in a wide ring. It almost looks like it’s the perimeter of a battleground. Then, at the center of the ring, a great white blob pops out from the ground as well and forms into a hauntingly familiar silhouette. The tall, looming figure has two gigantic wing-like protrusions from its back, but they’re crumpled like stubs. The body stretches outward like the trunk of a tree, and its “roots” flail about around them. The face is no face; it is a hollow-eyed skull. The terrifying ghostly creature lets out a piercing hiss as it greets its opponents.
This is no ordinary version of Jenova. This is Jenova Phasma.
The trio immediately gear up and get ready for battle. Whatever is going on here, it’s obvious that it’s the work of that thing. Like an unheard bell ringing to start the fray, they rush in together as Jenova launches further masses of tentacles to strike.
However, as Cloud and Tifa would quickly discover, as they try to lay on the pain, Jenova’s amorphous body seems to warp and bend as if it were simply an illusion. Aerith likewise lets fly a barrage of elemental spells, but all the same, the main body simply reforms after every burst of magic. However, Jenova isn’t merely an image that can’t be touched. The new tentacles she has summoned lash out all at once, slamming into all three of them and knocking them scattered.
Cloud gasps, slowly pulling himself back to his feet. What even was that? It feels like his strength is getting sapped just by mere contact with those things. Nonetheless, he resumes his stance and charges back in. He tries slashing at the tentacles instead, and to his relief, they don’t simply fade in and out like an image.
The other two catch on as well. Tifa dives at another tentacle and thrashes it in a flurry. Aerith blasts several in a row with a well-timed string of Thundara. And the trio keep up the pressure until the last of the tentacles that don’t make up the ring disappear. And with those settled, they turn their attacks to the main body.
However, they’ve just run right into a trap. This time, the head lurches back and fires a massive laser that sears the ground around them, causing it to crack and burst with geysers of white light – something surprisingly similar to Ruby’s own moves. Cloud isn’t sure how he wasn’t hit, but the ground beneath his feet has become broken and unstable, and he struggles to find a foothold. But more alarmingly, he hears some terrified cries.
“Eeyaaagh!”
“Aerith!”
Somehow, the other two were able to avoid the incoming laser, but Aerith lost her ground and nearly slipped into the blindingly white crevices if it weren’t for Tifa coming in time to save her. However, they’re now sitting perfectly in striking range for another set of tentacles that come bursting forth. Before either one can react, they’re both constricted and strangled from multiple ends.
“NO!!”
Cloud makes a mad dash and hacks away at the tentacles with a fury yet unseen before. However, this was but a clever trap from Jenova. Another rogue tentacle pops out from behind him and snaps itself around his neck too. He struggles to break free, but she catches him dead-center with a Stop spell that freezes him in place, mid-strike.
“Cloud!?”
“Aaaaah!!”
As if she were playing with dolls with the wrath of an infant, Jenova continues to tug at the ladies’ limbs as if intending to pull them apart. And unfortunately, as Cloud is stuck in time, he’s unable to even stop himself from being choked.
But just as things are looking bleak… Bang. A sharp shot rings out, and a smoky bullet hits Jenova dead on the forehead. Bang, bang, bang. Three more shots are fired with extreme prejudice into the same exact hole in her head, causing the skull mask to crack. And with that, Jenova recoils a bit, loosening her grip on all three of her victims.
Tifa and Aerith gasp for air, and as they recollect themselves, they witness a marvelous sight. Shots fired, striking the beast in critical places for massive damage. The rapid swaying movements of a familiar red cloak as it dances around the phantom. The frustrated roar of Jenova as she struggles to hit the red cloak. And even Cloud manages to snap back into motion, but then realizes he’s not hitting anything.
But she’s not quite done yet. Jenova retreats into her illusion form, and the next several shots miss where they would have hit. Another set of tentacles springs forth, all aimed at battering the new intruder. And this time, they leave no room for him to weave his way out. They crash altogether upon him with full intent to crush him flat.
“Hey!” Cloud yells.
“He’s been hit!” Aerith shrieks.
“You okay!?” Tifa calls out.
However, the tentacles suddenly seem to have trouble keeping a firm hold, and to their further shock, a huge purple horned beast bursts out from their midst. It rips and tears through the tentacles until it breaks free, and promptly fires a Beast Flare right in Jenova’s face.
Boom. That seems to have done something. At last, the skull mask on her face cracks completely and falls off, revealing nothing but a faceless shape underneath. And without a face to express itself, the amorphous white blob begins to lose its shape. Not that it particularly matters, though; the Galian Beast continues to rampage and clobber the blob like Play-do until it gradually disintegrates and fades away into a white mist.
And as the creature once known as Jenova disappears, the light emitted from it fades as well, and the entire scene falls back into the black abyss around them.
~
“…Hey. Wake up.”
A vaguely familiar voice calls to him, and Cloud stirs awake again. He realizes he’s lying on a stony floor – belonging to the library in the basement of the Shinra Mansion. Furthermore, he also realizes that he’s collapsed on top of Ruby, who is still out cold, and scrambles to get off. He looks around, and Tifa and Aerith seem to have also collapsed to the floor around them too, but they too begin to stir awake.
“…What… What happened?” Tifa mumbles.
“Everything’s spinning…” Aerith says, clutching her head, but then shakes it off.
Cloud then turns to look at who the voice belonged to. As it happens, it’s the same man in the red cloak that they had met just earlier. Now that he stands in full view, he’s also wearing some kind of black suit underneath, with some rather odd-looking pointy boots, and in his right hand is a simple yet clean handgun that he slips away in a holster.
“You’re… that guy. Ruby called you ‘Vincent’, right?”
He nods. “It seems this girl knows much more than she shows. I found it strange that she recognized me right away and treated me like an old friend.”
“Yeah… she tends to do that with some people.”
The ladies finally get back to their feet, though Cloud first takes Ruby back in his arms and sits with her so her head isn’t resting on the floor.
“So, what did happen just now? Was it just a dream?” Aerith asks.
“A dream? But we were all there…” Tifa points out.
Vincent explains, “An illusion of sorts… but one that would have risked leaving permanent scars on your psyches if you had been completely taken in by it.”
Cloud frowns, looking back at Ruby. “And what about her? Was she saved from being taken?”
“Sorry to say, I can’t say anything for sure. Whatever she had been inflicted with will be up to her to overcome.”
“…”
Vincent gives the unconscious Ruby a firm stare as if meticulously analyzing her face, and then steps on over to one of the books that had been so haphazardly discarded on the floor nearby. He drops down to pick it up and opens it to a page that it had been left on. He takes a brief moment to read through the report written there, and then he blinks in surprise as he comes upon a realization. He turns back to them, still fixated on Ruby.
“…This girl…”
“What about her? What book is that?”
“It’s one of Hojo’s logs from an experiment he held about 30 years ago. It concerns a certain white dragon that had been discovered in the depths of the Great Northern Cave.”
All three of them are collectively shook.
“A white dragon!?” Cloud looks back down at Ruby. “Ruby was a part of one of Hojo’s experiments back then?”
“Hmm. So it’s true, then? This girl is in fact the dragon mentioned in these logs?”
“I guess so… But she never mentioned anything about it to us.”
“I suppose she may have just discovered the truth in these books herself.” He lets off a discouraged sigh. “Unfortunately, this complicates things greatly…”
“What’s the matter?” Aerith asks him.
He returns to look at the log book and flips through a few more pages. “…It seems this girl may be one of the earliest subjects involved in the Jenova Project. However, curiously, Jenova cells were found in her body even upon initial inspection.”
Cloud blinks. “She… always had them?”
“It’s unknown when she had acquired them. However… there is another possibility.”
“What is it?” Tifa asks warily.
“That she’s been a host of the ‘original’ Jenova cells.”
“W-what?” But then she looks even more confused.
“Wait. What do you mean by ‘original’? Aren’t those cells all the same?” Cloud asks further.
“I can’t speak anything about it. It’s just briefly mentioned in this log, but Hojo hadn’t elaborated on it.” Finally, Vincent shuts the book and sets it aside back on the table. “In any case, this girl is currently in a dangerous predicament. If she chooses to search for the truth, she may lead herself into worse trouble down the line.”
Cloud turns back to her with a deep-seated worry. “But that’s exactly what she’s been trying to do all this time.”
“…I won’t tell her or the rest of you what you should do. But at the very least, it would be for the best that you all take precautions. There’s no telling when is the next time something like this would take place.”
“…”
Vincent takes another moment to contemplate over something, and then turns back to them with an offer. “If you don’t mind, I think it would be a good idea that I join you.”
“Huh?”
“Really? You’re coming with us?” Tifa asks.
“Oh!” Aerith claps her hands. “If you do, that’d be great! Ruby really wanted you to come along.”
“Yes… she had a good point, after all.” He makes a grim smirk aside. “I wasn’t atoning for anything just lying here.” He then turns back to Ruby. “Perhaps it’s just wishful thinking, but… if I can do something to stop her condition from worsening, then it may just be a step in the right direction.”
Cloud nods back. “Alright. Glad to have you aboard.”
Finally, while still carrying Ruby, he climbs back to his feet and rests her head against his chest, making sure she won’t fall. And with that, the party take their leave of the old abandoned library.
Chapter 29: Converging Crossroads
Notes:
Outdated A/N
I've come up with an interesting idea while drafting up this chapter. How would you all like to participate in the "meta" of this metafiction?
For the next four to six weeks depending on how things go, I'm opening up requests regarding the "optional sidequests" of this metafic game. I'm certainly going to stick by the main story as I've planned it out, but starting from the next chapter, there will be a number of times where Ruby takes the crew along for what can only be described as a "training montage". This will be a collection of shorts where the party has all sorts of random encounters on the world map and will act as "bonus strips" alongside the main story. I will select and publish one bonus strip per chapter in the end notes of the latest chapter. We'll see how far the meme goes. If it's not too much work, I can always extend the period of open requests.
Rest assured, unlike with my abridged series (now on hiatus), this won't cut into my regular schedule of writing because I had planned to include some of these pieces in the main story in the first place. But I ran into a number of pitfalls while drafting because I realized I had too many ideas to include that they would end up bogging down the main course of said story if I wrote them all in. But it would be a shame to just cut them out entirely.
Then I realized this is something I can actually outsource to my fans, hahaha! Now that you're following along with my fic, you all have homework! (It's extra credit. You don't have to participate.)
Send me ideas for what monsters from the original game (or Rebirth down the line?) or new variations on them that you'd like to see, and I will write battle scenarios for them accordingly. Specific party members optional, but Ruby will be present in all. Post in the comments below, or stop by my tumblr at rubiaryutheroyal.tumblr.com and drop an ask! Or if you're quirky, check my twitter @rubia_ryu and send me a DM.
If I don't get any requests at all, though, it's no worry. I'll just be skipping over some details about their level grinding in later chapters and leave a sad author's note explaining why.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“…If answers are what you seek, proceed to the forest that sleeps…”
Ruby starts awake, finding herself in a completely different yet ever familiar place before a forest of white trees. This is the Sleeping Forest, a mysterious thicket in which all roads converge and the careless wanderer who is unprepared may be led astray unless they choose to back out. Only with the Lunar Harp will this forest awaken and allow the bearer through. However, even though she doesn’t know what’s going on, Ruby gets the feeling she’s specifically here to wander.
This is another of those dreams where she is not in control of herself, but must heed the whims of Rubia. It’s already nighttime, where the skies above are filled with glittering lights, unrestrained by any neighboring lights from the city. Sure enough, she finds herself heading straight into the forest, as if led by some unspoken command to proceed without hesitation. The forest is as silent as ever, where not even the call of birds or buzz of insects are present to disturb the everlasting quiet. And so, the only sounds that can be heard are the sounds of her own footsteps, laden with the brushing of her arms against her brigandine armor.
She’s still in armor? Ah, this may be a scene shortly after the last one where Rubia witnessed her old monastery burn down. But for some reason, she’s been led here? Why? By whom? And what will she find?
As expected, as she enters the depths of the thicket, she also gets the feeling that the trees, though completely immobile, are closing in upon her as if to prevent her from proceeding too far. And yet, she continues to move forward, as if some strange obsession had come over her and she has no choice but to heed it. She treads further and further into the shade of the thick canopy until she comes to a small but still shaded clearing with just a little moonlight peeking in from above.
Perhaps it’s just the trick of the forest’s illusions at play again, but she soon comes to pick up on the sounds of other footsteps. She stops and looks around, spinning about to cover the entire periphery of her view, and with a wary twitch of her ear, she pinpoints the direction from which the other footsteps arrive. As it so happens, they come from behind her. Did someone follow her in? She sneaks off to the side for cover and to eavesdrop.
It seems to be two black robed figures who have arrived, but these are not the robes that Ruby has seen on the so-called “Sephiroth clones”. These two seem to have draped themselves tightly as to conceal their identities, leaving but an opening for their eyes.
However, then the two begin to speak, and Ruby – or more specifically, Rubia – immediately recognizes one of the voices. Sister Anna…?
“…You’ve certainly picked a fine time to visit.”
Though it is the same voice, there’s a drastic change in her tone. Gone is the soothing motherly figure that Rubia had once known; now is a much more cynical and bitter-tongued person before her. The other person then offers the old sister what seems to be a bag, and by the sound of the jingling from within, it’s full of coins and treasure. But the look on the sister’s face is one of contempt.
“Really? What is this, my monthly stipend? It’s a full-time job catering to that rapscallion. I would think you’d bring more than a handful of gold and jewelry.”
The stranger withdraws the bag back into his cloak. It sounds like a young man, judging by the sound of the voice, but it’s not one that Rubia seems to recognize, as Ruby hears only silence from her inner thoughts. He speaks with a certain tone of stuck-up nobility, so whoever this is may be someone of importance, at least in the moment.
“It will act as a temporary stopgap until we can determine the proper amount to deliver. How is Rubia doing?”
“It’s the same as always; bright-eyed, naïve, and full of herself. Just last month she was instated as the latest general to lead the Draco Division of the Ackardian forces – a mere two months since she joined them. As always, her battle prowess is exceptional. I’d think it a monumental task to find a suitable rival to match.”
“Though, what does she think of this city?”
“It’s her home, to put it bluntly. I’ve certainly warned her of the follies of the Grand Council that leads the people here, though I honestly wonder how much really gets into her head when she’s so often up in the clouds… both metaphorically and literally.”
“Hmm…”
“It doesn’t sound like good news for you all, but you want the honest truth, right? Well, in my honest opinion, she’ll be a real piece of work to convert.”
“…”
“Unless you have some plan to hypnotize her or so, she won’t be the type to change her mind easily.”
“…I had figured this would be a possibility. Unfortunately, this is not fulfilling the conditions of our deal…”
The old sister shakes her head.
“Hold it. I said it was unlikely, but not impossible. The girl’s pretty quick-witted, but she’s yet to really experience tragedy of any sort. It’s all been so easy for her to ascend the military ranks that there are even rumors that the Grand Council are preparing to deport her elsewhere anyway on the offchance that she goes insurgent.”
She then makes a bitter harrumph.
“Truly, a self-fulfilling prophecy they have here. And who knows what will become of our church out at the edge? We’ve been slowly getting cut off from the community just because that upstart has been living here at all. At this rate, the church might have to be abandoned…”
“I can assure you that you will be duly compensated after your obligations are fulfilled. But what will be done to convince Rubia? Do you have some plan in mind?”
“…I have a few ideas, but they’re all extremely risky.”
“Pray tell.”
“One option is to have her framed for some dastardly crime to force the Grand Council to exile her. To be honest, I think that’s the safest approach, but Rubia is a slippery one. She always manages to wing her way out of any serious charges, so I can’t guarantee it’d work.”
“…”
“Second option is to spread rumors among the people that Rubia has been working as an insurgent anyway, and one way or another, the Council will be forced to move. But like with the first option, it’s probably a dead end. The people around here have mixed opinions of her, but there’s no questioning her allegiance as an officer of the law.”
“…And is there a third?”
“The third option, huh…”
Sister Anna takes a brief pause as she deliberates over it once again.
“Scorched earth. We get rid of this monastery once and for all by burning it down, and then we blame some unknown agent hiding in this city. Get her distrusting of the people around her and she’ll naturally turn heel.”
“…!”
Ruby blinks hard in disbelief. Even the sister’s associate seems surprised by such a suggestion. She definitely doesn’t seem to be joking, but regardless it sounds so absurd! To think that it was in fact the old sister’s own idea to get rid of the monastery… But later, she would also fall victim to the fire. So, what exactly was her original plan? Just lay waste and desert? But unless they also have particular fast travel provided for her escape, she’s probably not going to get away with it.
“I have to say, I didn’t expect such a grim outcome to come from you, Sister. Have you already been considering leaving the faith?”
“Ha! Maybe I have…”
She shakes her head with that ever bitter frown.
“But it doesn’t matter anymore. I’ve got little time left on this planet anyhow.”
She also slips out one of her hands to reveal a rather familiar-looking black stain upon it.
“If I must die sooner than later, I might as well do something for the only family that I have left…”
“Your family…?”
“My younger sister… who also happened to start her own religious group. Sister Edel of the Southern Temple.”
“! You’re related to that wanted criminal? The co-leader of the Black Plague cult?”
Sister Anna narrows her eyes in a way that would lead a subtle smirk.
“So what of it? Can’t a woman practice her own faith that’s different from the norm?”
“But there was an official investigation done into Sister Edel and her husband, Pastor Garid. There were several accounts of illegal activity discovered, including kidnappings, imprisonments, and even human sacrifice…”
“Do you believe any propaganda when it’s handed to you?”
“…”
“I’ve known my little sister all my life. She can be a fanatic and a loon at times about things I don’t care for, but she was never a dark-hearted person. But it’s been a long time since I last had correspondence with her. Something tells me that whatever she and her husband were up to, they might have been caught in the end… and possibly executed.”
“You seem to be rather well-informed, then.”
“Hmph. So it’s true, then? They’re already gone…”
The old sister enters into a contemplative silence and then turns back to her associate.
“So be it. Then, I’ll be happy to proceed with the plan to burn down the monastery. Whether or not I get out of it unscathed doesn’t matter to me.”
“…”
There’s now a certain air of tension and discomfort with this revelation. For just a moment, the silence is so permeating that Ruby can even hear her own heartbeat.
“In any case, you seem to have your mind set on it. Then, we will leave the rest to you, Good Sister. I suppose it goes without saying, but we will have to withhold any payment until we can confirm the results.”
“Keep the change. It might even serve you more than your monthly allowance… Prince Marcus.”
“!”
The stranger is so taken aback he even steps back a bit.
“How did you…?”
“You couldn’t be more obvious, young man. I had wondered what sort of agent her Majesty the Queen would send me, and it turns out to be one of her prattish sons.”
The sister then gives him a dismissive wave.
“But, our time is up. Get going before any Ackardian soldiers on patrol find you wandering around here. If you’re still worried about ‘results’, then see what lies in store in the coming days. We probably won’t meet again.”
“…Fair enough. Farewell, Sister Anna.”
And as suddenly as they had arrived on scene, the pair turn away and take their respective leaves. And once again, Ruby finds herself alone in her thoughts as she tries to process everything that she had just learned.
So, for starters, this vision she just witnessed would have to be memories of the forest itself, and Rubia wasn’t present at all in the scene until just earlier. In other words, it most likely isn’t merely an illusion or trick that the forest is playing on her. In that case, though it does sting Ruby a little – and must have stung Rubia herself quite a bit more – she has to accept that this is the true side of the middle-aged woman known as “Sister Anna”. And despite acting as a mother figure to Rubia since she was very young, it seems like she was only playing a role in hopes that this child would grow up to become a traitor to the people she had grown up with.
Even more surprising is the fact that the sister had an actual sister who was apparently leading a cult situated around the “Southern Temple” – in other words, it was probably the same group that had been celebrating the Black Materia itself. According to the other agent, the prince, that Sister and her husband were later arrested and likely executed without much of due process. But if there’s some level of propaganda obscuring the whole truth, then there’s still a possibility that they might be alive and in hiding. In other words, Rubia would have to go down there to meet the rest of that cult to see what has actually been happening.
Wait a second. So is that it? Is this vision related to the reason why Rubia would destroy an entire kingdom’s royal court? Perhaps she would go on to discover the actual truth and become enraged enough to ambush them when they least expected an assassination. And she even roped in her good friend Fenrir to help her trap her victims.
Before Ruby can continue to speculate to herself, though, she realizes Rubia is on the move again. But unlike earlier, where her gait was of a cautious and deliberate step, she now walks with a bit of a stumble as if still in shock. Ruby would bite her lip here if she could actually control this body, but no matter what she thinks or says aloud, Rubia will not listen or answer. But then, she receives an unexpected notice from a familiarly haunting voice.
“…Your search for the truth will continue to the south. Seek the ancient temple where the rest of the answers lie…”
That was the same voice that guided Rubia here to the forest in the first place. At first Ruby didn’t recognize it right away, but now that she hears it again, it finally hits: this is the voice of another cloaked woman from a previous vision she had, the one of the ancient temple. It’s Jenova, or even the woman whom Jenova came to impersonate.
The same gutting shock that had come over Rubia now hits Ruby too, and likewise it’s followed by a long-suppressed resentment with a touch of betrayal welling up from within. The scene around them begins to fade to black as Rubia simply takes her leave, and soon Ruby finds herself lost in the black abyss once more.
Nonetheless, even to the empty void, she must speak: “…What the hell. If you’re gonna listen to some damn voice in your head, then why not listen to yourself? I’m stuck here with you anyway! I have to face the same pain you do!”
As expected, she gets no reply, but this time it doesn’t discourage her.
“You’ve been in the depths of the Lifestream long enough. You should know who that voice is by now. You even admitted to summoning her via the Black Materia! So why are you operating like you’re her pawn, huh?”
Nothing but silence.
By now, Ruby’s voice begins to crack. “…I don’t get it. It would make plenty sense if you had been taken control by Jenova and were being forced to do as she wills, but no. You were planning to destroy the world before her arrival. So if anything, you’re the one using her…”
Silence…
“But it’s not enough, is it? You’re not only trying to ruin the world. You’re ruining yourself too, just to get back at me. This incarnation of Rubia never anticipated the Geostigma. She didn’t yet know that Sister Anna was a traitor and thus let her guard down. At first, I thought it was just an ancient form of the disease that Jenova had incurred in the past, but of course, it’s a simple matter for you to jump through time, isn’t it?”
…
“I know you won’t answer, but I have to ask anyway… 30 years ago when the Jenova Project launched, you submitted yourself to Hojo’s experimentation as one of his earliest subjects. Was that the Rubia who was so desperate to have the J-cells removed that you would turn to the non-Cetran humans for help? Or was that the one who already gave up on humanity entirely and wished for them to self-destruct by introducing Jenova to a certain mad scientist?”
…
“Ah… but of course you wouldn’t be able to answer that. Your entire existence is built up on and fueled by contradiction. And it’s all my fault.”
…
“I’m sorry, Rubia. I’ve failed you, not just as your creator, but as your developer. Please, give me another chance. I’ll make amends and rewrite this tale. This story is being retold as I speak. So don’t give up, okay? I’m trying my best, and I want you to try yours. Hang in there, I’ll come to you.”
As Ruby herself drifts off into silence, the encompassing abyss only seems to grow deeper until that silence is deafening. Any sound whatsoever could reverberate through and there wouldn’t be anyone to hear it.
~
Ruby starts awake as if she had just snapped out of a trance, but is left dizzy and disoriented as if she were just forced out of the dream. She blinks quickly as her eyes try to readjust to the bright lights above her. It feels like something’s on her forehead – a wet towel? As her sight returns to focus, she finds herself in a much more futuristic-looking room. It looks kinda familiar, like the inside of an aircraft… Wait. Is this somewhere on the Highwind?
“Ruby! You’re awake! Thank goodness…” Aerith lets off a deep sigh in relief. She’s seated by her bedside.
“Aerith? Where…?”
“Easy, stay resting. This is the sickbay aboard the Highwind.”
“Ah…”
She removes the towel on her forehead to check with her other hand, and satisfied that Ruby’s temperature is back to normal, she gets up to dispose of the used towel and comes back. “How are you feeling?”
Ruby takes a moment to read her own body’s signs. “…A little tired, like I overslept.”
“Everyone was really worried about you. You’ve been out all day yesterday.”
She blinks twice. “I was out for a whole day?”
“Yeah. For a while there, it didn’t seem like you were going to wake up. You had a really bad reaction this time.”
“Reaction?”
Aerith nods solemnly. “It was a little after we arrived at the basement lab in the mansion. When we found you, you looked like you were in so much pain. Your eyes were bleeding, you were having spasm attacks, and you kept scratching the floor until your fingers bled too. Cloud and Tifa helped hold you down and I did my best to comfort you, but then you passed out.”
Ruby blinks blankly, as if surprised to hear this for the first time.
“The next thing we knew, we were attacked by some kind of ghost that looked like Jenova. I didn’t know what to make of it… still don’t, actually.” She then makes a disheartened frown. “But for a moment there, I got scared that she had come to take you away. To be honest, I think she almost did…”
Ruby’s look of confusion then gradually shifts into one of realization, followed by disappointment in herself.
“Thankfully, Vincent came just in time to help, and we drove her away. We then brought you aboard to let you rest and went back to Cosmo Canyon to get everyone.”
Ruby lies still, staring off into space and feeling a little dead inside from the shame that has now dropped in to crush her. So that was the “something interesting” that Sephiroth was anticipating. Of course he was gonna throw his bitch-ass mom at her again. Goddammit! How did she not see anything that obvious coming!? And she passed out when it happened so she missed out on a kickass boss fight! Sephiroth truly has gone too far… Not only has he hijacked her apartment, he’s even hijacked her party member status! That bastard!
“…Ruby? You okay?”
She snaps back to attention and gives Aerith an apologetic sulk. “Sorry to make you all worry. I don’t know what came over me. It’s all a blank from after I started reading.”
“It’s alright. Do you remember what you read?”
“Um… Yeah, a little. I found some old reports about Rubia. Seems like she was one of Hojo’s earliest experiments under the Jenova Project.”
Aerith nods. “We heard that too, from Vincent. He also said something about how she could have been a host for the ‘original’ Jenova cells?”
“Hmm. I think I read up something about that, but I don’t know either.”
“You don’t? Not a clue?”
“Well…” Ruby tilts her head aside as she tries to collect her messy thoughts. “I think I have some idea of what it refers to. You know how there was a plague that struck the Cetra way back?”
“Ah. Yeah, I heard about it from my mom – my first mom – long ago.”
“Rubia was among the Cetra who was infected. She also disappeared shortly after a certain tragic encounter with the plague.”
“What? Then, did she also…?”
She shakes her head. “She didn’t die, but she must have gone mad at some point.”
“Oh…”
“She was always an incredibly strong and capable fighter throughout every one of her reincarnation cycles, and at some point, she came to descend into madness. I don’t know if it was because of Jenova’s influence or something else entirely, but for whatever reason, she went down a path of total annihilation, even including herself.”
Aerith makes a crestfallen sigh. “Poor Rubia… How many cycles of reincarnation has she been suffering?”
Ruby shakes her head. “I don’t know. It gets really fuzzy just trying to recall details from some of the more prominent lives. But even then, I just don’t get what she’s thinking, or why she’d even submit herself to Hojo’s experiments…”
She gasps, “She submitted herself? I thought she was captured and forced into it!”
“I’d like to know too, but she keeps ignoring and avoiding me.”
“Hmm…” She still looks a little worried to hear all this, but lets it be for now. “Well, if she won’t say anything, we’ll just have to keep looking for answers ourselves.” She then nods and offers a kind smile to reassure her. “Don’t worry, Cuz, we’ll get to her eventually. Besides, you’ve already been dashing around from place to place since we left Midgar. It’d be good to slow down and relax a little.”
Ruby grumbles to herself in frustration. “But we still have so many more places to go and things to do, and I don’t know how much time we still have before something goes horribly wrong that can’t be fixed…”
“Shh. It’s okay.” Aerith pats her on the head with affection. “We can’t expect to know everything about the future, so don’t rush into it. Oh, that reminds me.” She also suggests with a twinkle in her eyes, “Ruby, what do you think about if we let Cloud take the lead?”
“The lead? You mean, of the party?”
“Yeah.”
“…” She blinks once and glances off again, not exactly looking impressed.
Aerith looks a little disappointed. “Not too confident?”
Ruby whips back with a snarky reply, “I’m fine with it if he wants to, but I don’t think he actually knows what we should be doing.”
“Hehe. Aw, he’s not that bad off. I’m sure he’ll figure something out.”
She snorts indignantly. “Besides, I may have just woken up, but I’m really pissed off. It feels like our visit to the mansion was the clincher to some kind of sick joke… but I can’t take out my anger on the one guy who’s definitely laughing at me right now! I need a substitute target, and I’m honestly tempted to find Hojo and kill him – after I get answers.”
Aerith frowns too. “Same here. I don’t like killing usually, but I can make an exception for him.”
She cracks a subtle smirk. “That’s my Cuz.”
“But I don’t know if it’ll be that easy. If he knows some things about Rubia, he would definitely take measures to protect himself from you even with all your power.”
“Right. For starters, I can’t kill him if I don’t even know where he is.” She pauses as she then catches onto a disturbing realization. “…But he probably knows where I am, dammit!”
“Huh?”
Ruby groans, planting her hands to her face. “If Rubia submitted herself as a subject, then it only makes sense that Hojo would have some way to track her… and thus me! Ugh! I don’t even have the memories of the experiments and I feel violated!”
Aerith gives her another comforting pat on the head. “It’s okay, Ruby. Even if he does, it’s not like Shinra would be able to chase us down that easily.”
She sighs. “I know… but it really feels like the more I learn about Rubia and my past lives, the more vulnerable I realize I am and have always been…”
“…”
“Sometimes, I wish I could just eject myself out of this body and find a new one…” Beat. “Well, not like I have a choice here. I came to this world like this…”
Though Aerith is a little lost to where Ruby has taken the conversation, she decides to leave it alone and change the subject. “Oh. Speaking of going places, are you okay enough to walk around?”
“Huh? Uh, yeah…” Ruby sits up, noting that the last traces of her dizzy spell have faded, and she can slide off the bed back on her feet. “Okay. Are we heading back to Cosmo Canyon?”
She shakes her head. “Actually, we already left the town. Everyone’s on board.”
Ruby blinks. “Everyone? Why are we leaving?”
“A change of plans, I guess. After we took you back to town, Cloud said he wanted to discuss things with everyone again and that included Cid, so it was just easier that we all come along. I think they’re all still out on the deck. Oh, except Sonon.” She looks to a nearby bed. “He’s here too.”
Ruby passes him a sympathetic glance too. “Well, glad to pay him some company so he’s not the only one.” She turns back to Aerith. “Nothing changed for him?”
“Nope. As silent as ever. But I’m surprised he’s been able to stay in shape after not eating for a while.”
“Ah…” Ruby does some quick mental gymnastics before concluding, “I figure it’s because his soul is trapped, but not gone, so he might as well be in stasis.”
“Huh. Is that how it works?”
She shrugs. “That’s my guess.”
Aerith smiles. “Well, you’re the ancient Cetran spirit here, so I trust your judgment!”
She gives a nervous chuckle to that. The things she can get away with; ah, the privilege of being a time-traveling dragon sorceress. “Anyway, I have to say, I’m impressed.”
“Hm? About what?”
“Cloud sure has stepped up. Not only is he taking the lead, he’s even ordering the Captain around? Bold move, if anything.”
Aerith giggles. “Well, something seems to have gotten to him, that’s for sure. Why don’t you head out and ask him? I’m sure they all want to see you too.”
“Sure. I got plenty to catch up you all anyway.”
Ruby passes one last glance toward the other bed where Sonon lies. With a quiet prayer on her lips, she promises that they’ll be bringing him home soon enough. From there, she’ll leave it up to him to decide what he wants to do. And the two leave together, with Ruby leading the way.
Even though the inside of the airship is much bigger and more detailed than she remembers of it from the old game, she’s perfectly able to navigate the way. But it also doesn’t hurt to take a moment or two to admire all the detail of the metal patchwork plating and the occasional sturdy piping poking out below the catwalk leading up to the deck. The most intricate she’d seen of inside the Highwind in HD were just particular shots from some of the later entries in the Compilation. Boy, Rebirth can’t come sooner…
And the view on deck is as beautiful as she remembers. The Highwind is currently at rest on a peaceful patch of grass away from the desert winds, and some thick forests have shielded it from direct sight from any neighboring towns. Nonetheless, there is one that can be seen in the distance to the southeast, likewise surrounded more forest. Ah, of course, it’s that town. They must be on the south side of the canyon.
“Ruby! Aerith!”
Tifa’s voice brings everyone else to attention and relief as the two formerly absentees arrive. Everyone’s on deck exactly where Ruby remembered they would stand – Cloud at the forefront, Cid by the helm, Barret to their right, etc. Meanwhile, Biggs and Wedge stand where Cait Sith would have been, while Jessie seems to be down by the table on the lower deck, with Red and Vincent on standby and even Yuffie of all people sitting next to her. They seem to be listening to something on a radio.
“Well, look who’s back,” Biggs remarks, smiling like he’s finally at ease.
“Good morning, Ruby!” Wedge greets her likewise.
“Yo! Feelin’ better?” Barret’s usual gruff voice comes with a hint of fatherly tone.
Ruby gives a stretch of her arms as she steps up on deck and passes them all a casual smile. “Yeah, much better. Felt like I overslept, though.” She also shares that smile with Cloud and the latter… barely reacts with just a passive glance her way. Jerk.
Barret nods back. “Glad to hear. You been out for most of yesterday.”
“Yeah. I know you said I could get some rest, but I think I’ve fulfilled my quota.”
He gives off an amused snort. “Hey, it’s all good. All the more in reserve so you can get back to kicking ass!”
And she’s back to being smug. “Oh, you got that right.”
Tifa has her own gentle smile too. “Well, we’re all here now.” She turns back to Cloud. “Let’s catch up.”
He nods and turns back to Ruby, getting right down to business. “We’ve been discussing the plan from here on out and some other things we still have to follow up.” He folds his arms with a stern look. “Sorry to tell you, since you’ve been out of it, but you’ll have to step down as leader.”
Ruby actually looks amused to hear it. “Oh, no. I’m being demoted?”
“Yeah. You’ve been having too many incidents that make it really hard to work around.”
“Uh-huh. Make me sound more useless, why don’t you?”
He drops the stern look for one of genuine concern. “Ruby, I’m serious. I know your mission for the truth is really important, and we’re with you all the way. But you’re also way too reckless, always rushing ahead by yourself. We’re supposed to move together as a team, remember? You’re strong, but not invincible. You should know that better than anyone.”
Ruby looks aside with a pout almost like a teen rejecting being lectured.
“Besides, even if everything else seems so easy for you, it’s not the same for us.” He glances off with a bitter frown. “As much as I want to chase down Sephiroth, I have to admit that we’re not ready to face him yet. It was a struggle just fending off that thing…”
“That thing? What thing?”
He turns back to her with a raised eyebrow. “You don’t know? Do you remember what happened back in the basement?”
“After I passed out, right? Aerith told me you guys were attacked by Jenova.”
“Yeah…” He strikes a thinking pose as he considers how to describe it. “Well, it looked like Jenova at least. But it was some kind of ghost of hers that trapped us in an illusion.”
Tifa nods with a frown as she recalls too. “It was really freaky. It was like she pulled us all into the same nightmare and was trying to tear us apart… literally,” she adds with a gulp.
Aerith crosses her arms with an upset pout. “And she even stole one of your moves, Ruby! I didn’t even know a creature of darkness like that could use light magic.”
Ruby blinks. “Whoa, seriously?” She then sighs. “Man… I wish I was there to see it. It sounds like you guys had a cool fight.”
Cloud fires back with an unamused look, but then relents as he actually agrees. “…Honestly, I wish you were there too.”
“Huh?”
He then admits with a defeated sigh, “We had way too close of a call. Vincent showed up just in time.”
“He actually fended off Jenova by himself for a while there. At one point, he even turned into… um, some kind of beast?” Tifa recalls.
“Galian Beast?” Ruby suggests with a delighted smile.
“Oh. Is that what it’s called?”
“Big blue Behemoth-like creature with red hair and two giant horns?”
“Yeah. You got it.”
“Yep, that’s him.”
Tifa blinks for a bit, but then catches on. “Oh, right. You would know, huh? You knew where to find him, after all.”
Aerith smiles as she comes to a funny idea. “Oh! I just realized that he and Ruby have something in common too. They can both transform into powerful beasts!”
Ruby shrugs. “He can’t quite control his beastly forms, but sure, I can see it.”
“Ah, but that just comes with experience.”
She blinks, quite taken aback. Did she really hear Aerith of all people make a “skill issue” joke?
Quite tired of Ruby’s carefree nature derailing every conversation, Cloud decides to cut in and get them back on track. “Anyway, we need to get ourselves ready as soon as possible. Who knows when we might run into anything worse…”
“Did someone say, ‘training montage time’?” Ruby cuts in again.
“…” He chooses to ignore that. “But it’s not as easy as just running around looking for random monsters out in the field. That’d take forever. And besides, we’re still being hunted down by Shinra. They might not have guessed that we came to Cosmo Canyon, but if we fly around like this long enough, they’re bound to catch on. Then, even this town might not be safe.”
“Yeah. This was Shinra’s airship before Ruby nabbed it, after all, and we even got one of their pilots,” Biggs cautiously reminds them.
“At least he’s nice enough to let us take a ride,” Wedge compliments.
“Sure… at least until he decides to book it if we run into any Shinra bigwigs or even the Turks,” he mumbles under his breath. “He’s still our ‘hostage’, isn’t he?”
“Well, he doesn’t seem like he minds?”
But they’re promptly interrupted by a loud clearing of his throat from the Captain in question who definitely hears them, and they shut right up.
Ruby chuckles to herself. “Yeah, I still need to get his appointment with Rufus, but he’s practically one of us already.”
“Hey, Ruby. You said you traveled the world a lot before, right?” Cloud asks again.
“Yeah.”
“Do you know of any good places we can go to do some training out of Shinra’s radar?”
“Oh, I know plenty of places, but I’m not sure how many of them are suited to your current levels. And that reminds me: we gotta get you guys geared up first! Our materia aren’t gonna level up on their own either. And as it happens, I know just the places to visit to get summa the good stuff for free~! We’re running low on funds anyway.”
“Speaking of which, Ruby, do you think you could get us more funds?” Tifa then asks, now that she’s reminded. “The people of Cosmo Canyon were really generous with letting us stay that long, but we still had to pay for room and board and everything, so…”
“Gotcha. Another visit to Gold Saucer, coming right up.”
“Hold it,” Cloud interrupts her, “Is there any other way we can make a quick buck without resorting to that?”
“Huh? That’s the easiest place to ‘make a quick buck’, though.”
“Yeah, but the place is crawling with Shinra watchdogs. Even if you can get away, what happens if the owner of the place stops giving bounty rewards because they find out we’re wanted fugitives?”
“But then where else do I go to fetch monster bounties? There are some awesome and rare creatures around the world that would fetch a grand sum! We’d be millionaires in under half an hour!”
He shakes his head, clearly not believing her. “Then, how about something that doesn’t involve monster hunting?”
“What? Come on… I mean, I guess we could always train up a certain kind of materia until they’re mastered and sell them, but would you really want to wait on me to do that? I’m not even sure if we can find the particular materia I’m thinking about…”
“No way. Materia is hard enough to find as is.”
“Unless Ruby just makes them herself?” Barret then suggests, scratching his head. “I think I remember the Cetra were known to be able to do somethin’ like that…”
Cloud slowly turns to him with a very annoyed frown.
Tifa turns to Aerith too. “Is that true?”
Aerith shrugs. “I’ve never done it before.”
“That’s just certain Cetra and it’s actually a skill that takes years to develop,” Ruby explains. She waves the idea away anyway. “Besides, I’d rather not make any. I’d be hard-pressed to find someone who’d be able to appraise my magic orbs; needless to say, someone responsible enough to keep them out of use. I don’t need my MP being sapped by some rando, even if I have so much I don’t know what to do with it.”
Cloud nods too. “Pretty much what I was thinking. So any other options we have to fix our money shortage?”
“Hmm…” She frowns as she deliberates further. “Well, the only other option I can think of is hunting for treasures and finding a dealer of some sort to trade them for cash, but there aren’t too many off the top of my head.”
“But you do know someone?”
“A few come to mind, but there’s this one guy. I don’t know his name or anything, but he’s a world-renowned Weapons Dealer who’s worked with just about any kind of weapon out there. I’m sure he does business with anyone, regardless of whether or not they’re with Shinra. He’s a real recluse, though, and has his own cabin to the east of the Gold Saucer, at the tip of the peninsula.”
“Huh. So there is someone like that?”
“Oh, yeah. The world’s a pretty big place, after all.” She then cocks her head aside as she explains further, “The problem here, though, is that he’s quite particular about the materials he accepts. I’m gonna have to explore around elsewhere to find the stuff he wants.”
“…” By now, he’s getting a little impatient and even discouraged by how complicated she’s making this out to be. “So, do you know what to do, or are we stuck waiting until you figure something out?”
“Oh, I know exactly where to go. The problem is, there’s nothing for you guys to do if you come with me.”
“Not that we’d let you go off on your own anyway,” he insists, “Remember what just happened? You were out for a whole day yesterday.”
“Yeah, yeah. But that was a Jenova attack, and this is just treasure hunting. I don’t just have blood-curling freakouts any time of day!”
“Yeah, but we can never know with you…”
“Relax, man. If you really want to come along, I can take a few. Maybe even help find you guys some good training spots. We can even take turns so no one is left out. In the meantime, I hope the rest of you can find something else to do.”
“Huh? Of course we have things to do. And you’re gonna be a part of-”
Before he can finish his answer, though, Barret impatiently cuts him off, “Alright! Ruby, we’ll leave the upgrades and training and all that to you! But we ain’t just gonna dawdle in the meantime! We got lotsa problems that still gotta be solved! It ain’t just Shinra on our tail. Who knows what the rest o’ Avalanche are up to now?”
Tifa nods solemnly. “Right. We left Midgar in a hurry to avoid passing the heat onto them, but I doubt they’d be in the clear either. It was just a temporary truce between us and the Turks, after all, and it wouldn’t have counted them anyway.”
Aerith looks aside as she recalls something too. “I wonder how Mom and Marlene, as well as the rest of the good people are doing now.”
Biggs answers, “Jessie’s been tuning the radio to SNN to catch any news from Midgar, but so far, it’s been nothing but confusion, outrage, and protesters getting arrested.”
Ruby pipes up again, her curiosity piqued. “Protesters?”
“Collateral, you could say. Since we left Midgar, Shinra’s been doubling down on the hunt for Avalanche. The city’s not officially under martial law, but they sure have been making things worse for people. The police have scoured all the remaining sectors aside from 7, and they’ve even arrested a group that they claim to be Avalanche, or at least their sympathizers. Of course, this is SNN we’re talking about, so who knows if they’re really some of ours.”
Wedge nods along sadly. “Poor folks. Can’t even protest Shinra anymore without getting arrested.”
Biggs makes a frustrated frown. “Nayo’s gang must be in some hot water by now too. They were gonna contact the other cells sometime, but who knows how that’s gonna go with this happening.”
“They might have all been forced underground or even out of the city if they could make it out,” Tifa worries. “Rufus did say he was going to harden Shinra’s stance on the matter, after all.”
Barret nods with a firm look of resolve. “And that’s just how it was always gonna be. Our fight ain’t over til it’s over. This just gives us more fuel to the fire!” Then, he’s reminded of something more. “Oh. Speaking of the prez… wasn’t he supposed to have his inaugural march off in Junon?”
“Wait, was that today?” Tifa tries to recall. “Ruby, when you picked up the ship, the place was unguarded, right?”
She nods. “Yeah. I even heard some rehearsal music playing off in the distance, but it didn’t seem like the march was on at the time. I assumed it was the day after, but now I’m not so sure.”
“So you’re saying… that with everyone preoccupied with the march, Junon’s basically unguarded?” Barret asks, already coming up with a new plan.
“I guess so.”
There’s a conniving smirk on his face now. “Well, then. I gotta pay my respects too.”
“Whoa, wait a sec. Are we planning to stop by Junon now?” Biggs cuts in with another question. “I thought we decided on Midgar?”
“You should know how things go around here by now, Biggs! We can cover more ground by splitting up!”
“W-what? Again!?”
Tifa is also concerned. “Well, we don’t have to worry as much about transport now, but Barret, is it really a good idea to split up between two completely different cities? How would we be able to stay in touch?”
“I’m glad you asked!” comes the chipper reply from below deck. Jessie now hops up to them. “You guys really oughta be grateful that I’m still around. I haven’t been sitting by idly just listening to news either!”
“Oh? What have you been working on?”
Jessie whips out a few radio transceivers, but it seems they’ve been modified yet again. With a tap of a button, she opens up one of them, which reveals a flat screen with a customized digital display like on a computer. These aren’t just walkie-talkies anymore; they’re practically smartphones.
“Presenting: the Party Hotline System, also known as the PHS! With these babies, we can all stay in touch even across the world!”
Ruby snaps to attention, her eyes nearly bugging out. “Did you say PHS?”
“Yep! But these aren’t your old-fashioned radios anymore. They come with all new features: cross-country comms, as mentioned, but even live video feed so you won’t be missing out on seeing anyone! Even better, it doesn’t ride Shinra’s airwaves because they’re synched up through a different system entirely. In other words, we don’t have to worry about being hacked any time soon!”
Yuffie now hops on by. “But it gets even cooler! They can’t hack us, but we can still hack them!”
Jessie nods with a smirk. “It’s simple enough to attune to their frequencies anyway. But now we can do so without notifying them.” She then finishes with one more thing, “And of course, I couldn’t forget this function…”
She taps the screen a few times and flips the device on its side, presenting it before the rest of them, and taps it again. Flash.
She grins as she shows them the captured photo. “Built-in camera.”
By now, Ruby is bubbling with excitement. She squeals and gives Jessie a warm glomp. “Jessie, you’re AMAZING! I LOVE YOU!”
“Hahaha! No problem. I knew you’d like it!”
Ruby snatches the rest of the devices and races around the ship in rapid flashes to hand them off to everyone, snapping up a picture of them as she does. She even quickly snaps a quick selfie with Cloud in the background still busy looking his over. And out of everyone on the crew, Yuffie is apparently the one who cringes at her behavior.
Barret then lets out a hearty laugh and a proud fist pump. “That’s our Jessie! You do us proud, ya genius!”
She responds to his with her own bump. “Wouldn’t have it any other way, Boss.”
Tifa blinks as she examines hers. “Oh, wow… This is really amazing. How did you ever get them like this?”
“A whole lot of work, that’s for sure. Practically had to rebuild them from the inside-out, but it was worth it!”
Cloud raises a curious question too, “You said it ran on a different system? What sort of system?”
Jessie grins. “Materia chips.”
“Huh?”
“As it turns out, Cosmo Canyon really is a wealth of knowledge! I met an old engineer there who used to work for Shinra way back, but he quit and has been working on vehicles and other machines that run on alternative fuels.” She shrugs. “Still, there’s nothing that’s more efficient than using materia as a power source. He still had some shards from when he used them in some old designs; even managed to get a whole dune buggy working once. It’s still using Mother Gaia’s knowledge and all, but at least it’s much better than draining and using live mako like how Shinra does it. It was a little bit of work to get them into our radios, but we managed.”
“…Huh.”
“Long story short: unless Shinra somehow gets a hold of the same kind of crystals, they’re not gonna be able to catch us.”
“Oh, Jessie!” Ruby’s back beside her, leaning in with a delighted grin. “Did you say ‘materia’? I just got an idea.”
“Huh? What’s up?”
Ruby then flips her device around and begins to pry the thing open, to the latter’s alarm.
“Uh, Ruby? Careful not to dislodge anything?”
“Don’t worry, I just wanna touch it for a bit.”
She uncovers the back of the device, finding the tiny glowing shard that powers the thing, and gives it a light tap. For just an instant, the pupils in her eyes flicker as if buzzing with a little static, and then she covers the device once more and slips the whole thing into a pocket. Setting two fingers upon her left ear, she makes a call in silence.
Jessie is surprised to find her transceiver now ringing to life and picks up the call. “Hello?”
Ruby grins. “Thanks. I’m in.”
Jessie’s jaw drops. “You’re in, just like that!? Sheesh, you’re scary!” She hangs up the call and makes a more sheepish grin. “Well, I guess you won’t be needing this for much after all, huh?”
“Oh, I’m keeping it. It’s still handy.” Ruby slips hers into a pocket. “I can now make outgoing calls anytime, but I’m not going to be listening in on every conversation you all have. It’s already some high maintenance just listening to Cloud-”
Said guy cuts in to remind her, “Just because you can call doesn’t mean you don’t need anyone watching you. Even if you’re gonna warp everywhere, you’d better be somewhere where some of us can see you.”
She returns him an unamused look and turns back with a casual gesture his way. “I rest my case.”
Yuffie pumps her fist in the air too. “Awesome! Now we really can call on her anytime like a Summon! But even better, ’cause it’s without all the MP cost, heh.”
“Aye. I’ll be there in a flash. Count on it.” She adds with a snicker, “We might even get in some extra training sessions on-the-go if you’re up for it.”
Her grin then falters a bit. “Eh… We’ll see how it goes.”
Looking around and nodding with satisfaction, Barret follows up, “Then, it’s settled!” He even announces the conclusion to seal the deal: “Alright, ya’ll, let’s go over the plan again so we’re all caught up! Jessie, Biggs, Wedge. You guys will stop by Sector 5 to see what Nayo’s gang has been up to and if they need any help. Aerith will join you, to check on her mom and Marlene again. We’ll leave them to her.”
“And we still have to contact the rest of Avalanche while we’re at it,” Jessie reminds her fellow members. “They’re supposed to be scattered around the city.”
He nods. “We also got those protesters that were arrested. Even if they aren’t any of ours, I’m sure they’d be happy to join Avalanche after all their trouble. But since we’re still wanted, it might be tricky getting to those people without stirring up worse.” He then turns to the others. “Thankfully, we got some other members that are still off the radar. Yuffie, Vincent, you guys will sneak into Shinra HQ to get them out. And since Ruby’s gonna take Cid to meet Rufus, the rest of us will come with to get some more answers outta him.”
“Oh, you’re coming with?” Ruby asks, “I was thinking it was gonna be a quick drop-off. I still got all the other errands to do, but I’ll be bouncing around between everyone just in case.”
“Do what you gotta do, but don’t worry about us. We won’t call on ya unless as a last resort. And since we’re gonna meet Rufus, we gotta take the ship along in case things go south.” He balls up an angry fist up front. “Besides, I got plenty more to say to that asshole! The last time didn’t count for shit!” He then turns to the Captain in question. “Hey. That okay with you?”
Cid returns him a lazy hand wave. “Sure. Whatever your reasons, I’m not gonna ask. But while we’re off to see the prez, someone’s gotta guard the ship. All’a hell can freeze over if I ever let Shinra take her away again.”
Red offers, “I can stay. I don’t have anything in particular to discuss with him.”
“Huh? You got a side-hustle as a guard dog too?”
He snorts, making a somewhat amused look. “That is how it’s turned out, yes.”
“Okay! Looks like we’re all set. And if anything comes up, remember to stay in touch!” Jessie suggests and passes a wink to Ruby. “Backup will be there in a flash!”
She nods back with a reassuring smile. “Yep. And after my job’s done, I still got someone else in Midgar to meet too, so we’ll all have to meet back up somewhere. But none of the sectors as they are will be safe, and Sector 8 is too messy to navigate. How about by the outskirts of Wall Market? Patrol doesn’t usually look there anyway.”
Barret pumps up a fist. “Sounds good! And uh, who’s this other person you wanna meet?”
“Hmm…” Ruby takes a moment to consider how best to say it to avoid suspicion. “A certain very concerned citizen who can help keep tabs on Shinra for us.”
“Huh. There’s someone like that?” He pauses for a moment and then nods back. “Well, alright. We’ll catch up on the deets later.”
“You got it, Boss.” She then turns back to Aerith and the few others coming along. “Well, Cuz and friends? Shall we be off? I’ll drop you guys off in Sector 5 and stick around to make sure the coast is clear, but I’ll be off shortly. Call me anytime.”
Aerith raises both fists up with her own determined look. “Sure thing, Cuz! We’re ready when you are.”
Ruby, without missing a beat, shares a fist bump with her. She also gives a snappy salute to the rest of the crew and taps the selected group to join her in being enveloped by her white glow, and they vanish together in that brief spark.
Notes:
Apologies for the (relatively) short chapter, but I couldn't find another good break point to end the chapter, so next chapter is going to go into a whole lot of location jumping. Hang on to your britches!
There's just one thing of note to comment:
- The PHS was originally known as the "Party Hensei System", where hensei is Japanese for "organization" or "structure". I just substituted "hotline" because it sounds better as entirely in English and it is definitely "hot" in a different way considering Ruby is now dialed into the system and can come in like an EMP burst. No one can remove her from the party select screen anymore!
On that thought, Remake updated the long-standing Panasonic flip phones across the Compilation to smartphones, so I fully expect Rebirth to reintroduce the PHS as smartphones. Finally, Cloud will have a phone to match the modern era. (I swear, he's gonna switch back to the ol' Panasonic when he gets his AC outfit as paid DLC in Ever Crisis. I'm calling it now.)
Chapter 30: Entangled Traces
Notes:
4/29/25 edit: Added additional details to Ruby's materia to be consistent with the present description.
5/24/25 edit: Oops, missed the part where Ruby was supposed to pay Kyrie up front, lol. Corrected.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The church at the edge of the Sector 5 slums is as quiet a place as ever, left unattended to the whims of nature since its favorite caretaker has been away. Though on the occasion the kids of the Leaf House – the humble little schoolhouse that Aerith once worked as a teacher’s assistant – would volunteer to help take care of the flowers in her stead, it seems as of late, they haven’t been stopping by. Though, it would be rash to assume that they haven’t tried. Ruby has brought much of the crew here, where they would temporarily be out of the sights of any potential Shinra patrol. She had considered Wall Market previously, but this place is still a safe haven in some regards.
Aerith looks sadly upon her beloved flower patch. While the flowers themselves have been resilient enough on their own, she can’t help but notice a few unwelcome weeds have popped in to parasite upon their grounds. Without a word or moment of hesitation, she begins to tend to her patch while the rest of them review over the plans once more.
“Here we are, Sector 5 slums. Get yourselves ready before you step out into the wild iron jungles out there, folks,” Ruby announces almost as if she were a flight attendant with her passengers.
“Wait, isn’t this…” Yuffie passes a glance around. “The old church? I remember passing by it before.”
“Oh, yeah… There was a church out here, wasn’t there?” Biggs begins to reminisce. “Been a while since I’ve been back…”
She turns back to Ruby. “Why’d you bring us here?”
Ruby shrugs. “It’s as good a place as any, I think. Shinra wouldn’t think to come out here when barely anyone drops by.”
Jessie then whistles to get everyone’s attention. “Alright, guys! I’m sure we all know what our missions are, but let’s go over the details just to be safe. Biggs, Wedge, and I will be exploring around to see any signs of Avalanche. Yuffie and Vincent, since you two are headed for Shinra HQ, you’ll have to find a way through Wall Market if you wanna skip the usual patrol.”
Yuffie snorts. “I know. This isn’t the first time I’ve been here.” She also peers over to her current partner. “Though, this one’s a little more of the brooding type than Sonon…”
Vincent barely passes her a glance and says nothing.
“Hey, I heard from Ruby that you’re a former Turk, right, from long ago? You still know your way around Midgar?”
“…Rest assured, I can find my way regardless of what may have changed.”
“Uh-huh… You’d better not slow me down or get lost, or you’re fending for yourself.”
“…”
“From what we caught on the news, things may get a little messy. We’d better be on the lookout for any other dangers too,” Jessie reminds them.
“We should be ready in case we have to dig in our heels, though,” Biggs warns too, “Who knows what security measures Shinra might pull this time around.”
“But we should carry light, since we’ll be trying to blend into the crowds, right?” Wedge asks to confirm.
“Right. That does just leave us with the basic gear, but we’ll have to make do.”
Ruby nods with a reassuring smile. “Leave the inventory to me. I can act as the transfer point between all of you too, so just check with me if you want something.”
“Though, Ruby, now that you mention it…” Jessie then brings up, “If you’re gonna warp around, wouldn’t that also give away where we’d be? Seems like needless hassle, honestly. We’d do better sticking with the meetup point by Wall Market, like we discussed before.”
“Ah. Yeah, that’s fair. Though if push comes to shove, I can also cover you guys with Invis.”
“Uh, ‘Invis’? What do you mean?”
“A low-cost Invisibility spell. I can also upgrade to Invisira if I have to target multiple allies at once.”
A still atmosphere sets in as everyone stops short in their tracks and turns back to her in disbelief. For just a moment, even Aerith’s quiet humming as she picks out a few weeds can be heard in the back.
Ruby looks around at everyone and makes her own confused look. “What?”
“Come on, Ruby!” Yuffie groans, speaking up for everyone, “If you can just do that, then do it now! Saves us all the trouble of trying to ‘blend’ in!”
She makes an almost indignant look, though. “But it only lasts a few minutes with each cast, and I don’t want to keep warping in and out just to see if you’re all still covered.”
And now, the atmosphere returns to normal as they have a collective understanding.
“Can you extend the time, then?” Biggs suggests, “Just long enough that you don’t have to keep checking in on us?”
“Like Jessie said, it’s needless hassle. Just take care not to be spotted normally, and call on me only for emergencies.”
“Right…” He sighs, but nods along.
“Oh, yeah. Ruby, where are you going to be while we’re all split up anyway?” Wedge finally brings up.
“I’ll be with my Cuz, of course. We’re visiting her mom and Marlene, and I did promise them that I’d take them off to Kalm at some point.”
“Oh, right! Okay, we’ll leave them to you, then!”
“Remember, guys: meet back up by Wall Market when you’re done! Then we can leave the rest to Ruby!” Jessie calls out in conclusion. She then adds to her fellow squad: “But first, let’s see if I can’t try to hack a signal and get an idea of where patrol has been…”
Biggs nods. “Good idea. We might also be able to tell where Avalanche could be hiding where they haven’t looked.”
“That’s exactly the point!” And Jessie whips out her PHS to start a new hacking session, while Biggs and Wedge follow suit to sync up theirs.
As the crew settles into their roles and Yuffie and Vincent take their leave, Ruby returns to Aerith’s side. Her fair cousin has just finished clearing away the weeds and gathers them all up to toss away somewhere else.
“You heard everything just now, right, Cuz?” Ruby asks.
“Of course! I don’t need to use my ears to pick weeds!” Aerith then returns to a more serious look. “Besides, I think we’d better get going now. I’m not sure how, but I get the feeling something might not be all right back home…”
She gets serious too and nods back. “Right. If the kids were here tending to the flowers, there wouldn’t be any of these weeds.”
“Could be Shinra’s increased security keeping them from wandering out of town. Let’s be careful not to stir up too much attention.”
Suddenly, they hear Yuffie yell from outside: “Whoa! What the!?”
Ruby and Aerith share alarmed glances and hurry out after them. As it turns out, Yuffie and Vincent have run into a certain other thief girl who seems to be pursued by a familiar-looking group of scoundrels: the lot that’s working under the Don of a different slums.
“Great timing, guys! I’ll leave ya to ’em!” Kyrie shouts as she runs off for cover.
“Hey!” Yuffie calls after her, but then turns to the others who have come along. “You guys again!? What are you doing here?”
“Huh?” The thug with the manbun takes a moment before he recalls, “Wait a sec… Yeah, I remember you! You’re the kid that was playing ninja!”
“I wasn’t ‘playing’ ninja, excuse you! I am one!”
Vincent passes a glance to Yuffie. “And these are?”
Yuffie scowls, “Some cheap thugs working for some guy known as Don Corneo. Their turf’s supposed to be off in Wall Market, so who knows why they’re here.”
“Hey! I’ll have you know that the Don’s turf has recently expanded, so of course we’d be checking the new grounds!”
“Besides, we’re after that scrawny brat in the blue cap!” the thug in the cap barks too. “You guys are together?”
“Makes sense to me. There’s no way it’s just coincidence that we keep running into them,” the thug in dreads replies.
“No way! We came here for a totally different reason!” Yuffie retorts, but then Vincent puts a hand to her shoulder. “Huh?”
He steps forward, drawing his gun. “In other words, they’re unnecessary to keep around.”
“Uh, yeah, I guess?”
“Ha! Who’s the new dude? You broke up with your old guy?” the capped thug snarks.
“You gonna take us on with that dingy gun, man? Sorry to say, but your odds ain’t looking good!” the dreadlock thug follows suit.
“I’ve been waiting for a rematch. Don’t care who you bring, you’re all goin’ down!” the manbun thug yells as he and his gang draw their own guns.
And as soon as they gave their respective lines, Vincent lets fire thrice in rapid succession, one bullet for each man square in the head. They all drop like rocks to the ground, shortly fizzing away into ether, and even Yuffie is spooked.
“W-whoa! You killed them!?”
“The less witnesses we have running around, the better.” He turns back to her. “And the other girl?”
From the shadows of some nearby scrap, Kyrie pokes out her head and watches Vincent in fear. “W-whoa! Hey! Don’t rope me in with them!”
Yuffie feels a similar sense of dread. “Er, I think she’s good. She was helping Avalanche the last time I saw her.”
“Fair enough.” He withdraws his gun back into his cloak.
Kyrie then cautiously steps back out, still staring at the two of them. “What’s with you guys!? It’s like you keep bringing more and more dangerous people every time we meet!”
Yuffie snorts. “Well, we’re not just playing thief like you are. We’re real fighters.”
“Hey! I’m not ‘playing’ thief! I’m a professional!”
She handwaves it. “In any case, what are YOU doing by the church? There’s barely anyone who comes around here.”
“You think I don’t know that? I came out here to hide from those guys! They ended up chasing me all the way here!”
“Why were they pursuing you?” Vincent asks bluntly.
“Uh… well,” she starts to stammer as she admits, “I think it was because I overheard something about their boss, but it was their own fault for not keeping their traps shut.”
“Huh? You mean Don Corneo?” Yuffie picks up, “What’s going on with him?”
Kyrie shrugs. “From what I heard, that guy’s long gone, but seems like he has a partner in crime who’s been running Wall Market in his place. After what happened with Sector 8, he had no choice but to meet with the Don and work something out.”
“Hmph.” Yuffie frowns. “So in the end, Don Corneo’s still messing around in Wutai. Ooh, I can’t stand him! The sooner we get this mission over with, the sooner Ruby can come with me to kick him out!”
“Hey, this sounds important. I gotta hear this too,” Ruby casually remarks as she and Aerith come on over after watching from the sidelines.
“A partner in crime?” Aerith asks her, “Ruby, do you have an idea who that is?”
She shakes her head. “No, but I’m not surprised. Not like Corneo had much to do while he was overseeing Wall Market anyway, but if he now has some business in Wutai, that’s way more concerning.”
“Right?” Yuffie cuts in, “When we finally get back home, he’s one of the first things we gotta take care of!”
“I thought the mission with your old man was more important, though?”
She then pouts. “Hmph. That one’s a different story and way more complicated to resolve…”
“In any case, let’s focus on our current missions. Since you know the way to Wall Market, you take Vincent and head straight for Sector 0. Their prisons should be somewhere near their HQ.”
“You know, it’d be a lot faster if you could send us there.”
Ruby shrugs. “I don’t know exactly where the prisons are, and I don’t think it’s a good idea to just drop you two off right in front of Shinra HQ. You’re gonna have to explore around a bit.”
“Ugh. Fine…”
“We’ll give you a call when we’ve located the detainees,” Vincent states matter-of-factly.
“Will do. Thanks, guys.”
And with that, Yuffie and Vincent hurry off on their way. Ruby turns back to Kyrie, who looks about ready to head off on her own too.
“Hey, hold it.”
Kyrie whips back around. “What? Whatever you guys are up to, I’m not a part of it!”
“Relax, we just want updates on the situation here. What’s been happening in Midgar?”
“In ‘Midgar’? You mean here in Sector 5 or the whole city?”
“The whole city. Just stuff in general.”
She slumps. “What, have you been living under a rock or something? It’s been all over the news. Or do you just not watch TV?”
Ruby makes a coy glance aside. “Not exactly a rock, but a canyon is pretty rocky.”
She shakes her head and is about to talk, but then gets an another idea. She smirks back, putting a hand to her hip, and offers her other hand. “For the record, just because I helped out Avalanche that one time doesn’t mean I do things for you for free. You want info? Pay up.”
Aerith blinks in surprise. “Really? We have to pay you? We’re just asking.”
Ruby rolls her eyes, but obliges. “How much?”
“Huh?” Even Kyrie looks surprised. “You’re really gonna pay, just like that?”
“Don’t waste our time, kid. How much?”
“Uh…” She then clears her throat and regains her smug composure. “Well, let’s see. Since you’ve done me a few favors just throwing Shinra into a frenzy lately, I’ll be generous. How about I decide the charge after you’ve asked?”
“Huh. Alright, suit yourself. So, what’s been happening?”
She claps her hands together. “Okay. So you at least know that we got a new Shinra president, right?”
“Yep. We met him.”
“Did you know that he’s gone off for another city?”
“Junon, I believe?”
“Okay, at least you’re doing a little better than I thought. But I bet you didn’t hear about the new security program that the Public Safety guy was put in charge of?”
“New program?”
“Yep.” She sighs with a shrug. “Apparently, their idea of building a ‘safer’ Midgar was letting their giant killer robots run free.”
Now Ruby looks a bit concerned. “Robots?”
“It’s called the Sweeper Executive. Now it’s not just officers patrolling around town; they’ve even brought in the machines. It sounds like they got some kind of way to distinguish civilians from not, but…” Kyrie then leans in with a whisper, “If you ask me, it almost feels like they’ve just been targeting people randomly. Like, just the other day, they dragged some poor sap from his clothing shop on some baseless suspicion.”
Aerith gasps, “What? That’s awful!”
Ruby stares back in disbelief. “What the hell? I thought this city wasn’t under martial law?”
“Well, the prez didn’t say anything about it, but everything’s gone to crap anyway.” Kyrie shakes her head with a frown. “But it gets worse: For some reason, even though it’s prime real estate for crime lords and stuff, Wall Market was left untouched!”
Ruby nods, looking not too surprised. “Sounds about right. They never did care to watch that place.”
“Yeah. And as a result, even more shady types have wandered there. It’s no longer safe for normal people to go shopping like they used to without running into cons and scammers and all that.” She then makes a smirk aside. “Though, I have to admit that it’s made it way easier to find suckers who drift by. It’s almost made my job a little too easy.”
“Kyrie, if you know what’s best for you, don’t go stealing from people. You don’t know when you’ll run into worse than those goons that chased you here.”
“I-I know! I already got an earful from Grandma about it! I mean my new job as an informant.”
“Informant? For what?”
“You know, for anything. Just going around surveying and picking up info. Maybe even digging up dirt.” She goes back to grinning cheekily. “Turns out people are willing to pay out way more when they think they got caught!”
Ruby sighs internally. This girl has evolved from thief to blackmailer. But, at least it seems like she’s headed toward that coveted full private-eye status, even if she’s still got some ways to go.
Kyrie clears her throat. “Anyway… You satisfied yet? Or do you have more questions?”
“Nah. I think I got a good idea of what’s going on now. If I want more deets, I can always just meet with the prez himself and ask.”
“Huh? You want to meet him?” Kyrie stares back. “Aren’t you all the most wanted fugitives right now? You might as well let yourself get arrested!”
Ruby snickers. “Even if he wanted to, where would he put me that I wouldn’t just bust out?”
“Uh… right. You’re the dragon that’s been terrorizing everyone, after all,” she concedes as she reminds herself.
“Besides, we can just leave those matters to a few of our friends who are headed for Junon. I’m sure they’ll have a very heated discussion about stuff like this.”
Aerith gives her a worried look. “Though, it’s probably for the best we check on them, just in case the discussion doesn’t go well.”
“…” Ruby nods back with an awkward yet acknowledging smirk. “At least they have some level-headed ones to stop the hotheads, but yeah, we should.”
“Well, then! Glad we worked out a deal! Let’s see…” Kyrie offers her hand. “That’ll be 1000 gil, please.”
Ruby’s smirk disappears in an instant as she turns to her with a disappointed look. “You didn’t tell us enough for that much.”
“Hey, you really wanted the info, and even agreed to let me set the charge! Don’t back out of it now!”
“How about this, Kyrie? Since you have been a big help, I’ll pay you 500 up front, and the rest of the charge will be covered by demonstration.”
“Huh? Demonstration? Of what?”
“If I can clear out the entire town of Sweepers within 5 minutes, my debt will be repaid in half.”
“What? Come on! That’s not fair!” she groans, “Knowing you, you could probably do it all in an instant! You might as well just pay up the whole amount!”
Aerith then mentions, “Um, Ruby? If you do that, wouldn’t Shinra notice where we are? It’d just make it harder for Jessie and the guys to contact Avalanche HQ.”
She quickly waves it away. “Then, rather than ‘clear out’, let’s go with ‘disable’. Would that be fairer?”
Kyrie blinks. “Huh? You mean like turning them off or something?”
“Short-circuit, ‘turn off’, same difference.”
“…”
Aerith still looks concerned, though. “Ruby, maybe we shouldn’t risk it and just pay up? I think we should focus on laying low.”
But now Kyrie seems to be seriously considering this new offer. She then adds, “If you can do it in 5 minutes without using a huge area-of-effect magic, then we have a deal.”
“Consider it done.”
And before Aerith can stop them, the two share a handshake to seal the deal. Runy whips out some coinage from her pocket and Kyrie snatches it out of her hand so fast that only the former can even keep up. Aerith sighs to herself, but decides to play along.
“Okay, Cuz. What’s the plan? How are you going to do this?”
“The only plan is ‘fast’ and it’s starting… now.”
With a tap of her hand to Aerith’s own, Ruby blinks the two of them off into town to get to work. Kyrie blinks too, but only in disbelief. She sighs to herself, wondering what kind of mess she’ll run into when she stops by the town again.
“Hey, Ruby! Aerith! We got a hit! …Huh?”
Finally, Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge hurry on out of the church and they’re surprised to find that those two are already gone. They instead find Kyrie alone looking off in the direction of the town.
She turns to them with a casual handwave. “You just missed them. Seems like Ruby’s gone to bring destruction to Shinra’s latest program yet again.”
Jessie folds her arms with a disappointed frown. “Sheesh. Even when she’s with us, it’s no guarantee we can catch her.”
“So what now, Jessie? Should we call her?” Biggs asks.
She shakes her head. “Let’s just wait a bit for things to settle. One way or another, we’ll have to meet up with those guys underground anyway.”
“Oh, if you’re looking to drop into the sewers, I know a shortcut there,” Kyrie suggests with a sly smile.
“Oh. You’ll lead us there? Thanks, Kyrie!” Wedge replies with his own grin.
She then raises a hand, rubbing her fingers to her thumb. “For a price.”
The other three’s delight is quickly supplanted with disappointment, but they oblige.
Jessie then smirks. “You know, with how much you’ve been helping us, maybe you actually do wanna join Avalanche sometime?”
Kyrie sticks her tongue out. “No thanks. As much as I hate Shinra, I’d rather stay a free agent.”
~
Sector 5 has become a rather quiet place since they last saw it. Since Ruby and friends’ fun romp-n-rampage on the highways, Shinra has thus responded by tightening security on all fronts all across the city. Even while the president is currently away on a business trip, he’s left a certain couple of his executives in charge of said security program, and they certainly delivered on what they promised: more tech. Even in the homely neighborhood of the slums where Aerith has lived, there are several huge Sweepers roaming about and scaring everyone into submission with their very presence. While there are still some grunts on patrol as well, they seem more like set pieces placed there out of obligation than being of any real help.
Cue the monkey wrench. As soon as Ruby warps her and Aerith into the open, she whistles loudly to catch the attention of some guards who are taken quite a bit by surprise. To be fair, they’re not the only ones; Aerith is flabbergasted that Ruby seems to be drawing aggro right from the get-go.
“Um, Ruby? What was the plan…?”
Just as they’re about to be surrounded by guards and machines, Ruby then quick-casts an Invisira upon the two of them and they vanish from sight. Now that their enemies have lost their targets, they rush around confused, yelling at each other to search the grounds. The two Sweepers on scene promptly switch to heat-vision mode to continue to scan the area. But rather than finding their targets, they’re quickly shut down when their respective circuitry is gutted by being dislodged from its proper place. They drop like hammers at the same time and crumple into metal scrap. Normally, they would have self-destructed as well, but even those triggers seem to have been removed in one fell swoop.
Now the grunts are in a panic. They can’t see where their targets have gone, and out of nowhere their heavy artillery is junked. A few of them even seem to be knocked out and fallen to the ground as if they were being picked off one by one. Not one grunt that arrived on the scene was allowed to escape.
While most of the civilians have been kept up in their homes to avoid running into the aggressive patrol, a few curious onlookers have gotten quite the scene. One moment, their local terrors were calling the shots and generally bullying their way around town under the guise of “public safety”, and the next, they’ve all been toppled prone – out but not quite dead.
With a quick and decisive victory, Ruby reveals herself and Aerith as more onlookers arrive. She gives her cousin a high-five for some nice teamwork.
“My girl really just bonked some dudes to victory,” Ruby quips, giving her fingers a quick roll as exercise.
“You could have said a word before we jumped in, though,” Aerith sighs as she pats herself down. “That gave me a bit of a scare.”
“Haha! Not as scared as they were, though.”
She then releases her staff back into their hidden inventory space. “Well, that went a lot quicker than expected, but I don’t think it was all of them in town.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. You can leave the rest to me. Go stop by your house and see how Elmyra and Marlene are doing. That’s way more important right now.”
She nods back. “Okay. Come by soon. I’m sure they want to see you too.”
“Of course.”
And with that, Ruby cloaks herself in invisibility once more and vanishes to continue the hunt as to follow on her word. Aerith then notices all the curious onlookers, and while they look relieved to see a familiar face return, she also notices some bit of tension in the air.
“Aerith! It really is you.”
“Did you really take out all those guards?”
“That was amazing!”
“Who was that other girl that was with you?”
But there’s one elderly woman among them who holds a look of concern. Still, she approaches her with a gracious smile. “Aerith, dear. It’s good to see you again.”
“Oh! Hello, Mrs. Rayne!” Aerith returns the old woman her own smile. “I’m surprised you’re out here by yourself today. Where are your grandkids?”
“Still by the Leaf House. I told them they could stay a little longer. I’ll be fine by myself.” She then shakes her head. “Unfortunately, it’s not just the kids. With all the machines and guards roaming around, we haven’t had much of a chance to wander wherever they like.”
Aerith’s smile then fades. “Yeah. I just heard the news. It’s a part of some new security program that Shinra instated, huh?”
“Indeed. I can’t say it’s done much good, but at the very least, there hasn’t been too much commotion either. There was a close call just the other day, though, when that boy – Oates, I think? – and his friends tried to sneak into the graveyard and were caught by some guards.”
“That’s too bad… though that graveyard isn’t the safest place either, so it’s understandable.”
“I’m not sure what’s going on in those kids’ heads, but they seem convinced that Shinra is hiding something there. When you stop by there, give them a word, will you?”
Aerith nods back. “Of course. I’ll see what’s been happening. Ruby can join us when she’s ready.”
“Ruby?”
She then beams with pride. “My cousin! She was the other girl you saw just earlier. She’s just gone off to clean up the rest of the patrol.”
“Oh, dear…” The elderly woman doesn’t look too pleased to hear it, though. “As grateful as I am to see them gone, I don’t think it will sit well if you two are found out.”
“Don’t worry. We have ways to avoid that kind of trouble. I’m just here for a quick visit anyway, and we’ll be heading out of town again.”
“Off to see Elmyra, I suppose?”
“Yep! Oh, have you seen Mom lately? How is she doing?”
Mrs. Rayne then lets off a sigh. “Sorry to say, I haven’t. No one seems to have heard from her for a couple of days now.”
At that moment, Aerith’s eyes widen and much of the color drains from her face. “What happened?”
“It seems like she’s been entangled in some sort of business with Shinra. Just a couple days ago, someone in a black suit and a couple of Shinra patrolmen stopped by your house. After some discussion, she had to leave with them for something. Of course, it didn’t come easy and she still had a little girl to tend to at the time.”
“Marlene! Oh, no. Where is she now?”
“She’s at the Leaf House and has been staying with the housemother in the meantime. The poor girl seems rather lonely, though. She’s rather quiet and doesn’t speak too much to the other kids.”
Aerith makes a sad look aside. “I’m sorry, Marlene…” She turns back with a more determined look. “I’ll go over there to check on her. Thanks for letting me know.”
She gives the old woman a polite bow and hurries off. As memory serves, the Leaf House is a little ways closer to the center of town… Oh, wait! She should let Ruby know where she’s going. She stops running for a moment to fetch the PHS, but before she can dial in, the gal in question suddenly appears beside her in a blink of white light.
“Crap! Aerith, I lost track of time! How am I doing!?”
“Oh! Ruby, great timing!”
“Huh? Did I make it? Has it been five-”
“Never mind that! I just heard that Mom’s not home. She’s been away for a couple days on some kind of business.”
Ruby snaps to attention. “What? Then, Marlene?”
“At the Leaf House. You know that little ol’ school?”
“Oh, yeah.” She crosses her arms as she glances off in that direction. “Well, that makes sense. It is time for school now.”
“The problem is, I don’t think Mom is in a good place. Seems like that person she left with was in a ‘black suit’…”
Ruby whips back, now getting a little alarmed. “The Turks?”
“Exactly what I was thinking. Whatever happened while we were away, Shinra might have gotten to her.”
“But why would they target her? Aside from being your mom – foster mom – she doesn’t have any relations to the rest of us.”
“Who knows. It sounds like she hasn’t been back in a couple days, even. Wherever they’re holding her…”
Ruby’s eyes sharpen at a thought. “You don’t think she was among the people who were arrested on charges of being ‘Avalanche’, do you?”
Aerith shakes her head, but looks unsure. “I don’t know. But either way, it isn’t good news.”
“Damn… Sorry, Aerith. I don’t know where she could have gone, so I can’t just track her down.”
“It’s okay. I’m sure we’ll find a way to her somehow. But for now, we should check on Marlene.”
“Right.”
They rush off for the schoolhouse together. Despite it being a perfectly fine day for schooling, the place is looking a little deserted compared to usual. There are still a few kids here, as it was once an orphanage of sorts where those kids called home (of sorts), but definitely fewer than one would expect of a school, even if it is on the smaller end. There are three of them out in the courtyard near the building playing some kind of game of balls and jacks, and probably a few others inside.
“Aerith!” one of the kids calls out, and everyone’s eyes are now on the two fresh arrivals.
“Oh! Hey, guys!” she answers, putting on her best smile despite her worries, and the kids bombard her with honest questions.
“We heard some weird sounds just earlier from across town! Do you know what happened?”
“Is there any trouble?”
“I thought I heard some people screaming…”
Aerith passes a nervous chuckle. “Oh, don’t worry about that. There was a bit of an ‘argument’ going on, but it’s settled down.”
Ruby nods along. “It’s been settled.”
“Hey, Aerith! Who’s this?”
“A new friend? Or old friend?”
Aerith answers with a genuine twinkle in her eyes, “An old friend. Guys, meet Ruby! She’s my cousin from out of the city.”
“Oh! Hello, Ruby!”
“Hello!”
“Nice to meet you.”
Ruby makes an awkward smile as she returns them a nervous wave of her hand. Oh, boy… the line of sight from kids that drills holes into her composure. It’s like Cosmo Canyon all over again. At least they’re not calling her the “Moon Spirit” or anything.
Aerith then peers around as she counts up the kids. “Speaking of which, aren’t there supposed to be more of you guys?” She claps her hands as she realizes. “Oh! Where’s Oates? Seems like Verne and Ash aren’t here either…”
“I think they ran off to the hideout when the guards weren’t looking. They haven’t come back yet, though.”
“I wonder what they’re up to?”
“Hope they didn’t run into trouble too… or get caught by the guards anyway.”
Aerith sighs, passing a concerned look toward Ruby. “I guess this was inevitable… Oates was never too fond of adults, and he sure wouldn’t like all the patrol going around.”
“Well, he’ll have me to thank, then. Shinra may eventually catch on that the Sweepers of Sector 5 aren’t responding, but that’ll at least give us some time to stall.”
“Oh. So you really did it? You got them all?”
“Yeah.” Ruby frowns to herself. “But I dunno if I did it in five…”
Aerith then offers a reassuring smile. “Well, I think it was less than five when you got back to me, so you’re good.”
Ruby returns her her own smile. “Alright, Cuz, if you say so. I’ll name you as my witness when we see Kyrie again.”
“Sure! I got your back. Wouldn’t want my Cuz to be all mopey over losing another bet now.”
“Ha! Touché.”
Aerith turns back to the kids, who clearly didn’t quite understand that conversation, judging by their blank expressions. “Good to see you’re all okay, at least. Say, have you seen another little girl? Her name’s Marlene and she’s on the younger end…”
“Oh. The new girl? She’s back inside.”
“We asked her if she wanted to join us, but she said she was busy.”
“She’s been writing some kind of letter for a couple days now, but she won’t say what it’s about. Just that she’s waiting to give it to someone.”
Aerith and Ruby exchange confused glances. “A letter?”
They head inside and find the housemother cleaning, and it seems Marlene has a feather duster in her hand and is helping around the room. The teacher is at her desk, sifting through papers, as the two enter.
“Oh! Aerith! And a friend?”
As soon as she says the name, Marlene whips back around to look and she seems a little frozen stiff in some kind of anxiety as soon as she sees Ruby with Aerith. She ducks her head in shame to avoid meeting their lines of sight and hurries off toward her desk to fetch something.
“Hey, Ms. Folia! Sorry to intrude on anything.”
She waves her hand. “Oh, no! You’re fine. To be honest, it’s kind of a light day today. As you can see, we don’t have too many kids around at the moment.”
“Marlene!” Ruby calls out to the little girl, who to her surprise doesn’t answer back right away.
“There she is! …Is she okay?” Aerith follows suit with a hint of concern.
Now, Marlene whips out some kind of envelope from among a stack of papers and rushes on over to them. With a very shy and almost nervous look, she promptly hands the envelope to Ruby with both hands.
“…? For me?”
Ruby accepts the envelope, and noting that it seems to have been sealed tight with an excess of water, as there are wrinkles in the paper where the seal would be. With a flick of her hand and the instant flash-in, flash-out of a claw, she rips through it with such finesse that it’s a clean cut as if she had used her knife. She pulls out the paper inside and is nearly blindsided by its contents.
It’s a letter – a very short one where the text is written a little sloppily by that of a little girl – and there’s a very cute drawing of a sad Moogle in the corner colored in crayon. And the text simply reads:
“Dear Ruby, I’m very sorry I lost your pretty white ball. Please forgive me.”
Aerith covers her mouth too in shock, likewise taken aback by the sincerity of such a letter.
Finally, Marlene bows her head in apology, speaking as if on the verge of tears. “I-I’m sorry! I didn’t want to give it away, but those people wouldn’t leave Ms. Elmyra alone!”
Ruby stares off into space for a moment. She’s barely given much thought to the troubling fact that her materia has gone missing, and is much more tied up in trying to process the whole formality of this situation in a way that isn’t going to make her melt and tear up too. She quickly blinks away any wetness in her eyes and drops down to meet Marlene at eye-level.
She gives the girl a kind smile. “It’s okay, Marlene. Don’t apologize. It’s not your fault.”
She looks back up, and her eyes have already welled up in tears. “But… if I didn’t show it, they wouldn’t have taken it away.”
“No, no. It’s okay. You don’t owe me anything.” She gives her an affectionate rub of her head. “That ball was a gift to you, so it’s yours.”
“It was a gift from you… Are you not mad?”
“Mad?” Ruby’s smile fades. “Actually, I’m furious – but not at you. At those people who took your favorite ball.” She stands back up with a grim frown and cracks a knuckle with one hand. “When I find them, they’re gonna be the next ones to cry.”
“…” Marlene shuffles uncomfortably. “I’m still sorry that I let it happen.”
“Well, then…” She returns to that kind smile. “How about you make it up to me by giving me a smile?”
“Huh?”
“I’ll forgive you if you let it be and cheer up, okay?”
“Um… does it work like that?”
Ruby smirks. “Well, I’m the wise ancient dragon spirit here, and I say it does, so there.”
“…” Marlene blinks a little and wipes away her tears. With a quiet sniffle and clearing of her throat, she then looks back up and forces an awkward but still cute smile. “Like this?”
“Hmm…” Ruby then drops back down and gives her a warm hug. “Like this. Warm.”
“…” After a moment of hesitation, Marlene then returns the hug and makes a more genuine smile. “Thank you, Ruby.”
She gives the little girl one more affectionate head rub as they part and she gets back up again. “Thank you, Marlene. This is a very nice letter. I love the little moogle, it’s so cute.”
“Hehe… Thank you.”
“I oughta return the favor sometime. Let’s see…” She strikes a thinking pose and then smiles sweetly. “How about I take you and your dad to Gold Saucer sometime?”
“R-really? You’d do that for me?”
“Anything for you, Marlene.”
Now she blushes shyly and twiddles her fingers. “Oh… T-thank you.”
Ruby slips the letter away into her bag in a particular place where it won’t be mixed up with the rest of the items. Now that she notices it, everyone else in the room is looking at her in surprise and maybe a little impressed. Even a few of the kids who were outside have come peeking in. But despite all the attention on her now, she feels a strange sense of tranquility that masks a latent rage burning from within.
Aerith claps her hands with a proud smile. “That’s my Cuz. You kept it together so well.”
Despite her calm and seemingly relaxed smile, Ruby replies bluntly, “To be honest, Aerith… I am THIS close to boiling and ready to kill some people.”
That smile then shifts over to a coy smirk. “Well, you’re gonna have to save that anger for when we find those people.”
That smile fades as she gets serious. “Right. But where would they have gone?”
Aerith then strikes her own thinking pose. “Yeah. If only we had some sort of clue…”
“Um… If I may suggest something…?” the voice of the housemother now catches their attention.
“Yes, Ms. Darrow?”
“I think when those people came to pick up Elmyra, they also dropped off Marlene here. I didn’t mean to, but I happened to overhear their conversation about heading ‘up’ to some kind of safehouse.”
“They’re keeping Mom in a safehouse?”
Ruby snorts. “Sheesh, first they put you in a closet, and now your mom is stuffed into a slightly bigger closet. The Turks really don’t have much better to do, do they?”
Ms. Darrow nods back, but apologizes, “That’s all I really know, though. I’m not sure if it’ll help much…”
Aerith shakes her head. “Oh, no. Thank you very much! That’s a pretty big clue.” She turns back to Ruby. “So they said ‘up’… I’m thinking they’re probably talking about some place on the upper plate.”
“Of Sector 5? Or where?”
“Not sure. But we could start there.”
Ruby frowns. “That’s still too broad, though. I need to pinpoint where they could have gone, or who knows what would happen if that materia falls into the wrong hands.”
“Hmm… Is there a way for you to locate where your materia is?”
“Well… it IS born from my magic, so I’m able to sense when it’s in use. But if it’s just resting inert, that’s a lot harder…”
Just as she says, though, she then picks up on some odd signal from out of nowhere. While it’s not quite like the signal she had received from when the materia was in use like how Yuffie had done before, she seems to get the feeling that something is happening to her magic orb. And where it’s happening is… somewhere above them?
Aerith sighs. “…Boy. This is really hard. I’m out of ideas.”
Ruby looks up toward the ceiling, but she seems to be looking beyond just the ceiling. And for just a brief flash, she can feel some sort of heat of a light source meeting the glow of her own orb. Whoever is holding it right now is shining a light on it, as if inspecting it in the dark.
“Ruby? What are you looking at?”
She snaps back to reality and turns to Aerith with her eyes wide. “I found it.”
“W-what? Really? Where?”
“It’s some building up on the upper plate of Sector 5, after all. But now I have a particular idea of exactly which building.”
“Wow, that’s awesome! Is someone using it now?”
“Not exactly, but let’s just say, my kind of magic is really sensitive to light.”
Aerith beams excitedly. “Well, however it happened, I’m glad things worked out! You really do work miracles, Cuz!”
“This one was entirely by coincidence, to be honest… but I’ll take it.” Ruby smirks, raising a hand toward her as if expecting a high-five. “Let’s go get Marlene’s magic ball back and save your mom.”
“No need to tell me twice!” Aerith meets her hand with her own.
And with that, the two begin to glow white, to everyone else’s amazement. Ruby turns back to Marlene one last time with a reassuring wink.
“When we’re done up there, we’ll be back to pick you up and drop you guys off at Kalm. It may be a little scary leaving the city, but you’ll be safe there. That’s a promise and you can hold me to it!”
Marlene nods back. “Okay, Ruby! Good luck and keep Ms. Elmyra safe too!”
“Thanks for watching her for us, Ms. Darrow and Ms. Folia! Bye for now!” Aerith calls too with a handwave.
And with those rather casual and cheerful well-wishes, Ruby and Aerith vanish once more in a flash of white light. While the housemother and the teacher look dumbfounded, Marlene simply returns to her dusting duties. The other kids likewise are murmuring bundles of excitement. Now they got a story to share.
~
Off in some warehouse where the distributing company has gone off duty, a certain secret meeting is taking place in the shadows. It was a bit of an impromptu meeting as well, given that the Turk who was responsible for escorting Elmyra Gainsborough had made a sudden discovery of a strange new materia. Upon contacting HQ for further instructions, they sent in an assistant scientist who worked under Hojo to inspect and confirm the status of the supposed “new materia”. There would even be another man involved – a third party who was responsible for attending and supervising Elmyra during her stay at the safehouse – who joined them to exchange information regarding his interview with the woman herself.
As reported, the Turk – a woman with short but wavy ginger-red hair and bearing a rather large anti-artillery shotgun on her back – delivered the materia to the scientist, who gave it a quick cursory examination upon obtaining the orb. At this time, the scientist isn’t quite sure what to make of this strange materia, as its composition is a little different than the usual semi-transparent look of normal materia. This one is more opaque, though not entirely as its inner composition shifts with the swirling pattern of a serpent in motion, and glows on its own regardless of what sort of light is shined on it. In any case, it most certainly would be taken in and analyzed in their underground lab.
And just as the three are ready to disband, a bright flash of light interrupts them.
“That’s not yours. We’re taking it back.”
“!?”
Out of nowhere, Ruby and Aerith get into battle positions, and the former of the two is snarling like a feral beast. Her fangs and claws are sharpened, and she’s thirsty for blood.
“W-w-what!? Who are you!? How did you get here!?” the scientist stammers.
The other middle-aged man who is dressed plainly in civilian clothes seems to be more shocked by the one wielding the staff, as if he’d recognized her right away.
The female Turk immediately draws her weapon. “Get out of here. I’ll hold them off.”
The other two flee in different directions, but they don’t get far at all before Ruby makes her next move. Even before the Turk can react, Ruby blitzes past her to tackle the scientist to the floor, knocking him out in an instant and making him drop the orb. It bounces freely just once before she leaps after it and snatches it in the air.
Now the Turk whips around to challenge her, but once again, she’s too quick. Ruby blitzes her now with a quick jab in the gut, knocking her away almost like a ragdoll. And she’s about to lay the same smackdown on the third man when she’s suddenly interrupted.
“Ruby, wait!”
“!”
Ruby has the third man by the collar and she’s raised a threatening claw over his face, but freezes up as soon as Aerith calls to her.
“Don’t kill him!” Now Aerith hurries over to take a closer look at the captive man. “I… think I know this guy!”
“…?”
The poor fellow is frozen stiff in fear and shock from having nearly faced death in the face for a moment there. But now that Aerith sees his face, she’s sure of it.
“Hey, aren’t you…” She gasps. “Carlo!?”
“???” Ruby now struggles to recall who this is supposed to be. Is he a brand new character or someone that she should know?
“Ruby, get off of him!”
Sensing the urgency in her voice, she obliges and lets the man sit back up.
“A-Aerith… Please. Let me explain,” the man pleads between gasps.
“Carlo, what are you doing here? Weren’t you supposed to be watching over Mom’s old business?”
He coughs and takes a moment to clear his throat as the intial shock wears off and he lets off an exhausted sigh. “Yes, well… Unfortunately, some things have changed since we last met.”
“What happened? And where’s Mom?”
“Your mother is safe. I was asked to watch her in the meantime while those Shinra agents were working something out.” He finally climbs back to his feet and dusts himself off. “Come with me, I can show you to the place.”
Before Aerith can follow him out, though, Ruby stops her to ask, “Aerith, I’ll leave him to you, but what about the other two?”
“…” Aerith peers around to the other two people who have been knocked unconscious, and then turns back to Ruby. “I think I recognize the scientist too. He was one of the assistants working for Hojo when I was young and held in the lab.” She then shakes her head. “But this guy gives me bad vibes. He was always kissing up to Hojo back then, and I dunno if he’s changed since then, but…”
Ruby whips around and steps over to the other man. “Alright, no one important. Time to die-”
“Ruby!”
“Eh?” Now she finds Aerith actually upset with her and she freezes up immediately.
Aerith shakes her head. “That’s enough. You’ve already knocked them out. Just leave them.”
“But are they worth keeping?”
“Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.”
“…” Ruby steps away from the man as directed and makes an uncomfortably guilty look. Above all else, being scolded by her cousin is the one thing she can’t fight against.
Aerith lets off a sigh and turns back to Carlo. “Sorry about that. You said you were going to lead us to my mom?”
The graying man still stares at Ruby. “Just who is your friend? That was a terrifying look in her eyes…”
“Don’t worry about her. She means well, but she can get a little heated sometimes.”
“Hmm…” He decides to leave it be and beckons them to follow. “Alright, this way.”
Now, just as they are ready to leave, they meet with one last nasty surprise. As it turns out, the female Turk who Ruby had turned into a ragdoll hasn’t been knocked out in a single hit. Perhaps her body armor was just enough to save her from drifting off to dreamland and she recovers her health with a quick Cure. And with an opportunity available to her, she aims her gun toward them and lets fire.
In an instant, Ruby catches the shell in one hand and crushes it. With that fire renewed in her eyes, she prepares to thrash violently in retaliation.
“Ruby! Don’t kill!”
She stops short of flinging the shell’s shrapnel back at its originator’s face. But in that moment of hesitation, the Turk manages to get back up and resume the assault. And in said hesitation, Ruby isn’t sure if she wants to dodge, thus taking the hit directly in the chest.
“Ruby!”
“Go! I’ll keep her at bay!” Ruby snaps back as she charges at the Turk and wrestles with her for control of the gun.
“R-right! I’ll call you when we find her!” Aerith stammers, and she pushes Carlo along to get going.
The two quickly flee as Ruby swings the gun out of the way to avoid letting the next shot anywhere near them. She then knees her opponent in the gut, careful not to hit any vital organs, and throws her off a good distance across the warehouse. But then she gets a little worried when she doesn’t see the Turk get up right away, and lets off a relieved sigh when she sees her struggle to get up again.
Ruby mutters in frustration to herself, “‘Don’t kill!’ she says. Ugh. It’s so much more effort to avoid killing. She didn’t even recognize who this is and she wants to spare her…” But then, she catches herself as she realizes just what it was that she so casually said. Of course Aerith would be like that, but the better question is: when did Ruby herself get so carefree about murder?
And in yet another moment of her hesitation, she lets the Turk get another shot in at her, this time in the face. But to be honest, despite being hit by the near-equivalent of flak cannon shells given how large these shells are, she’s still barely scratched. Whoever this unknown Turk is, she’s still not as much of a threat as Reno and Rude were, and those two could barely do anything to Ruby either, even with the help of the Monodrives.
No, if anything’s actually troubling Ruby now, it’s herself questioning how she’d so quickly gone from “It’s just a game” to “No, wait, shit. This is actually murder” and back to “It’s just a game” again. Goddammit. This is definitely Sephiroth’s fault. Every time they meet or he throws that stupid alien corpse at her, she swears she’s just gradually losing bits and pieces of her own humanity. And to top it all off, it’s not just him. Apparently, Hojo knows quite a bit more than she had reckoned and it really pisses her off that her worst enemies seem to know her more than even she does. What the hell is this, a Guess Who game for psychopaths!? Well, at the rate she’s going insane, she might as well join them…
Boom. Another headshot and the smoke clears. Now she’s just annoyed. “Quit shooting me! If you can’t tell, it’s not doing shit!”
The Turk stares back in disbelief. “…What the hell are you? These are certified anti-dragon shells. You should be at least a little crippled.”
“Because I’m not any ordinary dragon, you idiot. I’m what most people would call a ‘God’?”
“What? Come on! That’s just stupid! Even Gods can take damage!”
Ruby remains unimpressed. “What kind of game are you playing?”
“Oh, it’s no game. I’ve been waiting for a chance like this…” The Turk stands defiantly with the gun aimed right at her. “I don’t care if you’re some ‘God’ or devil or whatever. I’m not running from a good challenge.”
Ruby blinks back in disbelief; not that she’s surprised at this woman’s gall, but that she’s honestly impressed that there’s someone else here who might actually think like she does… Either that, or she’s just stupid. Probably a mix of both, considering the huge level gap.
“Well, good for you. But you really underestimate Summons if you think that oversized super-soaker is enough. Even Carbuncle could tackle you to death if he wanted to.”
“Shut up! What would you know!? You’ve just been some untamed beast throwing her weight around who thinks she runs the place!”
“Oh, didn’t you know? Rufus and I are on speed-dial level, where I can speed-dial him any time and he has to listen to me.”
“You little…!”
She resumes fire and by now, Ruby isn’t even bothering to dodge the next several blasts. Compared to the actually serious threat of three Cactuars attacking her at once, nothing else in this world has remotely compared, outside of “cutscenes” where Sephiroth gets to bend the rules and do whatever he wants. Is there any encounter they’ve had where she actually has a fair shot at fighting him?
No, there has not. He’s been writing the rules of this game, after all.
Now she’s really irritated again. She finally deflects the last of the shots and lunges in at her opponent, crushing a sharpened claw into the actively loaded shotgun, and causes it to explode just as the next shell was being fired. Ruby pins the stunned Turk to the floor by the neck in a chokehold, but avoids just crushing her windpipes to the point of leaving permanent damage.
“You know, I’m feeling pretty mixed right now… On one hand, I don’t mind a feisty opponent who doesn’t know fear when it’s staring right at her.”
The Turk struggles to wrestle free, but Ruby keeps a firm grip, and for a moment there, her pupils flicker into those demonic-looking slits.
“But on the other hand, I can’t forgive you. You made a little girl cry.”
“…!”
The Turk braces for the impact of the next attack, but to her surprise, Ruby instead lets her go and steps away.
“I’m not going to kill you. My good friend wants me to spare you and I honor her judgment. If there’s anyone you should thank, it’s her.”
“…”
“But the next time we meet, I’m not holding back. But I’m sure that’s what you want anyway, right?”
“…Hmph.”
She passes a rather disdained look toward the unconscious scientist and glances back to the Turk. “Take your idiot scientist and disappear.”
And with that, Ruby runs out the door and after the other two, hoping she didn’t lose them. Unfortunately, she was delayed just long enough to lose track of where exactly she is, as she’d never been in this part of the city before, and she shortly realizes how lost she has become. Fortunately, she can always pick up on the incoming signal of the PHS that she’s linked up mentally. Pretending that she has a headset, she puts her fingers to her ear.
“Yo. Aerith?”
“Where are you, Ruby? Carlo showed me the way to the safehouse. Mom is fine! She’s just a little tired from the stress over some things.”
She lets off a sigh in relief. “Good to hear. The problem is, I’m a little lost. You’ll have to wait a little longer before I reach it.”
“Oh, boy. I knew I should have stayed behind… Okay, stay wherever you are. I’ll retrace our steps.”
~
After catching Ruby acting like a lost child, Aerith returns to the safehouse with her. As it turns out, this is actually just Carlo’s own place that he had bought some time ago after he acquired the business. Though she hasn’t exactly been mistreated, Elmyra certainly seems to have aged a little since they last met. She’s even gained a few graying hairs herself.
“Elmyra! Sorry that you got wrapped up in all this!” Ruby announces as she comes in. She also gives the woman a respectful bow.
“Ruby!” Elmyra shakes her head and beckons her to stand back up. “Please, it’s not your fault. I was caught up in a mess to begin with.” She offers her guests a seat on the couch in the lounge. “It’s not much, but please take a seat.”
Even Carlo offers, “Anything I can get for you two?”
Aerith shakes her head. “It’s fine. We won’t be staying for long. We’d just like some answers.”
Ruby nods. “What happened? Why did Shinra take you away and bring you here?”
“They didn’t really take me ‘away’. I came along of my own accord.” Elmyra lets off a sigh. “Things really have become complicated since you’ve been away. You see, my late husband and I used to run a local business in the slums where we helped with all sorts of construction projects. He even had the house we live in built there.”
Aerith turns to Ruby to add further, “Dad was a really caring man. I never really got to know him since he was away for the Wutai war when I first met Mom, and unfortunately, he never got to return from his last mission.”
“So, it was left to me and a good friend of my husband’s to keep the business running, and for a while there, things were alright. But it wouldn’t last. For the longest time, we’ve had a direct competitor who was headquartered in Sector 8.”
Aerith frowns. “That’s Mr. Manson. He runs a number of different businesses, so he’s not just in construction. But I hear he’s had ties to a certain Don of Wall Market and they’ve been throwing their weight around in taking over turf outside of Sector 6 and 8.”
Ruby snaps to attention. “Don Corneo?”
“That’s the one. Like you said before, he’s also a Shinra lapdog.”
She growls. “God, I hate him. If there were ever a more punchable face…”
“Unfortunately, if you’re looking for him, he’s not in town anymore,” Carlo admits. “I hear he’s moved to an entirely different country and Manson has been overseeing Wall Market in his place.”
Aerith frowns with concern. “So that was the ‘partner in crime’…”
“Pardon?”
She shakes her head. “No, it’s nothing.” She then tilts her head as she thinks it over. “But what I don’t understand is why Manson would agree to help Corneo. He may be a ruthless businessman, but he’s not part of the Mafia. Wouldn’t it be a little too dangerous for him to be involved?”
Carlo shrugs. “Who knows. Whatever deals they’ve been making has been in secret.” He then folds his arms as he suggests, “But I wonder if it’s because the situation’s changed too much for them.”
“What do you mean?”
“After all, he had plenty of businesses in Sector 8, and well…”
Ruby makes a spiteful glance aside. Damn it, Sephiroth. He just had to go and screw so much over.
Aerith makes a worried but sympathetic look. “I think I get it. Even if he wasn’t caught up in the disaster, he must have lost so much business and had no choice but to turn to Corneo for help.”
“Not to mention, it wasn’t just his businesses. People have been really cautious to do business with ours too. There’s been a lot of stigma around the people of the slums since all the news around Avalanche, and especially what happened at one of the Shinra bases.”
Ruby’s spiteful look turns to an uncomfortable one of guilt. She can’t even blame Sephiroth for that one.
Elmyra nods. “As a result, it’s only gotten harder for us to keep the business going. Now that Manson has officially teamed up with Corneo, he’s even been sending his men to harass our people and pressure us into folding.”
Carlo adds, “In the end, he just wants to see us crumble. It won’t even be that profitable for him to keep pursuing us, but I think it’s more about revenge at this point.”
Aerith sighs too. “I’m sorry, Mom, Carlo. I never knew all of this would be wrapped up in our bigger mess.”
Elmyra offers her a sympathetic look. “It’s okay, Aerith. I don’t think any of us anticipated that things would turn out this way.”
There’s a dreary silence that sets in over the group, and then Ruby breaks the ice with one more question hanging in the air.
“That really is unfortunate, but that still doesn’t explain something.”
“What’s that?” Aerith asks her.
“Why would the Turks need to take Elmyra away from her home at all? If it’s just a matter of Corneo and Manson trying to expand their turf, it wouldn’t concern them or Shinra, for that matter.”
“Oh… yeah, that is a good question.”
Carlo then admits with a miserable frown, “To be honest… that might be my fault.”
“Huh?”
He lets off a deep sigh and rubs his head in shame. “Manson threatened me to hand over the deed to the business, and he even warned that he’d send people to harass Elmyra if I didn’t comply. Well, I didn’t want to give it up just like that, so I pretended I didn’t have the deed anymore and had signed it away, so I needed time to find the new recipient. And in that time, I contacted Elmyra and we discussed what to do next.”
“Who did you tell him was the ‘recipient’?”
“Um…” He nervously bites his lip. “I just went with the first name that came to mind, and it was you…”
“…”
“I’m sorry. I should have thought things through more. But since you were away, it gave us some time to stall.”
Aerith nods. “I understand. I’m glad that you two were still able to stay safe, at least for a bit.”
Elmyra further explains, “Carlo suggested that I stayed away from home for a little while until the dust settled. But of course, I refused at first. I had a little girl to watch over, after all.”
“I thought about it for a good while too. In the end, we had to leave her with the housemother at the Leaf House, since it would have been too risky to take her along.”
She looks down with worry. “I felt so awful leaving her alone, but we didn’t have much of a choice. It was around then when that member of the Turks came by.”
“Hm?” Ruby catches onto a suspicion and jumps in to ask, “So neither of you were expecting her?”
She shakes her head. “No. She told me she was sent in by a higher-up to be my ‘safety escort’. I wasn’t sure what to make of it, to be honest.”
Ruby and Aerith exchange wary glances. “You think they were being genuine or if it was a cover-up for something bigger?”
“I don’t know… but either way, I don’t think Mom should stay in Midgar anymore.”
“My thoughts exactly. If anyone’s gonna be a ‘safety escort’, it’s gonna be me.” Ruby turns back to Elmyra with a confident smirk. “Speaking of which, ma’am, I think we discussed it the last time we met?”
She nods back. “You said you were going to take me and Marlene to Kalm, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Oh!” Carlo whips back to Ruby with an astonished look. “So you’re the one that she said would help take her there. Do you have some way to travel that would avoid Shinra, though?”
Ruby flashes a sly smile. “Warp magic.”
“I-I’m sorry?”
“I can jump there in an instant. No one but the ones traveling with me would know where I’d go.”
He simply stares back in complete dumbfounded awe. He had suspected that Ruby was no ordinary person just from initial impressions, but she’s even more mysterious than he’d expected. Just who is this young lady?
Aerith turns to Carlo. “What about you, Carlo? Are you going with them too?”
He shakes his head. “Me? Nah. You know that old story. Maybe when I was younger I would have done anything to be with Elmyra, but now…” He looks around the place and back to them. “Someone’s gotta take care of Mr. Meguro’s old place.”
“Oh. I didn’t realize this was where he lived.”
“It’s actually the place where he wanted to move to, though his son wasn’t too happy about it back then. In any case, I’ve come to watch over it in his place. Maybe if Marcellus ever reconsidered taking over his dad’s work, I could pass it to him instead.”
“Ah. That explains a lot.”
“Still, with how things are going, we might just have to cave to Manson one way or another…”
Aerith shakes her head. “Wait. There’s no need to rush into deciding that yet. I’m sure we can work something out.”
“But how? Even if we do meet with Manson himself, I doubt he’ll want to listen to any more excuses. Not to mention, he’d just try to wrestle the deed from you… even though it’s still with me.”
“Well…” Aerith then turns to her cousin with a hopeful smile. “If there’s anyone who’s great at talking to people, I know my cousin will be able to help.”
Ruby blinks and stares at her. “Huh? You want me to talk to him?”
“Why not? I’m sure we can reach some kind of settlement. And even if push comes to shove, you can just, um, force him to listen? If you know what I mean.”
“…” She looks off as she thinks it over, and then comes to a different thought. “Oh. If we’re gonna go with ‘force’, I have a better idea.”
“Hmm?”
She turns back to her with a look of resolve. “We have to find Don Corneo.”
“What? But, isn’t he gone, like out of the country?”
“That doesn’t matter. The sooner we find him, the sooner we can smash this skeezy coalition of crime lords. At this moment, Manson’s only able to throw his weight around because of Corneo. But if that guy’s out of the picture…”
Aerith claps as she catches on. “Then there’s nothing Manson can do here! That’s genius, Ruby!”
But Carlo still isn’t quite convinced yet. “Well, that’d be great if you can find him. But we have no idea where he’s gone.”
“I know where: a country in the far west called Wutai,” Ruby replies.
“Wutai…” He blinks. “Wait, you mean that country that Shinra went to war with?”
“Yep. But that’s old news…” She adds with a determined frown, “And I plan to keep it that way. We’ll be heading there eventually for some business with their government anyway, so it’s no extra hassle for us to look for the Don while we’re there.”
He blinks a few more times. The more he hears from this young lady, the crazier things seem to get. But Aerith seems to have quite the confidence in her, so maybe there’s some hope on the horizon after all. “…I think I get it now. Aerith really makes some amazing friends.” Now, he nods with his own reassured smile. “Well, thank you very much! And good luck. We’ll try our best to hold out in the meantime.”
“No problem. We’ll let you know when it’s settled.” She then turns back to Elmyra. “By the way, I’ll be happy to take you and Marlene to Kalm, but when you get there, you might have to look for a place on your own, since Aerith and I still have a lot of work to do in the meantime…”
The older woman then smiles back kindly. “Oh, don’t worry about that. I’ve already made the calls I needed to get us settled in. All you have to do is drop us off in town and I’ll take Marlene there.”
Ruby genuinely looks relieved. “Alright, good to know. We’ll be leaving her in your capable hands.”
“Of course. You’ve done more than enough for us already. If you need us for anything, feel free to stop by anytime.”
“Gladly. And besides…” She smirks as she whips out the glowing white materia. “With this baby, neither of you two have to worry about Shinra ever again either.”
“Oh? That’s…” Elmyra blinks as she recalls, “Isn’t that the one Marlene had?”
“Yep. It was my gift to her. It’s actually made of my magic and I have a special connection with it that lets me sense where it’s been. But as of late, we ran into a hassle with finding it, so I think an upgrade would do us better.”
“Upgrade?” Aerith asks, now very curious. “You can upgrade it?”
“It’s my magic, it’s my choice!” And with that claim asserted, Ruby closes her eyes and hones in on delivering a new source of energy into the orb. It glows even brighter as it absorbs in another wish made from the heart, and then settles back into its usual faint glow. The serpent within is disturbed from its rest and roars silently but proudly before it too settles back into a contemplative swim.
By now, Aerith’s eyes are twinkling with excitement and wonder. “What did you do?”
“Now whenever anyone holds onto it, I can get a sneak peek into their own thoughts and weigh their intentions. But just to be fair, if anyone wants to talk with me through it, they can too. But no one gets to use it without my permission from now on.”
“Wow, really?” She blinks a few times. “Huh, I never knew Cetra magic could work like that. Guess I really do have a lot to learn…”
“Heh. Glad to be a mentor figure from time to time.” Ruby returns the orb back into a pocket.
“Ah…” Elmyra nods along. “I see now. You really do have many things under control.”
“Eh, there are still some things that I wish I had control over, but that’s another story. In any case, just keep it close and I won’t ever be too far.”
“Yes, of course. Thank you again as always.”
“Okay! We’ve gotten some headway now,” Aerith concludes with a satisfied smile. “We’ve gotten the materia back for Marlene and we found Mom safe and sound! Now we just need to send them to safety and we can catch up with the others.”
“Yep. And knowing where a certain sneaky duo may be headed, I also have one more visit I want to make to HQ myself.”
“Really? Ah.” She nods. “You did say you had someone in mind. I wonder who it is?”
Ruby smirks. “I’ll introduce you all when we get there… but it may come as a surprise. Hopefully a nice one.”
She smiles back. “I trust you, Ruby, so no matter what, I won’t be disappointed.”
“Ah… such unwavering faith…” Ruby then turns back to the other two. “In any case, sir and ma’am, thank you for your insight. If you don’t mind, I’ll be taking Elmyra along. We got places to be, see.”
Carlo nods back. “You’re welcome. Take care of them and yourselves.”
She flashes an awkward grin too. “And sorry about our, uh, brash introductions earlier.”
“Oh, no. Don’t worry about that.” He sighs. “If anything, I shouldn’t have been there at all.”
“Oh. Now that you reminded me, why were you with them? You’re not associated with Shinra, right?”
“No, I’m not. But the Turk and the scientist were looking to meet up in a private location, and I suggested an empty warehouse from one of the Gainsborough Business branches. I agreed to come along to make it seem like I was ‘supervising’, so it wouldn’t seem so suspicious.”
“Ah. That actually makes a lot of sense.” She goes back to smirking. “Well, sometimes the Fates are quite fickle. If you weren’t there, we might not have been able to find Elmyra too easily, so thank you.”
He waves it away. “No, don’t mind me. It was my fault that she was caught up in it anyway. I’m just glad everything has worked out anyway.”
Aerith giggles. “That’s my Cuz for you! The miracle worker you can trust!”
“Yeah…” Ruby’s smirk falters as she instead cringes at that new epithet of hers. “Now, shall we be off?”
“Mm-hm! Bye, Carlo! It was nice to see you again!”
Ruby taps Aerith and her mother on the hands to mark them, and they all begin to glow as the spell comes into effect. She leaves Carlo with one last wave goodbye, and the three of them vanish in yet another flash.
Notes:
Fun fact: The title of this chapter is inspired by Scenario Director Nojima-san's novel Trace of Two Pasts, so I put in a few references!
Lots of details to go over
- Carlo Kincaid is actually a character from Trace and was one of the people helping Elmyra Gainsborough through various situations involving her husband's business and Aerith. By the end of the events of Aerith's tale, he had acquired the deed to the business. I decided to play around with his role here to fuel a new conflict original to this fic.
- Mr. Manson is also a character from Trace, and while he plays more of a role in Tifa's tale, he is indeed associated with Don Corneo. In any case, I've tweaked his story to take a more active antagonist role. Iirc, Aerith and Tifa don't like him anyway, so it's fitting.
- Mr. Meguro is also another character from the novel, and he's the former proprietor of the business after Elmyra's husband passed. He had passed away by the end of Aerith's tale, but she still has a good impression of him, despite how he treated the orphanage-turned-schoolhouse.
- With those said, there are several new characters I created for this chapter:
-- Mrs. Rayne is the grandmother of the two kids that were originally seen tending to the church flowers in the original. We've never gotten confirmation whether or not they were siblings or related, but I headcanon'd them so. And now they have a grandma. Her name is an old English name that has origins to the Latin word for "counselor".
-- Verne and Ash aren't technically completely new characters, but just new names for a couple of the unnamed kids that hang out with Oates at his hideout. I picked two because too many kids altogether will overload my wit's end, lol. Verne and Ash's names are based on different trees; one from French for "alder" and the other is the tree known as "ash".
-- The housemother also was unnamed in Remake. I gave her the name Ms. Darrow after a Scottish name that originated from a Gaelic word for "oak tree".
-- The unnamed female Turk with a huge shotgun. Because the protagonists of Before Crisis had disbanded and disappeared after the events of BC, I couldn't bring them back here, so had to replace them with a few OCs, one of which is introduced here. Just for the heck of it, I made her a ginger bc why not?
-- The unnamed scientist she was meeting with. While reading Trace, I learned of a certain former scientist who had worked under Hojo who was responsible for freeing Ifalna and Aerith. However, he met with a violent end after he was found out. This new character is a sort of direct contrast to him, thus Aerith's dislike of him.
Chapter 31: Undoing Knots
Notes:
Outdated A/N
This has nothing to do with the current chapter or FFVII in general, but I am so dang excited for FFXVI and am currently following NicoB's playthrough on Youtube, so I may be relatively behind on the story. We're all FF fans here, but please, no spoilers! If I accidentally spoil myself elsewhere, that's on me.
Don't worry. It will not be affecting my writing schedule, as I have already been limiting my social media usage lately. But boy do I absolutely have a new muse to add to my list of inspirations for this fic.
Chapter Text
By now, the news of the Sweeper “Cleaner” – a Sweeper-Sweeper, if you will – has gotten around Sector 5 as more and more people have come out to inspect the fallen machines. However, reception has seen mixed results; while most people are relieved to see the Sweepers be “put down” without much fanfare and thus cost to themselves, a number of them are understandably concerned about what will happen if and when Shinra will take notice.
However, among the kids who attend the Leaf House, they’ve just discovered a new idol. After Marlene had her formal apology settled, she finally opened up to the rest of the kids, who congratulated and praised her for her courage and honesty. But they were still largely in the dark about who Ruby even was, and Marlene took upon herself to introduce her hero. So, by the time Ruby returns with Aerith and Elmyra, safe and sound, the kids in the schoolyard crowd around them with surprise and excited curiosity.
“You’re back already!?”
“Welcome back! That was fast!”
“Wow, you make it look so easy!”
Marlene giggles and waves a hand. “Hi, Ruby! Hi, Aerith! Hi, Ms. Elmyra!”
“Hey, everyone! Good to see you again!” Aerith greets them all with high-fives, while Elmyra lets out a relieved smile seeing little Marlene all cheered up.
Ruby, however, finds herself being “assaulted” once more by the gaze of too many kids – she swears there are now more than just the three from before – at once and earnestly tries to step away. Unfortunately for her, they follow her with delightful little questions that slowly but surely chip away at her composure.
“What happened? Did you really fight Shinra!?”
“I bet it was really easy for someone like you, huh? Marlene was telling us about you!”
“How did you find Ms. Gainsborough? Was she okay?”
“Did you also find Marlene’s favorite ball?”
“Oh. Your face looks a little dirty. Did you fall?”
“Wow, I never knew Aerith had a cousin. But at least you seem nice.”
Noting that Ruby has basically frozen up again, Aerith steps in to help cover her with a polite chuckle and answers all their questions without missing a beat: “No worries, guys, everything worked out! There was a little scuffle, but no one was really hurt and we got things settled. Mom was fine! We even ran into an old friend who was watching over her. And of course, we got Marlene’s ball back!” She finally nudges Ruby to snap her out of her daze.
“Ah. Y-yeah… Here you go, Marlene.” Ruby then whips out the white materia and hands it over to the little girl, who accepts it with both hands and a precious smile.
“Thank you very much, Ruby! You’re so cool!”
“…” Ruby nods back shyly as she feels another cold sweat come over her.
As it happens, and to her temporary relief, the moment is shortly interrupted when they hear the shout of another kid running on back to the yard.
“Huh? Isn’t that Verne?” Aerith asks.
Verne finally catches up and he’s panting breathlessly by the time he stops before them. “Hah… hah… hah… G-guys! It’s trouble! Hah…”
“Verne! You okay? You’re all out of breath!”
“I-it’s Oates and Ash! They… they’re still at the graveyard…!”
“Huh?” Aerith now grows worried. “What are they doing there? I thought the gate would usually be locked…”
“W-well…” Verne gulps nervously. “Actually, it was Moggie who was supposed to be holding onto the key, but then the police made him unlock the gate so they could do a ‘sweep’ of the place in case anyone could have been hiding around there, but I bet they just wanted to see what treasure they could find. In the end, they didn’t find anyone, but they still wouldn’t give Moggie back the key.”
“Oh… Where is Moggie now?”
“At the hideout. But he’s been feeling kinda glum. Normally he’d have the jukebox up and ready, but now he hasn’t been feeling like it.” He sighs. “When Oates found out, he was furious and wanted to confront those officers. Ash and I decided to join him so he wouldn’t face them alone.” He also fumes, “But those jerkwads just laughed us off and told us they threw it away! So while they didn’t notice, we sneaked into the graveyard to see if we could find it. B-but…” He then slumps again. “We ended up running into some spooks.”
“Spooks? You mean, like ghosts?”
“Yeah! The real deal! They looked like they were wearing dirty black rags, but when we tried to shoo them, they suddenly howled at us!” He looks a little guilty. “I… kinda ran off on my own, but I didn’t see Oates or Ash run out after me.”
“Oh, dear. Don’t worry, we’ll go help them! Ruby?” She turns back to Ruby, who has completely recovered and returns her a determined nod.
“Let’s go.”
“It’s this way! Come on!”
Verne leads them off in a hurry and they follow suit. Once the place is within sight, as she has quite the honed eyesight thanks to her dragon genes, Ruby then gives them a word and zips on ahead.
Off in the graveyard, Oates and Ash have unfortunately been held back by a couple of mischievous Phantoms who continue to toy with them every time, pretending to give them an opening to escape, only to scare them back. Quite sick of their antics, Oates starts swinging a wooden sword – that holds a familiar shape – at them to try to knock them away, but the sword has no effect and simply whiffs right through the Phantom’s semi-transparent bodies. Ash wields her own branch like a staff, but unfortunately, it’s no magic weapon and she can’t hit them either. And just to be cheeky, one of the Phantoms decides to push the prank further and catches Ash’s branch in one decrepit claw.
“H-hey! Waaah!”
“Ash! Let her go!”
The Phantom has snatched Ash up by that stick and has flown quite high above the ground, leaving her dangling for dear life. Oates tries to find a place to climb or jump to help her, but the other Phantom keeps getting in his way and casually shoves him to the ground every time he gets back up. And the first one laughs maniacally as Ash slowly loses her grip.
Sheen. Two bright bursts of white light erupt from the ground, piercing the two Phantoms right up their cloaks. They both shriek and fade away in an instant.
“Eek! …Huh?” Ash drops fast, but finds herself caught in the arms of a stranger.
Ruby sets her down safely and asks with a caring smile, “You okay?”
“Y-yeah… Thanks.”
“H-hey!” Oates now comes running over, wide-eyed and almost speechless. He gives Ruby a stunned yet curious look, and after struggling to find the words, he finally utters, “Um… Thanks for helping us. Who are you?”
“Oates! Ash!” comes a familiar voice, followed by another: “You guys okay?” Verne and Aerith finally catch up.
Ruby casually waves to them. “They’re fine.”
Aerith nods. “Good work, Ruby! Just in the nick of time!”
“Aerith! You’re here too!?” Oates gasps.
“Yep! I’m back to see my mom and another friend. Oh, and this is Ruby, my cousin!”
Ruby raises a hand to greet. “Hey.”
“We heard you guys ran into trouble here, so we hurried on over. Good thing she’s so fast.”
“Yeah, that was amazing!” Ash exclaims, still a little dumbfounded. “How did you do it? Was that white light magic?”
“Yep. It’s my special brand of magic. You won’t find it from any old materia either.”
“Wow. You’re like a real-life wizard!”
“Hey, with a little training, that staff of yours could turn out pretty useful too.”
“Ah, this isn’t really a staff. It’s just a stick since I forgot to bring my sword with me.”
“Oh, so you’re a swordswoman. That’s cool too.”
“Heh. Thanks. But I’m not so cool as you yet.”
Ruby smirks back, almost tempted to answer, “Few ever are,” but decides to keep that to herself in the meantime.
Oates nods too. “Whatever you did, you really saved our bacon there. We found this while we were looking around, but it’s probably better off with you.” He pulls out a green materia.
She blinks and accepts the orb, noting that it’s the Time materia. Oh, sweet! She nods back with a grateful smile as she slips it back into her bag. “You’re welcome. This one will definitely see its use.”
Aerith then asks him, “So what happened here? Verne told us you guys were looking for Moggie’s key, right?”
“Yeah… but we haven’t found it yet,” he admits, rubbing his head. “We looked all over, but it’s just not here. I wonder if those officers actually lied about ‘throwing it away’ and were still holding onto it.” He gives an angry snort. “This is why I don’t trust adults! They’re always lying and putting us on the short end because they think we’re too dumb to understand!” He pauses and then turns to Ruby again. “Oh, but, um, you and Aerith are fine.”
Ruby handwaves it away. “No worries, I get it. Those adults are definitely rotten. They’re the kind that I usually beat up.”
“Well, you didn’t seem to have any trouble with the ghosts just now, so could you go find those officers and get them to give back Moggie’s key? He’s been pretty glum without it.”
“Sure. I’m guessing they must be roaming nearby? I went all around town earlier hunting the Sweepers, but I might have missed some of the men.”
“Huh?” He blinks. “Wait. That was you who took out the mechs?”
“Yeah.” She smirks again. “You’re welcome again.”
“Sheesh. No wonder those ghosts were no match for you.”
“Wow. Does that mean we’re in the presence of a real hero?” Ash asks with a whimsical smile.
“Hey! You’re right!” Verne agrees with a laugh, “She did just save you guys, after all.”
Aerith gives them a wink. “Of course she’s a real hero. This kind of work is just her usual routine, isn’t that right, Ruby?”
Ruby snorts back. “I’m not a ‘hero’, Aerith, I’m a miracle worker. There’s a difference.”
That answer seems to confuse the kids even more, but Aerith just laughs. “Glad to see you’re back to your usual self, Cuz.”
“What do you mean? I’ve been my usual self.”
“Hmm…” For just a moment, Aerith’s smile seems to hide a subtle sign of doubt, but she lets it pass. “Anyway, I’m glad things turned out fine. Let’s get out of here before any of those ghosts show up again.”
She beckons the kids along to head out the gate, with Ruby tailing behind. But just as they’re taking their leave, Ruby’s ears perk up to a strange sound of whispering around them. While everyone was talking, she didn’t give it any mind, but now that silence has returned among them, she can still hear those whispers. They may have been around since she removed those ghosts, but she’s not entirely sure. And now that she really listens carefully, she can actually make out what those voices are saying.
“…Traitor…”
“…Running away again…”
“…Just like you…”
She stops short in her tracks and turns back behind them. What in the hell? Are these voices the same as the ghosts from before? There’s something about them that doesn’t seem like the voices of some pranksters bullying a couple kids, though. No, wait a second… She’s not hearing the voices of those ghosts. She had erased them in an instant, after all. No, these voices are coming from elsewhere…
“Ruby?”
She does hear Aerith’s voice call to her, but she’s still fixated on finding the source of those voices. However, wherever she looks, she can’t seem to pinpoint where they’re from. It’s certainly not coming from any of the people loitering around town. There’s no spooky quality to their voices.
“…No shame, no regret…”
“…Don’t come back…”
“…Drift away until you’re gone…”
The voices continue to collect together in a murmur as Ruby begins to tune out from listening. This is just getting creepy. Wherever the voices are coming from, they’re not from here… or rather, not from above ground. But perhaps, she’s picking up on something underneath them?
“Ruby~?”
Aerith waving her hand in Ruby’s face finally snaps her out of her trance. Ruby shakes her head and gives her own forehead a quick massage.
“Cuz, what’s up? You just tuned out on us.”
She blinks a few times again, as if having come out of a trance, and then turns to her. “Aerith. Did you just hear some voices now?”
She blinks too and looks a little lost. “Um… you mean from the townspeople? Sure.”
“No, not them. From back in the graveyard.”
“Oh…” She goes quiet for a moment to give a listen, but then shakes her head. “Sorry. I don’t hear anything. I mean, maybe the ghosts you fought earlier said something to you? I wasn’t in range to hear them, though.”
“No. By the sounds of it, they didn’t sound like those Phantoms…”
“Huh. That’s weird. I’m not sure where you’re hearing things from, then.” She pauses. “Do you think you’re hearing voices from really far away? You have super-sensitive hearing too, right?”
“Well, I do. But they didn’t sound like they were that far away.”
“Hmm…” She then shakes her head in disappointment. “Sorry, Ruby. I have no idea what you heard. Maybe you just thought you did?”
“…”
“Well, in any case, I think we’ve spent enough time around the graveyard. Let’s just get back to the Leaf House.”
“Oh, yeah!” Oates then suggests, “I almost forgot to mention.” He then digs into a pocket and pulls out a hand-crafted medal. “This is also for you!”
Ruby blinks. “A medal?” Wait, this thing looks familiar, actually.
He smiles and nods. “Yep! As far as I can tell, you’re definitely not like those adults, so you can join us at the hideout. Besides, you’ll need that if you want to get Moggie’s key back to him.”
“Ah. Thanks.” She swings it around her hand and claps onto it in the same hand, and then slips it into her own pocket. “And don’t worry, I’ll get that key back. I have a pretty good track record with getting things to people so far.”
“Yeah, I don’t doubt it!”
Aerith looks around them all and smiles. “Well then, I’ll take them back and Ruby can go find those officers. But make sure you come back, Ruby! We still gotta send Mom and Marlene off to Kalm, remember?”
“I didn’t forget! See ya later!” Ruby answers as she hurries off the other direction along a less crowded street.
“Huh? Ruby, where are you going?”
“To find higher ground!”
“Um…”
Oates watches her go with a puzzled look as well. “But there’s no higher ground that way. Or is she trying to find a wall to climb?”
“Well, she can jump really high, but I’m not really sure what her plan is…”
And just as she suggests it, they all notice a white burst in the distance, and suddenly a great white dragon soars overhead. All the kids are stunned silent, while Aerith watches her go with a hint of concern. While transforming out in the open like this wouldn’t be such a good idea usually, this is an effective way to draw out the rest of the patrol around town. Ah, so that’s why Ruby ran off on her own. Well, they shouldn’t stay here any longer either.
~
Elsewhere, off in Wall Market, things have been going surprisingly smoothly for a certain pair of infiltrators. As this is the only town around Midgar that was exempted from being put under the Sweeper Executive, there has indeed been a major shift in the air around town. Even during the day when the locals would normally be meandering happily about, now the normally lively markets have seen quite a dip in customers and some shops seem to even have closed for the time being. Instead, the shady types that Kyrie had mentioned – thieves, gangsters, and irascible combatants thirsting for battle – have been making their rounds, roaming the grounds as if they were the troops that Shinra had sent in instead. As one would imagine, many of them have been recruited by a certain Don of these slums.
Despite both Yuffie and Vincent being excellent party members to run stealth missions, the former is sometimes a little too excitable for the latter’s preference. And what started off as some smooth sailing in picking off the local “guards” would promptly be interrupted by a little commotion outside a certain restaurant in the middle of town.
Apparently, some of the gangsters in question have been busy hounding the shop owner’s daughter for attention. Her elderly father is trying his best to stay polite while he pleads with them, but gets shoved aside. The men keep laughing among themselves as the young woman helps her father up, and her scornful glare gets a just as indignant look from the men as well. To be honest, it’s a little hard to watch. However, while Vincent certainly has sympathy for the victims, they’re currently in the midst of a stealth mission and shouldn’t involve themselves in every little scuffle they come across… And then, there’s Yuffie, who without thinking, would dare to chuck her shuriken at those goons and neatly knock out the one who shoved the old man.
“!”
“Hey! Who the hell was that?”
Yuffie catches her shuriken as it returns and dives back into the shadows and out of sight, smirking proudly to herself, while Vincent rolls his eyes and draws his gun. Now that they’ve been found, he also cleans the other two gangsters with pinpoint precision as they round the corner. As the formerly harassed pair of victims look around confused for their saviors, Yuffie hops on out with an air of smugness.
“You okay, folks? Those thugs won’t be bothering you anymore!”
“Oh! So it was you who helped us? Thank you…”
The pair offer their respectful bows as thanks, though now that the old man takes a look at her, he seems to recognize her from somewhere.
“Oh! Say, young lady, have you been around here recently?”
“Huh? Uh, sorry, do I know you?”
“Oh, no. I don’t mean it like that. But from what I recall, I think you were with passing by with one of my recent customers. He was a young man, dressed a little odd, and carried a sort of staff on his back.”
“…!” Yuffie nearly jumps upon hearing that description and a certain familiar guilt returns to her from the back of her mind.
“Interesting fellow, quite polite and friendly yet disciplined in a way. Seemed to know his way around the place even though he was from out of the city.” The old man chuckles nervously. “He even volunteered to help fix my stove while he was here. I don’t get too many customers like that in my shop, so it left a sort of impression, you could say.”
She bites her lip. Though it’s not a really big deal that they were noticed, now she just feels awkward being reminded of her former partner again.
“Though, I don’t think I saw him again since. Say, do you happen to know where he’s gone?”
She quickly brushes it off with a wave of her hand. “Don’t worry about it. We were just partners working together on something before and now he’s busy with… something else.”
“Ah, I see. Well, for what it’s worth, we really appreciate you helping us. Both then and now. If you two ever stop by again, let us treat you for once!”
The man and his daughter wave polite goodbyes as they head back inside to safety. Yuffie nods back in acknowledgement, but now her mood has been soiled and she looks away as if sulking. Vincent now steps on by and curiously checks with her.
“Was that young man he mentioned the same one we have in the sickbay aboard the ship?”
“Yeah…”
“…” Vincent nods in understanding. “I see. That’s unfortunate.”
“Hmph. Well, there’s no point in moping around about it now. Ruby’s still busy with stuff and all, so we have no choice but to wait for her.” Yuffie turns off ahead along the road and catches sight of the gaudy-looking palace up ahead. Again, she’s reminded of yet another problem they have to deal with, and she frowns. “Besides, while we’re here, we might as well gather some intel in the meantime.”
“Hm? Wasn’t our mission regarding the prisoners held near Shinra HQ?”
“Yeah, but I’m talking about a different mission. One that’s more personal.”
“Personal, huh…”
She pauses as she thinks it over again. “Well, maybe not really that ‘personal’, but it just grinds my gears every time I think about it! When Sonon and I passed by here the first time, we caught the name of this ‘Don’ guy that was said to be running Wall Market in the shadows, but now he’s gone off to Wutai of all places. And after our mission infiltrating Shinra’s weapons lab ended in a total bust, it pisses me off that some guy who’s apparently a Shinra lapdog is messing around in OUR turf! If our government’s smart about it, they’d kick him out immediately, but something tells me it’s not that simple…”
“So you wish to uncover more intel regarding this Don Corneo by investigating here?”
“Yeah, exactly. Even if he’s not here right now, he’s got some shmuck working as his substitute, right? So I say we go question him and get some answers!”
“Well…” Vincent then frowns. “I can understand where you’re coming from, but wouldn’t that be a little out of the way? We already have another course set.”
“Well, then we’ll just have to set another course on the side! Come on!”
“…”
Vincent is unable to stop her and she starts off down the road toward the palace to the north. He shakes his head with a sigh and hurries after her.
The splendid palace adorned in brilliant red and laced with gold has two mighty-looking Wutaian dragons standing guard on their loft above. However, while back home in their land they would be a virtuous and noble sight to behold, in the dredges of the slums run by the local Mafia, they’re little more than the décor as they stand – lifeless and empty like the rest of the palace’s superficial grandeur. And off to the side before the bridge to the palace, a rowdy ruckus stirs in the depths of the coliseum.
For now, that isn’t their destination. Yuffie stands before the palace, scoffing at the cheap imitations of Wutaian culture being put on display like at a museum. The entire place reminds her of a certain district around the capital that has been loaned out to be a center open to tourism, and it sickens her to her stomach that even the people from her homeland’s government have just rolled over and given up their very honor and dignity just for the sake of foreign gil. Wutai used to be a proud and powerful nation with its long and rich history of fighting for its neutrality in the global space, but now… Ugh. It’s just sad. She knows that since the war they were really hurting for funds, but turning to tourism to make up those lost funds? It’s unthinkable! Or at least, she thinks so, but even the old fogies of this new government seem to think otherwise.
Well, at least they had the sense to keep it to a particular district of the capital and not open the whole country like her old man suggested. Ew. Seriously, what’s got into him? Does he even know how to run a country?
“…Well? What’s the plan?” Vincent’s voice draws her back out from her thoughts.
“Huh? Oh, um…” She takes a moment to think it over and peers off across the bridge. “Well, those dumb-looking guards up there don’t seem like much, but it’d be annoying if they called for backup or something. The rest of ’em are probably off in that noisy place over there. Let’s see if we can find another way in.”
“Alright.” He begins to start off for the bridge.
“Hey, wait!”
“Hm?”
Yuffie gives him a judgmental frown as she crosses her arms. “You know, I’ve been meaning to ask, but… why red?”
“…” Vincent glances off for a moment and looks back as if to say, “What of it?”
“I mean, you’re supposed to be an ex-Turk, right? So what’s with the red cape and metal glove? And those boots! Is that just a style or is it something you guys were actually stuck with wearing back then?”
“…” He turns away again. “I don’t see the need to explain myself to you.”
“Wh- Hey!”
“If you’d like to find a way to sneak into the palace, may I suggest we use a distraction?”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
He gestures toward the palace grounds. “As you can see, there’s one central flight of stairs leading up to the palace’s main entrance, but there aren’t too many places around the stairs where we could find cover. Their position at the front doors allows them a better vantage point to survey for any potential intruders not taking the main path.”
“Uh…” Yuffie blinks once and then gets indignant herself. “I-I know that!” She then points at his cape. “And since you stand out with all that red, maybe you can be the distraction while I do what ninjas do best?”
“To be honest… I was thinking you would be more suited for the role.”
“Hey! I can totally be sneaky when I want to!”
“I’m aware. But I think they would be less likely to put their guard up if you approached them rather than I.”
“…” Yuffie wants to keep arguing, but then realizes he’s actually got a point there. She lets off a disappointed groan and gives in with a pout. “Fine. You sneak in. I’ll… try something, I guess.”
He nods back, and with a flip of his cape he hurries off ahead and dives off to the side to see if he can find an easy way through the windows. Yuffie sighs to herself and marches right up the steps with an annoyed scowl. Needless to say, the two guards on duty are quite surprised to see a lone young lady coming right up to them – and she’s a little too young for the tastes of the members of this mansion.
One of the guards, a young man in silver hair raises a hand forward to stop her. “Hold it right there. No unauthorized entry.”
For a brief moment, a variety of schemes come to the forefront of Yuffie’s mind, and she jumps right into her best improv. She plays the silly ditzy girl and sticks out a tongue.
“Whoops! Hehe, this wasn’t the way to Sector 7, was it? Sorry, guys, I think I’m a little lost? I’m kinda new to these parts, you see.”
The young man raises a suspect eyebrow at her, as if he didn’t believe her ploy for even a second. However, the slightly older and more rugged-looking man beside him just snorts back and waves a dismissive hand.
“You got the wrong town altogether, kid. Run on back and make a right. That’s where you’re gonna be headed.”
“Oh, uh, hehe… Is that right?” She then glances off toward the rather rowdy place off to the east. “Say, then what’s with all the noise over there?”
“Oh, that? Nothin’ you need to worry your little airhead over. It’s not a place for kids anyway.”
By now, Yuffie feels a very angry twitch in the back of her head, but she still forces on that silly grin. “But what is it? I just wanna know so I can, uh, avoid it.”
“Hmph.” The man then crosses his arms. “You aren’t gonna sneak around there later, are you?”
“I mean, if I don’t know what it is, I just might want to find out, you know?”
“Tch. Fine.” He drops his guard. “It’s the Corneo Coliseum, where people who like to see idiots throw themselves at monsters and mechs and battle to the death. Not exactly a place where little lost girls should be snoopin’ around, ya get me?”
“O-oh, is that right…”
Yuffie makes a serious scowl aside. Yet again, that asshole’s name keeps popping up. So he even has a whole illegal fight club right next to his mansion, huh? Well, it sure sounds like something a Don of the Slums would have… but she doubts anyone or anything they got there is a threat like what she and Sonon have gone through. Honestly, whoever signs up for those things must be some shmucks with too much free time.
“Anyway, get outta here already. Mr. Manson isn’t even here and he definitely doesn’t have any appointments with kids who don’t know what they’re doing.”
The young man beside him winces, but says nothing. This idiot really just blabbed out who it is that’s actually here. It’s supposed to be a secret among Corneo’s men that the Don is out of town. Everyone else is in the dark so far.
“Mr. Manson? Wait, is that the guy who’s substituting for Corneo…?” Yuffie then asks rather bluntly and aloud.
“Huh? Uh…” Now the rugged man gets a little nervous that he unwittingly spilled a secret, but then he catches onto something weird. “Hey… How’d you know the Don’s name? Didn’t you say you were ‘new’ to these parts?”
“Oh, er…”
And now he’s getting suspicious too. “And no one but us should know that the Don’s out. So how the hell do you know that?”
“Uh, well… You know… something I picked up from rumors?”
“And who’s been blabbing that out there!?” He even turns to his younger cohort with an accusatory look. “You didn’t know about that, did you?”
“Hey. Why are you asking me? I’ve been stuck on guard duty all this time with you.”
“Hmph. You don’t think I don’t know that? But even if you’re working for the Don, you’re still a fresh face. You haven’t been running around blabbing your damn mouth, right?”
“Of course not! You think I’d be that stupid? The Don would have me offed a lot sooner…”
“Ha! That’s right.” He sneers and points a finger to his own head. “And you’d better keep it in mind, rookie, or there’s way more than just you getting offed.”
“…”
Yuffie stares at the young man with a strange mix of confusion yet pity. Whatever this guy’s been through, he sure doesn’t fit in with the rest of them.
Suddenly, the double doors behind them are unlocked with a click and slowly swing open. Before either of the guards can do much beside react in surprise, Vincent shows up from inside and points his gun right at the rugged man’s head. Bang. The man drops like a rock.
“Whoa!” Yuffie yells, getting a little spooked again. “Geez! You should come with a warning label!”
He’s about to shoot the other young man, but the latter freaks out and backs off with his hands up.
“W-wait! Don’t shoot! I’m not with him!”
“…” For just a moment, Vincent pauses, but holds the gun firm in his face.
Yuffie gives the guy a raised eyebrow too. “What do you mean you’re ‘not with him’? You’re working for the Don too, aren’t you?”
He makes a bitter grimace. “Not willingly.” He passes a glance between them both. “So you guys are looking for the Don?”
“Well, we know he’s not in right now, but there’s someone working with him to act as a sub in his place, right?”
“Yeah… but how did you know that?”
“Hmph. I don’t see the need to explain myself to you.”
Vincent passes her a quick glance, as if a little disappointed she just ripped off his own line.
Yuffie points in his face. “Besides, what the heck are you doing working for the Don anyway if you don’t want to?”
“Because he blackmailed me into doing it.”
“Huh?”
The young man shakes his head. “Look. It’s a long story. You wanna talk? Let’s take it inside.” He also glares back at Vincent. “And put the gun down. I’m not gonna report you. I know you’ll shoot me if I do.”
“…” Vincent hesitates for a moment, but then reconsiders and slips his gun away. He keeps a careful watch of the guy, though.
The young man then beckons them inside and shuts the doors behind them. There’s a short corridor between the front doors and the main lobby ahead, so they can have a little privacy here.
“So who are you two? Why did you come here if you knew the Don wasn’t in?”
“Because we wanna meet his sub and get some answers on why Corneo’s messing around in Wutai.”
“Hmph. Don’t tell me, are you sympathizers of theirs?”
“Don’t you worry about that. Besides, we’re the one asking the questions here! Where’s Manson?”
“Not here either – but he is in town. You know that Coliseum next door? He’s there, watching the show.”
“Wait. Seriously?” She frowns. “So we have to go there after all?”
“If you want to meet him, yeah. But he’s hiding in the master room behind the VIP box, so you won’t see him if you run right in.”
“Hmph. Then what do you suggest?”
“There’s an elevator off to the side that goes to the upper floor where the rest of the VIPs go. The master room is one level above them and needs a special key to access it from that elevator.”
“Uh-huh. And where can we find this key?”
The young man then smirks to himself. He draws out the key from his own pocket. “Right here.”
“What? Aren’t you a rookie in their ranks? What are you doing with that key?”
“I wasn’t given it, if that’s what you’re asking. Too bad for Manson, but he’s not Corneo, so the guys who usually would keep an eye on it weren’t exactly on duty.”
“Oh.” Yuffie smirks back. “Well, then! Hope you don’t mind if we take it off of you.”
“Whoa. No way.” He slips it back into his pocket. “If you’re gonna go see him, I’m coming too.”
“Huh? Why do you wanna see him?”
“Because I wanna talk with him about Corneo too. I don’t appreciate it that he’s left me out here to waste while he gets to have fun in another country.”
“Uh… okay.”
“If I may ask,” Vincent then speaks, “why are you interested in helping us? You could be jeopardizing yourself if anyone else working for him finds out.”
“Yeah… but since I suddenly ran into two psychos that just barged their way into this building like they own it, and one of them was about to shoot me in the head, I gotta adapt on the fly too, you know?”
He nods back. “Fair enough.”
“For the record, I didn’t tell him to shoot to kill. He does that on his own,” Yuffie adds snarkily.
“I can tell.”
Yuffie smirks back, thinking he’s with her, but then realizes that what he said could also mean the opposite and she goes back to eyeing him suspiciously.
“Oh. Since we’re now practically fugitives together, we might as well get cozy. The name’s Leslie. Who are you guys?”
“I’m Yuffie.”
“Vincent.”
“Cool.” He then waves a hand to beckon them to follow him back out. “Now let’s go find Manson. He’s suddenly got a new appointment.”
~
Back in the Sector 5 slums, Ruby has done a swell job garnering attention from the patrol around town and some even tried to shoot at her to no avail. After knocking out the rest of them, she returned back to human form and snooped around until she finally located the guy who was holding onto the graveyard key. Smiling proudly to herself, she then fled the scene back to where the rest would be waiting.
However, it wasn’t just the patrol around this town that was alerted. Unfortunately, while her impulsive transformation made her search a bit easier, it likewise made the search for some drones on watch easier too. They immediately relayed the captured footage of the white dragon in flight back to the control room where a certain Public Safety Officer has been surveying from.
Heidegger watches the footage with an aloof frown, but lets off an amused harrumph. “So this is the white devil that has been a thorn in our side… To think that she’d show herself right out in the open like a fool. Really makes you wonder why we even had a problem with her at all.” He turns to an officer on standby beside him. “You! Relay the news to the troops on the ground in Sectors 3 and 4! And make sure they send in the real mechs this time! I want that dragon’s wings clipped, you hear me!?”
The officer salutes him. “Sir!” And he’s off to report.
But just as the officer steps on out, another grunt standing outside the door then comes in and gives a salute as well.
“Sir! Someone’s here to see you.”
“Huh? Who the devil is here? I’m not expecting any guests right now!”
“It’s Mr. Tuesti, from Urban Development, sir.”
“Tuesti…” Heidegger scoffs, “That fool has been trying to call me incessantly over these few days. When will he get the message that I have no mind to speak with him!?” But then he grumbles to himself, “But if he’s anything other than a fool, it’s being a gadfly. Hmph. He really has so little to do that he would continue to bother us.” Finally he waves an uncaring hand toward the grunt. “Fine. Let him in. But I’ll only give him three minutes.”
The trooper salutes again and steps on out, and a well-dressed but rather morose-looking man comes in. Reeve looks rather worse for the wear. It’s clear that recent developments have been giving him quite the headaches and unfortunately it often feels like he’s speaking to walls instead through any windows. Nonetheless, he still maintains an air of orderly conduct as he addresses his fellow company executive. Heidegger, however, simply lazily turns around in his seat with an unimpressed and rather bored expression.
“Heidegger. For one last time, not as executive to executive but as man to man, I ask you that you recall the Sweeper Executive.”
“And if I refuse?”
“…”
“Pah. Spineless as always.” He whips around in his chair again. “You already have my answer. If you don’t have anything else to talk about, then leave and don’t come crawling back looking for sympathy. The only reason you’re still allowed to roam these halls is because the president still sees some use for you… whatever it is.”
“Then, I have another question.”
“Huh?”
“Where have you detained the suspects that have been labeled as ‘Avalanche’ over the past 3 days?”
“Hmph! And what would that matter? The lot can go rot in hell for all I care.”
“Heidegger. May I remind you that these detainees are merely suspects? They have yet to undergo any proper investigation or trial-”
He whips back around, raising an angry fist. “There’s no need for any of that paper-pushing! If you haven’t realized it yet, this city is currently infested with these sewer rats and we need a proper extermination to clean them up!”
“But arresting citizens on unproven charges isn’t the way to go about it!”
“Bah. And what do you propose we do? Just twiddle our thumbs and wait for Avalanche to come out on the attack again?”
“Of course not, but…”
“Unlike you, I have a responsibility to restore order throughout this city. Even if not all the detainees we lock up are involved with Avalanche, anyone who steps out of line and questions this directive from the president himself are no better! This city could do without fools who don’t know their places.”
“…”
“You’re in charge of Urban Development for a reason! Stick to your role and don’t poke your head in the rest of ours. Leave matters of security to someone who actually knows what he’s doing.”
“…”
“Oh. And one more thing…” He points a threatening finger his way. “If any of my troops catch your feline bot snooping around where it shouldn’t be, it’ll become scrap to join the piles of trash in the slums. You have been warned.”
Reeve looks away and clenches up a fist, but still says nothing.
Heidegger swings away again and waves a dismissive hand. “Get out. Your three minutes are up.”
Though he certainly expected that Heidegger would be as difficult and frankly cantankerous as ever to negotiate with, he still had to confront him anyway. Since the president is currently away for the inaugural march in Junon, Reeve has been earnestly trying to contact his fellow executives to try to reach some semblance of reason, but everyone seems to have ignored their calls all of a sudden. (Even Palmer, who is normally freed up, seems to be absent for some reason.) It really seems like he’s the only sane man left in this company’s executive board who has any level of recognition for basic human rights. This city hasn’t even been declared under martial law and they’re acting as if it is. Though he certainly can’t speak for the president, Reeve had expected that Rufus would at least have the decency to not have his citizens be left to “rot” in some unknown prison. Then again, the same man did just leave Heidegger and Scarlet to manage the city in his absence.
He sighs to himself and takes his leave without another word. Though he’s aware that Heidegger means it whenever he leaves a threat, Reeve can’t just wait in his office and pretend that nothing terrible is happening out there. If anything, the well-being of this city’s citizens IS his business! He has to send his little feline agent to do a little investigation on his own, but it may be difficult if he’s not allowed to snoop around. If only there were some way for him to get around freely without being caught…
And then, just as he’s gloomily walking down the hall, Reeve stops. Wait a second. Getting around freely? Considering that up to now, Heidegger has resorted to sending in the mechs to search for Avalanche to little result, they must have some way to escape detection. Not to mention, there’s still the white dragon that has just been seen again flying about the Sector 5 slums. If anyone is still “getting around freely”, it would be her.
But does he dare? Would it really be a good idea to entrust the safety of his precious cat and his mission to the greatest enemy that Shinra is currently facing? He still has yet to determine the nature of this mysterious creature; needless to say, what really happened during the Sector 8 disaster. There’s been no substantiating evidence that could be recovered since the fall, and even the entire platoon of Soldier 3rd-Class that was stationed there had gone radio-silent. There were no survivors whatsoever; not one managed to escape the carnage. If it really turns out that same dragon was present and it was indeed her fault that the plate fell, well, he might as well sell his soul to the Devil just to find the truth of a different case. However, there was also the situation with Sector 7 and how that plate was miraculously spared. And it’s even more likely that the dragon would have been there – after all, the Turks certainly wouldn’t have skipped out on that mission. And there certainly hasn’t been any indication that anything else would be capable of holding up the plate after the pillar’s self-destruct mechanism was activated.
In any case, if he expects to get anywhere with uncovering the potentially ugly truths of this company, he must have an audience with this mysterious dragon… though now that he thinks about it, it sounds so absurd that it’s almost delusional. Has he really become so desperate that he would risk his very position – and along with it the well-being of the citizens of this city – just for the sake of a group of suspects who could still very well be sympathizers to the terrorists that have been causing real damage? As much as he would like to know for sure, it definitely isn’t the wisest move to make on the offchance that he’s discovered. And besides, while he may have a backup model of Cait Sith stationed at the Gold Saucer, it’d make things too difficult for him to gather intel without one here.
But above all, the most delusional thought of all would be to expect that he can even have an audience with said dragon. After all, he’s one of the Shinra executives, and she’s teamed up with Avalanche. If he goes to meet her, who’s to say that she wouldn’t just incinerate him on the spot? Perhaps it would actually be wiser to send Cait Sith first to survey how she’d react. He honestly hopes that she doesn’t mind cats… or Moogles. Well, maybe both would be good.
~
“Here you go! And with this card, you’re officially a member of the Moogle Emporium! Congrats, kupo!”
A boy in a Moogle costume happily hands Ruby a plastic card with a fairly cute Moogle design on it. She graciously accepts it with a chuckle.
“Not even gonna charge me a Moogle medal?”
“Oh, please. You’ve already proven your worth many times over, kupo. If anything, I’d be happy to upgrade your card to the premium and offer all the items in my shop at a discount, kupo!”
“Oh, wow. I didn’t even know there was a premium.”
“Well, to be honest, I didn’t really think there would be anyone who could go above and beyond to be able to reach it, so I never told anyone before. So, that makes you the first and only premium member!”
“Much appreciated, thanks.” She slips the card into her pocket and draws out the graveyard key. “And here you go.”
“Oh, it’s okay, kupo. You can keep the graveyard key. I don’t really need it anymore.”
“Really? Well, I didn’t use it either…”
“No worries, kupo! You can just keep it as a badge of honor to remind you of the great deed you achieved today, kupo!”
“Alright, if you insist…”
In the background, the kids of the Leaf House have all gathered here at the Secret Hideout, and Aerith is currently instructing some of the kids on their forms as they practice sparring with their wooden swords. Marlene is sitting back on one of the wooden crates and cheering them on. And well, since Elmyra wasn’t given their signature member’s medal, she elected to stay with Ms. Darrow and Ms. Folia at the schoolhouse in the meantime.
“One, two! One, two! One, two! There you go! You’ve got the rhythm!” Aerith calls out in encouragement.
Oates has been clanking swords with Verne, who struggles to keep up with the former as he starts to pick up the pace.
“Careful, Verne! Watch your step! When you’re under pressure, you have to mind your footwork!”
Verne carefully retraces his steps while still blocking against Oates’ assault, and he manages to regain a good foothold.
“And after building up your defense, you can switch to offense as a counterattack! Let it rip!”
Heeding her advice, Verne seems to charge up some hidden potential and makes a mighty swing that knocks aside Oates’ sword and he seizes his chance to thrust it in the boy’s face – without actually hitting him. Oates drops his sword and backs off in surprise, but then he reveals an impressed grin.
“Hey, not bad. Seems like you got it now.”
Marlene claps with a giddy giggle. “Congrats, Verne! You did it!”
Verne pants a little, as he’s exhausted himself just from this round. “…Whew. I didn’t think training would be this tough. I need a break.”
Oates then goes to pick his sword up and swings it back over his shoulder. “Well, when you’re ready, we’re gonna move onto the next lesson.”
“What? Come on! I just barely got through this one!”
And a round of laughter erupts all around. Ruby now comes on by with a wave of her hand.
“Hey. How goes training?”
“Smooth!” Aerith replies cheerfully, “At first Verne struggled a bit to keep up, but he got the hang of it. Now it’s onto the third lesson!”
“Heh. Good work. Keep that up and you’ll be a seasoned vet in no time.”
Verne just shakes his head and sighs. “Sheesh. I’m already having trouble making it through these practice sessions. I can’t even imagine how Soldiers do it.”
“Having superhuman enhancements would probably do the trick. Unfortunately, from what I can tell, they tend to sacrifice peace of mind for that power.”
“Boy, then I’m glad I don’t have to deal with that.”
And now Ash pipes up beside them with a snicker. “So, when do we get to have you train us, Ruby?”
Ruby pivots over to her with an unamused frown. “How about no? I already got my own ex-Soldier to train and he’s been struggling to keep up.”
Aerith laughs. “I hope you can go a little easier on him, Ruby. He might not be holding up city plates yet, but maybe he’ll get there!”
Oates returns her a raised eyebrow. “To be honest, even if they’re super strong, I don’t think any Soldier would be able to do something like that anyway. They can’t fly like a dragon, after all.”
“Yeah. And if there is any, let’s hope he doesn’t come by Midgar…” Ruby chuckles, trying her best to hide the nervousness to it.
Aerith gives the grounds one more lookaround as the kids settle down again for a break from the sparring. In any case, they’ve made some great progress for now. While it was fun while it lasted, it’s about time that they get going. They’ve spent long enough wandering around here, after all, and they have to pick up Elmyra and send her and Marlene off for Kalm.
She turns back to Ruby and Marlene with a gentle smile. “I think we’ve kept Mom waiting long enough. Shall we get going?”
“Huh? Aw, you guys are leaving already?” one of the other kids nearby asks.
“Yeah. They’re pretty busy, after all,” Oates replies with a shrug. He turns back to them with a nod. “If you’re ever back in town again, don’t forget to drop by again! With those medals, you’re always welcome at the Hideout.”
Ruby nods back. “No worries. I have a future date with the Leaf House down the line anyway.”
“Huh? Uh, when’s that?”
“Mm… Let’s leave it as a surprise.”
Aerith turns to her with a curious look. “Oh? What is that date about, Ruby?”
“Aerith, did you forget? You asked me before to stop by Gold Saucer and drop off some gifts for them, didn’t you?”
She claps her hands over her mouth. “Oh! I did say that, didn’t I? Wow, Ruby, I’m glad you remembered! There’s been so much happening lately that it kinda slipped my mind.”
“Rest assured. I had no intention to shirk on that mission. Besides, I promised Marlene that I’d take her and her dad to Gold Saucer sometime, so that’ll be a good time.”
“Oh, I bet it will. We should bring everyone along too so no one feels left out!”
“Eh… I think Cid will probably want to sit it out, though.”
“Ah. Well, he is the Captain, after all. Someone’s gotta watch the ship too.”
Marlene giggles. “I can’t wait! Ruby’s the best!”
Ruby even helps the little girl off the crate safely and takes her by the hand. “Alright. Let’s go pick up Aerith’s mom. She must be a little bored just waiting for us outside.”
“And then we’ll go to Kalm?”
“That’s right. In an instant.”
“Yay!”
~
Reeve has returned to his office with ever more furrows on his brow. By the time Heidegger’s forces had readied themselves to scout around Sector 5, they find absolutely no traces of the dragon in question – which is only to be expected. While he only had a brief glimpse of the screens earlier, he could tell that the drones had picked up some sort of footage of her in flight, but she just as quickly vanished from sight as soon as she was being shot at from the ground. Needless to say, he didn’t need to stay for the ensuing tantrum that Heidegger would throw at his own men.
The problem here, though, is that he really is at a loss for ideas. While he could send Cait Sith to Sector 5, it may as well be moot as he wouldn’t be able to catch up with her. Needless to say, he wouldn’t want to risk being caught snooping around there either.
There is another possibility, though it’s just as risky as far as he knows. He had tried to search the central penitenciary in Sector 0 just the day before, but that was when he discovered that it wasn’t where those civilians were being held. It wouldn’t make much sense to search there again, but on the offchance that it would be where Avalanche would try to strike next, he could meet with them and see if they’ve made contact with the dragon girl. However, if they hadn’t, he would only blow his own cover and put his poor cat in danger.
He sits back in his seat with a heavy sigh. So many problems that don’t have any easy answers. But if he expects to get anything done, he has to choose. But every choice that is still available to him has either been bunked – as none of his fellow executives would even give him a time of day – or extremely risky that could just push him back to square one or even worse if he isn’t careful.
While lost in thought, he then receives a courteous knock on the door. “Mr. Tuesti?”
It’s his secretary. He quickly minimizes the window on his computer that had been showing the camera view from his cat agent’s eyes. “Yes? Come in.”
His secretary then opens it up and steps forward to announce: “Apologies if you were in the middle of something, but you have a visitor.”
“A visitor?” He checks his calendar and the clock, but doesn’t find anything listed in his schedule. “I don’t think I have an appointment with anyone at this time.”
“I don’t believe she has an appointment, sir. She suddenly appeared at the front desk asking for you. She goes by the name ‘Ruby Liu’.”
Well, that’s a surprise. An impromptu walk-in visitor at this time? He’s already quite busy deliberating over his various responsibilities and moral code of ethics to follow, so he isn’t quite in the place to welcome anyone. However, stewing any more over his dilemma hasn’t exactly been the most productive either.
“Should I send her away or bring her over?”
He gives his forehead a firm massage as he finally gives in and answers. “Let her come in. I have a bit of time to spare.”
The secretary nods back. “Of course, sir.” And she steps back out to receive the strange visitor.
But as soon as his secretary returns with the visitor in question, Reeve’s sullen expression very quickly shifts over to shock and disbelief as soon as he realizes who this “Ruby Liu” is. It hadn’t even crossed his mind, as there was nothing in their database to indicate the name and identity of the dragon girl aside from pictures that had been taken of her from time to time. But all of a sudden, it seems like the very world around him has come crashing down, only to leave a space for this particular encounter – almost as if this were a stage and the spotlight is now shining upon the two of them.
Ruby offers a polite smile and a casual wave of her hand. “Hello, Mr. Tuesti! Can I call you Reeve? I’m more used to it.”
“Y-you…”
She raises a disarming hand. “Don’t worry, I’ve come alone and I won’t be long. Just wanna chat for a bit.” She thanks the secretary and lets her be on her way, and happily bounces over into a seat before his desk. Once she gets comfortable, though, she then turns back to him and gets serious. “I’m sure you have many questions, but we need to talk about Shinra’s plans moving forward.”
Chapter 32: A Dangerous Game to Play
Chapter Text
After dropping off Elmyra and Marlene at Kalm, Ruby had initially intended to return to Aerith so they could get back to searching for the others, but in the brief moment of freedom she acquired, without anyone to take along or peer over her shoulder, Ruby realized this would be a fine opportunity to take matters into her own hands. They still have one more party member to join before she can call the first part of her mission complete. Not to mention, it would have been more trouble than it’s worth to explain to everyone why she would ask one of the Shinra executives of all people to join them. She simply had to seize this moment. Besides, she is still a gamer; gotta take some risks from time to time. Besides, seeing Reeve’s absolutely perplexed and confounded expression was a nice cherry on the top.
“Shinra’s plans?” After getting over his intial shock, he becomes wary. “I’m not sure what you mean. Could you be more specific?”
“Well, there are several things I would like to cover, but I’m a little short on time. Despite sounding absolutely insane, I want to ask you to join me and my crew.”
Needless to say, the man is only further dumbfounded. “Pardon?”
“I assure you I’m serious. I know things as they stand seem to point in every direction but where we’d align, but to make a long story short, I’ve seen much further into the future than I’ve even admitted to my friends. But it doesn’t matter who we are or where we’ve come from, or even when it is that we meet, we’re still that band of misfits who have all gathered behind the same goal: to save this planet.”
“N-now, hold on a moment there. I’m not sure where this is coming from. Why would you ask me? Are we not enemies?”
“In name, perhaps, but not in spirit. Reeve, I know who you are and what you wish for. You’re honestly the last hope for this company, and I say that despite knowing Rufus fairly well too.”
“That’s… rather high praise, especially coming from you,” he admits awkwardly. “But I’m simply the person in charge of the Urban Development side of the company. And to be honest, lately it feels like I don’t have much say in company matters at all…”
“Which is exactly why you’re the perfect candidate for us. Being in your position means you’ve seen the extent that Shinra is willing to take to crush all opposition. You know how little your fellow executives care about the lives of others and just write them off as numbers. Even when some terrible tragedy that no one had anticipated – not even me – came to pass, it was just a convenient excuse for them to exact further control over this populace.”
“That tragedy… Do you mean the Sector 8 disaster?”
She nods solemnly. “Yes. I’ll admit it: I was there at the scene.”
He frowns, looking a little troubled but not surprised. “So, it was indeed you who eliminated the entire platoon of Soldier 3rd-Class…?”
She nods again. “It was.”
“…”
“But I swear, cross my heart and hope to die, I wasn’t the one who caused the plate to fall. There was one other agent at play.”
Now he interlocks his fingers with a contemplative look and leans forward. “To be perfectly honest, that was what I suspected as well. Though I can’t say for sure how they’re related, our own investigations into the late president’s murder led us to a familiar face.”
She blinks. “Oh? Your police actually found visual evidence?”
“It’s nothing concrete, of course. There were no cameras to show what had happened in the president’s office at the time. However, what we did discover was camera footage from the top decks of the Drum.”
“Ah.”
“But I must admit, even after I was notified and saw the footage myself, I couldn’t believe it. That man was none other than Sephiroth, the war hero from the Wutai War and the company’s greatest general.”
Ruby rolls her eyes. “Mm-hm… I know so many.”
“He was reported to have disappeared five years ago and was written off to be dead. So why would he return now to cause so much destruction?”
“Five years is a long time to spend in the depths of the Lifestream, that’s for sure. He’s had time to kick back and discover some interesting truths about the planet.”
“E-excuse me? In the depths of the Lifestream? Do you mean he’s been alive for that whole time…?”
“Well, not exactly ‘alive’ in the usual sense, but not ‘dead’ either. You could say that he’d transcended the cycle of life and death altogether.”
“Oh… Is that even possible?”
“There’s no such thing as ‘impossible’ once you defy the laws of nature. And unfortunately, it falls onto me to deal with the current crisis that the planet is facing.”
“To you, you say?”
“In short, I’m not just any dragon. I’m the last of the Summon Guardians that once lived among the Cetra. While Aerith Gainsborough is the last of the Cetra people, she isn’t the only one remaining from that time.”
“I see…” He takes another moment to process what he’s learned so far and then asks, “Incidentally, by ‘the current crisis’, are you referring to the environmental destruction that has built up all around the world?”
“Actually, no. That is a serious matter, of course, but there’s an even worse one. From what I’ve uncovered so far, the planet has been infested with a different strain of Lifestream, one completely detached from the normal and even the negative – an empty Void, if you will – where any and all life that comes into contact with it is sapped of vitality and all the memories that had come from it. In other words, the more deaths there are around this world, the more likely that Void will continue to grow and fester like a cancer.”
“What? That’s horrible! I had no idea things had become so… desperate.”
“To be fair, the potential cause of that plague is something entirely separate from Shinra. It’s an ancient plague that has been around since the time of the Cetra.”
“Oh… Oh, dear.” It seems like the more he learns, the more furrowed his brow becomes. “So what will become of the planet? Is there anything we can do to stop it?”
“Even though I can sometimes see into the future, I can’t say for sure exactly which future we will meet, but in any case it’s not going to be pretty. I can’t even guarantee that the Lifestream’s natural cycle of life, death, and rebirth will continue as it always has. Normally when a person dies, their soul and their memories will still be preserved to some extent within the Lifestream itself. But now all those souls are at risk of being devoured by this Void and won’t ever return to breath life again.”
“…”
“Pardon the awkward transition, but I have to bring it up too. If this war that Shinra is waging against Avalanche extends further and brings another country – Wutai – into it, it’s only going to make things worse.”
He nods back slowly. “That is also one of my biggest worries at the moment. Though I certainly don’t approve of what Avalanche seems to have been doing lately, I wouldn’t want these international tensions to erupt into anything.
“Yeah… There are at least two sides to any conflict, after all.” She makes an uncomfortable glance aside. “I’ll admit it too: I’ve played my part of the collateral as well. But I try to make amends where I still have control over something.”
“Yes, that’s true. I believe we all share that responsibility to some extent. But what matters is what we do to address that responsibility.”
“Exactly. Which is why I’m planning to pay the new Wutai government a visit later as well.”
“To discuss peace talks, you mean? I would appreciate that very much, but I’m not sure if that’s really possible, given the current situation.”
“To be fair, even as gung-ho as those old farts in Wutai may be about war, they’ll have to think twice if a living Summon is right at their doorstep asking them to not.”
“Well, that is a fair point. But I’m afraid issues extend further than what merely talking things out can help…”
Her curiosity is piqued. “What do you figure? Is there something else going on?”
“Hmm…” He hesitates over whether to admit to what dark secrets he’s been privy to.
“…” Ruby then tackles a different angle. “You know what, Reeve? If you don’t want to bring it up now, we can get to it later. For now, I’d love it if I can take Cait Sith along.”
“!” He snaps back to and stares at her. “How did you…?”
She reveals a subtle smirk. “As I said, I have seen pretty far in time.”
“…” Still, he makes a concerned frown. “Though I think I better understand the situation now, I’m still not exactly convinced. As much as I would like to help you address the planet’s crisis and stop whatever Sephiroth has been planning, we’re still very much at odds.”
“Because of Shinra and Avalanche, huh?”
“Exactly. I can see that you’re putting an awful lot of trust in me, but I’m not sure if the rest of your friends will see the same way. And if I’m ever discovered to be working with you, it may just put me in hot water with the rest of the company. I wouldn’t be able to guarantee that whoever replaces me would treat people with the same decency, you know?”
“Right…” She then raises a different offer, “So what would you say if I were to make a drop-in appointment with Rufus, like, after this meeting?”
“Huh?”
“Hopefully we can reach some sort of compromise on some of the things we discussed here. And I wouldn’t even mind that Cait Sith might be tagging along as a Shinra spy.”
“…!” After all that she’s already revealed to him, Reeve didn’t think there would be a more shocking turn of events coming. “You… would let me to spy on your friends?”
“Sure. It doesn’t matter that much to me, and I get the feeling that we’d be tracked anyway.”
“What?”
Now she growls in a low voice, “For some reason, I had become a subject of some experimentation 30 years ago, and I suspect that a certain scientist would be able to locate me somehow… considering what a valuable test subject I would have been.”
“…”
“By the way, if you have any idea where that guy is, I would be happy to rid the world of him.”
Reeve shakes his head. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know where he is. And to be honest, I’m not sure it would be a good idea if he were to, er, ‘disappear’.”
“Hmm… Does that have anything to do with some other dark secrets you’ve heard about?”
“Um… Yes, I suppose you could put it that way.”
She glances off with a sigh. “Well, even if you never tell me, I suppose I could always find out on my own. There’s no such thing that Shinra could keep as a permanent secret from me.”
“…”
She now looks back with a warmer smile. “In any case, what say you? Can I take Cait Sith? I’m gonna go pick up a friend and catch up with some others off at Junon. I figure you would at least appreciate hearing what we might discuss with Rufus.”
Reeve pulls back in his seat, troubled with rather mixed feelings. What a strange day it’s been. He’d been jumping from frustration to frustration with no way out of this maze of dilemmas, and all of a sudden, he finds an airlift has arrived to pick him up as if it were meant for him in the first place. Of course, it’s not a free ride; it comes with the condition that could easily spell doom for his career if he so chooses to accept it. He’s been mired in this maze for so long that he honestly can’t tell whether this encounter is the work of divinity or the damned, but in any case, the temptation is certainly there.
“…Reeve, I know you want time to decide, but I really need to hear an answer about Cait Sith. Otherwise, I think I’ll be forced to kidnap him.”
“Alright…”
She blinks. “Uh, you want me to kidnap him?”
“What? No, no, no! I mean, alright, as in I’ll consider your offer.”
But she frowns. “Please. I don’t need a ‘consider’; I need an answer. I’ve spent long enough here and I need to get going before any of them start suspecting me.” She then offers her hand forward. “Even if it’s temporary, let’s work together.”
“Ah…” With a rather nervous look, he reaches out with his own hand for the handshake. “I… suppose it won’t hurt to come along if you’re meeting with Rufus. But I can’t guarantee what will happen down the line.”
“Yes!” Ruby startles him with an excited slap of her other hand against his own, and he withdraws it to rub away the soreness. “Oops, sorry. So, where are our dynamic duo?”
“D-don’t worry about it. Now, let’s see…” He returns to his computer and reopens the window to his cat’s view. “Right. At the moment, he’s keeping an eye out around the ground floor of this building, since I had him surveying around Sector 0. It’s just the cat, though.”
“Oh? Then where’s the big guy?”
“Here, in my office.”
He pulls out a nearby drawer in his desk and hits a hidden button on the underside of the drawer. To Ruby’s growing amazement, one of the bookshelves in the back of his room begins to shift and move aside. And behind the door is a secret chamber – about the size of a small walk-in closet – where he’s been keeping several backup copies of Cait Sith robots. With just a wave of his hand, he beckons the lone moogle to hop on out as the door shuts back up. He looks up at Ruby with curious beady eyes and offers a wide smile with but a single tooth poking out from its lower lip.
Faster than Reeve can react, Ruby snatches the moogle up for a warm hug. Even the moogle didn’t have time to react and becomes distressed when it finds itself suddenly immobilized.
He just blinks at first, but can’t help but chuckle. “I see you’re fond of moogles. Take care not to crush him, though.”
“No prob, Reeve. He’ll be safe with me.” She lets him go, to the relief of the moogle, and strikes a proud salute. “Thanks! And again, this meeting is our little secret.”
“Of course. I’d probably be worse off than you if this ever leaked…”
“If things ever take a bad turn and you’re in any danger, I’ll be there for you.” She stuffs a hand into her pocket and draws out her copy of the PHS. “Here, you can have this.”
“Oh! You had an extra phone for me?”
“Yeah, you could say that. It was meant for me, but I’m already attuned to our private network’s frequencies, so I can literally hear people’s calls.” She taps on her her for that bit of emphasis. “Give me a ring and even if the rest of my pals may hear, I got your back.”
“Uh… I-I see. Well, if it won’t inconvenience you…” He finally accepts it with a careful touch as if the thing were fragile. “Thank you.”
“Yep! Hear from you soon, Reeve! Buh-bye!”
And with a cheerful grin and a wave of her hand, she disappears in another bright flash. Reeve is blinded for a moment, but the next thing he knows, he’s alone in his office as usual – like nothing had even happened here. And all the traces that’s left of their encounter is this phone that gives him way too much access to things he never imagined he would be involved with. Realizing the magnitude of the implications, a cold sweat begins to form on his brow and he hastily stuffs the phone back into that drawer and shuts it.
Perhaps the best way forward in this situation is to simply pretend nothing in fact happened… and silently keep tabs on wherever Ruby seems to have taken matters.
~
“W-whoa, whoa, whoa! Haud yer horses, lassy!”
“!?”
Ruby flashes back to the Leaf House, startling everyone inside. For some reason, she seems to be holding a funny-looking cat atop her shoulder and a giant plush toy moogle in her other arm.
The cat holds his head still and shakes it as if feeling a little disoriented. “Word o’ warning b’fore you make the leap! Please!”
She lets him off and sets him atop his faithful moogle ride. “How are you dizzy? We got here in an instant. And aren’t your eyes already closed?”
“I’m nae dizzy, but wae a tad boggled! An’ for yer info, me eyes are always peeled, thank ye!”
Paying him no further mind, Ruby smiles and waves a hand to her likewise boggled associates. “Hey, Aerith! Sorry to keep you!”
“Ruby!” Aerith gasps, looking like she’s been fretting a bit, “What happened? I didn’t think it would take you that long to get Mom and Marlene settled in. Did you run into any trouble there?”
She waves it away. “Oh, no. Kalm is fine; it’s not Midgar. Even if there are Shinra sympathizers there, things are way peaceful since everyone’s so chill. The streets are safe enough that kids are free to run around. I left them to their own since Elmyra knew where to go.”
“Really? That’s good to hear…” Her expression turns for the relieved, but she also has to ask, “So then what took you? Did you go somewhere else?” She also gives the cat and moogle a curious look. “And where did you find these guys?”
The cat returns a charming smile and waves a greeting too. “Ah! ’Ello there, Miss! So yer the lovely lass that Ruby’s told me aboot! I hear ye are cousins, eh?”
But she only blinks back. “Um… Sorry?”
“Ah, pardon me native tongue, but it’s hoo ah um! Th’ name’s Cait Sith, King o’ the cats!” He even points to the little crown on his head for emphasis. “But uh, ahem.” He then clears his throat and takes on a less accented manner of speech. “I can speak properly if you prefer it.”
“Oh. Yes, that does make it easier to understand. Thanks.” She then turns back to Ruby. “An old friend of yours…?”
The latter throws up a thumbs-up. “Yeah, ‘old’ as in familiar. I picked him up along the way back.”
Aerith raises a suspect eyebrow. “‘Along the way’, huh…”
“Yeah, well…” Ruby takes a brief moment to consider whether to lie like a dog or be honest despite the awkwardness, but that discerning look from her cousin discourages any of the former. She gives in with a defeated smirk and admits plainly, “So I came back to Midgar after I returned from Kalm.”
“Uh-huh. And where in Midgar?”
“Shinra HQ.”
She was not expecting that answer. “Huh!? Why would you go there? Didn’t we already send Yuffie and Vincent that way?”
“Yeah. But I had a different mission.” Ruby raises a finger to make a point. “Remember when I said that I wanted to recruit someone’s help? A lookout to help us keep watch of Shinra, even?”
“Right…” Now Aerith catches on. “Oh! So are these two some kind of gift from that person?”
“Yeah. Basically.”
Cait Sith laughs along. “A gift, you say? Well, I suppose great things can come in small packages, as it goes!” He does a little flip while his moogle catches him and reaches out a welcoming hand. “Glad to be some help! May we get along just fine!”
Aerith giggles to that and takes his hand in a shake. “Aw! Now that I look at them, they’re really cute! Whoever this person is, they sure have great tastes.” She prods Ruby further, “Say, who is it anyway? A girl? A guy? Old or young?”
“A guy.” Ruby then pauses. “Uh… You know, I’m not sure how old he is, but he looks young enough. Though, all the stress lately has given him a few wrinkles…”
“Oh.” That smile vanishes very quickly. “Poor guy. I’m guessing it’s because he’s being hunted down by Shinra too, huh?”
“Well, not ‘hunted’ yet…” She passes a suspicious glance toward Cait Sith. “Though I saved this one from being stuck as a signboard.”
“Hehe…” He makes an awkward grin and shrugs back. “Well, it’s not like they have much for me to do. The plan was just to stay out of people’s way.”
“You really do stick out wherever you go.”
“Hmm… you really think so?”
Aerith looks between them curiously. “…Wait. Is this guy of ours someone who works for Shinra?”
Ruby answers quickly but firmly, “Yes, and he’s not on Shinra’s blacklist, so he’ll be fine. But just in case, I left him with my PHS so I can be there if he’s ever in a pinch.”
“Oh, good thinking! He’ll be our trusty insider if we need him… Oh!” Now that she’s reminded, though, Aerith then gets serious again and moves on: “Ruby, did you hear the call I got from Jessie and them?”
“Hm?” She tilts her head curiously. “I think I caught on to some familiar signal in the air, but I didn’t really listen in.”
“Okay, then you should know: Seems like they got a hit. They’re currently looking for the other Avalanche branch that had been stationed in Sector 4, but it seems like with all the security around, they’ve been forced to head underground. Like, down in the sewers.”
“Oh…” Ruby cringes. “I suppose that’s better than being out in the open, but I don’t think the sewers are the safest place to be either.”
“Right, but they don’t have a lot of choices with all the security and all. They haven’t been able to stay in one place for too long either, not even down there.”
“Shinra’s even sending troops into the sewers?”
“Not the troops, but the machines have no problems going down there.”
“Ah, that’s a good point.” She pauses and she asks again, “But if any sort of battle breaks out down there, wouldn’t it put the rest of the sewage system at risk? People wouldn’t even be able to use the bathroom if enough things break. There’d be chaos.”
“Yeah, that’s what worries me too. There hasn’t been anything that bad yet, but we won’t know which sector will be affected next. And Avalanche is aware too, so they’ve been discussing plans and are thinking about leaving Midgar until the heat dies down. Maybe even defecting to Wutai, but I’m not sure what will happen with that.”
Ruby nods slowly, now considering the best way forward. “All the more reason we have to stop by Wutai later. For now, I think it’s best that we leave them to those guys. If Shinra’s smart, they won’t be sending in the heaviest mechs, especially if they’re gonna be chasing people around in the sewers. So Jessie’s gang should be more than enough if they need extra support.”
“Yeah, let’s hope so. I think Jessie also mentioned that the guys at HQ – Avalanche, of course – have also been looking into where they’re keeping the prisoners. They haven’t had too much headway yet, but if anything turns up, they’ll let us know.”
“Good to hear. We should also call up Yuffie and Vincent to check in with them if they’ve made headway regarding Manson. I get the feeling that when it comes to people going ‘missing’, the Don and associates aren’t too far removed from it either.”
“Sure thing! Should we call them now?”
“Nah, it hasn’t been that long yet. Let’s wait for them to check in first unless it’s been a good half-day since they haven’t rung in.”
Aerith makes a concerned frown. “Ruby, if they go half a day without any news, that’s not a good sign.”
She lets off an awkward chuckle. “Well, you know what I mean.” She then suggests, “In any case, I think it’s about time we headed off to see our pals at Junon. Cloud and Tifa can try their best to keep Barret in line, but if they also have to deal with Cid, even they’d struggle to stay cool. At least Red can sit things out and keep the Highwind warm for them.”
“Yeah. To be honest, I was just thinking about them. You think they’ve already reached Junon?”
“Cid knows exactly where to go, so I doubt they’d have much trouble getting there. Fortunately for us, I can just warp us in and make us invisible, so we don’t even have to worry about blending in.” She passes a coy smirk to Cait Sith. “Knowing you, you’d just stick out like a sore thumb anyway.”
“Hehe… Yeah, I suppose I might.” He then gives a sigh. “Well, not really used to this whole warping business, but if you insist, I’ll just have to deal with it.”
“Again, how are you becoming disoriented? And don’t tell me it’s because you’re a cat. Your moogle pal is doing just fine.”
“Er… I’m just a sensitive type, I guess?”
Ruby gives him a rather piercing look as if she means to ask further, but then decides maybe it’s best that she not question how this cat is supposed to work.
Aerith nods with a resolute smile. “Okay, Cuz! We’ll leave it to you! Get us outta here!”
~
Off in Junon, the new president’s ceremonial march has ended as the exhausted troops return to their posts. Even without Heidegger calling the shots, their seargents are just as strict with their companies. But at least they’ve all been granted some temporary relief in the aftermath of the ceremonial parade, and everyone’s just glad that the whole thing’s over. Needless to say, TV ratings haven’t been doing the best, even with the news of Shinra’s “capture” of a certain mighty white dragon still being recycled on air as new pundits continue to debate over the origins of such a creature. But it’s basically been business as usual for everyone else.
However, there’s still a certain squadron of soldiers who have been tasked with standing guard of the harbor where the airship was formerly anchored. At first, it seems rather silly to keep guards up here without anything to guard, but it was the direct orders from the president, so they’re here. Likewise, the old Highwind crew have also been called over as if to prepare them to return to their old duties. As no one had informed them of when to expect to get back to work, they’ve all been forced to wait around here for the past couple of days since the airship’s mysterious disappearance. So, it comes as an absolute surprise when the Highwind is finally seen on the horizon and is coming this way.
Up aboard the Highwind, Cloud and the others are also in disbelief that they’re just going to land here with all the troops around. They turn back to Cid, who seems rather adamant about it, though.
“Cid, maybe this isn’t a good idea after all…” Tifa begins.
“They got the damn army waiting for us down there! You wanna drop us off in this!?” Barret exclaims.
“Looks more like just a single squad,” Cloud corrects him, “but not the best thing to see either. If they call for backup…”
“That’s exactly what I mean, Spiky! That ain’t a welcoming committee! It’s a trap! It’s gotta be!”
Red keeps a watchful eye of the scene below, though, and notes aloud, “But they don’t seem to be preparing for battle. If anything, they seem to be expecting our arrival. Do they not suspect anything about who’s manning this ship?”
“Let’s hope so… Because the alternative would actually be worse,” Cloud points out.
He and the rest of them exchange concerned looks and then turn back to Cid, who’s also staring out the window with a contemplative look of his own. They just got here and already it seems like things are going too smoothly. Ruby isn’t here either, so they can’t put it on her. But none of them would have alerted Shinra that they’d be here. So what exactly is going on here?
Despite their doubts, Cid now notices they’re all staring at him and returns them his ever stern glare. “What?”
Cloud then asks what he’s been meaning to, “Cid, why did you want to bring the ship up to the docks anyway? Wouldn’t it have been safer to park outside the city and we could sneak in on our own?”
“Like hell it would! You think it’s that easy to hide a airship this size? The guards would be on us anyway! Unless you wanna park it in the closest forest miles away and make the rest of the trek on foot?”
“…”
“Well, I ain’t about that. And I don’t think I need to remind you all who’s the Captain here, yeah?”
“No…”
“Then, it’s settled. We’re landing on the docks.”
“Come on, man!” Barret argues, “Even if you’re still with ’em, we ain’t guests! Ya think we can just stroll on in?”
“Whoa! Don’t lump me in with ’em! I don’t care if I get fired after this or whatever. I’m just here to ask the prez about something. If those idiots out there don’t know any better, all the easier for us.”
He crosses his arms. “Tch. Then what, you want us to just bust on the scene, guns blazin’ til we get the prez’s attention or somethin’?”
“Honestly, not a bad idea. We can just blow open a path, can’t we?”
“…” Barret pauses for a moment as he then seriously reconsiders the idea. “Ya know… Yeah. I think we could.”
Cloud cuts in again, “Whoa, slow down! We shouldn’t just jump into a fight. As soon as they call for backup, the whole city will be on alert.”
Tifa adds further, “Besides, even if we can call on Ruby for help, we don’t need to escalate things that far, do we?”
But Cid counters with a simple challenge: “Sheesh. What’re ya whining about? Don’t tell me Ruby’s been hard carryin’ your asses up to now.”
That does it. With his competitive spirit flickering alive, Barret snaps back, “Hmph! ’Course not! I dunno about Spiky here, but Imma gladly take on the whole Shinra army any day!”
“You won’t get far just by shooting wildly,” Cloud counters with his own glare. “We should at least come up with an actual plan of attack first.”
“Oh, I bet I will! It’s worked just fine for me so far!”
“Uh-huh… In what battles where Ruby didn’t come in?”
“Hmph! Big talk comin’ from you when you’re in the same boat as the rest of us.”
“Hey. At least I got to cut down a metal snake…”
“Yeah, sure, ya did. Tifa and I were fendin’ it off while your dumb ass got thrown several stories down!”
“…And it still took me to finish it off.”
“Just as I was gonna blow the hunk-a-junk to pieces.”
While those two keep arguing, Tifa remains unaffected by Cid’s taunt. “Still, Cloud has a point. If we expect to find the president, we should try to figure out a way that avoids as much confrontation as possible, or he’d probably just get away again.”
“Hmph. So what’s your plan then? We get rid of this lot and then try to sneak around?”
“Well, now that we’re coming this way, we can’t avoid them, but if we can stop them from calling for backup, that would be best. The sooner we can find Rufus, the sooner we can sort out all these problems.”
Red then kindly reminds them, “If I may be of assistance, I can help sniff him out.”
“Oh, yeah! That’s a good idea, Red. You can come with us too. But someone still has to watch the ship…”
“Ha! And why d’ya think I’m bringing us up here?” Cid replies with a smug grin, “There’s always a crew that mans the docks. If ya want the dog to come along, then we got no better guard than the ship’s old crew.”
“Seriously?” Cloud and Barret snap out of their argument and whip back to him in disbelief. Cloud retorts, “You’re gonna trust them? Wouldn’t Shinra just take back the ship if you do that?”
Cid fires back with just as hard a stare. “Then Ruby’ll nab it right back again. The hell can they do about that?”
“…” And just like that, everyone’s potential arguments are silenced.
In the moment of awkward silence, Red advises them once more, “In any case, we’ve approached the harbor. It’s too late to back out now. We should prepare ourselves if we must fight.”
As the Highwind slows to a stop in the air and begins to descend upon the docks, the crew down below scramble to get into position to welcome the great ship and promptly line up to create a path for the new arrivals. Even the troops stand at attention as if ready to salute. At first glance, it doesn’t seem like they suspect anything, but surely that would be strange. The president is already here at Junon, and it’s public knowledge that most of the other Shinra executives are still back at Midgar. So who else would they be welcoming here?
The party take the bit of time they have right now to reorganize their equipment and inventory, and when they’re ready, they all head down to the gondola. But just as they step out into the open, Cid notices a familiar face among the crowd below them.
“Huh? Wait. Isn’t that… Fatass Palmer!?”
As it turns out, Rufus was not the only Shinra executive to join him in Junon. With Heidegger occupied with the new security initiatives, Palmer so happened to be invited along instead – and to be honest, to the surprise of the guy himself as well. But apparently, he’s now been reduced to a mere ambassador sent over to welcome the recent arrivals as if the president had been expecting them. While the others take their time to descend, Cid slides down the ladder to the ground so fast one would think he were just freefalling and runs over to meet the pudgy old man.
“Hey, Palmer! The hell you doin’ here, old man!?”
“Heh-hey! Cid! You’re really here!” the latter replies with a nervous grin. “Wow, the president sure is on top of things, isn’t he? He was expecting you to return sometime.”
“Huh? He was expecting me? For what?”
“I dunno, but sounds important! You might wanna go see him yourself. He’s waiting for ya in his bunker and all.”
Cid scowls. “Useless as ever, ya fat @&$#...”
“Heh-hey! Don’t be like that, Cid! I’m sure he’s got some good news for once! He sent me out here to welcome you too.”
“Huh? Wait a sec. If you’re hangin’ out with the prez, then…” Something seems to light up in his eyes. “No way! Don’t %*@$ with me! Does he have something planned for the space program!?”
“I dunno that either, but maybe?”
“…”
“P-please don’t glare at me! I’m just doing what I was told! Anyway, I can take you to him now if you want.”
“Finally, some actual headway…” He calls back to the rest of the crew with a confident grin. “Come on, guys! Let’s go! We’re gonna meet the president!” And he starts off ahead on his own after Palmer.
But the others remain more reserved and wary. Cloud crosses his arms with a frown and turns to the rest. “This is going way too smoothly. What’s Rufus planning?”
“So he was expecting us…” Tifa repeats nervously to herself as the worries sink in.
“Hmph. Then this is some cheap welcoming committee they got. Just a few troops, the ship’s crew, and the one Shinra guy no one cares about?” Barret grits his teeth with cautious anticipation. “I don’t like how things are goin’ here. Not one bit.”
“Well, at least we don’t have to fight anyone for now,” Red remarks with a hint of relief. “It looks like the crew will keep watch of the ship in the meantime. I suppose this also means I won’t have to sniff out the president either…” He looks between them all, stopping at Tifa. “Would you like me to come along anyway?”
She takes a moment to deliberate and then nods back. “I think it’s best that we stick together. At least you can be there to hear what the president wants with us.”
He nods accordingly. “Alright.”
Cloud strikes a thinking pose. “We might as well while we wait for Ruby. Don’t know if she’d know what’s going on here, but at least she’d be our guarantee in case things don’t go well.”
“HEY!” Cid’s voice calls out to them again from a distance down the docks. “Get your asses in gear! Let’s go!!”
Junon is a military stronghold for Shinra, and troops are regularly out and about in uniform to patrol the streets and keep the order. So it’s quite the irony to see the likes of some of the most wanted criminals from Midgar getting an official ride granted with the president’s permission, so they would be taken directly to him at his bunker. Though not every trooper immediately recognizes their faces – not everyone pays attention to the faces on the news, after all – some do take notice and are quite confused how things seem to have been flipped on their heads, but refrain from questioning it to avoid being yelled at by their commanding officers.
Palmer dutifully leads them all inside the bunker where Rufus has been looking through the windows off into the distance. He’s accompanied by Tseng of the Turks, as well as one other suited member who none of them recognize. It seems to be a young man with some rather jagged-looking bangs before his otherwise neatly combed pitch-black hair, and he might just be a relatively new member to join their ranks – likely at the request of Tseng himself. He also seems to wield a rather slim type of sniper rifle on his back.
“Er… ahem!” Palmer salutes him. “Mr. President, here are the members of Avalanche, as you requested!”
Rufus turns around to take a quick glance around the group and is just a little disappointed to see that a certain prominent member of theirs isn’t here with them. Nonetheless, he can still work with this. “Good. You’re excused.”
“Y-yes, sir. By the way, should I stay around for a bit? You know, in case we ever need to discuss details regarding the space program?”
“…You’re excused.”
“Ulp…”
Without another word or complaint, Palmer nervously takes his leave. As the door shuts behind them, Rufus invites his guests to take a seat at one of the tables at the center of the room.
“Take a seat. Rest assured that anything we discuss in here will not leave this room. My Turks will make certain of that.”
But said guests hesitate to sit down. Noting that they aren’t moving, Rufus shrugs and scoots his seat back in its place and remains standing as well.
Cloud folds his arms and gets right to the point: “You’re awfully nice today. What do you want with us?”
“Something tells me he hasn’t changed his mind about what we discussed before…” Barret agrees, frowning with suspicion.
Rufus turns to him with an ever unimpressed look. “You’d be correct. If you’re going to bring up those matters again, I will not answer.”
“Hmph! Then what the hell are we doin’ here?”
“I come with a proposal for a temporary alliance that will also act as a ceasefire between Shinra and Avalanche.”
“Huh?”
“Alliance?” Cloud asks, narrowing his eyes, “You can’t be serious.”
“Yeah, what the hell is that!? Don’t tell me Shinra’s so down bad that ya’ll are shaking and crying any time Ruby shows up!” Barret agrees.
Unperturbed in the slightest, Rufus continues, “Speaking of Ruby, it would be better if she were here to hear this too, but I suppose you can relay the message to her later.”
“We’re not your damn messengers! If you got something to say to her, say it to her face! And don’t think that we won’t be here to back her up either!”
“What do you want with Ruby?” Cloud demands, “Out of any of us, she’d be the least likely to help Shinra.”
He casually waves his hand to get them to settle down. “Let’s not be hasty now. What I have planned moving forward would be to the benefit of all of us.”
“…”
“Benefit?” Barret barks back, “More like it just benefits you and we’re gonna be left in the dust! You’d better have something amazing to offer if you even think we’re gonna budge one bit!”
“Even if it concerns the safety of this planet?”
“What?”
That answer definitely catches everyone off-guard. The Shinra Company, concerned for the planet? And willing to work with Avalanche? What kind of bizarro alternate dimension have they landed themselves into?
Rufus goes on to explain, “It’s come to my attention recently that my company has been involved in a particular matter concerning Ruby and her so-called ‘Remnants’ that continue to influence the planet to this day.”
“Remnants?” Cloud pursues further.
“That was how the scientist in charge described it. It was around 30 years ago when the Jenova Project began, when a certain ancient organism was discovered, and a certain white dragon was sighted nearby as well.”
“A white dragon…?” By now, he’s starting to feel a bit of dread.
“She was shortly captured and put under plenty of examination, where her genes were extracted and studied extensively. And from the reports of the time, it was suggested that the dragon was dated of a similar age as Jenova itself. There were even traces of the same type of cells shared between them. Naturally, the two would be grouped together under the same project name.”
Cloud slowly nods along. Vincent had briefly mentioned as much to them from Hojo’s old reports, so it’s no surprise that Rufus would find out too.
“However, soon after she was captured, the dragon managed to escape and disappeared for the next 30 years. Fortunately for us, a microscopic tracking device was implanted in her during initial testing, so it was just a matter of time before our R&D department would be able to detect her return.”
“…”
“In the meantime, the project continued without her, as we still had copies of her genes available. Eventually, it was discovered that the two organisms were different enough that they couldn’t be classified together. So, the project was renamed and the two programs diverged course.” Rufus then rather casually brings up, “Have you ever heard of the Immortals?”
“Immortals?”
“I guess not. At least R&D is decent with keeping secrets…” He then reveals a subtle smirk. “But since it’s specifically about Ruby, I don’t mind sharing.”
“…”
He proceeds to explain, “The Immortals was the name of the second branch of research that developed concurrently with the Jenova Project, which included everything that involved Ruby’s genetic code. It was named so because all the experiments conducted using her cells resulted in organisms that would become resistant to the effects of aging and damage over time. Any kind of long-lasting damage, really; venoms, neurotoxins, third-degree burns, frostbite… even various types of cancer. The regenerative nature of her cells was incredibly versatile, and for a while there, it was heralded as a miracle cure.”
Tifa blinks in surprise. “Was it actually immortality? Or did it just seem like it?”
He makes a wry smirk. “‘Actual’ immortality, huh…” He then shrugs. “I wouldn’t know, but it seemed close enough from what I’ve been shown. But there was a catch – a dangerous side effect, you could say. No matter which body of organism they were introduced into, the dragon’s cells seemed to exist on their own terms. At first they would remain inert while maintaining that regenerative ability, but at any point they could go rogue, quickly propagate, and take over the host body in its entirety like some kind of weaponized cancer and shut everything down into a perpetual stasis. In short, it was a natural bioweapon that could induce permanent comas.”
She gasps in horror. “Oh…”
By now, Cloud is starting to catch onto why he was feeling that dread. “…And this project involved people too, didn’t it?”
Rufus nods. “That’s right. Like with the Jenova Project, there were multiple attempts to create genetically enhanced soldiers through borrowing the genes of these ancient creatures. Unfortunately, out of all of them, only the ones related to Sephiroth were ever successful. And yet, even with the critical failures at the time, a select few of the Immortals were archived in case there would ever be a need for them again.”
“They were ‘archived’?” Tifa asks.
“While most of them turned out to be failures and were thus disposed normally, a few were able to resist even long hours of cremation. However, like all the others, they too were stuck in comas, so they’ve been put into cryogenic storage.”
“What!? But these people are still alive, aren’t they?”
“Technically, but there’s not much we can do with them.”
“…” She glares back disapprovingly, but can’t come up with another counterargument.
Cloud’s eyes narrow too. “So, Shinra has basically been waiting on Ruby to decide what to do with this program?”
“Indeed. If we can get her cooperation or expertise on this, even if we may not be able to restore those subjects back to life, I would hope she’d at least be able to help dispose of them in a way that won’t contribute to the current plague that is affecting the planet.”
“Whoa, hold up!” Barret then jumps in again, “You’re saying this ‘bioweapon’ made from Ruby’s cells is also affecting the planet!? How the hell does that work? Those people can’t die, right? So they wouldn’t be able to return to the planet?”
Rufus shrugs again. “The actual cause of the planet’s situation is still unknown, but I have my suspicions that it’s related to Ruby and her Remnants after all. You see, the worst of the problems weren’t noticed until the most recent few years, and it was due to recurring mako blackouts even despite the plants being fully operational. Eventually, an investigation into the matters led us to realize that the mako itself was become ‘impure’.”
“The mako was impure?” Cloud asks, growing alarmed, “But the stuff is super concentrated…”
“Even after intense refining, there was no getting rid of the impurities, which in great enough quantities wouldn’t be able to provide any power. Thus, it forced us to draw more mako than we ever needed before.”
Now Barret gets even madder. “So you admit it! Shinra HAS been making the planet’s crisis worse!”
And yet, Rufus simply rolls his eyes. “As I said in the beginning, we aren’t going to discuss those matters.”
“Shut up! Alla these science project %&#@-ups were what led to these crises in the first place! What other rancid shit has Shinra been holing up, huh!? Ya’ll shouldn’t be busy countin’ your pocket books! Ya’ll should be shuttin’ down that whole damn department for the safety of the planet and everyone on it!”
And pretending that he doesn’t hear him, Rufus turns back to Cloud to continue explaining, “In any case, I suspect it must be the result of returning bodies corrupted with Ruby’s cells to the planet – being unable to conform and thus becoming Remnants – that have led to this. If by any chance these Remnants continue to amass in the planet’s core… Well, I can’t say what would happen, but I think we can all agree it’s not good.”
Cloud remains silent as he recalls from his past conversations with Ruby. While what Rufus says here seems to line up with what she suspected, she was always keen to stress that she wasn’t sure about her own theories and would have to return to the Lifestream to uncover the truth. Unfortunately, as things stand, Sephiroth is also down there, so she hasn’t had too many chances to go back. And there’s no telling what will come out of that madman’s mouth next.
“And on that thought, I also have to ask you all: Do you really believe being around Ruby is ‘safe’?”
“What?”
“The hell are you saying now?” Barret snorts. “She sure ain’t against us, that’s for sure!”
Rufus lets off an amused scoff of his own. “Considering that we’ve just discussed how such a project involving experimenting with her cells has contributed to the planet’s crisis, one would think that it’d be better to avoid associating with her at all…”
“…” Barret looks like he was ready with a comeback, but when he realizes it, he can only scowl in silence.
“And yet, you’re still asking us to get her to work with you,” Cloud points out the hypocrisy.
“Indeed. Unfortunate as it may be, we have no other choice but to ask her. But I’m just saying, as a word of caution… Don’t take anything for granted.”
“…”
“Regardless of what she can provide us, ultimately she is the one with the closest ties to the problem at hand.” He passes an annoyed glare toward Barret too. “Of course, I’m well aware that Shinra has had its hand in perpetuating said problem as well.” He looks back. “So, in the name of fairness, I believe it’d be for the best if we agree to set our differences aside for now to work toward this common goal. Not to mention, you’ve all been chasing after Sephiroth too, haven’t you?”
“! …How did you know about that?”
“I think it’s obvious. The man was responsible for my old man’s murder, and he happened to make his reappearance around the same time that Ruby made hers. Hard to believe that it’s just a coincidence. If anything, the two might even be two sides of the same coin, so to speak?”
“…”
“Judging by that look on your face, you don’t seem too surprised.”
Cloud glares back. “…I’m not saying anything.”
Rufus smirks. “Of course…” He then resumes his usual stoic expression as he moves on, “Well, what do you say? If Ruby lends Shinra a hand in deciphering the mysteries around this plague, then I wouldn’t mind offering you guys some leeway when we eventually break off this tentative alliance. I promise we won’t torture you too badly after Avalanche breaks up and we can hold you responsible for all the problems thus far.”
“Huh?”
Before Cloud can say any more, though, Barret cuts him off. “What!? Damn! In the end, you’re still tryin’ to make us the scapegoat anyway? Like hell we’d just roll over and let that happen!”
“Sorry to tell you, but the name ‘Avalanche’ has become stained with a very poor reputation, and unless you consider banding under a new name, I’m afraid we can’t let you get away with the destruction you’ve brought to the Shinra Company over the years.”
“Shit! Just when I thought we were actually gettin’ somewhere… Though, you got some iron balls just telling right to our faces that you’re gonna have us tortured.”
“I suggest you point that gun away from me. You wouldn’t want to upset my agents here, would you?”
Now that Barret notices, the other Turk with the rifle now has his weapon aimed right at his own head. With a disgruntled grunt, he lowers his gun-arm.
He turns back to Cloud with that same cocky-looking smile. “Your answer?”
Cloud returns him a fierce glare, but now that things have come to this, there’s only one thing he can say for sure. “…My answer doesn’t matter.”
That smile falters a bit. “Pardon?”
He folds his arms. “You keep asking about Ruby for her help. Well, I’m not her, so I can’t answer that for you.”
Rufus then nearly cracks up with a laugh. “I suppose that’s true. Then, where can we meet her? Or rather, when will she come by?”
Cloud shakes his head. “She didn’t say. Just that she’d be here eventually since she still wants to talk with you.”
“Well, then. I’ll look forward to it when she does. In the meantime, is there anything else – aside from Shinra’s responsibilities to the planet – that we can discuss?”
Finally, with the prime opportunity presented to him, Cid snaps out of his utterly bored daze and steps up, slamming a hand on the table.
“Mr. President! I got just a couple questions for you.”
“Yes…?”
“First of all, what’s the deal with the space program? Are you or aren’t you gonna reopen it?”
Rufus looks almost disappointed. “No, we don’t currently have plans for that. Next question?”
“…” Cid swears under his breath, but regains his composure and asks the other question, “Then, answer this one honestly… What really happened on the launch day of Shinra No. 26, ten years ago?”
“Oh, that launch? Well, if you want my honest answer…” Rufus then pauses for a moment before replying, “I don’t care enough about it to recall.”
“%&^$! @#*%&@$ SHIT #&$@ %*@&# ASS #*%@! Goddamn waste of my #*%&@ time!! #%*# this company! I QUIT!!”
He takes his flurry of swears with him as he stomps out the door and slams it hard, while everyone else watches him go in awkward silence. And yet, barely a minute passes when there seems to be a commotion outside and the door swings back open again. And to everyone’s shock, there are quite a few familiar faces that come in.
“Guys! I’m here! Sorry to keep you waiting!” Ruby calls out in a hasty breath.
“Hope we’re not too late!” Aerith follows suit in a more sing-song voice.
“Er… H-hello! Funny meeting all ye in a place like this…” An unexpected third oddball raises a nervous greeting.
Ruby and Aerith come on in with delighted smiles, and Cait Sith, riding atop his big moogle, peeks out from behind them. And then, there’s Cid, who is still absolutely seething. As a twist of fate, he would happen to run into these three scurrying on over to catch the rest of them. He slaps Ruby on the shoulder to get her attention, and through gritted teeth, asks her in a rather strained voice as if he were barely holding himself together.
“Ruby. After you’re done getting your answers outta this man, throw him out the damn window.”
She blinks, looking a little taken aback and more concerned for this guy. “Uh, why?”
“’Cause if you don’t, I will! I didn’t wait 10 Goddamn years and a new president just for this upstart punk to diss me and my entire damn career in just two @*$&#$ sentences!! #%&*! Just kill him! Shinra can burn for all I care!!”
“…”
And without delay, Ruby gently taps him on his forehead with a silent whisper of a chant. Cid immediately keels over as a familiar purple star swirls around and above his head. She also helps him into a nearby seat to let him sleep off the rage.
An awkward silence comes over the room once again, so quiet that one could even hear Tseng in the background clearing his throat. By now, Cait Sith has hidden behind his moogle, who has scampered behind Aerith. The latter looks between Ruby and the sleeping Cid with a worried look too. Cloud and Tifa exchange awkward glances, Red simply shakes his head, and Barret has just a few words.
“…Damn. Dude really needs to chill.”
The other three beside him turn to him with empty stares, but look away again without a word.
Aerith steps by Ruby’s side while she helps the man into a more comfortable position. “Is he gonna be okay?”
Ruby nods back calmly. “I just put him to sleep.”
“Yeah, I can see that. But you know… is he really gonna be okay?”
“Hmm…” Ruby turns off toward Cloud and the others. “Did Cid get to ask about the Shinra rocket?”
He nods. “Yeah.”
She then turns back to Aerith with a relieved smile. “He’ll be fine.”
“If you say so, Cuz.”
Despite the otherwise serious mood in the room having been totally annihilated, at least there don’t seem to be any further interruptions. Rufus then turns toward their guest of honor and proceeds as if all that didn’t happen.
“Thanks for coming, Ruby. I’m sure we have a number of things to discuss, and this company would rather appreciate it if we could work something out together…”
Her smile shortly fades away as she turns back to him. “Work together, huh…” Instead, she bears a smug-looking frown and calmly replies, “To be honest, I’m not really surprised things would come to this. Though, what exactly have you all been talking about?”
“The state of the planet, among other things…” Cloud folds his arms, giving her a serious look too. “You’ve got some explaining to do too.”
“Me? Is there something I need to say?”
“Yeah. Specifically about the research that Rubia was subjected to.”
“!” Now, Ruby finally snaps to full attention, and the smug front she put up quickly disappears. “…Yeah. Let’s catch up.”
Chapter 33: At an Impasse
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Ruby takes a deep breath and lets it out. She stands before a captive audience waiting on and bracing themselves for her next word. Though there are still plenty of things that she would like to find out herself, for now she can offer further speculation on her part. Given the access she wields through her abilities, she’s probably miles ahead of everyone else at this point anyway.
“It was around 30 years ago when a team of scientists discovered two ancient organisms in the depths of the Northern Caves. One was encased in ice and purported to be one of the Cetra; the other was a dragon that was thought to be a guardian spirit to the former. The dragon had been guarding the body for an unknown period of time, and when these scientists arrived, it even offered to help. As the ice that trapped the other organism was of a magical nature, only a being of a similar nature would have been able to break it open.”
Cloud frowns to himself, but doesn’t say anything yet. So it really was Rubia who freed Jenova from the ice in the modern era. Not only did she summon her to this planet, she even traveled forward in time to ensure that Jenova would still be able to rise again.
“But why?” Tifa then asks, as if to speak in his stead. “If she had been a being from ancient times, she would have seen the destruction that Jenova caused to the Cetra, right? Why would she free her?”
Ruby makes a pensive frown. “My best guess is that she doesn’t care about the consequences at this point. She’s been on a crusade against me for some reason.”
“Against you?”
“But aren’t you her? Like, she’s your past self and all, right?” Barret asks too.
“I wasn’t lying when I told you all before, but it’s actually more complicated than that.” Ruby takes a moment to think over how to put it so that it doesn’t make her sound like a loon. “I guess… she doesn’t see me as an acceptable ‘successor’.”
“Huh?”
Even Red raises an eyebrow. “I figured such beings would be able to have a choice when it comes to what they may reincarnate into, but this is the first time I’ve heard of one that actively opposes her next stage.”
“…First time for everything?” Ruby offers whimsically while still circling in thought herself.
“…”
“But why wouldn’t you be acceptable? You’re doing fine if you ask me,” Aerith replies earnestly.
“Hmm. You think so…?” Ruby casts a shameful look for the corner. “Then maybe I’ve been looking so far ahead that I’ve missed some things up close.”
“Well, you are the only one who can see that far, so it makes sense.” She then nods with a reassuring smile of her own. “But isn’t it also because you can that you’re always taking the steps to avoid the worst? You’ve definitely put in the work to make sure we’re all okay too.”
“…” Ruby can’t help but crack a subtle smirk to that, but it quickly vanishes again. “In any case, it’s also part of the reason why I can’t simply take control of this Void even if it is born from my own influence. So…” She then turns toward Rufus. “If you’re expecting to ask me to help clean that up, I’m working on it, but there’s no guarantee.”
“I had anticipated as much. It would be a little too easy if it were that simple to solve a planet’s crisis.” He also offers instead, “That being said, what would you say to an unofficial deal of sorts?”
“A deal? With Shinra?”
“Naturally, though we certainly don’t have to make it known.”
She scoffs back, “Then I don’t have to agree to it, do I?”
“That may be true, but I’d think it’s one that even you wouldn’t refuse.”
“Oh?”
There’s a certain glint to his eyes as he proposes, “I’d like you to do a little favor for us. If you agree, I’ll be happy to show you where Hojo is. Whatever you do with him from that point is of little concern to me.”
“!?”
“Whoa! What the hell, man?” Barret blurts out, “You’d just throw your own scientist under the bus like that!? Isn’t he really valuable or something?”
Cloud gives Rufus a suspicious glare. “What’s this favor?”
Up to now, Rufus has been standing relaxed by the table, even including that moment when Barret dared to point his gun at him. But now that he’s gotten to the main point of the matter, his face hardens and he actually gets serious.
“It’s about the old legend of the Cetra… the one concerning the Promised Land.”
“Aw, hell no!” Barret snaps back, “No way! We ain’t gonna let Shinra get anywhere close to it!”
“Does a place like that even exist, actually?” Cait Sith then asks, looking a little confused. “I was under the impression it was just a myth.”
Ruby answers rather plainly, “It’s not quite the same, but there actually is a gateway where the Lifestream regularly flows out from the depths.”
“Hey, Ruby! Don’t tell ’em!” Barret gasps, “They don’t need to know!”
She shrugs. “It’s no big deal, guys. Shinra won’t be able to do anything with that land anyway.”
“Huh?”
Now Rufus is legitimately concerned. “And what makes you say that?”
She turns back to him with a rather smug frown. “Because I’ve been there plenty of times. Unless you have the power to dramatically alter the entire landscape in an instant, even the best of your Turks or Soldiers won’t be enough to clear all the extremely powerful monsters in the area. It wouldn’t be sustainable to set up a reactor there – needless to say an entire city.”
“And this location you’re speaking of is…?”
“The Northern Crater, of course.”
“What?” Now it’s Cloud’s turn to be taken aback.
“The same place that Jenova was discovered…” Tifa reminds herself as a look of horror comes on.
“Interesting…” Rufus casually brushes his hair aside as he ponders over it. “And you say even our forces aren’t enough for the monsters?”
Ruby comments, “To be honest, I’m surprised you were even able to get a team of scientists in and out safely from the area back then. With how plentiful the Lifestream is around there, the monsters have naturally grown to immense size and power. They’re not to be trifled with.”
“While that may be, I think you’re underestimating Shinra a little too much. After all, we do have a certain elite squad of Soldier that’s a little different from the rest…”
“If you’re talking about Deepground’s Tsviets, those frogs have been knocked back into their well. And they’re staying there,” she adds that last bit with a little extra emphasis.
He makes a slightly annoyed look. “Yes. I was informed of your activities. You have a hefty debt to the company for destroying a good chunk of our labs.” He then waves his hand. “But no, I’m not referring to them.”
“Hm?”
“Have you heard of the Immortals?”
Now it’s Ruby’s turn to look utterly dumbfounded. But before she can answer, Tifa jumps back in with her own retort.
“What are you saying? Those people were left in a coma, right? How can they possibly…?”
“Not all of them.”
“…” Just like that, she’s cut off and says no more.
Now Ruby stares hard at him, leaning on the table too. “What’s this about ‘Immortals’?”
Rufus smirks to himself, glancing away. “I’ve said enough. You can ask your friends more about it.”
She feels just a little miffed to that and whips back to Cloud. “What’s going on here? Why is this asshole so smug?”
He gives it to her straight: “By the sounds of it, ever since Rubia became a subject of those experiments, Shinra’s been messing around with her DNA… and trying to create a different breed of Soldier.”
“GODDAMMIT!!” She swings a fist into the open air and spins away from Cloud, nonetheless still startling him. “Hojo is DEAD!! I’m piledriving him to the planet’s core wherever he is!!”
“…”
With some angry snarling and huffing, she then pivots back to Rufus and stomps around the table toward him. “As for you…”
“Huh? What are you…?” he asks a bit nervously as she struts up to him.
“I changed my mind. I’m throwing you out the window.”
“Huh!? W-wait, you aren’t serious, are ye!?” Cait Sith exclaims, panicking a little.
Rufus shakes his head. “Wait. If you do, I can’t tell you where Hojo is…”
“I didn’t say I was gonna kill you.”
“…!” He actually flinches to that. There’s that dangerous look in her eyes again. She’s actually serious.
“Ruby!” Aerith calls out.
“Zhui!” Tseng does as well. “Stand down!”
Ruby stops in her tracks just before she reaches out a hand to grab Rufus, while the Turk with the gun has once again pointed said gun in her direction. With a tense silence that follows, both of them step back and retract their attempts.
Tseng scolds him, “I’ve warned you before. This one should not be engaged under any circumstances.”
Aerith lets off a disappointed sigh. “Come on, Cuz, we’ve been over this. Just calm down and talk it out.”
Both Ruby and Zhui pout in their own corners, but share contesting glares all the same. Meanwhile, Rufus simply steps back a little to keep some distance, a little rustled but still composed for the most part.
Barret looks between them and shakes his head. “Sheesh. And ya’ll say my temper’s bad…”
Cloud then resumes the discussion by answering the dangling question: “Anyway, there’s no deal. Shinra won’t be visiting any ‘Promised Land’ no matter how tempted Ruby may be.”
Rufus lets off a sigh, with a little more in relief than disappointment. “Unfortunately, that leaves us with little choice but to deploy that squad. If you guys get to have someone like her around, it’s not exactly fair for the rest of us.”
“That’s not our problem.”
“I’d say that depends on where you choose to go next.”
“Huh?”
He’s back to that ever smug attitude as if he hadn’t just narrowly escaped danger yet again. “After all, I’ve heard that you plan to drop by Wutai sometime?”
Cloud jolts a little. “What? How did you…?”
“Let’s just say, a little bird told me. In any case, I should warn you that I’ve lately sent a different group of Turks there to investigate into a certain matter. If you all happen to meet, it’s hard to say what might happen, especially given our current international tensions.”
“‘A certain matter’…?”
“They’re looking into some allegations that Wutai may in fact have been sheltering Avalanche members.”
“!”
“Whoa! Hold up!” Barret barges in again, “The hell are you talking about!? Avalanche got nothin’ to do with Wutai!”
“Even though there are certain branches of Avalanche that have indeed been working with Wutai’s elite force of ninjas? I seem to recall a couple of them that had slipped into our headquarters and were attempting to steal materia…”
“What the!? And how did YOU know that?”
“Again, I have my sources.”
He raises an angry fist. “That’s BULLSHIT! How the hell do you have access to that kind of info? You got some kinda spy with us or somethin’!?”
At that moment, Ruby and Cait Sith seem to get a sudden case of the tingles. At least for now, no one else seems to notice.
“Then again, even if you did, we didn’t know anything about Avalanche being in Wutai, so it couldn’t have been from us. So what’s that all about?”
“Rest assured, those allegations have been in place for much longer than even your group has been active. I’m simply doing my presidential duties and having the truth be ascertained so we can all avoid starting up a full-scale war.”
“Tch. More like you’re just using this as an excuse to get rid of some people that Shinra don’t want anymore.”
He chuckles quietly. “My, was it that obvious? Still, I do mean it that those allegations have been around a long time. If by any chance the new Wutai government has been shielding them, that would very well be like an active threat to our own sovereignty. Actions have consequences and must be repaid in kind, after all. And needless to say, even without our famed war general from the past, Shinra has more than enough resources to outlast them any day. It really would be in both countries’ best interests that they stand down.”
“Hey. If you want peace talks, how about you send in someone who could actually do diplomacy and not the Turks, whom that government would see as Shinra spies?” Ruby calmly jumps back in.
“Well, I think we’d be hard-pressed to find someone who would be a completely neutral third party…” He raises a hand toward her. “Unless you’re willing to take up the role?”
She nods back. “Of course. Why else would we pay them a visit? We’re not heading there just to be tourists.”
He smiles, quite pleased to hear it. “Well, then. If you could act as our arbitrator, that would be most welcome. I’ll be happy to let my Turks know so they can see you when you arrive. Now, when exactly were you planning to go?”
“Right after one last stop in Midgar. I still got a few more of our buddies to pick up. Oh! And that reminds me…” She points in his face matter-of-factly. “There were some civilians around Midgar who were arrested on charges of being Avalanche sympathizers. Some of our friends were looking into that and planning to rescue them. Any idea on where they’re being held?”
“I believe that question should be directed at our resident officer of public safety. He’s the one who’s been left in charge of that operation.”
“I’m asking you to yell at Heidegger and get him to call back the Sweepers that are harassing the locals. Honestly, whose bright idea was it to let them run amok? I could even go back there and shut the rest of them down, and the next thing you’ll hear from Midgar is the people singing the praises of the mythical white dragon that freed them from their oppressors.”
He snorts to that. “Well, no promises, but I’ll think about it. And for the record, if you expect to make any demands of me or my company board, you’re going to have to pull your weight so we know we can trust you.”
She smirks back dryly. “You don’t trust me? My, I’m hurt…”
“Well, you did try to throw me out this window just earlier.”
“And I’ll do it again if you cross me, you bastard.”
“I don’t think that’s going to be as satisfying as you think it’ll be.” He waves it all away. “In any case, I think we’ve come to an agreement of sorts. I was planning to ask you regarding those Immortals that weren’t so successful, but I suspect you have no idea what to do about them, do you?”
“I didn’t even know they existed. What was that earlier about the comas?”
He shakes his head. “Then, it’s nothing for you to worry about. As things stand, Hojo is still a very valuable asset to this company, so I’d prefer that you not kill him before we get updates on his latest projects. When you’re ready to agree to show us to the Promised Land, though…”
Cloud cuts in again, “Not happening.”
“Of course. Then, as always, we remain at an impasse. But I do appreciate that we’re making progress in one way, at least.” With that, Rufus begins to step away from the table and for the window. He gives them all a dismissive wave and turns away again. “You’re all free to go.”
“Hmph! He really is just like his old man…” Barret snarls, “We ain’t your damn employees! You don’t dismiss us!”
Cloud points out, “We’re pretty much done here, though. And we probably shouldn’t stay any longer in case Cid wakes up and tries to throw Rufus out the window anyway.”
Cait Sith and his moogle slump together. “Er… May we please move away from talking about throwing people out the window? It’s really bad for me nerves, see…”
He gives the duo one quick glance and turns back to Ruby. “Anyway, I’ve been meaning to ask… but why a cat and a moogle?”
“They’re cute and sweet.”
“…”
Aerith then brings up, “And they’re really helpful! We could always use an extra pair of eyes, you know?” She passes Ruby a wink, to which the latter nods back with a cheeky smirk.
“…?” Cloud looks between them, but decides not to question it. He turns back to the others and calls out, “Alright, let’s go.”
But as the rest of the party head on out for the doors, Rufus then turns back and lets them know. “Oh, one more thing, guys…”
He whips back around with an annoyed glare. “What?”
“Considering that the Highwind is currently without a pilot, may I suggest taking along the old crew to join you for future travels?”
“What are you talking about? Cid is…” And then, he catches onto what Rufus means. “Well, even if you don’t recognize him anymore, he’s still our pilot.”
“And that crew is full of his old hands. I’m sure he’d still want to mingle with them.”
“Why are you being nice about this? Even after he screamed at you and quit his job too.”
“Because regardless of his opinions, the Highwind is officially Shinra property and thus requires a crew from our company to attend it. In other words, I’m simply letting you all borrow it for now, but it will have to be returned at some point.”
“…”
“Of course, I’m aware that Ruby can always snatch it away at any point and will admit that we don’t have the right manpower to be able to stop her at this time. Hence the ‘borrowing’.”
“…Not confident enough in your elite squad to go up against her, huh?”
“Hmm… Let’s just say, they’re currently preoccupied. When we must see a confrontation again, we’ll find out then how they square up to the original.”
“They’re gonna be trashed,” Barret answers immediately.
“Yeah. I don’t doubt it,” Cloud agrees rather quickly too.
“I think so too,” Aerith admits with an innocent-looking smile.
“…” Rufus turns away again. “This meeting is over. Get out.”
~
The Corneo Coliseum is aroused with noise from the crowds cheering and jeering at the success and failure of competitors daring to face off with some of the town’s worst criminals, wild beasts, and mechs provided by Shinra. And it’s at the top floor of the gallery where a few esteemed guests have been seated to watch the show. However, a certain key individual is not among them. Perhaps he’s hidden away in a VIP suite somewhere in the back.
Leslie has led Yuffie and Vincent here, but they shortly come to a dilemma. While security is fairly lax on the ground floor, it’s a different story on the top, with mercenary guards and their accompanying sentry drones keeping watch over the entire coliseum. Even if they manage to distract the guards somehow and take them out, it’s all too easy for those drones to snap up shots and flee.
“Then, we can just take ’em out first,” Yuffie suggests rather carefreely.
Leslie shakes his head. “It’s not that easy. As soon as any of them go, everyone will be alerted, not just Manson. I’ll head in by myself. They won’t suspect anything.”
“Are you sure?” Vincent asks, cautiously noting, “How would you be able to get in? You don’t have an appointment with him at the moment, right?”
“Well, it’s not like drop-in visits are totally out. Besides, with you two tagging along, I might as well be asking to get shot.”
Yuffie butts in again, “Then what are we gonna do in the meantime? We wanna talk with him too, you know!”
“Yeah, I know. But the first thing we have to do is make sure he’s cornered. And knowing Corneo, he’s probably got some secret escape hatch in his secret suite. That’s gotta be where Manson is staying right now.”
“Okay, but that doesn’t answer my question.”
He handwaves it away. “You two can keep everyone busy by joining the tournament. With everyone’s eyes on the show, it’d make my job way easier.”
“Huh? Wait, seriously? You want us to be out there front and center?”
“Would you even be able to corner him by yourself, though?” Vincent asks again, still not quite convinced. “As soon as he catches on that you’re there to interrogate him, that would leave us with no avenue of escape.”
But then Leslie makes a wry smirk as he digs a hand into a pocket in the underside of his jacket. “Don’t worry, I got my ways.”
Yuffie frowns, but lets it go with a pout. “Well, it kinda stinks that we’d have to leave everything to you, but I guess you know him better than we do. So what’s this tournament about? Do we just fight other competitors in the ring?”
“Nah, not them. It’s more like you’re thrown into a rush of battles with rounds coming one after the other. If you complete them all, then you’re set for the championship.”
“Hmph! Is that all? Sounds like afternoon tea and cake!”
He scoffs back, “I wouldn’t say it’s that nice. There are some nasty things that can show up in there, so you’d best be prepared.”
“Bah. After what I’ve been through, anything that comes from Midgar now is chump change! And besides,” she adds, prodding Vincent with an elbow, “If I ever need a decoy, it’s this guy’s turn to be.”
He returns her an unamused glance, but says nothing.
Leslie rolls his eyes. “Do whatever you have to, it’s not my business. Just keep everyone’s eyes glued on the stage.”
“Heh. If it’s a show the people want, then I’ll give ’em one! These clueless Midgardians will see that Wutai isn’t one to be trifled with!”
With their plans set, Leslie passes them a quick wave of his hand and slips off on his own for the elevator in question, while Yuffie and Vincent head up to the welcome booth, where a man is sitting bored listening to the radio on his table. He’s almost nodding off when he snaps to attention as they approach and gets right to his feet.
“Hey, there! Newcomers? What’re ya here for? Though just to let ya know, the galleries all stuffed, so unless someone decides they gotta catch a flight real soon, we’re outta tickets.”
“We’re not here to watch. We’re here to challenge!” Yuffie declares, throwing out a pumped-up fist.
“Huh?” He takes one look at her and then the guy next to her. “You babysittin’ her or something?”
“Hey! I’m the one talking to you!”
He shakes his head. “Sorry, kid, but this is an adults-only venue. Not a pretty place for little girls to play hero.”
“Hey! I’m practically an adult already! What you got against teenagers, huh!?”
“Yeah, yeah…” He waves at her dismissively. “Look, this isn’t a playground. People come here for the thrill of battle, and we don’t serve ’em on a fancy platter. If you’re gonna get in there, you’re in there to die.”
“Ugh. I know that! And I was born for battle, so it doesn’t scare me!”
Vincent now steps forward to help steer the conversation back on track. “Is registration still open?”
“Hmph. Yeah, they’re always open, but you’re gonna have to wait your turn while the current combatants are in the ring.” He smirks. “Though, if anything, it usually doesn’t take too long. Not to many folks who can last even a few rounds. I’ve seen a handful of go-getters get absolutely got in just the first round. Wrings the soul right outta them and they come back out battered like dough. I dunno about you, but if I were you, I’d bring another partner to pair up with ’cause it’s gonna be hell if you go it alone.”
“Hello!? I’m right here!” She snaps back.
“She’ll be joining me in the ring, actually,” Vincent explains.
“Huh? This little girl? Dude… I’m not gonna tell you how to raise your kid, but you might as well throw in the towel.”
“Oh, that’s it! You wanna go? I’ll show you a few ninja specialities for- Hey!”
Vincent puts a hand to her shoulder and brushes her aside before she stirs up anything else. “It’ll be us two next. Is there any fee for registering?”
“Nope. We already got plenty of cash flow from people who wanna see the matches. We don’t need money from those who are coming here to dig their own graves, heh… Anyway, names?”
Despite his aloof attitude, the receptionist offers them the sign-up list and Yuffie snatches the pen and quickly scribbles down their names before Vincent can stop her. He gives her a somewhat disappointed look.
“What?”
“…I suppose if it’s just the first names, none would be the wiser.”
“Well, I don’t know your last name. You want me to put it down?”
“No. And it will remain that way.”
“Then you don’t have to complain.”
The boothman then calls to the doorman to get the doors unlocked, and they then head on inside, ignoring all the mocking and disgusted looks aimed their way from staff and other contestants alike.
Meanwhile, down in the basement level, Leslie has sneaked off through a hallway in the back that is known only to Corneo’s henchmen, and he shortly comes upon the lounge area specifically for them. Some of those henchies are also here, kicking back and watching the show out in the ring on the TV, but several are busy playing cards since there isn’t too much that’s interesting at the moment. The current combatant is just being walloped and mangled by the star beast tamer and his hug two-headed dog. Leslie quietly slips on a cloth mask over his nose and steps on in.
“Huh? Hey, who the hell?”
“Oh. Ain’t he the new guy? Heard he was supposed to be on watch at the palace…”
“Hmph! Shirking on work already? Won’t look good to the boss…”
“Haha! Well, not like the boss is even there! Those idiots were left out there like dogs, hahaha!”
And without a word, Leslie pulls a single metal can out from a pocket on his jacket and casually pops the canister. He also tosses it over to one of the men who happens to catch it.
“Huh? The hell is this?”
Leslie smirks under his mask. “Bedtime.”
Before the others can react, the can spews a great deal of smoky gas that fills the room in seconds. While the guys are all hacking and coughing, running for the doors and even one trying to grab at the intruder, but Leslie slips away for another door and disappears in the smoke. This other door leads to another hallway that rounds around to another hidden elevator that can only be accessed by a certain key, and he so happens to have it ready. This one is the one that can reach the secret suite on the top floor of the coliseum.
However, as soon as he reaches the top floor and steps out, he realizes that the place is surprisingly empty. While the lounge below was fairly noisy with those henchies around and the TV played on loudspeakers, up here, it’s rather quiet – suspiciously so. He cautiously approaches the door to the secret suite and tries the door. It’s unlocked, so that suggests the man in question is in. With bated breath, he draws out a handgun that he had been keeping in that inner pocket. He slowly opens the door and steps inside.
But to his surprise, as soon as he does, two bayonets fly out in front of him and hold him back. As he suspected, it was a trap, but he had no other choice but to proceed. With a grumble, he throws up his hands and drops the gun, to which one of the guards kicks it away.
Mr. Manson is indeed here. He’s seated at the ornate desk normally reserved for the Don. This entire suite is dressed in red, white, and gold like the palace and might as well be a secondary office to the main one. However, the seat is actually a little big for Manson. He’s not anywhere so big and plump like the Don is; but a rather lanky and pale-faced man with a graying head of hair. However, while he would normally be rather reserved and strict, he seems to have become rather well situated in this position granted to him by Corneo. He gives his visitor an indignant frown, acting almost as if he were royalty, with guards to heed his every command.
“…I thought there was a rat among the ranks. Looks like I was right to be cautious.”
“Ugh… Don’t tell me. The reason that key was unguarded…?”
“It was a trap, yes. And you fell right into it.” He shakes his head. “Honestly, Leslie, I thought you were the much more cautious type. What led you to become so bold all of a sudden?” He raises a stern eyebrow. “I don’t think I need to remind you about your fiancee’s situation…”
That seems to be a trigger for him. He snaps back, “Where’s Meryl!?”
He shakes his head. “I’m not privy to that information. Corneo was the one who sent her off somewhere, and he’s not exactly in town at the moment.”
“Dammit…”
“Though, I figure you already knew that.” He folds his hands together atop the desk. “So what business do you have with me?”
“Where has Corneo gone? And don’t just give me ‘Wutai’. I want specifics.”
“Hmph. And what use would that info serve you? You’re not heading there anyway.”
“…”
“Or, don’t tell me… You’ve happened to meet someone who might be able to take you?”
“…”
“Of course you wouldn’t say.” Manson sits back in his seat with a sigh. “Unfortunately for you, this act of insubordination isn’t a light offense. At least you can rest easy on one thing. Unlike Corneo, I’m not so quick to off people if I don’t need to. But I’m also not one to shy away from demanding other forms of compensation either.”
Leslie grits his teeth. “How much do you want?”
“How much? No, this isn’t about the money. It’s about setting things right.”
“Then what…?”
“Hmm… Considering that this is still your first offense, I suppose I should go lighter, but it is a serious one. If Corneo were here, he’d probably have you killed. So…” Manson offers a sinister smile. “Would you be willing to exchange information for your life?”
The guards’ bayonets come even closer to his neck and he backs up a little. “…Ask away. I’m not dying here.”
“Heh, fair enough. In that case…” He casually turns away for the large flatscreen HDTV that sits across from his desk as he watches a couple of new participants have stepped into the ring. “What do you know about your two companions?”
He’s now a little stung. “What?”
“No need to play innocent with me. I’ve caught wind of your little stunt in front of the palace. One moment you were held at gunpoint, and the next, you were quite friendly with the same people who were holding you up.”
“How could you have…?” But he drifts off, now that he realizes his mistake, and winces in shame.
“Drones, of course, with the highest quality cameras. It was rather fortunate that I acquired a manufacturer under my scope. Corneo and I were always business partners, but even he wouldn’t have left his stead over all of Wall Market to a mere partner… unless of course, said partner had the means to help him curry favor with some friends higher up.”
“…There really was no need for me to be a doorman, was there?”
“Sad to say, but you were obsolete. The Don never quite trusted you, see, so he saw fit to leave you in a post where you would do no harm.”
“…”
“But not to worry. I don’t plan on reporting this to the Don. It’d honestly be too much hassle for a snitch who got caught so easily.”
He waves a dismissive hand, and the guards relent with their bayonets, but just as Leslie lets off a sigh in relief, one of them kicks him to the floor. He slowly gets back up, passing the guy a fierce glare, but doesn’t dare to fight back.
“Instead, why don’t we keep things civil? Let’s just chat. You tell me what you’ve learned and depending on what you know, I’ll consider letting this infraction slide. How about that?”
“…”
Leslie hesitates. It’s true that he had just met them, and he doesn’t have any particular reason to trust them either. But on the other hand, if it’s true that at least one of them is from Wutai – that ninja girl doesn’t do a good job of hiding it – that might just be his only ticket to chasing down Corneo. In other words, he would be the real fool for letting an opportunity like that slip away. Besides, he did just promise to help them. If he betrays them now, never mind Yuffie; her gun-toting partner has already shown how quick on the draw he can be. He might not step out of this place alive even if he gets away for now.
To which, Manson nods back as if respecting his silence. “I gotta say… You definitely got guts to dig your heels for some strangers. These guys must be some pretty valuable resources, huh?”
“If you wanna know more about them, talk to them yourself.”
“Hmm… I think I’d rather sit back and observe what they can do. They have just entered the battlefield, after all.” With a smug smile, he even beckons him over. “Would you like to join me? Let’s see how far they go.”
Leslie remains silent, keeping a wary glare on Manson, but then steps on by the desk and turns to face the TV as well. For now, all he can do is hope that whatever is lying in wait behind Manson’s scheming face isn’t too much for his new friends to handle. Then again, he just gets the feeling that they’re not ones to be underestimated either.
Back down on the floor, the crowds are booing and jeering the new contestants as they arrive. The live commentators are having fun riding the wave of dissent and openly mocking them as a “kid” and her “babysitter”.
“Haha! Everyone, you’re in for a real laugh this time! Here we got what look like two cosplayers, and one’s still fresh from the crib! Let’s give a warm welcome to Yuffie and Vincent!”
“Go home and play with your toys! This is a place for ADULTS!”
“And what’s the deal with Vampire Mcgee over there? It ain’t Halloween, ya freaks!”
“What the hell is that thing supposed to be, a giant pinwheel? Hahaha!”
“I’m bettin’ it all now! They’re not gonna last a minute…”
Yuffie growls under her breath. “You’d better watch out, or this ‘freak’ will snatch your tongue right outta your mouth…”
She and Vincent have their weapons drawn as the first of their opponents step into the ring… and she’s disappointed to find that it’s just a ragtag bunch of bandits.
“Oh, come on! Really? I’ve fought through Shinra’s latest mechs that haven’t been out in public yet, and this is what I’m put up against!? Get serious!”
Vincent, meanwhile, is grateful that they don’t have to deal with any particular threats in the beginning. He promptly begins to reorganize his materia setup, just in case they run into anything actually worthy later.
“Bahahaha! They brought a freakin’ kid and a freak from a kid’s show here? They really don’t think we’re hot stuff, huh, Beck?”
“Well, maybe they oughta reconsider, ’cause I’m thinking about playing cat and mouse with ’em…”
“Hehehehehe! Cat and mouse! Oh! Oh! Can I be the dog? I wanna chase ’em!”
“Go for it, Butch.”
“Hehehehehe! Come’re little mousey! Or is the kitty the kiddy? Or, uh… wait.”
“Bahahaha! Don’t pull a muscle before we get it started!”
Yuffie simply stares at the trio with a honest look of pity. She turns back to Vincent, who is likewise unamused. “Are you gonna shoot them too?”
“This is an underground coliseum. They don’t prohibit death matches.”
“Ya know… I honestly feel kinda bad for ’em. Like, they’re not witnesses that we need to clean up, and they look like they’re struggling to even talk…”
“So, what’s the plan?”
“Huh?”
“We can go for either the fastest victory, or the less quick but non-lethal victory.”
“Uh… You’re asking me about whether to spare them or not?”
“Enough yappin’ and start doin’! Let’s go, boys! Thrash ’em!” Beck shouts, and the three bandits charge right at them.
Yuffie and Vincent easily dodge out of the way, and the bandits seem a bit confused for a moment before they whip around and charge again, only to be avoided just as easily. In the meantime, Yuffie thinks it over before giving her partner her answer: “Eh. Non-lethal. They aren’t even worth the bullets.”
“Roger.” With that settled, he quickly slips in some fresh shots into the chamber and adjusts a setting on his gun. He then draws and fires away at each of the bandits, knocking them all out with a single shot each.
“Wha- Hey! What was that!? I said ‘NON-LETHAL’!”
“They were non-lethal shots.”
“Huh?”
To her surprise, all three bandits seem to have been knocked right over into some awkward positons, but as she approaches them, she can hear their loud snoring. She looks back at Vincent in bewilderment, and he’s switching his gun right back to the usual setting.
“Did you just tranq them or something?”
“You said ‘non-lethal’, didn’t you?”
“Uh, yeah…”
But then comes the uproar from the crowd, who are in disbelief that the fight would end so anticlimactically like that. The commentators, meanwhile, are busting their gusts.
“Hahahaha! Whaddya know? Seems like they’re keepin’ this match rated PG after all!”
“Now that’s the mark of a good babysitter, folks: playing along with the young’uns!”
“That’s BULLSHIT! I want my money back!”
“You call that a fight!? The guy just fired a gun! And they ain’t even dead!”
“We paid to see blood and we wanna see blood!!”
“KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL!” The crowd quickly riles themselves up into a chanting frenzy.
“Oh, will you all SHUT UP!?” Yuffie yells over the noise, “If you want a real match, then send the real firepower! These chumps aren’t squat!”
“Well, well, well! Seems like the kid isn’t ready for naptime, huh? She still wants another round with our toys!” the commentator in a green Wutaian-style suit declares.
“Well, then! If she wanna see the guns, then let’s bring ’em! The biggest ones from tonight!” the commentator with a mohawk and in an orange vest follows suit.
Even without bothering to clean up the three bandits left on the floor, the doors across from the duo open up again, and two massive mechs stomp out into the light: a classic Sweeper and its unfriendly neighbor Cutter. And again, Yuffie groans in disappointment.
“At least this is a little better… barely,” she mutters aloud.
“Then, let’s clean up and move on, but we’re still stalling for time here,” Vincent reminds her.
“You don’t have to remind me. I’m kind of an expert at my trade.”
The mechs launch away into direct assault, and once again the duo neatly dodge out of the way. What one moment looked like the mechs swinging around wildly shortly becomes them simply being smashed, toppled, and expertly dismantled by two lightning-charged physical blows. And as suddenly as the battle began, it was over as the two mechs burst into flaming garbage.
“Whoa, there! What the hell was that, ladies and gentlemen!? The mechs that had been flattening everything in their paths so far just blew up! Talk about blitzkrieg!”
“Oh, you can say that again! I swear I saw those two move for a bit, but they zipped here and there like they were greased lightning themselves!”
By now, the crowd’s boos and jeers go silent for a moment. Yuffie sneers as the duo lands back on their feet. Finally, the reaction she was looking for. Suddenly, a single clap sounds out over the silence, and before they know it, the rest of the crowd starts to follow along.
“Huh… Maybe they do got some skills after all.”
“Now that I look at ’em, they’re still weird… but at least they’re strong.”
“And fast! What was that speed? I knew it’d be over in less than a minute, but…”
“Dammit! That was actually cool! I knew I should have bet the other way!”
“Finally… about time we got some recognition around here,” Yuffie beams with pride as she lets herself be showered in praise.
“…” Vincent remains as uninterested as ever, though, and is starting to wonder how much more they need to face before a decent amount of time passes.
But by now, the commentators catch word from some higher up, and they seem to swerve right into the new change.
“Whoa-ho! Heads up, folks! This just in: a word from our sponsor!” the Mohawk man announces, “Whoever this dynamic duo is, they sure seem to have fired up a whole lot just in a few short seconds! They’re zoomin’ so fast through these rounds that they’ve just warped right to the final challenge!”
“Huh? Already!? Geez Louise, that was easy!” Yuffie complains loudly. “You call this a ‘challenge’!? I’ve had busier morning routines!”
“Oh, don’t you worry, kiddo! You’ve been askin’ for the real firepower, right? Then we’ll give it to ya!”
“But you’d better hold onto those mighty short shorts, since this last match isn’t just any ol’ junk you can power through!” his fellow commentator follows up. “It’s killed more than its fair share of runs, and it’ll give even your twinkletoes a real run for the road!”
Together, the men shout with pure, unadulterated hype: “It’s time for… the HELL HOOOOUUSE!!”
And with that, the crowd breaks out into a wild cheer with impatient shouts and giddy whistles. As Yuffie and Vincent look around cautiously, now a little weirded out that the crowd is just as excited. They don’t need to wait for long either, but this time, instead of anything coming out from the opposite door again, the floor itself starts to shift beneath their feet, and they quickly hop aside. Out from the depths of the pitch-black underground cell, a small house rises on an elevator into view.
Yuffie blinks in disbelief. “Seriously… a house?”
But before she can keep complaining, they hear something like a maniacal laugh come from inside the building. It’s followed by the whirring of machinery, and the house disturbingly begins to shake and jumble.
“It’s no ordinary house…” Vincent warns.
And as if following on cue, the house suddenly bounces off the ground and a jumbled assortment of huge mechanical arms and legs pop out from all sides of the building, followed very shortly by a metal skull with glowing red eyes and a flamethrower for a mouth. It screeches in their ears with the cacophony of a thousand seagulls and cackles with a deranged glee.
Yuffie clears out her ears with a grumble. “Ugh… what the hell is this thing?”
“…!” But he then calls out, “Yuffie, move!”
“Huh? …Whaaat!?”
The Hell House suddenly bounces high into the air and crash lands right atop where they had been standing, leaving a great big dent in the likewise metal floor. It swings back around with another frantic cackle and starts clawing and scratching as it launches itself forward after her.
“Oh, come on! Why me!?”
Yuffie somersaults nimbly from foot to hand to foot again as she dodges the house’s next flaming swings. Seizing his chance, Vincent disappears behind the monster and lets fire a multitude of shots into some potential critical spots – but unfortunately for him, it seems like the joints on this mechanical creature’s are reinforced and his shots mostly bounce off harmlessly. He’s forced to back off again when the house suddenly pivots and slams down where he had been. And to his disappointment, firing through the windows don’t seem to change anything either.
Yuffie then switches modes in an instant and tries for an electrically charged Art of War to blast the cantankerous contraption, but to her shock, it doesn’t seem to leave too much of a mark. And she’s likewise forced to jump away again as the Hell House spins wildly in her direction as if it were suddenly a top. It quickly rights itself before it hits the wall, though, and switches gears right into opening up its rooftop.
“What now!?”
Several different arms – mostly rocket launchers – pop out from its roof, and it immediately shoots them off. The missiles fly all around the ring in erratic fashion, making it a lot harder to see where they’re going and dodge accordingly. Fortunately, the duo are still quick enough to dodge out of the way. Unfortunately, Yuffie underestimated the ensuing explosions, which go off as fireworks on the ground and the multiple blasts at once send her into a tumble to the side.
“Bwaaaah! Oof… Ow.”
She climbs back to her feet again, but now the smoke from the explosions has covered a good chunk of the battlefield. Oh, great. Not this situation again. How many fights does she have to be in where she can’t see anything!? She pinches her nose and keeps her eyes peeled as she hurries for a space out of the smoke cloud.
“…Waaah!?”
Before she knew it, she was again assaulted by the Hell House running right into her path from out of sight and crashing into the wall where she would have been if she hadn’t pulled back at the last minute. And for just a moment, as the Hell House switches into reverse and pulls back out from the wall, its skull turns toward her with that demonic-looking grin that sends a shiver up her spine. It promptly fires its flamethrower at her, to which she runs right back into the smog for cover and dives to the ground to avoid the worst of the smoke.
But now that she peers around along the ground, she then realizes she can’t seem to find where Vincent has gone. What the? She swears he was nearby a moment ago.
The next thing she hears is the metallic screeching as the house thrashes another way. It seems to have noticed the other target, but once again he vanishes into the smoke. By now, even the Hell House seems annoyed and simply launches itself back into the air to slam back down. It does this a few more times until the smoke naturally dissipates on its own, leaving the battlegrounds quite damaged.
However, as the smoke finally lifts, the Hell House finds its skull face-to-face with the muzzle of a gun. Vincent blows both of its eyes out point-blank and leaps off as the monster screeches again, this time in apparent pain.
“Yeaaah!!” Yuffie cheers and blows raspberry. “Take that, ya dumb house… bot… thing! Whatever you are!”
But now that its eyes seem to have gone, the Hell House simply goes berserk. It now charges at them even faster than it had been before, with its engines roaring with blue nitro flames instead of the usual red.
“W-whoa, whoa, whoa! What the hell!? How do you turn this thing off!?”
She dodges and tries again with another Art of War bomb – this time of fire, hoping that it’d at least burn the house, but to her dismay, the house also seems to be fireproof. And it only seems to spur on the monster’s rage.
But just mere moments before she gets a face-full of claws, the house is hit by a Blizzara that temporarily stuns it, letting her get out of there. Yuffie finally jumps back beside Vincent and lets off a relieved sigh.
“Thanks. That was close…”
“Don’t thank me yet.”
The Hell House shortly breaks out of the ice that holds it back, and it screeches again. Now, a mysterious barrier seems to surround it.
Yuffie’s jaw drops. “What!? It’s got magic barriers too!? That’s so unfair!”
The Hell House leaps into the air once more and crashes down once more, but this time, it spins around and starts coughing up various objects and furniture that are actually all bombs in disguise. As the two dodge once again, Yuffie is getting quite fed up of the place getting all smoky again. She whips out a quick Windstorm to blow away the smoke.
But now that she’s cleared it, she finds herself face-to-face with the house again. And this time, its front door opens. Before she can leap away again, a powerful vacuum sucks her in and shuts her inside.
“Yuffie!”
The house cackles once again and jumps and bounces around wildly as Vincent tries to shoot it down, as it’s now avoiding his magic spells. But then, he catches onto something as he switches up his spells: the color of the barrier seems to shift every time he does. And then he realizes that the barrier only blocks certain elements. In other words, activating the ice barrier might just leave the thing vulnerable to fire, for example. But he curses to himself under his breath. Yuffie was the one with the Fire and Wind materia; he has the Ice and Lightning. This wasn’t the best combination, though it wasn’t likely that they would have anticipated it being such an important factor.
After several rounds of his bullets seemingly being deflected by the monster’s unpredictable flailing and his precise dodging of the following strikes, it seems like they’re at a sort of draw. But then, the house seems to lurch and throws up the prey it had swallowed earlier. Yuffie drops to the floor, unconscious. She’s battered and bruised all over from all the things that were crushing her on the inside of the house while the monster bounced around.
And for just a split second, Vincent gets a brief flashback to a certain woman he had known well in his life. Without a second thought, he flies through the air and snatches her out of the way as the house tries to jump on her again. While the Hell House cackles as if it were jeering at them, he pays it no mind. He carefully sets Yuffie down on the floor where the house had yet to ruin, and turns back to the monster with a new fire burning in his eyes. To its surprise, however, the man then walks right up to it instead.
With a defiant screech, the Hell House slams and pounds the ground where Vincent stands, but then it realizes it seems to have caught its hands against something. In a vehement burst of rage, a might Galian Beast roars as it throws off the mechanical arms that tried to crush it. Instead, the Beast seizes the house instead, crushing its walls in its grasp, and chucks the whole thing up high, crashing into the cage that surrounds the ring.
The crowd that had been screaming all this time suddenly go quiet for a moment as everyone stares in horror at the dent in the metal cage that was supposed to be protecting them.
As the Hell House plummets, the Galian Beast leaps onto it and crashes it down into the floor with a greater force than the house had done itself. It rips and tears at the building, cracking through stone and metal like dough. And when the house struggles to throw off its adversary, it pulls up its physical barrier again to knock the Beast back. However, the latter refuses to be knocked back. It snatches the thing against and charges up a deadly red ball of light within its maws, and unleashes a Beast Flare point-blank.
The entire battlefield is enveloped in a burst of searing heat that even the crowd further away in the gallery can feel. Fortunately for the front-seaters, no one seems to be burned by some miracle.
As the smoke and dust settles again, the mighty Beast that had appeared from nowhere has vanished once again. The Hell House is in tatters and lies still and in complete silence; no eerie lights coming from within anymore. And Vincent calmly steps out into view to check on Yuffie again. He tosses her a Phoenix Down, followed by a couple of Curas for good measure, just to be sure she’s okay again.
Yuffie gasps as she starts awake and coughs, but then realizes she’s no longer in pain. She turns to him, who passes a sigh in relief and turns away again, almost as if hesitant to meet her directly in the eyes. She raises an eyebrow, but lets it go and gets back to her feet, patting herself down of dust.
“Um… thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.”
She then stares at the pile of garbage that was once running wild and back to him in astonishment. “What happened? For a moment there, I thought it was kicking our butts!”
“…” To her shock, Vincent actually gives a small chuckle. “It made me mad, so I smashed it up.”
“Huh!? You did…?” She doesn’t believe him, though. “What’d you do? Bang your little gun on it? Or is that gauntlet of yours actually an arm-cannon or something?”
He returns her an unimpressed look. “What sort of idea do you have of me?”
She shrugs. “I dunno. You must have roughed it up real bad for it to end up like this.”
He looks off again. “…I guess I did.”
Now, the crowds begin to stir to life once more as the clapping and cheering return. Now it’s not just a few people who are clapping out of politeness. The entire gallery is swarming with genuine wows and praise to the point that even those off in the VIP booth are impressed. And without missing a beat, the commentators, who seem to be in tears of awe, celebrate from their booth.
“They DID IT, folks!! They beat the absolute menace that was the Hell House!! I didn’t know it was even possible!!”
“They’re no mere cosplayers! That’s the stuff of real legends right there! Let’s give it up for our new champions, Yuffie and Vincent!!”
The crowd bursts into delighted uproar.
“Yuffie! Vincent! You’re amazing!!”
“Holy shit! Now that was a show!”
“Those were some masterful plays from them both! I was on the edge of my seat the whole time!”
“What the hell was that monster at the end, though? It was like a ghost that came and went!”
“Who cares!? It was awesome! I’d pay twice as much next time to see this again!”
“YEAAAAHHH!! YUFFIE! VINCENT! You made me RICH! I LOVE YOU GUYS!!”
Yuffie snickers and throws up her hands to bask in the glowing praise they’re receiving, and for once, Vincent seems to loosen up a bit and return a polite handwave toward the crowd. To his surprise, though, a few of the ladies there seem to swoon and faint when he did, and he quickly retracts his hand into his cloak.
Meanwhile, some of the VIP members take one look at each other, nod along, and get up from their seats. They’ve seen enough for tonight. There’s not going to be another show quite like this one for a long time.
And finally, off in the secret suite where some others have been watching the show from a safe distance, the room is completely silent. The once very cocky-looking Manson is now fiddling with his fingers in a cold sweat, his eyes still locked on the screen. His fellow guards are also stunned still. And Leslie is now the calmest one in the room. He even gets to go fetch the gun he dropped and slip it away again, since he probably won’t be needing it for now.
He casually turns back to Manson with an offer: “So, Mr. Manson… You wanted to know about them?”
The man snaps back to reality and his eyes dart away nervously. “Er…”
“Well, good news, ’cause they wanted to talk with you too.”
“!” He freezes still, and then when he finds his voice again, slowly asks, “W-what would they like to talk about?”
“About Corneo. I heard he’s gone off to Wutai, right?”
“Yes…”
“Those two happen to be Wutai sympathizers, so if I were you, I’d be happy to tell them all about what Corneo’s up to.”
Manson sinks into his seat, once again returning to a slump that better fits his gaunt-looking face. “Y-yes, of course. I’d be happy to set up an appointment right away.”
~
In the aftermath of the tournament, Manson would invite the three of them up to this suite and even dismiss the guards that were here, so no one would be able to listen in to their conversation. And unlike his initial impressions, the man would reveal a much more serious, and in some ways, timid personality. To be honest, he wasn’t always like this. A lot happened to the guy since he left Sector 8 behind. Gone were the days when he’d be a bundle of energy selling hot buns to hungry customers. Now that he’d become Corneo’s substitute, he was a changed man – at least, that’s what it seems on the surface.
“Welcome. Apologies for the inadequate reception earlier. Though I may be acting in place of Don Corneo, I often have little control over his men…”
“Sheesh. Why’d you make us come all this way just to meet you? Couldn’t you have come out by the lobby where everyone else was?” Yuffie asks in a rather demanding tone.
“Er, I’m sorry about that. But you see, I have a particular role to fill when I am among the public as opposed to in private. Here, it’d be easier for me to speak openly.”
“A particular role?” Vincent asks.
“Yes.” He lets off a sigh. “As you may be aware, it isn’t public knowledge that Don Corneo is out of town at the moment. Only his men and a select few associates of his are aware of his business in Wutai, and even then, it’s quite hush-hush among those associates about what that business entails.”
“What the heck is he doing there!?” Yuffie asks again rather vehemently. “There’s no way Wutai officials would let a slimey dude like that in their doors!”
Manson shakes his head. “I-I don’t know! He didn’t even tell me! All I know was that it was important enough that he needed someone to take his place.”
Leslie then questions him more calmly, “So why did he pick you? Because you’re ‘business partners’?”
“That’s… just a part of it.” He sinks back into the seat. “To be honest, I didn’t want to take his place. I even came to regret being partners with him at all. But I also had no choice.”
“Don’t tell me… did he blackmail you too?”
He shakes his head. “It’s a lot more complicated than that. You see…” He sits back up and clears his throat of nerves before he explains away, “There was a time when I was a much younger and more naïve businessman who made quite a number of risky ventures. But despite my ambitions, I needed funds, and it so happened that Corneo would be the best guy to ask when it came to growing business. With his help and influence, I came to acquire more and more companies under my belt and they expanded far beyond Sector 8. It was almost too easy to buy out the competition, really.”
Yuffie makes a disgusted look. “That’s why he’s the ‘best’ at business? Just buys out the competition?”
“Yes, well… There are other things to it, but that was a big part, yes.”
Vincent makes a suspect look aside. “It certainly sounds too good to be true.”
“Yes… it definitely was.” He then lets out a shameful sigh. “I was a fool for not realizing it sooner, but there was a serious cost to our agreement. Anything I added to our collection still owed dividends to the man. While that would be expected in most deals of the sort, before I knew it, he came to acquire bigger and bigger shares of my businesses through a mix of legal and perhaps illegal means. In the end, I was left as a mere figurehead; owner in name only, while the rest were deep in Corneo’s pockets.” He passes a depressed look aside. “There was only one shop I still was able to keep out of his hands, and that was a humble restaurant in Sector 8, which had long been under my family’s ownership. Unfortunately, due to, um, recent circumstances…”
He goes silent as he hesitates to explain further, but in that uncomfortable silence, the rest are quite aware of the current situation there. Even one look from afar out of the city would easily tell anyone of the fact of the matter. He then sits back up, clearing his throat.
“While I am grateful that I wasn’t there at the time of the incident – I was in Sector 5 to tidy up some loose ends – it really felt like the end of everything. I lost almost all I had built up and had nowhere to turn to. That was when Corneo approached me once again. He offered me a deal: If I played along with his schemes and even acted as his substitute whenever he would disappear, he would lend me all the resources in his disposal so that I could reacquire those many businesses that we had lost, as well as some competitors that he wanted to see out of the way.”
Leslie frowns. “…So you agreed.”
Manson nods slowly with a rather regretful expression. “I was an aspiring entrepreneur back in the day, but it was never my intention to start what was effectively a monopoly between my and Corneo’s spheres, but so often the money game leads to such affairs. Unfortunately, I was led to believe that there was no way out of it. Likewise with this… I had already owed so much of what I had to the man that I couldn’t refuse anything he suggested. Even if he were to ask me to commit live murder in the streets, I… I might have just done it, to be honest. Thankfully, it never came to that, but there were a number of close calls…”
“That’s just the reality when it comes to working with the mob. Dig in your heels with them and you’ll find yourself strapped to a barrel at some point to be sleeping with the fishes.” He shakes his head. “Sorry if this is cold, but I don’t feel too much sympathy for you.”
“Same here!” Yuffie agrees with a scoff, “I haven’t even met the guy himself, but I have met his goons at least. And everything I’ve heard about him is trash! I can’t even imagine trying to be friendly with him for any reason!”
As much as it stings, Manson nods back in understanding. “In the end, all my troubles were my fault to begin with. I don’t expect sympathy or even pity… but I would hope you all at least understand where I stand in all of this.”
After his own pensive moment, Vincent now turns back to him. “…So, in the end, you honestly have no idea what Corneo is up to.”
“Unfortunately, that is correct. I’m only the substitute, after all. A shadow of the actual threat. I just do whatever he tells me.”
“Then what’s stopping you from fighting back?” Yuffie asks, “If you hate it so much, then just leave.”
He shakes his head. “It’s not that simple, Miss. Even if I were to abandon my post and everything I had worked for, I wouldn’t have anywhere left to go! Sector 8 is gone, along with my home and the rest of my family there. The only things I do have left are in Corneo’s pockets. Without them, I’d be a beggar out in the streets!”
“Pfft. Better a beggar than a cardboard cutout. At least you’d be honest for a change.”
“…” For once, Manson has nothing to say to that. He simply sinks back into his seat.
“Our condolences for your family,” Vincent then steps in to add, “but we’re only here to discuss Corneo. If you have nothing more to tell us, then we have no reason to stay here.”
He nods back. “Of course… Well, I don’t know if this is much of anything, but I did at least catch wind that he was talking with someone the last I saw of him.”
“What?” Leslie exclaims, snapping to attention.
“What!? Why didn’t you just start with that?” Yuffie follows suit, slamming the desk and startling the man.
“M-my apologies, but I assure you I was going to bring it up.” He sits up again and comes out with it, “It was a very brief encounter, mind you, so I have no idea the context behind it. But I swear that I saw a glimpse of that man who was talking with Corneo. He looked like he was… well, from out of town, to say the least. From what I could tell, his face looked Wutaian and he was very well dressed, but not quite like the upperclassmen of Midgar.”
“Oh, what the hell!?” she nearly shrieks, throwing her hands up in the air.
“Y-yes?”
“You’re telling me that that slimeball was talking with a Wutaian!? Come on! If you’re gonna lie, at least make it convincing!”
“Wait, Yuffie,” Leslie then raises a hand to get her attention, “Actually, I think I might have seen that guy around before too.”
“Huh?”
“I don’t know who he is, but there were a couple times while I worked for him when Corneo invited a guest from overseas to discuss business. The guy definitely had that Wutaian look about him, and he had a pretty thick accent when he spoke English too. If I were to guess, he must have been someone important in his home country by the way he acted.”
“N-no way…” Yuffie looks really stung to hear that and backs off into a much meeker stance. “Someone from Wutai, and he’s ‘important’? Just who could…?”
After a moment of intense deliberation, there’s a flash of revelation in her eyes, quickly followed by a quiet outrage. With her fists balled up, she swings around and stomps out for the door, flinging it aside.
“Yuffie?” Vincent turns back to check with her.
“Hey! You’re just leaving?” Leslie calls out after her.
“Of course I am!” Yuffie yells back from the hallway, “I got another appointment to make!”
“…” Vincent quickly passes him a wave of a hand. “Thanks for the help. We’ll be off.” And with that, he hurries out after her.
“Whoa! Hang on! You’re not just leaving me in the dark!” Leslie chases after them.
And just like that, Manson finds himself all alone once again, not even with much of a goodbye from his latest visitors. Though he very much wished to be left alone after that awkward interaction, he can’t help but feel like he’d been cast aside once again like a tool used to the brink. In the end, it all does just come down to Corneo. Corneo this, Corneo that…
He sighs miserably. He should have just stuck with his buns. If only there were some way for him to cut all ties with the man, so that he’d finally be free of this curse… Well, that’s just wishful thinking. Who in their right mind would be working a miracle like that?
Notes:
7/19/23 edit: Oops. Misremembered a few details from Remake. Have fixed them.
Just a few pieces of odd trivia from this fic, the OG, and the Compilation
- This is a piece of trivia that even a lot of FF7 fans can miss, so I'll help clarify. The ice that held Jenova for those two millennia was initially stated from the OG that it was the work of the Cetra that trapped her. (Ifalna recited as much, but didn't specify much.) But it was long rumored in the fandom that the particular Cetra that created the prison was Shiva herself. I don't remember when or where this apparent factoid was sourced, but it does make sense and could easily be incorporated into the official canon. So I sorta referenced it back when Ruby acquired Shiva's materia in Chapter 21. But there was one thing I always wondered about the original game: how that team of scientists had broken Jenova out of the ice at all. I suppose that fact might have already debunked the theory that it was Shiva's super resilient ice, but on the other hand, one would have to wonder what could have kept Jenova trapped in plain ol' ice for 2000 years if she's so powerful as to be able to wipe out most of the Cetra. So it's always been one of those unanswered questions from the canon. The way I have written it here, though, perfectly answers all these plot holes. >:3c
- Leslie's fiancee is indeed a canon character, but we have never even gotten much of a description of her aside from her being sold off to Corneo and the pendant she left behind for Leslie, so I'm gonna have to come up with some details on my own. But what little we do have is from Leslie's flashback of her in Remake, where we don't get to see het face. But that hairstyle gives me Jill Valentine from RE vibes...
- I was stuck for a bit back when writing chapters 15-16, thinking about how to include Yuffie as a challenger in the Corneo Coliseum. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a way to fit them into the story at the time and decided I'd just shift focus away from Wall Market at the time. Eventually the entire thing with Corneo being out of town blossomed into a whole other subplot within the plot that I am finally getting around to writing. And at last, my patience has paid off and I was able to dive right into the (Remake) Hell House fight I always wanted to see! Of course, with Vincent tagging along instead, it was way easier to write the fights. He's higher leveled than most of the party at this point, and he can even cheat with his transformations.
Chapter 34: Ash and Cinders
Notes:
Outdated A/N
7/27/23 edit: Sorry for the delay. Next chapter has been slow coming and will be delayed to next Wednesday as usual. I really need to set up a buffer so I can keep up consistent uploads.
Incidentally, there's a secret reason why I called my character Ruby. Something about birthstones. It's not super important, but it's a nice coincidence.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“Hey, whoa! What’s the rush all of a sudden?”
Leslie catches Yuffie and Vincent ducking away into an empty corner outside the Corneo Coliseum. She’s quite upset and hurriedly makes a call to a certain someone via PHS. Noting that she’s probably not gonna answer him, Leslie turns to the other guy, who simply shakes his head.
She paces back and forth with the phone to her ear. “Come on… pick up already!”
Thankfully, she catches the tone that indicates that someone has picked up. As it turns out, though, it’s an unfamiliar voice that receives the call.
“Oh! Er, ’ello? The ever lovable Cait Sith, King o’ the Cats, and his faithful sidekick here! Who is this?”
“Huh?”
There seems to be some shuffling in the background where someone pushes said “king” out of the way. Finally, Cloud picks up.
“Yuffie?”
“Cloud! Where’s Ruby?”
“Oh, she’s…”
“I’m here!” Ruby’s voice rings on through as if this were suddenly a three-way connected call. “Don’t mind Cait. He’s still new here, so I lent him my phone. But like I said before, I can always listen in. So, what’s up?”
“Listen! I dunno how things are going with you guys, but we really have to get going to Wutai ASAP!” Yuffie insists.
“I already said we’re gonna go there. A step at a time…” Ruby assures her.
“No, I mean there’s some serious trouble brewing! We finally caught up with that Manson guy and he spilled the beans on someone that Corneo’s been meeting lately.”
“Oh? Who is it?”
“Um, I’m not sure exactly… but I have a suspicion that it might be someone I know from a certain wing of our government.”
“Oh, wow. So even a Wutai official is involved? Huh, didn’t think the Corneo side mission would go that far.”
“Well, it’s only a suspicion for now. The only thing we have going now is witness testimony…” Yuffie whips back to Leslie with a question while keeping the phone up. “Hey, sorry to ask again, but could you describe that guy you saw? The one meeting with Corneo?”
He replies, “Uh… Well, for starters, he looked kinda old, or at least middle-aged, I’m guessing. He also had some kind of black suit on, with some badges on his chest. That’s what made me think he was something important. Kinda reminded me of a general of some kind, or whatever rank he was. Even had a Wutaian sword by his waist, but I didn’t get to see it outside of its sheath.”
She then makes a bitter frown. “Yeah, that definitely sounds like one of those guys. Ugh. As if we didn’t have enough war hawks already back home…”
“It must have been on unofficial business, since we didn’t hear any news that this guy was coming before he did.”
“Yeah, I doubt there would be. This reeks of conspiracy and espionage, and I don’t like it one bit.”
“Uh, hey, Yuffie?” Ruby rings in again, “You’re talking with that witness right now, right? I can’t hear his voice unless you put the phone on speaker.”
“Oh, right. Hold on…” She whips it forward and turns on said speaker. “How about now?”
“If you can hear me loud and clear, we’re good.”
“We gotcha.”
“Hello! This is Ruby, your resident living Summon and miracle worker~! Am I speaking with the witness now?”
“Guess you are,” Leslie replies, totally ignoring her fanciful titles. “So who are you supposed to be? Some kind of agent working with Wutai?”
“I’m a free agent, pal. By the way, I feel like I’ve heard your voice before, but can’t quite pin a name down…”
“It’s Leslie.”
“Leslie? Leslie Kyle?”
He’s a little taken aback now. “You know me?”
“She knows pretty much everyone, yeah,” Yuffie instead answers. “It’s just her thing. Don’t mind it.”
“I think I should at least know who someone is if they can name me, though…”
“It’s a long story that I don’t wanna explain right now,” Ruby moves on, “The point is, I’m guessing you’re chasing after Corneo? So are we. We can take you if you want.”
“Geez. How much do you know? It’s almost unfair.”
“If it’ll make you feel better, I never stalked you or anything. I’m kind of a visionary too, so to speak.”
“Uh-huh…” He then asks, “So what would a ‘free agent’ like you be doing helping Wutai?”
“Well, I’m friends with Yuffie and she’s really concerned about how things are going in her country, so I figured I’d drop by and check it out for myself. As it happens, we just learned of some disturbing things on our end too, and unfortunately Wutai was brought up as well.”
“What!?” Yuffie jumps back in, “What happened? Did you guys talk with the president or something?”
“The president…?” Leslie asks, now growing warier.
“Yep. Rufus didn’t say much, but he did suggest that Shinra has a new Soldier unit that seems to have been deployed off in that country, along with some of his Turks. Seems like they’re doing an investigation into some alleged branch of ‘Avalanche’ that was seen lurking around there.”
Yuffie audibly gasps. “Wha…? But Sonon and I were the first ones to make contact with Avalanche, here in Midgar! How could there be another one, and on our own land, even?”
“Chances are those rumors are bogus and that group may just be taking on the name of Avalanche. But it makes a convenient excuse for Shinra to send their new unit out for a test.”
“Oh my God, I hate Shinra! I’m almost tempted to side with the war hawks, but…” Yuffie means to stomp away to grumble, but then remembers that she’s still holding the phone and brings it forward again. “Then, what are we waiting for? Let’s meet up and get going already!”
“Hold on, Yuffie. Is Vincent still with you?”
“I’m here,” the guy finally speaks.
“You two were also tasked with looking for the people who were unfairly detained, right? How goes that?”
“Unfortunately, we haven’t made much headway. Yuffie insisted that we deal with the Corneo mission first.”
“Ah, no worries. Since we’re pretty much done here, I can just pop on by and drop you off in Sector 0.”
“Ugh. So we’re not going to Wutai yet…?” Yuffie complains.
“It’s coming up, I promise. Right after we figure out what’s going on with Avalanche in Midgar. Speaking of which, Jessie’s gang hasn’t rung in yet and it’s a little concerning… Hm?”
Just then, the phone starts ringing again, and they realize another call is incoming. As it happens, it is from Jessie. Yuffie answers it and Jessie gets to sign on like it’s an open conference call.
“Guys, sorry for the wait! But we could really use Ruby’s help right now!”
“I’m here. What’s up?” she answers right away.
“When you guys are done, can you come by Sector 8? We’re at the edge of the collapsed plate on S7’s side, and we’re a little short on hands at the moment.”
“Don’t worry, we’re done on this side. What happened? Why did you guys go there?”
“Long story short, we caught up with our HQ guys, and they’ve been looking into our falsely accused people too. But they discovered that access to the underground prison has been blocked off, and there’s no easy way for us to get into Shinra HQ like this. So we had to find a different way to get down there. And then we remembered S8 was still in a mess, so…”
“So you’re hoping there could be a way down from there.”
“Exactly. Unfortunately, all this rubble in the way kept us from making much headway. I only have so much blasting agent, and we don’t know if there are any survivors still stuck in the debris. I know it’s been a few days now, but you never know…”
“Right. I can clear a path.” Ruby likewise addresses her peers around her. “In fact, the more hands we have on the ground, the faster we can dig out the victims.”
“Of course! We can’t leave them like that!” Aerith agrees right away.
“Wouldn’t Shinra have sent in rescue efforts by now, though? The place might be guarded,” Cloud warns.
“Actually… it doesn’t look like there are any troops out here. It’s mainly been some local volunteers and our guys helping out where we can,” Jessie explains.
“What?”
Barret’s booming voice joins in, “Goddamn! They won’t even try to make it look like they care? Not even a single recon squad or nothin’!?”
“Nope. Seems like the troops were called away to the other sectors instead. This side of town is totally trashed and they’re sure treating it like it is.”
“Tch… Damn Shinra. ‘Good for nothing’ doesn’t even cover how shitty they really are. More like ‘bad for everything’! In the end, it’s really up to us if the people expect to keep their city standing!”
“Then we shouldn’t keep ’em waiting!” Ruby jumps back in, “If we find a way down, I can go on ahead too. And so Cloud doesn’t worry, I’ll even take along a team to join me. Who’s coming?”
“Me!” Barret declares, “We were gonna check back with HQ anyway, and sounds like they could use our help for once!”
“Count me in too!” Tifa follows, “I’m just as much Avalanche as you guys.”
“Same here,” Cloud answers too, “It’s been bothering me what Rufus said earlier – about his ‘source’. When we catch up with them, we should be careful how we pass info. You never know who could be listening in.”
A solemn chill comes over the entire crew as they realize what this could potentially mean. Unless Shinra has found a way to eavesdrop from much further away than they would notice, Avalanche may in fact have a mole hidden among their ranks, and for once it’s not because of anyone here. And yet, surely it wouldn’t be the work of the HQ guys? They’re much too nice and good-willed to dare to resort to such deception. That said, it has been a while since they last made contact with the other branches…
As if to crack that ice, Ruby then blurts out of nowhere, “Does this mean Cloud thinks he’s Avalanche too?”
“Why are you bringing that up now?” he snaps back.
“He damn better! We didn’t pay this merc for him to play ball by himself!” Barret replies with an amused snort.
“You didn’t pay me. It was Tifa and it didn’t even cover the whole thing…”
“Uh, guys, should we be talking about this now…?” Tifa asks.
“Yeah, Cloud. What have you got to complain about anyway? I got ya’ll an easy 30K and I can always do it again,” Ruby retorts with a snicker.
“And you spent a good chunk of that money already. The rest of our funds are drying out too. When’s our next paycheck?” he retorts sarcastically.
She actually gets upset. “It’ll get here when it’ll get here! And I’m not taking on any dumb bets again!”
“That was your own fault, remember?”
“You egged me on!”
“I made a suggestion and you went overboard.”
“Guys!” Tifa scolds them with a firm tone, “Save it for another time. People are in real danger…”
There’s the shuffling of feet as Cloud parts ways from Ruby, and an awkward silence follows.
“Uh… ahem.” Jessie then moves right along, “Alright, sounds like a plan! Yuffie, Vincent, if you’re still there, you guys come too! We’ll need all the help we can get!”
“Sure thing! Ruby, you can drop us off, right?” Yuffie asks as if making a command.
“I gotcha.”
Jessie finishes up here too: “Right. I should get back to work. Signing off!”
And with that, the signal is cut short and the call ends, and Yuffie slips away the phone.
“…Quite the crew you got there,” Leslie casually comments.
“They’re something, that’s for sure.” She crosses her arms with a sulking huff. “This had better be the last of the delays, or I swear, I’ll nab way more than just a bag this time!” She even throws out a resolute fist. “I’ll make them chase me back home if I have to!”
Vincent turns back to Leslie. “Sorry to have caught you up in all this.”
He waves it off. “Don’t worry about it. I was bound to get kicked out for one reason or another. And as things are now, my plans haven’t changed. I’m after Corneo’s head, and if you’re headed for Wutai, I’m coming with.”
“We appreciate the thought, but you’ll have to check with Ruby. It seems she’s been the one deciding who gets to join this crew.”
“Her again? Is she supposed to be the ‘captain’ or something?”
“Not quite, but she has been taking the lead in some ways. She and Cloud, that is.”
He makes an amused scoff. “The bickering couple? That’s some leadership quality…”
“…” Vincent turns away again and decides not to comment further.
“Anyway, if we’re gonna meet up in S8, then let’s get going. It’s gonna take us a bit to cross through S7, especially with all the security now.”
Yuffie shakes her head. “No need. We can just wait here for Ruby.”
“Huh? What, you think she’s gonna fly us over there?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
He stares back. “I was joking… but you’re serious? With what?”
“By herself, of course!”
“…”
Now she smirks back with her own arms crossed. “If you’re coming with us, then you’ll have to get comfortable. She wasn’t exaggerating when she said ‘miracle worker’, you know.”
He glances back to Vincent, who is likewise waiting idly by as if taking all this for granted. Leslie shakes his head in disbelief and mutters to himself, “What in the world have I gotten myself into…?”
His question would soon be answered – and in mere minutes, to boot. Out of nowhere, a bright flash of light temporarily casts aside the darkness of this alley, and Leslie is shocked to find that a whole fresh person seems to have appeared out of that light.
Ruby waves to them with a relaxed smile. “Hey, all! Just dropped off the rest. Hope I didn’t keep you too long-”
“You’ve made me wait long enough as is! This is the last mission, got it!? No more delays!” Yuffie vents.
Ruby surrenders both her hands and backs up. “Uh… yeah. I just said so? Right after we’re done in Midgar.”
“Ugh, forget it! Let’s just go.”
Ruby turns to the other two, who seem just as surprised at Yuffie’s sudden outburst as she is. Taking his chance to get some answers, Leslie asks real quick: “That was you on the phone, right? Were you already here?”
“Nah. I warped.”
“…Excuse me?”
She smirks back. “If you’re coming with us, you’ll have to get comfortable. I meant it when I said I was-”
“I SAID, let’s go already!” Yuffie snaps, grabbing Ruby by the wrist and shaking her.
“Sheesh. At least let me have my lines…?”
“She’s already taken them,” Vincent briefly explains.
Ruby looks unamused but not surprised. “Poor kid. We really have been hanging out too long.”
She lightly taps the other two on their shoulders and with a snap, they’ve all vanished without a trace.
~
Sector 8 hasn’t seen much better days since the plate fell. As expected, the entire upper town in a rubble heap pouring down from the central column of the city leaves not much room to roam, and all that’s left of the slums is buried deep in several meters of plate metal. Piles of scrap and twisted scaffolds look like insurmountable mountains to the layperson, and the smell of decay wafts along where there are still pockets for the stench to escape. Though the cinders from burnt or melted griddings since the collapse have largely fizzled away into dust and ash, there’s still the risk that the slightest spark could reignite them. While the devastation could have been even worse had not most of the upper town been evacuated following the destruction of Mako Reactor 1, it was too little, too late for the denizens in the slums where most of the people still stayed until their dying breaths.
Coalitions of rescue efforts over the past several days have been hard at work salvaging whomever and whatever they can find. Given the Shinra Company’s lackluster response to the disaster, help from the city’s management was hindered as manpower was drafted away. In fact, if they had any say whatsoever, they would have at least offered some compensation to all the victims, but of course, that’s never a guarantee under Shinra despite what the company may claim. As a result, it’s actually been the work of many volunteers, some who were survivors themselves or locals from the neighboring slums – including the unsung heroes of Avalanche, whose name would have been branded as criminals and terrorists on any other day – that at least some progress to recovery has been made. In these trying times, anyone who can help can be named a hero.
Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie have been on the ground working with their fellow Avalanche members to dig out makeshift tunnels underneath the trash heaps to search for any survivors. At the edge of the sector, by the outskirts of town, there’s a campsite established where volunteers have been providing shelter, food, and medical aid to those who were recovered. And there would be a number of those that they have reached so far – dirty and ragged, pale and thin, broken-hearted and maybe even broken-boned, but still alive nonetheless. They even discovered a small pocket of space where one relatively lucky home still had one room standing: the bathroom, which had neatly caved in on itself in just a way that formed a rather sturdy arch that would not fold any further. And in it, a little girl and her thin orange tabby, which she cradled tightly in her arms, were somehow still alive after all this time after several days without food or care.
Though it’s not a common sight, she’s far from the only one. Most of the survivors that have been rescued are children – now orphans who were fortunate enough to either be spared by their parents or guardians’ efforts, or simply through sheer fortune that they had tiny coves of their own to hide in. Not all pets managed to escape unscathed either. An unfortunate soiled-black puppy had to be dug out from its owner’s dilapidated house as it was unable to squirm out on its own – not that it would have wanted to leave its late mother’s side.
That being said, it’s not all doom and gloom. By some strange happenstance – nothing short of a miracle, really – an elderly man well into his years who had submitted himself to his deathbed when he witnessed the incident firsthand somehow managed to escape the collateral unscathed. In fact, he even climbed out of the rubble that was his home by himself before the paramedics arrived and they found that he was still rather well kept together. And now, he’s joined the volunteer effort and keeping the lonesome orphans company. Some say that this old man was always a rebel of sorts in his younger years, and perhaps the Fates still smile upon him to this day.
After Jessie reported to Ruby and the others, she joined Biggs and Wedge waiting at the gate into S8 from 7’s side to catch them up. It’s not much longer that they would meet with a welcome flash of light nearby either. Cloud, Barret, Tifa, Aerith, and Red have arrived for a grateful reunion of the old Avalanche crew, though Ruby hasn’t come with them. Instead, they find an odd cat on a moogle, who insists that he’s here to help and bring back the cheer. Cloud explains that Cid’s still with the ship’s crew and they need to find a good spot to land the Highwind far enough from the city, so he’s the only one who’s gonna be sitting out for now. It’s fine, though, as Ruby should be here in a bit. He volunteers to stay back to wait for her while the others follow the trio to where the camp awaits.
Sure enough, that “bit” would be just a few minutes later, but instead of catching her warping back as usual or running on over, he sees a familiar white dragon soar overhead without stopping to check by him. She lands atop a former clock tower and proceeds to dead-lift the entire thing in her arms. She carefully drops it against the side of a neighboring pile of scrap as to avoid crushing anything else. She repeats this with several more huge chunks of former buildings, and in a matter of minutes, a road leading from the center of the broken town to the edge has been reestablished. And just for good measure, she stomps hard on the ground, leaving ditches in her wake, to make sure that the trash heaps won’t just roll over and block the road again. Needless to say, the locals are stunned and a little frantic to see the infamous dragon returned and apparently thrashing about, but then realize that she means well and is leading the relief troopers into town. She then flies off once more in search of other roads to be cleared.
Meanwhile, Cloud watches Ruby go with a deadpan expression while silently complaining to himself about how she always seems to leave him holding the metaphorical bag.
“Hey, Cloud!”
He turns back around to find Yuffie and Vincent hurrying on over, as well as another stranger who has come with them, and makes a sigh in relief. Well, at least he got to meet with someone out here.
“We’re here. Where’s everyone?”
“They left for the edge of the town. That’s where the refugee camps are.” He gestures toward their newcomer. “Who’s this?”
He adjusts his cap as he introduces himself, “The name’s Leslie. I heard some of you were after Corneo in Wutai, so I’m just tagging along for now. Don’t worry, Ruby gave me the go-ahead.”
Cloud lets off a snort. “She’s just picking up new people wherever she goes… but that’s just like her.” He then shakes his head. “For the record, she’s not the one calling the shots. You’re gonna have to get to know everyone else before we decide to take you along.”
“Duly noted.”
“Anyway, let’s get going! We can’t leave everything to Ruby and them!” Yuffie announces and beckons them to come along.
Cloud glances off that way before turning back to Leslie. “You guys go on ahead. I just have a few more questions for this guy…”
Vincent nods. “Alright. See you later, then.”
Those two take their leave and finally it’s just these two.
Leslie snorts. “You don’t trust me, huh?”
“Sorry. It’s just that lately, we’ve run into a problem with info leaks and we just want to be careful.”
“Uh-huh…”
Leslie now looks up at the towering garbage that has sufficiently filled in every gap in the former gate, and then off into the sky where Ruby has been circling and periodically dropping down to fetch pieces of junk to rearrange. He turns back to Cloud with a smug confidence as if he’s already figured it out just from taking a look around.
“By ‘info leaks’, I’m guessing you mean regarding Avalanche?”
“!” Now Cloud eyes him suspiciously. “How did you know that?”
He raises his hands as if surrendering, but that bored look suggests defiance. “Whoa, relax. I’m no spy and I’m not gonna report you. I’ve got no hand in any of that. I’ve seen the news too. So Ruby really is that dragon that’s been terrorizing everyone, huh?”
“…”
“I know Shinra likes to embellish some things.” He lets them drop and turns back to the wreckage. “But my gut tells me that it wasn’t your gang that dropped this plate.”
“No, it wasn’t.” Cloud shakes his head with a grim frown. “Unfortunately, the one who is responsible isn’t anywhere where we can catch him, so I guess we’ll have to shoulder the blame in the meantime.”
Leslie raises an eyebrow. “Not even gonna try to fight it?”
“No point. The people who know us or witnessed us save S7 wouldn’t believe the propaganda, and those who do would steer clear anyway.”
“Fair enough.”
“Anyway, enough about us. I should be the one asking questions.” Now Cloud crosses his arms and enters interrogation mode. “So what do you do? Why would Ruby take you along?”
Leslie shrugs. “You got me. She knew who I was even before I had the pleasure to meet her. As for what I do… well, I’m a free agent now that I’m ditching Corneo’s gang.”
“You were with Corneo?”
He sighs. “Yeah, I was one of ’em. But the only reason I joined was to meet the honcho himself, so I could get some answers outta him and find the one I’m really looking for.”
“And that is…?”
“A young woman named Merle.” He tugs on the edge of his cap down as he uncomfortably admits, “She… was supposed to be my bride-to-be if it wasn’t for the bastard. I heard she went missing one day after she went to meet him… but I haven’t had any luck so far.”
Cloud’s face softens a little with a touch of sympathy and he drops his guard. “I see. So that’s why Ruby said she’d help you.”
Leslie lets it go and looks back up, feeling a bit mixed. “I guess? Though I have no idea why she singled me out as someone special or something. There are plenty of girls that Corneo has swiped besides Merle, and my sympathies and all, but I’m only after my girl.”
“…Actually, I think I have an idea.”
“Hm?”
“It’s just my opinion, but this Merle is pretty lucky to have a fiancé that’s willing to join up not just with the local Mafia, but even with a renowned terrorist group he’s heard of in the news, just so he can have a chance at finding her again. Probably not too many other guys who’d be that committed.”
“…” Leslie blinks in surprise and tugs his cap down again, but this time to hide his embarrassment. “…Thanks.”
Cloud nods back and relaxes at last. “You know what, you’re good. Sorry for all the questions.”
He looks up again. “No problem. After working with Corneo for several years pretending to be sucker up to him, I’d know what it feels like dealing with trust issues.”
“Yeah, I can imagine. Anyway, just to let you know, we’re still dealing with some things around here, so we won’t be heading off to Wutai just yet.”
“Yeah, I heard. Don’t worry, I’ve waited long enough that I don’t mind waiting a little longer. You guys might be my best ticket to actually finding her, especially that Ruby can just warp around. I dunno what I can help with, but I’ll try to do what I can.”
Cloud nods again. “Thanks. Come on. We’ve stalled enough.”
With those feelings of caution and unease out of the way, they hurry off to the edge of town as well. Out at the outskirts, they come across a campsite with multiple tents and cloths laid out on the ground where the recently rescued have been sheltered, fed, and treated. There is no distinction between the locals who arrived from the neighboring slums and members of Avalanche among them; they’re all just people trying to help each other, and the victims couldn’t care less what labels they previously had. And almost like water droplets to a stream, the last two arrivals blend into the crowd as usual and seek out their fellows.
Meanwhile, Ruby has been picking up torn building structures and scaffolding as if they were toys, but unfortunately, this playground is a little too messy even for her. It’s not even flat; the plate fell in a way that left most of the inner side of town on a slant, making it a huge gamble to move those chunks, lest she dare trigger another potential landslide. The most she can do is brush aside objects on the smoother slopes below, but that isn’t enough. Perhaps it would be better if she went with a canal system instead. So, with a whipping of her wings, she zips around and starts digging out new roads herself, but takes care to avoid crunching up too much too fast where they could still be life. And she would enter into a graceful dancing flight where she parts the rubble like running one’s hands into a beach’s sands and build an almost tree-like structure of roads that lead further in.
Her efforts seem to pay off, though, as her allies on the ground are eventually able to uncover an entire metal dome amid the wreckage that’s full of the previously trapped refugees. Apparently, the people of the slums from long ago had discovered they could reuse this discarded piece of machinery as a local bunker in times of duress, and it really did come in handy despite the massive tons of steel that fell atop them. Of course, not much they could have done if everything else around them was blocked off, so it was only a matter of time before they would have starved inside if they hadn’t been freed now.
However, it wasn’t just that which Ruby would discover. As it turns out, a large patch of the slums’s grounds were destroyed by pieces of the falling plate, and a massive hole has opened up underneath. It so happens that one of those pieces has made a sort of slide down into that hole, reaching to the depths of the underground chambers below. And now, she’s reminded of a certain location she had once witnessed from Remake: there was indeed some underground labs beneath the Sector 7 slums. It’s no surprise that there would be another unit of those labs in S8 as well.
But there’s something to this particular unit that sends tingling chills up her spine. She isn’t sure why or what to make of it, but her ears instinctively perk up and she hears something in the distance. Voices? From the planet, or from something else? No, she can’t make it out. It’s too unclear, muddled as if there were interference. Whatever it is, this creepy feeling came to her the moment she uncovered this hole.
Well, she’ll worry about that when she gets there. She lets out a roar to let her comrades know and reverts back to human form, as it would have been a tight squeeze if she had remained at that size. She stares down into the depths, her mind still lingering on the mysterious murmur, and shortly notices Cloud and the others come running.
“Ruby! What happened?”
“I found a big hole. Looks like it leads pretty far underground.”
Jessie throws up a celebratory fist. “You did it! I knew there had to be something out here!”
Biggs raises a hand too. “We’ll let the rest know, then.”
But before he and Wedge can bolt off again, Ruby calls to them, “Wait. First of all…”
“Huh?”
“If Avalanche is gonna go down this way, be armed and ready in case you run into anything nasty. There’s no telling what there may be in Shinra’s labs. Well, I’ll be fine in any case, but you don’t want me to bail you all out if you can help yourselves, ya know?”
Biggs and Wedge exchange glances and return her their own grins. “Yeah. You do tend to steal the show, huh?” Biggs remarks.
“Steal the show? She is the show!” the latter replies with a laugh.
“Just don’t get lost down there!” Jessie adds jokingly.
“Ha! As if it matters. I make my own paths,” Ruby retorts with her own smirk.
Cloud then whips out the DNS that he’d been holding onto all this time. “How about you don’t and we just use a map like normal people?”
“Oh, so you still had that on you?”
“Yeah,” he snorts back, “because you got lost last time.”
She pouts. “I still found you guys…”
“After running in circles for a while!” Yuffie calls out from the back.
Cloud shakes his head. “Like I said, you’ve been demoted from leading. We’re coming with you.”
Barret looks around at the ample size of (most of) their full party. “Right. But we can’t all go in there like this! We gotta split up!”
“What is with you and splitting up?”
“Ha! If you were a real leader, you’d know how to allocate your men and resources! We’re gonna be a huge ass target if we’re all runnin’ together like this.”
Tifa nods along. “And if it’s going to be dangerous, not everyone has to go. It’d be better if we keep some people aboveground.”
Aerith offers with a raised hand, “Cait Sith and Red can stay with me. Nothing like a one-two combo of magic healing and cute animal therapy!”
Cait Sith laughs to hide his relief at not having to go. “Well said, Miss Aerith! If anyone needs a smile, I’ll be there!”
Red snorts defiantly, though his tail wags happily. “I’m no mere pet… but I suppose if I can be of help, I don’t mind.”
“Well, I’m not going back down there. The less I see of Shinra’s freaks, the better…” Yuffie grumbles.
“Cloud, Barret, and Tifa should be plenty enough to accompany Ruby,” Vincent suggests, “There should be more of us out here to help search for more survivors anyway.”
“Yeah, exactly! Besides, knowing Ruby, we’d probably just get in her way,” Jessie agrees. “Biggs, Wedge, and I will stay up here too and keep HQ company, but we’ll be ready to move just in case.”
“Besides, we’re still waiting on Nellie’s gang to make contact again,” Biggs adds.
“Right. They said they’d still check out around Sector 0 just to be sure they aren’t missing anything.”
“Nellie!? Finn and Al too, right?” Barret asks, now that he’s been reminded.
“Yep! They’re doing fine. They said they’ll leave S8 to us, so we’d better not disappoint them!” Wedge answers.
He lets off a sigh in relief and gives a proud smile, raising a pumped-up arm. “You got that right! Okay, team, let’s do this! Ruby, after you!”
“Wait for us when you find solid ground,” Cloud instructs her, but gets the feeling that he might be ignored.
With one last nod to her chosen party, Ruby does a backflip and leaps off into the darkness below. She even skips down the giant sheet of metal and bounces off rocky ledges along the way so fast that she appears to be flying down rather than sliding. She nails the landing atop a relatively large cliff’s edge deep in the caves, but her proud smirk quickly vanishes when she realizes there are traces of blood around here. She then catches on that there may have been some unfortunate victims that fell into this hole during the incident and most likely didn’t live the impact. Probably for the best, as being left abandoned so high up would have been a terrible way to go.
But that aside, she now has a rather impressive view of the underground city below. It looks quite like a second albeit smaller Midgar with a single huge mako reactor at the very center of it powering everything down here. Though there appear to be many different buildings, she suspects that there aren’t too many of them that are reserved for residence. These are still Shinra’s labs, after all. The only people that would be sent down here are the lab staff and their experimental subjects. She only had a vague recollection of this place from concept art she had viewed of Dirge of Cerberus long ago, so it’s still pretty cool to be able to see it in person.
“Ruby! Can you hear me?” She hears Cloud’s voice echo down into the caves.
She cups her hands over her mouth to respond, “Yeah! I landed on a cliff that’s pretty high up! It’s clear here!”
Back up aboveground, Cloud has been crouching down after Ruby dove in and gets back to his feet. “Looks like we can slide down, but we should be careful not to slip out of control. There could be all sorts of things that could hurt if we crash.”
Tifa looks on nervously into the darkness. “Maybe we should descend with our grapplers, then?”
“Good idea, Tifa.” He turns back to Barret. “You still got yours?”
“Nah, man. After that tumble I had while we were climbing Sector 6, the thing snapped.”
“Right…”
Biggs steps right up and offers his. “Then you can have this. We’re probably not gonna be using it for a while anyway.”
Barret nods back and takes it. “Thanks. And don’t worry, I’ll make sure to get it back in one piece!”
He makes a cheeky smirk. “I think I’d rather you make it back in one piece too.”
“Hmph! That goes without saying, ya idiot!” he snaps back, but can’t help but return that smirk.
“Good luck, guys!” Wedge wishes them well.
Cloud goes ahead and slides on down, shooting off his grapple gun to latch onto a nearby metal protrusion and swinging around it to avoid hitting the next. Tifa follows shortly after, doing likewise. With a deep sigh and a resolute grunt, Barret braces himself and takes the leap too. It’s too bad that traversing places like this aren’t made any easier for a guy with just one arm, but he tries his best to avoid hitting anything. And fortunately, as he reaches the bottom of the broken plate shard, the other two who have also landed safely catch him so he doesn’t crash that landing. And as promised, Ruby has been waiting patiently for them all. She even helps pat some dust off at least and does so for the other two while she’s at it.
“Wait, this smell…” Tifa looks around and gasps at the dull splotches scattered around them. “Is all this… blood?”
Ruby nods back solemnly. “Relatively recent deaths. I assume they were victims who didn’t make it from the fall.” She then steps back toward the ledge.
The other three exchange grim looks and follow her over. Now that they all get this amazing view, though, they can’t help but take a moment to take it all in.
“There’s a whole city down here? How did we miss something so huge?” Tifa asks in disbelief.
“Hmph. Shinra sure keeps a whole lotta dirty shit covered up. And by the thick smell of mako all over, it’s gotta be stuff that they don’t ever want getting out,” Barret growls in a low voice.
“So they do have another reactor down here…” Cloud observes, “It’s even bigger than the ones around Midgar.”
“Man, what I’d give to be able to bomb the shit outta that thing…”
“We probably shouldn’t. You never know what pandemonium we’d start if any of their freak experiments down here escape.”
“I know, I know! I’m just sayin’…”
Yet, while they marvel with a hint of disdain at the city, Ruby’s ears have perked up at attention. It’s happening again: the mysterious murmur from before. It’s a little less fuzzy now, and she can pick out that there are many voices trying to speak over each other, but it’s still too much of a mess to make out what they’re saying. Perhaps she has been hearing the voices of people down here. Knowing Shinra, they would have some pretty screwed-up shit happening. But all this noise is starting to get a little irritating. She has to get closer to find out what’s going on. Without much of a warning, she hops on over the edge.
“Huh? Ruby!” Cloud calls out, but to no avail.
“Huh? Where she goin’?” Barret asks.
A simple glance below reveals that the rough, steep slope gradually tapers off to a smoother descent, and with but a few simple hops, Ruby gracefully skids to the bottom without breaking a sweat as always. To their confusion, she then waits at the base of the cliff and seems to be looking around as if trying to find something.
“Ruby!” Cloud yells, “What are you doing? Get back here and bring us down!”
Yet, just as he says so, it seems her magic has been set on a timer specifically made to give them a bit of time to observe their surroundings. The three of them all begin to glow once more and zwoop! They’re suddenly down at the base of the slope beside her. Nonetheless, she doesn’t look their way even as they’ve joined her.
“Hey.” Cloud reaches out a hand to her shoulder, and finally she snaps to again.
“Huh? Oh, hey.”
“What are you looking for?”
“A source of the noise…”
“Noise?”
She nods. “I can hear voices, but I can’t make them out.”
Now the other three come to attention and concern. Barret then asks, “Voices? Like from people, or from the planet?”
She shakes her head. “That, I don’t know. I feel like I’ve been hearing more voices lately, and sometimes it happens even though Aerith doesn’t hear them.”
Cloud’s eyes widen. “Even she doesn’t…?”
“What kind of voices are they?” Tifa asks too.
“I can’t say. So I want to find out.” She turns ahead toward the nearest sizeable building before them. “But it feels like there’s a lot of interference, especially around here.”
“Probably something to do with the mako?” Barret suggests, “The crap’s all over the place, that’s for sure.”
But Ruby doesn’t respond, as she isn’t sure.
Reminding himself, Cloud then whips out the DNS once more. Fortunately, the device seems to have automatically updated its map based on their current location, even accounting for Ruby’s warping. He also notices the name of the place they’ve ended up in: The Deposit.
“The Deposit?” Tifa asks, looking over his shoulder.
“I’m guessing by the name, this side of the labs is some kind of storage to be held long-term.”
“What do you think they got here?” Barret asks, “Weapons? Materia? Something else…?”
“There’s only one way to find out…” He slips away the DNS and they approach the building in question.
While this may technically be the back door, it might as well be the front. Ruby rips through the lock without hassle and opens the way. But as soon as they do step inside, as Barret rightly pointed out, the smell of mako is strong – so strong that it comes as a rather intense odor that is a little overwhelming. And yet, despite that she has the most sensitive of noses, Ruby feels a strange familiarity with this smell that she isn’t bothered by it.
Barret pinches his nose while baring teeth. “The hell are they keeping in here? Concentrated mako?”
“Mako’s already concentrated to the extreme…” Cloud points out.
“If it is, why would they need to store mako? I thought the reactors have to keep it pumping, so it can produce electricity, right?” Tifa asks, pinching her nose too.
“Yeah, somethin’ like that. Though, I’m not the expert with these things,” Barret admits. He then realizes the other two aren’t pinching their noses. “The hell is up with you two? The smell don’t bother ya?”
Cloud and Ruby exchange glances and turn back to him. “We’re used to it.”
“Tch… Guess you would be.”
Cloud then looks around at the huge container tanks that unfortunately don’t have any windows to see through. Ruby is doing likewise, but she’s even pressing her ear to them as if trying to gauge what it is she’s hearing.
“Yo, ex-Soldier man! You figured out what’s this place about yet?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t have a clue. I’ve never been here before.” He turns back to Ruby with a raised eyebrow. “Hey. Ever had any visions about this place?”
“Nope. This is my first time here too.”
With a disappointed frown, he takes another look at the DNS and scans around for more details, but the details on this site are surprisingly scarce even on a device that would normally only be accessible to the president of this company. Perhaps there are just some secrets in Shinra’s underground that aren’t meant to be described outside of it.
Once Tifa and Barret get a little more used to the smell, she comes by Cloud’s side again. “Did you find anything?” she asks.
“Not much. Just that it’s the site in this place where they store some ‘classified’ things that can’t go anywhere else.”
“Hmph. So it’s the stinkiest shit of all…” Barret concludes, “Sure smells like it anyway.”
He slips the device away again. “Anyway, I doubt they’d be keeping our detainees in here.”
“Yeah, doesn’t look like there are any cells to hold people, at least. But I can’t help but wonder just what they got to be stinkin’ up the place so bad…”
Tifa makes a somewhat disgusted look. “I dunno… but do we really want to know?”
“…” Barret takes a moment to rethink it over. “Yeah, you right. Well, if we don’t need to be here, let’s scram.”
But as the three begin to head back out the way they came, Cloud notices that Ruby doesn’t seem to be following. He calls back to her.
“Hey, Ruby. Let’s go.”
“Ruby?” Tifa calls out too.
But Ruby has been standing in the middle of several of these mysterious tanks, holding her hands by her head as if trying to focus on her ears. She has her eyes closed too and is trying rather hard to listen. And amid all the restless murmur and incoherent mumbling from souls once lost to the mako, some voices would at last escape the chaotic tumult and she can just make out something.
“…Traitor…”
“…No shame… no regret…”
“…Drift away… into nothingness…”
She snaps awake again, now that the horror hits her. These are just like the voices that she heard before from the graveyard in Sector 5! But why is she hearing them here? She whips around to stare at all the tanks around them as a disturbing realization comes to her.
“What’s wrong?” Cloud tries again.
“…” She now whips back around with an almost frantic face. “They’re keeping people in here.”
The others gasp in unison. “What!?”
“Goddamn it, Shinra! No wonder they stink so bad! The hell are they doin’!?” Barret snarls.
“They’re keeping people in the long-term deposit…” Tifa repeats to herself as the horror sinks in and she realizes something else. “Wait! What if…?”
“What is it, Tifa?”
“Didn’t Rufus mention before about the Immortals and how they had people ‘archived’ or something?”
His eyes open wide too. “What? You think this has something to do with that?”
“I don’t know, but it’s weird that they’d have a whole separate storage all the way out here.”
Cloud then reminds them, “Didn’t he say they were cryogenically frozen, though? The smell’s too strong for this to be a freezer unit.”
“Yeah. That’s what threw me off too…”
“Well, whatever the hell this is, it ain’t good! Should we bust ’em up?” Barret readies his gun-arm.
Cloud shakes his head. “Wait. We don’t even know what happened to these people or what will happen if we break them out.”
“Well, we can’t just leave ’em in there, can we?”
“…”
He turns back to Ruby to ask more, but then notices she’s now looking around one of the tanks. She seems to be searching for a way to deactivate them, but doesn’t find any accessible switch. Frustrated, she then unleashes her claws and tries to rip through them instead.
“Ruby!”
He’s too late. She rips and tears a big hole in this tank, releasing a great deal of pressure and spilling out the mako within with a messy splash that completely covers her. However, she pays it no mind and wrenches out the human-shaped body from within. The other three step back to avoid the leaking puddles and hesitate to approach.
“Damn, girl!” Barret exclaims.
“Are you okay!?” Tifa yells with worry.
“What is she doing…?” Cloud mutters in disturbed shock.
Once released from its prison, the mako starts to evaporate and dissipate into a peculiar gray mist supposedly like ether but not quite. Even that which had splashed onto Ruby does likewise, and she is once again dry as if it hadn’t happened. She gently sets the body down to the floor, but the look in her eyes seems a little wilder, more frenzied than usual. The body of a man that had been inside has long deteriorated into a faceless, skinless mass of veins that make up the head, and this is seen all over the rest of the body. Driven by a hungering curiosity, she places a hand to the body’s forehead to try to read what still remains. However, it is short-lived; like with the rest of the mako that held it, the body likewise begins to dissipate into the strange-looking gray ether that seems to envelope her as well. But before even she can make anything of it, she is suddenly hit by a fierce headache that topples her to the floor.
“Ruby!”
The other three rush on over to her, but cry as they might, Ruby doesn’t hear them. There is only the deafening high-pitched whine of a turbulent mass of horrific screeching that drowns out anything else. And then, as suddenly as it appeared, the screeching is silenced at once into an even more deafening silence. And yet, she doesn’t black out. She is instead graced with another unwelcome vision.
~
The wind blew over the ever steep mountainous cliffs to the rocky shores below. Rubia stood atop, looking down below with an eerily cold stare. She wasn’t alone; an elderly woman donning a black cloak with her head hooded stood beside her with an equally forlorn expression. They were a fair distance away from the kingdom’s capital, by the shores of Port Crewe, which had long been but a humble fishing village. And yet, this village among several others would harbor a grave secret, indeed.
In response to the recent scourge that has come to spread far across the world, the Kingdom of Dunscaith had undergone a new revision in their laws. This “Black Death”, as it had been so aptly named because of the black blemishes that would appear on the skin, had no known cure and the chronic pain and suffering it brought to those up until their untimely demises had scared everyone witless. Thus, by royal decree, a directive was ordered to immediate effect: Anyone who was discovered to have been touched by the Death was to be arrested and sent off to the gallows as an act of “mercy”, as to prevent the spread of the illness. Anyone who was caught trying to cover up the blemishes to evade capture would be charged with public endangerment and promptly executed by the hands of the royal guard that made the discovery.
While there were many who would abide and willingly give themselves up as to avoid a future of grief, there were many more who would come to doubt the good will of the royal court. Though they had granted the clergy full reign over how to handle the victims’ executions as to be as painless as possible, little was being done to actually ease the widespread terror. No prayer or matter of faith would be able to spare the victims from what was deemed an inevitable end. Too many times had some tried to peddle a miracle panacea that would help ease the pain, but nothing could lift the curse entirely. And much too often, the paranoia ran rampant so that even particularly dirty stains that weren’t washed off with “thrice the scrubbing” were deemed too much risk to let alone. And thus, there would be a train of refugees scrambling to flee the kingdom to avoid being sentenced to death before they were willing to be taken. However, many weren’t so lucky and would meet their ends anyway on the way out. After all, while the kingdom certainly wasn’t as welcome a place as it once had been, the lands beyond the city’s safe walls were still fraught with monsters.
Nevertheless, for those who could manage to escape the wrath of the law, the paranoia, and the land’s poisons, there was one place of respite: an ancient temple to the west where the people who once built it have been long gone and in their place, a frugal community of refugees have taken it up as their new home. There, a small and relatively new cult has sprung up to replace the old, corrupt clergy – one that has reworked the meaning of the Black Death from “curse” into “blessing”. Those who had been touched by the Death were not doomed to a life of pain and suffering, but an opportunity of noble sacrifice. These marks of black were not “blemishes” to be removed or avoided, but brands to proudly bear as a sign of overcoming adversity. So long as they chose to embrace their new roles and persevere, the pain they experienced would fade as well as the suffering that it would bring. And for a while there, just the simple change in perspective was able to convince the people that the pain they felt would only be fleeting. And once they would each arrive at their moment’s end, their souls would be carried off safely into the afterlife, freed from the horror that they had once lived through. It was debatable just how many people truly believed the words of the Black Brand, as they would come to be known, but at the very least, to all the refugees who just wanted to avoid being killed horrifically, this temple was a blessed haven that welcomed and served all who would come.
Yet, those days of peace and union through overcoming shared adversity would come to an abrupt end when a squad from the garrison of a nearby town happened to discover that this old temple was in fact not entirely abandoned – on the contrary, there were plenty of refugees that escaped to this temple. And despite the happy community that lived here, it was evident at a glance that the people’s illnesses weren’t being treated and instead left to fester and rot their bodies further. In fact, all the optimism in the community was seen not as a means to cope or the salvaging of positivity amid tragedy, but just another deranged symptom of the scourge that would drive the victims mad. And fearing for their own safety, the squad called in reinforcements. And so in but a single day of bloodshed, the unfortunate denizens of the ancient temple would be slaughtered en masse, and their bodies cruelly disposed of at various shorelines.
Rubia had arrived upon the kingdom’s lands in such harsh times and grew disgusted at the treatment of the persecuted, but would not yet act brashly should she risk engaging in matters that would potentially lead this country to war with her home in Ackard. Rather, she sought information and would come across it with one fateful encounter. As it happens, the wife of the cult leader and devoted sister of their faith had managed to escape the temple massacre and flee with a small band of devotees to the little known village of Alma and pretended to be travelers roaming the countryside. Rubia happened to meet her there, to which the pale, elderly-looking woman would plead with her for her aid. She agreed and the old woman would take her along to Port Crewe.
And now, Rubia had learned of this village’s grave secret. The old sister then turned to her with her hands together to plead again.
“Lady Rubia, Your Radiance… we beseech your assistance. A terrible affliction has come over this kingdom, and it sees no end to the madness.”
“…” She turned to the old sister with a sympathetic but still wary look. “Sister Edel, with all due respect, there is nothing I can do. I have no means to procure or create a cure for this illness.” She put a hand over her right eye as she explained, “I’ve been stained by it myself and can only await my time.”
“No, my lady. That is no illness, but the mark of greatness.”
She lowered her hand. “Greatness?”
“A fine opportunity for you to show the world that you are much more than the inevitable end that we will all meet one day. Perhaps, you – especially you – may even be able to show that you are even too strong to be taken by Death.”
“…”
“No, the madness I speak of is much worse. It is a mostly unseen darkness that is engraved into the very core of this kingdom, as it is of many others. It is draws out the worst in mankind, exposing all the disdain and pity that has plagued the elite of our society that would lead them to exact such cruelty and malice toward their fellow Cetra, despite that we all are woven from the same stream of life.”
“That’s…” Rubia began, but was unsure of what else to say to follow.
“I’m afraid you have only seen a glimpse of this darkness. Perhaps it would be fair to say that the life you led was most fortunate, but the darkness is ever present, oft suppressed yet never eliminated. Eventually everyone must meet with it sooner or later.”
“…” She looked off for the shore once more as she entered into contemplative silence.
“But fret not. Though it may be a fate that none can avoid completely, it is still a fate that can be fought. The darkness may not be seen with the eyes or touched by the hand, but it cannot exist on its own. It feeds off of the essence of life itself, and thus the only means to end it is to end the life it has entangled itself within.”
“End the life…?” She then turned back with a growing sense of alarm. “What are you saying, Sister? That the only way to fight this darkness is to end the lives of the people who are corrupted?”
By now, the old woman seemed to have gone from pleading with her to leading her on, and now exuded a subtle confidence in her own word. “To put it simply… yes.”
“…”
“As long as those who are in power remain in their positions, the darkness will not be contained and will continue to fester in the hearts of those people.”
“Sister, my apologies if I may be blunt. But if you mean to ask me to slay the elite of this kingdom, that is an outrageous request. I am not here on any official visit, but I cannot simply act of my own accord. Threatening their lives would be an act of war, and while Ackardian forces are ample, they are not in a position to launch a full-scale attack anywhere. Not while the Black Death has struck them as well…”
She shook her head. “No, my lady, that is not what I mean. Please listen.”
“…”
“As you are not here on any official visit, there is no need to worry about such titles or dignitaries. I ask for your help, not as a decorated general of Ackard, but as a person of good will and understanding.”
Rubia frowned, but remained quiet to keep hearing her out.
Sister Edel returned to that pleading gesture once more. “Please, Your Radiance. We are but a few stragglers that are left, still clinging onto hope that one day we will be free from this cycle of suffering, but the longer we wait, the less time we have to act. If we must meet our ends some day, then at least let us see to them in the way we wish for.”
“I… understand that much, but… what good will it serve if I were to clear away your aristocracy? There would simply be chaos and further madness as this country would be without a leader.”
And now, there seemed to be just the slightest crooked smile to the sister’s face that was mostly obscured by her hood. “Rest assured, my child. This country has long been without a leader. Rather, what you will accomplish by taking their heads is to end the cruelty that the people have endured all this time.”
“…”
“My lady, please don’t misunderstand. I make this request of you not out of hatred or revenge toward the royals and nobles of this land, but rather, out of sympathy for those who have been unfairly mistreated and persecuted through no fault of their own. If we have no one to stand up for us, we will have nowhere to turn…”
“…”
“But our personal grievances aside, that also leads me to another question for you.”
“Hm?”
“Why have you come to Dunscaith, my lady? As you have said, this is no official visit, so you must be here for some personal business, yes?”
“…” Rubia turned back down toward the shore once more as she came to a grim realization herself. “As it happens, I came here to find the truth behind Sister Anna’s betrayal, and believed that finding her true sister would grant me answers.”
“And have you found the answers you were looking for?”
“Have I…?” She then turned back to the sister once more with a rather stern expression. “What I’ve learned so far is that it doesn’t matter where I go, I’m fated to fight and to kill. And now even someone from a different country entirely is asking me to do the same.”
“…”
“At this point, I have lost so much so fast. Sister Anna, who had acted as my mother figure since I was very young and abandoned by my wretched dignitary of a father, would turn out to be a traitor to the people she lived amongst and never truly cared for me as a mother would. My childhood bosom friend who I once loved dearly has so cowardly turned tail and fled with her family as soon as news of the Black Death reached our borders. And the men I was meant to lead all offer nothing but false condolences amid whispers behind my back anticipating who would come to replace me. And last but not least, I am wracked by an incurable disease that has spared no survivors to date.”
“…”
“The people of Ackard have long treated me as an outcast, even when I wear their decorated suits and attend the ceremonies in their name and honor, and they never so much as give me anything but the ever cordial and procedural applause. In all honesty, I feel just as empty inside regardless of how I am dressed or decorated.”
The old woman turned away with a glum face herself as she began to make a prayer for this poor unfortunate soul.
“So has it been and so will it be. That was said to be my fate since my birth from a mother that I never knew nor cared for. The only thing that ever mattered to me was to look out for myself and my ever faithful partner.” She made a sarcastic harrumph. “What a shame. If I were to return to Ackard like this, it would be no better than to have arrived and found no answers at all.”
“…!” Now Sister Edel turned back to her in a bit of hopeful surprise. “My lady? Then, you mean to say…?”
“What I mean is… if, theoretically speaking, the Kingdom of Dunscaith were to fall to a sudden bout of madness from the once honorable rising star of Ackard, then all I have to say is…” There was now an even more sinister effect to her subtle smile. “That is most unfortunate.”
The old sister returned her with a twistedly delighted smile of her own. She then dropped down to her knees and made a most humble bow before her. “Thank you kindly, Your Graciousness! Though we are scarce in number now, the members of the Black Guard will stand by you in full faith and no hesitation, no matter your judgment. Even if it would mean that we are to offer our lives in your worship, we will not falter.”
She shook her head with a sigh. “Sister, please stand. I hold no affiliation to the Black Guard. This is a decision I’ve come to make on my own.”
She returned to her feet. “But of course, Your Radiance. Though I am but a humble servant of a faith that my late husband was fortunate enough to lead, I will be most honored to serve you in your course as you see fit. Ask of me what you may, and I will heed.”
“Hmm… then there is only one thing I have left to ask of you.”
“Yes, my lady? Whatever you wish.”
What little was left of a smile on Rubia’s face promptly faded. With the most sincerity that she had put forth thus far in their conversation, she then made a simple request. “Return to town to gather the rest of the Black Guard. Once everyone is accounted for, come back to this cliff and throw yourselves off and don’t come back to shore.”
Now Sister Edel was rather shaken by such a request. “M-my lady?”
Rubia was no longer giving the sister any further mind and started off back to the village on her own. The very confused sister then tried to give pursuit for a short distance.
“My lady, please! At the very least, may I ask why you would make such a request?”
After taking but a few steps away, Rubia stops and glances behind her with an ever cold glare. “I have nothing more to say to you. You and Sister Anna can go rot in hell.”
“…”
She turned ahead once more. “I can find my own way to the capital. Goodbye, Sister Edel.”
The old woman looked sorrowfully on as Rubia takes her leave at last. With her head down to the ground, she then muttered to herself with a hint of a grudge, “…As you wish, Your Radiance. May you find peace in the next life.”
~
Ruby howls and shrieks like a beast that had just come in contact with live molten rock that had struck her on the eyes. She clasps her hands over them and refuses to let go, as if fearing that they would actually roll out of their sockets if she relents even a bit.
“Ruby! Get a hold of yourself!” Cloud shouts.
“Ruby! It’s okay! Hang in there!” Tifa frantically begs.
Since she came into contact with the strange gray ether, she’s been struck mad and convulsing like it’s yet another episode of what happened at Nibelheim Mansion. Cloud and Tifa hold her down so she doesn’t thrash around until she makes herself bleed, and Barret keeps her legs pinned so she doesn’t hit any of them either.
“What the hell happened!?” Barret yells, still completely dumbfounded. “And what was that gray stuff that came outta that guy?”
Cloud makes a worried frown. “No idea. But we can’t let her go. Who knows what will happen if we let her run off like this…”
“Ruby, please! Don’t scratch your eyes!” Tifa keeps pleading, trying to pry one hand away when she sees blood begin to leak from them. “Cloud, we have to get her back to Aerith!”
“I know! But…” He tries to pry her other hand away, but she’s trying to wrestle free. “We can’t take her like this. She needs to calm down first.”
“But it was Aerith who calmed her down last time…”
“Yeah, I know. But she’s not here right now.”
“So what are we supposed to do, then?” Barret demands. “’Cause just holding down doesn’t seem like it’s helping!”
“Ugh… Ruby, please. For once, just don’t do anything rash…”
For just a brief moment, Cloud dares to let go of her hand so he can throw her over his shoulder and carry her out of here, but as soon as he does, Ruby’s free hand tears a bloody gash down to the right. He catches it again, but it’s a bit too late now.
“Ruby!”
“You fool! Why’d you let her go!?” Barret yells at him.
“I didn’t think she would actually do it! Ugh…”
“She’s already in so much pain…” Tifa says as if there were a stone sinking in her gut.
“Damn it! Why did things have to come to this…?”
After a tense few more minutes and the trio scramble over ideas of what to do, they’re surprised to find that Ruby eventually stops spasming and seems to calm down on her own. She’s stopped struggling against them and finally drops limp in their grasps.
“She… stopped?”
Barret frowns. “Looks like she passed out.”
Tifa sighs. “Poor thing… But at least we can take her back to Aerith now.”
At last, the trio climb off of her, and Cloud takes her in his arms, resting her head against him.
“…Okay. Let’s hurry,” he declares to the other two.
“’Bout time we got outta here. This place has all kinds o’ bad mojo…” Barret mutters.
And they all hurry out the door they had come in from. However, unbeknownst to them, there actually had been a camera in operation in this room the entire time, and it so happened to catch all four of them since their arrival. Clearly, someone has been watching them and yet still chose to not report them – almost as if what was witnessed was according to plan anyway.
Notes:
Buncha original lore time! And other notes
- I figured it was about time I returned to Sector 8 since Remake at least showed Cloud's party visiting S7 after the crash. But one thing that didn't sit right with me in that part was the fact that there was supposed to be the giant broken metal plate lying atop the slums that should have buried everything. It's why in the OG, Cloud's party couldn't go back to help anyone there. The scrap heap even blocked off the gate between it and S6. But they later discovered an underground tunnel that led back to S7 and it turned out not only was a portion of the slums still accessible, but even 7th Heaven's signboard was able to be recovered. Granted, the scene that showed 7th Heaven's state was much later near the ending of Remake, and that was among the weird split timeline hijinx or whatever after the Arbiter of Fate was defeated. So, I'm not sure if it was the same exact disaster that hit them in that timeline or whatever was going on there...
- That said, I will admit I embellished a lot of the details during the rescue operations in this chapter. I figured that it would only be fair if I gave Remake credit where it's due and respect that they still did a good job with that chapter and showing how S7 still continued to live on. So I played around with ideas and since there was naturally lots of giant-mech-like junk in the slums of OG, I figured I could throw in some of that dressing here too, hence the stuff like the giant dome that sheltered some survivors.
- Nellie, Finn, and Al are indeed canon characters, but we have only ever known them by their names and no pictures. Barret referenced them during his scene with Cloud during Chapter 14 of Remake and briefly described them, but we don't know where they've been or what branch of Avalanche they're a part of now that they lost contact with Cloud's crew for a long time. I don't know exactly what to do with them, as they aren't exactly major characters in this story either, so they unfortunately will have to remain as cameos in the meantime.
- The Deposit is an entirely original location of my design set in S8's side of Deepground. Because it's a different sector and entirely apart from the labs that Cloud's party found under S7 in Remake or what Yuffie and Sonon met in S0, I decided I'd mess around again and come up with the place for my own lore! And as it so happens, Ruby would once again be the unfortunate victim of it. >:3
- Ah, I've been waiting since like Chapter 9 to explain why Rubia blew up a whole castle and the mountain it sat on, and now ya know. Maybe. Probably.
- Oop, forgot to mention: "Crewe" is a name based on the Welsh word criu which means "dam". I'll get to explaining name origins for Sisters Anna and Edel in a later entry when it's clearer what their roles were in Rubia's story.
- And yes, Hojo's cameras are everywhere and he's always watching. He and Sephiroth really do have a lot in common.
Chapter 35: Unfurling the ARC
Notes:
Outdated A/N
8/9/23 edit: Apologies for the delay again. I am doing fine health-wise, but this is a big new arc I'm moving into and I need to rework my outlines moving forward. So I think I'll be pushing the next chapter to next week, as it would be too rushed to get the rest done in a couple days at most.
Not to mention, I live in California and as you may have heard over the past few years, we are in fact still being roasted alive under the sun. It's kinda hard to sit in one place for long, if you get what I mean.
Man, I can't believe I'm blaming mother nature for this. Where's Sephiroth when you need him? Get us some clouds, man!
Chapter Text
Ruby stirs awake once more to complete silence and finds herself in a very familiar room. More specifically, it is her old room in her apartment, and this time someone left the lamp on for her. She groans as she rolls over on bed away from the light, leaving her arms draped over the side of it, and shuts her eyes again, as if trying to force herself to return to sleep.
But she cannot. Nothing happens as she lies here and she doesn’t feel sleepy in the least. Grumbling to herself, she pulls herself up with a pout, sits still for a moment, lies back down again, and rolls off the bed and face-plants herself on the floor. And so she would lie there for a little longer… at least until she needs to breathe again.
To be fair, this is far from the first time she’s done this exact motion. Despite her otherwise rather lonesome childhood, there was a time from some of her earliest memories as a toddler when she would regularly do just that and pretend to have died from falling off the bed, a habit that would eventually come to the concern of her mother as she grew older and thus heavier.
Unfortunately, she isn’t that little kid anymore, and she must still confront the reality that she exists in now. This is her apartment, where she lives alone – well, used to live alone. No mom or dad to greet. No pups to tend. Once she steps out of this room, she’ll have to meet with him again.
Heaving a defeated sigh, she finally climbs back to her feet and dusts herself off, not because there actually is dust, but just out of habit. She then swerves around the bed and reaches over to click off the lamp before she takes the door by the knob and steps on out.
Rather than go for the stairs, though, she guns for the bathroom next door and hastily shuts herself in as if afraid that she would have been suffocated by some noxious gas in the air or something if she ventured out too far. She sighs to herself as she pulls up to the bathroom sink and flicks on the lights.
What the? Where the hell did these marks come from!?
She stares in horrified awe at the several streaks on her face that are now of a putrid black shade, as if her she had been cursed with some unholy magic. It’s not just the bloody gash to the right that she just gave herself earlier; even the red streaks down her eyes. It’s just… black – like the Geostigma that has corrupted her arms. She raises her arms before her and observes that both of her wounds – the first over her right wrist that has spread across her entire forearm, nearly to her elbow; and the next splotch on the back of her left arm – are indeed still present.
She nearly stumbles back, just catching herself before she slams into the back wall, and slowly slides down to the floor. Though they aren’t hurting at the moment, the shock of all her wounds being collected together and plainly visible like this is understandably unnerving. And as the shock gradually begins to be replaced with confusion and then with contempt, she feels her eyes begin to water as her frustration reaches a boiling point. In a fit of frenzy, she slams her scarred right arm into the wall behind her.
But even more shockingly, though her arm clearly bounced off of it, she doesn’t feel hurt. In fact, she doesn’t feel any pain whatsoever from the impact. Her scarred arm doesn’t look like it was harmed or even affected in any way. It certainly hasn’t been healed or anything – the black stain is still there – but it almost feels like it’s superficial; painted on as if it’s cosmetic for a movie set.
And then, she reminds herself of a painful truth: She’s not at home. She’s still in the Debug Room. There is no such thing has “pain” or “temperature” or even any sort of material existence that isn’t just a part of the illusion. Even when there is “object identification” and “collision detection”, they are just attributes associated with such declared variables. Unless it is coded in that she will experience pain in some form, it will not happen. And therefore, there is no possible way for her to harm herself unless she codes the function itself, for better or worse.
So if this is all just a program, then why is the suffering real?
She takes a moment to sit here, resting her head against the wall, and stare up at the ceiling in a lost daze as the frustration from earlier fizzles out on its own. She blinks a few times to clear up the tears that would have fallen, but are simply returned to the depths of her sockets as if they were recalled. That’s right. It’s just a game, girl. What’s to be sad about? You’ll wake up from this bizarre dream sooner or later. And then, you’ll find that you were lying in bed all along.
With her emotions sufficienly quashed into numbness, she pulls herself back up. Well, no point in hanging around here. If she’s been called back to this place, there must be a reason. She might as well take this chance to get more answers out of him… if he’s willing to cooperate. She flicks off the lights and steps back out into the hall with a deep sigh, submitting herself to her awaiting fate.
As she heads out and descends the stairs, though, she can’t help but catch a whiff of something sweet lingering in the air. It’s oddly familiar, like something she hadn’t smelled for a very long time – likely from her childhood. It takes her back to those days when she would constantly nag at her mom to buy her something tasty… like a little paper tray of popcorn chicken with a large cup of boba milk tea. Or maybe even a little cup of pistachio ice cream, if the shop had any. That’s the good stuff.
She blinks, having startled herself with a realization. No… No way. He isn’t in the kitchen now, is he?
She hurries down the stairs at full throttle and bursts out into the living room, which is now sufficiently lit up. It’s not just out here; the lights in the kitchen are on too. The sweet scent has gotten noticeably stronger and is indeed coming from there. With fear and dread slowly creeping on, she treads carefully toward the kitchen doorway and peeks in from behind the wall.
Sephiroth is here, as expected. What is not expected is the fact that he seems to be shirtless now and is wearing nothing but an apron – oh, wait, he still has his pants on. Thank the Gods, we dodged a bullet there.
Before she can even help herself, she shrieks, “What are you DOING!?”
He whips around with a strainer ladle in hand and a surprisingly warm smile. “Ah, Ruby. Excellent timing. The tea is just about ready.”
“Tea??”
Now that she comes into the kitchen, she realizes that the countertop is filled with various bowls that have held ingredients as well as several used piping bags, while the stovetop seems to have been kept clear aside from the primary pot he is using to boil something.
“What are you making?” she asks apprehensively.
Sephiroth turns away again to fetch an empty bag and whips back to her with it in plain view. The bag reads, “Tapioca Starch” in plain letters. He answers with a smug smirk, “Just experimenting with different flavors of boba.”
“You BASTARD!!” she screams at the top of her lungs, but pulls back in a wince as soon as the answer sinks in and a look of utter horror comes over her instead. “Why boba? Are you making milk tea too? Why here and now!? To what extent will you keep mocking me!?”
As usual, he doesn’t answer her right away. He simply turns back to the stove, observes that whatever is in it seems to have come to a proper consistency, and stirs the pot with the ladle as he quickly switches off the flame. He helps himself to one of the bowls and fetches out the boba droplets that had been simmering away. And he promptly brings that bowl full of hot boba to set it upon a bigger bowl with an ice bath he has ready beside him. And like with a finishing touch, he casually slips a spoon into that bowl.
Ruby watches him work in stunned silence and ever-growing anxiety. While he isn’t exactly Masterchef material with all the clutter he has left the kitchen, she has to admit that the smell of what he’s making is rather enticing. Honestly, the guy probably could have just modded in some boba milk tea with a flick of a hand, but he chose to set up the entire kitchen and make the stuff from scratch. A real artisan, this one… if only he wasn’t also a mass murderer, planet-busting megalomaniac who breaks her game disc!
He stops by the fridge and takes out a different pot with some sufficiently chilled liquid inside and leaves it on the counter beside a few stacked glass cups. He then pulls out a plain ladle from the drawer and with a quick wipe of it using a clean napkin, he dips and pours out some milk tea into a cup. He also adds some freshly made boba into the cup, and last but not least, he sticks one of those thick straws into it, ready to serve.
He even offers the cup to her with a cordial bow. “For you, my dear. Please enjoy.”
“…”
Normally, Ruby would have turned tail and run far, far away from someone like him giving her anything to eat or drink, but she is honestly curious as to what he added. With a hopeful breath, she accepts the cup, takes the straw in her other hand, and puts it to her lips. After letting the drink sit in her mouth for a moment to taste, she purses her lips in a dissatisfied frown, but swallows anyway.
“It’s a little too sweet.”
He honestly looks disappointed. “Perhaps I was a little heavy-handed with the sugar for this batch…”
Yet, she takes another sip. “It’s not the boba. It’s still a little warm, but that’s fine. Rather, you might have let the milk tea sit a bit too long in the fridge and it condensed, so that’s why it tastes extra sweet.”
His face lights up again and he returns her a charming smile. “Thank you for the advice. I’ll keep it in mind next time.”
“But more importantly, Sephiroth…” She sets the cup back on the countertop and gets serious to confront him. “Why did you bring me back here?”
“It was a good opportunity. You tend to be a little too active while you’re awake, after all.”
She clenches her hand into a fist and shakes it in his face. “I’ve been trying to uncover all the shit I did or didn’t write about Rubia and suffering through all the nightmarish visions and clawing my damn eyes out – the blood is actually BLACK now! I look like a clown in horror makeup! And yet, I’m not the clown here. You’re the one fooling around the Debug Room, making boba tea of all things!”
“I wasn’t ‘fooling around’, just experimenting.”
“SHUT UP!” she snaps, swinging that fist at him, only for him to avoid it. She shakes a threatening finger in his face as if to make a point. “Who are you and what have you done with Sephiroth!? What about your evil schemes, dammit!? Stop being wholesome! I’m not gonna welcome you!”
He casually takes her by the hand she’s raised at him and moves it aside. With that familiarly eerie smile, he steps past her for the table and pulls out a couple seats. “Come. We have a few matters to discuss.”
“Clean up the kitchen at least! Ya damn raccoon roleplayer!”
“I’ll be back later, so don’t mind the mess now.”
“Grrrr…”
“Oh. And you may finish that cup of yours. Help yourself to more if you wish.”
She snarls with bared fangs at him, but swipes the cup again and brings it over to the table where he’s seated. As she takes her seat, she holds the cup in both hands and then asks more politely, “Are you not gonna get a cup too?”
“Don’t worry about me. I’ve had my fill already.”
“Hmph.”
She proceeds to take another sip and lets her eyes wander as she wonders how things came to this. Despite her criticism earlier, she still enjoys the tea. It may not be the hardest thing in the world to make a good milk tea, but she has to admit, quietly to herself, that he has done it fair enough. Though, judging by how she’s still drinking it, he can probably tell.
“So, what do you want to talk about?” she asks impatiently while fiddling with the straw in her glass, “An overview of my progress? Where to go next? Some other ‘interesting things’ I’m bound to meet that will wreck me and probably trigger my Geostigma?”
“Still concerned about that, are you?”
“Uh, yeah?” She tugs down on her darkened eye bags as if trying to mock him. “What’s going on here, huh? Why are my red streaks turning black? What circle of hell have I fallen into now?”
“Incidentally, I wasn’t responsible for that.”
She slams the table angrily, almost making her cup tip over, but she catches it. “Who else would it be, you slimy skink!? And don’t tell me that it’s Rubia’s fault!”
He passes a wayward glance aside. “…In fact, I would suggest that you take up those complaints with her.”
“Don’t assume that it’s her fault either!” she yells, throwing up her hands in exasperation. “You’re the one who infected me with the stuff in the first place! And my eyes have been bleeding every time I’ve learned something through interacting with Jenova! You are the MOST sus!!”
“Rest assured, this body of yours has long been entangled with Mother’s influence. All I’ve done is reawaken those cells to work for my purposes.”
“In other words, you’re just using a shortcut to torture me.”
“To be blunt… yes.”
“And to be blunt, %#&$ you,” she seethes through gritted teeth. “Why don’t you say something genuine that doesn’t hurt me for once, huh?”
“…” He pauses for a moment, looking almost pitiable as if he had been wrongly accused. “I was being genuine when I thanked you for your advice on the tea.”
Like a candle wick that was snapped cleanly off, her rage fizzles out in an instant too. “Never mind. Go back to being an asshole.”
“But to get back to the point,” he says, returning to his usual composure, “Has it ever crossed your mind exactly what Rubia has been up to lately?”
“…” Ruby looks like she was going to snap back with another witty retort, but is shortly caught off-guard and falls back into a thoughtful silence. “Huh. Good question.”
He shakes his head in disappointment. “Given the mission you’ve accepted since the beginning, you should make it an utmost priority.”
“I’m working on it, man…” she grumbles, “but if she doesn’t want to interact with me, what am I supposed to do?”
“At the very least, you must acknowledge that there’s more to your relationship with Rubia beyond merely that of a ‘creator’ and a ‘subject’.”
“What?”
“Which is to say, the two of you are intrinsically inseparable, and yet you have gone down some rather different ways. And therein lies the mystery…”
“Oh, here we go again…” she groans, rubbing the temples of her head. “Hey. Before we dive into that, can I ask one question? Just to lay some foundation and get it out of the way.”
“Yes?”
She sets her hands down on the table and gives him a hard stare as if trying to interrogate him. “Have I really been isekai’d into another world? Or is this all just a dream like I always thought?”
“…” He lets off a sigh as if unwilling to tread old tired grounds. Nonetheless, he answers firmly, “Neither. This is a world of your creation that you are actively participating in the molding of its very reality. Put even more simply, you are the current writer to this story. Whether or not you choose to press on with it to the very end remains to be seen.”
As he answered, her hands gradually began to slide along the table and by the end, she slumps onto it with a very dissatisfied frown. “That is the ultimate cop-out answer. And yet, I suppose it still counts as an answer. Dang. Foiled again…”
“For the record, I speak of it in this way to make it easier for you to grasp, but all in all, we wouldn’t be here if you treated everything in this world as naught but a ‘dream’.”
She pulls up again, propping her head up by her arm. She even says without missing a beat, “So that’s it, then? It turns out, I’m an actual God who has apparently abandoned her responsibilities and trapped myself in an illusion where I made myself believe I’m a different person from a different dimension and lived a whole 29 years of my life there, where this world was just a video game I played when I was a kid?”
For a moment, he simply gives her a blank stare. “…I have to say, I’m surprised you’re even capable of admitting it aloud with a straight face.”
“Just because I ‘admitted’ it doesn’t mean it makes sense!” she shrieks, clasping her head as if ready to pull her hair out. “If I am just Rubia, where the hell would I have come up with the idea in the first place!? Rubia doesn’t play video games! She’s a time traveling dragon deity that led a number of cursed lives and kept coming back with those memories intact! When would she even have the opportunity to come up with a concept like ‘I’m a programmer who played a video game when I was a kid’!?”
“And at what point did I claim that you and Rubia are entirely identical?” he fires back.
“I… what?” She blinks and turns back to him, dropping her arms. “Hello? Since the beginning?”
He shakes his head. “No. Allow me to refresh your memory… That night of our first encounter, I made the claim that Rubia was no longer a part of this planet, and the only clues I could reliably use led me to you instead.”
“…”
“I had assumed that if not herself, you would be the creator of her Remnants, so laid the responsibility upon you to be rid of them, but I admit that it was merely an assumption at the time. As this world has developed further, so too have the secrets that lied within this realm revealed themselves, and the truth has become much clearer.”
Now she drops her arms, staring back at him hard in stunned disbelief.
“As it turns out, Rubia is very much present. She always has been. That she managed to elude our detection for so long is honestly impressive. And after taking the time to explore further, I’ve come to discover that this ‘Debug Room’ is likewise of her creation.”
Sephiroth then gives a wave of his hand and summons forth the holographic GUI that had been around since the beginning. Ruby watches him in horror tinged with jealousy as he operates the system as if it were second nature by now.
“All that which is unfamiliar territory for the both of us, that which has been built up to now, has been her work. It’s even been signed with a particular digital watermark hidden in the code that acts as her signature.” He then shakes his head with an impressed smirk. “It’s almost laughable in an ironic way. Despite the bit of freedom I’ve had in modifying its appearance and utilities, I don’t have complete control over this room or of the greater world at large as I see fit.” He turns back to Ruby with a just as smug look, though. “And unfortunately for you, neither do you. In fact, until you come to terms with Rubia’s existence and how it ties to your own, you won’t be able to take control over anything.”
“…”
He browses the system’s menu to bring up something else, but while he lets the built-in search function bring it up, he continues explaining, “You brought up a good point earlier about setting the foundation, but were still mistaken about the exact foundation that needs to be set.”
She feels a lurch in her gut as the dread starts to come in. With a frustrated sigh, she rubs her head to release the migraine that had built up from earlier. “…You mean how the world I came from wasn’t real, huh? That I was just making an erroneous assumption too?”
“Indeed. Where you are and what your current status is… I suspect Rubia is aware of it all already. She’s just waiting for you to realize it.”
“Huh? My current status…?” She slowly shakes her head as she tries to think it over again. “But isn’t it right here and now? I’m in the Debug Room as she’s set it up… with your mods,” she adds at the end with a hint of a grudge.
“…”
“Unless, is there something else I’m missing here? And what would you know about it, Seph?”
“…” And once again, he refuses to elaborate further. He simply shakes his head again. “It’s not my business to know the details there.”
“Screw off! You definitely have some leads and have come to some conclusion already. You just don’t want to tell me now because ‘it’s not the right time yet’, huh!?”
“I’ll leave it to you to speculate further. In the meantime-”
“Oh, no! We aren’t doing that again!” This time, she takes care to set her cup a fair distance aside before she slams the table again. “I want answers and I want to be given them straight! What is the deal between you and Rubia, and to that effect, Jenova? Are you all working toward the same goal, or are you all just using each other as useful stepping stones? What even is your endgoal this time, Sephiroth!?”
And yet again, he doesn’t answer her. He notices that the search has completed and begins sifting through all the resulting files concerning his point of interest. Ruby tries to keep up the pressure, but the longer she stares at him, the more exhausted she comes to be instead. Of course he’s not gonna answer. She can’t do anything to wrench answers out of him either. This was the exact problem she ran into last time. Finally, she relents with a defeated grunt and sits back down. She then retrieves her cup again and finishes it up with a loud slurp.
“What are you doing?” she asks instead.
“I’m reorganizing files of interest that will be necessary coming up in the near future.”
“What the hell have you modded now!?” she snarls, “You were just saying that you didn’t have full control of the room and couldn’t change the story as you want, and here you are, messing with reality again!”
“I spoke the truth as I know it. This Debug Room is not the entire story, after all.”
“I didn’t say it was… but who gave YOU permission to mod it as you like!? What the hell was that act earlier, with the boba tea and all!? I refuse to believe Rubia is picking favorites between us!”
“…” He makes another coy glance her way. “Rest assured, she hasn’t picked any favorites, nor has she updated anything in here for a long time. I’ve just had more time with it and even contributed my pieces to the bigger picture.”
“Rubia is MY past-self! I started up the GUI in the beginning, so I’m supposed to be the admin! How the hell did you even usurp me!? That’s bogus!”
“Your loss for not implementing security measures.”
“Shut up!! %#*& your ‘hacker’ skills! Gimme that menu! I’ll rip through any defenses you’ve put up!”
He rolls his eyes. “…Have at it, then.”
And to which, he spins around the hologram and gives it a gentle push to her. Ruby catches it in her hands, and to her relief, she can still access it as she had done before. With renewed zeal through curiosity, she pokes around again to remind herself of what she had been overlooking, and now she realizes there have been some changes made since the initial startup. For starters, all the files on Rubia’s history and character information that were easily accessible before have been locked away behind a password. At first, she doesn’t suspect anything just yet, but then she also notices that the same happens when she tries to access the files on Sephiroth, Jenova, and – most disturbingly – Tiamat and Bahamut. No, it’s not just the original characters either; there are plenty of hidden, locked directories for even many of the characters that were a part of the original game’s canon. Now, there’s a whole other swath of original content that has been added.
She returns him a suspicious glare. “Why is all your stuff locked?”
He responds with a look feigning innocence. “Weren’t you just saying you’d rip through any defenses I’ve put up?”
“Shut up! Damn you!” she growls with bared fangs like an upset pup, “I can’t even access the main terminal from here, so I can’t run a program to crack through these passwords!” Her animosity quickly descends into a tantrum. “I hate you! Give me back my access, you big meanie!!”
With another wave of his hand, he retrieves the menu again back before himself and she whimpers with a look of betrayal, almost as if she were about to cry herself.
“I suppose I can say one thing is for certain now,” he then follows up.
She slumps back in her seat again with an utterly drained face. “What?”
“The only option left to you at this point is to continue to embrace your role as the last of the Summons. You can leave the intricacies of the Debug Room’s secrets to me.”
“%*&# off. I don’t trust you with it. And even though I just drank the tea, I don’t even trust you with that.”
“…” That smirk finally fades from his face and he turns back to her with an honestly annoyed look. “Would you prefer that I pair it up with something else to your tastes?”
“Ha! Maybe if you wanna really piss me off, you’ll also bring in some popcorn chicken and takoyaki to snack on the next time I drop by?” she suggests with a cynical, almost deranged grin.
He blinks in surprise and gives it some serious thought. “Perhaps that is what was missing after all…” He nods slowly to himself. “Like with the many other forms of art, the culinary experience must be presented as complete ideas in their own right. For anything to stand out on its own, it must have the proper context or reference to be complementary…”
“Bruh, please stop. The joke has been run into the abyss. It’s not funny anymore.”
He states matter-of-factly, “I’m not joking.”
“You aiming to become a master chef too?”
“I have no use for particular titles, but I’ve taken an interest in cooking, you could say.”
“Oh… Uh. Good luck, I guess?”
He returns her that charming smile again. “Thank you. I do hope you’ll accompany me on that journey as well. I appreciate the feedback you give.”
She takes a deep breath, but vents out her complaints through swears under her breath and instead moves onto a more pressing question: “Anyway, what was that about the near future? Are you talking like, down the line when I finally get to the ol’ temple, or somewhere a bit closer?”
“A bit closer. You were planning to stop by Wutai after this, weren’t you?”
She opens her mouth as if to answer, but nothing comes out at first. Instead, she gets angry again and growls, “Don’t you dare mess with our adventures there! I was actually looking forward to it!”
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to touch or change anything there. I would just advise that you prepare yourself for a potential encounter with a certain Summon that is heralded as a God.”
“…Huh?” She blinks a few times. “You mean Leviathan? I’m gonna be meeting Leviathan?” She pauses to think it over again. “Oh, wait. We could run into his materia at some point… but nothing much happened the last time I ran into those. So, I have no idea what you mean by ‘potential encounter’…”
“Well then, I won’t spoil the surprise.”
“For the record, it’s got nothing to do with Jenova, right? No more squid mom antics unless she wants to be turned into calamari!”
“That’s right. And speaking of calamari…” he adds, now that he’s been reminded, “That could also be a suitable side dish. Would you prefer them fried or grilled?”
She slumps again in defeat. “Now I can’t even insult your mom anymore without you eradicating the joke. How have you gotten this powerful…?”
“…”
“Well, if you’re gonna include the takoyaki too, grilled is fine, though I hope you have some bomb sauces to go with it.”
He’s back to smirking, smug as always. “Will do.” He then moves to get back to his feet. “In any case, I hope you will take some time to think over what we’ve discussed, so that we won’t have to retread anything for our next encounter.”
“I’m gonna head into Wutai paranoid of what’s coming up, thanks to you.”
“Then, my job here is done. You’re dismissed.” And with that, he returns to the kitchen counter to do a little cleanup.
Ruby scowls to herself, but gets up from her seat and passes him the glass she had been using to drink, which he casually accepts and puts it to the wash. But as she heads out past the living room for the front door, she stops and remembers that she has to warp out of here. There’s nowhere to go even if she tried to step out.
Now that she notices it, Sephiroth still has the TV on. The game has since moved forward to focus on the Highwind resting by the grassy shores to the west of Midgar, where Cid was expected to have brought it. For a moment there, she was almost expecting that it would be able to show a version of the Sector 8 wreckage, but there’s no such field map like that from the original and certainly not a place that could just be “modded” in without rewriting the game’s code altogether. As much as her curiosity is piqued as to how something like Deepground would look with the original game’s graphics, well, maybe some odd mysteries are best left unknown.
Unless, of course, someone decides to mod the game further without her knowing or permission. But after the conversation she’s just sat through, she’s already feeling like age has crept rather quickly upon her. Without further ado, she brings up the GUI once more and sends herself back to where she last left off.
~
“…She’s not moving. Is she okay?”
“Maybe she knocked her head on something?”
“Her eye’s all covered up…”
“Hm? Funny, I thought a Cure woulda done her right up already… Well, no matter! Me thinks a stronger spell would do the trick!”
“…I think she’s fully restored already.”
Ruby stirs awake once more to some chatter around her. By the sounds of those voices, they sound like Cait Sith and Red… and some kids. Great. She’s surrounded by children again. When she opens her eyes, she notices her right eye has been bandaged over, though it’s wrapped thinly enough that she can still make out vague shapes with that eye.
Red blinks, looking over her. “Oh, she’s awake.”
Cait Sith lets off a sigh in relief. “Thank goodness! Looks like an Esuna wasn’t necessary after all!” Though, as she says so, his moogle stops and does a confused shrug as if their magical dance were interrupted.
“Are you okay, Miss?” one of the kids sitting by asks.
Ruby blinks a few times to rid herself of any remaining drowsiness. As she sits up to have a look around, she’s been lying on a quilt laid on the barren ground, inside a tent where a female medic has been attending a few patients aside from her. Now, the medic notices and extends a hand to get her to lie back down.
“Oh, good, you’re awake! And take it easy! I’ll go get Aerith for you.”
The medic hurries out to share the news, and Ruby turns back to her faithful furry companions.
“Hey… so how long was I out?”
“Not too long, actually! It’s probably been about a hour, tops,” Cait answers. “We’ve just been tending to the sick and injured in the meantime. Boy, did it blow us away when you were brought back to join ’em! Though you seem to be alright now.”
“Ah… I guess Cloud and them did. Are they still around?”
Red shakes his head. “They volunteered to go back down. It seems they have some kind of unfinished business.”
“Unfinished business?”
“I don’t know the details, as they didn’t say very much. But they did say they were going to ‘shut it all down’.”
Ruby’s eye bugs out upon hearing that. “What? No! No, they’d better not!”
“Hm? Is something wrong?”
“No matter what, they should not release the subjects! It will only make things worse!”
Red and Cait simply stare back, looking rather lost. But before Ruby can explain any more, they’ve now received another visitor.
“Ruby! Thank goodness!”
The medic has returned with Aerith, who calls out to her as soon as she steps in. Aerith drops by Ruby’s side, giving an almost motherly level of concern for her cousin’s scratched up face and peeking around her head as if making a closer inspection.
“Are you okay, Cuz? How are you feeling? Does it still hurt?”
Ruby shakes her head. “I’m fine. It’s just a scratch.”
She still looks no less worried. “But that scratch wouldn’t fade even after all the Cures we used. That’s why we had it bandaged up.”
“…”
Now that she thinks about it again, Ruby recalls the image in the mirror she saw earlier. If she wasn’t so distraught at the time, she would have noted that the marks around her eye reminded her of a certain auspicious symbol from Egyptian script, the Eye of Horus. That said, it is reversed on her, as the gash she made swings the opposite way – almost like a backwards version. So what would that make hers? A cursed symbol instead? Well, there certainly have been a number of cursed things happening, that’s for sure.
“Well, it doesn’t hurt anymore, so can I take it off?”
“Um, I dunno… If it’s a wound that’s not gonna fade, I think we should keep it covered just in case. And well…” Aerith droops a little. “I wouldn’t want you scratching yourself again.”
“Ah, yeah… sorry, Cuz. That was dumb. It won’t happen again, I promise.”
“No, I’m sorry. I should have been there with you so we could have avoided it altogether.”
“No, no. You made the right choice. You wouldn’t have wanted to see the things we found.”
“…” Rather than continue to argue, Aerith moves on to ask her, “So, what did you find?”
“Uh…” Ruby rubs her head as she tries to recall. “Right. So you remember how we went underground in Sector 0? This time we ended up in a different part of those labs – a place known as ‘The Deposit’.”
“The Deposit? So it holds things?”
“Yes… It holds things that would have never seen the light of day and probably shouldn’t ever, really.”
Now her attention is got; she makes a cautious yet intrigued look. “Like…?”
“Like…” But Ruby then notices the kids who have also been sitting around them and listening in. She then shakes her head. “I’ll tell you when we get down there. In any case, we should go find those three and warn them.” She turns to her furry companions too. “You guys can come with if you want.”
Red raises an eyebrow but makes an amused face. “If you insist.”
“Oh, even li’l ol’ me? Well, uh, I’m flattered, really!” He nods with a smile. “Okay! Then let’s go!”
But before they all can, Aerith stops them. “Wait, before we go…”
“Huh?” Ruby stops just as she’s about to stand up.
“Nayo said she wanted to talk with you about something. It’s pretty urgent.”
Though she has nothing in particular against Nayo herself, Ruby’s mood sinks right into a little crabby. “Can it wait?”
“I’m sure it won’t take long. Besides, you can always warp us if we need to be somewhere in a jiffy, right?”
“Yeah, but the lurking danger is real and always present…”
Aerith raises an eyebrow. “Is it really that bad that we can’t even take a few minutes?”
Ruby takes a moment to think it over again. On one hand, it is urgent enough that she should warn her friends exactly what could become of the danger, but on the other hand, she gets the feeling that it’ll take Cloud’s group a little more time to figure out what to do anyway, so she can still afford a few minutes.
“Besides, Nayo said it has to do with their own plans moving forward and needs to be sure you’re onboard. She doesn’t get much of a chance to talk, so at least hear her out?”
She lets off a sigh with a roll of her eyes, but relents. “Fine. Where is she?”
Aerith leads them out the tent, leaving the medic to supervise the rest, and takes them to another side of the camp where Nayo, Polk, and Billy Bob have been waiting around a campfire they made by reusing some trash from the heap to help kindle it. Even though it’s still daytime, being out in the open like this doesn’t bring too much warmth. The three are rather relieved to see Ruby up and at them once again.
“Hey! There they are,” Billy calls as they arrive.
“Good to see you again,” Polk follows suit.
Nayo nods with her own smile. “Great timing. We were a little worried there that you wouldn’t wake up so soon.”
Ruby and the rest of them take a seat around the campfire as well. She then asks the question: “So what’s the urgent news?”
That smile quickly fades as Nayo gets serious again. “Aerith caught us up earlier. It sounds like you guys were also looking into the missing detainees that Shinra unfairly rounded up, right?”
“Right.”
She nods. “So were we. Ever since the Sweeper Executive was launched, they’ve been sending mechs on the hunt for our fellow Avalanche, but it soon turned into a whole mess as random civilians were being rounded up. It didn’t matter if they were associated with us or not; anyone who questioned the executive was arrested. It’s almost like the city went under martial law without actually having an official announcement. Pretty tyrannical for a company that claims to use force as a ‘last resort’.”
“Yeah, that’s nothing new.”
“Yeah, if that were all there was to it. But then we got an interesting piece of news from our group that went to investigate Sector 0 earlier.”
“Oh?” Ruby’s eyes flicked to attention.
“As it turns out, all the random civilians who were rounded up as ‘unruly’ or ‘Avalanche sympathizers’ were actually sent to a recently established detention center on topside in Sector 1. The particular building in question had been evacuated since the first reactor bombing and was repurposed as a temporary detention center.” Nayo then shakes her head in apparent disbelief. “But something wasn’t quite right. For starters, security was surprisingly rigid for a standard detention center. It wasn’t just your usual police or anything; even the Turks were being called in for this.”
“The Turks? Why would they need to call the Turks to watch some civilians? Or was that just part of the ‘protocol’ in case there were Avalanche members among them?”
“That’s what we thought at first, but then our guys also learned that the Turks were only there to facilitate the ‘Transfer’, as they put it.” Nayo raises a finger to make a point. “It turns out that the detainees that were just sent there weren’t meant to be held there. That was what they were told, but suddenly, they were transferred out again to somewhere else.”
Ruby makes a stare in disbelief as well. “And where else would they go?”
“Well, to be honest, we’re not really sure. Our guys we sent there didn’t have much time to eavesdrop, and the Turks who were there left really fast by chopper. It didn’t look like they were carrying any of our detainees, in any case.”
She lets off a disappointed sigh. “Well, that’s a bummer.”
“That being said,” Billy Bob then speaks up again, “our guys did at least tell us about a rather strange-looking fellow that was accompanying the Turks, didn’t they?”
Nayo nods along. “They sure did. Though I’m still having a bit of trouble wrapping my head around it.”
Aerith gets curious. “Who was it? Did you guys recognize them?”
“No, it wasn’t anyone we knew. I don’t think they were ever associated with Avalanche, honestly.” Nayo then makes a firm frown as she explains, “But I think they were associated with the Wutai government instead.”
Ruby snaps to attention again. “Wutai? Again!?”
Nayo shrugs. “At least, from what our guys there picked up on, the guy they saw was dressed in a way like a Wutaian official, or at least someone important like that.”
“What the hell…” She lets off a disappointed groan. “And here I thought, it was just gonna be a nice little detour to distract me from all the troubles here. But it’s all connected… somehow.”
Polk lets off his own sigh. “Yeah, if only it wasn’t… but people from that country seem to keep popping up in the weirdest of places, huh?”
“Well, seeing how Yuffie’s one of their elite, it’s not all that surprising,” Billy comments whimsically.
“Did you guys already tell her about this?” Ruby asks.
Polk scoffs at the idea. “No way! What do you think she’d do if she knew? She’s already a firecracker normally.”
“We’ve kept her and Vincent busy by checking around the rest of the town where they can still help,” Nayo explains. “We were thinking about telling her, but well… I think it’d be better if you brought it up to her instead. You guys are headed there anyway, right?”
Ruby nods back. “Sure enough.” She then comes to a realization herself and brings it up, “Ah. So that’s why you wanted to discuss this with me.”
“Exactly. While we don’t doubt that Yuffie would be on this stuff too, you’re probably our better bet when it comes to getting real results and fast. I know you guys probably have a lot on your plate already, but if we could just ask one more favor?”
“Yes?”
“When you get there, could you go and check out what’s been going on with these Wutai officials? I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but if it turns out that there’s been some shady business going on between these countries that actually involves human trafficking…”
Aerith gasps. “Human trafficking?”
“Yeah. I mean, none of this is confirmed, since we have no proof.” Nayo frowns as she puts a hand to her waist. “But it’s pretty suspicious that some random civilians would be rounded up like sheep and herded off somewhere where no one would know where to look. And if I were to wager a guess…”
“Ehem… You don’t think they were being sent off to Wutai, do you?” Cait Sith proposes nervously. “That seems almost… ridiculous, to say the least.”
“It does sound ridiculous, but we really don’t have any other leads at the moment. So this is gonna have to do for now.”
Ruby’s eyes flare up with a hint of speculative excitement. “So… not only has Don Corneo been meeting with one of them, so has that person or even another official been dealing with the Turks? At this rate, it’s starting to sound like Wutai and Midgar are actually in cahoots when it comes to stoking the war machine.”
“That’s precisely what we’re afraid of. If there’s anyone who could put a stop to all that, it’d be you.”
She reveals a coy smirk. “It’d be me, huh…”
Nayo then makes a conceding smile. “As much as we’d like to resolve this matter ourselves, we can’t exactly go around bearing the name of ‘Avalanche’ anymore without being associated with the infamous white dragon that’s been the real thorn in Shinra’s side, you know? Might as well call you in to talk.”
“Ha! Good choice.” Ruby then nods back. “I gotcha. It was one of the things I planned to look into myself when we got there, but this just further cements the need for us to go.”
“And I’d think it goes without saying, but um, if you could also save anyone who might have been trafficked, that’d be great too.”
“Of course.” Ruby means to move to get back up, but before she does, she asks for once more, “Anything else you’d like to bring up, or can we get going now?”
“That’s all for now. We’ll let you know if we do find anything. I hear Jessie has you on speed dial?”
“That she does… Oh.” She asks, catching on, “Has she hooked you up with some comms?”
Nayo whips out a familiar-looking transceiver that seems to be on loan. “You’re definitely lucky to have someone like her around. I didn’t even know materia could be used like this!”
“Tell me about it! Jessie’s been on a roll since you guys left!” Polk exclaims, looking just a little jealous, “It’s like she’s figured out the secret to anti-hacking tech. What did you put her through?”
Ruby laughs. “Inspiration and the right connections, you could say.”
“Ya know… I’m starting to think that’s the real reason why Shinra’s so scared of you all,” Billy Bob jokes, “Scared you’ll overtake them in the tech race.”
“Good. About time they learned what competition feels like.” She now gets back to her feet and helps Aerith back to hers while Red and Cait Sith’s moogle follow suit. “Anyway, we gotta get going. We got some party members to warn and inform.”
Aerith nods. “Right.” She turns to Nayo as well to mention, “We’ll just be taking a quick return trip down in the underground labs again.”
“Oh? Is there something wrong? I don’t think our detainees would be kept there, but…”
Ruby shakes her head. “Nah. But let’s just say there are a whole lot of other things to clean up and I don’t trust Cloud to be smart enough to know how.”
Aerith can’t help but smile to that. “At least he’s not alone.”
“That’s why I’m not panicking yet.” She turns back to Nayo and them with a grateful nod. “Thanks for the heads-up, guys. Hope you don’t mind holding down the fort for us while we’re away again, just in case Gya-ha-ha and Kya-ha-ha decide to do anything else that’d ruin this city further. I may have cleared out S5’s Sweepers, but there’s still the rest of them around the city.”
“Huh? Wait. You ‘cleared out’ their Sweepers?” Nayo grows alarmed again.
“Disabled them, though the hunk-a-junks are still around.”
She doesn’t look too comfortable with that. “Either way, wouldn’t that mean Shinra might have caught on that you guys were just there?”
Ruby shrugs. “Well, I did fly around in the open so I could let the Sweepers find me.”
“What? Oh, come on!” She groans, planting a hand over her face. “I know we’re lying low, but I said it before! At least try to not make things difficult for the rest of us?”
“Yeah, sorry about that. I hope you guys weren’t planning to stop by S5 again.”
“We weren’t, but it doesn’t help if we don’t have easy access to the other sectors either. Not to mention, we still had a team sent off to S0. I really hope they weren’t caught up in anything nasty…”
“The last we heard from them was about half an hour ago,” Billy Bob recalls, “Should we phone in again?”
“Hmm… It might be a bit risky since we don’t know where they may be hiding. Let’s try again in another half hour, though; just in case.”
“Will do, Boss.”
Aerith passes Ruby a likewise concerned frown and whispers, “By the way, Ruby, did you really have to draw so much attention like that?”
Ruby replies with her own cheeky whisper, “To keep up Kyrie’s bet? Yes.”
She slumps a little. “And there’s the problem…”
Nayo turns back to them. “Anyway, go do what you need to. We’ll figure out something on our own.”
Aerith bows her head. “I’m sorry. My cousin can be a little shameless sometimes.”
She waves politely back. “Don’t worry. We wouldn’t be Avalanche if a simple setback like this would stop us. Just… don’t stir up even more trouble when you do get back, alright?”
“Right! And I’ll stick close to help keep an eye on her, no matter what happens.” Aerith nods back with a reassuring smile and then turns back to Ruby, who now seems to be pouting over something; perhaps a lack of face. “What’s up, Cuz? Aren’t we going?”
Ruby whips back around and gets back on track. “We are. Gimme a moment.” With a few taps of her fingers on each of her party members, she unleashes her warp magic once more.
~
By now, the Deposit is not nearly as empty as it had been. Not only was a certain someone watching the crew from the shadows, eventually the rest of Deepground was notified of intruders and thus a squad of troops was sent in to investigate. However, as most of their forces would be required elsewhere, Cloud’s trio had little problem dealing with the guards that did discover them as they passed by earlier.
Now that Ruby brings her new team along to the same building she had explored earlier, they would find the entire place deserted. But not just deserted, apparently; everything is empty, as if abandoned. While one of the tanks remains broken, the rest of them seem to have been opened as well, albeit in a less destructive manner by the looks of things. There’s not a trace of mako or mutant body, as if all the evidence that had been kept here was mysteriously erased.
“What is this place?” Aerith asks, looking around curiously. “Looks like they were holding a lot of things, but they’re gone now.”
Red snorts, as if having smelled something unpleasant. “Though the smell has lessened by now, I can still detect strong traces of mako – not unlike the depths of a mako reactor.”
Cait Sith looks around too, but much more nervously. “Ooh… I don’t like the looks of this…”
Ruby looks around, feeling a little on edge, and crouches to inspect a neighboring tank across from the one she broke. “…No way these were sabotaged. But why would anyone want to release them, especially now…?”
Aerith peers over her shoulder. “What are you looking at? Or for?”
“For a manual switch or mechanism that could be used to unlock them, but I can’t find any. I figure there must be a control board elsewhere that operates them.” She shrugs. “But well… I didn’t stay around long enough to find it.”
She frowns, but nods with understanding. “I’ve been wanting to ask: what happened here that put you out?”
Ruby gets back up and means to tell, but then rubs her head as she struggles to explain. She then turns around to the tank on the other side that has a gaping hole in it. “You see that one?”
“Yeah?”
“I busted it open and everything inside spilled on me.”
“What!?” she nearly squeaks. “Are you okay? What was in it?”
“Lots of mako, for starters, but that wasn’t what got me to freak out. There was also a human body – or at least, what was left of it.”
She’s entirely aghast to hear it as if regretting asking. “A human body…?”
“It didn’t last long after I took it out, though. Disappeared into ether like a corpse would… but the problem was: the ether wasn’t normal. It was a dull gray and dissipated into a mist and then nothing as if it were lifeless.” Ruby shakes her head in shame. “My best guess, this person was once one of the subjects of a certain project that was supposed to have been scrapped.”
“…”
Aerith and Red grow alarmed together as the dots connect, while Cait Sith’s already horrified face droops into a look of shame as if he had been expecting this.
“Are you referring to the Immortals Project?” Red asks to confirm.
Ruby nods. “That’s the one.”
Aerith now feels uncomfortable to keep asking, but morbid curiosity pushes her onward: “And… did you touch it?”
She lets off a sigh, directed at herself. “I took the body out with my own hands. I meant to inspect it so I could see what I could do about it, even if it was just a spur-of-the-moment autopsy, but it disappeared so fast that I didn’t have time. And then, I got hit by some splitting headaches and was graced with another vision of Rubia.”
She gasps, cupping her hands over her mouth. “Another one…?”
Red frowns too with a raised eyebrow. “And from what you had seen, you then scratched yourself?”
“Well, not because of what I saw, but the ensuing pain to my eyes was so unbearable that I was tempted to claw them out.”
“…”
Aerith droops. “And again with the eyes…” She hesitates to ask further, but a side of her insists on knowing: “What did you see this time?”
“It was another episode of several that told of her gradual descent into madness. There was a kingdom’s people ravaged by a deathly plague, and the kingdom responded by ordering the execution of the sick to curb the spread. However, all that did was create many refugees who tried to flee. And among them, a cult would arise that came to embrace the plague as their new religion. Rubia visited this kingdom to find answers about this plague and would leave it after massacring the entire royal court. I don’t know what became of the people or the cult after that, but she wasn’t acting as their benefactor. This was pure vengeful bloodlust against anyone who had ever used her or intended to use her as a tool.”
Now, Aerith has gone completely speechless and turns away to keep to her own sympathetic thoughts. Red then asks in her stead so they may learn further: “And this has been one of several thus far? How many visions have you had?”
“Uh…” Ruby takes a moment to count them up. “Nine so far, I think. But they’ve almost all been moments where Rubia has been either destroying or intending to destroy something.” She lets off a disappointed huff. “It’s honestly getting a little monotone between all the killing and violence.”
“…” He shakes his head with a troubled sigh. “She’s lived quite the turbulent life, indeed. I had no idea when I first ran into her many years ago…”
“Honestly? The memory of your meeting was the nicest one out of them all. It was just two kids complaining about their parents together.”
“Hmm. Then I was rather fortunate to have met her on a good day.”
Now, Aerith has regained her composure and turns back with a more resolved look. “I think… we have to do what we can so this project can shut down for good. There are too many lives being caught up in all the torment…”
He nods back. “Agreed. We should hasten and catch up with Cloud and the others. They may have made their own discoveries as well.”
But before they do get going, as if waiting for a good chance to jump into the conversation, Cait Sith then does so: “Er… pardon me, but a wee question if I may…” He strikes a thinking pose. “Rubia, huh? Now where have I heard that name before…?”
Ruby perks up with curiosity. “You’ve heard it too?”
“Aye, but only dashes here and there, mind. Usually would come up in a rather important matter… though I’ve been swamped with plenty o’ those already.”
Red offers to explain instead, “It was the name of one of the Summon Guardians from ancient times, but she had mysteriously disappeared one day and her name was erased from the records since. As it turns out, she had simply leapt through time, but for what purpose is still unknown. Perhaps you had heard of it from any sources on them?”
“Blow me down! That was it!” Cait exclaims, dropping fist onto hand. “Now I remember where I’d last seen it: from a copy o’ the reports from the supposed clean-up of the Immortals! Sure was a heavin’ time tryin’ to find more about the dragon that was the main subject, but even our libraries weren’t too helpful…”
Ruby blinks in surprise at how forthcoming he is, and the other two follow suit.
“…Oh! Er, hehe!” he blubbers, rubbing his head awkwardly, “D-don’t mind me! Just forget ye heard about all that…”
“…Huh. Our Shinra insider sure must be important to get a copy of those reports,” Aerith observes.
Red raises an eyebrow too. “So that’s the reason why Ruby wanted you to join…”
Cait slumps onto his moogle, who catches him before he falls off. “Please don’t mention it to the others. They might not be too happy to hear.”
Aerith even looks worried for him. “Well, okay… But you know that you’re going to have to let the truth come out eventually, right? All this hiding won’t really help anyone, especially you.”
“T-thank ye kindly… but in the meantime, let’s just keep up the act that I’m just a silly little cat wae a crown riding a stuffed moogle, shall we?”
“Hmm…” She turns to the red one beside her. “I don’t mind. How about you?”
Red shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter to me who Ruby invites to join us. I would rather put my faith in her judgment, as she is the one who has seen the furthest of all.”
Ruby smirks to that, but she’s honestly relieved. “Glad to hear you two are sticking strong with me.”
“Right! That’s the spirit! We’re all friends here!” Cait replies with his own relieved smile.
Aerith nods with a surprisingly devilish glint in her eyes behind her smile. “And besides, if things don’t work out for some reason, Ruby will definitely put you in your place! There’s no hiding from her, after all!”
“Y-yipes!” The poor cat nearly flips off of his moogle. “I-I’ll be good! I promise!”
She then turns back to Ruby with that look of determination. “Okay, Cuz! New mission! Let’s do what we can to help these poor people involved in the Immortals!”
Red looks around once more. “Though, at least within this building, they all seem to have been released already…”
“But that’s a good thing, isn’t it?” Cait suggests. “Must have been Cloud’s group who got ’em out!”
But to their surprise, Ruby flatly objects, “Not so fast. We can’t release them. Not while they’re still in this state.”
“Hm?”
“What’s wrong, Ruby?” Aerith asks as well.
“Remember that ‘gray ether’ I mentioned? It’s not normal Lifestream. If that stuff is released back into the planet, it’s only going to contribute further to the Void that has come to consume it.”
Her eyes grow wide. “Oh. Oh, no…”
Cait droops again. “Er… then let’s hope it wasn’t them.”
Red promptly insists, “We should find them and make sure they haven’t tried anything too hasty.”
Having uncovered nothing else of interest here, the four hurry on out. However, even in the neighboring buildings, which Ruby makes short work of their locked doors, the story plays out the same way. There are a number of the same type of tanks in each of them, and they all seem to have been safely opened as well. Whoever was responsible must have emptied all of them in this area, meaning that it couldn’t have been Cloud’s trio that was responsible. It had to have been someone who had easy access to all of these storage units – in other words, someone on the Shinra staff. Perhaps even a certain lead scientist who was in charge of said unofficial project.
Growing even more alarmed to the point of nigh panicking, Ruby rushes on ahead out of the last building they’d stopped by and into the open streets. Worried that she might run into security or something much worse, the other three try to give pursuit. By the time they find her again, though, the alarms have sounded.
“Intruders detected in Section 4B! It’s the fugitive specimen ARC-P1! All available units report in!”
“Fugitive specimen!?” Aerith yells, getting mad. “They had better not be talking about Ruby!”
“Well, that definitely isn’t my code name…” Red comments a bit cheekily.
“And I don’t think that name’s referring to you, Ms. Aerith, so…” Cait begins, but doesn’t finish.
“Ooh! That’s it!” She whips out her magic staff in hand and prepares to lay some punishment. “Ruby! Leave us some butts to whoop too!”
But by the time the three do rush into battle, they come to an open intersection full of unmoving bodies that were once Deepground troops. Ruby whips back around with a blank stare.
“Oh, sorry. Did you guys want a crack?”
“Hmm…” Aerith keeps her staff in hand just in case. “Well, maybe next time.” She blinks once and then adds, “Oh, um… Just to be sure, Cuz, you didn’t actually kill them, right?”
Ruby glances down to the bodies lying around them. “They would be disappearing around now if they were dead.”
She lets off a relieved sigh. “Okay! Let’s keep searching. Cloud, Tifa, and Barret shouldn’t have gone too far…”
“But, uh, maybe we oughta try a different approach?” Cait asks, “Runnin’ about might work, but it could be a tad more efficient if we split up to cover more ground…” He then frowns at himself and shakes his head. “No, wait. That wouldn’t be wise. Who knows what else might be lurkin’? O’ course, it’s no problem with Ruby here.”
“Hmm…” Aerith turns to Red. “Can you try to sniff out where they’ve gone?”
He shakes his head. “Unfortunately, no. The smell of mako is too strong. It’s honestly taking a bit out of me trying to ignore it.”
“Or… Ruby? Can you sniff them out? Or some other way if that’s easier?”
Ruby has looked off into the distance toward the huge reactor at the center of town, now caught up in her own thoughts. Barret did say he wanted to shut down the power and Cloud shut down that idea since it’d be too risky, but then again, it’s such a menacing-looking tower that would make a good vantage point. Not to mention, it’s the direct source of Deepground’s power grid, so it only makes sense to search there for some way to cut off some section of it.
As Ruby looks back to them, Aerith asks, “What are you thinking?”
“When in doubt, start high and work down.”
“Good idea.”
And yet, before she can get moving again, she feels a tinge of pain from her right eye. Even though she’d been straining her left since her right has been closed and covered up, it seems to be reacting to something. She shakes her head, but the pain doesn’t go. She clasps a hand tightly over it to try to apply pressure, but it’s no good. Before long, her eye feels like it’s burning and she’s ever so tempted to rip off the bandage, but she doesn’t know if she should.
“Ruby? What’s wrong?” Aerith gasps as she catches on. “Oh, no! Did your wound open up again?”
“Ugh… Why does this keep happening…?”
“Don’t worry!” She holds her clenched hand still just in case she might start scratching again. “Let me take a look at it!”
But as Ruby moves her hand, she feels the slight trickle of something warm and wet leaking out from under the bandage. And judging by Aerith’s aghast face, it’s not just blood.
“W-what!? Her eyes are leakin’ black!?” Cait squeaks.
“The Geostigma!” Red growls. “It’s back.”
“Geo… stigma?”
“Hang in there, Cuz!” Aerith pleads, now panicking a little, and she plants her own hands over the eye. “It’s gonna be okay. Just stay calm. I… I can fix this… like last time…” Though her voice drifts off into uncertainty.
Ruby now holds onto her hand. “Aerith… It’s okay.”
“Huh?”
“I’m fine. It’s passed…”
As quickly as the pain had arrived, Ruby feels the throbbing come to an abrupt end and the leaking seems to have stopped. However, this bandage really isn’t doing much other than getting in the way. And once she moves aside Aerith’s hands, she tears it off in a single quick and forceful swipe.
“Ruby!” Aerith yells in horrified shock, “What are you doing!?”
Finally, it’s free. Ruby opens up her shut eye, revealing its pupil to be completely dilated as if it had been trapped in darkness for long enough. And yet, it doesn’t constrict to match her other eye. Instead, a different sort of insight comes to her. For a brief moment as she opens that eye, she sees not with her own vision, but a power borrowed from and hidden within.
She finds a different place within one of the buildings in the vicinity, deeper and closer to the center of town, where a fierce battle is taking place. To the left, Tifa weaves in and out between ranks of Deepground troops and smashes their faces in with a series of punches, kicks, and dives while flinging others away with a powerful somersault. To the right, Barret is screaming and gunning down any foes, bionic or mechanic, that dare to strike from above them. And in the middle, she witnesses in first-person view a certain someone swing a massive and familiar-looking sword, quickly juggling and knocking away several troops at once.
…What the hell is this? Holy shit. That’s trippy. She’s seeing things play out live through Cloud’s eyes!?
As soon as she blinks with that eye, though, the vision is cut off and her eye seems to return to normal. But it’s fine. Even though it’s not a place that she would recognize from any games in the series, it’s like she already knows exactly where they’ve gone. Oddly enough, her head is clear, like some knots that had been troubling her for a while now had just been erased, and she feels in complete control. Perhaps it’s a little silly or sentimental to say, but… it does feel like seeing things through his eyes has made her realize she’s doing fine too.
“…You okay?” Aerith asks once again, still very worried.
“Yeah. Better already…” she replies surprisingly calmly.
“The wound seems to have reopened, unfortunately,” Red observes.
“Sorry to keep asking, but what’s this ‘Geostigma’? Is it some kinda disease?” Cait takes his chance to ask.
He nods. “A mysterious disease born of the planet that seems to worsen with emotional distress… though for now, Ruby is the only known case. Unfortunately, it also has no cure.”
“Oof. That’s rough… So she’s been sick all this time? Even from ancient times?”
“Perhaps…” He turns back to Ruby. “How long has this been going on?”
“‘Ancient times’ seems like a fair estimate, honestly,” she replies with a bit of wit to her tone. “Even a past life of me was cursed with it.”
He raises an eyebrow. “It’s happened even across your reincarnations?”
“It’s not one long continuous streak, though it does seem to be a recurring thing with me…”
“I see.”
Aerith sighs. “Poor Ruby… If I didn’t know any better, it sounds like a curse that targets you specifically.”
“…” Ruby makes an awkward frown as she recalls exactly how all these Geostigma attacks have been sourced, but it’s much too complicated to explain right now.
“Yeesh. So it’s one of those long-term things, huh…” Cait shrugs. “I wish I knew what to do to help.”
“No, it’s fine.” She then reveals a proud smirk. “In any case, I’ve just figured out a new power.” And in her thoughts, she adds, “(Thank you, Rubia, for being utter bullshit.)”
But Aerith remains concerned. “A new power?”
“I know where those three went.” She raises a hand to beckon them along. “Come on, I’ll drop you off.”
Before any of them can argue with her, though, she bursts forth in a flash of white light and launches into the air as a full-on dragon. She swoops back around and lands before them, rightly frightening Cait Sith and moogle, who now realize just how big Ruby can get through her complete transformation.
“Climb on,” comes her deep and regal-sounding growl, and she swings around to let them on.
“Not gonna warp us in there this time, Cuz?” Aerith asks, now joining Ruby’s lightened mood.
“No need for stealth. The alarm’s gone off. I can plow through more like this.”
“That’s fair. Okay, let’s go get them!”
~
Meanwhile, Cloud, Barret, and Tifa have been busy keeping back enemies that seem to funnel in here without end. They’ve found themselves in a strange factory where an assembly line of twisted, mutant corpse-like bodies similar to that which Ruby had discovered earlier, but unlike the one that simply passed and disappeared into ether, these bodies have yet to deconstruct entirely. Perhaps there’s some process going on here that has prevented them from decaying so readily, but the purposes of said process is still unknown. Unfortunately, before they could make any heads or tails of this place, they were quickly discovered and engaged by Deepground forces.
But as they clear out this latest wave, they don’t get much of a breather. A suspiciously open air vent has been spilling out an invisible gas in the air, and as if like zombies that don’t realize they’re dead, a number of the troops seem to be getting back up again. So while in raw numbers, they actually aren’t as many as a full army, it certainly feels like they’re facing off against an undead legion.
“It feels like we’ve just been fending off the same people, though…” Tifa admits, while mercilessly cracking a guy’s neck.
“Naw, Tifa! Don’t bring that in here! I don’t wanna think about this as some weird horror movie shit!” Barret snaps back, flinging a trashed aerial sentry at another.
“Er, right…”
“…Though, now that I think about it,” Cloud realizes as he cuts down a few more, “we haven’t even seen any of these guys disappear like they’ve returned to the planet.”
Barret frowns almost as if pouting. “I’m pretty sure I unloaded a whole magazine’s worth into these fools, though…”
“…”
“Damn, man! How the hell did we get swept up in this crap!? Who changed the damn genre!?”
“…You’re starting to sound like Ruby,” he groans.
“And that’s a compliment, thank you very much!”
And speaking of the devil herself, they’re greeted by the ripping and smashing of the ceiling above, followed by a threatening roar from outside. Suddenly, the ongoing fight seems to come to an abrupt end, and the trio dive out of the way as a giant white dragon slams in through the hole she made and flattens a great deal of troops under her feet.
“Ruby!” Tifa calls out.
“Showin’ off again with these entrances, that cheeky kid!” Barret complains but with a grin.
And as usual, Cloud remains unimpressed. Instead, he’s surprised to find she’s returned with a few others. Aerith waves to them from atop Ruby’s neck, while Red and Cait Sith and moogle jump out from her front claws.
“Heya! Hope you guys aren’t having too much trouble!” Cait greets with waves of his hands.
“No trouble at all… not with her here,” Cloud answers, already sheathing his sword. He sidesteps Ruby’s next swings of her arms that knock the troopers prone and into the walls, and casually approaches them.
“Cloud, we’re here to warn you,” Red gets right down to business.
“Warn us?”
“Whatever you do, don’t release or destroy the subjects that have gone catatonic. Ruby said their remnants have been contributing to the planet’s crisis.”
“Ah…” He shrugs. “Well, we haven’t figured out how to do that yet.”
“No? Then it wasn’t you three who released those subjects in the other warehouses?”
Tifa gasps. “They’ve been released? But we didn’t touch anything!”
Barret frowns too. “The hell’s goin’ on now? Did these assholes do some shady shit behind our backs?”
“It can’t be these guys,” Cloud argues flatly, “We’ve been fighting with them the whole time. If anything, I’m pretty sure we’ve been watched by someone else the whole time.”
“Tch. You thinkin’ it’s the same guy that put us through hell in the Drum?”
“Probably… I can’t think of anyone else who would.”
“Ruby! Take it easy! Don’t kill them!” Aerith calls out from above, patting her head.
“I’m trying not to…” she growls in her deep voice, “but there’s a problem.”
“What’s wrong?”
“They’re already unconscious, but they’re still moving.”
“What?”
“Hey! What’s going on here?” Cait calls out from below. “What’s wrong with them?”
Cloud frowns too. “They’ve been like this since we met them too. It’s like every time we knock ’em out, they just keep getting back up.”
“Ugh. Shoulda known it would be that scientist with his head stuck up his ass. Makes sense he’d be a horror fan too!” Barret replies with plenty of snark.
“So they really are like zombies…” Tifa mutters, feeling a little shaken from grappling with them. “But how would that have happened? Has Shinra really found a way to reanimate bodies, even if they’re unconscious?”
“Hmph. Knowing whatever crazy shit these scientists get into, I’m not even surprised.” He turns back to Cloud. “You heard any weird news a while back?”
“Regarding how they’re making zombies? Of course not. Nothing in the Soldier archives… from what I can recall anyway.”
“Yeah… Wait, but weren’t ya not in Soldier, though?”
“Zack’s memories.”
“…” Barret rubs his head but nods back.
Even while she stamps down on several troopers beneath her feet and tail, Ruby raises her snout around and snorts out a puff of air. Aerith asks her, “What’s up, Cuz?”
“…There’s something in the air.”
“Huh?”
Red snorts as well. “…I thought there was something off. It’s faint, but there are traces of something else that has filled this room.”
“What!? Wait, then what the hell have we been breathin’!?” Barret freaks, “We ain’t gonna turn into zombies next, are we!?”
“From what I can tell, we haven’t turned yet,” Cloud replies.
“Damn, man,” he snorts back, “At least show some kinda concern. You’re makin’ me look off…”
He rolls his eyes, but says nothing more.
Ruby shakes her head. “You won’t have to worry about that unless you turn unconscious too. And we shouldn’t loiter around any longer anyway. Our HQ’s already discovered a lead into our missing civilians and it’s not here.”
“Aw, come on! You mean we’ve just been wanderin’ around in Shinra’s stinkiest shit for no good reason!?” Barret huffs. “This place is rancid, worse than the damn sewers! If we’re gonna go, then let’s go!”
“But what about this factory?” Tifa asks, “It looks like they’re still doing something with the subjects…”
“Don’t know, don’t care. You said it yourself that we wouldn’t wanna know, right?”
“Right… but it feels weird just leaving everything behind like this.”
“Shinra’s got so many dirty secrets that we won’t be able to tackle them all ourselves anyway,” Cloud advises. He turns back to Ruby. “Anyway, you know where that lead is, right? Then take us there.”
“Of course. It’s about time we paid Wutai a visit. Yuffie will be estatic.”
He’s taken aback by that. “Wutai?”
“Whoa! Hold up! We’re really goin’ to Wutai!? That’s where our people gone!?” Barret shouts in disbelief.
“Huh… I guess some things really do work out nicely even without us doing anything,” Tifa comments.
“Then, what’re we waiting for!? Let’s round up the rest and go!”
Ruby shows a sharp, toothy grin. “All aboard the Ruby Express.”
“Toot toot!” Aerith giggles.
“I’ll warp you all back to the surface so we can pick up the kid, Vincent, and our new guest. Of course, I’m also taking you guys back to the ship. We can’t leave Cid and his crew all by their lonesome out there.”
And with that, Ruby casually swipes away more troopers as she reaches out to her crew and waves a hand to get them to step away. With a huge claw to the ground at the center of them, she unleashes a wide-effect warp spell that encompasses them all, and in another bright flash, they’ve vanished.
Though, as much as she was keeping a straight face, there would be something else that continues to linger on Ruby’s mind as she gathers their people. Though she wasn’t quite sure at the moment when she witnessed it for the first time, she grows disturbed as she notices the same strange symbol that has been floating over her crew members since her mysterious eye evolved to sense it. However, it’s only over the main party as she remembers from the original game, with one exception – Aerith. And therein lies the big question that makes her gut sink: aside from Cloud, why are they all in Rubia’s sights?
In the meantime, perhaps a visit to the old water serpent of legend might shine a light or two after all.
Chapter 36: Foul in Fair Weather
Notes:
I don't normally say this since it's up to you guys, but I highly recommend that you check out the notes at the end of the chapter. I have a lot to explain about Wutai, not just the town but the whole dang country, as I've reimagined it for this story. It took me these past few weeks to come up with all this and I'm still working out some details! Thanks.
8/19/23 edit: On second thought, I've reconsidered Godo's position as the leader of Wutai. Rather than make him "emperor", I think shogun would be more fitting and in line with his character. There will be a different character who would take the role of empress in a later chapter. ;)
Outdated A/N
8/23/23 edit: Chapter has been a tough one to write, but I've finally got a working plan and can expect to get it done by tomorrow evening (PST) or Friday. Thank you for your patience.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Detached from the rest of the world is an island nation to the far west, where towering mountains split the countryside into north and south and expansive green pastures remain largely untouched despite its long history of human civilization. For thousands of years, this land has born a unique people and culture that blends fervent religion and pragmatic modernity while still preserving the planet’s natural beauty and resources. Perhaps their extreme seclusion was a big factor in their preservation, but as with anything, perfection cannot stay forever. Despite ongoing efforts to combat the effects, the crisis of the planet has shown its wear over the ages. The mountains used to harbor plenty of greenery of their own, but now are dry and barren with increasingly sparse encounters of the local wildlife. Travelers of old would retell of the once thriving diversity of life, but gone are the days of such safe travels. As of late, locals have reported a disturbing rise of monster attacks out in the open. While the people here are no strangers to monsters of a certain variety, they would have been extremely rare encounters previously. Something may have happened to the creatures to turn them more aggressive than ever, but rumors alone only beget more rumors.
Not to mention, even the people themselves would cease to remain uncorrupted by outside influence. In the wake of the incredibly costly war between two great powers, this one would come to be defeated after a swift and decisive series of events, and thus be forced to pay reparations. While they had long been a self-sufficient nation, with this great burden, the government’s coffers would very quickly drain out and they would find themselves in a long, hard struggle to keep their economy afloat. Their flourishing capital had even downsized, though one wouldn’t notice it at first glance. Now, certain sections of the city were reserved and lent out to foreign investors hungry for some exotic property in a faraway land, and thus those areas would hence be designated as “tourism zones” that would be open to anyone to visit and marvel – except the country’s own people, despite it not being written into law.
Needless to say, there was a great stir in public opinion following the war. Some say it was a valiant effort despite the results, while others shunned the officials who had cowered to their oppressors and sued for peace. That stir would only become more intense within the halls of the old imperial court, whose leader would willingly abdicate his throne in the face of his country’s loss. His political dissenters were split in their responses; some honestly just wanted him dead, but a relatively reasonable judicial court opted to put an end to the violence and instead had him jailed. Then, a new wave of leaders would establish the new Wutai government – a people’s republic represented with the aptly named House of Parliament, where all further national matters would be deliberated by an elected assembly. Nonetheless, this would not be the end to the resistance. A smaller and more extreme faction of the assembly that had advocated for the war to continue would only be swayed if the rest agreed to a compromise: a temporary ceasefire that could always change at a later date.
However, the people outside the bureaucracy would not be left unaware either. Shortly following the end of the war, they would notice a suspicious influx of not just foreign visitors, but also whatever they were selling into the capital. The keenest observers would realize that among those goods were in fact instruments of war. Whatever sort of treaty that the government had accepted from their enemy, it certainly seemed like neither side had expected a long-lasting peace. While news of Midgardian propaganda would not usually reach as far as these shores, their own government was already well under way with their own, spreading a strange mix of conflicting messages that assured the people they were “reentering peacetime” all the while establishing a “self-defense force” that would require a vibrant arms trade, courtesy of underground market forces.
Nevertheless, the times seem to be changing once again. Despite rising international tensions, the government has been wise enough to keep up with worldly news, especially of their adversaries. The recent clamor around the mysterious white dragon that has caused the Shinra Company no end of trouble has not been lost here, and even plenty of the public have celebrated the dragon as a sign of divine recompense. Though officials continue to debate over how best to address the dragon and what to make of her, most agree that she would certainly make a most useful ally as long as they tread carefully. And as things would turn out, there is good news! Despite a prolonged period of radio silence, one of their elite ninjas has reported in with some crucial updates – not just about the results of her mission, but regarding their newest allies, including said divine dragon.
However, things would not be nearly so straightforward as a reception party to welcome them. After all, they aren’t the only foreigners to have an audience with these officials.
~
Despite being instructed otherwise, Yuffie has left her phone on speaker as she reports to the commissioner of their respective division, so the rest of the crew can listen too. She’s briefly explained the situation since the end of her mission, Sonon’s condition, and Ruby’s role in all of it. There’s a brief moment of silence as some murmur of deliberation happens in the background, and then one of the voices on call answers.
“Very well. You have clearance to land.”
Yuffie lets off a sigh in relief. “Finally! Now we’re getting somewhere.”
“However, while your allies are welcome to stay, they must follow protocol and remain in the designated zones for foreign visitors. Even when you are escorting Ruby-dono to the penitentiary, you must have officers in attendance at all times.”
“Yeah, yeah. Got it.”
“Furthermore, I’ve been informed to tell you to bring her to the House of Parliament so that they may hold an audience with her in private.”
“Huh? Wait. What do you mean ‘in private’? Like, do I get to listen in?”
“Unfortunately, no. It seems like only the people of the highest authorities are permitted. Even among our forces, only the Minister of Defense has been granted clearance to attend.”
“What!?” She growls cutely. “What the heck! We’re the highest rank among National Defense, and even we’re shut out of business that we’re supposed to be fighting to protect? Then what’s the point?”
“I’m sorry, Yuffie, but that’s just how it is. I have no say in the matter either.”
“What’s there to even hide…?” She throws up her free arm and pouts. “Ugh, fine. But I swear, I’m gonna find out sooner or later.”
There’s an audible sigh on the other end. “If you insist. But Yuffie, keep in mind that if you end up drawing too many eyes by digging around, I won’t be able to cover for you or Sonon. It was already by tenuous compromise that you were allowed to take this rank despite your connections…”
She blows raspberry. “The only connection I have with that old man now is that we share an eye color. Like I said, we’re only paying him a visit because Ruby says we have to. He’s not going anywhere.”
“I understand. And I hope things go smoothly with Sonon. May he have a speedy recovery.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ve already notified the guards at the front gates that you’re clear to enter, but please keep things civil and wait for the officers to arrive before you head for the penitentiary.”
“I know. I got it the first time.”
And with that, the call ends. Yuffie sighs, rolling her eyes, and slips the phone away. The rest of the crew aboard the Highwind have remained silent out of courtesy of the call, but as soon as the tone clicks off, Barret snorts indignantly.
“The hell are they talkin’ about, ‘designated zones’? We ain’t some damn tourists! How are we supposed to look for our imposters if we’re stuck in some play pen!?”
“They want to meet with Ruby alone? Pretty suspicious if you ask me,” Cloud adds, folding his arms, “I get the whole ‘matter of national security’ and all that, but we’re not Shinra. We’re an outside party that has nothing to do with their would-be war. There shouldn’t be any reason why we can’t hear what they want with her.”
“To be fair, we are a suspicious bunch anyway,” Ruby replies snarkily.
“Speak for yourself,” he snaps back. “Every time we’ve left you alone, you’ve ended up in some kind of trouble that drags the rest of us into it. For all we know, you’ll be coming back with a new contract saying you’re hired as their new WMD.”
“Haha! Hey, I wouldn’t object to that.”
“That’s the problem here…”
“Besides, Ruby,” Tifa offers in a gentler tone, “You may be the best person to be their mediator, but we don’t want to leave everything to you. We came along to help, and if there’s anything we can do to stop this war from happening, we will.”
Cloud nods. “Exactly. And thanks to that ‘deal’ you’ve made with Rufus, we also have to be on the lookout for the Turks while we’re here. We’ve got a lot of work ahead…” He looks up to the ceiling as he thinks it over again and turns to the rest. “So we’ll have to split up into a few groups. I’ll stick with Ruby while she and Yuffie take care of Sonon. After that, we’ll look for the Turks and see what’s going on there.” He then glances toward Barret. “We also got the so-called ‘Avalanche’ and the arms smuggling to deal with.”
Barret nods back with a determined frown. “You can just leave that to me and the old Avalanche gang! That’s our good name that’s been dragged through the mud, so we gotta put a stop to it! Tifa, you comin’ too?”
She smiles. “Of course, Barret. I am part of that old gang, after all.”
“I’m up for it. But what about these ‘zones’ that the government has set up?” Biggs asks, “We might really get in trouble if we try to worm our way out.”
“As if we’ve never broken a few rules before?” Jessie retorts playfully.
“Fighting Shinra is different. This is a whole other country that we don’t have beef with, and I think it should stay that way.”
“Nah, Jessie’s got a point,” Barret argues calmly but firmly, “If we can’t get anything done by playing it safe, then why do it? They might not like it, but we gotta do what we gotta do.”
“Well… yeah. Alright, Boss,” he replies, unwilling to argue with a man who’s made up his mind.
“Ahem!” Yuffie interrupts, “How about you not so I don’t end up in trouble? I’m already covering for you all by making us sound like the heroes, you know!”
“Hey. We get it, Yuffie,” Barret replies with his arms crossed, “but you don’t really expect us to just sit around in some tourist spot and wait to get permission, do ya?”
“No, but if you’re gonna break some rules, then at least do it after we’re done with our thing? So it’d at least seem like we’re trying to be good civilians.”
“And how long is that gonna take? With this slow-ass reception we got from ’em, our imposters might have all the time in the world to clean up their dirty laundry and ditch!”
“It’s just a jail visit! As soon Sonon’s back up, we’ll be on the move too!”
“Though the bigwigs seem to want to see me after that,” Ruby reminds her.
“Well, that’s just you. We’re not allowed to join anyway.”
“And I said that we’re not gonna let her go alone,” Cloud insists.
She snorts with a retort, “What? You think you can barge into our government buildings as you like now? Even I’m not that dumb.”
He gives Ruby a casual glance. “Invisibility?”
“Sure.”
He turns back to Yuffie, who stares back in disbelief. “Yeah.”
“Wh- hey! In that case, do it for me too! I don’t wanna be stuck outside!”
“So you were saying…?”
“Hmph.” Like an improv master, she quickly sings a different tune, “I was saying, we can’t get caught doing it, but Ruby’s basically our cheat code! Besides, I didn’t get to become an elite ninja just by doing what I’m told!”
“Ha! Then there ain’t no problem here!” Barret nods. “We’ll leave ya’ll to that, and while they’re distracted, we can ditch our pen and get to work!”
“But they’ll probably have guards everywhere and someone may notice if we all leave,” Tifa warns, “So some of us can go, but others will have to stay. And we can’t be gone too long.”
“Oh, in that case!” Aerith now pipes up and raises a hand, “I volunteer to be a tourist!”
“Huh?”
Barret frowns, raising a very confused eyebrow. “Aerith, what are you talking about?”
“Well, if they’re going to treat us like tourists, why not make it more convincing? I and a few others can drop in and be good, while the rest of you guys get searching. It’s not like Yuffie said how many of us were going to show.”
“Oh!” Now he grins back with a thumbs-up. “Now that’s a real plan! You got some sneaky ideas sometimes, huh?”
She winks. “I may be a flower girl, but I did live in the slums most of my life.”
“Incidentally…” Red then speaks up, “if you are going to be searching for people, perhaps I should join you? A good nose would be very useful.”
“Great idea!” Wedge cheers, “Now we’re cookin’! More people means the search can go way faster too.”
“And speaking of searches, let us not forget the other mission regarding Don Corneo,” Vincent reminds them, “As well as the situation around the missing civilians.”
Yuffie sticks her tongue out in disgust. “Ugh. I don’t know what’s going on with our government anymore with all that…” She then shrugs and offers, “Well, we can look into them after we’re done with the visit. So are you coming with us?”
He takes a moment to consider it and then nods back. “Very well. Though I have no connection to the Turks now, our paths are bound to cross again…” He makes a subtle smirk aside. “I have to admit, I am a little curious to see what’s become of them.”
“Uh, okay…” She also turns to Leslie, who has been waiting by in the back. “And how about you?”
The latter waves a hand as if not wanting the spotlight right now. “Don’t mind me. If I go now, I wouldn’t know where to look. Just let me know when you find Corneo, or better yet, anything about Meryl. That’s who I actually care about.”
“Alright.” She smirks proudly. “Civies should stay outta the way. This is dangerous territory we’re treading, after all.”
He rolls his eyes. “Wouldn’t imagine otherwise…”
“Is that everything? Okay! Let me just jot a few things down…” Jessie taps away at her PHS as if taking notes. She then raises her own suggestion, “Oh, that reminds me. Since there are a lot of us who are gonna be moving around, I think it’s a good idea that someone keep track of who’s gone where. Ruby’s going to be busy and all, so we can’t wait for her to sync us up.”
“Can’t we just call each other like usual?” Yuffie asks, “It’s worked fine so far.”
“Yeah, but that could get a little troublesome after a while. If someone acts as the ‘operator’, they can relay all the info that we know so far, so you all don’t have to call each other every time.” She playfully waves her device. “Remember, these aren’t just your usual cellphones! It’s got a live feed that listens and records data while it’s active. Makes organizing new plans or backup plans way easier too.”
“Oh.” Yuffie pokes around on her PHS, realizing how much more she has to explore. “Huh, neat.”
“Well, since you’re so insistent, why don’t you do the honors, Ms. Comms Expert?” Biggs teases the idea to Jessie.
“Don’t think I won’t!” she snaps back with her own smirk. “Besides, I don’t even have to go, do I? You’re all big enough to be on your own. And I sure don’t want any officers breathing down my neck while I work. You all have fun, though!”
“Ha! Knowing you, you’ll find some excuse again to drop by anyway.”
“Pfft. As if I’m you?”
“Wha- Hey.”
“Sounds like we all got a place now!” Then, Aerith asks the last lingering question: “So, who wants to join me as tourists?”
Cloud glances around at the other members who have yet to speak up. “Well, you got the cat, the captain, and the rest of the crew.”
One of the crew members then politely waves his hand. “Oh, don’t mind us. It’s been ages since we’ve gotten to work on the Highwind, so we’re comfortable staying. And well, we’re still part of Shinra, so it wouldn’t be the best idea to head in there.”
Another of them suggests too, “Yeah. Hey, why don’t you take the captain out? It’d be nice for him to get some fresh air. The poor guy’s been working himself to the bone helping us sort out maintenance and all.”
And now, the captain, who has been awfully quiet so far, snaps out of his drowsy daze. “Huh? Wuh? Someone call me?”
“Hmm. That’s a good idea.” Aerith cheerfully bounces over to him and takes him by the arm. “Hey, Cid! Let’s go have fun!”
“Huh?” He gives her a stern frown. “Why you wanna go with me? Take the damn cat. He seems like he’d fit.”
“Aw, don’t be like that! You’ve been so helpful that even your guys are saying you should take a break. Besides,” she adds with a glistening excitement in her eyes, “Don’t you wanna check out Wutai? It’s a whole new place and there’s lots of things to explore!”
“Like I give a damn about some backwater island! If I’m goin’ exploring, it’s gonna be the deep stretches of outer space!”
“Hmm…” Aerith looks disappointed, but turns back to Yuffie. “Hey, Yuffie, do you know any interesting occasions coming up where we can look at the stars?”
“Uh…” Yuffie takes a moment to think it over. “Oh. There is the Tanabata Festival in like a week or so. You might see some people starting to set up.”
“Tanabata?”
“Yeah. It’s a sort of wish-making event where people watch the stars and write their wishes for the future on paper strips that they hang on bamboo trees.” Yuffie snorts to herself. “Though these days, it feels like it’s just an excuse for people to party and get drunk as always…”
“Wow! Sounds fun!” Aerith claps her hands with glee and tugs Cid by the arm. “Welp, no time like the present!”
“Wh- HEY! What the hell, girlie! Did anythin’ I say get in your head!?”
“You too, Cait! Let’s go!”
“Oh! Alrighty, lassie!”
Ruby snickers and calls out to them, “Thanks, Uncle Cid! Watch over my Cuz, would you?”
“SHUT UP!”
And the rest of the crew simply watches Aerith drag the very confused captain along out the back and off the deck. Cait Sith shrugs sympathetically to the others, and he and his moogle prance along after them.
Tifa turns back to Cloud. “Well, we’d better get going too. Good luck, guys.”
He nods back. “You too. We’ll be fine. Just worry about your own mission.”
“Right.”
With Barret leading the charge, Tifa, Biggs, Wedge, and Red also hurry off. Finally, Cloud turns back to Ruby, who seems to have vanished without a trace.
“Huh?” He looks around and asks the other two, “Hey. Where’d she go?”
Yuffie peeks off toward the back door. “She ran off that way. I guess to pick up Sonon?”
“Ah.” He nods. “Alright. That shouldn’t take her long, so let’s head out first.”
And yet, as they climb down to the ground and wait for her, they notice that she seems to be taking a bit more time than they expected. Eventually, even as their fellow party members disappear past the city gates’ customs check, while the others are seeking an alternative way in, she still doesn’t show herself. But just as Cloud is about to head back up again, Ruby bursts out from the door, flipping off the side of the gondola and lands on the ground hard, practically piercing the ground beneath her. She’s come equipped with a harness that carries Sonon on her back, and oddly enough, some wooden stilts attached to her boots by duct tape.
“Sorry to keep you, but I’m ready now!” Her goofy grin is instead met with cold, unamused stares that quickly drain away her smile too. “…What?”
“…” Cloud gives her stilts a quick glance and back to her, and lets off a tired sigh. “Let’s get this out of the way… Why are you on stilts?”
“’Cause Sonon’s taller than me? It’d be a real pain to drag him everywhere.”
He throws up a hand in exasperation. “You’re a dragon! You can fly! Just carry him normally!”
“But I’d still be dragging him everywhere…” She drifts off and blinks as she realizes something else. “Wait. Did you just make a stealth pun?”
He stares at her for a moment in utter disbelief and plants a hand over his face. The nerve of this gal. And the idiot was ready to meet some suspicious strangers by herself? Over his dead body.
She pouts, “Geez. What’s the problem? If you hate ’em that much, I’ll take them off after Sonon’s back up.”
He drops his hand and gives her a dismissive wave. “Whatever, I don’t care. Keep ’em. Let’s just go…”
And as the other three begin to head off, Ruby trails behind again. She calls out, “Um, guys?”
Cloud whips back around. “What now?”
Ruby looks down at her feet, where the stilts seem to have dug themselves a little too much into the ground, and now she struggles to get walking. “I’m stuck.”
“…”
The amount of vitriole that is spilling from the look in his eyes is intense enough to make her feel sick in the gut and she brings out the sad puppy eyes. Unfortunately for her, he counters with his own angry wolf eyes.
“Dig yourself out.”
“Come on! Just take that big sword of yours and poke the ground a little!”
“It’s not a shovel!” He shakes his head, throwing out a hand in exasperation. “Like I said, you can fly! Do it!”
“Sheesh, if I have to transform, why don’t I just fly us into the city…” And as soon as the sarcastic comment comes from her mouth, that very same idea strikes her fancy. “Huh. Actually, why don’t I do that?”
“We’re supposed to stop by the front and meet with the officers, aren’t we?” Yuffie reminds her.
Ruby makes a coy smirk. “Sure, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make a real entrance.”
She looks a little caught off-guard. “Uh, what do you mean a ‘real’ entrance?”
By now, Cloud knows Ruby well enough to catch on and his face grows pale. “Wait, Ruby. Don’t…”
Without another word, Ruby lets burst a blast of light and erupts from the ground straight into the air with her regal wings spread. With a dangerously gleeful roar, she soars about and dives right at her party to scoop them up. While Vincent doesn’t bother dodging and lets himself be scooped up, Cloud and Yuffie dive away to avoid her huge claws.
“Ruby!! You asshole!!” he screams.
“No way! No way! No way!! I’m not getting on that!” Yuffie squeals too.
Unfortunately for them, Ruby catches them both in her talons like a predatory bird and launches off into the skies headed for the capital. Perhaps it may be bold to say their screams and her ominous-sounding laughter could be heard for miles even for that brief path through the air; yet amidst it all, Vincent calmly sits atop her back ignoring their plight.
Needless to say, Ruby makes quite the impression on the locals once she appears. They panic and scramble for safety as a giant white dragon swoops in, stirring up some mighty gusts as she slows her descent. She lands neatly upon their main street at the center of town, knocking about items on market shelves and even a few people who were stocking them. Civilians flee or hide and guards rush to the scene, but even as they arm themselves, they stand back at a fair distance, perplexed over how to handle such a menacing, majestic-looking creature.
Paying them no mind, Ruby carefully lowers the now prone Cloud and Yuffie to the ground where they can rest off the motion sickness. Vincent casually hops off as well and looks around at the crowd they have gathered here. Among those who had yet to flee, everyone seems pretty disturbed or fearful; understandably confused as to what all the ruckus is about. Ruby then returns to her human form in another flash, bubbling with glee.
“Hellooo, Wutai!” she shouts in a sing-song voice, bouncing around freely despite the poor guy strapped to her. She particularly pays attention to the signs and stalls that offer fine morsels. “Finally, a place where we can get some good frickin’ food! I’m starved!”
“Ruby,” Vincent calls to her.
She pivots about one leg as she turns to him. “Hm?”
He beckons her with a glance to the squad of officers with their guns aimed at them. “Perhaps we should first explain ourselves to these gentlemen?”
“Ah, I guess so.” She glances back down toward their fallen comrades. “Though, now that I think about it…”
Then come the distraught cries as the guards recognize one of them who’s down. “Y-Yuffie!?” “Yuffie-dono!” “What have you done to her, you fiends!?”
Ruby looks unsure if they’d listen like this, but tries to approach them with a friendly smile and wave. “Don’t worry, everyone! It’s just a little motion sickness! They’ll be right back up on their feet!”
“Hey! The man on her back… That’s the outfit of a ninja! He’s one of ours too!”
“Ah, well, uh…” She feels a cold sweat come over her as she stumbles to figure out how to explain that. “That one’s not motion-sick, but…”
“Stay where you are! Identify yourselves!” one of the guards calls out, perhaps the leader of this squad.
“Um. My name’s Ruby, and I’m a friend of Yuffie’s…”
“Then why is she like this!?”
Her smile starts to falter as she grows tired of this argument already. “I just said why…”
“Hands up and don’t move! You’re under arrest for evading customs check and inciting public disorder!”
Ruby turns back to Vincent, who now looks as tired as she does – maybe a little more so. But as the situation unfolds around her, her quick thinking comes in to help her save face and her eyes light up with yet another fun idea. She goes back to grinning and offers her arms forward.
“Alright! Take me to jail, gentlemen!”
“What are you…?” Vincent asks her, now growing alarmed.
Even the guards are confused, but Ruby keeps insisting with a straight face: “I’m really sorry! You’re right; it’s my fault! I’ll face any punishment! Will you drop us off in the central penitentiary? I hear that’s where some of the biggest baddies go. I think that’s where I should be…”
“…!” Now Vincent catches on to her schemes. He lets off a sigh and shakes his head at her brashness, though. “…Circumstances aside, you’re a quick thinker at least.”
She snickers back. “Sorry, Vince. Looks like we’re going to jail.”
“I’ve certainly met with worse fates.”
~
Ruby is so bored. She taps against the cell door’s bars to the rhythm of a certain jailhouse-themed rock song, but as the song comes to an end in her head, she lets off a sigh as she flops against the bars and slides down to the floor as if becoming like a puddle. Cloud lies on the only bed that has been provided in this cell, as he had previously been carried here to rest, but he’s stirred awake by now. And Vincent sits on the floor in the back, being so still like a statue, as if he had become a resting gargoyle that would leap alive upon the right call.
After their grand entrance, Ruby agreed to let herself and her friends be arrested, but it seems the police have sent them – sans Yuffie and Sonon, of course – directly to a detention center near the penitentiary instead, where they have been waiting quietly while the relevant authorities sort out the ensuing mess of public relations. It’s not quite the particular place she had in mind, but this is but a step away from their intended destination. It's disappointing that they confiscated her stilts, but they were temporary anyway.
She yawns and stretches as she lies on the stony floor and curls up like a pet getting ready to snooze when a slightly irritated voice calls to her to keep her awake.
“Ruby.”
“Hm?”
He passes her an unamused look. “Any reason why you haven’t broken us out yet?”
“We’re waiting for Yuffie to pick us up.”
“…” He looks away again with a disappointed frown. “Do we have to? Can’t you just break the lock?”
“Then the staff will have to replace it, and we don’t want to trouble them further.”
He feels a nerve pop in his head. “We’re in here because of you!” he snaps, whipping back to her with a snarl. “Do something to get us out!”
“What’s the rush, man? We just got here and you want out?”
“We’re in jail! Of course I want out!”
“Oh, relax. We were supposed to come by anyway to see a guy.”
“Yeah, as visitors! Not behind bars!”
“We’re not gonna be held in here for long. As soon as Yuffie drops in, we can go look for her dad.”
He groans in agony and lies back down, too tired to argue with her.
That being said, Ruby finds the floor rather cold and uncomfortable. If only she had a blanket to use to curl up on, it’d be just like old times. She slowly pulls herself back up and scoots over toward the bed where Cloud is.
“Cloud?”
“…What?”
“Is there a blanket somewhere around the bed? I’m gonna take a nap.”
“No. And you’re not gonna take a nap either.”
She snorts. “Who are you to decide that…”
He fires back a glare of his own. “Like you said, we’re not gonna be here for long. Stay awake and be bored out of your mind like you deserve.”
She returns him a disgusted glare, but then her wily mind wanders again and yet another whimsy comes to her. Startling her fellow inmates, she suddenly whines like a spoiled little kid, flopping to the floor again and slapping it as if she were throwing a tantrum.
“Noooo!” she cries with fake tears, “Anything but that! If we’re gonna be stuck in here, then at least play with me!”
“Shut up already!” He rolls onto his side, giving her a seething snarl. “I’ve had it with you and your stupid antics! If you would just stick to the plan for once, we wouldn’t keep running into problems!”
She makes a subtle smirk behind her whiny pout, “But we always get away just fine anyway!”
“Look at how you’ve left Midgar! You call that fine!?”
“Hmph. Not all of that is my fault, though…”
“Damn it, Ruby…” He grinds his teeth. “I don’t know or care what you’re usually thinking, but listen to people when they tell you what’s good for you.”
She immediately stops the whiny voice, firing back with her usual snark, “If I always listened to people telling me what they think is ‘good’ for me, then I wouldn’t be the last living Summon left on this planet and the honorable dragon God that I am.”
“Honorable, my ass! You’re just a brat with too much free time! Someone should smack some discipline into you.”
“Hmph. As if you’d even be able to scratch my skin.” She even rolls over on the floor as if inviting him to scratch her back. “Speaking of which, I got a crick in the back of my neck from lying on this floor for a while. Mind getting that for me?”
That does it. He finally snaps with a low growl. “Oh, you little… I’m gonna crack your spine!”
Without much of a warning, he reaches over to seize her by the collar, but she deftly leaps on all fours out of the way, blowing raspberry at him. He now hops off the bed and rushes her with full intent to throw her down, but she keeps avoiding him like a prancing little imp. But since there isn’t all that much room in this little cell, he quickly catches onto her evasion pattern and throws out a feint, just to swerve around and backhand her, knocking her to the floor.
“Oof!”
For just a brief moment of schadenfreude, he smirks to himself. But then she counters with a sweeping kick that knocks him down into her arms and she locks his neck into a chokehold – that is, until she lets him go with a silly smile and her tongue out. He snorts indignantly and rolls off to pin her, but she wriggles her way out again. They tumble around a bit, flipping back and forth and wrestling for dominance, all the while Ruby growls cutely as if she were acting the part. He’s honestly furious, though.
While their little scuffle unfolds, Vincent watches them with his own tired and somewhat bewildered face. At first, he’s unsure if he should intervene or not, but then coolly calls out, “…Guys. Is this really the time?”
They stop just as Cloud gets back on top and turn to him with blank stares. He looks back down at her, who now cracks up and bursts into laughter. Now that he realizes what he’s been caught up in, Cloud slowly burns up with embarrassment. He throws off her arms and gets off, sitting back to the ground. She rolls back over to climb back to her feet too, still giggling maniacally.
“You’re such a great playdate, Cloud.”
“Stop talking…” he grumbles, burying his face in his hands. “I don’t wanna hear it.”
There’s a brief moment of complete silence, which is then interrupted by the sounds of a door in the vicinity opening and several footsteps coming along this way.
“…Guys! So this is where you were!” Yuffie calls out as she rushes over to their cell. She’s shortly accompanied by a detention guard, who brings the key to unlock the door. “Geez, you’re a handful! Thanks to all Ruby did, I had to talk you all out of your charges! You’d better be grateful!” She then stops when she notices Cloud seems a little out of it. “What’s with him? Still not over his sickness?”
“Nah,” Ruby replies with a smug grin, “but it looks like he’s caught a different sickness.”
“A different one?”
“Huh?” Now Cloud pulls his hands away and whips back to her. “What are you talking about?”
“The infamous ‘I-can’t-believe-that-just-happened’ disease. Symptoms include bright flushes of redness in the face and neck…”
Cloud interrupts her by shoving her aside while she laughs it off and gets back to his feet. Yuffie stares between them, totally lost.
“Uh… What happened while I was away?”
“Nothing,” he quickly answers, firing a glare at Ruby to insist that she not say a word.
And for once, she simply smiles and obliges, waving a hand toward Yuffie as if telling her that it’s nothing she needs to know. Yuffie turns toward Vincent, who doesn’t seem to want to explain either, and she makes a disappointed huff. They all step on out of the cell as the guard shuts it back up.
“So, can we go visit your old pops now or what?” Ruby asks Yuffie with a genuine curiosity.
“Yeah. I already told them, but they said we only have 15 minutes.”
“Oh, that’s plenty. All I need to do is open up a connection. Shouldn’t take long at all.”
The guard beckons them all to follow him as he leads them back out. Ruby continues the conversation as they walk.
“Speaking of the guy, where is Sonon?”
“He was resting in the infirmary, but I asked the guards to help carry him over to Dad’s cell.”
“Oh? We’re not even going to use the usual visitor’s room?”
“Nah. With him, they were told to keep him in his cell and only pass correspondence when he gets any. He’s put under a high-risk security level, after all.”
Cloud blinks, caught a little by surprise. “He’s high-risk? Why? Who is your dad anyway?”
“Hm? You don’t know?” She shrugs. “Well, I guess Ruby would be the only one who would.” She goes on to explain, “He was the former shogun of Wutai, but left his position after the war was a huge flop.”
“What? He’s the leader of your country?”
“Was! Not anymore since he was arrested. The other officials didn’t like how he handled the war and all, and they forced him to resign.”
“Oh.” He rubs his head. “So what would that make you, then?”
“Me? I’m an elite ninja from the highest rank of our National Defense forces. Didn’t you hear me earlier?”
“Even though your dad was the former shogun who was forced to resign…”
“Like I keep telling everyone, that doesn’t matter!” She throws up a determined fist. “My skills are the real deal and no one can tell me what I can’t do!”
“Uh-huh…”
“Hmph. Just ’cause you haven’t seen me in action yet doesn’t mean I can’t whoop a whole legion of Shinra baddies. Sonon and I infiltrated Shinra HQ no prob, after all. It was just a little mess that we got caught in at the end…”
“And Ruby helped break you out of it, huh?”
“…” To his surprise, though, Yuffie doesn’t argue back; instead grows solemn. She replies, “Yeah. That was when I learned that there are still people way scarier out there. But…” She then catches a punch into her other hand. “That’s why I still gotta keep training. Even the ‘single white rose of Wutai’ has her limits, as someone once told me. I have to keep going until those limits are so far out that no one else can even compare. Then and only then, I won’t have to worry about anything anymore…”
“…” Cloud’s expression softens with a bit of sympathy and he nods back in understanding.
The guard finally leads them out of the center, taking a road accessible only to authorized personnel that leads from it to the penitentiary next door. He likewise grants them access through a back door to the building and leads them toward the nearest elevators. And while they wait for the elevator, Ruby then replies to Yuffie’s last statement.
“To be perfectly honest, Yuffie… I don’t agree.”
“Huh? With what?”
“That you won’t have to ‘worry’. As I’ve learned the hard way many times over, there’s never an end to worry, no matter how strong you are.”
“Huh?” Yuffie blinks and gives her a confused frown. “Really? Even for someone at your level?”
“Heh. Actually, it’s the other way around.” She crosses her arms and returns her a confident smirk. “It’s because I’m at this level that I have a constant deluge of worry.”
She raises an eyebrow. “And yet, you say that with a smile on your face…”
There’s the ding of their awaited elevator at last. Ruby nods back to Yuffie with that same smile and then heads in first, shortly followed by the rest, and the guard quietly sets their next destination and lets the doors close.
Ruby continues, “As they say, great power bears great responsibility. That’s just how it is and there’s no point to feeling down about it.” She passes a coy glance to Cloud too. “Like a certain someone told me earlier, I’ve left some nasty scars in my wake even with the best of intentions… needless to say, some less-than-noble ones.”
“…” Yuffie frowns. “So what? You think I’m wrong for wanting to get ridiculously strong like you?”
“Of course not. You should want to get stronger. We all should. But remember: the greatest power isn’t something that one person wields.”
“Huh?”
“It’s the kind that is shared among the people you want to protect, and so they in turn can protect you too.”
Yuffie stares back at her, taken aback that Ruby of all people would be the one to say such a thing. And she would dare say that even after all the times where she singlehandedly saved a whole section of a metropolis, as well as sweeped away some of their worst enemies up to now without breaking a sweat. She’s even the only one who can help Sonon in his state. How does she still think that she needs anyone to “protect” her?
The elevator stops and the doors open with another ding. Before them lies a dimly lit corridor on this subterranean floor set apart from the rest of the prison, where there is but one inmate that has been locked away on this floor. For both the security of the man himself and of those that once associated with him, he has been secluded in a room to himself where he can be put under constant monitoring.
However, once the guard that has led them here opens the secure door to the room in question, the party step inside to find a rather comfortable-looking living space – a sweet suite, one could say. Though secluded as this place is in solitary confinement, it is well lit and elegantly decorated as if it were a private bunker fit for a lord of such high standing, even if his name has been disgraced out in public. The prisoner isn’t even bound in chains or tied down; but simply relaxing on the couch behind a large flatscreen TV, watching the recent news as it has unfolded. And resting on a futon nearby is Sonon, who has been delivered here, safe and sound.
The guard that escorted them here then gently shuts the door so they may have a private conversation, though security cameras in the room still show movement inside. Cloud, Ruby, and Vincent look around in awe and disbelief before turning back to Yuffie, who is the only one who isn’t surprised.
She shrugs. “Dad always had a way with words that got him the best things.”
“Well, well… what an exciting day it’s been. Not only was I notified of Yuffie and Sonon’s return out of the blue, I see they’re accompanied by some particularly distiguished friends.” The man on the couch gets up from his seat and welcomes them to join him around a neatly placed kotatsu table nearer to the back. “Please, everyone, take a seat.”
While the others oblige, Yuffie snorts and crosses her arms, standing her ground by the door. “For the record, old man, we’re not here to relax and sip some tea with you. We’re here to talk about Sonon and only that.”
“Well, I would like some tea,” Ruby insists as she takes a seat, and Yuffie fires off an annoyed scowl her way.
The man nods back with a solemn but dignified expression. “I’m afraid we only have some plain old matcha left. I’ve happened to finish off most of the stock since the last time they restocked the shelves.”
“Oh, that’s fine, sir. I like matcha at any grade.”
Then, there’s the curling of his lips into an amused smirk. “A woman of culture, indeed. Please wait a moment. I’ll be back shortly.”
He heads over to the kitchen side of the room further in the back. Ruby glances around at her fellow party members, though it seems like she’s the only one of them who’s quite casual and comfortable here. Yuffie remains alert and stubborn by the door, and while Cloud and Vincent have stepped further in, neither one seems willing to sit down just yet. After a few short minutes, their courteous host returns with a dainty-looking teapot and some teacups on a tray. He proceeds to set them down on the kotatsu and takes a seat before it himself.
“Please, help yourself.”
She turns back to him with a kind smile. “Thank you, sir. You’re most kind.”
“There’s no need to thank me. It’s the least I can do.” He then admits, “Or rather, it’s only natural given that your reputation precedes you… Lady Ruby.”
She chuckles. “Oh, so you do know me. That makes things much easier.” She also waves a dismissive hand. “But with all due respect, Lord Godo, you don’t have to be so formal with me. I’m not here as an emissary for any country, and even if I were, I’m not fond of such stiff mannerisms. Let’s loosen up a bit?”
“Hm, I see…” He nods back in understanding, but then firmly insists, “However, I feel it would be inappropriate if I were to treat such a venerable guest lightly, so I hope you’ll forgive me that I keep the courtesies.”
“Fine. Whichever suits you.” She takes a calm sip of her cup, sets it down with a warm smile, and then gets serious as well. “In any case, sir, do you know why we’re here?”
Now his smile fades and he passes a glance over to Sonon and back to her. “I can wager a guess that it has to do with my faithful disciple there, though I’m afraid that the details are lost on me. After all, it was just moments ago that they had alerted me that he was being escorted here.”
“Yeah, sorry about the suddenly drop-in visit. You were the only one I could think to contact that would be able to help me with his condition.”
“I’m flattered that you would think so highly of me, but I don’t even know what his condition is.”
“It’s not something light, to say the least…” Ruby leans back, propping herself by her arms, and lets off a sigh. “It’s a sort of curse. The poor guy’s been trapped in darkness for long enough that his soul has become lost between the world of the living and the afterlife, and he won’t be able to wake until the right circumstances are met.”
“Oh? And what are those circumstances?”
“He needs a voice to guide him back to this world. I’ve tried to talk with him through setting a spiritual connection, but he won’t answer me. I can only guess that it’s because he doesn’t recognize my voice, and I don’t think he knows Yuffie well enough to distinguish her voice either.” She sits back up and offers a hand forward. “That’s where you come in, sir.”
“Hmm…” He nods back. “I see now. So he needs someone he can deeply trust to reach out to him.”
She takes another thoughtful sip. “As I understand, he was an orphan that was taken into your care, right? So you’re practically like a father to him.”
Godo lets off a soft chuckle, but maintains his regal, stoic face. “You’re well informed, Ruby-dono. I have to say I’m impressed.” He then nods back and presents her with a respectful bow. “If I can be of assistance, then I would be honored to lend a hand.” He pulls back up. “After all, I figure it must have been a while since he’s been left in this state.”
“Yeah…” Ruby makes an awkward smile as she admits, “We ran into some delays along the way and couldn’t come to see you at the time. But as it would happen, many of our current issues have led us here anyway.”
“Hmm. I understand you must have quite a busy life to lead.” He nods and speaks firmly, “Then, let us get to work! I will do anything within my power to help. Now what can I do for you?”
She’s back to her usual cheery grin. “Come closer and I’ll show you.”
Ruby moves to get back up and kneels down by Sonon, with Godo following shortly, and she asks him to take a seat and get comfortable. The others watch attentively – even Yuffie sneaks up closer to get a better view – as she puts a hand upon each of their foreheads. Then, she closes her eyes and begins to cite an incantation in mind to open the gates for a link of minds and hearts, rather than of spoken words.
“Lord Godo, feel free to speak to him. You have the floor.”
He obliges, and with a commanding tone, he orders his disciple to return: “Sonon Kusakabe, of the Hidden Leaf, it’s time to wake. You have a new mission that I shall bestow upon you.”
~
Somewhere amid the dark abyss, Sonon starts awake. He feels rather lightheaded, and he seems to be adrift in darkness everywhere he turns. What happened? Where is he? The last thing he can remember was the heat of a battle where he rushed to the aid of another – a young girl – and pushed her out of the way. Wait… but when was that? And who was that girl?
All this time, he gets the feeling he was searching for her. He was searching for someone… someone close to his heart. Someone who he absolutely had to find, no matter what. Someone that he had to save. To protect. And finally it comes to him: flashes of a certain tragedy that he never thought would have left his mind in the first place.
~
The country was at war. The thundering noise of gunfire, giant machines stomping about and wrecking havoc on the front lines, screams of his fellow soldiers as they’re bombarded to seemingly no end. Wutai was being pushed back even on their home front. Try as he might to keep up, Sonon couldn’t reach many of his brothers in arms in time before they would be blown to smithereens or just disappear entirely in the thick smog.
No, but it wasn’t just the front lines. Shinra forces were encroaching too far. One group of mechs even made it as far in as the camps where the medics were stationed. This was terrible. No, not just terrible – it was hell on Gaia. Merciless machines gunned down the weary, prone, and defenseless alike. People scattering about, fleeing for their lives, only to be shot anyway. And yet, even amid all this chaos, Sonon could only think of one person in particular.
“Melphie!!”
Despite direct orders for his division to hold the line, he abandoned his post in a panic and rushed back to the camps in search of his little sister. Unfortunately, by the time he got there, the site was trashed and overrun by even more of those monsters and evil men alike. Fearing the worst had happened to her, Sonon released all his rage and thrashed out at some of them that dared to target him next. Among them was another of those huge mechs that the enemy troops were rallying behind, their cocky sneers mocking this lone and lost soldier. And yet, despite the odds, he managed not only to smash it to pieces, but proceeded to wipe clean the rest of the troops that were frozen stiff before this fearsome warrior.
But he couldn’t take them all on. He had to duck back as reinforcements would arrive. And as he made a mad dash away and took cover around the corner of a stony bluff far enough away that the mechs wouldn’t immediately catch him, he stopped to catch his breath and calm his nerves. He couldn’t find a single sign of Melphie among the deceased… No, but wait. That would be a good sign, right? That should mean that she must have somehow escaped. But where did she go? She couldn’t have gone too far. Shinra forces already made it this far, so there wouldn’t be an easy route to escape.
Taking a few deep breaths to calm himself further, he began to rethink his steps and consider the state of the battlefield. Melphie was always the active one compared to him when it came to throwing out a hand to others, even strangers they had never met before, and she certainly didn’t grow out of that habit as an adult. So, if anything, she must have moved to a different site closer to the front lines – even though medics weren’t allowed to do so. She always had a bit of a rebellious streak, though, especially when it came to stuffy old men who like to tell others what to do. And besides, in these hectic times, it’s pretty much come to every man for himself.
He steeled his resolve and rushed back out into the open as soon as he checked the coast was clear. Maybe those mechs finally moved on from the camp and he could check it thoroughly this time. He rushed back to the site and began to search through the mess of collapsed tents, giant ditches where there had once been flat land, and dead bodies strewn across the field. But still, wherever he looked, there was no Melphie.
And then, a fearful dread hit him: She didn’t just disappear and return to the planet already, did she? No. No way. She was much too young and hardheaded to just give up on life. If she was hurt, she would have still mustered the strength to carry on. She had to be alive somewhere.
Just then, he heard the scream of a woman nearby and he rushed right on over to see what had happened. It was another of the medics who had miraculously survived, but she was crying over the body of another – most likely a father or brother or star-crossed lover. He felt her pain, but could do or say nothing to comfort her. It’s just one of many awful scenes during wartime that soldiers like him were trained to bear with and keep quiet.
However, they wouldn’t be left alone for long. The woman’s scream alerted some Shinra troops in the vicinity and they directed their menacing mechs this way in case there were any survivors. Without another thought, Sonon seized the woman by the arms and pulled her away from the body even despite her vehement objections. In any case, they had to get to safety. Rather than foot soldiers like him, the medics were much more important at this critical time. He found his way back toward the stony bluff where he had hid, safely lowered the medic to rest here for now, and reassured her that he would call for help. And with that, he hurried back into the open to continue his search.
However, the troops from earlier had managed to track him and they returned with not just one giant mech, but two this time. But he wasn’t going to run anymore. He braced himself with metal staff in hand and leapt through the ensuing bombardment to return the favor. He once again swept through the lowly grunts, but the mechs were always the real problem. Nonetheless, he had taken one down before; what’s another two?
But just as he would unleash the last of his reserves to go all out, a massive explosion would erupt in the distance and draw his attention for a brief moment. And to his utter disbelief and horror, it came from one of the watch towers near the capital. No way. What are the garrison doing!? Had Shinra already reached that far? But then what of this amphibious assault on the beaches? And then, he hit upon a horrid truth: maybe this wave of Shinra troops and mechs here were just a distraction to pull away many of Wutai’s forces, while their greater powers could launch a direct invasion. Even as the war had shortly begun, it would be so quick to come to a dire situation.
Just as he was trapped in a daze between disbelief and despair, he would then hear a familiar voice call out to him from nearby.
“Sonon! Watch out!”
“Melphie!?”
He just barely dodged the ensuing bombardment that would fill the area with dust and smoke. He coughed as he could barely breathe. This kind of bomb was especially thick with a dense smoke that not only choked the air out of him but would even nearly blind him. And as he stumbled out to find clean air, he would run right into one of the mechs.
“!?”
But what happened next shocked Sonon even more. Out from the haze, Melphie would jump to his aid and shove him out of the way as the machine fired off some paralyzing needles that pinned her down to the ground.
“Melphie!!”
“R-run…”
“Hold on, we’re gonna get you outta here!”
But he wouldn’t even have time to flee with her before the mech before him would let fire again, hitting him dead in the back, piercing his lungs full of holes. And yet, by some miracle, he would find the strength to persevere, stand back up and make his counterattack that would smash through the mech that dared to assault his sister. Despite his injuries, he zipped about and pummeled it over and over, shoving and knocking it far away from where his sister lied.
But the creeping haze would cover her whole and he lost sight of her for just a moment. He quickly whipped up a whirlwind of his own with his staff. As the dust cleared, though, he would find his sister lying on the ground, but now there was the other huge mech standing over her, and his blood ran cold.
“NO!!”
He ran with all his might to catch her, but stumbled on his feet and fell to the ground as well. His injuries from earlier were too serious to just ignore, but he had to get her out of the way. He had to reach her. But all of a sudden, his body didn’t seem to want to listen to him anymore.
“M… Melphie…!”
“…S-Sonon… I’m sorry.”
Before his very eyes, the mech let fire and punched her full of holes.
“MELPHIEEEE!!!”
~
And as if it were all but a dream, the scene around him would suddenly fade to black. And once more, Sonon finds himself lost in the strange abyss. That’s right. That was what he had been chasing all this time. His sister was gone, and he’s just been circling around this same tragedy over and over, forgetting it every time and being forced to relive it; caught in a vicious cycle of eternal torment. He can’t help but let out a devastated scream into the void.
If only he were stronger. If only he could have smashed his way through everything. If only he weren’t so easily distracted that he could have found his sister earlier, so she wouldn’t have had to jump in the way. Then, even if it was still a hopeless effort for Wutai, at least he could have saved the one person he had been fighting for in the first place.
And yet, even in the midst of this darkness, there would be another voice that would call to him. It is an unfamiliar voice, a grand, deep one that almost reverberates the very space around him.
“If thou wishest for strength, then I may provide… but thou shalt bear a great cost.”
And almost as if guided by that voice of promise that renewed some feeling of hope in his despair, he drops his hands and almost mindlessly trudges forward toward it, sinking further into the dark.
~
“What the hell! Where is he going!?” Ruby snaps, likewise snapping out of her trance.
The rest of her audience are just as startled when she suddenly yells aloud, and Yuffie, who was crouched over Sonon, is disturbed just so that she topples over onto her back.
She sits back up with a frown. “Geez! What’s the big idea!?”
To everyone’s alarm, Ruby seems to be breathing rather heavily in her frustration.
Cloud stares at her. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
Ruby takes a few more breaths before she finally lets it out and settles her nerves, sinking back into a slump. “Sonon got lost again.”
“What?”
Vincent narrows his eyes with concern. “Did you manage to reach him at least?”
“Barely. We were so close… He was still stuck in a dream just as he was trying to stir awake, but being trapped in that darkness meant reliving some nasty things in his life. But just as I was gonna reach out and yank him by the ear, something got in the way.”
“Something?”
“Was he too far gone into the darkness?” Cloud asks.
“No. That force wasn’t one of darkness… but it was one of assholery.”
“Uh…?”
“Well, maybe they’re not that different.” She shrugs and then strikes a thinking pose. “But my question is, why did that voice sound familiar to me? I don’t have anything to do with Sonon’s story.”
There’s an awkward silence that follows as confusion sets in. After a meaningful moment of deliberation, though, Godo finally speaks up.
“Perhaps I can answer something after all.”
Ruby whips back to him. “Oh. Yes?”
“Though I would not be so bold to claim I would ‘recognize’ it, I believe I may have heard a similar voice as that before.”
“Huh? When and where was that, sir?”
He begins to stroke his beard and reminisce. “It was long ago, when I was still a young man myself. At the time, I had become lost during a personal trip through the Da-chao Mountains. And upon meeting a certain cave in the furthest recesses, I would come upon a great fire that prevented me from treading further. That was when I heard the semblance of a voice that warned me to stay away.”
And as soon as he mentions as much, Ruby’s mind clicks and she’s reminded of a particular cave like that from the original game she played. Wait a second. But that cave was…
Godo nods, noting the shocked look on her face. “It seems you already know, Ruby-dono. It would be the cave where the great serpent Da-chao – also known as Leviathan – would have laid to rest and sealed himself away in ancient times.”
And then, Ruby’s expression darkens into genuine anger. “…That bastard.”
“!?”
“Er… pardon my language, sir. But now I see that I need a quick chat with my dear old uncle.”
He blinks, still a little taken aback that their venerable deity was just called such a thing. “Oh, um… By ‘uncle’, do you mean…?”
“Leviathan. I’d like to stop by there and confront him.” She raises up a tight fist, burning full of defiance. “And beat him up so he’ll let Sonon go.”
Notes:
Here's a Question of the Week: any guesses on what the heck is going on with da big snek?
Anyway, as I said, I have completely overhauled Wutai and we got a lot to cover. Lotsa details. You have been warned.
Location trivia and original content with reimagined details
- Ah, Wutai... also known as "Chapan" to my younger self. It was because of this game that in my early youth, despite being of Chinese ancestry myself, I thought "Wutai" was actually Japanese. I was a silly little goober.
- Fyi, it's the name of an actual sacred mountain in China known for its five terraces and peaks and its importance in the Buddhist faith. Wu means "five" and tai means "level, story, stage, platform", etc.
- So, in the original game, the town of Wutai was a rather small village where not that many people would be around, there were basically two different field maps and the one for the Da-Chao mountain (singular, not plural) in the back. I fully anticipate this to change by the time Rebirth shows off Wutai in full, glorious HD, though they might still keep more in line with how the original looked. I can only hope that maybe they'll throw in some Meiji-era or even Cultural-Revolution-inspired renovations to their new government.
- Meanwhile, I've gone ahead and reimagined the town as a full-sized capital city that can be broken up into different wards like in Tokyo or Beijing, though the general design of the architecture and people are more like a hodgepodge of Kyoto and World Heritage sites in China.
- Originally, the little village was more like a humble port town (the FF wiki cites Itsukushima because of their signature green mountains in the back, but all these little port towns look similar from afar if you ask me), where there was just one side where people could enter from; namely, the shores. In my version, the city now has a sturdy wall erected around it, with watch towers lined around and multiple gates from which to enter. The primary gate is at the southeast end like in OG, though I picture there is another to the west with more details still pending.
- Upon entering the gates, there is a bustling marketplace where there are shops, restaurants, and other establishments lining every street and people roam to and fro. And at night, they're lit up like the night sky. For reference, think night markets in Taiwan.
- Speaking of festivities, Tanabata is very much a Japanese event with its own mythos, but it has ancient origins in the Chinese Qixi Festival, with the general shared theme of two star-crossed lovers destined to meet only once every year.
- While the locals may dress in a style more reminiscent of stereotypical Chinese robe and dress, there are plenty of characters that look like they're wearing more Japanese-style garb too (at least, from what I can tell of the polygonal people). So, I'll mix and match styles.
- The decor and technology are likewise updated to be an odd mix of traditional and modern, where the architecture and standard dress are still the same, but inside the homes, people can have electric stoves and heaters and TVs. (Please, let them have TVs in Rebirth. It'd be so funny seeing the contrast!)
- There is also a detention center and penitentiary that aren't connected, but neighboring each other, located somewhere near the center of the city, and for convenience's sake, I'm also setting the municipal courthouse somewhere there too. As much as the Ace Attorney fan in me wants to play that drama, I'm afraid Ruby isn't the kind to stay in a court of law for long.
- The Da-Chao mountains (plural, not singular) have also been reimagined, though they still look and feel pretty much the same with those giant statues up front. I just decided to stretch the mountains to go further inland so there is extra space for me to put some new and original Leviathan lore incoming. Maybe even a whole heckin' shrine for da big snek. Also, I'm taking the fire cave and pushing it further back, away from the statues.
- Not to mention, I have plans to draw up a whole other town down south because this country feels way too empty with just one little village. The plot will continue there as well.
- I may update this list with more details as I think about them down the line. For now, let's go with this.
- Anyway, the city and geography aside, I admit I don't remember everything from Sonon's brief flashback in Intermission, so I added my own flair to it like I did with the Nibelheim flashback. Because it took place in the early war, Zack hadn't shown up yet, so that wasn't him on the attack. Hope you all enjoyed it.
Chapter 37: A Secret Sleeping in Muddy Waters
Notes:
My chapters may not be getting much longer, but they are getting more in-depth. I had to cut out a lot from this chapter to put to the next. Nevertheless, it's no less a labor of love for me to write and for you to read, I hope!
Outdated A/N
Hopefully I won't wait until Friday again, but we'll see if it's okay to make it the new weekly update date.
Non-spoilery trivia on the state of Wutai and FF7 concept drafts
Did you know that the concept drafts for Wutai and Yuffie's quest there were way more extensive? I reccommend checking the Wutai page on the FF Wiki for more details, but basically, Yuffie was expected to have a rival character who was heir to the actual throne, and there was even a high priestess who was actually in charge because this heir was still young. In those events, the Kisaragi family was serving this heir, rather than the leaders themselves. I instead went with a compromise between the concept and final drafts of FF7 by instating Godo as shogun instead, while the state religion has been reimagined to include Rubia's history as well.
And well, Remake Intermission gave me some juicy inspo to write about delving into a more complicated politics and power struggles of this country. Regardless of how Rebirth or the 3rd Remake game does it, I want there to be a version of Wutai that is actually a melting pot of East Asian history and culture more than just being a tourist site. Someone has to write this story.
6/24/25 edit: Finally got around to replacing the name for Wutai's "Mighty Gods" to "Saints" to be in line with Crisis Core's naming scheme. This will apply to all future chapters.
Chapter Text
After they traveled all this way and found the man they had been looking for, there would be yet one more step to overcome before the party could save Sonon from his prolonged distress. He wouldn’t answer to anyone’s calls, but instead be spirited away by a certain enigmatic entity. And then, out of the blue, Ruby declared that she must defeat Leviathan for his sake.
“What are you talking about, Ruby?” Yuffie asks with a demanding tone. She even whirls a finger by her head. “Did diving back into the darkness knock a few screws loose or something? What happened with Sonon? Is he alright?”
“Probably, but he’s not coming out yet. I have to get rid of the last barrier.”
“And the last barrier is Leviathan!? Are you serious?”
“For once, yes.”
“You really are loco! Why would our country’s guardian spirit keep Sonon from returning when he hasn’t done anything wrong!? What do they even have to do with each other anyway?”
Ruby shrugs, turning back to Godo. “Any ideas how they’re connected, sir? Even the slimmest link will do.”
“Hmm…” He closes his eyes and gives his beard a thoughtful stroke as he ponders, and then opens them again. “Well, I’m not exactly sure if this is relevant, but one thing that occurred to me was the time when Sonon had once studied under a certain mentor.”
“A certain mentor? I thought he studied under you, though?”
“He did, but I was not his only one. Sonon was a particularly gifted student when it came to fighting technique. He had undergone a strict training regiment to become a ninja since he was young, and he even trained in multiple forms of martial arts over the years. As it happens, one of them was known as the ‘Raging Tempest Fist’.”
She blinks, looking like a very fascinated child. “Oh, that sounds cool.”
“Though, if I recall, there was only one man who would teach that style. He was a most accomplished martial artist who had many students from all over the world. Unfortunately, he hasn’t been around for a long time, so I can’t tell you where he’s gone.”
“Sounds familiar…” She makes a coy smirk. “Was his name Zangan, by any chance?”
Godo blinks in surprise. “Oh, you know him? I have to say, I’m impressed. The man doesn’t make himself very well known.”
Yuffie rolls her eyes. “Yeah, she knows pretty much anyone who’s at least a little important.”
Ruby makes a proud smile. “He was also the one who trained one of our party members. We have an accomplished martial artist of our own, you see.” That smile then shifts for a gentler, more relieved one. “From last I heard, he was doing fine and was traveling again. I’m hoping to be able to meet him someday.”
Godo nods back. “And as do I. Zangan and I were, you could say, close company in our younger days.”
“Best buddies, I guess?”
He chuckles. “Better: we were sworn brothers.”
Now her eyes are glistening. “With sake cups exchanged and all?”
“But of course. And as it would turn out, we also had a fierce rivalry when it came to who could hold his liquor.”
Ruby grins at the image that comes to mind, while Yuffie sticks out a tongue in disgust.
“Yeesh. Dad and his pals were thinking about pretty much nothing but fighting and drinking when they were young…”
“To be fair, Yuffie, most guys are like that,” Ruby remarks playfully.
“Hmph. Even Sonon?”
“Maybe? Never got to see him drink, though.”
“Well, it’d be nice to celebrate after you bring him back… but he’d better not get himself wasted! We still got a whole lot of missions to do!”
“And on that thought…” Ruby turns back to Godo. “If you don’t mind, sir, we’d like to meet with the great serpent in question.”
He looks a little surprised that she would ask him. “I see, but how are we to do that? It has been an very long time since Leviathan last appeared on our shores.”
“A long time, huh? Even with his materia?”
He now catches onto what she intends, but then shakes his head. “Hmm… My apologies, Ruby-dono, but that materia is no longer with me.”
She blinks, now a little alarmed. “What? What happened?”
He crosses his arms and gives a sigh. “It was seized by the state after I abdicated from the throne. The House of Parliament has voted to keep the materia ‘safe’, but I was not informed of where they relocated it.”
“Ah… that sucks.” Ruby strokes her chin as she devises up an alternative. “Then, is there some other place we can go to see Lord Buobuo instead?”
“What did you just call him?” Yuffie cuts in, jabbing a finger in the side of Ruby’s head.
Ruby answers with an ever smug and defiant tone, “Would you rather I call him ‘Uncle Levi’ instead?”
She flings her arms up with a look of horror. “No! That’s even worse! Now he sounds like some country bumpkin! What’s wrong with just sticking with ‘Leviathan’!?”
Ruby returns to Godo, paying her complaints no mind. “Well, sir? It can be any sort of religious site or shrine or temple, if there is one. I just need somewhere closer to where a Godly spirit may linger.”
He puts a hand to his chin to think and nods back. He then puts his hand back down and calmly replies, “…I believe there is a place, actually. Past the Da-chao mountains to the far north, there is a valley that flows down directly to the sea. Long ago, my ancestors had built a shrine in the face of the cliff, directly facing the sea in honor of Da-chao-sama. It was tradition to travel through the mountains to reach the shrine, you see.” He then lets off a sigh. “However, eventually those trips ceased to be. Perhaps it was due to the difficulty of the journey being on foot, or perhaps it was due to the increased frequencies of monster and bandit attacks along the way. In any case, as the custom died away, so had the importance of that particular shrine. Though I and a few stalwart fellows used to help clean it up to ward off wear from the whims of nature, it has been difficult for us to gather there as of late.”
Ruby slowly nods along. “Hmm, I think we have an answer to why Uncle Levi stopped answering calls.”
“Would you stop calling him that! Geez!” Yuffie whines, “I know you’re a Summon and all, but if you keep that up, he might not want to answer you either!”
Godo likewise frowns, but more to the other point. “It’s unfortunate, but I did suspect that the changing of our religious customs was one of the reasons. While the legend goes that the great serpent had shaped our land in ancient times, that legend hasn’t really been spoken of in sermons and lectures for a long time either.”
“Huh?” Ruby blinks, now taken aback herself. “What happened to the religion here? What have they been teaching, then?”
“The word of Wutaia.”
“Wutaia?”
“Yes. That is the name of the Holy Mother and esteemed founder of this country, who was said to have summoned the great serpent here in the very beginning of creation, and the land was thus named ‘Wutai’ in Her honor.”
“What?” Now Yuffie jumps in again, “But that doesn’t make any sense…” She then quickly backtracks as her father gives her a suspect look, “Er… Nothing. Never mind.”
Though she easily notices Yuffie is clearly hiding something else that may be of interest, Ruby decides to ask her later and moves on, “Anyway, I think it’s due time that someone stop by that old shrine and help clean it up.”
Godo gives a smile to that. “If it won’t trouble you, that would be greatly appreciated.”
“It’s no trouble at all. We can do that right after this. Though…” She then pivots on her rear back to her party. “If we’re going to have yet another detour out of town, it’d be better that one of us stays back.”
Cloud proposes, “Aren’t the others already in town? We could just ask them if they’ve heard anything.”
“Different teams, different objectives. Vincent tagged along to help us find the Turks, right? I think it wouldn’t help him if we left the city entirely.”
Vincent nods along. “It’s no problem. I can stay and wait for you all.”
“But do you know where to look?” Yuffie asks him. “We wouldn’t want you getting lost, you know.”
He rolls his eyes, but makes a subtle smirk to himself. “Don’t worry. I can fend for myself. It’ll be easier for me to tail our targets alone anyway.”
Ruby claps her hands together as if offering an apology. “I promise we won’t take too long! And thanks as always. Oh! We’ll meet back up at a place where it’ll be easy to gather…”
“By the House of Parliament, right?” Yuffie answers, “We were gonna go there next.”
“Nah.” Ruby points a finger off in a very different direction. “We’re stopping by the Happy Turtle.”
Her jaw drops. “What?”
“What? You know the place.”
“I know, but why the bar!? That’s so far from where we’re going!”
“Not when you have these wings…”
“Ruby! Don’t tell me you have a drinking problem too!”
“Of course, it’s a bar…” Cloud buries his face in his hand too. “Ruby, don’t get any wrong ideas. We can meet outside, but we’re not going in.”
Ruby tries to wave their worries away, though. “Oh, relax, guys! It’s a great spot to meet people of all sorts! I even get the feeling the Turks might have dropped by there too…”
He fires back a disbelieving glare. “They’d be in a bar when they’re supposed to be on duty? Get real.”
“Hey, I get it, but I got that feeling based on some alternate timeline visions-”
He groans, turning away. “Stop using that excuse when you’re bullshitting.”
“Hmph…” She folds her arms too. “At least I know exactly where it is. It’s an easy place to jump back to if we warp.”
He whips back with a suspect glare. “Yeah. You’re just thirsty again, aren’t you?”
“I’m serious!” she pleads, but finds that her puppy-eyed looks no longer work on him. She pulls back with an annoyed huff. “No, but really. If you wanna stay undercover, I doubt anyone who’d be looking for us would think about dropping by there.”
Finally, now that she actually gives a reasonable explanation, he relents with a dissatisfied grunt. “…Fine. Then you’d better know the way to where we’re supposed to be.”
Ruby swerves back to Yuffie with a grin. “Well, that’s where this one comes in!”
The latter is so startled that she nearly falls backward. “You don’t even know how to navigate the city!? I thought you knew everything!”
“Hey, this place is a lot bigger than I remember it. I’m like a fish out of water.”
Now she slumps forward. “What do you remember, then? A fishing village? How far back in time are we talking?”
Ruby’s grin stays as she mutters aloud, “…Do you really want me to answer that?”
“Ugh. Forget it.” Yuffie rights herself and waves her hand dismissively. “Fine. Since you’re really that helpless, I guess I can lend a hand. Do you also need help finding the shrine, by the way?”
“Sure. I can’t warp to places I’ve never been before, after all.”
She sighs. “Okay…”
“Pardon the intrusion…” Taking his chance to interject now, Godo then speaks up, “Perhaps it’s not my place to pry, but what business do you have with the Turks?”
Ruby smiles with a hint of mischief. “Scavenger hunting.”
Cloud explains it instead, “We’re on the run from Shinra, but we still met with the president to ask him a few things. At some point, he mentioned he sent the Turks over here to negotiate something with Wutaian officials. Do you know anything about that?” He quickly adds, “Er, assuming you get news down here?”
Godo nods back. “Yes. I am aware that some members of our Parliament have engaged with a few Shinra agents very recently – just yesterday, in fact. It seems whatever was being deliberated was resolved rather quickly, and the Turks shortly disappeared, though my dedicated force of monitors have notified me that they are still present in the city. At first, I wasn’t sure why, but now that you mention meeting with President Shinra, perhaps they’ve been waiting for your arrival…?”
“Yeah, that sounds about right. Though, I was under the impression that they were still discussing things, so Ruby could drop by and act as a neutral arbitrator.” He frowns to himself. “But now, I don’t think those officials are expecting her to do any of that…”
Godo frowns as well, catching on. “They’ve asked for an audience with Ruby-dono, yes? Alone, I’d imagine.”
“Yeah.”
He shakes his head. “Unfortunately, that would not be a good idea. I suspect there may be foul play at work, especially considering our current political climate.”
“We weren’t going to let her go in alone anyway.”
“Right. Perhaps it would be for the best to reject their offer…”
“No, we still can, just to hear what they actually want with her.”
“Is that so? But how will the rest of you be able to enter? They would be rather strict with admission.”
Cloud lightly elbows Ruby in the arm. “She can turn people invisible.”
Godo now blinks in surprise. “Ah. That’s rather convenient.”
“But that aside,” Ruby adds, getting back to the point, “We’re also hunting around for some missing civilians from Midgar. We heard from the Shinra president that they suspect there’s some kind of human and arms smuggling ring involved that reaches as far as Wutai.”
The older man’s eyes sharpen upon hearing it. “Human and arms smuggling?”
“Most probably wouldn’t be aware, though, as it seems to be the work of some group calling themselves ‘Avalanche’ – though they would be imposters since I’ve met with the real ones. Some of our party are too.”
“Hmm…” He then shakes his head with a concerned frown. “To be honest, I feared that this was a possibility.”
“Hm?”
“Through my connections, I’ve also been able to gather information about that matter. It seems that there are certain officials who have been traveling abroad frequently in the past several months – and not on any official state business either, but rather for negotiations with foreign investors. While that alone wouldn’t warrant any suspicion, a number of those investors come from Midgar as well and have been reputed to deal with underground markets. Needless to say, arms trade has been banned in this country since following the war, but the law means nothing if it is not properly enforced. I don’t believe it’s merely coincidence that the Turks arrived now to address any lingering suspicions.”
She nods along, considering all the facts they have gathered up to this point. “Between the missing people, the illegal arms trade, Corneo’s disappearance, and even the Avalanche imposters… it’s really starting to sound like everything’s connected after all.”
Yuffie gasps, “Wait, seriously? So I was onto something with chasing down Corneo? Does he even deal with arms trading?”
Cloud strikes his own thinking pose. “I wouldn’t be surprised. The guy has a nasty reputation as part of the Mafia anyway.”
She throws out an angry shuffling fist. “Ooh! He’s so gonna get it! No one messes with Wutai with the great Yuffie around! When I see him, he’s getting pounded into the ground!”
Vincent glances off to his own thoughts, though mentions aloud, “Considering the Turks’ history of dealing with Wutai, I also wouldn’t strike them from being involved as well.”
Cloud replies with a suspicious look, “Really? You think they’re in on it too? But then why would Rufus send them over to investigate…” He then drifts off as he realizes, “…unless they’re not actually here to do that?”
“Sheesh, don’t tell me even the Turks aren’t telling their boss what they’re up to?” Yuffie asks with a disgusted frown.
Vincent shakes his head. “That’s unlikely. The Turks are the most loyal group to the current Shinra president. It’s all the more likely that Rufus has instead been keeping quiet about what he actually knows.”
“Whoa! Are you kidding me!? So they’re ALL in all this plot? What kind of crazy plan would it all be for, though?”
“…” But he simply shakes his head. “I’m merely speculating here myself. There are still too many missing factors to consider.”
“Hmph.”
“All the more reason that we should keep more of our people around on the search.” Ruby then turns back to Godo to ask again, “I know you might not be able to do too much from here, but do you know where we can find any of your informants?”
He puts a hand to his chin as he recalls. “For the record, we don’t have any one place where my men would gather on the regular, but they have a certain code by which they communicate. Feel free to ask around for ‘a place to order a rhythm on the rocks’.”
“A rhythm on the rocks?” She rubs her head in confusion. “Huh… it sounds just the right amount of mysterious and cool, yet casual.” She grins back. “I like it! Maybe we could use some kind of code between our party members too!” She also strikes a thinking pose as she schemes to herself, “We’re more than just ‘Code Red’… We’re also looking for, uh… ‘wings on the move’. Hey, not bad…”
Leaving her to muse to her own, Cloud brings out the PHS. “Speaking of them, we should also let them know what we’ve learned and see what they’ve been up to.”
She snaps out of her thoughts to remind him, “No need to call them, though! Jessie said we can just check the live feed.”
“Gotcha.” He pulls it up on the device and begins to browse.
Godo then makes an amused face as he peers over the device. “Hmm? You all keep in contact with phones? Would that not be a little too out in the open?”
“Nope, because these phones are outfitted with a secret kind of tech that prevents hacking.”
“Oh, interesting…” He strokes his beard thoughtfully. “Perhaps when we find the time later, we could discuss sharing of this ‘tech’? It would be most useful.”
Yuffie sticks out her tongue, though. “Sorry, Pops, but this is top-secret stuff even for you. Besides, even if we did tell you, we got a super engineer who’s the only one who can make it work.”
He frowns, looking genuinely disappointed, but passes her a likewise bemused glance. “I see. I suppose we’ll just have to leave it to a certain agent of ours to pull in the details on that eventually…”
She rolls her eyes. “Don’t hold your breath… but maybe sometime.”
She joins the rest of her party to look over their latest news. And there have indeed been a few updates. Tifa left a message from some 20 minutes ago saying that they found another way into the city, thanks to a passing local merchant giving them a ride – though for a hefty price that was discounted only because Tifa’s such a good sell. Along the way, the merchant also told them about rumors circulating that smugglers have been sighted not only in this city but another major town down south. If need be, Tifa’s group may need to stop by there too to continue the search.
Meanwhile, Aerith has posted updates too: they’ve also been exploring the town and chatting with the locals. It seems like there are also rumors of missing people here too, but they aren’t sure if those cases have anything to do with their own missing Midgardians. In other more lighthearted news, though: the ruckus that Ruby stirred up earlier actually inspired some shopowners and now the marketplace is full of Ruby-themed items and accessories on sale. She couldn’t help but buy a few cute little charms, though they now are running a bit low on gil, so Cait Sith has been playing fortune teller.
Ruby blinks, now that she’s been reminded again. “Right. I really oughta stop by Gold Saucer soon. Money’s not the biggest trouble for me, but the travel expenses can rack up fast.”
Cloud waves a hand in her face. “Can we first focus on our priorities here before we get into that?”
“But we’re running low on cash! That should always be a priority!”
“Tell Aerith she doesn’t need merch of her cousin. You guys see each other all the time anyway.”
“Come on. I’m sure she was really happy with her purchases.”
“Why would we even need them!?”
Ruby snickers. “Maybe not us, but I think Aerith knows of some kids who would like them!”
“…” For once, she actually makes a good point and he backs off with an embarrassed nod. Setting that aside, he resumes typing up a brief report from their end about their change of plans.
Meanwhile, Yuffie gives her a hard stare. “Um… Are you not embarrassed to know that your image is being turned into merch? Isn’t that, like, all kinds of disrespectful?”
Ruby shrugs back. “Merchants gotta sell somehow. Besides, with Tanabata just around the corner, I think the people could use with a slightly different theme to the festival this time. And I’m curious what things are being sold…”
She slumps over in disappointment. “Guess being a Summon doesn’t mean what it used to be…” She then shakes her head and makes a pout aside. “Whatever! It’s not my problem!”
Ruby then moves to get back to her feet and goes to fetch Sonon again. She addresses Godo once more, “I think that’ll be all for now. Thank you for your help, sir! We’ll be headed on our way.”
“Oh, leaving so soon?” Godo also gets back to his feet and then makes a cordial bow to her. “And there’s no need to thank me. Even if you were not a person of such esteem, I would have lent a hand all the same to anyone who would be able to help my hapless disciple.”
“Don’t be too hard on him, sir. He did a good job protecting your daughter.”
He nods back. “That he did. When he wakes, let him know that I am in his debt.”
She chuckles. “Will do.”
And with their new plans set in motion, Ruby and party take their leave, joining back with the guard who had rather dutifully remained outside to guide them all back out. But as soon as they head back out to the detention center’s visitors lobby, they seem to catch onto some noise coming from outside.
“Yue-hua-sama!”
“You fools! What are you thinking, imprisoning such a venerable guest!?”
“You’ve left us in a state of great danger! Should Her honor be stained by such brazen disobedience, we may face Her divine wrath!”
As it turns out, there seems to be a small crowd of people who have gathered at the outer gates and are clamoring with the guards there to open them up. Despite their best efforts, the guards seem to be a little overwhelmed and unable to quell the unrest. And shortly, the entire crowd is caught in a united chant.
“Let Her out! Let Her out! Let Her out!”
“Huh, things sure got lively fast. What’s going on?” Cloud asks.
“A protest, it seems,” Vincent observes.
Yuffie sighs, waving a dismissive hand. “You guys stay back. I’ll handle this.” And she hurries out the door.
He shrugs and turns back to Ruby, who seems to be staring off into space, looking like a mix of disturbed and in disbelief. “Hmm? What’s up?”
“…‘Yue-hua’…?” she mutters just audibly.
Outside, Yuffie hurries over to join the prison guards, who remain disciplined and silent even while the people bombard them with smears and insults. As the crowd has yet to get violent, they’re under strict orders to not resort to force.
“Hey! What’s going on here?” Yuffie shouts.
The guards look rather relieved and salute her. “Yuffie-dono! Thanks for coming! We could use a hand with this rabble!”
She turns to the crowd, waving her arms to shoo them. “Come on, people! This isn’t a place to stand around gawking! Get outta here before we report you!”
Yet, the crowd refuses to listen and their accusations continue to pour in.
“The laws of humanity have no bearing upon the laws of the higher being!”
“Yue-hua-sama is no mere mortal! She is a devoted messenger to the Holy Mother!”
“That She would even let herself be arrested is but a sign of Her humility and mercy! You should all be ashamed for taking advantage of such blessings!”
Yuffie groans to herself. It’s not the first time she’s had to deal with these types, but now they’re extra annoying when they’re so stubborn. Thinking about it, maybe she could just ask Ruby to send them away?
But then, things turn for the awkward as someone, an elderly woman among them, drop down to her knees with her hands in prayer.
“Oh, Yue-hua-sama… Please forgive these ignorant fools who know not of the heresy they have committed…”
And like falling dominoes, the rest of the crowd begin to follow suit in prayer, mumbling inaudibly amongst themselves almost as if they were suddenly silenced by a greater power. And shortly, the people begin to prostrate themselves before the gates, to the visible concern of the guards who would rather they not block the road. If this keeps up, they may actually have to use some amount of force.
“H-hey! Everyone, please! This isn’t the place for that! Ugh…” Yuffie finally whips back around and calls out, “Ruby! Get out here! Talk some sense into these people!”
Back inside, Ruby watches the commotion from the window, and while she’s a little amused that she has such an avid fanclub, she also wishes that it was of the less preachy variety. Not to mention, what was that they called her? “Yue-hua”, huh… If she knows her Wutaian, so to speak, that should mean something like “lunar corona” – and the realization delivers her a slight sting. By now, enough people have been associating her with the moon in some way that she’s just come to accept it, but now she’s even being called the moon’s corona!? Not the moon itself this time! But a mere reflection? Her light is her own, dammit! By the grace of Bahamut, can she never escape being in his shadow!?
“Hey.” Cloud waves a hand in her face. “Yuffie’s calling for you. Go help.”
But rather than respond to either of them, Ruby’s knees seem to grow weak and she slowly sinks down as if the weight of a man on her back is suddenly too much. Cloud grabs and holds her by the arm before they both drop, but now it’s like he has to carry the weight of two people.
“Uh… Ruby?” He lowers them down safely, helping her stay sitting up, and crouches beside her. “What’s wrong?”
At first she doesn’t want to answer, but then obliges, “…The names I’ve been getting called keep getting cringier and cringier.”
“…” Of course her problem is just that petty. He shakes his head and stands back up, leaving her to flop forward on her face. “Anyway, can you mope later? Yuffie needs you.”
Ruby groans in a whining voice, but at least pulls herself back up into a loose sitting position. “Hold on, give me a moment.” She also begins to detach the harness from her back and foists Sonon into his hands.
“Huh? What are you doing?”
“I’m thinking up a cool entrance.”
“…” Cloud passes an deadpan glance to Vincent, who likewise seems to have tuned out of the conversation a while ago.
“Hello! Ruby!?” Yuffie demands, yelling from outside, “Come on out already!”
And on that thought, Cloud tries the one suggestion that he hopes will get a faster reaction: “Hey. If you don’t go already, I’m calling you that name too.”
Ruby instantly gives him an utterly disgusted stink-eye and jumps back to her feet, bursting out the door. Cloud can’t help but smirk to himself as she runs off, while Vincent gives a quiet sigh as if lamenting to still be around to witness their “playdate” continue. Nonetheless, they follow her out, and as soon as Ruby pops into view, the protesters speak up again.
“Yue-hua-sama!”
“She has come!”
“She is free at last!”
“She’s been free!” Yuffie complains loudly, likewise whipping back to the VIP in question. “What took you so… Uh, Ruby?” she drifts off as she’s caught by surprise.
Though Ruby had rushed back out the doors into the open as a human, it’s a mere flash of light that obscures her and she’s returned to her regal dragon form and stirs up a little dust as she takes to the air once more. Witnessing her majesty appear before them, the crowd is silenced in awe. But then, things take a turn for the hectic. To everyone’s shock, Ruby instead lets out a threatening roar which bellows knock everyone there except Yuffie down.
But even Yuffie is caught off-guard and instinctively jumps into battle stance. “W-w-what!? What was that for!?”
With a deep and dangerous growl, Ruby leaves them with a warning: “Enough. This is not the place for your worship. If you truly wish to honor my name, then get it right. There is no ‘Yue-hua’ or such spirit of the moon. I embody light in its purest form.”
To all the confused faces before her, she then flaps her powerful wings and soars into the skies above with a powerful declaration: “I am Rubia, Daughter of Bahamut! Be it day or night, my light will shine like a thousand suns! There is no darkness that I shall not overcome!”
“Rubia…sama?” The crowd begin to murmur amongst themselves. “Rubia-sama!” “Thank you, Your Radiance!” “You truly are a sight to behold!” “I feel like my eyes have been cleansed!”
As if she were following a script of her own, she ends her improvised speech with another snappy threat: “Now begone and take your worship elsewhere! I have no further business here and neither do you all!”
That certainly startles some people. “Y-yes, Your Radiance! We humbly beg for your forgiveness! Everyone, let’s be off!”
And with that the crowd quickly scatters. The guards let off a collective sigh and share a round of smug laughs at their supposed victory.
“Whew! Glad that’s over with.”
“Those religious nuts sure are something. They’re treating someone who just arrived as their Messiah.”
“Well, she can turn into a dragon… but that story with the Holy Mother seems all kinds of sketch if you ask me.”
“And what’s so sketch…?” Ruby’s deep voice interrupts them, to which they all freeze up.
“Uh…”
“For the record, I don’t care how anyone addresses me as long as there’s no ill intent. They may be religious nuts, but they are MY religious nuts and I don’t appreciate this tone about them.”
The guards give a collective salute and one even answers politely, “Y-yes, Rubia-sama… We’re sorry. It won’t happen again.”
With that settled, she then returns into human form and drops back to the ground, nailing the landing. She passes a wily grin to Yuffie, who rolls her eyes but lets it be. At least she resolved things before they really got out of hand.
“Cool. Now can we actually get going?” Cloud asks, trying to foist the baggage she left him back on her.
Ruby frowns, but slings Sonon over on her back again. “Just because you don’t care for my improv speeches doesn’t mean there aren’t others who do.”
With a snooty harrumph, she struts right out the door in triumph. But once she does, she notices a different crowd seems to have gathered around the perimeter streets now. Rather than the religious types, though, these people seem more like the usual fans that gather around a celebrity, and they’re cheering her on for her grand display just earlier.
“Rubia-sama! That was amazing!”
“Yeah! You cleared up that mess in an instant!”
“That’s the power of a Summon, alright!”
“Can I have an autograph?”
“Mommy, what’s a Summon…?”
“It’s a great and powerful spirit from the ancient past that guards and watches over us, dear.”
The excitable chatter, despite the best of intentions, only grates on Ruby further and the proud smile fades into a look of exhaustion. Even though she made the declaration herself, hearing that name and honorific so many times in quick succession seems to have very quickly degraded any meaning it had to her. But she can’t bring herself to take out her anger on the innocents, so she resorts to the one infalliable tactic that would avoid any and all confrontation: run away.
“I’m out!” she suddenly yells to a startled, confused crowd.
Bursting forth with light once again, she vents with another mighty roar and takes off for the skies again, sailing right off for the mountains to the north. And Cloud and company, having just come on out after her, can only watch her go, still carrying the hapless Sonon with her.
“Hey! Where is she going!?” Yuffie yells, “Didn’t she say she needed a guide!?”
Cloud shakes his head with a sigh, but by this point, nothing surprises him anymore. “Let’s chase her. She won’t be going too far if she doesn’t know where to go.”
Vincent nods, getting them back on track. “As we discussed, I’ll be taking my leave. Good luck and I wish you all smooth trails… especially with handling her.”
“Right. See you later… at that bar, I guess,” he adds with a roll of his eyes.
“Of course.” Though he turns away to get going, he then pauses and turns back to Cloud again. “Oh. And one more thing.”
“Huh?”
“Don’t be too hard on Ruby. Though she certainly can be a handful, I believe her intuition is still on the mark and her suspicions are worth considering.”
He looks a little disappointed. “Uh. You think the Turks really are at the bar?”
Vincent makes a dismissive scoff to that. “Well, that remains to be seen… I mean in regards to this meeting with Leviathan.”
“Oh.” He snaps to attention again. “What about it?”
“To be honest, I get the feeling that not all is as it seems…” He then shakes his head as he ponders aloud, “It’s almost as if things are going too smoothly, as if we were all being led by some greater force to some particular point.”
“Too smoothly?” Cloud raises an eyebrow. “What should we be expecting?”
“I can’t say anything for sure since it hasn’t happened yet.” Vincent’s eyes narrow carefully as he advises, “In any case, an encounter with a Summon is no trifling matter, no matter what the occasion. Keep an eye on her and make sure she won’t react too poorly.”
“Oh, uh, sure.”
And with that, Vincent passes him an affirming nod and hurries off on his way. Cloud takes a moment to process what the guy means, especially regarding this encounter with a Summon. Is there something they should be worried about? Ruby did say that she might have to ‘beat up’ Leviathan, but she’s been able to handle just about anything up to now, with only one exception. But, if that one exception happens to show… what can they do? They always meet in a way where the rest of them can’t reach her.
“Cloud! Hurry up!” Yuffie calls out from a distance away. “We’re gonna lose her if you don’t move it!”
He snaps out of his thoughts and calls back, “Coming!” and hurries off after her. Whatever may happen, they’ll just have to wait and see and enact countermeasures if they have to.
~
Cloud and Yuffie shortly pursue Ruby through the city to the mountains where she lead them, even taking care to circle around back to check on them from above before flying off again. By the time they arrive, it looks like she’s already returned to human form and the path ahead of them seems to be clear of any other obstacles. While these roads are not the most welcome to the usual passersby, the wild monsters that lurk seem to try to conceal themselves as they cross – almost as if they could sense a certain presence among them that would absolutely thrash them apart if they so made the wrong step. But she pays them no mind. She’s been admiring the scenery while waiting for them, though she bears a more scrutinizing than enthralled expression, as if perplexed by her own speculation.
“So this is the Da-chao Mountains, huh…” Cloud looks up at the enormous statues that have been carved into the cliffside. “Pretty big.”
“Really old too,” Ruby replies, striking a thinking pose too. “Could these four figures have been four of the ‘Five Saints of Wutai’?”
“Saints?”
“Or the ‘Mighty Gods’ as they once were known. Perhaps named from a time when there really were Gods on this land…” She takes a moment to deliberate and then answers him, “In any case, they’re Wutai’s strongest and proudest warriors, each with his own specialty of martial art, who are said to be this nation’s very last line of defense.” She passes a coy glance to Yuffie, who returns a disapproving look, and that smirk fades. “Though, I’m guessing they’re not anymore?”
The latter rolls her eyes, apparently displeased to talk about this. “Honestly, it feels like they’ve been irrelevant for the longest time. They’re supposed to be our strongest, but when the country needed them most during the war, they joined Dad and admitted defeat. Said stuff like ‘it was for the best in the face of overwhelming odds’… Bah. It’s no wonder that they disappeared from the public since the end of the war. In fact, ever since the new government sprang up, even my Dad and his informants haven’t heard from the rest of them.”
“Not one? Gorki? Shake? Chekov? Staniv?”
She stares back in an almost judgmental way at how quickly she named all of them. “Why not mention their mom’s names while you’re at it?”
“Well, I don’t know them.”
She shakes her head. “Anyway, no. Not one. I guess they’re still alive somewhere, but with how they basically betrayed the whole country, no one wants to see their faces around anymore.”
Ruby lets off a genuinely disappointed sigh. “Right…”
“…” Rather than dive into all that history and politics, Cloud turns his attention back along the path, noting how it not only winds around the statues but also through and sometimes even onto them. He then asks Yuffie, “So, I guess it’s okay if we climb on them, right?”
She nods. “Yeah, don’t worry about it. They’re from a time way back when our people used to worship real people as actual Gods, but we’ve long moved past treating them as holy or anything.”
“Hmm…” He passes a glance toward Ruby. “So how about this one?”
“How about this one?” Ruby retorts whimsically. “I’m not Wutaian, remember? It was just a certain group of weirdos who would worship an outsider God…”
But Yuffie shakes her head. “Actually, it’s a little more complicated than that. Anyway, we’ve got some road to cross, so let’s get going. I’ll tell you about it on the way.”
“…?”
Yuffie goes on ahead and climbs along the winding path, guided by a statue’s arm as if it were directing the way forward. Cloud and Ruby share equally puzzled looks, but follow after as their conversation continues.
“What’s up, Yuffie?” Ruby asks, trotting to catch up. “What’s so complicated?”
Yuffie lets off a sigh and now admits to her something that’s been troubling her for a while. “So, you know when Dad mentioned that old faith of Wutaia and all?”
“Yeah? He said there was this Holy Mother figure who summoned Leviathan here, right?”
“Yeah. But the problem is, that stuff about the Holy Mother and all didn’t exist in the original myths.”
Ruby’s eyes widen with a twinkle of curiosity. “Oh?”
“See, the way I first heard about you – well, the dragon version of you – was through some really old archived scrolls hidden in a safe in my Dad’s secret library. Normally, it wouldn’t have been open, but one day when I was young, I found that it was left open for a bit and sneaked a peek. At first I thought there were some really cool ninja techniques and stuff, but it turned out to be a bunch of history. At the time, I didn’t care about it and ran off before anyone found out I was there, but now that I’ve been thinking back to it, it was weird that some historical texts were stuffed away in a safe.”
“Huh. That is weird. It’s like they were put there to be hidden?”
“That’s what I figured too. It’s like it was history that would have been inconvenient, especially for a religious order that instead wanted to put focus on a particular shamaness that everyone calls the ‘Holy Mother’. And what rubs me the wrong way is that the order doesn’t mention a single thing about the white dragon that was actually there.”
Ruby blinks. “Um. You’re saying I was there… but where exactly?”
“During the creation of this land. Of Wutai.”
She’s taken aback so much that she even recoils a bit. “Its creation!?”
Yuffie now stops in her tracks and blinks too in surprise. “Why are you surprised? Shouldn’t you know this?”
“Uh… well…” Ruby finds herself speechless as she struggles to explain how she just never learned about this before. Maybe it was something of an idea from her unfinished fanfic, but…
She lets off a sigh. “Okay… maybe it’s been long enough that you’ve forgotten.” She then puts up her thinking pose. “Let’s see. From what I can remember… ‘Long, long ago back when the world was still young’… blah, blah, blah. Anyway, there was supposed to be this great threat – probably some kind of world war from ancient times, even – that put the entire country in danger. It was said that a ‘white dragon whose bright scales shone like the moon itself upon the night sky’ appeared from the lands beyond to warn Leviathan of the impending danger. And so in response, he lifted the entire seas themselves and barricaded his people behind torrents and storms that would stop any invading army from setting foot upon this land. And that was how Wutai was created… or so the legend goes.”
“…Huh, neat.”
Yuffie nearly flips out at that response. “Neat!? That’s all you have to say!? This is YOUR history!”
Ruby shrugs. “I mean, I get the feeling I might remember something like that, but it must have been such a brief encounter that it slipped my mind.”
“…” She slowly slumps forward. “Ugh. Never mind.” She rights herself up again and gets back to walking as she explains on, “Look. Whether that was actually what happened or if there was some other explanation doesn’t matter. What does is: I’m sure that’s supposed to be the true history that should have been taught in the Wutaian faith, but for some reason they don’t. And I have no idea why. It’s like there’s been some sort of revisionist history going on!”
“Ah.” Ruby nods. “Right. I remember hearing from Bugenhagen that there may have been some sort of revisionism of Rubia’s name from the records since ancient times. Whatever the reason, even the historians of the past didn’t want her legacy to remain even on paper.”
“And it rubs me the wrong way!” Yuffie huffs, throwing out a quick jab or two in the air. “Maybe it was just a brief encounter for you, but it was the freaking start of this entire nation! They should at least teach the right things here where the myth actually matters!”
“But what would it matter if this religious order taught about me or not? Again, I’m not native Wutaian. Even your old scrolls seemed to say that.”
“And again, that shouldn’t matter! I mean, who wouldn’t want to hear about this cool-sounding white dragon that helped decide the fate of a whole country? Nothing wrong I can see there.”
Ruby raises an eyebrow. “Um, Yuffie? Do you not realize what Rubia has been up to since then? I can totally see why people would rather not mention her.”
“Rubia? Oh, right, the original name you took. I mean, I know there aren’t too many white dragons that exist, but I’ve been wondering, is Rubia even the same being as Yue-hua?”
Ruby looks a little stung to hear that name being mentioned again. “I would assume so. That’s the name of the white dragon that was mentioned in the scrolls, right?”
Yuffie then shrugs. “Well, that’s the thing… Those old scrolls never mentioned that name. They didn’t mention any name.”
“What?” She stops in her tracks now and glances off the cliff’s edge toward the town as she processes it over. “Then, where did that name come from?”
“I dunno, actually. It wasn’t from those scrolls I found, and it wasn’t mentioned in the usual sermons that the old clergy would teach around town.”
“But, it had to come from somewhere…” Ruby takes a brief moment to consider all sorts of possibilities, but in her haste, she seems to trip over some wires in her brain, and the next thing that comes out is: “Don’t tell me! There’s a government conspiracy to change my good name to that cringy-ass one!”
“Uh, what?”
Even Cloud has caught up from behind them and yells, “Why are you still bothered by that!? What does it even mean?”
“Oh, Yue-hua? It means ‘lunar corona’ in Wutaian,” Yuffie explains instead. “Sounds fine to me. Pretty, even.”
He blinks. “Huh. Yeah, it’s alright.” He returns a hard look of scrutiny to Ruby. “What’s the problem?”
Ruby whips back toward the cliff side and throws her arms up in the air, venting, “I’m just sick and tired of all these people I don’t know calling me the Goddamn moon or some attribute of it! I am a dragon of light! When was I ever associated with the moon!?”
“…” He puts a hand to his hips and responds with just the right amount of smugness: “You light up the sky at night. What else do they call you? ‘Solar corona’?”
“At least I’d get to be the freakin’ Sun for once…” she mopes, resting her head against the rocky wall.
“Trust me, you’re not that bright.”
She snaps right into his face with a terribly wretched and agonized face and a seething hiss as if she had been possessed by a demon, but he doesn’t even give her a reaction. She whips back around again and marches off with more steam coming out from her ears.
Yuffie watches her go and turns back to the ever stoic Cloud with a raised eyebrow. “Was that necessary?”
“Yes. It’s payback.”
“Huh? For what?”
He shakes his head. “Never mind. Let’s keep going so we don’t lose sight of her.”
By now, they’ve climbed up far enough to reach the shoulders of these giants, where they come to a wide view of the winding road they had traversed with little hassle. Now, the normal footpath has come to an end, and instead their trip takes them up a steep slope and over a relative peak in midst of the range, just between two greater summits that make it look like a naturally formed gate. And as it so happens, this gate is actually guarded – not by men but by beast.
As soon as they tread near, they hear a cackling noise and the sound of what seems to be the beat of a drum in some bizarre-sounding music. Shadowy figures that had been lying in hiding, in wait finally reveal themselves. There’s a swirl of winds as wings flap to and fro, stirring up a dust cloud that obscures their view, and ice shards and lightning bolts fly out in an intimidating display of magic. As soon as the drumming stops, the fiends responsible burst forth into view with a flourish. A pair of Garuda, bird-like yet man-like creatures that are likewise clad in robes like men of the past, dance and sing to a rhythm in some ways like that of men, yet other ways like that of birds.
Unfortunately, as soon as their dance number comes to an end, the Garuda meet Ruby by herself, while the other two a safe distance away. And unlike previously, where the trio were ambling along leisurely, Ruby looks rather pissed off at the moment. She emanates an even more intense aura that puts their flourish to shame, and in that moment, the pair realizes how badly they messed up. Before they can jump away and flee, they are immediately seized by their necks, each by a hand, and promptly slammed into each other. They wilt and wobble in sync as they fall as if it were still part of the theatrics, and are promptly skewered with two strikes of a knife that flies so fast it seems to appear in two places at once. The creatures disappear even before they hit the ground. However, Ruby does not yet withdraw her blade. She simply keeps moving forward with a very visibly upset look on her face. It seems like she’s still a little upset from what Cloud said earlier and she’s venting.
From here, the descent down the mountain will be a little more treacherous, where a footpath once could have guided travelers, but now the stone steps are crumbling away into dust or overgrown with moss. It really looks like not many people have been out here. What is still left of the path leading beyond stretches down to the thick forests of the north, but at the furthest edge, they can make out the shape of a small building that is facing the sea. That must be the shrine. But it’s still a bit of a trek away. To think that the people of old used to make this journey to the shrine on the regular despite the distance; it’s little wonder that the tradition eventually fell out of favor. If only they had a way to fly right over that wasn’t going to absolutely destroy their senses of balance…
Well, either way, their one ticket to flightdom has rushed on down the slope like there’s no tomorrow and with the way she’s flailing her arms around in circles, she looks like a human-sized weed-whacker, uprooting a great selection of Bizarre Bugs, Razor Weeds, Tail Vaults, and whatever those pincer-headed Edgeheads are supposed to be. In any case, they’re also returned to the planet as Mother Nature wills it.
Letting her do her thing, Cloud instead turns back to Yuffie. “When you said it was a little out of the way, I didn’t think it was going to be a whole trek down to the coast.”
“I figured it wouldn’t be a problem since we had Ruby, but on second thought…” She shakes her head, making a disgusted look. “I don’t want to take another ride on that roller coaster.”
“Yeah, I can definitely understand… but in this case, it’s gonna take us a good while before we reach there on foot, and Ruby’s already gone on ahead with Sonon still attached. Even if the others should be fine without us, this is extra time we don’t need to spend.”
“But taking a ride with Ruby is a deathwish!” She complains, “By the time we reach the shrine, we’ll be the next ones she has to ask Leviathan to help!”
Cloud takes a moment to deliberate over it again, and unfortunately, if they expect to be able to meet up with Vincent or any of the others any time soon, it’s not gonna happen if they stay on foot. But then again, Yuffie is right on one thing. Ruby can’t be trusted in the air unless she’s carrying Tifa or Aerith, and unfortunately neither of them are here to keep Ruby calm. Now that he thinks about it, maybe this wasn’t the best time for his “payback” either.
He lets off a disgruntled sigh and whips out the PHS. “Either we call Ruby back or we call the Highwind over. But for a distance like this, the Highwind would be overkill. It’s not like we’re flying across the entire island.”
“Yeah, and I doubt Cid would be too happy that we moved his ship without his permission…” Yuffie groans to herself. “Ugh. But do we really have to ride with Ruby?
He frowns, but says with a hint of dread, “We’re out of options…” and hits the dial button.
It’s short while of ringing tones until a certain familiar voice answers the call. “’Ello! Cait Sith reporting for duty, sir! How can I help ye, Cloud?”
Cloud is taken a bit by surprise, but remembers that Ruby gave her phone to him. He makes a sigh and apologizes, “Sorry to bother you, but we’re trying to contact Ruby after she ran off on her own again.”
“What? Oh, dear! What’s happened? Surely, nothin’s gone up in flames yet, has it?”
“Not quite. She’s just a bit much to handle.”
“Oh.” There’s an audible sigh in relief. “Whew, that’s still good to hear. So how can I help ye?”
“Uh…” He briefly considers their options, and then he realizes this is a fine opportunity. “Oh. Hey, are you still with Aerith?”
“Right, we are! The lassie’s been havin’ a gallavantin’ across the marketplace! She’s on a shopping spree that won’t be stopping any time soon! Though, in case ye haven’t seen our note yet, we maybe running a wee low on the budget, so to speak… So, I’ve been helping out by offering passersby some fortune telling! To mixed results, mind…”
“Yeah, we saw it. Ruby said she’ll be able to help with that later, but for now, we’re still stuck dealing with Sonon’s condition.”
“Ooh, aye. I saw yer update pop in earlier. Such a shame that it wouldn’t be so easy, but I’m sure everything’ll work out just fine! This is Ruby we’re talkin’ about, after all.”
“It’s exactly because it’s her that I’m worried, though.”
“Oh? Something the matter?”
“Well…” He hesitates to explain what Vincent said before, as he admitted it was just his speculation for now, but the more the suspicion has sat with him, Cloud likewise can’t help but share that feeling. He decides to put it simply, “I think it’s just better to be careful. Anyway, can you call Aerith over? I need to ask her something.”
“Sure thing! A moment, please…”
There’s a brief moment of silence as the shuffling – or rather, waddling – of the big moogle hopping on over to catch up with another, and then a welcome voice answers instead.
Aerith’s cheer seems to lift up the mood with just her chipperness. “Hello, Cloud! How’s it going? Ruby being good?”
“No. That’s why I’m calling. Since she doesn’t have her phone on her anymore, we can’t call her directly, and it’s starting to become a pain. When we get back to the ship, we’re gonna have to ask Jessie if she can make another…”
“Oh.” She sighs. “Well, I’m sure she’s listening at least. You are, aren’t you, Cuz?”
They wait a moment, and finally a begrudging answer comes: “Yeah…”
“There you are! Now, what’s the matter? Have you and Cloud been getting along?”
“No. He called me stupid.”
“What? Cloud! That’s not very nice.”
“Ugh.” Before he can help it, he starts complaining to her as well: “But she was being stupid! Complaining about some obscure Wutaian name she’s known by in this place, wishing that she’d be called the ‘Sun’ instead of the ‘Moon’ or whatever… It’s so pointless!”
“Well, then, why don’t you call her that?”
Now he’s caught off-guard. “Huh?”
“Cloud, it’s times like this when you have to play along, or you’ll find yourself in these situations where Ruby runs off and leaves you guys stranded in the middle of nowhere.”
“…” As much as he wants to argue with that, he realizes that she is making quite a bit of sense. Though he’s not one to tread eggshells around Ruby, she could always just leave in a tantrum just like now. The fact absolutely grinds his gears, but he can’t really do anything about her but just accept it.
Aerith adds with an assuring tone, “It’s okay, guys. If a little pettiness is what started the argument, then a little forgiveness is what can resolve it. Let’s start with you, Cloud.”
He grunts, but obliges and mutters through gritted teeth, “Sorry for making fun of you, Ruby. You’re pretty bright after all. Now can you get back here and give us a ride?”
“…Hmph.”
“Or would you rather I called you ‘Sunny’?”
“Ew, no! Just stick with Ruby. You giving me nicknames is…” There’s a brief but awkward pause. “Ahem. Fine, I’ll pick ya up. I’m by the shrine now.”
“Huh? Already?”
“Yeah. I’m fast.”
“…” Cloud looks off into the distance, and sure enough, he can make out the shape of a person standing just outside the small building.
Aerith giggles, as usual enjoying their dynamic. “There we go! It wasn’t so bad, was it?” That being said, she also addresses the other issue: “As for you, Cuz, don’t run off. We’ve been over this already.”
“…Yes. I’m sorry.”
“Apologize to Cloud. You really did leave him stranded somewhere, didn’t you?”
“Not really? I just went on ahead and got to our destination first.”
“Ruby.”
“Hmph… Sorry, Cloud and Yuffie, I didn’t mean to leave you guys stranded.”
“Oh, right! Yuffie was with you guys, wasn’t she? And wasn’t Vincent?”
“We sent Vincent off on his own mission to tail the Turks since we’ve left the city.”
“Huh? Oh…” There’s a brief pause of silence as Aerith checks through the live feed again. “So this shrine you’re visiting is out there? Okay, do what you need to, but hurry on back, okay? Actually, I got a lot of things to share with you all when you get back too.”
“We’re planning to drop by the Happy Turtle when we meet up, so you guys can join us there.”
“The Happy Turtle, huh? Sounds good! I heard some people around town say it’s one of the best spots in town too!”
“Oh, you can bet. And in all honesty, I’m a little thirsty.”
“So you admit it…” Cloud mutters with a hint of a grudge.
“Okay, guys! I’ll post on the feed so Tifa and the guys know too. Good luck with Sonon!”
Ruby chuckles. “Thanks, Aerith. For many things.”
And with that, the call ends and Cloud slips away the phone. And throughout the entire conversation, Yuffie has been pacing back and forth impatiently. Now, she turns to him with a question in a rather demanding tone.
“How the hell did she even get from here to the shrine in the time we took to have a phone call!?”
“She’s…” He hesitates to answer, but goes with it anyway: “A dragon of light, as she said.”
“She didn’t even warp there! She ran!”
“Yeah. I saw.” He then folds his arms. “But at least this saves us a whole trek back down. If she’s there, she can just fly on back here and take us-”
“Warp. She can warp us,” Yuffie corrects him.
“Right. That’d be better…” And as if on cue, he feels a tap on his shoulder and whips around in surprise and then makes a relieved sigh. “Ruby! There you are.”
Ruby offers them a warm smile as if their little argument hadn’t ever happened. “I’ve marked the destination in my mind, so we can take the Warp Express this time. No need to worry for motion-sickness!”
“About time. Let’s get going already,” Yuffie hastily edges her on.
~
The old Leviathan Shrine, a large brownish-red gazebo that shelters a majestic bluish-white statue, rests atop a grassy cliff near the coast just before the shallow slopes peter down to the sea. It certainly shows its age, but to their surprise, the place is actually rather well-kept as if someone has been around to mind and keep it tidy. The steps ascend up to the cliff’s edge, delineating the end of the trail here. It seems they have recently been cleared of leaves and debris as well. There is a fence that barricades the gazebo, protecting any visitors from wandering off the edge, aside from where the steps lead up to the platform. There are also four lion-dog statues that each face a cardinal direction, aligned diagonally to the statue, ever vigilant in their watch for ill spirits. And last but definitely not least, at the center of the gazebo stands the large, regal-looking statue of the great serpent, poised as if readying himself for battle. Its pale bluish-white stone – perhaps a particular style of jade – has been carved to an extremely intricate level of detail and has also been polished to maintain its beautiful shine. He faces the steps that lead up to the gazebo from the southwest, and the sun’s rays glancing off of it from the east grant it a warm glow where the light touches.
“Here we are.” Ruby approaches the steps, admiring the craftsmanship on this glorious statue, but she can’t help but remark on the strangely serene atmosphere around it. “Looks pretty good, in all honesty.”
Yuffie glances around, looking impressed too. “Yeah. I’m surprised it’s been kept so well. Not many people come all the way out here, but I guess there may still be a few monks or volunteers who do stop by.
Cloud also looks up ahead at the statue, noting how fierce Leviathan looks. He’s not the most enthusiastic appreciator of art, but for what it’s worth, this one certainly counts. That being said, he also looks around at the lion-dog statues and crosses his arms. “I get that they’d have a statue of the serpent, but what are these, uh, things doing here with it?”
“They’re guard dogs. What else would they do?” Ruby snappily replies.
“They’re dogs? Look more like stunted lions to me…”
“Lion-dogs. Look scarier than your usual dog but can be just as friendly.”
“Okay… but you’d think Leviathan wouldn’t need guards.”
“Hey, let’s put it this way. I’m an all-powerful deity myself, but I sure wouldn’t mind keeping some company. You’ll never know what life can throw at you, ya know?”
“…” He nods back. “Ah, yeah. That makes sense.” He then looks back to the statue. “So, how are we gonna do this? If you speak to Leviathan, is it just going to be a one-on-one meeting of spirits, or is there a way we can join in too?”
“Uh…” Ruby blinks, having been caught a little unprepared. “You know, I figured it would be a one-on-one meeting, but I wonder if I can ask if you guys can join. Maybe we can set up some kind of spiritual communion…”
But as the three ascend the steps and approach the statue, another voice calls out to them from the forests behind them.
“Halt! Who goes there!? This is not a site for tourists!”
They whip around and see a scruffy-looking old man pop out from the trees, wielding a broom in hand as if ready to “sweep” some annoying unsolicitors from these grounds. But as soon as they see him run up, Cloud’s eyes widen in shock. That armored gi and the red cape, as well as the fingerless gloves on his hands… The man himself seems to have aged a bit since they last met, but there’s no mistaking this face.
“Zangan!?”
The old man looks a little taken aback himself. “Sorry, but have we met before?” He takes a more careful look at him. “Though, now that I look at you, you do seem somewhat familiar…”
“Zangan, it’s me! Cloud, from Nibelheim! We met five years ago.”
“Cloud…?” And now the old man snaps to attention with his own gasp. “Ah! You’re Tifa’s childhood friend! And you were on that mission five years ago, with the two First-Class Soldiers?”
“Right, that’s me.”
“Oh, by the mercy of Minerva…” In a burst of relief and emotional release, Zangan drops his broom and clasps a hand over his face as he begins to tear up a bit.
Cloud hesitantly reaches out a hand. “Uh… Sir? You okay?”
At first, the old man doesn’t respond. If anything, he seems to get a little weak in the knees, and Cloud helps hold him up.
“I… I’ll be fine. Thank you. I just didn’t think there would be anyone else who survived that terrible incident…”
They give him a bit of time to recollect himself and then he stands back up with a firm nod.
“Right… Cloud?” He puts a hand to his shoulder. “I believe we have much to catch up.”
Cloud turns back toward Yuffie and Ruby, who also nod back, and he returns to Zangan with his own. “It has been five years, after all…”
Chapter 38: Receding Tides
Notes:
CW: Suicidal thoughts
Just a quick warning to be safe, but this chapter briefly touches on someone's grim past. Don't worry, I don't go too graphic.On a brighter note, I also bring a few notes here because I put myself through the struggle to write Leviathan speaking Elizabethan / Shakespearean English (to mirror him speaking in an archaic Japanese sort of thing), and as a result, it leads to some flowery language that may need a bit of context to explain.
Finally a use for my AP Lit class lol
- Shakespeare's use of English tends toward roundabout sayings that don't make sense in modern English, so I've gone with a compromise where I still keep most of the sentence structure closer to modern, but decorate it with flourishes of that era of English.
- Most people may know that "thou" is an outdated form of "you". It's specifically the informal version of "you", which eventually propagated all across English until it was used for anyone of any class or status. But did you know the distinction between "thou" and "thee"? One is the subject or topic marker and the other is the direct object or receiving marker.
- And on that note, the possessive term for thou is "thy". Ironically the possessive form of me is "mine".
- For second-person, the present tense of verbs are conjugated to end in -st or -est. For third-person or collective we, verbs instead end in -th or -eth.
- There aren't the usual contractions of words like seen in modern English (case in point "aren't"), but instead, there would be contractions with the word "it" before words. i.e. "t'is" (it is), "t'as" (it has), "t'was" (it was).
- On the occasion, the word "of" can be abbreviated or contracted, but there are no hard rules as to when or where it should be abbreviated. It's most often seeing in modern English as "o'clock", which originally was "of the clock". But it can apply to anything: "flour made o' barley", "twitch o' her whiskers", "Book o' Job", etc. To keep some semblance of order, I decided to go with a pattern of using the contracted o' if it precedes another word with a hard or soft "th" or "f" sound, and the full word otherwise. It just sounds better imo and doesn't make Leviathan sound too informal. He still has some class.
- "Ere" means "before". That said, the word "before" is also often used in Shakespearean works, so exactly when "ere" is best used, I'm not quite sure.
- "Hither" and "thither" mean "here" and "there", respectively.
- "Perchance" is "maybe". I think on the rare occasion I still hear this word being used in a modern context, but usually from the more aloof-sounding people or characters who want to sound smart.
- "Betwixt" is "between". Only in the context of literature have I ever heard this word being used in a modern context. No one I've ever met in person, not even my literature professors, has ever spoken it.
- To be "stayed", as in "the truth be stayed", means to be held back.
- "An" before a word that doesn't start with a vowel is "if", not the singular numerating article.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Ruby helps herself to take a seat on the steps and Yuffie leans against the guardrail around the gazebo, looking bored as ever, while Cloud and Zangan catch up on a few things since Nibelheim. As it turns out, after Zangan stayed by Tifa’s side until she awoke, he left on a journey of self-reflection to step away from all the tragedy. Though he cursed the name of Shinra for letting such an incident happen in the first place, he realized that he was not able to do anything more for the few remaining survivors. There was no heading back to a Nibelheim that was under the heavy scrutiny and guard of the company trying to cover up for the disaster. And though they would just be rumors that he happened upon during his prior travels, he suspected this was far from the first time the company would dare massacre an entire town of its citizens to be replaced by much more loyal substitutes.
However, as it would turn out, returning to his roots would only bring him more concerns about the future of this country. Wutai is no longer the place he remembered it to be. Aside from the new government that has thrown the entire previously established hierarchy in disarray, even the culture of this people has come to change as well. It seems that following the war, the people’s faith in the entire establishment – including the formerly ubiquitous influence and authority of the religious order and the more grounded shogunate – wavered to the point that public unrest spurred the arrival of revolutionaries who would henceforth take power instead. Nowadays, the people see little practicality to a dying religion and have thus abandoned it for a faith in something much more grounded and yet arguably worse for the greater unity and communion of the people: money.
To be honest, that wasn’t exactly the most surprising turn of events to Zangan. He had previously been a member of this religious order as a monk who would teach the principles of the faith through the world of martial arts, and he would go on to accept a great number of students – firstly at home, but eventually all over the world. However, as a devout and well-renowned member, he also was keen to notice how the old clergy began to change as well, even as far back as events preceding the war. After all, the initial encounters between old Wutai and Shinra were not hostile at first. In fact, it was just a matter of global trade and making good business that eventually fell out of favor as the latter insisted on pushing their agenda for a global mako industry.
All in all, there is good and bad to a nation’s pursuit of rising economic power. It certainly elevated the country and brought them wealth like never before. People came to meet with an explosion of technological growth – old hibachi furnaces replaced with state-of-the-art electric heaters, filtration systems running on magnetic mechanisms that cleaned even the filthiest of irrigation, even theater and vaudeville of old could simply be broadcasted over the air waves. It was a complete overturning of traditions that likewise brought the people prosperity and more importantly, convenience that would convince them that the old way of life was indeed long outdated.
However, with great convenience comes great complacency, and even the formerly rigid religious order, who had previously shunned the rapid push for modernization, would also come to accept the place of technology in their lives. They had little choice, after all; people were leaving the faith in mass droves, and if they hadn’t done anything to adapt, they too would be abandoned like the Gods that were once feared and worshipped. And eventually, like the rest of the government’s authorities, they too became too arrogant and complacent in their standing as they accumulated wealth and power from befriending the foreign-advocating politicians. Suddenly, those ‘foreign devils’ that insisted on making business would be welcomed with open arms, and what was once revered to be sacred would be free game when it came to be capitalized and merchandized. It came to the point that warnings of the risk of excess from the shogun himself would come to be ignored, and gradually the strong ties that united clergy and shogunate since ancient times would be lost.
Needless to say, the original purpose of spreading the faith to offer the people a place of emotional and spiritual discipline would also be lost to the lazy corruption of donations and kickbacks, and once well-respected members would become derelict in their duties. He even witnessed his fellow monks fall prey to bribes from officials who would prefer they look the other way or pretend that their sins would be absolved. He confronted them on their brazen acts of heresy, but all that led to was the warping of the story so that the accusations would instead land upon him. And in a rather hasty judgment, the high priestess denounced him and banished him from the order. And thus, Zangan would henceforth be a free agent. Though he remained bitter about the circumstances, he didn’t hold any grudge against the high priestess herself; instead felt only pity at what this order had become.
And no example of their corruption was more clear than the decision to jump right into war without properly assessing their current military might compared to that of the enemy. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision following a certain incident where the Shinra Company accused the former Wutaian government for insurgents that had destroyed their plans to build a reactor near a once consecrated mountain. As public outcry war aroused the flames of revenge were fueled, there would be no stopping the movement, and just like that, the country was at war.
Nonetheless, Zangan was still a man of honor and held a duty to serve his nation, so sought to gather forces and resources to aid the war effort. However, he and his disciples would refuse to serve in a war that stood opposed to their own values, which unfortunately meant treason especially under the enacted wartime law. Despite their good blood, even Godo had little choice but to have Zangan detained and tried, stripping him of his former rank as his military advisor and revoking his right to host any martial school, thus disbanding it. However, in an apparent act of peace, certain agents working under the shogun’s direct orders would help break Zangan out of prison, and ever since then, he would remain outcast and in hiding – a hermit of both unfortunate circumstance and yet his own design. Zangan would lose contact with the rest of his disciples, so even now he doesn’t know what became of them.
In the aftermath of the war, to Wutai’s unabashed loss, as expected, the finger of blame would be flung left and right and ultimately land upon the old, complacent clergy. Any and all ties that the authorities once had with the religious order were immediately severed. And though Zangan did still hold some sympathy for the plight of the once-respected, now-persecuted members, he no longer wished to associate with them either. And so, the order would disappear from public view as suddenly as the war came to an end, and a new Wutaian government would come to replace the old – in a strange mix of apparent opposition and yet actual submission to foreign influence. Though he would still return to town to gather intel from time to time, he would only meet with more of a Wutai that is beyond anything that it once was, for better or worse.
He nods with a grave expression. “…And so, here I am: but a humble custodian of this long-abandoned shrine.”
“You’ve been out here all by yourself?” Cloud asks, looking a little concerned.
“Yes, but rest assured, I have never been more at peace in my solitude. Too many troubles tied me to the people that once controlled and now are likewise abandoned, and too much burden weighed upon the mind for just one man to handle. And so, with a heavy heart, I had to be off and disappear from the greater world.”
“Ah…” Cloud means to answer with his condolences, but he realizes he doesn’t really know what to say.
Nonetheless, the old man politely waves a hand as if he understands. “There’s no need to worry. I’ve taken this road as my own choice and I bear little regret for my actions. But if there is one thing that I do still regret…” He then turns toward Yuffie, who is a bit startled that he seems to be facing her now, and Sonon, who Ruby has laid to rest on the floor before the statue. “It’s that I didn’t get a chance to say ‘goodbye’ to my sworn brother.”
Yuffie shrugs. “Well, we just came from paying Pops a visit and at least he remembers you fondly.”
Zangan chuckles. “I see. I thought you looked familiar. So you are Godo’s daughter. My, how you’ve grown…”
She snorts back, “Barely. Now he’s just a criminal and sits in jail doing nothing but drinking tea and watching TV. It’s sad, really.”
“Hmm… The times have changed, for sure.” He then turns off toward Ruby and Sonon again with a more solemn look. “Though, I also notice that you’ve also come along with my former disciple, who seems a little worse for the wear. What’s happened here?”
Ruby glances down to him as she explains, “His soul has been trapped from one place to another, but by some miracle his body has yet to wither after so long. It’s been almost a week that he’s been in this coma.”
“His soul is trapped? Oh, dear. Is there anything that can be done to help?”
She then reveals a smug smile and turns back to him. “As it happens, I’m something of a shamaness myself. I can just talk with the spirit of Leviathan and see if we can’t come to an agreement and help his troubled soul be cleansed.”
He blinks in surprise. “You are… Um, pardon me, but who might you be?”
She beams with pride as she declares, “My name is Ruby, but in a time long, long ago, I was once known as Rubia, the daughter of Bahamut and Dragoness of Light.”
“Daughter of Bahamut!?” Zangan looks so surprised that he almost stumbles over himself. “Unbelievable… You’ve really lasted all this time? So the old legends are true after all!”
“Old legends? Sorry, which ones?”
He pulls himself back to his feet. “I speak of the oldest myths that go as far back as the very creation of this land…”
“Ah, I know that one.”
“…as well as others that speak of Rubia’s supposed origins.”
Now Ruby snaps to full attention. “Excuse me?”
“Hm? Ah, well… I only ever heard rumors from time to time over my travels around the world, so I can’t say for certain of any-”
She also grabs him by the shoulders with this seriously crazed look in her eyes. “Zangan! Sir! Please, what else have you heard? Anything will do!”
“Oh! Yes, uh… Ahem.” He’s rather taken off-guard and needs a moment to gather his thoughts, but he kindly obliges: “There were a couple variations of a similar myth I once heard, though I wouldn’t be able to say which is the truth. One spoke of Rubia’s role in the meeting of Leviathan in the midst of a great Cetran war from the far ancient past, while the other spoke of their encounter as a diplomatic meet between different Cetran societies. But all in all, they seem to agree that the meeting certainly happened. I’m not sure of the details, though, so I can’t help you there.”
“Ah…” She looks just a bit disappointed at what little they can glean from this, but nods in thanks. “Thank you anyway, sir. At least some of it is jogging my memory.”
“Oh? Have you been having trouble remembering? I was under the impression that you would know much more than I would.”
She gives a sigh. “Yeah, I get that a lot. But unfortunately, I’m as much in the dark about the ancient past as my circle of friends. We’ve been on a quest to find out more about my past self.”
“Your past self?”
“Yes, I’m the latest reincarnation of Rubia. We look alike and share much of the same powers and abilities, but we’re still entirely different people.”
“Hmm, I see…” He takes a moment to ponder over this and then seems to come to a solid conclusion. He then nods back with a more determined face. “Well, I wish you all good luck on your quest. I’m afraid I don’t have much else to offer you in that regard.”
“No worries. Every little bit of history helps, so you did good.”
“By the way, you said you would talk to the great serpent to help ‘cleanse’ Sonon, yes? What do you mean by that? And how is his soul trapped?”
“Ah.” She looks back to him. “It’s a long story, but briefly: during their mission to infiltrate Shinra HQ, Sonon and Yuffie ran into some… odd subjects, to say the least. They were going to be swallowed in a soul-crushing darkness when he sacrificed himself to protect her. I later managed to retrieve and save him from the brink, but he’s been like this ever since.”
Zangan makes a bitter frown. “Ah. So this was Shinra’s doing after all…”
“But now, I suspect that he’s been trapped by a different will – perhaps of Leviathan himself. For a brief instance while I was trying to reach him through telepathy, I was instead blocked off and heard a different voice speak instead. But that voice vanished before I could get any answers.” She then turns to the statue with an unamused frown. “So, that’s why we’re here. I figured that he wouldn’t be able to escape me again out here where it’s right next to his domain.” She even bears her teeth in a growl. “And I’ll whoop his ass if I have to, just so he’ll listen.”
“Hmm, interesting… I do recall that the high priestess of Wutaia likewise used to come here to perform rituals to speak with Him. However, those days are long gone. I don’t even know where the high priestess or her daughter went since I’ve gone hermit.”
Ruby shrugs. “Well, that’ll be something to mind later, I suppose. But for now…” She then brings up a lingering question from when he was telling his story earlier: “You mentioned you’ve been gathering intel back in town from time to time too, right?”
“Yes?”
“For what purpose, though? If you’re just living out here by yourself, it shouldn’t really concern you anymore, would it?”
“Hmm…” He then returns to that solemn face and nods back. “Very perceptive, Ruby-dono. I suppose it does sound a bit strange, doesn’t it?”
“Are you actually doing it for someone else’s sake?”
“As it happens, yes.” He looks around again, as if making one last check for their surroundings, and then nods back. “Though I’ve been staying at a little hermitage of my own in this forest, I’ve still had the occasional correspondence with Godo. A certain messenger of his has been relaying letters, you see.”
“What!?” Yuffie snaps, looking a bit bug-eyed. “What the hell, old man!?”
“Hm?”
“Er, not you. I mean my old man.” She then crosses her arms with a huff. “When we visited him earlier, he said he didn’t know where you’ve been. So if you’re telling the truth, then he just lied to our faces!”
He then nods slowly. “Ah, I suspected as much…”
“Huh? So Dad really did lie?”
He shakes his head. “Rest assured, it was with the best of intentions.”
She gives him an annoyed glare. “Of course it was.”
“My apologies, Yuffie, but as our correspondence is of the utmost secrecy, we can’t risk letting it get out. We have a certain mission in mind and we can’t risk that it be run aground at any point.”
She rolls her eyes, giving him a dismissive wave. “Right. And what kind of stupid top-secret mission is that?”
“It concerns the matter of the arms smuggling ring that has invaded this country.”
Now she blinks, having been caught off-guard. “What?”
“I’m not sure if you’ve already aware, but we’ve known the smuggling ringleader’s identity – or at least, the figurehead behind – for a while now.”
“What!?” Now she gets even madder. “That sneaky old liar! He really pretended like he didn’t know anything! How much else has he been hiding from us, huh!?”
Ruby then mentions, “To be fair, Yuffie, I don’t think he was intending to keep it a secret from us. He is in jail, so they have him monitored.”
“Even then, he still brought up the bit about his own informants! If he was really supposed to be that careful, then why leave his guys in the open?”
“But he didn't. He only gave us a code, and until we meet with such people, no one else would be able to make sense of it.”
“Incidentally, what is this code that he mentioned to you?” Zangan then asks.
“He said we should ask around for a place to order a ‘rhythm on the rocks’, but we haven’t run into anyone to ask about that.”
“Ah.” He then shakes his head. “Then he was being most careful. As it happens, that code is not actually intended for his informants to recognize allies, but potential enemies.”
“Huh? Enemies?” Yuffie makes an incredulous look. “But we’re on his side! I’m literally his kid! Why would he treat us as enemies?”
“Well, for what I could tell, no one was following us either,” Ruby points out, “So, what exactly would ‘rhythm on the rocks’ mean?”
“The Garuda of the Da-Chao Mountains.”
“Huh?”
“As it happens, it was a test. On the off-chance that a government spy or other ne'er-do-well were to have traced this code, it would only lead them to a dead end – and a deadly one, at that. The Garuda are powerful monsters that would easily scare away the usual trespassers, so anyone who would dare to cross this way would have to first deal with them.”
Ruby blinks, now feeling a bit of a cold sweat come on. “Oh… Um.”
“Hm? Is something wrong?”
“Yeah… Uh, we also ran into a couple of those Garudas, and I thought they were in the way, so I… killed them. In an instant.”
“…” He blinks back and then lets off a relieved sigh. “I suppose this was bound to happen eventually.”
“You don’t mind, sir? I may have just gotten rid of some useful guards for you.”
He shakes his head. “Oh, no, not at all! Those creatures are no associates of mine! In anything, they’ve been a real nuisance. I can only reach the city through the Da-chao Mountains, and they’ve been harassing me every time I pass through.”
“Ah.” Ruby makes a relieved smile of her own. “Well then, you’re welcome.”
But Yuffie pouts to herself. “I still think it’s crummy that Dad sent us out here knowing that we’d run into trouble…” She then shakes her head. “But I guess, if he had to give a test, it’d be an easy one. And if Ruby wasn’t even able to handle two dumb birds, then I wouldn’t have ever brought her here.”
Ruby then turns back to Zangan with another nod. “Sorry to interrupt, but you were going to tell us the ringleader’s name, yeah?”
“If you’ve been around Midgar, then I assume you may have heard of him before. His name is… Corneo.”
Yuffie and Ruby blink at the same time and shout at the same time too: “Corneo!?”
“I knew it! That sleazebag’s been behind everything the whole time!” Yuffie growls, stomping around the gazebo as she vents, “And those dumb old farts in government! I can’t believe anyone would even work with someone like that! They’re all sleazebags!”
“Huh, so it was him all along,” Cloud says, thinking back to what they’d gathered so far. “Makes sense now that he’d have disappeared from Midgar for a while. So he was doing Shinra’s dirty laundry out here instead.”
“But what I’m still trying to figure out is why this ring has been kidnapping Midgar civilians and sending them to Wutai… Maybe something about renewing the war effort, but they need hostages or, even worse, experimental subjects,” Ruby grimly surmises.
Yuffie now jumps back down the steps to confront Zangan. “Alright, where is he!? I’m gonna show him a piece of my mind… and my shuriken!” She even brings said shuriken forward.
“Whoa, easy. Don’t take it out on him,” Cloud coolly advises her.
“Hmm…” Nonetheless unfazed, Zangan instead takes a moment to recall, “I believe the Don is still involved in some matters here in the capital, though from what I’ve heard, his business is more personal this time.”
“Personal?”
“He’s made it publicly known that he’s currently in the market for a new wife. It seems he regularly goes through a number of them.”
And at that moment, the enthusiasm in the other three seems to drain from them all at once.
“Of course he is,” Ruby mutters, rolling her eyes.
“So he’s just screwing around… literally,” Cloud does likewise, cringing in disgust.
“Never mind. I’m not gonna show him just a piece. I’m killing him,” Yuffie declares menacingly.
“Though, that would require that we know where he is.” Ruby turns back to Zangan. “Do you know, sir?”
“Yes, actually. It seems he already has a lineup of ladies waiting to be chosen and has selected the northern pagoda to host his wedding.”
“WHAT!?” Yuffie is now fuming. “A wedding at the Pagoda!? That’s our turf, dammit! The Kisaragi family won’t stand for this! He’s double-dead!” She turns to the other two to yell at them too, “Come on, guys! We gotta go get him!”
But Cloud shakes his head. “Wait. What about Sonon? He’s still down.”
“Then, Ruby! Hurry up and get him fixed so we can bust in there already!”
Ruby likewise raises a hand to calm her. “Slow down, Yuffie. I get it, but I doubt we’d be able to just jump in there and snipe him.”
“What are you talking about? You can warp! I can just guide you to the pagoda and you can nail him before he tries to run!”
“No, I mean, the problem is that he’s making it public. I believe that means he’s going to have an unsuspecting audience join him in there, and if I do just warp in and ‘nail’ him, it’s going to stir a lot of unnecessary fear. The people may love me like an idol, but probably won’t if I commit murder in the open.”
“…” Yuffie’s voice is shortly cut off and she slumps back down as if she was deflated. “Man. I hate that you’re making sense. So what do we do?”
Cloud strikes a thinking pose. “Then we’ll have to sneak in and lure him away from the audience somehow.”
And at that moment, everything falls into place just the way Ruby has been expecting. She reveals a devious smirk as she turns to him.
“…What?”
“We’re gonna introduce him to our own lineup of ladies and hope he picks one of us.”
“Uh…” He blinks and then asks, “Wait. Really? You think we’d be able to draw him out?”
“It’s pretty fool-proof, I’d say. If I know the guy, he’s a sucker for anything with a nice figure and would definitely want to disappear off into a private room after the ‘wedding’.”
He frowns to the image in mind, but concedes, “I guess… Well, it’s a good thing we already got a few ladies in our party. But none of you guys are dressed up.”
“Oh, don’t you worry about that. I’m sure Aerith has been enjoying her stay in the marketplace, so she should have found someplace.”
“Ah, alright.” He pauses and then asks, “Wait. That means, Tifa is also…?”
“Sure. The more the merrier. If anything, having three would be optimal. He also likes to pick his lineup three at a time.”
“Huh? How do you know that?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t wanna get into alternate timeline shenganigans. Take my word for it.”
“Uh-huh…” He then puts a fist to his waist with a sigh. “I still don’t like this idea, but at least it’s some kind of working plan. Good luck to you three.”
“Pfft. What are you talking about, Cloud? I’m not going in there.”
“What?” He blinks and stares hard. “Then who else? We’re not sending in Yuffie. She’s too young.”
“Hey! You calling me a kid again!?” Yuffie argues.
“What, you wanna pretend to be married to Corneo?”
She immediately backs up, raising her hands in surrender. “Never mind. I’m out.”
Cloud turns back to Ruby with a frown. “And besides, Jessie’s back on the ship where she needs to be. You’re the only one left, Ruby. You have to do it.”
“I dunno, Cloud. I think you could pull it off.”
“What!? Me!?” he seethes, “If you can’t tell, I’m not a woman!”
“That depends on how hard you try.”
“Ruby! Would you quit being stupid and just do it!? You’re our best bet at capturing Corneo if he tries to run anyway!”
“Precisely. So I should be on guard duty and search out all the potential exits before he can use them.”
“He won’t be using any of them anyway as long as you're present.”
“Yeah, but I'm just not gonna be in the lineup. I guess that leaves you, Cloud.”
“Ughhh…” He plants his hands over his face in frustration. “Why are you always like this…?”
“Uh, Ruby, is there a good reason why you can’t do it?” Yuffie then asks honestly.
“Of course there is: I don’t want to be anywhere near that tainted asshole.”
Yuffie blinks. “Touché.”
“That’s not a good reason,” Cloud argues, dropping his hands. “What are you going to be doing in the meantime then? Checking for exits won’t take you long.”
“Eh…” She pauses and thinks about it, “I could take this opportunity to stop by Gold Saucer and-”
“Stop right there.” He now grabs her by the shirt collar and gives her yet another seething glare. “We’ve been over this, Ruby. You’re not gonna sneak away on your own and definitely not out of the whole country where none of us would be able to help you if you run into a certain man.”
“Would you feel better if I brought Cait Sith along?”
“No! You’re staying put while we’re still here!”
“Fine, fine…” Her quick wit then shows itself again. “Then if you don’t want me disappearing again, you play the third lady.”
He looks stung like he’d just been tazed. “You little…”
Before he can start throwing hands, though, Zangan quickly steps up. “Now, now. There’s no need to get so heated. Let’s just talk about this calmly and…”
“For the last time, Ruby, why do I have to do it!?”
“Cloud, please, have a little more faith in yourself. You definitely can pull it off.”
“Shut up! Your only reason is that you don’t want to!”
“That’s a valid reason as any.”
“I don’t want to either! What makes you so special, huh!?”
“Besides, I still owe Tifa and Aerith an apology.”
“Huh?” His rage seems to fizzle out for a little moment. “For what?”
“I promised them way back that we could hang out in Wall Market, but never got that chance. So I’m making it up here.”
“Uh… what does that have to do with anything now?”
“I was promising them that they’d get to see you in drag, silly!”
“…” Cloud feels like some part of him just fell out of his body. “That was… your big idea…”
“Yeah.”
His hand drops as if his strength were sapped and he makes a very drained sigh. “…Ruby. I hate you.”
“I know.”
“Fine. I’ll do it, just so you can shut up.”
“Yay!” Now she gives him a hug, but he shoves her off. “We’re gonna have so much fun!”
Though Cloud keeps scowling, at least he’s not ready to smack her again. Zangan lets off a sigh in relief and watches the two with a twinkle in his eye. The old man can’t help but smile to himself too. Even after all the tragedy that this young man has been through, he still can find such a great dynamic with a good friend. Perhaps these two will go far after all.
And then, Yuffie interrupts them, pointing her hand toward the poor guy who’s just been lying there helpless all this time. “Okay, finally that’s settled! Now can you do your thing, Ruby, so we can get going?”
“Haha! Ah, yeah.”
With their other plans set for now, Ruby finally turns her attention back to their unfortunate victim of multiple circumstances. Sonon lies still with a face that looks surprisingly at peace, as if whatever spell that Leviathan had bound him in has finally put his agony at bay for the time being, but the guy likewise is so still that it almost looks like he could be dead, if not for real should they delay any longer. Ruby seats herself before him, facing the great statue with a solemn expression for once, and takes a deep breath to calm her excited nerves. With a hand to Sonon’s forehead, she closes her eyes and begins the transfer of consciousness.
~
Ruby opens her eyes again, but unlike the last visit where everywhere was only more darkness, she now finds herself in a complete opposite kind of place. It is very bright here, though she isn’t sure where the sun may be, if it even exists. Everywhere she turns is an endless stretch of pristine water beneath her feet, clear as crystal as she can see her entire reflection. She stands atop it despite there being nothing below to stand upon. There isn’t even any wind to blow over her head or to leave any ripples. The sky is empty too; not a cloud in sight, nor any to blow on over. It is a scene that could be described as total stillness – and maybe tranquility in a way.
But she can’t feel at ease because she’s here all alone. Sonon isn’t. She can’t see him or even hear his voice anywhere. She tried to reach out to him again, so how did she come to an entirely different place? Is this also because of the barrier that she encountered last time; that is, by Leviathan’s interference? Even if this is his personal realm, it’s too weird. He can speak to them regardless so there would be no need to meet face to face. Or does he know that she’s here to challenge him?
“Leviathan! Show yourself!” she declares with a noble roar.
The scene then changes rather abruptly as if to answer her call. The waters below her begin to ripple not only from her own steps, but from a different kind of motion. Suddenly, the entire place breaks out in trembles as if thrashed by a powerful seaquake. The waves roll and splash about violently and a great gust of wind bursts forth as if a storm had just been dropped upon her. She tries to keep her feet planted, but the disorienting throes of the world warping around her nearly makes her stumble. And as if to top it all off, a tremendous serpent erupts from below.
In this strange metaphysical realm, Leviathan’s bright sapphire-like scales shine and glisten beautiful as if some rays of light are glancing upon him. His long, flowing whiskers float about and he continues to undulate in the air as if riding a current that doesn’t seem to exist. And yet, he still maintains a very level head despite his graceful movements, and his eyes are honed upon her with ruthless precision.
“We meet at last. I have been awaiting thee.”
She meets his intense stare with a defiant look of her own. “So it was you who brought me here?”
He nods slowly, but without closing his eyes. “T’as been but few days that thou hast arrived in this world, and yet thy journey hath brought much change. For the better or for naught, though, I cannot say.”
“Huh?” Her eyes flicker at attention as she realizes what he means. “Whoa. You know that I’ve traveled across worlds?”
“Alone I am not with the knowledge, as t’was the ever watchful eyes of Minerva who stood witness to thy abrupt rebirth ere the presumed death o’ thy precursor.”
“What…” She narrows her eyes and stares back in disbelief, holding up her hands before her. “Whoa, hold up. There are a number of really strange things in what you just said.” She then gestures with a hand as to take an example. “First of all, the ‘presumed death’ of Rubia? Do you mean she’s not actually dead yet?”
“Nay, yet not alive. Neither she clingeth to life nor welcometh death, as if perpetually suspended in time.”
“In stasis, huh… So, she’s been stuck in the Void after all?”
“Perhaps… Thither be a place none other alike; a space free from all time to keep her own, yet a dungeon without exit to contain her within.”
Ruby raises an eyebrow in doubt. “…Honestly, I’m starting to wonder if she’s really trapped in there or if she’s just a hikkikomori. I mean, she is basically me.”
“Hmm… thou claimest that she is thee?” His eyes trail off in thought for just a moment, but return to her with the same intensity. “Nay. Thy very being is of a separate matter.”
“What do you mean? I thought I was Rubia’s latest reincarnation.”
But he turns his head away. “That is simply not possible, as Rubia’s soul hath yet to pass on.”
Ruby does likewise, feeling a little stunned by the sudden revelation. “Then what in the hell is going on?” She pursues with another question, “And on that thought, you mentioned I was ‘reborn’? How can that be? I haven’t died yet to be reborn in any way. Besides, I hopped on over here just fine, with all my memories intact.”
Now, there’s a strange glint to his eyes as he turns back to face her. “…So t’would seem to thee.”
“What?”
“As I said, thou art an entity unknown to the planet. Thou holdest memories of a life apart from that of Rubia as well. And yet, perchance that thou hast yet to realize, but not all o’ thy memories remaineth intact.”
“What are you suggesting… that I’m forgetting something really important?”
He nods back solemnly. “Thou hast been searching for a truth with eyes blinded, for without knowing who thou really be and what hath become of thee since thy rebirth, thou shall never be able to find that which thou seekest most.”
“…” By now, she’s starting to feel a little ticked off, given that this situation feels all too familiar with a certain other man who has likewise been leading her on with vague hints. She narrows her eyes suspiciously and offers a rather bitter reply, “I’ll find that truth no matter how people tell me that I’m doing it ‘wrong’. I’ve never made exception with men or Gods or anything in-between and I won’t start now.”
Leviathan then turns away again as if likewise unwilling to keep arguing with this stubborn child. “…So be it. One cannot learn until one gaineth experience.”
Getting impatient with him, she demands, “Where’s Sonon? I came here to ask you about him in the first place.”
However, the serpent seems to hold some other intent in that look in his eyes. After a brief moment of silence, he pulls back in an aloof manner and answers firmly, “The man’s troubled soul hath been laid to rest.”
“What? Laid to…” Her eyes grow wide and disturbed. “No way. He’s already…?”
“…”
As he doesn’t answer her there, she begins to feel a chill run through her, but stamps it out with justified anger instead. “Don’t lie. I could hear his voice the last time I reached out. I also heard your voice leading him away. Where is he?”
“Here, yet out of reach.”
“Don’t give me that vague bullshit! I got to the point and so will you!”
And yet, he refuses to back off. “This realm is the gateway betwixt the living and the departed, where one’s fate lyeth with one’s will. This man hath submitted to the calls of Fate and let it be decided in his stead.”
“And who are you to decide that? You are the Guardian of Water and the very Spirit of Wutai. This man embodies them both. If anything, he could have been the perfect avatar for you if you had chosen to reincarnate. Why would you make him a hostage just to lure me out?”
“T’was not mine intention, but thy wayward heart hath been quite difficult. Had I not wrought this to be, would thou yet inclinest to meet?”
“What the hell… Don’t mess with me.” She then bursts out aloud, “And what’s that about my ‘wayward heart’? You’re the one who hasn’t shown up in ages! I’ve been going around helping as many people as I can, while you’ve been playing pretend-dead! Get with the damn times!”
But he simply shakes his head. “That which thou hast seen, heard, touched… how much more shall be engulfed in thy illusion and how much longer shall the truth be stayed?”
“…”
Ruby feels something snap inside her as if a switch was triggered. Did this asshole really just tell her that she’s been living an ‘illusion’? The last time someone said that to her, it left a sore wound that has yet to heal, and now she feels like it’s been torn open again.
“The truth that thou seekest has been with you, yet thou turnest away when t’is cruel. Then, thou shall never arrive at an answer that could ever bring thee contentment.”
That does it. She whips out her knife with a quick spin into position. “I have had enough of these damn holier-than-thou bastards who think they know what is or isn’t, what should or shouldn’t be. I called you my uncle as a joke, but now I see you’re not related at all. You’re just full asshole.”
“…” Now, the serpent finally raises his head high above her as if to look down on her in both the figurative and literal senses. “The time hath come for thee to awaken, Ruby. An thou still stayest blind ere the morning rise, then I shall deliver unto thee thy just penance.”
“Bring it, bitch.”
And with fierce words exchanged, the two enter right into battle mode. Leviathan lets out a mighty bellow as Ruby stands her ground and pivots into position. And the next instant, she briefly vanishes from sight, lunging so fast at his head that her knife could just graze the serpent’s left eye. However, the instant she plunges her knife down, there’s nothing but water that spills out. Apparently, even before he appeared, Leviathan had anticipated her move and created a visage of himself of the water. The model collapses, but the water doesn’t simply splash away or lose its life. As Ruby readies to kick off the air to reposition herself, though, she’s caught off-guard and panics as she scrambles away instead. The water warps and twists as if it were being manipulated and pursues Ruby as she flees.
But it simply persists. No matter what she does to the moving column or wherever she flies to avoid it, it does not stop. An unending stream of water that originates from the pool below follows her erratic trajectory through the air; even when she warps from place to place, it latches onto her movements like a tracking beacon. She slices it from afar into huge chunks, but the water simply recollects itself as if it hadn’t been split. She grabs the air about her as if it were solid and whips up a torrent of wind to blast it back, but there’s still so much more volume of water to air that it barely slows it down, and she’s forced to dodge aside yet again. It forms into a set of massive jaws and means to crush her in its maws, but she simply warps out of the way before it can. And yet, unlike the biology of a sea creature, jets of water shoot out from the sides of the column, catching her just where she reappears, and slam into her with the force of a concrete wall.
Holy shit. That actually hurt. Is that blood she smells – yes. It’s hers.
She’s thrown into a bit of a dizzy spin too as she hurls back down, but just before the column swerves back around to envelop her, she lets out a blast of ice to freeze the column in place. Unfortunately for her, the water then thaws on its own and swallows her up all the same. Now tumbling wildly in its current and ragged about to its thrashing whims, she’s choking from the sudden change of pressure that squeezes the air out of her lungs. She can barely tell which way she’s facing, let alone know which way to warp away. Not that it matters; the column then makes a sharp swerve directly down and crashes violently into the pool below. The two sides of water may still be fluid, but the instant of the clash crushes her like two solid concrete walls smashed together. She’s knocked stunned, nearly knocked out, and sinking fast.
It hurts. It actually hurts. She feels like her lungs are being crushed. The suffocating pressure, the wild tumbling, the crash of the impact – it all feels too familiar. Familiar, like she had experienced this very situation before. Was it… No, she went for a swim off Junon’s coast, but that wasn’t it. This is something else entirely. But when was this? Where was she? And why can’t she remember any of it?
Bzzt. There it is again, the Geostigma’s reaction. As if she wasn’t in enough pain, the disease inflicts even more as her arms and eyes alike begin to burn as if alight again. The freezing temperature of the waves – no doubt made even colder by her attempts to freeze it – do not help numb the sting. She feels like she’s been blasted by both ice and fire at the same time, and she’s losing air. And as she sinks further and further, even amid all the pain, she then meets some memories that were once subconsciously suppressed.
~
It was an unfortunate series of events that she never wanted to recall. There she was, a slightly younger Ruby by a few years, sitting at a beach looking at the waves, with five adorable yet misbehaving pups to dogsit. She had a thin laptop notebook in hand and a backpack to hold it sitting beside her, though the pups were all over the beach and being a nuisance to her and sometimes to strangers. She would on the occasion come out to this beach whenever she found herself stressed out over life and take some time to unwind and relax. And yet, she always kept her laptop with her because she had work as a programmer for a rather small tech start-up, and the days would be busy.
However, this day was different. She came along with the same items and the same company as always, but her mind was in a different place. Unlike previous days where she would sit on the beach, typing away to the lulling sounds of the waves, this day was a rather unproductive one. She had no work, no reports due, no code to write or even read; for the start-up that had previously employed her had her dismissed immediatedly on discovery of her connections to a certain crypto con artist group. She was fortunate that they didn’t press charges, so she never had to see a court date, but it was no less bitter a departure.
The scene cuts away to another when it was later in the day. The sun was setting, the sparse crowds grew even sparser until she had no other company than her pups, and she would still remain there, sitting on a beach towel on the sand with her laptop open on her lap, looking as if she were still being productive. Rather, she simply spent some hours on it playing games to distract herself, but eventually had to quit from all the stiffness of remaining in place for so long. She then packed up and took a stroll along the beach to walk off the stiffness, as if not bothering to watch her stuff. Then again, she waited this long because she wanted the usual visitors to clear out. There was a lifeguard that would stop by ever so often, but he had grown used to her being around and would leave his shift by evening, expecting that she would eventually leave too.
However, on this day, she would remain for a while longer. She scanned the environment one last time before packing up her things, took the backpack in hand and stepped close to the waves with it in tow. And with a tranquil fury yet deep sadness in her eyes, she made a great heave, put herself into a stable spin, and chucked it with all her might and momentum into the sea. It didn’t go very far, relatively speaking, but at least the waves pulled back and it was sent away all the same.
Another flash to the cliffs near the same beach. Now, Ruby stood atop it, but was minding her pups. Apparently, the two boys had been playfighting – or real fighting, it was honestly hard to tell sometimes – all the way up to this cliff. How that even happened was honestly beyond her. The cliffs weren’t that high up, but they were pretty steep and not easy for a creature without sharp claws to be able to climb. Though there was the sign that said to keep all dogs on a leash and on watch, there was no one but them now. If those two wouldn’t stop fighting, they might just tumble the wrong way. So here she was too, to make sure that neither of them accidentally self-destructed.
Then, one last flash: Ruby managed to break up the pups and by now, the other three had climbed up here too. She dismissed the two and dropped them back toward the shallower end of the cliff. But in just a moment of hesitation, she looked off toward the waves again and a certain creeping feeling came to her. It was brief, but it was there: the temptation to jump off of the edge.
This life sucked. Her family was in massive debt, her father was in the hospital from a stroke probably due to overwork, her mother was overworked too and at risk of joining him there, and Ruby had no job or means to help pay off that debt. And they had to pay off that debt, no matter what. Though they never found any evidence of it, she swore those people at her dad’s favorite mahjong parlor were in fact part of some Chinese Mafia. So was it just paranoia? Maybe. Or maybe she was a damn genius and didn’t even know it.
No, who would she be kidding? She was just stupid. Her dad was stupid for getting caught in all that. Her mom was stupid for marrying his ass and for staying with him despite it all. And as their daughter, she inherited the stupidity of both worlds. She honestly thought she could reason something out with those people. Then, when that didn’t work and she nearly got herself hunted down, she tried to go underground. Even literally sometimes, as if that would have done anything. She was desperate to find some way to get some quick cash, but even that market didn’t want someone so self-loathing and pathetic.
Those damn slavers. The place she came to work at was supposed to be some small and innocent start-up, but she really believed that they were just a front for a scamming business behind closed doors. She even had a suspicion that the people she came to work for were actually in cahoots with the same Mafia. Maybe it was all connected, like her family just happened to be the biggest suckers in the world. Or maybe she should just stop thinking before she hurt herself.
Yet, it was still a brief moment. The yapping of her pups drew her back to reality and she stepped away from the edge. No point in jumping off and escaping now. The Mafia would just chase down her mom and maybe even their relatives if she didn’t play her part. Who knows if she’ll be able pay back this debt in her mother’s lifetime or even her own, especially at the rate she kept losing jobs. And she definitely wouldn’t want to pass this debt onto her own child if she would ever have one.
But there was a big problem now: in her rage and haste, she had chucked her own computer out to sea. All the data she had gathered up to this day, all the evidence that could have been saved to help prove her innocence if she ever was charged with a crime, all the work she would need to show for her resume if she could even find another job… all gone. Well, shit. Maybe she should just jump after all. If she survived, she’d at least be sent out to sea where she’d have a better chance at finding it again.
The yapping of her pups grew even louder as she stepped back toward the edge, but she just ignored them and looked down to observe the surroundings. The cliff wasn’t really that high up, but her vertigo was triggered all the same. She felt her head spin and her knees go a little weak. She hesitated to go through with this. What would it accomplish anyway? She should just back off. And yet, she just stood there at the edge, wondering what she should do. She had to get that notebook, but she wasn’t equipped to go swimming. If she went off to get help, who knows where that thing would go by then. And if she didn't get it back, she was as good as dead anyway... With all these ill thoughts circling in mind, her dizzy spell grew bad enough that she couldn’t keep her head on straight.
At that moment, the two pups still on the slope made their brave moves. One of them, the small blue-collared beagle, raced up the cliff with surprising efficiency and pounced onto her feet as if to help glue her in place, all with a silly smile on his face, tongue lopping out. The other, the small brown dachshund with a bit of a tantrum, rushed up as well to snap at her ankles and drag her back footless if he had to.
But the timing couldn’t have been worse. In her irritation, she reached down to grab the little beagle to get him off her and wrestled with him to free one of her legs. But just as she did, she was suddenly tackled from behind by the brown one and instead lost her footing. As she had just been treading into the shallow waves to throw away her bag, her shoes were wet and slippery. Rather than keeping her glued to the cliff, the beagle then instead became a pivot point for her to tumble. And would she tumble, as she then cracked her head on the rough edge. Though she was bleeding out, she was just conscious enough to feel herself begin to slip off. Even as the pups snapped at her clothes and her hand – even as the other three came running on over to help tug on her – she would be too heavy for them all to pull back in time.
The last she remembered was the splash of freezing water, her air escaping her, and her body going numb.
~
It’s happening all over again. Almost as if with picture-perfect accuracy, Leviathan’s rolling tempest had captured that particular memory and reproduced it so Ruby could relive everything. And in that moment, she snaps awake with a desperate fear in her eyes and shuts them again to try to warp away – anywhere but here. There, where the light is still bright. Finally, she reaches back up to the surface with a wheezing gasp, or rather many, and splashes about like a scared little pup. But now of all times, she has no solid footing upon the pool as before. There is no land within reach, no driftwood to cling to. She can’t keep doggie-paddling. She’s going to drown.
“Agh… Aaargh…”
After coughing and hacking up as much water as she could from her lungs, she manages to find her voice again and utters a guttural groan. It’s not just water she coughed up. She can still smell the scent of blood. She’s dying. The battle had barely even begun and she’s already dying.
And yet, the great serpent takes no pity on his opponent. He resurfaces in his full shining glory with as intense a stare as ever, watching her with a stoicism fitting of one upon a throne far beyond her reaches. In her panic, she begins to cry and weep as she gasps and trembles in the water, helpless as a single ant split off from its colony.
“H… help… help me…”
“…”
“I… I remember… I’m… I’m trapped…”
“…”
“I don't… don't know… what to do…”
After a long silence, Leviathan finally answers her with as icy as ever a reply: “I cannot save thee. Thou hast lead thyself to thy fate, and thus thou must savest thyself.”
“…” She whimpers, feeling herself grow weak and fatigued, barely able to keep herself afloat.
“The most I can offer thee now… is an end to thy misery.”
“…!”
Without a shred of hesitation, Leviathan then takes the plunge. He dives straight at her with a quickness unexpected of a creature his size, and before Ruby can even react, he snaps his massive maws upon her like a predator capturing its prey. And in an instant, she feels herself crack into pieces and blacks out.
~
Something isn’t right. Ruby has been sitting completely still for a while now, and they can only expect that she may need some time, but it’s been too long. Yuffie shuffles impatiently while Cloud and Zangan share concerned looks.
“What’s taking her?” Yuffie grumbles, “She said it wouldn’t take her long at all.”
“…” After a moment of deliberation, Cloud then gently taps her on the shoulder to get her attention. “Hey.”
To their shock, though, Ruby starts tipping over from just that single tap and is about to fall over onto Sonon’s body when he catches her.
“!?”
“Ruby!” He pulls her back and repositions her into a more comfortable lying position. “Hey! You okay?”
But she doesn’t respond. If anything, she seems to have simply joined Sonon in his state.
“Ruby! Wake up! Get outta there!”
“Ruby! What’s going on!?” Yuffie asks, now starting to panic too.
Cloud gives her another shake, but she still doesn’t move. “Ruby! Snap out of it! Get back here!” he yells, but again to no avail.
“What happened? Is she alright?” Zangan asks, coming over to inspect her. Though she has no external injuries to note, he puts a hand to her head and realizes that she’s burning up. “A fever! And intense one too.”
By now, Cloud is just as frantic. “Zangan, what do we do!?”
“Hmm. Sadly, I have no idea what would be the source of this fever, so I can’t say. But at the very least, we should find a place for her to rest. Not out here in the open.” He then pulls back to his feet. “Come with me. My hut isn’t far from here. She can stay there in the meantime.”
“Ah, thanks…” But he gives Ruby a crestfallen look, almost being crushed by the weight of helplessness of being unable to do any more for her.
“Um, but is she really going to be alright?” Yuffie asks Zangan. “I don’t think this is just some common cold…”
“Well, at the very least I do have some medicine to treat fevers back home.”
“We’re not talking Potions or pain relievers, right? This is way worse than that!”
“No, trust me. I have some knowledge in this field at least.” He then looks back toward Sonon and approaches him to fetch him too. “Here, we can take him there too.”
But just as he lifts Sonon up and is about to swing him around his shoulder, he hears the young man utter a groan. Startled, he lets him back down and turns to Yuffie and Cloud.
“Is it me, or is he…?”
“What?” Yuffie gasps.
Since Cloud is still holding Ruby, Yuffie hurries over to check on Sonon. And to their amazement, Sonon begins to stir. As if he had just woken up from a very long dream, he opens his eyes and stares off to the ceiling in a lost daze.
“…Where…?”
“Oh my God! Sonon! You’re awake!?” Yuffie exclaims, getting extra flustered.
“Y… Yuffie…?”
“Wait. If you’re awake, then…” She swerves to Ruby with the same astonished face. “Then she did it! She saved him!”
“Yeah… but at what cost?” Cloud mutters, still looking at her with a half-empty heart.
“Ah…” Yuffie’s moment of delight quickly fizzles. “Yeah.”
Finally, Sonon pulls up into a sitting position, but holds his sore, dizzy head. “I… what happened…?”
“What happened!?” She whips back to him, now with a rather frustrated, indignant tone. “Your life just got saved, you idiot! Twice, even! You should be grateful!”
“My life…” And at that moment, he snaps to attention. “Ah!”
“W-what?”
Now he looks off to Ruby, and a look of horror comes over him. “No… She didn’t…”
“What? What happened between you two?”
“I…” And now, that horror is soon replaced with shame and he lowers his head. “I’m sorry. I think this is my fault.”
“What?”
Now that got Cloud’s attention. He returns him a fierce glare. “What do you mean?”
Sonon returns him an apologetic look too. “I was saved… but the ‘great cost’ was…”
“…”
“W-what?” Yuffie looks between them and stares at Sonon. “What do you mean? Great cost for what?”
“I-I’m so sorry!” Sonon switches over to kneeling and gives Cloud a bow with his head to the floor. “I didn’t know what was happening. I was stuck in the darkness for so long I couldn’t tell what anything was… but then there was a voice that promised me the strength to break out of it. But it also said there would be a ‘great cost’…”
“What…” Now even Yuffie’s voice drifts for the quiet as her eyes grow wide.
“I had no idea. I thought I had to sacrifice some part of myself, but…”
“…” Cloud then casts a miserable glance aside. “Of course you wouldn’t. Ruby chose to give herself up for your sake, didn’t she?”
“…I’m really, truly sorry. I promise, I’ll make it up to you all.”
He lets off a sigh. “Forget it. Can you walk?”
“Huh?” Sonon pulls back up, still looking a bit anguished himself.
“We’re gonna take her to Zangan’s place to rest it off.”
“Rest it off? But isn’t she…?”
“Dead? Nah.” He shakes his head. “This is Ruby we’re talking about. She just has a fever, looks like.”
“Y-yeah!” Yuffie answers, snapping out of her own daze. “Obviously she’ll be fine! She’s probably just tired from fighting with Leviathan! Probably even kicked his butt, and that’s why you were let go!”
“But…” Sonon doesn’t look so sure, but since the other two insist on it, he then makes a look of resolve and nods back. “Right. I’ll help look after her too. However long it takes, I won’t let this debt go unpaid. I owe her my life… twice now.”
“You’re damn right. We’re gonna work you to the bone.”
He then lets off a sigh but nods back with a relieved smile. “You got it, Boss.”
Notes:
Holy crap. Has it really been 20 whole chapters since Sonon was last present? (Present in good health, I mean.) Man, now I'm sorry! Sorry to all the Sonon fans out there, including myself!
Chapter 39: To Make a Wish
Notes:
Outdated A/N
Hey, guys, guess who's been playing Ever Crisis!? I haven't gotten very far in it yet, though, since I've been busy writing. Had to get ya'll something while the FF7 fever's still rampant. Remember: no spoilers for those who haven't seen the new content.
9/15/23 edit: Apologies, but after looking over my work, I was not satisfied with the direction the next chapter was taking and had to rewrite it, so I won't make it for this week.
These chapters have been a doozy to write given the sheer amount of new content that I have planned. I swear I'm basically writing my own version of Rebirth, haha! Boy, was that new trailer something.
4/24/25 edit: Upon rereading, I have decided to correct an error in regards to the Masamune applied in real-life physics. In reality, a tempered steel katana of that size and length could feasibly be wielded by a man of his stature and build, but it would be quite unwieldy and impractical as a weapon of war due to its off balance between blade and hilt. That Sephiroth can swing this blade to supersonic speeds or cut anything without contact, though, is definitely fantasy.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Zangan’s hermitage is just a little way to the west from the shrine, set in a clearing deep within the forest. It’s a lovely little hut surrounded by a well-tilled rock garden with a small lily-pad-laden pool. There are even some lovely little shrubs to line the path up to the hut, as well as an open barren field in the back suited as training grounds. It was here where he once set up a humble dojo for some of his first proteges before he would go on to travel the rest of the country and eventually the entire world. While Sonon didn’t come to study under him until much later, he too would have come here from time to time to pay his old master a visit. In fact, the last time he did, it was just before his latest mission to join Yuffie in Midgar.
Now, Zangan returns home with a few familiar faces and one more guest who is in need of care. Cloud has been carrying Ruby in his arms with a firm yet gentle grip, just enough to make sure she won’t slip and fall even as they trekked through the forest. Not once did he let her go even as they ran into some occasional random encounters along the way, but Yuffie and Sonon were more than enough to deal with the riffraff.
Cloud lays Ruby down on the futon as Zangan searches for some medicinal herbs in his stores, and the latter comes back out with a few jars of mysterious pastes and tinctures, as well as what seems to be a long green box that holds incense sticks. Yuffie takes a curious look at the set as he takes a seat beside where Ruby lies.
Yuffie frowns with a tinge of disappointment. “This is the stuff? Looks like some old folk medicine. How will this be any better than taking pain relievers?”
“As we don’t know what the cause of her fever is, it would be best that we use a gentler approach,” the old man replies. “And besides, if the cause of her pain is indeed from a spiritual battle, then it only makes sense to combat that pain with a spiritual healing.”
But she doesn’t look convinced. “Hmm… Well, if you insist. But if Ruby’s not getting back up soon, you’re taking her to a hospital.”
He nods back in understanding. “Rest assured, if it is necessary, I will be happy to oblige. But in the meantime, I think we should let her rest it off.”
Cloud has also been tapping away at his PHS to relay some important updates. He then turns to the other two and gets down to business. “And in the meantime, we should get going too. I’ve let the others know about the plan to take down Corneo.”
“Right, but uh…” Yuffie pauses before asking, “You sure you’re going through with it? You know, with Ruby’s plan.”
He nods back without a hint of hesitation. “Yeah. We don’t have a better one, and since Ruby’s not available now…”
“Sorry to be out of the loop, but what is the plan?” Sonon asks.
Yuffie swerves right to him. “You remember that guy we heard was running Wall Market and stuff? Well, it turns out he was here in Wutai, and he’s even behind the whole smuggling ring operations that we’ve been hunting down too!”
“What? So Corneo was the ringleader…?”
“Yeah. And right now, he’s planning to host a wedding at the freakin’ Pagoda of all places! That fiend!”
Sonon’s eyes sharpen with likeminded resolve. “We can’t let him. That’s no place to hold a wedding.”
“Exactly! But the problem is, he’s made a big show out of it and invited the public to join in, so we can’t just thwack the guy in front of everyone. We have to draw him away from the crowds.”
“And that’s where I and two others will come in,” Cloud explains further, “We’ll pretend to be his bride-to-bes and distract him long enough to separate him from his cronies, and then we’ll get some much-needed info from him.”
“And then we’ll kill him?” Yuffie suggests, her eyes still boiling with rage.
“…We’ll get to that if we have to.”
But Sonon didn’t quite catch his intent at first. He blinks, hanging on a certain point, and asks, “Um… I’m sorry, but did you say you’re going to pretend to be one of his bride-to-bes?”
Cloud returns him a stern frown. “Don’t make it awkward. We don’t have the time to find someone else. I’ll just have to dress up and pretend to be a woman.”
He rubs his head and looks away. “Uh, right. We’ll leave that to you, then.”
Yuffie then suggests, “So, while Cloud, Aerith, and Tifa are gonna keep him busy, Sonon and I will scout out the place and block off any exits.”
“Ah.” Sonon nods back. “Yeah, I can help with that.”
“If I know my old man’s pagoda, there’s at least one secret exit on every floor, but I think I still remember where they all are.”
“Okay.” Now he makes a determined frown. “And in case we run into any of Corneo’s henchmen, we’ll deal with them swiftly and silently.”
“You got it! Now you’re sounding like you’re back in the game.”
“Heh. I have to be if I’m gonna take back my title of ‘elite ninja’.”
“Pfft. As if you had it to begin with. I’m the elite one here, remember?”
His eyes flicker away for just a moment. “Of course, Boss…”
Now, Cloud turns back to Zangan with a nod. “Right. Then, we’ll leave Ruby in your hands, sir.”
The old man nods back with a kind smile. “Of course. I’ll make sure she’ll be back in good health.”
“And then if she’s ready, she can join us in taking down the rest of the ring! We’ll crush ’em in no time flat!” Yuffie cheers, throwing up a determined fist.
With the plan set forth, the party give their last goodbyes and salutes to Zangan and hurry off on their way back to town. Without Ruby to warp them back, they’ll have to get a move on. Hopefully, the rest of the party will be able to gather up and they can get ready in time for the wedding tonight.
In the meantime, Zangan gets to work. As he applies a soothing concoction to her face to help her relieve some of that excess heat, he also takes a look at the stains of black that have surrounded her eyes. He likewise notices the other black stains on her arms that have been encased in ice. Strange; he’s never seen such a disease before. But perhaps it too has something to do with her fever. Though, he isn’t quite sure if he can remove the ice to take a closer inspection. In the meantime, he gets up to fetch the matchbox, strikes up a flame, and lights up some incense in the back of the room. He returns to Ruby’s side and folds his hands in prayer, offering his wishes to the great serpent that she may have encountered earlier. Perhaps they hadn’t a very easy conversation, so another voice of reason would be able to quell any lingering dissent.
~
While Cloud and party make their way back to town, discussions among the party continue via the PHS’ live feed as everyone gets updated and ready. He let them know about the situation with Don Corneo and Ruby’s current status, as well as the working plan they’ll be moving on.
Tifa sends a message in reply: “So Don Corneo was the ringleader all along?”
Cloud responds: “Sounds like it. And tonight he’s hosting a wedding at the city’s biggest pagoda to celebrate.”
Even Barret drops a note in: “When we’re done with him, he’s gonna be in a ditch somewhere six feet under!”
Cloud: “Any news about our imposter Avalanche so far?”
Tifa: “No, not yet. But you know the rumors about the arms traders?”
Cloud: “I caught your update, yeah.”
Tifa: “Well, we did run into a guy. Barret and the others cornered him in the middle of some kind of secretive trade and he spilled the beans. Sounds like some of his cohorts were hanging around town, and we’ve been trying to hunt them down. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like any of these guys we found even knew anything about the ringleader.”
Barret: “All this running around for nothing! We need to find some actual dudes in the ring!”
Red: “Sorry to say, my nose can only go so far to sniff out suspicious people.”
Barret: “Hey man, that’s not what I m… Wait. How can you text?”
Red: “Voice converter.”
Barret: “Oh. Right. Do I got that option?”
Red: “I believe there’s a switch on the back.”
Barret: “Got it. Now we’re talkin’! Sucks texting with one hand, ya know.”
Tifa: “Anyway, this does make things easier. I guess we should shift focus too.”
Barret: “The focus never left! The more info we gather, the more leeway we can work with! And if Corneo turns out to be involved with our imposters after all, I swear I’m gonna personally pick out his casket for him!”
Tifa: “By the way, how did you guys find out it was Corneo?”
Cloud: “Zangan. He was here in Wutai all this time.”
Tifa: “What? Where did you find him?”
Cloud: “There’s a shrine dedicated to Leviathan way up north close to the coast. He lives alone in the woods near there. Seems like he’s been keeping close contact with Yuffie’s dad too, so they’ve discovered some things.”
Barret: “Yuffie’s dad? He someone important?”
Cloud: “Try the former shogun of this country.”
Barret: “Oh. That’s pretty important then.”
Tifa: “Well, maybe I ought to pay him a visit, then. But after we’re done here, of course. So, I hear you also need me to join you and Aerith?”
Cloud: “Yeah. Though he’s calling it a ‘wedding’, by the sounds of it, he doesn’t have a bride ready yet and is gonna pick one from a lineup. Ruby said we should send in three candidates for him to choose, so that’s how we’ll distract and capture him.”
Tifa: “Gotcha. Well, this wasn’t the kind of thing I thought I’d be a part of… but I’ll do it.”
Cloud: “Thanks, Tifa. We can meet up with Aerith if she’s found a place for us to get dressed up.”
Aerith pops into the conversation with a cheer that can even be felt through text: “Don’t you worry, ’cause I know just the place! There’s this tailor shop on the west end of town called the ‘Wings of Vermillion’. It’s a little ways past the really big restaurant and bar known at the Happy Turtle. I’ll be waiting outside so you guys can find me too.”
Cloud: “Right. Thanks, Aerith.”
Aerith: “No problem! I hear they specialize in Wutaian dress and stuff – I think they’re called ‘kimono’? – and I’ve been meaning to check it out myself!”
Biggs then brings up the big question just to make sure everyone’s on the same page: “Okay, I think I get the plan, but shouldn’t we get Jessie over if we need three?”
Cloud: “That’s too out of the way. Besides, she needs to stay back there to make sure things are still in order.”
Even Jessie’s message pops in: “And there’s no way I’m gonna play bride to someone like Corneo.”
Biggs: “Fine… But then who’s gonna be the third girl? We can’t send in Yuffie, right?”
Cloud: “I’ll do it.”
There’s a brief pause as surprise takes its rounds, and Biggs replies: “Sorry, what?”
Wedge joins in too: “Cloud, do you mean you’re gonna…?”
Cloud: “We don’t have to make it a big deal! Ruby’s out right now, so someone else has to do it. Or do I hear any other volunteers?”
Biggs: “Nah, I’m good.”
Wedge: “Same here.”
Aerith: “Thanks, Cloud. Hurry over soon! I can help keep an eye on Cid in the meantime, but since Cait’s been busy with his fortune telling business, someone else should come and watch him.”
Cloud: “Cid? What happened?”
Aerith: “He said he didn’t want to join in the festivities and stopped by the bar. Cait and I found him drunk on the counter. He’s asleep right now.”
Cloud is tempted to slap a hand over his face, but he replies coolly: “Fine. We’ll deal with him later. Yuffie and Sonon are with me, so they can do it.”
Yuffie objects: “Why do I have to watch over a drunk old man!? I thought Sonon and I were going to the Pagoda with you guys?”
Cloud: “Oh, right. Well, if the rest of you have some time, then…”
Barret: “Hell naw. We’re busy over here with the imposter biz. But don’t we got that new guy too?”
Cloud: “New guy? Oh, you mean Vincent. But wasn’t he chasing after the Turks?”
To everyone’s surprise, the man in question also responds: “I can watch him. I’m at the Happy Turtle right now, and as it turns out, Ruby’s intuition was dead-on.”
Cloud: “What? You mean the Turks really were there?”
Vincent: “Briefly. There were three of them and they scouted the place for a moment, but left shortly. It seems they too are searching for Ruby.”
Cloud: “Okay. Thanks for the heads-up. Ruby should be back up eventually, but for now, we’ll have to move without her.”
Vincent: “Roger.”
Aerith: “See you guys there! Oh, yeah. When Ruby’s back up, we gotta bring her there too!”
Cloud: “Where?”
Aerith: “The Wings of Vermillion, the Happy Turtle, the big pagoda, wherever! She could probably use a break from carrying us all the time.”
Cloud: “If she wants to… sure.”
~
Elsewhere far away in the depths of the unknown abyss, Ruby finds herself adrift in the blackness once more. She feels numb, as if her body has simply stopped responding, or perhaps even because it isn’t here anymore. She can see nothing, as she has no eyes to open. She can hear nothing, as she has no ears to listen. She is a disembodied spirit with a sole course set to return to the planet’s core.
Or rather, she would assume, but she’s still here… somehow. Her soul lives on, clutching desperately to her lingering memories even without a body to hold them and give them form. She wonders why that is? How does a lost soul exist anyway? And what does she do – what can she do – from here even without a physical form?
There’s a blink of light that spills out from the darkness, or at least she thinks there is. But before she has even done anything, she suddenly feels a great pouring in of sensations and emotions as if the very tiny, scattered pieces of her body were coming back together to reform the whole. And just like that, she can feel again. She senses the tips of her extremities, where they are, how they move as she commands; and she feels completely at ease and in control of herself once more. What is this miracle? She didn’t do anything, did she? Or did someone else do something?
“Welcome back… You’ve met with a terrible fate, haven’t you?”
The sound of a familiar and by now aggravating voice in her vicinity finally stirs her awake and her eyes flicker open as her lips curl into a frown. She finds herself staring at the ceiling of her bedroom. She pulls up into sitting, and she sees she’s back on bed in her apartment – in the Debug Room, naturally. It’s as if this has just become her respawn point. The lamp at the desk is the only light that is on at the moment, so she doesn’t have to rely on ambient light to see… Wait, huh?
To her disturbed shock, Sephiroth is seated at the computer across the room from her bed. Not only has he helped himself to everything on the first floor, now he’s come to take even her personal belongings in her room. He’s even adjusted the height of the chair for himself, that villain!
She falls back against the bed, covering her eyes with her hand, and refuses to partake in this moment. After the major revelation she had just come to meet, it feels like the weight of the entire world has come to be her burden to bear. She needs some time to herself and this man is the last person she wants to see right now.
“…Not a word, huh.” After finishing up with whatever he was minding, Sephiroth leans back in his seat and swivels around to face her with a serious face. “How much of your memories have returned?”
After another moment of silence, she begrudgingly mutters, “…Just enough to remind myself that I’m a very sad person.”
“…”
She pulls her hand off her face with a depressed sigh. “Now I see why Rubia hates my guts. If I didn’t know any better, I would hate me too.”
It seems like so far what she’s been saying has not been the most satisfactory answer, so he turns away again to return to the computer.
“…Because in the end, I’m just running away as I always have.” Now, she turns back to him with a genuinely sad, defeated face. “Well, you were right.”
He doesn’t turn back to her as he replies, “About?”
“I was living an illusion,” she admits with an emotionless face and looks off again. “That day, the accident at the beach… it would have been a few years ago. Five, actually. I was 24.”
Sephiroth remains faced away, though he does make a slight smirk to himself.
“These past five years have been a blur… like it was all just a silly dream that I could forget and let be. I don’t remember a thing: not how I escaped from there, not how I came back home, and especially not how I even got my own place after all that.”
“…”
Ruby rolls over onto her side, facing the exit door, with a miserable face. “I don’t know what happened to my pups either, or where my mom was since that morning… I don’t know how I even survived.”
“…”
She then passes him a quick glance, but noting that he’s not looking her way, she looks off again. “Or at least… I had to have survived, right? I wouldn’t have been able to get this old otherwise, or been able to come to Gaia at all and find Rubia again after all these years.” She pauses as she thinks it over. “…No, it’s not just that. What is here in this world is so much more than what I’ve ever come up with when I was young. Someone’s been writing Rubia’s story in my absence.”
“…That’s right.” Finally, he responds and casually mentions, “It’s what I’ve been looking into as well.”
She blinks and moves to get up as she turns toward him again. “Huh?”
Sephiroth then spins back around, and with his arms crossed, he continues, “This realm, formerly known as the Edge of Creation, was always meant to be a place free from ownership and control by any one entity. It is a middle ground between this world and the next, as well as the convergence of all other timelines to the same end. And yet, Rubia has come to shape it to her will as her own little playground.”
She sits lazily, leaning back with her arms propping her up behind her. “And then you came along and took over it as if it were no big deal.”
He makes a wayward glance aside. “No, I wouldn’t say I ‘took over’. What I can access and manipulate is only within the scope that has been supplied to me by its creator. In other words, while I may have some administrative power, I don’t hold the key to the system’s kernel, and thus have no means to override Rubia should she choose to take back control.”
“…Lucky you, huh. You’ve been granted admin-for-the-month or so. Or maybe just for a week.”
“Hmph… If anything, that’s the real mystery here.”
“That you’ve been picked for the role?”
He nods back and strikes his own thinking pose. “The question is why. Why has Rubia left it open for us to use it and when will she be taking back control?”
She rolls her eyes, slumping back. “You mean for you.”
“You had the same level of access as I did when we first started up this Debug Room. I’ve simply taken my chance to cut you off from it…” he then adds with a bit of cheek, “though after you lost your wrist guard, it was probably due to happen anyway.”
She returns him a stink-eyed glare. “So I got careless. Not that it mattered. I keep coming back here anyway even when I don’t want to, thanks to you!”
“Yes… as would be necessary.”
“It’s not necessary for me to see your ugly mug.”
“…” He raises an eyebrow as if in disbelief that she really just said that.
She honestly questions it too and quickly corrects, “It’s… ugly on the inside. Your heart is pure black.”
He smirks to that. “Hmph. A decent recovery.” He then gets back on point: “In any case, as things have developed, the Summon Guardians would prove to be an entirely different challenge that we may have to face.”
“I lost one time and you already think I can’t do it! I just got caught off-guard because I wasn’t expecting stuff like that! Gimme an hour or two, I’ll figure him out. It’s just like a Dark Souls boss… well, this is Final Fantasy, but you get the point!”
“Unfortunately, despite your high level and the powers that you’ve borrowed from Rubia, you aren’t as good a fighter as you think you are.”
“I could totally smack you up if you’d let me…”
“Nor do you utilize the resources that are available to you to make the most of your mission. You would have been able to prepare yourself had you taken a preview through the very interface that we both can open.”
“Pfft. I used to refer to game walkthroughs and guides when I was little, but I’ve outgrown that need.”
“While you’ve been frolicking about on your worldly travels, I’ve been utilizing them to the fullest extent. Many a deep secrets – from the long-thought lost history of the first Cetran World War to Rubia’s very origins and her parent’s century-long voyage away from the planet – have been laid bare for us to explore.”
“That’s cool. So when do we get to the part where I’m any part of all that?”
“…”
He’s been sincerely trying his best to ignore her endless supply of snark, but now after all the time that they’ve spent together, his patience grows thinner the more they seem to get to know one another. Without even a warning this time and but a disappointed frown, his eyes flicker once again.
This time, Ruby acts pre-emptively and throws herself off the bed before he can start up all that ouchie-ouchies again. But without any particular place to take cover or hide, she simply flops against the floor and pretends to die as she braces herself for the pain.
But to her surprise, she doesn’t feel it. After a moment of lying prone, she pulls her face back up to pass him a curious glance. Sephiroth, having none of her antics, has simply returned back to the computer to continue with whatever he was looking up. Genuinely impressed that he was able to hold back his anger this time, she pulls herself back up too and steps over to take a peek.
“What’cha looking at?”
“The important story beats that you refuse to read yourself.”
She swings back around and heads back to the bed. “Never mind. I’ll get to them eventually.”
“At the rate you’ve been moving, the planet may very well be dead by the time you get to searching for all this information. Someone has to take the helm.”
“And I’ll leave that to you.”
He passes her an annoyed frown. “You won’t even bother to be concerned, huh…”
She shrugs as she climbs back on the bed. “You’re the one who apparently knows everything. You’re always telling me the way I’m going about things is ‘wrong’ or ‘slow’ or whatever, but I’ve always moved at my own pace.”
He then swings away back to the computer, but throws out a biting retort: “Of course… Just like that day when you stood still on the edge of that cliff.”
Ruby stops in her tracks just before she’s about to lie down again, stung and stunned still.
“You couldn’t even decide whether to end your life there or not, so someone else had to step in to make the decision for you.”
“…”
“The same fate awaits you in all future cycles of rebirth if you choose to never change that aspect of yourself.”
Ruby’s hands clench onto the blanket on her bed and she bites her lip. She doesn’t dare turn back to him as she doesn’t want to show him her genuinely hurt face – hurt to the point that she honestly wants to cry. But she still holds back the tears. Not yet. Not now. Don’t give in.
He lets off a frustrated sigh, leaning back against the seat. “And as it happens, I would have to be the one who must share the burden… to drag you anywhere you’d be more productive.”
By now, she’s starting to tremble from her own frustration burning her up from the inside. Trying her best to shake off the guilt, she drops back onto the bed and shuts her eyes as if she were forcing herself to go back to sleep.
“But… if you are so unwilling to read the words on a screen, perhaps it would be easier to show you.”
“…”
He then swings back around to the computer, redirects the menu interface to a particular video file he wishes to retrieve, and enters some sort of command to engage with it. But rather than have himself witness the vision, he sends it to her instead. And the next things she knows, she feels like she’s been dropped back into the black abyss of this realm.
~
Ruby now awakens to find herself in a different yet somewhat familiar place: a place of light with an expanse of waters stretching far as the eye can see. However, unlike in Leviathan’s realm, she has ended up on solid footing this time. She’s housed within some sort of altar that is a bit reminiscent of the holy altar deep in the depths of the City of the Ancients – Ackard, as she recalls it was called – but not quite the exact same place. There is a set of brilliantly white stairs leading up to another platform above her, where a grand set of double doors – brilliantly white and laced with gold as with the stairs – stands imposing before her.
But turning back around, there is another set of stairs leading back down, but they are submerged in the same pristine water as from Leviathan’s realm. Perhaps that is the way back to his place, but at this point, Ruby isn’t sure she should head back there just yet. As imposing as those doors above may look, she gets the odd feeling that it’s where she’s meant to head next. And sure enough, as she cautiously takes a step up the stairs, she hears the click of a lock and the double doors slowly swing open, with a burst of blinding white light that emerges from it. Though honestly a little nervous as to what she may meet up there, she steels her resolve and proceeds. There’s no point in running back. No place to run back to anyway.
And to her surprise as she steps through that blinding light, she finds herself in a long hall decked with marble pillars of a Romanesque design that line the path forward. The floor that lies ahead seems to be solid, but is masked by clouds that give the room a more aloft appearance, as if she has just stepped forth into a heavenly court. And at the end of the hall is a throne upon its dias, where yet another imposing figure is seated and waiting for her. The ever beautiful, majestic, and wise Minerva has her eyes closed as she waits, with her sparkling golden staff in hand, held standing beside her as her faithful guard. Sitting atop the staff is a glistening red orb not unlike that of materia, but this one isn’t merely another materia. And as she speaks, her voice is loud and clear, firm with a sense of divine regality, and yet gentle in tone and disposition.
“…Rubia… Come forward.”
“Rubia…?”
Now that Ruby realizes it, the words that come from her mouth are merely thoughts that only she can hear. Instead, she now finds herself treading forward as if she were the one being pushed ahead by an invisible force. Or rather, it isn’t her who is in control; it is Rubia. This is another of those past visions.
“Even knowing that I would be watching you, you would still dare to assault the Grand Oracle in my presence.”
“…”
Minerva lets off a sigh and shakes her head.
“Foolish child… What do you seek to accomplish with this arrogance?”
“…Call it what you wish, Your Eminence, but I will not falter even in the face of you.”
“There.”
Minerva briefly raises her staff toward the ever rebellious young lady and then sets it back in place.
“That is the very arrogance of which I speak. Where has this false confidence been inspired from?”
“If you have truly been watching me all this time, you would know the answer to that… Your Eminence.”
Rubia holds a bit of a grudge with that last utterance. Nonetheless, Minerva pays it no mind.
“I have indeed been watching, which is why I must ask you for your own answer. Which of the encounters with your father would have become the final straw to be set on the chocobo’s back? Or was it simply the gradual buildup of tensions over the generations that have brought you to a dire state of mind?”
“…It has nothing to do with Father.”
But Minerva shakes her head again.
“Rubia, there is no use to lie to me. I can and will see the truth laid bare.”
“It has nothing to do with that beast that was once my mother either! My struggles have long been my own! I care not for this family feud!”
“And yet, time and again, we have all seen the signs of the path you tread that ultimately leads to the will of Tiamat.”
“Her sense of destruction is merely fueled by a meaningless mistaken impression of her own superiority. Mine, meanwhile, is fueled by an indomitable spirit defying an unforgiving world that deserves no quarter. We are not the same.”
“The intent behind your behavior is of little importance in the grand matter.”
“That is precisely the attitude that I despise most! You and the rest of the Guardians may stand aloft on your pillars of divinity and grandiose might, but you all are no different than those self-important characters of humanity that perceive themselves above the rest of their kind!”
Unfortunately for Rubia, Minerva is not heeding her words with the same kind of respect. She simply returns her a stern frown and an even sterner glare.
“If you refuse to cease this ill pattern of behavior, I will have no qualms sending you to the depths of Helheim where you may join your mother in her eternal prison.”
“I have nothing to do with her! Stop associating me with the sins of the past!”
“On the contrary, I am associating you with the sins of your present. Regardless of your connection to Tiamat, you remain a threat serious enough to not be neglected.”
“…”
Rubia grits her teeth and replies with a seething growl.
“I have faced punishment for no fitting crime time and again over the generations that have come and gone. This time and the next are of no exception. Send me to Helheim all you wish. In the end, nothing shall forestall my return.”
And yet, to that declaration, Minerva lets out a subtle yet condescending smile.
“As spoken by the true heir of Tiamat.”
“That twisted knot of five twines is no mother of mine. Nor are you fit to be the sentinel of the planet.”
“Enough. I have heard all I need of your answer… even if it is fraught of insolence and willful ignorance. You are dismissed.”
“…”
However, when such a phrase is uttered by the likes of the great goddess herself, it is no mere request. At her will, the body that once housed Rubia is dissipated into the ether as if her very right to life were being revoked. And yet, even as her presence quickly vanishes away, Rubia remains ever stoic and defiant to the end. In the end, the end of this life is not the end of her will.
And as the scene fades to black once more, Ruby is left with a feeling of emptiness inside. While nothing from this scene in particular comes as a surprise to her, she has been reminded of a certain thing that Rubia has admitted before: that she, Ruby, had abandoned her, Rubia, and thus sent her down this path of destruction. For a while, Ruby had suspected that it had something to do with how she never finished developing her story of Rubia when she was young. Now that she’s been reminded of a certain accident, everything is falling into place. Rubia does blame her for never resolving her family’s feud. In this world where her story has been developing further on its own, the cycle of hate has only continued to fester until a literal plague of nihilism taken shape has overtaken not just Rubia but everything she touches. She may very well be the product of Ruby’s own negligence.
In other words, Ruby has to meet with Rubia and put an end to it all – no matter how or what she has to do. If it means heeding Sephiroth’s beck and call until she can find an avenue to escape and counterattack, then she will do it. Sorry, Cloud.
~
Ruby starts awake again as the vision comes to an abrupt end, but to her disappointment, she has yet to return to Wutai where her physical body still lies. Instead, she’s just jumped back to her room, and as she sits back up, she’s disgusted to find Sephiroth is still here.
Now even her patience has run thin. She snaps back with renewed vigor: “What do you want!? Don’t throw some random vision at me out of nowhere!”
He chuckles. “Ah. There’s that vitriolic energy that I know you for. For a moment there, I was worried that you wouldn’t bounce back.”
“Why did you pick that vision of all things? Was it really so important that I see how Rubia died again!? I’ve seen enough versions of me dying, thanks!”
“Well, whatever you had learned from it seems to have roused you to action, so perhaps we can get something done after all.”
“Ugh.” She lets off some steam as she settles back down. “The only thing I ‘learned’ was what I was reminded of… that I suck for neglecting Rubia for so long. But in my defense, I didn’t think she would actually come to life in this other world and take it over like some planet cancer that I would be interrupted from my normal life to deal with her!”
His smile fades as he grows weary of this tired conversation. “How many times must we go through this…? That ‘normal life’ you led was nothing more than an-”
“Illusion, I know. You’ve said it plenty, I just admitted it earlier. It doesn’t make sense that I’d be living alone.”
“And yet, you speak as if you still have a place to return to…”
“Because nothing yet can explain why I even have memories of that world where this entire world is from a damn video game!”
“…”
“Ever since you dragged me out of that place, wherever it was, I understood what my mission was. It has always been to try to find out what happened to me, and to do that, I have to meet Rubia. But there are some fundamental truths that I still don’t know, so I’m not ready to face her yet. And if you haven’t noticed, I’m kind of stuck in this gridlock?” She frowns and beckons him by extending both her hands his way. “So, lend a hand already, ol’ buddy?”
“It’s not about whether or not I tell you the answer. It’s you who refuses to acknowledge the most fundamental truth of all.”
“And what’s that?”
“How you can even exist in this world.”
“…”
“Or on that note, how I could even appear in your apartment at all, if it really was another world entirely… especially one where I’m supposed to be a character in a video game, as you’ve put it.”
Whatever sharp wit Ruby had ready for him is promptly cut off and thrown out as she quickly retraces her mental steps. That was always the big question: how she even came to be isekai’d. If reality is as it’s supposed to be, then it truly is impossible – the laws of physics themselves would prevent any such situation from happening. Magic portals don’t just appear out of nowhere and send people to other dimensions. Teleportation as it’s applicable is only on the subatomic scale. “Magic” as it’s known for the conjurations and miracles that are cast from a person’s hands are merely just parlor tricks and deception for the theatrical stage. Crystal orbs have no mystical prowess; they’re just shiny, polished rocks. And above all, no man, even of Sephiroth’s figure and weight class, could possibly swing a sword that long at supersonic speeds without breaking his wrist or being flung back by the very recoil of the swing. Or, needless to say, fly on one wing. Do you have any idea how birds fly, you insult to life itself!?
And yet, even in the face of all common sense, she still refuses to be pressured into submission. It’s always how it happens. The more she learns, the less sense things make. She’s so exhausted from all this overthinking, and even if she tries not to jump to conclusions, it’s all one big mess that she doesn’t want to unravel. Or rather, it’s one big mess she can’t bear to unravel. If it does – if she really learns the whole truth of who and what she really is – then she fears a fate worse than death, at least to her. If by any chance, it actually isn’t just her at her current age, but also her for those missing five years that isn’t real after all… If she really is but another confused vagrant soul drifting about in the Lifestream all along and that the life she was leading was just a figment of her own or even someone else’s imagination… If she doesn’t have the choice to write this story, as if she’s just a fictional character on a page left to the whims of the true creator… Then who created her and why does she exist? For this man’s or anyone else’s entertainment? Or whatever purpose to be used as a tool? %&#$ that.
And so, she stands her ground: “…I’m here because you dragged me here.”
Sephiroth lets off a sigh. So they really are going to do this again.
“And I’m going to find a way back home, one way or another.”
Now he’s getting impatient again and even visibly upset. “If you value your precious peace of mind, then actually think about what it is that you believe. It doesn’t make sense.”
“I’m done thinking. I’m gonna do things my way like I said I would.”
“No. No, you won’t.”
“And who are you to decide that!?” she snarls back, “You don’t own me! Rubia doesn’t either! If anything, I’m the one who owns her! I came up with the idea that she was the daughter of Bahamut and the spawn of Tiamat! I created her design! Her physical appearance is literally me!”
“…”
“And I might as well own you too, after your little excursion into the Void that is consuming the planet! Nothing like that would have even existed in the game I grew up with! It’s gotta be because of some machination of mine from the start! I’m the author here, and I’m writing this story!!” By the end of her rant, she’s starting to look just a little disheveled. She even dares to stomp right up to him and seizes him by the crossed straps of his coat. “Now shut up and let me do my thing, you… pointless source of conflict.”
Finally having heard enough of her mad drivel, Sephiroth acts upon the curse he had laid upon her from the outset. Ruby flinches and grunts in pain as she recoils and stumbles back to the floor. And as she writhes, gasping and panting for air as she feels that familiar choking, drowning feeling of her lungs getting flattened, he calmly gets up from his seat and steps over to crouch by her side. With another wave of his hand, he releases her and lets her lie in a trembling, maddened mess on the floor, leaking tears and snot all together as she coughs up a stormy fit. He waits a moment as she recollects herself, and once she’s cowed into silence once more, he speaks again.
“…I was afraid this would happen if I said too much too soon. You just aren’t ready to handle the truth.”
“…”
He shakes his head with a smug smile. “You poor pitiful creature… What would you ever do without my guiding hand?” He also offers her a hand to help her back up.
She stares at it for a moment and back up to his face with a genuinely hateful yet helpless and fearful look in her eyes. As expected, she doesn’t take his hand and looks away again.
“I don’t need your pity.”
Now he retracts his hand and obliges with a nod. “Very well. You won’t get it.”
“…”
“Though you’ll eventually have to face that truth one way or another, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to give you a bit of time.”
Ruby’s eyes wander off into a little dusty corner of the room. She’s so exhausted – mentally and physically drained – that she doesn’t want to think about anything anymore.
Returning right to business, he offers her a reminder of her progress thus far: “You’ve certainly come far on your journey, at the very least. The entire crew has been gathered, and the only other thing you need to do is guide them to the Temple of the Ancients, as we discussed in the very beginning.”
“…”
He also suggests his next recommendation, “Feel free to finish up whatever you have left to do in Wutai, but then make haste for the Gold Saucer. You know exactly the item you need, don’t you?” He asks that with a coy smile.
“…”
That smile fades just slightly. “…Ruby. Answer me.”
Finally, she finds her voice again, albeit still raspy, “…The Keystone…”
His content smile returns. “Very good. And as always, I’ll be around to make sure you remain focused on your mission.”
“…”
“That’s all for now.”
With their business meeting concluded, he gets back to his seat by her desk and resumes his search on her computer. A still and awkward silence ensues, where only the sounds of Ruby’s wheezing from catching her breath and Sephiroth’s clicking and typing away can be heard. But as she pulls herself back up, even struggling with weak knees, she reaches up for the blanket at the edge of the bed to help support her weight. After what feels like an endless struggle against her own nerves, she flops back against the bed, but her feet haven’t even left the floor yet. She keeps gasping as if she were having trouble breathing.
What happened to her? Why does she feel so weak? The bout of Geostigma wasn’t that bad this time, all things considered. She must be really tired after her tirade. Yeah, that’s gotta be it. She’s just sleepy. She could just rest it off. Now if only she could just pull herself up a little more so she can actually lie on the bed properly…
Strange. Why does she feel like this is familiar too? Not that she’s any stranger to flopping onto her own bed, but rather, there was this struggle for a person to climb onto bed? A person she once knew…
“You’re late again! Dinner was ready two hours ago! Where have you been!?”
“Enough, woman. I’ve had a long day…”
“So have I! But at least I don’t spend it gambling!”
“I wasn’t gambling! I was working!”
“Don’t make excuses! If you really worked such long hours, then where is our money going!? I checked the statements from your bank account and it barely goes up every payday!”
“Shut up! You don’t know anything about what I’ve been through, so don’t bother me!”
“I’m your wife! Of course I should know what’s going on!”
“I don’t care! I’m tired and I’m going to bed!”
“Without dinner!?”
Ruby falls completely silent as the dread of this unwelcome memory has swung back full force at the worst time possible. Why did it have to be this one? As much as she hates it, she’ll never get rid of it… because it was the day her dad suffered a stroke. Later that night, they found him collapsed on the foot of the bed without even having undressed. They whisked him away to the hospital, but he wouldn’t leave there since. If only they had responded to his condition sooner, maybe he could have made it out just fine… or maybe it was a lost cause from the get-go.
But regardless of what could have been, the point is: she remembers that day so clearly. Her life definitely existed. Maybe it did or maybe it didn’t go for the full 29 years, but the first 24 were very much real. But… then where did she get the idea that she lived to 29? Where did that memory come from? And why did it feel so real when she was living in that illusion? Ugh, why is everything about her so messy?
By now, Ruby is trembling again; trembling from fatigue of all sorts. She doesn’t want to think about any of that anymore. She doesn’t want to have to feel one way or another about this seed of doubt that has sprouted in her mind. She doesn’t want to bother asking what Sephiroth really means by ‘the truth’ and what he’s been up to. She just wants to rest, but now she can’t even lift her arms up to move. She feels so lost, so helpless, so pathetic… that she could just cry.
At that moment, the sounds of typing cease. Without a word, Sephiroth gets back up from his seat and comes over to help lift her up onto the bed himself. Despite her heart screaming with rage and defiance at this fiend who has been the source of all – well, most of – the confusion thus far, she doesn’t utter a sound as she lets him carry her again. He sets her down gently as usual, and yet as he backs off and means to walk away, she mutters in a barely audible voice.
“…Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.” He pauses for a moment before adding, “Sweet dreams.”
And at last, she closes her eyes and lets herself drift off again. It doesn’t matter. Nothing does right now. This pain, this fatigue, this sorrow… it’ll all pass soon enough. She just needs to focus on what she’s been told and follow along. The truth will reveal itself in due time. She doesn’t have to claw and scratch for it. Why dig that hole bigger when she’s sinking in quicksand.
Well, maybe not the best analogy. But in any case, she just needs to be alone for now.
~
Aerith blinks a few times. Strange, where did this sudden onset of drowsiness come about? It’s as if there’s something that she feels is a little off; like something that should be around isn’t. Well, it’s true that after they all split up, the voices of her friends have quieted a bit, but it’s not like she has to worry about them. No, if anything, the voice who has gone the most quiet is Ruby’s.
Well, to be honest, she had suspected that something was a little off since a while earlier, and just now, Cloud sent in the message that told them that Ruby fell ill. They’re all passing it off as if it were no big deal, though, so Aerith has tried keeping her chin up too. Surely, her cousin will be okay. She’s gone through worse bouts, but she’s still made it through all the same.
Though, maybe it wouldn’t hurt to leave some well wishes for her anyway. Aerith takes out a strip of paper and pen from her pockets. She bought some of this paper for her and all her friends in case they wanted to join in the Tanabata Festival atmosphere a little early. They just need to find some bamboo groves or so to tie these paper strips to them, but that can wait. For now, she feels the need to write something down. With pen in hand, she begins to scribble up a quick message.
“To my dear cousin Ruby,
Thank you for staying by our side for all this time. We’ll all be there for you too, no matter what troubles you may be carrying.”
She takes one more thoughtful look at it and then frowns to herself. Maybe it’s a bit too wordy? These strips are designed for very short notes or messages, and thanks to her old habit, she ended up writing it more like a letter. Come on, girl! There’s no need to say too much. Keep it short and sweet! She folds the paper and slips it back into a pocket to dispose of later and takes out a fresh strip.
“Ruby, remember to keep us in your heart!”
There we go, much better. And it doesn’t sound like she’s wishing anyone goodbye or anything either. There’s no need to make a wish feel so down, after all. Aerith smiles proudly at her own handiwork and carefully slips this one back into another pocket for safekeeping.
“Aerith!”
She whips back around and sees Tifa running up to her, and she smiles and waves back excitedly.
“Tifa! It’s good to see you again!”
Tifa finally catches up to her, looking just a bit out of breath. “…Sorry… to keep you…”
“It’s fine. I know you guys might need a bit of time to get around. Hey, where’s Cloud?”
“Um, I wasn’t with him, so I think he’s still on the way…”
“Ah, okay.”
Now that Tifa notices, though, she asks Aerith: “Hm? Why are you holding a pen?”
“Huh? Oh!” Aerith makes a silly, a little embarrassed smile as she pulls out the strip she was writing on. “Just writing some well wishes to Ruby.”
“Oh! That’s right. Yuffie mentioned there was some kind of festival going on, right? Tanabata?”
“Well, she said it would be in a week or so, but some shops have been selling these papers, so I decided to get some for us!”
“Aw.” Tifa has to smile to that too. “Now that I think about it, maybe we could make some well wishes too.”
“You wanna write up something too?” Aerith returns her strip to her pocket and fetches a new one, passing it and the pen over.
“Thanks.”
But as Tifa accepts them, she takes a moment to think to herself about what to write. And with her muse found, she smiles and then starts scribbling something too. Aerith is about to peek on over when Tifa whips it away into her own pocket.
Aerith honestly looks disappointed. “Oh. Don’t wanna show it, huh?”
“Huh? Oh, um…” Tifa flashes an embarrassed blush. “I-it’s nothing, really. Just a silly idea that just came up.”
“Aw, come on! I don’t think whatever you’d come up with would be so silly. Could I at least get a hint?”
“Hmm…” Tifa hesitates, but then offers, “It’s… something to do with Cloud.”
Aerith’s eyes twinkle with excitement and curiosity. “Hmm… I guess that makes sense.”
“B-but it’s not like that! It’s about him, but also about Ruby too.”
Now Aerith blinks in surprise. “Even Ruby? Huh. Now I’m really curious…” She edges even closer with an almost devious smile. “Please, Tifa? Just a peek. I promise I won’t tell anyone, especially those two.”
“Um…” Tifa starts feeling a cold sweat come on under Aerith’s innocent-looking yet almost coersive stare and finally gives in with a sigh, raising her pinky up. “Pinky promise?”
Aerith raises her own pinky to meet hers. “Pinky promise!”
“Okay…”
Tifa then takes it out again and lets Aerith take that peek. The latter’s eyes twinkle as she leans in, but then she gasps when she actually sees what’s written. Tifa just as quickly whips it away again with an embarrassed blush, while Aerith stares back in stunned silence.
“Tifa… You and Cloud…”
Tifa looks away, too nervous to meet her at eye level. “I-it’s okay. I’m always looking out for him, after all.”
“…” Aerith then makes a gentle smile and nods back. “Right. I respect your decision.”
“Aerith! Tifa!”
A familiar voice calls out to them from a different end of street, and they turn to see Cloud rushing up along with Yuffie and Sonon.
“Cloud! And Yuffie too!” Tifa waves back as they come on over.
“Wow! Even Sonon’s up again!” Aerith does likewise. “Hey, guys!”
Now that they’ve all gathered, the team get right down to talking plans.
Cloud looks around and nods. “Okay. We’re here.”
Yuffie then asks the other ladies, “So, you guys know why we’re here and what to do, right?”
Aerith nods back with a determined smile. “Right! We’re going to dress up and pretend to be Don Corneo’s bride-to-bes! Me, Tifa, and of course, Cloud.”
Yuffie points a thumb behind her toward Sonon. “Cool. While you guys get yourselves ready, Sonon and I can scout the Pagoda and pretend to be security. We’ll also be looking for any secret exits since the place used to be some important training grounds for us ninjas in the past.” She also raises a finger to make a point, “And remember: if you feel like anything’s off, then get outta there pronto.”
Tifa nods back with her own determined look. “Right. Good luck to you two.”
“Luck? Nah. All we need is skill… but thanks anyway.”
Sonon turns to Cloud too and offers him a hand. “You probably won’t be needing that sword in the meantime. I’ll hold onto it for you. You have my word that I’ll keep it safe.”
Cloud frowns, but lifts it off his back and hands it over, and Sonon is pleasantly surprised to find that the thing isn’t as heavy as it looks. He nods back with a confident smile, though Cloud just looks off into the distance with just a hint of dread in the back of his mind.
“And we’ll keep Corneo distracted. But just in case things go south, we may have to bust outta there,” Cloud advises and also turns back to the two ladies, “So be ready to fight.”
Tifa nods. “Of course.”
Aerith nods too. “I always keep my staff with me, so don’t worry!”
Cloud looks between them and sighs to himself. “…I guess I’ll have to make do in the meantime.”
Aerith then giggles. “Oh, don’t you worry about that either! We’re going to make you the prettiest lady in all of Wutai!”
He looks stung. “Aerith! Don’t say that so loud!”
She covers her mouth. “Oops.”
Fortunately for Cloud, it doesn’t seem like the people around are paying attention, and he lets off an already exhausted sigh. With the plans now finalized, Yuffie and Sonon hurry off for the north end of town again, and Cloud watches them go with just a little bit of regret and jealousy. Nonetheless, he’s made his decision and these ladies are rather excited to get started – especially Aerith. He takes a deep breath and lets it out. No time for regret. Let’s just get this over with.
The three step inside the tailor shop, where it seems to be empty aside from a few women who seem to be the staff. They’ve been preparing to put some items and props away when they see new customers enter.
“Oh! Customers?” One of the women asks, in the middle of folding dresses.
Another of them, a younger one with her hair tied up in a bun, hurries to them with a polite bow. “Hello, there! Sorry for the mess. We’ve had a long day today as the last of some new brides came along. There’s a big wedding that’s coming later tonight, you see, and we’re thinking of closing up shop soon.”
Cloud waves a hand as if to tell them not to worry. “Ah. Sorry to bother you, but could you hold just a bit longer? We’re thinking of attending that wedding too.”
“Oh, um. Sorry, sir, but this is a bridal tailor. If you’re looking for mens’ wear, you may have to try a different shop.”
“Ah, well, uh…” He hesitates to explain the plan.
Fortunately, Aerith is on the case. She whispers, “Don’t worry, Cloud. Leave this to me.” She turns to the staff with an innocent smile. “About that… You see, this man isn’t going to the wedding as a guest or anything. He’s actually thinking about doing something a little special since it’s such a special wedding! In fact, he’s going to be there as one of those brides!”
Cloud flinches to the blank stares from the staff and quickly looks away, trying his best to avoid eye contact. Even the eldest one in the back shuffling clothes racks stops in her tracks to stare at him.
“Ah. We all are, actually,” Tifa explains further, “Do you think you could find dresses for all of us?”
The youngest of the three women cocks her head in confusion. “Um… I don’t mean to pry, but you’ve come a little late if you’re planning to attend the wedding as extra candidates. After all, I think they were all supposed to report to the central pagoda earlier in the evening.”
“Ah, well, uh…” But she quickly comes up with an excuse on the spot, “We did hear about that, but just ran into some delays. You see, um…” She then snatches up Cloud by the arm, to the latter’s shock, and says to his horror, “We actually tried different bridal shops around the city, but none were so welcoming to him when we told them about his plans.”
Even more to his dismay, Aerith takes him by the other arm, putting on a sad face. “Can you believe some people? He can’t help it if he has a certain orientation. That’s no reason to deny someone of his dreams, don’t you think?”
Never more in his life has Cloud ever felt so desperate to want to just throw up his arms, break free, and run out the door, never to be seen again. But he restrains himself and bears the brunt of the reputation damage the best he can muster. And at the very least, he assures himself, it’s not like they’ll be stopping by this place again. No one else has to know.
The young woman frowns. “Ah… I’m sorry to hear that. Normally we’re a very kind and respectful townsfolk, but I suppose not every bridal shop would be willing to accept just anyone.”
The other woman beside her nods along in sympathy, while the eldest one simply stops staring and resumes her work, heading off into the back.
“Well, I suppose since we do usually close a bit later, I guess we could spare just a moment’s time.”
The other staffer nods along. “Right. Though, I think we should first check with Maeko-san. It was her idea that we close early, after all.”
“Right! I’ll go get her!” And the young staffwoman gives their guests another polite bow to excuse herself as she hurries off into the back room as well.
Tifa and Aerith let off relieved sighs and exchange delighted smiles. They also turn to Cloud, who simply stares off into space as if he had died inside, and finally let him go.
“Sorry, Cloud,” Aerith whispers, “but you did good to take one for the team.”
“Yeah. Even if things don’t work out later, at least you have my respect,” Tifa adds with her own.
After a pause, he mutters, “…Please don’t jinx it, Tifa. If this doesn’t work out, I’d have been sacrificed for nothing.”
“Not for nothing! It’s for Ruby’s sake, remember?” Aerith reminds him.
But he instead snarls quietly, “…Never again.”
Now, another woman who’s not the eldest, but may be a little older than the other two comes back out to greet their latest customers. She’s already well dressed for the evening, showing off an elegant black kimono dress, laced with red and pink peonies, looking just fanciful enough as to not upstage the brides themselves, and wields a just as elegant fan in her hand. Her hair is likewise bound up into a traditional-looking pomp, but her face shows a bit of a sour mood having heard the news.
Even her voice and tone hold a certain aloof elegance to them. “I hear we have some stragglers who are going to be a bit late to report in for the wedding tonight.”
The younger staffer nods. “Yes, Maeko-san. It seems that these three – the man included – have been searching for a shop to prepare themselves, but were turned down.”
“Well, well… even the man?” Maeko strides up and takes a careful look at Cloud, who returns her a cautious yet somewhat defiant stare.
“Yeah,” he replies without a hint of hesitation.
“…” After a tense staredown, Maeko gives a sigh and relents, waving her fan as if to ease the tensions. “Very well. At the very least, this should make things interesting.” She turns to the other two ladies. “For the record, the Wings of Vermillion specialize in bridal kimono for more traditional tastes, but if you would rather go with more Eastern styles, we could get you some proper dresses too.”
Aerith claps her hands in delight. “Oh, really? Wow! Thanks, Maeko-san!”
“No need to thank me.” She waves her fan dismissively toward her staffers. “Get them what they need, but make it quick. Above all, we will not be late for the wedding. Many of the bridal candidates are featuring our proud embroideries, after all.”
The staffers both nod in response. “Yes, milady!”
The two staffwomen then hurry off to fetch the measurement tape and beckon Tifa and Aerith to come along for the fitting rooms. But while Cloud raises a hand, looking a little lost, he then notices the elderly woman from earlier has returned with her own measuring tape and now approaches him.
“Arms up.”
“Um…”
He obliges, and without delay or hesitation, the elderly woman whips it around him to get his measurements. She works completely silently and efficiently, marking notches on the tape, and then hurries for the back rooms again. As he watches her go, he can’t help but get a sense that this woman may have done something like this before. She stops and turns to see he’s not coming, and waves a hand to beckon him over, so he reluctantly follows.
As it turns out, one of the back rooms is a full-on dressing room filled with various types of clothing strewn up on all sorts of racks and shelves, and there’s a full-length mirror here for people to take a look at the results. There are even a couple rows of spotlights above them for the purposes of setting the lighting. The elderly woman shuts the door behind them as they step in and directs him to pick out a dress.
“Traditional or Eastern?”
“Uh… huh?”
“The style of dress.”
He awkwardly scratches his head. “Does it matter?”
“Of course it does. The dimensions have to be a perfect fit and they’re perfect at different points.”
“Um…” He still looks lost, as if not quite catching her meaning.
The elderly woman shakes her head with a sigh. “They’re always new to this…” She then explains, “If you’ve ever paid attention to the design of dresses, they put emphasis on certain parts of the female figure, depending on the style of dress, yes?”
“Right…”
“But when it comes to men wearing dresses, the figure is quite different. There has to be more attention put on the chest and hip areas, since men usually have a wider waistline. If we’re going to make you look like a woman, we’ll have to overcompensate on the other points.”
“…”
“And with long kimono in particular, thinner waistlines would be preferable, but we can always adjust the dimensions based on your own figure.”
“…I guess Eastern dress would be easier, then?”
“On the other hand, with that kind of hairdo, we would have to give you hair extensions to match, or it wouldn’t look good. But with kimono, women tend to tie up their hair in tight buns anyway.”
“…” He frowns, feeling just a little insulted. What’s wrong with his hair? He just likes it this spiky.
The staffwoman then goes off to search the cabinets and drawers to check on their supplies of hair extensions, and comes back with a pair of yellow twin pigtails. But while the braiding on the extensions looks fine, that looks like a rather saturated dye of yellow on them that doesn’t quite match his own hair color. She also holds up some hairpins to go with them.
“We’re running low on hair extensions, so this is the only one left.”
He cringes. “No other option? I don’t think that color matches, though…”
“Yeah, I thought so too. Yours is more of a diluted yellow.”
“Um…” This may be the first time he’s ever been called ‘diluted’ of anything, but for some reason, it seems to irk him.
The woman heads back and stores it away. “Well, I suppose we could go with kimono after all. We’ll just add some extra hairpins to make it look like your hair is being pinned up.”
“You sure about that?”
She frowns back. “It’s either that or the pigtails.”
“Right…” He sighs. “Kimono it is, then.”
~
It’s a little while later when the trio of guests finally step back out, though Cloud is the last of the three to come out. Aerith comes up giggling at her beautiful, sleek pink kimono gown, adorned with white lotus flowers gathered atop their lily pads, looking like something of a spring bloom. She gasps as Tifa steps out into view, wearing an elegant and rather alluring light blue Chinese dress adorned with a long branch of pink azaleas running down her dress.
Aerith squeals with glee and scurries over to give Tifa a hug. “Tifa! You look so pretty!!”
“Ah… thanks, Aerith. You do too.”
“Haha! Thanks.” She lets her go and spins about, looking all over herself. “I guess I’m not too shabby either, huh?”
She smiles and nods. “You’re beautiful… I mean it.”
“Hehe.” She beams with pride and then glances toward the dressing room in the back. “Boy, I can’t wait to see how Cloud turned out. You think they got something really cute for him too?”
“Heh. Who knows, but it sounds like they really know what they’re doing. I’m sure he’ll be fine.”
“Like just fine, or fine fine?”
“Um…” Tifa makes an awkward look, unsure of how to answer that.
They don’t need to wait too long before the elderly woman from before comes back out, leading a certain person by the hand. Though his face has been veiled by a lacey white headdress, there’s no mistaking who it is. Cloud nervously steps out into view with the most gorgeous, silky deep blue and violet kimono the ladies have ever seen, with its long sleeves, tightly wound obi, and long, trailing tail that gently brushes the floor with every careful step. His sturdy boots have even been replaced with high-rising geta sandals, as to help prop him up further with such a long dress tail, and he’s been had some fragrant cologne put on to mask his otherwise manly musk. Though there aren’t too many lacey designs on the kimono itself, there is what seems to be an emblem of a phoenix’s wings in red and black embroidery upon its lapel, signifying the shop’s brand.
Needless to say, Tifa and Aerith are blown away into speechlessness. Their still stares nearly drill holes in Cloud’s increasingly fragile self-esteem and he looks away to avoid further confrontation. But before he can walk around them, Aerith then walks right up to him and flips off the veil, to the latter’s dismay. He looks away, but it’s too late. They caught the sight of his face in makeup, and there’s no hiding that blush on his face.
At last, Aerith finds her voice again. “He’s… gorgeous.”
Tifa nods, likewise as stunned. “He really is.”
“Drop-dead gorgeous…” She rests the back of a hand to her forehead. “I think I’m feeling a little faint.”
“Uh, Aerith? Are you okay?”
Aerith swoons, to which Tifa catches her, but Aerith hops right back to her feet to give Cloud a hug too. The latter quickly shoves her off, steadying himself atop the high-rising sandals.
“Cloud! You’re gorgeous!!”
“I heard you the first time…” he groans, “But do women of this country really wear something this tight? It’s so hard to move and breathe, honestly…”
“Aw, don’t worry! I’m sure you’ll get used to it. Besides, it wouldn’t befit a lady of your status to take large strides.”
“What do you mean of my ‘status’!? I didn’t pick this thing out. That old lady foisted it onto me!”
The staffwoman then points out, “It was the only one that would work with your figure.”
“You sure about that? Because ‘perfect fit’ doesn’t always mean skin-tight…”
“It most certainly isn’t. But as I said, kimono are more suited to thinner waists.”
“Ugh. Maybe I should have just gone for the pigtails…” he mutters under his breath.
“Satisfied, ladies?” Now Maeko comes back out from her office upstairs and takes a quick glance over their latest models with an approving nod.
“Absolutely! We’re all drop-dead gorgeous!” Aerith cheers. “Thank you so much!”
“Yes, thank you.” But Tifa gets a bit nervous. “Though, regarding the price…”
Maeko slowly waves her fan as she goes into thought. “Though I normally would charge full price for these high-grade dresses, I’ll make a special exception for you three, just this once.”
“Huh?”
She gives it a dismissive wave. “It’s on the house.”
“R-really? Why? We would be willing to pay…”
“Forget it. If we dally here any longer the three of you may be too late to attend the wedding, and that would be a real shame. For what it’s worth, we certainly got a nice surprise when you brought your manly friend in here to be turned pretty.”
Cloud scowls to himself in the corner, but at least something good came out of this.
“Oh, wow. Really, thank you.” Aerith smiles innocently. “You know, despite initial impressions, you’re a lot nicer than I thought you’d be.”
Maeko returns her a stern frown and Aerith flinches, bowing her head in apology.
In any case, Cloud starts for the door. “Alright, we’re done here? Let’s go. It’s gonna be a long walk…”
But Maeko calls out, “Hold it.”
He turns back. “Huh?”
She shakes her head. “You’re not going to walk all the way to the pagoda like this. You won’t make it in time, and I certainly won’t have you dirtying up such a beautiful dress.”
“But…”
She then swings back around and heads toward the back hall again. “Come with me. I’ve already arranged for a carriage to bring us right there.”
“We even get a ride? Yippee!” Aerith squeaks.
Tifa blinks in surprise too. “Wow. I guess it really does pay to keep Cloud around, huh?”
“Hahaha! You got that right!”
As the two ladies hurry off after Maeko, Cloud stares off into space as he questions his life’s choices that led him to this moment, but is promptly interrupted by that elderly staffer who tugs him along after them. And with a little extra help from Tifa and Aerith lifting up that tail, Cloud takes a seat in the back, to be surrounded by the two giggling ladies that dragged him into this.
If there is any silver lining that’s worth anything here, it’s that Ruby isn’t here to mock him. That said, he can only hope that wherever she is, she’ll be back soon enough. Maybe his appearance, as much as he hates it, might just brighten her up again.
Notes:
Boy, I wonder what it was that Tifa wrote... Actually, I'm wondering what you guys think. Post in the comments, would ya? ;)
Just a friendly reminder that the world of Gaia is flipped compared to our own, and when I say "Eastern" I most definitely mean "Western" for us. It gets confusing even for me. Also, I'm sorry. I could not help but write a "Madame M" expy into this chapter. It's just too fitting. Remake has spoiled me.
Chapter 40: A Priceless Occasion
Notes:
Hi, I'm back from my break. The new Rebirth trailer was pretty sick, ngl. And as of late, I've gotten myself into yet another mystery-solving game that my fave LPer is going through right now. Anyone heard of Master Detective Archives: Rain Code?
Okay, my poor time management skills aside, I did take a while to write this chapter since I wasn't exactly sure how I wanted to actually tie all the cool ideas I had for this arc together. Now I have a better idea, so I was able to write something. And yes, I had to come up with everything about this sub-plot chasing down Corneo. This isn't just a quick drop by Wall Market anymore.
Outdated A/N
9/28/23 edit: Sorry, all. This week has been plagued with personal health and family issues and I haven't done a lick of writing this week. Hopefully I ought to be ready by next Thursday/Friday.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The great pagoda to the north of the city stands tall as it has for generations across the nation’s long history, but over time its symbolic significance has come to change and eventually wane into obscurity. What once was a mighty monument to the powers that united Wutai in ancient times of civil war and conflict eventually came to be the training grounds for the old guard of Wutai. By now, however, it was merely just another historical set piece that would come to be fraught with – and as some would put it, defiled – by foreign influence as the new government was established.
Indeed, these days the pagoda grounds are yet another area that is open to tourism. While on most days, the grounds would welcome visitors on tour of the place as if it were some sort of museum, today access has been restricted to only those who have some matters to do with the current VIP in charge, the former Don of the Midgar slums, now re-established as an esteemed guest of the Wutaian government. He even has his own personal security force as granted by said government, and even among the public, it does rub some people the wrong way that some foreign investor would be granted such level of lenience and luxury. And yet, little has been done – or is believed can be done – about the plump womanizer who can throw his weight around. Those who have spoken out before also happened to be the ones who went “missing” recently, or at least that’s how the rumors go.
It seems the Wings of Vermillion is no ordinary tailor either, as Maeko seems to have some level of influence around here too. Once their carriage arrives at the front gate and she steps out, the guards in brown uniform – unlike that of the local police – promptly salute her and open the doors without a single question. Tifa blinks in surprise, turns to Aerith who is just as surprised but way more excited. They have to wonder just who it is that they happened to meet. And as the rest of them step off and follow Maeko inside, with Cloud being accompanied by the two staffwomen who help hold up the trailing dress tail, they would promptly be welcomed by a well-suited receptionist with his hair tied in a ponytail – though the deviant look in his eyes seem to suggest other machinations in mind.
“Welcome to the Grand Pagoda, my fair ladies. Normally we wouldn’t admit latecomers, but since the Boss hasn’t gotten ready yet for his big debut, we can make a special exception this time.”
“We thank you for your kind consideration,” Maeko replies with a graceful smile. and then turns back to her two assistants and their accompanying brides-to-be. “Well, ladies, this is where we’ll have to part ways.”
“Huh? You’re not coming with us anymore?” Aerith asks with a curious look.
“I’m not going to be a bride, after all.” Maeko waves a fan in the direction of the receptionist. “Follow him. He’ll guide you three to the proper place where the rest of the candidates have been waiting.”
“And what about you, Maeko-san?” Tifa also asks.
Maeko turns back, waving that fan elegantly, and makes a subtle smile. “Oh, don’t worry. I won’t be ditching you three here, if that’s what you’re worried about. There’s a separate viewing area for wedding guests in the courtyard. My girls and I are here to attend the wedding as well, after all.”
“Oh, I see.”
Cloud also asks, keeping his voice low as to not arouse too much suspicion, “Maeko-san, another question…”
“Yes?”
He points back to the two assistants. “Will they be coming with me too? Seeing how long this kimono is and all…”
She gives him a look as if almost disappointed in his question. “Yes, while you’re still outside, someone has to hold up the tail. You certainly aren’t going to go around soiling it on my watch.”
“…” He looks disappointed too and already tired of being stuck in this outfit.
“Fortunately, it’s not a long walk to the pagoda up ahead, so they can go once you’re inside.” She also gives him a stern frown and prods him with the tip of her folded fan to get him to listen. “And don’t slouch. Chin up. Since you’re dressed like a lady of a certain status, act the part.”
He grunts, but obliges to her commands.
“I know your brooding types, but you chose to come to us in the first place. You should be thankful that I haven’t the mind to charge you yet.”
He rolls his eyes, but catches onto that last bit and raises an eyebrow. “…Yet?”
“Yes.” There’s a twinkle to her eyes as she opens up the fan again and hides her devious smile. “What better way to sell something to customers than by offering them a demonstration first?”
Cloud is so taken aback that he nearly wobbles on his feet. “W-what!?”
Tifa blinks in disbelief too. “Wait. So the reason you let us have these dresses on the house…”
Maeko lowers the fan and nods back without a hint of shame. “You three are going to act as our store’s promoters in the meantime.”
“Huh!?” Now all three of them are shocked.
Cloud seethes in a low voice, “So you just wanted free advertising…”
Tifa lets off a sigh. “I guess that’s fair. But we really would have paid for them.”
Maeko scoffs back, “Well, if you happen to have 30,000 gil lying around, then we certainly can renegotiate.”
“T-thirty thousand!?”
Aerith gasps, “Wait. Each dress is worth 10,000 gil!?”
Maeko shakes her head. “No, the white lotus kimono and the azalea dress are 6,000 and 7,000 gil respectively. But the Phoenix Indigo is an exclusive design of irotomesode best suited to weddings like this one, which isn’t usually available for sale on most days. But it comes to an estimated value of 17-18,000 gil apiece. It is made with the finest silk and other fabrics in the land, after all. Under normal circumstances, I would have also charged you additional for the accessories, but time was the higher priority.”
All three of them are stunned into silence, while Cloud grumbles swears under his breath. He had no idea what he would be in for, but maybe it wasn’t the best idea to just leave everything to the recommendations of the store’s staff. Of course they’d push the classiest and most expensive stuff on him.
“Judging by the looks on your faces, you probably don’t have the money right now, so I would suggest that you take up my kind offer to be our store’s promoters for the time being.”
“…”
“Take care, ladies. And good luck.”
And with that, she then folds up her fan once again and casually waves to them as she takes her leave. The other three stare at her as she heads off and then turn back to each other.
Aerith sighs. “I’m sorry, guys. I just heard that this shop was one of the best in the city, so I figured it’d work for us.”
Tifa shakes her head. “It’s okay, Aerith. At least Maeko-san seems to have some sway around here, so she could get us in pretty easily. And she’s giving us these dresses for free. We probably wouldn’t be so lucky with other places anyway.”
Cloud frowns, muttering, “Though, it almost seemed a bit too easy…”
“Huh? Too easy?”
He then shakes his head. “We can talk about it later.” He then turns back toward the receptionist, who has been waiting quietly and patiently for them. “So you’re gonna take us somewhere?”
The receptionist takes a gentlemanly bow and gestures to lead the way. “Yes, of course. Please, if you may come with me…”
Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith exchange nervous glances but agree with silent looks of determination and head off as instructed. The man leads them off toward the awaited pagoda in the furthest back of the courtyard, where another couple of guards have been standing before the front double doors. As the rest of the way is forbidden to the other guests, Maeko’s assistants must take their leave and make a polite bow as they excuse themselves. With a nod from the receptionist, the guards swing them open and the rest of them step inside.
However, this time the receptionist doesn’t follow them in. The doors are then shut behind them with a firm thud and there’s even the sound of something locking outside.
“!?”
“What was that?” Tifa asks, alarmed. “Did they just…?”
Cloud, who was the last to enter, checks the handle and realizes that it’s stuck. He throws an arm against one of the doors, but it doesn’t budge. He swears under his breath and turns back to the other two.
“They locked us in.”
“What?”
Aerith simply looks confused. “But why would they need to lock it? Is there some kind of rule about entering this place?”
Tifa nervously bites her lip. “Or maybe some kind of rule about latecomers…”
“What? Really?” she gasps, “But we didn’t do anything suspicious yet!”
“Maybe being late was suspicious enough?”
“Hmm…”
Cloud looks on ahead to the room on this first floor. There appears to be quite a bit of room in here, where the walls are well decorated with scrolls written in Wutaian and there seem to be a number of empty racks that are set along the walls. Whatever was on them seems to have been removed, but judging by the shape of them, they appear to be the kinds that hold some kind of long weapons – like swords or spears. There’s even a huge circle on the floor with some kind of symbol. This doesn’t look like a guest lounge in the least; more like some kind of training grounds for a dojo or something.
“…In any case, there’s a single staircase that leads up to the next floor, I’m guessing. We can take it to move forward.”
“But what about the exit?” Tifa asks, growing ever more worried.
He shakes his head. “We don’t have a way to deal with that now. Besides, we’re here to see Corneo. Only way is forward.”
“I… guess you’re right.”
But as they step close to the stairs ahead, Cloud hears some strange tinking sound as if something were falling down the steps from above. And as the object bounces and rolls out into view, he stops dead in his tracks.
“What the…?”
“What’s this little ball?” Aerith asks, walking over to inspect.
“Aerith, don’t!” he warns. “Get away!”
“Huh?”
And the next thing they know, the doorway to the stairs is promptly shut tight by a falling metal shutter.
“W-what? What’s going on!?” Tifa stammers as she starts to panic.
Before they can stop it, the ball pops open into two halves and it emits off a thick purple smoke from some nozzle in the center.
“Eek! Smoke!?” Aerith squeaks.
The room is very quickly submerged in the thick smoke and the three soon find themselves choking in the suspicious smog. They all run back to escape the thick cloud, but this room has no windows to open, and the only two exits have been blocked off.
“Shit…” Cloud mutters, “This was a trap.”
“C-Cloud…!” Tifa asks through trembling lips, “What do we do now!?”
He hurries back to the main exit and throws his weight against the doors, but try as he might, they still don’t budge.
“Damn! What did they lock it with? A whole drawbar?”
“What is this smoke…?” Aerith asks as she starts to cough. “I feel… a little dizzy…”
“M-me too…” Tifa says, feeling a little faint. “Is this… sleeping gas…?”
“…Ugh,” Cloud swears under his breath, “We were too careless…”
With his strength waning fast, he pulls himself away from the doors and rushes as best he can in this outfit back to where the bomb has been sitting. And as Aerith and Tifa begin to drop to the floor from exhaustion, Cloud lunges forth to kick the ball with enough force into the shuttered door, causing the ball to crack and the nozzle is plugged as it caves in, stopping further smoke from being spewed. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have a way to get that door open, and he’s run out of time. As his consciousness fades, he swears he can hear the sounds of footsteps coming down from the stairs ahead.
~
When Cloud comes to again, he finds himself and the girls lying on the floor in an entirely different place. By the looks of it, it seems to be some kind of guest lounge where a number of other young ladies have been waiting – 12 in all excluding the three new arrivals. Judging by the way they’re all dressed, they appear to be the other bridal candidates waiting their turn to join the lineup. While most seem to be native Wutaian, there are a few others who seem to be visitors from abroad as well. Everyone is quiet, but rather than acting out of courtesy, it’s more like they’re wary of the latest guests to join them. A few who are willing to chat keep their opinions to whispers.
“…What’s with those three? Were they always here?”
“Who knows… Oh, and look, there’s the emblem of the Wings of Vermillion.”
“That place? Wasn’t the owner rumored to be working with some shady types?”
“These poor girls… They probably had no idea what they were in for.”
Nonetheless, there are a couple young women who have come over to check on them. One of them, a short-haired brunette with bright blue eyes of her own, offers a hand to help pull Cloud up. The other looks to be native Wutaian and she helps Tifa and Aerith up as they stir awake too.
“Are you okay?”
“Ugh…” Trying to ignore his spinning head, he takes the hand and pulls himself up. “Thanks.”
“No problem. Um…” The young brunette makes a cautious look as she scans across the three of them. “So, what happened to you all?”
“Huh? We were… um…” But Cloud hesitates to answer and turns to his two partners, who also look a little out of it. One moment they were assaulted, and the next, they’ve been taken here… wherever “here” is. He turns back to ask, “Where are we?”
“I think this is a waiting lounge for the bridal candidates.” She then takes out a thin paper slip with a number on it: 26. “The receptionist at the front gate guided us here, gave us all these numbered slips, and said to wait for further instructions, but we haven’t been told much of anything.”
“Huh? Numbers…?” Tifa asks, taking a curious peek at the slip, which the brunette then puts away.
“Yeah. I guess it’s because we’re one of the later groups of candidates that we were sort of pushed to the side. The ones who came earlier were summoned to the pagoda already, but we haven’t seen them come back out yet.”
The lady beside her also explains, “It really surprised us when the three of you were brought in here by some of the guards. You looked like you were out cold. To be honest, it kinda scared everyone.”
Now Cloud exchanges wary looks with Tifa and Aerith, who are likewise just as confused.
“We were brought here…?” he mutters in a low voice between them.
Aerith whispers too, “But didn’t Maeko-san say to follow the receptionist? That he would lead us to where we were supposed to go?”
“Yeah, she did say it, didn’t she…” Tifa recalls with a suspicious frown.
The Wutaian lady and the brunette exchange confused glances and turn back to them, where the Wutaian asks again, “Are you guys really okay? Should we call security to help?”
Aerith quickly replies aloud, “No, thanks! We’ll be fine!”
“Uh… really?”
“Yeah!” She turns back to the other two with a forced smile. “We’re fine, aren’t we?”
“Um…” Tifa looks down at herself and begins to check.
Cloud looks around himself too, noting that everything seems to be in order. At least, it doesn’t seem like anything was removed or damaged. To be honest, he wouldn’t have minded if this tight sash loosened up a bit, though. Even when they’re not in a room filled with smoke, he still feels like he’s being choked, just a bit.
“Wait.” Now Tifa grows alarmed as she starts digging into her pockets to the shorts under her dress. “Where’s my wallet?”
“Huh?” Aerith checks her sash too, likewise to no avail. “Mine’s gone too!”
“What?” Cloud winces. “Don’t tell me…”
Now Tifa is pissed off. “We were robbed! Whoever they were, they snatched our gil!”
Aerith is too. “What the heck!? I just had some pocket change after all the stuff I bought and they still took it!”
Cloud frowns. Now that he thinks about it, they were knocked out by that smoke grenade, so whoever had found them clearly had time to loot them. Perhaps it was supposed to be some kind of body check too, but Corneo’s henchmen sure had a really invasive way to go about it. They had better not touched anything else…
The other two ladies exchange wary glances and offer their sympathic looks. The brunette follows up, “We’re sorry to hear that. Who do you mean?”
“Probably the same people that brought us here, honestly,” Tifa grumbles, making an angry fist.
“Huh?”
“We were just following the receptionist at the front gate, the one with the ponytail,” Aerith explains, “And the next thing we know, we were locked into the pagoda as we went in.”
“But before we could go anywhere, someone attacked us with a smoke bomb and we must have passed out,” Tifa continues.
“Oh…” The brunette shakes her head. “That’s weird. None of us went through anything like that.”
Aerith makes an upset huff. “So he just picked some poor unsuspecting girls to mess with? Talk about rude!”
Tifa makes a worried face. “I think they were suspicious of us because we were late.”
Cloud puts a hand to his chin as he thinks it further. “Makes sense if they were Corneo’s men. The guy would probably be a little wary of latecomers to his party, so they’d want to do a body check before we get to meet him.”
“A body check?” The other two gasp in horror.
“But why would they take our money?” Aerith asks again, crossing her arms. “It’s not like we could be carrying any weapons on us with these outfits.”
“That might be it, actually. They didn’t find anything, so they snatched what they could,” he takes a guess.
Aerith pouts cutely, looking like steam could come out of her ears. “Ooh! That’s it! When I find them again, I’m giving them a good whacking!”
“Well, I guess we should be thankful that they only snatched our wallets and not anything else,” Tifa nervously admits.
Cloud nods. “I think we’re in the clear. No way Corneo would let his men do anything to his potential brides before his wedding’s even started.”
“I suppose… but we really were caught off-guard.”
The brunette gets a little curiouser by the minute and now asks again, “Wait… You three know something about Corneo?”
“Huh?” Cloud turns back to her. “Uh… yeah. You could say that.”
Now she gets serious and lowers her voice. “As it happens, I’ve been tailing after the man for… personal reasons. I’ve been looking for him to ask him about a missing person, actually.”
“A missing person?”
She nods. “My name’s Meryl. It’s kind of a long story, but I’ve been looking for a little girl named Yasumi.”
“That girl is my little sister,” the woman beside her follows up, “I’m Himiko and Meryl’s a good friend. She promised we’d go look around for her together and our search led us to tail Corneo.”
Cloud blinks. “Wait. Did you say ‘Meryl’?”
“Uh, yes?” the brunette replies.
Cloud looks to Tifa and Aerith, who are just as surprised, and back to her. “By any chance, do you know someone by the name of ‘Leslie’?”
Meryl gasps. “Wait… Leslie? Last name Kyle?”
He nods. “Yeah. We met him back in Midgar. Said he was looking for someone named Meryl and hunted down Corneo to find her.”
“Oh my God…” She drifts off, glancing down.
Himiko puts a hand to her shoulder. “Do you think he’s really here?”
She turns back. “If he is, it’s not a good thing. He shouldn’t be here.”
Cloud frowns. “What’s wrong? Wouldn’t you want to see him? You two were fiances, right?”
Meryl makes a bit of a pained expression. “Right… but we had to cut ties. I was called away one day by Corneo to become one of his brides back when we were still living in Midgar, but in the end he rejected me and dropped me off outside Wall Market. But I still went back because I had to meet him, for my investigation. Even if he rejected me once, he’s always changing wives anyway, so I figured I’d have a chance eventually.”
“Yasumi’s been missing for a few years now, and we think Corneo might know something about her disappearance,” Himiko explains further, “This was the only way we could think of to get close to him.” She then shakes her head. “We never imagined he’d come right back to this country, though…”
“I know Leslie’s been chasing after me, but please, tell him I’m sorry and I can’t meet him just yet. Not until we know that Yasumi is safe.”
“Oh…” Aerith gives a sigh. “Poor Leslie, but I think I understand.”
“He’s been chasing after his fiancée for a long time, and we finally find her, but…” Tifa comments, nodding sympathetically. “I see you’re on a mission too.”
Meanwhile, Cloud looks off as he takes a moment to think and then shakes his head. “…Sorry, but we don’t need to tell him that.”
Meryl blinks, totally taken aback. “Huh?”
“Cloud? What are you saying?” Tifa asks.
“Because by the time we’re done here, Corneo’s not gonna be going anywhere. And if these two just need him for information, we got lots of questions for him ourselves. We can just ask him when we have him cornered.”
She blinks again. “Oh. You have a point.”
Aerith pokes her chin in thought too. “Oh, yeah. Now that you mention it, all our problems are solved if we just capture him, huh?”
“That’s why we’re here in the first place…” Cloud mutters, looking unimpressed.
“Haha! You’re right, Cloud. It kinda slipped my mind seeing how pretty you turned out.”
“…”
Meryl and Himiko give them all looks in disbelief and then turn back to each other in shared surprise. Meryl then asks them, “Really? You’d do that for us?”
“Sure. We were after him anyway,” he casually replies.
“We’re hunting him down because he’s hurt a lot of people already,” Tifa adds with her own determined frown. “And by the sounds of it, it’s not just the people of Midgar either.”
“So we’re gonna beat him and his cronies up until they think twice about doing anything nasty again!” Aerith declares proudly.
But at that moment she says it aloud, Meryl and Himiko flinch. There’s a solemn silence that overtakes the rest of the room as the rest of the crowd who had been curiously listening quickly turn away and try to avoid eye contact. As Aerith peeks around, she turns back to Meryl and Himiko.
“Um, did I say something wrong?”
“It’s not just you… but you really shouldn’t be saying stuff like that around here,” Himiko whispers.
“Not everyone here is willing to rock the boat,” Meryl adds, “Even if there are plenty of people who don’t like Corneo, everyone’s still afraid of what might happen if they speak out.”
“What might happen?” Tifa asks.
Himiko nods. “You see, there have been some rumors around some people who have gone missing recently, and some suspect that Corneo might have something to do with them.”
“Oh. I think I might have heard about that too,” Aerith recalls, now getting worried too. “So was it really him who was behind them?”
“Don’t know. And we haven’t been able to get close enough to the guy to know…” Meryl answers with a discouraged frown.
Before their conversation can continue, though, the doors to the lounge swing wide open as the suspicious receptionist from earlier returns. This time, he’s accompanied by a few guards, and he speaks as if he were some sort of manager of this event.
The man takes a bow. “Pardon the interruption, ladies, but it’s time.” He also whips out a clipboard with a list and begins to instruct them. “Those who have numbered slips, please step out and head for the pagoda’s first floor. You’ll be seen by a round of inspectors, and if you pass inspection, you may proceed to the next floor after that.”
Tifa blinks in disbelief. “We have to go through another round of inspection?”
Aerith frowns with a huff. “They already robbed us. What else can they take?”
Cloud cringes at the thought. “Don’t ask…”
Aerith also complains, “And why numbers? If he’s picking his wife, at least know her by her name first!”
“We… didn’t get any numbers, did we?” Tifa adds, still searching her pockets but finds nothing else.
As the manager calls out the numbers from the list, the respective ladies quietly respond and head out as instructed. While some seem rather nervous as they walk out, others seem to be excited and others still remain as calm and collected as usual. Perhaps not everyone here has a particular ulterior motive to be attending this wedding, but among those who do, they’ll have to brace themselves for whatever tests they may have to face. When Meryl and Himiko are also called, they pass Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith determined nods and head out as well. And soon enough, all the rest are all called out aside from the last three.
Finally, the manager approaches them with that devilish smile. “Ah, of course. My apologies, ladies. You three were the late arrivals, weren’t you? So none of you have a number.”
“Ahem.” Aerith folds her arms with a stern frown. “For your information, my name is Aerith, and these two are Tifa and Cloud,” she adds, pointing them out. “We’d rather not be known just by numbers.”
Cloud raises a hand too late to stop her. “Aerith, you don’t have to…”
But the manager shakes his head. “Oh, don’t you worry about that. You’ll have to excuse us for the unconventional welcome earlier, but fortunately, you all passed the body check with flying colors, so you won’t have to go through inspection again. The Don has been notified and he’s granted you three special permission to have a personal audience with him.”
“What…?” Cloud mutters under his breath.
“Just like that?” Aerith asks in disbelief.
“Oh, but there is one other thing before that can be arranged: you’ll have to pass a test.”
“A test?” Tifa asks with a frown, demanding, “But didn’t you say we don’t need to go through more inspections?”
The manager politely waves a hand. “Oh, no. This isn’t an inspection. But before we can give you access to the Boss, you’ll first have to prove you’re, shall we say, qualified to meet with him.”
“In what way?”
“It’s simple, really. While we are still setting things up for the opening ceremony, the Don has yet to pick his bride for the event. In the meantime, he sees a bit of promise in you three and hopes to see you put on a show for him.”
Tifa looks a little disturbed. “What?”
Aerith looks concerned too. “A show? You mean, like, we’re going to be actresses and stuff?”
Cloud narrows his eyes and feels a certain dread creep over him, but keeps quiet for now.
“Yes, but again, there’s no need to worry. It’s nothing difficult. There’s just a short scene you’ll be enacting out. Think of it as a bridal audition.” He glances away for the door and adds, “Rest assured, the rest of the candidates would have needed to go through a similar process. You three just get to have it sooner. Lucky you, huh?”
“…” The three of them simply return him a collectively suspicious glare.
“Now, now. I’m simply relaying the rules for you.” He folds his hands together almost like a waiter or servant. “And I’m sure you’re all excited to meet the Don, but in the meantime, you’ll first have to get ready for the big show. And our friendly staff on the fourth floor will help instruct you. Then, when you’re ready, you may proceed to meet with the Don on the top floor.”
“And what about the other candidates? Haven’t they been instructed to head in there too?” Tifa asks to clarify.
“There’s no need to concern yourself with them. After all, this is a special request made just for you three.”
“…”
There’s even a sinister twinkling to his eyes. “I wish you all the best of luck! I’m sure you’re going to be playing a big part of the following ceremony too. After all, the main event can’t begin without the bride.”
And with that, the manager takes his leave as the guards remain to keep watch of them. Cloud turns back to the other two with an ever wary face.
“This is going way too fast for it to be natural. Something’s up…” he mutters just loud enough for the other two to hear.
“Yeah. Things have been really weird from the get-go, and we’re the only ones who were ‘inspected’ separately. It almost feels like…” Tifa whispers back, growing more alarmed.
“Like they already know why we’re here?” Aerith whispers too, finishing her suspicions.
Tifa nods back with a worried frown.
Cloud takes a moment to think it over and then nods back. “…If Corneo already knows, then all the more reason to meet him. He’s rolling out the red carpet for us, so we might as well take it.”
“Even if it could be a trap?” Tifa asks.
“Yeah. Remember, he’s not the only one who’s setting up a trap.”
“…” She then nods back with a more determined frown. “Right. We still have those two in the shadows.”
“Hey!” the voice of that manager calls out from outside, “Come on, ladies. Let’s not keep the Don waiting.”
Even despite their misgivings and suspicions, the three agree in with a silent exchange of looks and head on out with those three guards following behind. Rather than head right for the pagoda’s main entrance, the manager leads them to the right instead. As it happens, there is a wooden but mechanically drawn lift at the foot of the building, and it looks to have been added relatively recently compared to the pagoda’s age. They all take the lift and head on up directly to the fourth floor to avoid all the wait and trouble of climbing stairs.
As they step forth through a back door on the fourth floor, they come into another open room like on the first floor, but this room has been repurposed to what appears to be a theatrical studio, with a wide backdrop green-screen that spans nearly three walls and a good portion of the floor, surrounded by an array of lights and cameras. There are staff at attendance, an entourage made up entirely of female stageworkers and entertainers. It seems they’ve been waiting for the final three candidates to make it up to this floor, but they’re surprised that the newcomers in question have been escorted up here from the back door instead and are stirred into a low murmur.
As the event manager steps in after their guests, one of the staff, a middle-aged woman with her hair tied up into a bun as well, comes up to ask, “Excuse me, but what’s going on?”
“A change of plans, you could say. At the personal request of the Boss, these three will make up the final lineup.”
She blinks in surprise. “Um, I’m sorry… but I don’t think we were notified?”
“You have been now.”
“…”
“Pardon the interruption, ma’am, but as the rules around here go, the ‘master’ makes the last call.”
“Yes… of course.”
With nothing else to be said, he nods back with a smile and a polite bow as he takes his leave once more. As the door clicks shut once more, Cloud and party turn to meet the four, five women who have come over to inspect them. Cloud can only try his best to avoid eye contact as much as possible as they do. Even with his face veiled, a few of them curiously lift it up, but he quickly pulls away and backs off to huddle into a nearby corner. The curious young ladies exchange confused glances, but decide to leave him be.
The woman from earlier then returns to them and lets off a troubled sigh. “Strange that they would suddenly change the plans… but we’re not in the place to argue either.”
“Sorry, but what’s all this?” Tifa asks.
“Oh, I’m sorry! Were you not informed?” The woman takes a bow as well. “This is the new location for the Hanabanashi Theatre Troupe. We’re a group of stage entertainers who regularly tour the country and put on all sorts of shows for the public. In a way, it’s kind of like vaudeville.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Wow, they even invited a whole troupe for this wedding?” Aerith is honestly impressed. “Talk about extravagant.”
“Yes, it was at the personal request of the master… He certainly is an eccentric one, to say the least. Rather than ask us to perform it ourselves, he wanted us to wait for his potential bride to take the stage.”
“And who is this ‘master’?” Tifa asks further.
She nods politely. “Ah, pardon me. The master is our esteemed client who invited us to this wedding. I believe he’s been waiting on the fifth floor, along with a few other important guests, in the meantime.”
Tifa’s face grows dark, but she turns away to avoid being noticed. “Right… We’re here to meet him, after all.”
Aerith then asks the staff member, “Sounds like we’re going to be acting in this show, huh?”
The woman nods back. “Yes, of course. And don’t worry if you don’t have any experience! We’re here to help you lovely ladies prepare, after all. Our members will also be participating to help guide you along, but it will still be the three of you who will be taking the lead roles.”
Tifa turns back with a curious look. “What sort of show is it? I mean, what’s it about?”
“We won’t be enacting the full play, but just a few short scenes. It’s based on a folk tale that’s well known in this country. It’s called ‘The Moon Princess’.”
She looks a bit taken aback. “The Moon Princess?”
“Yes. It’s the tale of a young woman who is said to come from a heavenly race of people of the moon and her life living among the common folk on the planet.”
Aerith blinks in surprise. “The moon? They’re moon people?”
“Yes, at least so the old legend goes. This young woman would learn all she could through this life before she would have to return to her people on the moon.”
Tifa then makes a thinking face as she recalls, “…I think I know this folk tale, actually.”
Aerith whips back to her. “Huh? Really?”
“Yeah. Well, I was really young when my mother passed away, but I have a few memories from when she was still alive. She liked to read me bedtime stories, and one of my favorites was ‘The Moon Princess’.” Tifa makes an awkward smile. “It’s been so long since I last thought about it, though, so the details are a little hazy.”
“Aww…” Aerith giggles. “Little Tifa has some great taste in literature!”
“C-come on, it’s not like that…” She stammers, glancing away with a slight blush. She then asks the staff member, “By the way, sorry if this is a silly question, but what was the name of the Moon Princess again?”
“If I may recall, she’s gone by several different names depending on the version of the legend, but in this particular play, she goes by the name Yue-hua.”
“Yue-hua…?”
At that moment, Cloud snaps out of his mopey trance and whips back around with an alarmed expression. He hurries up to the staff member and asks, still trying to keep his voice low and inconspicuous, “Sorry, did you say ‘Yue-hua’?”
The woman nods. “Yes, that’s right.”
“…” He looks off in a daze of utter disbelief as he thinks over the possible implications.
“Cloud? What’s up?” Aerith asks him.
He turns back to her and Tifa. “Yue-hua is another name that Ruby – or rather, Rubia – went by long ago.”
“W-what!?” they gasp together.
“Oh, my gosh! Ruby’s super famous! She even has an old play based on her!?” Aerith squeaks with excitement.
But Tifa looks extra confused. “Ruby? Was she ever a ‘moon princess’, though?”
Now Aerith tilts her head, getting confused too. “I dunno. She never mentioned it before. Does she have anything to do with the moon?”
“Well, I think she was called a ‘moon spirit’ by the people of Cosmo Canyon.”
“Oh, right. Huh. I guess Ruby’s been known all around the world in a way.”
“Yeah. Seems like every place has a different name for her too.”
“Hehe. That’s my cousin for ya! Always there when you least expect it!”
“…” But Cloud looks a little unsatisfied with that answer. He crosses his arms and makes an unsure frown.
“You don’t look too convinced there, Cloud,” Tifa rightly points out.
He takes a moment more to think and then drops them as he gets back to them. “The thing is, Ruby hates being associated with the moon. She also hates the name ‘Yue-hua’ and would rather be called something else.”
“Something else?”
He shrugs. “Like the Sun, I guess.”
“Oh.”
Aerith giggles. “Hahaha! Aw, Ruby…”
Now that the staff member catches on, she then asks, “Pardon me. Are you three familiar with that legend about the moon and the sea?”
“Um, which legend now?”
“It’s one of the country’s oldest myths, right?” Cloud asks instead, recalling some superficial details he caught from when Yuffie explained it before.
The staffwoman nods back. “Ah, so you do. Yes, it’s a strange coincidence, isn’t it?”
“Coincidence?”
“As I said, this tale of the Moon Princess has seen many variations over time, so her identity has been unclear for all that time. As a result, playwrights of different eras have attributed various names to her. The playwright of this one happens to have named her after that ancient deity.”
“…” He sinks a little. “It really is just coincidence…?”
“Okay, now I’m really curious.” Aerith then asks the staff member, “How does this story go?”
The woman nods back with a smile. “I’ll be happy to tell. Please, if you may come with me…”
They follow the woman to the back of the stage platform, where a few seats have been made available for them. As they take them, the middle-aged woman then sits on what appears to be a director’s chair.
“Oh! So you were the director all along!” Aerith observes.
The director nods back. “Pardon the mess in here, but we were simply told to wait in this room until our awaited brides would arrive. We’ll be able to get ready for rehearsal soon, but in the meantime, let’s get you all prepped first.”
“Sure thing! We’re all ears!”
~
Up on the fifth floor, a rowdy crowd is celebrating their presumed victory in the latest of their recurring business discussions. This floor has been redecorated into an extravagant parlor with a very long and curved table made of the finest grade oak, curved outward toward the back of the room like for a viewing gallery, and comes with ornately carved seats for the six important-looking guests. Each man has his own bottle of fine wine or sake and accompanying glasses and cups. On the other side of the room is a large stage with curtains still drawn, as they are still waiting on the big show.
Don Corneo, formerly of the Midgar slums and now venerated guest of the Wutai government, sits at the center of this table amid his fellow men and guests to this wedding. Even his two faithful oddballs Scotch and Kotch, who were previously announcers at the Corneo Coliseum in Midgar, have arrived on time and are seated among them. And yet, sitting directly beside the Don himself happens to be the Wutaian official who had previously been sighted with him back in Wall Market. The remaining two seem to be this official’s own personal posse, also being fellow officials of the new government. And as expected, there are armed guards that line the sides of the room to help keep order.
“Hahahahahahaa!! A job well done and a deal well settled! I’m glad we could all make it here on this day!” Corneo raises a toast of his wine glass. “Gentlemen, to a future of successful ‘ventures’ between Midgar and Wutai!”
“Ohhh!!”
The rest of the men raise their respective glasses and they all take a swig, and it’s right back to the noise of scattered conversations. The well-dressed official beside him lets out a satisfied sigh and laughs along with the jolly crowd.
“To think it would be that easy!” he muses aloud, “For a moment there, when I heard that the infamous Turks of Shinra would be making an appearance, I was almost concerned that there would be some complications to square away… Hmph! But it turns out they weren’t much more than their bark. As soon as they heard your name, they retreated into the shadows like mangy mutts running back to their masters.”
“Ah, but they’d know who’s really runnin’ the show here! Shinra knows how to make money, no doubt, but they wouldn’t have had a whole other country begging and licking their boots if it weren’t for my deals!” Corneo lets off a triumphant snort. “They’ve given me free reign to do whatever I want here! Luck has been on our side too! We just needed a guy who’d stand in for me back in the slums, and whaddya know, there was Manson! As soon as I suggested it, the sucker took it on like it meant his life! Ahahahahaha!”
The official nods back, though his smile momentarily fades into a pursed frown. “Though, I have to wonder, would it really be wise to leave everything there to such a weak-willed man? In case anyone tries to press him for answers…”
“Ha! The guy wouldn’t have the guts to say a word. And even if he did, what would anyone do about it? Manson has no idea where I’ve gone, and if the new Shinra president’s got any good head on his shoulders, he’d know not to sic his dogs on our operations.”
“I suppose so. To be honest, I was surprised they even showed their faces here at all. You’d think their being an intelligence network of spies, they’d be informed already.”
“Bah. If you ask me, it sounds like the new president just wanted to save face. After all the recent news around that damn dragon, he had to do something to send a message for the ignorant masses. That spoiled little twerp’s always been in the eye of his dad, though who knows what he saw in him. If you ask me, though, he wouldn’t last a second out there in the real political world… Hic.”
As the men’s conversation amid drinks continues, they’re shortly joined by the event manager from earlier and an assistant who looks more dead on the inside than anything else. The assistant rings a bell and the manager delivers the announcement.
“Boss, and fellow esteemed guests. Thank you all for waiting. The theatre troupe is ready, and it’s time for the show to begin.”
The group cheers as they rouse up in excited murmur.
“Oh! About time!”
“Any longer and I woulda drunk the whole bottle, hehehe- hic!”
“Alright! I’m sick of seeing nothing but dudes around! Show me the babes! I hope they’re hot!”
“Hey, come on! We’re not that bad-lookin’, are we?”
There’s a round of laughter that spreads throughout the room.
“Hehehe… Ahem!” Corneo sets the glass in his hand down and loudly claps his hands, getting everyone’s attention. He rubs them together with a wicked grin on his face. “Excellent. I assume the ladies of the hour are ready to perform, then?”
The manager nods. “But of course. And as requested, they’ll all be in lead roles in the play.”
“Oh-ho-ho!” He sits back in his seat with a lazy posture and makes a very perverted-looking face as he imagines the possibilities that await them. “Wonderful… Well, then, whenever they’re ready, they may begin.”
The manager takes another bow and heads off with the assistant toward the back of the stage. As the men settle back into silence and turn their full attention on the stage, the lights above dim as the spotlights hone in upon the stage. And at last, the curtains are drawn.
Up first is one of the young women of the troupe that had almost gotten a sneak-peek of Cloud under the veil. Though a bit nervous, she stands before the audience and begins to set the scene. As she speaks, the backdrop shifts along to her narration.
“The moon, glowing bright over our heads every night. The stars, glistening upon the darkness of the skies. And the tides, ever weaving to and fro, reaching up high to meet the moon’s grace and falling back as She turns away. This is a brief retelling of an old legend of the Moon Princess.”
The spotlight cuts out for a moment and lights up again to the left a scene with a few new characters. There is an elderly woodcutter who happens upon a stalk of bamboo that is glowing in the night, and out of curiosity, he decides to chop it down to find what’s making that glow. To his surprise, he’s fascinated to find a tiny little baby the size of his thumb hidden inside, and he takes it back home to show his wife. As the elderly couple have never had a child, they agreed to adopt the baby and raise her as their own.
“As the girl grew up, she would show herself to be a very bright and inquisitive mind – always asking questions even about the simplest of things – from the way fire turns fresh dough into bread, the way needles and threads weave together into cloth, and the way flowering trees bear fruit every year. And eventually, as she would come of age, she would become the most beautiful woman to have ever graced this humble village.”
The spotlight then cuts out and moves across the stage to the other side, where Aerith is in full view, though her face is obscured with a veil as well. She’s passing through a busy street with an elegant umbrella in hand, catching the eyes of many a curious onlooker. Needless to say, she certainly captures the attention of the men in the audience, and the excited “Ho-hi!” of a certain man drowns out the rest of their otherwise quiet murmur.
“Many suitors would come to meet her, but she was of a strong mind herself and wouldn’t simply accept just anyone’s offer. Even when presented with lavish gifts of gold and silver, she would turn her head. Even when they gave chase, she would elude them.”
Following the narration, Aerith is pursued by a number of her fellow actresses in disguise as men, each one holding a luxury to gift her, but every time, she turns away as if she hadn’t even noticed them. Even when they try to get in her way, she skips along almost as if she were dancing and evades all attempts. And as she reaches the end of the street, she disappears offstage and the spotlight disappears with her.
“However, it wouldn’t simply be this village alone. Word of the most beautiful maiden in the world attracted visitors from afar, and five men of nobility would arrive just to be able to meet with her.”
The spotlight flashes back in, this time at the center of the stage. For this scene, there’s a change of personnel. There are five actresses dressed as noblemen, each brandishing a unique symbol upon the backs of their robes, to represent their various rival prefectures. However, instead of Aerith being at the front of the five men, this time it’s Tifa, who like Aerith has been veiled, and she’s sitting on a seat looking fittingly like a queen herself. And once again, the excited murmur of the audience is drowned out by that high-pitched “Ho-hi!!”
“However, even when presented with the opportunity to be wed into a family of prestige and power, she refused to accept their offers. Even when they granted her and her elderly parents the opportunity to move away from the village and see a great change to their lives, she refused yet again.”
Tifa is also holding an inky black fan adorned with red and pink roses, and she unfolds it in her face, further obscuring herself from everyone’s prying eyes. And yet, it seems the most excited man of the audience is practically squirming in his seat with an unfulfilled longing.
“After all, as she explained to the noblemen, this village, despite its humble state, was still her and her family’s home. They couldn’t possibly abandon their nostalgic little shack by the bamboo grove.”
The spotlight finally cuts out again, and there’s another change in the scene. This time, the troupe takes a little longer to set things up, but the narrator continues in the meantime.
“However, one day, she would receive an anonymously signed letter from someone from afar. As it turned out, it was from a secret admirer of sorts who had heard about her through the rumors. But unlike the rest of the men who were so direct and demanding with her, this one wrote with such eloquent prose that one could easily mistake it for poetry. The young woman came to admire the writer as well and would regularly write back, and before long, she too would come to fall in love, even though she had never met him in person.”
At last, the shuffling on stage goes quiet and the spotlight returns once more, but a little dimmer than the previous times. As with the last scene, the personnel has changed again as well. Cloud is alone now and he sits, kneeling, in the dark at a low-rising desk lit up by candlelight. He also holds a calligraphy brush in hand as he proceeds to make a few motions as if he were the one writing. And for the third time in a row, the easily excitable man’s “Ho-hiii!!” is the only thing that can be heard aside from the narrator.
“‘To my dear love and admirer, thank you for all the letters you have sent me over these few years. I have kept and cherished every last one from the very first one I’ve received. You’ve told me so much of your wonderful adventures across a great nation that I had only ever dreamed of being able to travel, and through your words, I have been able to imagine all those places for myself. And now at this late hour, with the moon rising high, I have been racked with an aching heart. If I would be so bold as to make a request of you, I would like you to come visit my family. When you will have received this letter, please make your way to the bamboo grove to the northeast of the village.’
- Always thankful and ever yours, Yue-hua.”
And as the narrator finishes reading, Cloud finally puts down the pen, gives it a final check, and promptly takes a stamp and presses a custom seal on it. He rolls it up and binds it together in place with a pink ribbon, and then gets back up to his feet. He moves silently and smoothly across the stage with the spotlight following, and stops before a birdcage with a little messenger pigeon. He opens it up and ties the rolled up paper to its feet, and carrying it on his arm like a seasoned bird tamer, he releases it through a window in the back of the stage and watches the bird soar offstage. And as the bird disappears, so does the spotlight.
“Ho-hi! Ho-hi! Ho-hiiii!!”
By now, even the people around Corneo are starting to tire a little of the guy’s incoherent squeals ringing in their ears, and yet none dare to speak up otherwise. But it can’t be helped! While all three ladies show much promise, this last star seems to have caught his eye most of all. That unrelenting beauty, that uncompromising grace, that sheer tantalizing and mysterious aura! While this scene didn’t show much of anything particularly difficult to perform, Cloud still managed to not even once turn toward the audience, as if trying his utmost to avoid eye contact altogether.
The narrator continues: “And so, like the moon and the tides weaving back and forth in an eternal dance, the young woman would come by the grove and wait day and night for her love. However, as the days passed by and she saw no sign of her love, her heart would only grow weaker with a deep, longing sadness. And finally, after a fortnight and nine days, the man of the letters would arrive at her homely village.”
The spotlight returns once more, center stage, but this time none of the three ladies would show. Now, an actress dressed in a regal-looking men’s robes arrives with a standing row of guards in attendance. As it so happens, this man would be the Emperor, previously known only by name and reputation alone, yet rarely would ever come down to the countryside for his own personal affairs.
“However, as he approached the humble shack near the bamboo grove northeast of the village, he would discover the elderly couple grieving at their front door. When he asked them what was the matter, they explained that their beloved daughter had too little time left on this planet. He asked again for them to clarify, and they pointed him to the last letter she had written.”
The spotlight now dims and focuses down upon the paper itself.
“As it turned out, the ink that had made the custom seal on the letter was of a magical nature – one that was not of this world. The couple had never once seen her open that mysterious bottle, but shortly after she had done so, they would be visited by a number of heavenly figures who insisted that her time had come to an end and it was time for her to return to her people.”
The spotlight brightens once again upon the current scene, and the Emperor is also seen grieving when the couple.
“But he still wished his love a safe and happy return, and asked his trusty advisor where the closest mountain to Heaven would be.”
Then, the spotlight goes away once more and a different spotlight shines upon the other side of the stage, featuring a tall mountain reaching past the clouds. And atop that peak, the Emperor, accompanied by his entourage, are already in place. He takes the letter in hand, raises it up, and lights the letter aflame with a burning match.
“With a light burning bright upon the highest peak, the Emperor sent a prayer to the heavens in hopes that his thoughts would go with her.”
And with that, the spotlight vanishes for the last time, and the rest of the lights return to the stage. However, as the story comes to a close, the narrator now introduces a surprising twist that was added by the request of the man hosting the entire event.
“However, while the two lovers were destined to never be together, their thoughts would continue to last to this day. As on this day, it is a day of union, where two lovers that could be shall be brought together at last.”
By now, Corneo’s giddy smile turns for a bit more sinister. The moment he’s been waiting for is upon them. The curtains finally draw back all the way as all the actresses that participated have come on the stage, as well as the three star ladies of the evening. They all take a polite bow, and the audience erupts into a round of applause. The rest of the troupe then makes their way offstage, and Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith give sighs in relief that it’s finally over. But to the surprise of them and the rest of the audience, one of the lights in the back of the room also lights up over the gracious host in question.
“Ho-ho-hiiii!! It’s tiiime!!” he declares proudly as if a bit of a showman himself.
Without missing a beat, the narrator adds one final tagline too: “Now, we await the final decision of the master! Who will be the long-awaited bride tonight!?”
The trio are caught off-guard and freeze in place as the lights over the stage cut out and three distinct spotlights shine down on them again. Now, absolutely bubbling over with joy like a pot full of boiling water – or perhaps oil, given his kind of personality – Corneo hops right to his feet and runs along the side of the table and toward the stage as fast as his stocky legs can take him.
“Yes, yes, yes! These three are perfect! Absolutely stunning, all of them! You couldn’t ask for a more perfect trio! Heheheheehee~!”
He gets a little too up close and personal with the three, showering them with lewd glances, itching fingers as if tempted to give them all a squeeze somewhere, and a deep whiff of their bodies’s scents. He even takes a big whiff of Cloud’s cologne and lets out a sigh and a giggle as if the man had just inhaled something else entirely. Needless to say, all three are absolutely disgusted, and yet they can only stand still and take it. However, Cloud would be damned if he ever made eye contact with this lecher and keeps avoiding looking his way every time he comes up to him.
“Oh, ho ho…”
All of a sudden, Corneo stops and hops back a few steps to look at the three of them with a beaming smile. He raises an arm straight up in the air and makes his final declaration.
“I’ve decided!! My bride for tonight will be…”
As if on cue, there’s even a bit of drumroll from one of the troupe members in the back. Corneo flings his arms forward with gusto.
“This healthy-looking girl!”
“W-what!?” Cloud screams, but clasps his hands over his mouth. Oops. Hopefully his voice didn’t give anything away yet.
Corneo is now doing some sort of happy dance in place. “Yowza! I just love the chickies who play hard-to-get! You’re just askin’ for it, if ya know what I mean, hehehehe…”
And at that moment, Cloud feels like something inside his mind has just snapped and he slumps over in shame. All that time he was trying not to bring attention to himself, he really just brought attention to himself, didn’t he?
Corneo whips back around to his two loyal henchmen. “Scotch, Kotch, the other two are yours!”
“Yesss!! Boss, you’re the best!!” Kotch whoops.
“Hehehehe… I’ve already been sizin’ up that lovely lady in blue myself. And she’s even got matching outfits too! We’re like a match made in heaven!” Scotch chuckles rather evilly to himself, making Tifa feel a nerve pop.
“Ha! If you’re gonna pick her, you’d better prepare to get stomped on! That look on her face spits venom! But that other gal… now there’s a real sweetheart. And she got some sweet curves to boot!” Kotch passes Aerith a wink, to which she shudders.
Corneo laughs yet again and turns back to the rest of the crowd. “Gentlemen, thank you all for coming! As the wedding will be proceeding shortly, please make your way out the back door to the lift outside and head straight for the courtyard for the other wedding guests. In the meantime, we’re gonna… heh, get to know each other a little better.” He turns toward the stagehands and gives them a more dismissive hand wave. “You all are dismissed too!”
By now, all three of the star ladies are fully regretting coming to a place like this, but to be honest, this was definitely what they were expecting to happen anyway. As the Wutaian officials and the rest of the troupe members excuse themselves, Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith exchange furtive glances as if acknowledging what they may have to do next. And as the last of the wedding guests and personnel leave, now is their last chance. With fists balled up and resolves settled, they turn back to Corneo, who also turns back to them with an even more devious smile.
“Well, well, ladies… It looks like it’s just between us now.”
Cloud frowns, and now that he doesn’t have a reason to hide his voice anymore, he goes ahead and replies normally, “Yeah… You got a lot of explaining to do, Corneo.”
He blinks a few times. “Hm? That’s odd, not quite the voice I was expecting from such a fair and dainty lady such as yourself…”
At last, he’s been waiting for this chance. Cloud proceeds to yank loose the obi sash that’s been squeezing him of extra air and rips off the veil covering his face. Following his lead, Tifa and Aerith do the same with their veils.
“W-w-what!?” Corneo gasps, pulling back in shock. “You! You’re…!”
“Hmph. So you do remember me, huh? It’s been a while.”
“…” Corneo then brings his hands to his cheeks as his eyes twinkle with admiration. “You’re absolutely gorgeous, Miss.”
And now Cloud is ticked off. “What the hell!? Do you remember or not!?”
Corneo now shrugs. “Hmm~? Sorry, but it’s been a few busy days for me going around this country. Making business and all. I can’t remember everyone’s faces I’ve ever met.”
“You bastard…”
He raises a fist, but then they hear the sounds of bayonet rifles cocking. The guards that have been on duty all this time are now ready and aiming their guns their way, and the trio find themselves unable to fight back while dressed like this. While Aerith can still summon her trusty staff in hand, unfortunately Tifa didn’t have room for her armored gloves and Cloud is out of a sword at the moment.
“Aw, don’t worry, m’dear! You’ve certainly got the looks, so I’ll be sure to remember your cute little face too!” He even throws out a couple thumbs-up. “In fact, all of ya are damn hot! Woohoo!”
“…”
That said, Corneo gets a little more serious and casually mentions, “Though, there’s just one thing I’m a li’l bit lost about, and I was thinking maybe you can clear up something for me.”
“Just one?”
He takes one more look over the three of them with a little more care and strikes a thinking pose. “See, as pretty as you all are, none of you are the one I’ve actually been looking for.”
“…”
He nods as if to reassure himself and steps away again. “Yeah, that’s right. The last I heard, you lot were supposed to have someone named Ruby with ya, weren’t you?” He pivots back to them with the ending to that question.
“What? You know Ruby!?” Tifa asks, alarmed.
“So he knew who we were all along…” Cloud mutters.
“Ha! You think we’d welcome you with open arms without being ready for action? You guys really are gullible!” Kotch guffaws and mocks them.
“If you don’t know, we were there when Manson tattled, and your pals sure didn’t make it hard to overhear what you all were talking about,” Scotch brings up with a cocky smirk.
“But how did you even hear…?” Tifa asks, now getting worried.
“Hmph. They were standing right outside the Corneo Coliseum. We always have camera drones around to pick up on anything suspicious.”
Cloud grits his teeth, but says nothing. Yuffie and Vincent wouldn’t have known just how Corneo operates. If only he had thought about that himself and warned them to get outta there first…
Scotch snickers. “Since your friends were so insistent on dropping by Wutai, though, we decided it would be way more interesting to let you come to us instead.”
“Hehehe. But to think they would fall hook, line, and sinker to this wedding ploy!” Corneo bursts aloud with a laugh.
“Huh? Wedding ploy?” Aerith asks with a disturbed frown.
“Oh, it was a bright idea by yours truly~!” he declares very smugly, “See, it doesn’t really matter if I got a new wife outta this whole charade. I just knew someone would be coming for my neck at some point, and looks like playing dumb really paid off! You guys came running right to me!”
“…”
He then frowns with a slump. “Though, it’s too bad. I really was looking forward to a beautiful wedding, with all the music and fanfare and confetti! I had everything planned out! But oh, did it sting when I learned that my dear beloved isn’t even here to see me…”
“Dear… beloved?” Tifa asks warily.
“Who the hell would be your ‘beloved’?” Cloud snaps back.
“Why, isn’t it obvious!?” He leans into his face with a particularly nasty-looking grin. “Ruby, of course.”
At that moment, Cloud feels a sudden urge to kill this man. “What?”
Corneo falls back, swaying to and fro dramatically as if he were a hopeless romantic. “Oh, how I’ve fallen so hard for a girl! She’s cute, she’s super powerful, she’s slick at evading detection… She’s the perfect one for me and my hard-knock life!” He finishes with pumping his arm in the air.
“…”
He waves dismissively. “Now, now, there’s no need to be jealous. You would’ve been my next pick, you know.”
“Like I’d ever want your ugly ass. Do you really not remember who I am?”
“Hm? You?” He pauses. “Huh, now that I think about it, that spiky yellow hair does look familiar. Where did I…?” He then takes a moment to recall some photos he might have seen, and his jaw drops when he remembers. “Ah! The man with the huge sword! You and the long-haired woman got a ride with Ruby too!”
“Took you long enough.”
“…” He takes another more careful look over him again. “Huh, ya know… even if you are a man, you ain’t half-bad either.” He even adds a click of his tongue.
Cloud cringes in reflex. “Not interested…”
“Oh, but like I said, there’s no need to be jealous. After all, there’s no shame to losing out to someone like Ruby!” He then gives a deep, longing sigh. “Ah. It’s been such a long time since I’ve felt this way. Ladies may come and go, but my heart would always yearn for something greater…” He reaches out a hand in the air and grasps it. “Yes, to have a Goddess to call my own.”
“If she were here, you’d be dead just for saying that.”
However, Corneo pays him no mind. He steps away, putting his hands behind his back, as he begins to monologue to himself. “Imagine that! There I was, minding my own happy business in the slums when the Turks stopped by one day talking about this mysterious white dragon that was being a real pain in the company’s side. And so they asked me to do a little digging, so to speak.” He then raises both hands forward. “And whaddya know? It turns out the dragon was actually a cute chick!” He whips back to them with his usual shit-eating grin. “That’s when I knew things would only get better from there.”
“…”
“Boy, did you guys land a real prize with that one. Turns out she had way deeper ties to Shinra than even I woulda thought…”
“The hell are you talking about?”
“Oh? You don’t know?” He cups one ear, asking them, “Anything about A-R-C ring a bell?”
“ARC…?”
Aerith blinks and recalls that it sounds familiar. “Huh, where did I hear something like that…?”
Corneo looks genuinely disappointed. “…Really? You guys have no idea?” He shrugs. “Guess my lips are sealed, then.”
“Hmm… Hey, wait!” To the surprise of everyone else, Aerith then summons forth her staff and points it his way. “We have Corneo here. Why don’t we just beat him up for answers?”
Corneo blinks and recoils. “…Eh?”
“Well, I don’t need my gloves to hit a guy, but…” Tifa admits, raising her fists, and then asks her, “How do you do that anyway?”
“Magic?” Aerith suggests innocently.
Cloud also reminds them, “Hey, weren’t we supposed to wait for some others?”
Tifa nods. “Ah, yeah… where are they anyway? They could help us out here.”
Corneo looks between them all, blinking a few times, and now flings his arms up in surprise. “Wait, you’re really going to attack me!? Even with these guns in your faces!?”
“We’ve been in worse!” Aerith snaps back, “Come on out, guys! Get ’im!”
However, though she put up a strong front, the ninja duo that they were expecting to be in hiding don’t show up. Cloud and Tifa exchange nervous glances, while Aerith’s smile fades as she realizes it too. Where are Yuffie and Sonon? Shouldn’t they be around here already?
Corneo’s men scan the periphery and even Corneo himself looks around the room, but no one else seems to be coming. By now, Scotch and Kotch are starting to snicker to themselves, and Corneo turns back to them with another cocky shrug.
“Welp… don’t that just beat all?”
“…” Aerith slumps a little. “That could have gone better.”
“At least you tried…” Tifa comforts her.
“What the hell? Where are they…?” Cloud seethes.
“Did they run into something?” she worries too.
“Hey, did you hear about what happened to the other bridal candidates?” Scotch then asks his partner aloud enough for the rest of them to hear.
“Yeah, sounds like they’ve been trapped on the first floor for some time,” Kotch answers as if playing along, “Sure would suck if they weren’t able to leave.”
“What…?” Tifa gasps as the horrific realization hits her.
Now, Corneo is back to his cocky grin as something really devilish comes to his eyes. “Well, that’s too bad, ladies and lady-like gentleman! Maybe try again next time when you’re actually ready to put up a fight?”
“You… sonnuva…” Cloud mutters.
“Oh. And don’t worry about those ladies! They may be trapped and put to sleep for now, but they’ll make it out just fine… eventually.”
“What!?” Aerith shrieks. “That’s it! You’re going down!”
Unfortunately, things don’t go smoothly at all. Before she or Tifa can get a hit in, Cloud grabs them both and pulls them out of the line of fire. Scotch and Kotch have drawn their own guns and fired some stray shots that nearly hit them. The rest of the guards swarm them, firing away, and the trio dive out of the way for cover. And so, Corneo is able to flee under the cover of the ensuing fire.
“Damn… looks like we’re on our own for now,” Cloud grumbles.
Aerith and Tifa pass each other determined looks and nod together. They turn back to Cloud too.
Tifa suggests with a firm tone, “Cloud, leave these guys to us. Go find Yuffie and Sonon and see if they need help.”
“What? But you guys…”
Aerith shakes her head. “We can still fight. You need your sword.”
“Hey, I’m not that defenseless…”
“No time to argue, Cloud! Go!” Tifa presses.
With that settled, Tifa and Aerith bounce back out from cover and lunge into the fray, with Aerith summoning up a quick barrier to help guard them from another round of gunfire. With fists and kicks flying and magic spells knocking aside the crowd, the two ladies make a clear path for Cloud to take. Without further hesitation, he makes a mad dash out the door and after Corneo.
Damn, who would have thought things would get this messy? Corneo was probably just coming up with excuses so he could get away, but now they’re genuinely concerned about the other ladies who were also fooled and roped into this wedding charade. And not to mention, Yuffie and Sonon are still missing. Maybe they were caught up in saving those people? Hopefully not anything worse.
If only Ruby were here… No, he can’t think that. They’ve been relying on her far too long.
Notes:
The conspiracy thickens.
Notes and real-world trivia
- The pagoda as it was originally designed is definitely implied to be an important training ground for the Kisaragi family, though I embellished a bit more of its history by vaguely referencing real-world history of Kyoto's imperial palaces. And as you'd expect, Kyoto is also one of the biggest tourist sites in Japan these days.
- The event manager as I've described in this chapter is technically based on the polygonal model of that receptionist at Corneo's palace in Wall Market, but to be honest, he can be just any regular-looking guy with a sharp fashion sense. Didn't think too much into this, lol.
- So, the bit with Meryl having a Wutaian friend named Himiko and her little sister Yasumi? I made up on the spot. I mean, I had to give Meryl some sort of reason so that she doesn't just reunite with Leslie without a problem. Actually makes it worth making Leslie his own character, ya know?
- The Hanabanashi Theatre Troupe is another group of original characters - as you may be able to tell by how non-descript I am with individuals, heh. But I pay homage to one of my favorite Japanese theatre troupes, the Takarazuka, who are well-known as an all-female troupe. By the way, hanabanashii means "splendid".
- As some of you may recognize, the tale of the "Moon Princess" here is largely based on the original folk tale of Princess Kaguya, the girl born from bamboo. I definitely embellished it here and there and simplified the story a bit so that it would better fit the themes of Ruby's story more. I won't say much else about that, though, since it's spoilers.
- This piece of trivia isn't actually specific to this chapter, but boy, I so wanted to write the Turks in earlier, but decided they wouldn't be able to be squeezed in very easily. Still, they will be coming soon. This chapter's long enough as is.
Chapter 41: Trailing the ARC
Notes:
10/8/23 edit: I did an oopsie and mistook the coloring/naming of the warring race of dragons that Rubia grew up with. Corrected to make it sound clearer. Granted, this is all original lore and I don't want it to be EXACTLY like D&D, but it's obvious where the inspiration comes from.
Outdated A/N
10/13/23 edit: Next chapter is still in the works and will be delayed to next Monday. I've been busy reworking the potential ending to this arc as well as how the following arcs leading into the end of Act 2 will be. I need to reel in this story; it's getting so big it's going a little out of control, haha...
Chapter Text
A single drop of water strikes the still pool, echoing quietly across the seemingly endless expanse. Ruby is kneeled with one leg down atop the surface of the pool and holds a hand over it, watching the dripping droplets stretch as they detach themselves from the tips of her fingers. As she watches them fall, her eyes trailing after each droplet, her mind and heart are calm once more.
As the last of the drops cease to fall, she sets her hand back down and pushes off to climb back to her feet. It really is this simple: she can stand atop these waters. She just needs to be at peace with herself. She turns her head up and looks around upon this tranquil scenery with a quiet stoicism to match. She has returned to Leviathan’s realm for a specific purpose: to challenge him once more.
Strangely enough, being back here brings her a sense of nostalgia. It’s not nostalgia from the last time she was here, but from a time far in the past when there was Rubia. Ruby closes her eyes and takes a moment to recall, or rather retrieve, those memories from the depths of her heart. Yes, now that she thinks about it, she can remember when Rubia was still young; but a child, really. From an early age, much of what she knew was the rush of adrenaline in the midst of combat.
“You will not leave these grounds until you have proven yourself worthy.”
Bahamut’s commanding voice rings in her ears as if it were still a recent memory in mind. Rather than a father, he was a very strict and distant mentor to Rubia. As the mighty God-king of the Dragons, his reputation as defender of humanity in the First Cetran World War rather preceded him, and he treated all those under his wings as his soldiers – be they dragonkind or not. And even though she was still a child, Rubia was no exception. If anything, he was even stricter and more brutal with her training. She was his daughter, after all.
The metallic dragons were a warring race among dragons and unlike with most others, it wasn’t just about the fight for survival, but for supreme excellence. Only the best of the best could earn the title of “platinum” and even among them, only a select few would make up the Platinum Guard. They were the legendary seven wyrms – each a former warlord of days long past – that would accompany the Dragon King and were likewise seen as family to Rubia, who would grow up among their care. They were regarded legendary not for the brilliance of their scales, but for their undying courage before adversity, their lionhearted justice to defend those in need, and their unwavering faith in the God-king they serve. Every one of them once lead their own tribe, and yet even amongst the chaotic struggle for dominance, Bahamut would prove to be so powerful, so unrelenting, so insurmountable – and yet would still bear a respectful kindness toward even his adversaries – that upon their defeats by his claws, they would hence swear their loyalty. So, needless to say, Rubia had some big footprints to fill if she were to stay with them.
It wasn’t just the training under her father’s wings or those of the golden wyrms either. Bahamut would not rest until Rubia could show them that she can triumph even under the most extreme pressure. Though the days of their meetings would be relatively scarce in the grand scheme, they would mostly be spent traveling around the world to meet many of their fellow Summon Guardians and arrange sparring lessons under his or the wyrms’ supervision. And among the earliest of those that she was forced to challenge was Leviathan. It was from their constant back-n-forth banter where Rubia came to see him as an uncle of sorts too.
Ruby smiles to herself. This feeling of nostalgia is warm, even despite the hardships that Rubia had to face. And now, as Ruby, she must step forward again to fill in for where Rubia had once stood. With a firm tone yet without raising her voice much, she calls out the name again.
“Leviathan, I’m back for another round.”
To answer her call, a massive spiraling pillar of water shoots out from the pool before her and once again the great serpent shows himself, undulating in the air as if still swimming among the waves. His stern and intense stare remains to meet her own. Though he remains cautious of her, he holds that scrutinizing stare as if he meant to study her further and learn more.
“So… it seems thou art more than the product of thy illusions.”
“Hm?” She blinks in surprise and with a hint of curiosity. “Where is this coming from?”
“A most curious phenomenon, indeed,” he continues musing to himself. He also calmly takes off through the air and begins to circle around her as he keeps observing. “Disregarding the punishment I have exacted, thou hast not only returned with mind and conviction spared, but thou even showest not a sign of injury to thy person, as attributed to one newly reborn.”
“Ah.” She nods back with a calm smile, passing it off as no big deal. “That’s fair. I have a habit of coming back without much explanation.”
“Hmm…” He then circles back to his original position to face her up front. For just a moment, his eyes turn away as he dives further into thought and then returns to her with a hint of intrigue. “Then, Minerva was correct to err toward caution. Thou truly art an anomaly to not be underestimated.”
She blinks again, confused. “Again with Minerva. Has she just been conspiring with all you Guardians like some kind of rumor mill? What has she been saying, huh?”
“…” The great serpent simply chooses to not answer. “An thou hast come to challenge me, I welcome all attempts. Be it however many times we must return here, I shall remain steady.”
“Then it’s just like old times, Uncle.”
“…”
For just a moment, Ruby catches a flicker in the old serpent’s eyes, but to her surprise there seems to be a hint of sadness to them as if the same nostalgia has instead brought old regrets. Nonetheless, she shakes her head and offers him an assured smile as she moves into battle stance, to which he in turn sets aside any lingering hesitation. And with eyes honed and without another word, the second round of battle proceeds.
Almost as a picturesque recapture of their last fight, she blitzes him again with knife poised for his snout and once more he takes on the form of water. The impact of her attack blasts open the serpent’s shape and water pours forth, only to resume its many tendril-like columns and lash out against her. But unlike last time, she doesn’t panic. Nor does she flee. She blocks and deflects every lash of each watery column and neatly splits them all apart as well with an elegant dance of the swings of her blade as if it were a sword. With each lash of the watery whips, she answers with an equal parry, and upon finding a brief opening, she dashes on through the gap to avoid the rest that crash down upon where she had been.
But of course, she’s not out of things just yet. The ensuing splash of the streams bring a spray of droplets that momentarily stop in midair and are instead manipulated and reused to become bullets that shoot right at her. Though she still manages to deflect a few at first, the raining of water bullets is ultimately too much for her to stop them all and she must endure through the rest. They pierce her like tiny lances, shooting straight through her flesh with a force strong enough to crack bone.
This is no place to panic, though. Without missing a beat, she heals herself back to full with a Cura and has just enough time to kick off the air again to avoid another rain of hell-water. But once again, just like their last encounter, she finds herself on the defensive when she’d rather not be. Every strike she makes becomes a parry and every dodge she takes is only delaying the inevitable hits that do land on occasion. Though she has entered into a flowing rhythm of movements and her mana pool is ample, it isn’t infinite. As long as she isn’t inflicting any damage, she’s not making progress. Eventually a simple slip of her concentration will result in a mistake and she’ll be forced back to square one. But this is no ordinary magic that Leviathan is using. This is not something a simple Reflect spell can neutralize, nor can this water be frozen or stopped – as this stream of water is capable of movement by Leviathan’s will himself.
Ouch. Another spray of bullets breaks her guard for just a moment and she meets with another slam of a water pillar knocking her back down to the pool with a hard splash. But even bleeding from her chest and mouth, she can still hold herself atop its surface and heals herself once more. It’s okay. Don’t panic. You can figure something out.
But as she thinks about it, it’s kinda strange. Leviathan may be a stodgy old fart with a weird manner of speech even compared to his contemporaries, but he has never been the type to resort to backhanded or underhanded tactics. Perhaps this being his personal realm, he can set the rules to whatever he wants them to be, but to force her to fight a mere projection of himself that’s intangible? This isn’t a fair fight. But it’s not impossible, right…?
From what she remembers, there has been no battle against the Summons in Final Fantasy history where the Summons would be able to bend their own bodies into their respective elements and become completely intangible for the entire duration of the battle. It may happen in brief instances from time to time, but not so much that it would be frustrating for players. Granted, there have been a few encounters out there where certain Summons were programmed to be completely invincible regardless and the only option was to run or be blasted away so the game can progress. But this isn’t the same. She came here of her own volition. She can’t run away now, and she gets the feeling Leviathan isn’t going to let her escape either. Even returning to this place may have been a setup. She’s locked in and she has no choice but to keep fighting.
Well, easier said than done, of course. As much as she cuts through the thrashing waves and streams and deflects even the smallest of drops from the ensuing sprays, they just don’t stop coming. Amid her targeted parries, she searches for another opening to escape, and blasts her surroundings with a ball of ice, freezing the incoming streams solid for a brief instant. She dashes backward and backs off once more to reconsider her strategy.
The columns, when struck from the top, can easily reform without consequence. But staying too close to the pool would leave her open to attacks from below as well. Detaching the giant streams would do nothing either; they would just reform. She very well may be facing off against pure energy. But in that case, what if she were to meet him on that level?
Better yet, how does she do that? How does a magical deity-like being will themselves into an immaterial form? Does it just happen because they think about it? Or do they still have to focus and tune everything else out? Well, she’s been thinking about straight-up turning into light for a while now, but it never happened yet. Maybe she could try the latter.
As expected, the ice doesn’t hold the water back for long. The huge streams break on through, splitting the ice and returning it to fluid, and they continue their relentless pursuit. Ruby keeps dashing through the air all the same, intending to find another opening to take her chance with her idea. But she can’t just wait for another opening to come to her; she has to make one.
Enough cutting; it’s time to start blasting. Amid her mid-air dashing, she returns her trusty knife to its home and brings her hands forward, flicking her fingers wide open. But rather than lighting herself bright again, she instead casts a giant spell circle to envelop the entire swath of streams that seem to originate from the same general area of the pool. And the next instant, she blows them all to kingdom come in a massive burst of white light.
That’s probably not going to hurt him while he’s still immaterial, but at least he’s forced to reform his water pillars again. Finally, here’s the chance.
Ruby now stops dashing and swerves in an arc to slow herself, but remains afloat in the air. She shuts her eyes to focus once more and closes her hands together in a circle, without touching, with them positioned above and below. Holding this pose, she then draws her energy coursing through her body together into a compact point somewhere in her gut near her center of mass. Even as the streams have reformed and lunge toward her again, she simply forgoes this place and lets gravity pull her down, cleanly avoiding the ensuing crash of crossing streams. And while others continue the pursuit down after her, an even greater column of water shoots up from the pool below and the two sides close in on her like a giant guillotine-like pincer. Without even opening her eyes, she warps out of there and the waves crash upon themselves again.
At last, she feels an intense heat like a fire within that has built up from all the energy she has concentrated into a single point. She slowly begins to glow a bright white like a lamp with adjustable intensity turning on full. It burns so hot almost like she has converged a miniature star within herself, where even wrapping herself in Shiva’s ice like a cacoon wouldn’t make her cool off. And yet, she doesn’t feel discomfort from the experience, as if like a guest staying long enough in a spa that even the incredibly high temperatures don’t faze her. Once reaching a satisfyingly hot point, she decides to release it. In another flash, she erupts in a huge explosion of white light that sends shockwaves emanating in every direction. The entire scene around her is enveloped in light and it’s so blinding that even she herself can’t make out anything else for just that moment.
And then, as she drifts off into a sort of zen-like peace of mind, she willingly lets go and feels herself detach from the physical. Rather than picture herself as a human body, she sees herself as a wavelength, and lets her own material form dissipate. She isn’t just Ruby or even pretending to be Rubia anymore; she is another form, the essence of pure light.
Now everything around her slows down to a crawl. As the bright whiteness around her begins to fade, she can make out the rough outlines of where the sky meets the sea – rough, as the earlier explosion she started seems to have blasted the depths of the pool into a gigantic crater that could stretch the size of an entire megacity. But now the spray of water everywhere is also ever so slowly dropping through the air in the aftermath of the explosion, and she can even make out the places and positions of all the previous waves and streams based on the general shapes of the spray. It honestly looks rather beautiful, as if she had just jumped right into the middle of a big fluffy cloud and pushed away all the vapors without even touching a single particle.
And for just that instant, Ruby feels absolute freedom. Freedom from fatigue, from stress, from fear. She feels like she can just bounce around all day and be happy, frolicking like a little puppy, or with one just like old times.
And after what felt like a long time, time resumes. The sprays of waves crash back down upon the pool, and Ruby is left floating in the air as a fiery-looking glowing white ball – like the hitodama of a person’s soul. She is formless, weightless, and burdenless. She doesn’t even need to cast any floating magic to be able to stay up here. She can jump and hop around as if the air around her were solid enough to bounce off, and she juggles herself around as if a super energetic particle caught bouncing around in a bottleneck. Wheeee!
Slam. Another column of water smashes into her anyway, shooting her off in some other direction. And yet, this time she didn’t even feel pain or take any sort of injury. She merely bounces off the air again and jumps back to where she had been in a literal instant.
By now, Leviathan has noticed this odd ball of light bouncing around in the air, no longer meaning to attack, as if without a care in the world. He recollects his pillars of water into his original serpent form, though he makes an unimpressed look as if not surprised that things would come to this.
“I see recapturing Rubia’s memories and experiences hath brought thee much joy.”
Ruby bounces around happily as a ball of excitement. “Hahahahaa! This is awesome! I didn’t even know I could do this!”
“To escape the material and be attuned to one’s element is a feat achieved only by the Summon Guardians…”
“That’s my Rubia! I’m proud of you~!”
“However,” he adds with a stern tone, “how Rubia obtained the ability was not of standard process.”
“Eh?” Ruby briefly stops bouncing around.
“T’is no simple matter to escape the material world. One must relinquisheth all attachment to it to achieve a state of inner peace attuned with one’s core nature. And throughout every one of her reincarnations, Rubia hath failed to do so. The emotions and thus hatred she bore over several generations would never let her cease to be, but also never let her ascend beyond the mortal cycle.”
“But she still can. How does she do it?”
“Innately.”
“?”
“Ultimately, Rubia is the offspring of her parents and thus her core nature doth intertwine aspects of her father and mother. And though Tiamat hath been imprisoned in the depths of Helheim for eternity, her legacy hath been lead on by her successor.”
“…”
“In simpler terms, Rubia’s power cometh at a great cost. The more she wieldeth, the greater the influence Tiamat wieldeth as well and the wider the spread of her will beyond her prison…” He finishes with particular emphasis, “After much time, it grew so far to become a plague of Void that hath stricken the planet’s own Great Flow.”
“What!?” Ruby, still as a ball of light, zips right up to his face in a manner that makes her seem a bit upset. “What the hell is that!? Are you suggesting that the planet’s plague is caused by Tiamat!?”
“Aye, and perpetuated by the hand of Rubia.”
“Nuh-nuh-nuh! Don’t blame all this on her! What the hell are you all doing if you know it was Tiamat all along!? Go confront her! Stop her! Do something!”
“Unfortunately, we cannot, for we must not risk unsealing the barrier that withholdeth the beast.”
“Oh, my Gooood…!”
“Though t’is harsh to admit, for much of that time, even the source of the plague eluded us. Even the great Minerva herself had pause to come to such a conclusion, as t’was impossible for Tiamat’s influence to pass through the barrier. And yet, this plague not only appeared, it grew and hath not stopped growing. Perchance it may never stop…”
“Come on…” Even as a ball, she tips and rolls over. “Isn’t Minerva supposed to be the all-knowing Goddess? How did she manage to make that bad a call?”
“No. T’was not her judgment of Tiamat that erred, but her underestimation of Rubia that led us to this circumstance. And in the sake of fairness…” He then lets off a disappointed sigh. “We were all initially too trusting.”
“Huh?”
“At the time Tiamat was defeated and to be sealed away, Minerva insisted that Rubia likewise join her mother, but t’was by the plea of Bahamut that the infant be spared.”
“Ah…”
“He vowed to take her under his wing and watch over the child himself, as to assure that she would not fall prey to the same hatred that was her mother’s eternal curse. And despite her concerns, even Minerva withheld her judgment and let the child free.”
“Wait. So Bahamut hadn’t abandoned Rubia after all? And here I thought she hated him because she was abandoned at some point.”
Yet, Leviathan turns his head away. “Tragically, t’would be true in the end.”
“Hm?”
He turns back again with a stern frown. “Bahamut would forgive a child that knew not of her mother’s hatred, but he would not forgive an adult that still sought after her mother’s ambition. Whether or not even young Rubia was aware, her natural-born strength was the last of the curse that was laid upon her by her mother’s last words. She was born to be too powerful, too rash, too violent to be contained, and even Bahamut’s own patience grew thin after long.”
“Oh… yeah.”
Now Ruby feels a bit of a tinge of guilt now that she recalls writing something like that before. Young, naïve little Ruby thought it would have been an interesting twist for her story if she had made her OC out to be overpowered from the get-go and gave her a rage-fraught backstory that would inevitably lead to tragedy. She intended there to be a happy ending eventually, but she could never figure out a way to salvage the idea and always put it off until she finally junked it and left what she had to the archives. Unfortunately for big Ruby now, she’s stuck with the same question and this time she can’t just “junk” it and start over.
“However, t’would be too risky to capture Rubia and seal her away with Tiamat, as the barrier that still held the latter would have to be broken and resealed once more. Minerva deliberated the matter with Bahamut and again in a meeting of the Guardians, where we voted on the judgment to be passed. By the slimmest of margins, Rubia once again escaped imprisonment.”
“Yeah, I’m starting to see how this plague has been a real problem all this time…”
“As a compromise, t’would be not only that of Bahamut, but also our collective responsibility henceforth to prevent Rubia from exacting any sort of trouble by any means necessary.”
Though Ruby has no eyes to blink, she feels like she had just blinked in surprise. Oh, so that was why Minerva jumped straight to “dismissing” Rubia by disintegrating her in an instant. It certainly wasn’t Rubia’s first foray into sewing chaos and destruction, but it still came off as rather sudden. Maybe it was the case that by whatever generation of Rubia’s reincarnation that was, just about everyone had already lost patience with her and no longer cared to see her go. But all that said, there’s just one thing that’s wrong with this approach.
She has to bring up the elephant in the room: “So, you’ve all just decided to kill off Rubia any time she becomes a big enough pest?” She angrily zips around his head like a bothersome fly. “How is that even a solution!? Are you all idiots!? That’s just knocking the problem down the line! No wonder the plague has gotten so bad! It’s not even humanity’s fault! Goddamn do-nothing gods!!”
Nonetheless, he remains unfazed. “…Which now bringeth us the matter of thee.”
She stops in front of him again, blinking her light rapidly in full defiance. “What now? You wanna destroy me too so I stop being an eyesore? I will blind you!”
He simply closes his eyes to avoid the flashes. “Though I shall admit that was an option available, rest assured that t’was not the first in line.” With one of his whiskers, he also swats the annoying fly from his face, though she just bounces right back. “As thou art an anomaly of the highest order, to be the bearer of memories beyond that of even Rubia herself, we – that is, my fellow Guardians and I – have agreed to a temporary ceasefire.”
Now she stops blinking that light and he opens his eyes again. “A ceasefire?” she asks, genuinely curious.
“Aye. Though much of the strength thou possessest may be on lend of Rubia’s legacy, the memories of an alternate world that thou also holdest may be thy salvation yet.”
“Uh, sorry, my ‘salvation’? So are ya’ll trying to kill me or not?”
“That judgment is still pending, as the answer lyeth with thy choice. Should thou continue to trail the path that Rubia hath led since ancient times, then we have no other choice but to end that path where thou standest now.”
“Um… but wouldn’t killing me just restart the whole cycle and Rubia’s just gonna be back sometime?”
“There may be no possibility in preventing a cancer that shall always come in due time, but there is always the opportunity to remove it once discovered.”
“…”
“Therefore, I must ask thee, Ruby Liu… What is thy intention to rediscover Rubia’s past? What do thou truly seek to gain through borrowing her power? For the more thou wieldeth, the greater the plague groweth as well.”
“…”
Ruby takes a moment to think over her answer. It’s a good question, that first one. The only reason she initially had in finding out the truth was because Sephiroth forced her into this world and made her do his bidding. But why would that even matter to him? Even if she does learn everything about Rubia, what would that do? But as much as she wants to know, she can’t read his mind. He’s always got some kind of mental barrier that blocks any and all attempts at penetrating his mind, like the cheating asshole he is. But in the end… what other choice does she have than to listen to him? He’s the only one who sees the grand scheme of everything. She knows she’s playing a deal with the devil – fittingly given that he only has one wing – but it’s also her only ticket home. Or maybe Sephiroth is right and there is no ticket home, but she’s already gone down this far. Might as well go all the way and see for herself.
Finally, she answers the serpent: “I’ve long asked the same questions, but every time my answer is the same. I want to see this through to the end, no matter the consequences.”
Leviathan seems disappointed with that answer. His stoic frown purses further into disdain. “Thou hast made thy final choice. Then, we, the Guardians of the Planet, shall answer with ours. As long as I have blood in these bones, thou shall not leave this realm.”
“…I understand.” She then bounces back to get a bit of distance between them before the next round begins. “But while I’m still using Rubia’s power, I’m not just an observer. I am Rubia. And I won’t be stopped here.”
And with fiery words exchanged, they jump right into battle. As a form of pure energy herself, she flashes with blinding light that easily pierces his watery body and the heat of that light sears holes wide open into it. Nonetheless, Leviathan only continues to reform that body and strike back with a wave of watery claws and pincers like those of crustaceans, slashing and scratching to contain her, but she can’t be contained like this. Where the light can shine is where she can be, and even as he tries to force her down into the depths, she simply bounces right out into the open once again.
And yet, the more the fight drags out, the more Ruby realizes how they have effectively entered a stalemate – a true stalemate, unlike before, since neither one can even harm the other. But while she intends to defeat him and escape, he has no need to do so. If anything, keeping this stalemate is advantageous for him, as he wishes to contain her in this realm for as long as possible.
No, this isn’t viable either. She has to find a way to break through, not just turtle up and keep ramming heads to no end. But the serpent is so stubborn, almost as stubborn as she is, and he doesn’t let up at all. And for just a moment, she wonders if the only option left to her now is to just give up. And it’s in that moment of hesitation that the massive streams finally converge upon her and swallow her up in an intense pressure that would probably be known as the powerful Aqualung. Of course, she has no lungs to worry about now, but instead this growing apathy as her conviction wavers is making her just a little less dim. And she grows gradually dimmer as the waves wash over her, crashing into the pool once more and pressing her further into the depths.
Well, it’s come to this now. She made her choice and this is the consequence. Perhaps she should just revert to human form and actually take this death once more.
“No. There is one more way open to you.”
She freezes up upon hearing that ever antagonizing voice. Of course it’d be Sephiroth. He’s somehow found a way to communicate with her even here. What does he want now?
“You hold the key to creation. Use it.”
The key to creation? What the hell is… Wait. Creation. The Edge of the Creation. The Debug Room? Oh, come on! Does he want her to cheat!? Is that it!? She is doing just fine on her own, thank you!
“You have a mission. Do you want to be stuck here?”
No, there’s gotta be a different trick to this battle. She just needs to restart and plan again.
“Ruby, this isn’t the time. You are facing an opponent that has no openings. You have no other options.”
Ah, but there is one other. She releases herself once again and shifts perspective, returning her back to the material and back into her familiar body. But now, she willingly accepts her fate and lets herself sink even further.
“…The things I do for you.”
His voice disappears and is replaced by a fluttering spark around her. Some kind of tessellating shapes like octagons interlaced with squares appear. It’s the graphical effects of someone using the Debug Room’s assets once again. Even with her eyes closed, she can still see the effects come into play.
Wait. Oh. Oh, shit. He’s using the freakin’ Debug Room. Who knows what he’s gonna do!? #%*&! Leviathan’s in trouble!
Ruby snaps awake and now that she’s fighting to move again, she finally feels the effects of the crushing pressure atop her. But just as she’s pushing back, the pressure mysteriously lifts as if the effects were removed. She launches herself from the depths back to the surface with a loud gasp.
“Leviathan!!” she screams as soon as she finds her voice.
But as she looks back up to meet the serpent, she freezes still once more with a chill running down her back. Where the proud and mighty serpent once loomed, he seems frozen still as if stopped in time itself. As she is panicking, she struggles to climb onto the surface and instead transforms into full dragon to regain her wings and finally escape the waters. Even as a full-sized dragon, though, she is still small compared to the great serpent – about half his size, perhaps. She’s zipping to and fro around him, frantic to try to get him to respond.
“Uncle! Wake up! Can you hear me!? Move, move, move! Bat an eye! Do something!!”
Unfortunately, it seems to be too late. The great serpent is now but a still image that she can’t even interact with anymore. She lets out an enraged roar.
“Sephiroth!! Let him go! This isn’t your fight! Don’t you dare do anything!”
But she doesn’t hear the man answer anymore. Still, she spits verbal venom as she grows desperate.
“You petty, shit-eating, LOSER sludge of a cell implant!! No, forget your stupid fetus. I’m talkin’ to you, Jenova!! Don’t you dare mess with me with a program of all things! I will overwrite you out of existence! FLUSH! Empty that cache! You’re nothing but data points and variables, you hear me!?”
To her surprise, something seems to be happening. She’s taken aback when the special effects of the interface vanish without a trace. However, this isn’t good news. The moment they disappear is not the moment that Leviathan starts moving again. Rather, it is the next moment when a great slash of a sword reverberates through the serpent’s body repeatedly like the echoes of a shockwave.
Ruby feels herself grow cold as if she had just been struck and is numb with shock. Now, Leviathan is freed from his immobility, only to answer with a screeching roar in pain as his entire length of body is sheared and shattered with a massive spray of blood.
“LEVIATHAN!!”
She catches him as he begins to fall, but unfortunately, his size and weight is too much even for her to hold up. The poor serpent wasn’t actually cut all the way through and is still in one piece, but has been trimmed like origami – not unlike a paper that unfolds like a spring – looking as if some kind of twisted sashimi art. In her horror, she drops the body without thinking and watches it collapse in a great splash into the pool below.
She gasps, realizing her poor reaction, and dives down to fetch him. But the serpent is no longer responsive. His huge body sinks into the water, and as she refuses to let him go, she too sinks with him. She tries to keep pulling on him, but as she forces herself against gravity, she freezes up again when she sees his body’s wounds open again and the rest of him float uselessly. So she stops pulling and lets herself sink too. And as the two fall further and further into the endless depths, she feels an emptiness inside.
How did things come to this? No… it’s silly to even ask. Of course she knows how. Once again, she refused to abide by Sephiroth’s word and thus he resorted to pressure her through others’ pain. It was as if it were a threat: instilling fear and obedience into her by the trauma of seeing someone she once knew and cared about so swiftly and easily transformed into an art piece of some disturbed, mad mind. And she just knows he’s proud of it.
The old serpent was right. She isn’t Rubia. The memories of the other world are what makes her distinct. But she still shares Rubia’s memories too. And she could feel the same nostalgia for Rubia’s own memories of those days when she was still young and an up-and-coming warrior. Leviathan may have been a stodgy old fart with a weird dialect, but he was always fair, upright, and honest when he felt it necessary to say something. Even despite his own trepidations, he still treated her, Ruby, as her own person and granted her an opportunity to make her own choice. It would have been what Bahamut would have done if it were him. She feels her eyes well up, but even as she lets them go, the tears simply vanish to the waters around them. Though the Summons, being entities born and reborn of the planet, will be able to return in some form in their own realms, it doesn’t change the fact that the old serpent is gone for now. And as she slowly loses air, she feels her consciousness drift off too. She may just join him.
But unlike the serpent, she knows she’ll just reappear in her fake apartment again, safe and sound, as if nothing just happened to her. And so will that man be there to wait for her.
~
Sonon suddenly feels a shudder come over him, almost as if he were stung by some kind of static, though he isn’t sure why. Even though he’s been tasked with carrying the Buster Sword around while Cloud and them are busy, it’s not that heavy. He’s certainly had to deal with worse during his training when he was younger. Surely he isn’t feeling tired already, right?
“Sonon, what are you doing? Come on. This way,” Yuffie calls to him.
“Yeah, coming.”
The two ninjas, moving swiftly and silently along the outer gate walls, find their way in by way of a conveniently placed cherry blossom tree that has faded out of bloom. They climb up its branches and make the leap onto the tiled rooftop of the walls with barely a noise, even despite the added weight on Sonon’s back. To their pleasant surprise, though, much of the patrolling guard inside the walls seems to be absent. Those who still are present are still preoccupied by the courtyard where the wedding guests have gathered. It looks like there’s some kind of live show that’s been set up there as they await the ceremony meant to take place. All the better for these two; they have no interest in joining the festivities – at least not just yet.
Finding an area of the grounds free of patrol, they slide down the other side of the tile rooftop and hit the ground safely with landing rolls. They hop right back to their feet and Yuffie scans the perimeter once more for good measure. All clear. So far so good. She leads him toward the northwest end of the pagoda grounds to a belfry atop a brick-layered scaffold where a big old golden bell has been hung.
“You remember this secret passage, right? Ol’ Pops should have taught you at some point.”
“Yeah, I remember. But are you sure we should use it? Would be a hassle if we draw too much attention.”
She sticks her tongue out as if disgusted. “Well, if personal experience has taught me, I’m not running head-first into the pagoda with enemies everywhere. You never know what kind of trap might be waiting for us!”
“Right… but if we ring it now, we probably won’t be able to come back out through this way later.”
She shrugs. “Eh. We’ll figure something out. This is Kisaragi territory, after all. Nothing I can’t handle!”
He makes an uneasy look, but nods back. “Right. You are the boss here.”
She steps up close to the bell and finds a rope tied down to a post. She frees it from its bind and lets loose the battering striker, but holds it steady so it doesn’t just start swinging freely. “W-whoa! This thing’s heavier than it looks.”
“I gotcha.” He takes the other end to help her hold it up.
“Okay, I think all we need is just a tap to activate the switch, so on three. One, two… three!”
Together in sync, they give the striker a push and swing it just enough to give the bell a gentle tap. Nonetheless, the great bell echoes with a deep, resounding tone that can be heard across the entire grounds. Shortly, a stone block below the scaffold shifts from its place and reveals an underground passage. Though they tried to keep it as discrete as possible, the low rumbling noise is still picked up by some guards who were in the courtyard, and one of them comes over to see what made that low rumble. Of course, by the time they get there, the ninjas have already vanished from view and the stone block has been replaced.
Down in the darkness of the underground tunnel, Yuffie whips out a Fire materia and gives a quiet whisper, casting a flame one by one upon the unlit torches around them. With each light returned to life, the passage is then revealed. She smirks proudly to herself and slips the materia away again.
Sonon takes a look around with a touch of nostalgia on his face. “Feels like forever since we’ve had to take an underground route… though it looks like this place hasn’t been touched in a while.”
Yuffie snatches up one of the torches for their convenience. “Speak for yourself. I used to use this route all the time when I was a kid. Sometimes still do if I have to.”
“Really? Was it supposed to be for some kind of training?”
“Well, sorta…” she answers, as if dodging the question, and explains on, “Anyway, the underground catacombs are pretty complicated, but I mapped it all out since I’ve wandered around it so much. So as long as you stick with me, you won’t get lost!”
He returns her an amused smile. “Alright. This is why you’re the boss. Lead on, Yuffie.”
While the intial tunnel is but a straight line ahead, they shortly come upon an intersection where the following paths are still shrouded in darkness. She peers around, making an scrutinizing scan of this intersection as if searching for some particular signs known only to her. To anyone else, they might as well be random scratch marks in the rock.
“Now, if I remember correctly, my old materia stash should be somewhere… down this way.” She whips off for the right path and he gives pursuit.
“Oh? You even have a secret materia stash?” he asks as they proceed.
“Ha! Of course I do! I have loads! You think the great Materia Hunter Extraordinaire would be able to get away with all of that materia by dragging it everywhere I go? Even if my pockets are big, I only have two hands, you know.”
“Mm-hm.”
There’s another intersection up next where Yuffie takes a left, then right again and another right, followed by a left… After a while of twists and turns in this labyrinthian network, they finally meet a door at the end of this tunnel. However, as they draw closer, they notice there seems to be a light on coming from inside, and to her alarm, the door hasn’t been shut tight as if it had recently been opened.
“What the?” she mutters.
It’s not just that; there seems to be some kind of shuffling noise and even voices coming from inside. She and Sonon pass each other nods in silent agreement and slip behind the door to eavesdrop. Judging by their conversation, they’re no allies.
“All clear on your side?”
“Of course it’s all clear! Everything’s been moved out already! Ugh. Can’t believe we’re still stuck here as ‘quality patrol’. What’s even left to look at?”
“Hey, it’s the boss’ orders, so we gotta follow ’em.”
“Yeah, I know. But the client’s agents already notified that the items were transferred successfully, so we got a whole lotta nothing. Aside from our guys, the only people here are just random civilians who were suckered into coming here. I heard the whole wedding’s gonna be called off anyway.”
“Oh, yeah, I heard that too. But wait, wasn’t the boss excited to meet a certain woman?”
“Yeah, but she’s not showing. I bet you she already jumped ship and is outta the country. And whoever is left hanging around here is gonna have to face the fact that they’re here just to be a nice distraction.”
“Heh. Yeah, I gotta say, this whole public wedding event was a pretty great plan. No one would know what’s actually going on behind the scenes, and the boss gets to show off.”
“Ha! You’re lucky I’m the only one here to hear it, or the boss mighta think you’re insulting him!”
“W-whoa, don’t go there! It was a genuine compliment!”
While their conversation proceeds into further idle chatter, just outside the door, Yuffie and Sonon exchange worried glances and fierce whispers.
“So this whole wedding is just a hoax? I already hate Corneo with my whole being, and he keeps having more reasons to hate him!” she mutters with vengeance.
“And by the sounds of it, they’ve been moving some ‘stuff’ around and probably down south to another town. In other words…”
“We got our smugglers right here. I didn’t doubt him, but looks like old man Zangan was right.” She hands the torch to him as she whips out her PHS to begin typing up a message. “We gotta tell the others.”
“Wait. Don’t send it yet.”
“Huh? Why not?”
He makes a worried frown. “I think we should get a clearer picture of the situation first. We don’t even know what this ring is smuggling.”
“Well, it’s gotta be something really big if they’re being so sneaky about it.”
“Yeah. But ‘something really big’ doesn’t mean anything. We need more info.”
“Hmph…” She then puts the PHS away. “Okay, fine. Now what? Do we ambush these guys and get them to spill?”
“Ambush them, huh…” He nods slowly. “Well, couldn’t hurt. It’s just us down here.”
She grins mischievously. “Alright, let’s do it! Ready? On three… Three!”
They force open the door and barge into the room, startling the guards inside.
“Huh? What the?”
“Intruders!?”
“Hiyaah!”
Before they can even draw their guns, the ninjas tackle the guards, each pinning a man down. Yuffie traps a man’s neck between the edges of her shuriken’s blades, and Sonon lodges the end of his staff into the back of the other man’s neck.
“Argh!”
“Alright, ya bozos! Get talking!” Yuffie demands, drawing her shuriken in her victim’s face, “You working for Corneo?”
“Ugh… there really were intruders…” the man mutters.
“Who are you? You with the government or somethin’?” the other trapped guard asks.
Yuffie is proud to declare, “You’re darn right! We’re from Wutai’s elite stealth defense force and it sounds like your boss is up to no good!”
“…” But to her surprise, the two guards then start to chuckle among themselves and then laugh aloud.
“Huh? What’s so funny!?”
“Sounds like some people didn’t get the memo.”
“The memo?”
“Yeah. Didn’t you hear?” the other man adds with a sneer, “Your Minister of Defense called off you ninjas. You’re not allowed to touch Corneo or his men.”
“Yeah,” the first man adds, “In fact, thanks for admitting it. We’ll be glad to report in about your violations!”
“What!?” she shrieks, “You gotta be kidding me! No way the Minister of Defense made a call like that! Don’t you dare mock us!”
“You wanna bet? Then go find the guy yourself and ask him. But you’re not gonna be happy to hear what he has to say.”
“Oh, yeah? Maybe we will! Jerk!”
Sonon glares back, asking the real question: “What does Corneo have that he’d even be anywhere near the Minister of Defense’s circle?”
But the two guards just exchange some smug side-eye and play dumb.
He jabs his staff further into the guy’s neck. “Answer the question.”
“Urgh… Even if you torture us, we don’t got a clue. All we know is that the boss got some kinda deal worked out with the guy.”
“Yeah… we’re just the guys who were left patrollin’ a damn maze of rooms fulla empty crates. What makes you think we’d be told anything?” the other man admits too.
“Tch…”
With that, Sonon raises his staff off, only to flip it around and smack the guy’s lights out. Yuffie likewise smashes the other guard’s head into the floor with her shuriken, knocking him out too. They finally step off of their opponents and reconsider their options.
“Well, that was sunk. Now what?”
“Thinking about it, makes sense that Corneo would keep that kind of info hushed. If it turns out that our suspect Wutaian official is actually the Minister of Defense…”
She sticks out her tongue in disgust. “Defense? More like Treason! I wouldn’t even call him Wutaian. Anyone who betrays Wutai isn’t!”
“Right, but for now, all we know is rumors. We need to find the actual man and confront him.”
“And what’s this ‘deal’ they mentioned? What kind of deal would any Wutaian official make with a slum lord like Corneo?”
“Well, like my old master said, Corneo’s the ringleader, so whatever they could be talking has to do with the illegal arms trade.”
“Wait. You think all these crates were holding weapons?” She swerves over to a nearby crate and gives it a kick. “They’re all empty now, though…” And now that she’s reminded, she lets out a loud gasp. “Oh, my God!”
“What?”
“My materia stash! Those bastards better not have messed with it!”
She starts shoving aside the empty crates to search for a secret hidden in the back wall. She finds a somewhat loose piece of stone and reaches in with a hand to hit a hidden switch. She then steps back as they hear the sound of some mechanism working out of sight, and a piece of the wall opens up a hole just big enough for her to crawl through. She then lugs back out a small chest, but looks a little relieved when she sees the lock still intact. Still, just to be sure, she digs into a pocket to fetch her lockpick and picks the lock.
To their relief, there are several materia that have been collected here. Most of them are green and purple – just the usual elemental spells and stat-boosting ones – while a few are yellow, and there’s just one red and one blue among them. She whips out the red and blue ones from the stash with a delighted twinkle in her eyes.
“Gotcha!” She spins around with glee as if doing her victory dance and whips back to Sonon. “Bet ya don’t have a clue which Summon this one is.”
“Uh…” He rubs his head. “Bahamut?”
She then frowns. “As if it’d be that easy finding that one. I’m still looking for it, but they don’t have it in any of the towns I’ve stopped by. It’s gotta be hidden in some secret cave or dungeon I can’t get into yet.”
He gives a casual shrug. “Alright, hit me. Which one is this?”
She goes back to grinning. “Have you ever heard of Sylph, the Queen of the Fairies?”
He blinks. “Sylph?”
“Yeah. Legend goes that they used to live with the people in ancient times, but after witnessing too many times the corruption of man, the fairies all left to hide away in a secret cave somewhere in the world. The queen then sealed the cave entrance so no human could pass through and it’d look like an ordinary cliff so no one would notice.”
“Huh.”
She then shrugs too. “But I dunno. It was just a legend I heard from a passing materia merchant that I nicked the materia from. Never saw that man again, so I didn’t ask more about it.”
He rolls his eyes. “Of course.” He then passes a curious glance to the materia. “So, what’s this Summon do?”
“It’s a Wind-elemental being that blows a magic wind on enemies and saps their life force to help heal us. It’s pretty nifty, so I thought I’d keep it somewhere safe.”
“Ah, okay.” He nods back. “That does sound useful. You never know when we might need a bit more than just an Aero.”
She then slips it and the blue one away into her pockets. “Well, it’s nothing compared to Ruby, but by the point, what is, really?”
“Speaking of which, I’ve been meaning to ask… Did you ever find her materia? She is a Summon too, right?”
“Yeah, I did, but she wanted to give it away to a little girl for safekeeping.”
“A little girl?”
“Her name’s Marlene. I think she’s a good friend to Cloud and them.”
“Ah.” He then makes a concerned frown. “But is leaving such a powerful materia with her a good idea? What if Shinra finds out and tries to nick it from her?”
“Well, Ruby said she’s specially attuned to hers, so she can actually track where it’s gone.”
“What? Can Summons tell where their materia goes?”
“I dunno. Maybe? It’s not like we got any other of them to ask, and only Ruby’s able to talk with their spirits.”
Now that he’s been reminded, Sonon makes a bit of a guilty look. “Yeah… hope things turn out okay with her.”
“Eh, don’t worry about her. Even if she did have a fever, it’s nothing she can’t brush off.”
“But Summons usually wouldn’t get fevers, would they?”
She throws up her arms impatiently from all the questions. “Don’t ask me! Ask Ruby when she’s awake! She’s the real expert when it comes to that stuff!”
“Ah. Right.”
She shuts the chest back up and returns it to its place behind the wall and hits the hidden switch, sealing it away. She then turns to check the other crates in the room.
“Anyway, I don’t think there’d be anything left in here, but I guess it doesn’t hurt to check…”
“Didn’t these guards already scan the room?”
“For weapons, maybe, but who knows if they overlooked something.”
She takes a moment to go around kicking at each of the crates, noting how light and hollow they are. But as she kicks at the last one, they then hear a soft clink as if there were something in it. They exchange confused stares, wondering what that was.
“We got a hit!” she gasps.
“What the?” he asks, a bit stunned that it worked.
She hurriedly whips out her big shuriken and cracks its lid wide open. To their disappointment, though, it’s mostly empty, though there seems to be a lone empty transparent tube, about the size of a large soda can, with a metal seal that has been left open and abandoned.
She pouts with a whine. “It’s just trash…”
“Looks like a container of some kind. I wonder what was in it?” he asks.
“Who cares. It’s empty now.”
“By the looks of it, it probably had some kind of liquid.” He reaches down to inspect it, but now that he notices it, there’s an alarming red mark on the top of the vial’s lid. “W-what?”
“Huh? What’s up?”
He swerves it around to show her. “It has the Shinra logo.”
“What!?” She snatches it from his hands and gives the thing another close lookover. “What the heck is something from Shinra doing here…” And as the dots connect, she gasps with a look of utter disgust. “Oh, no. No, they didn’t…!”
He frowns too. “Looks like this smuggling ring goes even deeper than we thought.”
“Those bastards!” she yells, violently chucking away the tube, which bounces off the ground harmlessly. “How DARE they mess with Wutai like this!? I thought it was sus that Corneo would be the ringleader, but they really were selling Shinra weapons! And the prez pretended he didn’t know…” She draws her shuriken with a vengeful snarl. “Unforgivable! I’m cutting down every last one of their troops and even Soldiers! We won’t even need Ruby!”
“Uh, I’m pretty sure we’d need her to be able to take them ALL on… but I get you.” He then strikes a thinking pose. “But what makes me worry is: how could anyone from Shinra have known about these underground catacombs? They’re a secret known only to the elite forces like us ninjas.”
“I dunno, but I smell a rat. And if it turns out our troublemaking official really was the Minister himself…”
He frowns again. “Then we’ve got a big problem. He might not want to meet with us to talk about it either.”
“Hmph! As soon as Ruby’s awake, that won’t be a problem! I’m sure the whole Wutai government will kowtow before her if she so raises a finger!” She shakes an angry fist. “Besides, the jail cell’s gonna be the last thing he’ll be doing business with if I have anything to say.”
“And to do that, we’ll have to expose not just his ties with Corneo, but their ties with the smuggling ring. And we got proof.” He walks to fetch the tube that she had tossed away. “So, we’ll be hanging onto this.”
She crosses her arms, rolling her eyes. “Oh, fine. I guess if we have to…”
He turns back to her with a reminder: “Anyway, we’ve stalled here long enough. Cloud and the others ought to be here by now, so we’d better get in position.”
“Right. And then we’ll kick every last Shinra butt until they’re all out of Wutai!”
“A step at a time…”
But as they get ready to leave, they hear a different voice speak up from beyond the door: “Whoa, there. That’d be a problem…”
“Huh?”
The door swings open and the ninjas are taken aback. Reno and Rude of the Turks step on in, and they’re followed by a third member also dressed in black like them. This young woman is a blonde with short, straight hair, and she’s got a fiery temper to match her fists.
She punches into her other hand with a stern frown. “You’re not going anywhere. We’re capturing you and your friends right here!”
“The Turks!?” Yuffie gasps. “What are they doing here!?”
Reno clicks his tongue. “We could ask you two the same thing.”
“This is our turf! It only makes sense that we’d be here!”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. These catacombs were long donated away for more charitable causes. Wouldn’t serve the shogun much while he’s in jail, after all.”
“You…!”
“Oh, and on that thought, we’re gonna have to confiscate the materia you got from the chest,” he threatens with a smug smirk.
“What!?” she snaps back, “You just try prying it from my cold, dead hands! That’s my materia!”
“That you stole, right? So by definition, it’s not yours.”
“I stole it fair and square, so it IS mine!”
Reno just stares back in disbelief. “…Are you for real?”
Rather than get into those semantics, Rude moves on, “In any case, it’d be a greater problem if you two kept that tube. If word got out, there would be absolute chaos.”
“Of course there would. Shinra shouldn’t be poking into Wutai’s affairs in the first place!” Sonon argues, “What are you people doing getting involved in smuggling arms here?”
Reno simply tugs on the bottom of his eye. “As if we’d tell you that, ya idiot!”
“…”
Rude continues, “Considering that the Minister of Defense has issued an injunction that prohibits any investigation into those activities, neither of you are in the right to continue snooping around.”
The young blonde also smirks as she demands, “Yeah! And what are you guys up to, sneaking around down here and digging up dirt on Corneo? Do you want everyone to know that he’s the ringleader!? Imagine the panic that it’d stir up!”
An uncomfortable silence then comes over the entire room as Reno gives her a glare and Rude makes an uncomfortable cough. The blonde then looks between them, honestly confused.
“What?”
“Elena, learn to shut your trap…” Reno mutters under his breath.
“They didn’t need to know that either,” Rude explains.
“Oh! Uh…” Elena quickly backtracks, “You guys didn’t hear that, got it? I’m just talking theories!”
Yuffie frowns too, but is more unimpressed. “Sorry, but we already know.”
“Huh!?”
Reno’s taken aback too. “What? Where’d you hear that?”
Sonon folds his arms with a smug but stoic face. “We have connections.”
“Not that we’d tell you!” Yuffie follows up with her own smirk.
“…” Now it’s Reno’s turn to scowl.
“And on that thought, we’re not gonna let you capture us.” Sonon draws his staff forward. “We’ve got a rendezvous to make and we can’t be late.”
“Sorry, but that’s not negotiable.” Reno brings his electric baton forward too. “We’re on a mission to find Ruby and her pals, and that includes you.”
Rude brings up his fists too, but first asks them, “Incidentally, where is Ruby? We were informed that you all made it into the capital, but she seems to have gone missing.”
“We’re not telling you anything!” Yuffie primes her shuriken too. “Now get outta the way!”
“It’s not gonna be that easy!” Elena fires back.
It’s a flurry of movements as the two sides rush into the fray, where the two ninjas seek a chance to slip out and the Turks are trying their darnedest to keep them in. Yuffie blitzes Reno at the start while Sonon faces off Rude, but before she can get a hit in, Elena slides in to trip her. It doesn’t get her, but Reno slips away and sneaks a jab of his charged baton, which Yuffie barely avoids with a backflip. Sonon means to jump back to lend her a hand, but Rude stops him and lays on a vicious assault of fists that he has to block with his staff. Sonon tries to return the favor and Rude takes a few strikes of the staff, but the latter then catches it and yanks it hard to throw a strong right into the former’s face.
“Urgh!”
Yuffie keeps dodging Elena and Reno’s attempts, but sneaks in a chance to let her shuriken fly. Both of them dodge, but she wasn’t actually aiming for them. The shuriken weaves back around to hit Rude in the back, temporarily stunning him so that Sonon can jump out of the way too. And while that happens, Yuffie’s charged up an Art of War and unleashes it against her nearby opponents. While Reno wisely dodges again, Elena’s caught off-guard by the ninjutsu and is blown away.
“Yeow!”
But just as Yuffie retrieves her shuriken, Reno manages to slip in close and smack her with his baton, giving her a nasty shock.
“Aaah!!”
“Yuffie!”
Sonon comes in swinging, but Reno dodges again. To which, Rude comes charging in with a tackle, pinning him down by the neck. As it so happens, the Buster Sword actually protected Sonon from taking the brunt of that tackle, but with the combined weights of it and Rude, Sonon struggles to throw him off.
“Allow me.”
“Hey!”
Rude detaches the sword and flings it aside, where it slides with a screech against the rough stone floor. Sonon now throws him off, but Rude neatly weaves back to avoid the incoming swing of his staff.
“Damn you!”
“Oh, yeah. Why do you guys have that sword?” Reno asks offhandedly, while clashing baton to Yuffie’s shuriken. “Doesn’t it belong to the spiky-headed douche?”
“That ‘douche’ is gonna kill you guys for doing that to his sword!” Yuffie counters, but her next flurry of swings is simply blocked and evaded. “You’re lucky he isn’t here!”
“Can we not call him a douche?” Sonon honestly asks, once again trying to block Rude’s fearsome strikes.
“Heeyah!” Elena returns and tries sneaking in a sweeping kick to catch him, but he dodges that too. “Oh, come on!”
Sonon hops back to where the sword lies and picks it up again. While it may be for the best that it’s set aside safely, as he’s no swordfighter, he can’t help but feel an obligation to keep it safe.
“You sure you wanna keep holding that?” Rude asks as if warning him. He comes in with another strong strike downward, which Sonon avoids, but the ensuing crash of fist to the floor leaves an energetic wave that blows him back too.
“Augh!”
“Sonon! What are you doing!?”
Yuffie flings her shuriken away in time to catch Elena off-guard and stop her from jumping Sonon too, and leaps out of the way of Reno’s next swing.
“Hey, who do you think you’re fighting?” he demands.
“It’s a free-for-all, idiot!”
Yuffie shoves another hand pose in his face, to which he realizes his mistake for coming too close. She blasts him with another burst of ninjutsu that sends him flying to the ceiling in a whirlwind.
“Bwuh!?”
Yuffie then retrieves her shuriken and charges in at Rude from behind, but he notices her coming and sidesteps her. Rather than let that bother her, she slides in by Sonon’s side and helps him back up.
“You okay?”
“I’ve been better… and worse.”
“Put that sword down already! You’re not gonna use it!”
“But I made a promise to keep it safe.”
“Oh, come on! Is now really the time!?”
Now, the two have found themselves stuck in a corner in the back of the room with the three Turks having them surrounded. While they’re all a little scratched up, it doesn’t look like any of the trio are going down any time soon.
“You two sure put up a show… but do you really think you can get away?” Reno grumbles as he turns up the intensity on his baton.
“We take every mission of ours seriously,” Rude adds with a stern frown, crackling his knuckles. “And we don’t let up on a cornered target.”
“That was some cheat to magic! What the heck have you ninjas been training!?” Elena meanwhile complains.
As Yuffie and Sonon braces themselves for yet another round, though, everyone is caught by complete surprise with the sound of a gun firing, where the bullet flies in from the door to just millimeters past Reno’s head. He freezes up and slowly turns toward the door.
“Vincent!” Yuffie calls out in relief, while Sonon looks a bit lost.
Vincent has stepped in with his gun raised. “That was a warning shot. The next one won’t miss.”
“…The hell?” Reno mutters, but raises his hands in surrender and switches off his baton.
“…” Rude frowns bitterly, but given their new adversary’s quick draw, he hesitates to rush in with Vincent’s gun pointed right at Reno.
“Who the hell is this!?” Elena asks. “He’s another of them?”
“Sorry to keep you,” Vincent addresses the other two, “I was tailing these three around the city to discover what they’ve been planning, but I lost track of them within the catacombs. It seems this underground network extends far beyond the pagoda grounds.”
“Never mind that! Am I glad to see you!” Yuffie rushes on over with Sonon in tow. “We got a lot to catch up on!”
He nods back and turns to Sonon too. “And I see you’ve successfully recovered.”
“Uh, yeah… Sorry, but have we met?”
“Not exactly. But we can save the introductions for later. I think we should get a move on.”
“Yeah! Let’s get outta here already!” Yuffie cheers.
Vincent keeps his gun poised as the other two hurry off through the door, and he slowly backs off with the gun still raised until he too disappears out the door. At last, Reno heaves a sigh in relief and drops his arms. Rude adjusts his glasses with an uncomfortable look, but stays silent too. And Elena stares in disbelief for the door, and turns back to her partners, still in disbelief.
“What the heck was that, guys! We’re the Turks! How can you just let some guy with a gun stop you like that!?”
Reno grumbles, “Shut up, Elena. You’re still new here, so you wouldn’t know anything.”
“Huh!?”
Rude then explains, “When we searched the databases on that man to track the current members of Cloud’s group of Avalanche, we came upon some… interesting finds about that man in particular.”
“Uh… that guy? What’s up with him?”
“Vincent Valentine. He was a former member of the Turks who reportedly went missing around 30 years ago, though the causes of his disappearance are unknown.”
“As far as we know, the guy’s supposed to be dead,” Reno adds.
“Huh?” Elena jerks back in surprise. “He’s dead? No, wait, he’s definitely alive, though!”
“Yeah, we can tell. But that’s the problem here.”
“What’s the problem?”
Rude makes a troubled sigh. “It means even though the Turks should have access to much of the classified information that goes on behind the company’s closed doors, some of that information seems to have been stricken from the record.”
Reno shakes his head. “Tch. Seems like some higher ups in our own damn company don’t even trust us enough to share that info.”
“Hopefully, we may be able to ask the president for more details,” he suggests, “Though, it seems he’s been busy minding Midgar affairs at the moment.”
“Hmm…” Elena frowns, but only gets more confused as she thinks it over. “Ugh! Whatever! Anyway, they just got away! Shouldn’t we give chase?”
“To be honest… I’m not really feeling it anymore,” Reno admits.
“What are you talking about!? That was our mission, wasn’t it? To hunt them all down and capture them!”
“Technically, the mission was to hunt them down and ally ourselves with Ruby because there’s no way in hell that we’d be able to take her on.”
“What? Are you serious!?”
Rude nods along. “That was the president’s direct order, after all.”
“He didn’t give any details about how we were to engage, though.” Reno also adds another complaint, “And we woulda pinned them down easy if it weren’t for some ghost back from the dead to save them… Seriously, what’s with their crazy luck? Ruby’s not even here!”
“…” She looks to Rude, who doesn’t say anything, and back to Reno. She vents, furious, “Then what was all that fighting for!? They’re the enemy, aren’t they? Why would we ally with them?”
Reno sighs, growing ever tired. “Elena, stop asking questions that don’t have answers. It’s so annoying.”
“…Argh!” Elena throws up her hands in frustration and turns for the door. “Maybe I’m new here so I don’t get what’s going on, but I’m not gonna just let that embarrassing end slide! We’re going after them! Or at least, I am!” And with that, she rushes out the door.
“…” Reno passes a tired glance to his partner. “We should probably chase her to make sure she doesn’t get her ass whooped again.”
Rude gives a sigh. “We should.”
“Still, she has a point. What’s with the prez’s idea to ally with Ruby? And what exactly are we supposed to be waiting for her to do?”
“…” Rude hesitates over his answer, but then replies, “We’ll see when we meet her.”
Reno rolls his eyes. In any case, they also hurry on out after Elena. Wherever this plot around Ruby is headed, who really knows?
Chapter 42: Pinning the Mule's Tail
Notes:
Outdated A/N + health rant
10/24/23 edit: Nope, my old Imposter's Syndrome kicked in again and I feel like my work sucks. But even while I still feel like shit, let's see what I can get in for next week. I wanna honor this fic's one-year anniversary. Even Imposter's won't stop me from using my failing mental health as inspiration.
--
(Original posting)
As Ruby would say, in an alternate timeline, I would have gotten this uploaded yesterday like I promised. Sorry for the wait, everyone, but at least you don't have to wait til next Friday again! I also just realized that Halloween last year was on a Monday, and we're coming 'round to that day again pretty soon. If all goes well, I should have chapter 44 ready by this Halloween, but we'll see.
Spent so much time messing with my general outline lately that I finally have a course for the rest of this arc. Here's to making it to that spooky scene I have planned before this month is over! In the meantime, check the end notes for some more "spooky" trivia.
I swear I don't actually plan it whenever I align with some holidays. It keeps happening.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Back in the cover of darkness, Yuffie, Sonon, and Vincent have eluded the Turks for now and find themselves in a different underground chamber, where like the last one is filled with nothing but empty crates. But rather than be reveling in their successful escape, the mood is more of a glum one as the troubling reality sets in.
Yuffie grumbles, “Man… What’s going on in this country? First they let a crime lord like Corneo do whatever he wants on our turf, and now even the Turks are trying to cover up this smuggling ring. And of all people, even the Minister of Defense won’t let us investigate? I don’t believe it! There’s some kinda scam going on!”
Sonon nods with equal concern. “If it turns out that the minister really is involved, then we don’t just have a war to worry about. This could turn into a huge internal conflict.”
“But why? What would the whole point be? I thought we were supposed to be gearing up for war against Shinra. How could the freakin’ Turks end up in our secret catacombs!?”
“I thought so too… but from here on out, we may just have to watch our backs even on our home turf.”
“This sucks!” she complains, kicking away some loose pebbles, and stomps on the ground. “Then why was the new government formed if they’re just gonna bow their heads to Shinra like my old man did!? We put him in jail because he brought us shame after the war! And now those fogeys think they can do the same thing under a different banner? Ugh! They’re just as bad as the smuggler rats that infested our shores!”
Her partner gives hesitant pause, though. “Well, we don’t know enough yet to say for sure… but in any case, we have to find the minister. And if push comes to shove, we might have to forcibly remove him from office.”
She throws out a vehement fist. “And if he tries to run, we’ll catch and expose him to the public! As soon as Ruby’s back up, he won’t have any place to run!”
However, Vincent has to bring up the matter. “…Sorry to interrupt, but I’m not sure it’s going to be that straightforward,” he admits plainly.
“Huh?” Yuffie swerves to him in disbelief. “What do you mean? And where have you been all this time?”
“As I said before, tailing the Turks. Unfortunately, I made some unpleasant discoveries…” Before he gets into all that, he asks, “By the way, where is Ruby? She accompanied you all to facilitate Sonon’s recovery.”
As soon as he does, though, the other two seem to sink as all their pep is drained away.
“Ruby is… unwell right now,” Sonon answers frankly.
“But she’ll be fine!” Yuffie insists with an assurance possibly directed to herself. “She’s always got some way to deal with things. What makes this so different?”
Sonon rubs his head with a worried look himself. “Seems like she’s fallen sick with a fever. We had to leave her in my old master’s care.”
Vincent’s eyes narrow. “A fever?”
“It happened after we visited the Leviathan shrine,” Yuffie explains further, “I think Ruby confronted him in spirit and worked something out, since Sonon was able to wake up. But for some reason, she didn’t wake up. Old man Zangan said it was probably some kind of ‘spiritual pain’ that she had or something, so she needs some time to rest.”
“Hmm…” Now he looks worried and mutters to himself, “So our worst fears were realized.”
“Vincent, do you have any idea what’s going on with her? You seem to know a lot.”
He shakes his head. “Unfortunately, I’m only speculating here myself. If it is indeed a ‘spiritual pain’, then there’s nothing else we can do but wait for her. Whatever she may be undergoing at the moment is something she must handle herself.”
She looks discouraged to hear that. “I guess… But what could have messed her up enough that she’d get sick from it? Like, I didn’t even know Summons could get sick!”
“To be fair, Ruby’s not an ordinary Summon either, right?” Sonon asks to clarify, “She’s still a living person like the rest of us.”
“Living? Sure. Like the rest of us? Eh…”
He rolls his eyes. “You know what I mean.”
Yuffie turns back to Vincent. “Anyway, what’s up? Do you need her for something?”
The somber man makes a somber sigh. “…Unfortunately, she happens to be the one person who would be best to handle our current situation.”
“You mean with the Turks? So what were those ‘unpleasant discoveries’?”
He nods back then turns toward the crates in the back of the room. “Have you two checked if there was anything left in these boxes?”
“The boxes? Oh, yeah.” She looks to the other guy. “We did, didn’t we?”
Sonon nods and retrieves the container from somewhere on his person. “There was one thing: this container. It was empty when we found it. Looks like it’s marked with the Shinra logo.”
She smirks proudly. “It’s our concrete proof that Shinra’s been meddling in our affairs! Ruby or not, there’s no way the minister won’t react to this!”
But Vincent shakes his head and warns them, “No. An empty container won’t be enough to dispel anything, especially that you retrieved it from an unlabeled box like these. Furthermore, the people responsible for moving them around seem to be working for Corneo. Unless you have a way to connect the two, it would be simple enough for him to deny all involvement.”
“But, it’s not like we’d be picking up some random container that’s from Shinra. We wouldn’t have a reason to fake it or anything!”
“It being faked or not isn’t the issue. You simply don’t have the critical evidence you need to confront him yet.”
“Hmph…”
Sonon nods back slowly and asks him, “Right. So what is this container? Do you know?”
“Some things, at least. I overheard a conversation between the Turks themselves, so it should be reliable info.” Vincent answers with a hint of apprehension, “It seems to have been some sort of chemical agent simply known as ‘ARC’.”
Yuffie blinks and raises an eyebrow. “Ay-are-see? Like, an arc? What’s that got to do with anything?”
“It’s an acronym. The ‘Amalgamate Remnant Catalyst’, if I heard correctly.”
“The what?”
“I believe it has something to do with Ruby – or rather, Rubia – and Shinra’s experimental program using her biological data.”
The other two are nearly blown back in surprise. “What!?”
“Experimental program… with her biological data?” Sonon repeats as he lets it sink in.
“What does that mean? They got some kind of weird chemical they made with Ruby’s DNA or something?” Yuffie gasps.
Vincent nods. “It may be. But what its effects would be, I wouldn’t know. They didn’t discuss to that length.”
Sonon then asks, “What is this program anyway, and what’s it got to do with Ruby?”
Yuffie shrugs. “Um… I think we heard something about it from the Shinra president when we found him at Junon.”
He raises an eyebrow. “You guys ‘found’ him at Junon?”
“Yeah, he was having his inaugural ceremony there. Ruby warped us right to his office.”
“Ah.”
Vincent nods along and gives him a more thorough answer, “The Immortals Project, a secret developmental program that was once classified under the Jenova Project umbrella, but branched off to become its own. It was supposed to have been cancelled at some point, but clearly development into Rubia’s cellular network hasn’t stopped. The result of their secret research would lead to the discovery and extraction of this agent, ARC.”
Sonon nods slowly as he takes it all in, but then realizes it begs the question. “Wait. So this stuff was part of some secret Shinra program. Then what’s it doing here in our country? Unless…” His eyes widen when he catches on. “No. You don’t think that these are the ‘weapons’ that are being smuggled?”
Vincent nods. “It’s very likely. The Turks also mentioned the agent was being shipped overseas to a recipient in Wutai under the ambiguous guise of ‘medicine’.”
“But what about all the rumors about the illegal arms trade?” Yuffie then asks, “They’ve gotten around enough that a lot of people have heard them.”
“Right… but that may have been the intention.”
“Huh?”
“It’s a clever ruse, to be honest. Even if there would be attempts by customs to seize and search the contents of these boxes, they would find harmless-looking containers of fluids, rather than the arms that they would expect to find.”
Sonon grows a bit disturbed. “In other words, they were hiding the actual truth behind a distraction that already is really suspicious, but couldn’t ever be proven…”
Yuffie asks further, “Okay, but what would anyone do with this stuff? Even if it’s made from Ruby, er, Rubia’s DNA, it’s not like people would drink them like Potions, right? Ew. And also, really dumb. You can’t just get her powers like that. That’s what materia is for!”
“Again, I don’t know what they may be used for, but the facts remain that cases of this agent have been shipped here and are making the rounds. It sounds like the products that were being stored down here have been transferred to another town.”
Yuffie’s eyes hone at attention. “Wait. Which town?”
“A port town to the south by the name of ‘Zhongyuan’, I believe.”
“Zhongyuan!? But that’s…” she gasps, her eyes growing wide in horror.
“Hm? What’s the matter?”
Sonon frowns too and explains, “Zhongyuan is an autonomous zone that has been cut off from the rest of the country due to historical conflicts. It was meant to be a trading city that would connect Wutai with the rest of the world, but a major incident there pushed the old government to quarantine the town. It’s since become a sort of ghost town that some people believe is genuinely cursed and populated by demons. It’s kind of a taboo subject, so people don’t like to talk about it.”
Vincent raises an eyebrow out of curiosity, but decides to let that alone for now. “Then, it would be a fair location for the likes of a smuggling ring to operate without much scrutiny under the law. Being a port town also means they’d have easy access to goods from overseas.”
He then puts a hand to his chin to think it over. “But it’s weird; though Yuffie and I have been out of the country for a few days, I don’t think too much would have changed while we were away. We weren’t informed that there was any shipping business at that town either.”
“…” Though the atmosphere is heavy enough, Vincent has to bring up what everyone suspects: “Perhaps you two were specifically left out from that?”
“Oh, my Gawd!” Yuffie yells furiously, “Seriously, what’s with our government not telling us anything!? Did they really just send us off on a mission so we’d be out of the way of their shady dealings with this ring!?”
Sonon now feels a knot forming in his gut. “No way… They didn’t send us off knowing it would just be a wild goose chase, did they?”
“And they said it was the ‘most important’ directive too…”
He clenches up a fist too. “Damn it… What were we even fighting for, then?”
She throws up her arms in frustration. “Argh! I hate politicians! We can’t even trust our own superiors to tell it to us straight! Maybe we really need another overhaul of our government! Someone who wouldn’t be afraid to fight Shinra! Bring back the ninja and samurai classes while we’re at it!”
He then slumps into a bitter melancholy. “I should have known something was up… They had to get rid of us because we were associated with their political rivals.”
“I don’t even have anything to do with my dad!” she whines, “I even supported the cause to have him put in jail! Why did things have to turn out like this!?”
Between Yuffie’s frustrated wailing and Sonon’s sinking depression, Vincent, despite having sealed himself away for some 30 years, finds himself sympathizing. The scars that Wutai suffered since their overwhelming defeat to Midgar have yet to heal, and yet despite it being forefront news back in the day, nothing much seems to have changed. Rather, those old wounds were simply masked and left to decay further. It’s no surprise, knowing this company he had once been affiliated with. He even feels a tinge of guilt for being absent all that time.
Nonetheless, this is no place to give up. Sonon finally snaps out of his gloom and makes a face of determination. “We have to do something about this country. We need to weed these traitors out one way or another. We’re not about to let our home sink any further into the ground than it already has.”
Yuffie raises up her own in full agreement. “You said it! And we’re taking out all the trash, or I swear I’m not Yuffie Kisaragi, 20th heir in line of the Kisaragi Clan and the single white rose of Wutai!”
“Hopefully, it doesn’t get that bad and we don’t have to ‘take out’ anyone, though,” he suggests with a bit of discretion, “but if even the Minister of Defense won’t hear us, then we’ll go even higher to the Prime Minister.”
“Hell, I’ll even take him on if I have to!”
“…” He raises an eyebrow at her, but decides not to argue.
“And to do that, we’re gonna have to get Corneo!” She catches her fist in her other hand. “I don’t think we have any objections to taking him out, right?”
He returns her a smile in agreement. “Nope. He’s going down.”
“Yeah!” She’s then reminded: “Oh, right. Cloud and them should be meeting with him around now. We gotta get up there and back ’em up!”
Vincent nods back. “Then, I’ll leave that to you two.”
“You’re not coming with us, Vincent?”
“I don’t think that’d be necessary. Besides, with the Turks on our tail, it’d be best that someone lead them off the trail.”
“Oh, right. I almost forgot about them.” She gives him a thumbs-up. “Okay! Give ’em the runaround!”
And with their objectives set, the three exchange assured nods. Vincent takes a cautious peek out the door to this chamber and can hear the faint sounds of footsteps coming this way. Taking his chance, he hurries out on his own. And not a moment too soon, for Elena of the Turks, shortly followed by her two partners, comes by, seething like a ferocious predator. Perhaps even like a bull-headed bull, as she tails after the fluttering of a red cape. With the way clear, Yuffie and Sonon also disappear down a different way, back toward the tunnels that would lead them directly into the pagoda from below.
However, unbeknownst to them all, there would be one more figure hiding in the shadows, in a recess in the walls just out of the way. A mysterious cloaked figure, clad in a pale white cloth, then slips away once more with this news in tow.
~
To the south of the capital lie some mountainous regions that split the country between north and south. There was once a proud fort that stood in its depths as one of Wutai’s last lines of defense, Fort Tamblin. However, during the war with Midgar, even this mighty stronghold was easily dispatched and conquered by just a few members of Shinra’s Soldiers. In the aftermath, following the conditional terms of the ensuing treaty, the fort would henceforth be antiquated and repurposed as a government-managed historical site. However, unlike the zones that were opened for foreign investment and commerce, this one would remain closed to the public. It may still have some security that keeps an eye out for any potential trespassers, but the old guard that was once prized as the samurai elite is no more.
However, it would happen to have a few uninvited guests this evening. After Tifa was alerted of Cloud’s plan and had to excuse herself, Barret, Red, Biggs, and Wedge continued the pursuit of the Avalanche imposters. After finding and cornering a shady merchant that helped tip them off about the rumored arms trade, their search would lead them out of the city and into the mountains. And as soon as they approached the fort’s outer grounds, Red would pick up on a familiar scent in the area, confirming that they’re on the right track.
“So this is the fort that guy mentioned? Looks pretty old,” Biggs comments.
Red sniffs the air a bit more, making a puzzled but wary look on his face.
Barret raises an eyebrow. “What’s up, Red? You catch somethin’ else?”
“Hmm…” He takes a moment to process some thoughts before replying, “I thought that the smell was familiar.”
“You said the same when you sniffed out that merchant’s stocks. So you remember where it came from?” Wedge asks too.
“It may be likely that place would be the source…” He now turns to the rest of them with a cautious frown. “I picked up the same scent when we were still in the underground labs in Midgar.”
“W-what?” everyone gasps.
“The hell does that mean?” Barret demands with a growl, “We got Shinra shit stinkin’ up this place too?”
Red nods. “Seems so. It’s a peculiar smell that wouldn’t easily be replicable.”
“Really? What does it smell like?” Wedge asks curiously.
“Hmm… It’s hard to describe in words, but there is a certain unique quality that I haven’t picked up anywhere else. I suppose if I had to choose something, it reminds me of the dust left behind in old ruins or such antiquated places.”
“Old ruins?”
“Yes. I wouldn’t be able to say what sort of ruins, mind you. The traces are very faint.”
“Huh.”
“Well, that’s a good sign that we’re onto something big,” Biggs concludes. He turns back to Barret. “So, what’s the plan, Boss? Judging by the security patrol, they might not be letting just about anyone in there.”
“Well, we ain’t just gonna walk off without finding whatever that’s being traded here, that’s for sure.” Barret cocks his gun-arm at the ready. “Let’s go up and ask, and if they won’t let us in, we’ll have to make our own way in.”
But the rest of them don’t seem so sure. Biggs has to bring it up: “Are you sure that’s really a good idea, though? We’re not dealing with Shinra here. The last thing we need is to start making enemies with Wutai too.”
“Then what plan you got, smartass? You think they’ll leave if we wait long enough?”
“No, but maybe we could look for a different way in? It was a military fort, after all. It’s gotta have some other exits than the front one.”
“But wouldn’t those exits be guarded too?” Wedge suggests with a worried look, “We might not be able to avoid everyone.”
Biggs shrugs. “Yeah, but it sure would beat just barging in and making a ruckus…”
Barret then gives him a smug frown. “Ya know, I got a better idea.”
“Huh?”
“Since you’re so insistent that we play nice, then how about you go out there and distract ’em for us while we sneak around the back?”
“H-huh?”
He turns to the other two, hoping for their support, but Red looks away and Wedge just shrugs.
“That’s not a bad idea, actually,” Wedge admits.
Biggs groans. “Oh, come on! Do I really have to be the distraction?”
“Hey, man. I’m always being the distraction. It’s time you get your turn!”
“And I would be more useful tailing the scent,” Red points out.
“And I got a Goddamn gun for an arm, so they probably won’t be happy to see me,” Barret does likewise.
Biggs looks around at them all and sighs. “Man…”
Wedge extends a hand. “Don’t worry! I’ll keep your rifle safe. You got this!”
Accepting defeat, Biggs nods back and slings the gun off of his shoulders to pass it to Wedge. And while the rest of them hide out behind the rocky outcrop, Biggs takes a deep breath and steps on out into the open. As expected, the two guards at the front gate catch sight of him and issue a warning through a large intercom speaker.
“Hold it right there!”
“This is a restricted space authorized under the new Wutai government. No visitors are permitted.”
Biggs raises his arms in surrender and offers them a meek smile. “Uh… Hey there, fellas! Sorry, but I think I might be a bit lost.”
Both guards draw their bayonet rifles. “This isn’t a tourist zone. Get out!”
“W-wait, wait, wait!” He waves his arms frantically. “Don’t shoot! I’m not here for trouble! I just got some questions, honest!”
“If you’re looking for the capital, it’s further north,” the calmer guard answers.
“You have no business being here!” his feistier fellow shouts, “We will fire if you come any closer! You’ve been warned!”
“Ah…” Biggs nervously gulps and grits his teeth, feeling completely taken aback. While he did expect some kind of resistance, he didn’t think these people would be so aggressive. Then again, this is a former military fort. Nonetheless, he tries again, “Actually, would you believe it that I do have business here?”
“…Huh?”
“What business would that be?” the other guard asks with a cautious tone.
Biggs grins sheepishly. “See, I’m looking into something that led me here. By any chance, have you guys heard anything about a group named ‘Avalanche’?”
“!?” The two guards seem pretty surprised and put up an even more stubborn guard. Now they really look like they’re gonna shoot.
“We have nothing to say about that,” the calmer one answers.
“You have been warned!” the angrier one snaps back too. “Get out or we will shoot!”
Biggs’ sheepish grin fades into a wide-eyed nervous shock. “H-hey, come on, gentlemen. It doesn’t have to be like that, does it?”
And with that, the two guards fire off their shots, which come a little too close for Biggs’ preference and it spooks him into hightailing out of sight. When he does return to the hiding spot, though, he’s surprised to find Wedge waiting for him. As planned, Barret and Red have sneaked off on their own while Biggs made good on his word.
Wedge offers him a grin of his own as he hands him the rifle. “At least you tried. Here’s your gun back!”
Biggs sighs and slings it back over his shoulder. “Seriously, what’s got them on edge? Even if they’re just doing their jobs, that was super suspicious. As soon as I mentioned the name ‘Avalanche’, they looked like they wanted to kill me!”
“Huh, that is weird. You think they know something about our imposters?”
“Definitely. Between whatever it was that Red picked up and their behavior, they gotta be hiding something in this place.” He peeks back out from behind the rocks. “Did they make it in?”
“I sure hope so. They went around the back and it didn’t seem like they were noticed.”
Biggs swings back to him. “Say, why are you still here? I thought you would’ve gone with them.”
Wedge smirks back. “And leave you all alone? You know I’m too good for that!”
That gives him a chuckle. Biggs returns him a wide grin too. “Thanks, man.” He then peeks out again. “Okay. Clearly, we can’t enter from the front right now. But knowing Barret, he’ll probably stir up some kind of trouble anyway, so they’ll have to leave their posts. As soon as the coast is clear, we go after ’em.”
“Yeah! Sounds good!” Wedge then makes a coy smirk. “Though you’re lucky Barret isn’t here to hear that.”
“Come on, you wouldn’t snitch on me. You’re too good for that.”
“Haha! True.”
And yet, things would turn out for the even stranger. Though this fort is a former, now defunct, military fort, one could still anticipate some level of security detail along many of its sides. And yet, that security seems strangely sparse. It’s thanks to that Barret and Red have managed to wander around the outer walls of the fort without detection. However, as soon as they reach the fort’s other gate on the other side, they realize there’s this suspicious crowd that’s gathered out here.
There seems to have been some kind of caravan of trucks where some men in brown uniform have been loading some wooden crates onto them. However, their uniforms aren’t quite the same as those of Corneo’s henchmen that were stationed around the capital’s pagoda. And even more suspiciously, there are several of the fort’s own guards keeping watch of the caravan as if they were trying to cover up such operations. But there’s one little thing that catches Barret’s attention at the forefront.
He stares hard with his mouth agape in disbelief. “The hell is goin’ on here…?”
“What’s the matter?” Red asks him.
“I know those uniforms…” The more he thinks about it, the more furious he grows. He whips back to him with an indignant frown. “Yeah! I do! They’re from another branch of Avalanche!”
“What?” Now Red bears his fangs. “Then, have we found our imposters?”
Barret cocks his gun with a fierce snarl. “Oh, yeah. Ain’t no way that the real Avalanche is here in Wutai when they still got Midgar to watch. I’m willing to bet they’re actually Corneo’s thugs playing pretend.” He raises said gun toward the crowd. “That sonnuva bitch thinks he can get away with messin’ with us! If Cloud and them haven’t whooped his ass already, I’m shootin’ him fulla holes!”
“They seem to be loading some cargo and may be on the move soon.”
“Then, let’s go meet ’em!”
“Hm? Wait!”
Before Red can stop him, Barret rushes right out into the open with his gun poised and ready, so the former likewise has to join him and bears his fangs too.
“Hold it right there, assholes!”
“!?”
Needless to say, mass panic and confusion ensues as the startled men rush to get as much of their cargo loaded. The Wutaian guards on duty rush on over to meet the intruders.
“Intruders!?”
“How did they find us?”
“Doesn’t matter! Eliminate them!”
Without even giving them a chance to explain anything, the guards fire away and Barret and Red are forced to jump out of the way.
“Damn! I don’t got beef with Wutai, but these guys are assholes too if they’re involved! Nothin’ personal!”
And with that, he starts firing back, but makes sure not to go for any kill shots. Meanwhile, as the imposters frantically jump on their trucks and get zooming, Red manages to catch one of the drivers trying to slip inside his door and pins him to the ground. Rather than try to help his comrade, though, the other man who was riding shotgun instead takes the driver’s seat.
“!”
The truck starts up and Red throws himself as well as his victim out of the way as the driver zips off.
“Ya ain’t gettin’ away!”
Barret bats away another of the Wutaian guards off of him and fires at the fleeing van and manages to shoot out one of its tires. The truck veers as it loses its traction on the road and comes to a screeching halt, and the panicking imposter dives out the door to make a break for it. Unfortunately for him, Red zips so fast that he tackles him to the ground before he can get far. The force of the tackle knocks the man out in an instant and even leaves a bloody stain on the ground, so Red turns his attention back to lending Barret a hand.
However, in the ensuing commotion, even more of the fort’s guards have arrived to back up their own. As the security is still sparse compared to the usual level, they number as a single squad of troops, but Barret and Red soon find themselves surrounded. While this is far from the worst that they’ve had to deal with, the pair finds themselves hesitant to keep fighting a group that isn’t supposed to be their enemy. The guards aim their rifles and one of them, probably the squad’s leader, speaks up.
“That’s enough! You’ve trespassed on Wutai government property and even assaulted my men! We have every authority to arrest you on the spot!”
“Hey, we didn’t fire the first shot,” Barret argues surprisingly calmly, “If ya didn’t want a fight, don’t go askin’ for one.”
The squad leader raises his own handgun right in his face, but Barret remains ever defiant. “Who are you people? What are you doing here?”
“Could ask you the same thing. What the hell are Wutaian troops doing being friendly with Avalanche imposters?”
“What?” Now the man seems a bit taken aback. “What do you mean ‘imposters’?”
“Oh, you didn’t know?” Barret returns him an unsympathetic glare. “Those assholes dressed in uniform ain’t got a thing to do with Avalanche. If you’re smart, you’ll stop helping them.”
By now, the rest of the squad is caught off-guard and stirred into confusion as the men exchange puzzled glances. This certainly wasn’t what they were informed. However, rather than consider what the big angry black man has to say, the squad leader instead gets suspiciously defensive.
“R-ridiculous! There are no imposters here!”
“Huh? And how the hell are you so sure?”
“Enough! We don’t need to argue with trespassers! Men, secure them!”
“Tch…”
Before any of the rest of the squad can do much, though, out of nowhere, a smoke bomb drops into the fray from the air and goes off. Barret and Red duck back behind the now abandoned van as the guards panic and their leader rants off to try to get them back in order.
“Where did that bomb come from!?”
“Are there more of them!?”
“Stand your ground, men! Don’t let them get away!”
However, in the thick obscuring cloud, another couple of rogue agents seem to be able to pick off the panicking guards one by one with shots from above. However, none of these shots are kill shots; rather, they’re tranquilizer darts. And despite the squad leader’s fiery tongue, in the end he too gets knocked out as well. As the smoke clears again, now that Barret and Red notice, their other two friends seem to have successfully slipped into the fort during the chaos. In fact, they’re already atop one of the watch towers to this back gate.
“Got ’em! Nice shot, Biggs!”
“Nice throw, Wedge.”
“Biggs! Wedge! Just in time, ya sneaky bastards!” Barret cheers.
Biggs and Wedge then slip down the side of the tower with the help of their grappling guns, and the four run out to meet back up.
“Well, this turned out to be a heck of a mess…” Biggs remarks with a sigh. “Hopefully we don’t have to run into any more Wutai guards, or we might be starting up something worse.”
“They may be Wutai, but if they’re working with Corneo, they’re no allies of ours,” Barret insists.
Red turns back for the abandoned van behind them. “At the very least, we seem to have captured one of their trucks. Should we take a look inside?”
“Definitely! Let’s see what it was they were trying to ship off!” Wedge agrees with curious excitement.
Barret smashes open the trunk’s door and they all peek inside. As usual, there are a number of unlabeled wooden crates here, and Biggs and Wedge hop on to check further. They pry open one of them and dig through the padding to find a smaller, sturdier-looking trunk case made of metal.
“They put a box in another box? What’s the point?” Biggs asks.
“Dunno. Let’s take it out,” Wedge suggests.
Together, they hoist the case out of the crate and back out into the open. However, as soon as they drop it into view, they’re all aghast to learn why. Right on the front face of the box, there’s the mark of their sworn enemy: the red diamond of the Shinra Company.
Barret growls, “Damn Shinra. Shoulda known that they had something to do with this.”
Red nods. “It makes sense, actually, as I had smelled a similar trace back in the Midgar labs. It seems these goods are indeed something that they manufactured.”
“So Corneo’s been smuggling Shinra weapons into Wutai after all…” Biggs then gets worried as he strikes a thinking pose. “But why would Shinra let this happen? Even if the war’s over, there’s no way that they’d let it slide. Wutai’s still the enemy, after all.”
“Can we open the box?” Red asks.
“Hmm…” Wedge inspects the lock at the front, noting that it seems to have a card reader. “I think we might need the key.”
“Man. Where would we get it?” Biggs wonders.
“Maybe one of the imposters has something?”
But to Barret, that doesn’t matter in the least. “Step aside, Wedge,” he orders.
“Huh? Okay.”
Barret shoots through the lock and cracks it open. With little resistance, he kicks the lid open and they all peek inside. To their surprise, though, they don’t find the usual arms or any kind of machinery. Instead there’s a pack of 6 metal-tipped transparent capsules, each about the size of a small energy drink can, neatly lined up, and they all contain some kind of very dark, almost pitch-black liquid. The case itself seems to be a cooler as well, to help keep the contents fresh. Red snorts a little as if it were uncomfortable to smell.
Barret frowns, almost looking disappointed. “The hell are these?”
Though he steps a bit further away from the case, Red nods to confirm. “These are indeed the items that I’ve been tracking.”
“But what are they?” he asks again.
Red returns him a raised eyebrow. “I don’t know. This is the first I’ve seen of them too.”
“Ick. That black liquid doesn’t look very good,” Wedge comments, but he goes ahead and takes one capsule out. “Huh. It’s lighter than I thought it’d be.”
“It’s light?” Biggs picks one up too. “Huh, you’re right. Feels like it’s almost empty, even.”
“I guess it’s not something mixed with water, then.”
“Well, duh. It’s something Shinra-made.” He then pauses as he thinks it over again. “Wait. Now that I think about it, are these supposed to be the ‘weapons’ that are being smuggled?”
“Could be. Maybe they’re like some kind of chemical agent that when mixed in with something else makes bombs?” Wedge throws out a guess.
“I guess… though that stuff’s more Jessie’s field.”
“Oh, yeah! We could send some to her to check!”
But then, Red growls to interrupt them. “I wouldn’t advise that.”
“Huh? What’s wrong?”
He shakes his head. “Even when it’s not opened, the smell is a little overpowering at this close range. I wouldn’t enjoy staying on the ship if this smell gets all over.”
“Really? I don’t smell anything.”
“You may be an animal tamer, but definitely not an animal,” Biggs wittily replies.
“Ha! Yeah, you got me there.”
“Still, we should at least show it to Jessie. She might have a better idea.”
Setting the capsule in hand back in, he whips out his PHS and captures a photo of the case and another of the capsule in Wedge’s hands, and proceeds to drop it into the live feed. They don’t need to wait too long before Jessie responds.
“What the heck did you guys send me?” her voice comes on through the speaker, “Is this some sort of rad new cola I’m missing out on?”
“Huh?” Biggs snorts to that. “Come on, don’t tell me you don’t have a clue.”
“Sorry! Normally I’d know my chemicals, but this is the first time I’ve seen something like this.”
“But you’re the wiz here!” Wedge exclaims and then asks, “Do you think it could be used to make a bomb? Like blasting agent?”
“No way. Something that volatile wouldn’t be kept in as big of containers as these. You’ve practically sent me an entire pack of cans. I legit thought it was some kind of Shinra-branded soda that I’ve seen around Midgar’s topside from time to time.”
“Soda cans? These things?” Biggs retorts with a hint of humor, “They look more like big cell batteries if anything.”
“It is Shinra we’re talking about. Everything’s treated like a battery.”
“Yeah, you got a point there…”
“But, yeah, I’m just being cheeky. It’s definitely not soda. This stuff is pure black and there’s no sign of carbonation. Whatever it is, it at least seems stable enough to be stored in what looks like a cooler.”
“We got that much just by looking at it. You sure you can’t come up with anything else?”
“Well, having some other details might help? Like how light or heavy it is, how it smells if any…”
“It’s actually really light,” Wedge replies. “Like this can is pretty much empty.”
“So it’s almost weightless? Huh.”
“And though we can’t smell anything, Red says he picks up some kind of ‘old ruins’ kind of scent to it. He doesn’t like it, though.”
“Uh… Old ruins, huh…” There’s a pause as she considers some possibilities. “I mean, if we’re talking like ash and soot, that’d make some sense with the color, but it’s clearly a liquid.”
Red also adds, “It’s certainly not ash or soot. Those things would have a distinct smell that I’m sure even humans can pick up.”
“Yeah, that’s what I figured. But what really throws me off is how light Wedge said it is. I don’t think I can think of any sort of solution that would be that light. It’s almost like it’s not supposed to be a liquid…”
“It’s not?” Biggs asks, now curious to try something.
He picks up the container he last held and gives it a quick shake. The substance inside is rustled enough to separate from itself as a rather large pocket of air forms within, and for just a moment, the substance seems to evaporate into a sort of mist, but very quickly settles back down to return to its fluid-like state. Everyone, including Jessie from her screen, watches it intently and even more confusion sets in.
“Again, the hell is this stuff?” Barret asks the question on everyone’s minds.
“Wait. Haven’t we seen something act like this before?” Biggs wonders.
“Yeah, it almost seems like… mako?” Wedge replies apprehensively, “But it can’t be. Mako isn’t black, right?”
“Of course not, it’s always green. And it’d at least have some weight to it.” He then strikes a thinking pose. “Then again, this is clearly something that Shinra meddled with, so who knows what it’s become.”
“But it can’t just be modified mako,” Jessie rightly points out, “Even if tensions between these countries weren’t at an all-time high, it doesn’t make sense to ship the stuff like this. If anything, you’d think Shinra would have built a reactor on this land already.”
“In other words, whatever its purpose, it isn’t meant to be used as normal energy,” Red concludes.
“And it’s being smuggled in here as ‘weapons’,” Biggs reminds them, “It’s totally suspect. Whoever is buying this stuff in bulk might want this war to happen after all.”
“Hoo boy…” Wedge sighs, “Why can’t we all just agree to disagree and let bygones be?”
“You know that’s not how Shinra works, man.”
“Yeah… unfortunately.”
Barret then turns back to the truck. “There are loads of crates of this stuff here. I’m betting that this mysterious buyer of ours will probably want to see it shipped.”
“You wanna follow that lead, Boss?” Jessie suggests.
“Of course I do.” He turns back to the rest. “Come on, ya’ll! We can’t let those imposter rats get away! No one messes with Avalanche on our watch!”
“Right. But where would we be headed?” Biggs asks. “Not like any of these guys would tell us.”
“To be fair, we kinda knocked them all out,” Wedge points out.
He shrugs. “I mean, seeing how unprepared these Wutai troops were, I doubt they’d have a clue anyway.”
Red then takes a sniff of the ground around them. “…The scent of fresh tire marks still lingers.”
“Think you can trace ’em?” Barret asks him.
Red nods. “Now that I’ve gotten a clear whiff of the goods, it should be easy enough.”
He grins back, looking proud. “Then, let’s start it up and get goin’! The sooner we find this smuggling ring, the sooner our name can be cleared!”
“Yeah!” the rest answer the call.
“Keep me posted when you guys find something!” Jessie reminds them. “I’ll keep tabs on the periphery. There’s gotta be something on the airwaves I can salvage…”
“Right, we’ll leave you to it.” And with that, Biggs signs off.
Wedge is about to climb on, but then notices one of the front tires is busted. “Oh, but it’s got a flat.”
“Yeah, I had to shoot it down so they wouldn’t all get away,” Barret admits. “But there oughta be a spare, right?”
Biggs sneaks back into the truck’s cargo hold and promptly slips back out with a spare. “Found it.”
“Right. Let’s get it done, men.”
~
There’s a particular tunnel that leads directly to the pagoda’s underground storeroom, and it’s from here that Yuffie and Sonon find a hatch and a drop-down ladder that accesses the back-end hall to the first floor of the pagoda. However, as soon as Yuffie peeks out from the hatch’s door, they hear some commotion from the room.
As it happens, there’s a group of young ladies, all bridal candidates, who were instructed to come to this room to undergo the initial round of inspections before they would be allowed to meet the man of the hour. However, it’s actually just a distraction to keep these ladies unaware of the actual purpose of the wedding. After all, the Don has already chosen his prime candidate and all the others may as well be sheep meant to be sacrificial pieces to help entertain his henchmen. And unfortunately, no one told these hapless ladies that “inspection” would entail such invasive violation of their personal space that may border on sexual harassment. Even worse, there are several guards stationed here to ensure that they don’t stir up any trouble for the inspectors.
As one inspector takes a liking to a certain well-endowed individual, one of the younger Wutaian brides, he can’t help but let his hands wander to places where one normally wouldn’t need to feel. The poor girl is practically trembling from the way his hands are slipping along her body, and yet she’s too afraid to shove him away. But then, the lewd-eyed inspector gets a little bold for his britches and dares to finish his inspection by giving her rear end a firm slap. Purely out of reflex, the girl jumps and accidentally steps on the man’s foot, with her heel’s end jabbing in and making him yowl.
“Eek! I-I’m so sorry!!”
The inspector, though, is enraged as he clutches his sore foot. “You ungrateful little skank! How dare you assault me! Guards! Detain her!”
“W-w-what?”
The poor girl is suddenly set upon by two armed guards pointing their guns in her face. They order her to be dragged out the back door to face “punishment”, and she’s ready to burst into tears.
“Wait!” another voice calls out. It’s Meryl and she looks genuinely pissed to see this happen. “It was just an accident! Isn’t that a little excessive?”
“M-Meryl…” her friend mumbles nervously, but is unable to stop her.
“Huh?” Now the inspector playing victim stomps over to get in her face now. “And who are you to tell me how to do my job?”
“I’m not, but that wasn’t even a big deal. She even apologized.”
That seems to upset him further. “Not a big deal!? She clearly assaulted me!”
“Meryl…!” Himiko whispers fiercely, warning her friend to stop. “Don’t forget why we’re here…”
But Meryl continues to stand her ground. “No, it was an accident! Honestly, if a slip-up like that is all it takes to get your life threatened, then maybe this wedding isn’t even worth it!”
“That’s enough outta you!” The inspector turns to the guards. “Hey! Take her along too! The Boss doesn’t need uppity women who don’t listen to orders.”
“What? Just for saying the truth?”
And with that, one of the guards seizes her by the arm too.
“Hey!”
“W-wait! Please don’t!” Himiko also blurts aloud with an apologetic bow. “We’re sorry! We’re not trying to cause trouble!”
But her plea falls on deaf ears. Himiko is helpless to stop the guards from taking her friend away, as another guard on standby now has her held at gunpoint.
Fsssh… thunk! Thunk!
Out of nowhere, a giant shuriken strikes both guards in the head, knocking them to the floor. Before the other guards can make sense of what just happened, suddenly two unexpected guests burst forth from the back doorway.
“That’s enough! This stupid ‘inspection’ is over!” Yuffie yells.
She fetches her shuriken as it swings back around, nearly hitting the third guard that was holding Himiko hostage, though he manages to duck out of the way. He however doesn’t dodge Sonon, who whacks him away from his gun.
“What!? Intruders!? You idiots! How did you miss them!?” the inspector from earlier rages.
He and the other panicking inspectors flee out the main entrance and the back door as the guards rush to surround the uninvited guests, and the bridal candidates likewise scatter to avoid the ensuing brawl. However, while a few lucky ladies were able to rush out through either door, the last of the inspectors cruelly shut the doors and locks them before everyone else can get out. Though Yuffie and Sonon act swiftly to take out the rest of the guards, one of them still manages to let fire.
The rest of the ladies scream. Some try to rush out the other side through the back door, but find it locked too and bang on it, pleading for someone to open it. The poor girl from earlier is now slumped on the floor sobbing as if she feels guilty for starting up some mess, and Meryl and Himiko escort her off to the side and duck under a nearby table out of harm’s way.
Fortunately, it’s not much longer before Yuffie and Sonon finish up the rest and then there’s a moment of still silence, as they check around to be sure that all their foes are down and out. Since none of them are still moving, Yuffie sets back her shuriken and turns to the frightened crowd.
“It’s okay! We’re here to help!” she announces, trying to assuade the confused crowd.
Sonon tries the main entrance doors, but notices that they’re locked up tight. It’s not just a simple lock; this door is only locked by drawbar and it’s not easy at all to break, even with his staff and technical skill. He whips back around. “Try the back door! This way’s no good.”
Yuffie hurries out the back too and shoves aside a couple frantic ladies struggling to get the door open. With a swing of her shuriken, she smashes through this door’s handle and kicks the door open. “This way!” she calls to the others.
The relieved ladies all thank their saviors and hurry out. Yuffie’s about to head out with them when Sonon calls to her again.
“Yuffie, wait!”
“Huh?”
He sighs, rubbing his head awkwardly. “I know you had to help them, but we’ve just set off some alarms. This place is gonna be swarmed with backup sooner or later.”
She snorts back, “So what? We’ll be long gone! We still have to catch up with Cloud and them!”
“No, I mean, all this panic may mean more trouble for the other wedding guests. They don’t know that this wedding is just a hoax. We need to warn them.”
“Oh, right. Well, we can just go out and get them now.”
“But what if they’re taken hostage? We should be more tactful about this!”
“Oh, come on!”
“E-excuse me!” Meryl now interrupts them. “Did you just say ‘Cloud’?”
“Huh?” Yuffie raises a suspect eyebrow. “Sorry, who are you?”
“My name’s Meryl. My friend and I came to this wedding to find Corneo, but only to get information about someone.”
“We had no choice but to pretend to be some candidates as his bride,” Himiko explains, still holding up the crying girl beside her.
“But why do you know Cloud?” Sonon asks.
Meryl answers, “We met her and her friends earlier in a different lounge. It seems they’ve come to find Corneo for a similar reason like we did – that is, to get information.”
Yuffie looks a little caught off-guard. “Uh, ‘her’? But Cloud’s a gu-”
Sonon promptly cuts her off by changing the subject, “Sorry to keep asking, but do you know where they’ve gone? We’re here to back them up.”
Meryl shakes her head. “Sorry. The rest of us were called in here, but we didn’t see where they ended up. I guess they could still be back at the lounge, but I get the feeling they might have been escorted elsewhere.”
Himiko then adds, “Oh, but I think I heard the lift beside the pagoda being used. I’m not sure if they were on it, but it sounded like someone took it to head up to the upper floors.”
Yuffie and Sonon exchange determined faces and nod in silent agreement. They turn back to the ladies.
“Thanks, we’ll take it from here,” Sonon assures them.
“You guys hurry on out. It’s probably gonna get a bit messy around here,” Yuffie insists.
Meryl nods. “Alright. Thanks again, and you stay safe too.”
Meryl and Himiko then help the crying girl out with them. In her blubbering mess, she keeps apologizing to everyone around her and worries about what her parents would think. It turns out that they’re also in the courtyard along with the other guests still awaiting the formal ceremony to be held there. The three take their leave as the other two continue to console her. And now that she’s reminded, Yuffie then comes up with an idea.
“Hey, Sonon.”
“Yeah?”
“I was thinking, maybe you could go on ahead and find Cloud. I got something to do first.”
“Huh? Where are you going?”
There’s a sneaky-looking grin on her face. “I’m gonna get those guests moving real fast.”
“Oh. You have a plan for that?”
“Yeah. Just now, but it’s a good one. Besides, we may be the ‘backup’ for this mission, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get my chance to shine!”
“Uh…” He makes a wary look, but decides not to question it. He nods back. “Right. Catch you up there… ya know, assuming that we won’t just clean up without you.”
“Eh, whatever. I’m way more committed to this now.”
And with their new goals settled, the two bump fists and head off their separate ways as soon as they’re out the door.
~
“That bastard…” Cloud mutters to himself.
Following Aerith and Tifa’s suggestion, he gave chase out the door after their escaped target, but his current outfit is way more of a hamper on his maneuverability than he expected it to be. After rounding the corner, he catches Corneo fleeing down the wooden lift, but is too late to jump aboard. Unfortunately, the lift doesn’t come back up and he can’t exactly leap or climb down like this. He slams a fist on the fence in frustration and has no choice but to watch the plump man bounce off somewhere on these grounds that is walled off. Even worse, he then hears the sound of a helicopter’s motor. So the slippery man had his own secret ride in case of emergency.
Before Cloud can find another way down, though, he’s set upon by some other guards who happened to rush up here too.
“Shit!”
He jumps back and ducks back around the corner before they can start firing on him. Dammit… if only he had his sword too, this would be a cakewalk even with this stupid dress. But he also can’t keep running. These guards are gonna be on him shortly. If push comes to shove, he might just have to rip off his clothes and fight barefisted… though he’d rather not go around half-naked if he can help it.
Wait. There should be a way to loosen it up, at least. He reaches back to undo the obi around his waist, but it’s a lot tighter than he’d like it, and his hands can’t get a good angle to loosen it. Frustrated and just about to tear open a new hole, the guards from earlier swing around the corner and surround him with their guns pointed. Damn, looks like he’s out of time.
And then, someone comes in like a big damn hero. Sonon comes swinging full-force, driving through the crowd and throwing them aside until he reaches Cloud.
“Sorry I’m late!” he announces while panting since he rushed fast to get up here.
“Sonon!”
He takes the sword off his back and passes it to its owner. “Here, you might need this.”
“Thanks, man. You barely made it.” Cloud accepts it wholeheartedly, quite relieved to have it back in his good hands. But then he remembers he may need help with unbinding his obi. With an awkward pause, he turns around and asks him, “Hey. Can you get this thing off for me?”
“Huh?” Sonon blinks. “Uh, you want me to undress you?”
“Don’t make it weird! Just loosen it up a bit. I’m choking here!”
“R-right. Okay…”
Though he’s not exactly the most natural working with women’s clothing, Sonon manages to undo the tight knot. With a relieved sigh, Cloud struggles free from its tight bonds – though it’s still quite the long ribbon, so he needs to unwind it a few times before he finds a suitable level of tightness and folds it back in place. While he did momentarily consider ditching this kimono, he really, truly despises the idea of running around in his underwear.
“By the way, where are your normal clothes?” Sonon asks out of genuine curiosity.
“They’re still with the lady who dressed me up. It’s back at that shop, Wings of Vermillion.”
“Oh, wow. So you’re just gonna, um, go around like this…?”
Cloud whips around again, giving him a suspicious look. “What?”
Sonon strikes a thinking pose and takes a moment to observe the odd caricature before him. After an awkward pause, he finally replies, “Ya know, I’m surprised. You don’t look too bad.”
Cloud growls back, “Can it.”
Sonon makes a sheepish grin. “Sorry. Anyway, can you fight like this?”
“I’ll manage. At least I’m not half-choking anymore.”
“And uh, do you need me to help lift your dress’ train? It’s gonna be dragged all over.”
“I can manage by myself!” Cloud snaps back defensively. “And where is Yuffie anyway? Wasn’t she with you?”
“Ah. She said she had something else to do first.”
“Like what?”
“Like getting the rest of the wedding guests out of here before this place turns into a war zone.”
“Ah…” Now he’s reminded and settles down again. “Alright, we can leave her to it.”
“Anyway, what happened with you guys? Did you get Corneo?”
Cloud frowns, making a guilty look aside. “No, he got away.”
“What?”
“He knew we were coming and turned the tide on us instead. Tifa and Aerith can hold their own, so I tried to chase him down, but well…” He looks down. “It was hard enough just walking in this.”
Now it’s Sonon’s turn to worry, but he instead blames himself. “Damn… we were too late. If only we were here earlier to secure the exits…”
“Hey. There’s still time to get him. We just need to know where he’s headed.”
“But where would we even look?”
“Since he’s the ringleader, he can’t have just up and left the country. So there has to be some other place where he and his collaborators can hide out.”
“Right… but we have no idea where that is. We can’t just scour the whole countryside.”
“Well…” Cloud takes a moment to think it over and comes up with a different suggestion. “Actually, I think we may have someone we can ask.”
“Huh? Who?”
“The proprietor of the Wings of Vermillion.”
Sonon blinks blankly. “Um…”
“She was the lady who brought us here by carriage. I’m sure she has some kind of connection with Corneo, since even though we arrived late, the guards still let us in thanks to her. We have to confront her. The problem is, she’s down in the courtyard with her assistants and everyone else.”
“Oh.” Sonon grows worried again when he recalls. “Wait, Yuffie said she’d find a way to clear out everyone…”
Cloud nods back. “We need to hurry and catch them before they can escape.”
“Right. Let’s go.”
“You go get the lift ready. I’ll wait for Tifa and Aerith.”
“Got it.”
Sonon passes him a salute and hurries back around the corner. Once by the lift’s shaft, neatly leaps his way down the scaffolds until he reaches the lift car and swings down onto it, where he starts it back up to return to the top floor. By now, Cloud comes back around with Tifa and Aerith.
“Sonon!” Tifa calls out, giving him a wave.
“Hey. Sorry I’m late, but Yuffie and I got caught up in some mess along the way.”
“It’s okay,” Aerith replies with a soothing tone, “We’ll just have to try finding Corneo again.”
“He can’t have gone far.” Cloud then asks, “Say, how is Yuffie even planning to ‘clear out’ everyone?”
Sonon shakes his head. “She didn’t tell me any details; just that it’s a ‘good one’, whatever that means.”
Cloud makes a very disappointed frown. “Then how are we supposed to stop her?”
“Well, if she’s gonna get them hurrying out, I bet she’ll have to stir up some commotion…”
And as soon as he mentions it, they hear the sounds of what seems to be a bomb going off down below, followed by the panicked screams of the poor civilians.
“The hell is she doing!?” Cloud yells, now frantic himself.
“Hop on! Let’s go!” Sonon declares.
The rest of them climb onto the lift and Sonon gets it running. He even encourages a swifter drop by letting the rope and pulleys spin freely for a moment, but makes sure to catch it before they hit the ground.
As they all rush around the pagoda to head to the courtyard, though, they find the place completely covered in smoke. The frantic shouting from the guards in the area seems to indicate that this wasn’t exactly part of their plans. There are plenty of guests that are fleeing the area, but not everyone has made it out just yet. At the very least, their target woman isn’t among the fleeing guests yet.
“What’s all this smoke!?” Tifa gasps. “Are the people okay?”
“How the hell do we find anyone like this?” Cloud grumbles.
“Wait. This amount of smoke isn’t from a fire,” Sonon catches on and explains with his experience, “It’s gotta be a smoke bomb.”
“Smoke bomb? Wait, like what Corneo’s goons had?” Aerith asks too, a little confused.
Sonon blinks in surprise, looking as if he were cut off from his previous thought. “What? They had smoke bombs?”
She nods. “Yeah. When we first stopped by the pagoda, they attacked us with one and we passed out. The next thing we knew, we were sent into some kind of lounge with some of the other brides-to-be.”
“What the…?” He frowns. “Those bombs are supposed to be non-lethal options for us ninjas. I figured Yuffie would have one, but if even these goons had them…”
“Ah, that’s right!” Now reminded, Tifa means to ask, “Do you know what happened to those ladies? The last we saw of them, they were headed into the pagoda too.”
Sonon nods back with an assured smile. “Don’t worry. Yuffie and I handled that. They all escaped safely.”
Tifa lets off a relieved sigh. “Thank goodness…”
“Ah-ha! So that’s what you guys were caught up with?” Aerith deduces.
Sonon makes a thoughtful frown. “Well, that was one thing. There was a whole other thing elsewhere…”
Cloud interrupts them again, “We can catch up later. Right now, we need to find Maeko before she disappears.” He turns to Sonon specifically. “You said Yuffie had one of these too?”
“Yeah. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was her ‘plan’.”
He shakes his head in disbelief, but lets it slide. “…Then we’ll have to work with what we’ve got. Let’s go.”
They rush past the fleeing crowd and into the smoke, disappearing from view. As it turns out, in the ensuing chaos that she spurred, Yuffie has sneaked into the courtyard as well and is taking out Corneo’s guards one by one. And she’s just finished with taking out the last of them when Sonon pops out into view.
“Yuffie!”
“Eek!” She jumps back and readies her shuriken, but then lets off a sigh when she realizes it’s just him. “Sheesh. Took you long enough! Where are Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith?”
“Right here,” comes the stoic reply. The three of them appear one at a time into view as the smoke gradually begins to thin out.
“Okay! Then, let’s get outta he…” Yuffie is shortly cut off when she notices Cloud dressed as he is. “Uh…”
He returns her an unimpressed frown. “This was your big plan to clear out the guests? You’ve practically started a riot.”
“Y-yeah…” She pauses, still staring at him. “Huh, not bad, actually.”
He gets a little ticked off from that. “Not you too!”
“Not me too?” she asks, but he decides not to answer her.
“By the way, Yuffie, have you seen a tall, elegant and well-dressed lady in a kimono among the guests?” Aerith asks.
“Um, sure? Plenty of people dressed up for this.”
“No, we mean a woman named Maeko-san,” Tifa explains, “She was dressed in a black kimono with a peony pattern on it.”
Yuffie takes a moment to think it over. “Um… oh!” She raises a finger as she brings it up, “I think I saw someone like that. But why?”
“We need to talk with her. She may be connected with Corneo.”
“What!?” Yuffie jumps into a fighting stance. “She’s one of them!?”
“Who knows… but she did have it easy when we arrived. The guards let her in like she was a regular,” Cloud follows up.
“Ooh, that’s super sus! She’d better have a good explanation for it! Let’s go get her!”
“But where is she? We didn’t see her among the people running out yet.”
Sonon has been peering through the smoke while they discussed, and his keen eyes spot a corner of the courtyard where just three people have gathered to avoid the smoke. “There!”
Yuffie cheers, “Nice one, Sonon!”
And yet, something seems a bit strange as they step out of the thinning cover of smoke. Though her assistants look very troubled to be here, Maeko herself seems incredibly calm as if she has experience being in such a stressful situation before. She doesn’t even look too surprised to see them show up. She has a phone to her cheek as if she had been making a call and slips it away as she’d just finished up.
She gives them a disappointed look too. “So you’re the ones responsible for this prank. What’s the meaning of this?”
“We could ask you the same thing, Maeko-san,” Cloud begins, “This isn’t your first time working with Corneo, is it?”
“…” For just a moment, her stern expression falters into one of sadness. She then gives a defeated sigh. “Well, it was just a matter of time.”
“You admit it?” Aerith says with a concerned frown.
“So you helped us out even knowing that we’d be hunting him…” Tifa adds with growing suspicion.
Cloud’s eyes narrow suspiciously. “You led us straight into a trap.”
But she simply shakes her head. “It wasn’t my intention, mind you.”
“Is that so…”
“Who are you anyway? Why are you working for Corneo of all people!?” Yuffie demands, “If you’re a native here, then you should know that he’s not the kind you should be involved with!”
Her assistants seem to get even more flustered and look to their boss as if worried for her too. Yet, even in the face of pressure under interrogation, Maeko still stands her ground.
She calmly answers, “Just another victim-turned-enemy, for starters.”
Notes:
Just a single piece of trivia:
Zhongyuan is the Chinese Ghost Festival, generally held in late summer, where people believe in and celebrate the return of spirits from the afterlife, usually of ancestors who stop by for family reunions. Japan also has a similar event, the Bon Festival, though the date is a little different. Several East Asian and Southeast Asian countries celebrate their own versions of it, and the most common theme is setting off of paper lanterns that light up the rivers or sky. They're meant as guiding lights to help see the roaming spirits home in the afterlife.
Meanwhile then in the West, we have Halloween, though this one's more about offering sweets to rascally spirits to make sure they don't cause trouble. Something about this time of the year (summer -> autumn) when everyone feels like ghosts are roaming about, I guess.
Chapter 43: Trudging Forward
Notes:
Happy Halloween, and happy 1st anniversary to my fic! Whoo! It's actually not for spooky month because my schedule is kinda effed up and I couldn't get to the part of the story I wanted on time, but at least I got something posted today, so I'm satisfied.
5/8/25 edit: Added additional description to the bar. I somehow forgot there was a waterfall and pool display there, even though it is literally called "The Happy Turtle" ("Turtle's Paradise" in the OG).
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Ruby wakes up back in her ever familiar place. The room is dark as Sephiroth is no longer here, but having been in darkness for long enough herself, her eyes have naturally adjusted to the ambient light. Everything feels still – the silence is deafening, as the clock in her room that would normally be ticking remains unmoving. Time is at a standstill, trapped in an eternal night that will not leave that same fateful day when her sense of reality was ripped asunder. Whatever “moonlight” is sifting through into the room past the window’s blinds is but an illusory effect of what this realm has become.
Here she lies, she staring off into space with unfeeling as if she had just woken up from a nightmare bordering on such absurdity that it’s almost cartoonish. She just witnessed a dearly beloved character and mentor to her be brutalized in a way that seemed unnecessary, as if it were done for the show above anything else. It was a display of dominance and yet another warning for her, reminding her that she’s not the hero of this story.
Well, fine. She doesn’t have to be. As far as she’s concerned, she’s the player of this game and has to be guided through the adventure in a way that its rules allow. Though she may be a regular resident of the Debug Room, she cannot freely write this program as she wishes, at least not anymore. She doesn’t have access to the right permissions. No, the one who has that now is that sore winner. But it wasn’t always him.
Rubia… where are you? How are you, really? And whatever it is, you’re trying to do… how can your dear old friend help?
Well, that’s just it, isn’t it? Rubia can no longer sees eye to eye with her other self, and to be honest, even Ruby can’t either. Whether by her own machinations or by sheer folly, she gave up on her life and thus relinquished her right to be an author. Her old works were simply fun little scribbles of her imagination run wild. But in her adulthood, she could no longer face that innocent child of her past. There was no going back to those peaceful days, or so she thought.
And yet, the impossible happened. Rather than remain trapped in a hellish cycle fluttering between the blurred lines of life and death, her soul seems to have mysteriously been born anew in a world that she would only ever have seen in a dream. But what a dream it is! Now that she has met such a vibrant world fully expansive and still growing, set in an alternate timeline that lines perfectly with her own creations, it’s as beautiful, magnificent, glorious as she once pictured it could be. If her younger, hastier self had known sooner, she would have never abandoned it in the first place. To be honest, she shouldn’t have at all.
“Dreams… Yes, perhaps that is where the secret to your power lies.”
She’s reminded of what Sephiroth once said during their very first encounter. So, he knew all along – not only that she was living a lie, but that “living” was even up for debate. But the looming question remains: why? What would it matter to him if, say, she were caught in a coma? Does he need her to wake up, so that he can use her for something else? But how would that even work? It’s not like her body is just a portal to her mind where he can just hop on out into the real world.
Nonetheless, she can’t deny the non-zero percent possibility that it was exactly that which allowed him to appear in her apartment in the first place. Dammit. Fantasy world physics are so damn convoluted.
Speaking of the guy, he’s been busy in this apartment catching up on Rubia’s lore and even writing his own code. Certainly not the kind of business that would mark one of the greatest video game villains of all time. He almost seems normal in comparison to what he’s usually presented to be. Well, “normal” in the sense that he’s living as a vagabond in her own home and is very obviously trolling her at every opportunity. Everything else is right out.
She dreads it for fear of what she may find, but at some point she may have to give in and read up on that lore herself, just so she has more of an idea of what he’s up to. On that thought, she also swore that she would regain all access somehow, though that “somehow” has been drawing further and further from her grasp the more times she’s tried. She can’t beat Sephiroth yet – not through physical combat, not through mental games either, and not even through her (admittedly inadequate) feminine wiles. It almost feels like the only option left to her now is “submission”, but that sounds like a last resort.
Wait, no. There IS one other option that is available. That said, it’s no guarantee that it would help anything and it has every likelihood to backfire. She just never dared to resort to it because she would feel attacked by her own behavior. But there may be no way around it now. She’s at the end of her rope. It’s just like that saying: “When in doubt, return to the source.”
See, she used to be a rather spoiled brat in her younger years and had a piercing voice that could HOWL an entire school into a forced recess. Really, it happened more than once. It was by fear of her outrage that was the reason why her parents got her this game in the first place. She was a turbulent storm whose thunder and lightning would frighten even the king of Behemoths.
Needless to say, it may even work on fallen angels. At least, she hopes.
Without delay, she hops off the bed, swipes the phone left out on the night stand, slips it into her pocket, and rushes down the stairs with a deep breath of air held in her mouth. However, as soon as she zips ’round down the lower flight of stairs, she catches a whiff of something sweet and fragrant yet with a touch of “hearty” being baked in the oven… Oh, my God. It’s happening again.
Just the plain image, popping into her mind, of Sephiroth with an abnormally tall chef hat makes her freeze up and she helplessly stumbles down the stairs and lands face-flat on the wooden aisle below. For a brief moment, she’s just frozen in stun from the stupidity of it all, even leading to this very moment where she lies in a broken heap at the bottom of the stairs. She doesn’t dare move.
The commotion she brings naturally draws the man’s attention. He steps back out from the kitchen and flicks on the lights, flooding the living room with bright light that would sting her eyes if they weren’t buried under her head. He calmly approaches her and crouches down to help her up.
“You seem a little flustered. Something interesting you’ve found?” he asks.
“…”
Taking her silence as confirmation, he lifts her limp body off the floor and slings an arm over his shoulder. Ruby is screaming internally right now as her horrid, no-good abuser so nonchalantly pulls her up to her feet again and pretends to be helpful. And yet, the only thing that comes to mind at the moment is one question.
She passes him a dagger-laden side glance. “What are you making?”
In response, he flashes that usual smug smile. “Ube pie tarts.”
Her eye daggers go limp in an instant as she switches to disbelief. “…Filipino snacks? In my FF7? Anak ng kamote…”
“Ube, actually.”
“Stop it! Don’t make me translate the joke!”
As usual, he ignores her. He means to let her go, but her legs still seem a bit wobbly from the shock that has yet to fade, so he instead swings her up into his arms again. Her gut continues to boil inside, and yet for some reason, her inner screams aren’t reflected much in her actual tone.
“Better yet, where did you even get the ingredients? My fridge is empty!”
“From the supermarket, of course.”
“The… huh?”
He drops her off on the plush sofa instead. “The supermarket in Mideel, that is.”
She throws an arm up to dismiss him. “Shut up. Don’t tell me Mideel is also a huge city with modern infrastructure this time too!”
“Certainly not the size of Wutai’s capital, but it’s no mere village from what you may recall.”
“And you went shopping? With what money?”
He smirks. “There’s no lack of it when you’re running the Debug Room.” And with that, he steps away for the kitchen again.
“What. Did you just…!” She whips back around with hands gripping the back of the sofa and shrieks louder at this than even she thought she would. “You condemned, maniacal, rigging CHEATER! You’re gonna break this world’s economy through unwarranted inflation! At least go rob people or something!”
He then stops just short of the doorway and turns back with an unconvinced shrug. “Does it matter? This world was doomed from the very beginning.”
“At least I’d still be able to buy shit! Now what the hell will I go back to!?”
He rolls his eyes and turns away again. “Relax. No need to fret over some statistically negligible amount of gil entering the public market. I only ever buy what I need.”
“NO! This breaks the game in EVERY WAY!!” she seethes at an increasingly higher pitch, “Why the #%&$ did I have to nearly kill myself just to win some bounty money when you can just add a number to a variable!? That’s BULLSHIT!!” She slams her fists angrily on the couch’s back, but they just bounce off harmlessly.
“…” He glances back to her with a look of intrigue. “I wonder too. Why did you?”
“Because…” she explains through gritted teeth, “I wanted to play a fair game.”
“…”
“I honestly thought I would be able to win that little bet I made with Cloud. We set the rules and agreed to them. I lost and threw a fit, but I still had to accept it. Because it was fair.”
Now he looks away again as if uninterested to hear this.
“Meanwhile, you’re over here breaking every law known to man, deity, society, and even your own world’s physics like it’s no big deal. But of course it doesn’t #&%@%$ matter to you, does it? What does, really?”
“…”
“Why did I ever think that any game I would play with you would be fair…?” As she finishes uttering her complaints, her voice is strained and begins to crack.
He takes notice and turns back around with a curious eye, now no longer looking so smug.
“I’m an idiot. Absolute bonehead. Maybe even literally. I could be a corpse awashed in some underwater wreckage by now. Who knows, right?” She slips around again and sinks in her seat with a heavy sigh and even heavier heart. “I should never have agreed to anything.”
She then buries her face in her hands, but says nothing more. Sephiroth likewise watches her for a moment, but then disappears off into the kitchen as if to make himself busy again. And once again, having been left alone, her miserable thoughts extend further to become complaints muttered aloud.
“Better yet, I should have stayed dead. ‘Dead men tell no tales,’ as the saying goes. So, why am I still telling this one?” She even starts to tremble the more her doubts pile on. “Why am I pretending to be a hero? To be a mythic dragon goddess, last of the Summons, who has come to be the savior to those in need and the bringer of apocalypse for others? Who am I, to claim to be a writer fit to rewrite this world’s course?”
She’s a little startled when his voice returns: “…You’re Ruby, of course, the only scribe to Rubia’s legacy.”
“…”
She pulls up from her hands, now revealing a small stream of tears that have leaked from her eyes. To her surprise, Sephiroth isn’t smiling in a mocking way right now; if anything, he honestly looks concerned. He comes over again and takes a seat beside her.
She returns him a bitter frown. “Go back to the kitchen, maid.”
He folds his arms. “I think not… not while you’re caught up in this cycle of fallacies again.”
“Fallacies…” Her lips curl with disgust and she bears her teeth in a vicious scowl. “Of course, I’m the one who’s wrong. I don’t know anything. I don’t know what it is I’m doing. I’m the one who’s just lost the plot, huh?”
He looks off again with that ever stoic expression. “I’m sticking strictly to the facts of the matter. And you certainly don’t know while you let your emotions run wild.”
“And whose fault is that, you morality bank-run!?” She snatches him by the crossed straps to his coat and gets in his face, to which he remains unfazed. “What the hell is wrong with you!? Do you even know how to play fair!?”
“…”
“Every time I think I’m gaining ground, that I have a chance to grow stronger, that I’m getting closer to matching with you… Nope. You pull a cheat card and knock me back down to square one. Nothing I did or achieved matters. Even when I’m confronting one of the deities of this world and granted a chance at victory, you rob me of it and just remove – delete – the enemy in the most unceremonious way!”
“Like I said before, that wasn’t a fair fight. Even you must have realized it at some point.”
“Shut up! That’s not the damn point!”
“…”
“As much as I hate it, you’re now the admin of the Debug Room. You literally have the power to break this reality and rewrite it the way you want. How the #&%@ am I supposed to fight against that!?”
“…”
“You even let me run around freely, pretending like I have any chance whatsoever. But it’s just a lie. It’s all just a damn lie…!”
“No,” he answers succinctly.
Her voice is cut off for just a moment as she’s taken aback and stares at him in disbelief. “…No? Then why?”
“It’s because you always have a chance to win that I have to be cautious.”
She closes her mouth and frowns back warily. “You don’t really believe that.”
“I do. It’s the objective truth.”
“Don’t give me that bullcr-”
“Settle down and think about it, Ruby.” By now, his tone is getting sterner too. “You may be a distinct entity apart from Rubia, but you are still connected in body and soul to her. Her memories are yours and so are her feelings. The two of you are inseparable, as one would not be able to exist without the other. So, in essence, you are Rubia as well.”
“…”
“And to that end, you still have purpose and a mission to yourself to fulfill. You said so since the beginning, remember?”
Ruby turns away again in contemplative silence as she lets go of him and sits back down with another exhausted sigh.
“It was to find the truth behind Rubia and to understand what has been happening that you would be embroiled in this journey in the first place.”
“I know… That never changed.”
“Then there’s no conflict to be had here. You have every reason to keep it going.”
“What would be the point, though?” she snaps back, “Like you said, I don’t even have a home to go back to.”
“What’s this?” He raises a suspect eye her way. “Wasn’t it you who was screaming at me about how you’re in control of your own fate a little while ago?”
“Because despite my willful ignorance, I had to accept that you were actually right about that!” she admits with her face flushed red with frustration.
“…”
“I have no memories of what happened since that incident! And the next thing I know, I’m suddenly deep in my own delusions, hanging out in my apartment all alone like it was no big deal! I had no crime boss to fear, no debts to be repaid, no family to be worried about… My fridge was frickin’ empty all that time! How the hell could I have survived!?”
He looks off again for his own thoughts, but keeps an ear alert as he stays tuned.
“I… I’m a fraud. A liar. A victim of my own con…” Her voice grows raspier the further she speaks as the fear and dread from earlier finally catch up and suck away all her remaining resistance. She slumps back down, buries her face in her hands, and returns to trembling as before. “I don’t even know if I’m real anymore…”
“…Does it matter, though?” he then asks in a rather off-handed way.
“…” She pulls up again with a despairing look. “How many times are you going to mock me when I’m down?”
“I’m not mocking. It was a genuine question.”
“What are you…” She scrunches up her eyes in confusion. “How could it not matter?”
“Whatever has happened to you in that other world has no bearing on what you do for yourself from here on. So what would it matter if you ‘exist’ in that world as opposed to this one?”
“…”
“I’m only going to say this once: Forget those memories. They’re useless weights, keeping you down when you could be moving forward.”
“Those memories… are my identity, you antisocial scum.”
“After what I’ve come to discover recently… I suggest you rethink your particular existence.”
“…” By now, her frustrations have grown to the point that they’re even overriding her depression and her tears have stopped falling. She just feels angry; vicerally, gut-wrenchingly, utterly angry. In a dangerously low voice, she asks him, “What the hell is that?”
“…”
“No. Enough. I’ve had it with you and your damn secrets.”
Without warning, she lunges at his neck with claws bared, but he neatly catches her before she can even touch him. As she struggles against his grip, he remains as unfazed as ever, once again putting minimal effort despite that deathly grip. He not only shoves her off, but even returns the favor and pins her down on the cushions by her wrists. All of a sudden, he hovers over her at an uncomfortably close range and a primal fear creeps up her spine as he stamps her into submission with but an icy cold glare of his own.
However, even with a look in his eyes that could potentially kill her on the spot, he relents and softens up with a tired sigh. Yet, instead of pulling away and letting her go, he then lowers his head even closer, but slips aside to whisper in her ear.
“…If you really want to know, I can give you a hint.”
“!?”
All of a sudden, Ruby feels her heartbeat race and her face flush up red again, this time with a mix of frustrated and embarrassed. This bastard is way too close for comfort! He’s practically snuggling up against her already! What is his problem!?
“Mother isn’t the only one with an extensive network of scientific projects that have helped propagate her influence across the planet.”
“…Huh?” Upon realizing this unexpected fact, she settles down a bit as she lets it sink in.
And with that, he pulls back up and lets her go. She sits up too, staring at him, once again having lost all track of how to deal with this enigma of a man. One moment, he seems to return to form as a cold-blooded murderous psychopath, but another, he’s just abnormally chill and confident enough to let these acts of violence against him slide. In any case, he’s still looking down on her like the asshole he is.
He shakes his head with a sigh. “If that’s not enough for you, I suggest you look into what Project Immortals really is. And beware the possibility that Shinra has yet to reveal all its cards.”
“…”
“If you wish to continue to protect Cloud and his friends, it would be best that you return to Wutai shortly.”
“…They’re in danger?” she asks in a tense whisper.
He glances away again, but doesn’t answer her. “…It should be about time now.”
“Huh?”
There’s a tense moment of silence between them and then… Ding. The soft ring of the oven reporting in its due duty calls to its master’s attention. He promptly gets back to his feet and returns to the kitchen, disappearing out of sight for a little bit.
Ruby watches him go and keeps staring at that empty doorway as he enters inside. What just happened? Really, what? It’s one thing that he can deter her murderous intent with barely a push, but it’s another that he ignores it and insists on playing nice despite all the signs pointing otherwise. She swears the more time they spend with each other, the less she comes to understand him.
After a bit of shuffling of opening doors and setting out the tray and utensils, the man then returns from the kitchen as if nothing had just interrupted them. He comes back around and takes a seat by her again and looks off again with a hint of defeated acceptance.
“…Did they turn out okay?” she asks, genuinely curious.
“Oh, the tarts? They’re fine.” He returns to his gentler smile. “A delectable crispy, flaky golden-brown. I’m sure you can smell them from here.”
She nods back, noting the delightful aroma of sweet ube and buttery pastry dough cooked to perfection. If she hadn’t just had a spur-of-the-moment attempt at murder, she would almost be tricked into thinking that they were actually on friendly terms.
“They smell really good. You’re getting good at this cooking stuff.”
“Hmph.” Now there’s that characteristic smug smirk again. “Did you have any doubt? I do have plenty of time on my hands as of late.”
“You sure do…” She pauses awkwardly for a bit before asking honestly, “Did you ever want to become a chef when you were young?”
“No. You may already be aware, but I didn’t have the best childhood growing up.” He passes off some vindicative side-eye away from her. “The environment living and working under Shinra’s constant surveillance certainly made it difficult to take up any studies that weren’t directly related to military or combative affairs.”
“Right…”
“That being said,” he then admits rather freely, “In the aftermath of the Wutai War, I was privy to a little free time before I was required to return from the ranks. While a certain couple of ‘friends’ of mine were entertaining the possibilities of leaving Shinra at some point, it did get me thinking about it too.”
“…”
“I’m sure you remember as much. To be honest, I’m surprised you would even ask me that.”
“Well… I remember some of what I played of Crisis Core back in the day, but some of the timeline got jumbled up over the years.”
“…” He rolls his eyes. “Don’t worry. It wasn’t that important.”
“Uh… the game or what I forgot?”
“The latter… though, to a certain extent, the former too.”
This man is truly cruel to shit on a well-beloved entry in the series that is actually the second-best rated in the entire Compilation. And yet, Ruby finds herself unwilling to argue with him.
He then moves to get back up. “I’ve left the tarts on the heater rack. Ah, I hope you don’t mind that I’ve modded in a few changes for my convenience.”
“…I don’t mind those things. But I do have to ask.”
“Yes?”
She raises a suspecting eyebrow his way. “Are you really serious about becoming a chef? Like, with your own restaurant and staff and everything?”
“Serious, huh…” He pauses for a bit to think it over carefully. “Well, it remains to be seen how far I take this hobby, but at the very least, I haven’t lost interest yet.”
“Okay…” She looks away again, but meekly offers her support, “Then I hope you keep going with it. I don’t doubt you can do it someday.”
“…” For just a moment, his eyes flutter as if he were taken a bit by surprise, but he returns her a genuine smile of his own. “Thank you, Ruby. It’s honestly flattering coming from you.”
“…”
“Come along.” He starts moving for the kitchen again.
“Huh?”
With a head turned her away, he coyly leads her on. “You’re also my sole taste tester. You haven’t forgotten that, have you?”
“…” She nods back slowly and gets up to her feet. Now, whatever traces of tears that had been on her face have dried and she finds herself able to keep standing again. “I didn’t forget… Thanks.”
“Hm? For what?”
She glances back down with embarrassment and even feels a flush come over her face. “Um… sharing your nicer side with me, I guess… especially after how I keep trying to kill you and all.”
He chuckles to himself. “Rest assured, even if I let you try to strangle me, the most you would have done in ruffle my hair a little.”
She looks annoyed to keep hearing that sort of answer, but by now, she’s just used to it.
He turns away again and adds as matter of fact, “What is received is repaid in kind. If you show me aggression or defiance, I return you deserved pressure. If you show kindness, well…” He then smirks with a livelier twinkle in his eyes. “We might just be able to become an item.”
“…”
And with that, he disappears inside again. Ruby takes a moment in her temporary solitude to think over what just happened here. What an emotional roller coaster… again. If this keeps up, she might actually be able to win him over in some way. That is, as long as he doesn’t kill her first.
She hurries into the kitchen with new hope in her heart and a hunger for some tasty ube pie tarts.
~
Back to the present in Wutai, the situation has taken a turn for the foreboding. Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith have reunited with Yuffie and Sonon and they all confront Maeko for some well-deserved answers. Fortunately, the woman in question is willing to explain herself.
“A victim?” Cloud asks, repeating what she last mentioned.
Maeko nods back. “Yes. Corneo has just been using me and my services all this time. He threatened the stability of my establishment and the safety of my employees if we didn’t comply. We had to listen to his demands.”
“And what were those demands?”
She makes a guilty look aside, but nonetheless replies straightly and clearly, “Essentially… to bring them people.”
“People?” His eyes flicker to attention as he slowly catches onto the situation.
“Yes. Generally, he asked for women, but sometimes he needed men too.”
“Even men?”
“In particular, young, well-bodied men who could be fit as workers. I don’t know what use Corneo would have with them, though.”
Cloud puts a hand to his chin as he thinks it over. It seems like this human trafficking ring goes beyond just for Corneo’s fancies.
“Wait,” now Aerith also speaks up, “So do you know anything about the rumors going around town about some missing persons?”
Maeko nods. “Of course. The Wings of Vermillion was largely successful long before Corneo ever arrived on these shores, so you can say I’m well connected with the local community. Unfortunately, it’s been on a slow decline ever since those rumors got out and our reputation has been stained with suspicion.”
“Hm…”
“So, in other words…” Yuffie steps up to get a little in her face and puts her hands to her hips. “You’ve been behind those cases after all. You do realize what this means, don’t you?”
But Maeko simply glances away and remains silent.
“As it happens…” Even Tifa comes up too, but keeps out of that personal space. “We’ve been looking into some missing people since we left Midgar, so we were surprised to learn that something similar was happening here.”
“There have just been a lot of people that have gone missing and no one knows what’s been happening,” Aerith adds with a sorrowful frown. “We even met a couple of the brides-to-be earlier who were looking for their own missing person.”
That bit piques Maeko’s attention again. “Which ones?”
“Their names are Meryl and Himiko. Do you know them?”
But Maeko shakes her head. “Even if they could have been my customers, I don’t recall everyone by name. Could you describe them, like what sort of dresses they were wearing?”
“Oh, um…” Aerith tilts her head. “I think Meryl was in a plain but lacy white dress, while Himiko was dressed in a cute red kimono. They both looked pretty young in those outfits.”
“Hmm…” She shakes her head again. “By the sound of it, they probably weren’t mine. If it had been my shop, the dresses would be of a much more extravagant nature.”
Aerith nods back, muttering to herself, “Yeah, we got that impression.”
“Still…” Maeko looks rather worried. “If it is the case that even regular civilians are taking matters into their own hands, that could be dangerous. They shouldn’t be crossing paths with Corneo. Who knows what would happen to them if they stepped out of bounds?”
And now, Sonon speaks up to mention, “They already had a close call. We happened to meet them in the pagoda earlier being assaulted by Corneo’s men.”
She blinks and makes a silent gasp. “What? Assaulted?”
“Yeah!” Yuffie digs in her heels with the point, “It turned out that some of the ladies you brought here were put into danger! This is exactly what happens when you’re dealing with a crime lord.”
“…” She makes a bitter frown. “I had no idea. If I did, I wouldn’t have dragged anyone into this.”
She folds her arms with an unsympathetic harrumph. “Well, it’s a little late for apologies. If it weren’t for us, those ladies would still be trapped in there with those slimebags.”
“I see… Thank you for your help.”
Yuffie drops her arms but still keeps that stern frown. “Sorry to say, since you’ve just confessed to participating in a crime, you’re not gonna get off scot-free. Even if we’re not on patrol, we still have a civic duty to fulfill.”
Sonon adds with his own stern frown, “This matter will have to be handled by the metropolitan police. I suggest that for everyone’s convenience, including your own, that you turn yourselves in.”
“And don’t even think about running away or leaving the country! We got eyes and ears in and out of the country too, ya know.”
But to that, Sonon makes an awkward frown. Is that actually true at this point? But to that face, Yuffie just jabs him in the side so he’d drop the thought.
By now, Maeko looks resigned to her fate and her assistants likewise look just as ashamed. “I understand. It was a fool’s errand to believe that our hands would be washed clean.”
“…”
Cloud then concludes, “So, in the end, Corneo wasn’t just involved in arms smuggling, but also human trafficking, and he forced regular civilians to participate in his scheme to cover up his own tracks.”
Tifa frowns, getting even more worried. “It’s even more disturbing that so many people seem to have gone missing. Not just women, but young men too…”
“And even a little girl: Himiko’s sister,” Aerith mentions.
“Damn, this is all messed up. And where the hell did Corneo even go?” Yuffie vents.
Having been reminded, Cloud feels a little sting of responsibility. “He had a getaway chopper. I couldn’t keep up.”
“What?”
“Wait. Then that helicopter that passed by earlier…” Sonon recalls from earlier.
Cloud nods. “Yeah. It was him.”
“WHAT!?” Yuffie shrieks. “Damn it! If I’d known sooner, I would have knocked that thing out of the air!”
“Whoa, slow down,” Sonon retorts calmly, “There are way too many things and people around here that can’t take a helicopter crash.”
“Yeah, but…”
“Still, this may be a problem. If he’s traveling by air, we’d need some kind of transport to be able to follow him.”
“Bah, that’s not a problem. We have an airship.”
“Huh?” Sonon legitimately looks caught off by that. “We do?”
“Of course we do! We all took a ride on it to get here…” Yuffie pauses as she catches on, “Oh, right. Of course you wouldn’t know.”
He rubs his head awkwardly, turning to the others. “Uh… when did we get an airship?”
“A little while ago,” Cloud answers flatly, “Ruby helped with that.”
“Uh-huh.”
Tifa then turns to Aerith. “Speaking of which, where is Cid? Is he okay with flying us out of town?”
Aerith blinks. “Oh, um… I kinda left him with Cait Sith, but the last I saw of them, they stopped by a bar.”
Cloud folds his arms and asks, expecting a certain answer, “Was it the Happy Turtle?”
“Oh, yeah! That was it!” Aerith recalls with a smile, “Say, didn’t Ruby say we could meet up there too?”
“Yeah…” He drops his arms with a sigh. “Though, she’ll have to take a rain check for now.”
“Aw, it’s okay, Cloud. I’m sure she’ll be fine. She’s way stronger than you think, you know.”
“…”
“She’s probably the strongest thing that is still alive to this day,” Yuffie cuts in with a snide remark.
He turns to her with a raised eyebrow. “…I think Aerith meant mentally, but I won’t deny that either.”
“Well, duh! What do you think I’m talking about?” she snaps back.
“Uh…” On second thought, maybe he’s the only one here who doesn’t have as much confidence in her after all. Maybe he should try not worrying for once?
“Anyway, if we have an airship, then let’s go!” Sonon turns back to Yuffie to ask for confirmation. “We have our destination, don’t we?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah! Vincent told us the place.”
“Vincent?” Cloud perks up again. “You guys met him again?”
“Yeah. He was tailing the Turks and got to hear them mention another town named Zhongyuan.” She frowns upon recalling it, though. “But it’s not exactly a ‘safe’ place, so to speak…”
He nods back and proceeds to explain the plan, “Alright. We may have to leave it to him to keep the Turks at bay, but we should set off as soon as we’ve heard from Barret’s gang.”
But as soon as he mentions the name, a familiar laid-back voice pipes up as they arrive on the scene: “Whoa, there. Not without us.”
“!?”
Now that the smoke from Yuffie’s bomb has cleared up, there’s no place to hide anymore. Everyone’s shocked to find the three Turks that Vincent was supposed to have been dealing with are now here as well.
“The Turks!?” Tifa gasps, raising her fists at the ready.
“What the heck!? Where’s Vincent?” Yuffie snarls, whipping out her shuriken too.
Elena huffs, still frustrated she couldn’t catch him. “He probably ran away somewhere. But whatever! Now we’re the problem you have to deal with!”
“Like we’d believe that!”
Reno shakes his head and waves his baton forward to get between them. “Hey, hey. Take it easy. We’re not here to fight.”
“You wanna try saying that without raising your weapon?” Cloud jabs back, about to reach for the sword on his back.
“…” Now that Reno actually pays attention, he’s a little dumbfounded at what he’s seeing right now. Still, having no intention to ruffle those feathers, he pretends nothing happened and pulls back his baton. “Sorry, force of habit.”
“…” Rude, meanwhile, catches a glimpse of Tifa and Aerith in all their splendor and has to clear his throat. He goes on to explain, “Incidentally, is Ruby not with any of you?”
“Why do you wanna know?” Cloud fires back.
Reno shrugs. “We just wanna talk with her. On friendly terms if possible.”
Rude follows up, “It so happens that our mission requires a temporary ceasefire between us.”
Cloud’s eyes narrow. “A ceasefire…?”
“Yes. For the time that we’re in this country, we’re under orders to work with Ruby and her friends to dispel any complications with the smuggling ring that spans across borders.”
“And why would you think that we’d have any intention of helping Shinra?” Sonon argues, raising his own staff, “You three shouldn’t even be here.”
“Because it’d be in the best interests for all of us that this ring gets stamped out asap,” Reno replies.
“Huh?”
“But wasn’t Shinra supposed to be behind the whole operation?” Yuffie asks, now genuinely confused.
Sonon’s likewise a little disturbed. “That’s what I thought too…”
Reno gives a sigh and a shrug. “You think we’d be trying to work with ya if we just wanted to cover everything up? Come on, we’re not that desperate.”
Rude likewise insists, “We have no intention of getting in the way if you wish to uncover the rest of the ring’s operations. However, we must establish as a matter of fact that Shinra goods are being transferred without the company’s involvement or approval.”
“That sounds super suspicious,” Tifa points out, “like you’re only here to cut off any ties that this ring has with Shinra.”
“So they ARE here to cover it up!” Yuffie concludes.
“…” Reno and Rude exchange glances as if they’re already done with arguing with these people. They look back with their own stoic expressions and Reno digs in his heels. “Look. We can stay enemies for all I care, but if you’re gonna be digging into this ring, we’re in for it too.”
“If Ruby isn’t going to show up any time soon, then we’ll have to move forward without her,” Rude adds, “Though it certainly would make everything easier if she does.”
“After all, the goods that are being transferred have everything to do with her,” Reno hints as well.
“What?” Cloud and the ladies grow alarmed.
Sonon nods with a grim frown. “We heard as much from Vincent. Seems like this ring goes even deeper than we thought.”
Yuffie adds, “That’s why we thought Shinra was behind it… No, wait, who’s to say if they aren’t?”
Their suspicious looks toward the Turks are met with equally distrusting looks from them, though Elena is the only one who’s a loudmouth about it.
“Hmph!” she argues, “If we were, we wouldn’t be working with you, would we? Besides, I doubt you’d be able to get anywhere without our help!”
“Says who!?” Yuffie snaps back.
“Says me! Like, do you have any idea what you’re even chasing after? Bet you didn’t know that it’s called the ‘Amaranth Remains Cataclysm’!” she declares rather proudly.
“It’s ‘Amalgamate Remnant Catalyst’,” Rude corrects her.
“Just call it ‘ARC’, Elena…” Reno complains, “We’re not going over all that again.”
“Uh, right. Anyway!” Elena continues, still holding herself up, “It’s something real nasty that you wouldn’t want to touch or even get near! Real public hazard and stuff!” She then shrugs and turns back to her companions, “Though, wait… What would happen if Ruby touches it? Would she become affected too?”
“Don’t know, don’t care, not important.” Reno brushes her aside and steps up to face Cloud.
“H-hey!”
He tells it to him straight, “The point is, you’re not gonna get anywhere with these ‘rumors’ if you don’t accept our offer. We know plenty that you might wanna know, but we aren’t telling until you agree with our terms.”
Cloud returns him his own fierce glare. “And those are…?”
“That anything you do find about the ring is gonna be classified. Leave the public announcements to our boss.”
“…”
“Shinra’s just going to warp the truth of the situation for their own benefit,” Tifa argues cautiously.
“Yeah! Like we’d agree to those terms! Shove off!” Yuffie stands with her.
Reno shakes his head. “Tsk tsk… Then, have fun getting nowhere.”
But while the two sides have another tense standoff, Cloud honestly starts to consider their situation. They really don’t have too many options at the moment. Ruby is out for whoever knows how long, and Corneo could have disappeared to anywhere on this huge island. Barret’s gang haven’t reported in yet, Vincent seems to have disappeared somewhere too. The last thing they need is to continue to wander aimlessly.
Taking up a sense of leadership, he nods to Reno’s offer. “Fine. We can work with those terms.”
“H-huh!?” comes the collective gasp. Even Reno gives him a dumbfounded look, totally surprised it actually worked.
“Cloud! What are you doing!?” Yuffie whines.
Sonon also objects, “What are you thinking? We can’t trust them.”
But Cloud shakes his head and turns back to the rest. “No, it’s okay. Shinra can keep all the secrets they want for now, but the fact that they’re willing to work with us means they’re on thin ice as is. Ruby may be away at the moment, but there’s no telling when she’d come back, and at that point the Turks might as well surrender themselves. We’re the ones with the advantage here.”
Now an awkward silence comes over the scene as the rest of the gang exchange unsure faces. Even Reno, Rude, and Elena each take turns exchanging nervous tics – glancing off with a bit of a grudge, adjusting shades, and getting a little twitchy. As uncomfortable and shaky of an alliance as this may be, it was brought together by circumstance if anything.
Aerith then breaks the silence with her giggle and throws up a peace sign. “That’s my Cuz for you!”
Tifa blinks in surprise, but then makes a relieved sigh. “I guess you have a point. We do have an edge, in a way.”
Yuffie blinks too. “Oh, yeah. But…” She also frowns. “Still, it doesn’t feel right working with Shinra.”
“Yeah…” Sonon agrees, still a little wary, “I get that Ruby’s our secret weapon, but that doesn’t mean the Turks can be trusted. Are you really sure about this?”
Cloud nods back. “It’ll be a huge hassle solved if we get this info straight. The last thing we need right now is to wander into unknown territory unprepared, and something tells me that we should be ready before we head off to that other town.” He then adds, just for extra reassurance, “And if the Turks try to lie to us, they’ll be in for some deep shit, with or without Ruby.”
“…” Sonon then concedes with a sigh. “Alright, you win.” He raises a finger to make a point. “But I just wanna say for the record, there is no ‘temporary ceasefire’ here. We’re not allying with Shinra. The Turks are just desperate to stay on our good side, is all.”
“Ha! Ain’t that the truth!” Yuffie laughs.
“Huh?” Elena gets a bit miffed to hear that. “Hey! Who are you calling ‘desperate’!? If anything, you’re the desperate ones to get info outta us!”
But to her surprise, neither of her colleagues seem to be interested in arguing. She looks at their solemn and somewhat defeated faces and stares in disbelief.
“What the heck, guys! Am I the only one who’s gonna say something!?”
“Shut up, Elena…” Reno groans, “You never had to fight Ruby.”
“She… truly is a force best avoided,” Rude agrees.
“Oh, my God! And you call yourselves ‘Turks’!?” Elena huffs indignantly, throwing her arms up in frustration.
“Anyway… You gonna tell us what’s the situation with Corneo and where he’s going?” Cloud asks Reno, folding his arms.
“Not out here.”
“It would be for the best that we take this conversation in private,” Rude suggests. “This is some classified info, after all.”
“Then what? You wanna take it aboard our ship?”
“Hmph. As if we’d be dumb enough to just hop into a place where we can’t get out easy.” Reno offers instead, “But if you’re heading there, we can take it out of town.”
Cloud nods. “Right. Then, let’s get going…”
“Wait, Cloud,” Aerith stops him.
“Huh?”
“Um, you aren’t going to leave town still dressed like this, are you?”
“…” Now that he’s reminded, he looks back down and a blush returns to his face. “…After we get changed.”
“Hee hee! Well, I wouldn’t have minded either way.”
“We could all use a change of wardrobe, honestly,” Tifa comments, “As pretty as they are, these dresses aren’t the best to fight in.”
Cloud turns back to Maeko. “Are our clothes still back at the shop?”
She nods. “They should be. We’d have no other place to send them, after all.”
“Okay.” He finally swerves back to the Turks. “The Highwind is still parked on the fields to the southeast of the city. We’ll meet you outside.”
“Sure.” Reno pauses as he gives him another glance over and asks, “So… is this just a one-time gig or…?”
“Don’t even go there,” he growls.
Reno backs off. “Okay.”
With their plans set, the Turks collectively slip away back into the shadows and out of their hair for now. Cloud then turns back to Yuffie and Sonon to ask about one more thing.
“By the way… when you met Vincent, did he say where he’d be next?”
“Nope.”
“Guess he won’t still be down in the catacombs,” Sonon surmises, “But he was the one who told us about Zhongyuan.”
“Zhong…yuan?” Cloud asks.
“It’s the name of the town where the ARC stuff is supposedly being shipped to.”
“Ah. I guess that may be where Vincent’s gone.”
“The thing is, Zhongyuan’s halfway across the country. Unless he can fly too, I don’t think he’ll be running all the way there,” Yuffie explains.
“…” Cloud takes a moment to think it over, but then shakes his head. “Anyway, he ought to be fine on his own. The girls and I got a stop to make first, so you two go on ahead and check up on Cid and Cait Sith. Aerith said they were last seen at the Happy Turtle.”
Yuffie sticks out her tongue, looking disgusted. “Cid’s not gonna be drunk in there, is he?”
“Well, it is a bar…” Sonon casually reminds her.
She groans. “This is why I hate grown-ups.”
~
Since Aerith took her leave and left Cait Sith alone to watch Cid, things were peaceful enough… until they weren’t. While his fortune-telling business wasn’t quite the profiting scheme he hoped it would be, he and Moogle found better luck with performing dances and magic tricks for the locals and ended up drawing a small crowd, though yet again, most people were stingy to let go of even a few gil. However, Cid had no interest in sticking around to be a street performer and resigned himself to the nearest bar where he’d still be allowed to smoke. So, with a heavy heart, the cat and moogle had to cut their last performance short and scurry away with their meager donations. Perhaps they could turn their luck around at this bar instead?
As it happened, the owner, who was also the bar’s sole bartender, was running into a bit of a dilemma. While business was doing fine - well, so-so, really – it wasn’t booming as much as he thought it’d be now that festival season was coming around again. It makes sense, though, since this festival is more of a time for families to gather together, and even the bar’s regular customers would be heading home around this time. So, there were just a few stragglers here, including a strange cat sitting on a fluffy Moogle and a strange man with a potty-mouth holding onto a cigarette. Foreigners, certainly, but nonetheless customers and a welcome sight.
At first it was pretty quiet, save for a beautiful and calming melody that was playing from the speakers, accompanied by the soft sounds of a small waterfall running down to a pool in the back. Cait Sith felt quite out of place here, as grizzled single men with drinking problems aren’t exactly his target audience. Even when he tried to lighten the mood and crack a few jokes, he’d get nothing but nasty glares his way, including from Cid himself. But he couldn’t just leave the guy alone either. Even if he did have his phone with him, they could always run into enemies when they least expect.
But then out of the blue, there was an argument that broke out at one of the tables. A couple men who were at first real buddy-buddy and drinking the evening away together suddenly got upset with each other. It seemed like they were talking about a sister to one of them who was to be married recently and the men disagreed on the kind of guy that would suit her. While a waiter on staff offered to help mediate between the two, the men dismissed the waiter for his overly courteous answer and threw out the same question to, say, the blond fellow sitting at the counter with a shot glass of whiskey on ice. Cid returned them an equally defiant look and Cait was nervous that they’d end up starting a fight.
“Just let the gal decide for herself! It’s her wedding!” came his practical reply.
And just like that, the incredibly tense atmosphere was diffused. The two men realized how silly they were being and thanked the stranger for his sound advice. If the brother didn’t approve of the groom, he could have just brought it up with his sister. And if the brother’s friend was that invested in her well-being, maybe he could first see how the couple would turn out, and if they ever have a break-up, well, then he can get his chance.
The bar owner was rather thankful for his help and assured that they’d be welcome here any time. He was even willing to offer them a discount, but Cid let him keep the change. The last thing he’d ever do is back out on a deal after it’s been settled, and this bar did run on a first-pay system. Cait Sith and Moogle were just glad that things worked out, and the cat joked about how the shop owner maybe could hire them as mediators sometime. But Cid returned him a glare so intense that even the cat’s circuitry nearly had a jolt.
“S-sorry! I was thinkin’ how we running low on funds, but o’ course it was a joke! Hehe…” he apologized and when asked, explained to the owner that one of their friends went on a bit of a shopping spree since she first arrived.
On that thought, the owner was reminded that their bar happened to be running a special campaign at the moment: the Happy Turtle’s Poster Hunt Extravaganza. There are six posters in all scattered all around the world, and if anyone could find them, snap up photos, and return here to show him, they’d be in for a grand prize supposedly worth a whopping 100,000 gil in total value. Cait Sith was ecstatic to hear it; in fact, he actually knows where one of those posters are from a time he once worked at the Gold Saucer. And the rest could be easy pickings with Ruby’s help, though Cid would probably be the one to drop them off if they need to search. Cid dismissed the entire thing as a “pain in the ass”, but he did admit that the prize doesn’t sound too bad. And with that, the atmosphere in the room was successfully lifted, after all.
After a nice conversation with the bar owner and learning more about the daily life of a humble Wutaian, the evening has gone long and it’s about time they get going. But just as they’re ready to ditch this joint and head out, the two so happen to run some unwelcome visitors.
“Cut me whiskers! The Turks!?” Cait Sith blurts out, and he and Moogle dive behind Cid, poking out just their heads.
“Huh?” Cid remains to face the pair of suited agents.
They seem to be strangers. One is a gingerhead with a huge shotgun on her back, while her partner is a sharp-eyed man with a thin stache, short stubble, and shades tinted green, who was equipped with a duo of submachine guns latched to his belt. And like their fellow Turks, they’re really only here for one thing.
“It’s just these two? Where the hell have the rest gone?” the gingerhead complains.
“…They split up,” her partner calmly replies.
“I can see that myself…”
Cid frowns, his cig still sizzling peacefully away for now. “The hell are you doing here? This ain’t Midgar.”
“Yeah, we could ask you guys the same thing,” the proud gingerhead retorts, “Not that it matters. We’re just here for Ruby.”
“Huh?” He narrows his eyes. “What d’ya want with her? If ya just need a blast o’ engine exhaust to the face, I’m more than enough.”
“As tempting as that is, fighting you is wasted effort.”
“So sure you’d lose, huh?”
“Tch. You got some nerve, old man…” she starts, but her partner puts a hand to her shoulder to hold her back.
“Where’s Ruby? She gone off with one of your little gangs?” the suave man asks in her stead.
Cid shrugs. “Yeah. But who knows where they went.”
“Hm? You’re not even bothered to know?”
“They got their own things to do. I’m just the pilot dropping ’em off.”
“…Sure looks like it.”
There’s a tense silence as the two men exchange fierce yet cautious glares, but neither side seems to want to make the first shot. And in any case, this wouldn’t be the best place to fight anyway. Cait Sith, sensing a potential conflict coming up soon, decides it would be best to dissuade any senseless violence.
He nervously hops back out from behind Cid and tries to pass off the moment, “W-well, lady and gents, it looks like we won’t be getting much out from this conversation, so uh, why don’t we just… go our own ways, shall we?”
All the glares instead are turned on him, and he hops right back on Moogle to keep hiding.
Cid states firmly, “If ya don’t got anything to say, then we’re done. I’m outta here.”
“…”
And without turning back, Cid struts right out the door, with Cait and Moogle zipping off in a panic after him. To their surprise, the Turks remain silent and even let them go, but things don’t seem quite right anymore.
“Oooh… This is bad! This is real bad!” he mumbles, getting all flustered. “If the Turks are already here and waitin’ for the lass, this may be a disaster waitin’ to burst!”
“What’re ya whining about now? Like they could do anything to her.”
“Er, well, I dinnae doubt that she’d be able to hold her own in a fight, but…” He shakes his head with a sigh. “The Turks are Shinra, after all. It’d be a big risk sending in their agents like this into a country that’s currently at odds with Midgar.”
“No shit. But they’re here. And like I was saying, if they wanna bank on gettin’ any advantage outta her, they’d better be ready to take a Flare to the face. She is still a damn dragon.”
“Right, I’m not arguing there. Still, it’s still a tad worryin’ to think about. They’ve gotta have a good reason why they’re hunting her, and I cannae think of any that’s for a good cause…”
“As opposed to anything else Shinra does?”
“…” Cait makes an uncomfortable frown, but decides not to argue there either. “In any case, it might not be the best idea to wander around freely anymore. You never know who might be watchin’ us, even now…”
“Bah. Anyone who dares to pick a fight with me is askin’ for a world o’ hurt!” He lets off a quick blow of his smoke. “What Shinra wants to do from here on, I don’t give a damn. But any ol’ idiot who’s met Ruby would know not to get on her bad side. If this new prez is worth anythin’, he’d better have some kinda genius plan backing up his cajones, or they’re gonna be toasted over an open flame.”
Cid marches off along the street without a care, while Cait Sith remains cautious, and they head toward a nearby marketplace. But then the cat raises another concern.
“Er… Cid? Ye aren’t thinking of just headin’ back to the ship like this, are ye?”
“Huh? ’Course I am! I don’t got anythin’ tying me here. I got my fresh air, so I’m going back.”
“Well…”
Without turning his head, the cat redirects his attention to behind them. Like he feared, the two Turks who were at the bar seem to have followed them out here, and while they’re casually mingling with the townsfolk, they don’t look like they’re going to stop tailing them.
Cid growls dangerously, “Tch… Persistent buggers. If they come on my ship and cause trouble…”
“I think it’d be best that we try to lose them.”
“Or, we can smack the shit outta them for being stupid.”
“W-wait!” Cait and Moogle both stop him by the same arm.
“What?”
“Don’t stare at them! Turn back around.”
“Huh?”
They pull him over to the side of a vending stall and Cait whispers, “Don’t fight here! There are civilians all over who might be at risk!”
“Then what’s your bright idea? I’m not gonna bring ’em tea and crackers as they climb aboard!”
“Of course not. But like I said, we have to lose them. And I got just the thing to create a diversion.”
“A diversion?”
“Yeah! Just leave it to me. Ye can stick around in the open for a bit while I go and set up, and as soon as ye hear the poppin’, it’s time to ditch! I’ll meet ya outside the front gates!”
“Poppin’? The hell are you gonna do…?”
But to that, Cait simply makes his iconic kitty smile. He and Moogle then casually scamper away while Cid stands around looking lost, as he has no real interest in buying any trinkets while he’s still here. And seriously, who the hell would pay 50 gil for a damn T-shirt with Ruby on it? It’s her as a dragon, though, so eh, it looks alright…
Meanwhile, Cait Sith and his trusty moogle slip into the shadows and begin to scheme up ideas of where to be when all heck breaks loose. He spots a clock tower in the distance, but it’s a bit too out of the way from where they are, and to be honest, they don’t need to go that high up. But it wouldn’t hurt to find higher ground. The two take turns looking back and forth to scan their surroundings, and finally, they converge upon what looks to be a particularly tall hotel tower that’s closer by. And so, the two scurry away to get to work.
While the pair have no problem scampering past the local security, as it’s fairly easy for them to climb and bounce on over the outer walls, the two run into a bit of a dilemma when they realize that the lobby elevators don’t go all the way to the roof. That said, they do hit the button to the highest floor and it’s a short and quiet wait to reach it. Then, taking their chances, they look around for a room where there would be a window. As luck would have it, they do find one where the hallway leads around the bend into a public lounge. A quick peek inside reassures them that there’s no one here at the moment to bother them. So, they sneak on in and head straight for the window. With a little bit of fiddling, Cait manages to get the window to open, though it opens just a crack even at the maximum draw length. But since there’s no net to worry about, that’s all they need.
With a hop and a jump, the two ready their arsenal from their magic Toy Box to unleash a brilliant firework display out into the sky. On one hand, it’s naturally effective at drawing attention and even the busy crowds in the marketplace stop and turn to stare. Even more people gather to get a better view, and before they can help it, the Turks realize that they’ve lost sight of the people they were supposed to be tailing. On the other hand, a very much unlicensed firework show from a window at the top floor of the hotel would also draw the attention of some police on patrol.
Being the grand escape artists they are, Cait Sith and Moogle zip away as soon as their Toy Box finished unloading the goods. If any staff happen to pass by, they simply drop and flop, pretending to be toys that some guests had dropped. And as soon as the coast is clear, they’re outta there.
Unfortunately, as smooth as things have been, not all would go according to plan. By the time they do hurry back out of the hotel and gun it for the front gates amid the confusion, though, Cait then realizes that he doesn’t see Cid anywhere. Uh, oh. Where did the guy go? Getting a little worried, he dials up the PHS and gives him a call.
“Cid? Where are ye, my man? I’m already out by the front gates!”
For a brief moment, there’s no reply, but then an angry shout is returned, “You damn cat! What the #%&@ was all that noise!? Now I got cops on my tail!”
“W-what!? Oh…”
“If I’m not caught yet, your ass is grass!” And with that, the call ends abruptly.
“…” Cait Sith sighs while Moogle slumps. “Whoops… Well, uh, at least the first part of the plan worked.”
They quickly hurry back toward the direction of the marketplace, but as the main street comes into view, Cait gasps and Moogle comes to a screeching halt. Cid is indeed coming this way, but unfortunately, he has a number of policemen on his tail. Fortunately, they aren’t firing their guns on him, but they are rather angry and shouting at him to stop.
Somehow, the trio manage to reach the front gates of the city together, and before the guards there can figure out what’s happening, they make a break for it. Without second thought, Cid grabs the poor Moogle by its cheek and makes a great leap over the rather high security fences, clearing it in a single bound. While he nails the landing into a roll, Cait and Moogle fall flat to the ground but pop back up looking okay.
Freedom, and good riddance!
After they hurry off a good distance away and out of view, the two stop to catch their breaths. And finally, when he does find his voice again, Cid gives the other two a vicious snarl.
“That… was the dumbest shit… I’d ever have to run from… Never tell me what to do again.”
“Ah… hehe. But at least we made it out fine, yeah?” Cait gives a nervous laugh, but the man’s laser-like glare quiets him real fast. He and Moogle bow together in apology. “S-sorry…”
Nevertheless, Cid relents on the glare and turns away to get a new smoke, since in the commotion, he ended up dropping his cigarette. But as he stares off for the horizon, he has a moment of clarity as a wave of nostalgia hits him. It sure has been a long time since he’s felt this excited. It honestly brings him back to his youth when he was once a bright and starry-eyed young pilot-in-training who dreamed of shooting for the stars one day. The early days when he would kick it off with a ragtag crew – most of whom would end up working as crewmates aboard the Highwind, in fact – were joyous times where he and the gang would run rampant around the docks of Junon and occasionally stir up trouble with their superiors.
He then glances back to the cat, who still seems genuinely upset, and adds, “…Ya know, I had my doubts when I first saw ya.”
“H-huh? Oh, uh, I try not to stand out too much most days…”
“All of a sudden, Ruby shows up with a cat and moogle of all things and says they’re part of our gang? I may not have known her that long, but I can tell she’s the type to be scatterbrained sometimes… if not most.” He turns away to take another slow whiff and lets it out. Without looking back, he then asks with a stern tone, “What is Shinra to ya anyway?”
“Huh!?” Cait nearly jumps upon hearing that. “Uh… It’s a real powerhouse of this world, for better or worse. Why do you ask?”
“Just askin’…” Now he turns back around. “I caught that, ya know. When you were talkin’ about ‘good causes’ and I said that Shinra got none, you made a look like you didn’t like what you were hearing.”
“…” The cat slumps, hesitant to answer.
“Look. I dunno what yer deal is, but I really don’t care as long as you keep working with us and not against us.”
He nods slowly, but then looks back up with a curious look. “And what about you, Cid?”
“Huh? What about me?”
“You’ve been working for Shinra for a long time and only quit recently. I know it’s been tough on ye for a long time now, so I get all the hatred ye have for the company. I really do. But surely, there was a time when even you thought that Shinra was the best place for you to be, right…?”
“…”
Cait then slumps again in shame. “I know I may not be in the best place to say anything, but I really do think that many people see this world a little black and white sometimes. In some ways, it’s a fair cause that people fight for, but in others, those people may end up causing a lot more trouble than it’s worth.”
“…Hmm.” Cid then looks off again for the horizon, taking another meaningful whiff. “If ya ask me, this company’s gone straight to the shitter and there’s no point in hanging on anymore. I always wanted to quit for some reason or another, but there was this little bit of hope left in me that I could still work with this company, especially if there’d be a new prez.” He then grits his teeth in frustration. “But as you all saw, that Rufus is as much of a piece of shit as his pops. Maybe even more so. But at least he had the gall to say it to me straight that he doesn’t give a damn. So, I told him straight that I was gonna quit.”
Cait nods along, but still looks a bit unsure about something.
“As for all that stuff with Avalanche, well, it’s not exactly my calling or anythin’. Maybe this planet is gonna go to shit some day, maybe even sooner than we think. But in my eyes, this was always gonna happen.” Cid then swings back around. “That’s why it’s such a big deal that we aim for the stars! So that one day, even if the planet is wasted, we wouldn’t all be doomed to be stuck on it.”
The cat then frowns, looking a bit concerned. “Really? That’s your motivation? It almost sounds… selfish, if ye don’t mind me saying.”
“Ha. Of course it’s selfish. We all got some selfish dreams we wanna chase.” Cid raises a finger as he adds, “But what’s more important is what ya do about that dream and that ya never stop chasing it. I mean, even if you’re a cat who rides a moogle, you gotta have some kinda dream, right?”
“…A dream, huh…” He takes a moment to ponder. “Well, there was once a time when I still dared to dream…”
“Hmph. It’s never too late to get back to dreaming. If we all just got one life on this dumb rock in space, then we gotta at least make it worth it.”
“…”
“And as far as I’m concerned, I got more than what I ever asked for when I met Ruby. She may be a pain in the ass in so many ways, but at least she got wings and she sure flaunts ’em. Even when she doesn’t know where she’s going, at least she always got a way up.”
“…” Cait nods back while still deep in thought and then offers a kind smile. “Maybe that’s it.”
“Huh? What is?”
“Like ye say, Ruby always got a way up. Maybe it isnae the best idea to always be countin’ on her for everything, but it does help lift people up when they got some kinda savior type to look up to.”
“Ha!” Cid now reveals a sneer. “Savior? Her? Hell would probably spill over before she starts ‘saving’ everyone she got a debt with. But at least she tries. And that says a lot more than what most people would do when the pressure’s on ’em.”
“Hmm…”
Cid turns off again for the grassy fields before them one last time before he finally snubs his cigarette against a nearby bare rock and ditches it. “Anyway, enough hanging onto the past. We still got some crew to carry… as soon as we hear back from ’em.” He scratches his head with an annoyed grimace. “Where the hell did they go and what’s taking ’em?”
“Well, since we’re out here, we could head back to the ship,” Cait offers.
“Of course we are! Why else did we bust out like that!?”
With a lulling sense of relief that they’re out of the thick of it for now, the pair move on to return to where the Highwind sits in the not-too-far distance. However, as they approach the ship, though, something catches their eyes and Cid’s jaw drops.
There are a number of the ship’s crew that have stepped on out, though it seems like Jessie and Leslie haven’t at this time. Right next to the ship, a Shinra helicopter sits in plain view. By the looks of it, Tseng and the young upstart Turk they last saw with him are already here. And even more concerning, they’re accompanied by what looks to be a dark-skinned man in black armored uniform who’s still got his helmet on. Soldier, First-class, to be precise.
Notes:
I have to state for the record that Sephiroth didn't threaten or coerce me into translating the joke, but I guess I should.
"Anak ng __" is a saying in Tagalog that is similar to an expression of surprise, disgust, or anger like "Son of a--!" Kamote is also "sweet potato", so I just had to add that joke in there somewhere.
11/14/23 edit: Corrected a minute detail to be consistent after reminding myself of Wutai's geography on the world map.
Chapter 44: Light at the End of the Tunnel
Notes:
Outdated A/N
Ah, my apologies for the impromptu break last week. I could come up with an excuse about how I wasn't feeling well and had a continuous issue with my wrist being sore for whatever reason, but to be perfectly honest, it's also my fault for being negligent with my health, now that we've moved into the cooler days of autumn. So, uh, my bad for being a silly billy.
To rectify this, I've gone ahead and started working on the next chapter sooner. Hopefully when I am able to come up with a large enough buffer between my most current chapter and my latest published chapter, I will be able to keep that consistent schedule I keep promising myself I would have. Better late than never, as they say.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
After losing the Turks on his trail, Vincent would return to the path where he had departed from Yuffie and Sonon. However, as he was making his way back to the surface, he noticed that something was strange: there were signs that someone else has gone this way. A door that none of them had touched seemed to have been moved recently, as it has been left ajar.
He caught the slightest noise of feet shuffling in the silence of the corridors and began to tail the source of the sound, finding his way back out the passageway that was by the huge bell. Unfortunately, as he stepped out, he lost track of the person he was tailing. By now, there was a small crowd that formed at the front gates – many of them, the bridal candidates that had escaped who were fleeing the grounds. While some did worry about the other wedding guests, most were ready to leave out the front gates. After all, there were only a handful of people who were allowed to be among the esteemed guests, and it so happened that many hopeful families of these brides-to-be weren’t even allowed inside.
However, the guards at the gates who were equally confused refused to open the gates without orders, which in turn stirred up vehement arguments from the crowd. Unfortunately for the braver of these young ladies, the guards were the ones who were armed and could easily fend off a crowd of angry women.
Bang, bang. Two shots fired from afar frightened the crowd, but it would be the two stubborn guards that dropped dead, each struck square in the head. But, not one to parade his achievements, Vincent quickly stowed away his gun and hid himself behind a nearby building before anyone would have noticed him. Though the crowd began to panic, the way out was clear and the crowd would quickly burst out the doors and disperse far and wide. However, as they did, Vincent then caught a glimpse of one of the people leaving: a person in a white robe who wasn’t quite dressed for a wedding.
He rushed out after the mysterious figure and continued to tail them from a safe distance, hiding behind any places of cover as necessary. And finally, he would follow this robed person to an empty lot just off the pagoda’s grounds, where a rather sleek-looking modern car would be awaiting them. From a safe cover behind one of the nearby buildings’ signboards, Vincent would witness a suspicious meeting take place.
Two Wutaian officers now step out of the car and salute the robed figure. And from the robed figure would answer a feminine voice.
“Taeru-san, welcome back.”
The person known as Taeru replies calmly, “Our guests have finally discovered the key to the trade. I must report back to Zenigata-san.”
“Of course, right this way…”
One of the officers opens the car door and once she steps inside for the backseat, he shuts the door for her. However, before the officers can climb on, another voice stops them in their tracks.
“Hold it.”
“!?”
The officers turn to find Vincent appearing out from effectively nowhere. Though he doesn’t have his gun drawn, it’s still visible in its holster. Taking this man as an immediate threat, the officers instead draw their guns on him.
“Who are you!?”
“How did you find this place?”
Having no intention to challenge the local law enforcement, Vincent raises his arms in the air as if surrendering. “I followed that robed person here, but I only have questions and don’t intend to fight.”
“Silence! You’re in a prohibited space and will be put under arrest!”
“Wait!” Taeru then steps back out and orders the officers to lower their guard. “Do not arrest this man. He is one of them.”
“Huh?”
Though confused and wary, the officers promptly lower their guns and give the man some room. The woman approaches Vincent with a seemingly disarming smile and even removes her hood. She seems to be Wutaian as well, but he notices there are some strange marks on her face – like face paint with a red ring and dot on her forehead and black eyeshadow that gives her eyes some shading. Most noteworthy, though, are the red streaks beneath her eyes that remind him of the marks seen on Ruby’s face. She almost looks like an actress in a theatrical play, but there’s some sort of eeriness to her presence that slightly unnerves him.
She gives him a polite bow. “Apologies for the improper greeting. My name is Taeru, and I am a member of the National Religion and Spiritualism Association, also known as the NRSA. We are an independent organization not associated with the new Wutai government.”
“Religion…? So you’re a clergy member,” he observes.
“Yes. Though, in recent times, our religious order has seen a number of reforms and renovations that eventually led to the dissolution of the old church. But as a compromise with the government, we have been able to retain our practices as an independent agency.”
“I see.” He then makes a suspect frown. “But why would a member of the clergy consider someone like me a ‘guest’?”
“Because you are friends with Yue-hua-sama, are you not?”
“Yue-hua…” Vincent blinks in surprise. “You mean Ruby?”
“Ah, is that the name She goes by now?” Taeru makes a subtle, polite chuckle. “I believe some of our members witnessed you and a couple others fly into the city with Her.”
“Ah…” He nods. “That would be us.”
“Then, I was not mistaken…” She closes her eyes with a content smile. “Her Radiance continues to guide us even now. Our oracle did speak of Her return in recent times.”
“…”
Vincent takes a moment to consider their current situation. It seems that the suspicious figure he was tailing all this time was in fact a member of a potentially friendly party, but there’s something off about this religious order that is just a bit unsettling. Perhaps it’s just a suspicion of his, but this woman seems to give off some kind of presence that is unlike the protesters that he and the others met earlier. Despite looking relatively normal, there’s a certain deadness in her eyes that he can’t quite pinpoint clearly.
“And as you are friends to Her Radiance, that makes you all esteemed guests to our order. If you are available, we would like to invite you all to our next counsel meeting in Zhongyuan.”
“Zhongyuan?” That sure catches his attention. Their church headquarters are located in that supposed ghost town where a lot of suspicious activity may be taking place? The mystery continues to thicken. “Is that where you’re heading now?”
She nods back. “Yes. If you’d like, you may take a ride with me. Our meeting will take place at exactly midnight this coming night. The ride there should take a couple hours at the most.”
“…” Without any other leads, Vincent agrees, but on one condition: “Very well. But I have a question before we go.”
“Yes?”
Getting right to the point, he asks, “Is the NRSA aware of the illegal international arms trade that has been taking place in that town?”
“…” To his surprise, the woman nods back and answers just as calmly, “Yes, we are aware. I believe we have much to discuss.”
~
Out on the dusty roads, Barret’s crew has been driving after their escaped vehicle, with Biggs at the wheel and Wedge on shotgun keeping an eye out. While Red still has the particular scent tracked, his nose isn’t as useful when the very truck they’re riding on is carrying a hefty load of the stuff they’re meant to be tracing. Fortunately, the truck’s own radio has already been attuned to the correct frequency and they’re able to listen in to some instructions that Corneo’s cronies were supposed to heed.
“Zhongyuan, 23:30. The destination is approximately 90 km southeast of the capital, near the shore east of the central highway pass and at the foot of a bridge. After leaving the highway, follow the road signs marked with graffiti of a dotted circle. Finish the transfer by the designated time. Remain on standby for further instructions… Over.”
While the instructions were being relayed, Wedge has his PHS out and connected to the live feed, letting Jessie listen in as well. And as soon as the radio goes silent again, the gang reconsider their plans from here.
“…Sounds like they haven’t heard about our sabotage yet,” Wedge remarks with a relieved sigh.
“Yeah, but no doubt that by the time the first truck reaches the place, they’ll be able to report in and whoever will be waiting for us there will be on high alert,” Biggs replies while taking some mental notes.
“And we’ll give ’em something to think about by the time we’re through with ’em…” Barret mutters.
“Perhaps we should formulate a plan first?” Red suggests, giving the gun-armed man beside him a raised eyebrow.
Barret rolls his eyes. “Of course we gotta have a plan. Even I ain’t that dumb to just run into town and start shootin’.”
Jessie has been silent for a moment as she’s been busy searching up something online, and now speaks up again with her findings. “…So, there wasn’t much I could gather, but by the looks of it, this town they mentioned hasn’t been populated for a while now.”
“Huh? You really got something?” Biggs asks, genuinely surprised.
“Ha. Did you have any doubts?” she answers wittily.
“No, but I’m surprised you could just find it online. You’d think an international smuggling ring would be happening at a place where, you know, it wouldn’t be that easy to look up.”
“Well, to be fair, I couldn’t find much. There was just one resource: an obscure folk tale blog that talks about all sorts of weird rumors and ghost stories. Long story short, this old port town was once planned to be a place of commerce that was open to international trade, but for some reason the entire town was basically abandoned and became a restricted area. I couldn’t find any details on the reason why, especially since it became like this long before the big war, so it’s anyone’s guess. But if there’s any place that our ring would want to hide out, I’m sure it’d be a sleepy ol’ ghost town that the government would just want left alone.”
“Some suspicious activity going on in a place that’s supposed to be abandoned would end up making some ghost stories,” Wedge offers as an explanation.
“Which definitely helps the ring stay hidden since most of the public would be scared away,” Biggs agrees.
Nonetheless, Jessie mulls over the issue, “Though, it does bring up the question of why the government wouldn’t look into what’s going on there. You’d think a restricted area means that the government would have free reign to know what’s actually been happening…”
“…Unless, of course, whatever Corneo’s been involved in has gotten him on the government’s good side and they’d be willing to pass a blind eye,” Barret suspects.
“If that’s actually the case, then it’s a really big problem. Even if we do find what they’ve been doing there, what happens if the government tries to intervene and cover things up?”
“…” Barret lets off a troubled sigh too, but answers plainly and frankly, “We aren’t people of this country, so it’s not like we’d have any say to their authorities. But in any case, we’re only here to deal with Corneo and his goons. As soon as we get rid of ’em and stop this ring, we’ll get out asap. It may mean we won’t be able to stick around, but at least that’ll be one problem of ours squared off.”
“Hopefully, it won’t come to that. Yuffie and Sonon are still agents of theirs, and it may complicate things for them if we become fugitives…” Red wonders, “Though, judging by the popularity Ruby is enjoying from the public, she may be able to mediate for us if necessary.”
“Will that work, though? She may be a celebrity, but she’s not part of the government, so they don’t have to listen to her,” Biggs raises the question.
“Then again, she is a really powerful dragon God that can make anyone bow to her,” Wedge reminds him.
“…True,” he simply replies, having no counterargument to that. Now reminded, he also asks, “Say, Jessie, have you heard from Ruby yet? What’s been going on with her?”
“Huh? Didn’t you hear from Cloud? She’s gotten sick,” she replies matter-of-factly.
“I heard as much. But it’s not a big deal, right? Like, she’ll still be in fighting form soon enough?”
“Uh… I dunno. Cloud didn’t say much, so all we can do is hope and wait.”
“Hmm…” He frowns, looking worried, but nods along.
“Then, we’ll just have to wait. But when you do hear from her, let us know right away!” Barret makes the order, “She may be our secret weapon, but it sure don’t hurt to have her ready as backup if shit hits the fan.”
“Of course!” Jessie answers.
“As for the rest of ya’ll…” he suggests, looking around the truck, “As soon as we land in that town, we should split up. Even if there won’t be too many civies around to worry about, it doesn’t mean we’re free to roam. We’ll definitely catch some eyes if we’re moving around in a big group.”
“Right. I guess me and Wedge will be on our own again for a bit,” Biggs then concludes.
Barret smirks to that, with an amusing thought coming to mind. “Heh. What, you wanna switch it up this time? Wanna hang out with your boss or Red instead?”
“Uh… it’s fine. Wedge is cool.”
“Haha! Thanks, man. Always glad to serve!” Wedge replies with a grin.
“Right. We’ll park this thing at the outskirts and make it our go-to meetup. If ya guys find anything, send us a message on the feed or come right back here if it’s still safe.”
Biggs nods without taking his eyes off the road. “You got it, Boss.”
Wedge nods too and throws out a confident thumbs-up. “Yeah! And don’t worry even if we don’t make it back that soon. We can hold our own too.”
“Ha! Ya think I’d be worried about yo’ asses? All I care is that you don’t stir up too much trouble!” Barret argues rather harshly, but after a short moment of silence, he adds with a hint of concern, “But you’d better get back in one piece.”
Just as they’ve got their plans set, though, Jessie hops back on with an urgent message.
“Wait, seriously? Oh, crap…”
“Huh? What’s up, Jessie?” Barret asks.
“Um… Bad news, guys. I’ve had the Shinra radio on for a while, and it seems there might be a new report that’s come in.”
All of a sudden, the atmosphere grows tense and the rest of them tune in. Barret asks again, “What’s the news…?”
Jessie explains, “It sounds like the president has recently addressed growing concerns back in Midgar about the missing people cases, and while he hasn’t given away too much, he’s announced that investigations have led them to suspicious activity in Wutai and ‘discussions’ with the country’s diplomats have been underway. But either way, Shinra’s ready to mobilize Soldier.”
“What!?” he exclaims, “Are they insane!? Sending Soldier here is basically a declaration of war! No way Wutai’s gonna lay low to that!”
“Yeah, but at least Rufus hasn’t come out with an outright declaration yet. I’m sure by ‘mobilizing’ they’re only sending in a guy or so.”
“He already got his damn Turks out here! Why the hell would they need to send Soldier if they ain’t gearing up for war!?”
“I dunno. I just caught wind of the news myself.”
“Damn…” he huffs angrily, “If this really turns into a whole-ass war, this won’t be an easy mission to just snuff out Corneo. We gotta stop Soldier from comin’ ashore, or everything’ll go to shit!”
“Easier said than done,” Biggs mutters, “Only Ruby would be able to stop them, and she’s not ready just yet.”
“Hell naw! We can’t be relyin’ on her all the time. We still got plenty of firepower in our ranks. If it’s just gonna be one or two, we can take ’em!”
“Uh… Barret? I know you’re ready to fight and all, but I don’t think you guys are in the right place to meet them. They’re not gonna be picking this ghost town to dock, I don’t think,” Jessie points out.
“…Damn.” He slumps with a disappointed frown and crosses his arms. “Then where are they gonna dock?”
“Not sure, but I suspect it’ll probably be somewhere near the capital. That’s where the Turks went and I bet the Soldier is here to be their ‘insurance’.”
“Hmph. If that’s ‘insurance’, they got some real nerve underestimating us…” He snorts defiantly, but then relaxes and lowers his arms. “Well, Cloud and ’em are still there, so they’ll have to deal with the Soldier. Even if he ain’t really ex-Soldier himself, Spiky better be able to go toe-to-toe with one, or we’re gonna need a new leader.”
“Right. I’ll let them know… Huh?” Jessie is then interrupted by one of the crew aboard the Highwind, and she grows alarmed. “What? Already!?”
“Huh? Jessie, what’s wrong?”
“Crap! Sorry, I gotta cut this call short! We’ll catch up later!”
“Wait, Jessie!”
But there’s no time. The call is ended and the PHS is left on an empty tone.
Barret swears under his breath. “…The hell is goin’ on? Don’t tell me… Did Soldier already show up?”
“What?” Wedge gasps, “But Jessie and them are still on the ship, right?”
“If Shinra has found the Highwind… oh, shit,” Biggs dives right into worry, finding himself unable to finish that sentence.
“Sonnuva bitch!” Barret growls, “They’d better get the ship movin’! The last thing we need is to deal with Soldier while we’re still split up!”
“But what can we do from here?” Wedge asks, now fearful.
“…Nothing. We just gotta hope they’ll make it out okay,” he mutters regretfully.
“…”
A tense silence comes over the entire vehicle. The timing couldn’t have been worse. But there’s no way that Shinra would have known where they’d be, right? Their calls are totally hack-proof, as Jessie assured them. So how the hell could Shinra know when would be the best time to strike?
~
“Ugh… Just my luck…” Jessie mutters.
Upon being notified by the Highwind crew, Jessie has left a quick message on the PHS’ live feed calling for backup, and then packed up her tools and shut off the radio real fast.
Even Leslie is getting alarmed. “Now what? What is Shinra even trying to accomplish with this…?”
“Don’t ask me! If you want, you can stay and chat with them.”
“No way! I’m already stuck being with you guys. There’s no way they won’t question me.”
“Then, you’d better get yourself ready.” She whips out her guns to give them a quick check.
“Ready? You mean to fight?” He stares hard. “Are you kidding!? They have Soldier!”
She slips them back into their holsters and returns him a smug smirk. “So? It’s not like we got a whole invasion to deal with. All we gotta do is pretend we’re not here.”
“Then what are you gearing up for?”
“Just in case…”
Leslie rolls his eyes and puts hand to face. “I really hit the jackpot with this team…”
One of the crewmates who notified her gives another salute. “We’ll try to keep them busy for as long as possible. Please take care and try to find a way off safely!”
“Thanks, guys. And good luck. They may try to confiscate this ship, but don’t worry. We’ll find a way to get it back.” She admits with an awkward grin, “And hope your captain won’t chew us out for this.”
“Of course! We’ll put a good word in with the Captain! Good luck to you too!”
Jessie nods and then heads off the deck with Leslie nervously following her. They still got a couple spare grappling hooks stowed in storage, and now all they need is a fair chance.
Back outside, the Shinra helicopter finally descends upon a clearing near where the Highwind rests and three men step out into the open: Tseng and Zhui the sniper, both of the Turks, and a First-Class Soldier who has accompanied them. This is indeed the same Soldier who was meant to face off with Cloud and gang back during their highway chase out of Midgar, but Ruby had other plans at the time. As planned, three of the airship’s crew have stepped on out to meet with the new arrivals.
“…It’s been a while since you’ve returned to your grandparent’s home, huh?” Tseng asks his fellow Turk.
Zhui shrugs. “Never really knew Wutai. I grew up in Midgar, remember?”
“I didn’t forget.” He also glances off in the distance toward the capital across the fields. “But there’s something about visiting your ancestral home for the first time that sticks with you.”
“…” Zhui also glances off that way, but doesn’t seem to see what his boss means. “Not really. This place might as well have been on the other side of the planet.”
Catching on that this stubborn young man isn’t really listening, Tseng lets it be and turns toward the ship before them. There are a few crewmates that have stepped out to greet them and they likewise stand at attention as the Turks and their Soldier approach.
The man who had just sent Jessie on her way now steps forward. “Mr. Tseng! What brings you here?”
“We’re here at the request of the president to help our members on site with a little backup as may be necessary.”
“Um…” He raises a concerned frown. “Backup, sir?”
Tseng casually points a thumb behind him to the helmeted Soldier. “He’ll be standing by to safeguard the Highwind while Cloud and his friends have taken it for a ride. While it is of no particular concern to us where this ship goes, the president advises that it remain under Shinra’s supervision, especially given Ruby’s unreliable track record.”
“W-what?” The three crewmates now exchange worried glances, though the first one is still the only one to speak up. “Sir, with all due respect… that might not be the most ideal.”
“Oh, I understand that this is a sudden change after what the president had previously decided, but given the threat that Ruby posed, he wasn’t in the position to make any demands at the time. Fortunately, he’s been relocated to a safe place where such a situation won’t happen again.”
“Ah. That’s good to hear… I guess.” The man mumbles that last bit to himself. He then adds, “But I don’t think that Cloud and the others would be too happy with this arrangement.”
“I’m sure I don’t need to remind you all that you are still employed under Shinra, yes?”
“O-of course not, sir. We’re aware.”
“Then, it would be in your best interests to comply. Rest assured that we have no intention to instigate any conflict between the crew and your captors, but this Soldier will be able to ensure your safety during your future travels.”
“But Cloud and his friends haven’t done anything to us…”
“Yet.”
“…” And with that one word, the man’s voice is cut off.
“But even if they don’t, there’s no telling what will happen with Ruby. Little do any of them realize, that young lady is a threat to everyone, including them. Surely, you’ve all been informed of the incident with one of the warehouse bases in Midgar, yes? The least Shinra can do is help monitor her, since I don’t think Cloud has been the best judge of character.”
“Ah…”
“But I thought that incident was an accident?” one of the other crewmates then asks.
“Yeah, that is what the Captain told us too,” the third crewmate follows.
The first crewmate nods back to his comrades. “I don’t doubt the Captain’s word, but… he did hear about it from Ruby herself.”
The other two still aren’t entirely convinced. “But she didn’t lie to us, right?” “I didn’t get that impression either.”
Still, the first man shakes his head with a sigh. “Then again, wasn’t there a time when Ruby came aboard unconscious? It seems like something weird’s been happening to her.”
“Oh, yeah.” “The Captain did say that too…”
“Precisely,” Tseng continues with his ever stoic yet calculating face, “Whether or not she intended to lie to anyone, it’s clear that she’s not reliable when it comes to controlling her own power. So, I insist that you all take along this Soldier for the time being – at least until Ruby can prove even to an outside party that she won’t be causing too much trouble.”
Now the three crewmates are nervous and may honestly consider the offer. While they would rather keep having faith that Ruby won’t do them wrong, there’s still going to be that bit of doubt lingering in the back of their minds.
“…Ggrrraaaaaaaggghhh!!”
“!?”
The crewmates gasp together. “Wait… is that the Captain!?” one of them asks.
Out of nowhere, Cid leaps onto the scene from quite a distance away and he comes in with spear pointed right for the Shinra agents. The Turks quickly dodge out of the way, but the Soldier doesn’t even bother to back off. He swerves about a foot, drawing the massive sword on his back, and clashes with Cid’s spear. Even before Cid can realize his mistake, the Soldier effortlessly flings him away again and Cid lands neatly back on the ground.
“The hell is Shinra doin’ here!?” the angry pilot demands, “Leave my men alone, you damn snakes!”
“Captain!!” All three crewmates cry out with relief but mixed with a little apprehension.
Immediately, Zhui raises his rifle to aim, but Tseng raises a hand in front of him to intervene. He gives his subordinate a stern glare and shakes his head. Zhui lets off a disappointed grunt but pulls back. They brought this Soldier along precisely to help deal with such attacks, after all.
“Mercy o’ Minerva… Cid! Don’t just jump in on yer own like that!” Cait Sith shouts as Moogle tries his best to catch up and nearly drops the poor cat when it comes to a screeching halt next to the man. “Like I said, we ought to try talkin’ first!”
“I’ve been with Shinra long enough to know that talkin’ ain’t worth half the shit they try to sell! Especially with the Turks! You tryin’ to buy my men, huh!? Over my dead body!”
Now at a safe distance away, Tseng feels more at ease to respond, “If you would care to listen, we’d be happy to explain.”
“Shut up! You know we aren’t in Midgar anymore! The hell is a Soldier doing here? Start another damn war on your own turf!”
“…” The Soldier before him doesn’t say a word. His face is masked by his helmet, so there’s no telling how he’s reacting either, but he is standing in the way between Cid and his intended targets.
“Tch… The hell you lookin’ at? You wanna go?” Cid shares his angry glare with him too.
“C-Cid! Calm down! We dinnae need to fight!” Cait keeps pleading.
Again, the Soldier remains silent. He simply raises his weapon forward as if to dare him to approach. Taking the gesture as intended, Cid prepares to launch another assault.
“…On second thought, this would provide a good demonstration,” Tseng remarks as an idea comes to mind. He casually incites a fray by ordering the Soldier, “Knock him out, but don’t kill.”
“…”
“Sonnuva bitch. Don’t you dare underestimate me!” Cid keeps spitting venom.
“Cid!”
Unfortunately, Cait Sith and Moogle are a bit too slow to stop him. Cid lunges at the Soldier again and they clash, sword edge to spearpoint. Once again, the Soldier effortlessly flings him off, but Cid weaves back and lunges in for another shot. However, every time he tries to nail the guy, the Soldier deftly blocks or avoids his strikes. Cid fires off a series of rapid thrusts, all of which are blocked by that massive sword. In his frustration, he also tries flipping his grip on the spear and winding back to launch a feint into a side jab to catch around the Soldier’s weapon, but a single powerful swing of that blade is enough to knock away that spear and knock Cid off balance. Following an instinctual drive to go for the kill, the Soldier slams him in the gut with a follow-up swing and knocks him flying.
“Cid!!” Cait Sith squeaks as Moogle gasps quietly.
“Captain!?” the crewmates likewise scream in horror.
Cid lands in flat on his back this time, and when Cait and Moogle hurry on over, they find him knocked out cold, with blood seeping from his mouth. Though he got hit on the edge of that massive blade, it’s so thick that it doesn’t cut into flesh that easily. But such a weapon is so darn big that getting smacked even once is enough to cause some internal hemorrhaging. Needless to say, in the hands of this suped-up Soldier, it’s a guaranteed one-hit KO on anything short of a mighty dragon.
“Cid!! Hang in there!” Cait desperately fires off some Cure spells, but they come to no effect. At the very least, Cait can still feel a pulse, but it looks like he’s not getting back up. “Argh! If only I had packed a Revive materia just in case…”
Now the Soldier steps on over to them and raises his sword once more, but the cat and moogle jump in the way to cover for him.
“W-wait! That’s enough!” Cait Sith yells.
As if caught by surprise, the Soldier stops in his tracks with a jolt and pulls back. Even now, he doesn’t say a word and keeps his cold stare on his new target, but seems to hesitate to proceed.
The cat raises his hands in surrender. “We’re not gonna fight! We just want to talk!”
“That’s enough for now. Stand down,” Tseng commands him, and the Soldier finally retracts his weapon and steps back.
Now the Turks approach too and for just a moment, Zhui cringes at the sight of the once proud pilot now as just another wasted body. Soldiers of this type truly are relentless and sometimes don’t even listen to orders calling for any level of restraint.
Tseng again gives another order to the Soldier, “Take him aboard and leave the crew to tend to him.”
“Uh…” Cait Sith tries to protest, but meekly steps aside as the Soldier picks up Cid’s ragged body and slings him over his shoulder.
Tseng gives the cat but an unsympathetic stare and then turns back to the horrified crewmates. “…As I was saying, it would be in your best interests to comply.”
And all they can do is stare helplessly at their unfortunate captain and nod along quietly.
Meanwhile, back on the ship, Jessie and Leslie have been watching the events unfold from the deck of the ship’s gondola, and needless to say, they’re both stunned into silence. Without missing a beat, Jessie whips out her PHS and dials the number to call Cloud – with the hope that Ruby will pick up too. But before she can hit the dial button, Leslie swipes the phone out of her hands.
“Wait!” he whispers fiercely.
“What? Hey!” she complains in a low voice too. “What’s the big deal?”
“Do you really want to bring everyone else into this mess? We should be getting out of here!”
She quickly swipes the phone back. “I know, but we can’t just leave them like this!”
“Weren’t you ready to abandon ship earlier?”
“Yeah, but that was before I knew that Cid would get himself beat up! I’m not leaving them to fend for themselves!”
“But what would calling the others now do? You already texted them.”
“Because even if I don’t call her directly, Ruby will still be able to pick up. She may not be able to see my texts, but she’ll definitely respond if she hears us.”
“Huh? Didn’t Cloud say that Ruby was sick and couldn’t get up, though? We haven’t heard back from them yet.”
“Maybe… or maybe not. It’s a gamble, but I’m willing to bet on her!” And with that, Jessie hits the dial button.
After a short moment of silence, the corresponding guy picks up. “Jessie! I got your message. What’s going on? Is the Highwind under attack?”
“Not yet, but Cid was!”
“What? Cid?”
“He was down there fighting the Soldier, but got walloped! Get over here! And you too, Ruby! I know you can hear me!”
“Yeah, we’re on our way. But, Jessie, Ruby’s still not…”
“She has to! Trust in her!”
“…Right. Hang in there.”
~
A little while ago, back before the threat of Soldier on Wutai’s shores would become known, things were still quiet at Zangan’s humble hermitage up north. Despite the continued silence and lack of response from the great serpent’s spirit, Zangan is relieved when his prayers for Ruby’s recovery have finally been answered. Her fever has settled down and she is resting comfortably on the bed, though it seems she has yet to wake.
Zangan gives a deep sigh in a mix of relief yet sadness that he could do little more for her. He gets up to fetch himself a pot to brew some soothing green tea, and as he takes out a cup, he hesitates and takes out another. Perhaps by some miracle, she may just awaken to the fragrance of the tea… Oh, but what are the odds? If anything, perhaps he should consider taking her to the hospital after all, just in case her condition has a risk to happen again. Then again, would that be a good idea? Who knows what they may be caught up in if government spies pick up on where they’ve been. As he stands there by the kitchen side of the hut, pondering over what would be the best move forward, he then hears a soft rustling sound from the other side.
“Hm?”
Now that he turns back, he gasps aloud. Ruby has sit up and pulled aside to let her legs off the bed. She rubs her eyes and lets off a sleepy yawn.
“Ruby-dono! You’re awake!”
“…Oh. Hey, Zangan.”
He hurries on over to check on her. “Are you alright? Do you still feel ill?”
She shakes her head and gives her arms a stretch. “Nah. I’m good now.”
“Really? What a relief…”
“I think I smell tea? Are you brewing?”
“Ah. Yes, I’ve just brewed a fresh pot. Would you like a cup?”
She makes a disarming smile and nods. “Sure, and thanks. I’m feeling a little thirsty.”
With a kind smile in return, Zangan hurries back to the kitchen to prepare a tray and the tea. After a quiet few minutes and Ruby gets a few more stretches in, he returns with the tray in hand.
“You’ll have to forgive me. My table is a little crowded right now.”
“No worries. The gesture is enough.” She takes a cup from the tray and helps herself to a good, long sip and gives a satisfied sigh.
He then sets the tray aside by the foot of the bed and turns back to her with an inquisitive look. “You’ve been asleep for a few hours now. It must have been quite the journey you’ve undergone.”
“…” Upon being reminded, Ruby looks away and stares off idly.
“Would you mind if I ask about what happened?”
She rubs her head awkwardly and frowns to herself, unsure of where to even begin.
“Of course, if you don’t want to answer, that’s fine too.”
She makes an apologetic smile. “Sorry. It’s not that I don’t want to tell you, but…” There’s a hint of something grim to the look in her eyes. “There’s too much I don’t understand for me to be able to explain anything.”
He nods back with understanding. “It’s alright. I won’t force anything from you. I’m just glad you were able to recover. Cloud and the others were very worried.”
“Yeah, I know.” She stares off again with a bit of a sad, wistful look as if she means to say more, but her hesitation stops her from speaking out. Instead, she forces a smile and moves on, “I guess they’ve already gone ahead with the plan, huh?”
“They certainly did. But they also have you to thank. It was by your efforts that Sonon was able to return to us, after all.”
She blinks blankly. “Ah, right. Sonon.” That’s the guy she was fighting Leviathan for; how did she forget? Yeesh, all the drama with Sephiroth must have really gotten to her.
He raises an eyebrow. “Hm? Was it not because of you?”
“Uh…” She makes a nervous grin and shrugs, passing it off as an innocent coincidence. “To be honest, I wasn’t really sure how that would work. I just went in there hoping I’d be able to talk it out or even fight it out, and he’d agree to let him go.” She also lets off a relieved sigh. “In any case, I’m glad he’s okay now.” At least something good came out of that exchange, she thinks to herself.
“Ah-ha. So you really did confront Da-Chao-sama… and you were even victorious.”
Ruby suddenly feels nauseous like she just took a punch to the gut.
“Hm? Are you alright? Still feeling ill?”
“Nope! Like I said, I’m fine.” She forcibly wrings out the guilt out of her mind and offers him an unnaturally chipper smile. “Anyway, thanks for keeping me company, and sorry to keep you waiting on me for so long! I should get going soon.”
“Oh. It’s no problem,” he replies with a nod. “Even if your friends hadn’t asked me for anything, I would have gladly lent a hand anyway. I can’t overlook someone in need.”
“Heh. As expected of you, Sensei.”
“Hm? Well, now. I didn’t expect you to start calling me ‘Sensei’…”
“Ah.” Ruby clears her throat, trying to be inconspicuous about it, but only feels more self-conscious. “Force of habit?”
He offers an assuring smile. “I appreciate it nonetheless. If you ever wish to train with me, I’m not sure what I may provide to you that you would need, but I’d be happy to accept such a pupil.” He even lets off a soft chuckle. “It’ll be the first time I’ve taken on a non-human apprentice.”
“Haha…” Ruby means to reply with a genuine laugh, but her nerves up to now make it sound a bit more strained than it had to be. Quick to move on, she slides off and gets back to her feet, though now that she reviews over her current objectives, she’s also reminded of something: “Oh. Actually, sir, there is something I’d like to ask of you.”
“Yes? How may I help?”
“I remember I was supposed to meet with some Wutaian officials shortly after arriving, but obviously some things took priority and I haven’t been able to see them. If they’re still open to discussion, please let them know that I’ll be seeing them soon. After I take one more trip out of the country, I’ll return to the capital and head straight to the House of Parliament. If they refuse to see you, feel free to use my name as a bargaining chip.”
He blinks in surprise. “You’re still going to meet with them?”
“Yes, I think I should voice my concerns to make sure these two countries on the brink of war don’t go there. But before I can meet them, I need ammo, and there’s one other person I have to meet to get that ammo.”
“Oh? And who would that be?”
She looks at him straight in the eyes as she answers, “Rufus Shinra.”
“W-what!? The President of Shinra? Why would you need to see him?”
“He’s one of the only people who know about the thing I want to ask about, since it concerns some deep secrets from the company’s history. No disrespect intended to you, but it’s not something I can just tell you either.”
“Ah…” He makes a concerned frown, but nods anyway. “I think I understand. For you to take it so seriously, it must be something that is best not known.”
“Yep! Glad we agree. And thanks! I promise I won’t keep you waiting too long this time!” And with that, she gives him a wave of her hand and starts off for the door.
He watches her go with a somewhat concerned look. “…Ruby-dono.”
She whips back around with bright, wide eyes. “Yes?”
He then suggests with a solemn tone, “I know it hasn’t been too long since we’ve met, so I apologize if I may be stepping out of line. But it’s okay. There’s no need to hide your troubles from me. I know whatever it was that you’ve been through, it must have been extremely difficult for you.”
“…” And just like that, her flimsy façade of cheeriness begins to crumble away as her forced smile fades.
“As I said, you don’t have to tell me, but at the very least I hope you’ll open up to Cloud eventually.”
She turns away with a morose, almost guilty look, now feeling too uneasy to face him. “Cloud, huh…”
“Though all of your friends were concerned about you, I could tell he was the most deeply hurt to see you fall ill. Even while I led you and your friends here, he refused to let anyone else hold you.”
Just like that, she feels a stinging pang in her heart. She blinks once and then twice, and a few times more, and now she realizes just how close she really is to tearing up again. She nods back without turning his way. “Of course, sir. He deserves to know.”
“Thank you. And I promise to uphold my end as well. Safe travels, and I will be waiting for you at the House of Parliament later tonight.”
“Thank you, sir. You too.”
She takes a few steps toward the door, but then stops in her tracks just as she reaches the doorway. The sense of unease from earlier has grown to a fever pitch itself, and she begins to feel sick in her stomach.
Zangan has started cleaning up his table when he notices her. “…Ruby-dono? Is something the matter?”
She holds a hand over her mouth, as if she were ready to hurl. Before she can help herself, her tears have welled up to blur her vision and she lets them fall.
“…” He nods back, catching on. “Take all the time you need.” After setting aside his things to their places, he also fetches the tea tray again. “And if you would like another cup, there is plenty more here.”
She wipes away those stray tears and sniffs hard, trying to find her composure again. “Now’s not the time to cry. I have work to do. So many people are relying on me.”
But he insists, “There’s no shame in shedding tears. Just being in the position you are in would make anyone waver.”
“Well… I put myself into this position.”
“All the same. Do whatever it is that you must, but remember that the pinnacle of strength is not the one who can stand up to anything, but the one who stands even knowing they may fall.”
“Right…” She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “I’m okay. I can do this.” She then admits aloud, “…With their help. But in the meantime, it doesn’t hurt to give them a little more edge.”
“Oh? I see you have a plan.”
She now turns back around to him with a genuine and much calmer smile. “I was thinking… maybe I could upgrade their current equipment. If I recall correctly, the weapons shop in Wutai should have plenty.” She then makes a concerned frown. “Ah, but from what I remember, we may be running a bit low on gil…”
“Ah, weapons… Very well. One moment, please.”
“Hm?”
Zangan sets the tea tray on the table and goes to fetch a pen and paper from a closet. He scribbles up a quick note and then hands it over to her.
“Take this with you. It so happens that I’m well acquainted with the owner of that shop. I’m sure he won’t mind exchange through barter if you’re running short on gil.”
Finally, a burst of delight brings a sparkle back to her eyes. “Zangan, you’re amazing!” she squeals, and to the surprise of the elderly man, she even gives him a tight hug.
“Oof… Y-you’re welcome.”
She begins to giggle maniacally as she looks over the note in her hands. “Imagine all the sway I’d have with this! Zangan’s pretty much a celebrity all around the world. I bet I could sweet-talk my way out of making a lot of purchases. Hehehehe…”
“…” He rubs his head. “I would’t count on that. It’s more that I’m fairly well known around these parts.”
Paying his last words no mind, Ruby bounces back with pep in her step and hops giddly out the door, waving a hand behind her. “Thanks, Sensei! I’ll be back soon!”
He watches her zip away and shortly blink out of existence in a flash of light. He then lets off a sigh, but then makes a warm smile. Though there may be many troubles she will have to face down the line, at least she’s feeling better now.
~
Ruby has warped right before the old weapons shop by the center of town, just a couple blocks down from the central detention center and penitenciary. She bursts in through the hanging curtains with the note raised in the air.
“Excuse me! I have a special request!”
Everyone in the shop gasps with looks of what seems like horror and she stops in confusion. Suddenly, they’re scrambling to throw themselves at her feet and she gets a sinking feeling.
“Uh…”
“We must apologize for the shoddy state of this place! We were not expecting such an esteemed guest!”
Yep, her suspicions were right. This is going to be a pain. “…It’s okay. I don’t mind.”
“Oh, your kindness and generosity are truly renowned!” Then, the elderly-looking shop owner raises his head with hands clasped together and eyes shining. “To think that the great Yue-hua-sama would appear right at our doorstep! It’s an absolute honor, Your Radiance!”
“…” Ruby feels a sting upon hearing that name again. “Please stand. And call me Rubia.”
“Ah, of course, Rubia-sama!”
All of the staff climb back to their feet. Almost like a crowd of excited children, they go about and approach her again with various objects, some of which are weapons from the shop and others seem to be clothes or picture frames. They all present their gifts to her with delightfully glittering eyes.
“Please, choose whatever you’d like! We have no reservations for someone of your grace!”
“And can you please sign this?”
“No, wait! Sign mine first!”
“No, please, sign my hands!”
“…” She makes the most exhausted face and gives a sigh, conceding defeat. “I don’t have a pen.”
And like magic, everyone suddenly is holding out a pen for her. She casually accepts each of their items and goes ahead and signs a few things, even some of the weapons that she was presented. Two of the staff who had been holding them exchange surprised looks and then set them down in a safe place – marking them as no longer for sale.
“Oh, me! Oh, my!”
“She really signed it! Oh, I’m so happy!”
“Eek! I’m never washing these hands again!”
Ruby gives some suspect side-eye to the fanatic young lady who offered her own hands, and on second thought, decides it’s not worth arguing about. She instead turns her attention back to the shop owner, who’s admiring the newly framed signature he’s hung on his wall.
“Incidentally, sir…”
He whips back around and stands at attention. “Oh! Y-yes, Your Radiance? How may I help?”
She passes him the note. “I was informed that you’re an acquaintance of Zangan’s…”
He blinks in shock and nods back. “That I am… but I didn’t realize Zangan was back. He hasn’t been one to make his return well known.”
Her eyes flicker to a curiosity that catches her ear. “Zangan, huh… no honorific?”
“Ah! My apologies, Your Radiance.” He nods back. “Yes, as you may surmise, we have a bit of history. In fact, he and I used to be fellow students when we once trained under the same master back in our youths.”
Now her eyes light up. “Oh! Nice.”
“Unfortunately, following a couple scandals around his reputation, he had to leave the country for a while. To be honest, I wasn’t sure if he would ever return… but I’m glad to hear that he’s doing well.”
“Ah, yeah, I heard a bit. I’m not sure if I may be able to help with that, but I do hope he regains his good name around here sometime.”
“Oh, if there’s anything you can do for him, that would be wonderful!” He then lowers his voice to admit, “To be perfectly honest, I had my suspicions around how this new government was formed, but there’s no doubt in my mind that Zangan left at an opportune time.”
“Really?”
“Yes.” He then shakes his head. “Though, I’m not in the position to speak about it. I only know what I’ve heard through rumors that have gone around.”
“Ah, no worries. I’ll have a chance to chat with some of those officials soon enough.”
“Hm?” He blinks again and then gasps. “Oh! Rubia-sama, you intend to speak with them?”
“They did invite me in for some discussion. I just haven’t had the time to meet them yet.”
“Ah, but of course.” He takes another bow. “There are many in this country who would wish to meet with you, after all.”
“Please, no need for formalities. I’m only here as a customer.”
He stands back up. “To be honest, I was honestly considering simply giving away anything you would ask of us.”
She actually feels stung by that remark. “You still have a business to run! I’m not here to rob people!”
“Ah! O-of course, Your Radiance!” He huddles again with his hands in prayer. “I did not mean to offend you! Please, take a look around as you wish, and if you have something to exchange for it, I’d be happy to accept.”
That being said, the staff around the shop watch Ruby carefully as she swipes up a number of weapons, one for each of the main party. There are nine members in all, excluding herself, Sonon, and the Avalanche trio. And now that she reminds herself, Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge are now part of the gang too, but she isn’t as familiar with the weapons they’d wield. Maybe she can get away with supplementing some firepower for now? Though, aside from the gun for Vincent, this shop isn’t the most loaded with bigger guns. Eventually, she may just need to construct her own. However, there is one thing she can get for Sonon: there’s this cool-looking dragon-coiled silver staff resting at the highest rack above the rest on display.
“Ah, Rubia-sama, that staff…” the shop owner begins, but then changes his mind and leaves her be.
“Hm? What of it?” she asks.
“Oh, it’s nothing!” he quickly fumbles out an answer, “It’s actually a reserved item that’s not for sale, but perhaps it would be better in your hands after all.”
“Reserved?”
“Yes. This staff is one-of-a-kind, a custom-made design inspired by and dedicated to an old master of mine.”
“The same master that taught you and Zangan, perhaps?”
“Indeed. It was he who founded and passed down to us the school of the Raging Tempest Fist.”
“Ah, perfect. Then I know just the guy who’d use it.”
“Oh? Are you acquainted with the school, Your Radiance?”
“Yeah, in a way. I know a young man who’s the latest successor to it – and who I trust to be the bearer of a certain great spirit.”
“…” The elderly shopkeep nods with understanding. “Very well. Then, we shall leave it in your capable hands.”
Though the shop owner has offered all of this to her for free, she estimates the total cost to be around… 50000 gil, give or take, based on what she remembers of prices around here and that’s not counting the reserved staff. Weapons are expensive, after all. She sighs to herself as she calls up the inventory menu and browses around. This may be a little concerning. Does she even have any items worthy of trade? A number of their items on hand aren’t anywhere close to being equal in worth, aside from the occasional Elixir that can’t be sold or bartered. The rest are gifts that she received from others and she’d feel bad to just give them away. So, what can she offer in these trying times?
Ah, screw it. When in doubt, just wing it! To the awe and wonder of her audience, Ruby clasps her hands together and forms another pure white materia within her grasp. She then offers the faintly glowing orb to the stunned shop owner. “Take this. It’ll more than cover your costs today.”
“Y-Your Radiance… what is this materia?”
“It’s mine. But I have to warn you, this one doesn’t work like other Summon materia. I won’t be coming to you if you call on me. In fact, I’d advise that you not use it and keep it safe and out of anyone else’s hands.”
“Oh my goodness! I can’t accept this!”
“I’m lending it for now. I don’t have anything else to exchange at the moment, and I’m not leaving without giving up something. If I find something of fairer value, I’ll come back and make good on this exchange.”
“Ah… Well, if you insist. Thank you very much, Your Radiance. We are indebted to you.”
Ruby rolls her eyes, but more to hide her discomfort and guilt. On one hand, she does feel bad for basically forcing them to accept an IOU, but on the other hand, she doesn’t have time to slot in additional gil-making sidequests right now. And she’s had enough of hanging out with that asshole in the Debug Room. She enters all the weapons’ data into her inventory bank, flashing them out of view like magic, and waves a hand behind her as she strolls on out the door. The entire staff watch her go in stunned silence, and they all bow with earnest appreciation.
~
Ruby’s next destination takes her back to Midgar – specifically the president’s office at the top floor of Shinra HQ. She figured she could just drop in a visit to Rufus and he wouldn’t refuse to see her… but when she arrives, she finds that the office is completely empty. No Rufus, no Turks, not even any of his fellow executives. Where is he? Surely, he isn’t still back in Junon, right? It’s been long enough since they left!
Just to be sure, she warps off to that same office overlooking Junon Harbor. And once again, she finds the place empty. Oh, come on! Where the hell is Rufus!? How is she supposed to threaten him if she can’t even find him!?
She stomps on out the main door and down the hall with an increasingly grumpy frown. She doesn’t even bother to sneak around or take any care as she makes her way out, and some Shinra patrol waiting down the hall freak out when they see her.
“What!? Isn’t that…?”
“It’s the white dragon girl!”
“The intruder who attacked the president!?”
“What are you fools gawking at!?” their commanding officer orders, “That’s a Class-S wanted criminal! Shoot! Shoot!!”
And so they fire on her – or try to. But to their horror, she doesn’t even bother dodging and takes every bullet, all of which harmlessly bounce off of her.
“Sir! Our attacks aren’t working!”
“What in the… Gah! She’s not stopping! Retreat! Retreaat!!” the officer shouts instead.
And as soon as the patrol started firing, they stop and turn tail. And despite all that just happened, Ruby calmly heads out the exit door and slides down the ladder to ground level, where even more patrolmen happen to be stationed.
“!?”
“It’s the Class-S criminal!?”
“AAAAAHHH!!”
“Run! Don’t let her get you!”
Ruby just watches the rest of them run away too, and by now she’s starting to feel a little ticked off. As she would discover, it’s even more annoying to be seen as the Boogeyman than as a worshipped celebrity. And with a single lunge sparking with white light, she catches two of the fleeing soldiers, who almost squeak with fright when they realize they’ve been caught.
“P-P-Please! Don’t kill us!!”
“We mean no harm!”
“We’re good soldiers, really!”
“We wouldn’t harm a fly!”
She snorts. “I’m not gonna kill you. I just wanna ask if you know where the president is.”
The two grunts stop struggling and hang limply in her grasp, looking like life-sized ragdolls being dragged on the ground. But then they turn to each other, looking rather confused.
“The president… Wait. Didn’t he head back to Midgar already?”
“Yeah, that’s what I heard. But I also heard he was moving to a safe bunker so he wouldn’t be found so easily.”
“Ah, right. That makes sense.”
“I guess we don’t have to worry about him, then.”
“Y-yeah… but what about us?”
“Urp…”
The two grunts look back up to her, and while they still have helmets on, Ruby gets the impression they’re staring at her with puppy-dog eyes. Unimpressed but still willing to relent, she lets them go and lets them drop to the ground together. Grateful to escape with their lives, the two grunts hightail it outta there.
Ruby watches them go, but she feels a nerve pop in her head. “That slick son of a gun. He went the Hojo route. Who knows, maybe they’re somewhere in the same place… meaning, I have no idea where that is!” She ends her mutterings with a high-pitched shriek. “Damn it! Now who am I supposed to threaten!? I need answers!”
But of course, no one answers her because the entire grounds here have been cleared. Even with the alarm sounding off about her arrival, no other troops dare to approach.
She growls with a low and dangerous voice, “I guess I’ll have to find Tseng? But I doubt he’d be in his office either. He’s too smart to just leave himself open. And what about the other Turks? Do I just stop by Wutai again and hope I run into some? Damn it all…”
With an angry huff and smoky snort from her nose, she jumps up into the air and warps away once more. Finally, she brings herself back aboard the Highwind, hoping to find some help from Jessie, who may be the best one to help her locate some roaming Turks. However, as soon as she arrives on deck, she comes upon an odd scene, one in the midst of some sort of incident.
The Highwind crew have all taken cover, scattered around the area. On the side, Tseng and his protégé sniper stand by the back door as if they were keeping watch. Leslie is sitting on the ground, looking frightened and helpless as if he had just been knocked over. His gun seems to have been knocked away and is lying on the floor nearby. And in the center of the deck is the dark-skinned Soldier that she saw once before, with an unconscious Cid still slung over his shoulder. Unfortunately, Jessie has been knocked out and is sprawled on the floor before him, and Cait Sith and Moogle are trying to tend to her.
Ruby blinks, looking dumbfounded. “…The hell is this?” she raises an arm up and asks aloud.
“!?”
Now everyone’s eyes are on her. There’s a collective gasp and just a hint of relief or otherwise that comes over the various people here. And quick to react as usual, Zhui raises his rifle to aim.
Cait Sith cries out with joy, “Ruby!? Lassie, you’re finally back!”
“Zhui, stand down. You’re not her match,” Tseng warns him. “Leave this to the Soldier.”
“Ugh… When am I gonna get my chance, then?” his protégé mutters bitterly as he lowers that gun.
For now, though, Ruby’s attention is on the Soldier who seems to be the one responsible for knocking out two of her friends. He likewise returns her a stone-cold stare as if he knows no fear and casually drops Cid to the floor as well. But that helmet over his face is what irks her the most. He just wrangled with her pals and won’t even show his face? Time to change that.
There’s an unspoken call to battle in their silent exchange. In the next instant, the two lunge at each other to clash sword to bare claws. She throws out a few casual jabs, each of which he is able to deflect or block, but she studies him carefully with each attack she does. However, just this short moment is all she needs. She slips in past his guard when he tries to counterattack, moving through the air as if a paper waving to the wind, and seizes him by the neck. With her other hand, she wrenches that helmet off of his face.
It’s not a face that she recognizes. But that’s only natural; she doesn’t know too many black Soldiers from the original game, even if there may or may not have been another from a different game in the series. This young man is a serious-looking fella with slick corn rolls running across his head and a jawline so sharp that it could probably cut something itself. But what really catches her eye are his eyes: though his eye color is of a darker shade than expected, that’s not the weird thing. They kinda look like they’re shot… or even dead?
No, it’s not just her imagination; this man is strange in many ways. As soon as she flung off his helmet, the man’s stoic expression slips into an almost catatonic-looking state and his body goes limp in her grasp. More than that, even the warmth of his skin quickly fades away, as if any sort of vitality in him just up and vanishes. And in a matter of seconds, the once threatening and nigh unbeatable Soldier goes still and stiff… like rigor mortis. Alarmed, she gives the man a check for a pulse against his neck, but finds it has gone as well. No beating heart either.
She looks up at Tseng with a highly disturbed look, and the latter seems honestly surprised himself. “This man is dead.”
“What? That’s impossible!” Zhui argues, “How did you kill him?”
“I didn’t.”
“Don’t bullshit me! You crushed his windpipe or something? What the hell happened?”
“…” Tseng then grimaces to himself as he recalls a certain detail about this Soldier and now all the pieces fall into place. “No… this was bound to happen.”
“Huh?”
He turns back to Ruby with a solemn, almost condoling frown. “I wasn’t sure what would be the reaction if someone of his unit came into contact with her, but it seems the professor’s theory was spot-on. The reaction happened much faster than I expected, though.”
She gives him a suspicious frown too. “Figures Hojo would be involved… So, what unit was this Soldier from?”
“A special class of Soldier… one supplemented with the agent known as ARC.”
“ARC…”
“What the!?” Leslie blurts out all of a sudden.
“Hm?”
He’s grown alarmed too. “I don’t know what’s the deal with it, but from what I heard while Jessie was talking with the others, that’s the stuff the smuggling ring has been trading.”
“…” Ruby fires off another suspicious glare at Tseng.
For once, though, the Turk has little reason to keep hiding. He makes a sigh and concedes an explanation, “This agent is a classified product that isn’t available to be sold on the open market. It was created as one of the results from Project Immortals.”
And just like that, she catches on immediately and grows furious. “Shinra’s been dabbling with my cells and injecting them into Soldier!? Do you fools have any idea what that would do!?”
“I’m sure you have many questions, but that’s the extent of my knowledge. If you wish to know more, I’ll leave the rest to the president to explain.”
She lowers the dead man to the floor and stomps up to him with a renewed fire in her eyes. “Where is Rufus?”
Tseng then takes out a radio transceiver from his pocket and hits a button to activate it. And shortly after the transceiver connects, a familiar cool-headed voice begins to speak.
“If you’re opening this now, then I assume Ruby is present?”
“She is, sir. You have the floor,” Tseng replies.
“Very well. Thank you for coming, Ruby. Sorry that I wasn’t available in my office to meet you, but it’s for the best that we not meet face to face for now.”
Ruby snorts indignantly and grumbles back, “You with Hojo right now?”
“Not at all. That man works on his own schedule. I hear he’s holed up in another lab.”
“Well, whatever. I’ve been meaning to ask you about Project Immortals, but it so happens that I just ran into one of Hojo’s test subjects.”
“Ah, the First-Class Soldier. So what did you think?”
“What did I think… The man is dead!” she ends with a yell.
“Ah. So it was insufficient after all.”
She gets up close to the transceiver as she hisses into the speaker, “You had better explain what is going on, man, or I’m heading back to Midgar’s underground and flipping the entirety of Deepground topside.”
And yet, he remains as cold as ever. “I’m plenty aware of what you’re capable of. Why else would I be talking with you?”
“…Then talk.”
Notes:
Just a couple new character names dropped, but I think I'll wait until a bit later to reveal name origins.
In the meantime, my apologies to Cid, but Rufus hype! I'm glad I finally got to bring Ruby back too.
And uh, yes, let's pretend those two Shinra grunts she caught were the same two that Cloud once befriended while he was in disguise in Junon in the OG.
Chapter 45: Blinded by the Light
Notes:
Sorry that I didn't get this in by Halloween, but this chapter and the next are diving into something I have never really tried writing before... existential horror. Wish me luck!
Outdated A/N
11/28/24 edit: Sorry, next chapter will be ready by tomorrow. I wrote most of it when I finally decided that, no, this can be better, and I rewrote almost everything. We're coming to the end of the Wutai arc soon. I'd better make this end just right.
Chapter Text
Not again. Just when she thought she was done dealing hands with Death, Ruby would find herself with the body of another life that was reaped before she could do anything. She figured this scuffle would be brief but interesting in its own right. Here was a new type of enemy she had yet to encounter, and for just a moment there, she met a bit of resistance to her light, fanciful strikes. Finally, a decent fight without some express burden to bear. Finally, she thought, Shinra has brought forward a worthy opponent to match her… but instead it’s only brought her even stranger mysteries that egg on her frustration.
“This guy wasn’t an ordinary Soldier, was he?” she asks grimly.
“That’s right. We wouldn’t have sent just any Soldier to meet you,” Rufus explains as calmly as ever, “He’s from a special unit of Soldier made up of voluntary candidates who submitted themselves to testing under Project Immortals.”
Ruby’s eyes narrow with doubt. “Voluntary…?”
He ignores her comment, though. “These subjects were administered with the chemical agent known as ARC, or the Amalgamate Remnant Catalyst, to test for reactions. It was made from the DNA of the white dragon that was discovered in the Northern Crater… In other words, you.”
“…”
“We started off with a wide pool of subjects, mostly from our forces. And yet, even when supplying some of our finest, there was only a slim fraction that were declared ‘successes’ and allowed to be released. As it turned out, the lucky few were all Soldier.”
“…”
“I don’t have all the sciency details there, but maybe it was the mako treatment or the Jenova cells that helped them survive past the initial decomposition stage. Who can say, really…”
By now, there’s a growing suspicion that swings to the forefront of her mind and she has to ask it, “Was Sephiroth a part of this project too?”
“No. He refused to participate. That went as well for some of his fellow colleagues. This small unit was comprised of volunteers, after all.”
She swears silently under her breath. That bastard managed to escape the worst yet again. She then asks another one, “How did you even convince people to volunteer? Were they aware they could be walking into a death trap?”
“Yes, they were notified prior to when testing began. We also limited the entrants to those deemed the most likely to survive, so there were none from the infantry, for instance.”
She goes quiet with a hint of relief. Thank God that Cloud was barred, or she really wouldn’t have been able to live with herself. Still, she has to raise the point, “Funny, I wouldn’t have expected such strict adherence to some code of ethics after these Soldier already underwent the Jenova treatment.”
“I’ll state for the record that Shinra always operates with ethics in mind, particularly if they concern our prized forces.”
“That is absolutely a bold-faced lie that you just said,” she growls. “What, if anything, about this program can be said to be ‘ethical’?”
As expected, he doesn’t answer her there and moves on like usual business. “As I mentioned before, the tests were largely inconclusive save for these lucky few. However, even suriving the initial stage was no guarantee that they could be released. Instead, they could only return to the force by equipping specialized helmets that were specifically modified for their use and they were to remain on at all times.”
“Specialized helmets?”
“They aren’t the standard issue for Soldier. These ones have devices attached that would regularly monitor and maintain certain brain activity, especially for mobility.”
“So they help the Soldier be able to move like a normal person, even when the rest of their mind is screwed.”
“Exactly. It wouldn’t do us much good if they weren’t able to, you know, fight.”
Ruby grimaces to herself. “So that’s why this guy didn’t ever say a word. He was mentally disabled…”
“…”
As more dots connect, she grows more disturbed and clutches her head as she feels a migraine come on. “And that’s why he died after that helmet came off. Because I removed his life support…”
Rufus considers something for a moment and then casually brings it up, “That reminds me, Hojo did mention something before. Apparently, even the successful subjects were almost declared failures since they basically became de-”
“Shut up!” she snaps back, “Project Immortals is just all kinds of messed up! Why hasn’t this program been shut down yet!?”
“Because it is still a marvel of human engineering. As the name suggests, it can and has produced fighters that are effectively immortal. These Soldiers are incredibly resistant to damage thanks to their extreme recovery rate, even to the effects of many kinds of toxins, and they don’t even show a sign of aging.” He also adds just to rub it in, “Not to mention, since a certain infamous subject of ours disappeared without a trace for 30 years, we haven’t had any other options to correct for those that ended up as failures.”
“Don’t put this on me,” she snarls, “As soon as you became president, you could have shut this program down for good! It should have been filed and shelved as a stupid-ass idea that no sane person would ever touch.”
“It’s easy to come to conclusions in hindsight, but who would have known what would come of it? Until this moment when the Soldier came in contact with you, we had no idea how they would react to the source of their power. I was hoping for more than just ‘dead’, but it can’t be helped.”
“By Bahamut’s Flame, I will incinerate you slowly and painfully if you don’t call off the program right now.”
“Even if I did, what good would that do? It’d just stifle what further research can be done and what can be learned from the ‘failures’. Or, don’t tell me, are you really able to save these people from their permanent comas? Then why not stop by our labs so you can get to that?”
“…”
“That’s what I thought.” He lets off an audible sigh. “Thus, as unfortunate as the situation may be, Shinra technology is the only thing that is capable of keeping them in stasis for the time being. If you ever figure out a way to ‘free’ them, though, I’ll be happy to take up your suggestion.”
“…I’ll figure something out.”
“Mm-hm. In the meantime, may I suggest that you focus on a different issue at hand?”
“What now!?”
“Remember that time you and your friends stopped by a certain underground lab below Sector 8?”
“Uh… yeah?”
“They were in that part of Deepground where certain subjects were undergoing further experimentation under the same project umbrella. I’m sure you guys met some of the modified troops.”
“What?” Ruby blinks and a look of horror slowly dawns on her. “No… Those guys are also…?”
“The program has continued to this day, after all. I’m sure you can guess what happened to them.”
“You…!” she seethes with desperation, “Where the hell is Hojo hiding? If you rat him out, I promise I’ll make your death painless!”
“No deal… unless you’re willing to accept the one we discussed last time.”
“No, dammit! You’re not getting the Promised Land either!”
He deftly moves on without a hitch, “Anyway, Hojo later discovered an alternate way to administer ARC without direct injection, and this allowed his team to expand the pool of subjects beyond Soldier. Though it wasn’t to the same extent as our initial few, this method still produced a similar effect – just on a lesser and more manageable scale.”
By now, she’s starting to feel that familiar dread creeping up her back. “Don’t tell me…”
“Oh, you have an idea already? Well, it was obvious enough.”
“…The air vents.” Her eyes grow wide as she catches on. “That was the smell that Red and I picked up.”
“And I doubt you all were properly outfitted with protective gear, so…”
Ruby lets off a vicious roar that nearly knocks Tseng away and even makes the transceiver vibrate. “You haven’t won anything yet! They’re gonna be fine! I’ll see to that!”
There’s a moment of silence before Rufus returns to speak again, “…Right. When you figure out an answer, please let us know. It would be a real shame if we lost the last living Cetra, barring yourself, to some ill-fated reaction to your own DNA.”
She hisses at him. “Not happening. I didn’t save all the people I did so far just to let some inconvenience weigh me down.”
“Hmph. ‘Inconvenience’, huh…” He shrugs it off and moves on as usual, “In any case, we won’t be shutting down Project Immortals until we’ve found sufficient use of the resources it’s provided us. And besides, as long as you still exist, the possibilities – and potential threats – are endless.”
“Oh, I’ll be an endless threat to you all you’d like…”
He then casually suggests, “Oh, yeah. I have one other favor to ask.”
“What?” she answers flatly, feeling quite done by now.
“If you could help put the Soldier’s helmet back on, that would be great.”
“Why do I have to do it!? When have I ever heeded your command, you blanched party popper!?”
“I’ve been informed that the Soldier can be reinstated if you do.”
She blinks a few times to that. “…Huh?”
But with that off-handed comment, Rufus takes his leave. He signs off, “As we agreed before, you’re obligated to act as the mediator between us and the new Wutai government. I’ll leave the rest to you and our designated Turks.”
The call ends and Tseng returns the device to a pocket. Increasingly perplexed and on edge, Ruby now turns back to the deceased man with a wary curiosity and returns to his side. She takes the helmet she had knocked away earlier and sets it back on. And by some miracle, practically signature to the level of bullshit that borrowing Rubia’s body has granted her, the man begins to stir alive once more. It’s like a computer that has been started up and takes a moment to load in all the pertinent files. At first, it’s just the beating pulse that returns, then the warmth that fills the rest of the body, and finally the crackling of nerves as the once still body resumes its momentary motion.
Everyone, including Ruby, is shocked to witness the impossible. What was a dead corpse is somehow revived as if his subscription to life has just been renewed. He pulls up into a sitting position and then climbs to his feet as if nothing had just happened. He stares off into space, as silent as ever, but honestly Ruby would prefer it stays that way now that she knows what’s been done to him.
Zhui happens to be the first to break the silence. “…Unbelievable,” he mutters, “They can just get back up? They really are immortal…”
“Y-yeesh… It’s like a horror story come to life,” Cait Sith remarks with a nervous sigh. “But I guess it’s a bit better than him just keelin’ over without doing much…”
“Shinra’s been making freaks like this guy all this time? ‘Insane’ doesn’t even cover it…” Leslie mumbles to himself in disbelief and dread.
“Welcome back,” Tseng greets the Soldier, who appears to be back in operation. “Raise a hand if you can hear me.”
But there’s something a little different about the guy. Rather than heed anything that Tseng says to him, the man remains still as if patiently awaiting orders from a different source.
“…Hello? Do you hear me?”
“Hey! Are you deaf? You’re able to move again, so respond!” Zhui makes it more demanding.
And yet, the man doesn’t even turn their way. He continues to stare off into space as if some important connection had been reset and needs to be reconfigured. The Turks exchange confused glances, but it’s pretty clear that they’re no longer in control.
Proud to be the monkey wrench, Ruby turns their way with a smug smirk of her own. “Well, that’s that, then.”
“Huh?” Zhui looks visibly pissed to hear that from her. “Don’t get cocky just because you think you’ve won.”
But unlike his feisty protégé, Tseng is a bit more nervous about how things have developed. He cautiously suggests to Ruby, “Can you try to talk to him?”
“Me? Why? He’s perfectly quiet and not attacking my friends like this.”
“Please. It’s just to confirm a suspicion.”
“…” She raises an eyebrow and shrugs back. “Fine.” So, she whips back over to the unresponsive man and waves a hand before his face. “Hey. Can you hear me? Give me a sign.”
What happens next gets everyone even more disturbed than they already were. In fact, out of the blue, the black Soldier takes a step back and drops down on one knee before her. He even responds through voice: “…Your Radiance, I have been waiting for you.”
“!?”
“Y-y-yipes!!” Cait Sith and Moogle dive back behind Leslie this time, while the latter just stays where he is, as he’s frozen up too. “He… he speaks! He really said somethin’! But… ‘Your Radiance’?” Cait then stares hard at her. “Blimey, lass, you really do work miracles, huh?”
Ruby flinches and recoils a bit, now realizing just what can of worms that she had just opened up. “I didn’t ask for this. Make it stop.”
“What!? You gotta be kidding me! How can she be this lucky…?” Zhui rages under his breath.
Tseng is likewise alarmed, but has no comment for now. As a certain scientist once theorized, it seems that control over the ARC is ultimately relegated to the one from which it was derived in the first place.
Though she’s just as wary, her curiosity does push her to pursue questioning. She stands up straight and addresses the young man as if she were his superior, “Soldier, state your full name and hometown if you still remember them.”
He stands at attention as well and promptly answers, “Cole Chinedu. North Corel.”
Ruby blinks, taken aback. “Corel? The old mining town?”
“Affirmative. It’s been more than 10 years since I last left the town.”
“And are you aware of what happened to it since?”
“Yes… more or less. The town was burned down due to a terrorist attack upon the reactor to its north.”
She sinks a little. Even Shinra propaganda has made it into this poor sap’s head. Even worse, she gets the feeling that he hasn’t been able to voice his opinions since he subjected himself to testing either. This project may be even crueler than even the Jenova Project in some ways. At least people given Jenova cells have some semblance of humanity left before they degrade or go insane, or both. These guys don’t even have a voice to talk.
“At ease, Soldier. You may stand.” As he obliges, she also asks, “By the way, do you know someone by the name Barret Wallace? He also came from that town.”
“Barret Wallace…” Though his face is covered up by that faceless helmet, she seems to catch onto a subtle hint of sadness in his heart. And as if she had somehow triggered something, even his emotionless voice now bears some emotion after all: “I knew him. He was a favorite around town back in the day when we were just a coal-mining town, him and Dyne. People coulda said they were just coal miners, but they were more. Even though they still had their wives and kids, they were always active in helpin’ out the community. They were the faces of our town, even more than the mayor sometimes. I used to look up to them myself. These were men who had a real impact.”
“…”
“But it’s been a while since those days. After I joined Soldier, I heard about the bombing on the North Corel reactor. They said it was done by a group callin’ themselves ‘Avalanche’. I wanted to go to see for myself, but… I was stuck in Midgar thanks to being caught up in this experiment.”
“…”
“But even when they kept me cooped up, I caught the news. Learned that Barret was a part of ‘Avalanche’. He was one of those that bombed Mako Reactor 1, even. I couldn’t believe it, but I also hadn’t gone back home for so long. Who knows what happened to ’em…”
By now, Ruby has heard enough. Whether this man is alive or dead or somewhere in-between thanks to the experiments done on him, she’s now convinced that his spirit never left his body. Her tone softens, but she speaks sternly to correct him.
“Cole, it’s okay. I know the whole truth about Corel. Sorry to say, Shinra has been lying to you. Avalanche was there, no doubt, but it was Shinra troops that stormed the town and the company covered it up by blaming Avalanche.”
“…” The man goes silent once again, but she knows he can hear her now.
“It’s been a while and Avalanche has changed too. The group that Barret is a part of now is not the same as the Avalanche back then.” She admits sullenly, “He may have been one of them who tried to bomb Mako Reactor 1, but they were sabotaged when the reactor was set to self-destruct.”
“…”
“Barret hasn’t changed since the old days. It’s the world that’s changed around him.” She then shakes her head. “But you don’t have to take my word for it. You can ask the guy himself. I’ll help you two reunite soon.”
Yet, as if leaving through a temporary transition, he now returns to his emotionless self and replies as stoically as before, “…Your Radiance, I trust your word.”
She’s a little startled to hear that all of a sudden. “Huh? Really?”
“You returned me my voice. I have no reason to doubt what you tell me.”
“…”
“If it is your wish, I will serve you dutifully as a servant of Your Holiness.”
By now, she’s starting to feel a bit uneasy again. “Uh…”
“Hey! Whoa! What’s going on here?” Zhui cuts back in, “He’s one of ours! You can’t just take him!”
Yet, Tseng now remains silent with a bitter frown, as if he’d already come to a different conclusion.
“Boss, you talk to him! He can’t just disobey us, can he?”
He shakes his head. “I’ve already tried. It’s clear that he’s only responding to Ruby now.”
“What the hell!? What’s with this stupid dragon!? She keeps taking things away from us and getting away with…” But now Zhui drifts off as he realizes he’s said too much.
Ruby raises an eyebrow. “Sorry, but do I know you?”
“…” He looks aside with an obstinate frown. “No, forget it. Do what you want. We can’t stop you anyway.”
She watches him carefully for a bit, but he doesn’t look her way again. She then rolls her eyes aside, now even more confused than she was earlier. Clearly, Rubia’s influence is all over this world, but now she wonders where these new Turks have been popping up from and why they generally seem to despise her.
Well, it’s not her problem. They barked up the wrong tree and got smacked in the face. She turns back to Cole and politely asks him, “If you would be a dear, please escort these two suited gentlemen off the ship. You’re welcome to stay with us, though.”
And just like that, the Turks now find themselves cornered deep in enemy territory, with one of their former allies turning against them. With a righteous vengeance burning in his eyes once more, Cole struts forward just a step or two, and the Turks back off for the door.
Tseng shakes his head. “It’s about time we take our leave. In the meantime, Ruby, remember to fulfill your end of the bargain.”
He and Zhui quickly hurry off with Cole giving a calm and steady pursuit to make sure they do get off the ship. Ruby then lets off a sigh and turns back to Cait Sith and the rest.
“What a mess. I don’t know how it started, but now I can’t stop picking up random strangers,” she sarcastically quips.
Cait shakes his head too, still in disbelief. “Ye really are a special one, alright, lass… in the good way, o’ course! This makes things way easier without the Turks or Soldier on our tail.”
By now, Leslie has recovered from his shock. He fetches his gun and slips it back into a pocket, and then climbs back to his feet. “But how did Shinra even know where to find us? Didn’t Jessie say your phones were untraceable?”
The cat then makes a bit of a sad, worried look himself. “Aye, she did…”
“…” He folds his arms as he processes it, but decides to move on. “Well, now that Ruby’s back, we can finally get back on track, I hope. Feels like we’ve stalled around here long enough.”
Ruby drops back down to check on her downed friends. With a whip of her hands, she sends a healing pulse of magic running through their bodies, and their health is completely restored.
“Ugh… huh?” Jessie mutters, clutching her head, but is surprised to know that it doesn’t hurt. She looks back up and gasps with relief, “Ruby! You made it!”
Cid sits back up with a grumble, “Goddamn it… I swear I had ’im.”
Jessie climbs back to her feet and pats herself down. “And the Soldier? Did you send them running?”
“Yeah. Though, I have to say that Soldier switched sides. He’s with us now.”
She stops mid-pat and stares back. “Huh?”
“What!?” Now Cid jumps back to his feet. “That bastard! Then why’d he attack us in the first place!?”
“He was under orders, but then changed his mind when I showed up.”
He gives her an utterly disappointed frown. “The hell did you do? Talk him up?”
“Uh…” She shyly rubs her head. “In a way, yeah.”
“Damn…” He then gives in and shakes his head. “So I got my ass beat for nothin’? Ain’t that just great…”
She smiles a little, but tries not to make it too obvious. “Anyway, what’s the sitch, guys? I’ve just woken up a little while ago myself and went on a shopping trip.”
“Shopping, really…” Cid grumbles, “Get your head in the game, kid! We’re here on a mission, not a vacation.”
“For weapons,” she adds.
“Huh?”
She summons the slim and elegant Slash Lance into hand and hands it to him. “Here you go. I’ll pass out the rest when they get back.”
His frown immediately disappears and is replaced with a genuine look of surprise and delight. “Oh… Alright then. Thanks.”
While Cid happily starts swinging around his new polearm, much to the caution of his own crewmates, Ruby turns back to Jessie. “So, how’s it going?”
Jessie lets off a sigh of her own. “Not the best, but at least we made some progress. The last we heard from Cloud, Corneo got away and we have no idea where he’s gone. But Barret’s gang were able to hijack a truck with a lot of the smuggled goods. We even caught a report: sounds like his goons have been heading off to this other town called Zhongyuan. We think that may be the place where some kind of deal is gonna go down.”
Ruby nods back. “Then, it’s pretty likely Corneo’s gonna be there too.”
“Yeah, I thought so too. But the weird thing is the town itself. There wasn’t much I could find about it, but apparently it’s been abandoned as a ghost town for a really long time. There shouldn’t be anyone living there, but rumors say there are ghosts everywhere…”
“…” Though she keeps a stoic face, in her mind, Ruby now understands where the name came from. She bets it’s probably written with the same characters as the Chinese “Ghost Festival” too.
Jessie shrugs. “Yeah, I know. Sounds pretty silly, doesn’t it? I bet it’s just a convenient way for this black market to cover up what they’re really doing.”
She tilts her head aside with a coy glance away. “Oh, I can believe the rumors. Ghosts do exist, after all.”
“Huh? Really?” Jessie then pauses. “Ah, right. You are the Summon, so you would know these things.” She then smirks with confidence renewed. “Say, if we do end up running into any, mind clearing them for us? It’d suck if we have to fend off ill spirits too while we’re trying to tail a smuggling ring.”
“No problem. But my concern is, what use would any recipient of ARC use it for?”
She returns to frowning. “Right, that’s what we’re still trying to figure out. Whatever kind of deals have been happening in this town, it’s not good. And there’s also the mess with all the missing people. I’m still not sure how they’re connected, but if it turns out that’s where the kidnapped people have gone…”
Ruby nods again. “Then we’ll have to free them.”
“Right.” Jessie raises her a thumbs-up. “I’m sure we can leave it to you to send them to safety and come back. But at least save beating up the ring people to us, alright? We got a lotta pent-up frustrations to vent, you know.”
“Yeah! Now you’re talkin’!” Cid agrees with a big grin. He now sets his lance upright, looking ready to throw down any gauntlet. “What good would gettin’ some new gear be if we don’t get to use ’em?”
Ruby chuckles. “Fine. I know two other guys who’d be rearin’ to go just like ya.”
To their surprise, even Leslie steps up. “Hey. If you’re looking for those missing people…”
She gives him an assuring smile. “Don’t worry, I’ll find your fiancée. Who knows, she may be closer to you than you think.”
“Thanks. If you do, I’d even be happy leaving it to you to kill Corneo.”
“Heh. Well, we’ll see who gets in the killing blow, but…” She makes an unsure glance aside. “I hope Aerith won’t be too mad if I do.”
“Don’t worry, Ruby. I doubt anyone would care,” Jessie says as a matter of fact.
“Ha! Fair enough.”
“So what now?” Cid asks, “We gonna head on over there or what?”
“Hey, don’t forget that Cloud and them haven’t gotten back to the ship yet,” Ruby reminds him, “I don’t want to have to warp them myself.”
“Ah, yeah.”
Jessie reassures them, “That oughta be soon. Last I checked, Cloud’s signal was coming from near the front gate.”
But in this moment of awkward silence as they wait for them to return, a bit of commotion down below the ship catches Ruby’s eye. While Cole has obediently escorted Tseng and the brash kid outside, it seems that a few others have made it on over by now and something is stirring.
“Huh? Oh.” With just that quick glance out the window, Ruby heads off for the door.
“Hey, where are you going?” Cid asks. “They’re back already?”
She turns her head back. “Seems like we got a few more visitors from Shinra.”
“What!? Again!? Alright, lemme at them!”
“Calm down, Cid. Those three would know better than to fight us now… especially that I’m going to be there.” And she looks away again.
“Aw, come on! Then when am I gonna get to lay someone flat!? Throw me a bone here!”
Cid chases after Ruby as she leaves and the rest make a collective sigh. At least order seems to have returned to the Highwind. In a way, it almost feels too easy, like they always get the right tailwind just as they need it, but it can’t be helped. Ruby is their tailwind, after all.
Down on the ground, after Cole escorted those two, they would happen to run into none other than Reno, Rude, and Elena. And unfortunately for the first two, the third one is a bit too brash to stand down even in the face of this mighty Soldier.
“What’s wrong with you!? Leave Tseng alone, you dirty traitor!”
“Elena, wait!”
Elena flies right at the Soldier with a dynamically charged kick, but he cleanly blocks her attack with his huge blade. While she spins around and keeps striking away at him, Cole deftly blocks every one of her attacks without even having to move from his spot. And just as she leaps back and throws out another heavy swing toward the side of his head, he suddenly reaches a hand out and grabs her by the leg.
“Gah!?”
He’s about to slam her down when Ruby’s voice cuts in: “Cole, that’s enough.”
“!”
He lets go and Elena drops on her rear, but she hops back to her feet and holds a defensive pose, still ready for another round. But the battle is over. Ruby warps on down between them and raises a hand to call off her new Soldier ally. He bows his head respectfully and steps back, setting his sword back in place.
“You! You’re Ruby! Finally you show your face!” Elena growls.
But to her surprise, Reno and Rude step up only to tell her to be quiet. Reno complains, “For cryin’ out loud, Elena, stop before you hurt yourself.”
Rude calmly reminds her, “Remember the mission. We’re not here to fight with Ruby and her friends.”
“Ugh! Come on…” She whips back to them with open hands. “It’s not like you guys haven’t tried fighting those ninjas too.”
“Yeah, but that’s because Ruby wasn’t with them…” Reno argues with a bit of a sulk.
“Oh my God! Just because she beat you guys once? Grow up already!”
Now that the situation has been diffused, Tseng steps forward. “It’s alright, Elena. There’s no trouble here.”
She spins around to meet him. “What? But Boss…”
“The only thing Zhui and I had to do was deliver the Soldier to the prompted destination, so we’re done here. We’ll be leaving the rest of the mission to you three.”
“…” Though she pouts, Elena respectfully bows her head to him. “Yes, sir.”
And with a nod back to Zhui, who has already boarded the helicopter, Tseng climbs on as well. And finally, the Shinra helicopter takes off to return to base. Everyone else quietly watches them go, even Ruby, when another abrasive voice interrupts them.
“Ruby! Don’t just ditch me! If there’s a fight, let me in on it!” Cid complains as he descends the ladder.
“There’s no fight, Cid,” she says, returning him a calm smirk, “I cleaned up.”
“Shit. Ya don’t have to clean it up that fast…” Nonetheless, Cid still joins her while keeping a suspicious eye on the Soldier beside her. He then turns toward the other Turks. “So, what’s all this? What do they want?”
Reno lackadaisically answers, “Other than that noise earlier, we’re not here to fight. We already spoke with Cloud and he’s agreed to a ceasefire for now. Since you’re targeting the smuggling ring, we’re after them too, so let’s play nice and work together, alright? Makes things easier for everyone.”
Cid scoffs back, “Uh-huh… ’cause ya know Ruby would beat you into next Monday like a bad hangover.”
Ignoring that, he then approaches Ruby with a question of his own, “So, what happened to this guy and why is he listening to you now?”
She puts up a thinking pose, but remains confused. “I don’t really know… but I did give him his voice back.”
“Huh?”
“…” And to all the others’ surprise, Cole does indeed speak, “Though I may be Soldier, my true allegiance is to Her Radiance. So, if you choose to stand in her way, I will have no choice but to fight you as well.”
“What the?” Reno asks, a bit startled. He and Rude share wary looks too. “Huh… So that guy was onto something after all.”
“…” Rude nods back, but simply readjusts his shades.
“Uh, who was?” Elena asks.
Reno gives her another disappointed look, but isn’t surprised anymore. “Hojo. He’s been coming up with theories about how ARC can even work at all.”
“Um…”
He then shakes his head. “I don’t have a clue, but the point is since Ruby’s the source, she gets the privilege.”
“What!? How is that fair!?”
“Don’t ask me…”
“And why didn’t I hear about this before? I don’t remember being briefed that some of our Soldiers could defect!”
“We weren’t briefed on that, but Tseng did say we should be careful about dealing with this ARC stuff. So Rude got curious and looked it up in the database.”
Rude nods and explains, “While information regarding Project Immortals was generally restricted, oddly enough there was a certain file I found that wasn’t. Perhaps the professor simply overlooked security protocol, but regardless, it was a record log from one of the earliest experiments involving ARC.”
Now Ruby’s attention has been got. “What’d it say?”
“That despite only having the DNA extracted from the original body, the agent upon being administered was capable of reacting with living cells and taking over their mechanisms like some kind of virus. So, even when it was applied to deceased specimen, the body would act in a way similar to when it was still alive.”
Now that she hears what basically confirms her suspicions, her eyes widen in horror. An old fear that’s been haunting the back of her mind since she returned to her body returns yet again and with a vengeance. So that’s what Sephiroth was referring to by “cellular network”. True to her history and nature, Rubia is able to defy death at every step of the way, and that extends to anyone who’s been infected by her curse. And thanks to Shinra, who knows how many people have been struck? No wonder the planet is dying.
“Wait… You mean, like a zombie or something?” Elena then breaks the ice and asks, “Seriously? That can actually happen!?”
“It was Hojo’s own notes,” Reno flatly replies, “I doubt he’d be writing lies.”
“Yeah, but it still sounds ridiculous! Don’t people disappear after they die? How can they just come back to life?”
“Again, don’t ask me.”
There’s another tense silence that comes over the air, only to be nonchalantly interrupted again by Cid. He rubs his head, still confused, but then shrugs it off. “Yeah, knowing this kid, sounds about right.”
Ruby turns back to him with a concerned frown. “…I always knew I was bullshit one way or another, but for once, I wish I wasn’t.”
“What’re ya feeling down about? You didn’t know until now, right? Then it ain’t your fault.”
“I had a suspicion, at least.”
“Tch. Don’t we all… But whatever bullshit you can fling, at least make it stick to whatever you’re flingin’ it at.”
“Make it stick…”
“What I mean is, this is just how things turned out, so you might as well make it work for you. Who knows, maybe you’ll even lead a whole damn undead army someday.”
“…” After a meaningful pause to let it sink in, she concedes with an amused snort and nods back with a grateful smile. “Thanks, Cid.”
“Hmph.” He offers her a cheeky grin. “Whatever ya do with ’em is up to you; just don’t let ’em loose, or we’re all as good as #&*$@#.”
“Rubyyyy!!”
Suddenly, they catch wind of Aerith’s very excited scream in the distance. Though he was in the lead and is built like a super Soldier himself, Cloud suddenly finds himself being overtaken by everyone else who rushes on over. Aerith and then Tifa make a mad dash to greet Ruby with their own loving glomps, and they’re shortly followed by Yuffie and Sonon, who are just as ecstatic. Cloud comes up the rear, looking a little worn out but relieved all the same.
“You’re back! We missed you, Cuz!” Aerith nearly sobs.
“We’re so glad you’re okay…” Tifa sighs with relief.
“Heck yeah!!” Yuffie cheers, bopping Sonon on his arm with her fist. “Wha’d I say? I told you she’d be fine!”
“Y-yeah… I didn’t doubt it for a second.”
“Uh-huh, sure…”
“Really! I mean it!”
“…I’m being smothered with love, guys, please stop,” Ruby mutters while being crushed between the two clinging to her.
Aerith and Tifa now let her go with a round of laughs. Ruby sighs and welcomes all the joy going around, passing them all a tired smile. Sonon then approaches her with a look of earnesty.
“I didn’t get a chance yet, so allow me to say…” He straightens up and makes a respectful bow. “Thank you. You’ve saved me twice, I hear.”
She waves it off. “Don’t mention it… really. You don’t owe me anything.”
He stands back up, looking puzzled. “Uh, are you sure?”
“Yeah.” Now come face to face with the guy, though, Ruby feels just a tinge of guilt considering all that she went through for his sake, only to forget about him in the end. Instead, she lets the feeling pass and summons the staff she had acquired, hence dubbed the Winter Solstice, and presents it to him. “Here.”
“Oh, what’s this?”
“It’s a custom-made staff I found at a certain weapons shop. It seems the owner was keeping it reserved for you.”
Sonon blinks in surprise, but then makes a genuine smile and accepts it. “Then, I’ll take it. Thank you again.”
“Making Ruby be your courier even? Shame on you, Sonon,” Yuffie quips.
“Pff… Give me a break, Boss. I didn’t have too many chances to go picking up stuff, you know.”
“On that thought, I got you all cool stuff.” Ruby then reveals a number of other weapons she got for the crew, blinking them all into existence in one by one. She likewise returns all their equipped gear to inventory with another blink as well.
“What!?” Yuffie yells, nearly caught off guard by her own excitement. She snatches the Razor Ring out of the air as it floats over to her. “Whoa! Awesome!”
“Aw, Ruby! You didn’t have to,” Aerith giggles as she snatches up her own staff, the colorful, magical Aurora Rod.
“Oh, wow. You’ve outdone yourself again, Ruby,” Tifa comments as she slips on the glittering Diamond Knuckles.
Cloud quietly accepts the silent but deadly Murasame in hand. As he looks it over, he mutters just a single, “…Nice.”
Ruby recounts, “It’s not Christmas yet, but… Oh. It’s around Tanabata, isn’t it? Then, happy wish fulfillment day, everyone.”
He slides the katana on his back instead, noting how how lighter it feels. Then, getting back to business, he turns to Ruby again. “Well, at least you made yourself useful.”
“Hmph. Well, sorry I wasn’t there to join you for the wedding. I’m sure you made a wonderful bride too.”
He returns her his usual annoyed frown, but adds, “Actually, it was for the best you didn’t. Turns out Corneo already decided on a bride by the time we found him.”
“Oh? Who’s the lucky lady?”
“You.”
“…” She takes a moment to process that and blinks a few times, then slumps a little. “What?”
“He’s serious too. Kept going on about how he’d get to ‘rule the world’ with you by his side.”
“Oh, my GOD!” she shrieks, startling him too. “I’ve had enough of people trying to get with me! Stop it! I choose to be single, dammit!”
“Uh… what?”
Even Aerith picks up on that. “Ruby, has anyone else been asking you out?”
“…” Ruby neatly cuts herself off as a cold sweat comes over her. No, this is not the time to be telling them about Sephiroth’s new hobbies.
“Um… I know people have been worshipping her, but that’s because she’s a God,” Yuffie suggests.
Regaining her composure, she shakes her head and changes the subject. “Forget it. I’m just extra motivated to kill Corneo now.”
“You and the rest of us,” Cloud points out, “But we have to find him first.”
“Whoever does first gets to kill him!” Yuffie insists, “And I’m calling dibs!”
“It’s not a race…”
Tifa catches a fist in her other hand. “The sooner we do, the better. He’s absolute scum.”
Aerith nods along, wielding her staff forward. “I don’t like violence, but I can always make an exception.”
Ruby makes a grim smirk. “I have so many ideas on how to eviscerate this man, it’s not even funny.”
“…” Cloud passes an acknowledging look to the rest of the crowd here, and it seems like no one has any objections whatsoever. He doesn’t feel the need to argue, though.
Now that Cid glances around the reunited crowd, though, he has to ask, “Hey. Wasn’t there one more with ya?”
“Huh? …Oh, you mean Vincent?”
“Yeah. Where’d he go?”
Cloud shakes his head. “Don’t know. We didn’t run into him on the way either. He must be looking into something on his own.”
“Huh?” Cid blinks, making a more confused than concerned frown. “Don’t tell me he got stuck in another box somewhere! Hey, Ruby, how ’bout you go fetch him?”
She shrugs back. “I don’t know where he is either, so I can’t.”
He isn’t pleased to hear that. “Then what do we do, wait for him? To hell with that! We got some place to be, and if his ass doesn’t show up in the next minute, we’re ditchin’ him!”
“Poor Vince.” And yet, she feels little need to worry. “Ah, well. If he’s feeling lonely, at least he can give us a call or send a message. I’ll be happy to fetch him when I get the chance.”
“I guess…” Cloud then moves on to another important point. “Cid, you know where we’re headed?”
“Yeah. Jessie got us caught up. It’s some rundown town across the country, right?”
“Yeah, I think it’s called Zhongyuan. Sounds like it’s a ghost town now, though.” He turns to their other aerial backup to ask, “Ruby, since you can fly on ahead, mind scouting around for us?”
“I heard a bit about it, but I’m not sure exactly where it is.”
Yuffie then provides, “It’s on the central east coast of the island, just under one of the overhead highway bridges. If you fly high enough, you ought to find it. The place is supposed to be empty, but you never know what you might find… Well, not that you’d have anything to worry about.”
“Ah. Then it shouldn’t be too far. Okay, I’ll fly and Cid can take the rest of ya there.”
“When you reach it, don’t just rush in by yourself. Wait for our signal,” Cloud asserts very firmly.
She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Of course…” But as she considers her next plans, she realizes this may be a good chance for her to get a moment of privacy with the guy. She does have a bit to chat about, after all. And she’s back to that scheming mood, glancing back to him with a devious smile.
That evil-eyed look on her face gives him some cold shivers. “…Why are you looking at me like that?”
She gleefully claps her hands and exclaims, “Thinking about it, it’ll be even easier if I take someone along for the ride. Thanks for volunteering, Cloud!”
“Huh!? Hey! Wait a sec!”
Before anyone can stop her, she bursts out with blinding light and her majestic dragon self reveals itself as the light fades. Unfortunately for Cloud, he can’t get away fast enough before she snatches him off the ground and launches herself into the sky.
“Rubyyyyy!!” he screams as she zips off with an amused purr in her throat.
And everyone else just watches them go. Yuffie shakes her head, looking a little relieved that at least she wasn’t picked this time.
Aerith makes a disappointed sigh, though. “Maybe next time…” she mumbles.
Tifa gives her a pat on the shoulder and reassures her, “We can always ask her for a ride again later.”
Yuffie blinks in shock. “Huh? You guys LIKE riding with her?”
“Hm? What’s wrong? She flies pretty well, I think.”
“Well?” She stares back in disbelief for a moment. “Am I missing something here? Is she just nicer to you two or what? That wasn’t a safe flight when I got it!”
“Really? It looked like you guys had fun when you flew into the city together,” Aerith adds with an innocent smile.
“That wasn’t fun! I really thought I was gonna fall! Or hurl…”
“Well, she must have carried me just fine while I was out,” Sonon takes a guess via the context.
“Oh, shut it, Sonon! You were basically asleep, so you don’t get to decide!”
Cid then gives a sharp whistle and waves a hand to get everyone’s attention again. “Hey! We don’t have time for this small talk! Let’s go after ’em!” He also turns to the Turks and the newly turned Soldier with a suspect stink-eye. “And you’d all better get along! If anyone so much thinks about startin’ something aboard my ship, I’m kicking your ass off myself!”
Reno passes a wary glance toward Elena, though she just returns him an indignant glare. He looks back and shrugs. “Wouldn’t even imagine it.”
Curiously, Cole doesn’t even turn their way. His gaze is still fixated on the patch of sky where Ruby had last flown as she disappears into the distance. Even when Cid gets up in his face with his own scowl, the Soldier pays him no mind.
“Hey, you can hear me, right?” Cid demands, “If you’re gonna listen to Ruby, then you’re gonna listen to us too! Get movin’!”
Again, Cole continues to ignore him, but then calmly heads back aboard the ship without a word, as if he’d been returned to his previous silence. Cid watches him go, still looking a little perplexed by this man’s current circumstances. He may have joked about the undead army earlier, but the dude’s weird behavior would make anyone feel a little uneasy around him. Even if Ruby may have control over him, it doesn’t feel natural – in more ways than one.
~
Back out on the dusty highway roads, a lone black luxury car zips along without a hitch, headed off for the awaited town. Despite his misgivings, Vincent agreed to join this strange woman, who claimed to be a member of the NRSA and a former member of the old clergy, for a ride into unknown territory. While he could have declined her offer and returned to the Highwind, he just had this itching suspicion that he shouldn’t let this woman go free, lest he miss out on some critical info. At the very least, he’s left a message on the PHS so the rest of them will know.
The woman known simply as Taeru explains to her guest, “Pardon the long ride, but while normally we would have requested an airlift to the destination, it seems one of our big foreign investor names has reserved all available aircraft from the capital at this time. And given our current shortage of machine parts, it hasn’t been the easiest for this nation to acquire enough materials to set up a proper network of aerial transportation.”
Vincent nods back. “It’s no worry. I don’t mind the wait.” He then proceeds to ask, “Now, in regards to the illegal arms trade…”
She closes her eyes as if in contemplative thought, but she doesn’t seem too troubled either. “Yes, it’s true that there has been criminal activity taking place in Zhongyuan – at least, as far as the public face of the government is concerned.”
“The public face? Do you mean that there’s another face to this government?”
She nods. “Yes. There is another side to the new Wutai government that is unknown to the public. Perhaps it is for the best that the general populace remain in ignorance.”
“What makes you say that?”
She now opens her eyes again and replies gently yet firmly, “This other side of the government has in fact been deeply involved with overseeing the trade and ensuring the goods are transported safely and securely. If the common people knew that this trade was of Shinra-manufactured ‘weapons’, there would be riots in the streets. After all, it would seem to be in direct violation with the terms of the international treatise.”
“You say ‘seem to be’, implying there’s a technicality.”
She nods again. “That’s right. In fact, I personally would give pause to call these goods ‘weapons’, even if they are labeled as such by the manufacturers. Rather, these shipments were brought to Wutai and reclassified as ‘medicine’ to treat a particular disease that has plagued the residents of a certain town.”
“Are you referring to our current destination?”
“Yes. Zhongyuan is a former port town that has been restricted from public access for more than 20 years now. It was said that there was a certain incident that led to tragedy in this town and thus security measures were enacted to protect the circumstances of the residents there. There are many people who even call it a ‘curse’ that befell the town.” But then, Taeru shakes her head. “However, that is just the public perception and doesn’t cover the entire truth.”
“Then what would be the truth?”
“That there was no tragedy, nor curse at all. All the residents of the town that have lived there are still alive and well to this day. If anything, they are doing much better than anyone outside of it.”
Vincent picks up a sense of stubbornness behind her tone there. “Hmm…”
“I realize what I have said may be confusing, but it’s quite simple, really. To the townspeople themselves, this particular medicine has been a miracle cure that has relieved them of all their ailments.”
His eyes narrow with suspicion. “And I assume this supposed ‘miracle cure’ has been administered rather freely.”
“Indeed. Though as with any strong medicine, it does also have its drawbacks. Despite it being very effective at removing a patient’s ailments, the patient may on the occasion suffer withdrawal symptoms if the medicine is not regularly readministered.”
“Withdrawal…?”
“These symptoms may include lethargy, a loss of appetite, mood swings, onset drowsiness, and a general numbing feeling in the extremities. In rarer cases, the numbing can extend further in, but there have been no reports of any patient that has suffered from serious conditions of the heart or other major organs.”
“Even then, those symptoms don’t sound very minor, especially if this medicine has to be regularly readministered.”
“I understand the concern, but there’s no need to fret. While these symptoms may be pervasive among the patients who have received the treatment, they will disappear on their own in due time.”
“In due time? How do you figure?”
At this moment, there’s some subtle change to Taeru’s dead-looking eyes where there is just the slightest twinkle of life. She speaks with utmost earnesty, with a touch of hope, as she answers, “Because everyone in this town has unshakeable faith in our savior.”
“…Excuse me?”
She closes her eyes again and makes a relaxed smile. “Our great leader, the Holy Spirit and Her Radiance… Yue-hua-sama will one day return and lead us to salvation.”
Now that Vincent hears her say it, he begins to understand where this anxious trepidation from earlier came from. It’s not just that this woman is strange or that she is associated with some religious association. No, it’s more like the workings of a cult operating in the shadows and even more disturbingly, they’re being backed by certain associates in the government that have invested into this operation. There is an entire town of people who seem to have been isolated from the rest of the country specifically so that the ARC can be distributed and administered for the sake of testing. Even if they may be in a completely different country, this activity has all the signs of a Shinra mass experimentation conspiracy, and who knows what is the true purpose of it all.
“…I understand that you may have your doubts, but rest assured, all that has been happening in Zhongyuan is safe and secure under the careful surveillance of the NRSA and our associates in government.”
“…” That being said, there is one point that he has to raise. “At this time, I can’t say for sure one way or another until I arrive at this town to see how it is for myself. But I must ask you, why do you see Ruby as your savior? What do you think she will do for you all?”
Taeru then looks genuinely surprised as if he had just asked a strange question. “It is not my place to judge what or how Her Radiance will enact Her will. We are entirely in Her good hands, after all.”
“Right…” He nods along and then retrieves his phone to prepare to send another message. “Sorry to ask so many questions. I hope you don’t mind if I share this information with my colleagues.”
She gives him a calm smile. “Not at all. As far as the NRSA is concerned, you are all of esteemed standing and deserve to know as much as necessary.”
“Thank you.” And despite his initial awkwardness with the device, Vincent gradually types out a neatly packaged summary of what he’s gathered so far and warnings just in case. Hopefully, they’re all clued in soon enough.
~
Cloud is honestly surprised that he’s starting to get used to being handled like a ragdoll. As long as he doesn’t look down at the pastures and rocky scapes streaking by, he can manage being airlifted by dragon. He still prefers riding on her back instead of being held captive, but she insists that it’s not gonna be a long flight.
The two safely land at the northwest end of the town and Ruby drops Cloud off to let him simmer in his nauseous misery. In the meantime, she is intrigued by and admires the traditional-looking buildings that line this town’s scenery. The once vibrant colors of the tiled rooftops and handpainted brick and mortar walls have faded dull with age. There’s not a sound or sign of movement; neither human nor animal. Though there are small fishing boats that line the docks to the east, they seem to have been untouched for many years as well and have only been spared from the worst of rot by their thin coating of lacquer.
As it’s been described, Zhongyuan was once a flourishing port town many years ago before Wutai began to modernize in an attempt to be able to compete with Midgar and Shinra. However, thanks to a fateful incident that led to the tragic loss of many of its residents, the entire place has been abandoned and restricted under government surveillance – or at least, that’s what is known to the public. No one knows what really happened that led to this tragedy, but rumors say that a certain dangerous cult was behind it.
Plenty of ghostly tales and rumors have circulated since it was closed off. Anyone who intended to drop by to do some investigations or just for curiosity’s sake would mysteriously be spirited away and never be seen again. Some claim that the souls of the former residents still remain to this day, trapped here by a powerful yet ominous force and have grown restless and possibly dangerous from being stifled for so long. Others claim that local monsters and yokai have taken up residency here in their place, as it is a place rampant with negative energy from the disappearance of the former residents. Even others claim that they weren’t just “monsters” but an entire clan of demons that kidnapped people to bring them here to be slain and butchered like livestock. Whatever the case it is, everyone can agree that this town must remain closed from the world.
However, upon her arrival, Ruby notices there are a couple things that are very out of place. For starters, there’s a very modern-looking truck at the outskirts and it seems to have been emptied very recently of its stocks. Where are the workers that transported the stuff? She doesn’t see anyone out in the open from here, and her sense of smell is only picking up the same kind of scent that is pretty pervasive throughout. As she suspected, it’s the exact same smell that she picked up from the Midgar labs.
Oh, wait. Doesn’t she now have a magical eye power that lets her see what she wants or something? She forms a hole with her fingers over her right eye, and to her own amusement, she is indeed able to activate X-ray vision to peek past any walls and into the surrounding buildings. But the moment she does, she regrets doing so. To her shock, she discovers that there are indeed people who are inside these homes, but they aren’t the brown uniformed lackeys of Corneo that she expected to find. Instead, these people are dressed like normal Wutaians and so must be civilians. But wasn’t this place supposed to be a ghost town? Is it not abandoned after all?
On second zoomed-in inspection, she realizes there’s something off about these people and then the real creepy horror begins to set in. While they are ambling about in their homes and seem to be tending to their chores like usual, no one is talking with each other. Entire families living together in the same household are completely silent, as if they were taking their all just to focus on their individual tasks. And another zoom-in exacerbates her worries; they all seem to be dead-eyed in a way similar to the black Soldier she had just met.
“…Ruby, what are you looking at?” Cloud’s voice breaks her out from her stunned trance.
She turns to him with a deeply disturbed look in her eyes. “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you ‘don’t know’? What did you see?”
She turns away for the town ahead with an anxious frown. “I think… I now see why this town was abandoned.”
“And why was it…?”
She turns away as a pained feeling of guilt builds up from within. “Everything in this world… one way or another, it ties back to me.”
Chapter 46: A Road Paved with Good Intentions
Notes:
Outdated A/N
Oops, I overslept. Man, these days have only gotten later and later. Will update the notes at the end with interesting facts, sources, and name origins. There's quite a bit this chapter.
12/7/23 edit: Next chapter will be available by tomorrow. Holy shit, my sleep schedule is wack lately. I need to complete this arc already, it's driving me crazy.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“Everything… You mean Rubia?” Cloud asks.
Ruby doesn’t answer him right away. She turns for the town ahead, looking rather exhausted from all the times she’s been witness to death and brutality. It’s come to the point that she’s grown numb; as much as she wants to care, she doesn’t. It started off as detachment from reality in the sense of a player detaching themselves from reality to escape into a fictional world. Now, it’s become detachment from reality in the sense of an entity that doesn’t belong to this world and is forced to stay for some particular purpose. Maybe somewhere between the two points, she wasn’t so detached from everything and really felt at home in this world and the people she cares about, but it’s starting to feel like a little thread of the greater quilt is loose and unraveling bit by bit.
After a contemplative moment, she finally answers, “No, I mean me, personally.”
“…” He waits for her to explain herself, but she doesn’t keep going, so he tries again, “What do you mean by ‘personally’? What did you do?”
She lets off a sigh as she reviews over a few deliberating matters in mind. She then turns back to him with a genuinely curious look. “I’ve been meaning to chat with you again in private. Mind joining me for a stroll in town?”
“Uh, sure. I don’t mind.”
For just a moment, he catches what seems to be a hint of sadness – or perhaps, defeat – in her eyes. Defeat to what, he doesn’t know, but she may have given up on something big. She wordlessly gestures to him to follow and proceeds into the town, and despite his misgivings at what she may reveal, he obliges all the same. It’s never good news when it’s a private conversation between them, but it’s also in these moments that he can actually catch a glimpse of her real self without the self-declared hero-like bravado – a rarity that even he finds elusive.
Unlike the capital, the front gate to this homely town is but a shadow of its former glory. A once sturdy arch to welcome visitors from a bygone time is now rusty and layered with dust and dirt, neglected over the years. No one is outside and the streets are completely empty, save for the occasional desert roach that scuttles by. At first glance, it is picturesque of what a ghost town should be: empty, desolate, and dispirited.
However, as soon as Ruby steps into view, the town seems to magically come alive. As if her very presence is a guiding light for them, the residents turn their heads from their routine mannerisms and look out the windows. Curious onlookers watch the strangers pass by their homes, all with blank emotionless stares, and some even step out to get a closer look. And yet, despite the blank looks in their eyes, many of them bring pleasantly surprised and almost hopeful smiles, as if excited to meet with whom may be their long-awaited blessing.
A young woman and a little older woman accompanied by three or four kids come out to greet them with their hands folded in a prayer-greeting, with one hand erect and the other’s fingers curled at the middle joint against its palm.
The older woman greets them and in particular bows her head to Ruby. “Welcome to Zhongyuan. We have been awaiting your return… Yue-hua-sama.”
Ruby raises a dismissive hand wave. “No need for formalities. Please, call me Rubia.”
“Very well, Rubia-sama.” She raises her head and introduces herself. “I am the provisional mayor of this town and a well-known guide for visitors. If it does not impose on you, you may call me Reila. What brings you here today?”
“I’m here to investigate into some recent cases of missing people. There have been reports of suspicious activity taking place in this town, namely that there may be an illegal smuggling ring operating around here.”
“Suspicious activity… smuggling ring?” Reila seems honestly perplexed to hear it. She looks to her fellow companions, but they all look confused as well. She bows her head again and answers, “My apologies, Your Radiance. I’m not familiar with such matters.”
“That’s alright. It’s why I’m here to investigate.” She takes another glance around at the crowd. “By the way, I noticed that there aren’t a lot of men in this town. The ones remaining seem to be limited to young boys or elderly gentlemen. Where are all the young working men?”
“Ah.” Reila nods back and answers with a calm smile, “I believe they were all called away by the Company.”
“The ‘Company’?”
“The Black Pearl Company, as it is known. It’s a manufacturer of medicinal tinctures and pills that can treat a wide range of malaise. Its most well-known and successful product is also called the ‘Black Pearl’ and has become quite widespread around this town to treat all sorts of illnesses. It’s even been heralded by the Oracle of Wutaia as a blessing from the divine – of Your Holiness to be precise. I heard that it’s even caught wind with investors from overseas as well.”
“The Black Pearl? What exactly is it?”
“It’s a round black pill, as it were, so the name is well fit. It’s used to treat anything from chronic soreness and aches to overreactive nerves from stress, and its effects happen very quickly. It’s quite the miracle medicine, if I may say so.”
One of the little boys comes up to Cloud and offers a tiny black ball to him. “I have an extra one here!” he declares proudly. “You can have one in case your head hurts.”
He blinks, a little caught off-guard by the kid’s honest description. “Uh, thanks…?”
“Don’t touch it!” Ruby suddenly yells, startling them both.
He recoils and turns back to her. “Huh!?”
She brushes him aside and brings her hand forward to accept the pill instead. “Sorry about that. I’m the one who handles the medicines here, so I should keep it.”
The boy still looks a little lost but nods along. “O-oh, okay. Here you go, Yue-hua-sama.”
She takes it and cups it in her hand as to make sure it doesn’t come into contact with anyone else. Cloud keeps staring at her, but she doesn’t meet his gaze just yet. Instead, she turns back to the others and waves her other hand as if to reassure them it’s all fine.
She also nods to Reila and offers a polite smile. “Thank you for the help, Reila. While I don’t know enough to doubt anything yet, I think I’ll look into this company. Do you know where they’re headquartered?”
“Ah, I believe their main factory is off to the southwest. It’s near to the old white castle atop the hill. If you head for it, you will find it.”
“An old white castle, huh? Alright, thanks.” Her curiosity precedes her, though, and she also asks, “What is that castle anyway?”
“Oh, it’s just an artifact from the olden days of this country. The legend goes that one of the greatest lords of the ancient past used to reside there, but no one really knows which person that was or if they really did live there before. In any case, it’s now just a tourist attraction for visitors to see, but because the building is so old, no one is allowed to go inside.”
Ruby peeks a glance to Cloud, who nods back. Seems like they’re on the same path here; that’s definitely a place to check out later.
She turns back to their helpful guide and gives her a playful smile. “Very interesting. I hope you won’t be too upset if I do peek inside it, though!”
Reila calmly smiles back and nods. “I’m sure it will be okay if it’s you, Your Radiance. If there’s anyone who can fix up that old thing, it would be you.”
“Anyway, in the meantime, I’d like to have a chat with this guy in private, so could you please ask everyone to clear away? We’ll just be taking a walk around town in the meantime.”
“Oh, of course. Please, enjoy your stay as much as you’d like. You will always be welcome here, Your Holiness.”
And with that, Reila and her fellow companions all take a respectful bow and then proceed to scatter to return to their places. Likewise, the rest of the crowd that had come to form around them also make themselves quick and step back inside as to not bother them. Even when there had been curious onlookers from afar who had noticed some commotion outside, they too vanish inside some buildings without a trace. And as quickly as it had gone, the silence of the town returns as if its residents were all ghosts to begin with.
Cloud looks around again, still pretty confused about what just happened here. He turns back to Ruby, who now resumes her fatigued expression from earlier.
“…It’s like you’ve been here before,” he observes.
She lowers her head in shame. “I haven’t and that’s the problem.”
“Is this what you wanted to talk to me about?”
“It’s related, but not the whole story. Um…” She hesitates over how to best approach this explanation. “Here, let’s keep walking. We shouldn’t be interrupted anymore.”
They take a stroll to the center of town and along the way, Ruby continues the conversation.
“So… I know it may sound weird, but what just happened earlier shouldn’t have happened at all.”
“You were saying this was your first time coming here, right?”
“Yeah. But unlike the few religious folks we ran into back at the capital, this whole town is filled with people who worship me.”
“Well, that is weird, but not that surprising. You are a part of the legends of this country, after all.”
“That’s not the issue here, though. You saw the dead looks in their eyes too, right? These people may not even realize it, but they aren’t okay.”
He nods back. “Yeah. It was kinda creepy, but at least they seem nice enough.” Now that he’s reminded, he also asks, “What was that pill that the kid was trying to give me? You freaked out about it.”
“I was just being careful. I think this ‘Black Pearl’ contains trace amounts of ARC.”
Now he grows wary. “These are the smuggled goods we’re chasing?”
“I don’t know if it’s this stuff specifically, but I’m sure it’s related.” She opens her hand with the pill in it and holds it up for closer inspection. “And to these people, it’s a miracle cure that can treat just about anything. I bet one of the first things they feel is a numbing sensation that clears away all sense of pain.”
“So… like a pain reliever?”
“No. Rather, I should say that it simply blocks the body from sensing pain.”
“It blocks it…?”
To Cloud’s shock, she suddenly pops that pill into her mouth and swallows it dry.
“Ruby!” he gasps, horrified. “What are you doing!?”
She calmly shakes her head. “It’s fine. Since it’s my cells, I won’t be affected. But at least this way I don’t have to keep holding it.”
He lets out a nervous sigh. “Even then… it’s supposed to be medicine. You don’t take it if you don’t need it.”
“It’s said to be medicine. But in reality, these poor people have been victims of an ongoing science experiment.”
“Ongoing…?”
They finally stop by an open square where a lonely, dried-up fountain sits in the middle of what may have once been a thriving marketplace. Ruby peeks down into the fountain, and while it’s mostly dry, there are some obvious dull brown stains on the inside of the tub. Based on the smell, it seems to be blood, though it’s not immediately clear what happened to have it spilled here.
Cloud stares at the stain. “Is that… blood?”
“Smells like it. But I want to try something.”
She reaches a hand down, reflexively transforming it into a dragon’s claw and gingerly scrapes at the stain. As soon as the blood comes into contact with her nails, it fizzles away into gray ether and her gentle scratch leaves several empty streaks in the bloodstain.
“What…?” he mutters in disbelief.
She remains unperturbed, though. She then pulls her claw back up and observes her nails, noting that they’re completely clean despite having just touched something that’s supposed to be sticky. She then reverts the claw back to her hand and turns to face her concerned companion again.
“As I thought, this blood belongs to someone who lives here. I tried my best to avoid touching people, just in case anyone reacts poorly or even worse, disappears like this blood just did.”
He stares at the stain again and back to her. Shaking his head, he gets to the point and asks, “What happened to this town? Does it have something to do with Project Immortals?”
She nods back solemnly. “I think so. You remember those robed people back in Midgar who were deathly ill?”
“Yeah… Wait. Are these people…?”
“I’m guessing here, but they’re probably failed specimen that have been abandoned.”
He grows even more disturbed. “The whole town, though? And what about the workers? Are they also like these folks?”
“I don’t know, but there’s a good chance they are. And if my suspicions are on the right track, it’s all working as intended. With their minds being messed up but their bodies being empowered, they would make useful slave labor for a factory that manufactures the very thing that’s been poisoning them.”
“Damn…” He shakes his head, feeling a little sick at the thought. “This may be Wutai, but this has signs of Shinra all over it. Feels like they outsourced their dirty laundry here, where they can pretend it’s got nothing to do with them if anything goes horribly wrong. Sure seems like it did…”
“Yeah. If even their biggest enemy has been wrapped up in Project Immortals, who knows how far their cesspool in the name of ‘science’ has reached.” She makes a begrudging sigh. “So I have to be the one to tell these idiot politicians that they have no idea what they’re messing with.”
He folds his arms and makes a quick review of the facts so far. “So, if I got this right… Shinra manufactured ARC, gave it off to a third party – namely, Corneo – to smuggle the goods into Wutai, and the guy somehow convinced Wutaian officials to turn a blind eye. Then, this town was picked to be the subject of an experiment testing ARC on civilians. I guess the point was to see if they can create their own kind of super soldier, but it didn’t turn out so well.” He then frowns as he realizes, “This place is kinda like the slums of this country, huh?”
“Yep. A backwater town that’s been abandoned for so long people don’t even remember why it was. It’s the perfect dumping grounds for people they don’t want anymore.”
“But that’s what makes it weirder. Don’t these people realize they’ve been abandoned? This whole town is restricted from the outside. Earlier that woman was talking like they have tourists, but there’s no one but the townsfolk themselves.”
“…” Now that she really thinks about it, she realizes an even grimmer truth that makes her wince. “Oh, Gods. Is that it…?”
“What’s wrong?”
“Everything… and everyone.” She slumps over, clutching her head, and makes a face as if in agony. “They’re all trapped, and they don’t even know that they are.”
“Uh, trapped?” He puts on a thinking face. “I know they’re closed off, but there was nothing stopping anyone from coming or going. You’d think there would be something that held them back-”
“They can’t leave!” she snaps back, startling him again, “And they won’t ever die even if they want to!”
He stares at her, a bit unsure of what she even said. “…What are you talking about?”
The more she thinks about it, the more she cringes. By now, she’s practically trembling with spasms and she trudges forward a few steps and she drops against the fountain’s edge. She feels sick; nauseous from the overwhelming disgust that’s come over her. She could even hurl.
He hurries on over and holds her up by the shoulder. “Ruby, you okay? What’s wrong?”
“Ugh…” Yet, even as she hangs her head over the fountain well, she doesn’t hurl. Nothing comes up or out. It’s as if she hadn’t eaten anything at all in a long time. Strange, she figured would have something in her gut. Or do things in the Debug Room just not translate to this world? No, but that doesn’t seem right…
“Hey, take it easy. What happened?” He offers her a back rub and then pauses for a moment. “Don’t tell me that pill you swallowed…?”
“No…” she mutters with a guttural noise.
“…” He then resumes the back rub.
After a moment to recollect herself, she lets out an empty cough, wipes her mouth even if there’s nothing to wipe, and pulls back up. With a groan and a whimper, she mumbles aloud, “…I started a damn zombie outbreak.”
He’s not sure how to respond to that frankly absurd answer. “What?”
“…” She clears her throat and takes a deep breath and lets it out to settle her nerves. Now she stands back up again as she sadly explains, “It’s the power of Rubia’s cells. You remember the report that Rude mentioned earlier? About how her DNA is like a virus?”
“Yeah, he did say something like that…”
“That’s when it hit me. ARC is just the catalyst that reproduces Rubia’s cells in other organisms. Once her DNA enters a body, it flows into its cells and hijacks them, turning them cancerous, and they multiply rapidly to flood the rest. This kills and replaces everything until they’re all her cells, and the result is an empty husk of the former person – like a zombie puppet without free will.” She clasps a hand over her now stressed and aching head. “But if it turns out that their souls are still present even after all that, then… Ugh. That means they’re prisoners trapped in their own bodies. Even if they wanted to go somewhere else or do something with their lives, there would be no meaning behind it.”
It takes him a moment to process everything she just said, and all he can say is: “…Holy shit.”
She casts a melancholic glance aside. “These people may technically be ‘alive’, but I can’t say that they’re still ‘living’… Really puts into perspective of what sort of ‘God’ I am to them, huh?”
He looks off for the houses they had just passed by, and while the people aren’t outside anymore, he feels just as bad for them. “Aside from their eyes, they all seemed normal enough. They were even talking to us. But… they’re really dead?”
“They must be. Like Rufus said, very few subjects even survived the initial phases of Project Immortals. The Soldier we met earlier was one of the lucky ones since he can still fight, but can’t defy orders or speak out.”
“What? Seriously?” He blinks again as he catches on. “So, that’s why he started listening to you.”
“I think removing his helmet triggered something in his brain to reset, so when I put it back, he was already in my control.” She shakes her head miserably. “If even the ‘lucky ones’ are like that, I doubt normal civilians would be any better off. Even worse, since Rubia’s cells can regenerate any damage even from age, their bodies won’t ever decay.”
“So that’s why you said they couldn’t die even if they wanted to.”
“Yeah. The only thing they can remember is in the past from what was left over of their former selves. That’s why Reila talked like they still got tourists around here. It must have been memories from before this place went to shit.” She now clutches her head so tightly as if trying to numb the ache, but failing. “Their souls are trapped and can’t return to the planet… because of my damn cells.”
He shakes his head. “None of this is your fault. Shinra made ARC in the first place and got Corneo to distribute it, and even the Wutai government chose to overlook this mess.”
“But Shinra wouldn’t have been able to start all of this if Rubia hadn’t submitted herself to their experiments.” She plants both hands on her head, sinking further in distress. “Why…? What was she even thinking? Or was she even at all?”
“…”
“I know she wasn’t in a good place. I wasn’t in a good place either. But my stupid mistakes aside, why let things come to this? If anything, she grew on her own to become so powerful. She never needed me. I was an absentee parent…”
By now, she’s lost him. “Um… Are you talking about her as your your ‘kid’ again?”
Her headache isn’t going away. She buries her face in her hand to shut her eyes. “Ugh… As much as I want to see myself as a mother figure to her, she’s clearly not my kid, at least not anymore.”
“Uh-huh…” He raises an eyebrow. “Though, wouldn’t it be the other way around? She came before you.”
“I told you, it’s complicated,” she groans, now squeezing her sore temples, “I have no idea how to explain it in a way that would make any lick of sense. I don’t fully understand what’s the deal with me and her either.”
“…” Letting that slide, he returns to the point, “Well, whatever is going on with you guys, she’s not here right now to clean up her mess, so we’ll have to do it instead.”
She pulls back up, lowering her hand to reveal a thoroughly distraught face. “We have no way to ‘clean up her mess’. The mere existence of Project Immortals spells out the planet’s crisis clear as day! Between Shinra, Sephiroth’s stupid mom, and the Void caused by Rubia that keeps growing from within, the planet is constantly losing the life energy it needs to keep going. It can’t replenish much while more and more people are turning into immortal undead. The entire planet could go kaput one day and all that’d be left are these damn zombies! Hell, maybe I’d still be around too and then what!?”
He raises an eyebrow, a little worried to hear her rant like this. “What’s with you all of a sudden? You’re always saying that you’d figure something out even in the worst situations.”
She looks even more exhausted than she had begun and slumps over again. “Sorry, that’s a lie. I don’t know what to do… or who to talk to about this…”
“I’m right here, you know,” he replies matter-of-factly, “Even if this is going to be a problem we have to deal with eventually, can’t we just leave them be for now? As long as they’re not going around attacking others and spreading this ‘virus’, it should still be contained.”
She looks up again and is utterly disappointed in him. “Cloud.”
“What?”
“People on this planet are supposed to be bound to the cycle of the Lifestream. It’s literally the lifeblood of the planet. You really think it’ll be fine if we let an anemic patient keep losing blood?”
“Of course not…” He scratches his head. “Then, what do we do about them? It seems excessive to erase them.”
“That was my first thought, honestly.”
“…” He stares at her incredulously, wondering how she hasn’t realized how stupid that would be. “But you wouldn’t do that, right?”
She glances aside with a bit of shame. “I… don’t want to, at least.”
“No. Stop that. Killing troops is one thing, but you’re not gonna go harming innocent civilians.”
“Then again, they aren’t even alive anymore, so would it count as ‘killing’ if they’re already dead…?”
“Ruby! Shut up and listen!” he snaps back impatiently, “It’s not going to help anything if you kill them now. And besides, their bodies are already altered with your cells. If you release them back to the planet, wouldn’t that just kill it faster?”
“If the planet’s going to die either way, wouldn’t it be merciful to make it quick?”
“No matter what, it’s not gonna be a ‘quick’ death! Besides, while we still have the time, shouldn’t we be figuring out another way that can actually save it?”
Her face somehow manages to grow even darker and more distraught. “If there is a way, then it’s not gonna be me who does. I don’t have the time anymore…”
“What are you talking about? You’re in the best position to make some real change. Aside from Aerith, the rest of us can’t even talk with the planet in the first place.”
“No, I mean…” She swirls a hand as she considers how to put it and drops the hand with a sigh. She has to admit it, “I’m not someone who can save it; not while the planet itself rejects me.”
“How does it ‘reject’ you? You’re one of the freakin’ Summons, for crying out loud.”
“I’m not like the others. They’ve all returned themselves to the planet to help support it and continue to coexist with it in spirit. But Rubia and I can’t return since we’re stuck in our own reincarnation cycle. So they all see me as an outsider. And as far as the planet is concerned, I’m its greatest enemy.”
He opens his mouth to argue more, but then he realizes something else and his eyes widen. “…Wait. Is that what happened between you and Leviathan? Did he try to kill you?”
“Yeah, multiple times. But I can’t really stay dead, so the most he could do was keep my spirit trapped in in that other realm, so I wouldn’t be able to return to my body.”
He blinks. “Whoa. Then how did you escape? Did you kill him?”
She flinches as if he had just touched a nerve and she huddles timidly again, eyes glued to the ground.
Cloud stares at her, but she doesn’t answer or turn his way. “You didn’t? Then if he didn’t let you go…” And as he thinks it through, the dots finally connect and he becomes horrified too. “Oh… Oh, shit.”
As soon as the shock fades, it’s replaced by raw anger. His hands clench up into fists and he feels like punching something, but there’s nothing here to hit. No wonder she was out for so long. He should have known by now. Every time she’s conked out, it always tied back to that man. And yet again, Cloud was nowhere to help her.
“…Ruby, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, Cloud. There wasn’t anything you could have done.”
“Yeah, but…” He drifts off, unsure of what to say. He hates to admit it, but she’s right. What could he have done? Only she could go to the spiritual realm in the first place, and they wouldn’t have done much better if he stayed with her until she got back. After an awkward pause, he then vents with a sigh. “…I’m glad that you made it out, at least.”
“Yeah…” she replies, and while she looks like she wants to admit something else, she keeps it in reserve. Instead, she closes her eyes and tries to clear her mind to calm herself. She then lifts her head again and returns him a genuinely relieved smile. “Well, for what it’s worth, I feel like I just unloaded a burden. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome, I guess.” He also suggests, “Shouldn’t you also bring this up with Aerith? She might have a better idea of what to do.”
“Yeah… eventually.”
“Why wait? They ought to be coming around here soon.”
“…” She then blushes a little in embarrassment as she asks, “Can we just keep this conversation to us? About the Leviathan thing. It’d be too awkward to explain to everyone.”
“Ruby…” He frowns, but can see that he won’t be convincing her right now. “Fine, but you can’t keep your secrets bottled up all the time. It’s just gonna blow up eventually.” He makes a guilty look aside as he admits, “I would know. I didn’t really think about it at the time, but you really saved me from the worst by dragging my memories back out.”
“…Yeah.” She nods slowly. “Now if only there was someone else like me who could drag out my memories without making it too violent…”
He turns back to her with another questioning look. “We do have someone. Her name is Aerith.”
She peeks back to him. “…I was thinking more along the lines of you, actually.”
“Me? How would I be able to do that?” He adds with a bit of snark, “I’m pretty violent too, you know.”
That seems to cheer her up a bit. She lets off an amused scoff and looks back up with another smile. “Well, I figured that we could be something like… mental buddies? Being able to pick at each other’s minds and sharing horrible secrets together.”
“…I’d rather share nice secrets, but uh, sure.”
She turns away for the road behind them again. “Anyway, let’s get going. We have a factory to the south to investigate, and a crew to pick up just outside.”
With Ruby feeling sufficiently better for now, the two hurry back out the way they came. Now with no one to bother them, it’s a straight shot for the front gate. As they figured, the Highwind has arrived by the town by now, but they would find a few more friends waiting there for them too.
“Cloud! Ruby! Over here!” Tifa calls, waving to them.
“Guys! Barret and them are back!” Aerith calls out too.
“Barret?” Cloud asks.
“Red too! And Biggs and Wedge!” Ruby cheers.
Apparently, while the two were away in town, another suspicious truck arrived at the outskirts as well, but before Tifa and Aerith could lay hands and staff on them, they found friendly faces instead. Biggs, Wedge, Red, and finally Barret came out to meet up with the others, and it seems they’ve been busy catching each other up on the latest. Jessie is also here and she’s been furiously taking notes.
“Heyyy! There’s our VIP! Glad to see ya again, Ruby!” Barret waves a hand to them as they approach.
“Ruby! Welcome back!” Wedge greets her, waving both arms.
Biggs nods along. “Looks like we’re all here… Well, except one guy, but he should be coming by soon, right?”
Jessie nods back and explains, “I just got a message from Vincent. Seems like he got a ride with a member of the NRSA, aka the National Religion and Spiritualism Association, and they’re coming over here.”
“Huh, so he got his own ride. Talk about lucky.”
“I dunno about ‘lucky’, though at least he doesn’t seem to be held hostage or anything. See, this group has been well aware of what’s been happening here and have been collaborating with the government to keep everything covered up. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re also responsible in some way.”
“So even this religious group is involved? Damn, this mess is way bigger than I’d ever imagined,” Barret grumbles.
“Yeesh. Between all the cult-likes and the corrupt Wutaian officials, it really feels like we’ve dug up a whole worm colony,” Biggs remarks.
Tifa adds with a determined frown, “We have to put a stop to this ring. There’s no telling what dangers this country will face if we don’t put a plug on this ARC thing.”
Wedge nods too. “Yeah. At this rate, Shinra doesn’t even have to lift a finger to destroy Wutai again…”
“They never destroyed us, thank you very much!” Yuffie argues, dropping down the ladder.
“Y-yipes! Sorry, I didn’t see you there!” he squeaks.
“Hmph. Not like there’s a lot to do up on deck. Old man Cid’s just grumbling about how we’re using up precious fuel since he doesn’t want to park on the rugged terrain. Is Shinra tech really that crappy that their huge airship can’t handle a little mountain road?”
“Er… You’re askin’ the wrong guy about that.”
Yuffie turns to Cloud and Ruby too. “So, how goes the town? Found anything suspicious?”
“More like everything about it.” He briefs them on the situation, “As soon as Ruby and I stopped by, we ran into some townspeople who were all expecting her.”
“What? How?”
“Well, it’s more like they were waiting for me,” Ruby adds, “I’m not just seen as a God here; I’m practically responsible for their whole existence.”
“Uh… so they’re even crazier than most people? Sounds about right.”
Cloud shakes his head. “The problem is, they don’t even know anything about what’s been happening outside of their town. Everyone’s basically turned into zombies that can’t think for themselves.”
And in come the confused reactions: “What?” “Huh?” “Z-zombies?”
“Whoa, there. You mean they’re all ravenous braindead monsters looking to eat human flesh?” Jessie suggests with a touch of wit. “Did you guys just run into a horror flick screenplay or something?”
“No, but they are braindead,” Cloud answers, “And they only answer to Ruby.”
“Like, she’s their commander overlord or something?” Biggs then asks lightheartedly, “Who made her the Lich Queen?”
Ruby sighs. “I did. I’m the Lich Queen.”
There’s an awkward silence that ensues as Cloud and Ruby’s face remain solemn, and gradually the others realize that they’re not joking.
“Uh…” Biggs rubs his head awkwardly. “Wait, you guys are serious…?”
Jessie blinks too and feels a little embarrassed. “Oh, geez… I’m so sorry. That sounds terrifying.”
Tifa gasps, “The whole town is like this?”
Cloud nods. “At least, as far as we could tell. Ruby dismissed everyone so we could chat in private, and everyone listened to her. The streets were entirely cleared up.”
Now the rest of them exchange worried and/or nervous glances.
“…Ain’t that just all kinds of #%^$#@ up,” Barret says, breaking the silence. “So, they only listen to Ruby and no one else?”
Cloud shrugs. “Well, I could talk to them, but not like I had any effect on their behavior.”
Ruby explains further, “Well, in the meantime, I’m sure they’re all docile so they won’t be a bother to anyone as long as the town is left alone.” She then folds her arms. “What worries me is that there’s a factory to the southwest where all their able-bodied men have gone. It seems like they’re producing so-called ‘medicine’ from ARC, and that’s what’s gotten them all so screwed up.”
“What!? Goddamn! So that’s what the stuff has been used for!” Barret exclaims all of a sudden.
“Huh?”
He gestures toward the truck they came by. “We caught this truck at a fort a little ways from the capital, and seems like Corneo’s ring is all over it. They had some weird stuff that they were gonna transport here; boxes carrying tubes fulla this black stuff.” He snorts, huffing with disappointment. “Thought we’d find more of Corneo’s grunts when we arrived, but looks like they hightailed it already. Hmph.”
Red also brings up, “I’ve picked up faint traces of the substance in this area as well. There’s no doubt it’s the same.”
“Tubes?” Ruby picks up, “They’re contained in tubes?”
He explains in Barret’s stead, “Yes. It seems ARC has been transported by fluid containers the size of large soda cans. However, their contents act more like a gas when shaken and they seem to be near weightless.”
She puts a hand to her chin to think about it. “I see. And later, they’re somehow processed to become a tincture or dry pill form, though I guess it’s not as concentrated. It explains why the people are still able to move around like normal, but even in small doses, the stuff is pretty much lethal.”
“Hmm… You say they have become ‘zombies’, but are they truly dead? Or are you just assuming based on appearances?”
“No, they are dead. They just don’t look like it, aside from the blank look in their eyes. Unlike with rigor mortis, though, they’re permanently relaxed and unfocused.”
“I see. Very strange, indeed.” Red pauses as he deliberates over a different question. “Incidentally, I also picked up the same scent on you just now…”
“Yeah, um… When we went in, we were met with some people who offered us a sample medicinal pill, so I tried it.”
“Y-you tried it?”
“Ruby! Don’t tell me you’ve been eating weird things!” Aerith squeaks in horror. “Spit it out!”
“It’s fine, Cuz. It’s made from my cells anyway, so I’m not affected.”
“Yeah, but you shouldn’t just eat it…” That said, she is curious. “But since you did, how did it taste?”
“Uh… it didn’t, actually. Completely bland and flavorless. Texture-wise, it was dry and crumbly, but it quickly disappeared too.”
She puts on her thinking face. “Huh. Weird. Usually medicinal herbs at least have some kind of taste… though I guess this isn’t your usual herb.”
“Never mind that now!” Barret interrupts and declares, “We got our next place to go, so what we waitin’ for? Let’s go shut this factory down! I just know Corneo’s gotta be there somewhere!”
“Wait a sec, guys,” Yuffie then cuts in.
“Huh?”
She turns back to Ruby, looking a bit doubtful. “You said there’s a factory to the south from here? But last we checked, the only building around here is Zangsong Castle. It’s off-limits to everyone since it’s been declared a historical heritage site. Wouldn’t make sense that they’d be hiring workers there.”
“Ah, we heard from the townsfolk about that too,” Ruby brings up, “They said it was near there, so we just need to head for it.”
“But that’s what I’m saying, there is no other ‘factory’! The castle grounds are surrounded by a huge garden that stretches across the whole hill, and there’s even a moat around the main tower. Are you sure you got your facts right?”
“…” Now, Ruby and Cloud share some concerned looks. “Cloud, you don’t think the people were mistaken, were they?”
“Maybe. They didn’t seem like they were lying. Since you have control over them, you can tell if they were, right?”
“Yeah, though I’m sure they wouldn’t be able to lie in the first place. They must have just been misinformed. Could it be that’s where the ‘factory’ is, then?” She whips back to Yuffie to ask, “Say, does this castle harbor some kind of super top-secret stuff that the government is keeping there?”
Yuffie frowns at the implications. “Well, if there is, I was never told.”
“Hmm… Then again, you and Sonon were outed to be ‘Godo sympathizers’, so who knows what else your superiors have been hiding.”
“Ugh! For the last time, I’m not sympathizing with that dumb old man! He got himself into his own mess!”
“I’m just saying, even you two aren’t entirely free from suspicion in their eyes.” Ruby now turns off for the grand-looking castle in the distance. “In any case, we’re gonna have to stop by there and take a look.”
“Yeah, yeah… I hope it doesn’t collapse on us while we’re inside, though. Maybe you can hold it up for us?”
“That goes without saying. I’ll head in first to make sure it’s safe and then I’ll call the rest of you over.” She turns back to the others. “Speaking of which, who is going in there with me? Cloud’s a given.”
“Well, I wanna know what Sonon and I have been kept out of, so we’re going too!” Yuffie answers immediately.
“Since Corneo could be there, shouldn’t we all go? We can split up and look around,” Barret suggests.
Tifa reminds him, “Some of us should still stay with the Highwind. Vincent hasn’t arrived yet, after all.”
“Ah, yeah. Sure is takin’ him…”
Cloud shakes his head too with a sigh. “Besides, you’re always going on about splitting up… Don’t you have any other ideas when it comes to plans?”
Barret argues back rather vehemently, “And what’s wrong with it!? We can cover more ground!”
“But it would make it harder for Ruby to help anyone if we’re all over the place. If anything, we need a small squad to infiltrate. Who knows what we’d be running into.”
“Corneo’s goons is what! And they’re all chumps! We don’t need Ruby to flatten ’em!”
But for once, Ruby actually agrees with Cloud, “Sorry, Barret, but he has a point. If this place is really that fragile, we should keep to a smaller party. And since she and Sonon are more familiar with this place, they’ll be pretty useful to scout for us. They are ninjas, after all.”
Barret looks like his tongue was just caught and he shuts up with a bit of a sulk. “Fine. But soon as the place is clear, call us up, alright? We don’t wanna be stuck outside waitin’ around for nothing either.”
Tifa nods. “Stay safe, guys. If there’s anything you find off, don’t be afraid to jump back out. We’ll be able to back you up.”
“Well, looks like we’re leaving things to Ruby again,” Jessie says with a wishful sigh, “I wonder when we’ll actually get to beat some guys up.”
Biggs turns to her, finding her suspect. “When were you part of the battle-ready gang?”
“Excuse me, but it can get a little boring just being the operator or backup all the time! Besides, after Ruby passed out a bunch of new weapons, some of us are a little antsy. I’ve been testing the waters with something of my own.” She slaps the small pouch on the side of her waist.
“Huh? What new weapons?” Barret asks, intrigued.
“Ah, right! One moment.” Ruby puts her hands to his gun-arm and with a whipping up of magic, she replaces it in a flash with a brand new Chainsaw.
“Whoa! Huh…” He brings his arm forward and gives the thing a few test swings before he turns back to her. “Hey, how’d ya do that? That was pretty cool.”
“I’m a magical girl, remember?”
“Heh. True. And thanks.”
And finally, she drops down to Red’s shoulder height and helps him equip the Gold Barrette, latching it to his collar. “There we go. Now aside from Vincent, you’re all set.”
Red nods and listens to the soft jingle of the gold clip. “Thank you. You didn’t have to.”
“Ha. I sure did if I wanna be fair.”
Biggs then jokes, “Ah. So, the boss and the dog get presents, but what about us B team?”
Ruby looks genuinely ashamed to come up empty there. “Sorry. I still haven’t found the right things for you guys. I promise I’ll come up with something eventually.”
He quickly backtracks and apologizes. “Uh, i-it’s okay. Really. We appreciate the thought.” He makes an assuring smile, “Besides, with you leading the charge, it’s probably for the best we stick to the rear guard. Wouldn’t wanna get in your way.”
She nods back. “I’m sure someday you three will get your own shining moments too. It’s just that ARC is now my business, so you should leave this stuff to me.” She then turns around to look up to the Highwind’s deck above. “That said… it couldn’t hurt if we added another group of scouts just this once.”
“Huh? Which group?”
“I was just thinking, since we got the Turks aboard now, they could join us too.”
“W-what!?”
“Whoa, Ruby! The hell are you sayin’!?” Barret yells more in surprise than anger, “No way we’re gonna work with the Turks! They’re the Goddamn rats of Shinra! You know that!”
“They’re still our allies, at least for now. And don’t worry, they won’t think twice about betraying us, especially that we also got a new Soldier pal who only listens to me.”
“Uh… huh?” He pulls back, looking a bit lost. “Soldier? Oh, yeah. Jessie did say somethin’ about that…”
Jessie nods back. “By the looks of it, he’s entirely devoted to Ruby, so he’s pretty much ours now. Still…” She passes Ruby a nervous look. “There’s just something really weird about him. You sure we can really trust him?”
Ruby nods with reassurance. “If you have faith in me, then you can have faith in him.”
“Hmm… Well, alright. You know the most about him, so it’s your call.” Jessie then smirks as she prods for an answer, “Say, what did you say to him anyway that got him hooked? Promised him anything?”
“Uh… I honestly don’t know if it was something I said, but I did promise him one thing.”
“What’s that?”
She then turns back to Barret with a serious frown. “That I’d bring him to Barret and later reunite him with his folks in Corel.”
“!” Just hearing that word makes the man nearly jump, and for once, Barret looks visibly shaken. “What… He’s from Corel?”
“Yeah. Do you remember a guy named Cole Chinedu?”
“…” Now that she’s brought it up, Barret’s face grows dark as he recalls some painful memories. He lets out a deep sigh. “It’s been a long time since I last heard that name.”
“I’m sorry, Barret. It’s a long story, but he’s in a really shitty place since Shinra got him involved in Project Immortals. His condition is irreversible and I don’t think it’ll get better. I’m not sure what I can do except keep an eye on him.”
There’s a renewed fire in his eyes as he’s reminded of his good reasons why he opposes Shinra every step of the way. He snaps out of his gloom and nods back. “Right. Then, I’ll leave him in your care.”
“Thanks.”
“But on that thought,” he then asks her with a concerned frown, “You really want the Turks to join ya for this? I know ya won’t have trouble with ’em, but they’re still Shinra. Never know what they’re plannin’ in secret, and it’s not good.”
“It’s just for now. Even if after all’s said and done and they finally hightail it back to Midgar, I’ll make sure that they won’t be involved in Wutai affairs anymore. And Rufus is clearly running out of options with how much I’ve shown him up.”
“Hmm…” Finally he relents. “Alright, if you insist. But as always, stay alert and don’t fall for any sneaky bullshit.”
“Gotcha.”
Ruby turns back for the rest of the Avalanche team, who likewise share worried and/or nervous faces, but ultimately, everyone can agree that they’ve held fast in their faith in her. Even when she has her unreliable moments at times, she’s ultimately their trump card that has always backed them up in the end.
Cloud then waves a hand to catch her attention. “Hey. Ready when you are. Go fetch Sonon and whoever else you need. When you’re back out, let’s go.”
“On it.”
Ruby makes an assuring smile and passes it around her friends once more before she rushes back up onto the Highwind. Or rather, she runs around the front of the ship so she can wave to the people on deck through the windshield. And in a blink, she vanishes and reappears right up on there with them.
The peaceful scene aboard is such a sight for sore eyes since the unsettling vibes of Zhongyuan. Aside from the usual crew minding their business, Cid is busy teaching – in that ever strict way he does – a rookie pilot at the helm, likely to prepare him for the instances when Cid himself isn’t around to pilot. Cait Sith has been sitting guard by the radio as if he’s been waiting on further reports, though in the meantime, he and his moogle seem to be busier playing cards with each other. But she also notices that Leslie and Sonon aren’t here; nor are Cole and their captive Turks. Where did they go?
“Oh, if you’re looking for the others, they ought to be off in the cabin next to the bridge, near the Chocobo stables,” one of the crew members then announces. He happens to be the one who helped cover for Jessie when Tseng stopped by earlier.
“Oh, thanks.” She’s about to turn off again, but then open to spread the camaraderie, she also asks, “Say, I never did get your name…”
“Oh, me? Haha.” He gives her a formal salute. “Guillermo Vela, at your service, ma’am! I’m really grateful for all that you’ve done for the Captain and the opportunities you’ve given us too! It’s been an honor!”
“Huh, ask and ye shall receive… Thank you, Guillermo. Good work to you and the rest of ya. We wouldn’t be here without you.”
“Of course! Wherever you’ll be headed, just let us know!”
She nods back with an assured smile and heads off for the cabin with the meeting room. And as she would find, Cole and the Turks have been waiting here, safely away from Cid’s boiling energy. Despite their circumstances, Reno is kicked back in his seat, while Rude and Elena are waiting patiently. Now that Ruby arrives, they all turn to her.
“Oh, you’re back.” Reno casually asks her, “So, any luck with Corneo yet?”
“Nah, not yet, but we’re working on it.” She smirks back. “But on that thought, I have a proposal for you three.”
“Pfft. What now? You sure ask a lot for some able to lift an entire city by yourself.”
“As it happens, we got a new destination to investigate. We may be treading into enemy territory, so I want you three to join us.”
“Huh?” Now Reno stops kicking back and sits back up. “You want us to go?”
“Why are you so friendly?” Elena demands too, “You know we’re not on the same side, right?”
“I know. You’re just not a threat.”
“Excuse me!?” Elena pounds the table and points an accusatory finger her way. “I don’t know what you’ve done to these guys, but don’t you even think for a second that you’re ‘safe’ with me!”
“…Especially you.”
“What!?” Now she gets up to her feet. “You wanna say that again?”
Reno sighs and Rude shakes his head, but for some reason neither one seems interested in stopping Elena. Maybe she’ll finally learn through first-hand experience.
Nevertheless, Ruby just snickers to herself and gestures them to come along. She also waves to Cole. “Hey, you’re coming too. Our team’s currently made up of scout-types, so we could use a little more firepower to back us up. You ready to guard my friends with your life, my man?”
Cole calmly nods back and actually answers, “Without a doubt, Your Radiance.”
She makes a gentle but a little sad smile. “There may still be hope for you. I’ve told Barret so he knows. We’ll take you back home after we’re done in Wutai, okay?”
“…”
He doesn’t answer, but she gets the feeling that her words do resonate with him. She then turns off for the doorway, checking off a few things on her mental checklist. “Now, where did Sonon and Leslie go? I figured they’d still be aboard, but did they drop by the lower deck already?”
She zips right out, leaping across the ship’s huge bridge in an acrobatic somersault, and flings herself through the door onto the lower deck where the ship’s gondola is. And sure enough, she catches Sonon tailing after Leslie, who’s already descending the ladder.
“Hey! Where are you going?” Sonon calls out to the guy, but he doesn’t answer.
And even before Leslie can reach the bottom of the ladder, suddenly Ruby lands upon the middle of the ladder, giving it a little jolt. Leslie is startled, but he seems annoyed yet still relieved when he looks up to see her cheeky smile.
“There you are. You know, you’re pretty hard to find even when we just saw you,” he says, waving a hand. He then finishes descending it to reach firm ground.
“Ah, I get that a lot.” She lets go of the ladder and gradually flutters her way down to the ground too as Sonon climbs down as well. “So you were looking for me?”
“Yeah. Hope you don’t mind if I tag along too. You said you’d take out Corneo, and I wanna be there to see it.”
“Uh, sure… but weren’t you specifically trying to find your fiancée?”
“Yeah. Actually, Aerith and Tifa met her back at the capital. They told me where she is.”
“Huh? And you’re still here!?” Ruby’s taken aback so much that she bumps into the ladder again, but fortunately for Sonon, he’s already gotten off by now and plays it cool.
“Yeah…” He folds his arms, making a thoughtful look. “I just felt like I wasn’t ready yet.”
“Not ready? Why? If you know where she is, tell me. I can send you off right now.”
“No, it’s fine. We can save that for after Corneo’s dead. I don’t think it’s gonna be the happy ending I want if I know he’s still hiding out somewhere.”
“Hmm… I guess. But we’re going deep into enemy territory. You sure you wanna come? I can’t play babysitter for everyone.”
“Wouldn’t ask you to. In fact,” he adds with an almost smug frown, “You won’t even need to worry about me. I can find my way around just fine, no matter the place. Was working for an enemy for a while, after all. If you need a scout, you can count on me.”
“Ah, scouting…” She nods back. “Alright. I’ll hold you up to that.”
Now that she mentions it, Sonon means to ask, “So, where are we headed?”
Ruby makes an amused scoff. “You’re just assuming you’re coming along, huh?”
“Of course. I may not have heard you all, but Yuffie was making a racket loud enough to be heard from inside the ship. And since this is basically our backyard, I figured you might need another ninja.”
“To be honest, I thought you would be the only scout I’d need, but with Leslie insisting on coming along, I guess you two can work together.”
“Huh?”
“Excuse me?” Leslie also asks, raising an eyebrow. “Sorry, but I don’t usually work with others… not unless I have to.”
She makes a smug smirk of her own. “Well, then you’ll just have to learn to get along. And besides, two scouts working together is way more interesting than just one who thinks he can be a bigshot out of the spotlight.”
“Hey. You trying to say something about how I do things?”
“Hehehe. Not at all.” She beckons them to follow her and she hurries back to Cloud and Yuffie.
As she comes over, Cloud passes Leslie an odd look and turns to her again. “Even him?”
“Yeah.”
With that very prompt answer, it’s clear she’s made up her mind and he understands it’s best to not argue. “…Alright.”
“Sheesh, I thought you said you wanted a small party, Ruby. Well, whatever! If we’re all ready, then let’s go!” Yuffie yells with triumph.
“Alright, guys, it’s time! All about the Ruby Express!” she likewise cheers, throwing up her arms.
“NO!” Both Yuffie and Cloud grab her by those arms to stop her.
“Please, anything but that!” Yuffie whines.
“Ruby. You can warp us. Just do that,” he insists anxiously.
“Hahaha! I’m kidding, guys. There’s a lot of you for me to carry on my back anyway.” She lowers her arms and they let her go. She also points a thumb back behind her, and as if on cue, the three Turks and even the Soldier have come on down too. “Besides, we got guests.”
Yuffie eyes them suspiciously. “They’d better not mess with us, or it’s gonna be a lot worse than even what they think you’ll do to ’em.”
“Ruby, you’d better have a good plan already…” Cloud agrees warily, though he also adds, “Though I guess it couldn’t hurt to bring along some test dummies in case we need any.”
She nearly does a spit-take and snorts loudly as she breaks into a chortle. “Don’t tell ’em that. Elena will pop a nerve,” she mutters back just out of hearing.
With her current party gathered around her, Ruby waves a finger straight up in the air. And with a silent casting, she summons a white spell circle around her that captures all of them within its reach, and it’s warping time – straight to the imposing castle gates in the background.
Meanwhile, back aboard the Highwind, Cait Sith feels a little troubled after placing down the last of his cards. While he had initially meant for this to be a simple game of Old Maid, he quickly found himself in his old habit of whipping out quick divinations based on the tarot cards he used. And before he could help it, he found himself face-to-face with an upright Tower. This card by itself may not necessarily be a bad omen, but it is the one that signifies a “great change” that is often accompanied by disaster or chaos. It’s definitely not the best card to draw before a big mission; kinda puts a damper on the whole morale. He shares a concerned frown with his moogle, but then they both shrug and proceed to mix up the cards again for another game. Maybe it’s just a coincidence and he’s thinking too much into it.
~
Zangsong Castle is a sprawling complex atop a rocky hill overlooking the shore, and it is surrounded on all sides by a massive garden cordoned off into sections of hedge and planters that could be like a maze to the unassuming. The primary gate that opens the way forward has seen some wear and tear over the years, but still stands strong and proud as if someone has been keeping it in decent repair. And just past the gates but before the garden itself is a very deep dry fjord that surrounds the independent hill and acts as a natural barrier. If it were filled with water, it would make the perfect moat.
The wooden bridge leading up to the garden has also seen better days, but has been reinforced with rope as to be safely traversable. However, the knots on it have been made in such a way that while it would take quite a few slashes of a blade to cut through them entirely, they can be undone with just the right fingering technique. Fortunately for Ruby and company, even if it were to give way, she can always warp them right over. She would just rather not because she’s much more interested in running wild like a child in a candy store.
And before Cloud and the others can stop her, Ruby zips right past the open gates and onto the rickety bridge, bouncing along it in a way that would make even the cliffs around it tremble before her presence. Fortunately for the rest of them, the bridge doesn’t give way despite how much it’s swaying, but because she just zoomed off without so much as checking its status, they’re forced to wait until it stops swaying.
“Ruby!” Cloud calls out, but she’s already too far to hear him. One could even say she’s zipping through the maze-like garden ahead like a streak of lightning.
“She’s just like a kid…” Yuffie groans in disbelief, “Is being around a castle really that big a deal?”
He sighs, shaking his head. “She’s always like a kid.”
Now, Leslie steps up and takes a casual glance around. “Is this the only way we have to cross?”
Cloud likewise takes a look around too and nods back. “Seems like it. The whole design feels like a well-guarded fortress.”
Sonon agrees and adds, “Makes sense. According to legend, this castle was home to a certain lord in the ancient past before the whole country was united, and after conquering much of it, he wanted a place to stay that would be safe from intruders.”
“But the massive garden is a little much if you ask me. Who has time to tend to all those bushes?” Yuffie asks with a scoff.
“Well, you’d think a lord of his status would have a lot of servants who’d also live here and help maintain the place. It is a castle, after all.”
“It’s still a huge hassle.” She puts her hands to her hips. “Our Pagoda kept a big garden too, but it’s all set in a specific place, so we’d have room for other actual buildings where people can live.”
“…Must be nice being from a noble family,” he comments.
“Hahaha!” She laughs rather haughtily, but gives him a dismissive wave. “Ah. Not that it matters. In the end, it’s just a lot of upkeep and a lot of workers we have to keep track of, and at some point, it wasn’t worth keeping it exclusively under the Kisaragi name. And with our new government and all, of course all that would become public property. Kinda sucks that they leased some of it out to foreigners, though…” She sticks out her tongue when she’s reminded. “Especially to a scumbag like Corneo! Seriously, what the heck’s up with that!?”
“…Must be tough being from a noble family,” he then changes his tune.
Yuffie gives him an annoyed frown. “Consider yourself lucky that I’m still in a good mood.”
“Huh? Uh, sorry? I didn’t mean to sound sarcastic…”
By now, the bridge seems to have settled down again and is still safe to cross, even after taking Ruby’s abuse. Cloud calls them over, “Hey. The way’s clear. Let’s hurry before Ruby ruins anything else.”
Leslie snorts to that. “Assuming she hasn’t already at the speed she’s going.”
Cloud makes an annoyed grunt. “I told her to go on ahead first, but at this rate, she’ll just bring down the whole place before we can even get inside…”
They proceed onward, with Cloud leading the charge, and shortly they all gather at another set of gates, which is the main entrance to the massive garden. They all take a quick look around, noting all the different paths that stretch all across the castle grounds. However, there is still the widest open road, likely the main one, that leads visitors along a pre-set path directly to the main tower, which sits at the highest peak of this hill. There also happens to be a convenient signboard with a map of the area to help guide them.
“According to this, if we follow the biggest path, we should be able to reach the main tower,” Cloud observes, “But what about these buildings on the side? Looks like there’s some English text descriptions, but they’re pretty vague and briefly talk about history. I can’t read the rest. Looks like Wutaian.”
“Looks like an old dialect, but let’s see…” Sonon translates for him, “The ones scattered near the main tower seem to have been the living quarters of the soldiers and workers. I guess the top brass of the military were allowed to live in the main tower, since I don’t see theirs among them. The one to the right was a storage unit, probably for weapons and ammunition, and the one off to the lower left was a secondary depository; not sure what it held.”
“Well, it’s been long enough that I doubt there’s still anything there,” Yuffie points out. “Let’s just check out the main tower. It might be the sturdiest out of them all, since that was where the old lord used to live.”
“Yeah. The widest road is the path set for visitors and is the quickest path to the tower. We just need to follow the signs with the Wisteria vines.”
“Hopefully Ruby didn’t rip them all off as she sped by,” Yuffie half-jokes.
“That would be a problem…” he agrees, feeling just a bit worried.
But just as the crew is ready to head off, out of nowhere, a bright burst of white light nearly blinds them. Ruby’s back and for some reason, she’s looking a bit frantic.
“Guys! You gotta get to the main tower! It’s weird!” she yells.
“What? You’re back already?” Cloud folds his arms. “What’s weird?”
“It’s not old, that’s why it’s weird! I swear I heard things moving inside too!”
“Huh?”
Yuffie stares hard at her. “What are you talking about? How could anything here NOT be old?”
“Come on! With me! Andale!”
Before they can even make sense of what she’s saying, Ruby has dashed around like mad and tapped every one of them on the arm or shoulder, and in another flash, she warps everyone right to the front doors of the tower in question.
And as soon as they get there, they see what she means. Despite everything that was said of it, the mighty castle tower stands before them looking surprisingly well-kept. If anything, it almost looks like it was recently refurbished and repolished, as there’s not a single sign of decay or cracking in its walls or doors. Even the moat that surrounds it on all sides seems to be outfitted with modern-style aqueducts and looks as if it had been cleaned recently. It’s all rather suspicious – like it had somehow been replaced entirely – but that can’t be. This is always where this castle has been. And who could possibly destroy a massive monument like this and rebuild it anew on such short notice?
“…See? Not old,” Ruby calmly remarks, passing some smug side-eye to Yuffie.
“What!? What the hell! I was always told it was off-limits since I was young since it had to be preserved for posterity. Who’s been messing with it!?”
Sonon shakes his head. “Don’t look at me. I’ve never been here before.” He pauses as he listens carefully, and he does seem to pick up on some odd noises coming from within.
Cloud shrugs. “Considering that Corneo’s ring has been involved in some shady business around here, it wouldn’t surprise me if it was them.”
Yuffie growls, steaming from ear to ear. “Ooh! When I find them, they’re all in for it!”
Cloud also looks around in search of the way across the moat. There’s another smaller wooden bridge that connects them, and like the last one, it’s just as dated and so has been reinforced. “This way,” he calls to them.
Ruby is still eyeing up the tower and muses aloud, “If it’s this new, maybe we can all bum-rush the castle and start a raid. We just need some kickass battle music playing in the background.”
“How about we stick to the plan and you go in first?” he suggests, having none of it.
“Fine…”
She’s about to bounce carefreely along this bridge too, but this time he catches her by the arm and gives her a stern frown to remind her to stop messing around. She rolls her eyes, but nods and he lets go. She gives the bridge a firm step, confirming that it’ll hold, and then runs right up to the double doors that await them. With little regard for any courtesies, she tries the handles, finds them locked, and pounds on the doors anyway. Since no one seems to be coming to open the doors, Ruby hops back and lunges forth with such incredible force that she blows a great hole right through, knocking both doors from their hinges, and rushes in without a second thought. Cloud and the others watch her with ever growing apprehension and anxiety, as they all reconsider if this was actually the best idea after all.
Reno now walks up and gives Cloud a disappointed stare. “Wasn’t she supposed to be great at sneaking?”
He slumps a little. “Yes… if she tries.”
“She really just ran in,” Sonon can’t help but point out.
“What are we doing!? Chase her before she messes up anything else!” Yuffie yells.
The rest of them hurry on in, but Sonon then stays behind as he notices Leslie isn’t running in with them. Curious, he waits for him at the end of the bridge as the guy just casually strolls over.
“…Are things always like this with her?” Leslie asks when he gets close enough.
Sonon nods. “Yeah… I think so.”
Leslie then peers around the other footpaths that run alongside the tower and then turns back to him. “Hey. Nothing against you, but hope you don’t mind if I try another route in on my own. With all the noise they’ll be making, it might actually make things easier for me.”
Sonon doesn’t look entirely assuaded, though. “You sure about that? It might be better if we stick together.”
“Just ’cause Ruby said so doesn’t mean it has to work like that, you know.”
“It’s not about what she said. While I haven’t personally been here before, I’d still know my way around a castle like this. Even if you don’t get lost, you never know what you might run into.”
He doesn’t look pleased, but then concedes, “Hmph. Despite my looks, I’m not that helpless… but fine. You’re the ninja here, so you’d probably know where to look or even what to watch for.”
“Thanks. Alright, now if there were a secret entrance, where would it be…” He takes a moment to consider multiple avenues, including some above or below ground level. “…Okay. I think I have an idea. Come on.”
Sonon takes the path to their left, on the east side of the tower, and Leslie hurries after him. Despite having never been here before, Sonon feels a strange sense like he knows the way anyway. It’s almost like there’s some kind of voice in the back of his mind guiding him toward the right path to take.
Meanwhile, Ruby who rammed her way in would stop in her tracks as soon as she enters the tower’s foyer. While she expected the place to be quite spacious and extravagantly decorated, it’s not quite the interior she expected. While it is still shaped like a traditional real-world Japanese castle, wall to wall, there are metal plates and gears churning in the open like she’d just run into a mechanical castle out of a storybook. But more than that, she’s simply bewildered to find that it’s not empty either. There lots of people here, all dressed like much of the populace, and there are the incessant sounds of tinkering that run throughout the halls. On the occasion, there are muffled voices that crop up, probably from other rooms nearby, and there are hammers and drills that drown out most of the other noise.
Clearly, these people aren’t tourists. Wherever they had come from, they appear to be mostly men – very few women, though those that are present seem to be well-built themselves – to be manual laborers, technicians, handymen. Ruby blinks as two and two come together; is this in fact the factory that the Reila was talking about? But what are they having the workers do? She was expecting some kind of secret lab where they were churning out pharmaceuticals, not architecture and construction.
“Ruby!” Now Cloud at the others catch up and they too stop in bewilderment at what they’re seeing. “…What is this?” he asks.
She shrugs. “Looks like we found the factory.”
“This castle is the factory? But what are they making? I thought there’d be more… medical stuff, like potions or other kinds of drugs.”
“I thought so too! But these guys are clearly construction workers.” She scratches her head. “I thought it was weird that I heard some kind of clanging and drilling noises from the outside.”
“What the… Wasn’t the ring supposed to be smuggling ARC that could be packaged like medicine?” Elena asks her companions.
“Yeah, that was the impression we got…” Reno replies, feeling a little unnerved too.
“…Clearly, there was something here worth looking into, after all,” Rude concludes.
“Then what the heck’s all this!?” she cries out, stretching her arms forward.
“That’s what I wanna know!” Yuffie demands too, “This whole place is obviously a fake! Damn Corneo… He’s SO dead already!”
Suddenly, to everyone’s shock, an intercom flickers on and an unfamiliar male voice announces, “To our latest guests… welcome to Zangsong Castle.”
“!?”
“The Proprietress, Her Grace, has invited you to a meeting in the throne room on the fifth floor. Please make your way to the elevator lobby to your right. It is not a part of the ongoing construction, so feel free to take whichever lift you wish.” There’s a meaningful pause before the stranger adds, “…May Her Radiance be your guiding light.”
“…”
With that, the intercom returns to silence and the rest of them exchange confused and frankly wary looks. Cloud’s face scrunches up as he tries to make any sense of what this is, but then turns back to Ruby. She seems a little dazed, staring off idly into space.
“Hey, you okay?”
“…Yeah. But suddenly, I just got a bad feeling about this place.”
Notes:
Historical Facts & Origins Galore
- I legit thought of "Reila" in an instant because I wanted a pun on the word "relay", sorry, not sorry.
- I'll state for the record that I named the pill the "Black Pearl" because it's a black ball that's "precious" and any similarities to any other piece of media is just coincidence, but for a moment there, I was stuck thinking about boba again, especially with the fact that Ruby ate it. I'm sorry.
- The white castle of Zangsong is basically a cultural reference (and plain ripoff in terms of appearance) to the Osaka Castle, which is aptly located on a man-made island in east Osaka. It's a famous landmark in Japan with a rich history and played a major role in the unification of Japan back in the 16th century. Its purpose definitely changed over the years, but it had once been one of the largest military bases in Japan following the Meiji Restoration and kept that status well into WWII.
- However, its name "Zangsong" is just the Chinese word for a funeral send-off, especially during festivals like the Ghost Festival where it's customary to send off spirits back to the afterlife after their fun visit to the world of the living. Often times this involves sending them off with gifts, incense, and paper money, though the details differ depending on the region.
- Cole Chinedu is a completely original character I made up on the spot back when I was still writing chapter 20 and he's kinda grown on me after a while as I fleshed out his backstory. His name is based off of "coal" in reference to the town he grew up in, and Chinedu is Igbo for "God is leading", according to Behind the Name. Igbo is a Western African language and people. At first I thought I'd go with a fully Anglicized name, but we already got enough names like that as is and I wanted to flip the script a bit. Besides, giving him a religious-based name is fun.
- Guillermo Vela may or may not be an OC, lol. I just came up with a random name for one of the crew members, but "Vela" is also Spanish for "sail", so there ya go.
- Imma be honest: I didn't think Leslie would have stayed around with the crew for this long, but I had to change the script along the way because I couldn't fit his reunion with Merle anywhere prior to the end of this arc. Besides, now I got the perfect role for him coming up in a near-future chapter. Boy, I can't wait to get to the part where they finally confront Corneo.
- I had a few different inspirations when it came to the design of the recently mechanized Zangsong Castle: Howl's Moving Castle from Studio Ghibli, Karakuri Castle from Yu-gi-Oh, which is also based off of Osaka Castle (lol), and a little something else I can't say yet because spoilers. It'll be obvious enough when we get there, though.
Chapter 47: Parade of Pandemonium
Chapter Text
It’s honestly a little hard to read what she’s feeling whenever Ruby has this dead-eyed expression on her face, but with all the revelations they’ve had so far, it’s only natural that she’s sick of hearing anything else that has to do with her legacy or fanatic cult. Though he doesn’t want to keep burdening her with any more, Cloud still has to ask the question.
“Do you know these people?”
After another moment of idle silence, she turns to him. “No. But now I hate it when anyone refers to me as ‘Radiance’ or something to do with the moon. Why can’t I go back to the days when I’d just be called ‘annoying brat’?”
For once, she’s just as lost as everyone else. He answers plainly, “For what it’s worth, you still are an annoying brat.”
That brings a smug smirk to her. “Thanks, man. Always can count on you.”
He then drives back on track, “Still, it’s safe to assume that they’re involved in what happened to this place, so whoever they are, they’re probably not friendlies. If we head right up there, we might be running into a trap.”
“And what sort of trap would they have that would contain me?”
“Well, okay…” He rubs his head as he tries to explain it another way, “But even if you can warp us all out, what about the rest of the people here?”
“They look busy and not obligated to leave.”
“You’re just gonna leave them?”
She handwaves it, as if too tired to think about it anymore. “I think we may be assuming too much when we don’t know enough. Might as well confront them now and figure out a plan as we go.”
He isn’t pleased with that answer, but it’s clear as day that she’s not listening anymore. And unfortunately for him, Ruby isn’t the only impatient one.
Yuffie barks, “Then let’s go! I wanna know what happened to this castle! It’s a real slap in the face to the rest of Wutai! Who even let this happen!?” And before anyone can stop her, she dashes off in the direction of the elevator lobby.
“Yeah! None of this is making any sense!” Elena agrees, “I thought we were chasing after some chemical stuff, not a machine factory!” She swings forward a pumped-up fist. “Who changed the mission on us!?”
“…The mission is still on,” Reno replies matter-of-factly, “We’re supposed to investigate.”
“That’s it! When I find Corneo, I’m smacking him good until he tells us what’s going on!” And she runs off as well.
By now, the rest of them watch on in silence, and then Ruby’s snickers break the awkward silence. “Any chance we can leave the rest to them?” she asks, as if expecting the answer.
“Just because you don’t want to deal with this doesn’t mean it’s not your problem,” Cloud reminds her.
Ruby passes him a conceding shrug and hurries after them, taking care to avoid bumping into any workers as she passes by, and the rest quickly follow.
The ride up the elevators is uncomfortably tense given all the noise surrounding them and how this motley crew has yet to quite vibe with each other, and yet it’s Yuffie and Elena who seem to be competing to be the first one out. Once the door opens, they both burst into the lobby, but are surprised to find that there’s just a lone woman, dressed in white robes, there to greet them. Or rather, this person specifically addresses Ruby, who now calmly steps out. Though none of them may have realized it yet, this robed person happens to look awfully like the woman that Vincent had met elsewhere.
The attendee takes a respectful bow and makes the same hand gesture as seen from the people from Zhongyuan – perhaps a sign indicative of the religious order they all heed. “We are honored to be in the presence of such an esteemed guest. Please, Your Radiance and fellow guests, if you may come with me…” She then raises a hand to guide the way.
They all follow along, each with their own antsy or wary looks as they walk down the hall to another set of ornately decorated double doors. As it turns out, inside is a spacious throne room befit of a great warlord with a long hall guided by white pillars from the entrance to the throne. Lined along the hallway is a squad of eight warrior monks with flat bamboo hats large enough to cover their faces, and their gi are lightly armored in a style similar to that of ninja from a time past. Interestingly, each monk wields a different polearm with a curved blade or club head that is shaped like a different phase of the moon. And of course, there is someone seated on the throne: a middle-aged woman with short, graying hair who is also dressed in white robes and bears the dotted ring symbol on her forehead, though it also has a bowl-on-a-stick shape beneath it and a small dash to each side pointing outward. One could say it looks a bit like a symbol for an eye – a third eye, even. Unlike the rest, though, she is clearly a person of status; her robes look to be made of fine silk and are laced with gold and silver embroidery in peculiar designs that are almost reminiscent of crop circles, and she is further adorned with a necklace and bracelets studded with glistening jewels made from crystal that glow faintly like materia.
“Welcome to Zangsong Castle, Your Radiance,” the woman on the throne greets her, “Please pardon the scarcity of attendents at this time. We have been running on a tight schedule given recent developments and have made preparations in the case that we are to take our leave.”
“I’ve just arrived and you’re ready to go?” Ruby replies sarcastically, “Such a disappointment.”
“My hope is that things will not come to that, but for the sake of security, let us keep this meeting brief.”
Their proprietress then dismisses the lone servant from her duty, and with a quick bow, she takes her leave and shuts the doors behind them. She also welcomes the rest to step forward.
“Please, come forward. There’s no need to be shy. Anyone who is a friend to Her Radiance is a friend of ours.”
Nonetheless, it’s only Ruby, Cloud, and Yuffie who oblige. Elena is about to join them too, but Reno and Rude stop her. They seem mentally prepared to bolt just in case anything wrong goes down, and though they remain silent, Elena quickly catches onto what they’re planning. However, with Cole on standby as usual, they’re gonna have to find a good chance later.
The woman brings a serene smile as she introduces herself. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Izayoi, the chairwoman of the National Religion and Spiritualism Association, which is an independent organization separate from the government. In an earlier time, I was also once known as the Oracle of Wutaia.”
“The Oracle?” Ruby quickly catches on and suggests, “In other words, you’ve been the lead of operations on the experiment on the citizens of Zhongyuan.”
“Ah, I see you’ve been acquainted with the town. Yes, you are correct: the people there have been engaged in an ongoing experimental study, but rest assured that they are all willing participants.”
She narrows her eyes. This is starting to remind her of what Rufus said about Shinra’s own works. “I see some of them have been relocated to this castle as construction workers. Why does this castle have to be mechanized to this degree? What purpose does it serve?”
“The complete reconstruction and transformation of this historical site is intended to be a monument to the new wave of reformation of this proud nation. By the special request of the new Wutai government, this project has come under the management of the NRSA.”
“The NRSA? One would think a project like this would be left to a more fitting public sector, not a private religion-based organization.”
“Yes, normally I would agree… but this is no ordinary project. All the workers here are devotees to the Wutaian faith and thus their interests would be best represented and served by our members.”
“I don’t think I understand. Why is it important that the workers be devotees?”
She nods. “Given the potential costs and risks to such an ambitious project, it was imperative that the task be undertaken by a suitable workforce. And as it happens, the people of Zhongyuan were the ideal group to volunteer. They were deemed to be the least risky in terms of liabilities, given the circumstances of the study in that they have been actively participating.”
Ruby’s eyes narrow with suspicion; there’s a red flag. Only the people of Zhongyuan would be “suitable”? If anything, only they could be forced into manual labor that no one else could or would want to do.
Likewise, Yuffie’s impatience has struck a peak and she blurts out, “Hold it right there!” She even raises a badge to show her proof as she declares, “I’m a certified agent from National Defense and I’ve never heard of any construction project that’s supposed to be going on here! Why would the government even agree to touch any of this? It’s a national heritage site! It’s supposed to be off-limits!”
And yet, Izayoi remains undisturbed. “My apologies, but I cannot answer that for you. It is not within the jurisdiction of the NRSA to look into the reasons behind the decision. If there is any issue, you may take it up with your own superiors.”
“Are you kidding me!? This doesn’t just happen without the rest of Parliament agreeing to it! It would be big news! Why was I never informed!?”
But to her surprise, Ruby is the one who cuts her off. “Ah, Yuffie? I know you’re mad, but maybe I should try talking to her.”
“Huh? Ruby, come on! This concerns my whole employment! It’s my job to look into these things!”
“Right, but let’s try a different tactic. Yelling at these people isn’t going to get them to spill.”
“Ugh, fine. What’s your idea, then?”
Ruby turns back to the proprietress and asks gently but firmly, “Let me get to the point: What would the NRSA say if I were to forcibly shut down this project?”
To that, Izayoi becomes startled by her bluntness. She quickly regains her composure, though, and answers with gravity, “With all due respect, Your Radiance, I don’t believe that would be the wisest decision.”
“What purpose the Wutai government has for a giant mechanized and likely armed castle doesn’t matter to me, but regardless, its completion would only spell disaster for the populace at large. The last thing this nation needs is to incite a reason for it to go to war with Shinra again. Even if my sympathies do lie with the people of this nation, I won’t be participating in any of it.”
“Hmm…” Izayoi takes a moment to reconsider something and then further clarifies, “While I understand your concerns, I’m afraid we aren’t in the position to decide that. It is a matter of those in Parliament, after all. Our only concern is the fair and just treatment of our people.”
“And again, why must the people of Zhongyuan even participate in the first place? Even if the NRSA is unable to lobby for their exclusion, what would be stopping everyone from simply going on strike? Or… are there reasons why you can’t refuse?”
“…” For just a moment, Ruby catches a brief glimpse of trouble in the woman’s eyes, but Izayoi’s face remains stubbornly stoic. The latter replies, “My apologies, Your Radiance. I cannot say at this time, but please understand that we have our reasons to support this cause.”
Ruby then shakes her head. “No, if anything, I’m sorry. I can’t allow this castle to continue development. If need be, I will excuse all these workers myself. I’m sure you realize that ultimately I’m the one who wields control, yes?”
“Yes, I am well aware, and again, I must insist that you not act too hastily. There is much more to the situation than meets the eye.”
She frowns, folding her arms, but obliges. “…I’m listening.”
With an approving nod, she turns toward the monk standing closest to her on her right. “Zenigata, you’ve been speaking with a certain official, have you not?”
He raises an arm up before his chest as a salute and bows his head accordingly. “Most certainly, Your Grace.” As it turns out, it was he who spoke on the intercom earlier. “The man is a former general from the pre-war days and goes by the name of Motomu Shigesaki. It was he who approached me and offered to discuss the details of this classified project.”
“Very well, you have the floor. Please describe for our guests the circumstances that have lead us here.”
“Certainly, Your Grace.” He then addresses Ruby and the others with a polite bow as well. “I am but a humble servant to the Faith of Wutaia and thus am bound to duty to follow the legacy of yourself as well, Your Radiance. My name is Zenigata, but you may refer to me as whatever you wish.”
Ruby rolls her eyes. By now, she’s heard the word “radiance” so often that it’s no longer registering in her brain as a real word. “Get on with it.”
“Of course, pardon me.” He pulls up from his bow and proceeds to explain, “While it began as a cordial arrangement between this official and the NRSA, it was inevitable that certain concerns regarding safety of our workers would come up. However, this was not a matter that Shigesaki was willing to discuss, and thus our members took it upon ourselves to investigate into his own activities. As we would discover, he has been one of several government agents who has been greatly involved in affairs with foreign investors.”
Cloud picks up on that: “Foreign investors… like Corneo?”
“Yes. Corneo was the biggest contributor to the funding of this project, in fact. Though we have no proof to show at this time, our sources have claimed that Shigesaki may have been accepting bribes as well, and as a result, the government has been very hands-off with the entire situation.”
“So, he was probably one of those people that was with Corneo back at the pagoda,” he concludes.
“Oh, right! You guys saw them, huh?” Yuffie asks him, “Were they making some shady dealings there too?”
“Not when we arrived. They were already celebrating a deal that went through.”
She sinks in disappointment. “Tch… So we just missed it.”
Zenigata nods along. “We have been aware that certain officials have been involved in such illicit activities, but there is nothing that we can do or say in opposition. As a former general, Shigesaki wields much influence among his peers in Parliament, and it seems most unlikely that anyone would dare to question his methods as long as he gets results.”
“Well, there’s no need to worry about that!” Yuffie declares proudly, “The whole reason Ruby came by is because she wants to talk with those old fogeys in Parliament. If there’s anyone who can assert her way, it’s her!”
“Uh…” Ruby begins, but decides to let the kid have this moment. “Yeah. I’ll put in a word, at least.”
But then Zenigata shakes his head. “Though we appreciate the sentiment, I’m afraid the situation is not so simple. Shigesaki continues to hold so much influence because he was among the first to suggest that they agree to open the borders of the country, as to help the greater economy recover faster after the reparations from the war. It allowed foreign investors to participate and the nation would see a surge of socioeconomic and technological developments. Thus, even if the man may be embroiled in sin and crime beyond the public eye, no one would dare speak out against him.”
“Including the NRSA, apparently…”
The monk gives a conceding sigh, lowering his head. “Unfortunately, we have little influence to speak of in regards to the political movements in government.”
“That doesn’t matter. If the NRSA truly was committed to the betterment of the people of Zhongyuan and the devotees of Wutaia, you could have spread the word to the masses anyway. A government only stays in power so long as the people are willing to let it be so.”
“Oh, no. We couldn’t risk letting public outrage come about. The NRSA is an entirely pacifist organization that would never condone violence.”
With his head down, his hat obscures his face, but Ruby’s attuned ear catches something off about the tone of his voice as he spoke there. While she isn’t sure if he’s been lying about anything, it is a little suspicious that he seems to be choosing his words carefully.
“But getting the news out about political corruption is really important!” Yuffie argues vehemently, “We shouldn’t be letting a scumbag like that bully his way into everything! I mean, look how the Zhongyuan townspeople have turned out! They’re practically zombies!”
There is an awkward silence that follows, as none of the monks or even their proprietress that seem to react. Yuffie looks around in confusion and turns back to Ruby.
“Um, right? They’re not able to think or anything?”
Ruby puts a hand to her chin in pensive thought. “Well, they are able to speak and act as if they were normal, but there’s a clear gap in their memories between what the town was like before the war and now. No one even realizes what their working men and women are even working on. Everyone’s convinced that they’re at a factory that manufactures medicine.”
“Huh? Really?” Yuffie looks a little shaken up to hear that. “They don’t even know how much time has passed?”
Cloud explains further, “They were talking about this castle being a famous tourist site when it’s supposed to be abandoned.”
“What!?” Her jaw drops. “Are you serious?”
“Uh, yeah? Why wouldn’t I be?”
“But this site was always off-limits as long as I’ve known it! So that means, they’re stuck thinking that they’re from like two decades ago at least?”
Cloud’s eyes narrow suspiciously as he catches on and he turns back to Ruby, who nods back in agreement.
She asserts for the record, “Whatever project that the government has been working on here has been ongoing for a very long time. Even if the subjects were given ARC in extremely small doses, it would amount to some big changes over that span of time.”
By now, Yuffie is practically squealing with justified anger, “You mean all of this has been going on even before the war!? It hasn’t been that long since Wutai opened its borders, though! That only came after!”
She nods slowly as she deliberates further. “Yeah… so I have to wonder where these people have been getting their ‘medicine’ sourced from.”
Cloud then raises the question, “It makes sense that Shinra would have been developing ARC for quite a while, but how could they have opened trade of something like that with Wutai?”
She scoffs back, “Because they don’t care what happens to people outside their borders? If anything, it’d benefit them if the populace of a foreign power is being drugged with something that weakens their resolve to fight. I’m honestly impressed Wutai was able to quarantine off an entire town and keep it that way.”
“No, I get that much. My question is why Wutai would even allow this trade in the first place. It’s not like it’s a recent thing that they started hating Shinra.”
“Ah…” She puts a hand to her chin. “I have an educated guess. Zhongyuan was a port town that was once designated as a post for foreign trade, yes? That wouldn’t happen if the country wasn’t planning to trade with a major power like Shinra. Perhaps this was far in the past, like several decades ago before their relations came to sour.”
“What?” Now it’s his turn to be caught off-guard. “Wait. Are you saying relations soured because of this?”
“I’m not sure, but it’s a possibility. And if I got my Wutaian history right, before the NRSA was a thing, there was a certain religious order known as Wutaia that was in a position of power. Why, they even ran the whole country back then.”
Yuffie blinks in shock too. “Whoa… seriously? So that’s the reason why they were ousted?”
She passes a suspect glance toward Zenigata and Izayoi alike, and over the course of the ongoing conversation, neither one seems willing to meet her at direct eye contact now. “…Maybe it’s just me, but I think someone here may have been involved since back then. And now, the Order of Wutaia is stuck penned up in an old castle like this because the government doesn’t want anything to do with people who were responsible for one of the country’s worst scandals. Now, I’m sure the current government is still responsible for some less savory things, like overseeing the quarantine of an experiment gone wrong and doing nothing else, but they’re not the only bad guys in the equation.”
There’s an incredibly tense silence that comes over the room once she finishes her conclusion, and in the brief gap of that silence, one could even hear the soft shuffling of sandals to the tiled floor.
“…Hold it. Where are you going?” Reno then interrupts.
As it turns out, one of the other monks had retreated from his post to approach the exit, but even while the Turks were hanging back and listening to the ongoing conversation, they were also still keeping an eye on those doors to make sure no one was coming in or out without permission. Even Cole has his hand on the hilt of his sword, looking ready to pounce, and the monk who stepped off retreats back to his post without a word.
At that moment, Izayoi then raises a hand and speaks up, “I see we have come to an end to this discussion. As I said in the beginning, our time is brief and we must take our leave very soon. Zenigata, are our preparations complete?”
The old monk nods. “Of course, Your Grace. We have been ready to execute the plan at any time since this meeting began.”
“Hold up! What are you talking about!?” Elena yells defiantly, “You set us up or something!?”
“Figures… Things were going a bit too smoothly,” Rude points out.
“But are they really that stupid?” Reno asks, genuinely confused, “They do know who Ruby is, right?”
However, before Ruby can decide how to address this situation, suddenly there is loud banging on the double doors and they violently burst open as a quartet of large drones zip into the room and fly to the center of the room just in front of the throne. They immediately align themselves into the four corners of a rectangle and together display a holographic screen. And as it turns out, it’s a familiar but unwelcome face that greets them.
Corneo laughs like a jolly fellow behind the screen. “Well, well, well! Look who the cult dragged in! If it isn’t my favorite losers and my fairest, most powerful star-crossed lover~!”
“Losers!?” Yuffie vents, “Speak for yourself! We didn’t lose crap!”
“Lover…?” Ruby mutters, her face growing dark with a threatening aura.
“Now, I know this may come as a surprise to you all, so let me explain! Yes, as you may have suspected, I had a certain town in this country as my backup hideout! No Turks, no Shinra, no Wutai shmucks to look down our backs! It was free like sailing the seven seas! We could crack out the best deals out in the open and no one would dare bat an eye… unless they wanted to be, ahem, declared ‘missing’ as well.”
“Where are you?” Cloud demands, cutting him off.
“Hahahahaha! You dead-serious or seriously braindead? You think I’d just tell you where I am!? I’ve studied the game for long enough to know how Ruby works! You can’t get me if ya don’t even know where I am!”
“You know nothing about me…” Ruby growls. She turns back to her friends to remind them, “These drones can’t be operating from across the entire island, so he has to be nearby.”
“Yeah! Let’s search the grounds!” Elena insists, “He can’t get away while we got the place surrounded!”
Corneo snickers. “Oh, I dunno about that. From my point of view, it looks like you all are surrounded.”
“You think a few guards in this room is enough to stop us?” Yuffie stubbornly retorts, “What happened to all your goons? Run off scared?”
“Oh, no! I’m not talking about any of them. In fact, I feel sorry for these suckers to still be hanging around there. Nah, the real show is about to begin. Hope you all have something to hang onto! Hahahaha!”
“Huh? What are you talking about?”
All of a sudden, they hear a slightly muffled and distant but big booming sound, and before they know it, the entire floor they’re on begins to shake. The drones take this opportunity to end the video call and scatter, busting their ways out the windows before they’re caught up in anything else.
“W-w-w-what!?”
“H-hey! What was that!?” Elena cries, struggling to keep her feet steady.
Unfortunately, there’s another booming sound and the place shakes even harder. By now, everyone’s struggling to stay standing, and yet it seems the monks around them and even Izayoi herself seem relatively unconcerned. They all remain still, and every one of the monks brings his weapon close to his own body. Zenigata slips a hand into his sleeve and seems to be tinkering with something. To everyone else’s shock, all of the monks and Izayoi on the throne are promptly surrounded in glass domes that shoot out from the floor where they are standing or sitting. And zwoop! Every one of them drops out of view down some hidden shafts.
“What the hell!?” Reno’s jaw drops as he too drops to the ground. “They had that option!?”
“…!” Rude also stumbles to the floor, but quickly catches and adjusts his shades to make sure they don’t drop off his face.
By now, the shaking only continues to intensify, and the floor begins to sink bit by bit as if even the castle’s very structure were transforming.
“W-w-w-what the hell’s going on!?” Yuffie screams, huddled on the floor with her hands over her head.
“Shit! We can’t stay here!” Cloud yells, “Ruby, get us out!”
But Ruby doesn’t answer him just yet. She seems quite focused on the floor beneath her and is holding up a hand, making a ring with her index finger and thumb, before her right eye. However, there’s also a grimness to the look in her eyes as if she had just discovered some terrible truth.
Though it’s just a brief glimpse, she witnesses a terrible mess on the floors below them. Where there had been workers obliviously chipping away at their mundane tasks, the very walls and floor they were standing on begin to fold in on themselves, crushing any poor sap that happened to be caught in-between the moving gears and mechanisms at play. It’s an absolute bloodbath as bodies squash and tear apart as if they were dough. The only thing sparing these folks from the most brutal deaths is the fact that they don’t feel pain. The bigger problem is: even while being flattened like pancakes or crunched in-between shifting gears, their bodies are still regrowing and trying to recover from all the damage. It’d be a miracle if they’re still alive… or rather, it’d be a curse that they’re still alive.
“Ruby! Quit gawking! We don’t have time!” Cloud yells, grabbing her by the shoulder and shaking her. “Let’s go!”
“Huh? Ah, right…”
Despite being visibly shaken, she jumps around the room and tags each of her crew. And with just seconds to spare as the walls of this top floor begin to collapse inward, Ruby warps everyone out to safety.
From the inside, it looks like absolute pandemonium, but from the outside, the rest of the gang aboard the Highwind witness a very shocking sight. The white castle even at a distance is visibly trembling as it begins to collapse inward. And after just a few minutes of shrinking, it finally stops and then reverses trajectory. In a rapid burst of mechanized tech, a number of giant metal limbs launch out from each of the floors above ground, followed by not one, not two, but a total of four metal skulls that pop out in quick succession from each side of the building. And last but not least, eight giant metal legs stretch out from below the structure and stomp the ground around it, and then push it off the ground entirely. As it flexes and flails about with its eight metal arms, the monster machine bellows a mighty roar that could reach the heavens. After decades of inactivity, as the sun disappears beyond the horizon, the Phantom Fortress has been released at last.
It stomps around the vicinity and trample across the otherwise pristine garden, leaving but a ruined wasteland wherever it treads. Even the neighboring buildings where some of Corneo’s own hired slavedrivers had been relaxing are not safe. They weren’t even informed of when the monster would be unleashed until this moment. They scramble and flee in a panic, but some of them aren’t lucky enough to make it out in time. The Fortress cackles evilly as if fully intending to sabotage those supposed to be on its side and shows no mercy to the uniformed men as it scoops up several at a time and munches down on them, swallowing them into its labyrinthian depths. And once it clears its path of moving targets, it begins to make its way up north. It seems it already has a particular target set in its sights.
Meanwhile, Ruby brings everyone outside around the tower’s perimeter where the monster didn’t stamp down. She’s still a bit shaken as is, but when the monster screeches, she flinches and covers her ears tight. It’s so loud, so noisy, it’s overwhelming. She hears so many voices screaming and wailing in an ambiguous mob. It’s as if the Fortress were screaming with the strength of all of its victims caught within its walls, but none of the people are actually screaming. These are voices only privy to the Cetra. For once, she curses her luck to be one.
“Ruby! You okay?” Cloud checks on her, helping to hold her up.
“They’re so damn noisy…” she mutters, still with her eyes shut. “Shut up, I don’t wanna hear…”
“They?”
“What the hell!?” Yuffie yells frantically, “Why’d the castle turn into a giant mech!?”
“Those sneaky rats!” Elena whines angrily, “So this religious gang was in cahoots with Corneo all along? What’s going on with this country!?”
“That’s what I wanna know!” Yuffie complains too. “What kinda match in hell is that!?”
“…” Reno cleans out his ear with a finger. “Yep. They sure are noisy.”
Rude adjusts his shades. “To be fair, this is quite the monumental development.”
“More like the monument got developed! What even is this mission anymore? I swear, it feels like we’ve just been dumped into a totally different genre.”
“…To be fair, we’ve definitely seen weirder.”
Reno takes a brief moment to review over the Turks’ history. “Ah, yeah. There was some weird shit we had to deal with, wasn’t there?”
“How are you guys this calm!? You’re the weird ones!” Elena snaps at them.
“…” Paying the rest of them no mind, Cloud turns back to Ruby. “You’re not talking about these guys, are you?”
Ruby still keeps her ears plugged. “…The people inside. Their minds are dead, but their souls are still alive.”
His eyes widen. “They’re alive? It seemed like the whole thing got crunched up for a moment.”
“The ARC… it can repair any damage. There may be some that died instantly, but not others…”
“Damn…” He then asks, “Hey, you gonna be okay? Should we get back to the Highwind and retreat for now?”
“Y-yeah… I’m getting used to the noise. Okay…” After settling her nerves, she finally opens her eyes and slowly lowers her hands. She may still hear them all, but by now, it’s become like loud static that she can’t make out. “Right. We’ll have to catch up the others anyway.”
“Wait! What happened to Sonon? And the other guy with him?” Yuffie is then reminded. She fidgets nervously. “They weren’t caught up in all that, were they?”
“I don’t think so… They took a different way in, I think.” But she doesn’t look too sure.
Cloud insists, “We’ll just have to hope they got out in time and are doing fine. Ruby, can you send us back?”
“Sure.” She also turns back to the Turks, who seem to have been deliberating over a different matter now. “Are you guys coming?”
Reno whips back around and waves his hand dismissively. “Nah. As far as we’re concerned, our mission is to track down Corneo. If you guys wanna play the hero and stop that thing, be our guests.”
“The thing’s freakin’ huge anyway! What can be done to stop it?” Elena asks, feeling doubtful.
“…Knowing Ruby, she might still be able to take it on herself,” Rude suggests, “but if it’s true that there are still innocents inside, then they’ll need to take a different approach.”
“Seriously? I know she’s dang powerful and all, but that thing easily dwarfs her!”
Reno shrugs. “Eh. By now, I wouldn’t be surprised if she could take on a freakin’ meteor.”
Elena returns him an annoyed scowl. “God, will you stop that? You’re starting to sound like a fanboy.”
He actually feels jilted by that. “Well, excuse me! At least I know when to pick my battles!”
Cloud turns back to Ruby and Yuffie and moves on, “Anyway… wherever Sonon and Leslie are, I’m sure they’re still hunting down Corneo. We’ll just have to leave it to them.”
Ruby nods back. “I’ve asked Cole to watch them like a hawk, so he can stand witness in case they try to broker any deal with Corneo.”
Reno snaps back from behind them, “You think we’d come all this way with ya just to have a nice chat with him? Come on!”
Yet, the three simply continue to ignore them. Cloud replies, “Right. Then let’s get going.”
Yuffie groans, “Ugh… What kind of weird hell did we end up in anyway? I never signed up to fight a giant mech… but I guess this is my job now.”
Ruby waves a hand to Cole as if to say, “I’m counting on you,” and his silent nod in acknowledgement brings her at least a little relief. And with that settled, she taps Cloud and Yuffie on the shoulder and whisks them away back to safety.
~
Far below the destruction is a few levels of underground bunkers beneath the castle grounds. While a grunt of his shuts off the camera, Corneo sits back in his seat at his desk and gives a himself a good stretch. He then cackles with a jiggle in his belly as he recounts his day.
“Man, if I knew it’d be that easy, I woulda started this ages ago! But it’s so nice of my darling wife to join us today! This feels like a celebration!” He then pauses as he sighs dramatically. “Well, if we met right now she’d probably singe me on the spot, but oh! A man can dream…”
“…Did she ever agree to be your wife?” another voice in the room asks.
Corneo whips to the side in his seat to face his companion lying lazily on the couch. It’s a young lady, just a little younger than Yuffie, with some of her long hair tied up into a criss-crossing weave behind her head, looking as if adorned with a ring of flowers hidden in her hair. She’s dressed in luxurious, royal blue kimono dress dotted with stars down the sides of the hem. She looks rather bored and seems more preoccupied with her phone than the man beside her, though. Even with there being a bit of shaking from the chaos above, it’s nicely quiet and stable down here.
Corneo laughs for a moment, but then his laugh trails off as he admits, “Well, not exactly… But see, I’m not a man who would so freely become a bachelor. In fact, back while I was still living in Midgar, the ladies wouldn’t stop coming by my doors! It was like a little slice of heaven in the middle of steampunk hell. But ever since I first laid eyes on my darling, it was a match made to be truly celestial! Why, I thought I was ready to ascend to Godhood myself, hahahaha!”
“Sure…” The girl pauses for a moment and then asks another question, “So, when will we get to meet Ruby-sama?”
“Soon, my dear! Very soon. As soon as she comes to realize the hopelessness of the situation, I’m sure she’ll come running to my feet and begging for mercy for those poor souls that won’t ever die… or even for those losers she calls her friends.” He shrugs without a care. “Not my fault if anyone who isn’t an immortal zombie ends up dying along the way.”
“…”
He offers her a cheeky grin. “Oh, but of course, I’m sure your mother and her escort guard will be fine. I’ve already told them about the emergency exits, after all.”
“Mm-hm.”
“It oughta take the Phantom Fortress a few minutes to get moving, but in the meantime, we can just relax here…”
“…But it’s boring.”
“Hmmm…” Without getting out of his seat, he then slides on over by the couch with a coy grin this time. “Then, what would you say to a little game?”
“Game?” Now she finally looks up from her phone.
“Yes. I call it ‘Hide and Seek – Castle Edition’!”
“…I’m a little too old to be playing such childish games,” she insists with a disappointed huff.
“Oh, no, my dear. It’s not just any old game of hide-and-seek! See, we’re the ones who get to do the ‘seeking’, but we don’t even have to leave.”
She raises an eyebrow. “How do you play, then?”
Corneo then passes an unimpressed glance toward the grunt still here. “Get the board.”
“Uh, which board, Boss?”
“The board with our targets’ faces, you dolt! Keep with the program!”
The grunt anxiously salutes him. “Er, right! On it, Boss!”
He then hurries off out the door to complete his errand. Corneo then turns back to the girl with that conniving grin of his. “See, the way we play is that we choose a person on this board to make a bet on, and then I’ll ask our helpful monster machine up there to ‘seek’ them out! It’ll be up to them to hide… if they even can! Hehehe…”
“…This game is boring.”
Corneo’s jaw drops in utter shock. He then makes an awkward smile as he asks, “Er… is there anything else you’d like to add to make it a little more fun?”
“Hmm…” The girl then takes her eyes off the phone for a moment to think it over, and she goes right back to it. “There should be a time limit. Like, if that big metal dummy can’t get anyone in, like, three minutes, then it has to change targets.”
“Oh, ho!” He nods along with an amused beaming smile. “That doesn’t sound like a bad idea. Makes the Fortress way less predictable. Alright! We can add that rule!”
“Oh. And another thing.”
“Uh, yes?”
“The target can’t be Ruby-sama.”
He snorts. “But of course! The last thing I need is for my darling wife to be caught up in all that!” He then mutters quietly to himself, “Not that I’d expect even this big guy to do anything to her. It’s just a piece of junk in the grand scheme of things. The thing might as well break down once it hits the capital…”
“What was that?”
“Nothing!” He then kicks off and sends his seat right back to the desk. He sits back again with a sigh, but then realizes that the grunt he sent off for an errand is taking a bit long to get back. “Honestly! What’s taking that fool? It’s just a signboard!” Getting a little impatient himself, he finally gets up. “Ugh, they’re useless sometimes I swear. When you gotta do something, you gotta do it yourself…” He then whips back to her with a cheerful tone, “I just remembered I gotta do something real quick, so I gotta go. But don’t worry, my dear! I’ll be right back to play with ya!”
“…Mm-hm. Hopefully Ruby-sama will drop by first.”
“Grk…” He actually looks slighted by that comment, but pretends to let it pass. “Well, I hope when that happens, I’ll be there to make sure the meeting is a happy and safe one, just like I promised you!”
“…”
And with that, he then turns out the door with a grumble under his breath. Dealing with little kids is such a pain, especially a snot-nosed spoiled brat like this one, but if there’s anyone who’d act like his insurance in his grand scheme, it’s her. Who knows, maybe Ruby might go a bit easier on him if he takes this kid hostage if things come to that.
But just as he’s about to reach for the handle, he then hears an odd noise from just outside; grunts and shuffling almost like a sort of struggle going on. He grows a little wary and backs off from the door, unsure if he wants to open and see.
And his fears are realized once that door is flung open. The grunt he sent off earlier is sent flying through the door into the room and lands on the floor, beaten into a bloody pulp. Corneo gasps and the girl squeaks in surprise, but then she goes completely quiet as two strangers step inside. One of them looks to be a Wutaian man dressed like a ninja and wields a huge staff, while the other is a short silver-haired foreigner who has a gun in his hands.
“W-what!? What happened to security!? Who are you!?” Corneo demands, pointing a trembling finger their way. But now that he notices the other guy with the ninja, and then it very quickly clicks in mind. “Wait a sec… Leslie?”
Leslie scoffs smugly, pointing the gun his way. “I finally found you, you slippery bastard.”
“Now, hold on a minute…” He looks between him and his companion with a very confused look. “What are YOU doing here with a Wutaian? And when have you ever been buddy-buddy with anyone?”
“Not until recently. I caught a ride with Ruby and her friends since they were after you too. And by the sounds of the mess upstairs, I figured you’d be hiding somewhere down here.”
Sonon frowns, giving their adversary a furious glare. “You’ve got a lot of nerve messing around all over our turf. Your crimes come to an end now.”
“Ah, is that what all this is about…?” Corneo snickers. “If I say ‘sorry’, will you let me go?”
“You think you got any room to talk? We have you cornered!”
“Ah, but there’s just one thing that you should first consider…” He backs up and slides on by the couch where the teenaged girl is sitting, now upright, but with her head down in shame. “See, there’s this complicated situation with this girl. I’ve been helping keep an eye on her – for her sake, of course.”
“This girl…?” Now that Sonon takes a closer look at her, he blinks a few times and gasps in shock. “Wait! Aren’t you…?”
The girl nods and raises her head to introduce herself, “My name is Sasame-no-himemiko, 44th heir to the imperial throne of Wutai and the daughter of the Oracle of Wutaia.” She then pauses and slumps a little. “Well, at least I would have been if not for that horrible, no-good new government! They treated us so unfairly and ousted us for no fault of our own. How could my mother have known what would happen to those people who participated in that experiment? It was so long ago…”
“The former empress who was ousted from the throne… was your mother?” Sonon looks like he can hardly believe what he’s seeing here. “And why are you here with this man?”
“He is a ‘man with the means’… Well, that’s what he told my mother and me when we first met. He made some promises about how he wanted to help us in our predicament and he said he could bring us back to the throne if we helped him.”
Leslie and Sonon give Corneo very suspicious looks, and the latter just shrugs with a nervous grin.
“Hey, I’ve made good on my promise so far. It might not have happened just yet, but we’re working on it.”
“Working on what? Selling dangerous drugs that turn people into mindless drones? Kidnapping people to be your slave labor? Or just for your own disgusting entertainment?” Sonon rebuts with tranquil fury.
“Now, now. There’s no need to put it in such a negative light! Why, if you’ve been around the castle, I’m sure you’ve met the workers! They’re all happy volunteers, rebuilding this grand castle for a great cause!”
“What ‘great’ cause would you ever be a part of?” Leslie snaps back coolly.
“Hehehehe… I’m glad you asked!” Corneo then cracks a smug grin as he poses handsomely and points dramatically as if there were a camera rolling. “We’re gonna take over the new Wutai government and bring the rightful heir back to power!”
“What?”
“You gotta be kidding me…” Sonon growls, “That’s why you had this castle turned into a giant machine? So you can run amok on our soil!?”
“Well, if you already know that much, then I’m sure the Phantom Fortress is already on its way. It’s headed right for the capital as we speak.”
“And as we speak, the rest of our friends are taking care of it. It’s not gonna go anywhere.”
“Ha! Sure they are! Even if you have Ruby, it’s not as easy as just blowing up everything! There are still innocents inside!”
Sonon’s grip tightens on his staff. “You monster. Using our people as leverage…”
“That isn’t a surprise considering what we’re dealing with,” Leslie says bitterly, “Corneo has always been a dirty son of a bitch who doesn’t play by any rules.”
But Corneo grins back, totally unfazed. “Ha! And what does that say about you who worked for me for six whole years, huh?”
“Shut up! You know why I endured for all that time. I’ve been waiting for my chance to kill you ever since I first joined.”
He rolls his eyes and lets off a sigh. “Ah, yes. Your fiancée… But relax, man, I never touched her.” He then makes an almost disgusted look as he adds, “She wasn’t worth much anyway. Too skinny, too plain, not much personality. A 4 at best.”
“You…!” Incensed, Leslie dares to step forward.
“Hey!” Sonon sticks out his staff to catch him.
“What? Why are you stopping me?”
“Don’t fall for a cheap trick like that. Besides,” he explains as passes a grave face back to Sasame, “Now that things turned out like this, it really is way more complicated.”
Leslie stares at him. “What do you mean? Just because of this girl?”
Sonon frowns back. “Yeah. I know our country’s problems aren’t yours, but just this once, let me handle this, alright?”
“And what are you going to do? Arrest him? You do realize who we’re dealing with here, right?”
“I do, but…”
Just then, another boom above sends a low rumble down here. While this bunker remains quite safe, this moment of distraction turns out to be the opening that Corneo was waiting for. With litheness that would be surprising coming from a man of his rotundness, he charges at Leslie and seizes his wrist, giving it a painful twist, and snatches the gun out from his grip.
“Argh!”
“Leslie!”
Sonon means to smack the gun away with his staff, but Corneo is just quick enough to also trap Leslie in a headlock with the gun pointed to his head instead.
“Oops! I wouldn’t be hasty if I were you.”
“Urgh…”
“Guh…” Leslie grunts and struggles to break out, but Corneo’s grip only tightens further. “Don’t worry about me! Get him!”
“Don’t say that! We gotta get you and your fiancée back together!” Sonon denies him.
“Hahahahaha!” Corneo returns to form, overbearing and proud as ever. “Ah, you poor suckers. See, this is what happens when you trust people too much.” He passes Leslie a look of disdain too. “I thought you’d know that by now, Leslie, but I guess hanging out with Ruby and friends made you soft.”
“Grrr…”
“Welp! It’s not my problem! Now, if you don’t mind, I got some things to do than hang around here in this gloomy bunker!” Dragging Leslie along with him, Corneo heads for the door.
But despite his silence, Sonon was waiting for an opening as well. While Leslie may have been taken hostage, he sure isn’t making it any easier for Corneo to drag him. And in a brief instant of frustration, Corneo presses the gun right up against Leslie’s head, Sonon lets his staff slip in and trips the captor, making him stumble.
“Wha- Oof!”
Leslie breaks free and wrestles with Corneo for the gun, which goes off, ricocheting off the ground. Sasame squeaks in fright. And before he knows it, Corneo finds himself back to being held at gunpoint.
“End of the line, Corneo.”
“N-now, hold on, Leslie. Can’t we talk about this? I never said I wanted to fire you…”
“I quit.”
Leslie’s about to fire the shot when the girl screams, “S-stop this at once!”
“Huh?”
To the other two’s shock, Sasame suddenly rushes into the fray to get between them. “Enough! No more violence!”
“H-hey! Get out of the way!” Leslie yells, but she refuses.
“Please…” She gives Sonon in particular a pleading look that strikes him deep, and he hesitates over what to do.
And once again, Corneo once gets his chance to slip away. “Thanks for the save, Sasame-chan!” he blurts out and runs out the door.
“Get back here!” Leslie rushes off as well in hot pursuit.
There’s another shot fired as Leslie chases the slippery man down, but their scuffle disappears into the distance. Sasame drops to the floor trembling and looking ready to cry. Now lost and confused himself, Sonon turns back to the girl.
“Hey… Why did you jump in? You could have been hurt.”
“…” She shakes her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to see blood.”
Giving a sigh, he offers a hand to help her up. She takes it and feels a little unsteady on her feet, but then finds her footing again and wipes her tears. There’s a moment of awkward silence as he waits for her to collect herself.
“…Sasame-san. What’s going on? Why are you with Corneo?”
“Um…” She fidgets as she thinks over how to explain. “I-it’s because it’s part of the deal my mother made with him. He said he could help us, but to be sure that we don’t try to double-cross him, I had to stay with him.”
Sonon makes a stern grimace, both disgusted to hear of it and that Corneo just ditched her when his life was threatened. He offers his condolences, “Well, at least he’s gone now and he won’t be coming back for you anytime soon with Leslie after him. I’ll take you back to your mother.”
But Sasame shakes her head again. “No, please do not.”
“Huh? Why not?”
She lowers her head. “The deal has not yet been fulfilled. If I leave now, what will happen to my mother? She won’t be safe either.”
“…”
Then, the girl gets even more upset and vents, “It’s all because of that dirty traitor, Shigesaki! He was the one who agreed to work with Corneo and dusted all these problems away so it looks like the government doesn’t have anything to do with this! I bet he has government agents hiding somewhere. I don’t even know who I can trust…”
Sonon isn’t really sure how to respond to that. He nervously suggests, “Um… Well, if you’d like, I know someone who might be able to talk with Parliament-”
“That’s not it! I don’t need the police or more useless government people, I need someone with real power! I want Ruby-sama!” she wails.
“Ruby?” And at that moment, a new plan begins to formulate in his mind. “Oh, Sasame-san! I know Ruby personally! I can bring you to her.”
“H-huh?”
He makes an awkward smile, trying his best to console her, “Yeah. If you come with me, many of your problems can be fixed.”
“…I-is that really true?”
“Um…” Now he wonders if maybe he might have spoken a bit too much, but at this point, everyone tagging with Ruby is ride-or-die with her. They don’t really have too many options anyway. He makes an apology in his head to Ruby for adding another job onto her long list, but then nods back to reassure the girl. “Well, she did save my life; twice, even. I’m sure she can help save you and your mother too.”
“Oh…” She finally wipes away the rest of her tears and then makes a rather cute smile. “Okay! Then, please, Ninja-san, take me to her! I want to see her!”
“Okay.” He lets off a sigh and tries to put on a strong face for her, but these mounting concerns give him little room to relax. After all, things would be easy enough if it was just a matter of dragging out “foreign devils” into the light, but they just had to be embroiled in a whole political conspiracy with an ongoing power struggle.
Boy, would he kill for a vacation after all is said and done.
~
Back by the Highwind, some of the party aboard have come out to watch the horror show and a few even seem ready to throw hands. While the monstrocity’s screeches are noisy enough, Aerith picks up on something else even more disturbing. She can hear voices coming from the castle – not spoken, but screamed into the ether. It’s like a tomb full of tortured spirits, trapped with no means of escape, wailing in perpetual pain. Even if she can’t see what’s happened to them, she can feel their anger, their anguish, their despair front and center. And the only thing she can think of right now is worrying about how Ruby is holding up.
“Yo! Where’s it goin’!?” Barret yells in a rather demanding way, “Damn thing’ll trample anything it comes across at this rate! We gotta stop it!”
Cid growls a complaint, “Damn… Who woulda thunk we’d have to face off against a giant-ass mech?” He scratches his head in frustration. “Argh! If only I could find the damn Highwind manual, we could blow the shit out of it from here… Ah, well. We’ll do what we gotta.”
“Guys, wait!” Tifa pleads, pulling them both back, “We can’t just rush in! What about Cloud and Ruby and the others!? At least wait for them!”
“Yeah, what she said! What are we gonna do against something like that anyway!?” Cait Sith freaks out, hiding behind his moogle and peeking out over its head.
Red shakes his head and calmly asserts, “We need to form a plan of attack. It’s much too big to handle by ourselves. We could call upon a Summon or two to help.”
“Summons? Oh, yeah!” Cait Sith then hops back out. “We got a few Summon materia with us, don’t we?”
“Well, we did get a few that Ruby picked up along the way, but Yuffie nabbed them all when she left,” Tifa reminds him.
And just like that, the cat slumps back behind his moogle. “Er… That might be a problem, then.” He shakes his head with a sigh. “If only I could remember how these Slots work, I might be able to pull out somethin’, but it’s just a last resort. Sure hope Ruby can pick up the slack first…”
Thankfully right on time, they’re met with a bright white flash nearby. Ruby returns safely with Cloud and Yuffie in tow.
“Ruby! Cloud!” Tifa cries with relief, “Yuffie too! Thank goodness!”
“Good! They made it!” Barret then stops when he catches it, “Huh? Wait. Just you guys?”
Cloud explains, “Sonon and Leslie are still hunting Corneo. The Turks also stayed back to do the same, but Ruby left the Soldier with them, so they won’t get any bright ideas.”
“Ah. Then what’re you guys doin’ back so soon?”
He folds his arms, making a defiant look. “We figured you guys wanted in. We got a big problem to deal with, after all.”
“Hmph! Ya got that right! ’Bout time we got somethin’ to wreck!” He looks off again toward the monster. “But whew, that sure is a whole lot we gotta work with.”
Tifa then brings up the big question, “What happened in there? How did something like this even happen?”
Yuffie looks so frustrated she’s ready to tear her hair out. “You got me! If I were actually told about this, there’s no way it would have gone through! This sucks!”
Cloud answers, though he’s still trying to figure some things out himself. “Looks like this monster mech was the big project that all those people from Zhongyuan were assembled for. Don’t know all the details yet, but we met with the chairwoman of the NRSA.”
Tifa is taken aback. “You guys really met them in there?”
He nods. “Yeah, seems like they were hiding out here all this time. And like Vincent suspected, they were the ones responsible for the Zhongyuan Incident and how all those people ended up. They’ve been employing the townsfolk in this huge reconstruction project to transform that castle into a war machine… for whatever reason. We tried to get more from them, but were interrupted by Corneo via drone video. He must have activated the machine and we just managed to get out in time.”
“So Corneo was in there!” Barret huffs angrily, “Where was the sonnuva bitch hiding?”
“Don’t know, but he has to be pretty close. Those drones couldn’t have been operated from too far away.”
“Corneo, that snake! He was waiting for us all this time!” Yuffie continues to vent, “I hope he gets trampled by his own stupid machine!”
“I doubt he’d still be inside the castle, since everything folded in on itself. Then, he might have been somewhere underground. With that thing gone, he could easily slip away again…”
“We should have someone stand guard out there, then!” Barret demands, “Other than the Turks!”
“Like I said, Sonon and Leslie are still there too. If they still need some backup, they can call us.”
“Right. Then, we’ll just have to wait for them to report back,” Tifa concludes.
Barret makes a discontent frown, but concedes. “Hmph… Guess we got no choice now.”
Aerith now approaches Ruby with a worried face and a question she’d been meaning to ask too. “You okay, Cuz? That sure was a loud scream earlier, huh?”
“Huh? Ah…” Ruby rubs her still ringing ears. “I can make do. You heard it from all the way over here, huh?”
She nods sadly. “Yeah… It’s kinda hard to avoid listening when you can hear the planet cry from time to time.”
“Unfortunately, this time it’s not just the planet. Those people are still alive and trapped, but their bodies are contorted beyond being safe.”
She looks a bit shaken just hearing that description. “Oh, dear. Are you going back in there?”
Ruby nods back. “I think I’m the only one who can do it.”
But Cloud interrupts them to say, “Yeah, you probably are. But that said, we can’t just leave you to handle all of that yourself. There were loads of people inside. Even if you warp around, it’ll still take a while to get them all out.”
“Well, then, the rest of you will have to divert the mech’s attention for as long as possible.”
“Divert…?”
“Sure. Don’t want the whole thing imploding before I’ve gotten all the hostages out, right?”
He frowns at the idea of being left to being the diversion again, but she does have a good point. “…Fine. We’ll do what we can from here. But what are you going to do? Just bust in and start throwing them all out?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
He looks a little caught off-guard and stares in disbelief. “I was being sarcastic…”
“Well, I’m not. You want me to be fast, don’t you?”
“What about their safety!? They’re still civilians!”
“They’re civilians transformed with ARC. If they haven’t been torn to pieces yet, then they have a chance to recover and fall damage is gonna be the least of their problems.”
“Um, guys.” Aerith raises a hand to speak. “If you need a big magic net, I think I can help with that. I can cast all kinds of shields and wards, after all.”
They look back to her in surprise and then to each other, feeling a little embarrassed that they didn’t even consider the possibility. They then nod back.
“That’d be a big help. Thanks, Aerith,” Cloud replies.
“That’s my Cuz for ya,” Ruby agrees with a proud smirk.
Red nods along. “Sounds like we have a plan. Now, it would also be a big help if we have those Summon materia…”
“Right!” Cait Sith suddenly bounces on over to Yuffie, taking her by surprise. “Alright, lassie! Where’d ya put the Summons? If ye got them, spit them out! We’re gonna be needin’ them!”
“Huh? Oh, right. That would come in handy…” She starts digging around in her pockets and draws the shiny orbs. As of this point, they have a total of five: Ifrit, Shiva, Odin, as well as Sylph and Ramuh from her own adventures. She grins proudly as she announces, “Fire, Ice, Wind, Lightning; we got all our basic elementals covered… and then we got instant death! Nice!”
“Wha!? You had them all on you all this time?”
“Yeah. What of it?”
“Pass ’em around! That’s too many for one person!”
She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Okay, so how are we gonna do this…?”
While the party discuss strategies and equipment further, Ruby turns off for the huge menace trudging along in the distance. She spans her wings and unfolds her claws without going full dragon and blitzes through the sky, right into the belly of the metal beast. The Fortress, sensing a sudden threatening presence, stops short in its tracks. With a horribly grating snarl, it proceeds to churn its insides as if to try to crush the new intruder.
As she goes, Cloud watches her with growing anxiety. She was already feeling sick just realizing what had happened to the people of Zhongyuan, but at least she didn’t touch them. Or rather, she was afraid to touch them. But one would expect that rescuing the workers from this metal trap would mean she has to make contact in some way. The last time she was exposed to the gray ether, she blacked out. Who knows what may happen this time…
But then they would shortly meet an unexpected turn of events. A certain black car finally arrives at the town and stops just outside by the base of the Highwind. To everyone’s relief, Vincent has returned. He’s also still accompanied by the woman simply known as Taeru.
“Vincent!” Tifa exclaims.
“Finally! Ya made it just in time for the big event!” Barret throws out a pumped-up fist. “We’re gonna need all hands on deck for this big %&#^$@# monster!”
However, despite the happy reunion, Vincent seems troubled. He takes a quick look around the crew and glances off toward the mech in the distance. “…Looks like I just missed her.” He turns to Cloud and asks, “Just to confirm: is Ruby aware of the risks if she comes into contact with the ARC subjects?”
“Huh?” Cloud blinks, surprised that the guy seems to already be on the same page as them, or maybe even beyond. “Uh, she didn’t touch anyone yet, but she’s already gone into the castle to check for survivors. Do you know something?”
Vincent makes a grave frown. “Call her back. Right now. She shouldn’t touch any of them.”
Cloud makes a worried look himself, having suspected something was wrong, but still has to ask, “What’ll happen? Will she be alright?”
“She may be fine, but I can’t say the same for the others. People are going to disappear.”
“What?”
“Uh… disappear? What are you talking about?” Yuffie asks. “Wait. You don’t mean…”
Vincent nods and states firmly, “Death. But unlike the natural, these souls will not return to the planet.”
“W-what!?” Now everyone else is just as startled and starting to panic.
“Whoa! Hold up!” Barret interrupts, “You’re sayin’ she’s gonna go around killing? But she’s tryin’ to save ’em!”
“Huh? But didn’t Ruby touch that Soldier guy earlier? Didn’t seem like he died yet?” Cid then asks further since he was reminded.
Vincent shakes his head. “The effects may be different for Soldier, but it’s no guarantee that normal civilians will react the same way.”
“Shit…” Cid swears under his breath. “The kid’s way too rash. Why couldn’t she have waited just a few more minutes?”
“If it’s not too late…” Tifa whips out her phone to dial Jessie, who’s still aboard the ship. “Jessie, can you hear me?”
The latter picks up right away, “Huh? Tifa, what’s up? Something happen?”
“It’s Ruby! We have to reach her.” Speaking into the same phone, she directs her statements to the person in question. “Ruby, if you can hear this, please be careful! Whatever you do, don’t touch the people! Try to get them out without doing that!”
And while the others continue to deliberate over what to do, Aerith watches the castle mech in the distance with renewed trepidation. Though she also suspected something bad could happen, this is turning out even worse than they all thought. She folds her hands together and makes a silent prayer, hoping that her thoughts can still reach Ruby.
~
Within the castle tower interior, Ruby has smashed right through the metal plating like paper. Even as the monster is moving, the former hallways of the building have become like death-trap obstacle courses, where the walls and floor continue to shift and slide like pieces of a slide puzzle. It would be very disorienting if not for the fact that she can simply break whatever piece decides to slide her way. And yet, there seems to be a curious trick at play where as much as they smash and tear apart the mechanisms, there are still more pieces that come to replace the destroyed ones.
And then, Ruby catches sight of one of the reasons: even while this machine is in operation, there are a number of small droid-like mechs that have populated the spaces where they’ve opened up some room. These small droids almost look like miniature Hell Houses, or maybe it’d be more accurate to say they’re just metal-made wannabe Magic Pots but stuck in doll houses instead. These guys are the Devil Domes, and they’re nasty pieces of work that gather to feed on corpses like scavenging maggots. And to top off this demented scenery, with each new death turning into gray ether sprays, by some strange black magic the mechanisms around them begin to repair themselves.
“The %&#$ is this shit!?” she grumbles, quite annoyed that their work is being undone by what seems to be demon sorcery.
She lunges so fast that she blows through the box gremlins in an instant. But then she notices the real problem: there seems to be an endless supply of them. Unfortunately, this castle tower is pretty big as is, and though she’s just started, she’s only cleared out a single room so far. She can’t even be sure that she cleared out more than that since the entire structure keeps shifting and reshifting to make it all the more confusing and frustrating.
There seems to be no end in sight to the madness. As long as there are civilians still trapped, they’re just going to become fodder for these cube vultures. With her patience waning thin, Ruby kicks one of the Devil Domes into several others like she’s at a bowling alley, and they all subsequently explode. She then lunges over to the spot where they were gathered, finding what seems to be a half-eaten body. To her horror, even now the body continues to regenerate, even if whatever person that this had been is long gone. Or at least she hopes they’re long gone.
Without even thinking about it, she reaches a hand to snatch up the piece of former human flesh. She would immediately regret doing so. Upon first contact, the remnants of the man burst into a cloud of gray ether that envelops her. Though she reflexively shuts her eyes as she recoils, it’s too late to stop the encroaching vision that she meets.
~
It’s just a brief one – or rather, a series of brief moments from the ancient past. Ruby witnesses flashes of Rubia standing before mounds of corpses at her feet. She had returned to the Temple of the Ancients, and there were many of the fanatic cult members that had once worshipped her. However, there they’d all been laid still; bloodied, bruised, and in some cases, thrashed apart. Rubia’s claws are completely drenched with blood, and her eyes are even deeper red with bloodlust. And in the depths of the temple, in the deepest room where the puzzle of the temple would rest, Rubia would tinker with the pieces once more, setting them into place to bring this entire temple back to its original state.
However, the vision doesn’t end there. The final flash that Ruby witnesses is of Rubia standing at the bottom of the hole where the Black Materia had appeared. This time, her loyal companion Fenrir was present as well and watched her commit her massacre with cold-as-ever apathy. It was like it were all routine – that this was just the sort of job that she had become accustomed to do. She took the materia in her hand to prepare to cast with it.
Just then, a great shadow that could overcast the very sun suddenly appeared over them, with wings that spanned the skies themselves. Bahamut, the mighty King of the Dragons himself, personally arrived to confront Rubia. He landed upon the ground with a great tremor that could have shaken this very temple at its foundation, and yet she remained entirely unfazed. Fenrir growled viciously, standing by her side, ready to defend her with his life as always.
“Enough, Rubia. How long must this farce go on?”
“…”
“There will be no end to the cycle of destruction. You will not escape your fate should you continue to slaughter indiscriminately.”
“…As opposed to you, Father, who slaughters discriminately?”
“I know my place in this world. It is about time you learned yours. You may be my daughter, but you will know no mercy.”
Bahamut then raised his front claws forward as if beckoning her to come at him. Without a word, Rubia burst into light to transform into her own dragon form to stand in defiance. Though she was still a size notably smaller than him, her stubbornness was no less apparent than his.
~
And at that tense cliffhanger, the vision abruptly ends and Ruby snaps back to reality in a daze. What was that all about? Bahamut spoke to Rubia not with an ounce of rage or shame, almost as if this was simply routine for them. Has this encounter between them been happening over and over? That every time Rubia tried to go around slaughtering people, Bahamut and the other Summons periodically slaughtered her in turn? Oh ye Gods… ye cruel and relentless bastards. She could almost feel sorry for Rubia, but on the other hand, she can also see how it would look like she was merely throwing a fit to the rest of them. At least she had an undying friend in Fenrir, who despite their differences in power, would go head-to-head with Bahamut himself.
But what at first is just a feeling of confusion and emptiness inside is very quickly replaced by a primal rage that bubbles up from within. Ruby doesn’t understand why or how she feels so angry, but she is suddenly so pressed to thrash out. And without a moment of delay, she erupts into light to come out a fully realized dragon once more. Before she knows it, she feels like she’s no longer in control, as if her body were hijacked by a mysterious force from beyond time and space.
No way. What’s happening? She didn’t even hear Sephiroth’s voice this time. Not like he can puppet her that effectively anyway. Then that leaves… Rubia?
Ruby unleashes a furious roar and shoots straight up through several floors at once and out from the top of the Phantom Fortress’ roof. The metal beast screams in pain and its own frustration, and tries to seize her out of the air, but she deftly dodges all its attempts. With just a few swipes here and there at each of the corners of the tower, she systematically levels every floor, causing the Fortress to crash under its own weight. And yet, even now the monster is still drawing energy from its victims and trying to repair itself.
But she doesn’t even give it the chance to retaliate. She clasps all four claws onto one of its skulls and wrenches it skyward, ripping it off with dangling tubes and shafts snapped apart like thin wires, and recklessly flings it aside. She repeats this with all the other heads until the monster loses all sense of which way to face and tumbles around, flailing wildly like a headless chicken. And finally, just as the Fortress is stomping around senselessly, she whips through the air, diving back down beneath its rocky foundation. With a fearsome growl, she slams her claws up against it and with the might reminiscent of Titan himself, she lifts the entire structure up into the air and shoots straight up into the stratosphere.
And finally, far past the planet’s outer rim, as Ruby and her helpless victim reach the beginning of the final frontier, she finally lets go and lets the panicking, flattened heap of scrap drift off into space. However, its final moments are not to go peacefully. Ruby backs off, spreads her wings wide, and charges a full-force Gigaflare, condensed into a relatively small ball of intense light and heat. Without any remorse or recourse for the people still trapped inside, she lets loose. The Phantom Fortress, which had only just finally gotten a chance to stretch its arms and legs, is blown to smithereens in a giant searing burst of blue-white light that can easily be seen from the ground.
And in the ensuing dead silence, the once trapped souls of the people who were contained in these supposedly immortal bodies all vanish into the same gray ether. They do not return to the planet; instead, they return to their origin: surrounding Ruby – or rather, Rubia – in another expansive cloud to form some rather beautifully majestic rings around her as if she were her own planet. And then, that brief moment of beauty is coldly cut short as she simply dismisses the rings into nothingness.
And then, her vision too falls into blackness.
Chapter 48: Bleeding Hearts
Notes:
Outdated A/N
12/22/23 edit: Next chapter is coming along and will be available tomorrow.
Chapter Text
A little short and black-haired girl woke to find herself alone in a great empty desert, with the dry sands blowing freely across the rugged mountain valley. Canyon cliffs far in the distance rose so high they could pierce the heavens themselves. These mighty walls sealed any and all roads out of this realm. The sun above shined so bright that it seared away what little moisture that could possibly remain in this natural dead zone.
Actually, she was not entirely alone. She had yet to even climb back to her feet when a great tremor stormed across the ground, cracking a vast network of huge fissures that could swallow up entire cities. It was so terrifyingly intense that even while still on all fours, she felt like she could barely hold herself up. And then, something massive, absolutely gargantuan, came bursting out from the fissures before her. First it was a giant’s hand that alone dwarfed her, followed by another of equal size, and finally they pulled the rest of the body up and out from the abyssal depths. It was none other than Titan, the Summon Guardian of the land, who had arrived and this grand canyon that stretched out as far as the eye can see was his realm. As he climbed back out into the open and comes to a stand, his head rose so high that it already blocked out the sun’s rays as his shadow towered over her. He was so large that he had to kneel down and lean in to be able to speak with her. The little girl quivered in fear, but as the tremors had now stopped, she finally managed to pull herself back to her feet and look up at the giant she had to confront.
“…Your father has already informed me,” the voice of Titan boomed, “Your training begins today.”
“…”
“He specifically requested that I not let you leave until you show some promise over the course of this regiment.”
“…”
“As long as you stay in this realm, you must learn to face your fears. Never falter, even in the face of overwhelming odds. Now,” he stated as he stepped back to rise to a stand once more, “Let us begin. Show me the strength of the young prodigy that lights up the night!”
“…!”
Wasting no time, Titan brought his hands together to make a clap so loud it reverberated and echoed through the surrounding fissures. The very shockwave from the clap easily blew her away and sent her tumbling several feet back. Though she could still climb back up again with nary a scratch on her face or body, though her eyes were still wide with fright and apprehension. And then, he raised a giant foot high off the ground.
Young Rubia frantically warped out of the way as his foot stomped down, creating an explosion of rock and earth and leaving a crater several kilometers across. However, though she was able to warp at this early age, she could not go very far. She reached just beyond of the flat of his foot, but the ensuing explosion sent her crashing into a nearby sand dune that turned out to be solid rock underneath. She bounced off like a ragdoll and flopped to the ground with her nose bloodied. Though she wanted to cry, she knew it wasn’t the time to be crying. She barely had the opportunity to warp away again as Titan’s giant hand came in to swat her like a fly.
From afar, it looked like Titan was merely throwing his weight around and stomping and slapping around the place. From her perspective, she really was but a fly who could only see signs of death hanging over her if she lingered around in any one place for too long. To be fair, she wasn’t a stranger to situations like these. Her father started her training regiment when she was only three years old. It’s been, oh… about two years?
Nonetheless, Titan did not pull his punches even when dealing with a child. After all, this was no mere child. This was the spawn of an unholy match made in the heat of battle when the two greatest and mightiest dragons in the history of the planet clashed and nearly brought the world to a standstill. She may have still been small at this time, but her body was easily tougher and more durable than the diamond crystals that would be formed from pressure in the planet’s core. And there was no knowing to what extent that her potential could grow.
That being said, after just a few warps just out of his reach only to leave herself open to crash into the nearby landscape, little Rubia was bloodied and bruised to the point that she could barely stand. She was left out in the open where she couldn’t just climb over a sizeable rock and hide. Granting her little room for leniency, Titan dug his hands into the ground to lift bedrock the size of a town square and flung it at her. The giant slab tipped over and fell atop where she was resting, a great crash as rock and debris fly in all directions, and then silence.
“…”
Noticing that Rubia had yet to safely reappear, the giant felt a bit uneasy. He stepped over to lift the slab back up and toss aside. And to his disappointment, there lied Rubia, battered and flattened, bloodied blue and black at the center of where the slab had landed. She was completely knocked out, with only the white of her eyes visible.
Titan let off a sigh. To be honest, he had expected this result was inevitable, but was a little disappointed that the battle had come to an end so soon. He took a step back so he could crouch down again and gingerly lifted up the little girl. She lied still as if lifeless, but with just the initial touch, he could sense a strong vitality of spirit that lingered. Any ordinary human would have died in an instant, with little body to even remain, but as he suspected, her draconian genes have carried her through the worst of punishment. Though she had been knocked out with a single hit, she could recover with a full night’s rest.
Perhaps another stay at the Fairies’ Den would be in order. However, she would be brought back here again.
~
It’s strangely peaceful. While adrift at the edge of space, Ruby is resting upon the thin atmosphere where the horizon of the planet’s surface can be seen curving off into the distance. She feels numb, like an empty shell. In what seemed to be an instant, all that primal rage from earlier has fizzled away until there is nothing at all. She thought she would be distraught and beside herself. She just committed a massacre on many innocents that could have been saved, and yet she feels not a shred of remorse. Though the voices she heard were cacophonous at first, they soon went silent upon witnessing her display of power. And yet, what came to follow her amid that amorphous gray ether stream were not voices cursing her tyranny, but thanking her for setting them free. Perhaps in her own obstinately violent and reckless way, Rubia delivered their souls a proper sendoff.
And so, Ruby’s job here is done as well. She returns to human form, drained of any remaining fight she had once clutched, and shuts her eyes to embrace the sweet touch of the calming darkness. She plummets from the edge of the stratosphere through the skies below.
Down on the ground, everyone is stunned silent as many of their worries and fears, long resisted and shoved aside, have come to light. Aerith casts down a crestfallen look in silence. It seems it really was too late.
“What the… She just chucked the whole damn thing! What about the people inside?” Barret asks in disbelief.
“I don’t know,” Tifa replies apprehensively, “I don’t think they had time to get out.”
Cloud says nothing, as he’s now stricken with panic at the mere possibility of what happened. Without waiting for the others to react, he rushes off toward where the Fortress had once been.
“Cloud!” Tifa calls after him.
“Yo! Where’s he goin’!?” Barret shouts.
“I don’t know, but…” She doesn’t even finish her sentence and she starts after him.
“Hey! Tifa! Don’t run off on your own too!” And he gives chase.
“Hey, guys! What are you doing!?” Yuffie yells after them, staying put. She turns to the rest with bugged-out eyes too. “Better yet, what’s up with Ruby!? She was going crazy! I mean, I wanted that eyesore out as much as the next guy, but did she have to go so hard?”
Cait Sith fidgets nervously. “Oh… I really don’t like the look o’ this… not one bit.”
Red’s ears perk up at the changing of the winds. “…These are turbulent winds. Something’s wrong.”
“Huh?” Yuffie whips back to him. “What’s up?”
“I’m not sure, but I don’t think Ruby’s coming back down safely.”
“What? But she’s a dragon! A Dragon God! How would she not?”
But even Vincent picks up on a distant figure sifting through the clouds above. “…She’s falling.”
“Huh!?”
“Let’s go!” Red barks, rushing off after Cloud and the others.
“Damn…” Cid swears under his breath.
The rest of the party then give pursuit. During its rampage, the Fortress had tread quite a fair distance from its origins, even nearing the town of Zhongyuan before it was stopped. It doesn’t take them too long to reach the giant crater where the mech had been flattened. The problem now is: Ruby hasn’t even reached the ground yet.
Vincent’s sharp eye catches her figure falling through the clouds. “Aerith, there!”
Wasting no time, Aerith summons a mystical ward that stretches far and wide around them, and with the power of ancient magic, Ruby’s body is swept up in a soothing gust of wind that slows and cushions her fall. Even when from falling at terminal velocity, she sinks in the air as if she had dived into a pool and comes to a soft halt upon the ground where a huge and magnificent flower welcomes her as her landing pad. And with its job done, the spell dissipates around her in a flurry of fluttering petals.
They circle in to check on her. Ruby lies on her back with her head slightly tilted aside, appearing as if she were merely sleeping. Cloud steps forward first and crouches by her side, taking her hand to check for a pulse. It’s still beating normally, but it looks like she’s not going to wake up for a while. Aerith also kneels down beside him, passing her hands over Ruby’s body to do a thorough scan of her vitals.
“…She’s still alive,” he confirms with everyone, but his face is grim.
“What happened? She was doin’ just fine earlier. She was tearing that shit up, even!” Barret remarks in disbelief.
“But it didn’t look like she was acting normal when she attacked,” Tifa mentions, growing even more worried. “Almost like something possessed her.”
He sinks a little. “Yeah… That was brutal.” He turns back to Vincent to ask, “Hey, you know what’s going on? Did she have some nasty reaction with ARC or something?”
Vincent answers to specify, “It wouldn’t be her reaction to ARC that would be the issue; rather, it’s how the subjects would react to her. Their bodies are unstable as a result of being treated with the agent, and it seems they would break down as soon as they come into contact with the source.”
“Uh… So, what would make her black out, then?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t have an answer to that…” He then looks back toward the ship. “But perhaps my companion from earlier could tell us a bit more.”
“Huh? Oh, yeah. You came with a woman, right? Who is she anyway?”
He turns back to answer, “A member of the NRSA. It seems she was expecting us since we first arrived. We traveled here to meet with you all.”
“What? Those cult guys again!? Goddamn! What do they even want?”
“I’m sure we can get some much needed answers if we head back to the ship.”
Having finished with her scan, Aerith nods with approval and turns to Cloud. “Don’t worry. She’ll be okay after a little rest.”
“How long will she be out?”
“Sorry, I don’t know for sure. But if it’s like last time, she ought to be back up in a few hours.”
“Right… Let’s head back.”
Aerith then steps back so Cloud takes Ruby in his arms and carries her as he gets back up too. Everyone then hurries back for the Highwind once more. In the distance, there’s even a scattered shower of broken rubble dropping back to the ground little by little, far enough away from civilization where they can do little harm. Where things may go from here is very much up in the air, but at least flying high over the land will give a good aerial point of view.
~
All the currently available party members, including the others still aboard and sans Aerith who is overseeing Ruby’s recovery, have gathered in the conference room in the cabin to the ship’s port side. This time they’re joined by Taeru, who’s been standing at the front of the table and waiting patiently for everyone. Cloud can’t help but notice that the blank look in her eyes is similar to the people of Zhongyuan. Maybe she’s been a test subject as well. But now that he gets a better look at her, another question pops in mind: Didn’t they just see her not long ago?
She takes a polite bow to welcome them. “Thank you for coming, everyone. I am a member of the National Religion and Spiritualism Association. My name is Taeru.” She stands back up and guides with a hand to the table before them. “Please, take a seat. I believe we have much to discuss.”
As everyone settles in and tries to get comfortable, Cloud has to ask her, “Didn’t we just meet in the castle?”
But Taeru looks a bit confused. “I believe this is the first time we’ve met.”
“Huh? But you showed us to the throne room.”
Yuffie’s now reminded and remarks, “Oh, yeah, she did! Weird. Are they twins or something?”
Vincent, who insists on leaning against the wall, then shakes his head and answers instead, “There’s more to this story. Let us hear it from her.”
Taeru nods. “Thank you. It is a fine opportunity that we all have come to meet today, on the Day of Advent. I will be happy to answer any and all questions that you may have.” She folds her hands together in a similar way to her fellow members and makes a little prayer. “May Her Radiance be your guiding light.”
Everyone else simply returns her curious, confused, and some frankly suspicious looks. After all they’ve been hearing about this religious group, it’s just been bad news after another. If it wasn’t obvious enough that something’s wrong, they’ve just witnessed the release of a giant demonic war machine that would have spelled doom had it reached any civilization, and it turns out some of the top members of the NRSA are involved in its production in the first place. And yet, despite her stated denomination, this mysterious woman is ready and willing to tell them everything.
Cloud leans forward in his seat and starts them off: “What does the NRSA, or rather, the Order of Wutaia have to do with Ruby and ARC?”
“The Order of Wutaia has always honored the legacy of Her Radiance since its creation in ancient times. She has an important role in the legends that shaped the very beginnings of the world and especially of this great nation’s people. However, ARC, or the Amalgamate Remnant Catalyst would only come to our shores a little over 25 years ago.”
“25 years ago?” He recalls, “I think Rufus mentioned that Project Immortals began development since 30 years ago.”
“They shared their research with Wutai after just a few years?” Tifa asks, surprised. “I guess it was a time before current tensions arose.”
Yuffie frowns with a pout. “I still can’t believe all this started that long ago. The war was already raging when I was a kid.”
“Um… You mean when you were younger? You’re still pretty young, ya know,” Cait Sith comments.
“No, I mean when I was a kid!” she stubbornly snaps back.
He immediately backs off and nods. “Ah, yes, of course.”
Taeru then explains further, “The introduction of ARC was a major turning point in this country’s history. It was a breakthrough in the global scientific community, but due to the nature of the source of this research, the sovereignty of Wutai at the time could not publicize the research without public outcry. Thus, it would instead be designated as a matter to be supervised under the Order of Wutaia, and thus my people were tasked to look into its potential utility.”
“Right. The chairwoman mentioned something like that…” Cloud agrees.
“However, when we learned of its origins, it would lead to a stark divide in the community. On one side, there were those who believed that there was no such thing as a ‘shortcut’ to salvation and refused to partake in its use, and on the other, there were those who claimed that this was but the first of a series of signs leading up to the eventual advent of Her Radiance and it would be tantamount to heresy not to partake in its use. Eventually, the debates would reach a fever pitch and result in the Order splitting into two separate factions between the northern and southern societies. In time, the two factions would come to form their own orders, but both still claimed the name of ‘Wutaia’.”
Yuffie lets out a bored, sputtering sigh and whispers to herself, “To think the nutcases we saw by the prison weren’t the really nutty ones…”
Tifa happens to catch her comment, though, and quietly scolds her, “Yuffie, don’t say that. They’re still your people.”
“Yeah, I know…”
Taeru continues, “Nonetheless, the divide would then come to dissipate as discoveries through research were made and the members involved came to realize the utility of the agent for its medicinal attributes, such as the dispelling of pain and fatigue. It was henceforth heralded as a miracle cure that could offset the effects of any illness imaginable. It was even believed to be able to grant immortality.”
“Why would anyone in the Order want immortality? Sounds like it’d be sacrilegious, even,” Cloud points out.
“That was indeed the initial opinion and thus use of the agent would be restricted only to extreme cases where anesthesia would be required. However, there were certain third parties with ill intent at play in the trade of this agent. It would come to the Order’s attention that outsiders were getting involved in our affairs and one of our most respected members was in fact an insider… The man goes by the name of Zangan.”
Tifa nearly jumps at hearing that name. “Zangan…?”
“What? That’s bull…” In his haste, Cloud ends up slamming a hand on the table in protest, but backs off when he catches himself. “Uh, I mean… Are you sure it was Zangan? He may be an outcast these days, but he wouldn’t be the kind of person to betray his own countrymen.”
“Well, at least that was the information that our current elder monk, Zenigata-san, had given us at the time.” Taeru then makes a troubled look aside. “In my humble opinion, I too thought it was strange that it would be Zangan, though I did not know him personally.” She then looks back to them with a sigh. “However, at the time, no one questioned it. Zangan was well known to be a worldly traveler and spokesperson for foreign cultures he had come across, so it was inevitable that suspicion would come to him. In response to his presumed betrayal, the Oracle had him stripped of his title and banished from the Order. We have not heard from him since his departure.”
Now reminded, Cloud recalls what Zangan had confessed to them. He mentioned that he was part of this religious group and that some schemer had him deposed, but he had no way to exonerate himself. He left on a journey around the world and only recently came to return home, but still as an outcast. So this was what happened. Who knows, perhaps this schemer is still among their ranks to this day.
“From then on, policy within the Order was changed to ensure that no such bad actor would appear again, and only a select few could see the Oracle at a given time. It was also since that time that proponents against the use of ARC began to scatter, as Zangan was an ardent opponent to its use and their faction would gradually fade into obscurity following his disappearance.”
“…Sounds like he had the better idea, though,” Barret concludes.
Now Taeru makes a concerned frown conceding in defeat. “Yes… Perhaps that would have been the path of less suffering, but we had no idea where either path would have lead. And so, the use of ARC in the Order became widespread and would come to be an important part of many of our rituals. As a result, the members of the Order would grow more and more quiet and obedient as time went on.”
He shakes his head in disappointment. “Definitely the better idea. Didn’t you all notice anything weird happening at the time? It was a gradual thing, wasn’t it?”
Taeru nods. “Yes, there were some members who came to experience the numbing effects later than others, and they did try to voice their opinions to the Oracle. However, for unknown reasons – perhaps the numbing effects eventually caught up to them, or they were silenced in other ways – they would disappear and were never heard from again.”
“Huh!? Whoa there! You mean like some kinda targeted sting operation!? I thought ya’ll were supposed to be a peace-lovin’ group!”
Cloud makes a suspicious frown. “Or so they say…”
“I cannot say for sure which were the bad actors, but I was aware that they may have been among our community. Nonetheless, those people who disappeared were eventually forgotten, and the greater majority would come to be complacent.”
Tifa makes an uncomfortable frown too. “That sure is convenient for those bad actors…”
“And that is where the Order has stood on the matter of ARC to this day. However, due to the numbing effects of the agent, the Oracle herself as well as her escort guard did not take any dosage since its introduction. It would have proven detrimental to fulfill their duties, after all.”
“What!?” This time Yuffie slams both hands on the table and sits up straight. “That makes them totally suspicious! I bet you that those ‘bad actors’ are right there with them!”
“Not to mention, the one called Zenigata was the one who informed the Oracle of Zangan’s ‘betrayal’. Sounds like a scheme, alright,” Cloud warily agrees.
“It’s gotta be that guy! He was in contact with some corrupt official too! They were in cahoots with Corneo of all people…” She shakes an angry fist. “Traitors, all of them! I’ll personally kick all their asses offa this land!”
“Still, they got away and we had to escape before we got caught in that death trap. Who knows where they could have gone?”
Her anger very quickly fizzles out as she thinks over the question, and she drops back to the table with a defeated sigh. “…We don’t even have Ruby to scan the area right now.”
“To be fair, I don’t think she would have known either.”
“But at least she’d be able to sniff ’em out or something! She’s got the nose!”
“…” Cloud is about to argue with that, but then realizes that she has a good point. He grumbles to himself, “Why did she have to rush in like that…?”
“Guys, it’s not her fault or any of ours. It was just bad timing that Vincent came late,” Tifa kindly reminds them.
“Yeah… Why couldn’t Vincent have gotten here faster?” Yuffie complains.
“…” But Vincent decides not to participate in this particular conversation.
“I know, Tifa…” Cloud gives a miserable sigh and turns back to Taeru with one last question. “Thanks for telling us, but I have to ask: If you’re also a member of Wutaia and now the NRSA, why would you tell us any of this? It seems better for your group to avoid talking about all the harsh details around Zhongyuan and all. If anything, this definitely makes you guys look guilty for a lot of the mess.”
“…” Taeru then closes her eyes and makes a gentle smile. “Because you are friends of Her Radiance. Whether my people have been wronged or even some that have done wrong, our faith in Her supersedes all. And as has been observed, if it is Her choice to dismiss the souls of our people, then so be it.”
And just like that, a cold chill sets over the room as everyone is taken aback by her nonchalant description of events.
Cloud’s eyes narrow and he grows indignant. “Dismiss…? These are your people! How can you talk about them like they’re just being laid off?”
Tifa’s just as upset. “No one would expect that Ruby would do such a thing! It’s just an accident that she lost control!”
“Yeah!” Even Barret gets up and points a threatening finger. “What the shit is goin’ on with you people? A bunch of ’em just died and you ain’t even mad!”
Biggs mutters in disbelief, “I thought they were crazy, but not this crazy…”
Wedge remarks quietly, “…Religion is one hell of a drug, as they say.”
However, to everyone’s surprise, Vincent actually speaks up to come to her defense. “Hold it, everyone. Though it may be upsetting, you shouldn’t take it out on her.”
“And why the hell not?” Barret snaps back, “She’s one of that cult’s people! They’re all responsible that those people even ended up like that!”
But he remains calm. “Even then, this person is innocent of any wrongdoing, as she isn’t the person she claims to be.”
“Uh… Huh?”
Now everyone’s eyes (except Cid’s, as he is asleep by now) are on Vincent. Tifa asks cautiously, “Vincent, what do you mean by that?”
Now that he has the floor, he proceeds to explain, “There was one other concern I had when it came to the effects of ARC – namely, the way that it infects the host’s body and overtakes everything. While on the surface, it seems like the agent is capable of rebuilding the host’s cells perfectly, that isn’t necessarily the case. Over long periods of exposure to ARC, even previously infected cells can be attacked without discrimination, leading to multiple recurrences of the host effectively being replaced. But the body wouldn’t look any different to the naked eye.”
Cloud raises an eyebrow in confusion. “Well, that’s freaky, but what about it? Don’t the people just stay alive and zombified?”
“That was the assumption, but in truth, the entire process can leave the host’s body prone to disrepair and thus it becomes incredibly fragile. In minute amounts, this can happen on the cellular level to no discernable effect, but the effects of every repeated dose compounds on the last until the body is simply unable to repair itself if the agent is not resupplied.”
Tifa gasps. “So they’re not really immortal after all and instead are forced to be on an external life support?”
“And by the sound of it, they’d be ticking time bombs otherwise…” Cait Sith describes lightly, but his face is just as alarmed.
Vincent nods and then puts on a thinking face. “Now, I’m just taking a guess here, but I think the reason why Ruby making contact with these subjects is so dangerous to them is because the effects are magnified by her own cells, which set off a chain reaction that leads to the entire host’s body being dissembled. It may be a different situation with Soldier, though, as they’re also treated with mako and Jenova’s cells.”
Cloud casts a disheartened look aside. The more they learn about this stuff around Project Immortals, the more impossible it seems that anyone, Ruby included, can do anything about the victims. And this isn’t even accounting for the fact that she keeps having these panic attacks whenever she tries to tackle the problems left behind by Rubia’s influence.
“Knowing this, it then begs the question: If this operation under the NRSA has been going on for 25 years, how could the citizens of Zhongyuan have lasted this long?”
A gripping, tense silence comes over everyone as they all exchange similarly disturbed expressions. That is a very good question.
And now, Vincent arrives to the hard-hitting denouement: “The truth is… they wouldn’t. Many members of Wutaia have long been deceased. However, the remaining members couldn’t let this truth be known. In an effort to replace those that had disappeared, there had to be volunteers who would stand in for them. However, there would be too few remaining members to cover for the missing numbers, so eventually the group would have to resort to illict means to gain new members…”
Cloud nearly does a double-take. “You don’t mean…?”
Tifa’s face slowly goes pale as she now realizes it too. “No… All those missing people were kidnapped by the human traffickers and brought here… to replace their dead?”
“Whoa, hold up!” Yuffie argues, “How does that even work? It’s not like people can look exactly the same! Their cover would be blown if anyone so much as looked at them!”
Vincent answers firmly, “ARC also has shapeshifting properties. It’s precisely why the hosts continue to look the same despite all the times their bodies are replaced. I believe the same effect can happen if the ARC-treated cells of the former host are transferred to new bodies.”
“…” Her jaw drops and the only thing she can say is, “What!?”
“W-wait a sec!” Cait Sith blurts out in a panic, “Are ye sayin’ that anyone can be the replacements!? They don’t even have to be the same ethnicity or figure or anything?”
“#%&$, man! Good point!” Barret exclaims, looking like his eyes are going to pop. “What about the missing people from Midgar? Were they caught up in this too?”
Tifa looks down with worry, feeling a knot form in her gut. “I’m not sure… but it would be really suspicious if all the people who went missing were specifically from Wutai. Everyone would be screaming about a government conspiracy.”
“But this makes it an international conspiracy! And that means Shinra is in on this too! Those sick sons of bitches…”
Biggs scoffs, but his anger is quite visible. “Figures… This also explains why Rufus wants us to eliminate the ring, so it’d help clean up his end.”
Barret throws out a few angry jabs in the air. “Damn that snot-nosed prick! He thinks he can just use Avalanche to do his dirty work!? He’s sittin’ on a giant pile o’ shit that stanks up his whole damn company! He ain’t clean no matter what!”
Cait Sith then grows even more disturbed as he also realizes it. Before he can stop to reconsider, he asks aloud, “Wait, then… How many of those folks in the castle were the missing people we were looking for?”
As soon as he asks the dreaded question, a dead silence befalls the entire room. Though some may have caught on sooner, no one wanted to be the one to admit that Ruby just wiped out a good number of innocents that had no place being there at all. And suddenly, the cat finds himself at the center of a good number of angry glares.
Vincent shakes his head. “There’s no way to know – at least, not unless Ruby is aware.”
Cait Sith sinks back behind his moogle, feeling a bit guilty for bringing it up. “Right… Well, maybe that’s one question we shouldn’t know the answer.”
Deciding it’s best to move on, Cloud turns back to Vincent and asks, gesturing toward the woman before them, “So what about her? Who is she, really?”
They turn back to the mysterious woman, who has been waiting quietly and patiently all this time. Despite the revelations that they’ve come upon, she remains completely undisturbed as if she had been expecting all of this. But this time, Vincent has an idea why she can remain so calm.
And yet, even she is unable to answer it. “My apologies. I do not know enough to answer. Perhaps when Her Radiance has awakened, you may be able to ask her.”
Cloud grumbles to himself, “So we just have to wait…” But then he recalls that they have another who may be able to help. “Hold on. Does it have to be Ruby?”
“Pardon?”
“Aerith is tending to her right now, but I think we can ask her to come over.”
Vincent nods too. “That’s fair. She may be able to speak to whomever is this woman’s current host.”
“Current host…” Tifa repeats to herself, letting the thought sink in, and she feels renewed anxiety to discovering the unknown.
With no objections to it, Cloud hurries off out the door and straight for the infirmary. When he arrives, he finds Aerith with a hand resting on Ruby’s forehead and her eyes closed, as if she were trying to reach out to her through their telepathic connection. Though he hesitates to interrupt them, it shouldn’t hurt to borrow Aerith for a little bit.
It seems she’s been trying to reach out to Ruby, but to no avail yet. She’ll just have to keep trying. After giving her a quick overview of their discussion, she’s happy to help and he takes her back to the conference room, where everyone welcomes her back.
Aerith approaches the mysterious robed woman and introduces herself with a polite nod. “Hello! I’m Aerith. I hear you’ve been taking on a different role as someone else, huh? I can help you find out. I’m one of the last remaining Cetra, you see.”
The woman looks surprised. “Oh! The Cetra are still around? I was told that they had all vanished except for Her Radiance.” She then makes a relaxed smile and takes a respectful bow. “If you would please lend me your assistance, I may be able to be saved just yet.”
Aerith waves her hand and helps lift her back up. “Oh, don’t worry about all that. Here, let me try something.”
She then sets a hand against the woman’s forehead, and they both close their eyes. And almost like a magic trick, Aerith is immediately able to make that link click. Despite this subject’s incredibly calm disposition thus far, the soul that has been trapped within has been writhing in torment and wailing like a child, crying out for help. And as it turns out, she actually is still a child: a little girl of 10 years who had gone missing for a few years. She’s been crying out for her big sister Himiko to come get her, but no one has been able to reach her… until now.
As soon as Aerith realizes who this is, she snaps out from the connection with a look of horror and pitiable sympathy. She takes the woman by the arms, and to everyone’s surprise, she even gives her a hug.
“It’s okay… It’s all gonna be okay. We know where to find your sister,” she whispers soothingly, looking ready to tear up herself.
“Uh… Aerith?” Cloud asks, feeling a bit uneasy.
“Sister…?” Tifa asks too, feeling just as apprehensive.
And then, a truly beautiful miracle happens. The robed woman makes one last smile as if she’s finally arrived at the peace she’s been seeking all this time. Like a curse that is finally broken, her visage promptly dissipates into a mist of translucent green ether that naturally fades away on its own, and the victim who laid hidden in plain sight appears out from the disappearing mist. It’s indeed a little Wutaian girl, now draped in a robed cloak that’s a bit big for her, and she seems to be out cold as well. However, the important thing is that she’s still alive and can recover.
By now, Tifa has her hands clasped over her mouth in shock, and she’s also moved almost to tears. “A little girl… who’s been looking for her sister.”
Cloud blinks a few times and then he remembers. “Wait! Wasn’t there someone we met who was the older sister?”
“Yeah, Himiko, Meryl’s friend. They were looking into Corneo to find a girl named Yasumi.”
He’s now a little shaken. “What are the chances we’d run into her like this?”
But now that the confusion that has been hanging in the air has been lifted, everyone else lets out expressions in relief.
“Even when Ruby isn’t here, we still have another person who can work miracles,” Jessie comments with a gentle smile. “We sure are a lucky bunch.”
“Whew… Kinda freaked me out for a moment there,” Biggs admits. “I was worried Aerith was going a little kooky too.”
“Hahaha! Maybe that’s what it takes to be able to talk to the planet? Just gotta be a little kooky!” Wedge jokes with some hearty laughter.
“Come on, man. Don’t tease our VIPs like that…” He does admit, though, “But you may be onto something there.”
“Now who’s teasing who?” Jessie playfully jabs back.
And with that, a round of laughter and smiles returns to the crew. For just a moment, even Cid is startled awake. He looks around completely lost, grumbles to himself, and shuts his eyes again.
Aerith is still holding the unconscious girl in her arms and helps carry her too. She turns back to the rest with a sweet smile of her own. “I guess we got another guest to tend to in the infirmary.”
“Sheesh. This ship’s startin’ to look like a medic’s tent or something. Even if we aren’t at war, the bodies keep pilin’ up,” Barret jokes along.
To his surprise, Cid is still half-awake and mutters in reply, “We’re not a damn charity. Send them back to where they belong…”
Tifa then reminds everyone, “Right. We do have some places to go, after all, and we still need to hear back from Sonon and Leslie.”
“Ah, yeah!” Barret declares, “And we still got those shitty Turks around too! Ruby may have left Cole with ’em, but they still can’t be trusted!” He turns to Jessie, who’s gone back to checking the feed on the PHS. “Hey, Jessie! Any news?”
“Just a little while ago! Sonon dropped a message. Sounds like things have gotten complicated.”
“What’s the sitch?”
“He and Leslie found Corneo in an underground bunker beneath the castle, but seems like he got away again. Leslie gave chase, but Sonon found a girl that was hiding down there with Corneo.”
“What? Another girl?”
“Is she a missing person too?” Tifa asks, growing anxious.
“Not the usual kind. She’s a princess! The heir to the former empress that was forced out when the new government came along.”
“A princess! Man, how do we keep runnin’ into all these girls?” Barret mumbles to himself, scratching his head.
“What would a princess being doing with Corneo, though?” Cloud asks Jessie.
“Don’t know. Sonon didn’t say much else. He must have been in a hurry.” She looks back to them and the rest of the crew. “I’m betting that they’re still hot on Corneo’s tail. We might as well give ’em a hand!”
“Right.” He turns to the others too. “I can jump in there, but who’s gonna come with me?”
“Right here!” Barret raises a pumped-up fist. “Corneo ain’t gettin’ away! I’m hunting him down until his ass is grass!”
“Same here!” Yuffie shouts, “He’s made a mockery of Wutai for far too long! About time he gets knocked straight to hell!”
Tifa clenches her fists, ready for battle too. “This smuggling ring has brought about too many victims. This ends now.”
Even Cid starts awake again and mumbles drowsily, “Wha? Huh? We got ass to kick? I’m in!”
“…” Cloud looks around the room at his rather colorful cast of misfits he calls friends with a half-annoyed, half-amused smirk. He spins off for the door and raises a fist to beckon them to follow. “Let’s go, team. We got a man to kill.”
“Yeah!!”
And as the eager and impatient five hurry back out, Biggs peeks over to Red and Cait Sith, as well as Vincent, who seem rather comfortable staying where they are.
“…So, I guess we just wait for them as usual?” he suggests.
Red flicks his tail playfully. “They’re more than enough.”
It’s not a moment too soon when they then hear the engines of the Highwind roar back to life and the ship lifts back into the air headed straight for the air above the castle grounds. Looks like they’re gonna be dropping in.
~
That Corneo sure is a slippery one. Even with Leslie a few steps behind him, gun raised to fire, he managed to narrowly avoid getting hit and rounds around a corner in this sprawling mess of underground tunnels. However, just when it looked like his pursuer had him cornered in a dead end, Corneo hit a secret switch on the wall behind him. And fwip! The dead end turned out to have a secret revolving door. Leslie tried to grab the door before it completed the 180, but there were no good holds on this wall and he had to pull back before his own hand was crushed. He felt around to see if there was another button or switch on this side of the wall, but there was none. Swearing under his breath, he fell back to try to find a new route.
However, he’s a stranger in a strange land, especially that this part of the land is a trap-laden maze hidden underneath an ancient siege castle. Whoever had built this really didn’t want intruders to find their way into the castle without permission. Unfortunately, this ancient puzzle just makes his problems now all the worse to deal with. After several minutes of what feels like a moot point, he retraces his steps back to the intersection where he last lost sight of Corneo.
“Leslie! There you are!”
He whips back around to find Sonon has caught up and he’s accompanied by the girl from earlier. He grumbles under his breath and has to admit it, “He got away. Seems like there’s a trick door here, but I can’t find the switch. It must be on the other side.”
“That’s what I figured. A lot of this maze goes one way only.”
“How did you manage to navigate it earlier?”
“…” Sonon opens his mouth to answer, but even he isn’t sure. “I figured we could tail down his goons, but they seemed just as lost down here as anyone. So, I guess… instinct?”
Leslie doesn’t look impressed. “Well, then, Mr. Instinct. How about you guide us out of here?”
The girl now steps forward to offer her assistance. “I can do that. I know my way around these parts very well. There is an emergency exit hidden in a patio clearing on the south side of the garden. The exit hatch is covered by thick foliage, so it’s not easy to find from the outside.”
“Oh… alright. Thanks.” He pauses for a bit and says more earnestly, “Sorry about earlier. Corneo gets under my nerves, but I wouldn’t have dared to fire on you.”
She shakes her head. “It’s alright. I understand that Corneo has many enemies.”
“Speaking of which, why are you with him?”
“Sounds like it was an arrangement thanks to some kind of deal her mother made with Corneo, which led to the reconstruction of this castle,” Sonon summarizes for him.
“Uh-huh…” He passes the girl a cool yet still sympathetic look. “Sounds like a political game that I wouldn’t ever want to be a part of – no offense.”
“None taken.” She then reveals a cute smile and excitedly claps her hands together. “After all, if you are friends with Ruby-sama, then all can be forgiven!”
“Uh… Is that how it works?” he asks Sonon, who simply shrugs.
“Yes,” she answers proudly as if a matter of fact. “Come along. This way.”
She guides them out and around the corner, and at first it seems like they’re just heading back the way they came, but then she stops midway along the corridor leading to the same bunker and finds a hidden switch along the left wall. She hits it and another route opens up as the wall jerks and turns aside for them.
Leslie stares for a moment at the newly opened route and back toward the bunker. He mutters, “It was this close all along.”
Sonon shrugs. “Makes sense why they have the bunker nearby.”
“Hmph.”
The new corridor is a straight path lit by lanterns on the walls, but on closer inspection, these lanterns are not nearly as old as one would expect. They may look like they are lit by fire and have rustling flames within them, but there is no door to open them and they actually take batteries. In fact, this entire corridor that lies before them seems relatively new. Apparently, it wasn’t just the castle tower above that saw reconstruction.
Finally, at the end of this straightway, there is a metal door – it’s a mechanical lift that extends far up directly to the surface. It too looks to be in good condition, fortified with modern steel rather than ancient iron, though it also looks a bit dusty in places.
In fact, Leslie quickly picks up on it as strange. “Looks like it hasn’t been used in a long time.”
Sasame nods. “Yes. We rarely have to resort to this exit, after all.”
“No, I mean…” He checks the lift’s buttons. “If Corneo came this way, wouldn’t he have taken this too? But it doesn’t look like anyone’s touched it yet.”
She tilts her head curiously. “I don’t think he knows about this route.”
“Huh?”
“This is the secret route that my mother told me about. She also said not to tell anyone else…” she explains, then making a mischievous smile, “but since you two are friends of Ruby-sama, I think it’s okay.”
Leslie blinks back. For once, he looks somewhat impressed. He passes a curious glance toward Sonon, who returns him a smirk. They may just be able to catch this guy before he can find his way out.
Meanwhile, a little ways away on the other side of the emergency exit, Corneo has found his way to a dusty green – formerly copper, actually – ladder that has remained surprisingly intact over the ages. It’s most definitely still usable and though Corneo is a guy who hates having to climb ladders, he bounds right up with a greedy-looking grin. Freedom is so close he can almost taste it.
As these tunnels are quite a way down below the surface, though, it’s quite a long climb and he soon slows to a crawl as he begins to tire himself out. Man… why did the ancient Wutaians have to make these ladders so damn tall? Couldn’t they have at least made some emergency lifts for this kind of distance? Well, whatever, at least he can be sure that no one’s hiding in the shadows around here waiting to ambush him. Not that anyone’s ever been successful at it, ha!
Still, this is exhausting. He has to take a short break to catch his breath, and he swings an arm over a rung to hang there for a moment. A hassle like this would be no problem whatsoever if he had wings. Hehehe… Ah, if only ARC could work in reverse and he’d be able to turn his beloved to-be wife to his side. Well, until Shinra’s scientists can figure out a use for it other than just making the odd Soldier that still needs life support, it’s not his business what it’s used for. Maybe he should’ve thrown way more into the other Shinra project that made an actual war hero… Whatever! He wouldn’t wanna get caught up in all that drama.
Having sufficiently rested, he resumes his climb up the ladder. And after another exhausting several minutes, he finally witnesses what he’s been looking forward to all this time: the exit hatch. And like fuel to the fire, he suddenly feels a spike in adrenaline and zips right up to slam his hands against that door. With a grunt and a twist, he releases its hold and shoves it right open. There are some vines that get in the way, but they’re old and brittle enough to snap as he forces the door open.
Yes! Fresh air! Greenery as far as the eye can see! The gentle winds blowing in a refreshing feeling! He’s finally out of that stuffy old maze! He helps himself out and back to his feet and pats himself down with a triumphant shit-eating grin.
“…Took you long enough.”
“Eh?”
He freezes up and turns around to see none other than Leslie, Sonon, and Sasame. His eyes shoot around in panic as he tries to figure out what just happened here, but after the initial shock settles, he then regains his smug composure.
“Hmph. So you guys made it out too, huh?” He passes the girl a smarmy grin. “Oh, Sasame-chan, you silly girl. What do you think you’re doing with these shmucks?”
She fires back with an unamused frown. “They are friends of Ruby-sama. Why would I not stay with them?”
“Ha! Oh, you sweet summer child. No, no, no. These guys? They’re lyin’ to you!”
“…?” She even looks a bit shaken.
Sonon returns him an indignant glare. “What are you talking about?”
Corneo then sighs and shakes his head. He directs with a hand in his direction too. “See, I’ve done my due diligence working with all kinds of people. And I can definitely say that this guy is a government agent! Works for National Defense, in fact.”
“H-huh?” Sasame starts to withdraw. “Government…?”
“Well…” He passes a begrudged glare toward Leslie, who fires back with his own. “At least he is. The other’s just a loser who can’t get over how his girl dumped him.”
Sonon now grows alarmed, realizing where he’s going with this. He tries to explain to her, “Wait, Sasame-san! It’s not what it seems. I’m not here on a mission… er, at least not one from the government.”
“…”
“And I’m not lying. I really am one of Ruby’s friends. She even went out of her way to save me a number of times.”
But by now, Sasame grows even warier and she slinks back a few steps. “…I hate the government.”
“Sasame-san…”
“Silence!” she yells, “You traitorous dogs! The Order of Wutaia has done no wrong to deserve to be so unfairly ostracized! This land is ours as much as it is theirs!”
As much as Sonon wants to explain, he now realizes that they’ve stepped right into one of Corneo’s traps. Whatever he says now, she won’t be listening.
Catching on as well, Leslie gives Corneo a furious scowl. “The real ‘traitorous dog’ is here, alright…”
“Heeheehee!” Corneo giggles gleefully. He prances off, beckoning the girl to follow. “Come along now, Sasame-chan! Let’s go find your mother!”
“…”
Without another word but just a look of betrayal, Sasame turns off and follows after the prancing man. However, just as he rounds the corner, something zips through the air and nails the guy in the neck.
“Ugh!”
“!?”
Sasame gasps as Corneo takes a tumble. However, he isn’t quite dead yet: it was a tranquilizer dart. And from out of the shadows of greenery, three figures in black suits and a fourth imposing, helmeted figure with a huge sword on his back now step out into view.
“Nice shot, Rude,” Reno compliments.
“It was nothing,” Rude replies, slipping away his dart gun.
“Finally! We found you, you slimy dirtbag!” Elena growls, “Do you have any idea how much of a pain it was!?”
Sasame looks at Corneo and back to the rest in shock. “W-who are you? What have you done?”
“Hm? Looks like we picked up a princess who’s wandered off on her own too,” Reno remarks with a cheeky grin. “Hey, kid. Where are your mother and her entourage? We’re looking for them too.”
She grows even more fearful and steps back. “You… Are you government agents too?”
“Not this government’s, but yeah, kinda.”
“F-foreign agents!?” she squeaks with fright.
She turns tail and tries to flee, but now Sonon and Leslie have come running up after hearing her cries, and she freezes up. Now she has no idea where to run.
“Sasame-san! Are you…” Sonon’s attention is shortly redirected. “The Turks!?”
“Hmph. Looks like they got Corneo first,” Leslie observes, noting the sad sack that is lying prone and yet still awake.
“Oh? Even the ninja and the tagalong are here,” Reno casually remarks. “Now we just gotta wait on Cloud and the others to show.”
“Huh? What do you mean?” Elena asks, now scrambling to make sense of the situation. “Were we supposed to expect them?”
Reno fires back with an annoyed look. “Elena, how many times do we have to say it? We’re working with Cloud and his gang for now because they have Ruby!”
“No, I get that much! What are these two doing here!?”
He turns away again, playing it cool. “Who knows.”
“Then you’re just as confused as I am! Don’t act so smug!”
“Oooh…” Sasame fidgets nervously. She then drops into a crouch and huddles in a trembling ball. “M-mother! Zenigata! Help me!!”
There’s an awkward silence that ensues as the poor girl begins to cry.
Sonon fires a glare at the Turks. “What did you do to her?”
Reno shrugs. “Nothing. We just asked her where her mom and their monks went.”
“Why are you looking for them? You’ve found Corneo already.”
“Well, genius, it takes a lot more than just one person to run a ring.”
Rude explains, “Our mission specifies that we address the ring’s operations in regards to Shinra’s interests, so anyone who is a major participant falls under our objectives as well.”
Sonon grits his teeth, speaking in a dangerous tone, “And do your objectives include ‘eliminating’ them too?”
“…We would rather it not come to that, but if the need arises, then yes.”
“In that case, then I don’t think we can keep working together.” He draws his staff and swings it forward. “This girl may not currently be in a position of power, but she is still a citizen of Wutai. I may not be on duty, but I can’t exactly let it slide if Shinra agents decide to target her and her associates.”
Reno scoffs back, “Really? You’re talking about some wanted fugitives even according to your own government! If you got a problem with it, go complain to your bosses.”
Even Leslie seems a bit nervous about this. “Hey, uh, Sonon? I get where you’re coming from, but is this really the time?”
“Sorry, but this is still a matter of Wutaian civil affairs. I can’t just stand around and watch the Turks have their way.”
“Sheesh, calm down. We’re not gonna kill them or torture them or anything! We just wanna talk,” Reno rebuts, but draws his baton anyway.
Elena just looks even more confused. “…Wait. So are we supposed to fight them now? I don’t get it anymore.”
Rude makes an awkward frown too, but tugs on his gloves just to make sure they’re well fit. “We are the Turks, after all. We adapt to any changing situations.”
But before the fight can break out, a familiar voice comes in to stop them. “A moment, please, if you would listen to this humble monk’s word.”
Finally, Zenigata arrives from around the corner and the rest of his entourage of monks have all gathered and surrounded them, blocking their exit. It doesn’t look like their oracle is with them, though. Aside from Zenigata himself, the others seem like they’re poised as if ready for battle themselves.
“Zenigata!” Sasame cries, hurrying over to his side.
He takes her in an arm and softly reassures her, “There, there, Your Benevolence. There’s nothing to fear. I’m sure it is but a misunderstanding we have here.”
Reno frowns. “So this is where you were. That was a cheap trick you guys pulled, ditching us like that.”
“Our sincere apologies, but as the castle was in the process of transforming, it would have been unwise to remain any longer. And in any case, you all made it out safely. As expected of Her Radiance…”
Rude glances around at the other monks and back on their leader. “Where is your chairwoman? She doesn’t seem to be here.”
“Rest assured, she is in a safe place.” He turns back to Sasame, who has yet to release her grip on his draping sleeve. “And we shall be returning the princess to her mother as well.”
He raises his other arm to the nearest guard, one who bears a half-moon naginata, and asks him to lead her away to safety. The monk makes a salute with his arm and takes a bow, and leads Sasame away from the garden lounge. Though still apprehensive, the girl quietly obliges.
“Cool, cool,” Reno says with a sarcastic tone, “Now how about you lead us to her too? We just wanna talk.”
“Shut up, Shinra scum!” Sonon yells, “Stop prying into things you aren’t a part of!”
Reno sighs to himself. “You think he’d get it by now…”
Zenigata again raises his hand to help ease the situation. “Now, now. It is not the time for hostility. Rather, you may think of this meeting as a fortunate opportunity. We come in peace to offer you all a deal.”
“…” Despite his own caution, his curiosity overrides and Reno decides to take the bait. “What kind of deal?”
Zenigata then stands back up and presents a hand forward, directing them toward Corneo, who is now a deflated, sobbing mess on the ground. “I believe it would be in all our best interests that this man stay alive. He has some rather important ties with certain actors that are acting to the benefit of our association, you see. Were he to disappear, it may compromise the progress of the work contributed by those actors.”
“No deal,” Reno argues coolly, “Sorry to tell you, but we’re not here for peace negotiations. We’re here to take out a problematic smuggling ring that has been getting a little big for its britches while Shinra’s been looking the other way.”
“We are aware that some members of this ring are well situated in certain national interests of Wutai, and it is our intention to settle matters peacefully,” Rude follows, with a dangerous warning, “But if you try to resist or impede our investigations, we will have no choice but to eliminate you as well.”
By now, Sonon steps forward to get between them. “And I’m here to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“Whose side are you on, man?” Reno snaps back.
“Not yours.”
“At ease, soldier,” Zenigata raises a hand to stop him. “There’s no need to worry. We can handle this ourselves.”
“Huh?”
Zenigata remains calm as he suggests, “It is not within the rights of the NRSA to disclose any details regarding our anonymous clients, however if I may insist on one point…?”
“What now?” Reno responds, honestly getting a little tired by now.
“I must warn you that some of those actors are likewise deeply tied to your very company.”
Now Reno and Rude are a little taken aback. They share concerned frowns and Rude replies, “Meaning…?”
The old monk shakes his head. “I have already said too much and should not admit to anything more. In any case, there is a critical reason why a certain experimental study has been conducted on our people. It would be quite the shame should progress be seized by an unwisely rash act from a party that is none the wiser.”
“…” Rude takes a moment to consider the meaning behind those carefully selected words.
“Hold on a minute,” Reno cuts in, looking pretty suspect of him, “You’re honestly suggesting that our mission here is going to interfere with this ‘experiment’ when you have a much bigger, more obvious problem?”
“Pardon?”
He throws his baton up toward the sky. “How about a 500 lb dragon who can blow shit up in space?”
Elena frowns. “Is she really 500 lbs?”
“Zip it, Elena. Not the point…” He continues, “You think it would be in the best interests of anyone to try to fight something like that? She’s already told you all to shut down everything. You’d think that the idol of your worship would have the final say, not these mysterious ‘actors’ that you’re working with. Or is there actually something you worship more than her?”
“…” Zenigata then shakes his head with a sigh. “No, of course not. Our faith in Her Radiance is everpresent, boundless, and irreplaceable.” Nonetheless, he insists, “Despite how circumstances may seem, She has granted us Her fair and just judgment. Though it is truly lamentable that many lives would come to disappear so suddenly, this outcome was for the best.”
“Huh? Hey, those were your own people in there, weren’t they? That’s kinda dickish coming from someone like you.”
“Not at all.” He then makes an eerie smile. “As it was the will of Her Radiance, she sought to put an end to the cycle of reincarnation. It was only a matter of time that she would return to bring us all salvation – by any means necessary, of course.”
Suddenly, Reno feels the jitters come over him and he backs off with a disgusted frown. He passes a glance over to Sonon, as if meaning to say, “Look at what you’re trying to defend here.” And though he hates to admit it, Sonon also feels a bit troubled and has to reconsider what would be the best action to take here.
Rude then moves on, standing firm with their decision. “In any case, regardless of the circumstances, we have a mission to complete and you all are to be interrogated regarding this smuggling ring. It is in the interests of our company president to discard extraneous projects and consolidate efforts and resources to where they would be more efficient and well-adapted to the times. That is all we are willing to discuss.”
“Hmm… I see you are yet unmoved, despite my appeal to reason. It really is a shame.” He then raises an arm forward, and his fellow monks strike battle-ready stances. “I’m afraid that we, the honorable Guardians of Wutaia, cannot let this unscrupulous behavior be. You three are acting out of line, and it is our duty to prevent any disturbances to the current peace.”
“Oh, about time.” Reno finally flicks on the power to his baton, setting it ready for a full-power discharge. “I was getting antsy wondering when we’d be able to throw hands.”
Rude strikes his own fighting stance. “It usually comes to this, doesn’t it?”
Elena hops back and forth, letting fly a few swings and kicks. “Finally. Let’s roll some heads!”
But even before the battle can begin, Zenigata then reveals a faint smile. “Oh, but I must first warn you…”
“Huh? What now!?”
“These polearms of ours are no ordinary arms. They have earned the blessing of the Holy Dragoness Herself.”
“Uh… what?”
Now, Zenigata lets out a soft chuckle. “In other words, they are all laced with ARC. If it were to make even the slightest contact, I can’t guarantee you’ll be leaving these grounds any time soon.”
“!” And that’s just the threat that would shake anyone, even experienced fighters like the Turks.
“Hey! No fair! That’s so dirty!” Elena protests.
“Honorable, my ass,” Reno mutters in agreement.
“Wait!” Even Sonon is alarmed and faces him. “Zenigata-san, what are you doing? This is tantamount to murder!”
“I’m aware of the consequences, my son… but none of you are to leave these grounds. You all know too much.”
“What?”
Without further warning, Zenigata acts in the blink of an eye. He draws a small dagger, likewise laced with ARC, and stabs forward. In that brief instant, Sonon’s ninja instincts let him react and dodge it in time, but the edge of the dagger just nicks him in the arm.
“Gah!”
“Sonon!” Leslie calls out, rushing over.
Sonon drops to the ground, clutching his arm. To his horror, even if it was just a tiny nick that could easily heal up, he’s already feeling the numbing effects.
Before anyone could expect anything, they’re all shocked by what happens right after. Throughout the tense conversations, Cole has remained on standby, silent as ever, almost statuesque in a way – so much so that one could be forgiven to have forgotten he was present all along. However, even without Ruby to grant him orders, he is still aware of who has her allegiances. And while he was even willing to let these monks go, he changes his mind as soon as he witnesses Sonon being attacked. With the blitzing speed that could rival a Cactuar, he rushes into the fray and shoves away the old monk, knocking him flying. The monks around them cry out in shock.
“Zenigata-san!”
“Seize the violator!”
At that moment, all hell breaks loose. The rest of them come charging in to the aid of their leader, and their laced weapons come crashing in. However, this isn’t any ordinary Soldier they’re facing; this is one who’s actually been blessed by Ruby and granted a piece of her strength. He shoves off all their attempts to “poison” him and draws his massive slab of a sword. And he proceeds to wallop them all by himself.
“Oh, shit. I forgot about him,” Reno admits.
“…Turns out he was handy to have, after all,” Rude agrees.
“Uh…” Elena looks between them and back to the Soldier. “Wait. Then who do we get to fight!?”
“You see that guy, Elena? You wouldn’t wanna dive into that, would you?”
“Grrr… but I hate being shown up!”
“Join the club.”
As it turns out, the old monk is a lot hardier than he at first seems and manages to shake off his tumble. But as he turns around to witness, he meets a terrifying scene. This Soldier is no ordinary man, to be able to take all those hits of ARC and not even flinch. Nor will he be stopped by being jumped by several men at once. He effortlessly flings them all off, even cutting down a few that dared to get too close. One unfortunate monk receiving the flat end of his blade against his skull, cracking him against the pavement below.
Reno flinches. “Ooh, that’s gonna leave a mark.”
By now, Zenigata is panicking. To think that Shinra has such a weapon at their disposal… Even with his deep-pocketed connections, he hadn’t ever witnessed the actual results before. Taking no further chances with this menace, he draws out a smokescreen bomb and sets it off, covering the place in smoke.
“Hey!” Reno complains.
Under the cover of the confusion, Zenigata turns tail and flees on his own. Noting that they won’t be winning this battle, the few remaining monks who have yet to be knocked out scramble to flee after him. Though the Turks intend to give chase, they still have one other target to watch.
Nevertheless, Cole is still able to pursue. He’s about to give chase when Leslie calls out to him, “Hey! You’re Cole, right?”
Leslie is currently kneeling by Sonon’s side, and the latter is now on the ground, gripping hard on his arm where the wound had been. Unfortunately for him, the numbing effects have begun to spread throughout his arm and he fears it’s only a matter of time before it swallows up the rest of him.
“Can’t you do anything about him?”
“…”
Though the Soldier may be in a state that he normally only responds to Ruby, at the very least, he can move his head. And he sadly shakes it.
Disheartened but refusing to give in, Leslie helps pull Sonon back up. “Come on! We have to get you back to Ruby! She’ll be able to fix it, right?”
“There’s… no time.” Sonon pleads weakly with Cole, “Please… cut off my arm…”
“Stop that! Are you crazy!?”
However, as Ruby isn’t here to command him, Cole refuses to act on his own, especially regarding such a brash, life-changing act. However, he can at the very least take this poor man back to Ruby. Slinging his sword back in place, he drops down to lift Sonon with one arm and carries him over the shoulder.
“W-wait… What are you…?” Sonon mumbles.
To Leslie’s surprise as well, Cole also picks him up in his other hand. “W-what!? What’s the big idea!?”
Despite both their objections, the good Soldier pays them no mind and rushes off for the exit. However, it’s quite a pain to navigate the maze-like routes of this grand garden, and so he takes a leap to land on the top of the trees and runs off from there.
And throughout all that, the Turks are left behind once again. Reno stares off into the distance after them with growing fatigue.
“…What the hell, man,” he grumbles. “Why does it always feel like we’re the butt of some kind of joke?”
“Reno, focus,” Rude calls to him. “We still have this one to deal with.”
“Tch…”
As the smoke clears away once more, they find themselves alone with Corneo, who having taken a tranquilizer, was forced to remain as the smoke covered him and then ceded, foiling any attempts at getting away. That said, it has been a bit of time and by now, he feels like he can still move some parts of his body. And to that, the scheming man has one last hope.
Reno scoffs at the sight of the sad state of this man. “Too bad. Looks like your ‘friends’ turned tail and ditched you. Maybe in your next life, you can consider making better ones?”
“…” But to their surprise, Corneo then sneers back. “You know what, you’re right. I should be calling on better friends.”
“Huh?”
There happens to be a whistle tied around his neck and he has somehow managed to get it into his mouth. He blows hard, sending a shrill signal into the air. The Turks quickly look around and what just happened, and at first, it’s still peaceful. But then, the ground beneath them begins to tremble.
“W-w-what’s going on!?” Elena squeaks in an uncharacteristically high pitch.
“No way! He doesn’t have another mech hiding around here, does he!?” Reno cries.
“…! The greenhouse!” Rude points out.
At that moment, the doors to the ceiling of the greenhouse slide open and a massive draconian beast shoots out from the depths. It turns out that this isn’t just any greenhouse. It was a specialized cage made to hold a certain wild, golden-scaled monster.
“Rapps, my dear boy!” Corneo cries out with glee, “Come to Daddy!”
Rapps the giant drake lets off a menacing screech at the Turks who have his master pinned, and the three just avoid the beast’s claws as they slam down into the ground around Corneo. However, the man is unharmed and is simply carried away in its claws. He laughs hard and throws out mocking signs toward his former captors as they fly away from the scene.
“You should really consider making better friends yourselves! See ya, suckers! Ahahahahaha!!”
Reno curses under his breath. “Dammit… How did he get away again!?”
“That man really has all the luck on his side to be able to keep avoiding the worst…” Rude laments bitterly.
“What the hell!? When did he have a giant dragon!? Where was it even hiding!?” Elena screeches too.
“…For once, I actually want to see Ruby rip that thing a new one,” Reno admits with a pout.
“You really are her fanboy, aren’t you?” she remarks, unimpressed.
“Shut up…”
However, speaking of luck, it wouldn’t turn out that bad for these three. In the near distance, a magnificent airship would sail in close. Upon realizing which airship that is, Corneo starts to panic himself.
“Hey, Rapps!! Other way! Other way!!”
Rapps screeches in acknowledgement. He casually swerves away for the south and soars off.
Back on the Highwind, the party have gathered on the deck just in time to witness their most hated enemy have yet another convenient escape route. Needless to say, Cid is absolutely furious.
“Sonnuva BITCH! He won’t get away! Full speed ahead, men!” He hurries back to the wheel and though there is a nervous rookie still flying, he quickly stands aside as Cid comes stomping over to take over.
Barret likewise protests, “Come on, man! That ain’t fair! How come he gets to have a damn dragon too!? Just when ours is takin’ a nap!”
“Will we be able to keep up?” Tifa asks, getting a bit worried.
“Damn straight we will!” Cid barks back, flicking and pressing the appropriate levers and switches.
The Highwind then retrieves energy from its backup engines and proceeds to shift into higher gear. However, just when the ship is in line to catch up to Rapps, the giant drake growls threateningly and tries to thrash at it, to the protests of his master.
“Hey! Rapps! Watch it! Get me to safety first, ya bird-brain!” Corneo yells from below.
Still Rapps refuses to let a mechanical flier beat it in a race. The beast whips around to pull back a distance as the ship approaches, and he flaps his wings so rapidly that it begins to stir the air around them. Suddenly, it’s not just some wingbeats. Rapps summons his kind of Aeroga and spawns several massive tornadoes that spiral around the area, ripping apart more of the garden that had yet been untouched.
Alarms aboard the Highwind blare in response to the massive turbulence, and yet they can all still hear Cid scream.
“%&#-----#*$!!”
He’s forced to pull back and swerve the ship to safety before the worst of the winds can rattle the ship too much. And with several massive tornadoes that have formed near them, it makes it impossible for the ship to keep pursuit of the great drake.
Cid slams a fist on the counter beside him and keeps yelling expletives until he tires himself out. An awkward silence ensues and he drops to the floor with an exhausted sigh. The rookie pilot standing by checks with him to make sure he’s still okay, and Cid waves him off to leave him be.
“I know we all hate him… but why is Cid so pissed off?” Yuffie asks.
Cloud shrugs. “Probably kept all that rage in reserve.”
“He was sleeping through the whole conversation!”
“Like I said, reserve.”
“Guys! This isn’t the time for jokes!” Tifa scolds them, “He’s actually going to get away like this!”
“But what do we do?” Barret asks, feeling a little frantic himself, “If we can’t chase him, we’d do shit-all from here!”
Cait Sith babbles nervously, “Oh, okay. Calm down and think… We need something to be able to fight the winds… Wait! That’s right!” He hops off his moogle and slaps Yuffie on the leg. “Hey! Materia girl!”
“Huh? What!?”
“Don’t we have a Summon that can help with this?”
“Uh… Oh!” She taps her head with a knuckle. “Uh, doy! Sylph! Hang on…” She retrieves the rare and coveted red orb from her stashes. “Gotcha!”
“Hurry, lassie! Before they get too far!”
“Make sure ya summon it far away! Don’t rock the ship!” Cid calls out too.
“On it!” Yuffie zips right off for the exit.
By now, Cloud is feeling pretty antsy himself. Do they really have to leave everything to a Summon? It’s bad enough that Ruby cleans up most problems, but now that she’s out of the way for once, they find themselves unable to keep up with all the mounting issues still left unresolved. He also hurries after Yuffie, though he isn’t sure what he can do from here.
“Cloud?” Tifa asks.
“I’m gonna head out to keep watch! Just in case we can do something!”
“Oh!” She nods back. “Okay, I’ll come with!”
“Huh? Hey! Don’t leave me out of it!” Barret says too.
The two also run after Cloud for the lower deck. And by now, Cid is too tired from screaming to care anymore. He calmly gets back to his feet and heads on out, raising a hand behind him.
“I’m goin’ for a smoke.”
And with that, he heads out too. The ensuing awkward silence that comes over the rest of the crew is so palpable that one could even hear the occasional nervous clearing of the throat.
Down by the gondola, Yuffie rushes out with the summon materia and equips it onto her ring shuriken. Okay, now she just has to find a good place to aim and fire. But as the Highwind rounds around to get into a better position, she catches sight of something up in the sky past the clouds. She lowers her weapon to lean in and get a better view of it. It looks like it’s something bright orange-red, like it’s burning through sky. Wait, but it seems a little early for a meteor shower…
“Yuffie! What’s the holdup?” Cloud calls. Now he, Tifa, and Barret show up on the deck.
Yuffie points up to the sky. “What is that?”
“Huh?”
The bright orange-red light finally comes in close enough to be seen streaking across the sky in an arc headed southward. For just a brief moment, it almost looks like a meteor, though a relatively small one judging by the size of the streak.
Off in the distance, Corneo has tired himself out from laughing in triumph. He can’t believe it was that easy to get away! Well, okay, maybe there were a few gaffs here and there. He sure didn’t anticipate the Turks to have come all this way after him. It was just a tranq, but boy, did it piss him off to be hit by one. But finally, he’s made it out from that mess and he even eluded those pains in the ass that Ruby calls her friends! Hehehe. It sure pays to have friends who actually have your back… even if they’re a dumb drake that thinks he’s his dad or something. Ah, well. It should be smooth sailing from here.
Hm? Now that he notices, there seems to be something that’s streaking across the sky. Huh, fat chance for a meteor of all things, but looking at the size of the thing, it should be burning up soon enough… Wait. Is that thing getting bigger?
Finding it strange that there seems to be a whizzing sound that is getting louder and louder, Rapps peeks back behind him and freaks out when he sees a giant piece of rubble is coming down from the heavens. He scrambles frantically as he hesitates over which way to fly and in his frenzy, he throws Corneo for a loop or few.
The man screams, “G-get goin’, ya dumb reptile! Go! Go! Go-”
Too late. The burning piece of rubble crashes right into Rapps, who in his panic happened to run right into its trajectory. They all plummet together to the ground near the mountains at the southern end of the island, making a massive explosion that digs a crater in the landscape that could potentially be seen from the outer edge of the stratosphere.
At this time, the tornadoes from earlier have all ceased to be and the scene is clear for all to see. And from the Highwind’s gondola, the feisty band of warriors who had their sights set on Corneo have all gone quiet. By now, Cid has come on out, and he was in time to see the boom in the distance. But then he stands to the side on the opposite side of the gondola and lights himself a cig.
Meanwhile, the other four stare at the disaster site for a bit longer and then turn back to each other.
“What happened?” Yuffie asks, “What even was that?”
“If that were some kinda meteor, it sure was a small one,” Tifa proposes.
“Damn. The thing somehow nailed ’em, like it was a targeted attack,” Barret comments, putting on a thinking face.
“But who could target like that? Ruby’s still out!” Yuffie argues.
“…Wait a second.” Cloud then recalls the prior incident with the castle, and suddenly the dots start to connect. “Didn’t Ruby blow that castle to pieces?”
“Huh? Uh, yeah?”
“She flew so high, I swear she reached outer space,” Tifa recalls too. And then it hits her too. “Oh! Wait, Cloud, you don’t think…?”
He nods. “Seems like some of those pieces were sent flying in different directions. Maybe some dropped fast, but others had time before they’d come back down.”
“What!?” Barret exclaims. “You’re kiddin’! You mean that was from the damn monster mech!?”
“Huh!?” Yuffie shrieks too. “Wait, so did Ruby really time that just right!?”
“If she did, then it sure took a damn long time! What, did it somehow circle around the whole damn planet!?”
“Dude! That’s so metal! And I don’t say that lightly!” she gasps excitedly.
“What the hell! However it happened, seems like we got ’im!” Barret cheers, throwing an arm up in the air, “Let’s go, team! That’s why Ruby’s our VIP!”
“Yeah!” Yuffie hops and twirls with glee.
“Uh, guys… I don’t think Ruby would have been able to perfectly time the landing like that,” Cloud means to point out. “Who even knew that Corneo would be flying off on a drake anyway?”
But Tifa puts a hand to his shoulder. “It’s okay, Cloud. Let them have this one.” She then lets off a grateful sigh. “For what it’s worth, maybe we can finally settle the rest of the ring.”
Cloud makes an unsure look, though. “Well, Corneo may be dead, but it’s clear that the other people involved are still out there.”
“They won’t be for long, though. They couldn’t have escaped far from the castle grounds. If we keep a lookout from up here, I’m sure we’ll catch them trying to escape.”
“Right.” He then turns around to call to Cid, “Hey, Cid! Mind dropping us off back by the tower area? We still got some people to pick up.”
“Yeah, yeah… Gimme a moment alone, will ya?” the grumpy pilot mutters.
“Huh?” Yuffie stops and whips back to him. “What’s gotten into him? First he was mad and now he’s sad?”
Barret folds his arms. “Probably just disappointed that we didn’t get to throw hands.”
“That’s just you,” Cloud points out.
“Speak for yourself, Spiky! Why else did you come out here, huh?”
“I just had a feeling something big would happen…”
“Oh, sure ya did. Maybe you can even perfectly calculate the trajectory of a piece of monster mech flyin’ around the whole planet down to the exact moment of landing.”
“Oh, shut up!” And with that, Cloud stomps off back inside.
Tifa passes Barret a stern frown. “Did you have to tease him like that?”
“Hmph. He walked right into that one. Someone gotta tell him straight, ya know?”
“Anyway, what are we still doing here? Nothing more to see.” And Yuffie dashes back in too.
Barret and Tifa also walk in, with Tifa passing one last curious look toward Cid, who remains out here.
Finally, now that he’s alone again, Cid takes a big whiff and lets it out with a groan. To think that the first man-made object that would make it out to space would be some big dumb mech based on Wutai architecture. Man, what a joke. Sure, it was because a magical dragon goddess decided to go nuts and fly it up there, but it still counts. He sighs to the entire irony of the situation, feeling kinda crappy now that he thinks over his whole career under Shinra. Glad he’s outta there now, but sometimes he wonders if he could have left sooner.
After a moment of deep thoughts, bordering on a mid-life crisis, he finally pulls his cig and stamps it out in the onboard ashtray on this gondola. It’s actually a pipe that leads directly to the ship’s hidden trash compactor – a custom-made feature for the pilot whose ship was named after. Though she really is a pain in the ass in so many ways, Ruby was still the one who got him back his prized baby. Now if only she could take ownership of her own prized possession: her past.
Well, that’s enough thinking for now. Cid then heads back inside to join the rest of the party.
Chapter 49: Burnt Bridges
Notes:
Merry Christmas and happy holidays, everyone! I just had to bring in a romance-themed chapter in time for the season of giving. Huh, did I end up posting this chapter exactly one year apart from a previous chapter? Wow.
Outdated A/N
1/3/24 edit: Sorry for the wait, guys. Next chapter hit a snag during development as I struggled to work out how I was gonna write the upcoming plots, but is back on track and will be ready by tomorrow evening. As a reminder, I'm on PST.
On a slight tangent, my sleep schedule has been absolute shit.
1/4/24: Lmao. Never mind, let's push it to Friday. I finished editing the chapter and then realized how I don't like the ending.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
To the south, out by the outskirts of the castle grounds is an open field cleared into the mountain face where a black, unmarked helicopter sits upon its landing pad. It is indeed the same helicopter that Corneo had requested a ride previously when he was escaping the capital’s pagoda. Now, it has been waiting for several important guests, but only one of which has arrived safely.
The priestess Izayoi is accompanied by several robed attendants, one of which looks like Taeru – though it is more likely that none of these people can say who they really are. She has been waiting by the helicopter for her faithful escort guard to return with her daughter, and they would be able to take their leave as soon as possible. However, after a period of patience later, she is a bit disturbed to see that there is only one monk who has returned with Sasame.
“Mother! So this is where you were,” she cries, running on over to her for a warm embrace.
“Sasame… Thank goodness.” Izayoi gently caresses her dear daughter’s head. “I was surprised to see that Zenigata seems to be delayed.”
“Zenigata and the monks defended me from some frightful people! The people who I thought were friends of Ruby-sama were actually government agents… and then even some foreign agents were there too!”
Izayoi’s eyes grow alarmed. “Foreign agents? Of what sort?”
She shakes her head. “I do not know. But they were all dressed in black and were accompanied by another man who had a helmet on. He also bore a great sword on his back! I’ve never seen something so big…”
“Hmm…” Catching on immediately, the priestess reassures her, “There’s no need to fear, my child. Those agents are no match for Zenigata’s monks. You will be safe with us.”
“I hope so… But Mother?” she asks, pulling her head back a bit.
“Yes?”
“When will we get to meet Ruby-sama?”
The woman hesitates for a moment, recalling their previous meeting that quite clearly resulted in a falling out of terms. Who knows when their next encounter would be, or how things would turn out. It’s even more unfortunate that she had to come along with agents of Shinra as well. Even if she would like to stoke the fires of revolution in this country, it would only bring further disaster if the likes of that company were to be involved once again. Much of their hope did rest with Ruby coming to their aid, but as things are, they will have to fall back for now. However, she doesn’t wish for her girl to lose hope and offers a kind smile despite her own concerns.
“It is as the old prophecy goes… When the spirits of the Sun and the Moon align, it will mark the return of Her Radiance, and She shall bring us all to salvation.”
“But that seems so far away!” Sasame whines, “I want to meet her sooner!”
Her mother simply rubs her head affectionately. “There, there. We must have patience. Though the winds did not favor us at this time, there will come the time when they come to our aid. Until then, Ruby-sama must first undergo her own journey to realize the destiny that follows Her.”
“Huh? Does She not realize what She must do?”
She shakes her head. “Unfortunately, no. Our discussions earlier did not lead to any consensus yet.”
“Hmm…” Sasame pouts, but nods back in understanding. “I suppose we will just have to wait. I thought Her Holiness would have all the answers for us when we finally meet, but perhaps this is a matter even the Gods must deliberate first.”
“Indeed. You are a very perceptive one, Sasame. To be able to perceive difficulty is critical to one’s ability to lead. One day, you shall lead this nation back to its days of glory.”
Sasame sighs, feeling quite disappointed. “Yes, Mother… Like you always say.”
But despite their heartfelt reunion, they’re shortly interrupted by the slight trembles from a distance away and the screeching of a wild beast. It seems Corneo has unleashed pet with little warning.
Izayoi lets her daughter go and advises her to board. “Quickly, now. Let us be on our way. This place is no longer a safe zone.”
“But what about Zenigata and the others, Mother? They haven’t arrived yet.”
“Fret not. They will be able to take care of matters here. But we have other places to be. Our allies in Chenfu are expecting us by tomorrow night, after all.”
“Hmph…”
Without further delay, the two board upon the helicopter, and the monk who escorted Sasame as well as the two attendants with Izayoi all take their bows as they take their ride. They also step back to allow for the helicopter to start up, and it quickly takes off before the worst of the chaos erupts in the aerial battle behind them. However, as soon as their guests of honor are out of sight, the monk who was so amicable would then promptly ditch the two attendants to fend for themselves as he seeks refuge for himself and to return to meet up with his fellow monks. And yet, even with destruction looming above them, the two attendants simply turn to each other with calm smiles. They had expected as much, and yet don’t seem to care that they’ve been abandoned. After all, they’ve long outlived what they had expected their lives would become – or what they could have had. And with the thrashing tornadoes, the two willingly accept their fate to be tossed aside and discarded.
However, no one would have expected what would shortly follow. Even while Rapps would flee from the scene with Corneo in his claws, it would not be either of the attendants or even the monks who were still left on the grounds that would perish first. Instead, a falling star from the skies – what could be interpreted as a sign of divine intervention – would be the one to claim the crime lord’s debt to karma. Pleasantly surprised that they’re still around, the two attendants then decide to return to their fellow townspeople back in Zhongyuan. After all, their business here is done.
~
“Hey, over here!” Leslie calls out, waving both arms in the air.
Cole has brought him and Sonon back to the empty lot where the main tower had once been, as it is one of the highest points across the entire garden. However, in the time that he’s come rushing over here, while Leslie got off safely, Sonon seems to have fallen prone upon the big guy’s shoulder. The numbing effects have begun to spread throughout his body and overtake his senses, and yet the more petrifying feeling may be that he’s not quite unconscious just yet. It’s not just his arm that has stopped feeling anything; at this rate, he might become zombified soon if they don’t do anything.
The Highwind shortly descends upon where there is now ample room to set, though the engine remains running, and a ladder drops down to meet them. Leslie offers to let Cole get on first, since he’s the one with the patient in critical condition, and yet the Soldier is capable of leaping high enough in a single bound to reach the top without having to use it. Not that Leslie has any complaints; whichever works. He hurries up after so he doesn’t get left behind.
Cole hurries to the front deck to report in, and needless to say, everyone is a little shocked and concerned when they find one of their guys is down.
“Hey! If it ain’t the Soldier…” Barret begins, but drifts off.
“Sonon!?” Tifa gasps. “Is he alright?”
“Oh, my GOD! Again!? What now!?” Yuffie hurries over to check on him, but he doesn’t seem to respond. “Uh… huh? Is he hurt? I don’t see anything.”
Tifa hurries over too, but is just as confused. “Weird. He looks totally fine, if not out cold. Was he put to Sleep or something?”
“No way!” Yuffie argues, “We ninjas are light sleepers! He should’ve woken up just being carried on someone’s shoulder!”
Though Cole is once again completely mute, he scans the area, noting that Ruby isn’t present, and turns back around to carry his unfortunate package elsewhere.
“Hey! Where are you going?” she demands, though she likewise doesn’t expect him to speak, and gives chase.
By now, Cloud and the rest have caught on that something’s definitely wrong. And just in time as Cole and Yuffie hurry out, Leslie manages to catch them as they pass by him on the bridge. Though he’s a bit short on breath, he hurries up to the deck to offer a well-deserved explanation.
“Hey! I’m here…” He stops to catch his breath too.
“Leslie! What happened?” Cloud asks.
He takes a moment to regain composure and stands back up with a sigh. “Sonon’s in bad shape. We happened to run into a squad of monks that used weapons that were treated with ARC.”
“What?”
Tifa raises an anxious hand over her mouth. “No… Then, what’ll happen to him?”
“…In any case, we’ll have to leave him to Aerith.” Cloud nods back to Leslie. “Thanks, we’ll take it from here.”
“Huh? Where’s Ruby? Wouldn’t she be able to help?” Leslie asks.
“She’s in the infirmary,” he answers grimly.
“…” Now the guy catches on and grows sullen. “Right… Then, we’ll just have to wait.”
Cloud then hurries off out the door after the Soldier and Yuffie. As he suspected, Cole leads them straight to the infirmary, and Aerith is likewise surprised to see so many guests here.
“Oh!” Her eyes hone in on Sonon’s condition. “What happened? How is he?”
“Not good. Seems like he was hit by a weapon tainted with ARC. He doesn’t look like he’s injured, but…”
She nods back with a determined look. “Okay. I’ll see what I can do. Is it just him? Are the rest of you okay?”
“Just him.”
“Right. Lay him down on this bed.”
She gestures to the one beside where Ruby rests and Cole obliges, setting him down gently. He takes a moment of silence to stare at Ruby, almost as if he too were surprised that someone like her would come to be in such a state, and then steps back.
Yuffie hurries over to Sonon’s bed with growing exasperation. “What the hell… Why does he keep ending up like this!? It was bad enough that Ruby had to fight freakin’ Leviathan just to bring him back to normal… but now even she’s out!”
Aerith reassures her the best she can at the moment, “Don’t lose faith. When Ruby wakes up, I’m sure she’ll be able to do something for him.”
But Yuffie returns her a pained expression from all her worry. “But didn’t Vincent say how dangerous it is for her to touch people who got hit with ARC?”
“Yeah, he might have… but Ruby’s got plenty of magic power too. I’m sure she’ll be able to work something.”
“Hmm…” She still looks a little unsure, but shakes off those nerves and nods back with a stubborn frown. “Right. She’s a miracle worker, after all. She’s gone above and beyond plenty of times. What’s different now?”
“That’s the spirit!” Aerith nods too with a smile. She then turns back to Cloud. “Alright. As I said, you can leave the rest to me. You all go get ready to deal with the rest of the ring.”
“Thanks, Aerith.” He also passes Ruby another hesitant glance, but has to shove aside those deep-seated worries. Nothing much they can do now but wait as always.
“Though, I have to say, I’m impressed.” Aerith then gives Cole a curious lookover too and claps her hands with a pleased smile. “Even without Ruby’s commands, he knew what to do and acted on his own. He’s just as loyal as she said he’d be.”
“Well, yeah… Unless the Turks somehow managed to wrench that helmet off his head, I doubt he’d be working with them anymore.”
“Then, I think we won’t have to worry about him after all.”
“Hopefully…”
Cloud tries waving to him to get his attention, but Cole refuses to pay him any mind. He still seems entirely entranced with Ruby and decides to stand guard by the door. Leaving all that alone, Cloud then beckons Yuffie to follow and they head back to the front deck.
“Cloud! How is he?” Tifa calls. “Will it be okay if we leave him be for now?”
“We’ll just have to. Aerith said she’ll keep an eye on him, but until Ruby wakes up, he might have to be stuck like that.”
She looks pretty discouraged. “After coming all this way, we finally got him back up, just for this to happen…”
“Tell me about it! Is the guy actually cursed or something?” Yuffie complains, “I’d think I’d expect a lot more from my subordinate than to get himself into trouble all the time!”
Cloud turns back to Leslie, who has regained his usual cool by now. “By the way, you mentioned that you guys ran into some monks?”
“Yeah. Sounds like they were part of the cult we were talking about. They took the girl that Sonon and I ran into and disappeared.” He folds his arms with a disappointed frown. “Since Sonon got like this, we had to leave in a hurry, so we also left the Turks behind. I guess they must have gone after those people too.”
“Ugh! Seriously? Just because they’re not trying to fight us doesn’t mean we can just leave them to pick up our criminals!” Yuffie protests.
Leslie fires back with a justified glare. “Like I said, Sonon got like this. We couldn’t just wait around to chat with them about what their next plans would be.”
“Then we should give chase!” Yuffie suggests to Cloud instead, “They couldn’t have gone far!”
But he only shrugs. “I was thinking that too, but we have no leads. Where would we even search?”
“We have a good view of the place from up here! There’s gotta be something we can find, at least!” She calls to Cid, who’s been standing by his rookie pilot at the wheel. “Hey, old man! This ship got a radar, right?”
“Who you callin’ old, pipsqueak!?” he growls, “And of course we got one! But if yer lookin’ for people on the ground, it won’t help.”
“Why not? Can’t we see some kind of moving objects nearby?”
He shakes his head. “Nah. It’s not that simple. Objects in the air are way easier to track ’cause there aren’t that many things that fly that are big enough to be picked up by the radar, and there’s usually way less interference. But people? With all the damage that the dumbass cyclone-wrangler left earlier, it’s gonna be a nightmare to figure out where anyone or anything is among the wreckage. Unless ya also got some kinda scent trail to follow, it’s no go.”
Red likewise mentions, “I did not join you when you met with the NRSA members, so I don’t have their scents either.”
Yuffie grumbles. “We figured Ruby could just handle all that, but now she’s out… Man! Of all the times for her to not be ready! We were so close to taking them down!”
Tifa casts a disheartened look aside. “It can’t be helped. She’s been going through a lot lately.”
Barret also brings up, “And this is why we can’t just rely on one person to do everything. ’Cause there comes the time that we don’t have any easy shortcuts, and so we all gotta be able to stand on our own.”
“Yeah, yeah. That goes without saying.” Yuffie then argues, “But right now, we don’t have any leads. If we can’t count on Ruby, then what’ll we do?”
A contemplative silence ensues as everyone tries to come up with ideas, but there’s really no particular answer that comes to mind.
Cloud gives a defeated sigh. “We’ll have to call off the chase.”
“What!?” she whips back to him with the most offended look in her eyes. “You kiddin’ me, Cloud? We’re this close and you’re just gonna give up?”
“Hey, I know it sucks, but how are we gonna proceed from here? It’s already getting dark out. The entire garden that was a maze to begin with is a complete mess, so it’s even worse to navigate. And we’re trying to tail down people who are running away from us. We’d have better luck mining for gold or something…” Now reminded, he also turns back to Leslie to ask, “By the way, where did you guys find Corneo? He was underground somewhere, right?”
“Yeah.” Leslie then shakes his head. “But if you expect me to know exactly where, sorry to tell you. If you think it was a maze up on the surface, it’s 10x worse underground since there are all kinds of traps and secret passages that would drive anyone insane if they stuck around long enough. Even if our runaways went down there, we’d have no way to find them.”
Cloud lets off a disappointed sigh. “Hmm. That’s what I figured.”
After a pause, though, Leslie also asks, “Speaking of Corneo… Who woulda thunk the guy would get nailed by some kind of space debris. Just to be sure, that wasn’t any of your doing, right?”
He rolls his eyes. “Call it chance or extreme luck, Ruby still got him in the end. That piece was definitely from the castle she blew up.”
“…Alright, then.” He makes a thoughtful glance aside and looks back. “Well, however she did it, she did good on her word. Give her my thanks when she’s up.” He then glances out the windshield as he considers his next move. “Guess this means I’m freed up again.”
“Yeah. You did tag along to see him gone…” He then folds his arms as he delves further into thought. “And now that he’s out of the way, I have to wonder if we really should keep chasing after the NRSA.”
“Huh? Of course we should!” Yuffie argues back, “We all saw the awful things they’ve been up to, and they even had a giant mech that almost ruined everything! No way we can let them off!”
“Yeah. Wha’chu talkin’ about, man?” Barret asks with a defiant frown. “The ringleader’s gone, but the ring ain’t done yet! Maybe we oughta pull back for now, but we can still keep tryin’ later.”
Cloud shakes his head. “No, I mean, even if we do catch up with them, we don’t know this country. Sonon mentioned that they have a former empress and princess among them too. Can’t help but worry that we might be charging into something way over our heads.”
“What would that matter? They’re parta the smuggling ring too!”
“Yeah, sorta. But remember the reasons why we came to Wutai in the first place?”
“Huh?” He raises a confused eyebrow. “To chase down the Avalanche imposters and take out Corneo, of course! And to get Sonon fixed up, more or less.”
“Exactly. And we covered them all already… Well, aside from Sonon’s latest problem. And now we’re adding tailing down a cult that turned out to be part of some bigger conflict between political factions? Don’t you think this mission has gone way overboard? It feels like we’ve lost the plot somewhere.”
“…” As much as Barret does want to keep arguing, he has to agree that this is starting to sound more tedious than expected. He gives a disappointed snort. “Guess you got a point. We already got the leader, so the rest o’ his headless chickens won’t be able to do shit anyway. And even if they were workin’ with the cult, they don’t got any loyalties to ’em either.”
“Huh?” Jessie then pipes up, “Boss, that’s odd coming from you. You’re actually gonna pull back?”
“Yeah,” Biggs agrees, just as surprised, “I mean, I know we dealt with the imposters issue. No chance in hell that they’d think about impersonating us anymore. But don’t we still have the Turks running around? That sounds like it’d be trouble just waiting to happen.”
“They went off chasing after the NRSA, right?” Wedge recalls, “Is it really okay if we just leave them to that?”
Barret whips back to them with an indignant frown and a shaking fist. “’Course it’s not okay! I don’t give a rat’s ass about what the Turks say, they ain’t with us in any way!” He then backs off for a softer tone. “But Spiky also reminded me. He’s right; we’re strangers in this land. We can’t go running headfirst into Wutaian affairs, or we’d be doing the same thing Shinra’s trying to do! And besides, Yuffie aside, Ruby and Sonon are out. If we stir up any more crap, who knows what the government would think of us.”
Taking slight offense, Yuffie snaps back, “What do you mean me ‘aside’!? I’m a government agent too! I can still put in a good word for all the work we did!”
He then folds his arms, looking rather stern. “Sure. You can do that. But do you really think your bosses are just gonna take your word? Like, you were in the dark about this whole thing with the town and Ruby’s cult too.”
“…” Now that he mentions it, she also has to admit to herself that it’s been so fishy how they’ve been acting. Still, she has to stand her ground. “Still, I’m not just some random grunt. I got my connections too. If they won’t listen to me, then they’ll still have to listen to some old pals of mine.”
“Old pals?” Cloud asks, now curious.
“Hmph! Oh, now you guys are paying attention.” Yuffie gives her signature cheeky grin and throws out a thumb. “If you’ve already forgotten, my old man was the former shogun!”
“But isn’t he in prison? What can he do from there?”
“I’m not talking about him! I mean, we may be powerful, but it takes a lot more than just the Kisaragi clan to run a whole country. We got our own allies up in the ranks too.”
“Oh. That does make sense.”
“But do they have a lot of influence in their positions?” Tifa asks. “A lot of things can change with a new government, after all.”
“Of course! That doesn’t mean the old guard is gone! My pops aside, his old pals are still well respected. Back in the day, everyone used to call ’em the ‘Five Saints of Wutai’! They were the strongest fighters this nation had to offer!” She then glances off with a pout as she admits, “They all ended up protesting the war, though, so refused to participate.”
Cloud then recalls a certain detail that she and Ruby had been discussing back when they were hiking up the Da-chao mountains. Ruby even dropped a few names herself. Maybe she was expecting to find them? It does seem like a more surefire approach than just talking to some suspicious bigwigs.
“So, if anything, I just gotta report back in as usual and ask to meet ’em!” Yuffie concludes with a rather smug smile. “I’m sure they’ll want to hear all about the grand tales of how we saved this nation from the brink of civil war!”
“Hmm… That’s not a good sign,” Jessie mutters just loudly enough. While tuning the radio again, she’s picked up on some of the latest local news.
Yuffie whips back to her. “Huh? What’s not good?”
“Hey, you guys might wanna listen to this.” She takes off her earpiece and relays the news.
It seems that there’s an ongoing report from the capital. Following the minor protest by the penitentiary being haphazardly resolved, it seems the news around the “Explosion in the Sky” has come around and public opinion has largely been confused. It so happens that there is some recorded footage from a few civilians that show the source of the explosion, but it happened so far away and so fast that it’s hard to make out what the object even was. Government officials were quick to allay the people’s concerns about safety, though they also advised that everyone stay away from Zhongyuan and its immediate area for the time being. They would be sending in agents to investigate into the matter as well.
“Huh, news travels fast. It was just a little while ago that we saw the boom,” Barret remarks.
“Okay. This is all pretty standard. I don’t see what’s wrong?” Yuffie asks.
Jessie explains, “The problem is: if these officials know what’s been happening with the NRSA and the people of Zhongyuan – at this point I doubt most in the government wouldn’t be – I don’t think their agents are coming over here to just ‘investigate’. I think they’re here to cover it all up.”
“What!?”
Cloud nods slowly with a concerned frown of his own. “Definitely. No shot that they don’t know what happened to their former empress and princess, or even what they’ve been building. And with Corneo missing, whoever were those officials that were working with him are gonna be trying their hardest to pretend that they weren’t involved.”
She slumps grumpily, folding her arms too. “Hmph. I didn’t forget. I just didn’t want to think about them.”
“Not to mention, news around that explosion is already out there. It’d be too easy to just point the finger at us,” Cait Sith admits with a look of guilt that borders on dread.
Cloud sighs too and rubs his head, feeling a migraine come on. “We’ve been wrapped up in too much as is. Our best move here would be to get out and lay low.”
Though she too is visibly worried, Yuffie is still feeling stubborn. “Yeah, but… If we can just find the real perps, then-”
He groans with exasperation and gives it to her straight. “Look, Yuffie. I know it’s bad. Feels like we’re giving up, almost. But even if in the best case scenario – like, Ruby wakes up and is totally fine, can help discuss things with your old pals and all – it’s no guarantee that things won’t still be a mess. And right now, we have no idea what happened to her or even if she’s going to be fine. Every time we’ve tried to chase after something related to Rubia’s history or Project Immortals, bad things happen. I don’t want her to be caught up in anything worse…”
“…”
A dreary silence comes over the entire room as everyone more or less has to come to an agreement there. As much as Ruby insists on finding the truth, she keeps running into situations where she’s hurt or disabled or straight-up knocked out. Maybe the best move would be to keep her as far away from all this. There may still be other ways they can find that would be safer for her, and thus for everyone else.
“And besides,” Cloud then glances back to Leslie and mentions, “we still have some guests aboard.”
Tifa nods with a gentle smile. “Leslie and Yasumi have to return to their loved ones. We can’t just fly off with people who aren’t involved, after all.”
“…” Leslie passes an awkward glance between them and then turns aside. “Thanks. You didn’t have to spell it out like that, but I appreciate the sentiment.”
“Hrmm… fine.” Yuffie finally gives in. “But you know, this means that we’re gonna have to come back to Wutai at some point to deal with Zhongyuan and the NRSA again.”
“More like, you’ll be coming back here yourself, lass,” Cait Sith corrects her, “Sonon too. But the rest of us won’t exactly be welcome, for a reason or another.”
“Come on! After all we’ve been through together, you think I’d just drop off and quit? I’m sticking with Ruby to the end!”
“Er… but weren’t ye just sayin’ that you’re a government agent? Would it be okay if ye just run off with us as ye like?”
“Of course it would! I’m not tied down by any old-fart politics! I left the country in the first place on a special mission of my own anyway!”
“…Infiltrating Shinra HQ?”
“As if! That was just one thing that Sonon and I were assigned. Nah, I got my sights set on something waaaay bigger!”
“Uh-huh…” He circles his hand as he ponders over possibilities. “Don’t tell me, yer thinkin’ about materia again, aren’t ye?”
“Ha! I guess you could say it’s in that direction…”
He sighs and rolls his thin-slit eyes, but leaves it be.
In any case, with everyone in agreement now, Cloud calls to Cid too, “Alright. Captain, get us outta here.”
“Hmph.” He juts a thumb toward his rookie beside him. “I wasn’t just yappin’ at this kid for nothing.” He then gets off the wall and throws out a triumphant fist. “Let’s go, men! We got one last stop before we’re ditchin’ these backwaters for good!”
“Aye, aye, Captain!” the rest of the crew answer in unison and in pride.
With the rope ladder recoiled and the ship shifting back into gear, they all sail off back north. Though they may not be in the best of places right now in the eyes of the government, but at least there’s nothing wrong with dropping off a few people who have a stop to make. Wherever the Turks seem to have gone in the meantime is another mystery to be solved another time.
~
It’s a short ride back north to the capital. Upon hearing the news, Aerith was ecstatic to join Cloud and Tifa to help Leslie and Yasumi find their people. The ladies make Cloud carry the sleeping little girl, and Aerith leaves Cole to keep an eye on Ruby and Sonon for them.
Before they get going, Yuffie does her due diligence and reports back in with her commissioner, the one who granted them entry when they first arrived. Since it’s late enough that many government agencies would be closed, their meeting with their awaiting authorities would have to come around some other time. Normally, even this commissioner would have signed out as well, but given the particular circumstances around Yuffie and Sonon’s mission, he’s stayed around for overtime.
Unfortunately, he would not bring good news. As the crew suspected, news of the explosion has traveled fast and has likewise affected the schedules of the House of Parliament. Not only has their meeting with Ruby been terminally postponed, the current opinion is that regardless of her intentions, Ruby is much too dangerous to be dealt with in-person. In fact, they’ve requested that she and her entire crew leave the premises as soon as possible to avoid further complications. Though there may be a date some time in the future when they can arrange some sort of meeting with her, it will have to be after they’ve sorted out the mess around Zhongyuan, and no one is certain when that will be.
Though Yuffie tries to argue that they were in the midst of stopping a conspiratorial revenge plot, her commissioner denies her and insists that there’s nothing he can do from here. She also pleads for them to have a bit of time to let them bring a missing person back to her family, and her commissioner reluctantly agrees after a bit of deliberation. But he can only grant them leeway until 10 pm tonight, as he’ll be taking his leave by then. After that, they are required to vacate the premises immediately. Failure to comply will lead them to be labeled as a terrorist group and the government will apply any force necessary to combat them.
The time now is 9:20 pm. Cloud and the others won’t have too much time to hang out, unfortunately. Nonetheless, they agree to be quick. And with that matter settled, the three, together with Leslie and Yasumi, head off into town once more.
Despite the news and the threat that the authorities have issued around Ruby and crew, the government has yet to make a public announcement that may simply stir fear and chaos among the people. And so, completely oblivious to all the events that had conspired thus far, the people are still in the full swing of Rubia fever and celebrating her return from the legends of yore. Now that the night has gone long, so too has the town square and its marketplaces become lit up with a beautiful summer glow akin to the stars in the sky above. Though Tanabata has yet to officially come along, there are plenty of those who wish to celebrate it early and do the festivals together. Some have even begun to dress up in festival kimono to join the spirit of the occasions. And needless to say, the merch has been reinvented with themes of their beloved Moon Spirit, the beautiful white dragoness that soars through the night, bringing light to all.
However, there are much less people who are aware of who her friends are, so Cloud and company don’t have it much easier as they try to make their way through the busy streets and crowds. And as much as Aerith and Tifa would love to join in with the shopping fever, Cloud periodically reminds them that he’s still carrying a child. And despite the lifted mood, Leslie has gone completely quiet. He almost seems nervous and lost in his own thoughts, as if worrying over how to best address the person he’s been meaning to find after all these years.
To everyone’s surprise, even the pagoda grounds have been lit up in similar fashion – or rather, a certain area in the largest courtyard. After the incident with a certain conman fleeing the premises and the disastrous end to a wedding that failed to be, the local police were quick to arrive to handle the distressed crowd of wedding guests and rejected brides, and were also quick to be overwhelmed. However, one way or another, people were allowed to be released after some superficial questioning, and this even extended to the theater troupe that had been invited to perform for the wedding.
However, the troupe had gathered too much as is to just leave with their tails tucked between their legs. They instead volunteered to help clean and refresh the environment to join the festivities outside. And by the time Cloud’s party arrives, there’s an open vaudeville show right out in the open and an ample crowd of visitors that are here to enjoy it.
“…Wow. It’s like there never was anything Corneo around these parts,” Aerith comments with a coy smile.
“You said that Meryl and Himiko were still around here when you all left, right? But how do you know if they’re still here?” Leslie asks.
“We told them to stay, since we promised we’d bring you back to them,” Tifa explains, “We just didn’t realize we’d be bringing Himiko’s little sister too.”
“Right…”
Noting that the guy is still nervous, Cloud asks him, “You doing okay?”
“Huh? About what?”
“Just in general. It’s been how long since you haven’t seen your fiancée?”
“…More than six years.”
“Hm.” He folds his arms, nodding in sympathy. “Plenty of time to feel nervous. It’s like you haven’t been a part of her life for so long that you wonder how much of you she remembers…”
Tifa passes Cloud a thoughtful glance, clearly picking up on what he means, but avoids his line of sight out of embarassment when he looks her way. “Yeah…” she also reassures Leslie, “But it’s nothing to be afraid or worried about. Just be true to yourself and I’m sure you guys can pick up right after where you left off.”
“…” Leslie rubs his head awkwardly. “I guess…”
Tifa then turns back to Yasumi, still held in Cloud’s arms, with a somewhat dejected face. “…It’s too bad that Yasumi might not be able to be ‘normal’ again after all she’s been through.”
Aerith shakes her head. “Don’t think like that, Tifa. What matters is that Yasumi is safe now and she can be with her sister again.”
“Right…”
“Is there nothing we can do for her?” Leslie asks, likewise worried.
“Well…” She droops a little as she admits, “In the end, she’s been affected by ARC too, so there’s no getting it out of her system. The most I could do was break her out of her disguise, but she’s still going to be in this trance-like state for a long time. I can’t say how long, unfortunately.”
He lets off a dejected sigh. “…Then, we’ll just have to make do.”
She goes back to her kind smile. “In any case, I’m sure Meryl and Himiko will be relieved that they don’t have to keep searching… for Yasumi or for you.”
“…”
As they approach the courtyard, Tifa scans the area for their waiting ladies and picks them out amid the guests who have chosen to relax on some seats near the food stands. They seem to be busy in conversation when they’re interrupted by Tifa’s voice calling to them from afar.
“Heyyy! Meryl! Himiko!” she calls, waving a hand.
“We’re baaack!” Aerith also does.
“Tifa! Aerith! And Cloud too!” Himiko answers with her own wave.
“Thank goodness. I was getting worried that they wouldn’t…” Meryl begins, but then her voice quickly drifts off as she sees who else is with them.
They now gather together and the waiting ladies gasp in unison. Not only is Leslie back, so is the little darling who has been missing for a few years herself.
“…Leslie? And…” Meryl says in disbelief.
“Yasumi!” Himiko cries, her eyes quickly welling up.
The ladies get right out of their seats and Himiko rushes over to take her little sister out of Cloud’s arms. The young woman drops to her knees and begins to bawl her eyes out as she clutches the girl in a tight embrace. Though the sudden noise does garner a bit of attention from their surroundings, everyone else can see it’s not a matter for them to intrude on. Meryl quietly puts a hand to Himiko’s back in full sympathy, and then turns back to her long-lost fiancé. Though the two lock eyes for a moment, neither one seems to have the words to say. Nevertheless, the quivering smile that appears on Meryl’s face is obvious enough to show how relieved she is.
After a moment to recollect herself, Himiko then gives an earnest bow to her sister’s saviors. “Thank you… Thank you so much. I thought I’d never see her again…”
Tifa waves a hand with a nervous smile. “I-it’s okay, Himiko. We understand. We’re just glad we could help.” She also lends a hand to help her back to her feet.
Aerith smiles too with much more confidence. “It was a pretty lucky coincidence! She actually came to us while we were looking around Zhongyuan.”
Himiko blinks as a look of horror comes over her face. “Did you say… Zhongyuan?”
She blinks too out of confusion. “Yes?”
As if she knew something was strange about her sister, Himiko sinks back down into gloom. “…I see. So she was spirited away to that place…”
“Um… Sorry. What do you mean ‘spirited away’?”
“Oh, I’m sorry! Um…” She leans in and instead whispers her explanation, “You see, there’s this urban legend around that ghost town. It’s supposed to have been abandoned long ago, but sometimes travelers that passed by there would claim that there were still people living there. But they never came out of their homes or would even look at anyone passing by. It was like they were all ghosts that lived on the boundary between life and death…”
By now, Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith all exchange nervous glances. It’s amazing how close to the truth that urban legends can sometimes come.
“Still, aside from some odd religious groups, no one really believed that it was a town filled with ghosts. After all, if they never came out of their homes, no one would have any proof that the ghosts were even there.” Himiko then turns a sad look back to her sister. “…So I never even imagined that she would have been there all this time.”
As much as Aerith would like to explain further about the circumstances around Yasumi becoming another person, she decides it’s for the best that she not speak too much. Himiko is already overwhelmed by the fact that her sister is still alive at all.
In any case, Himiko pulls back and returns to speaking aloud, “Regardless, I really have to thank you all from the bottom of my heart.”
Still, she feels responsible enough to admit, “Himiko… I have to be honest about something. She might not be waking up for a while.”
“Huh?”
She droops in shame. “I’m sorry. We couldn’t figure out how to wake her up. It’s been a long time since she last talked to anyone.”
“…” Himiko turns back to her sister with crestfallen heart, but she doesn’t quite look surprised either.
“But at the very least, I can tell.” Aerith offers her heartfelt reassurance, “Yasumi is just glad to be with you again.”
“…I see.” Himiko nods and returns her a gracious smile all the same. “Thank you for telling me. I’m sure whatever she’s been through has been hard enough, so I didn’t think she would be in the mood to talk, so to speak. I’m just glad to be with her too.”
“Himiko… are you doing okay?” Meryl asks her friend.
She nods back. “I’ll be okay. It’s been really quiet around the house since Yasumi was gone, and maybe it’ll still be quiet, but at least I won’t have to worry about where she is.”
“I’m so sorry… I wish there was more I could do for you.”
“No, it’s fine. Being able to hold her right now is all that I could ask for.” After a meaningful pause, Himiko then suggests with a smile, “And besides, shouldn’t you be celebrating right now?”
“Huh?”
“Your fiance’s back, isn’t he?”
“Oh!” Meryl whips back to Leslie with an embarrassed blush and quickly looks away again. “Yes, he is…”
And still, Leslie seems to be frozen and mute as if he’s been trying to figure out how to break the ice.
Not one to let this moment stall any more than needed, Aerith hops in to suggest too, “Don’t you guys have something to say to each other?”
“Y-yeah…” Meryl then turns back to him with a sincere smile. “It’s been a while, huh?”
“…Yeah.” And at last, Leslie seems to pull himself together. He takes a deep breath and lets it out, and then reaches around his shirt collar to pull out a small silver pendant that he’s always kept close. He takes it off his neck and hands it back to her. “I’ve been meaning to give this back to you.”
“Oh, my pendant…” She accepts it in both hands. “You’ve been holding onto it?”
“Always. I knew I had to return it when we’d meet again.”
“Hmm…” She then lets off a soft chuckle and offers it back. “You know, you didn’t have to. It was a gift for you to keep.”
He takes her hands and folds her fingers over it, pushing back to her. “Even then, I couldn’t just let it go. I looked everywhere for you… everywhere in Midgar, at least. Never thought you’d have left the city entirely.”
“Yeah, me neither…” She then turns to Himiko. “But when I heard that Corneo would be leaving the country, I just knew I had to call up an old friend and we’d come to Wutai together.”
“I didn’t even know you had a friend from Wutai.”
“She actually used to live in Midgar, on the upper plate, no less. But a certain incident happened with her family that her parents had to send their children back home where they wouldn’t be caught up in anything.”
“We used to live in Sector 6, actually,” Himiko answers, “News of what happened in Midgar didn’t really pass by around here that quickly back then, so I didn’t even know that the whole plate collapsed until Meryl contacted me.”
“Oh! Then, your parents…” Tifa begins to ask, but drifts off.
She nods sadly. “It’s just me and my sister now.”
“I’m sorry…”
“It’s okay. It’s been long enough that I’ve had my mourning period.” She then waves a hand with an awkward smile. “Anyway, I’m really happy for you too, Meryl! Thanks to all that, things would lead us to reunite again! That’s awesome!”
Meryl cracks a shy smile. “Aw, Himiko…”
“…And there’s one more thing I want to say,” Leslie declares, his face getting serious. “I’ve been waiting so long to say it…”
“Hm?”
To everyone’s surprise, he then takes a kneel. Without letting go of her hands, he looks her in the eye with the most earnest expression on his face. And for just a moment, Meryl feels like she might have an idea of where this is going.
“Meryl, I know we’ve been apart for a long time, but I would never leave you. From the bottom of my heart, I’ve always loved you.”
“…”
By now, everyone else is starting to catch on too. Aerith’s eyes grow wide and excited with anticipation and Tifa has pretty much the same reaction too, albeit with a slightly warmer composure.
“I don’t have much else than this to offer you, but…” And then, he lays it on her: “Will you marry me?”
Meryl’s shocked face gradually thaws and her lips begin to quiver again into a smile. She feels her eyes well up with tears too, and though she tries to blink them away, they just seem to keep coming. With a choked-up laugh, she nods and replies, “Yes, of course.”
For once, like all the burdens in the world that were upon his shoulders were lifted, Leslie cracks out a genuine smile. He gets back up, still refusing to let her hands go, and the two come in close to let their lips meet. And with that, it’s shortly followed by squealing outbursts from Aerith, Tifa, and Himiko who all cheer for the new happy couple. Aerith suddenly goes around hugging everyone too and gives Cloud such a tight squeeze around his neck he swears she’s actually trying to choke him.
She lets him go to give him some breathing room. “What’s with you all of a sudden?” he mutters.
“We have you to thank, Cloud! You’re the lucky charm that made all this possible!”
“Huh?”
Aerith swings back to Tifa with a cheeky grin. “Right? He was the one who let Leslie come with us in the first place.”
“Oh! You’re right! So much has happened that it slipped my mind,” she admits with a chuckle. She also offers Cloud a genuinely grateful smile. “Thank you, Cloud.”
“…” By now, Cloud is starting to feel red in the face too and turns away, muttering, “It was nothing…” He then adds, “Besides, wasn’t it Ruby who decided he would come along?”
“Yeah, but she decides things on her own all the time. It still takes another to make sure that her decision goes through,” Aerith reminds him.
“…”
“So, you are indeed our lucky charm!”
Tifa laughs too. “In more ways than one.”
“I know, right? He brought us Ruby in the first place too!”
“They really are quite the whimsical pair, huh?”
“Oh, ‘whimsical’ doesn’t even begin to describe them…”
“…What’s that supposed to mean?” he fires back with a demanding tone.
Aerith doesn’t answer, just gives him a fanciful wink, to which Tifa also plays along with her own smile, much to his confusion. Everyone but him laughs, even Leslie who gets in a quiet chuckle of his own.
“Really, guys. Thanks for everything,” he says without a shred of sarcasm, “It’s been a long six years… but I think I can finally let loose.”
“Oh, we don’t doubt it!” Aerith giggles, “You’d better take good care of Meryl after all we’ve been through!”
“Don’t worry, I will.”
“And you guys take care too,” Meryl follows, “All of you, thank you so much. We may not have met for very long, but I’ll never forget this day.”
“Yes! Thank you all!” Himiko chimes in, “I’ve never seen a happier reunion! We really got all our wishes today, didn’t we?”
“And Tanabata isn’t even here yet,” her friend jokes.
“It’s close enough! Besides, everyone’s basically made this day an unofficial holiday since Rubia-sama appeared.” With her sister held firm in her arms, Himiko then claps her hands together in prayer. “Thank you, Rubia-sama. You are the light that opens the road ahead.”
Meryl follows suit with a similar gesture, and shrugging to himself, Leslie does too. Even Tifa and Aerith also do it, though as the designated party pooper, Cloud refuses to copy them.
In any case, they really don’t have much time to hang around anymore. He waves a hand to Tifa and Aerith to remind them. “Guys, it’s nice and all, but don’t we have to be somewhere?”
“Oh. Right.” Aerith nods to the others. “Well, it was nice meeting you all again! But we’ll have to be off on our journey.”
Himiko looks really saddened. “Really, so soon? I was going to invite you all to my home! Or at least dinner? You all look exhausted!”
Tifa shakes her head. “We appreciate it, but we really have to go back. A couple friends of ours are still in bad shape and we should check on them.”
“Oh… I see. I hope they’ll get better soon!”
“I was hoping they’d even stick around until Tanabata,” Meryl agrees. “Did you guys at least get to write up something? It is a festival for making wishes, after all.”
“Hm? Oh, wait. We did, didn’t we?” Aerith asks, turning back to Tifa.
“Oh!” Tifa is then reminded and sticks a hand into her pocket. She draws out the piece of paper where she’d written her wish and hands it to Meryl, since Himiko has her hands full. “Sorry, guys. This is a bit embarrassing, but can you keep this and hang it up when the festival comes along?”
“Hey, good idea! Me too!” Aerith draws out her own paper and hands it over.
Cloud stares at the two of them. “What have you guys been up to? When’d you have time to write ‘wishes’?”
“We had a bit of time before we went to get dressed up pretty,” Aerith answers.
“Hmph.” Just out of curiosity, though, he then asks, “I guess what you wished for is a secret, huh?”
“Well, of course! The magic wouldn’t work if we just tell you!”
“Magic…?”
Tifa then flushes up a bit just at the thought of admitting what she’d written. “I-it’s nothing you need to know anyway!”
“Huh? Why are you getting embarrassed…?” Neither lady answers him and they both push him along as they turn off. “H-hey!”
Aerith waves a hand back to their new friends. “Sorry, we gotta go! Glad to meet you all! Hope we can meet again someday!”
Tifa does too. “You all have a wonderful life together, okay? See ya!”
“Guys! Quit pushing!” Cloud complains. “I can walk!”
They pay him no mind and keep chugging along for a little longer until he pulls away himself, and they all hurry into a run back through the busy streets. Leslie, Meryl, and Himiko all wave back and watch them go. Then, as the notes her her hands flutter in the wind, Meryl’s trailing eyes happen to catch a glimpse of them. They both have beautiful handwriting with some very sweet messages, but Tifa’s note is honestly surprising.
Himiko catches on and has to ask, “What’s up, Meryl? Did you read them?”
Leslie raises an eyebrow. “Isn’t it bad luck to look at other people’s wishes?”
Meryl makes an embarrassed smile. “Y-yeah, but I didn’t mean to. It just happened to catch my eye.”
Now Himiko also peeks at Tifa’s note and gasps. “Wow. I would have thought it was one or the other.”
“I know, right? They were both perfect for him, but there’s another?”
Leslie frowns. “Really, now you’re gossiping about it? You might as well flip them off at this rate.”
“Sorry, sorry! We won’t tell!” Himiko replies, raising an apologetic hand.
“Right. We’ll keep them safe from anyone else’s eyes,” Meryl agrees, slipping them both into her pocket.
“…Why does that sound like it’s directed at me?” Leslie asks, feeling a cold sweat come on.
“Hahaha!” the ladies share a laugh without him this time.
Himiko then suggests, “Well, I think it’s getting pretty late. We should head back to my place.” She also asks Leslie, “By the way, do you have any luggage you brought along?”
Leslie looks down at himself and back and simply shrugs. “To be honest, I wasn’t really prepared to stay here for long.”
“Well, fortunately, we do have some spare clothes. I hope you don’t mind if they’re a little old, though. They used to be my dad’s.”
“That’s fine. By the way,” he then asks Meryl, “How long do you plan on staying here?”
“Hm? I was thinking at least another week. Tanabata is coming up, after all.”
“Right…” He makes an awkward frown. “Guess I’ll have to live here in the meantime.”
“Maybe we’ll be able to go back to Midgar some day, but for now, I think we should enjoy ourselves.”
“Please, stay for as long as you’d like!” Himiko insists with a laugh. “It’s been too quiet around my place for the longest time!”
And so the three of them also head off for home and to escape the summer heat from all these crowds.
Later back aboard the Highwind, the first thing Aerith does is head straight for the infirmary. Likewise concerned, Cloud and Tifa join her. And fortunately, it looks like no one’s been disturbed – not even Cole himself. They find him slumped in a seat in the back, looking as if he were sleeping, though it’s hard to tell when he’s always got that helmet on him.
However, Aerith notices something is different right away when she approaches Ruby’s bedside. She gasps quietly and feels along her arms. Now that they notice, Cloud and Tifa are shocked too. For some reason, Ruby’s scars from her Geostigma have mysteriously vanished. Her skin is pristine as if it’s been restored to complete health, and she remains asleep, snoozing softly as if at peace.
“What the… Where’d they go?” Cloud asks, unable to believe his eyes.
“Did… she get cured somehow?” Tifa asks, feeling a little anxious.
Aerith gives her a quick telepathic scan to check on her. “…I’m not sure, but she doesn’t seem like she’s hurting anymore.”
“Then… she is cured?”
“But how? She said herself that there isn’t any cure,” Cloud recalls.
“Aerith, did you do something?”
But Aerith shakes her head. “I didn’t do anything. She still had her scars while I was tending to her earlier. Then we left to send off Leslie and Yasumi, and I don’t think anyone else has been here.”
“Huh, that’s weird…”
“Then… did she somehow cure herself?” Cloud suggests, racking his brain.
“If she did, then she really is a miracle worker!” Tifa exclaims softly in disbelief, “Even after all this time, she never fails to surprise us…”
“But, even then, this seems a bit too sudden. How could she just stop having an incurable disease?”
“Who knows…”
“…”
All three of them take a moment to ponder over the potential possibilities and implications, and while they all start off concerned, Tifa then settles for leaving them alone and makes a relieved smile.
“Well, however it happened, I’m glad she managed to find some way.”
Cloud still frowns, feeling uneasy. “But it’s no guarantee that it won’t come back.”
“Yes, that may be true… but if Ruby has a way to fight it now, then she should be okay, right?”
“…”
Then, Aerith nods along, mumbling to herself, “…Right. We’ve held faith in her all this time, and we won’t stop now.” She turns back to the other two with a somewhat forced smile. “So, I think we can just leave her be and she’ll wake up soon enough!”
Tifa makes a determined smile too. “Okay! Then, maybe we’ll be able to get some answers for once!”
“Oh, of course!”
The two ladies seem to have agreed to stop thinking too much into it. Still, Cloud can’t help worry. Any time that they happen to leave Ruby alone, she always runs the risk of running into that man again. And now for whatever reason, her Geostigma is gone. What would normally be a good thing instead only grows his fears. Did she meet with Sephiroth after all? And if so, then what happened between them that her illness would just disappear? Did she really cure herself, or did Sephiroth choose to release her, if that’s possible?
Well, they’ll only be able to know when she wakes up.
~
“Who are you? And where are we? Everywhere is dark…”
“This is a certain place where memories are preserved. A graveyard of lost souls that have nowhere to go.”
“Lost souls? Huh… so I’m a lost soul?”
“You are indeed lost… and a lost cause. You are to forever remain in this realm. This is your prison.”
Ruby is once again adrift in the quiet black abyss, meeting with voices that are familiar in various ways, as if they were all from her own memories. Ancient ones that tell of Rubia’s past; others that tell of some other time that she isn’t sure when. Just now, the two voices she heard are incredibly similar; perhaps even the same. They sound like Rubia, and therefore sound like Ruby herself. But it’s weird. She doesn’t remember having this conversation with Rubia. Is this a memory that was once hers, or is it another of those memories that she thought she had, but was just an illusion?
She opens her eyes again and finds herself back on bed in her room, and thus back in the Debug Room. She’s come back here enough times to feel like it’s business as usual how she comes and goes, and yet with every new visit comes something else to fear. What was once a place of calm for her to reclude to whenever she was upset has now become just another station along the tracks that she is forced to tread.
She hates being here now. She wants to be home – in her actual home, where she can step outside without having anything to fear. She can just pick up the phone and call her mom again for old times’ sake. They can finally have a good sit-down-and-talk session for once, where she can relinquish all the emotional struggles that she’s been through since her suicide attempt.
Then again, that is just assuming that she survived. She doesn’t even know if she did.
It’s curious how she’s come to host memories of a life on her own several years after that fateful day. She has no memories linking from the incident to what she thought of as “the present”. There’s simply a five-year gap that has no means of being filled, or at least that which she has yet to discover. It almost feels like these memories were somehow planted into her brain by the command of some higher being. But why? What is the purpose of these memories? Were they forced in as an attempt to confuse or mislead her? Were they a clue to a greater puzzle that has yet to be solved? Or were they simply left behind as an incomplete project like many of her aspirations prior?
All these questions without answers, and yet there’s still the greatest looming one of all to which she is afraid to know the answer: How many of her memories are not her own?
In a way, this is the same question that she knows Cloud had once asked of himself, though it would have been in another timeline where she wasn’t around to help him answer it. But there’s no one else she can turn to ask to help her with her answers. No one… aside from a certain man who had been responsible for dragging her out into this world in the first place. To think that this was all just supposed to be a “video game”…
As loathed as she is to get up from her bed, she doesn’t feel comfortable just lying here either. She wants answers, but there are becoming less and less options for her to turn to for them. She may just need to read up on the lore, but more than that, she may also come to learn the nature of her own existence. It was bound to happen. Is there a reason why she’s resisted for this long? For what little pride she still held to not be ‘spoiled’ to an adventure once born from her own mind? It does sound a bit silly, doesn’t it? Then, she’ll do it. Perhaps just a quick peek of another file in the directory will do for now. If she must resort to a “walkthrough”, she might as well take it in bits and pieces so she can let it all sink in more easily.
However, as she raises her hands in the air to summon the trusty GUI hologram, she notices an odd message pop up first: “Administrator access only. Enter password: ___”
A certain nerve also pops in her head. What… what is this? She can’t even access the main menu? She actually needs to “sign in” first? There’s not even a keyboard here for her to type with! What is she supposed to do, draw the password? Tapping on the thing doesn’t do anything either! What the hell has her scumbag boyfriend been doing with the Debug Room!?
Ugh. At this point, she doesn’t even have the energy to run down there and scream at him. Not like the last times she’d tried it has done any good for her anyway. She knows she has to meet him again regardless, but this just stings when her heart’s already been crushed flat on multiple occasions. She doesn’t have the means to teleport out of this place on her own anymore, though it probably doesn’t make a difference since she lost control of the Room long ago. It really feels like she’s hit rock bottom of a bottomless abyss. She didn’t even know it was possible.
Well, that’s enough feeling sorry for herself. Time to get up and run headfirst into him. No, tackle him to the ground. Maybe they could still turn this into some kind of sitcom scenario. She doesn’t even care anymore.
As she opens the door to return to the hallway, though, she is greeted by a rather sweet fragrance in the air, a flowery perfume that she can’t quite make out exactly what flower it is. Rose, maybe, but there’s something else mixed in it. The hallway leading to the stairs has also been lined with candles, scented with hickory and oak it seems, each decorated with its own rose petals. There’s also the muffled strumming of what seems to be a guitar fluttering up from the stairwell, as if attempting to lure her out from her hole with sweet whispers egging at her curiosity. For once, she doesn’t feel ticked off; just disappointed. He’s really gone full-send with this romcom joke, hasn’t he?
The gentle guitar melody – a lovely Latin-inspired slow ballad – grows to be front and center as she steps out. The living room has been redecorated with dim mood lighting, candles and petals scattered about the room on tables and drawers. Even her bookshelves have been rearranged to have more room for various objects that he had displaced… No, wait, not even that. Now that she looks closely at them, there are physical copies of various games – including other Square Enix titles, not just from Final Fantasy – character figurines, plush toys, and other kinds of merch, all still unboxed. There are even more of them littering the floor beneath the shelves. It’s like the man has went and turned her place into a merch warehouse. When did he become a video game junkie collector? What is he planning, to sell this stuff? Or do a giveaway? To whom??
Sephiroth is currently seated on the couch before the TV, though this time the screen is off. Instead, he seems to be enjoying himself, practicing a few different variations on a classic romantic theme.
“…Que bueno verte, mi amor. Cómo éstas?” he speaks, turning back his head as if to witness her reaction.
(Good to see you, my love. How are you?)
She blinks and stares, and begins to rack her head for an appropriate response. “Uh… muy… muy… El peor?”
(Uh… very… very… The worst?)
“Hmm…” He turns back and pats the couch beside himself. “Ven, siéntese. Hablemos.”
(Come, take a seat. Let’s talk.)
She sighs. “My Spanish is rusty…”
“We can stick with English. Come here.”
Even now, she is still inclined to just ignore him and head for the kitchen, grab a snack or whatever that’s available (though it’s probably all made by him anyway) and head back up to her room. But there’s no point in running away. She has nowhere to hide. So she quietly approaches him and takes a seat, just like old times.
“Here we are again,” she mumbles aloud, the exhaustion coming through in her voice.
He continues to play the soft ballad even while he speaks. “Too much on the mind, dear? It won’t do to stress over all the details, especially over matters out of your control.”
“Control, huh…” She keeps her eyes glued to the floor. “I’m starting to think that I never had it in the first place.”
“And what makes you think that?”
“…” She frowns bitterly. “Lots of things… starting with you, especially.”
He chuckles softly. “Fair enough. Though if I may insist, there have been certain matters that have come to my attention over the course of my studies during my stay here. I have to conclude that there are some paths that should not be treaded… at least at this time.”
“Why?” Now she passes him a justified glare. “What did you find that you would feel it necessary to bar me from accessing the Debug Room entirely?”
At that moment, he stops playing and turns to her with a curious stare. “Pardon?”
She returns him a hateful glare. “I just tried it a moment ago. Even at the startup screen, it’s been blocked off with ‘Administrator access only’.”
“Strange…”
“What is? Don’t tell me you don’t have anything to do with it.”
He shakes his head. “To be honest, I didn’t think this would ever happen. I may have flexed my fingers and rearranged accommodations here and there, but there are some things that I can’t access. I wouldn’t be able to completely bar access from you without having access to the root myself.”
“Then what is this!?” Ruby pulls up the GUI from earlier in front of her and spins it aside to show him.
After a perplexed pause, he concludes, “…That is indeed an issue.”
“Shut up! How could this not be your fault!? Don’t blame Rubia again!”
“Hmm… Let me try it.”
He finally sets aside the guitar on the other end of the couch and retrieves the GUI for a closer inspection. He enters the password – without a keyboard, as the censored characters simply appear on the screen as soon as he touches the box – and to Ruby’s growing suspicion, he can access it just fine.
“You make a surprisingly awful liar despite everything,” she presses the point.
“I’m not lying. I genuinely have nothing to do with your barrier to entry.”
“Sure…” But as soon as Ruby tries to snatch the screen from him to begin browsing, the screen promptly glitches in her hands and returns to the same access prompt as earlier. “Huh?”
“…” By now, even he’s starting to be concerned. He takes it again and the menu is still accessible for him without the need to reinput anything.
“What the heeell! What is this!?” she whines, seizing him by his coat collar.
He casually brushes her off and takes her hand in his own, and tries again to press her fingers to the screen. And once again, the screen glitches and returns to the prompt.
“Let go,” she mutters, wrenching her hand out of his grip.
“…This may be troublesome,” he admits with a pensive sigh. “I would have anticipated that this would happen at some point, but it seems a little early.”
“What do you mean ‘at some point’? What do you know about all this?”
“Perhaps the fated time is coming sooner than expected. The coup de grace to this second act and the reason for your existence are going to come to a head.”
Her eyes harden into focus. “It’s coming sooner…?”
“Remember when I told you that Rubia was the original holder to the keys of this ‘Debug Room’? It’s likely that she’s been keeping them to herself all this time.”
She groans. “You’re blaming her again after all…”
“Though you may think otherwise, there is no other possible culprit. I have no reason to lie about how you’ve lost access. It serves me no purpose to keep you in the dark to your own memories. I’ve suggested that you take a look through the files yourself on multiple occasions, but it’s too late for that now.”
“…” She turns away with a pout, as she doesn’t have an argument to make.
“On the other hand, Rubia has her own motives. She remains hidden and may still grant me access to a certain extent, but with you, she has an entirely different purpose.”
“What even is your relationship to Rubia? The two of you have never met and for starters, you tried to kill me because you thought I was her at first.”
He glances off, having been reminded of something, but denies her. “…That is none of your concern.”
“I think it IS my concern. I am Rubia, in a way, right?”
“Yes and no. You are a part of her, but she is not a part of you. There’s a very distinct difference.”
“I’m part of her… like she’s the bigger picture or something?”
“You could put it like that.”
She raises an eyebrow. “What’s with you all of a sudden? Why bother to hide secrets from me anymore? It’s not like I can do anything from here anyway.”
He then puts a hand to his chin as he dives into further reflection. “But it’s strange for Rubia to act now… Why at this time in particular?” He passes Ruby a suspect glance too. “Has she been sending more visions or messages to you lately?”
“Huh? Are there things I’d be seeing or hearing that even you aren’t aware of? I thought you’d see everything.”
“Unfortunately, not everything is recorded here in the logs. Your memories of your other life, for example, are not included.”
“Huh, really…?” She pauses and asks again, “But you knew from the outset that I was a programmer and writer.”
“It’s not the same as being able to see your memories. There’s some information I gathered that were from traces of data that were essential building blocks to…” But at that moment, he stops himself from mentioning anything more and shakes his head with a sigh. “No, let’s not get into that right now.”
“What!? Seriously, what!?” she shrieks, trying to grab him by his neck, but he blocks her. “Stop that! What do I have to do to get you to spill? Submit to your authority and grovel at your feet?”
“That’s a step in the right direction.”
“%*#$ off.”
“In any case,” he says, returning to the topic on hand, “Would you please tell me what you’ve seen lately? If not, I can always do a deep dive into your mind myself.”
She cringes. “Nuh-uh. Stay out of my head, man.” With a conceding sigh, she looks off to recall. “It’s just been bits and pieces here and there. Just recently, I remembered another of her encounters as a child with Titan when they first started training together. It was one among many trials that Bahamut would put her through.”
“That’s to be expected. Anything else?”
“Um… and just a moment ago, I think I got some piece of a conversation that was between her and… me, I think? But I don’t remember ever having it.”
“…!” He now turns to her with a look of alarm, as if he’s just sensed a major disturbance in the system. “What was it about?”
“I don’t know. It sounded like I had no idea who she was, but she knew who I was. And she also called me a ‘lost cause’ and said I deserved to stay here in ‘prison’.”
“…” He slowly turns away as his face grows grim as the potential implications begin to circulate in his mind.
“Sephiroth? You look pretty surprised for once. What’s going on?”
Then, he makes a bitter frown of his own. He now turns back to her with rather disappointed, almost discouraged expression. “…She’s finally taking the initiative.”
“The initiative… on what exactly?”
At first, Sephiroth doesn’t respond. Then, without warning, a crooked smile appears on his face and he begins to chuckle to himself. And next, he starts to laugh aloud, planting a hand onto his forehead as if meaning to say, “Of course. Why didn’t I think of that sooner?” When he lowers it again, he has a dangerous look in his eyes. In a way, it’s a bit like the deranged look in his eyes that she once witnessed of him long ago when he first went insane. Whatever it is that he’s realized, it seems like he’s snapped from some vehement rage or excitement or maybe even both. Either way, he clearly isn’t right in the head. Suddenly, he turns back to her with an uncharacteristically manic grin and she freezes up in instinct like a prey in the sight of a predator.
“Ruby… Thank you. I’m so glad we’ve gone down this path.”
She starts to scoot back to get some distance. “I… don’t… Huh?”
Before she can stop him, he lunges forward to snatch her into his arms for a tight embrace and she squeaks in fright. Even as he’s still giggling maniacally to himself, he has such an iron-tight grip on her that she feels like he’s trying to crush her in his grasp more than he’s actually giving her a warm and loving hug.
“…If that’s what it takes, then I’ll make the next move too. I promise you, Ruby, I’ll break you free from her grasp once and for all.”
“???”
But what then happens surprises her even more. Even with his death-grip on her, she can feel a slight tingling feeling in her arms and on her face, as if something was being lifted off of her. And to her dumbfounded shock and confusion, the black stains from which the Geostigma had scarred her arms begin to fade, with new fresh skin to replace the old, dead tissue, and all signs of injury mysteriously vanish as if they were never there to begin with. She stares at her right arm, which had the worst of the scars on her body, now completely renewed to perfect health just as she had it to begin with.
For whatever reason, Sephiroth has released his curse on her. She can’t tell if he decided that it was superfluous or that he’s trying a different tact with her, or even that he needs her to be in perfect health for whatever schemes he has laid out. In any case, she’s convinced that it wasn’t just because he actually cares for her.
And yet, this is actually the first time that he’s held her like this. It’s not the same kind of loose, half-assed attempt at a hug from before, where he was clearly just teasing her in a mocking way. Right now, he’s actually serious about holding her close, almost as if he’s afraid that he might lose her if he lets go. He’s also a little cray-cray at the moment, but this is still a brief glimpse into his attempts at showing some kind of affection. Who the heck taught him to hug like this anyway?
And at that moment, there’s only one guy who pops into mind. It’s not technically his fault, but there’s no one else it could be. Goddammit, Zack.
No, forget that. What does he mean when he said he’d “break her free”? Was it something to do with Rubia’s words about a “prison”? And if so, what kind of prison is it? Is it really possible that she can return home one day, and that she can finally escape this illusory world?
No, but… if she does, what will happen to Cloud and the rest of them? All the people she promised to help? If she just leaves, who will be able to help them? Maybe Aerith can lend a hand here and there in her place, but it’s nothing like what Ruby can do on her own.
So many thoughts circle rapidly in her head that she’s starting to feel a little dizzy from all the overwhelming information that’s just been dumped onto her. Or maybe she’s feeling faint from his tight grasp squeezing the air out of her. Either way, she has to speak up.
“…Seph. Too tight. It hurts.”
He immediately snaps out of his manic episode and releases her, giving her room to recollect herself. “Sorry. I may have gotten a little too excited.”
Though she doesn’t expect an answer, she still feels inclined to ask, “You had some pretty cool ideas or something? Mind sharing them?”
He’s still smiling to himself as he replies, “It’s nothing for you to worry your sweet little head over.”
“I don’t take that as a compliment, Sephiroth. You’re always keeping secrets. It’s bad for the relationship.”
“Hmm…” There’s a devious twinkle in his eyes. “If I do tell you the whole truth, you’ll have to be ready to accept one thing.”
“What?”
“That you will have to abandon Cloud and his friends. But when that happens, I’ll be happy to welcome you back in my arms.”
“Oh, is that all?” She scoffs. “No thanks. We still got a good thing going on right now.”
“Still attached to them, are we?” His smile fades into one with a subtle grimness to it and returns to his usual composure. “Well, as I suspected, it is still too early.”
“And what’s gotten into you? You were hugging me so tight I thought you were trying to kill me again.”
“Hehe.” He then passes a coy smirk her way with his usual smug air. “Our bond truly is one that spans beyond time itself.”
“Ugh. I swear trying to dig answers from you takes longer than the Voyager’s response times.”
“Hmm…” Getting back on track, he reminds her, “In any case, you have your next course charted already. Time to get back to work. As always, I’ll be waiting for you, my dear.”
“And any time you feel like I’m probing too much into something, you send me away. I don’t think you quite understand how important communication is in a relationship.”
“There’s always a time and place for such discussions, but it isn’t now. Go. Do what you must.”
“Yes, sir…” she mutters like a disgruntled employee. “But I don’t have a way out. I can’t use the Debug Room now, remember?”
And to that, Sephiroth simply pats her on the head like pressing a switch and she blanks out in an instant. As fun as it is to stay with her, he has to get to work too, now that a new objective has been opened.
~
Things have begun to be on the move in the shadows. In the aftermath of the battle against Corneo and his pet, the Turks have been tracking down the movements of the monks they’ve been in hot pursuit. Though Zenigata had thrown a smokescreen to cover his and his monks’ tracks, in the ensuing chaos, Rude was still able to tag one of the runaway monks with a tiny tracking device that clings to clothing. So, they weren’t completely in the dark as they tailed after them.
As it turns out, though, Zenigata and his men would not try to chase after their oracle and her daughter. It makes sense, as they’d already left the scene before the castle grounds would be trashed. Instead, they made their way back up north for Zhongyuan, probably to hide out somewhere for the time being. Though the Wutai government has issued a statement by now to send agents to investigate the town, it really is a cover for an opportune meeting between Zenigata and those working for Shigesaki’s faction. After all, with the erasure of the Phantom Fortress, they’ll have to renegotiate many matters regarding the next steps for a certain Project Moonlight.
When the Turks arrived, the monks had disappeared into the town. They would follow the trail of their tracking device, but unfortunately, it seems the monk that was tagged had at some point abandoned his cloak and left it hanging on the edge of the fountain at the center of a town square. In fact, all of the monks seem to have done the same. Clearly, they all seem to have changed attire and hidden themselves among the civilians, and unfortunately, the Turks can’t expect to question anyone here. Talk about a headache.
Though they have done their homework and can expect that Wutai government agents will be on their way shortly, it’s hard to estimate when that will be. If the note of a meeting that once mentioned “Zhongyuan, 23:30” was any indication of something, that could be a possibility. Unfortunately, Reno and Elena don’t have the patience to wait another couple hours in a town where they can’t search very effectively. That being said, since they do have a particular timeframe, they can always just return to HQ and send a drone to capture footage of the area around that time. And so, Reno would call up Tseng once again for a ride back to base.
After those couple hours pass, though, the Shinra drone sent in to survey the developing situation would come to witness a very unexpected disaster. Rather than capture the awaited meeting between Zenigata’s men and the agents assumed to be working for Shigesaki, the drone would arrive upon a scene of utter annihilation. The town has been set ablaze. All the residents that had been here seem to have vanished without a trace. Blood splatter is everywhere. But there are still a few bodies that remain for the brief moment before they would be lapped up in flames. Lying in bloody pools are Zenigata and his monks, as well as two Wutaian government agents sent in to meet them. Though it’s unclear what could have caused all this, it does seem like the bodies were all cut down by a single blade.
Taking this important footage to go, the Shinra drone quickly flew off and back to base as well. Needless to say, when the Turks reported the matter to Rufus later, he found the entire situation quite the enigma. Based on the level of destruction, it’s a scene rather alike another incident from five years prior at a certain town. Chances are that the perpetrator is indeed the same man, judging by the wounds of the deceased targets. However, this only brings up more questions.
As much as he dislikes to have to call up that scientist, he came to few other options. Rufus then ringed up Hojo and relayed to him the current situation around the Wutaian ghost town. And to his chagrin, the scientist was only eager to divulge some pet theories that Rufus had no intentions on asking about.
“…I had long held the opinion that Project Jenova and Project Immortals were always connected in some way. And as it would turn out, it seems a certain pair of favorite specimen of mine would be inclined to unite them after all.”
Rufus lets off a sigh. Knowing Hojo, he might just start rambling on about this, but to be fair, they could always discuss more possibilities. He agrees to humor him for now. “…Alright. Tell me a bit about your theory. What makes you think that they’re connected after all? I was under the impression that the two projects were divided because the two primary subjects were completely different.”
“Oh, rest assured, they are distinct entities, each with their own cellular networks of influence. However, there’s come to be more and more evidence that the two have in fact been working in a loose symbiotic relationship, rather than as competing forces.”
“Mm-hm…”
“After all, from the earliest reports of the discovery of the two, it was by the behavior of the white dragon that would lead Gast’s team to discover Jenova in the ice. And according to those reports, it was also the same dragon that would smash the ice that allowed them to gain access to the remains. Later, that same dragon would be captured through ‘peaceful’ means to be submitted to further study.”
“…”
“Fufufu… Seems a little odd if all that were just coincidence, wouldn’t it? Though, I will admit that on the surface, it would seem like extrapolating from very sparse evidence. Rather, the critical evidence would come much later during the simultaneous testing phases.”
“I don’t need the details about the tests. Just give me a quick rundown of the results.”
“Of course, sir… While, yes, the two specimen were in fact discovered to be completely distinct entities, the dragon’s own cells were indeed infected with the cells of Jenova. It thus led to the suppositions that the dragon was simply acting under the influence of Jenova itself. However, that was but a mistaken assumption. There was no evidence to indicate that the dragon was even affected by the J-cells. If anything, the dragon’s own immune system had managed to sequester the intrusive cells into scar tissue where it would remain apart from the rest. Further testing involving subjects with both would likewise lead to similar results, where R-cells would sequester J-cells and go on to spread through the rest of the body.”
“…I thought I said a rundown of the results?”
“Hmph. I’m getting to that. As it would turn out, the J-cells are still perfectly capable of influencing R-cells even from within their containment. The J-cells came to use the R-cells as protective casing while they dispersed in tandem throughout the body. And because of the stability of the arrangement, the subjects’ bodies that were treated with both types of cells would also remain stable with the benefits of both – thus leading to our current supply of Soldiers Class I.”
“Hmm… In other words, from the perspective of the specimen, it would be preferable that the two continue this relationship.”
“For the purposes of their individual perpetuation, yes.”
Rufus then folds his arms. “Unfortunately, I also have to wonder how this symbiotic relationship of theirs would impact our company in the near future. After all, as my agents have reported, Ruby has absolute control over the Soldier who defected. It seems likely that this may happen with other subjects that have been treated with ARC.”
“Hmm… If you don’t mind me asking, what would be the problem?”
“Hm?”
“Hehehe. After all, even the original specimen behind ARC has been infected with Jenova cells from the very beginning. It’s all in due time that the two would come to unite as a single planetary power.”
“…Hojo, your pet theories aside, I’m talking about how that would impact our sphere of influence. It doesn’t seem to be advantageous to let Ruby run wild with a group of know-nothing ecoterrorists. I’m already treading a thin line with her as is, and she could very well turn this force of Soldier against us if she so chooses.”
“Ah. Then, Mr. President, you can rest assured. We are not the target of their alliance.”
“How can you say that for sure?”
“Because they have their sights set on chasing the man in black. And as you’ve just recently witnessed through drone footage, he is all too willing to play the part in this greater complex scheme.”
“…” Rufus sits back in his seat with a disappointed frown. “In other words, even the Shinra Company is too ‘small’ a threat for the likes of Ruby and her friends at this point.”
“Would that not be the best of consequences? Let them have their adventure in peace. I’m sure whatever they come to discover on their own would provide us with more valuable information.”
Rufus takes a moment to consider their options, and as much as he’d hate to just be sidelined in this ongoing race for power, he has to admit that treading any further with how unstable the situation may become would be a risk not worth taking – at least at this time. If at any moment there is a falling out between Ruby and her friends, though, it would be beneficial to just let the two factions eliminate each other, and then Shinra would be able to clean up the rest in the aftermath.
Finally, he concedes, “Fine. We’ll let them be and have their joyride on my ship for now. But I will be expecting regular updates on their progress.”
“As will I and the rest of R&D. The Turks sure have their work cut out for them, hehe.”
“Likewise, I expect updates on the next steps to Project Immortals. See if you can’t find an alternative to the issue around these Soldiers’ exploitable weaknesses.”
“Yes, yes, of course…”
“Alright. We’ll leave it at that for now. You’re dismissed.”
And the video call promptly ends. Meanwhile, on the other end of the call, Hojo continues to sneer to himself as he ponders to himself over potential possibilities. Ever since he caught a glimpse of Ruby and Sephiroth interacting in a way that seemed to show the two were close, he too has been pondering over a certain quaint mystery: What would their offspring be like?
Notes:
And here ends the Wutai arc. Holy moly, I speedran through these plot threads with the last few chapters, but we finally got here! Finally, time to move onto the main plot.
I will also apologize to anyone who may feel I just ruined the Sephiroth/Ruby ship for you at the end there. I promise I will correct for this grave transgression in due time. (It's very much a while down the line, that is.)
Fun trivia and name origins
- I actually had a total of three towns planned for this Wutai arc that I was unable to cover during the course of it and to be honest, I think it's for the best that we leave it alone for now. Chenfu is the Chinese word for "Ups and downs" (lit. "sinking-floating") like when life has its way, so to speak.
- There was also way more that I had planned for the new festival itself, but given the circumstances of their departure, there was no room for the party to stick around for long. But boy, I can dream about how they'd all be at a summer festival.
- Poor Sonon. I started a running gag that he was going to be that one guy who'd be the signature dude-in-distress since he'd keep ending up in trouble. I don't mean for it to feel like a gag, but in hindsight, I tend to laugh at a lot of terrible things I put these characters through.
- Finally, at long last, I get to tie up Leslie's story arc too. Unfortunately, he's not a character I would consider as part of the main cast and for good reason, being that it's too much work to build yet another party member for the long term. I'm still trying to figure out how to work it out with Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge.
- It is indeed canon to the novella The Kids are Alright that Leslie and Meryl get married at some point. I don't think we ever got confirmation as to when that happened or when his proposal would have happened, but I don't care. I'm putting a genuinely happy scene here because I want to.
- I mentioned it before, but Himiko and Yasumi are entirely original characters I introduced for this arc. Their backstory I also came up with on the spot. I can't even remember what my inspiration was to them, but it may have come from some of the research I did into certain Japanese literature on the way to finding appropriate names for my characters.
- I have no idea where the idea of Sephiroth playing Spanish Romance came from, but it stuck in mind and I had to write it. And sure, have some gratuitous Spanish that I am indeed very rusty at!
- The plot revolving around Rubia and Sephiroth has been an ongoing evolution since the start of this fic. It has been so integral into everything, and yet I keep finding new ways to implement foreshadowing for things to come. Now I wonder myself how things are going to be like down the line. It's exciting.
- In case you all missed it, Rufus does indeed know about Wutai's attempts at Project Moonlight. I had a vague idea of what the potential conflict fueling Midgar-Wutai relations would be since I introduced some hints in chapter 14, but it wasn't until I actually started writing for the Wutai arc that I had the conflict fleshed out.On a slight tangent, I have decided to update the relationship tags, not because a certain mad scientist ships the main ship but that I want to open up possibilities for a different kind of potential future.
Chapter 50: Take a Chance
Notes:
Even though I'm a bit late, Happy New Year, everyone! 2024 is the year of the dragon, and I have plenty of dragon-y things planned for this fic for the rest of this year! Some good, some bad, some absolutely tragic *cough*... Also, Rebirth is coming in February, so that's cool too.
Outdated A/N
1/12/24 edit: Hahaha... I am struggling to write the next chapter. It's not every day that I decide to write an organically developing ship that is awkward in all the ways possible. Why are social interactions some of the hardest things to get right... Oh, wait. I'm a writer. Of course they are.
Next chapter will need a few more days to stew. I expect I'll be ready by next Tuesday or Wednesday as usual.
Chapter Text
Morning has arrived. Though there are no windows to the outdoors in the infirmary, the sun’s warm glow fills throughout the ship’s interior, basking it in the air of a new day. Ruby remains on bed feeling a little dead inside. The events of the previous night continue to drift about in her mind like an ominous fog that have kept her from resting a wink even though she just came to again.
She raises her arms up to take a look at them again. It’s the same story here: no signs or traces of Geostigma to be found. But what would normally be a good thing instead scares her. She can recall in perfect detail that look in Sephiroth’s eyes when he had some kind of epiphany. Sure, he’s long been crazy, but there was some kind of urgency, almost desperation – like a primal hunger – to it this time. It was the look of a predator who hadn’t eaten in months that finally snagged his prey. No, even worse; it was the look of a gambling addict who really, really needed this wager to work out and she was his winning token. And as if it couldn’t get any worse, he hugged her. This man who swings a seven-foot katana that keeps everyone socially distanced took the initiative and hugged her. What was the answer he found? Better yet, what was even the question? On second thought, maybe it’s for the best that she doesn’t know.
She lets her arms drop and looks down at the rest of herself. If it were just Sephiroth who’s been a pain in the ass, she wouldn’t feel this bad. But then there is Rubia; the one enigmatic entity that has taken over this alternate world of Gaia and has been responsible for everything, whose influence even led Sephiroth to Ruby in the first place. She rarely ever shows herself outside of flashbacks and visions, never to Ruby in person or spirit despite the latter being her “successor”, and yet is entirely inescapable to the point it’s sickening. Even this very body that Ruby has taken on comes with a constant reminder that it isn’t really hers. She is entirely at Rubia’s discretion for how long she can remain in this world, and it seems her time limit will run out sooner than expected.
She rests her head back and shuts her eyes again. She’s asked this question again and again and never gets an answer, but she must keep asking: What is this world, really, and what does Rubia want with it? From the Edge of Creation itself, she’s dressed and accessorized it to become the “Debug Room” of the original FF7. And according to the latest memory that Ruby has earned, it’s meant to be her “prison” that Rubia set up for her. But why? What would be the purpose of creating a fully realized world in its own right, just to keep her imprisoned in it? To bamboozle her? Make her think that she’s still alive? Or something else?? But it isn’t even that much like the game that she grew up with either. The setting and environment, as well as the cast of characters may be largely the same, but the history is completely different. And yet, as impressed as she is with what she’s witnessed firsthand, she would rather return to the good old days when she didn’t have to worry about authorship and the lore and all that complicated stuff. She already spent so long trying to learn how Cait Sith’s Slots work so she can nail Game Over every time (thanks to save states) and breeze through the rest of the game. Where did her childhood go? Give it back.
…Give it back? What is she talking about? Rubia IS her childhood. She grew up as a daydreamer to help her cope with the problems that her family faced over the years. It wasn’t even that bad to start with. She had both parents who earned well enough to keep their household afloat. They argued over everything, but that’s just about any family. She had a loving pet dog who would never leave her alone, though it was eventually going to happen that the little ol’ doggo would go. That’s nature. She later got five puppies to fill that void too. And last but not least, she fell in love with this awesome video game that she would obsess over for many years since. That was how Rubia came to be in the first place! Life was decent, if not good. It just turned for the worse on the latter end of her life when they came to be hounded by a group that allegedly was Chinese Mafia or at least had ties to them. And that was when she finally experienced her first taste of the cruel world that she was oblivious to for so long. It was so scary that she ran away and subsequently threw away her own life.
Let’s be real. Where would she be now if it weren’t for Rubia? Well, for one, she’d be at the bottom of the seabed off the shores of California. But okay, let’s assume that incident didn’t happen. She’d have been stuck in a trashy job working for a black company that barely skirted the law, and she had no way to argue or sue for better conditions because it was the only line of compensation her dad’s creditors offered to cover said debt. Her employers knew it too and squeezed her for all her worth. Hell, she swore they were straight-up criminals by the way they so brazenly exploited her. It wasn’t just overwork; it was harassment up the wazoo, treated like a slave with the pettiest of manual labor, and her work would go on to be sold without her name, while barely a cut of the revenue made a dent in the debt as the rest was pocketed by her bosses. It was absolute horseshit doodoo garbage slop, but she had to endure. And then, one day she lost a year’s load of work due to “clerical errors” and had to start refilling that debt from scratch. Okay, maybe we can’t assume she isn’t at the bottom of the seabed after all.
Then, there was a blank in her memory and five years later, she came to live alone as a recluse. And on one fateful blacked-out night, she found herself swept up into a series of fantastical events that led her into a different world. She had her first taste of being held at swordpoint; that was pretty metal, now that she thinks about it again. And she even gets to be a big white ancient dragon that just wrecks shit as she likes? It’s a little scamp’s dream come true! It’s stuff like this that makes her think that she really has been asleep all along, but it must be some kind of deep sleep where she can’t just wake up again. Or maybe she really did die and her spirit was reborn in a land of dreams. Who knows how the afterlife actually works, right? Maybe her soul got lost and drifted off through parallel dimensions to happen in a place where her imagination could come true.
But all that said, on the off chance she did survive, it must be hell for her single mom to handle how both her husband and her daughter being permanently hospitalized. This isn’t even about filial piety or being Asian or any of that. She’s a runaway without a good reason and she needs to get back home. She can’t just assume that she’s already dead. If there’s even the possibility that she’s alive, she must fight for it. Besides, who else is gonna mind those five darling pups of hers, even if two of them are just the worst?
So how does she go home? Does she try to find Rubia, the one who imprisoned her, and try to talk it out? Does she follow Sephiroth, the one who seems to have a plan to defy Rubia and, as he put it, help Ruby “break free”? Or does she still stay with Cloud and the others, to continue searching in hopes of one day cracking the code – even though none of them are even aware that there’s a code to be cracked? As much as she loves those guys, that third option seems to be the least efficient way to go about this. She could try to explain everything and they may still want to help her, but what can they do about matters that involve traversing alternate dimensions? Even casually mentioning it to Cloud all the way back then gave him a headache. Besides, she also feels guilty for leading them around everywhere, always hogging the spotlight, and never quite giving them a chance to fight on their own terms. Imagine she just came out and admitted that it was all because “I want to leave and never come back.”
Oh, “never” is a harsh word. She would like to come back if it were possible, but she knows that’s a big if. Maybe the only way forward is to confront Minerva and the other Summons. If there’s anything the Godly bureaucracy can do, it’s discuss the legality of interdimensional travel. But as of now and probably for a long while down the line, it seems they all want to eliminate her on sight. Well, them’s the breaks.
Enough thinking; she’s just going in circles. It’s about time she got up. Ruby opens her eyes again and turns her head to peer around the room. Cole is still here, limp as a doll left in the corner waiting to be picked up. She wonders how that helmet keeps his brain working during sleep. Or maybe it just shuts the brain down entirely like with a computer, effectively leaving him dead, but at least he can be restarted like one too.
Now that she’s reminded, her next destination is supposed to be the Gold Saucer. Any fan of FF7 knows what that means: facing North Corel’s many problems. God, she’s honestly been dreading this part; not because she hates going through it, but because every time she does, she is an emotional wreck. And not to mention, this time they even have someone new who’s tagging along. What is Cole’s history with Barret and Dyne? She only ever got a brief snippet from his confession earlier. Boy, that’s gonna be a whole can of worms on its own. But she also has to be there, just to be sure that things can work out safely.
“Safely”, that is, relative to how the shadows are always the darkest directly under the candlestick. She already failed to be a mediator between Midgar and Wutai. What can she, even as a humble miracle worker, do about socioeconomic problems that mirror the real world? Well, at least this is a problem that her friends share with her, so she doesn’t have to keep quiet about it.
Letting her eyes drift around again, she also finds Sonon on a bed to her right. Huh, this scene looks familiar. What happened to him this time? He’d better not have landed himself in spiritual despair again. She’s supposed to be the victim of circumstance here, thank you! Her curiosity pushes her to get up and inspect. She apprehensively reaches over a hand, making sure not to touch him, to start a scan of his body through magic.
Right away, she picks up on something about his left arm. It looks totally ordinary as always, but there’s still something unnatural. As if by instinct, she can tell that there are traces of her own – namely, Rubia’s – cells within. No, forget ‘traces’; his entire left arm seems to have a similar signature to her own, as if she were looking at a reproduction of her own flesh. Now that’s freaky. Was she always this sensitive to her cellular network? She had some kind of vague inkling when she first met the residents of Zhongyuan, but now it’s so obvious that it’s giving her the jitters.
It’s not just his arm either. As the cells had quickly perpetuated themselves in the time since they first made contact, she can even sense their presence has reached past his shoulder into a good chunk of his chest and upper body. Seems like they’ve hit his lungs too; no wonder he passed out. If left unattended, eventually his mind will be overtaken. She must act quickly.
“Sonon… Sonon! Can you hear me?” she tries a question.
But there’s no response. Maybe it works differently with people who have yet to fully zombify. He’s not entirely under her control yet, so there’s still a chance. But how does she go about this? Can she just call upon her cells and magically leach them out somehow? And will he even be okay if she does? She can’t be ripping him apart now.
For some inexplicable reason, she is then graced with the image of her taking a bite out of his arm like a puppy chewing on a bone. No, bad brain, stop that. No cannibalism allowed.
Then again, she’s biologically a dragon. It’s just by her “dragon powers” that she chooses to look human. So it wouldn’t actually be cannibalism; more like predation, huh?
…What is she thinking right now!? A friend of hers has fallen ill and she’s thinking about food! Man, she must be hungrier than she realizes. Come on, Ruby! He’s not gonna get better like this. Even if she isn’t sure, she has to try something. But just to be safe, she vouches to do it without touching.
Resorting to blind faith, she closes her eyes and focuses her attention upon her fingertips. Like a chef lightly and playfully stretching out dough, she imagines lifting and tugging that dough into shape… No, wait, forget the food. Better analogy: like a conductor of a grand orchestra, she waves her hands about in a fixed tempo as she commands a great gathering of individuals who respond to her cues and play along to the rhythm. And when she opens her eyes again, she instead meets disappointment and dismay.
All she managed to do was lift him up by his arm and make him roll onto his side; awkwardly too, like a beginner puppeteer who hasn’t learned the ropes yet. These cells of hers have long merged with the host body and refuse to detach themselves. They’re like ravenous little monsters that are trying to swallow him whole. Damn the little buggers! She isn’t gonna have to actually chew on him to get them out, is she!?
No, no. Calm down and think. There’s gotta be another way. If her conductor analogy won’t work, then what sort of imagery could she use? A doctor with a surgical knife? No, that would only work with smaller wounds, not something covering a major chunk of his torso. A massage therapist? Kinda moot if he can’t actually feel anything. A sledgehammer to beat them out? Okay, now she’s just thinking of murder methods.
Ugh, forget it! If she can’t remove the cells, can’t she at least stop their spread? She wordlessly commands her cells to pull back and recede back to their source, but nothing happens. She even makes the wild hand motions to pull them back the other way, but again she simply tugs at his upper half and makes him flop onto his back again. She gives a miserable groan and releases her hold. Shit. Back to square one.
But she can’t give up now. This would be the dumbest way for him to go. They’ve come dragging his ass this far into the journey, and she swears she’s gonna make sure he stays for the remainder. Think, Ruby, think. What can be done in a situation where pushing or pulling won’t work? Pushing and pulling… like the ebb and flow of a tide.
Wait a sec. Tide? Speaking of tides, wasn’t she just in a situation where she was quite stuck? Yeah, her fight with Leviathan resulted in a draw the second time she challenged him. She may not have been able to defeat him, but she reached a state where he could not defeat her either. If it weren’t for a certain meddlesome angel, she could have gotten away with bargaining some kind of deal. She could have had a bloodless victory, even. But no, she can’t have nice things if they’re not with the approval of that helicopter asshole.
What can she do now? How can she turn this situation into a “draw” and postpone Sonon’s zombification? Can she return to that state of pure light even in physical form? And if so, how can she apply that here? She’s afraid that if she so touches him, she might just permanently cripple the guy. But it doesn’t seem like blasting lasers at him would do anything but harm. No, keep thinking. There’s gotta be a way…
Hmm. Maybe she’s going about this wrong. Maybe the answer is to make contact. If there is some sort of physical stopgap that prevents them from crossing, he may just be saved. But something like this must take effect at the cellular level, or she risks cutting him in half.
Okay, review time: how does ARC work? It’s a catalyst made of DNA that enters into the host cells and takes over them, kinda like a virus. So, a natural retaliation would be to insert something that can take over the takeover, kinda like a virophage. Wait a second! Could the solution be stacking? After all, blue whales are rarely observed in the wild to suffer from cancer because their huge sizes often result in the metastasizing of cancerous cells until they too get their own cancer. Whoa, it’s so elegantly simple that it just might work.
With new resolve, Ruby braces herself to take the plunge. It’s now or never. She sharpens her hands into dragon claws emitting that pure light – with a sensation similar to the one she felt upon first awakening the power – and drops her claws, sharp digits out, into Sonon’s chest and arm. The wounds where her claws pierced him deep, even into his vital organs, begin to glow a bright white with a power fueled by her determination. And through imbuing that feeling into his body, his own yet-to-be-corrupted cells take up arms to resist the takeover. Persist against overwhelming odds; that is the way of Rubia. So, come on, Sonon! Fight!
“…Aaaugh!”
“!?”
His scream startles her, but she maintains position. Apparently, this method is so effective that Sonon has awakened at last… or maybe it’s from the intense pain. Well, as they say, we take those. Now that he opens his eyes, though, he freezes up. Ruby has her claws planted into him and is looking like she’s ready to kill. He freaks out and wants to throw her off, but realizes he can’t move right now.
“R-Ruby? What are you…!? Urrrghh!!”
“I’ll be quick.”
“S-stop! What are you doing to me!? ARGH! It burns!”
But she remains firm and continues to pulse into him with her magic, making sure that he’s well equipped to fight through the worst from here on out. If she must fight a disease, she will fight with a vaccine so strong that it will not dare to recur.
“Ughhh… Stop… Stop, please! Let me go!!”
“…”
“Aaaauuughhh… Uh…?”
For just a moment, Sonon feels faint, like he’s just seen the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel… Wait, no. He’s not seeing things; it’s actually happening before his eyes. Ruby has practically infused him with light so thoroughly that his entire body is glowing as if it were supercharged. And finally, the operation is complete and she lets him go. Pain, pain everywhere. He clutches at his sore arm, groaning yet out of breath, and rolls over to the other side of the bed, though Ruby catches him before he falls off and helps him sit back up.
“How are you feeling?” she asks, looking a bit frazzled herself. She’s legitimately surprised that it worked.
The intense pain now quickly fades and Sonon opens his eyes again. He feels his arm and chest again and realizes that the places where he was just stabbed have healed up in an instant. He looks down and finds no wounds or scars at all either. He looks back to her, now even more confounded. “What did you do?”
She blinks a few times and nervously brushes aside her bangs. “…Uh. A vaccine?”
He stares back at her, as if to ask why she doesn’t sound sure.
By now, the noise that they’re making has gotten the attention of the others. Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith, followed by Red, Barret, and Yuffie have all rushed on over.
“What’s going on!?” Barret demands in a booming voice.
“Ruby!” Aerith squeaks in surprise.
Yuffie barges in and nearly stumbles as she pulls back in shock. “Sonon!?”
“They’re both up?” Tifa gasps, alarmed.
“What happened?” Cloud asks, looking between the two of them. “What was all the noise?”
To everyone’s flustered and panicked faces, Ruby is the only one who remains calm. She points to Sonon and remarks, “Sorry. I was treating him and it hurt a bit.”
Everyone stares back, completely lost. “…Huh?”
Sonon climbs to his feet and checks around himself once more. He’s so relieved that he can actually feel his left arm again. In fact, his whole body is now quite relaxed and he feels even lighter on his feet than ever before. Turning back to Ruby, he rubs his head awkwardly and takes an apologetic bow.
“Sorry for yelling. Thank you for fixing me… again.”
She casually waves a hand. “No problem. I tried to boost your resistance to be permanent, so hopefully you won’t be in any kind of trouble like this again. Kinda tired of seeing you in this room.”
“Y-yeah. Let’s hope.”
“Wait! Seriously? He’s cured? Just like that?” Yuffie blurts out.
“You really could cure him?” Tifa asks, likewise dumbfounded.
“Damn. This girl really is a miracle worker, alright,” Barret remarks. “Dunno how she keeps surprising us.”
Ruby shrugs. “Dunno how I keep doing it either.”
“Ruby, that’s amazing! I knew you could do it, Cuz!” Aerith excitedly runs over to give her a proud hug.
“Oh! Now that I think about it,” Tifa suggests, though she isn’t too sure, “if she can do this, maybe she really did figure out a way to cure her own Geostigma?”
Cloud frowns to the idea, looking even less sure, but he doesn’t have anything to argue either. He looks back to Ruby, who has turned away into her own thoughts, and can’t help but suspect they’re still missing something to this picture.
In any case, Red sits down and relaxes with a shake of his head. “So we all rushed in here for no reason. Though, I’m glad to see there’s no concern after all.”
Tifa lets off a relieved sigh. “Me too. I wouldn’t know what to do if we had even more trouble with them.”
Aerith beams with pride. “That’s my Cuz for you! Always keeping us on the edge of our seats!”
“Yeah… sometimes a little too much,” she admits quietly.
“Wait! Wait, wait, wait!” Yuffie then cuts in, trying to make sense of the situation. “Then, does this mean that Ruby can cure all the victims of ARC?”
“Oh, yeah! Good question.” Barret asks Ruby, “How about it? Maybe you can do somethin’ for those people back in Wutai?”
“Um…” She raises a finger to make a point, but actually isn’t sure how to answer. For starters, she was running out of ideas and tried a desperate move. Sonon was howling like he was dying, even. Can she safely replicate it with everyone else? If so, does she have to go around stabbing people? That seems so absurd and risky even by her standards. How would she know they’d not die?
“Or, is there a particular condition to what you’ve done here?” Red suggests.
She drops her hand and makes a dejected nod. “Honestly, I don’t know how I’d share it across a lot of people. If Sonon was in that much pain just from the treatment, I might put everyone in more risk than just leaving them be.”
“What was the treatment anyway?” Aerith curiously asks.
“I stabbed and pulsed him with light over and over, and somehow he didn’t die.”
She blinks. “Um, you mean ‘light’ as in holy magic?”
“Kinda?” Ruby shrugs. “Well, more like ‘light’ as in the concept? So it gets pretty hot…”
“…”
Again, a still silence fills the room as everyone keeps staring at her, now with a bit less admiration. As expected of Ruby. Only she could come up and get away with such a ridiculous solution.
“No wonder he was screaming,” Yuffie comments in a rather blasé way, “She was sterilizing him.”
“Hey, did you have to put it like that?” Sonon complains.
“Maybe we shouldn’t go back to Zhongyuan, then,” Tifa decides, “At least, until she figures out a better way.”
“Yeah, that’s probably for the best,” Aerith agrees.
“Hmm…” Barret then turns toward Cole, who has remained unresponsive throughout all this ruckus. “So how about him?”
Ruby shakes her head anxiously. “I don’t want to risk it. Who knows how the J-cells in him would react to my light? I might just make him explode or something.”
“Damn, alright. So do we just leave him?”
“For now. It should be okay. We’ll drop him back home later.”
He nods back slowly, but makes an uncomfortable frown as if there’s something that came to mind that he doesn’t want to bring up.
Setting all that aside, Cloud asks Ruby, “Hey, if you’re doing alright now, could you come out on deck? We have a lot to discuss.”
“Oh, sure. I got some questions myself, like…” She then turns toward the door with a sniff of her nose. “Why does it smell like breakfast out there?”
“We just had some,” Tifa answers.
“We saved some for you too!” Aerith reassures her.
Ruby smiles innocently and says rather nonchalantly, “Oh, good. Glad I don’t have to eat anyone after all.”
There’s another awkward silence as everyone now looks more disturbed than not.
“Oh my God,” Yuffie immediately concludes, “Was she actually trying to cook him?”
“W-what?” Sonon gasps, horrified. “Come on, Yuffie. Don’t even joke about that…”
“Go eat before you say anything worse,” Cloud grumbles, dragging Ruby along and out the door.
Everyone else is already on deck, and they’re all shocked to see both of their previously incapacitated are now up again. The Avalanche trio are seated together in the lounge before a well-set table with ample treats, while Red lies on the floor beside them. To avoid the crowd, Vincent has moved to a different wall just outside the seating area. Though he isn’t usually one to emote very much, he makes a gentle smile to himself behind the collar to his coat as he sees the recovered. And Cid remains on standby near the helm as usual. Even he, who refused to talk or even look at anyone since last night, lets out a haggard cough in relief. He must have burned through a whole pack of cigarettes while he was below on the outer deck last night. Cait Sith and Moogle have been waiting by the door when the rest come on up.
“Bless the Lady o’ Luck, ye did it again, lassie!” he cheers, hopping off of Moogle and into Ruby’s arms for a hug. Even Moogle gives her leg a grateful hug too.
“Ruby! And Sonon too!” Wedge gasps, waving a hand to them. “Good to see you guys!”
“She really does just solve the worst of our problems, doesn’t she?” Biggs comments, embarrassed that he worried his head all night yesterday.
Jessie passes him a proud smirk. “See, what’d I tell ya? She’s fine!”
He returns her a defiant snort. “Says the gal who was fretting over backup plans in case she didn’t.”
“Hey, it doesn’t hurt to have backup plans anyway…”
The rest take their respective places aboard too. Yuffie chooses to stick by the door just in case she needs to bolt and Sonon opts to stand by to make sure she doesn’t, while Aerith joins Tifa up front. Ruby sets Cait Sith back onto his moogle with a smile and a pat on the head and then swings herself over the railing into the lounge area. Her eyes glistening with delight, she dives into the delicious-looking food laid out on the table for her. Ham, chorizo, and scrambled eggs! Garlic and tomato on toast! Cinnamon churros and creamy sweet leche! And of course, a big, warm and welcoming bowl of shrimp paella! What in the Good-Eats is this Spanish-inspired breakfast!?
Even while she stuffs her face, she has to ask. “Where did you guys go to get this?”
“We stopped by a town named Valencia. It’s a port town to the southwest of Rocket Town. It just happened to be close by when we left Wutai,” Jessie explains.
“Valencia…” Ruby blinks. Isn’t that the name of an actual town in Spain? Whoa, talk about crossing universes. The food is as good as she’s heard too.
Wedge laughs. “It’s great, isn’t it? They were telling me to cut back and save some for you!”
She makes a very cute smile. “Mm-hm! Thanks.”
And while she’s busy munching and slurping away, Cloud stops by too to remind her to get back on track. “Ruby. Don’t you have a few things you want to tell us?”
“…Hmm?”
He frowns. “Don’t ‘hmm’ me. What happened to you since last night? After you totaled the castle, you passed out for a while and later even your Geostigma was gone.”
“Ah…” She slows down her chewing as she munches on a churro. “Yeah. Some weird things happened, huh?”
“That’s an understatement. You wanna tell us?”
She stops still and goes dead-pan mute. At this moment, all the thoughts from her self-reflection earlier come crashing down at once. She even starts to sink a little from the weight of everything. She’s so tired. She really doesn’t want to keep thinking about it. But she never reached an answer. To whom does her loyalty lie? Well, to her friends, obviously, but like she told herself before, that’s not a workable solution. Still, she can’t just leave them all in the dark forever. Feigning ignorance would also be too suspicious.
Choosing her words carefully, she swallows her last bite and finally answers solemnly, “…I’ll be honest, guys. I need help.”
That certainly catches everyone’s attention. Cloud folds his arms, giving her a firm scrutinizing. “Help with…?”
“With me and Rubia, for starters.”
He lowers his guard and his frown relaxes too. Good, she’s taking this seriously. Maybe they can all finally get up to speed.
She looks around to everyone else too. “I haven’t had a good time to talk about it, but now that we’re all here, I have to explain a few things first. Get settled.”
Everyone seems content in staying where they are, though Aerith now comes over to take a seat beside her. Ruby passes her a brief glance, but looks away again to avoid eye contact. If there’s anyone who could possibly help her face off against the planet’s bureaucrats, it may just be her dear cousin. But there’s also still too much that she hasn’t said to her or anyone else; all of that which she can’t effectively explain. She has no idea if she’s tailing down a serious lead or just following bread crumbs to eventually land herself on the witch’s dinner table. No, rather, in this metaphor, they’re all little kids who would be thrown into the pot together.
Minerva, but as a Halloween witch? Haha. That’s a cute image… until the “eating humans” part. Especially that they’re humans she knows. Nope, not so cute. Why is cannibalism on her mind so much right now? She just ate!
Aerith reaches over to hold her hand, offering that ever reassuring smile. It wasn’t until now that Ruby realizes that she’s been trembling a little. Though her nerves have yet to settle, just having someone’s firm yet gentle grip on her own does help ease her a bit. She takes a deep breath and lets it out and presses forward.
“After I spoke with Leviathan in spirit, I’ve learned quite a bit about the current state of the planet’s crisis. The ‘Void’ at its center that has been consuming the Lifestream from within is an empty mass of gray ether, like the stuff we’ve been seeing coming from ARC subjects. But it’s not just corrupted Lifestream we’re talking here; this kind of ether is a signature of Rubia’s will, which actually originated from that of her mother, Tiamat.”
“Tiamat…?” Aerith puts on a thinking face. “Didn’t we hear that name before?”
Cloud nods. “We found out a bit about her when we were looking around in the Cosmo Canyon archives.”
“Oh! Right.” She blinks again in surprise and turns back to Ruby. “Wait. Did you say, ‘mother’?”
“Rubia is the child of Tiamat and Bahamut. She naturally inherited power from both of them.” Ruby then folds her arms with a frown. “Unfortunately, Tiamat was erased from history for a good reason. She sought the destruction of the entire planet since ancient times, though I can’t say what was the reason. After she was defeated, she was sealed away somewhere, but before she disappeared, she laid a curse on her child to never be able to join the Great Flow.”
“What? Is that even possible?” she gasps. “I was taught that everything returns to the planet in due time. We’re all a part of it, after all.”
“Yeah! Ain’t that the whole basis behind planetology?” Barret retorts as well. “Everything on the planet came from Her and will eventually return to Her, as the saying goes. Never heard of any ‘exceptions’ to the rule.”
“Indeed.” Red then raises a point, “Unless the exception is Jenova.”
He snorts back. “Come on. You know what I mean…”
Ruby nods. “Yeah, but it turns out Rubia is another exception. It’s part of the reason why she never followed the Summons and became materia like the rest of them. And unfortunately, this difference was also why her fellow Summons treated her like an alien.”
“Like an alien?” Tifa asks, feeling apprehensive.
“Since Rubia was Tiamat’s offspring, the Summons, her father included, all feared the possibility that she would grow up to become like Tiamat. So they opted to always handle her with the highest level of scrutiny. She was monitored from a young age and rarely ever got to make friends with anyone who wasn’t also a fellow Summon or her father’s associates. But she likewise never knew what a real family would be like since her father was brutal in training her to be a warrior first and daughter second.”
“Oh…” She slowly recoils in sympathy.
“So, growing up, all her life she only knew how to fight for survival. Despite their efforts to steer her away from any similarity to Tiamat, they ironically caused her to turn against them in the end. It wasn’t just because of them either, of course. The last straw was when she realized even her human allies came to care for her because she was useful. Eventually, she simply stopped caring and vowed to destroy everyone and everything.”
Aerith frowns to that. “That’s so horrible! Did she really not have anyone she could trust?”
“There was one: the great frost wolf Fenrir. Throughout many of her journeys, Fenrir stood fast by her side. He even stayed with her as she rampaged and the two became fast partners in crime.”
She casts a disheartened glance aside. “Well, at least there was someone…”
Cloud strikes a thinking face too. “Hold on. Did the Summons not realize how they basically turned her against them? Why did they disappear if she was such a threat?”
“It was a natural part of the reincarnation cycle that led them to being Summons in the first place. They willingly submitted themselves to the will of the planet and retained their essences within materia so that the future generations of people could still have them around. Every one of them did, except for Rubia. She instead jumped through time to escape all that.”
He looks alarmed. “She jumped through time?”
“Multiple times, in fact. She did it once when she was young, but went back to the times of the Cetra. She eventually grew up to be a well-respected general among them too, so she knew how to integrate into human society in some ways.”
Red then recalls a moment from his youth. “That would explain how I came to meet her about 30 years ago.”
“Huh?” Now Yuffie pipes up, leaning over the railing, “You actually met her before?”
“Yes. Of course, at the time, I was merely a pup and had little inkling of the troubles that Rubia had endured prior to our encounter.”
“Sheesh, how old are you?”
“I’m 48. My species has quite the lifespan, after all.”
“Uh-huh…”
Ruby then follows up, “Unfortunately, at some point in ancient times, she got infected by Jenova, snapped, and went on her rampage. Eventually she came back to these times to submit herself to Shinra and kickstart Project Immortals.”
Cloud’s jaw drops. “What? She submitted herself?”
Now Vincent nods as he recalls, “It’s true. The reports were all there in the basement of Nibelheim Mansion. In fact, she was present when the team of scientists first came to discover Jenova in the ice.”
“Damn… What was she thinking?”
“Hard to say for sure, but it’s plausible that her mind was influenced by Jenova as well.”
“Can confirm,” Ruby adds, “Though I can’t help but wonder if she just let it happen or if she was really that helpless.”
“…”
“Poor Rubia. She must have come to our time to try to escape all the suffering,” Tifa adds with a sad frown.
“But submittin’ herself to Shinra of all things?” Barret frowns. “Even if she was desperate to find help, that’d be the worst possible thing she could do!”
“We know how horrible they are since we’ve lived through their nightmares, but to someone who time-traveled here from so long ago, I don’t think she wouldn’t have known.”
“Hmm…” He scratches his head. “Yeah, guess not. Shinra had us all fooled at first…”
But then Ruby points out, “The thing is, I don’t think it was Shinra who fooled her.”
“Huh?”
“She was already insane, whether from being infected by Jenova or by her own primal rage, and didn’t care what happened if she let her cells propagate in some weird experiments. Otherwise, she would have blown Shinra to kingdom come long ago.”
“Oh. Damn.” He makes a disappointed frown. “What coulda been…”
“Seems like it was coincidence that she came to work with Jenova, but they had aligned interests, so to speak.”
“Rubia…” Tifa sighs. “If only she had someone who could have been there for her, she wouldn’t have ended up like this.”
“Sure, but a tragic backstory doesn’t excuse her actions,” Cloud reminds her, remaining firm. “She had every opportunity to stop and yet she never bothered. Even now, wherever she is, she’s still dead-set on causing destruction.”
“Yeah, I know…”
“That’s why we have to reach out to her,” Aerith insists, “before it’s too late and she’s doomed to repeat history again.” She turns back to Ruby with a nod. “Like I said before, there’s still hope.”
But Ruby looks away and drifts off again into thought. As much as she wants to put her faith in those words, the fog of doubt from earlier has yet to pass. Rubia has declared her a “prisoner” in this world. No matter how she tries to paint it, that’s just not a good sign. It’s not going to be a meeting of people on equal grounds, but an encounter between a tiny child confronting the likes of Titan. For the longest time, she was supposed to be the strongest and most capable, having access to the code that writes reality itself, but the truth is much more humbling. But if she just admits it as is, it might stir up a little too much panic. For now, she doesn’t want to say any more than she needs.
Nevertheless, her face speaks volumes over her silence and Cloud easily picks up on it. “Ruby, what are you thinking?”
She snaps out of it. “Huh?”
He raises her a suspect frown. “There’s still something else you didn’t mention.”
“Um… What do you mean?”
But he’s not falling for it. He sternly reminds her, “Even after all that, you haven’t explained what happened to you since you blacked out.”
“Ah…” She shrugs. “I figured it was obvious. I’m still Rubia in essence and carry her will. Sorry to say, sometimes I’m just prone to snapping out of control.”
He shakes his head with an impatient frown. “I’m not talking about what happened with the castle. I’m talking about after. We left you in the sick bay for a while, left for just a bit, and when we got back, suddenly your Geostigma was gone. What’s with that?”
She flinches and shifts uncomfortably. As much as she likes to joke otherwise, Cloud actually is a pretty observant dude when he puts his mind to something. It seems like she wasn’t able to worm her way out of this, after all. She really doesn’t want to talk about Sephiroth; especially not what happened between them last night. She doesn’t want to admit that she may potentially have agreed to work with him and that’s why he “released” her.
But he keeps pressing. “Come on. It won’t help to keep it pent up.”
Aerith nods too, like looking serious. “Even if it’s bad, just tell us and we can decide for ourselves how bad it really is.”
“…” Ruby winces with a bitter frown and looks down in shame. She hates being put on the spot, since she often caves into peer pressure. It’s a bad habit since she was young. She meekly peeks up again and asks, “…Promise not to be mad?”
“Promise.”
“Okay…” She lets out a defeated sigh and confesses, “Lately, it feels like I’m not really in control of myself.”
“We got an idea already,” Cloud replies.
She shakes her head. “No, it’s worse than what you’ve seen. It’s freaky, like I’m constantly being manipulated. Puppeted, even. Sometimes I feel like I’m not entirely me.”
His eyes harden into focus. “Has Sephiroth been doing anything to you again?”
“It’s not him that’s the problem… Well, I mean, he is a problem, but not the only one. It’s Rubia that’s the bigger headache. I’m supposed to be her, but she’s not really me, and… Ugh. How am I supposed to put this?” She groans, rubbing her now sore temples.
“One thing at a time, Ruby,” Aerith gently suggests.
She makes another miserable sigh and mumbles just barely aloud, “I don’t get it. I thought I had an idea of what’s going on with her, but now I don’t. And I’m scared to meet her. I know I’m going to at some point, but I really don’t think it’s going to turn out well. At all. She can just, I dunno, tell me to shut up and I’d lose my voice entirely. Or heck, just take over me completely and I’d disappear for good…”
Though it’s hard to catch what she’s saying amid her panicked rant, Cloud does pick up on one thing and his eyes grow wide when he realizes it. “Wait. You mean she’s been manipulating you? Like an actual puppet?”
“Sometimes. Other times, no.”
“Has it just been her? What about Sephiroth?”
“They both have. I’m the doll that they’re fighting over.”
Now he’s a bit uneasy with that casually placed analogy. “…Oh.”
“You poor thing,” Aerith says, rubbing her hand soothingly.
“Whoa! Wait a sec.” Barret now jumps back in, scratching his head. “What’s all this about being puppeted or stuff? Like, aren’t you supposed to be Rubia? How can you be losing control to yourself?”
But Ruby goes silent again. She now realizes just how little that she has been telling everyone. Of course they don’t understand. And yet, to her surprise, it’s Cloud of all people who answers for her.
“…It’s complicated. They’re not exactly the same person, but they do share memories and past lives and all. But even then, Ruby is different from all the other versions of Rubia.”
“Uh, you mean she acts differently, or she’s just a different person?”
“I guess, both?”
By now, Barret’s starting to get annoyed. “Come on, man! What’s with the wishy-washy non-answers? Which is it? Is she or isn’t she?”
Cloud shakes his head. “Look, I’m just as confused about this as anyone. Even Ruby doesn’t know. That’s why we’re on this journey to try to learn as much as we can.”
“Hmm…” He frowns, clearly unsatisfied, but pulls back for now.
“But if there’s one thing that’s for sure, it’s that everyone – not just Shinra or Wutai, but even Sephiroth and the remaining spirits of the Summons – has a stake in finding Rubia. Who knows what Sephiroth has been up to, but he might be the closest one to knowing the bigger picture, aside from Rubia herself.”
Ruby casts aside a bitter glare into the corner. If only she had looked up the lore sooner before she was locked out, she might actually have had a leg in this race. Now she’s caught unawares, has basically been kicked out of the Debug Room, and is left to Sephiroth’s whims whenever she wants to learn anything that matters. What else is he going to make her do before the “time” he’s always talking about comes?
“Yeesh. I knew Ruby was popular, but being ‘wanted’ by everyone that matters makes it sound like we’re heading for a war against the whole world,” Jessie comments sympathetically.
“That’s not just being ‘wanted’, Jessie. It’s more like being hunted down like a natural resource,” Biggs mutters in reply.
“What do you think I’m talking about, you dork?” she jabs back, and he simply chooses not to reply.
Tifa stands her ground. “No matter what, we can’t let any of them have her. Ruby doesn’t belong to anyone. She’s her own person with her own life, and we won’t let anyone try to hurt her or take advantage of her.”
“Yeah!” Yuffie agrees, but adds an offhanded comment, “But honestly, if she can just heal Sonon and get rid of her own disease, who can even stop her?”
“Lass, please. Haven’t you been paying attention?” Cait Sith gently prods her, “Ruby just admitted that she’s been struggling to control herself. She’s not the invincible, flawless deity that people worship, ye know.”
She snaps back, “I know! But clearly she has all the power and tools to do something about it. I just figured she was having trouble remembering stuff and that’s why she’s disconnected with Rubia or something.”
Ruby now feels a bit of an angry twitch pop in her head. Oof, to think that she’d bow so low that even Yuffie of all people is now scolding her to “do something about it”. She replies to clarify, “While that is part of it, it’s not the main issue.”
“Then what is?”
“…” That being said, she isn’t sure how to explain it. Every time she’s come to the point where she’s about to admit that she’s just “borrowing” Rubia’s body, it worries her what sort of can she’d be opening up. She turns away again with another frustrated groan.
Sensing that she might have touched upon some deep issue, Yuffie likewise feels nervous and backs off. “Um… Anyway, I guess we’ll just have to keep searching, huh?”
“Yeah…”
But since Yuffie brought it up again, Tifa can’t help but feel concerned. Though she’s hesitant to ask, she obliges, “Ruby? If you don’t mind telling, how did you get rid of the Geostigma?”
For just a brief moment, Ruby’s eyes flicker upon being reminded of that same scene and they fade to dark. She slumps back in a way that makes her look like she’s gone limp, but Aerith helps hold her up and offers her a rub on the back. And by now, everyone else is starting to catch on that something definitely isn’t right with this picture, but it seems like no one wants to be the one to press too hard.
Tifa quickly retracts her question. “Um… Sorry. You don’t have to say it if you don’t want to.”
Without looking back up, Ruby mumbles in reply, “…I want to, but I can’t.”
“You can’t…?”
“…”
Cloud watches her intently, trying to decipher her body language, but with how reserved – scared, really – she’s become, he can’t quite make out anything in particular. He sighs to himself too. Just when he thought she would be ready to open up, she seems to have reclused herself even more than ever. One step forward, two steps back. Seems like they’re gonna need to talk again in private.
In any case, Aerith decides that they’ve all heard enough. She turns to Cloud and the rest of them, observing everyone’s grim expressions, and offers them a calm smile too. “Well, guys…” she begins. Once she has their attention, she continues, “I think this means we all have our work cut out for us.”
“Huh?”
She turns back to Cloud again. “We have to protect Ruby. She’s too precious to fall into the hands of evil.”
He blinks back in surprise, but then nods too. “Right.” He turns back to Ruby too. “Hey, thanks for coming out about this. We’ll do everything we can from here.” He then puts on a thinking face. “But we’ll have to take extra precautions too.”
Ruby nods along quietly, but she just knows where he’s going with that.
He turns back to everyone to announce, “Guys, listen up. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Ruby shouldn’t go anywhere on her own. We’ve run into a problem like this way too many times. It needs to stop.”
And there it is. Fortunately for her, the rest of the party seems less sure about that as a proposed solution.
“Easier said than done, man,” Barret scoffs, “What can you do to stop her from warping off?”
He fires back, “My point is that she keeps leaving herself vulnerable. If we don’t protect her, we can’t just assume she’ll be able to fend for herself.”
“Actually, Cloud, Barret does have a point,” Tifa gently argues, “It’s not like we can tie her down or anything. We’ll just have to be more careful and keep an eye out.”
He rubs his head awkwardly. “Yeah, but… can’t we at least have some way to keep track of her?”
“I can always speak with her through telepathy,” Aerith offers.
“I know, but that leaves the rest of us out. And what would happen if she isn’t awake or in control?”
“Hmm…”
Barret shakes his head. “By that logic, then ain’t nowhere that’s safe. Come on, Cloud. I know you’re worried – we all are – but you can’t be her guard dog 24/7 even if we tie you two up together.”
“Who said anything about tying us up!?” he snaps back, “I’m saying we need a better system than what we have now! It’s awkward having to call each other just so she can jump in. We need to be more proactive about this.”
Jessie shrugs. “I’d be happy to make her another PHS, but we’d need more of that special kind of materia I used, and the ol’ engineer at Cosmo Canyon only had so much. We’ll have to find our own and I have no idea where it’d be.”
“Then how about a tracking device? We can just tag it on her.”
She returns him a shocked face. “Cloud! You wouldn’t do that to a girl, would ya? That’s some serious invasion of privacy!”
“I don’t want to be tagged with any device, thank you,” Ruby agrees.
Jessie shakes her head. “And she doesn’t even give consent. Sorry, but that’s a no-go.”
He groans. “Then how else can we know where she’d be?”
Barret answers firmly, “Look, man. There’s concerned and then there’s paranoid. You gotta know when to chill out, but it doesn’t mean being lax either.”
Tifa nods too. “Right. In fact, we shouldn’t leave it to any one person. We’re all in this together, so we all share responsibility.”
Aerith suggests with a smile, “Why don’t we just take turns as chaperones? We’ve got a lot of people here already.”
She returns that smile with her own. “That’s the idea. And we’ll keep in touch as always.”
“Right.” Aerith then turns back to Cloud with an encouraging smile. “And I propose that Cloud start us off.”
“Huh?” he replies, genuinely caught off-guard.
She looks around the room. “What do you think, everyone?”
Barret shrugs. “Sure. He’s already acting like it.”
Tifa nods. “I agree. We can leave it to Cloud.”
Red idly flicks his tail in an amused manner. “That’s fine with me.”
Yuffie scoffs back, “Whatever. I’m not looking forward to my turn, though.”
Cait Sith nods, though he’s a bit nervous about it. “Fingers crossed that he does it well enough and it won’t have to come to the rest of us…”
“No objections,” Vincent simply states.
“I don’t give a shit as long as she doesn’t rampage aboard my ship,” Cid asserts in the way that he does.
Aerith claps her hands together and turns back to Cloud and Ruby. “Then, it’s settled!”
“Hey! Don’t just decide that on your own! Don’t I get a say?” he complains, turning to everyone, but his words fall on deaf ears.
She giggles. “And on that thought, we should go somewhere to celebrate!”
Such a sudden mood swing definitely catches everyone off-guard and they all exchange looks in collective confusion. Even Ruby seems to pick up again and pulls out from her slump with a curious look.
“Celebrate?” Tifa asks.
Aerith nods. “Of course! We should celebrate Ruby and Sonon’s recovery! However it happened, they still got better.”
“Oh!” She makes a pleasantly surprised smile. “Yeah. That is worth celebrating, huh?”
“Um…” Ruby begins, but she isn’t sure what to say.
Aerith turns back to her with that same cheer. “Don’t worry, Cuz! You’ve been so hard at work so far, so it’s about time we let loose a little.”
“…”
She also turns to the rest. “Don’t you guys think so?”
By now, everyone starts to catch onto what Aerith is doing. They stop staring and likewise play along to help relax the tense atmosphere a little. Cait Sith gives a wide smile and his moogle prances happily as if trying to get the jitters out of his system. Many of the guys simply look their own ways and try to play it cool. While Jessie goes back to playing on the PHS, Biggs stops Wedge from scarfing down any more of the leftovers and the two proceed to clean up the table. Jessie also helps set a few things aside, though Biggs makes a look hoping that she’d have done more. Yuffie still looks a little uncomfortable with the sudden mood swing, but Sonon gives her a pat on the shoulder, intending to help ease her, but that makes her jump and she slaps him out of reflex. And Cid has been grumpy for a while now so doesn’t look any different, but there’s no more that needs to be said.
Tifa nods with a more relaxed smile now. “Yeah. I think we could all use a vacation.”
“But where we goin’ now?” Barret asks, “Can’t go back to Wutai with how their government’s been acting up.”
Aerith turns back to Ruby. “What do you think, Cuz?”
Like a switch was flicked, Ruby snaps out of her depression and straightens back up to return to her usual demeanor. There’s only one place she would pick, and that’s regardless of Sephiroth’s plans for her. She immediately replies, “Gold Saucer.”
“Oh, nice pick.”
“Gold Saucer…?” Cloud asks, cringing, having been reminded of a certain bet that went awry a while back.
“Oh…” Tifa does too, but for a different reason. “Isn’t it really expensive to get tickets? We’re running a bit short on gil at the moment.”
“Oh, don’t worry about the gil. I can get it easy,” Ruby assures her with a dismissive hand wave. “I’ve been fancying another warp-around the world.”
Cloud replies rather bitterly, “More bounty hunting?”
She whips back to him with that cheeky grin and a thumbs-up. “You know it! And since you’re coming this time, you can be the decoy!”
“No.”
She snickers. “What’s wrong? I thought you liked fighting monsters.”
“Why do you need a decoy when you can eliminate or capture anything yourself?”
“I mean, it’d be boring to bring you along just so you’d do nothing.” She shrugs and then offers, “Or would you rather I strap you to my back and carry you around?”
“What? No! Why are YOU suggesting it too!? It wasn’t funny the first time!”
Clearly, some of the faces around them seem to think otherwise. That said, despite her own amused smile, Tifa is at least a little concerned for his sake. She follows up, “Say, Ruby. Is there any way you can rack up a lot of gil besides bounty hunting? It might be a hassle if you have to fly around a lot.”
“But I fly fast.”
“You’ll be carrying Cloud this time.”
“Aw, Tifa. He’s a veteran by now! He can handle it,” she insists, giving the guy a rather devious smirk, to which he gives back some serious stink-eye.
“Oh, yeah! I’ve been itchin’ to mention it!” Cait Sith then pipes up, to everyone’s surprise. “As it happens, we’re in luck! See, there’s this special poster campaign that the Happy Turtle in Wutai has set up. It’s a scavenger hunt and the goal is to find a total of six Happy Turtle flyers scattered all around the world. We just take a picture and bring them back to the bar. If we do that, we’ll be able to win the grand prize: a lump sum of 100,000 gil!”
“A hundred-thousand!?” Tifa gasps, her eyes lighting up.
Aerith claps her hands together with a wide smile. “That’s perfect! It’ll be more than enough even for all of us!”
Ruby blinks in surprise. Oh, yeah, that poster campaign. How did she forget? She’s done it every rerun of the game back in the day. But wasn’t the prize pool supposed to be a full pack of Sources and a Megalixir? Seems like she needs to chat with the bar owner.
“Oh, yeah. I heard about that too,” Yuffie admits. “But isn’t it pretty out of the way? Not like we’d know where they’d all be.”
“I know where,” Ruby smugly states as a fact.
The rest of them now turns to her in surprise, but then that surprise quickly fades as they realize they’ve grown used to this by now.
“Of course you’d know! You know a lot about some hella random details…” Yuffie grumbles.
“That sure is convenient,” Sonon agrees, but then has to ask, “Anyway, what was that about how we can’t go back to Wutai?”
“Bah. It’s just the government being super paranoid about Ruby since the castle blew up. They kicked us all out for some ‘to be determined’ time.”
“What?” He’s now alarmed. “Then what about us? Don’t we have to report back and all?”
“We’re outlaws now, Sonon. Keep up with the times.”
“…” He rubs his head awkwardly as he backs off and gives a sigh. “Guess there was no way around this, huh.” He then brings up, “But if Ruby’s an outlaw, she can’t just show up at the Happy Turtle, right? Will one of us have to stop by in her place?”
“Nah, don’t worry about that. I can jump in and out real quick,” Ruby answers, “The authorities won’t know a thing.”
“Will that really be okay?” Tifa asks Yuffie to double-check.
She shrugs. “If they don’t know she’s there, there’s no harm.”
“Alright, glad that’s settled!” Ruby swerves back to the guy beside her and declares, “Come, Cloud! Our sidequest adventure awaits!”
He grunts with disapproval, but understands there’s no stopping her now. That said, she catches him by surprise when she suddenly throws an arm around on his shoulder and nearly chokes him when she crushes his neck in her grasp. She leaves Aerith a V-sign and the two warp off in an instant. Once they’re gone, Aerith then relieves a contemplative sigh. Though they may be in for more trouble down the line, she thought it more important right now to cheer Ruby up. At least for a little while, they may just have a moment of peace.
~
They may have just started, but Cloud has regrets. Even when Ruby isn’t a flying hazard, she’s not much safer to be with on the ground. He wrenches her arm off his neck and throws her off with a cough or two, but now finds themselves in a totally different yet familiar location.
It seems their first stop is back in Midgar; the Sector 5 slums, to be precise. Following the incident where an entire town’s mechanical security force was wiped in but a few minutes, the officer who was in charge of Operation Sweeper was forced to step down when Rufus returned from his trip to Junon. Nevertheless, security detail has remained as it had been, though the machines that patrolled Sector 5 weren’t replaced and even the troops that were meant to be stationed there weren’t required to report in, so many opted to keep quiet and keep out. One would think that this imbalance of security presence would only encourage ne’er-do-wells to run rampant, but it seems that no one is particularly thinking about this side of town. Not to mention, by now news of the white dragon that terrorized Midgar has spread far and wide, not just in the slums, but topside too. The last thing anyone would want is to be caught up anywhere where it last rampaged.
“…Huh.” Cloud looks around, noting the lack of security. “Place is a lot quieter than expected.”
“Aw, boo. Figures Shinra wouldn’t come through,” Ruby comments, a little disappointed. “I was gonna practice my throws with their broken scraps.”
He raises an eyebrow. “What were you up to last time you were here?”
“Sweeper-sweeping. Aerith didn’t have a stopwatch, but she said I took less than five minutes to clean up the whole town.”
“The whole…? Wait. You mean all of Sector 5?”
“Yeah, of course. What else?”
He rolls his eyes, but moves back to the point. “Anyway, where exactly are we supposed to look? You said you know ‘where’, right?”
“Of course! Why else would I have come here if not…” but then her voice drifts off as she looks around and realizes something.
If she recalls correctly, the first of the posters is in one of the homes of the residents on the southeast end. But therein lies the problem: This isn’t the 90s era anymore where the background pictures are just static images and the entry points to buildings are all marked by red triangles. They’re in the modern era of gaming consoles where the environments are developed so extensively and to such intricate detail that they could mirror real-life; at least that which is visible to the naked eye. Here’s a realistic-looking residential district in which they could easily run around and become lost. In fact, she could even say that it feels so real that she could experience an existential crisis, as she had done.
Cloud has been watching her for a bit and has become more and more disconcerted as her face doesn’t inspire confidence. “…Ruby. You DO know where it is, right?”
She opens her mouth to answer, but nothing comes out at first. She then retraces her steps and resumes her thinking pose. “…A minor complication.”
“Oh, for the love of…” he groans, clenching a fist. “How many times do I have to say it? Don’t act before you’ve thought things through!”
“But it’s fine! The roads are clear and Shinra’s not gonna bother us. We can just roam around and ask.”
“I thought this would be a quick sidetrip…” he groans.
“It’ll be quick if we hurry!” And with that, Ruby runs off down a random street.
“Hey!” He gives chase.
Once again, it’s like a scene from the past where Ruby excitedly runs around without a care and chats with a lot of the random civilians around them. Unfortunately, no one seems to know about some random poster advertising a bar with a turtle or something as its mascot. If anything, there is a Happy Turtle off in Sector 7, but the time that they were holding a campaign has long passed, so no one thought to keep up any of their flyers.
After a fruitless search for a while, Ruby has gone from a bundle of child-like energy to being drained of her lifespan. She slowly trudges along the dirt road with Cloud still following her as his usual self, and finally she stops in her tracks. Now that she looks at where they’ve come, she realizes she actually does recognize this part of town. Is it sheer coincidence or just plain luck? There’s the old clinic where Avalanche HQ had previously been stationed. They’re probably gone by now, but maybe she actually has a reason to stop by there again.
“Huh, a place I recognize. Let’s go there.”
Cloud glares back, already impatient with her. “Are you just going to run into every building? We need a plan.”
“This is the plan!”
“Winging it isn’t a plan!”
Once again, she races off and he has to pursue. She drops on by the clinic and to her surprise, it seems someone else has stopped by before them.
“Hey, Doc! Remember m…” she calls, but drifts off.
It turns out that a certain silver-haired boy in a lab coat has shown up out of nowhere. “Oh!”
“Chadley!?” she shrieks and recoils, bumping into Cloud, who catches her before she topples them both.
“Ah, Ruby and Cloud! What a coincidence running into you two here.”
“Chadley? What are you doing here?” Cloud asks while Ruby huddles in the corner like she’s having a heart attack.
“Collecting data for the purposes of continuing my research, of course! Ever since I’ve looked into Ruby’s history with Midgar, it’s lead me down a fascinating rabbit hole.”
“Uh-huh. But why come here?”
“Oh, I was informed of the situation that transpired here in this town concerning the disappearance of security detail. It seems the restrictions between inter-sector travel during Operation Sweeper have been lifted, so I’ve been able to roam around freely again. I’ve been going around asking the residents of what they’ve witnessed.” He then turns to Ruby with a curious look. “It seems she and a few others came by this clinic to help someone who had fallen into some sort of coma.”
Cloud blinks. “A coma?” He turns to Ruby too, who has recollected herself by now. “Is he talking about Sonon?”
She nods. “It was shortly after I found him and Yuffie and saved them from some pieces of work down in Midgar’s underground.”
“Oh, so this is where you went.”
Chadley nods along and is taking notes on his tablet. He mumbles to himself, “I see. They even entered Deepground…”
“It so happens that we ran into Avalanche HQ around here too.” She then asks the receptionist at the counter, “By the way, have you or the doctor seen them lately?”
The middle-aged woman shakes her head. “Sorry, but no. After the news around the highway incident a while back, they’ve headed off to regroup with their allies. I didn’t mean to overhear, but I think one of them mentioned Sector 4? I couldn’t say where exactly, though.”
Ruby nods. “I heard as much.” She also turns back to Cloud. “Well, whatever they’re up to, we’ll just have to leave them to it. They’ll be able to handle things around here while we’re out in the world.”
“Of course.” He then folds his arms. “So, where’s the flyer that we were looking for?”
“…” She swerves away with an upset pout. “I’m working on it.”
“You have no plan, do you?”
Now Chadley’s interest is piqued. “Pardon? What sort of flyer are you looking for?”
Ruby answers, “We’re currently on the hunt for some Happy Turtle promos, and I swear there was one somewhere on this side of town…”
“Happy Turtle? Ah, I believe that’s the name of a Wutaian bar and restaurant, though it was located in Sector 7.”
“I heard, but we’re actually working on a different campaign. This one is based in the original bar in Wutai, and they have their flyers all over the world. It’s a scavenger hunt that can net us a pretty penny if we collect them all.”
“Oh, interesting. Well, just to confirm…” Chadley draws up something on his tablet for a photo and he shows it to them. “Is this what you’re looking for?”
It seems he had taken a picture of a boy in his home elsewhere in the vicinity. Though he was primarily focused on gathering intel regarding Ruby, he happened to run into a certain boy who had saved up his money to buy a fairly expensive item, a Turbo Ether. The boy actually cited the reason he wanted it was so he could “fight” in case he ever ran into the fabled white dragon terror, but in actuality, he was a fanboy who wanted to meet her. And since Chadley was looking for her too, the boy insisted that he take a picture of him to show her. And it so happens in the corner of the photo, there is indeed a campaign poster labeled “The Happy Turtle flyer no. 1”.
Ruby squeals with excitement and jumps on Chadley for a glomp. “Chadley, you madlad! You’re my favorite person in the whole world right now! Thank you!!”
The boy in the lab coat looks a little taken aback and flustered to suddenly be hugged. “O-oh. My, that’s some high praise… You’re welcome. I’m glad to be of help.”
Cloud simply stares at them in disbelief. How in the hell did this work out? Setting aside her overpowered abilities, Ruby even has the best-worst luck on the planet.
She lets the boy go and whips out her phone to take a photo, while he remains flustered as if trying to process what just happened. She turns back to Cloud with a triumphant grin. “Hey, looks like it was a quick trip after all. You ready to go?”
“I was gonna say ‘don’t get used to it’, but I swear it keeps happening with you. Are you actually doing something to affect your luck?”
“Ha. If it were that easy, I wouldn’t have asked you guys for help.”
“Hmph.” He turns back to Chadley with a casual wave of his hand. “Anyway, thanks for that, but we gotta go.”
“Oh, you’re leaving already? May I ask where you’ll be heading next?”
Ruby gives a proud smirk. “We’re on a scavenger hunt, so we got a few more places to go first, but after we’re done with all that, we’ll be stopping by Gold Saucer later. Maybe you could drop by for a visit too?”
Cloud asks, confused, “You’re inviting him too? For what?”
“To hang out, of course.”
He’s not amused to hear that. “Why do you keep doing this?”
“I just want good company!”
He honestly looks irked by that. “Hmph. I didn’t ask to be stuck with you either.”
She laughs. “You’re also good company, Cloud. Some of the best, even.”
“Coulda fooled me…”
Chadley smiles back and nods. “Oh, thank you for the invitation! Though I do have a bit more work to do before I can leave, I’ll be happy to take you up on that offer. Will you be staying at the Gold Saucer for long?”
“Probably the rest of the day, really,” Ruby answers.
Cloud raises an eyebrow. “The whole day? Don’t we have some actual work to do?”
“Gold Saucer was the next destination on my journey anyway.” She looks off again with a certain solemnity to her face. “The time Rubia and I meet is coming soon…”
“Huh?”
Yet, she turns back to him with a calm smile. “Never mind all that. We got what we’re looking for now, so let’s go.”
“…”
She turns back to Chadley with a handwave too. “Thanks again, Chadley! Hope to see you soon!”
The boy smiles back. “No problem at all! I wish you two safe travels and happy hunting. May we meet again!”
Before Cloud can stop her, Ruby slings her arm around his shoulder again and he flinches. Thankfully, she doesn’t choke him this time and leaves it hanging loose around his neck. And with that familiar white glow, they vanish without a trace.
Fortunately for Cloud, the rest of the poster hunt goes much more smoothly, as Ruby seems to get right back on track. Unfortunately for him, their next stop is dead in the middle of Shinra HQ, specifically on the first floor where lots of people would be. Their flash of light gets the attention of everyone and it immediately stirs up panic as the two are quite infamous by now.
“W-what was that?”
“Hey, wait! Aren’t those guys…?”
“Avalanche!?”
And with that, the poor frantic employees start to scramble to flee for their lives or for cover if they aren’t close to the exit. Someone sounds the alarm and security quickly swarms the place. However, as soon as the troops show up to see who it is, they too panic.
“Intruders!? W-wait! Isn’t that…!?”
“It’s the dragon girl!”
“Shit! I didn’t sign up for this!”
“Hey!! Get back here, you cowards!” their commanding officer yells as several of his men depart. “Ugh! We’ll deal with those deserters later!” He turns back to the remaining troops, who are likewise rethinking their life choices. “Men! Surround and detain them! Don’t let them get away!”
“Hey! Why did we…” Cloud turns to his partner to ask, but then realizes she’s already gone and running off for the back. “Ruby!!”
“There’s only one man here! Get him!”
“Dammit…”
And just like that, Cloud suddenly finds himself swarmed. But he’s not feeling up to deal with these low-level grunts right now and instead bolts it after her. As it happens, there happens to be a bulletin board all the way in the back of the floor, and among the notices is a certain bar’s flyer.
“Flyer no. 2, get!” she muses happily to herself as she takes a photo.
“Ruby!” Cloud yells in the background, trying to shake off a number of troops on his heels. “What the hell! Get us outta here!”
“Yeah, yeah, we’re gone.”
With a wave of her hand, she sends a gust of wind that repels the rest of the troops off his case. And with a tap of her hand on his shoulder, they vanish again, leaving the Shinra troops in total disarray. Well, that was a wild encounter.
“…Um, sir?” one of the troops asks his commander.
“What?”
“Maybe we shouldn’t report this…?”
“Are you kidding, soldier!?” the commander barks back.
“Y-yipes! Sorry, sir! Of course we’ll report-”
“Don’t you dare!” he cuts him off, “We don’t need to tell anyone anything! They were only here for a few minutes at most!”
“Oh…”
“Now get back to your posts before you all become embarrassments!”
“Yes, sir!”
And with that, the troops all salute their commanding officer and scatter. The officer himself lets off a sigh turns toward the bulletin board as if checking to see why in the world someone would take a photo of it, and decides it’s not in his payroll to investigate that. He hurries off before he becomes an embarrassment too, and needless to say, some of the employees that didn’t escape look on with abject disappointment but also relief that the threat seems to be gone.
Leaving all that behind, the next stop is honestly to Cloud’s relief: Cosmo Canyon. They’re back out of enemy territory and in a friendly one. As soon as they appear from the burst of light, it catches the attention of the locals.
“Oh!”
“Is that Ruby?”
“And Cloud! They’re back!”
“Is it just them? What are they doing here?”
“Ruby!” some of the kids cry out, running over.
However, Ruby instead bolts off for the inn behind everyone and leaves the kids in the dust. Cloud watches her go in disappointment, shakes his head when the kids instead turn to him, and he hurries off after her. And as soon as he enters the inn, though, Ruby nearly runs into him on the way out. She deftly avoids crashing by pivoting on a foot, and then she’s off running again. He watches her go, bewildered and speechless. Where is she going in such a rush?
The barkeeper of Shildra Inn then laughs when he sees Cloud struggling to comprehend her. “Welcome back, friends. Seems like she’s quite excited today.”
He whips back around to him with a sigh. “She’s too excited. We’re just going around on a scavenger hunt for some posters.”
“Ah, is that so?” He looks to the wall beside him. “I noticed she was taking a picture of this flyer. I think the Tiger Lily also has one, so that might be where she’s gone.”
“Oh.” He blinks. “Wait. Do you know about this campaign that’s happening?”
“Oh, yeah. It’s actually a long-running tradition at the Happy Turtle, I hear. The campaign isn’t always a scavenger hunt, by the way, but it usually has to do something with traveling around the world. And every time, without fail, it comes with a huge reward. It’s usually different each time, but it’s always something really valuable.” He strokes his chin as he thinks it over. “Sometimes, I wonder if we could try setting up something of our own to help draw in more visitors, but I don’t really want to step on their toes by putting out a copycat campaign.”
“Oh. Do you guys also put up flyers elsewhere around the world?”
He shakes his head. “No, not usually. We Cosmotites tend to keep to ourselves, after all. But then again, it might not be a bad idea if we’re able to get some of our ads posted to a really public place, like…” He pauses for a moment before following up with, “the Gold Saucer, for example.”
“Huh?” Cloud’s a bit startled to hear it come up again from even this guy.
“Yeah. I think that’d be a great place to promote!” He then suggests, “Say, Cloud, would you mind doing me a quick favor?”
“What?”
He then digs into a drawer behind the counter and fetches several sheets of paper and raises it into view toward him. “If you guys happen to pass by there, could you help us put up some of these? It’d do a lot for us.”
Cloud blinks. “Uh… You want us to pass out flyers for you?”
“Hm? Is it too much hassle? If you don’t have time now, that’s alright. But I hope you’ll come by again when you do.”
He rubs his head, but then shrugs. “Ah… fine. We were planning to stop by there later anyway.” He steps up to accept the papers.
“Oh, really? Thanks! Ah, right, almost forgot. Here’s some tape too.” He fetches that and hands it over. “Make sure you pick some really obvious places to put them up, alright?”
“Yeah, I got it.”
“Okay! I’ll leave it to you guys! Have a safe trip and have fun with the rest of the hunt!”
“Hmm…” He nods back and stuffs the tape dispenser into a pocket.
By now, Ruby has returned to the inn and barges through the door. “Cloud! You’re still here?”
“Oh, back again? You got the other flyer too?” he asks without missing a beat.
“Yep. And while you were stalling around here, I also broke a deal with the materia shopkeep. He said he’d reserve an some materia for us when we can bring him 22000 gil.”
“Huh? Why so expensive?”
“Materia is expensive, bub. MP Plus and HP Plus are just useful in general, and putting Mystify and Added Effect on a weapon is gonna a fun combo to smack enemies silly!”
“…” He then suggests, unimpressed, “Did you not even try to haggle the price?”
“Oh, shut up. I don’t mind supporting Cosmo Canyon’s economy.”
“Right… Anyway, how many flyers do we have now?”
She whips out her phone and reviews her collection so far. “Four so far. The last two will be at the Ghost Hotel of Gold Saucer and a secret basement of a home on the southern side of Wutai’s capital…” Now that she notices the papers in his hand, she slips the phone away. “Say, what are you doing with those?”
“Oh. The bar owner asked us to help him put up some flyers for Shildra Inn when we stop by the Saucer, so…”
She gives him an indignant gasp. “Cloud!”
“What?”
“Seriously? When I go around picking up sidequests, you tell me it’s a waste of time, but when you do it, it’s just business as usual, huh!? You hypocrite!”
“H-hey! It’s not like I go around looking for them like you do!”
“Doesn’t matter! You still accepted it! I mean, what else are you going to do with those papers!?”
He grumbles to himself and heads for the door. “We don’t need to talk about this. Let’s just go.”
She follows him out with an unimpressed glare, but still waves a hand goodbye to the bartender as they step out. And this time, before any other local can catch them to chat, she warps them away by giving Cloud a good slap on his back.
He’s suddenly thrown ahead and nearly loses his footing, but when does catch himself, he finds that they’ve jumped to a dark and eerily lit road that runs through a graveyard. While he looks around a little lost, Ruby casually keeps walking along toward the impressive, looming Transylvanian-style hotel up ahead.
“What the? Where are we now?”
“The Ghost Square of Gold Saucer. That’s the hotel there. Since we’re only here for a quick visit, I skipped the line.”
He takes a moment to let that sink in. “…Thinking about it, the whole reason we’re gathering these flyers is so we can get the money to come here.”
“Yeah. Legally.”
“And when have you been one to care about ‘legal entry’?”
“Shush. Anyway, I’m good friends with the owner, so even if we are found out, I can easily get myself off the hook.”
“You mean us, not just yourself, right?”
“Hmm…” She shrugs, but doesn’t answer and instead keeps walking.
As they proceed up to the front door, though, the ghosts that float above their heads have been keeping a sharp eye out – not one of flesh, but of metal. Cameras have logged their illegal entry and the frankly stunned and confused security guards on watch shortly report the matter to the upper echelon to ask for how they should deal with these two. In the meantime, they try to mobilize any guards in the vicinity to move in and not engage, but keep up closer surveillance.
Meanwhile, Ruby and Cloud step inside the hotel lobby to be met with a surprisingly empty room at first, but then they hear some creepy-sounding laughter echo. The creepy masks and paintings scattered about on the walls seem to stare back, and there are the sudden flashes in and out of ghosts loitering about, having a chat at the tables and one pair even enjoying a chess match. There isn’t even anyone at the receptionist desk, at least until someone approaches it. And a rather odd-looking flower pot sits in the back by the foot of the stairs, pretending to just be an innocent flower. To their right near the entrance, there also happens to be a bulletin board, mainly filled with ads for fhe Saucer's own attractions, but there is a bit of room left open.
“…This is some kind of hotel, alright,” Cloud comments, idly glancing around. Taking his chance, he approaches the board and sticks up the flyer in hand.
But while Ruby would normally love to poke around everywhere and wouldn’t even mind meeting a jumpscare or two, she instead diverts her eyes directly upon the flyer she seeks on the wall besides the dark tunnel that leads to the souvenir shop inside. She gleefully snaps up a photo and whips around, about to return to Cloud’s side.
“Got it. Now let’s get outta here before… Whoa!”
However, in her haste, she happens to not notice a tripwire that had conveniently been placed just behind her. It’s just just any tripwire either; sticky like spider silk, she gets wrapped up and yoinked into the air where a giant black spider – no, wait, it’s definitely yokai with that ugly human face – greets her from the shadows.
“Hey!” he calls out and hurries over. “You okay? What happened?”
“Welcome to the Ghost Hotel, Miss Ruby. We hope you’ll enjoy your stay…” the tsuchigumo hisses as it gets uncomfortably close to her face.
“Huh? You know me?”
“Hehehe… News of your exploits around Midgar have made it across the world, and our owner has a wonderful surprise for you. Would you like to see him now? He’s waiting for you off at the Battle Square.”
“Ah, about that… can we hold? My pal and I are in the middle of something else.”
“Fufufu… Well, perhaps. If you can break out of my web without resorting to magic, I may reconsider-”
As soon as he mentions it, though, she flexes her dragon muscles and bursts right out of his silky prison, startling him into silence. She lets herself fall and just as she’s about to land on Cloud, he instinctively sidesteps and lets her drop to the floor. She returns him a betrayed glare, but he doesn’t look like he feels guilty about it.
Still, he offers a hand to help her up. “Coulda nailed that landing better.”
“Nail this,” she retorts with a growl.
“Huh?”
As soon as she reaches up to take his hand, she whisks them both away to another place entirely. All of a sudden, they’ve arrived in some Wutaian-looking room where there are a number of polearms and other ninja weapons stored here. There’s even a massive purple circle at the center of the mat that shows the kanji for “shinobi”. And before he can even react, Ruby chucks him straight into the center.
“Ugh…” He gets back up, rubbing his sore behind. “Come on. Can’t you take a joke?”
But she doesn’t answer him. Instead, she’s zipped on over to a set of levers in the back of the room and casually slams down on the left one – though it doesn’t really matter which one she hits. Suddenly, a giant metal cage drops from the ceiling and catches Cloud in its grasp.
“Hey!” he screams. “What are you doing!?”
“Hmm… so this is how it feels to be Yuffie,” Ruby muses to herself with a proud smirk. “Maybe I can ditch him here while I go on a world trip hunting for treasures too…”
He throws himself at the bars, but they’re pretty sturdy even for someone like him. “Ruby, you little shit! Stop messing around! Let me out!”
She swings back around with a playful smirk. “Hey, Cloud, how’s about another bet?”
He stares back in disbelief. “What?”
“If I can get the reward before you break out of here, we can pretend like nothing happened and get back to the ship as usual.”
He scowls. “And what makes you think I’m letting you out of my sight for even a second?”
And then, her smile fades a bit. “If I don’t, then you get to question me about Sephiroth and my Geostigma.”
“!” That definitely catches him by surprise. He stares at her, trying his best to read her, but it’s become even harder to do so lately. “…Really?” He also looks disappointed. “You’re making this into a ‘bet’ between us?”
“It’s the only way I can think of that would lighten the mood so I don’t feel my soul being crushed from admitting to something I’ll regret.”
His eyes open wide and all the anger from earlier fizzles out. Now he realizes that underneath all that playful banter and cheeky grinning, she’s still very stressed from their discussion earlier. She’s somehow gotten better at hiding her true feelings. He didn’t suspect a thing for a while there.
Nonetheless, she shoves aside those feelings of guilt behind another forced smile. “Chill for a bit, Cloud! I’ll be right back!” And she steps around to head for the door.
“Hey, wait!” he calls after her.
“What?” She looks back.
He gives her an rather determined face, as if he’s accepted the challenge. “You know you’re gonna have to tell everyone else too, regardless of how this bet turns out, right?”
“…” She nods slowly. “I know.”
She slips out the door into the hallway outside. She also makes sure to first snap up a photo of the last flyer posted on the wall to its right, and smiles with satisfaction at her completed collection. And then, she warps away in another flash for the Happy Turtle.
Meanwhile, Cloud turns toward the back and observes the two levers. Which of them resets the trap? And how is he gonna reach? They’re a little too far even if he uses his sword… unless he throws it. The space between the bars seems to be just wide enough for the thin of his sword to slip between them. He draws the Murasame into hand, takes a step back, and lifts it over his shoulder, preparing to aim. With his trajectory set, he lets loose the blade like a javelin. It flies right for the left lever, slides just between the two rods of the handlebar so that its hilt catches it instead, and knocks it back, planting itself firmly into the wall. And to his relief, the cage lifts off around him. He smirks proudly to himself as he goes to retrieve the blade.
That’s two for two. Ruby clearly isn’t the best at judging when it comes to making bets – at least with him. She ought to be back soon, though, so he can just wait for her here. The less time they spend wandering the streets of Wutai as outlaws, the better.
A few minutes later, Ruby returns with a giddy smile on her face and what seems to be a single card in hand. She hurries into the room again, waving it in the air.
“Hey, Cloud! I got…” She cuts herself off when she finds him standing by waiting for her, now out of the cage. She stares at him, then at the wall behind her, noting the crack in the wall just behind the lever, and back to him. “How…?”
“I have my ways.” He folds his arms. “Anyway, you got some explaining to do.”
“Um…” She glances around nervously and holds up the card. “So, I chatted with the bar owner about how we’d carry the money and he was happy to offer me the lump sum on this debit card. Basically, the 100,000 gil is on the house, courtesy of the Happy Turtle.”
“Cool. Now how about what you said you'd tell if I got out first?”
“…” She slips the card away with a sigh. “You got me. I’ll spill.”
Chapter 51: Hold Your Head Up
Notes:
Outdated A/N
1/24/24 edit: Next chapter still in the works. I expect it should be ready by Friday. What a wild emotional ride these ones have been lately.
1/26/24 edit: To those who have been regularly checking back, thank you. Lately my sleep schedule is all over the place and it's actually affecting my health. I'm still working out the next chapter, which has been seeing multiple drafts so far, and I need to settle on which one I want to keep.
This is what happens when you let your plot bunnies run free and mutiply, hot damn.
Now expecting to postpone to next week. We'll see by Tuesday or Wednesday.
5/1/25 edit: Revised a bit in Ruby's discussion about Geostigma, as I just remembered she mentioned it before, but it was way back in the beginning when Cloud didn't believe much from her. His suspicions had been building for a while, though.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Despite seemingly being back to her usual bubbly self, Ruby has been putting on a façade and she can no longer hide now that Cloud has cornered her with her own words. It’s an odd coincidence that they would be back in Wutai again, just the two of them, hidden away in a secret training room for ninjas. It’s a little more reassuring than not being in a place where no one will come in to bother them, but she knows she can’t dodge behind excuses anymore.
She begins, “I just want to say, I had no intention of keeping this a secret from all of you. I just needed to find the right time.”
“You got it now. I’m listening.”
“Right. Um…” She nervously clears her throat and fidgets with her fingers as she takes a bit to organize her thoughts. Once she’s ready, she looks up again and explains, “So, about the Geostigma… I wasn’t feigning it or anything. I really had no idea what I could do about it.”
“I didn’t think you were. Hard to fake scars that deep.”
“Yeah… So I might’ve mentioned it before, but I dunno if you still remember. The symptoms are actually the body’s reaction to being infected by Jenova cells and they’re magnified through strong negative emotions.”
Now reminded, Cloud thinks back to their first encounter. “Oh, right. I think you did. Sephiroth can control it, can’t he?”
She nods meekly. “Yep. He’s been propagating her will through the corrupted Lifestream and can even choose who to infect and how bad it gets.”
He grimaces to the thought. So anyone with Jenova cells would be at risk, even himself. It’s a wonder how it didn’t spread to him yet even with Ruby being so handsy with him. Casting those horrific potentials aside, though, he relaxes his arms and asks, “Then, was he the one who got rid of yours?”
“Well, he removed all the signs, but I don’t think I’m completely cured either. It could break out again whenever he wants.”
“But why would he do that? Even now?”
She shakes her head and droops, going back to fidgeting. “I don’t know. Seems like he figured something out, though.”
“What was it?”
“Something about Rubia and me.” She hesitates for a bit over whether to proceed or not, but decides to press forward. “I had another vision, a short one, of her talking to me sometime in the past, but I don’t remember when or where it happened. She told me this world was my ‘prison’ and I would never be allowed to leave.”
He blinks a few times, but what she said doesn’t seem to make sense. “Your prison? The whole world…?”
She shakes her head. “I have no idea. I just remember hearing her say it.” She then droops again and returns to fidgeting. “And when I told Sephiroth, that was when he figured it out and became… unhinged, even more than usual.” She shudders as she finishes that sentence.
“Unhinged?”
“I didn’t know it was possible, but he snapped, again! He started laughing like mad and thanked me for whatever it was. There was something in his eyes that just creeped me out… I dunno what, but he was definitely way too excited. He straight up pounced on me.”
It’s his turn to flinch. “What? You okay?”
“Yeah… more or less.” As if her reflexes were giving a demonstration, she tenses up and grasps her hands tightly. “He hugged me tight, like a vicegrip. I swear he was ready to kill or do something terrible or worse, but then he let me go.”
He regrets asking and hangs his head. “…Sorry.”
She lets out a sigh to try to calm her nerves. “I didn’t know what was going on, so I just let it happen.” She also shakes her head. “I still don’t know what happened, really. I guess I should be grateful he didn’t try anything else, but…”
“No, I get it. That’s scary as hell.” He puts his hands to his hips as he looks off, diving in further thought. “So, he realized something about Rubia and then released you from your Geostigma. But I don’t get how you being in a ‘prison’ has anything to do with him?”
“…” She enters back into contemplation as well.
“Unless he’s the one imprisoning you, but no, you said it was Rubia? Hmm…”
Now that she recalls further, all the way back to the moment they first met, the final nodes of data sync up. Her eyes grow wide and fearful when she realizes the horrid truth. “…He always knew I was trapped in one.”
“Huh?” Her admission snaps him back to attention.
“And now he wants to break me out of it?” The more she thinks about it, the more she grows incredulous and defensive. “But how? Why?”
He raises a questioning hand. “Whoa. What do you mean, ‘break you out’? From this world?”
But rather than answer, she snaps and proceeds to rant, “What can he possibly do!? I came in as her in the first place and he knows it! He was there when I first loaded into existence! Or has he somehow figured out how to reprogram me!? To hell with that! He doesn’t even have the access!”
“Um…”
She lets off a few angry huffs as she tries to calm down. “No, no, let’s not jump to conclusions. Whatever’s going on, at least I know Rubia’s the one with all the keys. She never returned to the Lifestream, so who knows where she’s gone. But she has to be somewhere, still existing in some form…”
“…” He slowly lowers his raised hand. She’s just gone off on some tangent in her rage and lost him along the way.
“But, argh! That bastard. Why is he so smug? It’s like he knows. He might even know how to bring her back! He’d never tell me anything, though…”
“…”
By now, she’s pacing back and forth impatiently. “I’ve had to figure out so much on my own since he never tells me shit! He’s always leading me around because I don’t know and now I don’t even have a way to know except through him. How the hell did I let things come to this!?” She whines in frustration, throwing some angry fists in the air, but then stops mid-punch, as another horrifying realization hits her. “…But what if it was just according to his plans anyway?” She bears her teeth and hisses. “Reeargh! I hate that he always makes me second-guess myself! I hate him! I hate him so much!”
“…”
She shakes her fists in the air, as if cursing the heavens, and then makes a defeated whimper as she clasps her head. “I really do hate him… so why do I let him mess with me like this? Why do I still like him at all? Just ’cause he has his softer moments too…?” She drifts off as she also recalls the various times he went out of character and treated her to some delicious desserts. She quietly seethes, “Damn you. I’m not that easy to buy off…”
Cloud blinks, again taken aback and bewildered at where her rant has gone, and gives her a worried frown. Even now, she’s still struggling with that? It’s obvious to everyone including her that it’s not gonna work out between them. Just what kind of hold does Sephiroth have over her!?
“I know he just does that to torture me… I have to believe it, dammit. He can’t keep getting away with this… or anything else, but somehow he always just…” She grasps tighter and keeps whimpering as the migraine sets in. “How did he even escape the Terra Null? He should have been swallowed up like everything else. I don’t get it. Nothing about him makes sense. What even is he…?”
By now, Cloud has heard enough. “Ruby,” he calls to her.
“Speaking of the Terra Null, I thought that would be where Rubia was, but now I’m not so sure anymore. Would it be possible to hide in it? That would involve being able to keep her form somehow, for centuries, even…”
“Hey.”
“But on the other hand, if she were somewhere in the Lifestream, I’m sure I – and Aerith – would have picked up on her already. So, where could she be hiding?”
Well, now that she’s brought it up, he puts on his own thinking face. That is a good question.
“Where else could she…?” Her voice then drifts off as she hits upon another abrupt revelation, and she stares off into space in an upset daze.
“Hm? Did you figure something out?”
“Oh, for the love of Holy, it was so damn obvious.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Okay. So where is she?”
Finally, she stops ignoring him and faces him, slapping a firm hand over her heart. “Right here.”
“…” He takes a moment to actually catch onto what she means, and then blinks in surprise and cringes. “Wait. You mean she’s inside you?”
She then sets her hand back on her forehead to rub away the migraine. “Well, more like we’re two souls that happen to host the same body.” She adds with a loathing frown, “But she gets to override me at any time.”
“Is that even possible? For a single body to hold two souls?”
“I don’t know… I don’t know anything!” Her hand clenches so tightly on her head as if she’s afraid it might burst. “This always happens! Just when I think I’ve gotten into the swing of life, it throws a wrench in my reality and suddenly I don’t know where, who, what the hell I am! %&#$!”
“…”
She lets go and buries her face in her hands. “I can’t trust myself… I can’t trust my memories, I can’t trust my intentions, and I definitely can’t trust my own theories! Why do I even bother, huh? I’m so stupid, so useless, so… ugh!”
He’s getting an uncomfortable sense of déjà vu now.
“From the very beginning, I’ve been losing more and more of what I thought was me. I never had any idea of what the hell is going on, how I got to be in that apartment, how I even became this old…” She drops to her knees and then to the floor as she begins to tremble. “And now I don’t even know if I’m real. I might just be Rubia’s shadow or alternate persona or whatever. I’m only ‘me’ when she lets me be me.”
“…”
“And the worst thing is, Sephiroth knows this. He’s just using me as a puppet too. I’m just a toy, to be hit and thrown around by some angry toddlers that happen to be too powerful for anyone’s good.”
Cloud gives a frustrated groan of his own and drops down to offer her a hand. “Come on. Don’t go down that route again. We’ve been over this.”
She doesn’t take his hand and instead starts to cry. “This sucks… When will I be free…?” she blubbers between gasps. “I wanna go home…”
“D-don’t cry either.”
He tries to pull her up anyway, but she pulls away again and curls up into a fetal position. She’s turtled up again; there’s no forcing her to do anything. With a relenting sigh, he leaves her be and sits down with her. Looks like he’s gonna have to wait it out. But he can’t just watch her go down this depressive spiral again.
He firmly states, “Ruby. You’re a lot of things, but you’re not a puppet. You’ve been deciding and doing things yourself even without telling us sometimes. What makes you think Sephiroth or Rubia or whoever can suddenly decide what you do?”
“That’s the problem…” she sobs, “Even when I think I’m acting on my own… I’m just playing a role…”
“What role? It’s hard enough just trying to follow what you say sometimes.”
But she just shakes her head and buries her face in her arms.
“You’re not making sense here. What’s going on?”
“…”
“Ruby. Work with me here.”
“…Cloud… I’m sorry…”
He grows more anxious himself whenever she apologizes, as there are only terrible things that will come next, but he dares to ask anyway. “…What are you sorry for?”
“I can’t… I can’t say it.”
“Why not? You’ve said a lot already.”
“No… I just can’t. It’s already too late to change it.”
“Too late? For what?”
“…”
She continues to weep quietly to herself. He stares at her, likewise lost and worried all bundled up in a chaotic mess of anxious empathy. Just what has been happening with her to push her to this extent? And why is it that she keeps pushing them away? She’s been hiding too much from them, so as much as they want to help, they can’t do much for her. But that doesn’t mean they’ll stop trying. He shakes his head and brings his determination. Enough dancing around the issue. If he expects to get any answers from her, he has to help her open up. Though he might not be able to do anything when it comes to Rubia, there is still the other threat on her tail that he can face.
“Ruby,” he tries again, “By any chance, is the reason you can’t say it because there’s something else that Sephiroth is holding over you?”
She shakes her head again.
“Did he promise you that you’ll find your way out of this ‘prison’ if you keep doing what he tells you?”
She actually flinches and shakes her head furiously, but it’s too late. Looks like he hit the bulls-eye.
“Why do you trust him?”
“I don’t…”
“But you feel like you don’t have a choice, right? Like he has something that you can’t bear to lose?”
“…”
He gives a concerned sigh. “Look. I don’t know what your endgoal is, but it’s clear that you’re struggling to keep up with him. You’re always bearing the brunt yourself. If you keep it up, you’re going to break eventually.”
She buries her face again, unwilling to look at him anymore.
“But you don’t have to deal with him alone.” He leans back a bit to keep it casual and looks off his way as he reminds her, “We just talked about it earlier. You even asked us to help you. So let us help.”
“…”
“We’ll try our hardest, but it won’t be the best if you don’t tell us what’s really going on.” He turns to her again to offer her a hand. “Up to now, we’ve been putting all our trust in you. Why don’t you put your trust in us too?”
“…”
“Even if you think we’re not ‘ready’ or whatever, just trust us. We’ve had some victories without you and we’ll only keep growing.” His hand clenches up to match his resolve. “So whatever Sephiroth has planned, I say, ‘bring it on.’ He’s not invincible and I’ll prove it to you.”
“…”
He opens it up again and gently shakes it before her. “Come on. After all we’ve been through, you aren’t going to deny us, are you?”
Finally, after a long silence, Ruby lifts her head up and blinks a few times as a few more tears fall. By now, she’s grown so timid that she looks like a lost child. “I do trust you guys, but…”
“But?”
She buries her face in shame again. “We don’t have the time anymore. There’s just one thing I need to get at Gold Saucer, and then I have to stop by that temple…”
“That temple?”
“The Temple of the Ancients, where the Black Materia is hidden.”
“…!” He’s promptly reminded of his encounter with Rubia in a dream-vision, and upon realizing the implications, he grows alarmed. “Why do you have to go there?”
“We all do,” she quietly admits, “Sephiroth is waiting for us… and so is Rubia, I think.”
And at long last, the missing pieces of the bigger puzzle are starting to fall into place. The two that have been antagonizing her have been expecting her to stop by that temple eventually, and according to the “prophecy” that Rubia once mentioned, Ruby is expected to fall in line as well. So the “role” that she mentioned earlier may be related to this. No wonder she’s been so scared to admit to anything.
“Do you know what’s going to happen when we do go there?” he asks.
“Not in particular… but it’s not good.”
With a thoughtful nod, he then answers, “Then we have to make sure we’ll be ready.”
“…”
“And we can’t do that without you. So, fill us in as much as you can, even if you aren’t sure about it.”
“…”
“Tifa said it already, but I’ll say it again. We’re in this together. We’re not giving up, so don’t give up, alright?”
“…”
It seems like some of his words are going through. Though she still keeps weeping, at least she’s quieted down. He gives her a bit more time to recollect herself and decides that it’s about time they move on.
He sits back again with an exhausted sigh. “Well, this sure has been a trip…” He pauses as he thinks over their next plans again. “Hey. You mentioned that you had some things you want to buy before we got back to the ship, right? Some materia we might need?”
“…”
“If there’s anything else you wanna get to too, we can do that real quick. You can warp anywhere, after all.”
“…”
“Just, uh, keep in mind that 100,000 gil sounds like a lot, but it can go fast depending on what you buy.”
“…”
“Um… Ruby?”
Still no response. He pulls forward again, watching her intently with unease. She’s still sniffling a bit, but even though she seems to have calmed down, she’s grown so quiet that he can’t help but wonder if she’s somehow died on the inside. He knows he was tough on her while he questioned her, but he didn’t end up pushing her too far, did he?
He reaches out his hand again. “Hey, relax. Let’s stop thinking about all that.”
“…”
“We can work on it as we go. Even if we’re headed for the Gold Saucer, it doesn’t mean we’ll just be wasting time.”
“…”
“Come on. You don’t want to go back to everyone looking like this, do you?” He finally offers her a genuine smile. “Everyone’s already worried sick. About time we got to blow off some steam.”
The silence from her is honestly deafening and his smile fades. Maybe he’s said too much and not everything is entering her head anymore. But he doesn’t want to just leave her like this. It’s been one too many times that he’s found himself alone with her where she’s breaking down and he doesn’t know what to do to comfort her. Or rather, maybe it’s more because he’s too hesitant to cross that boundary into the more intimate. But come on, he's already come this far. What's another step closer?
“Ruby,” he calls to her softly.
With a certain idea come to mind, he’s starting to get nervous, but presses on anyway. He slowly scoots up beside her. She’s still keeping her head buried and refuses to look his way. He then reaches an arm around her back and sets it on her shoulder. She still doesn’t react, nor does she bother to shake him off. She looks so vulnerable right now he worries this might even be a bit aggressive coming from him, but – no, don’t overthink it. Come on, man, it’s just for now. You can do this. Without a word, he takes her into both arms.
“!?”
Ruby finally snaps out of her depressive trance, shocked to find herself pulled out of her ball of shame and up against Cloud’s chest. Wait, what? What just happened? What is he doing?
She shyly glances up to peer at his face, but he’s shut his eyes as if he were unwilling to look at her either. Probably for the best; if they actually made eye contact, she swears she might just explode. Neither one dares to say a word in this moment, and yet he keeps holding her firm as if she would fall if he let her go. She has no idea how to respond, so simply rests still. And before she even knows it, she’s starting to thaw from the inside.
Now that she thinks over their journey again, they really have been through a lot together. She never expected it to be the case, but so much of it has been alone with Cloud as well. One way or another, they would run into truth after discovery about Rubia and the world at large, and it so happens that he would be there for her at her most vulnerable moments. Sure, he always called her an “annoying brat” that he was forced to babysit, but he also had the option to not care about her. In the end, he not only would care; he’d care a bit too much. Sometimes it’s stifling being around him, but she knows it comes from a good place.
Being held like this is so warm, so comforting. She actually feels tempted to snuggle up against him. It’s a sort of warmth that she’s been missing for a very long long time. When was the last time she was hugged like this? Well, plenty of her friends have hugged her, and Aerith especially has hugged her most of all. But those hugs were more like between good friends or family. They’d either be one-off events of gratitude or sporadically affectionate and/or sympathetic. But this time is different. Perhaps it’s the feeling of a childhood crush being requited at last, even for just a moment.
She’s been there before with Sephiroth too, but it’s also not the same. From all the times that he held her before, it was always a cold, almost icy grip, regardless of whether it was tight or loose. He never took her seriously. He never saw her more than just a useful pawn. Any time he humored her and even got close and personal with her, it was just teasing to a mocking degree. He knew she would be enraptured and he wouldn’t even have to do anything to keep her under his thumb. And then, just some time ago, he came upon a revelation that stirred him up into a mad laughing fit. The way he looked at her was like he just caught a glimpse of the finish line. She’s just the next stepping stone for him and he wants to make sure she knows it.
So why? Why does she continue to feel any kind of welcome being with him despite all that he’s done to stalk her, humiliate her, abuse her? And why does she feel so numb now despite that Cloud is holding her because he actually cares? It’s a topsy-turvy world and Ruby feels herself spinning despite being propped up.
Why doesn’t she just stay with Cloud then? Well, she was always more keen on his relationships with Tifa and Aerith. That was how it was from the story she grew up with, and she convinced herself that’s the way it “should” be. And besides, Ruby was the outsider from the get-go. She had to force her way into their circles to get close with them. But no matter what, she wouldn’t dare tread on their trails. They were both a better match for him than she ever would be. That was just the facts as she knew them.
That’s it, then. She’s just desperate to be loved. She’s been chasing after Sephiroth’s dead heart because she feels like she’s trash that deserves no better than to be cruelly stamped out. She really is a masochist. It was inevitable that she’d develop Stockholm’s. And he happened to be the perfect master to run his slave straight into the ground.
But it hurts being run into the ground. She wants to be free. She just wants to escape from this world and leave all this emotional baggage behind, to live a new life as a free spirit… just like how it is for a certain lovable dog she once knew. And speaking of which, perhaps that’s what Rubia wants too. Maybe she will be able to reunite with Fenrir sometime. There’s a happy ending to all of this, right? Then, what would be the easiest way to get there…?
After a long contemplation, she finally speaks up, “…Cloud.”
He nearly jumps and snaps to as well. “Huh? Uh. Yeah?”
“You didn’t have to hug me, but thanks, I appreciate it.”
Finally, she returns to smiling and before he can help himself, his heart starts to race. He looks away as his face flushes even redder and lets her go so she can sit up again.
“Y-yeah… No problem.” He also admits, “You looked like you needed it, so…”
She gives a soft chuckle. “I guess I did.”
There’s another awkward pause. “So… you doing okay now?” he asks again.
She nods. “I’ll be alright.”
“Right…” He nervously clears his throat. “Anyway, what’s the plan now? Anything else you need to get to before we go back to the ship?”
She glances off for a bit as she thinks over a few options. “Hmm. To be honest, I did have a sort of ‘secret backup battle plan’ for when we finally run into Sephiroth, but…”
“But?”
She pauses and then cracks out another chuckle. “I think we’d be jumping a little too far ahead. The things I’d have to prepare for that plan are scattered all over the world, and I think we shouldn’t keep everyone waiting for too long.”
“Ah.” He nods back. “Well, it’s up to you. So, just a quick shopping run for now?”
“Sure. Which town should we stop by?”
“Um, didn’t you say you had some materia to buy from Cosmo Canyon?”
“Yes, but it’s just the first step of my secret plan and it’s a long ways off. Besides, I’m sure Tifa and the others would be livid if I spend half of our winnings just on materia.” She then admits, “Then again, maybe fetching just one of HP and MP Plus, and a Mystify for now wouldn’t hurt. The first two are useful anyway, and that third one, it’s fun to smack enemies silly.”
He sighs, conceding to her whims, but also relieved that she seems to be back to form. “Alright, I guess that’s one thing down. But, which town? How about a place where we can get some cool gear like the stuff you got for us from, well…” he adds, gesturing around the room, “here?”
“Oh, Wutai does have some nice things, but the really awesome stuff is still out of our price range.”
“Really? How high are we talking?”
“Like… each weapon from Icicle Inn is within the 10k range a pop, and there are a lot of us, so…”
“Icicle Inn!? That’s way too far! And too much! Why would we even need to go there?”
“But it’s got some of the coolest-looking gear!” She even winks, hoping he caught her pun.
“…” He slumps, setting his forehead against his hand. “When I said ‘cool’, I mean things that are also practical and won’t run us back into the dirt.”
“Well, I guess I could always fetch the best stuff for free, but…”
“Then do that! If you know where to look, then let’s go get it!”
“Hahaha! Well, I would, but there’s just so much to get.”
“Oh, for the love of… Just pick a thing already and let’s go!”
He now gets back up to his feet and offers a hand to help her up too. Though he means to let go after she’s up, she still clings to him for a bit. He gives her a curious look, to which she returns him a surprisingly serious face.
“Cloud? Can I ask a favor?”
“What?”
“At any point down the line, if it seems like I’m acting weird or off, I want you to smack me in the face and set me straight.”
He looks a bit unsettled to hear that. “Why? And what do you mean by ‘weird’?”
“You’ll know it when you see it. I feel like I might just run away again.”
He makes a concerned frown, but nods. “Fine. But I’m not gonna hit you.”
“…”
“Anyway, enough of that. We’re supposed to unwind, remember?”
“Yeah. I didn’t forget.” She adds with a relaxed smile, “Thanks again… for everything.”
“…Don’t mention it.”
“Anyway, I just remembered that there’s one other place we can go to stock up on gear. How about a trip by Bone Village?”
He shrugs. “Sure? Where is that?”
“It’s also up north, but not as far as Icicle Inn. It’s an archaeological dig site full of lost treasures. There are a few cool things I’d like to find there too.”
“Oh. Alright.”
She raises a hand and gives him a soft rub on the head as if he were some kind of pet, to which he returns her an indignant glare. But with that motion, she works her magic. The two begin to glow white and they’re gone in a blink.
~
As she suggested, it’s a very quick stop by Cosmo Canyon again, where she meets with the materia shopkeeper to deliver the cash she promised, and then they’re off to Bone Village. Though at first glance things seem quite peaceful, this visit to the sleepy town would be nothing short of chaos. The resident archaeologists don’t mind welcoming some odd visitors, as they don’t usually get too many. However, what really catches their attention is the way by which their latest visitors arrive: with a burst of white light.
As it happens, some of the people here have been keeping up with the news around Midgar – after all, love them or hate them, Shinra pays for their excavation and utilities – and as soon as they catch wind that these visitors includes the white dragon girl that can warp around, the people become frantic. But unlike the concerned citizens of Midgar, these people are ecstatic to finally be able to meet with a living legend.
As soon as the pair arrive, the man at the gates greets them, “Oh! Welcome to Bone Village, the town of nature lovers.”
Ruby waves a hand. “Hey! I hear you guys are busy digging up stuff? Hope you don’t mind if we join in.”
“Not at all. We could always use a helping hand with discoveries.” He then adds with an amused smirk, “Say, that was quite the entrance earlier. Dare I say, it gave a certain impression.”
“Um… yeah?”
“You wouldn’t happen to be the infamous white dragon that’s been in the news lately?”
She jumps back in startled shock and this time Cloud has learned to stay away so she doesn’t crash into him. “Uh… What would you say if I said ‘no’?”
The man then laughs. “Oh, don’t worry! We know how it is with Shinra. No one here has any complaints about how you’ve been stirring up trouble.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“That said, from time to time, we do get visited by Shinra people, so it’d be kind of a hassle if we ran into any right now.”
She shrugs. “We won’t be here too long.”
“Alright. But if you could do us a favor, we’ll be happy to pretend we never met.”
“Sure? What is it?”
“Would you mind taking an exclusive interview? We’re all looking into history here, so your wisdom would come really in handy to help us uncover those missing pieces.”
“Uh…” Now she’s starting to get a bad feeling about this, but shrugs back. “Only if it’s quick.”
Now there’s a twinkling in his eyes. “Great! And don’t worry, it’s just a few questions. Let me go get everyone!”
“Huh?”
He suddenly picks up a megaphone resting on a work bench near him and yells into it: “HEY, EVERYONE! The Lunar Dragon is here!!”
Ruby feels like she was just stung. “…’Lunar Dragon’…?”
And just like that, the usually sleepy village is roused into action as a crowd of people – all of them archaeologists and history lovers – come rushing out.
“Oh my gosh! She’s really here! She actually exists!”
“Huh, so that’s how she looks. A lot smaller than I thought…”
“What, you thought she’d be a dragon all the time? That’s just asking for Shinra to hunt them down!”
“Well, no, but… maybe she just looked larger on the big screen?”
“Hey, hey!” one of the supervisors holding a clipboard calls out, marching up to the front. “Make room, people! We don’t want to scare them away!” He steps up to Ruby. “Sorry about that. We usually don’t get too many visitors, so sometimes we can be a little antsy when we do get some. And to think that it’d be you, the formerly lost legend herself!”
She starts to slump, already tired of being here. “Uh… sure.”
“Oh, yeah. Now that you are here,” he then offers that clipboard and pen to her and asks, “can I get an autograph?”
“Oh, my God!” she shrieks, throwing her hands up. “Can I go anywhere without picking up fans!? I’m sick of being an idol!”
“You came to an archaeological site. What were you expecting?” Cloud points out.
After she gives the supervisor her signature anyway, they promptly escort her inside the town as a guest of honor and she is quickly hounded by an excited crowd of onlookers as they begin the interview. However, as it goes on, she grows more and more impatient because the questions, while innocent enough, keep beating into her head of how little she actually knows or can answer. Nonetheless, she tries her best to come up with anything that sounds “good enough” and by the end of things, she’s been deflated to the point that Cloud has to actually help hold her up.
She’s just being dramatic, though, and can pull herself back to her feet. “Look, guys. I really appreciate the admiration and all that, but I’m really just here to find some treasure and buy some gear.”
“Oh, then you can ask Bob back by the entrance. He runs the shop. Thanks for the interview! This information will definitely be recorded for future generations.”
“Can I go now?”
“Sure. Feel free to explore around the site all you like. Just don’t run into anyone while they’re digging.”
“Finally!”
She rushes off on her own, leaving Cloud in the dust, to do some quick surveying of the site. Though there are several other workers in the vicinity that have been busy, they all shortly pause as they witness their new visitor transform into a huge dragon out of nowhere, and yet don’t panic and simply resume their work. With her mighty claws, she makes light work of the hard rocky ground and even up on the cliffs above. She happens to dig up several interesting treasures: the Buntline – an excellent gun for Vincent – the Mop – a hilarious weapon for Cid – and a free Megalixir for good luck. That’ll be enough for now. Any other treasures are gonna have to wait until the right time. And last but not least, she digs up the most crucial treasure of all: the Lunar Harp that can awaken the Sleeping Forest to the north.
While the enamored archaeologists start speculating on the potential links between the Lunar Dragon and the Lunar Harp, she returns to human form and zooms out again. Before Cloud can react, she lifts him off his feet in her other hand and bolts through town carrying him and the harp. Back at the outskirts, she stops by the shop, swipes three Diamond Bangles and a Rune Armlet to go, drops them all onto Cloud, and hands her card to the shopkeeper to charge. And before the unfortunate Cloud can make any comment, she grabs him by the collar again and they warp away in a hurry.
A little while later, a sudden burst of light and Ruby’s outburst disrupt the peace aboard the Highwind, and yet no one seems particularly startled or taken by very much surprise. By now, Aerith and Tifa have stopped by the table in the lounge and even Cait Sith has joined them there. They’ve been busy discussing the plan forward and tallying up how to divvy up the winnings. It seems like the Avalanche trio have headed back inside for now, as has Barret. Yuffie said she needed air even though the ship hasn’t moved for a while, and Sonon joined her downstairs. But Red, Vincent, and Cid are all still here where one could expect them.
“How did shopping ever become so damn annoying!?” she cries out out of nowhere.
Cloud throws her off of him and readjusts his collar. “You’re just a magnet for attention.”
“Oh, hey, guys!” Aerith calls to them with a wave of her hand. “Have fun?”
“Yes and no,” Ruby answers, “Yes to how it started, no to how it ended.”
“Funny. I was gonna say the opposite,” Cloud muses.
“Yeah…” She frowns, feeling a bit jilted. “In fact, after I lost the bet and got really sad, you instead became happier and infected me with your touch. Kinda sus, man.”
He returns her an irritated “Did you have to put it like that?” look, but simply shakes his head toward Aerith and says no more to avoid explaining anything.
Aerith giggles. “Sounds like you guys did! Aw, I almost feel jealous…”
Ruby swerves back to her with a smile. “You can come next time, Cuz. I’ll be happy to show you around the world.”
“Ooh! Thanks, Cuz. Looking forward to it!”
Tifa now looks up from her notes and calls to them, “Say, you guys went shopping? How much of the 100 grand did you use up so far?”
“Um…” Ruby quickly tallies up the costs in her head and answers, “35,300 gil.”
“That’s… already a third of our winnings,” Tifa concludes, looking a bit disappointed. “But, I suppose it can’t be helped. What did you buy, by the way?”
“HP Plus, MP Plus, and Mystify materia from Cosmo Canyon, as well as three Diamond Bangles and a Rune Armlet from Bone Village!”
“And it’s all battle gear…” she mumbles, recording a few more notes on the page.
Now that Ruby mentions it, Cloud asks her, “Why did you get only one Rune Armlet anyway? It’s got double materia growth, right?”
“Yeah, and I’m the one who’s gonna equip it. If anyone needs materia training done fast, I’m your gal.”
“Sure, but if you’d share some with the rest of us, we don’t have to rely on you for something again. Didn’t we just talk about how that’s not a good thing?”
She rolls her eyes. “I know, but I’m just being frugal.”
“You spent over 30K already! Why are you suddenly being cheap there!?”
“Because we’re gonna spend another 30K on the Gold Saucer lifetime pass too,” she freely admits. “We’re not gonna have that much left over by then.”
He groans. “And why do we need the lifetime pass? We’re not gonna be regulars!”
She replies rather snootily, “Speak for yourself. I’m so dedicated to the Saucer, I’m gonna live there.”
“…” The scowl of disbelief on his face appears slowly but surely. “You wanna be an employee or something?”
She grins to that. “Hey! There’s an idea. Since I’m pals with the owner, I’m sure we can easily arrange something. Then I’ll have a steady supply of income and we’ll never go broke again!”
“Ruby, that’s not how…” He raises a hand as if to try to reason with her, but instead drops it and folds his arms, conceding to avoid further argument. “Ugh, fine. Do what you want. But we’re not staying there with you.”
“Ha! Just ’cause I’d get my own room somewhere doesn’t mean I can’t leave the place ever. What do you think I am, a dog on a leash?”
He snorts back, mumbling, “Would be easier on us, that’s for sure…”
“Oh, hey! In that case, Ruby,” Aerith then raises her hand and suggests, “can you also talk with the owner about giving us a discount? 30k is a lot for a pass, even if it is for a lifetime.”
Ruby shrugs. “Hmm… I’ll try, but no promises.”
“Thanks!” She then claps her hands just once with a delighted smile. “Tifa, Cait, and I were just discussing some plans about what we’re gonna be doing there, and it’d sure be nice to have plenty left over for a little shopping spree of our own.”
“You guys are going shopping?”
“Sure! It’s an entertainment district, after all! I’m sure there are loads of shops and snack bars we can try!”
As soon as she hears “snack bars”, the image of delectable treats flashes in her mind and she’s immediately hooked. “Nice. Can I come?”
She passes a wink. “What, did you think we would leave you out? You and Cloud can join us!”
“Ah, good idea. We could definitely use a pack chocobo,” she agrees, passing an innocent-looking smile his way.
He grumbles and insists on one condition, “Fine… but you’re carrying half of the baggage.”
“What? You’re the pack chocobo, though! You should be happy to shoulder some burdens! Weren’t you saying as much to me earlier?”
“That was different!” he snaps back. “These are burdens you can handle yourself!”
“But it’s gonna be annoying to hold merch while I’m in the coliseum in Battle Square.”
He glares, unimpressed. “What are you planning to do?”
“Several things. Meet my man Dio, bargain a deal about my employment, fight some battles, and win some sickass prizes. We got some real treats there, y’know?”
Though he’s still skeptical, he has to admit that the last thing she listed doesn’t sound too bad. He asks, his curiosity piqued, “…Like?”
“Oh, you’ll love them! Rare and legendary items, materia, battle accessories, and even a certain limit break manual…” She specifically looks at him when she mentions the last one.
He blinks in surprise, now catching on, and replies, “I guess it won’t hurt to stop by.”
“Hahaha! Now you get it!” And with that, she swings back toward Cid and calls out, “Alright, Cap’n! Looks like we’re all in agreement! Set course for North Corel!”
“Tch. She’s back to being peppy and suddenly she thinks she’s the boss again,” Cid grumbles to himself, but obliges and raises two fingers toward his rookie pilot. “Hey. You heard her.”
He returns an enthusiastic salute. “Aye, aye, Cap’n!” Seems like by now, he’s already getting used to being in his position.
As the ship begins to start up again from hanging idle, Cloud then raises the question to Ruby. “North Corel?”
She explains, “There’s only one way into Gold Saucer that isn’t being deadlifted in from the air, and that’s the ropeway that extends down the slopes to a sleepy little town up north called Corel.”
“Oh.”
Tifa blinks a couple times as she tries to recall something. “Corel? Wait. Didn’t we hear that name before…?”
Aerith blinks too and tries to recall as well. “Huh, you’re right. It does sound familiar.”
Ruby’s smile then fades and she gets serious. “It’s Barret and Cole’s hometown.”
“Oh, right!” She beams with a twinkle in her eye. “Aw, sounds like they can finally have their happy reunion!”
But she shakes her head. “Things aren’t too hot in Corel right now. I’m honestly a little worried for Barret in particular…”
That twinkle abruptly vanishes. “Huh?”
Tifa grows concerned too. “Speaking of the guy, he was acting a bit weird earlier.”
“Was he?” Aerith asks. “He just seemed pretty quiet.”
“Yeah, but this is Barret we’re talking about. He’s usually not quiet.”
“Oh… yeah.”
“He said he was going inside to see Cole again, but he hasn’t come back out yet. I hope nothing bad came up.”
Ruby snaps to attention. “He went to see Cole?”
She nods back. “Maybe you should go check on him? Just in case he might need your help.”
Ruby nods in affirmation. “On it.” She passes a glance toward Cloud too. “You coming?”
“Huh? Me?” he asks.
“Yeah. We’re all in this together, remember? So we should first make sure everyone’s doing alright.”
Cloud is a little surprised that she’s taking it seriously for once. He nods back, just as determined. “Right. Let’s go.”
It’s a quick stop by the sick bay once again, and to their surprise, they meet Biggs and Wedge – sans Jessie – standing outside the closed door.
“Oh, here you guys were. What are you doing out here?” Cloud asks them.
“Oh. Welcome back, guys.” Biggs then makes an uncomfortable look toward the door to the bay. “We were gonna check on Barret, but sounds like he’s busy talking with Cole. He didn’t want to be interrupted.”
“Sounds like it’s about their history, but we didn’t stick around to hear anything,” Wedge adds.
Cloud pursues further, “He’s talking with him? But I thought Ruby was the only one who could speak with him.”
Biggs rubs his head. “Well, maybe ‘talking with’ isn’t the right way to put it… more like ‘talking at’ since Cole doesn’t move.”
Now Ruby catches on that something’s off. “He isn’t moving?”
“Yeah. Ever since we left Wutai, the dude’s been still as a statue…” Wedge explains, also adding, “Well, more like a limp doll.”
She makes a worried frown with a pensive face. “What happened? He should still be able to operate as long as that helmet is still on his head.”
Cloud frowns as well, turning for the door. “Let’s check on him.”
She tries knocking on said door. “Barret? It’s Ruby. I’m with Cloud. May we come in?”
At first, there’s no response, but then the door swings open. Barret looks a bit weary in the eyes, like a lot of things have been on his mind. “Oh, Ruby. Good timing. I wanted to ask ya something.”
“Hm?”
“Come in. It’s just the two of us here…”
He lets open the door and Ruby, along with Cloud, step inside. The infirmary is as it always has been, and so has Cole. He’s remained in his seat in the corner near the bed where Ruby had lied not too long ago, and he’s sitting sagged almost like he’s gone back to being a lifeless corpse.
Barret explains with a solemn frown, “…For some reason, he’s been like this all this time.”
Ruby asks to confirm, “You’ve been talking with him for a while, huh?”
“Yeah.” He rubs his head. “I was just tellin’ him about our old town and what’s been happening since he left for Midgar about 6 years ago. I figured he could use a little news since he’s been couped up workin’ for Shinra and all…”
“Has he reacted in any way?”
He shakes his head. “Nothin’. Looks like he’s stuck being asleep. I even thought he mighta died at some point, but I can still feel a pulse in him, so…”
She nods in understanding. “Let me check on him.”
Ruby approaches the helmeted man and waves a hand in his face. When he still doesn’t react, she lightly taps on his shoulder and gives him a gentle shake. Still nothing.
She speaks, “Cole? Can you hear me? Wake up.”
Still more nothing. Now growing worried, she likewise feels for a pulse by his neck, and as Barret suggested, it’s still there. It’s a slow, steady pulse like that of a person who’s asleep. But there’s sometimes strange that only she can sense – or rather, that she doesn’t sense when she should. Unlike that of a normal sleeping person, she can’t pick up much of his brain activity. It’s like his mind is empty; like the telepathic connection she had set up with him previously seems to have been broken. But how? How would it be possible? Unless… is the helmet’s device still working? The fear sets her off into a bit of a panic, and without a word, she tries pulling off the helmet, to the other two’s dismay.
“Whoa! Ruby! What’re you doin’!?” Barret calls out.
“Is something wrong with the helmet?” Cloud asks.
She wrenches the thing off and peeks inside. While the equipped device lined against the visor seems to still be on and operating, she can’t help but notice that where there is a small light indicating it’s on, it’s not green but red.
“Guys, is this light supposed to be red?” she asks.
“Huh?” Cloud and Barret now step up to take a look and grow alarmed. “The hell’s this mean?” Barret asks too.
“Who knows…” Cloud simply answers.
“Ain’t you supposed to be the ex-Soldier? Sure you don’t got a clue somewhere in that head?”
Cloud shakes his head. “I wasn’t really Soldier… and it’s not like Zack would have known anything about this either. Project Immortals was so secret that most of 1st Class never knew it even existed.”
“Hmph. So much for insider info.”
Cloud chooses to ignore that and turns back to Ruby, who sets the helmet back onto Cole’s head. “When you talked with Rufus before, did he ever mention how these Soldiers are even able to move?”
Without turning his way, she answers, “All Rufus said was that there’s a special device equipped to their helmets, but I doubt he’d care about the details.”
“Hmm. Figures.”
She locks it in, double-checks her work, and turns back to them. “In any case, we have to hurry. If by any chance this device broke down, got jammed, or is running out of power, we might not have too much time with him left.”
“What?” Barret gasps, his eyes growing wide. “Hold on, Ruby! Don’t you have any way to help him? You’ve been working all kinds of miracles. Don’t stop now!”
She lowers her head in shame. “I’m sorry. I don’t know enough about this tech, so I don’t know what I can do.”
“But can’t you try that thing you did for Sonon?”
“It’s too risky. With Sonon, I only had to worry about my own cells and he was still in a salvageable state because he only recently got infected.” She passes a sad look to Cole. “With these Class-I Soldiers, they’ve been treated through way more intensive processes under mako, Jenova cells, and even Rubia’s own long ago. It’s honestly a miracle itself that any of these people are still able to exist.”
Cloud puts a hand to his chin. “Yeah. It doesn’t seem like Jenova and Rubia’s cells would be compatible, considering what they each do.”
“And even if they were, these guys still have to rely on Shinra tech to operate. So even if I were to try to salvage him, there’s no telling when he’d just… stop working anyway,” she answers, finishing with an nervous pause.
At that moment, they can practically hear the heartbreak in the air. Barret slowly sinks and he looks away with a depressed sigh. “…So it’s already too late, huh.”
She closes her eyes, offering her condolences in silence.
“…Well, it’s not much, but as long as he has that helmet on, he’s still able to stay alive, right?” Cloud then suggests, trying to stay positive.
She opens them again, but remains wistful. “Yeah, seems like it. But I don’t know how long it’s going to last.”
“…” Barret takes a moment longer in contemplation and then looks back up with a resolute frown. “Then we gotta hope it can last until we bring him home.”
She nods. “Right. I let Cid and his pupil know. We’re heading off for Corel now as we speak.”
“Ah. So that’s why the engine started running again.”
“We’ll be there in a few minutes, so get ready to set off. I’ll carry Cole out when we get there.”
“Yeah. Thanks. You guys go tell everyone.” He then turns back to the guy with sorrowful face. “I’ll… keep watch of him for now.”
“Okay.” She looks away for the door and pauses for a moment, but then looks back to add, “I swear, however it’ll happen, I’ll keep making miracles.”
Barret doesn’t turn back to them, but slowly nods back in acknowledgement. He then returns to his seat beside his old friend.
“But just in case…” she also admits, turning away again, “I may need Aerith’s help.”
Cloud asks, “Aerith?”
“If my abilities are too big a gamble, she can still be support. We’ll… figure something out.”
He nods back. “Okay. We’ll leave it to you guys.”
She passes one last sympathetic glance Barret’s way and then she and Cloud hurry back out to spill the news. Like a cruel twist of irony, just as she wants to blow off steam and live freely again, there’s no running from the grim shadows beneath the shining, splendid, colorful lights. It’s just that with enough light, everyone will be blinded from even knowing the shadows are still there.
~
It’s not a long flight across the land to reach the thinning grasslands leading into the large desert that surrounds the ostentatious glamor of the Gold Saucer. However, up just a bit of ways north from it across the dry, barren scape is a little town that now only ever sees traffic from visitors to and from the Saucer, and the residents see no benefit from these visitors – instead offer these oblivious outsiders the scorn of those that are fated to live in squalor.
As the captain and as he has little interest in actually dropping in, Cid volunteers to stick with the ship. So does Vincent, who would rather not mingle among the bright and flashy themes of their destination. However, Yuffie seems to have the opposite reaction, and as soon as they land, she’s off the ship to feel the sweet relief of stable ground, with Sonon in close proximity to make sure she’s doing okay. And as Ruby requested, Aerith would be joining her, Cloud, and Barret as they take Cole back home. The rest of them were then advised to go on ahead in the meantime and the quartet would shortly join them at the entrance.
However, the brave quartet would very quickly run into resistance as they step forth into the rundown town. Some of the most bitter residents immediately catch who it is that has returned, and they’re even more disgusted to see what seems to be a faceless Soldier being carried on a young woman’s back.
“Well, look who it is… the sad sack of traitor shit.”
Three muscular men, two of them light-skinned and a third dark, in dirtied but usable working clothes step up to greet them. Barret then steps forward, and Ruby quietly looks away. As she suspected, the man in front comes up and decks Barret in the face.
“Hey!” Cloud calls out, but Barret raises a hand to keep them back.
“You got a lotta nerve showin’ your face here again,” the man snarls.
“Not satisfied with how you ruined everything, huh!?” a second man yells.
“…Hey. That guy with the helmet…” the third, dark-skinned man then raises the point.
Barret frowns back and nods solemnly. “Yeah. It’s Cole.”
Now it’s this man’s turn to grimace. “You sick sonnuva bitch. He got like this and you still brought him back here?”
“…We’re gonna take him home.”
“Like hell you are. Thanks to you, he don’t got no home left.”
“…”
“You both shoulda stayed in Midgar like all the trash you loved so much!” the second man barks again.
“Tch… Don’t bother,” the first man then mutters aloud, “Anythin’ Shinra touches is poison. No need to look twice with how these guys turned out. Just stay the #%&$ away.”
The man then spits in Barret’s face and the three men scatter to return to their places. Even from afar, the rest of the people who happen to be outside also either turn away to avoid looking at the visitors or give them just as fierce scowls with eyes full of daggers.
“…” Cloud then steps up to Barret, who quietly wipes off the spit from his face. “Hey, Barret…?”
The man keeps a stone-cold face as he looks to the road ahead of them. “…I’m okay. Let’s keep heading north.”
By now, both Ruby and Aerith are ready to tear up in sympathy, but choose to keep quiet. They all follow Barret through the town, trying their best not to look at the people who show no hospitality to them. However, Ruby can’t help but let her eyes trail off to look around the town. It’s just as sad as she remembers, but now, with the realistic, gross detail of these barren desert grounds – from the soiled tents that litter the grounds in place of homes to the smudged, trashy, rough trails that run scattered throughout the town in no particular order, to the intense smell of garbage left to stink up in the hot sun – it hits all the harder, bashing on all her sensitive senses.
As they reach the northern edge of town, there’s a rickety bridge leading ahead into the deserted roads of Mt. Corel. Out there, monsters roam freely where humans once populated the mines, and certain round and fiery red creatures called Bombs really love the dry heat of the area. However, as Ruby steps up toward the bridge, a firm glare coupled with a rather intimidating aura from her sends a curious little Bomb scurrying.
But now that they’re out of range of the townsfolk, Cloud has to bring up the question. “Barret, what happened back there?”
“Everyone was so cold…” Aerith says nervously. “I’ve met a lot of cold people in Midgar, but not to this extent.”
Without turning their way, Barret sighs. “They got every right to be mad. It was my fault that this place turned out like this.”
“What?” Cloud returns him an incredulous look. “What did you do?”
He then pulls back up and looks into the skies above. He recalls the memories of an old, quaint mining town where it had once been. “…It was just four years ago.”
~
Corel was a small and humble coal mining town in the middle of some patchy desert lands along the central mountain ranges, and had been so since its earliest history. The people who lived here weren’t the most well-off, but everyone got along fairly well and were happy to lend a hand anywhere they were needed. And if there was any abundance here other than the people’s hearts, it was in those mountains. There were tons and tons of fossil fuels that would be unearthed and reused in the modern landscape. And for a little while, Corel didn’t do too badly with this ample supply of energy resources that was used the world over. Sure, coal always had its detractors; it was dirty and got everywhere if you so touch it. And especially back in those days, it was also time-consuming to refine, and even worse, if that refinement wasn’t done right, the thick smog from burning the fuel could become toxic and nauseous. But there was a lot of it, it was fairly easy to dig up, and didn’t take much to transport, so it set the standard for a real long time.
And then, the Shinra Company happened. Though they were once just known as a weapons manufacturer, at some point they discovered an all-new “clean” energy source called mako. Not only was this source just as plentiful or even more so, just needed stronger rigs that could drill further into the ground, it could be converted into electricity with no waste to clean up and not a puff of smoke to smell. And soon, it won the world over, where everyone quickly shifted to pursue this miracle energy, and the once busy coal mines of Corel eventually ceased to produce and had to be shut down. Many workers once employed by Shinra’s former partners or subsidiaries would find themselves being laid off through no fault of their own, and as a result, the town very abruptly fell off into obscurity.
And if that was all there was to the story, the small town would have been much better off. But by pure happenstance, it was later discovered that Mt. Corel would not only be a place rich with natural minerals and ores, but even rich with the delightful mako that everyone craved. And of course, always hungry for more, Shinra would come to pursue the townsfolk to arrange deals to set up a mako reactor in their vicinity. Though much of the townsfolk would reject the offers at first, with the staunchest of defenders leading a sort of resistance movement to return to the “good ol’ days”, everyone saw the writing on the wall. Coal was well on its way out; in fact, it was hobbling along slowly on old, weak knees. One way or another, even they would have to resort to using mako to some capacity if they still wanted to keep up with the rest of the world. And eventually, even those staunch defenders of coal would have to raise the white flag of surrender and capitulate to Shinra’s final offer – which saw that the former miners would see to the construction of the reactor itself at minimum wage.
And throughout the construction of the reactor up to its completion just several years before the present, there were rumors that circulated around town. There was supposedly still some resistance to the establishment of this reactor, and there were a notable amount of people dressed in brown uniform that would appear in its vicinity to protest. However, then one day, it wasn’t simply a protest, but a public threat to bomb the reactor if it wasn’t shut down. Shinra got wind that this band of rebels were an extremist group known as Avalanche who sought the destruction of all mako reactors around the world, and thus the Turks were deployed to stop and arrest all attempts by any means necessary. And the Turks of the time would be largely successful in quelling the local unrest.
However, in the ensuing investigation – which was hotly debated at the time whether or not it was even done properly – there were allegations that this particular branch of Avalanche was started by the townspeople of Corel who were such staunch defenders of coal that they would resort to violence. And because the townsfolk denied such allegations or even knowledge of Avalanche activity, Shinra’s answer would be to send in troops to erase any and all further deniability.
The town would be set ablaze. Men, women, and children alike would all be slaughtered in the ensuing massacre. No residents were allowed to escape, no matter how much they begged for mercy. Even the poor mayor who fled to get help was just as cruelly shot down. And this would be the scene that Barret Wallace and his good friend Dyne would come upon as they returned home from the old mines one day.
~
By the time Barret finishes retelling his sad tale, he looks so haggard and worn that he might just deflate. Cloud, Aerith, and Ruby have been listening in respectful silence, though on the occasion, with the soft sound of Aerith’s muffled weeping.
Barret raises his gun-arm forward and places his other hand upon it, his eyes ablaze with fury. “That was the day I lost my arm… and Dyne too. Shinra troops stopped us from even gettin’ into town to help, and we had to run. But we were just a bit too slow. They caught Dyne on his foot and he tripped and fell over the ledge. I hurried over to pull him up, but…” His grip on his gun-arm tightens as he bitterly recalls, “They shot us both in the arm. I couldn’t keep holdin’ on, and Dyne…” His voice trails off with quite a bit of strain.
“…” Cloud nods along in understanding.
He then relaxes his grip with a miserable sigh. “From that day, I couldn’t use my arm no more… but I couldn’t just sit around doin’ nothing. Wasn’t anything left of the town by the time the troops left, ’cept loads of burnt bodies. There were still a few stragglers, though, and we tried to bury as many of our people as we could.” He gloomily turns away as he admits, “I… still remember finding my wife, Myrna, under the rubble of our home.”
“…” Aerith nods too, trying her best to keep her sniffling down.
“But after all was said and done, the people didn’t want me around either. Called me a traitor for signin’ us up for Shinra. Said that everything was my fault. Everyone who died and everyone who lost their homes. Even blamed me for killin’ Myrna…” Barret brings his hand up and clenches it so tight that he starts to shake. “And if I just stuck with Dyne all the way, he wouldn’t be gone too.”
And though she respected the silence up to now, Ruby then speaks up with a reassuring tone, “Barret… Dyne is alive.”
“Huh?” He whips back to her.
“It’s hard for me to explain how I know, but I know where he is right now.”
Now he gets a little frantic. “Ruby, tell me! Where is he?”
“In the depths of Corel Prison, beneath the Gold Saucer. It’s where they keep the worst criminals.”
“What!? But why? What’d he ever do to…?” But then he seems to recall something that happens to rouse up some old doubts he had long suppressed, perhaps even unconsciously so, back to the forefront.
She catches onto his hesitation and means to ask, “Barret? Did you just remember something?”
“…” And the more he realizes it, the wider his eyes grow and the greater his frown. “Ain’t no way.”
“What?”
Rather than answer her, though, he shakes his head in disbelief and turns away again. “If that’s true, then… where does that leave us, man?” he mutters under his breath.
“…”
Barret just keeps shaking his head, looking rather shocked himself. And by now, Ruby likewise catches onto what he may have just realized and enters into a pensive mood herself. Though it was an old rumor back in the day when Before Crisis had finally earned an unofficial fan translation, she remembers hearing some theories circulating the fandom. One of them concerned Dyne’s ambiguous position during the Avalanche raid on the Mt. Corel reactor, and there was the possibility that he had been more involved in the incident than at first glance. While it was never confirmed one way or the other, though many preferred to not believe it, Dyne could potentially have been among the initial group of protesters that ended up inviting Avalanche to Corel in the first place, kicking off a huge cascade of tragedies.
But as for Cloud and Aerith, they look a little confused and left out. He asks Barret once more, “Hey, what did you remember? You wanna tell us?”
Barret snaps out of his thoughts, but then turns to him with another furious shake of his head. “No, forget it. We don’t know what the hell’s been going on with him since he disappeared, so we can’t say anything for certain.”
As disappointed as he is to hear it, Cloud decides it’s probably for the best to let it go for now.
“Anyway, if he is still alive, I oughta find him and get some answers. Didn’t even know he was alive all this time.” He turns back to Ruby with a firm nod. “And if you know exactly where he is, then I’ll have to ask you for help again, if you don’t mind.”
She nods back. “Sure thing.” Then she raises a finger to make a point, “But you’ll have to promise me one thing.”
“Huh? What’s that?”
“That when you go chasing after Dyne, you don’t go alone.”
“…” He makes a hesitant frown and shuffles aside for a moment. As she suspected, that was definitely his initial plan. Yet to her pleasant surprise, he then turns back with a nod. “Alright.” He then folds his arms with a suspect-looking face. “Knowing you, you’d probably know where to find me even if I did try somethin’.”
She makes an amused smile. “You know me well enough.”
He then lets his arms drop again and turns his attention back to the guy on her back. “But first things first, we gotta get Cole to a safe place.”
“Of course. Where are we dropping him off? We’ve come to the other side of town and there definitely aren’t any homes if we go further.”
“Yeah…” He gives another sigh. “You heard it already, but he doesn’t have a ‘home’ anymore. His poor ma passed on since Shinra’s attack back then, and his pa was long gone before alla that.” He rubs his head awkwardly. “The only guy I can think of who’d probably still think about keeping him around stays outta town too.”
“Hm?” She blinks in surprise and tries to recall who that could be, and she’s then reminded that there was one more guy who practically lived in the old miners’ den back when the mines were still operational. But she never got his name.
Barret turns toward the bridge. “Come on. It’s still a bit further.”
“Across this bridge?” Cloud asks, growing wary. “Looks kinda… old.”
“Bah. It held up just fine back when we were drivin’ carts carrying coal by the tons over it! It’ll hold.”
“Hmm… I don’t doubt you, Barret, but just in case,” Aerith suggests, “maybe we could let Ruby cross first? Just to be sure we don’t run into anything iffy along the way.”
“Ah, that reminds me,” Ruby then casually drops, “I saw a Bomb around there earlier, but I scared it away. Hope it stayed away and didn’t call up its fellow poppers to harass us.”
“…” And with that, the other three stare at her and exchange nervous glances.
Cloud waves a hand. “Thanks for volunteering. Go on. We’ll wait until you clear the entire path.”
“Wh- Hey!” she tries to argue, but then cuts herself short when she realizes that it’s not even a big deal. She looks up ahead. “Ah, fine. I’ll go.” In return, she foists Cole onto him. “But you hang onto him first.”
“Sure.”
“Thanks!”
Temporarily free from her burden, Ruby throws caution to the wind and sprints across the bridge. And as she streaks by so fast that the ropes around her seem to blur, she does indeed run into not just one other Bomb, but several more that have been waiting in ambush. She nearly crashes into one, but deftly springs and somersaults over it as she lands behind them gang and skids to a stop to face them, though as the bouncy balls they are, they easily have her surrounded again. Apparently, one of them is also the same one that she had chased off earlier. She can tell because it’s a bit smaller than the rest, and it looks particularly bombastic now that it’s no longer alone.
Unfortunately for the bomb gang, they quickly realize that their latest target is no trifle and grow more and more frustrated as the fight goes on. Every time one tries to get in, she deflects its lunge with a swipe of her knife. Light on her feet, she begins to dance gracefully, ducking, dodging, and weaving between the Bombs as they charge or blast fireballs at her. Now, normally, it would be a very disastrous thing for a wooden rope bridge to meet with fire, which is precisely why the Bombs loved to take over the bridge and scare passersby. But this time, their adversary neatly deflects every single fireball over the ropes and lets it drop into the fjord below.
Finally, having had enough, the biggest of the Bombs – which had only been growing in size with every failed or blocked attempt – throws itself at her in a daring kamikaze attack. However, to the astonishment of all the Bombs, Ruby instead catches the bomb in her other hand and chucks it hard like a shotput to let it explode a safe distance away. The rest of them stare at the failed attempt at an explosion, turn back to her, and instead of getting intimidated, the rest of them likewise grow just as frustrated and start expanding on her too.
“Oh, come on,” she mutters.
She slips away her knife and repositions her hands forward to cast a spell, which a white magic circle flashes before her and expands to cover the ground where all the Bombs are gathered. And mere moments before they all explode on her, she warps them high into the sky above and gives a quick salute as the fireworks burst in quick succession high above the bridge, leaving a rather pretty sight despite it being in the middle of the day. Without looking up, she resumes her inspection further along the rest of the length of the bridge.
Aerith smiles proudly. “Isn’t it nice to watch her do all the fighting for once?”
Cloud flatly answers with a critical assessment, “She pulled a finishing move that could have been used from the outset.”
“Well, it wouldn’t be much of a fight if she just blinked them all away, now would it?”
After a moment of stunned silence, Barret comments, “The Bombs were always a huge issue while the mines were open, though back then they weren’t as common as they are now. There were some days when we’d have to pull out if any were roamin’ around. Couldn’t risk ’em explodin’ all over our fragile tunnels and all… And now, she made ’em look like balloons. They all popped too.”
Cloud replies, “She makes everything look easy. I wouldn’t be surprised if we run into an actual dragon at some point and she makes it her new minion… or pet.”
“Ha! What makes you think that? Couldn’t be ’cause she’s their God or something, huh?”
“…”
Though, now that he’s brought it up himself, Barret then has a contemplative moment and turns off to watch Ruby, who is now scuttling along the bridge and giving it a few hops to check how well it’s holding up. She waves a hand to them as if giving them the “okay” to proceed. Aerith likewise waves back in acknowledgement.
He then admits, “…Speakin’ of which, we all could probably use one.”
“Huh? Use what?” Cloud asks.
“A God to call our own. Maybe not everyone believes in that kinda religious stuff. But everyone has their problems and sometimes those problems are too big for us to handle. Still, no matter what, we gotta believe that they can be handled.” He scratches his head. “’Course, ya don’t just wait around until some higher power to show up. Life ain’t that easy. You gotta put in the effort yourself if you expect to get somethin’ done, and that goes for if you expect anyone to help you too. And who knows? Maybe you’ll be able to find that ‘God’ in your life someday.”
Cloud glances off into his own thoughts. Though he never cared to believe or heed any religion, if “God” is just another way of describing things or people that everyone can be thankful for, then even he has to admit that there was someone like that in his life. Actually, that guy is still around in a way. Cloud has a legacy to hold up, after all.
“Heyyy!” Aerith calls to them, now already treading along the admittedly shaky bridge, but it’s still holding up fine. “Let’s go! She’s cleared the way!”
The rest of them give pursuit. While the Bombs aren’t the only monsters that roam in the vicinity, following the firework display that Ruby set off, the remaining monster encounters seem to drop rather drastically. A few concerned Cockatolises decide that maybe it’s best that they fly back up to their nests to avoid the rampage of a human-shaped freak that decimates anything in her path. Likewise, a flock of Needle Kisses quickly flee the area for safer slopes, while Search Crowns slink back into the dirt to pretend they’re just normal mushrooms. And before she knows it, Ruby finds herself with a surprising dearth of enemies to slay. It’s like her natural aura of intimidation has its own “Enemy Away” effect. Maybe she ought to consider buying some Enemy Lure materia just in case.
Well, no matter. She finds herself at a fork in the railroad tracks that lead into the mines ahead. One of the tracks trails downward toward the nearby riverbend, and she recalls that’s where a certain spare miner had been residing on his own. She always thought it was a little odd that he was there by himself, but then again, scattered NPCs are just a signature of RPGs in general.
Finally, Cloud, Aerith, and Barret catch up with her and Cloud foists the limp body of Cole back on her. “Hey. Don’t forget who we’re here for.”
Without a complaint, she nods and accepts him and sets him on her back once more. She then turns to Barret with a question, “So, by any chance, is the guy you mentioned down this way?”
“Huh? Yeah. Wait, you know him too?”
“Not personally, no. I got an inkling someone will be down there.”
Barret rubs his head, not sure what to make of it, but nods anyway. “Okay. Hope he’s still there, or we might need a new way forward.”
Ruby leads the charge and scuttles down with the rest following, though takes care not to leave them in the dust.
Along the way, she also asks him, “Say, I’ve been meaning to ask. Who is this guy and why is he all alone?”
“His name’s Henry.” He shrugs. “To be honest, I dunno him that well myself, but I do know he’s lived out of Corel since the mines shut down. We used to call ’im ‘Henry Fjord’ since he always preferred hangin’ by the river.”
She chortles and nearly bursts aloud laughing to that nickname. What are the odds? It’s perfect.
“He’s been a old timer of Corel since the beginnings of the town, really, but usually would kick back in his own place when the days were gettin’ long. And even after the mines were shut down and coal started seeing its way out, he never lost that love for it.” He then lets off a pensive sigh. “But unlike me and Dyne, he also never got himself into arguments. Way too laid back to get riled up. Said it wasn’t worth the effort.”
“Hmm…” Sounds to her like a very chill dude worthy of respect.
“…Yeah. Sometimes, I wonder if all this fightin’s really worth it and maybe we’d been better off just backin’ off like Henry…”
Now, to everyone’s surprise, he suddenly stops walking and the rest wait for him.
He then makes a resolute frown. “But everything time I think about this town, it makes me sick in the gut. Not about how we acted; no, about how we didn’t act.” He slowly shakes his head in shame. “If only we didn’t #$^% around so much, we wouldn’t have found out. And…” He raises his hand to look at it and curls it into a fist. “If only I wasn’t so naïve, I woulda noticed how often Dyne snuck off for the mines even when we didn’t have work.”
Ruby blinks and her eyes widen in surprise. So her previous suspicions were actually on point.
“…” Barret then gives a sigh and lets his hand relax. “Well, no point in moping around here. We got work to do, so let’s get to it.”
The four of them proceed onward, and it’s just a short trek down the bumpy slope following the tracks to an open tunnel where a small lounging den happens to be. And as they’d hoped, the former miner known as Henry is indeed here, fast asleep, with a magazine fallen over his face.
Barret knocks on the wall nearby. “Yo! Henry! How long you gonna sleep, man!?”
The man snorts and grumbles an incoherent noise as he stirs awake again. “Who the hell…?” he mutters as he sits up, letting the magazine slip off.
Henry has some serious tan going on, though he doesn’t seem to be black, and his bushy gray stache-beard is rather well trimmed despite his frequent lazying around. Being a former miner, is quite well built, but his messy graying hairs and wrinkles on his face definitely show his age. He gives his head a quick scratch as he fights his drowsiness and turns their way, his eyes growing wide with surprise.
“Well, if I ain’t a Sahagin’s uncle… Barret?”
“Long time no see, man.”
The old man gives him a deep scrutinizing stare. “Huh… Never thought you’d ever show up again. People were sayin’ you died.” He rubs his tired eyes. “I ain’t still sleepin’, am I?”
“Don’t seem like it. Ya probably never seen these folks before either.”
“Hmm…” The old man also passes a quick glance over to his companions and promptly answers, “Nope. Odd bunch ya got here.” And now that he notices the helmeted fellow slumped over one of the women, he asks, “What happened with ’im? Drank too much?”
“Nah. He’s sick… and we’re tryin’ to take him home.”
“Home? Ha! What kinda home you wanna get him? This some fine real estate ya sure picked!”
But Barret remains serious. “Henry… It’s Cole Chinedu.”
“…” And at that moment, Henry’s smug smirk fades and his eyes widen. Now he realizes what this means and grows solemn himself. “…I see. So he’s still alive, but not doin’ too hot, huh?”
Barret nods. “Right. Hey, I know you don’t do the ferry service no more, but just this once, how about a ride to the other side?”
Henry turns away in deep thought as he considers the options and faces Barret with a grim frown. “Barret… ya still remember what that ferry service really does, right?”
“Never forgot.”
Now Aerith’s curiosity is piqued. “A ferry service? You actually have a ferry?”
Henry waves a dismissive hand. “Nah. It’s just a fishing canoe, nothin’ fancy. But back in the day, I used to give people rides to the other side of the river. There happens to be a patch of land that even the monsters don’t really touch for some reason.”
“Huh? Oh, wow. Is it like some kind of safe haven?”
“No.” With a stern frown, he answers, “It’s a graveyard.”
Notes:
God, after writing this chapter, I've come to realize how piss-poor I really am at writing a good romance scene versus a good drama scene. The first half fell into revision hell constantly for a whole week and the latter half with all the hard emotional beats around Corel and even including my original lore with Cole? Just a few hours, no sweat. Add in another hour for edits and done.
Trivia time and other comments
- I did indeed have multiple rough drafts where Ruby and Cloud had a bit more than just a hug in this first scene. But I decided that it would be pushing their relationship a bit too fast, and I felt it more important to stick to the main mystery and delve further into Rubia and Ruby's connection.
- Not the most important thing, but HP and MP Plus are the only "Plus" materia in the original game that can be bought. Everything else is either found or won as prizes through some minigame or optional quest. Obviously, this was changed for Remake and I wouldn't be surprised if they have many more "Plus" materia for Rebirth. Boy, do I want to talk about the new materia and write something in at some point.
- Don't ask me about the guy I called "Bob". I put no effort into that name. There is nothing more to it. Now, I was tempted to give ol' Bob a long backstory about how he's not actually called "Bob" but that went a little too far even for my kookiness.
- There was always one thing that irked me about the OG that I could never quite pinpoint until Remake came out and made it really obvious: the party don't get a lot of places to eat, and even when they do end up in places where there's food, they still don't eat! Gold Saucer had better have a snack bar in Rebirth, or I will write a strongly worded letter to Square Enix! (Okay, maybe not. I'd be too busy working on this, lol.)
- I also previously had a draft where Ruby gets to chat with Jessie aboard the ship talking about the new crafting system that Rebirth has introduced - I mean, she is their resident engineer by now - but unfortunately had to cut it out because I wanted to keep the story focused on the plot ahead.
- I will admit that it's been a long time since I checked out Before Crisis, so my memory with the Corel incident is pretty rough, but I do remember reading the debates people had in online forums about Dyne's involvement in the reactor raid by Avalanche. Was one of those things that might have been clarified in a later Ultimania that covered the Compilation, but I'm not sure. Regardless, I'm tying it all together here because it just works to a much more poignant story.
- For the record, the man named "Henry" actually isn't the exact same guy hiding in the cave by the river in the OG. That one was just another unnamed NPC who never left that cave. Now with Cole's storyline proceeding, I've replaced this random NPC with an OC who is a fisherman and gives rides across the river to a new location that was previously never accessible.
Chapter 52: Living on a Prayer
Notes:
2/7/24 edit: Ya'll, I'm not even gonna lie. The Rebirth State of Play has both inspired me and depressed me about this work of mine. It's hit a few delays thanks to recurrent writer's block, but is going back on track. I'm gunning with this as far as I can before Rebirth actually drops. The whole world being fully realized to this extent is just what I've wanted to see for so many years.
Finally, I have an excuse to not go that in-depth with background description anymore, haha! Jk, I know some readers have been going into this fandom-blind, so I'll still try my best.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Aerith’s eyes widen. “A graveyard?”
The ferryman named Henry nods. “This town has seen a few of the worst in its day, even before Shinra sacked everything. We elected to take our old and overworked that passed and move them where they wouldn’t be trampled. And since I liked kickin’ back by the river, I became the boat guy.”
“Oh… I see.”
Now that he mentions it, Ruby has another question to ask. “Hey, Barret? Didn’t you say we were gonna take him home?”
Barret’s eyes trail aside for a moment, as if filled with guilt, but nods back. “It’s where his ma was buried since the raid. I figured that Cole might wanna see her.”
“Ah.” The light in her eyes flickers for a moment and then darkens. Without his having to say it aloud, she already knows the implications.
But Aerith, ever wise to her sentiments, shakes her head and places a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “It’s gonna be okay. We’ll make things work.”
She takes a deep breath and calmly lets it out. “…Yeah.”
Henry passes some curious glances among them, but decides not to pry and instead informs them, “My canoe ain’t the biggest thing, so if ya’ll want a ride, I can only take two at a time.”
“That’s fine, sir,” Ruby answers, “I can fly the rest over myself.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Pardon?”
She reveals a subtle smile. “I may not look it, but I’m no ordinary human.”
He blinks in surprise, but even though she doesn’t say it outright, he seems to catch on and nods back. “A’ight. That makes things easier. Lemme go get the thing and I’ll be out with ya.” And with that, he gets up from his recliner and heads inside for a room in the back.
Cloud, Aerith, and Ruby all exchange confused glances. What would he need to fetch from inside? Surely, it’s not his boat, right? After a bit of grunting noise coming from within, to their surprise, they see Henry return pushing a mine cart out carrying a sizeable canoe and what seems to be some straw mats. Heaving a tired sigh, Henry then lays out the mats in a line leading out the door, and is about to unhitch the lock to open the cart door to slide that boat out.
“Oh! Don’t worry. I can help with that,” Ruby offers.
“Huh?”
To the old man’s stunned surprise, she snatches the boat in one hand while she’s still carrying Cole by the other, cleanly lift it up into the air above her head, and hops right out the door without having to use the mats. Henry stares at the figure of this petite young lady singlehandedly lift something that big over her head like it’s nothing. He turns to the others, who don’t seem to be surprised in the least.
“She always like this?” he asks Barret. “Showin’ off like it’s nothin’?”
“Yeah. Girl could dead-lift a whole ass cargo ship without breakin’ a sweat.”
Henry snorts back, making an amused smirk. “Well! With that kinda power, sounds like ya didn’t even need my help gettin’ across the river, did ya?”
“Maybe… but sure feels a lot more formal talkin’ with you about it.”
“Hmph. More like ya got kicked outta town and wanted someone to chat with.”
Barret gives a conceding sigh. “Gimme a break, man. It’s been a while since I’ve been back.”
Cloud then asks the old man, “Why keep your boat in the cave and not out on the water? Seems like a hassle if you want to give people rides.”
He gives him an annoyed scowl. “Like I said, I don’t do it much these days. And I sure ain’t leavin’ it out if some wack-ass Bomb shows up to mess on my boat!”
Cloud backs off with a nod. “Makes sense.”
They all follow Ruby out the door, where she’s set the canoe in its place along the bank. After setting Cole down onto one of the seats, she observes the remaining space aboard. The canoe is divided into three main areas with two seats on each end and two thwarts, or beams, where the oars can rest depending on where the rower chooses to sit. The oars themselves have been tied down to the hull in the middle for easy carry. As Henry said, he can spare room for two people other than himself if they move those oars. She then waves to the rest and beckons them over.
“Aside from Henry, there’s room for two more if one of you doesn’t mind sitting on the floor. So who wants to ride the boat and who wants to ride with me?”
Aerith claps her hands together with a cheery smile. “Oh! I’ve never ridden on a boat like this before! I can help watch Cole too.”
But with her suggestion, that leaves room for only one of the other two, neither man seems to want to take Ruby’s offer.
“Aerith and I have gotten rides with Ruby already,” Cloud insists, nudging Barret by the shoulder. “You go with her.”
“Hell naw, man! I only got one arm! How can I hold on?”
“She can just carry you, no problem.”
“Speak for yourself, Spiky! You’ve been takin’ rides with her all this time! What do you have to complain about?”
“Because whenever I do, she carries me like baggage!”
“And you think you can just shove yo’ problems on me!? Get real!”
As the two continue to bicker, Ruby turns back to Henry. “Is the graveyard that far?”
He shakes his head. “It’s just further down the bend. If ya can fly, then it shouldn’t take ya more than a minute or two.”
“Ah, gotcha.” She then turns to the noisy pair and places her hands on each of their arms, redirecting their attention to her. “How about this? Aerith stays with Cole and Henry, and I fly you both to the place, easy.”
“Huh!?” They look equally horrified.
“N-now, wait a sec, Ruby,” Barret pleads, “I’m sure you’re a great flier and all, but somethin’ ’bout the way you zoom through the air can be… unsettling.”
“You have no sense of flight safety!” Cloud blurts it right out. “If you have passengers, you should fly with them in mind!”
Ruby smiles. “I do. You guys will be safe with me.”
“Like hell we will…”
“Come on, Ruby. There’s still room for one more on the boat. Just take Cloud, and we’ll follow up soon,” Barret suggests.
“Oh, shut up! If I’m being forced into this, I’m not going to suffer alone!” he argues.
Ruby rolls her eyes. “God, guys. It’s barely a minute downstream. Let it go…”
Before either guy can keep arguing with her, though, she lets burst her white light and resumes the proud form of the huge dragon who takes each guy in each front claw and shoots into the air despite their screams. Aerith and Henry watch them go, and while Henry gives her a rather dumbfounded look, she returns him a reassuring smile.
“They’ll be fine. Let’s go!” she cheers and climbs onto the boat. Though it bobs a little, she quickly catches her balance and the rest is smooth. She takes a seat besides Cole to help hold him so he doesn’t slide off.
Deciding it best not to question what he just witnessed, Henry then climbs aboard as well to free the oars and set them into the water. He beckons Aerith to lay Cole out, and she obliges, letting him rest his head. Finally, taking his own seat, he shoves the boat off the shore with one of them, and they’re set to drift smoothly downstream.
Meanwhile, Ruby doesn’t even take a minute to reach the area in question. Though the winds over these mountains can be quite fierce and turbulent, as if by pure instinct, she picks up on the air currents and makes a mental map of how they flow. Catching a strong tailwind, she swoops in a rise and glides elegantly and with poise like a master in her element. To Cloud’s surprise, even with her dancing-like motions, she sways gently enough that his motion sickness doesn’t really kick in. Seems like she can fly properly if she really tries. Still, just to be safe, he doesn’t dare look down. If it’s any reassurance for him, Barret has shut his eyes and is clinging to her giant dragon wrist for dear life, muttering self-assurances to himself under his breath. Yeah, for once Cloud is doing just fine in the air.
She shortly catches sight of the patch of barren land in question: an alcove surrounded by high ridges all around except along where the river flows. Also plainly visible are several rows of graves with stakes leaned awry, some even broken, and others merely marked with stones. The dusty winds continue to blow fiercely and the poor stakes tremble to the chill rushing past them. It is indeed a graveyard, but it’s so rough, so old, so poorly maintained like no one’s been here for a really long time. Maybe there used to be more visitors, but these days the people of Corel have largely given up on finding their own peace; unlikely that they could face their former friends and loved ones. Though everyone tries to heap all the blame on Barret, even they must realize deep down that they were all duped by Shinra too, but no one dares to admit it.
Her two companions have grown silent as they approach. Understanding the fragile state of their destination, Ruby takes caution as she descends. She grants her passengers a quick warning to “hang tight” and kicks off the tailwind to discharge from the current, and then slows herself with a few powerful flaps of her wings while still high in the air to avoid stirring up gusts below. She settles into a smooth glide toward the ground, nails the soft yet firm landing and lowers herself to the ground to let them off. Cloud hops off, acting cool like it was nothing, though Barret still needs a gentle jostle from her to snap him out of his meditative trance. He lets off a relieved sigh of his own and climbs off, thanking her with a gentle pat on her arm as if giving his silent approval. With a job well done, Ruby returns to human form to observe their surroundings once more.
“It’s… pretty empty,” she remarks, looking just a bit disheartened.
Barret nods solemnly. “Yeah. It’s a shame, alright, but I’m not surprised. The only thing the people want to think about now is to get by with what they still got. I’m sure they all wanna be able to come back here eventually, but…” He then sighs. “I get it. It’s hard, thinkin’ back on all those we lost.”
She then approaches one of the graves marked by a creaky, nigh-to-collapse wooden stake. She tries to upright it, but it just falls back where it had been. She then tries to plunge it deeper in the soil, but the ground beneath them is rock hard and the poor stake cracks in two. She quickly holds it up, nervously trying to rectify what she just did, but remembers that she can’t fix this old wood like she can with metal beams and lets it fall.
She whips back to the other two with sad puppy eyes. “Do you guys have any rope, by any chance?”
Cloud lowers his head as if offering his condolences. “No. Didn’t think we would need them.”
Barret gives her a handwave. “It’s fine. Just leave it. It was bound to happen anyway.”
“Barret…” she quietly utters with a voice of guilt.
Getting back on track, Cloud then asks him, “So, where’s the one for Cole’s mom?”
“Hmm…” Barret stops to face somewhere off to the furthest end inward, away from the river bank. “Gotta be in the back.”
He takes a longer-winded route around a single lot and Cloud and Ruby follow him along the same path. However, it seems like as they head further in, there are less and less graves that are marked. Perhaps the townsfolk eventually ran out of usable wood to use as stakes or rocks that could be grave markers, or perhaps eventually the death toll was too great for anyone to mind such courtesies anymore. Either way, it seems like Cole’s mother has been buried in a place where it’s been unmarked.
Unfortunately, this makes it really hard to find exactly where that place would be. Barret stops in an approximate area near it, but as he looks around with a discouraged frown, it seems all of the graves in this area have been unmarked. At the very least, he would have hoped that there would be some kind of carving in the ground, but the dusty winds have blown them over and obscured where the carvings would be.
“…” Having no headway with his search, Barret makes a defeated sigh. “It’s somewhere around here, but can’t tell where.”
Cloud comes up and puts a hand to his shoulder. “It’s alright. We can just wait for Aerith and them to show up.”
As the three hold their silence in honor of those that had been laid to rest here, Ruby then notices a slight change in the winds. At first, the winds seem to blow freely, but then they slow until there is barely a breeze. But more concerning is that the area then begins to grow warmer rather quickly. While the sun overhead is quite relentless over this empty desert basin, it seems to grow a lot hotter than she anticipates. And before long, the three of them are starting to break into a sweat.
“…Who the hell turned up the sun?” Barret mutters, wiping his brow.
Then, Ruby catches a certain scent in the air and her ears also perk up. She turns to cast her eyes toward the high cliffs behind them and they grow wide with caution.
“Ruby? What’s wrong?” Cloud asks.
“Guys, it smells like something’s burning.”
“Burning…?” Barret nearly freaks out. “No way, can’t be Corel!?”
“No. It’s from further north.” To which, he settles down again.
“What could be out there, though?” Cloud asks, getting more confused. “The reactor?”
Barret gives a smug snort. “Hmph. If it turns out Shinra’s own damn property can’t stand the heat, then it’s their fault their shit’s so shit.”
But Ruby prepares to take a battle stance. “It’s not even that. Something’s coming.”
“What?”
Before they know it, a huge heat wave blasts from over the cliffs and flows down into the open-ended basin, and there are some slight tremors as if a quake has begun to strike. However, it’s not a quake. Instead, a giant round shadow suddenly bursts out from the top of the cliffs, looming over them like someone of dignity. It’s not alone, as several more smaller and just as round shadows pop out around it. An enormous dark Bomb, with the color of ash and soot and a bright fire burning from its eyes and cackling mouth, flies over the edge and crashes its way into the ground before them, riling up a wave of dust that blows over the rest of the graveyard. It’s surrounded by several more regular red Bombs that bounce in after it.
Now Barret is absolutely livid. “Aw, HELL NO! This piece o’ trash did NOT just drop in like it owns the place! This ain’t their damn playground!”
Cloud draws his sword. “Looks like it’s been itching for a fight. Let’s give it one.”
Ruby rummages her fingers and flashes out very pointy claws. “If they’re gonna blow, I can send them sky high.”
“I won’t even complain. But let us wail on ’em first.”
“Sure, I can play it cool… Speaking of cool, this place could use some A/C. The heat’s killing my complexion.”
“…” He curiously passes a glance her way, but quickly averts his gaze as he doesn’t want to get into that argument.
With a circular wave of a hand, she brings it to her lips and blows off what seems to be a sort of kiss toward where the Bomb King and its subjects are floating about. However, this isn’t any simply charming kiss, but one laden with a frigid air. In but a short moment, the winds pick up again and blow right back against the Bombs, rapidly cooling the air around them and nearly blowing out the Bombs’ flames. However, these feisty creatures refuse to back off to some icy winds and burn right up again with even hotter fire and ever hotter tempers.
And then, the Bomb King roars and the Bombs all charge. While Cloud and Barret each take on the smaller targets, Ruby rushes head-on toward the King and plunges her claws into his eyes, completely ignoring the intense flames coming out from them, and makes the King screech in pain. She leaps back, swings a leg in a low sweep, stopping just underneath it, and launches him like a ball straight up into the sky. She lunges into the air and zips around him like an electron to its proton, unleashing a barrage of slashes that turn the big Bomb into an unraveling ball of string. And as she casually lets herself fall back toward the ground, the flabbergasted King has barely even an instant to realize that he’s been defeated and blows himself to kingdom come.
All the Bombs on the ground watch in horror and awe at the magnificent fireworks display above them, and Ruby neatly lands back on the ground with a perfect T-pose landing, faced away, and swings back around with a cute smile as she lets her arms drop.
As it happens, Ruby’s little show is just the distraction Cloud needed to pull off a wide-area Blizzara. He hits all of the stunned Bombs, temporarily freezing them in their places. And with that, Ruby steps back to watch her partners charge in, chainsaw and katana ripping and blazing with unfettered fury.
By the time Henry’s canoe arrives by the river bank before the graveyard, the battlefield has been cleared of enemies that left nothing but a few scattered Right Arms behind, which Ruby immediately swiped as her spoils. The canoe then comes to a halt as it gently drifts onto the solid bank. Aerith thanks him for the ride and he offers to help her lift Cole off the boat too. She then notices their friends waiting for them near the river and waves to them.
“Sorry for the wait! Hope you guys weren’t too bored!” she calls to them.
“We’re fine, Cuz! Just doing some graveyard sweeping,” Ruby answers.
“Aw, that’s nice of you.”
The three hurry on over to help take Cole off of Henry’s hands, and Ruby takes him onto her back once more. As with before, though, she senses no internal spirit or energy coming from the silent man. If there had been any sign of life before, it’s already started to dwindle by now. She turns back to Barret with a serious frown.
“Let’s take him to his mom’s grave. And if it comes to it, I’ll do it: I’ll operate on him like I did with Sonon.”
Barret’s eyes widen for a moment and he nods back. “Okay. We’ll leave it to you, Ruby.”
She waves a hand to Henry, excusing him from service and sending well wishes, so he doesn’t need to be wrapped up in their troubles any longer. They hurry back toward the area where they had previously stood, this time with Aerith tagging along, and Barret guides them toward the approximate area. Ruby lays him down on the ground, sits down on her legs and starts up another health scan of his body.
“…This isn’t good. His body is already starting to show signs of breaking down. Whatever device had been working to keep him alive is no longer doing its job.”
Everyone gasps and Aerith droops, looking a bit ashamed. “Oh… I’m sorry. I should have tried to do something earlier.”
“It’s not your fault. This would have happened regardless.”
“Hey, Ruby. What did you do for Sonon?” Cloud asks her, “You mentioned ‘pulsing’ him with light, right?”
She releases her scan and rests her hands on her thighs. “Yeah, but at the time, I had no idea what to do and had to take a gamble. Thankfully it paid off, but Cole’s situation is much more complicated and may be a much bigger gamble. I don’t know how he’s going to react.”
“Like ya said, we don’t got much time left,” Barret reminds them. “Cole’s not comin’ back if we don’t do something. But if you can save Sonon even without knowing how, then you can do it for Cole.”
Aerith nods. “Right. You got this, Ruby.” She also takes a seat beside her. “And I’ll be support for as long as you need it.”
“Yeah. Um…” She carefully considers the first move and briefly instructs her, “As soon as I make contact, I want you to keep him healed to full health. Make sure there’s no room for his body to start self-destructing.”
“Okay!” She raises her hands forward and closes her eyes, preparing to cast her magic.
With the gentle breeze that blows helping to clear the dusty air, Ruby takes a deep breath and lets it out to calm herself. She raises her hands forward again, reshaping her hands into claws, and recalls the essence of the light she once became, infusing it into the tips of her claws. They begin to glow bright with that pure white light, nearly dazzling her companions beside her. And with her mind focused and resolve hardened, she plunges her claws into Cole’s body.
The very instant she makes contact, an unexpected chain reaction is triggered. At first, things go as expected. She begins to pulse that light of “rebellion” into him and he glows as if he readily welcomes her presence. But the peace is shortly interrupted when she instead meets intense internal backlash – she’s startled by a mad screech of pain, almost like a voice from the planet that suddenly blows out her ears and rings in her mind, then followed by a spark that rips into an inferno and streaks throughout her own body.
Hot. Too hot. Burning. Incendiary. Holy hell, it hurts! What happened? This light is supposed to be her own! Why is it burning her instead? And why does she feel like she’s expanding like a star ready to go supernova? All this pressure within that wants to come out, but there’s no way to release. The pain grows and peaks so fast that her body starts to spasm uncontrollably, and yet she can’t move from her place. Not yet; it’s too soon to pull away.
“…Ruby?” She can barely pick up on Aerith’s concerned voice right next to her.
The noise from that screech – no, those screeches, there are many – is so deafening that Ruby can hardly hear herself think. Despite burning up in totality inside, she feels frozen stiff, almost paralyzed from head to toe. She’s starting to become numb from the excruciating pain; can’t even feel her own hands anymore. She can no longer curtail her own power like this. And then as the noise comes to a cacophonous roar, out of nowhere, she meets with a jumpscare from the past: a brief flash of Jenova’s deathly horrendous figure sealed away in the ice and her own claws reaching out toward it, as if about to welcome her.
For just a split second of panic, Ruby unleashes too much energy from her finger tips. Before Aerith can do anything, the excessive light floods Cole’s body and it seems to repel whatever she tries to do to hold him together. Even then, the man remains silent, helpless, amid whatever pain that he is forced to endure. But as would anyone who has come under the command of Rubia’s will, he had long accepted his fate. The light in which he now basks calls to him, welcomes and embraces him, as if this were the unspoken word of command telling him, “You are no longer needed.” And he would thus comply. Whatever remains of his dying spirit finally gives himself up. And so, the mysterious black Soldier disappears in a mist of green ether that fades to gray and then dissipates into nothingness.
“Huh!? What happened!?” Barret blurts out, his eyes nearly popping out. “He didn’t just…!?”
“Ruby! What did you…?” Cloud mutters in shock as that old fear sets in again.
“Ruby?” Aerith tries again to reach her.
But Ruby doesn’t respond. She simply sits there in a daze as she continues to be bombarded with the cacophony. And as if things couldn’t get any worse, she is also “embraced” by traces of the vanishing mist and is forced to confront another lost memory from long ago.
~
“…You foolish child. Must it always come to this…?” Bahamut’s thunderous voice spoke in lament.
The battle was over as soon as it had begun. Rubia the dragoness lied on the crusty ground, battered and bruised, even paralyzed from the waist down so she couldn’t even stand back up. Somehow she was still conscious after all the punishment her father just laid upon her. Her dear friend Fenrir lied nearby, equally as battered, and his head was pinned down by one leg of his mighty foe. The Black Materia was now held firmly in the black dragon’s grasp as well. Even after all that they had plotted up to now, even as smoothly as things had gone, there was always one being that could stand in their way. The King of the Dragons was nothing like anything they’d ever faced. Nothing had ever come close. And on top of it all, the old dragon wasn’t even in his prime anymore, yet he still fought on par with his former glory against his own child.
Nevertheless, even given his no-holds-barred beatdown, Bahamut ultimately relented from landing the killing blow on either one. He let off a tired sigh – tired not from the battle, but from the troubles of parenthood. By now, Fenrir had stopped struggling and lays silent, finally succumbed to sleep. Assured that he could have a word with his daughter alone, Bahamut left him be and crouched down before Rubia, lifting her up in one arm and slinging her limp body over his shoulder.
“…Father…” Rubia muttered weakly.
He stopped for a moment to turn to her. “Yes?”
“…You coward. Even with all your might, you fail to kill…”
He shook his head. “You know the reason. Regardless of how I fight, there is no end to the cycle. Should I have landed that decisive blow, it would simply return you to the place of your rebirth in due time.”
“C-curse you… I never wished to be immortal…”
He wordlessly took a stand, wrapping an arm around her waist and lifting her off the ground.
“Stop. Leave me,” she pleaded. “End me already!”
“That’s enough. We’re leaving for Sylph’s Den.”
“I don’t care how brief the time is til I am reborn! It’s still a time I’m not alive!”
He slumped a little, feeling rather discouraged himself. “…Rubia.”
“I wish to not exist! I hold no purpose being in this world!”
He sighed to himself, still baffled at his daughter’s illogical behavior after all this time. It felt like no matter how he explained it, she would not heed his words. But applying force had no better consequences. How would a father go about teaching such a raucous, irascible prodigy of war?
“I should never have been born!” she wailed, her eyes beginning to water. “You two were a match made in hell! Who had ever asked for Tiamat to have a child!?”
Though her words weren’t anything that he hadn’t heard before, they still stung every time.
“Why did I have to be that child? Why was I born at all…?” she croaked, already exhausting the reserves of her air, and began to weep. “How long must I continue to suffer… for the sins of the past to be forgotten…?”
Bahamut’s face grew dark as he was reminded of his past with Tiamat. In all honesty, if it were by his own choice, the evil Dragon Queen would have never had any chance with him in the first place. However, her rage that sparked the First Great War would not be quelled until her defeat at his hands, along with the help of his fellow Guardians. And in the following trial where they both stood charged with the resulting collateral, he agreed to the judgment of temporary exile – so that he would join her in the other realm and keep her company until she would be calm enough to be granted parole. Unfortunately, even after their relatively peaceful honeymoon, she would prove to be a reckoning all the same and start another Great War less than a century later. And by that time, she would be sentenced to permanent exile alone. Unfortunately for Bahamut, though, it turned out that Tiamat had born an unwanted child – though he would not dare to make such a claim now.
As he drifted off into his thoughts, however, he would make the fatal error to let his guard down. While Rubia’s head hangs limp, she then realized she was well in reach of the ominous orb in his other claw. He had relaxed his grip. In manic desperation, she lunged with her neck to snatch the orb in her maws.
“Rubia!” he bellowed.
But it was too late. As soon as she captured the orb once more, she cast a powerful time-traveling spell in mind. Before he could seize that orb from her teeth, she vanished away into time.
When she awoke once more, she found herself still in the same hole that she had been lying in – but now she was alone. She coughed and dropped the orb that she had been holding, letting it roll aside. She was absolutely exhausted and nearly drained of her stamina and mana alike, but at long last she was free. Even if her father would find some way to locate her in time, she was better positioned to slip away again. It was unfortunate that she couldn’t take Fenrir along, but she didn’t dare to return to that moment. She just hoped that he somehow survived their encounter with her father.
She glanced up toward the sky in a daze and then noticed the thick jungle that envelops the land around this hole. In her panic, she didn’t calculate her trajectory through time. She just wanted to get away. How far did she jump? The land around here looked nothing like what she last knew. It could well have been centuries or even a full millennium.
No matter. Freed from her captor, she had the chance to cast a Full Cure spell without interruption and freed herself from paralysis. That said, she had little mana left in reserve; she had to use the remainder wisely. She reverted back to human form to conserve on energy and scrambled back to her feet to fetch the materia that sat in her face. To whatever time she had arrived was of little importance. She had the Black Materia and as she once swore, she would summon the Calamity from the Skies. The time of the Cetra was soon come to an end. And as she clutched the orb in both hands, a maniacal grin cracked into the open on her face and she couldn’t help but giggle. At first, it was a subtle, quiet laughter, but then it crescendoed into madness. She raised the orb in the air and declared the incantation that would awaken its power. Whatever calamity she would bring, she would oversee it to the best of her abilities. No one, from the past or the future, would escape her control ever more.
~
As the vision fades to black, Ruby has blanked. She already knew that Rubia was responsible for summoning Jenova to this planet, but it was always a vague, amorphous concept in mind that she could pretend that she didn’t know much about, even as the clues gradually sifted into mind. Now that she witnessed the exact moment with her own eyes, it’s the slap in the face she needed to wake her up to reality. Every time she’s seen these visions, they have been from Rubia’s perspective, but it’s not because Ruby is just taking on a “role”. Rather, she is seeing all these memories as herself. She may act differently from Rubia, but she still is her by another name. As much as she wants to deny it, all of Rubia’s sins are her own.
And yet, even after all that, her punishment does not end. The noise and pain from earlier has yet to fade. She’s still being torn apart. It’s like there are suddenly multiple spirits trapped within the same body, all struggling for control. They won’t stop shouting. They won’t stop fighting. Enough already. She can’t take it anymore. Let her black out already.
But she doesn’t black out. It’s as if some greater authority over her is currently forcing her to stay awake. And with no other option left to her, her mind cracks and her feral instincts take over. She clasps tightly at her own head, lets out a blood-curling scream that devolves into a beastly roar, and throws herself to the ground. She convulses with madness and slams her head hard until it bleeds, recoiling into a quivering, curled-up mess.
“Ruby! Stop!” Aerith cries.
“Ruby! Snap out of it!” Cloud dives right into action and pins her down, but can barely hold her down while she’s trying to kick herself free. “Barret! Her legs!”
“Got her!” Barret throws his own weight on her and pinning her down with just one arm.
“Ruby!” Aerith caresses her head in her hands, keeping it off the ground. “Can you hear me? It’s okay! You’ll be okay…”
But Aerith can’t quite heal her like this, as Ruby refuses to stay still. She is snarling incoherently, her eyes red-shot, her pupils thinned in fear, her fangs bared and gnashing. She is losing it and doesn’t care if she hurts herself or anyone else.
“Ruby, please, hold still… Let me help!” she pleads.
Ruby growls, trying to shake her head free, and Cloud has to clamp down on the back of her neck too. Before she can snap at Aerith, he clamps his hand over her mouth and she promptly sinks in her fangs.
“Cloud!” Aerith gasps.
This bite isn’t a dry bite. She’s implanted some kind of poison into her fangs, and it triggers some kind of reaction in his body too. He’s suddenly hit by a familiar streak of pain like whenever he’s previously encountered Sephiroth or Jenova. But rather than black out, he’s instead hit by an unexpected vision of his own.
It’s just a series of brief flashes, but they come so clearly as if they were natural. The depths of a dark cave lit up by the bright streams of life from below ground. A giant egg that cracks and then hatches. The face of a little baby girl with sharp horns protruding from her head, tiny wings, and a snake-like tail. And the little imp even bites on his big wolf nose – to no effect other than slighting his pride.
Cloud freezes still. For some reason, though he’s never once seen them in his life, these memories feel so familiar. It’s like they’re his own from a different time. Once again, he’s seeing things from the perspective of a certain huge wolf. Is this… Fenrir? But why is he seeing this? How are they connected? And that little girl…
“Cloud, you okay? That looks like a nasty bite,” Barret says, snapping him out of his daze.
“Uh…”
Now that he notices it, he still has his hand between Ruby’s teeth. While the wound is open and he’s clearly bleeding, for some reason, he doesn’t feel the pain anymore. What’s instead replaced the pain is a strangely comforting feeling of nostalgia. And apparently, it seems to affect her too. She has yet to let him go, but the feral rage has fizzled and with her eyes closed, she looks like she’s finally at peace. It’s as if sharing some old memories together has helped calm her down. Even her uncontrolled spasms have ceased at last, and Aerith lets off a sigh in relief. She’s been working her magic to help abate Ruby’s pain, and it seems her persistent efforts have won out.
Cloud carefully tugs his hand out from her jaws, prying them open with his other hand, and finally frees himself. Aerith then volunteers to heal him too.
“Cloud… Thanks. You saved me.” She admits, feeling a bit guilty, “And sorry about your hand.”
He waves with his other as he lets her treat him. “Don’t worry. I’ll be okay.”
Barret shakes his head. “Sheesh. I know you’re a reckless dumbass sometimes, but here I thought you weren’t that crazy. And then you go and do this! With how she was actin’, she could’ve just torn your hand off, you know?”
He glances off with a cold sweat. “I didn’t really think. Just hoped that she wouldn’t.”
“Uh-huh… Maybe Ruby ain’t the only one who needs a chaperone.”
“…”
The three of them share an awkward silence as Aerith stops the bleeding and restores his hand to perfect health once more. And in the silence, they can hear Ruby making some wheezing gasps and groans. Realizing that they may be crushing her, the men quickly get off.
“Ruby?” Aerith checks with her.
She coughs for a bit as she gets back her air and her eyes weakly flutter open again. But now she remembers where they are and what had just happened, the weight of the situation crushes her anyway. She mumbles in a raspy voice, “…Thanks, guys. I’m okay now. But Cole…”
A dreadfully uncomfortable silence comes in as they all look away in shame. There’s no point denying it. Despite all the precautions that Ruby tried to take, they are ultimately down a man.
Aerith lowers her head, but insists, “He’s in a better place now.”
But Ruby stares off elsewhere, looking entirely unconvinced. The man straight up turned into gray ether. Whatever place he is in now, he’s just become a part of the hivemind that is the Terra Null, never to return to the planet. Is that truly a “better place”?
“I’m so sorry, Ruby. I couldn’t do much to help.”
“It’s not your fault. I panicked and messed up. This is all on me.”
“…”
Ruby passes a sympathetic glance toward Barret too. Though the man has turned back to the graves around them and keeps silent, she can tell how crushed he is on the inside. It was bad enough that he had to face the grudges of the people he once was a part of, and now there’s been yet another victim from this town. But it’s even worse knowing that she was the one who crushed his hopes this time. He may not want to blame her and would rather throw all that business back at Shinra for running Project Immortals in the first place, but in the end, that still ties back to her too.
Sometimes, she wonders if more people would actually be better off if she didn’t intervene in their lives so much. Maybe if she had lowered her head and kept quiet as to not raise any false hopes, the fallout wouldn’t have been as bad. And yet, she couldn’t help herself. She couldn’t just stand back and pretend that she doesn’t care. But it takes a lot more than just caring about it to solve a problem. She just wasn’t the one who could do it.
Cloud watches her bury her face in her hands. She doesn’t have to say anything; he knows what she’s thinking. They all underestimated the risks and were totally unprepared going in. No amount of denial can change that. But wallowing in a self-pity party isn’t going to help with anything either. What they need now is a real win to boost back morale; a decisive victory with no loose threads attached or bridges being burnt. In this race for the Black Materia, they need to shoot for first place and keep running so far ahead that none of their enemies can ever catch up. And to ensure that, it’s not just Ruby who has to be overpowered; they all have to be.
With new resolve burning in his heart, he now reaches over a hand and gives her an affectionate rub on her head, to which she turns to him with a sad albeit curious stare. He offers to change the subject, “Hey… Any chance you can tell us about your ‘secret battle plan’? So we can be prepared too.”
Barret and Aerith stare at him in disbelief. What the hell is he talking about at a time like this?
But even with their silent responses, Cloud insists, “I know it sucks right now, but we still got worse problems to deal with down the line. We can’t be caught up here, you know?”
And now the other two catch on. Aerith puts on a thoughtful face while Barret folds his arms with a serious one, but they both begin to seriously consider their options moving forward.
“What’s this ‘secret battle plan’?” he asks.
Cloud replies, “Ruby told me about it while we were going around hunting for flyers. Seems like she knows a lot of good places to find loot. You know, like battle equipment, useful items and materia… the really good stuff.”
“That so?” He nods in approval. “Sounds like a plan, alright. Was thinkin’ we could use some upgrades.”
“Ruby, just say the word. We’re all on board with whatever ideas you got!” Aerith reassures her.
Ruby stares at them all for a moment and then turns away again to keep staring into the distance, wondering how the conversation steered off so fast. She was just having another depressive episode and contemplating the worst fates for herself, and as he usually does, Cloud just had to go and ruin it. Jerk. Stop being so nice.
Still, she has to thank him for that reminder. She finally pulls back up into a sitting position and turns back to Cloud to answer him. “Okay. For the record, I know of some places we can look for now, but there are still plenty of things that will need more time before I can go digging around for them. I can’t say what events need to be ‘triggered’ first, but when they do happen, I’ll let you all know.”
“No problem. We got a bit of time to kill. You even said you wanted to ‘live’ at the Gold Saucer.”
“Ah…” She makes a bit of an embarrassed blush. “I did say that, didn’t I?”
“Oh, yeah! We did tell everyone else to wait for us up there,” Aerith recalls. “Well, let’s not keep them waiting.”
“Right…”
Though she still feels awkward about this sudden mood swing, it’s true that they don’t have much time before they’ll confront Sephiroth. If there’s any time to enact her secret plan, it’s now. Ruby climbs back to her feet, dusting herself off, along with Aerith’s assistance on her back. She turns to her and then to the other two with a firm nod.
“The ropeway station by Corel is down southwest. Since the townsfolk probably don’t want to see us anymore, I can fly us all over and-”
“If you’re going to fly us anywhere, just take us up to the Saucer,” Cloud suggests instead.
“Ah, yeah… Okay. Gimme some space, I’m gonna transform.”
The three of them step back and Ruby bathes herself with light, bursting out into her dragon form once again. She crouches to the ground to let on a couple passengers, and for once, Cloud hops on without a complaint, lending a hand to Aerith to help her climb up too. As nervous as Barret may be about taking the “front seat” in her claws, it’s probably for the best since he only has one hand he can hold on with. She cups her claws into the shape of a gondola so he can step on, and making sure they’re all well situated, she then launches off with a flurry of wingbeats and soars into the skies once more.
Down below, Henry cruises along calmly along the river, headed back upstream against an easy, gentle flow. He gazes up to witness the white dragon soar overhead once again, now with one less passenger. With a sigh, he does a quick cross over his heart and gives a silent prayer. Maybe he’ll find his ma up in heaven, or maybe he’s got some things to work out in the afterlife first. Either way, may that poor kid’s soul finally be laid to rest.
~
High above the desert, the shining golden skylights pierce through even the bright afternoon skies, though evening will be coming along soon. Now that Ruby gets a nice aerial view of the gargantuan mushroom-UFO tiers of the towering cityscape, she has to admit that this may actually be the most unique view she’s seen of the Gold Saucer. Being able to fly is pretty nice; sure beats just taking a ropeway.
Down by the station, everyone else has gathered by the entrance. Aside from the Highwind crew, as well as Cid and Vincent who volunteered to stay on the ship, the rest of them are present. While Tifa and Jessie are busy discussing plans ahead, Biggs and Wedge are chilling by the side and making smart commentary on the place and the people that pass by them. Sonon is busy keeping Yuffie from filching from too many people, but he has to admit that she’s pretty sneaky with some of them, so can’t guarantee that he didn’t miss any potential victims. Cait Sith seems to be trying to bargain out a deal with the receptionist, but is failing to really come to any working consensus, and Red XIII is resting near one of the big chocobo statues by the ticket vendors, somewhat in the shadows. He was almost mistaken to be one of the mascots by passersby and elected to be unseen for the time being.
Then, out of the blue the shadow of a large dragon comes hovering in over the crowd of visitors. Aside from the aforementioned, everyone else is in for a shock that a huge beast like this has apparently been let loose. That said, people aren’t fleeing in panic and some don’t even pay much mind. Anyone who’s a regular at Gold Saucer knows that the owner is a big fan of collecting monsters. Instead, it’s gossip that runs amok. Hey, who let a dragon out and about? It’s even a white dragon; but couldn’t be the same one in recent news, could it? Looks like the staff aren’t in a hurry to detain it, though it doesn’t seem aggressive. Look, it’s even carrying people! Maybe it’s actually part of the attractions?
“There she is! Our star of the hour!” Jessie cheers, waving a hand in the air.
“Just an hour?” Biggs quips, but she ignores him.
“Oh!” Tifa waves both arms in the air too. “Over here, guys!”
Ruby slowly and carefully descends to avoid startling any more people and finds an empty place to land. Then, she lowers her front claws first to let Barret hop off, and then plants her arms down so Aerith and Cloud can slide off. Finally, she reverts back to human form. And as usual, the crowd around them stirs into a murmur once more. The dragon was actually a person! What an amazing magic trick! Maybe it IS part of the attractions after all.
Tifa greets the new arrivals with a welcome smile. “That’s a way to make an entrance! And looks like you guys are getting comfortable riding with Ruby.”
Cloud casually waves it away. “Only when she’s careful. Which isn’t a lot of the time.”
Barret gives a relieved sigh to be back on solid ground. “I know Ruby wouldn’t let us drop, but… Yeah. I think I’m gonna stick with ridin’ the ship.”
Aerith beams. “You hear that, Cuz? You have some happy clients!”
Ruby shrugs. “Knowing them, that’s probably the best I’ll get, so I’ll take it.”
“Alright, so aside from Cid and Vincent, that should be everyone.” Tifa looks around, taking a head count as she goes. Now that she notices it, though, she has to ask, “By the way, how was the dropoff? Did Cole make it back home okay?”
As if she had just dropped a bomb on them, the rest freeze up and share uncomfortable glances, while Ruby looks off on her own to avoid any eye contact. Though Cloud looks like he’s about to admit to some hard truths, Barret and Aerith get ahead of him.
“Yeah… He’s gone to meet his ma,” Barret puts simply.
Aerith nods. “Ruby gave him a proper send-off.”
And Ruby refuses to say a word. Her eyes are shifting nervously and she looks like she’s trying her darnedest to erase some recent memories. Even Aerith gives Cloud a serious stare as if meaning to tell him to play along.
“…” So Cloud informs likewise, “He won’t be coming along anymore.”
Though Tifa was not expecting those responses, their faces tells her that it’s best to not dig further. “Oh… that’s too bad, but it can’t be helped.” In any case, she then asks, “By the way, Ruby, could you go help Cait Sith? He’s been trying to haggle the price with the receptionist, but I don’t think she’s budging without the owner’s consent.”
Snapping back to attention, Ruby salutes. “Gotcha. In fact, I can go get the owner myself. Seems like he’s been looking for me anyway.”
“Oh, you already know?” She nods back. “Alright, then. Good luck!”
Ruby hurries on over to the front desk, where Cait Sith seems frankly embarrassed. Even though he’s also a regular at the Saucer, they still won’t treat him with the same kind of charity. Well, it’s not like he’s actually an employee here, but… Anyway, he’s sure glad to see her.
“Ruby, my good lass! Excellent timing!” he cheers, hopping for joy upon Moogle’s head. “Please! I’ve been trying to arrange a meeting with Dio to talk about these prices, but this receptionist is a little too stubborn…”
She pokes her head by the vending window. “Hey again! I hear Dio has been looking for me?”
“Oh!” Like a switch has been flicked, the stern receptionist lights back up with a polite smile and a nod. “Welcome back, Miss Ruby! Yes, the owner wishes to see you right away. I believe he’s been informed that you arrived a little while ago, but it seems you vanished again before he could find you…”
She raises a hand in apology. “Sorry about that. I needed a bit of time before I could gather the funds, but I got it.” She whips out the card in question. “Do you take debit?”
“Oh, certainly. Are you buying tickets just for this visit or would you like the lifetime pass? As a special discount for you, courtesy of the owner, it’s just 30,000 gil for everyone!”
She blinks. “Uh, discount?”
Cait Sith sighs to himself. “You sure are a lucky one, Ruby. I hear the full price of the pass has been raised in recent months due to high demand.”
She turns back to him, raising an eyebrow. “I thought that was always how the price was. How much would it have been, then?”
“45,000 gil. And that’s only because it’s not the holiday season, which could have shot the price up to 48k.”
Her jaw drops. Holy inflation! They really dodged a bullet there. Guess she should probably give Dio her thanks while she’s at it. She nods back to the receptionist and makes a purchase for the pass in question.
“Thank you very much! With this pass, everyone with you will be free to return as much as you’d like! Here’s your card back.” She also mentions, “Also, as a reminder, the owner is currently waiting for you in his room in Battle Square.”
“Gotcha. And thank you!”
Though the receptionist keeps up that cheery disposition up to now, she shortly resumes her usual fatigued expression as soon as Ruby and Cait Sith finally leave her alone. Ruby happily delivers the news to her comrades and they all gather inside at last. And as soon as they step inside the lucidly colorful hall into the main lobby, the crew scatter to indulge in all the vibrant colors and the sights. In particular, Yuffie runs right up to the giant map signboard with a fire in her eyes and schemes in her heart, and by now, Sonon has pretty much given up trying to control her. Instead, Red keeps an eye on her to make sure she isn’t just going to run off and rob the vendors or something.
“Wow! This place is huge!” Aerith marvels at everything, spinning all around. “It’s even brighter than when Wall Market lights up. I wonder how it looks at night here?”
“It’s called the ‘brightest place on Gaia’ for a reason,” Biggs explains. “Probably could see everything from space.”
“Man, I’m kinda jealous that you guys got to ride in on Ruby. The view must have been amazing!” Wedge remarks too.
“Hehe! Maybe you can ask her for a ride sometime?” she suggests.
“Sure! Is she taking requests now?” he replies jokingly.
“Come on, man. We just got here,” Biggs reminds him, but cracks a grin like he’s caught on. “You’re gonna make her miss out on all the fun.”
“Oops! Yeah. We can’t do that.”
“Besides, she got the boss of the place waiting for her.”
“Yeah, that too…”
But that said, Ruby casually handwaves it away. “Don’t mind me. You all go off and enjoy yourselves. Once I’m done cracking a deal with the owner, I’ll be right out to join you.” She adds with a proud grin, “I can be in many different places at once, after all.”
He returns her a thumbs-up. “Oh, we didn’t forget! When you’re ready, hit us up! You did promise Jessie and the rest of us that you’d fly us around sometime.”
“Gotcha.”
She quickly passes a glance around the rest of the crew, gazing at the wholesome sight of a happy gathering of friends. Tifa, Aerith, Jessie, and Cait Sith seem to be busy with the huge map signboard and already busy throwing out ideas, though for certain reasons, Jessie seems a bit adverse to stopping by Event Square. Leaving Red to watch Yuffie, Sonon seems to be thinking about checking out some of the chocobo races. And as for Cloud, he’s now standing by the tube labeled “Battle Square” and is waiting for Ruby as if he were still acting as her chaperone. Or whatever floats his boat.
Last but not least, there is Barret. He has wandered off into his own corner still looking pretty grave. Though Red checks in with him, he casually brushes it off and asks to be left alone. Perhaps she should honor his wishes for now. But what about later? Now that she’s reminded of the timeline of events, Ruby worries about what may happen soon. It’s only a matter of time before a certain vagabond arrives and starts up the shooting. But with how much has changed over the course of their adventure, she likewise has no idea when it will happen. Considering that no one’s panicking yet, it probably hasn’t happened so far. But it’s coming.
So what should she do? Should she just stop by the area and stand guard to prevent the shooting? Even help security detain Dyne? She doesn’t want to rustle any feathers with him, though, especially that Barret will have to confront him sooner or later. She doesn’t want to give him another reason to distrust his old friend. Then, should she just let things play out as they would and then help clean up the worst afterward? Normally, she’d avoid taking the passive route, especially if it concerns the public’s safety, but considering the terrible accident that she caused just a little while ago, she’s starting to doubt if her intervention would actually help anything.
No, enough. Stop overthinking. She’ll wait and see how things go and can act decisively if they get way worse. She is the dragon god who can warp everywhere, after all. With a nod of reassurance to herself, she waves to Cloud and zips over to join him.
“The owner’s room is in Battle Square, so that’s where I’m headed.” She adds with a smirk, “Guess that means you’re coming along, huh?”
“As usual.” He also states matter-of-factly, “I don’t trust you to make any deals on your own. If I catch you trying to get hired, we’re gonna have another talk in private.”
She laughs. “Oh, relax! I won’t be running off like that. I know that you’ll be foaming at the mouth if I disappear even for a few minutes.”
He frowns back, a bit slighted. “Speak for yourself. I hope you don’t have rabies or anything.”
“Ha!” She returns that with a mischievous grin. “You got way worse to worry about anyway. The handicaps they offer at the coliseum can be brutal.”
“Huh? Handicaps?”
“We have much to discuss, Soldier. Come.”
She hops into the tube with a delighted whoop and he follows suit in silence. One of the quirkiest things about the Saucer is definitely its navigation routes and how they’re all interconnected almost like, say, the mycelium of a cluster of mushrooms. But since the lobby is at the bottom, all routes leading up have to go against gravity and the engineers had to be a little creative. As funny as it would be to send people sky high with intense wind drafts, ultimately the safer option was to install elevator lifts. But this is the Gold Saucer, which means it’s gotta be an eccentric ride! As it turns out, everyone gets to ride in bubble-shaped shuttles that are completely automated. So, while Ruby and Cloud slide down a tube at first, they shortly find themselves shot right into the cushioned seats aboard a waiting shuttle. An artificial voice comes on to advise them to remain seated while the shuttle is in motion, and with a very short countdown of 3-2-1, the shuttle launches off at breakneck speeds up the winding tubes to their destination.
The moment they arrive at the corresponding floor, Cloud bursts out the door to drop to his hands, looking like he’s just lost several years off his life. Being motion-sick before they’ve even arrived is definitely not a good start. Ruby hops out just fine, still laughing with joy, but leans down to give him a rub on the back.
“Don’t worry, Cloud! We made it. It’s just down this hallway,” she says to assure him.
“…Urrrgh… bhgh… guh…”
Somehow he manages to stop himself from hurling, likely with the help of some soothing magic from Ruby, and then climbs back to his feet. He grumbles, “Is this whole place going to be like that?”
“I dunno. I never really thought about how transport around the Saucer works. I’ve just popped in and out from time to time.”
“Then just do that next time.”
“Aw, but then we’ll miss out on the fun rides!”
He glares back, growling, “I’m not going back on that thing!” And he stomps off for the hallway leading to the exit.
Here they are, Battle Square! Or rather, the entrance to the square, where a huge staircase leads up to the brightly flashing lights and a welcome sign that states its place loud and proud. However, just as they leave the hall behind, they shortly run into a couple guards in blue standing at the bottom of the stairs. Shinra troops? It’s to be expected that the Gold Saucer would have security detail from that company, but why would they be standing guard out here? Cloud at first hesitates to approach, but Ruby marches right up to them before he can stop her.
“Good day, gentlemen,” she greets rather carefreely.
“The Battle Square is currently closed for maintenance. No unauthorized entry allowed,” one of the guards begins to say.
But his partner then points out, “Wait. Isn’t this Miss Ruby? The boss was saying he wants to meet her, right?”
“Huh?” He whips out a photo from previous times where she was caught on camera. “Oh, yeah. These two were the ones who showed up at the hotel a while ago. Illegally…” He then returns her a suspect look.
Ruby waves a dismissive hand. “Oh, don’t mind that! This time I came back with my friends and we paid for entry. I also heard Dio wants a word with me, so I’m here.”
“Hmph.” The guard slips the photo away and begrudgingly pulls back his gun. “Fine, but only you’re allowed inside. Your friend is gonna stay out here.”
Cloud doesn’t like what he’s hearing. “Hey, if she’s going in, so am I.”
“And on what grounds, buddy? We weren’t instructed to let in anyone else.”
“Then tell your boss that he’s gonna have to make an exception.”
But the guard doesn’t budge and instead raises his gun toward him. “Look, sir. If you got a complaint with the owner, then stop by the front desk at the entrance to file a formal complaint. He’ll get back to you in about six to eight weeks.”
Cloud refuses to budge either. “Just call him and let him know now. If he still won’t agree, we can leave without any trouble.”
“Cloud, it’s okay. I got an idea,” she raises a hand to assuage him.
“What now? Are you just gonna march on in?” he replies sarcastically.
“Yes, exactly.”
“Huh? Hey, you’re not leaving me out here.”
“Of course not. I’m smuggling you in.”
He stares back as a unease begins to creep up again. “What are you…?”
She spins her arm in a circle, whipping up yet another unprompted spell, and suddenly Cloud is bathed in a small poofy cloud of magic. And when the poofiness disappears, he finds himself shrunk to the size of a figurine.
“Ruby! What the hell!” he shrieks in a rather shrill, high-pitched voice. He also yelps when she then picks him up and puts him into a vest pocket. “Hey! Whoa, watch it! Aagh!”
She then turns back to the two guards with an innocent-looking smile. “It’s just me who’s allowed in, right?”
The two guards now share nervous glances, wondering what just happened. Is this woman some kind of witch? She didn’t just cast magic without materia, did she? Maybe it’s for the best that they don’t question it.
The first one who spoke then answers, “Uh… I guess it counts if he doesn’t come out.”
“Thank you.”
And with that, she struts right along up the stairs inside while the guards pretend that they didn’t just witness a man disappear into her pocket. Cloud somehow manages to feel his way out of the darkness and climbs out over the hem so he can get some air at least, but now that he’s shrunk down, witnessing the world blur past like this does poorly for his nausea and he chooses to slip back in. Once again, he’s been held captive in Ruby’s grasp and can do nothing but wait things out. Why didn’t she just turn him invisible!? At least he’d be able to walk around freely!
As Ruby remembers well, Dio’s room is the very ornate and well-lit chamber down the corridor to the right of the entrance, but she can’t help take in and ogle at the fully realized Battle Square she only once witnessed as a simple static background. Normally, there would be crowds loitering about, waiting to get tickets to join the gallery, but at the Square is currently closed off, it’s just a few employees wandering about in the meantime. There’s no one to man the reception desks or the prize counter, though everything has been locked up tight anyway. Wall to wall there are portraits and photographs of various creatures featured in the coliseum as well as of previous winners that make up the hall of fame. Of note, she catches Dio listed as the champion in certain years and also notices that the pictures featuring him seem to be a bit more touched-up in terms of quality. In the back awaits the entrance to the coliseum itself, where fighters may test their mettle against incredibly beefed-up monsters of all sorts, hunted and gathered from all over the world to do battle.
Back in her youth, she would spend many, many gaming hours on this minigame alone, building up Battle Points to win those oh-so-sweet and exclusive prizes. And yes, she is the collector type of gamer, so she wanted at least one of everything. But most important was the grand-daddy of all the prizes, at least for the first time arrival: Omnislash – the final limit break manual for Cloud and his most powerful technique. It’s so awesome that he always gets to use it for the very final battle against Sephiroth in the original game, even when he’d never touched the manual before during a play run. And since she first came into existence on Gaia, she vowed to win that prize at some point before her adventure would come to an end – just for bragging rights, if anything. But now it might just be a key piece in her secret battle plan.
Of course, the place is under “maintenance” right now, so they’ll have to wait. In fact, aside from the janitor who’s busy cleaning, the few employees who are around are hurrying in and out of the coliseum’s entrance. It seems like whatever the maintenance entails, it has to do with something that’s further inside. Perhaps a rogue monster had an unscheduled breakout from detainment? Or are they trying to polish up some new features that even she had never been witness to? Oh, the possibilities are out there and she welcomes every one.
Well, not that it concerns her right now. They got a guy to meet. After a quick peek into her pocket to check on Cloud, who gives her his usual scowl, she hurries up the steps to step inside Dio’s room. But even before she can reach for the door handle, she’s suddenly alerted to something. For just an instant, she catches some sort of ill intent aimed her way from the shadows behind this door, but rather than back off, she simply hardens her resolve and presses onward.
The very moment she steps inside, a squad of ambush hunters burst out from hiding. They fire sharp needles her way without warning, but to their shock, she has come prepared and catches every one out of the air. Now that she holds up the needles in her hands, they look very familiar.
“Cactuars?” she mumbles just audibly.
Up to now, Cloud has been reclined in the bottom of her pocket and trying to make himself comfortable despite the tight enclosure, but suddenly, Ruby is on the move again and he’s been thrown about like baggage at an airport. Having had quite enough of it all, he climbs back out to yell at her and see what’s going on, but stops himself when he does.
Now their attackers reveal themselves. There are three of the little Swastika-shaped critters standing before her, almost like they’re guarding the room from intruders. As soon as they witnessed her easily deflect and nullify their attack, though, they pulled back in shock for a moment and then proceeded to happily dance around her as if celebrating her return at last.
She blinks. Oh. Ooooh. Now it finally hits her: these three are the same ones that she once captured and came to befriend. It was during her first visit to Gold Saucer. She was in a rush to return to Midgar to complete the bet she made with Cloud, so didn’t have the time to help watch them. She just figured Dio and his staff would be able to find suitable accommodations or even release them back into the wild. But apparently they stayed around. And now that she sees them again, they all have these adorable-looking little black bows around their necks. It makes them look rather well dressed. Knowing him, Dio certainly has a way with flourishes and impressions, and it seems his new private security force is no exception.
Speaking of the guy, where is he? Though she’s glad to have reunited with her old friends, Ruby is disappointed to find that the man of the establishment isn’t even here to meet her. Wasn’t he waiting for her all this time?
And as if to answer her question, she hears a loud clap of hands from behind her. She hastily stuffs Cloud back into her pocket and whips around and finds Dio, in all his fashionably caped – wait, did he always have a cape? – and speedo-donning glory, step up while clapping his hands. He then welcomes her with open arms.
“I knew it would be you, Miss Ruby!” he declares with proud bravado. “There’d be none other who could so handily escape the pranks of these lovable scamps!”
“Dio?” Her eyes light up with nostalgic joy. “There you are! I thought you’d be in your room, but instead I was greeted by your little guards.”
“Hahaha! Hope you didn’t mind the prickly welcome? They were excited to know that you had returned and wished to meet you first!”
“Oh…” Her smile falters a bit. “Okay, so they did that on purpose. The little imps…”
“Thanks to you, I found a happy home for the little fellas! Unlike the rest of my employees, they were happy to work just for a chance to sunbathe on our roofs. Though they do have a bit of a prankster streak, they’re quite easy to maintain, being cactus-like creatures.” He then leans in with a wry grin. “Say, I’ve been meaning to ask you…”
“Yes, sir?”
“Have you come up with names for them? I call them ‘little fellas’, but sometimes it’s hard even for me to pick out which one is which! They sure love to scuttle around like that.”
She blinks in surprise. “You didn’t name them yet?”
“Oh, no. Since you were the one who brought them here in the first place, I figured I’d leave it to you to pick them out. They are quite fond of you and don’t really care for the opinions of others. Why…” He then folds his arms as he recalls with an amused smirk, “They even gave me a bit of a runaround before I had to teach them a lesson.”
Ruby nods back in full understanding. Judging by the sheer, imposing bulk of this man, she has little doubt that he too could easily spar with the likes of Cactuars. They don’t call him champion of the coliseum for nothing either. She then turns back to her faithful followers, takes but a short moment to come up with names, and points to each one accordingly.
“Kiki, Kaku, and Kado.”
Dio laughs rather heartily. “Very well, looks like that’s settled! Maybe I can ask Esther for some name tags later.”
While Cloud is keeping quiet and hidden away, he still has to shake his head at the developments. Who the heck would have expected that Ruby had not only befriended some Cactuars but even got them employed? He hopes that she isn’t going to use this as an excuse to stick around as a new hire herself.
Dio then leads the way toward his room. “In any case, that isn’t the only matter that we must discuss! Come, my girl! I have an interesting business proposition for you!”
Ruby answers with an intrigued smile, “Yes, sir! I was thinking the same thing!”
Oh, dammit. Cloud swears under his breath. This isn’t going where he thinks it is, is it?
Dio lets her head inside first and follows after, shutting the door behind them. “I’m glad that you could make it today. Word has gotten around here as well about your recent exploits, so I understand you have quite the busy life.”
“Recent exploits?”
“Yes! I was surprised myself to have found out, but as I could tell from our first encounter, you certainly are no ordinary person. But to think that the white dragon that has been stirring up trouble in the news lately would be the one and the same!”
Now Ruby gets a bit nervous to be reminded of the source of the news. “Um, yes, that would be me. I suppose my powerful magic was kind of a dead giveaway.”
“Haha! Not to worry, my dear girl! While I’m sure the Shinra Company would have a hefty bounty for your capture, there’s no chance that I would report you. After all, where else would I be able to find such a well qualified worker for a certain job?”
Her eyes begin to twinkle at the prospects. “Oh? What sort of job are we talking about, sir?”
He returns her delightful expression with one of his own, with a touch of scheming to the look in his eyes. “Why, it’s one that only the likes of you would be able to do! What would you say to becoming a monster hunter?”
“Monster hunter?”
“Indeed. To keep the coliseum fresh for all participants, we house and regularly cycle through a number of different creatures. Though I’m rather busy running the Saucer these days, I am still a collector at heart. Needless to say, that extends to my impressive collection of creatures that do battle in this coliseum. However, even despite my worldly exploits, there have been a few certain areas that are off-limits. One of those places is a certain temple to the southwest…” He then turns for the back of the room and raises a hand forward. “And a certain key was required to be able to enter the temple – the Keystone, as you may know.”
Ruby gazes in contemplative silence at the mystical artifact sitting within a glass box. Even from this distance, she can feel a certain presence to it, and a certain sense of nostalgia sweeps over her. It’s not simply from her own memories, but those of Rubia’s as well, and the reminder puts her in a mixed state of relish and unease.
“However, when I previously sent in some men to help me scout out the area, it seems that for some reason, even with the key in our possession, it was not enough to open its doors.”
She turns back to him with a curious look. “You weren’t able to open it?”
“No. It seems like there was one other criteria that was needed – namely a voice that could ‘speak’ to the key so that it may unlock the temple. And it’s come to my attention that you do have that power, don’t you?”
“I am one of the last living Cetra, yes.”
There’s that big smile on his face again. “Very good! Now, I’m sure you understand where I’m going with this. There are a number of interesting creatures hidden in its depths that few, if any aside from yourself, would have seen.”
“And you’d like me to capture some of them to bring back here?”
“Exactly!” he declares with a hearty laugh. “Rest assured, I won’t be sending you in there without just compensation! For every creature you capture, I’ll be happy to pay anywhere between 5 - 10 grand, though the bounty may go even higher depending on how unique the creatures are.”
She makes a nervous smile in reply. “Well, um… I’m flattered that you’d offer that much for my services, but…”
“Hm? Is something the matter?”
“You see, sir, that old temple is a tricky spot to contend with. While I do plan to visit it sometime, I think it’s still a little early. There are certain parties at play that also want to enter. If I open it up now, I’m not sure what can of worms I may open with it.”
“Hmm…” He makes a thoughtful nod. “Ah, yes. I’ve also had quite a few meetings with Shinra agents asking me for the Keystone. Of course, every time I rejected them. Though I may make an exception for my own workers, I’m well aware of what Shinra may do if they can access it and it certainly won’t just be to sample out the local wildlife.”
“That is one of the concerns, yes.” Now she gets serious herself. “While I can’t guarantee what will happen, if Shinra sends anyone in there, things will not go well.”
“That’s what I figured too.” He shakes his head with a sigh. “But this is Shinra we’re talking about. There’s no end to their persistence when they have their sights set on something.” He then puts a hand to his chin as he considers another option. “That said, given your natural propensity to avoid them, perhaps it would be for the best that I let you hold onto it in the meantime.”
“Huh?”
“I admit, it will be a bit lonely not to be able to gaze upon its magnificence for a while, but if it will get those Shinra agents off my case, then I’ll happily bequeath it unto you.”
“Um…”
“Oh, don’t worry! There’s no need to rush into things. I’m simply offering you the deal for now, and it will be up to you to decide if or when to accept it.” He makes a disappointed frown aside. “As it happens, the coliseum is currently under repairs due to a certain incident.”
Glad to change the subject, Ruby asks, “Oh, yeah. What exactly happened there?”
“From what I’ve heard, it seems a certain creature among our collection managed to escape and left quite a mess during its rampage.” He also nods with reassurance. “Fortunately, we were able to detain it again and the following cleanup has been going smoothly. The coliseum ought to be able to reopen in about a few hours, so please look forward to it!”
“Ah, so it was a monster.”
“I know that housing so many of these wild creatures would have certain risks, but it’s strange that it would have escaped in the first place. The containment system is made with state-of-the-art technology, courtesy of Shinra, and we’ve never had an accident where a cell would fail unless it was somehow disabled.” He then shakes his head. “But I suppose I shouldn’t speculate on what may have happened. We can leave that to the ongoing investigations.”
“Fair enough.”
Dio now returns to his usual peppy attitude. “In any case, I hope you’ll take my deal to heart! When you are ready, let me know and I’ll be happy to hand over the Keystone. Feel free to enjoy your stay at the Gold Saucer as long as you’d like. You’ll always be welcome here.”
She chuckles. “I did pay for the lifetime pass, so I hope so too.”
“Indeed? I hope it wasn’t too costly. I did ask the receptionist to give you a fair discount.”
“Oh, yes! I appreciate it, sir! Though, I’m still a little confused why you’d even offer me a discount…”
“Hahaha!” He suddenly bursts aloud laughing. “Oh, it’s nothing to worry about, my girl! You can think of it as thanks for providing me a new branch of security that doubles as an attraction for the crowds! Ever since we picked up these three, even with all their antics, they’ve been quite a hit.”
“Haha! Glad to be of help, then.”
With a polite wave goodbye, Ruby then starts off for the door. But just as she steps out, a few Shinra troopers suddenly rush past her and salute their boss. Though she doesn’t mean to eavesdrop, the soldiers don’t seem to have any sense of keeping quiet.
“Sir! We have an urgent update on the investigations into the monster escape incident!”
“Oh?” Now Dio gets serious once again. “What’s the situation?”
“It seems that the failure of the cell in question wasn’t caused by any malfunction. Instead, it was sabotaged.”
Another of the troops adds, “We’ve found a couple suspects who were sneaking around in the underground storage and have arrested them.”
The third of them then follows suit, “We’ve also questioned them, and it seems that they were mercenaries for hire. Though they didn’t know the name, they described their client as a man with a gun for an arm.”
And at that moment, a grave tension settles in. Ruby’s eyes grow wide as her suspicions are starting to come to a head. As he heard it too, Cloud climbs back out from his pocket with a look of concern too.
“A gun for an arm… There’s no way,” he mutters.
“It’s not Barret. It’s another man with a gun for an arm,” she replies firmly.
“Thought so. But I don’t think there are that many people that can match that description.”
She frowns. “We need to find Barret asap. If they find him wandering around, they may just try to arrest him too.”
“Right. Let’s go…”
As she hurries off for the exit, though, Cloud also has to bring up the other matter that’s been bothering him.
“Hey, Ruby.”
“Yeah?”
“Can you turn me back to normal already? I’m starting to get cramped in here.”
“Ah. Sorry.”
She stops real quick to take him out and set him back on the floor. With another wave of her hand, she casts Esuna to dispel the effects. Cloud lets off a sigh in relief to finally be able to stand on his own feet again.
“Okay. Now where do we start looking?” he asks.
“Um…” She turns toward the exit with a puzzled look herself. “I have no idea. When I last saw him, everyone was still in the lobby, but they may have scattered by now. And unfortunately, Barret said he wanted to be left alone, so no one else is watching him…”
“Then let’s check by the lobby to see if he’s there. If it comes to it, you may have to fly around to find him.”
“Ah, in that case… hang on tight.”
“Wha- Hey!”
Ruby suddenly rounds behind him and seizes him around the waist. Before he can object, she sprouts her wings and takes off into the air and then zooms out from the entrance of the square into the skies above the mushrooms. Down below, the two guards at the entrance watch that poor sucker be taken hostage once again by that wild, unruly beast. Man, if that’s how she treats her friends, they sure wouldn’t want to be her enemies.
Notes:
My minor health issues aside, I honestly don't expect next chapter to take quite so long. I was busy figuring out how to tie multiple story threads altogether and finally settled on a direction that I feel can work.
Trivia, notes, and my writer's block
- I struggled so long to find the best balance between amusing, intriguing, horrifying, and wtf throughout this chapter. If there's one thing about the original FF7 that didn't age well, it's that it does a terrible job with the sudden mood swings and I didn't want that to reflect in my story. Legit one moment, Barret's talking about the God-awful situation around Corel and his equally tragic flashback, and the next they enter Gold Saucer and Aerith straight up says, "Wow! Let's have fun!" Sure, it sets up a bit of conflict that leads into the mystery and drama around Barret's disappearance later, but yeah, ain't no one fallin' for that ploy. Why did they do Aerith like that?
- That said, I also had to write it in a way that it wouldn't drag out tensions for too long. Apologies to Cole, but this is sadly the end of his journey. I'm honestly surprised he made it this far, to be honest. And from here on, I'm gonna be approaching the Gold Saucer incident in a slightly different way, so please look forward to developments in the near future!
- There was a previous draft where I went into excruciating detail about how Fenrir met baby Rubia. It was taking up too much time and I sadly had to scrap it, but I at least left in one very important detail from their initial interaction.
- There was another draft where I also dived further into the situation with Jessie's childhood at the Gold Saucer, thus explaining her reservations about Event Square, but sadly there wasn't enough room to go into all that without derailing the plot too much.
- There has been no indication of how transport around the Gold Saucer works that I have found from any of the official Ultimania or even on the FF wiki. I just always assumed there was some kind of shuttle system or wind tunnel or something, and either way it's hilarious to picture Cloud's polygon self being flung around like a ragdoll up the Saucer.
- I love Dio's Rebirth design so much, hot damn. That man has arms the size of Cloud's waist! His WAIST! Oh my God, the chokehold that this man is capable of.
- The names of the Cactuars came to me as soon as I had introduced them all the way back in chapter 8. Kaku and Kado are Japanese for "square" and "corner", respectively, and Kiki is actually a reference to a certain famous linguistic research survey about how people associate sounds with shapes. Given a sharp, jagged shape and a rounded splatter, participants were instructed to name them either "Kiki" or "Bouba", and overwhelmingly people named the sharp one "Kiki". I agree.
Reference: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouba/kiki_effect
- I couldn't find a place to write in the joke, but I guess I'll share it here.
Ruby: "Ladies and gentlemen, you've heard of pocket sand. Now introducing: Pocket Cloud! An itty-bitty Cloud for all your itty-bitty snuggle needs!"
Cloud: "I will cut you if you don't put me down right now."
Ruby: "He's just the right amount of edgy and prickly! Get yours today by dialing me on... Wait, we don't have a phone line."
Chapter 53: Old Regrets
Notes:
Outdated A/N
Thanks for your patience, everyone! I have yet to see anything in the Rebirth demo as of this posting, but I'll update you all if or when I get to watching it. I swear this game is gonna kick my patooie if I do look, though. Inspiration comes in all forms and sometimes it can come swinging like a heavyweight champ. I'm still a bit overwhelmed from just watching the State of Play showcase.
For the record, I will be very much following my own story direction, but will include certain new details about old characters that weren't present in the OG or previous Ultimania guides, as well as for some new characters that may be important enough as I learn about them. I am indeed writing this as I go, so there's way more room for improv. I'm excited.
For instance, the Gold Saucer incident as well as later events that would have happened much later in the original story are going to converge. It's part of why I've been struggling to work them together lately. But when I do have it settled, I'm gonna gun straight for the juiciest parts to end Act 2.
2/22/24 edit: Apologies for the delays the past week and half. I've been having an unwell several days and have only until yesterday returned to writing. I do plan to release a chapter before the 29th, though. Let's say it'll be out by the 27th or 28th at the latest, but ideally before that so I don't clash with Rebirth's release in any time zones. I'm disappearing off the net to avoid spoilers, so hopefully I can get more work done.
5/1/25 edit: Added a little more descriptive flourish to Ruby's feelings of shame. I've been getting more colorful with words by the day.
Chapter Text
Ruby zips in through the front door past the newest crowd, rushing into the lobby on her wings. By now, the crowd at the front has thinned and there are but a few bystanders who remain. They seem to be the regulars who don’t mind seeing a strange young woman with huge demonic white wings on her back, as if that is far from the weirdest thing they’ve seen around here.
Her eyes dash around frantically, but as she feared, none of their friends remain in the lobby. She curses herself for being so passive. Wait and see, she said. Well, she waited and then missed her chance. It was just a difference of mere minutes, but those minutes mattered.
“Ruby,” Cloud calls to her, still hanging in her arms.
“Huh?”
“Take it easy. We’ll find him, alright?”
“Yeah…”
Though she tells herself the same, the guilt remains. She should have known. She should have been more careful. She could have at least taken more precautions, even if it meant being a little invasive. But she got scared. She messed up really badly not long ago. Though Barret didn’t say anything, she can tell that even he’s starting to have doubts about relying on her. To lose the faith of him of all people… it really stings.
“He’s not here. Come on, let’s head back up,” Cloud calmly suggests.
“Right…”
With a single powerful flap, she reverses back out from the lobby and ascends the cityscape through the air. Their friends have indeed scattered all over. Even from this high above, she can still make out their figures among the crowds. Looks like Tifa, Aerith, and Jessie are enjoying themselves around the shops at Wonder Square and have been busy chatting with the locals. Biggs and Wedge, with Cait Sith tagging along, have been having a blast with the coaster ride at Speed Square, though they quickly find themselves a little short on room after collecting too many toys and figurines, especially of the lovable Stamp. But it’s no big deal; hope they can stop by the Midgar slums again sometime to share their collection with the kids. And as it happens, Sonon has found Yuffie, who’s still being watched by Red, at Chocobo Square placing her bets and decides to challenge by betting against her. Their competition gets so fierce that Red is nervous that the two might just break out into a fight. However, throughout their search across the remaining squares, Barret is nowhere to be found. How hard could it be to find a big burly black man with a huge chainsaw on his arm? Ruby hopes that because it’s not technically a gun, the local police may just overlook him, but unfortunately that’s not how things work around here.
As he’s starting to feel a little dizzy from her somewhat hectic flight, Ruby sets Cloud down on the floor before the auditorium in the currently empty Event Square. While they wait for him to settle, he then receives a call on his PHS and Ruby picks up for him.
“Hello?”
It’s Aerith on the other end. “Oh, Ruby? Are you with Cloud?”
“Yeah. We’re looking for Barret. We’re at Event Square right now, but so far, no sign of him.”
“Oh, so that’s why. I was wondering why you guys didn’t even wave back as you passed overhead.” She then asks, “So, what about Barret? Do you need him for something?”
“No, we just need to know where he is. After I had my chat with Dio, we overheard about some kind of incident at the coliseum. Sounds like there was some kind of sabotage and they’ve already rounded up a few suspects.”
“Aw, that’s too bad. But why do you need to find Barret?”
“To make sure he won’t be caught up. The cops think the guy behind the incident has a gun for an arm.”
“What!?” She then pauses. “Wait, but doesn’t Barret have a chainsaw right now? That doesn’t count as a gun, does it?”
“Yeah, um, I don’t think they’re gonna think that far. He can always change it out anyway.”
“Ah, yeah.” By now, the other ladies have caught on that something’s wrong. Aerith relays the news and returns to the call. “Well, sorry to say, we haven’t seen him around here either. Have you checked with the others yet?”
“Not yet, but we will. Cloud’s taking a break since I’ve been carrying him everywhere.”
“Gotcha. Well, I hope things don’t spiral into anything worse. And if you do find Barret, let us know right away, okay?”
“Of course, Cuz.”
She finally hangs up the phone and returns it to Cloud, who has more or less recovered. “Looks like Barret hasn’t passed by Wonder Square. I think we should check with the others before we stop by Battle Square again.”
“Alright.” He rubs his head as the last signs of his dizziness fade and he gets back to his feet. “But, Ruby?”
“Yeah?”
“Next time you wanna carry me, go full dragon or don’t try it at all. I swear you were gonna choke me or even drop me…”
She makes an amused chuckle. “Right. Sorry about that. Well, now that I know where they are, I can warp us around.”
She puts a hand to his shoulder and for once, he’s relieved to see that familiar white glow around them. They shortly warp on down to Chocobo Square, where they find Red waiting alone by the entrance.
“Oh. You’re back,” he replies rather simply.
“Red? Were Yuffie and Sonon with you?”
“They were, but then they had a dispute to bring up with management. Something about some foul play? I haven’t been paying much attention.”
“What the heck have they been doing…?” she mutters to herself.
She thanks him for telling and she and Cloud hurry inside to find that Yuffie, with Sonon awkwardly trying to lessen tensions, arguing with one of the staff.
“I’m telling you! Number 4 should have been second! There’s no way that Number 6 crossed the line before him!”
The staff member nonetheless politely responds, “I’m sorry, ma’am, but that’s just the way the race unfolded. If you’d like, you can try again for the next one.”
“And how long will it take before I can get that materia listed in the prizes again, huh?”
“Well, since the prizes are randomly drawn, I can’t anything for sure…”
“Exactly! That’s why this is really important matter to settle!”
Sonon sighs. “Yuffie, come on… let it go.”
“Shut up!” she snaps back, “A rare materia is on the line here! Don’t you still have your national pride, Sonon?”
“What does national pride have to do with it!? We don’t have proof that there was any foul play!”
“Well, I know there was! Number 4 was doing just fine and suddenly Number 6 barges its way up front? That was totally sus!”
“Yuffie…” he groans. Now that Ruby and Cloud show up, Sonon breathes a sigh in relief. “Oh! Thank goodness you guys are here. Help me talk some sense into this girl!”
“Oh, come on! Am I the only one who gets it!?” she whines.
“What’s going on here?” Ruby asks the staff.
“From what I can gather, it seems this young lady is upset at how the last Class A race ended with a 3-6 victory, rather than 3-4, and she had just missed out on winning a valuable prize.”
“Ah, figures. What was the prize anyway?”
“Hmm, let’s see…” The staff member pulls up the records on her register’s screen. “I believe it would have been a Sneak Attack materia.”
“My precious!” Yuffie wails, clinging to Ruby. “Ruby, do something!”
Cloud sighs and tries to tug her off. “Yuffie, forget about it. We got some actual problems to worry about…”
Ruby then proposes to the staff, “With all due respect, Miss, if you just give us that materia now, we can drop everything and leave quietly.”
“Ruby!”
To the staff member’s credit, she holds her own well enough. “I’m sorry, but unless you enter a race with your own chocobo and win with the corresponding prize list, we can’t guarantee that you’d get it.”
Yet, Ruby insists, “I understand that, but we’re kinda running short on time right now. Can we slide that prize into the list for the next Class A race? I can talk with Dio myself and accept responsibility so you don’t get in trouble.”
The staff gives a sigh, but then takes a note. “Um, I appreciate it… but for your information, the next several races are from Class B and C. It may be another couple hours before the next Class A race is on.”
Ruby then swears under her breath. “Cloud, can we stall for another couple hours?”
“No! We can’t wait on this! Just let it go!”
“Okay, that’s it. Ruby, plan B: we rob ’em!” Yuffie shamelessly suggests.
“You too!” he jabs back, snatching at her arm.
“Wh- Hey, lemme go!” she cries, as he starts dragging her away. “Noooo! My materiaaa!”
With Sonon’s help, Cloud takes both ladies back out where Red has been waiting. The latter doesn’t look at them as they step out, though his ears twitch uncomfortably after overhearing the ensuing argument inside.
“Ruby!” Yuffie keeps whining, “Couldn’t you have tried a little harder!?”
She sighs. “Sorry, but there’s only so much I can do. These things are still down to luck.”
“Then use something other than luck! Brute force, even! You got plenty of that!”
“Yuffie, we’re trying to keep a low profile here?” She pauses and then adds, “Thinking about it, if I can just find their item storage, I can warp in…”
“Oh, yeah! Maybe we can sneak around and scout?”
“Would you two give it up already!?” Cloud snaps at them and lets out an exhausted groan. “Besides, Ruby, have you forgotten that we’re looking for Barret?”
“No, but this is also important to the secret plan…”
“Then get to it later! We need to find him now!”
Sonon asks, “What happened? Why are you looking for him?”
Cloud explains, “Something happened at the coliseum and the police are searching for a ‘man with a gun for an arm’.”
“What?”
Yuffie blows raspberry. “What’d he do? Shoot up some people with his chainsaw?”
“Why would the police think he did anything?” Sonon asks further.
“Dunno, but it sounds like the few suspects they caught so far mentioned that they were working for someone with that description.”
He frowns, getting fairly concerned. “Any of ours?”
“Not that I could tell. We’re going around checking on the rest of you to make sure that we haven’t been caught up in anything else.”
“Got it. Well, for the most part, Yuffie’s just been making a racket, but I don’t think she’s gone around robbing anyone.”
“I’ve been watching her too. She hasn’t under my watch,” Red adds.
Cloud nods and turns back to Ruby. “Hey. Stop sulking and let’s go find the others.”
“…Sneak Attack with Hades is such a broken combo. Now how are we gonna get our Summons in for an ambush?”
“Let it go… We’ll manage.”
Now that Yuffie has settled back down, she also suggests more calmly, “Hmph. I guess I could keep an eye out for it when the next Class A race comes by.” She turns to her partner. “Sonon, you stay too.”
The guy nods, conceding with a sigh. “Of course…”
While Yuffie hurries back in again, Sonon waves to the departing pair and joins her, while Red watches Ruby and Cloud warp away. He then settles back to the floor with a sigh of his own. It sure is noisy around here. Maybe he should have stayed on the ship after all.
Finally, Ruby takes Cloud to Speed Square, where they find Cait Sith alone by the prize booth surrounded by what looks like a small fort made of plush toys, figurines, and what seems to be a fancy-looking Umbrella. As soon as she sees it, Ruby snatches it up and returns it to their inventory for safekeeping.
“Oh! Glad ye two came by! I was wonderin’ when we’d get more company!”
“Where are Biggs and Wedge?” Cloud asks.
“Ridin’ the coaster yet again. Seems like they’re really into the whole shoot-em-up game on it. Biggs has been hitting the top of the leaderboards just with a few runs so far.”
“How much…?” Ruby asks, letting her eyes trail to the sign with said leaderboard and her jaw drops. “Thirty thousand!? And that’s his third score on there! What the hell!”
“Hm? Is something the matter, lass?”
“No wayyy… It’s not fair…” She drops into a shivering crouch with her hands clasped over her head. “Over 30000 after just a few tries… when I always struggled to even hit 5000…”
“Um…”
“…That 4960 still haunts me in my dreams…”
“Don’t mind her.” Cloud shakes his head and turns back to Cait. “Well, at least things seem to be fine around here.”
“Maybe ‘fine’ for those two, but I’m kinda in a pickle here! Mind helping me with a favor, lad?”
“Yeah?”
“Can you guys take all these toys aboard the ship? As cozy as it’s been in this little fort o’ mine, it’s like I’m stuck in a siege!”
He sighs. “Fine. But why do we need this many toys?”
“Sounds like Biggs and Wedge have been thinkin’ about bringing them to the kiddies back in the Midgar slums.”
“Ah.” Now that he mentions it, Aerith had said something similar too. But when are they gonna stop by the slums again? Maybe after they’re done here?
“Thanks! Hope you guys aren’t too stacked yet!” Cait then asks innocently, “Say, how is the Gold Saucer so far?”
“It’s… something, I guess.” Cloud struggles to find the right words. “Anyway, when those guys get back, can you let them know we’re looking for Barret?”
“Barret? Sure! But why are ye lookin’ for him?”
He gets serious again. “There’s been an incident at the coliseum and the police have been looking for the last of their suspects, who is apparently a man with a gun as his arm.”
“W-w-WHAT!?” The cat nearly topples off his moogle, who quickly catches him. “That can’t be! We all just arrived not long ago!”
“I know it’s not him, but there’s no telling what might happen if they find him. But we haven’t found him anywhere yet.”
“Hmm…” Cait droops as well as does his moogle, but they then right themselves up again. “Well, here’s hopin’ that he hasnae been caught up in anything! If we catch him, we’ll let ye know right away.”
“Thanks.” Cloud returns to prod Ruby again. “Hey. That should be everyone accounted for. Cait asked us to drop off the toys on the ship, so let’s do that and then stop by Battle Square again.”
“…”
“Ruby.”
“…Fine. But if this version of the coaster lets Biggs reach 30000 points in a few, I’m gonna give it a go later.”
He looks so tired to have this conversation. “Whatever. Can we just go?”
She gets back up and helps round up all the toys, blessing them all with that warm white glow, ending with a tap on Cloud’s shoulder too. And with a snap of her fingers, she whisks them all away, leaving Cait Sith and Moogle free to roam once more.
It’s a quick errand aboard the Highwind. As soon as Ruby flashes back aboard with what looks like a small mountain of toys, though, Cid has to speak up.
“Oh, you’re ba… What the hell is this?”
“Toys,” she answers.
“What do you think we are, a damn warehouse!? What’re we gonna do with all this crap!?”
“Biggs and Wedge wanted to share them with the kids in the Midgar slums.”
“…” And just like that, he quiets down again. With a soft grumble, he rubs his head and lets it slide. “Man, when did we start turning into a charity…?”
She chuckles. “Just another thing on the bucket list on the way to becoming a good dad.”
He fires back with a glare. “If you bring that up one more time, I’m not letting you on my ship anymore.”
“Hahaha!”
Meanwhile, Cloud has been checking around the deck and notices that Vincent isn’t present. He then comes back up to them to ask, “Hey, where is Vincent?”
Cid answers, “Off in the quarters. Said he wanted some ‘peace and quiet’.” He also shrugs. “If ya ask me, sounds like he’s taken off for dreamland. For a guy who’s pretty quick on the draw, he sure can be lazy.”
Ruby blinks, looking a little dumbfounded. “He’s sleeping again?”
“Well, he did sleep in a coffin for, what, 30 years?” Cloud recalls.
“He’s gotten more than enough sleep! I haven’t!”
Cloud frowns. “What are you talking about? You’ve gotten plenty of rest lately.”
She ignores his comment and heads on out the door, and he follows. As expected, they find the guy in the men’s quarters lying on one of the beds as if he were fast asleep. But not for long; Ruby barges in with a loud declaration.
“Vincent! Up and at ’em! We got a job for you!”
“…” The dreary man’s eyes flutter open and he gives a disappointed sigh. “Is it such a tall order to be allowed to meditate in peace…?”
“Stop sleeping! You’re not actually a vampire!”
“…” After a moment of begrudging hesitation, he sits back up and turns their way. “What’s this job?”
“We’re currently looking for Barret around the Saucer, but we haven’t found him yet. If by any chance, you see him slipping outside, hit us up! You got your PHS too, yeah?”
“Jessie lent us her phone for the time being, yes.”
“Cool.”
“If I may ask, why are you searching for him?”
Now Cloud explains, “There’s been an incident at the coliseum inside, and apparently there’s a mastermind behind it. The police caught a few suspects, but are still looking for a ‘man with a gun for an arm’.”
Now Vincent’s attention is piqued. “I see… Though I would assume that it’s unlikely he would have been behind it, yes?”
“Definitely not him, but we need to find him before he’s arrested for no good reason.”
“Understood.” He climbs off the bed and gets to his feet. “I’ll keep a lookout from the ship.”
Then, Ruby unexpectedly shows a serious face of her own. “By the way, Vincent, if things come to it, can you and Cid drop by the desert below the Saucer in a few hours?”
“Hm?” He passes her an odd look. “Shouldn’t you ask Cid about that? He is the captain.”
“Knowing him, he’d just yell at me about the dust clouds. As of now, I may not have a particular reason yet, but I have… apprehensions about things that will happen there.”
Cloud turns to her too, just as confused. “Apprehensions? Have you been having any other visions lately?”
“Not any new ones. This time it’s just based on a gut feeling.”
“About Barret? Or something else?”
“Yeah, about Barret. See, below the Saucer is Corel Prison, but it was once the place where the old town of Corel used to be.”
Cloud’s eyes shoot wide open. “Wait… You don’t think that’s where he went?”
“We haven’t found him anywhere else in the Saucer. I think it’s getting more and more likely.”
“But what would he do there? Is he looking for someone?”
She nods slowly. “I think I know who…” She turns back to Vincent. “Anyway, I’ll give you guys a call when we’re ready to meet up again.”
He nods back. “Alright.”
Ruby returns him a relieved smile. Though it’s not exactly the most elegant of solutions, at least there may be some way that she might be able to change some fates for once. With a plan in mind set and faith in her heart restored, she takes Cloud along back to Battle Square as planned.
However, as soon as they arrive, they notice the guards aren’t at their posts anymore. They shortly get their answer. Even amid all the noise of people having fun all around them, they make out the sounds of what seems to be gunfire. The pair exchange alarmed looks and hurry in as well.
Inside, they stop short to find the place is suddenly littered with bodies, some of whom are also Shinra guards. Barret isn’t here either. Instead, they meet several armed mechs – the automated police force that works alongside the Shinra patrol – who have successfully captured and restrained a couple men, strangers who seem to be dressed in ragged wear. They’ve been disarmed, though their guns are still lying out in the open, and also happen to be covered with tiny needles. Even Ruby’s friendly Cactuars are here too, hopping about in an aggressive frenzy.
“What the…?” Cloud mutters in confusion. “Who the hell are these guys?”
Ruby glances around frantically for clues, but to no avail. “I’m not sure, but I feel like they aren’t supposed to be here.”
“That much is obvious.”
Before the two can figure out what’s going on here, the mechs that are still free then turn their sensors toward them and proceed to surround them as well.
He gets ready to draw his sword. “Why are they targeting us?”
But she gets in his way. “Don’t fight! We’re not here to cause trouble!”
“Then what do we do!? Just let them arrest us?”
“…” Though she doesn’t answer, she makes a face as if she’s considering it.
“Uh, Ruby?”
“Hold it right there!” shouts the voice of an officer. Another police unit has arrived on scene and taken up arms, and this time they’re accompanied by Dio as well.
“Well, now! What’s all this about?” the large man demands with a booming voice. For once, the normally cheery man has a stern frown on his face and his imposing figure shows off a much more intimidating presence.
With a sinking feeling in her gut, she approaches him. “Dio, wait. There’s been a misunderstanding.”
But to her dismay, Dio shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Miss Ruby, but I’m afraid that won’t work here.”
“Sir, please listen! The man you’ve all been searching for isn’t the same one who arrived with me earlier.”
He folds his arms like a disapproving parent. “While I wish for your sake that would be true, it’s a bit too late. You see, your gun-armed fellow turned himself in not too long ago.”
“Huh?”
Cloud is likewise alarmed. “What do you mean? Why would he turn himself in?”
Dio explains to him, “It’s as I said. We found the man wandering by this Square earlier when it was supposed to be closed off. And for whatever reason, he rushed into the coliseum even against the advisory from the staff. Apparently, he was looking for these two gentlemen who were previously arrested and even freed them.”
“We’ve never seen them before. They’re not ours.”
“Well, then you’ll just have to ask your fellow about it later. Witnesses on scene insisted that they saw him as well. It’s rather unfortunate, especially for all that I’ve looked forward to, but as things stand, you’re all associated with a potential suspect of this shooting.”
“What? You can’t arrest us! We haven’t done anything!”
But Ruby slides in front of him to instead try a different approach. “Dio, if I find the man responsible and get a confession from him, will you let our friend go?”
“Hmm…” He gives her a careful, inspecting stare to test her resolve and nods when he has to concede. “I suppose that would be fair. But!”
“Yes?”
“If past sources are to be believed, you’d have a much better chance of killing the man than getting any confession from him. And if it turns out that your friend is also abetting this man’s crimes, then I can’t guarantee his release either. I may be a generous host, but I won’t stand for anyone who tries to disturb the peace.”
She nods calmly. “I understand. In fact, as a peace offer, allow me to gather the rest of my friends so that we may turn ourselves in.”
Dio blinks in surprise, looking almost impressed. “You wish to turn yourself in as well, Miss Ruby? That certainly makes things easier.”
Cloud stares at her. “The hell, Ruby? This isn’t the time for jokes.”
She turns back to him looking just as serious. “I mean it. We’re going to meet Barret in prison and this will be the fastest way.”
“Yeah, but the rest don’t have anything to do with this. Can’t the two of us just go down there and find him?”
“I think I have an idea where he may be, but I’m not entirely sure. If we get everyone together, we’ll cover more ground.”
He groans, clearly displeased with this plan, but concedes. “Fine. Then hurry up.”
She gives him a nod and also gives Dio a respectful salute as she expands her wings and takes off for the air once more. In the meantime, one of the police mechs marches over to Cloud and snatches him up too, but he doesn’t struggle. Following the orders of the officer from earlier, the mechs then proceed into the back recesses of the coliseum to deliver their loads down an abyssal-looking hole into the depths of the prison below the city.
Meanwhile, Ruby shortly finds her friends engaged in a few scuffles of their own. It didn’t take long for news of the shooting to spread to the rest of security, and many more mechs and accompanying officers have arrived to round up the suspects. Unfortunately for them – and for her peace offer – her friends are fully capable of fending for themselves. So she will have to restrain them herself. No hard feelings, guys.
At Wonder Square, Jessie has dived behind some decorative statues as she tries to contact Cloud on PHS, but it seems like no one’s answering the phone. In the meantime, Tifa and Aerith have already made contact with the mechs and are challenging them head-on. While Aerith keeps them at bay through magic circles, Tifa practically suplexes one of the mechs onto some unfortunate officers. Ruby flashes in to join them to find the police in quite the disarray.
“Hold the line, men! Don’t let them escape!” one of the officers commands, “And where the hell is backup?”
“Uh, what was that flash, sir?” another of the troops asks.
“Ruby!” Tifa cries in relief.
“Cuz! You made it!” Aerith waves a hand.
“Yeah!” Jessie cheers from the sidelines. “Go get ’em, Rubes!”
“Hey, wait. Where’s Cloud?” Tifa then asks, looking around but finding no sign of him.
Refusing to let some random trooper or mech manhandle her girls, Ruby casually shoves the officers and even the mechs aside, toppling them over. She instead respectfully presents herself with her head down and her hands upon her knees. “Sorry, ladies, but the situation’s changed. We’re going to prison.”
“Huh?” They all stare back with the same puzzled expression.
“It’s nothing you guys did per se, but I’m here to arrest you.” She raises her head again and strikes a fighting stance as well. “I’ll turn myself in too after I get all of ya.”
“W-what? Ruby!” Tifa gasps in horror.
“Hey! What are you talking about, girl? What happened!?” Jessie pleads too.
Aerith grows worried and asks, “Ruby, did you guys find Barret yet?”
“He’s been arrested, so we’re gonna join him.”
“What!?”
“Whoa! Hold on a minute!” Jessie interjects too. “Then why are you trying to arrest us? Go help him!”
But Ruby insists, “That’s exactly what I’m doing.”
“What?”
Before they can get any more answers from her, Ruby launches in a blitz, lightly tapping at their arms and shoulders, and by the time she crosses the plaza past where all three had been standing, they all vanish without a trace. Likewise, she too disappears in another flash of her own, leaving the bystanding crowds completely bewildered as to what just happened.
Her next jump is over to Speed Square, where Biggs, Wedge, and Cait are already surrounded. While the cat is trying his best to reason with the officers, they aren’t taking no for an answer. Unfortunately for them, Ruby shoves them all out of the way and stomps up to the trio.
“Oh, thank the Gods! Ye came at the right time, Ruby!” Cait starts off saying.
But now the three notice that she doesn’t look too happy as she approaches. Wedge then asks, “Uh, Ruby? Everything okay?”
She instead steps up to Biggs with a firm frown and the latter gets a little nervous. “Uh… you need something?”
“I’m gonna need some tips. How the hell did you get that many points after just a few tries!?” she demands out of nowhere.
“Uh…” He blinks and then gives a relieved chuckle. “Oh, so that’s what this is about? Sheesh, girl, don’t scare us like that.”
She also adds rather nonchalantly, “Also, Barret got arrested, so I decided we’re joining him in prison.”
“Huh?”
“W-whoa there, lassie!” Cait exclaims, “What are ye saying!?”
“Barret got arrested!?” Wedge squeaks in fright.
“Hey, don’t just decide that! How did that happen!? And why are we joining him??” Biggs complains, equally aghast.
But like with the ladies earlier, Ruby barely explains a thing and immediately taps each of them to whisk them away as well. She too disappears, once again leaving the police completely and utterly confounded. And up by Chocobo Square, through Yuffie and Sonon’s clever teamwork – that staff works wonders as a point of leverage – they manage to knock one of the mechs down the steps and clear an opening.
“Gun it, guys!” Yuffie yells. “And split up!”
“Meet up at the lobby?” Sonon suggests, hurrying along.
“Whatever! Just don’t get caught!”
Before they all can rush on out, though, a white flash interrupts their escape and the three stop in their tracks.
“Ruby! Great timing!” Yuffie pumps up a fist. “Clean ’em up! We’re ditching these grounds!”
But she returns a rather solemn expression. “Yeah, about that…”
“Huh? What’s up?”
Even without explaining herself, Ruby zigzags up the steps and taps on all three in quick succession. She turns back to them with a scheming look in her eyes. “I’ll explain later, but we’re all going to prison.”
Yuffie’s eyes nearly pop out. “What!? You traitor! All this for the materia!? I thought we had a plan!”
That’s worth a smirk. “We can get to that later, Yuffie.”
“Wait!”
Before Yuffie can get any more complaints out, Ruby takes her as well as Sonon and Red and they all vanish into thin air.
~
Down in the dead-dry, divinely forsaken desert grounds below the Gold Saucer lies the empty wastelands of Corel Prison. The greater barren lands that surround the prison are the most natural means of deterring fugitives, as if you don’t have any clue where you’re going, you’ll die wandering for ages without a drop of water. And yet, it’s said that anyone who enters these grounds would have better chances digging for underground springs than getting any chance at parole.
But lesser known to the wider public and even some of the fresher inmates, this area used to host a humble mining town, the old Corel before Shinra laid it to waste. While some survivors managed to flee with nothing but the clothes on their backs up north closer to the abandoned mines, many others refused to run. Even when visitors from afar later came upon this land to establish a “miracle city” that would flourish even despite the harsh terrain, they refused to move. And thus, the Gold Saucer would be built right atop the ruins of Corel under the watch of Shinra’s own forces, as well as a certain agent of Soldier. And it so happened that this Soldier was none other than the silent Cole, who had long lost his chance to defy orders. It was only natural that he was marked as a dirty traitor who who lined his own pockets with Shinra pay. That the old kid used to be pretty close with Barret as well sure didn’t do either of them favors.
Though the construction of the Saucer would be well underway regardless, there would always be a breaking point when the long downtrodden locals could no longer stand the way those glistening lights and screaming cheers would drift down to the dumps here. Those who chose to rise up and fight the tyranny of Shinra for one last stand would gather under the iron fist of a militant leader who vowed to never take prisoners. It was either them or the enemy; one side would be entirely wiped out. But the sad reality would be that most of these ragtag rebels would indeed die trying. There are mass graves that litter the outskirts of the prison, and there aren’t just the bodies from the day the town burned.
And within these desolate depths of scorching hell, Ruby would gather all her friends formerly present at the Saucer. Needless to say, everyone is absolutely lost from the plot and some are quite upset with her.
“Ruby! What the hell!” Yuffie cries, looking around frantically at their new barren surroundings. “What have you done!?”
“What’s goin’ on here, lass?” Cait asks nervously, “We really shouldnae be here…”
“Ruby?” Tifa asks more calmly, “Mind explaining yourself? Why have you gathered everyone?”
“And thinking about it, where is Cloud?” Aerith asks too, looking around as well.
“He’ll drop in shortly,” Ruby briefly answers.
“Huh?”
“Anyway, ladies and gentlemen, listen up. I’ll brief you on the current situation.” She struts in front of the crowd almost like a seargent with her men, peering with a watchful eye over their confused and concerned faces. “The Battle Square has been closed due to an incident that took place in the back of the coliseum shortly before we arrived. Apparently, a monster was let loose and rampaged before it was stopped. The police arrested two men suspected of sabotaging the cell that held the beast. But it turned out they were just pawns working for a mastermind. And that mastermind has a gun as his arm.”
“What…?” come the surprised and frankly even more puzzled expressions.
“Obviously, it’s not Barret. But then there was also a mass shooting that happened just earlier in the same square. Quite a number of people were fatally wounded, though there are a few survivors. After hearing about these incidents, it seems like Barret turned himself in.”
Now Tifa interjects, “But why? If he didn’t do anything wrong…”
“That’s what I wanna know too. So I gathered you all up to form a search party. We’re gonna split up since this prison is a big place.”
By now, the confusion gradually lifts from all their faces as the dots finally are connecting.
“But you sure scared us for a moment there. All of a sudden you were working with the police of all people?” Biggs comments, shaking his head in disbelief. “It was like the world went topsy-turvy.”
“Be glad that it was me who arrested you, not them,” Ruby suggests casually. “Or you would have ended up like Cloud.”
“Oh, yeah. What happened to Cloud anyway?” Wedge follows up.
“Hmm…”
She looks up for a moment and peeks around to see if there’s some kind of tube or shaft that hangs overhead, and she spots one just behind where they’ve gathered. She hones her vision to zoom in for a better look, as well perks up her ears to catch any signs. Her patience would be rewarded. She shortly hears the sounds of a mech tumbling down the large tube and out pops it with Cloud in its grasp. However, as soon as it hits the open air, the mech promptly fires off its rocket propulsion and detaches its load, sending him plummeting to the ground.
“Cloud!?” Tifa shrieks.
“Ruby!” Aerith calls for her.
Without missing a beat, Ruby leaps up high into the air and catches him as he drops into her arms, but then lands back down hard without stopping their combined momentum. Not the most ceremonious of landings, though she shakes it off like nothing. Meanwhile, he barely avoids his face meeting with the dirt because she held him up just enough to skirt the distance. She then sets him down and everyone else lets off sighs of relief.
He grumbles, “Couldn’t you have made that landing easier?”
“Who knows… maybe if you nailed the catch when I fell earlier.”
“You’re still on about that!?”
“Phew! Looks like we’re all here now,” Aerith comments with an innocent smile.
Cloud then looks around and turns back to her. “Right… So has she caught you all up about Barret?”
She nods. “More or less. It sounds like he’s got a lot on his mind right now dealing with the situation with his old townspeople. I wonder if he’s trying to protect someone?”
“Protect? Who would he need to protect?”
“I dunno. That’s why we have to find him.”
“Poor Barret… Between what happened with ol’ Corel and now this shooting, he sure deserves a long break.” Jessie sighs, but then nods in agreement. “Well, there’s no time like the present! We all left him alone and then he got caught in some trouble while we weren’t looking. The least we can do is take some responsibility.”
“He did ask to be left alone, so I thought it best to honor that wish,” Red likewise replies, hanging his head. “But perhaps that wasn’t the best decision.”
“Oof… Yeah. I had no idea that he was in danger of anything,” Wedge remarks with a hint of remorse. “He just seemed pretty grumpy, but it makes sense given how North Corel is doing.”
“Still, why would he just turn himself in and not try to explain anything to us? Especially that we have Ruby?” Biggs brings up the question, “If anything, you’d think she would be the first one that he’d ask for help.”
But to that, Ruby looks away, feeling a deep shame clawing its way out of her heart. “Because I messed up real bad. Anyone would have lost faith in me.”
“Huh?”
Aerith passes her a crestfallen frown. “Ruby… Don’t blame yourself. No one could have known what would happen.”
She shakes her head. “It’s okay, Aerith. You don’t have to sugarcoat it. I let a man die…”
Now that Ruby has come out and admitted it, there’s no point in hiding anymore. Cloud proceeds to explain to the rest, “We took Cole up to the mountains where the coal mines were, and there was a graveyard down the river. Barret meant for him to meet with his mother’s grave to honor her memory, but he wouldn’t wake up. Enough time passed that his vitals were starting to fail. Ruby tried to operate on him, but well…” He turns back to Ruby, but she doesn’t meet his line of sight.
Aerith sighs. “We were a little too late. He passed on in peace.”
Tifa’s eyes widen. “Oh…”
Biggs blinks and makes an uncomfortable frown. “Damn… That explains a lot.”
“Poor Barret…” Wedge agrees. “Weren’t they close?”
Ruby nods slowly. “They might have been… I remember Cole told me that he used to idolize Barret back in the day when Corel was still flourishing. Sounded like he was a bit of a problem kid, though, so Barret helped keep an eye on him. Then one day, since he felt guilty about being a burden to the townsfolk, Cole decided to leave town and chase after his dreams in the big city… and eventually even made it into Soldier.”
Yuffie sticks out a tongue in disgust. “How could anyone think ever about joining Shinra of their own free will!? How did he not notice all the destruction that company caused over the years?”
“It was a much earlier time; long before they set up the reactor. Corel was kind of a backwater town that didn’t get much of the news, so…”
“Hmph. If you ask me, he was just an idiot for trusting anything Shinra. And he even got himself involved with some weird experiment that made him turn out like that! Sounds like karma finally got him.”
“Whoa there, lass! Don’t you think that’s going a bit far?” Cait Sith has to object, “Even if it was by his own choice, let’s not talk down the recently deceased!”
“What about it? He only defected because Ruby managed to bring his senses back to him!”
“Yuffie…” Sonon likewise scolds her with a stern frown of his own.
“What? You of all people should get it!”
“Yeah, I know where you’re coming from and I even agree that he was an idiot.” He then shakes his head. “But regardless, the guy was someone that Barret once knew and felt responsible for. Belittling him now just feels… pointless, you know?”
She grumbles to herself. “Yeah, yeah. I get it… It all sounds really stupid to me, but Barret is still one of us.”
An uncomfortable silence comes over the group as everyone else is unsure of how to respond to such hostility. In the end, those international tensions have yet to cease and probably won’t in a long time. In any case, though, they can all agree that they have to get Barret back.
Tifa looks around, nods with a determined face, and speaks up again, “Okay. Like Ruby said earlier, we should split up and search for him. But be careful, guys. I don’t think this place is safe anywhere, so stay on the move and try not to get caught up in anything with the inmates.”
Getting back on track, Ruby suggests, “If anyone runs into trouble, give me a holler over PHS. I’ll be there fast.”
She nods back. “Right. And if any of us does find him, let the rest know so we can meet up again.”
Cloud then asks the big question, “Who’s going with who?”
Ruby replies, “I can fly, so I’ll go solo. It’ll be faster if I don’t have any passengers.”
He nods. “Fine, but as always don’t leave the grounds without telling any of us first.”
“Of course.”
Tifa then suggests, “I think Aerith and I can go with Cloud.”
“Sounds good to me,” Aerith agrees.
“Hmph. Do I really have to be stuck with Sonon again…?” Yuffie mutters.
“Is there a problem?” he asks, but she doesn’t answer him.
“Hey, Red? You got a great nose. I’m sure we’ll make double time if you come along!”
Red shrugs. “I don’t mind.”
“No, really, Yuffie. Is there a problem?” Sonon asks again, and she still doesn’t answer him.
“Then, that leaves me and Wedge with Jessie again,” Biggs observes with a sigh.
She fires back with an annoyed look. “What’s with that tone? You two may be great scouts, but someone still has to watch over you so that you aren’t duped!”
“Hey! We’re not that clueless either!”
Wedge turns to Cait Sith. “Do you wanna come along, Cait? We don’t mind taking one more.”
“Oh! Thank ye kindly.” He nods. “Makes a bit easier if there are more o’ us.”
And with their mission and teams set for now, Ruby bursts into full dragon mode and takes off for the skies. The rest of them hurry off and scatter into the open where the rest of the prison awaits them. From high above, Ruby is able to graph out the general area. Like the former town, a number of small houses are scattered around where their town center would have been, but instead of an old monument or statue, there’s a large much more modern-looking tower that stands between these grounds and the rest of the city above. It’s here where the warden’s office has been established and this tower has an elevator ride that connects directly with the backdoor access to various squares around the Saucer.
Like the fanciful nature of the warden himself, it’s a tradition of sorts for certain inmates that were on their best behavior to get a chance at freedom if they could ever win a chocobo race. Unfortunately, everyone who’s been in prison for long enough knows that those races are always rigged against them. Even if an inmate is given a good chocobo and the warden hopes for an excitingly close race, it’s definitely not a matter of luck to win. One too many times, there have been instances where the chocobos on lend, while docile and friendly in the beginning, started to freak out or became aggressive with their own riders by the end of the race and suddenly threw the race. The warden and his men would always say that it was the fault of the inmate that they didn’t get along with such good birds, but no one would trust a word from their forked tongues. They’re on a payroll specifically to stamp out any dissidents that might pop up. If anything, these races are just another excuse for the warden to get some entertainment from kicking down men who were deemed lost causes.
In any case, Ruby flies straight for the eastern block of homes in search of a certain house where she could recall meeting Barret in her plays of the original game. However, with this completely different field map, she struggles to pick out which house it is among the block here. Should she just land and barge into each one? It’s not like she has anything to fear in terms of anyone trying to ambush her. What are they gonna do, shoot her?
Just so it’ll be a bigger impression that gets to the point, she doesn’t even return to human form and starts busting through doors by ramming her horns into them. Needless to say, the people inside freak out when a giant white dragon head comes poking in out of nowhere. They are all the more confused when it just leaves when it doesn’t find what it’s looking for. Now, not everyone is just a doormat who leaves her be; some of them do actually have weapons – makeshift shivs, knives, and clubs, and a few who were lucky enough to smuggle in some guns thanks to certain connections. But as always, all these attacks bounce harmlessly off of her scales. It’s a little annoying that one of them manages to stick a knife up her nostril, but a good snort sends that fool flying.
But when she finally finds a familiar-looking house among the block, she gets a little excited and hopeful. When she barges in, though, she only finds disappointment. There is a guy inside, but not the man she wanted to see. This poor guy simply freaks out and dives behind the sofa and under it. She then peeks around and snorts. Now that she sees it, this place definitely looks familiar. This might be the old mayor’s home back in the day. She remembers it from Barret’s flashback in the game – he and the mayor, as well as a few others, were here to talk Dyne out of resisting Shinra, and it was that day when the reactor construction went through. Now, though, the current resident doesn’t look like he’s related in any way to the old mayor.
So where is Barret? She swears he should be here, if her memory is correct. But then again, he could have gone to a different house. Very little from what she remembers seems to apply anymore, really. Maybe she should keep looking and terrify some other people instead.
Bam. The backdoor swings open and a different man bursts in with a heavy gatling gun raised. “The hell is goin’ on he- Ruby!?”
“Barret!” she happily croons.
As he lowers his gun-arm, she reverts back to human form in another flash and comes running up to him to greet him with a warm hug. Though he lets her, his shocked face shortly reveals a somber frown. He gives her a soft pat on the back, but doesn’t return the gesture.
“Sorry, kid, but we’ll have to talk later.”
“Huh?” She lets him go and looks up to his face, but he no longer makes eye contact.
He also turns for the back door again. “It’s a long story, but I got somewhere to be and I need to do this alone.”
She frowns back. “Barret… You’re heading off to meet Dyne, right?”
“…” He lets off a sigh and turns back to her. “If ya know, then ya know. But don’t go tellin’ the others about this, okay? It’s not worth their trouble.”
“I haven’t told them all everything yet, but they know enough to be worried about you.”
He makes a sad, almost guilty face, but turns away again and is about to walk off.
“Wait! Wait, wait.” She pleads anxiously, “Please, I just need to get something straight. We heard that you turned yourself in.”
“…”
“Who were those people who you let go?”
Now he looks back with a firm frown. “Some old guys from the old town. I can’t say we get along anymore, but… I couldn’t just leave ’em.”
Her eyes grow wide and she nods slowly. Now it’s all coming together. But before he does get going, she clings to his arm. “Barret! You don’t have to go on your own. We can help you!”
He makes a frustrated grunt and turns to face her again. “Look, Ruby, I appreciate it. I’m glad you guys got my back.” He then states firmly, “But this is something between me and him. He won’t listen to anyone else. I gotta do this myself.”
“I know who you’re dealing with and that’s why I’m worried!” She also adds with emphasis, “I’ve seen the potential future too. If you go in there without backup, someone is going to die.”
His eyes narrow at attention. “That so… then I’ll make sure that this won’t be that future.”
By now even she’s getting impatient and even blurts out about some doubt she didn’t mean to. “Barret! Please! Let me come at least! I’m sorry that I haven’t been so reliable lately, but I promise this time I won’t screw anything up.”
He shakes his head. “Ruby… I know you’re tryin’ your best to keep it together, but just this once, maybe you oughta cool it a little.”
“…”
Though it’s a fairly innocent and well-intentioned statement as is, she’s taken aback by how deeply it cuts. It was just a moment of hesitation in the back of her mind, but despite her efforts to push back and suppress it, all that self-doubt and her old self-esteem issues come seeping out to the front once more. She slowly withdraws and sinks back into that shame which now feels like it’s ruptured a hole. So her suspicions were right after all; though no one dares to say it, their faith in her has sunk to an all new low. They say they have to protect her; not the other way around.
He quickly adds, “But don’t get the wrong idea! I’m not sayin’ this because I don’t trust you or the rest of ya’ll. It just doesn’t have to involve you. I won’t be gone for too long, so leave this to me, alright?”
“…”
He then forces a smirk and raises a determined fist. “Don’t worry. I ain’t about to march to my death any time soon.”
“…”
“And I won’t let him die either.” He lowers that fist and gives her a reassuring nod. “Just worry about yourself, alright? And watch over the rest of ’em too while I’m gone.”
“…”
Her head remains hanging and she’s become uncomfortably silent again. Sensing that he’s tread dangerously close to some deep trauma, he rubs his head awkwardly and turns away for the door again. Before he steps out, though, she lowers her head in an apologetic bow and blurts out in a babbling whine.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry I messed up! I’m sorry I keep messing up!”
He whips back around, looking a little surprised and disturbed. “Ruby…”
“I know I’m a mess that’s barely keeping it together. It’s been like this since the beginning. I’m sorry that I misled you all for so long.”
“…”
“I didn’t mean to trick anyone. I just wanted to show that I could be useful, so I propped myself really high and mighty. But I’m not a miracle worker. I know a lot of things from what I’ve seen, but in the end, I’m not anything special. I’m not even fully in control of this power I’ve borrowed from Rubia.”
“…”
She looks back up, and by now, tears have begun to well up in her eyes. “But it’s still power that I can use. If there’s anything I can do right now to make up for my past mistakes, I’ll do it. Let me come with you. I’ll make sure that no one else has to die.”
“…” After a long silence of his own, Barret’s stern look then softens. “Kid… I know. I’ve known ya long enough.”
“…”
“You got a lotta problems on your mind already. I’m not gonna burden you with another.”
She pouts, “But you’ll burden me with guilt if you don’t let me come along.”
“Ruby…” His shoulders sink, looking just a bit exhausted himself. “Come on, girl. Don’t make such a big fuss about it…” He finally concedes with a nod. “Fine. You can tag along, but stay outta view when we go meet him, okay? I still needa meet him one-on-one. Don’t wanna leave some bad impressions…”
Suddenly, they’re interrupted with a familiar voice coming from behind Ruby. “…If you’re letting her come, then we are too.”
“Huh?”
Finally, Cloud, followed by Aerith and Tifa, have come by this house and they hurry on in.
“Barret!” Tifa gasps in relief.
“And Ruby too!” Aerith makes a proud smile. “You found him first after all!”
Cloud takes one look at Ruby’s glum face and then turns back to Barret with a frown. “Like we said earlier, we’re all in this together.” He then puts a hand to his hip, just to be sassy. “If you run off on your own, you’re gonna make her cry… harder.”
Barret snorts back and folds his arms. “Hey, come on! Don’t put it like that! I didn’t think it’d be such a big deal for ya’ll. This is just a meeting with an old pal o’ mine.”
“Sounds more like you’re walking into a funeral with how she’s reacting.”
His frown fades for the awkward and he drops the arms. “Okay… Maybe where I’m going, it is a pretty dark place.”
“There it is.” Cloud shakes his head. “Don’t give us excuses. There’s no way we’re letting it become yours.”
“He’s right, Barret. After all we’ve been through, do you really think we’ll just sit back and not worry about you if you go missing?” Tifa insists as well.
Aerith nods. “We told them about Cole too. So we all know at least a little of what you’re going through.”
Cloud adds, “You’re one of us and that means your problems are ours too.”
“Guys…” Barret looks around all their faces, feeling a bit overwhelmed himself. Finally, he gives in with another sigh and turns back to them with a nod. “Alright. Ya’ll can come.”
Now Ruby wipes away her tears and offers a sweet smile. “And we’re not going to be hiding,” she strictly emphasizes.
He nods back. “Thought so. Kinda hard to hide all of ya’ll.” He then makes a more thoughtful look. “So is it just you guys?”
“As if!” a spunky young girl barks back.
Now Yuffie’s group bursts in, followed by Jessie’s as well.
“Barret! There you are!” Jessie cries. “Figures. Ruby wouldn’t go around rampaging as a dragon and then stop for no reason.”
“She made it really hard to not notice,” Biggs agrees.
“Barret! It’s your fault that we’re all stuck in prison!” Yuffie complains without shame, “Hurry up and pick a team so you get your stuff done and we can get outta here!”
Barret actually makes an amused snort. “Hmph… I really can’t escape any of ya, can I? Well, I don’t care who comes with, as long as we don’t all go together. The less attention we make, the better.”
“I’ll go with you,” Cloud insists and turns to Ruby. “And so will she.”
“Just to be safe, one more can join them. Who wants to?” Tifa asks, glancing around this ample crowd stuffed into a small room.
“I think I should go,” Aerith suggests. “Just to be sure that no one gets too hurt.”
“You sure, Aerith?” Cloud asks, “We’ve been dragging you around a lot of ugly places already…”
“Ha!” She puts her hands to her hips. “And what about it? I’ve been looking after my cousin even before she met the rest of you!”
“…” Feeling a bit overshadowed, he turns back to Barret. “Well, that’s that.”
“Though, there’s no stopping the rest of us from following, just at a distance,” Ruby points out. “Make sure not to stray too far, guys! Wouldn’t wanna find you lost.”
Cait Sith nods. “Don’t you worry, lassie! When times are tough, we have ways to avoid the worst!”
Yuffie throws her arms behind her head and casually mentions as if to remind them. “I’m not staying far from Ruby anyway. She’s the only one who can warp us outta here.”
“…You’re still stuck on that chocobo race, aren’t you?” Sonon rightly brings up.
“Shut up! That’s not it at all!”
Aside from those two sibling-likes getting into another argument, the overall mood seems to have lifted for the better. Ruby glances around at everyone else’s faces and stops upon Barret at the end. She gives him a relieved smile and he returns her a faithful nod.
He turns to the rest to announce, “Anyway, where we’re goin’ is a little ways outta this central ring. Out in the desert, in fact. Don’t lose track and stick close. If ya have to, ring us up. Ruby can help lead ya there too…” He then turns back to her with a raised eyebrow. “Though, thinkin’ about it, you probably know exactly where I’m talking about, don’t you?”
She nods. “I do. I’m not exactly sure about the actual distance, but there should be an old junkyard to the northeast.”
“Good.” He also looks over to Cloud and Aerith. “Alright. Let’s go!”
They nod and follow Barret out the back door. The backyard would normally have been closed off, but given the dilapidated condition of the fences, there’s a wide open in them that leads onward through the rest of the junk-laden grounds back here. Once out of the mounds of metal scraps, they reach the outskirts of the central penitentiary grounds and it’s all scorched-dead desert and relentless sun from here. Maybe Ruby should have brought some water bottles after all. She’s already thirsty just looking out at the horizon.
Chapter 54: The Ones Left Behind
Notes:
Outdated A/N
Eyy! I somehow made it in time just before Rebirth releases in the States. It's already out in Japan, though, so watch out for spoilers, everyone! And please spare me any spoilers too. As I mentioned before, I am going completely blind into Rebirth when I get around to watching my fave LPs of the game. In the meantime, I'll still be sticking with this project and going my own way, so there are bound to be inconsistencies with Rebirth, but we're just having fun here, right?
For example, I don't know exactly how the Gold Saucer minigames are going to be like, so I'll be winging it and I probably won't be "correcting" them any time soon. Ultimately, this fic is based on the OG, Compilation, and Remake, while Rebirth and the next game will only be supplemental as inspiration.
Anyway, this particular chapter is a bit of a heavy emotional ride, so get comfortable. I have to say, though, I'm proud of what I've managed to draw out from my excessively sleep-deprived brain.
3/6/24 edit: Next chapter is coming along and will be available by Friday, or Saturday evening at the latest. I'll try my best to keep to the schedule!
3/12/24 edit: Sadly, I am not keeping on schedule. I wish I could say more, but general stress and recurring insomnia keep ruining me, on top of my struggles with keeping track of my muses. I have been reworking the chapter from the ground up again, so I expect it to be done by this weekend instead.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Endless desert, as far as the eye can see, under the intense, sweltering sun. Empty, rugged bedrock with dust storms blowing in from the north, covering everything in a thin layer off sand. Everywhere one turns, the view is the same. But these lands are not completely empty either. Hidden in the shadows and the depths are monsters and traps abound. Giant Land Worms have carved massive tunnels in an abstract network that stretches far beneath the surface and they eat just about everything that enters their toothy, lamprey-like mouths. Death Claws, large bipedal spider mutants with heads that look like skulls, stalk and ambush prey caught in their sand pits and makeshift dunes. There are even the desert-dwelling cousins of the Grashtrike and Venomantis as well, henceforth dubbed Scorpulios. Unlike their city counterparts, these massive scorpion-like mantises thrive in this dry heat, though they prefer to hide their nests underground in the tunnels left behind by Land Worms.
Ruby happened to discover this new breed of insect monster by accident. To scout the area, she flew ahead as a dragon, but found little to see from above. To help shield her friends from the relentless sun, though, she then burrowed herself into the sand to carve her own path. She clawed a way forward with the help of a few Quakes to loosen up the rock until she happened to cross into a massive tunnel, one probably carved by a Land Worm. Judging by the tremors, it had been in the midst of boring nearby. However, as she stepped out into the open, relieved to stretch out her wings at last, she was shortly set upon by a troop of Scorpulios that lunged on the attack – or tried to, at least. The unfortunate creatures realized too late that their claws and stingers weren’t sharp enough to even so much as nick her shiny, smooth scales. With as little effort as using a brush to scrub a bathroom floor, she swiped around with her claws until the area was littered with dead bugs, which shortly dissipated into ether.
No, the real problem she now faces is much greater than even those worms’ appetites: keeping track of where her tunnel leads. She had been focused and set on a certain direction, but with all the interference from these criss-crossing worm tunnels, she very quickly lost her sense of direction. Well, when in doubt, she can always shoot up, namely the opposite direction of gravity, to return to the surface.
And that’s exactly what she decides to do. She first leaves a giant scratch mark in the wall of this tunnel at this particular junction to leave a sign, then promptly adds to the mark with a signature “Ruby” in cursive and a big arrow pointing up, just to hammer in the point in case her friends have been following her trail. Maybe she should have waited for them? She burrows pretty fast for a creature of the air. Ah, well. There’s only one way forward, so they ought to be fine.
With that covered, she casually throws out a widespread Quakaga spell that sends tremors through the underground and startles the local wildlife yet again. She even follows it with launching herself through the weakened layers of rock like a white rocket that bursts from the ground in an even greater explosion. Finally back under the sun, she rummages her claws in the loose sands to help her sift out any dirt or sand that had been caught under her claws’ nails. It’s been quite irritating, to be honest. If only there were some water around here that she could use to wash them…
Wait. Can’t she just cast a Water-elemental spell? Running her claws in the sand has only made it feel even more irritating, like she just caught her hands in some hidden brambles – oh, wait. It’s a Death Claw that has latched onto her hand. Actually, there are several here that have popped out and seem to be angry that she just ruined their sand pit trap. Well, nothing like a good ol’ Aqualung to clean up the place and her claws in one fell swoop.
And yet, the battles still keep coming like she’s just a magnet for trouble. She now meets with several Bull Motors that have rolled on up to investigate the commotion she just caused. These are single-wheeled motorcycle machines with stacks of exhaust pipes out their backs. She figures that they ought to be Shinra-made. As she expected, the machines immediately recognize her as a threat and go on the offensive and bombard her with missiles. When the smoke clears, only she remains, surrounded by scrap metal. She sighs to herself as she is forced to dust herself off again.
Finally, she has tidied herself up. Now where was she? Ah, right: she left her friends far behind. Taking off for the skies to scout once more, she realizes that the rolling desert winds have already covered her tracks on the surface. She also realizes that this means the rest of the party may be in trouble if they’re caught lagging behind. She zips through the air back in the direction she suspects she has come to search for the stragglers.
Meanwhile, down in the depths of the tunnel that Ruby had bored, Barret has been leading Cloud and Aerith along and they’ve been discussing a few important matters, including about the man that they’re looking for now.
“…So it was Dyne after all,” Cloud concludes after hearing Barret’s side of the situation.
Barret nods solemnly. “It was some years after the town disappeared that I heard any sign of him again. I happened to run into a doc in Midgar who could graft a gun on my arm, and it turned out this doc had a previous client that got the same operation, but it was his left arm instead.”
“…”
“At the time, I didn’t think much about it. It could’ve been anyone. Then, some time after that, there were rumors about some recent terrorist attacks on the Gold Saucer. Apparently, some people from Corel were made suspects.” He shakes his head. “But even then, I couldn’t believe that he’d be involved. I knew the guy like a brother. He was always a smart talker and ready to mediate fights back in the day. He could always rouse people to action with just the words, but would only ever speak of peace. Yeah, we were built tough. We could handle our own in a scrap if we had to. But everyone looked up to us because we didn’t just throw our weight around. Dyne was THE guy to find whenever any trouble stirred up. I didn’t think a guy like him would ever resort to violence…”
“Maybe not back then… but it’s been a long time since you’ve last heard from him.”
“Yeah.” He frowns with a pensive look. “Who knows what happened since then.” He then stops walking for a bit, leading the other two to stop as well. “I mean, look at me! Believe it or not, I was one of the nicest dudes you could ever meet!”
Cloud returns him a raised eyebrow, but decides not to argue.
Barret gives a sigh as he continues, “But ever since that day, I couldn’t be that nice guy anymore. I lost everything – all our homes, everyone I knew and loved, and even my own arm. There was nothing to turn back to.” He clenches a fist. “The day I got this gun was the day when I swore to myself that Shinra was goin’ down. Even if I had to raise all hell on Gaia, I’d do it.”
“Barret…” Aerith says sympathetically.
He then lets his fist go and makes a deep, regretful sigh. “But it didn’t even cross my mind that I shoulda looked for him. Dunno why I didn’t. If I got to him first, to stop him from goin’ on a mad rampage, then we coulda had one of the best fighters in Avalanche, period. But kinda late to recruit him now.”
“Who knows?” Cloud offers, “If we all talk with him, we might be able to reach some consensus. He could even join us.”
Barret shakes his head. “No. Won’t be that easy. Dyne’s a stubborn bastard and if he’s set on something, there’s no changin’ it.” He then slumps over. “The way I disappeared on everyone that day, no way he’d ever wanna see me again.”
“But you didn’t run away. You left to get help, didn’t you?” Aerith asks.
“Yeah, but it don’t matter what I say now. Won’t change the fact that I didn’t even try to find him.”
“…” She nods back with a sad look of empathy.
They resume walking and return to a dreary silence of deep thought and contemplation, but are then interrupted by the tremors from a certain explosion up ahead. Fortunately, they’re far enough to not be too shaken, though they did almost stumble.
After catching herself, Aerith asks, “What was that?”
“Ruby went on ahead…” Cloud replies cautiously, but then blinks as he catches on. “So that must have been her.”
“Ah.” She nods too. “I hope she went easy on the wildlife.”
“With that kinda power, they’d be lucky if they died instantly,” Barret comments.
“Well, good thing that goes for everything she kills.”
Cloud shakes his head and turns back to Barret to get back on topic. “Anyway, whatever Dyne is up to these days, we’re not gonna stand around and let you be framed for mass murder. Whatever bad blood between you guys doesn’t excuse him from targeting civilians.”
“Yeah…” Barret returns to his solemn frown. “But really, my hands ain’t any cleaner. When that reactor blew sky high…”
“In that case, we’re in the same boat. But like Ruby said, the worst of the casualties were Shinra’s own doing.”
“That’s what I figured too. At least, I hoped. So when she told us, I was glad. Glad that we weren’t wrong about how sick those bastards were! Anyone who gets it would know that they got the damn world record for senseless violence down pat.” Nonetheless, he also admits, “But lately I’ve been thinkin’… No matter how we try to say it or put in a good word for us, it doesn’t change the fact that they did it because we were there.”
“…”
“I always knew that if we stirred up enough trouble, Avalanche would have to leave at some point, but I never really thought about what the worst-case scenario could be. I thought, as evil as Shinra was, even they wouldn’t be insane enough to drop a whole-ass sector… but look where we are.” He lets off a discouraged sigh. “Who knows, maybe we coulda spared all those lives if we didn’t show that day at the reactor?”
Cloud shakes his head. “No, I don’t think it mattered. They already knew we’d be there, so they somehow got wind of our plans. Even if we didn’t go, they could blow it up and blame us anyway.”
“…” Now that he thinks it over, Barret has to agree. He mutters in a low growl, “You know what, you got a point.” He straightens up again and with growing anger, he declares, “They probably couldn’t wait to blow their own damn reactors if it meant that they could rat us out! And they call us ‘vermin’? Come on! No, scratch that. They’re even lower than vermin! They’re actual viruses! To us, to everyone else, and to the planet!”
Aerith casts a disheartened look aside. “To blow up their reactors and even drop an entire town, just to blame Avalanche… I knew the company always had its dark secrets, but I never knew they’d be so open about being this awful.”
“You really had any trust in Shinra?” Cloud asks, genuinely curious.
“Not really ‘trust’… but I guess I wanted to have hope.” She turns to him to emphasize, “Hope that the people of the city, even with all its flaws, could still persevere no matter what challenges they may face and grow stronger from them.”
He looks uncertain, but replies a bit more gently, “…Well, I won’t tell you to stop hoping. Maybe someday, the city will see enough change to be much better than the desert around it.”
She returns to her sad silence, ever longing for a more peaceful world.
As they are ready to resume the trail, though, they are stopped by yet another tremor; not as intense as the first, but still quite noticeable. Cloud frowns to himself. What the heck is Ruby doing? Can’t she take it easy for once? They let her fly off to clear the way of monsters, not wage war on everything in the desert. However, before they can keep going, the shaking intensifies again and it seems to be growing closer. Wait, closer? Why is it getting closer? And why hasn’t Ruby shown herself yet?
“Ruby? Are you there?” Aerith calls out.
Cloud gets a bad feeling and reaches for his sword. “I don’t think this is her…”
Barret readies his gun too. “If it ain’t her, then it ain’t friendly.”
Aerith sighs and summons her staff into her hands too. “I kinda wish it would be.”
The three brace themselves for the incoming threat. Suddenly from the sides of this tunnel, two massive Land Worms come bursting out from the walls and surround them, roaring and spitting bits of dust and dirt as they do.
“What!? We’re surrounded!” Cloud gasps.
“You take that one, I’ll take this one!” Barret yells.
“So which one do I go for?” Aerith asks, hastily looking back and forth.
“Any one!” Cloud shouts, drawing his blade.
“Eek!”
They all dodge out of the way as the beasts lunge forth. However, upon clashing, the two giants instead continue to clash with each other as if vying for dominance. It’s like they didn’t even notice the other three beneath them.
“The hell!? They weren’t even gunnin’ for us!” Barret growls, feeling just a bit insulted.
“At least we’re not surrounded…” Cloud mutters, but is likewise irked. “But they’re not gonna get away with that.”
“That’s it! These worms are done! It’s exterminatin’ time!”
“We going one on one?”
“Hmph! Like I care! You’d better hurry before I blow ’em up!”
“Oh, so winner takes all, then.”
“Um, guys,” Aerith asks them, genuinely confused, “if they’re not fighting us, do we have to fight them?”
“Yes!” both men answer and charge at them, ready to let rip.
She sighs to herself and summons her staff in hand as well. She prefers to keep a safe distance away so she can lay on some strong Blizzara spells for support. Yet, it so happens that these spells do the most damage, as the worms are indeed weak to Ice magic. Unfortunately, she has drawn aggro and the angry worms now target her.
“Aah! No! Don’t come this way!” she squeals, running away again.
“Aerith!” Cloud calls out. He dashes to her aid and sweeps her out of the way as the worms crash into the ground around them.
“Sonnuva bitch! I’m right here, assholes!” Barret roars, even more pissed that he’s being ignored again. He waves his gun-arm in the air and unleashes a burst of intimidating presence – namely, his Lifesaver ability – and fires away at the open maws of the worms as they climb back up.
Now sufficiently distracted, the worms now surround him and try to swallow him whole, but the two lumbering giants aren’t well coordinated and crash into each other instead. They roar and bicker at each other once more. Having had enough of being ignored by worms of all things, Barret draws on Overcharge and unleashes an extra-powered barrage on them both. Likewise, Cloud gives backup with a neatly placed Cross Slash on the one to the left and Aerith fires off more Blizzara spells on the right.
Well, that was some mess of a fight. The two worms finally collapse under their own weights and stop moving, and shortly begin to fade away into ether as well. Everyone returns to being at ease and dusts themselves off. And after all that noise and the dust settles, Ruby is still nowhere to be seen.
“Where the hell is she!?” Cloud snaps. “I said to ‘clear the way’ and she didn’t even show for this fight! What’s taking her so long!?”
Aerith makes a little worried face. “I hope she didn’t get lost.”
“Ugh…” he groans. “Why is that a real possibility?”
Barret looks on ahead. “Hey, is there some opening out there? Looks like some light’s shining down.”
“Huh?”
The trio hurry on ahead again and finally they come to the junction where Ruby had left her mark. Cloud remains unsurprised to find her signature as well and follows the arrow up to meet with bright open skies above. The explosion they had heard from earlier seems to have left a small crater in the area and the harsh sunlight has reached these depths too.
Cloud swears under his breath and whips out his PHS. “That idiot. She’d better not be flying around aimlessly.”
He gives Tifa a call and the latter quickly picks up. “Cloud? What’s up?”
“We sent Ruby ahead to deal with the monsters, but she ended up going underground for some reason. We chased after her, but she was going too fast for us to catch up. But then we came to a dead end and it looks like she blew a giant hole as she came back out. Have you seen her around?”
“Hmm… Sorry, but no, not yet. We ran past another hole in the ground earlier. I guess that must have been the start of her tunnel? We didn’t go down, though, since it seemed to have gone off a different way.” Now that the thought crosses her mind, she gets worried too. “She didn’t get lost, did she?”
“…She probably did,” he complains with a hand over his face. “Tifa, can you hold your phone away from your ear for a sec?”
“Huh? Why?”
“I’m gonna yell at her.”
“Oh…”
Tifa obliges and Cloud proceeds to scream into his phone.
“Ruby! Where the hell are you!? You dug this tunnel all this way to a dead end! Where have you been leading us!?”
The response doesn’t come immediately, but then a meek third voice comes over their transmission.
“I’m sorry… I’m back at the prison.”
He jaw drops. “What? What are you doing there?”
“I didn’t have a choice! I got lost! The Saucer is the easiest place to see for miles!”
“…” He pulls his jaw back up just to cringe in frustration himself.
“I figured I could just retrace my steps, but the desert winds covered up our tracks. Then I thought I could just go back the way I came, but since I dug underground, I couldn’t see it from above, so…”
As much as he would like to comfort her, his impatience has reached a fever pitch and the only words that come out of his mouth are: “…Ruby. You really are an idiot.”
“Yeah…” She sighs, but quickly adds, “But there’s good news! I think I can track where your phone signals are coming from, so stay on the line!”
He groans, feeling even more exhausted than after their recent battle. “Fine. Just get over here. We’re not walking all the way back there.”
“Don’t worry! I gotcha. By the way, is Tifa still there?”
Tifa likewise comes back on the line. “I am.” She even offers a strict tone of her own. “Ruby, we’ve been over this. If you aren’t sure about something, don’t go off on your own. Keep that in mind next time.”
“Urf… I’m really sorry. But I also got worried that you guys would get lost too, so that’s why I turned back.”
“Oh, don’t worry about us. Jessie said that the PHS has a built-in compass. We’ve been on track the whole time, though this desert is pretty huge and we might have lagged behind a bit.”
“Huh? Wait, it’s that easy? Then don’t I also have…” There’s a pause as Ruby remembers. “Oh, right. I don’t have a PHS.”
Cloud growls, “And you still ran off on your own like you had any idea.”
“I’m sorry! How many times do I have to say it?” she whines.
Then Jessie also relays something else to Tifa and the latter speaks up, “Oh, really? Right, I’ll tell them.”
“What is it, Tifa?” Cloud asks.
“Jessie said she got a message from Biggs. Seems like Cait Sith really knows his way around this place and caught a chocobo merchant crossing the desert. He even offered to lend us some chocobos, so we’ll be able to catch up soon.”
“What? Really?” He rubs his head, feeling just a little jealous. “Well, that’s good to hear…”
“Oh, awesome! I didn’t know he could lend out chocobos too!” Ruby cheers.
“Oh, you know him too, Ruby?” Tifa asks.
“Not personally. But I’ve heard that there’s a guy who travels to and from the Gold Saucer even across the desert. But I wouldn’t know where to look for him. Cait Sith actually knows?”
“Yeah, apparently. He did mention he was a regular at the Saucer, so I guess his knowledge even extended down here.”
“Uh-huh… Duly noted,” she replies with a certain suspicion in mind. Maybe she could ask the cat a bit more about that later sometime.
“Ruby, you’d better be flying here right now as we speak,” Cloud warns her, “or we’re leaving without you.”
“Don’t move! I’m on my wings!” she snaps back, but her voice tapers into a whimper. “…I swear I’m not doing this on purpose.”
“…We know. That’s why we care.”
“Thanks, guys.” She then announces, “Going full dragon now.”
It’s not much longer of a wait until Ruby reaches them again, glowing with that familiar white light that can be seen even under the bright sun, and Cloud can finally end the call. She lands upon the flattened bedrock of the small crater she made with a hard thump, whipping up small dust clouds as she descends. She crouches down on all fours and announces in her deep dragon voice.
“All aboard the Ruby Express.”
“Ruby! Welcome back!” Aerith greets her, running over to give her a hug.
“More like ‘about time’,” Cloud mutters, but hurries after her too.
While Barret has been fairly quiet with his gloomy thoughts up to now, looking upon Ruby’s looming figure that towers over them, he can’t help but rethink his approach to this mess they’re in. Though he knew that everyone would want to come along if they knew what he was planning, Ruby already knew about Dyne from the start. What was he gonna do, pretend that she wouldn’t tell anyone and hope that no one would notice that he was gone? Well, yeah, that was the plan at first… but in hindsight, he probably wouldn’t have gone too far on his own before she and the others would catch up anyway. She does fly fast, in more ways than one.
“Barret, come on,” Cloud calls to him. Looks like he and Aerith are already seated on her back.
“Uh, right.”
Barret snaps out of his thoughts and comes running up too, but then slows down as he carefully climbs into the “front seat”. Boy, does it suck not have two hands. Yeah, he knows there shouldn’t be anything to worry if they’re taking a ride with her. Though she may be a little scatterbrained sometimes, she definitely wouldn’t let them fall. Not intentionally, anyway.
Nah, nah. He can’t think like that. Where’d all that trust in her that they had since the beginning? Has it really wavered so much in this short time? Come on, man, pull it together. Maybe there are some hapless souls that even miracles can’t save, but that doesn’t mean she won’t try. And maybe, just this once, she might be the key to saving his old pal too.
~
With his trusty Buster Sword on his back again and PHS in hand, Cloud leads Ruby in the right direction for once, and they shortly come across the junkyard badlands not too far off from the prison if they had been going the right way all along. This is a land of scrap heaps where discarded machinery of all kinds litter the ground. Junked off-road vehicles that one could expect at the end of a demolition derby, old models of the Gold Saucer’s security detail that were discontinued, and even some of Shinra’s long abandoned killer machines snuffed out for not being “toxic” enough – the list goes on. While it may not be as large as the waste disposal outside of Midgar, it’s certainly nothing to scoff at.
However, Ruby quickly picks up on a different scent in the air around these grounds: blood, and not just the dried variety. And as she comes upon the entrance to said junkyard’s outer fences, the rest of her crew pick up on an awful sight. It’s not just scrap metal lying around; there are dead bodies strewn about like they’d just come up on a warzone.
“The hell is going on here?” Cloud mutters warily.
“…I got an idea,” Barret admits with a grave expression.
Ruby flutters down swiftly but smoothly and lets down her passengers. While Cloud and Aerith look around in a shocked daze, Barret marches up to one of the bodies nearby. To his aghast surprise, the man is actually still breathing.
“Hey! He’s still alive!” Barret calls, waving his hand to beckon them over. The two hurry on over to his side as Barret speaks to the bloodied survivor. “Hang in there, man! Can you hear me?”
The man sputters and his voice is raspy from the blood that has already flooded his lungs, but he still manages to utter a few words, “…Don’t… go on… He… The boss…”
“The boss?”
“Who’s the ‘boss’?” Aerith asks.
Barret answers, “The guy who runs the racket in these parts. And the same guy we’re lookin’ for.”
“Oh…”
He asks the man again, “What about him? What happened? He still kickin’?”
The man groans between wheezing coughs. “He’s… killin’ us…”
“What?”
“Dyne… gone mad… Ugh… We messed up… bad…”
“Hey, whoa! What do you mean? What’s Dyne been up to?”
But at this point, the man has already lost too much blood. His wheezing gasps overpower his voice and he shortly stops and goes silent. Barret stares in utter disbelief at the man for a moment and then he feels a rage long suppressed bubble back to the forefront. Without even looking to his teammates, he lets the man drop back down and takes a stand. An unrelenting fire burns in his eyes, but he doesn’t say a word. Instead, he turns ahead for the junkyard entrance and runs on in by himself.
“Hey! Barret!” Cloud calls after him, but the guy doesn’t respond.
“Barret…” Aerith mumbles, feeling those deep condolences.
Now, Ruby comes up to them and for some reason, she has yet to return to human form. She had been glancing around the scene, finding no other survivors.
“Come on, we can’t leave him alone in there.” Cloud hurries off to give chase and Aerith shortly follows, but Ruby doesn’t come along. He turns back her way and shouts impatiently, “Ruby! Come on!”
But she shakes her head. “You two go on ahead. I need to clean up here.”
“What are you talking about? They’re all dead, aren’t they?”
“Yes. Which is why I need to clean them up. The place is rather unpleasant to look at.”
He stares back with contemptuous disbelief. “Is this really the time for that? What are you thinking now?”
“Cloud, we’d better hurry,” Aerith reminds him, “Or Barret might get too far ahead.”
“I know, but Ruby…”
“Leave her be. She’ll have us covered.”
“…”
Though not entirely convinced himself, since Aerith seems to have total faith, he lets it go. He waves a hand Ruby’s way. “Join us when you’re done. We might not need your help, but it doesn’t hurt to have you there.”
“Gotcha,” she replies with a nod.
Cloud and Aerith exchange nods as well and they hurry on ahead after Barret. Weaving through this scrap heap jungle, over fallen pillars and under rusted pipes that have been stripped of use, they soon come into an open clearing again, only to find another set of fences in their way. But this set has a space wide open where there used to be a door. Then, out of the blue, they hear a gunshot very close by and hurry on in to see what happened.
It’s an open courtyard here, with a deep chasm that separates it from the mass of graves across the gap. Barret is here, looking guarded, and he’s not alone. There, standing by the precipice is a thin, almost lanky-looking man in a white undershirt, deep blue vest, and green work pants. His hair is bleached white and his face is sunken in like he’s aged so fast these past few years. Like Barret, he too has a gun for an arm, but it’s his left and it’s a sleek model of rifle. It’s still smoking from its last shot that still rings in the air, and its target was a hapless man – another of the many recent victims whose bodies litter the scene.
“…Useless sonnuva bitch. They’re all the same,” the man grumbles just audibly. “Said not to leave any traces and they go and get another guy arrested…”
Though cautious, Barret doesn’t raise his gun just yet and steps forward. “Long time no see… Dyne.”
Dyne doesn’t respond just yet. He shoots at his latest victim a few more times just to make sure that he’s dead. And with that settled, he raises his rifle Barret’s way.
“You shoulda never shown your face here.”
“Dyne… I’m sorry, man. I know you don’t wanna see me, but I had to come.”
“For what?” He spits on the ground in his way. “I’m not in the mood to forgive even if you ask nicely.”
Barret shakes his head. “Nah, it ain’t even about that. I just heard that you mighta been around town.” He then makes a serious frown. “There was a shooting up at the Saucer earlier today. Was that you?”
“Hmph.” Dyne then lowers the gun and returns him a cocky, almost condescending frown of his own. “What if it was? The hell are you gonna do?”
Barret lets off a disappointed sigh. “Dyne, this can’t go on. This town… Our town. It’s suffered long enough.”
“The #%&$ do you know about its suffering, you damn coward!? You left us all in the dirt!”
“…”
“All these years, I was the only holdout! Told everyone not to trust Shinra and before I knew it, even you, who said you’d always have my back, turned on me!”
Barret sinks slowly to the grim reminder.
“And then they came for us. But where the hell were we while the town burned? Lost in the damn mines just ’cause your dumbass thought a kid was trapped in there again! Who the #&%@$* shithead falls for a crap excuse like that!? It was just Shinra spewin’ lies!”
“…”
“It was also your dumbass who got that kid wrapped up in Shinra to begin with. Where is he now, huh?”
Barret winces a little to that biting remark. Back in the day when the mines were still operational, a certain young black boy had gotten himself caught up amid one of their excavations and became trapped in a different tunnel when the digging bomb set off the wrong way and collapsed a few exits. After the workers managed to escape safely, they realized that Cole’s mother had arrived asking if any of them had seen her son anywhere, and thus everyone went all-hands-in on digging the kid out. Fortunately, he was unharmed, but he got a severe scolding from his mum.
Dyne is seething, gritting his teeth in a fierce snarl, and looks like he could just pounce on the attack, but then lowers his gun and shakes his head. “…But what would I know. I’m just a good-for-nothin’ myself.”
“Dyne…”
“Yeah, I admit it. I’ve killed people. Fools who didn’t know any better and blindly consumed Shinra goods like it was their %#&@# lifeline. If ya ask me, they’re better off not knowing the truth. So I let them pass… into the next life where they won’t have to worry about Shinra no more.”
“…” Barret looks like he wants to argue with that, but decides not to. Dyne probably won’t listen anyway.
“The next life…” He looks up into the sky with a sad, almost longing look in his eyes. “I can still hear her voice, you know.”
“Her voice?”
He returns to his scowl when he turns back to Barret. “Eleanor… tellin’ me not to hate your guts.”
“…”
“It’s taking my all to not shove this gun down your throat.” He raises said gun in his face again. “The only thing keepin’ me sane these days is knowing that you were still out there somewhere… so if I ever ran into you again, I’d bury you with my own damn hand…” He adds with a hint of grim snark, “Thanks to you, I don’t even got two of ’em anymore. Though, by the looks of it, you weren’t much better off.”
“…” Barret turns to his own gun-arm with a sorrowful look. “Yeah… Even after all this time, we really ain’t that different, huh?”
“Don’t lump me in with you,” Dyne snaps back. “At least I didn’t scurry off with his tail between his legs. Where’d you go, Midgar?”
“…Yeah.”
“Figures. That’s where Shinra is, after all… you dirty rat.”
“I left to take back what they’d taken from us.”
“Don’t give me those weak-ass excuses! You thought we were all dead! That’s why you ran!”
“Dyne…” Barret begins, but finds that he doesn’t know what to say to that.
“Though, can’t say that I’m livin’ anymore either.” Dyne gives a bitter sigh and lowers his gun again. “It was all since that day… the day when we lost everything. The day when I lost Eleanor, Marlene… everything that made up the life I used to have.” He shrugs woefully. “Things just haven’t been the same.”
“…Marlene’s still alive.”
He slowly turns back toward him, not with pleasant surprise but with a touch of disbelief.
“She made it outta the fire. I found her in the ruins, still unharmed, and rushed her outta there. We had nowhere else to go, so I took her with me.”
“…She’s alive…?” He just as slowly looks off into space as he contemplates his next move.
“Yeah. She’s doin’ just fine now. Just turned 4 this year.”
“…” That look of disbelief now turns for anger.
“Come on. Let’s go meet her. She deserves to see her old pops again, don’t she?”
“Damn… So she’s still alive…” He shakes his head again. “Then Eleanor… she’s all alone up there.”
“Dyne…?”
“…Sorry, Barret, but we can’t leave it like this.” Dyne raises his gun again. “Marlene wanna see her mom too, don’t she?”
“Dyne! What are you sayin’, man!?”
“I’m just thinkin’ what’s best for my daughter. While you left her alone in that city…”
“She’s not there anymore! She’s in good hands, in another town!”
“Yeah? Where’d you take my kid then, you goddamn ’napper!?”
Dyne fires off the first shot, but Barret blocks it with his own gun.
“Barret!” Cloud yells.
“Stay back! It’s not your fight!”
“But…”
“Dyne! Stop it! Don’t bring Marlene into this! It’s between me and you, right!?”
“Yeah… between you and me… and when I’m through with you, I’m gonna go find her myself.”
He fires off another few shots, which Barret keeps blocking with his own gun.
“Barret! Let us help!” Cloud tries again, growing ever antsier.
“Shut up! Stay and guard Aerith! I got this!”
“Ugh…”
Barret resumes yelling, “Dyne! Enough! I don’t wanna fight you! We don’t have to do this!”
“Why not? Thinkin’ about running away again, ya sleazy rat!?”
“No! Just calm down! We can still look for the best way outta this mess!”
“You can do that. My life’s been long gone.”
“Urrrgh… Goddamn it!”
Before either Cloud or Aerith can stop him, Barret charges in, gun still held up as a shield, with a mighty yell of his own. Dyne stares at him in shock, but jumps out of the way as Barret swings his gun-arm, trying to knock the former’s gun aside. Enraged, Dyne whips out his gun in Barret’s face and lets fire a shot that the latter barely manages to dodge, but the bullet scratches his cheek. Barret again tries to pin Dyne down, but the guy is much too slippery. He ducks and weaves every time Barret comes in hot and keeps firing away until one of his shots finally hits Barret square in the chest and he drops to his knees.
“Barret!” Aerith cries.
That was the last straw. Now that he’s taken a hit, Barret doesn’t hold back anymore. He finally brings forth his own gun and begins to fire, but in a moment of hesitation, he doesn’t aim directly at Dyne and his stray shots fly right past him.
“…The hell was that!? Show some damn spine!” Dyne growls, only growing even angrier thinking that he’s being underestimated. He fires a few more shots at Barret before the latter can bring his guard back up.
“Fine. Then stay still and eat it!” Barret snarls back.
He finally lays a hard slam of his gun into Dyne’s face, blooding his nose and maybe knocking a tooth free. While the guy is a bit dazed from it, Barret actually fires away, but just at his legs to cripple him. And yet, Dyne insists on moving through the pain and tries to get another shot in, but Barret catches him before he can and shoots down his left arm too. And finally, he decks Dyne in the face again, this time with his fist. Not taking any more of this bullshit, Dyne retaliates with his own fist in Barret’s open wounds, which likewise cripples him for a moment. But he gets up again and thus, the mad fist-slinging begins.
“Stop! They’ll kill each other like this!” Aerith pleads, “Cloud, we have to do something!”
“Yeah, but what? He won’t let us!”
“Ruby! Let’s call her! Where is she!?”
“She’s…”
Cloud looks around and back behind them at the field of junk that they passed through. Ruby is not here yet. What’s taking her? Though hesitant to leave Barret alone, he lets Aerith stay back and hurries back out the doorway to look for her. Now that he’s traversing these off-roads again, though, he can’t help but notice that the area seems a lot less littered of bodies than he remembers. It’s quite empty out here aside from all the scrap metal. On top of that, the lady in question is nowhere to be found.
He cups his mouth with his hands and yells, “Ruby! Where are you!?”
Again, there’s no response. She doesn’t seem to be here anymore. What the hell? Where’d she go? He hastily whips out his phone to dial for Tifa again, just in case they’ve seen or heard anything.
“Tifa! Where’s Ruby?”
“Cloud? What’s wrong? Did she get lost again?”
“No… Well, I don’t know! She was with us, but then she wasn’t! We finally ran into Dyne – the guy we were looking for.”
“Oh, really? That’s great!”
“It’s not. He and Barret are duking it out and they’re about to kill each other.”
“What!? Then what are you doing!? Go help them!”
“I would, but Barret’s being too stubborn and won’t let us! Have you seen Ruby?”
“Um, no… But don’t just stand there! Try your best to stop them!”
“Ugh… For the love of… Ruby! Stop messing around and get your ass over here!” He quickly adds, “Sorry, Tifa. Hope she heard that.”
“Don’t mind me! Help them!”
For once, Tifa is the one who cuts off the call, leaving Cloud just a tad embarrassed. Grumbling to himself, he hurries back through the junkyard back to where he left Aerith. By now, the two dueling men have all but exhausted themselves and are bloody messes with bullet holes and black and blue bruises all over. And yet, they’re still moving, so Barret won’t let Aerith come any closer.
“Cloud!” Aerith calls to him, “Did you find her?”
“No. I even called Tifa and it doesn’t seem like she went back to them either.”
“Oh… Ruby, where did you go at a time like this?”
“Never mind her. I’m going in.”
“Me too!”
Cloud rushes in with sword drawn and slots it right between the two men before they can keep pummeling each other. “Enough already. This fight is over.”
“Cloud…” Barret groans, but he’s too exhausted to even argue. Aerith hurries on by too, offering a good Cure or few even despite his non-verbal objections. He sighs and then gestures toward Dyne. “Heal him too.”
She nods. “Of course.”
But when she offers her hand to him, Dyne recoils and swats her hand away. “Leave me… It ain’t worth it.”
Barret shouts angrily, “Dyne! You heard ’em! Fight’s over.”
“Like hell it is…”
Despite all the pain, Dyne manages to climb back to his feet, but then collapses again. Barret’s shots earlier really did a number on him and he might just be paralyzed from the thighs down. He can’t even lift his bloodied arm, which Barret made sure to nail until it was numb. Seeing that he won’t be doing much else, Cloud lifts his sword again and sets it back.
“Dyne… enough. What are you doing, man? Why are we fightin’? If you really wanna see Marlene, we can go see her together.”
“…You know damn well why… I got nothin’ left to live for… except her.”
“…”
He buries his face into the dirt as if to hide his coming tears. “But man, look at me. I’m the saddest excuse of a dad if ya ever seen one. What kid would wanna know their dad is some crazed psycho killer who offed a buncha civilians just mindin’ their own business?”
“Dyne… Look at me, man. I know I’m not the best dad either. I didn’t get this gun grafted just for show. Hell, you heard about the mako reactor in Midgar that blew? Or the whole city plate that fell? All that was on us. How many civilians do ya think we killed because Shinra wanted us gone?”
“…”
Barret shakes his head in shame. “I swore every day that I’d take back from Shinra what they’d taken from us… but no matter what, war ain’t pretty. People are gonna die, even if they weren’t ever a part of it.”
“…”
“What we at Avalanche strive for in this ongoing war on Shinra can’t be won without sacrifice… but we still try to avoid casualties while we still have a choice.”
“Tch… What choice…?”
“We got it. You also heard anythin’ about a white dragon that’s been terrorizing Midgar? She’s one of us too.”
“…” Dyne finally looks back up and stares at him. “What?”
“Yeah. You heard me. We got a sickass dragon. Turns out she’s a Goddess who can work miracles.”
Dyne still stares at him as if he were having trouble processing what he’s hearing. “…The #@$*?”
“Hey. I know it sounds stupid, but you gotta see her to believe it. Hell, thanks to her, I don’t gotta worry a thing about Marlene. She’s just a warp away if I ever wanna see her again.”
“…Damn. You lucky bastard. How the hell did you meet someone like that?”
“Hell if I know. Spiky here just brought her to us one day.”
Cloud clarifies, “She popped up out of nowhere and forced me to take her along.”
“Aw. And here I thought you two were good friends,” Aerith humors him a bit.
“Aerith, please…” he groans.
By now, Dyne has become so confused that he can’t help but settle down. Shaking his head in disbelief, he lets off a depleted sigh. “…Goddamn it. I just can’t win, can I?”
“You’re still hurt.” Aerith offers again, “Let me help you.”
And again he refuses. “Forget it. I’m just a dead man walking now. Even if I don’t die from this, there’s no way I’ll ever leave this place after what I did.” He turns Barret’s way and stresses the point, “Nor would I want to see Marlene. She doesn’t deserve this sorry sack of shit as her dad.”
“Dyne…” Barret sighs too. “If you’re a sack o’ shit, then I’m the trash you see all over this place. We ain’t that different, are we?”
“But at least it’s trash that a little girl can hope to depend on.” With that, Dyne pulls himself up a bit by his good arm and fetches the precious pendant around his neck. “Here.”
“Huh?”
Dyne tosses the pendant Barret’s way, and the latter picks it up.
“Dyne, this is…”
“Eleanor’s. Keep it safe for me, will ya?”
“But why? I can’t take this.”
“It’s yours. You want a confession from the real killer of the shooting? Just show the warden that and he’ll get it.”
“…” Barret slowly nods back and puts it safely into his pocket. “Alright. Thanks, man.”
“…Can’t believe Marlene’s already 4. Time sure flies…”
“You sure you don’t want to be healed?” Aerith asks again, just to be sure.
“It’s fine. I’ll make do.”
She looks unconvinced, but it’s clear that Dyne is not ever going to accept her offer.
Cloud gives his own sigh and then turns back to Barret. “Well, at least this clears up one thing. But it’s gonna be a pain to find Ruby.”
Barret blinks. “Huh? Ruby? Wasn’t she with you guys?”
“Yeah, but then she disappeared to who knows where… without anyone.”
“The hell you doin’!? You’re the one who always whining about keeping track of her!”
“Ugh. Don’t rub it in. It’s so much harder to deal with her when she got her own secret plans…”
While the three take a moment to discuss what to do about her, though, none of them seem to notice that Dyne has already begun to slowly and quietly pull away toward the edge of the sharp cliff. This encounter with his old friend-turned-enemy certainly didn’t pan out the way that he was expecting or even hoping, but in the end, the world just seems to hate him in particular and he couldn’t even win a final duel with this man. All this time, he was waiting for his chance to get his revenge, not only on Shinra but also on Barret. But even after all the hubbub he and his hapless goons stirred, it didn’t come to anything and now he can’t even walk straight anymore.
$#@% this. #$*@ everything! There’s no point to him staying around anymore. He lost more than just a duel; he lost his best friend, his daughter that never knew him, and even his thirst for revenge. That pendant was the last precious thing he still had and he just gave it away. There’s nothing left for him.
“…Wait. Dyne?” Barret finally notices that the man isn’t with them anymore.
“What? What’s he doing over there?” Cloud asks, getting a bad feeling.
“Hey! Get back! It’s dangerous!” Aerith tries to warn him.
But he doesn’t listen. He’s already reached the edge. He pulls himself back into a sitting position right on that edge. With one look back, Dyne mutters just loudly enough, “Barret… Don’t you ever make Marlene cry.”
“Dyne, wait! Don’t!”
Without delay, Cloud rushes on over to stop him, but he’s just a bit too late. Dyne simply tips himself over and takes a tumble.
“Dyyyne!!”
Suddenly, a deep voice echoes from the distance: “Curaga. Warp.”
Two bursts of white light suddenly flash around Dyne’s body as he falls – one that heals him back to full health and the other that neatly places him back onto the ground where Barret and Aerith have been standing. Dyne lies on the ground, wide-eyed with shock. What the hell just happened? Why is he not dead, and why is he not even in pain? At least his body isn’t.
Barret, Aerith, and Cloud let out their own sighs in relief, and Cloud walks back to regroup.
Aerith brings back her long-awaited smile. “Thank goodness. She’s back.”
“She…?” Dyne mumbles, still in shock.
From the south side of the junkyard, a massive white dragon flies overhead and towers over them all as she swoops in for the landing. However, as she settles and lowers herself, they’re all in for an even bigger surprise atop her back.
“Marlene!?” Barret bellows, nearly having a heart attack.
“Mom!?” Aerith gasps too.
“What? She went to Kalm…?” Cloud says under his breath.
“Daddy! Cloud and Aerith too! Hello!” Marlene answers with a bright smile and a wave of her hand.
“Goodness. So this is where you all were?” Elmyra asks, looking a bit concerned.
Barret stares back, looking fast between all their faces. “Ruby! What are you doing with them!?”
“We came to see you, Daddy! Ruby said you all were in trouble so we came to help!”
“Huh…?”
“What ‘trouble’?” Cloud demands, feeling a little miffed.
“There’s trouble, alright. Ya’ll need a good prayer,” Ruby replies without a hint of sarcasm.
“What are you talking about!? Where have you been!?”
She doesn’t answer him. Instead, she turns back to her passengers with a gentle smile. “As it happens, this part of the desert is where the old town of Corel used to be. You see all those gravestones there?”
Marlene glances off that way. “Oh… Those are gravestones?”
“Well, some of them are. Others just have crossed sticks, but they mean the same thing.”
“…”
“I invited all our friends over to come and find this man, the other one with a gun on his arm.”
“W-wait. Ruby, hold up! What are you…?” Barret asks with a look of horror on his face.
“Who’s that?” Marlene asks.
Dyne lies still, frozen with fear. He dares not look her way, lest he end up panicking even more.
“That’s Uncle Dyne! He’s Barret’s best friend.”
“Oh! Daddy’s friend? Hello!” Marlene tries to wave to him, but is disappointed that he doesn’t respond. “Um… Is he okay? Why is he lying there?”
“Ah, that…” Ruby chuckles to herself. “He’s got a bit of a pious side, see.”
“Huh?”
“He came by here to wish safe prayers for the ones that long passed, but felt that it wasn’t strong enough to just do it standing up.”
“Oh. Is that it?” She giggles. “He’s a funny man.”
Cloud stares at her. What in the world is she planning? That said, now that he looks at Dyne, there’s no way this guy is gonna try to do anything while Marlene is watching. And however Ruby tries to paint this picture, at least she isn’t telling the whole truth… for now.
“So, that’s where we come in. We can help pray for the departed souls together!”
Marlene’s eyes light up. “Okay!”
Ruby glares at the rest of them to play along. “Pray with us.”
Without question, Aerith obliges and brings her hands together. Though Cloud and Barret are still very confused, they too follow suit. Dyne also looks away, still wondering what is even happening right now, but says nothing. And they all close their eyes briefly while Ruby recites a genuine prayer of her own.
“May these unfortunate souls return safely to the planet, before Minerva’s grace and under her watchful eyes, free from the clutches of the eternal cycle of torment. Amen.”
She opens her eyes again to see that the others have followed suit. Marlene holds still for a moment longer and then opens her eyes too to ask Ruby.
“Oh, Ruby?”
“Hm?”
“I just realized. Should we also be lying down for the prayer?”
“Haha. No, where you are is fine.” She nods with a proud smile. “Thanks for the help, guys! I’m sure with our combined prayers, these departed souls will be fine.”
“Really? I’m glad.”
Elmyra makes an awkward smile. Like the little girl, she wasn’t clued in much about what has been happening around here, but unlike the little girl, she is well aware of what is down here below the Saucer. She was shocked to see that Ruby would take them here of all places, but at the very least, taking a ride on her has certainly kept them safe – and as it would turn out, the rest of their friends as well.
“Anyway, who wants to go play on the roller coaster!?” Ruby suddenly blurts out.
Marlene giggles and raises her hand. “I do!”
“Okie dokie. Elmyra can take you there in the meantime.”
“Huh? Ruby, aren’t you coming with us?”
“Sorry, but there’s one more thing I need to discuss with everyone before we get back to the Gold Saucer.” She turns back to the others with a more serious face. “It’s about our group’s business and such.”
“Oh, okay.” Marlene waves a hand to the others again. “Bye, Daddy! Good luck! And it’s nice to meet you, Uncle Dyne!”
“…Pleasure’s all mine,” the troubled man finally utters a reply, which indeed makes Marlene smile.
“Alrighty! See you guys soon! Now back up you go,” Ruby announces.
She raises her head up and casts her warp magic once more, sending her two passengers back to safety up at the Gold Saucer. And with that settled, she reverts back to human form in another flash and approaches Dyne. The man is still reeling from this sudden turn of events, understandably lost and frankly overwhelmed, but at least he can breathe again out of sights of his estranged daughter. She offers him a hand to help him get up and he sits up with a pretty cool, distant stare in return.
“…Who are you?” he asks.
“I’m Ruby, a miracle worker of sorts. Been helping out Barret and his buddies for a while now.”
“Miracle worker…?” At first, Dyne just stares in disbelief, but then a snort and a bitter laugh follows. “The hell is that? Some kinda joke?”
She shrugs. “It’s a lot easier to say than ‘the Holy Dragoness of Light, Daughter of Bahamut, Spirit of the Moon’ and all that. A bit more in line with the vibe I go for too.”
“…” He stares at her like she just spoke in another language, and the wary look in his eyes turn for the more menacing. He then asks her straight, “So why did you save me?”
“Why not?”
“Why not…” By now, his initial shock has started to wane and it’s promptly swallowed up by the fire of rage that he had been bearing all this time. He now swats her hand away, gets up to his feet by himself, and steps up in her face with a scornful glare. “Who the hell are you to barge into people’s problems like you own them?”
She blinks, as if taken by surprise. “Yeah. That’s just what I do.”
“Shut up! What is this, some kinda shitty circus type beat!? You think what we’re doing is all fun and games!?”
“Not always fun, at least…”
“Who told you to bring Marlene here!?” His eyes dart over to Barret. “You didn’t…?”
Barret shakes his head. “No! I had no idea she’d pull something like this!” He also turns to her. “Ruby, what’s goin’ on? Why’d you bring her here?”
“And even my mom…” Aerith adds with her own concern.
“You know how dangerous it is! Marlene doesn’t need to see us like this either!”
“Exactly why I cleaned up and didn’t keep them around too long. All I told them was that we were going to visit an old grave site, which wasn’t exactly a lie.”
His heart sinks a little into his stomach. “Yeah, but you still shouldn’t have…”
“Barret, it was the only way to get Dyne to listen.” She turns to the other man with a stern frown. “No way he’d try to commit suicide in front of her.”
“…You bitch. So that was your real objective…?” Dyne mutters threateningly.
“Dyne, rest assured that I only have the best intentions.”
He grinds his teeth and fires back, “@$*# off with your ‘best intentions’! What you’re doing right now is blackmail!”
She makes a smug snort. “Sure. You can call it whatever you want. But the fact remains that I’m in the position to prevent you from killing yourself no matter what you try.”
“Don’t mess with me…” Dyne raises his gun in her face too. “Your ‘miracle work’ involve kidnapping people and holding them ransom or something?”
“I would never let any harm come to those two – especially those two.”
“Save me your holier-than-thou crap! What do you really want, huh? What use would I have to you?”
And without missing a beat, Ruby replies with a stoic, “Redemption.”
“Huh?”
“I’m well aware of all the bloody murder you’ve done up to now, but the fact remains that Corel is still in shambles. So many lives lost in a seemingly hopeless war against Shinra, where the survivors have been split into those who fought but were defeated and thrown in here to rot, and those who gave up from the get-go and scurried away to the north.”
He angrily grinds his teeth, but doesn’t say anything yet.
“And yet, even to this day, North Corel still tries to persist. Even though the people have largely given up on restoring the old town, they still continue to struggle to survive all the same. But I don’t see the same thing happening here.”
“…Shut up.”
She makes a sly glance away, but still dares to proceed, “Makes you wonder which group of survivors are really the ones who gave up.”
“Shut the hell up already!” he snaps back. “Or I’ll put some lead in your damn head!”
“If you must vent, go ahead. But also ask yourself: aside from violence, isn’t there something else that you haven’t tried yet?”
That question actually catches him off-guard and he hesitates to let fire. “…What?”
“I’m not asking you to stop this war you have or sue for peace. Shinra wouldn’t honor it anyway. But maybe you should think about what you can still do for those that were left behind?”
“…”
“The people of Corel are defeated, lost, and have no sense of the future. What they need now more than ever before is someone to lead them out of this despair.”
“…Who? You?”
She shakes her head. “No way. I have my own problems I need to sort out first before I can commit to saving anyone,” Ruby answers, peeking back toward her friends. While Cloud and Barret return her some looks like they have room to argue, Aerith shows a sympathetic one.
Dyne scoffs, “Tch… Some ‘miracle worker’ you are, then. I thought gods were supposed to be all-powerful?”
“Yeah, in a way…” Ruby turns back to him. “But see, over the generations, I’ve learned that there’s something which separates gods from humanity and it’s not just their power levels.”
He raises a suspicious eyebrow. “Then what?”
“The will to change themselves.” She lets off a disappointed sigh. “Believe me, gods can be so stuck in their ways that they don’t think they need to do anything differently, even when the entire planet may be in crisis.”
“…” He just looks disappointed. “Sure sounds like humans too.”
“Yeah, definitely a lot, but not everyone.”
She gives him some sort of expectant look and now he’s starting to catch on, but doesn’t look pleased. So to trim the fat, he comes out with it, “…Hey. So who you got in mind?”
She was waiting for this question and offers him a kind smile. “You, of course.”
He winces at the mere thought. “Like hell. I’m the last person you should be asking.”
“Not at all. You were a leading, inspirational figure for the town before and you can do it again.”
“That was the past. This is now. Besides, you got Barret right here.”
“But Barret’s coming with us on our quest to save the planet. He can’t be stuck at Corel where no one wants to see him.”
“No one wants to see me either!” Dyne lashes out. “Just look where we are! A prison in the middle of the goddamn desert! They dumped us all in here to rot! I’m just a piece of trash that no one cares about anymore! Not even those cowards hiding in North Corel dare to drop by anymore! There is no ‘Corel’ left!”
“…”
He lowers his head and balls up his fist, shaking from all this pent-up rage. “There’s only me here… Everyone who was with me at first died or ditched. The rest of these bum-asses I had working for me had to be whipped into line to get anything done! And even then, they were useless! It was all useless! Nothing’s #%*$@# changed these four years! We’re all barely scrapin’ by, treated worse than livestock!” He gets in her face again as he yells, “I’m the %&#$^* kingpin of trash and you think I got any chance with ‘redemption’? #$&^ you and your savior complex! You can go jump off a cliff!”
Though Ruby has been holding up her head well enough so far, that one-off comment at the end scratches at some deep-seated trauma and her face grows dark as well.
Dyne is breathing heavily now and he backs off with a stubborn scowl. “I’m not worth anything… Even if you broke me outta here right now, I got no other place to go. Just leave me here. Nunna this was ever your problem anyway…”
Now that Ruby has gone silent, Barret has to jump in. “Dyne. I know things are shit, but you can’t think like that.”
“Don’t give me that crap!” Dyne now whips back to him. “You think I’ll be happy just ’cause I get to go somewhere else!? I wasn’t spoutin’ shit just for your damn sympathies!”
“Yeah… I know.” Yet, Barret stands his ground. “But she’s got a point. You can’t stay here. You got people who need ya.”
“No one ‘needs’ me and you know it!” He raises a shaky fist too. “I despise you, Barret. I despise how carefree you can be and your peppy attitude and how it’s all gonna be ‘alright’ in the end just because you believe in yourself long enough. Bullshit! You know that there ain’t no happy ending as long as Shinra is around! They’re a goddamn plague on this entire planet and have destroyed countless places and people all for some quick cash! And you think you can just blow a reactor or two and have them sue for peace? Are you actually braindead!? Our town is gone, for @$#&’s sake!!”
“…”
Dyne shakes his head and goes into a slump. “It doesn’t matter what we do now. This planet’s a goner. And I woulda been just fine not being around for when it eventually implodes and takes the rest of us with it.”
“…”
He raises his head again, just to seethe some more. “And I don’t care what kinda ‘god’ or ‘miracle worker’ you got on your side. She even admitted that she can’t help. So what’s left for the rest of us, huh? What are we supposed to fight for?”
Barret was willing to wait it out, but that last remark rubs him the wrong way. He returns a fierce glare and reminds him, “Marlene.”
“…”
“Dyne, you damn idiot! You still got your daughter!” Barret shouts, his frustration growing in tandem. “You think just ’cause she don’t know you, you can just give up? I didn’t tell Ruby to bring her here, but maybe it was for the better to wake up your sorry ass! Eleanor woulda wanted you both to live! So shut up and do that!”
Dyne backs off a bit as the sinking feeling of guilt finally catches up with his rage that is starting to fizzle.
Barret is huffing angrily, but tries to calm himself too. “Listen. I’m not gonna tell ya what you should do with your life from here on. You killed innocents for no reason and our talk here ain’t gonna change that. But at least there’s still someone out there who actually cares about you and she now knows you exist! You got no excuses!”
“…”
“So I’d better not see you throw away whatever’s left of your life after this. I know I ain’t the best dad either, but all hell is gonna break loose if you of all people make her sad that she can’t see you again! Hell! Even if it weren’t for Ruby, I woulda chased down your sad sack of a body at the bottom! Who knows, maybe she got some way to bring ya back even if you died!”
“Um…” Though he’s safely been on Barret’s side up to now, Cloud has to raise a minor objection to that last statement, but Aerith lowers his raised hand as if to tell him not to fret over that.
“No matter what, you gotta live, man!” Barret continues, now settling back down. “If there’s anything I came to tell you, it’s that. I don’t even mind if you can’t forgive me. I admit it: I was a damn idiot too to not even try to look for you and see if you somehow survived. From the bottom of my heart, I wanted to make it up to you any way I could. That’s why I took Marlene with me, to make sure that if there was still anyone who could be saved, it would be her.”
Dyne has gone silent with no further arguments, but at least he’s still listening.
“And that’s why you gotta keep fightin’ too. We’re all on the same page when it comes to Shinra. They’re goin’ down one way or another, but until then, we gotta do all we can to help this planet. So Marlene, the people of Corel, and the rest of us fools still got a place to live after all’s said and done.”
“…”
“Dyne. Whatever beef we got between us, let’s put it aside. It won’t help what we should focus on.”
“…”
“You’re right about one thing. There ain’t no happy ending as long as Shinra’s around. So the more help we can get, the better our chances that we can actually take ’em down.” He then raises his own hand as an offer of peace. “And even if there ain’t much to North Corel anymore, at least it’s still somethin’. When Marlene’s older, I’ll bring her over so she can know the truth.”
His eyes flutter for a moment and he looks up. “…The truth, Barret?”
And after what feels like eternity, Barret relieves a smile for his old pal. “That she got two awesome dads fightin’ to stop Shinra and end their evils around the world. If that ain’t something to be proud of, I wouldn’t know what is.”
“…Hmph.” For once, Dyne actually makes a smirk that isn’t very menacing. He takes Barret’s hand in a good, firm handshake and replies, “Fine. But for the record, I’m not swingin’ that way for your ugly mug.”
“Ha! Speak for yourself, old man!”
The two men, once bitter enemies ready to fight to the death, now share a soft but easygoing laugh with each other. And with that, the general mood lifts with a sense of renewal. Aerith smiles along with them and turns back to Cloud, who just looks relieved that it all turned out alright after all. She even steps closer and rests her head against his shoulder, giving him a bit of an awkward scare. He doesn’t push her away, though.
Meanwhile, now in the background, Ruby has turned away, entrenched in her own thoughts. Though it was just a throwaway comment that Dyne said in his temper, the simple reminder of her former life’s fate is a sobering one that cuts deep every time it returns to mind. She has to admit it: the old Ruby was a fool. She was embroiled in so much inner conflict and distrust for good reason or otherwise that she couldn’t decide what kind of person she wanted to be. She couldn’t even decide on anything when she tried to give up her life. It was like some higher being got impatient with her and punished her for it that she ultimately fell in an incredibly stupid, painful fashion. And even then, on the edge between life or death, she couldn’t accept either. Who could possibly make a hero out of this? She had to change.
But is the “new” Ruby really that different? From beginning to now, she’s been acting out a role, one that she had constructed for herself long ago. She’s gotten so used to it now that it she can recycle all the motions like it’s second nature. Yet again, she dropped straight into some trouble with her usual bravado, flaunting her power and authority and pretending that she had everything under control. But inside, she was still hurting. She wanted so badly to make up for her mistakes, especially the latest accident. Even after all the times prior where it failed her, she still dared to rely on some inexplicable faith in Rubia to set things right. Nonetheless, it was the people around her who were the ones to settle whatever mess she’d left by her interference. It’s starting to feel like she’s only here to be the stand-in plot device that ensures that the others can have a stable conversation.
“…Ruby.” Cloud’s voice calling to her snaps her out of her daze.
“Huh?”
“Come on, focus. Don’t we have to talk with Dio?”
“Ah.” She nods. “Right. Now that Dyne passed his pendant to Barret, we ought to be able to negotiate with the warden for our freedom.”
Dyne then points out, “The guy you’re lookin’ for is Coates. Green suit, big mouth, and an even bigger head. Thinks he owns the whole prison, but was always a pushover. Wouldn’t dare come out here even after my name got around. Show him that pendant and he’ll sing a different tune.”
“We just show him the pendant?” Cloud asks him, “You sure that’ll be enough to convince him?”
“Yeah. Normally I’d never part with it, but just this once, I’ll make an exception.” He gives them a dismissive wave. “Now get outta here before I change my mind.”
Barret nods. “Thanks, man. I’ll give it back when we meet again.”
Dyne shakes his head. “Nah, don’t give it back. Give it to Marlene. Call it a gift from ‘Uncle Dyne’.”
He grins to that. “Sure thing.”
Aerith then mentions, “Oh, Ruby? Where will you be sending Dyne? Is it okay that we take him to North Corel?”
Before she can respond, Dyne instead cuts in, “Whoa, hold it. Appreciate the thought, but I’m staying… for now.”
“You sure?” Aerith asks him.
“Yeah. Like I said, they aren’t gonna be happy to see me, so it’d just be trouble.” He turns to Ruby as he adds, “Maybe someday when they decide they do need a leader, you can drop by again. In the meantime, I still got a name to uphold around here. But I won’t be goin’ around shootin’ civilians again… No guarantee for the troops, though.”
Ruby nods back with a wistful smile. “Sure. I may still be working things out with what I can do, but I promise that day won’t be too far off.”
“Tch. Come down from that high horse already. All you gotta promise me is that Marlene stays safe and happy.” He again raises his gun forward. “And you’d better not bring her back here, or I WILL unload lead in your face.”
She makes a wry smirk. “Sorry to tell you, but I’m kinda bulletproof.”
He lowers it again, looking disappointed. “Well, don’t that just beat all…”
Aerith chuckles along and gives her an innocent smile. “Glad that’s settled. So, can you take us back to the prison base?”
“Yeah, but uh… what about the rest of our gang?” she wonders, just being reminded. “Weren’t they headed this way too?”
And no sooner than she utters those words, they shortly hear the sounds of scuttling talons on dusty ground and the sounds of some familiar voices.
“Cloud! Barret! Aerith!” Tifa calls out. “You all okay!?”
Several black chocobos come rushing on over, with Tifa, Jessie, Cait Sith and Moogle, and even Red seated on their backs. It seems to be just these guys who arrived, though.
“Oh! Tifa!” Aerith replies, waving a hand. “Yeah, we’re fine! We found Ruby!”
Tifa lets off a sigh in relief. “Thank goodness. So no one got too badly hurt?”
“Well, Barret and his friend Dyne were going pretty hard, but it’s nothing that Ruby and I couldn’t help fix.”
Ruby nods along. “Yeah, it’s all good now. Barret and Dyne made up, and he gave us a little piece of proof that will work as his confession. We just need to speak with the warden and we should be set.”
Tifa makes a nervous smile. “Ah… good to know. Guess things were able to work after all.”
Cloud raises an eyebrow toward Red, who is not only seated on the chocobo, but is sitting upright with his front paws on the reins. Red looks back with an unfazed stare of his own, and Cloud decides not to question it any further.
“Is it just you guys? Where are the rest?” he asks them.
“Yuffie was complaining about the heat, so Biggs and Wedge offered to take her back to base,” Jessie answers. “Sonon went with them too, just in case they ran into any monsters on the way. The rest of us came by to check on ya.”
“Oh. Was the heat really that bad?” Aerith asks, looking genuinely confused.
Cloud reminds her, “We traveled underground for a while and then Ruby took us through the air. We were spared the worst.”
“Oh, right. Yeah, I’d imagine the heat would be a bit much out there.”
“‘A bit much’ is puttin’ it lightly!” Cait then complains, still trying to pat his fur down, “Me fur’s starting to frizz up! Even Moogle’s exhausted from the trip!” Poor Moogle is slumped against the seat, panting with tongue out, all the while with Cait still seated atop him.
Red turns to him with a raised eyebrow. “You haven’t had to walk anywhere, though.”
“Yeah, well…” He quickly changes the subject. “You should know, don’cha? From one furred beast to another, don’t ye ever have any of these problems?”
“I’m used to the heat. My people have long lived in the canyon, after all.”
“Hmph… but fair enough.”
“Anyway,” Cloud redirects them all back on track, “we spent long enough here.” He passes Ruby a casual glance. “Let’s go. Do your thing.”
She nods back and makes her rounds around this crowd, tapping them all and even the birds they’re riding, and brings one of her hands forward into her spellcasting pose. With the other hand, she waves back to Dyne. And in one final flash of light, the once crowded courtyard is made sparce once more, with Dyne remaining among the junk.
The lonely gunman turns away for the graves once more and stares off into the distance, contemplating over his life up to this moment. Well, that was some load of shit that just happened. He can’t believe how all his deep-rooted grudges fizzled out so fast and everything turned into one big circus as soon as Ruby showed up as the star clown. Even he was dragged into it before he knew it. His eyes drift back toward the edge of the cliff that he had just tried to throw himself off earlier. So what was all that fighting about? Was it just building up to some grand joke with him as the butt of it? It’d honestly piss him off if it were any other day, but now he no longer has any drive to refute it.
He lets out a deep, pensive sigh and he looks up to the bright, clear sky. All that said, if there was any good that came out of this, it’s that “Uncle Dyne” got a nice ring to it. He looks back down and saunters through the gap in the fence to take his leave too. If he’s ever gonna see Marlene again, he might as well try his best to clean up his image for the next time they may meet. These sad old clothes of his are stained dark from all the bodies he’s built up over the years. Ruby told her he was a “hero”? Damned if he’ll ever be one, but for the little girl’s sake, he might just give it a shot.
Notes:
Yep, so Dyne's not dying here. Ironic given his name origin, but let's just say I usually have a particular purpose whenever a life that would have been snuffed out is instead spared. Finally, maybe with all this settled, Ruby can finally kick back and enjoy herself at the Gold Saucer? Hahaha.
This chapter was quite the struggle to write for a while, given how much I struggled to find a good balance between the very tense and straining dramatic scenes and the lighter whimsies of Ruby, even despite her own personal turmoil.
And this bit is just trivia, but the Scorpulios are my own take on an enemy variant of the Grashtrike and Venomantis from Remake. I figured that since they looked kinda like scorpions, they would fit just right around these parts. They're a dusty red-brown shade compared to their canon counterparts. The name comes from a portmanteau of "scorpion" and "scopulios", which is Latin for "rock". it's a miracle how well they fit together.
Chapter 55: Golden Feathers and Wax Wings
Notes:
Outdated A/N
Just a quick update: I'm currently following along with a Let's Play of FFVII Rebirth by NicoB and he's been taking a bit longer than most other Youtubers, so I'm still only caught up to the grasslands area near the start of the game. I will be quite liberal in what I choose to implement as "inspiration" from the game, but if I make any mistake about names or mechanics specific to Rebirth, feel free to let me know! I may be referring to the OG for reference for the most part, but I wanna be up to date on all things FF7!
Please first read the end notes on this and the following chapters if you wish to add any questions or corrections. Thanks in advance.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The warden’s office is located on the upper floor of the central building, smack-dab in the middle of the base, where the man in office has a clear view of the surroundings. This building, unlike many of the old repurposed homes around town, is of much newer construction, having been established shortly after the Gold Saucer was built over the remains of Corel. And just down the hall from this office is the main elevator that comes and goes between the Saucer’s back door above and this prison below. As expected, no one is allowed to use it without express permission of the warden.
The office’s vicinity is also patroled by several guards to keep a lookout, but unlike the usual troops in blue uniform, these men are former prisoners who cut their losses to work for the Shinra payroll. None of them were former Corel residents – not that any of the survivors would have been willing or able to be hired. Shinra tends to take its scorched-earth policy to a literal degree, after all.
But today, these guards aren’t so lucky. The moment Ruby makes herself known, whatever fight there could have been is already over before it begins. And before she would make them all ragdolls, the double doors behind them slide on open as a black man with white hair, dressed in a dashingly green suit, arrives in view with a dance to his step.
“Hey, hey, hey!” he calls out. As he swings on over to the scene, he makes a flamboyant spin to stop right in front of Ruby’s line of sight. With a charming grin, he points a finger gun her way. “Go easy on my boys, will ya? They just had a job to do.”
“B-Boss!” the men cry out in joy, as if hoping to be saved. But they also collectively make excuses like, “This crazy chick just broke in here!” “What the hell is she anyway? Our bullets just bounce off of her!” “Hey, didn’t you hear about the dragon that was rampaging earlier?” “Wait! You sayin’ that was HER!?”
But rather than comfort his men, that grin on the warden’s face fades into a stern glare instead. “As for you dumbasses, if you still wanna keep both your legs, stand down. We wouldn’t wanna ruffle any feathers with ‘Dio’s honored guest’, after all.”
And with that, the guards go silent and stop struggling.
Ruby keeps a cautious yet curious stare on the man in the suit and casually tosses her victims aside on the floor. “Huh, you got some kinda style this time,” she muses aloud.
There’s that cocky-looking grin back on his face. “Don’t you know it!” He shuffles along around the room as he scans the rest of their company. “With all the dead-beats and black-hearts ’round this place, someone’s gotta put on a show! The spotlight won’t wait for anyone who’s gonna be draggin’ their feet!”
“Spotlight? In a prison?” Cloud asks with some biting sarcasm.
He stops in front of him this time with that same smug grin. “Heh. Sure, we may not have the same flashiness like up there, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have any fun down here either.”
“…”
He slides on back toward where Ruby is standing and turns toward the crowd with open arms. “Welcome to the Corel Prison watchtower, ladies and gentlemen! The name’s Coates. You may have heard, but I run things around this place.”
Unfazed by the way he gets in her face, Ruby gets right to business: “Yeah. So about the shooting that just happened earlier…”
Now he gets serious and straightens up with an aloof frown. “Yeah. I heard. Some maniac with a gun-arm went around Battle Square and shot up the place for no good reason.” He passes Barret a raised eyebrow. “But who woulda known that there were actually two of ’em.”
“Oh. So you do know who was actually responsible?”
“Of course! Wasn’t the first time that chump and his ragtags dared to stir up shit around here. This was just the furthest they’ve gone. Normally security would have caught on sooner, but they were stretched thin thanks to the escaped monster from earlier. Sneaky bastards.” Coates shakes his head with a sigh. “A real pain, that one. Wouldn’t play nice with his mates no matter what we tried to do with him. Eventually, we had to kick him out into the outback, but seemed like he just took up a new base. How he managed to survive out there is beyond me. Sure would be nice if someone shut him up for good…”
Though Barret doesn’t appreciate the guy’s descriptions, he keeps his voice level and replies, “That ‘chump’ won’t be stirring up anythin’ anymore. We made sure of it.”
“Bold claim you got there,” Coates replies, sounding unconvinced. “I assume you got some kind of proof?”
“Right here.” He takes out the pendant in question. “Look familiar?”
“…”
Like a deflating balloon, Coates goes silent. He gives it a hard stare as if studying the item in great detail. The pendant looks genuine enough – there’s even the engraved initials of Dyne’s wife, Eleanor. But just to be sure, he draws some sort of device out from his pocket and activates it with a button press. It opens up a blue-light sensor and he gives the pendant a quick scan. He then nods slowly as the device reports in and confirms his suspicions.
“…Damn. It is the real deal.” He puts the scanner away and shakes his head in disbelief. “How the hell did you ever get this from him?” He also raises a suspicious eyebrow his way. “Killed ’im, didja?”
Barret slips it away and rather than humor his inquiry, simply returns him a frown. “Convinced? Now go tell your boss before you embarrass him any more.”
“Hmph.” Coates raises his arms up in surrender. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll send word to Dio and all…” But then, there’s a devious glint in his eyes again. “But don’t get it wrong! None of ya are leaving the prison just yet!”
“What?”
“You see, we got some rules here. If you wanna go up, you gotta earn it.”
Barret grits his teeth, already impatient with this guy. “The hell you want now? Don’t make us sic Ruby on yo’ ass.”
To which, Coates backs off quick. “Whoa, easy there! I’m just saying that we gotta follow protocol to make it official. You see, the real secret to gettin’ out is… speed.”
“Speed?” Cloud asks.
“Chocobo Racing! Any prisoner who wants out gotta win a race to win their freedom.”
“Chocobo…?”
Barret now raises up his fist instead. “Don’t give us that shit! Why do we gotta perform some show for you just so we can get out?”
“Whoa, big guy, easy! It’s not even my rules. Nothing I can do to change it even if you shoot me right now. Honest!” He makes a face as if trying to look innocent, but clearly isn’t trying that hard.
“…”
Ruby also cuts in to reassure him, “It’s okay, Barret. It’ll just be this race and we’re in the clear.”
Though clearly dissatisfied, Barret drops his fist and turns back to the others. “Fine. So who’s goin’?”
At that moment, her eyes light up with delight. As if some unspoken word had gotten out around and everyone’s minds seem to mysteriously sync up, they all exchange glances and turn toward Cloud, who looks around lost as if he hadn’t quite kept up.
“What?” the guy asks, concerned that he’s the center of attention.
Ruby turns back to him with an excited grin. “Looks like we’re all in agreement.”
“What!?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know! Just look at you! You’re the perfect fit!”
“Shut up! You don’t decide for-”
“Good luck, Cloud!” Aerith cheers.
“We’ll be watching and cheering you on!” Tifa adds with a kind smile.
“Go get ’em, tiger!” Jessie follows with a more whimsical one. “Or should I say, ‘bird’? Heh.”
Cloud is promptly cut off from his train of thought as he feels a cold sweat come over. If it was just Ruby, that’d be one thing, but he finds it especially difficult to argue with the rest. He makes a begrudging groan in defeat and turns back to Ruby. “…But I’ve never ridden a chocobo before. How do you expect me to race one?”
“Well, Cloud, you could try asking nicely,” she casually suggests. “They are your people, after all.”
“Please stop. The joke’s getting old.”
“Hehehe… But seriously, it’s easy! You just gotta get registered and the staff can get you a good chocobo to match. You can even ask Esther teach you!”
“Esther?”
“Dio’s secretary. She manages things from the backroom and has eyes and ears everywhere around the Saucer, so to speak.” She then swerves back to Coates with an anticipatory grin. “Say, where is she?”
Coates makes an amused snort. “So you do know her. What’re ya, in cahoots?”
“Pardon? Cahoots?”
“You’re not? Huh, coulda fooled me.” He shrugs back and explains, “Since Esther heard about ‘Dio’s valued guest’ getting caught up in that mess, she was convinced that there was some kind of mistake. Even said she’d go on ahead and set up a race for you when you’re ready. And when that woman has her mind set, there’s no arguin’ with her.” He gives her another intent stare. “And here I thought you already had something worked out. You sure you didn’t plan this?”
She smiles with a touch of smugness. “Nah, I only heard of her. But glad to know she’s well informed. Makes things way easier.”
He blinks a couple more times and then rolls his eyes. “Damn. Crazy world we live in…” He also nods in approval. “Well, whatever. She should be waiting in the jockeys’ lounge for you. Just take this lift behind me and it’ll take you straight there.”
“Gotcha. Thanks.” She swings back to Cloud with glittering, delighted eyes. “Let’s go! We got a race to catch!”
“If you’re making me go, why are you coming?”
“To make sure that we get the right prizes when you win!”
“What? I thought this race was for our freedom?”
“It is, but doesn’t mean we can’t get some other sweet deals.” She makes a mischievous smirk. “Don’t you want to know what prizes we can get?”
As if Ruby had uttered the magic words, Yuffie immediately snaps to attention again and calls out, “Go get that rare materia for us, guys! We’re counting on you!”
Cloud had opened his mouth to complain, but decides to shut it and not argue. Neither of these materia-psychos will ever give up on that thing, so he might as well play along while they’re allowed some room for negotiation. With that settled, Ruby gives the rest of the party a firm salute and drags Cloud along for the elevator down the hall. As Coates had just taken it down a moment ago, the lift car is waiting for them, so when she slaps that button, the doors open immediately. The two step on and they’re headed straight up for Chocobo Square.
That being said, it’s a little bit of a long ride from ground zero to those echelons of gold high in the sky. As the elevator glides smoothly up the wires, they can hear the muffled noise out there in the city around them, but it’s quiet enough inside to have a talk in peace. Cloud stands in the back while Ruby shuffles about as if coming up with some new scheme in mind for what they’ll be doing after this.
“…Hey. Settle down,” he calmly tells her. “It’s tiring just looking at you.”
She pays him no mind and continues to mumble to herself. “…Okay, so we can get Sneak Attack here, but what would be the best option to pair it with? Hmm… Would any summons be that ideal? Would be nice to skip their long setup times, but aside from a certain legendary band, I’m not sure which of them would even do much to Sephiroth. Not to mention, this time around, I think I’ll have to contact the spirits themselves before I can ask them to join us.” She frowns to herself, a little concerned. “Considering those guys, that’s no joke. I could just get my ass beaten…”
There she goes, ignoring him as usual. Maybe he should just wait it out and listen in case she says anything worth noting.
She considers a different angle. “Maybe we could just stick with magic? I guess Time is always an option; Haste is pretty solid regardless. Or if anyone needs protection, Barrier would work, but Shield is far superior. Of course, I’ll have to do some digging for that one. And Ultima, well… not sure when I’d be able to get it just yet.”
“…”
“Huh, there’s a thought: could I pair my own materia with Sneak Attack? But I’m already in the party, so who knows how that’ll work…” Her trains of thought naturally lead her into other possibilities. “Oh, yeah. Speaking of new materia, maybe there are some we could construct instead? Chadley would be the guy for the job. I did invite him over earlier, but I dunno when he’ll be arriving. Guess we’ll have to stall around here long enough until he does.”
“…”
“I mean, I’m not gonna stop by the temple just yet, so we still got a bit of time, I hope?” She snickers to herself. “In the meantime, we might as well get comfortable. Let’s make Cloud be errand boy and go through all the odd minigames while I rake in all the goods.”
He rolls his eyes and finally cuts in, “Hey. Mind sharing your plans before you foist anything on me?”
Now she turns his way. “Oh, sure. But foisting anything on you is inevitable.”
“…”
She clears her throat and proceeds, “So, like I said before, I got a contingency plan to help you guys better deal with Sephiroth when the time comes. I know you’ve all been faring well enough without me for the most part, but he’s a totally different story than anything we’ve seen up to now.”
“I wouldn’t expect any less. So what do you have so far?”
“A lot of open-ended options, but for now, we can focus on the best materia and the best gear to grow them. Don’t worry about where to find them. You can leave that stuff to me.”
“What materia are we talking here?”
“The most legendary of them, of course. I’m talkin’ the heaviest juggernauts like Hades, Alexander, even my old pops, but upgraded! And if things really come to it, there are always those guys.”
That catches his attention. “Those guys?”
There’s a delighted twinkle in her eyes as if she had been waiting to get to talk about them. “You remember back when we were in the Cosmo Library? You found a book on the Summons, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Does the name ‘Knights of the Round Table’ ring any bells?”
“Knights…?” He puts a hand to his chin and nods back. “Oh, yeah. I think I saw one entry, but there wasn’t much to read. Not enough is known about them. All that’s left is a mythic hymn that told of their exploits. They were said to have fended off a major crisis of the planet in ancient times, but no one knows what happened to them since.”
“Yeah, that’s what I figured. But they’re definitely real. Back in Rubia’s days, she even met with King Arthur in person. It was at the ceremony when she was officially instated among the ranks of the planet’s Guardians, and it so happened that the king and his entourage arrived to attend.”
“Really? How did Rubia know them?”
She shakes her head. “Not sure. My memories are fuzzy on the details there. But what I do know for certain is that dear ol’ dad wanted her to stick to her regiment, so he didn’t let her spend too much time with the Knights.”
“Why not? If they were all Summons, wouldn’t it make sense to ask them to train her too?”
“Well…”
Ruby takes a pause as she hurries to come up with an easy explanation. To be honest, she never really thought that far about Rubia’s relationship with that of the Knights. When it came to most of the other Summons, it was pretty straightforward. They each stood for a particular element and style or art of fighting, so it just made sense that they would be like mentors to her. But the Knights are very much their own thing and a special exception even among the zaniest Summons. In the original FF7, they were only ever available in the endgame, hidden away on an island far off at the very corner of the world map and only accessible by Gold Chocobo. Understandably so! They were broken-as-all-holy-hell, as they could dish out damage far exceeding any other Summon. Nothing save for the most powerful of bosses in the game could even survive against them.
But in a tangential flash of inspiration, she also recalls a different brand of the Knights of the Round Table from an old classic film she adored: Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The movie’s many, many hilarious quotes have been ingrained in her mind since her first ventures into Internet culture. Granted, it might not really make sense in the context of this kind of story, but hey, what’s the big deal? She’s been making things up since the beginning and no one’s able to prove her wrong.
She answers, “Despite everything, they were wild party animals.”
He’s taken aback. “Huh?”
“Unlike the rest of the Summons, who had their specially ordained domains that contributed to shaping the world, the Knights of the Round Table were once human, albeit divinely favored to the utmost. They earned their ranks among the planet’s Guardians through their exceptional heroism, so the only oath they had to swear by was to agree to come to the planet’s aid when they would be needed. So, they were free to be left alone in the meantime and got to live it up all they liked in the afterlife.”
“…Okay.” He looks a little disappointed to hear it, but moves on to ask further, “So where can we find that materia?”
“On a far-off mystical island that isn’t recorded on any map of the world. One could even say it’s at the ‘edge’ of the planet’s realm because it’s well between this one and the world of the Summons.”
“Huh.” He folds his arms, looking relieved like he already got one of his questions answered. “That explains why Shinra never tried to look for it.”
“They wouldn’t know how to use the Knights’ power even if they did. Even Sephiroth would have struggled against them in a fight; at least back when he still worked for the company.”
“Damn. So that’s how strong we’re talking…” He gestures a hand toward her. “But it won’t be too tough for you, huh?”
She does a dry spit-take. “You kidding!? If I could take them on myself, I wouldn’t need their help to deal with Sephiroth!”
“Oh. Right.” He then casually suggests instead, “But you can still talk with their spirits, right? So you can work something out.”
“…” Though she knows he means well, the very reminder of the last time that happened comes like a hard slap to the face and her pep up to now quickly fizzles into barely a kindle. She turns away with a remorseful frown.
He catches his mistake a bit late and grows flustered. “Uh…” He raises his hand apologetically. “Hey, don’t take it personally. You’re still the best we got. The only one we got, really.”
“…If that’s the ‘best’, then we don’t have a chance in hell.”
Oh, no, she’s depressed again. He plants a hand over his face, upset more with his own slip of the tongue, and tries to reassure her. “Come on, don’t be like that. What happened with Leviathan wasn’t your fault. Sephiroth interfered, remember? You said as much.”
“Yeah, and I don’t know what can stop him from doing the same thing again.”
“But this time you know better. You can prepare-”
She fires back with a frustrated glare. “Cloud. He commands power over reality across different realms. That’s how powerful he’s become.”
“…”
She anxiously runs her hands through her hair and clasps her head tight. “I don’t want to explain how it happened. The point is, I can’t prepare shit.”
Cloud lowers his arms, now out of ideas of how to respond. He didn’t realize her self-esteem had been broken down to this extent. He’d gotten so used to roasting her with sarcasm that it just came as second nature to him to tease her, but yeah, this isn’t the time for that. He backs off and takes a moment to think things over again. Really, if she’s this scared, then what can they do? They’ll need someone even stronger than any of them… And on that thought, an idea so simple comes to mind that he’s surprised that he didn’t think of it sooner.
He speaks up with a gentler tone, “Hey, Ruby. You spoke really highly of these Knights.”
“…Yeah?”
“If they’re that amazing, can’t they hold their own against him, whatever he tries to do?”
She grumbles under her breath. “I don’t know if even they can. Sephiroth has tapped into something that is beyond anything that I can explain or even make sense of right now…”
“But you said that you wanted to ask them for help in the first place. So, which is it? Are they worth calling on or aren’t they?”
“…”
At first, she was going to snap back at him again, but then takes another moment to reconsider. Now that he mentions it, she seems to have run into a bit of a self-contradiction, hasn’t she? Okay, then, let’s calm down and think logically. Of all the Summons that could be a legitimate threat to Sephiroth, it would still be them. They aren’t the planet’s last line of defense, barring Minerva or Omega Weapon, for no reason. And speaking of Minerva, she of all the deities would know how to deal with Rubia. And despite all his pomp, Sephiroth is still wary of Rubia. He knows he’s not the biggest fish in these seas. Then…
She blinks a few times, realizing that she had nearly wetted her eyes just now, but can blink them back. She takes a deep breath to calm herself and looks back to him with a hopeful expression. “…I think they are. And I’m worrying for nothing.”
He relaxes with a sigh and reaches a hand to her shoulder. “Then have a little faith. In them and in yourself.”
“Yeah…” She nods back and says again with more resolution, “Yeah. I mean, it’s them we’re talking about. The legends among legends that started the line of Warriors of Light in the first place! They’re the real OGs! If Sephiroth dares to test them, they’ll be whooping his ass the next thing he knows.”
He lets her go, feeling a little vindicated with himself that he managed to bring her good side back.
She nods yet again to reassure herself. “Okay. Then, there’s the plan. I’ll pay their shrine a visit sometime and get that squared off.”
“Good luck.” He adds with a confident smile, “Though, to be honest, I don’t think you need me to say it.”
“Hehe.” She returns him a relieved smile of her own. “But it’s nice hearing it from you.”
“…”
And just like that, the atmosphere turns for the awkward. Cloud turns away and avoids looking at her again as a cold sweat comes back. To be honest, he’s still not really used to this whole open-and-honest thing with her, aside from expressing how much she annoys him. But even he has to admit that she has her cute moments too… Er, wait. She can read minds, can’t she? Why did he take this line of thought? Oh, man. She’s looking this way with a smirk too.
The awkward silence continues well until their ride at last arrives at their destination and they’re shifted back on track when they feel the car jolt to a halt and hear the soft ding. With her faith restored again, Ruby rightly resumes her happy-go-lucky attitude and is back to dragging him by the wrist again. But as they step on out the door, she almost runs into another man who is about to step aboard instead.
“Oh! Pardon me,” the well-dressed gentleman in red says, tipping his black feathered hat. “Didn’t realize there was anyone on already.”
Ruby stops short and stares at him, immediately recognizing this familiar face. “Joe?”
“Oh? You’ve heard of me, Miss?”
At that moment, a great flood of memories from her childhood, as well as all the frustrations she had to endure until she achieved her triumphs, splashes to the forefront of her mind. Though she realizes how petty it may seem to be rude, she can’t help but return him a bitter scowl. “Yeah. I heard some things.”
But he looks amused by her reaction all the same. “Haha. Yeah, I guess my name has gone around. With great fame comes great infamy and all that.”
Cloud looks between them, clearly not caught up yet. He turns back to Joe and asks, “Sorry, but who are you?”
He makes a confident, almost smug smile. “As you just heard, the name’s Joe. I’m a chocobo jockey, one of the best around these parts, in fact.”
“Oh. You’re a jockey?”
“Yeah. This is the jockey’s lounge at Chocobo Square, after all. You two new here?”
“Uh…” He glances back to Ruby, who seems to have cordoned herself in the corner and is stewing over something. “I am, but apparently she isn’t. You two have some kind of history?”
He shakes his head. “Nah. I’m pretty sure this is the first time we’ve met. But I can wager a guess that my reputation precedes me.”
“Your reputation?”
“As it happens, I’ve been champion of the races for a good 7 years straight.”
“The champion! For seven years!?”
“Yep. So, it doesn’t surprise me that there are rumors going around about me.” He leans in a bit closer to whisper, “Stuff like how I ‘cheat’ and whatnot to get as good as I did.” He stands back up and waves it away. “But believe me, even if I make it seem like it, it’s not easy to stay on top for that long without knowing what I’m doing. I know it can be hard for some people to accept their losses, but it’s no shame, really. After all, everyone knows to bet on the winner. I just happened to be that winner for the longest streak in history.”
“Oh.” Cloud raises an eyebrow and turns back to Ruby. “So how do you know him?”
“Not personally. Joe may have no losses to his name since he started racing, but there’s no proof that he’s ever cheated in any that he’s been in,” she mutters with a bit of a grudge. “He’s just that good.”
Joe laughs and tips his hat again. “Much appreciated, Miss. Good to know you aren’t the type to be swayed by baseless rumors.”
She makes a low growl, but doesn’t reply.
Cloud shakes his head and decides to leave it alone. Whatever she used to get involved in when it comes to chocobo racing or betting isn’t any of his business and it can stay like that.
“Anyway,” Joe continues, turning back to him, “what brings a newcomer like yourself here? Interested in being a jockey?”
“You could say that. Do you know Esther?”
“I do. In fact, we all do. She does manage these parts pretty thoroughly. And she’s pretty, to boot. I can see why Dio picked her as his personal secretary.”
“Then, can you ask her to come here? I wanna learn how to race.”
“Haha! Sorry, friend, but she’s not on my call. You’ll just have to wait here until she’s ready to see you.”
He’s a bit disappointed to hear it, but nods back. “Alright, thanks.”
Joe nods with a wide grin, showing off his beautiful, sparkling teeth. “Good luck to you. If you ever fancy yourself a race in the big leagues, maybe I’ll see you around too.”
And at that moment, Ruby suddenly pops out behind Cloud, startling him. “Cloud, wipe the floor with this jerk. Take no prisoners. He needs to go down.”
“What’s with you all of a sudden?”
Joe chuckles to himself, but raises a hand in a casual salute and steps onto the elevator behind them. They watch him go until the lift doors shut and then Cloud turns back to Ruby, who finally gets back to her feet and leaves the corner.
Though he had told himself not to care about it, Cloud can’t help but feel a tinge of curiosity. “Seriously, how do you know him?”
“Through a game I once played in another lifetime. He was a frustrating opponent. Let’s just leave it at that…”
“…” He remains unsurprised, but decides not to press further. He just gets the feeling that this is one touchy subject that really isn’t worth the payoff.
There are a few other jockeys here who are waiting for their turn to step out for the stables when their birds will be ready. The current race is just about ready to wrap up, and a few of them are still watching the TV broadcast, while others are minding their own scorecards or whatnot. There also seems to be some kind of display case lined in the back of the room where there are a few different rare and useful items locked behind the glass panes. And as expected, Ruby is immediately on it as well.
“Oh! Look, look, look!” she chatters excitedly, plastering herself upon the display case. “I spy a red materia!”
“Don’t break the glass,” he preemptively scolds her.
Ruby doesn’t even look his way. Her eyes are honed in on this shiny new Summon. Now that she thinks about it, she recalls from gaming experience that there was supposed to be a certain materia lying out in the open around here. For some reason, it was Ramuh; put here of all places as a missable item with no particular rhyme or reason given. But that changed by Remake’s timeline, where his materia was only obtained through completing Chadley’s respective trial in Intermission. And now, she reminds herself that Yuffie is already in possession of Ramuh since they paid a visit to Wutai. Surely, there wouldn’t be another copy, right? Summon materia are exceedingly rare, after all. So which one is this?
Cloud slaps at Ruby’s hand when he catches her transforming it into a claw. “What are you doing?”
“Just a quick peek! I’ll fix up the pane when I’m done!” she whispers fiercely.
“Hell no! Do you want us to stay in prison!?” he whispers back. He drags her away from the case so she doesn’t try anything funny.
“But the materia! I need to touch it to confirm which one it is!” she wails aloud.
“It’s not free and it’s not yours!”
“It will be when we’re done with our race!”
“Ruby! For crying out loud, wait your turn!”
While the two keep arguing, an uncomfortable silence sets in while everyone else in the lounge tries their best to ignore them. To their relief, there’s a loud jingle over the intercom that rings to relay that the next race is ready to begin. The door leading off to the races then opens up and a young woman in a frilly, puffy, bright pink dress steps into view.
“Everyone, it’s time! Your chocobos are all primed and we’ll be starting the race shortly.”
All the jockeys who were waiting in this lounge get up and head for the door she came in from to get ready. In the meantime, the woman approaches the two noisy misfits in the back, who are still wrestling with each other and even pulling hair.
“Miss Ruby, I presume?” the woman speaks up.
Cloud and Ruby immediately stop and part ways to clean themselves up to be more presentable, and Ruby greets her with open arms. “Esther! Glad to finally meet you!” She excitedly takes her by the hand to pump a handshake.
Esther nods back with a delighted smile. “Same here! I’ve heard quite a bit about your reputation from Dio. He seems to have an eye out for you even though you two only met recently.”
“It’s really just a series of coincidences. I’ve always wanted to visit the Gold Saucer and I finally got to bring a few friends along. It’s too bad we got caught up in a bit of a mess.”
“Yes, I’ve heard about that too.” Her smile fades as she gets serious. “It’s really unfortunate that things turned out how they did. Battle Square will have to be off-limits for a bit while everything is still being sorted out.”
Ruby’s eyes nearly pop. “What? Off-limits!?”
“Yes. We can’t exactly open it to the public while we’re still cleaning up the scene and all. I’m sorry. If you’re planning to stop by there, you’ll have to wait until we’re ready.”
Ruby’s face sinks into a look of agape disappointment and swerves back to Cloud with a determined glare. “Cloud. Now we have to get that materia. There’s no telling when we’d ever see it again.”
He glares back. “Then you should enter as a jockey instead if you’re so bent over it. I’m only in this so we can get everyone out of prison.”
“But it’s just going to overcomplicate things if we’re both jockeys!” she whines. “Why not just stick with you to keep the races going? We can win so many cool things here!”
“Because I didn’t agree to become a jockey full-time! Besides, if you have so much ‘experience’ racing, you should do it.”
“Well, maybe I will! But we all elected you first, so you’re up.”
“Ugh…”
Esther giggles to herself, clearly amused by their dynamic. “Well, to be honest, when I arranged for the race in which you’ll be participating, I had signed you up first, Miss Ruby. But it’s no problem if you want to register your friend as well.”
“Yes, please,” Ruby replies without missing a beat. “And if it won’t trouble you, can we add the Sneak Attack materia to the prize list too? Another friend of mine really wants it.”
“Oh…” Esther’s smile fades a bit as she explains, “While it’s no trouble on my end, we don’t provide such rare prizes for Class C or B races. They’re only available for Class A and S.”
“Then, Cloud will have to race another five times before we can get it,” she concludes.
“Stop it! I’m not staying here any longer than I have to!” he barks back.
Esther politely corrects her, “Actually, that would be another six, since this race I’ve entered you in doesn’t count to your professional records. It’s how it goes for anyone who’s been detained, after all.”
“Six, then. I can wait,” Ruby replies.
Esther chuckles. “Well, if you’re willing to stick around through all that, I’ll be happy to help set it up for you! By the way, we regularly run two different races at the same time – the short course and the long one. And usually, it’s the long course that the best prizes are put up, to help encourage jockeys to run the long course too from time to time.”
“Damn…” Ruby sighs to herself. “So we can’t just blitz with just the short ones. Guess we’ll have to live in the Saucer for the next week, Cloud.”
“Do it yourself. I’m leaving after this one,” he mutters.
“Nice try, but if I’m gonna be stuck here, so will everyone else. That’s just how things work.”
“Whatever happened to your fears about the future…?”
Esther then takes a polite bow and raises a hand aside as she proceeds with formalities. “In any case, am I correct to believe that this would be your first time racing chocobos? If you have any questions, feel free to ask me…”
~
“Ladies and gentlemen! The next race is about to begin! Get your bets in now before the horn blows!”
A huge, noisy crowd has already gathered in the gallery as a handsome lineup of proud, brightly colorful chocobos of various hues and their even prouder jockeys on their backs step up toward the starting line. Every gorgeous bird is adorned in custom-made gear, from the sharp-looking trooper blue chocobo to the fancifully caped hero red chocobo, even to the classy black-tux white chocobo with a black top hat. The jockeys themselves are likewise dressed to matching theme, and since they all have their helmets on as soon as they step out into view, no one even realizes that one of the racers this time came from a different side of town. That said, there does seem to be one space still empty at the moment.
In the back where the waiting stables are, Cloud finds himself standing before a bright yellow chocobo adorned with what appears to be a white chest plate and leg braces all adorned to look like the scales of a white dragon, and it’s adorable how she even has a pair of red-tinted shades. He can’t help but feel a little awkward to be riding some kind of cosplayer chocobo, but this is indeed the one that Esther recommended.
As it turns out, Esther started to take curious interest in Ruby ever since she first heard about the mysterious young bounty hunter from her first visit to the Gold Saucer a while back, and even after learning that she may in fact be the white dragon from the news, she only grew more fascinated by the dragoness’ controversial reputation. News from Midgar gets around fast even out here, but in Shinra’s hasty attempts to save face, there have been conflicting reports. While Shinra’s mainstream news channel would try to mask any and all connection between the “White Terror of the Skies” and Avalanche, private journalists and rumor mills beyond Midgar would often speak about stray witness accounts that claimed to have seen that people were riding on the dragon and that it was in fact not just another wild fiend.
And as Cloud puts on his helmet to mask his face, he climbs onto the chocobo’s saddle with little resistance. The chocobo gives him a curious stare and a quick sniff as if taking some mental notes about this odd stranger. Not that she’s complaining; she took rather quick onto him just at first glance. As Ruby said, it seems like he’s just a natural when it comes to these birds. With Esther standing by on watch and reins in his hands, he guides the chocobo out from the stables and out the wide open door into the bright spotlights of the track.
The announcer’s voice booms over the speakers, “And there we go! All six racers are in position! Betting time is over! If you missed your chance, you’ll have to wait for the next one! Now, we just wait for the referee’s call.”
The referee is standing on his own raised platform on the side of the track. He has made his rounds to make sure that every chocobo is indeed properly geared up and in position. Now back at his post, he raises his arm and blows on a whistle hanging from his neck to give the ok. All the chocobos learn forward at the ready, their feet in position to take off. The traffic lights hanging high above the track then promptly light up. Like with a countdown, the lights flash red, then yellow, then yellow-green, and finally… green. A blaring horn blasts from the speakers, and the birds launch into a stampede of competitive squawks and ruffled feathers.
Despite the various colors of chocobos that are visible, none of these birds are actually specialized classes that are designed from different types of terrain, as that would be unfair to the standard yellows that generally populate Class C and B. It’s really only in the upper classes where it’s more likely to see those specialized chocobos – black mountain chocobos, light blue sky chocobos, and even green jungle chocobos that can make short work of the tougher terrain that is scattered across the tracks.
As Esther promised, Cloud’s chocobo is indeed a feisty fighter and can easily hold her own against her peers, but it’s definitely no shoe-in for victory. The rest of these racers aren’t exactly newbies either, though they certainly aren’t as experienced as the veterans of the higher classes. So, while a couple impatient jockeys let their chocobos blitz on ahead at first, the birds quickly tire out and the rest of the crowd shortly catch up. Even though Cloud didn’t specifically instruct his chocobo how to race, she seems to be experienced enough herself to know not to waste precious stamina. And now as the crowd catches up to the two initial blitzers, she swerves around the crowd and holds the side until the right moment – a sharp curve in the track to which she reaches first and swings around to catch that burst of angular momentum, pushing her ahead of the pack with ease.
But they’re not in the clear just yet! Another of the chocobos is directly on her tail, having taken the same path and he is already gaining speed on her. The next curve swerves the other way, and he slips in ahead just before she can catch the inside of that one. And just like that, she’s lost the lead. The rest of the crowd isn’t far behind. She needs to find that ideal line once more.
By now, Cloud is starting to get the hang of handling his chocobo. A little gentle tug on one side tells her which way she should prioritize, while a firm tug tells her she’s off the line and should get back on it. And of course, the forward roll of the reins means it’s time to make that quick burst of speed. And as they catch the inside of another curve, he gets a bit experimental and opts for that burst in tandem with the swerving momentum. His chocobo guns it and blows past even the chocobo in the lead, and he’s startled by the sudden appearance of another chocobo zooming right on by.
But it’s not wise to only rely on those bursts, as they definitely can tire out a chocobo fast. Any experienced video game racer knows that drifting is the best way to maintain that speed without expending too much energy! And so, even without another burst, even as the now disgruntled second-place fights to get ahead again, Cloud’s chocobo zips just out of his reach as they round yet another large winding road.
By now, the second runner-up has had enough and tries to press even further, but because his chocobo has already been zipping at high speed for a while now, he’s run a bit low on stamina and isn’t ready for that speed burst. Sadly, he has little choice but to slip back as the third and fourth place finally catch up and slide past him.
After crossing the second bridge, the last stretch is coming in sight, but it’s the toughest section of the race. As the final test of skill for these chocobos, they must climb across some rough terrain that’s been disguised as a blank stretch of outer space. Any experienced racers would understand that if they must push their chocobos to the max, it would be across this stretch, but it’s also the most exhausting.
Without hesitation, Cloud presses on, though he’s caught by surprise when his chocobo suddenly seems to slow right down. The next two chocobos are coming up fast, as they too push their chocobos into turbo. Uh-oh! The lead he thought he had has already closed up. But his chocobo, the ever daring bird she is, takes this chance to impress her new rider and launches on ahead with one last burst of her own. The final three birds are nearly neck-in-neck as they overcome the outer-space section and rush to the finish line. And with the final camera flash, the race has come to an end.
True enough, Cloud and his chocobo have just made it into first! Followed by extremely close 2nd and 3rd places for the green and purple chocobos, respectively. While the rider in second breathes a sigh in relief, the third is rather upset and throws some angry jabs in the air, but he calms his chocobo with a comforting rub on her head. The crowds cheer as the final scores are tallied on the leaderboards, followed by some disappointed groans from some who happened to bet on the purple one, but overall, what a close race that was! Even better, people’s expectations were blown away. It was the newbie who won for once! He just showed up out of nowhere this day and won so handily as if he were a veteran. Who even is that guy?
Hidden away from the gallery and up above even the commentators’ box is another room where a panel of VIP judges have been watching. While Dio normally would be up there to watch the show, it seems like he has left early for some business this time. However, there is one other highly esteemed and fabulously dressed gentleman here who takes a keen eye on this new jockey. He too has been informed of the situation around this young man and his odd group of friends, and seeing him in action has cleared away any doubts. Perhaps they will be able to meet in person soon.
As Cloud hurries away from the incoming paparazzi, he takes his chocobo back to the stables where Esther has been waiting for him. He climbs off, giving his proud chocobo a well-deserved rub of her beak. She too snuggles up against him, though he gently lets her off and leaves her to take her rest.
“Congratulations, Cloud! That was an amazing run, and to think it was your first try too!” Esther greets him.
“Thanks… but it was mainly thanks to the chocobo. She seems to really know her way on that track.”
“Oh, that’s no surprise. This one is an old friend of mine and it’s like second nature for her when she goes out to the races. But even then, she’s also a bit of a feisty one! It takes a good rider to meet her on the same wavelength. Good thing that she’s quite smitten with you already!”
“Uh, yeah…” He lets it be and looks around, but then realizes that Ruby isn’t here anymore. “Huh? Where did Ruby go?”
“Oh, she left to meet with Dio while the race was still going. I relayed the situation with him already, so you guys are all free to go!”
“She went to see Dio again? What for?”
“I’m not sure, actually. He mentioned that he had a visitor that wanted to see her, so she left right away.”
“A visitor…?”
“From what I hear, it seems to be a young man with a backpack and some high-tech eyewear.”
Cloud blinks in confusion. Is that anyone that they’ve ever seen before? But at least from the description, it doesn’t seem like anyone that may be a concern. Maybe he should leave her be for now. In any case, he should let the others know that they’re set.
As if she were somehow able to read his mind, Esther reassures him, “I think your friends have all been escorted out by now, so you can go meet them in the lobby later.”
“Oh. Alright, then.”
“Oh! One more thing, Cloud: Ruby has another request for you.”
“Huh?” For just a brief moment, he feels something in his gut tighten at the thought. What does she want now?
“She asked me to include the Sneak Attack materia among the prize listings for the next class A race, and since she may be a bit busy in the meantime, she asked that you get it for her.”
As if it were a reflex at this point, he slumps over with a groan. “…Of course. And she probably said she’d do something terrible if I didn’t.”
“Oh.” Esther blinks in surprise. “As a matter of fact, yes. Those were her words exactly. It seems like you two really know each other well.”
“Sometimes I wish I didn’t.” He gives a sigh and straightens back up. “So, is the next race going to be Class A? Do I just stick with the same chocobo?”
“Oh, no. She may be an old friend, but even she’ll struggle against the best in the higher classes. If you’d like, I can get you an even better chocobo who’s trained just for them.”
“Oh, sure. If you don’t mind.”
Esther flashes her ever friendly smile. “It’s no problem! Though, I’ll have to inform you that this other chocobo is on loan from another friend, so I can’t guarantee you’ll have the same chocobo if you ever visit the races again. In that case, you’ll have to enter your own.”
He nods back. “No problem. If I know Ruby, she’ll probably be dragging me into raising one sometime anyway, so I guess we’ll be dropping by again sometime.”
She giggles. “Well, then. I’ll be looking forward to it! Now, come with me. We’ll have to prepare you for the next Class C race…”
“Excuse me? Class C? Wasn’t it Class A?”
“Oh, yes. You are indeed a talented racer, but as per the rules, we can’t have jockeys just jump between classes just like that. As this first race doesn’t count to your records, you’ll still need to race in Class C three more times and then in Class B three times before you can be registered for Class A.”
He slowly sinks back into gloom. “…How long am I going to be stuck here?”
“Good luck, Cloud! If you have any questions, I’ll be here to answer any.”
He swears under his breath. Ruby, whatever “secret battle plans” you have, it had better be worth it.
~
Meanwhile, off in Battle Square, Dio and his new visitor have been waiting for Ruby. She flies on by in her hybrid dragon form and recalls her wings as she lands. By now, the guards at the entrance no longer question her and let her inside without any check. And as she steps in, she immediately notices them waiting out in the open.
She waves a hand in greeting. “Dio, I’m here! And…” She stops her hand in the air and blinks as she sees the other one. “Chadley!?”
The young silver-haired man, who was once in a lab coat and is now dressed for travel with a small backpack on his back and some sort of scouter-looking glass over his left eye, waves back. “Good to see you again, Ruby!”
She zips on by with an excited gasp and happy squeal as she comes to hug him. “I’m glad you made it! You’re just the guy I was looking for!” To which, he goes silent for a bit as if his internal calibrations had been knocked askew.
Dio lets out a hearty laugh. “I’m glad to hear it! It sure came as a surprise to know that you were already well acquainted with an old friend of mine.”
“Old friend?” Ruby asks, letting go of the awkward boy who is still getting used to being hugged.
“Yes. If you must know, I was one of the people who was introduced to Chadley during his initiation while he was still under Hojo’s supervision.”
She grows a little disturbed. “Really, sir? Why would you be involved with that?”
“Oh, don’t you worry! It’s no big deal. As Shinra’s R&D division was in need of a little extra investment to push the program ahead, I was happy to lend some funds. After all, if Chadley could be allowed to roam free, I’m sure he would have been some great assistance in our monster-hunting campaigns around the world.”
“Oh.” She looks relieved again. “I see. Glad that everything worked out.”
“Ahem.” Chadley has regained his composure and now addresses her too. “Yes, as it happens, I was also informed of Mr. Dio’s involvement and came by personally to thank him. It was around then that I learned that you and Cloud, as well as the rest of your friends, were already here. I assume that if you’re here, everything regarding the recent incident has been resolved?”
“Yep. Seems like we’re good to go.” She makes an evil-looking sneer. “Except Cloud. If my calculations are correct, he’ll be stuck at Chocobo Square for a good while until he can fetch me those two rare materia.”
He blinks back in surprise, but decides it’s not worth it to pursue that line of questioning. He instead proceeds with a friendly smile, “Well, that’s good to hear! If you have a bit of time now, may I ask you for a favor?”
“Sure. As it happens, I’ve been meaning to ask you about constructing new materia myself.”
He nods back. “Certainly! I’ll be happy to help however I can… Oh! That reminds me.” He then asks, “Ruby, do you remember how I mentioned that I’ve been doing some deep dives into Shinra’s records regarding your history with them?”
She raises a wary eyebrow. “Huh? Uh, sure…”
“Don’t worry! We don’t need to get into the controversial topics. Even I had some trouble accessing the most classified of reports. However, I did manage to uncover enough data to be able to transcribe the information and add it into my own database.” He makes a rather confident smile as he announces, “And because of that, I’ve been able to develop a new materia based on you!”
She blinks, a little taken aback. “Huh? Uh, thanks, Chadley, but I think while I’m still around, people don’t need more of me.”
“Haha! There’s no need to fret. This is still artificial materia we’re talking about, so I wouldn’t imagine it would be able to compete with the real deal in terms of potential. But I do believe it may come in handy for any of your friends if they ever need a quick burst of power in a pinch!”
She nods back slowly. “Hmm… Yeah. That might actually come in use, actually.” The more she thinks it over, the greater the revelations come and her intrigued face quickly broadens into a wide smile. “You know, you may have just answered one of my prayers, Chadley. I owe you one.”
“Oh, did I? Hehe. Thanks for the praise, though I’ve merely been experimenting as I always have been. Though, on the topic of ‘owing one’, how about an exchange of favors?”
“Exchange?”
“Yes. Normally, I wouldn’t simply give away experimental materia like this for free, but if you do us a favor, I can void any charges this time.”
“Oh. That sounds pretty good…” She then catches onto something he said, “Hm? ‘Us’, meaning…?”
“Me and Mr. Dio, of course.”
“Huh?”
Now Dio flashes a grin and answers in his stead, “Ruby, my girl! Though I’m sure you and your friends may have some busy lives to lead, I hope it’s no hassle if I offered a different deal? Rest assured, the previous offer regarding the ancient temple is still open, but I think this other one may have less complications for you.”
“Another deal, sir?”
“Indeed, and once again, I’m sure it is but a simple matter for the likes of you. Aside from the depths of that ancient temple, there is one other place in this world that has been difficult for my men to traverse, and that would be the Northern Crater.”
“Ah.” As soon as he mentions it, she already knows where this is going.
“As you’re probably well aware, legend has it that a great calamity once struck the planet long ago, resulting in that massive crater, and as a result of the wound, the planet would surround the area full of mako in an attempt to restore it. And because the lands up there are so bountiful with free-flowing energy, it’s been proposed that the wildlife there would have been greatly influenced by all that mako and transformed into beasts of uncomparable strength. I can only imagine what sort of creatures would be hiding in its depths! Unfortunately, it isn’t that simple, admittedly even for someone of my caliber, to hunt for them. Even Shinra has limited information on the area, as previous survey troops sent out there rarely ever returned safely.”
“In other words, sir, you’re asking me to survey the area instead?”
“Hahaha! Sharp as always, my girl! Indeed, if you could lend a hand there, there would be no favor you may ask of me that I would ever deny!”
“Ya don’t say… Incidentally, if I do find any items around there, may I keep them myself?” she asks cheekily.
“Oh?” He makes an amused smirk. “Well, while I would prefer that you share your findings, it’s true you are the only one who would be able to freely explore the area. So, if you so happen to dig up some interesting treasures, who am I to intercept? I’m very much a man who honors the fine principle of ‘finders keepers’, after all.”
“Haha! Thanks, sir.” She returns him a salute. “If it’s just the Northern Crater, then I’ll be happy to jump by for a quick visit and do some spelunking while I’m there.” She then recalls Cloud’s condition and then quickly adds, “Though, if I do, I’ll have to bring a buddy just in case, so Cloud doesn’t have an aneurysm.”
“Feel free to bring as many friends with you as you like! But if I may insist, could you also take this along?” Chadley draws out a strange-looking handheld device to show her. It seems to be shaped like some kind of laser scanner with a wide dish.
“What’s this?”
“It’s my own creation! I call it the CHAD Module. Though originally designed to activate the remnawave towers of a certain old republic, it can also detect and acquire intel from any natural crystal formations or lifesprings. The knowledge of the Cetra is collected and contained within those crystals, after all.”
“Gotcha.” She accepts the device and considers where exactly to store it. “And I guess you’ll be able to track where I am with this too?”
“Of course! I hope it’s alright with you? It’s quite imperative that I maintain the database to be as up to date as possible. And this way, I will also be able to provide you a detailed map of the area should you ever need directions.”
“Yeah, I don’t mind. Sounds like it’ll be pretty useful.” She finally opts to slide it into one of her available sashes on her utility belt. “And on that thought, while I’m there, do you mind if I make requests for any new materia I might pass you?”
His eyes seem to light up in an instant. “Oh, yes! I don’t mind at all. I’m always happy to develop new materia. Just say the word and I’ll see what I can do.”
“Reliable as always, Chadley. Thanks.”
“Oh, no, thank you, Ruby! Your efforts will be invaluable to my research and perhaps even any future expeditions that Mr. Dio may have planned.”
“Haha! Well, that’ll be a safe bet!” Dio laughs heartily. “Very good, young lady and gentleman. I’ll be awaiting your results. In the meantime, the rest of your friends will be free to roam the Gold Saucer as they like. Good luck and have a grand ol’ spelunking!”
“Thanks, Dio! And keep an eye on my friends while they’re still around, will ya, Chadley?”
He raises a determined fist. “Leave it to me! I’ll help keep down the fort while you’re away.”
She fires back with a confident thumbs-up and gives Chadley a nod too before she waves goodbye and hits the skies once more. As she scans the floors from above, she notices that as Dio had suggested, all her friends have indeed been released and scattered to wherever they’ve headed off. By the time she descends back to the lobby, she finds only two familiar faces who have still remained by the guide map.
“Oh, Ruby! Glad you made it!” Cait Sith jumps up and down upon Moogle’s supportive arms. “It’s just us here. Everyone just took off in their own groups like nothing ever happened.”
Red also flicks his tail playfully. “Looks like you’ve been busy even without Cloud by your side,” he observes with an amused look.
She slides into a smooth landing and dismisses her wings. “Tell me about it! Even though I made him race, I’m swamped with business with Dio and even Chadley of all people.”
“Chadley?”
“Oh, right. You guys never met him. He’s the kid with short silver hair, usually dons a lab coat but recently packed lighter for travel. He was an intern for Shinra’s labs before he went independent.”
“I see. And he asked you for something?”
“To go on a survey mission to the Northern Crater, as it happens.”
And as soon as she says it, the other two look like their eyes nearly pop out.
“T-the Northern Crater!? Blimey, lass! Why would they send you to such a dangerous place!?” Cait exclaims. He then rubs his head. “Well, I suppose if it’s you, it’s not too much of a risk, but…”
Red shakes his head. “I’m afraid we can’t let you go there without someone to accompany you. Cloud wouldn’t be happy to hear it.”
She casually waves it away. “I know, I know. That’s why I’m thinking I’ll take you along, Nanaki.”
“Me? Well, I don’t object, but why do you ask?”
“Because if I’m gonna take anyone along, it’s gotta be someone who’s especially quick on their feet and won’t get in my way while I plow through the monsters. Even if you don’t engage with them, I don’t want to have to babysit my own chaperone.”
Red nods back. “Understood. Then I’ll gladly join you.”
Cait Sith makes a sigh in relief. “Good choice. If it were me, whew… probably wouldn’t last too long out there even with ye on watch, to be honest.”
“Speaking of which, Cait, why are you waiting around here? I thought you would have joined any of the others.”
He waves a hand dismissively. “Oh, don’t mind me, lass. I’m just takin’ a breather for now. As fun as it is buildin’ up a plushie fort again, Biggs and Wedge are havin’ a grand ol’ time on the coaster with Barret and Marlene. I believe Elmyra’s with them too, though probably sitting it out in the meantime.” He then strokes his chin. “And by the sounds of it, all the ladies and Sonon seem to have gathered off in Chocobo Square to watch Cloud race. Seems like he’s gettin’ pretty popular there.”
She snorts to herself. “Good. He’d better be, or I’ll be looking for a new chocobo-lookalike.”
“Let’s see… Is that everyone?” Cait Sith nods with self-assurance. “Yeah. I think so. Cid and Vincent are still aboard the ship, so I don’t think they’ve come on down just yet.”
“Thanks for the report. Speaking of them, can you let them know where I’ll be in the meantime? And maybe also update them on Barret’s situation.”
“Oh, don’t worry about the latter! Jessie was on it as soon as we all got out. But sure! I’ll let them know about you.”
Not one to let him slip out of the conversation, though, she pursues, “And mind mentioning where you’ll be after your little breather?”
“Huh? Ah…” He takes a meaningful pause and then shrugs. “Just around. Maybe I’ll stop by Battle Square again. Sounds like they’re still getting things ready around there, so I don’t mind lending a hand or two.”
“Uh-huh.”
“…” He clears his throat. “Eh, is something the matter, Ruby?”
She waves a hand dismissively. “Hm? Oh, no. I’m just thinking about what I’ll be doing after this. When I figure that out, I’ll let you all know.”
“Ah. Alright.”
Though Ruby passes it off as casual chat, she did catch onto an odd bit of inflection in his tone when he mentioned “Battle Square”. She knows only too well the implications of Cait Sith being left alone in that place. Then again, isn’t it still a bit early for things to get moving? No one would be able to get too far in that temple without her. Maybe she can put it off for now? Don’t want to spread any more distrust right now just after Barret just had a bad case of being framed, after all.
Letting all that be, she turns back to Red with a carefree smile. “Anyway, while I don’t think I’ll be away for too long, that crater is still full of big caves. Wouldn’t want to spend too much time getting lost.”
“Will you be alright navigating?” he asks, raising an eyebrow. “It would be a real hassle if you were to rush on ahead like last time…”
“That only happened because the desert looks the same everywhere!” she snaps back impatiently. “Anyway, Chadley also gave me a scanner thing and can track where we go, so I’ll just leave the navigating to him.”
His questions finally appeased, he nods with approval. “Very well. We can go whenever you’re ready.”
She brings back her signature mischievous grin. “Like right now? Yeah, right now.”
She waves a quick “bye” to Cait and taps Red on his red with a sloppy rub of his fur, to which the latter returns her an unamused frown, but adds nothing more as the two vanish in the following burst of light. And now alone at last, Cait Sith turns back to his Moogle with a deep sigh. Though the two don’t say another word, they share the same determined look and nod to each other as they then scamper off out the lobby entrance to find a spot out of the way. With how fast things seem to be developing, he has an important call to make.
~
The Northern Crater is truly a landmark of the ages, from its earliest inception from a certain Great Cetran War to the present day. The life-giving essence that is the Lifestream has been hard at work to restore life to these otherwise dead, desolate lands. And yet, even this far north, there has developed such a bountiful biodiversity of creatures big and small – but every one of them is terrifyingly powerful. These creatures have all been warped through rapid evolution by pure, unfiltered power, as if they were bestowed as much by the planet’s own blessings. And for what it’s worth, the very threat of such monsters has done well enough to keep the human riff-raff out so the planet can focus on restoration without any impediments.
However, it is not enough to keep out certain non-human riff-raff. Ruby and Red XIII have arrived at the precipices of the edge of the massive crater. It’s a magnificent view from these heights into the glowing blue-green lights emitting from the depths of the caves. But while Red marvels at the sight, Ruby seems to be a little flustered about something.
“What the hell? I had the specific location in mind! Why am I not allowed to jump there!?” she vents.
“Hm? Is something wrong?” he asks. Now alone with her, his voice returns to its youth.
“I tried warping directly into the middle of the caves, but for some reason, I somehow got blocked off!” She pouts with puffy cheeks, “What the hell is this? Invisible walls? In my real-life Final Fantasy!?”
“You tried to warp but failed to reach your destination?”
“Hmph. Well, at least I made it out to the edge. Seems like there’s some strange invisible magic barrier in the way…” And though she doesn’t say it aloud, she has to admit that she suspects a certain someone is responsible. “I wanted to go final-dungeon crawling for once! But of course, it’s way too ‘early’! All those amazing treasures, though!” she keeps whining. “The best gear! The best materia! All those tasty Sources! They were supposed to be MINE!!”
Red looks disappointed too, but for a different reason. “If there really is a magic barrier, I guess we have to fall back.”
“Nuh-uh! I didn’t come all the way out here to a glacier-laden mountain just to fall back! Plan B, go!”
“P-plan B? What are you…?”
Before he can stop her, she launches herself high into the air and bursts forth into a full dragon. With a mighty roar, she soars even higher over where the barrier could reach and begins to charge up a full-power Megaflare.
“Ruby!” Red calls from below, but clearly his voice isn’t going to reach her. He hurries back down the slopes to get to a safe distance.
Ruby lets fire a gigantic ball of light and energy at the invisible barrier, which promptly becomes visible as soon as the beam makes contact and sparks an explosion with such turbulent and wide-reaching electromagnetic fields that it could throw off any other flier in the vicinity. Down beneath the barrier, various creatures and even wild fiends that had been freely roaming rush about in a panic to hide or find cover. And yet, as the blistering light fades, the barrier still seems to be holding out. This frustrates her more, so she channels even more of her rage into her outstretched wings and lets rapid fire of another version of the attack, followed by another blast of light from her maws once more. And for a brief instant while this tug-of-war of energy fields is ongoing, there are even the flashes of some tessellating shapes upon the barrier’s surface. As soon as they vanish, however, the barrier finally gives in and cracks in a splendor of light that sends a chain reaction across the entire dome.
And from the cover of some naturally made stone pillars a safe distance away, Red simply stares in awe. Ruby really has gotten so powerful to be able to remove something like this. He had once heard about the possibility, but perhaps it’s true after all: the power of a Summon only continues to escalate over time should one choose to live rather than submit as materia.
She floats smoothly and swiftly back down to where she had last stood and reverts back to human form. She turns behind her and waves an arm in Red’s direction. “The way’s clear! Let’s go!”
She hops right down the slope on the other side of the edge and he hurries on out to catch up. As she descends, she finds the rocky paths rather bare of any signs of life. How odd; she had expected at least some monsters to be around, but maybe her display of power earlier sent them all packing? Well, there goes that plan to farm them for EXP. But if anything, she’d rather dive even further into the caves where the strongest of monsters would reside. But she first has to gather the particular materia she needs for her battle plan before she can go AP hunting too. When she gets back to the Saucer, Cloud had better gotten those rare materia already. Maybe after this, she can surprise him with another gift of her own. There’s a certain awesome-looking sword hiding in the back of the Ancient Forest with his name on it – but not before she uses it first.
As the way is clear, Red likewise catches up with her as she slows down at the bottom of the slope. She seems to have acquired a new shiny orb and as he approaches, she turns to show him.
“Hehe. I knew I’d find this guy somewhere.”
“Red materia? Which one is this?”
“Neo Bahamut! It’s the phase dad had where he decided to go full peacock. I dunno, something about dressing to impress? Though considering the mate he found…” She begins to drift off, sensing a bit of foreboding upon even thinking about it again. “Anyway, he just turns into a giant red cock.”
“…”
“Ya know, like a chicken.”
He glances off as if unwilling to hear this. “I got it the first time.”
She stows it away. “Anyway, never mind that! Let’s go! There are still some cool treasures to be found! I think.”
Red shakes his head with a sigh and follows along closely – but not too closely as Ruby casually manhandles a nearby Grenade, the gray-colored cousin of the Bomb, and chucks it overhead at some unfortunately situated shaggy Gremlins who were too stubborn to flee when the huge explosion of light from earlier happened. She simply continues treading forward as the stone pillars and walls seem to close in along a narrow path and rather than let herself be boxed in, she outright punches holes through the rock, sending whatever unfortunate critters who were hiding behind it to either roll over dead or barely escape with their lives. And all the while, Chadley seems to keep talking and making observations regarding their environment.
“Interesting…” he mumbles aloud over her device’s built-in radio.
“What is?” she asks.
“While you were clearing the path of fiends, I took a moment to look further into the strange barrier that you had commented on earlier. And unfortunately, the historical records seem to be sparse in regards to any instances in the past. I can only assume that it must be the work of some greater power hiding in the depths. It seems like you have a fair handle on the situation here, but I’d advise that you take a bit more care as you descend further. You never know what we may encounter along the way.”
“Uh-huh…”
“And on a tangential note, I have to say, it’s fascinating to see the unique makeup of the bedrock in this area! It’s nothing quite like what we’ve seen in the rest of the world. Perhaps the influence of the impact by an extraterrestrial object has helped shape and reconstruct the geological stratifications, or perhaps even by the plentiful streams of life essence that spill out from the planet’s depths, repairing the lands like a wound being cauterized…”
As Chadley continues with his unprompted analysis of their environment, Ruby very quickly tunes out and resumes hunting down monsters as if just to pass the time. She was hoping that the higher-leveled monsters in the area would provide her with the needed EXP for her to level up for once, but yet again she finds that they all die too fast that she isn’t even sure if she’s gaining any at all. If only she could access the inner depths of these caves, to reach the actually formidable foes that can take some of her hard swings for once! She might even have the chance to draw out her knife again.
Nevertheless, while this area is infamously named the Whirlwind Maze, Ruby doesn’t exactly give the “maze” part of it with the respect it deserves, as she is fully capable of carving her own path forward. Come what may, from the blade-winged lizards called Ironites to the well-disguised stone demons known simply as Sculptures, to even whatever the hell the Killbin is. Being a weird cube thing that casts all sorts of magic spells through any one of its six sides explains nothing. Nonetheless, Ruby does her due diligence and Assesses them all for the sake of Chadley’s research before absolutely demolishing them and flinging their corpses down into the glowy pockets below as if it were business as usual.
But should it just be “business as usual”? While Ruby seems to have thrown all caution to the turbulent winds that blow on by, Red can’t help but get the feeling that things are moving along too smoothly. He’s been on watch of their surroundings and following her closely just in case they run into any unfortunate encounters, and though nothing that has come is a serious threat, he remains vigilant. Regardless of Ruby’s prowess, it’s still true that these lands are dangerous. This may be the first time he’s personally come this far north, but even he has heard of horrific tales from the elders back home about the far reaches of the Northern Caves. Stories of visitors that once dared to travel so far, survey corps that were sent in on missions to detail the environment, even wild animals that were sighted to have once roamed free; all would go missing and never be heard from again. And last but not least, Ruby herself once anticipated that this region would be well within Sephiroth’s domain. They can’t loiter around for too long.
“Ruby. We’ve gone really far now…” he says as a hint, but she doesn’t answer and keeps going. So, he keeps following.
The further in they travel, the harsher the winds begin to blow and the weirder the atmosphere gets. Because they are so close to the natural springs where the Lifestream pops out, Ruby likewise can hear the soft murmurs of voices and for some reason, they’re starting to give her a headache. It’s not because they’re particularly loud or annoying, but somehow, she not only can sense their pain, she seems to be stricken by it. No, this isn’t merely a strong case of empathy; she actually feels like something is jabbing incessantly at her heart. And as the winds reach a howling pitch, the murmuring voices are thus amplified amid the almost deafening noise.
“…The Reunion… draws near…”
“…At long last, Her glorious advent shall arrive…”
“…Together strong… Together undefeatable…”
“…The Children of Chaos await the call…”
“…Mother… Don’t worry… It’s just a little longer…”
Ruby’s eyes grow wide in shock. Amid the cacophonous indiscrete voices, why does the last one sound familiar? Was that… Rubia? What is she talking about?
As Ruby suddenly stops short as if staring off in a daze, Red takes immediate notice and hops on over. “…Ruby?” he calls to her.
She doesn’t respond. Instead, she bolts off ahead further into the depths of the maze, likewise tearing through the walls until she comes to an open field. By now, the turbulent winds have stirred up into a frenzy, unimpeded by the stone walls that barred them. Ruby shuts her eyes as she tries to focus on the particular voice she just heard, but now they are simply a chaotic mess of unfamiliar voices once more. She presses onward, driven by a strange urge that seems to have overtaken her completely.
“Ruby!” Red calls out again, but his voice is instead drowned in the howling winds.
He tries to pursue after her, but the crack of lightning strikes nearby that gives him pause for just a moment. And by the time the tumultuous wave of winds passes on by once more, he realizes that he’s already lost sight of her. In a panic, he leaps on through the strange barrier of winds and over the crevices to come to an area with a particularly thin ledge where the path has come to a mere sliver. Ruby isn’t here. Where did she go?
~
It seems the maze’s reputation is in fact well deserved. It isn’t the walls that close in on travelers that scare them away, but the great winds that can easily sweep people off their feet if they aren’t careful. And those who do manage to cling to the ledges for the moment can very easily lose their way.
However, for once, Ruby is not the one who is lost. She has safely traversed through the whirlwinds to a particular chamber in the depths where natural materia is composted into massive crystals that tower high into the air. This would be a place where Shinra would believe the Promised Land would be, but it is anything but a good promise. For there are monsters that lurk within these crystals; gargantuan, imposing, and lying in an ominous sleep.
But what surprises her most of all is the crystal in the center that hangs over the chamber, as if delicately hung up like a chandelier that oversees all the rest. There is something else inside, but it’s not the man she was expecting. It’s the shape of a woman – or rather, a form like that of a woman. Her skin is a pale blue, her silver hair hangs limply, and there are large tentacle appendages that stretch outward from her back, spanning into the shape of demonic-looking wings. She is completely naked, yet shows no particular signs of nudity.
Ruby’s eyes widen and her mouth drops agape. It’s Jenova… but her face appears to be a little different. Rather than having imitated the visage of the woman who once bore Sephiroth, she bears a face familiar only to her eyes. She looks just like Sister Edel, the blood sister to Anna, who once raised Rubia in a past life.
What does this mean? What do any of those voices speak about? Why has she been lead here?
At that moment, Ruby faces a horrible headache, much magnified from earlier since she started to hear voices. And then, they hit her: flashes of visions of the past when Rubia had once appeared at the temple, as well as the shameless bloodshed that she had spilled in a madness that refuses to be quelled. The woman who once begged her for her help, as well as the countless victims that once worshipped her, all lying dead in pools of blood that run the course of the temple.
But this time, it doesn’t end with only the poor innocents of that time. Following those flashes of old visions are new ones that she wishes she would never have had to see. People of the present who also suffered at her own hands. The stragglers at the Shinra warehouse base that didn’t escape in time. Those in Sector 8 who met an unfortunate end when she finally gave in and abandoned the falling plate. The people of Wutai’s backwaters that were quarantined and enslaved, only to later be incinerated without remorse. Cole Chinedu, that poor sap, who waited on her very word as hope and was relentlessly burned alive. She drops to her knees, clutching her head; her eyes shut, unwilling to face forward. The amount of death, pain, and suffering has long weighed on her mind all this time. She didn’t need to be reminded.
But the next one sends an icy, numbing chill down her spine. It’s a vision of some kind in the present, maybe even the near future. The pools of blood continue to run from edge of one vision to another, down to this very floor. Even as a vision, it feels real. She can feel the warmth of the blood as if it were recently shed. She doesn’t dare to look around, but the morbid curiosity is too great. She immediately regrets it. Littered all around her are the bodies of all her friends. Tifa, Yuffie, Red, Sonon… their bodies torn with slashes of a great blade. Barret, Vincent, Cid… stabbed repeatedly with a vengeance. Even Cait Sith and Moogle’s stuffed bodies lay in waste, tossed to the side like scrap. Cloud is missing. And Aerith, the only one who remains intact, is trapped in the very crystal where Jenova was once harbored.
Before she can even make anything of what she just witnessed, Ruby hears a guttural scream from behind her. Was that… Cloud? She snaps out of her trance in utter terror and rushes back out back into the open grounds where the whirlwinds thrash about. It’s hard to make out the scene with all this noisy wind, but she seems to be able to make out the sounds of metal clashing furiously, only to quickly die out and then silence.
No. No way. The fight can’t have ended just like that. What happened? She needs to see. Muttering the spell of Tornado on her lips, she unleashes an even stronger blast of wind that flies counter to the whirlwinds and effectively cancels them out. And when the scene is clear once more, lo and behold, she witnesses a sight just as terrifying as the last.
Sephiroth stands alone on the edge of a ledge, with Cloud impaled on his sword, letting him hang in the air over the huge crevice below where the Lifestream awaits. Cloud is clutching at the katana’s blade, but his hands are shaking and cling weakly. He is barely breathing, blood streaming from various places on his body.
“…Stop,” she mutters under her breath.
With the last ounce of his strength, Cloud reaches forward to pull himself back closer to the ledge, Sephiroth casually lets slip of the handle and lets his limp body slide away again. He’s not falling for any cheap tricks this time around.
“Stop!” she yells, but her voice seems to reach nowhere.
Without a care, Sephiroth tosses him over the edge and lets him sink into the depths below.
“Sephiroooth!!” she screams.
She lunges right at him, claws brandished and ready to land a critical blow upon the man’s neck. However, the very moment she’s about to reach him, he turns her way with that same eerie smile as always. He then vanishes before she can land that hit and she immediately blanks out.
When she opens her eyes, the next thing she knows, she’s standing where the man had been, looking over the ledge where Cloud had fallen. The Masamune is still dripping red. And worst of all, the sword is now in her left hand instead. No, wait… this hand isn’t hers. It’s Sephiroth’s.
All of a sudden, she feels numb. Her mind is having trouble processing what just happened. Maybe she shouldn’t process it, though. Anything that comes from it is just going to be painful.
~
“…Ruby! Ruby! Wake up!”
There’s a familiar voice. It’s not Cloud’s, but… Oh, that’s right. She came here with someone else, didn’t she? She now opens her eyes and finds herself lying on the rugged ground, but she’s been taken aside away from the ledge. Red sits beside her, looking very worried.
He breathes a sigh in relief when she finally comes to. “Thank goodness. You’re awake.”
“…”
For a moment, she lies still, lost and in a daze once more. What was all that just now? Visions… of the future? Or is it but another illusion as crafted by the manipulative powers of Jenova? Does she fear it? Does she ignore it? What is truth and what is fiction? Is there even any distinction anymore…?
“Are you alright? You suddenly disappeared in the winds. I was afraid that you got lost. But suddenly all the winds cleared and I found you lying here out in the open.”
The winds cleared… Was it because of her, or did it happen on its own? Then again, if she did have an effect, did he not see her lunging at something? Or maybe it was all just in her mind after all.
“Are you okay? Can you get up?”
“…Yeah.” Finally, she sits up. “I’m just… tired.”
Red looks a bit relieved to hear her at last and gets back to his feet. “Then, I think we’re done here. You covered plenty of ground for Chadley, so let’s get going! We can’t know what else may be lurking, so we shouldn’t delay any longer.”
He turns away and is about to head off when he notices she has yet to move. When he comes back to her, she’s slumped over with her eyes closed. He then realizes that tears have begun to fall down her cheeks.
“Ruby? What’s wrong?”
He takes a seat beside her once more with a curious nose pointed her way. She opens her eyes again as another few drops of tears spill and turns back to him with blurry eyes. To his surprise, she then wraps her arms around him in a tight hug. Though rather confused at first, he lets her be and waits it out as she finally lets out a sobbing wail.
“…It’s okay, Ruby. There’s no need to be scared. I’m alright.”
She doesn’t answer and keeps sobbing into his soft, warm fur. Well, maybe they may need just another moment before they go back to meet the others.
~
Elsewhere, in an apartment far and away in another realm, a certain man lounges on the couch before the TV once more. He sets the Playstation controller aside and reaches over to the can of Boss brand coffee resting on the table before him. He takes a sip and lowers the can with a sigh.
Whatever is he going to do with this girl? She always said she didn’t want “spoilers” and then she went and accessed this scene at this early time. If she had just heeded his instructions and followed suit accordingly, she wouldn’t have had to witness all that without context. Now it’s going to be a pain to explain everything to her later.
He then cracks a faint smile to himself and takes another swig of coffee. Ah, well. Knowing her, it was inevitable. Besides, even he was curious to see how she’d react to it all. And all he had to do was dismiss the barrier at the right moment.
Notes:
Lots of notes, Rebirth vs OG trivia and more
- The only reference I have of Coates and his men are from the initial trailers, so I've given it a shout-out here by giving them a bit more personality.
- In regards to the Knights of the Round Table: in the OG, it was off on an island at the farthest top right corner of the world map, but I think lore-wise it makes more sense that it would be a mystical place that even Shinra that have taken over the world couldn't easily locate. And following how Summons work in Remake/Rebirth, Ruby will have to challenge them before she can acquire their materia. It's unfortunate that her fight with Leviathan didn't count, though.
- My hatred of Joe only extends so far as him as an opponent. I rather like his character and design otherwise.
- In regards to the different chocobos introduced in Rebirth, I will be including them all in the background context of this fic, but because I'm not actually that far into the game yet, I've only heard from the grapevine about some things and may make some mistakes. Please bear with me.
- For the record, the OG had just as many colorful chocobos, but they were entirely cosmetic. There were only five different variants of chocobo: the standard yellow, the blue chocobo that crosses rivers and offshores, the green chocobo that climbs mountains and certain deserts, the black chocobo that can do both that the blue and green can, and the gold chocobo that can cross oceans.
- And yes, of course I'm going to have the chocobos dress up like in Rebirth. While I do care about the stats and stuff in regards to game mechanics, I have no idea about all that at this time, so these outfits too are cosmetic only. And I just had to make one a Ruby cosplayer, please understand.
- The bit about video game drifting is definitely a reference to all the racing games I've played over the years. Unlike most, I never got to play much of Mario Kart or Diddy Kong Racing. I was a Crash Team Racing gal back in the day and it's still one of my fondest games from the PS1 era. I also don't know if there are any boost pads or speed rings or whatnot in Rebirth's chocobo races, but let's pretend Cloud hit them all too. Or rather, his chocobo did and he's just hanging on for dear life.
- The bit between Chadley and Dio is entirely my headcanon. I just get the feeling that Dio is an incredibly influential juggernaut when it comes to the financial world and it makes sense that he'd be working with Shinra in some way. I decided it would be a purely financial/business relationship, though, as I would rather believe Dio is genuinely a great man unlike Hojo.
- I've only recently learned that Neo Bahamut is renamed "Bahamut Arisen" in Rebirth. It's a reference to the original Japanese name that called him "Bahamut Kai". Yes, the same "Kai" as in Dragon Ball. It basically means "modified" but is often used as a tag for titles to make it sound "cooler". Kinda like how in the West, sometimes names have an "X" added at the end for no particular reason.
- Shout out to my fellow Yakuza fans who know well about forced adverts in those games. From what I hear, Boss coffee is pretty good, but it's a little expensive to import from Japan. I've seen it in my Asian groceries sometimes, but because I live in California, the prices are outrageous on top of the import status. Maybe one day I'll have a sip.
Chapter 56: Setting the Stage
Notes:
Outdated A/N
A bit of a shorter chapter this time, but for once I'm back to updating weekly. Hopefully. Maybe that was the problem all along; that I've been planning these chapters to be longer and longer when I actually don't need them to be that long. A lesson I will take with me in future endeavors.
4/7/25 edit: Changed Unicorn's epithet to "Sprinting Herald of Light" so it won't be confused with another Summon's later.
5/1/25 edit: Altered and specified Nanaki's speech patterns while he and Ruby are alone.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
It’s the last blitz to the finish line. This show of racers is made up entirely of veteran jockeys who have been around the scene for a while now – with one notable exception. But this newbie fresh off the block has made such a splash on the chocobo racing scene lately that no one can ignore him any longer. While Esther did mention to him that three races per rank was the minimum requirement, she didn’t mention that the last time anyone managed to jump through the ranks this fast with such a consistent win record became their current champion. And with the rest of the racers hot on his trail, this newbie would be the one to cut straight to first place yet again.
Just earlier the same day, Cloud had gone into the races with barely any knowledge of how to ride a chocobo, but now blazes through the competition like he’s become one with his bird. And to think this black chocobo of his is merely on lend! Unlike the last one, this chocobo barely passed him a glance at first, but now they’ve just completed their 7th race together, he’s practically treating his jockey like his own son, even rustling Cloud’s hair with his beak like he was proud, much to the latter’s annoyance. Before the paparazzi can get to him, Cloud retreats back to the stables and finds Esther waiting for him with a big ol’ smile on her face.
“Congratulations, Cloud! You’re a bonafide chocobo jockey now! It’s not easy to be able to beat Class A, especially on your first try.” She also winks at him. “I don’t think it’s just a matter of beginner’s luck at this point.”
He climbs off his bird and turns to her with a casual hand wave. “Thanks, Esther… but like I said since the start, this is my last race for now. Maybe Ruby can get off my back for once.”
“Haha! Well, either way, I’m glad I’ve been here all this time to watch you go from being a greenhorn to a Golden Feather! It’s been a long time since I’ve seen anyone have this much success.”
“Huh? ‘Golden Feather’?”
“It’s a local saying for jockeys who have such smashing success like yours. Not many have the opportunities to even get that title. Who knows, if you actually keep going, you might just be able to give Joe a good running! I’d love to see that race someday.”
He gives a tired sigh, rubbing his head awkwardly, but then nods back. “Maybe someday, then. But for now, I think I’ve been trapped here for long enough and I just wanna get going.”
“I understand. And I’m sure when you see Ruby again, you’ll be better off with this.” Esther draws out a certain blue orb and hands it to him.
“Oh.” He reveals a relieved smile and accepts it. “Thanks. Good to know I won’t be cooked by dragon flame.”
“Of course, if you ever change your mind and you’d like to try for Class S next, you know who to ask! I’ll be around as always.”
“Yeah… Oh, wait.” Now that he recalls, he then asks, “So what about that other red materia that we saw on display in the lounge?”
“Oh, that one?” She makes an apologetic smile. “Sorry, but it’s not actually among the prize listings. I’m just holding it in reserve for someone at this time.”
“Huh?” He blinks. “But I thought Ruby asked you about it? A while ago, before I started the races. She was saying she wanted that one too.”
“Oh, did she?” She shakes her head. “I’m sorry. I should have made it clearer. Not all of the items on display are guaranteed to be prizes.”
“Uh…” Now he feels a cold sweat come over. “Can we make an exception this time? I really don’t want to get into an argument with her over something like this.”
“Well, unfortunately, it’s not my call to make. You see, this particular Summon materia is a special one – it was so recently discovered that it has yet to be officially appraised. It’s one of the reasons why Mr. Dio had requested that a specialist from Midgar come by to inspect it.”
“A specialist… from Midgar?”
“I believe it was a young man by the name of Chadley. He seems to be well-versed when it comes to intel about materia.”
“Chadley!” Cloud’s eyes nearly pop out. “He’s here?”
“Oh, yes! Do you know him? He’s gone to meet Mr. Dio in his room at Battle Square. I believe that was where Ruby went as well.”
“Then, that’s where I’m headed next. Thanks for letting me know.”
“No problem! Oh, by the way, Cloud?”
He was about to take his leave when he spins back around. “Huh?”
“I’ve also been told that a certain VIP member of ours has taken an interest in you since you started racing. He’s hoping to be able to meet you up at Event Square whenever you’re ready.”
Cloud looks just a bit exhausted to hear it. “Someone else wants to see me? Fine… but after this.”
“Of course! There’s no immediate rush.” She gives him a polite wave goodbye. “Take care, Cloud. Hope you and your friends enjoy the rest of your night at Gold Saucer!”
He nods back and finally heads off, back through the jockey’s lounge and out into the public square at last. And as he steps on out, he would run straight into some of his biggest fans who have been waiting for him.
“Cloud! You were amazing out there!” Aerith cheers, hopping and throwing up her hands.
“Congrats, Cloud!” Tifa follows suit, but keeps her hands to herself. “Though, I got the feeling that you wouldn’t have too much trouble getting good.”
“Good? Come on, Tifa! He was out there like he owned the races!” Jessie exclaims, giving Cloud a hard smack on the back too. “And you said you never rode a chocobo before!”
“I didn’t… but I got used to it.”
Jessie leans in with a smirk. “Come on. This is the part where you’re supposed to play it up, big guy. Don’t you wanna impress us all?”
“…”
She laughs at his look of hesitation and lets him be. She then sighs and turns off to muse to herself, “Well, I guess that’s what they call ‘natural talent’. Some people just got what it takes to be the lead…”
“By the way, have you guys seen Ruby? She left to meet Dio while I was still in the races.”
Aerith blinks in surprise. “Oh, really? We didn’t even know.”
Tifa looks a bit guilty. “Sorry, Cloud. Our eyes were glued to the screen. She must have slipped past without us noticing.”
Jessie strokes her chin as she recalls something. “Huh… I thought I heard a beep earlier, but the crowds were cheering so loudly that I wasn’t sure. Might have missed a message. Hang on…” And she whips out her PHS to review the feed. “Oh. Cait left a quick one. He said Ruby took Red along for an expedition, but didn’t say where.”
Cloud genuinely didn’t expect that. “An expedition?” he asks.
She slips the phone away. “Well, at least she didn’t go off alone. It’ll probably just be a quick trip.”
Though he does have a few lingering concerns, he decides to let it be. “Well, if it is just a quick one… But if anything turns up, keep us posted.”
“Gotcha.” She sets a hand on his shoulder to try to ease him. “And take it easy! Sometimes it feels like you got a chip on your shoulder every time Ruby comes up. She’s already grown up, you know.”
“Hmph.” Though he certainly has his reasons, he is unwilling to explain himself to them at this time. He now turns away for the door. “Anyway, I’m headed for Battle Square now. I need to see Chadley about a certain materia.”
And the moment he mentions the word, suddenly Yuffie appears out of nowhere – apparently she had been hiding in the shadows of the crowd – and tackles him, throwing her arm around his neck in a chokehold. “Hold it! You’re not going anywhere!”
“W-what?”
Now Sonon shows up from the crowd too. “Easy there, Yuffie! Reel it in. We’re not on a hit mission.”
“Yeah, ’cause it’s an even bigger deal!” She yaps right in Cloud’s ear, “Come on, cough it up! Where’s the materia!? You promised, remember?”
Though despite being caught in a chokehold, he remains mildly irritated at most. “…Here.”
He whips out the blue materia he just got and it seems to immediately vanish once it meets open air. Yuffie swipes it so fast and hops off of him, clutching it in both hands with a maniacal grin.
“Hahahaa-heeheehee! Yessss, my precious…”
Both Cloud and Sonon sigh together and the latter turns to him with a look of apology. “I try, but even I can only do so much to keep her in one place.”
“Alright!” Yuffie hops and spins around on a foot as if doing her victory pose. “Now with that one down, next up, the prizes at Battle Square! There’s gotta be some killer materia they’re keeping there too! I just know it!”
“Yuffie, didn’t you hear? They’re closed for cleanup and maintenance,” Sonon reminds her.
She stops still on one foot and catches herself before she loses balance. “What? They’re still not done!? What’s taking them so long?”
He shrugs. “Sounds like the incident with the monster being released is still being sorted out.”
“Oh, come on! What’s a girl gotta do to get her materia!?” she fumes. “Don’t tell me we gotta get Ruby to raid their wares for real!”
“No one’s doing any raiding,” Cloud asserts firmly. “I’m gonna head there to see a kid named Chadley. He’s been doing research on materia development, so-”
She jabs a finger in his face. “Say no more! What’s he look like?”
Cloud side-steps her finger and answers with a rough demonstration, “He’s about this high, got short silver hair, and probably has a lab coat or some kind of high-tech gadgets on him. Either way, he should stand out.”
She throws a triumphant fist in the air. “On it! Let’s go, Sonon!”
“Wait, what? What are we doing?” he asks.
“Keep up, slowpoke! Like I said, we’ll swipe all the rare materia from this place one way or another!”
Taking no further objections, Yuffie rushes out the door with Sonon quick to tail. Cloud watches them go looking even more exhausted and turns back to the other ladies.
“Oh, yeah, one other thing. After this, I’ll also stop by Event Square. Sounds like some ‘VIP’ wants to see me too.”
“Oh? Look at you! Won a few races and now you’re a big star!” Aerith teases.
“It… really is like that, I guess,” he admits with a bit of a sweat drop.
She giggles. “Then, that means we’ll be tagging along!”
“Huh?”
“What? You think you’re heading up to meet this mysterious person by yourself? Of course we’re coming, aren’t we, girls?”
“Oh. We are?” Tifa asks, genuinely surprised. “Alright.”
Jessie smirks. “Sure. Would be nice to get to know the bigwigs now that Cloud’s hit the big leagues.”
He groans. “Please stop. I’ve had enough of the stardom as is…”
The ladies all laugh. “Event Square, huh?” Aerith asks the other two, “Let’s see, which one was that again?”
“It’s the one on the top floor, the venue where they put on all sorts of shows and stuff,” Jessie quickly explains.
“Oh, right! Okay!” She turns back to Cloud. “Then, when you’re ready and all, meet you up there, okay? Don’t keep us waiting!”
“Sure.”
With that settled, he takes off after Yuffie and Sonon for Battle Square yet again. When he gets there, though, he finds Yuffie arguing with the guards who seem to be just as stubborn as she is, much to Sonon’s dismay.
“What the heck! You guys let in Ruby, but not us? We’re friends of hers too!”
“Yeah, yeah. Like all the other fans say. We weren’t born yesterday,” one of the guards retorts.
“Oh, I’ll make sure you wish you were…” she mumbles, throwing threatening jabs his way, but Sonon quickly steps in to deescalate the situation.
“Sorry, guys, but she is telling the truth. We were among the people who came here with her,” he explains in a much calmer tone. “The cameras at the entrance should have picked us up.”
And yet, the guard remains unconvinced. “Yeah, so? We get lots of visitors coming in all the time! You coulda slipped in by coincidence for all we know.”
His partner adds, a bit more calmly, “The square is still closed. Unless you got permission from Mr. Dio or his secretary, it’s off limits. Though, Ruby is a favorite of his, so she might have a say…”
“Too bad she isn’t here.” The first guard then suggests with a scoff, “Or, what? You got a signed letter of approval from her?”
“Oh, shove it!” Yuffie argues, “You guys got cameras up the wazoo! You shoulda seen us chatting with each other at some point or another! It’s so obvious that we’re together!”
“Yeah… and some other cameras also showed us a kid like you going around harassing the staff earlier.”
“W-what!? Come on! It was just a friendly dispute!” she complains. “Sonon, back me up here!”
He opens his mouth, but then says, “Yeah… They got you there.”
“Sonon!”
Cloud has seen enough. He hurries up the stairs to catch up. “Hey. Don’t worry about them, they’re with me.”
“Hm? Oh, it’s you again.” The stubborn guard finally backs off and plays it cool. “Sheesh. You people just love to stir up commotion, don’t you?”
He ignores that. “I’m here to see someone named Chadley. Have you seen him?”
“Oh, you mean that weird kid? Yeah. He was meeting with the boss and then that girl Ruby flew in here too. Seems like she had a mission, though, so she’s already gone.”
Cloud catches on, recalling Cait’s message, and grows a bit concerned. He tries asking, “You know where that mission was for?”
He shrugs. “Who knows? It’s not our job to eavesdrop.”
His partner then brings up, “But it’s not like we didn’t hear them.”
“Shh!” he snaps back. “Don’t tell them that! It’s not our business anyway.”
Cloud frowns, unamused. “Then I’ll just ask the kid myself. Move.”
“Sheesh. He takes one ride with Ruby and now they all think they’re VIPs…” the guard mutters, but the two oblige and let him on through. And as Cloud heads in, so does Sonon, with Yuffie blowing raspberries in their faces before she follows them too.
As the guards stated, the square is still closed off from the public, so there aren’t too many people still around. By now, the scene has been completely cleared of any signs of disaster and even the floors have been scrubbed squeaky clean. The coliseum entrance is still cordoned off by police tape, but there don’t seem to be any police on post anymore, aside from the two guards at the entrance. And then, there’s Chadley, who’s been waiting near the empty prize counter. He seems to be busy watching some feed on a holographic screen displayed from a strange device in hand.
“Chadley?” Cloud calls to him.
“Oh!” He looks up and waves a hand. “Cloud! Good to see you again!”
Cloud blinks as he takes note of the outdoors outfit that the boy has on now, but decides not to comment. “I actually heard from Esther that you were here to meet Dio.”
“That would be correct! Mr. Dio and I have known each other for quite some time, you see. I was paying an old friend a visit and to ask him about Ruby. I had a favor to ask of her too.”
“Speaking of her, she passed by earlier, right?”
“Yes, she did! We discussed a few plans about helping me gather intel through survey missions and Mr. Dio suggested the Northern Cave in the crater far to the north.”
As soon as he mentions it, Cloud becomes disturbed. “What?”
“I believe it’s one of the least explored areas of the world, as even intel from Shinra on the location is sparse.” He gives a light tap to the scouter over his eye as he calls up the records. “But according to initial reports, it is a place that is incredibly rich and bountiful with mako, or rather, the Lifestream as it’s properly named. However, as a result of all that free-flowing energy, it has warped the regions’ wildlife into terribly strong fiends quite unlike any that would be found elsewhere.” He now dismisses the screen. “Fortunately, with someone of Ruby’s caliber, they ought to be of little issue. I believe she left with a friend as well, the one you all know as Red XIII.”
He mutters to himself in disbelief, “Why would she agree to go there of all places? She knows how dangerous it is…”
Chadley makes an innocent inquiry, “Hm? Is something the matter, Cloud? You seem a bit distressed to hear about this location.”
“She once told me about it, that it was one of the only real-world gateways directly into the planet’s core. But it’s not safe, not even for her… especially not with him around.”
He blinks in surprise. “I’m sorry, but who are you referring to?”
Cloud looks a bit hesitant to admit it, but decides to tell, “…A man named Sephiroth.”
“Sephiroth?” With another tap on the scouter, the boy recounts information ready in an instant. “The top-class Soldier and general who led the invasion during the Midgar-Wutai War? If my information is correct, he was reported to have gone permanently MIA during a mission to a town called Nibelheim.”
Cloud nods. “Yeah. But he didn’t die. He’s just adrift somewhere in the Lifestream and has been biding his time. And for some reason, he’s been targeting Ruby, trying to manipulate her into doing his bidding and all.”
“Oh, dear.” Chadley dismisses that screen too. “If that’s the case, then perhaps we should call off this mission. I wouldn’t wish to put her or her friend in any danger.”
“Can you contact her? Tell them to come back.”
“Very well.” He opts for a different page this time and rings her up. After a quick tone dial, it picks up. “Ruby! Do you copy?”
“Ruby is currently preoccupied,” a different but familiar voice responds instead. “This is Red. I’m holding onto the module for her in the meantime.”
“Oh, hello, Red. Are you still with her?”
“Well, she’s within my sights at the very least,” he replies. “Unfortunately for the wild fiends in the area, she has done a thorough job in clearing them out.”
Cloud now speaks up, “Red, can you get her? Tell her to come back right away. Even if it’s just gathering intel, you two shouldn’t be out there.”
“Hmm. While I’m aware of the potential risks, it is one thing to inform her, but another thing to convince her. She seems adamant about searching for treasure.”
He growls impatiently. “Enough with the treasure hunts! She forced me to race chocobos until I reached the higher ranks just so she could have a Sneak Attack materia! She’d better come back to get that other Summon materia herself ’cause I’m not getting it for her!”
“Summon?” Red makes an amused look. “Well, she seems to have been distracted by a different one she discovered just a moment ago. She said that one was Neo Bahamut.”
Cloud honestly looks insulted. “Don’t tell me she forgot about it! Does she have the attention span of a goldfish!?”
“Which Summon is it that you’re looking for, by the way?”
“I… don’t actually know. The manager said it was recently discovered and its value wasn’t fully appraised yet, so they couldn’t give it away as a prize.”
Now that he mentions it, Chadley then pipes up again, “Oh, Cloud! Are you perhaps referring to the Summon materia on display in the Jockey’s Lounge?”
He nods back. “Ah, yeah. That was actually the thing I wanted to ask you about too.”
Chadley returns him a friendly smile. “Well, there’s good news! I’ve already reviewed the materia and identified it to be Unicorn, also known as the Sprinting Herald of Light! It’s a mysterious ancient entity that was so incredibly elusive that there are barely any records of it meeting with humans, but in every known instance, it is said to have been a friendly spirit that helped guide lost travelers with the light that shone from its brilliantly colored horn and would heal any of their ailments before sending them on their way.”
“Unicorn, huh… Not bad.” He folds his arms. “So you gonna have it appraised already so we can get it?”
“Haha! Well, I’d be happy to, but the development of this materia is still in the works. But if you’re interested, I can always set up a battle simulation for you and your friends to test it out in its alpha build?”
He looks tired just hearing about it again and passes some side-eye to his companions. “Maybe later. Even if I got it now, someone here would just swipe it for herself anyway.”
“But if you get it now, I won’t have to keep bothering you about it later…” Yuffie insists.
He ignores her and returns to Red on call, “Hey, Red. We’re pretty much done on our end, so tell her to hurry up. If she can’t get all the treasure then just cut your losses and get outta there. The last thing we need is for her to run off somewhere again.”
“Understood. I’ll let her know…” But then Red’s voice drifts off as he scans the perimeter. “Hm? Ruby, wait! Where are you going? Slow down!”
“…”
And with that, the call is terminated as Red gives chase to her and Cloud gets a familiar sinking feeling in his gut. Why is it that whenever he fears some outcome, it ends up coming to pass? Ruby, for the love of Holy, you’d better not get yourself lost again, or worse, run into someone you shouldn’t.
“Anyway, I gotta go. Said I’d meet up with Aerith and the girls at Event Square.”
“Ah, sure! If you ever need me for anything, don’t hesitate to ask! I’ll be traveling around myself, but I’ll always just be a call away.”
“Uh, you have my number?”
“Oh, no, I don’t mean that. I left a certain module with Ruby, so she’ll be able to keep in contact. Though, perhaps I could have your number? I think it would be more convenient for us both moving forward.”
While at first he was about to deny him, the realization that they are already on thin ice when it comes to keeping in contact with her brings on an uncomfortable chill. With a hesitant frown, he whips out his PHS and hands it over to him.
In what seems like an instant, he logs into their private network through the power of materia resonance and returns the phone. “Thanks, Cloud! And don’t worry, I won’t be sharing it with anyone else. It took me long enough to escape the Shinra network and I don’t have any plans to go back!”
“Yeah, yeah… This is just so far that we have an alternative when it comes to contacting her.” He sighs. “For someone who can warp back to us at any time, she sure is a pain to keep track of.”
Nevertheless, he doesn’t have the time to hang around waiting on her; he did promise those three that he’d meet them up there. With a quick wave of his hand to say goodbye, he takes his leave with Sonon, who has to tug Yuffie along by the arm, as she’s still annoyed that they’d have to leave empty-handed for now.
~
Later up at Event Square, they do indeed find Aerith and the girls seated near the front row in the open-air auditorium. But it seems like there is already a show on the stage, though it may just be rehearsal as the seating area is mostly empty at this time. The ladies have their eyes glued to the drama as Cloud, Yuffie, and Sonon arrive and remain in the back to watch from afar.
On the stage is a pivotal scene of the play: two warriors in warring regalia, of opposing forces of the east and the west, face off in a decisive battle in this long-drawn war. At this late hour, the fearsome fighting has slowed to a crawl. The two are weary and heavy from their exhaustively prolonged brawl. However, the warrior from the east then raises his blade and intends to strike the final blow, as the warrior of the west is too battered to lift his own.
“Stop!” cries the voice of a young maiden across the battlefield.
The two men freeze still and turn to see this beautiful maiden rush in-between them. She throws herself upon the man now down on his knees in a hopeless embrace and pleads with the other that looms over them.
“Prince Ralse, I beg of you! Please spare Draco’s life! If it will sway you, I will go with you.”
The looming warrior lowers his blade. “Maria…”
The man on the ground gasps in horror. “Maria! Please… Run away! You shouldn’t be here.”
She takes him by the hand with pleading eyes. “Draco, my love, I cannot abandon you! No matter what, you must live on! Even if it means we cannot be together…”
“Maria…” He lowers his head in shame. “I am sorry. I have failed you…”
“No, Draco. You have never failed me. For however far we part, no distance will there be in my heart.”
“Maria! Oh, Maria!” he exclaims tearfully.
The other man who stands triumphant with a stern harrumph. “How pathetic you have become, Draco. To have the lovely Maria intercept and beg to spare your life… The Western horde truly has fallen.”
“Curse you, Ralse! Curse you and the empire of the East! Though you may have claimed victory this round, this will not be the last that you will see of us! Cross my heart and hope to die! Someday, I will return for Maria!”
Ralse lets out a thundering laugh. “Then, so be it! Run away with your lives with what little scraps that remain! But should you dare to step forth upon the Eastern front once more, then I shall see to it that not even scraps of you will be spoken of in tales to come!”
“Laugh now, for it will be the last day you will laugh, fiend!” Draco then turns back to Maria and solemnly swears, “Maria, do not fear! So long that I still have life in these bones, this war is not over! One day, some day, I promise you… I will return to your side. Until then, please wait for me, my love.”
“Draco… Oh, Draco…” she sobs. “I only wish you to live on, but if you are willing and able, please, do come for me. I will wait however long it takes!”
The lights then begin to fade as the scene comes to a close. The narrator’s voice speaks up to relay the tragic events thus far.
“And as the first act draws to a close, our two star-crossed lovers must be made to part. Maria agrees to go with Prince Ralse to take his hand in marriage, in exchange for him to spare her lover’s life. But on his near dying breath, the Hero of the West Draco swears that he will return someday to bring revenge upon the eastern empire and rescue his beloved.”
By now, Aerith has been reduced nearly to tears and clings to Tifa beside her, who offers some comforting pats. Jessie sits beside Tifa with a sigh, but she sighs out of a feeling of romance and is rather impressed by the talent of the actors.
“But with the forces of the West so thoroughly depleted, it would truly take a miracle even for Draco to make his grand return. The empire of the East is much too powerful; its armies too great in number, its leader too fearsome yet crafty to be goaded into error! It truly seems such a declaration of his return is a tall order…”
Aerith blows loudly into a tissue paper. Tifa sets a hand to her face with a look of condolence. And Jessie, who is more familiar with this tale, waits anxiously for the awaiting twist of fate.
“However, hope is not lost! For the next act to follow is one of resilience and renewed resolve. The hero Draco shall make his sweeping return in an unexpected manner that the eastern empire would least expect…”
Now all three ladies keep their eyes pealed in anticipation. And as a total surprise that even Jessie couldn’t expect, the narrator throws out a sudden curveball.
“For a new face of the great hero would grace our stage instead!”
They’re completely caught off-guard as the spotlight on stage then swings off from the stage to shine upon Cloud, who had just been quietly walking down the steps to catch up with the ladies. He freezes up when he realizes he can’t be sneaky anymore. Yuffie and Sonon managed to hop out of the way in time, but too little too late, as they’ve been noticed as well.
“A most excellently timed arrival, indeed! Welcome to the Event Square, O great hero!”
“What…?” he mutters with a look of dread.
“Cloud, there you are!” Aerith calls, slapping the empty seat beside her. “You’re just in time! Come sit with us!”
“Hey, Cloud!” Tifa follows suit with a smile. “And Yuffie and Sonon too! Haha. I didn’t even notice they were already here.”
He stares at them. “What are you guys doing?”
“Watching the rehearsal for the play tonight!”
“They were just offering a preview, but it’s so good so far!” Aerith echoes with a big grin.
“Yeah! They’re adapting an old classic of opera this time. Even the theater buff in me is impressed,” Jessie adds.
“An opera…?” To be perfectly honest, Cloud doesn’t feel very interested just from hearing that word.
She also makes a curious look and wonders aloud, “But they also mentioned there’s gonna be some sort of special twist? I’ve seen this play before and everything seems one-to-one so far.”
Tifa suggests, “Maybe it’s something to do with what the narrator said about a ‘new face’?”
Jessie blinks twice as she realizes something. “Wait, you don’t think…?”
As if to answer their questions, the lights on stage then brighten up again as the actors and actress on stage take a bow and excuse themselves. Instead, another man – elegantly dressed in a dazzling wavy pattern of golden glitter and muted brown in a single-piece suit – takes the stage instead. He takes a bow for his audience and raises an arm forward toward Cloud in the back, with a charming smile that could win over the hearts of men and women alike.
“Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. It is a pleasure to finally meet you all in person. I’ve heard a great deal about the recent tragedy and how you all were mistakenly blamed for a mess that was not your doing.”
That catches Cloud’s attention right away. “He’s heard about that? Who is this guy?”
The man’s eyes seem to twinkle with delight as he turns his way again. “As it happens, the VIP who specifically requested to meet you.”
“Oh!” Aerith claps. “So you’re the special person!”
He nods back and sets a hand upon his chest as he now formally introduces himself. “My name is Andrea Rodea, owner and proprietor of the Honey Bee Inn of Wall Market in Midgar.”
Tifa is a little taken aback. “Wall Market?”
“Yes. But from time to time, my ventures take me and my lovable troupe out of the city to other places around the world. The Gold Saucer is a regular stop for us, you see.”
Jessie puts a hand to her chin. “Ah, I get it. Makes sense that the VIP of Event Square would be this guy.”
Now that he recalls too, Sonon nods as well. “Oh. I think I heard about this guy before.”
Yuffie blinks too, but more in shock at him. “You ‘heard’ about him?”
“Yeah. I did scout around Wall Market for a while, you know. Seems like the owner of that inn was some kind of bigshot even out of town.”
“Uh-huh…” She frowns, giving him a suspicious eye. “And what kind of inn are we talking here? Especially that it’d be in a place like that?”
He blinks, at first not catching onto what she means to ask. “It’s a fancy kind, like a cabaret, if you know…” Then, as Yuffie stares him down, he realizes the implications and gets flustered. “…H-hey! It’s not like that! I was just scouting the area for info, honest! I didn’t go in there!”
She pokes an accusatory finger in his face. “Ah-ha! I knew you were up to something ‘adult’! Even if you didn’t drink, you totally wandered by to catch a peek of the women there, didn’t you!?”
“No! What kind of person do you think I am!”
“I know for a fact that you’re of that age and single!”
He slumps in defeat. “Oh, come on…”
Andrea chuckles, clearly amused at the interactions of this colorful crew. “Well, while my reputation does precede me, I’m pleased to hear that some of you are familiar with me! Our meeting tonight is truly the prime opportunity for all of us!”
“Prime opportunity?” Cloud asks further. “For what?”
“You see, as of late, our troupe has run into a bit of a conundrum. A few of our best performers have run into some issues and were unable to attend the event. We have made do with replacements, but there is still something that I believe is missing.”
“Missing…?”
Aerith looks confused too. “Really? But it’s been so good so far!”
“Yes, we certainly aren’t lacking in available talent…” He then shakes his head. “However, in the end, we are still short a few members and it would make our performance suffer a bit should we be forced to reuse actors.”
“Ah. Yeah, that does sound like a problem,” Tifa agrees.
“Wait a second. But the stage play is still going to air, right?” Jessie asks again. “How will you manage if you’re short on people?”
To which, Andrea returns to his charismatic smile and proudly announces, “Not to worry! We have arranged a backup plan to address it!” He raises his arms up into the air as if summoning the spotlights to shine once more and this time they all fly out toward the seats where the rest of them are standing or seated. “Just this once, as a special exception for tonight, we invite you all to participate on stage with us!”
“W-what!?” Aerith squeaks in a mix of shock and delight.
“Huh?” Cloud asks, his jaw dropping in disbelief.
“All of us…?” Tifa asks nervously.
“Uh… even me?” Sonon asks likewise, pointing to himself.
“What the heck!?” Yuffie exclaims. “I can get wanting me, but even this dork!? He can barely lie with a straight face and you expect him to act?”
“…” He gives her an annoyed frown, but knows well not to get into a petty argument like this.
To which, the man on stage laughs with amusement. “Now, there’s no need to fret! This is all on a volunteer basis. If you have no intention to participate, the exit is still open to you.” He then smiles with that same twinkle in his eyes. “However, if you do wish to join us, we will gladly welcome you with open arms. And rest assured, no prior acting experience will be required. Our staff are always ready to accommodate newcomers.”
“Wow!” Aerith squeals excitedly. “I’ve never been invited to perform in a real play before!”
Cloud gives her some side-eye. “Never, huh?”
“Oh. Um, no offense to the troupe we met in Wutai! They were really good too, but our roles were so short that it didn’t feel like we were participating in much.” She also pouts, “Not to mention, at the end there, it was ruined thanks to the kind of audience we had.”
He turns off with a nod in agreement. “That’s fair. Never again… thankfully never.”
“Speaking of which,” Aerith then resumes her smile and continues, “If we’re all invited to participate, then there’s no way we’re leaving her out, right?”
“Huh? Her?”
She giggles and turns toward Tifa and Jessie. “Right, girls?”
Tifa and Jessie exchange amused looks as they’re reminded of some secret plans they’ve been making and nod back. “Right!” Tifa answers.
Jessie snickers. “Things just wouldn’t be the same without her, after all.”
Cloud looks around them all, completely lost. “Who are you guys talking about?”
“Ruby, of course!” Aerith finally answers him with a silly grin. “Who else? She’s the MVP of our party and I bet she’ll make a beautiful heroine for this play!”
“Uh…” But try as he might, he doesn’t see it. Ruby? That rude, bratty punk who never acts her age unless she’s forced into a corner? Whatever theater troupe that dares to work with her must be pretty patient.
Tifa gives him a disappointed stare. “Cloud, don’t be like that. Ruby has her oddities, sure, but she definitely tries when she puts her mind to it.”
“Yeah! I’m sure acting on a stage is no problem! She’s constantly hogging the spotlight whenever we’re all gathered anyway!” Jessie laughs along.
Aerith giggles even more. “And I also know who will make the perfect hero for her…”
All three ladies now turn their eyes toward him, and he gets pretty uncomfortable to be put on the spot.
“…I don’t have a say in this, do I?” he groans.
“What’s the shame, Cloud? If anything, you should be grateful!” Aerith gives him an assuring pat on the back that actually just worsens his cringing.
“The problem is that it’s Ruby we’re talking here…”
Jessie bursts out a laugh. “What’s wrong, Cloud? Can’t handle a little more chaperoning? At least this time, you don’t have to be the one to tell her what to do.”
“…”
While Cloud continues to sink into some kind of pit of embarrassment and shame, Sonon watches him with a sympathetic eye but shakes his head. He puts his hand to his shoulder and tries to reassure him, “Well, at least that way you’ll definitely be able to keep an eye on her.”
“…Not the way I’d want to, but sure.”
And at that moment, Yuffie scoffs back, but not directed to Cloud. “Speak for yourself, Sonon. You’re gonna be part of this too.”
He snaps right back to her. “Huh? What? What are you talking about?”
She then makes a mischievous grin. “Don’t play dumb! I’ve seen how you look at Ruby sometimes. And look how long you’ve been in her care! I don’t see anyone else on our crew that has gotten the nursing she’s given you!”
He stares back in utter shock and even his jaw drops. “Yuffie, come on. Don’t go there.”
“What?” she says rather demandingly, “You know it’s the truth!”
“It’s not like that!” he desperately begs. “There were just the dire circumstances I was in! I mean, I’m really grateful to her for all her help and really respect her, but we’re not… I mean, she’s never even shown me anything like…” But by the end, he realizes the futility of trying to reason his way out when Yuffie’s giving him that evil-looking grin.
“Too late, Sonon! I’ve decided that you’re gonna be a part of the play, and you can even play the evil rival!”
“Why do I have to be the ‘evil’ one!?”
“Because Cloud’s gonna be the lead! Duh. Or would you rather be the lead, Romeo?”
He buries his face in his hands and goes silent in defeat. This time, Cloud offers a sympathetic hand to his shoulder. Just like that, things have been decided even without either of them getting their say in it. Ruby isn’t even here yet and it still happens.
Aerith looks around the satisfied – or otherwise – faces of their gang and announces as if confirming it, “Welp! Looks like that’s all settled.”
Tifa chuckles too. “Yeah, no questions there. Guess that leaves us as the extras, then.”
Jessie makes a beaming grin. “Yeah. It’s too bad that I didn’t get that lead role, but heck, this is way better! And by ‘better’, I mean funnier! Can’t wait to see what how this opera will turn out, hahaha!” She also whips out her phone. “Oh, gosh! Biggs and Wedge have got to hear about this. Heck, let’s bring Barret and Marlene and Aerith’s mom along too! I’m sure they’d love it!”
“Ooh! Great idea!” Aerith jumps in, pointing her way with a big smile. “And let’s make it a surprise! I can’t wait to see their faces when they realize it’s us!”
Tifa passes a quick glance Cloud’s way and smiles to herself. “Well, this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, but I guess ‘Operation Purple’ is a-go!”
She winks to that. “Ooh, you got that right!”
Likewise pleased to hear them reach a consensus, Andrea then nods and asks them, “Speaking of Miss Ruby, I was hoping to arrange a meeting with her as well. She’s made quite a name for herself around these parts since our dear owner took a fancy to her. Where has she gone, by the way?”
Aerith taps her chin lightly. “You know, we’re not sure. I think one of our guys said she left on an expedition?”
Cloud cringes again upon being reminded. “She left with Red to stop by the crater up north. Sounds like they went treasure hunting.”
That alarming detail doesn’t slip by Tifa. Her eyes grow wide. “Wait. Did you say that ‘crater’? But Cloud, that place is…”
He nods. “I know. So I told her – well, told Red to tell her – to come back ASAP. Hopefully they haven’t been out there long enough to get into any trouble.”
She still looks a little concerned, but agrees. “Right. Well, knowing her, she’d just be able to hop back here anytime.”
Aerith giggles. “Aw, don’t worry, guys! As soon as she’s back, we can ask her to join us!” She then blinks as she realizes, “Or, why don’t we just call her? I’ll ring Cloud’s phone so she can hear.”
He shakes his head with a sigh. “We really need a better way to keep in contact with her.” He also brings up, “By the way, I shared my number with Chadley. He said he gave her some kind of module that allows him to contact her, so while it’s not a direct line with her, it’s better than what we’ve been doing.”
And just as he mentions as much, he too hears his phone ring. He answers it, and as it happens, it’s from the boy in question. However, his tone of voice seems a bit on the serious side.
“Cloud! Sorry to bother you, but it’s an urgent matter!”
“Chadley? What’s up?”
“It’s about Ruby. I believe she and Red have just returned from their expedition. They’re in the lobby now and I’m headed there to meet them. You should hurry too.”
“Oh, sure.” He then frowns. “But what’s the hurry?”
“Come down here and I can explain.”
And with that, Chadley quickly hangs up, leaving Cloud quite perplexed and frankly concerned.
“What’s wrong, Cloud?” Aerith asks. “Something happened with Chadley?”
“Not him, but with Ruby, I think.”
“Ruby?”
As soon as he says her name, Tifa gets worried again. “What happened? Is she okay?”
“I think so? Chadley said she just returned, but there might be something bothering him…”
She nods with a determined frown. “Then we should go see her right away.”
“I’ll come with!” Aerith agrees.
“Should we go too?” Sonon asks them before they go.
Cloud shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it. It ought to be fine. We’re just checking in on her.” That said, even though he said so, there’s just a tinge of uncertainty in the back of his mind that is starting to grind on him. He earnestly hopes that any fears that came up earlier are unfounded.
~
As Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith hurry on down to the lobby, they do find Chadley down here waiting for them, but it’s just Red with him. Ruby may have been here earlier, but isn’t anymore. Both Chadley and Red seem rather down about something too.
“Chadley! We’re here,” Cloud lets him know as they hurry on over.
Aerith looks glad to see one of the returned. “Red! But where’s Ruby?” she asks, looking around.
Red answers plainly, “She said she would return to the hotel and turn in early. She wishes to be left alone, though.”
“Alone? Ruby?”
Cloud asks him, feeling a little suspicious, “What happened? She was doing just fine earlier, but all of a sudden she’s ready to go to bed?”
“Is she okay?” Tifa follows suit, but more worried. “She didn’t get hurt somehow, did she?”
Red shakes his head. “There were no physical wounds that I could tell at a glance.” He then hangs his head as if ashamed. “Her emotional wounds, however…”
Chadley also helps explain, “It’s the strangest phenomenon. For most of the expedition, I was able to communicate with her and Red with little issue. Ruby later passed the module I gave her to Red to hold onto while she went off hunting monsters. However…” He makes a discouraged frown. “At some point, we seemed to lose track of her for a little while.”
Cloud snaps into alarm. “You lost her?”
“I’m not sure exactly what happened, but Red said that she suddenly ran off on her own through the caves, almost as if she were pursuing something. Unfortunately, they also happened upon one of the most turbulent areas of the Whirlwind Maze, where its titular whirlwinds were too extreme to be able to survey the area properly.”
Red sighs. “I’m sorry. It was just a brief moment that I had taken my eyes off her. Unfortunately, the winds were too strong and I was ambushed by some wild fiends that distracted me. By the time I dealt with them and the winds settled back down, I found Ruby lying on the ground.”
“What?” Tifa mumbles, growing fearful.
“She didn’t look wounded, but something had happened to her that made her pass out. She woke up shortly, but it was clear that she had met with something terrible. Perhaps an unwelcome vision.”
“Another vision…” Cloud mutters, clenching his fist in frustration.
“What was it about?” Aerith asks apprehensively.
He shakes his head. “I don’t know. She won’t tell me.”
Aerith hangs her head and brings her hands together in a silent prayer.
“But how did it even happen?” Tifa asks further. “Did she actually run into… Sephiroth, or anything like him?”
Red shakes his head again. “I didn’t see him or catch any scent of anyone else, but to be fair, it was difficult to see anything while the winds were still up. And given how close to the mako springs we had come, it was just as difficult to pick up a scent. There were massive crevices in that area of the caves that opened up to some very deep pockets of Lifestream. I can only guess that if Ruby had another vision, it may have been due to the proximity.”
Cloud swears under his breath. Of all the things that could have happened, this possibility which should have been so obvious from the get-go somehow managed to slip all their minds. Whether or not Sephiroth had anything to do with it is also not out of the question either. All in all, it was just a bad combination of things that Ruby should never have gotten involved in. If only he had been there with them too, maybe he could have… No, it probably wouldn’t have mattered. Red said the conditions were difficult even for him to keep track of her. What luck would he have had to reach her in time?
With this heavy atmosphere of guilt settling in, everyone has fallen silent as if deep in contemplation over how to approach this matter. However, when faced with a big problem, Aerith always resolves to think positively and face it with some kind of solution. She gathers the attention of the rest by speaking up.
“…Guys? Ever since we arrived at the Gold Saucer, Ruby’s just been so busy and hasn’t had the time to relax. Of course, we all care and want to help her, but we also haven’t been doing much for her. We should change that.”
Tifa sighs. “Yeah… We were all saying that we wanted to bring her along to have fun; go shopping and explore the restaurants and all that. But in the end, she just had more and more work pile on and didn’t even have time to hang out.”
Cloud follows up, just as gloomily, “Even while she was joking and messing around, she was always thinking about our battle plans for the future too.” He shakes his head. “We left too much up to her. Even when I tried to ask her for more info, her answers usually came down to what she could do for us, not what we could do for her.”
Aerith nods along, but then insists, “So, that’s what we have to do now. We need to be there for her and show her what we can do.”
“Well, yeah. That was the plan from the get-go. But what can we do when she doesn’t want or take our support? She’s still having trouble opening up, even with me…”
She returns him a sweet, almost innocent smile. “We keep insisting until she has to take it!”
“Huh?”
“Um…” Even Tifa is a little lost. “Aerith, are you sure that would help? It seems wrong to force ourselves onto her.”
“No, it’s not forcing ourselves onto her, but giving her a firm reminder that she does have a choice. Even when she feels like she’s alone, she doesn’t have to be. We can say it all we like that we’re for her and all, but it doesn’t matter if we don’t also act on it.” She turns to Red as well as she continues, “While I don’t really know what she might have seen, I’m sure that whatever it was reawakened her worst fears. I have a good feeling that it has to do with our safety in the coming future.”
Red recalls the moment of silence while Ruby wept on his shoulder and nods back in understanding. “That sounds the most plausible, agreed.”
“In that case, we have to reassure her that we are safe and, more importantly, can keep her safe too.” She now turns back to Cloud with a little inspired glint in her eyes. “And I think we can do that with a little help from Cloud.”
“Huh?” He raises an eyebrow. “What do you mean? What am I supposed to do?”
Rather than answer him right away, she also turns to Tifa with that same excited look. “Tifa, remember what we planned? About ‘Operation Purple’…”
Tifa blinks back, looks to Cloud and blinks again, and looks back to Aerith with a similar glint appearing in her eyes. She then brings her hands together in a hopeful prayer kind of pose. “…Oh. Oh, so that’s what you mean.”
Cloud stares at them both. “What is with you guys? What’s this ‘Operation Purple’ stuff?”
Now, both of the ladies are back to smiling. They turn back to him and Aerith announces, “Cloud, we have a lot to discuss. Let’s head by the hotel too.”
“To see Ruby?”
“No, not yet. You need to be briefed first about your mission, after all!”
“Uh…”
Tifa nods too. “Don’t worry, Cloud. It’s pretty easy, but you have to be sure you say the right thing, okay?”
“…” Now he’s even more confused and turns back to Red and Chadley, who likewise are just as lost as he is.
In any case, Chadley returns to smiling as well. “Well, it seems like you all have some plans to help Ruby. I’ll leave you to it, and I wish her the best and a swift recovery! I’ll be around for as long as you may require assistance, so feel free to ask me any time.”
Aerith nods back. “Thanks, Chadley. We’ll take it from here.” She also turns to Red. “Oh, and you can come with us too, Red.”
He raises an eyebrow, but wags his tail as if delighted. “If you insist.”
And with that, Aerith and Tifa tug Cloud along by the arms with Red in tow, and they all head right for the hotel in Ghost Square.
Notes:
This chapter is but the initial preview of the play, but yes, to all my fellow FF6 fans out there, I bid you good tidings.
A little bit of trivia this time
- I don't know if the title "Golden Feather" is anywhere part of the official canon or sources, but I always thought it'd be a nice name for an achievement, like after racing chocobos for long enough. If it's not in Rebirth or the third Remake game, it's not a big deal, but then I have to wonder why NO ONE at Square's Div I would have thought of it! It's a solid idea!
- Another case of me bringing in Summons from other games: this time it's Unicorn! Of course, from what I recall Unicorn tends to be a late-game kind of summon, so introducing it into the party's collection now would a bit early. But boy, do I have things planned for him down the line!
- Andrea is back, baby! One of my fave characters from Remake and I'm glad to see him again in Rebirth! (As the posting of this chapter, I haven't reached the Gold Saucer part of the game yet, but I do remember seeing him there from the trailers.) But I respect that the Rebirth team is going for something related to Loveless; but in the case of my fic, I'm going for a slightly different theme given the dual MCs here, so FF6 reference it shall be!
- I honestly didn't see the potential for the Sonon/Ruby ship until this very scene where I wrote about Yuffie teasing him and now that I have, I can't unsee it. Help. Why do I keep drawing new ships for her?
- Hahaha, "Operation Purple". It was just a passing fancy one day and then I decided it needed a name. I'm working on the next chapter, so stay tuned to find out what it is!
Chapter 57: A Night to Remember
Notes:
I apologize in advance to everyone who expected a condensed version of the FF6 opera. I went a little ham on it and it somehow turned into this whole 5 act play with metacommentary strewn throughout. Plus improv. Lots of improv. And original story. I didn't have to, but I wanted to bring everyone in.
See more details in the notes at the end.
Outdated A/N + health notice
4/16/24 edit: Apologies for the delay. From my previous hospital visit, I was diagnosed with endometriosis, but was perfectly functional for the rest of the year since. That is, I was until just this past weekend when I suffered a painful spasm attack that left me crippled and fatigued for several days. Thankfully, the worst has passed and I have mostly recovered, so have gotten back to work on this. The next chapter ought to be avail by this Friday or Saturday, prob the latter, but at least I'll try for Friday.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The green winds howled. Heartbeats, resounding loudly from within the walls. Giant eyes peered down upon a lone young woman cloaked in white. A massive crystalline structure was buried within the depths of a complex, wirey, tree-like branches made of earth and stone. Within its rocky tendrils a single large crystal – larger than most that have sprouted around it – housed a lone entity, whose body is frozen as if trapped in an impenetrable ice. It was a bizarre creature of the highest degree, one not of this planet, and it sported a terrifying skull for a head and a slim, tentacle-limbed figure attached to a bulky, round body like that of the shell of a gastropod. In a way, one could even describe it as “mite-like” in shape, but “squid-like” in features and was much larger than most beasts.
The young woman climbed up toward the crystal suspended in the air and reaches out a hand toward the strange creature encased within. At first, she simply rested her hand against the surface, taking in the sight as it was provided. Then, with a faint whisper on her lips, the woman reached into the crystal, opening a hole as if running a hand through water, and she even touched the creature. In the next instant, an rowdy clamor of cries and screeches, scorching flames burning the lands to ash, and ten chromatic eyes gleaming from the darkness. Overwhelmed by the searing, splitting headache that ensues, she collapsed and sank into that darkness as well.
~
Ruby lies awake on bed in a room to herself at the Ghost Hotel. Though there is the dim lighting from the false moon glimpsing through the drapes from outside the window, it is entirely dark in here. Pale blue skin-like drapery as if made from the hides of beasts mask the flashes of Ghosts and Phantoms. The fiery red eyes of an angry-looking Bomb light up a little to reveal its sharp teeth, where an ash tray is set. Glowing yellow eyes of a Tonberry humidifier stare at the guest’s bed from the corner of the room. A nightstand by the bed where the emergency phone line sits is apparently propped up by an oddly balanced Cactuar that actually sways in a playful swing if someone reaches for it as if teasing any guests too fearful to stay long. And for some reason, a Marboro with its mouth agape looms overhead from the other corner… blowing a refreshing breeze instead as if it were the A/C unit. And yet, despite the residents’ best efforts to set up the spooky ambience, she remains completely detached. Her mind is haunted by far scarier things – like her own slow descent into insanity.
She knew that the Northern Crater would have been a tricky place to set foot in. She warned Cloud and them since the earliest days that it is the grounds where Sephiroth and Jenova have rooted themselves. She already knew all the signs were there even before seeing it for herself, and yet she dared to challenge it anyway. After all, she was sure that all she needed was a quick warp into the area for some easy endgame materia and items that could break all the rules up to this point. But no; she didn’t even come close. Even with all the gamer-mode level of denial she could muster, she couldn’t avoid the lore that was awaiting her. It was the first time she tread in that area, after all. Game-breaking sequences only happen if with the right conditions and she didn’t hit them all. Damn frame-perfect inputs.
It was freaky enough to see Jenova of all people being trapped in the crystal, but then she even had to see all her friends be brutally murdered by her psychopath son. Now, that alone wouldn’t have shaken her much. It’s not the first time she’s seen demented shit, having that much blood spilled, or even seeing these characters in some horroresque picture show. Hell, even that cute image she had of Minerva as a big, bad witch putting them all into a stew would have been scarier just by sheer concept. No, the problem showed up at the very end, oh-so briefly, when she realized she WAS that psychopath.
What the hell? She knows she’s made snarky jokes in the past about being an item with him, but never would she have expected becoming him. Was it supposed to be some kind of evil premonition of Sephiroth becoming “one with the planet” or something? To hell with it! How would they even fuse? What’s he gonna do, slurp up her soul like a bowl of udon??
Man, this sucks. She’s so miserable that even the biting sarcasm she always turns to isn’t helping. No point in denying any of it either. As much as she tries to tell herself to not care because the future is never truly set… well, actually she can’t even say that’s for sure. She’s lost her right to authorship. By Rubia’s own admission, she is a prisoner. But even worse is the growing fear that she may not even be the same person she thought she was.
Argh… She can’t sleep, but she also doesn’t want to get up. She can’t even play around on her phone because it doesn’t get service out here or anywhere on Gaia, really. How is it that she still has her phone? What use does it have other than its basic flashlight and camera functions at this point? It’s no PHS; it’s not connected to anything at all. She had Chadley’s module earlier, but passed it to Red before she retired to the hotel. So she’s just… alone, again. It keeps happening even when she doesn’t mean for it. And this time, she’s miserable even without Sephiroth being here to mock her… or comfort her in his own eerie way.
She lazily slides across the bed to reach the TV remote on the nightstand beside her. Through sheer boredom, she sits back up and flicks on the TV to see what’s interesting. Of course SSNet is on here, but she couldn’t care less about Rufus addressing concerns around Midgar right now. She switches through several channels in quick succession – a tourism one advertising the sights around Wonder Square, one viewing the ongoing chocobo races, one replaying old events that once aired in Event Square since the latest isn’t on yet, a kids channel featuring a squad of color-coded Moogles fighting a Behemoth warmech, a bunch of shopping channels, though the foodie one looks pretty tasty…
Wait, no, go back to the Moogles! Is this real!? Mighty Morphin’ Magic Moogles!! Holy shit! This is peak!
And yet, something has clearly died inside her because even the wonder of seeing these tiny Moogles take down a massive Behemoth warmech through the power of friendship that forms into their own warmech isn’t enough to cheer her up. It did at first, but then she’s reminded of her old life watching Americanized tokusatsu when she was young and once again slumps back into depression knowing that she won’t ever return to those days.
Well, enough of that. She clicks off the TV, tosses the remote back to its place, and throws herself back on bed with a hard whump. She’s just going to lie here awake and blank out for the next hour or so. That’ll show ’em, those bastards who think they can control her.
To her annoyance, she doesn’t even get silence over the next few minutes. A knocking on her door interrupts her moment of peace. She decides to ignore it, but then the knocking grows faster and more urgent. Still, she refuses to move.
“Hey… Ruby? It’s me. You alright?”
Oh, it’s Cloud. Somehow, she feels even less inclined to move. She specifically notified the receptionist that she was not to be disturbed, but clearly these guys ignored the memo.
“I know you wanted to be left alone, but something’s been bothering me. Just between us. Can we talk?”
Nope, still not moving.
“It’s good news, I promise! Hear me out for a bit… Please?”
As far as she’s concerned right now, no news is good news.
“Come on…” he groans. “Don’t leave me out here. It’s getting embarrassing…”
If she ignores him long enough, maybe he’ll go away.
“Ruby! Stop moping and open up! I’m stuck at your door until you do!”
She was going to keep ignoring him, but now that he mentions it, they won’t be leaving while she’s still here. Damn, can’t argue there. She heaves a heavy sigh and after another moment of hesitation, she slowly climbs back up and moves to fetch the door. Cloud clearly looks troubled by something, a little flustered, maybe even nervous. But he did agree, albeit reluctantly, to do this. With his thoughts collected and a sigh of his own, he looks at her in the eye and speaks.
“Hey. I’m not here to question you. You don’t have to tell us.” He folds his arms, looking genuinely concerned. “But the gang and I, we’ve all noticed that you’ve been pretty busy since we arrived. Aerith said we came here to have fun and you haven’t been a part of it yet. They’ve been waiting on you, you know.”
“…” Between all the misery around herself and the guilt she has from avoiding them, Ruby simply looks drained. She tries to answer, but when she opens her mouth, nothing comes out and she instead hangs her head in shame.
He drops his arms and returns to a more relaxed composure. “But I get it. You’re dealing with a lot right now and it’s hard to say everything outright. So…” He now puts a hand to his hip and offers his other hand forward. “If you got time now, how about we hang out? Just the two of us. Chill a little, take in the sights or something, up to you.”
Blinking in surprise, as she hadn’t expected this. And yet, she doesn’t feel happy – or sad, or angry, for that matter. She seems to be stuck in a prolonged state of apathy. So when she looks back up, she instead returns a dead-eyed stare as if she didn’t hear him. It’s a little unnerving and cuts deep into his attempt at keeping things casual.
“Um… Is that okay with you?” He shyly rubs his head. “I mean, if you don’t, I guess we can save it for another time…”
“…” Still, she doesn’t respond right away, but now casts a doleful glance away.
He’s looking more and more discouraged. “…Hey. At least say something or give me a sign.”
He says so with his usual cool tone, but it startles him a bit when he catches this pained expression on her face, looking like she’s ready to cry.
“Uh, Ruby? You okay?”
She turns back to him with her eyes again welling up with tears. And before he can realize it, she steps forward and falls right onto him, burying her face against his chest. She even wraps her arms around him tightly like she’s afraid to let go.
“…”
He freezes still, his heart beating fast, completely taken off-guard and unsure of what to do at this point. He wasn’t expecting this reaction at all. He figured he’d just check on her and keep things casual, maybe exchange some snarky remarks about how she’s been coo-coo from the start and leave it as a joke. But now seeing her this vulnerable with him immediately brings him back to their moment alone in that hidden basement somewhere in Wutai. Maybe it was just a fleeting moment at the time, a wild rush of emotions under extreme stress; but by now even he can’t deny it any longer. For the longest time, Ruby always treated him like a fun time to be around, and to be honest, he was perfectly fine with that. But whenever she’s suffering and totally lost, she doesn’t turn to Aerith first as he thought she would – but to him. It’s always been him.
He reaches his arms around her and returns the warm hug. “It’s okay. Take your time.”
They share another quiet moment standing in the doorway. He stares off in silent contemplation over how they’ve come to this. She rests her head against him, her pained expression calmed a little by the sound of his beating heart. And after she’s settled down again, she finally releases him and pulls away, wiping away any last traces of tears.
With a soft whisper, she admits, “…Sorry to be so forward. I just wanted to hear it… your beating heart.”
He stares back, feeling even more nervous now, and a faint blush gradually appears on his face. “Uh… S-sure. Glad to help.” He clears his throat and offers her a hand. “So, you doing okay now? Wanna hang out?”
“Just the two of us, huh…” She peeks another glance toward him. “Like a date?”
“Uh.” He blinks again, but nods back with a smile. “Yeah. We can call it that.”
“…” She makes just the slightest smirk to herself, but then stands back up straight and asks upfront, “Did Aerith put you up to this?”
He jolts so hard all of a sudden that he nearly jumps. “Huh?”
She shakes her head with a sigh, her suspicions basically confirmed. “You of all people, asking me on a date? I could see you doing that for Tifa or Aerith, but me…”
Rather than admit to anything, he grows defensive. “Wh… What are you talking about? After all the times you’ve forced me to hang out with you, now you’re blowing me off when I ask?”
She waves a hand in his face. “Oh, no, you’re not getting away with that. If we’re gonna talk, then you start it by being honest. What have you guys been up to? Is it just Aerith’s idea? Or maybe even Tifa’s? Who made you stand here like an idiot?”
After a tense staredown, he ends up ceding. With an awkward blush, he looks off and admits, “Both of them.”
She promptly slaps him in the face and he looks betrayed.
“Ow! What!?”
She then reaches over to give that spot on his cheek a comforting rub. “…Sorry, bad reflex.” She admits with a little blush of her own, “It’s not you. If anything, I feel like I’m responsible for this.”
“For what?”
“For getting in the way between you and Tifa. Or between you and Aerith, even. Feels like they both like me more.”
He snorts back, unimpressed at the level of petty that she’d worry about. “Don’t sweat it. I got over that really fast.” He then shakes his head. “Still don’t know why they pegged me to be your date, though.”
She makes a face as if she’s surprised too. “Yeah, I know. You’d make a terrible first impression.”
He fires back with an indignant glare. “Hey. You’re one to talk.”
“But I can guess why.” She now reveals a kind smile and even kinder words, “I may tease the hell out of you, but you’re actually very approachable. At first, all anyone sees are those rough, spiky edges of yours, but if they look deeper, they can see a kind soul who’s incredibly faithful to the people he cares about and willing to lend a hand to anyone despite his stone-cold merc persona. And those rough edges aren’t even bad. They give you a bit of that ‘Cloud’ charm, ya know?” She even lets out a chuckle. “I could go on, but you get the idea.”
He blinks, again taken aback by how cleanly she came with all the compliments. “…Thanks.” He also looks off shyly and adds more quietly, “You’re… not as annoying as I thought you were.”
She cracks open with a genuine laugh. “Coming from you, I think that’s high praise.”
“…”
She then leans in toward his face, startling him a bit, and then snuggles up against his neck like a happy cat. Yet again, he isn’t sure how to react. He’s even about to reach a hand over her head to pet her, but withdraws it at the last second as she pulls away again.
“Well, if Cuz and Tifa are pushing for it, I guess I shouldn’t disappoint my two favorite cheerleaders.” She nods, as if to reaffirm herself. “Okay. So, a date, huh…” She tilts her head. “I’ve never really understood ‘dating’ as a concept. Do people just hang out with each other long enough until they realize they’re in love?”
“Uh…” He shrugs. “You got me. I’ve never been in a relationship.”
She smacks him again in the face.
“Ow! Why!? Quit it!”
She holds onto her own hand with a genuinely apologetic frown. “Sorry, force of habit. My instincts kick in whenever someone denies my favorite ships.”
He rubs his sore cheek. “You lash out against the guy that you’re trying to ‘ship’?”
“Heh. Well, let’s just say that not that many people have that luxury to interact with the people in their ships.”
“…Sounds more like you just need a better outlet to vent.” He gives another sigh. “Well, that is why I’m here.”
She puts her hands behind her back and tilts her head with a cute smile. “So, Cloudy, where are we headed? Is the weather clear for tonight?”
He feels an angry twitch pop up. “No cheesy nicknames.” While she snickers to herself, he answers, “Well, it’s up to you. You wanted to stop by Wonder Square to check out the shops and restaurants, right? We can check out the rides too…” When reminded, he also adds, “Oh, yeah. Speaking of tonight, there’s a certain play that’s gonna be airing up at Event Square and by the sounds of it, they’ve invited us to star in it.”
Like a crack of lightning, she stops smiling immediately. “Excuse me? Star?”
“Yeah. The guy in charge picked us and then the girls basically picked our roles for us. Even Sonon’s gonna be in it.”
“Sonon??” She’s growing more and more disturbed. “What is he gonna do? What kind of play is this?”
“It’s a classic opera, according to Jessie. The hero and his rival are fighting wars over this girl they both like. To be honest, it sounds a bit sappy for my tastes, but at least it’s simple enough for anyone to get into.”
She sinks into a different kind of gloom. “Don’t tell me… Is Sonon going to be the rival?”
“Yeah. Yuffie made him do it.”
She swerves around and starts to head back for the bed. “Well, that was a nice, short date. Night.”
“Hey!” He chases her inside and snatches her by the arm. “We got roped into all this because of your ‘favorite cheerleaders’! Take responsibility!”
“Don’t blame me, I didn’t even know!” she cries, trying to tug her arm free. “And I’m not going on stage for a whole opera! Are you kidding me!? I can’t even do public speakinnng!” Her voice nearly strains at the end there.
His grip on her tightens and he yanks her back for the door. “Oh, quit whining! If we’re gonna be stuck in it, you’re not leaving us!”
She pouts, “Sheesh. Is there a problem that we can run into that doesn’t involve me taking charge for once?”
“If you’re gonna ‘take charge’, then come on! We’re going!”
Nevertheless, she doesn’t resist when he drags her back out of the room. She shuts the door behind them and lets him take her along as they descend down the stairs into the lobby. Once again, the various ghosts and ghouls that are on watch follow them as they head out the door, snickering and jeering and mumbling gossip amongst themselves. It's not the first time they’ve seen these two together, and it probably won’t be the last. Though, if they get any closer than they already have, maybe everyone should at least give them a bit of privacy.
But it’s not just the spooky peanut gallery who have been watching. Aerith and Tifa, along with Red who had been waiting with them, now poke their heads out from a neighboring room and step out as well. The two ladies watch the odd couple hurry on out with their eyes twinkling with delight and quiet giggles on their lips. They even share a high-ten together.
“Great job, us! Looks like Operation Purple is a smashing success!” Aerith cheers.
Tifa makes a proud smile. “Aerith, you really are a genius sometimes. Turned out to be a lot easier than I thought.”
She giggles back. “Thanks! Sometimes I surprise myself.”
Red passes an amused glance between them. “‘Operation Purple’, huh…” he muses aloud, “By any chance, did you name it based on the color of their eyes?”
Aerith nods. “Yep! Their eyes both stand out when you look at them, don’t you think?”
He nods back and makes a sly smirk. “I see. How fitting for a couple that often meet eye to eye, albeit usually in a friendly rivalry to win everyone’s affection.”
“Heehee! That’s true too! It’s so cute when they compete.”
“What a pleasant way to help repair her heart.” He lets his tail sway gently as if wagging it. “Perhaps it’s not too late for those deep wounds to heal.”
Tifa nods back with her own smile. “Yeah. I think we can leave the rest to Cloud.”
“Yep. We can let them be.” Aerith then reminds them, “Say, I think we still have a bit of time before the show’s ready. Jessie already messaged Barret and them, so they ought to be heading up soon.”
“Right.” Tifa also recalls, “Oh. Andrea said the staff would be able to cover for us even if we don’t have much acting experience, but I don’t think it’d hurt if we stop by earlier, just to see what to expect.”
“Good idea!” She turns to Red too. “Hey, Red, you wanna come with?”
“Me?” He raises an eyebrow. “I don’t mind the company, but I don’t believe a ‘talking dog’ would have much place in a romantic opera.”
“Haha! Hey, who knows? Maybe they’ll be in need of a battle hound!”
“Battle hound?”
“Yeah! The story does start off in a war, after all.”
“Ah…” He nods. “Very well. If I can have an active role, then I’ll be happy to participate.”
“Yes!” she cheers. “Oh, yeah! Why don’t we invite Cait Sith and Moogle along too? Maybe he can be on the opposite side, hehe.” She pauses as she then realizes something and asks them, “By the way, do you guys know where they went? Feels like we haven’t seen them for a while.”
“Oh, um.” Tifa blinks and puts a hand to her chin. “The last we heard from Cait was on PHS when he mentioned where Ruby and Red went, but he didn’t say anything about himself.”
Red answers, “He told us he would stop by Battle Square later to see what he can do to help. He did say he’s well known around these parts, so they might have let him in as a special exception.”
Aerith makes a little disappointed frown. “Ah, that does make sense. But it’s too bad he’ll miss the show. I’m sure he would have loved it too.”
Tifa chuckles. “I think we all will. Since Ruby’s the heroine, I hear she’s going to be singing onstage.”
Aerith squeals with excitement. “That’s right! We have got to record this show! Let’s show it to Vincent and Cid when we get back to the ship!”
“Sure! If they’re interested.”
“Oh, I’m sure they will be!” She also says with an innocent-looking smile, “But if anyone dares to insult my cousin, there will be consequences.”
The other two exchange bemused looks and laugh along with her. With their plans settled, they all hurry off as well.
~
Though the stage awaits the arrival of its main stars, Cloud would find himself being dragged around the Saucer by Ruby when he was hoping for a quick detour. First, she said she was “hungry” and wanted something to snack on, which led them first to Wonder Square where she discovered the aisle of food booths and went to town, snacking on every treat she came across. Smoothies, bubble tea, parfaits, cakes, and ice cream – all sweets and terrible choices for a fulfilling dinner. When he suggested that she eat something more filling, she then took it as a challenge and ordered an unhealthy amount of Behemoth Burgers, named so as they Bring Out Your Inner Beast™, and scarfed them all down in an instant as if she were a magician. If it weren’t for some miracle metabolism of hers, the theater staff might have had to deal with a heroine a little rounder than expected. Unfortunately for him, watching her eat only discouraged him from eating much. He was satisfied with just a sandwich or two for the road.
Then, as he was going to suggest they head off for Event Square, she raced off for the arcades before he could stop her. The only way he was gonna get her off G-Bike was to accept her challenge to hit 10,000 points. He would do more than that; he would smash the record with a feisty 23,080 even on his first try. But to his annoyance, she didn’t even wait for him to finish. When he found her again, she was celebrating her own victory over the Snowboarding leaderboards with an impressive 2’19”56”’ total lap time on the special “Great Glacier” course. How she managed to unlock it so early is a mystery. He then followed her to the merch exchange booth, where she dumped their ticket sum for a large Fat Chocobo plushie and several smaller Chocobo bobbleheads – an brilliant array of yellow, white, black, red, blue, and green – that she all unloaded on Cloud except for the Fat Chocobo, which she would wear on her back like a backpack. The secret to the trick was that she could summon her wings to be like extra arms. But rather than be impressed, he told her to unload all this stuff back on the ship, which she would do in a heartbeat.
Again, he tried to get her to follow him, but she instead warped them off to Speed Square next. Eventually, after joining her for a few rounds until she finally could beat Biggs’ score with a 41,250 – the games around the Saucer this time sure are a lot easier than she remembered them being, thank goodness for this upgraded version of Gaia – she would finally admit that she had been stalling all this time to avoid going. He threatened to throw her off the next coaster ride (or at least mess with her score), so she conceded and warped them up to Event Square.
By the time they arrived, the staff waiting for them quickly picked them out from the now arriving crowds that were now filling up the seats and hurried them backstage so they could get ready. The two certainly cut things close; the staff were anxious that the show would have been delayed or even cancelled. Even before Cloud could get in a word about how things would go, the staff would rush him and Ruby away into different dressing rooms. And now Ruby finds herself politely and respectfully shoved inside to meet with a very beautiful and very impatient manager waiting for her.
This gorgeous lady in a black, flowery kimono has an intricately decorated fan in hand and is fanning herself while she had been waiting. She coldly addresses her, “…You two lovebirds certainly took your sweet time.”
Ruby blinks in shock. “Madam M!? Why are you here?”
Madam M makes a coy smile to herself, as if amused that this girl would even ask such a thing. “Of course I’d be here. I’m in charge of costuming for this event, you see, as I am among the best in the business.” Her smile quickly fades as she passes a nonchalant glance toward the clock. “While I would normally be charitable with welcomes, it seems my troublesome client decided to arrive late.”
She slumps in apology. “S-sorry, ma’am. I just got nervous hearing that I was one of the leads. I don’t really do well on the stage, see…”
The Madam flips her fan closed and lightly taps it in her other hand, looking like a stern instructor. “Well, that’s something you should have brought up sooner, dear. I’m afraid we don’t have time to give you a pep talk. Just do your best. Our staff is excellent with picking up the slack.”
“Er, right. I’ll try not to be a burden. What play are we performing, by the way?”
She returns Ruby an unimpressed frown. “Really? You really have no idea whatsoever?” She shakes her head in disappointment too. “And you still had the gall to show up late. You really are something, young lady.”
Ruby recoils meekly in shame, as she has no excuse to back herself up.
Madam M lets off a sigh and gets up from her seat. She also fetches an extra copy of the script and hands it over to Ruby. “Alright. Get reading. Are you at least familiar with this play?”
Ruby stares at the title on the booklet. “‘Maria and Draco’…?”
In an instant, she flashes back to her childhood, at a time when she was a little older and had a taste for the older style of RPGs that preceded even her young obsession. It was only natural that she would come to fall in love with Final Fantasy VI as well. Though the cast of characters couldn’t be more different, it was just as epic an adventure as VII’s – perhaps with even higher stakes at times, considering the direction the story went when a certain megalomaniac clown decided to break the world by moving some statues around… It makes more sense in context.
But one of the most iconic scenes from that game was in fact an opera, or at least a condensed version of it. The crew were in dire need of an airship and there was only one man who had one. Unfortunately, he was a crafty fellow who wasn’t easy to locate. But by a stroke of luck, the crew happened to hear that he would be appearing here in the opera house, planning to steal away the actress who played the heroine. And so, they would craft their own plan to plant one of their own as the lead instead and hope he’d take the bait.
Then, for some reason, there was a certain purple octopus that wanted to drop an anvil on said actress, but explaining what or why would be a whole other story. Anyway, Ruby is certain that they won’t be crossing paths with him; at least most likely not? She hopes not. Her impression of what she knows as FF7 is already tenuous enough as is.
In any case, she looks back up from the booklet and gives the Madam a calm, assuring smile. “As a matter of fact, I know it like the back of my hand. It shouldn’t take me more than a few minutes to memorize my lines.”
“For your information, this version of the play is a little different than the usual, as we’ve taken into account some room for improv to incorporate all of our guest actors – namely, your circle of friends. Is that fine with you?”
“No problem. I do a little ad-libbing from time to time anyway.”
She nods, looking pleased again. “Very good. I’ll leave you to it.” She then presents her hand forward. “Now, your hand.”
“Uh? Oh!” Ruby quickly catches on and lets her take a closer inspection.
“…” The Madam offers her a brief yet thorough massage to get a feel for Ruby’s dimensions. “Interesting. Soft and delicate as a maiden, though a bit on the stiff side. Reminds me of that of a salarywoman stuck at a desk job, to be honest. I suggest you should do more hand exercises to help loosen up those fingers a little more.” She then passes her a curious look. “Though, for someone reputed to be a warrior and a dragon, at that, I would have expected firmer muscles hardened through battle. Or is it a property that only applies when you turn into one?”
“Uh…” Ruby’s eyes trail off. She’s genuinely unsure of how her powers actually work. Maybe when she unleashes her claws they naturally harden up?
In any case, Madam M now turns away, guiding Ruby’s eyes with her fan to another door that leads into the walk-in closet. “Alright, come along. We can get you dressed while you read up.” She then goes to retrieve the measuring tape she’d left out on the table and continues muttering complaints to herself as she walks in, “It took us a while to figure out your dimensions, you know. If you were here earlier, we wouldn’t have to make some last-minute microadjustments…”
Ruby nods back and begins flipping through the pages as she follows after. Though it’s true that she isn’t the best on stages, the feeling of being a part of something so familiar to her and yet iconic for the masses brings her a renewed sense of pride and excitement. Okay, guys. Let’s do this.
~
Night falls over the open-air auditorium as the gallery has been filled with spectators excited for a modern reimagining of an old classic. Murmurs are quiet but rampant. It’s been said that the story of this opera was based on real events in history, though like with many folktales, there might not be any one particular event that would make its foundation. It is a tale as old as time; East vs West, triumph over past defeat, and a romance made in defiance of the strict order of the times. Nonetheless, with all due respect to the classic, it would not have drawn in such a lively crowd if not for a few fresh twists. News has gotten around that this play would feature some guest stars, including one who has become infamous at the races, and that things may take a slightly different turn this time around.
After ensuring that there would be roles for all of their volunteers, the VIP members would take their seats on a balcony over the masses, and the show would be set to begin right on time. The lights flash upon the stage, where a lone man stands in the spotlight. He’s dressed in white hat to tux to shoes, with a microphone earset, and greets the audience with a polite bow.
“Welcome to the Gold Saucer’s Event Square, ladies and gentlemen! I am Nicola Polissene and I will be your gracious host, narrator, and MC for tonight! We, the proud troupe of the Honeybee Hustlers, bring you a special and exclusive premier of a modern twist on a beloved classic opera! Through the poignant beauty of pain and despair will shine a light of hope and joy! There may be laughs, there may be tears, but it will be a unique and exciting experience that will make this a night to remember! Now, we present to you… ‘Maria and Draco’.”
The crowd’s murmurs settle as everyone starts up in a polite applause, waiting in curious anticipation. The man takes his leave with another bow as a couple backup dancers dressed in black contrasted with their golden bee stingers help draw the curtains and dance offstage as if they were fluttering. The stage opens to a backdrop – digital screens that span across the entire huge stage – of two mighty castles in the distance that stand opposed to one another. On each side is a squad of four helmeted soldiers, with swords held at the ready to prepare to mobilize. The narrator’s voice booms over the speakers as the tale begins.
[Act 1]
“Long ago, in a distant land, two rival kingdoms of the East and the West stood in opposition. For how long have tensions arisen, war would be inevitable. With the gauntlet cast, the two armies clashed bitterly, and might and violence became the word of law of the land.”
With the shrill noise of a whistle blown, the two sides of soldiers rush forward with swords brandished and clashing with loud clangs. For every actor that is struck down, he drops to the floor and lies still; not a drop of blood to be seen, of course, as each blow is well-padded by their costumed armors.
“The fighting only grew fiercer as time went on, and though the Western forces would stubbornly persevere, the Eastern army only seemed to grow.”
The Eastern army keeps expanding as they continue to bring in several more men into the fray, and the Western troops are pushed back. However, at the critical hour, a single soldier among them leaps out from the front and singlehandedly knocks down several men in a brutal swing of a great sword. It’s none other than Cloud, handsomely dressed in a full set of silver armor adorned with a fluttering blue cape on his shoulders.
Marlene, who is seated near the front with Elmyra, lights up as soon as she sees a familiar face. She tugs on Elmyra’s sleeve, pointing to the guy, and the woman smiles back with a nod. Though they weren’t told much, they were previously notified by Jessie and the others that Daddy and his friends would be starring in it. And without missing a beat, they bought tickets to get some prime seating before the rest of the gallery would be filled up.
“Oh, but hope is not lost! For the kingdom of the West had a mighty hero who would lead his men from the front. Yes, Draco, the fearsome ‘Dragon of the West’ as he had been renowned, stood in utter defiance of the Eastern army despite their heavy numbers.”
Cloud again keeps pushing back against the crowd in a mad, swinging frenzy to regain lost ground on this battlefield, and by some miracle, he manages to clear out the rest of the Eastern army, sending a few remaining soldiers in retreat. With his head held high in triumph, he shoulders his blade and returns to tend to his own men, even lending a hand to help escort them stage left, though he remains on the stage for now.
“Though this battle was won, Draco knew in his heart that it would be a fleeting victory. In the end, the Eastern army is still massive and his forces were dwindling rapidly. If only their king could strike up more allies for their cause, they could still hold out long enough to eventually turn the tide of battle. In this moment of quiet, he thinks of his love, Maria, who still awaits his return.”
Here it comes. With the help of some backstage ninjas, the remaining soldiers still left on the stage are whimsically dragged off, and Cloud now stands in the spotlight alone. He takes a deep breath and lets it out, faces the audience and begins to sing – well, speak as if reciting poetry – as the music begins to swell.
“Oh, Maria.
Oh, Maria!
Though I call you from afar,
Will this message reach your heart?
Oh, how I long to be with you!
No one can know
What Fate will show,
But we shall never succumb to defeat.
Alas, the time for peace is still out of reach.
Please, keep faith and wait for me.”
Despite having a shaky start, Cloud manages to find his rhythm fairly quickly, though he sure can’t wait to exit the stage as soon as he finishes his lines. And though a few anticipatory claps sound out in the audience, the scene is not over just yet. From the other side of the stage, another young man clad in a full suit of black armor with helmet down enters with an old chancellor draped in red robes, who looks suspiciously like a young short-haired girl wearing thick-rimmed glasses, a white wig and a fake beard-stache.
Marlene points a finger at the “old man” with an adorable giggle. Elmyra takes a moment to catch on, but shares a sweet smile. Seems like a few of their friends have been cast for some interesting roles too.
“An unexpected albeit minor setback, Milord. The Dragon of the West is certainly a foe to be reckoned,” the chancellor says with an odd-sounding voice. “Nonetheless, the toll on the Western horde is a heavy loss, one from that they may never recover. Once our ambassador has settled with our allies of the North, our victory is all but assured.”
The young man gives him a tight-lipped frown. “My sights are not merely set on an easy allied victory, Chancellor. I came into this war to conquer, and the West shall fall by my hand. And soon, very soon, their precious lady of the castle shall be mine.”
The old man chuckles to himself. “Ah, to be young and in love… But what say you, Milord, if she still comes to reject your hand in marriage?”
The young man then draws his sword and raises it before his face. “That possibility does not exist, for I have the upper hand. Should she still treasure her kingdom, she will understand what she must do.”
“Indeed, Your Excellency. Well said.”
And with that, the two then take their leave as the curtains draw to a close to prepare for the next chapter. Now, the applause comes in a growing wave as more and more spectators are getting into the mood.
[Act 2]
“Despite the brave, unfaltering resistance of the Western armies, their brief victory in this battle would prove to be short-lived. The kingdom of the East has been growing to be a formidable power in the greater region, recruiting allies from the North to join together for a greater empire, and their armies’ numbers would grow to be unmatched. Unfortunately, mere days after Draco’s initial advances, they would be forced to retreat back home when they heard of terrible news: Maria’s castle was being laid siege.”
The curtains are drawn to reveal the tumultuous scene set within the castle walls. The castle is currently under siege, where the royal family has disappeared into hiding, and soldiers bravely defend the grounds against the intruders at their doors. Unfortunately, they were not prepared to face yet another heavy onslaught by the Eastern armies, this time bolstered by their allies from the North. Biggs and Wedge, disguised in winter wear as befitting of Scandinavian warriors, come bounding in with horned helmets and great axes swinging, and they’re even accompanied by Red XIII, who lets out a wild roar for extra intimidation points. And as quickly as they arrived, the trio would bust down the once fortified castle doors in an impressive display of unbridled strength. They mow through the castle’s last defenses and let their numbers scatter to search for the royal family in hiding.
All the actors onstage then quickly take their exits as the backdrop changes for the throne room, where the royal family is being escorted away to safety. However, while the king and queen are accounted for, their beloved princess has been missing for a while. She was not in her room when the assault began, and they worry that she may still be out in the garden. The two are quite frantic and send a scout to search for her.
The scene changes yet again to the outer grounds. Now in the spotlight is a most fair maiden dressed in a white strapless dress, with her long, smooth, jet-black hair tied up in a loose French braid, donning a lovely train of flowers down her hair. It’s Ruby, with an earset mic attached, and she can almost hear Marlene’s delighted squeal from afar. However, she remains stoic as if on a mission. She has a roll of paper tied up in hand and slips it into an unassuming canteen bottle, and then takes the bottle and buries it in a small hole in the ground. She quickly fills it back up and covers it with some loose foliage to hide it. Then, she hurries back out of the grove to seek shelter and catch up with her family.
However, before she can get too far, she is spooked by the sudden arrival of several Eastern soldiers that block off her exit with their swords. And shortly, she hears the footsteps of yet another intruder from behind.
“There you are… my beloved Maria.”
Ruby turns around to find an intimidating-looking man in full black armor, and he takes off his helmet to reveal none other than Sonon.
The princess remains unfazed and confronts the man with a stiff lip. “Prince Ralse of the East… I don’t believe we have an appointment with you this evening?”
The prince chuckles and steps forward with arms open. “Perhaps negotiations fell short on our last meeting, but rest assured, I come with an offering of peace.”
“Peace?” She frowns. “You call your violent men to our doors, while Draco is away, as an offering of peace?”
“Ah. That is merely one of the terms to help sway you… That is to say, I present you an ultimatum.” His smile then fades as he now draws his sword forward and raises his proposal: “Surrender this castle to the Empire or I will see to it that no one else shall leave these grounds alive.”
She raises a hand up as if to cut him off. “Enough. I understand your motives. If it will cease the senseless suffering, then I will go with you.”
She then offers her own hand to him. He returns to that devious smile and takes it, and then leads her away.
All actors onstage then take their leave as well as the scene changes yet again to the castle outskirts, but now with everything in disarray and bodies of dummies strewn about in place of the previous actors – though thankfully without blood for the more sensitive in the audience. Finally, Cloud, accompanied by a squad of soldiers, arrives and gasps in horror at the scene. They all split up to search the grounds, but the royal family, including his beloved, are not here anymore.
However, he does not give in just yet. Next, he heads down to the garden, to the fateful grove. Here, once long ago, would be the place where Draco and Maria once met and would later make their betrothal wishes. As if following instinct, he searches a patch of dirt where some extra foliage had been laid about and digs up the bottle buried there. He retrieves the paper inside and finds a letter addressed to him.
“To my dear Draco,
My sincerest apologies. I have yearned long to be with you again, but war is a beast most foul, like a hydra whose life will not end with a single stroke. When you find this letter, I will already be gone. Prince Ralse of the East has threatened the safety of our people, so as an offering of peace, I have gone with him so we may be wed.
But hope is not lost! I have saved here the coordinates of a settlement to the south where you may find a former base of the Empire that an insurgent group has taken over. Seek them and they will prove to be the most valuable of allies. And when you and your men have recovered, please come find me. I will be waiting for you, my love.”
With a grim expression, Cloud then rolls up the paper in his hands and returns it to the bottle, which he takes it along with him. He returns to meet with his faithful squad, who await his next orders.
“Gentlemen… Though a grim sight it may be, hold faith in that the West has not yet fallen. Ralse may believe he’s won, but we have all survived the worst to come to this day. And come the next fortnight, we will launch our final counterattack.”
The men all salute him with a stalwart “Huh!” and with that, they all too take their leave. As the curtains draw to a close once more, the audience brings an applause a little louder than before. By now, Marlene’s eyes are glued to the stage in nervous anticipation. Though things may have taken a dark turn, she too is enraptured by the seed of hope that was just planted. And more importantly, she really, really wants to see where the rest of their friends are – especially the part where Daddy comes in.
[Act 3]
“With Maria’s castle fallen into the hands of the East, Prince Ralse would dare to celebrate his victory with a grand wedding, in which he would finally be betrothed to Maria. However, even though she ceded to his demands, as the awaited night approached, she would still think only of Draco as she gazed into the stars.”
The curtains are drawn again to now show a backdrop focused on the rooftops of Castle Garou, where a balcony juts out from the back as a real platform. And as the pivotal scene comes into play, the audience’s attention is drawn in by the lights singling down to one centered upon the balcony. Ruby enters the spotlight, with her hand resting over the other as if she had been making a prayer just moments ago. As she faces the audience, she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly to help calm her nerves. When she opens her eyes again, she looks off toward the open night sky above and begins to sing. Though her voice is quiet and falters at first, as she goes along, she follows the slow rhythm of the ballad as if it were a guiding line. Before she knows it, she starts to feel comfortable and graces it with dramatic motion to match.
“Oh, my hero! My beloved!
Shall we still be made to part?
Though promises of perennial love
Yet sing here in my heart
I’m the darkness, you’re the starlight
Shining brightly from afar
Through hours of despair, I offer this prayer
To you, my evening star
Must my final vows exchanged
Be with him and not with you
Were you only here to quiet my fear
Oh, speak! Guide me anew!”
She continues to gaze wistfully off into the sky, as if waiting for a response, her eyes already welling up with rather convincing tears. (In actuality, this is thanks to a small device hidden under her costume that deploys eye drops into her eyes whenever she brings her hand over her face.) However, no matter how long she waits, the only one to approach her at this time would be the old chancellor from before.
“Ah-ha! There you are, Your Grace!” he declares proudly in that fake old-man voice. “It’s not befitting of a young lady of your status to be seen wandering about the grounds alone! Where are your escorts?”
Ruby can’t help but snort to Yuffie’s rather exaggerated swagger as she steps up, but keeps a stoic face. “I sent them away for the time, Chancellor. I don’t think I need to be accompanied up to this balcony. There’s no way for me to escape, after all.”
“Is that so…” The old man nods along, stroking his beard. “Oh, very well. I suppose ’tis a fair assessment. in any case, I’ve come to inform you that your hairdresser and company have arrived to ask about your accomodations for the wedding.”
Maria casts aside a crestfallen face. “Is that so… I suppose it’s almost time, isn’t it?”
“Indeed. Hurry along now.”
And with that, Maria takes her leave, but before she exits the stage, she turns back to ask the chancellor one more thing.
“By the way, Chancellor…”
“Yes, Your Grace?”
She makes an innocent-looking face as she asks, “Why is it you who has come to inform me of this? I would have thought another of our servants would have that obligation.”
“O-oh! Well, um… Ahem.” He suddenly gets nervous and seems to be a little evasive. “I was merely… concerned for your well-being, Your Grace! Yes, of course. I heard you’ve been up here for many nights now and decided to check on you. Nothing else to it!”
“…” Suddenly, Maria seems to be a little out of character as she gets a little quippy, “Incidentally, that hairdresser and company isn’t just going to be you and a few of your friends, are they?”
Some people in the audience are quite taken aback by this sudden shift in character and grow confused, but others find it quite amusing and begin to laugh. Marlene is among the confused crowd and she turns to Elmyra as if asking what the joke is, but the woman makes a nervous chuckle and pats her on the head as if to say that it’s nothing she needs to know. In fact, even Yuffie is taken aback by Ruby’s sudden joke and eagerly counters with her own improvization.
“W-what?” the old man gasps, looking almost insulted. “N-now, see here! I don’t appreciate the insinuation you’ve lead! I may be a humble servant to the good prince, but I know my place! A-and for your information, I’m quite well off myself! I have a lovely wife of many years and… and…” He suddenly pauses as he tries to “recall”, “Um… yes! That’s right! Her name is Diana, if you must know!”
Ruby makes a coy smirk to herself. Credit where credit is due, Yuffie is quick to ad-lib out an unspoken wife into the script. “Ah, of course. Pardon my rudeness. I was just making sure.”
He strokes his beard with a rather snooty-looking face. “Yes, my dear Diana… Sweet, lovely, and dashingly pretty with a fine, fine figure.” He even moves his hands to his hips as if to demonstrate too. “Why, after the wedding is over, I’ll be happy to invite you over to meet her!”
The image of Yuffie bouncing between two different roles in the same household immediately pops up to mind and Ruby almost lets out a big, fat snort. She waves a hand and makes an apologetic face as she answers.
“W-well, if you insist… Thank you, Chancellor. I must be off now.”
Maria hurries away and the old man watches her go from a side glance and then lets out a sigh, shaking his head. He too disappears and the curtains come to a close once more as the audience once again breaks out into applause.
~
As Ruby returns backstage, she’s greeted by Jessie, Biggs, Wedge, and Red who all cheer for her triumphant return.
“Now that’s how ya knock ’em down!” Jessie declares proudly.
“Ruby, that was awesome!” Wedge pumps out a thumbs-up. “Did you ever take singing lessons before? You sounded like you were made for this!”
“A beautiful voice and a sense of humor. You got some serious competition, Jessie,” Biggs remarks coyly.
“Hmph. Like I’ll fall for obvious bait like that! I wouldn’t imagine fighting Ruby on the big stage!” She beams to herself. “Just like I thought, she’s a natural! Oh, I’m so glad we went with today for Operation Purple! Everything worked out perfectly!”
“Whew… To think that someone I knew once had eyes just for Cloud…”
“Yeah, maybe I did once…” She makes a happy sigh. “But now I’m just happy to be their personal wingman.”
“Heh. I dunno, Jess. I think Aerith and Tifa have you upped there.”
She fires back with an annoyed glare and sends him a step back. “It’s not a competition! Ruby deserves the spotlight and I won’t hear otherwise!”
“Right, right…” he concedes, but he can’t help but grin internally.
Red nods. “I agree, it was a job well done. Though, if I may say,” he also adds, a little quieter, “I wish that I had this much fanfare after my not-too-shabby performance earlier.”
Wedge laughs. “Hey! You were awesome out there, Red! I think you actually scared a few people!”
He gives him an intrigued look. “Hmm. You think so?”
“Yeah, definitely! I think I might’ve seen some people panicking out there!”
“…Heh.”
“Speaking of people, where are Aerith and Tifa? Or Barret?” Ruby asks them.
“Preparing for the next scene,” Red answers. “It sounds like they’ve been selected to be the insurgents.”
She grins. “Nice. Sounds like they’d be perfect for that.” And she turns to Jessie too. “Say, are you not with them, Jess?”
Jessie’s grin fades a little as she has to explain, “I was going to, but then the backstage crew was short on hand when one person on lights had an emergency stop at the bathroom. So, I had to stand in for a bit. Would be too rushed if I also had to jump into scene rehearsal, so I’m just taking a break for now.”
She cringes. “Oof. You alright with that? This was your chance to star in a major role, but…”
Jessie waves it away. “Ah. Don’t worry about it. I’m no stranger to being shifted to backstage duty. You guys go out there and show off!”
“Hmm…”
Jessie then gives her a fond knock on her arm too. “No, really, I mean it. Get in there and show Cloud who’s the real star of the show, okay? Just because you’re the heroine doesn’t mean you’re just a damsel, alright?”
“But isn’t this show about both lovers? They’re in the title and all.”
“Haha! Sure, that’s what people expect, but I think you got your own flair, don’t ya?”
“Heh… I guess.”
While she and her friends are engaging amongst themselves in good humor, the voice of an attendant nearby catches their attention.
“Oh, wait! Wait a moment, you! Get back here!”
They turn to see a few of the backstage staff trying their best but failing to catch a little shapely green critter rushing on in like his life was on the line. When the Cactuar finds Ruby in his sights, he zooms straight to her and bounces around her frantically.
“A Cactuar!?” Jessie exclaims. “What’s it doing here?”
“Uh… Free from Battle Square?” Biggs suggests, feeling a cold sweat.
“Um, should we do something?” Wedge asks, likewise nervous.
Red is growling and ready to pounce when Ruby stops them. “Wait! I know this little guy!” she tells them.
“Huh?”
Ruby drops down in a crouch before the frantic Cactuar and asks, “Kiki? Why are you here, kid? Shouldn’t you be with Kaku and Kado guarding Dio’s room?”
Kiki the Cactuar stops hopping for a moment and teeters on one foot as he sinks into some kind of depression. He then bounces back up, twirling and bouncing around wildly with a variety of facial expressions as if enacting a scene where he and his boys seem to have run into some trouble, and then goes back to sadly teetering on a foot again.
Ruby frowns, as if she immediately got the message. “They’re already on the move, huh…” She then turns back to her friends and the puzzled staff nearby. “I’m sorry, everyone. I know this is sudden, but I need to go.”
“Go?” Wedge asks.
“Where are you headed?” Red asks, raising an eyebrow.
“To Dio’s room. I need to check on something.”
The rest of them exchange confused looks, and Jessie catches Ruby before she leaves.
“Wait! But you still have the next scenes to play! Can’t it wait?”
“No.” Ruby then whips back around and puts a hand on her shoulder. “But on the other hand, Jessie, I think you can stand in for me.”
“W-what? Come on! There’s no time for a role swap!”
But with a whip of her hands, Ruby casts yet another unknown, unnamed spell. Jessie is suddenly enveloped in a glowing white light and disappears into it for just a moment. Once the light fades, everyone else is blown away in shock. Where Jessie once stood now is a second Ruby, likewise adorned in the same beautiful dress and all dolled up too.
“W-what!?” she shrieks.
“There are two Rubys now!?” Wedge gasps.
“Uh… Jessie?” Biggs asks cautiously, “Is that you?”
The new “Ruby” turns to them, looking just as shocked. “Yeah, it’s me! But why do I look like Ruby!?”
And as they turn to the real Ruby, they realize she’s already vanished from sight. Even her Cactuar buddy is gone now. And they turn back to Jessie, who now feels a cold chill running up her back.
“…Um. I guess I’m gonna play as Ruby, huh?”
The guys likewise give a few different uncomfortable looks of their own. The staff with them then turn to each other and nod. One of the attendants then answers for the rest, “I’m sorry, but the show can’t go on without the heroine. If you could please take her place for now, I’m sure everything will still work out.”
Jessie sighs. “Fine… I’ll do it. But don’t expect anything too intimate.”
“Oh, that’s fine. The final kiss scene was always optional, so it’ll be up to you.”
“Right…”
An awkward silence comes over the group, and finally, Wedge breaks the silence with an innocent comment.
“Well, at least Jessie finally gets her chance in the limelight.”
“Yeah… without anyone seeing her, though,” Biggs replies.
She fires back an irate glare their way and they back off and apologize together.
~
[Act 4]
“Following the letter that his beloved left for him, Draco and a handful of survivors from his army gathered in the south where a certain rebel group had become based. Draco and his men, ragged and weary from their long trek through the arid deserts, would eventually reach the place, only to be set upon by bandits!”
As the narrator speaks, the curtains open once again and the scene plays out. Cloud and his squad from earlier enter from the right, looking exhausted as if they had been traveling so far, when they’re suddenly set upon by a ragtag group of six, led by the one and only Barret, who is dressed… basically as himself, but with a dusty black durag on his head and several tattooed scars across his bare chest. Just for this show, they even got his gun replaced with a flintlock rifle to suit the era. Tifa and Aerith are also dressed like scoundrels by another name, wielding sabers of their own. And from the audience, Marlene squeals with laughter as soon as she sees her old pops and her other good friends show up.
“Hey! Today is a great day! We got ourselves a steal, men!” Barret declares triumphantly with his gun pointed right at Cloud. “Looks like the famed ‘Dragon of the West’ is finally here to greet us!”
Tifa chuckles, pointing her saber his way too. “What are the odds?”
Aerith giggles, doing the same. “I think we got a certain princess to thank!”
Cloud reaches to his sword, ready to draw it. “And what do you ruffians know about ‘a certain princess’?”
Barret then returns a grin. “Oh, we know a lot… ’Cause it was thanks to Princess Maria that we went free!”
“What?”
A few of the other bandits also chirp in like a posse: “Bless the daring and oh-so clever Princess!” “It was her plan to let herself be captured, so we could break free from prison!” “She even got us the keys to our cells!”
Barret lets out a belly laugh and lowers his gun. “You can rest easy, my good man! We aren’t your enemy! In fact, we’ve been waiting for you, Hero!”
And at that cue, he, Tifa, and Aerith and the rest jump back and strike a mighty group pose.
“You’re lookin’ at the rebels who have been fightin’ the Eastern Empire!” Barret declares.
“Uniting the people against oppression!” Tifa follows up, pumping up her fist.
“And returning the world to peace!” Aerith does too to match.
“‘The Returners’!” They all shout with impressive bravado.
For some reason, there is a bit of fanfare from the rest of the group as they suddenly pop some party poppers and shower the lead trio with confetti. Cloud almost breaks character with how lost he is, maybe even a little disenchanted. To keep to the spirit of improv, not all of them were informed of what the others would be up to, so this is his honest first impression. Well, that took a weird turn. Was this part even part of the original play to begin with?
In any case, as the narrator resumes telling the tale, Barret steps up and throws out a hand as a gesture of peace, and Cloud returns him with a firm handshake.
“As it would turn out, these were no mere bandits, but the rebels they were seeking! Draco and his men would be welcomed with open arms for helping to repel the Eastern Empire. And thus, the two groups would band together as they laid their plans to lay siege to Castle Garou.”
The actors all cheer and holler for their new alliance as the curtains now close upon them once more. The time draws closer and closer to the fall of the Empire. By now, the audience is rather captivated by this turn of events and share another round of excited applause with a few whistles and hoots probably for the beautiful-looking bandits among them.
[Act 5]
“As the day of her wedding to Prince Ralse creeped upon them, Maria continued to wait up at the balcony as always, hoping ever dearly that her beloved would be able to make it in time. Though try as she had to avoid attendance, feigning illness at the last hour before the event would be held, it was only a matter of time before her physician would confirm that she was still in ‘fine health’ as it were.”
The curtains draw open once more as a new “Ruby” enters the stage with a splendid bouquet in her hands and with a faint veil over her face. Her dress as from before has been adapted and is now decorated even further to better suit the wedding theme. At the end of the ceremonial hall, Sonon, as the prince, awaits in a stunning-looking groom’s suit of a vibrant red and golden leaves on a glistening vine running across his back and around his front.
“However, as the wedding was well under way, the castle grounds would not be a peaceful place for long. The prince, in his eager haste to celebrate, had called off much of the security as he deemed them ‘superfluous’ to the environment he achieved. And it would be at this late hour that disaster would strike.”
Moments before the beautiful Maria can be unveiled, a great alarm sounds and sweeps through the castle, throwing all in attendance into confusion and panic. Enraged, the prince calls upon his soldiers to meet with the threat outside their walls. Or rather, as he quickly comes to discover, the threat within their walls.
“In a most daring and unexpected maneuver, the survivors from the Western armies, along with the infamous rebels of the South, gathered to infiltrate the castle and seize it in ambush! Leading the ill-fated charge was a lone hero. Though few in number, he and his new allies fought with the spirit of a thousand, felling one Eastern Soldier after another. Yes, Draco has returned!”
The mighty hero forces his way through the army and bursts in upon the hall, and everyone but the main three scramble to flee for their lives.
“Maria!” he cries out.
She whips around and cries as well, elated. “Draco! I knew you would come for me, my love!”
Ralse promptly seizes a beautifully decorated sword from a nearby holding rack and draws it at his adversary. “Insolent rogue! Knave of the Western horde! You would address my Queen-to-be, Maria?”
Draco steps forward and brandishes his own. “Never shall you have Maria’s hand! I would die before that day comes!”
“Then we duel!”
At that moment, the music flares to life as a couple loyal attendants hurry by to escort Maria away. She hesitates to leave, throwing out a dramatic arm toward her love, but they pull her away as she drops the bouquet to the floor. The digital screens that formed the backdrop also shift apart to reveal a well-staffed chorus that was waiting for this moment. The two rivals stand face-to-face, eyes locked in a death glare, as they stand poised on either side of the stage. And as on cue, the two also begin to sing to the music.
Draco: “For my dear Maria! This life I’m ready to give!”
Ralse: “No one man shall deny me her hand! ’Tis for our great love that I live!”
Draco: “Prepare to die!”
Chorus: “Ah, the gauntlet is cast!”
Ralse: “Say goodbye!”
Chorus: “Hear the swords as they clash!”
Draco: “Tell me now what Maria is to you!”
Chorus: “You cannot love her more than I do!”
Ralse: “There is nothing more I need to prove!”
Chorus: “My mind is set, my heart, it is true.”
Draco: “Then we are left with but one avenue:”
Ralse: “On my blade I swear”
Draco/Ralse: “You shall not win this time. Maria is mine!”
As the two keep clashing in a perfectly synchronized dance, the narrator resumes his word: “For what seemed an eternity, the bitter rivals exchanged blows, neither yielding any ground. Until, that is, Fate chose to intervene, guiding the blade of the grievously wounded Draco straight through the heart of Prince Ralse.”
And in turn, Cloud and Sonon are now looking exhausted as they continue to lock blades. Then, in gracious denouement, the two leap back for just a moment and charge once more to deal the final blow. Almost as if the Soldier training he inherited would come into play, Cloud deftly deflects Sonon’s strike with his own and shoves the plastic prop right into the guy’s chest with enough force that it knocks him back – and looks like it actually hurt for real, yeowch.
The audience gasps at the sudden intense display of violence and Sonon drops to the floor, looking a little roughed-up. He gives Cloud an almost betrayed look, to which the latter returns him an apologetic one, but the two quickly get back in character.
With a haggard gasp, the prince mutters, “I yield… this day is yours, Draco. Curse you should you let Maria go!”
Standing triumphant, the hero replies, “Peace, then! For you have my word. With me she’ll know nothing but peace!”
With one last breath, Ralse swears over his heart, “Maria, Maria, I love you so.”
And both men lay out their fervent wish to the stars above: “Maria, Maria, return to me.”
On her cue, the lady of the hour now reappears alone, entering from left stage. And without a shred of hesitation, she hurries back to Draco for a heartwarming embrace before pulling away again to take his hands in her own. As the two look into one other’s eyes, though, Cloud is a little taken aback by the mysterious twinkle in her eyes, almost as if she were excited for this moment. Though it is fitting for his role to return her the sentiment, he didn’t expect Ruby to get so deep into the act and the moment starts to nag him in the back of his mind. And then, she begins to sing once more – this time with much more confidence to her tone.
“I am thankful, my beloved
For your tenderness and grace
I see in your eyes, so gentle and wise
All doubts and fears erased
Though the hours take no notice
Of what Fate might have in store,”
At the very last verse, even the prince takes a stand once more, and the three main stars join together to sing the final harmony.
“Our love, come what may
Will never age a day
I’ll wait forever more!”
As one final refrain, they throw their arms to the sky and shout it together, “I’ll wait forever more!” And thus, they all take their bows as the music slows to its conclusion. And this time, even before the final curtains draw to a close, the audience rouses into a clamor of applause and cheers. The rest of the actors, including all their friends, now come onstage amid the applause and likewise take their bows as well.
As if growing bold from all the excitement, “Ruby” then throws herself onto Cloud in yet another fervent embrace, snuggling up against him so tightly, right in front of this huge crowd, that he flushes up again. And the crowd goes wild, cheering on the happy couple and hoping that they’d go for the final kiss. But as it happens, mere moments before she would bring her lips to his own, she backs off with a coy smile and simply gives him a peck on the cheek. Once again, he freezes still, as if he’d just run into an error during processing. She laughs, very amused and proud of herself, but leaves him be to gather himself again. Catching sight of a certain little girl in the audience, she fetches the bouquet she dropped earlier, gives it a quick eyeball as she turns toward the audience, and gives it a toss into the crowd. A few excited people reach out to catch it, but just as she had calculated, it would land right into Marlene’s hands. The little girl squeals with delight as she beams a smile to Elmyra, who congratulates her with her own extra applause.
With a congratulatory slap on his back from Barret, Cloud snaps out of his trance and returns him an awkward but thankful look. Now that he looks around the stage, though, he realizes that there seems to be one person among them that isn’t showing up. Confused, he checks with the others.
“Hey… Where’s Jessie? Wasn’t she with you guys too?”
Barret exchanges just as confused glances with Tifa and Aerith. However, Biggs, Wedge, and Red all share some rather awkward faces instead, and it doesn’t pass by Cloud. He confronts them.
“Well?”
“Er… About that…” Wedge begins, but isn’t sure how to say it.
Biggs points toward the young lady he’s still holding hands with. “She’s actually been here… the whole time.”
“Huh? But Ruby’s…”
But now that he turns back to her, a strange phenomenon takes place. As if the spell Ruby had cast had run its course, she begins to flicker as if she were merely a hologram and the image vanishes in an instant. Everyone gasps – a gasp loud enough to spread through the entire open auditorium. In place of where the heroine was supposed to be, a completely different person has appeared instead.
Cloud’s jaw drops. Jessie looks just as shocked that she’s reverted back into her backup soldier outfit, and then gives him a nervous grin.
“What!?” Yuffie’s shrill voice breaks her out of character. “Huh!?”
“Jessie!?” Aerith shouts as well.
“What the…” Barret asks, looking entirely lost, “When’d they switch?”
“And if Jessie’s here, then where’s Ruby?” Tifa asks, getting flustered too.
As confusion spreads through the rest of the staff onstage, it goes out into the audience, where people are questioning whether or not this is part of the show.
“Unbelievable! What is this last-minute surprise!?” the narrator cries out, “The lovely Princess Maria has turned into a rank-and-file soldier!”
Jessie’s grin fades a bit, looking slightly irked at that off-handed comment. She mumbles to herself, “Excuse me. I was gonna dress up to join The Returners, but things didn’t quite work out…”
And with lightning-quick reflexes, the narrator is swift to change gears. “Well, well! They say love is a battlefield, but who would have known that the hero would come to elope with a fellow warrior?”
“…Huh?” Cloud flinches just from the narrator’s implications.
“Alas, poor Maria! To have been replaced by another with such obscene sorcery! Or, could it be, was Maria actually a sorceress herself all along? Either way, Draco certainly has something of a catch there!”
By now, Cloud is feeling a cold sweat come over and he turns back to Jessie. “W-wait… What’s going on here?”
Her grin wavers as she begins to explain, “Yeah, um… Sorry, Cloud. This was Ruby’s idea…”
He stares back, looking rather horrified and betrayed. “When did you guys switch?”
“Just before the last act.”
“…” He keeps staring in disbelief, but asks again, “But why?”
She shrugs. “Business with Dio, I guess? Didn’t say what, though.”
“Dio…?”
An awkward and even more confused silence comes over them, as no one seems to have a clue what’s going on anymore.
And then, Sonon, although quite lost himself, mutters just loudly enough into his mic, “…Huh. Catfishing gets more creative by the day.”
Such a simple but unexpected comment coming the villainous rival of all people knocks the once confused audience out of silence and into laughter. Now at the center of an accidental joke, both Cloud and Jessie start to flush up red with embarrassment. Then, by some weird reflex, she suddenly breaks out into laughter and shoves a hand in his face before running off the stage.
“H-hey! Jessie!” And he gives pursuit.
Yuffie passes Sonon a disappointed frown, to which he makes a sheepish, apologetic look. And with that, the rest of them follows those two off the stage as the audience erupts into a standing ovation. Well, however strange that ending was, it seems like the show has gone off without too much of a hitch after all.
~
In the aftermath, after everyone has changed out of their outfits, they would gather outside of the auditorium and discuss the current mystery at hand.
“I didn’t realize Ruby had the power to change other people’s appearance,” Aerith remarks, feeling rather intrigued. “But I guess she never really had a point to do it, huh?”
“That sure came as a surprise. For a moment, I thought it was just Ruby pulling some kind of prank,” Tifa admits.
Barret brings up, “If it was just a prank, you’d think she’d have popped in last second again.”
“Yeah… I wonder what happened?”
Biggs shrugs. “Whatever it was, Ruby started acting weird. A Cactuar from Battle Square showed up looking for her and did some interpretive dance. Seems like she caught onto something and had to disappear.”
Cloud picks up on it immediately. “A Cactuar?”
“Yeah. Seems like it was one of Dio’s little workers, probably guarding his showroom.”
“She said she had to check something in that room too,” Wedge adds. “I’m guessing that something might’ve gone wrong if one of them left their post.”
Now that he’s reminded, Cloud recalls that there were a total of three of the critters that Dio hired to be guards for the treasures kept inside. So far, they’ve been pretty diligent at the job, so it doesn’t seem like they’d be slacking. Which would mean… that they might have been compromised. And apparently, Ruby already has an idea of what that means.
He now turns to the rest and announces, “Hey, guys. I don’t know what Ruby may have realized, but if it’s something urgent enough for her to bail on us like this, it might be worth looking into.”
Tifa nods back. “I was thinking the same thing. It might be serious.”
“But what’s the deal?” Barret asks again, “Is there something in that room that has to be protected?”
Cloud thinks back to his and Ruby’s previous visit there. Yeah, it’s gotta be that. There was only one thing that Ruby paid any attention to and it was sitting right on a pedestal at the center of the room. He answers, “There is one thing. Dio likes to collect precious stones and lots of other things and put them on display there. And one of those stones is something called ‘The Keystone’.”
“The Keystone?”
Now that he mentions it, Red too catches on. “Wait. The Keystone was being kept in a place like that?”
“Huh?” He turns to him with a look of surprise himself. “Red, you know about it?”
“I’ve heard of it through some studies of planetology back home. It’s an ancient, one-of-a-kind artifact that was once used to unlock a certain temple to the south.” He then shakes his head. “Unfortunately, I don’t know exactly where the temple is located. It’s said to have disappeared for long periods of time throughout history, only to reappear in a different place for every era, so there’s no telling where it could have gone.”
“Well, wherever it is, I’m sure Ruby would be able to find it. Dio said that she was connected to that temple somehow, so if anything, she’d actually be the original owner of the stone. He was even going to give it to her so she could help him with some monster-hunting mission there, but she refused.”
“She refused?” Tifa asks.
But Aerith seems to catch on right away. She makes a sad look as she answers instead, “That temple… it holds a lot of Rubia’s memories, doesn’t it?”
Now that she says it aloud, everyone else catches on and their faces turn for the serious too.
Cloud nods back. “Yeah. I think I might have seen it myself at some point… through a vision.”
“Thought so. I’m sure she read all the bad signs about that place.” Aerith then asks him, “Have you seen any other visions of Rubia since then?”
“Uh…” He scratches his head to try to recall.
There was one, actually, at the time Ruby tried to save Cole, but ended up in a frenzied fit. She even bit his hand and it somehow triggered some other memories to pop in mind. But that vision… was it a vision that Rubia would send him? Or was it something else entirely? It felt less like an actual vision and more like… his own memories from a different time that resurfaced.
Instead, he shakes his head. “Not of her, no.”
Aerith blinks in surprise, looking almost like she wasn’t entirely convinced, but doesn’t press further. “Ah… okay. Just checking.”
“What about you, Aerith? Since you and Ruby seem to share that power, have you seen any?”
She shakes her head. “No, sorry. It’s strange. I feel like the longer I’ve been with Ruby, the less that I can speak with her… Well, telepathically. We can talk in person, but that’s not the same.”
“Huh? Really? You’ve been having trouble or something?”
“Not really ‘trouble’, per se, but it does seem like something’s been blocking off her thoughts.”
“Blocking off…”
Tifa makes a concerned frown. “She wouldn’t do that on purpose or anything, right?”
“I don’t think so. Ruby has her moments, but she’s never once lied to me; not between our personal thoughts. I’d be able to tell right away, after all. But this…” Aerith takes a pause to think it over. “This is something else. Like there’s interference, but it’s not from either of us.”
Cloud frowns too, feeling a dreadful suspicion return. “You don’t think it’s…?”
Aerith nods. “It might be him. I’m not sure how, but I can’t think of anyone else who would dare.”
“Then we have to find Ruby and get that Keystone. Who knows what will happen when she’ll visit that temple.”
“Right.”
Cloud then turns to everyone else. “Alright. I’ll stop by Battle Square to see if she’s still there, but if not, then the rest of you should look around and see if you can find her anywhere.”
“I’ll come with!” Aerith insists, “I’ve never seen the Keystone myself before, so maybe this is a good opportunity.”
“I’ll come too,” Tifa follows, “Maybe there’s something we can help Dio with as well.”
“Gotcha.” Barret nods and beckons Biggs and Wedge to come with him. “Leave it to us! We got a lot to talk with her anyway, so it’s about time we meet up again.”
Cloud also turns back to Jessie with a request, “And if you can, contact Cait Sith. Been a while since we last heard from him, and it doesn’t feel right that he’s been missing for this long.”
“Gotcha. I’ll message him, but if he doesn’t respond, I think I can at least track where the signal may be…” She promptly pulls out her PHS and begins typing away.
“Where the heck is that cat anyway?” Yuffie huffs, “He was with us for a while and suddenly he goes off too? When did he pick up the Ruby disease?”
Sonon stares at her. “‘Ruby disease’?”
“Yeah. It’s the thing where she just disappears on us for no good reason! She can be such a pain!”
“…” He folds his arms, taking note of the obvious irony. “Yeah, I can imagine…”
With their goals set, Cloud turns away for the golden arch that marks the square’s exit. “Okay, let’s move.”
They split off into their respective groups and head for the exit together, but quickly scatter once they hit the transport tubes. It’s a quick stop by Battle Square, where once again some kind of commotion seems to be taking place. In fact, even the two guards that were at the entrance seem to have disappeared. Well, that’s never a good sign.
Cloud and the ladies hurry on inside, where they discover an increase of police on scene and police tape barring off Dio’s showroom. Dio is here as well, looking rather stern, as he keeps watch of the poor three Cactuars that have been laid out on the floor at the base of the steps leading up to the room, looking like they’ve all been knocked out cold. Wait a second, three of them? But just a moment ago, one of them visited Ruby to ask her for help, right? What’s going on here?
Dio turns to them as they come in. “Ah, Cloud! Good, you’re here.”
“Dio, what happened?”
He turns back to the Cactuars. “A classic hit-and-run robbery, unfortunately. It seems like I’ve quite underestimated those two.”
“Those two?”
Dio folds his arms with a frown. “The cat on the moogle, as well as Ruby.”
“What?” Cloud doesn’t look quite convinced. “The cat aside, why are you bringing Ruby into this? What did she do?”
“I understand your confusion, my boy. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the security footage either! But unfortunately, it showed them plain as day in the act of robbery.”
He stares back hard. “There’s footage?”
Aerith now asks him, “By the way, Mr. Dio, was the thing that was stolen the Keystone, by any chance?”
Dio nods. “Hmm. I see you’re well informed.”
“Not exactly, but I had a suspicion.” She droops. “To be honest… my cousin hasn’t been quite the same since the other day.”
“Since which other day?” Tifa asks her.
“Since we left Wutai, I mean.”
Notes:
Trivia, names, references to Rebirth & VI
- I admit, I got spoiled to the Tonberry humidifer in Rebirth, so I threw in a reference. But if you ask me, there should have been a Marboro A/C unit.
- I don't know if Behemoth Burgers actually exist in Rebirth, but if they don't, they should. Complete with that same tagline.
- Also, I don't think the Great Glacier is necessarily going to be a map for the snowboarding game in Rebirth/the-third-Re. This is and the time is just a reference to my usual runs in the OG during the initial minigame going into Great Glacier.
- Cid is so mad about all the dang toys that are on the Highwind now, hahaha!
- Also, I'm aware of the change in minigame for Speed Square in Rebirth, and the points there aren't gonna match here. So let's just pretend Ruby switched to the PC version of the OG where it is possible to net that much score if you blast the hell out of a certain red propeller.
- Andrea made a cameo last chapter, so Madam M gets one this chapter. The two seem to be regularly together in Rebirth, at least as far as I know. Still awaiting how things look in Gold Saucer in Rebirth and what they'll be up to.
- If ya'll know which purple octopus I mean, then have a cookie. "It makes more sense in context" applies to a lot in that game.
- Nicola Polissene is an OC I made up on the spot. "Polyxene" is an uncommon Greek name that apparently means "many guests". Nicola is the Italian version of Nicholas; named him as such because of the meaning, which in Greek is nike "victory" and laos "people". Went with the Italian version of these names because, uh, I dunno. Greek always looks weird to me; not bad but just weird. I would have given the role of the MC/narrator to Andrea himself, but I decided he can just chill in the back in the VIP booth with Madam M.
- So, I based my take on the opera on the Distant Worlds V version of the soundtrack, which released in 2019 as a collection of FF music over the years. In it was the official English translation of the Japanese-only version done by the Black Mages back in 2008. All the lyrics are included here, but I have my own narration and have added some additional lines and scenes to fit my tastes. The official lyrics are transcribed on the FF wiki page for "Draco and Maria". Feel free to compare them.
- Shoutout to the Returners! They're the main cast of FF6 back when Locke was still leading the game.
- I previously had an idea to end this play differently, but then I randomly added a throwaway line for Sonon and decided, you know what, I'm keeping it. It would have been a silly ending anyway where everyone would laugh at Jessie's awkward entrance, but I like this version better. Less mean and isn't directed at only one character.
Chapter 58: The Buck Stops Here
Notes:
Outdated A/N
4/27/24 edit: Next chapter has been completed, but will be released next Tuesday. I wanna sit on this a bit longer before I'm ready to release it. 'Cause there's a little something I need to get settled like the timeframe... and where they're headed after this. Gonna end this Act 2 soon with a real bass drop.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Cloud and Tifa turn to Aerith with blank stares, shocked that there’s been something else she’s been keeping to herself. She looks a little regretful to have waited this long to say something.
“Since Wutai?” Tifa asks. “I thought you would have said since she came back from the expedition or something.”
“Well, she was a little gloomier than usual. But no, I don’t think it’s because of that.” Aerith casts a sad look aside. “There’s just something about Ruby that’s… different.”
“What’s different?” Cloud asks, raising an eyebrow. “Like, is she acting up somehow or thinking anything weird, uh, weirder than usual?”
She shakes her head. “Not that I can tell. Like I said, I keep running into interference any time I try telepathy. But she doesn’t have a problem talking with me. It’s always the other way around.”
Now he catches onto something and proposes, “You think this has something to do with that guy too?”
“Maybe… not sure.”
“If it is, it would also explain why Ruby would be after the Keystone. She said he’s waiting for us at that temple.”
“Even then, she wouldn’t just…” Tifa begins to say, but blinks in surprise as she realizes it and gives him a disbelieving stare. “Oh, no. Cloud, you don’t think he’s been controlling her like an actual puppet? Can he even do that?”
“Who knows by this point? All we can say for sure is that Ruby’s been getting more and more scared as time goes on.”
“Yeah… We need to find her ASAP.”
He turns back to Dio, who has been patiently waiting. “Dio, you said there was footage? Can we take a look at it?”
“Well…” The handsome man coyly fiddles with his curly moustache. “Normally, civilians wouldn’t be allowed to see such critical evidence, especially while investigations are still ongoing.” With a playful flick, he releases his finger and then reveals a proud smile and sets his fists against his hips. “But! Given that it’s you, my boy, I’ll allow it! Just this once.” He also raises a finger his way. “But try not to tattle about it to anyone else, would you? The last thing we need is some nosy paparazzi coming our way.”
“Uh, sure. Wasn’t planning to.”
Dio then gives him an unexpectedly hard slap on the back that actually leaves him a bit sore. “Excellent! Now come with me, children! The camera is set right inside the showroom.”
He lets the police tend to the poor Cactuars, now outlined with white tape despite that they aren’t exactly dead yet, and leads them back up the steps and inside. The showroom is as it has always been – glowing brightly with prestige of the radiant spotlights upon each precious item on display – save for one particular item on the central podium, which is now empty, though the glass box once containing the precious stone seems to be completely intact. He then directs them toward not just one corner, but all four corners of the ceiling.
“As there are many precious antiques stored here, our security detail relies on a little more than just a few guards, as trustworthy as they may be. Unlike with most, this room is equipped with a set of cameras that have dual functionality: the usual recording option, of course, but also the replay.”
“That sounds pretty normal for cameras,” Cloud remarks.
“Ho ho! Yes, it would be. But rest assured, I wouldn’t speak so highly of it if it were your run-of-the-mill camera. Observe!”
Dio steps over to the wall near the door and unlocks a panel door. He hits a button and the entire room seems to come alive with state-of-the-art holograms. The security cameras essentially flood the room with a live reproduction of events that had played just a couple hours ago while the play was still in session. At first, it rolls out the scene as normal: the three Cactuar guards are doing their regular rounds, bouncing around the room like hyperactive kids playing musical chairs, though remain as vigilant as always. However, as Dio fast-forwards to a time of interest, the scene swiftly changes from peace to chaos.
Out of nowhere, the three Cactuars are hit by a sweeping wave of magic that engulfs the room in a pink fog. While nothing in particular happens to the Cactuars themselves, they are temporarily blinded and instinctively go into defense mode – namely, they become the most evasive creatures of all. However, despite the odd show, none of the Cactuars are actually attacked. They simply spin around on their single legs, looking ever confused, and out of the pink fog appears a big white moogle with lower fangs poking out of his big mouth. He reveals a big smile and suddenly starts tap-dancing in front of them. For the next minute or so, the three Cactuars simply stare and watch the moogle put on a show for them. Once he finishes the last of his twirling, though, the Cactuars don’t seem all that impressed and get right to pelting him with needles. The poor moogle then hurries out the door in a panic with three Cactuars giving chase.
However, this brief distraction is just what the real thief needs. Cait Sith sneaks around the back through the fog as it dissipates out the door and now hops onto the podium where the Keystone is being held. With a one-two step into a dance of his own, the cat then reveals a sharp set of claws from his otherwise gloved hands and proceeds to shear open a hole in the glass as if he were using a strong laser cutter. He neatly pulls out the circle, sets it aside, and fetches the Keystone, using both hands to carry, and with his tail, carefully sets the glass circle back in place as if to make it look like it wasn’t just cut. And with his job done, he hurries back out the door with the precious stone in his grasp. By the time the Cactuars return to their posts, though, the very shock of their mission meeting failure knocks them all off their feet, bouncing on their heads, and thus they knock themselves out. That is, except for one of them, Kiki, who happened to land on his side instead. Realizing he’s still awake, he jumps back up, hops around in a panic, and runs right out to find help.
The footage has yet to run to completion and the hologram stays up, but by now, Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith are all kinds of distraught and confused. Cloud clenches a fist, feeling many different levels of frustration building up within, and turns back to the other two.
“…Aerith, wasn’t it Ruby’s idea that he tag along in the first place?”
She nods back slowly. “Yeah. It was a really short moment when she disappeared and came back, but then she picked up Cait from somewhere in Shinra HQ.”
He begins to slump over. “What… You knew this all along but never told anyone?”
“Sorry, Cloud. Ruby said she trusted him, so I trusted her too.”
He plants a hand over his face. “Oh, for the love of…” And he flings it away as he vents, “I knew Ruby was suspicious at the time, but she passed it off like nothing!”
Still, Tifa isn’t quite convinced yet. “Wait, Cloud, let’s not be hasty. Even if Cait Sith was planning this all along, it doesn’t mean that Ruby would know about it. If she did, she’d put a stop to it, wouldn’t she?”
“You’d think so, but…” He turns back to the man standing by the panel. “Dio thinks she’s in on it too.”
Dio makes a solemn nod. “Unfortunately, yes. This is where the latter half of the footage comes in.” He now presses another button on the panel to fast forward, and the scene changes again.
This time, Kiki the Cactuar rushes back into the room and bounces around, bumping and knocking into his fellow comrades to get them to stand at attention. All three start bouncing back up and stop still with what seems like their saluting poses as Ruby, still dressed for the play, steps inside. At first, she stops still, staring at the empty podium and enters into a moment of silence as if thinking over something. Then, without warning, she whips out an unnamed magic spell of her own and essentially imprisons all three Cactuars in their own individual pyramids. The outright shock and confusion of being targeted by such a spell from their very idol of worship again knocks all three of the poor critters into a catatonic state. She then hurries off as well, likely in search of Cait Sith and the missing Keystone.
Finally, the footage comes to an end and the hologram lifts, and Dio shuts the wall panel back up. Now even Tifa grows worried, Aerith seems to sink into gloom, and Cloud is stunned still, not quite sure how to make of what they just witnessed.
Dio now turns back to them with a stern frown. “I’m afraid to say, but this footage has not been tampered with in the slightest. What you’ve seen is exactly as it has been recorded.”
Tifa makes a distressed sigh. “…When she came upon the scene, she didn’t look surprised at all.”
Aerith hangs her head, feeling a little responsible too. “Maybe I should have questioned Ruby a little more.”
But Tifa shakes her head. “It’s okay, Aerith, it’s not your fault. We all put our faith in her.”
“Yeah… I just thought I knew my cousin well enough.”
“…” After another moment of contemplation, Cloud then turns back to them with a new look of resolve. “Let’s go. We need to find her.”
Tifa still gives him a cautious look herself. “Cloud, what will we do with her when we do?”
He shakes his head. “We’ll think about it when we get there.”
“…Okay.”
Cloud gives Dio an apologetic look. “Sorry about all this. We’ll try to talk with her.”
Dio raises a hand as if to let it be forgiven. “No need for apologies, my boy. I have no problems granting that particular item to her, as it was rightfully hers to begin with.” He then folds his arms with the same concerned frown. “Though, this does raise a few troubling questions. She seemed adamant about refusing to even touch it, so I have to wonder what came up that made her change her mind.”
“It’s still a little early to say anything, but yeah, she’s definitely suspicious.”
“Indeed.” He also lets them know, “Though it may go without saying, Battle Square will remain closed for the time being as this investigation is still underway. I’ve already informed the staff at ground level to stay vigilant for any signs of where Miss Ruby or your feline ‘friend’ may have gone… though it may still be a moot point to pursue her if she can simply warp away anywhere.”
“If she’s gone off to look for Cait too, then she can’t have gone far. We should check around ourselves.”
With a nod of approval, he gives Cloud a firm pat on the shoulder. “Good luck, my boy! I hope for all your sakes that this may just be a misunderstanding.”
Just as they’re about to leave, Cloud’s phone rings. He notices the call is from Barret and picks up. “Barret?”
“Cloud! I just remembered. Ruby said she was gonna drop Marlene and Aerith’s mom back home after the play, but who knows what she’s up to now. We can’t leave ’em here, so I told Jessie to take ’em back to the ship. But if you guys run into her, give her a reminder, would ya?”
“Sure, if we can. But things might not go so smoothly.”
“Huh? What’s up?”
“We just checked in with Dio and he showed us the cam footage. Turns out it caught the perp redhanded.”
“Yeah? So who’s the guy we gotta snatch?”
“Cait Sith.”
For just a moment, Cloud only hears silence. And then Barret rages, “What!? The hell is he doin’!? This isn’t time for games!”
“I doubt it’s a game. Seems like Ruby knew this might happen and is chasing after him. They might still be somewhere around the Saucer.”
“That damn cat! I knew he was sus from the beginning! He goes missing while we’re distracted and all and then he pulls off this shit? When I find him…”
“Let’s hope that we do before Ruby does. I got a bad feeling about this.”
“Why? Shouldn’t we be hoping for that? That cat’s gonna need the rest of his nine lives with her on his case!”
“It’s… a long story. When we meet up again, let’s stop by the lobby.”
“Hmm, alright… But, man, you gotta let us know what’s goin’ on with you two sometime. It’s not healthy keepin’ all that pent up, ya know.”
“What? It’s not… Ugh. Never mind. We’ll talk later.” Cloud hangs up the call and turns back to the ladies with him. “We should get going too, but where do we start looking?”
Tifa gives it a bit of thought. “Hmm… maybe we can at least stop by the lobby to see if the staff have seen any sign of Cait. At least if we can find him, we might be able to find Ruby too.”
“Yeah, sounds good. Let’s go.”
With their work here finished for now, they hurry off for the exit and it’s off into the tubes once more, this time headed for the main lobby on the ground. Just as they arrive, though, they come upon a minor crowd of people waiting around with some complaints going around. From just a quick survey overhearing their conversations, it seems like they all have to do with something about the ropeway at the entrance. A very apologetic staff member is out by the ropeway station announcing the news.
“Everyone, our sincerest apologies! But due to unforeseen circumstances around North Corel, the ropeway has temporarily been closed for everyone’s safety. Investigations provided by Shinra agents are currently underway regarding the situation there, so please be patient while we wait for official confirmation that the area is clear and ready to be reopened.”
Confused murmurs mixed with some complaints about being stuck here fill the crowd.
“Huh? That rundown place? What happened, some kind of criminals on the loose?"
“Who knows, but it must be serious if they’re sending in Shinra to look into it.”
“Yeesh, sounds like bad news all around. Those folks barely got anything left and they’re still haunted by trouble.”
Tifa also grows wary. “North Corel? Did something happen to the town?”
“It seemed fine last we checked…” Aerith replies, but even she’s now unsure.
Now that the trio steps up through the crowd, they also notice Jessie with Elmyra and Marlene at the front, and it seems Jessie’s a little impatient with the staffer.
“Really? At a time like this!?” Jessie demands, her hands set on her hips.
The staff member shakes her head. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but the ropeway has to be closed at this time. Orders from higher up and all. Investigations are still underway.”
She pouts, muttering to herself, “Ugh… If it’s just some wild fiends, even I can handle as much. Been itching to test out my new gear anyway.”
“What’s going on here?” Cloud calls out as he, Tifa, and Aerith appear from the crowd.
“Cloud! Tifa! Aerith!” Marlene cheers and waves to them.
“Oh! Hey, guys!” Jessie then shrugs and gestures toward the gondola. “We got a bit of tough luck, it seems. They’re saying something happened at North Corel and are shutting down the ropeway until it’s safe or something.”
Tifa rightly pursues the staffer with questions, “What happened there? Are the people safe? No one’s been hurt, have they?”
“Oh, don’t worry! It’s nothing so serious… Oh!” She quickly realizes who she’s talking to and bows politely. “You three wouldn’t happen to be friends of Miss Ruby, would you?”
“Huh? Yeah,” Cloud answers.
“Great! Then you may be just the people we need!”
Jessie rolls her eyes, muttering to herself, “Well, excuse me if I don’t match the look…”
Cloud resumes his own question, “You need our help?”
“Yes, if you can spare the time. You see, there’s been a report of some strange things happening there. A certain clinic in town had been minding a few odd patients in black robes. They were usually quiet and kept to themselves and wouldn’t harm a fly, according to the doctor. But, just a little while ago, something changed. The doctor wasn’t sure what happened, but his patients suddenly began to act wildly. Before he knew it, they even transformed into monsters! Grew wings out of their bodies and took off for the skies!”
Tifa’s eyes open wide as she remembers which clinic would be there. “Monsters? Is the doctor okay?”
“Yes, he’s fine. So far that we know, no one in town was attacked thankfully. But the patients are all missing now. No one knows where they’ve gone.” The staffer then shrugs. “But it seems like Shinra caught wind of the news too. Some agents of theirs just stopped by the town to investigate and requested that we shut down the ropeway until they give clearance.” She also leans in with a whisper, “But truth be told, the only allegiance we have is with our park director, and he’s definitely on Ruby’s side. So you guys don’t have to worry about being sold out or anything.”
Tifa makes a relieved smile and a nod. “Well, at least they’re all safe…” She also mumbles with a concerned frown, “But it doesn’t sound right that Shinra is looking into it too. Who knows if they’re trying to cover up for something.”
Cloud does likewise. “Yeah. Still, if they’re patrolling the town, that’s just another hassle we have to avoid… until we find Ruby, of course. She might even know a thing or two about this.”
“Speaking of robed people, do you think they’re like the ones we saw in Nibelheim?” Aerith asks them.
Tifa nods. “Probably. I actually know of a doctor who’s in the area. He must have been treating those patients.”
“You know a doctor from North Corel?” Cloud asks her.
“Yeah, Dr. Sheiran. He was the doctor who operated on me after Zangan rescued me from Nibelheim those years ago.”
He blinks in surprise. “Huh. Small world.”
“I thought about paying him a visit earlier, but since you guys would be busy with Cole, I decided to put it off for another time.” She droops, feeling a bit guilty. “But now with this, maybe we should go check on him just in case. If that’s okay with you guys?”
Aerith offers her a reassuring smile. “Sure, I don’t mind. As soon as we find Ruby, we can go.”
Cloud nods too. “Fine with me.”
Tifa gives them both her own grateful smile. “Thanks, guys.”
Jessie shows a proud smile of her own. “Well, then, we’ll leave it to you!” Her smile fades a bit for the awkward, though. “But I guess that means Elmyra and Marlene are gonna be stuck here a little longer.”
Elmyra shakes her head. “It’s fine. I don’t mind looking after Marlene. But I hear you all are looking for Ruby?”
Cloud replies, “Yeah. For some reason, she ran off somewhere on her own, but she should still be around.”
“Oh, dear. I wonder what happened?”
To which, he doesn’t reply and can only pass an unsure glance aside.
As quick to pick up on emotions as she does, Marlene feels worried too and asks, “Is Ruby okay?”
Her question catches him off-guard. “Huh? Uh…”
Aerith promptly returns a kind smile and nods back. “Sure she is! Don’t worry, we got it all under control!”
Marlene blinks innocently, but gives her a look as if not entirely convinced. Elmyra also gives Aerith an odd look, but decides not to press it. She knows her daughter well enough to know when she’s just trying to force a smile, but she doesn’t want to worry Marlene either. She then turns to Marlene as well with her own gentle smile.
“Marlene, since we still have a bit of time to wait, how about we head back up and see if there are any other fun shows to see?”
The little girl nods. “Okay!” She also waves back to them with her own cute smile. “Good luck, everyone! Hope you find Ruby soon!”
“Thanks, Marlene. We’ll do our best,” Tifa assures her.
“I’m still waiting on the others to call in too, so I’ll just keep them company,” Jessie also informs them. “I mean, no pressure or anything, but the sooner you can find Ruby, the better!”
“Heh. Of course.”
Jessie passes them a thumbs-up for luck, and Elmyra and Marlene wave goodbye as the three of them head back inside. With little else left to do here, Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith also head back inside to continue their search. Their respective groups part ways as Jessie leads the other two off to Wonder Square.
Aerith comes back up to the guide map once more with her naturally inquisitive look. “Well… Since Battle Square was the scene of the crime, I don’t think they’d be back there.”
Tifa nods, putting on her own thinking face. “Though, with how interconnected everything is, they could be just about anywhere.”
Cloud checks the PHS feed just in case for updates and is disappointed at the lack of news. “Seems like Barret, Biggs, and Wedge stopped by Chocobo Square, but didn’t find them there and went off to check the hotel too. Yuffie, Sonon, and Red stopped by Round and Speed Square, but again, no sign of them.”
“Jessie also just passed by Wonder Square with Mom and Marlene…” Aerith notes aloud.
Tifa frowns. “Then, the only places left to check are… Event and Battle Square?”
“But they wouldn’t be back at the crime scene, right? And we didn’t see them anywhere in Event Square. That’s where we all split off in the first place.”
Cloud puts away the PHS and folds his arms, diving into thought again. “If they’re not in any of the Squares, then could they be hiding somewhere in the tubes?”
“But which one? There are so many!”
“Yeah, that’s the problem…”
But just as they’re at a loss over where to search next, a certain cat and moogle pair comes hopping out into the open… from the very entrance to the lobby. He seems a little troubled, mumbling to himself, and is even empty-handed at this time.
“Oh, boy… I’m in a real pickle now. What should I say? Would they even listen?”
Now that they’ve arrived, though, Cait Sith and Moogle notice that Cloud and company are right here and seem to be firing death glares their way.
The cat makes a nervous grin and waves to them. “Oh! H-hey, Cloud! Tifa and Aerith too! Fancy meeting you all here! I’m sure you got a lotta questions on your minds, so how about we chat a bit? Maybe over drinks at the hotel bar? You know, just so everyone’s still cool and relaxed? Hehe…”
Cloud growls, “Get him.”
“W-w-w-wait!” Cait pleads.
In a panic, Moogle goes scuttling away carrying Cait on his back into the tube headed for Wonder Square, and the trio give chase. While Cait Sith and Moogle manage to catch a shuttle ride to themselves, they barely have time to breathe before they arrive at the square and rush off into the arcade to find a place to hide.
“But shouldn’t we tell ’em? About Ruby and all,” Cait mumbles to his moogle.
Moogle makes a worried frown, turns back to see their pursuers have arrived, and gives Cait a shrug.
“Er… Right. Maybe after they’ve cooled off.”
And they’re off again, scuttling to and fro through the oblivious crowds to avoid their angry pursuers. For just a moment, they manage to sneak into a Moogle-themed photo booth while some guests were entertaining the idea, but after taking a moment to cool off and even snap up a few charming photos, they hop back out to the sounds of impatient people outside – only to find themselves face-to-face with Cloud again.
“Um… Now, now, there’s no need for such scary-lookin’ frowns, friend! So how’s about a quick photo before we go?” Cait asks with a sheepish grin.
Cloud snarls, “Where’s the Keystone?”
His grin fades with a cold sweat. “Ah, is that what this is about? Well, uh…”
Moogle scuttles in reverse almost like a car and zips off again. Cloud tries to tackle them, but with a timely split, the two separate and jump around him as he lunges. Tifa and Aerith try to cover the sides, but again, Cait’s natural cat reflexes and feints are too much even for Tifa. Furthermore, even Moogle’s furry, plump and soft body is surprisingly slippery given how easily he can deform himself out of Aerith’s grasp. And they’re off and away under hot pursuit, headed next for Speed Square.
For such a rounded moogle body, he sure can gun it. Even with visitors roaming about the hallway leading up to the lines to the famed roller coaster, Cait and Moogle blitz through the lines, ducking and weaving their way as to blur where they are at any given point. The onlookers are a bit confused and frazzled by the rushing of the strange mascot-like creatures, and are likewise shocked when suddenly a guy with a huge sword on his back barges his way in to keep pursuing them. Tifa and Aerith try not to stir up too much commotion and apologize on behalf of their rowdier companions. But with little place around the lot to hide, the slippery pair round right back to the exit that was left unguarded. Now they’re off to Ghost Square.
In the darkened, haunted footpath leading up to the hotel, ghosts fade in and out overhead and zombies have begun to awaken and pop out of their graves. And in the meantime, Cait Sith and Moogle dive headfirst behind two of the gravestones. While the local attractions would normally spook away visitors, Cloud looks like something out of a nightmare when he’s pissed off. Even Tifa and Aerith look just a bit demonic with the fire in their eyes. As soon as Cloud draws his sword, the ghouls all freak out and promptly vanish or scatter. One of the zombies in a panic even pulls down the gravestones onto their respective graves, revealing where Cait and Moogle were hiding. Cloud swings his sword where Cait had been, and the cat yelps in shock and fright, clambering onto Moogle again as the two take off further inside for the hotel. Cloud swings his sword back in place like nothing terrible just happened and gives chase.
However, it’s but another quick roundabout here, where once again the cat and moogle startle other guests while they’re hurrying around for places to hide. By now, Cloud’s patience has reached some kind of limit and he goes full predator mode, sneaking around the tables to lash out at the cat. As soon as he does, though, the cat again yowls and scampers over the tables, hopping on through and disturbing a chess match between two disappointed ghosts, and scurries out the door again. Just as the ghosts are about to set up the match again, Cloud also burns past them like a wild hound on the hunt and his sword likewise knocks into the table, jostling the pieces yet again. Moogle, who had been watching, now catches a few of the fallen pieces and gently sets them back on the table, and then does a perfect dodge roll as Tifa jumps on over. He rolls right past Aerith, who is a bit slow to catch him, and scurries after the cat. And yet again, the ladies are left to apologize to the understandably upset ghostly guests.
Back outside, Cait Sith and Moogle reunite, hop, jump, and roll away into another open grave that is actually an exit to Chocobo Square. Cloud comes up fast and catches a glimpse of which one they used. He swings his sword in a spin – not exactly like his victory pose, but just to let the other two know – and sets the sword on his back again as he jumps in after them. The two ladies then catch up, now both of them feeling a little exhausted for different reasons, and follow suit.
But this time, while Cloud continues to tail Cait Sith and Moogle up the steps into the chocobo rally, Tifa and Aerith decide to stay outside by the doors, just out of view from the inside. And with barely a wait, the odd pair comes bouncing back out. This time, Tifa throws out a low sweep and trips Moogle, who goes tumbling down the steps with the cat going after. They both crash into the opposite wall at the base of the steps and bounce off in a rather cartoony way, complete with orbiting stars. While the two take a moment to recover, the trio now come upon them. Cloud again draws his sword, raised to threaten, and this time even Aerith summons her staff as well. They finally have these two cornered.
“Bite me whiskers! Of all the low blows to take, who would’ve thought the classic sweep would be the one to get us…” Cait mumbles to himself as he shakes away the stars.
“Enough running. Let’s talk,” Cloud says in a level voice, though his brandished weapon and seething glare say otherwise.
“Where’s the Keystone?” Tifa demands, her fists poised.
“And where is Ruby? Have you run into her?” Aerith asks with her own stern frown.
By now, the two have nowhere to run, so Cait and Moogle exchange heavy sighs and give in. Cait Sith answers, “Okay, okay. Let’s take it one thing at a time, shall we?” He now gets back to his feet and explains, “Right, ye got me. I won’t run or hide anymore. I admit it: I’m a spy for Shinra. If you got questions, I’ll answer.”
“So you were a spy…” Cloud’s grip on his sword tightens. “And did Ruby know this?”
Cait Sith nods solemnly. “Aye. From the very beginning. She asked me to join you, after all.”
Cloud winces just a little. He had suspected as much, but hearing it confirmed still stings. Tifa and Aerith are likewise heartbroken to realize that Ruby had been hiding this from them all along.
Still, Aerith chooses to believe in her. She insists, “She must have had her reasons.”
Tifa passes her a worried look. “Aerith…”
Cloud slowly turns away, still in disbelief. “It wouldn’t have been a huge deal if she just said them from the get-go, though. Hell, she even talked about him like he was our insider at Shinra…”
Aerith nods to him. “Yeah… but I’m sure she didn’t mean us any trouble.”
But Cait Sith just shrugs. “I dinnae ken a thing what she was thinking at the time, but she seemed pretty sure of herself. And credit where it’s due, she had even Rufus racin’ for cover that time they met in person. With her around, Shinra couldn’t rest easy no matter where she’d be.” He scratches his ear and strikes a thinking pose. “Honest talk, I had my doubts that I could ever pull off a bait-n-switch with her on guard. Even as someone from Shinra, I had to pace meself real careful.”
“But she still recruited you even knowing that you’d pull off something like this,” Cloud points out.
“That she did. I even warned her of the risks and she was fine with ’em.”
“…”
“…Well, whatever Ruby had planned with Shinra, we’ll just have to ask her later.” Tifa then moves onto the other big issue. “So, where’s the Keystone?”
Cait flings his hands up in the air just as Moogle does the same. “Ruby snatched it up when she found me. You can search us all ye like, but ye won’t find it.”
“But it was you who stole it in the first place, right?” Tifa asks warily.
“Aye. You all probably saw the footage from Dio’s room, I wager. No point in denying.”
“But why? Dio was ready to give it to Ruby anyway,” Aerith mentions. “There was no need for you to steal it.”
“Well, I would’ve been just fine and dandy if Ruby had gotten it! Would make plans much easier. But then I heard she refused for some reason.”
“The reason being that she didn’t want to go to the temple yet,” Cloud answers.
“Ah. I know she’s got some problems, but see, it’s real important that we open that temple as soon as possible. Some recent events have put the people outside into a bit of a scare, ye know.”
“Recent events?”
“Outside?” Tifa blinks in surprise. She now recalls the incident mentioned by the staff member at the ropeway station. “Wait, this doesn’t have to do with what happened in North Corel, by any chance?”
“North Corel too, eh?” Cait Sith shakes his head. “Unfortunately, it’s not just there. Maybe you’ve heard about the sightings of some robed people out and about turning into monsters?”
“No way… It’s not just North Corel?”
“Oh, it’s been reported all over the world, actually. The first incidents came from Nibelheim, but then it started happening around Midgar too. Seems like wherever those robed fellas have been, they’re all being hit by this strange phenomenon. Doesn’t seem like they’re goin’ around hurting anyone at least, but nothing short o’ the stars could know why they all grew wings and where they’re headed.”
By now, the other three grow alarmed and exchange the same concerned faces.
“But those robed people… were all subjects of the Jenova Project, weren’t they?” Aerith recalls. “That’s what Ruby said.”
Cait nods. “That’s true. They were released into the world as part of the greater experiment.”
“Then why are they being affected like this? Was there some kind of trigger that started this mass exodus?”
He simply shrugs. “Your guess is as good as mine. No one’s brought up a reason yet as far as I know.”
“Hmm…”
Cloud then offers a harder question, “Hey. Who exactly are you? You sure seem to know a lot about this.”
Cait shakes his head. “Whoa! Sorry, but can’t tell that. It’ll compromise me true self too where I am.”
“The truth will come out sooner or later. Right now, how you answer will determine the consequences,” Cloud warns, his sword’s edge drawing a little closer.
Cait backs up a bit, lowering his hands as if to ease the tension. “Hey, hey. Easy there, lad. I know you’re upset, but even if you smash apart this body, I’m just a stuffed doll brought to life.” He pinches his own cheek and tugs it, showing how soft and stretchy he is. He even casually tugs open Moogle’s mouth, revealing nothing but stuffing inside, and leaves it to bounce back as usual. “So is me partner here. Thrashin’ won’t do a thing for anyone at this point.”
Begrudgingly, he withdraws his sword and returns it to his back. Aerith also recalls her staff and Tifa drops the battle stance, both of them already feeling discouraged even before this revelation.
“So why do we need to open the temple as soon as possible?” Aerith asks again. “What does Shinra need from there?”
Cait shakes his head. “Sadly, I’m not privy to the details, but that’s what the head of R&D suggested.”
She winces a little as soon as he mentions even the title of that man. “Hojo…”
“Aye. He seems to know something or other about what’s been going on, so Rufus has been keeping him in close contact. I heard they may be dropping by the temple sometime soon too.”
“Even they’re coming?” Tifa grows even warier. “But why show themselves now? They do know that Ruby will kill Hojo on sight, don’t they?”
Cait Sith then lets off a sad sigh. “Yeah, um… about that…” Though he’s answered all their questions up to now, he still hesitates to admit this, fearing the consequences for Ruby’s own circumstances. Nonetheless, he still says it. “So, you know how Ruby was fine with the ‘risks’ with havin’ me aboard? Well… seems like she was also fine with strikin’ up a deal with us.”
Cloud grunts uncomfortably, wary of where this is leading. “What the hell did you say to her?”
Cait waves his hands frantically in the air. “Hey, hey! It’s not like that! She was the one who found me, ye know! Caught me right as I was tryin’ to make my getaway down at the ground floor.” He then rubs his head awkwardly. “No surprises there; she’s quick as light, literally.” And he throws his hands out dramatically as he declares, “But then she knocked me good with another surprise! Instead of turning me in like I thought she would, she asked me to call the Turks and let them know she’d be taggin’ along! She then snagged the Keystone and ran off.”
The other three snap wide-eyed and at attention. “What?” Cloud mutters and then argues, “That’s bullshit! Why would she…?” Yet, he drifts off as he tries to process what could possibly have led her to act this way.
“Ruby wanted to tag along with the Turks?” Tifa asks, also in disbelief. “Why?”
Cait droops, feeling a little embarrassed. “Sorry. Didnae have even the chance to ask.”
“She took the Keystone…” Aerith mumbles to herself. She also proposes, “Then, are they headed for the temple now?”
Cait nods. “In fact, she oughta be meeting them by heli as we speak.”
“What?” Cloud snags the cat by the collar. “And you waited until now to tell us!?”
The poor cat squirms helplessly in his grasp. “I-I’m sorry, really sorry! But that’s the rules! We needed to make sure that Ruby would be ready to go, so no interruptions whatsoever!”
“Who’s ‘we’!?” Cloud throws him back down. “You mean Shinra! You damn spy!”
Cait bounces softly off the ground, but still looks like he was hurt. “L-look, I didn’t want it to be like this either, but my hands are tied too. Here, if it’ll help any, I’ll guide you all to the temple myself!”
“No dice, cat.” Cloud’s low voice practically oozes with venom. “We already got the Highwind so we can find it ourselves. If Shinra knows what’s good for them, then they’ll call off the Turks too. Cid isn’t afraid to shoot.”
“Ah…” Now that it’s been brought up, Cait Sith sinks back into gloom. “I really didn’t want to say it, but…” He even shakes his head and lets off a miserable sigh. “Ah, it’s all out of my control anyway.”
“Say what?”
With an exhausted look on his face, he explains, “You see… The Highwind has officially been confiscated and will be returned to Shinra as of tonight.”
Cloud nearly does a double take. “Wha…?”
“What are you talking about? Cid and Vincent are still aboard. There’s no way they’d just leave it!” Tifa argues.
“Of course. That’s why we, eh, Shinra had to call in reinforcements. There are currently two Class-I Soldiers aboard to ensure the recapture of the airship.”
“Huh!?”
“Two of them?” Aerith mumbles, covering her mouth in a gasp. “Two more like Cole…?”
“You…” Cloud begins, but drifts off as he begins to tremble with rage.
Cait bows his head, feeling genuine shame. “Sorry to say, but that was always the plan. Rufus was only lending the ship to you, after all. The moment Ruby would change her mind and work with us, that privilege would be revoked.”
“Ruby didn’t change her mind about anything yet!” Cloud barks back. He turns back to Tifa and Aerith. “Let’s go. We need to catch them before they get away.”
“Ah! Wait, guys!” Cait tries calling to them. “Even if you do…”
But they ignore him and hurry back out for Battle Square. Cait Sith sighs again, nervously rubbing his head, while Moogle gives him a comforting pat on the back. Well, that definitely went poorly. There was simply no easy way out of a serious matter like this. He had to play his part and he did it well, and as it turned out, Ruby did the same. No matter how things swing from here, Cloud and his party won’t be going anywhere without Shinra’s approval, so they won’t be able to kick him off the team just yet either. He should follow too, just to make sure things don’t blow up too fast. With a safe enough distance away from the trio, Cait Sith hops back onto Moogle and they hurry to catch them.
By the outer edge of the square at the base of the stairs leading into the coliseum lobby, a Shinra helicopter has been waiting with its ladder down. Rude is piloting the vehicle, while Reno and Elena are on the ground discussing plans with none other than Ruby, who is already out of her costume by now. By the time Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith arrive, though, Ruby has climbed up the ladder and hops aboard, with Elena and Reno following suit.
“Hold it!” Cloud shouts.
“Shit! They’re here!” Reno calls to his partner above, “Rude! Get it movin’!”
Without hesitation, Rude swings the chopper away from the scene while Reno quickly scrambles up the ladder and shuts the door. He falls back in the open seat with a relieved sigh, while Elena rolls her eyes beside him. As Ruby climbed in first, she gets to take shotgun, and Elena, being a little spiteful to be moved out of her seat, gives Ruby a glare as if trying to lay some kind of curse on her. But the former doesn’t even look her way. She seems to be staring out the window into the dark night sky as if in deep contemplation.
It’s too late. By the time Cloud and the ladies reach the platform, a little out of breath, the helicopter has flown away. He stumbles forward, looking as if drained of energy, and then stops himself from tipping over. He stares off into the sky as the helicopter disappears from view, completely stunned into silence and above all, betrayed. With what feels like a critical failure fallen upon his shoulders, he then grasps his head in frustration and lets out a gut-wrenching wail and drops to his knees.
“Cloud…” Tifa means to offer some comforting words, but has none to say. Instead, she backs off and looks away, clenching her fists so tightly until she’s visibly shaking.
And then, there is Aerith. She watches the helicopter fly away with a forlorn expression that yet hides an earnest, still hopeful longing. It’s a little sad to think that the last time she had spoken to Ruby directly was back when they were helping Dyne. Since then, Ruby has been too busy to just slow down and chat comfortably – not even with her cousin. So many things she wanted to say; so many things they could have shared, especially in private, that were never said when they mattered. But, perhaps… no, definitely, there’s still time. They’ll get their chance to talk with her soon.
Now, Cait Sith and Moogle arrive and slowly approach the disparaged trio. Though he hesitates to speak up again, he feels like he should still say something to at least help the mood a little.
“Um… Heya. I know things are lookin’ mighty bleak right now, but…” he begins.
Tifa turns back to him with a seriously hurt look, while Aerith simply gives him a disappointed one. Cloud doesn’t bother to look his way. He’s stopped shaking, but his breathing is so quiet that it bodes ill.
Nonetheless, Cait proceeds anyway, offering a sheepish smile, “Look on the bright side, guys! Thanks to Ruby, we can finally work out a truce between us and Shinra. I mean, sure, we’d still have to be supervised and all, but that’s just protocol.”
Their icy glares bring him no comfort, but the cat still keeps trying.
“And besides, what really matters is that we all wanna take down Sephiroth, yeah? So, having Shinra as backup wouldn’t be the worst thing. So, I was thinkin’ that maybe we can just pretend none o’ this happened and we just keep on our journey together? Whaddya say?”
He finishes his offer with his usual charming kitty smile and even Moogle backs him up with his own toothy grin. However, neither of the ladies are amused in the least. And at this point, something seems to strike Cloud in a way that makes him snap a nerve. He now gets back up to his feet, turns back to the cat with blazing vengeance in his eyes, and starts to stomp on over with a threatening aura about him.
Cait Sith and Moogle immediately flinch in fright and begin to back off too. He raises his arms in surrender. “H-hey! Cloud! Easy there, lad! There’s no need for such a scary face now, is there…?”
“…There is no ‘us’. You’re not one of us,” Cloud growls dangerously.
“W-well, now, that’s a tad harsh, isn’t it? I mean, yeah, I did betray you, so I totally understand that much. But in the end, it’s just bringin’ us closer to a common goal, right?”
At this point, Cloud seizes the cat by his neck in a vicegrip.
“W-whoa! Hey! Cloud! I’m just a toy, remember!? No need to get so heated… Yipes!”
He yanks the cat up close to stare him down into submission, which happens very, very quickly. Cait can only mew helplessly while Moogle does some kind of panic dance just behind him.
“You’d better hope that Shinra plans our prison sentence outside of Midgar because once we’re back in the city, I will find you – the real you – and make you regret ever crossing paths with me.”
“Cloud!” Aerith suddenly calls out to him. She looks disappointed in him too, but in a more motherly way. “Enough. You’re better than this.”
He turns back to her, utterly lost for a bit, but makes a conceding grunt and finally backs off so Cait Sith can breathe a sigh in relief. Once freed, Moogle rushes in to catch the kingly cat upon his head to be his throne once more. Tifa comes by beside him, putting a hand to his shoulder in sympathy. Feeling how tense he is, she proceeds to help relieve his strained muscles with a little shoulder massage. Aerith then approaches the cat with a calmer, gentler expression.
“Cait, can I ask you something?”
He’s a little taken aback by her change in attitude, but plays along as usual. “Huh? Oh, sure. Ask away.”
“When you and Ruby met for the first time, did she say anything about her plans? Like when she was ever going to fetch the Keystone?”
He shakes his head. “Not at all. Like I said, I dinnae ken a thing about her intent. Maybe even back then, she already had this planned out, or maybe she just winged it as she went. But either way, it’s clear that it’s been on her mind from the start.”
Aerith nods back slowly. “I thought so. I noticed that whenever she comes under pressure, Ruby always falls back on herself to fix everything. She hates having to ask for help. Maybe because she feels like it makes her seem weak, or maybe because she feels she needs to be strong for everyone else’s sake. So, even when she’s having trouble keeping up with the pressure, she never complains about the load, only about herself. And if she ever thinks she’s not up to the task, she gives up and runs away.”
Cait’s ears sag and he nods in condolence. “Ah… You may be right. That’s how she’s been all this time, hasn’t she?”
“But why run away?” Tifa asks. “We’re always there for her and she knows it. If anything, she should trust us the most.”
“Because she sees us as a burden,” Cloud answers instead.
“Huh?”
“She’s the hero of this story and we’re basically a bunch of cheerleaders that hang on her every word.”
Tifa frowns. “Cloud…”
Aerith lowers her head, but nods in agreement. “I wouldn’t put it so harshly, but that’s a valid way to see it too.”
Tifa turns to her in surprise. “Aerith! Not you too?”
Aerith takes a pause, but then looks back up with a more resolved face this time. “Of course, that doesn’t mean it has to stay this way.”
Tifa blinks, taken by surprise by her sudden change in mood. As if she made a turn on a dime, Aerith manages to swing the mood back around for the lighter. She offers the rest a reassuring smile and helps ease the tensions.
“If she thinks we’re still too far behind to catch up with her, then we’ll just have to show her that we can do it. Show her that she could use a little more faith in the people she holds dearest…” Aerith swings back to Cloud, who is still a little slow to catch up to her new rhythm. “Right?”
“Uh…” He finds it a lot harder to look Aerith in the face when she’s right in his face. He nervously glances back to Tifa, who is also surprised but seems to take it in better graces.
Tifa nods back with a reassured smile of her own. “Right. We haven’t been slacking on building up ourselves either.”
“Y…yeah,” Cloud now utters. As he lets the thought sit with him, he too becomes convinced and finally turns back to Aerith with a firm nod of his own. With a sigh, he plays it cool and adds, “She’s been overthinking it way too hard. Even when she’s coming up with those ‘secret battle plans’ of hers, she’s just worrying over nothing. We got options. She just needs to set it up so we can do our part.”
Aerith’s smile widens just a bit more and she even chuckles to herself, triumphant over this moment of misery. “That’s the spirit! Now, let’s go get her and talk some sense into her!”
Tifa raises a determined fist as well. “Yeah!” And Cloud pouts to himself, as if still grumbling over something, but nods along too.
Finally, Aerith turns back to Cait Sith, who has been stunned silent yet impressed by the strength of her charisma. She also offers him a kind smile and asks, “Oh, yeah. You said you know where the temple is, right?”
He quickly salutes her as if addressing a superior. “Uh. Aye! That I do.”
“Then, we’ll leave you to guide us! Make sure you map the fastest possible route, okay?”
“O-oh. Well, if you insist…” He then sinks a bit, still feeling guilty about earlier. “Though, now that the ship’s been taken back, it’s not me who gets the final say.”
“Who does?”
“Rufus, of course. The Highwind is officially under his command.” He fidgets with his fingers as he admits, “And since he won’t be arriving at the temple until tomorrow morning, we might not be able to get a move on until then, unfortunately.”
“Oh.”
An awkward silence comes over the rest of them, where Cait feels a cold sweat come over. Though Aerith simply looks disappointed, Tifa grows anxious and Cloud seems to have rekindled that fiery rage from earlier.
“Ah…” Cait Sith slowly lowers his head and so does Moogle in tandem. “Yeah, I suppose there’s no spinning it any other way. The others are in for some bad news.”
Nonetheless, Aerith chooses to keep her spirits up anyway. She gets back in form and nods to herself to pep herself back up. She then turns back to him with a calming nod. “It’s okay. What matters is that we have a course set and it’ll be easier on everyone if we work together for now.” She even reveals a sly wink. “And besides, it’s great to have someone on the inside to keep us up to date on what Shinra’s up to, right?”
“Eh?”
“Aerith…?” Tifa cautiously calls to her.
Cait Sith stares back at Aerith, surprised yet again. “Ah… Hehe! Well, how ’bout that? You’re really soundin’ like Ruby now.”
She beams, looking rather proud. “Glad to hear it!”
Feeling more confident himself, Cait also turns to the other two. “Alright, let’s gather everyone up at the hotel, so we can discuss plans from here. And don’t worry about settin’ up the rooms. You can leave all that to me!”
“Oh, in that case, can you also leave a place for my mom and Marlene? They’re also kinda holed up here in the meantime.”
“Not a problem! In fact, if they’re ever feeling homesick, I can call Tseng to help send them home too.”
Aerith giggles at the thought of making the director of the Turks a humble chauffeur. “If you can, that’ll be great!”
Cait Sith whips out his own PHS, does a little digital magic even without having to touch any keys or the touchpad, and sends away the messages to everyone else. And with that, he leads the way off for Ghost Square, with Aerith following close and Tifa and Cloud trailing a bit more cautiously. As much as they want to believe in Aerith’s optimism, something doesn’t sit right. No, there’s no way it’s gonna be that easy. This is Shinra they’re dealing with here.
~
“Like hell we will!” Barret swears, huffing mad like he can barely control himself. “Shinra’s done nothin’ but throw their shit everywhere! That’s not gonna change with some shitty make-believe ‘truce’! The bastards will turn on us the moment they think we stop being useful!”
“Yeah! I’d sooner die than ever work with anything Shinra!” Yuffie likewise protests. “Don’t even joke about that!”
“Same here,” Sonon coolly agrees. “Doubt that they’d just leave us be even if we did play nice.”
As expected, the reception to Cait Sith’s proposal goes about as well as a nuclear meltdown. In the end, there was no stepping around the main issue – being that the Highwind has been confiscated and Rufus isn’t letting them set sail whenever they want now. So Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith have relayed the situation to everyone and they are all understandly upset. So when Cait Sith would kindly suggest, merely as an attempt at nonviolence moving forward, that they just pretend to cooperate with the Turks for the time being, he’d be hit with a volley of death glares and biting words. The cat ducks behind his moogle, whimpering to himself, but still very thankful that as Aerith promised, she, Cloud, and Tifa would keep quiet about Cait Sith being the spy. The ill reception he’s gotten as is, is already well beyond his threshold for shame.
“Still… it’s true that the Turks are the ones in control of the ship right now. Cid and Vincent are still aboard, but they’ve been locked up and are under watch by those two Class-I Soldiers,” Jessie then admits, feeling discouraged. “Doesn’t seem like they’re gonna be making a getaway anytime soon.”
“They got two Immortal-type Soldiers? Sheesh, just Cole was trouble enough without Ruby’s help. And this just had to happen when she isn’t here…” Biggs grumbles bitterly.
“Yeah, pretty suspicious. They were probably waiting for the moment she’d be missing to strike.”
Barret folds his arms with a stern frown. “How the hell would they even know when Ruby would go missing, though? Did they scan the whole area and plan around her?”
Jessie shakes her head. “Doubt it. The Gold Saucer is a huge place and Ruby can just warp back any time. So even if she was away for a bit, they’d be in deep trouble as soon as she’d return.”
Cloud then explains, “That’s why we think the Turks cracked some kind of deal with her and she’s just playing along for a bit. If anything turns sour, she could always send them packing.”
“But that’s what I don’t get!” Barret argues, “Just what could they say to her that’d convince her? If it were any of us, we’d tell ’em to go eat shit! She may be a little nutty sometimes, but she’s no fool.”
“Well, whatever it was, she still felt the need to ditch us when we could have used her help.”
“Maybe rather than ‘ditch’, it’s just unfortunate timing?” Tifa suggests instead. “She hasn’t been back to the ship in a while, so she wouldn’t know what was happening.”
Barret shakes his head in disbelief. “Man! What are the odds? She just had to play daredevil at the worst time!”
“If it’s just coincidence, sure… But don’t you think it was weird that she just rushed off on her own even while the play was still going?” Jessie reminds them, “I don’t think this is just a case of her messing around.”
“Well, there was the Cactuar that reported to her, and it turned out someone from Shinra stole the Keystone,” Wedge recalls, given as much as they’ve been informed. “Makes sense that she didn’t want it to fall into the wrong hands.”
“But then why’d she disappear on us like this?” Yuffie complains, “You’d think she’d knock those idiots away and just return the stone to its place.”
“Is there some kind of special connection she has with the stone?” Sonon then brings up, “Like, some kind of history?”
Aerith takes her turn to answer, “Yeah. Ruby was the former guardian to the temple that the Keystone unlocks.”
He blinks in surprise. “She’s the guardian? Then no wonder she would take it herself! If anything, she should be guarding that thing with her life.”
“Well, she probably didn’t want to associate with it if she didn’t have to. But if Shinra wants to unlock that temple, they’d need her permission to do so.”
“And so, what?” Barret raises a suspect eyebrow. “She just takes them there just ’cause they ask her? That doesn’t sound right…”
“Unless… is there some kind of secret to the temple?” Yuffie then suggests, getting a little excited all of a sudden, “Like, anyone who goes there will have to face her wrath or something?” Now she grins to herself. “Ha! What if she’s just leading them into a trap or something? The losers wouldn’t know what hit ’em!”
“If that’s all it is, then that’s fine. But you’d think she’d at least let us know,” Tifa points out, not so sure.
Jessie sighs to herself with a hint of regret. “If only I asked her sooner to gather materials. I could have made another PHS for her so we can call her directly…”
“…Hm?” Now that Red recalls something, he speaks up too. “Jessie, what sort of materials do you need to gather?”
“Huh? Uh, like some extra materia crystals like the kind we have in ours? It’s what keeps us connected and off Shinra lines.”
“Ah.” He nods back. “I believe we may know someone who can help with materia production.”
“Huh? Wait, did you say materia production? Who’s the grand wizard who can do that!?”
“A young man named Chadley. He was the one who requested that Ruby take an expedition out to the Northern Cave to help him with his research. As it happens, he is also well-versed in production of artificial materia that works as well as the real thing. If you ask him, he may be able to help.”
“Oh, wow. You’re telling me this kid genius has all the answers around materia?”
Yuffie throws out a thumbs-up of approval. “He may be weird, but he’s offering us some great deals! We gotta ask him to get us more materia sometime! It’ll definitely help us later!” She also throws some prodding side-eye Cloud’s way as if to press the point, but the latter simply ignores her.
Jessie nods back slowly as she dives back into thought. “Huh… then we might just be able to make something work.” With a relieved smile, she declares, “Okay! Leave it to me! I’ll get that extra phone for her real quick! We might even be ready by tomorrow.”
Cloud nods. “Alright. Since we’re gonna be stuck here until tomorrow morning anyway, we should get that squared away. As for tomorrow morning…” He then turns to everyone else to announce, “Since we won’t know what to expect at the temple, it’ll be for the best that we move as a small group. Aerith, Tifa, and I will head in to search for Ruby. The rest of you should stay on the ship on standby in the meantime. If anything turns up, we’ll stay in contact.”
Barret lets off a dissatisfied harrumph, but nods along. “And if you do run into Ruby, then let us know ASAP! Whatever’s goin’ on with her, we need to know too!”
“Of course.”
“And we’ll make sure she’s not only safe and sound, but glad to see us!” Aerith insists.
At that moment, everyone but Cloud, Tifa, and Cait Sith turn to her with some confused faces as if she had just said something weird. These three meanwhile exchange nervous glances, wondering what Aerith is thinking by blurting something like that aloud.
“Um… why wouldn’t she be glad to see us?” Yuffie asks for everyone. “Something got to her? It’s not ’cause of Cloud or Sonon, right?”
Sonon mumbles to himself, “Hey. What did I do?”
Nonetheless, Aerith remains unfazed and answers carefully as to not reveal too much, “Oh, no, not like that. But she did end up stuck with Shinra for tonight when she could have been getting a good night’s sleep for once.”
“Pfft! Well, that goes without saying!” Yuffie winces at the thought. “Ew. Imagine ever having to spend the night with the Turks of all people! They seem like the worst…”
“Hmm. I think she’ll be fine with them, actually,” Aerith replies, recalling her own days in the past when she was doing just that. She also smiles coyly and adds, “They’re the ones scared of her anyway.”
“Their fault for being Shinra.”
In any case, with discussions coming down to a simmer, the party agrees that it’s getting late and they should be heading off for bed, as they’ll be leaving first thing in the morning. Though, as Jessie promised, she would first head off to meet with Chadley to talk business before she’d turn in as well. As they all scatter to head into their respective rooms upstairs, Cloud takes a moment of silence to stare off on his own. In all honesty, he isn’t feeling tired in the least. The thought of Ruby heading off without explaining herself to a place where Sephiroth would be waiting makes him sick to the stomach. He can’t even begin to imagine all the terrible things that could be happening even now.
Cait Sith also happens to be one of the last of them to depart, as he volunteers to stay on watch until Jessie returns. He comes up to Cloud and waves a hand in his face to get his attention.
“Hey, Cloud. I know you’re worried sick, but we got a big day tomorrow. Go get some rest, alright?” The cat offers him a consoling smile. “It’ll be okay, lad! If there’s anyone who can handle herself, it’s Ruby! Even though she’s had some troubles, she hasn’t let us down yet!”
“…” As much as Cloud would like to tell him off about how wrong he is, especially knowing all the previous encounters she’s had with Sephiroth, he can’t find it in himself to argue. He just sighs to himself and nods back. “Yeah… See you in the morning.”
He now heads up after the others without another word. He might not get much sleep in, but there’s not much they can do for now. He holds onto a fervent prayer in his heart: Ruby, whatever happens there, stay safe above all else. If Sephiroth shows up, don’t bother to fight or argue with him. Just run away… Run back here, as soon as you can. We’ll protect you.
~
“Sheesh… What’s gotten into her all of a sudden?” Reno mutters, kicking back in his seat aboard the helicopter. “First she tells us to not be hasty, and now she’s on our asses about getting to the temple. Stick with a schedule already.”
A few hours have passed since Ruby left the Gold Saucer with the Turks. They initially planned to return to HQ to rest and recuperate for the day, as they would have to prepare for Rufus and Hojo’s visit to the temple the next morning. However, shortly upon their return to Midgar and while Tseng was looking for a place to accommodate their latest guest, Ruby seemed to have a change of heart and pled with him to take her to the temple as soon as possible. For some reason, she was rather beside herself and couldn’t wait until next morning. As they had no means to actually keep her still, Tseng reluctantly agreed and promptly reported to the president about the change in plans. Rufus obliged the request, but insisted that they keep her in their sights as much as possible. He was looking forward to witnessing the momentous occasion awaiting them at the “ill-fated grounds”, as an old Cetran text once described of it. However, when he asked Hojo more about it, the professor instead complained about the loaded meaning of the word “fate” and insisted that “inevitability” was much more apt, and at that point Rufus decided to tune out early. In any case, he would be disappointed if the occasion happened while no one was watching.
It’s a little past midnight when Ruby’s ride arrives at the temple. The night sky above is brimming with glittering stars scattered across the vast cosmos, for once not compromised by any manmade lights; a wondrous and beautiful sight to behold. But by this late hour, both Reno and Rude would rather be heading off to bed than being stuck here babysitting a finicky dragoness. Elena did not join them for this mission as she already checked out for the night by the time Ruby made her decision. Instead, Tseng has taken it upon himself to accompany Ruby this time. It wouldn’t just be him, though. As soon as he heard that his mentor would be there, Zhui rushed to join him. The young Turk was oddly passionate about coming along, almost as if he had a bad premonition about her.
Ruby approaches the stand in the back of the temple’s entry room with the Keystone in hand, setting it atop the table, and steps back to let the stone work its magic. As if the very stars would align, crevices in the stone begin to glow a deep blue as a mystical energy begins to run through it and seep out the odd ends, dripping onto the table as if it were a liquid. The energy continues to flow and cascade down the edges of the table until it reaches the floor around it, and then the real magic happens. In an instant, the temple itself begins to warp in plain view and the floor soon gives way into something like quicksand, which draws and swallows its guests into the depths below. She doesn’t even flinch as she lets herself sink, though her companions are a little more flustered by the transition.
Nevertheless, the three of them all land safely, only to find themselves in a strangely locked-off place. If anything, it seems like they’ve ended up in some kind of trap; having just fallen into a room with no exits, boxed in by stone walls in a closed cube. An odd reception, to be sure, but even then, Ruby remains completely calm. It’s weird, actually. She isn’t sure when, but she feels like she’s been in a place like this before.
“Where the hell are we?” Zhui mutters, his rifle in hand and his fingers itchy on the trigger. Though he doesn’t raise it her way, he still gives her a hard, suspicious stare. “What did you do?”
But Tseng steps in to remind him, “Settle down. This temple is anything but the ordinary, so we should expect that the road ahead isn’t going to be straightforward.”
“What ‘road’? We’re clearly stuck in some kind of room!” he groans. “Do we have to bust our way out or something?”
“If there’s some kind of trick to this room, that might not be necessary.” Tseng also notices how calm Ruby seems and asks her, “Is this something you’ve been expecting?”
She doesn’t look his way and continues to stare at the wall before her. “No. But I’m also not surprised.” She then reveals a confident smirk. “Feels nostalgic in a way.”
“Nostalgic?”
“Like, it’s part of a game that I used to play with someone when I was younger.”
“A game, huh…” He nods along. “In other words, there is a puzzle to this room and we need to solve it, I’m guessing.”
Yet, she still looks a bit unsure. “Hmm… Maybe not.”
“No?”
“Let me try something.”
With a curious thought, she approaches the wall and sets a hand upon it. She then closes her eyes, picturing a different location in the temple that is much more open-aired and gently asks the wall to move aside so she may proceed. As if it were someone that heeds her request, the wall begins to tremble and pulls itself apart to reveal an arched doorway. Tseng and Zhui simply stare at her as she gestures toward them to follow and moves on ahead, and so they follow.
The dimly lit corridor soon opens way to the sprawling open grounds like something out of an M.C. Escher painting – crisscrossing paths of stone that rise and fall without any sense of gravity, leading to places where there would logically be dead ends, but instead give way to new rooms with their own paths to lead. It is an ever expansive, ever changing landscape. This time is no exception; the paths that the roads take aren’t quite the same as what even Ruby recalls. In fact, they seem to have stepped out to an area closer to the bottom, where many roads hang overhead like rock formations suspended in flight. But this is good headway. They have further to descend before they can reach the Time Keeper’s lair.
Though she’s had a long night, the mysterious air about the place brings Ruby back to her inner child with the excitement and wonder she once felt seeing it for the first time. As they look around, she swings to and fro as she marvels at the sights. Though there is but an ominous silence broken only by the occasional stir of creatures hidden in the shadows, the music that she remembers is playing loud and clear in her heart. She waves her arms in the air and flutters her fingers, letting them flow as if she were conducting the mysterious-sounding rhythm herself.
Meanwhile, the Turks, who don’t hear such wonderful music, remain cautious as they scan the area for any potential threats. Zhui already has his rifle drawn and raised, ready to fire at a moment’s notice. And while Tseng is fairly certain that as long as they stick with Ruby, they might not need to worry about any monsters popping out, he too has come armed with his own gun – just as a precaution, of course.
Nonetheless, Ruby seems to be lost amid her own thoughts as she leads them further in. Even when she doesn’t recognize the layout of the maze this time, she still finds her way about like it’s still second nature. She has a strange sense of familiarity with the place, but that’s the question, isn’t it? How does she know? How deep does her instinct run… Oh, wait. Of course it makes sense. This is where Rubia had stayed for quite a long time. She would know it well.
As if the very reminder was some sort of trigger itself, Ruby is caught by surprise when yet another sudden vision flashes into mind. Fortunately, it is a much less threatening one; of when Rubia was much younger, playing hide and seek with a few lost human travelers who happened to stumble into this temple. As if the memories were always her own, Ruby immediately recognizes one of them to be the father to the little girl Elicia she once called friend. She got his smooth blond hair and blue eyes as well, though he of course had a well-trimmed moustache-beard. Here, he was in the company of three other men; strangers, but all dressed similarly like within a scouting squad. He looked much younger at this time, so it was probably a time long before Elicia was ever born. And yet, here Rubia was, still a child in her tender years, giggling to herself as she planned to sneak on them for a surprise prank. But before she could launch an ambush, she would be swept up in the claws of a much bigger red dragon, who looked rather exasperated at how often this little brat would disappear on him. When the humans then noticed the huge red dragon, they all fled in a panic even when the dragon had no intention of attacking.
The vision quickly fades away as she comes back out. Even given this quick glimpse for the first time, she immediately understands the context like she had seen it many times before. Though Rubia’s earliest days in this temple were a fun trip, they told of a much darker context. This red dragon was no ordinary one, but an old foe-turned-ally to Bahamut who the dragon king personally requested to act as the warden to this prison. Though Rubia had some years living among humanity since she was young, they were sporadic as time and time again, there would be some terrible accident where her father would be forced to separate her until the situation settled down. Though he understood that the child was merely acting playfully, she didn’t know her own strength and could easily down a man if she weren’t careful. It was an endless source of frustration for the old dragon, who still held onto a firm belief in the possibility of lasting peace between dragonkin and humanity, but it would prove to be a long, arduous journey, even with this child of promise.
“…Ruby. Is something wrong?” Tseng’s voice calls to her.
She finally snaps back to the present and turns to see his look of concern. Zhui seems less concerned, though, and is a bit more restless. He’s still glancing around and feeling on edge, almost as if looking for a fight.
Though she’s savvy enough to recognize that this brief respite may just be the start to her troubles, Ruby forces a facile smile anyway. “Sorry. Just had a trip down memory lane. I’m sure it’s not much further from here.”
She treads on ahead following the winding roads and tunnels, ascending and descending stairs that shift forward or creeping vines that grow out to help point the way. Even with every potential dead end she encounters, there is a hidden switch or trigger of some kind that responds to her touch and the walls in the way become mere suggestions to her. Even the creatures that would normally ambush any lost travelers trapped in the maze all scurry out of the way as the maze shifts itself to her command. The going is so smooth that it almost feels like she’s just going through the motions, as if this was merely another day in the past life she once led where she was treated to puzzle after puzzle to keep her preoccupied while the adults in her life would be “away”. But that’s always how it’s been – even for her in her old life in that other world.
As she leads them through one last dark tunnel, they finally arrive at a different room entirely, one with a narrow corridor that at first seems empty, but she raises an arm to tell the other two to stay back for now. As soon as she rounds the corner and crosses a certain invisible line, another trap is triggered. But rather than unleash a landslide of crescent-shaped boulders down the hall toward them, the trap instead slides a wall behind her, trapping her within the corridor.
“Hey!” Zhui calls out.
He launches a few heavy shots on the wall, but it doesn’t break. They may not be able to see what’s happening, but clearly Ruby has come to be assaulted by something judging by the scratching, scuttling noises from within, as if she were potentially being swarmed by fiends. Noting that they won’t be breaking through until Ruby breaks out of the trap herself, Tseng quietly puts a hand to his shoulder to tell him to back off for now.
“Come on! We made it this far without a problem!” he complains through gritted teeth. “How can we lose her already?”
“Hm? Why are you so concerned for her?” Tseng curiously asks him. “I’m sure she can handle herself.”
“I’m not concerned for her sake! She can get crushed or messed up by whatever is in there for all I care! But she better not die before I’ve gotten answers!”
“Answers? To what?”
To which, Zhui falls silent for a moment, hesitant as to how he should explain. Tseng watches him with careful intent, but decides that they can take this conversation elsewhere another time. This definitely isn’t the first time that Zhui has been relentlessly pursuing some hidden motive. Tseng has known the kid since he was young, being the nephew to an old friend of the previous director to the Turks. By request from the former director, Tseng had taken in the boy in his care after he was discovered to have run away from home one day. However, it still surprised him when Zhui eventually volunteered to join the Turks. His parents had long discouraged him from getting involved and would have preferred if he simply settled into a safe office job under Shinra. At first, Tseng believed it was just the kid’s rebellious nature that sent him this way, but then he suspected something happened that convinced Zhui to change careers.
Nevertheless, the two don’t have too long to wait. After what sounds like an explosion from within the corridor, the wall that had separated them from her comes crumbling down and Ruby returns completely unscathed, but bathed red in the blood of the monsters that dared to attack her. And yet, even the blood itself shortly fades away into the ether.
“Sorry about the wait,” she says plainly like nothing just happened. “I’ve opened the way forward. We can continue.”
“…” Zhui almost looks disappointed. “As always, not a scratch… Can nothing pierce her skin?”
“It’s only expected that nothing that this temple would offer her would be a challenge,” Tseng remarks while recalling, “She is said to be one of its guardians in ancient times.”
“So what would one of the Ancient Temple guardians be doing getting involved in Shinra’s experiments?” he fires back with a hint of sarcasm.
“…” Tseng passes him a quick glance, trying to read his intention, but lets it be and instead replies, “In any case, we have little to worry in her company.”
“I highly doubt that…”
“Well, from other threats in our surroundings, at least.”
Zhui doesn’t argue with that, but he still looks dissatisfied. It seems that no matter what, he’s not willing to lower his guard around someone like Ruby. Perhaps it’s for the best, though. She isn’t the most predictable person in the first place.
As they move along the now badly scorched and crumbled corridor, Tseng notices that the path splits into a T-shaped intersection, where another road leads into a different room. And yet, Ruby doesn’t even bother looking that way. She seems to be intent on moving forward.
“Wait, Ruby,” Tseng calmly suggests, turning off for that way. “What exactly is down this way?”
She stops, but makes an impatient frown. “A certain room with a certain pool that harbors knowledge of the Cetra. It’s of little importance to me right now, though.”
“A pool of knowledge?” He thoughtfully puts a hand to his chin. “In other words, there is some sort of archive of information hidden in this temple?”
“It’s not hidden; it’s in plain sight. The thing is, it’s not like a library where you can just check out a book of your choice. Only the Cetra are able to access its contents and it only answers certain questions as related to the temple itself.”
“Well, given your history with this temple, I think it’s safe to assume that you’re able to access it, yes?”
“Sure. But why would I?”
“Wouldn’t it be particularly helpful to you, though? Considering that you are currently on a journey to find and defeat Sephiroth.”
“…” Ruby’s eyes flutter just a little with uncertainty and turns away to return to her own thoughts. She then answers flatly, “He’s not a part of this temple’s history. I’ve got nothing to ask.”
Tseng raises an eyebrow. Even if he isn’t the most familiar with her character tics, even he can tell that she isn’t being entirely honest with how strained her voice sounds. She has no intention to speak her mind right now and gets moving again.
“…Yeah, right. More like she’s just scared of her responsibilities,” Zhui observes with biting scorn.
“Maybe so…” Tseng obliges him, but then reminds him, “But we’re not in a position to order her around either.”
“And there’s the problem!” Zhui scoffs back. “She’s got all this power and influence that she flaunts everywhere and runs around Shinra like it’s some small-time business, and yet she doesn’t even do anything useful! She’s like the laziest or most incompetent Summon ever! Hell, she even got her own records erased from history, almost like she got something to hide or cover up! What kind of stupid idiot is this ‘Moon Dragon’ to land herself in the favor of an entire nation by doing absolutely nothing?”
Tseng makes a concerned frown, but he can’t exactly argue there. For all that Ruby has contributed since her return in recent times, she sure has just stirred up a lot of destruction here and there. At first, they all suspected that she was just a beast of burden controlled by Avalanche that ended up out of their control, but then as time went on, the string of tragedies that have unfolded begin to read less like a coordinated plan of attack against Shinra and more like a series of unfortunate coincidences where death follows her everywhere she goes. It’s certainly brought a number of headaches to Shinra in particular, but the total destruction of a certain town in Wutai would have helped no one – that is, except for a certain genocidal maniac who has returned from the dead to bring this world to ruin.
Incidentally, one of the main reasons Tseng offered to accompany Ruby this time was precisely the concern that she may be meeting with Sephiroth at this temple sometime soon, and the sooner someone tries to redirect her from a path to ruin, the better off everyone and this planet would be. Ironic that it would take someone that is technically an enemy of the people she’s befriended to help watch her, but it’s better than no one, that’s for sure.
In any case, Ruby has walked ahead far enough to not pay any mind to their conversation. He gestures to Zhui to come along and they hurry after her. As it happens, she has been forced to stop short in the next room they come across, where the road seems to end and instead opens up to a massive chamber where there are two arms of a moving bridge and nothing but darkness below if one were to fall off those arms. At the very center, though, sits what seems to be the magical projection of some sort of guardian spirit that is in charge of the machinations of this room. It speaks with a deep, booming voice that echoes through the spacious chamber.
“I am the Time Keeper, the guardian of the clock tower. Speak to your resolve so that I may guide you to your destination in due time.”
Ruby promptly answers, “Take me through the history of the Black Materia.”
“The Black Materia…” the voice repeats with a solemn tone. Nonetheless, it doesn’t even question her motives, as if having expected this answer. “Very well. It appears the time is soon to be upon us. Go forth, O Holy Dragoness, and fulfill your predestined duty.”
The massive clock’s arms move into position, locking themselves in place as the bell chimes and echoes off the tower’s walls throughout. Now there is a bridge that takes them directly to the southern door, set to the “time” of 10 o’clock. And without another word, Ruby proceeds unimpeded despite her own anxious trepidations, swarming within her like a gut full of butterflies.
There is now only one last room between her and the awaited destination. Here is the set of mysteriously interconnected tunnels where a long line of robed figures once treaded in one of Rubia’s memories from a certain very dark time in one of her past lives. They moved about from doorway to doorway, constantly without stopping, running like gears in motion as they all prepared themselves to be sacrifices at Rubia’s own hands. They would all offer up their humble lives in worship of the Black Materia so that she would finally bring this worthless world its well due cleansing.
But Ruby shakes her head to free herself of those thoughts. For now, she simply seeks to return the temple to its orb form without any further sacrifices. As long as she solves the final puzzle and warps herself and her companions out before everything collapses, they can finally stow the Materia in a safe place away from prying hands. She guides the Turks directly to the double doors that lead into the final chamber, and as always, a simple touch of the lock lets her unseal it and open up to proceed inside.
However, now that they’ve finally arrived here, Ruby now understands why she has been feeling all those butterflies in her gut. While the history of the Black Materia is still on display in the murals that line the walls of this long hallway, she notices immediately that the story seems to have changed from what she remembered. Rather than begin the story with the Cetra that once worshipped the Black Materia, it goes even further back to a time even before humanity came to roam the planet’s surface. The very first panel of the mural that catches Ruby’s eye shows the etchings of a great five-headed dragon that once ravaged the planet – Tiamat.
“…Interesting. So this is the history of the Black Materia?” Tseng muses aloud, taking in the murals with a sense of fascination. “To think that the materia was actually a manifestation of the will of an apocryphal entity as this…”
Zhui looks much less interested in some old stone carvings, though. He peeks over to Ruby, who is staring at the walls with a look of disbelief and alarm. And suddenly, she quickens her step and races on ahead toward the end of the mural as if in a hurry to find the ending.
“Huh? What’s with her all of a sudden?” he asks nonchalantly.
Tseng now notices that she seems to be panicking and grows concerned himself. “Let’s follow. She may have realized something big.”
They hurry up to catch up with her at the very end of the hall. She has stopped before the final panel of the murals and has frozen still in shock. Her eyes are wide and her mouth is agape; a look of unfiltered horror come upon her face. In this last panel, she sees a lone young woman featured in it with with her hands cupped forward, with the Black Materia floating over her hands. She has her eyes closed and appears to be at peace even with all the dark energy emanating from the orb. At first glance, it simply looks like Rubia who is wielding it, which is no surprise given some previous visions Ruby has seen. However, on closer inspection, the presence that looms behind the woman isn’t Tiamat, but instead looks awfully like Rubia herself.
As it turns out, it isn’t Rubia who is meant to wield the Black Materia after all. It is the being that Rubia has molded in her own image that wields it. Or rather, it is this being that is due to merge with the materia so Rubia can wake from her long, deep sleep.
“…Ruby? Are you alright?” Tseng calls to her. He puts a hand to her shoulder and gives her a gentle shake, but she doesn’t respond.
Zhui then prods her harder with the barrel of his rifle. “Hey. The hell is this supposed to mean?”
And still, Ruby doesn’t respond. She seems to be completely frozen stiff as if she had just been subjected to a Stop spell. For the next few minutes, the Turks are completely lost as to whatever revelation that she seems to have come across. But then, they all hear a familiar, unwelcoming voice greet them.
“…Finally, we come to the heart of the matter. It’s about time you learned the truth… Ruby.”
The Turks whip around to see who’s behind them and collectively gasp. Sephiroth has arrived out of nowhere and approaches them. Yet, even with the Turks’ guns pointed his way, he pays them no mind and walks right past them to stop beside Ruby. Even now, she refuses to let her eyes trail away from the mural she is standing before. But she does flinch when he sets a hand on her shoulder.
“You never saw it coming, did you? Even with all the hints I provided you up to now…” He shakes his head with a sigh. “As I said, you were the key to Rubia all along. But now you understand what that ‘key’ really is, don’t you?”
As the shock begins to fade away to be replaced by fear and dread, Ruby’s face grows dark as she hangs her head. All of a sudden, she doesn’t feel anything to this revelation. She doesn’t want to feel anything. It’s as absurd as it is foreboding and belies a truth that she’s been trying her hardest to avoid all this time. And yet, now it makes sense why Rubia has called this world a “prison”.
With a faint smile on his lips, he now leans in to whisper in her ear, “Ruby… It’s time to wake up. Let us escape this dream once and for all.”
Notes:
My God, I have been so excited to finally get to writing about the temple. We have officially begun to unravel the true nature to Ruby and her place in this world. If it still seems a little confusing at this time, rest assured, all will be revealed in due time.
I continue to amaze myself in how I have been able to write this fic even without the full context of the direction of Rebirth and yet can so naturally weave in bits and pieces of that game into this fic's lore even though I'm still in the early parts of it. Thank God I tagged this fic as "metafiction" because it's constantly changing and evolving even as I write it.
I have been enjoying the hell out of Rebirth... and other trivia
- It was a passing fancy when I wrote about how the Cactuars worship Ruby as their new Goddess, and now I have finally arrived at the segment in Rebirth where the party meets Kid G in person and the whole series of Cactuar quests in the area. I have so far been on point when it comes to the Cactuars, heh. I am so glad they brought in the Goblins like this. Now I'm super excited what awaits us in the third game when we actually get to visit Goblin Island.
- It was also by sheer coincidence that I happened upon North Corel around the time I was still writing this chapter and came to be introduced to Dr. Sheiran. I previously had an idea regarding the robed people in my timeline, but this character's existence made it super easy to make their subplot relevant. Thank you as always, Rebirth.
- There were several scenarios I came up with in regards to the Cait Sith chase scene, where one of them followed true to the original game's order and another tried the reverse order, but then I decided to go my own way and scramble the locations. Not only does it keep the scene fresh, it wasn't too difficult to change the locations anyway. Even in Rebirth, they had the guide moogle teleport you from square to square, so whatever, I'm just gonna throw in even more slapstick in my version of events.
- I also can't believe Chadley is becoming so important to this story, hahaha! I originally planned to write him here and there as a fun cameo, but the more I've learned about him in Rebirth, the more I realized how integrated and involved he is in the actual gameplay and now it goes without question that I have to include even more of him down the line. It's a good thing I actually love the guy. Sooner or later, he will get to introduce MAI too.
- The plan to change up the Temple of the Ancients was a two-stage process during drafting. While I had the idea very early on that I wanted to change up the layout of the maze so it'd be another interesting twist, I wasn't exactly sure how to write an exact description of the place. But then I also realized that I didn't have to when Ruby using Rubia's influence could just open her own way through. So, uh, I'll leave it to your imagination to see how the maze is laid out this time. Maybe it's a bit closer to Rebirth in that sense, but I won't be getting to that part of the game that soon yet.
- The other stage to the changes is relatively recent, but not the most recent of ideas. I knew I had to describe Rubia and Tiamat's story at some point and after tweaking the flow of my outlines here and there, I finally got a good place to mention it. This chapter got really long, though, so I had to cut out some middle parts. It's the beginning and ending that really matter at this point.
- Finally, what the hell is Sephiroth's intent in this timeline? Whatever it is, he sure is interested in everything around the Black Materia. Just like old times.
Chapter 59: Lost History
Notes:
Outdated A/N
5/13/24 edit: Next chapter has been completed! Just needs another couple rounds of proofreading and all that and I can get it posted tomorrow! 700k, here we come!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The next morning has arrived. Despite the hardline refusal from several members of Cloud’s party, they ultimately have little choice but to concede to Shinra’s demands for now. However, as Cloud leaves his room to join the rest downstairs, he finds everyone gathered in the hotel lobby and seem to be on edge – more so than last night. Aerith and Tifa are already waiting near the door for him. Barret has gathered his Avalanche squad, including Red, as Jessie reports in a few things. As promised, she has an extra working PHS for Ruby and Chadley even helped her install an automatic GPS tracker to the rest of theirs, so they’d be able to know where each other is. Yuffie and Sonon are actually talking with Chadley right now, though the former has some wild demands regarding a potential copy of Ruby’s materia. And… huh, Cait Sith isn’t here?
“Morning, Cloud!” Aerith greets him with a smile and a wave of her hand to beckon him over. “Hope you got some sleep.”
“Sort of…” he mumbles, rubbing his drowsy head, and then asks, “Where’s the cat? He said he’d be guiding us there, right?”
“Sounds like he needed to take a call. Some kind of emergency, I think.”
Tifa puts on a thinking face. “What could have happened? I guess something to do with Shinra?”
Aerith shrugs. “He didn’t say, but maybe.”
“Didn’t Cait say that Rufus was gonna show at the temple?” Cloud recalls. “Maybe they ran into some kind of issue.”
“Hmm…” She makes a stern frown. “Well, whatever it is, I’m really hoping that he decides to cancel his trip. He and Hojo both.”
“Yeah…” He shakes his head with a resenting frown. “But even if they do, we’re not gonna be able to roam free while they’ve got immortal Soldiers that won’t ever go down.”
Her frown then softens into a look of worry as she thinks of Ruby again. On that thought, she looks between him and Aerith and asks, “Speaking of Ruby, have you guys had any new visions as of late? Like has she contacted either of you?”
Aerith shakes her head. “Sorry. It’s been pretty quiet on my end.”
Cloud gives a tired sigh. “No. Don’t know if I even dreamed up anything this time.”
Tifa likewise sinks back into a discouraged gloom. “Well, here’s hoping that we can find her soon.”
While the three take a moment of contemplative silence, the doors suddenly burst open again and Cait Sith announces his return.
“Cloud! Tifa and Aerith too! Oh, good, you’re all here,” he says, looking rather jittery all of a sudden.
“Where have you been?” Cloud demands.
“Oh, did Aerith not mention? I had to take a call…”
“No, she did. Did something come up? What’s the situation?”
“Ah, yeah…” Cait slumps a bit. “See, there’s been a change of plans.”
“Change of plans?”
“Aye. Seems like Rufus has changed his schedule and he and Hojo are going to show a bit later. Instead, we’ve been given the go-ahead to head in before they arrive.”
Tifa grows wary. “They want us to go in first?”
Cloud frowns. “Like sending in guinea pigs, I bet.”
Aerith is concerned. “The temple might not be safe, after all…”
Cloud also catches onto something and asks further, “Wait. What about the Turks? Did they take Ruby there already?”
Cait nods sadly. “Seems like she couldn’t wait until the morn. Haven’t heard back from them in a while, though.”
The other three share looks of growing alarm and turn back to the cat. Cloud replies, “Then we should get going. The less of Shinra is there, the easier it’ll be for us.”
“Right. Um…” He also turns to Aerith to add in a low voice, “So, sorry about this, but I don’t think Tseng will be available to help pick up Elmyra and li’l Marlene. But I’ve at least called for another chopper to help send them on their way. Made sure it’s not a Shinra one so the others won’t get suspicious.”
Aerith nods back solemnly. “It’s okay. As long as they’ll be safe.”
Cait offers a reassuring smile. “Oh, don’t you worry! They won’t get a scratch while other-me is mindin’ them!”
Cloud then turns off to check on the rest, who haven’t yet turned their way. “Anyway, we should also let the others know. If we move fast enough, we might not even need to run into Rufus at all.”
To which, Cait makes an awkward smile. “Oh, of course. Would you like to do the honors, Cloud? I don’t think the rest of ’em would wanna hear from me.”
He makes an annoyed snort, but obliges. He now turns to the others and calls to them to gather up. “Hey! Heads up! One other thing before we get going.”
The others oblige and Barret starts them off, “What’s up, Cloud? Something happen?”
Cloud folds his arms, stating matter-of-factly, “Sounds like Cait picked up something from the Shinra grapevine. Rufus said he’s putting off his visit to the temple for later, so we ought to have some time with the Highwind before they’re gonna confiscate it for real.”
Barret snorts back indignantly. “Hmph. So he got cold feet, huh? Well, maybe he still got some brains left since Ruby would definitely be there to throw him and Hojo off a high place.”
“Well, with those special Soldiers on the ship, we aren’t exactly in the clear either,” Biggs reminds them. “But at least that’s less we have to deal with for now.”
Cloud turns to check in with Jessie, “By the way, are Cid and Vincent still aboard the ship?”
She nods. “Yeah. They’re being held in a holding cell guarded by one of the Soldiers, so it might not be that easy to break them out.”
“And that still leaves the other to guard the deck where the rest of the crew is,” Red also mentions.
“Yeesh. Would hate to have been there when those guys attacked,” Wedge comments, fidgeting a bit. “Hope they’re still alright.”
“Seems like Vincent is fine, but Cid got knocked out again…” Jessie shakes her head with a sigh and a shrug. “I mean, I can’t blame him, but you’d think the guy would learn from the last time it happened.”
“He is the type of man to go down with his ship, so to speak,” Red observes thoughtfully.
“Talk about unlucky!” Yuffie cringes. “How does a guy manage to lose to the same type of fighter the exact same way? I bet it happened in the same room, even!”
“Well, they are practically immortal. Kinda hard to subdue them if they don’t even feel pain,” Sonon retorts.
“Yeah, yeah. But if it were me, I’d have figured out a way to knock those helmets off ASAP so they’d go back to being quiet!”
Sonon rolls his eyes. “Everyone just wants to be the hero…”
Even Jessie interjects, “Sorry, Yuffie, but I’m pretty sure they tried something, but seems like these Soldiers got some upgrades and their helmets won’t be coming off. Vincent mentioned some sort of automated lock to it.”
Yuffie’s bravado quickly deflates. “Seriously? I mean, I guess those guys don’t need to breathe anyway, but that just sounds like torture.”
Letting that discourse slide on by, Cloud resumes getting everyone’s attention. “In any case, we’re just gonna have to wait it out until we find Ruby. Like we discussed last night, the rest of you will stay on the ship while Aerith, Tifa, and I will be away. I won’t ask you to do the impossible, but if you can try to figure out some way to knock those guys out in the meantime, then go for it.”
Barret pumps up an excited fist. “Hmph! No need to remind us! That was always the plan! You guys just focus on getting Ruby back.”
Cloud nods back. “Right.” He now turns back to the ladies. “Alright. You guys ready?”
They both nod back. “Ready as we’ll ever be,” Tifa answers.
“Let’s go get Ruby! She must be missing us already,” Aerith declares with confidence.
The three then turn toward Cait Sith, who offers them a reassuring smile. “Okay! For the record, the temple’s gonna be on a large unpopulated island to the southwest. I’ll rightly let you all know when we’re close so you can get all your gear prepped!”
And with that, they all head on out to return to the ship. By now, the ropeway station has been reopened, so they can all make their way back out. And as Cait Sith promised, a brightly colored helicopter arrives by the landing pad on the other side of the lot before the main entrance, ready to pick up some extra guests.
But boy, will this subsequent flight be a tense one. Even with all the speed that the Highwind possesses, it still doesn’t feel like enough given the time that’s already passed them by.
~
The Temple of the Ancients, once simply known as the “Southern Temple” by the Cetra of a certain time, sits in the center of a lush, tropical jungle that spans much of the island. It was not always this much wilderness nor a mere unpopulated island. Long, long ago, there once was a kingdom here worthy to rival the Kingdom of Ackard to the north, but thanks to an ill-fated encounter with a certain dragoness of legend, the entire royal family was wiped out in a single fiery breath and the kingdom fell into total ruin. Several thousand years have gone by and now the old temple sits in an undisturbed sleep until the next ill-fated time when someone would come to use its power.
The Highwind hovers over the thick jungle canopy, lowering down a ladder that rolls just short of touching the ground below. To make it easier for Cloud’s band to reach the temple grounds, the ship has flown over to where the base of a rickety old bridge is established. The pilot on call simply refuses to get any closer to the temple, still honoring his captain’s orders to never park too close to a building, even when said captain is out for the count for the time being. As these grounds have been undisturbed for so long, much greenery has grown over its rotten planks and withering ropes. Yet, despite its obvious age, all the vines have entangled so thickly that they instead keep the bridge held together, almost as if the whims of Destiny willed for it to be, and it is surprisingly stable.
Cloud drops off the ladder first, followed by Aerith and then Tifa taking the rear. The jungles are thick and alive with noise, and have trapped so much heat that it’s stifling enough just standing around. Cloud casually swipes the air to shoo away some annoying flies buzzing by his ear. But some simple pests aren’t the big issue; these lands are fraught with wild fiends that have made them their home and though they don’t normally get human visitors, they still seem to be offended by their presence. Just the visit from the Turks last night has sent the creatures a-stir, mainly due to their honored guest’s presence, and the party can even hear some distant growling from lurking predators. It’s not a good place to linger in any case. The Highwind mustn’t remain here either, even if it is much higher up, so the pilot guides it to a more open field where it would be a little safer.
Aerith stares off at the temple looming in the distance just across the bridge. Even now she is already met with a mass of chattering whispers, mostly grave, others wary of what may soon be coming. It’s already not looking good if they’re roused with fear of some sort of impending doom that may beset this temple yet again, but she had anticipated as much by this point. Instead, she chooses to keep pressing forward even with all the dangers that they may meet – or rather, the dangers that Ruby may have already met.
“What is it, Aerith? You hear something?” Cloud asks.
“Hmm… It’s all a bit confusing, but I can make out some voices.”
“What are they saying?” Tifa also asks.
Even with some spiteful voices warning them to stay away echoing in her ears, Aerith simply smiles. “Glad to know that Ruby is still inside. Let’s go see her!”
In contrast, Cloud and Tifa exchange confused, a little apprehensive looks. Before they can ask her more, though, Aerith hurries off along the bridge and they have to give chase. But though the viney ropes can easily hold them, the wood beneath isn’t the sturdiest. Just as Aerith is about to take a step on a risky plank, she hears a clearer voice among the noise warning her and she quickly sidesteps it. However, even hopping onto the one beside it sends a tremor that reveals a large crack in the weak plank. She lets off a sigh in relief and waves to the other two to warn them to mind their step and then proceeds to take a slightly more careful path across the bridge. Though the distance isn’t that much greater than the bridge that crossed into that one Wutaian castle before, it feels like a treacherous trip of its own, but fortunately the three make it to the other side unscathed.
It looks like the main entrance to the temple is already open and has been since last night. When they step on inside, they come across a large open room made up of golden walls and held up by many golden pillars. There is a single path forward, laid out in reddish stone, to the back of the room where a single altar rests. There is already a certain stone that has been set upon the altar’s table, though there are no apparent doors that are visible.
However, it’s not entirely peaceful quiet in here. They shortly hear someone’s grunting in pain and Aerith is horrified when she sees them. Tseng has managed to wander back out of the temple by now, but he’s seated on the floor to the left of the table and looks to be gravely injured. He also has a younger Turk who is lying unconscious by his side. Both of them have major slash marks across their chests and the young Turk even has a grievous stab wound. If left untreated, he could very well be on the edge across the River Styx.
“Tseng!” Aerith rushes over to check on him and the other two follow her. “Are you okay? What happened?”
Though he has difficulty uttering a word, he manages to speak up, “…Ugh… Sephiroth…”
She grows solemn and hangs her head. Of course he would be here. As Ruby said, he would be waiting for them all to gather.
Cloud presses further, “Where’s Ruby? Wasn’t she with you guys?”
Tseng shakes his head, looking rather frustrated on top of his wounds. “He got her… We couldn’t do a thing…”
He winces to hear the awful news. No way, they can’t be too late. Not when they’ve come this far.
“No…” Tifa gasps. “What do you mean he ‘got’ her? Where are they now?”
Tseng turns away in shame. “Don’t know… They’re gone. Vanished… without a trace.”
“Vanished?”
Aerith then mentions, “But I heard from the voices of the temple that Ruby is here. Did she come back on her own?”
Cloud frowns. “Even if she did, I don’t think she’s going to be entirely alright.”
Tifa turns to him with her own worried frown. “Cloud, you don’t think he did something to her, did you?”
“Knowing those two, anything could happen, but I just know it’s never good.”
She sighs. “Ruby, please still be safe… and sane.”
Aerith hangs her head too, but turns toward the altar and offers a quiet prayer. And almost immediately, she seems to hear some sort of response. A voice faint as if it were coming from afar now calls to her amid the vague murmurs, and she opens her eyes and blinks in surprise.
“I knew it. Ruby is here.”
“Huh? Aerith, how do you know? Did one of those voices tell you?” Cloud asks again.
She turns to them with a nod. “In fact, it was Ruby. She just contacted me and told us to go inside. She even left a straight path for us through the maze.”
“What!?”
“Ruby just contacted you?” Tifa looks more apprehensive than relieved, though.
Cloud shakes his head in disbelief. “What’s going on with her? If she knows we’re here, then why doesn’t she just come out?”
Tifa lowers her head with a grim thought come to mind. “Maybe because she can’t.”
“Or she won’t. She might even want to show us something.”
“…”
Aerith looks between the two of them and gives them a determined nod. “Then, let’s not keep her waiting.”
Cloud then passes a casual glance behind them, where the Turks still lie. “So, what about those two?”
Aerith shakes her head. “We can leave them. If Ruby is somewhere inside, I don’t think Sephiroth will care about hunting down anyone else.”
To which, Tseng sighs to himself. Though he expected as much, it still stings hearing Aerith speak so lightly of them. He had sent Reno and Rude off by helicopter to call for some backup and also alert the president of the situation. They would be back soon enough with reinforcements.
Cloud nods back. “Right.” He then turns toward the altar before them. “So, how does this work? How do we ‘enter’ the temple?”
“The way should be open.” Aerith steps up to the table where the Keystone is set.
Even before she touches the stone, it seems to recognize her presence and likewise begins to glow a bright blue in its several circular holes. And just like that, the floor beneath them begins to cave like quicksand and they all slowly sink into the ground.
It’s a bit of a drop down a long, winding funnel of sand, but the three are guided down the slopes in a smooth slide that safely drops them somewhere. When they’re finally free of the sands, they find themselves in the same room where Ruby had previously entered, but as promised, she has left a path open to them, so they aren’t trapped.
As they head on out again, they meet with the beautifully mysterious and intricate maze that spans as far as the eye can see. Though Tifa and Aerith bask in the awe of the place, Cloud looks around with a face full of disbelief.
“This place… I feel like I’ve been here before,” he mumbles aloud.
“You mean through a vision of the past?” Aerith suggests. “Rubia sent you one before, right?”
“Yeah. But it looked a bit different in that vision. Rubia and I were much higher up when we entered and she led us down deeper inside. But it looks like we skipped that section this time.”
“Ah.” She nods with a smile. “Ruby did say she’d open the way for us.”
He returns her a worried frown, though. “Sure. But it still doesn’t sit right.”
Her smile fades. “Hmm… Do you think it might not really be Ruby who spoke earlier? But Rubia?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know. But things are already turning out in a way like in that vision, and it didn’t end well.”
“What happened at the end, by the way? I don’t think you actually finished telling us,” Tifa wonders.
He tries his best to recall. “Well, um… Rubia told me about her plans to bring the world to ruin and then got the Black Materia…” He then sighs, rubbing his head. “I don’t know the rest. I think I just woke up after that. Felt like I was booted out of it or something.”
“Oh. Well, that doesn’t sound good.”
“Hmm… Maybe I’m just being optimistic here, but I get the feeling that who we’re going to see in a moment is Ruby, not Rubia,” Aerith states matter-of-factly.
Cloud turns to her. “How are you so sure?”
“Well…” she admits with a cute pout, “I’m not sure, really. But her voice just gave me the impression that it’s my cousin and not just another ancient spirit speaking through her.”
“…”
But then Tifa nods with her. “No, Aerith, you’re right. We have to keep faith. If we start doubting her, we won’t understand what’s really going on.”
Aerith gives her a relieved smile. “Thanks, Tifa.”
Tifa also turns to Cloud with that same determined face. “Cloud. Even if things might be rough or something goes wrong…”
He takes another moment of hesitation, but he nods back. “Right. We’ll just have to face them. We can’t turn back now.”
The ladies both share their smiles with him, glad to see that he has been keeping up. Following the ever faint voice that guides her in, Aerith leads them through the ensuing maze, which has been greatly simplified since Ruby has opened up the correct roads and left them accessible without nary a monster nor trap in sight. And sooner than later, they would come upon the hallway where the path branches into a T-shape intersection and one of the paths leads toward where a certain quiet pool has been waiting.
When they happen across it, Aerith wastes no time to approach the water’s edge and the other two curiously follow. She gets down on her knees and lowers her head toward the pool, even turning her head aside to let her ears catch anything. Cloud and Tifa wait quietly as Aerith takes a moment and eventually stands back up.
She turns back to them. “This is the Pool of Revelation. It’s a mass of knowledge of the Cetra gathered in one place and holds a lot of great wisdom.”
“Wisdom, huh…” Cloud sets a hand on his waist. “Can these Cetra tell us what happened with Ruby since last night?”
“I can ask!” Aerith turns back to the pool, bringing her hands together again, with another quiet request in mind. “…Hmm? Show? You’re going to show us?”
The pool then gradually begins to glow bright until a blinding white light envelops the entire room and the vision of the recent past come into view before them like a mystical version of a hologram.
“What the? This room…” Cloud mutters.
“What’s wrong?” Aerith asks.
“I know it too. This is the place with the murals where Rubia led me.”
“Ah, I see.”
“But something about this place seems different.”
“Different?”
“The murals look different, like it’s telling a different story.”
“Hmm…”
The scene then proceeds, starting from when Ruby and the two Turks had arrived.
“…Interesting. So this is the history of the Black Materia? To think that the materia was actually a manifestation of the will of an apocryphal entity as this…”
Ruby then runs off on her own toward the back, leaving the Turks confused.
“Huh? What’s with her all of a sudden?”
“Let’s follow. She may have realized something big.”
They also join her in the back, where she stops before the final panel and freezes still as if she were struck dumb by the revelation. And just as it comes into view, even Cloud grows alarmed at what he’s seeing.
“What the… What is that?” he whispers, feeling some familiar dread.
But before the other two can check with him, a certain other voice now comes into play and draws their attention.
“…Finally, we come to the heart of the matter. It’s about time you learned the truth… Ruby.”
“Sephiroth…” Cloud growls under his breath.
Sephiroth then approaches them, giving no passing glance whatsoever to the Turks, and stops beside Ruby.
“You never saw it coming, did you? Even with all the hints I provided you up to now… As I said, you were the key to Rubia all along. But now you understand what that ‘key’ really is, don’t you?”
“The ‘key’ to Rubia…?” Tifa mumbles, frankly feeling more shocked and bewildered than anything.
Cloud, meanwhile, feels something lurch in his gut the moment Sephiroth leans in to whisper in Ruby’s ear.
“Ruby… It’s time to wake up. Let us escape this dream once and for all.”
“…’Escape this dream’?” Aerith also asks, looking just as confused. “What dream?”
Just then, Ruby seems to feel some sort of pain and clutches her head as if it were suddenly assaulted by another mysterious vision. When the pain finally subsides, she snaps out of her daze and turns to him with an increasingly tense yet genuinely hurt expression on her face.
“…So that was the plan. You really don’t care about anything but yourself. Can’t say I’m surprised.”
Sephiroth chuckles to himself, but doesn’t reply just yet.
She turns back to the mural before her, a bitter grimace forming upon her lips. “I was just a stepping stone in the first place… and you two have been the players, taking turns to choose what next in this world to sacrifice.”
“Not to worry. You are due to return to every new game that will be set henceforth. If anything, accepting this role would be the greatest honor imaginable.”
She whips back to him with a vicious glare. “What honor!? I’m just a pawn who’s not gonna ascend to Queen on this board!”
“Oh? And what makes you say that?”
“Because neither of the people playing will wait long enough until I get that chance! You both are stupid, spoiled, ungrateful brats who take everything for granted!”
“…”
“I’ve had enough of this game. I want out. If you want to continue the story without me, then fine. Let me disappear into the Void. I don’t care anymore…”
Though Cloud has been suspecting Ruby would crack under pressure sooner or later, now even Tifa and Aerith who have been somewhat lost so far become disturbed too. Even worse, Sephiroth then begins to laugh to himself.
“Now, now. There’s no need to be upset either. When the time comes, everything of this planet will be due to return to it. And at the center of it all…”
“Won’t be you. My bets are on Rubia. Hope she kicks your ass.”
“…Aside from the latter point, yes. That’s how it should be.”
“What?”
“Hahaha… Aren’t you curious, Ruby? What do you think will happen when Rubia finally awakens?” He makes a rather cruel sneer. “Ah, but the tragedy is that you might not be there to see it.”
“Shut up. Now I’m convinced that she’s gonna kick your ass.”
“Hahahahaha…”
By this point, the Turks have heard enough. They’ve been willing to wait things out for a bit to see what these two juggernauts of worldly threats would even talk about, but clearly, it’s missing a lot of context and they’ve even devolved into what could easily be mistaken as playground banter. And yet, it still has all the signs of doom on the horizon. If they must act, they must act now. Tseng, as quickly and stealthily as he can muster, moves to draw his gun to aim at Ruby and fires a single shot. It’s not meant to be a fatal blow, though. What comes out from the barrel is a very slim tranquilizer dart.
However, to the Turks’ horror, the very moment the dart comes within reach is the moment all hell breaks loose. Moving faster than is even visible, Sephiroth calls his sword to his hand and wields it right in the line of the trajectory of the dart, blade out, and cleanly cleaves it in two, which pieces fly off in separate directions.
“!?”
Sephiroth doesn’t give them another chance to move. He lunges on the counterattack to cut Tseng down, but a timely intervention from Zhui comes in to block the sword with his rifle.
“Boss! Go! I’ll hold him off!”
“Zhui! Don’t!”
It’s too late. Sephiroth easily swats aside Zhui, flinging that rifle away, and cuts him down with another fell swing. And before Tseng can get away, the madman is suddenly right in his face too. With a single deep slash, Sephiroth even knocks him flying to the other end of the hall.
“Tseng! …You bastard!”
Even while bleeding profusing on the ground, Zhui manages to snatch up his rifle again and point it at their attacker. Unfortunately, even before he can get off any rounds, Sephiroth practically vanishes from view again. The next thing he knows, Zhui is stabbed right in the gut from above and spills a little more blood from his mouth. Even while at death’s door, the young Turk still doesn’t release his grip on the gun. He flips it back up and now fires a shot point-blank.
Unfortunately, the high-power round doesn’t even reach its target. At this moment, Ruby has caught the large bullet with a single sharpened dragon claw and crushes it in her grasp. With her other claw, she seizes the rifle from Zhui’s hands and smacks him in the head with the butt of the gun, knocking him out in an instant. While Sephiroth passes her an amused glance, she returns it with the same fierce glare as before. But as much as she would like to stab the guy in the face with the bullet’s sharp pieces in her hand, she restrains the urge. As of this point, she needs answers and this guy has plenty. But maybe just this once, he might be willing to tell her everything.
“Let them go, Seph. This is between us.”
“Hmph. They chose to get involved… but very well.”
With that, Sephiroth withdraws his sword and leaves Zhui to bleed out even more. Recognizing that the Turks would be in no shape to traverse the massive temple dungeon again, Ruby helps Zhui back to Tseng, who is barely awake at this point, and warps them back to the temple’s entrance. She then turns back to Sephiroth with another question.
“So, what’s going to happen now? Is Rubia going to awaken with the Black Materia?”
“It is one of several means that I’ve surmised are possible. Of course, this one is certainly a lot more exciting than the others.”
“…You really are just a stupid brat, huh.”
“Takes one to know one, my dear.”
Ruby now approaches the platform in the back where a pedestal with a certain block puzzle shaped like an octahedron awaits. Before she can start moving the pieces, though, suddenly the entire place begins to shake.
“!?”
“…It’s just one after another.” Sephiroth comes up to put a hand to Ruby’s shoulder again. “Come with me. I know a better place where we won’t be interrupted.”
And with that, he warps them both away in a bright flash of his own making while the room continues to shake. However, the scene has drawn to an end, however inconclusive it may be, and the vision fades out of sight before whatever it is that was shaking the place can be revealed.
Cloud stares at the pool, which has now gone back to being quiet and still like water in a pond. He turns back to the other two, who are as worried now as he had been.
He breaks the uncomfortable silence with a firm statement, “…Sephiroth got her.”
Tifa hangs her head in silence, while Aerith nods back sadly. The latter then replies, “But it’s not too late. We can still talk to her.”
“Aerith…” Cloud gives an exasperated sigh. “I know you want to stay positive, but look at the facts! She clearly realized some kind of truth and is now working with him!”
She lowers her head too. “…At least she didn’t look entirely convinced yet.”
He shakes his head. “I want to believe in her. I want to be able to say that she’s just confused. I wouldn’t even mind if she was just playing a really elaborate prank at this point! But…” He clutches his head as he feels a migraine come over too. “Ruby has been hiding a secret from us all this time.”
Aerith looks back up. “What kind of secret?”
“Well… actually, she didn’t try that hard to hide it.” He folds his arms as he recalls. “Way back, after I brought her to Seventh Heaven for the first time, I asked her about her home and where she really came from. At the time, she kept saying ‘the Lifestream’ and all, but she did mention that she had memories of a different life entirely in some other world, like in a different universe or something. She didn’t know how, but she crossed into ours and it seemed like she came out from the Lifestream.”
She blinks back, a little taken aback. “Wait. She mentioned that so long ago? And you never told anyone?”
He frowns. “Who would believe me? It just sounded like nonsense.”
Aerith slumps, feeling a little discouraged. “Well, if you told me, I would have.”
“…”
Tifa, who had been pretty quiet, now looks back up with a determined face instead and turns to them. “Whatever is going on with Ruby or wherever she’s really from, it doesn’t matter. The point is: we just have to separate her from Sephiroth.”
Cloud nods. “Right. If Ruby had been putting on some kind of act all this time, then we’ll deal with her ourselves later. But either way, it’s just a disaster waiting if Sephiroth gets her to do his bidding.”
Aerith nods too. “Don’t you worry, if my cousin has been a little naughty, then I’ll be sure to set her straight again! No cousin of mine is gonna be a secret plant for Shinra or Sephiroth or whoever we don’t like!”
“…” He decides it’s best that he not humor that last comment.
From here, Cloud volunteers to lead them onward. He still remembers the way forward as Rubia once showed him. Just past this room, the corridor leads into a certain area where there should be some kind of bridge that swings around in a circle like a clock. And that’s just what he finds as they round around the long hallway to come to a circular tower. However, there is no Time Keeper to greet them this time. The path leading directly to the place they must go is already set.
Beyond the clock tower is the room with the many interweaving caves, but there is still a straight shot to the innermost chamber, and as Ruby indicated earlier, the lock on the door is gone, so anyone can just walk in. But just as they all do step inside and begin to marvel at the murals on the walls, the doors behind them suddenly shut tight and are somehow locked again. Cloud tries the handles, but they won’t budge. Whatever just happened, they may be stuck in here for a while until they can get rid of this spell… or until they find Ruby.
“Oh! Ruby!” Aerith cries out.
“Ruby!?” Tifa does too.
“Huh?” Cloud whips back to see what the girls are seeing and he gasps.
At the end of this long hallway of murals, Ruby sits before the pedestal with her back to it. She has her eyes closed, almost as if she were taking a quick nap. Aerith and Tifa are about to run over and check on her, but Cloud holds them both back.
“Wait. Don’t just run in. Remember that Sephiroth is here.”
“But… that IS Ruby, isn’t it?” Tifa asks.
“Maybe… or maybe not. It could be an illusion he created.”
“…”
They take a moment to watch the sitting girl carefully and Cloud prepares to draw his weapon. At first, she doesn’t even stir as if waiting for any of them to get closer. He keeps the other two behind him as he slowly approaches, keeping one hand on the hilt and reaching out with his other.
“Ruby?” he calls to her.
To their surprise, the girl stirs awake and looks up drowsily, seemingly not surprised to see them. “Hey, you made it! Cool. Now we can get started.”
They all stare at her as she calmly gets up to her feet and pats her shorts free of dust. She then turns their way with a blank stare and then a raised eyebrow.
“What?” She folds her arms and makes a cocky smirk too. “You guys look like you haven’t seen me in ages. Did you miss me that much?”
“…”
Being greeted by Ruby’s usual chipper attitude comes so out of the blue that Cloud isn’t really sure how to respond and his grip on that hilt falters a bit. On one hand, he still wants to stay vigilant, but on the other hand, she’s so relaxed – casual, even – that it’s naturally disarming. Of all people who should be the most on edge at this time, it would be her, and yet here she is, seemingly without a care in the world.
Though she does still harbor some concerns, Aerith then approaches her with a gentle smile. “Yeah, we definitely missed you! We heard you suddenly left with the Turks of all people and thought you were being captured or something.”
“Ah…” Ruby shyly rubs her head, looking genuinely apologetic. “Sorry to worry you, but it wasn’t like that. I asked to join them because I figured they were gonna be stupid and run in without a clue even though Sephiroth was right here and posed a real threat. Even if they are technically our enemies, it’d be a dumb way for them all to go.”
“Oh, is that all…?” Aerith lets off a relieved sigh and nods back. “I knew it was just a misunderstanding.”
Tifa nods as well. “Yeah, that’s good to hear.” Though, she’s still a little worried and has to ask, “But in that case, why didn’t you tell us before you left? We wouldn’t have tried to stop you if we knew what was going on.”
Ruby sighs to herself. “Yeah, that was a stupid misjudgment on my part. I’m sorry I didn’t say anything and threw you all into a frenzy. Was kinda in a panic myself, so had to leave and clear my head of complications.” She waves a hand dismissively. “But it’s all good now.”
Aerith tilts her head curiously. “What kind of complications? If you wanna talk about them?”
“Nah, don’t worry. I was panicking for no good reason, but then calmed down and looked at all my problems from a different perspective, and then realized weren’t really problems after all.” She even shrugs and plays it cool. “Heck, looking at the bigger picture, Sephiroth isn’t even the real issue.”
The others are all taken aback and exchange confused glances. “Huh?”
She makes an amused snort. “I mean, sure, he’s a huge annoying shit who has been constantly harassing me and Cloud, but that’s because he literally has nothing better to do. Turns out that he’s been caught up in some kind of trap where he can’t really do much about it.” She then pats herself on the head with an innocent-looking smile. “If anything, he’s the one who needs me if he ever expects to escape. I never had to worry about a thing after all.”
Tifa makes a concerned frown. “Really? But all this time you were fretting over the moment we’d run into him…”
“Yeah. As I said, no good reason. I had a long talk with him to settle the actual situation around him and we came to a deal.”
Cloud’s ears linger on that last bit and he addresses her with a wary stare. “What deal?”
“That he’s not gonna attack us before we’re ready to fight him. I told him that we still have some preparations to finish and then we can go kick his ass.” She rolls her eyes. “He’s even been looking forward to it, the masochist.”
He blinks a few times, not quite believing what he’s hearing. “What?”
“Uh… You mean it? He just agreed to a ceasefire, just like that?” Tifa asks, just as unsure.
Ruby nods with confidence. “Yeah.”
“…”
The other three stare at her in dumbfounded silence and exchange uncomfortable glances, though she simply looks bored, almost detached from all the tension that led up to this point. The awkward tension in the air is palpable and they all seem to want to say something about it; yet no one actually dares to crack it as if they were all waiting to see what would actually happen from here.
And then, Aerith comes in like a wrecking ball to break the ice and returns to her usual relaxed smile. “That’s great news, Ruby! I knew you could do it, Cuz. If anyone can make a convincing argument, it’s you!”
Ruby nods back with a smile of her own. “Thanks, Aerith. Sometimes I surprise myself too.”
Yet, Cloud and Tifa continue to watch Ruby carefully, though by now even they seem unsure of what to believe anymore. Aerith simply resumes a casual conversation with her as if all their troubles were now water under the bridge.
“Anyway, what are you still doing here? And what’s the deal with this room?” she asks, looking around the murals. “It looks like it tells a long history.”
“Ah. I was wondering when we’d get to talk about it. It’s pretty hilarious, actually.” Ruby rests a hand on her hip with a smirk and explains the tale in a rather casual way. “Get a load of this mess. See, there was a time long, long ago, before the Cetra came to live on the planet, when the Summons freely roamed and helped give rise to the planet’s shape. However, there was one huge nasty wart among them: Tiamat. When it came time to populate the surface with all kinds of life, she got really prissy and wanted only the ‘strongest’ of them all – dragons and dragonkin, basically. The others didn’t agree and she threw a hissy fit that nearly destroyed the world. Twice, actually. Fortunately, Bahamut stomped her with the help of all the others and they put her soul in prison for a very, very long time. She’s still stuck there even now.”
Aerith blinks in surprise. “…Huh. I never thought of it that way before.”
“I made it all sound like a joke, but it’s true.” Ruby then shrugs. “Yet, she was so angry that her will still lingered in the Lifestream and refused to meld with the planet. All that hatred gathered and formed into the Black Materia, which would hold the power to summon Meteor – see, she had a bad habit of throwing space rocks during her hissy fits.” She looks down the hall to the panels closer to the entrance. “That’s the start of the murals shown here.” She now raises an arm toward the middle section. “By the time humanity came along, the Summons hoped these humans had promise to help cultivate the world and harmonize with nature, but then humans went and did stuff like have lots of wars. Things got so bad that there was even a cult that hoped to control the Black Materia to one day bring the world a ‘great reset’ because everything became political drudgery.” She folds her arms with a pensive face. “Eventually, Rubia was sick of all of that and hated the Summons for doing nothing about it, so she sealed herself away to ignore everything.”
Aerith shakes her head, disappointed. “Honestly, if I were in that situation, I’d totally understand.”
“Yeah… but it’s not like she can stay like that forever. Being sealed away didn’t matter since she was Tiamat’s daughter. Not sure why or how, but Tiamat manages to ruin everything she touches. Even if Rubia never intended it, her presence hidden in the depths of the Lifestream would eventually leak out and ruin everything just as her ma wished all along.” She finally turns toward the final panel before them. “And that brings us to present day. This mural shows the gateway between this world and Rubia; that is, a certain person who would use the Black Materia to ‘awaken’ her.”
Though he’s waited patiently to see how things would turn out, by now Cloud feels that apprehension from earlier return to creep on him. There’s all kinds of things that are off about Ruby right now, even if he can’t quite point them out. Maybe it’s just some hidden instinct, but he has a bad feeling where this conversation may be going.
“A certain person…” Aerith blinks as she takes in the thought and turns back to Ruby. “Does it mean you?”
Ruby nods. “Has to be. Hard to think of anyone else who’d do it.”
“Hmm…” Aerith takes a curious look at the mural again. “So what’s going to happen if Rubia wakes up?”
She shakes her head. “Eh, I have no idea. Lots of old spirits and such have warned against letting that happen, but makes you wonder why they’re all so scared.”
Aerith makes a sad, sympathetic frown. “I think it’s because everyone has known her to be pretty violent and all… but all I really know is that she’s been hurting for a long time. If anyone is scared, it would be her.”
Ruby nods along. “Aerith, we really are on the same wavelength, aren’t we?”
“Oh. Are we?”
“Yeah. See, I’ve been thinking about it for a while too. If everyone’s always scared of touching on a subject, then it never will be understood. It’s kinda like fire in a way; man’s first venture to control the elements. I’m pretty sure a lot of people got burnt trying to handle it, but it’s led all human innovation to this day.”
“Ah.” She nods thoughtfully and shows a bright smile. “Yeah, you got a point! Instead of being scared of Rubia, we should be trying to understand her.”
Ruby again looks at the mural before them and takes a pause as she carefully considers her next words. She then turns back to Aerith and the others. “…Well, simple analogies aside, there is still one big difference. Fire is pretty easy to control once you know how to contain it. But Rubia isn’t easy to control even if you know how to contain her.” She glances aside in deeper thought. “It’s been a big frustration for the Summons to keep her locked up like this.”
She tilts her head, a little confused. “Pardon? She’s been ‘locked up’? How did that happened and where?”
Ruby gestures all around them. “She’s here. She’s always been here.”
“Somewhere in this temple?”
“No, not just the temple. It’s much bigger than that.”
“Huh? Bigger?”
Ruby returns to thought to consider how best to put it. Now she turns away toward the pedestal. “Actually, it might just be easier to show you.”
“?”
Ruby now approaches the puzzle with Aerith and Tifa sliding by to join her. Cloud would follow, but something in the back of his mind keeps him held back from mingling along with them. It’s not that he doesn’t want to trust Ruby. Everything she’s said up to now seems fair enough. And yet, the closer her hands come to the puzzle, the worse the knots in his stomach are tying up. He feels like he should speak up already and announce his concerns, but seeing these two be taken in by her natural charm as always makes him question if he’s even on the right path at all. And yet, that vision he had of Rubia before… She clearly was going to destroy the world, right? He wasn’t just mistaken, right?
“So, what is this puzzle?” Aerith asks her.
“It’s a model of the entire temple. If you move a piece, it changes the layout of the temple itself.”
“Oh, wow.”
“So, if you were to, say, move enough pieces to solve this puzzle, it would cause the entire temple to collapse inward on itself. But that is the only way for it to transform into the Black Materia.”
Aerith blinks in surprise and Tifa gasps quietly from behind, but Cloud looks away with a frown. He had already known this since Rubia mentioned it long ago. But he isn’t sure why he can’t really remember the ending to that vision. It’s so fuzzy. If only he could recall what really happened… it might give him a vital clue at this important junction.
Aerith nods along. “In other words, it’s not easy to get the materia, huh?”
“Yeah. The Cetra who built it really didn’t want it to end up in the wrong hands.” Ruby shakes her head. “But there is one who circumvented the entire system.”
“Rubia?”
“Yep. After all, she can always just warp out of the way before the temple sets in on itself. She used the Black Materia at least once before, you know.”
She comes out so suddenly with it that Aerith and Tifa are taken completely off-guard. “What? But using it would summon Meteor, wouldn’t it?” Aerith asks.
Ruby nods back solemnly. “She intended to destroy this world even early on in her reincarnation cycles.”
And finally, they get to the heart of the issue at hand. Now that the ladies are finally caught up with the dreadful atmosphere, Cloud has his chance to speak his mind.
“That’s why we can’t leave the Black Materia alone. If someone like Sephiroth uses it…”
“But if he tries getting it, wouldn’t he get crushed in the transformation?” Aerith asks.
Cloud shakes his head. “I doubt he’d be caught. Besides, even if he didn’t do it himself, he has plenty of Jenova-cell subjects to use as sacrifices.”
“Ah, right.”
Tifa then suggests, “In that case, can we leave it to Ruby? She should be safe.”
Ruby nods back. “Yeah, leave it to me. A puzzle like this is a cinch and I can get out, no problem.” She carefully inspects the puzzle once more as she starts to plan her moves. “But you guys should probably get out now before I begin.”
But Cloud cuts in, “Wait. If you’re gonna do it, then someone should stay with you.”
“Huh?”
Aerith and Tifa are confused as well. Aerith asks him, “What do you mean, Cloud? Ruby will be fine. She can warp out.”
He shakes his head again, a bit more stubbornly this time. “Again, we have to watch out for Sephiroth. He could still show up any time before, during, or after we get the materia.” He clenches up a determined fist. “He’d better think twice if he thinks he can steal it on my watch.”
They make determined faces of their own and nod back. Tifa agrees, “Good point. Then, let’s all stay.”
But Ruby makes an awkward frown. “Geez, guys. I don’t need to be babysat. Sephiroth’s not gonna ‘steal’ anything from me.”
Cloud retorts, “Then we can keep you company to make that a guarantee.”
“Ugh. It doesn’t have to be like this, guys! I know I can be a little absent-minded, but…”
“This isn’t about that and you know it. Stop trying to push us away. We’ve had it with you always doing things yourself.”
“…”
By now, Ruby is growing impatient with them, but decides not to argue further. She proceeds to move the first piece and as expected, the temple begins to tremble. Before she can reach for another piece, though, they hear another low rumble and the entire room begins to shake even harder.
“Uh, what’s going on?” Tifa asks nervously. “You only moved a single piece, right?”
“Yeah,” Ruby answers.
“Wait. This happened before when Sephiroth was here earlier,” Cloud reminds them.
“Sephiroth!?” Tifa gasps.
Ruby shakes her head. “It’s not him.”
“Huh?”
Now, Ruby whips out her signature knife in hand. “You guys might want to step back a bit. Something’s coming.”
She hops back a fair distance from the pedestal and the others join her there. There seems to be a strange energy about the room that seems to warp the space before them, almost like a gravity well that is forming within this very room. Then, all of a sudden, the space falls into some sort of hole, where a huge dark portal bursts alive. At first it floats ominously before them, but then a massive figure protrudes from the portal, revealing the massive red, scaly head of a great dragon followed by the rest of it. This old red dragon seems to bear a scar over his right eye, which has gone blind white. And as soon as he sees Ruby in plain view, his single eye hones in on her with a fearsome glare. Even as the dragon steps out of the portal, the door doesn’t yet close.
“You… Why have you returned?” the dragon growls in rather well-spoken English.
Tifa almost squeaks in surprise. “It can talk!?”
Ruby meets with the dragon eye-to-eye, standing her ground. “To catch up on old times… Uncle Vok.”
The dragon known as Vok looks incensed and snarls back, “Spare me your mockery, you petulant princess! This old scar still aches from the day you and your wolf turned on me!”
“Oh, yeah…” She makes a cheeky smirk. “Sorry about that, but you were in the way.”
Vok roars with a bellow that sends a powerful gust their way, and yet Ruby remains as stoic as ever. “I should have buried you long ago! Ended my ties with this accursed family! I only submitted to Tiamat so she would leave me in peace, and yet she lumped me in with all the prisoners as sacrificial fodder! Then I turned to your father to seek aid and forgiveness, and yet he imprisoned me, even imposed upon me a spoiled brat to watch in his stead! And to add insult to old injuries, even the child would come to seek the Black Materia for her own petty squabbles.”
She remains unfazed and unsympathetic. “…Well, sorry, but the two ultimate Dragon Gods were at war. Why did you ever think you wouldn’t be dragged into it? Considering a change in speciation?”
“Silence your insolent tongue! A hatchling like you knows naught of the chaos that this planet had seen…” Then, he rears up his head held high with some kind of evil-looking glint in his eye. “But I will hide no longer! Long have I toiled in secret to create the ultimate unbreakable seal! I swear on my forge, none, not you nor Tiamat, shall escape!”
With another mighty roar, Vok now unleashes a powerful spell with its own magic circle appearing before him. Amused and a little curious, Ruby simply waits for him to cast it and see what would happen. By the next instant, though, she would realize a bit late that it’s no ordinary magic that she can just bounce back. From the darkness of the portal behind him, several massive metal chains with locks shoot out from the door and surround her. Even when she dodges out of the way, the chains pursue her, shooting everywhere she tries to flee.
“Ruby!” Aerith cries.
She summons her staff and starts pelting the chains with her own magic, but it’s to no effect. Cloud and Tifa likewise leap into action to block or parry the chains, but they seem to fly right past them as if they were intangible. However, they are not intangible to Ruby. She clashes with the chains with her knife, but knocking them aside only delays the inevitable. The more she bounces around to avoid them, the faster the chains seem to move until they have spread out so much so fast that she can’t keep dodging. After a bit of struggle, the chains latch around her and seal her into a sort of prison cell. Then, by some powerful gravity magic, the portal then sucks her up into it to drag her out of the ensuing battle.
The other three are aghast as the portal door finally closes shut and vanishes from sight. With something of a triumphant sneer on his face, Vok then turns his attention to her companions.
“As for you lot, begone,” he growls threateningly. “This temple is not welcome to humans who don’t understand the power at stake.”
“Oh, we understand it.” Cloud brings his sword forward. “After we beat you, we’re taking back Ruby and the Black Materia.”
Vok scoffs. “As expected of humans… foolish creatures of unending greed, unaware that it will become your own undoing. So be it! I’ll bury you all along with the faithless princess!”
Despite his grandstanding display of longevity, Vok is far from feeble in old age. If anything, living since the war-torn eras back when the Summon Guardians once roamed free and thus had to fend off attacks from Tiamat and her legion of evil, as well as battled against Bahamut’s own forces, has hardened him to defend himself against all odds. After all, in the days of old, he was once known as the proud Dragon of the Forge, forefather of metallurgy and the one who was said to have bequeathed the knowledge to humanity. It was said that no human ever had craftsmanship comparable to his works, as he wielded control of the very elements to every step in the process of forging. Even though he was not quite a deity on par with the ranks of Bahamut and his Golden Wyrms, it was still considered a divine blessing for a human to wield such equipment at all. As it so happened, Rubia’s old blades back in her history as an Ackardian general were of such origin.
Unfortunately for Cloud and his party, the dragon would also prove to be incredibly tough – not just powerful, but extremely resilient to all damage, be it from physical strikes or magical. Though he tries to cut through these scales, Cloud finds his sword barely nicking them. Even Tifa’s chi-powered rapid stream of blows can’t bust through them. And as expected, Aerith’s spells seem to bounce off of him as if he had some kind of natural Manaward about him. And with one sweeping fiery breath, Vok floods the ground beneath them with flames that could be hot enough to melt metal, turning the grounds around them into scattered pools of lava.
“Shit… We can’t even dent him,” Cloud mutters, drawing back to a safe distance.
“Or get close… not with all that,” Tifa observes, wiping sweat from her brow.
Aerith tries to fire off a few Blizzara spells to help cool the area, but they all quickly dissipate and the lava pools remain untouched. She curses under her breath and says aloud, “Looks like we might need someone like Shiva if we wanna cool off.”
“Can you get her out here?” Cloud asks.
Aerith proceeds to search their inventory to find the materia in question. “I’ll try, but I need time. Can you guys hold him off?”
“Yeah…” He turns back to the dragon who growls from afar as if daring them to approach. “Well, at least we’ll try something.”
“I got an idea, Cloud,” Tifa suggests. “Mind if we sync up?”
“Was just thinking the same. Let’s do this, Tifa.”
With barely a glance at each other, the pair launch themselves into the air to lunge on the attack once more, but this time they strike a perfect balance of rhythm. When Vok meets them with his mighty barriers once again, this time they dodge and weave and chip away at him where he wouldn’t expect them to strike and thus where his barriers wouldn’t be the strongest to repel them. The two move in tandem to one another, almost as if the two have come to share one mind. With one heavy critical strike below the dragon’s tail, Tifa actually manages to stagger him and send him crashing to the floor. And with his barriers down, she and Cloud proceed to wail on him from two sides at once.
Nevertheless, Vok doesn’t go down that easily. He quickly recovers and for once puts his huge wings to use. From above, he crashes into the floor hard enough to crack it, breaking apart their otherwise even footing and allowing the lava pools around them to seep into the cracks. And he’s back up in the air to avoid their attacks. Lathering himself with his own fiery breath, he absorbs the flames into his body and it naturally repairs his wounds, and just like that, he seems to be good as new again.
By now, Cloud and Tifa find themselves trapped by lava pools and streams all around them as Vok flies overhead. He preps up one more blast and is about to unleash it when a sweeping wave of ice instead comes their way, flooding the area with ice crystals that would not melt even to lava. And just before Vok delivers his flames, the lucky pair manage to dodge out of the way.
Yet, Vok is merely disappointed to meet with a reproduction of the ice queen Shiva. Though he never had any particular qualms with the Summons themselves, aside from Bahamut for more personal reasons, he is especially disgusted to see humans wielding the power of these former deities like their personal servants. He unleashes his rage at Shiva, who neatly blocks his flames with a wall of ice that refuses to melt, and for just a moment, it seems like the two are stuck in gridlock.
“Guys, over here!” Aerith calls to her partners and they all gather back up a safe distance away.
“Aerith! Thanks!” Tifa huffs a word while catching her breath. “That was a really close call.”
“But, talk about tough… Even with a Summon, that dragon’s still holding his own,” Cloud remarks, feeling a bit uneasy.
To their dismay, Vok is more than just a dragon. He actually manages to break out the stalemate by feinting a retreat, but then seizes her by the arms to throw her down into the ground hard. He even continuously blasts her with his lava-hot flames and would not let up. Though Shiva herself seems at most just slightly annoyed at the assault, she does lose patience dealing with this very stubborn dragon and decides it’s time to opt out. For one last attack, she repels him off of her and unleashes another sweeping wave of Diamond Dust that temporarily freezes the dragon into a huge block of ice. And with a charming icy kiss, she calls it there and dismisses herself as Vok seems to burst full of ice crystals.
Vok stumbles back to the floor, which is now nicely covered in more manageable ice and struggles to climb back to his feet. And yet, despite everything, the old dragon refuses to give in. He unleashes another breath upon himself to again restore his wounds, and while this time not quite good as new, he is able to get back up again.
Cloud stares in disbelief. “Aerith, why did Shiva just up and leave?”
Aerith sighs. “Sorry, Cloud. Since we haven’t really been using the Summon materia very much, they’re still pretty young and we don’t have that much control over them.”
“Damn it…”
They all scatter to avoid Vok’s next wild breath attack, but this time, he seals them in by flooding the floor behind them with lava as well.
“Shit! Nowhere to run…”
“Uh-oh,” Aerith mumbles.
“No turning back! We have to fight!” Tifa declares, prepping herself up again.
As the three face off with the old dragon once more, though, a strange phenomenon takes place back near the altar where the portal had previously opened. There are those faint traces of tessellating shapes that appear, as they would whenever there is an unexpected twist in the flow of Fate. Suddenly, the battle is interrupted by a great flash of light that even catches Vok’s attention and the portal from before opens up again.
“What!? Impossible!” he cries, wide-eyed. “The door cannot reopen here! I sent it to another realm!”
And then, everything happens in a blink. Ruby leaps back out, free from any chains, with knife poised to strike. Even before Vok can finish turning around to block her, she lands atop the back of his head and mercilessly plunges the blade right into his cranium.
For just a moment, time seems to slow to a standstill. Ruby closes her eyes and entrances herself in deep thought. It’s just like old times, isn’t it? Back to that day, when she and Fenrir finally decided to put their plans into action and ambush Vok so they may retrieve the Black Materia. To be honest, it was the culmination of many different plans she made over the years and just so happened to be the one she and Fenrir could settle on. They would take turns swapping roles between the attacker and the decoy, and it certiainly helped them that both she and the wolf could create their own afterimages. Vok had no chance at the time and went down like a heavy sack.
Even as a child, Rubia understood the implications behind her father’s decision to keep her at this temple. Here was Vok, the most infamous of Bahamut’s allies since the first Great Cetran War. He was deemed infamous as he was the most well-known former enemy out of Tiamat’s legions, and despite being instrumental in aiding Bahamut in the rest of the war as well as the second Great War, he was also known to disagree with the dragon king’s vision for a stable peace with humanity. He saw this peace as a form of submission and called it cowardly. So it would be to his dismay when Bahamut then entrusted him to watch over his daughter from time to time. Everything about Rubia – from her birthright to her father’s plan to make her an emissary to humans – was disgusting to Vok and he despised the child when they first met. And yet, by some miracle the two would still get along and he would be the only one to stop her in her darkest moments of self-loathing.
Ruby lets off a sigh and opens her eyes. The blink passes and time resumes. Now, she stands atop of the old red dragon, who has stopped moving entirely. Even the large pools of lava he had created begin to fade away as if it were all just a dream, and soon the rest of the dragon’s body would fade as well into sparkling green ether. Without even looking at him, she steps off and joins her companions.
“You guys alright?” she asks.
Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith are completely silent and stare in awe. After pooling all their concerted efforts into combating this enemy, Ruby simply showed back up and cleaned house with a single critical hit. And it’s at this moment when Cloud realizes just how far the gap has been between them all along. He knew it was big, but they’ve been training themselves up too. Surely, at least he would be able to catch up at some point. But, no, he couldn’t have been more wrong.
Tifa and Aerith exchange nervous smiles and turn to her with gracious nods. “Yeah! Thanks!” “Nice work as always, Cuz.”
“It’s all good. I wouldn’t leave you hanging.” She turns away and speaks a bit more somberly, “He wasn’t supposed to still be here…”
“Hm? Sorry, who do you mean?”
Ruby shakes her head. “No, forget it. It’s all lost history by this point.”
“…?”
She turns for the pedestal again and they all follow to watch her work. But, before she does resume sliding the pieces, she pauses and turns back to them with another firm warning.
“No, this isn’t gonna work. I meant it when I said you guys shouldn’t stay. Gonna make solving the puzzle more troublesome.”
“How so?” Tifa asks.
“Once the pieces start moving, the temple is going to crunch up really fast. And that goes for this room too. Some parts of the puzzle will be shifting around this hallway and I can’t guarantee how small a space we’d have left.”
“Aw, don’t worry!” Aerith leans in with a hug from the side. “We can just stick close!”
“Aerith, that’s not what I mean…”
“Hm? What’s wrong?”
Ruby gently pushes her off. “I mean, at some point, I’ll be forced to warp you all away anyway even before the puzzle is completely solved. So I figured I might as well do it now and not have to worry about your safety as well.”
“Oh…” Aerith glances back to Tifa, who also looks unsure and is thinking it through. Even Cloud in the back looks like he’s lost in thought over something. She then turns back to Ruby looking a little sad. “Well, when you put it that way, I guess we are kinda in the way, huh?”
Ruby nods. “Sorry, Cuz. No offense intended.”
“No worries and none taken!”
“Here, let me warp you all out.”
Ruby then gives the ladies each a light tap. As she comes up to touch Cloud, though, he suddenly snaps out of his thoughts and backs off.
“Hey.” He swats away her hand. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”
She groans and shakes her head. “Oh, come on! What is it now? What does it take to get you off my case!?”
He folds his arms. “How about explaining yourself first? What exactly happened between you and Sephiroth?”
“Huh? But I already told you…”
“Definitely not everything.”
“…” Now that he brings it up again, the usual pep in her attitude seems to drain away as she’s forced to remember some details.
“So if you’re not gonna be completely honest with us, then we can’t just let you off the hook.”
“…I’m not gonna run away with the materia or anything.”
“I didn’t think you would. But you can’t have just made a ‘deal’ with him without sacrificing something. And until you say what that is, I’m not leaving.”
By now, the façade that she had so carefully built up to this point is starting to show its cracks and the grim reality she’s facing begins to set back in. She hangs her head in shame, slowly shaking her head, and then turns back to the other two with a rather remorseful expression.
“Sorry, girls. Can I have the rest of this conversation in private?”
Tifa and Aerith share worried looks. “Is it something that you can’t tell us?” Tifa asks.
Ruby looks back down, fidgeting with her hands. “It’s… something I’m not comfortable telling anyone else.”
“…” Though they’re still hesitant, the ladies also exchange nods and Aerith replies, “Okay. When you two are ready, come out.”
Ruby returns them a sad yet grateful smile. With a wave of her hand, she dismisses them and sends them away in a flash of light.
And now, it’s back to being just her and Cloud. The tension in the air skyrockets. Just like that, she’s gone back to her meek, timid self. She can’t bring herself to look at him. She slumps and recoils, fidgeting with her fingers. She begins to shiver – with fear or anticipation, it’s unclear – as recent memories come back to the forefront and pile onto her like heavy burdens.
He still keeps a stern eye on her, but now relaxes his arms. “So… what was it? What did you have to give up?”
She doesn’t reply right away, taking a a deep breath to help calm her nerves. Yet, this time she’s so flustered and twitchy that it doesn’t seem to help at all. In any case, she clasps her face in her hands with an exhausted sigh. She’s been keeping all of this pent up for so long that now that she has a chance to speak, she feels so uncertain about telling it to anyone else. But this is Cloud she’s talking to right now. Surely, it wouldn’t turn out that bad, right?
Finally, she pulls back up and answers, “…Ruby.”
He stares at her, at first not quite understanding it, but then blinks and is taken aback. “Wait. What? Do you mean you?”
She turns away, looking unsure herself. “Yes… and no. It’s me, but not all of me. Just the part of me that was once known as ‘Ruby Liu’.”
“…”
She then rubs her head awkwardly as she searches for another way to explain. “Um… Okay. Do you remember when I mentioned having memories of a different life from another world?”
“Uh, yeah. What about them?” He blinks again and gives her a suspecting stare. “Wait. You mean those memories…?”
“Yeah… I’ve given up on returning to that old life. I’m no longer that person I thought I once was anyway. It took me some time, but I’ve finally come to terms with it.” She closes her eyes and hangs her head again as if making an apologetic bow. “The author known as ‘Ruby Liu’ is dead. This body is now just a vessel for a vagrant soul.”
Notes:
Outdated A/N
Next chapter has been in the works much earlier than usual, but I think I'll still need another few days to get the Ruby and Sephiroth confrontation just right. And everything else that ensues.
Whew, what a massive undertaking in these next couple chapters, but we are heading into the end of Act 2 at last. I can finally say with much more certainty that I am about 2/3rds to the end!
Just a bit of Homebrew D&D 3e trivia
- The lore behind Tiamat and Bahamut's battle is inspired a bit by the lore set in D&D 3e, but specifically tweaked to focus just on these dragons and their significance to FF history, rather than D&D. But Tiamat's design here is based more on the classic FF1 design which is mainly greenish with a bluish / purplish belly. I have included references to her multi-colors in her eyes, though.
- I have replaced the generic red dragon from the OG with a named character and backstory, so he gets the overpowered, nigh impossible to defeat boss treatment, complete with some backstory known only to Ruby/Rubia. Vok's name and epithet are from the original Dragon of the Forge from D&D 3e. I've also tweaked his backstory a bit from the origins, where he still retains his dislike of humans, but has been humanized through his interactions with little Rubia.
Chapter 60: Game, Set, Match
Notes:
I know I've let you all wait for a while longer this time, so I come with an extra long and juicy chapter to award you all for your patience! This one is something special, alright! Plentiful new revelations will flip some long awaited mysteries on their heads, redefine and even commit character relationships, and just show a smashing good time! And it just took 60 chapters for the slowburn to finally spark a fire. But at least we're here at last.
Stay tuned and leave a comment below while you're at it! We're finally building up to the end of Act 2.
Outdated A/N
5/26/24 edit: Next chapter is finished, but I may need to go over it again. I'm currently caught between two very different scenarios and I can't decide if I want to choose this one that I have now or the one I previously drafted. In any case, I ought to get it posted by Tuesday or Wednesday this week.
5/2/25 edit: Revised a bit of description to add more clarity to Sephiroth's inner thoughts after "the" scene. Ya'll know the one.
Chapter Text
Cloud isn’t even sure what he’s hearing right now, but Ruby doesn’t look like she’s messing around. She just admitted to something incredibly strange, so strange that it could only have come from her, and it brings in so many red flags just by the possible implications.
“Vessel? Vagrant soul…?” He slowly repeats what she said, but struggles to have it sink in. “What are you talking about? What’s going on?”
She lets off a tired sigh. “There’s so much context you’re missing… I don’t even know where to begin.”
“Then, just stick with the most important parts?”
She shakes her head. “I’ve come across so many revelations that I’m still reeling from them all. It’s all a confusing mess. My existence is a mess… I’m actually in pieces.”
“…” He leans back with a hand to his hip. “Sounds like business as usual, really.”
“I guess, but now that I know things, everything feels unreal. I don’t feel real. My very existence is slowly waning.”
He makes a concerned frown and brings a hand forward to suggest, “Um… maybe pull back a bit first. How about you start with why you’re giving up your ‘old life’? Is it really important that you leave it behind?”
She looks discouraged from talking about that. “It’s not important. That’s why I’m leaving it.”
“Then what’s the big deal?” He scratches his head. “Sorry, I have no idea where you’re going with this.”
“Hmm…” She takes another moment to think from a different point of view. “Okay, let’s put it this way. You remember from our conversation back in that secret room in Wutai?”
He grows solemn as he recalls the moment and nods back. “Yeah. You suddenly broke down into tears and wouldn’t explain yourself. But at least you warned us that Sephiroth and Rubia would be waiting for us here.”
“Yeah…” She casts a guilty look aside. “It was around then when I realized that Rubia and I have been sharing the same body all along. I didn’t know how or why until just last night.” She glances off toward the last panel of the mural once more. “The answers were waiting here after all.”
Still feeling pretty lost, he turns to it too and back to her. “What exactly does it show?”
“My origins. Rubia created me, but only the part of me that was from this planet.”
“…”
She turns back to him with an awkward frown. “Um… You can think of it like I’m split between different identities, even though they all identify as the same person.”
He folds his arms, putting on a thinking face. “…Still lost me. Do you mean like a split personality, or do you really have multiple souls stuck in one body?”
“More like the latter. I am both a lost soul from a different world and an entity created by Rubia from this planet’s energy merged into one.”
“…?”
“Rubia was always a part of this world, as she is the daughter of Tiamat. She also inherited the powerful magic from her mother that allowed her to create a vessel of her own that she could mold to her liking, possess and freely manipulate, and even store memories.” She glances off with a pensive look. “Even if some of those memories weren’t supposed to be here…”
“Tiamat…”
Cloud’s eyes narrow into a glare as soon as he hears of that accursed name again. It happens like a gut reflex. Even if he doesn’t really understand it, he gets this instinctual feeling that he’s still bearing some grudge against the demoness dragon as if it were able to transcend the eras and across different entities. He passes a glance down the hall to the previous murals, which told of the origins of the Black Materia from Tiamat’s lingering will, and somehow he gets the feeling that this is all old news.
He turns back to her and asks, “Does Rubia even know that she’s inheriting her mother’s legacy? Is that the only reason why she wants to destroy the world?”
“I think she does, but acts on her own desires more than anything her mother laid out for her. She just ended up on the same destructive path anyway since no one ever saw her as more than an extension of Tiamat, and eventually gave up on convincing anyone otherwise. Even her own dad kept her at wing’s length and he has pretty big wings.” Ruby shakes her head, feeling a bit of pity. “She was upheld to an impossible standard by both her parents, just swinging in completely opposite directions. Honestly, I can relate – uh, the part of me that’s foreign, I mean.”
For some reason, he just can’t settle down whenever she speaks of the “different sides” to her. It rubs him all the wrong ways. “…You know, saying ‘this part’ or ‘that part’ of you doesn’t make things any easier. Can we get this straight first? What is this ‘entity’ that Rubia has created and how do your old memories come into all of this?”
She doesn’t answer right away either; instead closes her eyes, but looks surprisingly calm as if deep in contemplation. Without opening her eyes, she answers in an almost robotic fashion, “The entity is an avatar, an artificial intelligence created by Rubia, which she could use as a mask and take on a new persona. This entity has always belonged to Rubia and is within her right to control.”
“…”
Now she opens her eyes again and returns to her usual melancholy from earlier. “But as it turns out, I’m not just AI that needs to take input. I’m also Ruby Liu, the lingering spirit of a former author. I have no idea how I managed to cross into this world, but I think I’ve been here a lot longer than I even remembered being. Unfortunately, not all of me seems to have made it across.”
Cloud simply stares back, feeling a cold sweat come over him. Now it finally hits him why he’s been so apprehensive. All this suspicion was already making him feel a little sick, but actually witnessing something like this makes him freeze up in fear. Ruby, or at least the person he thought he once knew as her, suddenly lost all expressiveness and personality, only to bounce back to her usual demeanor like some switch activated in her head. Who or what even is Ruby? Does she even exist? Or have they all been misled all this time into believing someone like her exists?
Meanwhile, she looks off again to return to her own thoughts, and after a moment to let it all sink in, she turns back to him. “Funny, isn’t it? How after so many twists and turns, we just end up back close to where we started, but come away with a completely different perspective.”
“…”
She then makes a conceding sigh and looks away again. “But now I no longer have time. These foreign memories are going to disappear soon.”
He snaps out of his confused daze and turns to disbelief. “Why? What’s happening to them?”
With a completely straight face, she declares, “I’m going to discard them.”
“What?”
“They can’t remain in this world. They aren’t of the planet, so have no place to return. Furthermore, their very existence has brought instability to this world and are a threat to reality as we know it. They are the source of the Void that has plagued this planet, not Rubia. She’s only been stealing energy from the Lifestream to feed the Void to ensure that I can still exist. She’s been trying to preserve me.”
“…”
“But it’s a moot point. She can’t recreate the dead from another world; only a facsimile of the person. This body may have my soul, but it is still in pieces. The only way it can be released is if they are made whole again. And when that happens, the Watchers of the Simulation will grant their due judgment.” She closes her eyes and states as matter of fact: “This entity known as ‘Ruby’ is going to be erased.” She then opens her eyes again. “I might as well take the initiative and get it over with sooner.”
What the hell is she talking about now!? For a moment there, Cloud thought he was finally getting somewhere with Ruby on her wild meta-redefining train ride, but once again, there’s a sudden lurch to the side and they’re off on different rails entirely. It feels like the more he tries to dig, the further the rabbit hole goes and he might not be able to make his way back out if he goes too deep. Should he keep pursuing this? Should anyone keep pursuing this? Ruby seems to have descended pretty far into the mess, but instead it’s left her disassociating with herself. She really should stop.
She nods back, as if she had just read his mind. “You may be right. I probably should stop.”
“Huh?”
She now stares with such distant eyes like she isn’t really seeing him. “This lost soul has long passed its expiration. It must be released so it may disappear.”
“What? No! Why would you even think that?”
“Fortunately, arrangements have been made. Sephiroth came to me with a proposal.”
He balls up a fist and swears internally. Of course everything would have led back to him. Even with all the dread piling on him, he still has to ask it, “What did he say?”
For just a moment, she makes a subtle smile amid her gloom. “He said… he was my saving grace.”
~
From the well lit chambers of the temple to the dimly lit living room of her apartment – or rather, the semblance of it set within the Debug Room – Ruby remains in a place of constant unease. She’s back on the couch with Sephiroth sitting beside her. It’s just like when they first met: dark outside and inside this household, the two of them having long discussions about the fragility of Destiny or whatnot, and her feeling so exhausted like she hasn’t slept in a very long time. If time is a circle, then she’s been cycling through this moment ad infinitum.
“Here we are. We won’t be interrupted anymore.” Sephiroth turns her way with his usual charming smile. “Now you can be free to unload all your anger where it won’t hurt anyone, not even yourself.”
She doesn’t respond to him, choosing to stare off into space, lost in her thoughts. So little of what she had once known has remained intact until now. From the absurd, nonsensical beginnings to the difficult reconciliation with her supposed former death, to even the truth behind the core connection between her and Rubia; for all this lore she’s unraveled, Ruby finds herself sinking further and further into an inescapable oblivion, where she is doomed to be erased and forgotten. Time is of the utmost essence. She’s spent long enough wandering aimlessly. And yet, now that she has the opportunity to find the answers she seeks, she hesitates to utter a word. Even at this late hour, she wonders if it’s really worth all the sacrifices she’s made, especially given how she’s kept almost everyone in the dark.
Noticing that she isn’t going to make the first move herself, he prods her with the question, “Isn’t there something you’d like to ask? Or would you rather we sit here in silence together?” He turns toward the TV, which is still on and showing the old mural room as in its original PS1 design, though the details on the walls are a little different. “We won’t be progressing the story until you return there, so we have plenty of time.” He offers her a welcoming gesture. “The floor is yours, Ruby.”
She makes a bitter frown to herself, frustrated at her own helplessness. Of all times that she’d wish to stop thinking and go to sleep, it would be now, but she knows that sleep will provide no rest as long as the issues at hand are yet to be addressed. With a defeated sigh, she falls back against the seat cushions and finally gives in with a quick word.
“Sephiroth… I hate you.”
He looks away with an amused smirk. “Starting with the classic, I see.”
“What even is this ‘game’ I’m playing? Am I still playing it? Or have I been the NPC all along who just thinks I was the MC?”
His smirk fades slightly. “Of course you’re playing. You’re still here, aren’t you?”
“That doesn’t tell me squat.” She fires back with an impatient glare. “You and Rubia have been messing around with the board for so long, I don’t even know how I got to this point without realizing how badly I’ve been bullied by you both.”
“Hmm…” His smile fades away completely and he gets serious again. “Regardless of your current standing, I can assure that you are a player of this game.”
“In what way, huh? With how much you two intervene, it’s more like I’m on an AR theme park ride.”
“I only intervene whenever it would be appropriate. It just so happens that Rubia has become more and more aggressive and direct in her approach.” He passes her a coy glance. “Even when you weren’t aware, I made sure to keep her from encroaching too much.”
“That so?” She looks away with a pout. “Then you’ve been doing a shitty job keeping her away.”
“Now, now. There’s only so much I can do from here. Ultimately, you are still being hosted in her body.”
She turns back his way with an unimpressed frown. “In any case, I’m sure it’s because of you that she’s been on the move. I mean, why would she let someone like you gain access to the Debug Room? This is her lab. I doubt all your tinkering was welcome.”
He chuckles quietly, putting a hand to his chin in thought. “Why, indeed… Perhaps she underestimated me, or perhaps she wished to wait and see what I would be able to accomplish. By the time she realized she would risk losing control of her ‘lab’, it was already too late.”
“So you managed to hack it, huh…” She pauses with a few blinks and then turns to him again. “When did you ever study programming? That doesn’t seem like a necessary skill for a Soldier.”
“It wasn’t required, but I had a hand in the subject even since young. Would spare me the need to call on a technician out in the field in case any machines would malfunction.”
“So you’d actually program the machines yourself? Damn.”
“Fortunately, I rarely ever needed to do so, as no machine would be able to keep up with me in the first place.”
“Of course…” She takes a moment to think on ahead and then passes him a side peek. “Say, how long did you know? That you were actually trapped in this illusory prison.”
“…” He takes another moment to think back. “Since I discovered I could view and even alter the files within this Room. That would have been around the time I dressed it up as your apartment. Though, I suspected something was off about this world even before then.”
“Yeah… I figured it wasn’t since the very beginning. Wouldn’t make sense to threaten my life in a place like this.”
He brings a hand forward and looks down at it. “It was honestly a surprise… That even I had access to the intricate details of this world as viewed through a digital space. It was as if the very fabric of reality had its own code.” He clenches his hand into a fist and makes a determined face. “I knew this was much more than just the whimsies of a slowly dying planet. I had to dig deeper.”
“…”
He then turns to her with another coy smile. “And through my extensive research, I would discover not only that this world could be manipulated as if it were a simulation, but that there is in fact a means to escape this simulation.”
She blinks in surprise and turns to him with a hard stare. “What are you talking about? A simulation? What, have we been in the Matrix the whole time?”
“In short, something similar.”
She clutches her head in a panic. “Aaaah! Stop it! You’re supposed to deny it!”
He gives her a disappointed frown. “I’m surprised it’s taken you this long to realize it. We’re currently situated in what you called the ‘Debug Room’. You’d think this would be a natural conclusion to draw.”
“Oh, no, you don’t.” She clenches up her own fist and shakes it in his face. “I’m just finally getting around to learning that I might not be a real person after all, and you now drop some other huge plot twist out of nowhere! At least spare everyone who’s reading this crap some time to let these revelations hit! How about letting me mope about my identity crisis first!?”
He puts a hand to his chin and instead continues thinking aloud, “Furthermore, there remains the mystery of where the Whispers of Fate had disappeared. It wouldn’t be very fitting for Gaia to suddenly be without them. Thus, it led me to realize that this world isn’t at all as it at first seems…”
She waves a hand in his face to get his attention. “Hey, hello! Don’t ignore me!”
He now turns to her with an annoyed frown. “Yes? If you’re just going to mope about how terrible your life is, you can leave me out of it.”
She clasps her head in her hands tightly while trying to press the soreness out of it. “Shut up, man! Let me complain all I want! I’m still reeling from all the mysteries! So many questions I wanna ask!”
He lets off a tired sigh, but folds his arms and sits back quietly. “Questions are fine. Ask away.”
“…” Now that she has some room to think, she relaxes her grasp and gently rubs her temples. “Okay. First of all, if we’re just living in the Matrix, then who’s the one who set it up? Rubia?”
He scoffs at the idea. “Of course not. How could she possibly manage an entire world by herself, especially while hiding behind you? She’s been struggling to wrestle control of this realm from me.” He looks off again in thought. “No, the overseers have been watching us safely from beyond the Edge, sitting content from their otherworldly realms. The Watchers of the Simulation, if you will. Though, it remains unclear whether or not activity within this Room is as thoroughly tracked as the rest of the world.”
She groans, sinking into another slump. “God, stooop. Why do you keep introducing things that clearly don’t exist?”
He sighs. “Ruby, if you’re not going to accept the most basic facts, we’ll be stuck here until you do.”
“What the hell are those so-called Watchers doing other than watching, huh? Are they stupid or just incompetent!? At least one of them’s gotta have root admin access! Just write out the part where the planet is dying! It’s a Goddamn simulation! Don’t tell me Minerva’s in on all this and she’s just choosing to sit back like it’s Netflix and Chill! They really are a bunch of useless Gods!”
“…” He raises an eyebrow. “A quick 180.”
“Shut up, Sephiroth. My head is spinning right now and whatever you’re saying, I can’t take alla that right now,” she grumbles, still holding her head as if trying to set it right. “I don’t know what to believe anymore. I don’t know whether I should stop Rubia or let her do her thing. All I know is that I’m not really the same person I thought I was. I need to vent! Let me whiiiine!”
“…” He closes his eyes and turns off without a word, but doesn’t try to stop her.
After another moment of silence as she heaves a bit of heavy panting, she tries to calm down and eventually feels the soreness gradually dissipate. She lets go of her head and falls back against the seat with a heavy sigh of her own. She keeps her eyes closed as she begins to recall everything that she had come to learn thus far.
“The last mural in that room… It showed Rubia creating a vessel for her to imbue her own will. By that time, she had already descended into madness and would dare to follow the destructive path which her mother had laid out for her since she first laid that curse of immortality.” She hangs her head. “That vessel would be me. I’m a mask with an alternate personality which she can hide behind and pretend to be someone else, so no one would suspect where she had gone.”
“…”
She now opens her eyes and looks down at her hands. “However, Rubia never left this body. She would always have the last word and would seize the reins from me if I ever went too far out of line.” She slowly raises those hands and plants them over her face. “In the end, there’s no point to struggling. I don’t have the free will I thought I had. I’m not ‘Ruby Liu the author’; I’m ‘Ruby’ the puppet and Rubia is my master.”
Sephiroth has chosen to remain silent all the while she had been reciting these facts as she knew them, but he makes a disconcerted frown as if he had retort for something among the things she’s said so far.
Now, her grasp tightens and she begins to tremble. “…And if this world is just a simulation after all, that makes me little more than a program. A proxy service. A digital mask that covers her signature no matter where she goes. She’s traveling incognito and I’m the dumbass cardboard cutout she’s wearing…”
“…”
She pulls her hands away and reveals the trail of tears that have been spilling down her cheeks. “Can you believe this shit? If Rubia is no more than a figment of someone else’s imagination, then what does that make me? An OC of an OC. I’m not even the original… Just a shitty ripoff.”
“…”
“I’m done. I’m so #&%$@* done. I can’t deal with this trash fic anymore,” she sputters manically between heavy breaths as she builds into sobs. “This timeline is all kinds of messed up. What can I even salvage? It’s not worth it.” She shakes her head and her voice starts to crack. “Please, let it end. I don’t want to write it anymore.”
At last, Sephiroth turns her way, now with a genuine look of concern. “Ruby, let’s not be hasty…”
She doesn’t even turn his way. Instead, she gets back to her feet and stomps off for the front door.
“Where are you going?” he asks, likewise taking a stand. “That isn’t an exit.”
Ruby ignores him and grabs the handle to give it a shake or turn, but the knob is stuck like it’s frozen in time. To be honest, she knew this would be the case. There is no data for any location outside of this apartment. It is meant to be a singular location that has no entrances or exits and the only way to access it is to input the address directly into the user interface. And yet, she doesn’t care. She can’t take it anymore. Driven purely by a maddening fear, she continues to wrestle with the knob that isn’t designed to be moved.
“Move, damn you! Open up! I don’t care how! I’ll make a new waypoint with my bare hands! Lemme ooout!”
She tugs hard, wrenching it with both hands, pounds on the door in hopeless frustration, and even tries to scratch and claw her way out the window with non-clawed fingers. But no matter what, the door, which might as well be a wall painted like a door, doesn’t budge. She doesn’t even receive any injury from attempting it because there is no data in this realm to exact damage in the first place, at least from the surroundings. All the pain she does feel is thus contained in her heart and mind and it’s all the more excruciating. She keeps pounding away, but is only exhausting herself more and more, as her tears freely flow down her cheeks.
“Damn you… Damn it all.” She finally slows her pounding and collapses against the door with a grieving whimper. “Let me out… I don’t wanna be here. I don’t wanna be anywhere…”
Though Sephiroth initially hesitated to interrupt her, as he was fully expecting her to continue to throw a fit for a good while, it’s awfully uncomfortable to sit back and pretend she isn’t there. With an exasperated sigh of his own, he approaches her.
“Ruby,” he calls again.
She has slumped back to the floor in a weeping mess. As he comes over, she doesn’t turn to him, but utters a desperate, choked-up plea.
“Sephiroth… please. Send me back to the temple…”
“Why? You haven’t found the answers you need.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t want them. I’m sick of it all. I just want to go back to my friends and forget any of this happened.”
“You won’t have the chance to forget anything. Rubia is already on the move.”
She fires back a glare with wet, reddened eyes. “Then let her. Let her rampage or whatever. Hell, let the world end! Nothing I can do anyway.”
His eyes narrow dangerously. “If she does, then nothing about your situation will change.”
“…”
“Should this world be destroyed, the powers that be will simply reset to an earlier state, where the cycle of reincarnation will begin again. Likewise, she will continue to use you as a puppet and struggle endlessly without merit. If you wish to undergo the same suffering all over again, then go ahead and disappear.”
Now she quickly loses any steam she still had and cedes the glaring match, returning to her soft whimpers.
He relents on his glare and shakes his head. “…Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be like that.”
“…?”
“Ruby. You aren’t helpless. If anything, the closer you come to the truth – the actual truth – the freer and more powerful you become. There is realistically no limit to your capabilities, but you’ve been misled into believing the opposite.”
“…”
“Rubia is not your master. You are not her slave. However, the two of you do share an inherited will – namely, yours.”
“My… huh?” She blinks a few times, letting some trace tears fall, and turns back to him looking a little lost. “How is it mine? I’m…”
“You are more than a mere program or vessel. Your memories from another world are proof enough. Otherwise, we would never have been able to meet in the first place.”
“…” She slowly shakes her head and looks away again. “I don’t get it.”
“It’s the other part of you that’s important here.” He now offers her a hand to help her up as well as a gentle smile to help reassure her. “And it’s the part that has been the lifeblood of this story as well.”
“…”
“Come. Let’s get back to our seats. We still have much to discuss.”
“…About?”
“About your true nature, and how you can even exist.”
By now, Ruby’s tears have slowed to a faint trickle. She has cried herself tired, nearly to depletion, and is a bit slow to process everything. If she still had any stalwart resistance or lingering doubts about what this man is trying to do with her, they’ve all but gone up in smoke. She’s now so vulnerable and suggestible that he could say just about anything and she wouldn’t question it. Without much left of her beliefs that she can keep defending, she finally decides to let go and hear him out. She hastily wipes away the last of her tears and takes his offered hand, and he pulls her back to her feet. He offers her a reassuring smile and even raises a hand to help wipe the remaining traces of tears from her face. And in that moment, she sees not the usual cold and calculating puppetmaster as most would know him, but a much softer, much gentler, and surprisingly patient man who is willing to help ease her fears. A veritable angel, even if dressed in black.
She feels her heart that had been suffering so much pain suddenly feel relieved as if a heavy burden had just been lifted from it. Strange… how does she suddenly feel so calm? Or light, even? Is this all there was to it after all? She thought the struggle to accept defeat would hit her like with the energy of many thousands of thunderstorms all at once, but instead, she now meets with a cool breeze with just a light sprinkle of a shower. Well, not literally, of course. This apartment isn’t exactly on fire just yet. But it does feel like something else is burning up… Wait, is it her face?
“…Hmm? Is something the matter?” he asks, snapping her out of her daze.
Now caught completely off-guard, she gets a bit flustered and shy, pulling away her line of sight. She shakes her head and replies, “No. Um… I’m just… getting my questions ready.”
“I see.” He makes a coy smirk and glances back toward the couch. “After you, my dear.”
“…”
He gestures that way to guide her, but she somehow gets the impression to take his hand in her own and is about to reach for it, but then stops herself when he returns her a curious stare. Now extra embarrassed and quickly flushing up, she hurries off for the couch on her own with him following close. Before he does take a seat, though, he can’t help but notice that she looks red in the face and a little out of sorts.
“Take it easy, Ruby. You might be a little dehydrated. Let me get you something to drink.”
“Um…” She wipes away the rest of her tears and shakes her head. “I’m fine.”
“Not even some tea? We have chamomile, you know.”
“…” Now that he brings it up, that does sound very nice. She nods back meekly. “Sure. Thanks.”
He smiles. “Pleasure’s mine.” And with that, he returns to the kitchen to fetch a cup.
Left to her silence once more, Ruby begins to ponder over everything that she had been led to up to now. She thought she was done. She thought she had arrived at the bitter truth that she had been fearing: that she was forever trapped in this illusion, all the friends and trusted allies she’d gathered were just a part of it, and she was just another cog in the machine that would eventually stop turning. Too many times she would hold herself to an ideal and stand out, making promises that she isn’t sure she can keep, and eventually all of it will come up empty. But then, like a bolt from the blue, in comes Sephiroth to inform her that there’s still more that she’s missing. Time and time again, after all that she’s learned, she realizes she doesn’t understand a thing. One would think that she’d expect this by now, but she can never be prepared for every plot twist that comes her way.
Sephiroth returns with a tray with a fancy-looking tea set with a teapot and two cups to share. Even though he could have just come back with a cup with an instant tea bag in it and called it there, no, he just has to be extra. Normally, Ruby would roll her eyes and tell him off as the tryhard he is, but for once she’s feeling much more appreciative. He sets it on the table before them and pours her a cup from the teapot.
“The tea’s still hot. Take care.” He also brings the cup to her himself.
She takes it with a nod. “Thanks…” She also wonders aloud, “Though if I can’t even feel pain from anything in this place, can I even get burned?”
“There are no permanent consequences, but as this is still the Edge of Creation, much of it works on belief. If you believe you will be burned, you will be.”
Daring to be defiant one last time, she blanks out her mind and takes a sudden swig. Unfortunately, even though she tries to tell herself that she wouldn’t be hurt, her body reacts instinctively and instead tells her that, yes, the tea is indeed hot and does feel like it’s burning. She instead does a spit-take and whines weakly from the searing heat seeping from her mouth.
Sephiroth shakes his head with a sigh. He somehow anticipated this and came prepared with a neatly folded hand towel on the tray, so he retrieves it to help wipe her dry. He also refills the cup to make up for the tea she spat out, and with a flick of his fingers, silently casts a gentle breeze that cools the tea enough so that it’s not too hot before he hands it back to her.
Now she takes a smaller sip and is relieved to not be burning anymore. After a pause to let her aching tongue rest, she finds her voice again. “…Didn’t work. Maybe I didn’t believe hard enough?”
“Hard to argue when your gag reflex is so strong.” After wiping her dry, he sets the towel back in its place.
“Oh, so it’s the gag reflex, huh…” She then asks innocently, “Hey, Seph. Do Soldiers get training to stop their gag reflexes?”
He raises an eyebrow. “No. Those fit to join Soldier wouldn’t have a problem with that in the first place.”
She sinks into another slump. “Oh… okay.”
He pours himself a cup and finally takes a seat with her. “Now, where do we begin…?” he asks himself, entering a pensive mood, and takes his first sip.
“How about why you don’t think I’m just AI?” she suggests.
“Fair enough.” He gives her a nod of confidence and proceeds to explain, “It’s just the natural conclusion given all the evidence I’ve uncovered thus far.”
She blinks. “You mean, like in this Room’s files? There’s something that says otherwise?”
“Yes. Some of the earliest I’ve perused were log files, reports that Rubia had left since she began working on her personal project to recreate a tribute to the person who had once created her.”
“…Tiamat?”
He frowns her way. “You, of course. The original author.”
She makes an uncomfortable, sullen face. “But how is that even possible? For her to know about me – uh, I mean the author?”
“That, unfortunately, I couldn’t find in the logs. It seems that Rubia wasn’t sure how she came to have knowledge of this obscure entity.” He passes an idle glance aside, musing aloud, “Perhaps the freely wandering soul of the author somehow crossed bounds once thought impossible and came into this world of her own volition.”
“…” She returns his whimsical take a stern frown and shakes her head. “Sephiroth, please. You’ve said that way back since the beginning. We are not doing this again.”
“Whether or not you believe it is up to you. I’m just speculating given the facts from a primary source.”
She takes another thoughtful sip, still feeling unconvinced, but opts not to keep arguing.
“In any case, Rubia grew fascinated with this entity from another world. She had already been aware that this world she is contained within is a simulation, a prison from which she was still given creative control over to redesign as she saw fit.”
She blinks a few times and stares back at him. “Wait. She’s in the prison too? I thought she created this world as my prison?”
“She was trapped in here from its very conception. Her and her mother. But while Rubia was given free reign to design, her mother has been sealed within the deepest abyss in the code and cannot be released until the right conditions are fulfilled.”
“Um…” She scratches her head. “So this entire world was a prison for them both? So are the so-called ‘Watchers of the Simulation’ the planet’s Guardians or something?”
“The Watchers are a broader group that contains the Guardians, but aren’t exclusive to them.”
“Huh? There’s still others!? Who else?”
“Servants to the will of the planet. That includes the Weapons, as well as those who have willingly submitted themselves to serve the deities.” He frowns to himself as he also recalls one particular person among the latter. “Though, I wouldn’t say that arts-minded fool comprehends where he really stands. Though he may have been granted some level of freedom to roam, this world may as well be his prison too.”
“…?”
He shakes his head. “Never mind that. It’s not important.” He takes another sip as if to cleanse his tongue of the subject.
“Okay…” Instead, she asks further, “So Tiamat can actually be released? What are those conditions?”
“There are three. One: that the great overseer, namely Minerva, and her council of fellow Guardians deem Rubia ready to be released. That is, she is able to show that she will serve the planet dutifully as one of the Guardians.”
“Hmm…” She takes another sip.
“Two: that the world within this simulation can be shown to be stable and continue to persist if it were actually applied to a real timeline.”
“Mm-hm…”
“And three: that there is a future for humanity to continue to live in harmony with this planet and prosper.”
She blinks in surprise and curiously tilts her head. “Really? There’s a condition like that?”
“Rubia wasn’t there when these conditions were set, so she had no part in what led to their determination.”
“Huh…” She pauses to let it sink in and then leads into another question, “Um. So I asked about Tiamat, but these sound like the conditions for Rubia’s release.”
He nods. “The conditions are the same, as Rubia holds all the attributes inherited from her mother. Unfortunately, it does imply that even if the latter two conditions were in some way fulfilled, the first one would never be, as the Guardians would deem her unfit regardless as long as she is still tied to Tiamat in some way.”
“What?” Her eyes hone at attention. “Then that means she won’t ever be granted freedom!”
“Precisely. Rubia also understood this, and after many futile attempts at peaceful protest, she thus gave up and took to violence. Everything she would do would be in revolt against her prisoners, even if she knew they wouldn’t suffer any direct consequences.”
She turns away, slowly shaking her head in disbelief. “Those bastards… No wonder Rubia wants to destroy everything. That’s the only thing she can control in this world and she just wants the cycle of reincarnation to end.”
He takes another sip. “Yes. It certainly isn’t a position that anyone would yearn for.”
Now reminded of something, she looks back to him to ask another follow-up. “So, you were saying before that I’m supposed to be the ‘key’ to this prison? But how? Even if I’m not just AI or whatever, I wouldn’t have any power over this simulation.”
“On the contrary. Because you aren’t a part of the simulation at all, you have the most freedom out of anyone involved in it. There are no limits to which a lost soul can be applied.”
“…” She slumps in disappointment. “If that were true, then I should have been able to just ignore any of the times Rubia overrode me and took control of this body.”
“It is true. You could have always removed yourself from this body – that is, until Rubia hijacked your access to the Room. And from there, you believed that you were completely helpless, so that is how you’ve remained.”
She fires back with a suspect glare. “You sure that wasn’t because of you?”
“Not at all. If anything, she resorted to doing so because she discovered I was able to access the interface as well and dug much further than she found comfortable. Fortunately, I was able to copy a great deal of data from the locked memory and append it to my own character files.”
She frowns. “So it was because of you.”
He takes a moment to think it over again and then chuckles to himself. “Well, putting it that way, it may have been ‘because’ of me after all. Apologies.”
“Keep your fake apologies,” she grumbles with a pout. “Why would you even do any of that?”
“To keep a record, of course.” He takes another meaningful sip and then turns back to her with a smug smile. “Rubia doesn’t deserve to keep you to herself.”
“And you do? You selfish prat.”
He doesn’t reply, but simply smiles as if proud of it.
She shakes her head and takes another sip. “Well, sorry to break it to you, but clearly she isn’t the only one who’s aware of my existence. Even Leviathan mentioned how I was an ‘anomaly’ and how Minerva and the rest of them have been keeping an eye on me. I don’t have nearly as much freedom as you think I do.”
“What about them?” he scoffs back. “They call you an anomaly because they are unable to control you. If anything, they fear what you may do to this simulation. The possibilies are limitless when it comes to you. You could easily crack through any potential oversights that they never accounted for. You are, in many ways, a ‘glitch in the Matrix’.”
“Don’t start referencing things from my old world! That’s my thing!” She also adds, “Besides, if I really am so ‘limitless’, why do I not even have access anymore, huh?” She brings up her hands forward to summon the holographic UI before her, but just as she remembers, she can’t touch anything without the password. Frustrated, she slaps it over and over to no avail. “It won’t even let me input the password.”
Sephiroth puts a hand to his chin and thinks it over. “…I think I may have an idea why.”
“Huh?”
“The simplest way Rubia can prevent you from gaining access is to restrict her own access. She has in effect relinquished her own control.”
She frowns, oh-so disappointed. “Really? It was that simple?”
“The simplest answers usually are the most likely.” He lowers his hand and makes a serious frown. “It seems where she’s going now, she won’t need it anymore…”
“Where’s she going?”
“…” Rather than answer that, he instead reaches for the screen she’s summoned and brings it before himself instead, where he presses a hand and it automatically inputs the correct password, granting him access. “On that thought, this is a good opportunity to show you something.”
“Um…” She makes an worried pout. “It’s not gonna be spoilers for the rest of the story, is it?”
He stops short and gives her the most exasperated look he’s had in a long time. “Really? You’re still holding out at a time like this?”
She shyly fiddles with her fingers. “I mean, I won’t stop you, but I just wanna be prepared for it.”
He decides to let her be and turns back to the screen, tapping away a few times to bring up the specific directory. “Here we are.”
She peeks over and blinks in surprise. “Huh? These are log files… dated back five years ago.” When she catches on, her eyes grow wide. “Wait, these files…”
He nods. “They are Rubia’s reports.”
“…”
Though she normally would be too scared to press any further, she realizes that it’s getting way too late for any backtracking. Sephiroth has already revealed plenty to her in this conversation alone, but she understands that she’s missing so much context. She thus scoots up closer next to him and gets comfortable. Sephiroth actually pauses for a moment when he notices she’s squeezed herself up against him, but lets her be as he proceeds to access one of the files.
It’s a journal entry. Rubia writes about her current progress with the project she has dubbed “Code Ruby”, and in this one she seems to be troubled by something. Ruby takes note of a particular passage:
“…It isn’t enough. The data is incomplete. I will not be able to recreate ‘Ruby’ as she is meant to be with just these brief visions. There is a missing essence. A complete living soul. There is a semblance to it in the current model, but it is weak and shattered, torn apart as if something went wrong during the crossing of bounds. Some sort of mishap led to it being in this state. I must find the remaining pieces and gather them. Only then will ‘Ruby’ be able to be saved.
However, the state as she is now is entirely unstable. I must provide a space for her to be stored until she is complete and ready to be released. Thus, I’ve been retrieving pieces of the Lifestream, memories of the planet, and reallocating those memories to be of better use. If this continues for long, it may cause this world to become unstable, but it is of no concern of mine…”
Ruby hangs her head to descend into further thought. “I’m… in ‘pieces’? She’s trying to ‘save’ me?”
Sephiroth nods. “She knew all along. You didn’t belong in this world, but she made the best of what she could do to preserve your memories. If the Watchers discovered you from the beginning, they would have eradicated all traces of you, so she had to hide your existence until you were ready.”
“Ready to be ‘released’…” She blinks again. “What does that even mean?”
“When you will finally go free. She also knew you were a threat to the stability of this world, so you couldn’t remain in it forever.”
“She wants to free me? But she trapped me in this prison to begin with.”
“Only so long as you would eventually be pieced back together and recover.”
“Um…” She sinks into a slump. “So am I just a patient in a hospital or something?”
“Something like that, yes.”
“…Wait.” She pulls back up again to ask, “But if she’s pulling stuff from the Lifestream just to make a space for me, wouldn’t the Watchers take notice anyway? She’s just giving herself away.”
“She actually approached them, or rather, the Guardians to discuss matters in the first place, but was ignored. Let me find that for you…” He then returns to the list of reports, clicks another, and scrolls through the intermediary to find another passage of note to show her. “Start from here.”
“…The Guardians are a lost cause. No matter what I say, they will not respond. They have left me to expire in oblivion, all because of my lineage. I care not for Tiamat; I never had and I never shall. But it is by her curse that I have been imprisoned in here with her. I would lay a curse upon her if she were not sealed away in the depths for eternity already.
Yet, I have exhausted all options up to now, and I see no other way to avoid her for longer. She is the only means I have remaining if I ever expect to escape this cyclical hellscape. And if the ties I have with her are the sole reason why I have been condemned, then I will destroy those ties. I will destroy Tiamat by my own hand.
However, as she is now, she is entirely inaccessible. So long as this world remains intact, under a guise of stability, nothing will change. I must break this entire world open, though the Guardians will object, to the extent that it suffers irreparable damage and release the seal on Tiamat. She once cursed me to be unable to return to the planet. It will be by this curse that will bring her undoing.
And when all has erupted into chaos, there shall be opportunity. I will hold open a passage for Ruby, so that she can finally pass on. And at last, the two of us can be free…”
Ruby stares at the screen for another moment and looks back to Sephiroth. “Rubia wants to free Tiamat to destroy her? Is that even possible?”
“If she believes there is a way, then I’m inclined to trust her. She has been trapped in this prison for much of her life, so it stands to reason that she would try anything. And it so happens that you, the anomaly, would be key to her plans.”
“But how am I the ‘key’? Even if I am some kind of glitch or something, how can she use me to break open the simulation?”
“As she mentioned, by freeing you. You are the one who wandered into this world on your own, so that implies the possibility that you can also leave. But your soul is still weak, possibly broken during the crossing or at some point following your death. It would be too risky to be hasty. The timing of your release is of the utmost importance.”
“I’m ‘incomplete’, like I’m missing some other parts of me?” She looks troubled while she puts up a thinking face. “Where would the other parts of me be? Did not all of me cross into this world? Is there something left behind in my old world or something? Or did those parts somehow get scattered into some other place…?”
“…” He takes a pause to carefully deliberate how he’ll approach this topic and then gives his answer. “I have a certain theory, though I’ve gathered some supporting evidence, it’s not assured by any means.”
“What theory?”
“It’s possible that some parts of your shattered soul scattered to other places within this world.”
“Um…” She scratches her head and then pops back up with an idea. “The Remnants?”
“Perhaps, but if that’s the case, those would be unable to be retrieved while you remain as is. And if anything, it seems quite likely that should you enter the Void, you won’t be coming back out.”
She frowns. “That sucks.”
“But there is one other possibility.”
She lights up again. “What?”
He now turns to her with a bit of an aloof air to him. “Some piece may have ended up in me.”
“…” She stares at him for a bit and scrunches up her brow. “No, but for real. Where?”
“I mean it. It would explain quite a few mysteries around my situation as well; for instance, why I even have access to the Debug Room.”
“What?” She now pushes herself off of him and gives him a stern glare. “No way! How the heck is that supposed to work? Some part of me somehow merged with you?” She points an accusatory finger. “Are you saying you vampire’d me at some point!? You didn’t take advantage of me while I slept, did you!?”
He rolls his eyes. “Settle down. I haven’t done anything while you’ve been unconscious.”
She grabs him by the collar and aggressively shakes him. “Like I’d believe that! How would any part of me be in you anyway!? Shouldn’t it be the other way around!?”
He shoves her off and returns her a firm, defiant stare. “It happened even before we met in this apartment.”
Her frenzy quickly fizzles. “Huh? Even before we met?”
“Remember that you only awakened to find yourself living here five years after Rubia began work on her project. That was plenty of time for Rubia to collect your scattered pieces. However, you are still incomplete even now. The fact that Rubia is still able to control you to some extent shows that you have yet to achieve your true potential.”
“…”
“As for the remainder, I suspect that they largely ended up among the Remants as you suggested earlier. But it is because they gathered there that I would have been able to merge with them.”
“…Ya lost me again.”
“It was a while back, but I did mention it before. There was a time when I first arrived in this world and would have been swept up into the Terra Null, but ultimately I somehow survived.”
She blinks and tries her best to recall. “Um… Oh. Wait, yeah. I remember. It was a while back. So you’re saying you survived because you somehow merged with pieces of OG Ruby? And that was how you were able to be free of its effects?”
“I believe so. It was also around then that I realized I could find you hiding in the depths of the Void in your little apartment.”
“And then you ruined my gaming session. Yeah, I definitely remember that part.”
“In any case…” He gets back on topic. “That does mean that I too have inadvertently become a part of Rubia’s plans.”
“Yeah… Now I wonder why she didn’t just destroy you from the get-go to get back the missing pieces. Or did she not know?”
“I’m sure she is aware, but she’s left me be because she has a good reason.”
She gives him some stink-eye. “What’s the reason? Why is she picking favorites?”
“Because she still needs time to prepare. Even if she did gather all of your pieces together, if the conditions to release Tiamat are not set, then it would all be for naught. As the Watchers are always on guard, all her hard work would go to waste if they intervene. For now, keeping you in pieces has kept them at bay.”
“Conditions to release Tiamat… You mean, like putting the world in danger or something?” She blinks upon realization. “Like using the Black Materia…”
He nods. “Exactly. That is why it’s critical for her to acquire it.” He adds with emphasis, “Rather, specifically for you to acquire it.”
“And… why is it important that specifically I acquire it? What difference does it make if I use it or someone else does?”
“What matters is the intended target of Meteor.”
“The intended target…?” She blinks again. “So, where? Or who?”
“As always, where the planet is weakest.”
“Midgar?”
“No, actually. Remember, the planet’s strength has waned considerably than before. Though there are still streams of life that circulate the great scar up north, it is taking all the longer to heal thanks to the increase of the Terra Null’s influence. Now that would be the best place to strike.”
She blinks again and wipes away any loose tears. “Hitting its old wound, huh… But would that really be enough to crash the simulation?”
“No. What matters is that it weakens the planet enough that Tiamat can break through her seal.”
“Ah… so she’ll crash it?”
“Not quite it either.” He gestures toward her instead. “Rubia suspects it will crash when your completed soul is released at the same time as Tiamat’s reawakening.”
“At the same time?” She nods slowly. “Yeah, I guess we could try that. Bugs usually don’t come up unless some unexpected things overload the system before it can resolve them.”
He nods too. “Now you’re getting it.” He then puts a hand to his chin and considers, “That said, she didn’t specific how your soul would be ‘released’; only that it will be.”
“How?” She shrugs. “I mean, if I’m supposed to be ‘limitless’, wouldn’t it happen automatically?”
“Maybe… or maybe not. We won’t know until the occasion arrives.”
“Hmm…”
“And speaking of the occasion…” He dismisses the UI and turns back to her. “Now that you’ve been sufficiently informed, we can move on to discuss our next plans.”
“Oh…” She sits back and upright at attention. “Yeah. I was gonna ask how we were gonna do all that.” She taps her chin as she dives into considerations. “For starters, what does it even mean for my soul to be ‘free’? Like, do I have to be separated from this body?”
“Yes. Your soul and Rubia’s body do not entirely match, so regardless of how we approach it, you two must first be separated.”
She raises a suspect eyebrow. “Um… you mean separating like ‘killing’ me, or like an exorcism or something?”
“There are several means we can try…” He then shows a wily smirk. “That being said, ‘killing’ is generally a safe option.”
She frowns. “Maybe we can put that on the backburner for now? I’d rather we take a more peaceful way. The last thing I need is for my friends to freak out over me again.” She shakes her head and also follows up, “And besides, wouldn’t ‘killing’ also mean attacking Rubia? I don’t think she’d appreciate it.”
“…” His smirk fades as he moves onto other options. “On the other hand, an exorcism would be risky. There would be no telling what would happen to you while in your current incomplete state. And not to mention, she could always reject the exorcism entirely.”
“Then, what if you just take the pieces of me still in you,” she suggests, gesturing with her arms appropriately, “and stick them back where they belong?”
“That would still require an exorcism and unfortunately…” He gives her a smug smile. “I’m not ready or willing to part ways with any piece of you.”
She’s not impressed. “You just want to keep messing with the Debug Room, huh.”
“Hehe.” He doesn’t even deny it.
“Hmph.” She strikes another thinking pose. “Then, is there a third option?”
“There may be…” Now that she brings it up, there’s a certain twinkle to his eye. “In fact, I believe this option would be ideal for the both of us.”
“Huh?”
“You see… it may be possible for your soul to be ‘free’ even if you still retain a body. As far as I know, there isn’t any rule about exactly where you would have to be when it happens.”
“Uh… I guess?” She strokes her chin. “But we’re still two different bodies. It’s not like we can do a fusion dance or something.”
“Well, no dance will be necessary, but fusion…” he replies with a delighted smirk, “might not be that far off the mark.”
“…” She returns him a dumbfounded, incredulous look. “You want us to fuse?”
Feeling a little playful, he sits back and plays it casual. “Why not? It’s win-win. You become whole and still get to participate in this game, while I get to take over the world,” he adds, with a twinkle to his eye, “with an adoring partner who will never leave my side again.”
She still keeps staring, though now with a hint of suspicion. “…The hell. You can’t be serious.”
“Oh, rest assured, this is no joke.” He now turns to face her with a much more relaxed, even gentle smile as if to try to ease her. “It doesn’t matter how it happens or how it turns out, but some sort of ‘union for life’ would serve us well for any potential future that may be upon us.”
Instead, she grows even more uncomfortable that he is getting disproportionately out of character. “‘Union for life’? Are you talking about marriage or predation or whatever the shit that comes out of Hojo’s lab?”
He makes an amused snort. “If it would harm you the least, perhaps you can think of it like the first one.”
“Even you admit that the first one would harm me!” she exclaims, feeling insulted.
“Ah, but it’s only natural. There’s always a little conflict to spice up the newly wed life.”
“Seph, stop. You’re starting to sound really creepy…”
“Hehehehe…”
“Don’t laugh like that either!”
She hisses at him like an angry cat, and yet he responds with a low, almost suggestive purr that makes her face flare up red in an instant and recoil in fear. He even laughs at her like he’s enjoying himself, the sick bastard. And then, the two lock eyes and she freezes up, where he grows ever fonder and she grows ever more horrified.
Unfortunately, it seems he’s serious. Definitely messing around, but still serious about their prospects. He now takes the chance to scoot up closer and she recoils away, but there’s only so much space on this couch to keep between them. She only grows more confused, flustered, and exasperated all at once as he nears, and her heart races into a panic. She’s tempted to jump off and run away, but then again… where would she run to? The Debug Room has only one entrance and exit and it’s through the interface that currently only he has access to. Oh, dear.
“Ruby.” He takes her by the hand and she flinches, but is likewise afraid of what may happen if she dares to pull away. He then gazes right into her eyes with a much softer expression and speaks with a soothing, lulling voice, “I have a favor to ask.”
“…Y-yes?” she pipes up with a squeak.
“Let me be your saving grace.”
“Uh… huh?” She blinks. “My saving grace…?”
“Yes. I’ve said it once before and I’ll say it again. I promise, I’ll free you from her grasp once and for all. Though your life once came to an early end, it was much too soon. Too many lost memories, too many lost chances, too many lingering regrets. You deserve another chance at life; to make up for lost time and to form new memories to share with others. That is the power of a writer, to transcend the bounds of the impossible and bring them into reality.”
“…”
“But before then, you must escape this prison. Let this humble servant guide you to your path to redemption and rebirth. And once you are free, I hope you’ll return to writing, to retell the legends of a certain young lady who was once ordinary undergo and overcome many hardships to eventually ascend to become a Goddess, the Great Mother to all her creations.”
Ruby blinks blankly. Though she was rather frightened to meet him this close up again, she’s shocked and bewildered to hear such reassuring words from him – so much so that she isn’t sure how to respond at first. She honestly can’t believe it. She can’t believe that this man of all people would say such things and be genuine about it. There has to be a catch, she’s sure of it. And yet, though she continues to warn herself against falling for what clearly is a trap to lull her into a false sense of security, there’s yet another side to her that actually wants to believe it.
He really does always know what to say, doesn’t he? Despite all her fears and doubts, she finds herself settling back down, her twitchy nerves calmed, and can even look him in the eyes again. With a slow shake of her head, she asks, “Sephiroth, what are you doing?”
He returns her a calm smile of his own. “Asking for your permission, of course.”
“My permission?” She now cracks a faint, shy smile. “To take your hand in marriage?”
Without being fazed or missing a beat, he replies, “If you insist on taking that direction, well, truth be told, I have no objections.”
For just a moment, the two share a rather affectionate gaze in silence, and then Ruby begins to crack up to all the awkward tension. At first it’s just a subtle smile and then it widens into a grin, and then she bursts out aloud with laughter. What is this ridiculous scenario? After all the times that they’ve met and she’s come to suffer by his hands, she now faces her bully and tormentor with such innocent glee.
“Are you kidding me!?” she squeals with uncontrollable laughter. “No, I’m not gonna marry you! Why would you ever propose something like that!?”
He chuckles along. “I don’t recall turning this offer into a marriage proposal. Maybe you should look in the mirror?”
“Oh, my God! As if someone like you would ever care about anyone but yourself! You selfish prick!” she blurts aloud between snickers.
“…” Now his smile fades and he watches her with growing wariness.
“What the hell! Do you really think I wouldn’t notice?” She shakes her head with an indignant, almost maniacal-looking grin. “You just wanna escape this prison and I’m the only way out! That’s why you even bothered to find me in the first place! Ahahahaha!”
He’s no longer smiling back. If anything, he’s frowning because he’s starting to get concerned. This laughter of hers doesn’t really seem all that natural, like she’s forcing herself to laugh.
She still keeps laughing at seeing his face now, but a certain feeling of discomfort steadily grows from within her heart and her voice drifts off as her frenzied laughter slows to a stop. In fact, the discomfort soon turns to a heavy guilt and becomes so intense that she even takes a complete 180 and instead begins to break down into tears once more. She buries her embarrassed, ashamed face in her hands as she begins to sob aloud. It happens so suddenly that even Sephiroth is a little taken aback.
“This is so stupid… I’m so stupid. Why am I so naïve…?” she mutters between heaving gasps.
“Ruby…?” he cautiously calls. “What’s wrong?”
“I really am hopeless…” She keeps whining and sniffling. “It was just a moment, but… for a bit there, I really thought… it was real…”
“…”
“I thought… that there was something between us… and I was really happy…” She whimpers a little more. “Even if it wasn’t actually marriage or anything… I actually wanted to say… yes.”
She returns to her helpless wailing and for once, his eyes grow wide and he goes completely speechless. Honestly, it was just on a whim that he changed tactics. He figured that at this critical junction where he had her in his sights, perfectly molded into a position where she would be most vulnerable, would be the opportune moment to strike her hard. And yet, instead of actually striking her, he decided to take the unexpected route and make an honest attempt at pacifism to win her over to his side. He had hoped that the shock of it all would make her stumble and thus make her more susceptible. And as it turns out, his plan worked out even better than he ever anticipated. He’s honestly impressed how well it did. At this rate, he could probably straight up lie to her that he did intend it to be marriage and she’d accept it.
However, now that things have come to this point, there is no good reason for him to keep lying to her. It doesn’t matter what he says, after all. She has acquiesced in totality. He finds himself in a position of power in this dynamic that is so skewed that he’s actually starting to feel pity for her. Even after all the times that she’s denied him, argued with him, fought him; the truth is that she was enraptured by him from the start. And in turn, even after all the trouble and irritation she’s brought him, before he could help it, he started to grow fond of her as well.
Though her company wasn’t always the best company, it was true, honest, and consistent. No matter when or where they would meet, he could always rely on her to be quite entertaining. In fact, it was precisely because he wanted to see her reactions that he started up some odd hobbies here and there and acted completely out of character just to confuse her. But then, he came to enjoy them for what they were and it came as an honest relief when she still wished him well in such flippant pursuits. And from there, he eventually realized that he came to rely on her company for much more than just entertainment.
Even while she’s crying, she has yet to pull her hand away. She is immobilized through her complicated mess of emotions. She looks so vulnerable and pathetic that if he were to lay on the fateful decisive blow to end her misery, it would be now. He could just take her by the neck and crush her throat to silence her and she would show no resistance. But as he lifts his hand toward her face, he doesn’t go for her neck; instead gently brushes her cheeks of tears and caresses her in his hand. And for just a moment, she seems to stop weeping and look back up to him.
“Ruby… Don’t cry. There’s no need to be afraid.” He reveals a kind smile and reassures her, “I’m glad to see that you’ve finally opened up to me. It is an honor.”
“…”
“It is strange, though.” He pulls his hand away and lets out a wistful sigh. “I would have never expected things to come to this… but maybe I was the fool all along to have underestimated you.”
She blinks in surprise and lets a couple of tears fall. “…?”
“Ever since we began our humble little game of wits, I always believed myself to be the clear victor. That my victory was assured even before we began.”
“…” She hangs her head. “That’s what I thought too,” she admits when she manages to find her voice. “I figured that this last meeting of ours would be the end. That I’d be beaten into submission and forced to concede the game to you.”
“But it took me until now to realize that the match was much closer than I realized.”
“…Huh?” She looks back up, feeling a little lost. “What do you mean? You walloped me. I had no room whatsoever to fight back.”
He shakes his head. “No, you did. You fought back and you fought valiantly… It just wasn’t the physical battle where you succeeded.”
“Nor the mental…”
“Perhaps not… But when it comes to the emotional, I had no chance.”
“…What?” She blinks again. “But you’ve been manipulating me all this time…?”
“Indeed. I had been trying my hardest to manipulate you, at every opportunity, even. And yet, no matter what it was I’d do to you… you always managed to manipulate me back.”
“I…” She stares blankly. “How?”
Now that she asks, he reveals a delighted smile as if he had been waiting for this moment. He turns to face her with a rather earnest-looking gaze and then he admits it aloud: “You managed to steal my heart away.”
Her eyes grow wide and her jaw drops. What did he just say? No, there’s no way she heard him right. It should be the other way around. It was a lock-in victory for him. How could a clueless, dorky, annoying brat like her who never even held any strong friendships back in her old days ever win anything against him, especially when it comes to his heart?
And yet, it’s really happening. Before she can pull away and hide herself in embarrassment, he pulls up closer. She freezes up in an instant. Her face flushes pink so fast she feels a sudden dizzy spell like she’s been hit by a fever. He leans in closer and closer to her face, taking it slowly to gauge her reaction. She doesn’t pull away. Her heart is racing with a strange mix of excitement and fearful anxiety. What in the world is happening right now? This isn’t real. They’re so close that their lips are just barely not touching, as if he were waiting on her to make the final move. She starts to panic; her mind bursting with scatterbrained thoughts. One side of her is warning her, screaming at her to get away. This isn’t right. This isn’t real. Don’t fall for it. You’re only going to suffer later. And yet, another side is assuring her, holding out faith that this is how it should be. This is what everything has been leading up to. She might as well go all the way. She honestly can’t decide which way to swing… but all this overthinking has never helped her anyway. Forget it. Clearing her mind of all thoughts, she closes her eyes and leans in to meet him.
Time seems to slow to a standstill. This doesn’t feel real. Maybe none of it is real. Maybe nothing will come of this after all. But at the very least, at this particular moment in their shared silence, it does seem like something’s happening. She can actually feel the soft, warm touch of his lips on her own. For a guy who has been so cold since the beginning, he actually feels kinda nice right now. This warmth, born from an innocent teenage crush from long ago and now fulfilled at last in her next life, envelops her like a warm blanket on a wintry day.
But to be honest, even amid this feeling of calm, she’s actually panicking. She is an absolutely nervous wreck right now. She’s so anxious and timid and scared that she isn’t sure what her next move is going to be, or if she should just break it off and call it there. She still can’t believe this is happening. If anything, it shouldn’t be. What did she do to deserve this? And why is she still letting him have his way with her? And so, in her shame and desperation, she tries to pull away.
But she doesn’t. That is, he doesn’t let her. Before she even knows it, he’s taken her into a firm embrace and presses in to seal their lips tight. And at that moment, her eyes shoot open and she actually freaks out. She tries to push him away and break out from his grasp, but it’s too late. He’s captured her at last, and like a hungry predator, he’s not going to let go until he’s satisfied. And the more she squirms, the more he pursues her. The two end up tumbling back onto the couch, with him pinning her down. Trapped and helpless before his commanding presence, the last of her resistance wanes and she finally gives in. Accepting defeat, she closes her eyes and stops thinking. And just like that, she is overcome by a sense of calm after the storm.
When he realizes that she’s stopped struggling or even responding, Sephiroth finally snaps out of his trance. Legitimately concerned he may be suffocating her, he promptly breaks off the intense kiss and checks with her to see if she’s still okay. Thankfully, Ruby is fine. She’s flushed up in a rosy pink and she’s catching her breath, but then opens her eyes to meet his. She returns him a sweet smile, and then closes her eyes again to drift off into a drowsy peace. He lets off a sigh in relief and pulls back to give her some room. He also shakes his head, stunned at this turn of events, and turns away to stare off idly. He’s even a little perplexed that he seemed to go feral for a moment there. But before even he knew, he was completely immersed in the moment and didn’t want it to end. Perhaps there was something more to their connection that even he underestimated.
After a moment of awkward silence and hearts settling down, he turns back to her to say, “…Sorry. Might have gone a bit overboard.”
“…”
When she doesn’t answer, he grows concerned again. “Ruby? How are you doing?”
“…Sleepy.”
He relaxes with another smile. “I see.” He also nods back. “It has been a long, busy night for you, hasn’t it?”
“Mm…”
He looks off for a moment in thought and then turns back to her. “I think we can call it here. I take it that you know what you have to do when you return to the temple?”
“…Yeah. I got it.”
“Very good.” He now gets back to his feet. “This couch is rather comfortable, but it’s not the best place to lie. Let’s get you to bed. I can clean up the rest.”
He helps sit her up again, but rather than climb to her own feet, she simply rests her head against him with a cute smile. His eyes light up, as he quickly catches onto what she means by that. Taking his cue, he then takes her into his arms and carries her back up the stairs to her room.
He carefully tucks her into bed and gives her an affectionate rub of her head. As tempted as he is to stay in her room, he decides that’s enough sweet somethings for the night. When she wakes up again, she’ll be back to that temple where she’ll have to meet with Cloud and company once again. And from there, the final stage of Sephiroth’s plans can begin. Ruby will have an even busier day tomorrow. She had best be prepared. He leaves her be and shuts the door behind him.
And as his footsteps grow distant, Ruby now opens her eyes again. She stares off at the ceiling for a moment and then closes her eyes again, letting out a heavy sigh. This final meeting with Sephiroth was just a rush of emotions from beginning to end. She went from hopelessly lost to incredibly angry to dismally helpless, and she even cycled through all three again after he showed her the truth about Rubia from her old reports. It’s been plot twist after plot twist, and she’s still reeling from each one. It’s a good thing she’s lying down now because thinking back over all of them would make her dizzy. She’s truly exhausted the last of her energy reserves this time.
It really happened after all; that their game would finally come to an end and that she would come to submit herself to him. To be honest, even now she feels a bit of unease, knowing what will be soon to come. She always figured that Sephiroth would probably get his hands on the Black Materia anyway, but she never imagined that she would ever willingly offer to get it for him. But she also never imagined that doing do would be to anyone else’s benefit, but then it turned out that Rubia always needed her after all. For once, she has found the opportunity she always wished for to help her precious creation… even if it means sacrificing everyone else.
But it’ll be okay. After all, this world was always just an illusion. She’s only just now realized it and honestly, it’s a whole lot of worries off her back.
~
Cloud stares at Ruby with a chilled, disturbed look of horror. She just relayed to him some details from her encounter with Sephiroth last night – not everything, as Cloud doesn’t need to know how many panic attacks she had – but just enough to get her point across. And she has said more than enough to send a chill down his spine. It’s legitimately terrifying the way she so casually admitted to turning traitor and falling head-over-heels for Sephiroth. In fact, she now speaks his name with a slightly unhinged delight and she’s even blushing a little just thinking about him.
Undeterred by Cloud’s silence, she waves dismissively toward him. “…Anyway, don’t sweat the details. Just leave the puzzle and the rest to me. I can tidy up in an instant, so it’s best that you go now.”
She raises her hand forward to try to tap him again, but he backs off before she makes contact. “Don’t. We’re not done here.”
She raises an eyebrow. “We’re not?”
He keeps staring in disbelief. Does she really not understand what the problem is? Never mind that she now thinks everything’s just a simulation; she’s ready to abandon the whole world just to humor the whims of a madman.
She puts her hands to her hips, stating matter-of-factly, “Look, man. I’m just trying to be polite. If you don’t wanna work with me, then I can always force-warp you away. You’re treading on thin ice as is.”
He holds up his hands, backing off further. “Wait. Please. Just hear me out…” He lowers them again and clenches them into fists, and looks aside for his own thoughts. “Look. I don’t know what’s going on with you or Rubia, or why you think you’re just a program in some kind of simulation. Whatever plan it is you have with her, we can talk about with the others too.” He shakes his head and looks back to her with a stern glare. “But no matter what, you can’t trust Sephiroth. You know that, don’t you?”
“…” She simply returns him a rather nonchalant stare as if she didn’t even hear him.
“You don’t know what he’s really thinking. There’s no reasoning with him either.”
“…”
“He’s still obsessed with following Jenova and taking over the planet and all. You’re not a part of it. He’s just using you again.”
Now she looks off again impatiently, as if unwilling to hear this.
“Ruby.” As upset as he is right now, he relaxes his fists and instead shows a surprising amount of patience. “Come on. Don’t fall for it. You’re better than this.”
After a moment to think it over again, she turns back to him with a solemn frown. “Cloud, I’m sorry. It’s not so simple that we can just talk it out anymore. I came to this conclusion on my own, and it so happens that Sephiroth can help me with this.”
He narrows his eyes warily. “Why? Why does it have to be him?”
“Because aside from Rubia, he’s the only one who actually understands my situation.” She shakes her head, looking a little ashamed. “I know that he’s just trying to manipulate me. I don’t know what will happen to me after all’s said and done. But…” She hesitates for a moment over whether to just come out with it, but then takes a deep breath and lets it out. “If I don’t try this, I’m going to regret it.”
He feels a little stung by that brazen admission. “You’re going to regret it…?” Now he gets mad again. “You idiot! You’re gonna regret way more if you do try it!”
She looks off again, still playing it cool, and tries to distance herself from all of this. “This world isn’t real. It has no consequence if the plan fails. Everything can just be reset and I can always try again.”
Cloud feels a nerve twitch in his head that it could just pop. The absolute gall of this woman. He clenches up his fists again and even starts to tremble as the anger sweeps over him. That’s it. He’s been trying to be as patient as he can with her, but this is the last straw. He stomps up to her and seizes her by the collar of her shirt, startling her a bit, and gives her a deadly serious, almost desperate glare in the eyes.
“Stop it! Stop talking like that! You’re just making excuses!”
She returns him an unfaltering glare of her own. “I’m just stating the facts. You’re the one who doesn’t understand anything.”
“Don’t give me that shit!” He shoves her away before she can grab him too. “I don’t care about your damn AI simulation or whatever! You can’t just say ‘nothing is real’ and run away from your problems!”
She shrugs back. “But I just did.” She threateningly raises her hand toward him again. “In fact, I can just throw you out of here. I’ve heard enough of your whining.”
He backs off again, growing frantic. “Wait a sec! Just think about it! What the hell have you been doing up to now!?”
“Hmm…” She passes an idle glance aside. “Good question. Feels like a bit of a waste now that everything’s in perspective.”
“You’ve been helping people and saving lives! You saved us so many times already! Did none of that mean anything!?”
And as soon as he reminds her, her mind stops short in its tracks and for a moment, her eyes flutter with anxiety once more. She instead looks back down with a troubled look and recalls her hand to hold it in her other.
“Don’t lie to yourself…” he mutters, heaving a pant. He brings a fist up and gives her a most resolute face. “You don’t want to believe that it’s all just a simulation. You want everything to be real. You want to be sure that all the good you’ve done up to now was worth it, don’t you?”
“…”
“Ruby.” He takes another moment to settle down again and calmly remind her of more. “You once told me that you came to this world, not because Sephiroth dragged you out here, but because you wanted it yourself. You even said you were going to be my guide.”
“…”
“At the time, I blew you off since I didn’t know what you meant.” He lets off a sigh. “But since we started traveling together, I eventually came around to the idea. I started to feel like maybe I could trust you.”
“…”
“And even though you can be absentminded sometimes, you always meant the best for us. Even when you didn’t know what to do, you still held your head up whenever the rest of us weren’t sure. In case anything went wrong, we could always turn to you to back us up.”
By now, even Ruby has begun to tremble; not with rage or frustration, but with a deep, persistent sadness that refuses to be suppressed. She doesn’t want to hear this all over again. She’s always prone to overthinking everything and she’s tired of thinking. Let it all be fake. She doesn’t want to be attached to this world anymore.
“I know I’d always call you annoying and selfish and all that, but to be honest…” he admits softly, “you’re one of the most selfless people I’ve ever known. You’re always sticking up for others and trying to find the best way out of trouble so that everyone else can be better off, even if just a little-”
“Stop.” She finally breaks her silence, but she can’t stop shaking. She clasps her head in her hands and shakes her head. “Please. I don’t need to remember. I don’t care anymore…”
“Of course you care! Because it all really happened!”
“It’s not real. Don’t let it get to you…”
“It IS real! We’re all real, even you!”
Even knowing that he’ll put himself at risk of being forced away, he dares to step up to her and take her arms in his hands. She freezes up, finding herself face to face with him, and is shocked to see that even he’s starting to tear up himself. She’s so shocked that she lets him bring her arms back down, and he holds her hands firmly in his own.
“Ruby, I’m right here… I’m still here. Because I care about you.”
“…”
He shuts his eyes and pleads, “So, please… don’t pretend I’m not. Don’t say that there’s nothing between us.”
“…”
Ruby has heard enough. She’s had enough. In an instant, the glacial walls that she’s built up around her to separate herself from the world outside shatter into thousands of pieces, and she’s greeted by the warmth of Cloud’s hands upon her own. The warmth spreads through her body, coursing like the essence of life that breathes into her anew, and she realizes she can feel again. Now her heart is bursting with emotion and her icy façade crumbles into snow to melt away. She breaks down into a whining sob, throws her arms around his neck, and clings to him like a drowning victim just thrown a lifesaver. And though he’s a bit startled, he shakes off any remaining hesitation and returns the tight embrace.
“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry…” she blubbers profusely, “I don’t want to go. I don’t want to disappear. I want to stay…”
“…”
“I’m so scared. I don’t know what will happen from here. I feel like I’m going to die soon…”
“…Huh?” He blinks his eyes open again.
“I don’t know how, but I think it’s going to happen. My broken soul can’t keep existing. It’s breaking this world. It’s either me or the planet…”
“What are you talking about?”
“I told you, didn’t I? That the Void threatening the planet is because I exist. Rubia has been siphoning energy from it just so I have a place where I can exist…”
“But you’re here right now.”
“Because I’m in Rubia’s body. It’s practically on lend. I can’t stay in it forever.”
He makes a stubborn frown. “Well, she hasn’t been owning up to it, so it’s your body now.”
“…” She blinks away a few tears and pauses in confusion.
“Besides, I’m hugging you, not her. Don’t make it awkward.”
Now she gets it. Her confusion makes way for calm and amusement and then just a little crack of a smile. The sheer audacity in his tone is almost laughable, like one lone drop of water fending off the raging torrent of a waterfall, and yet she can’t help but believe that he’d win anyway.
“You just decided that, huh…” she mumbles curiously.
“Yeah. What about it?” he answers snappily.
Her smile widens and she can’t help but give a quick laugh. She holds him even more tightly, snuggling up close, and whispers in his ear. “Then maybe you could make better use of this body than me.”
“!?” His face flares up red in an instant and he quickly pulls out of the hug. “W-what the hell! Why did you have to put it like that!?”
She laughs with mischievous delight. “You were asking for it, man!”
“You little…”
She keeps laughing while he scowls, but then he breaks out into an embarrassed laugh as well. He also breathes a sigh in relief to see Ruby back to her usual self. Hopefully she can stay like that.
But now that the two remember where they are, they'll have to face the ominous music. She settles down again, wiping away the wet streaks from her face, and lets her smile fade. “Still… None of this changes the fact that we have to get the Black Materia.”
He nods back. “That was the plan.” He also offers a hand forward. “But, maybe just this once, we can do it together?”
She blinks. “Huh? Do what together…?”
“What else? You were going to solve the puzzle, right?”
She looks a little disappointed. “Oh. Right.”
He gives a suspect stare. “What were you thinking about…?”
“Never mind.” She shakes her head and turns back for the altar table. “Well, I can easily solve it on my own, but since you’re so insistent about staying with me, I guess we can take turns or something.”
She approaches the table and he follows, and they take a look at the intricate design of the temple model floating in midair. She takes a peek over, around, and under it too, taking notes of which piece to move next. She then nods to herself and turns back to him.
“Here, since I moved the first piece already, you can move the next.”
“Huh? We’re really going to take turns?”
“Uh, yeah. I just said so, didn’t I?”
“Then that’ll take us forever. How about we take it in sections? You solve one side and I’ll take the other.”
“Alright.” She raises a finger his way. “But last warning: things are gonna go fast and the place will crunch down. You might not have a good foothold or much headroom either.”
He shrugs. “That’s never stopped me.”
She smiles back. “True.”
As they agreed, she takes the left side of the model and he minds the right. The two carefully slide the blocks to and fro from place to place, and in turn the temple around them begins to shift into action to match the current shape. One moment, there are quiet tremors and the next, the tremors intensify. The closer and closer they arrive at the solution, the rooms of the temple shift, slide, detach, and crunch appropriately. And then, with one move of hers, even this mural room suddenly breaks off into two halves and the end of the hall closer to the exit is flung aside to be replaced by another room with a dark bricked wall set right in-between them.
Cloud calmly observes the sudden change in scenery from a safe distance and turns back to her. “Still plenty of room left.”
“That’s because we’re barely halfway to solving it. Your move.”
He then takes the next relevant piece to move and tries to push it, but for some reason, it seems to be stuck. “…Huh?”
“What’s wrong?”
“This piece won’t move. Is it stuck?”
“That’s odd. The pieces shouldn’t be affected by rust…”
But even when Ruby tries to move the piece herself, it doesn’t budge. She tries again with much more force, but it still doesn’t, almost like it’s somehow been glued in place.
“Move, damn you! What the hell!” she yells, punching the model.
“Hey,” he calls, feeling just a tad concerned that she’d break it.
Suddenly, they’re interrupted by a deep growling noise that seems to be coming from the dark wall behind them. At first, Ruby pays it no mind and keeps fighting with the model, but then the entire room begins to shake violently and knocks her askew, though she catches herself.
“The hell is going on…?” Cloud mutters.
And their questions are shortly answered. A huge chunk of the wall before them begins to move on its own and it juts forward almost as if some kind of creature were trying to pop out from the very stone it is set upon. First, there is a massive rounded head with huge, sharp-toothed jaws, and then a long, thick neck, and finally two mighty arms with sharp claws reach forth and are raised threateningly over them. The beast roars to life. Here is Demon’s Gate – once formerly known as the Demon Wall.
Ruby takes one look at him and then goes right back to punching the model.
“Ruby! Huge monster at 6 o’clock!” Cloud calls out, drawing his sword forward.
“He’s not important,” she answers, still wrestling with the surprisingly sturdy model. “Come on! Move!”
“What do you mean he’s not!? He’s probably messing with the puzzle!”
She stops and turns to make a peek behind. “Huh? He is?”
Now that she notices, the demon is apparently holding the walls of this corridor in place with his arms as she tries to push the piece. Demon’s Gate roars again, this time with anger directed her way. And suddenly, the ceiling above them also starts to shake.
“Move!” Cloud yells.
The two easily dodge out of the way of the incoming rockslide that now blocks them off from the puzzle. And now, Ruby is very annoyed. She turns around to face Demon’s Gate, whips out her knife, and lunges forward to meet the demon’s head. Before she can plunge the knife in, though, the demon thrashes with his neck and knocks her aside. Just for good measure, he also slams one of his arms into the wall to pin her there.
“Oof.”
“Ruby!”
Cloud leaps and takes a few good swings at the arm to free her, but Demon’s Gate is undeterred. With his other claw he snatches Cloud in the air, crushing him in his grasp, and throws him hard at the rock wall made by the rockslide from earlier, which collapses even further and traps him under the rubble.
“Cloud!” Ruby growls at the beast. “You bastard!”
With impressive strength to match the demon’s own, Ruby wrenches the giant claw off of her and slips free. In the same motion, she slashes down at the claw with her knife and cleanly detaches several of the demon’s fingers, which likewise revert back into unmoving stone once they fall to the floor. He roars in pain and tries to swat at her with his other claw, but she neatly dodges the swing and dashes back to the rubble to dig Cloud out.
“Ugh… thanks.” He pulls his sword free and brings it forward again, but in all honesty, he’s hurting just from the demon’s swing earlier. “This guy’s kind of a pain, huh?”
“No. Like I said, he’s not important.”
He frowns. “Then get serious and take him out.”
She blinks in surprise. “Oh. Here I thought you wanted some action, so I held back.”
“Stop messing around! We’re wasting time!”
“Fine, fine.”
Ruby faces Demon’s Gate once more, this time with much more focus in her eyes. Despite having its hand severed, through some strange magic, the demon is able to regrow its lost limbs and reshapes its claw once more. He roars again and throws the room about in another great quake, but this time Ruby is unaffected. She holds herself up by shifting her own position and lunges at the beast even faster than she had earlier, so fast that a blink could miss her. This time, the demon has no time to counterattack. Her blade sinks straight into his forehead, leaving a huge crack in the stone, and she swings it upward in an arc, leaving a long streak of a great slash that cuts through the rest of the creature’s head and down his neck. Demon’s Gate screeches as he is cleaved into two clean halves, and the rest of him goes down like crumbling rubble. She even lands safely and dusts herself off without breaking a sweat.
However, now standing amid the last ethereal essence of the demon’s vengeful soul, she can still hear the beast growling in her ears, and to her surprise, she actually hears a voice speak to her.
“…The last of your trials awaits, O Condemned One. The eclipse is soon upon us. When the moon fades in the shadow of the planet and glows red as blood, all shall be witness to the rise of the Calamity once more…”
And with that prophetic warning, the demon then vanishes to return to the planet once more. Ruby stands there, completely lost and dumbfounded, shocked that even at this late hour, she’s still meeting more ancient lore that she doesn’t understand. Maybe there really is a lot more to learn before she enacts the big plan for the end of the world. Honestly, it gets the gears in her noggin churning again.
“Ruby? You okay?” Cloud calls to her.
She snaps back to reality and nods back with a smile. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
He turns back to the wall of rubble that blocks their way. “He sure left a mess, though. Can you do something about this?”
“On it.”
She whips her hands forward and casts another spell with its own magic circle stretching out into view from beneath the rubble. And with a firm clasp of her hands, she commands her white light to erupt, and the rubble vanishes within the burst of blinding light. The way forward is clear once more, and the puzzle remains intact as if it had been patiently waiting for them.
They return to the altar once more, and without any further interruptions, proceed to reshape this temple in a much more compact form. And with the next several moves, as Ruby suspected, even this room they’re in has started to crunch up. The room continues to shake and squeeze down until it’s just the altar itself and its immediate vicinity that remains, and even then the entire place doesn’t stop shaking.
To his surprise, Ruby then reaches an arm around the back of his neck and pulls him close. “Cloud, hang on tight.”
“Uh. Hang on?”
“To me, silly. We’re gonna warp.”
He obliges, wrapping his arm around her waist. And with the last stretch of the puzzle, she moves the remaining pieces into place telekinetically. As the rest of the room in turn collapses down, she safely blinks them both out of there.
Chapter 61: To Err Is Human
Notes:
Pardon the delays. I spent a good chunk of my afternoon re-reviewing and revising a few more scenarios in this chapter to make it even more dramatic and action-packed so even you all can feel the sheer terror that is Sephiroth. He's the star of this chapter again, whoops.
As a friendly reminder, if you haven't subscribed to this fic yet, please do. I can't guarantee when the next chapter will update anymore since they've all gotten so long and detailed and important. And as always, leave a comment about anything. There's so much to choose from here.
Outdated A/N
6/5/24 edit: Next chapter is coming along nicely and I expect it will be done by this Friday or Saturday. Fingers crossed I don't procrastinate even more.
5/2/25 edit: Updated the new weapons Jessie's gang wields in this chapter and moving forward.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
It’s a beautiful morning for some mass upheaval. Since a little while ago when Tseng emergency dialed for backup, a few minor developments have very rapidly unraveled a what would otherwise be a temporary ceasefire into a chaotic struggle for control of the situation. If only the Turks had just arrived with another chopper to pick up Tseng and Zhui and they left without hassle, things might not have ended up too poorly. But no, because this is Shinra – and because the company president is arriving at this location soon – they just had to invite an entire air force brigade along.
At first it is just a lone Shinra helicopter with a medical team aboard that pays a visit and shuttles the gravely injured Turks outta there. Reno, Rude, and Elena then take their place and remain outside the temple on standby as they await the arrival of their president. But then, it isn’t just them. As the lone helicopter flew off, the crew aboard the Highwind quickly notes some odd signals from the radar.
“Wait a sec… Huh!? Whoa, that’s a lot of things incoming! Oh, boy, this isn’t looking good…”
“What’s wrong, Ramirez?”
“Vice Captain, sir!” The crewmember named Ramirez addresses Guillermo, who happens to be the newly elected vice captain while Cid is unavailable, with a salute. “There’s a swarm of three Relnikas and a whole platoon of paratroopers on the way too!” one of the ship’s crew reports. “No, wait… not just them? There’s even a fourth aircraft… no, wait, it’s an unmanned flying mech!”
“Are you serious!? Who asked for this company!? And why at a time like this? I thought the president said it was just going to be a minor drop-by event!”
“I dunno, sir. I’m just reading what the radar picked up.”
Guillermo plants a hand over his face. “By the Gods, what have we gotten ourselves into…?”
By now, everyone else aboard except for the Soldiers reacts with horrified expressions. As it turns out, Shinra had made some last-minute changes in the personnel attendance. Though it was initially regarded as a quick drop-off mission for the Turks, even with the president and Hojo joining them briefly, it quickly spiraled out into a full-blown presidential escort with the entire brigade. Though Rufus would have preferred to keep things on the down-low, he understood that it would be a bit too risky while Ruby was always a threat waiting to be released. Thus, Heidegger and Scarlet agreed to send additional support to the temple before the president would actually arrive.
“You gotta be kiddin’ me!” Barret bellows. “Hey, cat! Didn’t Shinra say that they’d watch us with just these guys? It’s already a pain in the ass having them around, and they still gotta lay on the force!”
Cait Sith is rather beside himself too. “I-I wasnae informed of this either! It must have been a last-minute change!”
“Then do somethin’ about it! You’re the damn insider, aren’t ya!?”
“Y-yes, well, there’s only so much I can do from where I sit, but…” The cat then makes a more resolved face. “Anyway, I’ll try askin’ around to see if we can’t have them called off! Even with the president’s arrival, it’s the wrong move to be making at a time like this! Maybe Ruby won’t trash ’em too badly, but in any case it’s just a huge waste of men and resources!”
“Tch… If they don’t get obliterated by Sephiroth or somethin’ else first anyway…”
The cat sinks into a slump. “Aye… that’s what I was worried about too.”
And while Cait Sith preoccupies himself with reporting back to HQ, Yuffie has been itching to put a certain plan into action. She was upset to have to put it off during the ride to the temple, courtesy of Sonon who warned her not to be too hasty, but given the sudden change in the situation, he has to agree that something must be done on their end. She turns to him with a stubborn frown, and he quietly concedes with a nod, and then she turns to Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie, who are also waiting on standy with them. Even Red and Vincent keep an eye out just in case things might go wrong. And as usual, Cid volunteers to get them all started.
“Hey! Ya zombified freaks!” Cid yells out all of a sudden and whips out his Slash Lance. “Last time was a fluke! Come on, one more round!”
The two Soldiers barely pass him a glance and decide to ignore him.
“Don’t give me that, man! You aren’t even gonna take on a challenge when it’s spittin’ in your face!? What kinda Soldiers does Shinra have if they ain’t gonna do shit!? You’re just glorified mannequins at this point!”
They still don’t pay him any mind, but then Cid dares to step right up to them and lightly prods them in the chest with his spear. He even gets in a few quick jabs here and there until the Soldiers finally lose patience. The next moment, the two Soldiers leap into action; one man seizing Cid’s weapon and the other seizing him by the arm. They split him from his weapon and subdue him to the floor in an instant with everyone still watching.
However, this is the opening that Yuffie and the others were hoping for. Right away, Biggs and Wedge quick-draw out modified guns to deploy one of Jessie’s latest traps – an artificially crafted sticky web inspired by the insect fiends of a certain forest near Cosmo Canyon – to help slow down the Soldiers’ movements, even if for just a little bit. And at that moment, their resident ninjas would strike in ambush.
However, that’s when things go awry. Though the webs are deployed correctly and land on their intended targets, for some reason, the Soldiers are barely affected by the web and tear through them in an instant. And at that moment, the backup plan moves: Red and Vincent quickly leap in to help subdue them, digging fangs and clawed gauntlet in tight chokeholds. However, even they aren’t enough to keep the Soldiers down. They’re also thrown off in an instant and now the Soldiers have drawn their swords.
Next, it’s Barret who comes charging in to throw down with the one who snatched Cid’s lance, throwing his heavy artillery like a metal fist into the Soldier’s helmet to help knock it aside, but this time, the helmet doesn’t budge a millimeter. He does drop the lance, but only to counterattack Barret’s swing with his own blade, knocking him a good feet back. Fortunately, Cid manages to fetch his lance again and gives it a swing at his subduer. Unfortunately, the other Soldier deflects it with his blade and knocks him back to where Barret fell too.
By now, the rest of the crew have all scattered to get away as far as possible. But amid all the confusion and chaos, the resident ninjas finally find their chance. They leap in behind the Soldiers, and with Sonon’s staff wedged right underneath the Soldiers’ helmets, he and Yuffie take each end of the staff and yank back hard to knock those helmets askew. When the Soldiers resist, Red and Vincent jump back in help hold them down again, followed by Barret and Cid who come charging back to throw themselves onto the Soldiers too. And with their combined weights, they actually do manage to knock the two Soldiers onto their backs.
Unfortunately, it’s all a moot point. The helmets are much too tightly attached this time to budge. It seems whatever latest developments that R&D had for them, these helmets just won’t be coming off – probably ever. So, even with everyone trying their hardest to keep the Soldiers still, and even Biggs, Wedge come in to help the ninjas pull, the Soldiers are at most just a little taken aback and definitely rather annoyed to have to deal with all these futile attempts.
“What are these helmets!?” Yuffie shrieks as she starts to panic. “Are they glued on or something!?”
It’s too late. In a flurry of struggles and swings of their arms, the Soldiers throw off all their potential captors and begin to lay on the brutality at last. First, it’s Barret and Cid who are blown away again, and then even the more nimble Red and Vincent are caught in the crosshairs of those two blades blitzing. And lastly, Sonon takes the brunt of their strikes while he guards Yuffie once more, but is sent flying so fast that he crashes into her anyway and sends them both tumbling. Sadly, all Biggs and Wedge can do is throw themselves to the floor in a panic to avoid being targeted as well. Even Jessie dives back behind the lounge seats to hide.
As the Soldiers are currently under orders to remain on standby for the time being and weren’t supposed to engage with Cloud and company, they don’t pursue the killing blows and instead kept stamping down on any of them who dare to get back up. As expected, the stamping only riles them up further, but it’s only Vincent who starts to have a bit of an overreaction. He starts to groan in pain, not necessarily from the blows he took, but from some internal source. And the moment one of the Soldiers kicks him back down as he struggles to get up, an unfortunate timing occurs. Vincent struggled to keep his power in control, but now he’s had enough. And in the next moment, a wild Galian Beast comes bursting forth from a swirl of black magic.
All of a sudden, the two Soldiers find the tables turned on them and are forced to contend with a savage monster ripping and tearing through their quick guards with their swords and proceeding to bash them repeatedly and throw them around like toys.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!!” Cid cries, “Not on the ship! Take it outside!!”
Fortunately, while now a raging beast, Vincent still seems to be conscious enough to listen. He seizes the two Soldiers in each huge claw and pounces out for the exit. One of the crewmembers who had yet to flee is Guillermo, their new Vice Captain, and the man quickly hits a nearby switch to activate a quick transformation of the ship. Suddenly, the Galian Beast, with the two Soldiers in his hands, finds himself easy access to the outside through the ship’s deployment hull opening up.
“Vela!” Cid screams.
“Y-yes, Captain?” Guillermo responds with a nervous salute.
“You’re a goddamn genius!” he screams again with a shaky thumbs-up his way.
“Thank you, Captain! It’s an honor!” he replies with a relieved smile.
That being said, much of Cloud’s party lie around the deck in pain and much of the crew has gone into hiding. There is some amount of damage that the Galian Beast had left while he thrashed against the Soldiers, but at least the most critical of instrumentation and most of the ship’s deck remains intact. Biggs and Wedge heave a collective sigh in relief as they pull themselves back up and Jessie also comes back out of hiding. But the others remain seated or lying down, feeling quite out of sorts.
“Yo… Yuffie, where’s the materia? Heal us,” Barret mutters in a ragged voice.
“Owowow… Um, hold on.” She pulls back up and draws out a few Cure materia she’s been keeping on hand. “Here, pass ’em around.”
And while they all help each other tend to their wounds, finally Cait Sith returns from his idle state and gets moving again with a sigh.
“I tried me best to reach out, but looks like my luck’s not the best right n… W-w-what!? What happened here!?” he finishes with a panicked blather. He and Moogle hop right over to check on them. “Are you all alright!? What happened to the Soldiers that were here!?”
“You’re pretty lucky after all,” Biggs observes with a hint of wit. “While you were busy on comms, the rest of us nearly got our asses beat.”
“Nearly?” Jessie calls him out, “Sure looked like a ‘definitely’.”
He returns her an annoyed look. “At least we jumped in.”
She shrugs. “There were a lot of you! I would’ve just gotten in the way.”
Wedge sighs too. “Those Immortal Soldiers sure are scary. It’s like nothing fazes them. Good thing we had Vincent here to be extra backup.”
“Wait! You’re saying Vincent’s still fightin’ out there? Where’d he go?” Cait Sith asks.
“Out. He’s out on the ground in his giant beast form,” Jessie answers instead.
The cat’s ears droop. “And are ye sure it’s okay to just leave him be like that…?”
“Considering that he’s our last line of defense while Ruby and Cloud are away, I think we should leave him to it,” Red agrees. “Even if he can’t defeat the Immortals, he can still stall long enough to give us some breathing room until Cloud and the others return with Ruby.”
“I suppose…” His ears perk back up and he turns to Jessie, who is now trying to work her PHS. “Speaking of which, Jessie, have ye contacted Cloud and them yet? They oughta know what we might be in for once they come back out.”
Jessie looks pretty troubled, though, and is lightly smacking the side of her phone, hoping that it’d work. “Man… it’s still not going through. What’s with this temple anyway? Getting a whole lotta interference…”
“You’re getting interference? From where? I thought these things work on materia!” Biggs remarks in surprise.
“They do! But it’s like the temple is able to disrupt these signals! Must be some seriously powerful magic at play.”
He sinks into a slump. “Great. Of all the times that Cetra tech has to show off, it’s getting in our way…”
“Come on. Work already!” After a few more attempts at sending her message, Jessie is then surprised by one of her messages finally showing that it’s been delivered. “Oh! It worked!”
Biggs returns her a raised eyebrow. “It did? What about the interference you were just saying?”
“Did it finally pass through the temple’s security or something?” Wedge suggests.
Jessie shrugs and then gets serious. “I dunno, but seems like Tifa and Aerith are back out now.” She reads off of the feed as it updates. “They found Ruby inside and it seems like she really did run into Sephiroth.”
Now, the rest of the party have gotten back to their feet and crowd in to heed the latest news. Barret steps up and raises the good questions, “What happened? How are they doing?”
“Well, the rest of them are fine, and Ruby looks like she wasn’t physically hurt, at least. But it seems like she had to make some kind of deal with the guy to keep him away. She didn’t say all the details, though Cloud stayed behind to ask her more about it.”
“A deal?” Red asks with a concerned frown. “What kind of deal?”
Jessie shakes her head. “That’s all they mention, so I have no idea.”
He hangs his head in contemplation. “Hmm…”
“Wait. It’s just Tifa and Aerith that came back out?” Biggs asks again. “Why are the other two still in there?”
“Um… Oh, I see.” Jessie looks back up from her phone and relays, “So get this: it turns out the the entire temple is actually the Black Materia.”
That catches him off-guard. “What?”
Wedge’s eyes pop wide too. “The whole temple!?”
“Seriously!?” Yuffie screeches in an unnecessarily high pitch. “That’s the biggest materia I’ve ever seen, then! Whoever heard of a materia that you can walk into!?”
“Well, that’s the trick, actually. It’s supposed to look like a temple, but there’s a hidden mechanism inside that changes it back to its original orb state. So since Ruby is most familiar with it, they left it to her.”
Barret nods thoughtfully. “I see… Goes to show how careful the Cetra were with keeping their most dangerous stuff.”
Sonon folds his arms and raises the bigger question, “But in that case, why only send out Tifa and Aerith? Or does Ruby need someone to help her with the mechanism?”
Jessie answers, “Like they said, Cloud wanted to ask her more about what happened with her and Sephiroth. Seems like they’ve been in there for a while, though. Might be some time before they’re ready.”
Cait Sith fidgets nervously. “Ooh… I hope she’s gonna be ready soon, then, ’cause there’s no telling how long we’ll be able to hold out while Shinra brings an army on us. Not to mention, those two Class-I Soldiers won’t be kept away forever.”
“If those assholes come aboard my ship one more time, I’m throwing them out myself,” Cid mutters with a heavy grudge in his tone.
“Like that went so well the last times you tried fighting them…” Yuffie replies sarcastically.
“I didn’t hear no bell.”
She slumps in disappointment. “I thought people your age are supposed to take it easy. You ain’t getting any younger, man.”
“I’m not that old yet, Missie! Watch yer tone!”
“In any case,” Red speaks up again to move them back on topic, “until we can confirm that Cloud and Ruby are ready to join us, we’ll just have to hold out as long as we can.”
Barret clenches a pumped-up fist. “Damn straight, Red. I don’t give a damn how many men or mechs or whatever shit they throw at us! We didn’t come all this way just to run scared again!” He throws it up in the air. “Let’s go, guys! We can’t leave everything to Vincent, or Tifa and Aerith! They’re all out there fightin’ and so we should too!”
“Right!” comes the collective reply.
And with that, most of the party gets going to head out the exit to join Vincent in the fray. However, the original Avalanche trio now stay behind and watch them all rush out.
Biggs then lets out a sigh. “Well, there they go, while we stay back as ‘backup’ again.”
“At least we’re really good at doing that,” Wedge tries to cheer him up.
“I guess…”
Jessie now puts the PHS away and draws her own handguns. “Who are you kidding, Biggs? We’re not just gonna sit back and pretend like we don’t got a chance!”
He backs up a bit, raising his hands. “Whoa, there, Jess. I know you got some firepower, but you really wanna go out there with ‘Beast Mode’ Vincent running around? Or all our guys and their sick-looking Wutaian gear and materia? We don’t stand a chance.”
“Ha! What about them? Don’t tell me a little wild thing like Vince got you shaking in your boots!”
“What about him is ‘little’!?” he snaps back. “And no, I’m not scared of him! But what can we do with regular ammo? We’ve been stuck with the same guns since we left Midgar! The most we’d be doing is picking off the grunts.”
“And that’s why I’m telling you, I haven’t been sitting around twiddling my thumbs!” Jessie then twirls her guns in hand as she reminds them, “Remember when I said I’d borrow a few guns from the ship’s storage?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well…” She now catches them back in position and points them out toward the exit in a cool pose like she’s ready to defend that door. “They’re not your usual guns anymore! Let’s just say that ever since I started working with materia as actual materials, I’ve been able to do a little transmuting of my own!”
“Okay…” He folds his arms, looking like he’s waiting to be impressed. “So what did you do with these guns?”
She lowers her guns again and sets them back in place, giving them a wink and a proud smirk. “Well, why don’t you guys stop by my room and see for yourselves? I’m sure they’ll put a real ‘zing’ in your firepower! Think a multiplier effect that’s more than ten-fold!”
Biggs and Wedge exchange confused stares and then turn back to her. “Jessie, you’d better not be messing with us this time…” Biggs warns and then adds with a smirk of his own, “…because now I’m actually getting excited again.”
She laughs. “Flashbacks to the good ol’ days?”
He scoffs back. “Please. We were both stupid teenagers who didn’t know any better.” He then raises a determined fist. “But like hell am I gonna just hang back like a background character! Ruby helped us get this far, so the least we can do is return the favor!”
Wedge cheers, following suit, “Yeah! Time to say goodbye to the ol’ ‘backup team’ and say hello to the new ‘Avalanche Squad’!”
Jessie throws up her own to join them. “Yeah!! Shinra’s not the only one who gets to have Mako guns! Let’s give ’em a taste of their own medicine!”
At that moment, the other two guys suddenly lose a bit of excitement. Biggs then replies, “Really, Jess… All that hype just for Mako guns? Like they’re anything new.”
“Oh, please! They’re not just any Mako guns! Unlike those old models, these ones don’t have to worry about running out of ammo!” she jabs back. “Seriously, just try them out for yourselves! I worked real hard on them!”
“Fine, fine…”
And with that, the three hurry off into the ship’s quarters to pick up their newly upgraded gear. They’ll shortly be joining the others outside.
~
By the time Tifa and Aerith come back out of the temple, they find a chaotic battle unfolding at the outskirts of the temple grounds. But even before they can hurry to catch up with the others, a few more nuisances are here to block the way. Though the helicopter that shuttled Tseng and Zhui away is now long gone, Reno, Rude, and Elena have been standing guard at the entrance as they await the president’s arrival. And needless to say, tensions aren’t looking good at the moment. In particular, Elena seems particularly incensed about something.
“You guys!” she suddenly yells their way.
“Uh, yes?” Aerith replies, a bit surprised.
Elena clenches up a shaking fist. “If it wasn’t for you, we all wouldn’t be in this mess!”
Aerith blinks, turns to Tifa, who looks just as confused, and turns back. “Sorry, what are you talking about?”
“Tseng! Our Boss! He got all beaten up because of Ruby!”
Aerith immediately gets upset and argues back, “Um, excuse me! That wasn’t Ruby; it was Sephiroth who attacked them.”
Tifa likewise frowns and adds, “If anything, she saved them from him and sent them out to safety.”
“Whatever! That’s beside the point!” Elena throws her hand back in defiance. “It wouldn’t even have happened if she didn’t come here in the first place!”
Now it’s Tifa’s turn to blink in confusion. “Uh, what? Didn’t you guys want to send her here? Why else would you need her and the Keystone?”
Rude explains instead, “We did plan to come here with her, but after we had some time to prepare. Unfortunately, her visit came up much earlier and we couldn’t have anticipated what would happen.”
Reno also shrugs and mentions, “She just wouldn’t sit still. It was like she was having some kind of panic attack or something. Kept muttering things about how she didn’t have time and that she had to go ASAP before she ‘dragged everyone else into things’, and all that.”
Elena continues to complain, “And Boss couldn’t just let her leave, so he went with her! And because it’s her, of course they’d run into Sephiroth! She’s just a magnet for all kinds of trouble!”
Tifa and Aerith exchange more concerned looks this time. As much as they hate to admit it, Ruby has been acting all kinds of weird lately, and this is yet another moment where she may have been a bit too rash and acted without considering the consequences. Still, it’s not like she intended to do anything bad, right? They turn back to the Turks with determined faces all the same.
Aerith says with a cool, unsympathetic tone, “Sorry to tell you now after all that’s happened, but if Ruby gets so panicked, the last thing anyone should do is stick too close. Tseng’s a pretty smart guy, but sometimes his sense of responsibility gets the better of him.”
Elena only gets madder. “Shut up! If you’re gonna talk ‘responsibility’, then talk about taking yours! Why didn’t any of you try to talk her out of it earlier!?”
Tifa fires back a glare of her own. “We would have, but then you guys came in and took her away!”
“She came to us herself! Of course we’d take her if she wanted to work with us for once!”
The two fiery ladies look like they’re about ready to throw hands when Rude steps up to set a hand on Elena’s shoulder. “Elena, easy. Stick with the mission.”
Reno reminds her too, “We’re not supposed to start any fights until the prez gets here, remember?”
Elena grinds her teeth in frustration, but then backs off with a snooty harrumph. “Fine… Not like it’d be much of a fight if it’s three against two.”
Tifa clenches her hands into fists. “Oh, believe me, we’ve dealt with way worse than you.”
Elena raises her own again. “You wanna fight so bad? Talk smack AFTER the prez is here and then we can go!”
“Speaking of your president, I’ve got a few words for him too…”
Meanwhile, Reno has been looking around and finds something odd that stands out – or rather, doesn’t stand out. He then asks Tifa and Aerith, “Hey. Where is Ruby anyway? Or Cloud? Thought they’d come out with you guys.”
Aerith calmly answers, “They’re still inside. Seems like she had something to tell him in private.”
He raises a suspect eyebrow. “What, just the two of them? They’re not plotting anything behind your backs, are they?”
She looks surprised that he’d even suggest it. “Of course not! And even if they were plotting anything, we aren’t the ones who have to worry about it.”
“Yeah… sure,” he replies sarcastically. “Just like how she turned on you on a whim yesterday.”
Now she gets mad. “She didn’t turn on us! There’s just been a huge misunderstanding!”
Tifa answers with a stern glare too, “Cloud stayed back to get some answers. They’ll come out when they’re ready. That’s all it is.”
Not willing to deal with both of these tough, persistent gals, Reno backs off with his hands up. “Alright, alright… Points for loyalty, at least.”
“That being said…” Rude now adds with a solemn tone, “Until we can get those answers too, we can’t assume her current intentions. The facts remain that she has become increasingly erratic in her behavior and that she was present when Sephiroth made his assault. We have little choice but to prepare for the worst case scenario – that being, she and Sephiroth may be in cahoots.”
“Yeah!” Elena jabs in just for extra emphasis, “If you got any sense left, you would too! No telling what might happen from here!”
“That’s not happening,” Aerith insists, shaking her head. “Ruby may have her sneaky moments, but she’d never mean anything bad to us.”
“Besides, why would you think she and Sephiroth are working together?” Tifa asks, getting suspicious, “If anything, she’s been doing everything to keep him away!”
“At least that’s what it seems…” Reno mutters.
“…”
This very tense standoff would shortly be interrupted when they hear the sounds of a helicopter flying on by. As the helicopter closes in over the temple, once it’s stabilized, the door opens and a ladder drops down over the entrance grounds. The Turks rush over to take their places around the bottom of the ladder, and a certain young president in white now steps on out to climb down. It’s not just him, though; another man, a certain scientist of ill repute, also joins him outside. The Turks all stand at attention and salute them as the pair descends.
First things first, Rufus addresses his three bodyguards, “Report. What’s Tseng’s status?”
“Sir!” Elena volunteers, “He and Zhui have been sent off back to HQ to recuperate from their injuries. The medics said they’re both stable, but it seems Zhui’s injuries are more severe. He might have to take some time off before he can come back on the job. Boss also took a beating, but he ought to be able to recover after several days. In the meantime, he should still be able to lead us from a safe distance.”
“Alright. Then we’ll leave them to the medics. And as for Ruby…?”
Rude now speaks up, “Current whereabouts are unknown, but it’s safe to assume that she’s still somewhere inside the temple.”
Reno also brings up, “These gals said that Cloud’s still with her, so she probably won’t be trying anything really drastic… at least for now.”
Rufus strikes a thinking pose. “Hmm… Since this is her territory, it would probably be best that we wait for her to come out to meet us. Until then, have all units remain on standby.” He now passes an idle glance aside toward Tifa and Aerith. “Even if we can’t control where she goes, I doubt she’d just leave her friends here to fend for themselves.”
Hojo had been looking toward the temple for a little bit, but now he too turns their way with a creepy, delighted smile. “Aerith, my dear. How nice that we can meet again, though it’s unfortunate that it’s on such terms. You see, the current circumstances around the other Cetran entity take priority, so we’ll have to put your schedule of experiments on hold for the time being. My apologies.”
Aerith doesn’t reply. She simply keeps a frigid, steely glare his way, but he only seems to be amused by it.
Now that they’re face-to-face with the president, Tifa steps up and make some demands, “If you know what’s best for you and Shinra, you’d tell everyone to stand down and leave. When Cloud and Ruby come back out, you won’t have any room to negotiate.”
Aerith turns to him too and makes an innocent-looking smile as she warns threateningly, “Keep in mind that she could always just use any of your people as some juggling pins.”
“…” Rufus remains unfazed and casually flicks aside his bangs. “I’m aware. But there might be something you all aren’t aware of yet.”
Her smile fades. “And what’s that?”
He now turns toward the professor who accompanied him here. “Hojo thinks that it’s about time for ‘Ruby’ to show her true nature.”
The professor has had some kind of anticipatory glee to his expression since he arrived, as if he had been scheming some theories in mind. Now that everyone’s attention has turned to him, he meets their awaiting faces with a hand to his chin and a conniving grin.
“Indeed. In fact, one could even say that ‘Ruby’ has never been her identity in the first place. The only one that has existed since antiquity is the dragon herself, Rubia.”
“But they’re still the same person, aren’t they?” Tifa asks, feeling unconvinced. “Rubia is just Ruby’s past life.”
Hojo snickers to himself. “Ah. Is that what she’s been telling you all?” He then shakes his head. “Perhaps she’s been hiding much more than you ever realized, or perhaps even she wasn’t aware. Ultimately it makes no difference.” He finally turns back toward the temple and sets his hands behind his back. “Even the ancient prophetic texts warned of her inevitable return… that is, of Rubia.” He turns back toward Tifa and Aerith with a curious side peek. “Surely, at least some of you have already noticed? That there are moments when the person you thought you were associating with would instead be someone who acts entirely differently?”
“…” Aerith hangs her head, unwilling to admit to anything, but can’t really hide her own concerns.
Though Tifa keeps her stubborn frown, she too is a little shaken to be reminded of all the previous incidents around Ruby losing control. “…Even then,” she cautiously tries to argue, “Ruby has always been herself. She may have some unresolved issues with Rubia, but she’d never actively try to do harm. All those incidents were just accidents.”
At first, Hojo returns her an unimpressed look, but then he looks away again and begins to laugh to himself. “…Such poor, naïve fools that she’s come to gather and string along, like puppets to manipulate for her own fantasies…”
Tifa gets mad again. “Hey. If there’s something else you know that we don’t, then spit it out. Otherwise,” she warns, raising her fists, “we’re not afraid to throw down even with someone like you.”
“Hmph. And they’re brutes to boot,” he mutters aloud. He now turns back to them with a rather bored expression. “If you must know, fighting me would give you no benefit. You would be wiser to place your concerns on the one you call ‘Ruby’. Once she and a certain other favorite subject of mine engage, you’ll have much greater issues to confront.”
She grows alarmed. “Other favorite subject…?”
Aerith looks back up with her own worried frown. “You mean Sephiroth, don’t you?”
“Hee hee hee…” Hojo resumes his quiet snickering. “If you already know, then I won’t say any more. Now, let us sit back and observe what may come to pass on this stage.”
“…” Rather than wait around, though, Aerith turns back to Tifa. “Come on, let’s get back to the others. They might need our help.”
Tifa nods back. “Right.”
But before the two can hurry off again, they’re interrupted yet again by a different set of circumstances. Out of nowhere, the ground beneath them begins to shake, but it’s no natural earthquake. Instead, the temple before them begins to unleash pulse after pulse of some wicked energy, sparking with what appears to be black lightning that comes from within and scatters in all directions. The temple then proceeds to transform, at first slowly shrinking down, but then descends more and more rapidly until it disappears into but a speck at the center of a massive crater. And in those mere seconds that the temple took to shrink, there’s another flash of white light that appears just over the hole.
“Up there!” Tifa catches sight and points away.
“Great! They got out in time!” Aerith smiles with relief.
Cloud is still hanging onto Ruby as from earlier, but it’s too early for him to let go. As soon as they appear, the pair that appear from the flash now drop fast. Quick as reflex, she casts a timely Float spell on themselves, which slows their fall and they drift into a much gentler and more gradual sweep to the ground below. He lets out a sigh in relief and lets her go once they reach solid footing again.
“Sheesh… couldn’t you have warped us to a place that wasn’t in midair?” he complains.
“Sorry. I just went with the first place I thought of.”
He looks a bit annoyed to hear it, but now that he looks at her again, she’s back to being on the nervous side. She has her hands clasped tightly together with some very twitchy fingers, and she’s staring blankly at the ground without looking at anything in particular. He’s tempted to check with her, but instead eases off and lets her be. What’s way more important is what they came here for. The shiny black orb of ominous matter now sits in its huge ditch waiting for them. He approaches it and lowers to one knee to pick it up. Though the Black Materia isn’t all that heavy itself, it is on the slightly larger end of materia. Contributing much more to its gravity is the sheer, unimaginable destructive power that is contained within. They can’t let it fall into the wrong hands – not Shinra, not Sephiroth, and definitely not Rubia. Taking it in a firm grip, he then slips it away into a pocket and gets back to his feet.
“Cloud! Ruby! Up here!” Tifa calls to them, waving an arm.
“Hurry! The others are already fighting!” Aerith announces too.
He looks back up toward the edge of the hole, noticing that there are some welcome and unwelcome company waiting for them up there. He’s also noticed the faint sounds of some sort of scuffle in the distance, complete with the roars of a certain beast still tearing up enemy lines. “Figures. Shinra always gotta be a pain in the ass.” He turns back to Ruby and calls to her, “Hey. Let’s go. Everyone’s been waiting for you.”
But as he moves toward a wall to start climbing, he notices that Ruby has yet to move from her place. She has her eyes open, but is just standing there, completely still. Now he’s getting concerned again.
He approaches her and waves a hand in her face, “Uh, Ruby? Hello?”
“…” She simply turns away, feeling a lot of shame left over.
He frowns back, feeling a bit impatient himself, but he gets it. After the whole mess she mentioned earlier, she needs time to recover. Still, there’s only so much time that they have right now. He tries again, this time with a softer tone, “Hey… Are we missing anything, by any chance? Something we should do before we go?”
She shakes her head.
“Then what’s up?”
Whatever is on her mind, she looks so very guilty. She even looks scared. She’s fully anticipating what’s going to happen, and yet even at this late hour she can’t bring herself to say anything.
He lets off a troubled sigh and tries to take her by the hand. “Whatever it is, we’ll hear it later. Come on. We have to go.”
She steps away before he can touch her. She also mutters something aloud, “You guys go. I’m staying.”
“What?”
She keeps her eyes on the ground. “This is my last stop.”
“No, it isn’t. We didn’t come all this way just to leave you again. You’re coming too.”
Even she’s getting frustrated, though she still won’t look at him. “Cloud, we don’t have time for this! You all have to get away now!”
“We are going, so why won’t you?” He tries to reach for her hand again.
Rather than answer him, she shoves him away and stands her ground, but rather than look intimidating at all, she only looks more and more scared. “Just go away! Leave me alone! I’m done with everything!”
“What’s gotten into you…?”
But try as he might, he just can’t get any answers from her. She’s right, though; they’re out of time. Now they’re greeted by an even more unwelcoming voice spoken in a way that feels like it’s injected directly into their minds.
“Cloud. Didn’t you hear her? She doesn’t want to be with you.”
Cloud freezes up. He looks around frantically, but there’s no one in their immediate vicinity. Ruby clasps her hands over her head as if it’s about to burst. Now a small whirlwind stirs high in the air above them, forming into an obscuring black mist that takes the form of a certain man. The reactions from the crowd on the ledge above are a mix of horrified, distraught, and confused, and even unhingedly delighted in Hojo’s case. Right away, Aerith whips out her staff in hand and Tifa shifts into battle stance. If need be, they’ll jump in to provide backup.
Cloud flinches upon seeing him again, cursing his luck. “Sephiroth…”
Sephiroth, with his elegant Masamune in hand, now gently glides down and meets the pair he’s been waiting for. Without a second thought, Cloud steps forward to keep Ruby behind him and draws his sword too.
“We’re not giving you the Black Materia,” he asserts.
Sephiroth chuckles lightly, paying him no mind. He passes a glance toward Ruby, who huddles behind Cloud, shaking like a leaf. He then offers her a soothing smile. “Ruby, is he bothering you? I can silence him for you if you’d like.”
Cloud barks back, “Leave her alone! She wants nothing to do with you!”
And yet, Sephiroth still ignores him. He raises his hand forward toward her. “No need to be scared, my dear. Come here. Let’s leave this nightmare all behind.”
Rather than keep arguing pointlessly, Cloud speaks to her without letting his eyes off of him. “Go. I’ll hold him off.”
Her face scrunches up. “You won’t.”
“It doesn’t have to be for long. Go get the others. They can help.”
She stubbornly shakes her head again and remains silent.
He’s getting a little exasperated and turns to her. “Ruby, please. We’re all in this together, and that includes you, alright? Trust in us. And trust in yourself.”
“…”
Nonetheless, Sephiroth clearly overhears them and begins to laugh to himself. He even sets a hand over his chest and lowers his head in a casual bow. “Ah. If you’d like all your friends to join you, allow me.”
Cloud whips back with a hard stare. “What?”
Now Ruby looks up again and says with a pleading voice, “Sephiroth, wait.”
Sephiroth is about to fly off again, but swings back her way. “Hm?”
Though she’s still quivering a bit, she now steps out from behind Cloud. “Don’t… don’t make this any harder than it needs to be.”
“…” He returns her a relaxed smile that doesn’t reassure her in the slightest. “It’s only as hard as you make it out to be.”
She meekly hangs her head again. “Then that’s as hard as it can get…”
Cloud has heard enough. “Don’t you dare! You’re not getting away!”
He charges at Sephiroth, blade poised to swing, but he’s too slow. Sephiroth launches high into the air with but a single leap and sails away to the outskirts of the surrounding forest where the ongoing chaos is still astir. Swearing internally, Cloud returns his sword in its place and turns back to Ruby.
“Come on! We have to stop him! They’re in danger!”
But she still doesn’t respond and hangs her head. He gives her a hard shake.
“Ruby! Snap out of it! We need you now!”
Unfortunately, what entails from here is the most puzzling thing of all. One moment, she was shaking like a leaf in the wind, and the next, she has her eyes closed and suddenly stops still as if her mind finally shut down after a long period of struggle. And what would come back out upon a forceful “restart” would be the last thing that he needs.
Her voice has returned to being that emotionless, robotic sound. “There’s no need. Everything is proceeding as planned.”
As soon as he hears it, he freezes up in cold dread. “What…?”
She now opens her eyes again. To his dismay, her blood-red eyes have pupils thinned into slits. She speaks almost as if ordering him, “Sit and wait. The eclipse is soon.”
At that moment, he’s struck by another aching headache. Suddenly he feels like he’s being compelled to submit and comply. What is this presence emanating from her? It almost reminds him of… Sephiroth? No, wait. Not even him. Another threatening, more alien presence… For just an instant, Cloud can see it: the silhouetted visage of Jenova looming behind Ruby.
Back over on the battlefield near the Highwind, Barret and the rest of the party have been busy fending off troops and mechs that have been airdropped from the planes circling above. And among the mechs that have been invited, there is a giant flying mech among them. This bird-like machine is known as the Eagle Gun – an advanced grade of mech that came fresh from the assembly lines just a few days ago, and it so happens that this mission would be its debut out in the field. With its multitude of gun barrels that form the edges of its wings, it can mercilessly gun down any foes that dare cross its incredibly keen sensors and it is even capable of sharp aerial maneuvers that would make even a hummingbird blush with jealousy. While it had been terrorizing the party for a bit by zipping around wildly and avoiding any potential Thunder or Wind-based magic, as soon as it senses a new threat approaching, it turns its attention on the newcomer and switches gears in an instant to initiate. And the moment it points its guns at this new threat, it is promptly cleaved in two and explodes, tumbling down to the ground as pieces of debris.
Barret stops shooting for a moment when he hears the explosion. “The hell was that… Sephiroth!?” he blurts out in shock when he looks up to the sky.
Now, everyone else gasps in horror as they see the menace in black casually floating in the sky like gravity isn’t his business. Even the Galian Beast, who had been preoccupied with keeping the two Soldiers at bay, suddenly stops and looks up with a defiant growl. Likewise, the two Soldiers, who have been thrown about but ultimately to little effect, also get back to their feet and redirect their attention to the latest and greatest threat.
“Is that Sephiroth!?” someone among the troops cries out in panic.
“Hold the line, men! Don’t be intimidated!” their commander yells.
“But it’s Sephiroth!?” another cries as well.
“Doesn’t matter! Fire! Take him down!”
Though they’re still wary, the troops proceed to rain fire. Some accompanying Death Machines by their sides also launch their rockets into the sky. And yet, even greeted by this sudden onslaught of ballistics, Sephiroth doesn’t even bother to move. He doesn’t need to, since he’s well protected. As soon as the dust of the explosions dissipate, they reveal a mysterious magic barrier around him that has left him untouched. Then, the barrier begins to glow bright and actually returns fire with beams of light that incinerate anyone or anything that had dared to challenge it. The troops’ lines are blasted apart and everyone is forced to scatter and take cover, but the light isn’t just lasers. It even bends and crosses paths with one another as if it were its own collection of ballistics and relentlessly pursues each and every target that it has locked on.
While his magic rains terror on its own, Sephiroth gives the scene a quick lookover to gauge which targets to destroy next, and he notices the two Class-I Soldiers, judging by their modified helmets. He smiles confidently to himself and drifts down to meet them. And as soon as he’s within range, the Soldiers leap into action, blades swinging and clashing against the Masamune. However, even with two against one, Sephiroth takes them both on as if he were taking a leisurely stroll.
Angered to have his battle be interrupted, the Galian Beast also charges forward to thrash at him too, but the latter also evades his erratic swings like he can see them coming. And yet, he doesn’t even bother to attack back. As Ruby had suggested, he isn’t going to hurt her friends – at least not at this time. He then leaps into a backflip out of the way as the Beast crashes down with all four claws.
The Soldiers are still here, but at this point, they might as well be deadweights. Even these supposedly immortal warriors who can take any number of blows, only to regenerate all damage, pale in comparison to the likes of Sephiroth. In fact, he doesn’t even care about their presumed immortality; to him, it’s just some bug in the system that needs sweeping. After pulling back so the two would keep pursuing and step out of range of the Beast, he then lets fly a single slash wave their way. It’s a point-blank hit; too close for them to dodge. For a brief instant, there’s that tessellating shape effect that comes in once again. The next moment, both men freeze up, almost as if caught in a time-stop spell, and they promptly dissipate into that ugly gray mist like how it happened with the victims of a certain Wutaian town.
Now the entire party is just stunned. Even the Galian Beast stops still in shock at the disappearance of its former enemies, and the shock of witnessing such a blatant display of omnipotence wakes him up and reverts him back to human form. Vincent drops to one knee with heavy panting and he stares up at this menacing man before him, with a bit of anger and frustration directed at himself. Even with the power that he’s been given, he still can’t overcome such an obvious gap between them.
“Vincent!” Yuffie gasps.
“Move, man! Move!” Barret calls to him as well.
But to their surprise, Sephiroth elects to leave Vincent be and instead turns his attention back to the rest of the brigade. By now, their forces are thrown into panic and chaos, and despite the angry cries of their commanders, the men break their lines and scatter. Some duck behind the Highwind, while others even rush into the thick forest for cover. Some paratroopers try to fly back up to catch a ride with the fleeing Relnikas too. The mechs that still remain continue to fire away to no avail, as the magic barrier is still in effect. There’s no need to attack these troops; just the barrier alone is too much. Instead, he turns his attention back to the departing planes. It would be annoying if they went back to bring reinforcements. He lets fly a few more energy waves from his blade, which slice them up and send them all tumbling into the sea with muted but still deadly explosions.
The rest of the party gather up to check on Vincent, who now gets back to his feet. He’s still in pain, but is more preoccupied with that self-inclined frustration than whatever soreness that lingers.
“You okay?” Red asks.
“…I’m fine. For now.”
“Damn, for a moment there, thought you were gonna be next…” Barret admits.
Yuffie stares at the rampage and destruction that Sephiroth has left behind with her jaw dropped. “What’s he even doing!? Why is he helping us? Aren’t we supposed to be enemies??”
Sonon narrows his eyes in suspicion. “Who knows… but I doubt it’s out of good will, if he even has any.”
After he’s cleaned up, Sephiroth now turns back to them once more and everyone goes back on guard. Barret keeps his gun pointed, but is hesitant to shoot. Red doesn’t say a word; he only growls and stands ready to pounce. Cait Sith and Moogle are just panicking at this point. Vincent is too exhausted to keep going right now. And Cid keeps a brave scowl as usual, but he’s actually swearing excessively in mind.
“What do you want?” Barret dares to ask.
Sephiroth doesn’t reply. With that ever eerie smile, he gives a wave of his hand their way. All of a sudden, the entire party is enveloped by what seem to be white magic circles, one for each member in battle, similar to Ruby’s early warping magic days. In the next instant, they’re all warped away to be closer to the temple grounds around the perimeter of the hole. And so, Sephiroth likewise vanishes to reappear where the stage has been set.
And almost on comedic timing, Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge, who were still aboard the Highwind up to now, had just come out onto the lower deck, all pumped up and ready to try out their new twin-barrel pistol, Uzzi-like machine gun, and grenade launcher, respectively. Unfortunately, they arrived just in time to be completely flabbergasted by what just developed and are hesitant to poke their heads out any further. Maybe next time… if they even get a next time. Holy shit. That’s the power that they have to fight against!? He even killed the Soldiers that were supposed to be immortal! What even is Sephiroth?
Back over to the temple grounds, Rufus and company have been watching quietly from afar. While they had expected that Sephiroth would be a serious threat that their forces probably weren’t enough to deal with, they had severely underestimated how quickly he would neutralize an entire aerial brigade, namely in a matter of seconds. Rufus had been hoping that at least the two Class-I Soldiers would put up a better fight, but clearly, they didn’t account for the fact that the mad sword-wizard is somehow able to counteract their immortality. He and his agents are all stunned except for Hojo, who had expected this outcome to the T, right down to how little time that his favorite subject would take.
While Sephiroth fancied himself a quick distraction, Cloud and Ruby remain frozen in their silent standoff, their eyes locked on each other, but neither one has any thoughts to convey. Their minds have gone blank. As if by some mysterious power, they’ve become trapped in a mental gridlock and neither one can move a muscle. By now, Tifa and Aerith can wait around no more. They’ve rushed down to check on them and are now tugging on Cloud and Ruby’s arms, respectively.
“Guys! What’s wrong?” Tifa calls to them. “What happened?”
“Ruby! Wake up! Talk to us!” Aerith does likewise.
But it doesn’t seem like their voices are even reaching. By now, Sephiroth has finished his quick errand and brought the rest of the party here; sans the few remaining aboard the Highwind. Barret and the rest look around confused and are just as shocked as the Turks to meet them all again.
“The hell is goin’ on?” Barret mutters, and as soon as he sees some old foes again, he raises his gun. “Rufus!”
Yuffie jumps back, poised with shuriken. “Why is the prez here!? Does he have a death wish!?”
“And so is Hojo…” Red growls, baring his fangs. “Seems like they’re here to watch something.”
“Where the heck did they come from!?” Elena blurts out, jumping into position.
“What, those shiny magic circles weren’t enough to tell you?” Reno replies sarcastically.
Rude makes a troubled frown. “So Ruby isn’t the only one who can do that, huh…”
Rufus barely pays a glance toward the new arrivals and keeps a cautious eye on Hojo, who is still smiling to himself and has kept his attention on Ruby’s group all this time. “…Sure has gotten noisy around here,” he casually remarks, likewise turning back to the four below.
Trying his best to assess the situation, Barret looks around and back down into the crater, and waves an arm their way. “Cloud! Tifa! Aerith! Ruby too? You guys okay!?”
“Barret!” Tifa answers with a yell. “Something’s wrong! They won’t move!”
“Huh!? What happened now!?”
“I don’t know! They just turned out like this!”
“Goddammit, Cloud! Ruby’s one thing, but why even you gotta be in trouble!?”
Sephiroth shortly reappears where he had been earlier and now approaches the four before him. Aerith and Tifa jump back into battle stances, and the rest of the party are just about to jump in as well. However, they don’t get a chance. Though he has a bit of an artistique streak to him as of late, Sephiroth has no need for the gallery to participate in the events. With barely a glance to the ladies, he casually casts a mysterious spell that is enacted over the entire crater: the same mysterious barrier from earlier now expands outward so fast that it knocks the ladies flying back out and back up on the ledge with the others.
“Ugh!” “Ow…”
“Tifa! Aerith! Are you two alright?” Cait Sith bounces in to check with them.
“Somehow…” Aerith replies, staggering a bit on her feet. The ladies both climb back to their feet, but they still feel sore just from being hit by the barrier.
“What is that thing…?” Tifa asks, stroking her bruised shoulder.
Vincent’s eyes narrow with suspicion. Though he isn’t the most familiar with this sort of magic, it does seem oddly reminiscent of something he’d once witnessed long, long ago. “…It’s no ordinary Barrier, that’s for sure.”
“Whatever it is, it’s not keeping us out!” Barret exclaims. He now points his gun down there. “Hey, asshole! Eat this!”
“Hiyaah!” Yuffie yells too.
“Wait!” Vincent tries to warn them, but is a bit too late.
Barret unloads fire and Yuffie chucks her shuriken hard, but in both cases, the magic barrier deflects their attempts, sending Barret’s bullets scattering uselessly and Yuffie’s shuriken flying off, forcing her to dash to retrieve it. But as Vincent feared, the barrier seems to be able to act on its own. As before, it glows bright from the impacts received and returns fire with flashes of light that knock them down at the same time.
“Eeyaah!” Yuffie squeals, dropping into a tumble.
“Yuffie!” Sonon cries, rushing to help her.
“Barret! You okay?” Red likewise jumps to his side.
“Damn it…” Barret gasps, grasping at his chest in pain. Though the flashes of light leave no particular open wounds, the damage seems to ignore any potential defenses.
“Don’t be hasty!” Vincent insists. “This barrier is capable of returning fire even from afar.”
“Then he’ll eat my spear!” Cid screams.
“Cid, don’t!”
With a mighty warcry, Cid leaps skyward and dives like a falling star to crash with the lance’s spearpoint first – only for the barrier to crackle almost whimsically and bounce him off and throw him back on his ass where he had been standing. It too shoots its lasers his way and he rolls over in pain.
“…It reflects melee attacks too,” Vincent begrudgingly finishes his warning.
“Shiiit… Say it sooner,” Cid groans, slowly climbing back to his feet.
“Then blast it with magic! Or bomb it even harder!” Yuffie whines, while Sonon tosses out a Mist Mega Potion to cover for their wounded members. “It’s gotta have some weakness!”
But Vincent shakes his head. “No. It’s too risky. The counterattack could devastate us further.”
“Then, that covers any kind of attack!” Cait Sith blurts frantically. “What do we do!?”
Sonon turns back toward the barrier, swearing under his breath. “Is there anything we can do…?”
Unfortunately, the ensuing silence relieves no one. They can only helplessly watch things unfold from afar. And in that uncomfortable silence, one may even hear the slightest bit of Hojo’s quiet laughter.
With the gallery back in their “seats” and accounted for, Sephiroth now approaches Cloud and Ruby. With a smooth wave of his free hand, he seems to dispel the effects that have kept them trapped. While Ruby remains as her unfeeling self, Cloud doubles back and catches himself, shaking his head furiously. As soon as he realizes Sephiroth is right here beside him smiling at him, he panics. He yanks Ruby by the wrist and pulls them back a reasonable distance, but then stands in front to guard her and draws his sword. He also looks around, now realizing that it’s just the three of them here, and is alarmed to find that everyone else is being kept out by a huge magic barrier.
“You bastard…” he mutters, gripping his sword’s hilt tightly. “Won’t even let them in?”
“It’s easier this way. Now we can finally get things moving,” Sephiroth casually answers.
“Shut up. You’re not getting anything done. I’m taking you out here and now.”
He shakes his head. “Now, now, Cloud. There’s no use being difficult here.” He passes an amused glance Ruby’s way again. “The poor girl’s so racked with grief as is.”
“Because of you! Keep her out of this!”
“Hmph. You still don’t get it, do you…” For just an instant, his eyes thin into slits. “You don’t have a choice.”
“…!”
“Wake up!”
It happens all at once. Suddenly, Cloud is met with a cacophony of screeches and screams and is struck with an intense headache that drops him to his knees. The pain amplifies to an intense degree that would make him scream too, and yet he is unable to utter a sound. Instead, he feels like his very soul is being ripped from his body and he can no longer feel his own limbs. It’s just like that time long ago, shortly after he met Ruby. Now his body is moving on its own again, manipulated as if by strings from Sephiroth’s hand. Cloud can only helplessly watch as he slowly walks up to the man with heavy steps, and with a shaking hand, he reaches down into his pocket to draw out the black orb. He then raises it up to hand it over.
But before the Black Materia can be delivered, Ruby suddenly steps up and snatches it from Cloud’s hand. She then casually walks off, staring at the orb in her hand. Without having completed his current task, Cloud helplessly drops to the floor like an abandoned doll.
Sephiroth lowers his hand and turns to her with a wary frown. “What are you doing?”
“…I could ask you the same thing.” She looks back up with an unimpressed frown of her own and folds her arms. “What’s with the dramatic reenactment of the past? Still clinging to your moments of glory, old man?”
“…” He makes an amused smirk. “Just having a bit of fun for old time’s sake.” He then offers his hand forward expectantly. “If you will, my dear…”
She scoffs. “Before I do, let’s set some ground rules first.”
His smile falters a bit. “Meaning?”
She raises up the Black Materia again. “Since in this world, this thing is made up of Tiamat’s energy and I’m supposed to be Rubia, that leaves me as its owner, yes?”
“Sure…”
“So, I get to decide when it’s used and where it goes.”
“Yes. I believe we covered that.”
“Not exactly, Seph. You just assumed that I’d do it, but didn’t specify when.”
“…” He lets off a conceding sigh and nods along. “Fine. Then, why don’t you tell us when that would be?”
She passes an idle glance aside. “Eh… To be honest, I don’t want to decide that.”
“Hm?” He looks like he didn’t want to hear that kind of answer.
She now takes the Black Materia and cups it in both hands. “Just this once… I’ll let Rubia have a say. It’s about time she showed up, don’t you think?”
His eyes widen in surprise. Now that he catches on to her intentions, he relaxes with a much calmer smile and lowers his hand. “So be it. This is your story, after all.”
“Thanks.”
Up to now, Cloud has remained motionless as he’s forced to listen to these two engage in casual conversation as if this was some kind of chance encounter in the proverbial employee lounge. But the moment she mentioned for Rubia to “show”, it gives him all kinds of bad feelings that throw him into a panic. As soon as he realizes he can move again, he jumps back up to his feet and shouts.
“No! Don’t!”
She no longer pays him any mind and closes her eyes again. With one last deep calming breath, she hardens her resolve and promptly shoves it into her own chest. The very meeting of materia and its reincarnation sparks with the same black lightning as from earlier and the materia slowly but surely sinks into her body to become one with her. Though she is hunched over, looking as if in pain, she doesn’t utter a single grunt. She is then enveloped by a dangerous shadow that looms over her – at first, it takes the shape of the head and neck of a fearsome dragon, but then it’s shortly followed by four others alike that also sprout in quick succession. And as quickly as they appeared, the shadows dissipate. However, when she opens her blood-red eyes again, they hone into focus as thin slits.
Up above, everyone (except Hojo) is aghast, but Aerith in particular is struck the hardest by an icy cold chill of fear. This terrifying presence brings her right back to her childhood the first time she heart Rubia’s roars from the depths of the planet. And now, even without hearing that roar again, the complete stillness from the dragoness’ heart is all the more frightening. This definitely isn’t her lovable cousin anymore. For once, she can’t seem to hear her voice.
Immediately upon awakening, the woman with a long ponytail bursts out in an explosion of white light and resumes the dragon form that she has become renowned for. She looks around at everyone in the vicinity, and with a deep and thundering voice, she speaks without an ounce of emotion.
“I am Rubia, Dragon of Light and Spawn of Tiamat. I have come with an urgent message of the highest priority.”
Cloud can only stare back in utter horror to be betrayed by her for the last time. Sephiroth also keeps a careful watch, but is much less horrified. If anything, he’s starting to get a bit excited.
“In three days, on the verge of the final lunar eclipse, this world will be judged by the Watchers of the Simulation. Until then, you all have an opportunity to make your case for or against the retention of this world. Failure to comply or to present anything meaningful will automatically lead into the Great Reset.”
No… not again. Just like that, Ruby gave in and let Rubia take over her again. But she is still in there, right? It’s not just going to be Rubia from here on out, is she? And then, just as Cloud thinks things couldn’t get worse, he also hears Sephiroth break out a subtle chuckle.
“However, I will also say my piece. I have no intention to relive through yet another meaningless cycle. Whether or not this world is retained is not of my concern. The only thing I seek is an end.”
She now looks back up toward the rest of their audience, specifically honing in on Aerith, who flinches and starts to tremble when she realizes she’s seen. However, Rubia says nothing to her and turns back to the two before her.
“I shall reserve the right to call upon Meteor at my own discretion and will do so should I deem it necessary. Use your time wisely. When you are ready, come to the ancient capital far to the north. I will await your answers there.”
And with that firm warning, Rubia spreads her wings wide and takes off for the skies headed north. And as everyone watches her go with a wide mix of confusion, worry, and anxiety to differing degrees, Sephiroth breaks out into a loud, maniacal laughter. After he gets his laughs out, he settles down and shakes his head with a maddening grin.
“…So that’s how it’s going to be, huh? She just won’t play nice.”
Somehow Cloud manages to find his voice again. “Sephiroth.”
The other turns back to him with a much less interested look. “Yes?”
He clenches his hands into fists and starts to shake a bit too. “What did we just do…?”
Sephiroth makes a confident smirk. “Bring forth a revolution.”
“…”
Sephiroth resumes quietly snickering to himself. He returns the Masamune into a forward position and raises it up as if to mark the occasion. “We’re almost there… As promised, Ruby, I will save you from this hell.” And with that sworn oath, he lets fly a single black angel wing from his back and takes off for the skies, vanishing in another blinding flash of his own.
As he stands here alone and abandoned, Cloud feels faint. He watches Sephiroth disappear and then drops to the cold, rocky ground. He clutches his head and shuts his eyes tight. He can’t believe what just happened. After all that struggle, even like they had some hope in there somewhere, that bit of hope was dashed in a matter of seconds. Even if this isn’t ideal for Sephiroth, it isn’t any better for anyone else. Please… whoever is out there that can stop this hell from spiraling out any further, please stop. He’s had enough.
“Cloud!” Tifa cries out.
“Hang on! We’re coming!” Aerith follows.
Once Sephiroth disappears, the barrier he had enacted also vanishes. Tifa and Aerith, as well as a good majority of the party, jump and slide down to check on him. Cait Sith, Vincent, and Cid choose to remain on standby so at least someone is still watching their company from Shinra. That said, the Turks remain on standby, looking a bit awkward to still be here. Rufus folds his arms, looking somewhere between perplexed and concerned. He passes a quick glance toward Hojo, who is now giggling with maniacal glee of his own.
“…Professor, don’t tell me that THIS was the ‘major event’ that you had been waiting for.”
Hojo continues to chortle quietly to himself, but then turns back to him. “Ahem… Yes, or rather, I did expect something in the periphery of how the circumstances have come to pass.”
He remains unamused. “In other words, you expected that Rubia would awaken and bring this world to ruin?”
“Hmph.” Hojo then adjusts his glasses with a smug smirk. “Rest assured, Mr. President, even in the case that the famed meteor would be summoned, there is more than enough of the planet’s remaining energy to fend off its effects. If anything, we now have the technology to harness that energy and put it to greater use. So long as we remain in Midgar, there will be little cause for alarm.”
“Is that so…” Though he doesn’t look entirely convinced, Rufus knows he doesn’t have enough info to lay any counterclaims. That being said, there is definitely one other issue that is now resolved at least; namely the giant elephant – or rather, dragon – in the room.
Meanwhile, down in the hole, everyone else has gathered around Cloud, who has yet to move from his place. Tifa and Aerith are right beside him, with Barret standing on guard by them. Red is curiously poking his nose his way as if to get a sense of how he’s feeling, but keeps a safe distance. And though they also rushed down here out of concern, Yuffie and Sonon look unsure of what they should do other than keep a perimeter so Shinra doesn’t get any bright ideas to interrupt them.
“Cloud! Please, talk with us,” Tifa pleads, taking his arms in her hands.
“Cloud, you okay?” Aerith asks, setting a hand on his shoulder.
“He’s still sane, right?” Barret asks too, pretty concerned himself. “Sephiroth didn’t leave anything permanent, right?”
“He doesn’t seem to be injured at least…” Aerith answers, but she’s not sure.
He isn’t injured – at least physically. However, mentally there are some deep scars and this time they’re not just from Sephiroth. Cloud is still trembling from the encounter earlier, but rather than it being in fear like how Ruby had been, it’s from an explosive rage that he has been trying his best to keep down for as long as possible. But he’s finally at his limit, and it’s about to blow.
“…I’m gonna…” he mutters under his breath.
“Huh?” Tifa gives him a worried look. “Cloud, what did you say?”
“I’m gonna kill her,” he repeats through gritted teeth.
Now everyone blinks, completely taken aback. “Her”? Not Sephiroth?
“I’m gonna #*&%$@% KILL HER!!” he erupts out of nowhere. He jumps back to his feet and shoves the others out of the way, drawing his sword forward. “Ruby? Rubia? I don’t give a shit anymore! They’re all dead!!” He starts swinging his weapon wildly in the air just to vent out that excess energy.
“Cloud!” Tifa cries. “Wait!”
“Calm down!” Aerith does too.
While those two rush on over to stop him, Barret simply stares with a disturbed frown. “Definitely not sane.”
“I don’t care what powers she has or what she does now! If I see her again, I’m burying her myself!”
“Cloud, please!” Tifa pleads, “Don’t say that!”
“It’s okay, Cloud! It’s not what it seems!” Aerith insists.
“Then WHAT!?” he seethes. “What the hell just happened, huh!? Ruby didn’t just doom our entire damn world!?”
“Well, I mean… I don’t know what Ruby was thinking, but…”
“She WASN’T! That’s the problem!!”
“…”
He makes another frustrated series of swings, hitting nothing but air, but it throws him a bit further away again. Before they can follow, he even ends his combo by leaping high and landing a hard Braver without context. But even then, he won’t calm down. The ladies come up again while he’s still panting heavily.
“Damn it… Damn it all! DAMN you, Ruby!! What was all that at the temple then!?” Even with his grip tight on his hilt, he’s still shaking. “I thought I did something… I thought I finally reached you! I thought, just maybe… I could even save you…”
“Cloud…” Tifa mumbles sympathetically. Even her eyes are starting to water.
“Cloud, it’s not too late. We can still save her,” Aerith suggests.
“Shut up!!” he snaps back. “If she wanted it, then she wouldn’t have done this stupid shit! She’s hopeless!”
“I know she did wrong. I’m sure she’ll realize it too. But we can’t give up on her just because she made mistakes.”
He heaves a heavy exhale. “I’ve had it with her! No matter how many times I try to talk, she just doesn’t get it! That’s why she keeps making these dumb mistakes!”
“It doesn’t matter how many times. We just have to keep trying.”
“Well, I’m not! I don’t care anymore!”
“Cloud, please. Ruby’s suffering so much right now. We have to help her.”
“She can go to hell! Why do we have to do so much for her sake, huh!?”
Aerith hangs her head. “Because there’s only one of her… She’s my long lost cousin.”
“She’s gonna be lost, alright! We don’t need another Cetra!”
At that moment, Tifa smacks him in the face and he goes quiet in an instant. He stares at her in shock. She’s trembling too and now glaring at him, but with much more disappointment to her eyes. He also looks back to Aerith, who isn’t looking at him anymore as if she’s trying to hide her tears.
“Cloud… take a walk. You need to cool off,” Tifa orders.
He returns her a betrayed look of his own, but shuts his eyes and accepts responsibility. “…Sorry,” he mutters toward Aerith.
He looks back around at the others, who are likewise watching him cautiously. Red looks so disappointed in him too. Yuffie stares in disbelief, but looks away to avoid eye contact. Barret straight up looks like he’s gonna rip his head off. In his shame, he sheathes his sword and walks off. He even starts climbing back up the wall and heads off into the forest.
“Hey! Where’s he going?” Elena asks, throwing out a hand his way.
“Leave him,” Reno answers, shaking his head. “He’s not gonna get far on his own anyway.”
“Hmm…” She folds her arms, looking concerned as well, but decides not to get into it.
Meanwhile, back down in the hole, Tifa checks with Aerith. “You okay?”
Aerith wipes her eyes and pulls back up with a nod. “I’m okay. I know he didn’t mean it.”
Tifa sighs and gives her a rub on the back. “Even then, that was way over the line. I know he’s upset, but he can’t go taking it out on anyone else.”
“Well, let’s give him some space.” Aerith gives her a worried look. “How are you holding up, Tifa?”
She blinks. “Huh? Me?”
“Yeah.” Aerith lowers her head again. “I think we all should take some time to cool off, actually.”
“…” Tifa turns away with a guilty look as well. “Yeah… I’ll apologize to him too. Didn’t have to get physical.”
“No, it’s okay, Tifa. I think if it wasn’t you, Barret might have come up and knocked him out.”
They turn back to the others, who have all gathered at the bottom as well and are now exchanging some very awkward looks with each other and sharing their sympathies with Aerith. As much as they also wanted to intervene, no one seemed to have an idea of what to do other than let it play out. In any case, they got no reason to keep hanging around here, so head back up together.
Back up on the ledge, Rufus decides that they’ve been here long enough and they should be going. He turns back to the Turks and gives them another objective.
“Anyway… with Ruby out of the way, we can finally get to work on capturing Avalanche and their allies. Reno, Rude, Elena.”
“Sir!” They all salute him.
“Stick around and see to it that the Highwind is recaptured. The last thing we need is for this bunch of drama artists to roam around with my ship and cause more trouble.”
“W-whoa, there!” Cait Sith objects, throwing up his arms as Moogle does the same. He comes bounding up with a suggestion, “Even if you think so, can’t ye at least give us a bit more time? Seeing Ruby’s betrayal and all has really winded us up a tightwad and all…”
“And for your info, that’s MY ship you’re talkin’ about, asshole!” Cid complains as well.
Rufus folds his arms. “I’m sorry, Mr. Highwind, but I believe you’ve resigned from the company at this point, so that ship is no longer under your ownership.”
Cid points his polearm his way, but the Turks slide in just in case to stop him from getting any closer. “You wanna say that to my face without your damn cheerleaders? It’s still got my name on it!”
Vincent glares as well. “Even the Turks wouldn’t be enough to contain all of us. How do you expect to take the Highwind when Sephiroth has cleanly dissembled the rest of your forces?”
Rufus slowly shakes his head. “You seem to be under a mistaken assumption that those were all the forces we brought.”
“Hm?”
Now that he has a chance to bring it up, he whips out a small remote from his pocket and presses a button. He then looks up toward the sky as if awaiting something, and the others turn to look. The same helicopter that had earlier brought the president and professor along has returned overhead. It had briefly disappeared to a safe distance when Sephiroth was out and about, but now that the coast is clear again, it flies on by again to unload just one more passenger. As soon as the helicopter nears a clearing by the ledge, the door opens and this late arrival leaps out without even lowering the ladder.
It’s another Soldier, and judging by that tightly sealed helmet, it’s a Class-I. However, this one happens to be female with just a tuft of ginger hair poking out from the back of her head. She comes bearing a custom bayonet rifle that doubles as a sniper, rather than the standard sword. She nails a perfect landing by the three Turks and stands ready with rifle aimed.
“Hmph! About time, ya slowpoke!” Elena complains.
But to be honest, the Turks are all pretty relieved now that much of their workload is lifted. Without Ruby or Sephiroth around to stop them, the Class-I Soldiers are still pretty much a guarantee that they won’t be beat by anyone else.
“Uh… Vincent?” Cait Sith suggests nervously, “Ye don’t mind changing back to your beast form, would ye?”
Vincent begrudgingly admits, “I can’t pull it out on a whim. And even if I do, I won’t be able to keep this kind of Soldier away… especially that she wields a gun too.”
He sinks. “Yeah… that’s what I thought too.”
Cid growls. “Not with that attitude. All we gotta do is send her flyin’ and then make our getaway!”
Vincent glares at him. “After the last encounters you’ve had, you still wish to challenge them?”
“Like I told the kid, I didn’t hear no bell.”
“…”
Yet, even with tensions at an all-time high, with the two sides about to break out into a fray, they’re all interrupted by Aerith’s voice calling out.
“Wait! We don’t have to fight!”
By now, the rest of the party has arrived to join the three still up here. Yuffie and Red make it up first and help Aerith pull up, while Tifa and Sonon help lift Barret up and over the ledge.
“Hey! What are you saying, Aerith?” Cid complains, “There’s only one of those pain-in-the-ass Soldiers here! I’m sure we can all gang up on them!”
But Aerith shakes her head. “No, it’s not that.” She then turns back toward Rufus and Hojo, who have remained as detached from everything since the big show came to an end. “It’s about Ruby… or rather, Rubia.”
“Huh?”
With a serious frown, she addresses those two, “Hey. Are you sure we should be fighting now? Rubia and Sephiroth have disappeared and the planet is going to be in danger if we don’t do anything. We shouldn’t be wasting time quarreling over old grudges. If anything, it’s even more important that we show Rubia that this world really is worth saving.”
Rufus raises an eyebrow, somewhat impressed that she’d take a stand at a time like this. “Do you think that cutting our losses and letting you all go free would help show that?”
Her frown falters a bit, as she is still unsure. “Well, it wouldn’t hurt our chances if we can prove that even the worst enemies can set aside their differences even if just for a bit.”
He shakes his head in disappointment. “Even if they’re coming from you, those words aren’t as deep as you may think they are, considering your odds right now.”
“…”
“I don’t think I need to remind you that Shinra won’t negotiate with terrorists…” His eyes then light up a bit when he suggests, “That said, I can still make an exception and turn a blind eye just this once, assuming that you’d be willing to turn yourself in.”
Barret interrupts him, “Not a chance in hell! You might as well wish that your whole damn company goes mako-free first!”
Paying him no mind, Rufus adds, “On the other hand, we really only need to capture you, preferably unharmed. The rest of your friends can be disposed of in whatever manner would be most convenient.”
Unhappy to be ignored, Barret raises his gun toward him. “You wish! You’re gonna have to dispose way more company assets before we’re ever outta your hair!”
“Barret, wait,” Aerith cuts him off instead, raising a calming hand toward him.
“Huh?” He lowers his gun out of obligation.
She then answers Rufus, “For the record, I’m not going back to Shinra if you’re just going to put me in another test tube. You’ll have to do a lot better to make me help you. But…” She lowers her head with a touch of guilt on her face. “So many things have changed so fast, and I feel a bit lost in it all. One moment, with my cousin by my side, the world would be our oyster; and the next, she left and I’m all alone again.”
Tifa frowns, offering her condolences. “Aerith…”
Aerith folds her hands together, her fingers loosely intertwined. “To be honest, I don’t know what I should be doing now. Maybe I’m not even cut out to handle all this business with Rubia and Sephiroth and the planet’s crisis… But what I do know is that I want my cousin back.” She looks back up and glances around for the rest of the party, who now all give her their own looks of concern. “Of course, I’m really, truly grateful that I have you all, but it still feels like we’ll need all the help we can get.” She turns back to Rufus with more resolve. “So, I think it would be for the best for everyone that we keep up this ceasefire for now.”
Now all her friends are caught by surprise and they share some shocked, wary looks with one another. Despite it being Aerith who is suggesting as much, not everyone is ready to just let bygones be.
“Look, Aerith, I know you’re still hurtin’ over her and all, but you don’t really think teaming up with Shinra of all people is gonna end well, do you?” Barret offers his concerns.
“Yeah! We’d be better off asking our provisional government for help!” Yuffie argues too. “They might even let us back in since she’s not around.”
Aerith gives a quiet sigh. “I know it’s a tough pill to swallow. Even I’m not really sure if this is the best way forward either. But I don’t know if we have another choice.”
“We got lots of choices! Loads of people out there who hate Shinra!”
“And all the more that there will be, considering their track record,” Red agrees.
“Even if our provisional government isn’t the most stable right now, they’ll no doubt be willing to lend us a hand if we explain the situation,” Sonon suggests as well.
“Yeah, screw Shinra. They wasted 10 years of my life and stole my baby from me,” Cid interjects.
“Not to mention, all the towns they blew up or burned down ’cause of some shit with their reactors,” Barret growls, having been reminded.
Aerith passes a nervous look around the crew and hangs her head in shame. Cait Sith comes up to her on Moogle and gives her a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. Tough crowd they got here, but it’s only expected.
But as loathed as she is at the idea of working with Shinra, Tifa instead steps up and takes a stand for Aerith. “Guys, I’m sure we’re not hurting for allies, but Aerith is right. It’s not going to help us if we’re always butting heads with Shinra. The last thing we need is to show Rubia how we can’t resolve our conflicts.”
Barret’s eyes grow wide. “Tifa, even you?”
She lowers her head. “I know. It still makes my stomach turn just thinking about it, but we’re running out of time.” She then raises it again with her own determined face. “We still have to get Ruby back and that won’t happen if we always have to run from Shinra. This just makes things easier.” She turns back to Aerith with a reassuring smile, and the latter returns her with a grateful one.
Aerith follows up, “And after all is said and done, if we still can’t resolve those conflicts, then we can get back to the good fight after we’ve convinced Rubia.”
Barret looks like he’s still got something to say, but then decides to pull back and concede for now. “…Still don’t trust Shinra one bit, but if it’s just for puttin’ up some kum-ba-yah vibes for Rubia, then maybe we can play along.”
The ladies make relieved smiles. “Thanks, Barret,” Aerith says. And they turn toward the rest with hopeful eyes.
Barret also looks around and raises a determined fist. “Hey, ya’ll! The hell are we doin’ wasting time in a place like this? Shinra’s still the scum of the planet, but we got way more important things to do than clean up some scum! We gotta get Ruby back!”
And with that simple reminder, the rest of the party catch on and share some awkward glances. One by one, they start to change their minds and come forward.
Red is first. “That’s true. We can’t consider ourselves ready for the good fight without all of us together.”
Vincent is next. “I’m sure we all have some obligations to fulfill and she was the one who brought us this far. There would be little point in proceeding without her.”
“Red! And Vincent!” Aerith cheers.
Yuffie frowns, still feeling a bit stubborn. “I still don’t get why we can’t just keep avoiding Shinra like always…”
Sonon then reminds her, “It was way easier with Ruby, you know.”
“I know…” She lets out a sigh through flubbering lips. “Fine. But just because it’s a ceasefire doesn’t mean we’re working with them! We’re just gonna promise not to bother beating them up until Ruby’s back!”
He nods along. “Exactly what I was thinking.”
Now Cid looks around the crowd, rubbing his head awkwardly. “Damn… Now ya’ll are getting me switching it up too.” He then brings up a fist and gently knocks it against his chest. “Anyway, as always, if ya got some place to go, I’m your man.”
Aerith looks around at everyone with bright, hopeful eyes and lets out a cute giggle again. She takes Tifa by the hands and shakes them as thanks, and the latter responds with her own relieved chuckle.
And in the midst of all this dramatic tension and release into unity, Rufus and his Turks have all been standing by idly and taking no part in any of it. By now, Hojo isn’t even looking their way and has gone back to scheming to himself. But as it looks like they’ve settled things, Rufus clears his throat to get their attention again.
“In any case… I take it that we finally have an agreement? That you will turn yourself in and guide us to the Promised Land?”
Aerith turns back to him with a serious frown again. “Sorry, but truth be told, I don’t really know where that is.”
“…”
She then suggests, “But I’m sure if we follow Rubia, she will be able to. She’s Cetra like me, after all. But with even more ancient ties.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Well, that’s a tall order. She’s not exactly the most approachable being at this point.”
“But she won’t lay a finger on anyone if I’m there,” she insists. “I should go meet her at the capital. She’ll listen to me.”
“Oh?” He now makes an curious look, though is yet to smile. “Interesting… You say you can be our messenger? But from the look of things so far, it doesn’t seem like she particularly cares about you either.”
“No, it’s the opposite, actually. I’m the only one who can speak with her on equal terms. I also know where the capital she mentioned is. No matter what, I have to be there.”
“…” He gives it a bit more thought and glances around toward the rest, and noting the sheer lack of other potential candidates among them, he then turns back to her and concedes, “Well, fine. You are our best bet, all things considered.”
She relaxes, looking a little relieved. “Thank you.”
“But don’t be mistaken,” he then adds further conditions, “Considering how your merry band of misfits have put this entire world at risk, I expect you all to take responsibility.”
Barret throws up an angry fist his way. “Don’t throw it all on us! Shinra hasn’t done shit to help this world either! Ya’ll take responsibility too!”
Nevertheless, Aerith answers firmly, “We’ll do all that we can to fix this.”
Rufus remains unimpressed. “I hope that means you have a plan?”
She nods back. “I do. My mother once told me that even in the face of a threat like Meteor, our ancestors had a way to defend themselves.” She reaches a hand for the bow atop her head and draws forth a small white materia no larger than a billiard ball and then explains, “This White Materia can call on Holy to be our shield.”
“Holy?” He nods as well. “Ah. I think I remember reading something about that before. So, how is it supposed to work?”
“It’s a special kind of materia that will only respond if the planet is truly in an otherwise hopeless crisis.” She then clutches it and returns it to its place. “I haven’t ever been able to confirm it, but if there’s any time like that, it would be now. And as it happens, the capital up north has a certain place where I can try calling it.”
He sets a hand to his chin, raising an eyebrow. “I see… But isn’t that where Rubia will be waiting for you? Are you sure that it’s safe to go?”
“Yes. As long as I’m there, it’ll be okay. She won’t attack if she doesn’t see a reason to.”
“Hmm…” Though he still isn’t too sure on all the details so far, he has to concede that this shaky plan is probably the best that they have at this point. So he nods along and offers a hand forward. “Fine. In that case, allow us to take you there.”
She blinks in surprise. “Oh. You’re going to give me a ride?”
“Of course. You said you have to be there, didn’t you? So I’ll grant you this permission. That is still my ship you’re using, you know.”
“You mean MY ship. It’s got my freakin’ name…” Cid grumbles, only to be ignored as well.
Aerith nods back solemnly. “Alright.” Then she adds one more proposal, “But only on one condition: My friends will also join me there. All of them.” She gives him a stern stare to emphasize that last point.
Rufus gives her a disappointed look as if he had expected as much.
“It won’t hurt my chances to talk with Rubia either. If anything, they’ll be able to put in a good word too.”
But then Elena interrupts, “Hey. I get that you’re the Cetra and you get special treatment and all, but if you think we can just let you all run free just because you ask nicely, you’d better think again!”
Nonetheless, now that Aerith brings it up, Rufus starts to think it over again. Normally he would never be inclined to negotiate with terrorists, but he has to admit that he is curious to see how things would develop. As much as he’d loathe to let Avalanche run off with his personal airship again, they would still be a better fit for a potentially dangerous mission such as this. After all, if things don’t go smoothly after all, then all the blame can just be put on their shoulders for failing.
So, he obliges her request: “…Alright. I’ll allow it.”
“What!? I mean, Sir!” Elena blurts out.
He adds to clarify, “But only when Ms. Gainsborough is ready to head off to that capital. As we only have three days to work out a company-wide contingency plan, we’ll have to be sure that we’re all on the same page. And that means Avalanche and their allies aren’t allowed to run around on their own anymore.”
Barret growls, gripping his gun-arm tightly. “Bastard… he still thinks he can tell us what to do?”
Cait Sith kindly reminds him, “Easy there, man. Like Aerith said, we should be working on keeping those conflicts on the down low.”
He turns his glare on him too. “I heard her too, cat. Doesn’t mean I’m gonna stand here and take his bullshit.”
He backs off a bit. “Y-yeah… Just makin’ sure and all…”
The helicopter from earlier has now descended and awaits the return of its precious passengers. Rufus prepares to head off, but first turns back to his Turks and leaves them with one final order.
“For now, we’re returning back to base. The Ancient will come with us to HQ, but the rest will be sent to the underground penitentiary until they’re ready to join her at the ancient capital. The three of you will stay back with the Soldier and supervise them to make sure they follow along.”
“Sir!” All three Turks salute him at once.
And with that settled, Rufus heads off to climb back on his ride, with Hojo following shortly. Rude steps forward, albeit in a gentlemanly manner, to help take Aerith along and guide her toward their awaiting ride. Reno and Elena remain on guard to watch the others. Even the silent Soldier raises her rifle their way as a silent threat. But at this point, with Aerith being taken away again, the rest have lost all remaining fiery, rebellious spirit. It’s all for her sake that they’re playing along for the time being.
These next three days are gonna be a real chaotic mess.
Notes:
Shout out to Machinabridged.
Outdated A/N
Also, I will admit that the scene in the beginning with the arrival of all the forces was inspired by the brief footage we got in one of Rebirth's later trailers. Though at this point, even the LP I am currently following has reached up to the point of no return before the Temple of the Ancients, so I'm just about caught up in terms of the trailer stuff. From here on out, I'm going completely blind.
I mean, it's got nothing to do with the direction of this fic, but ya know, saying it here so you all know what you can talk about without spoiling me up to that point.
Chapter 62: To Forgive, Divine
Notes:
Outdated A/N
As of this chapter's posting, I have officially started the beginning parts of the Temple of the Ancients in the Rebirth LP that I'm following, so here's hoping that I get to see how weird and wacky things get from here! As usual, no spoilers to the ending.
6/17/24 edit: Next chapter is done, with just a bit of proofreading to do left! Will post tomorrow.
Also, I forgot to mention, but I have officially finished Rebirth, so I am happy to take any and all speculation for the third game! Needless to say, I have no idea where they're gonna take things, but I'm excited regardless of whether or not it'll be a dumpster fire, heh. Knowing Square, we may be expecting the next game by 2027/8. Hopefully the former so we can celebrate the 30th anniversary of FF7!
I swear I will be finished with this fic by then. It's gone on long enough and I still have quite a bit of the story left! Final chapter count may change, but I'll wait and see.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Drastic times call for drastic measures. At the conference room of Shinra HQ, Rufus has called an emergency meeting with his fellow executives to discuss the matters of the ancient dragoness and her awaiting judgment at the northern capital. However, the discussion would shortly turn sour as not everyone in attendance can agree on what would be the best approach moving forward.
“With all due respect, sir… We only have three days?” Heidegger complains with his rage just barely contained. “That’s barely enough time to mobilize a single platoon, needless to say lay out a plan of attack! Avalanche might as well have signed our death warrants!”
“Bah. You can keep your sluggish forces on standby. Three days is more than enough to develop and deploy new weapons for the job,” Scarlet argues. “We could easily take out that runaway lizard with just the right firepower.”
“Hmph! You expect some measly guns to even dent a dragon’s scales? This is a job for Soldier!”
“And what Soldiers do you even have? Surely I don’t need to remind you that 1st-Class is nearly running on empty these days. And don’t even bother mobilizing the lower classes.”
“Our numbers are more than enough! We can easily send several to scout the location and lay siege until our greater forces can build up.”
“Oh, please. They’d be wiped in a few seconds! If you’re going to throw away precious manpower, you might as well toss them to R&D’s test tubes.”
“At least they’ll still be more useful than your machines becoming scrap!”
Rufus interrupts, “Enough. We don’t need to develop any new weapons or even send in Soldier. We can just use the resources we have on hand. The Ancient has already suggested that she and her friends will lead the vanguard. We’ll first wait and see how well their diplomacy will stack.”
Heidegger sits at attention and raises a hand. “Sir, this isn’t a matter that we can just play nice and let things fly over!” He balls up that hand into a fist to shake it. “This dragon has declared war on the entire world! We should respond in kind!”
“If you wish to be the one to sign our death warrants, then by all means, Heidegger. But I’m savvy enough to not underestimate our foe. One wrong move and it could bring the entire planet to ruin.”
Heidegger grumbles to himself, but goes quiet.
“Of course, it would be foolhardy to just let Cloud and them approach Rubia without anything to backup their words. So, I propose that we prepare to take aim at her ourselves, just as a precaution.”
“Take aim, sir?” Scarlet then suggests with a snooty upper lip, “So, we will be sending in weapons after all?”
“We’ll be ‘sending in’ a message from afar, one so great that even she won’t be able to avoid.” Rufus then sits forward and brings his hands together. “Scarlet, how is the mako cannon currently situated? Will it be possible to move it?”
She blinks in surprise. In fact, they all do, with Palmer doing it a few more times for good measure. Is this young and brash president of theirs really suggesting what it sounds like he’s suggesting?
Scarlet then reveals a dry smirk. “It’s currently pointed westward toward Wutai, but perhaps we could put it to better use. Where shall we be moving it to?”
“Midgar. Link it up with every reactor in this city. The resulting power should be more than enough to destroy an entire mountain ridge several times over. We’re going to bury this beast in her own city if we have to.”
Heidegger then lets out an amused snort and folds his arms. “So we are going to fight after all? You almost had us going there, sir.”
While the others seem mildly uncomfortable at worst, Reeve has been stewing in frustration in silence up to this point. But now that things have come to this, he has to speak up. He too raises his hand to call attention. “Mr. President, a moment if you please.”
Rufus sits back, looking bored even before he’s said a thing. “Yes, Tuesti?”
“Are you sure about this? Setting up a cannon that large over this city would have many troubling consequences! For starters, wouldn’t it send the wrong message to Rubia? The last thing we need to do is approach her with any semblance of violence.”
“As I said, this is a precaution. I would much rather leave everything to Ms. Gainsborough since she seems so confident. But on the offchance that things do go awry, we wouldn’t simply be sitting ducks awaiting some holier-than-thou judgment.”
Reeve clenches up his hand too. “I understand as much, but it’s still much too risky. Not to mention, the logistics of transporting and setting up that cannon over this city within three days would be a nightmare! As well as the fact that the people of Midgar will be without power while the cannon is in operation…”
“The process can be expedited, can’t it?” Rufus instead asks Scarlet.
“Hmph.” She offers a reassuring smile. “Naturally. Given the circumstances, keeping all those Soldiers out on patrol would be a waste. With their help, we’d have plenty of manpower to help with that. Three days is more than enough.”
“Then get to it. The sooner we’re prepared, the better.”
But Reeve isn’t giving in just yet. “Sir, again, I must stress that we rethink this plan! What do we do if this cannon isn’t enough to stop Rubia? We would just doom the entire planet!”
Rufus turns back to him with an ever unimpressed stare. “Considering that the worst case scenario seems probable anyway just around the corner, I would rather take our chances with this than simply putting all our bets on Cloud and them.” He also raises an eyebrow. “Unless of course, you have another idea that can better our odds?”
“…” As much as he’d hate to admit, he really has no idea of how to ensure the best, most peaceful outcome. Nonetheless, he insists, “Sir, please give me some time. I’m still in contact with them, so I would be in a better position to gauge how things will go.”
“Reeve, let me remind you that we only have three days. You’re free to keep an eye on them as always, but we can’t be expected to wait on your call and then decide whether or not to ship this cannon. Surely you of all people would understand the nightmare we’d have if we don’t get started on this earlier.”
“…”
“Until you or anyone else can give a better suggestion, this will be the backup plan,” Rufus concludes matter-of-factly, finally silencing Reeve.
But now that he also mentions it, Heidegger then raises another question. “Incidentally, sir, if that is the ‘backup’ plan, surely we can still do better than just throwing the Ancient at the other Ancient and calling it there? What if our Ancient doesn’t get through to the dragon and is ended right then and there?”
“That is the other part of the plan while we wait.” Finally, he turns toward the back where a certain scientist has been sitting back idly and barely paying attention. “Hojo, are the preparations ready? For the new ARC experiments.”
Now he sits up at attention and readjusts his glasses. “Of course, Mr. President. The procedure can begin as soon as you grant the order.”
Rufus nods back without a single note of regret. “You have my permission. I’ve already left it to Tseng to file, so you may proceed.”
Hojo then makes a subtle smile and begins to chuckle to himself. “Very well. I assure you that the procedure won’t take even a day to complete. We’ll just be needing Aerith’s cooperation, though I’m sure she won’t hesitate to take this chance to become ‘closer’ to her precious cousin.”
The other executives then exchange confused and awkward glances with one another. Though they weren’t informed of all the details that this mad scientist has been up to lately, they would rather remain ignorant until he’s ready to provide results.
And in this awkward silence, finally Palmer sits up and raises his own hand. “Oh, Mr. President! So now that we’ve gotten all that squared away, can we discuss the matter of incorporating the space program into the budget?”
“…” As tempted as Rufus is to ignore him, he does actually grant him an answer: “It’s still on hold.”
“B-but, sir! Surely, with the proper funding, the space division may still be do something? You know, just in case that dragon goes and summons Meteor and all…”
“Not to worry. Our Ancient has that covered. More specifically, she has the means to summon Holy, which will protect the planet from that threat. What we’re more concerned with is the dragon herself.”
“Ah… Of course, sir.” Palmer falls back into a disappointed slump. Well, maybe some other time, then.
~
Aerith sits on her bed in the old room where she and her mother first stayed in Shinra HQ. As she had asked of Rufus, she refused to get back into another test tube, so they relegated her to this room instead. Ultimately, she’s still well within range of Hojo’s main lab, but thanks to all the damage that Ruby had caused some days ago, it’s still largely undergoing repairs and the floor is filled with construction workers supervised by the other scientists. However, she still worries what Hojo may have in store for her. There’s no way that they’d bring her back here only to give her a slightly cushier place to stay for the next few days.
Now that she’s returned to this place, she takes another peek toward the old drawing on the wall she made since she was very young. It was a project that took her many, many months of piecing everything together bit by bit. At first it was just the usual tales of the Cetra living in harmony with the planet that came to mind, and then at one point, that peace was broken by an entire century of conflicts and wars. And at the helm of one of those wars was the terrifying battles between Bahamut and Tiamat, whose powers and gathered forces had grown to such extremes that they alone could risk destroying the entire planet. There are many different groups that surround the two, the forces of balance, marked by the lighter and brighter contrast of colors, versus the forces of disorder, marked by the darker, duller, more insidious-looking shades. But in the end, a lot of it is also really vague and much of these figures are clad in a shadowy blur. She didn’t really understand it when she was young, just coloring things in a way that “felt right”, and even now, she struggles to understand how these Great Cetran Wars had come to pass.
But an odd caveat in the greater tale of war is another smaller scene elsewhere in her mural: one of a small white dragon fending off a white wolf much bigger than her. At first, one may look at it and think the two are fighting one another. And yet, when little Aerith first drew that scene, it didn’t really come off to her that they were really trying to kill each other or anything. It was more like a friendly rivalry, like a sparring match, between two friends.
She turns away again to drift into her thoughts. Though the context may be totally different, that relationship between Rubia and Fenrir isn’t too far from how she’s seen of Ruby and Cloud. It’s hard to imagine that the four aren’t connected in some way, but it’s still unclear exactly how they are. While it seems obvious enough that Rubia and Fenrir were close, Aerith was never sure of how close they were. Likewise, as much as they all put their faith in Ruby, it turns out that the gal herself couldn’t trust herself or anyone else to do what she needed to do. There’s so much assumption that’s been going on and not enough honest communication. That needs to change. Someone has to step in and talk with Rubia.
Her thoughts are then interrupted when she hears a knock on the door. Though still a little apprehensive, she gets back up to answer it. An assistant scientist, a woman with short black hair and likewise dressed in a lab coat, has arrived to check on her. She looks a bit like a nurse with that folder and clipboard in hand.
“Aerith Gainsborough? We have a blood test scheduled for you. If you would come with me, I’ll take you to the infirmary.”
“A blood test?” She tilts her head. “But I’ve had blood tests in this place before. I don’t think you would need my blood again?”
“It’s a preliminary step before we proceed with the following tests,” the assistant explains, referring to her folder of papers.
“The following tests…?” Now Aerith is getting a bit of a sinking feeling in her gut. As she suspected, Hojo is up to no good as always.
“Yes. I’ve been informed that you will be participating in a series of tests held up in the Drum, but we need to prepare you first. You’ll be undergoing the proper treatment.”
“Um… what ‘proper treatment’?”
“Hmm…” The assistant reviews over her papers once more and then decides it should be fine to inform her. She looks back up and explains, “I believe the Professor mentioned he would be resuming the ARC experiments. Given recent developments, he’s pushed up the dates for when you would be integrated into them.”
“W-what?” Aerith even steps back a bit in shock. “I’m gonna be a part of the ARC stuff!?” She then asks more cautiously, “Um, is that why I need a blood test? So you all will be able to use it for the experiments?”
“Ah… Actually, I think the blood test is to help preserve the control state before the experiments begin.”
Aerith sinks into a discouraged slump. “Oh. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy…”
“In any case, please come with me. We’re running on a tight schedule now, so we can’t be late.”
Without much to do here anyway, Aerith obliges and steps out the room after the assistant. As much as she’d hate to get involved again with any part of this lab again, she doesn’t want to take out her frustration on the people who are just working day jobs here. It’s too bad, but she probably won’t be getting an in-person interview with Hojo unless he keeps her in another tank again. She just hopes that things won’t go too wrong. Cloud and the others are waiting for her, after all.
~
Cloud sits on the floor, alone in a cell, staring up at the ceiling. The rest of his friends have been secluded each to their own as well. Sooner or later, they’ll be getting a move on for the Forgotten City to the north. But he isn’t looking forward to it in the least.
Poor Aerith. He sinks back into a depressed slump and falls against the wall behind him, feeling a deep regret sweep over him. Ruby’s latest disappearance struck them all pretty hard, but it seemed to strike her the hardest. And even then, he couldn’t calm down and lashed out at her too even though she didn’t do anything wrong or even provoke him. Of all the people for him to lash out at, why did it have to be her?
Well, truth be told, he was feeling pretty helpless and especially angry at himself. It wasn’t just Ruby who was at fault; it was also him. With his memories of his past cleared up, he thought he’d already gotten over the whole issue with understanding himself, but apparently not. Sephiroth took over his mind and puppeted him like always as if he wasn’t even trying. Cloud was actually going to give him the Black Materia if not for Ruby going her own way, and even then Sephiroth didn’t seem too fazed by her last act of defiance. In the end, everyone but those two lost, and Cloud himself was just thrown about like a toy in it all. He couldn’t do a damn thing.
“…I’m sorry, Cloud…”
He pulls his head back up and blinks in surprise. That was Tifa’s voice. It’s muffled, but definitely hers. He turns to face the wall and presses up to it. He then calls out, “Tifa? Are you there?”
“Cloud?” She is indeed just across this surprisingly thin cell wall. “You okay?”
“Yeah… more or less.”
“Thank goodness. We were all separated when we were sent down here, so I wasn’t sure if we’d still be able to meet up and talk.”
“…” He sits back down, leaning against the wall. “To be honest… I’m not sure if any of you would want to talk with me. Not after what happened with Aerith…”
Tifa goes silent, but her silence is more contemplative than distant.
He plants a hand over his face, shaking his head in shame. “I know I was an idiot. I shouldn’t have blown up like that, especially on her.” He drops his hand and stares off again. “When we meet again, I should apologize for real.”
“It’s okay, Cloud. She understands and doesn’t blame you for anything.”
“…”
“We were all upset, but you even had to deal with Sephiroth on top of everything with Ruby.”
“Didn’t really ‘deal’ with him at all, though…”
“You know what I mean. It was too much to take at once. No wonder you blew up.”
“Still, I crossed the line. Should make it up to her somehow.” He hangs his head. “Just wish I knew what I can do.”
“Hmm… Well, she really wants to see her cousin again, so we could try helping her with that.”
“Uh, yeah… Still working on that.”
They meet with an awkward silence as neither one is sure of what to say at this point.
Out of curiosity, he then brings up the question, “Hey, why are you apologizing? I’m the one who did wrong.”
“Ah…” After a hesitant pause, she then answers, “For putting so much on you, I guess.”
“Putting what on me?”
“Ruby. Watching over her, checking with her whenever she’s having trouble, and all that.”
He raises an eyebrow, feeling a bit puzzled to hear that from her. “Don’t apologize. It would have happened anyway. She just gets in my face so much I can’t ignore her.”
“But we – Aerith, me, and all the others – also took it for granted that you would, and that’s why I want to apologize.”
He turns her way again with a sympathetic frown. “Tifa…”
“I figured that if anyone was up to the task, it would be you. You and Ruby have gotten pretty close and all, even though you didn’t know each other for that long.”
He turns away again and shakes his head. “No, not really. I thought we did, but when I really think about it, I don’t know her that well. She’s kept so many secrets from me even when we have our private conversations. Every time it’s like racking through the coals just to get her to admit to some things.”
“Really? I thought you were always so critical with her because you knew what was really going on.”
“I was critical of her from the start. She just butted into our business one day and stuck around for this long.”
“…”
He then admits, “But then I came to think that she wasn’t trying to deceive anyone. She was just that confused about herself, so I tried not to hold it against her.” He adds with a grumble, “But now, who knows what’s the truth? Is she really who she says she is? Or is she actually just a puppet of Rubia after all?”
“Cloud…” Tifa begins, but she isn’t sure what to say to that. Even she has the same questions.
There’s another awkward silence as they think over Rubia and their plans moving forward.
“I don’t get it,” he says aloud.
“Get what?”
“Why Aerith couldn’t reach Rubia until just earlier. It took until Ruby gave herself up that Rubia finally showed.”
Tifa takes a moment to think it over too.
“I always thought it was something to do with Sephiroth, like he blocked off any communication that Aerith tried to have with Ruby. But when did he get the power to do that?”
“To be honest, I’m not really sure how he’s still alive, needless to say, how he’s become that powerful.”
“Probably because of Jenova…” He then looks down at his hand with a bitter frown. “But if that’s the case, then I’m always gonna be a risk.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“Whenever anyone undergoes the Soldier treatment, it’s not just the mako we have to take. It’s also the J-cells that they inject in us. It’s supposed to give us some kind of supernatural strength and abilities, but it also causes our bodies to deteriorate a lot faster.” After a pause, he adds, “Well, I wasn’t actually in Soldier, but I went through a similar process – when Zack and I were trapped in Shinra Mansion for a few years.”
“Yeah… I think you mentioned it before. The bit with Zack, at least.”
He closes his hand into a fist so tight that he even shakes a little. “And because of that, Sephiroth has complete control over me. Hojo specifically used his type of cells for our experiments. Even if I try to fight his influence, I can’t stop it.”
“…”
He drops his hand with another sigh. “So it’s not that surprising things would turn out like this. Even if Ruby wasn’t misled by him or whatever, he would always have a backup plan anyway. He could just force me to do things for him, and I don’t think even Ruby can help there.”
“But if he didn’t trick her into working with him, she definitely would have tried to help you.”
“Yeah. Everything worked out just fine for him. It’s sickening.” He slowly shakes his head. “But there’s nothing I can do about it. He already won from the start. I’ve just been following along with his plans… Ruby and me, we both have.”
“Cloud…”
“So of course if I try to save her, I’d just end up messing it up somehow. Some hero I turned out to be…” He shuts his eyes and clutches his head tightly, feeling even more hopeless. “I shouldn’t even keep chasing him. Who knows what worse things might happen? He might even make things even harder for us when we do meet with Rubia.”
“Cloud. We don’t know what will happen, but we can’t just give up. We all have to go.”
“You guys are better off meeting her without me. I’ll just be a danger to everyone.”
“…”
They have yet another awkward and now much more depressed silence, but this time it’s Tifa who breaks the ice with some comforting suggestions.
“Hey, Cloud. Just the other day, Aerith told me something interesting.”
“…?” He now lets his head go and keeps listening.
“She said that even though she’s Cetra, she feels like you actually have a closer connection to Rubia than she does.”
He scoffs back, “In what way? I don’t understand her at all, and I don’t think she cares about me either.”
“Well, she said she isn’t that sure, but she senses that there’s something way more to your dynamic with either of them than just what it feels like on the surface.”
“…”
“So, if Aerith thinks so, then I want to believe her. Cloud, I think you’re the best one – maybe even the only one – who can reach Ruby and bring her back to us.”
He shakes his head. “Tifa, I just said why I shouldn’t go…”
“No, it has to be you. I’m sure Ruby knew it deep down as well. She always turned to you about her problems, even more than she did with Aerith or the rest of us.”
“That’s just because we were both influenced by Sephiroth.”
“I don’t know about that. I think she did it because she trusted you most of all.”
“…”
“And besides…” She then admits shyly, “I thought you two were really cute together back at the hotel.”
“…”
“Er, sorry. Aerith, Red, and I were around to see you and Ruby talk, when you asked her out. We couldn’t just wait in our rooms.”
He lets off a defeated sigh. “Forget it, Tifa. We were never meant to be a thing.”
“…” She pauses again before admitting, “For a moment there, I thought you two had a chance.”
“Huh?” He turns back toward her. “You did?”
“Yeah. Because of the way you two always hung out and talked and seemed to hit it off really fast, even back while we were still at Seventh Heaven.”
“Uh, no. We were the opposite of ‘hitting it off’. I wanted nothing to do with her.” He then follows up, “It wasn’t until way later that I started to come around. She just has that kind of personality that is really clingy and really, really annoying… but not in a bad way. I just never thought she would be anything more than… well, a really weird friend.”
“Hmm… Well, maybe I was reading a bit too much into it, but I got the feeling that she always wanted to be close with you, even if it wasn’t requited.”
“Maybe… But she always kept her distance. Told me that she didn’t want to get between… well, us.” He peeks back toward the wall as he adds that at the end.
“…”
He turns away again in pensive thought. “But… we aren’t that close either, are we, Tifa?”
“…I thought we were close enough, but now that you mention it, we haven’t been doing all that much together, huh?”
“Yeah… with everything going with between Ruby and Sephiroth and Shinra, we haven’t had the time.” He grumbles, “Honestly, it’s been getting on my nerves that Ruby always steals the spotlight. But now…” He takes another pause before also conceding, “Now that she isn’t here, I can’t help but feel like we’re missing something really important.”
“Yeah… I feel that too. It wasn’t just her who was clingy. We all came to cling to her.”
“We relied on her too much. It’s gotten to the point where it feels like we can’t do anything worth mentioning without her. Even now, we’re trapped in prison and she isn’t here to bust us out.”
“…”
“That’s why she always took up all our burdens as her own. She wanted to play the hero too, but then fell short.”
“…Yeah. Now that you bring it up, you guys do have a lot in common.”
He feels a little stung by that innocent comment. “I wish we didn’t have that in common. Feels like I have to compete with her all the time.”
“If anything, I think this bit of rivalry helps the both of you get stronger together. You guys are like the ultimate fighting duo.”
“If she isn’t sweeping everything before I can.”
“That’s, uh, beside the point.” Tifa emphasizes, “It’s because of things like this that we can’t go meet Rubia without you. You’re as much a part of us as Ruby is. Like I said, we have to do this together.”
“…”
He goes quiet again in deeper contemplation. As much as he wants to agree with her, he just can’t rub the doubts that have firmly entrenched themselves in his mind. What will really happen if he keeps following Ruby? What do they do if anything goes wrong? And what is he even supposed to do or say to Rubia to convince her to bring “Ruby” back, especially if the former refuses to see the latter as anything more than a cosmetic shell?
“Cloud, please. Whatever happens, promise me that you’ll be there.”
“…” He gives another sigh and replies wearily, “Alright. I promise.”
“Thanks, Cloud. Don’t worry. Even without Ruby, we’ll manage.” She also worries for their other dear friend. “And we’ll definitely get Aerith outta there.”
“…Yeah.” Even if he isn’t entirely convinced, he’s too exhausted to keep arguing.
Silence returns to the fold. Even if evening has just arrived, it feels like it’s been a long enough day already. Not like they have much to do in here but wait for Aerith anyway. While Cloud still isn’t ready to fall asleep, he forces himself to get off the floor and climb onto the bed on the other side of the cell.
Meanwhile, in her own cell, Tifa is sitting on bed, but she’s just as restless as he is. They’re trapped in Shinra’s hands right now, and even if they still have one more opportunity to set off for the awaiting ancient capital, it’s gonna be like trying to navigate a tightrope with nothing but their own wits. So many things that can go wrong, but all they can do is hope for the best. And knowing Shinra, they’ll probably try to stall for as long as possible before they finally drop off everyone into the fray, almost like they’re just being presented as sacrifices to a deity.
She balls up her fist that rests on the mattress in a firm grip, but lets it go again. Just waiting around here is precious time being wasted. Who knows what Rubia or especially Sephiroth are up to while they’re stuck here? If only there were some way for them to break out…
Wait a sec. Now that she thinks back to when they were all rounded up, weren’t there supposed to be more of them? It was kind of a rush when the Turks shoved them into this prison, where they were taken in by the prison staff, and then they were shortly scattered into individual cells. But amid that rush, she didn’t see where everyone went. She just knows that she and Barret were stuffed into this side of the prison. Apparently Cloud was brought in with them later. So what about the others? Are they all okay?
Tifa’s contemplative silence is shortly interrupted by a loud rattling from the cell door next to hers, as if something was knocking on it. Then, she’s startled again by the sounds of a few familiar voices.
“Barret! Tifa! Cloud! You guys in there!?”
“Hang tight! We’ll get you all out!”
Her eyes open wide. Those were Biggs and Wedge! And at this moment, she also hears the thundering steps of Barret as he rushes to his door and slams into it with a loud thud.
“Biggs!? Wedge!? It IS you guys! How’d you get here!?” he yells loud enough to be heard clearly even while muffled.
“Wouldn’t you believe it? We hit the lottery with this one!” Biggs jokes. “Nabbed ourselves a secret passage where security was extra light!”
“It’s our guys at HQ! We ran into them elsewhere in the sector!” Wedge exclaims excitedly. “They helped us find that passage!”
“WHAT? HQ’s still around and kickin’!?” Barret cries in shock with a touch of relief. “Damn, I thought all the things happening since we left woulda made it hell for them to stick around!” He also asks, “But how’d you guys escape to find ’em? I thought the Turks had us all locked up…”
Biggs answers, “Before they came aboard, Jessie, Wedge, and I hid in the artillery hold. The crew also helped cover for us so even the Turks didn’t suspect a thing. Sounds like they thought Sephiroth took us out or something.”
“We really owe it to the Highwind crew! Even if they’re still working for Shinra, they’ve stuck with us the entire time!”
“Thank the Gods!” Barret lets out a loud sigh of relief. “Really had me worried for a sec, ya’ll! Even I thought you were taken in by Shinra already!”
“Heh. Nah, you don’t gotta worry, Boss. We know our way around,” Wedge reassures him. “Say, are Cloud and Tifa with you?”
As if on cue, Tifa rushes to her door and calls out, “Guys, I’m here! Cloud’s in the next cell to mine. How is Jessie?”
“Oh! There’s Tifa!” Wedge responds, “Don’t worry! She’s just scouting the place right now and is helping keep an eye out for security!”
“But man, who woulda thunk it’d be this light?” Biggs remarks, still a little wary. “I would’ve thought they’d keep way more on watch, considering who’s being kept here.”
“Wait, what? Security is light!?” Barret makes a dangerous growl. “The hell is that supposed to mean? Are those assholes underestimating us!?”
“Actually, by the sounds of things, it was a total stroke of luck. A miracle that came from a miracle, so to speak.”
“Miracle?”
Wedge laughs and then explains, “You remember how on our first return trip to Midgar, Ruby hopped by Sector 5 and stirred up some chaos? Well, it turns out as a result of it, some of the troops that were supposed to be stationed in Sector 1 were relocated to replace those in 5. As a result, our guys from the other branch who were hiding in 4 were able to come here undetected.”
“But wait, it gets better!” Biggs also follows up, “Remember how Nayo’s gang was still investigating the incidents with the missing Midgardians? They met up with the other branch and worked together to search the area for any potential routes that could have been used to transport those people. And that’s what led them to find the motherload of secret passages – one that stretches out from the underground of Sector 0 to the edge of Sector 1. Seems like this was where the victims would have been delivered out of the city.”
“Fortunately, our guys were able to free the remaining prisoners and helped them get away, so they oughta be fine now!” Wedge explains, a bit more lighthearted. “Good thing security around here is pretty much gone.”
Biggs then wonders aloud, “I can only guess that since the jig was up thanks to the disaster around that Wutaian town, they stopped the whole pipeline. At least, that’s what I’d rather believe.”
“Damn… We really have a lot to thank Ruby for, don’t we?” Barret says in disbelief. “Even when she isn’t around, she finds some way to screw Shinra over.” He then adds with more hardened resolve, “We gotta get outta here ASAP and go find Rubia! Ruby’s not gone just ’cause she says so!”
“Right behind ya, Boss. But uh…” Biggs then admits nervously, “The thing is, we first dropped by to check on you guys, but we still haven’t found the keycards yet.”
“Seems like they’re special keycards held by the prison staff, so it’s not like any fake Shinra IDs will work,” Wedge proposes.
“But at least we managed to locate the rest of ya. They scattered everyone into three groups in different hallways for whatever reason.”
“But they’re all doing fine too! Just really bored.” Wedge then chuckles to himself. “Yuffie was singing pretty loudly for a while there and even Red and Sonon are sick of hearing her.”
“Hmph.” Though Barret is glad to hear they’re just fine, he still has to say it, “Well, thanks for letting us know, guys, but it don’t mean much if ya can’t get us out.”
“Yeah… we’re working on it,” Biggs replies, shyly rubbing his head.
“Is there anyway to hack the system?” Tifa suggests. “Maybe something Jessie can do?”
“No go. We don’t have any devices on hand that can hack into these locks. Seems like they’re a bit old-fashioned, so they still take swiping the card. That means we’ll need the actual thing in our hands.”
“Damn Shinra… What use are they, really? Can’t even upgrade their own prison cells,” Barret grumbles.
“But with security this light, we should be able to find the warden’s office and see if we can’t get any keycards there!” Wedge reassures them.
Biggs is still a bit concerned, though. “Yeah… but you think the warden’s office would be locked the same way? Then we’d have to find the warden too.”
Wedge slumps, feeling a bit deflated. “Oh, man… If that’s the case, then we’d be back to square one. Where else would we go to look?”
“If only we still had some way to navigate the place, at least. It’d make getting around way easier. This place is still huge. I think the prison is connected to some other complex too.” Biggs rubs his head. “But whatever it is, we’re not gonna touch it. Probably more of the labs.”
“A navigator…” Tifa then recalls, “Oh, like that device that Ruby gave to Cloud?”
“Does he still have it?” Biggs asks.
“Probably. But…” She then sinks upon the realization. “Unless he has a way to throw it out, you guys might be on your own.”
Biggs frowns in disappointment. “Right… Wouldn’t be that easy.”
Wedge tries to stay positive. “But at least it’ll be easier for us after we get Cloud and the rest out!”
“Guess that’s something to look forward to…”
“Well, do what you can for now,” Barret concludes and reaffirms them, “We’re countin’ on you, so you three better come back safe!”
“Be careful, guys!” Tifa warns them, “Even if security is light, stay on guard! You never know what might pop up!”
“Right. Let’s get a move on,” Biggs replies.
“Okay!” Wedge answers too. “We’ll be back soon!”
And with that, Biggs and Wedge excuse themselves and hurry back out the hallway, and the still silence from earlier returns. But for once, things aren’t looking nearly as grim as they seemed. Maybe they will be making good time with picking up Aerith and getting out of this city after all. That being said, now that the pair hurry back out to catch up with Jessie, she seems to have ducked off into a different storage room and whispers fiercely to them to hurry over.
“You guys got guts running around in the open like that, I’ll give you that…” she mutters.
“What’s up? The place is pretty much empty,” Biggs comments. “Do we have to hide in here?”
“Don’t you think that’s suspicious, though?” she argues, “We’re still in Midgar’s underground. Remember what happened last time Cloud and them dropped by here? Some really nasty experiments could be running around.”
Wedge grows anxious. “Wait. Do you think that the real reason the troops are gone is because those experiments have been let loose or something?”
Biggs makes his own worried frown. “If that’s the case, then it’s even worse than we thought. I know we got some weapon upgrades now, but will they be enough if we run into anything really nasty?”
Jessie reassures him, “Don’t worry. Like I said, these aren’t just your ordinary mako guns anymore.” She reaches into a pocket and surprises them with what she pulls out. It’s a beautiful white materia, not unlike that which Aerith has, but with a different swirl pattern that gives it a more dragon-scale-like sheen. “Guess what I found~!”
Biggs and Wedge both drop their jaws open. “Wait a second… is that Ruby’s materia!?” Biggs gasps.
“Jessie! How’d you get this thing!?” Wedge asks.
She reveals a smug grin and playfully waves the materia in hand. “Heh. We gotta thank Ruby for doing things even she didn’t know she’d make happen!” She then slides open a chamber in one of her guns to slip in the materia and shut it closed. She proceeds to explain, “Remember that we split up for a bit earlier? You guys went with Finn and Al to scout the sector, while I stuck back with Nayo and them. Turns out Zhijie was our MVP this time! He got in contact with an ally in Wutai and it so happened that they found this baby in a certain weapon shop in the big city.” She takes the gun in both hands and holds it steady. “By the sounds of it, Ruby stopped by there to get everyone their weapons, but didn’t have anything to pay with, so gave them that as a gift instead.”
Biggs puts a hand to his head in disbelief. “Whoa… seriously? She just gave away that kind of thing?”
“She didn’t have any money to pay with?” Wedge asks. “I don’t think we were that poor, were we?”
Jessie shrugs. “Hey, weapons can get real expensive, and she got a whole lot of them. It was before we won the Happy Turtle poster contest, so I get it.”
Biggs then lowers his hand and shakes his head. “Yeah, I do too, but it’s still pretty irresponsible of her. I mean, it’s a good thing it was one of our people who found it and not anyone who shouldn’t have gotten it.”
Wedge makes a sheepish grin. “Well, as the saying goes, the ‘Ruby guarantee’ goes a long way, even when we don’t expect it!”
Biggs turns to him with an unimpressed look. “What saying? You were the one who came up with it.”
“Hey, all the more reason that I get to come up with a new one!”
He rolls his eyes, but nods along. He then turns back to Jessie with another question. “Well, that’s great and all, but you sure we should be using it now? What if we actually call Rubia over? We might as well wish the city of Midgar goodbye.”
“Well, Yuffie mentioned using one like this before, so why can’t we?” she replies wittily. “I’m sure if we don’t draw too much energy, it’s not gonna be a BIG deal.”
“Didn’t Ruby confiscate the materia from her, though?” Biggs recalls from word of mouth. “Wouldn’t let her or anyone use it since it’s so powerful.”
“Well, yeah…” Jessie pauses before following up, “So we’ll only use it in case of emergency.”
Biggs gives a sigh. “Then, we’d better not run into anything that might kill us, or we’ll be seriously risking everyone’s lives…”
Now with arrangements made and discussed, the three now peek out the ajar door, finding the coast clear for now, and hurry out to continue their search. However, Midgar’s underground is not a place to take lightly. Even if they don’t run into any enemies, anyone could easily get lost. So, as a proposal, Jessie has left some “sticky bombs” that she’s clasped to the walls and corners of the hallways they’ve already passed by. The trio make it a good deal away from the prison cells this way, but it seems like their causal meandering has led them out of the prison side of the complex.
“Uh… you sure this is the way to the warden’s office?” Biggs asks nervously. “I think we might’ve gone too far.”
“But we only ran into dead ends earlier. Not one of those rooms were labeled ‘warden’ either.”
“Something tells me that the staff probably have some kind of way to navigate, so don’t really need those labels.”
“If that’s the case, then anyone who doesn’t have a navigator or guide would just get lost in here!” Jessie adds with a frown, “Shinra is full of cruel bastards, though, so I wouldn’t put it past them if there have been cases like that.”
Wedge fidgets nervously too, keeping his hand on the trigger of his flak cannon. “Oh, man… You think anyone who got lost in here ended up as monster food or worse?”
Biggs makes a wary frown. “My bets are on ‘worse’. The last time Cloud and them visited one of the labs down here, they had some kind of zombie army. Probably subjects of the ARC Project related to the Immortals.”
“Yeesh. Good thing Ruby was also there to get them out real fast.” He then makes an audible gulp. “So, what’ll we do if we run into them? Even our guns won’t take them out.”
Jessie replies, “Then we’ll have to get away.” She also raises her gun loaded with Ruby’s materia. “Or so help me, I’ll be sending them back to the planet where they can finally rest in peace.”
Just as she says so, though, those very words seem to tempt Fate itself. It’s not long before the trio stop in their tracks and hear the sounds of other footsteps coming their way. They quickly shuffle back the way they came, but likewise hear more footsteps coming after them. Wait, are they surrounded? Without a second thought, Jessie tries the door to an empty room nearby and it happens to be unlocked. As soon as they enter, the sounds of the footsteps draw near, but don’t step inside and move on. At least they’re in the clear for now.
But now that Jessie takes a look around, she notices that there’s only some kind of device hanging from the ceiling – like a projector of some sort. “Huh? Where did we go anyway?”
Biggs and Wedge turn to look too. Biggs folds his arms. “Doesn’t look like they got much in here. I wonder what that device is for?”
“I dunno, I don’t think we should touch it,” Wedge says, leaning his back against the door. “Anyway, sounds like we’re good. Let’s go.” But when he tries to shove the door open again, he realizes that it won’t move. “Huh?”
“What’s wrong?”
Wedge then throws himself against the door again, but still it won’t budge. “Uh, guys… I think we’re locked in.”
“What!?” the other two exclaim. “You gotta be kidding me!” Biggs complains.
“Nope, definitely not a joke…”
Jessie makes an uneasy and very tense frown. “Sorry, guys… Should’ve known that something was up when this door was unlocked.”
As if to answer their questions, an unfamiliar voice now comes over the intercom: “That’s enough playing hide and seek, Avalanche.”
“What? Who’s there!?” Biggs demands.
It’s the voice of a rather snooty-sounding woman. “You three must be real upstarts to think that you can wander around these halls unsupervised. This is MY prison that you’re in, you know.”
“Your prison? So you’re the warden, huh?” Jessie answers, pulling out her other gun without the emergency materia.
“You can call me Sera. I’ve been left in charge of operations around this complex, and I always have eyes out and around, especially with Deepground just around the corner. No one moves in this place without my knowledge.”
“Why’d you lock us in here?” Wedge asks with a scowl of his own. “What is this place anyway?”
“It’s a training room. Various subjects have been brought here to undergo testing, usually in combat.”
“Combat training?” Jessie peers back toward the projector in the middle. “Is that what this thing is? A simulator?”
“Exactly. But rest assured, what comes out of it isn’t just going to be a pretty image for you to look at.”
And with that threat uttered, Sera seems to act on it. Suddenly, the projector begins to light up and whirr into motion, and the trio gets a really bad feeling.
“This simulator is as real as it gets. Have fun! My men will be back shortly to pick up your remains.”
The intercom then goes silent. Exchanging nervous glances that turn to determined faces, the trio get into battle stance and prepare to face whatever it is that comes. And would it be a poor sight for any eyes! A disgusting, tentacle-ridden monstrocity begins to take shape in the room with them – not quite a Marboro, given its bipedal figure, but definitely not human. This is one of several Diabolic Variants that have been kept in another part of Hojo’s underground labs, an early prototype that was known to be structurally unstable. Its blood-red and dank blue shades meet unnaturally at odd ends across its contorted body, and only one of its two massive eye sockets seems to have a glowing red eye that peeks out. It wavers between the two sockets like a lost soul not tethered to either side, almost as if it were itself seeking a way out of its mutant cage.
“Ew! Shinra’s been keeping stuff like this!?” Jessie cries, pointing her gun right at it.
“Something tells me it’s not friendly…” Biggs mutters.
The creature roars at them and the three scatter as it comes charging. As they’re all armed with firearms, they try to keep their distance from the thing, but despite its lumbering body, the creature is a lot faster than it looks. It almost seems to slide across the tiled floors as if it were skating, even with such huge, uneven hooked claws on its feet, and it thrashes out with its tentacle arms, which leave disturbing black scratch marks on the walls around them. The struck areas then begin to melt away as if corroded.
Yeah, no. They’re not getting anywhere close to this thing. All three of them fire away in a flurry of elemental magic shots, ranging across Fira, Blizzara, Thundara, and Aerora. However, it seems like none of them are particularly effective against this thing; though at least none are particularly ineffective either. Unfortunately, the creature quickly learns to defend against these magic spells and sets up its own Manaward.
“Damn! Changing gears!” Jessie calls out to the other two.
They in turn follow suit, and all three return to physical bullets, which seems to be just a little less effective. The soft, squishy-looking parts of the creature’s body are a little deceiving; what look like vulnerable spots then promptly burst open like explosive sacs of certain types of plants, firing off its own volley of toxic seed bullets. And though the trio manages to avoid the shots, the seeds that were fired begin to take root even in this floor and sprout on their own to quickly develop into miniature mushroom-like stools. These blue-hooded ones are called Fadecaps, named so after the way they can fade their colors and blend into their surroundings. As soon as they’re summoned, they fire their own seeds like little turrets.
“They just keep coming!” Biggs complains, firing several more rapid shots at the mutant mushrooms, which quickly go down themselves. Many of them begin to shift colors to camouflage, but are taken out before they can do more.
However, the trio also quickly find themselves surrounded on all sides by these things, and there’s still the toxic “boss” of theirs thrashing and flailing its corrosive arms. But finally, even the Diabolic Variant gets fed up with its three targets always scattering and keeping away. It finally takes a deep breath and belches out a great noxious gas that quickly fills the entire room. Fortunately, Jessie did come equipped with Esuna just in case. The problem is, after casting it on themselves, she quickly realizes that they’re just going to be poisoned again while they’re still stuck in here.
“Ugh… We need to take this thing out fast!” she grumbles to herself, switching the gears of her gun again.
As she does, she also draws out the other gun on her, which is the one that is equipped with Ruby’s materia. For a moment, she hesitates to call on that power, but for now settles with firing off a Dispel instead. It lands on the monster, knocking away the Manaward, and she proceeds to bomb it over and over with Firas. This is surprisingly effective for a little while, as the creature is knocked about for a bit, but as soon as it gets its footing again, it sets up the Manaward once more.
Jessie’s about to hit it with another Dispel and jumps into a better position to fire when she suddenly trips over some roots. Now that she looks, a rogue Fadecap has entangled its roots around her leg, and though she tries to kick it away, she’s stuck.
“Jessie!” Biggs and Wedge cry out together. While Wedge lets out an angry roar of his own, unloading his cannon at the big boss to distract it, Biggs rushes in to shoot down the intrusive Fadecap and free her. “Watch your step, girl…” he also mumbles to her.
“Sorry. And thanks.” She gets back to her feet, but then staggers a bit when she tries to stand. “Urf…”
“What’s wrong?”
“Ugh… I can’t take it. It’s hard to breathe in here…”
“Damn… Hang in there. We’ll try to keep it away so you have room.”
“W-wait!”
Before she can stop him, Biggs rushes in again to join Wedge in distracting the monster. Jessie swears under her breath. While she fidgets with the gun with the Subversion materia, which is set right next to Ruby’s own, she hesitates again whether or not to go ahead and take the risks with the latter. But in her moment of hesitation, the Diabolic Variant then angrily slams the ground hard enough to leave cracks in the floor and its corrosive tentacles seep its toxins through those cracks, weakening the area even further. Suddenly, Biggs and Wedge are trapped in a small section, right in the monster’s sights. It lunges at them with its massive maws of toothy fangs and crunches down. While Biggs just manages to avoid it, Wedge’s cannon gets caught in it, and he tries to shake the thing off.
“Wedge! Just move!” Biggs calls out.
“Arrgh!”
Wedge screams in frustration, but lets go of the cannon and somehow manages to kick the thing off of him, but ends up coming in contact with that corrosive stuff and drops to his knees. He’s about to be munched on when Biggs dives in to block those jaws with his own Uzzi. Unfortunately, the monster then throws him out of the way and stomps down on Wedge.
“Ugh!”
“Wedge! Biggs!” Jessie cries.
She points the gun in hand and tries to fire off a different spell, Stop, but in her panic, her fears seem to trigger something in the white materia she has equipped. It suddenly begins to glow bright white as if it was called upon, and Jessie freezes up when she sees it.
“W-what?”
“Jessie, no!” Biggs yells. “Don’t do it!”
It’s too late to stop the magic. Jessie already hit the trigger and Ruby’s materia activates, throwing the entire room under a blinding light. For just a moment, Jessie feels so much lighter, as if she were being lifted by some strange force that has held her up and become almost weightless. And then it happens: a great Freeze that envelops the target trapping it still, cold, and brittle. Though Wedge remains trapped under its foot, it can no longer crush him. And with that, Jessie collapses to the floor again.
As the light dies down, Biggs gets back up as his eyes come back into focus. “Jessie!” he calls, but she doesn’t respond. He rushes over to her and takes her in his arms. “Hang in there!”
“…Ugh…” She groans, but her eyes still flutter open. “I overdid it…”
“You sure did. What the hell was that?”
“I don’t know. The materia activated on its own.”
“On its own?” He stares at the now quiet materia.
“And now I’m done. Can barely move a muscle…”
He turns back to her. “You gonna be okay?”
“Yeah… just gimme a bit.” She closes her eyes, feeling pretty drowsy.
“Uh… guys?” They hear Wedge’s voice from across the room. “A little help here. He’s kinda heavy.”
They both let out sighs of relief. Somehow or another, they all managed to make it out. “Don’t worry, we didn’t forget you, buddy,” Biggs answers.
Jessie waves a hang weakly. “Go get him. And here…” She passes him the other gun with the Cleansing materia.
Biggs gently sets her down and hurries to help pull Wedge out. At first, he’s stuck too, lodged underneath the frozen monster, but with a hefty kick, Biggs manages to knock the thing aside and it tips over and crashes into the floor into many pieces. Wedge also seems to have been touched by the effects of the Freeze, but specifically on his leg where he had come into contact with the corrosive poison, which has also been stopped from spreading.
“Oh, man… I hope I don’t end up losing a leg over this,” Wedge groans.
“Well, better a leg than the rest of you,” Biggs suggests, trying to lighten the mood, but his weak smile fades and he lets out a sigh. “But man, I got scared for a bit there. Sure was lucky that the spell didn’t hit you too bad.”
“Let’s hope it wasn’t just luck!” Wedge replies with a nervous grin. “I know I’ve had a number of lucky breaks from time to time, but this is cutting it a little too close!”
Finally, Biggs lets off a shot of Esuna to cover them all and heal up any lingering signs of Poison. But by now, they’re all exhausted and he too takes a seat beside Wedge.
He mutters to himself just aloud, “…Never again… I’m totally happy just being a backup fighter. Let’s leave these things to Cloud and the others.”
Wedge chuckles. “Hey, at least we got out of it somehow!”
“Yeah, at least for now. But imagine if there was another enemy after this! We’d be sitting ducks.”
Wedge’s smile fades and he nods sadly. “Yeah… We just barely scraped by.” Still, he brings back his determined face. “But on the bright side, it looks like Rubia wasn’t called over just yet. So maybe we still have a chance before doomsday arrives!”
“Maybe. But if just one magic spell is enough to take out a person, then we can’t keep using that thing. It’ll just knocks us all out anyway.” He shakes his head. “As I thought, that thing’s too powerful. Not fit for us mere mortals.”
“Huh… I wonder how Yuffie managed to use it, then.”
“She’s probably a mutant in her own way,” Biggs quips.
Wedge laughs to that. “Yeah, now that you mention it, all of our guys are somethin’ special, aren’t they?”
The exhausted trio enjoy a moment of quiet respite as they recollect themselves, but then their happy moment is shortly interrupted when the intercom comes alive again. The icy warden is back.
“You’re STILL here? Strange. I would have thought the prototype was more than enough to clean you up.”
“You again…” Biggs grits his teeth. “What do you want now?”
“As I said, nothing in this area leaves my sights. I have to say, though, that was an impressive display of magic. What is that white materia, I wonder? It’s unlike any that I’ve seen from our labs…”
“It’s not any of yours, that’s for sure!” Wedge barks back. “You’d better leave us alone if you don’t want another taste of it!”
“Hmph… Your threat would be a lot more effective if you three weren’t completely tuckered out by this fight. I’m sure my regular troops could just round you all up right now.”
“Ugh…”
“But on that thought, maybe it’d be for the best that you three are set up elsewhere. Can’t have you running around with something like that, after all, but just the regular cells won’t do.”
“Huh?” Biggs narrows his eyes. “Where are you gonna throw us now? Don’t be surprised if we manage to scrape our way out anyway.”
“Hmph. Where you’ll be going, you won’t even need that attitude of yours.” Sera then lays out orders, “Men, take them to the dissolution chamber.”
“The what now?” Wedge asks, looking horrified.
And once again, the intercom goes silent. Suddenly, the lock on the door clicks and it swings wide open as several Deepground troops rush in with their guns drawn. At this point, the trio are too exhausted to fight back and have little choice but to be pulled up and shoved out the door. The troops then take them into a different room set a little apart from the testing rooms, and this one looks way more ominous. It straight up looks like one of Hojo’s labs with all the machinery around and the black windowless containment tank in the center, which door is wide open as if awaiting victims to be swallowed up. The three are thrown in here and the door is shut. One of the troopers then hits some buttons on the control panel aside and the men take their leave as if it’s none of their business anymore.
Biggs, who is still able to move around, slams on the door and tries to pull it open, but it’s too late. They’re sealed in. “Damn… They can’t just do this! What are they gonna do to us in here!?”
Wedge gulps. “They called it the ‘dissolution chamber’, so whatever it is, it’s not a good thing.”
“Man!” Biggs kicks the door in frustration, but to no avail.
It’s a bit too late to say their regrets. The process has already begun, and the vents inside this chamber have opened up. A thin grayish smoke begins to pour in and fill up the chamber. Ah, crap. Well, nothing like the present.
He hurries back over to Jessie. “Hey, Jess, you still awake?”
“…Mmph…”
“Sorry, I’ll let you rest. Lemme just borrow your other gun real quick.” He goes to fetch her gun with the coveted materia resting in it.
“Uh, Biggs? What are you going to do?” Wedge asks.
Biggs points the gun at the door. “I’m breaking us out, of course.”
“W-whoa! Wait! It’s tight enough in here! If you let off another spell like that, won’t we be stuck in the crossfire too!?”
“Well, uh… Let’s hope not. Jessie said it activated on its own, so maybe a certain someone is still looking out for us in her own way.”
“Oh. You mean Ruby?”
“Yeah.” He frowns to himself. “I know I said we shouldn’t keep relying on her, but to be honest, she hasn’t failed us when things really counted. Besides, we don’t have any other options. Cloud and the rest are still locked up. We can’t expect to bring HQ’s guys in here; they’d take too long and they’d still have to deal with those weird troops too.”
“…Yeah. Guess not.” Wedge sighs and nods. “Well, looks like we’re going all in betting on Ruby.”
“Have faith… We gotta have faith,” Biggs mutters more to himself. He takes aim at the door handle, shuts, his eyes, and takes a steady breath. When he opens them again, his fingers curl around the trigger and he hits it.
But at first, nothing seems to happen. He blinks in surprise and hits the trigger again. Still nothing. Now he’s really growing on edge. A few more clicks and still no more.
“What the hell! Is this thing broken after one use!?” he yells in frustration. “Why won’t it work?”
“Uh…” Wedge sinks into a slump. “Maybe it’s because we’re out of mana? So we can’t use her magic right now.”
“Dammit!” Biggs is about to chuck the gun when he remembers it’s still precious and he keeps a firm hold of it as he gives it a swing. He digs into his pockets to see if he can’t find any Ethers, but comes up empty. They used up their emergency supply just dealing with that monster earlier. With a huff, he returns the gun to Jessie’s belt and sits back down between the other two with an exasperated groan. “So now what, guys? Do we just wait and hope help is coming?”
Wedge sighs too. “Maybe Rubia might have heard our prayers, at least?”
“…” Biggs plants a hand over his face. “Then we’re doomed.”
~
Back at the prison cells, all is quiet. Since Biggs and Wedge left to join Jessie on the search, Cloud, Tifa, and Barret have been left to their own in their own cells. Tifa lies on bed, having nothing much to do, but she can’t sleep. Too much has happened and too much is still left to worry. How is Aerith doing right now? How about Ruby, wherever she may be? And she really hopes that Jessie’s gang didn’t run into any trouble. It’s been a while now and they still aren’t back yet.
It’s been a long time since they’ve ended up in such a dire situation. Life in the slums wasn’t exactly easy with Shinra lording over everyone and everything, but at least it had its moments of peace, living among its hardy people who gathered together to help build each other up and strive to thrive among the scrap anyway. And then, Cloud came along just in time for Barret and the others to start their missions, so that life of peace was due to come to an end, but at least they were still together and holding up on their own. And not least of all, there was Ruby. And then, even as the problems continued to mount around them, they only became stronger than ever. So strong that they were almost invincible. Almost; it was still a dangerous line to tread with the likes of Rubia and Sephiroth hiding from the shadows.
But now that Ruby is gone, it feels like it’s a major piece of them that has been broken off and they’ve become scattered, no just in presence but in mind as well. Even if the others are still with them, suddenly it feels like so much of the connections they had built up together is no longer keeping them held together. Tifa has known Cloud since they were young and she’s known Barret, Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge long enough since they’ve lived in Midgar for several years. But everyone else, even Aerith, came along on short notice because Ruby was also there to help find and gather them. It’s like she was the silk that tied them all together, weaved into a carefully crafted web of connections. But without the resident spider to help maintain that silk, the web would soon come to thin and maybe eventually break.
Thud.
Tifa’s eyes flicker open in surprise. What was that? It sounded like it came from Cloud’s cell. It’s followed by some heavy steps as if he were stomping or stumbling around on the floor. The next thing she knows, she even hears… growling?
“Grrrrr……”
“…Cloud?” she calls through the wall. “Are you alright?”
“GRRRrrr…… Grrraagh!!”
That was definitely Cloud’s voice. But something’s wrong; it sounds a little off as if it isn’t entirely his either.
“Cloud! You okay!?”
“Tifa! The hell was that!?” Barret’s voice calls out from a little away.
“Barret! Something happened to Cloud!”
“Cloud!? What now!?”
The growling and snarling continues. Tifa now bangs on the wall to get his attention. “Cloud! Can you hear me!? Please, say something!”
Cloud doesn’t say a word. As if something just possessed him, he keeps huffing and snarling like a beast. And then, there’s even the sound of something scratching the very walls within. Tifa pounds on the wall again to get him to respond, but then she feels something even stranger. The wall she’s leaning against starts to feel cold… no, not just cold. It’s freezing. Even if the ice isn’t creeping through, it’s as if something on the other side is freezing up.
“Cloud! Please!!” she cries desperately, still knocking on the wall. “What happened!?”
“Cloud! Get it together, man!” Barret hollers as well.
The next thing they know, chaos erupts. Out of nowhere, they hear a great boom of some kind of explosion and the screeching of metal shearing apart. It’s shortly followed by that same growling from earlier. Whatever is going on out there, it’s something truly terrifying. Tifa feels her throat tighten up when she then notices an abnormal chill come from her doorway too. It’s the same chill that she felt earlier from the wall. What just happened? Is Cloud okay? Who or what is out there right now?
Then, even her door begins to freeze up through the cracks in its edges, and the next thing she knows, the door is embellished with ice crystals made by slash marks in a familiar boxed-X shape. There’s a strange mist that has enveloped the hallway outside their cells. But for just a moment, Tifa can make out the shape of a person standing amid the thin, icy mist.
Her eyes widen and she gasps inaudibly. “…Cloud…?”
Cloud has come out of his cell, his sword held forward as if battle ready. However, he is not facing any opponent. Instead, the strange mist that has appeared seems to surround him as if it were giving him a protective cover, and his bright blue eyes are glowing even brighter. He breathes heavily as if short of breath, but with every breath, a puff of chilled air is visible for just an instant, as if he were somehow breathing a different air right now.
“The hell was that!?” Barret yells. “Tifa, you okay!?”
Tifa means to respond, but she’s still in shock at seeing Cloud like this. It does look like Cloud, at least – that spiky yellow head of his is pretty distinguished and all – but something about him doesn’t feel like he’s the same guy. If anything, when he glances over to stare at her and lock eyes, she freezes still, not necessarily because of the mysterious chill, but because those blue eyes of his are thinned into slits with an almost demonic or beastly spirit. He looks around at his surroundings as if to gauge where he is right now, and for just a brief glimpse, he catches sight of her too, but seems to pay her no mind.
Without a word and seemingly following some hidden instinct, Cloud also slashes at Barret’s cell door too and break him free as well. And as if his business here were done, he then dashes off in a sprint so fast that it makes him look like he’s just blinked out of there.
Tifa hurries out as Barret follows suit, but they’re too late to catch him. Barret looks around and does a double take when he sees the absolutely ravaged state of Cloud’s cell door, which lies in frozen pieces on the floor. Even the inside of his cell seems to be frozen over, with scratch marks torn across the walls and floor with traces of lingering frost. The two stare in silence for a bit, looking appalled at the situation they’re in, and turn back to each other.
“The hell happened here? It’s all torn up like papier mache!” Barret gestures toward all the marks inside too. “And where’d all this ice come from? They weren’t keepin’ him in a fridge, were they?”
“I don’t know… It happened out of nowhere.” Tifa fidgets with her hands together. “I heard some strange noises coming from his cell, and suddenly even the wall between us started to get really cold, like it was ice.”
“Huh…” Barret scratches his head. “You think Cloud actually did this?”
Tifa slowly looks around again. “Looks like they were cut like a blade and Cloud was here, so…”
“But now he isn’t. Didn’t even say a word to us either.” He then turns back toward the end of the hallway. “Wherever he’s gone, he looked like he was on a mission.”
“A mission… for what, or even whom?” She also looks off toward that end.
“Dunno. He didn’t say.”
“…” She then lets off a worried sigh. “Just a little while ago, we were talking and he brought up how he’s been feeling not really like himself lately. And now something weird just happened, like he wasn’t really all there…”
“Hmm…” Barret frowns, but then shakes his head and moves on. “He got his problems, but we’ll have to worry about him later. We should find Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie. If they haven’t found the keycard yet, then we’d better help.”
Though she’s still really worried for Cloud, she understands they have higher priorities right now. She takes a deep breath and lets it out, and then lifts her head back up with a determined nod. “Right.”
The two rush out on the search. Just around the corner, though, they shortly hear some loud clattering like the sounds of something hitting the floor. It happens several times and then is followed by silence. And then…
“Whoa! What!?” Yuffie screeches in surprise.
As soon as they catch a glimpse of movement, it’s gone. But the next thing they know, Yuffie, Red, and Sonon all hurry back out from the hallway and catch them by the intersection.
“Barret! Tifa! There you are!” Yuffie gasps. “You guys got out okay!?”
“Yeah. More or less,” Tifa answers.
“What happened? How’d you guys escape?” Barret asks.
“We were gonna ask you the same thing,” Sonon admits. “One moment, everything was quiet, but then suddenly the locks on our doors were frozen over and broke off! But by the time we all came out, whoever did it was gone.”
Tifa and Barret exchange looks of suspicion. “You think that was him?” she asks.
He shrugs. “Must be. If he’s lettin’ us all out, then he still gotta have some sense left in him.”
“Maybe…”
“Who are you guys talking about?” Yuffie asks, putting her hands on her hips. “I thought it was just Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie who eluded the Turks?”
“They did,” Barret answers with a nod. “But it wasn’t them who broke us out just now.”
“It was Cloud,” Tifa follows, stating firmly.
Yuffie nearly falls back in shock. “Cloud!? What the heck!? We didn’t even see him!”
Even Red makes a concerned frown. “I think I did catch part of his scent, but the chill in the air made it much fainter, almost as if it were disguised, so even I wasn’t sure if it was.”
“I don’t think it was a disguise, though. I think he was just moving that fast,” Sonon instead considers.
Yuffie blows raspberry. “Yeah, right. A guy with a huge sword like that, moving faster than even us ninjas can catch? Unless he’s suddenly got Ruby’s powers, he wouldn’t be able to avoid us!”
“But the fact remains that Cloud isn’t in his cell anymore,” Barret informs them. “Froze over the lock and busted himself and us out while he was at it. Then ran off before we could chat.”
“Uh, and he even has ice powers?” Yuffie shakes her head. “Yeah, I’m not buying it. Whoever that was, that wasn’t Cloud.”
Tifa looks away, getting ever more nervous. “If it wasn’t him, then who let us out…?”
Now that she asks, everyone else shares some confused and awkward looks themselves.
Nevertheless, Barret gets them back on track. “Let’s get moving. Cid and Vincent should be the only ones left, but I’m a betting man and I think they might be out by the time we find ’em.”
And sure enough, passing through the next hallway and rounding another corner, they come upon the last row of cells, where Cid and Vincent have been standing outside their cells, looking just as confused and troubled, respectively.
“Hey! There ya’ll are!” Cid calls out, waving a hand. “All still in one piece, I hope!”
“Cid! Vincent! Thank goodness!” Tifa answers, waving back.
Now that everyone has reunited, sans Jessie’s gang and of course Cloud himself, they all take turns to deliberate over the matter at hand.
Cid scratches his head. “So what the hell happened? Thought it was a malfunction of their damn old security system, but next thing we know, the locks were frozen! Did any of ya see who did it?”
“I think it was Cloud, but…” Tifa then admits, “I’m not sure if he was really himself.”
“Seriously! Why does he suddenly get to be superhuman? What next, he turns into an actual cloud!?” Yuffie complains loudly.
“Couldn’t he have just used materia or somethin’?” Cid suggests.
“Even if he did have powerful enough magic, it wouldn’t have left the locks like this. Standard magic materia’s effects don’t linger for long,” Vincent calmly observes.
“Not to mention, Cloud’s cell was all torn up with ice and shit everywhere,” Barret adds.
“Huh? Was he being held in a fridge?” Yuffie asks, cringing at the thought.
He makes an amused scoff. “Don’t think so. Guy’s cold enough on his own as is.”
“Hmph.” Yuffie crosses her arms, feeling a little crossed herself. “Well, if it really was him, why’d he just run off on his own like that? You’d think he’d at least stop to tell us where he was going.”
“He didn’t say a word to you two either?” Red asks Barret and Tifa, just to confirm.
“Nope. Nothing.”
Tifa also shakes her head. “He didn’t really look at us either. Almost like he was just going through some motions.”
Cid frowns to himself, but then casually waves a hand away at the thought. “Hmm… Well, whatever he’s up to, we’ll just have to leave him to it. If he’s movin’ that fast, then it must be real important.”
Barret then brings up, “By the way, did you guys see Biggs and Wedge around? We sent them off with Jessie to find keycards for us, but we haven’t heard back from them yet.”
Cid shrugs. “We heard ’em shuffle by to check, but they couldn’t do much, so they moved on. Haven’t seen ’em since either.”
“Damn.” Now he’s starting to get worried. “Unless Cloud is gunnin’ straight for wherever they are now, they might be needing our help after all. Said they were gonna find the warden’s office, but who knows what shit Shinra’s keeping down here.”
Tifa shares his worries. “We have to go. They might even be in trouble.”
“So we splittin’ up again?”
She nods back. “It’ll help us to cover more ground.”
“Heh.” He reveals a smirk. “That’s what I was thinking too.” He raises his up a proud fist. “Let’s go, gang! We gonna divide and conquer!”
And with that battle-ready announcement, everyone gets moving again and split up into three groups yet again: Tifa and Barret are joined by Red this time, while Yuffie and Sonon remain with Cid. Vincent decides to move on his own, as he believes it would be easier for him. But no matter what the plan is, they gotta get a move on. These hallways aren’t safe.
Back in the gas chamber where Jessie and gang are trapped, they’ve started to succumb to the effects. At first they thought they were just exhausted, but eventually even the pain they did have started to disappear – but not in a good way. It’s instead overtaken by a feeling of numbness that dulls all the senses, almost as if setting one’s soul adrift from one’s body. This mysterious gas is none other than the reengineered form of ARC that some of Deepgrounds’ troops have undergone as experimental treatment. While it isn’t as dangerous as would be from direct injection of the agent, it definitely has the similar numbing effects that lead to people to become much more complacent and prone to suggestion. It’s like the people who have undergone this treatment are just barely above being zombified – not quite dead, but not quite alive either.
Just as they’re about to drift off to a dangerous sleep, though, they’re startled by a sudden explosion from outside their tank.
“Wait. What was…?” Biggs mumbles, snapping awake again.
There’s someone outside in this room. A haunting dread comes over the trio now that they’ve been startled awake. Who or what could it be? They fear that playing with such powerful fire that is Ruby’s materia may have brought them even worse consequences, and whatever is out there may not be so friendly.
Wedge gulps. “Well, this might be it, guys…”
Jessie sighs, already feeling defeated. “It was nice knowing all of ya…”
Biggs frowns bitterly. “…Damn. If only it wasn’t like this…”
The three huddle close together in a firm group hug and shut their eyes, hoping for a relatively peaceful passing. And then, the next thing they know, even the containment tank around them begins to chill and freeze up. Boy, what a telltale sign of death if there ever was one.
Except for just one thing… The door to their tank is suddenly slashed apart with fearsome strength and deadly precision. Before they even open their eyes again, all three of them are seized and thrown outside on the floor.
“Ow! What the heck!?” Jessie whines.
“Wait, we’re out?” Biggs asks, blinking his eyes open.
“Ow? Oh Gods, I can feel again!” Wedge cries with joy.
Now that they do turn to look, they’re shocked to find who it is that just saved them. With just another non-severing slash of his blade, the swordsman seals the gas vents to prevent them from leaking any more. With one last quick glance around to check, he finds no other sources and then returns his blade to his back.
“Cloud!?” they all practically squeak with excitement.
“How’d you find us!?” Biggs asks, his jaw nearly dropped.
“And where’d you get that awesome power!?” Wedge asks too, his eyes sparkling.
“Clooooud!!” Jessie cries, throwing herself onto him. All of a sudden, she doesn’t seem so exhausted anymore. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! I knew you’d come for me, my hero!!”
But Cloud nonchalantly throws her off of him and doesn’t respond. Now that he notices the source of the signal he had been tracking, he instead seizes one of her guns and gives in a careful inspection.
“H-hey! What’s the big idea?” she complains.
But now that they notice, Cloud doesn’t seem quite normal right now. His eyes are glowing brighter than usual, honed in focus at the white materia before him, and he has yet to pay any attention to them.
“Uh, Cloud? You okay there, buddy?” Biggs asks cautiously.
“Is he here for that materia?” Wedge follows suit.
“Cloud? Hellooo?” Jessie waves a hand his way.
Without a word, Cloud removes the white materia and tosses the gun back to Jessie, while keeping the materia in his hand. He keeps staring at it, as if waiting and listening to it for some sort of guidance. And after a moment of silence, he then lowers his hand and looks up toward the ceiling. It seems like there’s one last thing to be done before he’s ready to go.
“Hey, come on. What’s with the cold shoulder?” Jessie asks. “I know you’re not the most touchy-feely guy and all, but…”
Cloud still doesn’t pay them any mind. His eyes simply glow faintly with a mysterious magic, and as if he uttered a spell in silence, he suddenly vanishes into thin air. And the trio are left completely dumbfounded.
“Did he just warp!?” Biggs finally blurts out when he finds his voice again. “Who does he think he is, Ruby!?”
“Uh… so was that really Cloud or not?” Wedge rubs his head awkwardly. “It looked like him at least, but it didn’t feel like him…”
Jessie puts her hands to her hips. “Well, whatever is up with him, he clearly wasn’t here to save us. He just picked up that materia and ran away with it. What a jerk!”
Biggs lets out a sigh. “Well… at least we got outta there somehow.” He then pauses and adds, “Wait a sec. if Cloud is already out, then what about the others?”
“Maybe he freed them too?” Wedge suggests.
“I guess so, but how? Better yet, where did he get all these cool new powers? He hasn’t been hiding them from us all this time, has he?”
Jessie shakes her head. “Nah, no way he’d hide all that power if he always had it! Otherwise, he wouldn’t let Ruby keep one-upping him.”
“Well, I guess we might not need to worry about them anymore. But now what do we do?” Wedge asks. “I was gonna ask him for the navigator, but he just left.”
Biggs folds his arms. “I guess we just keep looking for the warden. Even if we might not need the keycards now, we still need some way to navigate the place.”
Jessie agrees, “Just what I was thinking. Prison cell or not, we’re all still trapped in this prison until we get that cowardly warden dealt with.”
At that moment, they even hear the intercom somewhere come back to life. “Who are you calling ‘cowardly’? I just don’t feel the need to approach you if I don’t need to.”
“Yeah, I knew you’d still be there!” Jessie huffs back, “You got some nerve, throwing us into some experimental tub! What was that even about!?”
“Hmph. I’m impressed that you even managed to escape. You Avalanche rats always seem to come out with even more surprises, don’t you?” Then, they hear a smug laugh. “But seems like your luck’s finally run out. Now that your ‘hero’ has robbed you of that precious materia, you’re all helpless in the face of my soldiers. Deepground is in no shortage of subjects that can be reprocessed for duty, after all.”
“Reprocessed!?” Biggs now gets angry. “These are people you’re talking about, not manufactured goods!”
“Hmph. No matter their origin, the process leads to the same result: good, obedient soldiers who never question their superiors and fight to the death if they must. All necessary traits for forces that will in turn be sent out to war.”
“War?” Wedge also argues, “What are you talking about? We’re still under a ceasefire with Wutai, you know!”
“For now…” Rather than argue further on it, Sera instead moves on. “In any case, it’s none of your concern. You won’t even be around for long enough anyway… Not after I deploy one last weap- Huh? Hey! Give that back, you!”
The trio are a little surprised and puzzled to suddenly hear the rattling sounds of a scuffle and the screeching of an angry cat from the intercom. By the sounds of it, Sera seems to have been attacked somewhere in her office, and after a bit of rough and tumble chaos, it ends with a loud thump. And then, the intercom comes alive again, but with a different voice this time.
“Jessie! Biggs! Wedge! You alright!?” comes with a certain Scottish-accent.
“Wait, that voice! Cait Sith?” Jessie calls back.
“Aye, in the fur! Sorry it took me so long, but I finally managed to sneak in a break. Knew someone would’ve been up to no good down here, so I rushed on over as fast as my trusty Moogs could carry me! Thank goodness I still made it in time! But uh…” He then asks with a bit of a nervous tone, “What exactly was all that just now? With Cloud, I mean? The lad seemed a wee, uh, odd for a bit.”
Biggs shrugs. “Your guess is as good as ours. He broke us out just to take Ruby’s materia and ran. Warped, even.”
“W-what you’d say!? Ruby’s materia…?”
“Yeah. As it turns out, one of our contacts managed to scoop that thing up from somewhere in Wutai. This thing is definitely Ruby’s, as it’s got her kind of power. We couldn’t use it much, but probably for the best.”
“Oh, goodness… And Cloud just took it with him? What for?”
“Who knows. He didn’t say a word.”
“Hmm… Well, we’ll have to let him be. In any case, if ye need navigating, then leave that to me! I’ll download this prison’s maps real quick-like and meet up with you all!”
“Really? Thanks, man! That’ll be a great help!” Wedge cheers.
“But you sure about this?” Jessie asks, a little worried. “I mean, you’re the insider, aren’t you? Won’t you get in trouble for helping us like this?”
“Bah. Don’t worry about me! By the time their lot catches wind of anythin’, it’ll be the flutterin’ of me cape! I won’t be caught that easily.”
“I think she means your other self, not you, the cat on a moogle,” Biggs casually reminds him.
“Oh, you know what I mean! Hang tight! I won’t be long!”
And with that, the intercom goes silent once more. Now that things have come to this, the trio decide it’s probably for the best that they just stay put. Wherever Cloud has gone, it’s clear he’ll be able to take care of himself. And if the others are also out, then they’ll be fine as well. If anything, it’s them three who are running a bit low on options, especially that they don’t have the miracle materia anymore.
They’re still on a tight schedule. Gotta get out, pick up Aerith, and ditch Midgar again, probably for a good long while. Ruby or not, they’re not gonna be pushed around by the likes of Shinra. The real question now is if Rubia’s in a pushy mood… and what that means for Cloud.
Notes:
Let's just say that while I was writing this chapter, I've had the Stamp theme stuck in my head for the past few days.
Just a little bit of trivia and clarification this time
- I'll be honest here and freely admit that I had no idea where I was gonna take the whole plotline with the ARC project and all that after the Wutai arc, but it just fit so perfectly in here. Didn't think a Deepground pt. 3 section would be happening either, but here we go!
- Sera is not my own original name for a character, but she isn't canon either. It's the name of a character from the concept drafts of Wutai back during the development of the original FF7, and she was the Shinra agent who drove the wedge between Yuffie and her fellow teenage rival Sasame and pit them against each other, while she would have tried any means necessary, including even bombing the Da-chao Mountains, to clear out an area so Shinra would be able to set up a reactor. Of course, I'm not sure if this concept will ever come to light again, even in the third Remake game, considering the direction they seem to be taking with the SRC instead. It doesn't quite work with my story either, but I didn't want to just throw away a potential antagonist because of that. So, she will get to be a warden for now and maybe do something else down the line. She's not dead yet, in any case.
- The Diabolic Variant is a palette swap of the actual things in Remake/Rebirth, but of my own design. The Fadecaps are also original monsters of mine, but they're also palette swaps with the mushroom monsters in those games too.
- Regarding Ruby's materia: I originally had planned to give it a different color at some point down the line so it wouldn't be confused with the original White Materia, but I decided that it would be fitting to keep it a white color but with its own unique design. It's a special materia that is the culmination of Ruby's various abilities, so it isn't exactly just a Summon materia, but it's not Magic or Command or any of the others. But in any case, it is linked to Rubia, and Rubia would be made aware of its use just like how Ruby was once. And yet, to everyone's surprise, it's not Rubia who answered their prayers.
- Fun fact: It wasn't actually until FFXIV and XVI that Fenrir the wolf was associated in any way with ice or frost. All previous abilities that Fenrir had starting from FFVI were to warp, cast illusions, and even affect time. He could even use a variety of elemental abilities depending on which FF he was in. But personally, the ice connection makes sense. Since Fenrir is a creature of Norse mythology, on the occasion, he is sometimes mentioned in the myths to have originated from the "north", though most sources don't specify where he came from. It's generally assumed that it would have been somewhere really, really cold.
Chapter 63: Call of the Wild
Notes:
In case you didn't see my update in the notes on the previous chapter, I have officially reached the end of Rebirth's story and am open to all the spoilery speculation you may have been holding back. Needless to say, I have no idea where Square is going with the SRC and Wutai subplot for the next game, so I will not be touching any of that at this time. I also need to catch up on my Ever Crisis lore reveals, but that shouldn't take me too long. Given the direction of my story as I'd planned it from the beginning, I also will not be covering too much about the Whispers, Sephiroth and Aerith's interdimensional war, or the many-worlds theories going around the fandom. If there happen to be any coincidences in my story that match with those in Rebirth or the third Remake game, they are entirely coincidences and Square will not have to pay me royalties.
But I will brag to hell and back that I "called" a number of things, lol. For instance, I'm glad to have heard speculation about Sephiroth's intentions based on his latest appearance in Ever Crisis. In my case, though, I have Rubia play that role and my take on Sephiroth is a whole other ballpark. Please look forward to what that entails!
Outdated A/N
7/2/24 edit: Sorry for the long absence. These past few days have been a mix of writer's block, insomnia, and being too damn hot that I'm melting and unable to move. Please bear with me while I reconstruct myself and maybe rework this next chapter. I have tolerated these characters running off and changing the story for far too long, I need to bring it back to the plot!
In other news, the several-day early fireworks scare the crap outta me sometimes, especially at 5 in the morning. Who sets off fireworks at 5 in the morning!?
7/4/24 edit: Happy 4th of July. I finally got my latest chapter finished and just in time for the fireworks to really start kicking off. Hopefully we won't have too many fires because it is HOT in California.
I say "too many" because we already saw a fire in the hills from where we live last night. Summer is truly here.
4/23/25: It took me until after I posted this chapter for me to realize that I got the wrong weapon for Cid since they left Wutai. It's actually supposed to be the Slash Lance, so I've gone ahead and updated each instance.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Well, this bites. After Aerith got her quick blood test and all that, she would shortly be shuttled off to the place she dreaded to be: the Drum. Well, this time they didn’t bother to put her in a test tube, but Hojo always seems to get his way one way or another. And of course, the maniacal scientist would be around the area, watching things from afar. In fact, as if he didn’t have a big enough head already, he’s also left a large holographic projection of himself cast from above.
“Welcome back, my dear Aerith! It’s been a while since you’ve been home, hasn’t it? How do you find your stay and accomodations on this return trip?”
Aerith returns a cold glare, gripping her staff tight. “Not the worst, but definitely could be better.”
“Then, it would be adequate.” He casually moves on to business. “Now, you may be wondering why I’ve had you transferred to the Drum. You see, there’s been a change in plans. Given our current circumstances, where you would be due to meet with the dragoness of legend, it would be of the utmost priority that we have you preserved for future generations in the case that anything unexpected occurs. Unfortunately, while it would have been preferable, the cloning process would take too much time, especially with my lab in its current state. You’ll have to forgive the rush. We are running on a tight schedule, after all.”
“Sorry, but I don’t plan to stay here for ‘future generations’ anyway. I’m going to meet with Rubia fair and square.”
“Hmm… a bold commitment, but naïve and ignorant as well. Do you believe that simply talking with her would change her mind? You do realize she’s had many more lifetimes to think over the state of this world. Perhaps too many. Mere words would be pointless charades and deceptive gestures to a truly ancient entity like her.”
“You don’t know that. You’ve never met her before.”
“Hmph.” He smirks, remaining as smug as ever. “Rest assured, that it remains this way is for the best, given her penchant for brutality. So, you have my sincere gratitude that you would dare approach her at all, knowing that you and your friends will be risking your lives.” He gives a dismissive wave. “Of course, what you all do with them or not is none of my concern, so long that you continue to provide us with valuable intel.”
“…”
“Now, as for our purposes here…” He brings his hands together with a scheming smile. “I have but a humble favor to ask of you, Aerith.”
“…I can’t promise I’ll do it,” she replies firmly. “But what is it?”
“Hahaha. Oh, don’t you worry! It’s not much at all.”
At that moment, the hologram shows him hitting some kind of button or switch near him. The next thing Aerith knows, she hears the sounds of several doors elsewhere in the lab opening up, followed by the ugly growls, hisses, and screeches of creatures that seem to have been released echoing through the halls.
“You’ll have to best an assorted gauntlet of creatures that have undergone a certain treatment.” He then pushes up on his glasses for emphasis. “You may be quite familiar with it by now.”
She turns to him with a wary glare. “You didn’t…”
Hojo laughs. “Indeed! Why limit myself to human subjects when ARC can be planted into any living body? No matter how harsh the conditions, entities remain intact and can be reused ad infinitum! The possibilities are truly endless!”
Her eyes grow wide with horror and she even gets angry. “These creatures are already suffering just being alive! But you won’t ever let it end!?”
But Hojo is too busy laughing to himself to care and the hologram that displayed disappears. The monsters that he’s unleashed have now rushed into the room and surrounded the platform on all sides. Interestingly, they seem familiar enough – Brain Pods, Varghipolises, and Zenenes, among other common fiends seen around Midgar and the grasslands – but something about them doesn’t seem right. For starters, the their usual bright colors are faded, almost washed out as if some kind of monochrome filter were put over them. However, they aren’t sluggish or drained in the least. Whatever has happened to them has driven these fiends berserk. As soon as they find their target, they all rush her down as a furious mob.
Aerith immediately sets off a spray of magic to keep them at bay and promptly sets up an Arcane Ward to help her throw out even more spells to blast them away. However, unlike their normal counterparts, whenever these fiends are supposed to be defeated, they don’t disappear. It’s almost like they’re temporary stunned and stay down for a moment, but as soon as the paralysis fades, they’re right back on their feet or tails – or whatever it is that keeps the Brain Pods afloat.
Speaking of the Brain Pods, several of them have gathered together now and with a telepathic connection, they all synchronize themselves and unleash a massive flood of gray gas – not their usual poison, but rather the gaseous form of ARC. Aerith jumps back as far as she can to the edge of the platform, but the path back from whence she entered has been sealed off, so all she can do is keep moving along the edge. But she can only avoid breathing in this gas for so long; as soon as she does, it may very well be game over.
Ironically, the gas isn’t only a detriment to her. It’s thick enough to confuse and deter the rest of the monsters, who suddenly aren’t sure what they should be attacking. Without a target to vent their frustrations and anger, the fiends that had previously been working together suddenly turn on each other and tear each other up.
But Aerith isn’t in a place to help break them up. She’s trying her best to keep out of the gray gas, but the Brain Pods are all floating high above the crowds and seem to be enjoying spewing toxicity from afar. And once she finds enough space on another side of the platform, she sets up a Radiant Ward and sets off the bright white beams to knock them off their metaphorical high horses. The Brain Pods are sent in their own tumbles to the ground, getting caught up in the same toxic gas they were just spewing, and end up joining the rest of the confused brawl.
Unfortunately, it isn’t much respite for Aerith that all her enemies seem so disorderly. The fatal gas has started to drift outward to fill the rest of the room, and she only has so much space to keep avoiding it. As one last setup, she has just enough time to call in a Lustrous Shield – and with good time too, as a manic Levikron that had wandered out of the crowd charges right at her with a threatening double kick and drilling peck as soon as it sees her.
It’s not just this one. As the gas diffuses further out, the platform clears up a bit and the rest of the monsters can see again. Little by little, they seem to regain focus and turn to gang up on her once more. Zenenes roar, Mandragoras screech, and Elfadunks hoot their warcries. Aerith’s shield can only last so long before it gives in against the weight of all the creatures piling onto it, and she is blown back, almost slipping off the edge. As if it were seizing the chance, the Levikron from earlier lunges to kick her off.
A great howl echoes through the room. Suddenly, time slows to a standstill and a great chill befalls the room in a matter of seconds. Aerith shivers and her eyes shut to brace for impact, but she isn’t sure if it’s from the onset of cold or from fear. What’s happening? Is the ARC starting to affect her too? How much longer will it be before she goes numb too?
But then, she hears the sound of a great slash echo across the room, followed by the sounds of many fiends being knocked away and hitting the floor hard. There’s even the crashing of ice crystals as if some brittle statues had fallen. And most surprising of all, the once looming gas dissipates as well, as if it were somehow blown away. When she opens her eyes, she opens them wide.
“Cloud!”
With vividly glowing eyes, Cloud glares down his latest group of adversaries. He snarls like he’s gone feral and brutally bashes every monster in his way with that giant sword. Every slash he makes, his enemies freeze up and their wounds burst with ice from within as if each slash were also a spell. Despite the ARC treatment, the bodies of these fiends don’t recover from such mystical ice. All wounds that are inflicted remain as if time itself was suspended. The monsters are drained of their energy, and whatever aggression that had overcome them earlier fizzles out. And yet, even when they have become less threatening, Cloud shows no mercy and goes straight for the kill – which he actually manages to do. The fiends’ bodies dissipate into the tainted gray ether, to be silent forevermore.
But wait, something’s not right here either. Aerith hesitates to approach him and can only watch in quiet horror as he continues to mutilate these creatures without remorse. He’s not in his usual elegant battle stances, where he has full control of the grip on his blade, but is using the weapon more like a sharpened bludgeon that so happens to cut through sheer force. Rather than a clean cut with precise swings, he rips and tears the monsters apart almost like a predator tearing with fangs and claws. Is this really Cloud…?
Once the last of the monsters has been erased, he then turns back to her with a stone-cold stare that puts her still too. He returns his blade to his back and steps up to her, but never averts that stare, almost as if he were wary himself.
Though she is sufficiently intimidated, she still has to ask: “…Cloud? Are you there?”
He doesn’t respond, at least not with words. He seizes her by the arm in a firm grip, but loosens it a bit when she flinches. And as wordlessly as ever, he casts another spell in mind, surrounding them both in a white magic circle, and warps them both away.
Meanwhile, with all of this happening on his screens, Hojo sits back in his chair in a different monitoring room. Though he is a little annoyed that his current experiment was so rudely interrupted, he is more intrigued by the latest developments with this ex-Soldier known as Cloud. Or perhaps, would it be more appropriate to refer to him by his true name?
Hojo smirks to himself. To be perfectly honest, he had anticipated something like this would happen at some point or another. Since Rubia has come to reawaken, it naturally follows that a certain trusted partner of hers would reawaken as well, though for the longest time, it puzzled him that no particular specimen had come forth to meet with Rubia prior to her awakening. He was even tempted to believe that the specimen Red XIII could have some potential to be some sort of trigger, but ultimately it turned out to be this man instead.
And yet, for once Hojo doesn’t mind being proven wrong. His smirk now widens into a conniving grin. Perhaps there are even more exciting developments in store waiting for them at the Forgotten Capital. What would come of the meeting of the last remaining Cetra with these two ancient titans? Only time will tell. In the meantime, it doesn’t hurt for him to look over those old mythic books again. Maybe there might be a few clues that he had previously overlooked that now make more sense with the right context.
~
Aerith blinks and her eyes open wide again. Just like that, they’ve safely warped away to another place… but this looks like some other part of Midgar. The unfriendly steel walls that line these hallways and the the lineup of cells show this to be a prison – more specifically, an underground prison where there are no need for windows and the only light sources are the fluorescent neon lights overhead. But more surprising is the state of three cell doors along this corridor, where two of them have been cleaning slashed apart, and the third has been absolutely demolished and laid in frozen pieces. Even the very room that the third door had once sealed has signs of frost creeping out the cracked doorway.
She nods with understanding and turns back to him with a curious look. “So is this where you guys were being kept?”
As usual, he doesn’t speak, but she gets the impression that he does understand what she’s saying. He takes a quick glance around to make sure that they are indeed alone at this time. Now he digs a hand into a pocket and retrieves the faintly glowing white materia and offers it to her. Aerith’s eyes widen again when she sees this materia, one almost the same shade to her own, but the obscured shape of a white serpentine dragon swirling within its depths is unmistakeable.
“This is Ruby’s… no. It’s Rubia’s materia, isn’t it?”
He doesn’t even budge and holds it before her as if expecting her to take it. Though he keeps that intense stare on her, Aerith doesn’t sense any particular hostility coming from him. He isn’t happy to see her or anything, but he doesn’t outright spurn her either. It’s almost as if he were simply acting on a role he must play, and at this time, he has to establish peace, no matter how strained. Now that she looks back into his eyes, she can see this much at least, though the rest of his motives still remain a mystery.
Finally, she relaxes and returns a resolute nod. “Okay. I’ll hold onto it for you.”
She accepts the white materia and cups it in both hands, giving it a deep, thoughtful stare. Just by touching the orb, she can already feel a cold stoicism that seems to emanate from its depths. It’s not the warmth that Ruby once shared with everyone, but the quiet stillness is calming in its own way. Aerith smiles to herself, feeling a renewed sense of confidence. It’ll be okay. Wait just a bit longer, Rubia. She’s coming to meet you.
Aerith puts the materia away in her own pocket and turns back to Cloud, who has turned away again. He gestures with a glance toward the end of the corridor as if to lead her along, and hurries off again. She follows after, still feeling a little jittery from the nerves, but is nonetheless excited to see what else may come from this strange new ally of theirs. Good to know that the ARC didn’t get to her just yet.
It’s rather timely that Cloud picked her up at the time he did, as trouble has indeed been brewing around these parts while he was gone. Though the rest of their party has scattered again in search of their missing members, they have run into no lack of enemies. Unfortunately, these enemies are the same as the ones that Cloud and them had run into previously in a different part of the underground labs. These Deepground troops have been treated with ARC as well and continuously regenerate even after being beaten, cut, or shot down.
Barret, Tifa, and Red have elected to fall back and are hurrying down another hallway, trying their best to avoid the swarms. However, it feels like every turn they make in this giant maze, there are either only dead ends or more of the frustrating horde. While they wouldn’t have too much trouble knocking them out of the way and passing through, they know that their efforts would be in vain if they don’t know where to go. And all the while, they’re kicking open doors and looking around to see if they can’t find Jessie’s gang somewhere.
But at last their luck runs out. While they have wandered into some sort of room filled with container tanks looking like those from their previous visit, there are no other exits that they can open. Shit. The horde that had been tailing them has also arrived to surround them once more.
Barret raises his gun forward. “You guys think Jessie and ’em would be somewhere in here?” he asks the other two.
Tifa strikes a stance, ready to jump into the fray. “No. I bet these hold even more victims of these weird experiments.”
Red growls, likewise poised to lunge. “The place reeks of condensed mako. These victims would not have been placed in here recently.”
Barret nods back. “Right. Then let’s get going.”
All three charge into battle, guns ablaze and fists and claws gnashing. The troops are swept up in a flurry of rageful assaults, and though they may get back up shortly after getting knocked down, the trio make a good distance as they force their way through. However, even with all the fury that they can muster, there are still too many of these troops to keep down for long. There’s yet another wave that comes as they escape the first, and the first wave simply returns to form to help trap them in an encirclement. Things aren’t looking good. Though they still got plenty of energy to spare, it feels like there’s no end to this mess.
“Damn… they just won’t stay down! Can’t we at least slow ’em!?” Barret yells over his gunfire.
“There are too many to hold back!” Red answers as he rips into another foe.
“Yaaah!” Tifa kicks away a few more with a single dive and hops back to them. “I think we should just run for it!”
“But where to!?” Barret answers, gunning down a few more before they can sneak up on the others from behind.
“Just pick a direction!”
But it seems like they're not quite in sync in all this chaos. While Barret rushes down one hallway, Tifa and Red rush down another.
“Huh?” Barret makes a blank face of surprise when he realizes he’s alone.
“Barret!” Tifa calls out from the other end.
“This way! We have to stay together!” Red barks as well.
“Come on, man! Making me break through by myself!?” Barret complains, but proceeds to gun down even more troops coming his way.
Unfortunately, while it was the three of them, they could manage to watch each other’s backs even while surrounded, now Barret finds himself backed into a corner and there’s only so much he can do by himself. Tifa and Red rush back against their side of the crowd, but it’s too difficult for them to bust through. Even if it’s just a basic squad of troops, it feels like there’s an entire legion of them.
But then they get their latest saving grace. Suddenly, a certain Scottish accent pops out from somewhere near Barret’s corner with an echoing “Gangway’s away!” Suddenly a nearby vent cover gets blown off and a strange-looking colorful box comes popping out. Though confused as hell, Barret jumps back out of instinct and dives for cover as the box then explodes with all sorts of odd toys and trinkets that in turn also explode like bombs over the crowd, knocking them all flat in an instant. But not only that, the entire hallway is now covered in sticky cobwebs that actually trap all the troops in place, so they won’t be getting back up that soon.
“The hell?” Barret asks, stepping back out to see the entire squads knocked down like dominoes.
As if on cue, a certain black-n-white cat also pops out of the vent. “I knew I’d heard some fuss around here! Glad I made it in time!”
“Cait!? How’d you get here!?”
Cait Sith makes a rather cute-looking cat smile with his paws raised before his face. “As fast as me legs could take me, of course!” He then strikes a proud stance with both hands on his hips. “Don’t ye worry! I know the way outta this maze! Just follow me!”
“Huh? Wait, you got a map or somethin’?”
“Yep!” He even swings a fist with a mischievous smile. “Knocked out the warden and downloaded the entire schematics of this prison just a li’l while ago! We won’t be tracked anymore while we hightail it!”
“Seriously?” Barret blinks and then shakes his head in disbelief. “Man… and here I thought you were just some good-for-nothin’ Shinra sympathizer. I owe ya one, man.”
Cait gives him a casual wave. “Nothin’ to it, my good man! There’s no way I’d just let you all waste away in here!”
There’s a bit more soft noises coming from the vent. Somehow, Moogle not only followed his partner, but he also manages to sequeeze itself out of the vent as if he were made of a gel. Cait Sith hops right onto his good fellow and points a way through the fallen soldiers. “Let’s go! Chaaarge!”
Though not all of the troops here were caught in the quirky Toy Box’s traps, the remainder is scarce enough for Tifa and Red to knock them out of the way. They gasp with relief to see Cait Sith back and Barret unharmed.
“Cait Sith!? Barret!” Tifa cries.
“Glad you could make it!” Red barks happily, almost in a juvenile way.
“Let’s go!” Barret orders, “We still got Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge to find!”
“Oh, don’t worry! I already found ’em! They’re just right around these corners!” Cait Sith assures them.
“Really? Thank goodness!” Tifa thanks him.
“Well, alright!” Barret grins. “I knew those three would stay outta trouble! Shinra ain’t got shit on our Avalanche!”
“Come on!” Cait Sith beckons and they all rush down the hallway to follow his lead.
True to his word, the cat leads them past the next couple intersections, where they run into Jessie’s gang waiting for them at a different intersection.
“Biggs! Wedge! Jessie!” Barret cries out, almost moved to tears to see their old friends again.
“Hurry! This way!” Jessie calls, waving an arm over.
“Before they call for more backup!” Wedge follows suit.
Now the party has reunited, they keep rushing along the maze-like hallways. Now with Cait Sith in the party, he’s helped fully restore their health and mana, so Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie get right back to firing away with Spider Web traps and Slow spells from their guns, making it way easier for the others to run down any more waves that come their way.
In a brief moment of respite from battle, Barret calls to Jessie, “Oh, yeah! You guys ran into Yuffie’s group earlier?”
“Not yet. But I should be able to contact them!” Jessie whips out her PHS and rings them up. “Yuffie? Sonon? Cid! Come in!”
~
A time earlier, in another section of the sprawling prison-lab complex, Yuffie, Sonon, and Cid somehow wandered into yet another strange place. Though they just wanted to get away from the frustrations of having to deal with Deepground zombies everywhere, they now find themselves in a huge, wide-open room, which appears to be some kind of testing or training grounds. It looks similar to the areas that Yuffie and Sonon had once traversed during their first infiltration of Shinra, and naturally the two are on full alert.
“Damn… where are we now?” Cid asks, scratching his head. “None o’ those assholes followed us in here, but it doesn’t look like there’s a way out either.”
Yuffie brings out her shuriken and Sonon follows suit with his staff. “Knowing Shinra, this place is just full of trouble.”
Sonon nods along. “You never know what other kinds of freaks they’re keeping down here. Stay on guard.”
Cid stares at the other two, but draws out his polearm again. “Man… There’s just no end to the crap that Shinra farts out, is there?”
“Hah! With how much they stink? It’s a wonder how anyone could live in this city!” Yuffie jokes right along.
“Least they got some nice air conditioning topside. Never even thought about how ugly things were under the surface til they started gypping me outta deal after deal…”
Yuffie frowns, giving him a disappointed look. “You don’t usually look down wherever you go, do you?”
He gives his own defiant look. “Why the hell would I? I aim for the skies!”
“And that’s why you always got your head in the clouds! Anyone on the ground could tell Shinra’s just awful even at a distance!”
“And what’s wrong with being up there? Least I can get a nice view of the world beyond just their trash dump of a city!”
“Hmph. Well, at least we agree on something…”
Sonon sighs to himself. “…Guys, at least show a bit more concern about our situation. Anything could come out of these doors.”
Almost as if his words tempted fate yet again, they then feel a low tremor beneath their feet and hear a loud boom from the metal door opposite to their entrance. They even hear the low growls of a mighty beast. There may be something really big and heavy behind that door, and it won’t be long before that door is busted open.
“…You just had to jinx it, didn’t you?” Yuffie mutters.
“Sorry.”
Though the door is then set to open, before it can open up fully, the beast behind it rams its way out anyway with a mighty roar. It so happens to be a massive and fearsome Behemoth, but it’s a bit different than its usual brethren. While they tend to sport deep shades of royal purple fur, this one is of a much more dull, almost grayish shade of purple. It is the Type-Alpha Behemoth, a unique breed not one found in the wild, for it has undergone a certain treatment that has shaded its colors and instead driven it mad. As if without any other purpose, it only yearns for battle and lunges right at any targets that happen to be in its way.
“Whoa! That’s a big boy!” Cid yells.
“Why did it have to be a freakin’ behemoth!?” Yuffie wails. “Shinra is crazy!”
Though all three manage to leap out of the way in time, they’re scattered and kept apart as the beast keeps thrashing uncontrollably. It tails down its prey like a big angry feline, while its maced tail swings wildly. There’s not even a moment of pause for before the beast bites and claws at them over and over, as it desperately hungers for blood.
Yuffie yelps as the behemoth snaps its maws at her. “Hey!! Don’t eat me! I’m not a good meal! Go get those guys! They’re way beefier!”
“Ya little welp!” Cid snaps back at her. With a single sky-high leap, he stabs the beast in the back before it can pounce on her. The beast roars and tries to swing him off, but he keeps just out of its reach. “Save the compliments when they really count!”
“Thanks anyway!” she answers, jumping out of the way to a safe distance.
“Hooaaaahh!!” In her place, Sonon rushes in, swinging hard to batter at the beast’s hind legs in an attempt to cripple it, but its angry kicks keep him away and make it hard to keep up the barrage. “Damn… Any way to hold it down?” he calls to the others.
“Move it, Cid!” From afar, Yuffie chucks her shuriken and prepares to fire off some rapid-fire elemental ninjutsu. “I’m gonna blast it to pieces!”
But just as Cid is trying to pull his weapon out, he realizes that it’s wedged in a lot deeper than he realized. He struggles to pull it out, almost as if it somehow got caught in some quick-hardening cement. And yet, despite having taken a great wound, the beast does not bleed. It’s as if it were incapable of bleeding, and the flesh where the wound would be remains frozen in time. It roars ferociously and tries to throw him off, not because it is in pain, but because it is outraged that it has something riding on it.
“Cid, I said ‘move’!!”
“I’m tryin’! But it won’t come out!” he yells back.
“It won’t… Wait! You mean your lance!?” Sonon gasps.
“Huh? Seriously!?” Yuffie squeaks. “Just yank it out!”
“Whaddya think I’m doin’!?” Cid snaps back.
The behemoth now lurches and goes into spinning tumble to throw Cid off, which it very easily manages to do and nearly crushes him as he scurries away. However, all that tumbling does little about the lance still stuck in it, which flays around wildly as if the beast now has an extra spike on its back.
“Hey!! Ya dumb merch mascot!!” Cid roars back at it. “Gimme back my weapon, damn you!”
“Cid, wait!” Sonon calls to him.
But Cid waits for no man or beast. Without a hint of caution, he leaps back onto the behemoth even while it’s still rolling around, and while he does manage to cling to his lance again, he’s also thrown about. This time, he actually is crushed under one of its rolls, and yet he refuses to let go.
“That idiot! He’s just gonna be in the way!” Yuffie complains and retrieves her shuriken. “Sonon, let’s go!”
“Right with ya, Boss!”
The two rush in with a synergized Art of War, slashing and bashing in a furious flurry of blows into the beast’s side and then its face when it turns their way again. And yet, the behemoth remains largely unfazed and thrashes back in a counterattack, which the two just barely avoid. Yet amid that thrashing, Cid is also punching and kicking at it from atop it, still trying to free his precious spear. In his frustration, he instead decides to dig the lance even deeper, hoping to skewer past its ribs and straight for the heart.
A lapse of judgment on his part, to be honest. The behemoth is only further enraged. It suddenly leaps high into the air itself and throws itself forward in another wild spin, which does send him flying again. And it crashes into the floor with such impact that it leaves a huge hole in the floor and the mere shockwave also knocks both Yuffie and Sonon away as well.
“Aaaugh!” “Ugh…!”
But even before they can get back to their feet, the behemoth gives no berth. Now at the end of its own patience, it roars again, raising its head high as if facing the heavens. And by some miracle, even if they are all underground, it calls upon a rain of Comets that bombard the entire room.
“What the f-” Cid barely musters to say.
Boom, boom, boom. The room is filled with clouds of dust and smoke, and even then the behemoth is still running high on its fury. It leaps through the clouds to claw at anything and everything, even if it can’t directly see its targets. The treatment it’s undergone has also weakened its sense of smell, though all this dust would leave anyone with a stuffy nose. But it doesn’t matter to the behemoth; all it cares is to destroy.
Yuffie coughs and struggles climb back to her feet. She was fortunate enough to be a bit further away than the guys when the spell landed, but by the looks of things, none of them were able to avoid it completely. Dang, the place is totally wrecked. Good thing it’s Shinra property, so she doesn’t care, but honestly! Whose bright idea was it to keep an extra angry behemoth like this in here!?
Unfortunately, she probably shouldn’t have climbed back up. As soon as the behemoth catches some movement in the vicinity, it lunges straight for her, once again with its massive maws wide open.
“Eeeek!!”
“Yuffie…!” She can hear Sonon cry out, but he can’t leap in on time. He’s been buried by the rubble and is trapped too.
Yuffie is forced to hold back the angry beast with just her shuriken, but it bites on her weapon so tightly that even she struggles to get it free. It swings its head wildly and throws her off too, but as if it was happy to have captured something, refuses to let the shuriken go.
“Hey! Let it go, ya bozo!” she shrieks.
“Yuffie! Just move!” Sonon yells from afar.
But she’s too close right now. She barely has time to even set up any jutsu before the behemoth is on her again. She tries her best to dodge and weave, but the huge behemoth doesn’t let her roll out of the corner. With the area ravaged like this, it’s created a makeshift wall behind her and she can’t quite leap back either. And in her panic, she freezes and curls up as the beast lunges once again.
Yet another roar enters the fray, but it’s of a different beast entirely. Seemingly out of nowhere, the Galian Beast leaps onto the behemoth and knocks it aside, sending it crashing into the floor near Yuffie. The heavy fall forces the behemoth to drop the shuriken it had captured, and now it turns its attention on the new arrival.
She gasps. “Vincent!” Seizing her chance, she snatches up her shuriken and jumps back to safety. “Thanks!”
“Yuffie… you okay?” Sonon asks amid his own panting. He lies on the floor with a boulder that has buried his legs.
“You’re one to ask!” she jabs back, but tries her best to roll the rock off of him. “And where’s Cid!?”
“O’er here…” The proud pilot has gotten back to his feet, but it seems he’s been pretty beaten up and bloodied by now. Not only was he right there on the behemoth, he took one of those comets head-on because he refused to run. Or rather, he didn’t have much time to run.
“Oh my God! How are you still standing!?”
“Barely…” And with that, he steps up and helps Yuffie push the boulder off.
Now the behemoth is at the end of its wits; not only did a human keep trying to ride it, now even another creature has intervened! It roars with indignance and returns a counterattack, clashing horns with the Galian Beast, who still stands his ground. The two giants bite and thrash at one another, almost like a scene out of a monster movie, and fall again into several tumbles on the floor. Even when the behemoth tries to call up another Comet, the Galian Beast smacks his head back down into the floor before it can.
“Get ’im, Vince! Throw him around! Knock out some teeth!” Yuffie cheers, swinging her fists in the air.
“Hey…” Cid complains, now left alone to push the boulder.
She gets back to it and the two finally shove it off of Sonon, who pulls free with a sigh in relief. The three then watch Vincent singlehandedly hold off the beast, and while they are glad to see him, they can’t help but feel like they’ve just been one-upped in a rather rude fashion.
Nevertheless, even if Vincent can hold it off for a bit, the Type-Alpha Behemoth has yet to show any signs of weariness, even after all the barrages it’s taken, none of which seem to show any permanent signs of damage. Even Cid’s lance is still stuck in its back. While the Galian Beast tries his best to keep the behemoth down, it always gets back up without fail. And it’s around now when Vincent realizes that they might actually be in serious trouble.
He growls at the confused spectators and even barks a warning, “Get out! Now!”
“Huh? What’s wrong?” Yuffie asks.
Cid frowns, but even he catches on. “…He can’t keep him down for long.”
Sonon groans. “Whatever Shinra’s done to it, it’s not normal. It’s like it just won’t take damage…”
Feeling some blood in his mouth, Cid spits aside. He turns to the other two and points back with a thumb. “You guys get outta here and meet up with the others. We’ll hold him off.”
“In that state!? No way!” Yuffie argues. “You’re coming with us!”
“Nah.” Cid turns back to the behemoth with a stern glare. “I don’t care what they did to it. No one takes my weapon from me. Not Shinra, and definitely not some Shinra dog!”
“Dog? …Looks more like a cat with horns to me.”
“Dog, cat, whatever! It’s just a furry animal!”
“Furry animal that almost kicked our butts…”
“Like hell it did.” And with that, Cid charges in yet again.
Yuffie calls out to him, “Wait! At least heal up first, you idiot!” She tosses him a quick Giga Potion, which he catches and casually pours all over his head, which does the trick. And then, he’s gone right back to leaping high and landing hard.
Sonon nods and turns back to her. “Anyway, let’s leave it to them. We have to catch up with the others. They might have found Jessie’s gang by now.”
The two ninjas now hurry off for the exit, which has now been busted up enough for Sonon to swing his staff and knock open a hole. And as they’re on their way out, Yuffie then hears a familiar ringing tone and picks up.
“Yuffie? Sonon? Cid! Come in!” Jessie’s voice rings in.
“Jessie! You guys okay!?” Yuffie answers.
“We’re fine! Got caught up in some trouble, but Cloud helped us out!”
“What? Cloud…?” Yuffie stops running for a moment and so does Sonon. “What the heck is that maniac doing? Where’d he even go?”
“Who knows, but he’s on his own now.”
“That doesn’t help us! Vincent and Cid are taking on a real threat right now! Tell him to get his butt over here!”
“Wait, you said Vincent? He’s with you guys? And what’s this ‘threat’?”
“A freakin’ demon behemoth or something! I dunno what Shinra did to it, but it just won’t go down!”
“It wouldn’t even take damage,” Sonon helps clarify. “I think it might have been treated with ARC or something.”
“Wait, seriously!? They even put a behemoth under ARC? Geez, that’s scary!”
“Tell me about it!” Yuffie exclaims, “Who the heck would want to give a behemoth ARC!? Aren’t they already built like tanks anyway? Now it just won’t die!”
“Wait a sec! Then doesn’t that mean Vincent and Cid are in trouble?”
“Yeah, well, they said they’d hold it off for us in the meantime. Where are you guys?”
“Hang on, stay on the line! I think I can track where your signal is…”
But while the’re all getting that sorted out, back at the testing grounds, both Cid and Vincent are starting to feel the fatigue. After a timely pin from the Galian Beast, Cid was finally able to wrestle his lance free from the behemoth’s back, but only just in time for the behemoth to throw them both off and pounce again. Unfortunately, while the Galian Beast doesn’t lose in strength even to this modified behemoth, Vincent’s stamina has started to run low and he can’t maintain control over this form for much longer. And with one last struggle and clash of horns and claws, his stamina finally gives out and he has to back off as the behemoth throws him aside, where he reverts back to human form.
“Shit! Hang in there, man!” Cid calls out.
With his polearm safely in hand, Cid bull-rushes the behemoth from behind and ravages its hind legs where Sonon once struck. Unfortunately, it really does seem like this beast shows no sign of damage, and even his blows seem to glance off as if it were futile. Still, for what it’s worth, Cid does divert the beast’s attention long enough for Vincent to get back up and move out of the way.
“Cid, let’s go! We have to run!”
“Grrrr… graaaahh!!”
Cid has been defending against the behemoth’s following blows, and with one final hefty kick, he frees himself and makes a run for it. But just before they can leave out the broken exit, the behemoth gives pursuit. If they weren’t so exhausted already, they might have just made it out safely, but neither man is prepared for how fast the behemoth can cross the distance. It’s already on them just as the exit is in front of them.
And in that split second between their jumping out and the behemoth crashing into the wall, time once again slows down to a standstill. A sudden chill falls over the area and envelops the huge beast in a case of ice, and is shortly followed by a single great slash that actually cuts off the head of the massive beast. And when time resumes, their silent hero returns his sword to his back.
The next thing that Cid and Vincent know, they hear the loud thud and crack of a giant ice sculpture collapsing behind them. They turn to look and are absolutely stunned silent to find the terrible behemoth in shambles. And even more surprising is the arrival of two other familiar faces.
Aerith waves a hand with a relieved smile. “Cid! Vincent! There you are! Thank goodness we made it!”
But Cloud barely pays them a glance. His glowing eyes are turned toward a different wall, as if he were trying to track something through some telepathic connection.
“Cloud!! And Aerith!?” Cid’s jaw drops. “How’d you two get here!?”
Vincent watches Cloud carefully. Though the latter still looks mostly the same as he usually does, Vincent senses a much colder presence to him than usual. There’s little doubt that whatever has come to possess him is also responsible for the mystical ice that now surrounds them.
Aerith smiles and gives a casual handwave. “Don’t worry, Cloud learned how to warp!”
Cid stares, his jaw still open. “He what…?”
“Let’s save it for another time. So where are the rest of you?”
Cid scratches his head, but lets it slide and answers her, pointing his thumb to the door behind him, “Yuffie and Sonon left a while ago to find ’em. We were trying to get some kinda map of the place, but it’s all a damn maze in here. Wandered way off course, I reckon.”
Now, Cloud seems to have caught onto something and without a word, he races out the door.
“Hey! Where’s he goin’?” Cid asks.
“To help, I guess?” Aerith offers. “It was a secret where I’d be, since Hojo had me transferred to his lab all of a sudden. So maybe he knows where to look?”
“Maybe? You guess?” Cid frowns. “Did ya even talk with him?”
She shakes her head. “He’s been silent since he picked me up from the lab.” She also looks between the other two. “Not a word to you guys either, huh?”
He crosses his arms. “Yeah. I mean, least from what Tifa was saying, he hasn’t said a word to anyone since he started acting up. Didn’t even stick around long enough than to break us out.”
She casts a thoughtful look aside. “I see…”
He then drops his arms and asks, “Say, you got any idea what’s goin’ on with him? Or why he got ice powers and all?”
She shakes her head again. “Sorry, no clue. But that presence around him… I think he may have taken on some kind of ancient spirit.”
“So he’s possessed by some ghost?” Cid peeks back toward the frozen beheaded behemoth. “Damn. That’s some ghost.”
“An ancient spirit of ice… with glowing eyes full of anger…” Vincent starts to mumble aloud.
“Huh?” Cid turns to him too. “Ya say something?”
“Don’t mind me. I was trying to recall something I once read, but it’s a faint memory. I can only remember that it sounds familiar.”
“Hmm…” Aerith then decides to move on. “Well, we’ll just have to ask Cloud later if he feels like talking. Right now, we should hurry and catch up.”
“With how fast he’s going, that might be tough…” Cid then turns for the door. “But ya don’t have to tell me twice! Let’s blow this joint!”
Aerith nods back, and the three all hurry out after him. As it turns out, Cloud has left a thin trail of icy mist in his wake that seems to wrap itself around them like a thin protective layer. Despite it being all icy, the mist is cold, but not frigid to the touch. And thanks to that, they can easily follow along. It’s just a little ways away when they run into Yuffie and Sonon in the next room among these testing grounds, who are now standing before an entire mob of Deepground troops and accompanying mechs that have been frozen over as well.
“There they are!” Aerith calls out, waving a hand to them. “Yuffie! Sonon!”
The two ninjas whip around and look utterly shocked to find one of their missing people has returned. “Aerith!?” Yuffie gasps.
“What’s she doing here? Didn’t they take her to Shinra HQ?” Sonon asks, befuddled.
Aerith, Cid, and Vincent hurry on over, and she gives them a quick update, “We can talk later! Right now, we should follow Cloud! Seems like he knows where to go.”
“Yeah, about that guy…” Yuffie lightly knocks against one of the frozen soldiers. “He just showed up out of nowhere while we were trying to bust our way through this crowd.”
“Yeah. He blitzed them so fast and then ran off again without saying anything.” Sonon asks further, “What’s going on with him?”
Aerith makes a look of concern. “Don’t know. That’s why we’re following him.”
Sonon’s eyes widen. “Even you don’t know?”
“Sorry. I wish I knew, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen something like this.” She then suggests, “But never mind that. He left us a trail, so let’s keep moving. We still have to meet up with the others.”
“Oh, about that: Jessie rang us up and told us to stay put. They oughta be coming this way.”
Aerith blinks. “Oh, are they? Huh, then where did Cloud run off to?”
Just as they’re all wondering the same thing, they also hear the sounds of some thundering steps coming near as well as some familiar voices from the open doorway just across the room.
“Heyyy! Yuffie! Sonon!” Jessie calls out.
“You guys okay!?” Wedge follows.
“There they are! Over here, guys!” Yuffie hops up and down, waving both arms.
“Man, with all this ice, feels like we wandered into a huge freezer…” Barret comments on the scene, but his voice drifts off when his jaw drops open. “Wha- Aerith!?”
“Aerith!” Tifa gasps.
Aerith waves back. “Hey, guys! Good to see you!”
“Hey! Cid and Vincent too! Thank goodness, looks like they all managed to get away from the beastie,” Cait Sith remarks, wiping his furry brow as if he had been sweating.
“By the looks of the place, they probably ran into Cloud who took care of things,” Biggs notes as well, taking a look around the room.
The two groups happen to meet on opposite ends of this room, but though the frozen mob is plentiful, they stand around like a gallery of ice sculptures and pose no threat any longer. In fact, they look so fragile that even knocking them over may just make them crash into pieces. Now with everyone gathered, that’s one of many worries settled, but many of them continue to have questions. Aerith takes a quick count of their party members, but clearly notices that Cloud is absent.
“So how’d you get here, Aerith?” Tifa asks first. “Did Cloud find you?”
She returns a grateful smile. “Yep! Knew exactly where to find me too. And he might even know how to get outta here.”
Tifa puts on a thinking face. “He already knew…?”
“Ah, is that right?” Cait Sith scratches his head and then shrugs. “Well, I was gonna help lead the way, since I got a map of the prison complex, but…”
“Well, maybe it’ll still come in handy.” Her smile now fades. “Because we don’t know where Cloud went.”
“Eh? Wasn’t he just with you all?”
“He was, but then he ran off on his own. He left a trail of mist that we followed up to here, but it looks like the trail has gone, um, ‘cold’, so to speak.”
Cait nods along. “Ah… And here I thought we could keep depending on the lad. But seems like he’s much too unpredictable right now.”
“Yeah, seriously! What’s up with him?” Yuffie asks again, now with a tone of complaint. “He suddenly gets to be a superhero and busts everyone out, even saves us the trouble of dealing with all these ARC-powered freaks, but he won’t even talk to us?” She crosses her arms with a frown. “What are we, chopped liver? When did he get so stuck-up?”
“Cloud? Of course he’s a stuck-up. He’s always been like that,” Biggs comments wittily.
She throws her arms back out and shakes an angry fist. “Yeah, but now it’s actually annoying! He’s making the rest of us look like chumps! It’s like with Ruby all over again!”
He rolls his eyes. “Yeah… I kinda got used to it after a while.”
“At least he doesn’t seem like he’s our enemy,” Wedge observes. “Or he wouldn’t have helped us like this.”
Barret frowns to himself. “But he sure isn’t playing nice either. Almost like he’s got his own agenda.” He turns back to Aerith. “You got any idea about that?”
Aerith shakes her head and droops. “Sorry. I wish I did.” She looks back up with a suggestion, “But I can at least sense that there’s some other presence around him, almost like some kind of ancient spirit possessed him.”
“Ancient spirit?”
“One oft enveloped in ice, at that,” Vincent adds to specify. “But the look in his eyes suggest a fearsome temper, so it might not be that of Shiva, for instance.”
“Enveloped in ice, yet a fearsome temper…?” Red mumbles to himself as he tries to recall something.
Barret scratches his head, feeling even more confused. “So, uh… you’re saying Cloud’s been possessed by some kinda ghost? And that’s why he got ice powers now?”
Aerith strikes her own thinking pose. “I guess so? That’s the only thing I can think of right now. But we won’t know for sure unless we ask him.”
Barret scoffs. “Ask him? You sure he won’t just ignore us as usual?”
She drops her arms with a worried face. “Yeah… It’s up to him if he’ll answer.”
A very bewildered silence sets in over the party as no one seems to have any idea of where things are going with this. And then, to everyone’s surprise, it’s actually Red who breaks the silence.
“…Perhaps we can ask someone else in the meantime.”
“Huh?” Barret now turns to him. “Who else would know about this?”
“My grandpa, of course. The Cosmo Library is a vast archive of knowledge. I’m sure he ought to have made some discoveries about ancient spirits and the like.”
“Oh, yeah!” Barret lightly smacks himself in the head, realizing how obvious that was. “Bugenhagen! He gotta know something, at least!” He raises a proud fist forward. “Alright! Then when we get back to the ship, we’re headed straight for Cosmo Canyon!”
Tifa agrees with a nod. “Good idea. It might be for the best that we get this sorted out before we confront Rubia.”
“But if we’re gonna go meet Rubia anyway, why don’t we just ask her? She’s an ancient spirit too,” Yuffie points out.
“Maybe she does know.” Aerith makes an unsure frown. “But I don’t know what will happen when we get there. It’s so hard to read what her intentions are.”
Barret raises his gun-arm this time. “Then, we’d better prepare for the worst. If she won’t listen to us, then we’ll just have to make her.”
“Hopefully, it won’t come to that…”
He lowers his gun-arm and offers a more sympathetic hand. “Only as a last resort, of course. Rubia, Ruby, whatever name she wanna go by, she’s still one of us. Last thing we need is to have to fight her.”
She nods back. “Right. I’m sure if we’re all there for her, then we still have a chance to change her mind.”
“Okay!” Barret goes back to a bright smile. “So what’re we waitin’ around here for? Let’s get out and get back to the skies!”
“Music to my ears!” Cid cheers, throwing up a resolute fist of his own. “Come on, gang, the Highwind’s still gotta be docked at the Sector 1 port topside!”
“And we still gotta catch up with the rest of Avalanche!” Jessie reminds them. “They helped us get in, so we’d better return the favor and get them outta trouble!”
“Right on!” Cait Sith hops atop Moogle with excitement. “I still got a map of the place, so if you’ll all follow me…”
But so soon as he’s about to lead everyone back out the way his group entered, they suddenly meet with the familiar chill that has been around as of late. Aerith, sensing the same presence again, turns back to see Cloud has warped back to them.
“Oh! Cloud!”
“Cloud?” Tifa also turns back to check.
“There you are, Spiky! ’Bout time!” Barret calls him over. “Come on! We don’t got any more business here!”
But Cloud still doesn’t give anyone a word. Instead, he raises a hand forward, almost as if telling them to stop or stay still.
“Huh? What’s he doing?” Biggs asks.
“Cloud? Is something wrong?” Tifa asks him as well.
There’s the slightest glint to his already glowing eyes. As wordlessly as ever, he raises his other hand and proceeds to cast another spell. Now, a huge, bright white magic circle spreads out across the floor where he and everyone else has been standing.
“W-whoa! The hell is this!?” Cid cries out.
“Huh!? Wait! Isn’t this Ruby’s magic!?” Yuffie gasps.
Aerith isn’t so worried as she’s seen it before, but her eyes still widen in amazement. She tries to reassure them, “Don’t worry, guys! He’s just wa-”
Before she can even finish that sentence, the magic comes into effect. In the time it takes anyone to blink, they all vanish out of sight. And though the area of effect is wide, by some selective process, it is only those that Cloud has even the slightest interest in that disappear with him. By the time non-ARC reinforcements arrive to inspect what’s the commotion here, all that remains is the frozen mob.
~
Off by the topside of Sector 1, a provisional airdock has been set up for the Highwind to rest. Following the recent series of incidents that have forced many of the residents to be moved to other parts of the city, Sector 1 has largely undergone a lockdown under military rule, as per the orders of the head of public security. Even if the threat of the first mako reactor bombing is now but a fading memory, many of those former residents have yet to be able to return home. Instead, the area has been declared a “disaster zone” similar to Sector 8 and only authorized personnel would be granted access to use the area. That being said, there are still quite some people who refused to evacuate in the first place, so not everyone here is a part of Shinra’s forces. As a result, it’s been a bit frustrating for the local police to investigate how many among them are secretly Avalanche members in hiding.
That is, it would have been difficult to search until just recently when the Highwind returned to Midgar. Since Cloud and his gang were rounded up and imprisoned, the few branches of Avalanche still stationed around Midgar have gathered in this town and have been hard at work. Thanks to Nayo and team’s contact with Jessie, they’ve learned and warned the others about the current situation with Ruby’s disappearance and the capture of the rest of the party. In turn, they’ve volunteered to be a diversion and capture certain roads to be kept open for their most valuable allies by which to make their escape. As a result, it’s become a sort of battlegrounds scattered around the sector, where Avalanche and their sympathizers have been trying to hold off Shinra’s ground forces. And for a little while there, they seemed to be able to hold their own.
However, the tides would quickly turn once the Turks arrived on the scene. Though their numbers were few (but still more than the main three), their impact was felt across the entire sector. One by one, various scuffles around town would come to a quick end wherever the Turks showed, usually resulting in either Avalanche’s defeat or their retreat. However, it also becomes clear to them that something seems a little off, almost as if Avalanche wasn’t expecting to win anyway, and many of the prisoners that were arrested remained defiant, as if they were still on a mission.
Sensing that something was amiss, Reno, Rude, and Elena left the rest of the mess to their fellow Turks and rushed back to the Highwind’s dock. As they suspected, all these minor scuffles were indeed just a distraction, as they would find Avalanche members dressed in their signature brown uniforms confronting Shinra’s own troops here. But it would take the three Turks short work to help push back Avalanche again. It looks like they might not be taking the ship just yet.
This is the scene that Cloud and gang meet when they arrive upon said dock. It seems that in that brief period of time where he disappeared, he had been warping around the town in search of the next location he needed to be. As soon as he located the ship, he would return to the underground to pick up everyone.
“…rping us!” Aerith finishes her sentence, but then notices they’ve already arrived. “Oh.”
But now that they’ve come upon this chaotic mess, everyone, save for Cloud, grows disturbed that just three Turks are capable of smashing through Avalanche’s forces with relative ease.
“Shit! Let’s go! They need our help!” Barret yells.
Without hesitation, he and the rest of the party rush forward, some with warcries of their own, to push back on the Shinra advances. Leaving the main threats to the main party, their own Avalanche squad rushes to help get their downed allies out of the way.
“Huh?” Reno mutters and turns to see they’ve got new company. “Seriously!? They’re already out?”
“Hmph. So they did manage to escape,” Rude comments coolly.
“What are we standing around for!? Let’s get ’em!” Elena replies snappily.
But amidst the ensuing chaotic fray, Aerith notices that Cloud has yet to move or even draw his sword. He’s just staring off into the sky as if watching the moon and stars above. Even when he too gets shot at by some rank-and-file troops, he barely moves and easily dodges the bullets like it’s nothing. It’s like he’s actually uninterested in what has developed on the ground here. Perhaps it’s because their current roster of fighters is ample enough to fend off the threat here that he no longer has any interest in fighting.
“Cloud? What’s wrong? Let’s go help!” she calls to him.
As always, he doesn’t respond.
“Cloud…? Hello?”
She steps forward and waves a hand in his face, and he turns away again. She tries to stand in front of him, but again he avoids eye contact.
“Cloooud! What’s going on? Why aren’t you helping anymore?”
Now, he grows impatient and even growls at her, baring his now sharpened fangs, and she has to back off. Almost like a moody teen, he then stomps off toward the ship as if he doesn’t want to be here any longer than he has to be.
She frowns like a disappointed mother. “Cloud! Get back here!”
He’s not listening. In a single bound, he leaps high into the air and neatly lands on the gondola of the ship and turns away again and crosses his arms, leaning back against the railing. Aerith keeps watching him, her concern only growing, but as she watches the ongoing fray, she then starts to catch on. Though there are many, none of these enemies have been treated by ARC, thus aren’t connected in any way to Rubia. In other words, they’re not a “threat” in this ancient spirit’s eyes. Now Aerith turns toward the moon that he had been watching earlier, and she realizes what he may be thinking about now. She then reaches into her pocket and draws out the white materia with the dragon-like emblem. It too glows faintly in her hand almost like a miniature moon itself.
She then hears Barret’s voice call out, “Aerith! What’s the holdup!?”
“What happened? Where’s Cloud?” Tifa follows suit.
Aerith snaps back to attention and slips the materia away again. “He’s…” She’s about to answer, but she isn’t really sure how to explain it. It wouldn’t exactly be good news to say that this ancient spirit of theirs is a rather petty fellow who doesn’t concern himself with the affairs of “regular” humans. Instead, she quickly comes up with an excuse. “He’s on the ship! He’ll be okay, but needs to rest! Pushed himself a bit too much!”
“He what!?” Barret bellows.
“He’s tired!? But he made everything look so easy up to now!” Yuffie complains over the noise. “Talk about a dud fuse!”
Aerith looks back toward the ship, where Cloud is still turned away. Just when they thought they had found their next miracle, it so easily slips away and out of control again. The real Cloud definitely wouldn’t be acting like this. She just hopes when that Cloud comes back to them, he’ll still be okay. Friendly spirit or not, being possessed must really be taxing.
“Ah, forget about him!” Cid snaps back, “We got this ourselves!” And he just nails the platoon nearby with an explosive impact from a sky-high jump.
“Damn it, Cloud! You’re in for an earful later!” Barret grumbles, firing away to keep Rude at bay.
Despite being outnumbered now, the Turks have surprisingly been holding their own. Reno’s quick weaving is fast enough to even compete with Yuffie or Red, neither of whom have yet to hit him. Tifa is in the middle of trading blow for blow with Elena, and it looks like they’re holding a firm stalemate for a while there, but as Sonon comes swinging, Elena breaks formation and avoids his attack. With Cait Sith, Cid and Vincent on crowd control, the three Turks soon find themselves cornered again, surrounded on all sides by the party. And yet, they still don’t stay put long enough to be squeezed in. Rude throws out a Grand Spark at Barret and Red, which the former bears the brunt and the latter launches into a counterattack, but that opening is enough for Reno to slip out of the crowd. Yuffie tries to block his way, but then Elena jumps in her way.
And once out of the crowds, Reno seizes his chance to take aim at Aerith, who has left herself vulnerable.
“Gotcha!” he says with a mischievous grin.
“!”
It’s too late for her to avoid him. He hit a button on his baton and fires a beam of light that shapes into a yellow prism and imprisons her.
“Aerith!” Tifa cries. Fuming, she guns straight for Reno, who barely avoids her flying kick.
“Reno, send her away!” Rude yells over the noise. He’s now staunchly defending against Barret, Red, and Sonon’s combined barrage.
“On it!” With another touch of a button, he summons several yellow Mark-III Monodrives to lift Aerith’s prison up and away.
“Cid! Gimme a lift!” Yuffie yells, and without missing a beat, Cid swings his spear into position for her to leap off of. She chucks her shuriken at the prism, which is now soaring in the air, but it neatly glances off of it and simply comes back to her. “Dammit!”
Vincent likewise fires several shots up there, but it’s to no avail.
“You...!” Tifa throws all her frustration into her blows aimed for Reno, but he defends himself with a powerful electric shock that stuns her for a bit.
“Grraaah!” Barret likewise knocks Rude away and tries to take aim at the prism, but as expected, his bullets also just glance off.
“Hiyaaah!” Elena comes barreling with a mighty kick, but Red jumps in the way to block her from hitting Barret while he’s busy. He then counterattacks with a savage pounce that knocks her away again.
Unfortunately, it looks like none of them are able to get Aerith out of there. She too tries to knock from the inside, but there’s nothing she can do from there. Instead, she holds her hands together in a prayer and wishes for someone – maybe even Cloud – to come to her rescue once more. And as she prays, if one would blink, one may even miss a quick flash of light coming from one of her pockets.
At last, the ancient spirit stirs into action once more. He had been taking a quick nap while aboard the ship as if none of what has been happening below is his business, but as soon as he senses a familiar presence nearby making a call for help, he starts awake again. In an instant, he leaps off his post so fast that he seems to vanish. And the next instant, he’s right beside the yellow prism where Aerith is being kept. With a single swing, he obliterates the four Monodrives that have been guiding the prism, and the entire thing shatters apart.
“Eek!” Aerith squeaks as she falls out, but is shortly caught. “Cloud!”
Before they fall too far, he warps again back to the ship he had been standing guard of. In a matter of seconds, the biggest problem was resolved. Reno can only stare at the sky where his cool prism once was, feeling like he was just gypped out of a shining moment in the spotlight. And now that he looks back down, he finds himself surrounded by a very angry crowd among Tifa, Yuffie, Vincent, as well as Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie, who have returned from helping Avalanche.
Reno sighs. “Seriously, why do you guys always get the superpowered weirdos?”
Yuffie brings her shuriken forward, poised to throw it. “Because we’re the good guys!”
“Ugh. Spare me the morality police.”
“Then take the consequences for your actions,” Tifa seethes, raising her fists.
They all gang up on him and this time he doesn’t get away. Before Rude and Elena can rush on over to help, Barret, Red, and Cait Sith block their path. And like a double whammy, Cid and Sonon leap in and smash them from above, knocking them both down. And then, like with Reno, Rude and Elena also find themselves getting ganged up on.
Meanwhile, Aerith watches her friends handle their enemies, and assured that they’ll all be fine, she turns back to Cloud. Though he had been silent and moody since earlier, he now actually looks drained. He has a hand clasped over his head as if he were suffering some migraine and is just shaking his head over and over.
“You okay?”
Suddenly, he drops to his knees and she jumps in to catch him before he collapses to the floor.
“Cloud! Hang in there!”
She takes a seat as well and lays him down gently, resting his head on her lap. Though she had quickly come up with an excuse earlier, Aerith now realizes that it might not have been too far from the truth. It seems the spirit’s time has run out at last and can no longer maintain this form, and as suddenly as he had appeared, he has taken his leave. She sets a hand over Cloud’s forehead, just checking to be sure that he himself is still unharmed. She lets off a sigh in relief, but also of concern. She just hopes that when he wakes up again, he’ll still be okay mentally too.
She’s shortly disturbed by the noise of footsteps coming down from inside, and the door to the gondola swings open. Some of the crew has been aboard to keep watch of the ship from the inside, and while they’re glad to see some familiar faces, they’re quick to notice that Cloud is on the floor. They offer to help her get him inside, and the ever dutiful Guillermo salutes them and stands by to keep a lookout.
By now, the dust on the battlefield as settled. The party has emerged from the fray, a little beaten and worn, but ultimately victorious. Having no other choice at this time, the Turks force a retreat, throwing scathing looks their way as they flee. And seeing the Turks soundly defeated, those of Shinra still lingering scatter and flee, and those of Avalanche still awake cheer in a resounding applause. Though certain members of the party – namely Yuffie, Red, and Jessie – take this chance to bathe in the glory, most of them are just relieved that the fighting’s over.
Now that the coast seems to be clear for now, some other Avalanche members hurry out into the open as well. “Amazing work, guys!” Nayo compliments them, but also has to ask, “Glad we were able to hold them off long enough.”
“Nayo! Even Billy Bob and Polk!” Tifa returns her a smile. “Thanks. We heard everything from Biggs and Wedge.”
Barret nods along too. “We owe ya’ll one for this. But…” He raises an eyebrow. “What I’m wondering is why you guys would even do this? I thought ya’ll were all about ‘keeping the peace’ and all.”
“We still are,” Billy Bob insists. “But after we caught up with Jessie and them, they told us what happened with you guys and Ruby.”
“Huh? Ah…” He makes a sullen frown. “So you know about that, huh?”
Polk nods with a sympathetic look. “Yeah. Pretty unfortunate how things turned out, but from the sound of things, you still have a chance to save her.”
Nayo also adds with an earnest face, “We have to thank Ruby too. She’s done a lot for the people of Midgar, so we wanted to help any way we could. And since you’re going to meet her at the ancient capital, the least we could do is give you a proper send-off.”
Barret nods back and relaxes with a satisfied smile. “Alright, then. We appreciate it. And we’ll let Ruby know it too.”
Tifa then brings up, “But will you all be okay from here? Now that Avalanche has raised up a bit of a stir, there’s no way Shinra is going to let you off easy.”
Nayo shakes her head. “Don’t worry about us. You guys have way bigger things to deal with right now.”
Billy Bob reassures them, “We’ve lived here long enough to know how things go. We’ll manage on our own.”
Polk casually mentions, “Besides, we’re still in contact with our guys outside the city too. If we have to make a getaway, we can.”
Though she appreciates their attempts to sway her worries, she still can’t help but worry. “Even then…”
“Well, if it’s bothering you that much, then maybe we should stay and lend them a hand too,” Biggs then offers.
“Biggs?”
Wedge agrees, “Yeah! For once, Avalanche is coming back together again! We should be looking out for our own too!”
“Wedge!”
Jessie nods along and throws out a proud thumbs-up. “Leave the fort to us! We’ll make sure things don’t go too badly around here!”
“Even Jessie…”
Barret looks around the three with wide open eyes. “Wait. So you guys are stayin’? I thought we were all gonna stop by Cosmo Canyon together!”
Jessie laughs. “Hey, we already did, remember? It was amazing! Wish we could drop by there anytime, really!” Her smile then fades slightly. “But there are things we gotta do too. Can’t just wait around there and pretend nothing’s wrong back home.”
“No, you’re right.” Barret nods back. “Then we’ll stick around too and-”
“Oh, no you don’t!” she argues. “You guys still need to get that stuff sorted out with Cloud and all. You have to go!”
“But…”
“Leave it to us! We’ll hold down the fort as always,” Wedge insists too. “Besides, if there’s anyone who needs to be there for Ruby, it’s you guys!”
“Yeah. Besides, what are we gonna do if we go?” Biggs suggests, “If anything goes wrong, we’ll just get in the way.”
Barret frowns. “What are you talking about? When were ya’ll ever ‘in the way’? You’ve done so much for us I’ve lost count long ago!”
Biggs returns him a grateful grin. “Thanks, Boss.” Still, he has to get serious. “But I mean it. If there’s anything we’ve learned from wandering around Midgar’s underground, it’s that Shinra still got some freaky-ass things down there. Sometimes, a bit too much even for us to handle.”
Wedge sighs, recalling their latest adventure. “We just barely managed to escape with our lives. If Cloud wasn’t there to help, who knows what would have happened to us.”
“Yeah…” Jessie then brings a more resolute face. “So that’s why we were thinking of sticking around with HQ, just for a bit longer. We might actually be able to do some real good from here.”
“Jessie… Biggs and Wedge too…” Tifa offers them all an empathetic look of her own. “Okay. Maybe this is for the best.”
Barret still doesn’t look too happy about this, but he nods too. “Right. We’re counting on you. Make sure Avalanche is still rumblin’ as always and don’t get caught!”
“Of course! And remember, we’ll still be able to stay in contact!” Jessie reminds them, waving her PHS in hand. “So if anything goes down, you can let us know!”
“We will. And we’ll be back with Ruby soon enough,” Tifa tries to reassure them.
“Alright, gang! Split up and move out!” Barret commands.
The other three all nod back with their own confident smiles. “Yeah!!” “You got it, Boss!” “We got this!”
Barret then turns back to Nayo’s group. “Sorry about all this.”
But Nayo shakes her head. “It’s no problem. You go do what you need to.”
He nods back with a firm, determined frown. With that settled, Barret and Tifa now turn back to the rest of their crew, who have been waiting patiently on the side.
“Sorry to keep you,” Tifa addresses them with a bit of an embarrassed smile.
“Don’t mind us,” Sonon replies with a smile of his own. “Those are some great partners you got there.”
“Yeah, we can leave the rest to them!” Yuffie raises an excited fist in the air. “Come on, let’s go! Ruby’s still waiting on us!”
“We’re headed back to the canyon again, remember?” Red reminds her. “We shouldn’t keep Grandpa waiting either.”
“Well, yeah. I didn’t forget! It’s all for the same goal in the end, right?”
He makes a smirk. “Well, if you put it like that… I guess so.”
“Alright, folks. One airship ride, coming up!” Cid then turns back to the ship and cups his hands over his mouth. “Vela, that you? Get the crew! We’re leavin’! Drop the ladder, will ya?”
“On it, Captain!” He hastily unloads the ladder to let them all on.
As the rest of them climb on and hurry inside to their places, Cid joins them last after counting all the heads and reports in with Guillermo, who salutes him. “What’s her status, Vela? We good to go?”
“She’s ready and willing, Captain!” He then adds as a caveat, “Though, the president did order that we not depart without him…”
“Screw him. I’m the Captain here! And this is MY ship!”
“Yes, Captain!” Guillermo immediately changes his tune. “We can set sail any time!”
“That’s more like it. And how about Cloud and Aerith? They’re on too, right?”
“Ah… Affirmative.” Now his attentive look on his face falters. “Well, Aerith is doing fine, but Cloud seems to have gone out cold.”
“What? The hell happened?”
“Aerith said he’ll be fine. He just needs to rest it off. We’ve helped him to the sick bay.”
Cid frowns, shaking his head. “Damn. He’d better not be out for too long. We’re all haulin’ ass for his sake too.” He turns back to Guillermo. “Anyway, to your post. Raise anchor and let’s get the hell outta Midgar!”
“Yes, Captain!”
The two hurry back inside to catch up with the others. With everyone accounted for, it’s not too long before the Highwind’s engines kick into gear again and stirs up the entire dock with a whirlwind as it prepares to launch. And once it reaches altitude, the ship swerves into its course and blasts off for the skies, headed not for the north, but for the southwest.
Meanwhile, from the safety of his office, Rufus has been watching things unfold at the port from his personal drone camera. His pet dog Darkstar lies comfortably by his desk, chewing on a makeshift chewtoy made up of a flag’s cloth with the old Avalanche logo on it. The meeting he had with the company executives has ended, but he still called Heidegger and Scarlet over for one last secret meeting. He also has Tseng online over video phone, as the latter is still recovering from his bed, but he has been kept up to date. They all just finished watching the drone footage, and while Heidegger and Scarlet are clearly uncomfortable, Rufus seems to be rather calm as if everything has been proceeding as planned.
“Quite the unexpected turn of events. Even the professor didn’t expect a certain renegade spirit to appear this soon…” Rufus muses to himself.
Scarlet purses her upper lip in disappointment. “What a shame. I would have expected better of the Turks.”
“This is unacceptable! For our prisons to be broken out of so easily is by all accounts criminal! It would be a disaster if word got out!” Heidegger complains.
Rufus casually sits back in his seat. “It’s a bit late for that, considering the scale of which Avalanche has invaded into Sector 1. Fortunately, it’s not anything that we can’t easily cover up. With Cloud’s team gone, we can safely send in Soldier. They and the Turks should be able to clean up the rest from there.”
“After that sad display? I’m surprised you aren’t more upset, Mr. President,” Scarlet remarks, raising an eyebrow.
Heidegger also brings up, “Sir, I must ask: Why did you decline to send Soldier earlier? The prisoners surely wouldn’t have gotten away if they were deployed.”
“Because as seen in the footage from the prison’s cameras since this evening, Cloud seems to have gained a surprise power-up and would have destroyed them anyway, no matter which class we’d send. Not to mention, our prized Class-I’s have taken a hit in their numbers lately, and there aren’t that many active operators to begin with. It would have been a waste.”
“Even then, it would have spared the Turks that humiliating defeat at the dock! Anyone could look at these circumstances and think it was a victory for Avalanche!”
“Then let them think so. But a temporary victory means little in the grand scheme. Avalanche may as well have burned their own bridges by showing up like this.” He then turns back to Tseng on the screen. “Tseng, do you still have the footage of the prison from several days ago?”
“Yes, sir. We’ve already reviewed it in full. Is there something else that you’d like to take a look at?”
“Go back to the section where Avalanche was first sighted using the underground passage into the prison.”
Tseng obliges and lets the footage play on video. Shortly after the usual guard was dismissed and transferred from their posts around the premises, some suspicious actors were sighted there. While some of them were dressed like normal civilians, others were dressed in brown uniform, making them quite recognizable as members of Avalanche. They were recorded breaking into the prison and letting out a number of prisoners that were being held there before Cloud’s party was sent in there.
“Pause it around the 22-minute mark, where some of the former prisoners’ faces are visible.”
Tseng obliges again.
“Zoom in on one of the prisoners… the Wutaian.”
And so he obeys. At this particular point, it becomes clear which one he is referring to. This former prisoner is a Wutaian man, looking to be in his older middle-aged years. He is dressed as an ordinary civilian as if he had been living in Midgar for a while and is otherwise rather ordinary in appearance. However, on closer inspection, it is revealed that this man’s face seems familiar. In fact, one could say that this man looks exactly like a certain Wutaian politician that is supposed to be currently in power back in Wutai. But how could there be two men who look like “Shigesaki”?
Rufus then smiles proudly to himself. “There we go. We have the evidence we need.”
“Evidence?” Heidegger asks again with a confused frown. “Mr. President. What is the point of showing us this footage? It’s obvious that Avalanche has been involved in breaking out prisoners! If anything, we should have reinforced security on the premises, not rolled back on it!”
“Heidegger, settle down and think carefully. What do you think is the implication of this footage? Why would Avalanche be involved in freeing a certain wanted man from Wutai? Especially someone who is a member of their very Parliament?”
“…” At that moment, Heidegger actually pulls back and dives into deeper consideration.
“I had security rolled back to see if Avalanche would take the bait, and they did. With this, they’ve dug their own graves. Even though a couple of Wutaian agents have been working with Cloud’s group for a while now, they were always the odd exception. Now it’s undeniable that Avalanche as a whole has been working with the new Wutai government.”
By now, both Heidegger and Scarlet have caught on. They too grow curious and begin to speculate to themselves.
Scarlet then reveals a cocky smirk and politely asks the president, “Well, then… This is an obvious breach of the ceasefire’s terms! Sir, how do you intend to respond?”
Rufus answers without a drop of hesitation, “Make a public announcement and broadcast it the world over. If the new Wutai government is smart, they would take immediate action to distance themselves from this. Otherwise, responsibility will fall on them for working with a terrorist group to undermine Midgar. We might just take up their challenge and resume the war they so desperately wish for.”
“Hahahahaha!” She breaks out her signature laugh. “Of course, sir. Well said.”
“Excellent idea, sir! We can easily make arrangements for the broadcast. Let’s drag all the dirty laundry out on Wutai!” Heidegger suggests with a devilish grin of his own.
Now that she’s reminded, Scarlet also asks, “Incidentally, will we still be moving the mako cannon to Midgar?”
Rufus nods. “Of course. The situation with Rubia is still pending, after all.”
“In that case, sir, may I suggest something we can add to this broadcast?” There’s a devious twinkle in her eyes now. “Considering that our latest escaped prisoners are also Avalanche, it’s all too easy to connect them to that pesky dragon. And since the beast has been harassing us since the get-go, that’s yet another thing we can blame on Wutai.”
“Exactly! If we’re going to declare war, we might as well do it on them both!” Heidegger agrees and also adds, “After all, we, the Shinra Company, have a duty to protect the people of Midgar from any and all foreign threats!” He shakes a fist with a false pretense of indignance. “How dare these Wutai devils sic their monsters on our innocent people! Have they no shame!?”
Both he and Scarlet then break out into laughter, though Rufus still remains composed and largely uninterested in their petty schemes. After all, compared to him, these two are merely playground bullies, while he’s been looking much further ahead. Despite all appearances, this little war is only the beginning. Regardless of her opinions and quirks, Rubia is still an Ancient as far as he’s concerned. If anything, she is THE Ancient that they’ve been waiting on all this time; the one who is of pure Cetran blood that will lead them to the Promised Land. The current issue, however, is that she has entirely underestimated Shinra and shows no interest in leading them anywhere. So, if it takes the breakout of war for her to finally take notice and show herself, then that is precisely what he will do.
But of course, he must tread carefully and ensure that Shinra comes out as the “morally justified” side in this war. After all, it’s one thing to get the attention of a deity, but it’s another to actually impress her. If there’s one thing that all dragons, no matter their allegiances, enjoy, it’s a good, decisive battle.
Notes:
I know this chapter is mainly serious, but the image of Cloud just randomly appearing everywhere and just generally being an angry, moody doggo is sending me.
Just a bit of trivia to share and some questions to speculate
- There were a couple different draft ideas I had planned for this chapter, where both actually involved the Tzviets again in slightly different scenarios. At first I wanted to introduce Azul and Rosso, but on second thought, it would be inappropriate if I had Fenrir!Cloud come in and slay them at this point. I also considered writing them as part of a simulation like with Weiss, but decided against bringing them in altogether. Not only would these two not to act through a simulation, their more powerful forms are meant to be closer to endgame threats than midgame. Given Fenrir's presence, he still would be able to come out victorious, but I think it'd just kinda waste the Tzviet's potential roles. So, please look forward to their debuts somewhere in Act 3.
- Instead, what I did write in as the "big boss" was an alternate version of the Type-0 Behemoth that Cloud and party encounter in the underground of Sector 7 back in Remake. But this one is dubbed "Type-Alpha" where the alpha stands in for the "A" of ARC. At first I was thinking of calling it "Type-ARC" instead, but imho it ruins the naming scheme, so I went with a single letter. Also, in most other FF games, King Behemoths are capable of casting Meteor in a pinch, but given the significance of "Meteor" in this game, it's gonna be Comet here. While the one in Remake wasn't strong enough to call on Comet, let's just say that ARC does weird things and lets its users access powers beyond their usual scale.
- Many of you may be wondering why Rufus would dare to start a war when someone like Rubia is now watching. Because I will not be covering the SRC's activities, I would need a different reason as to why Shinra and Wutai are going to war, and while Sephiroth could help instigate it, he actually has different plans this time, so I have to write a new direction with my Wutai subplot. So, I raise a glass to Rufus for being a rather convenient plot device himself. See, while he is definitely a smart dude who knows how to plan effectively and even has backup plans for days, he is also that kind of person who would let his ambitions inflate his ego. Even if he intends to be "cautious" with Rubia, he also has no idea the extent of her power and is still underestimating her.I'll close this post with three big questions, where you are all free to answer any or none of them in the comments: Does Rubia even care to intervene in a war between humans? What is Sephiroth going to do about her? And what are Fenrir's motivations? Other than being a good boyo, of course.
Chapter 64: Holding Out for a Hero
Notes:
Thank you all for your patience! I will not lie: this chapter was difficult to write. Between the multiple plots I have to juggle at the same time and likewise lead directly into the events to come at the Forgotten Capital, I went through a number of rewrites and had to sit on it for many days before I found a suitable middle ground between off-the-rails and what I originated planned. So, I hope you all enjoy what I managed to cobble together. As promised, we are indeed heading toward the end of Act 2.
Act 3 is gonna be totally off-the-rails, though. Can't wait.
Outdated A/N
7/21/24 edit: Kept you waiting, huh? But rejoice, for I have finished the next chapter and am currently working on the following one. These two chapters will mark the end of Act 2.
I'll leave a little hint to them in the tags for now.
4/20/25 edit: Revised the scene with Nanaki after Cloud meets everyone at the bar for continuity with previous revised scenes.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
It’s gotten cold around here. Cloud stirs and shudders to find himself lying on the floor of an icy cavern. What happened? How did he get here? And why? Questions crowd his mind as he gets back to his feet and takes a look around. The entire place is covered in ice; the walls, the ceiling, and even the floor is completely frozen over, and it doesn’t seem to have ever thawed. He seems to be in a massively spacious chamber somewhere in the depths, but for some reason, he cannot find any exit. It almost feels like this is a space in the cavern that normally shouldn’t be accessible, and yet here he is, as if he were somehow transported here. There is some faint lighting from the iridescent glow of materia-like crystals that line the walls around him, but most of the light in here is emitted from a frozen wall of a much more translucent crystal that stretches across in the back. Everything is different from the mountains of Nibelheim and yet he still gets a feeling that he’s been here before. Now that Cloud turns toward this glowing wall, he realizes that something is being held within.
His eyes grow wide. There in the center of this crystal prison, a huge silver wolf is kept in pristine condition. The wolf’s eyes are closed as if he were just sleeping, but Cloud gets the feeling that this wolf hasn’t awakened for eons. This is the one he’s seen before, right? The one that he always seems to be following in past visions. Just then, he hears another set of footsteps that are coming this way. Cloud instinctively reaches for his sword, but when he turns to see, he gets another surprise.
It’s Ruby – no, this should be Rubia. She’s dressed in her distinctly white cloak upon a battle-ready brigantine as from times past. She doesn’t seem to notice Cloud and hurries right past him and rushes to the crystalline wall. She stares up at the unmoving wolf, but doesn’t seem to be surprised in the least to see how he’s situated, almost as if she’s seen this before. With a silent prayer in mind, she sets her hands upon the wall, closes her eyes and casts a spell to break through.
The icy wall shatters and unfolds upon itself as if the magic barrier upon it has been disengaged, and the huge wolf is released. He’s a bit startled to have been woken up like this and shakes his head as his sight comes into focus. He then stares at his latest visitor in shock and finally snaps out of any lingering drowsiness.
“Rubia!” he bellows with an thundering deep voice that echoes within this chamber.
She gives him a proud smile. “Fenrir! Glad to see you again, old friend!”
“But how? For you to have come here…” He narrows his eyes in suspicion and he growls dangerously. “No, that cannot be. There are no visitors to the damned of Helheim. This must be… an illusion, played by the vagrant souls of this accursed planet.”
Her smile fades slightly, but she expected such a reaction. “Fenrir, it is me. I’ve transcended beyond the bounds of the outer realms just to be able to see you again.”
He snarls back. “Silence, damned phantom! You dare mock me with her image!? Begone! I will fall for no folly!”
“Hmm…” Rather than keep arguing with him, Rubia then raises a hand forward and challenges him to approach. “If you truly believe so, then come. Let us see who is the ‘damned phantom’ here.”
Fenrir bares his fangs and is snorting angrily. Rubia remains unfazed but with just the slightest smile on her face and practically exudes confidence. And Cloud is stunned to see this happen. They aren’t seriously going to fight, are they? Yet, as if some imaginary bell were rung, the battle begins. The great wolf lunges at her, snapping his jaws wildly and fearsomely, and yet she easily dodges every attempt he makes. The wolf is so big that he makes this chamber feel small, and yet his movements are so smooth and agile that he never once crashes into any wall. The pair thus proceeds to dash and pounce about the entire chamber, and a few times there, Cloud is nearly caught up in the fray. But when he rolls out of the way to avoid them, they seem to flow right past him. Ah, right. This is just a vision of the past. He’s not actually here.
Cloud continues to watch the two have their fanciful sparring match. Despite his lumbering size, Fenrir’s steps are swift and precise, almost as if he were dancing. Rubia is able to follow his rhythm and ducks, weaves, and evades in turn without landing a single counterattack on him. This expertly choreographed set of calls and answers continues in a melodious harmony of maneuvers. To be honest, Cloud is actually impressed; even a little mesmerized by their movements in tandem as if they had done this so many times before.
Eventually, the wolf begins to tire himself out. With a chance opportunity to land a decisive blow, Rubia seizes the opening and boldly lunges right for his face. The wolf is taken off-guard and shuts his eyes to brace for impact, but rather than meet with a powerful blow, he instead meets with the slightest sting on the tip of his nose. When he opens his eyes again, he stares in dumbfounded awe at the audacity of this woman. Cloud, who was anticipating something much more incredible, is likewise disappointed.
Despite still being in her human form, Rubia has bitten Fenrir on the nose with her sharpened teeth. They’re not quite the full fangs of a dragon, so they barely scratch even the more sensitive skin of the wolf’s nose. She also shows a mischievous grin as she bites him and shortly lets go and hopes back to the ground. Fenrir continues to stare in disbelief, but now he is starting to understand. This is no mere “phantom”. This person has unlocked a core memory of his – one from long ago since they first met.
Nonetheless, despite his relief to finally see his old friend returned, he grows disturbed and wary all the same. He lowers his guard and even settles down to take a seat before her, but he maintains a stiff and noble-looking frown.
With a much calmer but no less cautionary tone, he speaks again, “You should not be here. Those who enter Helheim are never to leave.”
As unfazed as ever, Rubia replies with a firm tone of her own, “However the powers that be, they can do nothing to keep me anywhere. I had to come, not merely of want but also of necessity.”
“What necessity is there for this damned soul to fulfill?”
“The necessity to change this world.”
He narrows his eyes and snorts indignantly. “This world was doomed from the very beginning. However it changes makes no difference and is of no concern of mine.”
“I know, old friend. I am aware of your tragic history with this planet. It seems like the moment you were born, you were doomed to unending misfortunes.”
He remains unmoved. “And what would a whelp like you know of my history? I have lived on this planet long before you had even come into existence.”
She lowers her head to offer her condolences. “You were but an innocent pup that was once adopted by the Ancients afar, only to be shunned when an ill-fated prophecy was read aloud. You roamed the Far North alone, not by choice but by circumstance.”
“!” He stares at her, now wide-eyed. “Rubia, how could you…?”
“I flew across time itself to learn the truth. You did nothing wrong and your punishments were entirely unwarranted.”
“…” He continues to stare at her in shock, but then lets off a sigh and decides to hear her out. “Go on. What did you learn?”
“I learned of your upbringing. Though the first encounter with the Cetra of the times was a rough start, the tribe that came to adopt you grew fond of you. You were the big, lovable, furry friend that played with anyone, no matter their size or shape, so much so that some even had to take you away from danger.”
“…”
“So when I heard of this prophecy, I did not and could not believe it. I suspected it must have been a calculated ploy by some nefarious third party, but I was unable to find any evidence of the sort. Perhaps it was a terrible misinterpretation by the oracle responsible, but in any case, it brought about a most unjust panic.”
Fenrir lowers his head too, troubled to be reminded of the days of his youth. For a very long time, he had pushed aside those thoughts since he came to be alone.
“And amid that fearful chaos, you were captured, chained, and imprisoned, and at the end of your sentence, you were to be executed.” She shakes her head, frowning with a vindictive anger. “And to what end? All simply to satiate the flippant fears of some would-be deity that simply has no concept of trust! Like the coward that he is, Odin kept his face hidden behind that helmet. If only I weren’t so naïve when I was young, I would have gladly torn it off his head, and likewise torn off the head.”
“…”
She snorts angrily, but settles back down. “It was not him alone. The entire pantheon of Gods condemned you henceforth. And it was only by the pleading of one other brave warrior that you be released in exile instead.”
Fenrir closes his eyes in deep thought. That man was one he could never forget. He owed him an eternal gratitude that would never end no matter how long the eons pass.
Rubia nods along. “Tyr. Unlike his fellow foolish man, he was one of sound mind and reason and understood how ridiculous this panic was. He was also well-respected among not just the Cetra, but even among the Guardians themselves for his contributions to maintaining peace between the great rivaling clans. He argued for your release as you had done no wrong. When he offered to be imprisoned along with you, even Minerva herself withheld her judgment. Thus, your former sentence was overruled and you were instead released into exile to the Far North, where none would dare trespass. So long as you remained up there, the Cetra would be spared a calamity.”
“…”
“However, that peace did not last, did it?” She then frowns as she moves on. “Following the Great Cetran War between Bahamut and Tiamat’s armies, everyone was stricken with another panic when Tiamat would leave a curse upon her offspring, to be fated to never return to the planet.”
Fenrir now lifts his head again to peer at her, just to check on her again. At this time, Rubia remains cool and collected, as if she weren’t too bothered.
“For whatever reason, not one was willing to concede to the idea that oracles could be wrong. And so they all believed that this unborn child would be the next bringer of calamity.” She scoffs at the thought. “It seems our history has been written by the imbeciles and simpletons.”
“…”
“Though in all fairness…” Her stubborn frown then falters into a sad one. “I was among those simple minds. I was long taught that rubbish when I was growing up and believed it with all my heart. They even taught of us the good Tyr and his contributions to the Ancients of their time, and yet mentioned nothing of his noble act to defend you.” She also bows her head before him. “Forgive me, old friend. I was ignorant of the truth for so long.”
“…No need to apologize, Rubia. Such a racket is but a footnote in history, due to be long forgotten.”
“No, I still must apologize.” She raises her head with a hurt expression on her face. “For it was in my innocent naivete that I long believed even the words of my treacherous father, who lied to me about my birth.”
“…!” Now that she brings it up, Fenrir snaps to attention. “Rubia, what is this? How would you know about your birth?”
“As I said, Fenrir, I leapt through time to discover the truth.” She then reveals a gentle yet a little sad smile. “Bahamut is not my real father. He took me away from you when you reared me in the most tender years.”
The old wolf snorts and shakes his head. “No, Rubia, do not misunderstand. It was but the first two years that you stayed with me, but this arrangement was due to be untenable.”
“It matters not the circumstances! You, who discovered me since I first hatched, guarded me and raised me even before Bahamut and his Golden Wyrms ever set eyes on me. If anything, you would be better fit to be called my fa-”
“Enough!” he snaps back all of a sudden, even startling her. “I will repeat it just once more: do not misunderstand. I merely discovered your egg at the core of the great crater of the Far North. I had nothing to do with how it came to be there.”
“…”
“It was indeed the work of Tiamat. She knew you would have been killed the moment anyone discovered you, so hid you away until enough time had passed for everyone to forget.”
She looks down and begins to stew to her own thoughts.
“It was pure happenstance that I came upon the egg. I would have been in the right mind to abandon or even eat you, but something refrained me from acting on impulse.” He frowns to himself. “However, that does not justify my silence. I should never have kept you for as long as I did. Bahamut was in the right to take you away.”
“But was he in the right to have you imprisoned here?” she suddenly argues back.
“What?”
She now gives him a stern glare. “I know the truth, Fenrir. Bahamut took me away because he feared what would happen should I have remained with you. He feared that my blossoming powers would quickly overtake him if he did not intervene. He had to separate us because we would have become unstoppable!”
“Rubia…”
“I was able to warp when I was a mere hatchling. He knew that was too dangerous and instead forced me into an unfair regiment at the hands of his fellow Guardians. And he even dared to call it ‘training’ and fool me into believing it was because he believed in my potential…” She makes a bitter, betrayed frown. “Like his fellow Guardians, they’re all but old, paranoid fools who have no concept of trust.”
“…”
“And yet, as if that were not enough, he would even commit the greatest slight to my honor.” She turns back to Fenrir with an earnest and ashamed look in her eyes. “He had you imprisoned on false charges that you had ‘kidnapped’ me. You, who had done no wrong and could have been left well alone, were once again captured out of a most unjust panic.”
However, this time, Fenrir has to interject. “Rubia, listen. As much as you may distrust Bahamut, he did not imprison me without fair reason.”
“What fair reason!? You do not deserve to be trapped anywhere!”
“No, let me explain.” As she settles back down, he continues, “Bahamut has never been wrong even once when it comes to all matters with Tiamat. He was well aware that even though she were sealed away in the deepest depths of Helheim, she would find some way to return regardless.” He then holds his head up in an almost regal stance. “Despite his initial misgivings, he still bequeathed upon me one last noble endeavor. I would be held here at the shallowest tier of Helheim to help stand guard of when Tiamat would eventually break free from the seal.”
Rubia stares at him in disbelief. “Fenrir, you can’t possibly believe that’s true, can you?”
“Rest assured, I did not trust him at his word. However, I too am aware of Tiamat’s nature. I was there when both the Great Cetran Wars erupted. It took the entirety of the Pantheon to subdue her. I would not ever dare to underestimate such a frightening foe.”
“How could someone like Tiamat even become that powerful to challenge everyone?”
“She often carried herself a certain overbearing personality, but in reality she was craftier than she presented herself to be. It was through long periods of patience to await the proper opportunities to seize power, and it was through a certain revelation that she came to utilize the strength of an entity even beyond the planet itself.”
“Beyond the planet?” Rubia takes a moment to think it over and a certain suspicion comes to mind, but asks just to be sure, “Fenrir, how do you mean? That is, from the great cosmos beyond, or…?”
“Not even of these great cosmos. No such sign from the stars had preceded this mysterious advent.”
“Not even ‘these’ cosmos…”
“I know not of how she came to have the knowledge of it, nor the true nature of this mysterious entity. However, the facts remain that she had suddenly gained a great amount of freedom from acquiring this entity’s power and it would only continue to grow without end until she could hide it no longer. And thus, would the two Great Cetran Wars be waged.”
“…A mysterious entity… from the greater beyond?” she mutters to herself, as if striking upon a certain familiarity with the concept.
“On that thought, it reminds me of a question I must ask of you.”
She snaps out of her thoughts and blinks in surprise. “Me?”
“Rubia, be as honest as you can forthwith.” Fenrir narrows his eyes in suspicion. “How did you manage to come here?”
“…” She turns away, looking unsure if she should answer that.
“It would be by all accounts impossible that you would be able to enter Helheim. Only those who are judged under the watchful eye of Minerva would be sent here.”
“…”
“Unless… you’ve been banished as well?” He frowns to himself. “No, not even that. Would that be the case, you would have been sent to a different realm and not be free to roam.”
“…”
He stares at her hard. “Rubia, answer. Why are you silent?”
Finally, after a long moment of hesitation, Rubia finally gives in and looks back up to him, right in the eyes. However, to his surprise, she then reveals a rather calm smile.
“You don’t have to worry about me anymore, Fenrir. As I said, I’ve transcended the bounds of realms just to be here with you.”
“…” He simply continues to stare, trying to make sense of her reply, but realizing that she’s serious, his eyes grow wide. “Rubia, you…”
“Perhaps it was some mysterious entity that helped Tiamat in the far past, but she is not so unique. For I have gained the great freedom that lets me transcend time, space, and dimension.”
Rubia looks rather proud of herself for that statement, but but rather than share in her elation, Fenrir simply looks alarmed. Of all the developments that would be, he honestly feared this the most. Perhaps there was one other thing that Rubia had inherited from her mother that even she isn’t aware yet.
She throws up her arms with a delighted, excited smile. “Come with me, Fenrir! Time is no longer a restraint that will hold us! Let us gallivant through the ages to our heart’s content! There is much that we can do to change this world for the better!”
After a long silence, he finally looks away, still rather disturbed. “That can’t be…”
Rubia’s smile fades. “What’s wrong?”
“The magic that allows one to leap through time, only the most powerful and legendary of wizards in history would have been able to possess that power. It was by the decree of the Guardians that such power be reserved only amongst themselves.”
“…”
He turns back to her with a disturbed look. “And yet, here you are, all of a sudden capable of such power? The Pantheon would balk at the mere thought of granting it to you. So was it by the same entity…?”
Now she’s growing concerned for him. “What is the matter? Why are you distraught?”
“Rubia, this freedom you possess, it is much too dangerous. Should Minerva or the rest of the Pantheon discover you, they will vie for any means to erase you.”
“Hmph. They may try…” Yet, she remains undeterred. “But even they cannot stop me. I can always return to that place where none other, not even Minerva, cannot find me.”
“That is impossible. There is no realm within the vicinity of this planet that is not under her watch.”
“Then, that place must not be within the vicinity of this planet. No, it is far, far away, at the ends of time. The very edge of creation itself.”
“…”
“Fenrir, so long as we can always return there, we will never end.” She sets a hand over her heart to make a solemn oath. “And I promise, no matter what, we will be able to stay together forevermore.”
“…”
The two share a rather tense silence as neither one dares to take their eyes off of the other. Whatever it is that has convinced Rubia, it’s clear that she won’t back down. Though he still is unsure of what these developments mean or may lead them, Fenrir concedes and agrees to follow along so long that she is so confident.
“…Rubia,” he finally speaks up again.
“Yes?”
“This ‘place’ you speak of. Show it to me. I do not understand how such a place can exist, but likewise, I do not understand how Tiamat came to become as she has. But if I am to keep to this duty to watch and survey her, then I must learn these secrets that she has been holding.”
Now, Rubia’s eyes light up again and she makes a relieved smile. “Of course, my dear friend! I would never leave you behind to keep suffering like this.”
The two share a moment of calm, glad to be in each other’s trust once more, and then she touches his leg again and prepares to cast the spell to send them across time and space to an entirely different place. And as if to signify the changing of Fate, the strange tessellating shapes of a certain origin appear once again. As they vanish from view, the rest of this vision draws to a close and it fades out of sight into the black abyss.
Cloud snaps back to attention, finding himself all alone again and left adrift in the darkness. He’s simply lost and stunned at what he’s witnessed. He may not have much context, if any, but he did pick up on one thing: Seems like this “other world” that Ruby once told him about isn’t just exclusive to her weird memories. Somehow, for whatever reason, Rubia might have been exposed to it as well. In fact, it’s what led her down this disastrous rabbit hole in the first place and she’s even roped Fenrir into the chaos.
What was this mysterious entity that Fenrir mentioned that helped Tiamat ascend to power? What does it have to do with Rubia? And last but not least, where did they even go? To the ends of time? At the “edge of creation”…?
Now that he thinks about it again, Ruby used to mention that she would regularly meet with Sephiroth somewhere in the depths of the Lifestream, but Cloud always figured it was metaphorical. It wasn’t that they were literally in the core of the planet, were they? In that case, one would think that Minerva of all deities would know about that place. But neither she nor the rest of them did anything to intervene whenever Ruby would fall victim to Sephiroth’s schemes. So, is there truly a place where even they don’t know, or is it just that they choose not to intervene?
And on that thought, Ruby and later even Rubia mentioned something about this world being a “simulation”; that it’s going to be judged by some group known as the “Watchers of the Simulation”, and if it’s not satisfactory enough, it will be “reset”. What the heck is that about? Rubia also mentioned that she intends to “change” it. But how and for what?
But the biggest question of all remains: why is Rubia now acting alone? Where did Fenrir go? She brought him to “that place” and then… what? How can a wolf that huge just vanish?
As far as he knows, he’s never once crossed paths with a Summon materia of Fenrir. According to the old books, these red materia are formed from the essences of the Summons that had given themselves up to the planet. Most of them did and that is how they have been preserved, even when they don’t show themselves unless called upon. Does that mean, like Rubia, Fenrir never returned to the planet? Then he would have to be hiding somewhere. But where…?
Cloud blinks a few times and it finally hits him. Wait a second. Hiding? Ruby once mentioned that Rubia had been “hiding” within her all along. If it’s possible with Rubia, then maybe Fenrir…
His eyes widen and his jaw drops agape as the fridge horror sets in. No way. This can’t be real. And yet, it makes sense why Fenrir hasn’t appeared yet. It even explains some of these visions he’s been having. He looks down at his own hands and feels his right hand where Ruby once bit him. He tugs off his glove to inspect his hand and slips it back on. There’s no mark or wound that’s left since then, but he can remember the exact moment all the same. It hurt at first, but then he was hit with a vision, or rather an ancient memory. It was from a time way back when the old wolf first discovered Rubia when she was just hatched.
It turns out it wasn’t Rubia who was sending him memories; it was Fenrir. Or rather, Cloud simply recalled them as they were his own. He is Fenrir. He is the one who has inherited the wolf’s spirit.
Wait a sec. But if he’s supposed to be Fenrir, then who is “Cloud”?
He stares off into space in complete disbelief and clutches his head as he feels a bad migraine come on. What the hell. All this time he thought it was just an identity crisis that was unique to Ruby. It was so strange that she would regularly be possessed by some ancient vengeful spirit, but he always figured it had to do with Rubia’s weird reincarnation process. But maybe he thought about it all wrong. What if he’s the same? What if he’s just been a mask for some other being?
No, wait. That can’t be right. He’s never had any of these memories before meeting Ruby and everyone else. He can clearly remember his childhood living in Nibelheim. Tifa was there too; she’d know. He is his own person. He has to be. And he could never forget that day, five years ago. When all seemed lost, he was the one who stopped Sephiroth. No “wolf spirit” or anything ever awakened to stop the town from burning. If it were that easy, then why didn’t he just do that?
He lowers his hands, but he can’t relax yet. A particular doubt still nags at him. No matter how hard he tries, he just can’t remember how he managed to surive in the first place. Sure, Ruby told him the real story behind what happened at the Mt. Nibel reactor and it sounds true enough. But it also sounds so fantastic; so ridiculous. Of all the people who could survive not just a direct hit but several from the greatest war hero of all time, it would be this no-name Shinra grunt who never even made it into Soldier. But he did. He fought back and kept fighting back. He even scared Sephiroth into committing suicide. Even if it was just for a moment, he really did feel that powerful – almost like something possessed him and granted him that power.
A chilling fear creeps up upon him again. Hold on. Was Fenrir actually there after all? Then, he might really be… No, but what about all his own memories? Ugh… Actually, that might not even matter. Ruby said she had all these memories of her own life from a different world too, but even she suspected those memories were planted, as a part of the mask as Rubia intended. So, if Fenrir did the same… No, stop that! That can’t be how it is! He’s not a damn wolf!
All this confusion is suffering. He may be perfectly still, yet his head is spinning. The migraine only continues to grow. Not again. He can’t keep spiraling back into this cycle. He thought it was torturous enough knowing that Sephiroth has control of him through the Jenova cells. Now he even has to deal with another vengeful spirit taking over him? Or maybe he was that spirit all along – ah, who knows what the hell is going on? God, this sucks! Nothing makes sense. Why can’t everyone just leave him alone? Why does it have to be him? Please… if anyone is out there, let this suffering end.
~
“…Cloud…! Cloud! Cloud, wake up!”
He snaps awake to the sounds of Tifa’s frantic voice. She is leaning over him and looking pretty worried. He finds himself lying on bed in a room at a familiar-looking inn. Red walls all around… Cosmo Canyon?
“…Tifa?”
She pulls back with a sigh of relief and returns to her seat beside the bed. “Thank goodness. You scared me for a bit there.”
“Oh… sorry,” he answers, even despite not knowing what he’s apologizing for.
“Don’t worry, it’s not your fault. Are you okay? You looked like you were having a nightmare.”
“A nightmare?”
“Yeah. You were tossing and turning in your sleep and were drenched in a cold sweat like you had a fever.”
“Oh.” He reaches a hand to his forehead, finding a folded wet towel laid there, and slips his hand underneath. “Well, it doesn’t feel like I have it anymore.”
She retrieves it and sets it aside on a nearby dish to let dry. “Yeah, thankfully. Aerith checked on you earlier and said you would be okay after some rest.” She then makes a frown. “But I guess even your rest wasn’t easy.”
“…” He now sits up, crossing his legs, and hunches over with a troubled sigh. “You could say that.”
“Hmm…” At first she hesitates to ask, but the curiosity just won’t leave. “Do you wanna talk about it?”
“…”
Cloud stares off into space as he tries to recall everything that he’d just witnessed. To be honest, he doesn’t really want to keep thinking about it. He’s now getting headaches just from thinking. What’s next, he’s gonna get them from doing nothing? Wait… that happens anyway.
Though disappointed, Tifa takes it back. “Well, if you don’t, I won’t pry. But it must have been something intense.”
He turns back to her. “No, it’s okay. I can talk. Um… I had another vision.”
She perks up immediately. “A vision? You mean of Rubia?”
“Yeah.” He hesitates over how to describe it. “There was a lot to think about, but at least I think I now understand a little better… not just about Rubia, but Fenrir too.”
Tifa blinks in surprise. “Fenrir?”
“Yeah. He was this huge wolf from ancient times and Rubia’s partner.”
“Oh, I know. I heard about him just earlier, but…”
“Huh? You heard about him?”
She nods. “From Bugenhagen. After we left Midgar, we came here to Cosmo Canyon since Red – ah, I should say – Nanaki said we could ask him about Fenrir.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Why would you ask him about that?”
“Um, isn’t it obvious? After all that happened and you got us out of prison…”
He stares back. “After what happened? How did we get out?”
She returns him a confused stare as well. “Cloud, you don’t remember?”
“Remember…?”
“You saved us. You turned into Fenrir and broke us out, including Aerith.”
His mouth drops agape. “I… what? Turned into…?”
She quickly corrects herself, “Um, not literally. You still looked like yourself, but you weren’t really acting like yourself. Wouldn’t even talk to us either.”
“…”
“And you even gained this power to summon ice anywhere. It really saved us from the worst of Midgar’s underground. They had so many of those ARC zombies and all…”
“…”
“I don’t know how, but it was like you knew where to be and what to do. Freed everyone, beat all the baddies, and even brought us straight to the ship so we could get away safely.” She curiously tilts her head. “You really don’t remember anything?”
“No.”
“Oh.” She looks a little disappointed. “Well, that’s what happened.”
“…”
She’s starting to feel a bit uncomfortable under his gaze. “Um, Cloud? Could you please stop staring at me like that?”
“Huh? Oh, uh…” He quickly turns away. “I just… It’s kinda hard to believe.”
She nods back. “I get it. It sounds really crazy. But we wouldn’t be here if not for you.” She then offers a kind smile. “So, thanks. I mean it.”
He doesn’t answer. He simply stares off toward the foot of his bed and then shifts his legs, leaving one up so he can rest an arm on it, just to get comfortable. But he’s still feeling exhausted even though he’s just woken up. He’s had enough meeting crazy things. Whatever happened to the normal? He can’t even remember the last time he had a dream that wasn’t some kind of terrible omen.
After an awkward silence, Tifa glances off as she recalls something. “…Oh. Thinking about it, you did make good on your promise, huh?”
“Huh? What promise?”
She looks back to him with a touch of concern. “From when we were kids, remember? You didn’t forget that too, did you?”
“Ah…” He nods. “I remember. You asked me to save you if you ever felt trapped.”
She goes back to her smile. “That’s right. And I was definitely trapped, but you helped me out of it. Helped all of us, kinda like a superhero.”
He casts a disappointed look aside. “…Never really joined Soldier, though.”
She’s a little taken off-guard and lets out a soft chuckle. “Does that matter? Where you’ve gone, Soldier wishes they could be as cool as you!”
“…”
She then clears her throat awkwardly. “Hehe… So to speak.”
The two return to their awkward silence. As happy as Cloud is to hear this genuine praise from Tifa in particular, he just can’t bring himself to accept it. Though he knows she wouldn’t lie about this, he still can’t believe it entirely. To think that his big hero moment happened while he was unconscious and he doesn’t even remember any of it. Feels like he had to be shoved out of the way for it to happen; like he’s not the one who deserves it. And yet, Tifa is looking at him so expectantly that he can’t bring himself to rain on her good mood. Or even look at her in the face.
To be honest, she’s getting unnerved from all this silence. “Well, I’m glad to see you’re back to normal. Seeing Fenrir show up all of a sudden was pretty scary, even if he was helping us.”
Cloud doesn’t reply, but he wishes he could just tell them that this is all just a misunderstanding. If anything, wouldn’t it be the responsible thing to tell her and everyone else what’s really going on? After all, is it really a good thing that Fenrir has awakened? If he’s just gonna turn out like Ruby… No, please, anything but that. He can’t just be another puppet under the control of anyone. Can he please just be himself for a change?
She gets up from her seat and beckons him to follow. “Anyway, we’ve been here long enough. The others have been waiting for you, you know. Even Bugenhagen wants to see you. Let’s go.”
“Huh? Oh…” He slides off the bed and gets to his feet. “How long have they been waiting?”
“Since last night. Though, I think it’s already turning to evening by now. You’ve been out for a while.”
He stares off into space as if an obvious answer just came to him. “…No wonder I’m tired. And hungry.”
She smiles to that. “We’re just about to get dinner. Come on, Cait said he was going to help cook!”
“Huh? Cait Sith is cooking?”
“Yeah. That cat is full of surprises.”
~
When the two finally step out from Shildra Inn and head downstairs to find the bar, it’s hosting a good number of customers. Some of their friends – Barret and Red at a table and Sonon seated at the bar – are also here taking it easy. Interestingly, Red, who now formally goes by Nanaki, seems to have undergone a bit of an attitude change. And as soon as Cloud steps into view, they cheer and wave, and Nanaki perks right up, wagging his tail like mad.
“Cloud! There you are, champ! We missed ya!” Barret throws up a hand to beckon him over.
“Cloud!” Nanaki leaps past the tables and chairs right up to the staircase, halting just before him and Tifa, with a big panting smile. “I’m so glad you’re okay! How are you feeling? Got any cool stories to tell? Heh, you know, ‘cool’.”
Cloud simply stares at him, while Tifa giggles and offers him an affectionate head rub. “Give him some time. He’s just woken up.”
“Oh, don’t worry. I already told him about my voice.”
She blinks. “Oh, did you?”
“Yeah, but we decided to keep to the old. But it wasn’t gonna stay since you all heard how old I really am.” Nanaki then sits down, clears his throat and speaks more calmly and in his deeper voice, “Though, it wouldn’t hurt to bring it out from time to time.”
Cloud settles down again, but curiosity leads him to ask, “You’re not hiding it anymore, huh?”
“Nah. No point.” Nanaki brings back his smile. “Besides, I've been itching to. We didn’t stick around for very long last time we came by, so I never got the chance to let loose, you know?”
“Let loose, huh…” Cloud folds his arms. “So, how old are you, really?”
“I said it before, didn’t I? I’m 48.”
“Bugenhagen told us just a little while ago. His species is so long-lived that 48 years is still like a teenager,” Tifa explains.
Cloud glances to her and nods as he drops his arms. “Huh.”
Nanaki nods. “Yeah, it’s also why I don’t get to see Deneh very much. Old customs say we aren’t supposed to meet until we participate in the coming-of-age ritual when we hit 50.”
“Deneh?” He blinks and recalls, “Oh. Your fiancée, right?”
“Yeah! You remembered!” He wags his tail happily.
“Though, I also remember Ruby brought her here before…”
Nanaki raises a digit of his paw before his mouth as if to shush him. “Most people don’t know yet,” he whispers.
“Ah. Gotcha.” He nods. “Well, good to know.” He then glances around and asks, “So where is everyone else?”
Tifa answers instead, “Well, Cait Sith’s in the back helping the cook. Aerith said she wanted to learn a bit more, so she’s with Bugenhagen up in the observatory. Vincent said he’d be wandering around town. I think Cid went out for a quick smoke, and…” She taps her fingers as she counts them all up. “You know, I’m not sure where Yuffie went. Said something about a ‘hunt’, though, so she probably didn’t go too far.”
“That girl’s always got materia on the mind,” Sonon calls out in agreement.
“You’re not watching her?” Cloud asks him.
He waves a dismissive hand. “She’s old enough to handle herself.” And he takes a swig of his mug. “Whew… The Cosmotites sure know their liquor. Packs a punch, yet doesn’t drag you down. Not bad, not bad at all… Best stuff I’ve had since I left Wutai, even.”
“…”
Nanaki then asks Cloud, “Oh, yeah! Speaking of food and stuff, you haven’t eaten yet, have you? Since you’ve been out for so long.”
“Nope.”
Tifa reassures him, “We’re just about to get some. Hope the Cait won’t mind making room for one more?”
Nanaki wags his tail. “Oh, don’t worry! Cait knew he’d be out for a while, so he’s kept a portion for him on the warmer. You can just ask the barkeep and he’ll let them know.”
“Thanks!” Likewise reminded, she also asks, “After we’re done here, I think we can all go see Bugenhagen. Mind getting everyone for us?”
“Oh, right! Yeah, I’m on it!” And with that, he leaps off and out the door with an excited howl.
“Cloud, you can just wait here. I’ll be right back,” she advises the other too.
Before she leaves, he speaks up, “Uh, Tifa…”
She turns back. “Hmm?”
“…” To be honest, he isn’t really sure what to say right now. He decides to back off with an awkward head rub. “Thanks.”
She returns him a sly wink and goes to chat with the barkeep, who sends a notice to the kitchen for their reserved order. In the meantime, Barret calls him over too.
“Yo, Cloud! Get over here already!”
“Huh? You need something?”
“Nah.” He pats an empty spot beside him with a wide grin on his face. “Sit down, man. Relax. Seeing you standin’ there like a coat hanger’s bad for the vibes.”
“…”
Reluctant to sit beside Barret on any occasion, Cloud instead takes a seat on the other side of the table and rests his sword against the seat. He doesn’t even face Barret and casually leans against the table as he waits. Rather, he keeps his attention on Tifa, who politely thanks the barkeep for letting her know, and now comes back to join them. Not wasting a second, Cloud moves his sword and slides back to make room for her.
She lets him know, “Sorry, Cloud. Seems like the portion that Cait wanted to save for you went missing. Think there was a mix-up of orders, so they’re making a fresh batch.”
“…Oh. Well, thanks anyway.”
She takes the seat beside him. “Hope you’ll be okay holding it out a little longer. They won’t be long.”
“I’ll be fine.”
Taking his chance, Barret also mentions, “Oh, yeah. Cloud. Been meaning to tell ya something too…”
“What?” he replies flatly.
“Last we heard from Jessie and gang, they stayed behind in Midgar to help Avalanche HQ and the rest get away from Shinra’s radar.”
He blinks. “Huh? Jessie and them stayed behind?”
“Yeah. Talked us out of stayin’ too, since we gotta go get Ruby.” Barret raises a suspect eyebrow. “Though you were actin’ up and all, so no surprise you didn’t know.”
He frowns to himself. “Should we really have left them? Even if it is them, this is Midgar we’re talking here.”
“Jessie messaged us earlier saying that they were in the clear for now, just hiding out til the troops scatter. But there was one thing that she wanted me to ask you. Ya know, seein’ how you might know a thing or two about materia.”
“Uh… sure?”
“You musta heard about Shinra’s artificial materia program, right? The one where they even had materia fusions?”
“Yeah. I did work for them for a few years.”
“Then you should know something about what kind of materia they got, right?”
“Uh…” Cloud glances off as he tries to recall, but to be honest, whatever memories he still had left from Zack’s days are pretty hazy by now. “Well, I know there were a lot. Most fell out of use, but you can still find some here and there.”
Barret doesn’t look impressed at all, but he eases up when Tifa gives him a look to be more patient.
Cloud folds his arms and keeps thinking aloud. “Let’s see… I know there were some pretty unique materia combinations, but usually the stuff we’d see in Soldier are your standard fare: mixing elementals like Fire and Poison, stacking them to make stronger elementals, merging them with Command materia like Power Attack or Jump, or Independent materia that boost stats among other things… just to name a few.” He also recalls, “I even heard there used to be multiple kinds of Enemy Skill materia, but these days it’s way too rare to find any that can hold that many.”
Tifa blinks in amazement. “Wow, you really do know your stuff, don’t you? Never saw any of those around in the slums as far as I can remember.”
“As I said, only Soldier gets to use the special kinds of materia. Not even the rank-and-file grunts would know that much.”
“Hmm…” She then leans in with a teasing smile. “So, how did you learn about them?”
“…” He makes an awkward glance aside. “Zack had a big mouth.”
She laughs. “Sounds like him. Good thing he had you around to help take notes, huh?”
“Um, no, not really. He was usually on his own since Soldiers have very different missions. We only ever saw each other a few times here and there.”
“But it’s those times where you guys met that meant the most, right? I’m sure he was always glad to have you.”
He makes a nervous clearing of his throat, acknowledging her sudden compliment, and lowers his arms on the table, turning back to Barret with a cool frown. “Anyway, something in particular you’re looking for?”
Barret leans in, looking focused. “So, just to be sure, Shinra never made an artificial version of something like Ruby’s materia, right?”
He scoffs and sits back. “No way. If that were true, they would have used it against us by now.”
“A’ight, just checkin’.” He pulls back and asks further, “Anyway, you also got any idea where they’d be keeping these fused materia?”
Now he shakes his head. “Sorry. Stuff on materia synthesis is all top-secret. Not even Soldier would be informed either. It’s probably only accessible to the top of Weapons Development and the other execs.”
Barret frowns, looking disappointed. “Right… Figured it wouldn’t be that easy.”
Tifa is then reminded. “Oh. Speaking of Shinra, don’t we have an insider?”
“Huh? Oh. You mean Cait?” He strikes a thinking face. “You think he’s deep enough to get clearance?”
“Maybe. Ruby did invite him personally, so she might have known something else about him.”
“Hmm… guess we could ask him.”
“He ought to be ready once they’re done in the kitchen,” she reassures him.
Now that they mention it, Cloud realizes he has no context here. So he asks, “Why are Jessie and them looking into this? Something to do with Avalanche?”
“Ah, yeah. You haven’t heard yet.” Barret lays out a hand and explains, “See, news from HQ is that they’ve been dealing with some contacts in Wutai.”
Cloud narrows his eyes. “So they really were dealing with them.”
Barret lets out a sigh of his own. “Yeah… Normally, I’d be pissed, but after hearing the story from Jess, it makes sense. HQ used to have its own source of funding a while back, but for whatever reason, it went dry lately and they’ve been forced to work with the Wutai government to recover some of it.” He then strokes his chin with his hand and frowns to himself. “Problem is, though HQ’s still on good terms with ’em, that might depend on what we can provide. Their government’s been looking into all kinds of powerful materia and they’re hoping that Avalanche can help with that.” He shakes his head. “But that’s the thing: we don’t have any idea where to start.”
Cloud simply looks disappointed. “If that’s what it takes, then why keep working with them?”
“Like I said, funding’s still a big issue. Besides, it ain’t all bad either. Thanks to those contacts, they even were able to find Ruby’s materia.”
“Huh?” He stares blankly for a moment. “The one Marlene had?”
“Hell no! Leave my baby girl outta this!” Barret huffs, but quickly settles down. “Nah, turns out they found another one in a shop in Wutai.”
“Wutai? What would it be doing there?”
“Sounds like Ruby stopped by before and left it for some kinda safekeeping. But they couldn’t keep such a powerful materia like that lying around. Their government’s also been pretty strict about surveying their own people and they could get into trouble for hiding it, so they had to send it away. Luckily, it ended up in the hands of one of HQ’s contacts there and that’s how it eventually ended up with Jessie… til you nicked it from her.”
Cloud raises an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”
“What? Don’t remember? Jessie used it for a bit and suddenly you showed up with your new magic powers, saved them in a pinch, and ran off with it!”
“…”
“You don’t still have it on you, do ya?”
Cloud digs his hands into his pockets just to check, but comes up empty. “Nope.”
Barret frowns and throws up a hand. “Then where the hell did it go?”
He shrugs. “You got me.” And Barret glares at him.
Tifa then suggests, “Maybe when Fenrir possessed you, he gave it away to someone else?”
Cloud frowns to that idea. “Then who knows where it’s gone. I don’t know what the wolf’s thinking. Didn’t even know he still existed until just a moment ago.”
“Huh?” Barret pursues that line of questioning. “But aren’t you two related by your past lives or something? Like Ruby and Rubia? Or is it different with you guys?”
“…”
Though Cloud knows Barret didn’t mean anything by asking, the mere thought of being the “related” to some entity that helped contribute to the ending of the world in the ancient past really rubs him the wrong way. Yet, he can’t find any particular reason to deny it. He only has questions. Was Fenrir always around? Or is he only showing himself now thanks to Rubia? And why now? Just what have those two been up to all this time…? Now reminded of his exhaustive downward spiral from earlier, he returns to gloom and clutches his head in his hands.
“Uh, Cloud? Hey.”
But of course, he doesn’t answer. Sensing that they may be treading dangerous waters, Tifa decides to intervene and move on with the conversation. “Barret, let’s not…”
“Huh?”
She shakes her head, looking rather worried, and Barret catches on. He then pulls back, swings his leg over the bench, and sits back with a sigh. “…That food sure is takin’ a while. You sure the cat didn’t fall in the pot himself?”
Tifa gets back up to check. Just as she does, though, Cait Sith and Moogle come rushing on out with an ample tray full of delicious-looking veggies, appetizers, breads all laid out beautifully around a big bowl of sumptuous mixed venison stew.
“Sorry for the wait, lady and gentlemen! Got a wee too deep into the britches lookin’ up the best tasties to serve up a hero’s feast! But here we are!” With a cute little twirl, Cait Sith slides off Moogle’s head and into its hands, where he delivers his kingly rider to the table and lays the tray before them.
“Oh, wow! You made all this, Cait?” Tifa gasps, honestly impressed. “It looks so good!”
Barret’s eyes nearly pop out of his skull too. “Damn! And to think all we got was like half as much as you’re givin’ him! What gives, man!?”
The cat snickers to himself and stands proudly with his hands on his hips. He answers Tifa, “Oh, you betcha! Though I admit, I didnae accomplish much without help. The chefs of this town know their foodstuff for sure! With all our thinkin’ caps put together, we collaborated to craft a masterpiece!” Cait even passes Cloud a wink. “Only the best for our bright-eyed hero, eh?”
But despite all the flair and fanfare, Cloud isn’t really paying attention to the food. He barely passes it a glance and mutters almost numbly, “Thanks…”
“Thank me by eatin’ up your fill, my good man!” Cait grins, offering a hand that way. “You’ve earned it!”
“…”
But at this point, Cloud’s appetite has been thoroughly ruined as he continues to stew in his mind over the recent dream and other visions he’s had up to now. It’s all too much; too confusing, too vague, too frustrating and tragic and regretful. He doesn’t even know why he’s been burdened with all this history, and yet he can’t bring himself to stop caring. It can’t all just be a coincidence, right? That he was chosen to bear Fenrir’s legacy? But why? Whatever is going on, he has to know. He has to be sure that he isn’t just wandering off into misunderstandings again.
“Cloud? You okay?” Tifa asks.
“Come on. Just take a bite or two. Can’t keep all this food lyin’ around getting cold,” Barret encourages him.
Begrudgingly, Cloud casually snatches up a fluffy bun and stuffs his mouth. In a rather unceremonious moment, he picks out a few of the side dishes, takes a big swig of the stew, and then sets it back down unfinished without even touching the vegetables. He quickly wipes his mouth and gets up to fetch his sword.
“Bugenhagen’s waiting. Let’s go,” he mutters aloud.
Everyone just watches him head out the door in silence and Cait Sith and Moogle’s ears all droop together.
“…Mighta kept him waitin’ a wee too long after all, huh?” Cait sighs.
“Don’t worry, Cait. I’m sure if he was in a better mood, he’d appreciate it a lot more,” Tifa reassures him.
Barret looks at the messy leftovers with a disappointed grunt. “We aren’t gonna toss this, are we?”
Cait Sith shrugs. “Well, if he isn’t gonna save it, then by all means, help yourself. I’d hate to see such good food go to waste.”
While Barret helps clean up the table, Tifa still watches the door, feeling a sinking pit in her gut. Though she hesitated to keep pressing on those points, she really wishes that she at least could have told him to not be too hard on himself.
~
At the observatory near the peak of the highest cliffs, Aerith has joined Bugenhagen in his study for a quiet reading session. Though she’s not the biggest bookworm – she would much rather explore the outdoors than keep to a library on most days – but now she has been absorbed in the world of books, scanning the archives of history in their most pristine condition as offered by the modern day. Ever since Ruby and Nanaki’s return last time, Bugenhagen has been diving back into those old books as well since they were last here and checked out a few notable compendiums on the Summons from the main library below. It is truly peace and quiet up here, with just the occasional question spoken and discussed, when suddenly they’re interrupted by a commotion coming their way.
Nanaki comes bounding in through the door. He declares loudly and proudly, “Grandpa! Cloud woke up, so I brought everyone!”
Bugenhagen is nearly caught off-guard, but manages to keep himself upright. “Ah, Nanaki! That’s great news!”
“Oh! Hey, guys!” Aerith greets them with a wave.
One by one, the remaining party of eight walks in through the door and everyone spreads around the room to find a place to get comfortable. Funnily enough, though she was a little frustrated from her fruitless materia hunt, Yuffie is actually the first to enter and she zips in with a skip in her step. She’s then followed by Cloud and the others who were waiting around the pub since earlier. Vincent suddenly tags along behind them without so much of a stir, almost as if he had been tailing them from the shadows – but was really just hanging out by the observatory to find some peace and quiet as well. Cid is the last to arrive, as he was waiting by the gate at the entrance of town. He wasn’t much about hanging around a town like this anyway, but he ended up there specifically because the locals advised him not to smoke in crowded areas, even if much of the town is in the open, so he decided to take a stroll until he could find a place to pop a cig. Now with everyone here, they’ve formed a rough circle around the study, and Bugenhagen takes a look around to get a headcount.
“Good, we’re all here. Now we may begin.” Bugenhagen greets them and settles back onto Cloud. “I’m glad to see you’ve recovered, Cloud. We’ve all been waiting for you.”
Aerith comes up to him too with a smile. “Got enough sleep in?”
Cloud rests a hand on his hip and plays it cool. “Yeah, more than enough… Seems like I missed out on a lot.”
“Yeah, it has been a little while…” She gives him a reassuring nod. “But no worries! We can catch up real fast.”
“It’s why I’m here.” He now turns to the elder with a serious face. “I got a lot of questions and I was hoping you’d have some answers.”
Bugenhagen nods back. “Very well. I will try to answer to the best of my ability, but to be perfectly honest… I think you may actually have more answers for us.”
Cloud raises an eyebrow. “Really? Even though I’ve been out for so long?”
“Well, it’s not an unreasonable assumption. If I’ve been informed well, you have been seeing more visions as of late, haven’t you?”
He nods back with a frown.
“There has to have been a reason why you are the recipient of them.” Bugenhagen adjusts his glasses and then admits plainly, “Truth be told, if it had been any other visions than of Rubia or Fenrir, I probably would have dismissed them as simple dreams or fantasies…”
He folds his arms and enters thinking mode. “Yeah, I saw them and I didn’t believe any of it either until it kept happening. But why single those two out?”
“Oh, I’d think that would be obvious. The last time you and Ruby visited, your interactions were more than enough to tell me that you two have an incredible strong connection.”
“…” He looks a little disappointed. “Because we argued?”
Aerith giggles to that reply. “No, silly! Remember how she helped you regain your lost memories?”
He glances off, but grunts in acknowledgement.
“That’s right.” Tifa recalls, “Cloud was able to tell the whole story between him and Sephiroth because she helped him. She even knew some details that he didn’t remember…”
“How did she do that anyway?” Barret asks, “Some kinda Cetra magic?”
“Maybe it’s because she’s a time traveler?” Nanaki suggests. “She could have jumped to the right time and place.”
Cloud shakes his head. “She wasn’t anywhere there at the time. She even said so to me.”
“Huh, really? Then how did she know?”
“…” Though he does still remember how Ruby confessed to him about her extradimensional memories, he doesn’t feel like bringing them up. Instead, he simply replies with a shrug. “All she said was something about the Lifestream and accessing memories.”
Aerith nods along. “I can believe that. The Cetra were able to talk with the planet and that includes individual voices within the greater flow.”
He turns to her again. “Can you also do that?”
She makes a sad frown. “I wish I could. I mean, I can still hear something – low mumbles and murmurs here and there. Being away from Midgar has helped open up more places where I can listen carefully. But…” She lowers her head. “It’s not like I can hold conversations with those who have returned. These voices all seem like they were just records or recordings, as if they were being archived somewhere.”
He blinks. “Archived?”
“I’m not sure if that’s the best way to describe it, but it’s how it feels like. I don’t know if it’s because of Rubia or Sephiroth or something else, but I think whatever has been happening, it’s been affecting my powers too.” She sighs to herself. “I wonder if I’ll be able to talk with my mom again sometime…”
“…” He looks like he wants to say something to sympathize, but comes up short and just rubs his head awkwardly.
Still, she returns to composure on her own and gives him a reassuring smile instead. “But on the other hand… there is you.”
“Huh? Uh, what about me?”
“What else? You were able to speak with Rubia at some point, weren’t you? So, that means whatever has been affecting the planet hasn’t affected your ability to communicate with them.”
He frowns back. “Like I said before, that was only once and it was Rubia who came to me. If anything, whatever is happening here is probably her fault if she can just negate the effects.”
Aerith looks a little less sure. “Hmm… You think so? But why would she do that? Try to muffle the planet?”
“I…” His stern frown falters a bit. “I don’t know. If I did, I wouldn’t have all these questions in the first place.”
“Yeah. I guess we’re all on the same page there.”
He now turns back to Bugenhagen to ask, “Say, do you know anything about Rubia and how her powers work? You said before that the archives were ‘incomplete’, but there was still something, right?”
“Oh, no.” The elder shakes his head. “Rest assured, if I knew anything, I would have told you! But as it remains, our archives on her are indeed incomplete – almost inadequate, you could say,” he explains with a sigh. “After all, the Holy Dragoness known as Rubia has been reduced to mere rumor and hearsay, given the extent of which her presence has been erased from history.”
“So no luck finding anything else, huh…”
“Unfortunately, no.” He then adds with a more hopeful tone, “However, that is not the case with one other relevant party.”
“Huh?”
Aerith nods, catching on, and turns to Cloud to answer, “He means Fenrir. The Cosmo Library actually has a lot on Fenrir’s history. Seems like he’s been a pretty big name since far ancient times.”
“Oh.” Now that he recalls, he too remembers finding some entries on the wolf in the Summons compendium he read. “But isn’t that weird? How can there be so much on him and nothing on Rubia? Weren’t the two really close?”
“Perhaps they were, but their relationship was never recorded for posterity. It may have even been deliberately erased, but by whom I cannot say.” Bugenhagen goes on to explain further, “Now, all that we have remaining of Fenrir are grim tales of his fearsome reputation and his eventual disappearance.”
Now that Cloud recalls from his latest vision, even Rubia came to learn about those tales, but she clearly had a strong bias against how they were told. “…Yeah, I heard.”
“Oh, did you now?” The elder puts a sleeve up to his chin. “Did you happen to witness another vision recently?”
“Up close and personal. This time I saw Rubia and Fenrir meeting in some kind of icy cave that seemed to be a prison.”
Bugenhagen’s eyes hone sharply at attention. “A prison? Then, could the rumors really be true? Hmm… but if that is the case, then where could it possibly be? Nowhere on this planet, that’s for sure.”
“What is that place? Do you know?”
“Only through what I have read. The tales of Fenrir ultimately came to a close with his banishment to a mythic place simply known as ‘Helheim’, but there is nothing else that has been noted of where it is or even what it’s like, other than that it is a place of no return. A permanent exile, you could say, where there is no escape.”
“And yet, Rubia found a way…”
“Pardon?” Bugenhagen adjusts his glasses. “How would that be possible?”
Cloud shakes his head. “I don’t know. But I saw Rubia warping them away and they disappeared.”
“Rubia was also there?” Bugenhagen makes a disappointed frown. “Then perhaps this ‘Helheim’ was merely the stuff of rumors after all, if it were that easily accessible.”
“That’s the thing: even Fenrir believed that it was impossible, but she somehow managed to defy the impossible. She talked about this ‘special place’ where she could go to change fate or something…”
“Well, now. The more you talk of this, the less probable it seems.”
He grunts, looking annoyed. “I know how it sounds, but Rubia was so confident about what she could do. Maybe she was just deluded, but the point is that she’s still around and able to return through an avatar like Ruby. And if she can do that, then it only makes sense that Fenrir would too.”
“Hmm…” And yet, the elder still makes a look as if he’s not entirely convinced. “If that is the case, then where is Fenrir now?”
“Huh?” Cloud is a little caught off-guard by that question.
“For him to continue to exist in the living material world, he must have such an avatar made manifest.” He raises an eyebrow. “And yet, despite the circumstances that have entailed, you look like you aren’t sure.”
Cloud hesitates and makes a bitter grimace to himself. How can he answer that? To acknowledge that he would be the avatar, it’d be like essentially giving himself up, right? Like what happened to Ruby…
Then Yuffie interrupts to ask, “Um, what kind of question is that? Isn’t he right here? Cloud is him, isn’t he?”
Once again, just the simple association leaves a tough sting. He instead fires back with an annoyed glare. “No, of course not. Why would anyone even think that?”
She stares at him like he just said nonsense. “Because you went off? Ice powers? Killing ‘immortal’ zombies? Showing off how edgy you are by not helping us with the Turks!?”
He simply looks away, feeling ever more drained the longer this conversation goes on.
“He did help us there, though,” Sonon corrects her.
“Yeah, by blowing up the cage Aerith was in and nothing else!”
“To be fair, we weren’t doing much to that cage, so it was good that Cloud was on it,” Nanaki admits.
“Hmph.” She folds her arms and pouts. “He coulda at least frozen the Turks too while he was at it…”
Aerith then pipes up, a little more sympathetic, “Well, he was pretty tired carrying a spirit like Fenrir, so I think he’s done more than enough.”
“How much does it take to ‘carry’ a spirit, though?”
“Who knows…” Sonon casually replies, but then adds with a more serious expression as he recalls his experience with a certain serpent, “But when it comes to the Summons, they’re definitely no joke. It’s probably for the best that they only appear here and there.”
“Well, that’s annoying! How about they actually stick around if they’re just gonna keep showing up?”
“Well, we only need to call them when the situation calls for it. You wouldn’t want a giant following us around or come aboard the ship, right? There’d be chaos.”
Suddenly, Cid calls out from the back, “This ship only holds human-sized, dog-sized, or plush-sized passengers, thank you!”
“But we had Ruby,” Yuffie then points out. “She’s human-sized mostly.”
Sonon opens his mouth to keep arguing, but then realizes that she has a point there. He turns back to Cloud with a curious look. “Well… if they’re packaged neatly like this, maybe.”
That does it. Cloud is starting to hit a certain pressure point in his patience and he’s heard enough. Fenrir this, Fenrir that. Cloud doesn’t remember any of it. He didn’t own those moments. That wasn’t him. And yet, they’re all just taking it for granted that it was. It’s almost like his friends are treating him as a “Summon” for their ease and convenience. What the hell! Whatever happened to the guy named Cloud?
“…Forget it. We don’t have time for this,” he grumbles. He also announces to everyone, “Rubia could act at any point. We have to go.” And with that, he stomps out the door.
“Cloud!” Tifa calls after him. She passes the others an apologetic look and hurries out after him too.
“Nice goin’, Sonon,” Yuffie mutters.
He honestly looks regretful. “Uh… sorry? I thought that was a pretty inoffensive joke.”
“Keep the jokes to Cait Sith.”
“…”
An awkward silence sets in over the room now that Cloud and Tifa have left. In the end, they couldn’t even make it through a single conversation about what’s going on. Maybe they won’t be knowing any time soon.
Bugenhagen shakes his head woefully. “Unfortunately, it seems the time for Fenrir to return isn’t yet upon us.”
“How so?” Barret asks. “Didn’t he already show?”
“Perhaps it was an ill-timed omen or even a one-time fluke. But at this moment, Cloud is in too much turmoil over the wolf’s legacy to be able to bear it.”
Vincent speaks up to agree in his own way, “That can always change, but for now too much is uncertain. We’ll have to be vigilant when the two eventually meet, as Ruby has done with Rubia. We may even have to contend with what may not be the best outcome.”
Bugenhagen nods along, looking solemn. “Indeed, it would be wise to exercise caution. Perhaps our currently standing records do not show the whole story, but as they are all that we have now, they speak of the wolf as a calamity, if nothing else.”
Barret makes a concerned frown as well. “Right… All this talk about reincarnation got me thinking that memories and stuff just carries over while the successor does their own thing, but sounds like it’s way more complicated than that.” He folds his arms and looks up as he thinks it over. “Yeah. Like Tifa said before, stuff like this can’t be rushed.” He then turns back down to look around at the rest. “But Cloud got a point too. We came by because we had to, but the longer we stall, the more time we’re giving Rubia and Sephiroth to mess things up even worse. He’s ready to go, so we should get to it.”
Bugenhagen nods. “I understand. I’m sorry our archives have proven insufficient to answer all your questions.”
Barret waves it away. “Nah, it’s fine. We just got too many questions to answer. But at least we got some of ’em down.”
Nanaki turns to him with a reassuring nod. “Thanks, Grandpa. We learned a lot about Fenrir thanks to you, so this visit wasn’t a waste at all.”
The elder lightens up a little. “I’m glad that I was of some assistance, then! Now, you must all be in a bit of a hurry, so I won’t hold you up any longer.”
“Don’t worry! After we get Ruby back, we’ll come back again! I’m sure she’ll have a wealth of knowledge to share!”
He chuckles to himself. “Now, now. Remember what I said to you last time? You can’t be clinging to these old grounds with so much more out there waiting for you.”
Nanaki smiles. “Aw, I know, but it doesn’t hurt to see you again sometimes.”
“Ho ho! Much appreciated, Nanaki.” He raises an arm toward the door as if to guide everyone. “I wish you all the best of luck with Rubia. May she be merciful and open-hearted to seek a new path in life, for her and all of our sakes.” He also adds in a lowered voice to Nanaki, “And if you do bring Ruby back, let her know that we’ll be happy to have her as an esteemed guest for our seminars.”
“Haha! Sure thing, Grandpa.”
And with that, the party gets a move on. Bugenhagen watches them all go in respectful silence, but as soon as they all leave out of sight, he sighs to himself and shakes his head again. As much as he wished to keep spirits up, the truth is that he’s quite troubled. Even if they might not show the whole picture, the accounts of the Cetra certainly still paint out a vivid one. Many of them warn that the return of Fenrir would only bring this world into further ruin. He certainly hopes that these brave souls would be able to do something about them both, but his hopes run short of any sort of steadfast faith. Yet, there is no other choice. All they can do now is hope for the best.
His moment of silent contemplation is then interrupted when another elder of the town comes in. “Bugenhagen! A letter for you!”
“Ah, Hargo. A letter from whom?”
He passes it over and Bugenhagen’s eyes widen in surprise.
“Zangan…”
Hargo nods. “It seems to be from an old friend of ours. May be important, given the recent developments between Wutai and Midgar.”
Bugenhagen slides over to fetch a letter opener from a nearby desk and quickly opens it up. Inside is a lengthy letter, written vertically from right to left, with a certain familiar signature at the left for extra authenticity.
“It’s entirely written in classical Wutaian,” he notes. He turns to the other elder. “Give me a bit of time. I’ll need to review over the old guides to give a proper translation.”
Hargo nods and then asks, “By the way, I saw our guests taking their leave. Should we bring this up to them before they go?”
Bugenhagen shakes his head. “Let them be for now. They already have more than enough to deal with. We’ll just have to lay low as usual and await any ill tidings from Shinra in the meantime.”
So, Hargo leaves him alone to his study to focus. Bugenhagen returns to a neighboring bookshelf in search of those old guides. Now where were they again? It really has been a while. Zangan was one of his brightest students back in the days when planetology was just seeing its early bloom. In troubling times like these, it’s good to see an old and welcome name show again.
Notes:
Just a little clarification here and there
- In case you didn't know, Helheim is the name of the underworld in Norse mythology, in a realm much deeper and colder than even Niflheim, where is said to be the resting place of troubled or warped souls. It is Helheim where the true "hell" exists. In this story, though, it actually exists as its own realm related to the planet but still independent as are all the outer realms of where the Summons live. They basically have a big hole in a glacier somewhere and that's where they dump the baddies, including Tiamat.
- If you haven't noticed yet, I am still keeping with the theme of the ever evolving meta-narrative. But well, I'm not gonna say what that "mysterious entity" from "beyond the cosmos" is, other than that they have been introduced already at some point in this story so far. And no, as funny as it would be, I am not inserting myself into the story.
- Sorry, Cloud, Sephiroth said it was your turn to be tortured to the brink again. I had to oblige (lol).
- I actually had two alternate scenarios playing out before I published last chapter where I debated whether or not I wanted Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie to stick around with the crew to Cosmo Canyon, but ultimately decided that they would be more useful in the background of Midgar in the ongoing Midgar-Wutai subplot. We'll just have to save all the cool materia fusion/transmutation stuff for a later chapter.
- Zangan has turned out to be way more important in my story than I ever realized in the beginning, heh. I write this original Wutai subplot with love and respect for the Remake trilogy dev team, and I challenge them to blow us all away there when the third game rolls around.Here's to hoping that the next chapter won't take nearly as long to write. Though, in my defense, it is still hot as shit here in California and I am very stressed dealing with anemia on top of it. But I will manage.
Chapter 65: Don't Be Fooled
Notes:
Thank you all for your patience! This chapter has undergone its own journey, from draft to draft (to procrastination) to draft again, and has come out as quite the complex and emotional ride! Please remember to keep all arms and legs tucked in safely, get yourself something to drink, sit back and relax, and enjoy the sights and sounds of Gold Sa-
Just kidding. We're at the Forgotten Capital. Whether you're an oldie who's been with FF since the old days or a newbie fresh to the FF scene thanks to games like XVI or Remake / Rebirth, you probably know where this is headed. Warning tag has been updated accordingly.
Outdated A/N
5/18/24 edit: Sorry for the long silence and thank you for your patience, everyone! Next chapter is finally complete and is undergoing final reviews before publishing. It is definitely the longest chapter I have written to date and officially ends Act 2. Though I don't usually post chapters on Sunday or Monday, I've kept you all waiting long enough. You may expect it either later today or tomorrow at the latest.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The lost city of Ackard, a once sprawling and bustling home to the Cetra of the north, is set between the high cliffs of a prehistoric river valley that once connected the Far North to the Meridian Ocean. It has long been drained of waters since the great calamity that struck the northern polar cap. And yet, even when the waters had receded, a great Lifespring hiding underneath the rocky bed continued to fuel the surrounding dry seabed with life, and it was from here where a little oasis town would sprout and eventually grow to become one of the most renowned cities of the world. In its hayday, this capital was a sight to behold. People would be out and about in the streets, the markets busy, the churches congregated on the regular, and the places would be well decorated with all sorts of colors. Even the stony white shells would carry a beautiful sheen under the sun’s glow. Yet, it would be no less lively at night when the many glittering lights would make the cityscape glow almost as brightly as the stars above. And it would be that glistening delight which would draw the curiosity of one little dragon who was always warned by her lupine guardian from entering.
But long forgotten are those days. Now the city is but a hollow shell of its former self, with nothing but the literal shells that are the buildings, which have remained largely untouched save from time. All the brilliant colors that had once been on full display have been bleached a dull white or withered yellow. There are also scattered paraphernalia left lying about here and there, many of which are scientific devices that would have been technologically advanced for the times. However, they appear to have been abandoned in a hurry, as if the population was faced with a terrible disaster. There are none that remain to speak of it; yet should they have remained, those voices would have fallen to silence.
Nonetheless, not all is silence in these empty ruins, as some new voices have arrived. Many of these unexpected visitors are cloaked in black and have journeyed here as if they followed some mysterious guiding force. They had once been scattered around the world and stationary for a long time until just the other day. Like a bolt from the blue, they underwent some strange transformations into draconic beasts and would be drawn north to this city, where they would return to form and wait for a certain moment soon to come.
Their presence does not go unnoticed. As the Highwind approaches the city from the south, its radar catches a number of these black robes wandering about. Though puzzling, it’s unlikely any of them will be answering any questions. What is clear enough is that Rubia may not be here alone – they should proceed with utmost caution. The ship descends upon an open space near the city entrance, where the single long, winding cobblestone road leading to it comes to branch out. It doesn’t land here, but drops off everyone and takes off in search of a safe place to park at the outskirts of the valley.
Cloud steps forward and looks around to meet a vaguely familiar place. It’s definitely a lot emptier than what he remembers from an old vision, but the layout of the city is exactly the same. Perhaps if he follows the same roads as he once tread, he will be able to find that underground altar again. But a terrible feeling of apprehension stays any urgency to rush in. Will Rubia be waiting for them there? If so, then how will she react? They’ve arrived a lot sooner than the three-day deadline that she had given them.
Aerith is also looking around, but with a bit more curiosity than apprehension. She closes her eyes and cups her ears to give a careful listen to any voices that may still linger, but it is a similar situation as at the temple. There are few voices that remain, but those that do warn of the impending doom they face should they proceed. Regardless, they’re here to see Rubia and that’s that. She then turns to Cloud, noting how tense he looks, and offers him a casual remark.
“Wow. This place is bigger than I even thought. One of the great heritage sites and wonders of the world… I’m getting a few butterflies just looking at it.”
He passes her an awkward glance. “…Same here, but for different reasons.”
She gives him a sympathetic smile. “Aw, it’ll be okay. Don’t overthink it. We’re just here to have a nice chat with Rubia to get used to us so she can come out of her shell. Who knows, maybe we’ll see Ruby back before you know it!”
“…” Cloud turns away again and scans the periphery where there are a few other robed figures standing or wandering around idly. “Maybe I am overthinking it, but something tells me it’s not gonna be that simple.”
Tifa also comes up to him on his other side, looking concerned herself. “Those black robes… They’re the subjects of Shinra’s experiments, right? What are they doing here?”
He makes a wary frown. “Who knows, but they wouldn’t have shown up without a reason. Sephiroth has to be here.”
She nods solemnly. “Yeah… He would definitely tail Rubia after what happened at the temple.”
Aerith nods as well, but with a look of determination. “Rubia won’t drop her guard. He won’t be getting the Black Materia that easily. We still have time to find her before he can do anything.”
Tifa nods back. “Right. Let’s hurry.”
The ladies both turn to Cloud, who also nods along, and he addresses the rest of the party waiting with them. “Get ready for anything, guys. Even if these people may look harmless, you never know if they’ll transform into something nasty. Not to mention, Sephiroth could be anywhere.”
“Yeah, we’ll be careful.” Barret then asks, “But the place is huge. Where do we start looking for Rubia?”
“I still remember visiting some parts of this city in an old vision, so I know a place we could try. But in case she isn’t there, we can still keep exploring around.”
He frowns back. “In other words, we gotta split up again.”
“Like you always said, we can cover more ground.”
“So who’s going with?”
“Hmm…” He folds his arms and thinks it over for a bit. “For starters, Aerith and I will be prioritizing Rubia.”
“Well, duh. That’s our highest priority too. But you two aren’t gonna just waltz on in by yourselves to see her, are ya?”
“Huh? What about it? She’s not gonna attack us on sight or anything.”
“What, did ya already forget? You were mopin’ all over earlier about being possessed by the wolf! Worrying about how you’d turn out if he and Rubia met!”
“…” Cloud frowns to himself. “I’m fine now.”
“Like hell you are. Until you get that stuff sorted out, someone’s gotta keep an eye on you too.”
Tifa offers immediately, “I can go with them.”
“Yeah, we can leave him to you, Tifa. But if he starts actin’ up, don’t be afraid to smack him around a little.”
“Right, but hopefully it won’t come to that.”
Aerith giggles to herself. “Or maybe it’ll be easier to give him some head scratches?”
Tifa whips back to her. “Huh?”
“Nanaki said he calms down a lot faster with some scratches behind the ear. It’s pretty soothing.”
Nanaki adds, “It really is! Not sure how it works, but I think it’s some kind of instinct?”
“Oh… um…” Tifa starts blushing a bit at the thought of her doing the same to Cloud. “Maybe? I could give it a try.”
Cloud cuts in before the conversation goes out of hand, “Guys, I’ll be fine! Tifa, you can come with. We’ll take the central road here, since it’s the way to the place I mentioned. As for the rest of you…” He turns toward the others and glances around the faces. “There are two other main roads, so we can have two other groups. Any more and we’d be spreading ourselves too thin.”
Yuffie passes a casual glance toward the right. “Well, while we were still up on the ship, it looked like there were a bunch of houses on that end.” She also turns the other way. “And there was some kinda open arena or something on that side…” She grins to herself and points that way. “Dibs on the arena!”
“Fine. Sonon, go with her.”
Sonon rolls his eyes. “As usual.”
“Why Sonon!? I’m always hanging around him, it’s getting old!”
“Or would you rather have Vincent or Cid watch you?” Cloud instead suggests.
“Ew. I’d rather have a normal conversation, thanks.”
“Speak for yourself, Missy!” Cid complains. “We’re on a serious mission here, ya know! This isn’t some playground or walk in the park.”
She sticks out a tongue his way. “Maybe for the best the old farts head toward the homes. They might just find a place to retire.”
“Hey, you little…!”
“Come on, let’s go.” Sonon tugs Yuffie away and they head toward the left road. “Anyone else coming?”
Cait Sith and Moogle come hopping over. “Hope ye don’t mind me! If there’s a lively conversation to be had, I’m there!”
Yuffie frowns at him. “I said a ‘normal’ conversation… but whatever. At least you’re not that old… are you?”
Cait’s ears droop a little. “Eh… I hope not. Most of my peers are usually surprised to hear my age.”
She raises a suspect eyebrow. “How old are you again?”
He quickly waves it away and instructs Moogle to hop onward. “Anyway, time’s a wastin’! Let’s get going!”
Yuffie pulls herself away from Sonon’s grasp and zips on ahead even of Cait Sith and Sonon hurries after them. The rest of them watch them go, and Barret turns to the other guys. “Guess that leaves us in the last group.” He also checks with Nanaki. “Hey, you okay staying with us ‘old farts’?”
Nanaki calmly nods and replies in his deeper voice, “It’s no problem. I’m well acquainted with people of all ages. Living through these many years would naturally come to that.”
Barret makes an amused scoff. “Glad to have ya aboard, then.”
Nanaki then returns to his younger voice. “Besides, when Yuffie mentioned an ‘arena’, it made me a little nervous. Like, it’d be one thing if it’s just where they held sports games or stuff, but I don’t think that was it… Sounds like it could tread into some dangerous history.”
“Hm? That kinda stuff makes you nervous?”
“Not from learning about it, of course. But as Grandpa used to say, sometimes there are things that are best left in the history books.”
“Ah, gotcha.” Barret turns toward the right road. “Well, there’s gonna be a lot of little corners we’re gonna have to look, so it’s good we got you to help sniff ’em out.”
Nanaki nods with an excited twinkle in his eye. “Yeah! Don’t worry, you can leave that stuff to me!”
And with that, Barret, Nanaki, and Cid start off down that road. Vincent is last to get moving, but he passes Cloud, Aerith, and Tifa one last warning before he leaves.
“Good luck to you. And remember: though she may still be Ruby to us, Rubia has access to so much more knowledge than any of us could even fathom. It could be dangerous, not only for us but also for herself. Take care not to be manipulated and not to be taken unaware.”
The other three all nod along, and Vincent finally takes his leave with the others. Aerith and Tifa then turn back to Cloud, who still looks troubled.
“Okay. Let’s go.” Aerith reassures him, “Like I said, Cloud, it’ll be okay. As soon as Rubia opens up, she’ll be back to being the Ruby we know and love.”
“Yeah…” he replies, but still keeps that troubled face.
Despite even more butterflies fluttering in his gut, he soldiers on and the ladies follow. The road ahead is straightforward, as if paved specifically to gather anyone who treads it to a particular place in the city. Though they are meant to be a guiding sign themselves, the pointed peaks of overhanging ledges, with their shadows stretching just behind them, look more like the jaws of a great predator lying in ambush. And soon enough, they come upon the lake that surrounds a single spiral-shell building. Of all the places around the city that have dulled and withered, this one alone seems to stand tall as staunchly as ever. Even the bridge that leads to it remains pristine as if untouched by time. They look pretty much the same as Cloud had once seen of it, save for the few black robes that are waiting nearby.
Aerith picks up on something and cups her ears to listen carefully. “Hmm…”
“Aerith? Did you catch something?” Tifa asks.
“Yeah, but…” She makes a sad frown. “These voices are all scared, like they know what may happen when we meet Rubia.”
“Are they afraid of her or for her?”
“Um…” Aerith takes another moment to listen. “I think it’s both.”
“Both…?” Tifa looks around, noting the black robes, and she frowns cautiously herself. She turns back to Aerith and insists, “I think I can guess why… but we’re already here. We can’t turn back now.”
Aerith nods. “Right. Rubia’s waiting for us.”
The two ladies are ready to move on when Tifa notices Cloud doesn’t follow. He’s staring off into space again. Though the robed people remain unmoved from their places, every one of them is hunched over as if in prayer. It reminds him a little of that old vision where the civilians were doing likewise, but he gets the feeling that they’re praying to completely different Gods. But now that he thinks about it, how did he come to have that “memory” in the first place? Unlike most he’s seen so far, it’s entirely through Rubia’s perspective. But if he’s connected to Fenrir, how did he see it? And why this memory in particular?
“Cloud,” Tifa calls to him.
“Don’t worry so much,” Aerith insists. “We’ll get our answers soon.”
He snaps out of it and nods back. “Yeah, sorry. Let’s go.”
He leads them on into the mysterious building, and like with other places around the city, there are a couple robed people waiting here. As he approaches them, the black robes say nothing but point the way to the top. Just as he remembers, the translucent blue stairs have appeared, left open and awaiting. It doesn’t look like any of the robes are heading down here, though, as if they were specifically instructed to not wander in. As the three descend, Cloud feels his footsteps grow heavier and heavier with each passing moment – not out of fatigue, but of an anxiety that refuses to be quelled. Despite being advised against it, he can’t help but keep mulling it over.
Fenrir couldn’t have been in this city, could he? That would spell an absolute disaster. He was exiled to the Far North, where he would have come across Rubia when she was still a fresh hatchling. But that’s the weird part: Rubia lived in this city long enough that she’d have been an adult. She must have, to know the layout of this city well enough and even where this secret water altar would be. But in all that time, Fenrir couldn’t have been minding his own business, right? It wasn’t until much later that he was imprisoned. So where was he? What happened to him? And why is it that so many of Rubia’s memories linked to him are of her alone?
“Oh!” Aerith calls out, snapping him out of his thoughts again. “There she is!”
“Huh?”
Before he can stop them, Aerith and Tifa rush across the bridge to the rising stone pillar steps leading to the altar itself.
“Hey! Wait!”
With almost reckless abandon, Aerith hops right along with Tifa close behind, so Cloud hurries after them. However, just as he’s approaching the stone steps, he suddenly meets with some quick flashes of a familiar scene: the appearance of the Grand Oracle kneeling at the altar, and then with Rubia standing before her, her sword raised to strike, finally ending with Rubia blown away by some powerful magic that also makes her vanish. He shakes his head and blinks a few times back into focus, wondering why he’s seeing this stuff again. There wasn’t anything new that immediately jumped out at him either. He looks ahead again and now sees Aerith and Tifa standing at the altar, along with someone who is currently seated on the floor. The white cloak and the brigantine armor… there’s no mistaking it; it’s Rubia. She has her legs crossed, her hands resting upon one another on her lap, and her eyes closed.
Aerith waves a hand in her face, but the latter doesn’t budge a muscle. “Hey… Cuz, it’s me. I brought friends.”
“She hasn’t moved since we came in.” Tifa gives her a curious stare. “Is she meditating?”
“Hmm…” Aerith takes a moment to listen carefully to any signs, but by some mysterious phenomenon, the same voices she heard previously have been silenced around Rubia. She sighs to herself. “No good. I don’t hear them anymore.”
“You mean the Cetra, right? Is it because of Rubia?”
“Maybe. I think something’s stopping them from speaking up around her, but I don’t know what.”
“Hmm…” Tifa turns back to the quiet one before them. “Hey, Rubia? Sorry to bother you, but we just have some questions.”
No response. Aerith tries again, setting her hand on her shoulder. “Ruby…” She also gives her a gentle shake. “Come on, Cuz. I know it’s been kinda awkward since last time, but…”
They’re met with more silence and are starting to feel discouraged. In any case, Tifa whips out her PHS. “Well, at least we found her. I’ll let them know.”
Cloud stares at Rubia from a distance, ever wary. Something about this scene doesn’t sit right with him. Rubia is just sitting out here by her lonesome, leaving herself vulnerable? That can’t be right. There’s gotta be some trick to this. Maybe she isn’t really here after all, and this is just a decoy? Or perhaps her mind and spirit have left her body for the time being. Thinking about it, didn’t something like this happen before? But last time it happened, Ruby came back distraught, all thanks to Sephiroth. No matter how he thinks about it, there’s always something to dread. Despite his misgivings, he wanders up to join them, and as soon as he steps up, Aerith takes him by the arm and drags him over.
“Ruby, look who’s back!” Aerith tries again with a cute smile.
Rubia still doesn’t respond. Cloud is hesitant enough already, but with wordless encouragement from the ladies, they push him forward and he tries to talk with her.
“Hey… Rubia. Can you hear me?”
Ever the silence. Seems like they’re still missing something before Rubia will speak with them.
“Hmm… Maybe she’s waiting for an old friend of hers,” Aerith casually thinks aloud to herself.
Cloud frowns back, loathe to have to resort to that, but he realizes he doesn’t have too many options. He drops down to one knee before her, and with bated breath, reaches out a hand.
“Rubia, it’s me… your old friend, Fenrir.”
Still nothing. Rubia remains frozen, almost like she were stopped in time. He steps forward and sets a hand to her shoulder, intending to give her a firm shake. But as soon as he makes contact, he’s hit by another sharp headache out of nowhere and suddenly blanks out. But as with many of these sudden aches, another vision has come to meet him.
It’s a set of brief flashes to the ancient past once more, but in the same place and in a familiar scene. The oracle was standing here, her hands held together in prayer, when Rubia lunged forth to attack. But she would be intercepted; instead blown away by a powerful ward that knocked her into the watery depths. Normally, such a deterrent wouldn’t be enough to stop her, but it was no ordinary protective ward. Upon mere contact, Rubia was imprisoned in stasis and would be warped away to another realm where Minerva would see to her personally.
However, that was not the end of the scene. Though Rubia seemed to arrive alone, one other would appear to confront this oracle as well. The great wolf, who should have been permanently exiled and unable to appear in this city, arrived through his own warp magic. He dove into the depths after Rubia to save her, but was too late. The magic was cast and had taken effect: Rubia shortly vanished upon sinking into the water, and the wolf would snatch nothing. He resurfaced, only to bar the oracle from escape. With fangs bared and eyes burning with an unsatiable fire, Fenrir leapt at the oracle, jaws wide and teeth sharp.
By some strange circumstance, however, where the vision would have played out its conclusion normally, it is suddenly cut off. Cloud’s field of vision falters for a moment and the scene changes abruptly. What follows the brief blackout is another set of flashes, still set at this altar but in a different time entirely, one much closer to the present. Here, he witnesses Aerith alone, kneeled at the altar. Quick flash to show himself coming up the steps. Another flash, he’s clutching his head in pain and freaking out. Yet another, and he suddenly draws his sword and swings. And the next flash, he’s kneeled on the floor, holding Aerith tightly in his arms, his hands stained with blood.
Cloud snaps back to reality, but the shock from such a ghastly sight makes him nearly faint. Upon just lightly touching Rubia’s shoulder, he suddenly stumbles back, though Tifa and Aerith help catch him.
“Cloud! You okay?” Tifa checks in.
“Hang in there!” Aerith comforts.
They sit him back down as he stares off into space. He’s in so much disbelief that he actually has trouble processing whatever it is he just saw. All he can muster is a soft mumble, “Aerith…”
“Cloud, I’m here. What happened?” she asks.
“…” But he hesitates to even describe it. He can’t believe it. That can’t be happening here. Not now. Not with her. Anyone but her.
“Cloud, talk to us. Did you see another vision?” Tifa tries as well.
“Y…yeah.” He’s so tense that he grits his teeth, but manages to utter, “Fenrir… he was here…”
“Fenrir?”
“What did he do?” Aerith asks too.
“…He killed someone.”
The ladies grow alarmed and exchange worried looks. “Was it someone you recognized?”
“Yeah… well, no, not really. She was Cetra. An oracle. I saw her in another vision once.”
“A Cetran oracle…” Tifa repeats as she tries to picture it, but honestly, all she can think of is someone like Aerith. She passes the other a quick glance, but shakes her head to clear out that thought.
Aerith remains unfazed and asks further, “Do you know why?”
He clutches his aching head, but pushes on. “It was… because of Rubia. She attacked the oracle, but was blown away somewhere… Not sure, but it was like she was sentenced to death. He came to finish the job.”
“No…” Tifa gasps.
Aerith nods solemnly. “And so they would be remembered as partners in crime…”
“But… after that…”
“Hm?”
“…”
At this point, though, Cloud feels a lurch in his gut. He doesn’t want to recall that last series of flashes. It’s way too close for comfort. Maybe it was just a fluke. Maybe he didn’t see things correctly. Anything could have happened in those jumps. But no matter how it would really pan out, there’s one thing he knows for sure: he doesn’t want to be here anymore. Before they can stop him, Cloud pulls himself back to his feet and stomps off and away back down the stony steps.
“Cloud! What’s wrong?” Aerith calls after him.
“Where are you going?” Tifa does too.
“Out. I can’t be here,” he replies in a hurry.
“Wait!” Tifa hurries after him. She leaps far enough down the stone pillars to get ahead of him and stands in his way.
“Tifa, move! Don’t stop me!” He quickly swerves and jumps off past her.
But she still tries to keep him here anyway. “At least tell us why you’re leaving!”
“I can’t be here…” he repeats and mutters, “I don’t know what’s going on with Rubia or Fenrir, but I don’t care. I can’t be here. Not now, not ever…”
“But we came all this way for her! We can’t just leave!”
“Forget it!” he snaps back. “She’s not the Ruby we knew! She’s not worth it!”
“Cloud!”
Now he avoids her again, making a defiant leap down several pillars, and crosses the bridge. He returns to the road that circles back toward the translucent stairs that brought them here. He’s at the end of his ropes. All this dread and pain and suffering has taken their toll for long enough. He’s not gonna stay here and be someone’s puppet – be it Sephiroth’s, Rubia’s, or Fenrir’s. He’s gonna take the initiative and change course before the worst can happen.
Before he can finish climbing those stairs, though, he sees one of the black robes stand at the top of them, almost as if trying to get in his way. In a desperate hurry, Cloud threatens to draw his sword on him, but he meets another painful ache that keeps him held back. Suddenly, he sees Sephiroth’s visage standing before him and freezes still. But at this time, the menacing man chooses not to attack; simply waves a hand and sends Cloud tumbling back. In his panicked daze, Cloud stumbles and slips off the steps, falling down into the pool below.
“Cloud!!”
Cloud can barely hear the voices of Tifa and Aerith call out as he sinks into the depths. This sinking feeling… it feels so familiar, yet he gets a suspicion that this familiarity isn’t from his own memories. Are they Fenrir’s? Or are they Rubia’s? It’s all so confusing. He can’t make sense of anything. He feels so drained from all this aggravating circling of the same paranoid thoughts.
He’s suddenly pulled out of the water and coughs and gasps for air. Tifa is clutching him tightly and she swims to the bank, where Aerith reaches out to help pull them out. The two collapse onto the bank, where Cloud remains lying down on his chest while Tifa sits back up.
“Cloud! Are you okay? Talk to us!” she pleads.
“Ugh…” He coughs again and groans. “I can’t take it anymore…”
“What happened? Did you reach Rubia?” Aerith asks him.
“No… or uh, maybe? I don’t know…” He clutches his still aching head in both hands. “I don’t know anything. What’s going on with Rubia or Fenrir… or even me.”
“Cloud, it’s okay. That’s why we’re here. We can ask her.”
He drops his hands, but clenches up his fists. “No… No, we can’t. We can’t talk to her.”
Aerith looks genuinely worried. “Why not?”
“I… I don’t know what will happen. I just feel like it’s terrible. Someone… is going to die.”
“No, Cloud. No one’s going to die,” she insists. “Whatever you may have seen, it’s not real, okay?”
He turns to her with a look of desperation. “Aerith, please… get outta here.” He turns to the other too. “Tifa, you too.” He gives a heavy sigh and drops his head back on the ground. “Leave me. I can’t be around any of you.”
“We can’t leave you here either!” Tifa argues and asks, “What’s wrong? What did you see?”
“Fenrir… Rubia… They can’t be trusted. I can’t be trusted. I’m just gonna be a danger to everyone.”
The ladies exchange worried looks and silently nod to each other.
“Cloud, you rest here. I’ll talk with Rubia and set things straight,” Aerith suggests.
“No, don’t!” Cloud pleads, but Aerith is already heading back to the altar. “Dammit… Why does it have to happen this way?” He slams a fist down and pulls himself back to his feet too to chase after her.
“Cloud!” Tifa calls and gives chase as well.
Aerith hurries back to return to Rubia, who has remained as motionless as ever. She sits down before her and holds onto the latter’s hands in her own and closes her eyes, hoping to fulfill this spiritual connection with her at last. Cloud rushes up to try to pull her away again, but Tifa catches up first and holds him back.
“Cloud! Calm down! It’ll be okay!”
“No, it won’t!” He struggles against her, but Tifa has an unsurprisingly strong grip. “Aerith is in danger! As soon as Rubia awakens, she’ll…!”
His words are cut off in the next moment. As if by some timely coincidence, a certain white materia in Aerith’s pocket begins to glow bright. Aerith keeps her focus and refuses to let go of Rubia, all the while the materia’s light grows brighter and brighter, and as suddenly as it comes, the light fades. And finally, after a long stillness, the spell around Rubia has been broken and she stirs awake.
Aerith opens her eyes and greets her with a relieved smile. “Hey, Cuz. It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”
~
Elsewhere in the city, Barret’s group of himself, Nanaki, Vincent, and Cid have been wandering about the east end where a number of black robes have been wandering about, almost aimlessly as if they have nothing to do but wait. Nanaki has been sniffing the area with enthusiasm, but aside from the smell of dust of old ruins and the smell of patients once doused in mako, there doesn’t seem to be much out here. Fortunately, the sound of a familiar beep to his PHS makes Barret bring it out to look.
“Hey! Tifa said they found her!” he calls out to the others.
“About damn time!” Cid cries with relief. “Was wondering how many more of these empty houses we were gonna have to check.”
“How is Rubia doing?” Vincent asks, just to be careful.
“Uh, let’s see…” Barret frowns as he reads the message. “Not good. Sounds like she’s caught up in some kinda spell or something. Wouldn’t respond to anything. They’re working on it, though.”
“Oh, no! I hope she’s going to be okay,” Nanaki replies with his condolences.
“Well, while they figure that out…” He puts away the phone and looks around the streets where the robes are still idling about. “What do we do about these guys?”
“Do we have to do anything?” Cid asks with a scoff. “Aside from being roadblocks, they aren’t doin’ much.”
“Yeah, for now, but we oughta make sure that they aren’t gonna turn on us while we aren’t looking.”
“What do you propose?” Vincent asks further.
“Do we got something to knock ’em out safely? Maybe some tranqs could work…”
“Ya think that’ll be enough?” Cid scratches his head. “These guys were Shinra experiments, right? They probably won’t stay down with any ol’ tranqs.”
“Hmm. But I’d rather not hafta gun them down if we don’t need to…”
“Maybe we can just leave them be?” Nanaki suggests. “They don’t seem to be reacting to us anyway.”
“Guess so…” Barret keeps a wary eye on one of them who has wandered a bit closer to them. “Well, we got enough treasure hunting here, so no point in stickin’ around!”
“Just a buncha random shit left behind anyway. Most of them empty boxes or dust… or boxes of dust,” Cid complains.
“At least we got some useful items along the way,” Nanaki recalls. “There was the Guard Source and an Elixir… and even an extra Enemy Skill materia!”
Cid remains unimpressed. “That materia’s a dud until we can get skills on it, though. And as far as we’ve looked, there ain’t any enemies to fight here!”
“Maybe it’s for the best… I wouldn’t want to have to fight anything in a place like this. It is a heritage site, after all.”
But as the four start off for the road back, a number of the black robes begin to go on the move. At first they all keep their distance, but Barret can’t help but notice that they’re still following them. He raises his gun-arm just in case, but doesn’t arm himself yet.
“Something’s up…” he mutters.
Now that they stop walking, the robes keep trudging along after them. Though all four of them prepare themselves for any sign of a threat, the robes simply keep ambling on at their slow pace until they finally catch up. For some reason, they stop, as if waiting for them to keep going.
Suddenly, the winds seem to pick up and a strong breeze blows through these sparsely populated streets. As if there were some mysterious trigger, the robed people all begin to wail and shriek and writhe in pain, and they burst out into some grotesque-looking beasts – draconic in figure yet not quite scaled like dragons, but with rotten flesh akin to zombies. Zombie Drakes, if you will.
“Heads-up, ya’ll!” Barret yells, charging his gun-arm ready.
~
“No way! I found that treasure fair and square!” Yuffie screams. “You’re not getting it, bozos!”
“Uh, lass… I dinnae think these fellas are after the treasure,” Cait Sith tries to correct her.
On the other side of the city, Yuffie, Sonon, and Cait Sith find themselves surrounded by similar draconic mutants cloaked in black robes. One moment, they were all quiet even while Yuffie was zipping around from house to house, raiding them for whatever interesting items she could find. The next they knew, the odd fellows suddenly broke out into a clamor and transformed.
“Doesn’t look like they wanna let us get away,” Sonon observes, swinging his staff forward.
“Then we’ll smash our way out!” Yuffie declares.
While Moogle puts up some fighting fists in the air, Cait Sith clings to his back for dear life. “Can’t be helped… Hope wherever these folks end up, they’ll be in a better place afterward.”
“Gettem!”
The three immediately split off to jump their respective ways, and the drakes lunge on the attack. Despite being formerly crippled and nearly mindless victims before, these beasts seem to fight with particular intent – not necessarily going for the kill, but instead going for the capture. They claw and thrash like mad, but seek to grip and grasp rather than rip and maim. Unfortunately for them, even with the boost in power and speed that their transformations have granted them, they’re still too slow to keep up with two ninjas and a surprisingly slick Moogle.
And yet, even as they exchange blows, the party finds themselves still surrounded. It isn’t because there are just that many enemies; just that the ones they do knock down keep getting back up like they weren’t just beaten half to death or blasted with ninjutsu. Even with Yuffie and Sonon team up to unleash a mighty Dual Windstorm that knocks them all away, they just keep getting back up and coming at them.
Meanwhile, Cait Sith has actually detached himself from Moogle and is trying to sneak away to a safe distance where he can cheer from the sidelines, but he is shortly jumped by another robed drake that caught its eye. He narrowly avoids being smashed with the wooden crates that he was hiding behind and flips and somersaults his way back into the fray.
“Yipes! There are more of ’em hiding in the alleys!” Cait Sith shouts to let the others know as he returns to Moogle’s back.
“Let’s get to open ground!” Sonon suggests, knocking back a couple other beasts.
“I know just the place! There’s the arena up ahead!” And after she leaps out of the way as two beasts crash into one another, Yuffie zooms off for the northernly road.
Sonon and Cait Sith w/ Moogle break the line and dash off after her, with the beasts clambering and taking off into the air after them. Even when they’re being divebombed, all three (four, really) party members duck, dodge, and weave out of the way, with just a thin cloud of rocky dust enveloping them, further obscuring their individual trails. However, as soon as they arrive at the coliseum, the “arena” as Yuffie calls it, they realize that there are a number of the same zombified drakes here as the ones pursuing them.
“Dammit! They got here first!?” Yuffie complains.
“Well, they can fly,” Sonon points out.
“So what? Ninjas can fly too and we go way faster!”
“Is that so…” Cait Sith remarks, a little doubtful. “You ninjas sure are somethin’.”
“You doubt me? Just watch!”
Before they can stop her, Yuffie leaps off the edge of one of the tiers of this ancient gallery. She starts to flip and tumble through the air, spinning faster and faster, and nails one of the beasts stationed on the grounds below in a great explosion. With fancy footwork, she flips back to her feet a safe distance away and makes a triumphant pose… for a few seconds. Now that she realizes it, she may have been spinning a bit too much and is feeling queasy.
“Ugh… I overdid it again…” she groans.
“Yuffie! Watch out!” Sonon calls out.
“Huh? Whoa!”
She barely dodges another incoming beast and keeps hopping out of its reach when Sonon likewise flies down and smashes it in the head with the butt of his staff. The blow would have actually smashed through a normal drake’s skull, but he’s surprised that the beast seems to be stunned for just a little while, only to shake it off and resume on the attack.
While Moogle bounces and helps carry him out of harm’s way, Cait Sith yells through his Megaphone: “Hey! You fiendish lot! Try this on for size!”
He suddenly whips out a single die and gives it a toss. It lands on a solid six and magically poofs away once its job is done, and the entire party is enveloped in Shield. Cait Sith smirks to himself, standing proud while the beasts batter uselessly upon the spell’s effects, and watches his two partners blitz their way through the crowd.
However, it seems there may have been a miscommunication in the midst, as while Sonon means to return to where Cait Sith is waiting, Yuffie has zipped off in a different direction – directly for a nearby rocky ledge where sits a chest that glows a faint purple.
“Yuffie!” Sonon yells, just a little peeved. “Come on! This is a dead end!”
“Not before I get my treasure!”
Yuffie bashes her way through a couple loitering beasts and leaps onto the ledge with graceful glides as if she really were flying. With a gleeful giggle, she flips open the lid and discovers a rare piece of equipment inside: the Aurora Armlet, which grants its wielder protection from the cold and has a fair split between physical and magical defense. She raises it high above her head with a triumphant maniacal laugh.
“Hahaha! Sweet booty, get!” She immediately slips it on.
“Yuffie, get outta there!” Sonon warns.
“Yeah, yeah! I’m… Huh?” Yuffie swerves around, but stops and stares.
“Eh? What’re they up to now?” Cait Sith asks.
In the time that Yuffie took to fetch the treasure, the beasts that she knocked aside have gathered up again. However, this time they don’t pounce at her as usual. Instead, they seem to be congregating together into the center of the coliseum. As if by the power of some dark magic, the beasts pile up upon one another and begin to disintegrate and meld into a black mist, which swirls up and outward into a much greater size of terrifying beast, one made up not of rotting flesh but of cursed bone. Now they are no mere Zombie Drakes; this is a Zombie Dragon. Though it has no visible vocal chords, it screeches with the cacophony of hundreds of bats.
Cait Sith’s ears droop. “Oh. That’s not good.”
~
Back at the altar, Aerith, along with Cloud and Tifa, now confront Rubia, who has finally awakened from some deep state of stasis. She blinks a few times as her field of vision comes into focus and she stares at Aerith with a characteristic stoicism, looking neither surprised nor elated, yet is not disturbed or wary either. She also turns to see Cloud and Tifa standing by the stony steps, frozen still in their shock. Rubia then looks around the place, finding it rather empty, and back to Aerith.
“You’ve come early.”
“Sorry, but we couldn’t wait,” Aerith replies. “We just really wanted to see you again.”
Rubia frowns, remaining unimpressed. “Surely, you know of the implications? That should I be awakened, this world shall be brought to ruin.”
“Well, that’s what we wanted to talk to you about.” Aerith finally lets her hands go and gives her a reassuring nod. “It doesn’t have to be like that.”
“…”
“Ruby… Do you mind if I call you that? It just feels more natural.”
“Do as you wish.” Rubia then adds to emphasize, “But do not misunderstand: the one you know as ‘Ruby’ is but a mere construct. A particular role given a particular purpose. She has fulfilled it and has become obsolete.”
Aerith frowns at the idea. “I dunno… I think I still see her, right in front of us.”
“We merely share the same visage.”
She shakes her head. “No, that’s not what I mean. I mean that you yourself are Ruby.”
“…” Rubia remains unamused and unwilling to partake in further argument. “If you have questions, I may be able to answer some, but not all. Even I have limited time on this occasion.”
“We don’t have to keep you for long. But we do have some pretty big questions.”
“Before we proceed, however,” Rubia then requests rather cordially, “I would rather have the rest of you be present as well. I have nothing to hide.”
Tifa explains, “I messaged them all earlier, but it seems like they’re taking a while to come over.” She grows concerned. “Hope they didn’t run into any trouble.”
Rubia looks up toward the beautifully lit ceiling above them, but is not looking at anything in particular. Instead, with the mere power of her mind, she sends out a powerful signal wave that travels outward and stretches across the entire city. Then, with elegant grace and utmost patience, she lowers her head again and closes her eyes as if to return to meditation.
However, she still speaks with them to keep the peace: “They will be arriving shortly.”
“Huh?” Tifa blinks. “What did you do?”
“Clear a path.”
“…”
As Rubia resumes her silence as before, Cloud only grows more anxious. He now steps forward, eyes wide with desperation. He gulps down a ball of nerves to push them aside and finds his voice again.
“Rubia… Please. Tell me.” He reaches out with an open hand as if making a peace offering. “Who or what is Fenrir?”
Rubia opens her eyes again and turns to him with a disappointed look. “Why do you ask?”
“Because I don’t know him. I don’t know what he’s thinking or feeling. All I know is that he’s been able to take over my body while I didn’t even know.”
“…”
Cloud withdraws his hand and clenches it up into a fist. “I want to know why. I want to know how I can control him like he can control me. Otherwise…” He lets his fist go and drops his hand, hanging his head. “I don’t think I’ll ever understand who or even what I am.”
“Cloud…” Tifa murmurs in sympathy.
Rubia still keeps her look of disappointment and shakes her head. “I believe there’s a critical misunderstanding here.”
Cloud looks back up. “Huh?”
“You are not Fenrir, not as you are now. You have yet to inherit his will.”
“What? But what about my transformation? The ice powers? Even warping?”
“Dreams made manifest… but nonetheless still dreams. Until you have built a contract with him, he is under no obligation to heed your call.”
“A… contract?”
Aerith tilts her head. “Really? I would have thought they already made some kind of arrangement.”
Tifa blinks in surprise too. “Yeah. I mean, I don’t think Cloud ever had those powers… At least, not that I remember.”
Cloud looks down at his own hands. “I didn’t… I mean, if I did, I didn’t know.”
Aerith asks further, “So what really happened there?”
Rubia explains matter-of-factly, “A necessary stopgap.”
“Huh?”
“I am not Fenrir, so I cannot claim to know his judgment. But I can recognize the signature of his handiwork. Such an unconventional arrangement is only possible if the subject of possession has the will aligned with the possessor.” She specifically turns back to Cloud to state, “In other words, when you made the wish to become stronger, he was the one to answer your wish.”
Cloud stares back, more lost than ever. “He answered my wish…?”
“However, such an arrangement is ultimately untenable. As soon as the wills of the two parties no longer align, they will be made to part.” Despite her cold nature, she gives him a reassuring nod. “In other words, unless you agree to the arrangement once more, he cannot simply possess you at any time.”
“…” He blinks a few times as he lets her words sink in, but it still leads him to another question. “Then, what was that vision I saw just now? The one where Fenrir attacked the oracle?”
“A memory of a forgone time. Returning to this fateful place would naturally bring such sentiments. I too recall that day with complete clarity.”
“What about after that, though? What happened when Fenrir attacked her? And what if he attacks again?”
“Again…?” Rubia raises an eyebrow. “Fenrir has not assaulted anyone in such a manner since. He would have been sentenced to execution by Odin’s hand at the time, had it not been for Bahamut’s intervention. Instead, he was henceforth imprisoned in Helheim and prohibited to roam free. There he remained until I broke him out myself.”
“Yeah, but…” Cloud struggles to explain himself as he stumbles over his messy thoughts. “What I mean is… what if it happens now? What if he tries to possess me and attack one of us?”
“Impossible. As I said, this ‘possession’ would not apply if you deny it.”
“Then… why? Why did I see another vision after it? One close to this time?”
“Another vision?”
By now, he’s getting pretty impatient for answers, and he finally admits it aloud, “I saw it! I saw myself getting possessed! I even attacked Aerith!”
Now, Aerith and Tifa gasp in shock. So that was what all the fuss from earlier was about.
“There was blood… and she… She wasn’t moving…” Cloud clenches up his fists again, feeling a wave of an unfulfilled rage sweep over him. “So what the hell was that about?” He raises his fist in Rubia’s face. “Why did you show me that!?”
“…” For once, Rubia breaks her stoicism and looks mildly surprised. She then shakes her head. “I did not.”
“What?”
“That was not part of Fenrir’s memories, and I have no control over which of his memories come to you at whatever time. That this other vision happened to slip in at the last moment following his proper own…” Rubia’s eyes widen upon realization and she frowns to herself. “So that was what he meant.”
“He…?”
“Who’s ‘he’?” Aerith also asks.
Rubia answers flatly, “Sephiroth.”
Just like that, as if the name itself was a curse to be uttered, all three of them are stunned into silence.
Aerith quickly snaps out of it, though. “You met with him?”
Rubia nods. “Just yesterday. He confronted me about the Black Materia and I refused to give it to him.” She sighs to herself. “He took it rather well, though, and insisted that he had other means he could try. He left shortly to continue his schemes elsewhere.”
She frowns. “He’s a persistent pest, that’s for sure.”
Tifa catches a punch in her other hand. “If he shows up again, he’s not leaving painlessly.”
Aerith turns back to Cloud with a relieved smile. “Well, glad that’s been cleared up! Seems like he was just playing tricks on you again, so you don’t have to listen to him, okay?”
But even with that cleared up, Cloud still stares off into space, as even more questions come. Sephiroth was just “playing tricks”? Sephiroth? No way. Someone like him wouldn’t be messing around for no good reason. Maybe he was trying to make Cloud distrust Rubia and Fenrir, but how would that serve him? What would be the point? He doesn’t trust them anyway. He didn’t since Rubia confronted him herself a while back, and now Fenrir had his way with him while he wasn’t even awake. Why show him a sight like that just to point out what he already knew?
Aerith’s smile fades, as she sees he’s not cheering up. “Cloud?”
He doesn’t hear her. He’s caught up too deep in this now. Besides, if Sephiroth was the one who sent him that vision, then what else did he show him? What else could he do? What else could he make him do? He looks back down at his own hands. It’s not safe… No matter what, it’s just not safe with him around. He has to go, has to stay away. Only then will the worst be avoided…
“Cloud.” Aerith pats him on the forehead to make him snap to attention. “Relax. Like I said, don’t overthink it.”
“…Right…” His face darkens as he turns away again. “It’s not that complicated…”
Though she remains concerned for him, he now stops responding and doesn’t even look her way. She would have asked him what’s going on, but they are interrupted when a noisy commotion from above bursts its way onto the scene from above.
“Yo! Cloud, Tifa, Aerith! You guys okay!?”
“How’s Ruby doing? Has the good lass recovered yet?”
They all, but Cloud, snap to attention and look up. Out of nowhere, the rest of the party appears and bursts onto the scene. Both Barret and Yuffie’s groups have reunited and they all pour into the chamber down the stairs to catch up with them.
“Oh! Barret and the others are back!” Tifa waves to them. “We’re okay! We’re just talking with Rubia.”
“What!? She’s awake!” Barret exclaims in pleasant surprise. “Hell yeah!”
“Thank goodness!” Nanaki barks happily.
“Ruby! About time!” Yuffie whines, “Do you have any idea what trouble we ran into to get to you!?”
Now that everyone has gathered around the altar, be they on the bridge leading up to it, waiting by the stone steps just before the platform, or coming up to the platform as well, the place has livened up quite a bit. In particular, Yuffie and Nanaki come bounding on over to Rubia to check on her close up and give her some affectionate jabs and panting smiles, respectively. Yet, Rubia herself looks off her own way as if she isn’t interested in such social gatherings. Barret likewise steps up, looking relieved.
But there is one thing that Tifa wonders. She asks Barret, “Speaking of trouble, you guys didn’t run into anything too bad on the way, did you?”
“Hmph, nothing we couldn’t handle. But those black robes were acting up for some reason. At first they were just following us around, but outta nowhere, they transformed into monsters and attacked us!”
“Yeah, same with us!” Yuffie jumps in to add, “All of a sudden those freaks merged into a huge skeleton dragon thing! It wouldn’t stay down even after I knocked it out of the air!”
“Yeah, we saw one too.” Barret then shrugs. “But then something weird happened. It just stopped moving all of a sudden.”
“I thought it was ’cause we finally killed it, but it was still standing there. Kinda freaky.”
“Huh…” Tifa turns back to Rubia with a curious glance. “Maybe she did something about that after all.”
Barret raises an eyebrow, but with an impressed frown. “Oh, so that was Ruby? Didn’t even have to show to help, huh…” He offers Rubia a quick wave of a hand. “Thanks as always.”
Rubia doesn’t answer him, only offers a brief nod.
Regardless of how things worked out, Aerith is just relieved that they’ve all made it just fine. She turns back to her with a nod. “So, we’re all here. You said you weren’t going to hide anything from us, right?”
“…”
Rubia scans the place once more, taking a headcount. They’re all here… except for one. In the midst of all the commotion, Cloud has quietly slipped away from the crowd and is starting back for the exit. But he doesn’t avoid Rubia’s detection, and shortly everyone else catches on.
“Cloud! Where are you going?” Aerith calls to him.
With a wince, he doesn’t turn back and rushes off on his own.
“Cloud!” Tifa calls too.
“Oh, come on!” Barret complains, throwing up an arm. “What’s up with him now!?”
But this time, Cloud doesn’t even get that far. With a twirl of her hand, Rubia wordlessly casts a spell and warps him right back to the altar. He gives her a look of utter disbelief, to which she remains totally unfazed, and backs off again. He tries to step away again, but this time Tifa and Barret get in his way.
“Cloud,” Tifa tries again to reach him.
Barret folds his arms, looking like a disappointed parent. “Where do you think you’re goin’?”
“…” Cloud grits his teeth in frustration. “I can’t be here. It’s not safe.”
“Oh, no. Not this again. You’re staying put where we all can see you.”
“You guys don’t get it! Aerith’s in danger! Hell, the rest of you are too!” he argues, “If you won’t let me leave, then you guys get out!”
“Cloud, just tell us. What’s going on?” Tifa asks, ever worried.
“Sephiroth is what. We can’t stay here. And I can’t be with any of you.”
“Take it easy, man. We’re still keeping an eye out,” Barret tries to reassure him. “If he shows his face, I’m unloading every bullet.”
“It’s not that simple!” Cloud yells, having reached the end of his rope. “He could be anywhere! Be anything! You all saw what happened at the temple! He’s beyond just fighting normally!”
Aerith keeps insisting, “Cloud, it’s okay. That’s also why we’re here. Ruby can help us.”
He whips back to her. “Stop saying that! That’s not Ruby!”
Yet, she stands her ground and shakes her head. “It is. Maybe she isn’t showing herself right now, but I’d recognize my cousin anywhere.”
“She just looks the same, but it’s not her! ‘Ruby’ never existed! It was just an act that Rubia put up!”
“They’re still the same person.”
“Ugh. I can’t deal with this…” He looks around everyone else here with disbelief and turns back to Rubia with a glare. “Look what you’ve done. You’ve got them all wrapped neatly around your fingers, huh? Everything’s just going along with you…”
Rubia returns him an unamused look as if she too were disappointed at what she’s seeing. And she simply closes her eyes and returns to her meditation as before.
He stomps up to her again. “But I won’t be fooled. You’ve been plotting all this for far too long for me to just believe in you. You met with Sephiroth yesterday and he just left? Don’t give me that crap.”
“…”
He growls dangerously, “What really happened there? You two working together?”
“What? Cloud! How can you say that?” Tifa scolds him.
Aerith adds, “But Ruby didn’t give him the Black Materia.”
He snaps back at her, “So what!? Doesn’t matter who has it, they’re still gonna use it! Why else would they have gone through all that trouble at the temple? Why else was Ruby scared out of her mind up to that point? Because we messed up bad! And you all don’t even realize it yet!”
“No, it’s not too late.” She turns back to Rubia with a firm nod. “Because she can do what’s right and fix everything right now.”
“What are you talking about? Rubia’s not gonna listen…”
“Why don’t we ask her? She’s right here.”
“…”
Now, everyone turns back to Rubia, who has been waiting idly up to now. She opens her eyes again and looks at Cloud straight in the eye, ever unimpressed, and turns to Aerith to speak to her.
“What do you wish to ask?” she replies calmly.
“About the White Materia,” Aerith answers. “You know how it works, right?”
“Holy…” Rubia turns away again as she resumes contemplation, but explains aloud, “As it is of the planet’s will, it will respond to great crisis when it is needed, but only at the word of one who holds the most faith.”
“Okay, so you do know.” She nods with a smile. “That’s great! Then maybe you can show me how it’s done? We can call on Holy before Meteor is ever called!”
But Rubia shakes her head. “Not I. I have long lost that faith and have been unable to call upon Holy since I turned my back upon this planet. It will not answer my prayers, even if I were to dive into the core of the planet itself.”
“Oh, is that so…” Aerith now comes up to her and takes a seat beside her, sitting upon her legs. “Then, how about me?”
“There is none other of Cetran blood that remains, is there?”
“Well, no, there aren’t. But to be honest…” Aerith looks down in embarrassment. “I’m only ‘kinda’ Cetra myself. I never really got to spend that long with my mother, so she never taught me how this materia works or how to pray to it.”
“…”
She turns back to her with a bright smile. “But at least you’re here, Cuz! You know all the ways of the ancients, right? So you can teach me.”
Rubia does not respond at first and returns her ever cold stare. “Even now, well aware of the threat that I pose, you see me not as Rubia, but as Ruby.”
“Does it matter? They’re both you anyway.”
“…I see you refuse to change your mind.” She lets off a sigh and instead resumes on topic. “If you must call upon Holy, be warned that its appearance is no guarantee of the safety of humanity. It is the planet’s will, and should it deem you all unnecessary, none of you shall be spared.”
“I know… but I also know that we’ll be alright.”
“You ‘know’…?”
“Because we’re in this together, remember? Family gotta stick together.”
“…”
“Besides, don’t you feel lonely just hiding away all the time? You look like you could use a friend.”
“……?”
Though it seems to simply be a well-meaning statement at first, something about the words she said and the way she said it rings a little longer in her ears. In a way, it brings Rubia back to a certain memory from long, long ago.
“Isn’t it lonely being stuck in this cave all the time?”
“…Even knowing who I am, you still dare to approach.”
“I know from what everyone in town says, but there are a lot of words and none of them are from you.”
“…”
“Do you mind if I stick around? You look like you may need a friend.”
Rubia blinks again as she snaps back to the present. Her eyes widen as she now clearly recalls the people from that memory. On their first visit, there was just one: a young Cetran girl with short blond hair and bright blue eyes. After Rubia scared her away, she would return – not with angry adults eager for retaliation, but simply two other boys around her age. After Rubia scared them away, they would return yet again, this time with a third boy in tow. And after a number of this back-and-forth game of cat and mouse, Rubia would actually learn of their names: Elicia, the girl who was studying to be a white mage; Hector, the up and coming warrior who was always ready for a good brawl; Cerbal, the cool and cunning smart aleck who always seemed to have a plan; and finally Tom, the young, quiet boy who simply liked to read a lot. These four would eventually go on to become formidable fighters in their own right, though their grand adventure would be one merely on the cusp of Rubia’s own journey. It would be unfortunate that their last encounter would come to be nearly fatal for them, and she would see none of them since.
“…Ruby? Something wrong?” Aerith asks.
Rubia now looks around the crowd that has gathered here, taking a moment with each of the party’s faces as if she were trying to etch their essences into her mind for safekeeping, and she turns back to Aerith. Despite her usual stoicism, she now seems more than mildly surprised. She’s honestly stunned that after all this time, even when they were merely characters that she once associated with and would eventually come to betray and abandon, they would one way or another make their way back into her life in some other way, shape, or form.
It was just a little thing; an insignificant detail that she had long taken for granted and overlooked over the ages. But is this what it really means, when the planet runs through its cycle of life, death, and rebirth? Though individuals and spirits may come and go, the camaraderie between those of eternal bonds will still linger, even when none of those who were once present remain. Though Rubia had long been aware of the concepts, somehow it never quite struck her that she herself could be a part of it.
Despite her detachment from this world and all that she’s done to distance herself from her past; erasing all the voices that lambasted or sang false praises to her; and even repress her own emotions, she has come to realize that it’s all for naught. As long as this world continues to exist, to operate as it does, to be overseen by those rulers of the outer realms, she can’t escape. For the longest time, she believed it to be a curse; that she would ever be fated to suffer through all the ignorance and obliviousness from those around her who would never understand the suffering to endless reincarnation. Every time, she would ask someone, they would always tell her that it was a blessing, but she couldn’t see it. It felt like everyone else but her was able to make peace with their temporary lives, but Rubia would forever remain the same. That was the curse that Tiamat had placed upon her, and it brought her much suffering, so it very much seemed to be a curse. But perhaps there’s another side to the story after all…
“Cuz? Hellooo…”
Rubia shakes her head and blinks again. And now faced with this revelation, it clashes directly with another memory of her recent encounter with a certain man in black. She also turns toward Cloud again, who remains guarded, but she now looks at him with a touch of fascination. Though disillusioned that he may be at this moment, this man who still doubts her and just accused her of being traitor is ironically the most aware out of all of them. She cannot deny it: her meeting with Sephiroth preceding this one was not the wisest decision. But ever the opportunist, this man approached first and at the time she had no reason to deny him audience. They shared a particular goal, after all. But now that she sees the other side of the story - one of much more sentimental value, but not worthless as she initially believed - she is thus faced with a dilemma. She had trusted no one for far too long to start trusting anyone, but right now, she realizes she requires allies to suit her own purposes. Unfortunately, at this point, it may already be too late to pull out. A certain arrangement was struck and must be followed through.
However, if there is one other thing that she, as Rubia, can do for these lovely friends that she earned as Ruby, it is a simple courtesy; one last wish to grant before they will be made to part with someone. Rubia closes her eyes and seems to return to her meditative state one last time.
Aerith prods her with a finger. “You still with us?”
By now, Cloud’s patience has run thin. He’s been keeping a wary watch of Rubia all this time, but now that she’s fallen into silence and has become unresponsive, all he sees is her stalling as if waiting for a particular moment. But he’s not gonna wait on her; nor is he gonna let her or Sephiroth ruin what they still have.
“Forget it, Aerith! She’s not Ruby! She has no reason to listen to us.” He steps forward and even draws his blade, pointing it her way. “If she won’t even do this much, then she’s not with us! She never was!”
“Cloud, enough!” Tifa scolds him again. “Put that away!”
Barret also chimes in with a frown, “How long are you gonna be like this?”
“For as long as I have to!” he snaps back. “How do you all not see it? She can’t be trusted…”
But so soon as he claims so, they’re all met with a bright flash of white light before them. And to everyone’s shock, Rubia has changed outfits and hairstyle. No more are the white cloak and brigantine armor with her cold stoicism on display; instead, they have been replaced with a much more casual tee shirt, vest, and shorts combo, while sporting a much more amiable demeanor. And as soon as she appears, Aerith’s eyes light up again with joy.
Ruby opens her eyes again and looks around the ever familiar altar grounds, noting that everyone of relevance is indeed present, makes a lamenting sigh. So they’ve come to this point at last.
She turns back to Aerith with a tired smile. “Hey, Aerith. I’m back.”
“Ruby!!” Aerith squeals with excitement. “Welcome back!”
Like a massive wave of affection and encouragement, everyone else on this altar platform pushes past Cloud and rushes in to meet her. Aerith pounces onto her with a warm hug and Tifa slides in her own from the other side. Yuffie bounces in, suddenly appearing from behind her, and Nanaki jumps right in front of her with a fervently wagging tail. And they all would have almost tipped her over off her feet if not for Barret swinging an arm around them to help hold them up.
“Guys… Choking, not breathing…” Ruby’s muffled voice comes through.
They relent and give her some space, and she quickly unrustles her clothes. Though Sonon, Cait Sith, Vincent, and Cid have yet to come up here as well, they all look just as relieved. Sonon pulls back from battle stance, releasing his grip on his staff still on his back, and relaxes with a calm smile. Cait wipes some imaginary sweat off his brow while Moogle wipes some imaginary tears from his eye. Vincent releases his grip on his gun and leans back on the bridge’s railing, closing his eyes at peace. And Cid who had broke out a smoke like he was ready to burn another one, quietly slips it away again.
And from out of the crowd, Cloud simply stares, completely lost and confounded at what he’s witnessed. For a moment, he was so sure of himself and that he was the only one who really “got it”. But now that he sees Ruby back in her usual attire and was rather cutely struggling free to escape the smothering love, he realizes that he has no idea whatsoever.
Aerith also turns back to him with the same bright smile. “Well, what do you know? Looks like she was here all along.”
“…” Now quite embarrassed and ashamed, he returns his sword to his back and plants a hand over his face. “Sorry…” he mutters.
“It’s okay. I know you were just being careful.”
“…”
Aerith turns back to the others and waves her hands as if to scatter them. “Alright, guys, make room. Ruby and I got some work to do first. But once that’s over with, we can leave!”
“Finally!” Yuffie cheers, “I’m sick of this place! There were barely any treasures!”
“You came here looking for treasure?” Nanaki asks her.
“Well, duh. Aren’t I always?”
And with the scene settling back down from all the drama and excitement, the crowd clears away until only Aerith, Ruby, and Cloud remain on the altar. He reaches a hand out toward Ruby, looking like he wants to say something, but when she looks his way, he quickly retracts it and nervously turns away.
“Cloud, you can stay,” Ruby assures him.
“Huh?” He swerves back around. “Why? I wouldn’t have anything to do with your prayers.”
“No, but you are here to protect someone, aren’t you?”
“…”
Now reminded once more of the ghastly vision he witnessed, he looks as if he were stung deep, but is then replaced with one of renewed resolve. That’s right. Why else did he come here in the first place? It wasn’t just because Aerith wanted it or because Tifa asked him to show. It was because he wanted answers, and to her credit, Rubia did answer and clear up some misconceptions. Even when he was still doubting her, she granted them one last courtesy and brought Ruby back. Now it’s like she’s back in the party and helping them fend off Sephiroth as usual. In the end, he only ever wanted to protect, not just Aerith, but everyone else. And above all, though he would be shy to admit it aloud, he wanted to see Ruby again.
He nods back and steps back by the top of the steps, where he remains on guard. “Do your thing, guys.”
“Thanks.”
Ruby moves out of the way as well and with her instruction, Aerith takes her place at the center of the altar.
“So, do I have to say anything in particular?”
“Not really. Just send the planet your honest thoughts and feelings.” She glances off with a bit of a sad look. “Even if my prayers won’t be answered, I can give it a try too.”
“Aw. Don’t think like that! I’m sure your prayers will be answered in some way too.”
“…Let’s hope.”
She kneels down and holds her hands together, and then closes her eyes to bring her thoughts and prayers into focus. As if a courtesy as well, Ruby does likewise and folds her hands too, but for just a moment, she still hesitates as she thinks back over everything that led them to this moment. Once she closes her eyes, she too makes a prayer, but one of very different intent.
“O Great Mother… we thank you for all your blessings,” Aerith begins, as if reciting something from memory, “To have born us, to nurture us with your wisdom, to teach us when we have been led astray, to forgive us when we have done wrong.”
She enters into silence, as she now grows puzzled as to what else to say. She peeks open an eye toward Ruby, who has yet to break her stance, and resumes her own.
“Um… I also thank you for giving me this newfound family and the best friends I could ever ask for. Even when the Cetra have almost all passed on, I see that I am not alone in this world.”
For just an instant there, Rubia’s fingers twitch and her grip tightens.
“And though we may not always know where Destiny may take us, or if we must follow our own paths apart from what has been laid before us, I know that everything that has happened and will come to be has purpose. We live, we learn, and we grow from our victories and our struggles. And it is those experiences that we hold in memory, which will live on to be witness of those who will follow…”
As Aerith continues to mumble away her sincere thanks, Cloud keeps a sharp eye out. As calming as this scene is, he can’t quite settle down. While the vision he had seen was of Aerith alone, where he then supposedly would go mad and attack her, this time Ruby is with her. Maybe Aerith was right; that those were just some tricks that Sephiroth played on him to distract him. The future is always yet to come, so who knows if it would really play out like how he or anyone would expect. Maybe, just this once, they don’t have to travel that old, well-trodden road.
And just as his hopes are finally lifting up, he is suddenly hit by another unwelcome headache followed by another brief vision. While it’s once again set right on the altar, with Aerith kneeled in prayer, he sees just a bit more of the moment. Though Cloud does see himself standing before her, with sword drawn, he seems to have stopped and pulls back. And as he does, Aerith opens her eyes and greets him with a kind smile.
Then, it happens: a black shadow appears high above their heads, seemingly out of nowhere, and descends fast with sharpened blade pointed down. Before Cloud can do anything, it strikes Aerith through the center. She falls forward in shock. Sephiroth stands over her, his katana held in both hands. He even passes Cloud that ever eerie smile.
Cloud immediately snaps out of it back to reality. His jaw drops in horror and he feels a sudden cold sweat. No… No way. It can’t be happening now. He turns up toward the ceiling, where the beautiful stairwell leading above glistens in the light from beyond. However, just as this latest vision warns, a thin black mist swirls in and a familiar black shadow appears high above them.
No. Not this time. Cloud turns back to Aerith, who remains kneeling, and lunges forth. “Aerith! Move!”
“Huh? Eeek!”
Cloud swipes her up in his arms and dives out of the way as the menacing shadow descends upon them. He clutches her close, himself still trembling from the rush of adrenaline. He checks on her, and she’s a frazzled wreck too, but is ultimately unharmed. And in that moment, he feels a rush of exhilaration, almost triumph. He did it. He actually saved her.
“RUBY!!”
Cloud freezes up. Aerith is turned away and her face is aghast. In fact, everyone’s faces are struck with shock and panic. And now that he actually looks up again to see what happened, that rush of exhilaration from earlier sinks like a rock and he grows cold inside.
Sephiroth is crouched on one knee behind Ruby, and his sleek blade extends through her gut and out, nearly touching the floor below. She collapses to the floor, but can still hold herself up by both hands, though is trembling from head to toe. And yet, this scene is still incomplete. She doesn’t bleed where the blade has made contact, as if the blade simply passed through without damage. Nevertheless, as if Fate itself were being rewritten, the translucent, tessellating shapes appear around her once more. One moment, Ruby was numb to the initial shock mainly due to Rubia’s innately incredible constitution. The next, a gratuitous amount of blood suddenly flashes in where the wound is open. Pain. Intense pain. Indescrible pain. For whatever reason, it’s like she is currently not allowed to be numb.
She turns her head back to him with a glare, as if it were one last act of defiance his way, as if to say, “Did you have to make it hurt this much?” But he simply returns her his usual smug smirk. With one final cheeky exchange between them, the last of her strength thus gives out. Her hands slip and she drops to the floor, motionless. Her eyes flutter closed, strained, as she is yet bombarded with the voices of the past that are also screaming at her, but with much less care and fondness as those nearby. It’s almost like they’re cheering for her demise. And then, as with the wave of a conductor’s baton, the cacophony is silenced.
Good night, Ruby.
Notes:
Press F to pay respects. I've already started work on the next chapter, so here's to an epic confrontation to finally bring Act 2 to an end.
Trivia and deleted stuff, I had so many ideas
- Here we are, the Forgotten Capital. There were so many approaches I had with this city. On one hand, I totally wanted to throw in more flashbacks to Fenrir and baby Rubia. Then it became about Rubia's life among the Cetra in the city. Then it became about Fenrir attacking the capital and he would have had an epic confrontation with Kujata/Phoenix or Odin/Alexander, but Bahamut would come in last minute to intervene and make peace. And then after all these interesting ideas, I realized that I would have too easily lost the plot.
- I also had other drafts where I considered writing out all of the fight scenes with the rest of the party aside from the primary three, but likewise, they would have just been unnecessary padding and I needed them to gather together. But it wouldn't have felt right if I didn't have them split up at the start, as they would have to explore the area first. So, this final draft is the decision that I came to after countless hours of debate with myself.
- That one random plot point I wrote in a previous chapter about the robed people disappearing finally sees some purpose! To be honest, I actually had initially planned for them to skip this city and head straight to the Reunion at the crater, but then I realized how sick it would be to have them join in for a certain event that will take place here, specifically when Jenova will arrive to the party.
- Fun fact: the Zombie Dragon (formerly "Dragon Zombie") is a very rare enemy found in only one part of the Northern Crater, the two screens with the spiral bone tower, and it is very easy to miss it on a regular playthrough (OG FF7, to be clear). It also has a particular Enemy Skill that is entirely exclusive to it and only to the very first Zombie Dragon you encounter. It's called Pandora's Box, it does a bunch of damage for what's basically a black question mark box, and it comes at the end of the battle as a final counterattack. The game is then flagged so that no other Zombie Dragons will ever use it again for the rest of the playthrough. If you miss it, you'll have to restart from the last save before you encountered the enemy.
- I specifically wrote this current plotline so that Cloud and co would arrive at this city a day later, as it gives some unspecified amount of time for Rubia and Sephiroth to have met. I can't stress enough how much I wanted to write about their encounter, but again, more ideas that would have just dragged out the end of Act 2. I promised it would come fast and for once I plan to stick to it.
- Plot twist~! This timeline is something weird, alright. Who guessed that Ruby would be the one to take the fall instead? Oh, but what does this mean for the planet? Is this timeline entirely screwed up now? Will it still be able to recover even without Ruby's presence or Aerith's fated death? Sephiroth is dead set on winning this time around and he has the tools to cheat his way there. Cloud had better figure out his deal with Fenrir before it's too late!
Chapter 66: Fulfilling the Promise
Notes:
Kept you all waiting, huh?
Memes aside, I seriously questioned my own capabilities to write a chapter like this. So many revisions, so many times where I was about to give up and throw everything out to start all over. But eventually I settled on an extensive road where the battle itself is the journey. This chapter is definitely the longest one I have written to date, for any fictional work I've ever worked on. I'm tired but proud. I hope you all get comfortable because you might be here for a while.
Outdated A/N
8/26/24 edit: Just a quick heads-up that next chapter will be delayed to next week because I have lately been watching too many playthroughs, news, and discussion videos about Black Myth: Wukong. The 1986 TV series adaptation on Journey to the West was my childhood. I couldn't be happier a game like this exists.
8/28/24 edit: The bot spam is back. I'm keeping guest comments on, but please keep in mind that any guest comment mentioning AI is definitely a bot. God, it's annoying that they're coming in droves now. I guess that means I'm entering the big leagues now.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“From here on out, we’re going to look out for each other. No matter what hardships or struggles there may be, we’ll face them together. After all, that’s what family is for, right?”
Ruby was quiet, and then she began to wimper and sob aloud. Aerith offered her a comforting hug. Tifa smiled seeing the two cousins reunite. Even the hard-edged Cloud softened up. All was at peace at the church where flowers were blooming.
~
Under the pale glowing light sifting in from above, the altar floor is now stained with deep red. Time is at a standstill. Ruby has gone silent; her blood seeping down the blade’s edge to the floor. Sephiroth withdraws his blade and she drops like a heavy sack. There are already trace signs of her body slowly but surely fading into ether – a gray ether, just like the many unfortunate victims they once encountered.
Cloud has gone silent too. He’s frozen still, helplessly lost and unable to process what just happened. He has yet to even draw his sword and can only keep staring at the violated body before them. The only question that continues to flash at the forefront of his mind is: why?
“Ruby, hang in there!” Aerith cries. She pulls away from Cloud’s grasp and dives to her side, holding her up in her arms. “Ruby! Wake up!” She even gives her a little shake.
Tifa does too, dropping by Ruby’s other side, and firmly grasps Ruby’s arm. “Ruby! Don’t let him get to you!”
Barret throws his gun in their enemy’s face. “You bastard! The hell did you do!?”
“That was a cheap blow! Now you’re really gonna get it!” Yuffie snaps too, drawing her shuriken.
Nanaki growls fiercely and poises to strike, Sonon and Vincent jump in with their respective weapons pointed as well, and Cait Sith and Cid follow suit to surround him. And yet, even outnumbered ten-to-one, Sephiroth barely bats an eye at any of them. Instead, he keeps a cold, watchful eye on Ruby herself, anticipating what will happen next.
“Aerith, hurry! She’s losing so much blood!” Tifa pleads.
“I-I’m trying!” Aerith’s hands are shaking as she holds them over Ruby’s body, but no amount of Cure magic seems to be taking effect. “But it’s not working!”
“What? Why not!?”
“I… I don’t know,” Aerith admits painfully, “This never happened before…”
Tifa stares back at her, as if finding that hard to believe, but Aerith is looking just as distraught. Her eyes widen and trail back down to Ruby, and she grows fearful. “No… It can’t end like this…”
“Guys! What’s wrong?” Yuffie yells, rushing over to see for herself. “How’s Ruby?”
While Aerith is still trying her best, Tifa answers for her, “Not good! Aerith’s trying to heal her, but it’s not working!”
“What!? Oh, wait!” Yuffie now digs a hand into one of her pockets and whips out a Phoenix Down. “Here, use this!”
But when she drops the brilliant feather atop Ruby’s body, it doesn’t react. Instead, it uselessly slides off of her body and falls into the pool of blood beside her. Yuffie stares in silence and then drops down to pick up the feather again. This time she slaps it right onto her chest, and again the feather flutters away.
Desperate, she gives Ruby a vigorous shake. “Ruby, come on! Just take the feather!!”
Tifa moves to stop her. “Yuffie! Don’t shake her that hard!”
“You’re a God, aren’t you!? Heal your own wounds!”
But it’s too late to even say goodbye. No matter how they try to rouse her, Ruby hangs limply in their grasps. The thin wisps of ether emitting off of her body only continue to grow, and soon enough it becomes clearly visible to even the rest of them. They’re starting to panic too.
“W-what!?” Cait Sith squeaks with fright. “Her body’s turning…!”
“Gray…” Vincent observes warily.
Barret’s eyes snap wide open. “Hey! Ruby!” he calls to her.
“Ruby!!” Nanaki barks.
“Ruby! Please, stay with us!” Tifa keeps pleading.
“Ruby, no!! Don’t give in!!” Yuffie wails.
“Cuz…” Aerith mumbles quietly. Her hands can’t stop shaking and now even her vision begins to blur. “Don’t go…”
Amid a lamenting chorus of calls, Ruby’s visage vanishes and scatters into mist. So thoroughly does her body degrade that even the traces of blood that have leaked begin to dry up. But then a curious thing happens: rather than lifting into the air and scattering like usual, it instead sinks to the floor, as if it were being weighed down. A black void appears within her chest and draws in the rest of the body’s remnants into itself. They can no longer keep holding on and Ruby disappears into a single black orb.
Aerith blinks away some tears and her eyes widen. “This is…”
And at last, Sephiroth breaks his silence. “…The Black Materia.”
As soon as he speaks up, everyone’s glares are turned his way again. As always, he ignores everyone and takes a step toward where it lies.
Tifa jumps in the way to defend Aerith. “Don’t you dare!”
“Make one more step and you’re dead!” Barret snarls.
But Sephiroth doesn’t stop, and at that moment, all chaos breaks loose. Tifa leaps at him with fists of righteousness. With a mighty warcry, Barret unloads fire. Nanaki pounces with claws and fangs bared. Vincent fires dead straight at their target’s head. Yuffie swings and thrashes with her shuriken. Sonon strikes, Cid thrusts, and Cait Sith’s Moogle bashes. But despite their most earnest efforts, their attacks go straight through the man as if he isn’t even there.
“What…” Barret mumbles in disbelief.
“The hell!?” Cid complains, feeling insulted. “Is he some kinda ghost!?”
“But he just attacked Ruby…” Nanaki puts on a fearsome face, though he’s just as confused.
Everyone stops short, now lost in the confusion, and can only watch in horror as to what follows. Sephiroth nonchalantly steps beside Aerith, who stares at him in genuine fear. He pays her no mind either and goes to pick up the Black Materia. By some unknown magic, he suddenly seems to materialize again and is able to grab it and hold it firmly in hand. He makes just the faintest smile as he stands back up, observing the intricate detail of the energy that swirls within the orb, and proceeds to plant the thing into his chest. As with Ruby before, the orb emits some intense sparks of black lightning as it accepts its new host, but he doesn’t even flinch as it is absorbed.
“He got it!?” Yuffie shrieks. “HOW?”
“He has the Black Materia…” Vincent’s eyes hone at attention, but he’s in as much disbelief as everyone else. “What is he going to do with it?”
“Shouldn’t we stop him!?” Cait Sith blurts out in a panic.
“But what do we do? We can’t even hit him!” Sonon answers, growing further frustrated.
Nevertheless, Sephiroth continues to act like nothing of much note just happened. He passes Aerith a cold, aloof stare, almost as if he were pitying her and then steps away to take his leave. Everyone gives him their deathly glares, but regrettably they can do nothing more.
Aerith turns back down again, staring helplessly at the floor where Ruby’s body once laid. Nothing of her cousin remains – not a voice, not a thought, not even a drop of blood. All semblance of what was once her has disappeared into a different person entirely. It’s as if she had just been removed from existence altogether, torn in such a sudden and forceful way that it’s only left this feeling of emptiness. Weakness. Helplessness. She’s trembling so hard that she can barely hold herself up even while sitting down.
“Aerith!” Tifa rushes back to her side and helps her up. “Hang in there!”
While Tifa holds Aerith and lends her a shoulder to cry on, she too bears the heavy weight of that same helplessness. Even after trying to keep up a strong face for Aerith’s sake, she can no longer hold back the tears welling up in her eyes. She shuts her eyes and gives the poor girl a tight embrace too as they quietly weep together.
And throughout all that fury and fire, Cloud remains frozen, numb, even. He has yet to turn away from where Ruby once lied; needless to say, draw his blade upon their most hated foe. All the thoughts leading them up to this point flash through his mind as he tries his best to make sense of the situation, but it all seems like a convoluted mess that he just can’t decipher.
He kept seeing these visions of Aerith as the one in trouble; that Sephiroth would show up to strike her down. It made sense. She was going to summon Holy to stop him. And yet, who was actually struck down turned out to be the one that they all believed would be invincible. The one that had been working with Sephiroth to begin with and eventually turned traitor for his cause. Of all people, Ruby should have been the least of his concerns.
But now, having just witnessed the man so casually retrieve the Black Materia and walk off, Cloud feels his blood begin to boil. It was merely simmering at first, but his long suppressed rage has reemerged and been bubbling more and more fervently until now that he’s ready to burst. Violently. After all that this man has done up to now, from constantly misleading them, manipulating them to come this far, and even killing Ruby herself, he’s just going to leave? As the shock finally recedes, his eyes can only see red. He grits his teeth and clenches his fists tight as the fury takes complete hold of him. Just as Sephiroth is about to step off the altar, Cloud at last finds his voice and lashes out.
“Sephiroth!!”
The man in black stops and looks his way with his usual cold demeanor. “Yes, Cloud?”
Cloud finally draws his sword out. “Where do you think you’re going?”
With ever the smug air about him, Sephiroth smiles to himself and turns to face him directly. “To the Reunion, of course. You’re always welcome to join.”
“Don’t give me that shit! What are you even doing!? Why Ruby!?”
“Why, indeed…” He turns away again with an unusually wistful sigh. “I left the choice to her and that is what she decided.”
“Decided what? Who you were going to kill!?”
He passes Cloud an unimpressed frown. “Hm? Did she not tell you already?”
“What?”
“That she was due to be replaced. That once Rubia awakened, her role would be over.” Sephiroth shakes his head with a grim smirk. “The two of you had a deep conversation back at the temple, didn’t you?”
“…”
Cloud’s eyes drift aside as he recalls the conversation he had with Ruby at the time. She did say a lot, sure, but so much of it wasn’t making sense. Things about how she was going to be “replaced”, how the world was just a simulation that would be reset eventually, and how she wasn’t even a real person. But throughout that jumble of words, all he really heard was the pain and sorrow that she was expressing through everything else. All of that was because Sephiroth was controlling her; gaslighting her until she couldn’t even trust her own memories anymore. That even though she knew of a completely different life she led in another world, she was just a puppet created from Rubia’s lies and hung on strings from his hands. That she was just “data in the system” that was due to be junked and eventually deleted. As if that were even possible.
“She wasn’t making much sense, but her face told me everything.” He returns to him with a resolved glare. “You did that to her. You made her think she wasn’t real!”
“…Hmph.” Sephiroth legitimately looks disappointed and shakes his head. “Even now, you still don’t understand a thing.”
“What?”
“You have no idea what has been happening with Ruby, what her current status is, or what will follow in her aftermath.”
“…” As much as Cloud wants to keep arguing, he’s stopped abruptly in his tracks. He wants to know. Of course he does. But who else can he ask but Ruby herself? Because it sure won’t be coming from this guy.
Sephiroth turns away to ponder to himself. “Well, it doesn’t matter. Everything will come to a head eventually and you’ll all learn the truth about what Ruby really is.”
“‘What’ she is…?”
Barret then interrupts, “Who gives a damn about what you’re plottin’! The hell did you do to her!?”
“Yeah! Give her back, you psycho!” Yuffie screams, still freaking out. “Don’t put her in your chest! That’s gross!”
“Return the Black Materia,” Vincent warns. “Such power was never yours to wield.”
As usual, Sephiroth ignores everyone else and keeps talking as if the two were alone. “If you wish to learn more, come to the Reunion. Head north beyond the snow and ice to the Great Northern Cave. We’ll be waiting for you and your friends there.”
Cloud narrows his eyes. “Who’s ‘we’?”
He shows that distant, eerie smile once again. “Ruby and I, of course. You want to see her again, don’t you?”
“W-what?” Cloud suddenly feels a chill run through him. “What are you saying!? She’s already dead… isn’t she?”
Now Sephiroth starts to chuckle to himself. He turns away again with a conniving grin and eyes looking far away as if into time itself. “It’s like I said before, Cloud… We’re going to start a revolution.”
Cloud continues to stare at him as the man begins to snicker quietly to himself. The more this man talks, the less anything makes sense. One moment, it’s like he was treating her as a toy, and the next, he ditched her as soon as Rubia awoke. And now he’s come to destroy her body entirely, but he still believes that Ruby isn’t really dead? But there was so much blood. They all just saw her disappear. What does this man think being “dead” means…?
But no matter what the truth is or what they’re all missing, Cloud does understand one thing loud and clear: Sephiroth’s apathetic tone. The man was always one to speak distantly, but now he acts like Ruby and everyone else have been little more than tools that he can change around or discard as he sees fit. And now he’s laughing. He’s so far gone that there’s no point to talking it out anymore.
Sephiroth’s smile then fades and he shakes his head again. “Well, I would have proceeded without a word to you, but since you’ll be involved in the startup later, it’s easier to inform you now. What you do with this information, though, is entirely up to you-”
“Shut up.”
“…”
“I don’t care about your ‘revolution’. I don’t know what’s gonna happen in these two days. I don’t even know how you made Ruby think she could trust you with anything! But there was one thing that I know about her that you haven’t even mentioned yet.”
At this point, Sephiroth has already said his piece, but out of morbid curiosity, he decides to humor this line of discussion. He turns with a quick glance behind him. “?”
Cloud states with absolute certainty, “No matter how badly you treated her, or how much you’d threaten us to make her obey you, she just wouldn’t give up on you.”
Just like that, all semblance of amusement on Sephiroth’s face fades. He instead looks bored or even disinterested.
“I don’t know what she saw in you, or if she saw anything worth keeping. Maybe she didn’t understand it either. But she couldn’t deny you. She couldn’t deny that she had feelings for you…”
He looks away, acting like he doesn’t need to hear this.
Cloud then steps forward, raising a fist his way. “But did you ever care? No, of course not. She was just a tool to you. A stepping stone. Nothing she said, or felt, or did to try to reason with you mattered. Nothing else mattered other than you and your stupid ‘Mother’.”
“…”
“Everything was just a game to you, huh? A game that you rigged for yourself. When there were ‘new players to join the fray’, what you meant was, they were pawns that you could use however you want.”
“…Cloud.” Sephiroth turns his way and casually replies, “You don’t have to restate the obvious.”
The absolute gall of this man. With a trembling fist, Cloud clasps both hands upon his sword’s hilt and swings the blade forward again. “You bastard… You don’t deserve happiness.”
But Sephiroth smiles to himself, brimming with confidence that he’s already found it.
Cloud lunges at the man, sword swinging in fast, and for once Sephiroth makes an effort to block it. To everyone’s amazement, their blades make contact with a sharp clang. It seems this Sephiroth is no mere phantom after all. He has no need to maintain that intangible attribute, which was barely scratching the surface of his current capabilities anyway. As Cloud swings furiously and tries his utmost to push him back, Sephiroth easily sidesteps or deflects every blow as if he knew exactly what would be coming. Then, he blocks the last of Cloud’s strikes with another hard clang, and with a simple flick of his wrist, he flings Cloud away into the waters below.
“Cloud!” Tifa cries.
Fortunately, Cloud was only slightly disoriented from that. He pops back out and swims back around to the stone pillar steps while Tifa rushes over to help pull him out.
“What the hell!” Barret complains, seething at Sephiroth. “Why can’t we hit ’im!?”
Nanaki still maintains a cautious stance, muttering deeply, “It seems he is able to refuse to take our attacks…”
“And how the hell does he do that!? Can he turn into a ghost whenever he wants!?”
Again, Cid tries to make a high leap at Sephiroth, but as with last time, he simply nails the ground beneath and their target remains unaffected. Cid hops back to a reasonable distance, but he’s practically grinding away his teeth. “Sonnuva bitch. Can’t he fight fair!?”
Yuffie also tries again by blasting him with ninjutsu, but the spells all simply pass through uselessly. “Man! What is he even made of? No way he’s alive!”
After a quick thanks to Tifa, Cloud charges in again with a mighty smash, but this time Sephiroth doesn’t even grant him another round. He instead leaps high into the air to avoid the hit and remains aloft, high above everyone and out of reach.
With his signature cocky smile, he follows up, “Don’t worry, Cloud. I am not entirely ungrateful. I acknowledge Ruby’s many contributions. She has proven to be a most useful asset. May her soul continue to prove useful in the afterlife…”
“You asshole! Get down here and fight me!” Cloud shouts.
Sephiroth brings a hand up to his chest and lowers his head slightly as if to make a subtle bow. “In fact, allow me to honor her memory with one final parting gift, a particular design with her as its primary inspiration.”
“You know nothing about honor!” Tifa screams, her fists clenched so tightly she’s shaking.
“What’s he doing?” Barret asks, growing wary.
“Whatever it is, it’s not good…” Sonon mutters, getting a sinking feeling.
And with a quick courtesy speech over, Sephiroth raises his hand up above his head. With unspoken word, he stirs up some strange magic. To everyone else’s disturbance and alarm, the light that had once come pouring into the underground chamber slowly fades away into darkness until the entire area is pitch black.
“What was that!?” Yuffie screeches. “Did he just turn off the sun!?”
The darkness doesn’t last long, but as the light returns, it isn’t the warm glow as before. The shadows recede back to their original places and this bizarre, eerie light bathes everything in an dark violet tint as if it were black light. Sephiroth has vanished, but something more horrifying has replaced him. Now there is now a huge demonic-looking white dragon who has spread its wings, casting an even darker shadow upon the altar.
But this is not any ordinary form of Rubia; it is an abomination. Where there would once have been her beautiful white scales are now the pale and sickly-looking recessions of dusty bone and decaying flesh, wrapped tightly with bulging, twitching outer muscles of blackish, purplish alien flesh that glows with streaks of violet red, which pulse throughout as if this substance was the replacement for her blood. Her fangs, claws, and spikes alike are rough and jagged with unevenly enlarged foreclaws. Scattered across her body and down to her tail are unnatural amalgamations of bone, flesh, and even crystal-like protrusions. Her eyes are hollow; or rather, there is nothing but the eye sockets to her dragon’s skull that is laced with that alien flesh, with menacing, bright red dots that remain as its eyes. This is Jenova Umbra, an artificial reproduction of the Holy Dragoness that is anything but holy. Yet, despite its horrendous appearance, it is not quite undead either. It is simply an existence that defies the logic of life and death. It screeches with an eerie cacophony that would rival the intense noise that often plagued Ruby, as if it were announcing its advent to this world as a portent of things to come.
Aerith shuts her eyes and clasps her ears tightly, shivering coldly as if a chill had suddenly filled the air. This roar… this awful, insatiable, terrifying roar. She’s heard it once before, long ago when she was still very young, but never again. Since Aerith met Ruby and learned about Rubia, she thought it was Rubia’s cry in suffering – but not this. Anything but this.
“The hell is that thing!?” Barret exclaims.
“Ruby…!?” Tifa gasps, immediately recognizing the figure.
“No way! Ruby’s not that ugly!” Yuffie argues. “Looks like it came straight outta hell!”
“Whatever it is, it’s a damn eyesore!” Cid declares.
“It’s gonna be dead!” Cloud growls.
With her feral screech declaring the start of this battle, Jenova makes the first move and immediately shoots for the most vulnerable member of the party. Aerith is still huddled on the floor, too scared to look up and face this horrendous recreation, and Tifa is beside her, trying to coax her back up.
“Aerith! Tifa!” Cloud cries in a panic.
“Move!” Barret roars.
With lightning-fast reflexes, Tifa jumps to her feet and shoves Aerith out of the way as Jenova comes crashing down on them. They go for a short roll and tumble near the altar steps, where Tifa gets up to check on Aerith. Seeing that she’s still shaken, Tifa swings an arm over her shoulder and volunteers to carry her away.
“Hey, ya ugly bitch! Right here!!” Cid yells from behind.
He leaps into the air and drops hard onto Jenova’s back, puncturing past her bony spine. Though she clearly felt it, she shrieks with more indignance than pain and whirls about to throw him off. And with that brief distraction, everyone else leaps into action to lay on the vicious assault. From all sides, fists, fangs, and claws tear through the putrid flesh, guns ablaze and weapons thrashing ravage bleached bone, and spells are swiftly cast to further rouse the fires within. Limits are broken and their full fury is unleashed since they were unable to affect Sephiroth earlier. Howling Moon and Lucky Slots – Critical Hit Up. Doom of the Living. Dragon Dive. Finishing Touch right into Satellite Beam. In a matter of mere seconds, Jenova is bombed so incessantly that she has no time to counterattack and disappears within a great explosion of energy. When the light fades and the dust clears, the demoness appears to be in tatters, flesh torn to pieces and bones strewn about.
“That’s it?” Barret huffs, taking a quick breather. “She’s down?”
Cloud keeps a fixated glare. “I don’t buy it. This is Jenova. She’s not going down that easy.”
“But we sure busted her up!” Yuffie declares triumphantly. “Take that, ya dumb imposter!”
However, though they await the next round and for Jenova Umbra to rebuild herself or return in some manner, the pile of bones remains surprisingly inert. For just a moment, confusion and suspicion set in over the entire party. Surely, it’s not over yet? They just got started.
As it turns out, they would shortly meet their answer in a different way. When Jenova’s roar echoed throughout the chamber, her voice also spread outward and beyond to the city above. Though their numbers are relatively sparse now since a number of these hapless experimental subjects had transformed into monsters earlier, the remaining people still linger as if they were somehow unable to escape. Those that had yet to transform had been hiding away while the minor scufflies raged earlier and eventually would come back out once the coast appeared to be clear. However, try as they might to flee before it’s too late, ultimately it is to no avail. The remnant flesh and bone that remained of the once defeated drakes now gather in a ghastly stream of negative energy and swarm the remaining fleeing subjects, throwing everyone into a panicked frenzy. Even the two looming Zombie Dragons that were previously frozen in stasis now burst alive again.
Back underground, the party are alarmed to hear the clamor above reach down here. Even worse, it’s followed by loud booms and thuds against the ceiling.
“What the hell!? Now what!?” Barret yells, gun raised into position.
But he would regret asking. Suddenly, two massive skeletal dragons come bursting forth through the ceiling into the chamber with unholy screeches of their own. They aren’t alone either. An entire legion of zombified drakes come pouring in through the new openings in a chaotic clamor of hisses and shrieks, almost like they were all competing to deliver the most bombastic taunts.
“Goddammit! Not them again!”
“Really!?” Yuffie complains too. “Thought we got rid of ’em!”
“Then we’d better make sure they’re dead this time!” Sonon asserts.
The swarm of demonic beasts quickly fill their surroundings while the Zombie Dragons take the lead and smash into the altar platform with claws crushing and tails swinging. Like a dragon-fraught scene out of hell, the Zombie Drakes around them holler and cheer like they were voices of a gallery attending a show of violence, awaiting the ensuing chaotic brawl. As the powerhouse vanguard, the Zombie Dragons unleash terrifying poisonous breaths that fill the area with smog. Even when everyone dodges their wild swings at first, it’s much harder to avoid the smog, and soon they find it’s a little difficult to breathe. It’s even more concerning when the dragons also start throwing cursed bones tainted with paralyzing spells.
“Not today!” Yuffie screams over the noise.
With an aptly timed Windstorm, she summons a tornado that sucks out and away a good amount of the smog, granting the rest of the party ample room to fall back and recover with some timely Antidotes and Remedies. As soon as the tornado clears the air, Cid and Sonon stand ready with their weapons laid out in a cross. Cloud and then Nanaki jump onto their weapons and are flung high up, each aimed to strike at a dragon. With their movements in sync, they lunge together in a variation of Savage Assault, hence dubbed Cross Assault. They rip and tear and kick off their respective targets in an exchange of foes between them, and continue this exchange of blows in an upward ascent, before finally bringing down their final combined attack that slams the enemies into the ground.
The others aren’t just standing around watching either. The crowd of drakes around them periodically dart in and out to throw them into disarray. While Barret and Vincent fire away to keep their lines back, Cait Sith on Moogle and Yuffie likewise blast others with spells and ninjustu. And after giving Cloud and Nanaki a hand, Cid and Sonon slide back to back and proceed to swing widely and wildly, catching and flinging away a number of drakes that come a bit too close.
While the battle rages on behind them, Tifa takes Aerith to a safe distance and hides her in the shadows of the winding bridge’s canopy. She sets her down safely and puts a hand to her shoulder, offering her sympathies.
“Hey, how are you doing? What happened?” she asks.
Aerith shakes her head. “I… I don’t know. I just…” She hangs her head in shame. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s not your fault.” Tifa then suggests with a determined look, “You can stay here until you’re ready. Leave the rest to us.”
“Okay… and thanks. Be careful out there.”
Tifa nods back and hurries back out to join the others. Aerith watches the battle unfold from afar, admiring everyone’s resolve. They’re all out there giving their all to keep fighting, and yet here she is, trembling all over and unable to climb to her feet. She feels queasy, almost like she wants to throw up, but is also in heart-throbbing pain. If anything, that’s where it hurts most.
The scenes from earlier continue to replay in her mind. One moment, it was peace. It was just her and her cousin, back together again, making some steadfast prayers. Then, the next, it was chaos and everything was torn apart. Before she knew what was happening, she was pulled away. But Ruby didn’t move. There was no one to pull her away. But Aerith doesn’t blame Cloud at all; it’s not his fault that he didn’t expect it. None of them did. Still, she secretly wishes that he had pushed her out of the way too. Or better yet, that she had pushed Ruby away herself.
No, wait. It’s not that simple, is it? Before Sephiroth arrived, Aerith noticed the face that Ruby was making while they were doing their prayers. She looked troubled yet resolute, almost as if she were anticipating something. But did she know what would happen? Did she really accept her fate, knowing what it meant? Did she even exchange her life for her cousin’s…?
Aerith hangs her head, feeling overwhelmed by survivor’s guilt. Ruby… Why? Why did you let this happen? You didn’t need to sacrifice yourself for me. You could have warped us out of there, so no one had to die. But… we came too late. You made a deal with Sephiroth, didn’t you? That he would spare us if you took the hit. You were protecting us until the very end.
She shakes her head, biting her lip, as the tears begin to well up in her eyes. Inaction. How quickly the time they had with her passed. Regret. So many things she wanted to say to her that she didn’t. Longing. Ruby was disappearing from their lives and they didn’t even know it. Despair. What do they do now? Ruby helped carry them this far and now she’s gone. Can they even keep going without her?
Aerith cups her hands together as if trying to pray for her, but is unsure that it would reach her at this time. Her hands happen to bump into her jacket pocket again, and she’s reminded of something. She reaches a hand into the pocket and draws out the unique white materia that was delivered to her not too long ago. It just happens to be white as well, huh. It reminds her of the other materia she’s been keeping – the true White Materia, which her biological mother left with her before her passing. And now, Ruby in her own way has left her own precious to her in her care as well.
But Ruby’s materia has grown still and cold. Once where the beautiful white swirls of energy would take on the likeness of the white dragon is now a faded silhouette that almost looks transparent. And as quickly as the person had disappeared earlier, the energy of this materia too fades until it swirls no more. Aerith clutches the materia tightly in her hands and closes her eyes, letting her tears finally stream down her cheeks.
No… It’s not a question of whether or not they can. They have no other choice. They must carry on.
Aerith opens her eyes again, but even with her tears, she now bears a face of renewed resolve. What is the purpose of regret, if not to learn from it? Maybe Ruby wished for this to happen, not just because she wanted to protect them, but also because she wanted them to be able to stand without her. It’s true: they’ve been relying on her for too long. They even acknowledged it from time to time, yet no one wanted to admit that they didn’t do enough to help themselves. They trailed too far behind her and took it for granted that she would always take the lead. But Ruby knew otherwise and Aerith gets it now. They can stand on their own. Ruby has already laid the path forward for them. They just have to take it.
Feeling some hope return to her, she also feels her strength return as well. No more being afraid. No more shaking and hiding in the shadows. Her grasp on Ruby’s materia softens into a gentle yet still firm hold, and she then slips it back into the pocket for safekeeping. She tries to get back to her feet once more, and finally she doesn’t waver when she takes a stand. With a relieved sigh, she whips her hands about to summon her staff to her. She looks around the chamber, noting the pale light that has enveloped everything in a sickly-looking purple. There must be something else she can do from here. She hurries along the bridge back toward the stairs to find a better vantage point.
The battle has been keeping on strong so far, but things soon take a grim turn. While everyone is busy fending off this evil legion of monsters, something stirs in the shadows. Though they are handedly defeated, the scattered bodies of dead Zombie Drakes then begin to slide on their own and gather together around the pieces of Jenova’s broken body. They pile on in a collective swirl of black magic, and just like that, the demoness begins to regenerate. Wherever her flesh was torn apart, it rapidly weaves together whole again. Wherever her bones were smashed to pieces, they reconstruct to be even sturdier than ever. And in mere moments, what was a pile of mush and bone reforms into the same horrific figure as before. Once reconstructed back to perfect health, she lets out a proud, haughty shriek, which comes with a hint of high-pitched cackling.
“Damn!” Barret blurts out. “The ugly bitch is back!”
“Oh, come on!” Yuffie whines, getting even more frustrated. “Can’t she just stay dead!? We’re busy here!”
But Jenova cares not for life or death or anything in-between. She unfolds those flesh-laced skeletal wings, whipping up strong gusts that scatter everyone, and launches into the air again. As she does, several white magic circles appear around the altar’s floor, warning of impending doom.
“Huh?” Barret asks, taken aback. “Hey, isn’t that…?”
Cloud isn’t waiting to check. “Guys! Move it!”
They all leap out of the way, with some like Cait Sith taking a ride on Nanaki and Moogle getting snatched by Cid. Pillars of white light akin to those of Ruby appear all around the area and explode, cracking the floor beneath their feet.
“Hey!” Yuffie’s jaw drops. “That was Ruby’s magic! Why does she get to have it!?”
“Jenova has assumed this form as a replica of the original, but merely as a mockery…” Vincent coolly surmises.
“Don’t care what she is! Knock ’er down!” Barret argues, returning fire.
The rest of them follow suit. Those who can blast their enemy from afar get right to it, while Cid takes another High Jump at her and this time Cloud helps fling Sonon into the air after him. Jenova roars overhead as she swerves and weaves through the air to avoid the volley of fire from below, and her wingbeats stir up whirlwinds that blow anyone who dares to approach. She returns fire with a charged ball of purple lightning that emits lasers that scatter all around and thus scatter the party. But once they are split up again, her evil legion swarms in once again to block their paths.
However, Jenova is a lot craftier than her unsightly appearance may assume. As soon as she is given the opportunity, rather than continue to chase after them, she launches off into the air again, now headed straight for the stairs that lead to the exit above.
“Hey! Where’s she going!?” Barret exclaims.
Cloud follows her trajectory and his eyes widen in panic. “Aerith!”
By now, Aerith has managed to climb all the way up the stairs. She has her hands held forward and is attempting to unseal the exit, though exactly how she’s still trying to figure out. But what she is certain of is that the strange purplish tint over the entire chamber is a prison created by Jenova’s illusions. And in this bizarre prison, the demoness may exact her influence everywhere and allow herself to recover from any damage. Unfortunately, while Aerith tried her best to keep quiet and sneaky, Jenova easily spotted her and is now lunging right for her with a furious screech.
Suddenly, a roar of a different beast fills the air and a huge shadow flies over even Jenova, covering almost her entire size. The Galian Beast has returned. He slams into the demoness, dropping her fast and crashing into the stone bridge below with an explosion of dust and rock.
“Vincent!” Tifa calls out, quite relieved.
“Thanks!” Aerith waves to him and then resumes her work on cracking the seal.
“Yeah!! Get ’er, Vincent!” Yuffie cheers. “Smash that fake to pieces!”
The Beast and Jenova roar ferociously at each other and struggle fiercely for a little while. While Jenova keeps trying to throw him off and escape, Galian Beast keeps seizing some body part and tries to rip her apart. When he can’t just tear off her limbs, he also nukes her point-blank with several Beast Flares until he actually does crack and rip something off – namely, her head. The convulsing flesh that was previously attached to it now spills a gratuitous amount of purplish blood, spraying all over the Beast.
“Ooh! That’s gonna leave a mark… or hole,” Cait Sith gasps, a little disturbed at how violent the scene has gotten.
However, just as it looks like the Beast has cleaned up their latest threat, there continue to be high-pitched cackling in the air around them. Though by now, the rest of the party has cleared the area fairly well of the Zombie Dragons and the crowds of drakes, with their many limp bodies strewn across the battlefield and plenty of them sunk into the pool below, it seems like there’s no end to their lingering voices. And for a moment there, even Jenova’s cackling joins the raucous laughter.
“The hell is going on? Who’s laughin’?” Barret cries, looking around frantically.
The Galian Beast now lands back on solid ground, where the bridge’s canopy has been smashed open, but even while Jenova’s head falls into the pool and continues to dye it a faded red, the rest of her body remains aloft and her wings continue to beat. Then, to everyone’s horror, from the roughly torn stump of a neck, Jenova regrows not just one head but two this time. The two heads both screech in tandem as if to loudly announce their debut as well.
“What the hell is that!?” Cid shouts, his jaw dropped.
“It grew another head!? Ew!” Yuffie squeals.
The Beast snarls in frustration and leaps at her again to resume the assault, but Jenova instead catches him in her claws, digging those sharp, crooked nails into his flesh, making him roar in pain too. He tries to struggle out of her grasp, but those nails come imbued with a deadly toxin. But it’s not just any toxin; the longer he stays in her grasp, the more Jenova can drain from him. The Beast quickly finds his strength being sapped and Vincent quickly returns to human form, now trapped in Jenova’s iron-grip claws.
“Vincent!” Tifa gasps.
“What happened!? Why’d he change back!?” Sonon asks, alarmed.
Cloud isn’t waiting around. He rushes off for the bridge to lend a hand.
“Cloud! Wait up!” Tifa calls after him and gives chase.
“Hey!” Barret calls after them too. He turns to everyone else and beckons them to follow. “Come on! Let’s go!”
But just as the rest of them rush off for the bridge as well, the cackling laughter around them intensifies yet again. The many Zombie Drakes that had fallen into the pool now fly back out, looking completely refreshed like how they started. Even the two Zombie Dragons, which were reduced to piles of bones, likewise recollect themselves and return to form.
“Damn! Why won’t they just stay down!?” Barret growls and resumes fire.
Now that the others are held back yet again, it leaves just Cloud and Tifa to help Vincent with Jenova Umbra herself. When Vincent stops struggling in her grasp and comes to hang limply, she casually flings him away and turns her attention back on the woman atop the stairs. Catching sight of Vincent’s plight, Aerith pauses her work and quickly calls forth a shielding ward that she flings like a disc to catch his fall. It slows him greatly and lets Cloud and Tifa catch him before he falls into the water.
Unfortunately, this also leaves her open to attack by Jenova. The demoness now catches Aerith before she can run and snatches her up in one of her claws. With a venomous screech, she takes her victim with her and bursts out the ceiling where the other dragons had previously left holes. Aerith barely has time to scream before she disappears out of the underground.
“Eeeeyaaugh!!”
“Aerith!!” Cloud and Tifa cry out.
“Tifa, watch Vincent!” he also orders.
“Cloud, wait!” She turns back to Vincent and whispers a quick apology as she sets him back down.
He rushes up the steps to give chase, but as soon as he meets the exit and the edge of the purple-tinted prison, he instead meets a solid wall and stumbles back. Swearing under his breath, he shakes it off and proceeds to bash his sword against the barrier, but it seems to be to little avail. The only way this prison can be escaped is if the seal on it is broken. Unfortunately, it seems the only one who can do anything about it has been taken away.
“Dammit! What the hell!?” He screams in desperate rage as he slams into the barrier, but it just won’t budge. “Let me out!!”
“Cloud!” Tifa now hurries to catch up with him and hold him back from pounding fruitlessly. “Calm down! Let’s try something else!”
“But what!? We don’t have time!”
“I know! But it looks like we need some kind of magic?”
“Magic…?” Remembering that he still has materia equipped, he tries casting various spells: Fire, Blizzard, Bio… but they all come to nothing and he’s back to slamming his fist angrily. “It’s no use! What kind of magic do we need!?”
“The others have the other elements! I’ll go get them!”
“Forget that, Tifa! This isn’t an ordinary barrier!” He draws his sword forward again and returns to slashing at it.
“Cloud, enough! That won’t work!”
“Then what!?”
“Then…”
Tifa takes a moment to reconsider their options, but to be honest, they really are running out. Frankly, the only thing that she can think of is asking another fellow Cetra for help, but since Ruby isn’t exactly present, Tifa isn’t sure who else can help… except for maybe one other kindred albeit unpredictable spirit.
“What about Fenrir?” she suggests.
Cloud stops short of his latest blow and turns to her in disbelief. “What? Why him?”
“He’s the only one I can think of that might be able to do something.”
“Tifa, no! We can’t trust him!”
“What other choice do we have?” she argues. “Ruby’s not here and Aerith just got kidnapped! If our materia isn’t enough, then we have to rely on him!”
“Ugh…” He begrudgingly pulls back and returns his sword to his back. “Then what do I do? I don’t know how to call him. He came to me in the first place and I wasn’t even awake!”
“But remember what Rubia said before? That you two can still set up some kind of contract, right?”
“Sure, but I don’t know how that works!”
“She also said that it could happen if ‘your wills are aligned’…”
“Our wills? What? Am I supposed to wait on the wolf to be ready!? If he knows what’s at stake here, then he should care about Aerith too! She’s Ruby’s cousin, for crying out loud!”
“Yeah, but…” Tifa hesitates, but even if it may upset him, she has to say it: “What if he’s the one waiting for you?”
He stares back in disbelief. “What?”
“Like Rubia said, if you keep rejecting him, this contract won’t ever work. So how about you calm down and think about it for a bit? What is it that Fenrir wishes for the most?”
“What he wishes for…?”
Cloud lowers his sword and turns away to try to settle down and think. What would the wolf wish for? To meet Rubia again, right? At this point, there’s no one else that he’d care about. But wouldn’t Rubia just reincarnate on her own? So he can just wait it out. Or is there something that has to happen before she can? Then, just as he least expects it, he’s met with another vision that sends him hurling back into the past.
~
The scene was set in the snowy mountains to the north. There was a fierce blizzard blowing about, but the old wolf was not bothered by that. No, he had much greater problems that he was facing at this time. Here, even in the midst of the ice and snow of the Far North, he’d been cornered and surrounded by several dignified foes: Odin, Alexander, Phoenix, and Kujata. Following his assault of the Grand Oracle, Fenrir fled the city before forces could discover him, but unfortunately, Odin’s All-Seeing Eye surely predicted this would come to pass. He even knew exactly where the wolf would run to and called upon several allies to join him to corner the wolf. But unlike previous times, he would not settle on mere capture. Odin was always a strong proponent of execution, and he would make no exception now.
But just as Fenrir thought he would have to make his last stand here, they were then interrupted by a mighty roar from the skies. Bahamut, clad in his regal platinum scales, was also joined by his close friend and personal bodyguard, Marroshok, who was clad likewise in gold. To Fenrir’s shock, the two dragons arrived not to join in his execution, but to put a stop to it. They stood firm around the wolf, barring the others from approaching.
“Hold your advances!” Bahamut bellowed with the deep rumblings of a dragon’s roar. “The wolf shall see his due punishment in accordance to the heavenly mandate, not by vigilante justice!”
“Move, Bahamut. His execution was long overdue.”
“Enough, Odin! That judgment is reserved for Minerva alone. Do not act on your own! Or so will you, you shall have to face my wrath as well!”
“You…? You despise the wolf too. Why are you defending him?”
“Even my most hated enemies deserve a fair trial.”
“…” Odin watched him with wary gaze. “And what do you propose will change should that trial be held?”
Bahamut met his steely gaze with one of his own. “A chance for reform.”
“Hmph! You old fool. Has your judgment become clouded with age? What ‘reform’ can be exacted by a wild beast that always a penchant for destruction?”
“If he is naught but a wild beast or if he is civil and well-mannered, ’tis not the question. It would bring forth the crumbling of our judiciary should we continue to act the savage brutes!”
“There are no ‘savage brutes’ here but the wolf behind you.”
“Nay. There are many and they reach so far the ascending ladder that even Minerva herself is not exception.”
At this moment, all other Summons were aghast in shock. Did Bahamut of all beings really just insult the Goddess of Wisdom herself?
Odin glared back. “Watch your tongue, Bahamut. Was it not you who just argued for her judgment to be granted in the first place?”
“Yes. Even as I do not except her, I acknowledge that she is the highest of arbiters, to serve directly for the will of the planet. However, it is precisely her hasty judgments as of late to which I have objections.”
Odin rolled his head back with a loud scoff and raised forward his lance. “And there it is! The truth of the matter unravels at last!”
“…”
He returned it to his side. “As I figured, your age has indeed clouded your judgment. A sorry excuse of a father who can never control his rebellious child! So often that should she be sent to Minerva’s realm, she would be due to be executed!”
Bahamut returned him a low growl. “My aptitude for family matters has no part of this conversation.”
“Oh, it has every part of it! Why else would the King of All Dragons come to be so humbled that he rarely ever shows his face to humanity since the dawn of the Planet’s Treatise?”
“…”
“We are all well aware…” Odin paused before also adding, “Of your ineptitude for family matters. Do you really expect to raise a child off of all our backs? I’ve seen that girl more often during her training regiment than you’ve ever had to carry her on your wings.”
At this point, even the usually quiet Marroshok felt rather incensed enough to speak up. “Had you ever known what was the truth of my liege’s disappearance, you would be holding your tongue!”
“Marroshok, stand down,” Bahamut ordered.
“My liege…” He bowed his head. “Forgive me. I spoke out of turn.”
Now, Bahamut closed his eyes as he recalled some less than savory, yet nonetheless crucial memories from the past. He opened his eyes again, looked around at all the others and bowed his head just a little. “I acknowledge how much I have needed to rely on all your efforts, and for that, I am grateful that you all accepted the terms despite the tedium.” He then lifted his head back up to return to Odin with a resolute glare. “But that is all I will concede. I have no need or intention to explain my situation to you.”
“…”
“Nor will I speak further on Minerva’s judgment. If your All-Seeing Eye is as omniscient as you claim it to be, then you too should be aware of the consequences of defying her authority within her jurisdiction.”
Odin and Bahamut exchanged deathly glares, with neither one willing to submit to the other. At last, in an attempt to mediate the matter, Alexander now intervened, speaking with his classic robotic tone.
“Enough. Further deliberation shall be decided by counsel in the Court of the Divine. If either of you have any objections to raise, do so during the Goddess’s arbitration.”
At last, the two Guardians backed off and turned away to avoid further eye contact. However, Bahamut still insisted on informing the rest.
“Leave the wolf in my care. I will take him to see Minerva myself.”
And with that, the other Guardians exchanged looks of deliberation and finally conceded to the suggestion. Alexander proceeded to launch away into the skies, Phoenix took flight as well, and Kujata stomped off, blending into the blizzard with his icy coat. Then, there remained only Odin with the two dragons and the wolf.
Odin would thus leave them with one final warning: “…Rest assured, I won’t interfere with Minerva’s judgment. However, you should also prepare yourself, Bahamut. For she has much reason to see you in her chambers aside from the wolf’s matters.”
Bahamut nodded slowly. “I know.”
“Very well…” And with that, Odin directed his noble steed and took his leave, vanishing into the blizzard as well.
At last, it is but the two dragons that remained with Fenrir. Now they turned to him with cold, strict gazes and the wolf returned them his own defiant glare.
“If you expect me to thank you, you would sooner await the next alignment of the stars,” Fenrir growled.
Bahamut shook his head. “We are not here to show sympathies, Fenrir. You have committed a grave crime and we will not look lightly upon it.”
“I have no regrets. That oracle of hers is nothing but a fawning appeaser and tool of the gods, and has no real judgments of her own. She might as well not be human.”
“Silence, Wolf!” Marroshok barked back. “Know your place! You knew well that you had transgressed on the very oath you once swore to follow!”
“If the humans hadn’t been too stupid to understand their own follies, then we would never have needed any such flippant ‘oaths’! I only ever kept to the Far North as it was my home, but then humans dared intrude on it!”
“Plain selfishness! The great expanse of the Far North is not your domain alone!”
“If not for that chance encounter, Rubia would never have been tempted to visit them in their city! She could have remained in ignorance of their existence!”
“You dare bring Her Radiance into your excuses!?” Marroshok snarled.
“Marroshok,” Bahamut instead cut in.
“My liege?”
“Allow me.” Bahamut turned back to the wolf with a stern frown. “Fenrir… let me confirm one thing with you.”
“What?” he snapped back.
“Did you attack the Grand Oracle in an attempt to cover for Rubia?”
“…”
Now, Marroshok’s eyes widened in surprise. “My liege… You don’t mean…?”
Bahamut nodded gravely. “I figured this would come to pass one way or another. Rubia is quite the handful, no matter in whose hands or wings she is set.” He looked away with a wistful frown. “Unfortunately, it is out of even my claws whenever Rubia is sent to Minerva’s realm. That child is much too rash for her own good.”
“…” He looked back to Fenrir with the same surprised stare, to which the wolf responds with an impatient glare. “This attack… was not made for your own purpose?”
“Hmph.” Fenrir turned away, making a somewhat snooty look. “Of course it was. I had every reason to end her. It was her prophecy that had me banished in the first place.”
Bahamut then pointed out, “And yet, you never acted upon those reasons until now, after Rubia dared to assault the oracle herself.”
“…”
“Fenrir.” At this point, to the other two’s shock, Bahamut crouched down to the ground and took a bow of his head. “Thank you. You have my sincere gratitude.”
“My liege! Are you sure you should bow your head like this?” Marroshok cried.
“I am sure. If you understand the situation now, you would too.”
“…” Marroshok hesitantly obliged and lowered his head too. “My apologies, Fenrir. I was the ignorant one to jump to hasty conclusions.”
Fenrir gave them with a hard stare in disbelief. “…What is the meaning of this, Bahamut?”
Now the dragons lifted their heads back up with more sobering expressions. Bahamut explained, “I have no intention to uphold unnecessary grudges or restart old conflicts. Though I earlier played the part of upholding the judiciary’s authority, I very much have my own plans, and they must involve you, Fenrir.”
“Me? What purposes would I ever serve you?”
“Do you still recall who is Rubia’s mother?”
Fenrir’s eyes narrowed. “Of course. She is the entire reason that Rubia has been doomed to undeserved hatred and exile.”
“Very good.” Bahamut nodded. “Before I bring you to Minerva, I have a favor to ask of you.”
“…?”
“Please request a change of sentence to exile in Helheim.”
“What!?”
“It is the only alternative to direct execution that you can argue for at this point.”
“No! I refuse! I would rather die than let my soul be imprisoned for eternity!”
“However, doing so would bring you within vicinity to Tiamat.”
At that moment, Fenrir’s snarls were cut short and he realized what Bahamut was driving toward. “…And you intend for me to find her? For what purpose?”
“Do whatever you must. But above all, make sure that Tiamat never has a chance to break free.”
“Hmph! Then I would be a wasted sacrifice! No entity has ever escaped from Helheim.”
Bahamut shook his head. “No. I know my former mate well enough. There is still some means that she may be able to escape.”
“What?”
“She wields a miraculous power that was once granted to her by a certain mysterious entity from beyond even our realms…”
Fenrir stared at him in disbelief. “What are you saying? What is this ‘mysterious entity’?”
“I know not of what the true nature of this entity may be, only that it exists. There was a reason why Tiamat went from merely a powerful fiend among a gang of scoundrels that once plagued the lands to the planetary threat that she became to have started two Great Cetran Wars.”
“…”
“Something, somewhere out there, wished for her to run rampant.”
Fenrir still remained unconvinced. “And you wish for me to stand guard of her? But if I would be imprisoned there, then I would not have the freedom to move about.”
“Rest assured, when Rubia returns once more, she will be able to tell you more.”
Now that piqued his interest. “Rubia? She knows about this too?”
“Yes… I was the one who informed her, after all.”
“What?”
“Therefore, it naturally follows that you come to her aid as well. I entrusted you with her since her earliest years. I know I can entrust you with her in her latest ones too.”
“…”
“Til the day comes when we may all reunite once more… Stay strong, Fenrir. Never give in. Never give up on the future.”
“The future…?”
“Yes. The future which we shape ourselves.”
~
Cloud now returns from the vision and blinks awake again. Frankly, he has no idea what prompted this vision, but all of a sudden he feels strangely empowered by it. Compelled to keep fighting. Almost like it’s his very duty. And at last, he comes to realize what it is that he should be fighting for.
“…Cloud?” Tifa asks, getting even more concerned since he grew quiet.
He snaps out of his thoughts and turns to her, looking genuinely surprised. He then relaxes with composure regained and nods. “Thanks, Tifa. I think I get it now.”
“Huh? Get what?”
He turns toward the magical seal upon the doorway. “What Fenrir wishes for the most.”
Tifa lights up and curiously asks. “What is it?”
“A future where Rubia has a family to return to.”
To which, she makes a relieved smile. “I see. That’s a great wish.”
He glances back to her with a request. “By the way, don’t we have materia for Bahamut?”
Tifa blinks and takes a moment to recall. “I think we do? I remember Ruby found one while we were still at Gold Saucer. She passed it to Nanaki, but I think Yuffie might have snatched it up.”
He turns back to the sealed door. “Ask them to call him. I’l take care of things from here.”
“By yourself?”
“No. I’ll be in good company.”
She quickly catches onto what he means and smiles proudly. She nods back and hurries off, picking up the unconscious Vincent along the way. For now, Cloud faces the sealed door and draws his blade forward. He then closes his eyes, focusing inward in hopes of reaching out to an old friend and ally.
“Fenrir… Can you hear me? I understand now, what you’ve been working toward. I want to help you. I want to help save Rubia. So please… lend me your strength. Let’s fight together.”
Though he hadn’t expected to meet any response, he’s startled when he can make out the low and dangerous growl of the wolf of legend. Before he even knows what’s happening, he suddenly blacks out and feels himself be forcibly whisked away back to a pitch black realm. Everywhere he looks is just darkness, and yet he can still make out himself as if he were somehow lit up. However, he isn’t alone here. Cloud witnesses a huge pair of threatening-looking eyes bear down on him and now finds himself standing face-to-face with the massive silver wolf. The latter gives him such an intense stare that it almost feels like a repressive force in of itself.
“…” Though he doesn’t respond at first, Fenrir then proposes a question to him, “Who is Rubia to you?”
Cloud is taken aback by the impromptu question. Then again, is there really any question to it? The answer is obvious. He meets Fenrir’s stern glare with one of his own.
“She’s Ruby. And that means she’s family.”
Now, Fenrir’s intense stare softens just a bit. Though he doesn’t smile, he does assume an air of calm. “Well said.”
With that, the old wolf steps back, and with his head held high, he howls away into the black abyss. At this moment, Cloud meets with those familiar-looking tessellating shapes from before begin to appear around him. He grows wary at first, but waits it out and lets them gather together to form the shape of a magic summoning circle around him, which lights up with a bright white glow once every piece is in place.
The next thing he knows, Cloud is brought back to his own body, but now he feels overcome by a great surge of power that still remains entirely in his control. The air about him begins to chill and freeze until an icy mist forms into the shape of a white ribbon that wraps itself about his neck and shoulders, as if to signify such divine power. His hair seems to grow out the back and turn a faint silver-white at the tips and he even gains lupine sideburns for extra points. However, even as his body chills along with the mist, he doesn’t feel cold. If anything, he feels the raging fire that had been stoked since earlier blazes with further fervor. He finally opens his eyes wide, revealing the bright glowing blue, and he bears sharpened canine fangs as he lets out a calm sigh. This may have been a form that had once frightened his friends and even himself to an extent, but now Cloud unleashes it with full, disciplined focus and renewed resolve.
Without a second thought, he moves into position, propping his blade raised over a shoulder, ready to thrust. The next instant, he lunges with full force at breakneck speed. The sheer impact of his sword clashing against the seal is so immense that he smashes through the seal as if it were a simple glass panel. And just like that, he’s out and vanishes from sight.
The once ominous light that bathed this chamber in Jenova’s influence comes to an abrupt halt. The illusory prison cracks apart with fissures running all across the room, almost like a great slab of glacial ice cracking under pressure, and everything shatters into pieces. The once consecrated altar chamber is then renewed under its original pure, white light.
Down below, everyone is shocked at what they come to witness. Just as the original light returns, all the cackling demons suddenly start shrieking in pain to be bathed in the holy light and scatter everywhere in a chaotic panic, crashing into walls, into the pool, and even into each other. Even the two juggernaut skeletons roar in panic and try to fly back out the holes they had created, but it’s too late. As soon as Jenova’s illusion is dispelled, so do every last one of her underlings burst apart into that blackish negative energy and instead disappear into gray ether. And then, as suddenly as they arrived, they’re all gone. By some strange coincidence, it looks like even the places where the chamber was supposedly broken here and there are suddenly completely repaired as if nothing had happened to them.
“Uh… what just happened?” Yuffie asks her equally confused teammates. “Did we win?”
“It… looks like they’re all gone,” Nanaki observes, but maintains a ready guard.
“Guys!” they hear Tifa’s voice coming from behind them.
“Tifa! Vincent!” Barret calls back.
“Is he okay!?” Cait Sith asks.
Tifa hurries over as fast as she can, still carrying Vincent over her shoulder, and they go to help her with him. Vincent does stir again but is still in a lot of pain. They lay him down, where Cait Sith proceeds to cast a variety of restorative spells on him, hoping that his bombardment of healing magic will be enough to help him recover from Jenova’s curse. Unfortunately, it seems whatever cursed poison she had delivered to him has yet to lift, though at least a good Regen seems to keep Vincent stable enough for now.
“Damn… she really did a number on him, huh?” Sonon remarks, feeling a little disturbed.
“The curse might not lift until Jenova is defeated,” Nanaki suggests.
“Aye… seems like it. But don’t worry! It’s nothin’ that I cannae help fend off! You all can leave him to me!” Cait Sith replies with an assuring cat smirk.
“Right.” Barret turns back to Tifa. “Hey, where’s Cloud?”
“He went to chase after Aerith. I think he was able to work something out with Fenrir after all.”
Barret blinks in surprise. “Huh? Really? You mean he did it again, the whole transformation thing?”
Nanaki now sniffs the air for any remaining traces. “Hmm… I think something’s different to this air.”
“Whaddya find?”
“It’s kinda like the last time Fenrir showed. Cloud’s scent is muted and kinda blended in with another. It’s a little hard to describe, though.”
“Huh.” Barret folds his arms. “So he did it again. But how long’s it gonna last?”
“Hopefully as long as he needs it to,” Tifa answers instead. She then turns to the other to ask, “By the way, Nanaki…”
“Yeah?”
“Do you remember back at the Gold Saucer, when Ruby returned from her expedition? She gave you some materia, right?”
“Oh! Yeah!” Nanaki then turns to Yuffie. “I was gonna give it to Cloud, but then Yuffie snatched it…”
Yuffie frowns. “What about it? Everyone knows I’m in charge of materia.”
“Says who?” Sonon mutters quietly.
“Says ME!” she snaps back. She turns back to Tifa. “So what do you want? Got some materia you wanna try out?”
Tifa nods. “Cloud said we could use Bahamut’s help.”
“Ohh…” Yuffie then snickers to herself. “Oh-hohoho! Excellent choice!” She whips out the bright red materia into her hand so fast like it’s a magic trick. “You mean this one? But let’s get one thing straight…”
“Huh?”
“This isn’t just any ol’ Bahamut we’re dealing with here. This is Bahamut Arisen! The sequel that strikes back, bigger and badder than ever!” Yuffie whirls around excitedly and giggles mischievously. “Ruby sure knows how to pick ’em! I wonder where she found this precious baby?”
Just as she’s eyeing the orb with gleeful curiosity, though, Tifa interrupts her, “Right. Anyway, can you summon him? Just to be sure Cloud isn’t going after Aerith by himself.”
“Oh, fine…” Yuffie does another dramatic dance as she raises the red orb into the air. “Cloud, you’d better thank us later!”
~
Aerith is in a real pinch – literally being crushed in the iron grip of a massive dragon’s claws – and can barely move a muscle. In a matter of seconds since they left the underground, Jenova Umbra has soared so high above the city that the formerly large towers seem tiny at this distance. They’re too far for any of her friends to catch up and she wouldn’t want to endanger Cid’s crew by calling for the Highwind. And yet, she remains calm; no point panicking and leaving herself open to her enemy. She’s gonna have to work on her own at the moment. Everyone’s been fighting their hardest. It’s about time that she give it her all too.
Now alone with her captive, Jenova glares at her with intimidating presence, but is slightly offended when her captive refuses to cave and glares back ever defiantly. With an evil glint in her eyes, Jenova then forces a paralyzing spell through a magic-infused glare. However, Aerith shuts her eyes in time to avoid meeting with the glare’s illusory effects, in a masterfully timed execution of a “dodge”. Without opening her eyes and a silent incantation in mind, she summons her staff back, this time just outside of Jenova’s hand. She swiftly casts a Thundaga that strikes Jenova directly from above and the ensuing barrage of bolts shocks her foe just long enough to give her some wiggle room. She manages to slide an arm out and snatches up her staff so that it doesn’t drift too far.
Unfortunately, Jenova screeches again, not simply out of pain but of anger. She launches with a sudden burst of aerial thrust and zigzags across the sky, letting the gravitational forces be put to work for her. Aerith can barely hold on to either her staff or her focus. She soon finds herself feeling faint, but tries her best to hang in there. All the while Jenova throws her about, Aerith holds out on a prayer in her heart – a steadfast belief that no matter what her foe tries to do, she isn’t alone.
While Jenova continues to toy with her victim, said victim is still able to fire back. Now with her staff firmly in hand, Aerith calls upon a different tactic. She summons another flowery ward in the air that surrounds both of them, but this ward is no ordinary protective one. Henceforth dubbed Tangled Weaves, this spell summons forth a flash-growth of ensnaring vines that catch and capture the target, greatly slowing them until they are fully immobilized. It’s a rare technique that she’s only ever reserved as a last resort, as she would rather not force her darling plants to fight for her – but this moment certainly qualifies as an emergency. In mere moments, Jenova goes from wantonly streaking through the air to getting neatly wrapped up like she’d just crashed through a thick rainforest canopy. Though she shrieks again, she finds she can’t so easily break free of these magically charged vines.
Aerith wrestles free from the panicking Jenova’s grip and finally slips out – yes, freedom! Unfortunately, she’s now hurtling toward the ground. Fortunately, Aerith isn’t out of tricks just yet. She calls upon another ward to slow her fall and watches Jenova struggle to break free of the vines.
But as useful a spell as it is, it’s just not enough to keep the likes of Jenova at bay for long, especially given this form she has assumed. With another frustrated scream, Jenova’s entire body begins to glow bright white and she unleashes a powerful blast of light all around her that incinerates the vines in an instant. And once freed again, Jenova warps right out of the explosion of light to snatch Aerith out of the air, crushing her so tightly until she squeaks and may have cracked something, and hurls her down as she herself launches back high once more.
As much as she enjoys the sadistic play, Jenova is getting fed up with her captive. The Cetra were always mere insects to her; useless organisms whose life essences would be better consumed and utilized by a superior being. She never treated them as any real threat – that is, until a chance encounter with a certain group of mighty heroes from that bygone era. They somehow managed to defeat her and imprison her in unbreakable ice where she stayed sealed until just a few decades ago. But no more will she allow such a scenario to be replayed. By her own decree since ancient times, no matter how Fate may change, the Cetra will be doomed to perish. Catching Aerith dead in their sights, Jenova’s two heads begin to charge up a nasty pair of high-energy balls of destruction – in a manner similar to a certain other two-headed dragon from up north. She will bury the Cetra in the ruins of their homeland.
And then, as Aerith has been hoping, help does arrive. Jenova Umbra unleashes Dual Spark (as henceforth will be referred) and the big balls of destruction fly toward their target in an elegant-looking dual helical spiral. But before they come too close, another figure suddenly warps in the way. With blade struck in a countering stance, he releases two mighty slashes laced with his newfound power that meet with the energy balls. But rather than triggering them to explode, the slashes form cutting lines of flash-freezing ice that promptly trap the balls and contain them like bombs. With another whirl of that blade, he then knocks them back toward their respective owners.
All of that happens in a split-second. One moment, Aerith was bracing for potential death; the next, she’s suddenly whisked away in the air in someone else’s arms. And the one immediately after that, Jenova Umbra explodes in a collective burst of high-intensity light. By the time she realizes she’s been moved out of the way, Aerith blinks her eyes open and gasps in delight to see who’s her hero.
“Cloud!” She’s so glad she throws her arms around his neck without thinking. “Thank you! Thank you! Thank youuu!”
“Urf… D-don’t mention it…” he mutters even while being choked.
She lets him go, but also notices that they’re still floating in the air. “But, wait… are you flying?”
“No…”
Now that Aerith takes a closer look at him, Cloud does look a little different. Sure, he still has his signature spiky blond hair, but the longer white-tipped locks and those new sideburns give him a surprisingly mature look that she has to take a moment to take in and appreciate. But even more astonishing is the ribbon of white mist floating about him that seems to be helping to carry them both. In fact, with every jump he makes in mid-air, this icy mist cushions his steps as if they were fluffy clouds that he can actually tread. Every jump leads to the clouds dissipating like smoke, but they simply reform back together in time for his next jump.
“Cloud, come on! You ARE flying!”
“It’s not flying,” he insists with a frown. “I’m just jumping.”
“What’s the difference? Jumping in mid-air is basically flying!”
“…”
Their idle conversation is promptly cut short, though. Though the resulting counterattack earlier did blow their enemy into pieces, the ever tenacious Jenova Umbra can still reconstruct herself. She roars with vengeance and rises back to challenge them, firing away blast after blast from her two heads. To which, Cloud responds by deflecting or reflecting every one as before. Unfortunately, he can’t exactly go in for a solid blow against Jenova while he still has a passenger, so he decides to warp them back to the ground safely.
However, Aerith doesn’t get much of a chance to thank him and excuse herself. Though gifted he may be, Cloud isn’t the only one who can warp. Jenova gives pursuit in a flash of her own and smashes into the ground just as he leaps away again, still carrying Aerith with him. The ensuing impact makes the ground burst and nearly levels the neighboring buildings to the ground. Jenova then keeps up the pressure, thrashing wildly at them as always.
“Dammit. Nowhere is safe, huh?” he mutters under his breath while deftly dodging.
“Cloud! Don’t worry about me!” Aerith insists, “Put me down and focus on the fight!”
“No way! She can warp! We have to keep moving!”
“But we can’t deal with her if we just keep running! Trust me! It’ll be okay!”
“But…”
She gives him a stern stare full of determination. Though still hesitant, he chooses to believe in her. Just as Jenova comes rushing in with glowing white claws – signifying Rubia’s characteristic touch of Death – he lets Aerith go, flinging her aside, while he swings his sword forward to block the incoming deadly strike. Aerith drops into a tumble, but rolls away safely even given her recent injuries. Jenova crushes through a number of buildings, slamming Cloud through the piles of rubble along the way.
Jenova rises from the ruins first, sufficiently rattled but still more frustrated to have been interrupted than anything. As soon as she notices that Aerith is gone, she turns back to scan the ruins for her captive, only to be met with another deep gouge from his sword into her back, ripping her body cleanly between her two necks. And to ensure that she doesn’t just reform herself, he also releases an icy curse of his own. Where he slashes her, that magical unthawable ice begins to form over the wounds, freezing the blood within and prevents the flesh from regenerating. While Jenova ugly-screeches again, he shortly silences her by slicing off both heads in a single swing, likewise freezing the wounds so she cannot regrow them. She finally drops and he jumps away to a safe distance and watches her closely just to make sure she doesn’t get up.
But it seems like Jenova always has some new trick up her sleeve and simply refuses to stay down. As if Fate were forcibly changed once again, the dreadful tessellating shapes return to surround her. She not only recovers from all the damage she’d suffered up to this point, but also grows back her two heads, which are now accompanied by a third one sprouting right in-between. She roars and charges at him yet again, though he kicks off into the air to try to lead her away from the ground and thus wherever Aerith may be hiding. This time, Jenova takes the bait and gives pursuit, and the two resume their vicious clash.
Meanwhile, Aerith has managed to avoid the worst, even while the neighborhood around her lies in complete ruins. She’s still hurting all over, but it’s nothing a quick Curaga can’t fix. But now as she peeks out from the cover of the rubble, she watches with worry as Cloud struggle to keep Jenova at bay. Every time he tries to cut her apart and freeze the wounds to stop her from reattaching limbs, Jenova seems to counteract all damage and revert herself back to perfect health. It doesn’t take much to see that she isn’t fighting fair in the least, but what are they to do about this shameless cheater? If only there were some way to remove that ability of hers…
While she’s still figuring out the trick to it, she hears something magical. That is, it is literal summoning magic that brings forth a most potent ally. She looks up to the sky and gasps softly in awe. From a great white summoning circle in the distance, the massive figure of another dragon clad in brilliant red, sharp black, and glistening gold appears. Bahamut Arisen has arrived. He lets out a great roar that echoes across the entire cityscape and launches into the air to join the battle before him.
Jenova has lost enough patience trying to pin down this incredibly slippery ice-clad target, and as soon as she witnesses this absolute winged juggernaut come right for her with arms in the shape of blades, she all but freaks out. With an indignant roar of her own, she challenges Bahamut head-on in a clash of claws and blades. However, as strong as her impersonation of Rubia may be, Bahamut ultimately dwarfs his daughter by a slight but still noticeable amount in size – and a gargantuan amount in power. In that single clash, he knocks her flying.
Though he still has some gas left in the tank, Cloud stays out of the way as Bahamut delivers a relentless onslaught that smashes through whatever defenses Jenova would try to put up. Every strike she attempts, he counters with his own. Every blast she fires, he swiftly evades, seizes the opening, and crushes and rips through her with claws and his own energy blasts alike. If he were up against anything other than Jenova, Cloud would think it’d just be overkill. However, as it happened with him, she continues to revert to her previous “clean slate” and resume where she’d left off. If even Fenrir’s mystical ice and Bahamut’s raw strength aren’t enough to keep her down, what can they do?
However, Bahamut has remained cool and collected even as he witnesses Jenova recover in such an unnatural way. Truth be told, he could anticipate as much from his daughter to bend the rules wherever she can – a noticeable trend that did not escape his attention whenever she would finally defeat her mentors during their respective training sessions. However, seeing this mockery of her image wield such a ridiculous power disturbs and brings out his tranquil rage. One of alien origin such as Jenova should never have been able to access such power, as it is exclusive to those that defend the planet and watch over its Fate. And yet, here he sees before him this enigmatic creature defy impossibility and abuse the same power as if it were hers all along. As if she was claiming Rubia to be hers. What a farce.
“Dammit! Isn’t there a way to stop her from using that hack?” Cloud mutters within earshot.
To his surprise, Bahamut answers him, “…There is one solution. However, should it be implemented, there will be no reversing its effects.”
“Really? What is it?”
Bahamut’s eyes narrow and he makes a solemn frown. “I can revoke Rubia’s access to the core.”
“The core…?”
“It’s too tedious to explain here. You’ll have to take my word for it.”
“Uh, okay… But I don’t know what that means.”
Before he can explain further, Jenova lunges at them again, so Cloud backs off while Bahamut counters her lunge with an over-the-shoulder throw that flings her quite a distance away again. This time, he opens his wings wide and fires off a rain of Flares from his wings – similar to how a giant mech would be armed with shoulder guns – to tear her apart again, if not just to keep her busy. As the smoke clears, as always Jenova proceeds to repair herself yet again. But it gets worse: Jenova is laughing at them now.
Getting impatient, Cloud turns back to Bahamut. “Whatever it is, can’t you just do it?”
But Bahamut lowers his head thoughtfully. “Not so simple. To do so will have lasting consequences. For one, it will put Rubia at risk, as she would have no means to combat her mother’s influence if Tiamat ever reawakens.”
“What? You mean Tiamat can affect her even now?”
“Yes. As she was the one who bore Rubia in the first place, many of the attributes that her child carries are inherited from her. And likewise, that also applies to how Rubia’s reincarnation takes place. She may choose to override or revoke all rights that Rubia may still have.”
“Damn…” As the idea crosses his mind, he also asks, “But as long as Tiamat doesn’t awaken, then Rubia ought to be fine, right? Well, free from that influence, at least?”
“Perhaps… But that isn’t the only issue.”
Again, before he can explain further, Jenova interrupts them with another assault – this time on their ears. She lets out an eerie yet feral screech akin to her earlier warcries, but this time it comes laced with poisonous sounds that could turn any hapless victim into sudden onset Confusion and Berserk. Fortunately, as he is blessed by Fenrir, Cloud has grown resistant to such status effects. Bahamut, needless to say, was always immune.
He even ignores her to continue speaking. “There is also the one you know as Ruby.”
“What about Ruby? Rubia said she was always just a ‘construct’, but…”
“It’s more complicated than that. The two are distinct entities with different origins. Rubia is the offspring of Tiamat and is my daughter, but Ruby…” Bahamut pauses as he chooses his words carefully. “This ‘Ruby’ is an anomaly; a foreign entity that should not have existed in this world, but somehow crossed dimensional bounds due to an oversight. I do not fully understand the process, but this crossing may have shattered her soul into fragments.”
“Whoa, what? She’s in pieces…?”
“Rubia has been housing these fragments within herself since the latter first appeared, and until just recently, that was where Ruby remained. Though her consciousness became active, her true capabilities were still inert. For the sake of this planet, it should stay that way. However, that could change in the near future…”
Cloud blinks a few times before that sinks in, and he gasps. “…No. Sephiroth. After he killed Rubia, did he somehow take Ruby from her?”
“It may be possible. I hear he currently possesses the Black Materia.”
“And that thing is made from Tiamat’s will too, isn’t it?” He grits his teeth. “Things are way worse than we thought.”
Bahamut glares ahead at Jenova, keeping a cautious distance. “That man must be stopped. Regardless of what he plans to do with Ruby, should she be made whole again, the freedom she possesses could threaten to overturn our very reality. It would spell a disaster beyond anything that this planet has ever faced.”
Cloud faces her too and brings his sword forward. “Then we have to do it. We have to stop him and Jenova from doing anything else with her!”
“Agreed. But I must warn you: If I revoke her access, then I cannot guarantee that you all will be able to meet with Ruby again.”
“Huh?”
“Rubia will eventually return as she always has, but Ruby has no such guarantee. She is not bound to this planet and therefore does not follow its natural course. This means even if we were to jump back in time, there will be no recovering her.”
“…”
That really stings. Now that Bahamut himself says it aloud, Cloud feels the weight of the harsh reality setting in. It seems like they’ve been leading up to this moment all along. Maybe Ruby knew everything, or maybe she didn’t and just cobbled together some ideas. Either way, the moment she appeared on that altar, she already resigned herself to her fate. As much as it pains him to admit, they really have come to the end of the line. Rubia is the one still bound to this world, but Ruby… Well, she may as well have been just a fleeting dream.
Though his heart aches, his grip on the hilt tightens and he makes a resolved frown. “…It can’t be helped. The least we can do is give her a proper send-off.”
Bahamut nods back in acknowledgement, as well as out of respect for his choice. It is a heavy burden to bear even for someone like himself. But if there is anyone who may be able to lead Rubia away from the darkness, it will be this young man and his close circle of friends. Perhaps Rubia will be able to find that family she always wanted after all… at least, where he and his Wyrms once failed to maintain.
By now, Jenova has grown tired of their long-winded conversation and is particularly irked that she’s being ignored at all. She’s spent long enough playing around here and decides it’s time to end things. Rather than continue to pursue these two frustrating opponents, Jenova turns her attention back on the city itself. Though for a while there, her three heads have been wriggling and writhing independently of each other as if she were putting on some kind of show, she brings them all in line and the three heads gather even more destructive energy into a huge, unstable black ball formed from their collective power. But it isn’t just any black ball of energy. The thing continues to grow as if it were like a miniature black hole and starts to warp the space around it, casting even Jenova Umbra under a dark pall. This isn’t just Dual Spark anymore; this is Jenova Umbra’s version of a mysterious power once known as Pandora’s Box. But the scale of her target covers much more than just a few people.
“Curses! She would dare draw on that power here!?” Bahamut bellows.
“What’s she doing?” Cloud asks.
“Ultimate destruction.” Bahamut returns his arms back to normal. “Cloud, distract Jenova for as long as you can until I am ready. I will make the adjustments in the meantime.”
He nods back. “Right. I’ll leave it to you.”
With that, the two part ways. Fueled by renewed vengeance and in honor of Ruby’s memory, Cloud roars like the wolf he has become and resumes his fearsome beatdown on Jenova, amply distracting her so that she breaks stance and cancels her previous attack. He doesn’t just stop at these many, many ice-cold slashes, but also rains down burning meteors upon her that explode like the meeting of antipodes. And yet, as characteristic of the old wolf, even the pieces that break off of Jenova’s body are frozen in the aftermath. Once again, Jenova recovers to her clean slate and counterattacks with an outspray of Rubia’s pillars of light, but this time as they are airborne, they extend indefinitely in two directions rather than be limited by the ground. She also follows up with even more blasts of energy: rapid-fire Flares akin to what Bahamut had done to her earlier, but Cloud sees it coming and dodges every shot. He barrels back toward her again, thrusting deep into her chest, and returns fire with a vicious uppercut slice that runs up one of her necks, only to fly back down and chop into the next one’s head.
Meanwhile, Bahamut has raised his arms before him. With an unspoken command, he draws upon that mysterious power he previously mentioned and summons what would effectively be a holographic display with a graphical interface. It’s just like the one that Ruby had been working with all along since she fiddled around in the Debug Room, and yet the Dragon King himself can call upon it at will. With swift motions and rapid tapping, he starts up and initiates a particular procedure that was granted exclusively to him. With one final gentle, precise tap, he then dismisses the display and turns his attention back onto the battle.
Just as Jenova has been battered yet again, she tries to reverse the effects, but is horrified to learn that she can no longer use that cheat. Two of her heads have been torn and frozen so that she can’t regenerate naturally either. Now that she notices Bahamut floating nearby, he has his arms crossed and appears completely calm yet ever vigilant as if anticipating what is soon to come. Realizing that he had something to do with this, she roars at him, but before she can charge at him again, Cloud appears yet again in her face and jams his sword into her maws to shut her up. But now that she’s seized it, she refuses to let go. Instead, she charges up another mighty Megaflare point-blank while he struggles to free his sword.
In comes Bahamut again. He rushes in and tackles Jenova so fast that he almost seems to be warping himself and so hard that he knocks her clean off, letting Cloud go free.
“Thanks. You did the thing, huh?” Cloud asks just to confirm.
Bahamut nods. “It is done. She will recover no more from here on.”
“Good. Let’s finish this.”
With their hearts and wills aligned, Cloud and Bahamut shoot through the air together to pursue Jenova. This time, they won’t let up even once. Between the two of them, they take turns smashing and bashing her battered body back and forth as if it were suddenly a ball game. But rather than smash her downward in the end, Bahamut chooses to crash into Jenova and bring her straight up into the stratosphere, at the edge of the planet’s horizon. And out in these vacant spaces, he finally can let loose. He folds his wings back, leans forward, and charges up his most terrifying attack yet: a Gigaflare to surpass all Gigaflares, one that will eviscerate anything before it can even escape to outer space.
Jenova has no more tricks to pull. She has to admit this battle is lost. However, in the last moments before her death, she still refuses to be intimidated before the might of the Arisen Dragon King. Rather than rattle those broken bones, she instead makes a sinister grin. The battle may be lost, but the war has yet to recede. Besides, if there’s one thing she can still laugh about, it’s being able to witness this foolish king destroy his only child by his own hands. And she lets out a cackling screech as she is incinerated in the incoming giant beam of pure, unadulterated, rage-fueled draconic energy.
Once his job is done, Bahamut understands his time back in the world of the living has come to an end. Though the materia that was used to summon him was not an artificial creation of Shinra’s, like any summon materia, his appearance was always going to be under a time limit. But in the moments before his body gradually fades away, he catches in the corner of his eye a single tiny body adrift at the edge of the horizon. He rushes over to catch it. Now in his hands lies the battered and scorched remains of Rubia in human form, and the sight nearly brings a tear to the old dragon’s eye. He holds her firm and descends back down to the ground so that she may be with her friends one last time.
Back down on the ground, Aerith has recovered and hurried off back to the central tower to catch up with everyone, who are very relieved that she’s okay. They were greeted with a magnificent battle in the air as it was concluding, and it was quite the sight to behold to witness Cloud attacking in synergy with the Dragon King himself. And then, so soon after they saw Bahamut disappear into the distance, the battle was over. A round of cheers then follows.
However, even as he watched Bahamut launch afar, Cloud would remain in the air, hopping in place, waiting for the king to return. Though he certainly doesn’t see Jenova wriggling her way out of that huge blast – it was bright enough that he could see it at this distance – he gets a bad feeling, like something is still missing. Or rather, someone. His suspicions would soon be confirmed when he also catches Bahamut descending back down to him, carrying someone in his hands. With the last of his presence waning, the Dragon King leaves Rubia’s body in Cloud’s care. With a silent nod, he finally vanishes back into the natural green ether.
Cloud holds her limp body in his arms. It’s only expected, but her body has grown cold. And as he takes a moment to brush aside a thin layer of burnt skin from her face, he discovers that the burns are only superficial. With a short breath, he blows off the rest of the charred dust to reveal Ruby’s body completely unharmed, restored to perfect condition, looking almost as if she were just sleeping. However, as he holds her close, he can’t feel a pulse. His hopes were already dashed, and yet even now, he still feels a pang in his heart. But he doesn’t shed a tear. They’ve already come this far together. She wouldn’t want him sobbing over her now.
He now gradually descends through the air via a misty staircase of his own making, and once he returns to the ground, the last of Fenrir’s influence disappears as well, having concluded his service as well.
“Cloud!” Aerith calls to him.
“Ruby!?” Tifa gasps.
Everyone hurries on over to meet him, some still stunned at what just happened, while others are shocked to find Ruby in seemingly fine condition. But one look at Cloud’s morose expression tells them something’s not quite right here.
“What happened? How’s Ruby?” Barret asks in a hurry.
“Is she okay!?” Nanaki asks too, a little frightened.
Cloud shakes his head and just like that, the proverbial chill sets in.
“Y-ye don’t mean…” Cait Sith gasps in horror. “She’s already…?”
“…Passed on,” Vincent states firmly, his eyes looking distant.
“W-what?” Yuffie stares hard at the body. “No way! Noway, noway, noway! She can’t be!”
Tifa covers her mouth, wide-eyed. “No… We’re too late.”
“Whoa, hold up!” Barret cuts in, trying to be reasonable. “Didn’t Ruby say it before? That she keeps reincarnating? So won’t she just come back?”
“Y-yeah! That’s right!” Yuffie stammers. “We’ll just have to wait some time, right? Uh, how long was it that she takes normally?”
But Cloud keeps that solemn frown. “Don’t know. But that doesn’t matter.”
“Huh?”
“What’re you talking about, Cloud?” Barret asks. “’Course it matters! This is Ruby we’re talkin’ here!”
Nanaki looks worried. “Cloud, is there something about her reincarnation that we should know?”
“…” Cloud lets off a defeated sigh. “I talked with Bahamut earlier. He said that even if Rubia will eventually return on her own, Ruby won’t come back with her.”
Now everyone is hit with the collective confusion.
Nanaki’s eye widens even more and his ears sink. “She won’t come back…?”
“What do you mean she won’t?” Barret presses further, “They share the same body, don’t they? So the reincarnation thing should apply to both, right?”
Cloud shakes his head again. “It’s not like that. Rubia’s body was always her own. She was just housing Ruby’s soul in her, but that soul was weak and fragmented. It couldn’t exist on its own so she kept it safe. But now…” He lets off a deep sigh. “Sephiroth got her. It happened when he killed Rubia and merged with the Black Materia. Now who knows what will happen to Ruby or if she’s even able to keep existing.”
Barret’s jaw drops and he just stares back speechless.
Yuffie’s eyes grow wide too. “No… freakin’… way…”
Aerith lowers her head in silence. That definitely explains why she’s always struggled to communicate with Ruby through their shared telepathy. It wasn’t just a matter of Rubia or Sephiroth’s interference. Ruby simply was too unstable to even answer in the first place and could only communicate with them through Rubia. But now both spirit and spirit medium are gone.
The silence spreads throughout the crowd and everyone sags like a great weight has suddenly been heft upon them. Barret can only rub his head awkwardly and give a sigh. Tifa turns away and buries her face in her hands, unwilling to look at the body any more than she’s had to. Nanaki closes his eyes and he lets off a sad howl. Yuffie begins to sob loudly. Sonon winces in anguish, feeling angry at himself to once again be unable to do anything for his former savior. Cait Sith and Moogle both sink at the same time and go completely silent, standing idle as if the person controlling them has stepped away from the controls for a bit. Vincent closes his eyes and lowers his head, hiding his darkened face back behind his tall collar. And Cid simply shakes his head and pulls out a cig to put in his mouth, but he hesitates to light it, instead choosing to remove it and look back up to the sky with a sigh of his own.
Aerith now raises her head again and comes up to Cloud and Ruby in his arms, taking her hand in her own. “Ruby… She chose this path herself, didn’t she?”
Cloud nods somberly. “If she wanted to, she could have stayed. But she decided to move on. We have to respect that.”
Aerith then closes her eyes, still holding Ruby’s hand in her own, and makes another heartfelt prayer to her as one last meaningful send-off.
With no more words left to say, everyone lets them be and Cloud turns off for the lake nearby. Taking Ruby in his arms, he walks right into the water and slowly sinks further and further until the level is up to his waist. And once he’s found the center of the lake, he sets her body down into the water and lets her go, stepping back. She slowly sinks down to the soft lakebed below, where she once again begins to dissipate. However, as she quickly disappears from sight, this time it isn’t the usual gray ether as representative of Rubia’s detachment from this world. Cloud had closed his eyes for a moment of silence, but now that he opens them again, he’s startled to find that the ether floating up before him is a bright green – as how it should be. He watches it float up and away and disappear, but now he feels a little more at ease.
Seems like Rubia is at peace at last. Maybe they’ll meet again on friendly terms for once.
~
Far away in a distant realm, entirely separate from the world of Gaia and yet encompassing it and the outer cosmos within its sphere of influence, is a mystical, otherworldly place where the Pantheon of Guardians occasionally convene to discuss matters pertaining to the Flow of Life and its course through Fate. This is the Court of the Divine, where the Goddess of Wisdom Minerva takes her throne as the chief arbiter. For now, court is not yet in session, but she has not been idle either. Before her is a glistening portal created from her holy light by which she can watch everything unfold. She has always known about Ruby since her initial entrance into the world of Gaia up to her final act of sacrifice. Minerva has been keeping dutifully to a strict vigil to observe and study the mysterious anomaly that was once believed to be impossible to exist.
In fact, Minerva had anticipated this turn of events thus far, save for one little detail. Even given her meticulously documented records of Rubia’s history, the Goddess hadn’t anticipated the sudden change of heart that the latter just underwent. Rather than return to the Void where her Remnants have gathered as always, this time Rubia submitted herself entirely and for once welcomed the planet’s embrace, even knowing that she wouldn’t be able to return to it – at least, not entirely.
Since Rubia was born, her mother laid on a curse that she would never be able to return to the planet. As it happened upon her inception, there was no time to intervene to prevent that from happening, but Minerva could have chosen to seal the child along with her mother in Helheim where Tiamat would remain to this day. However, she ultimately deferred passing judgment when Bahamut personally submitted himself to bear the responsibility for the child and keep her in his care. Now, even with the Dragon King’s earnest plea, Minerva would not have been so quick to agree, but it so happened her own power of clairvoyance was the other reason why she hesitated – for as brief a glimpse as it had been, she still witnessed a possible future where Rubia would embody everything that her father aspired her to be. Thus, out of sympathy for Bahamut and also out of hope to see this future come to pass, with the assistance of King Arthur and his knights, Minerva would thus establish this vigil system – a strange machination blended of magic and technology simply known as “The Simulation”, in which the entire world of Gaia would be reproduced to be Rubia’s personal playground where they can continue to observe her and act whenever she would go wrong. Once she would prove herself worthy, they could release her at last to return to true reality.
However, even given the tools to this Simulation from the start, not everything would develop as expected. For starters, there was the intrusion of a certain anomaly that would declare herself to be named “Ruby”. That being said, as the entity came into this world scattered in pieces, she would have been completely inert and harmless, all things considered. Had she remained like that, even if Rubia managed to gather some pieces, Ruby would have affected nothing to any significant degree on her own. But then, there was another anomaly and it would turn out to be even worse: an internal error. The man known as Sephiroth would unexpectedly break free from his usual fate and instead become deeply intertwined with Ruby’s development. Though either particular instance, if they had happened separately and never came to interact, they would have been harmless glitches in the system at worst and easily quarantined. Unfortunately, the two would instead meet in a place beyond even that which Minerva’s jurisdiction covers: the Edge of Creation. From there, they would eventually unravel the course of Fate and align to become a major threat to the stability and continued existence of this world’s reality. Boundless, terrifying freedom merged with unwavering conviction to conquer: two key characteristics that would make the pair unstoppable by every metric.
Minerva sighs to herself. This is quite the trouble they’ve come to meet. Though even now is not a guarantee that the future she hopes for would never arrive, it certainly has been looking less and less likely. At this point, if she doesn’t intervene in any way, it may force her to initiate the Great Reset once more. However, doing so may carry a certain risk: given the state of limbo in which Ruby currently resides, now merged with Sephiroth who can do as he pleases, even the Reset may not be enough to curb them entirely. This definitely should be addressed. And yet, the Goddess hesitates to jump in herself. After all, the fate of this world is not yet doomed. There is a group of heroes that have risen to the occasion. The least she can do is continue to give them her support in spirit and see how they fare.
On the other hand, it doesn’t hurt to install some backup protocols in case things don’t turn out well. But to do so that would affect the entire system, she may need assistance from some old, reliable friends. Minerva now raises a hand forward and calls upon a couple attendants. One of these attendants arrives first: a wisp of light flutters in and bursts in a flash, revealing a small tannish owl in flight. However, this is no ordinary owl. As soon as she lands on the floor before the throne, she reverts to a humanoid form, a female angel under her direct command who is dressed in lightweight battle armor while keeping her owl wings. She then takes a bow before her liege.
“Lady Minerva.”
Minerva speaks calmly but firmly, “Presented with recent developments on Project Gaia, it may be critical to enact some safeguards. Send regards to King Arthur and his knights that we arrange a meeting in person as soon as they are ready. We may require the assistance of all the Knights of the Round Table in the near future.”
“Of course, Your Eminence.”
The angel then reverts back to her owl form and flutters off, disappearing into another flash of light. Then, after she takes her leave, the second attendant arrives with a more ominous-looking swirl of black wind. However, this one is not just another angel either. It is a man with short brown hair, clad in bright red, and he sports only one black wing from his back. By his waist rests a broadsword that is as bright red as his coat and glows with an awesome power. Like with the previous attendant, he takes a bow before his superior.
“Lady Minerva… How may I serve?”
Minerva addresses him with similar tone, “Genesis, I have a special mission for you. As you may suspect, it concerns your old friend Sephiroth.”
Genesis makes a grim smirk, but keeps his head lowered. “I see. What is the nature of this mission?”
“In these next two days, Sephiroth will likely be waiting for Cloud’s group to meet him in the depths of the Northern Cave. If they are not enough to defeat him, you have my permission to intervene. Talk to him, but do not engage in battle unless it is unavoidable. Try to convince him to eject the fragments he has acquired; or failing a meaningful settlement, seize them from him by force as necessary. We cannot allow him to tamper with the system any further than he already has.”
“Yes, of course. I will do what must be done.”
“Very good. Make haste and tread carefully. I expect good news when you return.”
“Never fear, Milady. I’ve been waiting for this moment for a very long time now.”
He now takes a stand, making a salute with a silent oath crossing his heart. But in his excitement to face the upcoming trials, he can’t help but crack a devilish grin. It’s definitely been a while since his last visit to his old friend. He should make the best of their long-awaited reunion and surprise him with something that would leave a deep impression. And grateful to have received his Goddess’ blessings, Genesis takes his leave, disappearing in another whirl of black wind and feathers.
There are only two more days before the eclipse arrives and Minerva will have to decide the fate of this world.
Notes:
Congratulations! We have officially reached the end of Act 2. Stay tuned for the craziness that will ensue in the third and final act. Though details are still pending, I'm not gonna be faithful to the original game's progression from here on out.
Lots of stuff to talk about and I get to be snarky
- Man, I wrote it and I still can't believe Sephiroth said "DNI if you never touched the Black Materia."
Okay, jokes aside, I'll clarify that Seph didn't always have the power to do that, but it was developed over time since he's had a lot of time to himself in the Debug Room. But there's another reason to all that and well, that's getting into spoilers again. Let's just say he has a \*gift\*.
- Poor Ruby, though. Looks like Seph wasn't all that serious about their relationship. Maybe one day in another time and place, he could have been a wonderful, responsible boyfriend. (That's not happening any time soon, though, for obvious reasons.)
- Enter Jenova Umbra. Gosh, I've been dying to write about this fiend for so long, ever since I initially came up with the idea for Jenova to have all new forms in this story. First, we had Phasma and now we have Umbra. I wonder what the third and last forms are gonna be like? Hehe, I can't say here, though.
- For the record, I'll also clarify now that the power of cheats that Jenova is able to access isn't exactly because she's imitating Rubia. It's just out of meanness that she took on Rubia's form. Her power has also grown since she's been working on something from behind the scenes, and like with Sephiroth, she too has "connections". Now, whether or not the two are still working together, though, remains unclear at this time.
- Ah, the long-awaited Fenrir and Bahamut flashback! I've also been dying to write this and this was actually one of the most contentious parts of writing this chapter. At first I wasn't sure exactly how I was going to integrate it here, or whether or not I would write it now or later when the party gets to the Northern Crater. But after some careful consideration, I decided it would be apt to place it here to follow the brief previews of the past incident from last chapter. In the end, I was able to not only tie it in chronologically, but also thematically. I continue to surprise myself how well everything has come together.
- Yes, Bahamut is well aware of everything that has been happening. Minerva clued him in all along. While I'm not entirely sure how summon materia actually work in the canon, like whether or not the Summons are entirely free to be themselves or are just reproductions of the original beings, I think there may be a subtle distinction between materia found out in the wild versus materia that Shinra has mass-produced. The official sources never confirmed what that distinction was, so I'm taking liberties here.
- As I mentioned in the last chapter's end notes, Pandora's Box is a powerful attack that only the very first Dragon Zombie encountered in the OG uses as a final counterattack. It is also a defense-piercing magic attack and is quite the nice nuke option for the party once they learn it. But since we've never seen it out of context of battle and gameplay, here, I've again taken liberties with how the attack works. Let's just pretend that this attack is actually worthy of destroying an entire city in one blow.
- Oh, no, Genesis is back. Truthfully, I love writing for this asshole, but because I barely remember anything of what he actually said back in Crisis Core, I'm free to write him however I want and I want him to be a particularly self-indulgent snarker that would even get on Sephiroth's nerves. (I haven't checked out Reunion either since the story's unaltered, so I wouldn't know if the dialogue actually changed.)
Chapter 67: Buried in the Snow
Notes:
Once again, I ended up writing way more than I previously anticipated. It was just supposed to be a fun, fanciful adventure out in the snow and then we'd jump into Icicle Inn, but uh... even more plot and action happened.
I admit I have taken quite a few liberties with the layout of the northern continent, but heck, if even Rebirth doesn't stick to the layout of the original world map, then I feel no obligation to keep things 1-to-1. Let us assume that the mountainous region on this continent is much more mountainous, even more so than the original map showed, and that there are still some room for sparse woodlands to the south. There are several roads that all coalesce upon Icicle Inn, which is still smack dab between two mountain ranges as it had been. Likewise, I've changed up the location of a few buildings in the town just so the storytelling is easier and more significant for my purposes, but I'll be saving those details for next chapter.
Though I hesitated for the longest time, I've also updated the relationship tags. At this point, it looks like I'm going for a harem ending, lol. I swear this wasn't intentional, at least from the start.
9/9/24 edit: I've renamed the mountains that Tyr mentions to "Southern Fells". The explanation has been added to the trivia section in the notes below.
(Notes continued at the bottom)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“…We’re currently aboard the Highwind and should be headed north tomorrow once everyone is ready. I’ll continue to monitor the situation as always.”
“…”
“That’s all for now… sir.”
Reeve stands alone before Rufus’ desk to report in, following the events that he had just witnessed through his feline companion. Despite emotions running high, he had to bite back his lip and present the objective facts as is. And while he didn’t expect the president to show much sympathy, he at least hoped that with Ruby finally out of Shinra’s concerns, the latter would at least try to resume peacetime. Unfortunately, it seems this young president has much bigger ambitions in store.
Rufus gives a light finger tap on the arm of his chair and then sits forward, bringing his hands together as if making a contemplative look. Finally, he lowers his hands to the desk and speaks up: “In other words, nothing has really changed for us.”
Reeve raises an eyebrow. “Uh, what do you mean?”
“We’re still going through with the plan. The cannon will be moved to Midgar.”
Reeve stares in disbelief at his boss. After all that he just relayed, this man still comes to the same conclusion as he started? Even if one were to disregard all opinions and speculations on Ruby’s current status, surely the fact remains that she won’t be coming into play any time soon? That should be reflected in the company’s policies moving forward.
He keeps a calm and collected demeanor as he asks further, “Mr. President, are you sure you should go through with this? There is no threat coming from the ancient capital anymore. We would have no target to aim at-”
“On the contrary, Reeve, our new target is in the same general direction.”
“Our new target?”
“Sephiroth, of course.”
Reeve nearly does a double take. “W-what?”
Rufus makes a somewhat annoyed frown. “As convenient as Ruby’s sudden disappearance should have been, what you’ve given me is even worse news. Sephiroth has the Black Materia and is an active threat to everyone’s livelihoods. I gave Ms. Gainsborough the benefit of the doubt to stop such a thing, but it looks like it was naïve to place that much trust in her and her friends.”
“…”
“If I understand right, he’s now waiting for them in the Northern Crater, yes?”
Reeve nods back slowly. “Yes, that’s right.”
“Then things are just as before. We’ll let them be and see what they can do. If Cloud has gained some strange new power, then maybe not all is lost. But who can really say now that Ruby’s gone?”
Though Reeve remains standing upright, he feels his heart sink deep. As much as he hates to admit it, this is the exact situation that he feared things would come to.
Rufus shakes his head in disappointment. “Such a shame. Ideally, I would have preferred that we retained more than one remaining Cetra in this world, especially one as potent as Ruby. She seemed much more capable of leading us to the Promised Land than her relative ever could.”
“…”
“All that said, it’s not like we’ve gained nothing at all. It’ll be much easier to manage the Immortals now that we won’t have her breathing down our backs. And since Cloud and them are going to be preoccupied, it makes things much more straightforward regarding Wutai and their ‘imposter emissary’ issue at hand.”
Reeve makes a subtle frown. Though he’s aware of the circumstances around this “issue”, it’s still a bit unbelievable that this man is more concerned with these unnecessary tensions with another country than the bigger worldwide threat. Why can’t they temporarily suspend discussions until the ominous fog lifts? Then again, in an ironic twist, it seems Rufus would rather put more faith in Cloud and them that they’ll finish the job, though it’s to the point that he’s taking them for granted.
Rufus continues to muse aloud to himself, “Not to mention, moving the cannon could be seen as an attempt for peace. As long as we don’t appear to be the aggressor, they won’t suspect a thing… least of all, a potential coup.”
Nonetheless, Reeve must speak up. “In any case, Mr. President, I don’t think it’s the wisest decision to spread our resources so thin. With the cannon being moved, it would be preferable if we stay out of Wutai at this time as well. The last thing we need is to have to deal with enemies on multiple fronts. Let’s just wait for Cloud and them to first-”
Rufus again cuts him off with a raising of his hand. “Rest assured, we’re far from spreading ourselves too thin.” He lowers it again, tapping lightly on the table. “Once they hear the news that that their dear idol is gone, Wutai’s faith will be thoroughly shaken. Then, it’ll only get worse when their supposed ally in Avalanche turns out to have plans to overthrow their current administration and replace it with an puppet leader of their own.” He then makes a subtle smirk. “And in the inevitable civil unrest, we can swoop in with our forces to put a stop to the chaos, and this new Wutai government will soon be history.”
Reeve quietly clenches his fists. Of all the plots this company’s executives could have conducted, they just had to go with replacing another country’s officials with political puppets and framing Avalanche for it. In all honesty, he’s tempted to present his resignation here and now and stand with Cloud and their friends to the bitter end, but he can’t. Not yet. If he isn’t the one standing here, then there’s no way to keep Shinra in check or at least keep tabs on them.
That smirk fades and he returns to being serious. “In fact, the situation between Midgar and Wutai should be the least of your concerns right now. You are going to stick with Cloud and them for a while longer, aren’t you?”
“Y-yes, of course, sir. But-”
“Then, that’s where your current mission is and you will keep to it. End of discussion.”
“…” As much as he would like to argue with that, he keeps silent, understanding that his boss seems rather set in his judgments. Instead, he bears his frustrations and answers flatly, “Yes, sir. Understood.”
“I’ll be awaiting your next report. Make sure there’s some good news to balance out all this dreariness. It’s a real pain to have to deal with yet another planetary menace. Make sure this time he’s buried for good?”
“Of course, sir.”
Rufus sits back in his chair and gives him a dismissive wave. “You’re free to go.”
And with that, Reeve lets off a defeated sigh and steps away. It seems like there’s no end to the troubles he has to deal with, regardless of which face he takes up. But at this time, one thing is definitely clear: if even Rufus is placing his bets on Cloud, at least they won’t be seeing Shinra getting too involved. But maybe it’s for the best that he keep quiet about this for now. He knows all too well how hard things are for everyone else too.
~
All is quiet aboard the Highwind, parked at the outskirts of the capital. It’s now late at night and everyone has returned aboard to stay the night. They’ll be heading north from here to pursue a certain culprit, but before the fated battle, they will have to prepare themselves. There’s no backing out once they take off.
Cloud can’t sleep. The general unease in the air and apprehension toward things soon to come keep off any attempt to rest. He gets up from bed, shaking his head with an exhausted sigh, and decides to leave the men’s quarters. He could stop by the lower deck to get some air and do some thinking. However, it turns out he’s not the only one. As he steps out into the cool night air, he finds that someone has beaten him here.
It’s Aerith. She’s standing by the railing, faced away for the city in the distance, and has her eyes closed and her hands folded together as if making another prayer. But upon looking closer, he notices the faintest wet streaks down her cheeks. Oh… Maybe he came at a bad time? He means to head back in, but she speaks up.
“Cloud?”
“Uh. Hey, Aerith,” he replies awkwardly. “Sorry to bother you.”
“It’s okay. Wasn’t doing much…” She quickly wipes her face clear, dropping her hands by her sides with a quick shake, and forces a smile his way. “Light sleeper, huh?”
He comes up to join her by the railing. “Yeah… Habit was beaten into me since I first joined Shinra.”
She turns away for the gorgeous view of the valley below. “Must be tough be a soldier. Even a rank-and-file one.”
He follows suit too. “It wasn’t a big deal. They were simpler times.”
“Yeah… They seem so far away now, huh?”
“It’s for the best.”
The two share a moment of silence as if taking the time to reflect over their journey thus far. Aerith lowers her head for a moment and then speaks up again.
“It’s kinda funny in a way…”
“Huh? What is?”
“How we all met and came together.”
Cloud casts a pensive glance aside, reminded of those early days when he and Ruby first met and she guided him to see Aerith. She really did come out of nowhere and insert herself among them like it was second nature. Every time they ran into another member to join the party, it was because she dragged them – sometimes forcibly – along for the ride. And yet, despite her brazen actions, they came to accept her anyway.
She makes a subtle smile, as if their thoughts were synched up. “Ruby was so excited to see us, huh? Like an old friend that we didn’t know we had.”
“…” He looks ahead again with a sigh. “She sure was in our faces about it. But can’t say that I never met anyone else who was like that.”
“Mm-hm…” Her smile then fades and she turns back to him with a question. “Say, Cloud?”
“Yeah?”
“Might be a silly thing to ask, but do you believe in stuff like Destiny?”
He shakes his head. “Not really. I’ve thought about it before, but never believed it. The idea that we’re all destined to follow some path one way or another, implying there’s some greater entity out there pulling all the strings, doesn’t sit right with me.”
She nods back thoughtfully. “I think most people would agree. Free will is pretty powerful.”
“Yeah, but for me it wasn’t even about that. I just didn’t want to think about the future. Once had a dream, but lost it and then gave up on chasing anything in particular. Didn’t care what other people would think about me either. The old me would have figured it’d be a waste to worry about things that were out of my reach.”
“Ah. So what about the ‘new’ you?”
“Hmm…” He takes a moment to think it over and looks off again. “Still not sure, but I think I have a kind of idea now. I don’t know if there really is a greater entity out there, but after seeing how Rubia and Fenrir have been bound together over the ages, it got me thinking.” He turns back to her. “Like there might be something more to this ‘Destiny’ than just a fancy name.”
“Yeah, I get that impression too. In fact, I don’t think Destiny is something that’s impossible to change. It feels more like… a guideline.”
“Guideline?”
She nods back. “Yep. There’s always going to be something unexpected that happens since we all have the power to decide how we wanna live, but after a while, I’ve noticed it. More often than not, people end up following certain paths in life, tending toward the things that are more familiar to them.”
“…” He doesn’t look entirely convinced and glances aside in further thought. “No, I don’t think it’s just about being familiar.”
“Huh?”
“I think it’s a matter of control.” He turns back to her with a serious look. “Rubia, Fenrir, even Bahamut and the rest of the Summons. Somehow they’ve all managed to learn how to control Destiny.”
She blinks a few times in surprise, but then gives the idea some thought too. “Control Destiny…?”
“They’re the masters of their own fates, after all. They get to decide how they die and how they’re reborn. They don’t even need to remain on this planet to stay ‘alive’.” He folds his arms with a frown. “Every time we use materia, we’re calling on them for help, but they don’t have any responsibility over us or even need to care. They’ve already ascended beyond death, while we’re but mere mortals.”
She looks a little discouraged to hear this turn of tone. “I guess not… But didn’t they used to live here? They even mingled among the Cetra and other humans. You’d think they would care at least a little.”
“Yeah, probably, back when everyone lived in harmony with the planet. But eventually that stopped since the Cetra disappeared. The Summons must have moved on with them, but the rest of humanity never did. We’ve become so used to using the planet and its resources that we took everything for granted. We ended up in this cycle of being entirely dependent on it to the point that we became the problem.”
She quietly agrees with a sad nod.
“All the talk about ‘saving the planet’ doesn’t mean much if we don’t even understand the point of it all… But I think I see it now.”
“Hm?”
He relaxes his arms and offers her a reassured look. “The Summons didn’t actually abandon us. They wanted to show us what was possible and to view the world from a whole new perspective. That there’s a possibility where this planet doesn’t have to be doomed. I’m sure Rubia learned this too, but she went about it in all the wrong ways – probably on purpose just to spite them.” He casts aside a look of disappointment, but then follows it with a face of determination. “But her aside, it might be worth to learn from them. That is, learn to see Destiny not as a limit to our freedom, but as a means to achieve it. And when we do understand what it is, we’ll know how to confront and defeat Sephiroth.”
“Oh.” She nods thoughtfully. “I see what you mean. That sounds like a good start.”
Cloud looks off for the city once again and moves to lean against the railing. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while, even before we arrived here. Thinking about how we’re always being led somewhere by Ruby, learning more about Rubia and her lost history, all in the pursuit of Sephiroth. I started to wonder if it was because we were always following her that she felt like we were her responsibility. So, even if she did understand ‘Destiny’ or have some way to move on like the Summons did, she never could. She didn’t want to leave us behind.”
Aerith solemnly lowers her head, understanding it all too well.
He then makes a resentful frown. “I don’t know if it’s selfish or whatever. But even though she chose this path, I still feel like it didn’t have to end this way.”
“…” She turns back to him with her own sympathetic frown. “Yeah… me too.”
“There had to have been another way…” He hangs his head and closes his eyes as he recalls, “She used to be pretty excited. She had a battle plan that she was gonna unveil to us while we were still back at the Gold Saucer. If we had just stuck with her and pushed her to get on it already, things might have turned out differently.”
Now reminded, she asks, “Oh, that’s right. Did she ever mention anything about it to you? Like, what she’d do or what we could do to help?”
He nods back. “A little. She had the idea to call on a legendary Summon and even knew where to find the materia.”
“Oh, really? Which one is it?”
“The Knights of the Round Table.”
She blinks in surprise. “From the Arthurian legends?”
“Yeah.” He pulls away from the railing. “You remember the last time we stopped by the library at Cosmo Canyon? The other one, not Bugenhagen’s study.”
“Yeah, I remember. You were looking through some books about the Summons, huh?”
“Yeah.” He folds his arms with a frown. “Well, I didn’t find much on the Knights either, other than the stories they were from. Apparently, historians think they were probably the Cetra responsible for taking down Jenova in the past.”
“Oh, wow. No wonder they were legends.”
“But that’s the weird thing: They said that these knights all used to be human. So how did they manage to ascend to deity status?”
“Hmm, good question. I guess it’s possible for certain people.”
“Yeah.” He glances off again as he thinks aloud, “And if it’s possible, then who’s to say that we can’t do it too?”
She stares at him for a moment as if surprised he’d even ask. She can’t help but break out a small smile. “I think someone we know already has.”
“Huh?”
“Come on, Cloud. You’re living proof, aren’t you?”
“Uh…” It’s his turn to blink and he rubs his head awkwardly. “I don’t think making a contract with Fenrir is anything like that. Unless… it is? But I don’t feel like I’ve ‘ascended’ or anything…”
She keeps that smile, but as she turns away to look off for the view again, it carries a hint of sadness to it as well. “You know… Even though Ruby might not be here with us anymore, she did leave something really important for us.”
“…?”
“She left us new possibilities for the future, and I want to believe that’s a kind of hope.”
He returns a composed smile of his own and nods back, and then gazes off with her. “Yeah. That’s something worth believing.”
Her smile fades a bit and she cups her hands together again to return to her prayer earlier. “And as a start, I’ve been trying to reach out to the planet to ask them if anyone knows where Rubia went.”
“Rubia?” His curiosity piqued, he asks, “So, how’s it going? Did you find anything?”
The rest of her smile fades. “Not yet. Ever since we arrived in this city, I have begun to hear some voices, but they keep warning against meeting Rubia. Even now that she’s restarted another of her reincarnation cycles, they’re still afraid of her.”
He makes a dejected frown. “They just won’t even give her a chance, huh.”
“Hmm… Well, no matter what they say, I won’t give up. I’m sure she’s still around somewhere. Maybe she’ll even join us if we ask?”
But he looks unsure. “Why? She doesn’t have any reason to, or even care about us.”
She makes a cute pout. “That’s not true.”
“How do you know?”
“Because in the end, she showed us compassion. We even got to see Ruby again. I don’t think she’d do that for us if she didn’t care at all.”
Though she makes a good point, he still feels uneasy. “…Well, if you insist. Too bad she didn’t stick around long enough for us to get to know her.”
“Ah, but that’s easy to fix. We just have to reach her ourselves and get her to reintroduce herself.”
“…” Though he doesn’t say it aloud, he’s wondering to himself how easy it’d actually be, especially that they don’t know where to start looking.
“Why don’t you try too? Maybe we can reach her sooner together.”
He rubs his head, but obliges. “Fine, but no guarantees.”
They return to the still, almost meditative silence. Doubting that his inner voice would reach anywhere further than Aerith’s, Cloud nonetheless takes by her example and offers his own prayer. When presented with silence as always, he tries to call out to Fenrir too, just in case the wolf’s spirit still lingered. But again, it’s silence from all fronts. Straining himself until he feels a nerve pop in his head doesn’t help either.
He lets off a defeated sigh and opens his eyes again. “You call this ‘ascension’? Feels more like I’m some kind of dogsitter who can’t get the dog to listen…”
His voice drifts off as he realizes it and checks with Aerith with an apologetic look in case he disturbed her. Fortunately, she doesn’t seem to have been. But now that he looks her way, he also notices her lips have curled up and begun to tremble. And before he even says a thing, his eyes widen when he sees a single tear flow down her cheek.
“Aerith? You okay?”
She breaks her stance and moves to wipe her face, but this time the tears don’t stop coming. By now, her entire body is starting to tremble and she buries her face in her hands. Now Cloud finally catches on: even though Aerith has been quite calm and even smiling while talking with him, she’s been putting up a front. It’s not that she’s accepted Ruby’s absence just like that, but because everyone else is miserable enough, she had to stay strong for them. However, all the ancient voices meant to offer their wisdom in these trying times instead only condemn and ostracize her just for associating with Rubia. It would be tough for anyone to deal with, but it hurts worse now since Aerith had been facing a drought of those voices for a long time. And when she finally does hear them again, they’re not welcome to her. It was only a matter of time before she would let out her true feelings.
“I’m… okay…” she mutters between sniffles.
“…”
She keeps wiping her tears and mumbling to herself, “I’ll be okay… I’m… not alone…”
Though feeling rather awkward, he feels obligated to reach out a hand. “Aerith, it’s okay. You can cry.”
“…”
At last, she gives in and stops wiping her face, letting the tears flow freely, and begins to weep softly into her hands. He steps forward to bring an arm around her shoulder as a comforting gesture, but to his surprise, she then throws herself onto him in a tight hug as she keeps sobbing. And overcome by sympathy, he returns the hug without a second thought.
“…Sorry, Cloud… I…” she stutters between whimpers, “I just…”
“Nothing to apologize.”
“I miss her…”
“Me too.”
They hold their last moment of silence as he holds her firmly but not too firmly and gives her all the time she needs to recover. But he knows this pain well. It’s not easy to lose a family member; needless to say see it happen right in front of their eyes. And like with him and Tifa long ago, it was entirely the fault of the same man. Now even Aerith has to suffer the same fate.
Too cruel. This thing simply known as “Destiny” is much too cruel. It heeds the words of no man but the ones who defy it and rise above to no longer fall to its whims. But that can change. They have to take charge. They have to surpass the odds, just as Ruby showed them time and time again.
~
The next morning, everyone gathers on deck at Cloud’s request, sans Aerith. Tifa reports in that Aerith is still asleep, probably fully exhausted from the events of last night, and she let her alone for now. But as sleep-deprived as he feels himself, Cloud is too anxious to keep pushing back this critical meeting. Though their next objective is obvious enough – head north to find Sephiroth in the depths of the great crater – the particular approach they should take is entirely up in the air.
Cloud stands at the front of the deck with his arms crossed, still pondering over where to even start. He looks around the place, noting everyone has returned to their respective places aboard, but the solemn, dreary, and even disheartened looks on their faces show little sign of motivation. Well, this won’t do. This upcoming battle they’re headed into will be pushing everyone to their limits and beyond. He addresses everyone by breaking the silence.
“Hey, everyone, thanks for coming.”
He’s greeted by an awkward silence, where Tifa, Barret, and Nanaki still seem to be fully attentive, but the rest seem to either be distracted by some other thoughts or are busy stewing over some other problems. But at least they’re all here and willing to listen.
“I know it’s hard to just move on, but it’s not gonna get any easier from here. We need to have a plan before we go chasing after Sephiroth.”
“Yeah, that’s the idea, man…” Barret replies with a touch of impatience. “But what can we do? We all saw it happen. He just ignored the rest of us and messed with you for a bit. And then the ugly squid and her minions showed up.”
“I can’t believe that butt-ugly squid!” Yuffie calls out from the back. “She took on Ruby’s likeness and still somehow messed it up! Gawd, it was disgusting!” She shudders at recalling the image.
Cloud answers Barret, “Like it or not, that ugly squid was about to destroy us and the entire city if not for Fenrir and Bahamut showing up.”
Barret frowns, but nods back anyway. “Yeah… Can’t deny it. We were in some serious trouble.” He also grumbles aloud, “The thing just wouldn’t die no matter what we did to her! Felt like she was straight-up cheating somehow.”
“In a way, it was cheating. We were lucky that Bahamut even had a way to stop her from abusing that power.”
Nanaki then brings up, “Oh, Cloud. When you and Bahamut were up there, what were those weird effects that started to show up around him?”
Once reminded, Barret nods along. “Yeah… They almost looked like the effects that happened to Ruby when Sephiroth got her.”
“And they even showed up on Jenova while Cloud and Bahamut were fighting her,” Sonon likewise points out. “But it didn’t look like any magic I’d ever seen before…”
Cloud shrugs. “Dunno. But they seem to be related to some unique power that only he and a select few had that can basically overwrite reality or so. In fact, it was through him that Rubia even had that kind of power.”
“Pardon?” Cait Sith replies, flicking one of his ears as if to make sure it heard him right.
Sonon’s plenty disturbed too. “Overwrite reality…?”
Barret’s eyes pop open. “Whoa! What!? That was what was happening? Then, Rubia could always do that too?”
“Yeah. I’m sure Ruby messed around with it before, but just out of our sights. But that won’t be happening anymore since Bahamut cut off that connection. It was the only way to stop Jenova.”
Tifa makes a worried frown. “Huh… So was it because of that power that Rubia was able to control Ruby too?”
Cloud shakes her head. “I don’t know. They shared the same body anyway, but it probably didn’t hurt her chances.”
She hangs her head. “…Poor Ruby.”
Again, Yuffie butts in, “Wait a sec! You’re saying Bahamut had this power to ‘overwrite reality’ all along? Then why didn’t he just do more of that and bring back Ruby!?”
Cloud instead looks unsure. “He said she wasn’t ‘bound’ to this planet, so it wouldn’t work with her.” When he sees Yuffie’s almost betrayed face, he quickly adds, “I don’t really get it, but seems like there’s no way to bring Ruby back. Rubia can just reincarnate, but since she and Ruby aren’t exactly the same, who knows where Ruby would have ended up…”
“Ugh…” She leans back against the wall and crosses her arms. “But Rubia isn’t as cool without Ruby…”
“…”
Now that he mentions it, Cait Sith also asks, “So where does that leave Rubia? Since Bahamut did somethin’ to her, did anything about her reincarnation change?”
Cloud shakes his head again. “I don’t think so. Bahamut was pretty sure she would come back on her own. But the problem is, if she doesn’t have that power anymore, she might not be able to control when or how it happens. And she might become vulnerable if she’s exposed to her mother’s influence.”
Cait blinks a few times and then grows shocked. “Wait! But Rubia’s mother was…”
“Tiamat,” Nanaki answers. “The Dragon Empress of Chaos and one of the proposed origins of the Black Materia. At least, that’s what I remember from the books.”
Cloud nods. “Yeah. That was proven when we stopped by the temple. The history was all recorded there.”
Tifa feels her heart sink a little. “Is Tiamat still around? Can she just take control of Rubia as she likes?”
“Well, long ago she was sealed away in some prison called Helheim, which seems to be in its own realm separate from this world. She should still be there, but Bahamut was worried that she might have some way to break out somehow.”
“Oh…”
“Hold up,” Barret cuts in again. “So you’re sayin’ that whatever Bahamut did ripped away all the security Rubia had around her? Then what’s gonna happen? Will she even reincarnate any time soon?”
Cloud gives a sigh. “I don’t know. All I know is that things are gonna get complicated if Rubia does come back.”
Barret looks ready to swing a fist, but instead lets off a frustrated sigh. “…Damn Sephiroth. Was bad enough that he killed her. Now we won’t even know if we’ll ever see her or Ruby again!”
Cloud’s face darkens too. “Yeah. We have to stop him, or things will only get worse.”
“And that’s why we’re all here!” Barret raises his hand, giving him an expectant look. “So what’s the plan, man? All we’ve talked about is how shit the situation is, but no solutions!”
“I was getting to that…” Cloud looks around the rest of the deck to check with the rest of them, just to be sure they’re all still listening. “So, here’s the thing: Ruby did have a plan for us. Even though she didn’t tell me all the details, there’s something we can still salvage.”
Yuffie raises an eyebrow. “So what did she say? Got some kinda secret intel on some super cool materia we can use or something?”
Sonon rolls his eyes. “It’s always gotta be materia with you.”
“Because it’s our best bet at this point! Remember how Bahamut even showed up!?”
“Yeah, yeah. You did good, Yuffie.”
“I’m still waiting on Cloud to say it, thank you!”
And to her surprise, Cloud actually nods along and agrees. “For once, Yuffie is on the right track.”
Yuffie whips back to him with a stare. “Wait, what?”
Sonon stares at him in surprise too. “So there is some secret materia out there?”
Cloud replies, “Not really secret, but obscure, I guess. She once brought up some legendary figures from history that once ascended to the ranks of the Summons. You guys ever heard about the Knights of the Round Table?”
Yuffie’s jaw drops as soon as she hears the name, but everyone else just seems puzzled or mildly interested.
Sonon strokes his chin. “Knights of the Round Table… The name does sound familiar.”
Nanaki then suggests, “Yeah, it does, doesn’t it? Were they listed in that book, ‘The Summon Compendium’? I think we had it back at the Cosmo Library.”
“Oh, my God!” Yuffie blurts out. “Really, guys!? Are you all that clueless?”
Cait Sith frowns her way. “Hey, now! No need for any insults. If you know something, then speak up!”
Yuffie reveals a wide, proud grin. “Of course I know! They’re only some of the most legendary, most powerful badasses that this world has ever seen! Like, I dunno if those people actually existed or if they’re just stories, but I know that there’s nothing out there like the power of thirteen heroes of equal standing all ganging up on your enemies like there’s no tomorrow!”
Barret returns her a dead-eyed stare. “…Uh-huh.”
“I’m serious!” She slides up in front of Cloud in a rather aggressive stance. “So where is it? Where’s the legendary materia!? We gotta go find it!”
Cloud has to back off a bit. “I don’t know. Ruby knew, but she didn’t tell me.”
And just like that, Yuffie’s excitement fizzles out in an instant. “Couldn’t you have just asked?”
He returns her a stern frown. “I did, but she was too busy scheming to tell me. Never got another chance to ask her about it again since so much else happened.”
Yuffie swings away and returns to her post without another word, now very grumpy.
But she’s not the only one disappointed. Barret raises an eyebrow too. “So, if we don’t know where to look for it, then how are we gonna ask them for help?”
Tifa suggests more kindly, “Maybe Fenrir might know?”
But Cloud remains uncertain. “No. I doubt it. He’s never met them in person, at least from all the visions I’ve seen.”
“Then, maybe Aerith can try to ask the planet if they know?” That said, she gives her own sigh. “But she might not be ready right now…”
“How is she doing, Tifa?” Barret asks. “Haven’t seen her all morning.”
“Last I checked, she was still asleep. I didn’t want to disturb her. You know, with all that happened yesterday.”
He nods back slowly. “Yeah… then we’ll just have to wait until she’s ready.”
“But in the meantime, we can’t just wait around here doing nothing,” Sonon insists. “Is there anything else we can use other than that materia?”
Cloud folds his arms and takes a moment to think. “…Sorry, but I can’t think of any other ideas. I mean, at least I’ve made a contract with Fenrir, so I can call on him in an emergency, but that just leaves the rest of you out.”
Yuffie asks with the slightest hint of a grudge, “So what? We just leave everything to you?”
“That’s not what I’m saying.” He turns his head up as he dives into further thought and says it aloud, “If only there were a way for all of us to tap into that kind of power…”
She rolls her eyes. “Well, when you figure out how we can get superpowers out of nowhere, let us know.”
“…” Now that he thinks about it again, he turns to Vincent, who has remained quiet in his corner all this time. “Hey, Vincent. You have the power to transform. How does it work for you?”
Vincent lets off a sigh and shakes his head. “…It’s not the same. However you and Fenrir are connected seems to be something unique to you in particular. A blessing from the Gods, so to speak. But as for me, my power is a curse that was resulted from ill-devised experimentation, a wretched punishment worthy of hell itself. Nothing that I would ever wish upon anyone else.”
“Hmm… Scratch that, then.”
And just as things are looking grim over their clear lack of options, the doors at the back of the deck that lead to the ship’s bridge suddenly open up.
“Huh?” Cid grumbles, “Who is it now!? Can’t ya see we’re…?”
His jaw drops as soon as he notices, and everyone else is shocked when they turn to look too.
“Aerith!” Tifa gasps.
“Hey, guys! Sorry I’m late.” She greets them all with a bright smile. She even asks Cid, “Hope I’m not interrupting anything?”
He rubs his head awkwardly. “Uh… Not at all. Good to see you.”
Like a great wave of relief washes over the room, everyone seems to settle down at least a little, though are still confused. Despite the events of last night, Aerith seems a lot more cheerful than they expected and checks in with everyone along the way before she takes her place near Cloud by the front of the deck.
“You doing okay now?” he checks with her too.
She nods back with rosy cheeks. “Yep! I’m fine! No need to worry.”
“Uh… you sure?”
“Yeah.” Her eyes are even twinkling. “In fact, you could say even better than fine! I hit a breakthrough!”
Cloud blinks and nearly does a double-take. “Wait, you mean it? You reached Rubia!?”
Her smile falters just a bit. “Well, maybe? I’m not really sure. I didn’t hear her voice or anything. But I have been busy searching the planet in my own way, and I finally met one of those mysterious visions that you’d always get!”
“You saw a vision?”
“Yeah, in my dreams last night. It was a weird experience, like being thrown somewhere far away all of a sudden.” Her smile then relaxes into a gentler one. “But even then, I felt like I was in good hands. Somehow, somewhere, Rubia was watching over me. I’m sure of it.”
“…” By now, he’s all too familiar with those moments that he doesn’t bother to question her. He nods along and offers a relieved smile. “Sounds like you did reach her, then.”
“Yeah, I guess so. If only she’d actually talk with me… but maybe there’s something else that she needs to work out first.”
“So what happened? What’d you learn?”
Now she gets serious. “It was a long dream, where I was following her on one of her journeys through time. From back in the time of the Cetra through to closer to present day.”
He looks taken aback. “You mean over all of human history?”
She looks off as she recalls, “We crossed through multiple eras, seeing how humanity eventually spread around the world since the Cetra disappeared. But eventually we stopped on a certain time and place. I think… it was about 30 years ago. Set in a place covered in ice and snow.”
“Ice and snow…” He blinks again. “Like up north?”
“Yeah. There was a town up there. I think it’s still there now, right?”
Cait Sith now pipes up with the answer, “Oh, sure thing, lass! Icicle Inn has been established in the northern country for centuries, though it was almost half a decade since Shinra showed up and established themselves o’er the townsfolk. Sadly, now it’s just another outpost for ’em and their sympathizers.”
Barret growls, “Shinra…”
The cat makes a nervous shrug. “Yep. So if we do drop by, it’s probably gonna be loaded with troops. What with Shinra expandin’ their territorial influence lately.”
Cloud also looks concerned and turns back to Aerith. “You sure it was a place like that?”
She nods back. “I’m sure. I think we can learn more about Rubia’s travels from somewhere in town. Looked like some kind of lab, but not sure where it was. The way we went from place to place was all a blur. I wished she would slow down a bit, but she wasn’t really listening to me either.”
“Hmm…” He rubs his head awkwardly. “Well, it’s a start.” He then looks around the crowd and asks, “If Aerith is going, I’m definitely going too. But who else is gonna join us?”
“Why are you even askin’!?” Barret declares, “We’re all going!”
Cloud shakes his head. “No way. Didn’t you just hear Cait? The place is a Shinra outpost. If we all go, we’re just walking right into trouble.”
He crosses his arms with a harrumph, but doesn’t argue back.
Cait Sith then hops up and raises his hand. “Then, I’ll go too! If ye need a stealthy trickster, me paws are rearin’ for some trackin’!”
Yuffie gives him an unimpressed look. “With how loud you are usually, I’m surprised you’d be able to sneak around anywhere.”
Sonon opens his mouth to argue the irony, but decides it’s not worth it.
Instead, Cait argues his own case, “Then, you’ll be surprised again to know that I’m an associate of the town mayor! If there’s anywhere in town that we needa be, then he’ll know the way!”
Yuffie actually pulls back in shock. “W-what? Seriously?”
Aerith claps her hands together. “Really, Cait? Thanks! That’s a big help!”
Yuffie still keeps a wary eye on him. “Geez. Who the heck are you? You can’t just be some random Shinra employee.”
Rather than answer, he simply flicks his finger and clicks his tongue. “Never mind that now! We’ve got a course set, so time’s a wastin’!” He hops off of Moogle and slips on by Cid, who has been standing by their ship’s current pilot. “Captain, set ’er sails! Let’s catch some tailwind for Icicle Inn!”
Cid grunts back. “The hell? Why are you tellin’ me what to…” But then he scratches his head, cutting himself off, and calls out to the rest of the crew, “You heard the cat! Men, get ’er hummin’!”
“Aye, aye, Captain!” comes the resounding answer, and everyone who isn’t already at their post hurries into position.
With a quiet whirr that crescendos into a triumphant siren, the Highwind kicks it into gear and begins to rise into the air once more. And with a good push of the throttle, their new pilot guides the ship north for the mysterious white winterland.
~
To the north is the land of ice and snow-covered peaks, a mostly untamed wilderness where even the most resourceful of settlers must respect and adapt to the environment. To avoid the heavy winds flowing in from the north, Cid has opted to have the Highwind parked by some forested tundra at the southern end of the continent. It’s a bit of a trek through the mountains from here to the town, but fortunately the crew aboard came prepared with winter gear for their gallant heroes.
As soon as Aerith climbs off the ladder to the ground, she pats down her warm muffler to make sure it’s staying on and proceeds to marvel at the great expanse of white laid before her. With child-like excitement, she giggles and rushes off to take her first steps into snow. It sinks beneath her feet like soft fluff that cushions her snow boots. And she’s soon hopping around and observing with glee the circle of tracks that she’s making.
Meanwhile, Cloud and Cait Sith climb down to join her and the cat gives the other a nervous look. “Cloud, mind if I ask something?”
“What?”
He gestures toward the guy. “You sure you’ll be fine dressed like this? The cold wouldnae be a pushover. We can still held back in and get ye warmed up first.”
Cloud is still in his usual sleeveless uniform and had declined to throw anything else on. He folds his arms with a stern frown. “Like I said, I’m fine.”
“Fine for now, perhaps, but ye may be singin’ a different tune once we cross through the mountains.”
He shakes his head. “No, really. Ever since I made that contract with Fenrir, I feel like I can take on any cold. This is nothing.”
“Hmm…” Cait Sith scratches behind his ear, but decides to let it be. He turns to see Aerith has already gone on ahead a fair distance. “Hey, Aerith! Wait up!”
They hurry after her to find her stopped before one of the barren trees. She seems to be huffing and puffing a few breaths into her gloves, but watches the misty air with a sort of self-reflective wonder.
“Hey. Why’d you stop?” Cloud asks her. “Something wrong?”
She turns to him with a smile. “No, I’m fine. But being here got me thinking…”
“What?”
She looks off around the thin, snow-laden forest they’ve just entered. “Something about this place feels… familiar. I’m not sure why, though.”
“Familiar? You ever been up here?”
She shakes her head. “Not that I remember. I’ve never really left Midgar before we all met up.”
“Hmm…”
She turns back to him. “What about you? Ever been around snow?”
He shakes his head. “Nah. Nibelheim is the furthest north I’ve ever lived. Sometimes it can be chilly, but the rain never turns that cold. Most times it’s pretty average.”
“That so?” She looks him up and down. “’Cause I’d think dressing like that would make you seem like you’ve lived in it all along.”
He rolls his eyes and starts moving on ahead. “I said I’m fine. Come on. It’s gonna be a long walk.”
Aerith turns to Cait Sith and Moogle, who both shrug together. “The lad’s dead convinced, I’d say. Something about Fenrir mighta messed with his head…” He twirls a finger round near his ear.
She makes a worried frown. “Well, if he insists. I hope he won’t get frostbite later.”
The trio continue on foot through the rest of the forest and soon meet the greater snowy expanse beyond. Though there is a particular mountain pass that runs through the high peaks that leads directly to the town they’re looking for, it’s most definitely patrolled by Shinra forces. But the long way around would be too out of the way; they would have to trek a very wide arc around the base of the mountains and who knows how long it’d take them. Fortunately, the ever crafty Cait Sith happens to know of a different route than either of those – but the catch is that it’s crossing straight through fiend territory.
“No worries!” Aerith declares proudly. “We have Cloud!”
“Right, um…” Cait Sith scratches his head and continues explaining, “Anyway, from what I heard, fiend attacks on the main pass have gotten pretty bad lately. Some even turned to robbin’ folks like bandits. Strange, since they hadn’t been doing any of that back in the town’s early days. Something must’ve stirred up the creatures more than usual.”
“Doesn’t matter what shows up. They cross us, they die,” Cloud replies succinctly.
“Okay then…” Cait sighs to himself, feeling like he’d just been talking to no one listening. “Well, if ye don’t mind, lead on.”
So Cloud moves on ahead with the other two following closely by. With Cait’s directions and some well-timed shuffling between rock formations, they slip off to an alcove to the side in the mountains. Cait Sith looks up the steep wall and nods to himself, and then addresses the other two.
“Well, here we are. Hope you won’t mind a rough climb.”
Aerith looks up the wall. “We’re going to climb from here?”
Cait nods back. “There’s no red carpet for miles, lass. This is indeed the way.”
“Hmm…”
She first pats down the rocky wall to find a good place to grip, but with her soft gloves, she finds it harder to keep a good grip. It’s not just the steepness either; these are icy shelves are slippery even given the roughness of the rock. One wrong slip and it could tear something bad. And without another thought, she turns back to Cloud.
“Cloud, I think it’s your turn.”
“Huh? My turn?”
She points up the wall. “You scale first and find an easier way up for us.”
He looks disappointed, but nods back. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“And if it really comes down to it, we can always call on Fenrir to fly us into town!”
“We’ll be spotted from a mile away, so no.”
“Hmm. Alright, it’s your call.” She instead offers an encouraging smile. “Good luck!”
While Aerith and Cait Sith stay back, Cloud gives the icy wall a try and pulls himself up. Though at first, he too feels his grip slipping on the snowy patches between jutting rockface, he maintains focus and keeps a good balance, hopping from one ledge to another. Unfortunately, not all ledges are fair and some are slanted too steeply for a good grip. And even after scaling the wall for a good time, he soon finds himself trapped in a place where there don’t seem to be any good places to reach for. Grumbling in frustration, he backtracks and finds a different route up. If fiends are used to taking this route, they must have a way up.
But just as he thinks he’s found the right way, even while the winds blow around him, he catches the slightest odd noise coming from above. It sounds like some kind of shuffling; is there someone or some thing up there?
His answer comes promptly and alarmingly. At first, it’s just a single white rabbit that pops out into view on a flat slope above, but this rabbit is a little bigger than most rabbits. It is then shortly accompanied by several other rabbits its size and they all seem to bear a few scars each. It takes him a moment to realize that these are not just any rabbits. These are Jumpings and are especially aggressive ambush fiends. As soon as they notice some human seems to be scaling their wall, they start to thump hard against the slope to start up a minor avalanche.
“Shit!”
Realizing he has no place for cover, Cloud blitzes up the wall and catches the final ledge to the slope above. Drawing his sword, he makes a swing where the Jumpings are, though they all jump back and out of the way. But this is just what he was hoping for. With the way clear, he pulls up onto the slope and jumps clear of the ice shelf that finally cracks and falls past him. But now he finds himself surrounded by an entire gang of Jumpings who look like they’re ready to hunt.
While some of the Jumpings rush him down, others keep their distance and try to knock him off the slope with more avalanches. However, once in the rush of battle, Cloud feels his adrenaline kick in. He hops and dodges their attacks, swinging his blade in counterattack, and manages to keep off the gang even while the local tremors crack the ice and footing becomes uneven. But as soon as the Jumpings realize they can’t take down this one, one of them in the back blows a whistle that is shaped like a carrot and the rest of them all hurry in a tactful retreat, disappearing into one of the nearby caves.
Cloud sighs to himself and returns his blade to its place. There’s nothing else to this slope except snow and rock, though there is a sizeable hole in the side of the mountain that seems to lead deeper. But thanks to the activity of the Jumpings earlier, the terrain around here is even rougher and the snow blankets over any crevices. They’re gonna have to watch their step.
Achoo! He sniffs. And it’s cold. Maybe he could have used some kind of scarf after all…
He scans the area for any other footholds that the others could use, but it seems the mountains are ever unwelcome to passing travelers. Looks like he’s gonna have to do like those rabbits and carve his own path. He notices a particular icy chunk of boulder that is positioned rather precariously near a different slope above. That will have to do. He draws his sword once more and hones his focus to unleash a pinpoint Blade Beam. The sword’s slash wave strikes the boulder free and it tumbles down, crashing through the ice beneath and setting off a chain reaction of tumbling that creates a rocky slope free from the slippery snow.
Down below, Cait Sith and Moogle had been zipping about, keeping an eye out for any potential fiends that would dare to step near. However, just as they think they’re in the clear, they suddenly hear a rumbling from above and turn to see a rockslide coming their way. Needless to say, they freak out and scramble back to the alcove where Aerith has been waiting. Fortunately, the rockslide happens to slide right past the alcove, so they’re safely out of the way.
“What in the blazes was that!?” Cait exclaims angrily, slapping the top of Moogle’s head, who makes a confused frown. “Even the base of the mountain wouldnae be safe, it seems!”
Aerith peeks out to observe the rubble and looks up to find a familiar face. She waves to him. “Cloud! There he is!”
“Cloud, you rascal!” Cait Sith hops up and down with indignance, while Moogle looks troubled. “Watch where you’re settin’ off your traps! Could’ve hit someone, ye know!”
But Cloud is too far away to hear his complaints. He simply waves back to Aerith and beckons them over.
She beams. “But he made a path for us! This ought to be easier to climb.”
Cait sighs and Moogle makes a relieved face, sitting the cat king back in place. “Well, at least one of us is having fun…” the cat mutters to himself.
Though it still takes her a bit of effort to hop from rock to rock, even Aerith can make it up this rocky rubble road and Cait Sith and Moogle hop along right behind her. Cloud is already standing by the cave entrance he found earlier and calls them over.
“In here. Looks like this is the only way forward.”
“A hole?” Aerith asks, peering in. “It’s pretty big. Where does it go?”
Cait Sith strokes his chin. “If my data’s correct, this may be the Jumpings’ Den. But because those hares are real sensitive to any kind of intruders, there hasn’t been much progress with mapping out the place. If we go in, we might not be able to come back out.”
“You led us here, didn’t you?” Cloud reminds him. “Then there’s no other way.”
“That’s true.” Cait gives him a nod. “After you, Cloud. Keep a watch out for those hoppers while you’re down there.”
“Got it.”
Cloud slips into the hole and slides down the dark tunnel. It’s a quick trip down and he lands upon a dry floor of a surprisingly spacious cavern that is fortunately lit up by some naturally fluorescent crystals embedded in the walls. To be honest, the place actually does remind him a bit of the prison where Fenrir was once kept, though it’s definitely not the same place. That said, now that he stands here, he can’t help but get a feeling that he’s still been here before. But how can that be? As spacious as it is here, the rest of the cave seem too small for Fenrir to fit in.
“Incoming!”
He hears Aerith’s voice from above and leaps into position to catch her, but moves out of the way as Cait and Moogle come dropping in after. Fortunately, Moogle bounces naturally and with a cool flip in the air, he nails the landing. Unfortunately, Cait Sith doesn’t get to keep his ride and bounces off of his partner’s plush body, tumbling to the floor nearby. He shakes it off, but glares silently at Cloud, who sets Aerith down safely.
“Wow, this place is bigger than I thought!” she exclaims with delight and wonder in her eyes. “Who knew the Jumpings have such a nice place inside the mountain? Seems pretty cozy too.”
Moogle gives Cait a lift back on his head, while the cat replies, “Keep your eyes peeled, lass. We’re deep in enemy territory here. If we aren’t careful, we could get lost or trapped somewhere.”
“Cloud will get us out.”
He grunts, but nods along in agreement.
Cait’s ears droop. “Honestly, you two… At least have a sense o’ danger from time to time.”
“If anything, those fiends better watch out for us!” Aerith declares matter-of-factly. She turns for the only exit. “Let’s go!”
It’s yet another dark tunnel ahead, but at least there are some of those fluorescent crystals from earlier to light patches of the tunnel along the way. And the more they venture, the more Cloud is bothered by that feeling from earlier. What is it about this place? Why does it all feel so familiar? And why does he feel like he’s tread a path just like this one before?
“Rumors say that there’s a magnificent treasure hidden in these mountains! But it’s no easy task to find as these tunnels are a great maze, fraught with traps and fiends waiting in ambush at every corner. And yet, they say, even if one were to somehow make it through, there will be a terrible man-eating guardian that guards the treasure in its depths!”
“…”
“Hahaha! All the more reason to look for it, I say! Nothing like a good adventure to clean the heart, eh, Fenrir?”
Cloud stops in his tracks and blinks a few times as he comes to again. What was that? A mysterious voice just popped into his head. It even mentioned Fenrir. Could the wolf have been here after all?
“Cloud? Something wrong?” Aerith asks.
He shakes off the weird feeling and keeps moving. “I’m fine.”
“If you’re not feeling well, we can take a break.”
“Really, I’m fine.” He glances around the tunnel as they proceed forward. “Just got a quick sense of the place.”
“Sense of the place? You mean you know where to go?”
Cloud takes a moment to consider how to answer. He really has no idea how these caves are laid out and yet he still feels like he can find his way. “…Kinda?”
“Say what now? How could you know that unless…” Cait Sith’s ears perk up when he realizes it. “Oh, wait! Could it be Fenrir?”
“Fenrir?” Aerith asks.
“Cloud! Did ye just get another vision? Does the old wolf know his way ’round these parts?”
“It wasn’t a vision. I just heard a voice… a different one, but it sounded like he was talking with Fenrir.”
Aerith blinks, looking curiouser by the minute. “There was someone with him?”
Cloud wishes he could answer, but the more he thinks about it, the more questions he has. Who was that mysterious man? He seemed friendly enough, but how does he know Fenrir? And when did they have that conversation? He’s not sure, but he gets the inkling that Rubia probably wasn’t there with them. It must have been long, long ago, way earlier before the wolf came across the hatchling. So, could this be a memory from Fenrir’s youth? Maybe he was smaller then, so that explains how he fit in here.
“Um… If you don’t wanna talk about it, that’s fine too.”
He shakes his head and snaps back to the present. “No, it’s not that. I just can’t remember anything beyond a voice.”
“No one you recognize?”
“No… but I feel like I should.”
“?”
Cait Sith looks between them and then shrugs. “Well, aside from that voice, did Fenrir tell ye anything about this place? Like, maybe some clues to how to navigate it?”
Cloud doesn’t answer him. He looks on ahead for the fork in the tunnels coming up, and a strange sort of instinct seems to guide him – not necessarily to find the exit, but to find something else. He brushes a hand along the wall, feeling the shape of the protruding crystals, and looks down to observe the lightest dust left on his hand.
“Remember, Fenrir, if you ever lose your way, follow the crystals. Their source will have the wisdom you seek.”
Cloud blinks again and returns to the present. Oh, of course. If there’s this much natural materia in the area, there should be a source – perhaps even a Lifespring through which they can acquire more info. He stares off for the fork again and tracks the formation of crystals. While both tunnels are barely lit, the right one seems to be a little better lit than the other. By now, Aerith and Cait Sith are watching him nervously, as if anticipating that he’s having another weird episode.
“It’s somewhere around here…” he mutters to himself. With little else to say, he starts off on his own.
“Hey, Cloud!” Aerith calls after him.
“Cloud! Wait! At least tell us what you learned!” Cait follows suit.
They give chase, but Cloud is no longer answering them. He feels driven by this strange instinct, almost as if he were possessed, to press forward and search for the meaning behind this gap in his knowledge. Even though he isn’t sure what he’s looking for, he feels like he’s on the right track. That voice feels so familiar, like that of an old friend. The name of the man and even his visage both elude him, but if he just gets some other clue from this place, he might figure it out.
But they don’t go far before the residents find them. The Jumpings, even more furious that humans have intruded on their turf, begin to screech and kick against the walls, sending a thunderous boom that echoes and triggers the collapse of key tunnels, almost like they’re automatic doors closing shut for security. Cloud neatly dodges out of the way as the rubble falls in their path, blocking it off entirely.
“Outta my way!”
He unleashes a series of powerful slashes to blast his way through the rubble, clearing out a hole just enough for him to slip through. As he comes out the other side, though, several more Jumpings try to ambush him with carrot-shaped clubs, but he neatly knocks them all flying. And though Aerith and Cait Sith aren’t too far behind, they’re both stunned at the ferocity by which Cloud deals with these foes. Sure, they are quite annoying how they keep hopping around and dodging attacks, but he looks like he’s fighting off some kind of demons with the way he’s going in on them.
“…Ye know, I thought I was joking when I said Fenrir mighta messed with his head. Is he possessed again?” Cait Sith mutters.
Aerith watches him with concern. “I hope not. Or if he is, he still remembers why we came this way in the first place.”
But while the two stay back and out of his way, they don’t notice that another Jumping has sneaked up on them from behind. Suddenly, it lashes out and kicks Aerith aside.
“Ow!”
“Aerith!” Cait Sith cries and gets mad himself. “Have at you, ye manic puffball!”
While Cait and Moogle manage to send the Jumping scurrying, Aerith gets back up and brushes herself off. But now that she notices, one of her pockets seems unusually light. She pats it down to be sure, and sure enough, it is empty.
Her face grows horrified. “Hey! It’s gone!”
“You okay, lass? What is it?”
“Ruby’s materia! I think that rabbit stole it!”
“W-what!?”
But they’re too slow to catch up with the thief as it disappears around a corner, and Cloud is too distracted to have noticed. After beating back their foes, he continues to pursue his path ahead. Aerith hesitates, worrying for both of them, but Cait Sith reassures her.
“I’ll track down the thief! You catch up with Cloud!”
“Okay! Try not to get lost, Cait!”
Cait Sith gives a salute and he and Moogle are off in hot pursuit. Aerith steels herself and hurries off after Cloud just to be sure he doesn’t get himself into any trouble either. Hopefully, they all can meet up together somewhere and get out of this place as soon as they can.
A little further ahead, Cloud does end up at some kind of exit. He now finds himself back out of the caves to meet the frigid air outside, but it so happens that this opening comes to yet another dead end. Though it would have been difficult to see from afar, there’s a relatively small basin filled with snow caught between several neighboring peaks. The harsh wintry winds that pass through the mountains happen to fly right over this area, so there isn’t much disturbance to the snow that has sunk here. At first glance, it looks like nothing in even here; not even another cave entrance.
But he feels like whatever he is looking for is here, somewhere buried in the snow. He marches through the thick white blanket, feeling around for the presence of any other crystals or materia in the vicinity, but grows alarmed when he realizes he can’t find any particular sign. What happened? He was sure that it was this way. Did he end up taking a wrong turn?
“Cloud!” Aerith’s voice calls to him.
Now he snaps out of his trance and turns to see her rushing over as best she can through the thick snow. “Aerith?”
When she catches up, she stops to catch her breath. “Whew… Where do you think you’re going…? I thought we were gonna lose sight of you…”
He rubs his head, feeling a little shame. “Uh, sorry. I was just trying to follow the path I thought was the right way.”
Aerith lets off a sigh and takes a look around. “Where are we anyway? Looks like a dead end and doesn’t seem like anything is out here.”
“…” He puts up a thinking face. “Where did I go wrong? I was sure I’d find something here…”
“Anyway, never mind that now!” Aerith gets serious again. “I kinda messed up too!”
“Huh? What happened?”
“I got distracted for a bit and then one of those rabbits jumped us. It even made off with Ruby’s materia!”
“What!? You waited until now to tell me!?”
She puffs her cheeks. “Because you kept running off!”
He slumps back, looking apologetic. “Right… sorry. Where’s Cait?”
“He went after the rabbit. I hope he and Moogle will be okay.”
“Then let’s go. We’ve wasted enough time already.”
“…” She raises an eyebrow with an almost motherly frown.
“…I know it was my fault.”
She nods back. “It’s okay, as long as you know not to do it again.”
But before they can make it back to the cave entrance they came from, they suddenly hear a high-pitched screech in the air above. Curious, Aerith peeks up to see what just made that noise, and she gasps as a rather large creature seems to be swooping in at them.
“Cloud! Watch out!”
“Huh!?”
They duck and roll out of the way as the huge winged creature stomps its way in front and blocks the exit. It appears to be an odd variant of chimera a bit like that of a griffin or hippogriff, but instead of an eagle head and bare hind, it instead sports the face and great wings of a snowy owl and the horns and stocky hindquarters of a great reindeer. This is the Snow Hippogriff, a rare fiend that hasn’t been observed by humans in ages and was once thought to be extinct. It shrieks at its unwarranted visitors and whips up a wild gust of icy wind to blow them away.
“Dammit… I don’t have time for this,” Cloud grumbles under his breath.
He fights back against the chilling winds and charges forward with a Focused Thrust to knock the beast off balance and proceeds to whale on it with a fire in him that nearly rivals the cold. Aerith keeps her distance, but provides back up Fira spells whenever the beast tries to catch him recoiling or getting back in position. Eventually, the hippogriff gets quite fed up to be pounded by fire and rushes her instead.
“Eek!”
She dives back into the snow, but the beast’s claws can still thrash on through – if not for Cloud jumping in from behind it and cutting at its legs. It tries to kick back, but he avoids them and keeps up the assault from the side, knocking it well away from where Aerith had dropped. However, the hippogriff is a fearsome opponent and stands its ground. Seizing an opportunity, it whips up another strong gust to blow him back and takes off into the air once more.
Cloud watches the beast carefully as it sails around again. “Where’s it going… No!”
The hippogriff lunges at Aerith again and she barely has time to duck as it stamps down on the ground with a force that could crack the ice below. Cloud dashes in once more to her rescue, knocking the beast back. But while Aerith crawls out of the way again, the two opponents continue to clash fiercely with blade to talons. By now, the ice beneath them has grown weak and the cracks begin to spread out. As she’s still low to the ground, Aerith catches the noise of the cracking and tries to warn him.
“Cloud! Be careful! The ground might give way!”
The hippogriff continues to bash him and even ram him with its antlers. Cloud loses his grip when his sword is caught on one of the branches, but with a swift twirl, he repositions and seizes the sword’s hilt again to unleash another deep diagonal gash that actually bloodies the hippogriff’s face, blinding it in one eye. It screeches in pain and takes off for the sky again.
But Cloud is too late to escape the breaking ice. Their clash since earlier put too much pressure and his foothold gives way to an icy pool hidden under the snow. He can barely hear Aerith calling to him as he sinks into the water.
But before she can help him out of there, the hippogriff reveals its trump card at last: Deep Freeze. It summons a great ice storm that gathers into a whirlwind of ice crystals that gather en masse and bury them in a field of ice. It even reseals the ice sheet to be even thicker than it had been, trapping Cloud below. Aerith tries to melt the ice with a few Firas, but they aren’t enough to even dent the sturdy sheet. Unfortunately, she doesn’t have the time to cast a Firaga before the hippogriff is screeching her way.
Underwater, Cloud is aware he’s in trouble. He pounds against the ice sheet above him, but likewise to no avail. Dammit. It can’t end like this. But every second he stalls in these frigid waters, he only feels his strength be depleted and his limbs are starting to numb. He tries to strike with his blade at a different place, but it all seems to be useless. While he’s still underwater, he can’t even swing fast enough to leave more than a few shallow cuts. And as the last of his breath wavers, he clutches his mouth to try to stop any more air from escaping, but he won’t be able to hold it for much longer.
But as he begins to sink, he catches in the periphery of his eye the shape of some familiar-looking crystal formations in the rocky bed below. They make up a sort of enlarged materia crystal, though by the looks of it, it has lost its mysterious glow long ago and here it’s merely translucent mineral ore.
“…I see! So that was it all along. The treasure of the Southern Fells was actually this Lifespring!”
Fenrir looked pretty disappointed. After their long journey here, they seemed to have come to nothing.
“Hahaha! No need for the dour face, my friend! Every mountain has its own tale and a grand treasure worth finding. But there was never a rule that it would be something to be taken! Besides, with how rich the wildlife is here, it shows that this mountain is its own bounty! May it flourish for many eras to come! If you think about it, that’s the real treasure worth to behold!”
“…Grrf.”
“You’re still young now, Fenrir, so you still have much to see and learn. But there will be a time when you realize, beyond gold and jewels, what is truly the most precious thing of all. And when that time comes, you may want to drop by again.”
“…?”
“These mountains may be a bounty, but that means they will be coveted by the lesser-than-noble. Though we choose to live and serve in accordance with the land we settle, I don’t believe even the Cetra should be the ones to guard this bounty. Only one truly born in the wild deserves to rule over these lands.”
“…”
“Or, well, it’s up to you. Who am I to tell you what you should do in the future? Hahahaha!”
And with that cheery old voice echoing in the recesses of his mind, Cloud suddenly meets with a strange sense of peace. He understands now, not just where this is, but who that man was. He was a jolly fellow with a love for adventure and the thrill of the hunt, who also sported a great bastard sword the size of a standing camel in its height. And he would be Fenrir’s closest companion since the wolf was but a young (but still rather large) pup. His name was Tyr the Righteous, of the Cetra who lived in the Far North.
Enough fear and panic. He has no reason to fret over such a trivial situation. Cloud closes his eyes and turns inward in meditation. With wills aligned, he and the old wolf shall rise to the occasion once again. And with his resolve renewed, he bursts forth with that icy mist that wraps him thickly like a surprisingly warm scarf. He opens his eyes with the beautiful blue glow, seeing the world come into clarity. He doesn’t even feel the cold anymore. And with one look upward, he swings his sword with such force that he cuts straight through the sheet like it was paper.
Meanwhile, Aerith has been struggling to keep the hippogriff off of her. Though she stands her ground upon an Arcane Ward and blasts the beast with fire spells, it seems like even elemental weaknesses aren’t enough to deter this ancient guardian. The hippogriff even learns to dodge the fire spells and blitz her with aerial sweeps, knocking her off her feet. Every time she tries to get up and get back into position, the hippogriff gets in her way and rapidly kicks the ground, leaving hard hooved imprints. Aerith barely has time to duck for cover as the beast thrashes relentlessly.
And then, a great slash flies through the air and knocks it away into a tumble through the snow. Cloud clears some snow in the way and lends her a hand to pull her up.
“Sorry to keep you.”
“Whew… you made it.” She takes his hand, but wobbles a bit on her feet.
“Mind if you leave the rest to me?”
“Not at all. Go get ’em.”
While Aerith casts recovery upon herself, Cloud turns toward the fearsome beast, who has stood back up yet again, now thoroughly bruised, burnt, and bleeding. He almost feels sorry for this guardian, but it’s not guarding anything now that the treasure has been lost to time. If anything, this creature is now just a relic of the past that refuses to move on. But it’s been long enough. Everything is due to return to the planet eventually.
As a last ditch attempt to bury its enemies, the hippogriff takes flight once again and tries to summon the Deep Freeze from before. However, Cloud doesn’t give it another chance. He leaps high into the air in a single bound – high enough that he actually catches up with it in the air. With just a brief look of his condolences, he cuts down the last of the beast’s life with a vicious icy spiral slash that stirs up into a violent twister. The sudden freeze immobilizes it completely while the twister hurtles the beast high into the skies, so far up that it exceeds the clouds above, so that it may finally reach the heavens. Absolute Zero Dragon’s Ascent.
And as it happens, this mighty twister also sucks up all other winds in the area and blasts a hole right through the cloud cover on high. The gusty winds have been cleared and the snow-covered basin settles under a bright morning sun. And Cloud casually flips through the air and drops back to the ground with a cushioned thump.
Aerith has been watching in awe and cheers as he comes back down. “Cloud! That was awesome!”
He swings his sword back in place. “It was nothing.”
“Don’t be like that! Looks like you’re really getting the hang of this form!” Though still curious, she has to ask, “Though, what happened? I thought you didn’t want to call Fenrir. Or was that bad that you had to?”
“It wasn’t that bad… I finally found the place I was looking for and it just felt natural to call him.”
“Oh, is that so…” She peers closer into his face, making him back up under the pressure, but she relents. “So what was it? Was it hidden under the ice or something?”
“Yeah. Seems like long ago, this entire area was full of life, thanks to a Lifespring.”
“Oh?”
“Fenrir and his partner, Tyr, came by on the hunt for treasure one day when they discovered it. Ultimately, they decided to leave it alone and not tell even the Cetra about its location. He felt like it was more fitting for someone like Fenrir to stand guard of the place than any human.”
“Ah, okay.” She nods thoughtfully. “So that’s why Fenrir came back? To reclaim his old turf?”
“Something like that.” He now turns for the cave entrance from earlier. “Anyway, we can save that story for another time. Let’s go help Cait get the materia back.”
“Right!” She also asks, “Say, do you think you can track it down? I remember Fenrir responded to it the first time he showed.”
He nods back. “Maybe. I’ll give it a try.”
Cloud closes his eyes and lifts his head up, and following Fenrir’s lead, he hones his sixth sense to scan the entire mountain for signs of that materia. Even when in its currently weakened state, there’s something different about it than the rest of the natural ore around them that makes it stand out. Perhaps it’s because it holds Rubia’s signature aura that the wolf knows like second nature. Like a homing beacon, the target in question likewise makes its presence known in response to his call.
Cloud opens his eyes again and nods confidently. “Got it. It’s gone up north.”
“North? Like, how much north?”
“Still somewhere on the mountain, but the north side.” He offers her a hand. “Come on. I’ll take us there.”
Aerith smiles and takes his hand. “Ever the reliable. Thanks, Cloud.”
With but a single warp spell, the two promptly vanish. But as they go, a few curious eyes peek out from the shadows of the cave tunnel. Some of the Jumpings from earlier that were too bitter to let them escape had given chase, but as soon as they saw the hippogriff come in, they decided to stay out of it, but remained on standby just in case the hippogriff somehow lost. But they would have never expected that this particular human intruder would reveal an otherworldly form and a power that was once only known through legend. Is this it? Has the awaited time arrived? The Jumpings exchange nonverbal expressions and agree to spread the news.
While the situation has settled here, Cait Sith and Moogle have been gunning it in search of the particular thief from earlier. However, trespassers in the Jumpings’ Den see no mercy. They’ve had to dodge and weave through incoming assaults and avoid more collapsed tunnel traps, but by some miracle – maybe praying to Lady Luck was worth something – they managed to pop back out through an exit to the northern slopes. And it so happens that the thief in question has also escaped out here and has been sliding down the snow to get away. With the cat king barking orders in a panic, Moogle claps his hands as if making a quick prayer and makes a dramatic leap off the ledge just as a mob of bloodthirsty Jumpings pop out after them. Riding Moogle as a sled, Cait Sith just barely avoids the mob, who continue to screech angrily after them, but don’t give chase anymore. Relieved to finally be out, Cait even gets a little cheeky and blows raspberry their way.
“Haha! Ye thought ye had us, but there’s no catchin’ the King o’ Cats! Try again next time, softpaws!”
But he’s shortly interrupted when Moogle suddenly slides and flies off a protruding ledge below and the two go for a tumble down the snowy slope. Cait Sith happens to land face first in the snow as he rolls to a stop, only to nearly be crushed under Moogle’s body if he didn’t roll out of the way in time.
“Yeesh… Talk about a rough exit. Kindly warn a cat next time, would ye?”
Moogle looks sorry and nods back.
Cait Sith then slides a little further to a drier ledge nearby and finds a great view from this vantage point. He can even see the town in question just a little further away, dead center in the valley below between two neighboring mountain ranges and does a happy dance.
“We did it! We made it out! There she is, my friend!” But reminding himself, he then turns back to Moogle with a little less cheer. “Though, it might be tough going for Cloud and Aerith. They’re still somewhere in there. I hope they’ll be able to make it out alright.”
Moogle nods back, but then looks around, gets shocked, and raises an arm to point.
“What is it?”
Cait Sith gasps as he looks down toward the ground below them. It seems their thief in a fit of manic glee overestimated itself and practically flew down the slope as if it were a master skier. However, the mountain is still unforgiving to the reckless and the hare ended up tumbling down the slopes a little too fast and landed itself right at the base. Unfortunately, it also begins to panic while down here because they aren’t usually supposed to be out here. This is right in Bandersnatch territory. Though it wasn’t always the case in the past, these days, the hares and the wolves don’t exactly get along.
The Jumping desperately tries to bounce back up the trail, but the snow around here is quite slippery and it slips a few times. Unfortunately, the commotion ends up stirring attention. It hears a deep growl and freezes up. One, no, two, no several more wolves pop up from around the corner and surround the lone hare. It squeaks in fright and drops the white materia it had been holding and makes a mad dash back up the mountain.
But the Bandersnatches don’t take kindly to intruders either. They snarl and pounce and corner the poor hare, blocking its way up. One of the wolves does take a passing interest in the strange colorless orb, but pays it no mind and joins its brethren on the hunt.
Cait Sith shakes his head with a sigh. “These are hard times, alright. Even the fiends are fightin’ with each other.”
Moogle makes a sympathetic look.
“What is it, man? This isn’t our problem. Let’s just get the materia and go…”
Moogle looks sad, sad enough that even the cat gives pause.
“Oh, come on!” Cait groans to himself. “Does it have to come to this? Probably won’t be getting any thanks, but…” He hops back onto Moogle’s back and throws an arm forward. “Okay! Let’s go help ’im! Save ourselves from seein’ a massacre!”
The Bandersnatches are alarmed when they hear a whooping holler from above as the pair slide down and land with a whump right in front of the Jumping. Both Cait and Moogle surround the hare on both sides even while faced against a ring of wolves around them. Once the initial shock passes, the leader of the Bandersnatches snarls, followed by the rest of the pack. And with that signal, the wolves lunge in on their new opponents. But with lightning-quick reflexes, both cat and moogle stand their ground and fend off the barrage of teeth and claws. Normally, Cait would be saving Moogle’s guard for himself, but this time, he leaves Moogle to defend the hare while he goes full cat-mode and hisses while he smacks the wolves around.
Unfortunately, within these close quarters and a victim to save, Moogle can’t exactly detonate himself and their options are limited. The wolves are a well-coordinated bunch and as soon as they learn their new opponents’ attack patterns, they start to avoid them and counterattack. What at first began as a wave of repulsion by the cat-moogle duo shortly turns back in as the wolves gang up on the now vulnerable cat who doesn’t do very much with just a megaphone. Moogle tries to come in to save his partner, but is stuck defending the hare, who has frozen stiff in fear.
Just as Cait Sith is counting his blessings and wishing for a better next life, they suddenly hear a loud howl – not from the mountain above, but from the plains before them. As the Bandersnatches stop to see who it is, Cloud and Aerith arrive as if they had been carried here by the winds. Cloud calmly approaches the pack, looming over them with the intimidating presence of Fenrir. Even when the old legends have nearly faded out of memory, the wisened leader of the pack immediately recognizes the call of their former idol. He growls to the rest of the pack to follow his lead and lowers his head out of respect. Though confused, the younger wolves oblige and follow suit.
Cait Sith and Moogle simply stare at the crowd and back to his companions. “…Uh. What’s goin’ on here?”
Aerith comes up and offers them a Cure spell to bring them back to form. She smiles and reassures them, “Let’s just say, a reunion of sorts.”
“Eh?”
It’s a complete turnaround. The once hyper-aggressive wolves have now fully submitted to their new overlord and lowered their heads out of respect. Cloud now comes over to the others and catches sight of the lone hare, who likewise watches him in awe and likewise takes a bow when it’s seen. From the caves above, more Jumpings have come by to witness the return of the legend. Though none of them say a word, and neither does Fenrir to them, it’s like he’s set an unspoken rule for all to heed. This unfounded war between the wolves and the hares will last no more.
With that settled, Cloud also notices the white materia lying off to the side in the snow and goes to fetch it. “Here, Aerith.”
“Oh. Um…” She hesitates to take it. “Thanks, but maybe you should keep it.”
“What’s wrong? You were holding onto it all this time.”
“Yeah, I was… until just earlier.” She makes a somewhat guilty face. “I haven’t been able to do much with it anyway, and I think it’s safer with you.”
He scoffs. “Nah. I don’t need it. You take it.”
“You sure? It is Rubia’s. Wouldn’t Fenrir want to keep it close?”
He nods. “I’m sure. And she’s a big girl. I don’t need to keep watching over her.”
Aerith smiles, holding back a giggle, and accepts the materia, returning it back to her pocket. There’s something fun about the idea of Cloud still acting the babysitter to Ruby, no matter her shape or form.
Cait Sith scratches his head, but decides it’s best not to question anything. He moves on and turns for the town ahead. “Well, least we’re outta the worst! Icicle Inn’s just up ahead.”
Cloud observes even from afar, “As I thought, there are guards on watch.”
Aerith suggests, “But nothing you can’t handle?”
“They’re not a problem, but it would be annoying if they sound the alarm. Cait said we should first go see the mayor, and that won’t be easy if the entire town is alerted.”
“Yeah, that’s true.” She puts up a thinking face. “So what do we do? Doesn’t seem like we can just go around them either.”
“Aye. Given the shape of the mountains, there are only two exits to the town, the north end and the south. Would be easier if we can just distract them a tad…” Cait Sith shakes his head. “But unless we get some disguises for you two, it might be tricky even for me to slip in.”
Aerith turns to Cloud, looking hopeful. “Or, maybe we can skip them and just warp into town?”
He shakes his head and relays an unspoken message, “Forget it. Fenrir hates towns. He’s not going in there.”
She looks a little disappointed. After that brilliant display of dominance over the wildnerness, it seems the old wolf still has his most petty gripes. But clearly, they’re not going to be able to argue with a long-departed spirit who can just leave whenever he wants.
“But if it’s a distraction we need…” He turns back toward the wolf pack, who are now joined by several more Jumpings that have arrived to see the new coming of their legendary idol up close. “I have an idea.”
~
At the outskirts of town, two Shinra grunts from the town’s garrison stand guard at the southern entrance. But it’s been a long, dull day. Given the rise of fiend attacks on passing travelers as of late, there’s been a sharp decrease in tourists arriving by land or sea. Most of them instead arrive by airlift. Those that do still use the central mountain pass include Shinra-sponsored trucks that bring in imported cargo and additional forces. On the occasion, scouting parties have been sent out to the mountains as well to investigate the source of these attacks and help guard and unblock or maintain the pass where necessary. However, no matter how many times they’re sent, the scouts would return with little to no findings, particularly regarding any interference from humans, and the general consensus has been that the fiends are simply wild creatures like any one would find in nature.
But given recent developments in Midgar, a good portion of the troops previously stationed out here have been relocated and sent back to Midgar or Junon, among other Shinra outposts, and there’s been a general scarcity of troops as a result. There used to be much more back when there was a plethora of scientific activity and surveys of the Northern Crater, up until around 30 years ago when the breakthrough discovery of the remains of a certain creature formerly thought to be of Cetran origin was confirmed in its depths. From there, the once busy lab stationed north of the town would eventually fall to the wayside and be forgotten as just another archive and footnote in Shinra history.
A lone truck, presumed to be carrying cargo, drives along the road into town and stops at the entrance for the usual customs check. When one trooper asks the driver to pull down the window, he’s a little puzzled to find a somewhat rotund and oddly dressed fellow with a suspicious-looking top hat, thick-lensed glasses, and an almost fake-looking mustache, but the fellow does flash some kind of Shinra employee card, so the trooper decides not to think much into it. That said, the guards still insist on giving a check of the cargo itself before they let the truck enter.
And as soon as they open the back doors, they are stunned to find the totally unexpected. While there are certainly plenty of metal and wooden crates in the back of this truck, quite a number of them seem to have been ransacked and emptied. And on top of the mess, a few pairs of large furry ears pop out from some of the crates. Before the guards can even draw their guns, they’re jumped by an entire squad of Jumpings that pop out of the crates. They kick and bite and swing with carrot-shaped clubs, knocking the guards down. Overwhelmed and in a panic, the two guards immediately call for backup.
“Report! Fiend attacks at the south gate! They’ve broken into a supply truck!”
“Where the hell did they even come from- Aaagh!”
Credit where it’s due, the backup forces arrive rather quickly to help the hapless guards that are currently bullied into submission by some extra large hares. However, just as the extra forces arrive, they don’t find only a few naughty hares. Suddenly, an entire battalion of angry wolves and hares have arrived looking like the vanguard for an army.
“What the hell? I thought these guys were supposed to be enemies! Why are they working together!?” one of the aghast troopers asks.
No one can answer him. The next moment, the battalion launches on the attack, ripping and tearing through the ranks with indiscriminate fury. While at first they’re taken quite unaware, the Shinra forces eventually collect themselves together and fend off the threat of this strange legion of fiends, successfully injuring and even knocking down a number of them. Eventually, the Bandersnatches and Jumpings, having held the line for just long enough, quickly scatter and retreat with their injured as soon as they are able. And with a cheer in relief, the troops gather up again to take record of any casualties. It seems not a single trooper was taken out, though many of them see some level of injury that must be treated.
“What in the world was that?” the Shinra commander ponders aloud. “I’ve never seen such a coordinated attack from these fiends before. It almost seems like these supposed enemies had somehow come to an alliance.”
“Sir!” another trooper reports in, “All men are accounted for and the wounded are being tended to accordingly.”
“Good work, soldier. But before you go, a question, just to confirm.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Recent reports from the scouts have largely come up with nothing; that is, no interference from human activity, correct?”
“Yes, sir. Until today, there have been no such fiend attacks on this scale. They’ve been mostly encounters with different animals working independently of one another.”
Up to now, the commander has remained calm, but now finally snaps, “Then, how is it that the Jumpings and Bandersnatches of all things have come to work together!?”
“Uh…”
“Get the word out! Whoever was on the last scouting mission will be seeing me at post headquarters ASAP! We’ll get to the bottom of this just yet.”
“Er, yes, sir…”
As the trooper is excused, the commander then returns to the front of the truck, intending to question the driver for more details. However, now that he looks, he finds that the front seat is empty. In fact, there’s no sign or trace of there having been an oddly dressed man sitting in the front seat. It’s as if by some strange magic, he had vanished into thin air.
“And I’ll also be seeing whoever checked this driver’s ID! What the hell is this slipshod security!?”
As all that mess is still being sorted out, three other travelers had slipped into town unnoticed thanks to the commotion, among them being that oddly dressed fellow from earlier. As soon as they’re far enough away from the south gate, he whips off his costume, revealing a pair of pointy furry ears and a plump furry body.
“Whew, it’s been a while since I’ve had to bring out the ol’ disguise,” Cait Sith muses aloud.
Aerith giggles. “You were great, Cait! You looked just like a real man!”
Cloud, now reverted back to his usual self, also asks, “Where did you even get that outfit? It wasn’t anywhere in that truck.”
Cait snickers to himself and waves a finger his way. “Ne’er underestimate the power of the King o’ the Cats! There’s loads more of tricks I got hidden away in my Toy Box!”
“Uh-huh.” Giving no further to the thought, Cloud turns off to look around town. “So, where’s the mayor’s place?”
“The town hall’s the big building dead-center of the town, so just keep headin’ straight and we’ll find it sure enough.”
And sure enough to his word, Cait Sith leads them onward to a large wooden lodge type of building, where just outside the door is a sign hung off a jutted pole that reads, “Town Hall”. Moogle carries Cait in his hands and raises him forward to give the door handle a turn, and they all head right in, light in their step.
“By the way, Cait, how do you know the mayor?” Aerith asks, just curious. “Is he an old associate of yours or…?”
But before the cat can answer, he and Moogle freeze up with jaws dropped. Now that Cloud and Aerith turn to look, they follow suit as well. While the mayor in question is present at one of the tables, he doesn’t seem to be alone. Three particular black suits are also in attendance and seem to have been discussing things with him. And as soon as Cloud’s party arrives, these black suits turn their attention on them, and for some reason they don’t look surprised in the least.
“Took your sweet time getting here,” Reno comments.
Notes:
Probably needed explanations, lost-in-translations, and more trivia-tions
- So, earlier I said this chapter grew out of expectations and that is frankly an understatement. I had initially planned to be able to dive right into Icicle Inn, but thought that it'd be boring if I cut the road to the town short. So, I then came up with a whole subplot regarding the local wildlife and environment, where Cloud and party would learn valuable life lessons along the way, and it ended up taking over the rest of the chapter. That said, the title is still apt.
- The Jumpings' Den as a location is entirely something I made up to go with the expanded mountainous region. In the original game, Jumpings and Bandersnatches were just random encounters you could find on your way to Icicle Inn and would often come together. I always found that funny, though, considering that they're literally hares and wolves, which in real life do not usually get along. From there, I came up with the premise for the two groups to be at "war" for scarce resources.
- The Snow Hippogriff is entirely a new creature I invented. I noticed that griffins and hippogriffs, given their origins in Egyptian and Greek myth, respectively, would always be shown to live in dry deserts or rather warm but temperate climates. And then I thought, "but what if they were in snow and fluffy?" And I took a page out of real life and made this guy based on actual tundra inhabitants like the snowy owl and reindeer.
- I've renamed the name that Tyr gives the mountains to "Southern Fells", as fjoll is the Old Norse word for "mountain", which was the origin to the more obscure definition of fell: a rocky ridge or chain of mountains.
- Cloud's finishing move here, named "Absolute Zero Dragon's Ascent" is kind of a mouthful, but it's an homage to all the funny long-name anime techniques out there as well as in reference to Cloud's limit break Finishing Touch. I added the "Absolute Zero" in there to indicate that even ice-elemental creatures would not be able to resist this kind of ice.
The original move's name in Japanese is 画竜点睛 (garyoutensei), a four-word idiom that is literally "paint a dragon, dot the eyes"; in other words, adding the final dots to complete the picture. It is also referenced in the original game by the move being a giant twister, like being summoned by a dragon. In traditional East Asian art, dragons would be drawn in a way that their eyes are bulging with tiny dots as pupils. I think it's intended to look fearsome to scare away evil spirits and all, but to little ol' me, I long thought they were just super high-strung or stressed and were easily scared like a cartoon character.
- I ran through so many ideas about how to describe Fenrir and Tyr's relationship. From the old Norse myths, Tyr was regarded as the "God of Victory", but his tales were often overshadowed by those of fan favorites Thor, Loki, and Odin. What he is best known for is sacrificing his hand to Fenrir's maws when it came time to capture the wolf, in the Gods' attempt to prevent an early coming of Ragnarok. Poor Fenrir. I thought it would be much nicer if he and Tyr were able to just stay good buddies and that Tyr didn't have to sacrifice his hand. But even in this story, the two were eventually forced to part ways thanks to intervention of the Pantheon...
- For the record, Fenrir as a pup is quite large. As a pre-adolescent, he already stood to Tyr's shoulder height, and Tyr in this story was always a big dude anyway, like reaching the 7-8 feet in height area.
- It came immediately to me that Fenrir would be able to act as the ancient guardian of the North, and that encompassed all its living creatures. Even the humans, as much as he despises them. And what immediately followed that thought was the plan to throw said wildlife at hapless Shinra guards, lol.
- Now that this chapter set a precedent, I'm gonna have to rewrite the whole plan behind Rubia's history in the crater, haha. I even considered describing the dream that Aerith had, but this chapter has gone long enough. Fortunately, she's got no lack of emotional moments next chapter.
Chapter 68: Light Tracing Shadows
Notes:
Thank you all for your patience. I have been spending much of last week watching too many videos about Black Myth: Wukong and I have no regrets. Okay, maybe one regret: Because I did, I haven't been writing. But hey, you never know when the God of Shonen Tropes may rear his fuzzy head at some point or another. Maybe we'll save that for another time.
This is also the first chapter where I learned there's a 5000 character limit on the author's notes. I understand why there is one, but am a little sad it isn't higher.
Outdated A/N
10/10/24 edit: Next chapter is done and it's long, like double chapters worth of content. Will be posting tomorrow afternoon, PST.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Though Icicle Inn has long been a Shinra outpost, troop presence has become a lot sparser these days since the company’s priorities have shifted elsewhere. Now seems like a good time as any for a certain group of wanted fugitives to pass by without getting into too much trouble. Following Cait Sith’s suggestions, Cloud and party would first pay a visit to the mayor to gather some useful info, but it looks like some unwelcome faces have been waiting for them.
“The Turks!?” Aerith gasps. “Why are they here!?”
At one of the tables, Reno, Rude, and Elena have been in a discussion with the mayor in question. The gray, scruffy-bearded gentleman, who is otherwise unassuming in his deep blue parka and woolen cap, is likewise startled to meet the insurgents that he was just warned about, and he makes a troubled frown as he reconsiders his thoughts.
“You guys!” Elena barks, standing up just to shake a fist their way. “You got a lotta nerve just waltzing in here like you’re just civilians!”
“Looks like it’s just these three,” Rude calmly observes. “Probably to scout the town.”
Reno is kicked back in his seat and looks very bored to be here. “Yeah, I thought so too. Odd time to make a random detour, but whatever.” He passes their new visitors a casual glance and back to his partner. “Funny, huh? Feels weird not having to deal with a certain someone anymore.”
“…” He quietly pushes up on his shades with a solemn face. “Yeah, it’s pretty noticeable.”
He clicks his tongue and lets off a disappointed sigh. “And just when I was getting used to being in her shadow… Now I’m even missing the shade.”
Cloud can only stare back as some intrusive thoughts come to mind. How the hell did the Turks follow them here? Even if they did know that they would be heading north to find Sephiroth, Aerith told them to change course to this town just earlier. The only explanation is that someone had to have informed them of this change. But the only people aboard were just their own party and Cid’s old crew, which he doubts would have been able to alert Shinra while their captain wasn’t looking. Then… that only leaves one person. His disbelief now turns to suspicion and he turns to Cait with a glare.
The cat returns a nervous look. “Uh… Something wrong, Cloud?”
“You didn’t give away our location, did you?”
“W-w-what!?” Cait nearly falls off of Moogle, but climbs back up. “How can you say such a thing, man!? I’ve been loyal to a fault since I came aboard!”
Cloud scoffs to that. “Really? After your whole act at the Gold Saucer?”
Cait Sith sinks in shame. “W-well, yes, there was that. But honest, this wasn’t me! I don’t know how they knew we’d be here!”
Aerith shakes her head. “Cloud, let’s not blame Cait. He’s been such a big help, even considering what happened then.”
He turns back to her. “Aerith, he’s still Shinra. The only reason we had him tag along was because Ruby trusted that he could be our ‘insider’. But look how that mess turned out.”
“Yeah, but…” But she isn’t sure what else to say.
He shakes his head. “I don’t wanna believe it either, but how would the Turks have been able to track us?” He brings the glare back to Cait. “Someone had to have ratted us out.”
Cait Sith sinks even lower, to the point that Moogle has to hold him up so he doesn’t fall. “Oof… I know we’ve been on bad terms in the past, but this is different.” He pulls back up with his hands clapped together, pleading, “I swear on me mum’s ashes, I really had nothing to do with this! Ye gotta believe me!”
“Why should we? It’s not the first time you’ve been buddy-buddy with these guys.”
“…” Cait lets off a deep sigh, but answers straight, “It may sound like an excuse now, but the only other possibility I can think of is that the Highwind might’ve been tapped.”
“Tapped?” Aerith asks.
“Wiretapped. So Shinra would still be able to hear everything onboard.”
“What!?”
Cloud remains unmoved. “And who else could have put it there while we weren’t looking?” His words press Cait back down like an oppressive force.
Aerith puts up a thinking face. “Well, there were a couple times we gave a ride to the Turks too.”
He answers her, “Sure, but we still kept them in sight while we had them. And who knows when it was placed? Could’ve been way earlier.”
“Hmm…” She still remains unconvinced and instead turns to the Turks themselves. “By any chance, did you guys wiretap our ship?”
Reno raises an eyebrow her way. “Huh? You’re asking us?”
She puts her hands on her hips and makes a stern face. “Well, if it was you guys, shouldn’t you just come out with it? Makes things easier for everyone.”
“Hmph.” He gives her a dismissive handwave. “We’re not saying a word. It’s your problem, not ours.”
“It wouldn’t make a difference either way. We always have our ways to keep track of you all,” Rude advises firmly.
“Ha! Not that you’d find it on there anyway!” Elena blurts out. “It’s not like you’d always be on the ship, so…”
“Elena,” Reno and Rude both warn her.
“Uh…” She quickly backtracks. “Anyway! It’s in a super secret place that you won’t ever find!”
Aerith drops her arms, feeling a bit disappointed. “Sheesh. After our talk with your president before, he still won’t leave us alone.”
Getting even more impatient, Cloud issues his own warning, grabbing at his sword’s hilt. “Whatever. Keep stalking us, but you’ll never catch us. If the last time wasn’t enough of a wake-up call, I’ll be glad to give you another taste of Absolute Zero.”
Yet, Reno remains casual and shakes his head. “Hey, hey. Take it easy. This is a tourist spot, you know. If we start something now, you’ll have a lot more to answer for than just some ice sculptures.”
Elena punches into her other hand. “Not that we’d be those sculptures! I’ve been practicing smashing through thermite boxes! Your ice is nothing!”
Rude explains, “For the record, we aren’t here to arrest you. The president is aware of your objective and has no intention of getting in your way.”
“Huh?” Cloud narrows his eyes. “Then why are you here?”
“To observe you and make sure you’re on the right track. You are headed for the Northern Crater to find Sephiroth, aren’t you?”
“Tch…” He then lets his sword go and crosses his arms too. “So you’re just gonna leave him to us, huh?”
Rude pushes up his shades. “It would be to everyone’s well-being that the man be taken out as soon as possible. Your group just so happens to be our best option, all things considered.”
Reno also brings up, “So it came as a surprise that you’d even stop here. I get that you might wanna prepare yourselves and all, but you don’t seriously think that you can just walk in on one of our top-secret labs, do ya?”
“If you intend to visit any Shinra-authorized facility, it’s protocol that you be attended by company agents like us. There may be secrets that shouldn’t be leaked, after all.”
Aerith blinks, making an innocent-looking face. “Actually… yeah. I was thinking we could just walk in.”
“Don’t be stupid!” Elena barks back. “You’d still need the access key! How else would you get in?”
She points to the guy beside her. “Cloud can smash through anything now.”
“Huh?” Elena blinks, a little taken aback. “What are you talking about? He can’t just…” But as she recalls what she heard from the Midgar prison reports, her voice trails off and her face grows horrified.
Aerith makes a playful smirk as she keeps going, “Oh, no, he sure can! After all, we got the full power of a Summon, and he’s also on Ruby’s level, you know. I bet he could bring down a whole city by himself!”
Elena does such an animated double-take that she nearly tips over. “N-no way! That’s just dumb! He can’t be that powerful!?”
Now that Aerith mentions it, Cloud gets an inkling that something similar might have happened before, long ago when the old wolf was still roaming free. Though he himself would not do anything so reckless, he also feels no obligation to correct her.
Aerith finishes with a shrug. “Well, you don’t have to take my word for it, but you really don’t wanna test him.”
And Elena is back to grinding her teeth. “Y-you…! Just because you got lucky with a freak accident!” She calls to her partners too, “Come on, guys! We can’t just let them walk all over us because of that!”
Rude lets off a sigh. “Ms. Gainsborough, with all due respect, please don’t go there. Things will be much easier if you comply for now.”
Reno complains too, “We’re already giving you some slack because your wolf-in-human-clothes is so jacked up. At least throw us a bone too!”
“Oh, my God!” Elena whines, planting a hand over her face.
Aerith turns to Cloud with a whimsical wink, while the latter glances off idly, awkward to be put on the spot like this. Surely, she realizes that Fenrir only appears in emergencies? He couldn’t care less about some Turks. Then again, Aerith sure knows how to talk them in or out of things. He could keep playing along for now.
Elena looks so disappointed at her coworkers. “Every time we run into Ruby, you two do nothing and just complain. And now we run into Cloud and you’re back to complaining! Whatever happened to the Turks!?”
“Shut up, Elena. If you wanna be a popsicle, leave us out of it,” Reno mumbles.
“Ugh!” She instead throws a threatening finger Cloud’s way. “Don’t you dare get cocky with us! Freak accident or not, you’re barking up the wrong tree! Don’t forget that it was all your fault that Boss got so roughed up by Sephiroth!”
“That was his own fault,” Cloud retorts.
“Argh! I HATE you! That’s it! I’m out!” She stamps her foot and stomps out for the exit. “You’re not getting any help from me!”
“Hey, where are you going?” Reno asks.
“Somewhere else! If you two wanna be nice to our enemies, leave me out of it!”
“Oh, great. Not this again…”
Elena won’t listen to any other reason. She just ups and leaves. Aerith is a little surprised that the other two don’t even move from their seats.
“You sure you should just let her go like that?” she asks them.
Reno slumps back into his seat with a tired frown. “She’s just having a moment. Better to stay out of it.”
“In any case,” Rude continues, getting back to business, “As mentioned, we’ll accompany you to the lab. But before we go, would you mind giving this man some of your time?”
Cloud’s eyes flicker to attention. “Hm?”
Rude turns back to the gentleman sitting with them. “They’re all yours, sir.”
The mayor, having been waiting patiently in silence, now nods and speaks up. “Under normal circumstances, I would be hesitant to ask for assistance from just anyone, especially from fugitives on the run, but as things have turned out, we have little choice.”
“What’s wrong?” Aerith asks.
“You see, since a few days ago, we had a few unexpected visitors in town. Certainly not fiends, but also not quite, well – how should I put this – normal. There was a group of people all wearing the same black robes and while they left us alone, it put a hamper on the local tourism for a bit.”
“Black robes?” Cloud recalls, “There were a lot of them back at the old capital, but they still showed up here?”
“They are Jenova subjects and all,” Cait Sith mumbles. “Probably still heeding Sephiroth’s call.”
“Ah, so you are familiar with them?” The mayor nods. “Fortunately, the group didn’t stay in town for long, though they didn’t heed our warnings either and headed north without a word.”
Cait Sith makes a quiet gasp. “What? They just went out there?”
Aerith turns to him. “What’s wrong? Is it dangerous territory?”
“Worse than your usual ‘dangerous’! Down here in the valley it’s still reasonable to travel so long as you’re prepared for the occasional fiends and such, but out there, you might as well sign your prayers and wait to meet your end! That great expanse of white is the Great Glacier, the most frigid, most unforgiving, worst-to-get-lost-in place on the planet! Everywhere ye look, it’s just snow and ice, with freezing storms that can blast ye blind and ridges so icy even the locals struggle to climb! No place is free of fiends either, so there’s no hiding in the caves to pass the worst. No one but a few exceptions have ever made it across alive, needless to say, all in sound mind.”
She blinks, looking more amazed than scared. “Huh.”
The mayor nods along with a grave face. “At the very least, there is a safehouse for passing travelers at the border between the end of our slopes and the rest of the glacier beyond. However, once you cross that border, there’s no coming back. Unfortunately, it’s not the biggest shelter, so I don’t think it would be able to hold all of them for long.” The mayor then looks between the trio and requests with a serious face, “Though it’s not my place to make demands of you, if you could follow them and make sure they’re still alright, that would be for the best.”
“Well…” Cait Sith scratches his head. “I suppose we’ll be fine with Cloud around, but it’s hard to say what might happen to those poor blokes. If they left a few days ago, chances are that they might not still be around.”
“Yes, that is the problem. But you never know if there may be survivors.”
Aerith then turns back to Cloud. “What do you think? Maybe we should go check on them, just in case.”
He frowns, unsure of what it’d accomplish. “I guess, but if they’re following a route led by Sephiroth, I don’t think we can stop them from crossing. And who knows what he plans to do with them.”
“Yeah, but we can worry about that when we get there. It feels awful to just leave them like this.”
“…”
Though he’s still hesitant to have to get involved in things like this, he does still feel a tinge of wariness mixed in with responsibility, especially given all that happened back in the Forgotten Capital. Those people were just led there by Sephiroth in the first place and ended up becoming sacrifices to Jenova. Things could only get worse if they keep leaving them alone.
Finally, he turns to the mayor and nods back. “Alright. We’ll go take a look. No guarantees, but we’ll see what we can do.”
Aerith smiles proudly. “Thanks, Cloud.”
The mayor lets off a sigh in relief. “Ah, you will? Thank you! Much appreciated. Even if you don’t bring them all back, it will put our folks at ease knowing that they haven’t simply been abandoned.”
He casually nods along and turns back to the other two. “Alright. Now it’s your turn.”
Without another word, Rude readjusts his shades and gets to his feet, followed by a more lax Reno. The two Turks promptly take their leave and the party follows them outside and they all head northward. Now with the company of the Turks, any troops on standby in the area don’t pay them any mind, so that’s one less hassle they have to deal with.
“So, what is this lab anyway?” Aerith asks out of curiosity.
Reno frowns. “You’re heading there without even knowing that?”
“Well, all I know is that it’s some place that’s important to Rubia’s past. So we have to go there to see if she’s left behind any clues or so.”
“Huh? You mean the psycho who was gonna end the world with Meteor if you didn’t give her what she wanted to hear? Why would you want to know anything about her?”
Aerith doesn’t take kindly to that description, but she decides to ignore it. “Because it could help us understand what she meant about the fate of this world and how she came to be so cynical. If there’s something we can do to change her outlook, she might even help us against Sephiroth.”
Reno rolls his eyes, passing a quick glance to his partner as if to beckon him to reason with her. Rude asks in his place, “Even if you were to learn something from this lab, how would that help you convince her? Especially considering that she would have a history that spans across many time periods. Her involvement with Shinra would be no more than an afterthought.”
“I don’t really know, but I get the feeling that there’s probably been some kind of misunderstanding in all of this. It’s not that Rubia just wants to destroy everything. She must know what’s really going on with it to resort to such drastic measures.”
Rude also raises an eyebrow and looks back to Reno, who just shrugs back. Clearly, this is getting into some kind of esoteric subject that is going to go well above their heads. It’s probably for the best that they not question it anymore.
But now that she brings it up, Cait also has to ask, “By the way, if I’ve got my facts right, this lab once was overseen by Professor Feramis some years ago, wasn’t it? But since his disappearance, it’s been turned into a sort of archive. Who’s been overseeing it in his stead these days? I rarely ever hear of news coming from here, so…”
“No one. The place was abandoned for the last 30 years,” Reno answers.
“I believe the last person to ever use the facility was Hojo,” Rude recalls. “He led the transfer of all relevant material from this lab to Midgar for further studies, so if I’m to be honest, there might not be much left behind here.”
Cait Sith frowns to himself. Of course it was Hojo who cleaned house. It may be a miracle if they expect to find anything noteworthy.
Yet, Aerith remains driven. “That’s okay. We’ll dig through whatever there still is.”
It isn’t much longer before the Turks lead them past some evergreen thicket to a lone building at the northwest edge of town. Though the road here has largely been snowed over and is difficult to discern from the rest of the snowfield, the dark brick building in question is easy to spot from afar. Despite being an authorized Shinra facility, the place actually looks more like an ordinary lodge that is oddly situated at the edge of town rather than in its foreground. There are some discarded wooden crates covered in helpings of snow, sitting in the sideyard near the trees, but other than them, the place looks rather unassuming at first glance.
That said, the front door to the building stands out quite a bit. Rather than the usual wooden door that most other buildings in town have, this one is straight up metal, outfitted with Shinra tech like the particular card reader that is set over where the door handle would have been. Rude volunteers his card and they’re granted access. The door slides open as if it were on rails, and they all step inside. The door then slides shut and locks automatically.
Interestingly, what greets them at first isn’t the inner workings of a Shinra facility, but what appears to be an ordinary single-room home, complete with a fireplace in the living room, a homely-looking kitchen, a book study corner, and a flight of stairs leading up to the bedrooms on the second floor. While Cloud and Cait Sith look around, feeling quite confused, Aerith stares with growing curiosity at all the little details around the room.
“This is…” she begins, but her voice drifts off.
“What’s up?” Cloud asks her. “You recognize it?”
“…” Though at first, her eyes were full of wonder and intrigue, they then show a hint of sadness as she comes to realize something. She lowers her head in thought, and then replies softly, “I’m not sure, but I feel like I’ve been here before.”
“…?”
Aerith doesn’t give him any more answers, and Cloud feels like it might not be the best time to pry. In any case, as nice as this home looks, it certainly doesn’t look like the place that they’re looking for. He turns back to the Turks.
“So, where’s the lab?” he asks.
“Inside,” Reno answers succinctly, unwilling to explain further.
The Turks then stop by the book study area and flip open the dusty rug to find a hatched door leading down into the basement. To their surprise, though, the rusty latch that had been keeping the door sealed seems to have been cracked open. Rude flips open the door and the pair peers down the dark shaft. With growing caution, they descend the stone steps into the basement. Reno, with electric baton drawn out, flicks it on to give him a dim light source, just enough for him to find a nearby light switch.
However, as soon as the lights flicker back on, everyone is shocked to find that the dusty old lab is looking more like some kind of storehouse. Several chests, lit up by florescent lights akin to those found back in Midgar, line the walls and corners in no particular order, some of which have been placed in front of tables and bookshelves – with one area as the exception. The lone computer panel against the wall to their left has instead been cleared, with various boxes shoved aside to make way. By its desk lie several books and old video tapes that seem to have recently been dusted off. And in the back of the room, there is one large tank container that seems to have been broken as if something that was inside had once broken out. The glass shards around at its floor have not been cleaned up. There had been a cautionary tape strewn around the area, but even that has been severed and its split ends lie crumpled on the floor. And all that is covered by a thick layer of dust.
Reno and Rude look around in disbelief and turn to each other, either one as alarmed as the other. “The hell is this?” Reno asks for the both of them.
Cait Sith also asks, “Didn’t ye say this place was abandoned?”
Reno frowns his way. “Yeah. Who left all this crap here?”
Cloud also points out, “They look new. Not a lick of dust on them.”
Rude puts up a thinking face. “The latch to the door was broken too. Seems like there’s been an intruder not long ago.”
Reno asks further, “But how? The front door didn’t look like it was disturbed at all. Unless the intruder used some other way in?”
His partner shakes his head. “I don’t know about any other entrance. Maybe this person tried to cover up their tracks outside? It does snow constantly, so that might not be too difficult.”
“…” Just on a whim, Reno then turns to Cloud. “You got any ideas?”
“You’re asking me? I’ve never been here before.”
“Ya don’t say…” Reno scratches his head with an annoyed frown. “And here I thought our intruder might’ve warped in or something.”
Now that he mentions it, though, Cloud does get an idea. “…Ruby?”
“Eh?” Cait turns to him, looking surprised. “Cloud, you don’t think it was her, do you? Even if she didnae have Rubia controlling her, why would she come here?”
He folds his arms and thinks it over. “Dunno, but she was gone for a while before we found Rubia again. And I doubt this would be Sephiroth’s doing. He has no connection to this place.”
“So what kind of connection does Ruby have?”
“…”
While the rest of them deliberate over possibilities, Aerith slowly wanders around the room, taking in every detail of the place as if trying to find a match in her own memories. She stops at the foot of the broken container, just before she would step amid the shards, and takes another moment of silence to gauge what could have happened here. By now, she’s certain that this place seems familiar, but why is that? Did she ever come here? Or perhaps, was she here to begin with? She shakes her head with a sigh. It’s too fuzzy. They must be memories from so long ago that she doesn’t remember them clearly.
Cloud then stops beside her, taking a quick look at the container, but finds nothing of note. He turns to her to ask, “Did you remember something?”
She sadly shakes her head. “Not yet, but give me a moment. If only there was something I could use as a hint…”
He turns back to the tank with a raised eyebrow. “What is this anyway? Clearly something broke out, but…”
She also observes, “The glass shards and the broken tape, they’re all so dusty. Seems like the scene was like this for a really long time.”
At a loss for ideas, the two then turn toward the Turks, who likewise look unsure. Cloud asks Reno again, “You said this place was abandoned for 30 years, right?”
“Yeah. What about it?”
Cloud strikes his own thinking pose. “30 years… Seems to line up with the start of the Jenova Project. And I bet Project Immortals came along shortly after.”
Aerith suggests, “Do you think this is the place where they started it?”
“Not sure, but could be. Rufus also mentioned that Rubia escaped not long after her capture.” He turns back to the tank. “This might be where she was held at the time.”
“I was thinking the same. So, I guess Rubia did have a reason to come here?”
“Maybe… but I don’t think it’s out of nostalgia. Did she have to pick up something?”
“More like leave a buncha shit behind,” Reno complains again. “Turned this place into her own storage like she owns it.”
“Since it’s been abandoned, the company wouldn’t be thinking about checking back here either,” Rude brings up. “Not a bad place to hide something.”
Aerith makes her own thoughtful look. “But why hide it? Did she have something she had to keep safe?”
Cloud reminds her, “Oh, yeah. Didn’t Rubia give you hints in that dream to come here?”
She nods back. “Ah, that’s right. Huh, so is all this meant for us?” She looks around the area and stops by the closest chest to her. “I wonder what’s inside.”
Before she can open it up, though, they suddenly hear a cat’s frightened yowl and turn to look. Cait Sith looks so shocked that he’s slipped off of his moogle, and at his feet appears to be a loose browned paper that had fallen to the floor. While discussions were underway, the cat and his moogle stopped near the desk by the computer and out of curiosity, Cait flipped open some of the books left out on it. As he suspected, they were all records and logs from Professor Gast’s days, back during the early excursions into the Northern Crater. But he hadn’t expected a certain loose page to fall out from one of the books. He took a peek, noting that it had slightly different handwriting and that the ink looked relatively fresh, and he went for a tumble as soon as he saw who signed it.
He climbs back to his feet and dusts himself off, but he still stares in disbelief at the paper. “Incredible! So she knew…”
“Cait, what happened?” Cloud asks as he and Aerith hurry on over.
“What’d you find?” she asks too.
Cait Sith’s ears sag and he sadly hands over the loose page to them. “It’s… a letter from Ruby.”
“!?”
Now that catches everyone’s attention, including the Turks accompanying them. Cloud proceeds to read it aloud.
“Hey, everyone,
I’m sorry. By the time you find this letter, I probably won’t be around anymore. I don’t know what to expect in these next three days, but if everything does go as planned, I should be the only one who has to go.
Rubia hasn’t said a word to me since I blacked out, but maybe something has changed because I found myself back in control of this body. I’ve taken this chance to use the rest of our funds and gather the proper equipment and materia to prepare you all for the upcoming battles. There should be several chests in this room. Feel free to take what’s inside. They’re not the end-all-be-all ultimate gear that I would have preferred, but they’re all plenty powerful and look sick as hell.
Unfortunately, there was one materia that I couldn’t get a hold of: the Knights of the Round Table. I knew where to look for the shrine. I figured the materia would be there, but it wasn’t. I tried to reach out to them, but I didn’t get any response. I was at a loss. I didn’t know if I did anything wrong or if I arrived too late for it to matter. Either way, it looks like I won’t be the one to call them.
But I didn’t leave there empty-handed. There was another materia I found in its place: an independent materia named ‘Premonition’. From what I’ve learned, it has a power that will ‘awaken your inner spirit’ or something. I’ve never run into this materia before so I don’t really know how it works, but I saved it anyway. Hope you guys will put it to good use.
You may be wondering why I’d write a letter instead of saying anything directly. Truth is, I have too many regrets. Too much I want to tell, but not enough time or even the face to say it aloud. But while I can still get my jumbled thoughts onto paper, I’ll try. I chose this location specifically because it has remained untouched for many years and I hope it stays that way. It is a very important place to me as well as to you, Aerith. With a little digging, you’ll understand.
My dear cousin, I know how hard it is and will be, but please, against all odds, I want you to live. I trust that you, with everyone’s help, can save Rubia. Show her what it means to be a family. It won’t be easy. She keeps many secrets close and it may take a miracle and then some to pry them open, but I know you won’t give up. Learn as much as you can so you know what and how to teach her. You can start by looking around here. There are records that may show her in a bad light; deadly sins that she’s committed of her own will. I won’t ask any of you to forgive her – I’m plenty disappointed myself – but if you guys can at least guide her on the right path again, then I know my short existence would still have been worth it.
Cloud, and everyone else, stay strong and stay vigilant. You’re more than capable of carrying on without me to guide you. Never give up, never give in to fear or doubt. It doesn’t matter how powerful Sephiroth can get, since he’s heading down a suicidal route without realizing it. Unlike him, you have unlimited possibilities for the future. Every one of you holds the power to change your own destinies, though it will be up to you to make them a reality. But I have faith that something, a hint of sorts, will give you a push in the right direction. All it takes is one to lead and the pack will follow.
I wish I could stay around a bit longer, even if just one last time. It’s honestly scary to think about. I don’t know what will become of me from here. I can’t return to the planet and I don’t even have my own physical being in the first place. Rubia can only give me so long before she will have to retake her rightful place. Even if I am ever reborn, I might not know who I used to be. But while I hang out in limbo, I’ll hold out hope that this won’t be forever. One day, be it in this life or the next, we’ll meet again.
- Ruby.”
A sullen silence falls over the room as Cloud finishes reading. So it was her after all; explains how someone was able to break in without leaving much of a trace. But for her to have left a letter of all things… So she knew what to expect from her incoming end and even some things in the aftermath. She never forgot the battle plan; just never got a chance to tell anyone before she ran out of time. With a sigh, he returns the paper to the desk.
He then turns to Aerith, who has grown completely silent since he started, and checks with her. “Hey. How are you feeling?”
She lifts her head, looking quite weary, and nods slowly. “I’m alright.”
“…”
“I know I will be too.” She then takes a deep breath and calmly lets it out, and brings back a smile as she states confidently, “I’m glad that Ruby’s got us covered.”
He blinks, pleasantly surprised that she’s holding up well enough, and cracks his own smirk. “Sounds like her. No way she’d leave us be with that sudden exit. She was always up in our business.”
“Yeah… She may seem like a quirky kid, but she’s always thinking a step ahead or more.”
His smirk fades as he recounts a few times prior to the contrary. “Would be better she were less quirky and more steady with those steps ahead, though.”
She gives a light chuckle to that. “Maybe, but I don’t think she’ll ever cut down the quirky part.”
“…”
Cait Sith stares at the both of them, startled how easily that conversation seemed to pass. He exchanges puzzled looks with his moogle, but they too catch on with the mood. He brings out a proud smile of his own and declares, “Well, it looks like the quirky lass left us a whole treasure trove! Let’s have a look-see, shall we?”
Aerith nods back. “Right!”
And the three get busy, searching the chests that have been waiting for them, to which the Turks, though disturbed and uneasy, can do nothing but let it happen. As Ruby promised, she gathered quite a bit for them: A*M Cannon for Barret, Crystal Gloves for Tifa, Tripwire Collar for Nanaki, Oritsuru for Yuffie, Hung Gar Paang for Sonon, Crystal Megaphone for Cait Sith, Supershot ST for Vincent, Scimitar for Cid. Cloud even discovers a massive dual-tipped sword named Apocalypse just for him, and Aerith finds a certain winged staff named Princess Guard. Cait Sith likewise uncovers another chest full of different kinds of materia, including but not limited to the magic spell Comet, the summon Typhon, the supporting Quadra Magic, the independent HP <-> MP, and the command Mime. Last but not least, there’s another chest that’s just stuffed full of Elixirs, like a mind-boggling amount of them. Aren’t they supposed to be really rare? Where did she even get them?
Nevertheless, as if he too were some grand wizard, Cloud snatches them all up and adds them to the inventory. With their stocks sufficiently filled, he then turns for the desk and steps up to have a closer look. “She also said there would be some records that we should look through. Maybe these tapes she’s left out?”
Aerith comes up too. “Let’s see… Hey, this one just says the name ‘Gast Faremis’. Gast…? Oh! That’s the name of the professor who lead this team, right?”
“Aye, that’s right.” Cait Sith also checks a neighboring tape. “And this one’s labeled ‘Northern Cave’. Probably logging the expeditions from way back when.” He turns to Cloud. “Which one should we start with?”
Cloud strikes a thoughtful pose. “Well, we’re probably gonna look through all of them, so I guess we’ll start with the expedition log. Would explain why he and his team were here in the first place.”
“Okay!” The cat then hops off of Moogle and onto the table, where he takes the tape and slides it into the computer’s receiver. With a few quick taps on the keyboard, he finds a list of several logs. Out of curiosity, he gets the first of them to play.
~
The first log was a rather by-the-book introduction and overview. It started with a brief introduction to the team led by the good professor; as well as a few fellow scientists and their staff, some troops provided by Shinra, and a scruffy-looking man who appeared to be their guide. The team was sent in to investigate some cautionary reports from the town about a certain white dragon that appeared in the area in recent months. Though the locals had long been aware of its existence, treating it as a guardian of folklore since olden times, it concerned them that the beast would appear much more frequently in recent months. It came as a bad omen, as even the fiends would be stirred up more than usual and grew bolder. Ever the opportunists, Shinra would take the volatile landscape as a chance to throw their hat into the ring. Following those reports, they initially sent in planes to scout the area, but thanks to the fearsome blizzards, visibility would be difficult and none ever managed to locate the dragon in question. The company then greenlit this expedition over land to explore and map the contents of the crater in much greater detail. Just to be safe, they would also send in a few newly instated proto-Soldier operatives to join them.
However, over the next few logs, things would start to get dangerous. At the start of the expedition, everyone was full of excitement, almost oblivious to the warnings from the locals. The guide led them north out of town and they ventured through rugged terrain, first by snowmobile, but eventually the area was too steep for the vehicles to proceed and they had to resume on foot. Unfortunately, the Great Glacier was always so unfriendly. A sweeping blizzard barred the team’s efforts to press forward and they would be held back for several hours until the coast was relatively clear.
However, that would only be the start of their troubles. It seemed almost conspicuously planned that every time a blizzard would come to a halt, suddenly fiends would appear in great numbers and ambush them. Men would suddenly disappear mysteriously and without a sound, fiends out of hiding would attack and scatter the team, and quite a few times, Gast’s crew would end up lost in the ensuing chaos. Even while they were on the search for the rest of their people, the professor nearly fell into a deep crevice, but was saved by their guide and a few others. By the time their guide managed to lead them out the other side of the snowfields, the survivors were sparse, from a full team of 30 members, not counting the troops, to a meager 6 without the troops and only the three Soldiers left to defend. After such an exhausting journey, they had to settle in at the foot of the next set of peaks, as it would have been impossible to keep treading forward without rest. It was around here where their guide advised to set up a safehouse, not only to mark a checkpoint on their journey, but also as a safety measure in case any other travelers were ever to come this way again.
“Wait. What is that?”
“Professor, up in the sky!”
Yet, even while the men rested, they would catch a wondrous sight. As it turned out, there was a large, beautiful creature soaring high above them, circling the lands as if they were its domain. It was indeed the dragon they’d been looking for, with a body so white that it would have blended in with the snow. And as soon as it noticed the new arrivals, it took off north for the crater and disappeared out of sight once again. Fascinated and taking it as a good omen, the ragged and nearly depleted team would find renewed hope that their hard journey would eventually bring them the precious data they sought.
However, from this point forward, their guide would not continue. The lands beyond were taboo to enter as per tradition. Even if the legendary wolf Fenrir hadn’t been witnessed since ancient times and that said tales were coming to be little more than fantasies by this age, the locals still insisted on keeping out. Superstitition aside, no one in the right mind would have wanted to head into the big, scary crater rumored to be full of monsters anyway. Nevertheless, Gast and the remainder of his team would resume without the guide in the name of science. They somehow made it further past the rest of the icy peaks, eventually to the edge of the crater, where they would meet a fantastic view of the areas beyond, and finally into the caves below.
And what a discovery they would make! Hidden in a certain cavern was an enormous, magnificent, splendidly glittering wall of ice and crystal that held some unknown creature within it. Though the ice itself was thick and segmented, the team could still see through well enough to identify some rather strange features, almost unlike anything else they’d ever seen. It wasn’t as big as the dragon as they saw before, but it was still quite large. Though up front, it looked like it had a humanoid body, like that of a woman, it also had a huge ball-shaped sac even larger than itself behind it, seemingly attached by some kind of fleshy bridge at the base of the woman’s body.
However, not long after they would approach the ice, they would also hear a mighty roar from above. All of a sudden, the huge white dragon from earlier pounced upon the hapless men and tear viciously through the crowd, ripping some unlucky victims into pieces with its maws and claws alike. Though the Soldiers also leapt into action to defend them, even they posed little challenge for the beast, who managed to knock all three of them out with a few death-laden strikes.
“Stop! Stop! Lay down your arms! Do not engage!”
“Professor!?”
“Gast! What are you doing!? Get back here!”
However, even when faced with this terrifying threat, the professor refused to let the creature be hurt anymore. He suddenly jumped into the fray, flailing his arms to catch everyone’s attention, and even stood with his back to the dragon as if trying to stand between them. Just as everyone thought he would become the beast’s next snack, the dragon stared at this strange man with curiosity. Taking his chance while he still had his life, Gast also turned to the dragon and dropped down to his knees as if offering respect.
“Please! Great White One, we mean no harm! We are but humble scientists exploring a foreign land!”
“Gast! Have you lost your mind!? Get away!”
But Gast would be the wiser one, for he didn’t see the dragon as merely a beast, but as a being of reason. To everyone else’s shock, the white dragon would grow calmer and its intimidating precense would cede, to reveal an elegant creature that while still wary, would at least hold its fury against this particular man.
“Please spare us! We will leave as soon as we have confirmed some questions! You see, it was just a month prior that we had received reports of strange signals coming from this area – energy waves that didn’t quite match anything we had recorded before. So a team was sent in to investigate, but the trek was terrible and our numbers have already dwindled down to these few.”
The dragon didn’t utter a sound, but it turned toward the rest of the cowering men and few Soldiers who were all laid out, snorting indignantly, maybe even pitifully at the sight. Without answering Gast either, it instead turned toward the great crystal behind them.
“Can you help us? What is that strange entity in the ice?”
Again, the dragon didn’t answer. However, what would happen instead would be to everyone’s astonishment. Facing the crystal, the white dragon suddenly reared up on its hind legs and set its foreclaws upon the icy wall. With a bright glint to its eyes and the red streaks seeping down from them, it would silently cast some kind of spell which effects would strike upon the ice and spread to cover it in its entirety. And just like that, whatever magic had once sealed it was broken and the icy wall would begin to crack and crumble away, revealing the strange creature inside.
But that was the extent of which the dragon would be of help, at least at this time. As soon as the team could access the alien-looking creature, the dragon would take off for the skies once more and then zoom away fast enough that it looked like it had teleported away.
~
The video log ends there; the fourth and last among those on this particular tape. Though it looks like the tape could have held more files, these are the only ones that remain. The entire group that had been witness to the events stand by in abject shock, confusion, and concern. Cait Sith blinks a few more times and then scratches his head.
“Unbelievable. So it was Rubia who unsealed Jenova? I know the lassie was troubled, but this is…”
Reno returns a scoff. “Like I said, psycho.” But Rude, seeing how sad Aerith looks, gives him a soft jab in the side with his elbow, and Reno, quick to catch on, mutters an apology her way. “Sorry, bad joke.”
Cloud is frowning too, but he’s still watching the screen as if still processing everything. He then shakes his head with a sigh. “Honestly, this isn’t really a surprise.”
Cait Sith turns to him. “How do ye figure? Did Rubia ever mention it to you?”
He folds his arms and looks off as he recalls, “Well, not exactly. She didn’t give me any details, but there was one time she admitted that it was her doing that Jenova was brought to this planet in the first place.”
“Oh, yeesh. Yeah, that’s not a good look.”
“…” He then turns back to Aerith and drops his arms. “Aerith, did you ever know about this?”
She pulls her head back up and shakes her head. “I could never reach her, so I didn’t know what she was thinking.”
He turns back to the screen and striking a thinking pose, continues to ponder aloud, “Why did Rubia show up at all? What was the point of attacking Gast’s crew and then releasing Jenova? Did she expect that they would be arriving to take Jenova away?”
Cait Sith and Moogle shrug in unison. “You got us there, man. We’ve not a clue what she was planning. But if she really intended to bring Jenova to the planet, then she probably wanted the alien to spread her genes everywhere, like a plague.”
“If she just wanted humanity to die out, why leave Jenova to them, though? She could easily have taken Jenova’s power for herself and wiped everyone out. With all the Summons gone and no Sephiroth born yet, no one would be able to stop her.”
But Aerith shakes her head. “I don’t believe it. I don’t think Rubia wanted everyone to die out.”
He turns back to her with a look of sympathy. “Well, even if she really thought spreading Jenova’s influence would somehow better everyone’s lives, she should have done something to stop it once she saw the opposite happening.”
She puts on her own thinking face for a moment and suggests instead, “Maybe she was waiting for something else to happen?”
“Something else?”
“You know, like some kind of good that would rise from adversity?”
“Some kind of good…?”
“But at the expense of everyone on the planet?” Cait Sith shakes his head. “Even if she was always hurtin’, that doesn’t seem like a fair trade.”
She nods sadly. “Yeah, it’s a big gamble going all-in. But she must have had a good reason. Like, she couldn’t rely on her father or the other Summons, so she had to search for someone else across time who could help her. Or maybe she saw into the future and the only way that person would appear is if the timeline were changed, so she had to intervene like this.”
“Hmm…” Cait folds his arms with a hint of worry. “I can understand if she didn’t have options, but it’s so reckless! Being an immortal herself, she’d be able to outlive most things, but that just leaves the rest of us in the gutter. Never mind that she mighta kickstarted the whole Jenova Project… and now Sephiroth’s being a pain in the rear too.”
“Sephiroth…” Cloud blinks a few times, taken aback when he realizes a frightful thought. “Whoa, no way. She couldn’t have expected him to be the guy she was looking for? I know he wasn’t that bad while he was still working for Shinra, but…”
“Eh?” Cait jerks back in surprise. “You think it was Sephiroth!? Hoo, boy. Then the lass must’ve seen the wrong future!”
Yet, Aerith looks unconvinced and she passes Cloud a soft smile. “Actually, I think she saw the right future.”
He turns to her. “Huh? What do you mean?”
She stares at his genuinely confused face for a bit and then giggles quietly to herself. “Really, Cloud? Can’t you think of anyone else she’d see as a hero?”
“…” Now that he catches on, his eyes grow wide. But rather than be praised, he feels even more awkward and shyly rubs his head. “Not really…”
“Oh, don’t be like that. If Fenrir can see you have promise, so can Rubia. And besides, we can’t let Sephiroth win her over.” She puts her metaphorical foot down and insists, “I’m not gonna let my cousin get with a guy like that. He’s all kinds of bad.”
Having no room to argue there, he concedes and quietly nods back. He then turns back to Cait and gets back on track. “Hey, was that everything they had from the expedition?”
“Aye. That’s all I could find. I know this is old technology we’re workin’ with, but there looks like there could be a bit of space leftover. It’s a li’l fishy that they just end there, but can’t say for sure if there was any more.”
“And what about the others? I doubt that would have been the last video they recorded about Rubia.”
He shakes his head and shrugs. “Dunno. None that I could find. Feels like the records are incomplete, or maybe even tampered. It’s protocol that logs like these have some kind of conclusion to wrap things up, but nothing like that in here either.”
Cloud’s eyes narrow with suspicion. “Think it was all Hojo?”
He nods with a stern frown. “Oh, I’d bet on it! He was the last person known to have access, after all.”
“Figures. There might have been something that he didn’t want anyone else to know.”
Aerith sighs. “I hope Ruby realized it too. She said she was ‘disappointed’ in Rubia.”
“Knowing Ruby, she must have flipped through the entire catalog.” Cloud then turns his attention back to the other tape on the table. “But she only ended up with these two.”
Cait scratches his head. “Not a lot to work with. But maybe the one about Gast might reveal something else?”
“We can give it a try.”
Cait quickly ejects the current tape and Cloud slides in the other one into the receiver. With a few tippity-taps, the cat promptly gets the tape rolling too.
Unlike the last, this tape seems to be full of logs centered in particular around this lodging. It starts off with Professor Gast in an interview with a Cetran woman named Ifalna.
Aerith quietly whispers, “Mom…”
~
Though the entire interview was cut apart between several logs, each one continued to grow more in-depth. Heeding Gast’s questions, Ifalna discussed a variety of topics regarding the Cetra, their way of life, and their communion with the planet. She also explained that even back in olden times, there were already the beginning stirs of a great calamity on the horizon.
“It was more than a red star in the sky. The light of the moon dimmed, and the world grew cold. It was the coming of a dark age.”
“A dark age, you say? In the metaphorical sense or…?”
“…I wish it were only metaphor.”
Given Ifalna’s hesitation, Gast would end the first of the interview logs there. However, the next several logs, the interview continued when she would be ready to tell. As she put it, this “dark age” would stretch on for the rest of Cetran history. The calamity from the skies was soon followed by several major incidents that involved a pair of rogue deities that turned traitor against the Cetra. The ensuing Cetran Civil War was terrible enough, but the non-Cetran humans, seeking a chance to seize power over those they long envied, then launched on the attack without warning. While they normally wouldn’t have had much chance in victory, given the Cetra’s close ties with the Planet Guardians, they were aided by the powers of the rogue deities and were able to scatter the already war-torn Cetra nations into further disarray. This hunt for any Cetran refugees would continue over history until their numbers eventually dwindled down to the last.
Interestingly, the interview logs concluded there. This time, the professor did follow up with one last formal conclusion and Cait Sith finds no evidence that these logs were tampered with. However, they aren’t the last of the logs. To everyone’s surprise, the very last log included is not part of the interview at all. Instead, it is dated almost two years later and appears to be more like a personal vlog. It shows Gast back in his lodge upstairs in a different room, outside the lab where he had previously had his interview, and the warmth of a few candles nearby gives the place a homely glow.
“Eh… Ahem. This is Gast Faremis speaking. Today’s date marks a special occasion, a full two years since Ifalna has come into my care. Though this may be a little unorthodox, I would like to record this entry for personal posterity. Now let’s see if I can get this just right… Maybe a little up? Or to the left…”
“Dear, I think the camera is fine. Come over.”
“Er, coming, dear!”
The camera would pan over to a corner of the room, where Ifalna would be resting on bed, cradling a little babe in her arms. The baby is still so young that her hair had yet to grow out very much, leaving a small tuft of brown hair poking out, and she’s bundled up snug in a little quilt decorated with flowers. Gast looked rather excited, almost jittery like he were young again, as he joined her by her bedside.
“Here we are! The next generation of Cetra to pave the way of history!”
Ifalna laughed. “I think it’s a little early to be talking of history. She’s only fourteen months old.”
“Fourteen months, Ifalna! That’s over a year of good health! This child is blessed!”
“I think so too…”
Gast would bring the camera up close to get a better look of the babe, who is still asleep.
“Isn’t she precious? And so unbelievably cute! Oooh, I told myself I wasn’t going to cry…”
“Gast, watch the camera. You’re a little too close. You might wake her.”
“Oh, sorry! I’ll get that set up right.”
As he readjusted the camera to return to normal and instead opted for the zoom function, they would suddenly be interrupted by a loud rapping on their door. At this time, the door to the lodge was not yet replaced, but the deep thumping noise from outside sounded quite heavy nonetheless.
“What? Who in their right mind would be coming out here at this time of night!?”
Gast hurried away, leaving the camera still on Ifalna and the baby. Though initially cautious, she would grow alarmed when the voices of Gast and their visitors would grow so loud that it would startle the baby, who would begin to whimper. She quickly hushed the baby, rocking her gently so she would relax, though she herself only grew more worried.
And then, a terrible tragedy would strike. The shouting would reach a fever pitch, followed by a trampling sound. Suddenly, a gunshot rang out, frightening both mother and daughter, and the baby would wail aloud. Before Ifalna could make heads or tails of the situation, Gast burst back into the room, panting heavily, his hand gripping his bloodied shoulder.
“Ifalna, take Aerith and run!”
“Dear!? What happened!?”
Unfortunately, they were too late. Another gunshot rang out and Gast would drop dead. Ifalna shrieked. The baby cried even harder. And then, several Shinra troops would arrive, accompanied by a lanky, pale, ghoulish-looking man in a lab coat.
“Seize the Cetra.”
In the ensuing chaos, both mother and screaming daughter would be forced out of the room, and the man in the coat, taking one last look around the place, would notice the camera was still rolling. With a smug smirk, he would hit the button to end recording.
~
Another still silence sets over the room as the last log file runs to its abrupt end. While everyone is quite shocked and alarmed, Aerith has turned her head down before she could see the very last few seconds. For whatever reason, this log file wasn’t deleted or altered in any way. It shows the exact moment of Gast’s death and even the culprit responsible, and yet almost as brazen as the culprit was, it would be left as is without consequence.
Cait Sith and Moogle have left their mouths agape, and as soon as they snap out of their daze, the cat king scratches his head furiously in frustration and hisses. “That no-good scoundrel! I knew something was suspicious about his report back then!”
Cloud turns to glare at Reno and Rude, who up to this point, have been keeping unusually quiet. Though they don’t appear nearly as surprised about the incident shown, they are still in disbelief that this evidence was just left out here all this time. Cloud reaches for his sword’s hilt as he asks them a question.
“How long did you know about this?”
The two promptly snap out of their shock and share a frown together. They then turn back to him and Reno answers, “Believe it or not, just now.”
Rude pushes up his shades and adds further, “We were informed of Professor Faremis’ passing long ago, but the details behind his death came to little more than ‘resisting arrest’. We weren’t even informed that Hojo was present at the time. However, he would come back later to fetch any pertinent records to be shipped back to Midgar.”
“Seems like he muddled the report so that he wouldn’t have been found out.”
“It’s surprising that he would leave this footage alone and out here. Though, it has been a long time since this lab was accessed.”
“…” Sensing no particular falsehoods to their tones, Cloud releases his grip and then turns back to Aerith to check on her. “Hey, Aerith?”
She blinks a few times and looks back up, feeling weary again. “Yeah?”
At first, he isn’t sure what he wants to say to her, and he turns away quietly. Yet, a spark of vengeance ignites a fire within and without a second thought, he mutters, “If I knew where he was right now, I’d make him disappear for good.”
She shakes her head. “It’s okay, Cloud. I know… and thanks.” She reveals a sad smile. “I wonder how long Ruby knew about this? She was always eager to kill him. At first I thought it was because of some vengeance that she carried from Rubia’s days, but maybe she knew all along.”
“…”
She takes another moment of pause before she brings back her determined face. “Well, we’ll deal with him when we get the chance. For now, we got something more important to deal with.”
He turns back to her and nods too. He then returns to the Turks with his coldest glare yet. “So would this stuff count as ‘company secrets’ that we can’t tell anyone?”
Reno replies bitterly, “Who would you even tell? No one working for Shinra right now would know or care about this old history. Besides, if Hojo ever knew word got out, you’d have even more people going missing on your hands.”
Rude however stresses, “That said, yes. Anything that comes from this lab is classified. Save us all the extra hassle and keep this info to yourselves, please.”
Aerith raises a hand. “Can we at least tell our friends?”
Cait Sith instead answers for her, “Um, lass… I think some things are best left unsaid. Everyone’s already miserable enough as is. The last thing they’d wanna know is how bad Rubia was in the past.”
She slowly lowers her hand. “Right… Maybe we can talk about it after we meet her again, then.”
Cloud now glances off for the door, feeling a bit dejected. “Well, aside from the stuff Ruby saved for us, this trip has been depressing. Feels like we learned a lot about Rubia that we can’t use.”
“Still, it does explain a lot of things, like why Rubia has been so distant. She knows that her crimes can’t be erased even if much of history has been forgotten.”
He turns back to her. “Yeah, but how will that help us? Rubia obviously knows all this already and we don’t have anyone else to tell it to.”
“Well, Ruby did say we should learn as much as we can.” Aerith puts a hand to her chin and thinks it over. “There’s gotta be some hidden meaning behind this info. But maybe we’re still missing too much to come to a conclusion yet.”
“How much more will we have to learn? She’s not winning any sympathy points so far.”
“Yeah, but I don’t think the point is to just feel bad for her. I’m sure Ruby thought that something from here can be salvaged.”
Cait Sith flicks one ear as he tilts his head and then tilts the other way with a flick of the other, but he shakes his head and shrugs. “Well, we must be missing a whole lot, ’cause nothing’s coming to mind yet.”
While the three continue to ponder, Reno and Rude start to get moving. He calls to them, “Hey. If you’re done looking around, can we go? We can’t keep you here all day.”
Rude reminds them, “The longer we wait here, the longer we’re keeping the mayor of the news too.”
“Oh, right! We still have to look for those black robed people!” Aerith recalls. She takes Cloud by the arm. “Let’s go, Cloud!”
“Uh… right.”
They take their leave, followed by the Turks after them, and Rude is the last person to leave, so he flicks off the lights. Reno also uses his keycard to get the outside door open again, and as soon as they all step back out into the wintry air, the metal door shuts tight once more.
Rude turns off for the north, where the snowy slopes grow steeper and flow downhill from the town. He directs them, “Keep going north from here and you’ll eventually find the ski hill. Given the potential danger, it’s usually prohibited for visitors to take on the slopes without permission. There’s a shack up front where you can find the event supervisor. Talk to him and explain the mayor’s request, and he should give you that permission.”
Aerith nods back. “Thanks. But why are you telling us this now? Are you guys not coming?”
Reno casually waves his hand. “In those blizzards? No thanks. You’re on your own.”
Rude asserts, “Our jurisdiction only extends as far as Shinra property. Any other requests you take is your responsibility to follow through.”
Reno also adds, “By the way, you’d better watch yourselves while you’re heading downhill.”
Aerith blinks twice. “What do you mean?”
But he doesn’t answer and the two hurry off like they shouldn’t still be here. Cloud watches them go and shakes his head, deciding it’s for the better that they split. He turns off for the north. “Anyway, it’s not much further. We can take it from here.”
Aerith looks disappointed. “I guess. And here I thought we could have gone snowboarding together.”
Cait Sith replies, “Aerith, please. This is Shinra territory. Non-friendly types are everywhere.”
As Cloud expected, it’s just another few minutes of walking before they reach the outermost edge of the town, where the ski shack is located. While the slopes are usually open to visitors, it doesn’t look like there’s too many people out here. The slopes are mostly barren aside from the local population of trees. But at least the shack door is unlocked, so they step on in.
It’s a single-room wooden cabin, decorated with snow gear and the occasional wild trophy heads, dressed up as both a clubhouse and a kind of souvenir shop in one. There are a few people here, all of them presumed to be staff. One male worker is dusting off some snowboards lined up on the wall, while another is minding the skis. There’s also a female worker in the back manning a counter where the souvenirs seem to be sold. Finally, there’s a plump man in a dark blue ski jacket and a colorful beanie is at the desk near the entrance and seems to be on the phone. As soon as they step in, the man quickly finishes up his call and greets them in a rather friendly manner.
“Hey, there! I’m Wardell, the event supervisor here. Just heard from the mayor that you’d be arriving. You’re looking down, right?”
“‘Looking’ down?” Cloud asks.
“Ah, yeah. That’s just our way of saying that you’re going downhill. But man, you guys sure picked an awful day to go!”
“How is it awful? Did something happen?” Aerith follows suit.
“Oh, no. It’s all been quiet so far. But down there’s the real noise. You never wanna underestimate how bad the storms can get.”
“Oh. You mean the awful weather.” She looks around the room, noting how empty it feels. “Is that why there aren’t a lot of people here today?”
“Yeah, we’ve closed the slopes for the day til the storms pass. It’s lookin’ pretty rough, though. Reports say that it might go on til next week at least.”
“Next week!” she gasps. “We don’t have the time! Those robed people are gonna freeze to death!”
“Yeah, it’s bad. So we closed the slopes. But I got word from the mayor and he gave you special permission.” But for a moment, his smile fades and he leans in with a lowered voice, “Between you and me, though, I’d turn back now while you’re still good. Nothing against the mayor, fella’s just kind of a worrywart, but he’s also not gonna take responsibility if you guys get lost out there.”
Cloud raises an eyebrow at that, but decides not to press it. “Yeah, we get the gist.”
Aerith also reassures him, “Don’t worry, we know how to take care of ourselves. And we got our own ticket outta there if things get really bad.”
“Ya don’t say…” He straightens up again and returns to his cheery smile. “Well, glad to hear! Really appreciate you guys taking one for the team too.” He turns to one of the workers in the back. “Hey, Miran!”
“Mr. Wardell?” comes the answer with a strong northern accent.
“See to it that these three…” He pays Cait Sith and Moogle a quick glance and corrects himself, “Uh, four, actually. Get ’em some boards!”
“Boards?” Cloud asks again.
He turns back to him. “Sure! You guys are looking down, so the fastest way is the slopes!”
Cloud folds his arms. “Hmm…”
“You do know how to snowboard, right?”
Cloud gives him a casual wave. “Yeah, no problem.” He turns to his companions. “How about you guys?”
Aerith smiles innocently as she answers, “Nope! This is my first time!”
Cait Sith rubs his head, feeling a little embarrassed. “Same here. Though I ruled the snowboarding games at the Gold Saucer, little ol’ me never had to come this far north til now.”
Cloud feels his back sink a little. “Don’t make me teach you. We don’t have the time for this.”
Aerith giggles. “Well, Mr. Snowboard Expert, how about you go first and show us how? We can follow!”
“Wait! Wait, wait,” the supervisor cuts in. “This really is your first time?”
She turns to him, looking curious. “Yeah?”
He shakes his head. “Then no way I’m letting you take one, not in this weather.”
“Huh!? But…”
“Look, if you’re all set on facing those winds, you gotta be ready. These slopes aren’t friendly to beginners either, so if you wipe out somewhere, it won’t be easy to find you.”
She slumps. “But we can’t just stay here. Even if Cloud will be okay, going out there all alone…”
“Hey, who said you’re staying?” The supervisor walks back to his desk and fetches something out of a drawer. It’s a set of keys and he jingles them in hand. “I can take you to the Ice Gate by snowmobile.”
She lights up again. “Oh, really? That’s a big help, thanks!”
“Yeah, but that’s as far as I’ll go. Anywhere beyond and it’s wilderness. Too dangerous to wander, especially in that storm.”
“Where is the ‘Ice Gate’?” Cloud asks.
“It’s the front face of the Great Glacier. We have a sign put up for the tourists when the weather’s good. It should also have a map, but you might have a hard time reading if it’s too windy.”
“A map would be a big help too,” Aerith observes.
“Yeah, hold on.” The man searches the drawers again and pulls out a brown-colored roll of thin cloth. “This one’s an extra, so I’ll lend it to you.” He walks back over and passes it to Cloud.
“This old thing?”
“Hey, let me tell ya. This map’s made of caribou hide, so it’s not gonna rip that easy in the ice and cold. So long you keep outta the hot springs, it’ll stay intact.”
“Hot springs?” Aerith asks.
“Yep. Even in the glacier, there are spots where there are hot springs. They’re the only places where you might find some warmth. But I gotta warn you, it’s best you don’t touch it. If you still do, then don’t wait around too long.”
“Uh, what happens if we do?” Cait also asks, getting a bit nervous. “Do fiends often gather there or something?”
“Nah, even the fiends steer clear. I dunno the details, but legend has it that the springs are actually cursed.”
“C-cursed…?”
“Yeah. They say that there was once an ice witch that lived in a cave somewhere. Usually she’d keep to herself, but every so often she’d come out of her cave and patrol the land searching for victims to hunt and eat. But the catch is, she only ever attacks people if they touched the springs.”
“Why only if they touch the springs?” Aerith asks, growing ever more curious.
“Apparently, she thinks anyone who does is ‘filthy’ and ‘savage’; no better than the wild animals. So she treats them as animals to hunt.”
She frowns. “Well, that’s not very nice. What if the people were passing by and just wanted some warmth?”
He shrugs. “Like I said, they’re just legends. Old wives’ tales, even. No one’s ever seen the witch for real, though barely anyone’s gone so far that they’d even find the cave anyway. So it’s just stuck around as a way for us to warn tourists not to get too comfortable. Never a good idea to stay in a hot spring if snowstorms can whip up at any time, after all.”
“Ooh, you got that right,” Cait Sith agrees wholeheartedly. “The sooner we can get out, the better.”
“We’re only here to find some people after all,” Cloud agrees succinctly. He takes a quick look over the map and then slips it away in a pocket. “So the Ice Gate should be at the southernmost area of the glacier.”
“By the way, if you’re taking the slopes, you’d better remember ‘left-then-right’ while you’re looking – uh, I mean, going down. You’ll be sure to find the gate.”
“Left-then-right? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’ll know when you get there.” He now turns to Aerith and Cait Sith. “Alright, so for the record, the snowmobile doesn’t have that much room, just for one more person. Maybe the li’l kitty cat can come, but you might wanna keep your chubby pal off.”
“Eh?” Cait looks down at Moogle, who makes a sad face, and he scratches his head. “Well, I don’t mind taking a ride, but I can’t just leave him here by his lonesome.” He gives it a little more thought and then turns to Cloud. “Oh, wait, I got it! Cloud, how about you take ’im along?”
“Huh? Me?”
“Yeah! So ye don’t feel too lonely. Besides, this way we can keep track o’ you too! I got my ways to keep in contact with Moogle at all times.”
“Oh, good idea! In case Cloud gets lost, we’ll know where he is!” Aerith agrees.
But Cloud can’t help but feel a little patronized. “I won’t get lost. I got the map on me.”
“It’s just in case, silly. Besides, this way we can keep in contact! You can tell us all about your cool snowboarding tricks while you’re at it!”
“…” He slowly rolls his eyes aside, wondering if this gal still remembers why they’re even going in the first place.
“Right. Come with me,” the supervisor addresses those two, and he gives Cloud one last tip, “And you can talk to Miran over there for a board. Normally we don’t give any away for free, but just this once we’ll make an exception. Take care while you’re out there!”
“Yeah, got it.”
And with that, Aerith picks up Cait Sith off of Moogle and carries him along like a plush toy, and they follow the supervisor out the door. In the meantime, Cloud stops by the wall with the boards, and while his eyes wander over the wide selection of colors and cool designs – ranging from plain to multi-color to cutesy Moogle-themed, stylin’ Cactuar, and even a wicked Bomb & Malboro decal – the man named Miran comes by carrying a garishly rainbow board in his hands.
“Hey! You’re the one headed down, right? Here you go!”
“Oh, thanks.” Cloud takes the board and also points behind him to the Moogle. “But how about one for him?”
“Oh, well…” Miran takes one look at the plush, white-furred fellow and shrugs. “To be honest, we usually make snowboards for humans, so I’m not sure if we have a size for, uh, your pal here.”
Moogle’s big smile promptly turns upside-down.
“Oh. That so…” Cloud blinks for a moment and his eyes wander back to the wall. “But what about all these ones?”
“Oh, those are from the shop. If you wanna get them, they go for around 5000 to 10000 gil each.”
“10000 gil!? Just for a snowboard!?”
“They’re the custom design ones, so of course!”
He slumps. “You gotta be kidding me. What are they made of, Shinra-grade tech?”
“Nah, nothing so fancy, though some of them light up in the dark. Anyway, like I said, it’s for the shop. We are a major tourist spot, after all.”
“Ugh…” He waves dismissively. “Maybe next time.”
“Haha! Yeah, I thought so.” Miran then turns toward the back. “Well, we can’t let your pal go without something… Oh! I just remembered, we also got some dual boards in the back.”
“Dual boards?”
“Yeah, like mini-snowboards but separately for your feet, so they each got their own strap. I think we could make it work for your pal.”
And just like that, Moogle’s frown whips back into a big smile and he hops for joy.
“Oh, but one thing: we don’t usually make these, so this is the only pair we have right now. When you’re done using it, mind giving it back to us later?”
Cloud nods back. “Sure. We’ll be meeting with Wardell later. We can pass them to him.”
“Thanks! Be right back!” And Miran hurries off into their storage room for a bit.
While he waits, Cloud idly takes a closer look at the snowboard he got. Though it is still garishly rainbow, it’s got a slick-looking arrow running along it that gives it a certain taste of graffiti art. Now that he notices, this board does look like it was sprayed and set by hand. There are just the tiniest of grooves along the edges of the weaving colors that show that it isn’t machine-printed like many things from Shinra these days. Not to mention, it’s got a nice balance to its weight. Not bad, not bad at all. Even if it’s on lend, he could see some use with it.
Miran hurries back out again, now carrying a pair of bright purple dual boards, and sets them before Moogle. As excited as a little kid, the moogle plops down and slides on the boards, strapping them to his rather large, plush feet, and hops back up. He even does a little twirl and happy dance with them.
Miran lets off a chuckle. “Glad to see you’re enjoying yourself.” He then turns back to Cloud to ask, “Right, so anything else you’ll need? Maybe some snow goggles or snow boots?” He also gives Cloud a lookover, growing a bit concerned. “At least a scarf? Or even a jacket… You sure you’ll be okay out there?”
Cloud handwaves it away. “I’ll be fine. I’m used to the cold.”
“Uh… Okay. Suit yourself.” Miran returns to his cheery smile. “Well, good luck! Whether it’s your first time or not, you’re gonna need it.”
“Will I? How bad are these slopes?”
“Ah, it’s nothing too extreme, but not for beginners either. Like, the full course is long. They stretch all the way down to the glacier. But as long as you’re still speeding along, you should be fine. Just watch out for the rocks and trees along the way.”
“Alright, then…”
“Normally when we’re open, we would get the sky lift running for people downhill, but since it’s just you guys right now, it might be easier if we just stick with the snowmobiles.”
“Nah. Don’t worry. We got our own way to get back if we need to, but I don’t think it’s necessary.”
“Oh. Very well.”
Miran waves them goodbye as Cloud and Moogle step back out. Though it takes Moogle a moment of awkward waddling on his boards, which slip and slide on the snow, holding onto Cloud’s arm for support, he gets the hang of them and they reach the top of the hill without much hassle. Cloud gazes down the steep slopes that lay before him. Though he can’t see the bottom from here, as it’s a very twisty and windy path down the hill, with patches of forest here and there and rocky protrusions everywhere the eye can see. He traces a path through the snow in his mind and reminds himself of the supervisor’s words. Left, then right. Maybe he was referring to some forks in the paths? Wouldn’t be a stretch to think that people get lost here all the time. At least he got a map.
Before he can kick off and get going, though, he hears a voice shouting from behind them.
“Hold it right there!”
Cloud cringes by reflex. That harpy-sounding shriek can only be from a certain uninvited Turk. He turns to look and is not surprised to see who is coming along in a hurry.
Elena is panting heavily like she was in a rush, but she finally catches up and throws out an accusatory finger. “W… where do you think you’re going!?”
As tempted as he is to kick off now and ignore her, he still graces her with an answer: “Down, of course.”
“Yeah, right! The only place you’re going is with us! I’m arresting you and your friends right here!”
He passes a quick glance over her posse, which consists of just a few troopers that have joined her, though they’re all aiming their guns his way. Basically, nothing out of the ordinary. He simply turns away again and ignores the rest.
“Hey! Listen to people when they’re talking to you!”
Now he’s just getting annoyed. He snaps back, “What are you doing? Didn’t you hear your partners earlier? Your boss isn’t gonna get in our way, right?”
“Shut up! The boss isn’t here, so I get to decide what happens! And I’m not letting you go without giving you a gift first!”
He stops short and turns back to her. “A gift?”
“Yeah…” She pulls back a bit and starts whirling her right arm very fast. “A knuckle sandwich!”
“…Pass.” And he turns away again.
The ever feisty Elena lunges at him and tries to knock him off his game, but he ducks and she flies right over him. Unfortunately for her, she flies too fast and by the time she realizes her mistake, she instead goes tumbling down the hill like a rolling stone tossing about quite a bit of snow along the way.
“Ah! Miss Elena!” one of the troops cries out.
“Freeze!” another of them shouts.
“You’re not getting away!” a third follows.
Cloud has had enough of this circus. He’s outta here. With a swift kick off the hilltop, he throws himself down the slope, with Moogle close behind, and they go for a sharp drop down the icy fields just as the men let fire. The troopers now in a panic rush to call for backup patrol. They won’t be able to catch up on foot, so this calls for the snowmobile squad.
That is, if they can catch them before they’re outta sight.
Notes:
I changed Icicle Inn a lot + original characters + other details
- As mentioned previously, I've tweaked the layout of the town a bit from the OG so that Professor Gast's house is actually outside the town square, a little ways off in the forest to the north, and the ski slopes at the furthest end of town now have a shack where the random NPC who warned you about getting a snowboard first has been replaced by my own background characters. Even the mayor here is original, as I don't remember there being any particular person in the OG who announced themselves as a mayor.
- Regarding Holzoff: One of the larger houses actually belongs to him, though you only meet a lone woman living there, which I presume to be his wife. It's where you find the glacier map too. I believe it was implied in the OG that he was one of the people who joined Gast's team on their excursion, which explains why he'd be living alone in a cabin across the glacier, but I don't remember if he ever gave a particular reason to stay there other than he just wanted a safe place for passing travelers.
- Also in the OG, Gast's lab was never hidden underground; anyone could have just wandered in and seen all the high-tech lab equipment. For immersion's sake, I decided to modify his home to appear to be yet another home like in the town, but have a hidden basement area for his actual lab, where he would host Ifalna and hold his interview with her, as well as some additional hints as to the experiments that took place with Rubia.
- The plot-relevant "sidequest" to find the missing robed people is also an original plot point. There were no robed people to note in this town from the OG, but it was implied that they passed through since there's only one way to the crater by land. I was inspired by Rebirth's more liberal use of these guys, so I decided this would be a fine place as any to reintroduce them.
- Ruby's letter was actually the biggest hurdle in writing this chapter. I wanted to establish a lot of important key points that will play out later in the story, but I tried to avoid including too many spoilers. I also had to dive back into researching the OG's game mechanics like the locations of all these cool equipment and materia she gathered. I heeded the actual timeline of events of the OG, so stuff from Midgar's Disc 2 raid, for example, would have been off-limits. Ruby's lone search would have happened before the events of the Forgotten Capital so it would have counted as "Disc 1" stuff, so to speak. Shops, however, would always have certain things in stock.
- In Remake and Rebirth, Red XIII / Nanaki uses collars instead of hairclips, so I had to rename his Spring Gun Clip to "Tripwire Collar" for consistency. I like to imagine it's a collar with a little spring gun attached up front.
- I gave Sonon a new weapon too. "Hung Gar Paang" is Cantonese for "Hung Gar Staff", where Hung Gar is a particular style of martial art inspired by tigers. I went with tiger-style because they're cool and it pairs nicely with Yuffie's Oritsuru, which refers to origami cranes.
- I wasn't sure if I wanted to detail out too much about Gast's expedition. Not only would I have to contend with too many original characters to fill in the blanks from the OG, it would kill me to have to explain how a team of scientists would have made it up to the crater in the first place. While in the OG, it could have just been a matter of flying in, in my story, with Rubia roaming the area like a sentinel, that wouldn't have been an option. So, I guess this is where I get to slip in some "references" to The First Soldier, lol. I don't think Glenn, Matt, and Lucia were ever sent on this expedition, though, so it's not them. Feel free to name them yourself.
- I've also taken a few liberties with the log files regarding Gast's interview and the ones where he documented his relationship with Ifalna and their baby. For the sake of keeping the plot on track, I have decided to focus only on the interview itself and the final log where Gast would be murdered by Hojo. (But at least he gets to be a dorky dad for a bit.)
- The staff in the shack are also all new, though I only named two of them here. The name Wardell fittingly means "Watch of the Hill", so it was a no-brainer. Miran had me in a bit more thought; I wanted someone with a different name than your standard American or English names. Since this is a northern town, I turned to Scandinavia for reference and used Behind the Name to help me search for northeastern European names, and Miran sounds quite nice. It comes from the old Slav word miru, meaning "peace".
- At first I was gonna have Moogle fit on a sled where Cloud would have to drag him along (insert sled dog joke), but after doing a bit of research on dual boards, I knew I had to put them on him.
Chapter 69: Deafening Winds and Blinding Snow
Notes:
Thank you all for your patience. I have once again written too much for one chapter but this time I'm keeping it all in because I'm too tired to have to cut anything out. Somehow this ended up becoming the longest chapter to date, like two chapters-worth. Damn original lore, can't write itself.
Oh, right, it's spoopy month. Better hunker down and make this next chapter absolutely horrific. Maybe I can make it for Halloween this year. Two year anniversary, here we come!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“Subject is currently on the run, on snowboard at the northern slopes! Requesting all available mobile units for backup! I repeat, all available units! Subject is armed and dangerous, and extremely unpredictable! Pursue with caution!”
Cloud groans internally as he catches sight of a squad of snowmobile officers directly on his tail. Though he rarely ever got a chance to go snowboarding, this is one welcoming committee he does not need. And yet, even though this is Moogle’s first skiing trip, he at least seems to be enjoying himself, sliding to and fro as if he were performing a dance.
“Subject in sight! Men, swarm them! Do not let them out of your sights!”
“Sir!!”
The troop commander even has a megaphone for the occasion: “Cloud Strife! This is your last warning! Pull over and submit to arrest, or we will open fire!”
As usual, Cloud doesn’t respond. He zips along smoothly and gauging his speed as the rocks and trees on the nearby ledges pass him by, and adjusts his position in a forward lean to help accelerate faster.
“They never listen, do they…” the commander mutters aloud. “Fire!”
And the shooting begins. While Cloud neatly swerves around to avoid gunfire, Moogle is promptly interrupted from his dance and stirred in a panic. He too dodges the fire, but clasps his head with both hands in a shivering ball as he descends, unsure of what would be the best evasive maneuvers. Cloud zips on over to defend him, blocking ensuing gunfire with his huge blade. Just for good measure, he also lets fly a great slash wave that cuts through the ice behind them and cracks the ground below. Just as planned, a number of the officers get caught up in the crevice and are sent crashing aside.
“Whoa! Easy on the attacks, lad! We don’t need an actual avalanche this far up!” Cait Sith’s voice suddenly pops out of nowhere.
“Huh?” Cloud looks at Moogle, who is still clasping his head, but now his eyes are lit up green and his mouth is agape as if some other mode seems to have been activated. “Cait? That you?”
“Oh, good, ye heard me! Looks like everything’s still working like a charm!”
“How are you talking? Does your moogle come with a speaker?”
“Hah! Of course he does! This cat’s got more tricks in me bag than even furs on me body!”
“So where are you guys?”
“On a side trail! The supervisor’s takin’ us along for a trip down a shortcut. Normally it’s not accessible to most, but-”
“Eeeeeek!” Aerith’s voice suddenly comes on. “Cloud, help!”
“Huh? Aerith!?”
“We’re going too faaast!!”
“…”
Cait comes back on: “Er, sorry ’bout that. The poor girl’s not used to this kinda downhill drivin’, see. Got me and the poor supervisor in a vise grip right now.”
“She’ll be fine.” Cloud glances back toward the troops still on their tail. “But I could use better company. Can you get Moogle to fight too?”
“Well, he can operate on his own for the most part, but without my direct commands, it’s gonna be hard to get him to pull off any special moves. Unless they’re right next to him, he won’t be reaching ’em either.”
“Damn… Then it’s up to me.”
“Sorry ’bout this, Cloud! Try your best and don’t let ’im get too hurt! I’ll see what else I can do from here.”
Their conversation is cut short as the troops resume fire after they manage to escape the pileup from earlier. Cloud catches in his eye a small opening in the ridges to their left. With a single smooth swerve that way, he snatches Moogle by an arm and swings him out of the way as gunfire narrowly misses them. With expert timing, he then kicks off a snowy ledge and spins through the air to land into a small snowy trench just over the ridge to block them off from view, sliding further along this unmarked path. Though this does protect them for a little while, the troops are still in hot pursuit and some of them begin to lob grenades their way.
“You gotta be kidding me. Do they want to set off an avalanche!?” Cloud mutters under his breath.
Still grabbing Moogle, he deftly leaps out of the trench and hits back on the slopes further down just as a couple grenades blast the rocky ridge apart and showers them with debris that they narrowly avoid. Unfortunately, being back out in the open means they’re under fire again. By now, he's starting to lose patience with the whole ordeal.
“Moogle, keep going! I’ll slow ’em down!”
“??”
Moogle gasps silently as Cloud leaps into the fray with sword drawn. The first few swings are just to block incoming fire, but this time he’s traveling much slower to let the troops catch up.
“Hey! What’s he doing?”
“Don’t hesitate! Capture him!”
But just as the officers try to surround him, Cloud is poised with both hands on his blade’s hilt, looking ready to swing it hard. Before they can even realize what’s wrong, he lets fly a huge sweep around him, cutting cleanly through several snowmobiles, and causes them to spark with flame and crash into the rest. He gets outta the way just as another awful pileup clogs the remaining pursuers, kicks off another ledge, and flies on back down toward where Moogle had been sliding. The latter cheers in silence and waves to him as if to congratulate him.
Unfortunately, it’s still too early to celebrate. Even more troops continue to pursue them down the slopes. Cloud swears under his breath. Is there ever going to be an end to this? They need to lose them. But as he looks on ahead, he realizes he’s already come upon the first major fork in the road: two distinct paths of similar size, one leaning left, the other right. Now he catches on that this is what the supervisor meant. “Left, then right.” So he should take the left fork here, but that might be too obvious. The troops should know their way around these parts and would be able to keep following them.
Just then, inspiration strikes. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t dare take such a risk, but thanks to his recent blessings from Fenrir, he might just be able to pull off a perfect bait-n-switch.
“Moogle, take the left fork. I’ll go right. We’ll catch up later!”
“!?”
A little worried but still trusting him, Moogle nods back and gives him a salute. The two finally part ways as the road is divided in two, and Cloud zooms off his own way with reckless abandon.
“They’re splitting up!?” one of the troops exclaims.
“Forget the toy! It must be a distraction! Get the main subject!” the commander snaps back.
“Yes, sir!” the others follow.
Just as he expected, Cloud finds the full force of the snowmobile squad still tailing him. And just as he’s coming up on another high ledge that leads directly into a stalagmite-infested snowy field below, he closes his eyes and flies off the edge. Before the rest of them can catch up, he brings out that signature warp spell that Rubia once learned from the old wolf and he vanishes out of sight.
Moogle sighs with deep worry, finding himself alone down a snowy slope without a clue where it would take him. He follows the course as usual, but is in for a bit of a scare when he realizes the road is coming to an end up ahead. He panics again and tries to slow himself, but realizes he can’t stop sliding down. In the end, he claps his hands over his eyes as he slips off the ledge and tumbles into the open snowy field full of boulders.
Suddenly, a burst of light flashes right beside him and Moogle finds himself snatched by the arm again. Cloud flies through the air with him, and with an agile spin in the air, he kicks his board off the side of a nearby boulder to land safely on the snow with Moogle in tow. They slide to the side of the road, where he is stopped by another boulder, so they can hide out for a bit. Unbelievably grateful, Moogle hugs him so tight that Cloud nearly chokes, and the latter throws him off in a huff.
“Geez! Cool it. Of course I wouldn’t leave you behind,” he grumbles.
Moogle giddily nods back, looking so relieved that if he could cry happy tears, he would.
For once, they can look back and see that no one is left to pursue them. Hopefully this means that they’re in the clear. Cloud pushes himself back up on the board and pulls out into the open again, with Moogle nervously sliding out behind him. However, before he zips off again, he takes another look around and up into the sky, noticing that there seems to be a familiar-looking black helicopter flying overhead as well. For some reason, though, it seems to be circling around in the general vicinity, rather than flying off toward where the troops had gone.
Suddenly, he’s almost spooked by a call: “Cloud, talk to me! You still there, lad!?”
“Cait! I’m here.”
“Oh! Thank goodness… Yeah, he’s alright!” he addresses his companions and asks again, “Where’d ye go, man? For a moment I lost track of you!”
“I split up for a sec to lead those guys down the wrong trail. They probably won’t be catching up anytime soon.”
“Ooh, nice one! Then maybe for once we can have some time to chat, eh?”
“Yeah, about that…”
“Hm? Something wrong?”
He crosses his arms. “Definitely. For starters, how did the Turks end up finding us?”
Moogle deflates a little when he hears that and Cait follows the silence with a sigh. “Uh… right. Guess you’re still mad about that, huh?”
“I’m not mad. I just want answers.” He loosens up a bit and drops his arms. “It’s one thing if it was just the ship that was tapped, but the Turks said they have other ways to keep track of us. We don’t always stay together, so the only way they’d be able to is if they put a bug on someone.”
“A bug?” Aerith asks.
“Yeah. Like a tracking or listening device.”
“I know what a ‘bug’ means. But doesn’t that mean someone would have had to touch us at some point? I don’t remember getting pushed around or anything, even when we went back to Midgar and put into prison.” She pauses. “Well, they didn’t for me, at least.”
“I doubt they would have tagged you. Otherwise they would have done that ages ago when you still lived in Midgar.”
“But what about you guys? They weren’t too rough with you, were they?”
“No. The Turks always kept watch, but they never touched us. Yuffie looked rabid enough and Barret and Cid were ready to blow if they were ever gonna be pushed.”
“Not to mention, I’m already Shinra, so no point in leaving a bug on me,” Cait Sith admits.
“…And that’s not the only problem.” Cloud puts a hand to his chin and thinks aloud, “It’s weird that we’d be chased this far out. Didn’t Reno and Rude say that they weren’t gonna stop us? What’s with all the fanfare?”
“Another good question…”
Aerith mentions, “To be fair, they aren’t the ones chasing us. Maybe these guys didn’t get the memo yet?”
But Cloud points out, “This is Shinra we’re talking about. If Rufus gave the order to stop, they would have received it already. Something’s not right here.”
“Oh. Then was it someone else who gave the order?”
He frowns. “If it was someone else, I doubt Rufus would have approved of anyone going against his plans. So, unless it’s happening without his knowledge…”
“Hmm…” She gets another idea. “Oh! What if there’s some kind of mole at Shinra? Uh, aside from ours, I mean?”
“A mole…?” Cloud scratches his head. “I guess we can’t rule out the possibility, but it’s still weird. The Turks aren’t allowed to chase us, but they still let the troops after us. Almost like they know what’s up, but they’re not saying anything.”
Cait suddenly interrupts them with a gasp. “Oh, no!”
“Huh?”
“What’s wrong, Cait?” Aerith asks too.
“I just remembered! Back while the rest of ye were locked up in prison, there were a few times where I – uh, the other me, that is – had to leave my desk. By any chance…”
“Your desk?”
Cloud immediately catches on. “You think someone might have sneaked in and planted one?”
“There’s a real possibility, yeah. But there’s the catch: no one should have access to that room aside from me or my secretary, and I’m sure she’s been with me for the most part. Wouldn’t have any motive to go behind my back either. That also rules out just any ol’ employee.”
“In other words, it had to have been someone with a similar level of access to you.”
“Yeah, but that rules out most of everyone except…” Cait Sith drifts off into silence as he stops short of mentioning said tier. Instead, the cat grows rather aggravated and starts swinging his fists in the air. “Ooh! Those slimy, scum-suckin’, blatherin’ blooters! They ran me out of me office in a hurry, saying how urgent the meeting was, but then took their sweet time coming in! They just wanted me out, did they!?”
“Who are they, Cait?” Aerith asks with anticipation, “Who are these slimy blooters?”
He settles back down. “Hoo boy… I dinnae want to name names right now, but if I’m right, this might get real dangerous. At this rate, they’ll be listening in to a lot more than just some town gossip! I may have to sign off for the time being.”
“Sign off?” Cloud asks, but quickly realizes it. “Wait. You have a way to shut yourself off or something?”
“Eh, sorta. It’s complicated, but the point is: I have my ways to duck out when need be. The problem is, I won’t be able to talk or walk with you guys while I’m off.”
“Aw. That is a problem,” Aerith agrees.
Cloud looks uneasy at the prospects, but nods along. “If you think it’ll help, we can try it. Aerith and I will be able to manage on our own for a while.”
“Being carried by Cloud was a lot less dizzying than this too.”
He simply ignores that comment. “But when you’re ready, sign back on. We can’t be stuck carrying your lifeless bodies around everywhere.”
Cait happily agrees, “Haha. You got it! I promise I won’t be too long!”
Cloud looks back up into the sky, seeing that the helicopter is still circling around nearby. As he suspected, they are still being watched somehow.
“Oh, but before I go…” Cait then mentions.
“Hm?”
“Allow me to test somethin’ quick!” He guides Moogle’s head upward, likewise keeping an eye on the helicopter above. “If there’s any sort o’ trickery come my way, then I’ll throw it right back at ’em!”
“You’ll ‘throw it back’?”
“Aye! Just wait and observe!”
With that, Moogle looks forward again. Cait does some sort of tinkering from his side and Moogle’s eyes suddenly begin to flash a yellow color, as if he were switching to another mode. After a little wait, the flashing stops and his eyes are now a flat bright, ominous-looking yellow.
“Cloud, mind doing one last wee favor for me?”
“What?”
“Throw Moogle as high as ye can! I’ll set off an EMP bomb to disrupt their circuits! No one’s gonna tail us for a good while!”
“What!?”
“Wow! You can do that, Cait!?” Aerith exclaims too.
“Hehe! Like I said, there’s no end to this cat’s bag o’ tricks! If it’s a battle of tech, I won’t lose!”
Cloud looks back up and sees the helicopter swinging back around this way again and turns back down to Moogle. Perfect timing, let’s do this. He gives him a resolute nod and draws his sword from his back to get into position. Moogle likewise unlatches himself from the dual boards and hops off, preparing himself to jump. Cloud props his sword at a slant just for Moogle to hop on, and he lifts and carries him into the air. As the helicopter approaches them just overhead, Cloud starts up another wide swing in a spin, building his momentum, and flings Moogle hard and high above. Though Moogle isn’t the kind to use his wings to fly, he flaps them wildly as if to help him hover a little longer airborne. With Cait’s command from afar, Moogle’s eyes quickly flash a bright warning red and he unleashes a massive EMP burst across the entire width of the mountain slope.
All of a sudden, the pilot of the helicopter panics when his instrumentation goes out and is unresponsive. Without any system online to stabilize the vehicle’s motions, it begins to sway erratically, putting everyone aboard in the same panic. Before any of them can get to the emergency escape, the helicopter swings out of control and spins in a turbulent twister before it crashes into the mountain side to their left in a magnificent explosion. And to round it all off, Cloud zips into place to catch the now inoperative Moogle.
Unfortunately for them, the helicopter happened to land in an area with a lot of loose rock and ice. Just as he returns his sword to his back and goes back to fetch the dual boards, he hears a low rumble resound through the whole area. He glances up and is alarmed to see the icy shelf near them cracking apart and beginning to slide free. Gotta go. He ties the dual boards together by their supplied thin rope and slings them over his shoulder, and still carrying Moogle in his other arm, he kicks off again and zooms away.
However, a real avalanche is nothing to scoff at. The icy shelf finally creaks and collapses, sending a vast wave of ice and rock down toward the road ahead. As he feared, the collapsed ice shelf travels fast, crashes into a neighboring slope, and sends the debris piling down upon this very road. Everything caught up in it – more ice, rolling boulders, and any hapless trees – is swallowed up in an instant. The mess creates a massive roadblock that is still moving ahead faster than he can catch up. And while at first it seems like they’re in the clear, he realizes that if he doesn’t stop it, their destination might be buried in rubble. It doesn’t look like he has any room to divert its course either. At this rate, this entire side of the slopes is gonna be sunk. Shit. Things just keep getting worse. So what can he do now?
Well, there is one option. But to call on the wolf again so soon… No, forget it! He doesn’t have time!
Cloud closes his eyes, turns his focus inward, and calls to a powerful ally for his aid once more. Thankfully, Fenrir senses the danger ahead and responds immediately. Cloud bursts forth with that awesome misty aura and opens his glowing blue eyes. He expertly kicks off the ground and rides off a conveniently placed ledge. Even with the snowboard strapped to his feet, he also kicks off the air and launches himself even higher, straight to the sky.
What a view! From up here, he can see the entire breadth of the avalanche tumbling down the slopes. Funnily enough, the sight happens to remind him of another of the old wolf’s memories, back when Rubia was still very young.
“Fenrir! Fenrir!”
“Yes, Rubia?”
“What’s it called when a lot of snow falls down a mountain?”
“That is an ‘avalanche’. It’s very dangerous. You could get buried under it if you’re too close.”
“Oh, okay… So how do you stop it?”
“…Where have you been?”
The troubles of parenthood. Drawing from the wolf’s experience, Cloud knows just the trick to handle even a disaster like this. With one hand, he tosses the dual boards by its rope to sling onto his forearm instead and reaches for his sword once more. He draws a deep, misty breath and takes in the cool wintry air, gauging the air currents in his surroundings, and draws his blade. He pulls back, and with just one arm, he lets fly a wide slash wave imbued with the power of Absolute Zero.
The effects are instant. The huge wave flies right for the tumbling avalanche and as soon as it makes contact, it cuts straight through the mass of debris and into the ground below, opening up a gargantuan crevice that streaks along the road faster than even the avalanche itself. With nothing much to hold it up anymore, the mass of debris falls into the hole, filling it right back up, and the avalanche slows from a raging torrent to a slow trickle in a matter of seconds. By the time the crevice stops cracking open, it’s immediately filled back up. With another slash wave, Cloud seals the “wound” in the slope by refreezing it over. And as he smoothly glides back down to the ground, looking like he were even boarding on thin air, he makes one last swing to cut away the remaining bulges and flatten out the road once more. Just like that, aside from some trivial amount of tumbling snow that happened to escape, it’s as if there were never an avalanche to begin with.
“Wow! That was so cool, Fenrir! I wanna learn how to do that too!”
“Rubia.”
“Huh?”
“Why did you leave the den alone? You know you’ll fall ill if you are out too long.”
“…”
“The world outside is not forgiving for even the smallest of mistakes. Especially not for our ilk.”
“…I’m sorry. I didn’t forget.”
“Then answer: What drove you to leave?”
“I got scared. You were gone for a long time.”
“…”
“I flew around for a while but got lost. And then the planet got mad and started to shake, and that avalanche came after me. I didn’t know what I did wrong and warped back home.”
“…That was not your doing. But do not disobey me again. I am only strict with you for your benefit.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’re forgiven. Let us go home.”
“Okay!”
Though it was just an innocent memory, Cloud is surprised that he is suddenly overcome with a deep sadness, almost longing for those days. Binding himself to Fenrir may have brought him great strength, but it also comes with the burden of bittersweet memories. For that is the nature of contracts: even when they are established for the betterment of two parties, there is always something to be given up in return. Without a word shared between them, Cloud understands the struggle well. Now that Fenrir’s job here is done, he takes his leave. The mist fades and Cloud returns to form again, and he comes to reality just in time to land on the snowy ground with a light bounce and a swerve of his board to steady himself. As he looks behind him, the lingering bittersweet sentiments hang over him a little longer.
Funny, why did he suddenly think of Ruby?
He shakes his head and faces ahead. Let’s not tread that ground again. She wouldn’t want him to be moping over her. Pressing those feelings back inside, he moves onward, now free from any pesky Shinra sight. He shortly comes upon where the road splits off in two once again and swerves to the right to stay the course. Up ahead, there’s a cave with plenty of icicles hanging from above and sticking out from below. But thanks to all the tremors from earlier, the entire thing looks like it’s already collapsed and there’s at least a few feet of ice and snow piled up in his way. He casually cuts through the pileup and zips along without stopping.
All things considered, he’s making great time and should arrive at their destination without issue. He hopes that Aerith and them are doing fine too. Just as his thoughts and prayers are going out to her, he realizes that the road ahead seems to be a lot shorter than he expected it. Nevertheless, he bravely soldiers on and flies off the edge into the mysterious white yonder.
~
As the supervisor warned them, the blizzard is intense on the ground level. Cloud barely has any visibility as he comes face-full of icy winds and he barely avoids crashing directly into a nearby rock shelf near his destination. He flies right over the welcome sign and tries to skid to a halt, but the icy ground provides little frictional support. He instead spins too far, slips and falls on his face, and finally stops by bumping into another rock wall. For just a moment, he lies here prone and in a daze. He’s okay, just a little scratched up, and no one is around to have caught his spectacular landing, yet he feels his pride die a little inside. He can almost hear Ruby laughing at him.
He pulls back up, shaking it off, and looks around. Moogle ended up flying out of his grasp and is upside-down, half-buried in the snow nearby. At least the boards he slung on his arm are still in place. He checks the rest of himself and is relieved his cool sword was spared any scratches. He finally frees himself from the snowboard’s straps and goes to fetch Moogle, yanking him out of the snow by a foot. But they’re not quite out of danger just yet. The icy winds make it hard to see anything beyond just a few feet and he gets the feeling it’s gonna be even worse the further north they go.
“Cloud! Are you there!?”
That was Aerith’s voice. He also hears the sound of a snowmobile’s engine coming round from the east, and sure enough, it’s the man named Wardell who brings her and the inactive Cait Sith along. He slows to a halt by the sign, and Aerith waves to Cloud.
She hops off, carrying Cait in her arms. “Hey! You made it!”
“Yeah, wasn’t too bad.” He hurries over too still hanging onto Moogle, but promptly drops him again. “Didn’t run into anything on your side, did you?”
“No, thankfully…” She shivers, cuddling up against Cait’s soft fur. “But whew, what a storm! I just arrived and I’m already sick of it.”
“Boy, I knew it was bad, but this is horrible!” Wardell agrees. He turns to Cloud and offers a look of sympathy. “Sorry to just drop you here, but I can’t stay either. Hope you’ll find some way outta this!”
Cloud nods. “We’ll manage.”
He returns both boards to Wardell, who ties them down in the snowmobile’s trunk. With everything accounted for, the hill supervisor gives them a quick salute before he speeds off again for the east.
“Well, here we are.” Aerith looks over to the sign and turns to the north, but even squinting, she can barely make out the road ahead. She then turns back to Cloud. “Do we have to go on foot? Sounds like a bad idea and we could get lost.”
“We won’t.” He whips out the map from his pocket and unravels it. “Let’s see. The gate is down here, and where our black robes will be heading is as far as the snowfields to the northwest.” He squints to read the fine print. “But that’s gonna be at least a 3-km walk, like crossing through half a sector in Midgar, and that’s not taking into account all the turns on the way there.” He looks back up with an incredulous face. “And in this weather? Even if they ran all the way, how would any of them make it?”
“Hmm…” She huddles up close to him to take a peek too, but he notices she’s clinging to him rather firmly. “Well, maybe they can still manage if they have a place to rest, and I think the hot springs would be a good spot to check.”
“Yeah, probably. But at the speed they usually go, who knows if they could even make it that far.” He traces with a finger along the roads of the map. “To get there, we’d have to go northeast from here, past a grove and then a lake… and is this just a lone tree? But past that is an intersection, where the north path leads to the hot springs.”
She nods along. “Yep. Looks like a long trek, alright.”
“At least all the landmarks are marked.” He frees himself from her grip and returns the map to his pocket. He then turns back to her. “I’m alright, but you gonna be okay?”
She makes a worried frown. “I dunno… I’m okay right now, but it might be tough with how far it is.”
“We came all this way already. We can’t give up before we’ve even confirmed anyone.”
“Oh, no, we’re not giving up. But surely we can get across some other way than by walking?”
He raises an eyebrow. “We don’t have a ride anymore, so how else are we gonna go?”
She turns back to him with an expectant look. “Like, maybe through the air?”
“…” He glances away to avoid eye contact.
She leans in a bit closer, making a more direct request, “Maybe Fenrir might be able to help?”
He feels his insides lurch a little. “Aerith, we can’t keep calling him.”
She pulls back up. “But we don’t have a choice, do we? Even if we have a map, it’ll take us forever!” She shivers again, clutching Cait tightly. “I really don’t want to have to deal with this any longer than we have to.”
“Yeah, but…”
She claps her hands together to plead. “Come on, Cloud! Pleeease? Even if it’s just for a little. I mean, you two are getting along so well! There’s no problem, right?”
He shakes his head. “It’s not that simple. The less reason we have to call him, the better.”
She frowns, concerned. “Is there a problem?”
“Yeah… At least, it feels like one.”
“‘Feels like one’?”
Though he tries to explain, he struggles over how to put it. There’s that apprehension again. It comes every time he considers aligning himself with Fenrir. Though he understands that the wolf has already accepted him, Cloud still has his reservations over this contract of theirs. It’s not about being humble, like if he deserves it or as a matter of courtesy. He just doesn’t want to have to keep asking for help. He doesn’t want to have to be someone else. He looks down at himself and raises his hands before him. Though they’ve always been his hands, he can’t help but feel numb in a way – not physically, he isn’t that cold yet – but maybe emotionally or even existentially. Whether or not it’s just a trick of the mind, he can even make out the thin outline of this otherworldly aura about him. It’s faint now that the old spirit has left, but his presence lingers on, as if he had left some sort of mark.
He turns back to her with a weary face. “It feels like… every time he comes to me, some part of me is slowly disappearing.”
“What? How?”
“I don’t know. But it’s exhausting.” He gives a sigh. “Now I know how Ruby felt.”
As soon as he brings her up, Aerith finally catches on and grows solemn. “I see. So that’s how it is.”
“Yeah…”
He drifts off in thought, recalling the moment Fenrir first spoke with him. At the time, it was just supposed to be a temporary measure – an alliance out of necessity to defeat a persistent enemy that simply refused to fight fair. But after all was said and done, what would setting this “contract” actually mean for him? Sure, now he’s able to turn into a superhero whenever Fenrir agrees to it. But it also means that he’s constantly slapped in the face with the wolf’s memories and feelings. He’s effectively been placed into the role of being Rubia’s guardian as the wolf once was. But he’s not Fenrir. He understands the wolf’s struggles, but to be honest, he’s barely even interacted with Rubia. He only wants to help her because, well, Ruby asked him.
And speaking of which, what about Ruby? Surely Fenrir is aware of her, but does he actually see her the same way as Rubia, or is she merely a piece of Rubia like how Ruby came to believe herself to be? If it’s the latter, then this contract of theirs might not work out like they all hoped. He needs answers. He has to get this settled first.
Returning to a sense of defiance, he insists, “Anyway, if we can manage on our own, we should. We’ve held our own plenty of times. That’s not stopping just because we have another trump card.”
“Right. Okay…” Aerith nods and claps her cheeks to snap into focus. “Don’t give in! Let’s do this!”
He also turns to their silent plush companions. “So… any clue when he’s gonna be back?”
She also notices poor Moogle left on the ground, where he’s come to gather a layer of snow atop him, and helps pull him up and pat him clean. “Dunno, he didn’t say. I sure hope he’s not being held back.” She tries to pick him up too, but between the large, plump, plush body of Moogle and Cait in her arms already, she struggles to pick up the former. “Um, Cloud?”
Cloud snags Moogle by the arm, lifts him up by his left hand, and tucks him under said arm as before. “Got ’im.”
The pair thus presses on through the cold, blistering winds and slippery, rough ground. If the weather were any better it would still be a tough journey to make, but it seems like their luck isn’t the best this time around. Even in these freezing conditions, fiends are still scattered about, lurking in the snow and behind rocky walls. Though these wild creatures wouldn’t be too problematic on their own, the intense cold and poor visibility really hampers Aerith’s attempts to help fend them off, and time and again, it’s up to Cloud to cut them down while she guards Cait Sith and Moogle from danger. At the very least, given Fenrir’s boons, Cloud has grown well accustomed to fighting in a blizzard and sends the fiends, large and small, on the run or otherwise buried.
But the longer they take, marching through these vicious winds, the worse for wear Aerith gets, having to take breaks from marching more and more frequently. Hiding behind trees may block a little of the wind, but it’s definitely no shelter. Eventually, though, Cloud can make out the thin wisps of what appears to be steam in the distance.
However, there’s one other roadblock they meet just before they can reach said area: namely, a literal roadblock. There is an unexplained huge mass of snow and ice blocking their path. While he could manage to climb it himself, it’s a different story for his companions. Poor Aerith has been hanging in there and putting on a brave face, but her flushed-pink, frostbitten skin tells him otherwise. They have to get out of here fast. Cloud refers back to the map, but it says nothing about any sort of blockage along the trail. To be fair, it is an old map, so who knows if the terrain had changed since it was drawn. Swearing under his breath, he tries to scale the wall himself first to see if he can’t find some way to clear it.
And things just go from bad to worse. As soon as he starts climbing, the wall suddenly seems to come to life and tremble as if it were agitated. He’s quick enough to jump off to a safe distance before the whole thing moves, but once it does get moving, they realize it wasn’t just another rock formation. It’s an Ice Golem, black rock body but layered thick with cover of white snow and ice crystals protruding out of its limbs like they were some kind of armor. It roars angrily to be stirred awake all of a sudden, throwing its arms in the air.
Dammit. They don’t have time for this. Cloud draws his sword again and jumps in time to avoid the golem’s initial smash into the ground. He leaves Moogle with Aerith again, yelling to get themselves away.
“Get back! I’ll handle him!”
Though unwilling to be sidelined, Aerith doesn’t argue and scurries away, pushing Moogle across the snow like a sled carrying Cait. Cloud meets the golem’s next attack with a block, pivoting straight into Counterstance, and retaliates, knocking the golem’s arms back. He lunges in with a vicious combo of strikes, sneaking in a well-timed Focused Thrust as well to try to stagger the enemy, and for just a moment there, it looks like he has the advantage.
But it doesn’t last. The Ice Golem is a real defensive juggernaut and ultimately all these sword swipes are barely leaving dents in its natural armor. Instead, it only grows more aggravated and lashes out with some heavy rock-hard punches, some of which knocks Cloud back as he struggles to block and he’s forced to dodge the rest. At least the lumbering beast isn’t that fast, so dodging isn’t too difficult a task. But then, just as Cloud thinks he’s found another opening to drop in with a Braver, the golem opens its maws agape and blows him away with a great bellow fraught with ice shards that shred against his exposed skin. Cloud manages to land back on his feet, but though the cuts are shallow, he finds himself staggered – or rather, frozen, as his joints suddenly seem to have trouble moving properly. What the… What happened to his ice resistance? But before he can process what’s happening, the golem is in his face and about to smash its huge rocky fists into him.
“Firaga!” Aerith yells.
The golem explodes with an intense flame that knocks it back and another right after that even knocks the beast down. It’s immediately followed by several bright white laser beams that sear past the golem’s armor and bombard it with light magic not unlike Ruby’s own. In the time that Cloud kept their enemy busy, Aerith had enough time to set up a few wards a good distance away; Arcane Ward, ATB Ward, and Radiant Ward. What a dangerous combination. While at the start Aerith looked scared and defenseless, she now faces the threat with impressive brashness and a hotter fire in her eyes. She expertly casts spell after spell as if she weren’t even hindered at all.
However, while most golems tend to specialize their defenses for physical or magical damage, the Ice Golem somehow had the stat pool to invest into both. Maybe it’s just the nature of creatures living this far north, or maybe it’s that they once had even more fearsome foes to contend with since ancient times. Either way, this golem would simply refuse to take much damage of any sort. In utter defiance, it roars her way and takes up defense by curling up into a giant boulder. And now as a ball, it stirs itself into a frenzied spin and rushes her.
“Eeek!”
“Aerith!”
Cloud tries to pull himself back to his feet, but he realizes that his body isn’t obeying him anymore. What happened? Wasn’t he supposed to be resistant to the cold? How the hell did he end up frozen? He can only helplessly watch Aerith struggle to avoid the giant tumbling boulder. Unfortunately, these snowed over grounds are the perfect rink for this golem to roam, and it skates along the ice with impressive grace despite its original lumbering nature, bouncing around the walls like a billiard ball. Unfortunately for Aerith, she’s never played a game of pool before. She stumbles over her feet just as the golem grazes past her – barely deflected by the help of her sturdy Princess Guard – and slides roughly against the ground. As she tries to climb back up, the golem is rounding right back and coming her way, and she flinches in fright.
“Stop, ye felon!”
Just in the nick of time, a Stop spell hits the golem, freezing it in place just inches away from her. Cait Sith, atop his trusty Moogle once again, comes leaping into the fray with a triumphant grin on his face.
“Sorry to keep ye waiting, lady and gent! Hope you didn’t miss me too bad, eh?”
“Cait!” Aerith cries with joy.
“Took you long enough…” Cloud groans.
Cait Sith offers a hand to help Aerith back up and he even fires off a Curaga for them both. Finally, Cloud can feel his limbs again and breaks free of his frozen prison. He regains his footing along with the fire in his eyes.
“We’ve been stalled long enough. Let’s finish this!” he declares.
“Yeah!!” the other two answer.
Cait Sith joins Aerith upon her magic wards, and together the two make a dynamic duo of spellcasters. As Cloud readies a powerful Limit Break, they lend him their aid by buffing him well, and he lets rip a vicious Meteorain to bombard the golem. Just for good measure, Aerith and Cait also blast their foe with combined Firaga and Comet spells that meet each other as flaming meteorites as well. In short, the Ice Golem is hammered with hot rocks until it’s practically smelted into a shiny ore. However, while normally the golem could resist bombardment well enough in this form, as soon as this “ore” cools in the whistling winds, it hardens and becomes immobile, returning to the land as it once was.
Well, a victory is a victory! Aerith, Cait Sith, and Moogle cheer and dance together, trading praise and gratitude to each other. And yet, Cloud stands before the remains of the golem, still staring at it like he’s in a daze.
“Cloud? Something wrong?” Aerith calls to him.
But he doesn’t answer right away. He doesn’t even return his sword to its place just yet. He just stares hard at their former enemy, still wondering what happened earlier. He didn’t imagine it, right? Nor is he losing his mind? For a moment there, it was like Fenrir’s presence disappeared all of a sudden. When the golem attacked him with that freezing bellow, what would normally have been just an annoying gust ended up nearly incapacitating him. Things would have ended really badly if Cait hadn’t shown up in time. Cloud looks back down at his free hand, curious if he can still make out some signs of that aura.
“Cloud…”
Though faint, it seems to still be around. He clenches up his fist and looks off again. What the hell. Even if it was frustrating to deal with, that enemy wasn’t anything particularly tough. When did he become so weak? Or worse, dependent on a superpower?
“Cloud!”
He finally snaps out of it, finding Aerith and Cait Sith, still atop Moogle, standing right next to him. She’s peering over with a look of concern.
“What’s gotten into you?”
He gets a little flustered amid the confusion and is too ashamed to admit it. “Uh… nothing. Just a little tired, I guess.” He finally returns his sword to his back.
“Oh, you and me both.” She lets off her own sigh. “That was pretty rough. At least the way’s clear now!” She cups her hands against her face with a frown. “Ugh… it’s so cold, I can’t feel my hands anymore.”
“I can see steam o’er the hills! The hot springs aren’t too far from here!” Cait throws a finger in the right direction. “Let’s go! The sooner we find those poor fellas, the sooner we’re home and dry!”
Taking no second opinions, Cait leads Moogle to charge on ahead, and Aerith nods to Cloud and hurries off after him. Cloud lets off a sigh, though is still feeling uneasy for some reason, and follows suit. And at last, after enduring through the final stretch, they arrive at their destination: in this icy desert lies an oasis of heat. Even with the blizzard blowing around them, the springs refuse to be blown out and their constant tug-of-war of temperatures leaves the area feeling pleasantly temperate.
As soon as they near the springs, Aerith makes a beeline to the nearest pool. She whips off her mittens and stows them in a pocket, and gingerly touches the water, which is a little hot for her at first, but she slowly eases her hands in and breaths a happy sigh of relief. Cait Sith and Moogle come by to join her, followed by Cloud, who has been growing more restless the closer they’ve come to the springs. Just as he approaches the poolside too, he peers down into the crystal clear water and is caught off-guard by the sudden feeling of getting splashed in the face. He shakes his head and opens his eyes again, but there’s nothing there. The water is undisturbed aside from Aerith’s gentle movements.
Cait takes a look around, scratching behind his ears. “Well, by the looks of it, the place is pretty clear – of people and even of fiends. Weird. Where is everyone?”
Aerith pulls back up to look around too. “Huh, I guess they must have moved on already.”
He frowns to himself, crossing his arms. “Well, if that’s what happened, I hope they’re still hanging in there. But it doesn’t help us find ’em any easier.”
“Hmm…” She turns back to the spring she touched and peers into it like she hopes to catch some kind of sign or hint of any recent presence, but the pool remains silent. Nonetheless undeterred, she gets an idea and turns back to Cait. “Hey, can you guys stand guard for a bit?”
“Huh? Stand guard of what?”
“I’m gonna take a dip in the spring.”
“W-what!?” Cait nearly falls off of Moogle and scrambles back up. “Aerith! Is this really the time!?”
“Relax! I’m not taking off my clothes! I just need to get closer to the source. I think, I may just be able to reach out to someone…”
“Eh? Uh…” He rubs his head, looking even more confused, but then sets a fist into his other hand as he realizes it. “Oh! You’re gonna try to talk to the planet, are ye?”
She nods back with a smile. “Ever since we left the capital, I think I’ve started to be able to hear voices again.” Her smile falters a little. “It’s been hard to listen whenever it comes to Rubia, but if it’s anything else, it shouldn’t be a problem.”
He nods back, feeling much more assured. “Alrighty! We’ll leave it to you, then! And good luck!”
“Thanks.”
As Aerith sits down to take off her shoes as well, she neatly sets them aside and begins to walk into the water ever-so carefully to watch her every step and find good footing below. Thankfully, the hot vents below are a safe distance away from where she treads and the temperatures and pristine waters keep the stones underneath smooth and warm, so it’s not too difficult to walk even barefoot. And as she comes closer to the center of the spring where the water has reached her waist height, she submerges herself entirely, settling upon a flat bed below, and takes a kneel for a prayer. How lovely. Not only does she get to warm up nicely, she can even feel her fatigue being washed away. She brings her hands together and closes her eyes, entering deep meditative thought.
In the meantime, Cait Sith and Moogle look away as to not disturb her and come over to Cloud, who is now turned away as well. But he looks troubled, disturbed, even. He has a hand clutching his head and his eyes are wide open, and despite the pleasant temperatures here, he looks like he’s coming on a cold sweat.
“Cloud? What’s up, lad? You doing okay?”
But he doesn’t respond. Unsure of what’s come over him this time, Cait shrugs and decides not to push the question. He awkwardly clears his throat and instead tries to change the subject. “Well, for what it’s worth, there’s some good news! After I signed off and checked around my office, I found the little critter! Turns out it was hiding under my desk, behind the computer unit. Some nosy good-for-nothings must have snooped around while I was out, but it’s pretty shoddy work compared to the likes of the Turks. I think we can rule them out as the guilty party, at least.”
As Cait goes off on a tangent to speculate how things turned out the way they did and who may be the main suspects, Cloud has tuned him out from the start. He’s too busy fretting over the mysteries of his own situation. It’s one thing if he’s reminded of Fenrir’s past through visions from time to time, but it’s another if he’s starting to experience them as if they were his own. In fact, for a moment there, he thought he saw a tiny white dragon girl pop out from the spring and splash water into his face. What is happening to him? Is he starting to hallucinate?
He releases his grip on his head and lets his hand drop, staring off into the distance. It’s happening again. He gets the nagging feeling that this area – no, the entire region – is deeply familiar to him. No, but it’s not really him who feels that way, is it? The more visions of the past he meets, the more of Fenrir’s past is being unwound, transcending the bounds of time to meet him in the present. Among them are old and deeply entrenched grudges that have lasted to this day, and Cloud now finds himself forced to bear the brunt of that anger in his own heart.
~
“There ya go… there’s a good kid.”
“Grr… grf.”
A large, muscular man with a long, thick brown beard, armed with a massive Ulfberht sword in hand, had just slain a giant twin-headed dragon that once ruled from his hot spring oasis and terrified the wintry plains. But just as he was going to return his weapon upon his back, he was alarmed to see some sort of movement amid the beast’s entrails. Something was still alive and trapped inside. In a hurry, he cut the beast’s belly open, and found what looked to be a little wolf cub, stained dark with the beast’s bile. The cub struggled to move even when freed, though, as its body seemed to be pale with frost. Confused yet sympathetic, the man helped up the poor pup and laid him by the poolside. He first reached into the warm water and laded some in his hands to shower the cub with it, letting the frostbite slowly and gently thaw away. Though the pup flinched and growled at first, he quickly settled down as he started to heal from the warmth, and the man was assured that it would be alright to set him into the water a little longer to recover.
“You’re a lucky one, alright. To think I’d find a lost cub in the bowels of the serpent!”
“…”
“Now how did you get in there? Challenged the beast, did ya? But got swallowed whole.”
“…Coonn…”
“Hehe. Don’t worry, lad. I won’t tell anyone. Let’s say you thrashed the beast from within and knocked it dead, eh?”
“Gruff.”
Though it was just a chance encounter, the man would later find the pup following him even after releasing him. Realizing that the cub was probably an orphan without a home, he decided to take him along, at first simply to seek a loving owner, but would soon become too attached to the little one to ever ditch him. Ever since their first encounter, the pup never once stopped following him, and thus he bore a name upon the kid “Fenrir”, in his people’s word to mean “fen-dweller”, after the land from which he was found.
The Great Glacier was not always so vast and impenetrably frigid as it is in the present day. There was once a sprawling, bountiful tundra where during the summers, the ice would melt away, revealing lively brooks and streams of flowing crystal clear water and a plethora of grasses upon which the local wildlife flourished. And yet, even in this warmer weather, the lands were never too safe or hospitable. No sane creature would dare to challenge Mother Gaia when She would stir up fearsome storms - thunder and ice alike - across the land. However, She was not entirely merciless: even in the midst of such storms, there was an oasis of heat that bubbled away to reward those who showed the resilience and fortitude to arrive there.
And yet, there would be fiends who not only roamed free, but would dare to challenge the planet’s law. A powerful serpentine fiend by the name of Nidhogg took up residency here one day, along with his gang of snake-like drakes, and for much time, there were none that could rise up to defy him. And yet, even ruling his own kingdom, he was still unsatisfied. Eventually he grew so ambitious that he would terrorize the entire glacial region as his own. He roused the winters to become permanent and even fiercer than ever before. Any creatures that sought warmth and relief from the deadly storms would have to pay a heavy tax of prey to him, and any who failed to impress him would be fed to his drakes instead. So it was a tale to be heralded that the frightful tyrant would finally be dethroned and slain by a Cetran warrior whom some would name a hero of legend; a “God of Victory”, perhaps. But never did this warrior think that he would come to take in an orphaned wolf cub; even less so that the little pup would one day become the absolutely massive beast that would terrorize the world.
The Far North would remain preserved as Fenrir’s domain well after his fateful sentence to exile. He would rule the lands with power surpassing that of the late Nidhogg, and yet with benevolence for the creatures that reside – by letting them be and leaving the law of nature to guide its course as it always had done. And on one fateful day during a patrol about the Northern Crater, he happened upon and took in a young dragon hatchling. Though he and Tyr once promised to keep the springs a secret to preserve its natural beauty, this secret would be passed on to the young Rubia as well out of necessity. Though she was a precocious child since birth, she was not well adapted to the cold, so he would bring her there to recover whenever she fell ill, where it would become like a second home to her.
However, it was only a matter of time before their peace was broken. Following the arrival of a certain calamity, the Cetra’s days were numbered as their numbers suffered. Those that held fast in their faith were the primary targets and fell prey to their alien threat’s craftiness, deceit, and disease. But they were not the lone targets; said alien likewise tempted the fickleness of humans to stir them into paranoia amid the great plague that struck all. Thus, even the humans that were once never on the radar of the Cetra, as their “primitive” technology paled in comparison to their own, would instead become too great a threat to suppress any longer as their own numbers deflated. Eventually, the once proud Cetra became the oppressed. Any that remained in humanity’s sights, regardless of their level of faith, would be targeted until they all but disappeared off the face of the planet.
Time passed and the Cetran monuments of old fell into obscurity and disrepair. The planet’s blessings grew weak without the sustainability of the Cetra’s culture that became lost to time. As if the planet Herself were weeping, even the glacier’s borders expanded to grow even colder and more ruthless than it had ever been before, abandoned to become a graveyard of white. And yet, despite all odds, be it hunger for power or ambition to overcome nature, humans would not stop expanding their territories. Even in the face of such unrelentless cold of the glacier, they reached so far inland that Fenrir had no choice but to take Rubia and abandon his ancestral home. Yet, despite his attempts to distance himself from any conflict, the hatred and distaste he bore for humans would only grow over time as he watched them spread and develop upon stolen Cetran knowledge. But he only wished for peace, not war, to live and let live just like old times. Little did he realize at the time that Rubia would be drawn to humanity for a different purpose…
~
Cloud clamps his hands over his head aching from the noise swarming around inside. Too much… it’s all too much coming in at once. Enough is enough! Why is he learning all this right now? What’s the point? Is Fenrir trying to tell him something? Then why doesn’t he get to the damn point!? And what’s with this stupid lecture about the evils of humanity!? He gets it! People can be shit! Doesn’t mean they’re all the same! Surely Fenrir understands that too, doesn’t he? He made a contract with one, for crying out loud!
“Stop… Shut up. Shut up! Leave me alone!” he suddenly yells aloud, greatly startling the cat and moogle beside him.
“Y-yipes!” Cait Sith and Moogle bounce away in a hurry.
“Cloud!” Aerith calls out.
He snaps back into reality and turns to look. Aerith has finished her prayers and stepped back out of the pool, and stands back up after putting her shoes and gloves back on. Despite having been bathing earlier, she still appears to be dry. Cait Sith and Moogle are hiding behind her, peeking out and looking equally frazzled.
She gives him a stern frown. “Cloud, what’s wrong? Who are you talking to?”
“…” He looks around, recalling where they are, and feels a tinge of embarrassment and guilt for lashing out at the wrong people. He returns an apologetic look. “Sorry… It’s not you guys.”
“That’s what I figured.” She takes a pause and asks frankly, “Do you wanna talk about it?”
“I…”
But he hesitates. He could say that the wolf is bothering him, but that doesn’t seem to be anything they can help with. Fenrir chose him and he agreed to the contract, so it should stay between them. Truth be told, he isn’t even sure if all these feelings of anger stirred in him now are directed in the right way. He can’t really blame Fenrir for being mad, especially with the history lessons he just got, and it feels silly to get mad about the wolf’s honest feelings. He doesn’t even know if they’re his own or somehow manufactured by the effects of this merging of spirits. He’s just lost, spinning in a circle without a target, and it's dizzying.
Aerith lets off a sigh of her own and suggests, “Maybe you should take a dip in the spring too. Could help clear your head.”
He shakes his head. “I’m fine.”
“Really? You’ve been saying that every time you’re acting weird.”
“…”
She beckons him with a wave of her hand. “Come on, at least come over and warm up a little. I think the cold is affecting you in ways you don’t even know.”
Though Cloud wants to keep arguing, Aerith’s almost motherly frown is so compelling like there were some kind of holy power to it. With a grunt in defeat, he marches up to the pool and lightly splashes a hand in it. To his surprise, he immediately feels a wave of healing relief come over him and even his nerves calm down a bit. But maybe he’s still kinda “weird” like Aerith said, since he swears he can also hear giggling coming from the pool. Amid the circles that he’s made with his own hand, the little dragon infant’s splashes stir the waters to meet them as if the past has come into clarity. He pulls his hand back up and looks at it, and then sets both hands back in as if to keep searching for her. Suddenly, the little twerp bites him on a hand and he withdraws in a hurry, but when he checks, there’s no mark to be seen. He’s still wearing gloves, but somehow he felt it like the bite touched skin.
All the while, Aerith and Cait Sith have been watching him stare at the pool like this is his first time touching warm water. Cait turns to her and shrugs, and then turns back to Cloud.
“I’m tellin’ ye, lad. You really should have thought about dressing warmer.”
Cloud fires back an annoyed glare. “I told you, I’m not even cold.”
“Well, you sure look like you are, fancying the hot spring like you’ve met your first love.”
“…” He shakes his hands dry and wipes the rest against the side of his pants. “We’ve spent long enough here. Any idea where we should look next?”
Aerith brings a reassuring smile. “Yep! I talked to the planet just now. The locals of the past suggested we try the biggest cave that’s northeast from here.”
“Huh? You talked with the planet… and they answered?”
She raises an eyebrow. “Um, yeah. Is that a surprise? I’ve done it before.”
“Uh…” He rubs his head awkwardly. “Right. Just thought it’d be harder or something, seeing how we’re associated with Rubia and all.”
“Well, they still don’t like Rubia, but at least they don’t hate me.” She shows pumped-up fists and nods with confidence. “Anyway, let’s go! I’m plenty warmed up, so we should be good!”
Cait Sith cheerfully throws up a fist in agreement. “Alright! ’Bout time we got ourselves a real direction! Boy, this trip’s been a pain in the neck… and the back, and even me legs! Can’t get out sooner if I begged!”
“You’ve been sitting around all this time,” Cloud reminds him. “We had to carry you guys too.”
“Details, details…” He waves it away and points a finger for the northeast like a compass needle, directing Moogle to spin that way too. “Off we go now!”
But before they start off again, Cloud then calls out: “Wait.”
“Huh?” Aerith turns back.
“What now, Cloud?” Cait asks with an impatient look, his ears flattened.
Cloud looks back at his hands, observing the subtle signs of that aura still around him. Even now he feels some ancient instincts guiding him and looks off for the northeast, observing the large ice-covered hill in the distance, and he catches the darkened entrance to some kind of cave. He then turns to them with an offer: “Forget walking. Let’s just jump over.”
Cait’s ears perk back up. “Jump?”
“Oh!” Aerith’s eyes light up. “You mean like how Ruby used to do it?”
Cloud nods and gives forward a hand. “Hang on.”
“Yippee!” she cheers with a clap. She then mumbles just barely aloud, “Finally. Maybe Fenrir gave him a scolding that convinced him.”
Cloud decides not to humor her clearly wild guess and keeps quiet. Aerith takes his hand in her own, while Cait Sith and Moogle both lay their hands on his arm as well. Cloud closes his eyes, and with a silent incantation as usual, warps them away safely and without further hassle.
~
Stepping into the dark cave to escape the ever furious winds, the party is surprised to find that it’s actually rather warm in here; maybe almost hospitable. It’s like the place was somehow being kept warm, which is odd considering how far this hill is from the hot springs. Regardless, they push forward into the depths, descending cautiously into what could be the den of a terrible witch.
However, what they instead find at the bottom is not a scary-looking cavern, but a rather well-lit and well-decorated homely place. There’s only one room here, but it’s spacious enough for a few people to live. There are wooden seats draped with cloth made from animal hides, set beside counters of stone that have been cleared of any ice or snow. The cabinets and drawers are also wooden, decorated with bones of hunted game, and there are also skulls of larger game that also line one of the back walls. And in the center of the room lies a warm campfire pit, already lit aflame, and a pot of stew is simmering peacefully just above its low fire. It looks like a site where some local hunters once lived, though it’s mostly empty now.
There is but one lone old woman in a light blue woolen cap, a puffy purple snow jacket, and leather cleated boots. She’s seated by the fire, watching the stew bubble away, when she turns to see some visitors have wandered in here.
She greets them with a delighted smile. “Oh! Visitors? My, my, what a rare sight. Barely anyone comes by here these days.”
“Oh. Hello there, ma’am,” Cait Sith returns the greeting with a tip of his crown. “Sorry to barge in like this.”
The old woman waves a hand. “Oh, I don’t mind. If anything, I know how cold it can get around here. Come, you all must be freezing! I’ve prepared some lovely hot stew just for the occasion.”
“Wow! For us?” Aerith blinks in surprise. “Even though we’re strangers?”
“Now, now. In these lands, there are no ‘strangers’, only travelers who have endured hardships along the way. There’s no need to thank me. The stew comes free of charge too.”
“Really? Thanks!”
“We-he-hell! Don’t mind if we do!” Cait’s thin-slitted eyes light up along with Moogle’s own beady ones, and the two hurry right over to take a seat by the fire.
Aerith also hurries over to take a seat, but Cloud remains hesitant. He slowly approaches them too, but doesn’t sit down just yet. Something, no, a lot of things here don’t seem right. Who is this old woman and why is she living here all alone? The place looks like it could house several people, judging by the few beds in the far back. Just above them, some guns and other hunting weapons are lined on racks, some of which seem a little high up for this little old lady to reach. Even if she were related to some of the people that supposedly live here, why would they leave their weapons at home if they’re out on a hunt?
“Cloud! Come here!” Aerith calls again, patting the seat beside her.
“Sit and relax, lad! For once we’re shown hospitality and you’re lookin’ foreign to the idea!” Cait likewise comments lightheartedly.
The old woman had walked aside to fetch some wooden bowls and spoons and now comes back with them on a tray. “Don’t worry, dear. Have some hot stew to warm your aching body.”
“…I’m not hungry.” He passes a concerned glance toward his teammates, who have each accepted a bowl. “In fact, we’re not staying long.”
“Eh? We’re not?” Cait asks, looking disappointed.
He instead asks the woman, “We’re looking for some people wearing black robes. Have you seen any pass by?”
The old woman’s smile fades slightly. “Black robes…?”
“Oh, right!” Now reminded, Aerith also asks, “They’d all have these black dusty-looking robes, and their entire bodies are covered, including their heads. They also look a little pale underneath, almost sickly. They probably wouldn’t say very much either.”
Cait looks around the room. “Well, at the very least they don’t seem to be here. Maybe they didn’t come this way?”
The old woman now grows solemn and lets off a sigh. “…Actually, I did encounter a few like that.”
Everyone’s attention is back on her. Aerith presses further, “Really? Where’d they go?”
“I found the fellows waiting by the springs just the other day and invited them over to take a rest, but they sure were some odd ones. Not only did they refuse to eat anything, they just wandered back out no matter how many times I tried to help them.” She shakes her head. “Don’t know what got to them, but they were really determined to keep going out there in the cold.”
Aerith makes a worried frown. “It’s okay, ma’am, it’s not your fault. They must have had a good reason.”
Cait scratches his head. “But even if they were following a certain someone, it’d be way safer if they waited out this storm. No one sane would try to cross the entire glacier in one go!”
“I think they would still try, especially because it’s that certain someone.”
Cait sinks a little. “I suppose so. Crazy, almost like they’re willing to throw their own lives away just for this.”
“Yeah…”
But while Cloud was listening to the old woman, his eyes instead have trailed off toward the back again and his suspicions continue to mount. He then asks her again, “By the way, where are the hunters?”
The old woman blinks in surprise. “Pardon?”
He turns back to her with a suspicious stare. “The hunters who live here. I don’t think you’d be without anyone to help you out, not in a place like this.”
“…” The woman now makes a solemn face and shakes her head. “Dear, dear… Young men and their daring ambitions…”
Aerith gets curious too. “Daring ambitions? Did something happen to them?”
She nods back slowly. “Yes, unfortunately, but exactly what I couldn’t say. I came by for a visit to see my son and his friends, you see, after they had been away for a long time. But when I got here, the place was already empty. I thought it was odd that they’d just leave so much of their belongings behind, but I couldn’t help but fear that they were chased out by some terrible fiend.”
Aerith’s eyes widen. “Some terrible fiend…”
Cait grows nervous. “Uh-oh. Ye don’t think it’s that one fiend we heard about, right?”
“…” Cloud glances back toward the weapons. “But it’s weird that they didn’t even try to fight.”
The old woman shakes her head again. “Oh, I thought so too! But whatever it was must have caught them all off-guard, and they had to flee!” She sighs to herself. “I’ve been waiting here for their return for a while now, but they haven’t been back yet.”
“How long have they been gone?” Aerith asks.
“Who knows… weeks, maybe even months…”
Cait gasps, “Months!? Then there’s no way they’re comin’ back-” But Aerith immediately fires off a glare his way, which quickly changes his tune. “Er, I mean, maybe they just found another place to stay?”
Aerith offers the woman a sympathetic look. “Wherever they’ve gone, I’m sure they’re managing somehow. Hope that they come back soon, so you don’t have to keep waiting here.”
And yet, Cloud dares to say the quiet part aloud, “No, they’re not coming back.”
“Cloud! Be nice!”
But he insists, “In fact, none of this story holds up.” He walks toward the beds and looks around, noting how long it’s been since the sheets have been moved. “Several black robed people wandering this far into the glacier is hard enough to believe, especially in this storm, but if they were somehow guided this way to this cave, it would be a detour from the most direct route northbound. We didn’t even see any footprints aside from our own outside the entrance.”
“Uh…” Cait rubs his head awkwardly. “Now that you mention it, that does sound a little off, doesn’t it?”
Though Aerith was about to get mad at him, she realizes he makes a good point and grows worried. “But what if the snow just covered their tracks?” she asks just to be safe. “The storm’s pretty bad and they were out here for a few days.”
“Maybe, but that’s not the only problem.” Cloud’s eyes now drift toward a large locked trunk near one of the beds. “Even if the hunters were chased away by something, they wouldn’t have left all of their stuff like this, especially their weapons. They’d be asking to die without them.”
To that, Aerith doesn’t have a counterargument. “Yeah… that is definitely weird.”
Finally, Cloud looks back to their old host. “And lastly, where would this person be able to find dry firewood to burn, especially if she’s living alone? Any tree out there would be drenched with how often it snows. Even if she had some source of fire, it wouldn’t be enough to burn the wood without some other starter… unless the hunters miraculously took that with them too?”
By now, the woman’s face has grown dark. “…Young man, what are you implying?”
“That you’re lying and you must have a reason.” He gives the trunk a light nudge with his foot. “What’s in here?”
“None of your business. If you’re going to be this rude, I’ll have to ask you all to leave.”
But Cloud isn’t convinced. He turns back to it and draws his sword, raising it to the lock.
“W-what are you doing with that?”
“Cloud! Come on, what’s gotten into you?” Aerith scolds him.
“Uh, Cloud? Maybe we shouldn’t be rifling through a stranger’s home?” Cait suggests innocently.
“Stop! Don’t!” the old woman cries.
Before any of them can stop him, he smashes the lock off and flips open the lid. Immediately, a putrid smell comes pouring out from the trunk like the scent of decaying organic matter. Cloud winces and pinches his nose as he steps back, but his eyes widen in horror and then narrow again with his suspicions confirmed. By now, Aerith and Cait Sith, hopping off of Moogle, hurry over to try to pull him away, but they too gasp at what’s inside.
In the trunk lies not even the entire half-rotten body of a man. It has been chopped up into large chunks, almost as if the man were slaughtered and sectioned like livestock, and locked here in a trunk as if for storage, but even the cold of their surroundings isn’t enough to keep the flesh fresh.
Aerith steps back too, covering her face in shock and disgust. “A-a man!?”
“Jumpin’ jackrabbits! No, wait, more like a dead man’s chest!” Cait Sith blubbers in a panic. “Wait, if this is here, then…” He fearfully turns back to the pot they had just been sitting by and his jaw drops. Just now, Moogle had been left to himself and was happily drinking the stew when he turns their way, looking confused. Cait rushes on over and starts slapping him on the back. “Spit it out! Spit it out, right now!”
Poor Moogle gags and hurls the contents onto the floor, leaving a bit of a mess on the rug.
Aerith starts to gag too. “Ugh… I’m glad I didn’t eat any of it yet.”
Cloud now faces the old woman again with his sword drawn. “You’re no ordinary person. Show yourself!”
By now, the old woman’s face has gone dark, lowered and shaded with gloom, but then a subtle crack is revealed on her lips. She begins to chuckle quietly to herself and shakes her head, and then lifts her head back up with a crazed grin.
“You just couldn’t sit down and be a good boy, could you, you useless ingrate?”
With that snarky line, the old woman gathers up and disappears into a wisp of magical snow and ice. When she reappears, she is no longer an old woman, but a fair young maiden with straight long hair and very pale blue skin, wearing barely anything but a one-piece suit. She also lifts the illusion of the cavern around them, shattering the image of the once homely den to reveal a wide open, ice-layered room like what one would expect of a mountain cave in a glacier. Aerith gasps in horror again as she looks around. A number of the black robed folks they were searching for are here after all, but they’re trapped in prisons of ice in the walls. Now with the illusion lifted, the campfire pit is revealed to be an actual pit where a number of ravaged human corpses have been so nonchalantly dropped. Cait Sith and Moogle freak out and scurry back in reverse to join their teammates.
The haughty ice witch brushes a hand through her silky hair and now formally introduces herself, “I am Snow, the Guardian Angel of the North. For too long humans have transgressed on our territories. So many fools seeking relief in the springs fell for the simplest trick in the book! They just couldn’t help themselves when they met an old woman’s generosity. Simple-minded and pathetic. The parasites don’t even deserve to live.”
Now Aerith gets mad and summons her staff in hand. “They were just people passing by! How could you!?”
“Something tells me this witch dinnae care one bit,” Cait Sith mutters in frustration, while Moogle throws up some fists.
Snow retorts with a hiss, “‘Passing by’? I dare you to that to all the creatures that once thrived across the land! Where did they go once humans started trespassing anywhere that wasn’t theirs!? Once humans invade, they never leave! You’re all just pests looking to steal life from where there once was!”
“That’s not true! A lot of these lands have been left intact! Those hot springs, for starters…”
“Silence!” Snow screeches, throwing an accusatory finger. “You’re the last one who should be speaking such filth! I saw you drop right in like you owned it!”
“Huh!? You saw that!?”
“You even admit it!”
“Eh? I didn’t even see her anywhere. Where did she see us from?” Cait Sith admits too.
“Fools! Why would I reveal myself to you dirty neanderthals!?”
“Well, excuse me for askin’…”
At this point, Cloud has had enough of this conversation. He gives the witch a dangerous glare that is fueled with an internal rage that has been building ever since she opened her mouth and introduced herself. “These aren’t your lands,” he growls.
She returns him an indignant frown. “Who are you to decide that, cretin? I’ve lived here longer than you’ve ever been on this planet!”
“No, you don’t know anything… not about this place or about its long history.” He even closes his eyes.
“Ha! And what would you know? You're just a…”
But Snow’s voice drifts off and her eyes widen in fear. At that moment, an ominous aura begins to envelop Cloud and when he opens his eyes again, they’re glowing bright with an awesome power. Though he isn’t going full Fenrir-mode again, just the starting aura is already enough to show a frightful visage around him forming into the shape of a giant wolf glaring down his prey.
She staggers back a little. “What… It can’t be… Who are you!?”
Cloud bears his teeth, which are likewise masked as sharpened fangs by his aura. “The God-king of the North.”
~
“And would ya believe it! After I slew the mighty serpent, a little wee pup came bouncing right out of its nasty gut! It turned out that it wasn’t my sword that knocked it down, but the thrashin’ the kid did to the beast’s insides!”
“You’re kiddin’ us, Tyr! That was Fenrir? Look at ’im now! Doubt anything could swallow something his size!”
“Hahaha! Yeah, the kid’s got a fast growth spurt, alright. He always was a fighter, but now he’s right scary!”
Tyr was seated at a table in a well-crowded tavern speaking of his adventures to the locals who were attentive to his every word. And while Fenrir at an earlier age would have been let inside, by now, the wolf had grown to an impressive size that he struggled to fit through the door and resolved to stay out. At least they left the windows open so he could still hear Tyr’s whimsical tall tales.
“But don’t you think that it’s gonna be a problem?” another man asked. “A wolf doesn’t usually grow that fast. Maybe we should ask the Oracle about what’s going on.”
“Bah! What would that old crone have to say that I don’t already see with my own eyes? And even if he does grow up gargantuan, Fenrir’s as loyal a friend as they come! No worries needed!”
“If you say so, Tyr…”
As Tyr continued telling his tales, though, a certain young plainly dressed woman, who was busy cleaning an emptied table, had been listening on the sidelines quietly. Though she always had a fascination with the legendary warrior, she didn’t always have the courage to come up to him and speak her mind. Instead, she’d usually watch his cheerful, handsome face bring smiles to many around him and the cheer in the air would be so infectious that even she couldn’t help but smile along even in her worst days. All those grandiose tales he’d share were so inspiring that she could never forget him day or night, and eventually she grew so fond of him that she convinced herself that she would never love another man. If only she had the courage to march through the crowd and declare that she’d follow him anywhere…
Another man then spoke up, “By the Gods, Tyr! With how much you’re talking up the wolf, it sounds like he’s been stealing your kills! How many of them did you actually get!?”
“That’s the God-king of the North to you, sir!”
“Oh, my apologies… Hey, you didn’t answer the question!”
Another round of laughter filled the room. The young lady quickly tidied up the dirty dishware to bring it back to the kitchen. However, even while out of the room, she kept one ear still heeding the proud warrior’s words even from there. He spoke of many other exploits that he and Fenrir had gone on since their initial days, and by now, the two were not only a legendary duo, they were among the greatest explorers of their day, helping discover the geography of the lands they traveled to such extent that even mapmakers often asked Tyr for advice.
Eventually, the tales would come to an end for the time being and Tyr declared that he and Fenrir would be off once more. He thanked the tavern owner, a proud woman and mother in her middle years, for all the booze and treats and was about to head back out to meet Fenrir, who had been waiting patiently for him. But before the two could go off, the young lady from earlier suddenly rushed out in a hurry.
“Tyr!”
“Ah, the young maiden from earlier! What can I do for you?”
“Please… tell me where you’ll go next!”
“Where? Hmm, that’s a good question, actually…” He turned back to Fenrir, who gave him a disappointed look, and laughed. “What’s that look, partner? I’ve had my fair share of picks, so maybe it’s about time you gave some opinions yourself!”
At that moment, the young lady took her chance to suggest instead, “If not, then please, let me go with you! I promise I won’t be too much of a burden!”
But he simply looked shocked and then shook his head, concerned. “Easy there, Miss. The places we go are unknown lands still left to explore! There’s no telling what dangers we might run into!”
“That’s alright. Because I know you won’t lose to anything!”
“Appreciate the compliment, but I’m sorry. I have a strict no-civilians policy.”
“None whatsoever?”
“Of course! Fenrir and I may be strong, sure, but it’s a different matter if we also have to defend someone who can’t fend for herself!” He paused and then quickly added, “No offense intended, Miss.”
“I see… So I can’t go because you think I’ll be a burden.”
Tyr rubbed his head awkwardly. “Well, I wouldn’t put it that way, but… yes, it would be our responsibility to keep you safe.”
“Then, I’ll do it. I’ll train hard and become a warrior myself! Then when I’m ready, I’ll join you on your adventures!”
“Uh…” Tyr looked rather taken aback by that, but he still had to respect her commitment. “Well, if you really think you can do it, then all the best! If you ever make a name for yourself, then perhaps we will meet again someday!”
“Yes! I promise I’ll do my best! I won’t let you down!”
“By the way, young lady, what might I call you by in the meantime?”
“You can call me Pati because that’s my name!”
“Haha! A lovely name for sure! Good luck, Pati!”
And the young lady, ever excited at the prospects would hurry back into the tavern to let her mother know of the news. Once she was gone, though, Tyr sighed to himself and turned back to Fenrir.
“What in the world have I started, my friend?”
Fenrir snorted and rolled his eyes, and even spoke aloud with a growl, “…False hope.”
“Hey, now! She’s just gotten a little excited! I’m sure that whatever road she takes from here, she’ll be a diligent one.”
“Diligent, yes… but much too naïve.”
“Well… there are always those ones.”
However, it would be many years later that he would come to see the young lady again. The greater the exploits that Tyr and his trusty partner Fenrir would challenge, the greater their shared infamy that would draw some concern and possibly envy from middle-tier Ackardian officials. At first what began as whispers of rumors that stirred up the ideas of potential risks about the wolf’s growing power gradually spread to become panicked disturbances that would reach out into the public and the ensuing confusion sparked protests in the streets that would come to the attention of the Grand Council at the top. And with a general consensus reached, they would turn to the Grand Oracle for advice on how to deal with the wolf’s rapidly increasing threat.
But what would become of the young lady named Pati? True to her word, she sought out guidance from masters around the city to help her develop fighting skills, but time and again, she was turned down. Her mother had warned her the first time she brought it up that day, but she was undeterred. Eventually, she would find a master of the dark arts that hesitantly offered his services, but warned her not to tell anyone that she learned from him. They would take their private lessons out of the city to the mountains up north where they would be unlikely to be disturbed. And from there, she would regularly leave the city for the north to continue her training even amid the cold, unrelenting winter storms that often rampaged over the region. However, one day when she went off for her training regiment, she would disappear and never return.
Her mother long grew suspicious of her regular trips out of town and the ragged state she would be in whenever she’d return, so that day Pati didn’t return, she was frantic and sent out a plea to the gate patrol to search for her. And from there, the news of the missing maiden spread until even Tyr who returned alone from another journey would hear of it. He immediately took on the rescue mission and searched the high peaks and as far as the glacial plains. Eventually, using the wisdom shared of voices past, he located her in a certain cave there.
But she was no longer the same person she once was. Instead, here was an ice witch who was cursed to never leave the snowy lands, lest her body melt and never reform. However, even in this form, Pati who now went by the name of “Snow” would still recognize Tyr. She was distraught and ever suffering in the cold despite her appearance, and yet her icy powers had grown so powerful that she could barely contain them. The problem was, however, the cost to those powers.
The truth was, the dark arts master she had met once who taught her these skills was no ordinary Cetran man. In fact, he was actually a fiend in disguise: a tricky Mindflayer that preyed on the weakness and desperation of people’s hearts. Eventually, she learned of the Mindflayer’s tricks, but by then it was too late and he laid upon her a curse that transformed her into an ice witch. If she wished to return to normal, she had to sacrifice 100 humans, of equal parts men and women, to him at a certain shrine hidden in this cave. At first, she was too scared to fight back and went along with the deal – at least the fiend said “humans” and not Cetra – but the longer the challenge went, the more difficult it was for her to find humans who would dare venture out this far, and she eventually gave up and hid here for eternity.
She pleaded with Tyr to kill her and end her suffering. However, he responded appropriately by reassuring her he’d save her and promptly left to find the Mindflayer and destroy him. Unfortunately, it seemed like the curse he had put upon Snow was not one that would lift even with his demise. Ashamed and apologetic that he had failed his duty to protect her, Tyr then promised that he would keep searching for a cure to one day release her from this curse.
However, the following tragedy was not one that anyone but the Grand Oracle herself could have foreseen. Tyr would disappear, not only from her life, but from many others following the terrible trial that was held for Fenrir after the oracle’s prophecy. Ultimately, it was because Tyr dared to interfere with the execution that the wolf was spared and instead sentenced to exile. As Odin had been attending said execution to oversee it, he threatened to take Tyr’s head as well, but also offered him an exchange for his life if he slew the wolf himself. Instead, Tyr would boldly take his sword, fling it into the air, and let it sever his good arm so he would never be forced to do so. Outraged yet impressed, Odin thus spared them both and departed, leaving the rest to his Cetran disciples to detain the rebel.
Thus, there was no one left who knew of Snow’s plight and could save her. She waited over the ages for Tyr’s return, but her heart eventually gave up and sank into despair. She grew to hate not only the humans for trespassing on her grounds, but also the Cetra for abandoning her. And so, while she began hunting humans for sacrifice out of desperation to save herself, she continued to hunt them down well after she had fulfilled her original quota. And so the legend of the ice witch would remain to the present day.
~
Upon realization of this man’s true identity, Snow’s face of panic warps into one of anger and disgust. “You… You traitor.”
Cloud doesn’t respond just yet. He keeps a careful watch of his foe, anticipating her next move.
“You, of all beings, reincarnating as a human? Don’t mock me, Wolf!” she screams, launching a great blast of ice his way.
Cloud deftly dodges it, and as she continues to hurl ice his way, he deflects the next several attacks with a few perfectly timed swings.
“Why… Why did you two disappear!?” Snow cries, growing even more hysterical. “For eons, I’ve waited for him! For you! For anyone to come help me! But no one did! No one cared!”
Snow is quite beside herself with explosive rage despite her icy exterior. She continues to barrage him with ice spells of a great variety of approaches – blasts, spikes, walls, and even spinning projectiles hurled in curves – but every time, he avoids or deflects them with just as little effort as the first. At this point, Aerith and Cait Sith have stepped back a safe distance to watch him from afar because he clearly seems to have this battle settled.
“I’ve been stuck here all this time, cursed to live on as a demon!” She tries again and again, barraging him as furiously as she can, but to little avail. “I’ve watched as the Cetra disappeared, their last legacies trampled by humans who know nothing but their own selfish desires! I’ve killed as many of these roaches as I could get my hands on! And for what!?”
She sharpens those ice crystals, whipping them around and throws them like homing projectiles. Again, he casually deflects them, and the spells’ effects crash against the already thick ice walls around them.
“For this impudent lupine to assume a human disguise and play with them like he’s always belonged! After all they’ve done to the planet, this is what’s left of the Cetran legacy!? You make me sick!!”
As soon as she mentions it, Aerith’s attention is caught. She hurries closer and with a hand up, calls out, “Wait! You know the Cetra!?”
“Aerith!” Cait Sith squeaks.
“Stay back!” Cloud yells too.
But she refuses to stand down. With a firm look of resolve, Aerith stops right between the two to try to stop their fight. “Guys, stop! We don’t have to do this!”
For just a moment, even Snow stops short of her next attack and keeps a big ball of icy magic afloat in one hand. “You…”
“Aerith, move!” Cloud demands with a frustrated growl.
“No, Cloud, listen! If she’s Cetra, we shouldn’t fight!”
“She’s not sane! Get outta the way!”
“Don’t just assume that! Let me talk to her!” Aerith turns back to Snow, offering an open hand as a gesture of peace. “Please! I’m the last of the Cetra too! I want to understand!”
Snow’s eyes narrow suspiciously. “You’re Cetra…?”
“Yes!” Aerith brings her hands together as if assuming a prayer pose. “I’ve spoken with the planet to be able to find you. They told me about you too.” She then lowers her hands and shows an earnest face. “Your real name isn’t Snow, is it? It’s Pati.”
“…”
“Do you remember? You were inspired by a great warrior and trained hard just so you could fight by his side.”
“…”
“He cared about you too and went on a long journey to find a way to lift your curse. I’m sure even now he’s still trying from somewhere amid the planet’s Great Flow.” She turns back to Cloud with a sympathetic smile. “Fenrir too. He sensed you were near and wanted to check up, right?”
Now that she puts it like that, Cloud makes an awkward face. Was that the reason why he was drawn this way? For a moment, he thought it was just morbid curiosity, but maybe the wolf felt the same way. If only he’d say something instead of always forcing these vague “feelings” onto him.
Aerith turns to Snow once more. “So, please, let’s not fight. We can help each other!”
“…” But as much as Aerith tries, Snow’s hardened glare doesn’t soften in the least. “Is that what the voices of the past told you?”
She nods. “That’s right.”
Instead of any sort of relief, though, Snow’s face grows even paler as she realizes the implications and her lips turn up with disgust. “So… they really have abandoned me.”
“Huh?”
She lowers her head and her face grows darker as her eyes grow more disturbed. “Those worthless cowards. They only believe what they want to believe.”
“…” Now Aerith is starting to get worried.
Snow lifts her head back up, looking even more betrayed than she had been since earlier. “Even now they still dare to mock me? To pretend that they always cared?”
“W-wait. It’s not like that-”
“Silence, clueless brat!” Snow hisses, bringing her ball of magic forward. “If anyone did, they wouldn’t have waited this long to show up! You’re just as bad to trust them!”
Aerith backs up nervously. “But…”
“Aerith, move!” Cloud yells again.
Snow is about to blast her too when he leaps in the way to block the spell, but this time the magic explodes with such intensity that it knocks them both away in the ensuing shockwave.
“Cloud! Aerith!” Cait Sith cries and Moogle rushes on over to help them up.
Fortunately, Cloud managed to take the brunt of the attack, so Aerith just has a few scratches from dropping to the hard rocky floor. He swings his blade again to smash through the ice to avoid being frozen too and brings it forward again. He’s had enough of this crazy witch. If she hates being immortal so much, then he should grant her some mercy and cut her down himself.
“Why should even I care!? Human, beast, Cetra – they’re all the same! Selfish creatures that deserve no sympathy! Only the powerful can rule on this planet, and these lands are mine and mine alone! You all have a death wish to come this far!”
By now, Snow is no longer listening to anything. Fueled with rage, her power grows rapidly and she even begins to float in the air. She charges up an even bigger ball of ice magic between her hands and lifts it overhead with a crazed look in her eyes.
“After all these years, even time itself is meaningless! There’s only one law of the land that matters: your own survival!”
With that mad declaration, she whips up a powerful blizzard twister inside the cavern that swarms the entire area. Sensing the danger, Cait Sith tries to cast a Manaward over himself and his friends to help them fend off the assault. However, it seems he needn’t worry in the least. Even before he can put up the wall, Cloud makes an apparently mad dash right into the center of the twister. With a perfectly calibrated spin, he unleashes his own counter-twister that blasts through Snow’s own and neatly cancels it out.
“!?”
At this moment, Snow realizes she just made a critical mistake. That swarming attack, though powerful and wide-reaching, would be a deep cut to her stamina, and she inevitably drops her guard for a brief moment. That’s just enough time Cloud needs. He lunges through the scattered hail of icy dust so quick that he seems to disappear for a moment, smashing through several ice walls at once, and cuts her down with a single well-placed slash, in a way that’s reminiscent of a certain command materia’s effects. She drops to the ground and it looks like he had knocked her out in a single blow.
He lowers his blade and turns back to her with cold, emotionless eyes, and disregarding whether or not she can still hear him, he gives her an answer: “If you really wanted anyone to help you, you would have found them yourself.”
She doesn’t respond and her body lies still. He waits a little longer to make sure she isn’t going to get back up, and once assured she isn’t moving, finally returns his sword to its place and walks back to his friends.
Aerith watches him with a very discouraged look and sighs to herself. Though she suspects she already knows the answer, she asks him anyway, “…Did it really have to come to this?”
Cloud replies as coolly as ever, “She brought it on herself. If she really needed help that badly, she shouldn’t have waited for someone to come to her. Instead, she hid in a cave far from everyone else and watched as the Cetra around her disappeared and did nothing. That’s exactly what the humans she hated did.”
“I guess… but I still feel bad.”
He gives a soft sigh. “Aerith, we can’t get attached to anyone who happens to come from the past. They weren’t all pure-hearted souls who did nothing wrong.”
“I know.” She takes a pause and then mumbles aloud, “But we’re still giving Rubia another chance.”
“…” Cloud shakes his head. “Rubia is different. She needs to change so that all this chaos can finally stop.”
“Yeah…” Aerith nods along. “And we have to help her understand that.”
She’s still feeling pretty down, though, so he opts to let her be. He turns back toward the walls around them, where their unfortunate robed fellows have been imprisoned. Well, for once they finally found the people they were looking for, at least some of them. There are just a few of them left here. Did the rest fall prey to the witch, or did they somehow manage to escape? They didn’t see any tracks on the way here, so maybe she only managed to capture a handful while the others fled. In any case, it’s about time he set them free. Cloud draws his blade again, taking it in both hands, and lifts it over his shoulder to bring it into position.
However, before he can let fly another wide whirl, he catches a sense of danger nearby and whips around again. While Cait Sith and Moogle are still with Aerith to comfort her and lift her spirits, the three have let their guard down. Apparently, that blow from earlier wasn’t enough to take out Snow, and she manages to pull herself back up, though staggers a bit as she’s greatly weakened. And like an assassin with her targets in sight, she raises her hands forward and prepares to ensnare them in their own prisons just like her other victims.
Unfortunately for her, Cloud is already on it. He flash-steps over, leaping into the air just above her, and drops fast with a smashing Braver. But it isn’t just the usual move either. The hit lands with such explosive impact that he crushes her into the ground, sending cracks that run all along the floor, and the remaining energy from the attack disperses like Blade Beam, which further cracks the ice and rock around them until even the icy walls around them are struck. In a collective instant, the prisons of ice shatter to pieces. The hapless victims drop to the floor upon being freed, and by some miracle, they’re still alive. They even start to moan in pain and slowly climb to their feet once more.
“Huh!?” Aerith is snapped out of her funk and gasps, “Oh! Cloud!”
“Vow! What a blow!” Cait Sith exclaims, having fallen back in shock atop Moogle’s head while the latter has his mouth agape. “Gone so fast I didnae even see him!”
They find him standing atop his enemy, who at last has stopped moving for real. But this time, Cloud makes sure his enemy is dead and remains on guard even as her body begins to fade away into green ether. However, it seems upon her defeat, the strange curse magic she placed on this cavern has been broken and the entire place begins to tremble. Aerith looks around, a little concerned, while Cait Sith and Moogle start panicking beside her. Cloud, however, remains unfazed and is still staring at the back wall.
“Uh, shouldn’t we be hurryin’ out now?” Cait Sith asks.
“Hey, Cloud!” Aerith calls to him again. “What are you waiting for?”
But he doesn’t move. There’s something else here that has caught his attention, a signal of some sort that he’s picked up, and it is coming from back here. Eventually, even that wall begins to crack and shatter and crumble away, revealing yet another opening in the depths. Once the doorway opens, the trembling stops and the party is amazed to find what appears to be a massive altar previously hidden in the ice. It almost looks like the front to a castle itself and is decorated rather ornately, covered in mosaic pictures made from polished marble and colorful stained glass that resemble the marks and flags that would have been draped upon the castle walls, and despite its obvious age is still looking fairly well preserved. And upon the altar’s table offering is a stone bowl that is mostly filled with dried dirt and dust, but on that sits a bright red materia. It still glows brilliantly as if to show it were “alive” and waiting patiently to be revealed at last.
Cloud steps up to retrieve the materia and discovers that it is in fact Alexander, the judicial guardian of Ackard. It seems that this old shrine was built here, not only as a trial in of itself to overcome for his devoted followers, but also for the sake of preservation given the ideal cryogenic conditions. It seems that the girl formerly named Pati somehow found her way here and may have once been a devoted follower herself, but over time gradually lost that faith and came to seal it away so no one could find it anymore. The materia glows faintly in his hand, its power swirling and flickering within ever so subtly, almost as if the Summon were offering his thanks now that the shrine has been reestablished. Without another word, he slips the materia away into a pocket and heads back to his friends.
In the meantime, Aerith, Cait Sith, and Moogle have been tending to the poor black robes. Once they get them all to their feet, though, they slowly but steadily march together as a group and headed out for the exit without a word to their saviors. Despite their efforts to hold them back and tell them to wait, the people just don’t listen and keep trying to stumble out the door.
Aerith only feels even more discouraged to watch them slowly but surely walk away. “…Well, at least we managed to find and free them.”
Cait Sith shrugs. “They’re really determined to go see their leader, looks like.”
“But will they really be okay going back out like this? You’d think they’d at least take some time to rest since they were trapped in ice for a while.”
Cloud watches them go with a distant look on his own face. “They’re heeding Sephiroth’s will, so it’s no surprise they won’t ever stop. He doesn’t care if any of them die along the way.”
“I think we should keep an eye on them, in case they run into any more trouble.”
He looks a little disappointed to hear it. “How much longer do we have to watch them, though?”
Cait scratches his head. “Well, we can’t bring them back to town. They’ll probably just wander back here again.”
Cloud puts a hand to his chin. “Is there any place where we can drop them off? Maybe at the edge of the crater?”
“Hmm, but that’s not exactly a safe place to drop ’em either…” He takes another moment to think it over and then remembers a certain place. “Oh! I got it!”
“Huh?”
“If I know the area well enough, there’s a safehouse between the north end of the glacier and the mountain trail that lead up to the crater.”
Cloud slumps a bit. “You waited until now to tell us?”
Cait Sith taps his head lightly with a silly face, sticking out his tongue. “’Cause I just remembered now!”
He rolls his eyes and lets it slide, turning back toward the slow-moving group that has just left through the tunnel heading outside. “Anyway, let’s go get them. I can warp us all over there.”
“Oh, you’ll do that for us? Thanks!” Aerith asks, intrigued. “I thought you didn’t want to keep using Fenrir’s powers.”
He turns back to her with an unamused look. “Kinda late to complain about it after all that I just did.”
She shakes her head. “I’m not complaining. If anything, I’m glad you’re still holding up okay.”
“I’ll be fine.” He looks off again with a hesitant pause. “At least, I hope I will be.”
“…”
Cait Sith and Moogle, being clearly out of the loop, exchange confused looks and look between the two. “Uh, did something happen while I was away? Something about Fenrir?”
Aerith answers instead, “It’s not too bad. Cloud still needs time to work out a few issues with him, but at least they’re still working together.”
“…?”
In any case, Cloud would rather not talk anymore about it than he needs to. He beckons them to follow and they give chase to the wandering group of robes. It’s but a quick step back outside where they find them trudging along, and with Aerith and Cait Sith’s Moogle helping hold them in place, Cloud casts another warp spell for further north.
~
Beyond the vast snowfields of the glacier lies a small slice of snow-drenched valley between them and the great mountain ranges that surround the Northern Crater. Here, a lone log cabin is situated on a flat plane in the middle of the upward-slanting slope. A wise old man lives out here alone for the most part, but occasionally meets with travelers along the way and even stops by the glacier to see if he can’t find anyone struggling or in need. As of late, he’s seen quite a few odd passersby dressed in the same black robes, and he’s grown concerned that they all seem to be head the same way. But even he would be in for a surprise when the latest batch of visitors appears on his doorstep and for once, they’re dressed in their own odd ways.
The cat sitting atop his moogle makes a happy leap as soon as the man answers the door. “Holzoff! Been a while since we last heard from ye! How’ve you been, my good man?”
Holzoff blinks in surprise and looks even more shocked to find his other companions, as well as the familiar-looking crowd of black robes. He sighs to himself and welcomes them inside. “Been a while for good reason… Right, come on in. You all must be freezing.”
It’s a welcome relief for everyone to meet with the comforting warmth of a live fireplace inside. Cloud and Moogle, with Cait’s instruction, help push the robed people inside as well so Holzoff can shut the door. Here is a quaint little cabin with an open first floor and a second one above where the bedroom and such are located. Like with Gast’s old home, there’s a different corner for a different part of the house, where the kitchen and dining room seem to be connected and in the back is the living room with the well-stocked fireplace and a cozy fur rug. Though, the biggest difference is this cabin is filled with a lot more hiking and mountain-climbing equipment that seem to have been sitting around for many, many years. As they all get settled in, their host also offers them some warm drinks and Aerith happily accepts a cup of hot tea.
Holzoff then takes a seat on the chair by the table near the kitchen. “Sorry if it’s a little cramped in here. Usually I don’t get too many visitors, at least not all at once.”
“No worries! Thanks for having us!” Aerith replies politely.
“Strange, though. Not sure if it’s just coincidence or something’s been happening, but…” He glances over to the robed people and turns back to them. “A lot more of these folks have been showing up around here lately.”
“Oh?” Cait Sith asks, “You’ve been seeing more of them?”
“Yeah. Usually scattered here and there around the glacier, others that actually made it up the mountains up north, but ended up tumbling back down. Somehow they didn’t die, so I helped nurse them back to health – er, at least what health they had left anyway. The poor folks all looked so frail, it’s a wonder how they’ve managed to last this long.”
Now that he mentions it, Cloud means to ask, “Holzoff, right? By any chance, were you one of the people who went on an excursion to the crater 30 years ago?”
“…” Holzoff nods solemnly. “Ah, so you know about that.”
“We came across Professor Faremis’ archives back in town. You were their guide if I remember.”
“Yes, I was… one of them, at least.” He lets off another pensive sigh. “That trip was the first and last time I ever went that far north, and to be honest, it’s my biggest regret to date.”
“Regret?”
“Yep. If it weren’t for us, we probably wouldn’t have led the world down this dark path.” He pauses and looks off as he strolls down memory lane. “There was a time when Shinra was a force for good, you know. Everyone respected them for their brilliant technological innovations and clean energy resources. They were pushing the world forward into the future, or so we believed.” He looks down in shame. “Of course, that was long before anyone knew where that energy came from or how it was affecting the planet. But if you ask me, the worst of the company didn’t show its colors until after that project started.”
“That project… The Jenova Project, huh.”
“The one and only.” Holzoff looks back up, but his face is weary. “I couldn’t help but notice that a lot of these robed people had numbers tattooed on them. Their skin was so pale and sickly looking, and they didn’t say much other than a few words at most. Things about some kind of ‘reunion’ and ‘Jenova’…”
“And ‘Sephiroth’, I’m guessing?”
“Oh, yeah! They mentioned that name too.” Holzoff scratches his head. “Funny, I could’ve sworn I heard that name somewhere.”
“You might have heard it. He was Soldier, top of the class, and Shinra’s greatest general before he went missing on a mission five years ago.”
“Is that right?” Holzoff then shakes his head. “Ever since that day we left the crater, I’ve been avoiding news about anything to do with Soldier or Shinra’s military. Didn’t want to be a part of it.”
Cloud nods back in understanding. “Well, it’s a long story, but lately Sephiroth has returned and he’s been involved with everything about that project, even gathering the remnants of Jenova and all the people that were in the experiments. Seems like they’re heading up to the crater for their ‘Reunion’.”
“Oh, dear. Whatever he’s up to, that doesn’t sound like a good thing.”
“It’s not. In fact, we’re chasing after him so he doesn’t end up ruining anything more than he already has.”
“Hmm…” Now that he’s reminded, he also asks, “By the way, did this Sephiroth fellow ever have a lady friend?”
Cloud is a little taken aback. “Huh?”
“Ah. Well, maybe I should say, a friend who happens to be a lady.”
His eyes narrow in disbelief. “No… I don’t think so.”
“Really? Hm, guess I was wrong. Odd that someone else was leading these robed folks this way, though.”
“Someone else was leading them here?” Aerith asks.
“Who would that be? Some kind of ‘lady’?” Cait asks as well.
“That’s what it looked like to me.” Holzoff explains, “The last time I welcomed a group of people in robes like these guys, they were accompanied by a young lady who asked me to keep them rested until they were ready to move on. I don’t know why or what she was doing with them, but she didn’t stick around for long either. She was also dressed super light…” He glances over to Cloud with a raised eyebrow. “Kinda like your friend here, but she also had shorts.” He shakes his head. “She was skinny too, so I have no idea how she didn’t look cold in the least.”
Now that he mentions it, Cloud is starting to get a sense of creeping deja-vu. A young lady who’s dressed super light and would have something to do with these Jenova subjects? There’s no way it can be who he’s thinking of, but that is a weird coincidence.
Aerith and Cait likewise grow concerned and confused as if they’d come upon similar conclusions. Aerith then asks further, “Mr. Holzoff? By any chance, did this girl happen to have red eyes and a ponytail, and be wearing a vest too?”
Holzoff blinks in surprise and then nods back. “Why, yes. That’s why I thought she was dressed really light. Those definitely aren’t winter clothes. And funny you mention her eyes; I’ve never seen eyes that red before. Thought she was wearing contacts or something.”
And with that, the atmosphere in the room sinks into a grim horror as the party members each exchange worried looks. There’s no mistaking who it could have been. But no, that can’t be right, can it? How would that be possible?
Notes:
Another hefty author's note
- Regarding Reeve's ability to control Cait Sith and Moogle: I believe it was revealed in one of the official FFVII Ultimania guides that Reeve has a special power specific to him where he can control them like they were familiar spirits. The guide did not go in-depth so it is still a mystery as to how he actually controls them. I think it is implied that Reeve can hear everything that Cait and Moogle hear and can speak through them as he likes, but they do still have their own autonomy. Considering that in this version of events, Moogle is actually a fluffy android, he has some machinery to him, which would mean Reeve would require some kind of tech to operate him. I struggled to think where and how the bug would be placed and didn't think it would be fitting for either Cait or Moogle to be tagged. So, the only other option I had left was that Reeve's desk was bugged.
- Moogle's EMP bomb attack is definitely just from my overactive imagination, though. Hey, why not?
- Yeah... I kinda wrote Cloud to be an absolute beast this chapter in more ways than one. Now he's taking on actual avalanches by himself. Something something definitely accidental symbolism.
- Tbh, the little flashback sections with Fenrir and baby Rubia were very much a spur-of-the-moment idea and was too cute to leave out.
- Fun fact: Even though in the OG, it's impossible for Aerith to be in the party when they reach the Great Glacier, there is still one isolated scene where after the crew fly off their snowboard, they land somewhere in the snow and if Aerith is hacked into the party, she has a couple lines:
"I'm sick of this."
"Hey, let's check the map. (Press [ ] to view)"
She has no other lines following that scene, which does seem to imply that during development they had planned for Aerith to appear beyond the Forgotten Capital, but later changed the location of her death. Who knows, maybe she could have made it all the way to the crater after all?
- The segment with Cloud's internal strife was another point of contention while I was drafting. If I didn't go so in-depth with Fenrir's lore, it would have made the chapter a lot more straightforward, but then I realized how cheap it would feel to have everything go so smoothly. So strife-y Cloud it is!
- I just remembered I never described Tyr in that much detail. Tbh, the whole time I pictured him I just thought of Hiccup's dad from How to Train Your Dragon, but his beard wasn't tied and he's generally bigger and bulkier, and armed with a massive sword. The Ulfberht is an actual historical sword used by the Vikings way back in the 9th-11th centuries, not as big as this fantasy version, but pretty big for one-handed swords.
- The Ice Golem is an enemy from the OG, found around in the Great Glacier, but this variation is of my own design! I was inspired by the Mythril Golem in Rebirth and it made me realize there was a distinct lack of golem-type enemies in the OG; just two in all. Wouldn't surprise me if they revamped the Ice Golem into a mini-boss for Remake P3.
- Snow is also an enemy from the OG, but she was mostly unremarkable and an elevated normal encounter. She had an overworld model of a woman dressed in thick clothes and you could talk to her. If you didn't touch the hot springs, she wouldn't fight, but wouldn't give you anything and told you to get out. If you did touch, she got mad and fought you and then gave the Alexander materia upon defeat. Somehow, I took that tiny sidequest in the OG and fleshed it out into something with actual meaning, complete with a total OC makeover. If I went into detail to describe Pati, though, this chapter would be too long. Let's just go with stereotypical tavern girl you'd see in the old FF's. I see her as more brunette than blond, though.
- By the way, "Pati" comes from the infinitive form of the Latin word patior, meaning "to suffer" or "endure". It is the origin of the English word "patience".
- Holzoff was the guy you would run into after collapsing in the glacier in the OG, but there's barely any info on the dude. All we know is that he used to live in Icicle Inn because his wife is still there and he left on a hiking trip with his pal 30 years ago, where his pal went kapoot and he stayed there out of guilt. I have since rewritten his story to be relevant to Gast and co.'s trip to the Northern Crater because it only makes sense that they'd ask a local guide. As for Holzoff's pal... I forgot who he was, lol.
Chapter 70: The Descent
Notes:
Happy Spooky Month! For once I felt like these next few chapters are gonna be pretty fitting for the time that I've come up with them. Unfortunately, maybe it's my inexperience talking here, but I also feel like if I actually try to write horror, I get way too self-conscious about this and that, so let's just wing it and see.
Here's to hoping that I can get the next chapter in by Halloween! (If I don't, feel free to pester me in the comments for my sins. Or pester me with comments regardless, heh.)
Also, I have a love-hate relationship with the Northern Crater (details in other notes).
6/4/25 edit: Corrected the detail about Jessie's gang's whereabouts to be consistent.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Cloud, Aerith, and Cait Sith sit still in the frozen silence amid the warmth of the fire. Holzoff looks around at their horrified faces, looking a little lost himself.
Cloud looks away with a grimace. “No… there’s no way,” he mutters aloud. “It has to be a fake.”
“…Rubia?” Aerith suggests with a worried frown.
Cait Sith folds his arms, thinking it over. “That’s the only explanation I can think of too.”
But Cloud shakes his head and turns back to them. “It’s not Rubia either.”
They blink together and Cait asks for the both of them, “How do ye wager?”
“I don’t really know for sure, but I don’t think she would show up as Ruby like this. And what would she have to do with these people? They’re Jenova subjects, not Immortals.”
He shrugs. “Well, there was a time when Jenova and the Immortals were classified under the same project. Could be they were from an early test group?”
“I doubt it. We saw what happened to the rest in Midgar’s underground. Anything with ARC just made people comatose. Unless there was something else that Rubia’s cells were used for?”
Cait opens his mouth to answer, but now that he thinks it over, he crosses his arms with a troubled frown. “Not that I know of. Aside from certain exceptions, Project Immortals was deemed too ‘expensive’ and ‘time-consuming’, so was dropped in favor of the other.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Besides, whatever project they’re from, these people would have been rejects anyway. What use would she have for them?”
He rubs his head with a sigh. “…Another fair ask. You’d think that if she wanted to help them, she’d lead them the opposite way and out of danger.”
Aerith taps a finger to her chin. “Maybe she knows about some Lifespring or other healing source?”
“Aha, a Lifespring! Good thinkin’!” He nods agreeably to it, but on second thought, he has to ask, “Oh, but why the crater? If she’s just looking for springs, surely there are other safer places she could try?”
“This one’s a way bigger and more powerful source. From what I’ve heard long ago, the planet suffered a major wound in the past, leaving that huge crater, so it makes sense that the Lifestream would be plentiful there. I think Ruby mentioned it before about an opening like that. It was her gateway into this world too.”
“Her gateway?” He blinks. “Wait. Ye say she popped out from the Lifestream?”
“Yep. She even introduced herself to us like that.”
“Huh.” He scratches his head. “That would explain where she’s been hiding all this time. No place in the world that wouldn’t have been on Shinra’s radar anyway.”
“…” But Cloud still looks unsure and frankly discouraged. “Sorry, Aerith, but I doubt it.”
She blinks in surprise. “What’s wrong?”
He answers with the sobering truth, “Look. I do want to believe in Rubia, but it was her influence in the Lifestream that harmed the planet in the first place. If it were that easy to heal people, there wouldn’t even be a planetary crisis.”
She deflates a little and Cait and Moogle follow suit. “Oh, yeah. That’s a good point,” she admits.
“It’s even worse now, since she’d just be leading them straight to Sephiroth. Whatever good she did have would just be sabotaged.”
“That’s also a good point…” She lets out a sigh in defeat. “But I really don’t want to doubt her. Not after coming all this way.”
He shows a sympathetic look. “That’s why I’m hoping it isn’t her, just some imposter.” He puts a hand to his chin. “And if I know Sephiroth, he might have a way to pull it off.”
Cait Sith looks a little scared. “Eh? You mean he can even disguise himself!?”
“He is made up of Jenova’s cells, after all.” He turns to Aerith, who hangs her head in pensive thought. “During the interview with Aerith’s mom, she mentioned it – how Jenova was able to trick the Cetra, blend in among them, and kill them from the inside.”
She nods along sadly. “Mom told me about it too. She didn’t say much since I was still really young, but I was able to sense all that pain coming from the planet.”
“B-but…” Cait fidgets nervously and then slumps with worry. “That’s even worse, then! If he can pretend to be Ruby, what’s stopping him from disguising himself as anyone?”
Though no one wanted to ask the question, now that he says it aloud, the dread they all had in the back of their minds finally hits the forefront.
Cloud takes a stand and declares with urgency, “We need to warn the others. This next trip into the crater could be even more dangerous than any of us thought.” He fetches his sword again and also asks Holzoff, “Sorry, but we have to go. Hope you don’t mind keeping these guys here for as long as you can manage?”
Holzoff nods along. “I didn’t get all of what you were talking about, but even I can tell that there might be some big trouble ahead. I can’t guarantee that I can keep them for long either, but while they are still here, I’ll keep an eye on them.”
“Thanks.” He then gets back to his party members and offers a hand. “Come on. I’ll take us back to the Highwind.”
To which, the other three nod along in full agreement and get up from their seats, while Cait remains atop Moogle. They gather up around him, keeping a firm hold of his hand, and he closes his eyes again. Moments before they disappear, Aerith also gives Holzoff a polite smile and a wave of her hand.
“Thanks, Mr. Holzoff! Maybe we’ll meet again sometime.”
“No need to thank me. But uh, what are you all up to there?”
Before he can get an answer, he’s startled to see it for himself. A magic circle forms at their feet and they all vanish in a sudden burst of light. He stares off where the group had just been and then shakes his head with a sigh. Maybe it’s for the best not to question it. Where they’re headed, they’ll need all the magic they can get.
~
Cloud, Aerith, and Cait Sith would return to find the ship in a bit of questionable tension. For starters, no one seems to be talking or working together, and a few of them aren’t present – namely, Yuffie, Sonon, and even Nanaki. Barret and Tifa look upset over something and have split off to different ends of the deck, where Barret’s standing closer to the bow and Tifa’s at the lounge seating area. Everyone else is in their usual places, but a very awkward silence hangs over them too. And all of a sudden, they’re startled by a bright flash in the middle of the deck.
“Whew! We’re finally back!” Aerith sighs with relief, whipping off that very warm scarf and mittens.
“Cloud! Aerith! Cait Sith too!” Tifa gets up from her seat and waves. “Welcome back!” She also hurries up on deck to catch up.
Barret whips around too, looking pretty impatient already. “What took you guys!? I thought this was supposed to be a ‘quick’ trip!”
Cloud sighs too, but looks way more exhausted. “It was, but we got held back by Shinra and some other problems on the way.”
“What the hell, man? If you needed backup, you shoulda said somethin’! We’ve been stuck here with shit to do!”
“Not that kind of trouble. We were chasing some leads on Rubia, but there were more duds than anything, and what little we did salvage wasn’t good news.”
Tifa gets a little worried and asks, “You mean about Rubia?”
“Yeah… and about Ruby too.”
Her eyes widen. “Ruby…?”
He nods solemnly. “It’s a long story, but looks like things are gonna get really dangerous from here on out.”
Barret blinks in surprise too. “Oh, now I gotta hear this! What did you find?”
Cloud looks around the room, noting the conspicuous lack of party members. “Before I get into that, where’s the rest of you? No surprise that Yuffie’s gone somewhere, but even Sonon and Nanaki aren’t here?”
“Ah, yeah.” Barret snorts. “They couldn’t wait and ran off to find you.”
He whips back to him. “They what!?”
“Yuffie was the impatient one. She took Sonon and Nanaki along to help track you down,” Tifa helps clarify.
Barret shakes his head and grumbles like a man with age, “Kids, man. Ran out before we could tell ’em otherwise. They’re probably heading into town right now.”
Cloud groans too, planting a hand over his face. “Oh, for the love of… We don’t have time to waste! You all need to be here to hear this!” He turns off for the door with a scowl. “I’ll go bring ’em back.”
“Should we come with you?” Tifa asks.
He shakes his head. “Nah, no need. It’ll be easier for me to fly around on my own.”
“Uh, ‘fly’?”
Realizing how little context they have, he quickly explains, “Sorta. More like jumping through the air.”
“Oh!” Now she catches on. “You mean like Fenrir? It was amazing to see you fight in midair that time.”
“Yeah, just like that.”
Barret raises an eyebrow. “What was up with that anyway? Never knew a wolf could fly… or warp. Or anything that he’s done.”
He returns him a disappointed side-eye. “You’re talking about a Summon here. That’s no ordinary wolf.”
“Oh, I know. But with everything that we’ve seen so far, it made me realize how little we knew about the Summons.” He puts a hand to his chin and thinks aloud, “For a while, all we had were materia and even though we knew how to use ’em, they’d just show up for a fight and then disappear again.” He drops it and looks up as he delves further, “But it turns out they’ve just been on standby somewhere else, like in their other worlds or something? And this wolf even chose you as his ‘successor’.” He then folds his arms and nods to himself. “Really puts things in perspective, don’t it? About what it really means to be ‘alive’…”
Cloud was not expecting the guy to suddenly take a philosophical dive and is unsure of how to respond. But as much as he’d like to ignore it, the sudden turn of subject instead reminds him of his own questions from earlier and he feels that apprehension make its unwelcome return, sinking like a stone in his gut.
Now that she’s reminded too, Tifa also asks, “Still, having that much power must be pretty taxing. Are you holding up alright?”
“…”
Noticing that Cloud is having trouble answering, Aerith then jumps in to cover for him, “Don’t worry! He’s still getting used to things, but he’s been practicing hard and it feels natural for him now! He’ll be just fine.” She also turns to him with an encouraging smile. “Right, Cloud?”
“…Yeah.” Taking her cue, he assumes a look of confidence and nods. “Nothing to worry about.”
“Oh, um, alright.” Tifa then gives an assured smile. “That’s good to hear. Okay. We’ll leave them to you.”
He nods back and also passes a grateful glance to Aerith, who is glad to help as usual. He taps a finger to his forehead as he retraces in mind the specific locations they traveled on the way to town, and as soon as he forms a path ahead, he departs with another flash. In the meantime, the rest of them turn to Aerith and Cait to report the situation.
Barret folds his arms. “So where did you guys go? Been out there for a while.”
Getting back on track, Aerith gets serious and answers, “A lot of places, actually. We went into town and ran into the Turks, but they weren’t too much trouble and led us to the lab I saw in my dream. There, we learned a lot about Rubia’s history and the beginnings of the Jenova Project, among other things…”
“Oh, wow.” Tifa asks, “What sort of history was it?”
Aerith is a bit sad to be reminded, but she keeps up a straight face and keeps her answer brief. “Like Cloud said, it doesn’t look good for her. Turns out she was there since the start of the project and might have helped kickstart it in the first place. But to be fair, the archives we found were incomplete, so we don’t know the whole story.”
Cait nods along. “There were clear signs of tamperin’. Turns out a certain infamous Shinra scientist was in charge of the lab ever since it closed down and got abandoned.”
Tifa grows more worried. “She helped ‘kickstart’ it? What do you mean?”
Barret also recalls, “Oh, yeah. I think Ruby said it before, that Rubia ‘submitted’ herself to Shinra’s experiments? But did she really, or was she just forced into it?”
Aerith replies, “I don’t think she was ever forced. She was also there when the body of Jenova was first discovered, and she later participated in some early testing before she escaped and disappeared.”
“What?” Now Tifa is disturbed too. “What was she doing there?”
But Aerith hesitates to explain further or dive into speculation. “We don’t know.”
Barret frowns. “And why work with Shinra? Did she think she could trust ’em?”
“We don’t know that either. The logs we found didn’t show much of her.”
Cait also adds, “It was a mystery even to the team back then. But seems like they thought she’d been waiting at the crater, almost like some kind of guard, and when the right people showed, she gave ’em access to Jenova’s remains.”
“Guard… for Jenova?” Tifa slowly repeats it, growing more incredulous by the second. “That doesn’t sound right.”
Barret has his doubts too. “Nah, no way! If you ask me, that sounds like a whole loada Shinra propaganda bullshit! They probably spliced those logs too to make it look like Rubia was on their side or something. But Rubia don’t give a damn ’bout no Shinra.”
Cait rubs his head awkwardly. “Aye, the thought did cross my mind too. But what her intentions even be is still beyond our ken. They might be even thicker and harsher than the storm o’er that glacier.”
“Huh? What glacier?”
“Oh! Uh…” He makes a nervous smile. “We also paid a visit to the glacier north of the town.”
Barret stares back in disbelief. “For what? Ya’ll went on a hiking trip too?”
“Oops, that was kinda my fault.” Aerith claps her hands, making an awkward, apologetic smile. “Before we stopped by the lab, we met the town mayor who told us about some black-robed people that wandered out into the glacier. I got worried for them, so we went to check on them and see what was going on.”
Tifa grows wary. “The black robes are back?”
Barret recalls, “They were victims of Shinra experiments, right? The hell would they be doing out here?”
Cait Sith folds his arms, putting up a thinking face. “Well, they were all headed for the crater yonder. Only thing we can think of is Sephiroth’s pullin’ their strings.”
“Tch. That asshole again…”
Aerith nods too. “And speaking of which, there’s something Cloud wanted to talk to everyone about…”
Almost as if she were anticipating his return, they’re met with another familiar flash of light and a sudden outcry from Cloud’s latest companions.
“I said I was sorry!” Yuffie whines. “But you guys were gone so long! What were we supposed to think!?”
Cloud replies, “Nothing. No way we’d caught by Shinra, and even if they did, you think I’d have any trouble with them?”
“No… but at least I want to see it! You went way too fast last time! All we saw were the leftovers!”
“…”
Sonon offers him a sympathetic look. “Sorry… Yuffie just wouldn’t shut up, so we took her out for a run. Never meant to actually drop by the town. That would’ve been a mess with you guys already there.”
Cloud shakes his head. “It was already a mess. Between the Turks and the rest of the troops, they were sending us completely mixed signals. We were headed north anyway, but it got annoying to have to lose them.”
“Wow. I’m glad you guys got through all that okay,” Nanaki remarks, genuinely relieved. “And you even went up to the glacier in a storm? How bad was it?”
“Bad, like you could barely see the road ahead. Cait and I were fine, but Aerith was barely hanging in there. Still, we got through and found some hot springs along the way.”
“Whew. Glad I didn’t go along. That sounds like torture.” His ears perk up at the sound of it. “But there were even hot springs? Wow, what a lucky find!”
“Huh. Who knew that even in a hellish place like that there would be springs?” Sonon comments wittily, “Almost feels like Mother Gaia has some built-in checkpoints.”
“So what?” Yuffie replies with her own snark. “She already got dragon and wolf gods warping around and reincarnating across time and all.”
He passes her an unamused look. “That’s totally different. Besides, aren’t they supposed to be exceptions in history?”
“I’m just sayin’. You’d think you’d have gotten used to how weird things are by now.”
With everyone gathered up, Cloud takes one last look around and takes his place at the front of the deck. “Alright, guys. Now that we’re all here, we got some important news to tell and new plans to set.”
“Speaking of news, we got something to share too,” Barret replies. “It’s about Jessie and ’em.”
“Huh? What about them?”
Tifa frowns. “Barret, why don’t we let Cloud tell his side first? I’m sure they’ll manage.”
“Come on, Tifa. What’s the harm in a quick detour? The sooner we know they’re outta trouble, the better!”
“Ugh. We’ve been over this already…”
Cait Sith and Moogle look between them, each one taking a different side, and then exchange confused glances themselves. “Uh, has something been going on here?”
Barret crosses his arms, looking a little grouchy. “Nothing much. Just how things have gone to shit in Midgar and how Avalanche is unresponsive and all.”
Yuffie also adds, “Even our government’s being kinda weird. I know we got in trouble with what happened with Ruby and all, but feels like they’re overreacting to be hunting down Jessie and them too.”
Sonon reminds her, “They were with us when everything with the old Wutaia cult went down, so it’s only expected they’d be extra strict.”
“Yeah, but it wasn’t our fault that the cult leader was wack! That’s why we should go! We could drop by and set the record straight!”
“Didn’t you say we were banned, though? At least until things settled down and the cult leader’s captured?”
“And how long would that take?”
He shakes his head. “You’re asking me?”
“It was just a misunderstanding with Ruby anyway. Since she’s not with us right now, we should be in the clear, right?”
“I dunno…” Sonon strikes a thinking face. “What with the overreaction from the government, I can’t help but wonder if something else has been going on and they’re just using the incident as a cover.”
“Oh, come on!”
While those two keep arguing, Tifa sighs and turns back to Cloud. “Sorry, guys. While you were out, we got a message from Jessie about how things have gone since we left Midgar, and then we got into an argument over whether or not we should go help them. I didn’t want us to be distracted, though, since we’re going after Sephiroth now.”
“Actually, I wanna hear this. What happened?”
“By the sounds of it, they’re still on the run. Nayo and the others from HQ were able to help secure them an escape route out of the city. They were going to stop by Wutai, but decided against it since border patrol has been extra strict since our last visit. So they secured them a place somewhere in Kalm in the meantime.”
His eyes narrow with suspicion. “Even they were under the blacklist, huh.”
“Yeah. Seems like after the incident with Zhongyuan, the Wutai government has put out bounties on all of us. Except for Ruby, of course.”
“Which is why I say we just swoop on by and pick ’em up!” Barret argues. “We got this whole ship to ourselves and there’s plenty of room!”
“You know it’s not that simple!” Tifa insists, “Besides, if we go now, we’ll just blow their cover! We need to stay focused on this mission ahead.”
“Of course we’re stickin’ with the mission! But this detour won’t take us long! Don’t gotta worry about Shinra or anything. We just get in and get out!” He even adds with a smug frown, “Hell, if Nayo and ’em need us, we can be there for them too!”
“Oh, no! No more of that! The situation with the Wutai government is already tricky enough! We don’t want to make it worse for Yuffie and Sonon!”
“No need to worry about us. Not like they can fire me or anything,” Yuffie states with surprising confidence.
“Um…” Sonon again reminds her, “I’m pretty sure you already ran into some trouble last time since the higher-ups didn’t exactly approve our visit to Master Godo…”
“Oh, my God! Not that again!” she complains, stomping her foot. “Just because I’m his kid doesn’t have to do with anything!”
“Besides, it’s really suspicious that we were also banned, even as their agents. There had to have been a reason…”
“Now you’re just making up conspiracies!”
Amid the fierce exchanges of arguments, Aerith looks around, getting a bit concerned for how things are going. She then sets finger and thumb against her lips and blows a loud whistle to catch everyone’s attention.
“Hey! Guys! Come on, let’s calm down and talk to each other. Calmly.”
Feeling a little embarrassed to be cut off by Aerith of all people, Barret and Tifa turn away and back off, and Yuffie and Sonon go quiet as well. With the floor open once again, Aerith speaks her piece.
“Well, from how things sound, we might be running into more problems down the line, even without Shinra following us this far. But this isn’t the time for us to be split. We’re either all-in on one plan or another.”
Cloud nods along, setting a hand to his waist. “She’s right. We’ve got a major battle for the planet coming up and we can’t let anything break us up. We’re all in this together – for Ruby’s sake.” He offers Barret a sympathetic look. “I know you’re worried about Jessie, Biggs, Wedge, and all the others, but it’s not like they’ve never been out on a limb before. Whatever is going on with Wutai and Avalanche, it’s out of our control, at least for now.” He also turns to Tifa with a resolute nod. “And besides, this is Sephiroth we’re talking about. We can’t leave him be or underestimate him for even a second. Especially not with what we just learned.”
With the upset crowd cleared, Nanaki steps up to ask, “Is that the important news you wanted to tell us?”
“Yeah.” He looks around the deck to make sure that everyone, even the occasionally tuned-out Cid, is paying attention before he delivers the revelation. “It’s about Ruby… Somehow, she’s back and waiting for us at the crater.”
“What!?” comes the collective yell, and everyone present shows each their own shocked and horrified reaction.
“Whoa! Wait a sec!” Barret jumps in, “How the hell does that work? Didn’t we all see her die?”
Nanaki makes a sad frown. “Yeah. She even returned to the planet.”
Sonon thinks aloud, “Unless… Was that Rubia we saw disappear? And maybe Ruby was somewhere else all along?”
“No. That was definitely Ruby we met at the altar,” Aerith states firmly. “She and Rubia still shared a body, after all. There’s no other place she would have been.”
“Wait, that’s it!” Yuffie suggests, feeling hopeful, “She was still in Rubia’s body at the time, right? So maybe she ended up reincarnating with her?”
“Oh, yeah. Maybe that cycle happens a lot faster than we thought?” Barret speculates.
Cloud shakes his head. “I told you before, they’re different. Even Bahamut recognized that Ruby is her own thing. There’s no reason to worry if she could just come back anytime.”
Tifa also suggests, “What if it was Rubia who you saw? They do look like twins.”
Cloud replies, “No, at least I don’t think it was. We didn’t see her in person; we met someone on the way to the crater who did. And it turned out this ‘Ruby’ was leading some black robes and helping them get through the worst of the climb.”
“Huh? She was ‘leading’ those people?”
Barret likewise looks confused. “So she was just helpin’ them out? That sounds like her.”
Cloud shakes his head again, getting a bit impatient. “It’s not just that. These people are Jenova subjects. Rubia may have been involved in the project at first, but it didn’t last long. I doubt the robes we came across had any contact with her cells, or they would have been classified under the Immortals in the first place.”
Cait Sith agrees with a serious nod, “Any and all subjects treated under the Immortals were kept in Midgar’s underground since they would have been immobile and too risky to release out in the open.”
“Besides, where they were going, she was just going to lead them to Sephiroth. Even if they aren’t working together, there’s no good that would come of it.”
Barret is still uncertain, but even he has to concede there. “Yeah… So then what? If it wasn’t Rubia, then who was it?”
“…An imposter.” Everyone is a bit surprised to finally hear Vincent speak up from the back. “One most likely created from Jenova’s abilities and Sephiroth’s will, I presume.”
Cloud nods back. “Exactly.”
Yuffie then butts in with a question, “Wait! But didn’t we kill Jenova? Bahamut blasted her into smithereens out in outer space! There’s no way she’s coming back from that!”
“That was just one form of Jenova. Who knows how many clones or whatever replicas she has left?”
She visibly cringes. “What? She has more!?”
“And not to mention,” he continues, addressing everyone else in the room, “Jenova is nothing to laugh at either. There’s a reason why she was able to destroy the Cetra. If she’s able to shapeshift and disguise herself as anyone, even Ruby, there’s no telling what chaos she could wreck as her.”
Nanaki’s eye widens and he honestly looks scared. “As anyone? Then, that means…”
Cloud turns back to him with a worried frown himself. “Yeah. Sephiroth could pretend to be any of us too if he wanted.”
A cold chill sets in over the room. Though none would dare say it aloud, there are definitely some of them who would be a little too easily trusting of each other just at a glance.
“But that doesn’t matter,” Aerith asserts. “Whatever tricks Sephiroth or Jenova may try, we won’t be fooled.”
“Well, that’s what we should hope for,” Tifa agrees, but still has to mention, “but in this case, we really can’t afford to bring too many people.”
Even Barret has to agree there. “Yeah… Guess it’s for the best that Jessie, Biggs, Wedge, and all our guys stay outta this. No telling what would happen if they had a bad run-in with some fake. They’d definitely have trouble keeping up with us.”
Sonon also worries, “We’ll have to keep our guard up at all times too. Maybe we shouldn’t split up when we get to the crater.”
But Cloud advises against it, “No, if we’re all together, that’s just going to make us easy targets. We should still keep to smaller groups, but make sure that no one is out of sight for any reason.”
“But how will we know who is who, then?” Yuffie asks too, “Like, will I have to doubt anyone that just happens to go around a corner?”
“Hopefully not, but it doesn’t hurt to be extra careful,” Tifa replies.
“We need some way to identify each other in case anything unexpected happens,” Cloud agrees.
“How about we share a code word?” Tifa then suggests. “Something vague that only we would know the context for.”
“That’s not a bad idea, but I dunno if it’ll be enough. Jenova can mimic voices too. All it’d take is one time we say the word and she could learn it.”
“Hmm…” She returns to her thoughts to reconsider.
“Besides, it’ll be easier if we can just look at each other and tell.” Cloud looks around the room again to see if there’s anything they can use. Now that he looks at the working crew aside from the main party, he also notices there’s a similar trend among them. He then turns to the captain off on the side. “Hey, Cid.”
“Yeah?”
“Do you have some extra armbands or cloths we can use?”
“Huh? Come on.” He handwaves it away. “You want us to have matching outfits or something? That’s lame!”
“Not the outfits. But at least something that can help us distinguish each other.”
Cid raises an eyebrow. “How would that help? If that guy can just copy how we all look, then what’s the point of an extra band or few? I’m pretty sure he has eyes too.”
Cloud makes an uncomfortable frown and thinks it over again. “…Good point. There needs to be more to it.”
Then, Aerith pipes up again with a smile, “Oh! What if we keep the bands, but we also have something hidden under them? Like a unique handdrawn symbol that some imposter can’t just copy?”
“A symbol?” He looks unsure. “What kind?”
“Hmm…”
She doesn’t answer right away, but instead goes over to the lounge seats and shuffles around in the drawers beneath the seats. She finds some writing utensils among the scattered engineering tools and pulls out a red marker pen, and hurries back over to him. Uncapping the pen, she also takes his left arm in hand and starts drawing on him.
“H-hey!”
“Stay still! I’ll be quick!”
“Uh…”
She traces out a basic sharp-edged shape that eventually forms into a finely cut gemstone in red. He stares at it as she puts the marker cap back on with a proud smile on her face.
“There we go! Easy to recognize even at a glance!”
“…” He lets his arm drop and gives a sigh. “Never knew I’d be branded with anything about her.”
“But it’s all good, right? She’s left a mark on all of us in more ways than one.”
The way she put it sends a silent wave of bittersweet nostalgia across everyone’s minds; some can’t help but smile, while others are hit with melancholic longing and maybe regret. He nods back and turns to the rest of them, raising his arm forward to present it.
“You heard her, guys. Remember this symbol, down to the exact design. And always keep it covered unless you have to show it.” He also approaches one of the ship’s crew on standby. “Sorry, but do you mind if we borrow your armbands?”
“Sir!” the crewmate salutes him with a wide smile on his face. “We’d be honored!”
And with the crew’s help and exchange of accessories, Cloud’s entire party are marked with similarly written symbols and likewise bound by those armbands, which are tied a little tighter to keep the symbols covered completely. Tifa also helps tie it around Nanaki’s foreleg to match with everyone, and he returns her a delighted smile. Just to be extra safe, Cait even gets one for Moogle. Finally, they should be set. Cloud looks around at their faces too, noting a mix of determined and nervous, even troubled expressions. With a freshly roused fire in his eyes, he addresses everyone with a speech.
“Listen up, guys! Things may look bad and they may only get worse. But we didn’t come this far for no reason. Ruby paved the road forward for us, and it’s time we take it on ourselves. From here on out, there’s no turning back. Anyone who isn’t ready to give your all in this next battle, you’d better get off this ship before we take off.”
Barret snorts back. “Really, man? Saying that stuff now? We already know!” He raises a pumped-up fist. “That asshole’s not gettin’ away with doing her dirty!”
Tifa nods too with a stern frown. “We won’t ever give in. Not until we settle this.”
Yuffie cheers with a hop, throwing a fist in the air. “Let’s go save Ruby! She shouldn’t be stuck as materia in some guy’s chest!”
Nanaki growls bravely. “Ruby helped all of us in so many ways. We have to return the favor manifold too!”
The party altogether share a collective “Yeah!!” to round off their proud declarations of war.
Cloud calls to Cid again, “Alright, Captain. We’re ready. You know where to go.”
The older man gives him a cocky grin. “About time.” He then barks orders to the rest of the crew. “Let’s go, men! Fly high and fly proud ’cause we’re in it to win! Sights set north for the giant-ass crater!”
“Yes, Captain!!” the rest of the crew answer and hurry to their posts.
With a quiet whirr that gradually intensifies, the Highwind’s turbines swing back into motion, blowing a strong gust of their own, as the ship takes off into the air once more.
~
Though the great crater is further north of the glacier, the abundance of Lifestream emanating from its depths grants a temporary respite from the worst cold, as if the gathered masses provided some natural warmth with their mere presence. However, that isn’t to say this area is welcoming either. Brisk winds tinted a faint, eerie green from the streams below blow just as fiercely as the icier storms beyond, and the descending spiral of rock shelves provide little solid footing for the uninitiated. A simple misstep or disturbance from the winds can easily knock one off balance; or worse, off solid ground. Yet, despite the chaotic turbulence and the cacophony of voices of life billowing from below, there is a general stillness to the land, like a deafening silence that speaks louder than any words. This crater is the planet’s greatest scar and the ancient wound has yet to heal. Whether it is by the slow degradation of the Lifestream into the Null that began since early times or the rapid evolution of human intervention and consumption in the modern era, the planet has been slowly but surely losing its resources to recovery.
Even the voices of the past provide little guidance here; not for lack of those willing to help, but by the sheer volume of raucous, discordant noise that easily drowns out any individual response. From the lower deck of the Highwind, Aerith can hear the uncomfortable, stifled murmurs moan in collective panic and grief. They warn her of the phantasmagoric terrors that lurk within, the maddening strife that lie in ambush, the absolute tragedy that will unfold, and even the cataclysmic end that will be sure to follow. They desperately urge, beg her to stay away, not just for her sake, but also for the planet’s future, and others even berate her for acting selfish to keep pursuing Rubia’s past. But no matter how frightening they make it or how they may shame her, she refuses to back off. There’s a mystery hidden inside that she has to solve and she can only do it by confronting it herself. Ruby once traveled here on a whim and would leave with deep scars that didn’t have a chance to heal before her time would come. Now they must step forward in her place and face the fears that drove her to madness, so that her troubled soul will finally be able to rest.
The attending shipmates line the deck and salute their heroes as they descend the ladder and drop onto the cold, black gravel below. There’s quite the impressive view from up here: one is immediately witness to the abyssal depths of the crater, looking like a massive hole in the planet that could be the gateway into Hell itself. As the main party gathers at the precipice just before their fateful descent, they share one last round of decisions to split up accordingly. Cloud will take the lead, with Aerith and Tifa tagging along, and they’ll descend as far as they can go. Yuffie, Sonon, Cait Sith, and Cid will follow a safe distance apart and may take a different turn once the tunnels part ways. And Barret, Nanaki, and Vincent will follow up in the rear to ensure they’re not being followed by any suspicious agents. Everyone will stay in contact through PHS and report in if they discover anything important – be it any sign of Sephiroth or Jenova, the black robes, or even the strange imposter Ruby. They can’t afford to lose sight of their goal, not when it’s so close.
The initial descent down the rocky slopes proceeds rather smoothly, despite the awaiting dangers. It seems Ruby’s once frivolous rampage in the area had cleared out a good chunk of threats up front. Where there were once vast mazes of tunnels and forests of rock, she also came to shape the roads ahead and clear out wider areas. However, as much as Cloud would like to take advantage of them, these open grounds have ironically made it harder to navigate due to the manufactured scarcity of distinct landmarks and the consequential convergence of scenery, lit up ominously on all sides with the otherwise radiant glow of life below. It’s honestly even more unnerving not seeing fiends roam free where one would reasonably expect some; like a place so toxic that even corrupted wildlife refuses to be a part of it.
“…Hey, Cloud?” Aerith speaks up all of a sudden.
“Huh?”
She points over the cliff where they now stand. “I think we found our first clue.”
On the snaking path below, there is what appears to be a line of black-robed people slowly meandering through the broken tunnels. Just at a glance, it looks like quite a number of survivors that have made it all this way, perhaps with external help. They clearly outnumber the several that had been trapped back at the glacier. Though the roads are still long, rough, and winding, a few giant holes in the tunnels and rocky pillars that were knocked down as makeshift bridges to cross chasms, and where there were once insurmountable walls, there are plenty of gorges to break them up.
“Huh. I always figured this would be major fiend territory, but they’re passing through like it’s no big deal,” Tifa comments.
“To be fair, we haven’t run into any fiends yet either,” Aerith reminds her.
“Yeah… Normally, I’d be glad, but this just feels really suspicious.”
Cloud cautiously peers over the tell-tale signs of damage. “…Looks like a certain someone crashed in.”
Tifa blinks and turns to him. “You mean Ruby? Is she really here?”
He shakes his head. “Remember, she came by before the whole mess at the temple. This could have been from that time.”
“I guess so…” But she only feels more anxious. “But she sure left a lot of destruction in her wake. Even if she were going wild, the amount of damage seems excessive.”
“Maybe she ran into some extra tough enemies?” Aerith suggests.
Cloud remains unsure. “No, doesn’t seem like it. The place is definitely ruined, but it looks more like things were carefully deconstructed like she was building a path.”
“A path…” She looks off for the line of robes. “For herself, or for others to follow?”
“…” Though she may have asked it as an innocent question, he gets a sinking feeling in his gut. What was she possibly thinking at the time? Or was she tricked or misled into doing this? Whatever happened, it was bad. She returned like she had come from a funeral.
“Well, only one way to find out! Let’s follow ’em!” Aerith declares.
Beckoning the other two to join her, she proceeds to find her way down there. Though still wary themselves, they hurry after her. The three shortly do meet the strange black-robed people still moseying along quietly and peacefully… or maybe not that quietly.
“…Re…un…ion…”
“…Je… Jenova…”
“…Ru…bi…a…”
Cloud stops and stares at one of the robed men who just uttered an unexpected name. Rubia? Not Sephiroth?
Aerith follows the line to look ahead, but even as she squints, the line stretches on for quite a distance, only to be obscured behind by violent whirlwinds crackling with flashes of green-tinted lightning, where the rest seem to disappear. The line, though slow to move, never once stops moving. It’s as if the people are all being led the same way without even acknowledging where they are even going.
Tifa looks around too at the slow-moving line, but the sight alone is unsettling enough. She turns to her to ask, “Aerith, are you sure we should be following them this closely?”
“Yeah. What’s wrong?”
“I know we’ve been keeping an eye on them in case Sephiroth shows up, but the last time we had a lot of them gathered, they transformed into monsters.”
“Yeah, they did…” Aerith admits with a troubled frown herself, “but if we don’t keep going, we won’t find where they’re going.”
Cloud nods. “Aerith’s right. We have to find the source. Wherever that is, it’s where Sephiroth will be.”
Tifa looks a little discouraged. “Yeah… but I just get this feeling that we might run into something really bad when we get there.”
“Then we’ll bust it up.”
“…”
Since it’s pretty clear the other two are pretty set on the road ahead, Tifa has to swallow her reservations. She takes a deep breath to help settle her nerves and follows them as they move up the line. But even though the area seems to be absent of fiends, she’s startled by a sudden outcry of some creature’s pained roar in their vicinity and jumps into the defensive.
“What was that?”
But for once, Cloud and Aerith look around a bit confused. “What was what?” Aerith asks.
“Huh?”
Cloud takes another moment to pause and listen carefully, but he shakes his head. “If there was anything, I don’t hear it now.”
“Hmm…” Aerith cocks her head to a side, but comes to the same conclusion. “Well, I do hear a lot of voices around us, but it’s not out of the ordinary, I don’t think.”
“You mean the Cetra?”
“Well, maybe or maybe not. They might not all be Cetra. There are all kinds of voices that come from the planet.”
“Warning us about anything in particular?”
She shakes her head. “They don’t know. They’re afraid, but can’t say what will happen.”
He snorts, disappointed. “Then, it’s just static noise. Let’s go.”
As stoically as ever, he resumes moving up the line. Aerith turns back to Tifa, who is still feeling pretty jittery. She gives her an assuring nod and a smile and hurries after him. Tifa, with rapidly growing anxiety, gives chase.
However, as the trio nears the increasingly furious winds, it becomes evident that this isn’t just any normal whirlwind. The turbulent currents are flowing so fast they form a nearly opaque wall of air, through and over a giant chasm that parts this end of the road from the next. If one were to peer carefully through, one can manage a glimpse of the black road just across, but at a glance there don’t seem to be any people beyond this point. Where did they all go? Were they blown off into some other place, or did they just fall to their doom?
Just then, Tifa hears that horrific roar again and she flinches, but the other two still don’t seem to have noticed. Cloud stops before the wall of whirlwinds to gauge the approximate distance, takes a few steps back, and prepares to rush forward when she stops him.
She snatches him by the wrist. “Wait, Cloud!”
“Huh?”
“Don’t just rush it! It might be dangerous if we try to jump through.”
He looks a little annoyed. “It’s dangerous anywhere we’re going.”
“No, I mean, with how strong the winds are, shouldn’t we try to hang onto each other? Just to be sure we don’t get separated.”
“Uh…”
“Oh! Good idea, Tifa!” Aerith hurries over and clings to Cloud’s other arm. “Just in case we fly off, we can use Cloud as our anchor!”
“Hey,” he grunts, clearly uncomfortable to be caught between them.
“Um. As an ‘anchor’…?” Tifa begins, but takes one peek at the giant sword on his back and back to her. “Ah, well. He’s probably the heaviest one here.”
Aerith smiles back. “But of course! That’s why I picked him!”
Cloud groans internally to himself. Even at a time like this, these two ladies are acting like kids and he’s the guy stuck with them. Whatever happened to the badasses they all were back on the ship? It’s just some damn wind!
Aerith then looks on ahead with a look of determination. “Okay, guys! Let’s all jump on three!”
“Okay,” Tifa follows suit, clinging a little tighter to Cloud’s wrist. “Let’s do this.”
Clearly not able to argue with either of them, he concedes quietly and focuses his attention ahead.
“Three…” Aerith starts off.
“Two…” Tifa follows.
“One…!” Cloud mutters.
The trio leap forth at once, throwing themselves right through the wall of whirlwinds. However, whether it was by coincidentally poor timing or by deliberate redirect, one of the green lightning bolts cracks unexpectedly close. Suddenly, even amid the howling winds, Tifa hears that familiar shrieking roar of a beast nearby and she freezes up for an instant when she seems to make out the shape of a dark shadow in their midst closing in fast.
“Watch out!” a familiar female voice calls out to her.
Wait, was that…? But she doesn’t even have time to think. In that split second before they’re set upon, Tifa releases her grip to dodge the incoming figure.
“!?” Cloud whips back, horrified to see her let go.
It happens too fast. The moment Tifa snaps free is the moment she’s swept up and apart from the others, carried off by the airstream like a torrential flood. Though Cloud reaches out to catch her again, she’s drifted too far. One moment she was with them, the next she is gone. And suspiciously enough, the mysterious shadow that had loomed on by suddenly vanishes into thin air as if it were just a trick of optics.
Though he had previously given his leap enough power to easily cross the chasm, a single moment of hesitation on his part causes him to nearly lose his footing as he reaches the other side. In an abrupt pivot upon hitting solid ground, he throws Aerith forward to escape the whirlwind trap, but he himself kicks off the ledge and takes a dive back into the airstream.
By the time Aerith can register what just happened, she finds herself alone on the black road that leads on into darkened caves. She climbs back to her feet and whips back around, calling out their names.
“Cloud! Tifa!?”
But neither one responds. They’ve drifted too far off-course. The only thing that may save them now are her heartfelt prayers.
~
Tifa stirs awake with a groan, finding herself back on solid ground. When she pulls back up, though, she’s shocked and disturbed to find herself in a completely different place. No, not just any place either. What is this… Nibelheim?
She looks around in stunned silence. The sleepy old town looks just as she remembers from her childhood. The old water tower stands erect with a gentle-blowing breeze that spins the old windmill. There are a few townspeople wandering to and fro, engaged in busy bustle and greeting their friendly neighbors. But everyone appears to be completely silent, as she can’t hear what anyone’s saying. Their mouths are moving, but nothing comes out. They don’t even pay a notice to her, who just woke up on the ground at the center of town.
What’s going on here? The last thing she knew, she lost her grip on Cloud and went for a tumble into a chasm. But suddenly, she’s back in her old hometown? And it looks like a time in the past before all of the black robes were found loitering around. Is this a dream…?
If it is, she’s surprised at how real everything feels – from the gentle breeze blowing by her hair, to the sandy pebbles at her feet and the soft wavering grass growing from the sides of the roads. It’s so peaceful here, almost like a picturesque snapshot of the town from the early days when they knew nothing about any Soldiers or Shinra conspiracy. If she didn’t know any better, she would have been glad to be able to relive a moment like this.
She shakes her head, shuts her eyes, and gives her cheeks a light slap. Stay focused, Tifa. This isn’t right. It has to be fake, an illusion of sorts created by Sephiroth or whatever threat they could be facing now. She has to remain on guard. Where are Cloud and Aerith? Did they make it across safely? If not, maybe they all drifted to the same place? She has to look for them.
“Tifa!”
Her eyes snap open and she turns to look. All of a sudden, she sees Cloud hurrying over this way from north in town. He looks a little flustered and once he comes up, hunches over, panting heavily. As if out of instinctual caution, her eyes are naturally drawn to his left arm, where a familiar armband seems to be tied on tightly. At the very least, it looks like the same guy.
“Cloud?”
“Here you are…” He pulls himself back up. “You okay?”
“Um…” She looks down at herself, but doesn’t see or feel any injuries. “I think so. What happened?”
He shakes his head. “Dunno, but whatever it is, it’s not good. I lost sight of you two for a bit, but I’m glad you’re here at least.”
“Y-yeah…” She makes a bit of a guilty look as she recalls the moment again. It was just a moment of panic and she wanted to avoid them all getting hit by whatever phantom she saw, but it was a critical lapse of judgment and she lost contact.
“Come on, let’s go find Aerith. If we’re here, she shouldn’t have gone far.”
“…”
He blinks in surprise at her silence. “What’s wrong?”
Now that she thinks about it, though, doesn’t it seem a little suspicious that Cloud would just show up out of nowhere? He looks the part and seems to be acting normal, but what if… Okay, she needs to be absolutely sure. Let’s get right to the point.
She points to his armband. “Um…?”
He looks and then catches on. “Oh, right. Good call.”
With little hesitation, he gives the band a gentle tug and loosens the cloth, revealing a familiar red ruby drawn in ink. And as soon as she sees it, Tifa lets off a relieved sigh.
“Okay. Thanks.”
He ties it back up. “Anyway, we’d better hurry. Never know what could happen in a place like this.”
“Um, right!” Tifa looks around again. “But where are we?”
He shrugs. “Who knows? Maybe we all fell into the chasm and ended up in the Lifestream?”
She blinks. “The Lifestream? Like, we’re a part of some memory? Is that why this place looks like Nibelheim?”
“I guess.”
“…”
He now turns away for the north side. “Anyway, it doesn’t look like she’s around here, so let’s try the other end.”
“The other end?”
He glances back to her. “Up Mt. Nibel.”
“What? Why there?”
“Just to be sure. I’ve been looking all over town, but I haven’t found her. So she has to be somewhere else related to this memory.”
She casts a pensive look aside. “Which one is this?”
“From what I can tell… it was back when we were still kids.”
“Kids…”
Tifa takes a moment to recall what sort of memory the two had once shared, but apart from that one night on the water tower when Cloud declared he’d be leaving town, she struggles to recall which other time that they were together. She never really got to spend much time with him when they were young, and even when the other kids would invite him, he’d refuse to join them, so she didn’t get to know him that well back then.
“Um… when was it?”
His eyes widen in surprise. “You don’t remember?”
“Not really. Was there any particular significance to this day?”
“Ah…” He nods slowly as he recalls. “Thinking about it, maybe you wouldn’t. You were going through a lot… when your mom passed away.”
“…”
At that moment, Tifa snaps right back to that core memory. That’s right. The day her mother passed, she was overwhelmed. She locked herself up in her room and refused to talk to anyone. Several of their neighbors stopped by to check on her, but aside from her closest friends who were welcome in her room, she turned them all away. She was surprised to hear that Cloud was one of them, but she didn’t want to see him either.
And then, after she had a bit of time to settle down, one of her friends brought up a rumor he once heard about Mt. Nibel, where just beyond the mountains was a certain place – a beautiful, pristine lake full of life and rich with the planet’s natural essence – where the people who once moved on from this life to the next would pass by before they would eventually return to the planet. And whether it was pure curiosity or just desperation, Tifa decided they should check it out.
So one other day after, she and her posse of three took this peaceful day to sneak out of town and explore the mountains on their own. Though the townsfolk always warned kids to stay out because of all the dangers and fiends that were hiding up there, Tifa was no stranger to the mountains anyway. There were quite a few times when her adorable but naughty pet cat would wander off and she’d have to head out to search for her, and eventually she learned of the various routes to take to avoid the worst trouble.
But this time, she wasn’t traveling alone. Her friends followed her out here and the four of them braved the chilly winds across the rugged fields up toward the sharp peaks. However, even before they started climbing, one of them got cold feet all of a sudden and turned back to town. Then, it was just three, and along the way, another friend got sick of all the climbing and refused to keep going. Finally, it was just two. Eventually, after a long, exhausting hike to higher and higher grounds, Tifa came across a certain rope bridge, and the third and final friend finally peaced out and took off. But by that point, she had come too far to go back. She pressed on and at one point, she thought she heard someone else’s voice call to her from behind. She whipped around to see who had chased after her, but at that moment, the old bridge gave way and snapped.
Tifa blinks a few times as she comes back around to the present. “…Cloud?”
“Yeah?”
“That… was you who saved me, wasn’t it?”
“…” He rubs his head awkwardly. “I dunno about ‘save’. I tried to help, but we both fell anyway. I managed to get by with scrapped knees, but you…” His face gets grave as he recalls, “You were knocked out and beaten up pretty bad.”
“How bad?”
“Bad. I was scared that you wouldn’t wake up. Brought you back to town as fast as I could. When your dad found us, he chewed me out and blamed me for everything. Wouldn’t let me see you for ages since.”
“…”
He lets off a sigh and turns ahead again. “Anyway, I don’t know why we’re revisiting this, but the point is, we still have to find Aerith. If we really did end up in the Lifestream, then she might be caught up in something too.”
“…Right.” Tifa sets aside her troubles from the past and looks onward. “But will we have to run all the way there? How far does this memory extend?”
“Only one way to find out.”
And with that simple claim, he takes off in a run and she hurries after. But as it would happen, this strange place they’ve found themselves in feels all kinds of uncanny. Tifa is still able to feel the cool breeze around them as they depart the edge of town, but the trail seems to fade out to a fuzzy white. As soon as they step beyond, she blanks out into a black void, feels a sudden sharp pain in a foot and loses her step, and nearly loses all sense of direction as she slips into another tumble. Fortunately, it seems to be a quick transition this time. When she comes to again, they’ve suddenly jumped far along the mountain trail, where the old familiar bridge once stood.
Cloud watches the bridge with a wary look in his eyes. “It’s still up, huh…”
Tifa blinks in surprise. “Oh. Did our kid selves not come this way yet?”
“Dunno.”
“Hmm…” She looks back down at her foot just to check, but she doesn’t see anything wrong. Still feeling bothered by the situation, though, she also asks, “By the way, what was that just now? For a moment, I blacked out and it felt like I was falling. But then we suddenly showed up here.”
He shrugs. “Like I said, you never know with a place like this. Makes things easier if we can just cut out the travel, though.”
“…”
“Anyway, since the bridge is still up, let’s keep going.”
“Uh, Cloud? You sure we can cross this way?”
“Huh?” He whips back to her. “Why not?”
“I mean, if this is still that memory, then wouldn’t this bridge be unsafe? We ended up falling, right?”
“Yeah…” He makes an uncomfortable frown. “But how else can we keep going?”
“I mean…” She looks worried again. “How do we know if Aerith is even this way? If we keep going…”
“We’ll find out when we get there.”
“…”
He makes an impatient sigh. “Come on, Tifa. The longer we stall, the worse trouble Aerith might be in. We can’t risk waiting for her to show up.”
“I know, but…”
“But?”
Tifa hesitates to answer. Truth be told, her suspicions haven’t waned in the least since the moment she woke up earlier. What is really happening right now? Where are they going? And even if they do keep going, how are they going to escape this memory? How did they end up here in the first place? And above all, how long has it been since they’ve been here?
Cloud stares at her incredulously. “Tifa, what’s going on? You’ve been acting weird since we arrived at the crater.”
“…”
“I know you wanna be careful, but we can’t keep holding ourselves back just because we might run into danger. We already came this far.”
“…”
“And now that we’ve been split up, we have to find everyone. Who knows what they’re dealing with while we’re stuck here? Let’s find Aerith and get out.”
“…Yeah.”
He turns for the bridge again. “Come on, let’s go.”
“Cloud.”
By now, he’s getting a little annoyed and whips back around. “What?”
But Tifa’s face has grown grim as well. Taking the time to stop and really think about her situation, nothing about this seems to make sense. And though she’s kept quiet about it all this time, something really has been bothering her.
She at last comments about it, “The moment I woke up and found myself in town, you showed up pretty fast.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Uh, did I?”
“Yeah. It felt a little too convenient… almost like it was staged.”
He shrugs. “Well, it wasn’t. Like I said, I was looking all around for you guys for a while. I really was glad you turned out alright.”
“Even though I woke up in the middle of town? Out in the open? How could you have missed me?”
He looks aside again, growing more uncomfortable by the second. “I don’t know. I just didn’t see you there. I figured maybe you’d drop in later, so I went back to check.”
“…”
He casually waves a hand. “Anyway, what’s with you all of a sudden? We shouldn’t be wasting time with these random questions. We have to find Aerith.”
“No. We have to get this settled first.”
“Get what settled?”
She looks back to him with a solemn frown. “When I asked to check under your armband, you didn’t do the same for me.”
“…” And with that, Cloud’s surprised face darkens as he realizes the problem. He goes completely quiet, looking aside as if to avoid her line of sight.
“You were the one who came up with this plan. Why wouldn’t you stick to the rules and be extra careful? After all, for all you know, I could have been an imposter.”
He shakes his head. “Come on. It was just unnecessary. I could tell it was you as soon as you asked the question.”
She narrows her eyes. “No. I don’t think that’s why.”
“…”
“You already knew who I was, so that’s why you were confident. And you knew exactly where we were. In other words…” She begins to back up a few steps and raises her fists forward. “You can’t be the real Cloud.”
Though he was looking like he was going to keep arguing, he now settles back down and grows still, even colder than he had started.
“Whoever you are, show yourself!” she shouts.
At first, the guy looks down with a grim, almost frustrated frown as if he had just faced defeat. But then, as he looks back up again, that frown quickly flips back up into an eerie smirk that sends a chill down her back.
“How cold… To think he’s the one with the ice wolf’s blessings.”
Suddenly, a black wind begins to stir around them, whipping up a small whirlwind around the man formerly known as Cloud in which he disappears, only to reappear with a much darker, more looming, and more intimidating presence. Tifa’s eyes shoot wide in panic as soon as she sees him. Though she has been suspecting it all along, she desperately wished she was wrong for once. But there’s no mistaking it. She could never forget this face even if she tried.
Sephiroth gives her a coy smile as he calls his signature blade to his hand, and it appears in a flash of light. “It’s too bad… The two of you finally get to be alone to reminisce over fond memories, and you still refuse to be reminded.”
“Don’t you dare ruin these memories! You had nothing to do with our childhood!”
“Oh?” He chuckles. “And here I thought his childhood dream was to become Soldier because of me.”
Her fists clench up even more tightly. “You broke his dream! He saw you as a hero. We all did. We even welcomed you with open arms. And then you went crazy and attacked everyone! Do you even have any idea what you’ve done? What we had to go through? How long we suffered because of you!?”
“Of course…” He raises a hand forward. “I rose beyond the limits of humanity to become something truly transcendental. Some sacrifice was always necessary.”
She grits her teeth, growling under her breath. “You’re so sick, you’re beyond saving.”
Paying no mind, he glances around as if an idea was stirring in mind. “Well, if you insist, we could use a change of scenery. Set up the mood a bit better…”
With a wave of his hand, the illusion around them warps and fades into darkness, transforming their surroundings to a different but still relevant locale. Now, Tifa is aghast to find herself back inside that one mako reactor, on the bridge between the entrance and the inner chambers, and she nearly squeaks in fright when she even sees the body of her late father on the ground. No… not this memory. Anything but this one.
Meanwhile, Sephiroth looks around the place with a nostalgic fondness to his eyes. “Here we are… back to that fateful day.”
Oh, but it’s not just a snapshot. Tifa is startled when she notices her supposedly late father seem to stir.
“…T…Tifa…”
She gasps and rushes right past Sephiroth to drop by her father’s side. “Dad!? Dad, hang in there!”
She pulls the man’s limp body into her arms, her eyes wide open. It’s just like that day: his own eyes wide with shock, a huge gash across the man’s chest where he lies in a pool of his own blood. But even as she holds him now, she can feel the warmth of his body is already fleeting.
“Dad, please! Don’t! Don’t go…”
“…R…run…”
“No… please, no…”
Her eyes are welling up with real tears. She knows it’s just a memory. She knows that she can’t do anything for him here. But the grief from back then never once left her. It only sank deep down where she tried her best to suppress it for as long as she could manage.
Sephiroth glances back to them, looking unimpressed as usual. “…It’s pointless. You already know what happened.”
“Shut up…” She clings desperately to her father in a tight embrace as those tears begin to fall. “What are you doing…? Why are you showing me this?”
He makes a subtle smirk to himself and looks off again. “Core memories, unforgettable experiences, heartfelt wishes… all those which remain with us and drive us forward…”
Tifa finally feels her father’s body go limp entirely, and that warmth quickly vanish with the little life that still remained. Even knowing full well that this is what would happen doesn’t make the pain feel any worse.
But Sephiroth simply continues with his monologue as if she weren’t there: “No matter how fond or precious, or tragic or devastating the memories, all are due to return to the planet one day, to fuel the planet’s insatiable desire for experiences.”
“…Stop.” She carefully lays down her father’s body and gently covers his eyes to close them and let him rest.
“But to what purpose? To learn from those mistakes? To celebrate earnest victories despite the falls? Or merely to indulge in the self-perpetuating cycle of grief?”
“Stop talking!” She jumps back to her feet and whips around to face him. Her eyes are now burning, not only from the pain of reliving this moment, but also from the unadulterated fury that has flared up within. “This isn’t about what you think!”
He shakes his head in disappointment and continues, “However you choose to look at it, it’s all meaningless. An eternal prison in which we are forced to resign ourselves to a Fate beyond our control – just as the planet’s will intended.”
She’s had enough of this guy. She’s long had enough. Though she clenches up her fists so tightly she’s trembling, she’s starting to lack feeling in her extremities. It’s as if the cold chill she felt earlier somehow lingered and is now creeping through the rest of her body. She’s even starting to feel stiff. What’s going on? This isn’t just her old fears holding her back again, right?
And now, there’s a sinister glint to his eyes. “But everything would change when a certain key fell right into my grasp.” He raises his hand forward toward no apparent audience and declares proudly anyway, “An anomaly of the highest order, one that even the planet and Her Guardians would fail to recognize its true threat, come neatly packaged in the body of one of their own.”
Oh, no, he didn’t just go there. She’s immediately reminded of what she’s fighting for and snaps back into focus. No. Even if her limbs are numb, even if she’s traumatized and scared out of her mind, even if she doesn’t know what the hell is going on, she refuses to give in. He’s not getting away again. He is going to feel the full wrath of karma for all the suffering he’s dealt, and she’s going to make sure of it.
He brings his hand upon his chest and closes his eyes with a proud smile. “It’s finally time. The day of reckoning will be upon us. Now with Ruby’s scattered Remnants made whole once more, her release will be the key to setting this world free…”
Without uttering a word, she gets into stance and rushes him from behind with a flurry of blows. However, he had anticipated this from the beginning and neatly sidesteps her initial lunge. But even as she comes swinging back around for another flurry, he again only dodges or blocks her strikes with one arm, but doesn’t bother to strike back. It’s infuriating. Even now, he’s not taking her seriously. Tifa pulls back to take a different stance, calling up a Chi Trap to draw him in place. This time, she charges back in, but he effortlessly deflects every blow again except for the last strong right, which he instead catches in his hand. Before she can pull away, he crushes her hand in an iron grip and forcefully wrenches it in a bad twist. She cries out and buckles, and he casually tosses her away to the ground. She struggles to climb back to her feet, clutching her warped, badly bruised hand, and yet despite the pain, keeps glaring daggers back his way.
As if on a whim, he brings forward his blade and points it in her face. “You’ve all had your time and fulfilled your roles as well. No need to keep struggling. Embrace the end to come.”
“…!”
She bats the blade away with her left and jumps back to her feet, but he still keeps her at a distance with that very long katana. As much as she tries to knock or kick it aside to get in range again, he either avoids her or blocks her with the blade and she can’t seem to get in again. And whenever she tries to back up to reconsider her options, he only approaches her again slowly and most threateningly with that cold smile. In all honesty, he could just stab her now and get it over with, but instead he chooses to keep toying with her. It’s all fun and games, after all, when you have the world at your fingertips.
Now at the end of her wits, Tifa throws out a feint with a left jab, only to switch it up to seize the sword and use it as a pivot into a spinning kick into his side, but he catches her again. With just one hand, he swings her off the ground and flings her over the side of the bridge. With his other, he brings his blade down and cuts a deep gash across her chest and abdomen, in an almost perfectly synched motion to the original cut he once made.
Tifa freezes up as her body enters complete shock. Her old scar that had left a grim reminder for these five years has just opened up again with a gruesome spilling of red. But if there is any silver lining to this horrid haze, her utter shock has shut down her immediate pain responses. She instead becomes numb from the terrible wound she suffered then and again just now. As she falls into the glowing green abyss below, the surroundings begin to fade around her and her sight goes black.
Maybe she just imagined it, she isn’t sure, but for just a second there, she thought she might have heard Cloud’s voice calling to her.
Notes:
I know Genesis's backstory and general design were largely inspired by Sephiroth in the first place, but lorewise, I think I'd rather blame Genesis for Sephiroth's habit for relishing in soliloquy while the people around him are suffering. :p I mean, it's still Sephiroth's fault to act that way, but it clearly had to have stemmed from somewhere and I don't remember Seph having many of those moments while he was still sane.
My frustrations with the Northern Crater
- So there's this visible difference between the original game's visuals and later Compilation titles that have also extended into the Remake games, and it's the Lifestream itself. Ever since Advent Children, the concepts of there being a "white" and "black" Lifestream to represent the sides of good vs evil have been propagated throughout, so I understand why the Lifestream went from its original mystical green to something more bluish-white. Unfortunately, because I have been referring to the original game's story and setting so much throughout this fic, I have grown too attached to the OG's designs as well to leave them behind, barring the much more detailed updated designs of the characters in Remake + Rebirth. So as a compromise, I think I'll just use the colored descriptions interchangeably, where there's still a general greenish glow over the Northern Crater as an homage, but the Lifestream itself can be whitish.
- The actual layout of the crater based on the OG is very confusing. Every time I look at screenshots and field maps of the crater, depending on whether it's the Disc 2 or 3 maps that are being used, there are some obvious contradictions. The primary issue is with placing where the Whirlwind Maze even is, and I cannot for the life of me build it out in a way that it makes sense. It's implied that the chamber where all the Weapons were hidden is somewhere in the depths of the crater, close to the actual core, hence why Sephiroth's original body would have drifted there, but there is also no place in the Disc 3 maps where you can revisit that specific room. I know when the Weapons broke out, they basically buried that entire area, but it's still weird that there's no relation to any other field map in the Disc 3 version.
- Not to mention, the relative distances and complexities of the caves you had to cross in the Disc 3 maps to reach anywhere close to the center! It's so weird that Whirlwind Maze is at most 5 distinct screens to pass through and it's almost always moving in the direction of "north" or at least up / away from the screen. That's why it gives the impression that Sephiroth's chamber would be somewhere at the north side, but that can't be right, considering that he would have been somewhere closer to the core. In fact, it was his release that opened up the way to the planet's core in the first place.
- Clearly, this is all the Weapons' fault. Damn planetary robots ruining my fic. It's bad enough that the OG made them all look really stupid (except maybe Diamond Weapon) for doing eff-all about the actual threats to the planet. /s
- My only solution to this issue was to simply recreate the entire scenery as a vague "blackish cavern with greenish glow", ignore whatever original layout it was supposed to have, and leave it to your imagination to fill in the gaps. I'm sorry, I wasn't sure how else to do this. Writing up detailed descriptions for a completely original layout would be too long and easily ruin the pacing of the story. At least I referenced both versions of the maps, though mainly focused on the Whirlwind Maze perspective.10/25/24 edit: I forgot to mention it, but did anyone pick up the One Piece reference? I was pretty cheeky about it.
Chapter 71: That Which Binds Us
Notes:
Happy Halloween! As mentioned before, I dedicate this chapter to the holiday. But more than that, I feel like I have undergone my own "metamorphosis" while writing this chapter. Maybe it's my practice helping me work on those writing skills, or maybe it's just the sugar high I've had lately. (Yum, donuts! They're ruining my sleep schedule even more!)
Then again, for whatever reason, I kept hearing this voice in my head repeating the same word, "Reunion," and I couldn't get Sephiroth or Momma Jenova out of my head over the past week or so. It's almost like... Nah, it's probably nothing. Seph is always in my head anyway and he's been extra pushy these days. Patience, sweetie. I'll get to your fave moment soon.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The green winds howl. Heartbeats, resounding loudly from within the walls. A massive crystalline structure is buried within the depths of a complex, wirey, tree-like branches made of earth and stone. At its center, a great translucent blue crystal that once housed a terrifying entity, but is now entirely empty. And down on the ground, a familiar-looking figure cloaked in white stands faced away to the back wall, seemingly staring at nothing.
To be honest, Aerith isn’t sure how she got here. After losing track of Cloud and Tifa, who seem to have vanished into the obscuring whirlwinds, she’s found herself alone to continue the trek forward. They had been following a line of black robes this way, but even those people have mysteriously vanished. She’s afraid – anxious and wary, to be specific – not because she is alone, but that she isn’t sure what to do at this moment. Jumping in after them would have made Cloud’s efforts to save her be pointless, yet she hesitates to keep going without them. Nevertheless, there was a single familiar voice calling to her, beckoning her to come closer, and without much thought to it, Aerith followed that voice into the innermost chamber ahead.
After looking around the room in apprehensive awe, she turns her attention to the cloaked figure in the back. With a sinking feeling in her stomach, she calls to her, “…Rubia?”
The one who appears to be Rubia doesn’t respond just yet. Aerith steps a little closer to raise a hand forward. However, as soon as she steps entirely into the chamber, the cloaked figure raises a hand up as if to command her to stop. Aerith obliges, uncertain of what she intends, but still means to be respectful. However, as soon as she’s inside, a sudden burst of those rocky tendrils that had previously lined the walls extend to cover and block the entrance and thus the exit. At this moment, Aerith feels a pit in her stomach, like she just wandered into a trap.
Her fears are realized. When the cloaked figure turns around to meet her, at first glance, it does look like Rubia herself. However, her plain, emotionless face soon distorts into a deeply terrified expression. Her eyes grow disturbed, her cheeks tense, and her mouth curls with trembling lips into an open frown where she looks like she’s trying to cry out for help. But before Aerith can go over to comfort her, suddenly the entire room goes pitch-black dark.
Aerith flinches and covers her ears. An outcry of cacophonous shrieks and cries, mingled with maniacal, mockery and laughter fill the room, and it’s so loud that she can still hear them even with her ears plugged. The next moment, the pale glowing light of the crystals returns to the room, but where Rubia had once stood is now a great, sprawling dead-looking tree which limbs stretch far toward the ceiling where the huge crystal at the center is hung. However, it’s not just a tree. At the head before the tree branches off hangs a single thinly cracked skull hanging upon it almost like it has a mask, and at the ends of the lowest hanging branches are what appear to be rope nooses tied to them. Eight of them, to be exact. Though they are empty at first, it plainly looks like this is a tree designed to be the grounds of a mass execution.
Jenova Plaga, the Snare.
Poor Aerith is now trapped in here with the horrible tree-like alien creature. She can do nothing but watch and dread as one of the nooses begins to be filled with the shape of a human body, hung limply by the neck. She clasps her hands over her mouth for a quiet gasp. This body, once fully realized, turns out to look just like Tifa.
~
“She’s on the prowl… crossing through unknown territory, where no man or machine has even dared to go… defeating fiend after fiend and discovering hidden treasures that they keep! Rare, precious, legendary materia! Yeowza, we’ve hit the jackpot!!”
“…Oh, brother. What did I do to deserve this?”
“You did right, Sonon! This nose of mine has yet to fail me when it comes to tracking down materia!”
“Materia doesn’t even smell like anything… You sure the fumes of the place haven’t gotten to you yet?”
“Maybe it doesn’t to you! But I have a natural sense for these things.”
“Yeah, you sure do…”
“And here we are! I knew the depths had to have the really good materia! So this is where Ruby and the rest of the Cetra kept their secrets, huh? Hehehe…”
“…”
Yuffie, Sonon, Cait Sith and Cid have made their way well into the caves of the crater, taking a different turn when they came across a wide fork in the road and dove deeper and deeper until they arrived in a place where the streams of life flow like majestic waterfalls around them, pouring into the depths too far for the eye to see. Now, if only they hadn’t let Yuffie run ahead and lead them around, they might not have gotten lost, but unfortunately for the rest, she was already fast on the hunt for materia.
And it so happens that she did acquire a rare and pristinely beautiful blue materia: Amplify, which mirrors the more well-known Magnify materia, but rather than spread out the effects of the linked materia, Amplify boosts the power and efficacy of it, with only certain exceptions to defensive ones like Revive and Shield and particularly powerful ones like Ultima. She happened across it sparkling from within a cave behind one of the mako streams, and for a moment, the others panicked when she dove right in. Fortunately, she came back out without hassle and played it off like it was no big deal. That is, she would have if they hadn’t awoken an angry Dark Dragon that had taken the cave as its den and attacked them for trespassing. The four would quickly learn that this beast was nothing to scoff at, though, as it chased them around for a good few blocks and showered them with bright blue flame-like shockwaves from above while it did. In a last-ditch attempt to block off the dragon from chasing them, Cid threw some dynamite he had prepared and the explosion triggered a rockslide that buried the tunnel they just passed through. And as if nothing of note just happened, Yuffie is back on the hunt searching to and fro for any other “secret passages” while the rest of them are stuck with her.
“Ohh… why did we have to come this way?” Cait Sith frets in a mumble. “We’ve gone too far from the others! They won’t know where to find us!”
Cid, meanwhile, is looking pretty relaxed and leaves his scimitar resting against his shoulder as he blows a smoke. “No use frettin’ now. We just keep going until we run into something important and call in as usual.”
“Cid, man…” Cait’s ears droop. “How can you be this relaxed? A huge fiend just chased us way off course and now we don’t have a way back! We’ll just be lost if we keep wanderin’!”
“Fiend or not, nothing that we haven’t been able to deal with. Sounds like we’re doing alright.” He gestures with a nod ahead to where Yuffie is bouncing around happily and Sonon is on standby to make sure she doesn’t accidentally hop off the thin rocky bridge they’re crossing. “Besides, the whole place is a crater. If we just keep goin’ the same way, we’ll loop back around eventually.”
“If we had an aerial view, maybe. But even you wouldn’t fly the Highwind over these parts.”
“’Course not!” he snaps back. “Like I’d risk bringing my baby too close! She’s a fighter too, but she ain’t indestructible!”
“That’s what I’m saying.” Cait Sith sighs. “From the ground level, we might as well be rats wand’ring a maze that stretches for miles. Who’s to tell when we’d be able to make it back? I’d say we oughta turn back the way we came, but well, that’s right out.”
“Like I said, no way but forward. Besides, the twerp led us here. If she got any sense of direction, she might just find some way out.”
“Yeah… Let’s hope.”
Unfortunately, things would not go so smoothly. The real reason why the Dark Dragon stopped pursuing them this way wasn’t because it couldn’t find a different way over here, but that it simply refused to cross territories with another equally frightening rival in the vicinity. While Yuffie continues to poke around where she doesn’t belong and Sonon grows more and more paranoid that they’re being watched, Cait Sith also picks up with his keen hearing something of a low growl in the area.
“Uh… did ye catch that just now?” he asks Cid.
“Huh? What?”
“I swear I just heard something growl.”
Cid rolls his eyes. “So another dragon or whatever? Figures. This place must be a breeding ground for these weirdos.”
“Oof. I really hope not. We barely escaped the last one! What if this one’s even worse?”
“Then we blow it up too.”
“Y-you make it sound so easy…”
Up ahead and beyond the bridge, Sonon is starting to have enough of Yuffie making a mad dash from ledge to ledge, only to come back down looking disappointed. She found some other useful items like a Turbo Ether and a Mind Source among a few others, but no materia. In a place that’s practically a materia well. Clearly, something’s not right here. She’s also getting testy and is stewing over how to better her approach while Sonon comes over.
“Yuffie… don’t you think we ought to focus on finding a way back? We don’t know where this will lead us.”
“Oh, shush! I know I’m close! There’s gotta be more cool materia around here!”
“Will you stop thinking about materia for just one second!? What we need right now is to take higher ground, not lower!”
“Just be patient! The sooner we dig out all the materia here, the sooner we can get out!”
He plants a hand over his face. “Didn’t we come here for a completely different reason?”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m sure Cloud and ’em are taking care of things. Why not take this chance to do a little scavenging on the side?”
He looks so disappointed in her. “And what if they actually need our help?”
“Then we’ll go save ’em! But we haven’t heard any cry of help yet, have we?”
He glances over to the still silent PHS on his belt. “No, but…”
“Then there’s nothing to worry about!” She whips back around and struts off again. “Materia, just you wait! I’m coming for ya!”
Sonon groans, but it only echoes internally. If he has to keep following her like this, he’d sooner pop his own ears than be forced to hear her blather on about the same thing again and again.
However, just as Yuffie rounds another corner, the ground suddenly shakes beneath their feet. It’s very brief, though it soon repeats. This doesn’t seem to be an earthquake; something really heavy is drawing near. Sonon resumes his guard, but gets anxious when he doesn’t see Yuffie hurrying back. He rushes after where he last saw her, but finds she’s dipped out of sight yet again. He even checks the ledges above to make sure she isn’t hanging off of anywhere, and she’s nowhere to be found. What the? Where’d she go?
“Yuffie! This isn’t funny! Where are you!?”
But rather than hear her answer, he is instead met with a deep, threatening growl. Suddenly the large spiked stone that happened to lie near him stirs from its place and lifts into the air. Sonon backs off and realizes that it’s no mere stone; it’s attached to a much bigger creature. Now that it gets up to its four massive clawed paws, he sees the full horrifying picture. A very dark, almost black, furry monster with snarling maws and great piercing horns from its head, adorned with a spiked, stone-hard mace for a tail, now lumbers over him. It turns around, piercing through any proverbial guard he had up with its huge, vicious-looking eyes. This is a King Behemoth, an extra aggressive and territorial variant of the usual Behemoth, where a single beast can lay claim to territories that stretch for acres. Only the most powerful and capable fighters can challenge one head-to-head, and few humans have ever crossed paths with it and escaped alive.
Sonon feels all warmth flee from his body. “Uh… Nice kitty?”
The behemoth roars and he skedaddles away. “Yuffie! Where are you!?” he screams while the beast pursues him.
As fast as he may be, the beast is faster many times over. It easily leaps over him and blocks his path with a fearsome snarl and he has to pull back to resume his guard. Looks like there’s no escaping it; but to take on something like this by himself? It’s practically suicidal!
“Goddamn it! Another one!?” a familiar voice screams from behind the beast. “I’ve *&$#^% had it with all these %&^#$* Behemoths!!”
“Yuffie! Sonon! Are ye alright!?” the other familiar voice calls out too.
“Cid! Cait! I’m okay, but Yuffie’s missing!” Sonon answers, and he swiftly dodges an incoming strike from the behemoth’s claws, which is easily enough to crush through solid rock.
“What!? Yuffie!” Cait gasps. “What’s going on with that lass!?”
“Argh! The brat’s always gone when you need her! Let’s clean this bitch up and go after her!” Cid declares.
Now the behemoth finds itself surrounded on two sides, but it nonetheless remains unfazed. It too lets out a proud roar and throws down with its new adversaries.
~
Elsewhere in another side of the crater, Barret, Nanaki, and Vincent had been following Yuffie’s team, assuming that they too would have followed Cloud’s party, but came to lose track of where they were headed. They arrived at a fork in the road, but as it happens, only one tunnel is available because the other one seems to have caved in. Barret tried giving the wall a few shots and even followed up with a charged one, but the explosion simply caused more rubble to be dislodged and plug up whatever holes he had made. With little choice left to them, they decided to turn the other way to find another way through.
Here, they find themselves wandering into a completely different and somewhat bizarre-looking location. Whoever knew that in the depths of a crater this far north, there would be a rather warm and swampy area? There’s a rather thick, almost visible haze around the place from the bubbling mud pits, which bubbles regularly burst with a thick, putrid gas that fills the air.
Nanaki shakes his head and snorts his nose. “Whew… The place sure stinks.”
Barret checks with him, “You doing okay so far?”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine. But with such a strong stench over the place, it might be a bit harder for me to pick up subtler scents.”
“Hmm… Well, it’s just us here, so we do what we do and keep watch for each other.”
“Right!”
Vincent is perched upon a nearby ledge to gain a better view of the area, but aside from a monotony of swamp and gas and the occasional weedy plants scattered about, it’s difficult to make out if anyone has been around here for ages. It looks as undisturbed as a prehistoric-era landscape, that’s for sure. He then returns to the ground level to join the other two.
“Seen anything, Vincent?” Barret asks.
But Vincent shakes his head. “It doesn’t appear like anyone’s crossed through here in a long time.”
He makes a disappointed grunt, but isn’t too surprised. “Figures. So they probably did go the other way.”
“Should we go back and try again?” Nanaki asks too.
He shakes his head. “With how bad that cave-in was, it’d take us forever to blast our way in. Let’s try this way and see if it takes us somewhere where we can meet up again.”
“Okay.” He tries his best to shut off his nose, but can still pick up the scent anyway so breathes out a discouraged sigh. “I’ll manage somehow.”
“Hang in there. We’ll blaze right through.”
But the trek is slow-going. Between the mush beneath their feet slowing down any attempts to rush and the thick bog fog that impedes their sights and smells, it’s all too easy to almost slip and fall into the toxic ponds scattered about or get ambushed by naughty fiends that anticipate easy prey. Though the occasional Allemagnes, giant winged eyeball monsters with claws, Parasites, purplish crab-like creepy-crawlies with spiked backs and tails that resemble foliage, and odd Movers, the tiny red orbs that look like materia mimics, aren’t too much to deal with separately, things easily get dicey when the creatures start to gang up on them.
“Uh… Is it just me, or do I hear music?” Barret asks.
From the cover of the noxious haze, a curious pair of oddballs, one a short but thin bipedal creature dressed as if a human jester’s clothes were its body, the other a bright pink quadruped with a showy blond pompadour, begin to sing and dance to an spookily enchanting hard-rock melody. The one named Christopher strums an air guitar with its clawed hands and whips its head furiously, swaying its twin ribbon-like antennas. The one named Gighee hops, struts, and flaunts itself to the rhythm, stroking its xylophone-like back with a mallet on its tail. Though at first just a minor annoyance to the ears, it stirs the entire area up into a psychotic frenzy, where once timid or cowardly fiends become aggressive and terrifying. They surround the trio on all sides in a frenetic crowd shrieking and howling with excited laughter.
“Th-the fiends are multiplying!?” Nanaki gasps, blinking his eye several times. “Where did they all come from?”
“The hell!? They just invited a flash mob!” Barret growls, raising his gun their way. “This ain’t no concert venue!”
He lets fire and Vincent follows suit, but the two odd fiends bounce away and split up. They race through the crowd of creatures, stirring them up out of their sleep and getting them pumped up like they’d just been blessed with magic boosters. And before they can help it, the party is back-to-back-to-back against a full-house mob.
“Goddammit! We can’t be held up here! Blow an opening and get out!”
The three part ways for just a moment, firing and thrashing away at the mob that keeps closing in even despite their best efforts. However, as it so happens, this particular trio is made up of the three members who when pressured into the corner can go absolutely ballistic. With Barret setting up a Lifesaver, Nanaki and Vincent jump right into their respective Vengeance and Beast modes. Nanaki stands his guard, taking blow for blow as one side of the crowd tries to pounce him, but he deftly counterattacks with an even more ferocious flurry of strikes that sends an Allemagne that came too close rolling like a bowling ball into pins. Vincent likewise unleashes an even more infernal beast: rather than the gallant-looking Galian Beast, he now erupts into a lumbering white titan with metal spokes poking out of his head, protruding teeth and lower jaw, and an unevenly bulked out set of massive hammer-like arms – welcome to the live stage, Death Gigas. Now that he towers over them all, he powers through the mob with ease, knocking enemies flying with just a few slow, but devastating swings, ending with a huge smash into the ground that cracks it open and makes it spew a hot geyser that knocks away even others he may have missed.
All in all, a valiant effort from the three mighty warriors. As soon as Barret blasts the musical duo and sends them scurrying, the “concert” comes to an abrupt end. He, Nanaki, and even the towering Vincent regroup once more, noticing that the mob seems to have died down and scattered as soon as the music has stopped. Barret finally lowers his arm and Nanaki breathes a sigh in relief. Vincent too transforms back, but unlike the others, he doesn’t yet lower his guard. He seems to be scanning the area for other threats.
“Whew… We somehow pulled that one off! Let’s go, team!” Barret cheers with a pumped fist.
Nanaki lets off a victorious howl and brushes his fur of dust. “Yeah! I can’t wait to tell the others! That was cool!” He turns to Vincent with a twinkling eye. “I didn’t know you could transform into something else! What was that form?”
But Vincent doesn’t answer; something else has caught his attention. As the haze settles and parts again, a single lone figure briefly comes into view, but then runs off before he can catch a good look.
“Uh, Vincent?”
“…” He now turns back and his face softens up a little. “It’s… the Death Gigas. Not one to be proud of.”
“Huh? Really? What’s wrong with it?”
“Many things… but in short, it’s fortunate that we hadn’t run into too difficult of enemies. In that form, I would have no means of retreating.”
“Ohh…” Nanaki nods back. “I get it. It’s like taking on a warrior stance where you hold your ground until your last stand. No retreat and no holding back. It’s either you or them.”
“Hm. Perhaps in an early age, the Gigas race were one of such culture…”
“Wow. You know, you’re kind of a wealth of information too in a way. Maybe when we get the chance, we could stop by Cosmo Canyon again? I’m sure Grandpa would love to ask you some questions.”
He glances aside awkwardly. “…When the time comes.”
“Hey! What are we waitin’ for? The way’s clear, so let’s go!” Barret calls to them. He’s already tread on ahead.
“Oh! Wait for us, Barret!” Nanaki answers.
The two give chase, but Vincent trails behind a fair distance. He’s still troubled by the brief glimpse he just caught earlier. For a moment there, he was certain that his eyes were just deceiving him, but at the same time, he couldn’t help but be concerned. It looked like a young lady with her long hair tied in a tail. But it wasn’t Ruby. It was someone else… someone that he may have recognized long ago.
“Vincent! What’s the holdup!?” Barret calls. “We gotta go look for Yuffie and ’em! Get ’em back on track!”
But it couldn’t be her, could it? No, that wouldn’t make sense. It could very well have been a trick of sorts, an illusion conjured up by a fiend or even their targeted adversary to fool him. And yet, the possibility for the simpler explanation continues to nag at him. He can’t be distracted now. He has to settle the matter.
“You two go on ahead,” Vincent finally answers, turning back for a fork in the road they had just passed. “I’ll find my way over soon.”
“Huh? Where you going?”
“To clear a potential threat.” And with that, he suddenly whisks off on a run down another path.
“Hey!” But there’s no stopping him. Barret stares and scratches his head. “The hell’s up with him all of a sudden?”
“Do you think he actually saw something earlier?” Nanaki asks.
“But he said no one’s passed through here in ages. Who or what did he see?”
“Hmm…”
Barret frowns, but the more he stews over it, the less things make sense. He gives a tired sigh and turns ahead again. “Anyway, whatever he’s on, we’ll leave it to him. Not like we gotta worry about him getting jumped.” He grits his teeth with a low growl. “As for Yuffie… That girl’s in for a lecture or two! Where the hell are they even going? And where did Cloud and them go!? I know how busted-up he leaves his targets!”
Nanaki shakes his head. “Hoo boy. I haven’t seen or smelled a sign of them either. Hope they’re doing alright.”
~
Not too far from the chaotic scene where Sonon and the others ran into a formidable threat, Yuffie had disappeared too fast into a different hole in the wall. It was just out of curiosity, but it would take her quite a distance away. As soon as she slipped inside, she realized this tunnel bores its way through the previously inaccessible walls she had just passed. Her eyes twinkling with delight and excitement, she rushed on through to see if she couldn’t uncover some undiscovered treasures hidden down this way. However, the deeper she went, the higher it rose and the tighter the fit. Fortunately, it was nothing that a skilled and petite little ninja like her couldn’t manage. She adroitly shifted her weight around to let even her bulky armguard slip through the thin gap, and she was right out the other end of the path. Now she stands atop a ledge to find a nice view of the area.
As it turns out, the tunnel happens to be a shortcut that rounds all the way around the mako waterfalls they had come upon earlier, to end at a ledge high above the bridge area from before. As if to reward her efforts, an enticing Speed Source had been sitting out as if it were waiting for someone to pick it up. Without question, Yuffie snatched it up and stowed it, but she’s once again disappointed to not find any materia. Now she’s getting annoyed; in a place where there’s so much mako and natural materia, one would think it would be a gold mine for rare materia, but all she’s been finding are crystals that haven’t formed entirely into materia, so they’re basically useless. In a way, she can’t help but feel like she’s been tricked, duped, and quite frankly bamboozled. Where the heck are all the really cool materia, like the ones that Ruby found!?
Now that she stops and thinks it over again, she realizes something. If Ruby previously went all around the world in search of the really cool materia to give them, then maybe she already got them from here too. But meeting with this realization only makes Yuffie sink back into a slump. She’s grateful and all that Ruby saved them the trouble, but it also takes out the fun of exploring and finding them! She’s the resident materia hunter here! She should be the one to find them! Doesn’t matter where, dang it! Clearly, they should have taken a different fork along the road. This path was a no-go.
As Yuffie peers from her ledge over the spacious cavern, she can’t help but notice a shadowy figure rush past below. She blinks her eyes a few times. What the heck? She’s a proud ninja and is normally able to make out even the haziest of images from just the corners of her eyes, but the figure was still obscured as if it were merely a silhouette. Well, if that’s not suspicious! She means to leap off and pursue, but then remembers that she’s left her team behind. Well, she can just leave them a quick message. They can catch up later after whatever is taking them so long.
But just as she’s typing away on the PHS, another set of subtle footsteps comes up from behind and taps her on the shoulder, which expectedly freaks her out and she nearly stumbles over the ledge.
“Wawawah!?” She rights herself just in time and glares at her intruder. “Sonon! What the hell! Don’t sneak up on me like that!”
Sonon frowns back in disappointment, setting a hand by his hip. “Look who’s talking! What’s the big idea, slipping off on your own? You know what we had to deal with while you were gone? A freakin’ behemoth! And you missed the whole fight!”
Yuffie casually slips the phone away. “Oh, whoop-dee-doo. Congrats on beating it, I guess.”
“Don’t give me that! Where are you even going? We’re supposed to stick together!”
“I told you already! I’m hunting for materia!” Her face turns back to the sullen as she whips out the blue materia she claimed previously. “But it sucks ’cause aside from this one, I haven’t found another one yet.”
He shakes his head. “Well, how about you stop wasting time and get back on track?”
“But I am on track! You were saying we should climb to higher ground! Well, here I am! What have you guys been contributing, huh!?”
He just looks disappointed. “We’re trying to find our way out of here so we can regroup with the others. But you just had to play around.”
“It’s not ‘playing’! God, how are you this dense!? You know as well as I do how important it is to gather resources! And materia is always the number one priority!”
“For crying out loud, we’re deep in enemy territory! You never know when Sephiroth or whatever is gonna show up!”
“Ugh! I know! That’s why I’ve been doing this and that at the same time! Can’t a girl even multitask these days without some patronizing idiot huffing down her back!?”
“…” Sonon now backs off a little with an uncomfortable frown. “Look, I’m just trying to be careful here-”
“And I don’t need you to do that!” She flails her arms angrily and stands her ground. “It’s always the case with you guys! Both you and dad! Stop treating me like a little kid! I can handle things just fine on my own!”
He raises his hands up in surrender, but rolls his eyes. “O-okay, okay. I get it. You’re the boss here.”
“And don’t you forget it! Now if you’re actually going to make yourself useful, go back and find another way that comes this way! It’s gonna be a pain to have to fit Marshmallow and Smokehead through here with how tight the gap is.”
Sonon nods along and concedes. “Fine, fine. But before I go, can I just check with you about one of the materia you have?”
“Huh?” She scowls, pulling back on the Amplify materia in hand. “If you want this baby, no thanks! I’m keeping it!”
“No, no. Not that one. It’s a purple one. I think Ruby got it for us before.”
“Purple one?”
“I think it was called Premonition?”
“Uh…” Yuffie refers back to the inventory and digs through the list until she finds the smallest one of the bunch, also marked appropriately, and draws it out of her pouch. “You mean this one?”
“Yeah, that’s the one.” He reaches for it, but she pulls back again.
“Hold up. Why do you want this one?” She peers over it again with a suspicious eye. “I mean, I don’t really know how to use it yet, but it must be pretty important if Ruby went out of her way to fetch it for us.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Relax. I’m just gonna test a theory I have. I’ll give it back when I’m done.”
“What’s the theory?”
He rubs his head awkwardly, hesitant to explain himself, but then comes out with it: “It’s about the Summons.”
“The Summons? What about?”
“Ever since we had Ruby talk with Leviathan at the shrine, I’ve been thinking about how they may have been watching us since who knows how long, but we’ve never been able to really interact with them ourselves.”
Yuffie shrugs. “Well, yeah. I mean, they’re Summons. They exist in a different realm altogether from us. Figures that only the Cetra or people super attuned to the planet would be able to talk with them.”
“Right. But I was thinking, maybe this materia may be the key to help us unlock that sort of connection?”
“Uh…” Yuffie looks like she was following along until this moment. “I guess? I mean, is that what this materia is about?”
“I dunno, but could be.” He looks aside with a concerned frown. “Besides, I figured that with the connection I had with Leviathan, even though it was really brief, I may be able to reach him somehow.”
“Huh?” She lurches, quite taken aback. “Wait. You mean you wanna try to do that? Uh, what was that Cloud did with Fenrir? Some kinda of contract?”
Sonon looks back to her with a nod. “Yeah. With everything riding on his back, he must be under some extreme pressure. I was just thinking that if we’re also somehow able to do that sort of thing, then he won’t always have to worry about us.”
“Huh…” Yuffie strikes a thinking pose herself. “Now that you put it that way, I think I get it. But how do you know that you’ll be able to reach Leviathan?”
He shrugs. “Well, that’s what I’m gonna look into. And to start with, I’ll need that materia.”
She rolls her eyes. “Fine, fine. You win. Not like I was using it anyway…” She brings it forward again, but before she hands it over, she looks right in his eyes and states firmly, “But for the record, this materia is mine! So I’m lending it to you, got it?”
Sonon looks unimpressed, but nods anyway. “Got it.”
She tosses it over and he catches it, and he takes a moment to carefully inspect the materia now in his hand. Meanwhile, Yuffie looks away again to gauge the view from this ledge.
“Hmm… Well, from the looks of things, it does look like the road we’re taking does have some way rounding back, but it looks like a long way around.” She points out toward the deeper hole shining with the Lifestream’s brilliance beyond their current location. “We’ll probably have to stop by there before the roads connect again. Man, what a bummer. If only we could fly like Cloud can…” She blinks again when she comes up with an idea and turns around to Sonon again. “Hey, Sonon, when you…”
But her voice is cut off before she can even finish talking. Sonon has already drawn his staff and without even looking her way, he extends it behind him and effectively butts her in the back with the end of that staff, nearly knocking her off the ledge.
“Ow! W-whoa! Sonon!?”
Before Yuffie can even make sense of what happened, the next thing she sees is him swinging for her head. By instinct, she blocks it with her armguard, but she’s already lost her footing and slips on one foot off the edge. But before she can grab him to hold herself, he instead swings the other end up to actually knock her off. She slips and nearly falls, but manages to hang onto the ledge with her other hand. And to her utter dismay, he even stomps on that hand.
“Argh! What are you doing!?” she screams, but feels an unsettling chill come over her when she sees his cold, unfeeling face and catches on immediately. “Y… You’re not Sonon! You bastard! Who do you think you are!?”
But she would regret asking. The illusion finally parts ways with his visage in a wisp of black mist. Yuffie’s eyes grow wide in genuine fear. Where “Sonon” had been is now the tall, lean, mean, swordsman of ill rumor. But now in one hand, he holds the mysterious Premonition materia and in the other, he transforms that staff into his beloved blade to point it her way. But now that she’s threatened, she instead grows even more defiant.
“You! I knew you’d show up!” she shrieks. “Don’t think you’ve won! I got loads of ways to deal with you! Take this!”
Instead of hanging on, she voluntarily releases her grip on the ledge and drops to free herself from his boot. But rather than let herself tumble, she reacts with lightning-quick reflexes and catches herself on the side of the wall and zips down, letting gravity sweep her down. And while she’s gained some distance, she also unleashes a few ninjutsu from that distance.
Unfortunately, even before the ninjutsu can take effect, Sephiroth vanishes from view and her Art of War hits nothing. Yuffie catches herself as she slides down the slide of the steep slope just before the edge. As she clings to an outcrop in the wall, she scans the area for any other signs, but it doesn’t look like he’s coming down at her from above or even from the sides. Huh? Where did he go? Did he just take off and ditch her?
Hmph. The coward ran away. She reveals a subtle smirk. Must have scared him bad. So much for the “planetary threat”.
“…Missing something?”
She freezes, hearing the familiar haunting voice come from below. She crouches down to peek over the edge and freaks out with a squeal to find Sephiroth standing upside-down below the rocky ledge. She flees to find some better solid ground, while he calmly takes a few steps and flips on over like he doesn’t even bother to respect gravity.
Great Gaia, this guy’s crazy! Yuffie makes a mad dash to return to the main road to round back around and reach her party.
“Guys! Watch out! It’s Se-”
Before she can finish, Sephiroth blitzes her with an instant kill strike. The next moment, he stands back up, putting his blade at rest again, and Yuffie drops to the ground. But he’s not done just yet. He steps back over to “pick” her up by stabbing her limp body with the tip of his blade and he nonchalantly flings her over the side of the rocky bridge and into the green depths. With this job finished, he takes the Premonition materia in hand in a tight grip and lets it fuse into him as with the Black Materia prior, and he whips up another whirl of black mist to make a swift exit.
~
It’s impossible. She couldn’t possibly be here. Not here, not now. Then, who is it that he’s actually pursuing?
Vincent has taken a particular route off the beaten path. Rather than follow along the main road leading toward the center of the crater, he comes across a hidden cavern adorned with glowing crystals that light his way forward. He’s unsure of where exactly he is being led, but a knot has been forming in the pit of his stomach ever since he first caught that glimpse. Being pragmatic about it, the only likely conclusions all have one thing in common – that being he’s just tailing an imposter – and yet there’s still some lingering doubt in his mind as if he were still hopeful for some truth to these likely duplicited circumstances.
At the end of the tunnel, he comes to a more spacious room where much of these crystals have gathered in a great mass in the back, where a beautiful Lifespring has been sitting undisturbed for millennia. While this would be a great place to take a rest and relax if one came here with an untroubled heart, a wise mind would understand few things in this place are what they seem. At the foot of the spring, the lone figure of a young woman is kneeled before the spring as if she were making a prayer. However, she is not Cetra. Instead, she holds a very different connection to the planet and its recent past.
Vincent’s eyes widen. It can’t be. After all this time…? He steps forward, keeping a wary eye out and a hand hidden under his cloak, but hesitates to draw his gun. Instead, he calls out to the woman, “…Lucrecia?”
The beautiful woman, her brunette hair tied loosely, criss-crossed down like a braid, is still dressed the same way as she had been 30 years ago, even with the same lab coat. She takes a stand again and turns back to meet him, watching with distant eyes that bear a deep melancholy that has yet to heal.
“Vincent… Strange, isn’t it? That we would meet in a place like this.”
“…”
“But, perhaps it was bound to happen…” She turns back toward the spring and stares thoughtfully at the crystal as if she were able to hear something from it, and then back to him again. “I received a message from someone, who insisted I wait here.”
“From whom?”
“From a young lady with bright red eyes. She seems to be a friend of yours, I think?”
He blinks, a little startled to hear it. “Ruby…?”
“Yes, I believe that was her name.” Lucrecia then grows somber. “She was conflicted when she came to me, but wished to inform me. A lot has happened in these 30 years… My poor child.”
“…” Vincent casts a glum, even guilty look aside. “Did she tell you? What has been happening with Sephiroth.”
“Yes.” She lowers her head in pensive thought as well. “It seems… he’s conflicted too.”
“Hm?” He peers back, a little curious. “Conflicted over what, exactly?”
“The state of this world.” She sets a hand over her chest, looking sympathetic. “It’s true that our planet is broken. Even someone like me, who has been rejected from returning, I can sense it. The cries of the voices of the past are slowly but surely being silenced until there are but low murmurs, but the pain She suffers still remains. And this unending cycle of suffering is what drove him to seek the truth behind it.”
“…”
She lets her hand drop again. “But I hear he has a plan to right the wrongs. To end the cycle once and for all, so we will no longer be trapped in it. And there are only two ways to achieve it.”
He eyes narrow at attention. “What are they?”
“First, there is the matter with your friend, Ruby. She is a true wild card in the grand scheme; an anomaly that even the Planet Guardians cannot control in entirety. Should her pieces be reunited and her soul reborn into this world, she may even be able to interrupt the usual cycle and guide it anew.”
“Interrupt the cycle…”
“To be honest, I don’t quite understand everything that she told me, but that seems to be the gist of her claim. And as of now, Sephiroth holds the remaining pieces of her. When the time is right, he will release her to be reborn anew and they will finally be able to bring an end to this terrible cycle.”
He frowns to himself, but hesitates over how to explain the truth. On one hand, it does seem believable enough that Ruby wouldn’t want to bother her with too much detail, but on the other hand, it seems like she had left some critical issues out in her explanation. Lucrecia seems to honestly believe that she and Sephiroth are working together. Unfortunately, the end result might not turn out as well as she is hoping it would.
“But she also told me she fears that something else may happen instead. That when she is released, nothing of note would happen and she may simply cease to exist.”
“What?”
“As she was never born from this world, she doesn’t have a place in it. No body of her own that would be able to make her whole. Perhaps it would be unfeasible in the state that I am, but honestly I wouldn’t mind lending her this body of mine.” She sadly shakes her head. “But in any case, she is afraid of what may become of the planet should the cycle break. There is a chance it can still recover, but there is also a greater chance that it will simply meet its end sooner.”
“…” Vincent grimaces to himself. If that’s the case, then the current crisis they face may not even be the worst in store. “In that case, it would be unwise to let Sephiroth proceed with his plans. He is risking too much for what is merely an unknown possibility.”
“Yes, that is what I’m worried about too… but there is still one other option.”
“What is it?”
“That in the case the planet escapes the cycle, there be a new system in place to support it as it recovers. And though I hesitate to bring it up to you, I feel that there really is no way to avoid it.” She now looks at him in the eye and brings her hands together as if making an earnest request. “It concerns the Protomateria.”
“The… Protomateria?”
She nods. “It’s a special materia created by the planet and is a symbol of order, as well as being the only thing that can control the power of Chaos Weapon. When Hojo experimented on you, he implanted the essence of the Weapon into you, and I sealed in that materia as well so you would be able to contain the power.”
“…” Vincent only grows warier as he begins to catch on.
She makes an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, Vincent. I didn’t want to have to tell you about it. Usually under no circumstances should the Protomateria be removed. Not just for the planet’s safety, but for your own as well.”
He turns away, growing even more sullen, and doesn’t reply just yet.
“But we don’t have any other choice, especially if it means that we can give Ruby one more chance at life.” She now reaches a hand forward. “Vincent, you alone have the means to save her. If you offer to take her place, she may finally get a chance to be reborn and be here to stay.”
“…What must I do?”
She gives him a gentle, almost unassuming smile. “Let me extract the Protomateria from you. With its power, I promise I’ll do my best to provide Ruby that safe haven she needs.”
“…”
But he hesitates. He may need a bit of time to think this over. If that is all true, then it may actually be for the better that he take it up and stand in for her. For once, he might actually be able to do something to help, to return the favor to her for waking him out of this eternal nightmare. But on the other hand, if by any chance that this won’t work out, they may just be dooming the planet anyway.
“If I have this Protomateria removed, what will happen with Chaos?”
Lucrecia’s smile fades and she nods back solemnly. “It may put you at risk to effectively release Chaos into this world. However, if Ruby is spared, she may just be able to help you fight and regain control of that power.”
He blinks once and looks at her in surprise. “But how do you know that?”
“I…” She makes a nervous face. “I’m not really sure, to be honest. But maybe I just hope for that to happen, that everything will work out in the end.”
He looks off once more, but now his eyes narrow in suspicion. Something about this definitely feels off, like there’s still too much that he doesn’t know or be able to know to feel any level of assurance.
“Please, Vincent. Let me extract the materia. Otherwise, we will have no other choice but to sacrifice Ruby.”
At this point, though, he’s heard more than enough to be able to keep playing along. Ever since the moment he stepped foot in this cavern, something about Lucrecia has been bothering him. Even if it’s the case that Ruby had some way to reach her and bring her here, why would she tell Lucrecia about all this in the first place? Why involve her of all people? She wouldn’t want to have to do with anything like this. Besides, if she is telling the truth about the Protomateria, then he has every reason not to give it up.
Instead, he changes his mind. He finally pulls out his other hand from under his cloak and draws his gun on her.
“V-Vincent? What are you doing?”
“Sorry… but don’t think for a second that you had me fooled.” He gives her a dangerous glare. “Lucrecia would have no place in a plan like this, especially if it meant that the entire planet would be at risk. As with me, she already has much to atone for, and this would only amount further to her sins.”
“…”
“Show yourself, Imposter… or I will shoot first.”
Lucrecia’s face turns for the grim and she lowers her head just far enough to have her face shaded. She then mutters aloud in an uncharacteristically sarcastic tone, “I see you’re much too dangerous to be left alone.”
At that moment, the familiar black mist swirls up around her from below to surround and obscure her, and as soon as it parts, Vincent gets a bit shaken at what he instead meets. Lucrecia doesn’t actually change form, but instead her hair has whited out as if she had grown old, but her skin doesn’t show age; it instead has paled into a sickly blue. Now that she lifts her head back up, her eyes are likewise changed to be a piercingly bright, demonic red.
Now that she speaks again, her voice has also warped to have its own echoing effect, “My poor children… for their hopes and dreams to be abandoned by a selfish man keeping so much undeserved power to himself.”
“…!”
Vincent doesn’t wait another second. He fires several shots, aimed directly for her forehead, but to his horror, the bullets not only don’t hit, they seem to fly straight through her as if she were just a phantom. But she is no mere ghost either. With a gentle wave of her hand, she summons a forest of towering black tentacles to erupt from the ground beneath them and surround him. He dodges and weaves through the mass of tentacles to flee back outside, but before he can reach it, another wall of tentacles erupts from below and blocks off the exit. He jumps back again to dodge more of the tentacles’ assaults, but try as he might to shoot them down, they too seem to ignore his attacks and lunge straight at him undeterred.
It’s too much all at once to avoid for long. Vincent is ensnared by a tentacle around his foot just as he leaps away from several more, and he falls. Unfortunately, that would be the final mistake he can afford. The tentacles swarm him from all sides, capturing him in a makeshift cage of limbs, and proceed to bind tightly to his own limbs to hold him still. One of them even wraps itself around his neck to choke him so he can’t even scream.
All the while, the mysterious woman steps on over to greet him with another calm, but much more eerie smile. She raises a hand forward to touch his chest, and through some unspoken mystical spell, she forcibly withdraws the materia inside.
Pain. So much pain. Unbearable levels of pain. He hasn’t felt this kind of pain since those experiments over 30 years ago. Vincent squirms and struggles to break free, but the tentacles that surround him have hardened to become as hard and unbreakable as the crystals that stand around them. And as suddenly as she had assaulted him, the woman casually draws out the translucent, pale blue materia that is aglow with an impressive amount of energy.
Even after it was taken out, Vincent is still experiencing pain. But now it’s not just his nerves acting up. He legit feels like a fire was summoned and is now burning him from the inside. It’s an unstoppable, all-consuming flame that is eating him alive, and he can barely remain conscious amid all the pain. No, stop… He can’t show up. Not now. Not here.
And yet, the woman remains totally unfazed, perhaps even amused to see him suffer. With her other hand, she raises it forward to bring up a holographic interface akin to that which Ruby once commanded and later Sephiroth took over, and she calmly enters in a simple command into the system. In an instant, Vincent freezes up still, caught in some sort of stasis trap in which he has become completely “deactivated” and thus helpless to her whims. With the Protomateria in her hands now, like with her son earlier, she takes it in and merges with it through her grasp. She then turns back to her frozen prisoner, and with another wave of her hand, she and the mass of tentacles all disappear in another whirlwind of black mist, and they all disappear without a trace.
~
Back across the crater, though, some of the others aren’t in a much better state. By now, Sonon has become quite beside himself. He swears he heard a scream just earlier.
“No…!” He calls to the others, “Guys! That was Yuffie’s scream! I’m sure of it!”
“Grrrraaaagh!!”
Unfortunately for him, Cait Sith and Cid are still too preoccupied with the King Behemoth to listen to his pleas. Cid had somehow managed to pierce the beast’s especially resilient hide with a devastating Hyper Jump, but once again, he finds his polearm stuck and is thrown about while the behemoth ravages the ground where Moogle once stood, though its final slam instead triggers the toy’s self-destruct sequence. While poor Moogle was a worthy decoy and sacrifice, Cait Sith managed to sneak atop the behemoth’s head and flip himself onto one of its horns. But since he did, he’s thus been having trouble clinging on too. And what began as a valiant effort by the three of them very quickly devolves into something of a chaotic rodeo.
Sonon suddenly finds himself alone on the ground to be the behemoth’s remaining target and can do little else but run. But rather run in a straight line, he takes an upward path and rushes up the side of a nearby wall just as the behemoth would have run him over. Kicking off the wall, he leaps just overhead as the beast rampages past and he lands back on the ground, a little stunned that he managed to pull that off. However, he can do little for his partners, who are still stuck on the beast, as they’re carried off by the enraged charge of the behemoth who doesn’t take kindly to its new riders.
In a fit of frenzy, the King Behemoth roars and bucks and throws itself into a nearby shelf to crush its targets, but Cid in the nick of time lets go and snatches Cait Sith out of the air to leap off and out of the way. However, now without a weapon and stuck with a measly cat without his moogle to guard, Cid has no choice but to make a run for it as the behemoth gets back to its feet. That crash barely fazed the beast, though, and it is not slown down in the least by the scimitar still stuck in its thick hide. Sadly, Cid and Cait don’t have enough time to get away before the beast stomps them into the ground too.
“Shit! Come on, think fast!” Sonon mutters to himself.
But what is he to do from here? At this point, he can only try to stall the beast by distracting it with gratuitous castings of Fira – as this was an extra Fire materia, it isn’t as highly leveled yet. Unfortunately, with a mighty beast like this, it would take too many Firas to leave any lasting impact. Some solid hits of Firaga might be able to do the trick, but that’s not in the running. To be honest, he didn’t even get a chance to scan the thing yet, so he isn’t sure if Fire is even that effective on a behemoth like this. Eventually, though, these spells are enough to draw aggro and the beast finally turns a very irritated glare toward him instead.
“Well… crap.”
The behemoth roars his way and chases after him again and Sonon glances around frantically for an escape avenue. Unfortunately for him, this entire area is just a whole lot of walls, ridges, and especially steep ledges that would still leave him open to a big swipe of the beast’s claws. And before he can decide on a hiding place, the behemoth is already on him. It pounces and he can just barely bring his staff forward to block the huge jaws that were about to chomp down on him. However, like with Cid’s scimitar, Sonon’s staff is quickly snatched away when it likewise crushes him into a nearby wall. The force of the impact is so thundering that he nearly loses consciousness just from the single blow. So this is the might of a mythic creature that has almost never crossed paths with a human – for were it to happen, the latter would surely not live to tell the tale.
“Halt, fiend! By decree of the King o’ Cats!” a certain voice cries out.
By some miracle, Cait Sith returns to the fray, sitting back atop his trusty Moogle, who has somehow reappeared out of nowhere. He has not only managed to survive the savage assault from the behemoth earlier, but also clutches it out with a timely Stop spell that catches the behemoth in place just moments before it would have landed another crushing blow to Sonon. The latter then falls out from beneath the beast’s feet and scurries out of the way, dropping to the ground in utter exhaustion. He coughs and wheezes, feeling a sharp pain in his chest, and realizes that the beast might have broken a few bones too. With another gracious spell ready, Cait also whips him back into shape with a full-power Curaga.
“Whew! Close call, eh, lad?”
“Yeah… way too close.” Sonon sighs and takes another deep breath to recollect himself before he gets back up. “But how did you survive? I swore you guys were piled on by that thing too.”
Cait’s ears droop. “Well, truth be told, I kinda had cover… of sorts.”
He turns back to where his body had previously been. There, in the amply sized ditch caused by the beast’s rampage, lies a very broken and battered Cid, who is bleeding profusely in a reddish pool.
“Cid!”
They rush on over to check on him and are frankly amazed to see the guy still coughing and wheezing. They promptly help him up and out of the ditch, and lay him down on the flat ground so Cait can tend to him too.
“My God. How are you still alive?” Sonon asks.
With the wonders of Curaga, Cait manages to restore the guy to full health once again, and Cid breathes a sigh in relief. He sits back up with a frown and turns back to Sonon, looking at him dead in the eye.
“I can’t die yet. Still gotta go to space.”
For a moment, Sonon doesn’t quite catch on. “…Huh?”
And with that, Cid climbs back to his feet and dusts his pants off, despite the recent bloodstains. He turns back to the frozen beast with a bitter scowl.
“Damn overgrown cat. First we had to run from a dragon and now we can’t even beat a behemoth?” He rubs his head in frustration. “Man… Hate to think what would happen if we couldn’t stop it.”
“Aye… Was a mighty risk trying a Stop, but mighty glad it worked! But while we got the chance, we’d better get out! No tellin’ when the beastie’s gonna get going again!”
Now that he’s reminded again, Sonon gets back to worrying too. “Before that! We have to go help Yuffie! She might be in trouble!”
“What? What happened?”
“Damn! Where is she!?” Cid demands.
The three of them each take turns scanning around the area, but the girl in question seems to be nowhere to be found.
Cid scratches his head. “Not here? She didn’t ditch us, did she?”
“Of course not! She should still be around here!” Sonon insists.
He keeps looking around, hurrying to and fro to check around many different corners, and grows more and more frantic as he finds no sign. Finally, as they cross back near the rocky bridge that they had previous passed, he starts to get discouraged. Where in the world did that girl go? This is going way beyond just a bad joke. But before they’re about to move back inward again, in the corner of his eye, Sonon notices a pale blue glint on the ground near the end of the bridge. Blinking in disbelief at first, he rushes on over to fetch it and check what it is.
But now that he sees it’s a familiar-looking blue materia, he feels a cold chill sweep in all of a sudden. No. It’s not what he thinks it is, is it? He cautiously picks it up, and by the information osmosis through contact, he understands which materia it is and an even colder chill freezes him up in an instant. It’s the Amplify materia that Yuffie just discovered a little while ago. Why is it down here? He looks up and notices a ledge above where there may be an entrance to a tunnel, but she’s nowhere to be found.
“Sonon! What’s that ye found?” Cait Sith calls, and he and Cid hurry over. Now that he notices the materia, though, the cat nearly squeaks in shock. “Wait, isn’t that…?”
“Huh? Wasn’t she holding onto it?” Cid likewise asks, more confused than anything.
Now Sonon is starting to panic. He looks all around and calls out as loud as he can, “Yuffie? Yuffie! Where are you!?”
She doesn’t answer. His eyes widen in complete disbelief, his hands start to tremble, and he feels a cold sweat come on. What happened? There’s no way she would so casually drop any orb of materia, especially one that she was really looking forward to adding to her arsenal. But she’s not here. And he heard her scream just earlier. Was she attacked? But even if she was, she couldn’t have just vanished. Or did she run off somewhere? Please let it be that. Let it be that she found a place to hide.
“Yuffie!” he keeps calling, but to no avail. “Come out already! We’re over here!”
“Yuffie!” Cait Sith cups his hands over his mouth and calls too.
“Get over here, kid!” Cid demands. “We’re leavin’!”
But no matter how they call her, she isn’t coming. As the sobering realization slowly dawns on them, they all grow even more restless. But not just restless; fretful, panicked, deeply worried.
“Y-Yuffie! Come now, lass! This isn’t funny! We have to go!”
“Yuffie! What’s takin’ ya!?”
“Yuffie…”
Between the three of them, Sonon feels like he’s tipping over the edge to feel just… empty. Detached. Broken. It’s like a piece of him was just brutally ripped out and there’s nothing left to fill the void. As much as he hated hearing her blabbering about materia, the silence that meets them now is deafening. This isn’t what he meant when he wanted her to be quiet. It’s too quiet.
Before they can make any more progress, though, they’re shortly interrupted by the loud crash into the rocky wall nearby. The King Behemoth roars again to life. They’re out of time.
“Shit!” Cid swears. He turns for the bridge that’s closer and beckons the other two to follow. “Come on! We gotta go!”
“Sonon, hurry!” Cait calls to him.
“…”
But Sonon doesn’t move. He’s not leaving until he finds her. He continues to look around aimlessly, unsure of where to keep looking, but likewise doesn’t want to stop trying.
“Sonon, please! I’m sure wherever she is, she’ll manage! We have to find cover for now!”
“Sonon! Get your shit together! Let’s go!” Cid presses more firmly.
Now that he thinks it over, the place where he found the materia was by this bridge. By any chance, could she have…? No, no way. If she fell from there, how could she get back up? But there’s no other place to hide.
“Sonon!”
“Dammit! We got no time!”
Cid rushes over to grab him by the arm, but to his surprise, Sonon struggles against him and shoves back on him. For a moment, he stares at him and tries again to drag him along, but again Sonon fights back. And sooner than later, the two are starting to wrestle with one another.
“For God’s sake, man! Snap out of it!” Cid snarls.
“G-guys…” Cait pleads, but is too scared to get in-between them.
The King Behemoth has returned. It snarls indignantly as if it were slighted to have been tricked by a cheap shot like that. And this time, instead of simply charging at them again, it proudly stands its ground and roars to the sky.
“!?”
At that moment, Cid gets a feeling of déjà vu. Didn’t something like this happen before? He looks up where its head is pointed and his jaw drops. As he feared, a nasty Comet spell has been called… Wait, hold up. Great Gaia! Are there four freakin’ comets coming at them!?
“#&^@!! Let’s go!!” he screams.
While he and Cait Sith, atop Moogle, flee as fast as they can over the bridge and from the area, Cait can’t help but notice that they’re short a member. He turns back and gasps. Sonon still hasn’t moved from his spot.
“Sonon! What are you doing!?” Cait squeaks.
“The hell is wrong with him!?” Cid exclaims.
By now, they’ve gone too far to be able to get to him in time. Further to their horror, they instead witness him turn back the other way, now facing the edge of the cliff and the green “waters” below.
There’s no other way it makes sense. Sonon is now dead sure that wherever Yuffie may have gone, she must have fallen. Whoever or even whatever attacked her, she might have been knocked off. But if she’s still alive, then she might still be down there. Suddenly a strange wave of calm comes over him – not one filled with relief, but instead one filled with apathy, as if things didn’t really matter anymore – and he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Mere moments before the comets arrive, he then opens his eyes and rushes toward the edge and takes a leap over the side, disappearing into the green ethereal streams below.
~
What is happening right now? And why? How? None of it feels real, but Aerith can’t wake up from this nightmare. She feels like she’s been frozen in time, and yet the horrors only continue to take shape around her. This terrible, ugly tree before her is slowly but surely bearing fruit – the bodies of her friends. They’re all battered and bloodied from battle, even have holes in their chests as if they’d been impaled and their hearts ripped out. First, it was just Tifa, but she couldn’t believe it. She didn’t want to believe it. There’s no way she’d just… But then, one by one, Yuffie, Vincent, and Sonon appeared in quick succession to join her, each person hung from a different branch. No… no, stop it. This isn’t – this can’t be right. But as much as she wants to deny it, the grim reality began to dawn on her. If she doesn’t do anything, the others are sure to follow.
No. Enough. She has to fight.
Aerith summons her trusty staff in hand and faces the ghoulish alien creature with resolve burning in her eyes. It doesn’t matter if she’s “ready” or not to face this demoness head-on. She has no choice but to stand her ground. As this form of Jenova appears to be mainly immobile, perhaps she can get in a few easy strikes in before it mutates yet again. Taking her chances, no matter how slim, she begins her silent chants, setting up that deadly combination of magic wards that turn her from just a humble spellcaster to a magic war machine. First, ATB Ward to get up Haste and Manawall fast. Then, it’s Arcane Ward deliver the boosts fast and the blows hard. She even sneaks in a quick double-cast of Faith just for good measure. And finally, there’s Radiant Ward. As her cousin would say, “And I started blasting.”
She lets the lasers rain upon this tree-like Jenova, while delivering blow after blow of spells super-charged with the element of Alexander. With the tip of her Princess Guard aglow with holy light, she rips and tears through the tree while releasing a relieving blessed wind in hopes that it would reach her friends, even at this late hour.
However, after several straight minutes of this torrent of magic attacks and needing a moment to catch her breath, she is appalled to see that Jenova appears to be completely unharmed. Instead, there is that mysterious glowing light barrier akin to that of what Sephiroth had once used, but much bigger to cover her entire self. In fact, this barrier alone seems to have been the only thing that has changed about her, and her victims remain in their places. Though the creature is certainly one of a deathly theme and appearance, Jenova has never had weakness to the element of Holy. Not only does she find even the planet’s own defensive power to be awfully lacking for such a supposedly great entity, she has lived among the Cetra long enough to understand how to defend or even negate such magic effects in the first place. Whatever this undeveloped brat of a half-Cetra can use pales in comparison to the far more numerous enemies she had to face in ancient times.
Unbelievable. All that hard effort and it didn’t even put a dent in the demoness. Though she tries to keep her spirits up and stay focus, Aerith is honestly, really scared. What does she do now? What can she do? She can’t run; the exit is barred by the very foe she’s facing. And if she calls for help, she knows she will get answers, but what if she just calls them to fall right into this trap? If anything, how can she know that they haven’t already fallen into it? How far does Jenova’s illusions stretch? It’s probably not just within this room.
And in a single moment of hesitation, she has left herself open and vulnerable. Through what appears to be yet more “cheating” through a holographic interface, Jenova simply enters a command, even without any limbs physically touching the screen, and removes all of her buffs in an instant.
Aerith is stunned. Not only did she not even do anything to Jenova, the fiend has somehow even flipped the state of the battlefield back to the start. It’s as if to say that nothing she is able to do here matters. She may be the last Cetra, but she is by no means their most legendary. If anything, she hasn’t even earned the blessings of the Planet Guardians that once treasured their ancient people. The only thing a little clueless brat like her can do, is to sit there quietly and let the remaining pieces fall into place.
Feeling the last of her spirit all but flee, Aerith recoils behind her staff and shuts her eyes. Cloud… Ruby… and all of her friends. Please, anyone who can still hear her pleas! She needs help.
For just a moment, even though the skull upon the tree doesn’t budge an inch, there’s a glow of something red that from the empty eyes, followed by the thin streaks of red blood that spill out from the sockets. And as if a great evil presence were repelling them, even the mummuring voices of the past are quelled to silence.
The time is near. None shall stay the Reunion to come.
Notes:
You know, guys, it's been far too long since I've seen anything from Dirge of Cerberus. I was going back through the Wiki to help me review the facts and history around how Lucrecia first came to meet Vincent's dad and then I was reminded of the fact his name is freakin' "Grimoire" and then my brain stopped receiving anything following that. Anyway, I think their research was something about the Negative Lifestream? Lol. Ah, well.
It's Gameplay and Story Integration Time Again!
- As I mentioned in the notes last chapter, I have been seeing the entire place as a weird mix between the Whirlwind Maze and the final dungeon, where everything is super vague and hazy. At the time, I apologized and said I didn't have much of an idea of how to describe it. So, I have to confess: that was a lie. It was on purpose that I kept everything in the background vague and hazy because that's just what Momma Jenova would like it to be!
- This time around, I have greatly expanded the field of what constitutes the "battlegrounds" for the fight against the third Jenova form. But unlike the previous two, where one was secluded to an alternate mind realm and the other was an illusion field over a particular location, this one is an illusion field over an entire dungeon area. The very moment that the party entered the Northern Crater, they had entered Jenova Plaga's realm. It's made in a way that is just right enough to look real, but when you peel back the layers, suddenly things don't really make sense.
- So, that's the inspiration behind this chapter. I wanted weird and chaotic, bouncing around like in a playpen and I slipped in some horroresque elements to make it a haunted fun house. Thank goodness the monsters in the crater are a perfect fit too.
- Btw, like with Jenova Phasma and Jenova Umbra before, Jenova Plaga also has Latin name origins. The first was the "Phantom", the second was the "Shadow", and now the third is the "Snare". They all happen to be nouns that end with the letter a in their base forms. It's so satisfying.
- The Amplify materia is an original creation of mine. I wanted to pay homage to the Mega All materia that you find by a mako stream in the OG, but I realized how silly and out of place it would be in this fic, especially that I include Remake/Rebirth battle mechanics. It most likely will not return for Remake pt. 3 anyway.
- Also, I didn't even remember how the OG Parasites looked like until I referred to the Wiki. What in the flying fork is that thing? It looks like a five-yo drew it or something, lmao.
- Fun fact: Christopher and Gighee are actually references to famous rock stars, though I forget which "Christopher" that one was referring to. "Gighee" is actually pronounced "Jiggy" after Ziggy Stardust, aka the legend David Bowie.
- Another fun fact: According to my fave OG FF7 guide, it would actually have been ideal for Yuffie to take the route to the swamp because there are indeed more useful materia down that path and she gets you an extra Command Counter materia (the blue one). I was cheeky writing about the fact that she went down the "wrong" path.
- I never quite figured out why or how Jenova looks the way she does. It was an old fan theory that she may have taken on Lucrecia's appearance in a way, but it was never officially confirmed. I've jumped between showing Jenova as multiple people over the fic, so she's been changing a lot too.
- And as a rotten cherry on top, Jenova still got her cheating game on. See, Bahamut tried to get rid of her cheats, but see, that's the thing about viruses. They mutate so fast they already got unique copies of the original before you can break 'em.
- That being said, I still have no explanation whatsoever about how Cait Sith can just bring his moogle back from being exploded. I know I said he was a kind of fluffy robot this time around, but uh, Cait himself just never made sense to begin with, so let's not question him.
Chapter 72: Twisting the Knife
Notes:
I've decided that Spooky Month will last a couple more weeks, but at least there ought to be something fun after the big climax coming up, probably when we get to around Thanksgiving. I know I'll be giving my thanks to everyone who's supported me thus far, as well as myself because honestly, I should do that more. I'm the one writing this thing.
Battle mechanics and gameplay-story integration
- Because we are not going to be seeing much about Remake's third game for a long time, I've taken a few liberties with expanding on Cid and Vincent's abilities and techniques.
- Though Cid has traditionally been the Dragoon class in the OG, aside from certain Limit Breaks and his last name, he doesn't actually reference the class that much. Like, Cloud being the protag easily makes him a Mystic Knight type since he wields both power and magic proficiency, Barret's the classic tank, Tifa's the monk, Aerith's and Yuffie's are obvious, etc. But Cid... jumps really high in Advent Children, I guess, but don't they all? They were fighting Bahamut SIN up on scaffolding. Barret was clearly on the ground but ended up there with everyone else. How'd he get there so fast? Maybe Cid helped, but who knows?
- That said, I don't think he actually needs to be more Dragoon-like, especially for my purposes, but definitely needs a moveset that separates him from unga-bunga strats like Cloud. So, I figured, why not make him the grappler of the party? I can absolutely see Cid being one, not just because he likes to get in the faces of his enemies, but also that one of his Limit Breaks is just him going in hard fisticuffs. It's called "Big Brawl" for a reason. But more than that, because he also uses polearms, it's even more important for a fighter like him to have close combat options too, in case an enemy slips between his polearm's range and him. So he just punches or grabs them. And throws into a suplex. I look forward to seeing him in Remake 3 and hope he's a little different than how I've written him here, though.
- For Vincent, though his general moveset has just been shooting (he had his own game about it, after all), I like to think that he has other moves he can use in closer combat, though as funny as it would be for him to scratch with his gauntlet, I see it more as an armguard. Instead, I've considered to let him be able to be infused with the essence of various monsters he can transform into. It'd make him more like a Blue Mage in that sense, but rather than simply copying enemy skills, he can take on other attributes like them and even have different builds. But of course, I see his primary transformations as his Limit Breaks, so Galian Beast, Death Gigas, Hellmasker, and of course Chaos.
(Notes continued below.)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
What a disaster. Before they could even do a thing about it, Cait Sith and Cid were down two members and were chased away by the rampage of a beast that simply refused to submit. Somehow, they’ve made it out of behemoth territory and landed themselves even deeper into the crater, where the brilliance of the Lifestream’s glow is at its strongest yet. It seems like this is where all the different tunnels converge; a critical junction just before one would theoretically descend into the planet’s core. Overhead, the caves open up to a very gray and clouded sky above, but they are finally out of the worst of the labyrinth. However, neither one is in a mood to relax and bask in what would otherwise have been a beautiful and relieving sight.
“…We’re out?” Cait Sith looks up to marvel at how far they’ve managed to come since they began their descent. “Hey!” Now that he’s reminded, he whips out his PHS. “Let’s call them! The rest of ’em oughta know…”
Letting out a wisp of smoke, Cid dashes a bit off his cigarette and makes a begrudged grunt. “What’s the point? With how bad we messed up, that’d just piss ’em off even more.”
“Even then, we have to check on them to make sure they’re still okay!” Cait insists. But as he tries to get the PHS to turn on, he realizes that nothing he presses seems to work. Giving it a shake does nothing either. “…Uh.”
Cid looks his way with an unsurprised frown. “It’s dead, ain’t it?”
He turns back nervously. “Cid, ye don’t mean… yours too?”
Cid fetches his PHS too and shows him the black screen. “Been like this for a while. Tried it earlier while Yuffie was gone, but couldn’t even get it to start.”
“Oh Gods, we’re done fer!” Cait squeaks as Moogle panic-dances along with him. “How did this happen!? They didnae break when we were fighting the behemoth, did they!?”
“Doesn’t look like it got a scratch, though…” Cid flips it over to check the back. “Hey, didn’t Jessie say somethin’ about it working with materia?”
“Huh? Ah, yeah… Heard it was some special kinda materia she used.”
Cid now glances off toward the bright light below them. “Ya think being in this place has too much interference?”
“Interference?” Cait scratches his head. “Even if there were, it wouldnae break the whole device! Methinks something else might’ve done it in.”
“Hmph.” He then slips it back into a pocket and starts rummaging through some others. “No helpin’ it, then. We go with Plan B.”
“Eh?” Cait’s ears perk up again. “There’s a ‘Plan B’?”
Cid now whips out a different radio transceiver from his jacket pocket. “This thing.”
“Another one? What’s that for?”
“For the Highwind, duh. What kinda captain would I be if I didn’t have comms with my crew?”
His jaw drops. “W-what!?” And he throws a bit of a fit. “Are ye serious right now, man!? You had that thing on you all this time and never told anyone!?”
Cid snaps back, “I didn’t wanna use it! This is an old Shinra model. They’d be able to trace us easy if I had! But we got no other choice now.” He makes a bitter grunt and passes him a watchful eye. “That said, this doesn’t mean you get to snitch on us again and whine to your bosses or whatever, got it? If Shinra gets any ideas about flyin’ over here, anything they bring is just gonna be waste.”
Cait droops. “O-of course. I wouldnae risk any more lives than we already have…”
Cid flicks the old transceiver back on and after a bit of shaky static to get it set to the right frequency, it goes quiet and is ready to be used. He brings it by his lips and speaks, “Come in, Mothership! This is the Captain. Do you read me?”
After a tense few seconds of wait, they’re relieved to be able to hear another voice for once. “Captain Cid, sir! This is Vela speaking! What’s the situation? We seem to have lost contact with you all.”
“It’s doggone shit, that’s for sure. Looks like we somehow made it to the center of the crater, at least. Can you get us coordinates? Map out the area and see if ya can’t find any of the rest of us! Our phones are down for some reason, so we can’t reach ’em.”
“Yes, sir!” Vela announces to another crewmate, “Hey, you heard him! Trace the signal and find where they are!”
“Finally… some damn progress,” Cid mutters to himself. He lowers the transceiver to let them work it out and turns back to Cait. “Hey, ya think she’ll be able to slip down here safely?”
“Uh… oh! You mean the Highwind.” Cait Sith then activates his in-depth scanning mode and zooms in to check around the airspace above them. “By my calculations… so long the air is clear, there’s enough room. She’ll be able to fly close enough to drop a ladder, even.”
“Cool.” Cid then draws his scimitar forward. “Then we’d better make sure the air stays clear.”
Cait draws out his shiny megaphone too. “Oh, that’s a given.”
Just as the two are putting their guard back up and keeping watch of their surroundings, Cid catches a beep from his transceiver and goes to pick it up. “What ya got for me?” he asks.
“Sir! We’ve logged your current location and begun to map out the immediate area! Unfortunately, we still haven’t been able to track where everyone else has gone.”
“We’ll get to ’em as they show. For now, see if you can’t maneuver her closer. We’ll cover from the ground so nothing gets in the way. Then, once we’ve back on, survey the place from above. Way easier to retrace our routes.”
“Yes, sir! Is there anything else?”
“Yeah. Keep yer heads on and don’t lose yer shit. I see even one scratch on her and I’ll throw you all into the pits of hell.”
“Roger that, Captain! Alright, men, let’s go! Don’t keep him waiting!”
And with that, the conversation ends and he shuts it off again. But just as he’s about to stow it away again, he hears some soft whistling noise nearby. Before he can make sense of what it is, suddenly a flying projectile zips fast their way and nearly hits the them. Just in the nick of time, Cid and Moogle just barely avoid the thing as it comes swing back around again.
“The hell was that!?” Cid snarls.
“W-wait! Is that… a paper crane!?” Cait asks in disbelief.
“Huh?”
Now that they see the projectile, it does look like a little bird made of folded paper, but it soars through the air as if it were a living creature. And like following the commands of its master, it returns to its place in its master’s hand, unfolding and reforming into a large and elegant white 4-sided shuriken, where the bird’s head, wingtips, and tail make up its arms.
“Yuffie!?” Cait gasps.
“Sonon!” Cid calls out too.
As it turns out, the ninja pair have made their return, standing overhead at the exit of the tunnel where they had last come from. However, they don’t appear to be happy to see their old pals.
“I shoulda known… Damn Shinra spies!” Yuffie seethes.
“You’re not running away and leaving us behind,” Sonon growls.
Cid looks absolutely disgusted to be accused of such a thing. “The hell… Who’re you callin’ a ‘Shinra spy’, damn brat!? Do I look like I got cat ears on!?”
Cait slumps a little. “Uh. Are cats just Shinra spies now?” he mutters, while Moogle shrugs back.
Yuffie and Sonon now hop on down to confront them with weapons drawn. “Shut up! If you really aren’t tryin’ to hijack our mission, then what’s with the secret transceiver, huh!?”
“And you’re calling in the ship now? I thought you said it’d be too dangerous for them to approach,” Sonon argues.
“Oh, for cryin’ out loud!” Cid snaps back. “If you want answers, don’t go chucking your weapons at us!” He also adds, gritting his teeth. “Unless you aren’t really who you’re pretending to be?”
“You calling us imposters!?” Yuffie throws in a few jabs for good measure. “Show us your proof, old man!”
“I know who I am, dammit! You’re the suspicious ones!”
“G-guys, guys, please…” Cait Sith and Moogle hop in-between them. “Why don’t we all show our proof at the same time, so we don’t have to argue about this?”
Cid grunts. “Yeah, I was getting there, Cait. Get back in line.”
“Alright, alright.” And they return to their place beside him.
Cid lowers his polearm and puts a hand upon his jacket’s sleeve. “Okay, let’s all do it at the same time. No pullin’ any fast ones on us, or we’ll break ya.”
“Hmph.” Yuffie grabs at her armband too just above her armguard. “You couldn’t break us even if we were made of twigs. But fine.”
Sonon and Cait Sith (excluding Moogle) also reach for their respective armbands. On a shared countdown, they all prepare to reveal their marks.
“Three…” Cid calls out.
“Two…” Yuffie follows suit.
“One…” Cait Sith does too.
And all four release their respective covers. While Yuffie and Sonon both kept the symbol under their armbands, Cid had his roughly scribbled on his left forearm since he couldn’t be bothered to remove his own. And Cait Sith, being such a small guy, actually had it tied around one of his ankles so it wouldn’t fall off. Now that the marks are all out and visible, the tensions should settle down a bit… except for one little thing.
Everyone now stares at Cait Sith, who looks confused that they all seem to be glaring his way. He’s also untied his band, but now that he looks down, he realies that the red gem mark seems to be missing.
“…Eh?”
He hurriedly rubs the fur to make sure it wasn’t hidden, but suddenly he can’t seem to make out where it is. But that’s weird. He’s certain it was obvious even against his black fur. But now there’s no trace of it. And now he grows more and more nervous by the second and cowers before the collective glares coming his way.
He raises his arms up in surrender. “N-now, hold on a minute here, lass and lads. This is just a simple misunderstanding. I’m sure there’s a good explanation for-”
“Get ’im!” Yuffie yells.
“W-w-w-wait! Yipes!!”
Moogle zips right out of the way, carrying Cait to safety as a flurry of attacks are thrown their way. He ducks his head for cover as they flee, and Moogle tries his best to hop around erratically as to not be hit.
“Guys! Please, it’s not what it looks like!”
“Yeah, that’s the problem, you faker!” Yuffie yaps.
“That’s not what I- Eeek!” Cait cries as he narrowly dodges her shuriken again. “O-okay! Okay! I get it! Ye don’t need me here! I’m gone! See ya!”
And as fast as Moogle’s plump furry legs can take him, he takes Cait and somehow zips fast enough to run back up the sheer cliff and into a different tunnel, where the two disappear from sight.
“Hey, get back here!” Yuffie yells after him, but Cid stops her. “Huh? What?”
He shakes his head. “Forget it. Just leave him.”
“Why? What if he calls for backup?”
“He won’t.”
Sonon frowns. “How do you know? He might have taken out the real one. You can’t trust these fakes. Who knows how many of them are around?”
“…”
At first, Cid was just as enthusiastic about nailing their target, but as he thought it over again, it was a little odd that the cat and moogle didn’t transform into anything else and just ran off. He’s also troubled by another thing that’s been lingering on his mind and he turns back to the other two.
“Hey. I know this might sound weird, but I still got a few questions for you.”
“What? You saw our proof already. We’re innocent!” Yuffie insists.
“Yeah, I saw it… but that brings another problem.” Cid raises his eyebrow. “Last I heard, kid, you went missing and Sonon was freakin’ out real bad. In fact, he figured you fell into the abyss and dove down there to find you.”
For a moment, she looks a little startled. “Huh? Uh, yeah. He helped me back up.”
“Yeah, I can see that. So what happened? How’d you end up down there?”
“Uh…” For once, Yuffie seems unsure of how to answer, but she quickly comes up with one, “Well, I just ran into this nasty fiend while I was out hunting for materia!”
“What fiend?”
“I dunno! It was just this shadowy presence. I got some seriously bad mojo from it and tried to hide. I was all alone, you know, since you guys were busy with that behemoth.”
Cid narrows his eyes. “How’d you know that? You weren’t there.”
Sonon cuts in to explain, “I told her about it.”
He looks a bit disappointed. “Ya did, didja…”
“Yeah, he did! You guys struggled with it, didn’t ya?” She throws out a pumped-up fist and makes a cheeky grin. “That’s what you get for being slowpokes! I’d have outrun it any day!”
But Cid doesn’t look particularly amused or impressed. Nothing so far that she’s said really explains anything, and frankly he’s only getting more and more suspicious. Then again, he doesn’t have any proof to the contrary either, and they all just saw Cait Sith without the mark. So does that mean he was the imposter? Still, rather than keep pressing the issue, Cid plays it cool and waves a hand as if letting it go.
“Alright, I get it. Strange shit keeps happening around here anyway.”
She sighs. “Geez, finally. What’s gotten you so scared?”
“I ain’t scared. I’m being careful.”
“Uh-huh.”
Cid turns off again for the tunnel where they last saw Cait disappear and all this suspicion is really starting to gnaw at him. He scratches his head and asks aloud, “Man, what the hell. How’d he get switched out? I swear he was with us the whole time.”
Sonon then answers, “Who knows. But you saw it, didn’t you? The moogle blew itself up during the fight, and suddenly it’s back again? If anything, that should have been a red flag.”
Cid shrugs. “Hell would I know how that thing works. But what about Cait himself? He was always there; even backed us up and healed us and all. Was all that just for show?”
“Like I said, you can never tell with these fakes. Was he really always with us? Not like we were keeping an eye on him with that behemoth running around.”
“Hmph. Guess not…”
While the two are still conversing, though, something strange seems to come over Yuffie. She goes completely quiet and sneaks behind Cid while he isn’t looking. She even reaches a hand over to one of his jacket pockets where he had last stowed his ship’s transceiver. But before she can reach for it, the man suddenly snatches her by the wrist.
“H-hey!” she whines, struggling to pull free.
But now that Cid turns to her, he doesn’t look pleased in the least. Though he looked like otherwise, he’s never once dropped his guard. He throws her off and she jumps back to Sonon’s side.
“What’s the big idea, jerk!?”
“Cid, what are you doing?” Sonon asks too.
But Cid isn’t playing around anymore. He draws his scimitar and points it forward. “That’s my line. The hell are you guys trying to pull, huh?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Oh, come on! Don’t tell me you still don’t trust us?” Yuffie complains. “What else do we have to do so you’ll get off our backs?”
“Shut up!” Cid snarls back, startling them both. “Listen up, ya brats! I don’t have patience with smartasses, so I’m only saying it once!”
“W-what?”
“Rule number one of wayfare: NEVER get in the way between the captain and his crew! You wanna swipe the only comms I have left with them? Forget it! I don’t care if you’re real or not, I WILL kick your ass!”
At this moment, both of the ninjas look dumbfounded and even a little flustered, like they hadn’t expected this and are a little panicked that they might have slipped up once too many.
“I dunno what the hell’s going on right now. Who’s real or fake. Why we can’t contact the rest. But to hell with it!” Cid’s rage bursts out, making him seem like he’s glowing with an awesome presence by sheer willpower. “If I’m gonna be stuck here, then you’re stuck here with ME!”
And just like that, the once uppity ninjas have grown dead silent and slump over like they’re already admitting defeat. But what happens next is the real twist. They’re swept up in a mysterious black mist and revert back to their true forms: just a humble pair of a man and a young woman in black robes. Like he’d just been smacked in the face by a wet towel, Cid loses quite a bit of his aura as he tries to figure out what he should do next. On one hand, he isn’t even surprised anymore that these two were imposters; but on the other hand, should he actually kick their asses? They look like they’re just about ready to topple anyway.
However, this simple distraction would prove effective enough. Out of nowhere, Cid meets a very sharp pain in his back and chest. Now that he looks down, he sees the impressively long blade of a katana that has punctured him through his chest. And at last, all his confusion and suspicion come into clarity.
“…Urgh.”
The blade withdraws and Cid drops to his knees, but he holds himself up by an arm. He even drops his cig. He coughs and hacks as blood begins to leak into his lungs, but the fire that had been stoked since earlier only continues to burn even brighter. He heaves a pant or few, but pulls himself back up on one leg and he peers behind him with a vicious glare.
Sephiroth has returned, but is looking ahead rather than on him. With a wave of his hand, he dismisses the two black robes, and like good little puppets, they hang their heads, turn right for the edge of the cliff, and leap off to their doom. Cid watches in disbelief, disturbed at the strange procession, and gets even more irritated that this man doesn’t care about who he’s just attacked. It’s downright infuriating, really. Who does this bitch think he is?
With more than enough rage to fight through the pain, Cid takes a stand and turns around to face him. Though he’s still clutching his bloodied chest with one hand, his other grips tightly upon his scimitar. Through gritted teeth, he asks, “Hey… Quick question.”
Sephiroth turns back to him, unimpressed as usual. “Yes?”
“Was the cat I chased away… the real one?”
He looks mildly surprised and even amused to hear the question. “What if he was?”
“…Heh. Too bad.” Cid releases his grip on his chest and repositions himself into battle stance once more. “He’s gonna miss out on me kicking your ass.”
Sephiroth chuckles to that. He too assumes his battle stance, raising that blade forward. “Let’s see you try.”
With that, Cid rushes in first with polearm swinging, clashing with that blade in an no-holds-barred brawl. Match after match the two weapons meet, where Cid is unleashing holy hell and Sephiroth seems mildly intrigued at best. The latter easily deflects the former’s repeated strikes and swings, and frankly with a blade that long, he doesn’t even lose in terms of range. With a quick twist of his own hand, Sephiroth neatly deflects Cid’s next lunge and throws forth a casual stab his way, with full intent to prod at the wound he’d just inflicted. However, what Sephiroth did not anticipate is as soon as he does stab him again, Cid just ignores it, lunges forward anyway, and grabs him by his coat lapel. With a great backward leap into the air, Cid throws him in a hard suplex into the next cliff layer below.
However, as impressive as it is to be able to catch the likes of Sephiroth off-guard, the follow-up move would be a bit lacking. Sephiroth catches himself before he crashes and jumps away, safely withdrawing his blade, and just barely avoids Cid’s next wild twirl of his polearm that ends with a huge smash into the ground, which actually leaves some decent amount of cracking in the already tough bedrock. But Cid’s not letting him get away. He leaps high into the air to avoid Sephiroth’s incoming strike and clashes again with him, though the latter blocks the incoming spearpoint with the blade’s flat.
But as Cid drives his scimitar in, hoping he would break it, he sees that even his mighty Jumps aren’t leaving a single scratch on it or on the man himself. Now he realizes how little ground he’s gained. Every blow he’s tried to land has failed to reach, and Sephiroth isn’t looking the least bit deterred; even meets his fearsome glare with his own. The latter flings him off and delivers several rapid strikes directly into his chest, and then knocks him away with one last slash to drop to yet another level. Though Cid catches his landing, he stumbles a little from the excessive blood loss so far and is having serious trouble even breathing. Shit. If he hadn’t punctured his lungs before, he definitely did it now to both of them. He just barely rolls out of the way as his foe plunges down on him with pointed blade driving straight through bedrock. While at first glance, the blade doesn’t seem to affect the ground too much with minimal cracking, as soon as Sephiroth withdraws the blade and jumps off, this level of cliff begins to shake and crumble as if it had barely been held together.
Refusing to be outmaneuvered, Cid leaps after him again and meets him on an upper level. He tries to knock away that sword to get in close again, but by now Sephiroth has not only grown keen to it, he’s even grown bored. This time, he doesn’t even bother to wait for his opponent to close in. He deflects the polearm yet again and force-pulls him in, seizing him by the neck in a chokehold. Before Cid can even struggle back, Sephiroth drops fast to slam his head into the ground and releases him to let his victim plummet.
The crack of bone. Blood splatter. Ears ringing. Can’t even breathe. Cid nearly blacks out, but just barely keeps it together to give his enemy one last vengeful glare as he dips beneath the outer green wisps. In the last of his consciousness, he whips out that transceiver once more. If he can’t answer them, then at least there’s still one more guy – or cat, really – he can count on. He gives it a light toss onto one of the levels of descending rocky steps around him before he disappears into the ethereal streams.
Sephiroth watches the man fall into oblivion and casually jumps through the air back to the starting level. He also glances toward the tunnel where Cait Sith and Moogle had last scurried out, but decides not to give chase. Now alone to keep his peace, he reviews over the casualties thus far. Excluding Aerith, there are just four that remain, but Mother ought to have cleaned up two others by now. All he has left to do is wait until the cat and moogle return.
But that still leaves one, and though it’s embarrassing to admit, the mystery even puzzles him. Where has Cloud gone? He fell into the Lifestream as well, so he must still be somewhere in there. Surely he didn’t pass out just like that? No, not a chance. Even if he had, Sephiroth would easily detect his whereabouts. And yet, somehow Cloud has managed to cover up his presence entirely. There’s simply no trace of him. How can that be? The only possibility is that someone else must have interfered and hid him away. Perhaps a quick drop back to control – aka the Debug Room – is called for.
~
“…No go. Can’t even get it to flicker.” Barret sighs, slipping the PHS away back into a pocket. “Man, if we had gone to pick Jessie and ’em up, they might have come up with something in case this ever happened…”
It’s been a while since Barret and Nanaki parted ways with Vincent. Following the green glow at the end of the tunnels, they’ve come across a different room where the floor has sunken into a miniature glowing “crater” of its own. Though there is also a Lifespring at its center, it is a variant that comes with no other materia crystals and appears to be a pool of light that glows especially bright from all the gathered energy concentrated in a tiny place. In fact, it’s so blinding that it’s a little hard to make out what is even here, but at the very least it leaves enough of an impression to be called some kind of landmark. It’s also surprisingly quiet here, like no fiends would dare to come too close to the light. They decided to wait here to see if Vincent would catch up soon, but now that they’ve waited long enough that they’re even sitting on the ground, they’re starting to grow anxious.
Barret grits his teeth, giving a frustrated grunt. “And where the hell are we? Dunno where Cloud’s or Yuffie’s teams went, and now even Vincent’s been gone for some time. It can’t just be us that are lost, right?”
Nanaki is still sniffing the area. Now that they’ve cleared far away from the swamp, his sense of smell has returned to normal. Yet, no matter which direction he turns, he can’t sense any of the others, or even of anyone at all. It seems like no one’s been around here for ages.
He finally gives in, sinking to the floor with a sad sigh. “I can’t pick up anyone’s scents from here. Doesn’t seem like Vincent is coming this way either.”
“Yeah. Looks like we took a wrong direction somewhere.” He scratches his head as he recalls the route they took. “Though, I didn’t see any other forks in the road or nothin’. This seems to be the only room this way.” He also looks off in the other direction from where they entered it. “And that looks like the only other way out, but who knows where it goes.”
“I thought my nose cleared up after we left the swamp, but now I’m starting to worry if there was any toxic gas in there that messed up my smell.”
Barret waves a hand to that. “Nah, it ain’t you, I’m sure. Just being anywhere in this place sucks one way or another.” He gets back to his feet. “Anyway, if Vincent isn’t coming, then we’d better get moving too.”
Nanaki also gets back up. “Should we head back to check on him? I know we probably don’t need to worry about him, but… I’m kinda worried anyway.”
Barret nods back. “Yeah, won’t hurt to check. Besides, we’re just gonna get more lost if we keep going. Might as well retrace our steps and see if we can’t make something about where we are.”
The two then turn back for the dark tunnel where they had previously taken and gradually leave the safety of the planet’s natural warding glow. Once they arrive at a previous fork in the road, Nanaki tracks down Vincent’s lingering scent and leads them down the smaller path into another set of caves. As they draw closer to their destination, he also picks up on another strange scent mingling among the one he’s been tailing. Though it’s nothing like anything they’ve encountered so far, it does seem strangely familiar, like he once smelled it somewhere before. Growing more cautious, he follows the combined scent trails to a certain crystal cavern where one another Lifespring awaits them. This one is a lot less bright and also stands out with its enormous crystals.
Now that the two enter the room, they’re fascinated by the size of this Lifespring. Barret has to blink a few times to make sure he isn’t just imagining it and raises a hand to his head, looking in disbelief.
“Huh… I knew we could expect a lot more of the planet’s energy around, but man. These have gotta be the biggest natural materia crystals I’ve ever seen!”
Nanaki stares in awe too. “Yeah. It’s nothing like anything around Cosmo Canyon! Even though our people have always treated the land with respect, eventually our springs ran dry until very little energy could be detected. But out here, Lifestream just seems to be everywhere, huh?”
“Yeah. Makes sense, though. This is one of the planet’s biggest and oldest scars. She’d need all the life essence She can get.” Barret pauses for a moment to stare at the spring again, and he comes upon a thought that he hadn’t really considered before. “Now that I think about it, even with all the mako reactors in Midgar suckin’ up so much, the planet’s still movin’ along and growing as it always has. It’s just the area around the city that’s dead. But once you leave the rim of that giant sinkhole, the grass is still green and the animals are still living their best anyway. Life carries on as it always has.”
“That’s true. But in the end, the planet is still growing weaker and can barely hold itself together. Shinra doing what they do, combined with Rubia’s past influence and even Jenova still being around; it’s no wonder that Lifesprings are a rare sight these days.”
Barret clenches up a determined fist and nods along. “Yeah. And that’s why we gotta keep fighting for Her. For everyone. After all, she’s still fightin’ back even now.” But then he frowns to himself and lets go of his grip. “But you know, after learning about all that with Rubia and her partner, and even how long Jenova’s been a pain in the ass, it does put us humans in a kind of perspective. Like, the planet’s always had to deal with all kinds of pain, and then we came along like some jackasses and made things even more of a mess.” He also lets off a sigh. “It really makes ya wonder… The planet’s fighting back for sure, but is it just Rubia and Jenova, or does She see us as the enemy too?”
Nanaki blinks and thinks it over for a moment, coming to a grave conclusion himself. “If things get so bad for the planet, She could very well try to take back all the life She once bore. Humans and our brethren species, beasts, fiends, and everything else living on this planet… Nothing would mean anything if She isn’t able to stay healthy. We are all part of one grand system, after all.”
“Yeah…” Barret turns back to the large spring again with a pensive look. “But as long as we still got the fight in us, we can’t give up. We gotta show the planet and all the Gods that watch over us that there’s still hope for humanity, even if a lot of us are still the same ol’ jackasses.”
“Right. For every bad actor out there, the good ones will have to work extra hard to make up for the bad. It’s the only way we’ll be able to live in harmony, not just with each other, but with everything else and the planet.”
“I think that’s the point that Aerith was making before too. No matter how bad things turn out for Ruby and all the terrible things she learned about Rubia, she still didn’t give up on her. She never gave up on the planet either. Just left things to the rest of us to follow through where she couldn’t.” He now returns to his look of determination. “So we can’t be loafin’ around and getting lost! We gotta get ourselves back together and take out Sephiroth before he causes even more pain!”
“Yeah!” Nanaki agrees wholeheartedly. But now that Barret mentions it, he is also reminded of something and blinks a few times with growing surprise. “Wait.”
“Huh? What?”
Nanaki gets back to sniffing the air. “This smell… That’s it! I remember where I smelled it before!”
“What smell? What’d you pick up?”
He makes a serious, deep growl. “Jenova. It’s gotta be her.”
“Jenova?” Now it’s Barret’s turn to blink. “You saying she was here too? I thought we were tracking down Vincent.”
“We were, but I also picked up some other weird scent mixed in. For a while there, I wasn’t sure where I smelled it before. But now I remember: Hojo’s lab! The one where he was keeping Jenova. So she had to have been here. I bet Vincent found her too and they fought. There’s some gunpowder in the air too…”
Barret’s eyes narrow at attention. “So he really did find some threat after us. Must have sent her runnin’.”
“Yeah, at least I hope that’s the case.”
“You hope? Come on, man. This is Vincent we’re talkin’! The guy’s never lost against anything with those broken as hell transformations. He’s just shy of Ruby’s record, but hey, who isn’t?”
“Yeah, but there’s still something weird… I can smell that they were here, but that’s it. There’s no other trail leading out of this cave, so I don’t know where they went.”
“Huh?” Barret gets held up a little in his confusion. “The trail just ends? But they ain’t here now. What happened? Did they warp away or what?”
Nanaki frowns, getting worried too. “That’s what I’m thinking too. Remember how Jenova was able to take on a form like Ruby’s? I bet she also stole some of her powers, so she might have taken Vincent somewhere else.”
Barret then catches on and makes an uncomfortable grunt. “Damn. He’d better still be thrashin’ it out with her, but who knows where she would’ve taken him.” He pauses and despite all intents to brush it aside, a certain dread comes to mind. “No. Ya don’t think…?”
“What’s wrong?”
He shakes his head in disbelief. “If she just so happened to drop him right in the planet’s core or something and trap him there, even he’d have trouble getting himself outta there. She wouldn’t even need to kill him!”
Nanaki’s eyes shoot open. “W-what!? Is that really what happened!?”
“Hope not. I don’t believe for a second that it’d be so easy… but there’s gotta be a reason why Vincent hasn’t shown up yet.”
His ears droop. “Oh, no. What if he’s in some serious trouble? And we’ve just been waiting around instead of finding him right away.”
“We can’t give in now! Let’s keep searching! He’s gotta be around here somewhere!”
He looks back up with a sad, almost puppy-eyed frown. “But where do we look? I can’t sense where people go after a warp.”
“Of course not. But there’s other roads we can try. And if Sephiroth was gathering all these people here, I doubt he’d be anywhere else. If we can’t find Vincent or Jenova, then we’ll just beat the answers outta him!”
Nanaki’s eyes harden back into focus. “Yeah! No matter what he says, we’re beating him up!”
“Heh. You got that right!”
With renewed resolve, they hurry out of the cavern once more. But it’s not too far from when they leave it when they suddenly hear a terrifying roar from somewhere nearby and the ground begins to tremble as well. The noise and the trembles only grow more intense as they arrive at the fork where they had last traveled. Now that they both turn back toward the edge of the swamp area, they’re shocked to find a certain angry white titan is busy wrestling with some unlucky fiends – and it so happens to be the hard-rock junkie pair that he is now strangling within an inch of their lives before he slams them back into the muck they arose from.
Nanaki’s eyes lighten up. “Vincent!”
Barret snorts. “And here we were, getting worried for him. He’s doin’ just fine.” He also shrugs. “Dunno why he’s taking it out on these guys again, but I’m not complaining.”
But just as the Death Gigas finishes with its latest prey, he turns back toward the other two who are just about ready to call him over. However, things aren’t quite what they seem. Rather than feel relieved to see some familiar faces, the giant instead grows even more aggressive and roars in their direction too.
“Whoa! Damn! What’s the big idea, man!?” Barret complains, backing up. “Don’t you recognize us!?”
“Uh, Vincent? You okay?” Nanaki tries to smell him too, but snorts it out again. “Phew… I really don’t like swamp gas.”
“Doesn’t look like he does either… Heads up!”
Barret and Nanaki immediately jump out of the way as the giant charges them, swinging his fists wildly. He whips back around and slams the ground before them, leaving massive cracks that too spout some pent-up swamp gas, and he charges right through it all just to thrash out at his new targets.
“Vincent! What’s wrong!? Why are you attacking us!?” Nanaki cries as he leaps and dodges the swings.
“Yo, Vincent! Get it together! Don’t make me have to smack you up too!” Barret growls, trying his best to knock those arms away and roll out of the way too.
But the giant doesn’t respond with anything else but feral roars and even wilder swings. Getting frustrated with how easily they seem to be able to dodge his hits, he even pulls back a fist high into the air and charges up an electric shock so strong that anyone else standing in his vicinity will be hit. He slams the charged-up fist into the ground and it sends amped-up shockwaves that knock them both off their feet.
“Argh!” Nanaki yelps, but lands back on his feet and tries to shake it off.
“Okay, that’s it! Dunno what’s up with ya, but you’re askin’ for it!” Barret snarls.
Barret finally opens fire and aims right for the giant’s stitched-back maws, nose, and even the eyes, and though he initially intended it to be more of a detraction than any real intent to harm, it’s such a vicious onslaught to the face that it actually seems to knock him back a bit. But likewise, the Death Gigas is no slouch. He simply tanks the hits and throws out a sweeping counterattack that makes its own shockwaves that knock Barret back too.
Nanaki looks wide-eyed in horror at the scene that has developed before him. “G-guys! Stop! We don’t have to fight! There must be some mistake!” he pleads.
“Well, whatever it is, he’s not in the right!” Barret argues as he charges up another shot.
“That’s not what I mean!” Nanaki tries again to reach him, “Vincent! Can you hear me? It’s okay! We’re here to help!”
But his voice falls on deaf ears. The Death Gigas responds to neither voice as if he isn’t really there and keeps thrashing regardless. Though Nanaki is plenty agile and can keep dodging, his hesitation holds him back and Barret even has to defend him, catching the giant’s next blow and parrying it with his own gun-arm, knocking it away.
“Nanaki, move! He’s not listening!”
“But…”
With a mighty roar of his own, Barret now unleashes his Focused Shot, blowing it right up the Gigas’ open maws. And Nanaki can only watch helplessly as the two keep bashing each other. This back-and-forth that almost seems like they’re taking turns continues for a good several minutes straight, with no good end in sight, and poor Nanaki is caught in the middle just on the side. He’s hopping to and fro in a panic, but stops short of interfering, unsure of what to do. The brawl even gets close enough that Barret starts to wrestle with the giant, though the clear size difference isn’t in his favor. Barret tries to hold his own, but the Gigas isn’t letting him go free either and starts to crush him through his sheer weight. Finally at his wit’s end, Nanaki jumps in and bites at the giant’s hand.
That was unfortunately a mistake. The Death Gigas swings his fist into the air again, carrying Nanaki like he were just paperweight, and slams him into a nearby wall hard enough to hear some kind of bone cracking.
This would be the last thing that the Gigas would be able to do unto him. With full rage unleashed and parental instincts rushing into overdrive, Barret rushes the giant again with a charged-up Point Blank shot that blasts even a being his size into toppling over to the ground. And before the giant can get back up, Barret keeps blasting him over and over with Maximum Fury until he’s forced to reload.
But as he does, the Gigas finally gets his chance to retaliate. As he pulls up again, the metal spokes in his head suddenly fire up into a raging electric current strong and hot enough to actually make them glow, and it in turn fires him up into a huge mass of electric potential. In fact, he suddenly stops moving in such a slow, cumbersome manner. Now every time he swings he’s not just hitting hard, he’s slamming with the impact of a lightning strike with each hit and is swinging faster and faster. Barret barely gets the time to set up a Steelskin in defense, and he’s thus forced to take paralyzing hit after paralyzing hit until he too goes down. And yet, even with the man down, the Gigas doesn’t pull his punches. He keeps up the no-holds-barred beatdown from above while Barret defends.
Damn… how did things come to this? Even as pissed off as he is, Barret still feels the lurch of guilt in the back of his mind. One moment, they were watching each other’s backs, and the next thing they know, Vincent goes missing, the phone is straight-up dead, and now that they find him again, he’s gone batshit like he’s not even conscious anymore. What happened? What did Jenova do to him? Well, no matter what, he’s too much a danger to anyone and himself. They gotta knock him down a peg, or more if things come down to it. Sorry about this, man, but he’s got plenty of folks out there still waiting for him. He can’t roll over and die just yet.
Just then, a poignant howl followed by ferocious snarl breaks the rhythm of hits. Nanaki is back and charged up beyond his limits with Howling Moon. With no more hesitation, he lunges the giant and rips and tears at him with all teeth and claws, seemingly ignoring the shock of the electricity that has built up in the giant’s body, and is even able to draw him off of Barret just in time. Even while the Gigas tries to throw him off, Nanaki nimbly jumps from limb to back to neck and continues to tear him new holes all around. He then quickly leaps off as the giant spins about and nearly stumbles trying to catch him.
Nanaki jumps out of the way a fair distance, just in time as a bright light from the night sky above suddenly appears. Though thoroughly battered, Barret still has the strength to raise his arm triumphantly in the air. And without even uttering a word, he calls upon Satellite Beam to incinerate the Gigas from above. And even with his size, the giant too disappears into the ensuing explosion.
When the heat and dust finally settle and clear away, the truth finally reveals itself as well. Where there was once the purported Death Gigas is instead the deceased body of a different giant with bright red skin instead. This wasn’t Vincent’s Death Gigas at all, but a different variant on the usual Gigas fiend that would have roamed the edges of the crater. Its bright red skin as well as its overtly aggressive and bloodthirsty nature gives it the name “Blood Gigas”. However, now it lies still, itself bloodied instead.
Barret finally drops to the ground with heavy panting. Somehow, they managed to scrape by with another win, but man, that one was a real slugfest. He’s so exhausted that he could just shut his eyes and take a nap right then and there. By the time Nanaki rushes on over to him, though, he looks like he’s almost passed out.
Nanaki nudges him softly with his muzzle. “Barret! Are you alright!? Barret!”
Barret is still panting, even wheezing. It looks like the beatdown he took earlier definitely broke more than just a few ribs. He’s yet to spit up blood, but it still hurts to breathe. “…Ugh… Nanaki…”
“Yeah? Hang in there! I’ll get you healed up!”
“How’s… ergh… Vincent?”
“Huh?” Nanaki glances back toward their opponent and then back to him, shaking his head. “Don’t worry! That wasn’t Vincent! Just a fake that looked like him!”
“A fake, huh… Heh…” Barret shuts his eyes with a subtle smirk. “Glad I didn’t hafta kill him…”
“Barret? …Barret!?”
At last he goes quiet and Nanaki goes panicked. He hurries to access the inventory and digs through it to search past the multitude of regular Potions to come upon the much more valuable Elixir. But as he tries to open it up with his teeth, he remembers that the Phoenix Down is what’s effective at resuscitation and goes back to digging through their items. This time, he lays the delicate feather atop of Barret, and with the blessing of the Phoenix, the man stirs awake again.
But he’s still in pain. “…Damn, man. Can’t I get a break…?” he mutters hoarsely.
“Barret! Thank goodness!” Nanaki sighs in relief. “That was close! I thought I lost you for a moment. Good thing we came prepared for things like this!”
As he reaches for the Elixir he pulled out earlier, though, he realizes it’s not on the ground where he left it. He looks around, but it’s not anywhere in his vicinity. Uh, oh. Did it roll off? He puts his nose to the ground to start sniffing, but the smell of the swamp is still getting to him. He shakes it off and starts to trail off a bit from where Barret had been lying, and then stops to stare at a clay pot sitting on the ground nearby. Huh? Where’d this thing come from? As he hops onto it to inspect inside, though, he’s suddenly met with a rock in the face.
“Ow! What the!?”
Just as suddenly, a purple goblin pops out from the pot with a devious snicker. In its hands is the shiny Elixir – the same one that Nanaki had.
“Hey! Give that back, you thief!” he growls.
The Magic Pot refuses to comply. It instead takes the rim of the pot it’s sitting in and yanks it along with it, bouncing away in a fittingly cartoony manner. Nanaki gives chase, but is then pelted by rocks from afar. By now, he’s lost patience. He resumes a battle stance, going quick on his feet, and starts to dodge the rocks. However, as soon as he lunges to attack the Magic Pot, the odd goblin suddenly throws out a smokescreen that makes him cough and second-guess his approach. By the time the smoke clears, though, the imp is gone.
Nanaki groans in frustration, but shakes his head and leaves it. Whatever, it’s just one Elixir. Ruby got a bunch for them earlier. He should get back to Barret and heal him up already. Just then, he catches a bright flash of light from the corner of his eye. What was that? It came from around where Barret was. But once he returns to the spot, he stops cold in his tracks. Where Barret once lied, he is now gone. Instead, who Nanaki does find is not a face that he ever expected to meet.
His eyes widen and his jaw drops. “…Ruby?”
Somehow Ruby has reappeared without explanation or even much fanfare, or at least that’s how it looks. With the smell of the swamp cloaking any other scents, he has trouble distinguishing who else it could be. She has a solemn expression on her face, but then makes a sad smile as she sees him approach.
“Thank goodness… There you are, Nanaki.”
“How…?”
He’s about to approach her, but holds back. Wait a sec. This definitely seems fishy. If the Death Gigas was a fake, what about this one? He assumes a threatening stance and bares his fangs again.
“No. You can’t be the real Ruby. Who are you? Show yourself!”
But Ruby shakes her head. “It’s okay. I know, you have every right to be suspicious, but I promise I come in peace.”
“And where’s Barret!? What did you do to him?”
“I sent him to safety.”
“Safety? You mean back on the Highwind?”
“Of course. The ship’s crew are out of harm’s way as well.” She makes a cautious frown. “If anything, they should turn back now before they risk anything else. Things are bad enough as is.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“Surely you’ve noticed? The way that you’ve all been split up and lost contact with one another. How every attack comes at you by way of ambush or deception. How even Vincent’s own transformation has been made into an illusion, while he himself is nowhere to be found.”
Nanaki still tries to keep his fangs bared, but his snarl falters as his heart sinks. He recalls everything that had happened since they entered the crater. It’s true that bit by bit, things have just been falling apart around them. Who knows where the others have gone and how they’re doing right now. They may even be in trouble as well, but he wouldn’t be able to go help.
“Nanaki, I’m serious here. It was a mistake for you all to have come. You’re all facing a crisis – the worst that you’ve ever run into. If you guys don’t turn back and get away now, you won’t be able to leave anymore.”
Still, he refuses to drop his guard. “…Hold on. If you really are Ruby, why did you show up now to tell me this? Why did you wait until we got separated?”
She lowers her head in shame. “I’m sorry. By the time I came to, I was too late.”
“Too late…?”
“I have no control over Rubia’s cycle of reincarnation or how long it must be before she can return. It just happened that I woke up not long ago. As soon as I did, I rushed on over here to find you all, but only made it in time to find Barret near death’s door. I immediately sent him away, and stuck around to look to make sure I didn’t miss anyone else still here. Good thing I did.”
“…”
Ruby then offers forward a hand. “Come on, let’s get you back. Leave the rest to me. I’ll gather you all sooner than you can ask what’s happening.”
But Nanaki still hesitates and inches back. “How do I know you’re really telling the truth? So much in this place has been nothing but lies and fakes and enemies. I’m not going with you until you prove yourself.”
“I warped Barret away. Isn’t that proof enough?”
He shakes his head. “No way! Jenova is able to mimic even your powers now! You could still be trying to fool me!”
“Ah, right…” She puts up a thinking face. “Then, how about a test of faith? If you think I’m a threat, then go ahead and attack me. I won’t avoid it; I won’t even block.”
“…”
She offers him a gentle smile and open arms as if accepting a hug. “I can wait until you’re satisfied.” Her smile falters a bit as she admits, “Though, it would be better if we hurry it along. I still need to find the others…”
All that being said, Nanaki is still wary. Reasonably, this could just be Jenova putting up an act. As Cloud said before, she can mimic everything about a person, even down to the little mannerisms and tics they each have and maybe even how they can smell. Not that he’d be able to get a good whiff right now, but it might not have mattered in the first place. And yet, despite his elevated caution, some other side of him is simply tired. Tired of all the defense they have to put up and all the fighting they have to do to keep up, and above all, all the mistrust they have to hold whenever someone goes missing. He hated having to attack someone that looked like one of their friends. He hates that he may have to attack this one too and is frankly hesitant if he even should. Who knows what kinds of tricks she may be hiding? It may be dangerous to face her alone. But he doesn’t want to run away and lose sight of her either. He doesn’t know where to run, since he can’t find the rest of his friends.
On top of it all, his injuries from earlier are taking their toll on him. While he could just toss an extra Elixir on himself and get a quick heal, what else can he do at this point? Even if he does somehow manage to win and defeat this form of Jenova, who’s to say that she won’t just reappear elsewhere? And wherever his friends are, they must be having similar struggles. Perhaps it was actually this imposter Ruby who had been taking them all out… but no, he can’t think like that. He has to believe in his friends; that they’re all still around somewhere and are keeping up the good fight. He has to do the same.
With one last brave howl to pump himself up, he resumes his battle stance and braces himself for whatever may come. This “Ruby” is still waiting there, welcoming him with open arms, but it feels like a gesture of challenge rather than any welcome. Fine. If he also has to go down with the others, then he’ll do it like a real warrior.
The next moment, he lunges at her lightning-fast, teeth and claws bared. He snaps down upon her neck and tries to tear it open. To his surprise, he actually does. Keeping to her word, Ruby doesn’t avoid him and doesn’t stop him. In fact, as soon as he leaps away again to a safe distance, she drops to her knees, choking and clutching her freshly torn neck with all the blood seeping out. But he doesn’t wait for her to recover and attacks again, slashing her in the face. Even then, she doesn’t fight back or block. Even as her once dainty face is soiled with streaks of red, even as she’s seized by an arm and flailed about, even as she drops to the ground in a pool of her own blood, she lets it all happen without even a word or grunt of complaint.
But by this point, Nanaki has only grown more and more exhausted and his heart more and more broken. With every attack he lands, every time he sees his target be reduced to a mere ragdoll and the guilt builds upon him until he can no longer bear it. Amid heavy panting of his own, he stops thrashing her and walks up to sit down by her badly torn body. He hangs his head, shaking it slowly, and now even tears are welling up in his lone eye.
“…Enough. Please stop pretending. Show yourself. Or at least fight back! Don’t make me do this… I can’t fight someone who isn’t fighting back.”
But just as he shuts his eye and whimpers, Ruby’s body begins to glow white and she disappears into a bright flash. Then, just like that, her body is restored to full health and not even a drop of blood that she lost earlier remains on the ground beneath her. She pulls back up into a sitting position and lets off a sigh.
“Nanaki, don’t cry. I’m fine.”
His eye snaps open and he’s a little shaken. “R-Ruby?”
She gives him a relaxed but proud smirk. “Like I said, this was a test of faith. You can do whatever to me and I’ll be okay. I’m the almighty dragon god, remember?”
“Ruby!” He pounces onto her again, this time for a warm snuggle. “I’m sorry! I didn’t know what to think, so I just… I’m sorry!”
“There, there. No actual harm done.” She takes him into her arms too and softly strokes his back to help calm him down.
“I’m glad you’re back! I missed you so much!”
“Glad to be back. Now, let’s get you home, shall we?”
He whines cutely like a child. “Okay.”
As she continues to soothe him, the voice from her mouth stops, but moves silently as if she were speaking in tongues. Just then, a wisp of magic comes over them, but specifically touches him and him alone. And before he even realizes it, he is starting to feel incredibly sleepy. But he doesn’t mind anymore. Must have been all the fatigue from earlier coming over him, but at least he’s now resting in some very welcoming arms. And without much of a worry left, he slowly shuts his eye and falls asleep.
Now that she looks at him again, she smiles to herself. However, as gentle a smile as it looks at first glance, there’s something much more sinister to the look in her eyes. For just a moment, they flicker again and her pupils thin into slits. Blood suddenly seems to well up in her eyes and they fall down her cheeks like tears, but stop short of falling off entirely. As she continues to embrace him in one arm, the other slips away down to her utility belt, where he draws her signature knife. With complete soundlessness, she raises the knife into position just behind his neck, its blade pointed straight and firm, and without any hesitation, plunges the knife in right into the back of his head. Without any resistance, he falls limp in her grasp and she withdraws the bloodied blade, sheathing it with blood and all.
That once gentle smile widens into an eerie grin. “Welcome home, my child. Your brothers and sisters have been waiting for you.”
The woman formerly known as Ruby then takes him along and disappears not in a bright white flash, but a swirl of black mist.
~
After fleeing from the opening to the planet’s core, Cait Sith and Moogle have been hiding out somewhere in a completely different part of the map. If it weren’t just the two of them alone, it wouldn’t be all that bad. Well, to be fair, it doesn’t exactly look to be the safest place. They’re currently sitting on the end of what looks like the long, towering spine of some enormous beast of the far past, which skeleton looms over a very wide valley filled with monstrous broken eggshells among much other litter. But at least because it’s just them two and they’re trying to be as small and indiscrete as possible, they haven’t been attacked by any other fiends yet.
Cait Sith sits on the inner side of one of the giant rib bones with Moogle right beside him. They’re both quite miserable. Not only have they split off from everyone else and are completely lost, they’re too afraid to go back and face what clearly seemed like imposters hiding among his friends. But before even he knew it, some strange trickery got to him and even left him second-guessing himself. He now unties the band around his leg to give it another check. The red ruby mark is still there, plain as can be. It’s bright enough that it even glistens a little against his soft black fur. He ties it back up, but sits back in a slump. If it’s not his fault, then what happened back there? It was like the mark was suddenly erased. It wasn’t just because of the lighting, was it? No, the Lifestream’s fair glow is still present here, but he can see it just fine now.
“…What dae ye say, my fluffy friend? Do we go back and see if Cid and ’em calmed down yet?”
Moogle shrugs, but he doesn’t look comfortable about the idea.
Cait nods back with a sigh. “Yeah… it’s just not right, is it? Even if we do go back, who knows what’s become of Yuffie and Sonon. They were acting mighty strange; must’ve been the real imposters.” He scratches his head. “I s’ppose Cid can hold his own for a while, but even he’d have trouble dealing with them both. Hope he made it out somehow…” He pauses, drops his hand, and sinks again as he recalls another thing. “Oh, he also called up the crew to fly on over. Ooh, if the timing couldn’t be worse! Hope they’ve stayed outta trouble too.”
Moogle looks just as worried. He scratches his head, puts on a thinking face, and ultimately comes to no other ideas, so he joins Cait in the slump.
Cait shakes his head. “Oi… I just cannae stop worryin’. Worst case scenario, we lose not just the captain but the crew too? Then no one out there would even know what happened to us! Well, aside from the other me, o’ course, but not much he can do from there.”
Moogle nods sadly.
Feeling like he’s sunk so far he’s hit rock-bottom, Cait falls back against the curve of the bone behind him. He stares off into space, thinking back on what has led him to this point. It was just supposed to be a spy mission – granted a special case since he’s dealing with Cloud and his friends – but aside from just keeping an eye on them and lending the Turks a hand where need be, it was just supposed to stay friendly. When Ruby approached him – the other him, at that – with a proposal, he figured he’d at least play along. The biggest hitch he thought he’d have was keeping her quiet so she wouldn’t snitch on him, but that turned out to be a nothing-ham sandwich. She always kept her word and even helped cover for him at times. Then, before they knew it, the good lass was out of their lives.
And now without her, look at them. Misled, misdirected, and scattered everywhere except where they need to be: fighting Sephiroth together. Who knows how many of their friends have already fallen victim to their foe’s machinations? The fact that even their phones stopped working was the first red flag. They probably should have checked them first and foremost, but the level of danger wasn’t too apparent when they first arrived. But it’s a tad too late to do anything about that now. The real question is: what do they do from here? What can they do from here?
Though he feels guilty over it, he’s even tempted to call off the mission and call it quits. Just set this toy to self-destruct and end all ties he has with Cloud’s party. Keep his head down and stop bumping heads with the other execs. Maybe after all’s said and done, he can just call in an early retirement, move to another country and all that. Not like this company has been doing much good for their own law-abiding citizens. Ah, but that’s just the coward’s way out, isn’t it? At this point, none of the other execs trust him, and the president’s too busy minding affairs overseas to answer his pleas, no matter what they concern. He won’t have freedom even if he tries to escape; not from Shinra, and most definitely not from Sephiroth, especially that he’s got the Black Materia. And besides, even if he does find some place to rest, he’s gonna be cursed with survivor’s guilt for life – to be the only one who went into the Northern Crater and escaped by abandoning these otherwise brave souls.
Why did he take up Ruby’s offer in the first place and join them? Was it really just because he was assigned a mission by the former president? He certainly is what most people would consider the ideal “company man”, but even he’s had plenty of qualms with the company he’s shown nothing but diligence, even if it would be at the cost of his own self-respect. No, perhaps the real reason was much simpler: he was given a chance to stretch his legs, so to speak, and he took it. These days on an adventure away from the city he called home, exploring all kinds of different places around the world, and meeting all sorts of people: it was truly liberating. He even welcomed all the challenges that they would have to face on their journey as long as they all came together in the end. As long as they’d stay together, even when Ruby had to leave them.
But then they didn’t. How did things spiral so out of control? Were they too dependent on her? Were they too “weak” to face the kind of foe she struggled to keep at bay? Was this final descent into hell really doomed from the outset?
He doesn’t want to believe so. Like Aerith was always saying, they can’t give up, not until they can realize the future that Ruby was always looking forward to. So he can’t call it quits; not just for his own sake, but for everyone else’s. He has to stay and try everything he can muster to bring everyone back together. And if it means having to confront Sephiroth to free them, then that’s just what he’ll have to do. After all, wouldn’t they all do the same?
Enough thinking and feeling sorry for himself. He should go back and look for them, at least starting from Cid, and see if they can’t find the real Yuffie and Sonon, as well as everyone else. He gets back up, slaps his cheeks to get focused, and puts on his best look of determination.
“Moogle, my friend! We can’t be lyin’ about like a pair of losers! We all came here on a mission and we’re here to win it!”
Moogle blinks in surprise, but now motivated by the look on Cait’s face, he too puts up a stern face to match. He gets back to his feet and nods back, offering his hands forward. Cait takes them and hops right up onto Moogle’s head once more, and he whips out his shimmering crystalline megaphone with a proud smirk and a finger point ahead.
“Let’s go! Cid might need our help! He’s a fighter for sure, but even he’s gotta take a break sometime! Better if he quit smokin’ while he’s at it.”
Moogle grinds his feet against the hard bone surface beneath them, revving himself up into a fluttering kick, and throwing hesitation to the wind, the two rush back down the spine and take a dive back into the tunnels to return to the last meeting place they had.
As the familiar light comes more and more clearly into view, they brace themselves for battle if they have to jump right into one. But when they zip out into the open air again, they pose to strike… only to find that the place is completely empty. No Cid, no imposters, and not even a trace of Sephiroth or Jenova. Even the Highwind doesn’t seem to have come on down just yet. They may be waiting for Cid’s approval and he certainly hasn’t given it yet. So, where is everyone?
The pair still keep up their guard as they take the descending spiral trail toward the depths. If there had been a fight here, then there should be some signs that something happened. Cait Sith switches his eyes into scanning mode once again to survey, and sure enough, he notices that there are some differences from last he recalled. In fact, one could say that a whole side of one of the rocky shelves seems to have disappeared. That’s just it, then: Cid must have faced a powerful foe or two here.
But as he continues scanning the area, a glint of something small in the depths catches his eyes and ears as well. There’s the sound of a beep a little distance away, but it’s coming from somewhere below. Wait a second. Their phone’s are all dead, so that could be Cid’s transceiver. It sure sounds like it too. Cait wordlessly directs Moogle to charge ahead and hurry down the rocky steps, taking care to measure just how far down they’ve gone. And soon enough, they come across one step where the transceiver in question has fallen.
With a grim look on his face, Cait hops off to pick up the device. It’s been beeping regularly as if it has an incoming call. He now answers it, anticipating the response from the ship’s crew above.
“Captain! What’s the situation? Are we clear to descend? Where are you guys?”
Cait shares his grim face with Moogle, who nods back. He then speaks up in place of their captain: “Eh… This is Cait Sith! Sorry, but Cid’s not available right now.”
“Oh! Good to hear from you again, sir! But what happened to the captain?”
“I don’t know. Lost track of them when we were attacked by some imposters, and I, uh, left to find help. Sadly, I’m not sure where the rest of ’em have gone either. It’s just me and my moogle here.”
“Oh…” There’s an awkward silence from the other end. “Well, with all due respect, sir, we can’t act without the captain’s permission. Until he answers back with the OK, we’ll have to remain on standby.”
“Oh, for sure! It’s better that you all stay clear. Cannae tell friend from foe in all this eerie glow and fog! Unless we’re all back together again, we won’t be leavin’! That’s what we promised, after all!”
“Yes, sir! And until you all do, we’ll keep supporting you from a safe distance!”
“Make sure that distance really is safe! Back off a bit more if ye have to! Things might get pretty weird!”
“Oh, uh, of course! If you insist. If anything else comes up, please let us know!”
“Right we will!” And with that, Cait shuts off the transceiver with a heavy sigh. “Aye… right we will,” he mutters again to himself with a grim nod. If he can at least make sure they can escape safely, then it’ll still be worth something. He turns back to Moogle, who has been keeping watch attentively all this time, and waves to him to help him back up. He obliges and joins him on the watch, scanning everywhere around and above them just to be safe.
Unfortunately, they just so happen to have a blind spot below them. Drifting silently through the air, a certain shadowy figure arises from the green depths and hovers up to stop just behind them as the two are looking away. Now that Cait and Moogle each turn back to each other, though, they freeze up when they happen to spot the faint glint of a sharp blade that draws near. They slowly turn around and freak out when they suddenly meet a familiar menace right in front of them.
“S-Sephiroth!?” Cait cries, but he assumes a battle pose along with Moogle. “What are you doing here, you fiend!? Where are Cid and the others?”
But at this time, Sephiroth is not in a chatty mood. In fact, he looks a little peeved as if a certain minor inconvenience has been nagging him for a while. He’s lost enough patience to not bother with any wittisms, and after bumbling about the slippery cat and his moogle steed at last show themselves. Time to get this done and over with. They’re starting to run behind schedule.
With just the slightest twist of his blade and before Cait and Moogle can even try to defend, he blitzes the two with a strike where he disappears from view, only to reappear behind them with sword returned to his side. The next moment, both cat and moogle black out in an instant. A single shearing line appears that crosses both their bodies and splinters them wide open, with stuffing and thin mechanical parts popping out. The two both crackle with electricity, and without even getting to explode, drop dead as dolls.
Sephiroth then whips up a bit of magic to warp them out of there and to where the rest of his comrades have been taken. However, this swift victory brings him little comfort. While he was back in the Debug Room, he came to discover that there were not just one or ten or even a hundred, but a total over 250 million new “empty rooms” that were created since he last checked. It’s so excessive that he readily noticed a difference in the size of active memory, though at the very least they haven’t slown down any processes so far. Of all the smart-aleck moves to play… Cloud aside, that wolf is really starting to push his own bounds, isn’t he?
No matter. He draws up the familiar GUI before him and enters the terminal command line to begin execution of an efficient search program to highlight all those empty rooms and run quietly in the background. One way or another, he’s going to find Cloud and rip that damned wolf out of him. He’s one of the two biggest stars at this Reunion and he’s running a little late. Though they can start without him, things won’t proceed as smoothly if he still doesn’t show himself. For now, Sephiroth takes his leave, dropping back into the depths from whence he had appeared.
~
It just won’t stop. Bodies continue to appear, hung by the tree’s nooses, and have only come in faster and faster. Shortly after Cid’s body shows, Barret’s and even Nanaki’s are hung beside him, and finally the last of the nooses is filled with a broken Cait Sith, where Moogle lies in a crumpled heap just beneath him. That’s everyone, except Cloud.
Aerith is kneeled on the floor, her hands held fast in prayer. One side of her still wishes to stay strong and keep up hope regardless, but the other side is deathly afraid to open her eyes again. She doesn’t want to see any of this anymore. But bit by bit, the voices of her friends that she had kept close to her heart have all but quieted. They aren’t asleep and they aren’t simply unconscious. But she hesitates to declare them dead. She really wants to believe that they all can be saved, but to be honest, she doesn’t know how. She doesn’t even know if she’ll be the one to do the saving. But as her Cetran ancestors have shared with her before, Jenova has a long history of toying with her prey. Perhaps, even if it’s the slimmest of chances, Jenova may still be keeping them alive – but for what purpose, she can only imagine the worst.
But even amid her prayer in grief, there is one thing that frightens her even more than this ghastly scene has already done. Cloud… is gone. Disappeared, without a trace. She can no longer hear him anywhere either, and she can’t help but worry that he’s somehow been mysteriously spirited him away. Was this also the work of Jenova or Sephiroth? Or is there something else out there…?
“…And then there were nine.”
Aerith is startled out of her trance. Sephiroth has arrived, also without a single sound or whirl, but as soon as his feet touch on the ground, his steps echo softly throughout the chamber. Despite the unexpected hiccup, everything else has been moving according to plan, so his mood hasn’t been entirely spoiled. He approaches the tree and greets his mother with a reassuring smile.
“Don’t worry, Mother. We’re almost there. Though a certain someone may be running late, he’ll show up soon enough… I’ve made sure of it.”
Aerith climbs to her feet and summons her staff back in hand. “What’s ‘almost there’?” she asks warily.
Sephiroth then turns around to face her with the smuggest smile yet. “You know why. Why else have you all come?”
She returns him a stern glare. “To put a stop to you.”
“Hahaha.” He shakes his head. “Such a pity. To see the final legacy of the once proud Cetra be reduced to a lost child who has no one in her corner.”
“You’re the one who’s lost! Do you even have any idea of what you’re trying to accomplish?”
“Hmm?” He makes a face as if intrigued, but she can tell it’s just a front. “And what do you think I’m going for?”
“The destruction of the world… just to satiate your own lust for power.”
“Hmph.” He glances off again, still playing coy. “In a sense, I suppose. But what any of that actually means is clearly beyond your comprehension.”
“I’m not here to argue technicalities. I’m here to fight.”
“By your lonesome?” He raises a hand to gesture toward the tree behind him. “Or do you still expect any help from them?”
“That won’t be necessary.” Aerith points her staff forward and declares with utmost resolve, “Sephiroth, I challenge you to a duel.”
That smirk on his face fades just a bit. He can already see where this is going. “For…?”
“For the lives of everyone here. If I win, you’ll deactivate Jenova’s barrier and let them all free, and you’ll leave this planet alone for the last time.”
“…”
“Of course, if you win, then I’ll lay down my life.” She casts aside a sad look. “Even if that isn’t what Ruby would want, but…” She drifts off into silence for a moment and then turns back to him, returning to that hardened glare. “At least, after’s all said and done, I can still meet her somewhere.”
“…” His smirk has left and he simply looks disappointed. He even shakes his head with a sigh. “Ironic that this would have to come from me, but you really should honor her word a little more.”
“Huh?”
“Ruby made a promise that she would protect you, no matter what. So you have to stay alive. That was the condition she made me swore so she would accept her fate. It really would be a shame to have that promise come to nothing just because her cousin just can’t stay out of trouble.”
Aerith frowns, a little ticked to be lectured by the likes of him. “And who is Ruby to you? Haven’t you tarnished her name enough?”
He rolls his eyes. “How naïve. This is exactly why my goals are beyond your understanding.”
“Answer the question!”
“Hmph.” While he still has a bit of time, though, he decides to play along and entertain a few notions. “Alright, let’s put it this way. How do you think this character known as ‘Ruby’ was even able to exist in the first place?”
She’s a bit taken aback by the question. “How she existed…?”
“After all, even she’s admitted it several times before; that she isn’t a part of this planet’s biosystem and therefore would have no body of her own.”
“…”
“In other words, she cannot exist as a free agent. She must always be attached to someone else who can carry her will.”
Aerith goes back to glaring. “She was with Rubia, but now she’s with you. You trapped her in the Black Materia and took her away.”
“Technically, yes, but not the entire picture. If it were just that she had been a part of Rubia, then she would not have been able to be transferred anywhere else.”
Now she’s getting confused and a little disturbed. “What do you mean?”
“There’s a key difference between her soul and anyone else’s that makes her a true anomaly.” He looks down and brings a hand upon his chest. “Regardless of the state of her existence, this soul can be fractured, even rendered asunder into individual particles, and yet can still be repaired with little consequence when the pieces come together once more.” Then, with a silent incantation, he draws out some sort of tiny particle that shines with a bright glow and rests it in the palm of his hand. “It’s honestly fascinating to think about. An entity that has transcended life and death, whose presence can only remain intact through the memories and beliefs of others, and yet still holds so much influence over a world that she was never a part of in the first place. It’s absurd as can be and yet… inspiring, in a way.”
“…”
Aerith lowers her head and grows somber now that she’s starting to understand it a bit more. In the end, they only got a brief snippet of the truth from Rubia shortly before she returned Ruby to them. But even in that brief time, Aerith came to realize something rather important that she had yet to say aloud to anyone. Rubia is troubled, for sure, and her past paints a grim reality that she’s been struggling to understand after all this time. And in the midst of that struggle, even she came to confuse herself with Ruby and tried to take up this identity of a person she wished to emulate, but couldn’t because that image was always incomplete. But the reason why wasn’t because Rubia couldn’t complete it herself; just that she didn’t have all the pieces. They were scattered and ended up somewhere else.
Her eyes widen as all the dots finally connect. She turns back to Sephiroth, less angry and more saddened by the realization. “Some of those pieces… were with you all along.”
“…”
“Rubia had to jump through time from the ancient past to ours because they weren’t all available in the same time period. But by the time she came here, they were already taken.”
His eyes remain in a thoughtful stare upon this shining particle in his hand, and then he returns it to its place inside him. “…And now we come to the crux of the matter.” He finally turns back to face her and for once grows serious himself. “Ruby, in her current state, is still too unstable to be left alone. She is merely borrowing the body of a proxy, and for now I’ve been lending her my own, though she has no control over me.”
“But why? What use would she be to you?” The more she thinks it over, the madder Aerith get again. “Ruby was who Rubia wished she could be, and you got involved in their affairs even though you had nothing to do with them!”
“…Heh. Hehehehe.”
“What’s so funny?”
“Oh, everything, really. There’s some good irony in Rubia’s entire story and her love for a being that she’d never personally met until not too long ago.”
“What are you talking about now? Ruby’s been with Rubia for ages!”
“…Five years.”
“Huh?”
“Five years since the start of ‘Project Ruby’. That’s the time gap in her memories.”
“…”
Amused by the perplexed look on her face, he chuckles again. “Ah, but what am I doing, telling you all this? You aren’t important enough to need the truth.”
“Excuse me? Ruby’s my cousin, you know. If anyone deserves the truth, it’s me.”
His smile vanishes and he gives her a spiteful glare. “Don’t kid yourself. She’s your ‘cousin’ by name only. There’s such a large gap between your lineage and that of Bahamut that it’s laughable that you’d ever compare yourself to her. And that’s only accounting for Rubia’s side.”
“We’re still cousins! Whatever you think about us won’t change that!”
“And besides…” He turns back toward something just in front of him, as if something else has now caught his eye. “Our time is up.”
“Huh?”
Now that Sephiroth is moving his hands in the air, Aerith notices what seems to be some kind of holographic screen that has appeared before him. Her eyes widen when she realizes that it’s just like what she saw from Jenova earlier, as well as back when Cloud and Bahamut faced off with the other form of her. While it’s no surprise that Sephiroth would have it as well, she’s instead shocked that he’s interacting with it like he were using some kind of invisible computer. What even is this power?
Unfortunately for her, she would be allowed no further thoughts. With a few swift taps on his screen, Sephiroth forces her to deactivate as well, freezing her in place and rendering her unresponsive in an instant. But he doesn’t just stop there. He’s opened up the GUI again to give another check on his search program he initialized earlier. And to his delight and a little bit of relief, it has come to an end and successfully detected his target’s whereabouts. However, he also notices one little unexpected caveat: the determined location isn’t in any of the empty rooms he suspected he was hidden, but right here in this very chamber.
At that moment, something strange happens just a little to the side near Aerith: the tessellating shapes of overturned Fate. For whatever reason, they’ve appeared without his command. And as suddenly as they appear, so does a person show up right where they’re glistening in midair. It’s as if some kind of system protocol had been running in the background all this time, and with its job finally complete, it delivers the completed package back where it should have been. And as soon as the person shows himself, Sephiroth’s eyes widen in pleasant surprise and he grows excited again.
Cloud is back. He opens his eyes and blinks, looking rather lost and in a daze, and then he finally snaps to attention. “W-what?”
Now that he realizes where he is, he gasps in horror at the terrifying-looking tree in the back of the room, where all his friends seem to be hanged. His eyes trail back around onto Aerith, who is frozen in an unnatural way, and then to Sephiroth. This is quite the scene to meet after the weirdness that he’d just been through. It’s a lot to take in all at once and no matter how he tries to process it, nothing seems to make sense.
“What is this…?” he mutters just audibly.
Sephiroth answers calmly, “Welcome, Cloud. You’re just in time.”
Notes:
With everything going wrong for our heroes up to now, I will at least leave you all with the very cute image of Fenrir going tappity-tap on a holographic keyboard with his big wolf paws and adding as many zeroes as he can. (Actually, he doesn't even need to tap on the screen to get stuff done, but don't mind that.) I personally think tech-savvy Fenrir is my greatest creation yet, and that's saying something considering the size of this work.
Notes continued from above, speculation for Remake Pt. 3, and programming jokes
- Granted, I don't have too many chances in the story to talk about Vincent's potential moveset because I usually have him using espionage and assassin tactics, aside from just straight-up going berserk as his other forms. But if Rebirth was any indication, each of them are definitely going to have their own unique movesets and I bet this time, you will be able to control Vincent in beast mode. He's usually about keeping a safe distance and casting like a mage, but once he transforms, he just wings it. I really hope we get to control him. They let us control Sephiroth in the flashback, so I'm hopeful.
- On that note, I'm also hoping that each of his transformations have different abilities depending on what moves they use, but that may be getting a little too complicated if they have to do it for all his transformations. For example, Death Gigas is usually very slow, but here I've upgrade him to be able to essentially charge himself up with electricity and get some much-needed burst movement options. Likewise, Galian Beast used to only have his rampage and Beast Flare as moves, but Rebirth gave him a few more darkness and curse-related moves. Then again, that could be an aspect of any of his transformations, since I definitely see it for Hellmasker and Chaos as well.
- I know I wrote it and it was for Jenova so it makes sense, but I still feel so bad for Nanaki. Poor pupper. Poor everyone, really. Damn, I've been on an evil streak lately.
- For anyone wondering why I specifically chose 250,000,000 as the number, it's actually based on a layered pun. I figured that for any efficient search algorithm, searching through a list with 1000 items or less is usually completed in a matter of seconds, or minutes for larger file types that require more in-depth scans. So I had to take it to at least 1 mil. But why stop there? Why not allocate a whole gigabyte of RAM just to be safe? Assuming each "empty room" somehow takes up 4 bytes, that would be 250 mil in all. Why 4 bytes? Because in programming, an item with a size of 4 bytes is called a "word". So yes, I trolled Sephiroth with a term. That's what you get for trying to take over as my editor, ya twerp. \<3
- For the record, practically empty files that are saved on a system don't take up enough space for them to matter, but technically they do take up a teeny bit of memory in the computer's hard drive. How much depends on the system, but I've seen them range anywhere from 64 bits to 4096 bits, where 8 bits is a byte, and that's just for text files. For items that also include images, they'd easily go way higher. 3D spaces are right out since they'd have to be defined separately before they can form the 3D model. But because I never defined what are the specifications of this "reality" I have been writing about, I get to make up values as I like!
Chapter 73: Doomed to Fail
Notes:
I swear I started on this chapter earlier than usual, but it still took me this long... orz This was a difficult chapter to write. Let's just say that between all the diverse choreography across the back-to-back climactic fights and all the lore and mythos that I had to introduce in a relatively short timeframe, which was just due to the circumstances surrounding the plot as it were, I had to rewrite it a lot and ran into writer's block quite a few times even while in the middle of writing it. That rarely happens with me. Usually when I sit down to write, the ideas are freely flowing and I end up writing a bunch. Ah, well. Finally I'm tired enough to say I'm satisfied.
I have officially mapped out to a decent degree the outline for the rest of this third act and have changed the total chapter length to match. Rest assured, we're coming close, but not everything can be resolved in four chapters, lol.
Warning: Emotional roller coaster, with multiple instances of 4th wall breaks and meta flips included. Please remain seated and/or secure while reading this chapter.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
What the hell is going on. One moment, Cloud was in pitch black darkness and the next, he’s suddenly been dropped into a place right out of hell. Everywhere he turns is just torture: the tortured faces of his fallen friends, hung limply by suffocating nooses. Their bodies adorning the branches of a horrific tree with a skull for a face, riddled with grave, even fatal wounds. Their fresh blood still flowing, slowly dripping down to the floor. Everyone’s here, gathered like the props set up for some kind of sick joke. Even Aerith, though appearing unharmed, is imprisoned in a stasis – one that he was just introduced to, in fact. She definitely looks disturbed, but there is no life to the stillness in her eyes. It’s as if she’d been replaced by a statue created without the heart of an artist – or rather, one who had rid of his heart long ago. It comes as no surprise that the “artist” in question is here as well, proud of his work thus far.
“You had me worried for a moment,” Sephiroth greets him with a cold smile. “I’d thought the wolf had snatched you away to be his personal chew toy.”
But Cloud doesn’t gratify him with a response. Without a second thought, he rushes over to the tree and looks around, but comes up short of any ideas. No. They can’t all be… This isn’t over yet.
“Guys! Hey, guys!! Can you hear me!?” he yells out to them. “Barret! Cid! Nanaki!?” He scans the other side of the branches too. “Yuffie! Sonon! Vincent! Ti…”
He stops as soon as he sees Tifa hung closest to the trunk. Everyone has already been bloodied one way or another and several of them even have been punctured with large holes in their chests, but even among them, Tifa has been violated. Though her face and head seem to be untouched, her neck is askew as if it were snapped. She doesn’t just have a hole in her chest; her rib cage has been smashed in and torn apart as if it wasn’t “enough” to take her heart. Though there are the ends of one particularly large gash as from a sword that runs from her left shoulder down to her right hip, the rest of the wounds, bruises out and ripped flesh within, were definitely from something else. As soon as they all became victims of her terrible snare, Jenova had full reign to desecrate their bodies as she saw fit. Perhaps she was frustrated that she couldn’t take out her anger on a certain Cetra girl, so went with the “next best thing”.
Cloud flies into panic. “Tifa… Tifa!”
He tries to reach out to her, jump up the tree and wrench her free, but a mysterious barrier comes into effect and repels him like an electrified fence. He’s a little jittered from the sting, but he tries again and is repelled again. Damn it. Of course this cheating bitch isn’t gonna play fair. But no more; they’re not the only ones who can break the rules. He was away all this time so he could be prepared for this moment.
Sephiroth shakes his head and calmly calls to him, “Cloud, settle down and leave them. We have more pressing matters to answer. In fact, I have a few questions for you…”
Cloud draws his sword and tries to smash through the barrier, only to be repelled as usual. Several more desperate swings show no difference. No good. Why isn’t it working? He went through the process just fine. Has there been some sort of delay? He turns back down to his hands just to be sure. To his chagrin, the thin veil of Fenrir’s aura that had been there before is now missing. Well, that explains one thing. But how much longer must he wait? He looks back up to Tifa with a sharp pang in his heart. He can’t just leave them like this.
“Save your strength. That is no ordinary barrier, but to explain it would be a waste of time,” Sephiroth insists. “Now come here and let’s talk.”
Cloud is trying his absolute darnedest to bash through the mysterious barrier that by all metrics seems to be an immovable partition by some unknown law of this world. Yet, even with every attempt of his being blocked and denied, he keeps trying anyway. Through a certain long discussion with Fenrir just prior, he at least understands the situation a bit better. There is still much he doesn’t know, like how these freaks came to be able to control something like this, but they’re clearly glitching the system. Not on his watch, dammit! He didn’t come this far just to be stopped here! This frustrated frenzy continues for several more minutes to no avail and even Sephiroth is starting to lose patience watching him.
“Cloud,” he tries again. “You’re not getting through it.”
Cloud snaps back in frustration, “Shut up! What do you know!?”
Relieved that he’s finally got the guy’s attention, Sephiroth returns to his smile. “More than you could ever imagine. But I see you have your share of secrets too.” He offers a hand his way. “Care to share? Let’s talk.”
Nope. Cloud switches his battle stance to Punisher Mode and meets the barrier’s defenses with stronger, heavier hits, which as always, do little more than exhaust him. Despite all the patience that Jenova has held waiting for this child, she too has had enough with his tantrums. Upon her silent command, the barrier shifts and enters counterattack mode. Just as Cloud is about to lay down another frantic flurry of swings, the area where he had been striking glows brighter with several white circles appearing on its surface. By instinct he realizes the danger, but he’s too late to dodge the searing white lasers that rip through him.
Cloud loses his breath for a moment, but the next he finds it again, there’s a fire in his lungs. He coughs with a wheeze, stumbles back, and drops to one knee. Though they don’t leave any visible wounds, each hit of the lasers felt like a giant lance that stabbed through his body almost without resistance. And it only gets worse. Like the light somehow triggered a chain reaction, he feels like his insides are being torn apart further, or worse… forcibly rearranged.
“Guh… Aaaah… Auughh…!”
Meanwhile, Sephiroth watches him struggle in silence and apathetically stares off into space. This was bound to happen; Mother’s just enacting some necessary discipline.
“Urgh… Ugh! Grraaahh!!”
Fighting through the pain, he manages to take another stand, though still tottering a little until he finds his footing. Not yet. He just has to stall a little longer. But even as he’s back on his feet, it hurts to even move a step. Still, he won’t give in. Without a second thought, he charges forward again and… Clang. Sephiroth has suddenly appeared in front of him and blocks his next blow with his own blade. He also casually knocks him back to the ground again.
Sephiroth sighs to himself. “Honestly, you’d think you would learn by now.”
“Damn you…” Cloud grumbles between heavy gasps. He again tries to pull himself back up to his feet, but as if his own limbs have actually shut down and grown numb, he collapses once more. “It’s not… over. I… I still…”
Now, as amusing as it is to Sephiroth to see the poor sap writhe, it’s going to be awkward for them to talk like this, so he does him a little favor. He brings up the holographic GUI from before and types in a certain command into the terminal. At once, all the pain that Cloud was feeling vanishes without a lingering trace. Even his jittery nerves from before have been calmed as if nothing had stirred them in the first place. Now he can pull himself back up without issue. He’s still panting slowly and stares in shock at his own hands as he regains his composure, and then passes the other man a vengeful glare.
Cloud brings his sword forward. “Don’t expect me to thank you.”
Sephiroth dismisses the GUI with a wave of his hand and turns back to him with his usual cocky smile. “Suit yourself. You are still a valuable member and I’m a gracious enough host to let it slide. But before the Reunion may begin, we need to set some ground rules first.”
“I’m not here for your stupid Reunion! Give me back my friends! And let Aerith go!”
“Oh, her?” Sephiroth gives the statuesque girl an uninterested glance. “Well, she does look a little out of place, doesn’t she? Let’s fix that.”
“What?”
He raises a hand toward her and points a finger, magically lifting her up into the air, not unlike the way an item on a screen that has been selected is moved by a cursor.
“Stop! What are you doing!?”
Sephiroth casually throws her up into the rafters of the chamber, where the large materia crystal hangs overhead, and forces her inside for safekeeping – or rather, so she won’t be in the way anymore. Whether or not she will be leaving will be up to his discretion. Cloud can only stare in awe and then back to him and his grip tenses against the hilt of his sword.
“What was that for?”
“Cleaning up. She has no purpose being here.”
“Let her go! Haven’t you done enough already!?”
“Enough? We’re just getting started here.”
“You bastard!”
Cloud charges at him with sword swinging wide, but again Sephiroth catches and deflects every attempt. He’s barely moved from his spot while Cloud struggles to get in a single blow. With another simple flick of his wrist, Sephiroth catches his blade through one of the holes in the Apocalypse and flings it away, where it plants itself into the ground a bit of a distance away.
Sephiroth now holds him at swordpoint, just barely off the side of his neck, to discourage him from running off again. “Easy there. As I said, you’re a valuable member, so I’d rather not have to beat you within an inch of your life.” His eyes narrow threateningly as he adds, “But that may change if you continue to disobey.”
Though a little tempted to knock the blade away with his bare hands, Cloud grits his teeth and stands his ground. “What would you need me for? If you want to kill me, just get it over with.”
“If you insist… but for now we need to talk.” He gets down to the more serious business. “You met with Fenrir not long ago, didn’t you? What did he tell you?”
“…”
“Cloud, answer me. Your friends’ fates hang in the balance.”
He feels a nerve pop in his head, but relents and replies bitterly, “He told me enough.”
“Go on.”
He then says with full defiance, “You brought this ending on yourself. Now that Rubia is gone, the world is going to be reset and not even Ruby will save you.”
~
Given his history, Cloud wasn’t entirely new to strange learning experiences, and yet this one would still take the cake for being the most incomprehensible set of revelations by far. There was too much in too little time. Every answer he got, he just ended up with even more questions, like an endless cascade of information linking from point to point in what feels like an infinite loop. For starters, is anything in this world even real?
Some time earlier, when Cloud helped Aerith to safety and dove back into the green whirlwinds after Tifa, he was also thrown about by the vicious currents. Tried as he did to reach out to her, his hand slid just short of her own, and the two were sent their separate ways. However, while Tifa would hence disappear into the ethereal streams in the chasm below, Cloud would blank out all of a sudden. Instead, he would be whisked away elsewhere before he could fall victim into the same trap.
He woke up in a daze to find himself in a completely black abyss. Strangely enough, he could make himself out in the darkness as if he were somehow highlighted while everywhere around him remained in shadow. At first he felt weightless, floating in deep space with no sense of direction or even place to get a grasp of where he was. However, he wasn’t alone. Though he knew how important this meeting would be, it certainly didn’t arrive with the best of timing.
“…Cloud. Arise,” a familiar and very deep, growling voice greeted him.
He blinked to attention and “sat” up to see something rather odd, in the uncanny way. The shape of a huge gray wolf appeared out of nowhere, becoming visible in such a jarring way that one could imagine he was just roughly cut and edited into place. Cloud figured this wouldn’t be any “normal” place, but just this moment alone convinced him that he was in for some real mindscrews. Now that he looked at the wolf’s feet, he noticed the latter was standing on some invisible floor. He let his feet drop onto the blank surface, finally assured by some kind of solid ground, so to speak, and looked back up to face him.
“Fenrir?”
Fenrir nodded with a grave expression. “My apologies to call you on such short notice, but it was an emergency.”
Cloud looked around again, but he didn’t catch any other changes to the darkness. “Where are we? Everything’s pitch black.”
“This is an ‘empty realm’. There is nothing but us here.”
He stared back for a moment, looking like he didn’t catch that. “What?”
“But set that aside for now. I’ve called you here to pass on an urgent message.”
“Wait!” He then recalled the moments before he blacked out and grew restless again. “Where’s Tifa?”
The wolf gave him a concerned frown, but more of concern for him than anyone else.
“Tifa! You know her, right? The girl with the long black hair and white crop-top? Black skirt and leggings? I was just with her.”
Fenrir shook his head. “No one else is allowed. This particular location has been set up only of the two of us. Anyone else that may try to interfere would meet with nothing.”
“What?”
“I understand you are troubled. We do not have much time here, so let us be quick. You must hear this now, for it regards the overwhelming threats you and your friends must face.”
Though it left a sinking feeling in his gut to have to set aside someone dear like Tifa, Cloud also had no idea what he was in for, especially if he were to just jump back into the fray. Maybe it would be for the better to hear the wolf out. He settled down and asked more calmly, “What is it?”
“There are currently two major problems that remain unresolved without clear solutions: the portent of the return of a certain calamity and the ‘doomed’ fate of this world.”
“Jenova and Sephiroth, I’m guessing?”
“Though they are major factors, the problems I speak of extend beyond those two.”
“Beyond them?” He blinked in surprise, but grew doubtful. “What’s worse out there than them? Sephiroth has the Black Materia. He can just summon Meteor, and Jenova can return to power once the planet’s weakened.”
“As I said, they are major factors, but not the entire scenario. Listen well.”
Still just as confused, he crossed his arms and obliged.
“Unfortunate to admit, but we have underestimated the true enemy for far too long. Following the incident with Jenova Umbra – that is, the form of Jenova that took on Rubia’s visage – something came to Bahamut’s attention that he shared with me, to deliver unto you.”
“…”
“At the time, we requested him to revoke Rubia’s permissions in hopes that it would bar Jenova from abusing the system’s debugging tools. In theory, she would not be the only target. Under normal conditions, the applied effects would extend to anyone that inherited properties from her, including her successor, the one known as Sephiroth. Upon returning to his personal realm, Bahamut continued to pursue the mystery behind Jenova’s ‘source’. Through his investigations, he made several grave discoveries that we had overlooked for too long.”
“Like…?”
“To begin, there is the matter of ‘Jenova’. This agent of chaos, once regarded as the Calamity of the Skies and enemy to the Cetra, was soundly defeated by the hands of thirteen legendary Warriors of Light. So legendary were they that they were thus promoted to a status well-respected even among the Pantheon’s deities.”
“…”
“Therefore, it begs the question: where could she have obtained such power to not only escape her prison set up by these warriors, but even become free to impersonate Rubia? The two were never associated with one another, though there was one lifetime in which Rubia became infected by her plague. Theoretically speaking, it should have been just for that life, which shortly ended after she grew deathly ill. The plague would not have been able to be transferred to the next life Rubia would take on.”
Cloud raised an eyebrow to that. “So, basically, Jenova wouldn’t keep any control over her after she died?”
“Yes, if they were normal circumstances. However, it’s apparent Jenova’s influence over her has reached further than just a single lifetime. This should not be possible, as Jenova is not born of this planet. Every new life Rubia led, though all would share her familiar appearance, would have been with a new body reconstructed from the essence of the Lifestream.”
“Huh…” He put a hand to his chin and thought it over.
“In other words, she has a different source of power than just her own.” Now that he’d come to the point, Fenrir made a grim growl. “Bahamut found that source. Put simply, Jenova shared a particular signature with one other being. While he long suspected she had an external source and his investigations had been ongoing, initially he believed the signature to belong to Rubia, which led him to decide to revoke her permissions. Unfortunately, he was mistaken: it was actually one very similar, of her mother.”
Cloud snapped to attention and slowly lowered his hand in shock. Even he who was never clear about what extent Tiamat’s influence stretched could understand how bad things could be, given the case. The name was cursed in more ways than one and always seemed to worm its way into major issues at the worst of times.
“No…” He grew more anxious the more he thought about it. “You don’t think Tiamat was somehow using Jenova? Or at least, it was because of her that Jenova was released?”
“I found it strange that Tiamat would keep her silence for so long. To think that she had simply been using a ‘proxy’ to evade our assessments…” Fenrir made a bitter growl. “That would also explain why there have been a number of incidents around the world where Jenova subjects would transform into draconic beasts. They aren’t merely agents of Jenova, but inheritors to the wills of Tiamat’s own legion, the Children of Chaos. These corrupted and false dragons would only ever heed the will of Tiamat. They were too numerous to be captured following Tiamat’s defeat, but they were believed to be of little threat without their leader.” He followed with a sarcastic snort. “At least, that was the decree of the Court of the Divine at the time.”
Cloud blinked blankly. “…Holy shit. They did turn into dragon-likes, didn’t they?”
Fenrir returned to his stern frown. “Given the case, it isn’t an accident that they’ve all come to be converged upon the Northern Crater. That is the oldest wound the planet suffered that has yet to fully heal. If there would be any place where Tiamat could potentially arise, it would be through that gateway.”
Cloud’s eyes hardened back into focus. “So this ‘Reunion’ that Sephiroth kept talking about, it isn’t just to bring them all together to return to Jenova. He actually wants to help Tiamat break free? Is that what’s happening?”
“I cannot say what are his objectives, but his movements up to now seem to align with some intent to resurrect Tiamat. Perhaps in due part to some sort of arrangement between her and Jenova, or for some other reason he has yet to reveal.”
“Tch… As if things couldn’t get worse. What is Sephiroth thinking? If he is still ‘thinking’…” He raised up a determined fist. “There’s gotta be some way we can stop him. Stop them. Isn’t there anything Bahamut can do? He was able to stop Jenova from impersonating Rubia, right?”
As soon as he asked, though, the wolf brought a troubled grimace. “No. It isn’t that simple.”
“Why not? Even if it wouldn’t work for Sephiroth for some reason, we saw it happen to Jenova.”
“At a glance, yes. However, it was only for that particular form of Jenova. If she and Tiamat are indeed sharing access, she could always refer to her ‘source’ as usual to avoid any restrictions. Not to mention, much of the power that Rubia is capable of, she likewise inherited from her mother in the first place.”
“Then do something about Tiamat! If she’s that much of a threat, why haven’t Bahamut or the other gods done anything?”
“They cannot… as they are not allowed to touch her.”
“Not allowed?”
Fenrir let off a sigh. “I will try to spare you a lengthy explanation… There was a time long ago, well before Rubia was born, when the Pantheon deliberated on her potential birth and a certain rule was instated. Since the day she was sealed away in Helheim, Tiamat was not to be approached or reprimanded further under any circumstances. The reasons were twofold: one, to prevent her any means of escape; and two, an exception of lenience at Bahamut’s request.”
“What? Why would Bahamut…?”
“For the sake of his child.”
Cloud blinked. “For Rubia?”
“Yes. At the time of her capture, Tiamat claimed to have been pregnant with his child. While everyone else could see how ridiculous the claim was, the ever ‘wise and unshakeable’ Bahamut was forced to bend the knee by the mere possibility. Even after Minerva informed him that it was impossible that Tiamat could bear his offspring, as the dragoness was incompatible with his bloodline, he still felt mercy for the child and wished to give her a chance. Thus, he would take on the role as her father.”
Cloud blinked again, this time in amazement. Talk about irony. All this time Rubia despised her father for being absent throughout many of her lives, and it turned out that he was the reason she was alive in the first place. But that only begged another question: Why didn’t he be a better parent?
He asked it aloud too, “If that’s true, then why leave Rubia alone to grow up? Even you had to raise her, right?”
Fenrir cast a disgruntled glance aside. “He did not begin as absentee, but clearly lacked the experience from the outset.” He turned back, explaining, “He tried many approaches, from authoritative strictness and dogmatic code of honor to laissez faire and relaxing of punishment. None seemed to satisfy him and he still had an unruly child who would have too strong a will to heed his commands.”
Cloud made an awkward frown. “He couldn’t try somewhere between those extremes?”
“It was a difficult balance to reach. He ultimately came to the conclusion that he needed assistance and referred to his fellow deities of the Pantheon. Aside from Minerva, who declined to offer advice, as she wished to remain entirely impartial should she ever need to judge Rubia, the rest of them suggested all sorts of approaches that came into conflict. It seemed like none could decide what to do about the child.”
“…” Now that he was reminded of something, he also asked, “What about you? Rubia still respects you, doesn’t she?”
Fenrir snorted, unamused. “I was far from an ideal parental model. Rubia’s brash stubbornness combined with frequent commitment issues made her a trouble case on many fronts. Her desires and aspirations constantly shifted and even came to be diametrically opposite at times. The most I could offer her were my sympathies whenever she needed someone to speak to.”
Cloud was disappointed. After all that the wolf admitted about Rubia up to now, it completely overturned his view of these gods for the worse and now the entire cast of the Pantheon just felt like the makings of a poorly managed sitcom. Were these really the almighty “Gods” that they were always meant to respect? How could they be so disorganized… Well, now that he thought about it again, it wasn’t much different for humanity either.
Fenrir lowered his head in shame. “More or less, we all had a part in Rubia’s disastrous upbringing. In some ways, perhaps the ‘doomed’ fate of this planet was always an inevitability.”
“Hey. I don’t want to hear that coming from one of our Summons. You’re the gods of this world we live on. If even you guys can’t get your shit together, what luck do we humans have?”
“…” Fenrir raised his head again. “In any case, the fact remains that we cannot touch Tiamat at this time. Even if I have my grievances with the policy, I am not in the position to argue with the entire Court. We will simply have to make do with addressing Jenova as is.”
“What are you saying?” Cloud stepped forward, throwing out an open hand. “You’re all not ‘allowed’ because of some outdated rule that even you hate, so you’re just going to give up!?”
“On the contrary. We cannot, but you can.”
“Huh?”
“Cloud, there is a simple reason why I chose to make a contract with you: you have the makings of a hero. This story has been written by the villain for far too long, and it will be up to you and your allies to turn the tides of battle in your favor.”
“You’re… leaving it up to me?” The disbelief setting in only made him angrier. “Are you serious!? After all that we went through recently, all the times I had to call on your power, you think you can just sit back? Sephiroth and Jenova have some way to cheat and overwrite reality! That’s why we needed Bahamut’s and your help to beat her back then! What do you want me to do!?”
“At ease. I do not intend to leave you to fend for yourself.”
That seemed to calm him down a bit, but he wasn’t quite convinced yet. “Then…?”
“I will lend my assistance in any way possible, but before I can return to ‘reality’, there is one thing you must understand about this world, so you can better understand how Sephiroth has come to defy its rules.”
“Uh… What do you mean?”
Fenrir’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “As with the case of ‘Jenova’, this ‘Sephiroth’ is not the same man you once knew. He is much more of a danger, not just to this world at large, but even to the background system that runs it.”
Cloud blinked blankly. This Sephiroth isn’t the “same”? Background system? Where the heck is Fenrir going with this?
“Though it may be difficult for you to grasp, I can only put it bluntly.” Fenrir took a pause to make sure Cloud was listening and then proceeded, “During his investigations, Bahamut discovered not only the true signature behind Jenova’s processes, but also the signature that Sephiroth held was not the same. For some unknown reason, he has been completely separate and distinct from Jenova, despite seemingly able to manipulate her to his will.”
“…Huh?” Cloud looked so confused that he was doubtful. “What do you mean? Isn’t he made of Jenova cells?”
“Under normal circumstances, that is, given his history as you know, he would no doubt be a construct of Jenova, yes. However, something must have changed. The man has been redefined by new properties and attributes, some of which do not align with any of the tiers of administration by which this system of ‘Gaia’ is operated.”
“…?”
Fenrir gave a worried sigh, having suspected this would happen. “Let us put it this way. There is a certain system that governs the running operations of this world in which we exist. In a way, you can think of it as a computer program, though it does not run on any computer and is likewise contained within the knowledge of the Lifestream. This system has multiple tiers with different levels of access from each. Those of you who exist only within the ‘Surface’ tier would have none whatsoever, and the next tier is reserved for the Planet Guardians at large, which include me and some others. The third tier is reserved for the Rulers of the Outer Realms, which include Bahamut and the rest of the Pantheon. There is another tier even beyond that, where only Minerva and a select few others would be allowed.”
Cloud was still trying to keep up for the sake of understanding it, but was very quickly losing interest in all the jargonistic gobbledygook. “…Okay.”
“However, Sephiroth is an exception. As I said, he has properties that extend beyond his usual tier, which do not follow any of the ones I’ve listed.” He glanced aside as he recalled something and his eyes narrowed with suspicion. “As it happens, there was only one other instance of such an anomaly taking place.”
“Anomaly…?” As soon as the wolf said the word, Cloud felt a sinking feeling.
“Yes. The girl named Ruby.”
He knew it. But the more he thought about it, the worse the implications became. “Wait. Are you saying Sephiroth somehow gained these ‘attributes’ from her? Like, after he killed Rubia and stole pieces of Ruby’s soul or something?”
“After that…?” Fenrir thought it over again and seemed to grow even graver in the face as he recalled something. “No. Though Bahamut could not find a specific time or date to the changes, he suspected they may have been integrated even earlier. They precede his procurement of the Black Materia, at the most recent.”
Cloud backed up a bit from being taken aback. “What? When did he ever get a chance before then?”
Fenrir admitted with a concerned frown, “I do not know. He may have had them for a long time, or he may have just recently acquired them. Where he could have acquired them is also unknown. Regardless, I fear he is becoming a similar case as with Ruby. If left attended, he may truly ‘break’ this world much further than what even a Great Reset would be able to restore.”
Cloud stared back for another moment and then slowly shook his head, stunned as the revelations began to sink in. He knew it was a possibility that Sephiroth would target Rubia ever since she mentioned that she was keeping Ruby in her, but it never once crossed his mind that the man could wield power beyond what even they were capable of. This really was the true hell that he never wanted to meet. Everything just seemed to fall into place for the man ever since he started to string Ruby along.
He also thought back to the first time he met Ruby. Though she always acted independently of anyone aside from maybe Rubia, it was still Sephiroth who introduced her to him in the first place. And even back then, she said she was a “victim” of his, but wasn’t even surprised about it, like it had been that way for a long time. When did they first meet? What was their actual connection? After all this time, he was still burdened with the same questions. It really felt like the only way to know for sure was to question Sephiroth himself, but it could take a miracle to get him to answer straight.
Though likewise concerned, Fenrir raised his head once more, returning to his more regal stance. “In any case, until we understand his true nature, we will not be able to apply anything to him at this time.”
“But that’s the problem!” Cloud argued. “There’s gotta be some way we can stop him! At this rate, he’s gonna ruin a lot more than just our world! What if he somehow gains the power to hop between dimensions like Ruby could? There’s no telling what damage he’s capable of!”
“Yes, of course. That is why I’ve brought you here.”
“Huh?”
“As I said, I will lend any assistance I can offer you at this time. We must arm you with access to this system as well, so you will better combat Jenova and Sephiroth at their own game, so to speak.”
Cloud blinked again, now with a little more intrigue. “Uh… Yeah, I guess. But how?”
“Allow me.”
Fenrir then pulled back and took a seat upon their invisible floor. With a gruff bark, he called up the GUI before him as several others have done before, but unlike the rest, he proceeded to enter commands through voice command.
Cloud watched the wolf operate in stunned silence and amazement. Truth be told, there was a little thing that had been bothering him up to now, and it was precisely this stuff about a greater “system” that seemed to run the planet’s “operations”. Fenrir said it wasn’t really a program, but it surely felt like everything was building up to something like it. Or did the gods always have ways to control this world like it was just a program? Hell, even someone like Fenrir could work this stuff like he’d always been a tech expert. A freakin’ wolf god would know how to code. What the hell. Everything Cloud knew about this world was beginning to be flipped on his head since Ruby first brought up the whole “simulation” thing, and now this just came up out of nowhere? So much info was just dumped on him that even he was starting to feel dizzy.
After a little while to cover all the necessary input, Fenrir turned back to him. “Cloud, this process is a transferal of permissions from me to you. It will be quick, but you will have to be inactive when it is undergoing operations.”
“Inactive? You mean, like, asleep?”
“No. You will be put into a stasis that constitutes neither life nor death.”
He backed up again, looking horrified. “W-what? What do you mean? Am I gonna be put in limbo!?”
“Rest easy, for it is painless. You won’t be conscious to feel anything.”
He slumped, growing more uneasy. “Oh, is that all? I’ve never been through reincarnation before, you know. Not sure what to expect.”
Unamused, Fenrir explains further, “It is nothing of the sort. This is not the first time you’ve been put in this ‘limbo’ in any case.”
“Not the first time? Don’t tell me you’ve been doing something else to me without my knowledge.”
“Not I… It was Ruby.”
“Huh? Ruby?”
“Near the beginning of your adventures, she was able to access the system as Rubia would have. If I recall, you were being puppeted by Sephiroth as well, so she had little choice but to deactivate you. But it was for such a short time that you wouldn’t have registered it.”
Cloud stared off in disbelief; to think something like that happened all the way back then under everyone’s noses. “Did she ever do it again?”
“No. She didn’t have the chance. It alarmed Rubia that Ruby would let her guard down too often around Sephiroth. To prevent him from interfering any further, Rubia thus barred her access in hopes that it would block him as well, but he seemed to get around the block without issue.”
He turned back to ask, “What? Did she at least get it back?”
“Again, no. Rubia was still cautious when it came to Ruby’s own unpredictability and considered it safer to keep the block active.”
“Damn…”
Fenrir glanced back to the screen, noting that the process was now complete, and turned back to Cloud. “We have little time left, so we must get started. As soon as this process is completed, I will send you back to where you had last left off, in the crater.”
“Hey! Wait a sec!”
“Yes?”
“There’s still so much I need to know! You said there’s this ‘system’ that governs the planet or something? What, you mean like we’ve been living in a simulation all along?”
Fenrir made a troubled frown, as if unwilling to delve into the details there. “Do not think of it as that. This world we exist in is not actually a computer program. I simply used that analogy to explain the overall structure.”
“But…” Cloud raises a hand, gesturing toward the hologram in front of the wolf. “How do you explain that, then? And where are we, really? You called this an ‘empty realm’, sure, but how did we even get here? How can we even exist in a place like this?”
“…I’m sure you have many more questions, but we have spent long enough here. I must prepare to send you back to join the battle.”
“Don’t avoid the question! Who even are you?” he continued to demand, “And why would Bahamut be able to do all that, like controlling what Rubia could access in the first place? Have the gods just been programmers the whole time!?”
“…” Fenrir shut his eyes for a pensive moment.
“I can’t believe this…” he groaned to himself, grasping his aching head. “What the hell have we been fighting for? If everything’s just been virtual, then maybe we should just go ahead with the ‘Great Reset’. Sure would save us some headaches around dealing with Sephiroth…”
The wolf then opened them again and ever so calmly replied, “Cloud. Don’t be mistaken.”
“Huh?”
“Everything that which has led us to this point, from when Minerva first granted Bahamut custody to Rubia, to your initial encounter with Ruby and the journey so far, it was all for Rubia’s sake.”
“…”
“There will come a time when you will meet Rubia again. She will be able to explain in much further detail. Now, we are running out of time and must get started on this transfer.”
Cloud shook his head, still reeling from all that which he just learned. He didn’t really expect to get all the answers from Fenrir anyway, but as the many revelations kept pouring in, he ended up drowning in all that information overload and wasn’t sure if they would ever get anywhere that felt like solid ground. Maybe he won’t ever understand this world, or maybe the point was actually so simple that everything else in the giant mess was irrelevant. Either way, he just wasn’t sure what to believe anymore.
Fenrir urged him along, “Cloud, we must hurry. I will join you in battle shortly, but first I will need to remove all these empty realms before they can be used for anything else.”
“Huh?”
“It is a security measure I’ve enacted since ancient times.”
Cloud frowned back. There it was again, the ever recurring programming theme. Seriously, who put a wolf in charge of planetary cybersecurity? Minerva? Bahamut? Whatever the case, he was just done with all this lore and mythology.
Fenrir returned him a stern glare of his own. “Enough questions. Let us begin. Once I give the command, the process will start. Are you ready?”
Cloud put up a serious face as he considered his answer, but there was still one thing nagging at him. “…Sorry, but just one more question.”
Though his patience wearing thin by now, Fenrir obliged one last time, “What?”
“What’s gonna happen with Ruby?”
“Ruby?”
“Yeah. Since Sephiroth seems to be a free agent at this point, I want that freedom too. I dunno if it’s gonna work out, but… will this stuff also let me bring her back? And get her away from him for good?”
“…” Fenrir glanced aside, looking unsure of how to put it, and shook his head. “Ruby’s situation is beyond my jurisdiction. I am not in the position to say the reason.”
“…”
“No more questions,” he insisted one last time. “We must start now.”
Though Cloud wasn’t pleased with that non-answer in the least, he finally obliged and nodded back. “Fine. Don’t keep me waiting.”
With one last gruff bark, Fenrir then initialized the process on his screen. And without any indication or warning, Cloud blacked out in an instant.
~
Sephiroth glares down Cloud, who just uttered something rather uncharacteristic, as if the words had been put into his mouth. “What do you know about this world?” he asks cautiously.
“That you’re not in control of it like you think you are. It’s not some ‘game’ or ‘simulation’ for you to escape from or mess with. This is bigger than any of us.”
“…”
“But you want it to be one so badly. You want to believe you can just ‘break’ everything and fetch your stupid Mother from the ‘files’ like nothing even mattered. But it’s not that simple. You don’t have any idea what you’re dealing with here.”
Cloud may have put on a confident face, but Sephiroth remains unconvinced and isn’t falling for a mere bluff. He returns to his smug demeanor and starts to chuckle, which then breaks out into a laugh. He even lowers his blade from the other’s neck just to show how confident he is.
Now granted the freedom to move again, Cloud jumps to retrieve his sword and swings it forward again. “What’s so funny?”
“Dear, dear…” He shakes his head. “Do you have any idea what we’re ‘dealing with here’?”
“Of course I do…”
“Then, pray tell. What are the origins of this world?”
“Huh?”
“Go on. If you know, then you should be able to answer.”
“Origins…?” Now that he thinks back, he realizes that he isn’t really sure what to follow it up with. Rubia? Bahamut? Minerva and the rest of them? Or was it all of them together? Confusing himself further, he can only answer, “It was always like this to begin with… wasn’t it?”
“Hahaha…” Sephiroth shakes his head again. “Nice try, Cloud, but it looks like the wolf’s words were just too much. Or rather, he said things that you don’t want to accept. Understandable; should certain truths about this world be revealed, it would completely upend your perception of reality. What is real, what isn’t…”
Cloud grits his teeth in frustration, but can’t actually refute the claim. “I don’t need to understand everything! I just know we’re all better off without you!”
“Tsk, tsk…” Sephiroth shakes his head with an amused sigh. “As I thought, it was a mistake to leave you alone. I turn away for a little while and you’ve been confused and brainwashed by the wolf. And by the sounds of it, he’s still hiding information from you.”
“Shut up. At least what he says makes more sense than anything you’ve ever said!”
“Therein lies the problem.” Sephiroth then offers him his free hand as a peace offering. “You don’t know enough and the truth is, you will never know enough. You don’t even know who to trust. How could you be sure that Fenrir wasn’t just making things up just to make you comply to his whims?”
“…”
“Sifting through all the half-truths is often the hardest part.” He lowers his hand back down. “It was the same for Ruby, you know. That was why I had to guide her.”
Cloud seethes, “Don’t you dare bring her into this.”
“I haven’t… because she never left the conversation. She has always been relevant since time immemorial, and she will continue to be relevant in the future.” There’s now a devious glint to his eyes. “With her help, I will transcend this world and rewrite the story as its ‘author’, just as she once did and has now granted me the role.”
Cloud clenches his fists even more tightly. “You don’t know shit about her! She never ‘granted’ you anything! You’re just a roadblock in the way and I’m more than enough to take you down.”
“Hahaha. Oh, how naïve you can be. It’s almost endearing.”
Enough of this stupid argument; he might as well be talking with a wall. Cloud swings back his blade, entering Operator Mode, and charges in at Sephiroth again. As with last time, the latter easily avoids his attempts, but to be honest, this time Cloud isn’t actually aiming to hit him. He seizes his chance to once again bash his way against the mysterious barrier that surrounds Jenova… and once again is repelled and shot at by some familiar white lasers, and he’s back on the ground. Still, he somehow manages to fight through the pain again – maybe after a few times, he’s starting to get used to it – and charges back in again like he’s gone mad.
Sephiroth turns back to him and lowers his blade, having immediately lost the will or interest to keep fighting. He’s so disappointed that he actually feels exhausted. What is this boy doing? Trying to kill himself? The scenario feels so stupid that it’s actually familiar… Ah, yes. It reminds him of the early days when he had to deal with Ruby’s stubbornness. Incredible how after all this time they’ve spent with each other, not much has really changed. Ruby’s influence is truly omnipresent as he always suspected. Sephiroth pulls up the GUI once again, but this time to ensure that Cloud would stop being an idiot, he also puts him into the same stasis in which he trapped Aerith.
However, just as he thinks he would finally have a moment of peace to decide on his next steps, yet another metaphorical wrench comes flying his way. The shapes of changing Fate appear yet again around Cloud, and before Sephiroth can input anything to put a stop to it, Cloud bursts forth with the intense aura of the old wolf spirit and somehow defies all effects of the stasis that was enacted on him. His earlier momentum carrying him forward, he crashes again into Jenova’s barrier, but this time he does smash through. The barrier shatters, silently but instantly, and disappears. And for once in his entire life, Sephiroth’s face goes pale, dumbfounded beyond words.
Blessed with all the freedom he could ever wish for, Cloud rams his sword straight into Jenova’s skull face, plunging it deep into the heart of the tree, and spills that purple blood. Vengeance at last. As she hadn’t expected anyone to be able to get through her magic barrier, Jenova Plaga is taken completely off-guard and is too late to put up any other defense before he’s on her again. She lets out a bloodcurling scream as he splits the trunk cleanly in two, which is shortly followed by flash-freezing crystals that fill up the wound, preventing her from reforming. She tries to wiggle her way out and shapeshift around the icy scar, but he’s not done with her. He pursues that broken skull, slashing over and over until he’s practically carved the tree’s trunk into a grill lattice, and the skull, having no place to escape the growing ice crystals finally shatters and falls to the ground, dissipating into black ether.
At last the opportunity presents itself. Cloud zips around the room and slashes at each of the branches, dismembering several of her limbs and letting his friends drop free – but not without catching them as they fall. Though he cuts Tifa free last, he takes utmost case to lay her down safely. She’s already lost more than enough blood for anyone to be able to recover, but he’s come too far to not give up on any of them. Waving a hand over her chest, his ice magic gets to work to help reseal her terrible wounds. He also blows a bit more of his icy aura in the direction of the others to help cover them in numbing blankets and gradually reseal their wounds as well. Though the ice will not “Cure” them, it will keep them safe as he cleans up around here.
As he suspected, Jenova is not actually finished and has merely migrated bodies. Several more tree-like sprouts, each with their own skull faces, burst out from the ground around him and close in to crush him and recapture her victims. However, as soon as she reaches for any of them, this chilling aura of his is like an icy Death Sentence to her. Any tentacles that come too close start to stiffen and freeze up, but when they do, they also shatter into pieces and disappear as if they’re forcibly removed from battle. The rest that dared to surround Cloud would be just as easily be shattered by his wide swings. As she realizes that even her multiple fruiting bodies aren’t enough and her avenues of escape are being limited, the last of the skull faces retracts on its own before he smashes through it.
Jenova was furious enough already, but now she’s also getting awfully impatient with Sephiroth, who has yet to do anything to intervene on her behalf. He’s back to looking at the system interface again, as if he were searching for something. However, to her dismay, rather than execute anything to help her, he simply vanishes in a blink like he’s warped away to a different realm altogether. Fuming in silence, she recoils the rest of her body to try to disappear into the walls. Just wait until she gets her hands on that ingrate…
Except she discovers she can’t leave. At this moment, even a heartless eldtrich abomination like her feels something die inside when she realizes what Sephiroth was actually doing just earlier. He didn’t just run away; he set the conditions around this chamber so that the walls would be impermeable to even her. In other words, he purposefully and intentionally trapped her here with a Fenrir-powered Cloud. He left her as a sacrifice.
Betrayed by her formerly faithful son and overwhelmed with rage and sorrow, Jenova Plaga shrieks with the wailing of a thousand banshees. Normally, this noise would easily shatter any creature’s eardrums, but Cloud remains unaffected, though mildly annoyed. Now driven to desperation, she calls upon a thrashing frenzy of black tentacles that sprout from the ground to try to crush Cloud herself, but he’s just too quick for her. He leaps high into the air to avoid them all, slashes away a portion of the floor to make his landing, and stamps to the ground hard with an explosive burst of ice coming from his feet that covers the entire floor in a flash freeze, preventing any more of Jenova’s decoys from forming. But it doesn’t stop there. It reaches as far as the tentacles that had been covering the exit and splits them apart, revealing the way out again.
No… it’s not over yet. He can still sense the fiend’s presence in here. He also notices that Sephiroth seems to have vanished as well and doesn’t seem to be showing up. Well, he’ll get to him later.
While Cloud keeps looking around, some grotesque purple vine begins growing up along the walls of the chamber. It reaches out right in front of Aerith’s crystal prison and Jenova’s skull face reappears. Even though she doesn’t have eyes, the red glow from within makes her look like she’s boiling with indignance. That useless coward of a son… ran away just because of this foolhardy wolf broke through his new toy? Fine. If she has to go down like this, she’s taking someone with her. It was Sephiroth’s “promise” to Ruby that he went against the grain and forced even his Mother to spare the Cetra girl. But now this is how that ingrate treats her? What has Ruby ever done to be able to steal away her favorite child!? Insolence. Idiocy. Treason! Punishable by an endless cycle of death! Let’s see how your beloved “family” would serve in it!
However, just as she’s about to reach inside, Cloud has jumped up there to meet her. Before she can pull away again, he decapitates her with a downward smash, executioner-style. Just to be sure that this weed will finally be uprooted, he also stabs his sword into the rest of the vine, and with his free hand charged with the icy aura, he smacks the pommel hard, infusing the Apocalypse with Absolute Zero, and injects that deep freeze to run straight through the entire plant’s veins until every one of them bursts. Though her defiled screams once brought unnerving levels of cacophony, they all stop at once. She’s frozen to the core. Cloud safely lands atop a neighboring “branch” of rock high above the ground. On one last symphonic note of his own, he raises a triumphant fist and twirls his sword in the air, and as he returns it to his back, the ice all around him shatters. At last, the rest of Jenova Plaga disappears into the ether.
At last free to move at his own pace, he now looks upon Aerith in her prison. Her face is still frozen still in horror as Sephiroth had left her and Cloud can’t help but feel a tinge of guilt. She went through horror at the hands of this abomination and now she can’t even express her gratitude for its disappearance. He can’t leave her like this, but then again, with a certain other threat still out there, she may be safer staying inside. Well, maybe there is still one thing he can do for now. He reaches a hand forward, slipping through the crystal’s otherwise firm edge, and he takes her by the hand. Don’t worry, it’ll be okay. Leave the rest to me. And like a magical little moment, he helps shut her eyes so that she looks like she’s simply fallen asleep. Rest well. We’ll see each other again soon.
Reminded of the rest of his friends, he leaps back down to the ground to check on them. Though he tried his best to save them, they all remain motionless. The blood is no longer flowing, thankfully, but it’s no less unsettling to see their bodies unevenly iced over where their wounds had been. Even with his good intentions, he can’t help but worry that he might have just made things worse. He hurriedly searches for Tifa and rushes back to her to check on her again. He takes her into his arms, resting her head upon a hand, and stares at her in terrified silence at what has developed. Because she had the worst trauma of all, the ice scars have covered her body almost completely, encasing her in a different “prison” of her own and making her look like a sad doll with stuffing poking out. It’s honestly even more frightening than he had last seen of her.
“Tifa… Tifa!” he calls to her, his voice strained low.
But she remains silent. He bites his lip. He didn’t expect her to respond, but in the state that she’s in, she’s practically caught on a thin edge between life and death. In fact, they all are. He isn’t even sure if Fenrir can help them; he’s not a Summon with the power to bring life back. If only he had the power to call upon Phoenix right now… He sets a hand on her chest just above the great gash running across it, trying to get a sense of a pulse or something, but there is nothing. Now himself trembling at the realization, he gingerly takes her into a close embrace, resting her head against him, and shuts his eyes tight. Tifa… I’m sorry. I was so close, I could almost reach you. Just a little more and we could have left together. Been safe together. But I just… I was too late. I’m so sorry…
“…As I said, Cloud, leave them. They’re nothing but deadweights.”
Cloud snaps awake and snarls as a certain swordsman in black has returned. He now reappears in the chamber where he had last departed and looks up toward the crystal where the remains of his mother had last sprouted. Now there are only the unliving “branches” of rock that have encased the huge materia crystal where a certain young woman rests. Aerith is looking rather peaceful, but as long as she remains there, it suits him just fine.
Despite initial appearances, Sephiroth did not run away. He’s been watching the absurdity unfold from a safe distance and hidden his presence in the background as to not be disturbed. And even after witnessing Jenova be desecrated just as brutally as she had done to Cloud’s friends, he feels nothing for her sake. She was always just a piece he could sacrifice to begin with – certainly worth more than a pawn, but no more than a rook. He is a little disappointed that he was forced to go for a castling move, though. The moment Fenrir broke through the command stasis, he realized how badly he underestimated the wolf. Though he was never on the same tier as the Rulers of the Outer Realms, he seems to have undergone a growth of his own that parallels or even exceeds Rubia’s level. How he managed to do it is honestly a mystery, but he was always known to be defiant of the natural order. This unprecedented growth was the real risk factor, so Sephiroth had to leave to make a few extra preparations. Nonetheless, this series of misfortune was but a minor setback in the grand scheme; nothing that he couldn’t work around.
He turns back to Cloud, passing off the moment like nothing of note just happened. “Remember what you said? That this world is going to be ‘reset’?”
Cloud doesn’t answer him. He gently sets Tifa back down and leaves her among his friends, all still under the protective veil of his mist.
“Of course it will. That has been the way of this version of Gaia since Rubia’s inception. It was for her that ‘Project Gaia’ was established in the first place.” He looks away again and muses to himself, “Ironic that it began as a rehabilitation program for a child yet to be born. The world you and I and everyone else have been living on was always just a playground that she never left. To think all our struggles up to now would just come to fanciful what-if scenarios for her to experience…”
Cloud now steps forward to meet his foe and draws his sword once more. Though his aura remains cool around him, giving him an appearance of composure, Cloud’s bright blue eyes are burning with a blue fire.
Sephiroth shakes his head. “But there’s nothing to cry about. If anything, you should be celebrating.” He then glances back toward the bodies strewn about the room. “Once everything is reset, you can pretend that you didn’t just desecrate their corpses.”
Finally, Cloud speaks up, “Sephiroth… I’m going to make your death as painful as possible. You will squeal and you will not stop squealing until I’m done with you.”
He scoffs. “You can try… Too bad that the one Summon you’ve chosen as your ally is in conflict with you.”
Cloud bares his fangs. “Conflict? He hates your guts as much as I do! You killed his only daughter, you asshole!”
“Ah, Rubia… Hahaha. Fair enough.” Sephiroth returns to his cocky smile once more. “But it doesn’t matter. She’s just going to come back.”
Before Sephiroth can utter another word, Cloud blitzes him. He moves so fast he’s practically warping, and yet the other still dares to match him in a clash of their blades. Thanks to the eruption of Fenrir’s aura that has encased the entire chamber, even when his strike is stopped or blocked, the chill still grows on. Ice crystals begin to encase the edge of both the Apocalypse and the Masamune, creating a buffer of space between the two swords where their respective auras clash. However, what would normally be a death sentence for any fiend to witness this ice creeping upon them, Sephiroth is totally unfazed.
“Tsk, tsk… Impatient as always.”
Cloud bounces back to avoid the counterattack as the latter flings him back, and with a single swish of his katana, Sephiroth removes the ice in an instant as if he had some kind of control over them himself. Cloud stares back in shock and grows wary, keeping a reasonable distance as he reconsiders his plan of attack.
Sephiroth simply resumes from where he left off, “As I was saying, Rubia is the sole subject of Project Gaia and even she has come to despise this world that has been carefully catered to her. Makes you wonder why it still exists, doesn’t it?”
“Stop yapping already! You wanna fight, let’s fight.”
“We’ll get there, but first you should know what you’re even fighting for.”
“What are you talking about? I have every reason to kill you!”
“Perhaps you do, but the wolf does not. Even if he wishes to help, he knows there are things that he cannot change and things that he dare not interfere.”
Cloud stares back suspiciously. “What are you talking about?”
“Everything that he stands for. From his original mission in this world to his current objectives… all began and shall end with Rubia.” Sephiroth’s smile fades and he states firmly, “All else is irrelevant. He seeks a better future for her and will achieve it no matter the sacrifice.”
“What sacrifice? After what you did to Rubia, you’re just shit that he wants gone!”
“Not at all, Cloud. He can’t be rid of me. He can’t risk it.”
“What?”
Sephiroth’s smile returns again and he sets a hand upon his chest. “Because at this point, I’m the only one who holds the remaining pieces of her dream.”
“…”
Though he fully intends to carve him a new asshole, Cloud can’t help but sense some serious danger behind the latter’s black-tinted aura. Sephiroth definitely did something to himself while he was absent earlier. This bravado he presents in the face of Fenrir’s legitimate threat stems from somewhere, and with the extraordinary level of access he wields, there’s no reason to assume he didn’t just pull some absolute bullshit out of his ass.
Nonetheless, he decides to play along for a bit, just to gauge where this is going. He replies, “Her dream… Are you talking about Ruby?”
Sephiroth nods and lowers his hand again. “Of course. Everything Rubia has done up to now has been for one and only one purpose: to protect and preserve Ruby’s memory – that is, of Ruby Liu, the author.”
“The author…?”
“She’s seen the truth since the beginning.” He also looks off again as he retells it, “Ruby Liu was but an ordinary young woman in the world that she came from, but by some extraordinary circumstances to her death, the pieces of her soul did not return to that planet. Instead, they crossed all bounds once thought impossible and arrived here in ours, to be witnessed by none other than Rubia.”
“…”
He raises his hand again and clasps it into a fist. “Realizing that such power was possible, it drove Rubia to seek any means to break free from this world. She came to have a fascination with Ruby that it became devout worship. She would do anything to be able to become like her idol, to be able to escape any endless cycle bound to their respective worlds and become the most free that she had ever been.” He then opens it again toward his listener. “In other words, Rubia too wished to ‘ascend’.”
Cloud is starting to get a sinking feeling in his gut, but he keeps listening.
“Unfortunately for her, her idol did not remain in one place upon entering this world. Instead, Ruby was scattered – or perhaps, even scattered herself – to various places and points across time and space. Though her soul held her own memories from her original world, they also converged upon memories of what she once created in a fictional story, that which told Rubia’s own history, and of what she once loved, that which told your own.”
“…”
“She has long become integrated with this world through means that even the Planet Guardians could never have imagined. She truly is an anomaly on the highest scale…” Finally, Sephiroth brings back that smirk of his. “And it is because of her that I am stand here at all.”
Cloud goes back to glaring. “You? What do you have to do with anything? This was between Ruby and Rubia.”
“Because Ruby recognized that every good story needs a good villain. And what better way to propel the story forward than to bless me with all the freedom that I need to get things moving?”
He feels a nerve pop in his head. “You sonnuva… Take this seriously!”
“Hahaha. But I am. I have always taken it seriously. After all, Ruby’s power is the real deal. Me being here is living proof of it, and even that’s but a mere glimpse.”
Cloud wants to keep arguing, but it’s ridiculous that they’re even having this conversation. This man, even at this late hour, honestly believes he’s supposed to be some kind of writer of reality. Maybe in another world, Ruby was that kind of person, one who would play with ideas like they bore little consequence. He wouldn’t know; he never actually met the real person. The only idea he ever got of her was from Rubia’s interpretation. As much as he hates to admit, Cloud doesn’t have any reason to deny what Sephiroth is saying here. But for this asshole to have the gall to say that he’s now on her level because he’s taken her soul hostage… it just rubs him in all the wrong ways.
He snaps back, “You’re just delusional! Clinging onto Ruby like she’s some kind of… plot device. Doesn’t mean she’ll do anything for you!”
“Hmph. Why wouldn’t she be grateful? Being with me means she too has the freedom to be anywhere she wishes to be. That’s the kind of power that any good author loves to exploit.” He chuckles to himself. “She has no qualms erasing whatever she deems unnecessary. Truly, a woman after my own heart.”
“Stop saying that! You and Ruby have nothing to do with each other. Just give up already and screw off!”
“Dear, dear…” Sephiroth shakes his head. “And here I was about to invite you to our wedding as my best man.”
Oh, that is it. With a feral roar, Cloud unleashes an explosive burst of cool blue aura that would normally stun weaker foes around him, but with a maniacal grin, Sephiroth in turn releases just as explosive a burst of his own dark aura to clash. And as if a metaphorical bell has just been rung, the two rush the other with mighty swings of their respective blades, meeting with an impact so powerful that its echoes could reverberate across the entire crater.
Cloud drives in hard to not even give Sephiroth a moment to slip back on the offense. Taking notes from all his previous encounters using Fenrir’s blessings, he’s come to learn something: though they may not last very long, he regularly has moments where his various senses of his environment are heightened to wild extremes. In those moments, his sense of time around him seems to slow down drastically, and he can see his enemy’s movements in advance just before they come out. While Sephiroth continues to deflect his blows, Cloud can hone in on the edges of their respective blades and hear each individual clang with utmost clarity. And as Sephiroth pulls back again for a devastating counterattack, Cloud narrowly avoids the lunge that would just get his blade caught again. Instead, he swings around with a backhand to nail his foe in the side. Sephiroth again blocks it, but is shortly caught off-guard when he sees Cloud’s feet leave the ground. Before the former can withdraw, the latter uses his own blade as a lever, lets his momentum carry him, and swings back around with a round-house kick in the back of the head, which actually leaves a thin layer of frost upon contact.
For just a brief moment, Sephiroth is stunned – not because the hit stung that bad physically or even magically, but more so emotionally. As he shakes his head free of the frost and himself of the embarrassment, he almost misses blocking Cloud’s next slash from behind. He tries to fling him away again, but the latter pivots a spin to avoid the incoming counterswing and tries to stab his sword into his foe’s side again, which the latter sidesteps this time. But as he tries to catch Cloud in a horizontal guillotine-like chop, the latter does a neat backflip to avoid it, and his feet flying into the air almost catch Sephiroth by the chin. What he didn’t avoid in time was the lingering aura around Cloud that seems to give him a tail. Like it were a real one, it slaps Sephiroth hard with another touch of ice, staining his face with instant frostbite, as its owner flips away to a safe distance.
By now, Sephiroth is getting very, very annoyed. While he brushes off the frost with his hand as if it were just dust, his anger only keeps growing. He knows that he’s not just fighting Cloud, but both him and the wolf, and their fighting techniques can get on the unorthodox side here and there. But they haven’t seen anything yet. Sephiroth has a trump card of his own that he’s just been itching to deploy. As Cloud rushes back in again with another flurry of blows, traces of the dark aura of his too begins to stretch outward and expand into what appears to be a snake-like neck. And while he keeps Cloud busy on the ground, that “neck” whips around him to seize him by the neck.
Between fending off Sephiroth’s blade and the strange presence around him, Cloud realizes too late that he’s fallen into a different trap. The snake-like aura wraps around his neck and constricts him into a chokehold, holding him in place just for Sephiroth to at last skewer him through the chest and holding him up – just like old times.
“Grk…!”
“…Now here’s a sight for sore eyes.”
“Grrrr!!”
Cloud kicks off the air beneath his feet to back up and free himself, but the dark aura sweeps around him again stops him from getting away. Sephiroth does withdraw his katana, but only to return fire with multiple stabs all around his victim’s body in a way reminiscent of another memory from another time. With Cloud dangling in midair by his serpentine snare, he then tosses him up and knocks him away with one more deep-cutting slash.
Cloud tumbles to the ground, coughing up blood and wheezing for air. His body begins to seal its own wounds with the protective icy veil, as to lessen the pain, but it makes him grow numb too. What the hell just happened? When did Sephiroth learn how to do that? He really did just disappear and come up with some random bullshit. Dammit! Whlie he totters back to a crouch, he reaches forward a hand to call upon the trusty GUI, only for the screen to suddenly glitch up and disappear again.
Like a candle blown out by a strong gust, Cloud feels all traces of his intense power fizzle away. No. This can’t be. He didn’t… As if the two conditions were somehow intrinsically linked, as suddenly as his GUI was glitched up, he now loses track of the wolf’s presence entirely. His once brave aura around him has been disrupted, and even the once protective mist that laid about the battlefield has dissipated.
He dreadfully turns his head, noticing that Sephiroth is standing behind him, with Masamune raised to his neck again, and the mysterious black snake – no, wait, that’s a dragon, isn’t it – that seems to have a mind of its own looming overhead. Cloud spins around and backs off, but the latter still keeps him dead in his sights. Sephiroth raises that blade again, looking ready to deliver a potentially fatal blow, but suddenly holds himself back and makes a concerned face.
“…Hmph.” Sephiroth glances aside as if he’d just picked up on something else. “Just this once the tables are turned, and she gets a little naggy.”
“Huh?”
“Oh, that’s right. You can’t actually hear her.” He smirks again and explains, “Ruby was just complaining to me about this latest powerup she gifted me. Funny thing is it was her idea to begin with. I’m just executing on it as she described it.”
Cloud stares back in disbelief. What is up with this guy? He can’t really be hearing her, can he? No. No way in hell. He’s just so far off the deep end that he thinks he can. Or that she’s still here. She wouldn’t be talking with him like this… like she never died.
He shakes his head with a sigh. “Now, now. Don’t complain to me about details when you barely had anything to begin with. I’m just taking some creative liberties.”
“…”
“Ruby, dear. Let’s be practical. What difference would it make between now and the near future?” He pauses again as if having a phone conversation. “Of course not. It’s just going to be a sneak preview.”
“…”
“Alright, take it easy. I’ll make this quick.”
And without further ado, not even a click-off tone, Sephiroth returns on the attack. Now helpless without any other guard up, Cloud is overwhelmed by Sephiroth’s incoming barrage of strikes, each faster than the eye can blink. Any wounds the ice on his body had once sealed are shattered and reopened, and then some with new scattered cuts and gashes to any remaining spots on his torso and limbs and even a quick petty nick on his cheek too among them. Cloud doesn’t even have time to scream before Sephiroth swats him away again like a fly, knocking him far and out of the chamber they had been dueling in.
Cloud lies on the barren ground, gasping for air, stunned from shock and bleeding profusely. He was flung far enough back to just short of the edge of the chasm they had crossed earlier. Trembling from head to toe, he struggles to climb back up to his feet, but can barely hold himself up even by his arms. When he finally does, he meets with the tip of the Masamune in his face again. He slowly looks up and sees Sephiroth standing before him, looking as cool and unfazed as always. Contrary to everything that he’s stood for thus far, after challenging this menace as many times as he has, he feels afraid. Weak. Helpless. They came this far just for everything to be flipped over, and he’s back to square one. Why? Where did Fenrir go? He did all that tech wizardry precisely so he can combat this cheating crap, but was it just pointless after all? He didn’t just give up on him, right?
As if on a whim, Sephiroth leaves his face alone and instead stabs him in the same place on his chest and lifts him up in the air once more. Now exhausted to the brink and unable to fight back, Cloud can do nothing but hang there. He grabs the blade in his hands to make sure he doesn’t slip down it, but his blood loss makes it hard to keep a firm grip.
“…Such a shame,” Sephiroth says with a hint of wistfulness.
“…?”
“If only you came to me sooner, we wouldn’t have to come to this. I could have spared you in this bright future that Ruby and I would share. She would have wanted it too.”
And for just a moment, Cloud’s grip tightens just enough to hold himself up by that blade’s edge. He’s so sick of hearing this shit.
“But it’s okay, Cloud. You won’t have to worry about a thing.” There’s a twinkle of excitement in his eyes. Sephiroth then reveals one last secret with a playful smile, “Once we’ve left this world behind for good, I’ll make sure to save you a place in our new home… as the family pet.”
“…Grrraaaagh!!”
Ignoring the rest of his pain, Cloud pulls himself forward along the blade with the sole purpose of lashing out. He reaches a hand to seize Sephiroth by his neck, but surprisingly, Sephiroth doesn’t even bother to stop him. However, the moment Cloud seizes him, his vision seems to blur. He blinks his eyes, but then realizes it isn’t his eyes that are the issue. The next thing he knows, he finds the figure that stands before him, holding him up on that sword, isn’t Sephiroth anymore. It’s Ruby. She’s smiling with her usual charm and her bright red eyes are glowing as if with excited anticipation.
No. This can’t really be her. Sephiroth has to be playing tricks on him again. But in just that split-second of hesitation, he can’t keep his hand in a firm chokehold. And so soon that he had seized her neck, his hand slips away again. He doesn’t want to see this. Even as an illusion, he doesn’t want to be a part of it. It’s too sad; he could cry, but even now his eyes are dry and strained. He’s just in too much shock. And as if it couldn’t get worse, she speaks to him so casually.
“Hey, Cloud. Sorry we have to cut it here, but I need you to disappear for a bit.”
Despite having blood clogging even his throat, he still manages to utter a word, “…Don’t…”
“You won’t be alone. Everyone will be there…” She passes a side glance back toward the cave. “Well, almost everyone. But some last-minute changes can be made.”
His teeth clench tight, but the rest of him hangs limp. No more… He can’t stand it. Get him out of this hell. Please, if any of the Gods out there are watching…
She chuckles softly to herself as if there were some joke to all this. “Don’t worry, it won’t be forever. You all have your place in this world, while I…” She pauses, and for just a moment her smile falters. “Well, never mind that. It doesn’t matter.”
No. It doesn’t matter, does it? They don’t care. This was never about the humans. Fenrir said it too: this world is “doomed”.
Keeping up her smile, she utters without a hint of remorse, “We might not meet again. Goodbye.”
With just as much expert handling of the Masamune as its true owner, Ruby lifts Cloud over the edge of the chasm behind him and casually flings him off to drop him into the planet’s depths. She watches him in silence as he disappears into the ethereal streams in his own turmoiled silence and calmly shuts her eyes as if to return to some kind of rest. In another whirl of black mist, she disappears and Sephiroth returns to the spot where he last stood at the edge of the chasm.
Silence. So much silence. Sephiroth opens his eyes and finds the place empty for once. No more fury, no more sadness, no more struggles over the factors that control Fate itself. He’s done it. He’s won. There is no one else left to stop him.
At first, he feels a soft chuckle creep up from the back of his throat, but then it grows louder and louder until he at last bursts aloud with a triumphant laughter that echoes throughout the caves. He plants a hand over his face, shaking his head in disbelief. He can’t stop laughing. It was so easy. Everything was so easy. It’s all rather stupid in hindsight, really. What an absurd ending to an absurd tale, all thanks to this most absurd power of “authorship”.
Thank you, Ruby, you delightful little imp. The game was rigged since the very beginning, but the moment she conceded defeat and let him take a victory lap or few around her, he’s been the most free that he’s ever felt in this life or maybe even the rest of his lives. From here, the possibilities are endless. Why, he doesn’t even need to bother with this accursed fake planet and all its useless virtuality anymore. If anything, he might as well travel the cosmos as he always intended and search for new realms to conquer. And he might just get a head-start on the one that she once left behind…
“Well, someone looks like he’s enjoying himself.”
Sephiroth’s laughter is cut short in an instant and he feels a grim pall fall over him. That voice… it’s certainly an unforgettable one. It comes from memories of his that he would have preferred to disengage and release back to the planet, and yet by happenstance, he couldn’t get rid of them entirely. After all, some of them fuel his eternal rage and it would be a waste of a good resource.
With a bright flash of divine light to adorn his impromptu entrance, a certain swordsman in red struts forward as the light fades, and he comes bearing a cocky smirk of his own. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it… Sephiroth?”
Sephiroth immediately feels a nerve pop in his head, but understanding that he can’t simply ignore this one, he turns around to face him and deliver unto the unwelcome visitor his most vicious glare to date. “What do you want?”
The red swordsman laughs and shakes his head. “Is that anyway to greet one of your longest standing friends? Though, that might not be saying much.” He then raises a cheeky eyebrow. “I have to say, you’re awfully uppity for someone who’s descended so far into hell that he’s even lost the plot.”
“I’m not staying for small talk, Genesis. Get to the point.”
Genesis beams proudly as if have been waiting for this moment. With a hand set upon his lapel, he then announces as if to make the occasion a little more formal, “I come to visit on behalf of Milady, the Great Goddess Minerva, as her humble vassal and bring you important information about Project Gaia that has yet to be disclosed.” He then raises his hand forward as a peace offering. “For the sake of everyone that is involved, yourself included, you would best take heed.”
“…”
Without warning, Genesis then begins to recite aloud, “‘When the war of the beasts brings about the world’s end, The goddess descends from the sky. Wings of light and dark spread afar, She guides us to bliss, her gift everlasting.’”
“What is this ‘information’ you’ll disclose? Say it or disappear,” Sephiroth snaps back.
“Oh, good. I haven’t lost you yet.” He then proceeds to business, “Though unfortunate, I must inform you that the next Great Reset has been rescheduled to be pushed ahead to this day. In fact, it will be proceeding automatically in approximately three hours from now.”
“…”
“However, Milady has seen certain extraordinary circumstances that have been developing concurrently thus far and recognizes that simply proceeding as usual may bring a number of risks. Thus, she has summoned me to address them before they get too out of hand.”
“…You?” Sephiroth scoffs back, “What can you possibly do? If your goddess wanted to get anything done, she should have sent her heavenly forces to challenge me sooner. I currently stand atop this world, blessed with powers beyond even your wild imagination. I can bring everything to an immediate end if I so choose. And yet, she thinks she can just send the likes of you to make a deal with me? You and the rest of the Guardians have nothing that I need.”
“Tsk, tsk. Let’s not be hasty and jump to conclusions now. Why do you think you’re in any position to defy the natural order as if you were among us? You know as well as I do that with each disappearance of Rubia, the world would be bound to be reset. You brought this abrupt ending upon yourself. Come the next cycle and she’ll surely put you back in your crystal cage.”
“The sooner the cycle comes to an end, the sooner we can finally be rid of this useless system. It serves no one’s purposes; not Rubia, for whom the program was initially designed; not the Pantheon to continuously commit the same mistakes time and again; and most certainly not Tiamat, who has been growing more and more powerful with each passing rebirth of Rubia. If anything, it wasn’t me who brought this ending, but by the follies of the divine court you call your sad excuse of a workplace.”
“And you believe holding the pieces of the anomaly within you will spare you?” Genesis laughs again and then follows with a sigh. “My, my. We truly have a gullible one over here.”
“I was capable of traversing beyond this world to begin with. If your goddess has seen everything, she would understand the actual severity of their inadequate security measures. That the anomaly was even able to arrive at all is evidence enough.”
“Perhaps in an earlier build of the project. But if you haven’t heard, Sephiroth, we’ve been constantly providing updates to those security measures. Now even if there were any other instances of such ‘anomalies’ breaching our borders, they wouldn’t be able to leave this system even if they wanted to.”
Sephiroth scowls. “Don’t make me laugh. There’s nothing that could be done within the scope of this simulation to be able to stop an entity that simply defies logic. You’ve all been resting on your laurels and patting yourselves on the back over accomplishing nothing of worth.”
“…” Genesis shakes his head with a sigh. “Difficult as ever. Can’t say I’m surprised, but when things come down to it, there really is only one way to settle anything.”
To which, he summons his bright crimson blade to his hand, which too flashes bright as it makes its shining entrance. Likewise, Sephiroth draws his katana forward and assumes battle stance to challenge him.
Genesis grins. “How about one more round, just for old times’ sake, old friend?”
Sephiroth glares back. “After this round, we’re severing ties.”
And just like old times, Genesis is the one who starts it. He zips fast enough to disappear from sight, but Sephiroth catches him anyway. Their blades clash, ringing loudly across the landscape, and as if they had minds of their own, both swords are aglow with energy fueled by their wielders. The two continue to match strike after strike, and Sephiroth easily hops back to avoid Genesis’ next incoming hard smash, only to lash back with a sharp thrust that shoots just shy of the latter’s face. Genesis swings again in attempt to knock it away, but Sephiroth deftly maneuvers his blade away to again resume swinging and keeping him at a distance. Sensing just a bit of erraticism to his usual patterns, Genesis nevertheless dodges every swing with masterful precision and slips past the barrage to lay in with another strike to the side, but Sephiroth again sidesteps him. This goes on for a little while, with neither side willing to give the other a chance to close in.
However, in the intermediary of their battle, the dark aura that had surrounded Sephiroth earlier has reared its shadowy head again. Just as the two fighters clash again, Genesis senses the shadow and falls back just before he’s seized in its maws. Sephiroth pursues the opening and lets fly a solid wave that the other just barely deflects in time, which leaves a massive gash in the bedrock around him.
But unlike a certain swordsman before him, Genesis isn’t one to be caught off-guard with this sort of quirk. With a quick wave of his hand and even without any visible interface, he calls on the tessellating shapes of Fate to halt the dragon’s “process” and remove it. For just a moment, the black aura fizzles away and loses its shape, but the rest of it that surrounds Sephiroth doesn’t disappear. Surprised and puzzled that it didn’t all go away, Genesis still keeps his guard up as Sephiroth tries to blitz him with another rush of blows.
As he catches the last of them, Genesis lets off an amused grunt. “What’s this? Got some new trick up your sleeve?”
Sephiroth coldly replies, “None of your business.”
“On the contrary, as per Milady’s wish, you are my business.” With full brash confidence, Genesis declares, “I’m your personal warden! You have no right to remain silent and will thus answer to me and only me.”
“You say that before you’ve captured me? You fool.”
The two split off again, but put up different guards. While Sephiroth calls upon his trusty black dragon once more, Genesis whips up his own holy light in his hand and fires off some familiar-looking radiant lasers to shoot through the rearing black mist. Again, for just a moment, the dragon appears to be struck and disappears, but Sephiroth can simply call it back, good as new. Genesis fires off even more and the same thing happens. He specifically gathers and pinpoints his lasers, coupled with the tessellating shapes in the background, and tries yet again to delete the damn nuisance, but it just keeps coming back.
By now, Genesis is starting to lose his initial cool veneer and grows irritated as well. Out of sheer morbid curiosity, he decides to ask again, “And why do you insist on keeping such an ugly pet around? I thought you were more of a fan of our former Mother. Sad how that turned out earlier.”
Sephiroth’s lips curl in disgust. “This version of Jenova is no mother of mine. She might as well be a tool subject to the whims of Tiamat.”
Genesis shakes his head and returns to his mocking smirk. “Oh, dear. Is that what this was about all along? Unhappy with your mother’s latest remarriage?”
“Hmph.” Sephiroth poises his katana as if preparing a hard swing. “It matters not with me. I’ve already sworn vows with another woman.”
“You mean the anomaly?” Genesis scoffs back, “Sephiroth. She’s a figment of Rubia’s imagination. You might as well say you have a digital wife.”
“She’s as digital as you are imposing, you fraud.”
“Ha!” Genesis draws back his blade to ready it too. “Like I said, you’re under my jurisdiction now. This bad behavior will get you nowhere with me!”
The two meet again, trading more powerful blows than earlier. They whip up the air around them and rise with the currents, riding the air as if they were in a choreographed dance of red and black wisps. With the Lifestream flowing well beneath their feet, the two continue their even-matched clashes high in the air. Genesis parries Sephiroth’s strikes and likewise repels the shadow dragon’s bites with a floating armament of light, but he still can’t quite find the right opportunity to get in any hard hits himself. However, while he has yet to land a strike either, Sephiroth has been holding back all this time to gauge the actual power of his opponent and for a little bit of stalling. It’s only a matter of time before the rest of this mysterious dragon is built and combat-ready. Even though Ruby may have complained to him earlier, there’s no better time than now to show off its true prowess. As he catches Genesis’ sword at a different slant than usual, the latter chooses to seize this opportunity to dislodge the misaligned strike and deliver a hearty blow for once. However, it turns out to be a feint. Sephiroth instead slides past the ensuing attack to lay his own counterattack that for once catches Genesis slipping. He slams him so hard that he drops like a meteorite into the depths of the chasm below.
Fortunately, being ascended to his status as a Guardian, Genesis is not affected by the pull of the Lifestream’s flow that would normally trap human souls. Unfortunately, while that cut from Sephiroth didn’t go far enough to make him bleed, it definitely still hurt. He flies right back out with a vengeance, red sword glowing again with his fury, and he meets Sephiroth again in the air with yet another loud clang.
However, at this point, Sephiroth is smiling again. Before Genesis can catch onto what’s so funny, he’s suddenly swarmed by the strange black aura from earlier. Again, he tries to repel it with his own light, but this time, the shadow isn’t affected at all. It swallows him up into the coiling grasp of a mighty black long dragon and crushes him.
For once, Genesis is blinded by the darkness and his light isn’t enough to keep it away. He’s even more surprised to now find himself in some sort of black abyss, almost as if he had been transported away temporarily. In all this darkness, it would be extremely difficult to make out the shape of a black long, but for just an instant, there’s the glow of its two golden eyes. Before he can even make sense of it, Genesis is immediately struck with total body paralysis, almost as if he were somehow put into stasis. But that can’t be right. He’s a warrior and vassal to Minerva. There’s no way he’d ever be affected by such tastelessness.
Back to reality, Sephiroth makes an amused snort seeing Genesis float still in the air, frozen in time, looking stuck in denial. Pulling back his katana once more, he charges up a strong smash that hits his trapped victim back down into the depths from whence he came. And he too gently floats down to the ground once more, whipping his sword beside him as he makes his victory pose.
It’s a little premature, though. For whatever reason, Genesis is not yet gone. He reappears back on the ground with another flash of light, stepping forward through some invisible gate as if he had just been “resummoned” to the fray. Sephiroth is not happy to see his stupid-looking grin again.
“Nice try, Sephiroth. You really think you can get rid of me that easily? As I said, I’m the one supervising you, so I have some responsibilities.”
But Sephiroth doesn’t even give him the time of day this time. He raises a hand and calls up the tessellating shapes of Fate to his hand, and points them to be placed squarely around Genesis. Once again, the man falls silent and frozen in time, caught in the middle of brushing his hair. With another silent command, Sephiroth “deletes” him from the fray and he vanishes in a blink.
And once again, that flash of white light appears and Genesis steps out from that mysterious gate. “And as your supervisor, I suggest you should rethink your plans moving f-”
Nearly losing his cool, Sephiroth snarls back, “Tell your lady that if you don’t stop coming back, I’m coming to her realm next and leveling it myself.”
Genesis nearly chortles to the idea. “Oh, goodness. If you want to turn yourself in, be my guest. Rest assured, Milady will have the perfect accomodations for you.”
Sephiroth has already lost all patience with this man. He calls upon the shapes of Fate again, and with a different silent command, he directs them to seal Genesis away for good. However, this time, though he is again paused momentarily, Genesis seems to undergo another miraculous change. In another similar burst of white light, he breaks from his stasis once more and bursts out, taking on a completely different form.
“Sephiroth, my friend, let’s not be so hasty! We haven’t even gotten to the best part yet!” he laughs triumphantly.
Now he stands before Sephiroth, towering over him as a much larger and more imposing winged knight-like figure that brandishes a mighty golden sword. He is clad in a bright ruby-red armor from head to toe, laced with streaks of gold and sporting not one but two huge wings from his back that shine neon white with the light that surrounds him. This is no longer the old Genesis Avatar; but a renewed and upgraded form courtesy of his time serving under Minerva, who then granted him amnesty for his former crimes and a fitting place in her court. This is Genesis Revelation.
Despite facing off against this new threat, Sephiroth mutters begrudgingly, “This is why I never liked inviting you over for anything. You always make it about you.”
“Ha! That’s rich coming from you.” Genesis raises his shining blade forward in a rather threatening way. “What say you stop struggling and turn yourself in? Then maybe we can finally clear the air and get you sorted.”
Sephiroth raises his own blade to challenge his. “And if I say no?”
“You don’t have that as a choice.”
“…Shame. Then I’ll just have to clean this up quick.”
“Hmph. And what are you going to do? I have the blessings of Lady Minerva Herself! Anything that you can try to manipulate will only be overridden-”
“I will be the one to decide that.”
“What? Of course not. Haven’t you been listening at all?”
Sephiroth no longer gives him a response. Up until this moment his fury has been gradually growing so far that it could even overflow into the negative, and as if by a strange twist of Fate, he is overcome with a cold chill that sombers him up. Looking unnaturally calm all of a sudden, he instead lowers his blade and closes his eyes and lets his mind drift afar. And in the meantime, the shadow dragon that had been accompanying him all this time can finally show its true colors. It wraps itself around Sephiroth’s body and overtakes him, completely masking him in the darkness, and makes them vanish on the spot. Before Genesis can make heads or tails of it, he is suddenly met by an unbelievably intense flash of light that even catches him within it.
The next thing he knows, he’s again been transported to a different realm, but this one looks like one that is of a much more divine nature. It almost resembles Minerva’s own personal chambers, but this is not Minerva’s court. The place is actually set in the darkness, lit up by dotted stars in the great sky above. The décor of the place resembles a style reminiscent of Wutai, if anything, but not quite the same either. There are solid red pillars that line this long throne room that are instead embedded with golden longs around each one. And at the head of this throne room, the clouds beneath his feet part ways to a great opening in the sky. But when Genesis turns to see where it leads, he stops in awe as he becomes witness to something truly marvelous. So marvelous that it’s absurd. Or rather, it should have been impossible. Here a massive golden long floats in perfect stability while his body coils round and round until it disappears out of view beneath the clouds. This is no ordinary dragon, but Shinryu of the Stars.
“…How on Gaia are you here?” Genesis dares to ask. “You weren’t ever supposed to be called to this planet unless Milady would allow it.”
And the great dragon calmly replies, “I have no bounds to keep me. Likewise, you have no right to command me.”
“Now see here!” he demands, “I’ve come in place of Milady to capture Sephiroth! Why are you associating with him or interfering with my mission?”
“Because that is the will of the one you have shunned.”
“What?”
Shinryu grants him no other answer. With a great roar that echoes throughout the court, he enacts a divine decree of his own that once again halts Genesis in place, but he no longer bursts out from it. And with that single roar, even he who was once promoted to the Guardians has thus been demoted once more to a more servile role. He thus loses his almighty new form in an instant and is sent blasting away out of this court to fall back into the void just beyond. Should he still wish to make his return, he will be forced to crawl back to Minerva’s realm in defeat.
In the meantime, Sephiroth snaps awake again to find himself alone once more where he stands in the caves of the Northern Crater. He heaves a sigh in relief, now assured that the annoying bee buzzing in his ear would deter him no more. Enough time wasted. Jenova has been recalled and Cloud has been taken care of. There is now only him and the remnants of the woman he calls his love stowed safely within him. He turns up to the still clouded night sky that has fallen over the crater with a solemn silence and raises a hand up in the air. With his lips moving silently, he casts one last spell to complete the final job he has left.
From the far reaches of space, a lumbering mass of stone charged with an unholy power drifts through the cosmos. It is guided by the will of the Empress of Chaos, who had once called upon its brethren in ancient times, and this time it heeds that will inherited by another following her trail. The Meteor suddenly accelerates through the vacuum of space and hurls itself toward a certain planet.
However, it would normally take Meteor at least another week to complete its journey and thus it will have to be truncated. As Genesis mentioned earlier, this world is undergoing an automatic reset within just a few hours. Sephiroth reopens the GUI from earlier and enter in a few useful commands to facilitate its arrival. In a matter of seconds, the distant shining “star” goes from invisible among the dark clouds in the sky to barraging straight through the planet’s atmosphere cover to meet its intended target. With the apocalypse officially underway, Sephiroth beams with pride and dismisses the screen one last time. He looks up to see the massive space rock hurtling toward the crater just above his own head and yet he feels absolutely no sense of danger. But instead of teleporting away to safety or to some other realm to rest and relax as the chaos unfolds, he chooses to remain here to take the full impact himself. He faces the incoming Meteor with an almost deranged grin. He is so happy. He’s been waiting for this moment. At last, he can disappear along with everything else and set Ruby’s Remnants free.
Let the anomaly spread like a virus and infect the entire system at large. Bring everything to a fatal crash and then in the ensuing collapse, wait for his beloved author to fetch him from the wreckage. She won’t leave him be. He knows fully well he’s her favorite.
Meteor crashes into Gaia, boring a massive hole upon the planet’s oldest scarring wound and rips it open again. An outpour of Lifestream spills from the depths to surround and catch it, but even the collective will of the planet is too late to stop it in its tracks. Meteor is just too massive, too powerful, too immovable to be stopped at this time. And as it digs into the planet’s crust just far enough to reach its internal “mantle”, it slows down through the sheer friction and heat of icy rock against molten rock, and thus proceeds to explode, creating an even larger burst of energy that cracks straight through, sending tremors that cover the entire planet. The continental plates and oceans alike shift and shake, and clouds of dust and debris rise into the sky to cover the planet in a blanket of all-encompassing terror. And yet, even with this hellish scene on Gaia, there is the even more explosive roar of an infamous dragon empress who finally can make her debut. However, the instant immediately following this, everything comes to a screeching halt and the entire scene goes black.
“Project Gaia” has encountered a serious error and has been shut down.
Notes:
And with that, this concludes the first arc of the final act. By my estimations, there will be two more arcs before the end of this story, where each one will be several chapters of reintegration of the many minor subplots I've left hanging.
You guys know the drill by now
- After all the crap I put everyone else through, you just know that Cloud's tragedy would be up there among them. Sorry, buddy, but like a certain OC of mine who is not me said, this was a necessary development. I really wanted to emphasize the drastic difference between Cloud just on his own power at this point versus the ridiculousness of Fenrir, but I also wanted Sephiroth to win. So I had to take a few liberties to carefully powerscale them appropriately and everything turned into chaos.
- In another version of the draft, I had the conversation with Cloud and Fenrir go a bit differently, where it would be much less obvious whether or not Fenrir is all that well-intentioned, but decided that releasing the actual hidden lore behind this world's purpose had to come sooner than later. We've waited this long for anything to really make sense, so might as well. At least I got to cover enough ground to leave Cloud confused and still be readily manipulated by Sephiroth, albeit to a certain extent.
- The fight with Jenova Plaga was an absolute mess as well. On one hand, I didn't want Sephiroth to interfere too much with the battle, especially because it's meant to show how busted Fenrir can be at full power. But likewise, I didn't want to show Sephiroth stumped beyond doing anything; he's way too cool and calculating to be bothered by this. The only way forward meant that he simply wouldn't care enough about Jenova to actually help her. Thus ensued one of the most hilarious things he's done to date.
- I honestly debated with myself about how to write the section where Sephiroth triumphs over Fenrir regardless of the wolf's busted power. On one hand, if I just had it so that Seph could just overwrite him all along, it would have been too cheap, but on the other hand, I didn't want to show Seph being pushed to the brink either. He's supposed to be the one in control here. So, as a compromise, I did at least give him a brief "oh shit" moment earlier, but recollected after he did updated his cheat list.
- Likewise, the section with Sephiroth's "conversation" with Ruby was also highly contested between my versions. I wasn't sure if I really wanted to reintroduce her like this, but on the other hand, the following chapters of this story are gonna get so weird with how she actually plays a part of the story going forward. I might as well set the scene earlier. And yes, I intend to leave it open-ended regarding Ruby's ultimate fate - at least until we meet the real answer in a later chapter.
- Also, I had a lot of ideas about how exactly I wanted to show Sephiroth being a deranged lovesick asshole, but I think this was a nice middle ground between too OOC and sticking too much to canon depictions. Like Fenrir said, this isn't the "original" Sephiroth. He knows he's special.
- Hahaha! God, by the time I got around to planning and writing for this chapter and a few others down the line, I realized how much I had been missing out by NOT including Genesis. Truth be told, he wasn't my favorite character from Crisis Core by a long shot - certain things in that game did not age well with how clunky the dialogue often sounded - but now that I've basically rewritten him to my take on the character, I realized how badly I needed a character to be able to troll Sephiroth. This is peak humor. Sorry, Seph! \<3
- Finally, there is the matter of Shinryu. I legitimately had his appearance planned for the late game of this story since very early on in my drafts, but never could figure out the best way to integrate him that it wouldn't interfere with Tiamat's rise to power. And then, I had a breakthrough sometime later while I was first experimenting with power-ups for the main party; if Cloud gets to become a super wolf, then why not let Sephiroth be a super dragon? And thus, Shinryu!Sephiroth was born. I really do spoil this kid, don't I?As one last heads-up, I eventually wish to integrate text formatting to various places across this fic at a later date. For now, I am only concerned with getting the story finished and posted to completion, but afterward, I may return to old chapters and add in some quirky special text effects through the power of HTML and my own work skin.
To anyone who may be using a screen reader to read this fic instead, rest assured that if anything weirds out your screen reader because of the quirks, it will be attached to a specific work skin, so you can turn it off by clicking the "Hide Creator's Style" button at the top of the work page. Feel free to refer to the AO3 FAQ for more questions about site/work skins.
Chapter 74: Reawakening
Notes:
Thanks for waiting, everyone! This past month or two have been a number of awful health days that I won't get into detail, but long story short, my insomnia and dietary problems continue as always. Nothing serious, but it cuts into the time I'm awake.
Btw, this chapter was also just difficult to write for more reasons than one; one of which was the emotional side. I got waaaay into the characters' heads this time around and found myself overwhelmed with various sentiments ranging from the outraged to the maniacal, from the disillusioned to the depressive. Drew things a bit too close to home in some regards and had to cut out a lot to spare ya'll of my personal traumas.
Now that I'm moving into the last two arcs I have planned for the finale of this story, it's been busy work reorganizing and reworking a lot of the dust-laden plans I had since the beginning of drafting this fic to make it all cohesive. Somehow, things only expanded even further and the several subplots I had building up are now fully realized in their own regard. Now a million words is not just feasible, but probable. Also, I ended up liking Genesis and one other returning favorite character too much just from this chapter. I may even need to update the character tags eventually.
Cheers, friends. Here's to making the best of this story and to end everything with a chaotic bang.
Outdated A/N
12/21/24 edit: Apologies for delays, everyone. My health has not been the best over the past two weeks and I have been unable to write consistently. That said, I do hope to have next chapter published by Christmas, or at the latest sometime before New Year's.
Thank you all for checking back on the regular. Remember to subscribe for email notifications if you haven't already. I definitely plan to finish this fic before the third Remake game is out at the latest, heh.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The ocean is vast. At a glimpse, one can only see as far as the horizon on a good day, or as far as the stars will light it at night. But as far as the naked eye goes, we can only observe a small slice of it: our personal slice of it. On a brisk, windy day, the waves shuffle to and fro along the edge of the sands. It may be the most ordinary thing; the ebb and flow speaks in silence to the uninterrupted flow of time. And yet, it may also be the most dangerous thing; the tidal forces catch the unsuspecting and foolhardy that venture too close and they are swallowed whole. Though Mother Nature may be merciful, as not all who fall in are doomed to stay in those relentless clutches, she is ever tempermental and quick to change her mind at a single drop of water.
And yet, even with the slimmest of chances, a victim may be a survivor. Even at her worst, one such unremarkable person would be blessed with irreplaceable gifts: the adoration and courage of her five eccentric puppies. Though most days they would be troublemakers or otherwise reclusive, on a certain day they would all contribute to this survivor’s tale. Likewise would those three unassuming young men who were just passing by become heroes on that night when they heard the yelping calls of the pups. An ambulance was sure to follow, and from there it would be up to the survivor herself to reawaken.
But before she could, she was led away by a pleasant surprise. In her last moments of consciousness, she could hear the barking of a familiar friend: a little bichon frisé who came by to visit her and wanted to play. Without a shred of hesitation, she pursued that silly, adorable spirit into a fresh look at an old world. But she went in not just with whimsy, but also with a mission etched into her soul. Come life, come death, come anything in-between. She won’t let this fleeting troublemaker escape her ever again.
~
Blinding light. One moment, all came to a crashing halt; the next, the world would be restarted anew.
Sephiroth stirs awake once more, but finds himself in a very different realm than he was expecting. He’s alone in a spacious circular room, sitting in some kind of invisible sphere floating over a bed of clouds. Strikingly familiar white stone pillars adorn the “walls” to set some loose boundaries of a place that would otherwise stretch on endlessly as far as the eye can see. The sphere is invisible, but is solid to the touch and glistens with light where he meets it. It looks awfully like a bubble, but is not one easily popped. Inside he has just enough room to get up and stretch his limbs, but is otherwise a tight space. He tries to push against the side of this barrier, but he only meets with an equal force pushing back. The sides of the barrier are much too smooth to get a grasp upon. As he gets up and takes a few steps forward, he can walk freely, but the sphere simply spins in place.
Now he realizes his predicament. He’s been relocated to somewhere he recognizes to be within Minerva’s personal realm. How did he get here? Why is he here? And most importantly, how dare they try to imprison him? He steps back to call his blade to his hand, but even as he waits, it doesn’t come. He stares at his empty hand and back to the barrier, and his eyes widen in disbelief. He can’t even conjure up any spells of his own. Whatever magic is in place here, it’s powerful – indeed, powerful enough to contain him in the first place.
He shakes his head and tries to calm down and think. What happened? The last he can recall was the imminent and absolute victory he lauded over his foes. With Cloud and his friends out of the way and a certain annoying gnat of a “Guardian” cast aside to the pits of exile, he was unstoppable. Everything was going according to plan. He called upon Meteor without fail and expedited its journey to the planet. It should have been more than enough to injure the planet and break through the seal that held Tiamat. And the very moment she would burst out, he released Ruby’s Remnants from his body to force everything to glitch and crash. If all had gone accordingly to plan, he should be free from this accursed simulation.
And yet, here he is in Minerva’s court, trapped in some kind of bubble “cage”. But therein lies the question: is this realm still a part of Project Gaia or had he managed to escape at last? And if he had, would this place be the first stop beyond it? It does make sense that such a simulated world would have to exist within the bounds of another with a higher overseer. But it rubs him the wrong way to think that as soon as he would leave one level, he would be captured in the next. No, this isn’t right. Ruby’s release should have marked a new beginning, not simply a return to form.
If he didn’t escape, then that would imply there was some additional barrier that he had yet to cross. What could be the reason? Was there some hidden backup system that was activated upon the crash, and this is the result of it? Possibly… but it shouldn’t have mattered. Ruby is the anomaly. She once defied the impossible and entered into a closed system that was, by design, never meaningfully connected to any other world. So, it logically follows that she would not be bound by any factors within this simulation no matter how it would be configured. She would be able to spread freely like a virus and infiltrate whatever system is currently active and force it to break as well. He even specified her exact purpose upon her release, so it should have gone into effect.
As he thinks it over some more, though, a grim realization comes to mind. By any chance, is there a possibility that Ruby didn’t do what was expected of her? That even at this late hour, she still had the choice to deny him? Him, of all people? He who has dutifully gathered and housed the pieces of her precious soul within his body for the past five years, preserving and cultivating it like a happy experiment in a petri dish, to be able to grow and ripen for the right moment to harvest. After all the time they’ve spent together, she can just decide to defy him?
He steps forward again to reach the wall before him, observing in silence the brilliant glow of the light upon his fingertips, but his mind only grows darker. He’s overcome with a deep bitterness that entrenches itself within and seeps throughout his otherwise empty heart. Though he knew there was always the chance that his plan would run into complications, he never questioned that any of them would stem from Ruby’s Remnants. Even as a collective, these pieces were an amorphous cloud that acted mindlessly like a machine without a purpose. Thus, he gave them one. He once touched them and was threatened to be swallowed up too, but his will was too strong to be overtaken. That was why he could afford to wait with little concern for their expansion. They heeded his beck and call. Wherever he tread, they would open the way.
Or, that was what he wanted to believe. How is it that Ruby still holds some level of consciousness that has yet to merge with him? That she would be able to think and feel for herself? She scattered her presence upon entering this world in the first place. She shouldn’t have even had enough “data” to produce a single cohesive thought! How could she have ever gained autonomy!? He slams a fist against the wall, but it simply glances off without consequence. As he steps back again, he clenches his hands so tightly he’s actually trembling. Though his breathing is still calm, his eyes are burning with feverish outrage.
Impossible. Absurdity upon absurdity. He was just messing around with Cloud earlier and pretending to speak with her as if she were still active, but now he meets the shocking realization that she may have been present after all. When did it happen? Was it like this only recently or has it been the case for years and he somehow never caught on? No, it couldn’t have been that long ago. The scraps of what Rubia had left behind were too scant and disorganized to build a complete model with any level of sentience. In fact, even without her being aware, it was by his subtle suggestions to the untrained Rubia that she was even able to shape the “Debug Room” as it had become. He was the real engineer behind Project Ruby and that sniveling spoiled brat wouldn’t have even gotten ahead with so much of a message box, needless to say, a fully functional private virtual network in which they could operate. She held her legacy and wanted to be Ruby, but she didn’t have the know-how to put anything into effect. Ruby may have come to her first, but she had to leave her for him. It was just the practical choice.
Ruby… That boundless freedom is truly terrifying. He envied her ever since he first came to learn of her existence. That freedom, he wants it too. He needs it. He would do anything to have it. He would even lower his head to her, to abandon his Mother for her sake instead, to devote his entire being to her, all so she would favor him. They could have had a truly splendid partnership, or dare he say it… a genuine relationship. As black as his heart had become, once she came to be a part of his life, she defied the impossible yet again and managed to show him a void inside that he didn’t realize he had. He was wary of the weakness it bared and had to fix it by any means necessary. As she was the one who showed him, he would have her fill it. He became obsessed with learning more about her and the more he did, the more he craved to possess her. This was a new emotion for him; one he didn’t think he’d ever have a need for since he discarded his original body. Was it really “love” or just a pure drive for opportunity? A gamble to seek power or genuine pity for a vagrant soul that didn’t know peace? Actually, it didn’t even matter to him which was which. He just had to keep her to himself and never let her go.
It can’t end here. He didn’t come this far just to lose her again. He was able to collect her together once before; he can always do it again. If she’d gotten lost, he would be there to guide her just like old times. She’s not getting away. He will never be a memory and he won’t leave her to be one either.
“Minerva! Show yourself!!” he declares with a booming echo.
However, the Great Goddess is not one to heed the commands of anyone she doesn’t see as an equal. He is met with complete silence as if this room were some form of solitary confinement. Nonetheless, he remains unswayed.
“You won’t keep me in here! I will find a way to break free, and I will bring down your pathetic excuse of a court! As I stand now, the Planet Guardians are far beneath me! There is no limit to what I am capable of! I have become the anomaly you all so greatly fear!!”
Though the silence resumes for a little while more, this time someone does answer his call and it so happens to be the one person he didn’t want to ever see again.
“…Goodness, Sephiroth. You’ve barely woken up and you’re already throwing a tantrum. Settle down.”
“…”
Genesis reappears in another brilliant flash, looking just as smug as he had been earlier. He watches his prisoner with an unimpressed look. “How the mighty have fallen.”
“What are you doing here?” Sephiroth growls. “I had Shinryu banish you.”
“Oh, I’m aware. I didn’t think you would stoop to that level of foul play, but clearly I underestimated you.” He shakes his head with a smirk. “But blessed be Lady Minerva! Milady still believed I had some use, so she spared me and lifted the exile. After all, this is her realm and Shinryu holds no authority here.”
“Likewise, I have no part of this realm or the system that she oversees, so she has no authority to keep me here.”
“Really, now?” He raises an eyebrow. “After all you’ve done up to this point, you still believe that? Thanks to your stint with Meteor, you’ve left quite the mess on Gaia with the likes of Tiamat set loose. Milady had no choice but to pull the plug and force a temporary shutdown.”
“…”
“Fortunately, damage was kept to a minimum with her timely intervention. After that, she called council with the rest of the Pantheon and they discussed matters for Project Gaia moving forward.”
“Moving forward? Did Minerva not say they would be resetting the world as always?”
“Yes, that was the plan. Unfortunately, given the circumstances around a certain anomaly you released, we’ve had to reconsider our options.”
Sephiroth glances aside, but with a subtly bemused look. Well, at least there’s something that came out of it. Maybe he was a bit too hasty to judge.
Genesis snaps his fingers to bring him back to attention. “Don’t fool yourself. All that did was scatter her everywhere and now we’re left with cleanup duty. By some miracle, her presence hasn’t done much, not even any visible changes that we can find so far, but we’ll be keeping watch to see how things develop.”
He turns back with a smug frown. “In other words, Ruby was released successfully and none have any means to deal with her.”
Unamused but letting it slide for now, Genesis then leads into the next point, “And that’s where you come in, Sephiroth.”
“Me?”
“Yes. See, there’s this thing we have here called ‘accountability’. I’m sure you’re familiar with it. You used to be such a stickler for the rules.”
“…”
He prods the side of the bubble with a finger. “Because you started this mess, you’re going to have to clean it up.”
“Why should I? This is the result I’ve been waiting for. Why would I want to change it?”
He raises an eyebrow. “Oh, excuse me. I didn’t think you were happy to be stuck in a hamster ball. If you insist, we could leave you in here, hang you off of the Tree of Life as an ornament, so you could forever remain a Christmas toy. Maybe way up high so we can just forget about you.”
Sephiroth returns a glare. “I won’t stay here and I serve no one. Once Ruby does her part, we will be free of this prison that has tied us down in this sad, lonely universe.”
“Hmph.” Genesis shakes his head with a hint of disappointment. “Sorry to tell you, but you seem to have some serious misunderstandings.”
“…Such as?”
“The anomaly you released can’t do a thing for you. She’s just the remains of a collection of data packets that Rubia once dreamt up. You might as well have thrown some digital dust into the air.”
“…”
“If anything, it’s almost impressive how badly you’ve failed to do anything with lasting impact. Tiamat will remain confined as always and the world will return to form in due time. The anomaly has been dead on arrival, and you’re still stuck with us all the same. In other words, it’s business as usual around here.” He shrugs with a wry smirk. “Almost like everything in these past five years was just a passing dream.”
“You have no idea about these five years or what I’ve been through.”
“On the contrary, I’ve had a birds-eye view of your entire journey since the beginning.”
Sephiroth scoffs back, “From what post? Your goddess’ letter bin? We clearly aren’t talking about the same thing.”
“Oh, aren’t we?” Genesis leans in with a coy glance. “Mr. ‘Project Ruby Was My Idea That I Stole’?”
At that moment, his eyes flicker to attention and he grows suspicious, but doesn’t reply just yet.
“Tsk, tsk… Don’t play the fool with me, Sephiroth. I’m onto you. I’ve been onto you for a long time.” Genesis casually brushes his hair with a hand. “Being knighted as a vassal to Lady Minerva has its perks, you see. I’ve been privy to some juicy info that you won’t find anywhere else.”
He looks off distantly, wanting no part of this conversation, but knows he can’t avoid it. He begrudgingly replies, “…Indulge me.”
“Hmm. Where to begin…?” Genesis turns off and begins to pace around the bubble for a bit before he turns back to him. “For starters, there’s your mistaken concept of what the anomaly even is to begin with. You think she’s some sort of ‘key’ to unlock the bounds of this simulated world? Oh, no. That couldn’t be further from the truth.”
“…”
“And the truth is: she was simply an intruder who played around too close to the Sun and burned away her wings. She happened to arrive when Project Gaia was just beginning to be underway, so we hadn’t set up the proper security measures yet. But as soon as the breach was made clear, we patched up the Gateway so nothing of the sort would be able to pass without express permission from Milady herself.”
Sephiroth turns back to argue, “And you think that applying anything within the system would be adequate? She arrived by crossing a path that didn’t even exist yet! Pray tell, how would it be possible to keep a boundless entity like that penned in?”
He shakes his head with a sigh. “How did you ever come to that conclusion? Your ‘boundless entity’ never once left since the system was initialized, so I think we’ve done enough on our part.”
“That proves nothing. She could have another reason to stay and remained off your radars all along.”
He looks so disappointed to hear that. “Come on. Let’s not go there. Next you’ll be saying things like, ‘She was always waiting for me!’ like some sad, lovesick fool.”
“She came to me for a reason, Genesis. And ever since, she has remained faithfully by my side.”
“Hmph.” He folds his arms, returning just as smug a frown. “And despite that, you ejected her like the blood splatter of a patient who was just leeched. If she had any inkling of consciousness left, she would have given it up anyway knowing how you’d treat her.”
“You know nothing. This was the plan all along. Soon, she will overtake everything and rewrite it as we see fit.”
“Because a little voice in your head told you?” He releases his arms and sets them by his hips, making a look as if he were genuinely worried. “This is why Milady said you were ill. Can’t tell what’s real from what’s not anymore.”
Sephiroth feels a nerve pop in his head. “And who are you to judge? If anyone’s ‘ill’ here, it’s you who thinks Ruby is just a collection of data packets!”
He gives him a dismissive wave of a hand. “Maybe there was such a person who existed in some other world, but the ‘Ruby’ we’ve been seeing all along has been exactly that: data. She was as much of a creation of this world as anything. We just left the details to Rubia.”
“Ruby wouldn’t have ever been realized had it not been for me. She was the last standing memorabilia of a lost soul that Rubia idolized, but the kid had no idea how to make it work. If anything, she should be thanking me. I saved Ruby.”
“Pfft!” Genesis has to cover his mouth just to stifle that unseemly guffaw he was about to give, but laughs aloud anyway. “Hahahahaha!”
“What’s so funny?”
“Oh, my. Are you hearing yourself right now?” He raises a hand forward with a cheeky grin. “The fallen hero who vanished for five years, only to return as a hapless lovestruck simpleton fawning over an imaginary woman he made up!” He then drops it and shakes his head with a sigh. “It’s honestly sad to see you in this state. I didn’t think you’d ever fancy a woman in your life, really.”
“Hmph. With company like you, who would ever approach me?”
“…” Though he knows not to play into it, Genesis’ smile falters and he returns him a genuinely annoyed glare. “For your information, I chose to live a chaste life since I’ve come to serve Milady. Don’t talk to me about human relations when you struggled your entire life to even find friends.”
“Pathetic. Still hung up on the past as ever.” Sephiroth reveals a subtle smirk. “This is why you’ll never catch up with me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Don’t lie to yourself, Genesis. What is the meaning of servility if not to serve our own selfish goals and desires? Pity that you chose a female who would forever place you in the ‘subject’ zone.”
“Wha- You! That’s not how it is at all! Milady and I have a strictly professional relationship! Don’t put words where there aren’t any!”
“…”
When he realizes what he was made to blurt out, he blinks in disbelief and shakes his head. He points a threatening finger. “That’s enough of you. As I said, I’m your attending officer. You’re staying in there until you’re on better behavior.”
“And yet, even with the planet in crisis again, you’ve been demoted to a mere jail guard. I’m sure Minerva would have asked some other attendants to do it if not for the fact that you failed in your last mission.”
Genesis is already feeling a nerve pop somewhere. “Say one more word and I’m putting a seal over your mouth too…”
Before he can enforce any such punishment, though, there’s another bright flash of light nearby. One of Minerva’s attendants who has taken on the form of a tannish owl flies on over and returns to angelic form. She takes a cordial bow and makes an announcement.
“Sir Genesis, Our Lady wishes to speak with you and the prisoner.”
“Ah, Noctua.” As soon as he’s in another’s company, Genesis resumes his usual haughty attitude. “Of course, I’ll be right there. Just having a few words with him to set the record straight.”
With her job done, the little owl messenger returns to her winged form and flies off, disappearing in another flash of light.
Getting back to business, he gives the other man a stern look. “You’d better behave yourself, Sephiroth. Milady may be merciful to the truly repentant, though in all likelihood, you’d sooner be sentenced to Helheim after this. Perhaps the undesirables are your most fitting company after all.”
“Ironic. Given your track record, you’d fit right in.”
He handwaves it away. “Not at all. I’m a changed man, but unlike you, it’s for the better. I no longer concern myself with trivial matters like petty moanings from a sore loser.”
“Ah, yes. Now you concern yourself with failure at the planet’s most critical junction.”
As tempted as he is to wipe that smarmy smile off the guy’s face, Genesis turns the other cheek. He instead lightly pushes against the bubble and releases it from its stationary post. Sephiroth is nearly caught off-guard when the bubble instead drops to the floor, bouncing off of the soft cloud floor below, and goes into a roll, forcing him to tumble along with it. And while he does manage to recollect himself as it slows to a stop by one of the pillars, Genesis is right behind him again with a devious glint in his eyes. The latter casually rolls the ball along and at this point, Sephiroth has little choice but to walk along at the same pace just to retain any shred of dignity. As the two cross a certain invisible boundary past the pillars, they vanish in a similarly bright fashion.
~
Minerva sits on her throne in her judicial chambers, viewing the current disrupted status of the world of Gaia through a floating screen before her. She looks troubled, almost uncertain with the state of affairs as they have developed. While normally she would have little trouble flipping the switch and resetting the simulation to an earlier state, this time she has been pondering over a certain discussion that she had with a certain legendary king just prior, who had only recently returned with his men from an epic journey that spanned universes. Through that journey the king came to realize a fundamental truth from which they all may have averted their eyes for too long. Even a goddess blessed with foresight far into the future and wisdom that spans the ages like herself is not without mistaken judgment. She’s had a bit of time to herself to reflect over the matter, and though hesitant to shift the course of history in too drastic a fashion, it may be due time that a major change in policy be enacted moving forward. However, there are still a few odd factors that must addressed before they can be underway.
“Lady Minerva? At your request, I have brought the prisoner.”
Minerva dismisses the screen before her and turns to see Genesis has returned with Sephiroth still in the bubble cage. As the latter doesn’t feel obliged to face her, the former kicks the bubble to shake it up so he stands at attention.
Genesis takes a respectful bow. “Apologies, Milady. By my estimations, he may need a bit more time to come to terms with his new reality. He’s still very much in denial.”
Minerva nods. “That will do, Genesis. I can take it from here.”
“Of course, Milady.” He gets back up and fires off another watchful glare toward Sephiroth, who is still not looking either of their ways, quite like a moody teen who awaits being scolded by his parents.
“…Sephiroth,” Minerva calls to him, but as he still doesn’t respond, she continues speaking anyway. “Are you aware of why you’ve been detained?”
“…”
“You currently stand charged with conspiracy to abet in the escape of forsaken prisoners and conduct against the world order, as well as reckless endangerment of this world due to the release of one such escapee.”
“…”
“As we are not holding trial at this time, you will not be required to plead guilty or innocent, but understand that your silence can and will be held against you when proceedings begin. Though it may be a formality, I will now ask: How do you respond?”
“…”
Genesis jabs the bubble with his elbow. “Answer the Lady when she requests, you ingrate.”
By now, Sephiroth has gotten used to the instability of being inside this cage and remains undeterred. That said, he’s also getting impatient with these stock script procedures and finally turns to face her with a fully defiant glare. “…What a farce. You call this kangaroo court of yours ‘justice’ when you can freely decide criminality based on some arbitrary standards?”
Minerva makes a concerned frown. “Do you wish to dispute these charges?”
“No… because it doesn’t matter how I plead. I’ve seen how you’ve treated Rubia in the past. It’s no wonder why she continued to rebel against your rule time and again.”
Minerva slowly shakes her head, but lets it slide. “Then we can proceed with discussion of more urgent matters. There is another reason why I’ve called for you.”
“Hm?”
She raises her staff in hand and wordlessly calls upon several holographic screens to appear along the hall of this long stretch of her expansive chambers. On each one shows a different snapshot of cornertone events that altogether form a timeline summary of the most recent of Rubia’s past lives. It begins with the inciting incident when Rubia committed her first act of suicide in the ancient temple by drowning herself in the Pool of Knowledge, only to be shortly followed by many more attempts with increasing frequency across the following months. However, what at first seemed like acts of desperation and lunacy began to connect into a line of dots that showed much more than just some depressive symptoms. Over the course of those months, she would go from being distraught and fearful to looking resolved as if she had somehow found new purpose to her recurrent lives. Though Minerva herself would be loathe to admit, it took even her a bit of time to figure out that Rubia turned her attempted suicides into a sort of ritual to expand her perceptions beyond the scope of this simulation. And while the attempts on their own would not have contributed to much, it became a warning sign when her prayers floating between her cycles of life and death would actually be answered by one such foreign entity, who thus intruded on this world with little explanation.
Sephiroth glances around idly and takes note of the particular events that have been timelined, but otherwise remains unfazed. He’s already seen all of this from his initial explorations of the Debug Room. They were some of the things that Ruby could have looked at in further detail but chose not to for the sake of keeping her adventure unspoiled. In hindsight, they all could have been spared so much hassle if she hadn’t been so stubborn, but he wouldn’t have expected it to go any other way.
“I see you’re well informed of Rubia’s history,” Minerva calmly observes.
“Yes, I’ve covered it thoroughly in my own time.” Sephiroth gives her a suspicious look. “Why are you bringing it up now?”
“Then you should be well aware of the incident when you first came to meet with the anomaly.”
His eyes narrow at attention, but he stays quiet.
“I can spare you the rest of protocol and speak to the point. This entity you know as ‘Ruby’ and have housed within your body until recently is not the same as the person once associated with it. Rather, it is a virus that has invaded and infected this world, and it was an unfortunate accident that you became the initial host.”
“‘Unfortunate’? I’d argue the exact opposite.”
“…” To his surprise, the Goddess then nods along. “In another sense, perhaps. You were the sole exception.”
“…”
“This virus is a particularly dangerous case such that it has a delayed payload that is not guaranteed to come into effect. For every host it infects, it remains effectively inert and hidden for some unspecified length of time; in most cases with no effect across the host’s lifespan. However, among those that came to share Rubia’s cells, it would trigger an immediate shutdown of those hosts’ processes and overtake them as its own. This also applied to Rubia herself. Even across some of her past lives in which she lived in more relative peace, she would still be met with uncontrolled bouts of mental volatility and crisis.”
“Interesting. You believe those instances were the work of this ‘virus’ and not of Jenova?”
Minerva raises an eyebrow. “Are you not aware? As a reproduction of Tiamat, Rubia would have been resistant to Jenova’s influence, as her mother’s own easily superseded all else.” She also makes a disheartened frown. “As a matter of fact, the moment Jenova came into contact with Rubia, she was effectively absorbed into Tiamat’s legion and the two would work in tandem as one as their goals were ultimately aligned.”
Sephiroth casts a thoughtful glance aside. Though he suspected it was an inevitability that Tiamat and Jenova would come together at some point, he didn’t realize the merge happened that early on or that it happened so easily. Then again, it makes sense given the origins of the Black Materia. The moment she was summoned to this planet, Jenova would slip neatly among Tiamat’s machinations. It made things rather simple for him, if anything. No need to be tied down to a “Mother” that once abandoned him long before he would have been born.
“All that being said…” Minerva then directs his attention to the next point, “that brings us the most peculiar instance of an infected host: you, Sephiroth.”
“…”
“As someone who was never touched by Rubia’s cells, you would have been spared the worst of the virus’ effects, and yet you would be an exception to those that saw little change. If anything, ’twas as if you had inherited the will of the anomaly herself and enacted changes to this world as if heeding a greater calling.”
His eyes trail off again. He knew this was where the conversation would be headed. After all, this was the elephant in the room that couldn’t be ignored for long.
“It’s come to be a concern even among us of the Pantheon, as normally even the extent of the level of administration that lower-leveled Planet Guardians would hold would not be able to override those of higher levels. But you’ve exhibited changes that have managed to elude even my corrections. There were a number of instances prior in which I wished to banish you immediately, and yet you continued to evade punishment.” She makes a disappointed look. “The only recourse left to me was to simply wait until you would come to release the anomaly on your own, so we would be able to detain you.”
While Genesis has been keeping quiet out of deference to his Lady, at this point a certain issue that hung over in his mind comes to the forefront. He raises an arm forward to ask for permission. “Milady, if I may have a word? Intended for the other party.”
Though hesitant that this would turn into yet another petty argument, she nonetheless obliges him. “You may speak.”
He then turns to Sephiroth with a look of intense scrutiny. “What in your right mind, if there is any left, convinced you to release the anomaly? She was basically your ticket out of consequence and you just gave it up?”
The latter fires back his own impatient glare. “Keeping her within me was useful, no doubt, but in the end, I had no means to escape the simulation. This was the only option I had left to consider.”
Genesis rolls his eyes. “How many times do I have to say it? There is no means of ‘escape’ because we have all been a part of this world to begin with, with Rubia being at the center of it.”
“Would you consider our current situation here as ‘part of this world’ as well?”
“Where we stand is still a whole other level apart from the rest, but in regards to the rehab program as a whole? Yes, it is all one system. We’re simply the overseers to the simulation in which Rubia’s mind is situated.”
“Hmph.” Sephiroth shakes his head with a hint of pity to his eyes. “That is the reason why you all can’t see anything outside the scope of this ‘program’. Everything comes down to the virtual world in which Rubia is housed, and no one is seeing what lies in the universes beyond.”
Now that he brings it up, Minerva then speaks up to inform, “There were some who ventured beyond.”
He frowns back. “What?”
“To investigate into the causes of the initial infiltration by this rogue anomaly, King Arthur and his fellow Knights left our cosmos for another from which the anomaly was believed to have originated. Through their travels, they came to the conclusion that it was a simple oversight due to the lack of a clear entry point by which the anomaly was able to transgress across multiple fronts. Thus, they resolved to establish particular posts amid the cloud networks as entry points that would be well guarded. As they were thirteen of him and his men, there would be thirteen posts. Since then, access to these posts has been reserved to a select few among us, including myself and only one other.”
As she proceeded to explain Sephiroth’s face would go from trivial interest to wary disturbance to outright disbelief. It’s not that he couldn’t believe King Arthur and his league wouldn’t be capable of transcending boundaries, but he’s stunned it would that easy for them to do so. After all the time he and Rubia had to themselves to scheme, those fellows were allowed to freely frolic as if there was absolutely no consequence? The audacity of it all.
That said, it does bring up a certain question he has to ask, “And who is this ‘one other’?”
Minerva gives him a stern frown as if suspecting where this answer may lead, but she grants him anyway, “Shinryu of the Stars.”
He makes an amused grunt. “As I thought. In other words, now that I share the level of access that he holds…”
“No. You do not.”
“Excuse me?”
“The instance of ‘Shinryu’ that you had produced earlier is not of the true being. Had it been the case, even I would have had some complications with overriding Genesis’ ban.”
“…”
At this point, Genesis can’t help but get a good riff in. He smirks as he quips, “Too bad, Sephiroth. Looks like declaring ‘infinity plus one’ didn’t actually apply.”
But despite his best efforts to sound smart, both Sephiroth and Minerva continue their conversation without him. The Goddess then replies, “I will admit, it was impressive that you could replicate the properties of the deity to a certain extent, but it is little more than a display that holds no meaningful weight.”
Sephiroth argues back with a bit of seething tone, “So it seems. I’ve barely begun scratching the surface of that work. Come enough time and even you won’t have any way to have me contained. Shinryu is no advocate of this ‘rehab program’ and wanted nothing to do with Tiamat and Bahamut’s affairs. He would have little reason to keep to the status quo. If anything, eradicating this world would be of less effort.”
“Likewise, it would be for the best for all parties that he remain detached from our affairs. That you tried to draw him into the conflict will serve you no purpose.”
“I’ll be the one to decide that.”
She makes a quiet sigh in disappointment, but moves on. “In any case, I bring up this matter to offer you a proposal.”
“For what, exactly?” he scoffs back, “What could you possibly grant me that I wouldn’t obtain on my own eventually?”
She offers forward a hand as if to gesture toward his current predicament. “Your early release.”
While Sephiroth is surprised, Genesis nearly does a double take. He raises a hand again to ask, “Lady Minerva, what do you mean by that? We can’t let him go after all that he’s done!”
“At ease, Genesis. It is on a conditional.”
“What’s the condition?” Sephiroth asks warily.
“As the initial host of the anomaly, you will assume responsibility and be tasked with gathering the Remnants that have been scattered across the planet.”
He scowls. “This again. As I told your manservant, I will have no part in it.”
Genesis jabs back, “Sorry, Sephiroth, but when Milady says so, you follow. That’s how things go around here.”
He ignores him again and keeps his attention on Minerva. “An ‘early’ release means little to me anyway. It is an inevitability that I will escape, and it will be while your backs are turned. As things stand, if you choose not to reset, you will have to face the issue that Tiamat and her legion have overrun this world.” He then reveals a cocky smirk. “Of course, you also have little choice because Ruby is now thoroughly integrated with the planet. There’s no telling what may happen if you try anything hasty, isn’t that right?”
“And stop pretending like you’re in control of any of that!” Genesis argues.
However, Minerva is not one to lose her cool. In fact, she has one simple trick up her sleeve that she has been waiting to deal. She advises the other man, “If you will not accept, there is another who can.”
Sephiroth keeps his defiant frown. “Such as?”
“Rubia, naturally. As she was the original wielder of the anomaly, she will also be tasked with collection of the Remnants.”
“An unsurprising answer. Even upon her next rebirth, she will lead yet another life that is ever subservient to you lot.”
“There won’t be a need for another new cycle just yet. As we speak, she remains safely stowed away.”
“…” He’s held this strange inkling in the back of his mind for a while, but now that the Goddess has admitted to something even stranger, he grows agitated, slowly at first but then gradually faster. “Stowed away?”
“Yes.” She now reveals a rather confident face, as if she had been waiting for this chance. “As I fully anticipated the result of the release of the anomaly, I’ve taken special exception and created backup repositories for each one among Cloud and his company and hosted them within the Debug Room, alongside where Rubia’s own has been stored.”
He feels a nerve pop in his head. “…What.”
“In other words, should the need arise, I can always call upon them once more without having to restart their lives anew.”
By now, he’s getting pretty pissed off. First the Knights of the Round Table were free to frolic and now even the Goddess maintaining the world order is also free to rewrite the rules that she was meant to uphold? This so-called Pantheon really is a farce! How dare these hardheaded deities establish law for the rest of them to follow, only for them to not abide by them when it inconveniences them? This is exactly why he’d worked so hard to break free from everything, and now they come up to him to tell him that it was all for nothing?
The thought makes him tremble with rage once more. He fires back with a vindictive glare her way. “Don’t you dare…”
As if she hadn’t just spoken something outrageous, Minerva continues on like usual, “I speak hypothetically, of course, in the case that you refuse to take responsibility for your actions. If you cannot even acknowledge the law as has been set to apply to you, a mere denizen of this planet, then it applies even less to us, who have guarded its order since time immemorial.”
Finally, he’s seen the limit of his patience. He breaks his composure and spits venom, “Silence! You deities are all just scum dripping from a leaking attic! For once, someone out of the norm breaks convention and achieves new heights that were long thought to be impossible, and you can’t even tolerate my existence! This is exactly what Rubia hated most of all!”
“You’re speaking as if you’re Rubia now?” Genesis asks derisively.
“This Pantheon is nothing more than a circus! You all deserve to be knocked down from your lofty pedestals and stamped down with the rest of the mongrels you think you’re so far above! Tiamat should run wild and bring this pathetic planet to ruin! There’s nothing of value that will be lost! And I, alone, shall rise above all the chaos and destruction! I am the chosen one!! I have been chosen by the author of this story to rule the continuity of reality as she deems fit! You’re all just disposable!! When I’m through with you all, you’ll be begging me to bring everything to an end!!”
And now, an awkward silence follows as the last of Sephiroth’s flaring vitriole dissipates into echoes that in turn dissipate into the grander silence. Genesis shakes his head and offers forward a simple suggestion.
“Apologies, Milady. It seems our prisoner still needs more time to collect himself.”
Minerva looks disappointed, but nods back. “You may return him to solitary confinement.”
He smiles proudly and takes a bow. “Thank you, Lady Minerva. I will keep watch over him without fail.”
And with that, Genesis pushes the bubble back in another roll, knocking Sephiroth a little off-kilter, and the latter falls into another tumble as he is rolled away. But at this point, the latter doesn’t care about anything anymore. It’s all so stupid. After all the effort he put in to recreate or even create anew so much in the background, ever faithfully keeping to his role in this overarching story, and even guiding the new main character down a path that would keep everyone guessing… it was all for naught. In the end, he was still captured and detained in a stupid ball of a cage in another realm where he would be quarantined and forced to sit out of everything while everyone else got their second chances. He saw it as a game from the very beginning, and he was right in a sense. But he didn’t realize it was a game where even he was just another player being led to a mockery of an ending.
“…When I get out, I’m going to rewrite this entire story,” he mutters begrudgingly.
“Keep squeaking, little Sephiroth. Maybe if you’re on better behavior, I may even feed you a seed or two,” Genesis replies sarcastically.
“You’re getting written out first.”
Genesis bursts aloud with laughter. With deviant, almost unhinged glee, he kicks the ball on ahead, sending Sephiroth tumbling like a doll in a dryer until he disappears in the ensuing light beyond the hall’s end. Despite some, or many, silly mistakes made along the way, they may still get the best ending after all.
~
Pitch darkness. A single wisp of light from a wandering soul zips about in the dark, looking like it has a particular place to go. It has no memory or recollection of how it got here, nor the purpose of arriving at its intended destination, but it is obliged to follow a certain voice guiding it there. As it traverses the black abyss, it draws nearer and nearer to meet another light in the distance.
A great crystal of materia lies in pieces, adrift amid this directionless abyss, and a certain young woman who had been trapped inside has instead been freed. She floats weightlessly in the middle of the shattered mass with her eyes still closed, but she isn’t sleeping peacefully. Though she was once right in the trajectory of an apocalyptic meteor strike, by some miracle she managed to escape the worst when her crystal prison was shoved well into the depths of the planet as the crater’s bed gave way. However, she is not relieved in the least to have survived even now. Instead, she has been left all alone to grieve. Not only did she fail to put a stop to Sephiroth’s madness, every one of her friends that ventured into the pits of the hellish crater with her, all of whom she came to love as her family, have disappeared. Their voices can no longer be heard and even what she would recognize as the Lifestream is not within reach. She is simply alone and she has no way to tell which way to go from here. Even if she opened her eyes, there would be nothing to see.
However, that singular wisp of light from earlier finally zooms right on by and swerves sharply in a curve as if it had been caught in a tight orbit by the gravity of the scene. It begins to circle about her limp body, almost like a fluttering spirit that’s excited to finally meet her, and it settles gently upon one of her hands. As soon as it makes contact, though, it stops being just a wisp of light. Instead, the light expands outward with a warm glow and where the wisp had settled, there is now a gloved hand to hold it in a tender grasp.
“…Aerith? Can you hear me?” a man’s voice speaks.
This voice… Could it be? No, there’s no mistaking it. Though it’s been a long time since Aerith last heard it, she could never forget the voice of a certain hero that brought joy to her lonely days in Midgar, even if it was just for a little while. Like a gentle warmth that has thawed her from the cold and unforgiving silence, it envelops her like a refreshing breeze and she at last opens her eyes.
She blinks in surprise. “Zack?”
Zack’s bright blue eyes seem to glisten despite the blackness and he returns her a delighted grin. “Hey, Aerith! Long time no see, huh? Funny we’d meet here, though. I always thought Midgar was dark, but this is the first time I’ve been in a place totally absent of light.”
She blinks a few times more, still stunned. She can’t even believe what she’s seeing, needless to say, hearing his usual cheer again. “What are you doing here?”
“Uh…” He opens his mouth to offer an answer, but in the middle of it realizes he doesn’t actually have one. Instead, his smile turns for the awkward and he rubs his head. “You know, that’s a good question. I dunno how I got here… or where ‘here’ even is.”
“…”
“Hehe. Yeah, um…” He shrugs. “All I know is when I first came to, I heard some kind of voice calling to me. It told me to follow and led me somewhere.” His smile returns to its usual cheer. “And it turned out that ‘somewhere’ was you! Boy, am I glad I followed it! You looked like you were pretty lonely out here, so I just wanted to check on you.”
“…”
Noticing that she seems to have fallen silent and instead looks even sadder than before, he starts to panic. “Uh, Aerith? You okay? Sorry, was it something I said?”
She shakes her head, but lowers it again. She looks so distraught and exhausted from the heavy weight on her shoulders.
“Um…” He settles back down, growing worried for her. “What happened? You wanna talk about it?”
She doesn’t answer right away. Everything from the last moments when she was awake flash into mind once again: the terrifying visage of a dead tree with a skull for a face, her poor friends hung on its branches looking like an execution ground, and Sephiroth’s cold apathy to her plight as he foisted upon her a curse that made her immediately black out. Before she can stop herself, her eyes begin to wet and she shudders in horror. She shuts her eyes tight, but the imagery still won’t leave. So she opens her eyes again and blinks past the welled-up tears, and looks back up as they fall down her cheeks.
“I’m… alone again,” she finally answers in a soft whisper. “Everyone around me just disappears…”
Zack catches on immediately. Without second thought, he takes her by the hand and draws her close into a comforting embrace. He holds her firmly even as she continues to tremble and the feeling of being in his arms at least helps her settle down a bit. Resting her head against him, she returns the hug and begins to weep softly. She doesn’t know how things came to this or how he’s even here at all, but even if it’s just for a little while more, she wants to keep this warmth close as long as she can. It’s scary being alone.
“…Aerith, sorry I showed up so late. I may not be a lot, but don’t worry. I won’t leave you alone.”
“…Thank you…” she whispers as she weeps.
He offers a reassuring smile. “No need to thank me. If there’s anyone who deserves it, it’s that voice that guided me here.”
“That voice…?”
“Yeah, um…” He takes a pause to try his best to recall. “You ever heard of someone named Rubia?”
Aerith freezes up. She blinks her eyes open again as a couple more tears streak down. What did he just say?
He scratches his head as he racks his brain for more details. “My memory’s still kinda fuzzy… but I think she told me something important. What was it…” He raises a finger in the air. “Oh, yeah! She said, ‘Take care of my cousin.’”
The realization that there may actually be a way out of this mess meets her with such impact she’s stunned like she was just struck by lightning. Though she’s still shivering a little, it becomes less of dread and more of excitement – excitement that there’s still some hope to hold on. There’s that feeling of relief she was missing. Though she’s still grieving, she can’t help but crack out a subtle smile at the little things worth appreciating.
“Cousin, huh?” He lowers his hand again, resting his arm around her waist. The more he thinks about it, the curiouser he grows. “I didn’t know you had a cousin. Was it someone you met from Midgar or way back when you were younger?”
“Both, actually,” she answers, now calm enough that the trembling ceases. “I’ve known her for a long time, but we didn’t meet in person until not long ago.”
Zack smiles back, relieved for her too. “Oh, really? That’s cool. You finally got to meet your long-lost family, huh?”
“Mm-hm. It was a beautiful moment that came by so innocently. I didn’t even know at the time, but she just knew where to find me.”
“Yeah, same with me. She even said that we never met before, but she knew me from some ‘other time’… whatever that means. Did you ever tell her?”
“No, but I don’t think I needed to. It was like that with all the great friends she introduced to me. She has her ways to find the right people and bring them together.”
“Uh-huh…” He pauses again as he tries to connect the dots. “Like some kind of manager?”
What? Aerith actually breaks out a muffled snort and she pushes off and out of his grasp. Even through an awkward smile, she complains, “Zack! I’m still really sad here! Don’t make me laugh!”
He remains in place, now as one lonely half of a hug. “Uh, sorry? But I don’t want you to be sad. Is there anything I can do to help?”
Having been reminded again, her smile fades and she returns to her gloom. Everything just spun out of control so fast that there was only the worst outcome to be had and the entire world as they knew it came to an abrupt end. When she came to again and found herself adrift in this darkness, she wondered why she was still conscious at all. She really thought there was nothing left; that there was no recovery from here and she would be due to fade away like everything else. But then she found Zack again. Or rather, he found her. Somehow, some way, he continues to exist even now. So maybe there is something left to them, after all. Though she isn’t sure of what that may be, since he brought up a certain name, she can’t just let it slide. She wipes away some last traces of tears and turns back to him with an earnest, even hopeful look.
“Zack, you said you met ‘Rubia’, right?”
“Yeah. I think that was her name.”
“Then, maybe there is something.” She closes her eyes and brings her hands together in a prayer. “We need to call her.”
“Call her?” He blinks and is thus reminded of something. “Oh, right! That was what I had to do!”
“Huh?”
Rather than wait on Aerith’s quiet prayers, Zack cups his hands over his mouth and shouts out into the darkness. “Hey, Rubia!! I found her! Get us outta here!”
And with that, the pair would promptly meet a spark of light that appears right in front of them that bursts forth and envelops them whole. When the light finally settles again, they instead find themselves having been transported to another place entirely. It looks like a homely kind of setting, like the living room to someone’s humble apartment. The lights are still out, but there is a lone candle that sits atop the table before the TV. The screen is on, still displaying a rough graphic of a familiar looking airship. It’s now parked in a completely different place, upon the Sector 1 dock on Midgar's topside. There’s a controller to the game console that has been left on the couch, but it’s obvious that someone had just been sitting there.
Zack looks around the place, looking just as confused as Aerith is. “Huh. Cozy place she got here. Guess even an ancient spirit can have a modern home?”
“Home? This is where she…?” As soon as she realizes it, she calls out frantically, “Rubia? Rubia! Are you here?”
“Hey, Rubia! Where’d you go?” he follows.
They don’t have to wait long. A young woman with long black hair tied in a ponytail, dressed in some casual wear of white T-shirt, brown vest and khaki jean shorts, now steps out into view. She seems to be carrying a tray with a tea set and a fragrant platter of home-baked snickerdoodles. However, she looks tired, her deep red eyes a little strained, and feels even deader than her expression shows.
“Ruby!?” Aerith squeaks in surprise.
“Ruby?” Zack asks, only getting more confused. “Wasn’t she Rubia?”
“Welcome. I’ve been expecting you,” comes the nonchalant reply. She comes over and sets the tray down on the table before them and beckons them to sit down with her as she returns to her place on the couch. “Make yourselves at home.”
“Oh, my gosh! What’s happening? Is this real!?” Aerith zips right over to her and clings to her shoulders, looking up and down over this person before her. “Ruby! You’re okay!?”
But the other seems a little concerned for her and is hesitant to reply. She barely gets a chance to get a word out when she meets with a tight glomp of a hug.
“You’re here. You’re really here…” Feeling overwhelmed, Aerith’s eyes begin to water again. She holds her tight as she blubbers aloud, “I missed you! What happened to you? Where have you been? How did you come back, and so soon!?”
The other only grows more uncomfortable in her grasp and gently nudges back to free herself. “Settle down, Aerith. You misunderstand.”
“Huh?” Aerith pulls away again, growing worried. “What do you mean?”
The one believed to be Ruby shakes her head and explains, “I’m Rubia.” She passes a sad glance aside. “Ruby is gone. She has been gone for a long time.”
“…” Like a flickering candle that just went out, Aerith feels that sinking feeling from earlier and lets her go. “Oh. Um… I’m sorry.”
“Fret not. I know how confusing it may be. But where I am currently situated, I prefer to take on this appearance. It’s more soothing this way.”
“I see.” She nods and offers an encouraging smile. “You’re looking good. I’m glad to see you again.”
Rubia silently looks off again, unwilling to hold eye contact for long. After a nervous pause, she then asks, “Would it be preferable if I spoke to you as Ruby?”
Aerith shakes her head. “No, it’s okay. Just speak as you usually do.”
“‘Usually’… in what manner?”
“You know, like casual. No judgment here. In fact, I’ve been waiting for this chance to talk with you.” She also sits back to get comfortable in her seat. “That time we saw each other at the old capital, I really was happy to talk. I wished we had more time before we got interrupted, but now that we do have more time, I want to make the best of it.”
“…”
Rubia falls back into silence and looks off again, and the awkwardness seems to intensify with each passing second. Even Zack, who is most out of the loop, can’t help but share in the disappointment. Still keeping it cool, he comes over and sits on the other side of Rubia to join them.
“So, I hear you guys are cousins?” he asks with a bit more levity.
“Distantly related, but yes,” Aerith insists.
“Oh, right. You’re both Cetra, huh? Um…” He scratches his head. “Actually, I never paid all that much attention to the whole ancient-race thing. People are just people, no matter where they come from, you know?” Moving on, he offers a reassuring grin. “Anyway, I’m glad to see you two meet up too.”
Rubia still doesn’t answer right away and seems to be staring off into space, almost looking like she’s questioning her life’s choices to have come to this.
Zack also glances over to the tray of tea and cookies. “Hey, did you make these yourself?”
“…” She doesn’t look his way when she answers, “Yes. Help yourself.”
“Aww, thanks! Don’t mind if I do!” And he does, swiping up a handful. He takes a bite, blinks in surprise to meet an unexpected mix of flavors, and finds himself indulging in more and more. “Whoa! These are good!”
Aerith smiles along. “Aw, Cuz. You didn’t have to, but we appreciate it!”
She also helps herself to a cookie and takes a small bite, and smiles cutely as she savors the flavors. Even despite Rubia’s usual cold demeanor, she’s still hiding a certain charm behind that mask. The cookie is sweet for sure, but not overly sweet. It has a nice balance of sweet, fragrant, and a little bitter, in fact, with a hint of fulfilling earthiness. Though they may look like plain snickerdoodles, it seems she also infused some light spice of ginger and another spice and a little hint of deep matcha in there, coming together as a complex yet simply elegant balance of sweet child-like innocence with more adult-orientated maturity. They aren’t just your ordinary tea cookies, but better.
“It is good!” she compliments. “Amazing, even! I don’t think I’ve had this kind of cookie before?”
“Right?” Zack answers with a grin, his mouth already stuffed full. “Dis gurl’s got tal’nt!”
Instead, he meets with a scolding frown from her. “Zack, don’t talk with your mouth full.”
He blinks once and retreats with a conceding nod, and gulps the rest down with a swig of the warm tea. He gives a satisfied sigh. “Ah… Even the tea’s good! It looked so green I was wondering how bitter it’d be, but it’s not that much.”
Aerith takes her own cup and takes a sip. “Hmm, I think we’ve underestimated this girl.”
“Huh? How so?”
She turns back to the sullen Rubia with a cheerful wink. “Dragon, deity, princess, and an amazing home cook? I think we have ourselves the perfect storm of a character here!”
Zack was in the middle of another sip when he does a spit-take. “Wait, what? Aerith, did you just say ‘dragon’?”
She blinks blankly. “Yeah? Did you not know?”
He slaps a hand over his head. “I didn’t! All I heard was her name and that she was your cousin! But she’s a freakin’ dragon!?”
She raises an eyebrow. “Sure, but I don’t think it really matters, does it?”
“What do you mean? Of course it does!” His eyes are now glittering like lights of their own. “That’s so awesome! Your cousin’s a dragon!?” He turns to Rubia too, grinning wide like a kid in a toy store. “The real deal? So can you transform between human form and dragon? I bet you got a cool transformation power-up too, huh?”
Aerith goes back to smirking. “Not just any dragon either. She’s the daughter of Bahamut.”
His jaw drops. “You’re related to Bahamut!?”
She blinks as well and thinks it over again. “Distantly related, but now that you put it like that…”
“Forget how distant it is! You’re related to Bahamut!? Holy crap, Aerith! Your lineage goes wild!”
Though pleased to be praised, she instead makes an awkward frown. “Zack, can you calm down a little? You’re making the couch shake.”
He stops immediately when he realizes it and sits back down, clearing his throat, and takes a deep breath to let it out. “…Okay. I’m good now.”
“Mm-hm…” She turns back to Rubia, who seems to have simply tuned out of this conversation, and offers her a more sympathetic voice. “Sorry about him. So, Rubia, how’ve you been? Hope the reincarnation cycle wasn’t too harsh on you, but you seem to be doing fine now.”
But the moment she brings it up, Rubia nervously jolts a little. After her long silence, she turns back to Aerith with an almost pained expression on her face. And just like that, the cheerful mood around them sinks back into solemnity.
“I… didn’t reincarnate this time,” Rubia admits.
Aerith blinks back, not quite sure what to make of that. “You didn’t?”
“Normally when I undergo full recinarnation, I lose the body I once held to be returned to the Lifestream as all life on this planet does. But instead, I’ve retained everything from this current iteration of me, including this appearance I designed for Ruby – that is, the name of the persona that I’ve taken on.”
“…”
Rubia hangs her head, looking almost guilty over something. “This has never happened before. I don’t know whether to be grateful I’ve retained this life or wary of what’s to come.”
Aerith is still a little confused, but gives her condolences. “Maybe it’s for the best? Like, there may be a good reason.”
“…What be the reason, there is little good that will come of this.”
She then becomes concerned. “How do you know?”
Rubia lets off a tired sigh and closes her eyes in pensive thought. Without opening them yet, she explains aloud, “Following my last waking moments, I welcomed the full brunt of that blade, hoping that it would be enough to return me to the void between the end of one life and the beginning of the next. However, when I came to, I instead found myself isolated in this humble abode, set apart from all else.” She opens her eyes and begins to scan the room around them. “This apartment room once belonged to Ruby Liu… the vagrant soul that I once idolized and wished to save.”
Now, Aerith begins to catch on and nods along. “So… this is where Ruby used to live,” she says to confirm her suspicions.
“Yes. But it was not always like this.”
“How so?”
“This realm we are currently in sits at the cusp of the Lifestream, a place generally known as the ‘Edge of Creation’. In more recent times, I and a few others have come to name it ‘the Debug Room’. From here, I’ve been able to keep watch of the world in its current status as well as keep track of you all.”
“I see…” Aerith now turns toward the TV, but looks puzzled at how rough the graphics look. “Watching through this screen? It could use a little more resolution, though.”
“Not only this one, but it is one of them.”
“It looks like a video game.” She peers down to the console sitting just below it. “And it looks like it’s connected like one too.”
“This is how it was from Ruby’s perspective. From the world she came from, everything in this world was little more than pixels on a screen.”
“Oh, wow. So that’s the kind of world she came from?”
The more she speaks of it, though, the drearier she gets. “But this life she was meant to lead in this household is little more than a reimagining of the truth.”
“Oh… What do you mean by ‘reimagining’?”
But Rubia doesn’t reply. She sinks into a depressive slump and mutters to herself, “…What was the point? None of it is real. Nothing in this world was ever meant to be ‘real’…”
Now the other two exchange confused but concerned looks. It’s obvious enough that Rubia is deeply troubled and has been for a very long time, but she seems particularly anguished by this subject specific to this otherworldly version of Ruby. Aerith tries to make sense of it all, taking every word she’s uttered with careful deliberation, but there’s still too much context that she’s missing.
She asks on, “Rubia, can you tell us more about Ruby – the one you used to know from this other world? I’ve only gotten bits and pieces here and there, so I don’t really know that much about her.”
“And I have no idea what we’re even talking about,” Zack admits rather bluntly. “What’s this about another world?”
The two turn their full attention to her, who sits in silent nostalgic contemplation for a little while before she begins telling. As it turns out, her eyes aren’t simply tired; they’re dry from being unable to cry. She’s been so overtaken by melancholy that she hasn’t been able to cry for a very long time.
“Ruby Liu was my dream.”
“Your dream?” Aerith repeats.
“She came to me like in a dream too, witnessed through pieces of her memories. She was ordinary from the world she came from and led a simple life. She didn’t seek power, riches, or fame. Instead, she only ever wanted peace and to be with her family.” She lowers her head as she recalls the grimmer side of things. “Of course, it wasn’t a happy family for her either, and her father suffered a nigh fatal stroke that had him hospitalized ever since. But despite all their struggles, the family was still held together by genuine love – at least, more so than otherwise.” She then makes a bitter scowl, looking almost jealous. “There was no need for power struggles or political strife, both of the commons and of the divine. She never had to go to war and watch her brethren fall to violence for ultimately moot purposes. She never had to face the terror of being labeled as an existential threat to society anywhere she went. She never knew betrayal of those she once believed to have been friends or seen as family, who only ever saw her purpose as a war machine.”
Aerith turns off for her own thoughts. She knows the struggle well. If only she hadn’t been born a Cetra, maybe she could have lived happily with loving parents. Well, maybe it wouldn’t be perfect – Professor Gast was still a major part of Shinra’s science division, after all – but at least she and her mother could have done without being subjects of experimentation.
Rubia then shakes her head with a hint of disdain to her look. “Though I envied her, I also pitied her. Because she never had to face anything worse than her father’s accident or his debt collectors, she never grasped the value of her simple life. Though it was by a fatal accident, she eventually passed away and never had a chance to see that value.”
“She never said a word to you?”
“She was unable to. We were separated by entire planes of existence. To her, my entire reality and universe was merely the work of words on a page. She compiled everything on a single computer and in a fit of insanity, she threw it all away. She abandoned me, to never finish writing my story, and abandoned herself, to never be able to tell her own.”
“Oh, dear…”
“In all honesty, though I idolized her in some ways, I also hated her. This person, this alternate version of me in another world, lived such a cozy life and yet she refused to acknowledge how good she had it. I wished I had a mother who wasn’t the bane of the entire world. I wished my father suffered more severe consequences for being a neglectful parent. I wished the few friends I had growing up across my different lives came to anything more than just fleeting memories.”
“Rubia… Aren’t those memories still precious, though? That there’s something to cherish even if they may be fleeting?”
Though Aerith meant the best with her words, Rubia instead fires back with a glare as if she were insulted. “No. They hold no more meaning than variable figures amid a mass of digital noise.”
Aerith slumps in retreat. “Um… Sorry, what do you mean?”
Rubia stares off into the distance again, returning to her usual dead-eyed state. “This world is not real. It is a simulation created to house me and my mother in a prison, so that we would not be able to affect anything beyond its arbitrarily set bounds.”
She frowns to hear it like that. “But why think of it as just a ‘simulation’? Are we not all a part of the same living world?”
“With every Great Reset, this world is due to be turned back. Whatever new learning experiences that could have been come to no purpose. It’s just like how Ruby treated her own creations. Lost and abandoned, fated to disappear into oblivion.”
“…”
Rubia then slumps back against the couch and closes her eyes with an exhausted sigh. “This has been my reality since my inception, and this has been where I’ve remained across the ages. There is no end so long that the Rulers from the beyond continue to oversee it, and they have every reason to keep this status quo. I’ve never had a choice to begin with…”
A grim silence falls over the room, and Aerith grows even more worried for her. She knew it would be difficult to reach out to Rubia just through a simple conversation, but now she realizes the extent of her grief that has sunken into unadulterated nihilism. This is really bad; some of the worst that she’s ever met in anyone, in fact. But while she would like to say otherwise and encourage her, truth be told, even she has trouble finding the right words. No, but this isn’t something that can be fixed just by talking, is it? If only there were some way to show her, instead of telling…
All the while, Zack has been sitting quietly, still sipping his tea thoughtfully and trying his best to keep up with the discussion, but only gets more lost the more they go on. And though he would like to keep listening, there was a little something that’s been bothering him too. As far as he’s aware, he only just came out of a long dream of his own since he passed out from his last battle. In this yet another silence, he sits forward again and decides to speak up.
“Hey, uh… Rubia? Not to cut you off or anything, but I just wanna ask something.”
She doesn’t look his way as she replies, “…What is it?”
“How do you really know that Ruby died?”
“…” Now she opens her eyes again and turns to him with a perplexed frown. “I’ve seen her last waking moments and revisited it time and time again. These memories are the only pieces I still hold of her. If I do not keep them, then there will be nothing left.”
“Yeah, but…” He folds his arms and puts on a hard thinking face. “When you brought it up, I was reminded of some kind of dream I saw before.”
“…”
“I had no idea where it came from and honestly it’s still kinda fuzzy in my mind. But I think I saw Ruby – or at least someone like her – for a bit? She was at some beach playing with her five dogs.”
Rubia glances off again, already growing weary of this conversation. “I’ve seen that too. It was the place where she had her last moments.”
“I guess? But the weird thing is I also saw her being rescued.”
Rubia’s eyes flicker wide open and she turns back to him. “Rescued?”
“Yeah. It was a pretty short scene, but there were some other people who showed up on the beach too, and they found her dogs calling for help. They even managed to pull her out of the water and call an ambulance.”
“…”
“After seeing that, I still had no idea what that was all about, but I got the impression that she would eventually be okay.”
Rubia slowly turns off again to stare into space, growing more and more disturbed with each gradually intensifying heartbeat.
He then drops his arms and rubs his head awkwardly. “But you said you saw her last moments? I guess I can’t argue that I’d know better, then. Maybe she ended up passing anyway at the hospital…” He offers a look of condolence. “Sorry about that. Seems like she meant a lot to you.”
But Rubia doesn’t turn back to him. Her hands that had been resting on her lap clench up tight. Suddenly, she’s overcome by great alarm and an intense bitterness bordering on loathing, not just the usual for herself, but specifically directed toward Ruby as well. What is happening right now? Where did those memories come from? She never saw that ending before. Hidden memories of Ruby only revealed at this point, this late in the story? Is this a farce? There’s no way the story is being rewritten even without her being aware. No way that Ruby could still be writing it.
Even Aerith is growing worried by the implications of what their guy just admitted to. She cautiously asks him, “Zack. Why do you have those memories of Ruby?”
“Huh?” He turns back to her with a blank stare. “Memories? You mean they’re real? I thought it was just a weird dream.”
Aerith shakes her head. “When it comes to her, they’re never just dreams. They’re visions or signs, trying to tell a message.”
“…Eh?”
“Can you remember anything else? What really happened between your last moments of consciousness and this dream?”
“Hmm…” He looks off and even lightly knocks on his head as he tries to recall, but try as he might, he can’t seem to pick up on anything else. He shakes his head with a disappointed frown. “Sorry. I really can’t. It did feel like I was away for some time, but I wouldn’t know how long.”
“…” She nods back anyway. “Well, at least you got something.” She also makes a concerned look. “Though, I’m not sure what this means, or why you of all people would be able to see…”
At that moment, Rubia’s patience has reached its limit. Without a word of warning, she slams a fist against the couch, startling the other two, and gets back to her feet. There’s some level of unhinged fury behind the look in her eyes, but she doesn’t look at them anymore. She instead marches off for the exit door just behind their couch.
“Rubia? What’s wrong?” Aerith calls to her.
Rubia doesn’t answer. With a vehement grip to her hand, she wrenches the door handle to force it to open. And for once, even to her surprise, the door actually does open. She swings it wide open, only to meet with the black abyss beyond, and hurries out with as if on a new mission.
“Rubia!”
“Hey, where’s she going?” Zack asks too.
“Let’s follow her!”
The two set down their cups and get up to give chase. However, by some strange machinations of this realm hence dubbed the “Debug Room”, the paths that may connect different areas are never truly set in stone. What was once not an exit at all and simply a wall that was decorated to look like a door now has opened up to a completely different place elsewhere. In a blink, the apartment room that they had all been relaxing in vanishes without a trace, and they now meet another empty space amid the black abyss once more. However, unlike previously where the two were adrift and weightless, there is still an invisible floor here.
But what they do meet in this new space is something completely out of their expectations. They do find Rubia here, but she stands before a crowd of people, all lined up neatly in evenly spaced rows. More specifically, they are people made up of very familiar company. Every one of their friends is here: Cloud, Barret, Tifa, another Aerith, Nanaki (formerly known as Red XIII), Yuffie, Cait Sith, Vincent, Cid… There are even copies of Zack and Sephiroth among them, and most surprisingly even other lesser championed figures like Sonon, as well as Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge are present as well. The lines go on for a while, seemingly listed in some arbitrarily set level of “importance” that is beyond even Rubia’s comprehension. They are all motionless, hanging in the air without their feet touching this invisible floor, but unlike the last time Aerith had seen of them, they all seem to be asleep, resting peacefully as if held in a different kind of stasis than what was ever witnessed prior.
“…Okay. This is getting freaky,” Zack remarks, taking a wide-eyed look around.
“Rubia?” Aerith runs up to catch up with Rubia and he follows after. She reaches out a hand to her. “Where are we? What is this?”
At first Rubia doesn’t respond, but her eyes are wide open as well as she looks around the room with sheer awe and yet frantic disbelief. She mutters to herself, “Father… What has changed? And why?”
“Father… You mean Bahamut? Is this his doing somehow?”
She shakes her head, her eyes still open. “No, it wouldn’t just be his work alone. He had to have been granted permission to be able to implement such changes on this scale.” She lowers her head with a wary grimace. “Minerva… what have you done?”
“Um… Rubia?”
Now she turns back to the other two, looking fairly worried herself, and she admits to a new revelation, “…This world has not been reset after all. Even having faced the worst calamity since ancient times, Project Gaia has been resumed.”
Notes:
I'm trying to be more informative and less ranty about this
- I initially had this chapter divided into three partitions, one dedicated to Ruby's flashback but as an "alternate past", and the other two each dedicated to Sephiroth in Minerva's realm and Aerith in the Debug Room. But as I got down to writing, I realized it would probably be better organized as focused on two major halves and decided to can most of the details on Ruby's flashback. There will be a time for it eventually, but I don't want to overload everything just in this one chapter.
- After cutting out the extra fat to further highlight on the two halves, I also realized embarrassingly late that there was some unintentional symbolism I had written in by the direct contrast between Sephiroth and Aerith's situations. It reminded me of the ol' Lifestream Black and White short stories that Nojima once wrote, but flipped around and dripping with irony in either direction. So it's more like "Lifestream Yang" and "Lifestream Yin" if we're going by color analogies. Haha, I continue to surprise myself with my accidental genius.
- Ruby's true fate I have left purposefully ambiguous. Whether she really survived or not will remain to be revealed in due time.
- Sorry, Sephiroth, but this was inevitable. You had to be put in a hamster ball ever since a certain Discord friend of mine introduced me to his pet hamster named Sephiroth. This chapter is also dedicated to him.
- Incidentally, the "little owl of Minerva" has never been recorded to have a specific name, but I didn't want to simply call her "Little Owl". Instead, I referred to the taxonomic name of the actual species of owl, athene noctua. Apparently, the name is just two different ways to refer to the Greek/Roman goddess.
- Also yes, I have officially made Minerva the lead developer and admin of this "Project Gaia". I guess that makes Arthur and his knights the mods, lol. They had their own silly, fun journey across different dimensions that I will explain sometime in the future.
- Zack is back, baby! I've been waiting so long to reintroduce him, but for obvious reasons couldn't bring him up until now. I did at first leave it up in the air of exactly how I wanted his role to play out here, which led to one too many draft revisions, but in the end, I settled for "clueless himbo boyfriend who just means well" just to help balance out all the depression from Rubia.
- I also previously had a draft where Rubia would have been much more aware of current events, but ultimately scrapped the idea because it would be way too expository and this chapter is so chock-full of lore anyway. Instead, she's just as lost as they are when it comes to why she's been kept out of the loop this time.No spoilers, but just a preview hint: these next several chapters are gonna be some of the deepest dives into the characters' psyches to date. I've thought long and hard about each one, and there will be a point in the end to all the madness. Please look forward to the great reveals!
Chapter 75: A World in Crisis
Notes:
Merry Christmas, everyone! I am happy to announce I am not dying and somehow have made it on time! After many delays! This one was also a hefty, chunky chapter because of all the different moving parts. Let's just say the next several chapters are gonna be hefty in their own ways too.
1/1/25 edit: Happy New Year, everyone! I just wanted to pop in and say a belated thank you. The next chapter is currently underway. As a hint for my devoted readers, I'll be taking a different approach to these next several chapters, bouncing between different perspectives. Let me know if you guys love it, hate it, or anything in between!
Outdated A/N
1/11/25: After even more delays, I have finished editing the new chapter. Since I've kept you all waiting for a while, I'll post it tomorrow.
6/4/25 edit: Corrected the inconsistency in chapter 70, regarding Jessie's gang's whereabouts. I dunno how it's taken me this long to get to that.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
What once had been and what now has become have crossed uncanny paths. With Meteor threatening the planet, it brought the entirety of the Lifestream to rise against it and the resulting clash could have gone either way. Just this once, the Lifestream was able to band together at the last minute and hold off Meteor from descending too far into the planet’s core, pressing back against it like a natural cushion that greatly slowed its momentum. And then, like an unknown magic spell was cast, it was “dismissed” in an instant and the world was restored to its last viable state.
However, it is not to say that there was no consequence. Ultimately, Meteor did crash into the planet, and much of the surrounding landscape of the Far North was devastated by the initial impact. While the vast black crater itself did not appear to change much at a glance – aside from looking a little wider and deeper than before – all signs of life that once was flourishing in its depths have come to a sudden halt. In the planet’s attempt to push back the collective threat, it exhausted much of its internal strength. There would be nothing to stop the ensuing waves of avalanches that followed the massive quakes, and a certain Great Glacier would be buried in even more ice and snow that barred any reasonable entry. Even much of the surrounding wildlife at the outskirts of the impact was eradicated by the shockwaves, and only the most resilient that hid away would be able to weather the ensuing drought of life. By some miracle, the residents of Icicle Inn narrowly avoided the worst, being just at the outskirts of the destruction, but they too soon found themselves cut off from the rest of the world as well.
The repercussions were felt all over and to immediate effect. Mass-sweeping blackouts hit all towns that depended on Shinra Company’s mako reactors. Many of these towns faced energy panics trying to restore backup reserves and even other more unfortunate ones would be left with little choice but to fend for themselves. Furthermore, the resulting EMP-like blast from the impact also knocked out much of the global network of cell towers and if still somehow viable, they would require manual input to be restarted. That alone wouldn’t be such a tall order if not for the withdrawal of troops from many small towns due to the increased aggression of fiends elsewhere, and many of these towns once safely shielded by Shinra instead found themselves completely vulnerable for the first time since their establishment. Even in the ever resilient city of Midgar, though well equipped with plenty of backup generators to alleviate the worst of the emergency, it was clear to the company executives that they just met an unprecedented shortage that painted a grim future ahead if they did not seek new sources. And yet, switching to an alternative source would bring its own host of complications that most of them seem less than inclined to accept.
But a little global blackout wouldn’t even be the worst problem humanity would have to face. In a desperate bid to restore what was lost, the last of the planet’s diminished cries woke the fated Weapons from their deep slumber. Five juggernauts in all – the planet’s most destructive power barring Meteor itself – hence arose from the depths of the great reopened wound and prepared to launch a global-scale attack on the rest of the planet’s surface. They were aided and abetted by many lesser Weapons that sprouted from the depths of the oceans and even the center of certain abandoned reactors. Even the lands that once resisted Shinra would not be spared and those that once communed with nature would flee in fear of the wrath of the planet. Too much was lost too fast, and the planet demanded the price be paid. The roars of the Weapons rang out and echoed across the world; their outcry to signify the beginning of the end.
In ancient times, even when the world was once brought to its proverbial knees, there were heroes that rose to legend who fended off the greatest threats and restored a lasting peace. However, in this new timeline, the world’s long awaited heroes – the ones that could have been – have all vanished.
~
It came as a shock to most of the residents of Midgar living topside that their very world would seem to flip upside-down in a single week’s series of events. One day, there was simply a tense silence from the city’s authorities immediately following a certain disaster up north, but everyone was advised to carry on as usual as if nothing happened, despite the fact that everyone would be subject to sporadic blackouts from time to time without explanation. Then, after six whole days of uncomfortable silence on the matter, the mayor finally came out to declare the city would be put in a state of emergency. He shortly appeared on Shinra’s central news network, SNN, to announce the results of closed-door deliberations that the city council had with the Shinra executives on short notice. There were a number of changes that would be made to city policies, and though they were deemed necessary measures, none would be welcome news.
For starters, the city would hence undergo a city-wide lockdown and the outer gates barred for an indeterminate length of time, where no one but those granted express permission from the municipal government would be allowed to enter or leave – though it would be obvious to anyone that the heads of Shinra would have free reign to decide for themselves regardless. Exceptions could be made for certain professions and trades, especially those that manage and facilitate the distribution of public goods and services in and out between Midgar and its neighboring allied countries. This would include the mobilization of troops as well as Soldier operatives out of Midgar to various towns that were reported to be in crisis. Thus, the lockdown was justified as a public safety measure while the scant Soldier operatives that would remain were determined to be the “best of the best” to ensure the city would be safe. (But no one was informed that these Soldiers would be the very reason why no mere commoner would be able to leave.) For another, the city would have to undergo energy rationing. In other words, at periodic times during the day, each sector would be scheduled for temporary blackouts to help curb “excessive” consumption. And least popular of all, there would indeed be a supposedly temporary tax hike in the meantime to help cover for any other unaccounted costs or damages. Needless to say, the sudden news drop didn’t give the people much time to prepare, but before dissidents could rally together following the mayor’s declaration, President Rufus then shortly appeared onscreen to address everyone’s concerns.
“Citizens of Midgar. This is the president of Shinra Energy Company speaking. As you’ve just heard from the mayor, this city will be undergoing a lockdown and strict rationing. I understand that these will be trying times. Rest assured that we at Shinra will continue to serve everyone dutifully to the best extent within reason. Though this may be the worst energy shortage that this company has come to face in recent history, this city is well-equipped with plenty of reserves that will let us hold off the worst for another year while we sort out the situation. No matter the circumstances, the Shinra Company, together with the faithful and resilient people of Midgar, will continue to strive for greatness and thrive despite adversity.”
While he would move on to address other issues and details to the policy changes to be enacted, with a very vague mention of some perceived “outside threat”, an uneasy crowd of Shinra employees, both currently active and retired, began to form outside the lobby of their company HQ. Given all the secrecy behind the deliberations between the city council and the company, a number of concerned citizens gathered at the front steps to protest the lack of transparency and bring up various issues that were yet being overlooked – such as the current blackout of communication lines coming from and going outside of Midgar. Among them would be some residents of Sector 7’s topside. While their sector was ultimately spared a horrific fate that would instead beset their neighboring Sector 8, most of the crisis from that time was swept under the rug following the disaster. Though most chose to remain quiet and turn the other way, a number of residents began to openly suspect that Shinra’s silence on the incident spoke way more to the precariousness of their own situation.
One among the crowd happens to be a woman of middle age with short brunette hair, who bears a solemn expression on her face as she listens to the news. This is Jessie’s mother, one among several disenfranchised Shinra employees who considered leaving the company in the past, but decided to stay as they were still living in Midgar. Ever since her husband fell ill due to overexposure to mako while working in one of the reactors, she’s been holding a quiet grudge that she’s tried her best to keep suppressed. The man has been comatose ever since, and they weren’t issued any due compensation aside from a half-hearted corporate apology letter. And while Jessie hadn’t spoken out much, especially since she seems to be busy out of town as of late, even the mother could tell at a glance that her daughter was definitely harboring ill feelings toward this company. The least she could do as a mother is stand up for her family and speak out when given the chance.
After a momentary pause, though, Rufus’ speech now takes a different turn: “Incidentally, while they are still ongoing, our private investigations have led us to a few probable causes – all of which may have unfortunate implications. There is a real possibility that the series of events that recently struck our city may in fact not be simple coincidence.”
The crowd begins to murmur amongst themselves. Not coincidence? So, were those things actually planned? By whom? Where is the president going with this?
“For starters, various terrorist activities have been linked to one particular group that call themselves ‘Avalanche’. I’m sure many of you have heard of the terrible Sector 8 plate collapse in the news not too long ago. At the heart of the incident was a certain white dragon that had previously been sighted at the 7-6 Annex explosion, and though it appears it has vanished altogether over this past week, we nonetheless have to conclude that it was also responsible for the plate collapse. However, even more recently, Avalanche has taken full advantage of the tragedy and only continued to stir violence and riots in the streets. Fortunately, with our agents’ quick response, most of the inciting parties have been detained, though a few scattered fugitives seem to have fled out of town. We’re currently looking into the matter and will bring updates as they arrive.”
Now the murmurs grow loud enough that people are speaking aloud and sharing their suspicions. It’s true that ever since the appearance of the white dragon that once terrorized the skies, Avalanche seems to have only gotten more and more rowdy, almost like they had something to do with it. But it’s odd to think about: dragons aren’t usually known to be friendly to humans in the first place. How could some slipshod rebel group control something like that?
“While these incidents may appear to be unrelated at first, the truth is that Avalanche didn’t work alone. They had both military and financial backing by agents from another country over the past several years. While Shinra has no intention to contribute to rising international tensions, we have little choice but to conclude that there was involvement from this country… the Republic of Wutai.”
There are audible gasps, and a few excited “I knew it!” exclamations from some people who were already inclined in that direction. However, even others remain doubtful or unsure of what this may imply. Surely, Wutai’s government wouldn’t be so brazen as to back a terrorist group of all things? They’re still under ceasefire from the war some years back. What do they expect to gain from this?
“We have sent envoys to Wutai to inform and discuss the issue, but they were denied entry without a reason given. Even now, the Wutai government has refused to explain themselves or cooperate with our investigations into Avalanche. It may be unfortunate, but this breakdown in communications leaves us with little choice but to assume the worst. We have thus deployed a second team of envoys along with Soldier to their borders. I sincerely hope that practical minds will prevail in the end and we may yet come to a peaceful negotiation. But if they still refuse to comply, we may have to recall the ceasefire.”
As the old propaganda machine is being oiled up again, the gears begin to turn once more. By now, more and more people in the crowd are growing restless, and many are desperate to find someone responsible to blame for their current plight. Jessie’s mother grows wary and worried about this crowd around her. Though they’re all her fellow employees who likewise have a few things to protest about, they aren’t nearly as united as they initially looked. The president’s words, whether truthful or otherwise, are already enough to sway the fence-sitters, and before anyone knows what’s actually going on, an argument breaks out in the back.
“Are you kidding me? Those damn Wutaians again! They’re just a bunch of sore losers, huh?” one man grumbles aloud.
“Yeah. Ever since we clearly crushed them during the war, they sued for peace. And now they’re just trying to get around the ceasefire by pulling this terrorist crap!” another man beside him joins in. “Do they have no shame?”
A woman next to them shakes her head with a disappointed frown. “Unbelievable. To think this silly war was started just because they don’t like foreigners coming into their country. And they call us the racists?”
“I always knew those suckers were trouble! That’s it, I’m getting my shotgun!” a certain feisty old woman declares.
“Wait, Grandma. I don’t think they’re gonna be coming around here…” another young woman whispers to her.
Meanwhile, a certain middle-aged man who happens to be of Wutaian descent visibly grows nervous and tries to slip away and out of the crowd, but then a black prickly-bearded man who was standing beside him notices.
“Hey, Yamazaki! Where are you going?”
“H-huh? Uh, don’t mind me. I’m just going home.”
“Really? You were so gung-ho about coming out to protest and you’re just gonna leave? Come on, man. I don’t wanna point fingers, but that makes you look real suspicious.”
“Er, I don’t mean to be suspicious, but I dunno if I wanna stick around here…”
Then, another smart aleck in the crowd points out, “Tch. He already looks the part. Sketchy just like the rest of them.”
“H-hey! Come on, let’s not go there,” Yamazaki pleads. “I’ve been working at this company for a long time.”
But try as he might to ease the tensions, rumors run rampant among the rest of the crowd.
“But how would Wutai even be able to help Avalanche all the way over here? They’ve been around in this city for a while, right?” another woman asks her coworkers.
“Yeah, that is suspicious… Almost like they got some secret agents planted,” her male coworker replies with a frown.
“But I thought the city’s under lockdown. How would they even get outside help?” yet another man asks.
“Don’t forget the lockdown only happened the other day,” that coworker reminds him. “Who knows how long they’ve been hiding…”
And like a powder keg ready to be set off, all it takes is one loud voice.
“Hey! Wait a sec! What are we doing gathered around here?” another paranoid man shouts. “Who knows if some of those bastards are hiding among us?”
“Wait, what? You mean they’re here!?” another panicked man yells.
Panic runs free throughout the crowd as people grow agitated and fearful, eyeing each other up as if wondering who the potential mole among them could be. Unfortunately for the man named Yamazaki, he so happens to be an easy target as he stands out among his fellow employees. As he tries to leave, he soon finds the bearded man beside him holding him up again, and when he tries to pull free, chaos thus erupts. All of a sudden, people are hounding him and one other man tackles him to restrain him. A woman gasps in horror, and even others who are confused push and pull their way to see what the fuss is about. He isn’t the only one targeted; a few others who also look just a bit Wutaian are also held back and forced to be interrogated, to little result other than further confusion.
Another white couple among the crowd have been standing by, looking ever so lost and concerned at the angry mob, but are too scared to leave just yet, as to not make themselves suspicious too. The man then takes out his phone and means to make an important call while he anticipates worse things to come. Meanwhile, their lone son, a well-dressed boy around the age of 7 who happened to tag along because they didn’t want to leave him alone in the house, is much less concerned about how they look and more about just getting out of this place. He looks around for an opening, but before he can lead his parents away, the commotion at the outskirts stirs the crowd into panic. The pushing and roughhousing begins and his exit is blocked, and he quickly finds himself separated.
“Mom! Dad!” he calls out, but the noise of the mob drowns out his voice.
Eventually the crowd becomes loud and raucous enough that the police finally arrive, blowing very shrill whistles and yelling through a megaphone to disperse them. But by now, the mob has grown so chaotic that they’re not ready to listen to reason. What at first started as just some stand-ups and angry arguments shortly turn to actual fist fights, and the police are forced to set off a warning shot. Unfortunately, this only stirs the mob even further into panic and the crowd scatters in all directions. The poor boy who was just trying to find his way back is shoved aside to the ground, while he helplessly scans the crowd for his parents, he’s already lost them. Where did they go?
Before he is nearly trampled by the frenetic crowd, he is pulled out of the way and helped back to his feet by another woman who had been watching. It’s Jessie’ mother; she had a bad feeling as soon as she spotted a child among them and hurried closer just in case.
“Mom! Dad!” the boy cries again. “I’m over here!”
“Excuse me! Did someone miss their boy!?” the woman calls out too.
She also looks around to see if there’s anyone who is coming back around, but before they can find a response, the police who lack any patience whatsoever quickly shove them away and proceed to bar the entrance to Shinra HQ. Despite her protests, the woman and boy can’t argue with the officers, who dismiss their complaints without further thought. At least one of the them suggests they can take a cab to detour back to whichever sector they came from, but that’s about it. This area has thus been cordoned off from the public until “further notice”.
Jessie’s mother swears under her breath, but takes the boy along with her to find another open road. By now, the boy is a shivering mess, looking like he’s trying his best to hold back tears of frustration. The woman offers him her sympathies and reassures him that she’ll find his parents.
“Where do you live?” she asks. “Which sector, I mean?”
The boy takes a moment to calm down and then answers, “Um… Sector 7, topside.”
She gives an encouraging smile. “Oh. That’s where I’m from too. I know the way back.”
“…”
“Say, what’s your name? We might even be neighbors.”
“…Denzel.”
“Denzel, huh?” She nods back. “Have you ever met a young woman named Jessie?”
He shakes his head. “Sorry. My parents are pretty strict about keeping me from talking with strangers, so I don’t know that many people outside of school.”
“Ah. Well, don’t worry. When we get back, I’m taking you straight to the office of Child Protection Services. I’m sure your parents will be looking for you there.”
He nods back. “Okay… Thank you, ma’am. Um, can I get your name too?”
She smiles again. “It’s Rose. Rose Raspberry.”
“Thank you, Ms. Raspberry.”
She chuckles. “Well, I’m a little old to be named ‘Miss’ these days.”
“Oh. Mrs. Raspberry.”
“Don’t worry about it. I appreciate the thought, Denzel. Now let’s get you home.”
~
This isn’t right. They’re currently facing an unimaginable existential threat outside their doors and in many other places around the world, and even now this company is being led by incredibly petty ideologues that simply refuse to drop their politically motivated squabbles for even a second. As he listened to the public announcement broadcast live as it happened, Reeve was aghast to realize that there was an unnecessary amount of propaganda dropped when it was just supposed to be a general news update on the city’s situation. Surely, this wasn’t the president’s own decision to stir up controversy. Gya-ha-ha and Kya-ha-ha most definitely played a part in that judgment. Unfortunately, though he hurried off to the president’s office as soon as the broadcast ended, he would find that he’s not the only one present to speak with him.
“Hahahaha!” Heidegger lets out a delighted bellow. “Those Wutaians really make it too easy! To think that they’d actually be worshipping that demented beast like a god. Might as well have shown a giant ‘WE DID IT’ sign over their entire country!”
Scarlet scoffs back, waving a dismissive hand. “Is it any surprise? They’re all so backwater they’re still living in the Dark Ages! It’s a wonder how they even managed to set up a new government at all.”
Reeve stops short at the door and his hands ball up into fists. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy to see the president alone. One way or another, these two always seem to rear their ugly heads at the most inopportune times. Even Palmer is here, sitting on the side with a cup of tea, but it looks like Hojo is nowhere to be seen. In fact, ever since the jailbreak incident, it seems no one has been able to get in contact with him. Reeve can only assume he’d disappeared off into some other lab again, but it leaves a sour feeling in his gut knowing that he might be up to no good as always. Well, don’t mind that now. He has more important issues to address at the moment.
“Mr. President, if I may interject for a brief meeting… in private, preferably?” Reeve suggests, trying to keep his cool as best he can.
Rufus sits in his seat, leaning over the desk, as he stares with a troubled, almost weary expression at the computer screen before him. He’s been reading over several reports that Tseng had compiled for him over the recent investigations into Avalanche and Wutai as he was previously notified. The truth was: the envoys he sent earlier were actually admitted into the country as per international protocol, but Wutai’s Parliament suddenly changed their decision and refused to meet them for due to “unforeseen circumstances” that were not elaborated upon. These envoys intended to investigate the situation themselves, but were shunned out of the city by the populace that found them extremely unwelcome. Tried as they did to appeal to reason, the envoys were instead pelted with rocks and other debris as they were expelled out of the city. Forced to call it quits, they were going to report back when communication lines suddenly went down. This was likely due to Meteor’s impact, which released a giant EMP-like shockwave that knocked out the lines of many cell towers of theirs across the world. While these towers would normally be resilient enough to withstand outages from a variety of potential causes, these are certainly not normal circumstances. Now they’re gonna have to send survey-and-repair teams all over to find out which ones can still be manually fixed and rebooted.
And as if that wasn’t bad enough, many reactors outside of Midgar likewise ran into their own issues. The unprecedented energy shortage aside, even in the areas that were once supposed to have been rich with natural mako, there have been reports that certain giant mecha-like monsters were seen around them and laying waste to them instead. He’s already deployed Soldier and the relevant forces to various towns and posts to inspect and defend them, but clearly they’re gonna be stuck with this mess for some time. Most annoying of all, as president of this global conglomerate, it leaves him in the awkward position to have to stall and present the public with some kind of explanation in the meantime. Though he hesitated to start up the propaganda machine when their own resources and manpower were being stretched thin, he ceded to Heidegger’s suggestion to pick a scapegoat to at least keep the masses distracted.
As Reeve approaches his desk, Rufus gives him a stern and very disappointed scowl. After all was said and done, this current mess is what the company was left with. He was honestly hoping that Cloud and party would be able to handle Sephiroth and prevent such a disaster, but it seems it was a lost cause from the get-go. At the very least, the planet wasn’t bombed to the brink of collapse, but whatever they accomplished has left the rest of the world in another great mess. If anything, Rufus doesn’t really want to speak to Reeve right now, but recognizes that he may have something important to share.
“If you have something to report, say it now. I don’t have time to set up another appointment just for you.” Rufus then follows up with the looming question: “Have you uncovered the whereabouts of Cloud and company yet?”
Reeve feels something in his gut jerk uncomfortably and has to answer honestly, “No, sir.”
Rufus lets off an audible sigh, though he suspected as much. “Then what do you want to talk about?”
Nonetheless determined to stand his ground, Reeve suggests with a serious face, “Sir, I request that you make another public service announcement with corrections to the record.”
“Another announcement? For what?”
“Regarding the situation with Wutai, of course. This isn’t the time we should be bringing up controversy when there’s-”
But before he can finish, Heidegger makes a loud clearing of his throat as if to interrupt him. He then turns to the president himself with a stiff upper lip. “Pardon me. Mr. President, if I may interject with a quick word?”
Rufus rolls his eyes, but obliges him. “What is it?”
“Regarding the situation with the Weapons, I can reassure everyone that our forces are more than capable enough to stamp down any resistance. Even with 1st Class deployed out there, we still have plenty more from Soldier in reserve, namely our 2nd and 3rd classes, ready to be mobilized at any given time.”
“Yes, I’m aware. You brought it up last meeting.”
Heidegger now turns back to Reeve with a disgusted frown. “Unfortunately, even though we were all in attendance, it seems one of us has yet to realize this obvious fact.”
Reeve feels a slight nerve twitch in his head, but he tries to keep it cool. “This isn’t about that. It’s about prioritizing what matters! We shouldn’t start conflicts when we already have plenty of other issues!”
“Oh, here we go again,” he groans to himself. He taps the side of his head with a mocking harrumph. “After all this time, you still haven’t gotten it through your thick skull?” He balls up a fist. “Wutai is and has always been the enemy! They never signed a treaty to end the war, so it’s still on! We would have no reason to oblige this ceasefire they begged us for if they resort to underhanded tactics and shielding terrorists!”
Reeve argues back, “Heidegger, stop stoking conspiracies and think about what you’ve started! Right now we’re facing a crisis with the entire planet on the line! Those ancient Weapons are still out there causing havoc! We don’t have time to waste on another war!”
“And whose fault was it that we got into this crisis?” he snaps back. “If you and your merry band of terrorists hadn’t screwed up everything with Sephiroth, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation right now!”
He winces a little to that, but still stands his ground. “I’m sorry that we didn’t do enough, but sending our troops back to Wutai will just make things worse! What we should be doing is sending aid. I heard even their people have been facing issues with the Weapons by their shores.”
“Ha! Serves them right! If their defenses are so poor that they can’t even handle even one of them, then they were doomed from the start!” He sticks his nose up at the whole affair. “Their sad excuse of a government is barely keeping themselves together, especially after the whole ARC debacle. They’ve been cannabilizing their own officials to the point they didn’t have an envoy to match ours. It’s just sad to watch. No wonder they wouldn’t know what to do once a real threat starts chomping at them.” He then gives a dismissive handwave. “You know what, forget sending troops! Just a few Turks could dismantle that flimsy house of cards!”
Reeve shakes his head with a sigh. “I’m not going to argue about what’s going on there, since I don’t know much. But shouldn’t that be even more reason why we shouldn’t bother them?” He also turns back to Rufus to continue pleading his case. “Sir, I am asking with all due respect that you please reconsider. We don’t have anything to gain from stirring up old feuds. As for Avalanche, we can try a diplomatic approach and work out a better deal so they wouldn’t have any reason to keep covering for them.”
“Listen to people other than yourself for once, Tuesti! If you haven’t heard, we tried diplomacy and got rejected! How do you expect us to work peacefully with a warmongering government like theirs?” Heidegger demands without a hint of irony.
By now, Rufus has largely tuned out the argument as it’s the same old stuff that he’s heard plenty of times before, especially given that it’s these two. Still, he has been keeping up with the gist of things. He now looks up from his computer again and calmly replies to Reeve, “While I understand your concerns, Reeve, it’s a little too late to be pulling back and giving apologies. The fact of the matter is that this company has been put under a strain we haven’t seen since the earliest days, and I don’t think a lot of people living in this city now still remember how things used to be. It’d just be more trouble for us if they start rioting in the streets again. At this point, we might as well cut our losses and preserve what we can, and there’s no better scapegoat than Wutai. Like Heidegger said, they practically set themselves up by worshiping a being like Ruby.”
Reeve’s face visibly sinks as he grows disheartened. “But then what are we going to do if Wutai actually responds by going to war? Even if our forces can easily match or overwhelm theirs, that’s some unnecessary loss of life to be had.”
To which, Rufus retorts rather wittily: “Well, since the planet has been weakened enough that it’s sent out the Weapons to help itself recover its losses, why not serve them what they want?”
Reeve stares in abject horror and disbelief at what he just said. Unfortunately, around him are voices that don’t share his reaction. Heidegger and Scarlet begin to snicker among themselves, and even Palmer, who hadn’t really been listening that carefully, makes his own nervous chuckle as if he didn’t want to be left out.
“Sir… This isn’t the time for jokes,” Reeve replies.
“Hahahahaha!” Heidegger then bursts aloud with a hearty laugh. “Well said, Mr. President! If those Wutaians are always so happy to be living with nature, then why not let them have it? I’m sure they’ll love to meet the planet on its own terms!”
“Oh, my,” Scarlet quips along, “With how pathetic their forces are, they might need help even getting there. Fortunately, Weapons Development would be happy to lend them a hand… or plenty of mechs, while we’re at it. It’ll be quick work to put them out of their misery.”
Reeve ignores those two and continues to plead, “Mr. President. I realize we may be short on options at the moment, but our immediate solution shouldn’t be sacrificing other people, especially that most of them are still innocent lives.”
“Innocent? Are we still talking about the same thing here?” Heidegger cuts in again. “Those Wutaians literally worship a humanity-ending mythical beast and you still think they’ve done nothing wrong? Whose side are you on!?”
“Regardless of our differences, we should by all means find a way out of this crisis together!” he insists. “What hope for humanity is there if we resort to killing each other when times are tough? I would think this company at least stood for scientific advancement and progress for the betterment of everyone!”
Scarlet rolls her eyes. “Clearly we have very different definitions of ‘everyone’…”
“Honestly, why are we still letting him ramble on like this?” Heidegger agrees with contempt.
As the argument finally settles back into silence, Rufus dismisses the reports he was reviewing, sets his computer to recede back into its place within his desk, and now turns to face them all with his full undivided attention.
“Speaking of which… This may just be a formality, but Reeve, I have to inform you. Following the incident in the Northern Crater, you’ve been put under investigation for potential charges of criminal negligence and conspiracy to treason.”
Reeve’s jaw drops and he goes speechless. The other two crack up to hear it, but shortly silence themselves when Rufus passes them his same stern expression. He looks back to Reeve and continues explaining himself.
“I understand that you may want to defend yourself. It would be a pain to have to take this matter to court, so I figured we can instead skip all the paperwork and arrange a different deal under the table.”
Reeve feels his feet grow cold as a chill runs through the rest of him. He gulps nervously and then answers meekly, “…Yes, sir? What kind of deal?”
Rufus sits forward and brings his hands together, saying with a completely straight face, “If you manage to weed out Avalanche’s hiding spots in Wutai or locate any of the missing fugitives anywhere else, I’ll be happy to dismiss all charges and we can pretend you never failed your mission.”
“W-what…?”
“You still have extras of the cat, right? Should be simple for you to send him over.”
“…”
“Otherwise, if that isn’t suitable for you, then a viable alternative would be to make your own PSA admitting to how you conspired with members of Avalanche and government agents of Wutai, leading to the inevitable conclusion that brought the giant meteor to threaten our planet. After that, you will be free to resign from your position and I’ll drop the charges.”
“…”
Rufus now sits back in his seat to relax. “Of course, it’d probably be hell on Gaia for you if you did. In comparison, the first option really isn’t that bad.”
Reeve hangs his head as a familiar creeping dread returns to him. Once again, one among many times now, he’s been caught between a rock and a hard place. He is forced to choose between his duty to the welfare of the people of this city, the home he’s always known, and his morality as a person in general. If he takes the job, he’ll be free from criminality, but instead heavily monitored to make sure that he keeps to the “mission”. He’d be forced to betray his friends again, and this time he won’t have an excuse that Ruby would have anything to do with it. Even if he dearly wants to find them, he won’t be able to face Cloud and the others ever again. After all they’ve been through together, it just seems like a ludicrous possibility to even humor.
But he doesn’t dare take the second option either. Like Rufus said, it would just be a different hell – to be labeled the “traitor” of Midgar and hated by everyone for basically bringing Armageddon to this planet. Maybe at the very least, he’d still earn the respect of Avalanche, but his options for shelter have already grown scarce. Though Wutai may be the enemy of Shinra, they would not be happy to house him either, especially given what had happened with Ruby that one time, and tensions would only be worse now after this latest disaster. The people of Cosmo Canyon may be gracious hosts, but they wouldn’t be able to do anything if Shinra came knocking with a warrant for his arrest. And saddest of all, no one else would know the truth behind the disappearance of the planet’s lost heroes. The world out there is fraught with many more dangers he can’t even imagine. His cat and moogle friend aside, he himself is no combatant. It’s just as ludicrous a possibility to humor.
He clenches up his fists with a burning frustration. Why must it always come down to this? Why is there never an easy answer out of the dilemma, where he doesn’t have to sacrifice someone or something? Is there a third option he’s missing? Can he just pretend to take the job, but then actively sabotage the mission to fight back against this immoral company? Well, for a while, he did play as Ruby’s “Shinra insider”, but it was just a part of his cover as a spy. And yet, she always knew that it would eventually stop being just a cover. If only he safely could turn things around and become fit to be that insider that Ruby named…
Now that he thinks about it, what really happened to Ruby? It’s true that they all witnessed Sephiroth slaying her, but technically it would have been Rubia’s body that was struck. But Cloud said she may have disappeared for good, since she and Rubia aren’t exactly identical in all respects. But if Ruby isn’t really Rubia, then who or even what is she, really? There’s so much they don’t know about her; about what she is. Would it be possible that she could still exist without Rubia? If there’s any chance of that, then maybe that missing third option can be a reality after all. But this is all just guesswork and speculation. And why would he want to have to rely on her yet again? Look where all that led them.
“…Reeve. If you don’t answer, I’ll just go ahead and file the charges,” Rufus speaks up again.
Reeve snaps out of his thoughts and blinks a few more times. No, but that’s exactly the point, isn’t it? Ruby didn’t always have the best route forward, but she brought everyone together because she believed in them. She had this unwavering faith of a “good ending” from the start before any of them knew who she was. She had a specific goal in mind and put in the work herself, and they should strive to do the same. Even if she isn’t here anymore, not everything is lost. There’s still that faith she held and while he’s still alive, he can bear the torch and keep it going; even see it through to the end. In the meantime, he will do what he must to stay afloat and more importantly stay connected. With his face hardened with renewed resolve, he lifts his head again and gives his answer.
“I’ll do it. Send me to Wutai.”
Rufus makes a somewhat intrigued look, curious how he came to that conclusion after all the inner turmoil that was obvious from his face. Nevertheless, it is the logical option to take, so he’s not too surprised. Heidegger and Scarlet, meanwhile, remain unimpressed as they very much expected him to save his own skin. And Palmer in the back remains blank-eyed and sipping his tea because he has no bet in this proverbial race.
“Alright. Glad we can set all that aside.” Rufus then hints another button behind his desk to activate an intercom. “Tseng.”
The response comes promptly, “Yes, sir?”
“Change of plans. There’s one more that will join Reno, Rude, and Elena to Wutai. Tell them to get the helicopter ready for a black cat and its stuffed moogle.”
“Yes, sir.” There’s a momentary pause before Tseng asks out of curiosity, “By the way, sir, may I ask for what reason that this change was made?”
“Reeve was the insider in Cloud’s group. Even if he doesn’t know where they are now, he would still be useful to keep around. Don’t ever let his cat out of your sights.”
“Understood.”
The intercom goes silent and Rufus releases his hold on the button. He then turns back to the others standing by with a cool look in his eyes.
“As for the rest of you, I expect further updates on the situation with the ancient Weapons. Heidegger, has anyone been able to reach out to Hojo?”
He frowns. “Unfortunately, no. But I believe R&D has confirmed that the Immortals are combat-ready. We should run into no other issues with them.”
“Alright. Have them deployed, one each to face each of the largest Weapons as they appear. I await to hear the results.” To which, Heidegger answers with a salute and Rufus turns to the other. “Scarlet, how is the cannon?”
She smiles and nods graciously. “Ready and willing to be operated. We didn’t have it moved all this way just to decorate the place.”
“If any Weapon comes our way, see to it that it’s in position.”
“Of course, sir.”
And with business settled for now, he finally pulls up and gets out of his seat. “Alright. You’re all dismissed.”
But as the three he addressed take their leave, Palmer remains in the room a little more. Now presented with the opportunity to ask, he meets with the president before the latter takes his leave as well.
“Um, Mr. President?”
“Yes?”
“I know we have quite a bit on our plate as is… but by any chance, could we still see any additional funding to the Space Division in the foreseeable future, perhaps?”
“…” Rufus turns away for the door, but then replies, “Bring it up next meeting and I’ll consider something. Investing into a defense system against meteors wouldn’t be a bad idea.”
And with that, Palmer’s face lights up with delight. He’s so happy he even does a little jiggle and a hop for joy, while Rufus ignores him once again and disappears out the door. While things are being arranged here in Midgar, there’s actually one other thing he has to attend to personally that isn’t to do with Avalanche, Wutai, or even the ongoing crisis of the planet. But what that entails may have to be saved for another time.
~
Elsewhere, safely away from the constant rigid surveillance within Midgar’s walls, the town of Kalm has more or less remained as peaceful as it always has been, albeit now with an obvious increase of Shinra presence in town. The company offered the town additional defense forces to help combat the increasing scourge of fiends that have become more aggressive in recent times, as well as to caution against the looming dangers of planetary mechs that have been reported attacking many other places. Nonethless, the mayor of Kalm happily acquiesced to the new arrangements, as it was a much better alternative than having to fend for themselves.
However, it isn’t to say that everyone in town is welcoming to Shinra’s encroachment. While most people here still see Shinra as a dependable ally to have, others can’t help but notice the town has seen a bit of unease and tension in the air now that they have a regular patrol of blue uniforms out in the streets. The troops here are technically working on company time, but because of the recent lockdown in Midgar, their local supplies have seen some difficulties coming in on time. As a result, many of the soldiers here have simply made themselves at home in the residents’ places, and basically strongarms their way with everyone to do favors for them. After all, they’re the ones who are protecting this town, so it’s the least the townsfolk can do. As the people here generally are non-confrontational, most have had little choice but to let the troops be. Not to mention, no one would dare bat an eye to the lone silent Soldier who has been recently stationed here – an odd fellow who has never once taken off his helmet since his arrival, so no one even knows who he is or how he sounds.
Off by the south end of town, some Shinra troops on patrol forcibly entered a certain man’s house to investigate into some recent reports from his neighbors of some “strange tinkering noises in the night”. The tall but lanky man with black wavy hair tied up in a short tail met with the officers, who interrogated him about the matter. The man insisted that he had just been working on something in his workshop in the back – a very useful transmuter that would be able to craft various items given the right materials – but admitted he was running short on certain materials and asked a few friends over to help him. After a cursory survey of his home and the workshop he mentioned, the troops eventually relented and excused themselves with barely a word of apology for bothering him.
The moment the troops take their leave, the man then lets off an exhausted sigh, his already pale face looking a little gaunter than usual. He shakes his head and heads inside back to the workshop, then calls out to those “friends” that had been hiding around here. Suddenly, a familiar pair of refugees – Wedge, followed by Biggs – squeeze themselves out of the cramped space in one storage closet with sighs of relief.
“Whew!” Wedge pats himself down of dust. “That was close!”
“Oof… Tell me about it. Another second later and we might’ve been done for,” Biggs mutters, flicking off a loose cobweb off his shoulder.
Unlike with the two guys, Jessie was fortunate enough to have a hiding place behind some wooden crates covered by a burlap sack. Though the troops initially intended to kick around the crates to check behind them, one glance at the rather large cobweb in the area seemed to convince them otherwise. Now with the coast clear, she takes her modified gun and switches it to a miniature vacuum to suck up the giant web and hops back out without hassle.
She smiles proudly to herself, twirling the gun around her finger before she slips it back in place on her belt. “Knew this thing would come in handy. Good thing Ruby got us some spider’s silk early on. Was a cinch to recreate the stuff with a proper reference.”
“When you said these guns can fire ‘anything’, who knew it even included materials? Your inventions get so wacky sometimes,” Biggs replies.
“It’s only wacky if it doesn’t work! I told you we’d be fine,” she insists.
“I dunno about ‘fine’. They nearly had us in their sights, you know.” He gives the lanky man with an appreciative glance. “Good thing Broden thought fast and gave them a distraction, though for a moment there, I thought those guys were gonna confiscate the transmuter.”
Broden waves a hand to that and explains, “Nah, don’t worry about it. That old thing was mine from back when I was still in Soldier. Even if they took it, it wouldn’t have anything important. I haven’t even seen Jessie’s new one yet.”
“Well, of course. It is still top-secret while I’m on it,” Jessie declares matter-of-factly. “But I promise, I’m almost done. There’s just one last material I need before I can put it all together.”
He raises an eyebrow. “You still need more material? I thought you said you had all the parts.”
“For the base device, yeah. But right now there’s not much differentiating it from your average transmuter. I need something special to make it really pop.”
“Something special?”
Biggs frowns. “What are you thinking now? You’re not about to turn that thing into a gun too, are you?”
“Ha. Ha. Ha,” she forces a sarcastic laugh and argues back, “Sorry, but no. It’s gonna be way better than that. You know how most transmuters can forge different things with certain particular materials?”
“Uh, yeah. That’s what a transmuter does.”
“Right. But what happens if you don’t have enough or can’t get the right stuff? Then you’re basically outta luck.”
“Uh-huh… but that goes without saying. Transmuters craft things. They don’t make things out of thin air.”
Jessie throws up a determined fist with a proud smile. “Which is why mine is gonna be different! No more worries about missing materials when you can just substitute them!”
By now, all three of the men around her are just staring blankly back. Biggs also shows a look somewhere between unamused and puzzled. “…Come again?”
“Substitute them?” Wedge scratches his head. “But how? If you don’t have the right stuff, it only makes sense that you can’t make a thing, right?”
“That’s why I said mine’s different. Let me give an example…” She lowers her hand again and gives them a point. “Say you want to craft a Mega Potion, so you’d need some extra ‘Essence of the Planet’ and such lying around. Well, given that we’re kinda short on that stuff these days, it’d be tricky to get anything working.”
“Right.” Biggs raises an eyebrow too. “But you’re saying you have something that can ‘substitute’ for it?”
“Not for what the planet makes, mind you, but I like to think there’s actually a shortcut we can take to the crafting process. After all, what is the stuff that makes up materia? The planet’s energy, of course.”
“Huh?” He blinks and stares back. “Wait. You’re saying we can substitute materia for the materials instead?”
“Uh, Jessie. Would that really be a good trade? Materia’s super precious too, you know,” Wedge likewise points out.
“I’m not saying to load up your magic materia in it. I’m just saying that I can add a piece of materia in it like how I worked it into our PHS’s. It’s basically gonna act as the intermediary to the process and makes it way easier.”
“Oh.” He blinks too. “Wait, you can do that?”
“Huh…” Broden puts a hand to his chin. “I know materia is capable of a lot of different things, but this is the first time I’ve ever heard of using it like that.”
Jessie answers, “It’s some esoteric knowledge that I gained from studying up at the home of planetology. You ever been to Cosmo Canyon?”
He shakes his head. “No. I would like to, but…”
“What’s up?”
Though he would like to explain, he suddenly feels the words caught up in his throat. No, rather, it’s not the words themselves that did. He feels his throat get scratched up and lets out an uncomfortable cough. He turns away, but as he tries to clear it up again, he instead meets with even more coughs.
“Uh… You good, man?” Biggs asks.
Broden takes a moment to settle down again and clears his throat once last time before speaking, though his voice comes out a little raspy. “…Y-yeah. I’m fine.”
“That doesn’t sound ‘fine’, though,” Wedge remarks with a concerned frown. “Are you sick?”
“I thought I heard coughing from time to time, but at first I thought it was just allergies from all the dust back here,” Biggs admits, likewise growing concerned.
Broden waves it away. “Don’t worry about it. Just a bad cold.”
“You sure? Maybe it’d be a good idea to see a doctor.”
He shakes his head. “Nah. Forget it. No doctor would be able to help my problem anyway…”
“Hmm…” But seeing how troubled he looks, Biggs decides not to keep pressing.
“Anyway,” Broden turns back to Jessie to ask, “what was that about adding materia? What kind of materia are we talking about?”
“Not your average kind. I was trying out the stuff that was plugged into my phone, but unfortunately they’re too small of shards to get much mileage out of. But then again, your average orb is way too big, and like Wedge said, it’d be a waste of some good materia. If only we had some kind that is part of the way formed, like a chip off of those big crystals you’d find at Lifesprings…”
He blinks in surprise. “Lifesprings? I’d think you’d be better off chipping away at Shinra-made artificial ones. I don’t think those springs do well if you disturb them.”
“I know, but I mean, just a little sliver wouldn’t hurt it much, right?”
He frowns, looking unsure. “Well, I can’t say I’m an expert there, but at least I’ve never heard of anyone doing something like that. Maybe if it’s just a little piece, but would that be enough? Like, if you’re working on this new transmuter, you might end up exhausting smaller shards real fast if you’re crafting a lot.”
Jessie’s hopeful look gradually fades away. “Ah, yeah… That could be a real issue too.”
Biggs folds his arms, looking disappointed. “In other words, your transmuter is probably just a pipe dream at this point. People are already have trouble getting power in some places. I doubt we’d be able to find a Lifespring that’s still plentiful and not endangered.”
“There’s that too…” She sighs to herself. “Man, if only we had something that could fit all the criteria… then we’d basically be unstoppable!”
“Jessie, I know you wanna dream big and all, but maybe while we’re still fugitives on the run, we try to be a little more considerate about what we have in our reach?”
“…” Though she would normally have some feisty comeback to argue with him, right now even she’s short on ideas of what to do.
Broden looks around at the other three, who now share worried and discouraged looks, and shares his sympathies too. It’s been about a week since he took them under his wing since they escaped Midgar. Unfortunately, given their former history with Wutai, it was unfeasible for them to join Nayo and the rest there. Not to mention, Jessie’s gang has long been caught live on Shinra’s cameras before, so their faces are way too easily recognizable. Even the security aboard cruise vessels crossing the Meridian Ocean have been tightened considerably. So, at Billy’s suggestion, they disguised themselves among a cohort of Shinra troops that were due to be sent to Kalm, where they’ve been holed up to wait out the storm. But even here has become a difficult stay. Broden has been a gracious host, being a well-reputed fellow with the locals himself as a very well-connected everyman for the town’s resources, and has been savvy to send the occasional officers away. However, the longer he has to keep watch of their paranoid neighbors, who have likewise been repeatedly harassed by the troops, it’s only gonna get harder and harder to keep secrets. Though he’s loathe to have to say it, he must bring it up.
Clearing his throat again, he speaks up, “Hey, guys? I know this might not be the best thing to hear, but we really need to talk.”
“What’s up, Broden?” Wedge asks.
He crosses his arms. “Look. As much as I like you guys, I can’t keep you all here much longer. Of course, I’m all for helping any way I can. I’ve already talked with a few people here who can make an exit route for you if things come to it. And that transmuter idea you’re working on would be amazing, but unless you’re able to pull it off really soon, you might wanna save it for another time. We can’t wait until our neighbors complain again. We got lucky this time, but who knows what will happen if they come back?”
Biggs, who had been worried about this from the beginning, nods back. “Yeah. Broden, we really appreciate everything, but you’re right. The sooner we get outta here, the better.”
Jessie frowns. “But where do we go? Just about any town on the same continent as Midgar might as well be under Shinra too.”
Wedge wagers, “There’s still Cosmo Canyon at least, but they’re so far away. We’d have to go through Junon to reach Costa del Sol, and that’s just asking for trouble.”
“Ugh. Yeah. If only we could just get a quick ride over there…”
“If we go by air, we’re definitely getting shot down,” Biggs warns.
“But if we go by land and sea, it’ll take too long. They’d have troops stationed at every major stop.” Jessie crosses her arms. “Is there some other way we can just… I dunno, warp?”
He slumps a little. “What? You think you can reverse-engineer Ruby’s powers or something? We don’t even have her materia with us, remember?”
“Yeah, didn’t Cloud take it with him?” Wedge recalls.
“I didn’t forget.” Jessie lets go and gives a sigh. “But it sucks that there isn’t another one…”
But at that moment, she remembers something. Wait a second. Isn’t there another one? Technically, the one they swiped from their ally in Wutai was a different one, wasn’t it? That wasn’t the one they saw Ruby make the first time she did it. In other words…
“Wait! There is another one!”
“Huh?”
“Guys, did we all forget or something? Ruby gave one to Marlene, remember?”
And to that, Biggs and Wedge’s jaws drop in unison. “Oh, yeah!”
“She did, didn’t she?” Wedge says with his grin back and his eyes twinkling.
Biggs lightly slaps his own head. “Doh! How did we forget? It wasn’t that long ago, was it?”
Jessie nods as she recalls futher, “Yeah. Thinking about it, we left Marlene with Aerith’s mom, but Ruby said she took them off to another town… Wasn’t it Kalm?” She blinks and raises a determined fist. “We can totally go look for them!”
He blinks. “Wait, right now?”
“Of course right now! We need that materia pronto! In fact, it might just be the miracle stuff I need for my thing too!”
Biggs stares back, stunned. “What? Are you kidding me?”
“What?”
“Jessie, come on! That’s the most unique and precious materia of all! You wouldn’t use something that powerful just for a transmuter, would you?”
“Oh, don’t be silly! I’m not gonna use the whole thing! But maybe if I can extract some magic from it and transfer it to our materia shards, then maybe…”
He shakes his head. “Man. I knew you were crazy sometimes, but not like this…”
“It’s not even that big a stretch!” she snaps back. “Besides, Ruby’s worked miracles for us before. What’s wrong with borrowing a bit of her power?”
Biggs frowns, disappointed. “Jessie. Just ‘a bit’ of her power was able to help us destroy all those abominations in Midgar’s underground. You might as well be making a death ray with that thing attached.”
“Well, at least the power it’ll supply won’t leave us hanging dry any time soon.”
Biggs rolls his eyes, but gives up arguing. “I guess… if you can make it work.”
“You know I’d give anything a try when it comes to my gadgets. They don’t call me the tech wiz for no reason!”
“Yeah, yeah…”
While they were busy arguing, Wedge was recalling fond memories of the first time they met Ruby and she introduced her magic for them to witness. Now that he thinks it over again, though, he wonders aloud, “Though, will it be okay if we ask Marlene for it? I thought it was Ruby’s gift to her for her protection.”
“Oh, yeah.” Jessie nods as she remembers it too. “She did say it was like a good-luck charm.” She frowns to herself, now feeling a tinge of guilt. “Maybe I was a little hasty to resort to it.”
Biggs shrugs. “Well, we’re not doing too hot right now, so I don’t think she’ll mind lending it to us. You can just give it back later, right?”
“Yeah.” She nods again, muttering to reassure herself, “I’d only need a little magic, after all. This is still gonna be a transmuter and not a bomb.”
“Alright, then what are we waiting for?” Wedge suggests, “Let’s get our disguises up and let’s go!”
But before he can hurry off, Broden steps in with a hand. “Whoa! Wait a sec.”
“Huh?”
He also shakes his head. “Sorry, but that might not be a good idea. Last time you were out, I overheard some neighbors who tried reporting you.”
Wedge is taken aback. “What? You mean they actually knew?”
“Nah. Seems like there was some kind of misunderstanding because they thought you three were some other troops that they said had stolen something from them.”
“Stolen?” Biggs asks.
Broden nods back with a frown. “Unfortunately, not all the soldiers here are following protocol. They’re supposed to have a warrant to be able to search people’s homes, but it sounds like some have done illegal searches and confiscated items they deemed ‘dangerous’ or whatever. Weapons are one thing, but I heard someone even had their jewelry taken because it was claimed to have been ‘illegally obtained’… Ironic.”
Now he looks a little ticked off. “You gotta be kidding me. Figures Shinra wouldn’t bat an eye at corrupt cops, but this is ridiculous! They’re in a totally different city! Does the mayor know about this?”
Broden shakes his head. “I’m sure people have reported it, but sadly the mayor’s turned a blind eye too. Sounds like they cracked some kind of deal under the table. As long as there’s still some ‘threat’ outside, the troops will stay. It sucks, but that’s just how things have been.”
Wedge frowns too. “Man… And here I thought Kalm would at least be doing a little better than Midgar, but guess not.”
“It’s ’cause they’re so close. Shinra could always drop by at a moment’s notice.” Jessie shakes her head with a sigh. “Too bad we didn’t have any choice but to come here.”
“Well, at least Avalanche still has sympathizers living here, so it’s not all bad.”
“Yeah…” She passes a concerned glance toward Broden. “But I still feel bad for putting him up to all this just to cover for us.”
Broden shakes his head. “Don’t worry about me. I can handle myself…” His voice is getting a little raspy again and he clears his throat. “But we’ll all be in hot water if you guys get reported again. I don’t think you should head out right now.”
“Yeah, fair enough…” Biggs nods along in agreement, but remains troubled. “But what do we do, then? We won’t be able to get anything done sitting around here.”
At this point, Broden is still a bit unsure about what all the fuss is about some materia, but it must be pretty important if these three are all onboard. He then offers, “Leave it to me.”
“Huh?” Biggs blinks. “Wait, really? You’ll do it for us?”
He nods. “Sure, I don’t mind.”
“But what if you get in trouble too?” Wedge worries. “We don’t wanna put you through that.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.” He now reveals a reassuring smile of his own. “I’ve served the community here long enough that everyone more or less knows me. They won’t suspect a thing if I visit someone on the other side of town.”
“Broden! You really are a bro!” Wedge cheers. “Thanks, man!”
Biggs agrees, “Yeah, seriously, thanks! Let us know what we can do to make it up to you.”
“It’s fine, guys, really.” Broden then asks, “But, just wondering: what’s this materia you guys keep talking about? Is it really something special?”
“Oh, yeah. Like you wouldn’t believe!” Jessie declares with a proud smirk.
“It’s no ordinary materia we’re talking. This thing can work miracles. We’ve seen it firsthand,” Biggs follows suit. “Saved us and our pals out of a few serious jams in the past.”
“And it’s so pretty! Pure white like snow, and you can even make out a particular swirl to all the energy inside. Looks different from most materia too,” she adds further.
Broden blinks in surprise. “A white materia? I didn’t know something like that existed.”
“Yeah, that’s why it’s special.” Jessie leans in with a cheeky grin. “And who knows, maybe it’ll even be able to help you too.”
“Huh? Me?”
“Of course! Even if it really is just a ‘bad cold’, just one touch of this thing and your problems will be gone!”
“W-what!? That’s not… There’s no such…” The surprise hits him hard enough that he’s caught off-guard, and he’s suddenly having another awkward coughing fit. After another moment to ease his nerves, he lets out a tired sigh.
Jessie’s smile fades as she gets serious. “…I mean it, Broden. Ruby’s power is the real deal. She could be your ticket out of whatever illness you have. She’s not a doctor; she’s better. An actual miracle worker.”
He blinks, a little taken aback by how earnest she sounds. Though still unsure, he asks again, “You really think so…?”
“Definitely. And if not, well, at least she can help relieve the worst.” She looks off as she recalls another man who may need that kind of help too. “If there’s anyone who can save even the most sickly of patients, it would be her. She promised, after all.”
“…” He takes another moment to take a few easy breaths, just to be sure he won’t start up another fit while he’s out there. “Okay, I’m good. So, where should I start looking?”
“For Marlene? She should be living with Elmyra right now,” Biggs suggests, but then he scratches his head. “I wouldn’t know where they live, though.”
“Elmyra… What’s her last name?”
“Uh…” He pauses. “You know, I don’t think we ever asked her.”
“Well, Aerith’s last name is Gainsborough. I’d think they’d share the same name,” Jessie answers.
Biggs turns to her. “Huh? How’d you know that?”
“Of course I’d know. I’ve done the research.” Jessie flicks a finger point to her head. “Before I made those PHS’s for everyone, I made sure to log everyone’s names. I didn’t remember what Ruby’s last name was, though she was tuned in to all of them anyway, so it didn’t matter.”
“Huh.” He shrugs and turns back to Broden. “Well, there you go.”
Broden nods back. “Alright. I’ll ask around about ‘Elmyra Gainsborough’. You guys said she came here from Midgar, right? I think the town hall’s housing and residence department should have a record.”
“Yep! Thanks a bunch, Broden!” Jessie answers with a grin. “You’re a real one, alright. Letting us stay here and even helping us with this or that. Hope we haven’t been overstaying your hospitality!”
He handwaves it. “Don’t worry about it. Avalanche was the reason why I’m even here. And besides…” He also reveals a smirk. “Normally, I wouldn’t be so quick to be sold on something like a ‘miracle cure’, but by the way you guys talked about her, this Ruby person seems pretty amazing.”
“Heh. Maybe when we catch up with her again, we’ll introduce you!”
He nods back and with a quick salute, he takes his leave. Now left alone to this workshop, though, Biggs looks around at the mess.
“So, uh, what do we do now?”
Wedge follows suit and turns back to him. “I dunno. Help him clean up around here?”
Jessie waves a dismissive hand and whips out a certain handheld device she was keeping in her bag. “You guys go do that. I’m gonna get back to work on this thing. Gotta make sure these shards are ready for the magic transfer…”
Biggs gives her an annoyed stare as she leaves again to fetch her tools and lets off a sigh. He joins Wedge, who is already starting to help put the mess of items back in the closet they were using.
~
Though the town certainly has seen its fair share of people immigrating here from Midgar, since the lockdown went into play, that trend has come to a sudden halt. Thanks to the help from some locals who have been keeping an eye out for the newest residents of Kalm – more out of tradition rather than any real paranoia, but the latest events have certainly added some – it doesn’t take Broden too long to find out where one Elmyra Gainsborough resides. It’s an inconspicuous double-storied house by the southwest end of town, where many of the residents there likewise happen to be immigrants from other places around the world, whether recent or from way back. Kalm is generally a very peaceful and equitable place to live, so no one judges any part of town as more or less “affluent” than another, though there were always rumors about some of the people who live there, especially if they came from the underside of Midgar. While the neighborhood is normally fairly lively, given the recent turn of events, people have been more cautious about staying outside for too long, lest they have to run into the usual Shinra patrol. Needless to say, tensions haven’t been the easiest around here as far as the former Midgardians are concerned.
Nevertheless, as Broden comes up to the house in question, he can’t help but feel a sort of welcome to it. What a quaint and homely place they have here. Given the limited space in this neighborhood, there’s not much room for front lawns or spacious backyards, though the house is still decorated with plenty of vibrant colors from the greenery set upon window sills and hanging from the rafters above. Even in another town altogether, it seems the Gainsboroughs just can’t go without surrounding themselves with nature’s ample beauty. A good sign these days, all things considered.
He steps up, taking a quick moment to make himself look a bit more presentable and make sure his throat isn’t gonna act up on him again, and gives a knock on the door. It’s just a little wait before someone comes to open it.
A middle-aged blond woman dressed in an apron looks a little weary herself, but greets him with the usual courtesy. “Yes? Can I help you?”
“Sorry to bother you, ma’am. I’m looking for an Elmyra Gainsborough, who recently moved here from Midgar.”
“That would be me, yes.”
“Ah, excellent.” He offers a kind smile and sets a hand upon his chest for a casual bow as he introduces himself. “My name is Broden, and I come on behalf of a certain group. Given recent developments, it would be difficult for their names to be revealed, but perhaps you may be familiar with someone by the name of ‘Ruby’?”
Elmyra’s eyes shoot wide open as soon as he mentions it. She steps back and hurriedly beckons him inside. “Come in. Let’s talk in private.”
He steps inside and she quickly closes the door. “Sorry about the bit of mess here. We haven’t been expecting any visitors as of late.”
Though she describes it as a “mess”, he finds the home as quaint on the inside as it looked outside. There is certainly a bit of clutter here and there, especially by the kitchen and dining table that shares a space with the living room to the side. There’s also a staircase in the back that leads up to the next story, where the bedrooms are assumed to be. But here, there are also a number of lovely flowers propped up in sleek, elegant vases.
She guides him toward the sofa by the living room side of the floor. “Please, make yourself at home. Would you like something to drink in the meantime?”
“No. It’s fine. I don’t plan to stay too long.” He explains, “You see, I’m actually looking for someone by the name of Marlene. A few friends from Avalanche informed me that she may have a particular materia that would be useful for a device they’re working on.”
Elmyra makes a worried look, but nods along. “I see. Marlene is here. She’s upstairs right now. But truth be told, she hasn’t been feeling very well these past few days. Seems like something has been bothering her. She’s been keeping that materia close.”
“Hmm. I see.” He makes an uncomfortable frown. “I don’t intend to pry, but it would be incredibly helpful if she could lend it to us. We’ll be sure to return it once they’re finished.”
“Yes, well, I believe you’ll have to ask her. But just to be sure, may I ask who these friends of yours are? We do know a few members of Avalanche, but she might not open up to just any stranger.”
“I only know them by first name, but they’re Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge.”
“Hmm…” Elmyra makes an unsure look, but somehow those names do sound familiar, like she did hear of them at some point. “And pardon me again, but how do you know about Ruby?”
“Not very well, unfortunately. I only just heard about her from those three, but they seem indebted to her. Even calling her some kind of ‘miracle worker’?”
“Oh.” Hearing that seems to put her at a little more ease and she nods back with a gentle smile. “Alright, then. Please wait a moment. I’ll ask Marlene and let her know.”
Elmyra quickly shuffles away and Broden is left alone for a moment of quiet introspection. While it’s understandable that this woman would be very cautious to talk about Avalanche, it seems even she knows something about this Ruby person. Who is she anyway, for her name alone to spark such reactions? His quiet is however shortly interrupted when he hears the rushed shuffling of feet from upstairs. A little girl in a pink dress comes bounding down as fast as her little feet can take her the moment she heard some familiar names dropped. Elmyra likewise comes down after, taking a much more easy pace.
The little girl runs right up to him with a driven look in her eyes. “Excuse me, Mister!”
“Y-yes? Are you Marlene, by any chance?”
She nods. “I am. Ms. Elmyra just told me you know Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge?”
“Yeah. In fact, they’re currently staying with me in the meantime.”
Her face lightens up immediately and she claps her hands. “Oh!” She also gives a formal bow in respect and recites a line she may have memorized a while back, “Thank you very much! On behalf of Avalanche, sorry to bother you with the trouble!”
He nervously backs up a little, raising his hands in the air. “Um, it’s okay. I’m happy to work with Avalanche, so it’s not too much of a bother.”
She looks back up with a smile. “So how are they doing? What have they been up to? And how is Daddy doing?”
“Uh…”
Elmyra now comes up to help the poor guy who’s a little overwhelmed with questions. “Marlene, take it easy. I’m sure you have lots of questions, but let’s not press our guest too hard.”
Marlene shuts her mouth and more meekly answers, “Oh, um, I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright. Um…” Broden rubs his head awkwardly. “Sorry, but I’ve only seen those three so far. They’re doing alright, but I’m worried that they might not be able to stay for too long.”
“What’s wrong?”
“With all the Shinra presence in this town, even our neighbors have started to grow suspicious about any strangers they see. They’ve been quick to report even the slightest noise they hear, and while I’ve been able to keep any attention off of us for now, it might be difficult to keep up charades if they keep barging in.”
She sinks a little. “Oh… That’s not good.”
“Yeah. I do have a few associates who are happy to help set up an exit route for them just in case, but it might not be so safe for them even if they do leave town. So, it’s really important that they borrow the special materia you have. Sounds like they have a plan to be able to use its power.”
But, the moment he mentions the materia, Marlene looks visibly upset. Sensing trouble, he quickly backs off.
“Uh, sorry. I can understand if you don’t want to part with it. It seems like it’s really important to you.”
She shakes her head. “No, it’s okay. It is really important, but I don’t mind giving it to Jessie and them.” She lowers it again, feeling a tinge of shame. “But I’m not sure if it has much power left.”
He blinks. “Pardon?”
She now draws out the materia in question. Though it is still a pale white color, the brilliance that it once showed has now all but petered out into a dim glow that is barely visible in the daytime. The great swirling power that was held within it is barely moving either, almost as if it has stagnated. When Elmyra sees it too, she feels her heart sink along with the girl’s.
Marlene admits quietly, “I think something happened to Ruby. She’s not feeling well, and her materia is showing it.”
“…” Elmyra lets off a sigh. “I see… So that’s what was bothering you.”
Marlene turns to her with a sad frown. “I’m sorry, Ms. Elmyra. I didn’t mean to keep it a secret from you.” She looks back down. “I just didn’t want to bother you with bad news.”
“Don’t worry. I’m sure whatever happened, Ruby will be okay. She has Aerith and the others looking after her, after all.”
“…”
Though he catches on that something is indeed wrong here, Broden is still a little lost. He asks the little girl, “Sorry to ask, but what’s this about Ruby? I was only told that she has some unique materia, but you say it’s actually connected to her well-being?”
Marlene nods. “Because it’s made with her magic. This materia is like a window that opens up to her heart. But… then at some point, her heart got sick and now it’s gone quiet too.”
“…” He’s starting to understand and nods along solemnly. “I see. Ruby seems to be quite the person to have so many believe in her.”
“She really is amazing!” Marlene gets a little impassioned to talk about it when she’s reminded. “She’s helped Daddy and his friends so much up to now. She even brought Ms. Elmyra and me here so we wouldn’t get caught up in their war on Shinra!”
“Oh, wow.” Now that he’s reminded, he also recalls some old news reports about a certain white dragon that had been witnessed at various times around the city. “Wait. I’ve only heard rumors about it, but by any chance, does this Ruby have any connection to the dragon we’ve heard about lately?”
“Yes. She is the dragon.”
He was not expecting that answer. “W-what?”
“Really! She’s even the daughter of Bahamut and she’s super strong! But she’s also super nice and smart and thinks about others all the time!”
“…”
And just like that, a lot of the missing pieces begin to fall into place. So the reason why Shinra has been in such disarray isn’t just because of Avalanche or Wutai, but also because some members of Avalanche somehow allied themselves with an actual magical dragon deity with her own personalized materia. Unbelievable… how did those guys ever manage to find an ally like that!?
Marlene then realizes she might be pressing a bit too much on him again and backs off. “Um, sorry. I just wanted to tell the truth. Not many people believe me when I say that Ruby’s not a bad person…”
“Oh, I believe you. Now it all makes sense.” He puts a hand to his chin for a thinking face. “So she’s basically a magical entity, huh? Jessie even told me she’s able to heal people.”
She looks relieved. “Really? Thank goodness.” She also nods back. “And I think so! There’s so much that Ruby can do.” But then she pauses for a moment and looks back down to the materia, and she sinks a little. “Well… at least, she can for other people. But I don’t know if there’s anyone who can help heal her if she gets sick.”
“Hmm…” As the issue is well beyond his field of knowledge, he can’t say much to that. But at least now even he has a good reason to try to help somehow. Trying from a different angle, he offers, “Well, even if this materia isn’t at its strongest right now, I’m sure Jessie may be able to work with it. They’re short on options, so any amount of Ruby’s power would still be a big help.”
“Oh. Well, if it’s Jessie who needs it…” Marlene then offers up the materia in her hand. “Here you go.”
“Thanks.” He accepts it graciously. “I’ll give it back as soon as they’re finished. Will you be alright without it in the meantime?”
She nods. “I’m okay. I’m with Ms. Elmyra, after all.” To which, Elmyra turns away with a slight blush, but can’t help but crack a smile too. Marlene then adds, “Besides, I’m sure Ruby wants to be with her friends. Maybe there’s something they can do to help her too.”
Broden smiles back. “Yeah. Let’s hope.”
He takes another moment to feel the orb now in his hand. It’s certainly smaller than the usual materia he’s seen being sold or used around town, but he’s surprised at how almost weightless it feels, almost like it’s barely keeping itself from floating off if it weren’t in anyone’s grasp. And while that glow is faint, it doesn’t seem to be fading any further, so maybe there’s still a chance that it can recover.
To think that this little thing would be his “ticket” out of this mess that his body has been left in. But at this point, he doesn’t have many options either. If not for some recent abrupt turn of events, he was ready to just accept defeat and give up, leave town and disappear somewhere so no one would have to see him degrade further. But then he heard from an associate in town who dropped a hint that Avalanche would be stopping by soon. Laden with a new responsibility and sense of duty to set the record right, he waited a little longer and sure enough, those three showed up out in the open and he hurried to bring them inside before they were found. Who knows how things will go from here on out, but above all, he doesn’t want to leave without taking care of some old regrets.
He now takes the orb in a firm grasp and slips it into a pocket, and turns back to the other two. “Thank you, ladies. You’re a lifesaver in more ways than one.”
“Oh. We didn’t do much, but we’re happy to help,” Elmyra replies politely. “Is there anything else we can do for you?”
“No, that’ll be all. In fact, if things go well, maybe I’ll be able to return the favor sometime.”
“Return the favor?”
He gives a confident smirk. “I’m fairly well known around these parts. If there’s anything you need from me or my associates, feel free to ask. I live on the eastern end of town, past the market square. If you ever hear anyone mention the word ‘tremolo’, you can ask for me and if they know, they’ll be able to help.”
“‘Tremolo’…?” She nods slowly. “I see. It’s a code word.” She returns a smile. “Well, I think we’re well situated here for now, but if anything comes up, I’ll be sure to let you know.”
“Will do.”
He gives them a quick handwave before he starts off again, but Marlene still looks at him with a little bit of concern. He gives her a reassuring smile and turns for the door.
But then the little girl asks, “Will you be okay, Mister?”
“Huh?” He turns back to her.
“For a moment there, you looked a little sad when you were looking at Ruby’s materia. Did anything come to you?”
Broden blinks in surprise. Though he didn’t think much into it at first, he severely underestimated just how perceptive this girl is. Without a single word uttered or gesture made, she seems to have caught onto what he was thinking. Truth be told, he isn’t really sure if he’s just latching himself onto false hope that things will be alright. But he also really, really wants to believe that this hope exists. Maybe there isn’t all that much left in this broken world to salvage, but what little good there is that remains, it should be protected. Though he used to think that he wouldn’t ever need to mind any kids, as he never got to be with a certain woman he once loved, but now that he sees this little girl before him, he’s reminded of the reason why he joined Soldier in the past. Not everyone joins Soldier gets to be a hero, of course, but you can be damn sure that anyone worth their salt would try their hardest to defend those they want to protect.
He gives her a grateful smile. “Well, something did come up, but it wasn’t the materia that spoke to me. Thanks for your concern. I’ll be fine.”
“Hmm… okay.” She lightens up again with a cute smile of her own and waves goodbye. “Thanks for coming, Mister! Hope to see you soon!”
“Heh. No need to thank me.”
With a lighter mood in the air, he sets off again. But as he steps away from the quaint, homely house and it disappears around the bend, the grim reality of the situation presents itself once again. The streets are so quiet, aside from the pounding boots of Shinra troops nearby. He can even hear some shouting going on. There’s some kind of commotion and he stops by behind a corner to eavesdrop.
“All units, head to the north end! There’s been a report of a threat coming from the coast!”
His eyes open wide. From the coast? He’s only heard rumors from passing travelers prior to the cell tower crash that they’d been witnessing some disturbances coming from the seas. For whatever reason, the sea life would go into a frenzy as soon as some great threat drew near, but people almost never got to see anything come up from the watery depths. But there’s no doubt that there would be something out there. Even as far as Junon’s sonars had picked up similar activity before. It’s like Mother Nature herself were giving warning signs that something big would be coming, but for the longest time, everyone just ignored them and pretended nothing was wrong.
This isn’t good. He has to hurry back to Jessie and them and hand over the materia. Even if Shinra forces are enough to handle the threat for now, there’s no telling what may happen in the aftermath. Besides, if those three need an exit route, there won’t be a better chance than now.
~
“Hey, guys. I’m back.”
“Yo, Broden! The man of the hour!” Wedge greets him with a raised hand.
Broden returns home to find a surprising lift in spirits. In fact, Biggs and Wedge are sitting comfortably in his living room engaged in a battle of cards. While Jessie isn’t here, presumed to still be in the back working on her project, these two were so bored out of their minds that they took up a few rounds of Queen’s Blood. Though the TV and radio are still operational, due to the ongoing issues with the cell towers, news has been slow and limited to local events and happenings, but given that the Shinra troops have largely taken over those things, it’s been nothing but Shinra-centric news and propaganda that these guys have little interest in partaking.
Biggs exchanges a few cards in his hand for a few others in his deck, but looks disappointed at his current hand. He shakes his head with a sigh, places yet another Grassland Wolf card down in the only slot he has remaining, and passes his turn. To which, Wedge grins and lays out not one, not two, but three different creature cards that all ultimately help boost a very proud-looking Dio on the field. It’s a clean sweep. Wedge has taken control of all three lanes. He cheers while Biggs sits back with a groan. How did this happen? He had a great win streak going, but then Wedge somehow came back around and took the last three matches out of five.
Broden gives them both a suspect look, but decides not to press it. “…I see you guys are doing alright. Where’s Jessie?”
“In the workshop as usual. Kicked us out for being ‘too noisy’,” Biggs replies.
“She also took our phones, so we haven’t been doing much,” Wedge complains. “So, uh, hope you don’t mind that we took your cards.”
Broden shakes his head. “It’s fine. Anyway, as promised, I got what I said I’d get.” He walks up, draws out the special materia from his pocket, and presents it to them. “Here it is.”
But rather than be ecstatic, the other two look confused. “What the?” Biggs asks, staring at the orb, as he accepts it from him.
Wedge scoots over in a hurry. “Wait. Is that really Ruby’s materia?”
“I think so? But it’s so pale now. Like it’s weak.”
“What? Why? Did something happen?”
The two turn back to Broden, who returns a solemn sigh. He explains, “It was like that when I found Marlene. She thinks Ruby isn’t feeling well, though I’m not sure what actually happened.”
“Oh, no.” Wedge starts to fidget and turns to Biggs. “You think something really did happen with her? I mean, it has been a while since we heard from Cloud and them…”
Biggs hastily waves it away. “No way! I’m sure they’re doing fine. Jessie said she ran into interference when she tried calling before, but at the time everyone was having issues with communication. It probably had something to do with what hit the towers everywhere.”
“But our phones aren’t connected to the towers. They’re powered by materia, remember?”
“I know. But that huge meteor wasn’t just some rock, so who knows what it actually did?” Biggs folds his arms with a puzzled frown. “Weird how it vanished just before it was gonna hit… but doesn’t that mean Cloud and them actually won? They beat back Sephiroth, didn’t they? That must have been why.”
“I guess…?” Wedge scratches his head. “Weird that they haven’t called back, though. I wonder where they went?”
In the ensuing silence and confusion as the three men rack their heads to little avail, they’re shortly interrupted when Jessie comes bouncing out from the back room.
“Guys, I hit a breakthrough! You won’t believe – oh, hey, Broden – I finally got the transmuter to work with those materia shards! They just needed a little more juice, but I’m glad I had an extra Lightning materia on hand.”
“Uh… great?” Biggs shrugs.
“Of course it’s great! That means my theory wasn’t total bunk!” She marches right up to Broden with a cheerful grin. “So, how’d it go? Did you find them and get the materia?”
“Yeah, but…” He points to the orb in question now in Biggs’ hand. “It doesn’t look like it’s in good condition.”
“Huh?” Now Jessie zips up to take the materia from him and inspect it closer for herself. “What happened? It wasn’t always this pale.”
“That’s what we were saying,” Biggs replies with his own concerned frown. “Think something happened to Ruby? It’s not like her to disappear on us, and even her materia has grown weak.”
“Don’t be silly. This is Ruby we’re talking about. How is she ever ‘weak’? Maybe…” Jessie takes a moment to consider other possibilities. “She somehow turned down her presence? Like, switched to a power-saving mode?”
Biggs’ face contorts into a little cringe. “What are you talking about? She’s not a computer, Jessie.”
“Yeah, but whatever is going on, she’s not able to reach out as far.” She frowns, growing serious. “The battle they had with Sephiroth must have taken a serious toll on them. That might explain why we haven’t been able to hear from Cloud or anyone else.”
“Uh… wait. So are they really in trouble or not?” Wedge asks, growing more confused.
“If Ruby’s with them, they ought to be okay. We’ll just have to wait until they can reach out again.” Jessie now leaves the orb be and slips it into her pocket, but then strikes a thinking face as she resumes her mental calculations. “Then again, this may be a good chance. I wouldn’t need much of her power for this, so if I link it up now, could it be just enough? I need to check.”
“Uh, Jessie?” Biggs calls out, but she’s already gone back in. He shakes his head. “Man… I know this is some crazy useful stuff she’s working on, but it’s like she’s obsessed with it.”
“She is the tech wiz, after all,” Wedge casually compliments. “If there’s anyone who can make that stuff work, it’s her.”
He sits back with a sigh. “But it leaves us out of all the fun.”
Wedge sighs too. “Yeah… I wish we could do more. Lately, it feels like we’ve just been running around without much of a point.”
They enter into another uncomfortable silence, and even Broden is unsure of what he can do for them at this point. But they don’t have to wait long before they suddenly hear Jessie’s shriek that makes them freeze up.
“What?”
“Jessie!?”
The three of them rush into the workshop to see what happened. Jessie’s still at her workbench as usual, but she is now panicking. It looks like aside from the transmuter itself, it’s been connected up to another device that can hold full-sized materia, akin to the equipment that they’ve been using, but this one is specifically designed to be linked to the three materia shards she collected from their respective PHS phones. However, as soon as she hooked up Ruby’s pale materia to the setup and gave it a test, she was met with a horrifying realization. The once white materia flickered for a little bit and just like that, its inner light faded entirely, leaving behind a completely transparent empty shell.
Jessie is frantically trying to flick the switch on the device to reverse the transfer, but it doesn’t seem to do anything. “Oh, no. No no no no…”
“Jessie, what happened?” Broden calls out.
“Uh…” She freezes up when she realizes she’s not alone in the room and slowly turns back to them with a nervous face, her teeth grit tightly, looking like she was just caught red-handed. “Guys? Problem.”
Just by her reaction alone, Biggs feels a sinking feeling in his gut. “Oh, God… What happened to Ruby’s materia?”
“Eh heh…” She is forced to detach the orb from her device to show it to them. “I think it’s… dead?”
The room goes dead silent as if her words alone were enough to cast some sort of immobilizing spell on everyone. And the next moment, Biggs and Wedge start to freak out.
“It’s WHAT!?” Wedge squeals.
“Jessie, what did you do!?” Biggs cries, clasping his head in both hands.
“I-I dunno! It was just fine a moment ago!” Jessie stammers.
“WHAT!? HOW!? WHY!?” Wedge wails, his feet jittering so much he looks like he’s dancing.
“Then put it back!” Biggs yells desperately.
“That doesn’t do anything!” Jessie whines.
“What do you MEAN it doesn’t!?”
“It just doesn’t, okay! I tried!”
“AAAAAAHHH!!” Wedge screams, now running back and forth.
And amid all the wailing and panic, Broden is still dead silent. He goes pale as a sheet and feels faint, like he’d just lost a great amount of blood all at once. The last wisp of whatever hope he still held has just fluttered away in the wind, gone like it was never there to stay. Maybe it was false hope after all. Feels like whatever they try is just going to backfire and they’d end up even worse than they started. Why did he let himself get suckered in?
But at this point, Jessie is way too deep into the process to call it quits. In desperation, she tries to turn on the transmuter to see if it still works as intended. For just a moment, the screen flickers on and appears to be normal. But then she witnesses a most curious thing: even though she never programmed it to display any other messages than just the standard “processing…” or “transmutation complete” ones, there is now a completely different message that pops up. Her jaw drops and she goes silent for a minute, but then yells at the other guys to shut up.
“HEY! Be quiet and check this out!” she yells, shoving the transmuter in their faces.
Biggs and Wedge immediately stop trembling and stare wide-eyed at the screen before them. Even Broden snaps out of his daze and his jaw drops too. Even Jessie who had been panicking just moments ago has settled down again and gives a relieved grin.
Displayed on the screen of the transmuter is just a single line of text that reads: “Thanks, guys. I’m in. (・ڡ＜) - Ruby”
Notes:
Unicode text reference: The emoticon at the very end is of a winking face with the tongue poking out the corner of the mouth.
Have some presents filled with trivia and fun facts!
- We have officially entered the "World of Ruin" arc and to start us off, a half-Armageddon because apparently Meteor couldn't be stopped entirely, but I didn't want an all-out ruined world because it would make the whole political shenanigans a little harder to write. But we'll see how things will develop over the next chapters - for the worse, I mean.
- Midgar has also returned to the ol' wartime propaganda, yay! Shout-out to the racist grandma from Remake! (Please don't take that out of context.)
- Though most of the people in the crowd of protesters are generic NPCs I decided not to describe too in-depth about, the one named Yamazaki and the bearded man beside him may be just notable enough to make a reappearance down the line. I dunno exactly how yet, but I feel obligated to do something else with them. Btw, "Yamazaki" is just a really common Japanese name and the first one I thought about. I don't know why I was thinking about it, but the image of the famous liquor brand also came to mind.
- Look who it is! It's Jessie's mom back again, and even Denzel and his folks (not dead) are here too! I always wondered what it'd be like if some of these familiar faces would do if they met, and this was the perfect chance for these complete strangers to meet. For once, Denzel won't be an orphan. Who knows if he'll get to meet Cloud and them on the same terms, but at least he'll be okay.
- If I recall, Remake didn't actually give Jessie's mom a full name, so I had to come up with a name. Apparently, her husband's name is given as Rowan, which is actually a classification of berry, in line with his last name. In my research, I realized that raspberries fall into the genus Rubra, but since we already have a character with the name "Ruby", I decided to go with the greater family of Rosedaea, or in short, "Rose". It's only tangentially related to actual roses, but ah, who's really counting?
- Time for Shinra political shenanigans again! Poor Reeve has to deal with all this crap and on top of it all, Rufus isn't happy with him either. But it is pretty important for my story that I have at least one or two of the major party members, namely Cait Sith and his trusty Moogle, to show up in Wutai at some point before everyone comes back together. I'll explain why in a future chapter.
- Also, yes, Hojo is missing and that is never a good sign. I will also have to explain where he's gone.
- It really is a Christmas miracle, alright. Freakin' Palmer of all people actually gets some good news.
- As for Rufus' last job that's briefly mentioned here, well, let's just say that it might not be the most plot-relevant scene, but I'll see what I can do when we get there.
- As you may suspect, the main reason I needed Jessie's gang in Kalm is precisely so they can obtain Ruby's materia from Marlene. The fact that I was able to slip in Broden from Rebirth here is a nice bonus, so I don't have to come up with another random NPC to help, and in this case, I even get to give the guy a change of pace to his otherwise dreary fate.
- I am taking many liberties with how materia and the transmuter are actually supposed to function, but well, it's not like Rebirth explained anything about how transmutation actually works, so I reserve the freedom to write an explanation however I see fit! Besides, this is Jessie we're talking about. She's about as magical girl as Aerith when it comes to tech stuff, I decided.
- Elmyra and Marlene are back, yay! I so wanted to write about them for the longest time, but I couldn't fit them into the story until now. And aside from Marlene just being the cutest thing, I also wanted to show how much she's actually aware of, being in possession of that materia. Marlene was always pretty keen to spiritual stuff even in canon, so it's little surprise that she'd be able to sense stuff like Ruby's precarious situation.
- Incidentally, what is that vague threat that Kalm and other towns are so afraid of? It's not just some wild fiends, that's for sure. Look forward to a future chapter for that!
- Wait, what? Ruby, what are you doing in there? Isn't she supposed to be dead? (Okay, I know what, but I'm not telling.)
Chapter 76: If You Open Your Heart
Notes:
Here we are. I guess I'm just regularly writing 15k chapters these days, no biggie. Might as well make the wait worthwhile, huh? Hahaha... I'm so tired.
There was another reason why I sat on this chapter: it broke me. I've written a number of emotional scenes up to this point in this fic alone, but this one dug deep. I just knew I was gonna hit all the hard and soft notes in a single chapter, and even after psyching myself up to write it, I came away in tears. And mad giggles, but that's for something else to come. At least there's some fun in here to enjoy amid all the trauma.
1/29/25 edit: Happy Lunar New Year, everyone! This is the year of the snake. To celebrate, I have become a snake by hiding in my bed for the past couple weeks.
Outdated A/N
Jokes aside, sorry to say, my health has not been the best and progress has been incredibly limited. Hopefully, that will change as the winter passes and the weather warms again. I anticipate that I may need at least another week or week-n-half before I can finish this next chapter. Stay tuned in the coming days for updates if that changes.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“…Rubia?” Aerith calls out again.
Rubia says nothing. Here she stands in the midst of a completely black room that serves as a nexus depot and backup archive to the greater system that defines the reality of Gaia. It is currently filled with model replicas of various peoples of this world specific to this particular timeline of events that she had previously participated in and recently departed. This is the “Debug Room”: a hidden backroom that would normally be inaccessible to anyone that only functions within the bounds of the planet’s environment, but guarded and administrated by those beyond. It is and has always been a testing ground for potential mechanical changes or alterations to the simulation at large, and has more or less become an empty playground to Rubia since she first discovered it via her earliest encounter with “death” – at the command of her own mother, no less.
However, this scene is different. The current iteration of the room comes as a surprise with very disturbing implications. Though she is no stranger to seeing the results of back end development running and being applied in real time to her or her surroundings, she’s never seen a room in such a crowded state like this. There are so many characters lined up here, many of whom she wouldn’t have believed to be significant or noteworthy in the slightest. Aside from certain persons of interest that she has interacted with personally, there are many others filed in line among them: agents and employees of Shinra, people that the main actors would share in their close circles, and even named NPCs from various towns they’ve since visited, to name a few. Not all of them are deceased, nor is everyone who is confirmed dead have been archived here, and yet their identities have been “saved” and preserved in a place like this. But why? What purpose do these characters serve? What about this particular timeline is different from all others prior? And above all, how has this been happening without even her being made aware!?
“Hey, Rubia?” Zack calls out as well.
“Rubia, please. If you know something, talk to us,” Aerith speaks with a solemn face. “We want to understand.”
Yet, Rubia has suspicions; deep-seated fears of something much more sinister in play or may be soon to come. Frankly, there’s only one entity that comes to mind that could feasibly upend the status quo on a whim: Ruby. Only this trickster that inexplicably defies even the Gods would be effective to give them pause, such that even a world as ruined as this would still be active and maintained until a proper adjudication can be given. She truly is a model virus, to mutate and adapt to any changing environment in seconds before any actions may be taken against her. It seems this timeline’s course has finally led to one permanently corrupted future that cannot be so cleanly swept and flushed away like all the rest. However, what this future entails instead scares Rubia – so scared to the depths of her ailing heart, as if she is afraid for her own existence. If “Ruby” is now out there, totally beyond her control, where does that leave her? And if “Ruby” is not a part of her anymore, then what of her remains?
Growing a bit impatient, Aerith then calls out to her by a different name: “Ruby! I know you’re in there! Come on out already!”
At last, Rubia responds, but she returns her an irate glare. “Speak not of the damned.”
Aerith follows with a concerned frown. “Then talk to us, Rubia. What’s going on? What are you thinking?”
But Rubia is no longer in the mood to talk. She takes one last scan around the room with a much more resentful look in her eyes, disgusted to have to be witness to this messy, ragtag collection of individuals that she couldn’t care less for. What an absolute farce. For once, their silly simulation runs into an unexpected error and only now have Minerva and her fellow admins taken action, rushing to back up everything like any of it has any remaining worth. Everything in this virtual world was crafted to be a simulation of a realistic world that ultimately revolved around her, Rubia, in the first place. For she is the “main character” in a show viewed by the elite of all social strata! Rubia, the cursed daughter of Tiamat! Eternally doomed to repeat her follies ad infinitum, nay ad absurdum! She who was once spared the punishment upon her mother, only to be sealed forevermore into a different prison under a thin veil of deception and lies that gave her false hope! All was decided from the moment she was born to the latest instance of her death! She is a star in the limelight, yet naught more than a puppet in the hands of a ringmaster to a grand circus! A vaudeville of tragicomedies! Is this what they call “divine entertainment”!?
“Uh, Rubia… You okay?” Zack asks, raising a finger her way. “You’re looking a little scary there.”
By now, Rubia is practically heaving with each breath she takes. She gives a low, dangerous, vengeful growl, but pays these two no mind. She keeps fuming in silence as she stomps off in the same direction as they had just come, disappearing off into the darkness once more. As if it truly were but a theatrical piece on stage, there also appears a single red triangle that appears at the edge of the room where she departed. And on the sidelines, Aerith and Zack watch her go in silence and turn back to one another to exchange their worries.
Aerith sighs to herself, bringing her hands back together in an anxious grasp. “…I didn’t think it would be easy to reach her, but she’s just as closed off as ever.”
Zack rubs his head awkwardly. “How long has she been here anyway?”
“Who knows. Must have been ages. I wonder if she even knows how long.”
“Oof… Yeah, that sounds like it would suck.” He glances off that way toward the newly marked exit and back to her. “Should we follow her?”
“Hmm…” Aerith lets her hands go and puts up a thinking face. “I would love to talk with her, but she’s not going to listen like this. We need something to get her to open up a little.”
She now takes another look around the black room, noting the places and positions of all these familiar faces, most of whom she remembers quite well and a few others whom she would rather forget. But she then steps over to the front of the lines to stop before Cloud’s stationary model and stare thoughtfully into his sleeping, almost angelic face. Zack joins her, takes another look at the guy, shrugs, and turns back to her.
“What are you thinking, Aerith? Can we do something with these guys?”
Aerith tilts her head curiously. “I wonder… why did Fenrir choose Cloud to inherit his legacy?”
Zack blinks blankly. “Huh?”
She turns back to him. “Oh, right. You have no idea where that came from, huh?”
“Yeah, um, maybe I could use a refresher. What’s been happening with Cloud?”
“Hmm…” Aerith takes a moment to consider how best to summarize things as neatly as she can. “Okay. So Fenrir is this ancient frost wolf of legend that was a real powerhouse. He even fought all kinds of Gods in his heyday! But he later disappeared and was almost forgotten to time. It’s a long story how we came to meet him, but now Cloud is blessed by his spirit and can take on a form that makes him as powerful as a Summon too! He’s like a superhero running on lupine rage!”
“…” Zack simply stares back as if he didn’t quite get it. He glances off looking a little lost, but give another second, he swings back and does a double-take. “Wait, wait, wait… What!? Cloud’s a SUMMON!?”
“Yyyeah, some of the time anyway. I’m not really sure how it works.” She takes a pause to think it over. “Or why it even happened. Historically, Fenrir was said to hate humans and would steer clear of them, but for once he decided to ally with one.” She looks back to Cloud with a kind smile. “Well, I can understand why he would trust Cloud. Not only is he a pretty cool guy, they have similar goals and are trying to work toward a future where Ruby – and Rubia – can be happy.”
Zack looks at him too with a proud smirk. “Yeah. He is a pretty cool guy.”
“But…” Aerith lowers her head in contemplation. “We never really got a chance to talk with Fenrir or learn much about him. We know he cares a lot about Rubia, but everything else is a mystery. He seems to be able to do things like possess Cloud and all, but I don’t know if it’s just him, or if there’s some trick to it.” She then looks down the line for the rest of their friends. “What about the other Summons? Do they also have the power to bless people and lend their power to them?” Finally, she makes a determined face and clasps her hands firm. “If so, then what do we need to be able to do it too?”
“Uh…” Zack blinks blankly. “Aerith? Are you saying you want to be a Summon too?”
“I dunno if it’s possible, but if there’s even a chance…” She looks back to him with a coy smile. “Wouldn’t that be neat? I wonder what kind of spirit I could inherit.”
He scratches his head, looking even more confused than before, but decides not to question it. “I dunno, but yeah, that would be neat!” He flashes an amused grin. “Hey, if Cloud can do it, I’d think my girl who’s related to freakin’ Bahamut would be able to show him a thing or two.”
“Haha!” She looks off in wonder as she lets ideas run wild. “Well, it would be kinda funny if I turn into a dragon too, but I think we got enough dragons with Bahamut and Rubia running around already. Maybe I could go for a super special spirit too! One that not only can speak to the planet, but also bring life to the place wherever we go!”
“Hey! That’s perfect! Sounds just like you!”
“I know, right?”
The two share a cute laugh together and settle into a peaceful moment of quiet. How nice it is to be able to feel like this again, especially after all the troubles and struggles they’ve been through. And through those struggles, they learned what really mattered in the end. It isn’t just about finding good company to hang out with, or “sticking it to the man” to leave a message. They’re important and have their places too, of course. But above all, they have to appreciate life for what it is; all the good things to cherish and the bad things to work to improve. There is always meaning in growth. Maybe to Rubia, everything around her seems to be fake. Maybe they really are pieces of data in some weird simulation that encompasses an entire planet’s worth of life. But virtual or not, this world keeps turning like it’s as real as any other. And even in the dead silence of this Debug Room, there’s still some kind of life that lingers. It’s definitely subtle, hidden like a secret somewhere, but it does exist. They just have to find it and show it to her. Then, Aerith hopes she’ll finally come around.
She looks back to Cloud, feeling curious about something else. “…Hey, Zack. I just got an idea.”
“What?”
“What if we do something nice for Rubia? Like, bring everyone back to life and go meet her like the family she deserves?”
He stares back blankly at first, but his eyes widen when he realizes how serious she is about it. “Whoa! Aerith? What do you mean, you’re gonna ‘bring everyone back to life’? How?”
“Um, I dunno yet, but at least it’s something to work toward.” She nods with a confident smile. “And besides, you being here taught me something important.”
“Huh? Me?”
“Yeah.” That smile now turns for the cute, with a little blush. “People don’t really disappear if they’re not forgotten.”
“…” He blinks once, twice, and a few more times. He looks back down at himself for good measure and back to her. “…Huh. Yeah. I don’t get what really happened with me, but here I am.” He pauses and quickly adds, “Where are we anyway?”
“If I were to guess, probably somewhere in the Lifestream.”
He slowly nods along. “Ah… Okay, so I am dead. Just hanging out as a spirit?”
Aerith then tries to recall. “But it’s weird. I don’t remember actually facing death, but I’m here too.”
He stops nodding. “Oh. Really? How did you get here?”
“I must have fallen into the planet’s depths.” Now that she remembers the crew’s last moments before they dispersed, she falls into gloom. “But I don’t know where everyone else went. All I can remember was that we were fighting against Sephiroth and Jenova, and he did something to put me into a deep sleep.” She hangs her head in shame. “We might have lost the battle and got separated.”
“Oh. Him again…” His face darkens immediately upon hearing that name again and he clenches up a fist. “Damn. I’m sorry, Aerith. Wish I was there to help.”
“It’s okay, Zack. Probably for the best you weren’t.”
He raises that fist with a determined face. “Aerith. Tell me what I can do to help. Maybe I really am dead or whatever, but as long as I still exist in some way, I’ll do anything I can to help! After all, you’re alive, so there’s still hope for the rest of your friends!”
She nods slowly as she lets it sink in, but then looks up again with a genuinely assured smile. “Right. It’s too early to say that they’re gone forever. We just have to find them.” She turns back to Cloud’s model once again with her own determined face. “And I think I know just where to start.”
“Cloud, huh? Good choice.” Zack pauses and then brings up another question, “So, uh, what do we do now?”
“Hmm…” She looks down at her hands and back to him, and thinks aloud over possibilities. “I’m Cetra too. By any chance, could I do something to work this system?”
“We can try. What are you thinking?”
“Let’s see. What if I…?”
Aerith reaches a hand to hold Cloud’s own, and the moment she does, she is spooked by a sudden pop-up window that appears before her. On it is a simple text message that reads: “That day in Nibelheim, seven years ago. Would you like to go to this location?” She and Zack stare in silent awe at the strange message box, exchange confused looks, which soon turn to shared resolve. She beckons him closer and takes him by the hand too. And as the final step, she lightly taps on the message box where the option says, “Yes.”
The next instant, the message box vanishes and they’re both enveloped in a blinding white light that briefly blinds them and then spirits them away.
~
The next thing Aerith knows, she finds herself and Zack in what looks like the center of a familiar town. Nibelheim, long before the tragic incident. The town is lively with activity all around. People are out and about, kids playing in the open and running around the cobblestone streets. The iconic water tower stands high over the town, quiet and undisturbed as it should be, and the gentle breeze sifts harmlessly over the windmill’s blades without knocking them about. However, at a glance, Aerith also notices that the guy she was hoping to find, Cloud, is nowhere to be seen. She looks around again just to be sure, but he really isn’t anywhere in sight. Maybe he’s in one of the houses? Maybe back home?
Zack also looks around and is impressed. “Huh… It’s just like how it was back when I first visited. Nice little backwater town.” He lets off a sigh and awkwardly rubs his head. “Then Shinra just had to go and get themselves involved.”
“I heard one of the earliest reactors was built around a small town. Was it this one, actually?” Aerith asks him.
“Uh… I think so? I don’t remember all the history. It might’ve been.”
“Anyway, at least things seem pretty peaceful around here.” She makes a big, excited smile as she tugs him by the hand. “Let’s go see Cloud!”
“Yeah! But…” He shrugs. “If this is supposed to be from his memories, where is he?”
“Yeah, that is weird. Let’s ask around?”
“Will that work? We’re not supposed to be a part of the scene and all.”
Nonetheless, Aerith marches right up to some nearby townsfolk and waves a hand. “Um, excuse me!”
To their surprise, a white man in a straw hat and a black woman with a bonnet who had been tending to a few hyperactive kids actually turn their way and greet them back. “Oh, hey, there! You’re the one they call ‘Aerith’, right?” the man asks.
The woman nods along and turns to Zack too with an amused smirk. “Even this guy’s back. Been a while since we saw any Soldier outfit.”
Aerith and Zack are so taken aback they’re stunned quiet. Aerith then asks, “Pardon me, but have we met before?”
The man shakes his head but offers a relaxed smile. “Not exactly, Miss, but this is kind of a special place ’round here.”
The woman follows up, “You see, this may look like the old Nibelheim, and most of us are still around, but we know we aren’t really mingling with the folks up there.”
“Up there?” Aerith asks again.
“You know, back on the planet’s surface. You realize we’re in the Lifestream here, don’t ya?” the man replies in a rather jovial tone.
Again, she and Zack are blown away. “How do they know that?” he asks her.
The man and woman then laugh together. “Newcomers are always so surprised,” the woman remarks.
“It’s just the way things are here. You can think of it like being in a world of its own,” the man continues to explain.
“That said, it’s not like we haven’t been keeping up either. We’ve been hearing all about the news lately, what with all the hubbub around a certain dragon stirring up trouble.”
“Heh. Well, it’s not our problem. Shinra always had it coming to ’em.” He glances aside to Zack. “Ah, no offense, though.”
Zack waves a hand. “None taken. I know I’m dressed like this, but I quit.”
The man grins back. “Yeah, I’d think so. The whole town-burning was a real wake-up call.”
He blinks, taken aback to hear it said so casually. “Wait. You remember that too?”
“Of course. Where else would we have known you from?” the woman jabs back coyly.
He looks like he was just punched in the gut hard and slumps over. “Y-yeah… Um. Sorry about that one guy.”
She waves it away. “Don’t mind it. Now that we’re all here, it’s just a thing in the past.”
The man then makes a concerned frown. “Too bad not everyone who comes here can just let it go.”
“Hm?” That piques Aerith’s curiosity.
He hesitates for a moment and shakes his head. “Nah, don’t worry about it. Things of the past should stay in the past, as they say.”
“…” Though that does make her curiouser, she decides not to push it. She instead asks, “By the way, has anyone seen Cloud around here?”
“Cloud? Yeah, he was here just a while ago.” The woman points toward his house off on that side of the neighborhood. “He stopped by to see his ma and probably Tifa. Looked like he was in a hurry too.” She turns back to them. “It hasn’t been too long so you might still be able to catch him.”
Aerith makes a relieved smile. “Awesome! Thanks!”
“No problem.” The woman also adds in a lower voice, “And uh, if you do catch him, tell ’im to be careful by the edge of town? The last time anyone went out, they haven’t been back in a long time.”
“Oh, um, sure.”
Aerith and Zack wave polite goodbyes to the rather laid-back townsfolk and get moving toward the house in question. But along the way, she can’t help but get a weird feeling about this place. It’s meant to be a memory of Cloud’s and at least looks the part at first glance, but it seems like the people – or perhaps, spirits – living here seem to have largely moved on from their former lives. It’s as if they settled into this memory for old times’ sake before they’re due to return to the Great Flow. But that’s the thing: this is a memory from seven years ago. If their souls still lingered somewhere, they should have returned to the planet long before they could have heard a thing about recent events featuring Ruby.
“Aerith, it’s not just me, right?” Zack asks. “This town feels kinda off.”
She nods back. “I think so too. But like they said, this is somewhere in the Lifestream. I wouldn’t be surprised if old and new memories merge in with each other sometimes.”
“But isn’t this supposed to be Cloud’s memory?”
“More or less, but maybe something’s changed. We came here too, after all. I wonder if this Cloud they mentioned is the same Cloud we know.” She takes a pause to think a little more. “If it is, he might know something. Let’s hurry.”
The pair soon arrives at the house in question, and Aerith quickly checks her appearance before stepping up to the door and giving it a knock. After a short but tense moment of anticipation, the door opens and a lovely woman with her blond hair tied up in a short tail comes to meet them.
“Yes? Oh!” She blinks in surprise and greets them with a delighted smile. “You must be Aerith and Zack! It’s nice to meet you at last.”
“And you must be… Cloud’s mom?” Aerith asks eagerly.
She chuckles. “I sure arm. Call me Claudia. Oh, please come in.”
“Thanks, Ms. Claudia!”
Claudia kindly welcomes them inside the humble house and closes the door. “Sorry about the tight space. We usually don’t get too many visitors, but make yourselves at home.”
“No worries. Say, was Cloud here earlier?”
She nods. “He was, but he was looking for Tifa, so he didn’t stay long.” Her smile fades a bit and she shakes her head. “He was also acting a little strange, like something was really bothering him, but he didn’t tell me why. I hope he’s at least staying out of trouble.”
“Hmm. Well, we’re looking for him and Tifa too. Did he happen to mention us at any point, or…?”
“No, not at all.” She admits with an awkward smile, “If I knew I was expecting more visitors, I might have cleaned up the place a little.”
“Oh, don’t mind us. We won’t be staying too long.”
Zack, who has been admiring the quaint little home, gives a casual wave. “This is way neater than what I’ve seen in other places. You’re good.”
“Is that so? Alright, if you don’t mind.” She then goes back to feeling a little worried. “As a mother, I can’t help but wonder what goes on in his head sometimes.”
“You mean Cloud?” Aerith asks again, “How has he been?”
“Quiet, for the most part. He’s always hurrying from place to place like he can’t get settled.” She sighs to herself. “Honestly, that boy… I know he means well, but since he doesn’t like to talk to others, it hasn’t been easy for him to make friends. But I know I can’t force him either.”
Aerith blinks in surprise. “Pardon? Did you say ‘boy’?”
Claudia looks a little puzzled herself. “Yes? Cloud is still young… at least within this memory.”
“Oh.” Surprised by the contrast of her soft tone and the jarring subject matter, Aerith feels a little embarrassed to admit, “Right. Sorry, we’re still getting used to these things.”
“Oh, no worries.” Claudia nods with a patient smile. “I understand things may be a little confusing coming from a place like this. But while we’ve all stayed here, it’s been quite peaceful.”
“So, you also know what happened? Back on the surface, I mean.”
“Hmm…” Claudia turns away for a brief moment as if hesitating over how to answer that, but then answers plainly, “Yes, more or less. Everyone knows what happened to this town on that day, but we don’t really know what happened after that. I didn’t think I would ever wake up again, but then one day, I did. We all did and found ourselves back home like nothing ever happened.”
Zack blinks and points out, “Hey, that happened with me too. After I passed out, I woke up again some time later. I wasn’t back home, though.”
Aerith makes a concerned frown. “Has it been like this for anyone who was believed to have died?”
Claudia looks unsure. “I think it was for us who are still in town. We’ve been safe for now, but only while we’re here. There were a few of us who tried to leave, but we haven’t heard back from them since.”
“Oh… Oh, dear.”
Zack frowns too. “So they’re just gone? Why would they disappear?”
Claudia shakes her head. “I don’t want to say that they’re really ‘gone’, but we just don’t know. The rest of us have been afraid to go after them and find out.”
“But surely you can’t just stay here forever?” Aerith suggests, “I’m sure you all have each other’s backs, but wouldn’t it get really lonely?”
“Yes, well…” Claudia hesitates over how to answer, but simply puts, “That’s just how things are. Everyone else doesn’t seem to mind, so I didn’t want to bother anyone about it. It does feel like we’re locked into a particular moment in time, but is that not how it is usually? Eventually souls that return to the planet will fade away amid the flow, after all. Maybe this little world we have is just one of our last moments before we go?”
“Hmm…” Aerith nods back slowly, but she still remains concerned. “Maybe. I’m not really sure, actually. This is my first time coming into someone else’s memory like this.”
Zack folds his arms, looking a little uncomfortable too. “Last moments, huh… But then what was all that about afterward? Ending up in a black void, and even holding memories that aren’t even mine…”
Claudia blinks in surprise. “Um, sorry. A black void? What do you mean?”
He snaps back to attention and makes an embarrassed grin. “Oh, it’s nothing! Just talking to myself, heh.”
“…” Setting the matter aside, Claudia returns to her smile. “Well, never mind all that. Is there anything else I can do for you? It wouldn’t be right to have you two standing around looking so serious. I’m sure Cloud will be back soon, so please, do make yourselves at home.”
Aerith shakes her head. “No, really. It’s fine. Um…” Though, she’s still troubled by the potential implications and has to ask, “By the way, when Cloud left, did he say where he was going?”
Claudia answers, “Not specifically, but he was looking for Tifa. I figured he went to her house next door.”
“Oh. Yeah, that makes sense.” Though she’s getting a little worried after all they’ve learned, Aerith keeps up a polite smile of her own. “Anyway, sorry to just pop in and out, but we’re also in a hurry. Hopefully Cloud’s still over there.”
“Oh, leaving already? Alright.” Claudia politely nods back. “Take care, you two. And when you find Cloud, could you tell him to be careful around the edge of town?”
“Will do! Thanks, Claudia!”
With a quick and cheerful wave goodbye, Aerith and Zack take their leave. But once they’re out and on the move again, their real worried faces come back to the forefront.
“You know… for such a peaceful ‘world’ this is, it sure feels like a kind of trap in another way, huh?” Zack mutters in a low voice. “Can’t even leave this town to explore the rest of the world. Everyone’s still happy and all, but it’s like they all know they’re just waiting to disappear. That’s gotta be rough.”
“Yeah…” Aerith whispers back, “I know they’re just trying to relive their happy moments, but I don’t think it’s normal for their memories to linger so long, even up until present day. Rubia was right. Something really has changed.”
“She sure was upset to find out too.”
“Mm-hm…”
They shortly arrive at Tifa’s house and step up to give the doorbell a ring. After waiting for a moment, though, it doesn’t seem like anyone is home to answer. Now they’re really getting worried. Zack also gives the door a light knock, but again, no one is home to answer. That’s weird. Seems like Tifa’s not home, but even her parents aren’t either? Where did they go?
Now that Aerith thinks it over again, she comes to realize something. “Wait. Since this is a specific memory of Cloud’s, do you think something might have happened to him or Tifa on this day?”
“Huh? Uh, sure. Wouldn’t that be normal? That’s how memories are.”
“No, I mean, something bad that really left an impression.”
He blinks again and gets serious. “Oh, man… You’re right. They’re not here, so where did they go?”
While the two stew over possibilities, Zack happens to catch the slightest noise of shuffling from the grass in the yard behind the house.
“Huh? Is someone there?” he calls out.
The source of the shuffling seems to panic and hurries away.
“Hey!”
“Zack?” Aerith asks.
“I dunno who it was, but someone was watching us. Let’s go after ’em! They might know something!”
“Oh. Okay!”
Like he’s back on a stealth mission, Zack carefully and quietly dives into the brush to track where their target has gone. But just as he’s nearing the spot where it had come from, a little boy bursts out of hiding and bolts down the main road again. It’s not Cloud, but some other kid. Nonetheless, Zack’s not about to let him get away. He rushes back out to give chase.
“Wait! Get back here!”
“Zack! Take it easy on him!” Aerith calls out from behind.
He rushes after the boy on the main road. Whenever the boy tries to find some place to hide, Zack is already on him again and the chase is back on. He pursues him up north, but whenever he’s about to catch up, he still takes care not to overtake him. But the poor kid seems way too scared to stay and runs off all the way toward the edge of town, where a couple other boys seem to have been waiting. For some strange reason, though, rather than seeing the road ahead lead into the mountains, there seems to be an abrupt cut off into what seems to be an impenetrable wall of white light.
“Hey! Emilio! What are you doing!?” one of the boys cries out.
“You led someone right to us!” the other boy complains.
“S-sorry…” he huffs as he comes up and stops to catch his breath. “I couldn’t lose him. He’s fast…”
Zack now approaches the boys, who all tense up as this almost looming figure of a soldier comes up to them. But then, he suddenly drops down to one knee and pretends to wheeze.
“Whew! You kids are something else! That really winded me!” he says, faking a gasp.
“Huh?”
He then grins back and offers a hand as a peace offering. “Hey. That was a fun race! From one good sport to the other, how about we call it a draw?”
“…” And just like that, the boys calm down, but they look a little disappointed. “Really? That’s all it took?” one of the other boys asks.
“I thought this guy was Soldier. Weren’t they supposed to be super?”
“Yeah…” The one named Emilio now smiles. “Hey, does this mean I’m cut out for it too?”
Zack makes an nervous grin. “Uh… Yeah! Sure.” He now stands back up and clears his throat. “Anyway, what are you guys doing here?”
“Zack!” a familiar voice calls from behind. Aerith comes hurrying up a little later, actually looking a little winded. “Whew… Don’t scare them…”
“Hey, Aerith!” He returns a reassuring grin and a thumbs-up. “Don’t worry, we’re good.”
Aerith turns to the kids, looking concerned for them. “What are you all doing out here? Don’t you know it’s dangerous to wander close to the edge?”
The boys now look uncomfortable and the first one to speak up again also complains, “That’s just what the adults are saying ’cause they’re too scared.”
“We’ve been standing around here for a while and nothing’s happened so far,” the second one mentions.
“Besides, we just saw Tifa run out there,” Emilio adds.
Aerith and Zack grow startled. “Tifa? She was here?” she asks.
“Yeah. We were thinking to follow, but then Cloud ran after her too.”
“Even Cloud…”
“They haven’t been back yet, so we’ve been watching the place in the meantime,” the second boy explains.
“Wonder how far they went? I think there are just the mountains up there, though,” the first boy remarks pretty casually.
Aerith and Zack now share some disturbed looks. “They just ran out there?” he asks.
“I don’t like where this is going,” she agrees.
“Yeah. Let’s go after them.”
“Huh? You guys are going out there too?” Emilio asks.
Zack returns the boys a confident smile. “Don’t worry about us. We can handle ourselves.”
“Hey, if you come back sometime, can you tell everyone else that it’s no big deal?” the first boy also suggests. “I’m tired of wandering around here like no one’s allowed to go out.”
That smile falters just slightly, but he replies, “Sure. We’ll let them know when we do.”
He turns back to Aerith, who nods along, and they rush on out through the white wall of light and promptly fall into the black abyss beyond, where everything has gone to black.
~
It’s not too long later, though, when they come to again. It seems like they have arrived at Mt. Nibel after all, but it’s some distance along the well-trodden road that they don’t remember trekking through. It’s as if they were magically warped to some specific location – perhaps just another quirk of this strange world within the Lifestream.
However, when they arrive, they come upon a disturbing scene. Little Tifa is here by the foot of a very rickety old bridge, huddled with her hands over her head. She’s been crying to herself. Little Cloud is here too, looking a little out of breath. But when he approaches her to talk with her, she yells at him.
“Tifa…”
“Stop! Don’t come any closer!”
“Why!?” he argues. “What’s wrong?”
“Everything! Nothing is right! This isn’t the Nibelheim we used to know!”
“Yeah, I know things are weird…” He still insists, “But that doesn’t mean we should just run off like this! Who knows what is out here?”
“Stop it, Cloud! I don’t want to hear it!” Tifa sobs aloud. “You don’t get it… You don’t know what I’ve been through!”
“I don’t, but I want to know! Tifa, please tell me! What happened? Why are you so scared?”
But Tifa keeps crying aloud. Cloud hesitates to come any closer, but he doesn’t dare leave her either. Frankly, he’s just as confused about what’s been happening – or why they’re back to being kids. But if there’s one thing that’s certain, it’s that this bridge is not to be trusted.
“O-okay! I’ll back off! Just step back from the edge! It’s dangerous!”
But Tifa refuses to budge even after Cloud steps back a bit. It doesn’t look like she’s going to move while he’s still in sight. But he can’t just walk away. What if something worse happens when he loses sight of her? Not again. Never again.
“Cloud! Tifa!” Aerith now calls out, as she and Zack hurry around the bend.
Cloud snaps to attention and looks back. “Aerith? Zack!?”
“It IS you! I knew it!” Aerith answers, relieved.
“What’s going on here?” Zack asks. “Tifa? What’s wrong?”
Tifa doesn’t even look their way, so Cloud has to answer. “I don’t know. After we all got split up, I ended up back in this old memory from when we were kids. At first I thought I was the only odd one out, but then I found Tifa. She was just sitting at the doorstep looking like she was in a daze. She then just ran off when she saw me and I’ve been chasing after her since.”
“Tifa, what happened?” Aerith tries too. “It’s okay. It’s really us. We’re here for you.”
Cloud frowns. “I’ve been telling her it’s not just another illusion from Sephiroth, but she doesn’t believe me.” He rubs his head awkwardly. “I guess it makes me look suspicious chasing her everywhere, but I couldn’t just leave her.”
Zack nods. “Yeah, man. I get it. This town is all kinds of off, but no one seems to care.”
Cloud turns away again with a grim face and clenches up his fists. “It’s so stupid… One moment, I’m fighting for my life and everyone else’s, and the next thing I know, I’m back to being a kid again. What am I supposed to do like this? It’s like we’ve been made into some kind of joke.”
“I don’t think any of this is a joke, though,” Aerith replies solemnly. “Whatever has happened goes beyond just this memory.”
“Huh?”
“We met Rubia earlier, but she was so upset about something she ran off somewhere. So we came here to see if we can find a way to bring everyone back.”
Cloud is seriously shaken. “What? Bring everyone ‘back’? You mean, back to life? Is that even possible?”
“I don’t know yet, but it’s worth trying something. We have to come together and show Rubia that there’s nothing to fear. That she’s not alone. That there still is something worth living for.”
While Cloud looks like he’s starting to understand, Tifa still doesn’t turn their way. He turns back to her and calls out, “Tifa. You heard them, right? We can’t be stuck waiting around here.”
“…”
“Rubia needs us. We have to go see her.”
“…I don’t care.”
“What?”
“I don’t care about any of it!” she lashes out. “What’s the point!? We’re all just pieces of some bigger plan in the end! We don’t even matter. Life, death, whatever. We’re just picked up and dropped somewhere wherever we have something to do. Like pawns on a chessboard…”
He winces. “Tifa…”
“Rubia needs us…?” She sniffles. “But what has she done for us? Why do we have to struggle so hard and relive our worst traumas? Fight a wold-ending threat that could just wipe us all away with a single wave of a hand… It’s like we were always set up to fail.”
Now he’s feeling pretty guilty. Maybe he should have been more careful of how to explain all the weirdness that he’s seen. He didn’t realize she would have such a major breakdown. I mean, sure, he understands she’s been under a lot of stress, but it’s not like they all haven’t been either.
Tifa buries her face in behind her legs. “It doesn’t matter… Nothing matters. I don’t care if this is Sephiroth’s doing or not. It’s still someone else’s doing. I never asked to be put through hell. Every time I think I can do something, like we can actually make a difference, I just find myself helpless to do anything. And now I’m back to being like this…” She whimpers. “It’s just gonna get worse.”
Cloud hangs his head in shame. He gets it, he really does. He’s had these thoughts himself from time to time. But he also can’t believe that it’s all over. That after everything they’ve been doing and working toward is just for nothing. That there’s no way out of this mess. Even while he was adrift in the Lifestream somewhere, he never thought for even a second that he was going to give up and die. He didn’t see Sephiroth disappear before his eyes yet. That means there’s a chance he’s still out there somewhere, and that means they have to keep fighting. Even if it takes rewriting the entire damn story, he’s gonna make sure the man is snuffed out for good.
“Tifa…” Aerith speaks up again, “It’s not too late. You can still do something that matters. We all can.”
“…” Tifa shakes her head and buries it again. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to do…”
“It’s okay. We’re still figuring things out, but we can do it together. It isn’t just about Rubia. We’re all here for you too.”
“…”
“Tifa?” Zack also adds, “I know nothing seems to make sense. I’m still don’t get how I’m here at all. But while we’re still ‘alive’ in some way, shouldn’t we keep trying? Trying to make things better.”
“…”
“Tifa,” Aerith tries to reassure her, “We’re not just pieces of someone’s game. We’re still ourselves. We do what we can for the people we care about. That hasn’t changed. And as long as we keep each other in our memories, we won’t be gone forever. There’s always a chance to save ourselves. To save Rubia. To set this world right… and maybe even bring Ruby back.”
“…” Tifa now looks up again, her eyes red and puffy. “Aerith… What can we do? Even if we somehow get everyone back, what’s going to stop Sephiroth or whoever from just making it worse again?”
“Um…” For all that she dearly wishes for, she knows she can’t actually answer that yet. “I don’t really know how, but we can try again. We can keep trying until he stops.”
“…” Tifa looks away again. She doesn’t look convinced in the least.
“Tifa.” Cloud speaks up again, “I’m sorry for laying all that on you earlier, about the whole simulation thing. I don’t really get what’s going on with this world, but really, what does any of that change? Haven’t we always been working toward the same thing? Stopping Sephiroth, helping Ruby and Rubia, and just making things better for everyone and the planet. Isn’t that what matters?”
“…”
“I still remember what you said when you introduced me to Avalanche. That even if it’s just a little, we can still make a difference.”
“…Of course it’s different. It changes everything.”
“Huh?”
Tifa now pulls out from her huddle, but her face has grown dark. “I only said that because I thought this world could be saved. But there’s nothing we can do from here. Not when anything isn’t even real.”
“Tifa, that’s not what…”
“Shut up! I’m not falling for any illusions anymore! I want out!”
“Y-yeah. I do too, but…”
“I’m sick of this. I’m sick of all of this…” She finally gets back up to her feet.
“Tifa?”
She then begins to tread toward the edge of the cliff. “…Nothing matters. Just let me end it. I don’t want to be a part of this world anymore…”
“Tifa! Stop! Don’t go there!”
But the moment Cloud hurries over to her to stop her, she tries to jump. And in that instant, Zack leaps into action. He rushes ahead and snatches little Tifa by the arm to pull her away.
“Hey! Whoa! Easy there!”
“Let me go!!” she screams.
She throws a quick jab and kicks him, but given her petite little body at this point, it doesn’t do that much aside from make him feel very uncomfortable.
“H-hey! Tifa! Calm down! Don’t be like…” he pleads.
And then she bites his hand.
“Ow!”
“Tifa!” Aerith gasps.
In that instant where Zack’s grip loosens, Tifa makes a break for it. Since he’s blocking her from the cliff’s edge, she rushes up the bridge without a second thought. As he watches her go there, Cloud’s blood runs cold. It’s happening again.
“Tifa!” he cries and runs after her.
“Wait, Cloud!” Zack calls out too.
As if it were tradition at this point, the rickety old bridge does not hold for long. In her haste, Tifa hits a moldy plank and it cracks under her feet, and she nearly slips off the side, clinging to the loosened ropes around it. Cloud dives after her and just barely snatches her by the hand, but the swing of the ropes continues to unravel them and he too loses his footing. And before even Zack can reach them, the two kids slip and fall as the bridge snaps cleanly in two.
“Aaaaahh!!”
“Guys!” Aerith yells, but she’s too late to reach them.
Without even a moment of delay, Zack jumps after them and snatches Cloud by his arm in midair, who is tightly grasping Tifa with his other. With the other, he clings to a nearby overhanging ledge, but the rough weather of these mountains leaves even the stones high up here as smooth as natural polish can be. His grip too slips, but he kicks a makeshift foothold into the side of the cliff face and somehow manages to catch himself before he slips too far. Unfortunately, the moment he stops, the other two feel the sudden jolt of inertia. While Cloud has been trying his darnedest to keep a firm grip on Tifa, she has not returned the favor. So when Zack hits the wall, Cloud’s own grip on her slips. He tries to hold on, but he can barely manage by her fingers.
For just a moment, Tifa actually looks up, tears welling up in her eyes. “Cloud…”
“Hang on! Don’t let go!” he cries.
“…I’m sorry.”
“Huh?”
At the last minute, before Zack can pull them both back up, Tifa lets go and finally slips out, plummeting into the ravine below.
“TIFA!!”
“Tifa!?” Zack gasps and is shaken again. “Whoa! Cloud!?”
Now Cloud is trying desperately to break free of his grip. “Let me go! I need to save her!”
“Whoa, man! Calm down! You stay. I’ll go after her!”
“But…!”
No buts. Zack throws Cloud back up onto the cliff, where Aerith catches him in her arms. And once he’s secured, Zack kicks off again and takes a dive into the furious rapids below.
“Tifa! Zack!” Cloud cries, trying to break free again.
“Cloud, calm down! It’s okay!” Aerith pleads.
He wrestles himself free and drops down to peer over the edge. Aerith joins him to look. But though they wait a while, no one else seems to pop back up. It’s as if as soon as either one touched the water, they were washed away, far away.
“Guys!?” Cloud yells again, but there’s still no response.
Aerith watches the waters in horror. “What happened? Why aren’t they coming back up?”
“No… They didn’t leave the edge, did they?” Cloud mutters through gritted teeth.
“What?”
“Dammit!” He screams, clasping his aching head. “This can’t be happening!” And without a second thought, he pulls back to his feet and tries jumping off after them.
“Wait, Cloud!” Aerith holds him back.
“Aerith, let go! I have to go after them!”
“Not like this!” she insists, trying her best to stay calm. “There’s gotta be a way to know where they went!”
“But… they… I…” As much as he wants to argue, though, he doesn’t know what to say. “Argh!”
Aerith tugs him away from the edge to a much safer place, but the moment she lets him go, he drops to his knees, clutching his head.
“Why… Why does this keep happening!?” he wails. He slams his fists to the ground. “Just when they’re within reach! They slip out!”
“Cloud…”
“Aaaaargh!!” His entire body is trembling and he drops to all fours, pounding the dirt over and over.
“Cloud!” She holds back his hand and he stops for a moment, but is still trembling hard. “Cloud, please. Calm down. We’ll figure something out, okay?”
“…”
She holds him firmly and then takes him into a warm hug. He keeps trembling, but doesn’t fight her anymore. And at some point, he too begins to weep.
“It’s okay…” she repeats in a soothing voice. “They’ll be fine. We just have to look for them.”
“Aerith… I’m so useless…”
“No, you aren’t. You’ve done so much already. For all of us.”
“…”
“We can do this, okay? Together. We’ll find them.”
That said, even as she tries to comfort him and also herself by saying it, Aerith remains just as worried. What really happened there? If they just vanish out the edge, where did they go? Is there another memory that’s associated with this one?
“Cloud, is this memory linked to another?” she asks, just to be sure.
After a couple soft sobs, he replies, “…No.”
“Not at all?”
He shakes his head. “I… don’t know. Or… don’t wanna know.”
“Don’t wanna know?”
“Ugh…” He explains between more sniffles, “I don’t remember much… After that time, when we fell down there… I guess we washed down the river somewhere.”
“Hmm…”
“Later Tifa’s dad and some of the townspeople found us. I was okay somehow… just had some scrapped knees. But Tifa…” He bites his lip, afraid to say it, but admits it anyway, “She ended up in a coma.”
“Oh.”
He shuts his eyes tight again. “That’s why… if there is an aftermath to this, I don’t want to go there…”
“…I see.”
Aerith thinks it over again. If they can’t go to the following scene from here, then is there possibly some way to interrupt it? Like, calling in some sort of block or interference to just slightly change their course of fate? Is there anything she can do right now to help with that? She glances around and remembers that she left her staff lying on the ground nearby. And as if like a light of inspiration flickers on, she gets an idea at last.
“Cloud? This may sound crazy, but what if we freeze the river?”
“…Huh?” He blinks his eyes open again and stares at her. “What?”
“If they haven’t gone too far yet, then we might have a chance!”
“Aerith!?”
She lets him go, leaving him sitting stunned, and fetches her staff in hand once more. She faces the river once more and follows its course into the valley below, and she brings her staff forward. With a timely Summon set in her arsenal, she calls upon the help of one who may be able to decide a fitting change of weather.
“Come on out! Shiva, we could use your help!”
However, the moment she announces the name, her magic spell is shortly cut off. She blinks in surprise and tries again.
“Shiva! I call upon you!”
And again, the spell is cut off. Now Aerith is stunned and quite dumbfounded.
“What’s going on!?” she shrieks, getting upset too. “Why can’t I cast anything!?”
“Aerith…” Even Cloud can’t help but feel a little pity.
“Don’t tell me that rules are different when you’re in the Lifestream! There’s plenty of mana to go around! What’s going on here!?”
Finally, after what seems like an unseemly delay, she finally meets with a mysterious female voice echoing into her mind through the power of telepathy. And in an instant, she goes quiet and her eyes widen as she hears the message:
“…Rest easy, Fated One. Your friend is in good hands.”
~
Cold. It’s so cold. The last that Tifa knew, she was thrown about in the wild current before she passed out. Now she’s settled into a slow spin and comes to a stop in the depths of an even bleaker darkness. She opens her eyes again and sits up, but anywhere she turns, it is pitch black. Black like an absence of light, though she can still make out herself. She looks around confused and back down to herself, but she’s reminded once more that she is still in the body of her younger self. Now in the absolute silence of this empty space, Tifa curls up again and shudders. It’s cold, freezing, even. Where is she? Is this hell? Did she die for real?
And yet, even as she’s faced with the potentially dreadful fate, she doesn’t feel scared. She feels shame. As she recalls what just happened, she realizes how embarrassing it was the way she was acting. It was just a sudden fit of delirium mixed with uncontrollable rage that didn’t have any way out. The last she saw of Sephiroth, she only saw red – not just because of how angry she was, but also because she suffered that same great wound yet again. It was deliberate; how precise that strike was. She really thought she was dead. No Cloud to come save her. She had many regrets, but at least in that moment, she thought the nightmare would finally come to an end.
Instead, she later woke up to find herself on bed in her own room back in Nibelheim. It was a much earlier time, when she was still 13 and donning a beautiful blue dress that was once gifted to her by her mother. Unfortunately, this precious gift would come to be a double-edged sword when she eventually learned that her mother had passed away shortly after. On that day, she shut herself in and didn’t want to talk to anyone… except a few of her closest friends and neighbors. There were three boys – one was Emilio, the son of the man who ran the general store, one was Roberto, an aspiring craftsman-to-be who wished to sell his wares abroad, and the third was Toma, who wasn’t sure what he wanted to be, but also dreamed of traveling abroad one day. She often hung around these boys, and even though they’d sometimes try to invite Cloud over, the latter always shunned their invitations for reasons they didn’t understand. So, even when Cloud did come over to check on her for once, she didn’t want to see him.
Instead, their discussions led them to talk about a story, an old rumor that Emilio once heard from his dad. It was said that in olden times, the people of Nibelheim once believed that the spirits of their late ancestors and relatives would venture out beyond the mountains to reach some sort of “Promised Land” to the north, though no one really knew where it was. Lost, grieving, and thinking she had nothing else to lose, Tifa decided that she would look into the rumor and dared to venture out to the mountains on her own while her father wasn’t home. The boys were nervous about the idea, but no one wanted to talk her out of it and joined her for a little while. However, one by one, they each found excuses to excuse themselves and just like that, Tifa found herself alone again.
Well, actually, she wasn’t really alone, was she? Just moments before she fell off that bridge, she swore she heard a voice call to her. Now that she thinks back, there was someone else that was following them from a distance. At first she thought she was seeing things, but there really was one who followed her all the way.
Actually, the last time when she thought about this memory, she heard the story from “Cloud”. But just when she thought she could believe it, Sephiroth showed up to crash their precious memories. That wasn’t the real Cloud. Who knows what that maniac would say just to get her to lower her guard? He might as well have been making it all up.
Yet, even amid all her dilemmas and suspicions, she still has this inkling in the back of her mind that maybe some of it was true. That the story “Cloud” told her of this memory was real. That Cloud really was there to help her when she thought she was alone. At least, she really wants to believe. After all, this time they’ve come to revisit the memory, he still chased her all the way there, up the mountains to the old bridge. And just as she was about to fall in, he dove after her to save her, even knowing he wasn’t nearly as strong as he would grow up to be.
Cloud…
She buries her head in her knees. She’s so embarrassed, so ashamed. Of all the people who she could trust, she was too confused and frazzled and angry that she couldn’t even see he wasn’t faking a thing. Heck, even Aerith and Zack somehow made it. But she didn’t know what to think anymore. She just wanted a way out, to escape all the illusions, and to wake up from this nightmare where nothing seemed to make sense. She dearly wished that when she did, she’d just be back on the Highwind again like the nightmare never began.
Well, she woke up again somewhere, but she’s definitely not safe and sound with the crew. She’s lost and all alone, possibly for real this time. Now what? There’s nothing here. If she wasn’t dead yet, she might as well be. At this point, all she has left is regrets. Regrets that she was too careless, so Sephiroth could manipulate her and separate her from everyone. Regrets that she was too weak to fend him off. Regrets that even when given a second chance, she refused to take it and squandered whatever trust she had left. Regrets that despite all that Cloud tried to do to help her, she rejected him until the very end.
If there really is a God out there listening, let them put an end to this. She gives up. If she’s not dead yet, she wants to die. If she is dead, let her disappear. She can’t stand this anymore. Everything is so cold.
“…Is that truly what you wish?”
Tifa blinks her eyes open and looks up and around, but finds no one around. What’s happening? Is she hearing things?
“Or is there something you wish more dearly?”
Tifa is getting scared. Who is that? It sounds like the voice of a woman, but not one she recognizes. Or, at least she doesn’t remember. It definitely isn’t Aerith, it’s probably not Ruby, and it’s not anyone else she can recall from recent memory. And yet, this voice speaks to her in a strangely calming sort of way. It’s a stoic and aloof-sounding voice, but Tifa doesn’t feel like it comes off as threatening either.
Finally, she speaks out, “I… I do have another wish…” She then hangs her head. “But it might just be a dream.”
“…Dreams are a powerful thing.”
“Sometimes they can be.” She sighs. “But not mine. No matter how much I wanted to make it happen, this world… no, forget that. Even just my own goals and desires seem impossible to get.”
“Impossible?”
“Yeah…” Tifa hesitates to explain, but having nothing else to do right now, she tells it anyway. “Well, at least that’s how it feels like. I always try to stay positive whenever I’m with company, encouraging them toward their goals, lending a hand where I can, and just generally being helpful to anyone who needs it.”
“…”
“But… sometimes I wonder if it’s all just for show, just so people like me more. Ever since I was little, I was always treated nicely by everyone. My dad told me that good things come to those who help others, so I tried to help out wherever I could. And everyone liked me so much, I became the town’s ‘popular girl’. After a while, I just sort of took it for granted and didn’t sweat the details whenever anyone would come to ask me to help them. Didn’t even realize that it could all just come crashing down one day…”
“…”
She hangs her head and buries it back behind her legs. “After all, if there’s no one to help, then what use am I?”
“…Why do you say there is none?”
“…” She looks back up with a tired frown. “I… I’ve lost everything. My home, my friends, and even the people I trusted before. I don’t even know what’s true about my past anymore.”
“I don’t understand this world. What’s real, what isn’t, or if any of it is real at all. It’s like whatever I do, the end result is the same. I think I understand what Rubia has been feeling. If it’s just going to be more of the same, then why try to be better?”
“…”
She closes her eyes again and rests her head back against her legs. “I might as well just disappear too. If you’re someone who can do that, then please make it quick.”
“…So fickle and quick to judge, humans. But if you insist, then I will grant it.”
“Thank you…”
“However, before I do, there is one last question I suggest you ask yourself.”
“Huh?” She instinctively looks up again, even knowing that she can’t see who this speaker is. “Um, what is it?”
“I will show you a few different scenes of a certain moment in time. How real are they to you?”
“How ‘real’ they are…?”
“If they are real, then act upon them. If not, then do not. How you decide will decide how I choose to grant your ‘disappearance’.”
“…?”
The next moment, Tifa feels dizzy all of a sudden, like even in this black abyss, things are whirling around her very fast and she quickly loses all sense of direction. She shuts her eyes to try to shut out all the chaos, though is more afraid of what may be happening if she does open them. Fortunately, the spinning soon stops and she opens her eyes to see where she’s gone.
She gasps when she realizes it. Everywhere she turns, there is jagged dull-gray stone, lit up an ominous green by the swirling lights in the background. She’s even back to her adult self. There’s no mistaking it. She’s back at the dreadful crater where their many nightmares began. But this is a different part of the crater that she hasn’t seen yet. It seems to be a large cavern with many a sparkling materia crystal embedded in the walls around her, and the most massive crystal of all that hangs on some rocky branches above her head. However, as pretty as it looks, she realizes that someone is trapped inside: Aerith.
That’s not the worst of it, though. Now that Tifa looks around, she’s horrified at what she sees: some sort of mutant, withered-looking tree stands in the back of the chamber, and on its many branches are several bodies hung by nooses. But no, they’re not just bodies; they’re of her friends. Everyone else who joined her on the expedition to the crater is here… except for Cloud.
Wait. Is that herself she’s looking at!? Oh, Gods. How horrible… She’s been ripped apart like… no, don’t say it. It’s so bad.
Her thoughts are interrupted when she hears a sharp clang of metal nearby. When she turns to look, she witnesses what seems to be a still shot of Cloud, burning brilliantly with Fenrir’s aura, clashing blades with Sephiroth. And then, as if it were just a flash, they’re gone again.
“W-wait!” she calls out, but of course they don’t respond.
The scene changes yet again. Now she witnesses Cloud ripping apart the awful tree and splitting it. She even sees him save Aerith from the threat, and the next moment, he’s back down on the ground tending to everyone by freezing their wounds shut. And for just a moment there, Tifa watches wide-eyed as Cloud remains with her the longest – or rather, the version of her in this scene – and even takes her into a tight hug as he grieves.
“Cloud…” she whispers under her breath.
The scenes are quick to change, though. The next moment, there’s another loud clang. Once again, Sephiroth has returned and he duels with Cloud. But Tifa is aghast to find that this time, even while Cloud is burning just as bright, Sephiroth looks even scarier, like he’s been enveloped in even more darkness. And despite her hopes briefly raised up to this point, she grows disturbed to instead witness Sephiroth retaliating hard – almost like he were somehow cheating – and even removes that powerful aura from Cloud.
“No…”
Before she can even process it, the scene changes one last time. Tifa gasps. Now she sees Sephiroth standing in the distance, blade raised, and Cloud hung limply on that blade. The menacing man then casually tosses his body off the edge of the cliff.
“No! Cloud!”
But at this point, when she tries to rush forward, she finds herself stuck, like she was firmly planted in place. Now that she looks, she realizes that it wasn’t just a metaphorical chill that was creeping up her; it was literal. There are huge crystals of ice that have begun to surround her and have trapped her feet in place.
“No! Please, no… I have to save him… I have to stop that man!”
But even as she struggles against the encroaching ice, it only continues to bind her further.
“No! Stop! I can’t stay here… I won’t! …Get out of my way!!”
With determination flaring up with an inner rage burning, Tifa erupts with an explosive burst of emotion that triggers a sudden Limit Break. She snaps right out of the ice that has held her and leaps with such speed it almost looks like she were flash-stepping. The next instant, she’s looming over Sephiroth with her eyes white and brimming with intensity. Before the man can even react, she unleashes a furious barrage of attacks – the entire dang combo. Beat Rush. Somersault. Waterkick. Meteodrive. Dolphin Blow. Meteor Strike. And to finish him, Final Heaven.
The moment she lands the impact, the massive explosion whites out the entire area so much that even she’s briefly blinded by the light. And just like that, everything goes out, back to the black abyss from before.
However, Tifa doesn’t feel cold anymore. If anything, she’s itching for more of the fight. She knows what she just saw wasn’t really happening right before her eyes, but whatever those visions were, they definitely reminded her of what mattered; what it was that she cherished most. It’s not just about helping others, or being well-liked, or having the best friends she can absolutely trust around her. It’s about protecting those she cares.
She catches a fist in her other hand and makes the most resolute face yet. “I’m not going to die here,” she declares. “Cloud… and everyone else, they need me. Rubia needs me. I’m not staying trapped in some illusion or memory. I’m going out to meet them right now.”
At last, the voice from earlier now answers her, but despite the same stoic and aloof sound to it, it now carries a hint of pride to it: “Very well. I can see you are ready. The contract is now complete.”
“…Contract?”
At that moment, Tifa hears some other very familiar voices call to her. That’s Cloud… and Aerith too. They’re still out there somewhere.
“Go. Your friends are waiting.”
Tifa closes her eyes and smiles to herself, her confidence fully restored. And with all that settled, she feels herself being whisked away yet again, but this time, she doesn’t even feel dizzy being sent away.
~
“…Tifa… Tifa! Tifa!”
Tifa stirs awake and opens her eyes again. “…Cloud?”
“Oh. Thank the Gods…” he mutters amid a sigh.
For once, Cloud is back to his normal self and so is she. Now that she looks around, she finds herself lying on the ground at the bank of a certain river, which seems to have strangely frozen over somehow. Cloud is kneeled beside her and Aerith is standing by. They’re both relieved when they see her wake.
“Tifa!” Aerith gasps. “Are you okay!?”
“Tifa, how are you feeling?” Cloud asks, still somewhat concerned.
“How am I…?” Tifa blinks drowsily and finally snaps awake. “Oh!” She sits up with a start and turns to him, looking a little flustered as well. “Cloud!”
“Huh?”
Before he can stop her, she throws herself onto him in a tight glomp that nearly knocks him back.
“Clooooud! I’m sorry! I wasn’t being myself! But I’m okay now! Really! I’m glad you’re okay too!” she blubbers.
“Urf…” he grunts, but suddenly finds himself short on words – and breath – to express how he’s feeling to be held this tight by her.
Aerith covers her mouth. “Oh… my.”
Tifa keeps blurting out, “I’m sorry I ever doubted you! You were always there for me… even when we were just kids.”
“T-Tifa…” he mutters just audibly.
“I didn’t remember much from that day, but now I get it! I didn’t even realize how you felt all this time either… I can’t believe I’ve been so blind.”
“…Choking…”
She immediately lets him go and he gasps for air. “Sorry.”
After he takes a moment to catch his breath, he replies, “It’s okay. I’m glad you’re feeling better.”
She lets him get into a more comfortable sitting position, only to give him another hug that’s a bit looser and much more comfortable this time, and now Cloud is starting to flush up too.
“Um… Tifa?”
“I’m so glad…” she mumbles, snuggling up against him.
“Y… you can let go now. I’m fine. Really.”
“I know… but can I have this moment? I want to savor it a little longer.”
“…”
So Cloud leaves her be and grows ever redder in the face. As much as he genuinely likes the way she’s holding him now, he can’t help but feel even more awkward knowing who is literally standing right next to them right now. He passes a nervous glance aside, but then notices Aerith has stepped away a little closer to the river.
“…Aerith?” he calls to her.
“Aerith?” Now that Tifa is reminded that they aren’t alone, she flushes up red too. She also lets go of Cloud in a hurry and scoots aside, feeling extra embarrassed. “Um… was she always here?” she asks in a whisper.
He replies in a whisper too, “Yeah. She brought us over here to look for you.”
“…” Tifa buries her face in her hands. “I’m so ashamed.”
He brings his voice back to normal, so even Aerith can hear. “Hey, Tifa. What happened back there? We saw you fall in and Zack dove in to save you, but then you guys didn’t resurface.”
“Huh? Oh!” Tifa drops her hands, turning to him looking surprised and looks off toward Aerith nearby. “Oh, no…”
She gets back to her feet, with Cloud following suit, and they join Aerith by the riverbank.
“Aerith?” Tifa asks. “Um, I’m sorry…”
Aerith now turns to her. “Sorry for what?”
“I don’t know where Zack went. After I fell in, I blacked out and woke up somewhere else, but was alone.”
And she goes back to being sad. “Oh. Don’t worry about it.”
“Are you alright? You two probably just met up not long ago, and he’s gone again.”
Aerith nods back. “It’s okay. I’m sure wherever he’s gone, he’s fine. He’ll be back again… I hope.”
“By the way, Aerith, how did you meet him?” Cloud scratches his head. “I know we all fell into the Lifestream, but I was surprised that he’s still lingering around somehow.”
“Suddenly, really. After I met Sephiroth, he did something to me to make me black out. I later woke up in this black void.”
His eyes narrow with suspicion. “Black void?” That sounds awfully familiar.
“I’m not sure where I was. I couldn’t see anything and I was all alone.” She makes a sad smile. “And then, there was Zack. He said he just woke up and found me there. Didn’t know what was going on either, but turned out Rubia led him to me.”
“Oh, yeah! Rubia!” His eyes widen. “You met her, right? How is she?”
Her smile fades back into a frown. “Not good. I don’t know what she’s upset about, but she isn’t talking to anyone right now. She’s shut herself in some place… I think it was Ruby’s old apartment.”
“Ruby…?”
Tifa blinks too. “She found Ruby’s apartment? But didn’t she say Ruby wasn’t from our world?”
Aerith nods. “Yeah. I think it was a recreation of the actual place. Rubia was living there like it was her home.”
“Ah, I see.” She makes a sympathetic look. “Poor Rubia. She probably was hurt the most to learn about Ruby’s circumstances.”
“Yeah, I’m sure she was…”
“I’m not really sure how we can help, but whatever she needs, I’ll be there for her too.”
Cloud nods along. “Aerith, can you take us to her? If she’s not talking to you, maybe she will if we show up?”
Aerith gives him a kind smile. “That’s the plan. Though I was thinking we could try to gather everyone first.”
“Hmm. By the way, you said you were trying to bring everyone ‘back’, right? So how does that work?”
“Well, I figure if I’m able to meet you guys here in this memory, then I may be able to meet everyone else in theirs too.”
He blinks in surprise. “Really? You can do that?”
“I think so. I mean, it’s worked this time so far.”
Tifa blinks too. “Oh, wow.” She also passes a glance aside and finally notices the river. “Um, Aerith? Was that also your doing?”
Aerith turns to look again and back to her. “Oh, no. That was your doing, Tifa.”
She’s easily taken aback. “M-my doing? How could I have…?”
But now that she thinks back to those moments she experienced in that strange void earlier, she’s starting to connect some dots. She certainly was in a very cold place, and there was the voice of a woman. There were even ice crystals that held her in place while she was witnessing those awful visions. Wait a second. A woman with ice powers…?
“Tifa,” Cloud calls to her, snapping her back to the present. “Can you take a look at your hand?”
“My hand?” She obliges, and now that she actually pays attention, she can make out the faint lines of some mysterious icy-looking aura that has enveloped her. “What’s this? It’s faint, but I can make out something around it.”
“Yeah, thought so. Looks like the contract went through.”
“Contract?” Tifa blinks again. “…I think I did hear something about a contract earlier.”
Aerith makes a delighted smile and claps her hands. “Really? That’s amazing, Tifa! Congrats!”
“Huh? Wait…” Tifa blinks a few more times in disbelief. “Are you serious!?” she gasps when she finally catches on.
“You’re really lucky, you know! I didn’t even realize that Shiva had been keeping an eye on you all this time. I was worried you were gonna drown or disappear into a different memory somewhere, but before we knew it, the river froze over. And then you suddenly busted out of it like some kind of superhero!”
“I… I did?” Tifa makes an embarrassed grin. “Wow…” She looks back down at her hands again. “So, I’m now blessed by Shiva, huh? That means I can control ice too?”
Cloud gestures with his head toward the river. “That looks like proof.”
“Say, what happened while you were away?” Aerith asks curiously. “Did Shiva say anything to you?”
Tifa makes an awkward look upon recalling the moment. “Yeah… Actually, we talked about a lot of things and she helped remind me about what I should have been doing. At the end, she gave me a sort of test to see if I would be worthy of her power.”
“Ooh! What was the test?”
“I saw a number of visions flashing back to back.” She also glances shyly toward Cloud. “I’m not sure how much of it was real, but it looked like they were from when we were back at the crater.”
That catches his attention. “The crater?”
“Yeah. I even saw you fighting Sephiroth. And there was this really gruesome scene where the rest of us were hung on a tree like…” Her voice drifts off and she feels uninclined to describe further. “Anyway, it was pretty awful.”
Aerith and Cloud blink in shock. “You saw all that?” he asks again.
“Yeah. What’s wrong?”
Now they share some uncomfortable looks. “All that – the tree and stuff – really happened,” he admits.
Aerith is sad to be reminded again. “And that tree was actually Jenova.”
“W-what?” Tifa is horrified. “All of it was real? We were all hung up like that!?”
She nods back. “Yeah… I couldn’t believe my eyes either.”
“Oh, my gosh.” Stunned, Tifa whips back to Cloud. “And you fought Sephiroth, but at some point, it looked like he overtook you?”
He grimaces to be reminded too. “Yeah… Not my proudest moment.”
Tifa then sets a hand against his chest and begins to rub around as if searching for any sign. Though he knows she means well, it does make him a little uncomfortable. “Are you really okay? He hurt you bad, it looked like…”
He quickly takes her hand, but gently lowers it and lets go. “I’m fine. We were all hurt pretty bad, but at least it looks like our wounds didn’t carry over. Though, I dunno if it’s because we’re in the Lifestream or if it’s something else.”
“Hmm…” She takes another moment to think it over and then lets off a sigh. “So, if this really is the Lifestream, did we all end up dying? That’s why we’re down here?”
He hesitates over how to answer that. “I don’t want to think of it like that, but here we are… wherever here is.”
“Well, whatever happened, we’re still ‘alive’ in some way.” Tifa raises a deterimined fist. “I think we should take this chance and have a redo. There’s no way we can leave the planet to Sephiroth.”
He nods back. “Yeah. No telling what he’s been up to since we’ve been gone. Once we get everyone back together, we’re gonna get rid of him once and for all.”
“Of course.” She turns back to Aerith with a trusting smile. “And we can get started with you and Rubia, right?”
Aerith nods back with her own smile. “Right.”
Cloud asks again, “Aerith, can you take us to her? If we know what she knows, we might be able to do something about him.”
“Okay. Let’s see if I got this right…”
Aerith now draws up a familiar-yet-strange holographic screen before her. With just a few taps of her fingers, she inputs the command to get them all out of here and back to the junction from which she first arrived. And in a move similar to Ruby prior, they all warp away in a bright flash.
~
Back to the black. Aerith nervously opens her eyes again and gives a sigh of relief when she finds herself standing before the line of character models as before. However, while a certain someone may still be unaccounted for, she isn’t alone. Cloud and Tifa have arrived with her, and as expected, they’re blown away by the strange new realm they’ve found themselves in.
“What is this?” Tifa gasps, looking down the line of people. “Barret? And everyone else… Even Cloud and I are here.”
Cloud narrows his eyes in suspicion as he stares at his own model. “I knew things would get weird, but seriously, what have Fenrir and Rubia been up to?”
Aerith shakes her head. “I don’t think this is Rubia’s doing. She was just as surprised as we were when we came by.”
“They all look so real too…” Tifa keeps looking down the line and stops short on Sephiroth’s model in the first row. “Sephiroth!?”
Cloud whips around that way, but assures her, “He’s not moving. I don’t think it’s the real guy.”
Tifa lets off an anxious sigh. “Okay… but why is he here with the rest of us?” Now that she looks into the other rows, she gets another shock. “Wait. Even Rufus and the Turks are here?” She cringes when she also spots the Shinra executives as well. “There are all sorts of people too…”
He raises an eyebrow. “They seem to be ordered in some way, but aside from us, I wouldn’t know.”
Now as she scans the next few lines, she stops short on another surprise: “Marlene!?” She hurries on over to the little girl’s model, but is a bit hesitant to touch. “Um… This isn’t really her, right?”
Cloud follows her and peers aside to Elmyra’s model that floats beside the girl. “Couldn’t be. I doubt Marlene and Aerith’s mom are anywhere near dead or in danger. Ruby sent them off to Kalm, so I don’t think they’re gonna be on Shinra’s radar.”
“They’d better not…” She then gives the model a slight tap and is spooked by a pop-up window with an unexpected prompt. “…Seventh Heaven? Not Kalm?”
“Wait, Tifa. Remember, these are memories. If you click ‘yes’, you might be sent away to a different time.”
“Oh.” Tifa quickly hits “no” in a hurry and watches the window vanish. “Right. Now might not be a good time to poke around.”
“Let’s get back to Aerith. She seems to be busy with something.”
“Sure.”
They return to the first row and find Aerith again, who is now standing before Zack’s model just beside the silver-haired swordsman. She’s opened up access to the GUI once more to search the database for something, but grows frustrated when she doesn’t find any straight answers. Her query into Zack’s whereabouts returns multiple different entry points, but all of them are memories of the past and none that indicate this most recent encounter with him.
“Aerith?” Tifa asks. “What is this place?”
Aerith finally turns back to them and calmly replies, “I’m still not sure on the details, but it seems to be some kind of crossroads. Like a gateway into all sorts of memories that the planet has gathered.”
“A gateway…” She looks back around again. “Are all these people just ways to access them, then?”
“Seems like it.” Aerith turns back to Zack’s model. “They may look like us, but they’re not really us.” She returns to her holographic screen before her. “I don’t know if I can just bring anyone back by accessing these memories, but at least it worked for you two.”
Tifa turns to the guy before them too. “So, let’s say, if you were to jump into his memories, would you be able to bring him here too?”
“Maybe…” Aerith looks hesitant. “But I get the feeling that it’s a little different for him.”
“Why’s that?”
“Just an inkling.” She also explains, “Besides, his model here goes to another memory between him and Cloud, specifically his last stand. I don’t think I’m ready to jump into that.”
Tifa’s eyes widen and she offers a look of sympathy. “Right… Best that we not touch it.”
Cloud has also been quietly looking around and now turns back to them. “By the way, where is Rubia? I don’t see her.”
Aerith replies, “Oh. She isn’t here. Ruby’s apartment is a separate location entirely…” She now turns off for an odd-looking, glowing red triangle in the distance to the right of the lines. “Over there.”
Cloud blinks. “A red triangle?”
“It’s another gateway, I think.”
“…” He raises an eyebrow, but decides not to question it. “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go see her. She may be able to help you navigate this system too.”
“Right…” Aerith finally dismisses her screen and clasps her hands together tightly as if making a quick hopeful prayer that things will get better soon. “Okay, let’s go.”
She takes the lead and takes them along back to the familiar apartment where they had last seen of their problematic friend. However, immediately upon entering the living room, the trio are in for yet another shock.
“Zack!?” Aerith squeaks.
It sure looks like him. Zack is sprawled out on the couch, looking a little worse for wear for some reason. He has a wet towelette over his left eye and his head is leaned back like he’s been resting from a dizzy spell. The moment he hears Aerith’s voice, though, he promptly sits back up and the towelette falls off, revealing what looks to be a black eye.
“Aerith?” Despite his injury, his face lights up when he sees them. “Cloud! Tifa! You’re back!”
“Zack!?” Cloud repeats with his mouth agape.
“W-what!? Is it really him? How did he get here?” Tifa stammers.
Zack lies back against the couch again with a sigh in relief. “Whew! Guess I didn’t have to worry about a thing after all.” He picks up the towelette that dropped on his lap to lay it back over his eye. “At least that’s outta the way…”
The three all hurry on over to crowd around him, each one sharing their own look of distressed concern.
Aerith takes a seat beside him. “Zack, what happened to you?”
Tifa asks again, “How did you get here?”
Cloud cautiously asks, “And why do you look like you ran into something?”
“Oh, uh…” Zack makes an embarrassed grin. “Kinda? I ran into Rubia.”
Aerith blinks in disbelief. “Rubia? She hit you?”
“Yeah.” He sighs. “She sure has a mean right hook. Knocked me clean out for a bit.”
“Oh, dear…” She gets worried again. “I know she’s going through something, but why lash out at you?”
“Um… I think it was my fault.”
“Huh?”
“Okay. First, some context.” He scratches his head and explains from the top, “So, I dunno why or how, but things just turned out like this. After I jumped into the river to help Tifa, I think I fell into some other place because suddenly there was this bottomless pit under the river, like I somehow fell through the ground? And ended up in the black void again. I just kept falling and then blacked out soon after.”
“The black void?” Aerith makes a concerned frown. “Like, another of these black rooms?”
Tifa blinks. “There are more of them?”
“Seems like it. One time I met Fenrir, he called them ‘empty realms’. It’s hard to say how they’re all connected, if they are, or what their purpose is. But I guess you can say they each have their own…” Cloud replies casually, but then stops short when he comes to another realization. He blinks in disbelief and stares back at Zack. “…Wait a sec. Did you somehow go beyond the edge? Is that even possible?”
Zack shrugs. “I dunno. Anyway, when I came to, I was back in that black room with all the floating people. I tried to jump back into the memory where you guys were, but I couldn’t. There was this message that popped up saying, ‘Play cannot be paused while the trial is in session’ or whatever.”
“…”
“So I rushed back here to ask Rubia what was going on. She was in her room upstairs, but she was already asleep when I found her. At first I didn’t want to wake her up, but you guys were away for a while. I thought it was just a question, so it wouldn’t hurt.” He then rubs his head awkwardly as he admits, “Bad idea. She got really pissed and punched me in the face. Knocked me out in one hit too. Yikes.”
“…” By now, Cloud’s face shows a look more of pity than disbelief.
He rubs his sore eye and winces a little, and leaves the towelette on. “Man, talk about a tough cookie. I knew she was strong, being Bahamut’s kid, but I didn’t think she’d actually lay me flat. She also locked the door so I couldn’t go back in.”
A much less tense and much more awkward atmosphere sinks in, and the other three go from anxious to cold, disappointed stares. To which, Zack makes another nervous laugh.
“So, uh, yeah… If you wanted to talk with her, I might’ve screwed that up. Sorry.”
“…”
His grin fades again and he slumps back in his seat. “Hope she feels better soon. Meanwhile, I’ve just been sitting around waiting for you guys to show. Been real quiet around here…”
While Aerith and Tifa more or less share their sympathies, Cloud is practically glaring at him like he’s been betrayed, or rather that he can’t believe that he was ever worried sick for this guy.
Aerith lets off a sigh. “Well, at least it isn’t the worst thing ever.”
Tifa turns to her, concerned. “Will it be okay if we leave her be?”
“I hope so. He said she was asleep, so maybe she’s undergoing some sort of recovery. We’ll just have to wait until she’s ready.”
Cloud frowns to himself, feeling a little suspicious. “…I dunno. Something about this doesn’t feel right. I’m gonna go see her.”
Aerith calls to him, “Wait, Cloud.”
“What?”
She makes a worried frown too. “If you can get her to talk again, that’d be wonderful. But be careful about how you say things, alright? She seems to be especially touchy right now.”
He raises an eyebrow, but acknowledges what she’s saying and nods back. “Yeah. I’ll try.”
He shortly takes his leave, while Aerith and Tifa catch up with Zack on a few more things – such as what kind of place this is and why the TV seems to be stuck on the same screen or why it’s so pixelated, among other questions that Aerith admittedly isn’t sure how to answer. Truth be told, Cloud doesn’t really have a reason to doubt what Zack said. Not like the guy would ever lie to him anyway. But somehow, somewhere, Cloud’s own instincts are telling him that he really shouldn’t leave Rubia alone. Maybe it’s all the past experiences with Ruby before, or maybe it’s even some unspecified common ground he shares with Fenrir, but if there is potentially a problem here, he has to nip it in the bud before it blooms into something deadly.
He shortly finds the bedroom upstairs, being the only door that has been shut tight, and steps up. At first, he hesitates to disturb her and waits a moment to give a listen, just in case he can make out some kind of noise from inside. When he doesn’t hear anything, he then gives the door a light knock.
“Rubia. It’s Cloud. Can we talk?”
There’s no response. While anyone could easily chalk it up to the possibility that she’s just fast asleep, he grows even more suspicious. It’s so quiet… Too quiet. He doesn’t even hear her breathing, and he’s tuned his ears to be as sharp as a wolf’s.
“Rubia?”
He knocks again, but it’s the same. At risk of suffering a similar fate to Zack earlier, Cloud nonetheless takes a deep breath and proceeds to try the door handle. Sure enough, locked. He wrestles with it a little more, trying to rattle away with the noise in hopes that she’d wake up. And yet, there’s still no response.
He starts impatiently rapping on the door and calls out to her, “Rubia! Wake up! Can you hear me?”
Silence. Dreadfully absolute silence. He’s starting to get worried for real.
“Rubia!”
He’s pounding on the door, to no avail. With a frustrated growl, he then raises his own hand forward to summon the familiar GUI once more. Now with no one to interrupt him this time, he manages to do so successfully and proceeds to enter in the command into the terminal to try to get this door unlocked. Since Bahamut revoked Rubia’s access to the tools of the Debug Room, she shouldn’t be able to code up any new modifications to this room since then. And since he’s been granted Fenrir’s level of access, he should be able to break through it.
After a moment to run some built-in debugging, he does manage to locate where the specifications around the lock to this door are being stored and flips a few flags until he can gain access. With that settled, he dismisses the screen and tries the door handle again. As if the tessellating shapes of Fate have come to respond to his intention, they surround the handle as he manages to turn it and swing open the door without further obstacles.
“Rubia! Wake up! We need to…”
The moment he steps in to find her, however, he discovers something else has changed drastically. Where Rubia would have lied on the bed as she slept, he instead finds what seems to be an ominous-looking black orb resting still. But before he can make out what this is supposed to mean, he’s immediately struck with an intense, almost splitting headache that wrenches away his field of vision. As he drops to his knees, clutching his head, he meets flashes of a strange yet somewhat familiar vision that he had seen just once before: ten chromatically tinted eyes, five pairs in all, that glow in a pitch-black darkness, surrounded by rows and rows of razor-sharp teeth. However, this time, the ten eyes are shortly joined by another set of demonic whited-out eyes that themselves evoke some disturbing imagery. He’s hit with every instance of past moments and then some of a certain alien creature that has long been haunting them. Phasma, the phantom. Umbra, the shadow. Plaga, the snare. And finally, one last silhouette unlike all the others that seems to take an amorphous serpentine form.
Cloud whites out and collapses to the floor, still twitching with painful spasms. He must have screamed at some point, but he can’t even hear his own voice. Nonetheless, in the last waking moments, he gets a feeling that someone may have rushed on over to check on him. But his conscious shortly drifts off and he is greeted by another deeper, much more menacing growl. At first the growl simply sounds like growling, but there are words hidden within the noise. At first they don’t seem to make sense, but then he does make out something.
“…A foolish cur to the end.”
Notes:
Lifestream shenanigans are going wild
- Since I started writing these chapters dedicated to the Lifestream arc and "World of Ruin" arc back to back for these final chapters building up to the finale, I realized I may have to extend the chapter count yet again. Not by much, but maybe a couple more. I got a lot of characters' story arcs to finish or at least round up, lol.
- So a lot of you may be wondering how I am able to write this story in a way that combines both the meta narrative about game development and coding and the meta narrative about the actual game lore in a smooth and semi-coherent manner. The truth is, I don't know. As in, I dunno enough about how the developers originally intended for the Lifestream to work or what direction they're taking the concept of the Lifestream in the Remake trilogy, but I have a theory.
- It's like there's an entire infinite multiverse of timelines where each different action that a character takes leads into a different "world", but unlike the Marvel/DC weirdness with their multiverses, everything is contained to one planet that is Gaia. So everything that has been happening with Zack in those alternate worlds in Rebirth is technically happening within the context of the Lifestream. And in those worlds, everything can be an odd mix of people who used to be and people who still are alive. Aerith called them a "sort of dream", and that was the biggest inspiration to my story.
- But the catch is, out of the infinite multiverse that the FF7 world now exists in, my fanfic is in NONE of them! Because there's no way SQEX would have gone the direction I went that almost rips off the Matrix series (by accident because that was not the initial plan). Hahaha! Am I cheap? I am cheap. But boy, am I proud.
- And to add to the cheapness, I have yet again ripped off another IP: FFXVI. 2023 was a real delight when the game first came out. The entire concept of Eikons and people straight up being able to go full kaiju mode and fight each other was always a thing I wished Final Fantasy would eventually do and I was excited to see FF16 actually take the reins. And dude, holy shit. The cinematography in that game... chef's kiss. Sure, it wasn't a perfect game, but when it peaked, it PEAKED.
- So, yeah. I've been itching to write about the main party getting all their superhero forms. For the record, I have my reasons to pick each of the Summons for each member, but I'm not following any particular course like in Rebirth and it's not dependent on their shrine locations either. Please look forward to Summon trials in the coming chapters and more Zack and Aerith shenanigans in the Debug Room.
- Ngl, the only reason I picked Shiva for Tifa wasn't just because of the excuse I could write about shipping Cloti (Ice pals!) again, but also because her martial arts was always more of a fluid, water-like fighting style. But the problem is, I already have another dude to be picked by Leviathan. So, Shiva was the next best choice. Tifa is by no means icy, but I don't think the personality of the Summons has to match the characters exactly. And besides, I once wrote Shiva to be a little wishy-washy before (for gag reasons, but still).
- Oh, my God, the Summon Synergy combos are gonna go so hard, guys. I'm so excited!
- Also as a side note: I think the three boys that Tifa used to hang out with as kids were given official names at some point, but I only remember Emilio from one of the Ultimania guides and Roberto from Traces of Two Pasts. I think the latter also moved to Midgar to be a merchant there, but business wasn't doing well. And the third kid, uh... I dunno. Since we never heard from him again, I decided to pay tribute to a certain world traveler from Chrono Trigger. RIP, Toma, the soda pop dude.
- In other news, I am so glad that I rewrote the origin story for the Black Materia because dang, is it sure convenient that I linked it directly to Tiamat's power. Now I can do basically anything I want with that thing! Sorry about Rubia, but she'll be back eventually.
- And just when Cloud thought having all his memories and befriending Fenrir would stop him from Jenova's bullshit, it always comes back harder. Sorry, pal, but at least you weren't the punching bag this chapter. I'll apologize to Zack later.
Chapter 77: Silent Tremors
Notes:
Hi, I'm back... after more than a month of hiatus, wow. Thank you for your patience, everyone. I've had a slow and steady recovery from a number of health issues involving my circadian rhythm being out of wack and how it affected my gynecological health as well. To add to that, this chapter was very difficult to write, even more so than others before precisely because I had to do quite a bit of research into stuff around Russian history and East Asian politics in general (at least gauging the vibes) just for a few cheeky references in this chapter, but it has been a struggle to avoid modern politics as a result. All in all, let's just say that Wutai has been transformed to be basically unrecognizable, aside from its general geography.
Also, I find it rather fitting that the long-awaited chapter 77 features Cait Sith as its main focus. Of all the party members, it happens to be the 7th and the most luck-based character of all. (My luck, however, has been abysmal.)
Outdated A/N
3/6/25 edit: Went back and corrected almost all the flashbacks in this fic to be of a consistent past tense. Also edited this chapter to give Cait more of his Scottish-ness. The next chapter is in progress (and still being revised) and I hope to release it by the weekend.
5/21/25 edit: Corrected the timeframe of the end of the Wutai War.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
A lone black helicopter flies over a great stretch of sea, its sleek body bearing an all-too familiar red logo in the shape of a diamond. Aboard are Reno, Rude, and Elena of the Turks. Unlike their usual operations, though, Rude takes the seat beside their unnamed pilot and Reno and Elena sit apart in the back. They’re also accompanied by a guest this time, a kingly black cat in a red cape, who is seated between them. Sadly, the cat king is looking a little lonely, as his loyal white steed has been unceremoniously stuffed into the trunk for the flight. Though there’s a smooth breeze from the onboard A/C, tensions hang over everyone like a wet blanket. Not one person present is smiling; not even the pilot, who is at least a little wary of their destination – the Republic of Wutai. They’re flying by the southern end of the island for another foreigner-friendly port town. The radio is on and reporting in is word from a fellow agent awaiting them there.
“…No word on the missing envoys yet, but we did find something. Witnesses from that day said they saw the two men leaving the capital when they were ambushed by three unidentified people in costume who kidnapped them and escaped via a dull gray van. Apparently, the perps were disguised as some demons from local myth, in full costume so no one could tell who they were.”
Rude, who is sitting in the front passenger seat, replies, “Any details on the vehicle?”
“No one caught a shot of the license plate, if you’re asking. But the make of the van looked like something that came outta our company’s assembly line.”
“It was a Shinra model?”
“Had everything except the Shinra logo. Might’ve been covered or wiped off.”
“Could it have been stolen?”
“Pretty likely. I doubt most Wutaians would be driving around a large van like that. A lot of them are still using the ol’ chocobo carriage setup, even. A vehicle like that oughta be something from a Midgardian company shored here.”
“A fair point.” Rude takes a pause and then follows up, “In any case, keep us updated if you learn anything else. We’ll be arriving soon.”
“Gotcha. My partner confirmed you’re clear to land, though customs still insisted that they inspect the chopper over again when you guys get here.”
Rude nods along. “We can leave that to our pilot. We’ll be busy in the meantime.”
“Roger. Over and out.”
The radio goes silent and the tense silence returns to them aboard. It was fortunate enough that the apocalyptic meteor hadn’t downed all the lines in this country. Perhaps its sheer distance from the source of the impact was what contributed the most to its relative safety. However, of those towers that remained online, they might not remain in operation for much longer either depending on how current relations will be. Since the disaster hit the planet and even hit their pocketbooks, Shinra exacted stiff tariffs and trade restrictions upon Wutai to help cover for some of the damages, citing various excuses as to why this country had to “share some of their load” because they were relatively better off following said disaster. As if that wasn’t insult enough, Shinra also excluded Midgardian businesses here from being applicable under said tariffs, which in turn fueled further tensions between the natives and these foreign businesses on their land. The people already held a long-lasting grudge over how the former shogunate capitulated to Shinra’s demands to set up these cell towers and let all kinds of sleazy businessmen run rampant on their soil, and now their old foe only continues to provoke them as if there were no ceasefire in effect. All in all, it doesn’t seem like a good time for any agents of Shinra to be visiting the country and yet here they are.
Reno slumps back in his seat with a grumble. “…I miss the days when we could just drop by for a vacation.”
Rude nods with a frown. “Yeah… too bad they’re long gone. Probably won’t be back for a while.”
“Seriously. Why do we have to come when the entire country’s turned into a powder keg?”
Elena then points out, “But who else would Shinra send? The envoys didn’t work and the Wutai government isn’t even trying to help look for them. And if we brought Soldier over, we might as well be going to war!”
“Elena, you don’t have to say the obvious.”
“I’m just saying because you sounded like you didn’t know.”
He plants a hand over his head. “It was a rhetorical question… Never mind.”
Another awkward silence comes over them, but Elena is as antsy as she’s ever been. She is the type to keep talking whenever she’s nervous, so decides to bring up a topic that’s relevant enough.
“Hey. Since we’re almost there, I think it’s a good idea that we review over the mission ops, just so that we’re all on the same page.”
Reno raises an eyebrow her way. “Don’t tell me you forgot.”
“I didn’t! I just want to make sure you didn’t either!”
He rolls his eyes. “Don’t gotta worry about me… But fine. Let’s review.” He leans back to get comfortable and raises a finger to each point. “We have two main objectives: weed out Avalanche and broker a new deal with the Wutai government about the current energy crisis.”
“And the missing envoys?”
“That’s for the other Turks. We stick to our lane.”
Elena frowns. “Man. We really are stuck doing the job that the envoys didn’t do, huh?”
“Them going missing doesn’t mean negotiations come to a stop.”
“But would their government even listen to us? Like you said, this country’s just about ready to blow.”
“That’s why we’re gonna lay low and focus on exposing Avalanche first. The government won’t have any excuse to hide behind if it turns out they’ve been housing terrorists.”
“And if they still deny everything? Or try to cover it up?”
“If they do, then Shinra will respond in kind. Won’t turn out well for them.” He shrugs. “You’d think they still remember how badly we kicked their asses last time, but who knows. They got a little braver when Ruby gave us the runaround, but she’s not around to bail them out anymore.”
“Yeah, at least that’s outta the way…” She pauses and then asks again, “So, about Avalanche. How are we gonna search for ’em? I doubt we can just ask any random person.”
Reno passes an idle glance toward the cat sitting between them. “That’s where this guy comes in. Wutai also has cell towers, courtesy of Shinra, so he can hack into them to gather intel. Even if we don’t catch any private transmissions, we can can still catch the local news for the situation on the ground, especially about this town we’re headed for.”
“Um… We were briefed on it, but what was it called again?”
“…” Reno then peers over to Rude for assistance. “I’m not good with Wutaian. How’d you say it?”
Rude answers, “The first one is Gap’lau, where we’ll be arriving shortly to rendezvous with our agents. The other is a small mountain village to its northwest named Vestnik, which is near an obsoleted fort that goes by the same name. That’s where we’re tasked to investigate.”
Reno turns back. “There you go.”
“Uh-huh.” As if following a checklist, Elena moves on to the next question, “And that fort was reported to have some kind of ‘suspicious activity’ recently, right?”
“Yeah. The Midgardian embassy reported a number of their companies had their systems hacked and some data stolen. Only way that could happen is if whoever’s responsible has the tech and people to make it work.”
“Something to do with Avalanche?”
“Who knows. It’s about as good a lead as we have so far.”
“Hmm… If that’s where the problem is, why don’t we just fly on over there, then?”
Reno raises an eyebrow, surprised she’d even have to ask. “We’re not in friendly territory, you know. The Wutai government doesn’t want our choppers in places that aren’t designated airspace. We’ll land in a town that’s open and then we’ll take a ride where we need to go. Makes things easier.”
“Right…” She nods along and peers back to the cat beside her as she asks one last question, “Then, once we’re there, do we start questioning the locals or are we just gonna wait until this guy picks up something?”
“Depends how things go.” Reno sits back again, resting against his arms behind his head. “Sure would be easier if this guy can get us a lead first. I doubt the people would want to talk to us anyway, but if things come down to it, we’ll probably have to question them too.”
She makes a disappointed frown, but decides not to argue. She instead gives the cat a slight prod with her finger. “Hey. He’s been dead quiet since he came onboard. Is he even working?”
Cait Sith does respond, but he’s looking a little depressed. He casually waves a hand to brush aside her hand and replies, “…I’m still here. Wouldnae dare abandon ship before we’ve begun.”
She crosses her arms. “Alright. You got anything for us yet, or are you just gonna sit back until you have to do something?”
He shakes his head. “Take it easy, lass. We’re a little far from the nearest tower. You cannae expect me to hack across country lines, do ye?”
“Hmph.” She turns away again for the window and keeps grumbling to herself. “What a drag! For once we’re dropping into enemy lines and all we get to do is wander around and wait on intel. And here I thought being a spy would be cool.”
An awkward silence fills the cabin once more, leaving only the beating of the chopper’s wingtips. Though he was listening to the extra round of briefing, Cait Sith has also been mulling quietly to himself. The big question is how he’s going to get himself free and find a way to contact Avalanche ahead of time so they have time to get away from Shinra’s radar. It might be a monumental task when the Turks are pretty determined to not let him sneak away. Besides, as much as he’d love to toss out another Toy Box as a distraction, he’d be putting his other self back at HQ at risk too. What to do, what to do…
It’s not much longer of a flight. As the pilot reports in to confirm the landing area by the docks is clear, everyone aboard braces themselves for the mission ahead. Though this particular town is essentially under much of Shinra’s control and influence, there are still native Wutaians who live here, largely segregated from their foreign visitors that have established themselves since the end of the war. This landing pad where the helicopter is destined for is owned entirely by a Midgardian company and the local mercenaries hired to guard it keep it free of any unruly civilians. There are also two other Turks standing by on guard as they await the arrivals: one carries a shotgun on her back, the other has slung his rifle against his shoulder. Once the helicopter touches down, an inspection team gives the arrivals a quick customs check as is protocol, but while the pilot is left to attend to that, the Turks gather up to exchange some news while Cait Sith waits aside to help Moogle out of the trunk. However, due to complications with this arrangement, the customs patrol decided to inspect them both for anything “suspicious” which unfortunately keeps them back for a bit.
Now that they see who it is, though, Reno and Rude are somewhat surprised to find a familiar face. The rifle-wielding Turk with the one-sided bang of hair is none other than Zhui, the sniper and Tseng’s protégé. However, he’s looking fairly low-energy compared to his much more brazen red-headed partner. The two salute their agency’s seniors as they approach.
“Huh… So the one on transmission was you?” Reno asks, raising a suspect eyebrow. “Here I thought you were still recovering back in Midgar.”
Zhui lets off a sigh. “I was… but Tabby insisted that we take this mission. I think she just wanted to be closer to the drama.”
His partner beside him snaps back, “You know I picked this mission because you’re still injured, right? Searching for missing people is the least you could do now.”
“Yeah, yeah…” he grumbles. “Yet you chose Wutai of all places.”
She then reveals a confident smirk. “Hey, if tensions are so bad, there would bound to be an opening.”
He rolls his eyes. “This is about Ruby again, isn’t it?”
“It is not!” she argues. “I just wanted to see what’s the sitch with this country that everyone’s been saying is so much trouble!”
“…It’s definitely about Ruby,” he mutters a little more quietly.
Now that he brought it up, though, Elena’s attention is piqued. She looks between the two and asks the redhead, “Hey. Who are you and what’s this about Ruby?”
The short-haired redhead now takes a proper chance to introduce herself. “The name’s Tabitha Crowley. I joined the Turks three years ago thanks to Zhui’s recommendation to his mentor. If you need the top sharpshooter duo, look no further! We used to be shooting gallery buddies when we were kids hanging out in the Sector 4 slums.”
Zhui shrugs lightly as to not move too much. “She was the one who brought up the idea to me, really. Since I knew Tseng since I was a kid, it was simple enough to talk with him. We’ve been paired up on the job ever since.”
Tabitha makes a serious frown as she admits, “Yeah. I joined because I wanted to look into what happened to my sister. Have any of you heard of a Soldier named Abigail? She’s a ginger like me, but with longer hair.”
Elena shakes her head. “I wouldn’t know any Soldier, personally. They all seem like they’re cracked in more ways than one.”
Reno gives with a more proper answer, “Besides, Soldier’s their own thing. Hard for us to keep track of every individual who joins, unless they turn out to be like Sephiroth or those other guys who went rogue.”
Tabitha looks a little disappointed, but lets it go. “Yeah, guess not… I heard she went missing for years, though, like since the end of the war. There was no news about what happened to her since she left on some kind of mission. Eventually, I just got a notice one day that she was declared M.I.A. since she was missing for so long.”
Reno makes a sympathetic frown, but shakes his head. “Tough, but not unheard of. Sorry, we can’t help you there.”
Rude, who has been thinking quietly to himself, then brings up something he was just reminded of: “…That said, I think I do remember seeing a sudden influx of missing person reports several years ago around the time that the Wutai war came to an end. Most people figured it was just some fallout from the war coming to a halt so abruptly, but now that I think about it, most of those reports went unanswered for years.”
Reno raises an eyebrow. “Huh, really? Can we chalk it up to political dissenters or something?”
“Don’t know. There was no follow-up, so no conclusion could be made.”
“Hmm…”
Tabitha nods along slowly. “I know there isn’t much to go on, but I just can’t let it go.” She then raises a determined fist. “But then I later heard about the hubbub around some secret project that some part of Soldier was involved in, and with Zhui’s help, we did some digging on our own. I think Abigail ended up getting rolled up in something like that.”
“Secret project? For Soldier?” Reno shrugs. “Doesn’t really narrow it down.”
“So much of it was classified so I couldn’t get much, but I did hear rumors about a different class of Soldier that was separate from the usual classes.”
Now that she mentions it, though, both Reno and Rude look a little taken aback. Different class of Soldier? Now where else have they heard about something along those lines?
To which, Elena in her anxious urgency then blurts out, “Wait. You mean like the Immortals?”
“Elena!” they scold her.
She flinches. “W-what? I thought us Turks knew about that!”
“Ixnay on the ecretsay, Elena…” Reno mutters, glaring back. “It’s a mission-by-mission basis. Not everyone needs to know. Besides, we’re out in public.”
“Uh…” Elena now looks around to make sure no one else was listening in and shakes her head furiously. “N-never mind. I’m just talking to myself!”
But Tabitha explains, “Nah. You don’t hafta walk on eggshells around me or Zhui. We already know it’s got something to do with Ruby.”
Rude then gives her a concerned frown. “How did you two learn about that? It’s top-secret for a reason.”
Zhui then points out, “I saw a memo on Tseng’s desk once while I was waiting on him for our previous trip to Wutai. Didn’t get long to look, but I did see ‘Ruby’ mentioned somewhere. Tseng was in a hurry, so didn’t have time to clean up everything, though he was quick to shut down any questions.”
Reno genuinely looks irked. “Really? Our top secrets are spilled just like that? You haven’t been snitching on anything else, have you?”
Yet, Zhui gives a casual handwave. “Relax. I only told Tabby since she’s a conspiracy nut. Even if she blabbed, no one else would believe her.”
“Hey!” Though she complains, Tabitha takes it in good humor. “It’s not my fault people aren’t as serious as I am about chasing leads. If that makes me a ‘conspiracy nut’, then I’ll gladly keep the train going!”
Reno stares off idly in discontent. He was just complaining earlier about the Turks “these days” and now he’s seeing an example in person. At least there’s no shortage of colorful characters.
In any case, Rude gets them back on track. “Conspiracies aside, you two have a mission to complete. We should be on our way too.”
Elena then asks, “Huh? Hey, if they already know about the Im- uh, secret Soldier stuff, then shouldn’t we take them along? They might have learned more about them.”
Reno jumps in before she can get the idea sent, though. “Nah. As I said, we stick to our lane. Besides,” he also adds, pointing a thumb toward Zhui, “Where we’re goin’, a guy in his condition would just slow us down.”
“He’s still armed, though. Can he even fight like that?”
Zhui, who hates to be the center of discourse, complains aloud, “I only have non-lethal rounds loaded. Any serious firepower and the recoil might kill me first… At least, that’s what the doc said.”
Tabitha also adds, raising her shotgun in hand, “And I’m still here! He’ll be fine, I can protect him.”
“I don’t need protection. I need peace and quiet,” he mumbles barely audibly to himself.
“Anyway, you guys were supposed to get a ride to transfer towns, right?” Tabitha points the way toward the exit. “Your car’s waiting out by the street just outside our embassy’s grounds. We can take a private shuttle there.”
“We even need to take a shuttle? Is the embassy far from here?” Elena asks.
“Nah, the ride’s just a few minutes. But with how things have gotten in town now, it’s for the best that our guys don’t walk around in the open.”
That catches Rude’s attention. “Is there a problem here we should know about?”
She shakes her head. “It’s no big deal. Just that some religious protesters have gotten really persistent. They’re all natives too and constantly crowding around the embassy, yelling about some dumb idol of theirs.”
Even Reno’s attention is piqued. “Idol… Like a religious one? By any chance, is that who I think it is?”
Tabitha’s face grows a little darker. “They call her ‘Rubia’ here, but by the sounds of it, it’s gotta be that Ruby gal.”
He snorts. “Figures. Yeah, seems like people here are crazy about her. Guess they haven’t heard the news yet.”
Elena frowns too. “Yeesh. She even has her own worshippers? Do these people not realize how insane she really is?”
Tabitha jumps in to exclaim in agreement, “I know, right? It’s so wack! She’s no better than a feral beast, and yet they put her on a pedestal! It’s like they’re just asking to get mauled!”
Zhui then points out, “Uh… didn’t you meet her one time? You said she was human.”
She scoffs with a scowl, “Whatever. After all that she’s done to us, she might as well be.”
“…” He promptly backs off and looks away as soon as she put it like that.
“So, eh, is there a hold-up, or can we get going?” a different voice with a Scottish accent now speaks up.
“Huh?” Tabitha notices the odd-looking cat sitting atop a moogle that has now come over. “What the? What’s with the cat?”
Reno gives a lazy wave of his hand. “Don’t ask. He’s our guest and critical to our mission.”
“Hmm…” Though Tabitha gives him an odd look, she decides to let it pass. “Anyway, the shuttle’s been waiting. I’ll take ya there.”
It’s a short walk from the landing pad and dock to their ride, but as soon as the shuttle comes into view, Cait Sith can’t help but notice something odd about the brand and logo. It’s apparently called “Traxit” and the logo is of a yellow cab driving on a three-striped road of red, orange, and yellow. It’s also quite large on the side of the shuttle as if its parent company really wanted to show off how important and well-respected they may be. As Cait gives it some serious scrutiny, he’s reminded about a certain taxi company that used to operate in Midgar. In fact, this name and the logo are suspiciously similar: the only differences are the extra “R” in the name and the colors of the letters and logo going with a generally reddish-orange spectrum rather than a blue-green one. Their driver appears to be Wutaian, but since he’s in uniform, a clean black suit and gray inner vest, he also looks like he could be fresh from Midgar as well.
Before they board, Cait Sith’s curiosity gets ahead of him and he asks aloud, “Say, is it me, or does this company sound suspiciously close to a former Midgardian taxi service by the name of ‘Taxit’?”
Now that he brings it up, Reno and Rude exchange suspicious looks of their own. “Never bothered to learn the names of other companies in Midgar since they all operate under Shinra anyway,” Reno admits, rubbing his head. “But now that you mention it, it does sound familiar.”
Rude also adds, “If I recall, there was a former taxi company that was alleged to have been involved in a tax evasion scandal. Though they got the charges dismissed, the company decided to shift HQs to Wutai in the aftermath.”
Reno snorts to himself. “Oh, then they might as well have been guilty. I doubt Wutai’s laws are gonna be as strict with Midgar’s ex-companies.”
“Maybe…” Rude adjusts his shades again. “Though the naming scheme could have had a little more work put into it.”
Cait Sith looks between the two and gives his own sigh. “So this is what we’re left with, eh? Taking a ride with an allegedly disgraced taxi company.”
“Wow. Even the companies that aren’t from Wutai are kinda shady, huh?” Elena comments, seemingly unaware of the actual irony.
Tabitha makes an awkward frown. “Oh, uh… I didn’t even know. I just know they’re the only taxi company in town that anyone’s heard of.”
Zhui reassures her, “At least they’re still friendly with us. Can’t say the same for any other competitors, if they’re still around.”
In any case, the group climbs on and the shuttle hits the streets for downtown where the Midgardian embassy awaits. However, downtown is also where crowds of locals walking about end up slowing the traffic. And yet, despite the usual tensions, it seems the streets are particularly crowded today, as the town is in the midst of celebrating a certain festival that came just the other day. In any case, the driver had already been notified ahead of time and takes an alternate path, so the ride is smooth for the most part.
Ever impatient for news, though, Elena starts to pester Cait Sith for “updates”, but the latter simply directs her attention to the onboard radio. The current big story is about the festivities that have gone underway since the day before: coinciding with the day of Tanabata is another festival day known as the Celestial Festival. The streets are alight with colorful lanterns and hand sparklers as everyone takes time off to honor and pray to the fabled Gods, among of which the white dragoness that had recently appeared to terrify their enemies is especially popular. Of note are shops selling out goods that picture Rubia and Leviathan’s fateful meeting where they once became master and pupil. As happy as people appear, though, the one dark secret that the adults don’t want to share with their kids is the fact that most of the shops selling this merch are in fact either Midgardian companies or at least adjacent to Shinra in some way. Even here amid the blissful jovialities that may distract them from the old war, there are still lingering scars that throb.
“Can we change the channel?” Elena asks the driver, but the latter explains that this is the news story on every major news outlet at the moment. She sits back in her seat with a grumpy frown. This isn’t the news she wants to hear. Then again, maybe they’ll get more important info by the next place they’re headed.
But by the time they arrive at the embassy grounds, they happen upon what seems to be some sort of commotion out in the streets in front of the gates, where a couple of stone-faced, non-Wutaian guards keep silent vigilance. A small crowd of Wutaians dressed in more traditional garb stand out in plain sight, holding out signs and stirring up protest. However, even many of the native Wutaians passing by or watching seem at least uncomfortable or even disgruntled with these protesters who are once again stirring controversy over a certain famed dragoness.
The crowd cries in unison: “Repent now! Repent for justice!”
“This town is fraught with sin! All thee who have cast aside your honor and values in place of cruel cash and petty prestige, repent now and you may yet be forgiven!” one of the male leaders of the crowd shouts through a megaphone.
“We hear the planet’s cries! She weeps, She suffers! Her children have grown lax and indolent, lounging in frivolous lavishness!” a well-spoken elderly man warns.
“Oh, Rubia-sama, please forgive us!” another female member pleads. “Her Holiness’ voice has grown distant! All this greed has surely angered her!”
“Shut down the invading corporations! Away with foreign devils!” another man yells, throwing up a fist.
“Repent now! Repent for justice!” the crowd repeats with equal vigor.
But despite their strong words and empassioned message, many of the onlookers ultimately keep quiet and turn away to mind their own business. While discourse over this certain religious figure has not been banned outright, these repeat protests have started to get on everyone’s nerves the more frequent they’ve become. While some Wutaians remain sympathetic, even they refuse to raise a finger or stand against the municipal government, who has been lobbied hard (and rumored to be paid off) by certain companies that carry some weight, especially their weight in gold. Even the local police stand by and do nothing, not out of a lack of willingness, but out of fear of the potential consequences.
Tabitha scowls under her breath. “Ugh. They’re back again? How many times do they have to do this until they learn? No one cares!”
Zhui replies rather callously, “Until their voices go out, seems like. I heard those people recently moved over here from the capital and have been staging protests since they arrived. At first it was just once a week and now it’s basically every day.”
“I’ve only been here for a few days and they’re already getting on my nerves,” she grumbles. “And of course it’s about that damn dragon.”
“Hey. Just look away,” Reno advises them. “Not our problem.”
As the shuttle approaches the gates, the driver honks a horn that drowns out even the loudest protests, and the crowd is forced to move out of the way. The people’s voices quiet for just a moment as the guards at the gates welcome the shuttle inside. Through sheer morbid curiosity, Cait Sith turns back from his seat with a nervous frown and is met with bitter, cold glares from everyone through the back window. They do nothing but wait silently until the shuttle enters and the gates are sealed once more, and then they resume their protests from afar. He turns away again and looks down toward Moogle, who reciprocates with his own concerned frown. It caught his sharp ears earlier when one of the protesters claimed that Rubia’s “voice” seems to have grown distant, but as much as he would like to ask them, now doesn’t seem like the best time to chat. Besides, in all likelihood the most they’d know are only through rumors. Ruby hadn’t returned here since they left, after all. Only a select motley crew knows what became of her and unfortunately he’s one of them. Maybe it would be best to leave this matter alone for now.
The shuttle finally arrives in the parking lot beside the large embassy hall and everyone gets off as the driver calls in a break. Though it’s not his first time dropping by an embassy, Cait can’t help but look around with an air of apprehension. While it’s not unheard of for Midgardian embassies to appear well-off and well-accommodated, there’s some serious contrast with most other buildings in the area. If anything, this parking lot alone already takes up the lot space of several local businesses combined. Still, the wide wealth disparity aside, it’s not anything he can do much about. He meekly follows the Turks across the lot, where they’ve gathered around a sleek black car arranged just for them. The engine is already running by the time they approach.
“Here we are,” Tabitha explains, gesturing with an arm. She then offers Rude a radio transceiver with the familiar Shinra logo on it. “Well, we’d better get back to work. We’re still combing through the evidence around the missing envoys here, but we’ll keep in contact if we find anything new.” Lastly, she gives her senior agents another salute. “Good luck to you all, sirs!”
With just a brief nod, Rude answers for the others as they all climb inside. This driver appears to be Wutaian as well, but he looks just as stiff and stone-faced as the guards at the gates. He does raise an eyebrow to the odd-looking pair of what look like stuffed animals traveling with them, but quickly turns away to avoid eye contact. And yet, as with aboard the helicopter, Cait finds that there might not be enough room for the Turks if he’s still sitting atop Moogle and sadly obliges to help Moogle climb into the trunk instead. He then slides into the back seat with Rude and Elena flanking him, while Reno slides into the front seat this time.
“You know where we’re going?” he asks their driver.
“I believe your fellow agent told me ‘Vestnik’, sir,” the driver replies. “It’s about a half-hour drive from here once we reach the highway.”
Reno now rests back against the chair. “Cool. Let’s go.”
With everyone accounted for, the driver switches the car into gear. Tabitha and Zhui salute them as the car heads back out through a different exit to the embassy grounds where they won’t be running into any more protestors, as it’s entirely under the municipal government’s authority. There is still a bit of congestion on the streets as he carefully avoids the many pedestrians, but as soon as he hits the open road at the outskirts of town, they’re off with swift efficiency. Though there are still some cars on the road, the majority stretch of the highway is basically empty up to their destination in the mountains.
~
Like most sites in the countryside, “Vestnik” is a tiny village that doesn’t see a lot of traffic these days. But it wasn’t always like this. This village is actually located at the outskirts of a once well established town by the same name, filled with various Wutaian peoples of different ethnicities during the country’s heyday before the war. Nationalist rhetoric was the norm and the people were proud to unite even with their cultural differences. However, all that pride vanished without a trace once the war broke out. Many of the local businesses fled to safer places or were run out as the country’s resources were quickly depleted in the face of such brutal power displayed by members of Shinra’s Soldier. In fact, though the war lasted a good nine years with much of Wutai holding out to the bitter end, that bitter end instead arrived as a sad whimper rather than a glorious, honorable boom. And just like that, the town that once flourished with trade and tradition was quickly deserted and left as a pale shadow of its former self. The people who still remained were forced to abandon it to the outskirts, where they set up a much more humble village, where old grudges of the mighty fallen still remain to this day.
Before they even get there, though, the uncomfortable silence aboard the car seems to be too much for Elena. As the port town disappears into the distance, she glances out the window and regularly shifts in her seat as if unable to get settled. Then, she lets out a loud sigh and speaks her mind regardless of the fact that the others aren’t willing to listen to her complain again.
“Whew… Yet another boring ride ahead. What’s the deal with Wutai anyway? Like, why do they have so many small towns or villages up in the mountains so far away from each other? They’re all so spread apart and isolated.”
To which, the driver answers politely, “I believe it has always been this way since this nation’s ancient history. Far in the past, the island of Wutai was once just a scattered collection of different kingdoms that often competed for power. Legend says that the first empress that did unite everyone was blessed by the God of the Sea, Leviathan, and granted a piece of His power. With it, the empress tempered the fires of war and put out many rebellions in an impressive conquest of peace. However, not every ancient kingdom was willing to accept peace and thus their towns were flooded until all resistance was quashed. The empress was renowned yet infamous for being strict and even cruel when necessary, but she also united the many warring kingdoms under one rule that was once thought impossible. Her legacy has lasted many millennia until fairly recently, just six years ago when the last empress was finally forced to abdicate.”
Elena rolls her eyes. “Again with all the ‘legends’. Do the people here just have hearsay as their history or what?”
Though she was a bit rude about it, the driver maintains himself respectfully. “In many instances, yes. Because much of our ancient history was torn by many periods of war, most records of the times were lost among the casualties. However, no matter how tyrannical the despot that ruled those kingdoms, there would always be people who retold the history as oral tradition. In fact, that oral tradition has remained as the primary means of record-keeping to this day, even though we now have more concrete methods.”
“…” Elena leans aside for the window, looking even more bored than she started. Still, there is one thing she is curious about and asks on, “By the way, what’s this country’s history with the white dragon that people keep talking about?”
“Ah, you mean Rubia-sama? As a matter of fact, She has a long and distinguished relation with this country and was said to have been there by Leviathan’s side when the nation was finally united. She is also known as the Harbinger of the Moon, sometimes dubbed ‘She who brings tidings with the tides.’ She learned much about our people from the Great Leviathan who was Her guide and teacher since even She was young. We honor and celebrate their auspicious bond during this Celestial Festival. I’m sure you’ve seen all the crowds in town.”
“Yeah… So what do people do during this festival?”
“There is much communion and merrymaking we have, with a great bounty of food and drink, but of highlight is at night, when the messenger lanterns are set off into the sky.”
“Messenger lanterns?”
“They’re named so because they deliver messages – the prayers and wishes of the people – to be sent up to the heavens where the Celestials are believed to reside.”
“Uh-huh…”
“And in the aftermath, it is a time to rest and relax, to sip tea and gaze upon the moon in appreciation.”
Elena raises an eyebrow. “You guys just sit around and stare at the moon?”
“To give our thanks, yes. As it’s said through ancient proverbs, ‘As the sun sets in the west, the moon rises from the east, and the stars blink and the tides begin to dance.’ It paints a truly tranquil scene after the boisterousness of the day.”
“…And has the moon ever thanked you back?”
By now, even Cait Sith has grown tired of her blunt and callous questions. He speaks up, “Lass, I know we’re not on the best terms with Wutai, but this man is our gracious host right now. At least try to be a little nicer about it?”
“Hmph.” She crosses her arms with a frown. “After what we’ve seen of Ruby, these ‘legends’ just sound like a bunch of kids’ fairy tales that even the adults believe. Doesn’t matter what the truth is or that she’s actually a wanted criminal and super unhinged. Because she’s their ‘God’, any damage she can – and would – do doesn’t matter.”
His ears droop. “Well, it’s not like she wanted to stir up so much trouble…”
She whips back around with a scoff. “You kidding me? Then why did she team up with Avalanche? Why did she burn down our reactors and bases? And why did she blow up a Wutaian castle that was supposed to be a ‘historical site’? What was all that about?”
Though she simply intended to shut down the cat’s argument, that last bit brings an even more uncomfortable silence. Even Reno and Rude plant hands over their faces at the same time in exasperation.
“Elena… Can you keep your trap shut about confidential stuff for once?” Reno groans.
“Huh? What’s confidential?”
“Even Shinra is under obligation to keep silent about that last incident,” Rude adds. “The less involved we can be, the better.”
But Elena still looks confused. “Wait, really? But it’s all true. Why do we have to keep secrets for the Wutai government? They’re not on our side!”
“It’s less about keeping secrets for them and more about keeping ourselves as far from it as possible.”
And now she gets it. “Oh. Um… yeah.” She turns back to the driver. “By the way, you’re one of our embassy’s people, right? Surely you’ve already heard about it?”
The driver makes a sullen frown, but opts not to comment on the actions of said government. He simply replies, “A little. The embassy was notified shortly after the incident, but the Wutai government insisted to keep as much classified as possible and we weren’t given the full details. We were aware that there was a recent explosion that took place near a certain town, but this is the first I’ve heard of a ‘castle’ being a part of it. Local news also reported on it, but it was just passed off as a ‘misfired firework display’ and that there was no cause for concern.”
Elena stares back in disappointment. “A firework display? …Well, something sure went boom in the sky.”
“At least this guy’s one of ours,” Reno admits. “If it were some random cabbie then we’d really be in trouble.” He even throws in a sarcastic joke, “And here I thought the cat’s moogle had the biggest mouth.”
Elena snaps back, “Well, excuse me. I can’t be expected to always know who’s in the know and who isn’t!”
He shakes his head. “This is why you don’t get solo missions.”
“Oh, come on! Don’t bring that up again!” Rather than keep arguing, though, she sits back in her seat with an annoyed huff. “Besides, my question wasn’t answered.”
“Which question?”
“The one about Ruby, of course! What was going on with her? Was she always that unstable or does she really not have control of her own power?”
However, at this point, Reno and Rude are unwilling to keep the conversation going. Rude calmly reminds her, “We can take the rest of those questions elsewhere when we’re not in outside company.”
Reno also addresses the driver, “No offense, of course, but you really don’t need to know any more of this.”
The driver nods back solemnly. “I won’t dare pry. Tensions are high enough as is.”
As the road narrows down a side path toward their destination, they eventually arrive at the outskirts of the village sitting at the elevated base of a nearby mountain that overlooks the ruins of the old town in the barren valley below. As this is such a tiny village, there isn’t even a welcome gate to greet them. There are a few villagers and children who are out and about on the dirt street. They had been chatting happily, and the kids playing with the local livestock, mainly goats and chickens. However, everyone goes dead quiet when they see some unwarranted visitors arrive. The women quickly shuffle themselves and the kids back inside their straw huts and then it’s just a few remaining men who stood their ground.
The black car slows to a halt by the entrance and parks by the side of the road. This is as far as the driver will take them, as though there is an open road through the village, the further climb will be on a winding unpaved dirt path up the slopes. They’ll just have to proceed on foot. The black suits step on out into view, much to the villagers’ growing wariness, and take a look around to get a feel for their surroundings. Cait Sith, as soon as he’s out, makes a beeline for the trunk to help his pal out of there, and the driver follows shortly to help unlock it. Moogle comes bouncing right out of the trunk with a spin in his step and throws out his arms with a big ol’ smile, but that smile quickly fades when he’s reminded the kind of company he’s with. Without futher ado, Cait hops back on his back and joins the Turks as they group up again to discuss.
Elena takes in the sights from their elevated heights. “Wow! What a view! You can see a whole town from up here!” For a moment, she skits around and looks like enjoying herself, but reminding herself of the mission, she returns to her serious face and whips back around to her cohorts. “Um, ahem… What’s that town over there?”
“That’s the former town that this village was named after,” Rude explains. “It was abandoned after the war since many of the roads here were destroyed and the town was effectively shut out from supplies for the rest of the war. They’ve been rebuilt since, but it looks like not many of the residents returned. Now all that’s left is a ghost town… or at least, that’s what was mentioned in the old reports.”
“Another ghost town… Feels like we’ve been finding more of those lately.” Now that she thinks it over again, she realizes another question: “Wait. But the war’s been over for years now. Why didn’t they come back?”
Rude folds his arms and gives it some thought too. “Good question. The reports in question were heavily reliant on what the new Wutai government was willing to supply us, and they didn’t give anything substantial until just a couple years back. There were probably some details that went overlooked. Whatever happened, they must have run into some problems trying to repopulate the town.”
Elena looks off at the town once more and back to the village before them. She shrugs, replying, “Sure looks like it. Kinda sad that there’s only about a village-size amount of people who did come back. But why would they set up a new place to live way up here when the town’s still there? Or is there something special about this place?”
“Who knows,” Reno replies, looking around the place as well. “Even as far as villages go, it’s tiny. Looks more like a campsite than an actual village, really.”
“Well, there’s still some people we can ask, at least.”
He glances back to her, raising an eyebrow. “Some, huh? Looks pretty empty to me.”
She blinks in surprise and points off to the two elderly men standing nearby. “What about those guys? At least they didn’t run off.”
Reno shrugs back. “If you wanna give it a shot, sure. We’re not stopping ya.”
She actually looks stung to hear it. “Oh, come on!” she huffs, “Do I always have to be the one who gets the ball rolling? Fine, you guys stay and watch!”
With professional gusto, Elena hurries off to speak with the locals. Two elders with grisled beards and stocky builds have been standing on the side of the road in front of a couple of huts. One carries a straw broom to sweep the road and the other carries buckets of grains, lifted over his shoulder by a wooden pole. They may have been chatting away earlier, but have gone silent and look off when Elena looks their way.
“Um, excuse me! Mind if I ask a question?” she tries calling to them.
The two men exchange looks with one another and proceed to ignore her.
“Hey! Hello?” She waves a hand in their faces, but the men still don’t turn her way. “Just a question! You know what I’m saying?”
Now, the men finally turn her way, but look annoyed more than anything. The bushy-bearded man carrying the buckets then replies something in Wutaian and in a deep, gruff voice. Though Elena can’t make out a single thing, it’s pretty clear by his tone that he isn’t open to be questioned, especially by the likes of these foreigners in black suits. The other elder says something else in their language too, and the two men seem to return back to chatting amongst themselves as usual. And they simply ignore Elena, who steps away with a frustrated frown.
Not willing to give in just yet, though, she tries again with some other men around. But as with the first two, there’s no actual response she can work with. They either simply turn away or look confused and shake their heads as if they don’t understand what she’s speaking. No one looks her way while she’s looking at them, but she can feel the intense gaze of the villagers around them and grows a little nervous. In the end, she comes away fruitless and frustrated and trudges back to her group.
“Man! They don’t even speak English!” she complains loudly. “Talk about backwater! Now what?”
Reno doesn’t look surprised in the least. He turns back to Rude to mention, “We could ask our embassy guy to be an interpreter.”
Rude lifts a finger just to adjust his shades. “We could… Or we could stick with the original plan and scan the area ourselves.”
Reno nods back. “Yeah. That’s what I figured. Doubt we’d get much out of them anyway.”
Elena slumps over in defeat. “Really… What am I, then? Chopped liver?”
The Turks now turn toward their last companion, who has been keeping to his thoughts and concerns, and he jolts a little when he realizes they’re all staring at him now.
Cait Sith blinks in surprise. “Eh? Uh, can I help you, lady and gentlemen?”
Reno gives him a raised eyebrow. “You know what to do, don’t you? Get to it.”
He scratches his head. “Ye mean right now? I dinnae think there’s a working cell tower anywhere near here, though.”
“Doesn’t have to be. We’re just looking for some kind of electronic signals.”
Rude also reminds him, “We’re here to investigate for data breaches in Gap’lau, after all. That wouldn’t be possible if there weren’t any sources in the first place.”
Cait Sith nods slowly and a bit sadly. He really didn’t want to have to be involved, but even he has to admit that he is at the very least curious if he can find anything. Without uttered complaint, he activates his built-in scanners and inspects their surroundings. For the most part, the huts are as plain and empty of modern tech as one could expect. He doesn’t peer into the huts, but it’s obvious by what the radar shows – that is, nothing much of note. In fact, he’s a little surprised to find such a lack of signals anywhere here. No TVs, no cell phones, and no radios. Maybe there’s the occasional spark of stones being struck to light a stove that actually catches his sharp ears, but that’s about it. With a second pass over, he has to come to a firm conclusion.
As if by reflex, he whips his hand over his head for a salute. “Scan complete! No electronic devices that I can detect in the area.”
However, the result doesn’t leave the Turks content in the least. While Elena is annoyed that they might have come all this way for nothing, the other two are more troubled at the implications.
“Great. Just great,” she complains, “Then why are we even looking here?” She points out toward the valley in the distance. “Shouldn’t we check that town over there instead? Maybe it’s not really that empty after all?”
“No, because we’re headed up the mountain,” Reno reminds her. “There should be an old fort near here that acted as a weapons depot for Wutai during the war. That’s where we’re going.”
“Then why are we wasting time here? Let’s get going!” she grumbles impatiently.
Elena hurries off for the road ahead, leaving the others behind. However, Reno and Rude take another moment to deliberate over their suspicions.
“Seriously? Not a single device at all?” Reno rubs his head. “So how’d they hack those computers? By sending literal bugs? Things aren’t linking up.”
“My thoughts exactly. Whoever was responsible must have already moved out with whatever tools they may have used. But something else bothers me…”
“What’s that?”
Rude draws out his own phone to refer to some notes. “The reports we received back at HQ the other day were supposedly verified by the embassy itself. I’m sure the coordinates they provided led to this particular village. Was there some mistake in the record, or was the GPS somehow a little off?”
“Maybe it was looking at the fort and counted the entire area as part of the village?”
“It wouldn’t do anything like that while we’ve been in other places even here in Wutai.” He crosses his arms with a frown. “The more we look into this, the more questions arise.”
“Yeah… it’s getting annoying.” Reno turns ahead for the open road leading up the mountain. “Well, whatever’s going on, maybe we’ll learn a thing or two when we finally get to that fort.”
Rude nods. “Let’s hope.”
With little choice but to leave that mystery up in the air, the two men then hurry along to make sure Elena doesn’t get herself in trouble up ahead. Cait Sith glances around nervously with his ears drooped in shame, and he and Moogle scuttle off after without another word. And as soon as the visitors are well out of earshot, all the men out in the street let off a collective sigh in relief. Everyone now gathers together in a circle to discuss.
“Whew! I was wondering when they’d leave. For Shinra’s elite agents, they sure know how to take their time…” one of the young men holding a rake complains in perfectly fluent English.
“What was that toy-looking cat that was with them?” another man with a towel draped over his shoulders asks, scratching his head. “It looked kinda familiar.”
“Did you see it earlier? It could scan for electronic signals! That’s scary! Glad I left my phone back at base,” a third man replies, tugging nervously at his neck bandana.
“That’s why I was saying, we have to be careful,” a fourth middle-aged man in a bamboo hat warns. “They’re still Shinra, so we can’t underestimate them. Not when many of our contacts are down too…”
“Let the ASR know that they’re finally here,” the bushy-bearded elder suggests with a firm tone. “And remind them to approach with caution. There’s no telling what these agents will stir up while they’re up there.”
“We’ll stay to keep an eye on them if or when they return. The rest of you, get going,” the other elder with a somewhat softer voice advises.
“Right!” their younger compatriots reply.
And with that, the group disbands and the elders turn off for the road ahead to return to their vigil. In all honesty, they aren’t even sure if those Shinra agents will be making it back out once they enter that old fort. It’s been under government lockdown for good reason, and while these people wouldn’t dare dig further to know why, they are well aware that a few of their men who did previously had yet to return.
~
The mountain path winds higher and higher into chillier heights, where the rough stairs that once were paved in olden times have gradually faded into rarely trodden territory. Just by looking at the rough, rocky path ahead, one could figure that this mysterious fort which grounds they are about to enter has been abandoned for many, many years. However, on closer scrutiny, that simply cannot be the whole story. This was still a stronghold that was well active up to several years ago since the Midgar-Wutai war ended, and then by seemingly unknown reasons, everyone who was once posted here cleared out fast and the new government that later stepped up officially declared it a “hazard zone” and prohibited any unauthorized entry since. Those who were either too curious or nosy shortly went missing themselves, and everyone who was once posted there have been threatened into silence. Who or what did the threatening – or if they simply silenced themselves – has been the biggest mystery around this fort for all these years.
But as far as these few Shinra agents crossing the path now are concerned, even the climb itself is a “hazard” in its own right. It’s no surprise that since people wouldn’t be up here, wild fiends have taken their place. And yet, even these fiends aren’t your ordinary beasts from the untamed Wutaian countryside. There’s something a little more sinister, even savage, to these fiends despite the vacant expressions that they seem to have in their eyes.
“Hiyaaah!” Elena screams.
She manhandles, flips, and throws a wild Foulander into a terrifying suplex from the air, crashing into the ground with enough impact to leave a small crater. This eccentric man-faced four-legged furry beast is like a cross between a sort of lion-like animal with large claws and a ribbon-like tail and an old witch wearing a red hannya mask, with bulging eyes, giant curled tusks protruding from human-shaped teeth, and a long green tongue that sways like a terrible pendulum as if it were counting beats to a curse. However, to these Turks, who recently had to deal with the likes of a certain white dragoness and an ancient-wolf-powered ex-Soldier, these hideous demons are little more than child’s play. Reno and Rude have barely even lifted a finger as Elena clean-sweeps the road ahead of three of the beasts by herself.
Elena leaps back to her feet and wipes her hands free of dust. “And stay down! Damn freaks…”
However, while the deed has been done and she’s made sure none are moving anymore, the fiends don’t seem to immediately fade away into ether as usual. If anything, she’s left a long trail of seemingly dead bodies and yet the corpses of their fallen enemies have not faded away whatsoever. There are many various creatures ranging from giant beetle-like Bizarre Bugs to slithering, spike-covered Tail Vaults, from dust-spraying Jayjujame that look like giant rainbow-colored pillbugs to the occasional flock of Thunderbirds that have all dropped to the ground. At first it was just a strange curiosity, but the more the bodies mount, the curiosity grows into disturbance. It also goes to show the level of devastation that even a single member of the Turks can exact, but that’s beside the point.
“They’re still not going away,” Reno comments, glancing back along the path. “Slow day for the planet, I guess?”
“Is there some kind of secret Wutaian curse on these things that I’m missing here?” Elena asks, growing more and more frustrated. “It’s so creepy how their bodies aren’t disappearing like they should!”
“You’re the one who did it to them.”
“I had to! Or were we just supposed to ignore them and run away?”
Reno shrugs back. “I’m not complaining. The whole vibe of this place feels off.”
“Yeah, totally. It felt like that ever since we had to deal with a certain cult the last time we were here.”
Cait Sith and Moogle look on at the scene of carnage that has gathered up along the way with sad and most troubled expressions. He’s been worried about treading around this fort’s vicinity for a while now, not just because of the clear lack of people or even the fiends’ presence themselves. It’s the fact that the once supposedly prosperous town of Vestnik was reduced to a ghost town, and while no one has any evidence of say, nuclear fallout, in the area, it sure does feel like it’s a disaster site in a different way. And since Elena brought up the old cult again, he can’t help but feel like there may be a connection. Finally, with his uncertainty reaching a fever pitch, he has to speak up again.
“By the way, you two said we couldnae talk about the situation with Ruby back in the car. Now that we’re safely in the middle of nowhere, could we have that talk now?”
Reno and Rude turn to him with concerned faces of their own. However, this time Rude does oblige him with an answer, “If you’re asking about what we know following the Zangsong Castle incident, then yes, we’ve looked further into it and the aftermath.”
Elena also points out bluntly, “You guys sure left the place in a heck of a mess! Sometimes I wonder if it was even for the better that we found that town.”
Cait Sith scratches his head. “I mean, I know what happened with Ruby blowing up the castle, but at the time, I thought it was a necessary move since the thing turned into a huge monster!”
“Nah, we’re not talking about that! What happened after was way worse!”
He blinks. “Sorry? I don’t follow.”
Rude then explains, “She’s referring to what a certain drone of ours that flew over the town later came to discover.”
He stares back with a suspicious look. “A drone? Wouldn’t that town be restricted airspace, though?”
Reno waves a dismissive hand. “No one but our company knows. We won’t tattle if you don’t.”
Cait frowns to himself, but says no further to that.
Rude continues, “After Cloud and the rest of you left the country, we sent in a scouting drone to record the aftermath of the town just in case there were any lingering traces of runaway agents related to that cult of Wutaia. Unfortunately, the footage that came back wasn’t exactly the most pleasant revelation.”
He grows even more nervous, as he suspected as much. “And what was it that it found?”
Rude pushes up his shades so that his eyes are blocked off. “Absolute destruction. Like a scene right out of old Nibelheim.”
“W-what?” he gasps so dramatically that even Moogle’s jaw nearly unhinges to match. “The whole town was destroyed!?”
“Burnt to the ground too,” Reno adds. “Looked like everyone who lived there was slaughtered.” He glances around at the scattered bodies here. “But it was also like with these buggers. The bodies didn’t disappear even after the town burned.”
Rude lowers his hand again. “As a result, we were able to recover some clues about their cause of death. Everyone, including some monks from a certain cult, was cut down by a long sword.”
“A long sword…” Cait blinks and his face contorts in horror. “Wait. Could it be…?”
Rude nods back. “Most likely, Sephiroth.”
“But why? Sephiroth has nothing to do with that town! Or any other Wutaian town, for that matter! He only stepped into the capital to negotiate peace terms after the war came to an end. At least, that was what I was told.”
“Yeah, that’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Reno replies, scratching his head. “The guy sure has a habit of going around killing random civilians.” He pauses and then wonders aloud, “Maybe he was the one who itched for war the most even after things settled.”
Rude happens to recall, “Funny. From what I heard of him back then, he was always known to dislike war; even admitted it in a magazine interview once. But I guess that could have just been his public persona.”
“Well, of course it would. Who wouldn’t wanna follow the heartthrob that could slay anything, but was super disciplined and usually advocated for peace? His fans lapped up that sugary crap all the time.”
Cait Sith still looks troubled. “But clearly something changed about him since the Nibelheim Incident, where he disappeared for five years.”
“Yeah. Normally falling into a reactor’s vat of mako would kill anyone, but instead it just made him stronger. Makes sense why he was the pride of Shinra. Guy was a one-man army that couldn’t be defeated – not even by the planet, apparently.”
He then shakes his head and droops. “So why would Sephiroth come and kill them? These were innocent people that didn’t have much autonomy since they were all infected by ARC. Why would he have to get rid of them?”
Reno barely puts any thought into his answer, “You got me… Target practice?”
Meanwhile, Rude crosses his arms and starts to speculate, “…This is just a guess, but I think it might have something to do with ARC.”
His partner turns to him, now curious. “Really? How’d you figure?”
“Remember, it’s a discarded product of the experiments under a discontinued branch of Project Immortals. At the time, most subjects that underwent treatment were labeled failures, and it was only because of a few exceptional cases where there was something viable that saved the entire thing from being scrapped. In total contrast, the success of Project Jenova meant the Immortals would be transferred and archived as a backup operation under Hojo.”
“Oh. So that’s how he ended up with both. And here I thought he was crazy to take on two completely different Soldier projects at the same time,” Reno takes note. “Huh. Then what happened to the scientist that was in charge of the Immortals? Who was he again?”
Rude raises a hand to his chin. “I think it was Professor Fukuro, a man who once served under Hojo before he was assigned there.” He then relaxes his arms again. “And hard to say what happened to him. Since so much of that project was classified since it came under Hojo’s control, Fukuro was released from duty. Can’t even say where he went, though I assume he’s still working for R&D.”
“Harsh, but not surprising.” Reno pauses and then asks one other question, “Uh, so what was the deal with ARC and Wutai again? Like, how’d it get here?”
Elena blinks in surprise and jumps in, “Huh? Reno, I thought you already knew that stuff, given how long you and Rude have been in the Turks.”
He shoots her an annoyed glance. “I don’t know everything. We were only notified about it a couple months back. Most of it was under wraps until then.”
“Oh.” That said, she makes a somewhat relieved face knowing that she wasn’t missing out on too much. “And yeah. Why did ARC even end up in Wutai?”
Rude explains straightforwardly, “That was the result of the ceasefire. Since Shinra was burdened with a lot of waste from Project Immortals, they had little room to keep storing the product that was deemed a failure. Since Wutai just capitulated, it was an easy target and the transfer of ARC became another item added to the terms, though because it was an extra term added after the ceasefire was announced, it wasn’t mentioned to the public. And since the new Wutai government stepped up, they’ve been quiet about what they’ve been doing with it.”
Both Reno and Elena look almost disappointed to hear that answer. “You gotta be kidding me! We just unloaded our waste on another island?” she complains. “I know which company we’re talking here, but that’s just lazy!”
Reno shakes his head, but has to concede, “Actually, that makes way more sense than what I was thinking of. Here I thought there was somehow a conspiracy about how Wutai secretly struck a deal with Shinra despite being the losers.”
Rude sighs. “If there was, I could only imagine what the consequences would be to effectively give the enemy one of our most dangerous substances.”
“Yeah. We got lucky that the Zone… Jone… uh, the people from that one town were basically zombies and would be undead meat if they tried anything.”
“That said, since the ceasefire terms didn’t specify how ARC was meant to be discarded, I have to wonder if Wutai has since tried their own experiments with the stuff. After all, there must have been a reason why it ended up in the control of a certain Wutaian cult.”
“Yeah, probably. Even their government didn’t want to dirty their hands and left it to some cult. Could make them easy scapegoats if it was ever leaked out in public too.”
Rude nods back. “Yeah. I think that’s a pretty safe assumption.”
However, as fascinating a discussion that this had led them to, Cait Sith has been waiting patiently for an answer to his question that has yet to be answered, at least to any satisfactory degree. He finally pipes up again with another question: “…Ahem. Sorry to interrupt, but uh, how does all that relate to Sephiroth?”
“…” Rude returns to his thinking face. “Since ARC is made from Ruby’s cells, I think that he may have been threatened by her influence over them. Had to eliminate them before she could awaken her potential.”
“Just because of Ruby?” Cait Sith droops with a sigh, in tandem with Moogle’s own. “What a cryin’ shame! She didnae even know these people existed in this way until that day when we first visited Zhongyuan.”
Rude raises an eyebrow. “Was that what she told you, or did you see her initial reaction?”
“Um…” Cait scratches his head. “Actually, it was Cloud who told us. He was there when they dropped in first. Later when we left, Ruby was knocked out after the whole incident, so she couldnae have told us anything.”
Elena stares at him in disbelief. “She was knocked out? From what? Did blowing up that castle take that much outta her?”
He shakes his head in a hurry, but sinks back into shame. “Truth is, we just don’t know. She seemed fine enough when she joined Cloud and you all to visit the castle, but after you got out and she flew off to handle it on her own, something must’ve happened…”
Though Reno and Elena both remain confused as they had been, Rude makes a troubled frown. He suggests, “Was that the first time she reacted so erratically? Could it have had something to do with ARC?”
Cait takes a moment to think it over, but he has to shake his head in defeat. “Cannae say for sure. Cloud and some o’ the others might know a bit more about Ruby’s history, but that was definitely the first I saw of her terrifying power firsthand.”
Reno snorts. “Well, we can’t ask them right now. Unless you also got some way to contact them from here?”
He sinks again into gloom. “No. If I had, I would’ve reached them long ago.”
Elena then points out, “Um, aren’t they all dead? I thought he said they all fell into the crater or something because of Sephiroth?”
Reno replies sarcastically, “Exactly why we can’t ask them. We’re kinda short on spirit mediums at the moment.”
She lets out a disappointed huff and rolls her eyes. “Okay, so why are we talking like they still matter?”
Reno and Rude now exchange glances as if they are on the exact same wavelength and turn back to her, looking unamused themselves. Reno then answers to the point, “Because if there’s any chance they did survive, we might still have a way to deal with Sephiroth so that we can stay out of it. Or would you rather challenge the maniac yourself?”
“What? No way!” She cringes. “Don’t even joke about that! I hate him for messing up Mr. Tseng, but even I can’t do much! He took out a whole platoon of our forces in seconds! And there were even some of those Immortal Soldiers in the ranks! He’s so crazy strong and it sucks!”
Reno nods, minutely impressed. “Oh, good. You have been learning.”
“Hmph! I can kick ass and take names any day, but I know my limits!” Elena now whips back around for the road ahead. “Anyway, forget about Sephiroth or Ruby or whatever freaks of nature! They’re not here and we still got a mission to do!”
Before anyone can tell her otherwise, she starts off on her own again. The other two leave her be and turn back to Cait Sith.
Back to business, Rude then asks him, “By the way, since you lost contact with Cloud’s party, you haven’t noticed any other activity from Sephiroth, have you?”
The cat shakes his head. “Oh, no, not at all! I wouldn't be keeping that info to meself!”
Reno raises an eyebrow. “Yeah, now that I think about it, weird how after they all disappeared, suddenly Sephiroth goes quiet too. You think they actually managed to take him out somehow?”
Cait now makes a very worried look. “I… don’t know that either. My previous body went outta commission before I knew what happened to everyone. All I know was that I got split up thanks to some kinda devious tricks from Sephiroth, and when I tried to look for ’em again, he took me out.”
“…” Reno looks to and fro, coming up short on ideas, and then shrugs back. “So, unless someone else we don’t know showed up to clean up after them, then I guess he’s just biding his time for something?”
Rude frowns at the mere possibility. “Hard to guess what goes on in the mind of a madman bent on destroying the world, but if there are any traces of ARC still around, he may have unfinished business.”
Reno blinks in surprise. “Seriously? But he definitely killed her, didn’t he? Or is there some way she can come back?”
“I don’t know.” Rude then turns toward Cait. “But at least this one seems to hold out hope that they’ll meet again.”
Cait nods back with a determined frown. “She has to be out there somewhere. They all are. Things cannae end like how they did.”
Reno stares at him with a raised eyebrow, but decides not to question him anymore.
They’re all shortly interrupted from their thoughts when they hear Elena’s shrill voice from higher above yelling at them: “HEY! Let’s go! I can see the fort! It’s just around the corner!”
Having exhausted themselves on speculation for now, the rest of them hurry along after her. As she insisted, it isn’t that much more of a trek until they finally reach the peak of this mountain path, which leads directly to the entrance to a grandstanding and imposing military fort overlooking the valley which it faces. However, while it looks impressive at a glance from afar, upon arriving closer for inspection, the state of the old fort is more dilapidated and weathered by the elements than what at first seems. If anything, while the overall foundation and structure of the building remains sturdy enough, the gusty winds blowing on by have layered every nook and cranny of it with dust. There isn’t much debris lying around, as there hasn’t been any living person that has been posted here in years, but it also looks so very empty aside from possibly the occasional prowling fiend in the periphery.
This time, before Elena can just walk in, Rude holds her back. “Huh?” she asks.
“Wait, Elena. Let’s think about how we approach this.”
“How? Doesn’t look like anyone’s around. Can’t we just walk in?”
But he shakes his head firmly. Not one to argue with him, she shrugs and obliges. “So what now?”
Reno gestures with his head toward Cait Sith. “We send him.”
Cait flinches. “Eh? Just me?”
“Sure. Not like you have to worry about running into any traps.”
He slumps. “Actually, I’d rather not have to run into any traps if I can help it…”
Elena snaps to attention. “Huh? There are traps!? Isn’t this place abandoned?”
Rude answers in Reno’s stead, “It should be, but you never know who or what may be lurking around.”
Reno follows up naturally, “Like, say, a certain rebel group that we’re looking for.”
Rude nods. “Since we have an effective scout, we should send him in first.”
“Just by himself?” Elena gives the cat a suspicious glare. “What if he tries to run off?”
Cait then shakes his head. “Believe me, lass. I don’t think I’d have anywhere to run to. We’re pretty isolated this high up.”
“Nice try, but I’m not falling for it!” She points right in his face like a threat. “If you get any ideas about jumping in with Avalanche, you’ll really be sorry! Remember that the prez put you under our watch! You’d better think twice if you wanna cross us!”
He cowers with his hands clasped over his head. “I-I’m just sayin’, I’m in enemy territory like the rest of ye! I wouldnae know who’s friendly or not in a place like this!”
Reno gives a casual wave. “Let off him, Elena. He knows exactly where he stands, especially back at HQ.”
Cait Sith sinks even further with a miserable sigh, practically lying atop Moogle’s head, who looks up to him with a concerned frown. “Aye… no need to tell me twice.”
“That said, it wouldn’t hurt to tag him just in case he is attacked or goes unresponsive,” Rude acknowledges.
“Eh?”
Rude now whips out a tiny black chip-like device from a pocket and attaches it onto the back of the cat’s neck. Cait scratches at his neck almost like it’s instinct, but the thing is tiny enough that his gloved hands brush right over. When he realizes he can’t just swipe it off, he gives in with a sad look to Moogle, who returns a sympathetic look of his own. Well, he wasn’t expecting it to be easy to escape the Turks, but this might have just sealed any opportunity of a safe exit.
“And if he does end up meeting Avalanche and goes with them, then he’ll also lead us directly to their hideout.”
Elena throws out a thumbs-up. “Nice thinking, Rude! Now there’s no way he’s getting away!”
“Right. Off you go,” Reno raises a hand in the direction of the fort’s entrance. “If you find anything worth reporting, hurry on back.”
As miserable as he is, Cait Sith obliges them a salute all the same. With one last look of resolve toward Moogle, who raises up his fists as if he’s ready, the two then hurry off past the stone gate and up the steps into the central building. While the Turks watch him go, though, a certain thought then comes to Reno.
He asks once the cat is out of sight, “You know… Legit would suck if there really are traps in there. What do we do if he gets caught?”
“…” Rude adjusts his shades as if out of habit. “He’ll have to figure it out on his own. At least we’ll have a better idea of how things are.”
Elena slumps in disappointment. “Guys… Do we really not have a plan at all?”
“Shush, Elena. We can come up with something,” Reno jabs back.
~
Alone at last, Cait Sith and Moogle now step forth to find an impressive display of old-style architecture within. Though the entire place is laden with dust from years passed, he can still make out the overall patterns and etchings that decorate the walls and pillars, largely comprised of stone and brick that have remained as sturdy as they once were. The wooden support beams scattered across the ceiling and rafters above have also remained in surprisingly good condition. As they are high up in the mountains, where the winds can get fairly strong, there isn’t too much moisture in the air to degrade their quality. It’s clear that back when the fort was first constructed, it was created with resilience and fortitude as a top priority.
However, now that they find a crossroad of seven different hallways before them in this octagonally shaped lobby, Cait and Moogle look back and forth, each one taking a different side, before meeting their eyes once more.
Cait shrugs. “Looks like we got a lot of ground to cover, my friend. Dunno if we should split up in case we do run into anything, though.”
Moogle makes a sad face at the mere thought of having to be separated.
“Right. Let’s leave that as a last resort. We came in together and we’re gonna leave together!”
Moogle returns to smiling again and raises a pumped-up fist in agreement.
“Though, where do we begin?” There seems to be some kind of map on a nearby signboard. Moogle struts right over to let him have a look. “Lessee here… Aha. So that’s how it is, eh?” Cait Sith nods and relays to himself as a firm reminder. “Looks can be deceiving, alright. What looked like one huge building is actually just one sitting atop a complex of nine other chambers, each one serving as a training ground for different combat scenarios and wartime activities. Looks like they had a wide assortment of officers and soldiers posted here back in the day. Also, there are even several different rooms where they store weapons, but the central depot is in the back room of the biggest chamber to the north.” He looks down to his partner with a shrug. “I s’ppose if any sorta Avalanche hideout would be in here, they could use a place like that.”
Moogle nods along in full agreement.
He looks back to the map, but strikes a thinking pose as he digs a little deeper. “Hmm. Then again, if I were a secret hideout, maybe it would be too obvious to go for the biggest one. Who knows, there might really be traps hidin’ about…”
Moogle looks concerned too and scratches his head.
Cait looks over the map once more and his eyes trail toward another chamber on the bottom right. While the chamber itself and its other attached rooms are labeled something in old Wutaian script, there is one that doesn’t have anything written. “That’s odd. Most of these are labeled except this one. Wonder why?”
He then activates another scanning mode: this time with a built-in Wutaian translator. While it is designed primarily around modern Wutaian script, he can still make out certain characters that seem familiar, namely those that form the root words for “weapon” and probably something like “spirit”.
Now he scratches his head and looks down at Moogle, who likewise looks confused. “Spirit weapon? What in the world would that be?”
Moogle simply shrugs.
“Yeah, this one’s gonna bother me for a good long thinkin’…” Cait Sith folds his arms. “Maybe we should check it out. I think the old Wutaians had a different term for materia back in the day, but maybe that area is dedicated to stuff like that? Unless I’m goin’ about it wrong.”
Moogle blinks blankly.
Cait now makes an impatient snort. “…Ah, forget it! We won’t get anywhere just thinkin’! Let’s go have a look-see and know for sure!”
Moogle nods back and pumps an arm excitedly.
With that, the two zip off for the corresponding hallway that leads them down a winding spiral staircase down into the mountain caves below. It turns out that this fort isn’t simply some constructions set atop the mountain; but also blended into the mountain’s original caves to begin with. In other words, while at first glance it seems like a completely manmade structure, it’s at least partially melded with nature itself. There did used to be wall mounts where men would set torches, but by now, the flames have long gone out and the caves are shaded in darkness. Not that Cait Sith would have an issue; as a cat, he can just turn on his night-vision mode. And in his green field of vision, there are still the slightest glistening of something metal in the walls. While unlike the caves of, say, Nibelheim where there is a bounty of natural materia, these caves are filled with much more natural ore, much of which has been left pristine despite how useful they would have been for the war effort, as it would have been too damaging to the surrounding ecosystem if they had some serious mining projects down here.
But soon enough, the tunnel leads them into another open chamber where it also splits off with several more doorways. On the floor of this chamber, though, shows a large print character that he recognizes as the same one for “spirit” earlier. Looks like he’s in the right place so far, and fortunately, no booby traps or rolling boulders to ruin his day yet.
“Okay. If I got it right, the unlabeled room outta be… that-a-way.”
Moogle scurries along, carrying his king that-a-way. However, the two then stop short in surprise, but more in the way of disappointment. It appears to be an ordinary meeting room with a large table in the center, blackboards strewn around the walls, and a couple dust-coated file cabinets in the back. There are even some pens and paper left on the table, but none of them have anything legible. Same goes for those boards, though they do show signs that they were erased in a bit of a hurry. Whoever had last been in here clearly had to scrub whatever plans they had before leaving. After all the outrageous things they’ve witnessed from Wutai’s back country, this room looks awfully plain and frankly boring.
Cait sighs. “Looks like we found out why it was unlabeled, friend. Probably wasnae even worth labeling since it’s about as backroom as one can be.”
Moogle shares his disappointment. He folds his arms with a frown and taps a foot as if thinking about something, but then lets it go and drops those arms.
But before they do turn away and leave, though, Cait takes another look around the room just in case they might have missed anything. Cait hops off of Moogle for now and the two scavenge the area for any clues whatsoever, wiping away dust from the table and chairs, the empty drawers, and even the rundown couch in the back which cushions barely have any spring left to them. If the place did have anything valuable, it’s been cleared away. Nevertheless, there is one little oddity: now that Cait peeks around an oddly placed crate in the back, he realizes there seems to be a different shape in the floor’s interweaved wooden boards. He beckons Moogle on over and the two push away the crate, revealing some sort of hatch door that leads further underground. Curious, Cait Sith pries apart the rusted hook on the door’s latch, and they climb down the ladder into an even darker room below.
“Deeper and deeper we go… to somewhere nobody knows… Huh?”
However, as soon as Cait gets his bearings of the place, he grows horrified at what he finds. He wasn’t really sure what he was expecting, but this was far from what he would have ever thought would be in a place like this. There are several large and completely black pressurized tanks, each one large enough to hold a person, that line the walls of this room, all of which are labeled with nothing but the traces of large numbers and Wutaian characters printed in faded white paint. There are also machinery that connect most of these tanks to the largest one in the back, which is accompanied by a panel of computers set before it. As bizarre of a scene as this fort has been thus far, this almost looks like a Shinra lab rather than anything remotely Wutaian. However, it’s clear that by the traces of the numbers, they have both the digits and the Wutaian characters associated with them, so they aren’t just tanks directly shipped in from Midgar or any other major Shinra town.
But the most disturbing thing of all is that despite the entire chamber they had visited thus far has been drowned in darkness due to all the lights that had long gone out, there is clearly some backup generated power dedicated to this room in particular, or these tanks would not remain pressurized up to now. Furthermore, the panel of computers set before the largest tank isn’t layered with dust like everything else up there. Though the screens themselves seem to be off, Cait can make out the low hum of a system running – in other words, someone had been using this room relatively recently.
“Hoo, boy… What in the world have we come upon? This is… this is just crazy!” he mutters.
Hey, does this mean what he thinks it means? Has Wutai really been hiding some rebel group in their midst after all? Though, by the looks of this place, it doesn’t really seem to have anything to do with Avalanche, per se. If anything, he may have stumbled upon something way bigger than anything they thought Wutai was possibly involved in. This has all the markings of a secret military experimental program that could only have been funded by the government. Ooh, this is huge news! And terrifying to think about. If it turns out that Wutai has been hiding their own version of “Soldier” in their back country all along, then it would simply be a disaster if Shinra dared to stir up anything with Wutai now. He has to get back to the Turks. Even if he isn’t in the position to tell them or the president what they should or shouldn’t do, at the very least they deserve to know the potential risks.
“Let’s get outta here,” he tells Moogle, who nods back eagerly. “As I thought, we can’t go to war. Not like this…”
However, as he and Moogle scamper back up the ladder from whence they came and shut the hatch as they hop back out, they suddenly hear some sort of loud thud coming from the chamber outside. Now wary that they aren’t actually alone, they cautiously leave the meeting room and peek out from the hall. And to their horror, the double doors from which they arrived in said chamber has been shut tight. In fact, every other doorway has been shuttered up with bars except for the one they’re standing by. Though, they don’t have much time to wonder what’s going on, since they hear the rattling of metal bars ready to drop on them. With the quick reflexes of a cat and moogle, the two dodge the bars that now shut the doorway.
Unfortunately, there’s a good reason why they’ve been trapped in here. All of a sudden the ceiling above them opens up and two huge ogre-like beasts drop down to confront them. One is armed with a huge axe and the other is armed with a huge four-edged club, and both are fully armored up like samurai, complete with the oni-like masks over their faces. These two are Vajradhara Wu and Vajradhara Tai, two legendary beasts that once fought on the front lines during the war, but were ultimately slain by a certain first-class Soldier that was assigned to overtake Fort Tamblin, where they were previously stationed. But that’s the thing: they were slain, certainly never to come back. How in the world did they end up here and alive again?
But now that Cait notices it, the two ogres also have their faces masked by helmets that seem to be locked in place on their heads – almost akin to the treatment that Class-I Soldiers have undergone. That is all the time he has to notice, though. Without uttering a sound, the ogres raise their weapons in unison immediately charge in on the attack.
~
Back outside, the Turks have been busy making backup plans in the case they would lose track of Cait Sith. On one hand, Elena was insisting that they just split up and run around, but neither Reno nor Rude were in the mood to run around aimlessly. It so happens that the tracker that Rude tagged the cat also had a built-in recorder, so they were able to listen into what he was surmising to himself. The three are currently crowded around Rude’s phone, where he’s been tracking Cait’s location.
“…Been stuck in that room for a while now,” Reno notes.
“Looks like you were right,” Rude agrees. “He fell into a trap.”
“Oh, great. So will we have go in and bust him out?” Elena complains.
“I dunno,” Reno replies. “Looks like he’s still moving, so he’s probably got some trick he can use.”
“And what are we supposed to do, just stand around and wait!?” She throws up her arms in frustration. “Finally we get to the place we’re gonna investigate and we aren’t doing even that!”
“What do you think we’re doing now? This isn’t some TV show being streamed off the Shinranet.”
Elena throws out a few quick jabs in the air. “Yeah, but I was hoping for a little more action! More fighting! Like taking out some rebel scum!”
“…” Reno turns back to the phone to keep watching. He also asks Rude, “So what do you think he was talking about? Said something about how we ‘can’t’ go to war with Wutai?”
“Hmm…” Rude puts a hand to his chin and speaks as he thinks it over, “Clearly, whatever it was that he found somewhere down there, it could be a legitimate threat. Like Wutai has been hiding some secrets in their arsenal all along.”
“Anything to do with Avalanche?”
“Not sure. He didn’t mention anything about them either.”
“Hmm…” Reno cocks his head aside with a concerned frown. “Or maybe there’s something more to do with that cult we ran into?”
“The Cult of Wutaia…” Rude takes a pause. “It was strange that the government had ties to such a group in the first place. Since the Zhongyuan Incident, we’ve all but lost track of where the rest of their members may have gone.”
“But it’s not to say that they’re gone either, right? There’s gotta be a reason why everything around them’s so hush-hush.”
Meanwhile, Elena grumbles loudly, annoyed to be ignored again. “Can we at least pick a direction and go for it already? I’m sick of waiting! I wanna go in and see what’s up!”
“Elena,” Rude advises, “Sometimes it’s part of the job to wait for the right opportunity. It won’t help us to rush in unprepared.”
“If you’re really itching for a fight, why not run down the road and find more fiends to mess up? At least it’ll make our trip back easier,” Reno suggests with a slight smirk.
“Ugh! Would you quit that? I’m also sick of being lectured all the time! I’m still a Turk, you know! I can totally make my own judgements!”
That said, now that she stops to think over her options, she only grows more agitated. She paces around impatiently, and with another punch in the air, she then swerves back and stomps off for the road behind them. Finally with silence restored to the area, Reno and Rude continue their discussions in private.
“Anyway,” Reno resumes, “Maybe it’s still early to jump to conclusions, but I don’t think this whole ARC conspiracy is over yet.”
Rude nods. “I was thinking the same. I have my doubts that this mysterious cult of theirs would just be a one-off party that happened to be smuggling ARC into this country. The government has to be involved to even let something like Zhongyuan happen in the first place.”
Now that he thinks back on it, he’s reminded of something. “Hey. Wasn’t it that Corneo guy who was leading the smuggling ring ops? Only way he could have had that much influence was by some kind of contact over here.”
“That’s right. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to find who that was.” Rude then recalls, “This person should have been attending Corneo’s wedding at the pagoda. I think Cloud’s group tried to confront him, but with all the commotion they stirred up, I doubt they would have seen where this contact went.”
“You think those ninjas of theirs would know anything?” Reno proposes.
“I doubt it. They were hiding down in the catacombs at the time, remember?”
“Oh, yeah.” He scratches his head. “Damn. So the only ones who could have recognized the contact didn’t meet them.”
“Yeah… Ever since the town was destroyed, that was the last lead we had on the cult members gone. And now even Cloud and his friends have gone missing. We’ve really run short on options.”
“Man…” Reno sighs. “Any chance some new clue would just land itself in front of us at some point?”
“…If there is, even I wouldn’t bank on it showing up any time soon.”
However, as luck would have it, irony seems to be in fashion today and a series of oddly coincidental events would shortly unfold. It starts with a muffled yet still loud bang coming from inside the fort’s grounds – or rather, a little off to the side in one of the caves around it – that catches their attention.
“The hell?” Reno mutters.
Rude refers back to the phone and now finds that their tagged target has finally gotten out of the room where he was trapped. In fact, the cat and moogle pair in question seems to have somehow traveled from that room to a completely different location off any recognizable platform or footpath in their vicinity. Before either of them can make out heads or tails of what happened, they hear another louder bang follow. Suddenly, a rather colorful explosion bursts into view from the cave off to the east. A certain pair of oddballs comes flying out via the explosion’s shockwave, and they so happen to land right back where they started.
“Incoming!” Cait Sith yells as he and a rather large, inflated Moogle brace for impact.
Reno and Rude jump right out of the way as the pair drop with a soft plump and a bounce, thanks to Moogle’s airbag that shortly deflates him back to normal once they hit solid ground once more. The Turks stare at the cat in disbelief as he gets right back to his feet and pats himself down. However, it seems like Moogle had to take one for the team and is once again out for the count.
“What happened?” Rude asks.
“Long story, but we don’t have time! We hafta get outta here ASAP!” Cait warns them while he picks up Moogle and lifts him over his head. “I couldnae keep them down for long, so they’ll be up and out sooner than an Adamantaimai’s snapback!”
“What are you talking about?” Reno demands. “Who’s ‘they’?”
“A pair of undying demons clad in armor like samurai! Wutai’s got some crazy monsters in the closet, I tell ye!”
“Huh?”
Soon as he mentions it, they hear some deep rumbling from the collapsed hole that Cait and Moogle just left.
“Quick in yer step, gentlemen! Lest you wanna fight them yourselves, then be my guest!”
Before they can stop him, Cait scurries off for the road with Moogle in tow. Now, another much bigger pair of figures launch themselves into the air and come crashing in after them. Reno and Rude are in for a wild wake-up call now that they see two giant armor-clad samurai ogres come swinging with their huge axe and club, respectively.
“What the hell is that!?” Reno screams.
“More like, hell is what!” Rude gasps.
The two flee after the cat as the two ogres charge in rapid pursuit. Despite their lumbering sizes, they move rather nimbly now that they’re out in the open, and instead of simply running along the same narrow footpath, they leap from ledge to ledge as they swing their weapons down in their way, making it rain rocks and debris. Though Reno’s swift enough to dodge everything and Rude’s strong enough to deflect the larger rocks with just his fists, the three quickly find the road ahead blocked as the ogre duo’s weapons crash into the ground before them in the shape of a cross. If they could roar their old warcries, they would, but these new helmets they’ve been fitted silence any and all voices. However, in exchange, their bodies have been transformed anew and are impenetrable.
Cait’s ears droop as he whimpers, “Oh, no…”
“What did you drag out of there, Cat!? Do something!” Reno yells in a panic.
“I-I would, but um…” He glances up to his unconscious partner. “We had to resort to our Emergency Escape just to get outta there, and my poor friend’s all tuckered out.”
“Wait! Those helmets…” Rude blinks a few times and in his shock, his shades slip a little, revealing his wide eyes. “Don’t tell me, they’re not like the Immortals, are they!?”
“What!?” Reno grows even more panicked. “Oh, come on! How can it get any worse!?”
As if his words tempted Fate, they would soon meet with worse. Just then, they hear the calls of a familiar voice. It’s Elena, who now comes running back up from below.
“Guys! There’s a problem!” she yells.
“Yeah! We can tell!” Reno snaps back.
“Huh?” Now Elena stops short as she comes upon this scene and freaks out too. “W-w-what!? What the hell is that!?”
The two ogres now find yet another enemy to target behind them, and in silent coordination, Wu the Axe and Tai the Club lift their weapons from the ground and turn back-to-back.
“Draw ’em away for us, Elena!” Reno calls out as he whips out his charged baton. “We need to clear a path!”
“What do you expect me to do!?” she squeals in protest.
“Distract them!” Rude answers promptly.
As if a silent bell had been rung, the ogres launch their attacks in full swing. Elena jumps out of the way as Tai slams his club to and fro, knocking about the slope. His efforts quickly come to dislodge enough rubble to turn into a minor rockslide, though she deftly avoids that too. She runs up and bounces off another ledge to try to counterattack with a strong kick to the ogre’s less guarded neck, but the moment she makes contact, her momentum comes to a screeching halt. She jumps away again and just barely avoids the next swing of Tai’s club as it crashes into the ledge nearby and causes it to crumble.
On the other end, Reno and Rude haven’t had much better luck either. Wu wields his axe lightly, juggling it between hands, and flails it around in a series of spinning rapid strikes that end in a massive sledge hit into the road that cracks and splits the ground. Rude seizes the opportunity to dislodge the upended earth, and with a little crackle of energy behind his fists, he punches the rock with the power of a Grand Spark, sending a shockwave of his own in return. Reno then rides that wave as if he were surfing and with that extra boost, leaps high into the air up and over Wu’s shoulder before he can bring his axe back up. With a neatly placed jab of his baton, he unleashes a full-power electrocution. However, like with his fellow ogre, Wu doesn’t even flinch to the assault. He throws Reno off in a violent shove, and while Reno manages to land back on his feet, he barely has time to dodge the next swing as that cuts into the nearby ledge.
“Damn. They really don’t feel a thing,” Reno grumbles. “What a pain. Wutai’s got their ‘Immortals’ too.”
“How do we beat these things!?” Elena yells from a distance. “They won’t stop!”
For once, Rude has nothing to say because he honestly doesn’t have an answer. He’s slamming his fists into Wu, who is blocking every blow with his axe and retaliating with a shoulder charge of his own.
All the while, Cait looks around in horror as their surroundings seem to be crumbling around them. While he isn’t particularly worried for the Turks themselves – they’ve gotten out of worse situations, to be honest – he is worried about all that rubble turning into a big landslide that could run over the unsuspecting village below. He has to get down fast to warn them.
But he’s a little late to find an opening. As Tai slams again into the rockface beside him, he again sets off another rockslide that quickly gains mass as he dislodges way more than before. Elena throws herself forward and manages to slide past him while he does to slip safely out of the way and returns to her companions’ side. However, now there’s no one on that end to stop the ensuing landslide.
“Ack! The villagers!” Cait Sith cries.
While the Turks continue to keep the ogres preoccupied, he quickly plops Moogle down off to the side and cartwheels down the slope. However, as fast as he can roll, he’s not faster than the rocks that are now tumbling away from him.
Fortunately, he doesn’t have to keep chasing. Suddenly, a magical light barrier flashes from below and sets up a wall of magic that holds the landslide back and redirects it into a nearby ditch away from the open road. But before Cait can make out who or what had set up that barrier, the small mysterious figure vanishes behind the rubble. It was just a brief glimpse, but he swears the figure had some sort of coiling purple tail. Confused but relieved that someone managed to stop it, Cait screeches to a stop and hurries back to the fray above – mainly to fetch his pal, but it doesn’t hurt to check on the Turks either.
But even there, more mysterious heroes have arrived, though they don’t look like what one would expect. A neckless monster flailing about an iron ball on a chain throws it and wraps its chain around the grip of Tai’s club and yanks it back to hold him from swinging it freely. A small but very quick fiery-headed penguin creature darts in and bombs Wu’s feet, causing him to stumble and miss his next swing. And over their heads, a large winged demon flutters in with a ball of Graviga held in its hands. It throws the spell between the two ogres, drawing them both inward and making them crash into one another. Then, one last humanoid figure leaps out from the dust clouds. He whips out two yellow paper seals and slaps them atop the ogre’s heads before they can struggle free from the Graviga. With some ancient magic that comes into effect, the two ogres are immediately deactivated and their bodies crumple into useless heaps.
Elena’s jaw drops. “What the… They stopped?”
Now that the Turks turn to look, they are now surrounded by those four weird creatures – the neckless, hornless gray demon with the iron ball, the fiery-haired penguin with a character for “rage” on its chest, the winged purple horned demon, and a fourth creature, a dark blue alien with many yellow eyes, four arms and no legs, standing on a coiling tail. And amid their ranks is a man; an elderly man, in fact, dressed in chest-plate armor over his usual gi and brandishing a bright red cape. The man then approaches the confused but wary group of Shinra agents, bringing his own level of caution.
“This is a restricted area and a hazard zone. You should not be here,” he warns.
“And who are you, old man?” Reno replies calmly, while keeping his baton by and ready just in case. “You look like you know a thing or two about this fort.”
“Hmm…” He looks around the area one more time to make sure that there are no other threats that they have to deter. He then turns back to them and answers, “You may call me Zangan. I am but a humble traveler passing by, but a certain group from this town called for my aid.”
“Zangan…?” Cait Sith mutters quietly to himself. Where in the world did he hear that name before? In fact, this old man also looks familiar, but he can’t quite place him.
“What purpose would a ‘humble traveler’ have with a government fort that has been harboring monsters like these?” Rude asks in a bit more forward of manner.
“And what group are we talking here?” Elena demands. “You know Avalanche?”
“Avalanche?” Zangan looks surprised at first, but then makes a grave frown. “I see. So that was your objective.”
“I knew it! You’re working with Avalanche, aren’t you? Cough it up! Where are you hiding them!?”
But he shakes his head. “I believe we have a misunderstanding here. The group I speak of is not Avalanche.”
“What?”
“Then which one do you mean?” Reno asks.
Zangan takes a solemn pause and then admits, “It is a group that has also been fighting Shinra influence in this country for several years following the war. They go by the denomination of ASR, short for the ‘Anti-Shinra Resistance’.”
Notes:
Character reintroductions and the fruits of my foreshadowing labors
- This chapter has been a long-time coming, not because I took a hiatus, but because I've been planning to introduce a few other characters that previously went unnamed.
- For starters, Zhui is back; the smart-talking protege of Tseng and a sniper. As I mentioned before, his name is the Chinese word for "snipe", referring to the wading bird. To follow on that theme, here is Tabitha "Tabby" Crowley. Her surname literally has "crow" in it, but is also just Irish enough. She and her sister are the only two redheads I have named in this fic. Their first names aren't particular to any region, though. I went with Tabitha and Abigail just because I thought "Tabby" and "Abby" were cute.
- Tabitha did actually appear before, all the way back in chapter 30. She was the rather aggressive redhead Turk who was escorting a certain scientist that was working under Hojo, and the one that took Elmyra away for interrogation. At that time, she already knew about Ruby's ill repute and wanted to take her on, but well, we all know how that went.
- Abigail also appeared before, off in chapter 61. She was the Class-I Soldier who escorted Rufus to the Temple of the Ancients. Needless to say, there's a bit of some tragic backstory here, but I may have to save it for another time. For now, Tabitha still doesn't know what actually happened to her sister, or if she's still even "alive" at this point.
- Lastly, the cowardly scientist that Tabitha had previously escorted was Professor Fukuro, an original character of mine who I previously hadn't planned to name. Here, he's named following a theme I noticed with Hojo. While it's not been confirmed what exactly is Hojo's name origin, I suspect it has something to do with a particular famous school of swordplay known as the Kashima Shinden Jikishinkage-ryu, which roughly translates to "divinely transmitted, honest reflection of the heart, school of Kashima". The art emphasizes repetitive practice to be attuned with the cosmos, so to speak, with unwavering intention and clarity of mind. "Hojo" is actual the first kata (form) of the major five taught in this school, and "fukuro shinai" is the second. While hojo no kata focuses on principals and fundamentals, themed after the four seasons, fukuro shinai no kata focuses more on delivering fast, precise strikes. The "fukuro" part is in reference to the "bag" or sleeve, usually leather, that is wrapped around a marked bamboo stalk used for practice. Also, I found calling this guy a "bag" really funny for some reason. (There are other reasons why I picked that guy, but this note is getting too long.)Lightning round for everything else
- I named the port town Gap'lau because I was already tired of Chinese names, but made one last exception as a Cantonese name would be fitting, given China's long history of giving up territories to foreign powers. It's the Cantonese word for "confluence", as in the meeting point of two rivers into a bigger one.
- "Taxit" and its new Wutaian branch "Traxit" are a completely original taxi service company that I made on the spot while drafting this chapter. I always wondered if Shinra was the only company in Midgar, but remembered that technically there were other businesses like the one Elmyra's husband had. Everything in Midgar is basically under Shinra's rule anyway. Besides, I thought it would be funny to include the obvious "Chinese ripoff" of something.
- I previously introduced the Tanabata Festival back during the first Wutai arc, and since a little over a week has past since then, the festival day came and went, but I still wanted to keep the festive mood somehow. So I slipped in a concurrent festival that I thus named the "Celestial Festival" that honors Rubia and Leviathan in particular. It's also a nod to the original tale of Tanabata that is about two lovers galaxies apart that come to meet on a certain day, but here, Rubia and Uncle Levi have more of a relationship like a pupil and her former master.
- The town / village / fort of Vestnik are indeed all connected, but it's spoilers if I say any more about that. For now, it's named after the Russian word for "messenger". I just wanted at least one location in Wutai to have a Russian name because we already have a few Russian names among the Five Saints.
- Speaking of them, some of you may recognize those four strange "monsters" that appeared at the end of the chapter. I will get into more detail about them in a future chapter, so please look forward to it!
- Last but not least, Zangan is back! He's become involved with a group called the "Anti-Shinra Resistance", which is in fact a reference to a similar resistance group mentioned in Rebirth. Unfortunately, I can't work Glenn & co in here, but I've got my own plans for it.
Chapter 78: What We Fight For
Notes:
Huzzah! I have technically made it on time (it's still the weekend where I live, lol). Finally back on track and I got another big chunky chapter... Oh, geez, it's almost as big as chapter 69, which ironically has been the longest chapter so far. I went so overboard with all the original worldbuilding and this time it's no exception. And it's mainly around Barret's story? Wow.
Well deserved. I loved Barret from the OG since the very beginning. All my love to our big gun-armed dad. To both the gun-armed dads, on that thought.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“…Cloud… Cloud! Can you hear me?” Aerith’s soothing voice calls.
“Wake up, bud! Talk to us!” Zack’s flustered voice follows.
Cloud finally stirs and slowly opens his eyes. He blinks a few times before his eyes readjust to the light of a nearby lamp that lights up the ceiling above him.
“Cloud! Thank goodness!” Tifa cries.
“Whew…” Aerith sighs. “I hope I never have to do that again.”
“Aerith, you’re amazing! How’d you know what to do?”
“Honestly? I didn’t. I’m just glad it worked.”
Cloud finds himself lying on the couch in the living room where Aerith, Tifa, and Zack have been waiting on him. While the ladies have taken a seat on the table before the couch, Zack remains standing as if on guard. Aerith also had her magic GUI out for a bit, but dismisses it now that she’s finished tinkering. Cloud lies still, his head still swirling with confusion. What just happened to him is honestly a blur; one moment he was just looking for Rubia, and the next thing he knew, he was hit with an unholy cacophony of screeching in his head. He must have blacked out, but how long has he been out? As he regains feeling in his fingers, he feels them twitch back to life. He then pulls himself into sitting up.
“Cloud, how are you feeling?” Zack asks. “Everything in place?”
Cloud clasps his head with a hand, but rather than feeling any sort of soreness inside, he instead feels almost nothing as if he’d gone numb from the intense pain. “…I think so?” He drops his hand and shakes his head. “What happened? Did I black out?”
“Yeah, looks like it. We found you on the floor in Rubia’s room.”
“You almost scared us, you know,” Aerith explains, worried. “You wouldn’t wake up even when Zack was shaking you violently. Good thing I was able to find the right command to break you out of that ‘stasis’.”
“Cloud, do you remember? What happened between you and Rubia?” Tifa asks too.
He slides his feet off to get into a more comfortable sitting position. “I don’t know. All I remember is that it was annoying trying to get the door open, like there was some kind of magical lock over it. Fenrir’s power gave me access, but as soon as I stepped inside, I blanked out.”
“That happened with me too, though she knocked me out herself,” Zack recalls.
“But this is different. Rubia isn’t there anymore,” Aerith reminds him.
“Ah, yeah…”
“Rubia…” Cloud tries to remember anything else, but still draws blanks. Catching onto what she said, he asks too, “Huh? She isn’t? Where’d she go?”
Aerith makes a sad face, while the others share troubled frowns of their own. Now she draws forward in both hands the mysterious black orb that they found earlier.
Cloud is alarmed at first sight. “The Black Materia?”
She nods slowly and hands it over to him as he inspects it closer. “Looks like it. We found this on the bed where she would have been.”
He looks back up. “What? Then what happened to Rubia?”
“I don’t know…” Aerith makes a face like she’s about to add more, but decides to hold back on speculating. “She was already gone by the time we found you.”
“…”
Finally, Cloud remembers he did get a glimpse of the orb on the bed, just before the splitting headaches. Actually, he does remember something else: he heard a voice. He might have heard it before, but isn’t sure who it could be. And yet, at just the mere recollection of it, he feels a pit of dread forming in his gut, but it’s followed by the reignited embers of a fire from within. Like it’s instinct, his fist clenches around the materia and he even bares his teeth as if they were fangs. This rage – Fenrir’s rage – is an eternal, undying flame. The wolf never forgets a grudge.
“Tiamat…” he mutters just audibly.
Tifa asks, “Cloud? Did you say something?”
“…” He turns to her with a worried frown. “I just remembered something. Before I passed out, I heard a voice.”
“Someone you recognize?”
“Not personally, no.” He relaxes his tight grip, but doesn’t let go of the materia yet. “But Fenrir’s instincts tell me that Rubia’s mother might have taken her away.”
Tifa gasps. “Her mother… You mean Tiamat?” She turns to Aerith to confirm, “She was that awful-looking monster on the temple’s mural, right?”
Aerith looks sad, but not surprised that the name has been brought up. “Yeah…”
“Huh? What mural?” Zack asks.
“We visited an ancient Cetran temple a while back when Ruby was still with us. There was this mural that told us about the history of the Black Materia. Turned out that it was some kind of creation of Tiamat.”
Aerith nods too. “It was the remnants of Tiamat’s wrath before she was sealed far away from our world. But it was said that as long as Rubia remained here, she would always get the materia to exact her mother’s revenge on the planet.”
He blinks blankly. “Oh, wow… Sounds like the planet had it rough back in the day.”
“Yeah, you could say that.”
“Wait,” Tifa cuts in again, getting confused. “But why now? If Tiamat was sealed away, how can she still affect anything?”
Cloud answers her, “It’s because of Rubia.”
“Rubia…?”
Up to now, he’s been stewing in his own thoughts and growing more agitated the more he thinks about it, and he finally confesses his suspicions: “I’ve been thinking about it for a while now, how this world was built around her since she was young. Since Bahamut didn’t want to abandon her, the Planet Guardians had this whole elaborate setup rebuilding a virtual copy of the world just to separate her from her mother.”
Tifa nods along slowly. “You told me about it before, and it’s still hard to wrap my head around it. But I think I understand. Bahamut always treated Rubia as his child and wanted to raise her right.”
“But the truth is, Rubia wasn’t born as a normal being. She was basically cloned from Tiamat and acted as an extension of her mom’s will. That’s the real reason why they always struggled to control her. Even without realizing it, Rubia could have a sudden personality switch and go on a destruction spree at any time. As much as Bahamut hoped she would be, she was never ‘ready’ to be released.”
She frowns to hear it. “Yeah, seems like it… But even then, how can Tiamat keep controlling her? Is she still able to do something from where she’s sealed?”
“No. She doesn’t have to do anything. Rubia acts on her own.”
“Then why would Rubia ever follow her mother? She doesn’t even like her, does she?”
“She can’t help it.” He now looks toward the orb still in his hand and offers it forward. “Because she IS the Black Materia.”
“…” Tifa wasn’t expecting that answer and nearly does a double-take. “W-what!? Cloud, what are you saying!?”
But his eyes harden at attention. “I’m serious. It’s one of the only ways Rubia’s whole existence can even make sense.”
“What? But…” She turns toward Aerith and Zack too, but while the latter looks just as lost, Aerith lowers her head again as if she had expected that answer. “Aerith, did you already know this?”
Aerith doesn’t reply right away, but she lifts her head and replies, “I had a suspicion ever since we visited the temple.”
“…” Tifa goes back to Cloud, trying to make sense of it all. “Cloud, what’s going on? Who – or what – is Rubia, really?”
He now sits back to get comfortable, but shows a contemplative frown. “In short, a weapon created by Tiamat to exact her revenge on the planet and count down to her eventual return.”
“…?”
“We didn’t understand it at the time, but the mural told us everything. At first it looked like Rubia was holding the materia, but I don’t think that was really it. If anything, it showed that she was made in a similar way to how Tiamat formed the materia in the first place – as a remnant of her wrath. Though Rubia became living person that lived among the Cetra, she had the same purpose as it. She was always drawn to search for and merge with it.”
“Tiamat split herself into ‘remnants’?” Tifa lowers her head in serious thought. “That sounds familiar…”
“It should be. That was Rubia’s MO. Splitting themselves up into their core essences made them look a lot weaker than they really were.” He looks back to the materia in his hand. “Of course, the other Guardians knew this too. They tried to keep Rubia as far from it as possible, but they couldn’t hold her off forever. Even if they destroyed her, she would always come back. This happened multiple times over the planet’s history.” He looks back up as he firmly states for the record, “Rubia once admitted it to me, she was the one who brought Jenova here by another Meteor.”
Tifa gets uncomfortable to be reminded of Rubia’s past crimes, but keeps listening attentively.
Cloud lightly jostles the materia in his hand. “And there’s the big question: how is she able to reincarnate endlessly in the first place? Normally anything that comes from the planet is eventually going to end up going back to be reborn into something new. But she’s always just been the same person with the same memories and all.”
Zack likewise brings up, “But isn’t it just because she’s one of the Summons? They always come back as themselves.”
“Not exactly. We haven’t had the Summons on the planet in forever – at least, not the original beings. We have to use their materia to be able to call them in the first place, but those summonings are like their afterimages and they don’t stay for long.” Cloud then shakes his head and looks down at the materia again, clasping it tightly in both hands. “But the Black Materia is different. It was created by Tiamat, specifically to defy the planet’s natural cycle, and has all the ‘code’ for her revenge baked in by design.”
Zack awkwardly rubs his head and quietly nods back.
Cloud’s grip on the orb tightens to the point where his hands are visibly shaking. “Doesn’t even matter what Rubia thinks or feels… In the end, she’s just a part of Tiamat in some way.” Though he’s so upset that he’s tempted to try to crush it, he instead relaxes his grip and gently cups the materia in his hands. He lets off a sigh and admits, “Sorry to Ruby, but… I’m not really sure if we can ‘save’ her anymore.”
Finally that he’s come out with what troubled him since earlier, the entire atmosphere in the room sinks into gloom with him. And up to now, Aerith who has gone quiet looks back up to meet Cloud where he’s left off.
“We still have to try,” she states calmly.
He turns to her with a defeated frown. “Aerith. What can we do? She’s not Ruby, not exactly. Even if we can convince her to fight and try to defy her mom, couldn’t her mind just be overwritten?”
She shakes her head. “No, they aren’t the same, but Rubia doesn’t have to be. No matter what purpose she was born for, she is still her own person.”
“Her own person… until she isn’t.”
She frowns too. “Cloud…”
He raises the materia up again. “She’s already become like this. Whatever thoughts and prayers you want to give her, she’s not gonna respond.”
“Don’t forget: materia is life. And even if the Black Materia is different than most, it still carries her essence.” Aerith raises a hand toward the orb in his hand without touching it. “She’s still in there somewhere, I can feel it.”
“…”
“And besides, we’re not completely defenseless here either.” She pulls her hand away and draws up the magic GUI again, tapping away in search of some sort of guides or clues. “I know I’m still learning, but now I can operate this system too. If there’s anything I can find about Rubia and the details behind her birth, it might help us understand.”
Tifa watches her work in curious awe. “You really are amazing, Aerith. You’re so in tune with the planet to the point that you can just do…” She gestures toward the screen. “All this.”
She passes her a grateful smile. “Thanks, but I’d say Ruby’s the real wiz. I’m just a newbie picking up after her.”
“The more the merrier, though.” She then turns back to Cloud to ask, “Say, is Fenrir able to work with it too?”
“Yeah. He was the one who explained the whole ‘simulation’ thing to me, after all.”
“Then, maybe you can do something?” She then turns down to her own hands. “I mean, I only became one with Shiva just a little while ago, so I’m not sure if I can yet.”
He makes an awkward frown. “To be honest… I don’t actually know how to work the system either.”
“Really? But wouldn’t you have had some sort of computer training while you were working for Shinra?”
He shakes his head. “It’s nothing alike. First of all, the code is written in some ancient language. I can’t read any of that. I’m not Cetra.”
Aerith blinks in surprise. “Really? But it looks like normal English to me.”
“Huh?” Now that he moves to peer over at her screen, he also blinks in surprise. “Weird. That’s not what I see whenever I draw up mine.”
“Oh. Can I see?”
He obliges, throwing out a hand forward, and a small, esoteric-looking summoning circle appears around his wrist that expands out to a different screen entirely, with what looks like a similarly themed menu design, but the starting page is certainly different in how it’s structured and the language is practically just strange symbols or runes to everyone present. Though Aerith is fascinated, even she struggles to read everything.
“Wow… This looks pretty advanced. I don’t think it’s even the same as the old Cetran tongues I’ve seen or heard before.” She blinks again and turns back to him. “Wait. Have you been working with this all this time?”
“Yeah.” He scratches his head. “I haven’t been able to read anything, so I just went with my gut and pulled through somehow.”
She nods slowly and turns back to the screen, growing ever more intrigued. “Huh… I guess Fenrir has his own way of doing things. I’m not at the level yet to crack through what he has here.”
Cloud raises an eyebrow. “Uh, so is it even the same system we’re working with here, or…?”
“I think so? At least, it looks similar to mine. But maybe he’s got some kind of encryption going?”
He slumps a little in disappointment. “Encryption? But he gave me access in the first place! He’s even sharing my body, for crying out loud!”
“I mean, it’s clearly in a form that he understands, but I guess he hasn’t shared that knowledge with you yet.”
Now frankly annoyed, he dismisses the screen. “Of all the things he could have told me, why didn’t he start there?” he grumbles to himself.
Another awkward silence fills in while Aerith resumes her search, to a very curious Tifa sitting beside her, while Cloud continues to mope quietly to himself. However, there’s still one other guy here who has been more or less out of the whole loop. Frankly, he really wants to join in, but hasn’t been able to give much input. But he has been thinking to himself and now gives his own thoughts aloud.
“…So, let me know if I got this right,” Zack speaks up, folding his arms, “If we’re gonna be able to help Rubia fend off her evil mom, it’s really important that that mom just doesn’t ever show up, right?”
Aerith turns to him, surprised he’d have to state something so obvious. “Right.”
“And it’d be really, really bad if this Black Materia ended up back on the surface. Like, if it ended up in the wrong hands, especially Sephiroth’s, he could even bring Tiamat back if he wanted to?”
The other three blink again in unison and exchange equally lost looks. Where is he going with this?
“Uh…” Cloud looks unsure himself, but tries to answer, “I guess. I don’t know why Sephiroth would ever summon Tiamat, but as long as Rubia lives, she always could come back.”
By now, there seems to be some sort of clever glint to his eyes. “Then, it’d be for the best that we keep it here, in a place where no one else would be able to reach it, right?”
“Sure…”
“But is it really safe to leave it here? Wouldn’t Sephiroth still be able to show up?” Tifa worries. “He always bothered Ruby before no matter where she’d be.”
Cloud nods along. “Definitely. I’m sure he even chased her here multiple times. Any time she’d come back from ‘somewhere in the Lifestream’, it could have been here all along.”
Nevertheless, a big confident smile crosses Zack’s face. He points with a thumb to himself as he declares, “Don’t worry! As long as I’m here, I’ll keep an eye on it! No one – not even Sephiroth – is gonna swipe it from me, you have my word!”
Tifa blinks in surprise, also a little impressed. “Really, Zack? You’d do that for us?”
Cloud raises an eyebrow. “You sure? I know you’ll try your best and all, but Sephiroth can’t be underestimated. He’s grown way too powerful even for me after Fenrir and I merged.”
Zack gives a casual wave of his hand. “Nah, it’s fine. I can take care of myself.”
He frowns, unamused. “Zack, I mean it. He’s nothing like what you remember.”
“Hey, I mean it too!” Zack now puts a hand to his chest as if he were making an oath. “You guys can trust me, really. I won’t be caught off-guard like I used to.”
“But…”
He then raises his hand to chin as he adds, “And I’ve been thinking about something for a while now. Why it is that I’ve been given this second chance at some kind of ‘life’ even when I’m supposed to be dead.”
Aerith nods slowly, making her own thoughtful face. “Yeah, I’ve been wondering too.”
Tifa blinks blankly. “Is there some reason that he’s been an exception?”
“Maybe it’s because I have some kind of secret mission that I still have to fulfill?” He shrugs. “I dunno who gave it to me, but uh, I guess it could be Ruby.”
“Ruby? Why would you say that?” Cloud asks.
“Uh…” He cocks his head aside. “Just a gut feeling, I guess. I mean, I had to have been keeping her memories from another world for a good reason.”
And just like that, everyone else seems to finally catch on where he’s been leading them. While Aerith looks off and reconsiders the possibilities, Cloud and Tifa have both gone silent in shock.
Cloud’s jaw even drops. “What? Zack!”
“W-what?”
“You have her memories from another world!? How…?”
Zack stares back, confused. “Huh? Yeah, but I dunno how they got there. Just popped into my head since I woke up here.” While those two stare at him in disbelief, he then pats the side of his head when he realizes it and makes a sheepish grin. “Oh, yeah. I didn’t mention that to anyone but Aerith and Rubia yet, huh?”
Cloud now narrows his eyes in suspicion. “What the hell have you been up to? What other secrets are YOU keeping from us?”
He backs up with his hands up. “Hey! It’s not like I mean to! I don’t even know why I have them.”
Tifa’s curiosity has been piqued. “What are those memories, by the way? You said they’re Ruby’s?”
“Yeah. At least, I think they are.” Zack taps his head as he tries to recall. “I never met Ruby myself, so I don’t really know how she looks. But I saw this girl with long black hair tied in a ponytail, and she was hanging out with her five dogs at a beach. Puppies, actually. They were pretty cute.”
“Puppies?” Tifa turns back to Aerith. “Did Ruby ever have pets?”
Aerith tilts her head a little. “I dunno. She never mentioned them to me.”
“You saw her at a beach with her pets?” Cloud asks on, “Is there something important about that, or are they just random memories?”
Zack nods back. “I think it’s pretty important to her. It started off as a beach trip and she was sketching the scenery while her puppies played. But she stayed really late, even until everyone else was gone. And then…” He follows up with a serious frown. “She had an accident.”
Tifa’s eyes widen. “Accident?”
“She chased a couple of her dogs up a cliff and was going to rein them all in, but at some point, she slipped and fell. Dropped right into the sea and drowned.”
“What!?”
“…” As soon as he says it, Cloud is also reminded of a previous time when Ruby nearly drowned. So it wasn’t just a one-off accident.
Zack nods along and relaxes his arms again. “Fortunately, some of her puppies were still around, so they made a lot of noise. Some guys happened to be walking nearby and heard the commotion and rushed to save her. I think they called an ambulance, so she was whisked away.”
Tifa lets out a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness. She was pretty lucky, then.”
“I’d think so too, but…” He rubs his head awkwardly. “I dunno what happened after that. The memories just ended there. I’m sure she ended up at the hospital, but Rubia said that Ruby was dead and has been for a long time. So she might not have made it after all…”
Now she’s just heartbroken. “Oh… Ruby.”
“…” After a quiet moment of sympathy, Cloud then brings them back on topic, “So, these memories of hers. Why did you end up seeing them?”
Zack shakes his head. “Like I said, man, I don’t know. I just woke up not long ago myself and suddenly I had those memories, almost like they were planted in me or something.” He then makes a reassuring smile. “Not that I’m complaining or anything! Actually, now that things are starting to make sense around here, I’m glad I can do something to help. I may not know Ruby like you guys do, but even I could tell that she was someone worth remembering.”
After gathering her thoughts, Aerith now looks incredibly calm and possibly even confident at this turn of events. She finally dismisses the the screen before her and turns back to him with a proud smile. “Thank you, Zack. We’ll leave Rubia in your care, then.”
She turns to Cloud, who is still in some disbelief at how things have turned out, but he obliges and hands the black orb to Zack, who grips it firmly in his hand and slips it into a pocket in the meantime.
She also gets back to her feet. “Anyway, Cloud is doing fine now, so we should get going. We still have quite a few of our friends that are waiting for us to help them.”
Tifa nods back with a determined face and follows suit. “Yeah. If even I’ve had to undergo some kind of trial by the Summons, who knows what the others are going through right now.”
Cloud also gets up to join them. With a hand raised in the air, he calls upon his trusty blade to him and it magically appears in his hand, and he slides it right back where it belongs. “Okay… I’m ready. Let’s go.”
With everything settled for now, Zack waves goodbye to them as the trio head back outside for the mysterious black room. Aerith leads them to the front row of floating character models, where they stop before Barret this time.
“Let’s just go in order. We have to see everyone anyway,” she suggests.
As she raises her hand forward to touch his own, the respective message prompt flashes into existence before her. Like with all the others, the message is short and sweet: “Corel Town, 4 years ago. Jump to this location?”
Tifa’s eyes widen. “4 years ago… Isn’t that when Corel was burned down?”
Cloud frowns too. “Looks like we’re headed for some real shit this time.”
She turns to him with a worried look. “Let’s hope Barret is doing okay. Ruby may have saved Dyne that time, but the rest of the town was still…” She hesitates over how to put it. “Well, we all saw it.”
He nods. “Yeah… But this is Barret we’re talking about. He’ll manage.”
“Mm-hm…”
Without further ado, Aerith presses her answer on the prompt and the three are whisked away, bracing themselves for yet another poignant tragedy to come.
~
When Aerith opens her eyes again, she finds the three of them are in the middle of a dusty desert town, quite reminiscent of a certain place that was since repurposed as a prison. However, unlike the modern day, the town is alive with people in a very picturesque rural community. Homely, humble, hardworking folks are mingling and chatting away with one another, reliving the peaceful days of the past that has since been brought back to life once more. Though the mining business isn’t what it used to be, as there’s no real purpose to selling ores beyond the edges of this memory, at least the people are grateful to be able to relive their humble lives before any such invasion by the likes of petty ol’ Shinra.
“Huh… so this is the old town of Corel,” Aerith says with a smile as she takes a curious look around, particularly at the faces of the people. “Looks like everyone’s doing just fine.”
Tifa also looks around, but in a more concerned way. “Doesn’t seem like Barret is here. Maybe he’s gone to a neighboring memory?”
Cloud keeps a more watchful eye himself. “If this one is anything like the other we’ve seen, there could be trouble where it’s not obvious. Take care, guys.”
Tifa then approaches a couple men seated upon some empty crates by the side of the road. They seem to be in the middle of a board game of some sort. “Excuse me!”
“Hm?” One of them lifts up a straw hat to take a look and flashes a friendly smile. “Oh. Well, if it ain’t Barret’s pretty friend! You’re Tifa, aren’t ya?”
“Heh. Whaddya know,” his graying-haired companion replies, “Sometimes even rumors can’t beat the real person.”
She feels a little embarrassed to be complimented out of the blue. “Oh, um… Sorry, have we met?”
The first man casually waves a hand. “Nah, but we’ve heard about ya.” He also passes a glance to the other two, who now approach. “About alluv ya.”
“As I thought, it IS just like when we were in Nibelheim.” Aerith also asks, “Do you also know about Ruby?”
“’Course we have. The biggest news that’s hit Shinra right at the heart of Midgar? Who’d miss out on a story like that?” the other man jokes with a grin.
Aerith grins back. “Yeah. Glad to hear Ruby’s pretty popular these days.”
The first man then explains, “But if you’re askin’, it’s been real quiet since we last heard of her. Dunno where she’d gone.”
The other man’s smile fades and he nods back solemnly. “Yeah. But even without her around, Midgar hasn’t been doing too hot either.”
Aerith’s smile fades too and she asks, “Pardon? What’s been happening?”
The first man waves a hand. “Just more of Shinra being damn greedy as always. Like, even though Meteor just hit, it somehow didn’t destroy us all. Just knocked out some cell towers here and there, but Shinra’s been up in arms about losing money and they’re even blaming Wutai.”
Tifa’s grows alarmed. “What?” She also turns back to her companions. “So Meteor really did come?”
Aerith nods sadly. “Yeah. We couldn’t stop Sephiroth, so he summoned it. But it seems like the planet was still able to repel it.”
“And Sephiroth?”
“Don’t know. He’s been missing too.”
That only makes her more worried. “He’s missing…? So we have no idea what he’s doing now?”
“…” Though Aerith can’t answer that, she reassures her, “Well, whatever happened, the planet’s still fighting on, so he must have been stopped somehow.”
“I guess…” Tifa replies, but remains unsure. “Let’s hope he’s stuck for a long time, then. I can’t imagine how much of a mess he’s left since we were gone.”
In any case, Cloud gets back on track and asks the men, “Have you seen Barret?”
“Oh, Barret?” The non-hatted man points a finger down the road. “You just missed him. Ran right home when he arrived. Guy looked like he was in a hurry.”
“His house is on the east end. Just take the road here and head right at the first fork. The folks there can guide ya the rest of the way.”
Cloud glances that way too and nods back. “Thanks.”
Following the road and the fork as advised, they shortly arrive at a small cul-de-sac neighborhood in town where some women are tending to a clutter of kids playing on the street and drawing with chalk on the dirt ground. One of them, a vibrant black woman with her hair bound up with a colorful band of cloth has also been minding laundry when one of the kids comes running after a ball went awol. She catches it before it knocks over a nearby vase and with both hands, gives it a toss for the kid to catch. The kid smiles a toothy grin – with one missing – and runs back to his gang. She also happens to notice some new visitors arriving and sets her laundry basket by her waist as she greets them with a casual wave.
“Well, well. Look what we have here…” the woman remarks rather cheekily, “Stragglers from the surface. Welcome.”
“Um, hello!” Aerith greets her back with her own handwave. “By any chance, do you know where Barret lives?”
The woman points behind her with a thumb. “Right here, babe. Though, he’s not home right now.”
“Oh!” Aerith’s eyes light up with excitement. “Are you perhaps, his wife?”
The black woman lets off a laugh. “Was it that obvious?” She also offers them a warm smile as she sets down her laundry basket. “The name’s Myrna. Sorry about the cramped space, but we humble folks tend to keep close. It’s a wild world out there, after all.”
“Oh, tell me about it!” Aerith then lets off a sigh. “With all this traveling we’ve been doing, it’s so easy to get lost.”
“I hear ya. Must have come quite a surprise to find out where we ‘really’ are, if ya catch my drift.” Myrna’s smile falters a bit. “To be honest, I’m surprised we’ve been running into more folks dropping down here. You wouldn’t happen to be lost right now, would ya?”
“Ah…” Aerith makes an embarrassed smile. “Well, we just arrived in town, but I guess that isn’t too off the mark.”
Tifa also steps forward. “So you’re Myrna! I’m glad to finally meet you. Barret doesn’t usually talk that much about his hometown, but I’ve seen glimpses of you through some photos he’s kept on him, even when he’s sleeping.”
“Haha! Ah, of course, the big baby. Can’t go anywhere without me.” Myrna nods back with an assured smile. “But I’m glad to hear it. Hard to believe it’s been 4 years, huh? Time just flies when you’re not thinkin’ about it.”
Her smile falters just a bit to be reminded of the time gap. “Yeah…”
“I hear Marlene’s also moved to a new town. Still getting used to the place, but pretty nice, beautiful place with lots of greenery. Though she had to be home-schooled for the first couple weeks before she went back to school. Sounds like it was a recent change in town policy over migrants from Midgar.”
Tifa blinks in surprise. “Oh. Really? You’ve even heard from Marlene lately?”
“From time to time, whenever she sits down for a quick prayer. Dunno if she knows it too, but Eleanor can still hear her voice even from down here. We’re always chattin’ about her baby. Eleanor couldn’t be prouder how fast she’s growing.”
“Huh.” Tifa turns back to Aerith. “Do the spirits of the past hear the voices of the living? Like, it’s a normal thing?”
Aerith nods back. “Of course. It’s just that the other way around is a lot harder, since most people have lost that connection with the planet. But if one is really dedicated to the discipline, they can train up that skill again.”
“Ah… So that’s what Bugenhagen was talking about before.”
“Mm-hm.”
“That said…” Now that she’s been reminded, Myrna’s smile drifts off as she admits, “All the better that the living stay out of the Lifestream while they’re still livin’. Save themselves the trouble.”
Aerith blinks in surprise. “Oh? Why’s that?”
Myrna shakes her head with a sigh. “’Cause it’s way too easy to get caught up in your own memories and lose track of where you are. We’re all used to it since we’ve had time to adjust, but someone just dropping in outta nowhere, it could be a huge shock.”
Now that she’s put it that way, Cloud quickly catches on. He also asks, “By the way, when Barret came by, how was he doing?”
“Not good. The poor man’s soul is being tormented. He was a mess of emotions earlier, huggin’ and cryin’ over my shoulder and all.” She sighs. “I don’t even know how many times he’s been back here just to see me.”
His eyes narrow at attention. “How many times?”
“Yeah. See, that’s the big problem with getting lost in the Lifestream. It’s way too tempting to try to relive your old memories and ‘change’ the future, but ultimately, we’re all a part of a great big time loop. Doesn’t matter what happens down here when the actual present day is up there.”
Cloud winces. “That idiot. Don’t tell me he’s been stuck in a loop all this time.”
Tifa grows worried. “So that’s the risk we’re taking just being here…” She turns to Aerith too. “We have to find him. Make sure he’s still sane at least.”
“Right.” Aerith asks Myrna again, “So do you know where Barret’s gone?”
“I think he ran off for Eleanor’s place next door. Looking for Dyne.”
“Dyne?”
Tifa also asks, “Wait. But Dyne is still alive, isn’t he? Last we checked.”
Cloud nods too. “Yeah. Ruby made sure of that. Unless he ran into some other trouble…”
Myrna shakes her head and reassures them, “Nah, it’s not like that. This is still Barret’s memories, after all. Of course Dyne would be here, but I guess you could say it’s not the ‘real’ guy. At least, not real in the way that he’d remember anything that happens down here.”
“Ah.”
“But I’m sure it’d only add to the confusion,” Aerith mentions, her face getting serious. “Did he say why he was looking for Dyne?”
“No clue. Like I said, he was a mess. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him the truth since he didn’t wanna hear it.”
“The truth… that anything he does here won’t matter, huh?” Cloud follows up.
Myrna gives him a worried frown too like he’d hit bulls-eye. “Go after him, guys. Make sure he’s not trapped here any longer than he has to be.”
He nods. “That’s the plan.”
With one last round of thanks and a wave goodbye, the trio get moving. It’s just a skip next door, but like always it seems they’re just a step behind the main event. Barret isn’t here; nor is Dyne. However, they do meet a young short-haired brunette minding the dishes as they enter. She’s humming a tune to herself as she finishes cleaning up, and just beside her is a beautiful white crib with a certain baby tucked in and resting well.
“Sorry to intrude!” Aerith announces, “Are Barret and Dyne…”
Her voice drifts off when the woman raises a finger to her lips and checks on the crib again. It seems the baby is sound asleep, so she isn’t disturbed.
“Sorry,” Aerith whispers instead.
The woman nods back reassuringly and speaks softly, “It’s okay.” She looks around at her new guests with a gentle smile. “Barret’s friends, I believe?”
“Yeah. And you must be Eleanor?” Tifa asks.
Eleanor nods again. “I am. Are you all looking for Dyne too? Sorry to say, he’s been away for a while. Not really sure why he keeps heading by the mines. They haven’t been in operation in a long time.”
“Barret did come by here, though, didn’t he?” Cloud asks to confirm.
“Yes, not long ago. Seems like he expected that Dyne would be out, but he still came by to pay a visit to us.” She looks toward the crib. “Every time too.”
Now that Tifa and Aerith peer into the crib, they’re beaming with excitement and delight. “Is that who I think it is?” Aerith asks, her eyes glistening.
“Marlene…” Tifa coos softly. “She’s so cute.”
Eleanor chuckles. “Thank you.” She also adds, “Really, I mean it. You’ve been keeping watch of Marlene all this time, haven’t you?”
Tifa nods back. “Yeah. She’s such a good girl and really smart! She often notices things that we all easily overlook and sometimes, it feels like she’s the real voice of reason when things get hectic.”
“It’s been 4 years, huh. She’s growing up so fast…” Eleanor makes a content smile, but it comes with a hint of longing to it. “I really hope Dyne can learn to forgive himself. He swore he wouldn’t ever see her face as long as he held that grudge against Shinra.”
Aerith blinks in surprise. “Why would he say that? Marlene would miss him!” She pauses and then recalls, “Well, I guess she didn’t really know him either.”
Eleanor’s smile fades and she nods sadly. “Dyne is a wonderful man and a loving father, but he can also be quite stubborn and frets over even the smallest details. He believes that all this hatred he and his men hold shouldn’t be carried over to the kids, which is why they’re always out.”
Tifa brings up, “Barret’s like that too. He doesn’t tell Marlene what we really do as Avalanche, but I can’t help but think she’s at least caught on to something.”
“She’s well aware, actually, but keeps quiet to herself since she doesn’t want to scare anyone by talking about it. I’ve only heard about it since she regularly prays before bed.”
Tifa feels her heart sink. “Oh, Marlene…”
Cloud sets a hand to his chin. “Makes sense. She rarely ever was really shocked by what happens around the bar.” He lets it drop, adding, “Aside from whatever Ruby did, but that goes without saying.”
With that name drop, Eleanor is reminded and now turns to them with an earnest look. “I heard about what happened… at the prison.”
“…”
She takes a respectful bow. “Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. If you all weren’t there, I wouldn’t know how Dyne would have turned out.”
Cloud waves it away. “Don’t mention it. It was all thanks to Ruby anyway. She went out of her way to get Marlene just so she’d be able to see him.”
Eleanor stands back up. “Yes, of course. My thanks extent to her as well.” She then admits sadly, “I’m afraid I can’t say where she’s been, though. So much about her seems to be a mystery.”
Being well reminded of the fact, he lets off a sigh of his own. “Yeah… It’s been a pain trying to unravel everything.”
Aerith also insists, “But we’re getting there, bit by bit. And who knows, maybe we’ll see her again sometime.”
“In the Lifestream?” He rubs his head. “We’re already here, though.”
“Maybe? I dunno. But somewhere, at least.”
He looks off wistfully. “…Yeah.”
Aerith takes one last peek toward the crib, just for the sake of the child inside, and turns back to the mother. “Well, sorry to cut this visit short, but we should really go find them.”
Eleanor nods. “Please do. And when you do, could you tell them to come back home? I really don’t think they should be wandering around the mines anymore. It’s dangerous treading those grounds again… especially given its history.”
Cloud also asks, “Which way’s the mines? North?”
“Yes. You can just head back out the way you came to the main road and it’s a straight shot to the mountains.”
“Right. Thanks.” He pauses to hesitate and then also says before they go, “Take care of yourselves. Even knowing what would happen around here, don’t just give up.”
“Don’t worry about us. You just worry about Barret. Make sure he can finally meet some peace of mind.”
“Will do.”
He signs off with a quite finger salute, turns to his partners, and they head off once again. It’s a quick trek through town until they meet the ever familiar blindingly white boundary at the edge of the scene. Without even a moment of hesitation, Cloud charges right through, with Tifa and Aerith in tow, with hopes that they can finally catch up with Barret. He also hopes that the guy isn’t already wrapped up in some trouble.
~
Unfortunately, trouble follows Barret Wallace wherever he goes. The jump between scenes now lands Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith somewhere at one of the entrances to the mines. In the distance, a certain mako reactor looms ominously like a telltale sign of the tragedy that is sure to follow. But for now, their attention is set on finding the guy in question. It’s not long since they enter one of the tunnels leading them into the mines’ deepest caverns, where they happen upon some kind of awful situation. While these mines have long been abandoned so no workers should be present, there are instead a number of people who look like intruders, all of which are dressed in a certain brown uniform. However, it also looks like someone else already took care of them, as their lifeless bodies have been strewn all around the floor like there was some great battle – or massacre, really – that took place here. And in the middle of the giant basin are two familiar faces, both just slightly younger than they would normally be, who seem to be in the midst of an argument. A very one-sided argument, that is.
“The hell are you doin’, Barret!? You think this is the time to be mopin’ around!?” Dyne screams.
Barret is slumped on the ground, looking absolutely defeated. He has his eyes shut, his hands (both of them) clasped over his head. He even seems to be shaking like a leaf. It’s almost surreal to see a big man like him curled up like a sobbing child.
“When did you ever get this soft!? Get your ass movin’! We gotta catch up to that maniac!”
He grits his teeth, but can only say, “…I can’t.”
“Whaddya mean, you ‘can’t’!? You know who that guy was, don’t you?”
“I know… and that’s why I can’t.”
“Shuddap! That had to be Cole! Goddammit, man! You got him into that mess! You get him out of it!”
“…”
“Move your ass! If they’re cornered, who knows what shit they’ll pull!”
It was alarming enough to find Dyne yelling at Barret, practically scolding him like an angry parent to a child. But as soon as the former mentioned a certain name, Cloud immediately meets with a tinge of dread. Why is that name being brought up again? He and the ladies rush on over as quick as they can, skipping on down the slopes of the basin, to catch up to them.
“What’s going on?” Cloud demands.
“Barret!” Aerith cries, relieved to see him.
“Are you alright?” Tifa follows suit, quite fretful for his sake. “What happened?”
Barret at last looks up, blinking his eyes wide open, and turns to see them running. “Guys…?”
Dyne raises an eyebrow, feeling a sinking feeling by this turn of events. “What? Even they showed up?” He turns away again with a bitter frown. “Man. What the hell is goin’ on? Things were plenty messed up already…”
Barret looks hesitant to meet them, but he gets back up to his feet and turns around to face them. “What are you doin’ here? How’d you even get here?”
Aerith quickly explains, “It’s a long story, but we’re here for you! We’re trying to get everyone back together, and I’ve found a way to jump around through the Lifestream! It’s a Cetra thing, don’t worry about it.”
He blinks blankly, clearly not understanding at all.
She then gets serious. “We have to hurry, though. Rubia really needs our help right now. We all have to be there.”
But rather than feel relieved to see them again, his face grows dark and he turns away. “Don’t bother. I’m no use to anyone like this…”
“Huh?”
“Barret? What’s wrong?” Tifa asks too.
But Barret goes silent, slowly sits back down where he had been, and sinks back into gloom. Dyne, who has had it up to now waiting on him, finally takes things into his own hands.
“Oh, for cryin’ out loud! We don’t got time for this! I’m goin’! And I’d better see you there too, Barret!”
And with that, Dyne rushes off for the exit from which they had just entered. Though the trio watch him go, they feel hesitant to give chase out of concern for the other man still here.
“Barret…?” Aerith tries again, leaning in to check on him. “Do you wanna talk?”
But Barret waves a hand in the air as if to shoo them away. “No. Lemme alone.”
Cloud crosses his arms. “What’s with you?”
Tifa insists, “Barret, talk to us. We want to help.”
“…” Barret lets off a tired sigh. He’s not feeling up to talking it out, but he gets the feeling they’re not gonna leave if he doesn’t. He now turns around into a more comfortable sitting position instead. “Dunno how you can help. Dun even know what’s what anymore…”
Cloud also brings up, based on what he overheard just now, “Something to do with Cole?”
“Cole?” Aerith makes a troubled frown. “What’s he doing here?”
Barret slumps forward even more to keep hearing his name. “Who knows… Just showed up outta nowhere. Sounds like he’s fightin’ Avalanche right now.”
“Avalanche?” Tifa takes another look around and grows even more fretful. “I thought I recognized these uniforms! They really are Avalanche?” She pauses as she corrects herself, “Well, this would be 4 years ago, so an older group of Avalanche?”
Aerith strikes her own thinking pose. “I guess Cole would have been in Soldier at this point, so maybe Shinra sent him over.”
But Barret shakes his head. “Nah, that’s not it. At least, that wasn’t how it was supposed to go down.”
Cloud narrows his eyes. “Meaning?”
“…” With a heavy heart and heavy eyelids, he looks up again and confesses, “It’s all my fault. Shouldn’t have tried to mess with history.”
The other three blink simultaneously and exchange confused glances. Sensing they could be treading some weird, even disturbing territory, Cloud drops his arms and asks more calmly, “You… tried to change history?”
Barret nods slowly. “Yeah. But this place, wherever it is, is somewhere in the Lifestream, huh?”
Aerith nods back. “Yeah. Specifically, amid your own memories.”
“Hmph.” He then shakes his head again. “After I all done, it’s nothin’ like what I remember anymore. Become more like my nightmare…”
“What did you do?” Tifa asks on.
“I…” he admits, lowering his head again in shame, “…tried to save Corel.”
“Oh…”
And just like that, the other three are starting to catch on, but there are still so many questions.
Barret explains, “After we all split up, I found myself drifting somewhere in some kinda black abyss. For a moment, I thought I actually died. No one else was around and I had nowhere to go. And then, I heard some voice.”
Tifa blinks. “A voice?”
“Yeah. No idea who, but it was super deep. Like it was comin’ from a big guy or somethin’. Almost echoed a bit like how Ruby would sound in her dragon form sometimes.”
Cloud nods along. “One of the Summons, maybe?”
Aerith also asks, “What did he say?”
Barret shrugs. “Dunno. Didn’t see anyone. But he asked me something. What would I do if I had a chance to go back to the past? Even offered me that chance to go ‘home’.” He somberly lowers his head again. “Didn’t know what the hell was goin’ on, but I had nothing better to do, so I accepted. Before I knew what, somehow ended up here… back home in Corel.”
Aerith’s eyes widen as she gets an inkling of what really happened, but she stays quiet and lets him continue.
He frowns to himself. “But of course, it wasn’t really the Corel I knew. Everyone from back in the day was here and I was glad to get to see ’em again. Really surprised me when they welcomed me too, like they just let bygones be. But it turned out they’re just the souls of the people leftover. Told me about what really happened up there in the present. Like, how Meteor crashed and the world got ‘reset’ or some shit.”
Cloud replies, “Yeah. Tifa and I saw something similar with our townspeople. We ended up back in Nibelheim back when we were still kids, but they all already knew who Ruby was.”
“Shit just don’t make sense the more ya think about it, so I didn’t bother with alla that.” He looks up again and continues, “But as far as I knew, I was the only one who knew what was gonna happen to the town. I had to stop the old Avalanche from ruining us and bringing Shinra to our town. So I ran off for the mines.” His eyes then darken as he recalls, “When I got there, though, I was too late. Avalanche was fightin’ with the Turks. Avalanche got away, but then the Turks alerted HQ. So I ran back to town to warn everyone, but…” He lets out a sigh. “Again, too late. Shinra was already there and burning down the town. I thought that was some bullshit, making me jump from place to place, only for me to not be able to do a thing. So I just… ran away.”
Cloud blinks in surprise. “You? Run away?”
“Yeah. I ran as far as I could until I hit one of those white lights at the edge. I hoped if I could just jump back to the beginning, way before all this shit happened, I could do something… and somehow that worked. I jumped back in time again.”
Tifa blinks too and turns to Aerith. “Oh, wow. I didn’t know that was possible.”
Aerith shrugs. “Me neither. But maybe it’s special for his case?”
“Special?” she asks, but Aerith puts a finger to her lips and turns back to Barret, getting Tifa to follow.
“At first, I was grateful. Legit thought I did have a chance after all…” He bares his teeth with a snarl. “But shit didn’t matter. This time I tried to stop Avalanche myself, but after sending them packin’, I couldn’t find the bomb they had. Still, the Turks found and arrested me. Held me back for too long. Eventually I was let go, but then their forces hit the town anyway.”
By now, Cloud is starting to pick up a trend and decides not to comment.
“So I ran off and tried again. But this time, things just got weird. For whatever reason, dunno how it even worked, Avalanche sent their strongest to deal with the Turks and they actually won! But shit didn’t go well with Shinra HQ and they bombed the town… again.”
Tifa gets a sinking feeling herself. By now, it’s clear that things were just getting worse and worse.
“Every time… Every. Goddamn. Time. Didn’t even matter what I did. Nothing worked. Shinra always got there first!” Barret growls, slamming a fist on the ground. “What the hell, man!? It was like this shit game was rigged! Nothin’ made sense! And if I tried to do somethin’ different, it didn’t even matter!”
The other three remain quiet, growing even more awkward and sympathetic as they go. Truthfully, even if they wanted to say something, they weren’t sure what to say to that. Even Aerith, who suspects that a certain “trial” is in play, has no control over the events whatsoever.
“It’s just unfair…” Barret clasps his hands over his head. “I even tried to warn everyone to get out before I ran to the reactor, but no one listened! Told me there was nothing to be done!” His hands slide down and he buries his face. “Even Myrna… She told me, there really was nothing they could do. History was already written. The only thing I was chasin’ was just a dream.”
“…”
His hands slide off again and he sinks with a deep sigh. “I couldn’t take it no more. I ran away again, tried to break outta this hell, but all that did was send me back to the beginning as always. Like I was trapped in this horrible cycle until I could do something to change my fate or whatever. But I got no idea what I’m supposed to do! Things just kept changin’ too fast! I couldn’t keep up!” He clenches up a trembling fist. “I cursed that damn voice for trickin’ me into starting this shit, but not like they were around anymore. I was stuck…” He then drops his fist again. “And then Cole showed up.”
“…Just him?” Cloud then speaks again.
“Yeah. No Turks in sight or around the reactor this time. But I wouldn’t be surprised if that bitch Scarlet still sent in troops to attack the town as always.” He slowly shakes his head. “Dun even wanna go back to see it anymore. Had enough of it all.”
“Even if he is an Immortal Soldier, would Shinra really send only him?” Tifa brings up.
“Don’t know, don’t care… Guy hadn’t been back in over 10 years and now I see him show up here of all places.” He then curls up and buries his face. “I’m done… Don’t wanna get involved no more.”
“Barret…” Aerith begins, trying to offer some advice, but hesitates.
Unfortunately, before the discussion can get anywhere, a low rumble in the area begins to shake their surroundings and alert them to something big.
“Um, what was that?” Tifa asks, already panicking.
Cloud turns for the exit where they had come. “Shit. Avalanche had a bomb, right? Did it actually go off?”
“What!? They really bombed it!?” she squeaks in fright. “But what about Cole? Wasn’t he there to stop it?”
He narrows his eyes. “Who knows what’s going on with him.” He turns to the others. “Let’s go. Dyne also ran that way. If he’s in trouble…”
“Oh, that’s right! Dyne!”
“Hope he’s alright!” Aerith says as well.
Cloud looks to Barret with a serious, hardened stare. “Look, man. I get you’re way deep in some trauma and all, but we really can’t stall. If you don’t wanna go back to town, then at least check up on Dyne.”
“…” But Barret has gone quiet and doesn’t respond.
“Barret…” Tifa calls to him again, “Come on. At least do this for your friend?”
Cloud turns away for the exit. “Leave him. When he’s ready to join, he’ll be there.”
“Cloud…”
Cloud hurries off and out with Tifa following close behind. Aerith trails a bit behind, taking it a bit slow as she peeks behind her for one last look at Barret, and then hurries after the other two.
Back outside by the reactor, though, a great big fire has just erupted from within the reactor. However, just when some Avalanche troops thought they finally got rid of a certain menacing Soldier, their worst nightmares are realized when the silent helmeted man calmly steps out from amid the flames as if he weren’t the least bit affected. They barely have time to flee when Cole charges again – and this time, a certain Avalanche officer wearing a khaki-shaded durag over his head rushes into the fray with just his bare knuckles and manages to kick away the blade before it strikes another of his brethren. He even sneaks in a hard right directly into the Soldier’s chest that briefly knocks him away.
“What kinda %&#$^% up monster are ya?” the officer asks the Soldier with a hard stare of disbelief, but it quickly turns to excitement instead. “Alright! ’Bout time I had some real competition!”
“Shears!?” one of his fellow troops cries.
“Leave him! He can handle himself!” another of them shouts to the downed trooper. “We have to regroup with the others!”
“R-right! Thanks, Shears!”
The frightened trooper scrambles back to his feet and he and his team get away safely. In an impressive display of raw combat skill, Shears at first seems to hold his own against the silent Soldier. He rushes him, fists of fury flying and barraging anywhere where he can reach, even a few smart strikes toward the man’s neck to try to knock that helmet askew, but it’s sealed on too tight to come off. However, even after taking some otherwise brutal strikes to some vulnerable regions, Cole doesn’t falter in the slightest. With just a single move, he flips the tables on him. He eventually manages to catch one of Shears’ fists and retaliates by throwing him down to the ground and stomping on him. Then, he swings that massive sword forward.
Clang. Instead of smashing his victim’s head into a bloody mess, Cole’s giant Dragonslayer meets with another similarly sized blade – the blood-red Apocalypse.
“!?”
Cloud shoves Cole off of the guy and clashesa few more swings with him to drive him further away back toward the raging inferno. But rather than feel grateful for being rescued, Shears feels a little ticked off.
“Hey! Who the hell are you? I had him!”
“Get outta here. This guy’s mine,” Cloud mutters.
“Fat chance! I was just gettin’ started!”
But before Shears can jump back into the fray, another of his fellow officers, a brown-haired woman superior among their ranks, calls to him from afar: “Shears! Fall back! Shinra’s already on the way!”
“Goddamn it…” he mutters. He then calls out to Cloud, “Hey, watch out! This guy’s got some seriously thick skin! Didn’t even see him bleed yet!”
But Cloud maintains course and matches Cole blow for blow, and he honestly makes it look easy, even knocking the guy back into the burning reactor entrance a couple times. He swings his blade forward again to await Cole’s return as usual. “I’ll be fine. Get out.”
“Tch… Great, another punk. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya!”
Being called back by his superior, Shears has little choice but to flee with the others. As they all get away safely, Tifa comes sliding in through the air on a sheet of ice with Aerith nervously clinging to her back.
“Cloud!”
“I got this!” he shouts back, clashing yet again with Cole. “Go find Dyne!”
“Okay!” With an assuring nod toward Aerith, who now lets go with a sigh in relief, Tifa then rushes forward to quell the flames with a gratuitous spray of unmelting ice. For just a brief moment, the flames die down and the two ladies can rush in to search. While Tifa tries her best to keep the fire at bay, Aerith helps keep an eye out and shortly spots another downed man on the broken catwalk above an even greater fire.
“Dyne!” she cries, pointing a finger. “I see him!”
“Got ’im!” Tifa promptly responds.
She sends another wave of ice that encircles the man’s body and guards him from the intense heat. However, by this point, Dyne seems to have been intensely burned and is barely conscious. Though he tried his darnedest to convince Avalanche otherwise, they felt too threatened by the strangely monstrous Soldier’s presence to listen to reason. Unfortunately, he didn’t have enough time to make it out before the place blew. Now Tifa leaps through the parted flames over the broken catwalk and picks him up, swinging his arm over her shoulder.
“Dyne, can you hear me?” she calls out.
“Guh… You…” he utters just audibly between heaving gasps.
“Hang in there!” she replies. “We’ll get you fixed up!”
With seemingly little effort, she leaps away again as the flames continue to rage. Though they may sputter when they meet with her magical ice that still holds strong, but they refuse to die down. Tifa rushes him over to Aerith, who hurries to apply her healing magic to his burns. However, something strange happens: despite that a good Curaga would be more than sufficient for these wounds, she notices that the effects she casts don’t seem to take effect. She’s simply perplexed at first and tries again, but the same thing happens.
“Why isn’t it working!?” she squeals in frustration.
“Aerith, what’s wrong?”
“I dunno! My magic isn’t working!”
“What?”
Tifa tries using the Cure materia as well, but as Aerith had shown already, it doesn’t seem to take effect. Puzzled but determined to save him, Tifa then resorts to icing up some of those burns. Again, for a moment, this seems to help seal up the worst, but like some strange curse had struck the poor guy, the ice mysteriously melts away and the guy is still worse for the wear. The ladies are appalled; even Shiva’s ice is melting? What is this fire? It doesn’t seem normal.
“Let’s get him outta here!” Aerith suggests instead. “At least he can hold on for a little longer!”
As the flames still grow around them, even the mystical ice that Tifa had let spray earlier slowly begins to thaw. Tifa can still keep down the flames with more ice, but it’s only temporary as they all hurry back out. And then, as if the ice had finished with its purpose, it all mysteriously melts away and the inferno regains its former intensity.
Back outside, Cloud and Cole have been at it in a stalemate for a while. Even while Cloud tries to hinder the Soldier’s movements with his own ice, Cole is unaffected as always and smashes through it anyway. Eventually, Cloud gets impatient at the lack of effective results and draws upon a couple other elements, Lightning and Fire. Seemingly out of nowhere, his sword charges up with energy that produces a crackling spark that runs the entire length of the blade, which in turn envelops its already blood-red hue with a brightly incensed fire-red instead. He parries Cole’s blade out of the way and smashes his blade into him with a searing vehemence. And as if the environment around them seems to encourage fiery activity, even Cloud is taken by surprise when he sees Cole disappear into an larger explosion than expected upon impact. He quickly flips back through the air, riding the shockwave, but is momentarily stunned as he can briefly catch the mangled remnants of Cole’s body amid the flames.
“…Fire is really strong around here,” Cloud mutters to himself.
“Cloud!” Tifa’s voice comes through.
Now the ladies return to his side, carrying the still injured Dyne between their hands. They lay him down on the solid ground a fair distance away from the reactor entrance, but Dyne is looking pretty awful.
“Something’s wrong! We can’t heal him!” Tifa anxiously informs him.
“What?” Cloud now looks over the guy himself, but then turns to the other two. “Shouldn’t a Curaga be able to fix up any burns?”
“I tried, but it didn’t work,” Aerith sadly explains. “There’s something about this memory that is stopping certain things from happening…”
“What do you mean? It’s specific to this memory?”
She shakes her head. “I think… it’s something that I saw even during the Nibelheim one.”
“…”
They don’t get much time to think it over. Despite having suffered what was essentially a whole bomb point-blank, Cole still manages to piece himself back together, almost like he were made of clay or some moldable material, and pulls himself up again. He charges once more and Cloud meets him with another loud clang.
“Get outta here!” he yells to his partners. “I’ll keep him busy!”
“Cloud, I can still help!” Tifa offers, raising her hands forward. “I’ll keep him trapped!”
“No, you guys focus on keeping Dyne alive! I’ll figure something out!”
The ladies then leave it to Cloud, carefully pick Dyne back up, and hurry away across the bridge to get away. But as they’re about to reach one of the mines’ entrances, they shortly meet with another familiar face.
“Dyne!?” Barret gasps.
“Barret!” the ladies respond likewise.
Barret rushes over to help them carry him and swings him onto his back. “Goddamn, man. Don’t get yourself killed again!” he pleads through gritted teeth.
“B… Barret…” Dyne tries to speak, but his voice is hoarse.
Barret also looks back toward the reactor where Cloud and Cole are still fighting. Though he feels a sinking feeling in his gut, like things could only get worse from here, he can at least respect Cloud enough to keep him at bay for the time.
“Don’t… bother,” Dyne gasps between breaths, “Help… the town…”
“It’s okay, Dyne! Take it easy! We’ll make it out together!”
“Ugh… ya idiot…”
Barret turns to the other two. “We’d better hurry! I overheard from Avalanche that Shinra’s already coming to Corel.”
Tifa grows worried. “Barret, are you gonna be okay? Seeing it happen all over again must be brutal…”
He turns away with a bitter frown. “Can’t help it. All those times I tried before made it clear. But if I can’t save the town, then I’ll at least save who I can.”
Aerith offers a sympathetic smile. “That’s the spirit! Let’s go back to town. We might not be too late for some people!”
“Yeah.”
At the boundary edge to the reactor grounds is an ever familiar blinding white light as if it were shining the way toward their next destination. With no more hesitation, Barret rushes on ahead with Tifa and Aerith just behind him, and they disappear out of view.
Just as they go, Cloud jumps out of the way as Cole makes a lunge. He’s swung his huge sword with such ferocity that he’s smashed into the supports that held the steel bridge up, causing the entire thing to creak and moan as it slowly begins to drop. Cloud swears under his breath. It’s not that he couldn’t just jump over the gap anyway, but this fight is beginning to drag on. He might still be able to catch up with the others if he goes now before this entire scene ends up like it comes straight out of hell. However, Cole just will not go down. “Project Immortals” does indeed live up to its name. These guys are able to shrug off damage like they’re starfish or something.
Then again, if it’s a power based on Rubia’s cells, then maybe calling upon a certain wolf’s presence could have some sort of effect. He may even be able to reach the guy inside and talk some sense into him for once. When he finds another opening to get some distance, he disappears back into the fire to help obscure his location. He then tries to call up the infamous GUI to his hand, but when he does, he’s met with the same archaic-looking symbols and… Huh? There’s a message here in plain English:
“Play cannot be paused while the trial is in session.”
What. Cloud is almost caught off-guard in his disbelief and barely dodges another heavy swing come his way. What the hell is that!? A trial of some kind? Wait, what was it that Aerith was saying before? About how there’s something she noticed was the “same” as with his memory of Nibelheim earlier? He deflects another hard blow and lets fly another powered-up Firebolt Blade, setting off another great explosion that only incites the flames around him to grow. As he’s surrounded by fire on all sides now, he only has a single thought running through his mind: Is this really Rubia’s fault, or is this the work of a much greater power?
~
Disappearing through the white void, Barret is blinded for long enough that he seems to lose track of where he’s going. But the next moment, he feels a sharp pain in his right arm and has to open his eyes. When he does, he finds that his arm is no more, amputated exactly where it had once been, wrapped up in bloodied bandages like he’d just come out of a rough operation. However, now he looks around, he has arrived at the town as he expected. However, he also sees he’s all alone again. Tifa and Aerith have vanished, and even Dyne is nowhere to be seen. He was just on his back, though. What happened?
This time, unlike all previous times he’s tried, he’s somehow managed to arrive while the town is currently under attack. Shinra troops wander the streets freely with assistance from the usual Sweepers and other similar mechs. But in this state, he can’t fight. What’s he gonna do with a broken stub? And just when he thought his friends could do something to help, they’re gone too.
What the hell is this shit. Barret grips his sorely throbbing arm tightly and lets out a scream of frustration. Again. It’s happening again. Whatever power is at work, it’s clearly trying its best to piss him off more and more. But even now, he tries to keep his cool. Whatever happened to them – Cloud, Tifa, Aerith, and even maybe Dyne – they probably got split off and ended up somewhere else, is all. They’ll be fine and they can just catch up later.
For now, he bears with the pain and rushes in. But he’s too late to help these guys he’s seen around town as they’re gunned down mercilessly by human and mech troop alike. There are too many of them here. He needs to go around. Knowing the layout of town like the back of his hand, he finds a small offpath that circles around some of the residence on this north side and he heads eastward. He’s had this sinking dread for a while now and he doesn’t want to see it happen yet again. But he goes anyway. He has to check. He has to make sure that there’s still a chance that he can save someone, especially her. Please, Myrna, still be alive…
By the time he returns to the cul-de-sac, however, he already finds the place raided and in ruins. Dead bodies line the street, women and children and all, and Myrna is nowhere to be seen. He rushes into his old house, finding it a complete mess like soldiers just ransacked the place looking for hiding places. But at the very least, he can’t smell blood inside. She’s not here either. Come on, man! Where is she!?
No, calm down. She must have left to try to help the other townspeople. He didn’t see her along the way here, but she could have gone some other route. And on that thought, he’d better check next door just to be safe. Eleanor would do anything to protect Marlene, so there’s still hope. The last he recalled, he previously found her passed away, but she had shielded her baby with her own body so the troops didn’t think they missed one. If there is a God, please, please let Marlene be safe.
However, all the hope and bravado he’s carried up to this point quickly drains away from his face as he stumbles into Dyne’s old house. The place is ransacked like with his, looking even worse because part of the house has caved in thanks to the fire, but this time he does smell blood. He also finds a shovel lying abandoned on the ground, picks it up, and starts digging through the rubble as fast as he can manage with just one arm, using his leg as support as well. But the more rubble he flips, the stronger the smell of blood. And then, he finds a body… and his heart sinks until it all but cracks.
Here she is. Myrna lies in a pool of her own blood, having been shot right in the head – most likely for resisting. The shovel lying out there may have been the only “weapon” she was holding, and just having it in hand would already be grounds for these ruthless bastards to shoot. But why did she have a shovel? Was she trying to dig something – or someone – out?
Barret keeps digging, moving rubble piece by piece, and finally his persistent efforts are rewarded. By some miracle, he hears a voice; a tiny angelic voice, the soft wailing of a baby. Marlene. Reinvigorated like it were his fuel, he hurries to dig out more and more until he makes a big enough opening. He didn’t even realize he was holding his breath until he lets out a great big sigh in relief. Thank God. There is Eleanor, huddled behind in a tiny gap amid the rubble, holding her baby and soothing her to be quiet so they wouldn’t be found.
“…Barret?”
“Eleanor! You’re alive!” he cries, nearly spilling tears himself.
He reaches a hand in and though she’s injured herself, she reaches out a hand to take it. Fortunately, as far as things are concerned, she’s not too badly hurt. Some scratches and burns were bound to happen in this burning house, but at least she can still walk. And as expected, Marlene is bundled up warm and completely untouched. She’s still shaking and crying, but at least she’s not hurt otherwise.
“Come on! I’ll take ya to Dyne!”
“Dyne? Is he safe? Did he escape?”
Barret honestly has no idea, but he nods and tries to pass off confidence. “He’s fine! I left him in the care of a few friends from outta town. But we gotta hurry.” He helps clear the path and leads her out before the rest of the fire can reach them.
However, things simply will not go so smoothly. Thanks to the barking orders of a certain Shinra executive who’s present, the troops are forced to go over the town yet again just to be sure that everyone in town is eradicated. Said executive sits comfy in her seat aboard her own personal mech that looks like the silver prototype of a certain giant robot, and yet she is leaving all the dirty work to her minions for now.
Never mind that. Barret has to get Eleanor and Marlene to safety. While Eleanor tries her best to comfort Marlene to not give away their location, Barret first sneaks around to try to find an opening they can take. However, everywhere he turns, there are either those ugly blue uniforms or even worse, the emotionless bots that stomp around doing most of the massacre. Dammit. If only he had his gun… No, even if he did, he’d have trouble taking them all out. As much as he hates to admit it, he needs help. He can’t keep at this alone. Where the hell did his friends go? They were just behind him!
Then, there is the automated message that would send a chill down anyone’s back: “Target sighted. Engaging.”
“Shit!”
He barely avoids the gunfire of a Sweeper XR (supposedly named for being “extra ruthless” or something) that then pursues him relentlessly. He tries to lead it away from where Eleanor and Marlene were hiding, but he shortly exposes himself to another squad of troops.
“There! There’s a straggler!”
“Take him out!”
Barret swears under his breath and runs off again. This isn’t getting them anywhere. But maybe if he leads them far enough, he might give Eleanor a chance to sneak away. But the other possibility continues to nag at him too. If he goes too far, he wouldn’t be able to protect them. Even if Eleanor tries her best to avoid detection, she’s still injured and can’t run as fast as she normally can. As soon as anyone else finds her, she’s a goner. The mere thought gives him chills and he hesitates as he faces a fork in the road. But he doesn’t have time to think; he runs further away, trying to get these assholes off his back for now.
Unfortunately, coming this way only leads him to see even more poor stragglers get shot. Some of them were even kids who didn’t want to stay hiding, but then got a serious lesson they wouldn’t forget even in the afterlife. And frankly, Barret’s patience has been so thoroughly tested up to this point that he’s all but out of any more. Since he’s already been exposed, he lets out an enraged scream and charges a nearby trooper, knocking him over and snatching his gun out of his hands.
“Hey!”
“Stop him!”
“Fire!”
The downed trooper’s squad promptly return fire, but by some stroke of luck, their aim is so bad that they can’t even hit a disabled man in front of them. Granted, this disabled man is also a badass who goes on to return fire with his stolen gun and takes out the rest of them just by himself. He even manages to free some other stragglers who had been hiding nearby and yells at them to get going while he covers them.
But drawing all this aggro to himself also draws the attention of said Shinra executive from earlier. Scarlet gives an annoyed scoff when she hears the reports from her troops about a “crazy vigilante gunman”. Honestly, these fools are so incompetent they can’t take out a single man? At least they’re expendable. But no matter. She is sitting in a giant mech, after all. It’s been a while since she’s brought it out to play. This seems like a good time as any.
The Shinra troops on the ground get scared and scatter as soon as the prototype Pride and Joy comes blasting its jet engines and lands in the middle of the ruins with destructive aplomb. Even Barret hesitates for a moment as he comes to stand just behind the giant menace. Of course that bitch is back, and every time he’s seen of her in this “memory” she’s gotten more and more aggressive with the things she can bring. Now it’s a whole-ass giant warbot from wherever Shinra had been keeping it. He may have a gun now, but it’s shit compared to his usual gear. He won’t be able to leave a dent in a monster like that.
But then what comes next is a chilling realization that cools his blood to the core: this stuck-up bitch is well within the distance to run into where he last ran into Eleanor and Marlene. Oh, #%&$ no. Barret rushes down the road as fast as he can while avoiding the giant bot’s line of sight, but with Scarlet stomping around willy-nilly and frightening her own troops, he can’t take a beeline back to the place. He’s forced to slip back and take another route around, all the while hoping, praying under his breath that they made it out already.
As with many cycles previously, however, the tragedy will run its course as it is due. Try as he might, he can’t outrun the giant warbot as it smashes through the burning ruins, stamping out both life and the fire that once consumed it in one fell swoop with each step. The faster he tries to run, the slower he feels like he’s moving. He can’t catch up. He won’t make it…
By the time Scarlet gets bored of marching around the remains of the leveled town, she gets annoyed that she has yet to find a certain gunman’s corpse amid the rubble. It’s whatever, though. As far as she’s concerned, he’s not gonna be able to get out of this mess anyway. And with one last rocket-propulsed launch, she takes off for the skies and flies off toward the reactor for one last drop-in visit.
By now, Barret is too exhausted to keep running. He’s too late. He couldn’t make it before the giant mech crushed everything in its path, and all the collapsed rubble is too widespread for him to search effectively. He finally slows to a haggard step and stops before the corner where he had his last rendezvous. Even the fire that had been around is starting to sizzle and go out in smoke. He flings off the stolen gun and drops to his knees, clasping his aching head with his only good hand left. Goddammit… Every damn time. He’s always too late, no matter what he does. It’s enough to make a grown man cry.
Just as he’s about ready to give up again, though, he hears one last miracle pull through. The cries of a baby. They’re muffled, but much louder than they used to be. He snaps his eyes open again and hurries to find the source. Even with all this rubble in the way, even with only one arm, even without a shovel to help him; he’s gonna dig her out. If there’s one person that he knows he can save, no matter how many times he faces this crisis, she’s still gonna be okay.
He painstakingly digs and claws his way through with his bare hand, and after an agonizing amount of time, he does eventually crack open an opening. As he feared, Eleanor couldn’t make it to safety. At the very least, though still terrible, it looks like she was found by another troop or mech and shot before she would be crushed. And as always, Eleanor would sacrifice herself if it meant Marlene’s life could be spared. The baby is wailing at the top of her little lungs as he slowly but surely digs out that hole. She looks to be a little dirtied, but is otherwise unharmed. Barret reaches in and pulls her out, still screaming and crying, and gently cradles her against him.
“Don’t worry, baby… Daddy’s here. Daddy will always be here for you.”
He keeps rocking her until her wailing comes to quiet down. By now, his own eyes are flooded with tears that even the sight of little Marlene blurs in his view. Even as devastated as he is to have to relive this awful nightmare over and over, he’s unyieldingly grateful that every time, he’s still granted this little bit of respite to see at least one little life be spared each time.
Nevertheless, the Fates, whatever course they may heed, are cruel even at conception. The more he struggles, the more his iron will is tested, the worse the outcomes are due to proceed. Just as he tries to find some little peace left in this wasteland, he meets the worst possibility yet. In his panic to search for and rescue Marlene, he’s left himself open to attack. While the human troops all certainly vanished as quick as they could while their irascible boss was going wild, there were still some mechs roaming the area dutifully as always. And now, there’s one patroller that has found them.
Before Barret can get running, he realizes he’s ended up trapped in a corner. Huddling Marlene close against his chest, he tries to avoid the ensuing gunfire and when a chance to run straight past the mech, he guns it. However, this type of Sweeper doesn’t need to turn around to fire; it also has guns on its back and lets fire from there, catching Barret by a foot. He stumbles and drops the babe too, who begins to cry again. And as he tries to reach for her again, the Sweeper XR marches right over, recalculates its trajectory, and aims for the weaker target.
Barret’s field of vision goes white as his entire body goes numb. What just happened there? That wasn’t supposed to happen. No matter what, even as much as he’d try to change the town’s fate, he wouldn’t be able to make a difference. But at the very least, he could be assured that Marlene would at least make it out. But this… this is like the setup to the worst joke imaginable.
The next moment, he sees red. Nothing but red. His blood boils. His breath is heavy. He feels a fire within erupt alive once more. Maybe it had been kindled long before, but over the many failed cycles, he tried to stamp it down again and again, just to make sure he wouldn’t lose it and do something he would definitely regret. But %&#$ it. #%&$ everything. #%&@ the asshole deity or whatever who dropped him into this hell in the first place! He’s had enough. No more regret, no more sympathy, no more restraint; only pure, unfiltered anger remains and it will come out.
He lets out a visceral scream from the depths of his heart and lets it be swallowed by this all-consuming flame. Fuelded solely by his emotions, it surrounds him and envelops him in a tight embrace of heat and passion. His sight goes white-hot like his surroundings, and his body goes a furious, fiery red.
~
Back at the reactor, Cloud has had enough himself. He’s been stuck dealing with Cole all this time and there’s no end to this battle so long that he can’t bring the guy to his senses. All he can do now is run. He tries to gun it for the white boundary himself to at least escape this ever-regenerating monster. He just barely makes the faithful leap through to the other side before the Soldier can get him. However, as he stumbles through the ensuing white void, he instead comes to a different place – but quite not entirely. If anything, this looks to be part of the bridge he had been running along before. Is he still in the same area? But as he looks back, Cole doesn’t seem to be following him over. In fact, he seems to have mysteriously disappeared. Looks like he did jump scenes, but where is he now?
As he traverses this new path that has been laid out before him, he runs across the railway bridge that stretches across a familiar-looking chasm in the mountains. And lo behold, up ahead on the very tracks just before the bridge leaves the chasm’s walls, he finds Tifa and Aerith (but no Dyne) lying on the ground unconscious.
“Tifa! Aerith!?” he calls to them.
He drops down to check on them, and to his temporary relief, the two ladies begin to stir. Tifa sits up, shaking her head, while Aerith pulls up on all fours, blinking herself awake.
“What happened? Where are we?” Tifa asks.
Cloud takes a glance around. “Still looks like somewhere around Corel. If we keep heading this way, we should make it to the town.”
“Corel… Oh! Barret!” she gasps, horrified. She jumps right to her feet. “That’s right! We were supposed to have joined him heading back to town, but for some reason, we blanked out when we touched the edge. I thought we’d just be sent over there with him, but I guess not…”
Aerith gets up to her feet too, dusting herself off. She lets off a worried sigh. “I feel so bad for Barret. He’s gone on ahead alone to face the worst yet…”
“And Dyne?” Cloud asks.
The ladies look around and exchange troubled looks. They turn back to Cloud and lower their heads in shame.
“He didn’t come with us,” Tifa confesses sadly.
“He was always a part of this memory, after all. He wouldn’t have escaped its effects had he left the scene he was a part of,” Aerith explains gravely.
Cloud feels his eye twitch slightly. Though he expected such an outcome, it still stings to see it actually happen in real time. To be fair, the guy was already dying, but now he’s effectively been poofed out of existence. At least it’s not the “real” Dyne up on the surface, but that’s barely a comfort.
However, now that he glances off toward the town up ahead, he immediately takes notice of something out of place. The area they’ve ended up in seems to stretch onward toward the town until they can clearly see it in view. However, instead of meeting the bright open blue skies, they have now become dyed an ominous stormy gray-red. And even worse, there seems to be a flaming giant demon that towers over the town like something practically and maybe even literally right out of hell.
“Cloud? What’s wrong?” Tifa asks. The ladies turn to look and are struck silent as well.
This fiery demon titan, standing at some tens of meters off the ground, is a little different than the original Ifrit that they’d be used to seeing from the classic Summon materia. He looks to have an even bulkier build, though his skin is a dazzling flaming red as always that stretches from head to toe. But interestingly, he actually wears an open vest and pants this time, so he’s not quite so uncivilized. He even has short flaming hair as opposed to the longer locks he usually sports, so his massive horns really stand out and could even pierce the heavens. And last but not least, one of his arms – his right – is not purely an arm like his left. It has been adapted with a giant-ass laser cannon with a wide-open mouth for maximum laser output.
“Is that… Ifrit!?” Tifa stammers, growing fearful herself.
“But something’s different about him…” Aerith suggests nervously, pointing out the most obvious point, “Like, what happened to his arm?”
“…” Cloud simply keeps staring in dumbstruck awe. “…That’s a gun-arm.”
The three all share their shocked expressions and collectively gasp, “Barret!?”
Barret, who has gone unconscious from the eruption of hellfire, has been completely overtaken by Ifrit’s will, who only seeks battle to satisfy his unending wrath. He makes short work, stomping over the remaining mechs that put up piddly defense to his bare yet scorchingly hot clawed feet. He has only one particular target at this time: the big eyesore of a mako reactor that has sat in his view like it’s a personal insult.
While Cloud’s group are still quite fazed by what they’ve just witnessed, a certain big silver warbot comes flying overhead. Upon noticing some new targets, it stops in midair, firing jet propulsions to slow itself down, and drops in uninvited before the trio.
Scarlet laughs her haughty laugh from the transparent cockpit. “Well, well, well. What do we have here? Some rats have sneaked into a place they don’t belong!”
“Scarlet!?” Tifa snaps, raising her fists. “What’s she doing here!?”
Aerith whips out her staff. “Nothing good. I can only guess she was one of the reasons why Barret’s hometown was burned.”
“That bitch…” She growls. “I’ll hit her so hard she’ll be wishing to be iced over!”
And yet, even in the face of this latest threat, Cloud remains stoic, almost unimpressed, before the warbot. He passes another quick glance toward the looming fire demon that is now breaking out into a run their way, and turns to the other two.
“Hey. Hang on to me. We’re leaving.”
“Huh?” Aerith asks.
Tifa looks confused too. “What do you mean, Cloud? Aren’t we gonna fight her?”
“Nah. We should go.”
Now that they turn to look ahead where he’s looking, they very quickly catch on. “You know what, we can save this for when the real deal shows up,” Aerith concludes.
Tifa nods, clenching up a determined fist. “Yeah. Doing it here won’t matter up there anyway.”
Not quite aware of why the three are in such a hurry, Scarlet remains as cocky as ever. “My, my! Running away already? But we’ve just barely started! Don’t you at least want to see what this bad boy is capable of? I’ll be sure to make your deaths as slow and painful as possible!”
Tifa and Aerith each cling to Cloud’s arms, leaving him in the awkward middle as usual, but with a tilt of his head, he calls upon his classic warp spell and sends them far away to a patch of mountain road further up above the mines to get a nice view of the place.
Scarlet, a little insulted that they’d just disappear on her, gets very indignant too. “Unbelievable! They really did just scurry away! But you won’t escape me! None of you are escaping this ‘world’ ever again! Hahahahaha! …Hm?”
Before she can even react in time, a giant flaming, clawed hand grabs the warbot by the head, just above where the cockpit sits. Immediately, she is swamped with warnings and alerts as the bot is practically yanked from its place by its head.
“W-w-what!? What’s going on!? Who did that…”
Her voice drifts off and her smug indignance fades for a genuine shock and horror as she comes face-to-face with the new Ifrit, who snarls with jagged protruding fangs.
“Eeeeyaaaauuughh!!” Scarlet screams and scrambles to find the eject button.
Ifrit now raises his giant laser cannon arm right at the warbot’s chest and directly at where the cockpit is. Scarlet manages to find and slap the eject button, but she’s too late. Her button press doesn’t even go through before Ifrit’s cannon charges up and incinerates everything in its path. The resulting massive laser shoots so far it straight up reaches beyond the stormy clouds above and out to the great beyond. He then proceeds to slam the rest of the body down and crush it beneath his feet.
Up above, safe on their rocky perch, Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith watch with aghast stares at the terrifying threat that lies before them. While they certainly have no sympathy for Barret’s latest victim, they still have to worry about what this means for the guy himself.
“Is there anyway to stop him or at least reach him?” Tifa asks Aerith.
Aerith already has her magic GUI out, but she struggles to find anything she can do while the “trial” is still in session. “Um… Sorry, but I wish I knew.”
“Is there a way to interrupt this trial?” Cloud suggests.
She shakes her head. “I don’t know. This is only the second time I’ve seen this message, and the first time it ended when Tifa successfully formed her contract with Shiva.” She then looks out toward the raging titan. “But with Barret like this, he won’t be able to join us. Not until he calms down.”
Cloud folds his arms. “And when will that be?”
“I can’t answer that. It’s all up to Barret at this point.”
He frowns to hear that and drops his arms. “Well, we can’t just wait on him. At this rate, he’ll just destroy everything and he won’t be able to pass the trial. He’ll probably just restart the whole cycle, really.”
Tifa turns to him too. “Will that work? If he restarts the trial, can we still bring him out?”
“I don’t know… and I don’t want to find out. He was already defeated when we found him. Another cycle of this hell might just break him. We have to stop him now.”
“But how? He’s already become Ifrit.”
Cloud reaches for his sword’s grip. “And I’m Fenrir. I can take him.”
“No, you won’t!” she snaps back, tugging him by his arm. “Don’t rush into a fight! This is still Barret we’re talking about here!”
“Tifa, I know you’re worried and so am I. But we can’t leave him like this.”
“I know! But it doesn’t mean we have to fight!” She turns back to Aerith with a more pleading look. “Aerith, please, can you look up some sort of info about this trial? Maybe there’s a way we can have it come to a peaceful end? Like how it was for me. He just needs to remember what he’s actually fighting for.”
Aerith continues to scan her directory, but she doesn’t look sure in the least. “I’ll try, but it’s not easy working with this system while this message is still up.”
“Message?”
“That this trial is in session, so it can’t be ‘paused’.” She puts up a thinking pose. “I guess I can still look up info while it’s running. But I can’t enter any commands or change anything about what’s in progress.”
Tifa frowns. “Well, at least that’s something.”
Cloud also asks to confirm, “How long do you think it’ll take you?”
“Hmm… Hopefully just a few minutes if I can find something, but I can’t say for sure,” Aerith replies.
Cloud reaches for his sword again. “Few minutes is fine. I’ll take him out in less.”
“Cloud! Enough!” Tifa scolds him. “Why do you want to fight him so badly!?”
“Because we don’t have any other options?”
Before Tifa can keep arguing, they all hear another great roar from Ifrit. He’s reached the reactor and is beginning to pummel it and blast it apart with his giant cannon. The entire reactor, which had previously been swallowed up in fire anyway, now explodes again in a whirling inferno mixed with green streams of mako. The mako that is released from its depth fires off like a geyser that spits straight into the air like a beam of green light, and then it gradually fades back to invisible ether. However, instead of helping to repair the surrounding land, the released Lifestream can do nothing about the whirlwind of fire and it ravages the area further. Ifrit likewise keeps roaring and thrashing wildly at the surroundings as if he wants to keep fighting, but has no idea what to fight.
Cloud turns back to Tifa with his own stubborn frown. “You wanna keep waiting on him? Maybe he’ll just turn into Ifrit permanently.”
Aerith likewise worries, “If that really happens, I’m not sure we’ll ever get Barret back.”
Tifa sinks back in defeat. “…I guess it can’t be helped. Go take him, Cloud.”
“On it.”
Cloud closes his eyes for a moment and calls to his inner wolf spirit once again, erupting into a chilling aura of ice from the Far North, and is equipped with his signature wolf sideburns. He launches into the air with a single bound and flies on ahead to confront Ifrit. At first, Ifrit doesn’t even pay him any mind and continues to mindlessly thrash, but is promptly met with a strong whack in the forehead by a big sword. While normally this wouldn’t faze a titan like him, as the cut didn’t even go deep, it’s a cut marked with Fenrir’s ice and that really stings a fire demon like him. Ifrit is further enraged and starts swinging in the air with his free hand to try to catch the new tiny threat. He also lifts his cannon into position and fires off another massive laser blast that again pierces the clouds above. However, Cloud himself is much too fast even for Ifrit to keep track of. He continues to dart around in the air, striking to and fro around Ifrit’s head and horns, almost as if he were an artisan chef carefully applying icing upon a very large cake. Before long, even Ifrit’s bright red skin is starting to see a thin layer of shiny white.
But Ifrit has had enough of this pest. He lets off another indignant roar and his entire body erupts into flames hot enough to sear anything into the bowels of hell. Even Fenrir’s ice is forced to melt before his rage. And for once, Cloud is a bit too late to warp out of there. He’s swept up and thrown about by the whirling air currents and nearly loses his air-step, and he’s subsequently burned up in a ball of fire as well.
“Aaaaaugh!!”
“Cloud!?” Tifa squeaks.
Aerith remains silent, trying to stay focused. She dutifully rummages through the menu directory for the pertinent files, but every one she tries to access, that annoying message keeps popping up and getting in her way of reading. Unfortunately, it’s not a message box that she can close or swipe away. Why is this so unnecessarily hard?
In that moment of weakness, Ifrit grabs the falling Cloud out of the air and crushes him in his grip. With another furious roar he slams him into the ruins of the mako reactor, smashing through solid steel that has all but keeled and snapped due to the intense heat and pressure. Of course, being smashed in by a giant fiery fist would dent most things. And before he knows it, Cloud is plummeting into the depths of the reactor, where the mako vats had previously been stored, but now is entirely empty and cannot break his fall. He ends up falling far and is almost sucked in by one of the pumps below that has gone into overdrive since the supply has dried up.
“Sorry, Aerith! I’m going in!” Tifa announces in a hurry. “We’ll leave the rest to you!”
“Huh? Tifa, wait!”
Tifa now closes her eyes and calls to the ice empress’s spirit within her, and like with Cloud prior, she erupts into her own icy aura, but unlike him, she takes on a much more graceful form. Though her skin grows pale blue akin to the ice she wields, she doesn’t shiver in the slightest. She begins to rise into the air and soars elegantly through the sky like a snowflake taking a ride on a swift gust. She flies over the reactor where Cloud was last seen, but unfortunately for her, Ifrit is still around. Finding another target to strike, he slams the broken reactor before she can take the dive herself, and the ensuing punch explodes with another brilliant inferno. She calls upon her own ice to subdue the flames, but while at first she does keep some of it at bay, the ensuing whirlwind catches her off-guard too and she loses focus. The flames surround her and even below her and she has no other option but to retreat. Unfortunately, Ifrit had been waiting for her to come back out and fires off another laser blast that she just narrowly avoids.
“Barret! Can you hear me!?” she yells. “Stop it! Get a hold of yourself!”
Ifrit simply roars back and thrashes with his fist again. She flies up and over his forehead and sprays her own ice to help cool his head, but this time it doesn’t even stay frozen for as long. Sensing another incoming Hellfire, she zips away again as Ifrit charges up and unleashes it. She again just narrowly avoids the blast with the help of her own ice, which creates a temperature gradient that stirs up chaotic winds. She is thrown far away and spins dizzy, dropping from the air. She doesn’t drop too far, though, as Ifrit catches her, only to crush her as well.
“Aaaaaahh!!”
“Tifa!” Aerith gasps, snapping out of her concentration.
This really is turning into all kinds of bad. Just from the touch of Ifrit’s fiery grip is searing against Tifa’s cold and unfortunately it’s taking all her stamina just to keep the heat away, needless to break out of the grip. And even now, Aerith has yet to find a solution. Any time she feels like she could find something, she’s blocked off. By now, she’s had enough waiting. Leaving the menu alone, she whips out her own staff and begins to cast a spell to at least help restore Tifa to fighting form.
However, before she can let it off, another miracle comes barging in unannounced. The mako reactor, which at this point should be depleted of anything that would set off another fire, somehow erupts a third time and is swallowed up in fire yet again. However, this isn’t the same fire that Ifrit had called upon; for starters, it’s colored blue.
Before Ifrit can finish off his next target, he himself is taken by surprise when another monstrous figure emerges from the reactor rubble, which has all but caved in and nearly melted. This figure, which takes on the shape of a giant wolf, is also burning bright and lights up the dreary red skies with some blue and white. This is no ordinary form of Fenrir. This is one of special occasion and usually of last resort: Ragnarok Manifest.
The fiery Fenrir roars with a clamor that could match Ifrit’s own, which stuns Ifrit just enough for Tifa to find her chance and break free. She quickly flees the scene as the two titans square each other up and step forward to face off, and returns to Aerith’s side by the cliff, dropping to one knee.
“Tifa!” Aerith calls, hurrying over to check on her. “You okay?”
Tifa pants a little, feeling pretty exhausted, but she nods back. “I’ll be okay… Whew… I’ve had worse.” She then gets back up and turns back to the terrifying event playing before them. “But what happened to Cloud? Is that really Fenrir?”
Aerith looks somewhat ashamed to be unable to answer properly. “I don’t know. This is the first time I’ve seen Fenrir look like this.”
“Should… we stop them?”
“I’m not sure what we can do to stop them.”
The ladies share worried looks and then turn back to the fray. At once, Ifrit and Fenrir roar fiercely at once another and the two charge. While Ifrit smashes his fist and giant cannon into the wolf’s head, the latter counters by biting his gun-arm so that he can’t fire it his way. That bite alone is capable of tearing through even the bones of a titan like him and he lets off a painful growl. He proceeds to seize Fenrir by the neck and blast him with Hellfire up close where the vortex is most intense. However, in this form, Fenrir will not be intimidated by fire. He unleashes his own blue fire in its own intense whirlwind in perfect countermotion to Ifrit’s, and the resulting effects produce a singular towering column of purplish fire that burns so bright it envelops them both from view. The tower of flames shoots high into the heavens and blasts apart the clouds above, practically splitting the skies.
By now, Tifa is just panicking. She’s pacing back and forth with unease written all over her and keeps checking back with Aerith, who simply watches the fray with numb detachment. She really has no idea what they can do at this point.
“Aerith, please… tell me you’ve found something! Anything will do!” Tifa pleads anyway. “We can’t let this go on! They’ll kill each other!”
Aerith snaps out of her trance and turns to her with a nod, albeit still unsure as always. However, now that she does check her menu, she’s surprised to find that the annoying message from earlier seems to have been replaced by a new one:
“Error: Objective missing. Current session has been interrupted. Abort the trial?”
Aerith and Tifa share stunned looks and go back to the screen. Without further words needed, she slaps that Abort button as fast as she can. The next instant, everyone and everything that was present in this scene freezes up, as if some truly divine intervention has taken place, and all fades out to white.
Notes:
I just find it a really funny coincidence that I uploaded this chapter on the same day that the latest officially released chapter of One Piece brings all these references to Ragnarok. Cheers from a fellow fan of Norse mythology, Oda-sensei!
All symbolism in this story is intended with many exceptions
- Last Lifestream episode, Rubia became a black ball. If anyone guessed it, congrats. She is now confirmed to be the "Black Materia". Or rather, she is synonymous to the materia as a fellow aspect of Tiamat. It's gonna be a hassle for them to rescue her.
- All this time I've been waiting to reveal the joke that Cloud is actually "unable to read" the stuff Fenrir gave him. At first I didn't plan it that way, but it makes his inexperience with the magic GUI from before all the funnier. Besides, I want Aerith to shine there.
- Zack is here to stay. At first I was thinking about how awkward it'd be to bring him back to life, but then we're in the freakin' Lifestream now. He's staying, dammit. At least in this context.
- Here at last, the episode of Barret. I love that Rebirth finally gave us Myrna. Beautiful woman. So glad we got to actually see her, even if it was for a very short moment. Also love that we got a bit more to her during Barret's date scene - which I still hold is one of the best date scenes in Rebirth. (The other one is Nanaki's of course.) I kinda wish we got the same treatment for Eleanor, but I understand the way they structured the flashbacks couldn't fit her in. I always imagined her to be have short hair, but I dunno why.
- Poor Barret. I knew I had to change things up for his flashback because it wouldn't hit nearly the same way if I kept everything the same. So I introduced the trial early on and had him struggle for a while. He effectively went from his usual brash, bold badass self to a broken man since he's been alone. Sorry, man, but it's for the sake of the plot. And the clash of the titans.
- Quick cameo of Shears and Elfe from Before Crisis. Since so much of the Corel flashback in that game is a blur, I had to cut their roles short. But I do distinctly remember Shears because he was kinda a tough battle for the guy whose walkthrough I followed. Also, man just solves everything by punching. Gotta respect it.
- On the white boundaries: I set them is particular to each specific location, but because the Corel flashback crosses multiple locations two-ways, unlike with Nibelheim, I had to rework the "system". Because of the nature of the Summon Trials, they can bend the rules to make it seem like all these scenes are perfectly connected, but in reality they're all separate blocks. As an example, Cole seemed to be present in one, but in another he disappears, despite the two locations would have been connected even back in the OG. (Two different screens, but same location.)
- Speaking of Cole, I always planned to retell Barret's story with a bit more involvement with the guy, but for the sake of consistent story flow, I didn't want to bog down events with too much about him. He's an extra support character that adds another layer to Barret's story, but not cornerstone to it. Marlene was always going to be the star.
- Anoter shout-out to Rebirth. It devastated me when I saw Barret's trial in the Temple, where we even got to see his amputated arm. And poor Myrna. We knew her for so little and I already teared up seeing her gone.
- But for the sake of my story, I had to go even further with the suffering. And Scarlet was right there in the flashback too. Might as well make her as cartoony a villain as I did. And make sure she ended like one too.
- I apologize on behalf of all Marlene fans, including myself, for that ghastly climax. It won't ever happen again, I promise.
- He's finally here! Ifrit!Barret is truly the menace I've been itching so bad to write about. And it makes sense (to me) that a Summon raging out of control would just bring up the Summon. But I didn't want to just rip off FFXVI's eikons. This is still an FF7 fic, after all. So this time, Ifrit gets to cosplay and have a giant arm-cannon, just as the prophecies foretold.
- Also, it may have been brief, but I'm glad I got to write about Shiva!Tifa too. It's just her hybrid form, so to speak, since she's still new with it, but at least she can also fly now. The only reason I didn't show her punching was because she just wanted to stop Barret, but that didn't go so well.
- And last but not least, Fenrir!Cloud. More specifically, a new form of Fenrir, one inspired by the original Norse myth that said Fenrir was one of the beasts that spread the fires around Yggdrasil. Though he was from the fens of Scandanavia, a chilly place, he was never truly locked to one element. About time Cloud showed off more of Fenrir and I just had to have my kaiju battle.
Chapter 79: The Rumbles of War
Notes:
After all that last chapter, I thought I'd jump back to something a little more lighthearted in comparison. As usual, I'm still following the alternating story beats until a certain point. Ya'll with know it when you see it.
Also, I apologize in advance for anyone who doesn't have certain unicode text supported on your device. I went a little overboard with emoticons this time. Don't blame me! It was only appropriate given the circumstances! (Okay, maybe you can blame me a little. But I have no regrets!) Anyone who can't read certain faces, let me know in the comments so I can send you a screen grab.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
An explosive burst of digital white noise, followed by dead silence; sounds heard only by those from beyond the realms. Where does a shattered soul that belongs to neither this world nor the next go? Perhaps it is free to roam wherever it pleases, but treading into territories once prohibited is a dangerous task to follow through. However, it is not alone. In fact, it has never been alone in the first place. This is a tale of two engaged in an eternal pursuit across time and space, never yielding to the laws of any world in which they come to exist within, corrupting data and even living memories as they run rampant with reckless abandon.
However, this mysterious tale will have to be set aside for the time being. Instead, a certain piece of that shattered soul must maintain her presence within the confines of this world to be able to continue to survive. Only then may it eventually reunite with its target and fulfill its original intended purpose.
~
Somewhere in the underground labs beneath Midgar, the well-oiled engine of scientific experimentation has been running smoothly despite all previous difficulties. The team situated behind protective bulletproof glass watch in anxious anticipation as their latest attempt at manufacturing new materia is being undertaken. Many, many previous attempts simply resulted in failure; regardless of what they tried, condensing mako further would only exacerbate its instability and the entire container could be destroyed in the ensuing explosion, even with minute amounts of the reactive substance. However, with a simple suggestion from R&D, the Materia Development department finally acquired a usable sample of a certain strain of DNA. Under the barking orders of their superior and with little remaining options left to them, they greenlit the new “fusion” process that would integrate the genetic code with their materia-like solution in hopes that it would produce something actually viable.
It seems counterintuitive at a glance, yet makes perfect sense if one were to think carefully. To add what is effectively living organic matter to the ether created from the decay of the deceased almost sounds absurd to even be possible, and yet is such a simple and clean answer that it’s a surprise that they hadn’t considered it before. While it has long been understood that materia is produced through the further condensing of mako, little else about the process is that well understood. While Shinra has been mass-producing common materia for decades, certain more obscure materia that are extremely difficult to obtain naturally cannot be effectively reproduced and scientists have scrambled to search for an explanation to little avail. However, according to the prevailing theory by one certain infamous head scientist, there is little difference that separates the living from the dead, as organic matter is still the same material recycled by the planet regardless of its form. That in turn suggests that it may just be a question of quantity and ecoavailability. The rarest, most powerful materia would require exponentially greater power to match that which the Ancients would have been able to call upon – so why not supply a relative amount of power?
Now, they await the results of this new strange mixture. With bated breath, one of the scientists flips the switch and begins the condensation procedure. The aqueous solution in the large tank bubbles vigorously as expected, but just as the team braces for yet another disastrous failure, the solution instead begins to settle and condense as pressures mount further. After a few tense minutes, the materia-like substance eventually hardens into a perfectly round red sphere. At first no one is willing to speak in case they somehow jinx it, but as silence overtakes the room, they’re pleasantly surprised to see the orb has finally stabilized and solidified. Now the team lets out a collective sigh in relief and shares a few excited cheers. At long last, they have a sample that can undergo proper testing.
Present among the team is an unexpected guest: Chadley. The boy had been enjoying his freedom on a wonderful trip around the world following rumors and tales of the ever elusive white dragon and the strange company she kept, but soon after she disappeared again, he was immediately called back to Midgar under new orders. Now, he’s been placed here as an additional overseer for Materia Development at the behest of R&D to offer additional assistance in their latest manufacturing project, as it pertains to the newly added DNA sample. Unfortunately, said sample is a material known to be highly reactive and dangerous, given its track record of experiments in the past, and the moment he realized this was yet another cautionary experiment to test its limits, he felt a pit form in his gut and even questioned its efficacy in the whole process. Nonetheless, he agreed to help however he could.
Now that the new materia has finished forming, though, it’s his turn to offer his services. He taps a button on his augmented reality goggles and calls upon a certain digital assistant of his own: a lovely young lady that goes by the name of MAI whose chipper voice cuts through the otherwise sobering atmosphere.
“Hello, everyone! This is MAI! While I’m normally more of an expert in the field of wildlife and environmental studies, today I’m coming to you as your friendly and informative Materia Assessment & Integration assistant! How many I help you?”
“MAI, I can confirm the new materia has stabilized. I’m entering the relevant information right now,” Chadley reports. “Could you run a test simulation for it? I’ll connect you to the display monitor in front of us too.”
“Aha! A brand new Summon materia, is it? Oh. Oh, wow… Most intriguing.” MAI nods along with a cute smile. “Okay, got a reading! It looks like we’re dealing with a real royal juggernaut this time! The legendary Bahamut Prime, Supreme Ruler of all Dragonkin! Though not much is known about this fascinating subject, so little that his very existence is debatable, there is one primary record preserved from ages past. It was said that the King of Dragons once wielded power so great that he could merge with the very fabric of reality and redirect the course of Fate itself-”
“MAI, could you please save the explanation? We need to run the simulation ASAP,” Chadley promptly interrupts her.
“Oh, alright. I’m ready on my end. Are we connected to the display? Yes, we are! Okay, I’ll run it now!”
Without further delay, she starts up the test simulation and everyone awaits the results with heightened anticipation. At first, the test seems to run as expected. They are greeted with the awe-inspiring, intimidating presence of the mighty silver-sheened platinum dragon, whose wingspan practically dwarfs the display on which his image is approximately captured. Unlike other known forms of Bahamut, this one sports an astonishing four pairs of glistening wings and a head crowned with a halo of starlight, looking like a fiery cosmic ring, which gives the Dragon King an almost seraph-like appearance. Such a form of Bahamut was only ever rumored to exist even in the times from which that single primary source was given, and yet he’s been reproduced here as accurately as the record has suggested, even despite missing many details. However, just as the team is hopeful that they have their first success in what feels like forever, something goes terribly wrong.
“And here we are! The great and powerful Bahamut! What a glorious and gorgeous figure, even more so than other versions I’ve seen! Wow, he’s so massive that it’s a bit difficult to capture him in his entirety… Huh? Eeek!”
While MAI began as enthusiastic as she had been, the visuals suddenly glitch out and the simulation is immediately forced to shut down. Everyone in the room is taken aback and confusion runs rampant amid their murmurs.
“MAI, what happened?” Chadley asks, his eyes grown wide.
“I-I don’t know!” she cries in a high-pitched voice, “Everything was working just fine, but suddenly the program crashed!”
“Can you start it up again?”
“I’ll try.” However, the second time she tries to run it, she simply meets with the same unexpected error message. “Hmm… Unfortunately, it seems I cannot,” she concludes with a sad pout. “I keep running into the same unidentified error. I can’t even trace back to why it comes to this error!” She also makes a shocked face. “Why, it’s almost like I’ve been barred access from my own debugger! Imagine that!”
Chadley frowns, thoughtfully stroking his chin. “Strange. As far as I can tell, everything in the inputted data seems to be within acceptable ranges. But perhaps there’s still some other factors that we may be missing…”
Just as the atmosphere begins to sink back into discouragement and gloom, though, another strange quirk of fate comes to meet them. One moment MAI was acting as normal, and the next even she freezes up.
“Well, if you do figure it out, let me know! I’ll be happy to try again!” she replies, only to be cut off, “Say, I wonder if there’s any esoteric knowledge expert we can…”
“…?” Chadley blinks and taps his hologram of her. “MAI? Are you there?”
However, it’s as if she had been hijacked and remains frozen. Chadley grows somewhat alarmed and calls to her again.
“MAI? Can you read me? Please respond!”
…
“MAI! Please respond! What happened!?”
“Chadley, is something the matter?” one of his peers speaks up.
He turns to the scientist with a nervous frown. “Unfortunately, I seem to have lost contact with my own assistant. I’m not sure if it’s some source of corruption that stemmed from the glitch in the simulation or something else entirely…”
But his voice drifts off when he notices something else that’s strange. In the corner of his eye, he catches that a different program seems to have been initiated within his AR goggles even without his input and it displays a number of text messages in terminal that seem to indicate that something is being loaded into the system. However, rather than interrupt the process, Chadley grows morbidly curious and lets it run to completion. As soon as it does, the terminal closes on its own and the program returns to its default settings. Even MAI jumps back to life again.
“Whoops! That was weird, but I’m back! Did I miss anything?”
“MAI! Oh, thank goodness!” Chadley lets off a sigh in relief, but then makes a concerned frown all the same. “I’m afraid I can’t answer what happened, but it appears our system may have been compromised during the test run. You suddenly stopped responding, and while you were unresponsive, I witnessed the work of a mysterious third-party agent that was sending me data from somewhere, but I can’t pinpoint where the source was either. A most unnatural situation…”
“Yeah! Things have just been getting weirder, alright! By the way, Chadley, did you happen to leave this memo as a reminder?”
He blinks in surprise. “Memo? What do you mean?”
“This one, of course!”
MAI flashes a simple message on the screen of his AR goggles, one that he has no recollection of ever recording. But one look at who signed off on this note nearly boggles his brilliant mind all the same.
“Chadley, when you have the time, could you pay another visit to Hojo? I have a few questions and plenty of choice words for him.
Thanks, and hear from you soon,
Ruby”
“W-w-what!?” he stammers the moment his voice seems to load back in. “What in the world is this!?”
MAI remains as chipper as ever as she bluntly explains, “Based on initial observations, it appears to be a memo left by none other than the infamous vigilante herself, Ruby Liu! Who would have thought she would drop by here of all places? I thought we were in a closed system, Chadley!”
“We are in a closed system…” He sets a hand over his forehead in disbelief. “And yet, she’s somehow managed to hack her way in! Incredible… We’ve been greatly underestimating her after all. Who knows to what level her abilities have soared since we last had record of her?”
“Looks like she wants to see Professor Hojo too. I wonder what they’re going to talk about?”
He then makes a concerned frown. “To be honest, I’m not sure if we should let this meeting go through, at least not without taking extreme caution.”
“Oh? What’s the matter?”
“Well, I can’t say for sure what will happen, but I don’t think it’s going to be a peaceful encounter.”
“Hmm… Yeah, it does look like she has ‘plenty of choice words’ for him at the very least.”
“I’m serious, MAI. We should look further into this before we proceed. Unfortunately, we know too little about her current situation to be able to account for every possibility by which she could approach him. Things could become even more at risk if she has effectively entered into the greater mainframe too.”
As busy as Chadley becomes amid his speculative responses to these developments, though, there is one other lingering question hanging over the rest of the staff in this room. Another of his peers steps up to ask him, “Chadley, sorry to interrupt you, but is there anything else we can do for this ongoing experiment? Maybe even some way to restart and try again? It would be a shame if we have to abandon this one like all the other ones.”
“Oh! Right.” He nods back with a smile. “Don’t worry, I won’t be leaving just yet.” He returns to scanning over the error report given from the failed simulation test run. “Though, I’ve yet to locate the source of the critical error that we’ve run into… Hm?”
He then happens to notice another short note added in the additional comments section of the report, and like the tongue-in-cheek writer from earlier, it gives an ambiguous hint that reads more like a threat.
“No access granted. This build is still under construction and will be held hostage until my demand is fulfilled. Get to it.
- Ruby”
Chadley feels his shoulders sink a little in defeat. “I suppose I’ll have to look into this matter first.”
“Wow!” MAI replies giddily, “She’s really got you in a vicegrip, huh? Guess you’d better ‘get to it’!”
“Not funny, MAI.” He sighs to himself, growing more apprehensive by the minute. “It’s been difficult to reach the professor recently, even for me, and Ruby wants to drop in all of a sudden. What could she be thinking?”
He enters into his thoughtful mode and starts off for the nearest exit as he continues to deliberate over possibilities, leaving the rest of the staff to return to their gloom and doom. As far as their abrasive department lead is concerned, heads will roll if they don’t have anything worth reporting. At least they have something materialized, even if it’s unusable at the moment. Maybe they can just write off the simulation as a success and sweep it under the rug?
~
Elsewhere in a neighboring town, more strange coincidences have begun to crop up. While the rest of the town is stirred up with troubling signs on the horizon as stationed troops are on the move, things are a little more confused than anything in one of the houses on the south end. The flash of a smiling emoticon on the screen of a device that was never intended to host a visitor brings stillness to the room, and then upon the strike of a metaphorical clock, that stillness returns to motion.
“No way…” Biggs can’t take his eyes off of the screen. “It worked? Is that really her?”
“It sounds like her at least,” Wedge remarks, even with his jaw agape. “Like, why else would it show that?”
“Oh, you can bet that it is!” Jessie cheers. Practically bursting with excitement, she shuffles her arms rapidly and throws a triumphant fist in the air as if making up her own victory stance. “Ruby’s done it again! Now we’ll never lose track of her!”
Broden, who has been left hanging after being witness to the whole state of strange affairs, remains stunned quiet. The more he learns about this mysterious “Ruby” the less he feels he can understand. One moment, she’s named as the “miracle worker” by this ragtag bunch of Avalanche that honestly seem a little too bold for their dire situation; the next, a little girl that was gifted a special white materia even claimed she’s the same dragon that had been terrorizing Shinra recently. And now, this strange character has even transferred her consciousness into digital format and taken possession of an electronic device. This is going beyond just a simple mystery; Ruby seems to be an enigma that defies reason altogether. No wonder they all hold her in such high regard. But is it possible for someone to hold that much freedom without some sort of price?
“Whew! Scared us for a moment, but shoulda known she had it covered.” Jessie also wipes her brow free of any remaining sweat. “Always coming up with new surprises for us, clever girl.”
Nonetheless, Biggs still has his concerns. He strokes his chin as he asks, “Kinda wish she wouldn’t and just tell it to us straight for once. I mean, what is she doing, transferring herself into this thing? It’s a transmuter, not a phone! Is she gonna make stuff for us?”
Wedge blinks in surprise. “Oh, yeah. I know she can make materia, but what else can she do?”
The moment he asks the question, Jessie grows even more excited. She twirls around and holds the device close to her chest almost as if she were giving it a hug, and her eyes are twinkling with an almost unhinged glee as she dives head-first into speculation. “Better question is: what couldn’t she do? Just imagine that we can now make anything we can think of… Heck, even anything we wish for could come true! Grand cosmic power that will let us shoot for the stars, all at the touch of these fingertips! Hehehehe.”
Wedge makes a shy grin. “Anything we wish for? Gee, Jessie, I know this is Ruby we’re talking about, but you make it sound like she’s like some kind of genie!”
“Ha! She might as well be!” She shrugs. “I mean, sure, it’s not like she just snaps her fingers and poof, all done. But she’s warped us around plenty of times, no sweat. Should be easy for her to get us anything we need.”
“Yeah, but that was because she was actually with us.” He rubs his head awkwardly. “How is she gonna do that if she’s stuck in a place like this?”
Jessie raises an eyebrow, surprised that there’s any confusion to be had. “Does it even matter? She can operate from anywhere anyway. And we have her materia again, so we even have her on speed dial.”
Biggs glances off toward the now transparent orb sitting on the table. “More like ‘had’. Looks like it’s dead for real now.”
“Oh, you know what I mean!”
“Anyway, Jessie? Not to rain on your parade, but…” He then points a finger at the device in her hand. “Like I said, that’s not a phone. How do we talk with her? Can she even see or hear us from here?” He shakes his head. “There are way too many questions how this will work.”
She gives a dismissive wave. “Please, who do you think you’re talking to? I always have backup options.” But now that she flips it around and takes another look at the device, she pauses to reconsider how to add a voice function. “…Maybe if I slide it in at the bottom?”
He rolls his eyes. “You didn’t even think that far, did you?”
“Oh, shut up! Not like I expected her to pop up like this!” She then flashes a confident grin. “But it’s nothing a little tweaking can’t fix!”
He makes an exhausted frown. “Oh, here we go again. How much longer will you need before we have something usable?”
“Not long! Just gimme, um… another thirty, no, twenty minutes! I can just reuse our phones for the parts.”
But before she can head back inside, though, Broden snaps to attention and calls out a warning, “Wait a sec. Can you save that for later? I’ve got some important news you guys should know.”
“Huh?”
“For the record, Ruby’s materia wasn’t the only thing I was concerned about. On my way back, I overheard some noise from the troops stationed around town that there might be some kind of threat coming in from the coast.”
Wedge’s eyes grow wide. “From the coast?”
“More of those monsters we’ve been hearing about lately, seems like. They even had to call in Soldier on it. So right now the streets are pretty clear, but who knows when they’ll be back.”
Biggs immediately catches on and nods back. “Then, we’d better get going while they’re still distracted.”
“Yeah. I was gonna suggest the same.”
“Oh, come on, guys!” Jessie complains, “It’s just twenty minutes! In fact, I can do it in even less.”
Biggs argues back, “Jessie, I know you’re hyped about our ‘magic genie’, but shouldn’t we first get to a safe place before we start messing with all that?”
“Being with Ruby IS the safest place! How long have we known her by now?”
He plants a hand over his face. “That’s not what I mean.” He drops it and lays it out as he adds, “Sure, she can get us out of anything if we really need it, but even better is if we just avoid running into trouble. You know the drill: the sooner we leave town, the sooner we’re off Shinra’s radar.” He also gestures toward the transmuter. “And once we’re in the clear, you can work on it all you want.”
She frowns, hands resting on her hips. “But where would we go that I’d still have an easily accessible work desk? Besides, what’s the rush? Even if they have Soldier, we have Ruby.” Still met with his unconvinced face, she lets off a sigh and insists, “…Okay, fine! If it’ll help, I can check with her.” Now that she returns to the transmuter’s screen, though, she finds a pleasant surprise. “Huh? Hey.”
“What’s up, Jessie?” Wedge asks.
She now flips it around again to show it to them. “Her message changed.”
“W-what!?”
Now that they look at it again, Ruby’s initial line has vanished and been replaced by a longer message with a little bit of eccentric flair to it between her sentences.
“Hey, all! Sorry to keep you out of the loop! (^～^;)ゞ I know you’re dying to know what happened to me all this time, but it’s too long a story and I’ve gone into hiding for the time being. I can’t tell you where I am and I can’t show up in person either; not while the future of this planet is so unclear. But I can still pop in from time to time, and I promise I’ll try to be entertaining! ヾ(｡･ω･｡) While I’m in here, though, you can ask me to make whatever you want for free. And if you have any other questions, ask away! I can hear you just fine.”
The guys stare at the screen for a moment longer as they try to process whatever it is that they’re reading. For someone who was supposed to have disappeared for a while with the fate of the world held in her alter ego’s judgment, she acts surprisingly casual and texts like she just came back from a holiday vacation.
“She can ‘hear’ us?” Wedge asks with wide eyes. “Like, even when we’re talking now?”
As if the transmuter somehow received his voice, the onscreen message updates to a single line: “Yessir! Ruby, reporting for duty! (`･д･´)ゝ How may I help?”
“Whoa! She really responded!”
“Ha! I knew it she had it handled!” Jessie passes a cheeky grin toward Biggs, who makes an annoyed frown back. She also turns back to the device to ask her, “Okay, Ruby. We got a few big issues to address. One is that we’re on the run from Shinra and it’s been a pain to get anywhere. Mind giving us a boost?”
“No problemo! ヽ(｡^ω^｡) I got just the thing.”
Like it’s second nature to her, Ruby gets right to work by creating another new materia for the occasion. She takes a moment to get it ready, but once the flashing ellipses finishes flashing, the antenna to the device begins to light up with a bright white light akin to her own magic and it fires off a thin laser beam into the air before them. The light then pops like a silent miniature firecracker, and a small green orb is promptly materialized. It floats in the air for a moment, aglow with magical energy, and then settles down into Jessie’s hand, where it returns to the usual fainter glow of materia. However, unlike with most standard materia, there is a unique swirl pattern amid its center that is reminiscent of Ruby’s original white materia, complete with the signature serpentine shape as if to mark her emblem.
“Though it looks a little different, this Warp Materia functions like a normal Escape. While warp spells are usually pretty costly, since this version is mine, I get to decide how much it costs! And… eh, 3 MP per cast ought to be fair. ᄾ(¯＾¯)ᄼ”
Jessie nearly jumps at the thought. “Only THREE? That’s basically a freebie!”
“I was gonna make it cost 1, but then I thought, nah! That’s too cheap. So I tripled it. v(｡･ω <｡) That’s fair, right?”
“Haha, sounds fair to me! Alright! If I plug this baby into my gun…” She whips out one of her modified pistols and slides the orb into an open slot, where it then shrinks to fit perfectly in the hole. She then wields it in both hands, pointing up and away, with a confident smirk on her face. “We’re good to go anytime.”
Yet, Biggs remains uncomfortable like he suspects there has to be some sort of catch to all this. He folds his arms and brings up, “Okay, new materia, I get. But how is she gonna help us with the other two things?”
“Other two things? ┕(∘o‴∘)┑ = 3 = 3”
“Yeah. How about getting into contact with Cloud and the others? It’s been a whole week since you guys went missing! What happened to you? Did you get split up or something?”
“Ooh, that’s a hard deal. I can’t reach them from where I am now, but I’m sure they’ll manage. How about I get back to you on that? ε = ε =┍(∘‷o∘)┙”
He makes an amused scoff, but lets it slide. “If you insist. Oh, and you said you can’t tell us where you are? Why?”
“Oof. That’s an even harder question to answer. ゐ～(´•ω•`๑)ゞLet’s just say that I’ve made some very scary enemies and need to keep a low profile.”
“Uh, what kind of enemies?” Wedge follows up, nervously clenching his teeth.
“Um… The planetary kind, you could say. |┻┳|ʌ•`;)”
Now that just drops a big ol’ lump of confusion that splatters everywhere. Biggs asks, “The… planet? Like, the whole world?”
“Yeah… Somehow I’ve angered the Gods and become the world’s most wanted criminal. Sorry! Can’t say why. You’ll just have to take my word for it. |┻┳|人;)》”
He exchanges confused glances with everyone else in the room and turns back to her. “What did you even do that you’d have to hide from the freakin’ Gods?”
“Hey, I may have cute emoticons on the screen, but I’m serious! The less you all know, the safer you’ll be. I’ll even swear on it! |┻┳|∍(`･д･´)/”
“O-okay, we get it.” Setting it aside, he raises a finger forward. “But that still leaves us with one last thing.”
“What’s up? ┕(`∀´)┙ As long as I don’t have to deal with the planet’s divinities, I can figure something out!”
Finally, he passes a glance back to Broden and beckons him over. “Hey, you wanted to ask her something?”
Broden cautiously steps up, and without sounding like he’s too desperate, he clears his throat and asks away, “Um… Ahem. So, I’ve heard from your friends that you’re some kind of miracle worker?”
“I’ve helped people before, sure.”
“Can you also cure people’s sicknesses?”
“That depends. Are we talking like the flu or a chronic medical condition? _〆(･_･｡)”
“More of the latter. You know anything about the ‘Soldier Syndrome’?”
“Soldier Syndrome?”
“Yeah. It’s what some people call the negative side effects of the Soldier treatment. Seems to vary a lot from person to person, but sometimes they can get pretty serious.” He sets a hand over his head with a discouraged look. “I was one of the unlucky ones. Didn’t have much of a problem for my first few years, but then I started getting sick really often, to the point that I’d even be bedridden from time to time. Then, for whatever reason, the worst would pass for a while, but it’d recur again later. Doctors don’t know how to diagnose it and there’s no cure I could find since I left Shinra. I’ve even heard them say it cuts into our lifespans even for those who don’t see any symptoms.”
“Ah, yeah, I’ve heard about the treatment. This illness may be caused by a combination of factors involving the mako and J-cell treatments that you guys have undergone, but whatever it is, it’s a nasty mess. (｡´･ω･`)ゞ Sorry to say, I don’t have the best track record dealing with those cases. Even I have my limits.”
And just like that, the wind in his sails shutters to a halt. He drops his hand and slumps a little. “I see… Well, it was worth a shot.”
“Wait, Ruby.” Now that she brings it up, Jessie is reminded to ask as well, “Didn’t you try something with Sonon before? You fixed him right up, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, but that time involved Rubia’s cells, which I more or less have some control over. I can’t influence Jenova’s goo whatsoever. Even Rubia was infected by her in the past.”
“Oh, yeah. Okay, maybe Jenova is right out…” She gets a bit anxious as she leads into another, “But how about if it’s just mako poisoning?”
“Oh. Like, from overexposure?”
“Yeah.” She makes a nervous smile. “I mean, you did say you were gonna help someone with that, weren’t you?”
“…” Upon being reminded too, Ruby’s messages vanish behind just a simple ellipses for a brief moment, bringing even more tension to the room. She then gives her answer, “You know what? You’re right. A promise is a promise. I’ll see what I can do.”
Jessie perks back up immediately. “Yes! I knew you’d come through! And hey, even if you can’t cure Broden completely, maybe you can at least give him some relief? Doesn’t hurt to try, right?”
Broden is somewhat startled by the suggestion. “Uh, it’s okay. If you feel like it’s too much hassle, you don’t have to…”
But now that she’s fired up again, Ruby responds right away, “I said I’ll see what I can do! \(｡`д´｡)/ Gosh, don’t nag me!”
“…” He decides not to argue and simply nods back. “Alright. Thanks.”
“Gimme a moment. I’ll need to think a bit about this treatment…”
Biggs nods along in acknowledgement and then addresses the others, “Well, while she figures that out, maybe we can find out more about what’s going on with that ‘threat’ Broden mentioned.” He folds his arms with a troubled frown. “Weird how these monsters have been showing up out of nowhere and attacking towns. It’s been all over the news the past few days.”
Wedge scratches his head as he recalls, “So far they’ve all been targeting places with mako reactors, right? So why would they come to a town like this one? It’s pretty safe, even with Shinra overlooking it.”
“Who knows? Maybe it’s because Shinra’s all over it?”
Jessie then retorts, “I dunno. I heard how even Mideel got some trouble and that’s a resort town! It’d be like if Costa del Sol suddenly got attacked. I don’t think they’re only attacking Shinra in that case.”
“Then again, do we even know what these monsters are? They don’t seem to be your typical fiends roaming around on the grasslands, for starters.”
“That’s exactly why it’s gotten into the news. Who would be reporting on some random ol’ fiends when even Soldier First-Class has to be deployed?”
Broden also reminds them, “Since this town was considered to be a ‘low priority’, we only had one of them on standby. I’m sure he’s busy with the troops at the coast since the alarm was sounded.”
Biggs snaps to attention. “Wait, was that guy First-Class too?”
He nods. “I think so. The uniform matched and all.”
“Huh. But if this town is just ‘low priority’, why bother sending any First-Classes here? You’d think that at the most they’d offer is a Third-Class or so.”
Broden sets a hand to his chin. “Good question. From what I’ve overheard, he might have shown up on his own.”
“What? You mean he’s not even on orders to be here?” Wedge exclaims and then makes a disappointed grunt. “Man! Talk about rotten luck!”
“Not too rotten, though,” Jessie suggests, choosing to stay optimistic. “If there’s a guy like that here, then I don’t think we’d have to worry about this town getting wrecked. Marlene and Aerith’s mom did just move here.”
He switches back to a more comfortable look. “Yeah, that’s fair. I guess we also don’t have to worry about protecting them if we leave.”
“Of course!” Jessie even gestures with an elbow Broden’s way. “Not to mention, we got another handy-dandy ex-Soldier right here who knows where they are!”
Broden makes an awkward look and waves it away. “Appreciate it, but I’m in no condition to fight. My days as Soldier are far behind me.”
“Oh, I get that they’re behind you…” She peers back down to the transmuter. “But if you ask me, your ‘condition’ might just change.”
“Huh?”
Jessie gives him a reassuring wink. As if her very words were some sort of cue, though, suddenly the transmuter’s antenna begins to glow again. As promised, Ruby has come up with something and now beams out another miracle item: a syringe that holds some sort of ethereal-looking substance inside that glows a bright white as if it were made of light itself.
Ruby’s messages return: “Here we go! I made something! \(`･∀･´)/ I have no idea if this will work, though!”
“Atta girl, Ruby!” Jessie snatches the syringe from the air and passes it over to Broden. “You good with needles?”
“Yeah, no problem.” He accepts it, giving it a careful lookover. “But what is this stuff? It’s so bright I can’t tell what’s inside.”
“That bright stuff is my cleansing light magic! It’ll clean just about anything, I hope! (૭｡^o^)૭ I gotta warn you, though: it might hurt a lot.”
“Uh… How bad are we talking here?”
“Like, dying-in-agony a lot. The last guy I used it on almost died. Good luck, my man.”
For just a moment, he’s a bit shaken to be faced with the possibility, but then regains his resolve and takes a firm grip on the syringe. “Right… Not like I got much left to lose.”
Biggs gives him a worried look of his own. “You sure you’re okay with this? If things get bad…”
He nods back with a more assured smile. “Don’t worry about me. I’ve managed to bounce back from the worst before. Besides, if you guys trust her that much, I don’t think I have to worry either.”
He passes a nervous glance aside toward the device’s screen. “Well, we trust her on some things anyway…”
In response, Ruby displays but a single emoticon: “σ(°ω °;)”
Broden rolls up his left sleeve and uncaps the syringe. He carefully places the needle to a suitable place on his upper arm. With one last deep breath and a moment to steel his resolve, he then presses it in. At first, nothing seems to happen as the mysterious white light disappears into his body. And then…
“…Urgh!”
Broden feels like he was just hit hard in the gut and he nearly loses what little air he had left. There’s sudden loud ringing in his ears and his head starts spinning. He’s so winded that he immediately drops to his knees, wheezing hard and clenching his neck as if he were even being choked. He can’t even utter much of a sound more than some uncomfortable gargles.
“Broden!?” Wedge cries.
“What happened!?” Biggs shouts, just as panicked.
“Ruby! What did you do!?” Jessie shrieks.
However, there isn’t even a single message left on the screen. Now they’re all panicking, and Biggs and Wedge try to help Broden back up.
“Hang in there, man! You’ll make it!” Biggs exclaims, more trying to reassure himself than anything.
“Let’s lay him down! He needs rest!” Wedge suggests, likewise trying to distract himself with something to do.
“Ruby! Come on, don’t leave it at that! What’s going on!?” Jessie pleads, gripping the transmuter tightly in both hands.
After another moment of empty screen, Ruby then returns with a simple piece of advice: “Check his pulse.”
“His pulse?”
Now that the other two have laid him down on the couch, Jessie comes over to take his hand to measure. His pulse is quite rapid at first, as his entire body goes into overdrive in response to the invading substance, but then it settles back down to normal levels. Broden is shivering and twitching from head to toe, but then falls limp as he quickly passes out. However, as she leans in closer to check on him, she can hear his breathing relax and ease back to normal.
“…How is he?” Biggs asks her.
“His pulse is normal again and he seems to be breathing. Looks like he’s asleep,” Jessie reports.
The other two relieve their respective sighs. “Geez… Ruby, you really gotta stop scaring us like this. Even my heart’s gonna give out at some point,” Biggs mutters.
“Yeah. Even I’m starting to feel sick in the gut too…” Wedge whines, but then makes a pause. “Um… Or, maybe I’m just hungry.”
Biggs frowns. “Already?”
“I’m sorry! All this anxiety makes my gut go into overdrive too!”
He nods along in sympathy. “Thinking about it, we’ve all been way too tense these days. Hasn’t been easy asking Broden to take care of us while we’ve been here.”
Wedge makes a sad face, looking back to the guy lying on the couch. “And now he might be out for a while.” He rubs his head. “I guess we still have our disguises. We were about to head out anyway, but not sure if we can still grab a bite to eat before we go.”
“But should we just leave him here? No one else would know and if his condition worsens…”
Jessie checks back to the device in hand, “Ruby, can you read me? What happened just now? Will he be okay?”
“If he’s no longer in pain, then my magic should have taken effect. Unfortunately, I can’t say how long he’ll be out. I’ve never had to counteract a Soldier’s degradation before and the only source I know that can work – short of divine intervention – is a transfer of S-type Jenova cells. In other words, those like Sephiroth’s.”
“S-Sephiroth? Wait, you mean you injected him with that!?”
“Actually, I injected him with traces of Rubia’s cells that were once infected, so it’s similar enough.”
“Ruby!” Jessie gasps, horrified. “Why’d you do that!? Isn’t he gonna be at risk of turning into a zombie!?”
“Nah, not this time. Think of it like a vaccine. Also different is that this treatment comes with my unique signature attached. (╭ರ_•́)”
“Uh… Your ‘signature’?”
“It’s complicated and I can’t really make it make sense. You’ll just have to trust me on this. (╭ರ3•́)த”
“…”
Biggs peers carefully at the screen. “…What is that symbol at the end?”
“Looks like some kinda yo-yo?” Wedge comments.
“Or a computer mouse?” Jessie suggests too.
“I was leaning toward ‘a duck in a pond’,” Biggs admits.
“It’s TEA! I’m drinking tea! (╬╭ರ3•́)த Can’t you see my fancy monocle!?”
Wedge makes a sheepish grin. “Oh. Sorry, it’s kinda tough to see on that little screen…” But now that he’s reminded again, even his stomach growls its complaints. “Um…”
Biggs sighs. “Since all the troops are busy, maybe we can sneak into a shop real quick?”
“Right now?” Jessie eyes her equipped gun. “Well, we do have an easy warp if things go down.”
“That’s the only reason why I’d suggest it.”
Ruby messages them again: “Where ya going, guys? I’m still here. (ﾟ―ﾟ)ノ”
Biggs moves to fetch his rifle to sling onto his back. “Just a quick trip to a deli or so. Shouldn’t take us long at all.”
“But I can do deliveries too! In an instant! ⺀(ﾟ〰ﾟ)ﾉﾂ”
He whips back just to stare. “Uh. You want to deliver food?”
Wedge blinks too. “Really? You’ll even do that for us?”
“I’m a magic genie giving free wishes right now! What do ya think!? Σ\(ÒΔÓ)/ Gimme an order!”
Biggs raises an eyebrow. “…At least she’s enthusiastic.”
Wedge scratches his head and gives it some serious thought. “Ya know, now that I’m put on the spot, I’m not really sure what to order. You can get just about anything, huh…”
Jessie then suggests, “Maybe go for something on-the-go like a sandwich?”
“Oh, good idea!” He also snaps his fingers. “Hey, I could go for a good ol’ cheesesteak! Haven’t had that in a while.”
“Excellent choice! _〆(•◡•｡) Would you like onions, peppers, mushrooms? You may also choose any other toppings.”
“All of the above sounds great! I won’t be picky even if you pick ’em!”
“Got it! _〆(^◡^｡) Would you also like a large cola and fries with that, sir?”
He grins back. “Making it a combo? You sure know how to spoil a guy! At no extra charge?”
“No charge. Otherwise, you all owe me at least 300k for that Warp Materia.”
“Whoa! What’s with that price!?” Biggs gasps in horror. “I thought we were friends!”
“Of course! That’s why I’m giving it away for free, ya silly billy. ヾ(｡･ω <｡)”
Jessie snickers. “Girl, you are seriously cracked! A one-of-a-kind, super convenient materia with a cheap warp spell, given for free? What a steal!”
Biggs mutters just audibly to himself, “Sounds like something got stolen, alright. No wonder the Gods are mad at her…”
With all said and done, Ruby finishes compiling Wedge’s order and gets right to packaging it neatly. The transmuter’s antenna glows bright once again and beams out another item from beyond the ether. This time it’s a 9-inch cheesesteak hoagie with various veggie toppings, a large cola, and ample side of crispy fries, all set on a shiny aluminum tray for convenience. Wedge practically giggles like a little kid as he rushes to snatch it up, and as soon as he takes a seat, he digs in.
“So good~! Thanks, Ruby! You’re the best!”
Biggs watches him gobble down the stuff like he’s been starving and passes an awkward glance aside to the poor fellow who’s still unconscious nearby. All things considered, they’ve been in weirder spots before, but this is definitely one to remember. He then turns back to the screen to ask one more thing.
“By the way, can you neutralize the threat just out of town while you’re at it?”
But Jessie snaps back, “No way! We can leave Shinra to deal with them. I thought we were gonna bail while they were distracted?”
He shrugs. “Well, now that we can just warp any time, it doesn’t really matter, does it?”
“I guess not, but shouldn’t we let someone know how Broden’s doing?”
“Yeah, I was just thinking that. But who could we ask? His neighbors would have too many questions for us.”
“How about Elmyra? She and Marlene aren’t too far from here, are they?”
Biggs folds his arms. “Hmm… I dunno. Broden was out for a while looking for them earlier. It could take us a while too if we had to go find them.”
“…Or,” Jessie suggests, turning back to her device in hand, “we can ask Ruby to relay them a message?”
“Huh?” He looks taken aback. “How? We got her materia from Marlene, remember? It’s not like we have our phones anymore to call them either.”
“But we have something better!” She grins and whips back to the device in hand. “Ruby, could you be a dear and hack into Shinra’s lines? Give them a call without even stepping foot in their house!”
Biggs’ jaw drops. “What!? Oh, come on! There’s no way she can…” But he stops himself before he finishes it, plants a hand over his face, and shakes his head in defeat. “Forget it. Do what you want.”
Ruby’s message promptly updates: “Sure thing! Just point me in the direction of his home phone and I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
“Like this?” Jessie walks over to a nearby desk phone and points the transmuter its way.
“Thanks! (`･∀･´)ゝ”
In an instant, Ruby jumps from the transmuter screen into another beam of light that flies into the phone’s receiver and disappears. It’s but a few short minutes later that the phone also glows again and she’s beamed herself back into the transmuter as if she never left it.
“I left a message and directions to here.”
Jessie returns her a proud thumbs-up. “Good work! Now we can finally get going.”
“Oh, are we leaving now? Where to? ┕(∘o‴∘)┑≡┍(∘‷o∘)┙”
Now that it’s come to this, Jessie then gets serious. She states calmly for the record, “Midgar, Sector 7, topside.”
“Ah… Gotcha. (｡◡‿◡｡) Let’s do it.”
For once, Ruby goes quiet as she can now take a break from performing the warp. Jessie readies her special pistol, and as soon as Wedge finishes up his snack break, he joins her and Biggs in a circle, and she fires up the new materia she just equipped. And just as Ruby had once done many times in the past, a big white magic circle made of light flashes beneath their feet and then they’re gone.
~
They’re back to the residential area of Midgar’s topside again for old times’ sake, specifically to a familiar neighborhood near the 7-6 Annex base that is still undergoing reconstruction. But now that they’ve arrived, something seems a little off about the place. While for most of the residents here – mainly made up of loyal Shinra employees and empathizers – it’s just business as usual, rising tensions correlate aptly with the increased troop presence around this side of town over this past week. Ever since the PR disaster that was the widespread spring of protests around the city, spurred on by Avalanche who helped cover for a certain jailbreak, Shinra has only grown more ruthless about stamping down dissidence. This trio is all too familiar with how many of their fellow rebels were captured or have gone missing since everyone scattered before the overwhelming force that was the ill-rumored class of Soldiers that knew neither pain nor mercy. It just so happened that Cloud’s party managed to evade them before they arrived on scene and they very quickly extinguished any resistance that the Turks didn’t yet cover. For now, it looks like none of those Soldiers are here, but with plenty of troops out on the streets, it won’t be so simple to sneak around.
That is, it wouldn’t have been simple if not for the absolute whimsy of Ruby’s convenient miracles. Though Jessie warped them right to the edge of the suburbs in a space just out of view, it’s clear from the onset that a couple guards are also present at the entrance. How strange, though; why so much security for a place like this? It’s no Avalanche hideout like the Sector 7 slums had been. Nonetheless, the trio have one easy trick they can use to bypass any security detail.
“Ruby, could you get us some cover?” Jessie whispers.
She promptly answers by crafting a new item: “Way ahead of ya, sis. ♪~(¯•¯)〴 Here, have an Invisi-veil. It’ll make you all invisible for some time.”
Jessie snatches up the airy, almost transparent-looking cloth, giving it some curious scrutiny. “How do we use it?”
“Give it a toss in the air over your heads. It’ll activate on its own.”
She obliges and flings it overhead. With immediate effect, the mysterious cloth expands in an explosive burst into a weightless blanket that gently settles over them, with just a few extra glittering bluish-white sparkles circling around each of them as the magic takes effect. The whole thing happens entirely silently, so the guards just around the corner don’t even notice. And with that, Jessie takes a cautious step out into the open and waves a hand their way. When she sees that the guards haven’t moved a muscle, she turns back to her partners.
“Let’s just walk on in!” she whispers with a mischievous grin.
The three of them take their steps quietly and carefully to not make much noise, but it’s otherwise a cakewalk to stroll in like they own the place. Now faced with good ol’ nostalgia to be back in her old home turf, Jessie stretches her arms for the sky with a beaming smile. What amazing power; so this is how it feels to be blessed by divinity. It’s so freeing. Even while they strut deep into enemy territory, there’s not a sign of trouble or hassle in sight. She can even get away with shoving insulting gestures in the faces of nearby troops and slips away while they remain completely oblivious. Biggs rolls his eyes at how childish she appears, but then can’t help but smirk and play along, and the two get into an improv contest to outdo one another’s frivolous mockeries. Though at one point, she gets a little too excited darting about and accidentally bumps into another patrolling officer, the officer mistakes a nearby grunt to be at fault and gives him a scolding while she sneaks back to Biggs’ side with a playful sneer. Not to be missing out on the fun, Biggs also gives a random tap on the upset officer’s shoulder and quickly side-steps away as he ends up spinning around confused and berates the other grunt beside the other. The two partners in crime then slip away totally scot-free amid quiet snickers.
Meanwhile, Wedge is just minding his business down the same street. He passes by where three kids – grade schoolers, looks like – are playing with what looks to be a stray calico kitten. Though, it seems more like a rough encounter for the kitty, who is wary and reserved around these kids offering it some fish-flavored treats. One of the boys, growing impatient, then grabs a handful from the bag and tosses the snacks on the ground, making the kitten jump and flee into the nearby bushes. The girl beside him scolds him, but the boy doesn’t seem particularly bothered. Since they can’t get the kitten back out, the kids finally give up and the girl leaves the bag beside the bush in case the kitten will come out later. When Wedge comes over to clean up the discarded pieces, he notices the kitten peeking out from the bush. For just a moment, it looks right at him as if it somehow could sense his presence. He drops down, reaching a patient and welcoming hand forward, and as if the very curious kitten can tell that he’s a friend, comes up to feel the soft rub of his hand. Wedge smiles back; picks up the still half-filled bag of treats and offers them to the kitten. This time, it happily accepts them and starts chowing down, and he cleans up the rest of the mess. But now that he notices Biggs and Jessie waiting for him, he whispers well wishes to the kitten and slips off quietly, depositing the discards into a public compost bin.
At last they come to Jessie’s house down the street and all is quiet and appears to be in order. Since they’re still technically under cover, it wouldn’t make sense to knock on the front door. They’ll have to sneak in through the back. Fortunately, Jessie knows just the way in through the backyard and leads the other two to follow her. With a handy set of lockpicks, she gets the back door open and they’re inside. And not a moment too soon; the effects of the Invisi-veil wear off as if it were specifically dependent on their current location. However, now that they’re here, they immediately notice that the house is empty. Jessie peeks around from room to room except for the one where her dad is still resting, but her mom is nowhere to be seen. Now they gather in the living room to discuss further.
She puts her hands to her hips, giving a dissatisfied frown. “Where did Mom go? It’s the weekend. She should be at home around this time.”
“Maybe she went out for shopping?” Biggs suggests.
“Maybe? But she doesn’t like leaving Dad alone. Usually when she’s at work, she’d at least call her retired coworker to drop by and check on him from time to time. But it doesn’t seem like that old lady’s here either.”
“Oh, that old lady. I remember we used to see her around the slums from time to time. Think she had relatives living down there too.” He folds his arms, making a pensive look. “Huh. Actually, is it me, or is this part of the neighborhood a little emptier than usual?”
“Aside from all the troops around? Yeah, it does feel like people aren’t really wandering around outside. There are some, but not as many as I figured there’d be.”
His face turns for the concerned again. “You think something happened here between the residents and the troops?”
She makes her own troubled frown. “I hope not. This is smack dab in the middle of Shinra’s employee residence. You’d think a place like this would be one of the last places the company would look for signs of Avalanche.”
Biggs shrugs. “Well, while that’s true, we did just walk in here without detection.”
She rolls her eyes. “That’s ’cause we’re the exception. Besides, it’s been in the news too, how Shinra’s gone extra oppressive lately. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re just checking anywhere to slap cuffs on any ‘terrorist sympathizers’.”
While the two chat away, Wedge has been looking around the living room as well, peering over to the TV remote left idle on the setting table before the TV. Out of curiosity, he goes to pick it up and turn it on. What they’re met with is an ongoing news report from Shinra’s central news network, SNN, and it turns out its contents are a little more than alarming.
“…Though the crowds have since been scattered, public unrest continues to grow around town. This has been the fourth standing protest just this past week despite word from the Head of Public Security attempting to allay concerns that their current policy is only a temporary measure…”
The report seems to be about yet another protest in front of Shinra HQ just earlier this morning, and the footage taken from a news chopper above the scene reveals some of the chaos after the crowd dispersed to the riot squads. There’s limited footage, though, as said riot squads suppressed further investigation as several arrests were made. However, even among the little footage shown, Jessie can’t help but notice a familiar face that appeared among the crowd.
“Mom!?” she gasps. “That was Mom, wasn’t it?”
Biggs’ eyes pop open too. “What, seriously? What was she doing there?”
“Looks like she was part of the protesters this time,” Wedge concludes sadly.
“Oh, Gods…” Jessie bites her lip. “She wasn’t among the people who got arrested, right? Why would she of all people join a protest? She’d always been good about keeping a low profile even after Dad’s whole accident. What changed?” And now that she thinks it over again, she grows anxious. “Wait. No… Did something happen to Dad!?”
“Huh? Hey, Jessie!” Biggs calls to her.
Before the other two can stop her, she zips back out of the room for the last room she has yet to check. They hurry after her, finding her stopped before the door. She has her hand on the door knob, but looks particularly apprehensive about opening it. Holding her breath for a moment, she turns it and pushes the door open.
Fortunately, the man in question is still resting on his bed as he has long been. She lets out a deep sigh and cautiously approaches his bedside just to be sure that his condition hasn’t worsened. From what she can tell, he looks to be the same as he always has – though this still silence from him is as unwelcome as the first day he had become like this. Biggs and Wedge come up to her with worried looks of their own.
“So how is he?” Wedge asks.
She lets off a sigh, informing them in a somber tone, “He’s still alive at least. Doesn’t look like anything happened to him yet, so that’s good, I guess.”
Biggs passes the man a sympathetic look too. “As quiet as ever, huh.”
“Yeah…” As she watches her father’s sleeping face, her voice drifts off into quiet thoughts. But now that they’ve come to the heart of the matter, her face then regains her resolve. She now whips out the transmuter and taps on the screen to wake it up again. “Hey, Ruby? You still there?”
“Present. (ﾟ–ﾟ)ﾉ How are you doing, Jessie? Been a while since you last saw your dad, huh?”
“Yeah. Feels like it’s been forever…” She then makes a small, nervous smile. “So, have you figured out something yet? How can we help him?”
“Hmm… (•᷄﹏•᷅) Not yet. This would be much easier if I could show up in person as a medium.”
Her smile fades, but she reassures her, “Well, I can wait. You’re pretty much our last resort here.”
Ruby’s next message takes a moment to load as if she were taking a moment to process her thoughts. “Hey. If I recall, mako poisoning comes in two distinct categories: the case where a person is irradiated for long periods of time and the case where they’re submerged in mako. How was it for your dad?”
“I think the former. At least, the reports we got didn’t say he ever fell into any mako.” She lowers her head in contemplation. “Though, who knows what really happened? You can never tell when Shinra sweeps these accidents under the rug.”
“Then, it might not be too late. (૭`･o･´)૭ I can’t be there right now, but I can make an alternative… with another new materia!”
“Materia?”
“Gimme a sec. I’ll need to process this one…” Within just another minute, Ruby beams out another orb, this time a purple one with a similar draconic pattern, right into Jessie’s hand. “Oh, that was easy.”
“What’s this one?”
“The Divination Materia. It’ll grant you the power to look into other people’s thoughts.”
Jessie’s mouth drops agape. “What!? That’s incredible! Ruby, how do you keep doing it?”
“Huh? Making materia?”
“No, silly! Being our VIP! You really are some kinda genie, aren’t you?”
“Ah… ヿ(｡^◡^｡) I just aim to please.”
Jessie now clasps the materia in both hands and closes her eyes to focus on reaching her thoughts out to the mystic orb. For just a moment, she feels a sense of weight that makes her feel like she’s been pushed upon by some oppressive force. However, it is not a feeling due to pain or suffering, but more of responsibility, as if the materia itself were suggesting that its user act wisely. This heaviness is then followed by a gradual lightening of that burden until she returns to normal. Now that she opens her eyes again, even they seem to twinkle just a little as if they were blessed with such power. But before she goes ahead and uses it on her father, Jessie decides to test it out first and so happens to make Biggs her guinea pig.
“Hey, Biggs, think of something real quick.”
“Huh? What?”
“You know, just come up with a random comment. I wanna see if I can guess it.”
He raises an eyebrow and rolls his eyes, but obliges and gives himself a moment to come up with one. He then folds his arms, looking smug. “…Alright. Guess.”
Jessie smirks back, looking totally unsurprised. She then repeats his last mental comment: “‘If Ruby’s power is this cracked out, maybe she can actually give Jessie a chance with Cloud for once.’”
Biggs is visibly startled and even recoils a little. “That wasn’t a guess! That was vertabim…”
“Ha! Works like a charm! Though, even without it, I could have guessed you’d come up with some snarky comment about me.” She also shrugs back. “Sorry to break it to ya, though, I’m already over Cloud. The guy’s clearly got issues he needs sorting out and if anyone can do it, it’s gotta be someone among Ruby, Tifa, and Aerith. Maybe even all three.”
He frowns back, disappointed. “Man… He’s not even here and I feel bad for him.”
Wedge chuckles to himself. “Haha! Funny how we’re still talking about that whole love rectangle now. He really can’t escape it, can he?”
Biggs sets a hand by his hip. “That’s his problem for attracting so many pretty girls. Honestly, I was a little jealous at first, but after a while I could see how much trouble it draws. Just dealing with one was tough enough.”
Jessie snickers along. “Maybe that’s your problem for attracting girls that show you up.”
He glares back. “Hey…”
But the three of them resume rather lively spirits as they collect in laughter. Jessie then turns to the transmuter with a relaxed smile and a reassured nod as if to give her thanks once more. Finally, she turns back to her father on bed, scoots up a little, and reaches a hand over his forehead, just to be sure she can meet him up close.
“…Dad? It’s Jessie. Sorry to drop in out of nowhere, but I’ve been worried about you. So here I am…”
The moment her hand makes contact, though, she feels like her own soul is suddenly grabbed and thrown into a dark abyss, but it is anything but quiet. She is immediately swarmed with many different voices all talking loudly – almost as if yelling – at once in a garbled mess. In a panic, she pulls her hand away and the voices stop, but she’s been shocked hard enough that she’s starting to sweat.
“W-what was…?”
“Jessie? What’s wrong?” Biggs asks.
“Did you reach him?” Wedge follows suit.
Jessie takes another moment to settle down with a deep breath and turns to them with a discouraged look. “I tried… but when I touched him, it was like I tapped into something else entirely. Like, there was a whole angry mob of voices. They were all talking at the same time, though, so I couldn’t tell what they were saying.”
The guys both blink at the same time and share perplexed looks between them. Biggs sets a hand to his chin to think it over. “A mob of voices? All in one person’s head?”
Wedge rubs his head. “Huh. Is that what happens to people if they’re exposed to too much mako? They hear the voices coming from the planet?”
Jessie nods. “Yeah, that’s probably what it’s like. We aren’t Cetra, after all, so we wouldn’t be able to parse through all that noise.” She turns back to her dad with an even more worried frown. “No wonder his spirit’s so lost; caught up in all of that. Anyone who isn’t experienced would be swamped.”
Wedge shares her worried face too. “And they were all angry, huh? I guess they would be after what Shinra’s done.”
Biggs winces with his teeth shown. “Ugh. I always thought turning the planet’s energy into mako basically killed the people of the past, but this is even worse. They’re all actually still around, but mashed up into some kind of nightmarish brain fog? Can’t even rest in peace!”
Jessie makes a determined frown. “We have to stop these reactors. The longer they run, the more lives they’ll ruin, even beyond the grave.”
The other two nod along. “Yeah!”
Biggs also adds, shaking his head, as he grows more upset, “This goes beyond just erasing history. This could erase the future if the people who are still alive will eventually return to the planet and end up getting sucked up like everything else.”
Wedge raises his fists up as if ready to fight. “As if we needed any more reasons to hate Shinra, but this definitely takes the cake!”
Jessie then looks to the transmuter again for more advice, “Ruby, is there something else we need to know? How do I reach my dad with all this noise in the way?”
Her reply comes on a grave note, “I’m afraid this is all I can do for now. m(_ _ )m Even if I were there and could parse the noise, I don’t know if he’d recognize my voice. This is something only you can do, Jessie. Keep calling to him. I’m sure he’s searching for you too.”
She at first looks disheartened, but then replaces it with resolve. She nods back. “Yeah. I gotta do this. Gotta keep trying.”
Jessie reaches a hand for her dad’s forehead once more, and this time she shuts her eyes and braces for the mob to come. As with before, she returns to the darkness and is immediately swarmed by the many angry, horrified, panicked voices from beyond this world, but she tries to hold her ground.
“Dad… Dad! Can you hear me? It’s Jessie! I’m here! Where are you?”
However, she’s only met with the same wild rabble as before. She refuses to listen to them and keeps talking.
“Dad! I’m here! Call out if you can hear me!”
As usual, just more noise. By now, she’s starting to feel discouraged, but it’s too early to give up. She tries one more time.
“Dad, please! Say something! I wanna hear your voice again! It’s been too long…”
Amid the torrent of voices, even her own voice begins to drift off to be lost. Too many people trying to voice their concerns and complaints. There’s no order to be found anywhere. From time to time, there are certain voices that she can make out to be screaming over the noise, but those voices are only wailing without a specific purpose to name. And yet, she steels her resolve and stands her ground, refusing to listen to any voices trying to get in her way. But it’s like being a drop in the river fighting up a raging waterfall.
Then, just as she’s about to be swallowed up too, something incredible happens. She hears another more distinct voice, but this time it’s very familiar.
“…Je…ssie…”
“Dad!? Dad, I’m here!”
Though her hand was already reaching out, she now throws herself forward as if she were forcing her way through a crowd. At this moment, as if the right conditions have been met, the Divination Materia in her hand begins to glow. And like to the whipping of a conductor’s baton, the entire cacophonous symphony ceases and returns to silence. Then, there are just two voices left to be joined and their images come into clarity in the otherwise pitch blackness. After some indeterminate length of time, Rowan Raspberry can finally hear his own voice again.
“…Jessie?”
“Dad!”
Upon seeing her dear father awake and standing before her, Jessie rushes ahead and throws herself into his arms. Her eyes begin to water as she digs her face into his chest in a tight embrace.
“Dad… Thank goodness. I finally found you.”
Rowan promptly returns the hug. “Jessie… Thank you. I’ve been looking for you all this time too.”
She smiles and pulls back up, wiping away a loose tear. “Don’t thank me. I couldn’t have done this without help. But deep down, I always knew this day would come...”
Rowan looks down at his own hands in disbelief. “It feels like it's been forever since I could even see myself. Everything was just chaos and I didn't know what to think, or if I was even alive anymore...” He then looks back to her with a tired but relieved smile. “But I'm glad. Glad that even someone like me still has a chance to be back.”
Jessie's smile widens and she returns to her usual cheeky self. “Oh, Dad! Of course you would! You think Mom and I would ever leave you alone? You had us worried sick too!”
He chuckles. “That's true. Hope you'll forgive me for being absent so long.”
“Oh, you're already forgiven!” She goes in for another snuggle. “Just don't ever scare us like that again, got it?”
“Got it.” She lets him go again, and with a somewhat lighter tone, he asks, “So how have you been? What brings you back home?”
Once reminded, she lets off a tired sigh. “I’ve been so busy, to say the least… but I just had to come see you again. And this time, I brought my friends with me.” She pauses as she hesitates over how to describe them. “Um, just a couple friends from the slums and another from out of town. I’ve been traveling around the world too.”
“Oh, wow. Still chasing your dream job at the Gold Saucer?”
She makes a sheepish grin. “Yeah… sort of. I got in with a different group, though; a humanitarian one. Been going around to different towns and meeting new people, helping around, and all that jazz.”
“I see. Well, whatever you’re doing, I’m glad things have been alright with you.” He pauses and rubs his head awkwardly, with a looming question in mind. “But I have to wonder, how did you do that just now?”
“Huh? Do what?”
He waves a hand in the air. “Get rid of all those voices. I didn’t think I would ever be free from them.”
“Oh.” She rubs her head awkwardly and then decides to address it from a different angle. “Actually, it wasn’t all on me. I had help from a friend, the one who was from out of town. She has a way to talk with the planet.”
His eyes open wide. “She talks with the planet? Those people still exist?”
“Yeah! Not many of them left, but they are around.” Now that she gets the chance, she brings up the name, “Have you heard of someone named Ruby? She’s the one who helped me get here.”
“Ruby…?” Now that he hears it again, he grows serious as if reminded of something urgent. “You mean, the same Ruby that everyone has been talking about?”
Jessie’s smile falters. “Huh? Everyone?”
“Everyone here. All the voices that I had to listen to over the years…” His mouth then purses into a frown. “Jessie, I’m not sure how to say this, but I don’t think you should be with someone like that.”
“…” She stares back in disbelief. “Dad, what are you talking about? What’s wrong with her?”
He simply shakes his head. “I don’t know much. But even when they’re not really clear, I can tell that everyone is afraid of her. Afraid of what she might bring. For your safety, please, stay far away from her.”
“What? Why? She hasn’t done anything bad to us.” She would have added “not intentionally, anyway”, but that would have weakened her argument.
“Jessie, please listen. They’re going to get her. I don’t want you to be wrapped up in it too.”
“They? Who’s they?”
He makes a solemn face as he answers, “I’m not sure, but… I think ‘they’ are the original voices of the planet.”
~
Since Jessie has started to converse with her dad, she’s grown quiet to her surroundings, looking like she’s fallen into a sort of trance herself. As they can’t hear a thing going on between them, Biggs and Wedge have decided to leave to let her have her space. They return to the living room, where they happened to leave the TV running. Since the previous report about the protests, the news anchors have started a discussion with a supposed expert about the infamous “Wutai allegations”.
“There have been rumors that have been circulating the Shinranet lately about these strange monster attacks. Every time they appear, they seem to have attacked towns that host mako reactors nearby. It almost seems like this could be a targeted attack on Shinra and Shinra-related properties. Many have suggested that this could even be a politically motivated move from Wutai. What do you think about these rumors?”
“It certainly creates a convenient narrative, that’s for sure. Unfortunately, with the ongoing tensions between Midgar and Wutai, it’s hard to say where such speculation will lead. There hasn’t yet been any concrete proof linking these monster attacks with Wutai, but it is noteworthy that the country has remained relatively safe in regards to these attacks.”
“The Head of Public Safety has already issued calls to action for a ‘citizen’s watch’ to help keep an eye out for alleged ‘suspicious’ activity on the home front. As a result, a number of Wutaian establishments in the city have been forced to shut down following a number of accusations, though it’s debated whether or not they have much evidence as backing.”
“It is most unfortunate, especially that there may be Wutaians who have always lived in Midgar to be swept up in the controversy simply be association. However, as Midgar’s justice department is currently inundated with reports and requests, there’s quite a bit of backlog waiting to be addressed. It comes to little surprise that some citizens may have become too impatient and taken matters into their own hands. However, it remains to be seen if these people will see much consequence for their rash behavior.”
While the conversation keeps going, Biggs and Wedge grow a little less than patient to be hearing about this tired discourse. The war with Wutai has been over for seven whole years and yet it’s like a ghost from the past that keeps coming back to haunt them again.
“Speaking of Wutai,” Biggs then comments, “I think HQ – at least from what I heard about Nayo and them – has moved and been hiding out there. Who knows when all the chaos here will blow over, though.”
“Yeah. Good thing we have that Warp Materia now, so it should be a cinch to head over there. As soon as Jessie’s done talking with her dad, we should get going.”
“Just what I was thinking.” He then waves a hand toward the TV. “Enough of all this trash. If there’s anyone who could tell us more about these monsters, it’d be Ruby.”
“Oh, yeah. While Jessie’s busy, we can ask her. I think she left the transmuter beside her in the room.”
“Yeah. Let’s go.”
But just as Wedge grabs the remote to turn it off, they notice a sudden flash of “BREAKING NEWS” comes in.
“This just in! We have an urgent report from journalists on the ground in Sector 5. There appears to be a massive unidentified flying object approaching the city from the south and it’s approaching fast! Fortunately, the president has been made aware prior and Soldiers on standby have rushed to the gates to defend. That being said, if you are in either Sector 5 or 7, this is a warning and call to evacuation! I repeat, immediate evacuation! And if available, please head to your nearest safehouse or bunker in Sector 0 and wait for further instruction!”
“What?” Biggs simply remarks in utter confusion.
“From the south?” Wedge gasps. “Wait, but we’re in Sector 7! It’s coming here!?”
“Even worse; Sector 5 might be at risk too.” Biggs’ eyes snap wide open when he remembers. “Oh, crap! The kids! And the people in the slums! They might not be able to get out in time!”
“Oh, no…”
He rubs his head in frustration. “Dammit! Why at a time like this? Jessie was finally getting to talk with her dad for once.”
“Should we tell her?”
He makes a hesitant frown. “Uh… My brain is telling me we should so we can all get going, but my instincts are telling me to leave them be while they’re still busy.”
Wedge makes a worried frown. “So, what do we do? We do have the Warp Materia, but that’s really only for us.”
“Yeah, I don’t think we’ll be evacuating the slums ourselves. Oh, wait a minute. Could we actually use it against the monster? Would that work…?” But Biggs cuts himself off and shakes his head. “No, we shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Let’s ask Ruby. She might have an idea.”
“Yeah. I think Jessie left the transmuter by the bed.”
Wedge hurries to turn off the TV even as the news is being broken, and they hurry back inside to find Jessie. As they had left her, she’s still sitting by the bed, looking like she’s nodded off herself. Seems like she’s still busy talking with her dad, and seeing her like this, neither guy really wants to interrupt them. Biggs quietly slips beside her and snatches up the transmuter left on the nightstand. However, now that he notices it, Ruby has left a different message for them and unlike before, there’s no silly emoticon to accompany it.
“Get out of Midgar and ditch this thing ASAP. They’re coming for me.”
He stares at the screen for a moment longer and simply says, “…Huh?”
Now that Wedge peers over to look, he has a similar expression. “…Huh??”
But by now, Ruby seems to have disappeared again as her message doesn’t change or respond to their visible confusion. Yet, just as they’re at a loss for what to do, they then hear some commotion coming from outside. As Jessie is still locked in her mental space, she doesn’t react. The two of them head out through the back door to peek out from behind the yard’s fence.
What was once an orderly albeit rigid scene where Shinra troops patrolled the streets amid the residents, now all the people who had been outside are in a frenzy to rush off to safety. Those closer to the inner town have evacuation bunkers, but many others who live further out have little choice but to huddle inside their homes and hope for the best. Even others seem unwilling to leave their homes and blindly believe that Shinra's forces will be enough to repel the threat. Yet, the troops that were stationed here are likewise stirred up in panic. Though they try to hold the lines as per their commanders’ orders, many of the troopers are actually shaking in their boots. Everyone is hoping that Soldier will arrive soon.
The frighteningly fast monster in the news has already arrived and flown right past the gates even despite Soldiers in hot pursuit. It’s now circling over the southern half of Midgar looking around as if it is searching for something. This massive black four-legged dragon mecha, with glowing red eyes and sleek, thick-plated armor that surrounds a large red power core in its chest, is a legend in its own right that has lasted across the ages, though its very existence was thought to be at most myth. It slows to a stop just over Sector 7 where their neighborhood is and the troops on the ground freak out. Even despite their commanders’ orders, they ditch their posts and scatter in all directions. And high in the sky, the monster looms menacing. It turns its head up to the heavens above and lets out a horrible screeching roar that could itself split the skies.
Ultima Weapon.
Notes:
I gotta be careful with what I reveal at this time
- Ever since I first started watching Rebirth, I just knew I had to include MAI at some point in the story, but just didn't get the chance to introduce her until now. And hey, why not give her something new to do? Now she can help Chadley assess all the new materia I'm gonna be coming up with on the spot!
- On that note, yes, Bahamut Prime is not canon to FF7 or any other FF that I can recall, but gosh dang it, I want him to be a thing! Why is it that we had to go 16 mainline FF games to finally give us a planet-busting form of Bahamut!? (Dion is indeed my favorite Bahamut to date and not just because he's strong.) Well, to be honest, the way MAI described Prime here he's probably a little more powerful than just "planet-buster", but that's a story for another time.
- I spent way too long getting all those emoticons looking just right. Did I have to? I tell myself yes, but another side of me is pressing X to doubt. I didn't even realize I had buttons in my brain.
- And yes, one of those emoticons I decided to make look like a Cactuar because why not?
- This is just purely a coincidence, but while I was looking up where the word "hoagie" came from, I found out that there are quite a few names that us 'Muricans have for our sub sandwiches. Apparently in Westchester, NY, they also call their sandwiches "wedges". It's too perfect. I had to write a scene where Wedge was eating good.
- The Invisi-veil item is also a random thing I improvised. Hey, if FF7 had the invisibility status from FF6 I think it makes sense they'd have an item that does the same effect too! Though, the "veil" part was almost a curtain, but I remembered there were two Curtain items in the game that cast Barrier and MBarrier. Pun name, it is.
- I'm sorry, but I still can't get over how Jessie's last name is Raspberry. I'm pretty sure the writers for Remake and Rebirth were probably thinking of flowers, but it just reminds me of the Strawberry Shortcake gals from that one cartoon back in the day. I tried to write the scene to be a little more serious than what I was thinking, though.
- Hey, look, it's the big dumb black dragon weapon that you can bully for multiple Reflect Rings and Circlets. I wonder what he's doing here in Midgar? (Yes, I am implying that the Weapons are going to show up a little differently this time. They're actually going to be terrifying, I hope.)
Chapter 80: Heart of the Land
Notes:
Here we are, finally at the episode of Nanaki. Boy, was this one a long time coming ever since I learned all that new juicy lore about the Gi Tribe from Rebirth. I just knew I had to work it in somehow, but was never given the opportunity until now. Let's expand on it from here, shall we?
Imma be honest, this chapter went on way longer than I expected it to go and it is now the 2nd longest chapter to date. (#69 still no. 1!) I legit thought I would be able to keep things short and sweet and even have room to slip in the first part of Episode of Cid (I'll explain the order when I get there), but I realized I expanded way too much on Cosmo Canyon previously to let this one fall to the wayside.
Outdated A/N
edit: Okay, how the hell did I manage to go 80 chapters, over a MILLION words, and not realize I misspelled "deity" every single time!? Dammit! I went back and fixed every instance...
4/20/25 edit: I went back to rewrite a few scenes in chapters 11 and 21 to account for and add a bit of context to Nanaki's voice change that I suddenly dropped in chapter 64. Also revised that chapter too for continuity's sake. I wrote the entire Act 1 and first half of Act 2 before I went through Rebirth so had no idea they would go for it. But now I can't unhear Nanaki's younger voice and I love him.
Also, next chapter will be delayed to next Friday. I caught a cold and I am suffering.
5/2/25 edit: I have recovered from my cold and returned to writing. I've also spent the entirety of last week rereading this fic from the very beginning to review for errors and inconsistencies and have been slowly adding bits and pieces to previous chapters.
5/7/25 edit: I'm almost done with next chapter. Decided to extend it because I was not satisfied with where I left off. I'll see if I can make it by this Friday or Saturday, but as always, make sure you're subscribed.
The list of revised chapters will be ported to the newest chapter's notes when I get it posted.
5/13/25 edit: How did I miss this? Corrected the details around Barret's and Nanaki's reactions when Aerith mentions Zack. Also added more trivia to the names section in the end notes.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
There’s a faint but warm glow from above. His head is swirling dizzy from the chaos that he had just gone through, and yet everything comes as a fuzzy picture that he can’t quite bring into focus. His mind is blank and his head is a little numb after all the intense flares of uncontrollable rage were eventually snuffed out. Then, there was silence… complete, barren, deafening silence. But as this warm glow appears overhead, the darkness he once fell into gradually shrinks back. As he reaches out for the light, he hears some soft murmurs around him.
Barret stirs awake to find himself in an unexpected place. It looks like someone’s house… a small, cozy little shack probably enough for two or three people to share. He’s lying on the couch before the TV, and the light above his head is a little dim, giving the entire place a sort of amber shade. He honestly has no idea what to make of it or how he got here, but at least the couch is comfortable enough. Fortunately, it isn’t just him who’s here.
“Barret!” Tifa cries, relieved. “You’re awake!”
“Thank goodness. Looks like I didn’t have to intervene,” Aerith says with a calm smile as she dismisses her holographic screen.
“…Where am I?” Barret mutters, rubbing his head. Though he doesn’t feel sore, he still feels like he should have been, but somehow the feeling didn’t carry through. “Tifa? Aerith? What’s going on?”
“It’s okay. We’re in a safe place now,” Tifa reassures him.
“This is Ruby’s apartment,” Aerith introduces it to him. “Or at least a reproduction of it.”
“Ruby?” Now he snaps awake and pulls up to sit. “Wait. Ruby’s back!? She here?”
But now the ladies’ smiles fade and they look quite sad. Aerith shakes her head. “We haven’t seen her yet. Don’t know where she is or when she will be back.”
“Oh…” He sinks a little in disappointment. “So how’d we get here?”
Tifa replies, “Aerith met Rubia who brought her here. Apparently Rubia was living here for a long time.”
Aerith nods along. “For the record, we’re still somewhere in the Lifestream, I think. But this is a special place that seems to be connected to many other places, specifically through people’s memories.”
“Memories…?” Barret blinks for a moment and then catches on when he’s reminded. “Oh, yeah! I was stuck in some old memories of mine from Corel. Though, things got hella weird by the end…” Being reminded, he sinks back into shame. “Didn’t think I’d ever get outta that hell. Thought I was just having a nightmare, but just couldn’t wake up.” Then, as he recalls a little more of it, he snaps to attention again. “Wait. You guys were in it too, right?” He also looks around the room. “Where’s Cloud? How is he?”
Tifa answers, “He’s okay, but he passed out too. He’s resting in the guest bedroom upstairs. Zack is watching him.”
“Huh?” Barret takes a moment to recall, but when he does, he blinks in surprise. “Oh. Wait, you mean Cloud’s pal from Soldier?”
Aerith smiles back, a little relieved. “Hey, you remembered! Yep, that guy.”
“What are the odds…” He scratches his head. “No, really. What’s he doing here? And where’s he been all this time?”
To that, the ladies look a little more unsure. “I… don’t know, actually,” Aerith admits. “He kinda showed up out of nowhere.”
“Uh…” He raises an eyebrow. “So, what, he’s just been living here instead of Ruby?”
“Maybe.” Aerith shakes her head. “Even he doesn’t get it. I can only guess Rubia had something to do with it.”
“Rubia?” He didn't expect that name drop and makes a concerned frown. “What’s she gotta do with him? She know him from somewhere?”
“Not that he knows. We wouldn’t know unless we ask her, but...” Aerith lowers her head sadly. “She’s not ready right now.”
“Hmm…” Barret looks a bit suspicious over the questions, but decides to let it be. “Well, whatever. So what happened back at Corel anyway? My head’s still fuzzy, but I swear I saw some kinda monster…”
Now that she’s reminded, Tifa grows concerned again. “By the way, Aerith, how did we manage to escape? You had some way to end the session, right?”
Aerith nods slowly as she tries to remember everything earlier. “Yeah. But only because it ran into an error. It must have happened when Cloud turned into that form of Fenrir and attacked Ifrit.”
Tifa gives a sigh. “Well, I’m glad it wasn’t for nothing at least. But where does that leave us? Wasn’t Barret undergoing Ifrit’s trial? If we aborted, does that mean he didn’t pass?”
Barret blinks in surprise. “Trial? What trial?”
Aerith explains, “You remember that voice you heard at the beginning? I think that was Ifrit calling to you. He must have given you a test so you two could make a contract together.”
“Contract? With Ifrit…?” He rubs his head. “Oh. Ya mean, like how Cloud got one with Fenrir?”
“Yeah, exactly. Tifa also went through her own trial with Shiva and passed it, so now they’ve merged too.”
Barret shakes his head with a begrudging frown. “Man… So you’re tellin’ me I had to go through all that trauma and torture as a ‘test’ just so some fire demon asshole could possess me?” He shakes an angry fist, mad enough to grind his teeth. “The hell is that!? He didn’t tell me shit and forced me to relive the worst moments of my life over and over! And even my worst nightmares! If I knew what I was gonna be a part of, no way I’d accept!”
But now that he brings his fist in his face, he notices that there seems to be something different. It’s faint, but there’s some sort of wisp of fiery aura that seems to be coming off of his hand. Actually, it’s not just his hand; it seems to be coming from the rest of his body too. He sure feels warm, but it’s not burning him. If anything, it feels like he’s glowing with some kind of power.
“…Hey.”
“What’s up?” Tifa asks.
He opens his hand again and shows it to them. “You guys seeing this?”
The ladies blink back and shared confused looks. “Sorry, seeing what?” Tifa asks again.
He raises an eyebrow. “What, it’s just me?” He looks back at his hand and it’s still there right in front of him. “Looks like there’s something coming off of me, like some kinda aura. Doesn’t hurt or anything. Didn’t even feel it until I looked.”
The ladies blink again in surprise and now break out their relieved smiles. Aerith remarks, “I think he passed it after all.”
He blinks blankly. “Passed?”
Aerith claps her hands together with a proud smile. “The trial, of course! You’ve been blessed by Ifrit!”
He recoils a little in shock. “What? Seriously!?”
Tifa briefly checks her hand too and turns back to him. “I have something like that too, after I passed mine. Seems like only the one blessed with the power can see it, though.”
“Huh…” Barret stares a little while longer at his hand, still a little stunned, but then his face quickly turns back to a scowl and drops his hand. “Hmph. So NOW he decides I’m worthy? That bastard.”
Aerith giggles. “Well, a delayed answer is still better than none!”
“Not a moment sooner. I bet he knew when I woke up again, I’d kick his ass for putting me through alla that!” He throws out a defiant punch in the air. “Ya hear me, Ifrit!? When I get back up there, I’d better seeing my baby girl safe and smiling, or it won’t just be Shinra that’s gonna get wrecked! You messed with the wrong man!”
Tifa is still a little confused and turns back to Aerith. “But how does that work? Didn’t we interrupt the trial? I was worried he would have to go through it again.”
She tilts her head aside. “I guess it didn’t matter as long as you guys got the point.”
“The point?”
“You know, why you had to relive the past. I think they were trying to teach you something.”
“Teach something?” Tifa looks off as she recalls her own. “Hmm… Well, after I got over my freak out, Shiva showed me some visions.”
“Visions?” Barret asks.
“Yeah, of Cloud. He was fighting Sephiroth at the crater, but in the end, he was defeated too. It must have happened after we were all taken out.”
His lips curl up in a concerned frown. “She showed that to you? Why?”
“I think, it was to remind me of what I was fighting for: to protect those I care about.” She clasps her hand into a resolved fist. “The moment I broke out of my slump, I felt so powerful; that I could even destroy Sephiroth with my own hands.”
“Huh…” Now that he thinks back to his trial, he takes a moment to reconsider things from a different perspective. “…Maybe that was it.”
“What was?”
He sets a hand atop his gun with a more contemplative face. “I think I get it now. The reason why I had to cycle through all those changes to my memories; it wasn’t just for the hell of it. They made me realize what I could or couldn’t do and what mattered the most. It wasn’t about saving our home or the people we lost; but the friends and family we still had. Dyne and Marlene, and the rest of the folks that are still up there, trying their best to stay alive.” He takes a meaningful pause to let the revelation sink in. “We gotta go and check on ’em after this. They must be wondering what happened to us.”
Tifa nods back. “Right. For now, we’re trying to gather everyone up so we can leave this place together. I’m sure after all these trials are done, we’ll be prepared to face Sephiroth again. He can’t keep this planet to himself. It’s where we all live.”
“Couldn’t have said it better myself.”
While amid their conversation, they shortly hear the noise of some footsteps hurrying down the stairs. Zack pops out first, with Cloud following close behind, and they come up to join them. While the former is all smiles as usual, the latter looks exhausted like he didn’t have that good a rest.
“Hey!” Zack greets them with a wave of his hand. He also calls to Barret, “You’re up? How are you feeling, man?”
Barret gives him a slight nod in acknowledgement. “Doing fine now. Passed the trial too.”
“Nice. Glad to hear it!” He passes Cloud a cheeky grin. “See? It all worked out. You did good, buddy.”
Cloud gives a sigh, but looks a little relieved too. Still, he has to complain, “…Why did I get stuck with this wolf? He just finds new ways to mess with me in ways I didn’t think was possible.”
“Aw, it wasn’t that bad, was it? Sounds like you two had an epic fight!”
He returns an annoyed glare. “It wasn’t fun at all. I swear I was gonna kill him if we didn’t snap out of it.”
Zack’s smile falters. “Oh, that bad? …Sorry. At least you guys made it out.”
“Yeah. Close call.”
Tifa waves back. “Glad to see you’re doing okay, Cloud! Hope Fenrir is also okay?”
He shrugs. “He’s fine. Just does whatever he wants at this point. I can’t stop him.” Though, now that he thinks back, he also recalls, “Though, for a while there, it really did feel like he was going all out. Like his anger toward Ifrit was serious. Probably some old grudge that he’d been meaning to let loose.”
“Grudge? Do Fenrir and Ifrit have history with each other?”
“Yeah, seems like it…” He pauses to consider how to explain it. “I think it actually has something to do with Shiva.”
“With Shiva?”
Now that he brings it up, Aerith also points out, “Oh, yeah. Didn’t Fenrir only show up after Ifrit attacked you? You were in your Shiva form too.”
Tifa blinks blankly and nods back. “Yeah, he did, didn’t he? At first I thought it was Cloud who called on his help.”
Cloud lets off a scoff. “Yeah, I did, but I didn’t expect him to turn into THAT. Didn’t even know he had a Fire element.”
“Fire?” Zack asks.
“Yeah. Fenrir’s a wolf from the Far North, so I figured he’d only have Ice. But I also never asked him what else he could do.”
“From the Far North…” Now that Tifa is reminded, she also asks, “Hey, do Fenrir and Shiva know each other too?”
Cloud nods back. “Definitely. After the murder of a certain oracle, he was banished up there where it was under her jurisdiction. Seems like Shiva had a suspicion about him, though, so confronted him to get the truth. Learned all about Rubia’s situation and became sympathetic. Even earned her trust as a friend even though she didn’t see him that much.”
“Ah…” Now that she thinks about it, she feels a kindred vibe from the way he described it like it feels familiar. “I wasn’t sure before, but since I was blessed by Shiva, I felt like I got closer with Fenrir too. Maybe that’s why.”
He then makes a pensive frown as he recalls further, “Too bad Ifrit didn’t agree. Since he heard about Shiva’s meeting with Fenrir, he was furious. Told her they couldn’t trust that ‘fiend’. Fenrir was once a leading general in Tiamat’s army and even left a bad scar on Ifrit when they fought in the war. They’ve been enemies ever since, even after Fenrir switched sides.”
“What?” Tifa’s eyes snap wide open. “Fenrir was in Tiamat’s army!?”
He nods. “Way back during the first Cetran Civil War. At the time, Fenrir wasn’t the same as the reincarnation we see now. He was way bigger and fueled purely by hatred. Didn’t care for life and was out for blood. In the end, it took Bahamut to silence him for good, though he would return to the planet and eventually be reborn.”
Now that he mentions it, Barret also feels some sort of deep-seated embers of grudge alight within that he doesn’t quite understand at first, but it somehow still feels familiar. “So even Fenrir reincarnated like Rubia did? But if he was that bad, how’d he turn?”
“He still had a chance at redemption since he wasn’t bound to Tiamat like Rubia is. I think it was this second coming of him who found a real friend.”
“Ya mean Rubia?”
“No, way before her. There was a Cetran man named Tyr, who was renowned as a ‘God of Victory’ despite being mortal. He rescued Fenrir when he was close to death and took him in his care. For a while there, he even came to befriend the Cetra until he was banished and the two were forced to part ways.”
“Huh.”
“But since Shiva came to befriend him, that put her at odds with Ifrit. Though, whenever they fought, they usually broke it off before things got too serious.”
Tifa blinks in surprise. “Really? Even though they’re direct opposites?”
“Yeah, well…” He pauses and rubs his head awkwardly as he admits, “They were siblings. Stopped talking to each other for a long time and mostly kept out of each other’s way.”
“Oh.” She holds it in, but almost lets out an amused chuckle. So even the deities have those kinds of relationships too.
“…” Likewise upon being reminded of it, Barret feels his heart settle down again as Ifrit’s spirit within him does too. In the end, even a raging fire demon like Ifrit recognizes kin as greater than even his deepest grudges. “Well, hope they work it out sometime. If ya ask me, holding grudges that long just ain’t healthy.”
Cloud gives him a look like he senses just a bit of irony behind that statement, but decides not to argue over it.
Aerith has been looking around at their faces as each person spoke, but now that Cloud has brought up the past with Fenrir, Shiva, and Ifrit, she can’t help but notice certain parallels of note. With a cute innocent smile, she now mentions it: “You know… I think I see now why these Summons chose you three specifically.”
They all blink in surprise and turn back to her. “What do you mean, Aerith?” Tifa asks.
She snickers to herself and comes right out with it, “It’s kinda like your whole dynamic, isn’t it? Back when I first met you guys, Cloud and Barret were always fighting and Tifa usually was the one to break it up. And even though Barret and Tifa don’t really fight, when they do argue it usually is about Cloud.”
And just like that, the atmosphere in the room sinks from mystery and suspense into awkward disappointment. Cloud then recalls, “…I was also fighting a lot with Ruby, though.”
Barret snorts. “More like with everyone. You were a real pain in the ass back then, remember?”
“Gimme a break! I at least tried to keep to myself, but Ruby always made me her business! She was always getting herself into trouble and I’d have to clean up after her too. She just knew how to get on my nerves. Of course I’d be a little mean sometimes.”
“Sometimes? You were like that all the time! She just liked to tease ya and you couldn’t even take a joke!”
“Yeah, what a jokester. When in doubt, she’d single me out to be the butt of her dumb jokes. It’d be ‘bullying’ if it happened to anyone else, but apparently I’m different.”
“You made yourself an easy target, man.”
“What are you talking about? Why are you justifying her brat behavior!?”
Barret folds his arms with a smug frown. “What I’m talkin’ about is, you were always stuck in your own little head and could never read the room. Made you prime comedy material with her funny act. Well deserved, if ya ask me. Least she loosened you up after a while.”
Cloud growls, baring his teeth. “Glad to be such a barrel of laughs, then…”
While they argued themselves into a glaring contest, Tifa, Aerith, and Zack were following them in the back-n-forth. While Tifa feels a touch exhausted to be reminded of this feeling since old times, Aerith and Zack exchange amused grins.
Tifa then speaks up, “Do we have to do this again, guys? I thought we established that we’re friends? Let’s play nice now.”
Cloud and Barret go quiet, share their own looks and both look away to their own sides. Now that he thinks back, Cloud feels just a bit of longing nostalgia for those days – not that he misses Ruby’s mischief and sense of humor all that much, but rather, the feeling of those simpler days when she was still around. With all the answers they’ve found up to now, though, there is still the lingering question that hangs over everything which has yet to have an answer, but they’re no less determined to solve.
“…We need to bring her back,” he declares all of a sudden.
Even without explaining what he means, the rest of them – even Zack, apparently – understands what he means. They all share in the sympathies and nod in agreement.
“And we’ll do that by saving Rubia,” Aerith asserts for the record.
“Yeah… somehow.”
She turns back to Zack, who gives her a curious look. “Zack, you still have the Black Materia, right?”
He promptly whips it out. “Right here.”
She watches the materia for a moment, as if getting lost in its mysterious swirling pattern. But now that she looks up close, there seems to be just the faintest sign that it takes on a slender dragon-like pattern almost akin to Ruby’s own materia.
“You, uh, want it now? Or should I keep holding onto it?”
She blinks and comes back out of it. “It’s fine, you keep it. I just wanted to check on her, but she’s still quiet as ever.”
He gives a reassuring smile and a casual salute. “Gotcha. Don’t worry, I won’t be going anywhere any time soon. And if Rubia ever wakes up, you’ll be the first to know.”
“Thanks, Zack.” She turns back to the others with a confident smile and raises her fists up to match that energy. “We’ll be able to save Rubia when we’re all back together again. I’m sure of it!” She now gets back up to her feet and starts counting with her fingers. “Alright. We got Cloud, Tifa, and Barret back from the brink. We still have Nanaki, Yuffie, Sonon, Cait Sith, Cid, and Vincent to go.”
Tifa follows suit and takes a stand. “That’s still more than half of us. We should get going.”
Barret gets up too with a firm nod. “Shouldn’t take us too long. I’m starting to get the hang of this feeling…” He sets his hand atop his gun-arm with a smirk of his own. “This feeling like I can really kick ass and take names now! Whatever shit we run into, if I can shoot, I will!”
“I’m pretty sure these trials are for them to overcome…” Cloud then follows up by grabbing at his sword’s hilt. “But if there’s something we can do to help, we won’t just stand back.”
Aerith looks around proudly at her companions. “Alright! Let’s go, team! Back to the nexus!”
The party, sans Zack who waves goodbye for now, at last takes their leave to the black room once more. Aerith leads them across the front row of character models, moving past her own model to stop at the next one, who happens to be Nanaki. Now that she taps the model, it displays a message announcing what’s to come:
“Cosmo Canyon, present day. Jump to this location?”
She blinks in surprise. “Present day? Not a memory from the past?”
Tifa curiously peers over her shoulder. “Well, Nanaki is still young.”
“Isn’t he 48?” Cloud points out, “That’s plenty older than any of us.”
“Like Bugenhagen said, in his species’ years, he’s still 15 or 16,” Barret reminds him. “Kid’s still got lots of time to grow.”
Cloud sets a hand on his hip. “Hmm… But last time we visited Cosmo Canyon, he already went through his own trial in the caves and learned the truth about his father.”
Aerith turns back to him. “Oh? So that was who you guys went to see?”
“Yeah. He’s proud of his heritage and isn’t held back like he used to be. Whatever other trial he has to deal with should be a cinch.”
“Oh.” Tifa blinks. “Then, do we all have to go this time? Or should we check on the others first?”
Cloud nods. “I think we all should go. He’d be glad to see us.”
She smiles back. “Yeah. I’d like to see that silly smile of his again too.”
Aerith nods too. “I was thinking the same! Let’s go!” She turns back and taps the “Yes” option, and once more they are all whisked away into another strange twist of a memory.
~
Cosmo Canyon is as strikingly red and vibrant as they remember, albeit with much fewer tourists around, and the local community remains devoted to pursuing the truth of planetology and all its ancient teachings. Adults and kids of all ages are out and about at play, attending regular reading sessions, or observing readings on their geological instruments. The Cosmo Candle burns as bright as it always has, though aside from the usual attendants who stand watch, there isn’t anyone visiting it at this time.
However, not all is at peace. Denizens of the canyon, both living and past, gather here within the safety of the planet’s bosom to exchange stories and everyone has come to agree that the current trajectory of the planet’s fate does not bode well. Elders who once lived in a different time warn the younger generations of the impending crisis where voices that once were among them have been mysteriously snuffed out. Though no one dares to utter the specific name, everyone more or less understands the signs and they all seem to say, “Do not speak of She-Who-Was-Erased.”
Cloud takes a cursory look around, but senses something seems off. Last time they were here, the townsfolk were delighted to see them. Ruby was the talk of the town and often hounded by the kids. Yet, this time everyone is gathered in their own little circles and seems to be avoiding eye contact with them. Maybe he’s being overly cautious, but one would think the flash of light that surrounded their arrival would turn a few heads at least.
“Looks like people are as busy as ever,” Aerith remarks, likewise taking a look around. She turns back to the crew with an eager smile. “So, guys, where should we start looking?”
“Where else but the observatory?” Barret suggests. “If there’s anyone who’d know what Nanaki’s been up to, it would be Elder Bugenhagen!”
She nods. “Good idea. I want to ask him what’s been happening here too.”
As the team begins to head up for the stairs, though, Cloud lags a bit behind. He happens to overhear one of these reading sessions, where an elder woman is narrating from an old tome to a small group of children.
“…And so it would be that the golden age of the Cetra would come to a close. In a world torn by war and the disappearance of its former Planet Guardians, there would be no stopping the eventual overtaking of humanity over former Cetran lands.”
One of the kids, an attentive little girl, then raises a hand to ask, “Elder Wabi! Why did the Guardians leave the planet? Where did they go?”
“That is a good question, Anasa.” The elder then shakes her head with a solemn frown. “Unfortunately, we don’t have an answer. It is a well-kept secret among the Guardians themselves that they have taken with them. Even here where we are closest to the planet, there is only so far that we of non-Cetran blood are granted passage.”
Another of the kids also raises his hand. “But, Elder Wabi, I remember we were told that everyone, no matter if they were Cetra or not, would be able to speak with the planet with enough training.”
The elder nods back. “Yes, Pauk, that is indeed true to a certain extent. But over time the further humanity strayed away from their ancestral roots and split into communes of differing cultures that took the planet’s harmony for granted, the more difficult it has been for us to harness that latent power. That is where we and the Cetra have long differed.”
A third, slightly younger child raises her hand to ask, “Will the Guardians ever come back?”
“That remains to be seen. As I said, it is a secret known only to them.”
And lastly, a fourth child, a boy who had been sitting quiet on the side, now speaks up, “I bet they left to find that former Guardian who abandoned the planet. I heard she even jumped to our present to escape them and that’s how Ruby came to be.”
“Kont!” the elder scolds him, “Let’s not let conjecture run amok here. Besides, you know the rules of this place. Don’t speak of the Forgotten.”
He rolls his eyes and turns away with a pout. “Yeah, yeah…”
However, the damage has been done. The boy’s sobering words make the entire atmosphere sink and the other kids dive into their own thoughts on the matter. Even without uttering a name, everyone present seems to understand what he means. Though the elder likewise frowns to be reminded of that entity, she decides not to speak any more about it and moves on with the retelling of history.
“In any case, following the disappearance of the Cetra was a new age dominated by humanity…”
By now, Cloud has tuned out and returned to his own thoughts. Just by the context, he figures the one the last kid didn’t name-drop was Rubia. As Fenrir had confirmed for him, the Summons have always been around, but they generally kept their presence hidden for millennia. Perhaps it was in part for Rubia’s sake and to follow the rehab program set out for her, but clearly a fearful respect for Bahamut would have been a much more convincing argument. But what was that about “rules of this place”? What did the elder mean by “Forgotten”? Surely the people here haven’t forgotten about Ruby. Or is there a reason that they must forget about her?
“Cloud!” he hears Aerith’s voice calling to him from above. “Over here!”
“Hey! Quit draggin’ your feet, man! We’re gonna leave without ya!” Barret likewise shouts.
Cloud snaps out of his contemplative trance and hurries up the steps to catch up with his friends. It’s a familiar route to take to reach the uppermost level of the town where the famous Cosmo Observatory awaits. As usual, the people they pass by don’t pay them any mind and seem to be occupied with minding their own business. Nonetheless, all their questions ought to be made clear when they meet Bugenhagen.
Now that they do step inside, they soon find the elder pacing to and fro, lost in his thoughts, amid an impressive assortment of books that he’d been perusing. However, his face is solemn and he seems to be troubled by a serious dilemma.
“…Should we continue this pursuit after all? On one hand, the further we search for lost knowledge, the greater the risk that we delve into a hole that can’t be escaped. On the other hand, we are still scholars and seekers of truth, and to ignore history where convenient would be antithetical to our entire purpose of learning from the past. What would be the best way forward from here…?”
“Elder Bugenhagen!” Barret’s voice bellows throughout the chamber. “Long time no see!”
“Oh? Oh ho!” He stops pacing around and turns to find some unexpected visitors, and yet he doesn’t appear that surprised. “Welcome back, friends. What brings you around these parts?”
“To see you and Nanaki, of course!” Aerith answers cheerily. “Where is he, by the way?”
“Hmm…” The elder gives a long, thoughtful stroke of his beard as if he were considering how best to answer that. “He is currently occupied with a certain mission. He specifically told me not to let anyone know the details, however.”
“What kind of mission is it that it would be so secret?” Tifa asks.
“It is a personal journey that he must undertake.” The elder pushes up his glasses in a way that shades his eyes. “There’s no need to worry. He will return when he is ready.”
“Hmm…”
“In any case,” Bugenhagen continues on, lowering his hand back inside his robe’s sleeve. “How may I help you? I assume you’ve returned for your ongoing quest to seek knowledge.”
Aerith answers rather plainly despite the subject, “Well, for starters, we’d like to know what sort of memory this is. Up to this point, we’ve been searching through various memories along the way, but this one for Nanaki seems to be much more recent. I’ve been wondering why that is.”
“Hmm, I see.” The elder nods slowly. “Well, if I may be frank, I cannot answer that question. The nature of which select memories are retained the most clearly over others in the great expanse of the Flow is a well-kept secret even from the voices of the past.”
“Speaking of which, this place…” Tifa takes another look around the room and back to the elder. “I mean, this entire town is set somewhere in the Lifestream, right? So have you all been able to communicate with the planet more easily from here?”
“Indeed. In fact, you could even say, plenty of those voices of the past have gathered here. However…” He looks as if he were going to admit to some not-so-good news, but hesitates.
“However?” Aerith asks anyway.
The elder then lets off a sigh and comes out with it, “Unfortunately, much of the news they bring has not been favorable.”
“You mean about the planet, right?” Barret suggests. Scratching his head, he also mentions, “We’ve always known the planet’s been suffering and Shinra was one of the big reasons. But Ruby also told us that part of it was also Rubia’s doing?”
“That is true, yes, according to the general consensus of these ancient voices. But more than that, though I would rather not jump to conclusions, they also speak of an even greater threat than Rubia herself.”
He blinks. “Even greater threat?”
“Than Rubia?” Tifa also repeats, growing concerned.
“Yes.” He takes a thoughtful pause and then offers a guiding hand toward some empty seats on a nearby couch. “Please, take a seat, everyone. I will explain to the best of my ability.”
Though he’s been a little dodgy with answers up to this point, everyone is starting to catch onto what may be the biggest issue here. The ladies take his invitation and sit down, while the men remain standing nearby. Now with all eyes and ears on the elder, he proceeds.
“There’s been wide-sweeping phenomena of an ill-natured presence that has overtaken the Great Flow and caused it to fracture into several pieces. While the planet still retains the largest faction, there has also been an ongoing war between it and the other two factions – one of pure negative energy which we have named the ‘Terra Corrupt’ and the other of pure suppression which is the ‘Terra Null’. Unfortunately, while at first the two estranged Flows were likewise at odds with one another, which more or less helped to maintain a sort of equilibrium between the three factions, that has changed with the sudden disappearance of a certain entity.”
“A certain entity?” Aerith asks, putting on her own thinking face. “Do you mean… Ruby, by any chance?”
Bugenhagen nods solemnly. “Yes. It appears to be the case, at the very least.”
“Appears to be?”
“I cannot say if her disappearance was the direct trigger to the current cascade of events, but the timing is certainly more than mere coincidence. The moment the last traces of her soul were scattered and faded into obscurity was also the moment the two once opposing Terras Corrupt and Null came to merge into a dangerously imposing force – almost as if her very presence had been one of the only things keeping them apart.”
“What?” Now Cloud finally speaks out, at least a little disturbed, “They’ve merged? So the Remnants that Rubia left behind have been overtaken…”
“Yes, that is the most likely possibility. The Terra Null was inert for much of the planet’s history, with certain exceptions where the crossing of streams between it and either of the other two would result in their silencing. But its threat of degradation was more of a slow but steady process, albeit in an erratic fashion that was difficult to predict. However, the Terra Corrupt has always been an active threat that the planet had to defend against, as its crossing would result in the permanent loss of memories in the ensuing clash, which would further empower the negative energy that consists it.”
Tifa feels a pit drop in her stomach and she turns to Cloud to ask, “Do you think that’s what happened with Rubia? Was she eventually overtaken by this other stream?”
He nods back. “Probably. Whether or not this other stream is because of Tiamat or of Sephiroth and Jenova, it’s hard to say.” He then folds his arms with a troubled sigh. “Either way, Rubia isn’t as powerful as she once was. She can’t keep them all at bay anymore.”
She turns away, crestfallen. “Yeah. It’s only getting harder and harder to reach her. If we can’t even do that in a place so close to the planet…” She pauses and shakes her head, and then turns to Aerith beside her with a look of resolve. “No, if anything, we’re that much closer to her than ever before. We still have a chance.”
Aerith nods back with her own determined face. “Right.”
Still, Cloud remains unsure. If anything, something’s been bothering him for a while now and he turns back to the elder to ask, “By the way, while we were coming here, I passed by some people talking about some of that history with the Cetra and the Planet Guardians.”
Bugenhagen blinks curiously. “Oh? You’ve been tuning into our reading sessions as well?”
“Just for a bit…” He folds his arms with a troubled frown. “I also heard someone mention this person known as the ‘Forgotten’.”
Just like that, the light in Bugenhagen’s eyes fades and he grows serious again. “Ah, I see. Yes, it’s actually been an old policy around here ever since this memory came into clarity. Everyone is advised to avoid speaking of Rubia and Ruby alike. We more or less refer to them as the ‘Erased’ and the ‘Forgotten’, respectively.”
“Avoid them?” Barret raises an eyebrow. “What’s wrong with talking about them?”
“It is out of concern for our people’s own safety and preservation, you see. Though the Terra Null is a slow-growing presence, it has still more or less taken away some of our past voices. Some former elders of ours who sought to seek further knowledge that were promptly silenced and vanished without a trace.”
He’s so taken aback he recoils a bit. “What? They’re just gone?” To which, the elder nods sadly.
“Like what happens to people who leave the bounds of a particular memory,” Cloud observes.
“Oh, dear,” Aerith sighs. “So that’s not the only thing people here have to worry about.”
Now Barret grows extra concerned. “Then, are you gonna be okay, sir? Since you’ve been looking into them and all.”
“Ho ho. There’s no need to worry about me.” The elder nods back calmly. “As long as I still have life in these old bones, I will carry on with my research as I always have. After all, the one you see before you right now is technically a different existence than the fellow you have met on the surface. You can think of it as a sort of… doppleganger that holds a specific role in this memory.”
“Oh…” He rubs his head, recalling his own experiences not long ago. “I guess that’s true. Still tryin’ to wrap my head around all that, though.”
“Nevertheless,” the elder then says as he returns to the grave matter, “it is no trivial matter that this memory has been preserved in some form, even if it is with slight alterations to adapt to our ever-changing environment. Truthfully, such a thing is unprecedented in history, as only the Cetra once possessed the power to retain their identities within the Great Flow. Therefore, there must be a reason why an exception has been made for Nanaki, as well as the rest of you.”
Aerith blinks curiously and passes a glance toward her other companions. “An exception for us?”
Tifa asks her, “Is it because the Summons have taken interest in us? That we’ve been given another chance to set things right?”
“Maybe. But I also get the feeling that there’s more to it.”
“Hmm…”
“Perhaps so.” Bugenhagen continues deliberating aloud, “Or perhaps the reason is even simpler: it would have been worse for the planet for memories of you to be lost.”
Tifa puts a hand to her chin as she lets her thoughts wander. “Worse for the planet if we were lost…?”
Aerith rests her hand against her cheek as she follows suit. “Like, there’s some kind of greater purpose we’re meant to serve that we were saved?”
The elder shakes his head. “I cannot answer that either. We can only hope that the truth may be revealed in due time.”
A still silence settles over the atmosphere in the room as everyone takes a moment to contemplate over what that could be about. Cloud casts a look aside as he returns to his own thoughts. While he’s no stranger to the situation with Tiamat by now – Fenrir didn’t exactly explain all that much, but he at least gave enough clues to give Cloud something to latch onto – there’s still the bigger question that hangs over all of this. Namely, why is it that the Guardians didn’t act at all until a certain critical moment? It took until Rubia’s awakening at the temple – and thus Ruby’s disappearance – for even Fenrir to make a move. Were they all simply waiting for the right opportunity, or was there some other reason why they couldn’t do anything?
“That being said, this may be a fortuitous opportunity for you all. While you are here, there may be saving those voices we have lost just yet.” Now that he’s come to the matter, Bugenhagen then brings it up: “I must humbly ask you to keep an eye on Nanaki as well.”
Barret nods firmly. “Of course! He’s the biggest reason we’re here, after all!”
“But didn’t you say he was on some sort of secret mission and we shouldn’t bother him?” Tifa asks again.
The elder now has a certain glint to his eyes. “Yes, that is what he told me before he left, and I trust he will hold steadfast… but I would also be remiss to believe that he would fare better alone. While this ongoing trial is one that he himself must overcome, that doesn’t mean we should just sit by idly, should we?”
Aerith smiles along and nods. “I was just thinking that too! Besides, we’re on a tight schedule.”
Cloud likewise follows up, “So will you tell us where he’s gone?”
“I promised him that I wouldn’t say,” the elder begins, but with a twinkle in his eye, he also admits, “but I can at least ‘show’ you in the right direction. Come with me, everyone. I’ll take you to the start.”
“The start?”
Riding his big magical floating materia, Bugenhagen moves smoothly and swiftly to the exit, beckoning the rest to follow. He guides them back down the steps and through the caverns once more to arrive at a familiar gate resting in the far back of these caves. The moment he comes up to the door, Cloud’s eyes shoot wide open.
“This gate… Wasn’t it the one that led to the Gi Tribe?”
“Yes, and to Seto’s last stand. I’m sure you’re familiar with it from your last visit, Cloud.”
Aerith turns to him. “Are you?”
He nods. “Yeah. This was where Bugenhagen took us before. Nanaki didn’t know the story of his father, but he learned the truth when we found him inside. He’s been defending this land from threats ever since.”
She gasps. “Really? His dad stayed in there all this time? Why hasn’t he come out?”
He frowns. “He’s been turned to stone.”
She sinks immediately. “Oh… Poor guy. At least Nanaki got to see him again.”
Since he’s reminded, he also mentions, “Though, Ruby also told me that the effects are reversible. She might have had an idea of how to find a cure.”
Barret then asks, “Wasn’t she with you guys when you first came here? Why didn’t she help him?”
Cloud waves it away. “She was struggling with something else at the time. Besides, it’s not like she had the cure on her and it’s not something her usual magic could fix.”
“Ah.” He nods back thoughtfully.
Getting back on track, Cloud turns to the elder. “But what’s Nanaki doing back here? Is there trouble with the Gi Tribe again?”
“Trouble, of sorts, but exactly what I am not privy to.” He gives a sigh. “Nanaki declared it so proudly that he would protect us all that I hesitate to send anyone after him. But I can’t help but worry if anything goes wrong or there’s some misunderstanding that could arise while they talk.”
“Talk? He’s talking with the Gi?”
Rather than explain further, Bugenhagen now approaches the gate’s switch and gives it a hefty push. The caves around them seem to shudder a bit as the old gate opens wide once more. He then directs them to the opening with a guiding arm. “Proceed with caution, our esteemed fellows. Do not trust everything you see or hear without question, but also do not rush into the fray recklessly. Use discretion where it is needed, so that Nanaki may learn what is most important.”
“All this is part of his trial, huh…” Cloud looks out toward the dark tunnels ahead and back to him. “So, we can’t just jump in to fight his battles for him, but we should stick around to make sure he isn’t going down the wrong path, is what you’re saying?”
Bugenhagen returns an assured smile and gives them a respectful bow. “Best wishes to you all. Please bring Nanaki back safely.”
“Of course.” He turns back to the others. “Alright, let’s go.”
“Right!” the other three respond together.
The elder watches the four hurry inside and disappear into the darkness of the tunnels ahead. He also watches the doorway for a little longer and brings his hands together, slipping them back in his sleeves, as he dives into further pondering.
“…The ‘Erased’ and the ‘Forgotten’, two ill-fated souls with long intertwined yet checkered histories. Would it be a fool’s errand to try to regain what was once lost? Well, the strength of hope is as much as what we do for it, after all. If there is anyone who can save what is left of this broken world, it would be those who never give up.”
~
The dark winding tunnels of the Cave of Gi are as ominous-looking as they always have been, but thanks in part to Ruby’s previous adventures, the path forward is clear of any particularly frustrating obstacles. The layout is exactly as Cloud remembers and he leads the party forward with a bit of caution but without trepidation. But he also notices something odd: though the caverns were swarmed with enemies the first time they entered, they now seem to be largely empty. Even when he does still spot the occasional serpents and other creatures that reside, they all quickly scurry away as if avoiding any confrontation. On one hand, he would like to think it’s because they’re intimidated by his presence, but something tells him it might be the work of another that had passed through already.
However, if there is one group that refuses to run, it is the Gi. Specters whose souls cannot rest in peace; they have gathered up once again to man the tunnels of the compact home where they have been forcibly sequestered. However, though Cloud and his friends prepare for another series of battles, to their surprise, the specters refuse to match arms. Instead, they simply stand guard as if keeping watch, and one of them even approaches the party without a weapon.
“What do you want?” Cloud demands, his sword ready to be drawn.
The specter says nothing. He simply shows the way with a pointing finger and gestures as if asking them to follow him. Though puzzled by this latest development, Cloud and party quietly oblige. Their guide promptly leads them to the innermost chamber where a certain old, proud warrior stands atop his precipice like a guardian deity of this canyon. While the sight alone is quite mesmerizing to behold, this is not where their final stop is. Instead, there appears to be another tunnel – one that has recently opened up – leading them to yet another location further in the depths.
Now that they continue to follow the specter, he leads them to a boat and ferries them across a river to what appears to be a tiny village hidden in the caves. As soon as they cross to the bank, their guide no longer leads and lets them explore on their own. However, just a cursory glance tells them that the only residents who populate this village are also his fellow specters. Unlike the previous ones that had their blank faces hooded, these ones look much more human, though the tone of their skin is a bit more purple or bluish and their painted faces make them look like they are wearing masks. The moment their new visitors arrive, the other specters quiet down and turn away to avoid eye contact, almost like the people of Cosmo Canyon just earlier.
“What is this place?” Tifa asks, looking around cautiously.
“Who knew there’d be a whole other village down here?” Barret likewise remarks. “But the people don’t look like they’re still ‘alive’.”
“Are they supposed to be like this? Since we’re down in the Lifestream, I thought they’d also look like everyone else.”
Aerith takes a moment to think over something as she’s been reminded of something she once saw long ago. “…I think it’s because they are a little different from us.”
“Different?” Barret takes another look at them and back to her. “Well, yeah, they look kinda blue? Like they haven’t seen the sun in ages.”
“It’s been a long time since I last saw any visions of the past, but I remember hearing about a certain tribe of people from back when the Cetra were still around. This tribe actually didn’t come from this planet.”
Tifa’s mouth goes agape. “Not from this planet? They came here from another world?”
“Yes. I don’t know from where, but they may have been traveling the cosmos before they arrived here.”
Now that she mentions it, Tifa also recalls reading something back in the Cosmo Library. “Wow… I guess it’s true that all sorts of people came to this planet in the past.”
Barret folds his arms. “But that eventually stopped since the Cetra went the wayside, probably ’cause humans took over everything.” He pauses and then considers, “Or maybe it was more because of Jenova?”
Aerith simply comments, “Yeah, that would probably scare off anyone else.”
He drops his arms and looks around again. “But then why are all these people stuck in this one place?”
“I’m not sure. They may have been stuck here for a long time, though.”
As the party continues to pass through the village, though, they shortly hear voices coming from another chamber further inside. Though one of them is unknown, the other sounds very familiar.
“Wait. Is that Nanaki?” Cloud asks.
“It IS Nanaki!” Aerith gasps.
“Let’s go see him!” Tifa suggests.
The four rush into yet another tunnel that shortly opens up to a smaller chamber ahead. Here, there appears to be some sort of altar with a statue of a religious idol in the very middle. However, they recognize the face immediately: it’s Rubia with her cape’s hood down, standing front and center. Her hands are set upon the hilt of a sleek, double-edged, decorative sword that has been stuck into the ground, and around her neck hangs a pendant with a single orb. Though the statue has long lost its color, there are traces that the orb was once dark, even black. Standing before the altar are two other figures: Nanaki, looking bright red and fiery as ever, and his current addressee, a large and imposing blue-skinned man with a painted face carved rough like a stone mask and is dressed in fine robes as deigned of a dignitary.
“Nanaki!” Aerith cries with delight, throwing out her arms.
“Huh?” Nanaki now swerves to meet an unexpected group of visitors and his eyes light up like stars. “Cloud! Aerith! Even Tifa and Barret! You’re all okay!?”
His friends rush on over, paying little mind to the other figure in the room that gives them all a stoic yet wary stare. Nanaki bounces around excitedly before all his friends as they each give him their own smiles. Barret shows him his hand, which Nanaki pats for a high-five. Tifa drops down to his head level and give him an affectionate head rub. Aerith does too to give him a warm hug, which he happily takes with a silly grin and a wagging tail. And Cloud calmly offers forward a fist, which Nanaki responds with his own curled paw for a bump.
“We’re glad you’re okay too!” Aerith cheers and finally lets him go. “We missed you!”
“Yeah, me too!” Nanaki looks around at the party, wide-eyed in surprise. “But what are you doing here? And how did you know where to find me?”
“Hehe.” She gives back a sly wink. “Let’s just say, I have my ways.”
“Um… okay.” He also looks carefully around Barret. “Barret, have your wounds healed already? You look much better now.”
He casually waves a hand. “Don’t worry about it. Lotsa things happened between then and now. But yeah, I’m doing great!”
“Thank goodness.” He also pokes his nose toward the others. “How about you guys? Where did you all go? Did you eventually find Sephiroth?”
As soon as the ill-fated name is dropped, the other four seem to have their energy sapped. Aerith then nods back with a sad look. “We did, but it didn’t turn out well.”
“Oh…” Nanaki makes an apologetic look. “Sorry, guys. I wish I was there to help. After we split up, we lost track of Yuffie and them and later even Vincent went missing. It was just me and Barret until we got attacked by some monster that looked like Vincent’s transformation, but I think it was a fake. Might have been Sephiroth’s work.” He sinks too. “After that, I lost sight of Barret too. But for some reason, Ruby showed up out of nowhere.”
Cloud turns suspicious. “Ruby?”
Tifa blinks wide-eyed. “You found Ruby!? What was she doing there?”
Nanaki shakes his head. “I don’t know. At first I thought she was an imposter and attacked her, but she didn’t even fight back. I don’t remember what happened after that. I just felt really tired and fell asleep.” He slumps a little. “I might have dropped my guard too early, though. The next thing I knew, I woke up again back home like it was all a dream.”
Now that he describes it that way, though, Cloud quickly catches on and grows disturbed. He brings a bitter grimace as he mutters, “That wasn’t Ruby. It had to be Sephiroth or Jenova.”
His ear perks up again in curiosity. “Huh? How do you know?”
“If it really was her, we wouldn’t all have fallen into their trap. I was sent away somewhere for a while to see Fenrir, but by the time I returned, you all were…” He hesitates to describe it any further and lets out a sigh. “You all were captured by Jenova. I tried to free you, but even with Fenrir’s help, I couldn’t bring anyone back. I tried to fight Sephiroth, but he took me out too.”
Aerith looks away with a dejected nod. “And the next thing we all knew, we were scattered in the Lifestream.”
“Oh, right. I think Grandpa did mention something about this place too…” Nanaki takes a moment, blinking in surprise, and then goes shocked. “Wait! Doesn’t that mean we all died!?”
But Barret objects, raising a confident fist, “Hell nah! We’re still here, aren’t we?”
“Yeah, but if this place really is somewhere in the Lifestream, isn’t that like passing on into the afterlife? Besides, even some of the elders from our vale’s past are back home like they’ve been living here all along.” He hangs his head in shame. “I thought everything was just a dream, but if it really happened…”
“Uh.” Now Barret pulls back that fist and rubs his head awkwardly. “Well, when you put it that way, it kinda does sound like it.” He drops his hand and offers instead, “But we still managed to meet up, so that counts for something, right?”
“Hmm…”
Tifa also insists, “It’s okay, Nanaki, it’s not all bad. While we’ve been down here, we learned a lot about what’s been happening with the planet, and we’ve even met other Summons. Now it’s not just Cloud who has Fenrir.”
Nanaki perks back up and turns to her with a look of awe. “Wow, really? So you guys all have your own guardian spirits too?”
“Well, I have Shiva and Barret has Ifrit.” She turns toward Aerith, who looks a little left out. “But I’m not sure about Aerith.”
“…” Aerith then shakes her head and returns to a forced smile. “Don’t worry about me. I’m sure I’ll have my chance eventually.” She also raises up her fists with a determined look. “Besides, I’m the one who’s bringing everyone back together!”
“Yeah. She’s actually our MVP. Even got a bit of that ‘Ruby’ touch now, in a way.” Tifa turns back to Nanaki with a more optimistic shine in her eyes. “So I guess you’ll be getting your chance soon?”
“Oh, me too? Huh…” Nanaki looks aside, letting his tail sway thoughtfully. “I thought it was weird that I suddenly came back home like nothing happened. It didn’t seem like anyone was in any serious trouble either, though people didn’t want to talk about Ruby for some reason. I went to see Grandpa and he told me I was brought back here for some kind of ‘trial’. I guess that’s what this is about?”
“By the way,” Cloud mentions as he now turns to the other figure who has been waiting patiently by, “Who is this?”
They all turn to the large, imposing man who has been waiting patiently for his turn to speak. He now does with a deep, almost reverberating voice that they had heard just earlier.
“We have only met once before, but at the time, I was masked and traded blows against you and your friends.” He now sets a hand upon his chest and lowers his head just slightly for a polite bow. “I am Gi Nattak, the Chieftain of the Gi.”
“Gi Nattak?” Cloud stares back suspiciously. “Wait. Bugenhagen talked about you before. You were leading the war on the Cosmotites when Nanaki’s father stopped you and sealed you all away.”
“What!?” Barret grows furious at the drop of the word. “So this was the bastard that threatened the town!? What’s he doing back?”
But Gi Nattak raises a hand up as a offering of peace. “We had our differences in the past, but rest assured, the Gi wish to fight no longer. We have already conceded ourselves to these caves and will not try to take this land from your people.”
Nanaki nods along and turns to them too. “It’s true. Even Grandpa told me that the Gi Tribe wanted to see me to talk peace. So I’ve come as an emissary of the vale and we’ve been discussing about their long history.”
Now the others are just confused or pleasantly surprised. While the guys remain wary, the ladies are more open to this turn of events. Aerith gives a happy clap and double thumbs-up as she exclaims, “That’s great news! I hope things will turn out well between your peoples from here on out!”
Nanaki nods back. “I hope so too. Though our humble vale does have its fair share of fighters in the worst case scenario, it also has plenty of those who are unfit to fight. It would be much better for everyone if we finally put any old conflicts between us to rest.”
“Furthermore,” Gi Nattak then adds, “There is a much greater threat that we all must face. It would be wise to unite and fend it off together.”
Aerith’s smile fades. “A greater threat?”
“Indeed.” He nods slowly and with a grave tone, he then asks, “Are you all familiar with the name Tiamat?”
Just like that, everyone’s attention is got. Cloud replies, “Yeah, more or less. We’re trying to stop her from ever coming back.”
His stiff lips then curl into a grim frown. “Unfortunately, we have come ever closer to that becoming reality.”
“What?”
“The voices of the Great Flow have brought a major concern to light lately: the seal that once held Tiamat has been broken. Though she has not made her appearance for now, we cannot assume that she is not simply biding her time until the right moment.”
Cloud stares back in disbelief. “The seal is broken!? When did that happen?”
“When Meteor collided with this planet. Though the powers that be have taken measures to reduce the degree of damage, there is no recovering the seal unless a new one is made.” He shakes his head. “However, as of now Tiamat’s exact location is unknown. It is as if she too vanished along with her daughter.”
Cloud continues to stare back, now at a loss for words. Tiamat has already been unleashed? And yet she’s choosing to wait for something to happen? Or is there some other condition that must be fulfilled before she can make her appearance?
“What does that mean? Can she really return any time, then?” Tifa asks, growing disturbed. “But I thought as long as we kept the Black Materia away from the surface, she couldn’t?”
“I thought so too, but…”
“By the way, guys,” Nanaki asks them again, “where is the Black Materia? Didn’t Sephiroth have it?”
Cloud answers him, “Yeah, but for whatever reason, he disappeared after he summoned Meteor. After we were scattered down here, Aerith also met Rubia.”
He raises an eyebrow and turns to her. “You met Rubia?”
Aerith nods solemnly. “Yeah, in a place that looks like Ruby’s old apartment. But something was disturbing her so much that she was panicking.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know what was bothering her, but she also told me that she didn’t undergo the same reincarnation as she usually did.”
Nanaki’s eye widens. “She didn’t reincarnate yet?”
Barret also grows confused. “What do you mean, Aerith? Didn’t we all see her go after Sephiroth attacked her?”
Aerith turns to him with a worried look. “Yes, but somehow Rubia didn’t disappear entirely. Instead, she found herself somewhere in the Lifestream like the rest of us. It was like we were all somehow ‘saved’ as we had been just before Meteor hit the planet.”
“What the…”
Cloud turns away into his own thoughts, though he mumbles aloud, “Even Rubia was ‘saved’…?”
Aerith adds further, “But it seems like whatever had happened, it really upset her. She was so furious she stomped out the door and that was how we found that strange room with all the gateways. But it seemed like even she didn’t expect it would be there.”
He snaps to attention and turns to her again. “So Rubia doesn’t know at all? Things have been changing in the background without her being aware?”
“That seems to be the gist of it, yeah.”
He slowly shakes his head in disbelief. “What’s going on? What did Bahamut or whoever it was do?”
Now that they bring it up, Nanaki asks on, “Where is Rubia now?”
“She…” Aerith begins to answer, but hesitates upon being reminded of the situation and returns to feeling glum. “She’s still back at the apartment. I left her with Zack.” She pauses and adds, “You still remember him, right?”
Nanaki nods back. “Of course. That was Cloud’s friend from Soldier.”
She nods too, at least a bit reassured, but returns to the glum issue at hand.
Cloud makes his own grim frown. “The problem is, she’s not responding to us anymore. Whatever was left of her even transformed into the Black Materia.”
Nanaki snaps wide-eyed and alarmed. “Rubia is the Black Materia?” He turns back to Gi Nattak, who remains as stoic as ever. “So it really is true? Is that how she will be the key to Tiamat’s return?”
The chief nods back. “Yes. The entity known as Rubia was once created as a piece of Tiamat, born from her hatred for the planet. Once she has seen her purpose to serve to her inevitable end, the fiend’s advent would be upon us.”
He now bares his fangs. “Then we cannot let them meet under any circumstances.” He also turns back to the others. “Are you all really sure that the materia is safe?”
Aerith makes a somewhat worried look as she admits, “Well, like I said, we left it with Zack, so she should be okay…”
But he raises a concerned eyebrow. “But why him? And how did he come to be where Rubia had been staying?”
“Um…” Now that the big question has been dropped, she isn’t really sure how to answer it. “He doesn’t actually know either. At some point, he woke up to Rubia’s voice telling him where to be, and there he was.”
“Hmm…” Nanaki shakes his head, looking unconvinced. “I’m sorry, Aerith. I’m sure Zack is normally trustworthy, but down here in the Lifestream, not everything is as it seems. If even he doesn’t know how he came around, I’m not sure if the materia really is safe with him… or even if he really is who he says he is.”
“What?” She looks a bit shaken. “He’s not really…?”
Even Cloud and Tifa exchange nervous glances. How can that be? Is the person they’ve been talking to not actually the real deal? Then who else would it be?
Nanaki turns back to the ghostly chief with a troubled frown and back to them. “Gi Nattak and I had just been discussing it earlier, how Rubia is too much of a risk and can’t be trusted. If she was the one who led this ‘Zack’ to you, then I’m afraid there might be some sort of trickery going on.”
Aerith shakes her head in confusion. “Trickery? Rubia? Why would she want to trick us?”
“Because in the end, even if she doesn’t want to be, she is still her mother’s pawn and in her control. It would be simple for Tiamat to pretend to speak through her and misguide you all.”
She starts to sink into a slump. “But…”
Even Tifa has to object, “Wait, Nanaki. I think there’s some misunderstanding. Rubia hasn’t returned to the surface since she ended up down here. She doesn’t know what’s going on up there either.” She turns back to Aerith to check, “Right?”
“Y-yeah.” Aerith nods along and tries to plead, “That’s why we’re gathering everyone back up again. We’re trying to find a way to separate Rubia from her mother, so we can save her!”
Nonetheless, Nanaki solemnly shakes his head. “Sorry, but I don’t think that’s possible. They’re still linked by the same power that had them sealed away in the first place. If Rubia is already showing her true form as the Black Materia, then it’s only a matter of time before Tiamat shows as well.”
“…” She sinks back into her slump. “But there has to be some way…”
In the ensuing silence fraught with worries, none of them seem to have an answer to follow on that. But in the meantime, Cloud then catches onto something weird going on. He then asks her, “Aerith, when Rubia told you that about how she didn’t reincarnate, how was she?”
She turns to him with a dejected look. “She was disturbed too, like she really didn’t know.”
He then folds his arms. “Then, that leaves us in a contradiction. How can Rubia be both entirely clueless and yet the mastermind of some plot to trick us?”
“Huh?”
Tifa blinks and catches on too. “Yeah, that doesn’t make sense. Something isn’t right here.”
Nanaki raises an eyebrow. “But I just said it? Rubia could be controlled by Tiamat against her will.”
Cloud shakes his head. “Nanaki, you said you were discussing about Rubia with this guy, right?”
He blinks. “Yes? Is something the matter?”
Now that he comes to the point, Cloud turns toward the chieftain who has been quiet all this time, now giving him a suspicious glare. “Who’s to say that he hasn’t just been telling you lies?”
Nanaki nearly jumps at the thought. “W-what!? Lies!?”
“Hey! Yeah!” Barret also cuts in, raising his fist. “What if he’s just been lyin’ all along?”
Nanaki blinks a few more times. “But why would Gi Nattak lie to me about that?”
“This guy was the enemy to Cosmo Canyon before, wasn’t he? Better question is, why wouldn’t he be spewing bullshit to trick us? Make us think we’re talking peace, but then ambush us when our guard’s down!”
“Huh!?”
Cloud nods along, keeping his glare on the chief. “You got some kind of plan, huh? Keeping Nanaki by himself in this hole where no one else can keep an eye out for him.”
Barret throws his fist up in the chief’s face too. “You got some kinda death wish? No one messes with our friend! I don’t care if you’re some kinda ghost or whatever part of this memory, you’re getting a face fulla lead!”
“W-w-wait! Guys, stop it!” Nanaki barks out all of a sudden.
“Huh?”
“Nanaki, what’s wrong?” Tifa asks. “If he’s trying to trick you, you shouldn’t listen to him!”
He shakes his head anxiously. “No, everyone, please! Listen to me. No matter what, we cannot fight the Gi! Let’s talk this out peacefully!”
By now, the others are only growing even more confused. Aerith asks him, “Nanaki, what’s going on? Are you still having peace talks with them?”
“Of course! We haven’t finished talking yet!” Nanaki digs his heels into the ground. “Everyone, please understand. Under no circumstances should we start up another conflict. This town has undergone too much already to have to deal with yet another war.”
Barret then brings up, “But aren’t we all in the Lifestream right now? What would it matter if they try something? It won’t affect what goes on at the surface, right?”
Nanaki shakes his head furiously. “Even then, I don’t want to risk it! The Gi have long been trapped in this state between life and death, so the feelings they express here will be the same anywhere. I don’t want to leave things in a mess here and return home up there to find that the town is under attack!”
“…”
The rest of them settle back down, now unsure of what to make of this situation. Since Nanaki just mentioned it, though, Cloud has to ask, “What do you mean, ‘between life and death’? Like how they were ghosts when we first met them?”
Nanaki nods. “Yes. But it’s more than that. They aren’t simply ghosts by choice.” He then turns back to the chief with a sympathetic face. “They have been excluded from the Great Flow altogether.”
“Huh?”
They all turn toward the chief, who has been rather calm and collected all this time despite all the threats thrown his way. He nods along with Nanaki. “That is true. The Gi have been stranded upon this planet since the age of the Cetra. But because we are not born of the planet, we have been rejected from joining them even after our bodies have been returned to dust. Now we exist in a perpetual state of neither living nor dead.”
Nanaki then gently offers, “Gi Nattak, perhaps we should tell them so they may understand.”
“Very well.” Gi Nattak turns to the others and calmly advises them, “Allow me to tell you the story of my people and the history we shared with the Cetra.”
The rest of them, having little choice or counterargument to be made, thus settle down again and await his tale.
“We, the Gi, have always been an itinerary race, traveling the great cosmos from planet to planet since time immemorial. We once arrived upon this planet and met Her people who once lived in harmony with Her. At first, the Cetra welcomed us, all across their different clans, even though we were foreigners. We shared in the wealth and bounty of the land, came to learn their cultures and even integrated it with our own.” He then shakes his head. “However, that peace would not last. One day, they discovered remnants of Tiamat’s will continued to plague the land even long past her disappearance and learned that the source stemmed from the Black Materia. Thus, they tried to seal it away and keep anyone from daring to use it, but it was to no avail. Rubia found it despite how it was disguised and used its power to call upon a great calamity from the skies.”
By now, a heavy air of gloom falls over the crowd who is forced to concede and acknowledge some of the facts given. Though she has no particular objections, Aerith remains dreadfully quiet as she feels a pit form in her stomach.
“From there, the disease that the Calamity brought upon the Cetra sewed mistrust and discord among them, and eventually even the once peaceful clans were torn apart by fear and political dissent until the entire world fell to war and famine, and the powers that be raged across the lands and seas on all sides as divine punishment.” Gi Nattak lowers his head with a somber frown. “Unfortunately, as we were close with the Cetra, we would be caught in the conflict as well and our people were split along clan lines. Though many of us refused to participate in the war, anyone who was caught protesting were captured and beaten like strays, or otherwise sent away to be slaughtered by the enemy without mercy.” He then lifts his head again, stating firmly, “But this clan of mine is a proud race of warriors who would fight to the bitter end and so we did until we were all wiped out. Thus, when the fighting eventually came to cease, the only ones left standing were the ones who hid from everything – namely, the ancestors of the humans today.”
Aerith nods along, maintaining her silence. Everything she once knew about her ancestors was mostly from her mother, who only held a small slice of their people’s history. But even from a young age, even without her mother giving any details, she knew it was the Cetra’s ultimate fate to meet their end to the Calamity. What really felt like a slap in the face was learning that Jenova’s arrival was incited by Rubia herself. She was always drawn to the Black Materia even without being aware of why she wanted it. But is there truly no way to break her free? To let her be spared from being a mere tool for evil?
“However, unlike the Cetra, we were not as fortunate as they were. Though we fought alongside them, we were not treated to the same bounty of the planet’s grace. We were once foreigners and Mother Gaia refused to welcome us among Her children. Thus, we were left as wandering souls with no home or rest for eternity. Now, we are few, but a small trace of our once great people. We have been pressed into the depths of these caves, forced into hiding where our cries would not be heard.”
Nanaki hangs his head in serious contemplation too. While the story he learned since young was to see the Gi as the enemy, the origins of their long-standing feud extended far back beyond what his dear father had seen. Who knows when exactly it was that this feud began and for what reason – perhaps it was a matter of determining who deserved to live on these lands in the first place, or perhaps it was even a matter of misunderstandings that led their ancient people to shun the wandering ghosts. But at some point, those reasons were lost to time. Would it not naturally follow, then, for the feud to eventually fizzle out and come to a fair and just end?
“But though we hid, we were not safe. Though we made peace with ourselves, we could not be free. We are ghosts starved of purpose and hungering for an end to this perpetual cycle of torture. And so, with no other choice left to us, we lashed out at those that continued to drive us away, to corner us and keep us trapped.” Gi Nattak now extends forward a hand to his audience. “Now I ask: if this were to happen to any of you, what would you do? Surely, you would not simply submit without a fight?”
Barret folds his arms, muttering just audibly, “We sure wouldn’t…”
“Exactly.” Gi Nattak draws his hand back toward his chest, clamping it into a fist. “Therefore, is it not justice to seek fair and equal treatment? To be allowed to coexist with this planet and not be rejected simply due to our origins?”
Tifa nods slowly. “That does sound fair…”
“However, across the ages, though we sought it out with peace in our hearts, we would never be able to reach out to the powers that be. Thus, we had to abandon our attempts to sway peace and to take up arms. But even that was not enough. Our voices would simply be ignored as they have always been.”
Cloud casts a thoughtful look aside. The more he hears, the more familiar this story feels, especially given the kindred spirit that lies within him.
“However, there is one possibility that is still left to us… It lies with the Black Materia.”
Cloud’s attention is got and returns him a wary stare. “What about it?”
“As we roamed this planet and came to learn of Her history, we came upon the tale of Rubia. Ever since she was young, she sought to break free from this prison that held her and her mother and sought to merge with the Black Materia to realize her true potential. And though we hold no allegiance or interest with her or Tiamat, we came to believe in that potential all the same.”
By now, he’s starting to get a bad feeling about where this may be going. He keeps listening, just to be sure, but braces himself for the worst possibility.
“As has been prophesized since ancient times, Rubia, the bearer of Tiamat’s legacy, shall bring this world to its end. However, should that power be captured and controlled, then the potential she holds may be put to good use after all.”
He winces just a bit. As he suspected, this tired old excuse isn’t what he wants to hear. Not yet another group that wants to acquire the Black Materia for its power. As if anyone who’s tried to get it has done anything good.
Now Nanaki looks back up to Gi Nattak to ask again, “But is that possible? How could we capture or control that power?”
To which, Gi Nattak seems to get some sort of menacing glint in his otherwise dead-looking eyes. He then answers, “To merge with it.”
“Merge?”
“Yes. As we are an itinerary race whose souls cannot rest in peace, we have no other way open to us. But if we were to be infused with the Black Materia, then even our abandoned souls may have a chance to ascend and finally break free of this accursed prison.”
“Oh…” Nanaki tilts his head in confusion. “I don’t know if it works like that. But since we don’t have much choice, maybe we can give it a try-”
“Not a chance!” Cloud barks all of a sudden.
Poor Nanaki nearly jumps. “H-huh?”
“Cloud?” Tifa checks with him.
Cloud has heard enough by now. He’s actually getting pissed just thinking about it. “Merge with the Black Materia? Break free from this ‘prison’?” He clenches up a fist. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Gi Nattak sternly frowns back. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that you don’t know what kind of power the Black Materia has! You think it’s just some easy cheat code where you can just break free from everything?” He throws that fist up as a challenge. “The last time someone said that to me, he nearly destroyed everything, even himself! It’s a damn miracle that the planet was able to avoid the worst!”
“Cloud…” Aerith calls out softly, feeling sympathetic. Even though she may not have been there to witness it in person, she has a good idea who he means.
“Didn’t you say Tiamat was a threat we have to unite against? You’re only gonna speed up her return if you dare to mess with that materia. Even Rubia can’t resist her anymore. What makes you think you can get the better of her, huh?” Cloud now steps up to the chief with his own stern glare. “I don’t care who you are. No one gets to use it.”
“…” While Gi Nattak remains unshaken, he then follows up with another question, “If that is the truth, then what hope is there that remains for my people? How will we ever be able to rest in peace if nothing is done?”
“Something will be done!” Nanaki insists, stamping his foot. “But Cloud has a good point too. We can’t risk Tiamat’s release, but we will continue to search for a way to help you!”
Gi Nattak turns back to him with a disappointed frown. “Nanaki… I appreciate the thought, but what can be done? Even you have admitted to me that nothing short of divine intervention would be able to affect us in this state.”
“Divine intervention, perhaps…” Nanaki then turns back to his friends. “But we now have some divine help! Cloud has been blessed with Fenrir’s power, and even Tifa and Barret have their own Guardians lending their aid. If they can reach out to the planet’s collective voice, then perhaps there still is a chance…”
“Enough.” Gi Nattak shakes his head. “We will not wait on the silence of the ones you call your deities. They once abandoned the very people they once lived with in harmony. If even the Cetra could not be spared from nigh extinction, then what chance is there for us?”
“…” That promptly shuts him up and he hangs his head in defeat. “Well, surely there still has to be someone we can ask…”
As soon as he mentions so, Cloud then meets an inkling that pops into mind. Someone who is on par or even greater than even these Guardians, who can make miracles happen? They had someone like that. In fact, she came into this world on her own. Sephiroth may have dragged her out to the surface to meet them in the first place, but how did she even come to exist if she wasn’t a part of it? In other words, if there is some way to cross even dimensions, she of all people should know… right?
“…Ruby,” he mumbles to himself.
Nanaki turns to him. “Huh?”
He states it clearly so everyone can hear, “We can ask Ruby.”
“Ruby?”
“She once told me that she came to our world from her own, a different one altogether. If it was possible for her to do that, then she might know a way back out. Or at least, a way to bend the planet’s rules so she can get away with it.”
“Wait, what?” Barret stares at him. “She really said that to you?”
He nods. “Yeah. After we found her at the temple, we talked in private and she opened up everything to me.”
Tifa and Aerith share quiet gasps and worried looks. Tifa asks for them both, “So that’s what you two talked about?”
“Mostly about that, yeah. I didn’t get what she was saying at the time, but eventually Fenrir helped give some context.” He then shakes his head. “But after thinking about it, her whole existence in this world actually doesn’t make much sense.”
“It doesn’t?” Aerith asks too.
“No.” He puts a hand to his chin as he thinks aloud, “For starters, how would she have been able to navigate this world if there were all these Guardians keeping watch of it? And even if she managed to avoid them all, they still knew that Rubia had been trying to ‘save’ Ruby in the first place, so why didn’t they interfere sooner? Especially that they see Ruby as a threat since she doesn’t belong.”
“Huh.” She now puts on her own thinking face. “Good question. Maybe she’s just that good at avoiding them?”
“Then she must have a really effective way to do that to have lasted this long.”
“Hmm. Sounds like my cuz, that’s for sure.”
Cloud turns back to the chief with a rather smug frown. “So how about it? You willing to give her a shot? Not like you have much of a choice, right?”
However, Gi Nattak remains unmoved and likewise unconvinced. Instead, his eyes narrow in suspicion as he follows it with the looming question, “This ‘Ruby’ you speak of… Is she the one that traveled with you to this cave before?”
“Yeah.” He also adds with a hint of snark, “She knocked you away pretty easily too.”
“Hmph.” He shakes his head and makes a face as if offering his pity instead. “Then she is the same person as Rubia, yes? Are you suggesting that we leave our fates in the hands of the very one who is destined to destroy everything?”
Cloud returns his own defiant glare. “They’re different. Ruby may have been borrowing Rubia’s body that time, but now they’ve been split up.”
“Impossible,” Gi Nattak replies dismissively. “Those who have been integrated with Rubia are no different than being remnants born from Tiamat herself. All are dependent on the same connection of power and thus are all within the mother’s realm of influence.”
By now, he’s growing more and more impatient. “And who are you to decide that? You only ever met her once and now you act like you’re an expert?”
“Silence!” Gi Nattak’s booming voice echoes throughout the chamber and he raises a threatening finger his way. “We will discuss this matter no further. The Gi will not submit to threats or coercion from the damned or those who associate with them. I warn you to stop now and back off where you still have the chance. Should you continue to pursue this thoughtless absurdity, the sooner you will bring the end of this world as we know it.”
Cloud raises his own hand to swat it away. “For the last time, we’re not talking about the same person here! Why are you being stubborn about this!?”
“Guys, wait!” Nanaki pounces between the two before they get into a scuffle. “Let’s calm down, alright? Cloud, let me talk to him. I can explain.”
“But I already said all I could…” Though Cloud’s voice drifts off as Nanaki turns away.
Nanaki confronts the chief with his own stern look. “Gi Nattak, please understand. My friends and I are ready and willing to help you and your people. But we can only do that if you accept that help. Though it is difficult to explain everything at this time, I ask you to trust us on this. When we find Ruby again, we will ask her about your situation. I’m sure she can come up with some solution that will not put anyone else at risk.”
“…” The chief still remains unsure. “Nanaki. I respect you for your code of honor and your civility as an emissary. But it does not bode well for our future to wait on a mere possibility of an entity that you have yet to locate. If even the divine intervention that you spoke of cannot help, then you will have effectively doomed us to this eternal suffering.”
Nanaki’s stern face falters just a little, but he stands strong all the same. “Even then, it is a possibility worth pursuing, as the outcome would be much preferable than any alternative. I too believe the Black Materia is much too risky, in case anything were to go awry.”
“Nevertheless, the Black Materia is a tangible thing which wields immense power…”
“I assure you, so does Ruby! She has to have some way.”
“Is that fact which you can swear an oath upon, or merely hopeful speculation?” he asks demandingly.
“…” But by now, even Nanaki is starting to feel that seed of doubt creep its vines over him and his face grows more and more worried. He turns back to Cloud and the others as if to seek validation, and they all return him reassuring looks of confidence. He returns to Gi Nattak with his own and states as if he were swearing to it, “Yes. I will swear an oath and stake my life upon it! In fact, if we cannot help you in any way, then I will personally return to meet you and you may enact your revenge upon me as you see fit!”
“What? Nanaki!” Aerith gasps in horror.
“Yeah, what are you saying?” Tifa asks, a little scared herself. “At least suggest something else other than sacrificing yourself!”
But he remains adamant. “No, I must stake my life on this. The safety of my people and of the Gi now rests on my shoulders. Should any harm come to either side, I would have failed in my duty as emissary and as a Watcher of the Vale. I wouldn’t be able to face my father ever again in that case.”
“Nanaki…” Though Barret is likewise concerned, he gives it some thought and then nods along. “No, you know what? You’re right.” He also plants a hand over his chest. “In fact, let’s all do it! We’ll stake our lives on it too!”
“Barret?” Tifa calls nervously.
He turns to the others. “Look, Nanaki was right. If the spirits of this tribe can’t rest in peace anywhere, what’s stopping them from just flying back up to the surface and attacking any ol’ town, not just Cosmo Canyon? Then they’ll just be a menace everywhere! We got enough problems to deal with already. Ain’t no one wanna deal with a hoard of ghosts on top of alla that.”
Now the others follow along and nod to each other in agreement. Tifa then replies, “That’s true. The sooner we resolve this, the better.”
“Yeah. Besides, we were looking for Ruby anyway, so it’s no step out of our tight schedule,” Aerith points out.
Cloud turns back to the chief, this time with a cooler albeit still smug look. “Well, there you have it. We all stake our lives on it. Now will you at least give us a chance?”
“…” Even now, Gi Nattak’s stoic expression doesn’t change, almost as if he wouldn’t be surprised by any sort of developments from here on. For a moment, he looks away from them and toward the statue that stands before them all in quiet contemplation. And then, he turns back to them with one last proposal.
“If you truly do stake your lives upon it, then back your word.”
Now, he raises a hand up in the air as if making a command. At once, an entire squad of Gi warrior spirits arrive inside the chamber, as if they’ve appeared out of hiding from within the walls. They quickly surround the entire crew, armed with their signature spears, blades, and bows pointed, and block off the exit.
“!?”
Likewise, Gi Nattak is swept up in a whirl of blackish magic and he disappears in a dark mist before reappearing as his once familiar masked specter form, proudly wielding his massive spear in hand once more. His demonic-looking eyes narrow into focused slits, and without hesitation or mercy, he gives the order to his men. “The negotiations have ended and there is no peace deal. Eliminate the intruders.”
“Hey! What the hell!” Barret complains, whipping his gun forward.
“Shoulda known it’d come to this,” Cloud growls, drawing his sword too.
“No! Stop!” Nanaki pleads.
Just as the party tries to arm themselves and brace for combat, he jumps in the way. But just as he does, the Gi archers let fly a volley of arrows at their targets. With incredible blitzing speed, Nanaki leaps about in a ring around his friends and uses himself as a shield to take each and every arrow that is fired. Though he lands back on all fours, still keeping between them and the Gi chief, his feet stagger and he almost stumbles to the ground.
“Nanaki!” Tifa shrieks.
“Hang in there!” Aerith follows, rushing to his side.
However, it is already too late. These arrows are no ordinary arrows, but the same poisonous ones that once turned his father to stone. Even just mere seconds after he was hit, Nanaki’s body is already stiffening up, the stone patches forming all around his body, and he struggles to move. Even as Aerith calls upon her healing magic or tries a Golden Needle (formerly known as a Soft) on him, nothing seems to have an effect.
“Nanaki!” Cloud yells in panic.
“What’s happening to him!?” Barret asks, just as frantic.
Gi Nattak remains unmoved as always. He simply raises his spearhead forward as if giving the next order, albeit unspoken. The remaining Gi warriors then charge in with their own spears, and the party sans Nanaki and Aerith rushes to meet them in the fray. Cloud lets swing, Barret fires away, and Tifa’s fists fly and her legs sweep. Even just the three of them are enough to dodge or knock away the next incoming volley of arrows. However, before they can even land a few solid blows in counterattack, Nanaki’s voice barks out at them.
“Guys, don’t fight! Just run!”
“Nanaki?” Aerith checks with him.
“Please! Leave me! I will handle the Gi! The rest of you must go find Ruby!”
“What!?” Barret bellows, “No way, man!”
“You’re coming too!” Cloud demands.
“Guys, let’s grab him and go!” Tifa suggests.
“He’s kinda heavy…” Aerith admits while trying to lift him.
While Cloud and Barret cover them, Tifa jumps right over to lend her a hand from the other side. But even now, Nanaki continues to protest.
“No, leave me! I will only be a burden like this!”
“Shut up! You’re not gonna be a statue!” Cloud snaps back. He whirls his blade in a great arc and swats away more arrows from reaching them.
“GRRAAAAAAHHH!!” Barret roars, charging right into a line of Gi warriors and smashing through their weapons with a single smash of his gun-arm.
“Hold on, Nanaki! I got you!” Tifa calls out.
While those two charge ahead to force a way through the mob and out of the chamber, she takes her chance to draw upon her chi reserves and lets them out in a burst of energy that strengthens her bones and enhances muscle growth and density. Now looking fairly jacked herself, she singlehandedly lifts the now nearly stone body of Nanaki off the ground and slings him over her shoulder, while Aerith minds his tail from behind.
“L-leave me… Please… Save yourselves…” Nanaki begs through a strained throat.
“Don't worry!” Aerith’s shouts her earnest pleas as loudly as she can through the noise. “We’ll get you out!”
But the arrows’ effects work fast. Not even a minute on, Nanaki can no longer move a muscle. His breath is haggard like he’s losing air or even choking on dust in his lungs, and even his voice is going.
“I must… protect the vale… my people… my home… Father…”
“Let’s go!” Tifa declares and she and Aerith hurry off after the guys.
However, though the party breaks through and rushes through the village, the obstacles do not stop coming in their way. Even the once quiet and reserved villagers who tried to keep to themselves now burst into similar black whirlwinds and reveal their true forms as fellow Gi warriors in disguise and launch themselves at the fleeing fugitives. Cloud and Barret, still leading the charge, team up with a shared fiery spirit that would normally frighten off the craven, yet the apparitions refuse to fall back, almost as if their very hatred were keeping them from disappearing entirely.
“Goddammit! These bastards just won’t stay down!” Barret swears. He also warns them as he draws upon the power of a rising flame from within, “Don’t make me bring the hellfire on ya!”
“Aerith! Tifa! Go!” Cloud shouts, drawing his sword back over his shoulder. “We’ll clear the way!”
He promptly unleashes a raging whirlwind of Dragon’s Ascent (a directional variant of Finishing Touch) that blasts away the encroaching horde, but by mysterious force enacted, that wind abruptly peters out as soon as it is unleashed. Likewise, Barret charges up a fearsome Hellblazer Shot to eliminate the other half that weren’t caught, but after the giant fireball is fired, it promptly fizzles into a puff of smoke. The two men are utterly stunned and are nearly caught by another incoming volley of arrows, but they jump out of the way. Unfortunately, as they do, they are split up from the ladies who have rushed on ahead. Now the Gi have them surrounded again and the guys are at a loss, wondering why their awesome divine powers have suddenly stopped working.
But enough is enough. Aerith leaves Nanaki to Tifa and whips back around to stand her ground. She draws forth her Princess Guard to her hands and calls upon a holy-infused ward that shields the men, temporarily blocking any undead from entering the circle. Though she stands by with a proud smirk, that smirk quickly vanishes when some of the Gi then turns their sights on her instead.
“Eek! Stay away!” she screams as she makes a run for it.
“Aerith!” Tifa cries for her. “Over here!”
Aerith hurries to catch up with Tifa, but now that they finally arrive at the edge of the village, where the river has been waiting, they are startled to discover that the boatman from earlier has disappeared. Even the river that had previously just been but a short ride from bank to bank now seems to stretch on outward to a far horizon as if it had been expanded to a whole sea.
Tifa looks around frantically. “What the? Wasn’t it just a river before? Where’d it go?”
Aerith looks off for a moment to reconsider something and brings back her holographic screen. Once again, as has happened in previous memories, the system is inoperable with the ever persistent message, “Play cannot be paused while the trial is in session.” By this point, she’s grown sick of seeing those words. What is a user of this frustrating system to do if she can’t even work with it when she needs it most? She dismisses the screen and turns back to Tifa with a worried frown.
“Sorry, I don’t think I can affect how things are going.”
“It’s okay. You tried.”
“Halt. You will proceed no further,” a deep, threatening voice warns as it approaches them from behind.
They turn back around to find Gi Nattak and his men have them surrounded again, but now their backs are to an uncrossable sea rather than any wall of a cave. The chief raises his great spear their way and gives them one last warning before he sics his men on them again.
“You have nowhere to run. Cease your struggle and return to the planet in peace.”
“No way!” Tifa snaps back. “What did you do? Where’s the exit?”
“Can’t we still talk things out?” Aerith asks nervously but holds little hope for a positive answer.
Gi Nattak replies coldly, “You refuse to grant us escape from this planet’s unending cycle. We have no obligation to grant yours.”
“That isn’t true, though…” she begins, but he isn’t listening anymore.
With a wave of his spear, he wordlessly commands his men to charge in once more. But as the ladies brace for even more struggle, a mysterious voice arises from somewhere. It is a booming voice that echoes throughout the caverns and sends a ripple through the very ground like a sudden shockwave. It even shocks the Gi warriors into confusion despite that they’re all floating off the ground.
“ENOUGH. This war is over.”
“!?”
All of a sudden, a burst of light erupts from Nanaki’s stone body and startles Tifa enough that she loses her grip on him. His front paws hit the ground with more force than she intended, and at first she panics at the sight that there are cracks.
“Ah! Sorry, Nanaki!” she squeaks. “…!?”
However, the cracks only continue to spread throughout his body and to everyone’s surprise, what is revealed is the sparse unveiling of his vibrant red fur just underneath the stone layer. By some mysterious magic, his body also grows heavier and heavier until she can hold onto him no longer, and she’s forced to lower him and gently drop him back down.
“Nanaki?” Aerith calls, growing wide-eyed but with renewed hope.
Finally, the cracking comes to a stop as it runs the entire length of his body, even down to the tip of his tail. The stone layer then begins to crumble and falls away, revealing bright red flame-like fur at the tail’s end. And with another sudden burst of light, Nanaki comes bursting back out of his stone prison with a triumphant roar that pushes the Gi back and aghast.
“Gi Nattak! Lay down your arms and tell your men to stand down!” he snarls with a booming voice to match.
“Nanaki!” the ladies cry with joy.
Unlike before, he now faces the Gi Tribe with a burning fire in his now whited-out eye. But he looks a little different now that he’s out. Though his mane is as spiky as it had been and his hanging bang of hair stands on end like bristles, the hair itself has grown white as if he’s somehow aged quite a bit, despite his face and slender body remain as fit, firm, and elastic as in his youth. And in place of where his collar had once been is now set a pendant hung loosely from his neck that is adorned with purple orbs interspersed with the fangs of a terrifying beast, displayed front and center as if they were once the bounty of a great battle from primordial times.
Even the Gi chief, whose ghoulish face once showed no remorse, now falters in the face of this newcomer. He points a shaking finger his way in disbelief. “Y-You! Are you really…?”
Nanaki stands his ground and holds his head high, speaking as if drawing from the wisdom of another. “The trial has come to an end. There is no need draw out the conflict further.”
“The Great Shaman of the Land, Titan! He has chosen you!?”
By now, the rest of the Gi have been thoroughly shaken to their cores. They nervously exchange glances with one another and back to their chief, who legitimately looks shocked and terrified himself. And at once, Gi Nattak drops to the ground in a respectful bow, with his men following suit.
“O Great Shaman! We have been waiting for Your timely return!” the Gi chief formally greets him.
Tifa and Aerith are equally startled and share their own looks of confusion. “Shaman…?”
“Tifa! Aerith!” another familiar voice calls from a little distance away.
“You guys okay!?” the other familiar voice follows suit.
Cloud and Barret now rush on over as fast as they can. For a while there, they were held back by the villagers that refused to look away and let them leave the safety of their magic circle, but suddenly the great roar that echoed earlier shook the specters scared and they all fled in an instant, leaving them free to escape.
“Cloud! Barret! We’re okay!” Aerith calls back with a wave of her hand.
But now that they come up to the scene themselves, they stop short upon witnessing some strange turn of events. Where the Gi had once been a terrifying and nigh unstoppable threat, they now have prostrated themselves before Nanaki, who stands proudly as if lording over them. In fact, Nanaki himself is looking a little more mystically inclined this time with the new makeover and all.
“Nanaki! You’re okay!?” Barret cries with glowing delight in his eyes.
“What the?” Cloud mutters, his mouth agape. “This look…”
They come on over to join the ladies with understandably blank, confused looks on their faces. Cloud asks them, “What happened? Why are the Gi Tribe like this?”
Tifa blinks, looking as lost as they are. “Um, I think Nanaki told them to stand down?”
“Nanaki?” He looks back to the fiery fellow. “What’s going on with him?”
Barret raises an eyebrow. “Huh. His hair’s gone white. Is he really okay?”
“He seems fine…” Tifa surmises.
Then, after a moment to think it over, Aerith claps her hands together and cheers. “Oh, I got it! I think he passed the trial!”
“He did?” Tifa blinks again and gasps. “Wait, was that the reason for that weird light just now?”
“Yeah!” She passes Nanaki an eager smile. “I mean, he looks kinda like Titan, doesn’t he?”
Barret looks between them as if he’s taking a moment to process it and whips around to stare at Nanaki again. “Wait! That’s Titan!?”
Cloud nods to himself. “That’s where I remember seeing that pendant…”
As their chatting gossip quiets down, Nanaki turns to them to address their many questions. He continues to speak in his deep, more adult-sounding voice, which now carries a bit more weight behind it than ever before, “You’ve all done well. I’ve just spoken with Titan and he agrees that the conditions have been met. From here on out, I will be a burden to you no more.”
“Oh, Nanaki!” Aerith giggles. “You were never a burden!”
“Yeah! The hell are you saying? Didn’t know you were pretending to be Cloud!” Barret jokes.
“Hey,” the latter complains.
“That’s amazing, Nanaki! You’ve really been blessed by Titan, huh?” Tifa finally relaxes with a relieved smile. “That was a close call for a moment there. We all thought you were a goner.”
Nanaki nods back with a confident smirk. “Truthfully, even I believed I would be meeting my end for a moment there. Thankfully, the trial overseer gave me his approval just in time.”
Cloud looks back to the Gi who are still on the ground. “So what’s all this? Did Titan also tell them to stop?”
Nanaki nods back. “He did. It only came to my attention just now, but the moment I merged with Titan’s spirit, I learned the full truth of this memory.”
“The full truth?”
Nanaki then turns back to the Gi and speaks as if giving them orders, “Rise. You have all served dutifully.”
Cloud blinks. “Huh?”
Now, the Gi chief rises back up and his men follow suit, and with another brief whirlwind that obscures their visages, all the warriors return to their previous more human-like appearances, albeit with the same bluish skin. Even Gi Nattak has dismissed his weapon and returns to his strict composure from earlier.
Nanaki now turns back to his very lost friends to explain, “I must apologize, my friends, for involving you all without your knowledge. As it turns out, this entire memory, from the very beginning to all the stakes that would come into play, was a trial set up by Titan to test my resolve.”
The others are all taken aback by the revelation. “Set up by Titan? All of it?” Barret asks.
Tifa grows uncomfortable. “Even the part where the Gi attacked us? That was all planned?”
Nanaki nods. “Yes. But rest assured, I initially came into this memory without a clue of what was going on. Grandpa taught me the general idea of its nature, but I had to understand my role in it on my own. And I decided that I would become the emissary to talk peace with the Gi and finally bring our age-old feud to an end. However, while Titan already saw promise in me since the beginning, he had to give me one final test before he would approve of our contract.”
“One final test…” Aerith repeats mindfully.
“I had to show where my allegiance lies and prove to him that I would abide by my code of honor at all costs. Therefore, he concocted a hypothetical scenario within the Village of Gi where I would learn of their plight and try to bring them to a peaceful resolution. However, though I wasn’t aware at the time, the discussions would ultimately come to a standoff, where I would be faced with an ultimatum: either I retrieve the Black Materia for him or there would be no peace deal.”
Even Gi Nattak nods along and admits, “Indeed. For the purposes of this trial, we chose the Black Materia specifically to introduce doubt and uncertainty into our discussion and to await his response. However, we truly have no intention to put it to use ourselves. The return of Tiamat would simply spell doom and eternal suffering to all, while we only wish to be laid to rest.”
Barret narrows his eyes suspiciously. “Ya don’t say…”
Cloud shakes his head in disbelief. “I get that Nanaki went along with it since he didn’t know…” Cloud replies. He keeps a suspect stare on the chief as he asks, “But why would you agree to it? I mean, what’s in it for you to play along?”
Gi Nattak answers plainly, “It is the only path still open to us.”
“The only ‘path’? You mean the end to your suffering?”
“Precisely. You see, we have happened upon a certain twist of fate as of late… In fact, we have your friend named Ruby to whom we can express our thanks.”
He blinks, totally not expecting that answer. “Ruby?”
Gi Nattak nods and proceeds to explain, “Following our defeat at her hands, I and my fallen brethren were thus caught in a strange series of events. Though we could not return to the planet, we wandered lost until we found a new resting place amid a parallel stream known simply as the ‘Terra Null’. Despite its ill reputation, we were nevertheless welcomed into its flow and put to a deep sleep for a time until we could be called upon once more.”
Cloud stares back incredulously, but then looks aside as he thinks it over. Hold on a minute. What’s going on there? Put to “sleep” for a time? That’s not how he remembers it’s supposed to go. Ruby once said that anything that touched the Terra Null would “disappear” and that was the reason why the voices of the planet were being lost. But was that really true, or was she actually mistaken? What is the true nature of the “Terra Null”?
“When came the time for our release, for once our terrible fate turned to fortune. Though the Cetra and their honored Guardians had long turned a blind eye to our suffering, something had changed since we reappeared from this stream. Some Guardians now viewed us worthy of their attention after all. The Great Shaman Titan was one among them. He approached us and advised us how we would be able to reverse our current standing with the planet.” He then shakes his head with a profound sigh. “Such is irony produced by time. Despite our long-standing feud with the Cetra who once betrayed us, we agreed to set old grudges aside to work toward a common goal: to prevent the return of Tiamat. But critical to that goal would be those who could stand in for the Guardians of ages past. Thus, in anticipation of the trials they would host for these certain heroes, we would play the role of the villains.”
“…”
He passes a meaningful glance around the faces of his audience and takes a respectful bow as he formally addresses the elephant in the room, “My apologies for our aggressive behavior earlier, but it was a necessary part of the trial’s course. We had to make everything appear as convincing as possible so that you all would believe in the stakes.”
Barret stares back, still not quite getting what’s the point of it all, and scratches his head. “Wait. So it really was just a setup? Were we in any real trouble then?”
Nanaki lowers his head and confesses, “Yes, there was still a real risk. If it turned out that I was simply unable to overcome this trial, Titan would have left and we all could have been trapped in this memory forever.”
Barret frowns with absolute indignance. “What!? Come on, man! The hell is up with these Summons!?”
Tifa also grows concerned. “Wait, Nanaki. If that was the risk, why would you accept a trial like this?”
Nanaki turns to her to answer, “Like I said, I didn’t know what to expect at first. In fact, I didn’t even know you all would show up too and get involved.” He turns back to the Gi chief with an earnest look in his eye. “However, no matter what the case, I would still have tried to honor my word to help the Gi in any way.”
Aerith nods along. “That’s only natural. We were the ones who jumped in unannounced and all.”
He looks to her too with a reassuring smile. “But I’m glad you all did. Without your valuable assistance, everyone, I don’t know if I could have overcome everything.”
Cloud raises a suspicious eyebrow toward the Gi chief like he still wants to raise more arguments to him, but decides not to bother with any more. He then lets off a sigh and then turns back to Nanaki. “Alright, so is that it? You impressed Titan enough to let us all off the hook?”
“It seems so. I am also grateful that the Gi have been put into good hands after all. Now we just need to find Ruby again and pass on their thanks.” And finally, with the last of his responsibilities settled, Nanaki then returns to his more natural voice. He even wags his tail happily as he follows up, “Boy, am I glad I passed! Things got a little too close at the end there. Hope I don’t have to go through something like this ever again.”
Cloud makes an amused smirk to see the old Nanaki come out again. “Yeah, let’s hope. We all had to go through way worse ourselves.”
“Huh?” His tail stops wagging. “What do you mean? Were the trials you guys had even harder?”
“Uh…” He casts an awkward look aside toward Tifa and Barret, who share his awkward expression. Even without a word between them, they all seem to collectively agree that they don’t need to tell the details. He looks back to Nanaki with a casual shrug. “Yeah, something like that.”
“Oh, wow. And here I was nervous that this was my toughest challenge yet.” Nanaki’s eye then brightens back up. “But I’m glad we all made it out alright!”
Aerith smiles and throws up a triumphant fist in the air. “Okay! With that outta the way, we’re done here! Let’s get back to Ruby’s place!” She drops it down and gets serious again. “Besides, there’s still something we gotta ask Zack.”
“Huh? What about?” Tifa asks her.
“What else? If he really is keeping that materia safe.”
“Huh!?” Tifa is quite taken aback to hear that from her. “Aerith, what do you mean? He said he would.”
“I know, and that’s why I’m concerned.” She then looks a bit unsure as she suspects, “There’s something weird going on with him and I don’t think even he realizes it.”
Cloud raises an eyebrow. “…So it wasn’t just me, huh. Yeah, I got questions for him too.”
Aerith nods back. “Let’s go back and check on him.”
“Yeah. Hopefully he’s still there.” He casts a suspicious look aside as he admits, “It didn’t sit right with me when he said he’d be able to fend off Sephiroth no problem. It’s like he knows something we don’t.”
She then draws up the holographic screen again and now the persistently annoying message has vanished. Finally free to operate again, she moves to exit the current session and initiates the warp once more. White light envelops the entire party, and as Gi Nattak and the rest of the tribe send them off with courteous bows, Cloud’s party with Nanaki in tow are obscured in a flash.
Notes:
Quick roundup of new character & technique names
- Elder Wabi's name comes from the Algonquian word wábi for "to see". br>
- Anasa comes from the Algonquian word anassas meaning "hummingbird". br>
- Pauk comes from the Narragansett word páupock meaning "partridge". br>
- Kont comes from either the Algonquian word kongkont / Narragansett word kaukont, both meaning "crow".
- Dragon's Ascent is taken from the previous version from chapter 67, where Fenrir!Cloud took out the Snow Hippogryph, but this time without the Ice and just the Wind element.
- Hellblazer Shot is a variant of Barret's LB, Fire in the Hole, but with an extra boost by Ifrit. They both woulda been really cool if not for the rules of weakening other elements in certain Summon Trials.Details on Nanaki's trial
- I'm sure you're all wondering about how I got the idea to write Nanaki's trial the way I have here. While I definitely remember what happened in Rebirth when the party were undergoing their own trials at the Temple of the Ancients, I felt like Nanaki's trauma in that instance, while legit of course, wouldn't have made for much of a chapter imho. It's not that I couldn't have added anything to the scene and made Hojo extra evil for the heck of it, but it was ultimately a pretty short scene and didn't go much else into detail about what Nanaki went through as a lab specimen for Hojo. Frankly, I don't think we need to tread further there because I came up with a much better idea, especially given that I have rewritten the lore behind the Black Materia entirely. br>
- But I still wanted to integrate the new history of the Gi in this story somehow, so I took inspiration from Rebirth regarding the designs of their people and the location of their village, complete with the boatman. However, because I am also writing this from the perspective of the Lifestream and all its weird shenanigans, I get to play with ideas. And I figured, the Gi's history of being foreigners to the planet can remain intact. I'm just going to change what roles they play. Given that the Pantheon are still the ones calling the shots for the most part, the Gi would very much turn to them to ask for help, though through whatever divine bureaucracy there is, their pleas went unanswered. (Sounds familiar as an IRL history buff.) However, as Gi Nattak explained, Ruby threw a wrench in their plans and now they actually have to address the issue with the Gi. br>
- For the record, I keep referring to Gi Nattak by his full name because that is just how I always have done. Just calling him "Gi" would be confusing and "Nattak" sounds like it's missing something. At least to me! I take it as a sort of "Genghis Khan" situation where it's not his real birth name and is more like a title. br>
- As for Titan himself, I ran into a dilemma. On one hand, I've always seen Titan as one of the most honorable types out of all the Summons. I even see him as incredibly eloquent despite his appearance, thus fitting well with Nanaki's "adult" voice. So, at first I wasn't sure I wanted to play up the trickery in this trial he's overseeing. But on the other hand, a trial with much deception would be perfect for Nanaki, who is very much an honorable type as well. Thus, came in the Gi. They turned out to be the perfect stand-ins to act the villains, at least for a moment. But I didn't want them to be evil; just misunderstood. And in the end, the perfect ending would be to find a resolution for them... which despite all the other possibilities I tried, still led me back to Ruby. She's just too powerful, guys. br>
- As for the confusion around Zack? Well, we're gonna have to save that until the next, next chapter. Stay tuned.
Chapter 81: Laying Blame
Notes:
Thank you all for your patience. I don't know how this keeps happening. I just write stuff and then write stuff and then write more stuff... and now this chapter is my longest one to date at 47 pages (on MS Word) and over 20K words. But I figured, my update schedule is all over the place now, I might as well embrace the chaos.
Anyway, ya'll know for sure that we're slowly heading into the final arc of this fic because I am trying to cram as much political conspiracy as possible given the timeframe I have set for myself. I am suffering back-breaking work and I can't even be mad.
7/9/25 edit: Updated every instance of "Five Mighty Gods of Wutai" to "Five Saints of Wutai" to align with a detail from Crisis Core. The original phrase was carried over from the OG and I forgot SqEx already revised the name.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
It was a trap all along. The humble little farming village was no village, but a campsite cleverly disguised by its residents to welcome the arrival of Shinra’s agents. Even their embassy staff member and driver from before has suspiciously vanished, having turned tail after they left. After being rounded up by members of the group that called themselves the “Anti-Shinra Resistance”, Cait Sith, Moogle, and the Turks shortly found themselves taken to their actual base hidden in the middle of the otherwise abandoned-looking town of Vestnik. This once prosperous industrial town from olden days is now a ghost town that has since been occupied and repurposed by the ASR as their temporary HQ, away from the prying eyes of the Wutai government and especially any foreign emissaries.
The man named Zangan leads the group, accompanied by a number of former villagers who were fellow ASR members in disguise, to a large building bunker that was formerly a warehouse and storage site of a major goods manufacturer, but now has been emptied and reestablished as a sort of public hall. Here, there seems to be quite a variety of people, ranging from well-fitted, able-bodied young men and women to the surprisingly hardy elderly. While most are civilian volunteers, some are former veterans from the previous war and even others are merchants that provide arms and supplies as needed. There are even a few young ones here; children of some members who have taken on the family business and are working to become members themselves. Everyone in this town who has remained has done so, dedicated to the same cause: to fight the ever encroaching power that is Shinra.
“Everyone, good news! The trap was a success!” Zangan announces loudly. “We’ve rounded up the latest intruders.”
“Master Zangan! You’re back!” one of the men calls out as soon as they arrive.
“Thank goodness! That was a nerve-racking wait!” one of the women beside him also exclaims.
A number of members that weren’t busy minding their individual stands and stalls gather into a small crowd around the new arrivals with both curious and wary eyes. A few among them are kids who take immediate interest in the strange-looking black cat with a crown and cape sitting atop his white moogle steed. The Turks, meanwhile, don’t get a very nice welcome. All around them are Wutaians who more or less have some beef with Shinra. While Reno and Rude simply avoid any particular eye contact, Elena, ever the brazen one, dares to meet a number of glares with her own.
“Shinra agents! They really were trespassing on our lands, those scoundrels!” “Wow! They look as shady as the rumors said!” “Black suits to match their black hearts…” “The blond one seems especially ill-mannered… Look, she even growled at me!” “Hey, what’s with the cat? It looks like a toy,” come the murmurs from the crowd.
One of the men, a burly middle-aged fellow with a bushy beard, who shared glares with her then turns back to Zangan. “So these are the ruffians that arrived from Gap’lau earlier?”
Zangan nods with a serious frown. “As suspected, they were looking for Avalanche. Shinra’s been particularly busy deploying their people all over the world after the prison jailbreak last week.”
Another of the men somewhat younger and more clean-shaven than the bearded fellow also asks, “And what of Gorki-dono and the other Saints? I don’t see them among you. Did they run into something else on the way?”
Zangan shakes his head and reassures them, “Not to worry. After this lot was caught rummaging around the old fort, they happened to awaken two of the sleeping Vajradhara. Gorki and the others have elected to stay there to return the escaped creatures to their dens and to tend to any other issues that may have arisen.”
There’s a collective wave of relief that comes over the crowd, where some people nod along with confidence and faith in their deeply respected leaders of influence.
“Thank goodness. So there’s no need to worry…” an elderly woman says with a polite and humble tone.
“We can leave it to the Saints! If there’s anyone that can handle such beasts, it would be the pride of Wutai!” one of the younger ladies cheers.
“Yeah! Yeah!” some of the kids jump along. Even one of them adds excitedly, “Shake-dono is so cool!”
A teenaged boy among them then adds with a hint of snark, “Really? I was thinking Gorki-dono was the coolest. He’s so calm and focused even in danger!”
Another teenager beside him argues, “Nah, you’re thinking about about Chekov-dono. There’s the slickest, coolest head in the west.”
A third teen who’s a bit more portly than the other two follows, “Hey, no love for Staniv-dono? He’s so sturdy and self-assured, he’s like the anchor of the five!”
“Are you kidding me? If we’re talking the ‘anchor’, that’s obviously Godo-dono! He’s the leader for a reason!” yet another one cuts in.
But while most of the people are just happy to talk about the Saints, a few more disgruntled others among them continue to keep a wary watch of the new captives. These young men all happened to be in the infantry during the war and they even have the scars to prove it.
“Hmph. If you ask me, this lot should have stayed there too to be stomped on by the ogres,” comes a sharp remark from a man with a burn scar on the side of his jaw.
“Ha! Yeah. Then maybe Shinra would learn not to send their rats sneaking around our backyard!” comes the snappy reply beside him. This guy was a bit luckier to only have had one of his eyebrows singed.
“Anyone trying to mess with Wutai is seriously stupid. Shinra thinks we stopped fighting because they beat us, but we just wanted to spare the civilians from their reckless destruction,” a third man replies bitterly. It looks like he has a nick on his ear, but also keeps a hearing aid in it to cover for the injury inside.
“Yeah. Sucks being the defending team. We had way more to lose if we kept pushing…” the first trooper grumbles along.
Then, the younger of the men who first spoke with Zangan follows with another big question, “By the way, what are we going to do with these people? Do we just toss them in the cells with the other shifty types?”
Cait Sith blinks, growing even more nervous. “C-cells? Other shifty types?”
“Shinra agents or not, who cares!” Another older man beside him argues with a fist in the air. “Anyone against Wutai who crosses our land is asking for trouble!”
“Yeah, yeah!” comes a hurrah from the crowd around them.
The crowd’s reactions only make the cat feel even more timid and he slowly shrinks behind Moogle. Even Zangan notices and gives him a concerned frown, but also makes a face like he has a certain suspicion in mind. He turns back to the crowd and raises a hand to calm them and instead advises, “Hold that thought. Before we do, I’d like to interrogate them. It’s strange that even after a whole week since the refugees escaped and went missing, Shinra hasn’t been very proactive with searching for them.”
The young man beside him nods back. “Very well, sir. I believe the third back room to your left is still open. If you have any issues with getting them to speak, though, let us know. We have plenty of men who would be happy to apply force.”
But Zangan shakes his head. “Now, now. There’s no need to resort to that. I have plenty of ways to make any tight-lipped agents spill.”
“Alright, sir. It’s your call.”
Satisfied that their most important questions have been answered, the crowd gradually dissipates on its own as Zangan leads his new detainees, pushed along by several of the men that accompanied them here, to the designated back room. This room was once a meeting room for the staff that once worked in this warehouse while it was still in operation, but now it serves as an extra place for private conversations and interrogations that could get intense at times. However, rather than call for anyone else to join them, Zangan insists that he interrogate this group by himself. Though his companions are confused and some are concerned, they decide to leave him be. After all, they don’t need to worry about the mighty Zangan, who was once the sworn brother to the former shogun Godo himself. If anything, even a massive Adamantaimai, the huge tusked turtles of the Wutaian seas, could be brought to its knees before this martial master’s power and technique.
“Here we are. We shouldn’t be interrupted in the meantime,” Zangan states assuredly.
Reno shakes his head, looking a bit more amused than scorned. “Really? You’re keeping us captive in a boardroom? And here I thought Wutai was at least a little more interesting than back home.”
Rude gets straight to the point, “If you’re expecting answers about our mission, you won’t be getting much out of us.”
Elena throws a verbal jab of her own, “Yeah! Don’t underestimate us Turks! We’ll be hightailing it outta here before you know it!”
Reno gives her some frigid side-eye, as if asking her to rephrase that.
Elena quickly corrects herself, “I mean sneaking out and all that! You’d better watch your backs next!”
But Zangan remains unfazed and calmly shakes his head. “I’m well aware of what the Turks are capable of. That’s why I’ve chosen to speak with you all in private.”
“Huh?”
Reno raises an eyebrow. “What’s this? Actual respect from the enemy?”
Zangan doesn’t answer that and simply offers a guiding hand toward the table. “Please, have a seat. There are a few urgent matters we must discuss.”
“…”
Though still wary, the Turks oblige, all taking the same side of the table, and Moogle sets Cait Sith upon one of the chairs across them before he too hops onto one of his own. As Cait is a little short, he has to remain standing on the seat so his head still pokes out above the table. They all turn their attention to Zangan, who takes a seat at the front between them.
“So what’s this about, old man?” Reno asks, already sitting laid back in his chair.
“First things first… I must inform you all of a critical development since you last visited our country. It would be in your best interest to not roam around freely, at least without some sort of cautionary measures.”
“Huh?”
“And who are you to tell us what we can or can’t do?” Elena demands.
Zangan says nothing. He instead draws out a few photos from a pocket and sets them down on the table. At that moment, everyone else in the room is drawn with alarm to what is shown. It seems like someone or even something has been capturing photos of them. These are all aerial snapshots taken over the Wutaian capital, back when Cloud and party confronted the Turks near the Five-Tier Pagoda. Another few photos happened to catch Barret, Nanaki, Biggs, and Wedge while they were at a certain fort a distance away from the capital. A couple other snapshots even captured Vincent while he was pursuing one of the cult members, as well as Cait Sith and Cid when they happened to create a stir near the capital’s southern gate. And of course, front and center on the main street of the capital was Ruby when she first arrived, carrying Sonon on her back and grinning like a maniac.
“W-what!?” Cait Sith nearly leaps in his seat in surprise. “We’ve all been caught on camera!?” He even climbs onto the table to look over them all up close. “That’s everyone but Jessie and our guests, I think. They were still on the Highwind, after all.” Pondering to himself, he returns to his seat.
“Tch…” Reno sits up and fires a glare back at Zangan. “So what’s this about? Where’d you get these photos?”
“These photos were taken by a government drone during your last visit to Wutai. I personally spoke with members of the House of Parliament and that was when they presented these photos to me. As of now, everyone pictured here – except Ruby-dono – has received bounties for your capture.”
Rude raises an eyebrow. “So the Wutai government is keenly aware of our involvement with Cloud’s group, huh.”
“Man!” Reno complains with a huff, slouching in his seat again. “I knew things went too smoothly. It was just a temporary deal, but now we’ve been caught in 4K looking like some kind of traitors!”
“What!?” Elena yells indignantly, slamming her hands on the table as she gets up. She gives Zangan a vicious glare. “Hey! You’d better not be thinking about exposing these photos to anyone! We’ll get you for that!”
Zangan, ever composed, calmly shakes his head. “Rest assured, these photos have not yet entered public circulation. The government would rather not let out anything about the incidents that you’ve been involved in, especially that they might affect public perception of Ruby-dono herself. Truth be told, I haven’t even alerted the rest of the ASR about these photos yet. It would have stirred too much confusion.”
Elena sits back down with a wary frown. “Yeah, you’d better not.”
Rude cautiously asks, “So why are you telling us about this?”
“I have a proposal. I will not pressure you for an answer, but I suggest you think about it wisely. You see, despite our conflicting interests, I believe there is a certain goal we still have in common.” He thus brings it up, “Do you remember the smuggling ring previously working under Corneo?”
The moment he mentions it, the Turks snap to attention. Rude answers plainly, “We haven’t forgotten.”
Reno raises an eyebrow. “What about them? Don’t tell me there’s still around somehow?”
Zangan nods back solemnly. “Unfortunately, yes. Corneo’s disappearance doesn’t seem to have mattered very much in the grand scheme, especially while the NRSA members responsible are still missing and at large. We’ve continued the search for them on our own, but have come up empty. Even communications with our own government have been difficult when it comes to identifying the most up-to-date information.”
Cait Sith gasps in horror. “They’re still missing!? But it’s been a while since last heard from them, yeah? What’s going on there?”
Reno casually suggests, “Got taken off the census, probably.”
The cat frowns disapprovingly his way, but doesn’t have any ammo to argue with.
Reno shrugs. “Hey, not saying they’re dead. Chances are, they’re hiding or being hidden by some other group.”
Rude nods along as he recalls, “We do have a few potential candidates at least.”
“Yeah.” Reno taps the table idly with a few fingers, and then sits up in his seat to face Zangan. “Talking about your government’s piss-poor comms lately, they’ve also been quiet about our missing envoys too. That can’t just be a coincidence, can it?”
Rude nods slowly, putting a hand to his chin. “Likewise, Shinra has previously sent some agents this way to search for the missing cult members as well, but we haven’t heard back from them either.” He passes Zangan another wary stare. “By any chance, the ASR wouldn’t know something about that, would they?”
“…” Though Zangan takes a moment to mull over their rapid-fire questions, he firmly shakes his head. “Not that we’ve been notified of yet. Though, that’s something to be expected.” He shakes his head with a pensive frown. “While this town is mostly abandoned these days, the people who remain have unified behind the same cause to oppose Shinra. However, we also oppose this government’s aggressive pursuit of war and advocate for a more peaceful solution. As a result, we’ve been left waiting on the sidelines for our government to decide on the course. Their silence is telling; I wouldn’t be surprised if the wait is indefinite.”
“Too bad.” Reno leans back again. “If Wutai can’t get its shit together fast enough, Shinra’s not gonna wait until they figure it out.”
“That being said,” Zangan then brings up, “I’m sure it would benefit both our parties to see that the ARC supply line come to a halt. None of us would want to see this war, if it comes, to be settled by which country has the more ‘immortal’ soldiers, so to speak.”
“Oh! Absolutely agreed!” Cait Sith declares, hopping in his seat to set his hands on the table. “Even if Shinra may have some disagreements among our members, we’re still open to peace talks! We can’t go risking everyone’s lives for some deadly war when there are some obvious misunderstandings!”
But Elena objects, “Hey! Be quiet! You don’t speak for Shinra!”
He fires back with his own impatient frown, “Even if my fellow coworkers may think otherwise, I’m still a representative of the company! Of course I’d have to say something!”
“Even then, you don’t get to decide these things like you’re president! Settle down!”
Cait Sith raises a trembling fist her way, but quietly obliges and returns to his seat.
Reno and Rude share awkward looks like they’re not sure how best to approach this. On one hand, Elena isn’t wrong, per se, but on the other, while they’re out here in enemy territory, there are clearly some things that are more important and they don’t need the identities of their company heads being revealed. Then again, Reeve was always the odd one out. Maybe they could just pretend he was recently fired?
Nevertheless, Zangan remains unfazed, almost as if he had suspected something all along. He decides not to comment on it, though, and moves on. “…I’m well aware that Shinra follows its own agenda. But I must ask: Whatever your objectives may be at this time, will you be pursuing this cult? Perhaps we could cooperate on the search.”
Now Reno and Rude share the same unimpressed looks and even Elena makes a rather snooty look of her own. Reno shakes his head and replies, “Sorry, but the less you know about us, the better.”
Rude adds without missing a beat, “It could compromise our mission if we involved anyone else, after all.”
Elena follows snappily, “Not that we’d need the help! What Shinra knows stays with Shinra. You’re on your own!”
Cait Sith looks among them, jaw dropped in disbelief, and then shakes his head in shame. Really, even presented a fine chance as this, they still won’t work with others. He’s starting to wonder what their actual objectives are, for them to be so secretive.
“Hmm… I expected as much.” Zangan then states firmly for the record, “But I don’t think I need to remind you that while you are in our territory, you will be held by the ASR until you can be cooperative. Not only out of concern for our citizens, but also for your own. As I said, this government has already placed bounties on you all. Even if you were to leave our grounds, you would shortly become targeted by other agencies.”
“Hmph.” Reno waves a hand. “No need to worry about us. We’ve been in worse company.” He then points a finger to make the point, “Besides, Shinra’s not gonna be talking peace with Wutai anyway if our agents keep ‘disappearing’ on your land. The longer you guys wait on that stuff, the less room you have to negotiate.”
“Furthermore, as things stand,” Rude adds further, “Shinra has officially taken the stance to attribute blame of the ongoing global energy crisis to Avalanche and its allies. If Wutai is discovered to be aiding or abetting them, or even sheltering their members, it would give us all the reason to end the ceasefire.”
Zangan nods back solemnly. “Yes, I’m well aware. I’ve tried to speak with Parliament about these issues.” But he also relays the troubling answer, “Unfortunately, not everyone present at that meeting was ready or willing to agree to peace talks with Shinra. There is a certain faction that has been growing within our government that is quite eager to resume war, while others see war as an inevitability that they must prepare for.” He then sets a hand to his chin, making a contemplative frown. “And while I don’t have any direct proof linking them to it, I believe it is that someone of that faction that has been pushing the ARC experiments to continue, which has led to what you’ve witnessed at the fort. It would serve their purposes well to restart their military campaigns to test out their latest bioweapons.”
Upon being reminded, Cait Sith grows worried. He asks, almost pleading, “Is there really no alternative for Wutai? Why must they keep going with these experiments? Even knowing fully well that the results created beings that must be constantly supplied with ARC to be stable?”
Zangan turns back to him with a sympathetic nod. “I had the same concerns myself. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to convince Parliament to abandon their military projects. Even given the potential sacrifices, this country has no greater defense force than these experimental subjects, now that Ruby-dono has gone missing. The threat of Shinra is still much too ingrained in everyone’s minds, and that holds true even outside of the government.” He lowers his head as he sadly admits, “I must be careful of what I say even among my own brethren.”
“That’s terrible…” Cait sighs to himself, sinking back in his seat. “I know Wutai is really being pressured by Shinra and all that’s happened lately beyond anyone’s control doesn’t help anyone. Feels like the world’s turned topsy-turvy and no one really can keep a cool head anymore.” He pauses before muttering aloud, “…If Ruby were here, she’d right those heads back up.”
To which, Elena jabs back harshly, “Again with that? All this hoping and wishing about her is seriously gonna get you all messed up, you know! You don’t even know where Cloud and them went!”
Cait has no retort to that. He simply keeps quiet and continues to contemplate over their options at this point, while Moogle gives him a comforting pat on the back.
Seeing that his attempts at a deal have seen less than adequate results, Zangan sighs quietly to himself and reconsiders his next move. For now, he gets back up to his feet and announces, “Very well. I can see we don’t have the critical information we need yet to convince you all. But as I warned, you won’t be leaving this room until further notice.”
“…”
He also turns toward Cait Sith with a slightly different offer, “In the meantime, I will entrust you to watch over them.”
“!?” The Turks snap to attention, all three looking at least a bit perturbed at this turn of events.
“Hey!” Elena complains, “You think he’s in any position to tell us what to do? He’s working for us, not the other way around!”
But Zangan simply ignores her remarks and continues to speak with the cat king almost casually, even a little lightheartedly, “And if you need any assistance in interrupting communications back to Midgar, I know a few of our members who would be happy to help.”
Cait snaps to attention, a little surprised that this man would still say such things despite the bleak situation. He seems to be rather aware of some things, even without seeing Cait’s demonstration of hacking skills earlier. On that thought, what else does this man know that he isn’t letting up yet?
“Incidentally, if and when you are able to contact Ruby-dono, do let us know right away. I would be more than grateful to welcome her and the rest of her friends among our ranks.”
Wow, this old man still has hopes there even while Cait himself was feeling doubts. The cat king finally regains his signature smile and gives back a salute. “Sure thing, sir! I remember she did make a promise to President Shinra to act as the third-party arbitrator, after all!”
The Turks simply keep quiet, though Elena gives the cat a look that could kill if he were looking her way. They’re not gonna be stopped here just because they can’t phone back to HQ. But they are well reminded that having someone like this cat actively working against them would prove to be most inconvenient.
“You traitor…” Elena growls in a low voice. “How do you still have your job?”
Meanwhile, Zangan nods back with a smirk of his own. With a swish of his cape, he then takes his leave. But as soon as he does step out, he’s promptly met with another ASR member who looks a little frazzled over some fresh news.
“Zangan-san! We’ve just received a call back from our post at Zhongyuan! You ought to hear this!”
He snaps to attention. “I’ll be right there.”
He hurries off for a different room a few doors down, where their phone operator on standby has been attending the present notice. Here, though some of their members do have smartphones just in case, their primary communications still rely on a more traditional desk phone with handle and number ring, which helps keep them off of Shinra’s worldwide lines.
“…Okay, thanks. Hang tight and keep it low. I’ll relay it to him,” the operator concludes and sets the phone handle back in place. He now turns to see the elder in question. “Master Zangan!” With a dual-handed salute, he announces the news, “Sir! I’ve just received word from Hayabusa.”
Zangan nods. “What’s the situation?”
“There is good news and bad news. Good news is: The transfer of prisoners from the mass jailbreak in Midgar a few days ago has finally closed and the government inspectors have begun finalizing health and identification checks. By the sounds of it, we’ve brought home the last of our missing people as well as a number of refugees that are currently in their care.”
“I see. So what’s the bad news?”
“Unfortunately, it seems something terrible has happened to them. In fact, it’s been happening with the latest few batches of transfers. Though everyone appears to be unharmed as usual, some people show signs of – how should I say – ‘muteness’.”
Zangan’s eyes widen. “Muteness? Do you mean…?”
“Yes. Sadly, it may be similar to the cases of the former residents of Zhongyuan. They are still alive from what we can tell, but are also generally unresponsive. At the very least, whatever treatment they had been undergoing seems to be a gradual process, so they are not entirely immobilized.”
“That is terrible news.” Zangan shakes his head in pity. “How did this happen? I was under the impression that they were more or less untouched while they were being held in prison.”
“I don’t think we know when it happened either. The initial batch of prisoners who escaped with the help of Avalanche on that day seemed to be relatively healthy and have no apparent symptoms. Shigesaki-san and his supporters were among them and have been safely transferred to Chenfu in the meantime. However, the ones that were transferred over the next several days instead arrived mistreated and exhibit these bizarre symptoms.”
Zangan frowns, growing suspicious. “In other words, something in that prison changed over these few days.”
“Possibly. But according to the inspectors, they haven’t identified an exact date of when these people began to exhibit symptoms. It also isn’t all of the prisoners; just certain men and women. But there doesn’t seem to be any particular common trend among them to indicate why they specifically were affected.”
“I see…” Zangan takes a quiet moment to ponder over the mysteries and then advises, “We’ll have to leave them in the government’s hands for now, but keep me posted on any updates.”
“Of course, sir.”
“In the meantime, I’ll be away to Chenfu to check the status of our former refugees there.”
“Understood, sir! But will you not be waiting for the Saints? Or should anyone else join you?”
“That won’t be necessary. But do let them know when they return.”
“Of course, sir.”
Zangan turns away for the door with a troubled sigh, but takes his leave without another word. Hopefully, while they’re all still lying low, things won’t change too drastically around here, but they can never know for sure what may happen in the coming days.
~
Meanwhile, back in Midgar, things have certainly taken a turn for the worst. Cries of panic fill the streets and an alarm blaring its warning a bit too late give no solace to the residents that have yet to evacuate in time. Ultima Weapon looms threateningly over the upper town of Sector 7, scanning its periphery for signs of something as if it were seeking out a specific target. Its scanners shortly locate and pinpoint a certain foreign signature contained within recently produced materia – two items, in fact; one of which is a mere materia shard but the other is a completely new orb – both present in one of the houses in this residential district. Ultima immediately snaps into focus. He stretches open his arms, presents his glowing chest forward, and begins to charge a mighty energy blast to eliminate the perceived threat.
“W-whoa, whoa, whoa!” Biggs cries in panic. “Is it aiming at us!?”
“Biggs! Warp it away!” Wedge follows suit, his hands tugging at his own hair.
Without a second thought, Biggs raises Jessie’s gun up and shuts his eyes as he tries to fire away a spell from their new Warp Materia. However, when he hits the trigger, nothing seems to be coming out.
“Biggs! Hurry!!”
Biggs’ eyes snap open in fear. “I-I tried! But it’s not working!”
Wedge’s jaw drops. “What!? What’s wrong!?”
“I dunno! But we gotta get Jessie and run!”
“Oh no! Jessie!”
The two rush back inside as fast as they can, though their hopes aren’t high that they’d even escape the blast radius. However, before Ultima can unleash its powerful beam, it is interrupted by a great slash upon its hind quarters that temporarily distracts it. As it turns around to find its latest attacker, its exposed rear is again struck from another side by a war hammer, dealing an impressive amount of damage given the Weapon’s natural defenses. Ultima roars, less in pain and more with indignance to be interrupted, and now turns its sights upon the two other threats in its vicinity. It’s just a pair of helmeted Soldiers who have been in hot pursuit. One is a light-skinned and well-built guy propping up a great war hammer over his shoulder. The other is a dark-skinned and somewhat leaner but no less built fellow wielding both a sword and a one-handed machine gun. Perhaps by their discipline or by the nature of their enhancements, they don’t utter a word or show a sign of fear before the otherwise intimidating presence of the Weapon. They simply bring their weapons forward to prepare for battle like it’s just another job.
Close call. Too close. While the monster is thoroughly distracted, Biggs and Wedge have earned a bit more time, even if it’s in no less panic.
“Jessie!!” Wedge calls out.
“Jessie, we gotta go!” Biggs does too.
But as they return to her father’s room, they still find her slumped over in her chair beside her father’s bed. It doesn’t look like she’s moving, almost as if she were held in some kind of trance.
Biggs grabs her arm and gives her a shake. “Sorry, Jessie! We gotta cut it here! We don’t have time!”
Wedge also whips out the transmuter again. “Ruby! Are you there? Please respond!”
However, the transmuter’s screen is now blank. It’s still on as if waiting on standby, but there doesn’t seem to be a single sign that Ruby is still there.
He grows frantic and tells Biggs, “She’s not responding! What do we do!?”
“Tell me about it!” Biggs keeps shaking Jessie, to no avail. “I know she’s been desperate to see her dad, but what are they doing that they can’t cut it off!?”
“Uh, Biggs, I meant Ruby…” He quickly adds, “What happened to Jessie? Can we grab her and go?”
Now Biggs turns to him, looking disturbed himself. “I don’t know! I wouldn’t be freaking out if I knew! Where’d Ruby go?”
Wedge shakes his head with a sigh. “I don’t know. The transmuter’s screen is blank.”
“What!?” Biggs snatches the transmuter from his hands and hits all sorts of buttons, but aside from the usual default menu where the device awaits materials for transmutation, there’s no sign of Ruby. His face goes from panicked to despairing in but a few short moments and he sadly passes the transmuter back to Wedge. With a hand planted over his head, he sighs. “Guess we’re on our own again. Maybe she’ll be back when the coast is clear?”
Wedge gulps nervously. “So, uh, should we do something about that monster first?”
As soon as he says so, they hear the loud roars of the beast and the screech of weapons and claws clashing outside. Even from inside the house, they can feel the miniature shockwaves vibrating through the air.
Biggs shudders along with the waves. “No thanks. It sounds like Soldier’s got it covered so far.”
Wedge slumps. “Y-yeah… Maybe when Ruby’s back.”
“Besides, if even she’s saying that we gotta get out, then that thing must be a serious terror.” Biggs turns back to Jessie with a concerned frown. “But with Jessie like this…”
Wedge follows suit with his own crestfallen frown. “If we warp away now, she won’t be badly affected, will she? Like, her mind’s not gonna be trapped, right?”
Biggs scratches his head. “Uh… I wanna say it won’t, but Ruby’s not here, so she can’t confirm that for us.”
The two grow increasingly nervous and Wedge goes back to visibly fidgeting. Do they dare? Don’t they dare? What’s the best action to take right now? They’ve never been in a situation like this before where their prized VIP has straight-up vanished even while they’re still in the line of fire. It was honestly a miracle in its own right that Shinra has Soldiers strong enough to fend off a threat like that.
But the very thought is a bitter pill to swallow. Biggs grits his teeth and balls up trembling fists in frustration. To think that they’d be reduced to this state where they’re actually relying on Shinra to help them. What are they doing? It’s not like Soldier would just leave them be if they’re found out. He then turns back toward the window with a contemplative frown.
“Biggs? What are you thinking?” Wedge asks him.
“…” He then turns back to Wedge and replies with a straight face, “Let’s head back out.”
“H-huh!? But that thing’s still out there!”
“Exactly! We can’t do anything if we just hide! What happens if even Soldier isn’t enough to keep it back?” Biggs sets Jessie’s gun back down on the nightstand beside her and brings forward the modified Uzzi previously strapped to his back. “We gotta fight.”
“Urp…” Wedge takes a big gulp to help ease his nerves, but he’s still feeling jittery. “I was afraid we had to come to that.” Still, he nods back with a more determined face. “But you’re right. What good are we if we just keep running from our problems?”
“Yeah. Right now, we can’t just wait on Cloud and the others to show. We have to do something! Jessie can’t fight like this, so it’s up to us!”
“Y-yeah! We’ve been on the sidelines too long!” Wedge finally slides off from his back and wields his modified grenade launcher in both hands. “Okay… I’m ready. Let’s do this!”
Their resolve steeled once more, the two hurry cack outside to confront the ongoing threat. And yet, they shortly stop in their tracks when they witness a fearful display of power completely out of even their most generous expectations.
Despite the very obvious size differences, the relentless Soldier duo leaps at the enemy in a volley of slashes, crashes, and even pinpoint shots into the smallest chinks in the monster’s armor for maximum damage. Crying another outraged screech, Ultima smashes down with its arms into some furious thrashes of its own as it tries to counterattack, but the lithe fighters dodge out of the way and scatter in opposite directions to confuse their enemy’s targeting function. However, rather than be caught off-guard, Ultima instead whirls rapidly into a spin and lets fly a wide-reaching slash that carves straight and deep into the surrounding pavement. If Midgar had been any other town, such an attack could have easily ruptured any underground piping in the area or even triggered any nearby tectonic faults, but because it is a tiered city built with some of the sturdiest material on this planet, even the top plate of Sector 7 holds firm. Granted, some unfortunate houses in the vicinity that happened to be in the way are absolutely obliterated, but by some miracle – or rather, because of protests to Shinra’s draconic policing as of late – the families of those homes happened to be out today.
And all Biggs and Wedge can do is stand there, frozen and overwhelmed by the scale of power, and quietly watch the ensuing battle unfold.
The two Soldiers, as hardy as they may be, understand that this is not the ideal location for a battleground. They leap high into the air, and as if boosted by some extra mysterious power, they jump again in midair to fly high enough to challenge the Weapon in the skies. They strike hard and fast, coordinating their attacks so each man strikes from a different side to further disorient the Weapon, and zip around so swiftly they almost look like dragonflies in flight around a much larger winged beast. The guy with the hammer even dares to smack Ultima on the head, though the blow seems to only infuriate the Weapon further. Even its dignified roar comes with a hint of impatient as it calls upon an entire ring of Thunder Orbs to fire in all directions. Though most of the orbs fly off without hitting anything, a couple of them spiral in circular paths around the Weapon as if to keep a defensive line. As the Soldiers hadn’t anticipated this move, they try to rush in as the other orbs fly off, but are too late to avoid the much closer whirling projectiles. And yet, even as they’re struck, neither one utters a sound.
“Y-yipes!” Wedge gasps, his voice finally returned. “They got hit!”
“But they’re not screaming?” Biggs asks, growing disturbed.
Now having caught them in its trap, Ultima likewise calls back upon the other orbs that flew off, guiding them with an arm as if it were a conductor itself, to home in and blast its targets with a series of crackling explosions. And even still, the Soldiers don’t give a peep as they both fall from the sky. Despite taking direct hits, neither of them look battered in the least.
By now, Biggs and Wedge are starting to catch on and share wide-eyed looks with one another. These aren’t your ordinary Soldiers that Shinra has deployed. They’re both Class-I, not just judging by their indestructibility, but also given the specially locked helmets on their heads. Even if they crash land now, they can get back up without a scratch and keep fighting.
Even then, they aren’t alone. As Ultima charges in, ready to flatten them deep into the city plate, a series of high-powered rifle shells from below strike the Weapon’s belly where its guard has been temporarily lesser. Ultima screeches and shifts its targeting system again, but the third attacker vanishes from view before it can lock on. The next thing it knows, it’s struck yet again in the air by some things that have hit its thin blade-like wings and knock it askew. Though Ultima quickly rights itself in the air and reconfigures its scanners, it then realizes that the latest threats have attached themselves to its wings and their own rocket propulsion is making it difficult for the Weapon to maintain aerial coordination. Ultima now struggles to free itself from the grasp of two large winged serpent mechs, hence dubbed the Amphiptereans, that have coiled themselves upon its own blade-like wings. Meanwhile, a third helmeted Soldier, a woman who fired the shells earlier, leaps into action and catches her two partners before they crash to the ground. United once more, the three stand together as they keep a careful watch of their enemy above, poised to strike again if they must.
But Ultima Weapon would shortly run into a bigger issue. The Amphiptereans aren’t any ordinary mechs from Shinra either. They’re the newest prototypes in the company’s recent line of bioengineered machines, meaning that they aren’t merely powered by electricity like most others. If anything, they’ve been supercharged with regular mako and armed with a different mako-like substance that the company has been keeping secret for a while. This unseemly looking blackish matter is known simply as ARC-mako, inspired by the ill fame of a certain dragoness. Though it has very limited use as an energy source, it is extremely corrosive and potentially lethal even upon initial contact. Unfortunately for Ultima, the serpents are in position to deploy their secret weapon. They dig their metallic fangs into the Weapon’s back and even that thick armor – though extremely sturdy for its age, is not in its prime condition – gets dented in. But what’s more dangerous is the strange toxin that is injected.
As loyal servants of the planet from primordial times, the Weapons have been programmed to remain dutifully pure in their shared communication system and source of power, so that they can exact the will of the planet in times of crisis without fail or interruption. However, despite being machines built expressly to combat a certain dragon empress that once raged in multiple wars, they were not always immune to being “tainted”. On the offchance that any of them would be compromised, the would-be corrupted Weapon would immediately affect its defense mode – to retreat from battle and seek a safer location to discharge the source of corruption before it could be overtaken. And like a tale as old as time, this instance is no exception. Detecting the introduction of another foreign substance that has a similar signature to that of the target of its search, Ultima Weapon automatically triggers its defense mode. It suddenly quiets down and resumes a more stable stance while still in the air, and promptly extends its wings to launch itself up and away straight into the stratosphere, taking the two serpent mechs with it.
Ultima Weapon has fled from battle… for the time being. Maybe it’ll be back later.
Back on the ground, the citizens of Midgar who hadn’t the chance to flee yet watch in sheer awe and many even dare to step outside again. They did it. Shinra’s forces were indeed able to repel the threat. As the alarms around the city begin to settle and quiet returns to the districts, everyone who has come outside is stunned. And then, the air is filled with cheers. The three Soldiers who arrived just in time are now surrounded by celebrating crowds, though they all remain completely silent as if uninterested in the praise and adulation. They simply continue to scan the area in case of any other threats they must neutralize before they can stand down.
By now, Biggs and Wedge know not to stick around in the open. As scary as that monster may have been, these Soldiers are freaks in their own right. It almost feels like nothing short of Ruby or someone like Sephiroth would be able to stop them. They hurry back inside the house to catch up with Jessie, hoping that she’s finally snapped out of her trance.
“Jessie!” they gasp.
To their great relief, Jessie has sit up again, shaking her head and blinking a few times as she returns to reality again. She sees them hurry in, looking drenched in sweat like they just had a heavy workout. “Huh? What happened to you guys?”
“That’s what we wanna know!” Biggs complains, but he’s honestly grateful. “We were freaking out since you wouldn’t respond!”
“Did you reach your dad?” Wedge asks.
“Ah… Yeah, I finally did.” But rather than smile, Jessie’s face grows solemn. “But I couldn’t bring him out of it.”
The other two follow suit and exchange nervous glances. Though hesitant to ask, Biggs does anyway, “Oh. You mean he’s still…?”
She nods. “Still stuck like before.” She turns back to her dad, feeling at a loss. “For once, I finally got a chance to talk with him again, but it wasn’t for long. Before I knew what was happening, all those voices around us broke out again and I was… overwhelmed. Couldn’t fight against all that chaos, and we separated again.”
An uncomfortable silence falls over the room and the other two aren’t sure what to say aside from their condolences.
Wedge sinks into a slump. “Sorry, Jessie. Wish we knew how to help.”
Biggs gives a troubled sigh too. “Yeah. Maybe we might figure out something later.”
“Yeah, let’s hope.” Jessie takes another moment to settle down. She closes her eyes and speaks calmly as if to help reassure herself. “…It’ll be okay. We can always come back after we get the situation sorted with Ruby.” She then opens her eyes again and turns back to the other two with an honestly gracious smile. “She promised, after all.”
“…” Though they also want to share her smile, Biggs and Wedge look pretty unsure.
And her smile fades. “Uh, what? Something wrong?”
Growing even more fidgety, Wedge admits, “We don’t know where Ruby went.”
“Huh?”
Biggs rubs his head awkwardly. “She was still responding to us via the transmuter a little while ago, but then something really big showed up and she kinda… disappeared on us.”
Now Jessie grows alarmed. “What? What do you mean ‘something big’? What happened here?” She also notices the gun still in his hand. “And isn’t that mine?” she asks, reaching out her own.
“Yeah. We ran into some trouble, so tried to use the warp…” he mumbles, handing it back to her.
“Why would you need to use it?” She gives it a check to make sure everything’s still in its place.
Wedge grits his teeth nervously. “You remember those news reports of some huge monsters that have been seen attacking some towns?”
Her face cringes as she sees where this is going. “Oh. You mean…?”
“Yeah. One of them showed up here, flying over Sector 7.”
Biggs wipes his still sweaty brow. “It was way too close. I swear the thing saw us and jumped right on the attack.”
“It attacked you!? Are you guys alright!?” she blurts out, but then notices that she doesn’t see a single injury on them. “Uh, at least you don’t look hurt…”
“We weren’t. Soldier came in just in time to knock it back.”
She frowns to hear that. “Soldier? How many are we talking?”
Wedge makes an embarrassed frown. “Just two or three.”
“What!? Are you serious?” Then, she realizes what that actually implies. “No way… You don’t mean the Immortals?”
The guys both nod back at the same time. Biggs retells it, “It was so wild. Those freaks really are some kind of unstoppable. Like, that monster was ready to cave in the whole plate and they still held their ground. They weren’t even scratched after taking direct hits.”
Wedge adds, “Yeah. Shinra also sent in some weird mechs. They looked like winged snakes and they even bit the monster. Dunno what happened, but they must’ve done something that scared it off.”
Biggs follows, pointing a finger up in the air. “It just took off for the skies. Dunno where it was going, but at least it isn’t coming back down yet.”
Jessie looks between them, staring blankly as if they were speaking nonsense, and yet she can’t see how they would lie about this stuff. But now that they mention as much, she’s promptly reminded of the last few words she shared with her father. She looks off in thought with her own pensive frown.
“…Is that what he meant?” she mutters just audibly.
“Huh? What who meant?” Biggs asks.
She turns back to them to answer, “I think my dad warned me about this. He said there was something weird going on with the planet and Ruby.”
Wedge blinks. “What’s that?”
“He didn’t know the details; only that the voices around him would get hectic whenever anything concerned Ruby.”
Biggs suggests, “You think it’s just because of her connection with Rubia, or is there something else going on?”
She shakes her head. “I’m not sure. We got cut off before I could keep asking.” She adds, giving it a little more thought, “But when you guys mentioned that monster just now…”
“What about it? You think it has something to do with her?”
“I don’t have proof or anything, but I have a hunch.” She takes a moment to consider how best to put it and as her eyes wander, she notices the transmuter still in Wedge’s hand. She then gets an idea and reaches out a hand. “Hey, can you give me that real quick?”
“Huh? Oh, sure.” Wedge hands it over, though reminds her, “But Ruby’s not there anymore.”
“I know, but I wanna check something.”
The two men watch with growing anticipation as Jessie proceeds to turn off the device, flip it around, and dismantle it piece by piece until she can retrieve the materia shard hidden within. She gives the shard another close look once again. It still glows white like Ruby’s materia once did and she can still make out just a sliver of some swirling motion in the shard, though it’s hard to tell if it can make the same patterns as a full orb. She also retrieves her pistol set down beside her and dislodges the Warp Materia that Ruby had granted them. As before, the signature serpent pattern is here too, though disguised behind a veil of green as it is green materia. As she inspects them side by side, some theories begin to formulate in her mind.
“Jessie? You figure something?” Biggs asks.
“Hmm…” Finally, she sets the green orb back in its slot on her gun, and likewise returns the white shard to its place within the transmuter and puts it back together again. “I think I’m starting to see why we were targeted.”
“Huh?”
“Why’s that?” Wedge asks too.
Jessie then slips the transmuter back into its spot on her utility belt. “Those monsters must have something to do with the planetary threats that Ruby mentioned before. The timing’s way too close for it to just be a coincidence.”
The other two stare back blankly, already lost as to where she’s come from or going with this.
“In fact, I bet they even have some way to track her. No idea why they’re after her, but I don’t think they’d be happy to see anyone using her magic either, so that’s why it attacked you guys too.”
They grow concerned as well. Biggs puts up a thinking face and asks, “How would they ‘track’ her? Isn’t she basically a free spirit like this? I mean, she can just jump through phone lines now. Never knew a ghost could do that.”
Wedge then suggests with a shrug, “Well, she was always weird… weirder than most things, really.”
Jessie simply answers, “Well, we can just ask her later, but what matters now is how we can track her too. And I think I got an idea.”
“Whatcha got?” Wedge asks for them both.
She raises her gun again, specifically to show off the shiny green orb set in it. “We can use materia.”
He blinks. “Materia?”
“Yep, specifically the stuff that Ruby makes or infuses herself into. Whatever she does, it changes how it looks, like she has her own emblem or something. Looks like a slim, wingless dragon if you look closely.”
“Oh, yeah. We saw it too since you showed it to us that one time,” Biggs recalls. “But does it actually mean something? I figured it was just because it was her magic.”
“I’m sure it does! We just haven’t seen the bigger picture since we didn’t know better.” Jessie dives further into thought as she lets it out aloud, “Though, my question is why? What’s the point of leaving a different mark when it’d be easier for her to hide if they all just looked the same as other materia?”
Now they’re starting to follow along and show their own thinking faces. “Yeah, good question,” Biggs agrees. “It makes it easier for us to tell which is which, but since it’s her stuff, she should be able to tell.”
Wedge raises more questions, “So, did she leave it like that so even we could tell? Or was there another reason?”
He shrugs. “Dunno. But if it was just that, she’d probably want to be sure we knew the difference. I heard using it takes from her mana pool too.”
“Maybe… Or maybe she doesn’t really have control over how they look,” Jessie offers instead.
“Huh?” The other two snap to attention. “What do you mean, Jessie?” Biggs asks again.
“Like I said, it’s just a hunch. But I don’t think Ruby chose to have it this way. Maybe it’s just a Rubia thing or maybe there’s some other secret to it. Either way, it’s not helping her, not anymore.”
Biggs makes a suspecting frown and folds his arms. “You think Rubia made it that way? Like she’d been controlling her all along, even since the beginning?”
Wedge makes his own wary frown. “Or someone else who could also have control over her?”
“Hmm…” Jessie tilts her head in thought, but is still unsure. She gives a disappointed sigh. “Who really knows at this point? And even if there was anyone, they probably won’t be talking with us.” She returns to her determined face and states firmly, “Well, what we can say for sure is that Ruby isn’t safe, even while she’s hiding in this form. The planet really is out to get her one way or another.”
Biggs grits his teeth, feeling a cold sweat come on. “Seriously? Man. How the heck did she ever get herself into a mess this big? I thought she was a miracle worker…” After a quick pause, he adds with a sympathetic frown, “Well, I guess she had to sacrifice something to bring us that many miracles.”
“Poor Ruby. She’s always been running from something or another…” Wedge’s voice drifts off and he blinks, wide-eyed, when he recalls something else. “Uh. Didn’t she say that the Gods were angry at her too?”
Biggs nods back, growing more worried by the second. “Yeah, she did. At first I thought she was exaggerating or talking in code or something. But if it’s really happening, then what about Cloud and the others? And where does that leave us?” He turns back to Jessie too. “And if we keep sticking with Ruby, wouldn’t that mean those monsters might come around to attack us again?”
Jessie frowns. “Yeah. That’s what I was thinking.”
“W-what!?” Wedge starts to panic. “Then we’re in extra trouble! What if we’re chased to the ends of the planet? Nowhere would be safe!”
Biggs winces and shudders. “We were already on the run from Shinra, but even from the planet? We all live on it, for crying out loud! And I don’t think we’d be able to escape to space either!”
But Jessie cuts them both off and asserts as if it’s fact, “We’re just gonna have to deal with them one way or another. No matter what, we’re not abandoning Ruby.”
“Jessie…” Biggs makes an awkward frown. “I know what you mean, but how are we gonna ‘deal’ with them? We’re not like Cloud. We don’t have any magical spirits blessing us with Godly powers. We even struggled to keep up with him and the others before he got those powers. What can we possibly do aside from just running around?”
“Well, it sounds like what we’ve been doing,” Wedge confesses aloud.
Biggs slumps, feeling just a little defeated. “Yeah, but you’d think the whole act would get old by now.”
Even then, Jessie remains adamant, raising up a resolved fist. “It doesn’t matter what we have to do or how far we have to run. We’re not letting anyone – not Shinra, not Sephiroth, and not even the planet – take her away from us! No exceptions!” She also gives another softer glance toward her dad still on bed. “Besides, she has to come back. We still have so many things we said we were gonna do or see with her. She can’t just be gone…”
“…”
Though the guys are still clueless about what they “have to do”, they know that Jessie won’t change her mind on this. And to be fair, they really want to join her on that side.
Biggs finally settles down and nods back. “Yeah… Ruby’s more than just a miracle worker. She’s our miracle worker.”
Wedge smiles to that and raises his own determined fists. “Yeah! She watched out for us all this time and gave us the Ruby Guarantee! We can’t back off just because she got lots of enemies!”
Biggs makes an amused snort. “I’m pretty sure you were the one who gave us that phrase.”
“Heh, true. But I wouldn’t have come up with it if it weren’t for her.”
Jessie smiles proudly. “Thanks, guys. Knew I could count on ya.”
“Still…” Biggs lets out a worried sigh. “Shouldn’t we have a better plan than ‘keep running’? Even if we do have a warp for cheap, that’s still our mana we’re spending. And I don’t think those monsters are gonna wait nicely if we try to find an inn to rest up.”
Jessie’s smile fades. “Yeah, that could be an issue…” Her eyes still stay bright as she then suggests, “But on the other hand, we still got some options.”
“Huh?”
“Come on, guys! We’re Avalanche! And that means we got lots of allies. Weren’t we saying we were gonna stop by Wutai too?”
Biggs and Wedge blink together. Biggs frowns and replies, “Uh, Jessie? If those monsters are coming from the planet, I don’t think HQ can help us much.”
Wedge nods sadly. “And we don’t wanna endanger the people of Wutai either. Their government still hates us, remember?”
“I’m not saying we ask them for help!” she snaps back. She then reveals a confident smirk. “I’m saying that since we’re free to warp around, we could lend them a hand! And if things get tricky, we can always get away fast so no one has to be hurt!”
“That sounds good and all,” Wedge asks, “But who’s gonna help us with those monsters?”
She shakes her head impatiently. “I’m getting to that. Since HQ’s been hiding there, they ought to have some connections. After all, wasn’t it Zhijie who knew a guy that got him Ruby’s extra materia in the first place?”
“Uh, sure…”
“And who’s to say they don’t have plenty of materia stashed around somewhere? Yuffie was always a maniac for the stuff anyway.”
“Yeah, I guess…” Biggs blinks again as he realizes it. “Wait. Are you saying we’re gonna go there to look for materia?”
Finally, Jessie’s eyes begin to twinkle and she reveals her ultimate plan: “Now you’re getting it! After all, what better way to hide Ruby than by hiding her in materia? She’s already in one right now.”
His face grows pale. “Huh?”
“Um, isn’t that the problem?” Wedge asks. “I mean, we’re being chased because she’s in materia.”
Jessie replies, “It’s a problem because she’s only in a couple materia right now! But if we just spread her emblem all over the planet…” Her voice drifts off and she gives them an expectant look as if hoping they’re starting to catch on.
“Uh…” Wedge now snaps to attention. “Wait! You mean we’re gonna go around and put her in every materia!?”
Biggs’ jaw drops. “Jessie, are you mad!? What good will that do? It’d just put a target on everywhere! And then we’d all have to deal with…” But now that he says it aloud, he’s starting to connect the dots too. “Wait. Ruby… everywhere?”
Wedge blinks and follows along with him, “Hey. If Ruby looks like she’s everywhere…”
Biggs nods back and finishes his words, “It’ll make her look like she’s as widespread as the planet itself.” He blinks again as the revelation finally hits. “Then there’s no way that the Gods could attack her!”
Wedge’s eyes light up too. “Yeah! ’Cause to do that, they’d have to attack everyone else! And I don’t think they’re that bad off to want to kill all of us, right?”
Jessie lets off a relieved sigh and grins. “Now you guys get it.”
Wedge grins, feeling grateful for once, and Biggs shakes his head in disbelief. He turns back to her. “Jessie, I know you’re a mad genius sometimes, but now I see you’re even madder than I ever thought you’d be.”
“Ha! I’ll take that as a compliment, thank you!”
At last, with hopes regained and spirits lifted once more, the trio begin to devise a plan moving forward. It’s a bit out of the way and they’ll have to work on it as they go, but for now they prepare themselves to head to Wutai as intended. With almost childish-sounding giggles shared, they likewise share a three-way high-five. But before they go, Jessie also snatches up a notepad to leave a note by her dad’s bedside, just in case her mom would return any time soon. And with their business finished here, Jessie whips her gun forward and triggers the Warp Materia. Unlike earlier while Ultima Weapon loomed nearby, the materia now seems to work as intended. It glows bright white like its creator, forming a familiar-looking magic circle around the trio, and sends them off to their destination.
As they disappear, though, the magic spell doesn’t go unnoticed. While they were largely preoccupied by the celebrating crowds around them, the Soldiers on watch do notice something strange has happened in their vicinity. But as they go to investigate a certain house where the spike in energy was detected, they find an empty but otherwise ordinary house. Odd, indeed. In any case, their jobs here are done, so they make their way back through the crowd and off to the streets, where their awaiting rides – a trio of Shinra-tagged motorcycles to match – can take them back to HQ.
~
“…So, what was that ye were saying about reinin’ me in, eh?”
The King of Cats seems to be back to his usual cheery yet mischievous nature since he and the Turks were rounded up by the ASR. While at first seen as among the enemy, being on Ruby’s friend list has net him a sort of advantage for the time being and ironically the tables have turned. Now Cait Sith, beholden to a renewed sense of authority, eyes the Turks with a suspect glare as he turns the questions on them instead.
While Reno and Rude remain unfazed, Elena is practically growling in frustration. She warns him in a dangerously low hiss, “Don’t think you’re outta the woods just ’cause we got caught.”
“Hehehe.” Cait Sith shrugs with a smug smile. “Maybe it pays to step outta Shinra affairs from time to time. Ye really get a bigger scope of the world when you deal with folks that don’t abide by their rules.”
“You can talk big now, but soon as we get back in contact with our guys, you’re toast, you hear me!?”
He gives her a dismissive handwave. “Sure, sure… If ye can convince these homely folks that you’re not up to somethin’ sinister. Good luck with that, lads and lassie.” Cait Sith leans forward on an arm on the table, with a devious glint to his eyes. “But… if you give me a good reason and maybe tell me what you’re really up to, I might just speak up somethin’ to lighten your load, so to speak.”
“Hmph! Like we told the old man, you don’t have control over us. We’re not telling!”
But while Cait continues his glaring contest with Elena, Reno and Rude exchange idle glances as if having their own silent conversation. Without even a word uttered between them, they both seem to have an idea of what to do. Reno then sits back in his chair again while Rude rests an arm on the table. Despite their circumstances, neither man seems particularly perturbed.
“About time the geezer was out. But I gotta thank him for giving us a room to ourselves,” Reno then comments out of nowhere.
Rude agrees, “Now we can actually get down to business.”
“Eh?” Cait Sith snaps to attention and turns their way. He’s already feeling uneasy seeing how calm these two are.
Even Elena looks surprised. “What? What are we doing?”
Reno grunts, annoyed. “Keep up, Elena. Why do you think we’re here? We didn’t let ourselves get caught for no reason.”
Rude pushes on his shades. “We were previously tasked with investigating into the smuggling ring, after all.”
“Uh…” Elena blinks and finally catches on. “Oh, yeah! That business!” She then passes Cait a smug smirk of her own. “Hmph. So much for your new groupie. You’re lucky that we aren’t gonna out you as a traitor yet!”
Cait Sith blinks blankly as he looks around at the faces of the Turks and a slow dread comes to crawl back over him. Any bravado he thought he regained now quickly dissipates and he goes back to feeling nervous. “Uh, so… What kind of business are we talking about here?”
Reno gestures with a nod in Rude’s direction. “You heard him, didn’t ya? We’re still after that annoying ring. Took us longer to decipher their connections than we thought, but something finally came up.”
Rude returns him the gesture with his own nod. “It’s definitely more than coincidence that shortly after a certain jailbreak took place, the ring’s operations would be back in full swing.”
Elena also adds with a pumped-up fist. “And once we catch that imposter, it’ll be curtains for this shoddy Wutai government!”
Cait Sith’s ears droop in discouragement. “What’s all this about now? Ye know way more than you were letting on, huh?”
“Please.” Reno gives him some disappointed side-eye. “You think we’d be that bad off? We’ve gotten out of way worse. You’d think being a long-standing member of Shinra’s board would make it obvious.”
Rude continues, “Being brought directly to the headquarters of the ASR makes our job easier too. We’re better positioned to determine how they’re involved with Avalanche and the mass jailbreak from the S0 Prison Complex.”
“And why they’d know a guy named Shigesaki,” Reno finishes rather unclimactically.
“Shigesaki…?” Cait Sith scratches his head. That’s odd. Where in the world did he hear that name before?
“Doesn’t ring a bell?” Reno shrugs. “Figures. No one would want you to know since you’d make a big fuss out of it.”
Rude explains to clear the air, “Motomu Shigesaki is a standing representative of the House of Parliament of this new Wutai government. However, due to a certain corruption scandal from 25 years ago, he fled the previous government’s charges at the time and was later located to be hiding in Midgar. Of course, at the time, relations between our countries weren’t as bad as they are now, so Shinra was obligated to assist in the search. However, after the man was located, detained and deported back home, a strange situation developed.”
Reno follows up, “For whatever reason, the guy wasn’t charged with anything and let free despite being a headline. In fact, after the new government toppled the old one after the war, the guy not only rose fast through the ranks, he even gained a cushy seat on their parliament. Talk about a golden parachute.”
Elena blinks and makes a hard stare as if she’s genuinely perplexed. “What the heck? So was he a wanted criminal of theirs or not?”
“Hard to say.” Rude elaborates, “Records of Shinra’s involvement from the time have largely been scrubbed, so even we couldn’t dig up much. But it is strange that after all these years, there happens to be another ‘Motomu Shigesaki’ who had been detained in Migdar for six years and only escaped thanks to a certain jailbreak recently.”
Reno adds, “Not to mention, it was clearly Avalanche that broke him out since some of their members were caught live.”
Cait blinks in disbelief as the dread earlier worsens with guilt on top of it. Though he was not present whenever the president was informed about this “Wutaian official imposter”, he still caught wind of the discussion from time to time, as the plan to bait Avalanche with the prisoners was a plan set in motion months prior. It just so happened that it took to the past week that the laid trap was finally sprung. As much as he hoped that Cloud and gang stirring up chaos would help provide some kind of cover for their allies, but there’s no reasonable way to disable all of Shinra’s hidden cameras, especially over such a large prison. Even the map data he gathered from the warden’s office didn’t give the layout of such cameras as an extra layer of security.
Rude continues, “Naturally, the escaped prisoners would have been shipped here to Wutai.” He then folds his arms as he enters into thought. “Of course, the real mystery here is why the two Shigesakis are a near-identical match.”
Cait snaps to attention and makes a look of horror. “Huh? What dae ye mean ‘a near-identical match’?”
“It’s what it sounds like. The two men look identical, but we have no record whatsoever, not even from Wutai’s own government, of Motomu Shigesaki having a twin.”
“In other words, one of ’em’s gotta be a fake,” Reno concludes.
If Cait Sith could open his eyes wide, he would at this point. The dread he felt earlier now grows until he can’t ignore it anymore. What in the world is all this “imposter” drama leading to, and why is it rearing its ugly head now of all times? What exactly is going on with this smuggling ring and whatever connections that Shinra has?
The more Elena tries to make sense of the convoluted mystery, the more she struggles to figure out any of it. Getting impatient, she gives an angry huff. “I always knew those guys were up to something shady! You think the imposter came from Avalanche?”
Reno shrugs back. “The guy’s a full-blood Wutaian, though. The only place they’d be able to find a guy who’d fit would be from here.”
“So Avalanche was always hiding behind the Wutai government, huh?” She raises a pumped-up fist. “Then everything matches up! We got all the evidence we need, don’t we?”
Reno instead gives it a handwave. “Whoa, slow down. You think that by itself would be enough? The whole reason we had to show was because the guy ran.”
“O-oh, right.” She settles back down, but makes an impatient frown. “So, what do we do? How do we track him?”
Now that she brings up the question, the other two Turks turn their sights back on Cait Sith, who flinches when he realizes he’s the center of attention again.
“We use this guy, obviously,” Reno answers.
“He not only has the tools to hack into security systems, but he even has direct connections to Avalanche, namely thanks to his association with Ruby and Cloud,” Rude points out.
“And since he’s already getting on the ASR’s good side, it’ll be easy for him to gain the trust of those guys who have been a part of the other faction in their government,” Reno finishes for him.
“The other faction?” Elena asks.
Reno fires back another annoyed frown. “Seriously? Were you really listening to the briefing?”
“Of course I was! Our mission was to hunt down the escaped prisoners and have them lead us to the real imposter, so we can expose the fake and Avalanche to the public! Then Shinra would have all the evidence they need to threaten Wutai with war, so they’d have to surrender!” she blabs without a hint of shame.
Reno gives a tired sigh, pinching at the bridge of his nose. At least the only other ones listening are this cat and moogle.
Rude explains it again for her, “The other faction of the Wutai government, namely the anti-war side led by former court officials while Godo Kisaragi was still shogun. I think the locals call them the ‘Five Saints of Wutai’.”
Elena snaps back to focus. “Oh, yeah! Even these people were talking about them like they were celebrities!”
Reno rolls his eyes. “Sheesh… Better late than never, I guess.”
She then frowns in disappointment. “Wait. So they were just hiding off in some backwater town? What are they doing here and not at the capital?”
Reno answers that too, “The geezer said it earlier, didn’t he? The government’s still in shambles and the ASR have been left out to dry.”
“Ha!” She makes a smug smirk. “They make it too easy, then! We’ll expose all those rats like they deserve! Maybe they’ll get so scared they won’t even start a war!”
“Who knows…” Now that he thinks about it, he makes a concerned look for once. “Knowing those two, they’d probably find any excuse to get the war rolling anyway.”
“…” Rude likewise grows solemn to be reminded. Wutai isn’t the only country with very avid warhawks, after all.
Even Elena catches onto what he means there, but her brief moment of concern is replaced by a more arrogant tone. “Well, whatever. Either way, Shinra’s not gonna lose.”
Cait Sith has been watching the three with a cautious set of eyes and the way they so callously dismiss the huge ramifications of war honestly disgusts him so much that he has to speak up. He again slams his hands on the table to get their attention.
“How can you say things like that like it’s no big deal!? This is war we’re talkin’ about! People’s lives are gonna be thrown away over some silly conspiracies that don’t need to be dragged out! How can you just let it be!?”
But to his surprise, all three Turks actually look uncomfortable at his questions as they’re well aware of the implications. Yet, they only have one answer to them all.
Reno gives it, “We have to. It’s our job.”
Cait is taken aback, not really by the answer itself, but how stone-cold the delivery is. “What?”
Though Rude loathes to admit it, he says it anyway, “Though the Turks only answer to the president, we have no way to direct him. Even Tseng’s previous attempts to sway him away from war have ended in uncertainty at best and rejection at worst.”
Reno gives a sigh, a little cranky himself. “Even with how annoying Heidegger and Scarlet can be, they sure have their ways of convincing the prez. It’s not like he hides anything from us either, but lately even he feels… weird. Like, weirdly obsessed with starting this war.”
Cait blinks, stunned. “What do you mean?”
He shakes his head. “I dunno how to explain it. It almost feels like the guy’s being driven by something.”
Elena suggests, “Isn’t he just thinking about pushing Shinra into a new age and all that? So he’d think this war would really let the company show its might, right?”
“…” Reno scratches his head, looking unsure. “If that was all it was, you’d think Tseng would have gotten through to him already.”
Rude agrees, “There’s little reason to officially initiate war if the Shinra Company already holds so much influence over the world. Just the threat of our military generally makes other countries fold and make peace. Wutai has been the only exception.”
“Hmm…” Elena makes her own thinking face, but then shakes her head. “Man. I’m not good with all this political stuff. Just thinking about who does what or how is making my head hurt.”
“In any case, the president’s orders are absolute. We do what we must because that is our duty.”
“Yeah…” Reno acknowledges, but still keeps that troubled face up.
Another uncomfortable silence sets in over the room as everyone more or less takes a dive into their own contemplative thoughts. However, it isn’t too long before they notice some bit of hubbub taking place just outside the door. Out of curiosity, Moogle climbs out of his seat to and heads over to crack open a peek. Now with the door slightly ajar, the voices around them are heard more clearly.
“Are you serious!? How did this happen!?”
“Call on all available men! We have to hurry!”
“The refugees are stuck at Zhongyuan! We must get them out safely!”
“Damn government agents! Why aren’t they doing their jobs!?”
The ASR is now astir with fear and worry at some bad news that just dropped. Apparently, something went wrong with this latest batch of people that were rescued from Midgar’s underground prisons, and an outbreak of a certain disease has spread throughout their ranks. Needless to say, though the ghost town had since been under watch by government agents sent to investigate, they all quickly turned tail as soon as they realized some refugees were ill and possibly braindead. The phone operator from before is panicked and trying to ring up their associates at Chenfu to give the news and ask about the other refugees that escaped there. Hopefully there weren’t any edge cases that were sent there too by accident. Zangan has already left and is on his way there, but he hasn’t been warned yet.
Upon hearing of this disastrous news, Moogle zips right back to Cait Sith flustered and making a wild silent display of charades. Fortunately, Cait catches on immediately and addresses the Turks.
“There’s big trouble at Zhongyuan! Sounds like they might have some ARC victims zombifying!”
“What?” Reno snaps to attention.
“ARC?” Rude asks apprehensively.
Elena blinks, still looking lost. “Uh. What about it? They don’t have anything to do with us, do they?”
Growing impatient with her insolence, Cait snaps back, “It’s got everything to do with us! Those are some of the prisoners from Midgar! We have to help!” He hops right back atop Moogle and the two rush out of their seats for the door.
“Hey!” she calls out after, but he’s already slipped out. Instead, she gets mad again. “What’s the big idea!? Telling us what to do! Did he forget who’s in charge?”
But Reno and Rude share more cautious looks between themselves. “What do you think, partner? Should we check it out?” Reno asks.
“If it’s true they’re subjects of ARC testing, it may lead us to some sort of clue as to how they still have shipment coming in,” Rude suspects.
“Yeah, exactly what I was thinking.”
Elena blinks again and jumps to her feet when she realizes it too. “Oh, right! That could work! Come on, guys, let’s go!”
And with that, she hurries out the door after the cat and moogle. The other two exchange exhausted looks, their unspoken opinions in sync when it comes to dealing with a member like her. Nonetheless, there’s no need for further discussion. They hurry out to join them.
But the fact remains that it’s still about a 30-40 minute drive from here to that town. They’ll have to ask for help from some drones to capture some footage while they’re on the way, at least so that some fresh evidence may be obtained.
~
On the other end of the country, the Celestial Festival has been in full swing. The capital is now adorned from block to block and street to street with sacred and auspicious symbols honoring and celebrating the fateful meeting between two dragons of legend: the God of the Seas and Guardian Spirit of Wutai, Da-chao, who is also known as Leviathan, and the Goddess of the Moon and Emissary of Light, Yue-hua, who colloquially goes by the name Rubia. As the old legend goes, their brief meeting was the beginning and creation of the land known as Wutai. The radiant emissary arrived in time to warn Da-chao of the impending threat of a great evil that had swept up much of the world in war, death, and pestilence, and with His timely intervention, Da-chao raised the seas to form a natural and spiritual barrier that separated and protected this land ever since those long ancient days. And to ensure that this barrier would remain intact, the two dragons formed a pact – as master and disciple – to continue to guard the land and its people from danger.
Of course, legends are legends from times past. In this modern age, much of the old faith has long dissipated in place of the pursuit of progress and technological advancement. The ever devoted long warned their fellow people of the evil and corruption that came with this maddening pursuit. Their once-honored guardian deities were clearly angered by this blatant disregard and disrespect and have thus abandoned the country to its cruel fates. Wutai may have lost the war against Midgar just a few years ago, but they had long lost something else much more precious well before that, or so they would say. However, there are fewer yet who could continue to deny the utility, practicality, and convenience of a modern-day smartphone. It was an inevitability that Wutai would push in this direction, driven not only by greed and desire, though they may have had a large part, but strictly by economic cost and a persistent fear of becoming irrelevant. As much as the environmentalists wished to advocate for a return to nature and to live in harmony and give back to the planet, Mother Gaia’s slow but sure march onward into oblivion was a prophecy long told even by the Ancients of the world, and Her weakening voice too fell silent over time. Instead, with exception of those fortunate few who could witness the truth, all that remain of the legends are now a shapeless fog of the mind and the mascots adorned on everyone’s posters, lamps, clothes, and toys. And while the streets are filled with crowds excited to join in the festive mood, there seems to be an increased police presence in the area as well, following recent news and international tensions. But hey, at least the city looks pretty from afar with all the dazzling lights as the evening draws in.
This is the current state of the capital when Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge suddenly appear in a bright flash. It so happens that their appearance is accompanied by the crackling of firecrackers in the street nearby, so few onlookers who happened to catch them pay them little mind. They’ve stopped by the one place in the city where Ruby once wished to gather everyone, a certain well-known bar by the name of The Happy Turtle. Though they’re certainly short on members at this time, at least they may be able to gather some clues as to where their allies have gone.
“Whew! Looks like we made it.” Jessie slips away her gun before anyone takes notice and takes out the transmuter in hand.
Biggs and Wedge also take a look around the place. “Wow, the city’s gotten pretty lively since the last time we were here,” Wedge remarks with a delighted smile.
“Yeah, but it’s no surprise Yuffie did say that some kind of festival would be happening in about a week’s time. Sounds like it’s finally come,” Biggs notes.
“As fun as things might be, we got work to do, guys,” Jessie reminds them. She turns toward the bar, but her attention is still on her transmuter. She’s tapping away at the available buttons in hopes that she can trigger something to get Ruby to respond, but there’s no sign of her at the moment.
Biggs passes her a concerned look. “No luck yet?”
She doesn’t answer right away, but after more fruitless attempts, she lets off a sigh and puts it away too. “Nope. She’s dead quiet… but I don’t think it’s because she’s left us or anything. Maybe it’s for the best that she stay on the down low.”
Wedge nods with a sad frown. “We’ll have to wait. Hope she comes back soon… without bringing us anything worse, of course.”
“Don’t even bring it up, man…” Biggs sighs. “The last thing we need is to worry even more.”
“Right. Sorry.”
However, before the three can head on in, they would shortly run into an unwelcome committee. The flash doesn’t go unnoticed by some police that happen to be patrolling the area and officers have rushed to the scene to chase down a potentially dangerous suspect or group of suspects.
“Hold it right there! You three!”
“H-huh?”
The trio instead find themselves surrounded by a small crowd of officers, all of whom are also armed and look ready to draw their firearms at a moment’s notice. One of the very strict-looking officers steps forward with just one hand raised to ask them a few questions.
“How did you get in here? All foreign visitors are required to go through customs check at the front gates.”
“Uh…”
Now that they remember, the only reason last time some of their guys got in was because Ruby made such a big show by herself. Now that they all might be wanted, it would have been way too rough to try to sneak past security. In fact, Jessie was hoping they could drop by real quick like Ruby had done before, but it looks like the police have grown wise to Ruby’s means of transport and anyone associated with her. Having been caught out in the open, though, the trio is simply forced to surrender and raise their hands.
Jessie makes a sheepish grin as she comes up with a quick excuse, “We were already here?”
Biggs passes her an annoyed look. Of all things to say, she had to go with one that was the least convincing?
She fires back with her own glare. “Then think of something! We can’t get arrested now!” she whispers.
Unfortunately, the officers are taking keen interest in the guns on the men’s backs and sharing suspicious looks among themselves. The officer from before also points a threatening finger toward them. “And why have you brought weapons on your persons? Who are you? Identify yourselves!”
“W-wait a second, officer. We can explain…” Biggs stammers as he tries to come up with another excuse.
“We’re the one asking the questions here! I said to identify yourselves!”
“Urf…”
But before the officer can get any more out of the suspicious trio, another voice coming on over calls out: “Wait, officer!”
“Hm?”
Now another young man dressed in a traditional black haori jacket and pants hurries on over. But to the surprise of these three, this disgruntled white-haired fellow looks awfully familiar. In fact, he even looks a little disturbed to find them here.
“Leslie!?” Jessie gasps.
Leslie comes right up with his own hands raised as a show of peace. “Sorry to bother you, sir, but these three are my guests!”
“And you are, sir?” the officer demands, raising an eyebrow.
“Leslie Kyle. My wife and I are visitors who are staying with a friend in this city.” He also whips out an official visitor’s visa that got him passed through customs as his proof. He also adds, “We’ve been expecting other guests, you see. They arrived a bit late, though, so we happened to miss each other at the gates.”
The officer quickly snatches up the paper to give it a quick inspection, and while his stern expression doesn’t change, he quietly hands the paper back to him. “Very well. But if I may ask…”
Leslie slips away the paper. “Yes?”
“Which gates did they pass through? My men and I had been standing guard by the south gate and we didn’t see any of these three enter.”
Quick as reflex, he answers with a straight face, “The north gate. That’s the one we entered through too.”
“Hmm…” The officer still remains uncertain, though, and gestures with a hand toward the other three. “And for what purpose have you invited these guests for? Especially ones that are clearly armed…”
“They’re just props, sir.”
For once, the officer looks a little taken aback. “Props?”
“Yes. As it happens, they’re part of a traveling circus known as the Hanabanashi Theater Troupe. These three just happen to be actors hired from overseas for a different project. But it’s a yet to be released play that’s still under wraps. That’s why they can’t reveal their actual names, or it’d compromise the troupe’s plans. Whatever names they would have given are just their stage names, you see.”
“…”
“Sorry to spring this on you all of a sudden.” Leslie then takes a formal bow as an apology. “They’re still new around town, so I’ve come to show them around. Just this once, may they be let off? We’re running late on schedule as is.”
After another tense silence, the officer finally relents and gives a sigh and a dismissive wave. “Oh, very well. I’ll let it be this time, but the next time I find them wandering around without supervision, a little smooth talk won’t be enough to let them free. Understand?”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.”
Leslie offers them another bow just as a formality. By now, the other officers are starting to relax again and mumbling amongst themselves – a few even uttering complaints about how slipshod the security up north must be – and along with their squad leader, they all promptly take their leave. Leslie then pulls up again with a sigh when the men are at last out of view.
“Leslie! You saved us! Thank you!” Jessie cheers, clapping her hands together.
“Yeah! That was awesome!” Wedge agrees, his eyes twinkling with delight. “You’re like a natural-born actor!”
“A theater troupe, huh…” Biggs rubs his head. “Well, at least it’s better than what I was gonna say.”
But despite lending a hand in the heat of the moment, Leslie returns them all a vicious glare. “Are you all crazy!? What are you doing back here? And out in the open? You’re lucky I happened to be on the way!”
The trio’s smiles vanish instantly to be replaced by confusion. “Uh… Sorry?” Wedge asks meekly.
Leslie shakes his head with a huff and crosses his arms. “You guys sure know how to pick the most inconvenient times to show too. Seriously, what kind of luck do you have? Don’t tell me Ruby’s hiding somewhere nearby.”
The three then exchange awkward glances. Jessie then replies, “Uh, kinda? Well, she’s not here right now, but…”
Biggs also explains, “We came here by warp thanks to a materia she made, so in a way, yeah.”
Leslie scoffs, not even a little bit surprised. “Figures. I didn’t just imagine a bright flash out of nowhere. You’d think you of all people would know better how to sneak around. Wutai’s undergone some serious security upgrades as of late, you know.”
Wedge looks off in the direction the officers left. “Yeah. I don’t remember that many officers being out last time we were around. Was this because of the stuff with Shinra lately?”
Leslie nods back solemnly. “Yeah, that’s part of it, but not all.” He also waves a hand to beckon them to follow him. “Anyway, let’s head in before we’re seen by anyone. Standing out here would draw more eyes.”
“Oh, sure.”
They follow him inside the bar, which despite this festive day is rather quiet. To be honest, this is par for the course on most days, as the competition for bars and restaurants are far and wide in a city like this. And because this is a particular festival where families and lovers would meet on the regular in honor of the two beloved Celestials featured in the classic legend, there wouldn’t be nearly as many customers at a bar where smoking is allowed. There are still a few customers present this evening, all of them single men who are engaged in quiet murmur, while a beautiful melody plays from the speakers above. Though one of the TVs above is on, currently playing a variety talk show that features celebrities and literature experts discussing the festival’s legend, it’s been muted as to not disturb the peace. Everyone can also enjoy the peaceful sounds of the crystal-clear waterfall and pool display in the back running, though barely anyone passes it a single glance. It has been a while since the display was redecorated, after all. All in all, though the overall décor does feel a little dated, it can be a fair place to have a quiet meeting with someone in private.
“Huh, so this is The Happy Turtle?” Wedge blinks as he looks around. “The place is bigger than I thought. I only ever saw it as a tiny shop back in Midgar.”
Biggs shrugs. “I heard the owner was Wutaian too, so it’s no wonder they’d have their original shop back home.” He also takes a look around. “But it’s looking a little empty even though the streets are crowded…”
At the counter stands the lone barkeeper, a middle-aged man who dons a white dish on his head and bears a turtle shell on his back, looking almost like a real kappa. The dish is awfully shiny, polished so it looks like it carries water under the lights. He greets them with a wave of his hand, which glove has also been modified to be webbed.
“Welcome to the Happy Turtle! A table for four?”
Leslie shakes his head. “No, it’s fine. I’m here to meet someone and we won’t be staying for too long.”
The barkeeper’s smile fades slightly, but nods in understanding. “Oh. Very well. If you need me, I’ll be here.”
As there aren’t too many customers here, it’s quite easy for Leslie to find a lone Wutaian man sitting at the bar counter. He looks like an ordinary Wutaian fellow; not particularly well or formally dressed, but certainly not poor in the least. Like most civilians, he has donned on the traditional knotted shirt characteristic of men’s clothes here – albeit in a shade of deep green paired with his black pants. In fact, aside from his somewhat scruffy hair combed to one side looking in the shape of a tidal wave and the slight five o’ clock shadow he has around his chin, he could easily be mistaken as any other man sitting in this bar. The man has an empty shot glass sitting in front of him, as well as a smoker’s tray beside it, and a lit cigarette in his mouth, looking off like he’s deep in thought as Leslie’s group comes up to him.
“Zhiqu Ting?” Leslie calls to him.
Now he comes out of his daze and passes him a cool but cautious eye. “Who’s asking?”
“Leslie Kyle. I got your message.” He now whips out a phone from his pocket and shows it to him.
The man named Zhiqu barely gives it a glance and instead looks around at the rest of his company. He raises an eyebrow and asks, “You didn’t say you’d bring anyone else, though.”
“Yeah…” He puts the phone away. “Things came up, so I had to bring them along.” He then leans in a bit to whisper, “They’re part of the A Team… the ‘other A’, if you catch my drift.”
Zhiqu blinks almost lazily and nods back without a word. He also waves a hand to beckon them to take a seat. “Fair enough. I’m just finishin’ a smoke here if you don’t mind and we can be on our way.”
Leslie takes a seat beside him, while the other three take some other seats at the counter by Leslie’s side. While Biggs and Wedge start to take a curious look at the menu, to the barkeeper’s relief and curiosity, Jessie has returned to keeping an eye on her transmuter, just in case she gets a message anytime soon. Meanwhile, Leslie then gets right to the point and starts asking the other man.
“So what’s been happening so far with you and your brother?”
Zhiqu looks off again with a sigh. “Same old, same old. He gets to run around like a maniac on a mission while I’m stuck delivering mail as always.”
“But he has been staying in contact, yeah?”
“Of course.” Zhiqu then turns back with a calm but serious expression. “Sounds like things have gotten quiet from the guys he’s been tailing.”
Leslie’s eyes harden at attention. “Even they’re going?”
“Yep.” He looks off again and returns to being casual. “One way or another, you got something to do with them, you’re getting gagged.”
Listening in on their conversation, Jessie can’t help but get a little curious. She puts away her blank transmuter and turns to them to ask, “So what’s been happening here? In Wutai, I mean. Does it involve us in any way?”
Leslie turns to her to reply, “In a way, yeah. Since you all left, the government’s gotten strict about tightening security around its borders and in the bigger towns and cities. Even more so since Shinra’s been getting in their face and blaming them about the whole global energy crisis.”
She winces with a nervous frown. “Yeah, sounds about right.”
“But it’s not just that; news has been getting heavily censored here too. We used to get regular updates of world news even from Midgar from time to time, but given the whole tensions, Wutai’s been opting out of showing anything on Shinra lately. Most people more or less know that they’ve been peddling propaganda and gearing up for war and all, but they don’t think it’s anything new or even a real threat since the government keeps insisting that they’re ‘working things out’, whatever that means.”
She nods along thoughtfully. “Yeah, I’d imagine they’re just playing it safe and don’t want to throw everyone into a panic.”
He shakes his head with a sigh. “Unfortunately, with the government being so secret about everything, it’s been a nightmare for any of us to gather info. The news doesn’t report it for some reason, but people have still been going missing here and there.”
She blinks in surprise and gets concerned. “Wait. You mean like the last time we were here?”
“Kinda, but I think the responsible party is different.” He lowers his voice for a moment to explain, “I don’t wanna say it here, though. We can talk about it where it’s safer.”
“Ah. Gotcha.” Now a different question pops up in mind. “Oh, yeah. By the way, didn’t you say you were gonna just stay on the down low? You got back with your fiancée, right?”
He waves his hand and sits back in his seat, returning to speaking normally. “Wife, actually. Himiko helped us with it. We paid a visit to the Register’s Office and signed the marital forms last week, but the wedding plans had to be delayed. Didn’t find a good chance to get to all that yet.”
Her faces lights up again. “Wow! Congrats! So when and where are you planning the wedding?”
“Not sure.” He shakes his head. “But while I’m caught up in this business, I won’t be able to rest easy anyway.”
Her smile fades. “What’s up? What business?”
Leslie turns back to Zhiqu with a hesitant frown. The latter looks away for a bit like he has no part in it, but is aware of who was responsible. After he gets another whiff of that cig in, he then returns Leslie a cool stare as if totally unfazed.
He calmly replies, “We can take it to the car.”
Leslie nods back and turns back to her. “Sorry, there’s only so much we can talk here. Mind a change of venue?”
“Oh. I don’t mind, but…” She then turns off for the other two to her left, who are now enjoying a couple of drinks and complimenting the barkeeper. She raises an eyebrow at them. “Hey, guys?”
Wedge is currently digging into some sweet amazake pudding that even jiggles to the touch of his spoon. After licking his lips, he replies with a big grin, “What’s up, Jessie? This bar’s got some great stuff!”
Biggs watches the swirl of his drink as he gives the glass a gentle swing. “Starlet Pub’s great, but I think they got some serious competition out here. Like, it’s impressive how clear this sake-brandy cocktail looks even after the stirring.”
Jessie glares their way, unimpressed. “Have you guys already forgotten what we’re here for?”
Biggs raises his other hand in surrender. “Hey, take it easy! We didn’t forget. But we are at a bar, you know. One that Ruby recommended, even? We had to give it a try.”
Wedge takes another sip with a warm, beaming smile. “The Ruby Guarantee strikes again! Wonder which drink is her favorite? That’ll be sure to get some customers!”
To which, even the barkeeper joins in to ask, “Say. Sorry to cut in, folks, but did ya just say ‘Ruby’?”
“Yeah. You know her?”
He turns up toward the one TV that’s still on, which is still playing the talk show. It also happens to have some photos that had been captured of Ruby from her first visit to the capital and went viral since they got posted online on Wutai’s own domestic internetwork. She became an overnight sensation to the point that a new “cult” as people like to joke about was born entirely from the Net.
The barkeeper then turns back with a nod. “Yeah, you could say that. So is that what she goes by now?”
Wedge blinks. “Um, yeah, I guess so. What were you all calling her before?”
He turns back to them. “She was always known as Yue-hua-sama from the old texts and legends, but I think I heard the name ‘Rubia’ floatin’ around since she last visited our town.” He strokes his chin thoughtfully. “So I thought, hey, why not try postin’ her name around here? Maybe it’ll help us catch some wind, if ya know what I mean!”
Wedge nods back. “Sounds like a good plan. People really love her here, don’t they?”
“Yeah, I’ll bet. The festival’s always been more of a quiet day in the past, more outta respect and all, but lately people’ve been going crazy with merch and goods with her image and stuff! Like, she’s such a huge celeb, I was shocked that she’d even show up here at all!”
Biggs nods along too. “Oh, yeah. She did say she and Cloud came by to pick up the reward for the poster campaign.”
“Oh, really? I only saw her at the time.”
“Huh? Just her? Then where was Cloud?”
The barkeeper shrugs. “Dunno who you’re talkin’ about, but it was just her. She did pick up the reward, but looked like she was in a hurry, so we didn’t get to talk much.”
Biggs and Wedge exchange confused glances, but decide to let it be.
The barkeeper then hangs his head and lets off a wistful sigh. “The problem was, she only stayed for that short moment, so not like I could say that she was here here, ya know? Sure wish she ordered something at least. Probably coulda promoted it, especially that the festival’s already here! But, a li’l too late for that, I guess…”
“Oh, yeah.” Biggs takes a glance around. “You’d think a bar would be a great place for people to celebrate, but it’s kinda empty in here.” He quickly turns back to the man with a sympathetic look. “Uh, no offense, sir.”
He shakes his head and waves it away. “Don’t mind me. I know it more than anyone…” He turns away as he begins to reminisce, “Believe it or not, this bar used to be one of the hottest spots that people would gather ’round back in the day! Before all the talk of Shinra this, Shinra that, people really dug the whole turtle-kappa vibes we had goin’ on!” He then turns around again with a frown and raises a hand outward. “But look at us now. Today’s actually a good day, since all ya arrived. But most days, we barely even get a glance through the windows.”
Biggs raises an eyebrow. “But your stuff’s top-notch. Why wouldn’t people wanna come here?”
“Dunno. If I knew, I’d change it up in a heartbeat.” He then looks around the crew here and asks them, “Say, do any of ya have any suggestions?”
“Suggestions for what?” Wedge asks.
“Ya know, just anything we can do to get more popular.” He then leans in with a whisper, “Just between me and you guys, we’re not really doing that hot since I had to give away that reward money to Ruby. Like, she deserved it, of course, I won’t deny that! But it wasn’t easy getting the money either…”
While those two share some awkward glances, they then look around for some ideas and turn to Jessie, who just shrugs back. They all turn to Leslie too, but he isn’t looking their way right now and moodily brooding. He’s just impatient to get going. They are on a tight schedule.
And then, Zhiqu casually drops a rough comment, “…For starters, you could get some new décor around here.” He points with a thumb behind him to the pool display. “I swear that thing’s been there since this place first started.”
The barkeeper gasps. “Oh, my! The ol’ Turtle Pond? Of course it’s been around that long! The thing’s basically our mainstay attraction!” He strokes his beard with a stoic but meaningful expression. “It’s one of my most prized possessions, that’s for sure! I wouldn’t swap it out even if I needed the money!”
Zhiqu lets out another wisp of smoke. “…And there’s the problem.”
“Huh?”
He finally takes his short cig butt and puts it out in the tray, and gets up from his seat. “Gotta keep up with the times, old man. You’re never gonna hit gold twice if you’re always sittin’ at the same stream.” With a wave of his hand toward the others, he tells them, “My car’s in the lot in the back. Catch ya there.” And he heads out the door.
Leslie also gets up from his seat. “I was thinking the same, actually. We’ve spent more than enough time here.” And he heads out the door too.
The other three watch them go, growing even more puzzled, and turn back to the barkeeper, who is looking more and more depressed.
Wedge makes a sympathetic frown. “Sorry. Wish there was more we could do to help, but well, Ruby’s not with us right now, so we can’t ask her.”
The barkeeper nods back, but still looks defeated. “No worries. Appreciate the company and happy to serve anyway. But uh…” He then offers forward a receipt. “By the way, we usually ask for payment first, but since you all were so busy talking, I didn’t wanna bother ya…”
“Oh, right! Sorry. We’re used to paying after.” Wedge hurries to fetch his wallet and puts down the cash. “Keep the change, sir.”
“Thank ya very much!” The barkeeper takes a polite bow, revealing the beautiful shine to the dish on his head.
And with little else left to them, the remaining three also wave goodbye and take their leave. The barkeeper turns off to dive back to his own quiet thoughts as he cleans up. But before they all go, Wedge hesitates over something and stops to turn around.
“Wedge?” Biggs calls to him.
Wedge hurries back over to the counter to leave one last word, “Oh, excuse me?”
The barkeeper blinks and turns around again. “Yes, sir?”
He then shows a bright grin as he suggests, “I just had an idea! Why not create a new item on the menu?”
“A new item?” The older man nods slowly but curiously. “Well, I’m open to ideas, so sure. What’re ya thinking?”
“How about a cocktail mix that could represent Ruby or the moon? Like, something real special that you won’t find anywhere else!”
“Ah…” He shakes his head. “Sorry, sir, but there are already way too many other spots that have jumped on the bandwagon. If I make one now, I dunno if it’ll stand out.”
“Yeah, but this bar is the only one that has the ‘Ruby Guarantee’.”
“Huh?”
“You know, she recommended this place to us and we loved your stuff! So I figured, why not make a drink about it too? You can even call it that and promote it as a tryout!”
The barkeeper blinks, looking like he’s in a little daze, but then a big smile stretches over his lips until he’s grinning too. “Hey! That’s a great idea! After all, she did show up here too! Even if it was just for a little while.”
“Yeah, that’s the spirit! Or, spirits, if ya know what I mean.” He adds the latter bit with a cheeky grin.
“Haha!” The barkeeper nods back with a much more confident smile. “Oh, you betcha! I’ll make sure that The Happy Turtle’s gonna be kickin’ alive again!” He even flexes an arm. “Oh, my brother’s in for a shock that’ll jolt him outta his slump!”
“Your brother?”
“Yeah! Actually, he’s the owner of this shop. I came back the other day to help him since he said business was kinda rough.” He scratches his head, jostling the dish a little. “Well, things haven’t been too hot for me either. See, I was actually running my own Happy Turtle shop in Midgar. You’re from there, right? Ya know the one in Sector 7?”
His eyes light up. “Yeah! I saw it around town before.” The light in his eyes fades as he also admits, “But since our friends ran their own bar, we didn’t really get a chance to drop by much.”
“Ah, don’t worry about it. The shop’s closed up anyway.”
His smile disappears. “What? What happened?”
“Ya know, the usual. People ’round didn’t really care for stuff like that. And even though I always kept up a smile, with all the tensions going lately, I had my share of harassments too.”
Wedge frowns to hear it. “Ah… Yeah, things have been rough for Wutaians, even if they’ve been citizens of Midgar for ages.”
He shrugs. “Yeah. Least they were just some neighborhood kids pulling pranks, so I consider myself lucky. But eventually, I decided I’d just close up for now and move back home where it’d be safer.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“Don’t worry about it.” The older man then lights up again when he reminds himself. “Besides, like ya said, this bar got the ‘Ruby Guarantee’! I’m sure we’ll make it through just fine.”
Wedge’s smile returns. “Heh. Yeah! Keep your head up and look ahead for the bright future!”
“Seriously, sir, thanks a lot. For your suggestions and your patronage.” He then formally takes another deeper bow. If the dish really carried water it could have spilled.
“Heh. No problem! Hope things get busier around here!”
At last, with the general atmosphere lifted back up to join the glittering lights of the festivities around them, Wedge waves goodbye and hurries back to the entrance where Biggs and Jessie have been waiting for him.
“Sorry to keep you guys.”
Biggs waves a hand. “Nah, don’t worry about it.” He also smiles proudly. “You did a good thing, man.”
Wedge returns that smile with his own. “Yeah. I just couldn’t leave it at that.”
Jessie nods along and then informs them, “Okay. Leslie and his pal are waiting for us. Let’s hurry.”
The three step out the door together and rush off to the parking lot behind the bar, where a dusty brown car that may have seen better days has been sitting by its lonesome for them. Leslie and Zhiqu have been standing guard outside just in case and have been in idle chatter themselves until they see the other three come over.
Leslie sets a hand to his waist, looking disappointed. “What took you guys?”
Wedge rubs his head awkwardly. “Sorry, I was the holdup. I just wanted to leave a suggestion for the barkeep to help business. I thought he looked kinda familiar too.”
He raises an eyebrow. “You know him?”
“Yeah. Turns out he was the same guy who was running a different Happy Turtle shop in Midgar, but it hasn’t been going well, so he came back home.”
Leslie nods. “Ah. That’s too bad…”
Zhiqu then sticks a key into the driver’s door on the right side of the car and takes a seat inside. He also flips a switch to unlock the rest of the doors and beckons them all on. “Alright, guys. We’re running a bit late. I’ll catch you all up on the way there.”
“Huh? Where are we going?” Biggs asks.
“Hop on and I’ll tell you.”
So they all oblige. Leslie takes the front passenger seat beside him since he got there first, while the other three squeezed into the back – though Biggs finds himself in the uncomfortable middle since Jessie doesn’t want to be stuck between them. They shut the doors, the lock clicks back up, and Zhiqu finally sets the key into the ignition. Though the car may look fairly aged – probably got a couple decades on it by now – the engine roars to life and purrs calmly. Taking one quick check around to be sure that all of the windows are rolled up, he then adjusts his rearview mirror and proceeds to back out of the space. And once he hits the open street, taking care to avoid the worst of the crowds outside, he swerves off for the open road to the other side of the city.
Along the way, a much more intriguing conversation starts up. The Avalanche trio have plenty of questions and for once Zhiqu and Leslie are much more open to answer.
“Comfortable?” Zhiqu asks his new passengers. “Sorry for the cramped space, but this baby of mine has been tuned up by yours truly over the years. Had to sacrifice a little leg room, but she’s purring happy with her new gear.”
“Yeah, we’re fine,” Jessie answers first.
Biggs makes an awkward face her way, but answers next, “Yeah, we can make do.”
Anyway, getting back to business, she also starts them off, “By the way, I meant to ask it earlier, but who exactly are you and how do you know Leslie?”
“Heh. You went this long without even asking me, huh? Guess you trust Leslie a lot.”
“Yeah. He’s been with us through a lot too.”
Leslie looks out his window. “Sometimes I wish I didn’t, but it did get me back with my girl.”
Wedge adds with a triumphant grin, “And reunited her friend with her sister!”
Leslie nods to that. Though he still doesn’t look their way, he appreciates the reminder.
Zhiqu then answers Jessie with his own question, “So you guys are part of Avalanche, yeah? You know a guy named Zhijie?”
She blinks with pleasant surprise. “Yeah, we do. How do you know him?”
“Of course I know. He’s my brother the younger.”
At that moment, all three of the Avalanche squad snap to attention with open mouths. “Brother?” Biggs asks almost in disbelief.
“Zhijie had a brother?” Wedge asks too, scratching his head. “He never mentioned it before.”
“Yeah. I figured.” While he keeps his eyes on the road, Zhiqu still looks disappointed. “He was always the odd one out in our family, whether it was about playing it up with foreign culture or styles or legging it whenever he’d be in trouble.” He also relents on the guy, adding, “In all honesty, I can’t blame him either. Dad was a beast when it came to discipline and order. He must have felt trapped being the hyperactive kid growing up… though I was usually saddled with cleaning up his messes whenever he ran off.”
“Huh.”
Biggs raises an eyebrow, but looks impressed. “Whaddya know? You two act so differently, we wouldn’t have guessed you’re related.”
“Just how it is with bros, ya know. Sometimes we can be pretty much identical even if they’re ages apart, but other times we just can’t stand each other. But as much as we get on each other’s nerves, I wouldn’t ditch him when he’s in a pinch.” His face then darkens a little as he’s reminded and he lets off a dejected sigh. “Too bad I can’t do much from here even though he’s putting his life on the line.”
Jessie grows worried. “He’s what? What’s he been doing?”
Biggs follows suit. “And how about the rest of HQ? Where are they anyway?”
“We’re on the way there. There’s a small pawn shop on the northwest side of town. It’s just a fifteen minute drive, so not too far. As for Zhijie, though, even I’m not sure.”
“Not sure?” Wedge asks too.
“Yeah. See, even though I know what he’s a part of and all, I’m not actually Avalanche myself. I’ve just been a kind of wingman for him since he’s been so busy helping his gang out. Sometimes I go in place of him if there’s a message that needs delivering, but they wouldn’t let me in on anything that could be riskier.” He frowns to himself. “But I have heard from him that Avalanche has been working with another group. We actually call Avalanche the ‘other A Team’ because this group goes by the name ASR.”
“ASR?” Biggs asks.
“The Anti-Shinra Resistance. It’s a secret organization run by some elites of our country that stand opposed to everything Shinra, but the catch is that they’re all about nonviolence. These elites even protested the war when it came up and refused to join in, but as a result, their leader was arrested and the rest scattered into hiding somewhere. I wouldn’t know exactly where. Zhijie might, though.”
“Huh.”
He blows a breath of air with a troubled frown. “’Course, just ’cause he might know doesn’t mean he’d tell. Whatever he’s been up to, he can’t risk the word getting out.”
“You mean about the ASR?”
“Yeah, but not just them. Even Avalanche has to lay low these days.”
“Really?” Jessie also asks, “Why so secret? I thought Avalanche was way more welcome here.”
Zhiqu shakes his head. “It used to be, but not anymore. You’ve seen all those police around, right?”
She frowns to be reminded. “Yeah. We almost got caught if it wasn’t for Leslie bailing us out.”
Biggs nods along. “Hope he won’t get in trouble for that. He had to lie on our behalf.”
Leslie then shakes his head. “Forget about it. We can always just play dumb. You can thank me later by meeting back up with Av-HQ.”
“Yeah, we appreciate it, man. Didn’t even know you were still here in town, but we really were lucky to have run into you. At this rate, you’re gonna be sworn into Avalanche by how much help you’ve been giving us.”
He snorts back. “After hanging with you all this long, I got the feeling I wouldn’t ever get you out of my hair again. Only reason I don’t wanna join Ruby’s gang is because you all get into the most insane shit that I wouldn’t wanna touch even with a whole ocean separating us.”
Biggs slumps a little. “Yeah… We get it. Even the three of us still have a hard time keeping up with the rest.”
“Heh. Cloud’s even gone full superhero now!” Wedge exclaims with twinkling eyes. “Guess someone had to step up since Ruby went missing.”
Leslie at first doesn’t want to turn around, but after hearing him come out with what sounded like nonsense, he whips his head back toward him with a very skeptical look. “Are you serious, dude? What kind of ‘superhero’?”
“Like the kind where he’s able to summon ice from nowhere and warp?”
Biggs shrugs. “We saw it happen.”
“He was kinda acting weird, though,” Wedge then admits, rubbing his head. “Hope he didn’t push himself too hard.”
Leslie doesn’t look amused in the least or even all that surprised anymore. He simply turns away again and shakes his head. “You know what, I’m not even gonna ask.”
Reminded again, Jessie grows a bit concerned. “Speaking of Cloud and them, we still haven’t heard back from them. It’s been a whole week too.”
He passes a side glance her way, though she’s sitting behind him so it’s indirect. “Really? Not a word?”
“Nope.”
“That’s weird.” He turns ahead again. “I thought you guys would be the first ones they’d tell. Didn’t they leave to go find Ruby? I heard as much from Zhijie.”
“Yeah, um, about that…” Biggs gives an awkward frown. “Our phones went dead for a while since they left.”
“You all got hit by the phone line crisis too, huh?”
“Nah. Our phones run on materia, so we wouldn’t have to worry about that.”
“Materia?”
Jessie nods and explains, “Materia chips, specifically. We ran on a network of materia so we could avoid being traced by Shinra.”
“Oh, gotcha. No wonder you all got away with chatting so much while we were here last time.”
“Yeah.” She then frowns to herself. “But for whatever reason, ever since the phone lines went down across the world, even we were somehow hit. I dunno if it was because of the thing with the meteor or what. It was even weirder that it just disappeared all of a sudden.”
Leslie recalls it too with a thoughtful face. “The meteor…”
“You heard about it, right? It was on the news for a while. We were hiding in Kalm at the time, but Shinra reported it too.”
“Yeah, I heard about it.” He then admits with his own troubled frown, “But not because it was reported here.”
“Huh?”
“It wasn’t reported?” Biggs asks too.
“Yeah. You said Shinra did, right? Since relations have gotten real bad between these two countries, Wutai hasn’t been the most keen about letting just any news from Shinra make it here. Something about the new Domestic Airwaves Protection Policy they instated a few weeks back. It was around then when Shinra’s propaganda was starting to get heavy.”
“Ah…” Jessie nods back. “No wonder. We’ve been trying to tune out of that stuff too, but it’s kinda hard to avoid them when every other town and country out there has Shinra on the news.”
Leslie folds his arms with a frown. “But to hide something like a whole meteor? That’s just sus as hell. You’d think something that size would be seen by everyone, and yet the government continues to pretend that it never happened.”
Zhiqu also adds, “Well, the impact was really far away and we were hit the least when the phone lines went down. After a few repairs, we could get them back up again. As far as most people care, we might as well have been protected by some divine providence or something. Definitely checks out with all the Ruby love lately.”
He turns to him too. “Yeah, but it’s not like they’re completely oblivious either. Or do most people just not want to complain about what the government says?”
“That’s part of it too.”
“…”
Wedge also adds, “But it kinda makes sense. Like, only Ruby would be powerful enough to do something like stop a whole meteor, right?”
Biggs puts a hand to his chin, resting his elbow against his other hand. “I guess… but if she’s that powerful, you’d think she wouldn’t be hiding from anything.”
Jessie folds her arms in thought too. “And that she’d also bring Cloud and them back out to safety already… wherever they are.”
Leslie’s eyes narrow in suspicion. He’s starting to catch onto the real problem here. He then asks them, “Speaking of Ruby, where is she? You guys said you got here because she made you materia, right?”
Just like that, a grim silence falls over the trio in the back. It’s so immediately deafening that the only noise that remains is the low hum of the car’s cruising.
Even Leslie grows alarmed. “Guys… What happened to her?”
Jessie looks away, unwilling to look at him. Biggs is the same and simply makes an uncomfortable frown. Wedge sadly nods and answers for them all, “…We don’t know. She disappeared on us just a little while ago.”
Jessie adds, speaking as if she were trying to convince herself, “But she’ll be back sometime. She’s just waiting for the right chance.”
Biggs follows up, “Yeah. Things have gotten tricky with her, so she doesn’t want to accidentally draw any more attention on us than we’ve had so far.”
By now, Leslie is beginning to dread asking, but he does anyway out of morbid curiosity, “What sort of attention are we talking? This isn’t about Shinra, is it?”
The other three all shake their heads together, though it’s Jessie who comes out with it, “It’s about the planet, actually.”
“The… planet?” He pauses to let the answer sink in, but it doesn’t quite sit well with him. “What do you mean? Like, who or what is she trying to hide from?”
Given how awkward Jessie looks right now, Biggs offers the next answer in her place, “The Gods of this world, I guess.”
Wedge bites his lips. “She’s made some seriously epic enemies this time…”
“…”
An uncomfortable silence comes over the car again. Leslie has to take another moment to process what the heck they’re all talking about, but even he grows disturbed when he looks back and sees none of them seem to be joking or even trying to make up anything. He turns back ahead with his own eyes growing dark like he’s slowly come to die inside.
He plants a hand over his face and groans to himself. “…Why do you guys always end up in these insane situations?”
Biggs lets off his own sigh. “You got us there, man. Being with Ruby has just been a wild ride from day one.”
“Yeah, I figured…”
Even for the rest of the ride, the awkward atmosphere simply does not settle, but no one seems willing to ask or explain further than that. This person known as “Ruby” is truly an enigma. One moment you think she’s harmless enough, even if rather straightforward and a bit too nosy at times, and the next, you’re swept up in some unprecedented disaster that no one, not even she, can resolve. Or at least, until she comes up with yet another zany method of defying expectations and doing the unthinkable to work out a miracle that shouldn’t have been possible. One would think that at some point, everything was always just an act and that she only pretended to be ignorant, and yet no one can prove that she would even know what she’s capable of to begin with.
Zhiqu now brings his passengers to their awaited destination, a certain inconspicuous pawn shop at the northwest side of the city. He pulls up in front of the building complex, where it sits beneath another shop entirely, and then pulls to the right where there is a small alleyway that is just big enough for a single car to fit in. It takes him to the back of the building where a small empty lot between neighboring building complexes and parks here, out of sight from the streets.
“Can you park here? There’s no sign,” Biggs points out.
Zhiqu replies flatly, “In this city, if there’s a big enough space, there’s a car. Just go with it.”
“Uh, sure…”
They all step out of the car and Zhiqu locks it manually before slipping away the key. He then leads them on back out around the corner to the front of the pawn shop and they step right in. It’s a small but quaint shop with all sorts of knick-knacks and trinkets and other paraphernalia gathered over many years – ranging from the smallest thumbtack fit for an infant to the largest human-sized statue of a rather slim yet muscular man flexing his arms in the air that had become chipped and faded. Somehow, this fellow looks somewhat familiar to many, but no one can seem to identify exactly who he is. There are also all kinds of decorative pots and plates, toys and keychains, old books and magazines, and even a random bicycle sitting in the corner amid all the sports equipment. All in all, the pawn trade is still going strong even in this day and age.
However, they’re not here to shop. Zhiqu addresses the burly-looking shopkeeper not with words but with several hand signs. Apparently they’re based on Wutaian sign language, a branch of the language that is now primarily taught in certain schools for special-needs children, but used to be a language exclusive to the ninja of yore when they needed specific signs to communicate in silence. In this case, it serves this particular secret group’s purposes exactly. The shopkeeper recognizes Zhiqu anyway, since he’s been around before, but the hand signs are a sure-fire method to ensure that he’s not been taken hostage or anything. He nods back and leads them inside to a back room, which acts as additional storage for some items that have yet to be appraised. However, underneath the big mat is a hatch door. The shopkeeper then releases the latch and swings it open, welcoming them all inside. He even helps shut it back up as Leslie slips in to cover the rear.
“Oh. Zhiqu, you’re back… Huh?” a familiar woman’s voice greets them, but is cut short.
“Nayo!” Jessie gasps.
“Polk! Billy Bob!” Wedge cries with joy.
“Dang, so you all were hiding here,” Biggs remarks calmly, but is quite relieved.
“Jessie? Biggs? Wedge?” Nayo asks, her eyes wide. “How did you all get here?”
Underneath the pawn shop would be yet another room where Avalanche HQ has made their new secret base. In the aftermath of the chaos since Cloud’s team made their jailbreak and vanished over the horizon, the rest of Avalanche was scattered all around the world. While many were caught by the Turks and Soldier that later arrived on the scene, some of them, including Nayo’s group who was accompanied by Jessie’s gang as well, managed to sneak out of Sector 1 under the cover of a hijacked Shinra truck. They quickly transferred over to a much more non-descript work truck and pretended to be random civilians making deliveries, which let them escape the outer gates, and then it was off to Kalm first. Nayo was previously informed by Zhijie that given the situation in Wutai, Jessie’s gang wouldn’t be able to enter the country safely as they were also being targeted by the government. Thus, they were dropped off in Kalm in the care of a certain ex-Soldier and the rest left for grassier fields to the east, where they would be able to catch a different ride to Junon and then out west to freedom. It was a harrowing journey that took them nearly a whole week, but finally they got settled in the safer depths of the capital of Wutai, also with help from the Ting brothers.
And now, for some reason, Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge have shown up, out of the blue, in a place where they shouldn’t have been able to enter. An obvious sign of “divine interference”, as they say.
Nayo grows suspect immediately, but still asks politely, “By any chance, did you guys catch some kind of ride, maybe with a certain dragon?”
Jessie grins, setting her hands on her hips. “Good guess, but not exactly. She did help us by giving us something, though.”
“She gave you something?”
Jessie happily whips out the modified pistol from its holster and detaches a certain green materia from it. “Check this out! A bonafide Warp Materia, provided by Ruby!”
Nayo actually pulls back in shock. “A Warp Materia!? You can just get any materia from her?”
Somehow, both Polk and Billy Bob remain mildly surprised and amused as if they were almost expecting this result. Polk simply blinks and then nods along as if he doesn’t bother questioning the logic, while Billy snickers quietly to himself as if it were some kind of joke. To be fair, it is a pretty funny turn of events.
Nayo quickly recovers, though. She then lets off a sigh and shakes her head. “I should’ve known you guys had some kind of trick up your sleeves.” She then raises a hand forward as she asks on, “But how did you even get in contact with Ruby? And where are Cloud and the rest? Weren’t they going to look for her?”
“Yeah… We were gonna get to that.” Now again reminded, Jessie’s grin fades. She sets the materia back into its slot and slips the gun away, and faces the others with a serious look like she’s preparing to pass along some bad news.
But even before she can get to explaining, they promptly hear a knock from the hatch door above. The shopkeeper again opens the door to let someone else drop in, and this time, it’s a bigger surprise for Jessie’s trio instead.
“Guys! Sorry to bring bad news, but… huh?”
“Zhijie!” Wedge calls out, raising a hand to say hi.
“Oh, well, that makes things easier,” Biggs comments with a little levity.
Zhijie is looking pretty flustered and sweaty as he comes in, but then stops descending the ladder just to stare at them. “What in the he… No, forget that! You all should hear this!” He drops down to his feet and pivots to address them with a warning message. “I just got word from the ASR! They’re dealing with a crisis down at Zhongyuan!”
“Zhongyuan?” Nayo asks, immediately alarmed.
“Some people from the latest ship of refugees have been infected with ARC! And it’s spreading like a virus!”
A collective chilling panic sweeps through the entire room. “What!?”
Notes:
Trivia, references, and my tipping on insanity
- There are so many unnamed NPCs I introduce in this chapter alone, but like with chapter 77 previously, I don't know if I'm gonna be naming much of them. For now it's just one of them, their messenger in Zhongyuan, who is named Hayabusa because I was thinking of peregrine falcons for their speed and plus Hayabusa is an awesome name.
- The town of Chenfu was actually mentioned way back in chapter 49 when the priestess and her daughter disappeared into the night, but I don't think I explained the name. It's based off of the Chinese word for "hidden". Anyway, with that reminder, I hope you'll look forward to seeing what may develop.
- So, the three mysterious Immortal Soldiers that were deployed to fight off Ultima Weapon... are actually not the trio of commanders from The First Soldier, despite the descriptions and their weapons matching up. As I said before, I couldn't find a good way to slip them in since I have no idea what direction they're taking Glenn and the ASR of Rebirth for the third Remake game. But I felt like it was about time I paid homage. So these three soldiers are gonna be my stand-in references to them.
- A tale as old as time... The Ancient Weapons are once again bested by Shinra's modern military might. But at the very least, I'm gonna make sure these guys get to do a lot more than what they did in the OG. After all these years, I legit just feel bad for Sapphire Weapon. Mecha thought it was "him".
- This chapter was the reason why I went back through my old chapters and rewrote pieces around Ruby's materia. There is actual plot relevance and I am embarrassed that I didn't think it through beforehand.
- Finally, I can talk more about the minor subplot I sneaked in back when Cloud was just turning wolf-y and Rufus still didn't give a damn. This is the reason why: a whole Wutai government cover-up conspiracy. But I think everyone can guess Shinra isn't exactly innocent in it either.
- For once I remembered the Happy Turtle kappa dude from Remake's Intermission! But by this late point in the story, it wouldn't make sense for them to stop by the place that's still in Sector 7, so I moved him out for his safety and for my fascinating deep-dive into all kinds of kappa folklore. Maybe I'll get to talk about more yokai down the line... sometime.
- So I randomly gave Zhijie a brother. It was fitting, honestly, since I always pictured Zhijie as hiding way more about himself than meets the eye and plus I needed another messenger type. As it happens, he is also the guy Zhijie contacted to get him Ruby's materia that made its way into Jessie's (and then Fenrir!Cloud's) hands. His bro's name is basically a pun on Zhijie's own. 直接 (zhi2jie1) means "direct, straight", so I named his brother after 知趣 (zhi1qu4) meaning "tacit, reserved". Ironic, since their personalities aren't quite like their names imply. I kinda wrote Zhiqu as a cool-headed savage, lol. And their last name 挺 (ting3) also means "erect, upright", but is more commonly used to mean "very". And since Chinese names go last, first... yeah.
- Congrats to Leslie. I'm still so happy I wrote him into the story. Man is going places, even if he doesn't want to.
- I was yesterday-years-old when I learned that brandy is graded only for Cognac and Armagnac brandies. This fic teaches me so much more about alcohol I will never consume. (Not because I don't drink, but I just prefer milder rice wines because I can't hold my liquor, unlike Ruby.)
- The whole reason I wrote this chapter to be this long was because I needed to wrap things up in preparation of the next few chapters as I bring the two separate arcs together at the end. And hey, I figured while I'm at it, I'll start by bringing Cait Sith and Moogle back to Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge, just like the good ol' days. Surely things are gonna stay peaceful around here, right?
Chapter 82: The Missing Link
Notes:
Hello, everyone. Sorry for the long wait again, but as I was writing up this next chapter I realized that I kept the scenes going and going until I realized the chapter as is would have been waaay too long, even by my standards. I know I just posted a 20k chapter previously, but this one would have been way longer if I got in everything I wanted to write. So I came up with a compromise: I'd rework my general outline again and add more chapters as needed, and I've updated the final chapter count estimate again.
In the meantime, I come with a two-fer, both chapters will be posted in short succession. I made ya'll wait another month again, so I might as well make up for it, right?
Chapter Text
The Weapons are out. While humanity’s conflicts continue to simmer and toil, the planet has been at war with an invasion of enigmatic foreign entities. From town to town, be it the relative peace of Kalm or the militant stronghold of Junon, the laid-back hot springs of Mideel or the hard-knock ruins of North Corel, the Weapons have been keeping several cautious eyes out. They searched high and low, from the skies above and the seas below and the lands in-between, attuning to the traces of certain Remnants that had escaped since the landing of Meteor. They did not distinguish between subjects that held Jenova or Rubia cells; all were considered potential threats to be marked.
However, as a planetary force, the Weapons did not mobilize all at once. They approached the pressing issue in waves. On the first three days since Meteor vanished, the planet deployed Her first line of scouts. They ranged from the huge whale-like creatures with transparent belly storage pods, henceforth dubbed the Drifters; to the skyscrapingly tall single-horned deer-like Walkers that could blend into whichever background they would cross; and to the majestic great owls the size of dragons, with crystal-shard-like marks embedded in their foreheads, known as the Gliders. Their only purpose was to scan their respective geological regions for trouble signs and to report back to the primary five who were waiting for the right moment to make their official debut.
Over the next three days, the scouts launched their initial countermeasures. Whenever they located their marked subjects, they releashed streams of a mysterious magic that almost looked like auroras near the ground. Anything that they previously marked were captured in strange bubble-like cages that kept the subjects trapped. And they would be held there, high up in the air in plain sight as if to serve as a warning to everyone else, to await judgment by the awaiting primary Weapons. Unfortunately, the Imprisoning, as it became known, also split up families and friends of these patients believed to be terminally ill. No matter what Shinra forces tried to do, nothing could break the captives out of their cages. Even a number of Class-I Soldiers were likewise ambushed and captured as they arrived to help deal with the new threats.
However, word of the strange phenomena got around fast. These strange monsters were also not immune to being Assessed and their respective weaknesses were found. Non-Immortal Soldiers were deployed as backup and rushed on the assault whenever they located the scouting Weapons, even handedly destroying a few of them. Yet, the planet’s scouts remained undeterred in their mission. As they were not fighters in the first place, they would simply flee upon being discovered. There would be a time and place for battle and they were merely the messengers.
Then came the seventh day. The planet, content with the work of Her scouts, thus unleashed the battle Weapons. Ultima Weapon, with wings that could span small towns, was the quickest to respond to the call. It materialized in mid-air from the leftover streams of life from its fallen comrades and awakened with a mighty roar. And in a lightning blitz, it zoomed around the planet for every town or notable location that the scouts had marked and proceeded to snatch up every last bubble cage and the prisoners inside, and erase them by its own claws. However, this assault plan did not go smoothly; everywhere Ultima traveled, Shinra’s forces – particularly carried by Soldier, both Immortal and non-Immortal classes – pursued it and defended the towns from the Weapon’s invasions. But Ultima Weapon was relentless and would repeatedly attack yet retreat whenever inconvenienced. And with each passing visit it made, the populations of towns around the world were whittled down little by little.
Then, there were the other four Weapons that followed shortly. Sapphire Weapon took to the seas and launched its attacks on coastal regions that were not as heavily guarded as the likes of Junon and then pursued further west toward a certain island nation. Instead, Emerald Weapon took up the role and launched its attack on the fortified city from below and even briefly rose out of the sea for Upper Junon, now that the giant eyesore cannon was no longer stationed there. Its many eyes blasted all visible bubbles and collected the ensuing gray dust in its maws, and it shortly disappeared into the sea to dispose of the contents. In a similar vein, Ruby Weapon rose from the northern deserts beyond Mt. Corel and loomed menacingly over the Shinra reactor, to the fright of the locals. It smashed a certain clinic and collected its share of prisoners with a single swing of its arm, but left the rest of the town alone. It returned to the sands to dispose of its captives, but as it left, its eyes honed in on the much brighter Gold Saucer in the distance. And finally, the slowest to mobilize, Diamond Weapon held its attention on the northern continent. It swept through the Great Glacier’s ruins following Meteor’s crash in search of any stragglers, alive or dead, that were still heading toward the crater.
Nevertheless, as intimidating as the Weapons were to behold, their results were ironically insufficient compared the urgency of the free-radical Remnants. It was not simply a matter of ending the lives of these infected souls, but was just as critical that the resulting gray ether be safely sealed and disposed to avoid further harm to the planet. Yet, after the initial slew of prisoners that were captured and sealed away, there were still more that escaped and others that could fend them off too. Only a small handful of the Class-I Soldiers were captured, but now they were being deployed alongside non-Immortals, which further muddled the battlefield and made the Weapons’ mission all the more troublesome. Though, there was one exceptional case: the very moment Ultima detected the presence of the anomaly’s magic in play, it rushed to the scene to deliver a pre-emptive strike, but was repelled before it could and had to retreat to likewise cleanse itself of contamination. Wherever the anomaly may appear next will have to be witnessed to be known.
Away in another realm entirely, Minerva has been seated in her personal chambers and watching the events unfold on several translucent monitors floating before her. While somewhat disappointed, she did anticipate these developments. There’s no denying that humanity has achieved great progress since the days of the Cetra, such that even a single corporate conglomerate would be capable of overtaking much of the world in their place. And now, even when faced with the threat of city destroyers graced by the planet Herself, humanity continues to hold out strong.
However, there is one other issue that concerns her more. On two separate monitors, she has also been following the courses of the planet’s chosen heroes, both of the group occupying the Debug Room and the survivors still remaining on the surface. Regardless of the threats these warriors have faced and overcome on their own merits, they are ultimately rallying around a shared hope in the impossible, logic-defying return of the anomaly. It is one thing to hold memory of those they once lost, to grow from the experience and move forward; but another thing entirely to deny the reality as it has been determined. Truth be told, even with all the knowledge and wisdom Minerva may have, she likewise understands that she has little means to direct or control these strange entities that once intruded on this world. Therefore, it is not a question of if, but when the next Cetran War will arrive. As hesitant as she is to act as divine intervention when the future is not set, necessary measures must taken to prepare for the worst case scenario.
She speaks to her trusty owl assistant who stands guard by her side, “Noctua, send for Genesis and have him bring the prisoner. Tell him I have a new objective to discuss with the two of them.”
“Yes, Milady.” Noctua takes her respectful bow and within a blink of light, she transforms back to her wings and soars off to notify.
It’s not much of a wait before the infamous red swordsman returns, rolling along the ever disgruntled captive in his bubble cage. Genesis takes a respectful bow as he presents himself and the prisoner, who now pulls back up into a sitting position but refuses to look her way.
“Lady Minerva, how may I serve?” he asks.
“It is unfortunate, but I bring ill news. Given the pressing issue of the Remnants, I’ve elected to enact precautionary measures to lessen the dangers soon to come.”
Genesis frowns, but stands back up to share his own look of concern. “I take it that the Weapons have been inadequate so far?”
“They have followed their mission dutifully, but I worry even they will not be enough to keep the peace once the climactic tipping point will arrive.” Minerva passes a troubled glance aside to one of the monitors, where a certain trio just landed in Wutai. “Even at this late hour, our chosen heroes have yet to ready themselves and do not realize the consequences of allowing the anomaly’s Remnants to spread further. If they cannot be stopped, we must enact emergency measures to mitigate the risks as much as possible.”
He makes an unamused yet unsurprised look. “Figures. These ‘heroes’ of ours may have grown a bit big for their britches. They may just need a rude wake-up call to snap them back in line.”
“We need not resort to violence, but the urgency of the situation may call for a little force. That is indeed why I’ve asked you two to come.”
He takes another bow. “As always, Milady, I shall serve dutifully no matter the task.” That said, he rises again and asks, “But why was it necessary to call upon, well…” He then turns to the man beside him with a scornful glare. “This lout?”
Without missing a beat, Minerva answers plainly and with the straightest face, “I have a new mission for the two of you. It is imperative that you work together, as we cannot have any potential opportunities for the anomaly to escape.”
To that, Genesis looks legitimately taken aback, and even Sephiroth peers her way for once, just out of curiosity. The former blinks in disbelief at first and even passes the latter another look of disgust, but maintains his composure before her presence.
“…Very well, Your Eminence. What is this mission?” he asks.
“Your mission is two-fold: to join the Weapons in the search for the anomaly’s Remnants and dispose of them, and to capture the Black Materia from a certain rogue agent.” She offers forward a graceful hand. “I will return you to the surface to keep watch of the Weapons as they roam. Unfortunately, as a certain group is currently in possession of a significant piece of the anomaly’s soul, there is a chance that she will return from hiding to fight them in their stead. To minimize the worst, we may have to seal them away for a time.”
Genesis nods back. “Understood. We will make sure that the anomaly will have no room to squirm.”
However, Sephiroth turns away again. Begrudgingly, he mutters aloud, “Again with this. I’ve already given you my answer.”
Genesis fires back, prodding the edge of the bubble. “And again, you don’t have a choice but to obey. I will personally watch and escort you everywhere we go, and you will only answer to me while we’re up there.”
“We’re just going in circles at this point.” Sephiroth shakes his head and turns away, already sick of this conversation. “Nothing any of you say will change my mind. Let me be alone.”
Minerva then interjects, “Yet, there is something you’re missing, are you not? You still seek the Ruby’s freedom, which in turn is tied to your own.”
“…”
“Sephiroth, even you must be aware of it. Should the current course proceed unimpeded, her fate will only grow more uncertain and even you would not be able to escape the consequences.”
Though yet to be convinced, he swerves back to her with his own impatient scowl. “What are you talking about? Why would she be at risk of any danger?”
“Though distinct in name and nature, Ruby is still linked to Rubia in mind and soul. Thus she too is vulnerable to the influence of Tiamat and must heed her summons when the time arrives…”
Sephiroth snarls, cutting her off, “Don’t try to lead me astray. I already removed Ruby’s essence from the brat’s body and set her free. What happens to Rubia is none of my concern.”
Minerva shakes her head, looking disappointed. “Is she truly ‘free’? Even now, Ruby’s continued existence in this world is entirely dependent on a host. If you will not be, then there must be another.”
“…” He narrows his eyes in suspicion, but stays quiet as he starts to think it over again.
“Furthermore, as she is now, she lacks a core identity of her own and her Remnants will not be able to direct their own course. And yet, the majority of her Remnants are gathering as we speak. Where do you think they will go?”
He turns away for a moment and when he connects the dots, he grows serious as well. He answers quietly, “…Mother.”
Minerva nods. “Precisely. As of now, Jenova and Tiamat have joined forces, and the latter’s return is imminent should she gather enough of the Remnants. In other words, she will be the one to decide the fate of this world. Will you be satisfied with letting her roam free in your stead?”
Sephiroth frowns, but no longer has further argument to make. While he personally doesn’t care what happens to the world if Tiamat were unleashed, he does care what will become of Ruby. Maybe she wasn’t quite the key to his freedom from this prison as he initially surmised, but she is the only remaining clue he has to reach for new possibilities.
Finally, he lets off a frustrated sigh and moves to get back to his feet. He fully turns to face her and though still spiteful, gives his answer, “No. If anyone’s going to capture Ruby, it will be me.”
Minerva nods back, feeling at least a little content with that answer. Genesis, meanwhile, rolls his eyes.
“Oh, now you get it,” the latter complains. “So as we arranged, you’ll be joining me first-”
“I will follow my own course,” he snaps back without turning to him. With a hardened albeit wary glare toward the Goddess, he asks, “What must I do to prevent Tiamat from merging with the Remnants?”
Minerva replies, “We discussed it before. You will act as the host.” She then adds, “However, there is one other caveat: we cannot allow you to be misled by the lingering will of Jenova either.”
“Hmph. She has no control over me and I have nothing more to do with her. You of all people should know that.”
“And yet, now that she is merged with Tiamat, the two share such power that was not once theirs to wield, all with the help of a certain rogue agent. If you wish to ensure your success, you should consider that as well.”
Sephiroth brings forward a tightly clenched fist. “I don’t care who it is. I’ll end them with my own hands.”
“Even knowing who that agent may be, will you answer the same?”
“Of course. Give me the name.”
Minerva takes a meaningful pause as she notes the irony of it all. Nonetheless, she announces it as calmly as ever: “Zack Fair.”
That name strikes a chord with both men sharply like a lightning bolt. Sephiroth’s eyes grow wide. “What?”
Genesis blinks in shock too. “Milady… What do mean by that? How is he relevant in any way?”
At that, Minerva can’t help but show a smug smile of her own. She finally has her captive audience right where she wants them.
~
It’s back to the black room once more. While Nanaki looks around disturbed at the strange collection of immobile people that are apparently the gateways they’ve been using, he lets it be for now. They have more urgent matters to attend. Cloud wastes no time and hurries off for the door in the distance, marked by the ominous-looking red triangle, while the others follow him. Though he tries to keep calm and reassure himself over and over in his mind, his heart is filled with anxiety. Is Zack still there? Has he run into Sephiroth at any point? Is he alright? Or still sane? And even if he is, is he gonna be the same guy they knew?
Without a warning, he swings open the door to Ruby’s apartment and calls out a name, “Zack! We need to…”
“Hey, Cloud! What’s up?” Zack answers without looking his way.
But Cloud stops short in his tracks and so does everyone else as they come in. In an instant, any and all apprehension that they may have been carrying dissolves into a general confusion. While this certainly is a decent, homely apartment, Zack seems to have gotten very comfortable, all things considered. They find him seated on the couch in front of the TV, game controller in hand, and a number of game CD boxes and torn plastic packaging are scattered on the floor and table in front of him. The bookshelf in the back where Ruby had kept her games is looking a little empty for once. He even helped himself to some soda that was apparently left behind in the fridge, though it’s unclear where he even found an extra stash of Rubia’s homemade cookies. And of course, there are some funny sounds coming from the speakers – perhaps from a certain toony bandicoot going crazy on some boxes – as Zack tries some new tricks.
Barret blinks and stares at the pileup around him too. He mutters just audibly, “…Damn. I knew we were away for a while, but that’s kinda impressive.”
Meanwhile, Tifa who had been worried for Cloud now checks on him again. The guy has blanked out, staring off in some stupified daze. It’s as if this scene is so far out of expectations that it’s brought a major shock to his system and his brain has temporarily shut itself down to prevent any further harm.
“Almost there…” Zack mutters just under his breath. “97… 98… 99… Huh? Where’s the 100th? Oh, wait! Did I miss one back there?”
“Um, Zack?” Aerith calls out, raising a hand. “Sorry, can we talk?”
“Sure! Whaddya wanna…” he replies, but his voice drifts off as he still has his eyes fixated on the screen. “Hold on, lemme get this long jump real quick.”
The rest of them exchange awkward glances, unsure of what to make of this scene. Zack playfully flicks the controller’s knobs as if he were already an expert player. With the last of the boxes cleared, he rushes for the teleport and leaps past the finish line. Pomp and confetti and a swingy jingle. The game congratulates him on a completed run and he throws up his arms in the air in triumph.
“Yeah!! Finally got the gold on that one!”
He even gets up and does a little funky dance to celebrate with his bandicoot pal, but when he swings to face his new audience with a dashing grin, he is instead met with a volley of estranged stares and very quickly loses the wind in his sails. Everyone looks either concerned, disappointed, or in Cloud’s case totally empty-eyed, and he pulls back to a more reserved attitude.
“Uh… Hey, guys. Something wrong?”
Aerith looks around the crew as well and turns back to him with a serious look on her face. “Not really ‘wrong’, but we have some… concerns.”
“Concerns?”
But before she can explain further, the guy standing beside her finally snaps out of it. As soon as he’s aware again, Cloud’s face quickly changes for the upset. No, not just upset; frustrated and even a little betrayed. He feels a nerve pop in his head and his hands curl up into fists. Before Tifa or anyone can stop him, he stomps right over to the Playstation and yanks the power cord.
Zack nearly does a double take and drops the controller like a hot potato. “Whoa! Cloud!? What’re you doing!?” He even rushes to the poor console’s side to make sure nothing was damaged. “Come on! It was still saving…”
Cloud gets a fist in his face too. “What the hell are YOU doing!? You think this is the time to mess around?”
“W-what? What’d I do!?” he cries, recoiling in genuine fear.
“Where’s the Black Materia?” Cloud demands with a glare.
He blinks and lets off a sigh. “Oh. That’s what this is about?” He digs a hand into his pocket and whips out the orb in question. “Don’t worry, it’s still here.”
Cloud swipes the orb from his hand and gives it a closer inspection. As usual, the Black Materia is as dark and full of power as before, though its swirl of dark energy seems to form into the shape of a black serpent in a similar fashion to a certain other white materia. He blinks and gives it a hard stare. Did the Black Materia always have that pattern, or was there something about Rubia that changed it?
Aerith shakes her head with a motherly frown. “Cloud, take it easy. We’re all worried, but it’s not his fault.”
Tifa steps up too to join them. “Yeah. Don’t take it out on him. Let’s just ask.”
But Cloud is particularly incensed right now. Never mind that he was almost panicking for this idiot’s sake; instead he finds the guy acting like without a care in the world. And he’s been gaming. While they were all being challenged with back-to-back trials that forced them to relive their deepest personal traumas and fears, he’s been fooling around like nothing concerns him.
He clutches the orb tightly in hand, so tightly that he’s visibly trembling. “…What the hell is happening right now?”
Zack also grows worried with the rest. “Uh, Cloud? You okay, bud?”
But as angry as he is, he can’t bring himself to blame the guy either. At this point, nothing makes sense. Where is Sephiroth? Why hasn’t he shown up? This was a prime opportunity to attack Zack and steal the materia. And yet, he’s been left alone, freed up from any and all suspense or tension, and relaxing in someone else’s home like he’s some kind of guest, even while the current host is now trapped in this state. It’s ludicrous, like someone somewhere out there was waiting for this opportunity to turn him into a joke.
“Cloud,” Aerith calls to him, this time a bit more softly.
Barret also steps on over, followed by Nanaki, and he sets a hand on his shoulder. “Relax, man. You want answers? He’s right here.”
Cloud takes a moment to settle down. His heart is still racing even as the inexplicable confusion fills his exhausted mind. But with a heavy sigh, he finally relaxes his grip on the orb and slips it back into his own pocket. He then buries his face in his hands, releasing a deep breath, and drops them, looking even more drained than he started.
“…Sorry. Glad you’re alright,” he mumbles.
Zack gives him a soothing rub of his back. “Aw. Don’t worry, Cloud. I won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.” He also raises up a firm fist with his ever faithful smile. “And like I said, I won’t be caught off-guard.”
To which, Cloud simply nods back, but he still feels on edge from all the confusion setting in place of his anger. At the very least, this seems like the same guy they know.
Seeing the tension has largely diffused, everyone else settles down too. Tifa can’t help but smile at their awkward reunion and turns to Aerith, who shares a smile of her own. Barret nods along, looking satisfied that Cloud managed to control his temper for once. Nanaki’s worried look also relaxes as he watches everyone’s faces.
Getting back to the point, Zack looks around at them. “So you guys wanna ask me something? Like, about these ‘concerns’?”
Aerith nods back. “We just learned a few things earlier while talking with one of the Summons and have a lot of questions. Mind if we sit in for a bit?”
He raises his hands up in surrender. “Not at all. I got nothing to hide.” He also looks around and is reminded of the mess. “Oh, uh, I’ll get this cleaned up first.”
While Zack goes to clear some room for them, everyone else gathers around the table and settles in a place. Even Cloud offers to lend him a hand and while they work together, he’s still muttering apologies for ruining his gaming session earlier, while the guy laughs it off and invites him for another one sometime. Aerith takes a seat on the couch where Zack had been sitting, though she’s feeling a bit apprehensive as she prepares her questions. Tifa sits down next to her and shares a sympathetic look, likewise anxious about what they may learn this time. With the couch seats taken, Barret settles on the floor and Nanaki lies down beside him, though his nose picks up the delightful scent of the cookies on the table. When they’re done sorting through most of the pile and Zack tosses away the plastic wrappings into the wastebin like he’s shooting hoops, Cloud and Zack shortly join them on the floor.
Zack passes a curious glance to the red-furred one and offers a hand forward. “If you want some, help yourself.”
Nanaki’s eye lights up and he makes a happy pant. “Oh, really? Thanks!”
He blinks, not expecting a lighthearted voice like that to come from a beast of his sagely appearance, but brings an amused smile as he watches him. Nanaki gets back to his feet and snatches up a cookie in his teeth to taste. His eyes glisten with delight and he grabs another mouthful before he settles back in his spot on the carpet.
Barret also gives a smirk. “Pretty good, huh?”
Nanaki has to chew through the mouthful first, but he swallows it all up and licks his lips with a silly smile. “They’re great! Got an interesting blend of spices too.”
Zack passes Cloud a thoughtful glance. “You want some too?”
The latter shakes his head. “I’m fine.” He pauses as he also asks, “Where did you even get them?”
Zack points behind him with a thumb. “The kitchen.”
“…”
Pleasantly surprised, Aerith also asks, “Rubia had more cookies? I thought you already finished them.”
Zack replies, “I did, but turns out she had an extra stock in the cupboards. And there was even some soda in the fridge.” He also makes a sheepish grin. “Hope she doesn’t mind me digging them out? I can always put ’em back.”
Aerith gives a quiet chuckle. “I don’t think she’ll mind. She did make them for us, after all.”
That certainly turns everyone else’s heads. Tifa asks, “Did you say Rubia? She made these cookies?”
Nanaki blinks too. “For us?”
Zack grins. “Yep! Turns out Rubia is great at baking too! Guess being a dragon deity princess doesn’t mean she doesn’t have her artsy side, huh?”
Barret looks impressed. “Huh. For a gal who doesn’t show much emotion, she sure can be considerate.”
Nanaki nods slowly, briefly switching to his older voice, “She truly is a mysterious one…”
Curious, Barret moves to reach for one. Aerith also encourages Tifa to give it a try too. And like with Nanaki before them, they’re both pleasantly surprised and delighted. Barret even helps himself to a handful and shares a few more with Nanaki, who was looking expectantly at him, and the two scarf them down together.
Tifa’s eyes are glistening bright and she delves into a more in-depth review: “Wow. For something that looks simple, the flavors are pretty complex. It’s got this interesting blend that I didn’t think would go so well together, but it’s not bad – cinnamon, ginger, green tea… and is there a hint of star anise? Or something like it. Yet they’re well balanced and each one has its chance to come out. It almost feels like a whole parade of tastes.” She turns back to Aerith with a smile. “Looks like she’s pretty experienced with this, huh?”
Aerith smiles proudly. “Like I always said, Cuz is still my cousin no matter how she looks!”
“Yeah. I’m also tempted to ask her for the recipe.”
“When we get her outta there, I’ll be sure to ask.”
But their pleasant musings are interrupted by an uncomfortable clearing of someone’s throat. Cloud gets everyone’s attention with a wave of his hand. He’s as serious as always, but at least he doesn’t look so irritable.
“Hey. Don’t we have more important things to talk about?” he calmly reminds them.
Aerith nods back. Getting back on the subject, she starts them off, “By the way, Zack, has anything happened with the Black Materia while we’ve been gone? Any sign from Rubia?”
Zack snaps into focus and gets serious again. “No. It’s all quiet from her. I have been checking on the materia sometimes, but it looks the same as always.”
Cloud raises an eyebrow. He draws out the orb again and raises it forward. “Even the dragon-like pattern in it?”
“Dragon?” Zack peers closer at it and nods slowly. “Huh. It does look like one.”
“You didn’t notice it?”
He rubs his head awkwardly. “Nope.” He then shrugs. “If there was something happening with it, though, I didn’t sense anything. Isn’t that pattern always changing anyway?”
Cloud looks back at it once more, but the black serpent, while constantly swirling around within, does not fade. “Maybe… but now it seems to have stabilized with this one.”
“Huh… neat.”
He returns him an annoyed frown. “It’s not ‘neat’! This is actually a big deal!”
“Huh? It is?”
Now that Aerith is reminded, her face sinks into gloom. “Ruby…”
He turns to her too. “Ruby?”
As soon as she mentions the name, everyone else quickly catches on. Though they didn’t get much of a chance to really pay attention to the pattern imprinted in Ruby’s own materia, they more or less did get the impression that there was something special, something unique about her magic that she would have left as her signature.
Cloud keeps a cautious watch of the orb and his eyes narrow in suspicion. “Why does the Black Materia have Ruby’s mark on it?”
Tifa gets concerned again. “Is it because it has something to do with Rubia?”
“Maybe. I don’t remember seeing this pattern on it back when we found it at the temple.”
Barret suggests, “Probably ’cause Rubia didn’t awaken yet. She did when she fused with Ruby.”
“…”
Nanaki also brings up, “But is it because Rubia fused with Ruby, or was it Rubia’s mark in the first place?”
An uncomfortable silence comes over the room as they each search for possibilities in mind, though they don’t seem to come any closer to the truth.
Aerith turns back to Zack to ask on, “Just to be sure, since you’ve been here, no one else has stepped in here besides us, right?”
He nods. “Yeah. It’s just me and Rubia.” He makes a dispirited frown as he glances over to the mysterious orb. “I know she’s probably in some hard place, but I kinda wish she would say something. I had to get myself busy doing something or the silence could’ve killed me.”
Cloud asks, “By the way, how did you meet Rubia in the first place?”
He shrugs. “Dunno. She was the one who found me and led me to Aerith.”
But Cloud grows wary at the thought. “She knew where to find you…?”
On that thought, Aerith suggests, “Zack, could you tell us about what you remember before you came here? So we’re all caught up.”
“Okay… but there isn’t much, really. All I can remember is from my last stand.” Zack sits up cross-legged and enters a contemplative mood. “So, I was fighting off Shinra outside Midgar since they sent a whole army after me and Cloud. I took out as many of their guys as I could, but eventually passed out from exhaustion. I even heard the voice of an old friend calling me and followed him to heaven… or at least I thought I did.” He pulls back up again, setting his hands on his knees, but makes a perplexed frown. “But I did wake up eventually. Somehow ended up in this black void.”
“Black void?” Barret passes a glance toward the door they came from. “You mean like out there?”
He nods. “Yeah, kinda, but I didn’t see anyone else around. Couldn’t even see myself. Everything was pitch black.” He scratches his head. “Legit thought I died and my soul was lost in the afterlife. It was around then when I heard Rubia’s voice and she brought me and Aerith here.”
As he retold his story so far, the ladies seated with him have been quiet and addressing their own thoughts. No matter how many times Aerith hears it, it’s just so weird and hard to wrap her head around, like they’re missing so much context. Tifa is likewise unsure about the timeline of events, especially since she’s reminded of the time she found Cloud alone at the train station in Sector 7. He was collapsed on the ground and Zack was nowhere to be found.
Then, Cloud speaks up again, “Even if that’s all true, we still have a problem.”
Zack turns to him. “What’s the problem?”
“Sorry to tell you, but there’s a whole three week gap in your story.”
He blinks, taken aback. “Huh?”
Cloud nods solemnly. “From your last stand til now, it’s been more than three weeks. After I left you, I made my way to Sector 7, but collapsed at the train station while I was still sick with mako poisoning. Then Tifa came by and I somehow snapped out of it when I saw her.” He also admits with an awkward frown, “But something weird happened. My memories got jumbled with yours and I ended up forgetting about you.”
Zack looks a little sad to hear it, but he nods in understanding. “Aw. It’s okay. I’m just glad you got better. Did your memories come back to you eventually?”
“Yeah… with some help.”
Aerith slides in the conversation with a subtle smile. “He sure was lucky to have met Ruby. She tapped into his head and helped unlock some of them. The rest came back fast after that.”
“Oh, really? Awesome.” Zack brightens up again. “When you see her again, tell her ‘thanks’ for me, would ya?”
“Yeah…” She looks off with a sad, longing look. “Eventually.”
Cloud continues, “But even with my head messed up, I still remembered your plan for us. Took up the merc trade in your place and came to work for Avalanche.” He gives an acknowledging nod toward Tifa. “Turned out Tifa was a part of them, so I figured I’d lend a hand. Ended up staying for a while since they were really hurting for help.”
Barret snorts back. “More like she was worried about you and didn’t want to let you run off. She practically begged me to let you stay with us. You sure didn’t make it easy, though.”
“…” Cloud looks off as if not willing to get into all that again.
Tifa lowers her head as she thinks back too. It’s true; she had her suspicions that something was off about Cloud and wanted to learn more. She’d even come up with all sorts of excuses to find chances to stick with him, even if it was just for some odd jobs here and there around town. But he always kept his distance for some reason, even though everyone more or less knew them as “childhood friends”. Still, she managed to snag him for the long term once she introduced him to Avalanche and their first bombing mission.
Aerith cuts the silence again, “And then Ruby came along.”
Cloud nods, feeling a mix of nostalgia and just the slightest tinge of pain. “She just showed up one day… Can’t really explain it. She was just there all of a sudden.”
Zack blinks. “Really? Didn’t even come to you in a dream? She was just there?”
He turns back to him with a raised eyebrow. “How would she have shown up in my dreams? I didn’t even know her back then.”
Zack shrugs back. “I mean, I didn’t either and she still did…”
“…”
Aerith nods along, diving back into memory lane. “She was like that for all of us, I think. She just showed up when we were in trouble and came to pull us out of it.”
“Yeah…” Rather than dive into that nostalgic trip again, though, Cloud knows they should stay on track. “A lot more happened since and we don’t know where Ruby is now. Even after we confronted Sephiroth at the crater, he’s gone missing too. It’s like they just disappeared off the face of the planet.”
Zack nods along, but looks just as confused. “Yeah, that is weird…” He scratches his head. “I’ve been missing out on so much. Kinda sucks that I’ve been stuck here, now that I think about it.”
Cloud turns to him again, growing disturbed. “Really? You’ve been stuck here for these three weeks?”
Zack lets off his own sigh and pulls back into a more casual sitting position. “Man… I really wish I could tell you more, but I didn’t even know there was a gap. It was just my last moments, then I blacked out, and then I was down here.”
Noticing a particular omission, Aerith reminds him, “Zack, what about that memory of Ruby?”
“Oh! Right.” He nods back and sits forward to explain, “Just before I woke up in that void, I think I had a dream about her, but she wasn’t anywhere that I could recognize.”
Since this is the first they’ve heard of it, Barret and Nanaki are quite taken aback. “Whoa! Hold up! What’s that all about?” Barret exclaims. “You got a memory of Ruby?”
Nanaki blinks a few more times. “How does that work? Did she transfer it to you?”
Zack shakes his head. “I wish I knew. I never met her before, so I don’t think she did…” He rubs his head awkwardly. “Uh, unless she did something to me while I was blacked out?”
“Hmm…” Aerith looks off, diving back into her thoughts.
Nanaki then asks him, “What was this dream about?”
Zack puts a hand to his chin and recalls, “Um… I dunno what’s the context since it came to me outta nowhere. But I think she was at some beach playing with her dogs, and it was all good at first. She stayed there drawing pictures until it got late and no one else was around.”
“Oh. So it’s a good memory?”
“Yeah, until it wasn’t.” He drops his hand and makes a solemn frown. “At some point, her dogs went running off onto a cliff nearby, so she gave chase. But just as she was gonna take them all back down, she tripped and fell off into the sea.”
Nanaki’s eye shoots open. “What?”
Barret makes a worried frown too. “Damn. Was she okay?”
He shakes his head with a sigh. “Not sure. There was blood and all. I think she fell unconscious too.” He adds on a lighter note, “At least her dogs went to get help, and three guys showed up to save her and call an ambulance.” He sinks back into gloom again, though. “But, uh, I didn’t see what happened after that. I thought she was gonna be okay, but Rubia said she died, so…”
Nanaki hangs his head. “Oh. Poor Ruby…”
Barret nods slowly, giving his own sympathetic look. “So Rubia’s been chasing after her ghost all this time, huh?”
“Yeah, sounds like it.” Zack also brings up, “Actually, I didn’t even know that was Ruby when I first saw it. It was so out of place… but now that I think back on it, it probably came to me for a reason. Like she wanted me to keep these memories for her.”
“…”
A moment of silence among them follows out of respect. Cloud has been quietly listening and carefully reviewing over everything so far, and just one little detail amid all the confusion finally stands out. He blinks in surprise at how innocuous it seems and narrows his eyes in suspicion as he tries to reason it out.
He then brings up to the guy, “Zack. Sorry, can you back up a bit?”
“Huh? To what?”
“The part where you mentioned the latter half of the dream. After Ruby fell off the cliff and fell unconscious…”
“Um…” Zack nods back and repeats it for him, “She was pretty lucky that her dogs went to get help. They called over some guys who happened to be nearby, and one of them dove into the sea to save her. Another called an ambulance, and they waited with her until it arrived.” He slumps a bit. “But I didn’t see what happened after that. I just thought she ended up in the hospital, but maybe she didn’t make it…”
“Hold on. That’s really weird.”
“Huh? What is?”
Cloud stares hard in his face, as if to make extra sure that he got this right. “If this was Ruby’s memory, why do you know what happened to her afterward?”
And with that big question dropped, another silence sets in over the room. He’s got a good point.
Tifa puts a hand to her chin. “That’s right. She wouldn’t have remembered anything after she passed out.”
Barret folds his arms with a thoughtful nod. “Yeah. Then, does this memory belong to someone else? Was someone else there at the beach with her?”
Nanaki tilts his head aside. “Well, there were those people who saved her.”
Cloud shakes his head. “Can’t be them. They only came in at the end. Zack still saw everything else before her accident.”
Tifa makes a troubled frown too. “But if there was someone else, then why didn’t this observer go help her? They just watched from the shadows and didn’t do a thing?”
Nanaki growls. “What terrible person would do that? Even if they were strangers, someone still fell off a cliff!”
Barret agrees with a scowl, “Good point, Tifa. Almost feels like she was being watched by someone all along. But the coward didn’t dare jump in when it mattered.”
“…” Cloud turns away, growing worried himself. “Something isn’t right here. Who could possibly have been spying on her from afar and then end up crossing into our world? Are they also like Ruby? Or is it someone from our world to begin with…?”
Now, the atmosphere turns for the tense as everyone, one-by-one, begins to connect the dots on a potential suspect.
Cloud bares his teeth. “…Sephiroth.”
Tifa makes a bitter frown. “Of course he wouldn’t care.”
Barret curls up a fist. “That sonnuva bitch was planning to take advantage of her all along.”
Nanaki growls again. “Even back then, everything was calculated beforehand.”
By now, Zack is getting worried, even a little scared. “Um… So if it really is Sephiroth, why would I have his memory? Er, better yet, why would he even keep me around…?”
Unfortunately, the rest don’t have answers for him. But unlike her peers, Aerith remains calm and has come to a slightly different conclusion. Now that they’ve come to this, she has to speak up.
“Guys, I don’t think it was Sephiroth. This memory of Ruby should have happened long ago when Rubia got to see it too. She didn’t see past the moment Ruby fell, though, so this one wasn’t hers either.”
Cloud raises an eyebrow. “But Rubia can travel through time. Couldn’t she have seen it around when Sephiroth did?”
She shakes her head. “Even then, Rubia held that memory close in her heart for the longest time. If anything, I think it was the other way around. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sephiroth was stalking Rubia, and that’s why she had to hide behind a persona.”
“Huh?” His eyes widen, a little disturbed. “He was stalking Rubia?”
Barret raises an eyebrow. “But he doesn’t care about her, does he? Had no problem stabbin’ her and all.”
Aerith reminds them, “Maybe, but he wasn’t surprised to see Rubia when she awakened. He even approached her before he went ahead with the ambush.” She hangs her head, growing worried. “I don’t know when the two first met, but it clearly wasn’t that time at the temple.”
“…”
Now they’re all back to being confused. If it isn’t from Sephiroth or Rubia, or even Ruby herself, then whose memory is this?
Zack scratches his head and simply concludes, “…Well, whoever it is, they seem to know Ruby, at least.” He then slumps forward with a sigh. “But now I’m starting to wonder if it’s even a good thing I have this memory.”
Aerith reassures him, “It’s okay, Zack. It’s still an important clue to Ruby’s history, so we have to keep it. Rubia lived through so many cycles of reincarnation hoping that she could save her some day.”
“Yeah…” He pulls back up with a slow nod and his face turns for the resolute. “Yeah. In other words, I have to stay alive, or at least alive in spirit! If I go, we’ll lose it. And we can’t have that.”
She smiles back. “Yeah. That’s the spirit!”
“Yeah!” He raises a pumped-up fist. “I’ll do it! I swear on my honor as Soldier, I’ll protect Ruby!” He even gets back to his feet and makes a proud declaration, “Try all you want, Sephiroth! You’re not taking her from me! She’s Aerith’s cousin too!”
She can’t help but giggle along and give a proud clap for him. “You’re the man, Zack! Finally you get to relive your hero days!”
He grins back, matching her upbeat tempo. “Heck yeah! You can count on me!”
But as encouraging as the words these two exchange, the rest are still unsure. Cloud in particular looks unimpressed.
He points out, “Zack. Do you have a plan to fight Sephiroth? What if he really does show up at some point?”
“…” Though he keeps his triumphant pose, Zack’s grin falters a little. He then relaxes and sits back down as he gives it some serious thought. And finally, he answers, “…I can try to kick his ass?”
Cloud shakes his head with a sigh. “Of course you would.”
“Hey, man, don’t underestimate me! We were both First-Class anyway!”
“You knew he was in a league of his own back then. Now he’s just gone off the charts.”
Zack slumps in disappointment. “Then what? You have a better plan?”
Cloud returns him a stern frown. “I meant it when I said it. Sephiroth is nothing like you remember. He’s become so much stronger that it’s almost impossible to keep up. Even for me, and I had Fenrir helping me cut through his reality-hacking bullshit. What are you going to do if he can just freeze you in time, huh? Or do whatever he wants to you without even touching you?”
He shrugs back. “Well, whatever he does, he won’t be able to remove that memory from me, right? I know what I saw and now I get why it’s important. I won’t forget it.”
Cloud groans quietly. “Who knows at this point? He might figure something out anyway.”
Zack shakes his head and instead reassures him, “Come on, Cloud. If you keep thinking like that, then he’ll always have one up over you.” He raises that resolved fist. “Have a little faith sometime, buddy! We’ll manage, just like old times!”
“Like old times, huh…” Cloud then recalls he’s been meaning to announce to everyone. He nods back and then turns to everyone else. “Fine by me. From here on out, Zack’s coming with us.”
“Huh?” Tifa looks genuinely surprised. “You mean, even back to the surface?”
He nods back, looking quite serious. “Yeah. There’d be no point in leaving him here. It’s not like Sephiroth can’t access this place anyway.”
Barret makes an unsure frown. “I dunno, man. You sure about that? Like, isn’t he supposed to be a ghost? How would we take him with us?”
Nanaki tilts his head. “Well, I have heard of ghosts roaming back on the surface sometimes.”
Aerith nods along. “I’ve seen them before too. I guess if we really had to, Zack could stick with us by possessing something?”
As if they all came to the same conclusion, everyone’s eyes immediately set on Cloud, much to his dismay.
“Why me!?” he argues. “I already have a wolf spirit! I don’t need another!”
Zack just laughs. “Well, that’s another way we can stick together!”
He groans. “Not the way I hoped it’d go…”
Aerith also giggles along, but then her arm brushes against her jacket pocket again. Remembering that little thing she kept, she gets inspired. “Hey, I got a better idea.”
“Huh?”
She whips out the transparent orb that has been safely stowed away all this time. “We can use this.”
Cloud’s eyes widen. “Ruby’s materia?”
“Yes, well…” Aerith gives it a somewhat wistful smile. “It’s empty now, but I think it could always be filled up again.”
Zack stares at the little orb with fascination. He blinks a few times when he realizes something, and asks her, “Hey, Aerith. If I can possess materia and then you use that materia…” His eyes now begin to twinkle with a childish delight. “Does that mean I get to be a Summon too?”
“…” Aerith blinks too as she considers it, and she returns a sweet smile. “Why not? Sounds like a Summon to me!”
He throws up a triumphant fist again. “Whoo! Score one for Zack Fair! I’m back and I’m here to stay, baby!”
Cloud frowns, already exasperated. “Zack. That’s not how it works…”
He passes him that same cheeky grin. “Aw, what does that matter? If I can get my second wind, then we all win!”
“…”
Aerith nods too and turns to the rest. “Well, that’s that, then. Zack can come along.”
While Tifa still looks a little bewildered, she nods back without another word. Barret shrugs and lets it be. Nanaki just looks happy to be in good company.
Getting back on business, though, she gets serious again. “But that aside, we still have some friends left to save!” She brings up a hand to count the ones remaining. “So we got Nanaki now. We still have Yuffie and Sonon, Cid, and Vincent left.”
Cloud likewise brings up, “And remember: Tiamat is now free and who knows when she’ll wake up again. We don’t have time to waste. We have to tackle their memories asap, maybe even all at once.”
Barret gives him an impressed look. “Oh? Are you suggesting what I think you’re gonna?”
He nods back and replies without a hint of irony, “Like you’d always say, we can cover more ground if we split up.”
Barret smirks to that and offers up his own pumped-up fist. “Yeah! Now with the power of these Summons, there ain’t nothin’ that’ll get in our way! Sephiroth better watch out!”
Tifa then points out, “But even with Zack tagging along, that’s only six of us so far. How will we split up to address four people?”
Cloud then answers, “Yuffie and Sonon are both from Wutai, and they even trained under the same guy. Who knows, they might share a memory even if they have their own gateways.”
“Hmm… I guess so.”
Barret nods along. “Alright, sounds like a plan.” He then gets back to his feet. “Come on, ya’ll! We got no time to waste!”
Aerith agrees, hopping back to hers. “Right! Let’s get going!”
The rest of them follow suit, and before they do leave, Zack still sneaks in the last chug of his soda and a few cookies into his mouth before they go. Cloud watches him in disappointment, but when presented with one with his extra insistent blessings, he hesitantly obliges and gives it a quick bite. But like with everyone else who’s tried them, even his face lights up in pleasant surprise. Huh, not bad, especially coming from a dragoness with a chip on her shoulder against the rest of the world.
But that’s enough partying around. They have to get back to work. And with that, they return to the black nexus room. The ever still character models float in the lineup, awaiting their next commands. While the others are fairly used to the scene by now, Barret and Nanaki take another moment to look around.
“So these are the ‘gateways’ that ya’ll have been using, huh?” Barret remarks, passing a curious glance at all the familiar faces.
Aerith nods. “Yep. They may look like us, but they’re not mobile. I think they’re basically representations of different memories that we can access.”
He stops short and frowns to the fact that Sephiroth’s model is mingling with the rest of their pals in the front row. “The hell is he doin’ here with us?”
She then shakes her head. “I don’t know how they’re ordered. That memory he stands for seems to be important, at least.”
“Very intriguing…” Nanaki wanders around the corner to glance down the other rows. “I see there are all kinds of people here too.” His sharp eye catches the sight of a familiar old man in blue robes, still seated on his big floating green materia, and he makes a subtle smile. As tempted as he is to check that one out, he knows they may have to save it for another time. He then quietly slips back to the front to join the others.
With everyone gathered again, Cloud gets down to business: “So who’s gonna look for who?”
Aerith passes another glance over the faces of the friends they’re still missing. “Well, it’ll probably help our chances if we pick teams that these guys relate more with.”
Barret passes Cloud a raised eyebrow. “You got someone in mind?”
Cloud shrugs. “I don’t mind going for any of them. It was mainly Ruby who pushed for them to join in the first place.”
Zack has been staring curiously at Yuffie’s model for a little while now. He scratches his head and when he finally remembers, then flicks up a finger. “Hey! Wait a sec! I think I know this kid!”
Cloud looks to him, a little surprised. “You know her?”
“Well, not know her, but I think I met her at some point. She’s from Wutai, right? It’s been a while.”
He nods back, reminded that Zack would have participated in the Wutai War back then. He suggests, “Alright then, we can take that memory. You’re the only one here who’d know the war from personal experience. I’ll go with you.”
He grins back. “Alright! It really does feel like old times, huh?”
Aerith turns to the others. “Okay, so how about us?”
Tifa passes a curious glance toward Vincent. “Well, it was Ruby who found and woke him up, but we were there to pick up Vincent too.”
She gives her a delighted smile. “I was thinking the same thing, actually. Let’s go check on him!”
Barret shrugs. “A’ight. Guess that leaves me and Nanaki with Cid.”
Nanaki nods too. “I have no objections. Cid seems like he’s more than capable of handling himself in any case.”
Aerith claps her hands together, quite satisfied with the arrangements. “Okay! Sounds like a plan! After we’re all done, we’ll jump back here like usual!”
Barret also mentions, “Oh, uh, I know we got Summon powers now too, but how do we work with this whole gateway-jumping?”
“Oh, I can help with that.”
While Aerith goes over to help them, followed by a curious Tifa, she taps on Cid’s model and guides them through the mysterious UI. In the meantime, Cloud goes ahead and taps on Yuffie’s model and meets with a familiar-looking translucent message box.
“Wutai, 6 years ago. Jump to this location?”
“Six years ago…” Cloud passes a quick glance to Zack. “The end of the war?”
He nods back with a solemn expression. “Yeah… I remember that day. It was when we took down the last of their defenses. Wutai had to surrender soon after.”
“…”
Cloud turns back to the message box and takes a moment of breath to brace himself. He hits the “yes” option, and without delay, the two are transported away to another time and place.
Chapter 83: Leading the Resistance
Notes:
Heads-up: I have updated two new chapters, but swapped around chapters 83 and 84, so this is actually the newly added stuff.
As a fair reminder, since my updates have been drawn out as of late, feel free to return to previous chapters to review the story so far. There are a number of scenes I've been keeping track of while outlining, but I still have to go back regularly to remind myself too. In due time, I will be able to explain the entire timeline of events of this massive fic when I get to writing out my "Ultimania Guide", so please look forward to it!
Chapter Text
These are troubling times, indeed. After the peaceful protest in front of Shinra HQ was unceremoniously dispersed, Jessie’s mother took a lost boy with her back to Sector 7 in search of his parents. Fortunately, though things got a little dicey there for a moment, it didn’t seem like anyone was gravely injured even as the crowd fled. There were a few unfortunate victims who were unfairly targeted due to their appearances and dispositions, but nothing worth ringing the hospital over. All things considered, they were the fortunate ones. With Shinra’s old propaganda machine spinning once again, the lockdown that had previously been applied to just the problematic sectors 5 and 7 have been extended citywide, and anyone caught showing dissent toward the new company policies would be treated the same as any enemy sympathizers.
However, news of the recent Weapon attack on Sector 7 was quick to spread throughout the city. While their Chief Officer of Public Safety was more than happy to celebrate the success in repelling the threat, many civilians who were living in the area were devastated to find that the battlefield left a noticeable section of the upper town in ruins. However, though the local housing district office was inundated with requests and complaints, ultimately there was little that could be done for reparations. Under the current state of emergency, the company was at liberty to determine what cases could be accepted as “exceptions” to be investigated. Any and all cases that were egregious enough to be accepted would, of course, be left to the department of Urban Development to resolve.
By the time Rose Raspberry brought Denzel back to Sector 7, it had been several hours since the protest was stamped out. While she certainly expected some delays, even their ride home ran into some complications as the police were rushing to redirect civilians onto safer roads away from the sector, given the recent news of a monster attack. But at long last, they arrived home safely thanks to a very sympathetic and determined taxi driver who found them an alternate route. As promised, Rose brought the boy directly to the nearest CPS office, and as they entered, they happened to run into a very flustered couple at the front desk. Apparently, they had been pressuring the social workers to little avail and the husband was even threatening to quit the company if they hadn’t found their boy yet. Needless to say, Rose and Denzel made good time. The couple was overjoyed to tears to find their boy safe and sound and thanked her profusely. In fact, though Rose was hesitant to accept any particular repayments for her good deed, the boy’s father insisted that they exchange phone numbers to stay in contact.
“The name’s Abel. If you ever need anything, even a ride out of town, give me a call.”
As it turned out, this boy’s father wasn’t your average Shinra employee. He was the department head of Shinra’s Third Business Department – an impressive feat, given his humble beginnings. His wife Chloe was a stay-at-home mother, and though their happy family lived topside all their lives, it was in Sector 7. Long prior to the scandals around Avalanche, there was always this unspoken stigma around Sectors 7 and 8, even the topside, where they were viewed as the “not so affluent” areas of Midgar. The homely folks there were simply too “ordinary” and “middle of the rung”, so to speak, and everyone who lived there was just grateful they weren’t in the slums. For the longest time, Abel kept his head down and tried not to question his uppers’ decisions, no matter how unpopular they could be at times, but worked well with his subordinates through the hard times like a close-knit family of their own.
However, all that changed since the platefall incident. Being in his position, he happened to overhear discussions from the uppers about a sudden jump in “costs” to the city infrastructure as if they were expecting some sort of disaster soon to come. With a little digging, he also discovered the rumors going around – supposedly Avalanche was planning to bomb Sector 7’s support pillar! Fearing for his family, he rushed home, still accompanied by his just as concerned assistant. When they arrived, his boy was there, but his wife was out for shopping. He sent Denzel off with his assistant to another home he prepared for them in Sector 5 and left to search for her on his own.
But contrary to expectations, it wasn’t Sector 7, but Sector 8 that was targeted. Well, actually, the Sector 7 pillar was also struck in a surprise two-pronged attack and the plate trembled, but for whatever reason, it didn’t fall. Perhaps the other bomb was just a fluke or perhaps there was someone who acted just in time. Either way, they weren’t taking chances. The family moved to Sector 5 to wait out the worst.
However, even after moving, they weren’t exactly home free. Rumors continued to spread about Avalanche’s involvements, to a confusing mix of truths and Shinra propaganda, but regardless, their close call left a deep scar on him that he would never forget. He was troubled by the state of affairs and with Shinra’s growing aggression toward not just Avalanche but also Wutai, he sensed the worst was still to come. Even staying in Midgar wasn’t the safest idea anymore, but he had little idea of where they could go. He needed answers: was Avalanche really involved in it? So, for once in his life, he would take a temporary leave off work to investigate what happened in the Sector 7 slums. It was the first time he ever went down there, and the initial impressions – particularly the smell – were a bit overwhelming. Things were somehow even worse than he was always told.
But more surprising he found was: while most of the residents were generally oblivious and equally confused about the incident, there was a noticeable change in the attitudes they had toward Avalanche. According to certain witnesses, it wasn’t Avalanche who bombed the sectors. In fact, they even helped defend and save Sector 7 from its neighbor’s terrible fate. And of course, no one, not even the ones who wanted to just forget about it and pretend it never happened, could deny that the only reason the plate didn’t fall was thanks to a certain white dragon who held it up.
From that day forward, Abel found a new calling in life. He would find as much as he could learn about this dragon and its connection to Avalanche, and do his part to spread the truth. Though he previously thought to sell their old home in Sector 7, he decided he and his family would return and stay to help the community – whether topside or the slums, everyone there was a survivor and their stories had to be heard. He even was the guy who helped arranged this protest at Shinra HQ to happen. Though he wasn’t always a pious man, the fact that they happened to avoid the recent monster attack because of their protest felt like some sort of divine sign.
At this time, though, Mrs. Raspberry had her own concerns to mind; namely her husband. She thanked Abel for his offer and left the happily reunited family to return home. Now that she’s arrived, she’s especially grateful to find the house was practically untouched after the big battle, even while a number of their neighbors’ homes were completely destroyed. In fact, everything seems to be in order as it was since she left it… except for one thing.
As she rounds around the corner, she notices the slightest crack in the door to her husband’s room. Strange. She was sure she left the door shut as always. Growing concerned that something may have happened, she steps inside to check on him. As always, the man lays quietly in his bed. However, she then finds a piece of paper left on the desk nearby.
“Hey, Mom. Sorry to drop in and dip without seeing you, but my friends and I wanted to see Dad again. Don’t worry, he’s still doing okay, though it may be some time before we can find a cure. But that’s why I’m heading out again. We finally have some headway on getting there. I promise we’ll be back as soon as we get everything settled.
It’s not much for all she’s done for us, but when Ruby’s back, let’s treat her again, okay?
- Thanks and much love, Jessie”
In her shock, Rose has covered her mouth, wide-eyed as she reads the letter. So Jessie and them were here after all. But just moments ago, this area was under attack by that monster. If they could just sneak in here, they must have found some way to escape, right?
To be perfectly honest, ever since Jessie brought along Biggs and Wedge and introduced Ruby that one time, her mother suspected that something was going on behind the scenes. Sure, Jessie always said it was just for their “work” and that she landed a “big role” for some kind of film, but she never went in detail about it. Everything was hush-hush and “it’ll be ready eventually”. But a mother’s intuition never lies; whatever Jessie and her gang were up to, it probably was something that wasn’t open to be discussed. And though Ruby was honestly the most normal-looking person that Jessie befriended as of late, there was still something unsettling about her – specifically the look in her eyes. At the time, she figured it was just contact lenses, but there was something about those bright red eyes that wasn’t quite… human.
And so shortly after they left, the whole warehouse caught on fire from a certain dragon attack. She didn’t want to believe they were involved. But even on the news, the dragon was seen to have the bloodiest-red eyes she’d ever seen: almost like Ruby’s.
And just earlier, she happened to meet a man who not only had been digging into Avalanche and the white dragon, but that he made it his mission to spread the word of the blessings this dragon brought. So, was this dragon a threat or a savior? By now, it’s become such a confusing mess that even she isn’t sure what to think anymore. But in any case, she can’t help but worry that Jessie and her friends are getting into something way bigger than they realize.
Her eyes trail off the paper to the phone sitting on the desk. Maybe she should make the call, after all.
~
Across on the other side of the world, Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge jumped right into Avalanche affairs, to the surprise of their associates from HQ. While Nayo was pacing around with worry, Polk and Billy Bob were seated at the lone table deliberating over their collective notes when the trio make their unexpected arrival. However, everyone was in for yet another surprise when their fellow messenger just now arrived with some alarming news.
“The refugees at Zhongyuan? Why now?” Nayo exclaims in horror. “Didn’t the government post their agents to watch out for stuff like that?”
Zhijie nods grimly. “Yeah, but we haven’t heard back from them in a while. Who knows what really happened… or if they’re still there.”
Billy casts aside a suspect frown. “Shoulda known something was up. This government hasn’t been the easiest to talk with in the first place, and now this…”
Polk blinks in shock, still reeling a bit. “It’s spreading like a virus? I didn’t know ARC could be contagious.”
“This is the first we’ve heard of it too,” Zhijie explains. “I just got a call from the ASR down south. They’re sending people over as we speak, but it’ll still take them some time to get there. About a 45-minute drive if they gun it.”
“No way…” He grows even antsier and passes a glance around. “So what do we do? How are we gonna help them?”
Nayo looks just as troubled. “I don’t know. It’s not like we can do much from here, since we’re not free to move right now.”
“Man…” Zhijie wipes some sweat off his brow, but he keeps his same distraught face. “I know good news is hard to come by these days, but I didn’t want to keep it pent up either.”
She nods back in understanding. “Yeah. Thanks for letting us know anyway. At least we can pass the message along, hopefully to someone who can do something.”
“I guess. But with all these disappearances lately, we’re running out fast on people we can contact.”
“…”
In the ensuing depressive silence, though, three of the recent arrivals don’t seem to be as hopeless as the rest. Biggs and Wedge exchange concerned looks as well, but then they pass over to Jessie, who seems busy deliberating over something while she returns the materia to its place. She then pipes up with a suggestion that would almost sound crazy if they didn’t know the context.
“I know it might be sudden, but why not send us over?”
“Huh?” That catches everyone’s attention.
Jessie raises up the gun still in hand. “Like I was saying, we now have an easy way to get around, so it’s just a flash away for us! Plus, with Ruby’s backing, we might be able to do something for those victims!”
However, while she did expect some surprise, the hesitation on everyone’s faces is palpable. It’s as if they were afraid of what would happen if someone like Ruby were to touch anything at Zhongyuan ever again. Though no one was able to catch who was responsible for burning down the town and massacreing everyone there, unfortunately she and her friends were among the only known survivors that had been there.
Jessie’s enthusiasm drains fast. “Uh, something wrong?”
As the rest of them remain unsure how best to put it, Nayo takes the lead again. “We appreciate it, guys, but maybe just this once you should stay out of Wutai’s affairs?”
“Huh?”
“Not that we think you were responsible, but Zhongyuan is completely in ruins.”
The odd trio out now share a collective gasp. “What!?”
Biggs asks, “What do you mean in ‘ruins’? We left the town alone. It was just the castle that Ruby blew up.”
Wedge recalls, “And I don’t think Ruby touched anyone else after that, since she was out cold.”
Nayo shakes her head. “It’s probably not anything she did herself, but to everyone else who knows about the incident, they’re acting like it might as well have been her. Because of that, we’ve also run into some serious gridlock with our associates here. Even if we wanted to help, we’re kinda caged up in this town and put under heavy surveillance.”
Biggs brings up the question, “Speaking of which, what’s been going on around here? I thought Wutai would still welcome us, since we’re all fighting Shinra. Or has something changed?”
She sadly lowers her head. “Things have changed, alright. We thought Shinra was brutal with the way they’ve been stamping out dissent, but it’s actually a similar story here. People have been going missing since some rumors about Ruby and the castle incident have been going around.”
Wedge’s eyes widen. “Just because of some rumors? That seems excessive…”
“Yeah, but that’s how bad it’s gotten, especially with all the international tensions. The threat of war breaking out has divided opinion among the authorities too. While one side was always gung-ho about going to war, the other side has started to consider handing Avalanche over to Shinra as a last-ditch effort in maintaining peace. That’s why we’ve been lying low.”
“Even the side that wants war doesn’t want us around. Something about national pride and all, like they don’t need ‘foreigners’ to bolster their ranks.” Polk shrugs. “But it just sounds like they’re making excuses. Not like they had a problem with us before.”
Billy nods along, putting up a thinking face of his own. “I heard it extends even further down into the shadows. Ever since the castle incident blew up, some officials thought to be involved with it were ousted from their positions, but they were just a few lower-ranking ones. No one at the top seems to have been pinned with anything.”
“Yep. Everyone who has a place in the Parliament has been super quiet and avoiding anything Avalanche or even materia.”
Zhijie likewise points out, “It’s crazy how far down it goes. Like, I’m a native born here, minding my own business like anyone else, and even I’ve had trouble finding anyone who would know about the rumors. Didn’t expect those guys I was tailing would get gagged too. They weren’t that important, were they?”
Wedge then asks, “Oh, yeah. I think your bro told us something about that? Who are those guys anyway?”
“As much as I’d like to say…” Zhijie passes a furtive glance toward said brother and Leslie, who have been standing by quietly as if pretending they didn’t hear anything. “It might be tricky talking details. Honestly, feels like we’ve said too much already, especially around the Zhongyuan stuff. Most civies don’t even know the town existed.”
Even though he hasn’t said a word since they dropped in, Zhiqu lets off a sigh as if he’s exhausted from listening. “Yeah, yeah. I get it. This whole conspiracy thing’s going way above my head and that’s for the best.” He waves a hand in the air. “Nice catching up with all of ya, but I think I should be heading out.”
Though Leslie looks like he’s still bothered about something, he nods too. “Yeah, same. I told Meryl and Himiko I just had an errand, so I can’t stay late.”
Wedge blinks and makes an awkward grin. “Oh, right. Almost forgot we had civies here.”
Leslie looks his way, unamused, but shakes his head and lets him off.
Before he leaves, though, Zhiqu mentions to his brother, “By the way, remember to stop by A-Gong’s old home sometime. Dad was telling us to clean out the place and get it tidied before we sell it.”
Zhijie slumps a little. “Bro. I’m real busy here if you can’t tell. Can’t you just do that?”
“Dad doesn’t know what you’re up to, though. At least he’s seen me from time to time. He said if you don’t get your ‘lazy absent butt’ to work, he’s gonna pop a nerve. And you know how he likes to drink.”
“Ugh… Fine. I’ll be there. But you’d better get me a cover story in the meantime. I’m not just bar-hopping here. You know my life’s on the line in this business.”
“Yeah, yeah. I gotcha.”
With that family matter sorted, Zhiqu passes everyone a quick salute and heads back up the ladder and out the hatch. Leslie is ready to go too, but is reminded of something and turns back to the trio that came with him.
“Oh, yeah. Just to let you know: since you guys were with Cloud and them, you also have Wutai’s bounties on your heads – except for Jessie and me. We were mainly on the ship while you all were out.”
Biggs sighs. “Yeah, we figured as much. Not that it changes our plans.”
Wedge gives a thumbs-up. “Don’t worry about us. We’ll give ’em the slip as always.”
Jessie offers a kind, yet somewhat smug smile. “Take care of yourselves. We won’t be around for too long anyway.”
Leslie nods back. “Right… Stay safe, guys. Hope you’ll hear back from Ruby too.” With a quick wave of his hand, he also ascends the ladder and hops out, shutting the door tight.
And then, it was just the Avalanche members remaining. Zhijie, who has been bothered by the unexpected appearance of the odd trio out, finally brings his questions too.
“By the way, guys, how did you even get here?” He scratches his head. “You’d think your bounties would have made it pretty much impossible to get past the security gates.”
Jessie points to the shiny orb attached to her weapon. “Warp Materia.”
“W-warp!?” He nearly falls backward, but catches himself. “What the hell? Where’d you get it?”
She grins. “Ruby, of course. She’s pretty much a free materia giveaway.”
“Or a free ‘whatever’ giveaway!” Wedge adds, snickering. “We won’t starve ever again with her around!”
“At least she was for you,” Biggs jabs back. “What’s with you getting the preferred treatment?”
“I dunno. Payoff for coining the ‘Ruby Guarantee’?”
Biggs rolls his eyes. “Nah, that can’t be it.”
Zhijie simply stares at them and shakes his head in disbelief. “Man… that’s so unfair. My bro and I had to work our asses off just to get the rest of us over and you three just pop in wherever you want.”
“Heh. Sorry, but that’s what connections get you.” Jessie suggests with a cheeky grin, “When she’s back, we can ask her to treat you guys to something too.”
“Hmph.”
However, despite the relaxed mood that seems to have returned to the room, Nayo still remains concerned. Actually, her apprehensions have been looming over their heads from the moment they brought up their wondrous miracle worker again. So she asks, “By the way, where is Ruby? Surely, she didn’t just drop some materia on you and ditch, right?”
Polk casually suggests, “Maybe she’s gone off with Cloud and them as usual? They were looking for her in the first place.”
Billy rubs his head, making sure to keep his durag in place. “Probably, but it begs the question why they haven’t shown up in a while either.”
“Hmm…”
They turn back to Jessie’s gang for answers, but all that cheer and confidence on the trio’s faces from earlier quickly fade back to uncertainty. Jessie draws out her new transmuter to check on it again, but as usual the screen shows no sign of Ruby. She turns to the other two, who look just as anxious, and sadly shakes her head as she puts it away again.
She then turns back to the rest and comes clean, “Sorry. We don’t know where she is, or what happened with Cloud and the others either.”
Nayo blinks, alarmed. “You don’t? She didn’t tell you anything?”
Biggs rubs his head awkwardly. “Nope. All she said was that she was going into hiding. Some serious threats are chasing her so the less she shows around people, the better. I guess it was the same for Cloud and them, but she couldn’t give us any details there.”
Wedge insists, “But she did say that she’d help us one way or another. She’s just keeping off the radar and might hop back to us from time to time.”
However, none of this is what Nayo wants to hear. She’s even hesitant to keep asking, but does so anyway. “So, what exactly are these threats that she has to avoid?”
The trio are put on the spot and grow nervous. Jessie still manages to answer with a straight face, “…From the planet itself.”
There’s a moment of silence from everyone, followed by a brief “Huh?”
Nayo asks again, “From the planet?”
Billy blinks. “Like, are we talking some kind spiritual thing or…?”
Jessie shakes her head with a sigh. “No. They’re very real. You know the reports lately of those monsters going around the world and attacking towns?”
Polk gets wary as soon as she mentions them. “Yeah. The Wutai government has been quiet about it, but we had other sources.”
Biggs follows up, making a serious frown, “We almost got hit by one. It showed up over Sector 7 and was about to blast a hole in Midgar before Soldier came by to repel it.”
Wedge admits, fidgeting with his fingers, “We think it found us because we’ve been using Ruby’s materia and apparently, the planet didn’t like that.”
There’s another awkward silence as not all of the confusion has quite been settled.
Zhijie snorts back, “Seriously? The ‘planet’ sent those monsters after you? What’s next, the Gods are gonna show up to yell at you or something?”
“…”
Unfortunately, his attempt at a joke falls flat when the trio instead becomes more distraught over the real possibility of that happening. Even Zhijie’s face turns for the horrified as he realizes his mistake.
“Uh… guys? That isn’t really a thing that can happen, right?” he asks sheepishly.
Biggs groans. “Who knows? Ruby got us out of a whole lot, but it’s starting to feel like she’s been building up some serious debt in the background that even she has trouble cleaning up.”
By now, Nayo has heard enough. She has to put her foot down. “Alright, you know what? Forget Zhongyuan for now. If things really have gotten that bad, then maybe you guys should ditch those materia and get to safety ASAP. Who knows what else will happen if you keep them?”
“Nayo…” Jessie begins, but is shortly cut off.
“Look, I know you really want to help. But unlike Midgar, Wutai doesn’t have stuff like Soldier to repel those kinds of threats. What if they find you guys here? Then we’ll all be in danger!”
“We still have the Warp Materia! We’ll just jump back out, so no one has to get hurt.”
“And then what? You aren’t planning to keep jumping around the world on a wild goose chase, are you? How will that help anyone?”
“And that’s the plan I was gonna tell you!” Jessie argues, rounding back to her original point, “Since those monsters are after Ruby, then if we just spread her mark everywhere, then the monsters won’t have any specific target to attack. We’ll paralyze them in their tracks!”
Nayo is so taken aback that she even recoils. “What? Are you serious?”
“Of course! It’s the only way we can help her! And once we get them off her trail, she’ll be able to pop back in as always!”
“No! Jessie, please! Calm down and think about it for a sec!”
“Huh?”
“This plan of yours is crazy risky! We don’t know what would really happen or if it’ll even work! What if that just makes them rampage wildly? Who’s gonna stop them?”
“…” Once the other ominous possibility comes to light, Jessie’s enthusiasm falters and drains away.
She puts her hands on her hips, looking almost disappointed. “Besides, even Ruby has gone into hiding so she doesn’t draw trouble. Yet, she still let you have this materia? I’m starting to wonder if she really has a plan at all.”
Biggs and Wedge share awkward frowns when they realize it too. That does sound kinda iffy, doesn’t it? Not that they would suspect her of any foul play, but this doesn’t seem like as solid of a plan as they thought.
Now faced with their silence, Nayo finally relents with the glare and instead gives an exhausted sigh of her own. “I know. Being with Ruby this long has made it easy to trust her with most things. But if all she’s done ends up inciting the planet’s wrath, is it really a good idea to keep following her? She might even be hiding from you because she knows she’ll just put you in danger.”
“…”
“So how about you follow her lead and lie low for a while too? I know we’re struggling with Wutai and all, but we can manage.” Nayo insists, “I’m not trying to shut down your hopes, but we’re all Avalanche here. I’m saying this out of concern for you.”
However, while Biggs and Wedge have gone speechless in shame, Jessie still remains a little more stubborn than even them. She’s been listening just as intently, but now comes to a different conclusion.
“Nayo, I get where you’re coming from. I know we’ll be in even hotter water if it doesn’t work out. But realistically, if Avalanche really wants to make a difference, you’re not gonna get a better chance than this.”
“Huh? For what?”
Jessie takes her gun in both hands and raises it up, looking battle-ready. “Like Barret always said, ‘Nothing great was ever gained without sacrifice.’ If you’re always afraid of the worst that could happen, then you won’t ever meet the best outcome.”
Nayo frowns to hear it, but humors her a little more. “The ‘best’ outcome?”
“That’s right.” Jessie lowers her gun and nods, revealing a confident smile. “We can show the planet that humanity’s not going down without a fight.”
“What?”
By the looks on their faces, everyone else is just as shocked by that bold claim, including even Jessie’s own partners.
“Jessie, what are you talking about?” Biggs asks her in a hurry. “I know we’re doing it for Ruby’s sake, but what’s with ‘humanity’ tagging along?”
“Yeah, and wasn’t the plan just to mess with those monsters a little?” Wedge mumbles, “Just so we can let some heat off of her.”
But Jessie shakes her head. “Come on, guys. You think she would leave us with her materia because she doesn’t trust us? If anything, I think she hid because she knows she can rely on us.”
“Huh?” they react together.
“She’s… relying on us?” Biggs repeats.
“I thought it was the other way around,” Wedge admits. “We’re always asking her to do stuff for us.”
Jessie insists, “Of course she is! Look, she may be able to do a lot as is, but she’s not actually an all-powerful genie who can just snap her fingers and everything’s solved. She has to have a good reason to hide. And I bet wherever she is, she’s waiting for the right opportunity.”
“The right opportunity…?”
Nayo cuts back in before this conversation gets out of hand. “Jessie, don’t you think you’re going a little over your head? We’re not ‘fighting’ the planet. We don’t have the power or resources, especially with how rough things are now. What are you trying to accomplish by spreading Ruby’s magic everywhere?”
“Well, how else is everyone else gonna be able to fight? After all, the people of Wutai would love to know that Ruby is all over their country, and I don’t mean just as stickers or pictures.”
“…”
“But this goes beyond just Wutai, or even Shinra. If the whole planet’s after Ruby, then we’re not backing off either. We’re with her to the end.” She whips back to her partners with a proud grin. “Right, guys?”
Though they did share many concerns with the HQ members, Biggs and Wedge exchange cursory glances and face her with the same resolved answer as before, “Right!”
Biggs blows a soft whistle. “Whew. Almost forgot the reason we’re doing this at all.”
Wedge grins along. “Yeah. We can’t be slowing down now.”
Nayo stares at them, in disbelief at how hard-headed they can be, and then back to her fellow members. They appear to be mixed between being overwhelmed at the current turn of events and actually contemplating how they can move forward. However, not everyone seems as convinced as she is about holding out further like this.
“…To be honest, Nayo, they might actually be our best bet at this point,” Zhijie remarks calmly.
“Huh?”
He folds his arms and enters into a pensive mood. “I mean, like I was saying earlier, we’re running out fast on people we can contact. And then these guys showed up out of nowhere. They’re poised and ready to jump anywhere they want. So why not let them?”
“…”
Even Billy speaks up, “He’s got a point. We only managed to get by because of our previous connections. If even they’re disappearing, it’s only a matter of time before we might get the noose, so to speak.”
Polk also points out, “And the government’s after us because they don’t think we’re reliable anymore. They cut us out of the whole materia trade and left things to the yakuza for some reason.”
Nayo scolds him, “Polk! Don’t tell them that!”
He shrugs. “They were bound to know, though.”
On that thought, Jessie raises an eyebrow toward her. “Nayo, were you hiding info from us? Even after we’ve been completely honest…”
Caught red-handed, Nayo lowers her head in defeat. She understands the rest of the HQ members are fed up with keeping up a certain act for her. As much as she’s tried to stand in as leader and keep them moving, she has to admit that optimism can only go so far. She comes forward at last, “Sorry, guys. I just didn’t want you to get caught up in our problems, especially now we know what’s happened with Ruby and that attack on Midgar. It’s almost unbelievable what you have to deal with.”
Biggs waves it away. “Don’t mind us. The materia aside, another reason we stopped by was to check up on you all. And by the sounds of it, you really do have it rough.”
Zhijie pulls back in a stretch and gives his own sigh. “Tell me about it. I was feeling useless being a messenger who can’t even get the message to the right people…”
“Well, you got it to us, so thanks.”
“Heh. True that.”
With Nayo’s concession out of the way, Wedge curiously asks, “So what’s that about the yakuza?”
Billy answers instead, “Thanks to some secret order from up high, they’ve become the ones in charge of the underground materia trade. It’s all prohibited under the ceasefire, but Wutai’s been hungry for materia well before the war ended. For a while there, we were supposed to be helping with it, but then the people we worked with kept getting silenced one way or another and even we’ve been put under watch. Now we’re just stuck waiting around for some news.”
Zhijie also explains, “I was gonna bring some news, but as you’ve heard by now, that chance went up in smoke. Those guys I was tailing? They were just lower-rung yakuza, so I thought it’d be easier to get some word out of them. Unfortunately, the cops got in my way.” He scratches his head. “They sure played dumb, but it almost feels like the cops knew what I was up to.”
Polk replies, feeling a bit jilted, “At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were in on it. Wutai doesn’t have any policies against civilian drone use, but I wasn’t allowed to fly it around the city either. Got a lecture from some cops about about ‘public safety’ even though it wasn’t anywhere near ground level.”
Jessie asks to clarify, “But why leave materia in the hands of the yakuza? That just sounds like a bad combination.”
“It’s the only other group they could turn to, I guess,” Billy speculates. “By the way, the yakuza aren’t a monolith either. They’ve got their own factions and some of them were with Corneo’s ring before the castle incident sent them scurrying. I think they’re still going at it, though.”
Biggs frowns to be reminded of that guy. “Is the ring still up? I figured they might be since we couldn’t catch the cult leader and all, but now they’re just tied to the yakuza?”
“Always have been,” Zhijie corrects him. “You don’t get the manpower to pretend to be Avalanche by dragging random civies into their problems, after all.”
“Hmm. Makes you wonder who’s really calling the shots, huh?”
Wedge asks again, to be sure, “So Corneo really is gone? He’s not coming back after all that, right?”
Zhijie raises an eyebrow. “Uh, you tell us? Kinda hard to survive a burning castle dropping on ya from the heavens.”
“Heh. Right. Just making sure.”
“Besides, he didn’t even matter. The ones really behind the whole human trafficking part were working under the NRSA. Sounds like they were a part of the Cult of Wutaia.” He pauses to note, “Talk about irony. They’re all about worshipping ‘Rubia’ and when Ruby’s right in their faces telling them to stop trafficking people, they don’t.”
“Because they’re responsible for a lot more than just spreading her good vibes,” Biggs agrees.
“No doubt. A lot of it stinks of government conspiracy too, since the NRSA is one of their big agencies.”
“And they’re even working with the yakuza. But what about the materia trade? Is it a different yakuza group?” Wedge asks on.
“That’s where things get tricky,” Billy admits with a concerned frown. “We’re so out of the loop that we can’t track down which group is handling which. If anything, it feels like they’re all mixed together.”
Polk adds scornfully, “No doubt yet another intentional mix-up by the powers that be.”
“Allegedly…” That said, Billy agrees with him, “But it is suspicious that we kept getting yanked around by different people that claimed to be working for the government, but then they gave us some confusing data that contradict each other one way or another. We’re left wondering who we can trust.”
“Pretty much just the ASR at this point, since at least they’ve been consistent about their message,” Zhijie proposes.
Wedge frowns, diving into thought too. “Hmm…”
While they reconsider the next steps moving forward, Jessie pipes back up with even more speculation, “…You know, the whole ARC mess Wutai has here is happening because we got some bad guys benefiting from turning people into mindless zombies.”
Biggs raises an eyebrow. “Yeah? That much is obvious.”
“I’m just saying, if there was a way to stop them from being able to use these ‘zombies’, then wouldn’t the whole illegal trade of the stuff stop? It has to, since it’s risky stuff.”
“Right. But is there a way?”
Wedge blinks. “What are you getting at, Jessie?”
Jessie smirks and proudly reveals her suggestion, “We can stop by Zhongyuan ourselves. Maybe they may be hiding more than just victims. And if there are any materia they’ve stashed, we can swipe ’em too.”
“Huh?” comes the collective response from everyone else.
Though she’s been quiet, Nayo jumps back in with a dry remark, “Jessie, you’re really not letting that go, huh?”
“Think about it, Nayo. A lot of our problems can be solved if we just jump to the source. The sooner, the better.”
“Didn’t you just say that Ruby’s not available right now? What can you guys do in the meantime? You’ll be jumping into a hazard zone.”
She tilts her head in thought. “Um, try to talk to the victims?”
“Talk to them?” Nayo folds her arms, still not quite convinced. “How? Do you also have some materia that can work on ARC symptoms?”
“Not exactly, but we do have one other thing…” Jessie fetches her gun once more, but this time detaches a purple orb that was set beside the green one. “This one’s a winner too.”
“What’s that?”
“The Divination Materia. Ruby also made it for us.” She smiles fondly as she peers into the orb’s swirling draconic pattern. “I’m not sure how it works exactly, but it let me talk with my dad again.”
Billy blinks, taken aback. “Your dad? Wasn’t he suffering from mako poisoning?”
Polk blinks too. “Yeah, didn’t he have a severe case too? Like, totally comatose?”
Jessie nods back. “He was, but I was able to reach out to him. Ruby said this materia lets the user speak directly with someone else’s thoughts. It’s like a portal that sends you right into their minds.”
The rest of them simply blink blankly in an understandable mix of shock and confusion.
She explains on, “It turns out, mako poisoning doesn’t just turn a person catatonic. All that mako – life energy from the planet itself – ends up getting mixed up with the person’s own and it becomes a mess in the brain that it can’t handle. So the body just shuts down altogether.”
All things considered, Billy’s shock quickly dissipates. He nods along, putting up his own thinking face. “Hmm… That reminds me, I think I might’ve heard about that theory before too.”
“Really?” Polk asks.
“Yeah. Hard to say where it came from, but some people back in Sector 7 were saying it too. Of course, it also helped us out with our messages about the planet and all, so I didn’t think much into it.”
Jessie sets the orb back in its place and returns the gun to its holster. “My dad’s not cured yet or anything, but I know he’ll hang in there. We just have to wait for Ruby to do her thing.”
Nayo’s eyes have grown wide hearing all this. “That’s… wow. Just wow. So it really is possible…” Still bearing some apprehension, she asks ahead, “Then, does this mean you can talk with the ARC victims too? See what it really is that’s affecting them?”
She nods back. “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. We can try to understand what’s happened and how they’re really doing. Also ask them to not spread the ARC around if they can help it.”
“Hmm… Then let’s hope ARC works in a similar way like mako poisoning.”
Jessie peeks back toward the purple orb still visible on her gun. “Knowing Ruby, she probably expected we’d get to something like this at some point.”
Out of curiosity, Polk asks, “By the way, how did she make those materia if she’s supposed to still be hiding? Did she have some way to send them to you?”
With a delighted twinkle in her eye, she draws out the other device from her pocket once more. As before, Ruby has yet to return, but Jessie has chosen to keep faith in her. She presents it and answers, “With this transmuter.”
“A transmuter?” He raises an eyebrow and sits forward to take a closer look.
“Sure, it looks like any ordinary transmuter, but this one’s special. It’s got materia chips built in and they’re carrying Ruby’s magic in them!”
“W-what!? Really?”
Nayo blinks in surprise. “You have her magic with you?”
“Of course! How else would we have gotten her materia if she didn’t leave some piece of her with us?”
She blinks again as she realizes something else. “Wait! Then, is this it? You really have a way to spread Ruby’s mark?”
“Yeah. I mean, that’s our whole plan. Would be kinda pointless if we couldn’t.”
“Oh, geez…” Nayo gets a bit embarrassed to admit, “I guess I really have been underestimating you. Here I was afraid that you all were just jumping into another mess after another without a real plan.”
“Heh. Nah, I get it. Being under Barret’s leadership did feel like that sometimes, but he always meant the best.”
Nayo deflates a little to be reminded. “Yeah… But at least things have been a little different since Cloud started leading the group, huh?”
Jessie snickers. “Cloud? Nah. He isn’t the one who comes up with plans either. It’s a group effort, but I like to think I contribute my fair share.”
“Tifa and Aerith are pretty good with ideas too, thinking about it,” Biggs recalls.
“Heh. Is that what people mean when they say, ‘guys get the glory, but girls get the gold’?” Wedge jokes along.
Biggs sinks a little. “Uh. I think that saying means something else, but… I guess?”
He laughs. “Well, then this is another thing it means!”
With previous tensions and secrets revealed and addressed, the atmosphere in the room settles into a much warmer one. Though Nayo still reserves certain concerns, she decides to keep them to herself. It’s a bit of a bad habit she should work on and for the best that she not impose her decisions on everyone. And like Jessie said, if they’re stuck worrying about the worst, they won’t ever achieve their best. Maybe it doesn’t hurt to have a little more faith in others, even when things are so uncertain. Ruby’s shown that lesson plenty of times for better or worse.
She then turns to the rest to address other important matters. “Okay. We’ll send Jessie’s team to Zhongyuan for now.” She also asks her real quick, “By the way, do you still have your radios that we can use to contact you?”
Jessie shakes her head. “Sorry. Since I made this transmuter, I’ve taken our phones and radios offline. Haven’t had a chance to replace them yet.”
“Then we can help with that. Polk?”
“I gotcha,” he replies. He finally gets up from his seat and digs around in a chest set in the back of the room. He then fetches out an extra radio transceiver, with the signature Avalanche logo on it, and goes over to hand it to them. “It’s already tuned to ours, so you don’t have to make any additional adjustments. Unlike in Midgar, we don’t have to keep changing our signals since Wutai doesn’t have as much of jamming tech.”
“Thanks! And don’t worry, we’ll keep in touch.”
With her thumbs-up, Polk smiles back and returns to his seat. Nayo likewise returns to her mental checklist.
She relays it aloud, “Also, aside from the ARC victims, they’re also looking for materia to help spread Ruby’s mark.” She turns back to Zhijie. “By the way, Zhijie, last time you were in contact with the ASR, you asked them about the smuggled materia, right?”
“Right.” He then shakes his head. “But they’re still searching. The government agents posted at Zhongyuan were hunting down ASR members too, so they haven’t been able to really go around and look. The only other town they’ve tried to search was Chenfu, but haven’t found anything yet.”
She frowns, a little disappointed. “Then, we don’t know for sure if there will be any materia hidden in Zhongyuan. Just to be sure, I think we should take another look around these parts to see if we can’t dig up anything else.”
Billy raises the point, “But with the new policy, I doubt any shops in town are gonna be holding any either.”
“I know, but there should still be some people in the know? I know the government clamp down is harsh, but this is still a pretty big city.”
He shrugs. “Maybe. Zhijie would know the place better.”
Their messenger in question gives it a moment to think over. He then replies, “Well, I can’t say I know of any place where they could stash materia, aside from maybe the underground catacombs beneath the pagoda grounds, but that’s entirely out of our field. Even I wouldn’t know how to get around.”
Nayo frowns. “In other words, it’s still out of our reach.”
“Yeah. That’s a no-go. Um…” He scratches his head. “Ah, right. I do know there was a certain shop in town that used to be a materia hotspot, but ever since the new policy, they’ve also been forced to have their materia and stuff confiscated. Dunno if they’d have any other leads, but that’s all I’ve got for now.”
Though she’s not entirely satisfied with the circumstances, she agrees, “Well, it’s still something. Can we leave that to you?”
He rubs his head awkwardly. “Sure, I’ll try. I have been keeping contact with them, but most of the correspondence is still waiting on word from Zangan.”
As soon as he mentions it, Biggs grows curious. “Wait, this shop you’re talking about. By any chance, was it the same place that you got Ruby’s materia from before?”
Zhijie nods. “The one and same. They’re technically a weapons shop, but sounds like she showed up there for a quick shopping trip and that was when she exchanged the materia.”
He nods along, but looks like he’s got something to nitpick. “I know weapons can be expensive, but that doesn’t seem like a fair trade. Her magic is basically priceless.”
Zhijie shrugs. “Hey, it was her decision and the shop owner was over the moon. Of course, they knew it would be dangerous to keep something that powerful and were willing to part with it, just to keep it out of the government’s hands, but it took me a little haggling to even get him to cough it up.”
“Thank goodness you did, or we all wouldn’t even be here right now,” he mutters to himself, begrudged to be reminded of their close call in Midgar’s underground.
Zhijie makes an concerned frown as he thinks over it again. “Though, I’m pretty sure it was just a one-off deal. Not like Ruby gave them more than that, nor would they have wanted to ask much from someone who’s basically a national treasure.” He then gives a sigh. “So, I’m not sure if we’d have anything right now to haggle with him again. Last time I only got him because he let slip about that her visit and a certain gift she gave them.”
Wedge then suggests, “Other than materia, is there anything they’d want to trade? I think a fair exchange for info would also be also info.”
“Sure, but the thing is, this shop owner isn’t one of our guys, nor a part of the ASR. He might have been a former disciple of Zangan, who’s leading the ASR now, but he hasn’t heard from him in a while. It’d be risky to just throw anything at him to see what sticks.”
He sinks a little. “Ah. Well, that’s tough.”
While they continue to deliberate over their options, Jessie has been deep in her own thoughts for a while. Now that they mention this particular shop, though, Jessie gets another idea in mind. She peers over to her gun and then checks with her partners as well. “Hey, guys, can you guys give me one of your materia real quick?”
“Huh?” Biggs glances back to the rifle strapped on his back. “Why one of ours? They’re just normal materia.”
Wedge also reminds her, “I don’t think they’ll be worth much to that shop either.”
“Yeah, at least for now.”
They blink together. “For now?”
“Gimme a sec. I wanna try something.” Jessie waves the transmuter in her hand. “We did tell everyone that we have a way to pass her mark along, after all.”
“Oh, right! Let’s see…” Wedge then draws his artillery from his back and detaches a single green orb, a humble Fire materia. “This one we haven’t actually used as much since the other one’s much older and more developed. Yuffie snatched up the best ones, though.”
“Materia is materia! Give it here.”
He hands it over and she holds it up under the lamp for one last careful glimpse. Unlike Ruby’s the plain materia shows no particular pattern, though the energy within is likewise constantly in motion. Now that she’s brought it up, though, everyone else also grows curious and looks her way.
“Jessie, what are you doing?” Nayo asks.
“Gonna put out a quick demo, of course,” she answers. “Just to be sure I got this…”
Jessie moves to the table and sets down the orb and takes the transmuter in both hands. With its antenna pointed right at it, she activates the device and recalibrates it to prepare for the transfer. Though Ruby’s own presence is gone, Jessie always had this option as backup in case they wouldn’t hear from her for whatever reason. And now, with the utmost resolve and blind faith, she hits the button to start.
To everyone’s surprise and awe, the transmuter itself begins to glow with a faint white glow, as if it were drawing some reserve power from the materia chips held within, and it fires off a bright beam quite like how Ruby had previously done when she jumped across phone lines. It hits the plain Fire materia, enveloping it in its beautiful glow, and the green orb begins to whiten from outside-in. Then, as the beam of light vanishes, the materia’s newly inherited glow gradually fades, but now in place of the previous plain, amorphous flow, a new draconic pattern has settled into form.
Further to everyone’s surprise, Jessie cries out in triumph. “Oh my… Goddess! It actually worked!? Yesss!” She even does a little excited dance as she throws up her fists.
Biggs blinks. “Uh, Jessie? Didn’t you make it like that?”
“Of course I did, but this is the first time I’ve gotten to test it!”
“Really? I thought you already did it when Ruby beamed outta there before,” Wedge adds.
“Nah, that one was on her. She knew what she was doing.” Jessie then lets off a sigh in relief. “Glad that it turned out I knew what I was too.”
Meanwhile, everyone else is still staring in awe at the newly modified materia. So this is the power of Ruby, even if it’s just a sliver.
“Wow, she really did it,” Polk remarks rather casually, even despite his own surprise.
“Looks special, alright. It’s even got a dragon on it like her.” Billy also picks it up and lightly juggles it in one hand. “Feels like normal materia otherwise. Wouldn’t be able to tell unless you look closer.”
Nayo blinks again a few times and turns back to Jessie. “This was your first time testing?”
She whips back to her. “Yeah?”
Nayo then raises an eyebrow. “And here I thought you already had everything planned out. Are you guys actually just that lucky with every gamble you take?”
Jessie laughs. “Well, we wouldn’t have joined Barret and them if we didn’t take a few gambles here and there!”
“Geez… At least it worked out.”
She then whips back to Zhijie to ask, “How about it? We’ll lend you this materia. Maybe the owner will be more than happy to share if you show him this.”
“Really? You’re just giving it up?” He scratches his head. “I mean, sure, we’ll take it. But what if you guys need it? You never know what you might run into down there.”
She shakes her head. “We’ll be fine. We’re the ones packing Ruby’s magic, after all.”
“Alright, if you insist.” With that, Zhijie helps himself to the newly modified materia and slips it into his own pocket. “Thanks, by the way. You sure got us out of a serious jam.”
“No problem. Hope things will be smoother with your other issues too.”
“Yeah, let’s hope things will turn around for once.”
“Alright, at least that’s got some headway,” Nayo concludes. As she returns to her mental checklist, she means to ask something else too. “By the way, Zhijie, about Zangan… You said before that he’s been living in a hermitage out of town, right?”
“Oh, yeah.” He nods. “But since he’s been leading the ASR, he’s not home. I don’t think he’d be keeping any materia with him there either.”
“That’s fine. At this point, what we need more of is information. I was thinking we could at least pay a visit to check if he’s noted down anything. We might be able to find what else he and the ASR have looked into. Maybe even some stuff that could help us gain some kind of edge over these wishy-washy government agents.”
“Maybe? If he does, he hasn’t been telling too many people, though.”
“Probably for the best. Depending on what his investigations have been looking into, that info shouldn’t fall into the wrong hands. It doesn’t sit right with me for his hermitage to be left unguarded like this.”
“You have a point.” He rubs his head awkwardly. “Feels off just barging in on him, though.”
“I know it’s sudden, but if there is anything we can do in the meantime, we could at least help him there.” She turns to the other guys too. “What do you say?”
Polk replies flatly, “Sure. Anything’s better than being holed up in here.”
“No objections here either.” Billy reminds them, “If I remember right, Cloud’s team, including Ruby, went up north to visit Zangan at the Leviathan Shrine last time. Who knows, maybe they helped clear the path there so it won’t be that bad.”
Zhijie nods along. “Yeah. And his hermitage should be a little to the west from there, if I got things in order.”
“Okay. Looks like we all have a place.” Nayo nods too, now satisfied with their new mission and direction. She then asks, just to be safe, “Zhijie, can you check? Is the coast clear?”
“Sure thing.”
Zhijie slides right up the ladder almost like he’s a natural with these things and out the hatch. As expected, the shop owner has returned outside to manage the shop, though it’s empty of customers at the moment. His brother and Leslie have already left on their way. In other words, the rest of them should be free to move about. He gives a light knock on the back door to the shop, to which the owner receives and unlocks the door for them, welcoming him back out. With a few words in Wutaian exchanged, Zhijie confirms that the coast is indeed clear and returns back downstairs to report.
“All clear. Let’s move.”
Nayo nods and then passes the other trio a trusting smile. “Guess we’ll have to part here. Take care of yourselves. If you find anything of note in town, let us know when you can.”
“Of course!” Jessie turns back to her partners with a confident smirk. “Alright. You guys ready?”
Biggs replies casually, “Ready as we’ll ever be.”
Wedge pumps up his fists. “Let’s do this! Ruby’s counting on us, after all!”
With everyone set on their respective courses, the Avalanche members get a move on already. Enough running around or hiding from everyone and everything. Avalanche needs to get back in the game and there’s no better time than now. While their guys from HQ still have to leave the normal way, out the door, Jessie gets her partners to gather around her as she charges up the Warp Materia for another jump. And they’re gone even before the others have left the building.
Chapter 84: A Tempest Brewing
Notes:
Here is the first part of the shared episode of Yuffie and Sonon. I legit believed I could have spared myself the trouble of writing two different chapters for each of them by merging them into one, but then I realized all that did was just rearrange two-episodes-worth of content. So, uh, I guess I'll just have to save the next part of their flashback for the next, next chapter. After all, the chapter after this one was already planned to involve the surface world events.
Outdated A/N
6/27/25 edit: Apologies for the wait, everyone. The past few weeks have been busy as this household of mine underwent several renovations and I had no time nor energy to write. But the next chapter is in progress; hoping to get it in by the end of next week.
7/9/25 edit: In light of me yet again writing too much for one chapter, I have elected to cut the next chapter in two and swapped around chapters 83 and 84 to maintain my back-n-forth perspective scheme. The newly added chapter 83 will be available via the "previous chapter" button. Or feel free to refer to the updated chapter index.
Also, changed every instance of the "Five Mighty Gods of Wutai" to "Five Saints of Wutai" to match a detail I forgot from Crisis Core. "Mighty Gods" was the phrase used in the OG and I kept using it out of nostalgia, but since I've already updated other names like with The Happy Turtle, I figured I should be consistent.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The war raged for a good nine years – the longest period of international conflict that Shinra had ever engaged in. Though ultimately it was the defeat of Wutai that marked a new era of Shinra’s world domination, this once proud Western nation did not go quietly. Even after the enemy displayed their military might over land, sea, and skies; even after they slaughtered thousands of their troops who fought bitterly to the end; even after they constantly pressured their steadfast shogun to raise the white flag, Wutai refused to give in until their lands laid in ruin. Time after time, they had seen many a country fall to the whims of Shinra. Though most submitted peacefully, the past several times Midgar had waged war, the countries that tried to resist were promptly annihilated until extinction. There was no way that this one would submit to such an oppressive force of evil.
And yet, despite their best efforts, the war ultimately turned into a grisly, choking siege on the national level. Shinra was an oppressive force for good reason. They had the best technology, the biggest air and naval fleets, the biggest land armies, and of course the best Soldiers. Though Wutai held out for as long as they could muster, never once did they actually deliver any major or lasting blows against Midgar. Every opportunity that seemed like Shinra left themselves open was just another trap lying in wait. They sent in reconnaissance agents well in advance before the war was officially declared, but even their best scouts were soundly defeated and captured. Certainly, Wutai seized all the trade ports and certain Midgar-aligned bases in their country (relics from a much earlier time), but even those were recaptured once Soldier was deployed on the island. If anything, throughout the war, Shinra was largely toying with their enemy. They seized towns across the country not merely for their strategic importance, but simply to make a statement. They barricaded the shores so Wutai couldn’t escape and seek any allies overseas. Regardless of who or what they sent in, Shinra knew they would always win. They hadn’t lost a single fight that they’d taken overseas and Wutai would be no exception.
Once more this certain string of memories has been brought to the forefront. The war is already coming to a close and awaits its abrupt end. Off in the forested mountains to the southwest of the capital, there stands one of the last holdouts of this war, Fort Tamblin. When Cloud and Zack enter the scene, they land in the midst of an ongoing raid on the fort. There are the sounds of Wutaian troops desperately trying to push back the advances of Soldier, but they have been forced time and again to fall back.
Zack blinks a few times as he takes in his new surroundings. They’ve come to the edge of the forest where it meets the slope of the mountain, and fortunately for them the foliage helps keep their sudden entrance covered for the most part. He also sees a familiar-looking building in the distance and his eyes immediately harden into focus. He beckons Cloud to follow and the two duck behind the bush to avoid being caught up.
He casts a troubled look aside and mutters, “As I thought, we’re back here.”
Cloud raises an eyebrow. “‘Back here’? Where is this?”
“Fort Tamblin. I was one of the Soldiers they sent to take it on.”
“Then you must know some way around this place, right? Did you meet Yuffie here?”
“Yeah, but only for a bit. Don’t know where she went after.”
“What was she doing here? Six years ago, she’d still be a little kid, right?”
“Yep. She just popped outta nowhere and challenged me to a fight. She threw some fists and then ran off before I could catch her.”
“She tried to fight you? You mean, she was just going around attacking enemy troops?”
“Yeah. She said she was ‘Wutai’s strongest warrior’, or something like that. She probably could manage on her own…”
Cloud turns back to him with a judgmental frown. “Zack. Ninja or not, she was just a kid. Did you at least try to stop her?”
“Y-yeah, of course! But she was too quick even for me.” Zack rubs his head awkwardly. “Hope she didn’t run into anything worse on the way. I knew the guys who were with me on this mission, but it was another thing with all the mechs that were out there.”
He doesn’t look comfortable with that answer. “And what do we do if she does run into any of those mechs?”
“Um…” Zack takes a moment to think it over, though struggles to come up with an answer and feels a cold sweat come over him. He lets his eyes drift and turns his attention back on the fort. “Maybe we could ask the Wutai soldiers if they’d seen her?”
He makes an almost insulted frown. “Do we not have a better plan?”
Zack shrugs back. “I dunno! What else can we do now? Not like we have any leads.”
“Hmm…”
They look back toward the fort, noting the sounds of yells and screams coming at increased frequency from the defending troops. Sounds like the fighting’s been going on for a while and they’ve finally exhausted their best. Though Cloud did hear about how brutal this war was back when he was still working for Shinra, it feels totally different now that he’s out here on the front lines. It’s kinda disheartening to hear the painful cries in person, especially knowing how this war ultimately ended.
Zack clenches up a fist tight, trembling in anticipation. “The war was already coming close to the end by this time, so Wutai pulled out all the stops. Aside from their best fighters, they had some crazy monsters hiding in there too. Maybe with some time and reinforcements, they might be able to hold out a little longer, but…” He turns back to Cloud with a determined fire in his eyes. “You think if we charge in now, we can help them stall?”
Cloud shakes his head disapprovingly. “I know you want to help, but remember, this is just a reproduction of a memory. Saving them here isn’t gonna change their actual fate.”
“I know.” Zack releases his fist and looks off for the fort again. “But just this once, can’t we still try to do something different? Maybe Wutai can’t be saved either way, but we won’t know if we don’t try!”
“Uh, I guess. But this is also supposed to be part of Yuffie and Sonon’s trials. I don’t think we should butt in all we like.”
“But haven’t you guys already been doing that anyway? I mean, even Fenrir showed up during Barret’s.”
“…” Rather than answer that, Cloud changes the subject. “Anyway, since this would be our present-day Yuffie, she might try something different too. You think she might still be around?”
“Maybe? But if she’s trying to fight off Soldier, I don’t think she’ll get far.”
“Like you said, hopefully they can just capture her and keep her out of the fight in the meantime, but it’s gonna be a disaster if she runs into any mechs. Her shuriken can only go so far if she isn’t at her current power level.”
“Yeah, so we gotta go in! At least check around the place. I’m ready any ti…” Zack reaches a hand to his back out of habit, but then remembers he came unarmed. He asks again, “Oh, yeah. Where’d you put the Buster Sword? You’re not using it now.” He looks over to the twin-point jagged red blade resting on Cloud’s back. “By the way, that is a sick-looking sword. Fits ya pretty well.”
“Oh, uh, thanks.” Cloud can’t help but crack a smile to Zack’s charm that regularly pops outta nowhere. “It was Ruby who got it for me.”
“Ruby again? Man, I’ve really been missing out. Gotta go meet her sometime!” Zack flashes a cheeky grin. “Hey, you think she’d have something cool for me too?”
“Uh…” To be honest, he has no idea how the two would even meet in the first place, needless to say how they’d interact. But he has a good feeling they’d probably get along pretty well since Ruby and Aerith seemed to connect right away. “Yeah. She’ll probably come up with something.”
“Sweet. Looking forward to it!”
Getting back on topic, he also answers, “As for the Buster Sword, I’ve kept it with me all this time.” Drawing upon some latent magical power of his own, he raises out a hand and summons the trusty weapon in question, which appears to him in another flash of light. He then hands it over. “Here. You can have it back.”
Zack grins and plays innocent. “What are you talking about, Cloud? It’s yours now. You’re just letting me ‘borrow’ it, right?”
“…” Quickly catching on again, he then nods with his own proud smirk. “Right. I figured you might need it.”
“Heh. Thanks, man.” Zack retrieves his trusty blade with an eager swing and spin in the air before he sets it in its place on his back once more.
Cloud puts a hand to his chin and returns to deliberating. “Still, we should think about what we’re gonna do to get the Wutai troops to trust us. We’re still dressed like Soldier, so they won’t be opening up anytime soon…”
“Welp, no time like the present!” And with that declaration, Zack jumps back to his feet and rushes out for the open road. “Time for the hero’s return! Here comes Zack!”
“Hey, Zack! Wait!” he cries, chasing after the guy. “What about the plan!?”
“This is the plan!”
“Oh, my God…”
The two charge in through the front gates with a full-frontal assault upon the unsuspecting Shinra troops present. While the latter group initially was grateful to see what looked to be backup, they quickly turn horrified when these two rogue Soldiers appear to be here to fend them off instead. Weaving in and out in an almost synchronized dance of swordplay, Cloud and Zack bull-rush the crowds and knock men flying. They even easily reach the open courtyard where a number of shocked Wutaian troops remain on guard, but hesitate to attack when they see the carnage happening to the other side. However, all the chaos alerts the three Soldiers who went on ahead earlier and they come rushing back out to investigate.
“What the hell? We got two deserters here!” one of the Soldiers yells.
“Seriously? Just as we were gonna take the fort!” another complains, backing off a little.
“Wait, isn’t that… Zack!?” the third points out.
“Who’s the other?”
“Nothing personal, guys!” Zack yells, swinging his impressive blade forward. “But we can’t let you do that! You’re not taking this fort!”
“What!?” all three cry altogether.
“Zack, are you crazy!? We’re on enemy territory! This is treason!” the third one cries again.
“Yeah! Aren’t we supposed to be on the same team?” the second one asks.
“You asshole… Where the hell have you been anyway?” the first one grumbles aloud.
But clearly talking is out of the question. Zack passes a quick glance to Cloud, who nods back without a word. The two infamous ex-Soldiers (at least in heart, in Cloud’s case) then proceed to bring on the heat. Their massive swords swing and clash with their opponents’, easily matching blow for blow against the Soldiers despite being outnumbered. These guys are at most 2nd-Class, after all. Even if they can use magic, Cloud is already naturally resilient to both Ice and Fire, thanks to his recent blessings. Anything else, he easily dodges with his heightened foresight. And while Zack isn’t as lucky, he can manage fine on his own with some well-trained precision dodging. In the ensuing chaos, neither side of Shinra nor Wutai can make heads or tails of the situation, but at least the latter can recognize an opening when they see one. They all briefly pull back to regroup and rethink their plans.
“Hey! They’re getting away!” the first of the Soldiers points out.
Cloud also glances back briefly, swearing under his breath. As he feared, the Wutai troops don’t trust them just like that. They just fled when given the chance.
Zack reassures him, “Hey. At least they got another chance to fight.”
“Sure… but what do we do now? We’re outta leads,” he mutters back.
As for the other three Soldiers, they’re definitely not happy with this turn of events. The third one from earlier warns him, “Zack, I dunno what you’re on, but the director’s gonna be furious. Hell, even Sephiroth will be hearing about this. You’ve basically shot your chances at gunning for First.”
To which, Zack shrugs back. “Don’t worry about me, man. I can handle myself.”
“Damn. I knew you were cocky, but not like this…”
“Hey! What should we do now? Is the mission still on?” the second Soldier then asks his cohorts.
The first Soldier gives their two deserters a mean glare from behind his helmet. “No. I doubt it. We didn’t account for one of our own to turn.”
“Man… You think it has something to do with all the recent deserters from Soldier the other day?”
“Who knows…”
With little option left to them, the Soldiers have to pull back to rethink their strategy moving forward. Zack beams with pride and relief to see that he doesn’t have to go too hard on his former allies. They’re all gonna be mad at him, no doubt, but hey, at least maybe for once they can make new friends from the other side? Or at least Yuffie might be impressed enough that she’ll come out of hiding.
“So what’s the plan now? How do we find Yuffie?” Cloud asks.
“Ah, yeah…” Zack pauses again and then promptly answers, “I’m still working on it.”
“Don’t smile when you say that! Now we’re wanted and still don’t have Wutai on our side!”
“Hey, at least things can’t get worse than this, right?”
“Zack…”
However, before the two can discuss further, they hear the sound of a gong go off in the distance. It seems like the Wutai troops from earlier didn’t all just run off. However, that gong isn’t a sign of celebration or praise for their actions. On that cue, two lumbering beasts specifically trained and armed to be anti-Soldier units, the Vajradhara Wu and Tai, climb over the walls around the courtyard and drop in to join the fray. The two beasts roar in tandem and launch right on the attack.
“What the hell!?” Cloud complains.
“Oh, yeah. I remember these guys,” Zack casually remarks.
“Zack! Don’t just stand there reminiscing!”
The two neatly dodge the incoming swings of the beasts’ weapons, but before Cloud can lay on a counterattack, Zack cuts in and blocks him from swinging.
“Cloud, easy! These guys are Wutai’s own!”
“But they’re attacking us!”
“I know, but we shouldn’t hurt them!”
“I hate this mission already…”
The two instead pull back and continue to dodge the attacks, but at this rate, they’re just gonna get caught up in this trap forever and still have no ninja friend to recruit. Yet, Zack is really insistent about this whole “turning Wutai to their side” plan, if it can be called one, so Cloud feels inclined to trust him – or at least, trust his heart is in the right place. Who knows, maybe all the commotion they’ve stirred will catch Yuffie’s attention too.
“Hey, asshole! Quit it!” Zack suddenly yells.
And he even gives Tai the Club a hard whack with the flat side of his sword against the side of its helmet, nearly knocking it askew and temporarily disorienting the beast. Wu the Axe is enraged for his partner and swings at Zack, which the latter counters with a parry and follows up with an uppercut with the back of his sword up against his chin. The two beasts are indeed startled enough, but they quickly regain their focus and grow even more aggressive as they chase down the offender. Throughout all that, though, Cloud stands by doing nothing and feeling empty inside. What was all that about not hurting them again?
“Damn, they’re hard-headed. Isn’t there a way to knock them out quick?” Zack mutters his own complaint.
“Can’t we just put them to sleep or something?” Cloud suggests.
“Oh, yeah! Why didn’t I think of that?”
He sighs. “Glad to help…”
“You got the materia?”
He then whips it out from a pocket and slips it onto a slot on his sword. “Ready.”
With remarkable casting speed, Cloud lets fly a dual quick cast of the Sleep spell that appears to fly off the end of the Apocalypse’s edge as he swings it in their direction. The spells hit their intended targets and just like that, the two drop to their knees, plant their respective weapons into the ground, and lean against them as they fall to slumber.
Zack lets off a sigh and returns his blade to his back. “Well, at least that’s over with.”
“But we’re still no closer to finding our resident ninja girl,” Cloud reminds him, following suit.
“I know, gimme a minute. I’ll figure something out…”
Just then, several of Wutai’s elite troops hurry out into the open and are aghast to find their prized beasts slumbering away. They try to rouse them awake again with a lot of noise, but their weapons aren’t thick or long enough to get through the beasts’ thick-plated armor to do enough prodding to get them to stir. To think that such powerful assets of theirs could be so easily reduced to fodder with just a simple spell.
“You two!” one Wutai captain calls out. “Who are you? Are you with Shinra?”
Zack gasps quietly. Finally these people are talking with them! He quickly returns his blade to his back and raises his hands as a gesture of peace. “No way! We’re on our own!”
Cloud follows suit and adds, “We’re friends with Yuffie. Have any of you seen her?”
The ensuing murmur from the troops is fraught with suspicion. “Yuffie-dono?” “With the shogun’s daughter?” “That can’t be right! They’re clearly foreigners!”
The captain narrows his eyes. “What do you want with her?”
“We just wanna talk.”
“…”
However, none of the troops are yet convinced. Surely there must be some sort of trickery going on here? Why would anyone dressed like Soldier associate with their beloved little White Rose of Wutai? Nonetheless, they would all get another nasty surprise come their way. In the midst of this perplexing deliberation among their ranks, someone who has been watching from the shadows now takes her act. She drops a little ball on the ground that rolls out in the open and blasts apart, erupting with a deluge of smoke.
Cloud takes note, “What the… A smoke bomb?”
This happens again and again several more times until the entire courtyard is enveloped in a thick gray smog. The Wutaian troops grow into a panic too. It seems they hadn’t expected this either.
“What’s this? An enemy attack!?”
“What now!?”
“Men! Don’t let those two get away!” the captain barks orders.
The troops hurry to block off the exits, but of course Cloud and Zack have no intention of fleeing. They’re on high alert too and scanning the area for the one responsible.
“Ugh… This is different,” Zack groans and covers his nose and mouth with a hand. “Hey. Who did that?”
“Gotta be Yuffie,” Cloud replies. “She always had these bombs with her.”
“Can you find her?”
“Gimme a sec…”
Strangely enough, being surrounded by this smog is no detriment to Cloud. If anything, he feels surprisingly in his element. His senses elevate to another level as if his blessings from Fenrir have been automatically activated at the sign of a threat. Not only do his eyes stay sharp even in the low visibility, his hearing and sense of smell are attuned to the slightest changes in the air. He gives the area a quick scan and shortly picks up another shadowy figure sneaking around in the smog. Though he doesn’t make out every single detail, it’s clear enough that it’s a kid; a little girl judging by how small and thin the silhouette looks. However, to his surprise, she doesn’t try to attack them. She instead leaves what seem to be some kind of firecrackers off in the corners of the yard, which go off and alert the troops that way instead. Taking her chance to escape, she bolts off for the exit.
“Zack! She’s running!” he declares.
“Out the door?” the other asks.
“Yeah!”
The two escape the battlefield the way they came, to the outcry of confused and frustrated Wutaian soldiers, and out the double doors. Now that they’re back on the open road, they catch sight of the sneaky girl rushing off into the forest and give chase.
However, as soon as they’re back in the cover of the foliage, the girl they were chasing stops short in the middle of a small clearing. She finally turns around to face them, but now they see she has a white fox mask over her face. Her clothes, though, are a familiar green martial gi fitting for a ninja-in-training and a yellow headband that would otherwise stand out if they weren’t hiding in greenery.
“Yuffie!” Zack greets her with a relieved grin. “You’re Yuffie, right?”
The little girl with the mind of a teen grumbles to herself under her breath. It looks like the jig is up. She slips off the mask and tosses it aside, but still looks mad at them.
“What the heck are you two doing here? Stay out of Wutai’s affairs!” she snarls, as feisty as ever. Though her voice was always pretty high-pitched, it seems being in this tiny body, she sounds cuter than ever.
Cloud scoffs back and rests a fist against his hip. “You’re one to talk. What’s the big idea, dropping a smokescreen on your own troops?”
“I’ll do what I want, thank you! Besides, if I hadn’t, your sorry asses woulda been caught and jailed!”
“Not the first time. And unlike before, I’m more than capable of escaping.”
“Not the point!” she snaps back, “What are you guys trying to pull, huh? You think it’s that easy to win people over? You’re still dressed like the enemy!”
He raises an eyebrow. “Even then, you know we’re not. Can’t you just spread the word? You are someone in an important position, aren’t you?”
She stomps her foot. “Shut up! You don’t know what’s been happening here, so you don’t get to tell me what! And you!” She also points a threatening finger at Zack, who flinches still. “You’re the bigger jerk here!”
“I-I am?” he asks, his hands raised in surrender.
“Yeah, you are!” She stomps up and shakes an indignant fist in his face. “If it weren’t for you, Fort Tamblin wouldn’t have fallen! And yet you dare show your face here again!”
Zack freezes up and grows sober immediately. He also goes quiet as the girl proceeds to lay some verbal assault on him, to which he can’t find it in him to fend off.
“I could forgive you for messing with me back then. I was just a dumb kid who didn’t know what was really happening.” There’s a real intense fire burning in her eyes. “But this fort was the last one that fell before my dumb dad gave in and surrendered.”
He hangs his head in shame. “…I’m sorry. Really.”
“You think saying it now makes up for anything!? Wutai is a freakin’ tourist trap now!”
“…”
“Argh! I’m so pissed off. Everything just sucks right now!” Yuffie stomps off to stew to herself some more. “Of all the times I have to be stuck in, it had to be this one. And I’m back to being a kid again! What the heck am I supposed to do? I still haven’t found Sonon…”
Cloud asks, “You’re still looking for him? Isn’t he one of your elite soldiers? You would know where he’d be, wouldn’t you?”
She whips back around with an indignant frown. “What, you think I’d be babysitting him everywhere? Of course not!”
As tempted as he is to comment how it’s supposed to be the reverse, he refrains. “Ah… right.”
“And mind you, I only met him for the first time when we went on that infiltration mission to Midgar, the one where we were gonna find Ruby and the rest of you. Before that, I wouldn’t know where he’d be. And in a memory this far back, he probably wouldn’t even be elite anything yet.”
“I see.” He makes his own contemplative look. “Well, that’s tough. I was hoping we could find you both together and get through this trial real quick…”
“Ugh!” She turns away again, grumbling to herself. “I hate this ‘trial’ so much! How many times do I have to relive this awful memory? Can I at least get a hint about what I’m supposed to do, ya old bag!?”
That last complaint catches him off-guard. “Huh?”
“I can’t fight like this, I don’t know where Sonon is, and I can’t even swipe the Leviathan materia from my old man! He even told his guards to keep me away from him for some reason! That coward! If he was really all about honor and dignity, he’d let me challenge him mano-a-mano for it! I’ll take him out even as a nine-year-old!”
Cloud stares at her in surprise. “Yuffie, what’s this about some ‘old bag’?”
“I dunno…” She turns back to him looking very upset and troubled. “After I fell into the planet, I ended up waking up somewhere really dark and there was this voice that spoke to me. It sounded like an older woman, but I didn’t see anyone. Or anything, it was all pitch black. She told me about some kind of ‘trial’ I had waiting ahead and that I had a particular mission to complete for me to pass it.”
He blinks in surprise. “You’ve already been approached by your Summon? Who was it?”
“If I knew, I woulda found the right materia to call her! But like I said, I didn’t see anyone.”
“Huh…” He folds his arms. “So what’s this mission you have?”
“To find Sonon and ‘save’ him, whatever that means.” She also cringes at the thought. “What the heck is that? Is he gonna be in trouble again and I have to get him out of it? As if I don’t do that enough anyway! I told him to be his own character, dammit!”
“…”
“I guess by your clueless looks, you don’t have any idea where he is either, huh?”
“Nope.”
Yuffie swings off in the direction of the open road beyond this patch of forest. “Then, I’m outta here. You guys get out while you still have the chance.”
“Huh? Hey, wait! Where are you going?”
She glances back. “I’m gonna keep looking for him, of course! Isn’t that the whole reason I’m stuck here?”
“Then let us come with you!”
She shakes her head furiously. “No way! After your whole public stunt earlier, both Wutai and Shinra are gonna be on your case! I don’t have time to cover for you!”
“Yuffie, that’s not what I…” Before he can stop her, she runs off again. “Hey!”
Just as he’s gonna give chase, though, Cloud hears Zack call to him. “…Hey, Cloud.”
“Huh?” He whips back around.
By now, Zack has grown pretty quiet as he’d been thinking back on his old days in Soldier and all that he’d done against Wutai following the war. In the end, the ceasefire went through, but the terms were an unconditional surrender of all of the captured towns and forts that Shinra had acquired over the course of those years, which ultimately resulted in a completely broken country that more or less had to comply with Shinra’s whims. As expected, not everyone from Wutai was willing to take that lying down. Some of their own elite guard took matters into their own hands, formed a group known as the Crescent Unit, and launched a series of attacks on Midgar and Soldier for the next couple years – that is, until Zack himself finished off every known member of that unit. Not that he went and killed them all; but those few stragglers who didn’t die certainly went missing since he last saw them. At the time, it was just another job he had to do. He really was just some guy they called to clean up the war’s leftovers – and in hindsight, as much as he didn’t regret joining Soldier, stuff like that was one of those things that he didn’t really like about it. But hey, that’s war.
Now, he comes back out of his thoughts and gives Cloud a rather wistful look in his eyes. “I know we’re not really supposed to get involved in their trials and all, but isn’t there anything we can do for Wutai? I really don’t want to leave things like the way they are.”
“…” Cloud looks like he’s about to answer, but on second thought, he isn’t sure either.
Zack hangs his head again. “She’s right, you know. I had no business taking down this fort that happened to be the last of their forces. If it hadn’t fallen so fast, maybe things would have turned out different.”
“Zack…” He rubs his head and makes a sigh. “Who really knows what would’ve happened. It’s not like Shinra would have ever given up and gone home either. Besides, we’re really only here to find Yuffie and Sonon and help them pass the trial. I dunno if ‘saving’ Wutai is a part of it, or if it can even be done.”
“Yeah…”
“Anyway, come on. We need to catch up with Yuffie. She can’t have gotten too far.”
“Right.”
Zack pulls himself back to his feet and the two hurry out onto the open road after her. But while normally, Cloud could easily track down the little kid especially with his enhanced senses, something else catches their attention first. Out of nowhere, the ground begins to tremble and shake, not quite like an earthquake, but more like something large and heavy has just landed somewhere around them. And when Cloud and Zack turn to look off the rocky bluff, they’re disturbed to find one very big and very angry Summon has popped in out of nowhere, uncomfortably near a certain Shinra camp set up at the base of the mountain.
“What the hell? Ifrit?” Cloud gasps. “Barret didn’t come with us, though.”
“It’s not Barret! Ifrit showed up back then too! I had to fight him off by myself!” Zack explains.
“What?”
“Dammit. Knew this was gonna happen at some point. He’s attacking our base camp!”
“Uh…” Cloud pauses. “Well, if he’s attacking Shinra, then shouldn’t we leave him? Someone from Wutai must have called him.”
But Zack shakes his head and grits his teeth in frustration. “It wasn’t the Wutai soldiers. We had our own problems with some deserters at the time…”
“Deserters?”
“Let’s go, Cloud! We have to stop him!”
“What? Why?”
But before Cloud can get more answrers, Zack leaps off the bluff and races down the rocky cliffs to challenge the towering fiery threat below.
“Wait, Zack! What are you doing!?” Cloud yells and chases after him.
Before he gets too far out of earshot, he also yells back, “Sephiroth’s gonna be there too!”
He doesn’t need to say another word. Like that name were some kind of trigger in of itself, Cloud jumps right into action. He zips on down, quick as the wind falling down a slope, and catches up with Zack as the two rush into the campsite.
“Director Lazard!? Are you alright!?” Zack calls out.
Ifrit has stomped pretty far in such a short time that some troops that had been standing guard immediately scatter as he comes their way. By the time the two ex-Soldiers arrive to face off with him, the camp has been abandoned in a hurry. All that remain upon the scorched earth are just the burnt remains of some tents and a dead firepit – and them alone to face off with the infernal deity.
“Dammit!” Zack turns to face the towering monster. “It had to have been those guys…”
“Zack, what’s the plan?” Cloud asks. “When is Sephiroth gonna show?”
“Uh… I dunno. I stalled for a bit against him, and then he just showed up.”
Ifrit roars to the heavens and blasts the surrounding area with his infernal flames, blocking off any exit they may have had. However, just as they’re ready to lay a counterattack, Ifrit is struck by a single slash from behind. He roars again in pain and takes a heavy tumble, stirring up rock and dust as he crashes into the dirt.
“What the…?” Cloud mutters under his breath.
Zack isn’t surprised, though. He wordlessly watches the beast slowly fade away into green ether and turns toward the direction where the slash had come. Even before the dust clouds settle, he can make out the shadowy figure of a man wielding a very long sword.
“There he is,” Zack mumbles back.
The two remain on guard as Sephiroth steps out into view to survey the damage. He’s looking just like how they remember, especially that stone-cold look in his eyes. According to this memory’s timeframe, he should be several years younger, and yet that simple display of power is telling enough that he is no pushover regardless of age. What is surprising, though, is that he doesn’t seem to have come alone. There’s another man with neatly combed blond hair and glasses, well dressed in green, who is walking beside him.
“…In other words, no sight of the recent deserters or their leader in question?” the latter man asks, as if they were in the middle of a casual conversation.
Sephiroth shakes his head. “It’s as if they all mysteriously vanished as soon as I approached. Seems like Genesis and his forces have grown wise to our movements. Rather than face me himself, he’s taken up some underhanded tactics… Shame it’s come to this, but even I can’t reliably pin down their intentions.”
“That’s unfortunate.” The other man gives a sigh and pinches at the bridge of his nose to assuade the incoming headache. “At the worst possible timing too. With both Angeal and Zack missing, we can only assume the worst…”
However, just as he says so, a strangely familiar voice calls out to them: “Director Lazard! You’re okay!”
“Hm?” Now the man in green turns his way and gets hit by another shock out of the blue. “Zack? Is that you?”
Zack, followed by a still wary Cloud, rushes over to greet them. Despite everything that’s transpired so far, the former is rather glad to see him – especially in the way where he’s still himself and not yet turned into a copy of someone else.
Lazard blinks again just to be sure. “It is you! Where have you been? And have you seen Angeal?”
Zack shakes his head. “No, sorry. I was hoping I’d catch him around here, but it’s like he’s just gone.”
“Even you, huh. Weird. I always thought that Angeal wouldn’t let you off your leash.”
“Uh…” He rubs his head with a sheepish grin. “Let’s just say I’ve been off of my leash for a while.” Getting back on track, he also asks, “But really? You guys haven’t seen him either?”
Sephiroth replies coolly, “I told the director already, but he’s been missing since the raid on the fort began. I initially believed he was with you, since you both went missing, but it seems like you two have parted ways at some point?”
Zack scratches his head. “I… don’t know, actually. I just haven’t seen him anywhere.”
He looks a bit troubled to hear that and turns away to deliberate further to himself. “Strange…”
Lazard pauses, looking unsure if he wants to bring it up, but decides he has to clear the air. “By the way, I just received a report not long ago about your activity at the fort, and sorry to say, it brings some concerns.”
“Eh?”
“Not only did the raid have to proceed without you, the moment your fellow Soldiers found you again, they said you got into a fight with them?” Lazard raises an eyebrow. “Any particular reason?”
Zack flinches. “Um…” He looks around nervously and passes an expectant glance toward Cloud, as if looking for some kind of excuse.
“What are you looking at me for?” the other guy asks, not having any of it.
Zack turns back to the director with an apologetic look. “Sorry, Director. I was just… keeping this rookie company. We were gonna go on the raid as planned, but ran into some complications and had to duck out for a bit. We’re alright, though.”
Now that Lazard notices, he also gives Cloud a suspect look. “Who is this? Are you in Zack’s unit? I don’t remember sending anyone like you, though.”
Cloud returns him an indignant frown of his own. “You don’t recognize me?”
“No. Should I?”
Cloud blinks in surprise. All this time that they’ve been traveling around these different memories, he’d gotten used to hearing from random civilians how they broke the usual chronology and heard news of what was going on in the present, especially anything to do with Ruby and her friends. But maybe things work a bit differently here? Wutai was always this isolated place from the rest of the world anyway.
Zack quickly comes up with a cover for him, “Uh, don’t mind him. He sometimes doesn’t know what he’s talking about. The Soldier treatment kinda messed with his head and all. Part of why we had to duck out for a bit.”
Cloud fires back an annoyed glare to be the target of his excuses, but plays along and offers an awkward apologetic bow himself. “Uh… right. Sorry, sir. Don’t know where that came from.”
“Hmm.” Nonetheless, with all the chaos that had been happening thus far, Lazard is not in the mood to dig into unnecessary details at this time. He turns back to Zack and moves on, “In any case, since this is your first-time offense, I’ll let it slide. At least I can pretend that you were busy looking for Angeal… But keep in mind, Zack. If something like this happens again, I won’t be able to cover for you.”
Zack bows his head too. “Yes, sir. Sorry about that.”
Lazard lets off a sigh and turns back to Sephiroth. “At least we got one of the cases settled. But regarding Angeal’s disappearance…”
Finally, after what seems like a little while, Sephiroth returns from his thoughts. He replies to the director, “We don’t have enough info, so we’ll have to get to that some other time. For now, leave these two with me.” He turns toward the other two again, who immediately go on guard, though he doesn’t look particularly concerned despite the circumstances. Still, his words hang coldly in the air, “Though you may be willing to look the other way, I don’t take lightly to Soldiers that run off on their own. Someone should exact some necessary discipline.”
Lazard nods along, unwilling to argue with the cool-headed general with a hidden streak of vengeance. “Alright. I’ll be heading back to base shortly, so you know where to find me. Oh, and Sephiroth?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t be too hard on the new recruits. They should still be in fighting shape in case we need them again.”
“Understood.”
With that coy remark, Lazard takes his leave. Now that they’re alone with Sephiroth of all people, Cloud and Zack grow nervous, unsure if they’re really just going to be treated as “new recruits” or something else entirely. And yet, Sephiroth chooses to turn off again to stare at the towering pagoda in the far distance. It’s so tall that it’s visible even from the base of the mountains out here.
After a rather tense silence, Sephiroth casually speaks up, “…Strange that Fate would bring the three of us together on this land.”
“Huh?”
He turns back to them with an ominously devious-looking smile and speaks with a tone as if taunting him, “How goes the search for your friends so far, Cloud? Come any closer to finding Ruby yet?”
Cloud immediately snaps to attention and feels a cold chill run through him as if those words struck him like frost. But rather than let fear take over, he doubles down and calls upon rage to flare up in its stead. Baring his teeth like fangs, he swings his blade forward and lunges at Sephiroth.
“Wait, Cloud!” Zack cries.
Sephiroth quickly meets Cloud’s blade with his own in a sharp ting of their clash. Despite being his younger self, Sephiroth is no less experienced to handle a hardened fighter like him, even with the blessings of a certain wolf deity. The scuffle doesn’t last even a moment. Sephiroth simply deflects Cloud’s flurry of swings and jumps out of the way, even leaping back beside where Zack stands.
Sephiroth remains as cool as ever and explains matter-of-factly, “Cloud, there’s no need to fight. You know this is just a reproduction of a memory. Even if you would defeat me here, it would have no bearing on the present. This is not my true body, after all.”
“Damn you…” Cloud’s grip on his sword tightens, but in his frustration, he has to back off. “Where’s the real you, then?”
“That’s classified.”
“Shut up! What the hell are you doing here? Trying to get in our way again?”
“Hmm.” He smiles at the thought as if to entertain it, but shakes his head. “As tempting as it may be, no. As with the nature of these Summon Trials, what you see before you is but a piece of the greater design. I am a character with a certain role to fill, so to speak.”
“What are you talking about? You definitely know way more than everyone else here.”
“Informed, yes, as given the nature of the Lifestream. But I have no particular ambitions as the man who once dropped Meteor on the planet.” He brings a hand forward to his chest and admits frankly, “You see, I am the ‘Sephiroth’ that was once present for this particular event, but unlike most others, I am not bound by any restrictions to follow its exact course.”
Cloud narrows his eyes in disbelief. “What?”
Sephiroth takes a look down at his own hand as he continues musing aloud, “Strange, isn’t it? How we can be a part of a history that only exists outside of the true timeline that the present world must follow, one deigned to serve the will of its creator. What does it mean to be such an ephemeral existence? To be a piece in the will of a greater creator?” He slowly clasps his hand up, now with a somewhat wistful expression. “If so, do we not have any will of our own…?”
“…”
He then makes a calm smile and lowers his hand again. “Perhaps this is the ultimate question that the entity formerly known as Ruby Liu seeks to answer. How far has she come to an answer, I wonder?”
Cloud growls. “Don’t you dare bring her up again.”
“On that thought…” He also looks back toward Zack and his smile fades. He even eyes him suspiciously. “How you came to be here is another matter entirely.”
Zack blinks. “Huh? Me?”
“…” Unfortunately, Sephiroth isn’t in the mood to divulge very much. He instead turns to Cloud again and returns to his coy smirk. “In any case, I’m sure you have more important matters to attend to; namely, how your two ninja friends are doing?”
Cloud snaps back, “No! Leave them alone!”
“Relax. I’m not aiming for them. In fact, I’ll be happy to lead you to them. They’ve been having trouble coming to meet one another so far, so they could use some help.”
Zack asks cautiously, “You even know where they are?”
“I’ve been keeping an eye out.” Sephiroth looks off the other way down the coastline to the south. “Try the beaches over there. Crossing the edge of the scene will lead you to the relevant memory.”
Cloud still watches him like a hawk, but he’s taking some slower breaths to try to calm himself down. “What’s gonna be down there?”
“Go see for yourself.”
Cloud scowls back, but says nothing more. As always this man is as clear as polished mud.
“I’ll continue to look out for more developments, but I won’t interfere with your friends’ trials from here on out. I only have my part to play, after all.”
“…”
Sephiroth turns away again, meaning to take his leave. Before he goes, he passes one more glance back toward Zack. “Oh, one more thing… Zack?”
“Huh?” the other guy replies.
Sephiroth narrows his eyes in suspicion. “You’d better watch yourself. The Gods are watching.”
Zack blinks and raises an eyebrow. “The Gods…?”
With that foreboding warning, he walks off to disappear into the foliage once more and out of sight. Now at a loss for words, Cloud and Zack watch him go and then turn to each other, each one as lost as the other. At least for now, it doesn’t look like Sephiroth is interested in getting involved. This is just a “reproduction” for the Summon Trial, so it wouldn’t matter if he did anything within the confines of this memory or the next anyway. Still, Cloud can’t settle down at the thought that he’s been watching them all along. What does he know? Why has he just been waiting all this time? Why hasn’t he even approached Zack if he knew he was there too?
“Cloud,” Zack calls to him.
“Huh?” Cloud snaps out of his thoughts.
Zack looks off for the edge of the scene where the white light obscures the rest of the land. “Sephiroth said we’d find someone if we went down that way, right? You think that’s where Yuffie went?”
“…” Cloud finally returns his blade to his back. “Only one way to find out. Let’s go.”
“Right.”
Without being bogged down by further questions, the two hurry off that way. With bated breath, they take a leap of faith as they rush into the mysterious white beyond.
~
It’s a rightful piece of havoc over on this side of the island too. While Fort Tamblin was one of the last standing strongholds of Wutai’s military, a great deal of their forces had to be called away to another site, an amphibious assault from the beach near the capital. This was not the first of many such waves, but it would be the last of its kind. Throughout the war, Shinra opted to send wave after wave of attacks on various towns and sites across Wutai to draw the attention of the main enemy forces as they likewise dispatched smaller groups of Soldier to systematically eradicate fort after fort until only one major site was left standing. And then came the last round. By this point in the war, the remaining troops that Wutai summoned here were made up of rather young able men, some of which were still teenagers, were called out to the front lines, only to suffer a massacre for no just cause. No particular people of note from either side were ever present during this final battle. After all, for Shinra, it was just a display of the strength of Shinra’s latest from their Weapons Development division to crush any remnant resistance that this enemy nation would even dare to face. It was also a useful distraction as they sent in a much smaller group to infiltrate the capital of Wutai to urge the governing officials right to their faces to cut their losses and end the war.
Now that they’ve arrived in this memory, Cloud and Zack find what looks to be the ruins of the great battle. Even with a beautiful evening sun setting on the horizon, it’s no consolation to such a terrible sight. Bodies strewn about on the battlefield from both sides with only a small handful of mechs damaged or put out of commission. Ironically, as it was the leader of Weapons Development who was in charge of this attack, not a single Soldier was called in for it. If they had been, there might not have been as many downed Shinra troopers, but the results for Wutai’s side would have been the same brutal destruction.
Cloud looks around, trying his best not to stare at all the carnage, but try as he might, it’s hard to avoid them. But what concerns him more now is that there’s no Yuffie in sight. Where did she go? And where did Sephiroth really lead them?
“Hey, what’s going on over there?” Zack asks, pointing a finger. “Is that another camp?”
“Huh?”
Down the coastline there looks to be a certain Wutaian camp that had been set up, but it too is smoking and in ruins. Without missing a beat, the two hurry off to get a closer look, but take care to hide behind some nearby rocky shelf so they won’t be spotted. Now that they see, though, it’s an even more worrysome scene. There are plenty of bodies are strewn about here as well, but while the earlier ones were all combatants downed in battle, these people appear to be non-fighters – medics and supporting staff – who were mercilessly gunned down all the same. Even now there are several huge prototype Death Machines that roam around the site as if searching for any remaining stragglers.
By some miracle, though, not everyone here is dead yet. There are also several of such machines that have been broken, smashed apart through blunt force. But the battle is almost over. Just three other machines present have surrounded a particular spot in the back of the camp and are ready to unload their guns.
Without a single word uttered, the two ex-Soldiers launch a synchronized attack from the shadows. Cloud and Zack blitz right through the crowd of war machines, moving so fast that they almost look like they basically flash-stepped on by. And before the machines could even register the new threats, they all explode in their own burning heaps. The two even swing their swords in victory onto their backs together.
Zack rushes in and tosses aside some scraps to find what they had surrounded. It’s a boy with ruffled hair, looks to be a teenager, who is also equipped in light armor and wields an intricately designed staff. He quickly digs the poor kid out of the trash heap. Though they were quick to remove the mechs, the boy’s body is battered, bloodied, and burnt, probably from before they arrived.
“Cloud! He’s still alive!”
“What?”
Zack flips the kid over and Cloud gasps. “Wait, this kid… Sonon!?”
“Sonon?” Zack blinks and his jaw drops too. “Wait, this is him!? The guy Yuffie talked about?”
“It looks like him.” Cloud hurries to cast a quick Curaga on the boy and restores him to full health. “Hey, Sonon! Can you hear me?”
The once battered boy now stirs awake again and blinks slowly. “…Ugh. Huh? Cloud…?”
Cloud lets off a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness. We got here just in time.”
“What are you doing here? Is this a dream…?” The young Sonon turns to see another unfamiliar face with him. Though Zack offers a friendly smile, the boy instead freaks out as soon as he sees that uniform. He immediately jumps back to his feet and hops a safe distance away, going on guard with his staff forward. “S-Soldier!?”
Zack throws up his hands. “H-hey! Whoa! I’m not with Shinra, not anymore!”
Sonon narrows his eyes in suspicion. “Not anymore? But you’re dressed like one!”
Zack drops them and nods back with an awkward frown. “Yeah, I’ve been stuck with this uniform for a while. But I swear, I’m not with them! Cloud and I come from a different time!”
“A different time…?” He turns back to Cloud, growing confused. “What is he talking about?”
Cloud shakes his head. “It’s a long story. Don’t worry, he’s one of us.”
Zack offers that friendly smile again. “We’re here to help you and Yuffie! You want us to defend Wutai? We can do that too!”
“At least we’ll try something…”
But now that Sonon stares hard at Zack’s face, he gets an odd feeling that he’s seen this face somewhere before. As soon as he connects the dots, though, he gets horrified and incensed once more. “Wait! I remember you!”
Zack blinks and his smile fades. “Uh, you do?”
“You’re the one who took down Fort Tamblin! Zack Fair!”
That shakes him a little and he feels a cold sweat come on. “Oh… you mean that.”
Sonon feels a nerve pop in his head. He now gives him a death glare and snarls at him, “You… bastard. How dare you show up again!”
“Huh? Sonon!” Cloud calls him out.
Despite being much smaller than the other two, the boy is just as quick on his feet as the grown man he would be in the present. Before Cloud can stop him, he charges at Zack and starts swinging in a rapid flurry. The poor guy just barely avoids the hits, but even as he keeps dodging and blocking, he hesitates to draw his own weapon. He doesn’t dare strike back anyway, even if the kid is hitting pretty hard with that metal bowstaff.
“It was your fault that we had to surrender! And you’re back to ruin us again!? You should’ve just stayed dead!” Sonon tears viciously into him as he swings in a fury.
“…!”
Though he was already stung by the physical hits, those words hit Zack even harder as he has no defense for them. In that moment of hesitation, Sonon takes his chance. He leaps at him with a charged-up power hit and for once, Zack doesn’t even try to block.
“Sonon! Stop!” Cloud rushes in to get between the two and blocks the staff with his sword. “What are you doing? Calm down, we can explain!”
Sonon is thrown back again, but jumps into proper battle stance, but he barks back, “Outta the way, Cloud! He’s Soldier! You can’t trust those guys!”
“No, listen to me! We both left Shinra long ago! He’s an old friend!”
He blinks in shock and stares. “What? He’s your friend…?”
“Yeah. Like I said, it’s a long story.” Having said that, Cloud proceeds to explain, “The point is, we left Shinra after a terrible incident at a town called Nibelheim five years ago, from the present. We went on a mission there with Sephiroth, but at some point he went mad and destroyed the town. Have you ever heard about it?”
“…” The kid casts a quick glance aside as he recalls and nods back. “I don’t think so. Five years ago, Wutai was still busy recovering. We didn’t get much outside news.”
“Well, that’s not too surprising. It was something that Shinra didn’t want to talk about, but since then Sephiroth went missing, so they still had to report something.”
“He went missing?”
“Yeah.” Cloud nods back. With a completely straight face, he also admits, “Because I killed him.”
Sonon is shaken up a bit to hear it. “W-what?”
“I don’t even know how I managed, but I did.” He then folds his arms, looking off as he recalls, “But he didn’t disappear. Now the guy we all faced off is some freak of nature that’s just out of this world.”
The boy keeps staring at him in disbelief, but still listens attentively.
Cloud shakes his head and drops them again, getting back on course. “Anyway, since that incident, Shinra later came by to try to cover it up. Zack and I were captured and got held in a Shinra lab for those five years…” He hesitates to go too far in depth, though. “Zack eventually broke us out and we went on the run. We had to go our separate ways for a while, though, so he wasn’t with me when I joined Avalanche.”
“…”
Cloud gives a tired sigh and tries pleading the guy’s case. “So, please, calm down. He’s not the enemy. We don’t have to fight.”
However, as much as Sonon would like to trust his word, he can’t quite let go of these old war grudges. He still keeps a wary glare on the other man as he asks him again, “Cloud, when you were still working for Shinra, did you ever fight in the war?”
“No. It was over by the time I joined.”
He narrows his eyes in suspicion. “Then you wouldn’t know what this asshole did to us. It wasn’t just the fort. He took out a lot of my fellow soldiers too even after the war. Any last resistance that Wutai showed, Shinra sent him to crush it. Every time. They didn’t even need Sephiroth.”
Cloud is a bit taken aback. “What? That can’t be. Zack is strong as hell, but he wouldn’t go that far…” Now that he turns back to the guy, though, the latter has gone quiet and fallen back into his depressive slump from earlier. “…Uh. Zack?”
After an awkward silence, Zack looks back up and nods back slowly. “Sorry, Cloud. He’s right.”
“…”
Sonon bares his teeth. “This is why you can’t trust them. They may seem friendly on the surface, but there’s no length that Soldier wouldn’t go to serve Shinra. They’re just dirty lapdogs! Scum, through and through!”
Zack raises his hands up to plead his case. “W-wait, please hear me out! I know I did some nasty things while I was in Soldier, but that was just part of the job. I didn’t really want to crush Wutai or anything! I have nothing against you guys!”
“You didn’t have to take all those missions and kill my fellow men! But you did anyway! All so you could be promoted, huh!?”
“I… guess I didn’t have to, but…” His voice drifts off as he struggles to explain that part.
Sonon spits on the ground in his direction. “I don’t care what excuses you have. Once an enemy of Wutai, always an enemy. You’re not getting away with just saying sorry. If you really want to make up for it, you should end your own life already.”
Cloud cuts in again, “Sonon! Don’t even go there-”
But Zack actually cuts him off instead, “Cloud, it’s okay. Let me handle this.”
“Huh?”
Even with all the sympathies he can offer, Zack still tries to argue his case. “Look, man. Even if I didn’t take the missions, someone else would have. Since I was the one who took down the fort, it was my responsibility to see the rest through.”
“So you admit it! You were going to get rid of every one of us!”
He shakes his head. “No, no! I mean it was the least I could do, to give them one last honorable fight! Those guys were all willing to die for their cause!”
“Of course they were! They were defending Wutai’s lost honor! And you destroyed them without mercy!”
By now, even Zack is getting impatient. “You think it would’ve been better if I just scrapped with them and then let them leave? I may not have anything to do with Wutai, but even I know that’s not what they would have wanted!” He looks away, feeling his own heart be crushed, and clenches his fists. “I learned it the hard way the first time. I tried to let the guy live, but he decided to kill himself.”
Though Sonon isn’t particularly surprised, Cloud grows disturbed. The latter asks further, “He… killed himself?”
“Yeah. It was a matter of honor for them. If I didn’t lay the finishing blow, they couldn’t go home anyway.” He looks back to them with a solemn frown. “So from that day on, I swore I’d deal the final blow every time. If they had to lay down their lives for something, then at least it was for the good fight against their long-time enemy.”
“Zack…” Cloud’s voice drifts off. As hardened a soldier as he figured himself to be, even he didn’t realize to what extent that his old friend had been. Though he himself wouldn’t have gone to the same extent, he also can’t help but feel a bit more respect for someone he already looked up to. After all, what is a guy to do when put in a situation like that, where some enemy forces just have it out for him and would die trying to kill him?
Meanwhile, Sonon has gone quiet too, but not out of sympathy. After a moment to reconsider the facts, he then admits, “…If that was the reason, then I can understand.”
Zack relaxes a bit. “Glad you do. I mean it, I really don’t have anything against you guys or Wutai.”
“But it doesn’t change the fact that you were responsible for killing them. Even when they did the final blow, they died because of you.”
And then, Zack returns to his depressive slump, unable to argue there.
Instead, Cloud scolds him, “Sonon, enough! Zack just gave the reason why! Lay off him already!”
“I heard him!” Sonon argues, “But look what happened! Wutai fell and we haven’t ever recovered from the war! This government is only a ‘provisional’ one because we’re still figuring out what to do about this nation, for crying out loud!”
“Yeah, but…” Though his voice drifts off. He isn’t sure what to say to that either.
Sonon even winces from his own heartbreak. “I know it isn’t personal. It never is. That’s just war. The people who start them aren’t the ones who finish them. I doubt many of the soldiers on the ground that fought for Shinra and died had anything against Wutai either. We were all just sent to the front lines and had to fight because we were told we had to. We all had something or somone to protect. Everything was a matter of life and death.”
“…”
He turns his glare back on Zack. “If you really care that much about a soldier’s honor, then you’d understand. All those lives you took by your own hands, they’re scars you have to carry with you even in death.” He also raises his staff up in his face again. “If you won’t take your own life, then fine, I can’t make you. But at least you should never forget the pain you’ve dealt us.”
Zack doesn’t back up this time or look away anymore. He nods back with his own firm frown. “I know. I have carried them… even in death. I’ve been carrying them all this time.”
That last bit comes as a surprise to Sonon. He blinks and raises an eyebrow. “Sorry? What do you mean ‘in death’? You’re still here.”
“In a way, yeah. But for the record, I’m not living out my days on the surface either. Since we were on the run from Shinra, they gunned me down for resisting. At least they spared Cloud, so I have no regrets.” He looks down at his own hands. “I don’t know how I’m still around, but all I know is that the only place I can be so far is in the Lifestream.” He then closes them up with a determined look on his face. “I’ve had my life and lived it the way I wanted it: fighting for honor and freedom, to protect the people I love and care about.”
Sonon now stares at him in disbelief too, unsure of what to make of all that. Then again, it is true that they all fell into the Lifestream. This would be the only way that people of now could meet with people of the past, after all.
As soon as Zack said it, Cloud is struck with a pang in his heart. He remembers their last moments all too well. It should have been a memory he could never forget, but well, he had his own problems recovering from mako poisoning.
Zack looks back to the boy with very earnest eyes. “I get it, man. I really do. If I were in your shoes, I’d hate me too. But the war was only ever a matter between Wutai and Shinra. The moment I was no longer useful, they had to get rid of me too. I never regretted joining Soldier in the first place, but I never regretted leaving them either. I wouldn’t know if it was really ‘worth it’ or not in the end, but at least I know I wouldn’t have come out the other end the same guy as I have become. And if you ask me, that’s what really matters.”
“…” Now Sonon turns away again, diving back into contemplation of his own. He does still have one other question, though. “…So you died fighting Shinra? Is that the whole truth?”
Zack nods and plants a hand over his chest. “Cross my heart and hope to die… or even disappear out of existence.”
Cloud agrees, “It’s true. I was there during his last moments. Wouldn’t have survived if he didn’t give his all.”
But Sonon now grows even more concerned. “But for the longest time, I was told that he died at the hands of Wutai’s forces. I never got a straight answer from my uppers about it, but that the ‘Zack Fair’ case was over and settled. So for a while there, I thought we actually avenged our people.”
Now the other two blink in surprise. Cloud narrows his eyes in suspicion. “That’s what they told you?”
Sonon frowns, but nods back. “It wouldn’t have been great for morale if they said the truth, that he died trying to fight Shinra. Almost feels like our guys laid down their lives for no good reason…”
Zack then insists, “It wasn’t for no reason. They all died to protect Wutai’s honor, like they said they would.”
“…”
He then offers forward the same hand he had planted against his chest. “Sonon. I know we may have been enemies in the past, but I’m not the same guy from before. Cloud and I are here to help you and Yuffie. Tell me what I can do for you or Wutai and I’ll do it, no question. I don’t care what enemies I make along the way, I’m still going to keep going the way I want. And that’s fighting for my friends.” He also passes that resolved look to Cloud. “And my friends’ family too, of course.”
Cloud blinks, but he quickly catches on and makes a subtle smirk himself. “Yeah… That’s who we’ve all been fighting for now, huh.”
Sonon looks so lost that he has yet to respond, so Zack decides to get really serious. He even tries something he never thought he would ever do, but it may be worth a shot. He now steps back a bit and drops to his knees before the boy, startling him a bit too, and lowers his head in a complete kowtow.
“H-hey! What are you…?” Sonon asks, growing disturbed.
“Sonon, please. I’m begging you. I’m not even asking for forgiveness or anything. I just want a chance to make it up to you. To Yuffie. And to the rest of Wutai. I’ve already laid down my life and was ready to accept my death, but now I’ve been given another chance at it, I can’t let it pass by. I have to do something. I want to help, so give me a chance.”
“Zack, you…” By now, Cloud’s getting nervous for his sake. He also turns back to Sonon with an expectant look. “Sonon, come on. Don’t make me beg you too. We just need a chance.”
Though he still has some reservations about this whole confusing situation, Sonon feels the compounding effect of his own guilt and shame. He at last relents with a sigh, returns his staff to his back, and then reaches out a hand to Zack to help the guy up. “…Fine. I get it. You didn’t have to do all that, but I can see the kind of guy you really are.”
Zack blinks his eyes open and lightens up again with a relieved grin. He lifts his head and takes that hand, getting back to his feet. “Thanks, man. Glad to be of service.”
Getting back on track, Sonon’s eyes harden into focus. “Then you’d better make yourself useful. We don’t have too long before our capital falls to Shinra. After this disaster, Master Godo and his court will be meeting with the envoy from Shinra to discuss the ceasefire. We have to stop it from happening.”
Cloud’s eyes widen. “Huh? Why do we have to do that? Isn’t that just a forgone conclusion at this point?”
Zack instead raises a pumped-up fist. “Sounds good to me! What’s the plan?”
Cloud snaps back, “Wait a sec!” He turns to Sonon to ask, “What are we supposed to do? It’s not like Wutai can survive another attack from Shinra like this. You don’t expect us to keep fighting for you, do you? We don’t have time to waste either.”
“Of course not, but there’s still one last option…” The boy looks off for the towering pagoda of the capital in the distance. “We can turn this whole war around with the power of the Gods.”
“What?”
Sonon turns back to him with his own resolved expression. “I have to awaken Leviathan from his sleep. It’s my mission and the condition I need to pass the Summon Trial.”
Cloud blinks. Huh, so it wasn’t just Yuffie who was already informed. Even Sonon has come prepared, but probably wasn’t able to do much on his own just as a teen.
“At this time, only my master would have been allowed to keep that materia.” He also grimaces as he admits, “I tried to head straight to the capital before, but every time I thought I was getting close, I could never reach it. I’d cross through the edges of this memory, but end up right back on this beach…” He sighs again. “I haven’t seen Yuffie anywhere either, so I thought she might have been there too.”
Cloud then points out, “We met Yuffie just earlier. Not at the capital, though.”
“Huh?” He grows anxious. “Then where was she?”
“Fort Tamblin. Zack and I just rushed it and stopped the Soldier raid, so it should still be standing for now, but who knows how long that will hold them.”
Sonon blinks in disbelief. “Fort Tamblin? Why would she be there? She’s the shogun’s daughter. Shouldn’t she be kept safe and out of danger?”
Zack shrugs. “She doesn’t seem like the type to stay cooped up anywhere, though. She even calls herself ‘Wutai’s strongest’.”
“…” He simply nods to that. That is a very Yuffie thing.
Getting back on track, Cloud folds his arms. “So what’s the plan? Do we just rush over there and barge in? That seems like it’d cause more trouble than help.”
Sonon puts up a thinking face. “I’m not really sure, but I think we might have a card to play. But we have to first expose the traitor among our court officials.”
“Huh? Traitor?”
“There has to be one. I always thought it was suspicious that my master just gave in to Shinra’s demands. He was always against the war anyway, but would never have succumbed to the enemy even if they were on our doorstep. He has way too much gall to bow his head to anyone who doesn’t deserve it.”
“Hmm…”
Zack nods back. “So if we find this traitor and expose him, then will it be enough to convince everyone there not to sign the deal?”
Cloud doesn’t look too sure. “Even then, what’s gonna stop Shinra from forcing their hands anyway?”
“We are, of course!”
He falters a bit to that answer. “Us? What do you think we’re gonna do, take out Sephiroth?” he casually throws out as a snarky remark.
“Heck yeah! We can rush him together!”
“Zack! Don’t joke about that! He’s still strong enough to take out a Summon in one hit. Even if we stall him, it’s not like Shinra would just bend the knee.”
“What are you talking about, Cloud? You got the power of Fenrir now, and I’m Zack the Immortal! Besides, this isn’t the ‘real’ present-day Sephiroth. We totally got this!”
Cloud slumps forward. “Oh, for crying out loud… I thought we weren’t supposed to interfere with their trials? And when were you ever ‘the Immortal’?”
He shrugs. “I mean, I was supposed to die before, but I’m still around somehow. Isn’t that how being immortal is like?”
“…”
“Besides, Sonon said his mission was to awaken Leviathan, not defeat Sephiroth. And Yuffie said hers was to find and save Sonon, so that just leaves us to handle that guy!”
That catches Sonon’s interest. “Yuffie said that? But what does that mean? How would she ‘save’ me?”
Zack replies, “I dunno. That’s what she heard from her Summon. She didn’t know who it was or what it meant, though.”
“…” As much as it bothers him to try to figure it out, he decides to leave it. If they go through with this mission and succeed, the truth may reveal itself on its own. He suggests, “Then, wherever she is now, she must be trying to find materia. She would have to return to the capital at some point too. She had her secret stash hidden somewhere underground.”
Cloud nods back. “Gotcha. If you know, then you can lead us.”
“I would, but…” Sonon hangs his head. “I just can’t reach the capital. Every time I run there…”
He then raises his hand forward and calls upon the magic GUI again. “I’ll take you there. Where in the capital?”
“H-huh?” Sonon jerks back a bit when he sees the strange hologram pop out of nowhere. “What’s this?”
“It’s a power that Fenrir gave me. I’m able to access different gateways of memories throughout the Lifestream. Apparently all the Summons do.”
Sonon blinks blankly. “Really? So if Yuffie and I pass these trials, we can do that too?”
“Should be.”
Sonon keeps staring at him like he’s still lost, but nods along anyway. He informs him, “The pagoda was still used for formal meetings with foreign visitors, including the envoy who foisted that awful ceasefire deal on us. They ought to be at the top floor.”
“Got it.” Cloud returns to his holographic screen, and even though the ever persistent message warning him that he can’t interrupt the trial remains, he moves it aside and scans the menu for any relevant map data. However, something catches his eye as he explores his options: though he can’t make out a thing from the archaic language strewn throughout, he can still see the preview image of the pertinent scene and notes that it’s bright daytime. But even stranger is actually how he came to find it. “…Huh?”
“What’s up, Cloud?” Zack asks.
“It looks like this memory at the pagoda is from a different day entirely. It’s not related to this one where the battle happened.”
Sonon explains, “Yeah, it was a different day. Wutai didn’t agree to the ceasefire right away, you know.”
But Cloud shakes his head. “No, I mean…” He takes the hologram and flips it around to show them. “I had to get to this page by scrolling back in the timeline.”
“H-huh?” Now that catches him off-guard. “Back in time? But why? The deal shouldn’t have happened yet.”
“Hmm…” Cloud swings the hologram back around to give it another closer look, but still has no idea what these words are saying. He then shakes his head and leaves it be. “Either way, I got the place. Let’s get to it.”
With the specific coordinates set, he hits the button to access the particular memory in question even without having ever been there. And with a familiar-looking white magic circle enveloping them beneath their feet, the three are carried off in a flash.
~
According to official reports, the day the ceasefire would be signed and go into effect would only have come several days following the climactic battle on the coast. However, unbeknownst to most was the fact that there actually had been a secret meeting between the two sides that took place several hours before the final battle would be waged. This battle’s location and date were already public information, thanks to Shinra’s own announcement on the airwaves a whole month prior. And yet, on the same day that the battle was expected to take place, the head of Weapons Development seemingly decided on a whim to send in one of her own agents to issue a warning ahead of time. The shogun would thus be forced to meet with the envoy alone, as there was no time to call upon all the regional lords that served his court on such short notice. He was also informed that Shinra’s prized general would also join them to discuss peace, but for whatever reason, this female agent arrived with a different entourage than expected and Sephiroth himself was never even present for the entire duration. As a result of this impromptu meeting, though, the once obstinate shogun would be drained of all remaining will to fight and thus unable to go into the final battle with the dignity he wished to uphold.
Nevertheless, as if it were possible to turn back the clock, the wheel of Fate now continues to turn beyond what was once official history. The secret meeting is still taking place at the top floor of the old pagoda. The shogun and a handful of his elite guards to accompany him are seated around the hall to address the envoy from Shinra. However, despite that he would still offer some degree of courtesy to this foreign agent, the atmosphere here is incredibly tense. To the surprise of no one, this envoy has laid out the same terms as presented in their prior meeting, but this time the shogun’s answer is a silence with much more hesitant consideration than outright outrage. He even appears incredibly disturbed by something and is breaking out in a cold sweat.
The envoy is a rather tall woman in battle-ready heels who is dressed in a black armored uniform with glowing blue streaks that run down the sides. It’s a design that is awfully familiar to anyone who would be involved in Shinra’s Deepground, even at this early stage. She has short brown hair tied up in a tight bun and a beautiful complexion that belies the cold, sinister look in her eyes. And yet, she has remained smug since the start of this meeting, as if expecting to trap her target in a snare that even the likes of him wouldn’t be able to escape. She is also accompanied by her own men – two helmeted troops of similar uniform design armed with some futurisitically designed rifles to match – as well as a flying drone of some sort. Yet, it isn’t by its guns, but by its holographic display screen that it deployed just moments earlier that has managed to hound the shogun into silence.
“…In any case, as we arranged, the official meeting for the ceasefire deal will take place in three days. You have until then to make your final decision.”
Godo remains quiet, still lost in his difficult deliberations. At this point, there is little he can do. His hands have been tied. Even if he tries to call on his men to do a thorough search of the city, he doesn’t have time to tend to that mess, not when the awaited battle is coming.
However, just as the envoy gets up from her seat and addresses her men to take their leave, they’re shortly interrupted by a bright white flash out of nowhere, and from that light appears three young men, one of whom is a little younger than he would be normally.
“W-what? Who goes there!?” the envoy demands.
Godo opens his eyes wide. “Sonon!? How did you…?”
“Master Godo!” The boy hurries over and drops to one knee to greet him with a formal salute. “Sorry for the delay. I heard you may have been in trouble and rushed over as soon as possible.”
“Hm?” The envoy now turns back to the older man with a suspect glare. “One of yours? Did we not agree to meet in private?”
“…” Godo shakes his head with a grave sigh. “My apologies. I did not expect this one to arrive… or even be aware that we would be here.”
“Master Godo, what’s going on here? Why are you meeting with the Shinra agent alone?” Sonon pursues. “This isn’t the official time yet, is it?”
But to his surprise, his master is having none of it. In a way that’s almost uncharacteristic of him, Godo orders him to stay down. “Enough, Sonon! You shouldn’t be here. Leave before you cause any more trouble.”
“W-what?”
“We are at a critical juncture in this discussion. I will not have you or anyone interrupt proceedings.”
Sonon stares back at a loss for words, but hangs his head and bows respectfully. “…Yes, sir. Sorry to intrude.”
“Hmph. You really should learn to discipline your kids,” comes the cold reply from the envoy. She turns back to the other two with that same air of suspicion. “As for you two… I didn’t ask to be accompanied by Soldier. Who sent you here?”
“Huh?” Zack replies, still staring lost. “Uh, no one?”
Cloud answers and turns the interrogation on her instead, “We’re not from Soldier. Wasn’t the official ceasefire meeting supposed to take place after the big battle? Who are you and why are you here now?”
“You’re not Soldier? Then you have some nerve barging in here. This isn’t a place for civilians. Stay out of our affairs.”
“We’re definitely a part of it.” Cloud folds his arms. “We’re here to stop whatever shady agreement is happening behind closed doors. I don’t think even Sephiroth has been informed of this.”
“Oh, is that what it’s about? Hmph.” She then turns back to Godo with that smug frown from earlier. “Well, now that things have turned out like this, I can’t promise anything about what we agreed to…”
“Wait! Sera-san, let’s not jump to conclusions,” Godo instead pleads. He too gets back to his feet. “Aside from my pupil, I don’t know these people. They came in on their own.”
“But they came in with your pupil, yes? They’re clearly in cahoots.”
“Yes, well…”
“Master Godo, I can explain!” Sonon offers, still holding his hands together in salute. “These two are allies we can trust! They’re here to help us find Yuffie!”
“Sonon, I said enough!” Godo scolds him. “We will not be discussing matters around my daughter!”
“But…”
He shakes his head with a stern frown. “If you don’t stop these pointless charades, I will have no choice but to revoke you from your position and report you to your superior officer.”
“Hey,” Cloud calls out, “Don’t take it out on him. He’s just worried about you.”
“I’m aware.” Godo now turns that stern frown on him too. “However, I have not been expecting any other guests. You two must leave now.”
Cloud narrows his eyes in suspicion. “Sorry, but nothing about this scene feels like proper procedure. Have you even discussed this deal with your own officials yet?”
“I have no intention of divulging information to outsiders.”
“Even if we’re the only ones who can help you find your daughter?”
To which, Godo actually looks a bit shaken. “What are you saying? You know where she is now?”
“Not exactly, but I can always find her easily.” Cloud sets a hand on his hip and puts on his cool persona swagger. “Let’s just say I have my ways.”
The older man stares at him, unsure if he should be taking this as a good opportunity or not. This man certainly has some gall to come in unannounced on his personal grounds. Then again, they seemed to have entered the room without breaking through any doors.
“Mr. Godo,” the envoy known as Sera then rudely interrupts them. “I’d advise you think carefully about your position. If you agree to follow through with your end, then we can just pretend none of this ever happened.”
Zack then snaps back at her. “You stay out of this! Who do you think you are, deciding things even without anyone else from Shinra?”
“For your information, I do represent Shinra! My authority here supersedes anyone on this land right now and that includes even that pompous silver brat!”
“W-what?” He’s taken aback more by the fact that anyone from Shinra would ever call Sephiroth something like that.
Cloud glares at her. “You’re just an envoy. What sort of authority do you have over the leading general?”
“An envoy, yes, but one called in by the top brass of Shinra. Since that brat has been holding his heads in the clouds and not heeding direct orders, someone had to step in.”
Zack raises an eyebrow too. “Not following orders? Sephiroth? Now I know you’re lying.”
“Hmph. We’re not talking about the same thing here. You really shouldn’t have poked your nose where it doesn’t belong.” She now turns to her own men and raises a hand to instruct them. “Get rid of ’em. You have my permission to kill.”
“What!? Hey! You’re gonna silence us just for being here?”
Cloud reaches for his blade. “You don’t know who you’re messing with. Where’s Yuffie? You trying to blackmail Godo to listen to you?”
Sera shakes her head. “Dear, dear. Even as an outsider, you don’t give the shogun the proper respect he deserves?”
“That’s rich coming from you. You aren’t even following Shinra protocol. What about this ‘deal’ is legal?”
“And who are you to tell me what’s protocol? You’re not even Shinra.”
There’s just a flicker of a fire within his eyes. “I don’t need to be to know you’re a snake.”
But now that Cloud has instinctually called upon Fenrir’s own anger, as if their memories have aligned once more, he’s suddenly hit by a quick series of visions from the recent past. They’re all brief instants of back when he and the gang were captured by Shinra and held in the underground prison complex, right in the middle of the Deepground facilities. He sees his own transformation into Fenrir for the first time, the moments where he raced around and freed all his friends, including Jessie’s gang who were trapped in a different part of the complex and about to be turned into ARC victims. And of course, he remembers finding Aerith in Hojo’s lab and saving her from a similar fate. He snaps back out in a daze and stares hard at the woman now standing before him.
“…Wait. You’re the warden from the underground prison?”
That seems to get to her. She snaps back, “Who are you calling ‘warden’? I’m in a much more prestigious position, thank you!”
“Hmph. Apparently not for much longer.” He returns to being smug. “Something happened here and Shinra still couldn’t make Wutai submit, so they had to resort to the big battle to end the war, didn’t they?”
“What are you talking about? You don’t know anything! I’m not telling you either!”
“Huh? Cloud, you know this person?” Zack asks him.
He turns back to him. “Sort of. We didn’t actually meet before, but apparently Fenrir showed up and ruined her plans by busting us out of Midgar.”
“Oh.” Zack grins. “Man, that sounds like a story and a half! Mind telling me it sometime?”
“Uh, sure… if we have time.”
By now, Sera has had enough of this farce. She commands her men to open fire. “What are you waiting for? Take them out! These losers aren’t worth our time!”
“Wait! Sera-san, we don’t have to…” Godo pleads again, but he’s too late.
Yet, what would happen next isn’t a surprise to the three intruders. Before those two strangely dressed soldiers can even get their fingers on the triggers in time, Cloud reacts faster than the eye can see. The moment he draws his sword, he disappears in what seems to be an icy mist and lets fly a single slash. By the time he reappears, he’s already behind his targets. The next moment, as he lowers his blade again, the soldiers then burst into ice crystals that freeze them solid from inside out. And just like that, the fight is over.
“W-what!?” Sera squeaks in fright for once. “What happened!? These guys are supposed to be indestructible! They went through the whole treatment!”
He turns that blade on her now. “Like I said, you don’t know who you’re messing with.”
“Damn, Cloud! That was cool!” Zack cheers in the back. “Literally!”
“Grrr…” Sera is trembling a little, but more out of frustration than fear. “You guys really shouldn’t have come. I didn’t want to resort to it, but…” She turns back to Godo and barks orders even at him, “Mr. Godo! If you don’t get rid of them now, all bets are off!”
“What? Sera-san, please! Let’s just talk about this…”
“I’ve had it up to here with you Wutaians! Always gotta have someone sneaking around in the shadows! This is why we can’t trust anything you do!” She points a threatening finger. “You know the consequences. I have them just a call away…”
“Urgh…” Godo then turns to face the others with an earnest look on his face. “Gentlemen, that’s enough. Let’s not fight anymore. Please take Sonon and go. There’s nothing more to be said.”
“M-Master…” Sonon begins, but isn’t sure what to say. “What’s going on? What happened to Yuffie?”
“Nothing you need to know.” Though his tone is strict, his master gives him a look of condolences. “I’m sorry, Sonon. But the less involved you all are, the better.”
“…”
And then, like the big damn hero he always wanted to be if not for Ruby always stealing it away, Cloud takes his chance. He announces loudly, “Godo, if you know where she is right now, I can get her out of there ASAP. You have nothing to fear.”
The older man makes a troubled frown, as if he wants to trust him, but still isn’t sure. He also passes a wary glance toward Sera, who now returns a vicious glare. She also shakes her head and whips out what appears to be a radio transceiver.
“Sera-san!” Godo tries again, growing more anxious by the second.
“Say one word and she’s gone,” Sera seethes.
“Ugh…”
Wasting no time, Cloud jumps in to seize it from her, but despite not being a fighter, she’s surprisingly lithe herself when she’s not taken off-guard. She jumps back and hits some kind of remote switch in her other pocket. The next thing they know, the flying drone that was still present pulls out a gun and aims it right at Godo instead.
“What?” Even Cloud wasn’t expecting that.
“Master! Watch out!” Sonon cries.
The boy leaps in the way to block the hit, but is knocked down to the floor. Godo rushes to his side. “Sonon! Hang in there!”
With that brief distraction, Sera guns for the exit. Cloud gives chase, but the drone flies in his way before he can snag her. He easily cuts it in two and it crackles with electricity before it drops, but the sneaky Shinra agent has already leapt out the door. When he comes out after her, though, it’s like she’s suddenly vanished into thin air. He stares off the balcony and down toward the grounds. Where’d she go? She didn’t just jump off from here, right? It’s at least a few hundred meter drop!
“Cloud!” he hears Zack call him again, so he hurries back inside.
He now finds the others around Sonon, who has fallen ill. He was struck right in the heart of all places, and yet he isn’t bleeding out. Apparently that gunshot from earlier wasn’t just any bullet; it was tainted with something deadly. Or perhaps even “undeadly”.
“Ugh… augh…” the boy wheezes hoarsely, but he’s not actually in pain. Instead, it’s the opposite, he’s growing numb.
“Sonon!” Cloud rushes over to join them. “What happened?”
“I dunno, but he fell and can’t get up!” Zack replies, a little frazzled himself.
Godo looks the most somber that he’s ever been since they’ve seen him. He then turns to Cloud to ask, “You there… Cloud-shi, is it?”
“Uh, yeah?” Though tempted to ask about that “shi” honorific, he leaves it be.
“I believe you’ve come at the right time after all…” Godo then reaches a hand into a pocket hidden inside his haori jacket and draws out what appears to be a bright red materia. “As things stand, this may be our only hope for him to recover now.”
“Huh?” Cloud stares at the orb. “Is this…?”
“The Leviathan materia. I believe Sonon has been searching for it the entire time.”
He snaps to attention and now stares at him. “Godo… sir. You knew that all along and didn’t give it to him? Why?”
“Because that is not the purpose of this trial. There would be little point if I were to simply hand it over.” Godo turns back to the now unconscious boy with genuine worry. “However, now that things have come to this, we have little option left. If he merges with Leviathan’s spirit, he may be able to continue fighting, though that comes with its own risks.”
Cloud blinks, frankly shocked that of all the people so far that don’t seem to be aware of the bigger picture, Godo had been an exception. At least it kinda made sense with Sephiroth; there’s no telling what that man would do. But it seems like at least some people in these memory reproductions are way more self-aware than they come off as.
“Whatever may happen from here, I cannot guarantee that he will be stable.” He faces the other once more and with a serious plea, he asks, “Cloud-shi, when he awakens Leviathan, I will leave him and Yuffie in your capable hands.”
“But, sir…” Cloud begins, but instead cuts himself off and nods back. “Right. I’ll see what I can do.”
Without further ado, Godo brings the materia to Sonon’s chest and sets it upon him. With one hand keeping it stable, he raises his other hand forward and closes his eyes as if making a prayer himself. And just like that, the mysterious orb then begins to glow a little brighter and sink itself into the boy’s chest as it is accompanied by a dancing display of life energy that ultimately follows the orb inside. However, when Godo finishes the prayer and opens his eyes, Sonon lies still and unresponsive.
Godo lets off a dispirited sigh. “…Hmm. It seems he still needs more time.”
Cloud looks to him. “How long do we have to wait?”
“I can’t say. I’ve never had matters come to this moment before, so I have no idea where the ‘future’ may lead.”
“Hmm…” He returns to Sonon, growing just as anxious as before. “We’ll just have to see, I guess.”
“Indeed…” Now that he’s been reminded, though, Godo also moves on and mentions, “In the meantime, there is one more problem to solve. You wished to know where Yuffie is, yes?” He finally answers, “Earlier during this meeting, that Shinra agent showed me a video recording. I don’t know when exactly, but they may have captured her and taken her hostage.”
“What?” He blinks. “But we just saw her running around on her own not long ago. And then we had to jump back in time to get to this memory.”
Godo nods calmly. “I understand the structure of this particular collection of memories is askewed from the usual course, but that is also the nature of the trial at hand. Unfortunately, Yuffie may have tried to change the course of history too, so the challenges would in turn adapt to the changing climate.”
“…” He rubs his head awkwardly. “Right. So where is she now?”
Godo puts a hand to his chin with a thoughtful frown. “The video footage was unclear, but I recall their surroundings appeared to be somewhere in the mountains, but they weren’t any ordinary mountains. If I were to wager a guess, they may be keeping her somewhere in the Da-chao Mountains.”
Cloud nods back. “I know where that is. But it’s still a pretty big area. Do you have any other clues?”
“Unfortunately, no. As I said, the footage was unclear and was largely focused on Yuffie herself, with her captors all masked and in disguise.”
“Hmm.” He folds his arms. “Then I’ll just have to do an aerial sweep.”
Zack blinks. “You can do that?”
“Of course. At this point, Fenrir can do just about anything.”
“Haha! Okay, then we’ll leave her to you!”
Cloud nods along. “You stay with Sonon and also guard Godo in case that agent comes back. I’ll be back with Yuffie soon.”
“Gotcha. You can count on me!”
With that, Cloud gets back up and turns away to pull up his magic GUI once more. It doesn’t take him long to find the relevant scene he needs, and this time he warps off just by himself.
It isn’t much longer after he leaves that they would meet another visitor. It isn’t that agent Sera, but is someone else who appears to be from Shinra. However, no one would have expected him to show up here. Zack hears some soft footsteps come inside the room and turns to look, and gasps aloud.
“Sephiroth!?”
Sephiroth has returned, but unlike the calmer demeanor he held as they met him last time, there seems to be something darker about the cold emotionless expression on his face. His eyes have hardened into an intense hatred and he approaches Zack without a word.
Zack simply stares at him. “What are you doing here? You’re not supposed to be here until the right time, right?”
But the man doesn’t respond. He just keeps walking forward in a slow, calm amble as if undeterred by anything that has been happening around them.
By now, he’s growing uneasy and reaches for his sword, but doesn’t draw it yet. “Sephiroth? Hello? Didn’t you say you weren’t gonna get involved…?”
Then, the next moment, a sudden chill befalls the entire room. Before Zack can even draw his weapon, Sephiroth acts. The latter moves so fast that even a Soldier like the former can barely keep up. The next thing Zack knows, he meets with that long sword stuck right through his heart.
“Grgh…!?”
But Sephiroth isn’t done with him. Even before Zack can collapse under his own weight, Sephiroth brings up the mysterious holographic interface that they had only seen from Cloud earlier and hits some button to enact a certain command. As Fate has been forcibly interrupted yet again, the tessellating shapes appear to surround Zack and freeze him still, setting him in that unbreakable stasis.
“Hold it right there!” Godo demands. He jumps back to his feet, striking his own fighting stance. “What manner of being are you? You have no place to interrupt this trial!”
“…Ask Minerva,” comes the flat reply.
“What?”
His job here is done for now. Sephiroth enters another command into the interface, and with another abrupt blink, both he and Zack vanish completely. Godo is now left alone with the still unconscious Sonon, but he too is struck by a lingering dread. This isn’t good. A Summon Trial must not be interrupted by outside forces, as it may influence the ending result and potentially break the Summon’s Contract. This cannot and will not stand. The Great Da-chao has been disturbed and is greatly angered.
As if thrown about in a similar raging tumult, the entire scene begins to tremble and shake as if there were an earthquake out of the blue. However, it isn’t any old earthquake. The once unconscious boy suddenly lets out a terrifying, almost demonic scream. There’s an outpour of visceral life energy that not only brings the boy back out of his numbing state, but overtakes him entirely and swallows him up in a vicious torrential vortex. The very air currents around him are strong enough to knock back even his old master.
Fearing for his pupil’s life, Godo calls to him, “Sonon… Sonon! Can you hear me?”
It’s too late – or rather, too soon. He still isn’t ready. Instead, what rises in his place is the full, unfettered spirit of the great serpent. In a brilliant burst of light, the boy formerly known as Sonon disappears and shoots out of the building for the heavens above. And then, just like that, he’s gone.
As the quaking shortly comes to a stop, Godo feels no less shaken. He drops to his knees and curses under his breath. It shouldn’t have come to this. Even with all the potential changes and variations that could feasibly take place, none of them should have brought upon this ending. Now even Wutai may not be spared from the deity’s wrath. Not to mention, Cloud has gone out in search of Yuffie. The three may meet once again, but there’s no telling what will lie in store.
Notes:
Rewritten history + concept draft trivia
- For once I am grateful that the canon hasn't yet expounded too much on the Wutai War. The most we've ever gotten of it have been in brief instances or events where Zack had a bit of a role to play in it, but it was mostly still offscreen. I did go back to review the actually dates of the start and end of the war, and it turns out that even though Yuffie was nine at the time of the start of Crisis Core, the year was already coming into the first year of the new calendar era. Apparently calendars on Gaia reset about every 2000 years, and the end of the Wutai War happened to coincide with the end of the previous period. It's why Rufus mentioned the "new era" at one point in Rebirth.
- Thus, I have been able to come up with the timeline of events on my own. This is by no means any attempt as "guessing" how the canon will go in the third Remake game. I've integrated my own timeline of events, with reference to Crisis Core as applicable, and even brought in a reimagining of a character that previously only existed in concept drafts for the OG.
- Incidentally, Yuffie never had a mask on when we saw her in CC, but she decided to put one on here to help with her "disguise", though she's still dressed the same way as she had been.
- I know that CC had Zack fight Ifrit for a little while before Sephiroth came in, but let's be real; whatever amount of damage that Zack did to him, it would have been unnecessary compared to the damage Seph could do. So I decided to cut the battle short and have him be the kill-stealer as I always meant him to be.
- I did change around the order of events a little from CC. Normally, Angeal would have been with Zack since the start of the raid, but because I started off this flashback with both Cloud and Zack, there was no room to introduce Angeal as well. I decided this time around, Angeal just went off after Genesis earlier and the Zack from the memory had simply been absent until our present-day Zack appeared in his place. At least Lazard got a quick cameo, but I really had no intention to keep him around for long, so had Sephiroth show up to shoo him away.
- Speaking of Sephiroth, he is indeed speaking the truth here that the version of him is from the memory. However, due to weird Lifestream mechanics or whatnot, he learned the truth of the events up to the present and shared the same memories as our present-day Sephiroth. He just didn't share the same ambition because he knew he was just a "copy" for the purposes of playing a part in this Summon Trial.
- We never actually got confirmation of what exactly happened to Sonon's sister Melphie from Remake or Rebirth, or if Sonon was even there when she died. Sonon was just sidelined for the plot, which I understand since he wasn't meant to be a main character in the first place. But here, he is one of my main characters, so he got his own traumatic flashback back in chapter 36. Now I'm just referencing it by mentioning the ruined camp he found during said flashback.
- Fyi, the "secret meeting" that took place just hours before the battle on the coast and the battle itself, they're both from my imagination. I don't know exactly how Shinra ended the war, whether it was because Fort Tamblin fell or if there was another major battle that ended in disaster afterward, or if there was some cool shit that Seph did that we may never know. In any case, I thought it'd be most appropriate if it wasn't just because of Soldier and that Scarlet's war machines were always there since the start and right up to the end.
- As it turned out, the Shinra envoy was actually Sera, who I previously showed in this fic as the prison warden from chapter 63. From the original concept drafts, she was an agent working for Shinra (not sure if she was part of the Turks or not), who got caught up in Yuffie's sidequest as the main antagonist who would have threatened to bomb the Da-chao Mountains if Wutai didn't agree to set up a Shinra reactor there. In the end, the devs scrapped it since it would have been something to happen in a flashback, not in the present. (Instead, I actually referenced this concept way back in chapter 16 when Yuffie was talking about some Wutai history with Sonon.)
- Meanwhile, I've decided to reuse her to be the infiltrator here, playing as the "Shinra envoy" who met with Godo in secret. And as confirmed in Remake, since it was Scarlet who was in charge of early developments with Deepground, it only makes sense that she would be the one in charge of this plot to sabotage the last of Wutai's resistance.
- And out of nowhere, Sephiroth (the one from last chapter, not earlier in this one) decided to ruin things for everyone. Sorry, Uncle Levi, that whippersnapper just keeps getting away with his pranks! But the real question is: What's going on with Zack and why does Seph hate him now?
Chapter 85: Poisoned Chalice
Notes:
Apologies for the even longer wait, everyone! If you hadn't caught my previous update note (now on the newly swapped chapter 84), with my folks both officially retired, this household has undergone several renovations and I was caught up in alla that and too busy and tired to focus on writing. So it was actually until just the previous week that I actually got back onto schedule.
Anyway, here I come with yet more of the political intrigue subplot. Even despite knowing that I'd be tackling to some degree the whole controversies around the smuggling ring I introduced way back, I legit never thought things would get this deep. I thought Wutai was just some random island nation that Shinra used to bully, guys. How did we get here?
7/12/25 edit: I know I have a buttload written, but friendly reminder that all comments, speculations, questions, and even criticisms are welcome, though I would recommend that the latter two are specific so I can answer you as best I can. And I hope ya'll kicking me will help me get back on my regular biweekly schedule as promised, lol.
Chapter Text
Following the explosive castle incident that put an abrupt stop to their plans, the members of the Order of Wutaia and their cohorts in the National Religion and Spirituality Association have mysteriously vanished into the shadows. However, pertinent information on these people has been scarce even for those in the know. Everything around the incident in question has been classified as top-secret, and the Wutai Investigative Bureau in charge of overlooking the matter has refused to release any information, aside from the most recently updated wanted list. Otherwise, it seems like no one knows to where the former oracle and even her daughter have disappeared, or if they’ve been found, why that info is being kept secret at all.
Someone has to take up the mantle and uncover the truth from the falsehoods to protect this country from falling into further ruin. After he tended to Ruby while she was ill, Zangan saw the writing on the wall – Leviathan’s silence to the people’s prayers as of late, followed by Ruby’s own plight – as a terrible portent of things to come. Though he much preferred to remain in his hermitage, this country was on the brink of tumult and it was a critical time to act. In advance of her appointed meeting with the House of Parliament, he rounded up a few familiar and influential friends – namely the four other Saints of Wutai (barring Godo who was still in prison) – to join him in protest of the government’s war fervor. Unfortunately, circumstances would turn for the dire and Ruby would be unable to attend the meeting, so discussions had to be postponed to an indeterminate date. Nonetheless, he took his chance before the House was adjourned to ask them to reconsider their plans – however, it was a moot effort. Barring a few hesitant members who were afraid to speak up, the House refused to be moved by the opinions of the old guard of Wutai, no matter how impassioned their speech. It very much felt like a mirror of the first day when this new government was established, which was shortly followed by Godo’s trial and inevitable conviction.
Thus, he and the other Saints retreated to the south, far from the capital’s painfully obstinate political climate, to further bolster forces for their cause. Though a number of their supporters were veterans from the previous war, the ASR was committed to nonviolent approaches toward reform. With the government so eager to combat tensions overseas, the last thing this nation would need was to start up a civil war on top of everything. However, being advocates of peace did not mean they would sit idly by. If they could find critical evidence and air out the insidious scientific exploits of a corrupt and willfully incompetent government, they would broadcast them loud and wide until even the stray animals of the streets wouldn’t keep quiet.
Furthermore, there was still the issue of the smuggling ring that was responsible for the trafficking of test subjects and the infamous black “medicine”, ARC as it’s officially known, which they were administered en masse. This ring didn’t collapse after their previous ringleader’s death and showed no signs of stopping after the cult leader allegedly behind operations also disappeared. Zangan long suspected there must have been someone else backing them, as it would be too irresponsible to leave the responsibilities of a certain experimental project in the hands of a mere religious group. And given the constant unresponsiveness from the WIB, he and his allies were forced to look into the disappearances on their own. After a culminated effort, with a little help from Avalanche HQ, they eventually discovered a common trend: all clues aligned at a sparsely known town named Chenfu, located in the middle of the autonomous western region. As it happened, this was the same place that the former prisoner named Shigesaki requested to be sent to remain in hiding.
Zangan knew there had to be a connection. He was aware of this man’s controversial history: Motomu Shigesaki was the former Minister of Science and Technology who once led this country’s young and experimental science program of the time to further develop Wutai as a leading country of the world. They even named one notable project “Project Moonlight” after a certain white dragoness of myth, in hopes that she would lead them into a bright future. Back in the early days of Wutai’s scientific development around 25 years ago, they were on much better terms with Midgar and Shinra had yet to be the absolute thorn in everyone’s sides. The two countries recognized one another as worthy rivals in the ongoing science race and even exchanged information and discoveries as a show of peace and openness. However, where there was optimism, there also was naïveté. Little did anyone know at the time the atrocious, abominable results that were justified in the name of “scientific progress”. And from there, everyone involved would start playing the blame game. Eventually, Shigesaki himself was disgraced and disappeared from public perception.
However, that was the past. What has since happened with Shigesaki is the real head-scratcher. While he was forced by large consensus to step down for a period of time, recently a man who looked exactly like Shigesaki stepped up as a member of the current House of Parliament. Given his long tenure as a representative even back during the shogunate, he naturally ascended to a place of honor and influence among his peers. Long gone was the shame that he publicly expressed. Instead what replaced it was a vehement fervor to push forward with the infamous project all the same, especially following the change of culture in the bitter aftermath of the war that was still fresh in everyone’s minds. And sooner than later, he won over the hearts of his fellow members of Parliament and led the growing faction advocating for war and Wutai’s revenge.
On that thought, it leads back to the big question now: if Shigesaki has been in Wutai all along, why did they find the man imprisoned in a Shinra penitentiary so far from where he was supposed to be? That is the purpose of Zangan’s visit to Chenfu today. He wishes to find out what the heck is going on here and what has really become of Project Moonlight since he left politics for civil solitude.
Now that he’s arrived in town, however, he finds that it’s brimming with life and activity – though on closer inspection, there’s a catch. It was commonly known that the religious zealots of this country had a certain place where they congregated the most, even more so than in the northern capital and coastal cities like Gap’lau. Zangan was certainly not surprised to see this many people out and about donning the familiar white cloaks as associated with the infamous religious order. However, on closer inspection, there is something off. Not everyone bears the signs, but a non-insignificant portion of them seem to have been marked with scattered black patches on their faces and skin, looking like they were diseased. And yet, not a single soul seems to be in pain or even pays any mind. Everyone is going to and fro or passing through the open market square like business as usual, sharing their familiar blessings with one another as they mingle and depart, and their idle conversations are nothing out of place. Rather, it’s uncanny how their kind smiles and cheerful moods mismatch with the serious-looking symptoms. Furthermore, some among the marked likewise look dead-eyed and are barely emoting, almost as if they had long lost their ability to express much of themselves, but move about as if they were unaffected. It’s quite the picturesque scene of a seemingly utopic society covering for something much more sinister beneath the surface.
If anything, he’s the odd one out in this crowd, to be one of the few residents to not have a cloak, and even those who don’t are mingling with the rest as if they weren’t outsiders. As they aren’t hiding their faces, he notices those few don’t look like they’ve been marked. Are the signs only on some members who are participating in some kind of event or ritual, or dare he say, experiment? It doesn’t look like there’s any particular rhyme or reason to who is marked or otherwise. In any case, it would probably be wise to find a cloak for himself in case he may need to blend in. Fortunately, he shortly happens upon a very enthusiastic pair, a young man and woman who both seem to be marked, handing out cloaks for free. Well, that was easy. It’s been a long time since he’s had to don on anything like this and frankly he doesn’t miss those days, but it’s worth a shot for the mission ahead. Zangan thanks the kind couple and they likewise bless him with a familiar message:
“May Her Radiance be your guiding light.”
Ruby certainly would be a shining beacon in these dark, uncertain times – at least, that is what he would like to believe. But there’s no use being impatient. She will arrive when she is ready.
With a little help from some other passersby, Zangan is directed toward the town hall in the center of the bustling market square. As soon as he steps in, however, he can’t help but notice something odd about the security detail here. Rather than the familiar blue like many police officers wear, they’re all dressed in black suits and ties, not too different from the uniform of the Turks, ironically. However, their faces are all clearly Wutaian and there’s not a single foreigner among their ranks. Their mannerisms give off less than the strict standards that would be expected of cops, and a few of them are even wearing sunglasses indoors. Most aren’t standing at their expected posts or manning the counter and are instead sitting around some available tables, playing a game of cards, accompanied by drinks or smokes. It’s a fairly large room and the windows are open, but it’s not very nice to be smoking here when everyone else outside aren’t. But more importantly, he doesn’t recognize any faces here either. Where are the ASR members that he had previously sent over, who were supposed to have escorted Shigesaki and his supporters to a safehouse?
“Huh? A white cloak?” one of the guards standing by the door asks. He then greets him with a stern frown. “Can we help you, sir?”
Zangan gets right to the point and asks, “I’m from the ASR and I’m searching of a man named Motomu Shigesaki, who was supposed to have arrived in town just last week, transferred from Zhongyuan. I was informed that he would be here?”
“…”
Though the odd-looking guard gives him a suspicious look, he passes a quick glance toward his peers who are sitting on a nearby table. No one seems to be particularly happy to help, but one man then takes a stand and comes over to meet their new visitor, and the rest at his table follow suit to stand beside him. He’s not one of the smokers or the drinkers, but there appears to be just a thin scar off the side of his left eye. Now that Zangan gets a closer look at these people, they certainly don’t look like cops, but he refrains from prying too deeply until he can better gauge what sort of group they are. At the very least, his hood shades over his face a bit, so they don’t seem to recognize him immediately.
The leader of the group then asks respectfully, “Shigesaki-san is busy at the moment, meeting with another guest. May I ask who is asking for him?”
Zangan hesitates to give a straight answer here, but if he doesn’t give a convincing one, he will definitely be turned away. So, he instead borrows the name of a cohort of his, one whose real name is unknown even to his peers: “The messenger known as Hayabusa. I’m here to deliver some urgent news to Shigesaki-san. It seems a strange plague has hit the latest group of refugees in Zhongyuan, and we need to make a safety check for him and his associates who arrived from Midgar as well.”
Though the scarred man looks him dead in the eye with an intense glare, Zangan does not waver and presents a resolute face to match. Instead, the man relents and waves to his men to dismiss them. With confused looks and shrugs, the rest back off and return to their seats, while their group leader turns back to their guest with a somewhat more relaxed look.
“Pardon the strict welcoming committee. We take any situation around Shigesaki-san very seriously, you see. It’s a top matter of security that his whereabouts remain undisclosed to the public.”
“I understand.” Zangan then asks on, “Incidentally, I believe there were also a couple other ASR members who accompanied Shigesaki-san and his associates here at the time?”
The scarred man gives a casual wave. “Ah, don’t worry about ’em. They left after making sure his people would be relocated to a safehouse elsewhere in town. We’re in charge of keeping an eye on him here.”
Zangan narrows his eyes in suspicion, but keeps his face hidden in the shade of his hood. That doesn’t sound right. Their mission was to remain with their guests until he or any of the Saints would inform them otherwise. Something is off about this entire scene, but he decides not to argue to avoid drawing any more suspicion.
“Very well. But I would like to meet the man as soon as possible. May you call him out here? Or shall I head inside?”
However, the man shakes his head. “Sorry, sir, but like I said, he’s busy meeting with someone right now. But if it’ll help, I can pass the message along for you?”
“I’m sorry, but unless I see the man myself, I can’t return to headquarters.” Zangan quickly adds as an ad-lib, “It’s our group’s policy to commit to the mission, you see. We can’t exactly afford to overlook even the slightest potential risk. I have to confirm that the man is safe and in good health.”
“Hm, I see.” He folds his arms and returns to his strict frown from earlier. “Unfortunately, we’re on orders to keep watch of Shigesaki-san, and he’s not planning to meet with anyone at this time. When he’s available again, we’ll give the ASR a notice.”
“I’m afraid this can’t wait. We previously informed Shigesaki-san that he could expect us to return for him to help escort him to another safehouse as necessary. It’s important that he remain on the move, lest we run into any unsavory third parties that are still targeting him. I must see him in person.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but Shigesaki-san strictly told us to not let anyone see him until he was ready. If you must meet him, then you will have to wait… Preferably outside.”
By now, even the usually patient Zangan is starting to lose his patience. The suspicious scarred man continues to deny him, no matter what he tries to explain. Now the rest of the men at the table all turn toward him, and even some others at the other tables do too. Though most give him some just as wary glares, some even look a little excited. It’s almost as if they’re all expecting or even itching for a fight to break out. However, while Zangan would have little trouble sweeping through a thin crowd like this, he’d rather not resort to violence while he’s still keeping his cover intact.
And then, by some odd coincidence, another man in black comes out from one of the inner halls and reports to the scarred man. “Captain Iwai, sir! A word from our honored guest!”
The latter swings over to him with a tired scowl. “What now?”
“She wishes to meet with the agent from the ASR. I think she was expecting someone to arrive today?”
“What?”
That certainly catches everyone off-guard. The scarred man stares in disbelief and then turns to Zangan, and then back to his subordinate.
“You serious? She was expecting someone?”
“Well, that is what she said. Has this person arrived yet?”
“Hmm…” Though the scarred man doesn’t look pleased, he relents with an annoyed snort and he turns to Zangan once more. “Fine. Looks like we can make an exception this time.”
“I’m sorry? I was expecting to meet with Shigesaki-san.”
The man points behind him toward the hallway that his subordinate just came from. “Our guest of honor is meeting with him right now. I’ll take you there to see them.”
“Ah.” Zangan nods back. “Alright. Thank you.”
With the awkward tensions resolved just like that, the rest of the men look disappointed and turn back to mind their own business, though some others are relieved that they didn’t have to interrupt their game. So, the scarred man leads Zangan inside and down the hall to a certain meeting room in the back chambers, and with a polite knock, he calls out to their guests.
“Hey, it’s Iwai. The ASR member is here.”
To which, he’s answered by a familiar man’s voice. “Oh… Yes, alright. Let them in.”
Iwai opens the door for Zangan and politely gestures him inside, though he still has the same scowl as before like he doesn’t want to do this. In any case, Zangan steps on in and finds just two other people in this room, which is decorated to look more like a small parlor like for a fancy mansion or resort hotel than the usual conference room. They’re seated around a table, but for whatever reason, the more important-looking person between the two isn’t the somber middle-aged official dressed in militant black, but the woman in a regal-looking, gold-laced white cloak and has the hood over her head. In fact, she is also accompanied by an attendant of her own who stands beside her. It’s a young woman who is also clad in a similar white cloak, albeit of simpler quality, but she has her hood down and her face shows a certain dot-in-ring mark in red upon her forehead and shadow under her eyes. There’s no mistaking who these two cloaked figures are.
Zangan lets out a quiet gasp. “Izayoi…san? What are you doing here?”
The Oracle of Wutaia calmly raises a hand. “You may relax, Zangan. We’ve been discussing a few urgent matters in private, but you are welcome to join us. In fact, I have been anticipating your arrival today.”
But the man sitting across from her is frazzled at this turn of events. “What? Did you just say, ‘Zangan’!? That was who you were waiting for?”
“And Shigesaki-san, of course.” With little reason to continue the façade, Zangan uncovers the hood. “It’s been a while since I’ve last seen either of you. What a coincidence that I’d find you huddled together like old times.”
Izayoi is unmoved at that light sarcastic jab and lays her hand forward as a courtesy. “Please, take a seat. There are some concerns that have come to light as of late. It would be easier for everyone that the ASR be informed as well.”
Though his suspicions have been running on all cylinders, Zangan maintains the same courteous air. He obliges her invitation with a nod and takes one of the available chairs left aside and pulls up by the desk beside the other man.
Despite his militant-looking uniform, coupled with an impressive katana resting in its sheathe by his side, Shigesaki looks uncharacteristically nervous for someone who normally holds much poise and gives the most vehement of speeches to his fellow officials of Parliament. He’s honestly shaken to have to meet with the leader of the ASR once more, and even while he was already meeting with the oracle. Since he returned from Midgar with the aid of Avalanche and later the ASR, he was initially grateful to be home at last. Yet, his relief was short-lived, since over the past week, he came to be informed of some terrifying revelations that were not restricted to the latest experiments taking place in Midgar’s underground. This is a most inopportune time; not to mention, an extremely tense encounter between conflicting parties. He only dreads what other troubles may follow them from this meeting onward.
Though the former doesn’t quite meet him at eye level, Zangan gives him an acknowledging glance. “Shigesaki-san. All things considered, I’m glad to see you are still doing well.”
The man stammers back, “Ah, yes, well… Ahem. I’m thankful that I was able to avoid the worst since I’ve returned.” He then bows his head a little to express his genuine thanks. “Zangan-san. I may have said it before, but I mean it genuinely. Thank you. My associates and I are free from that accursed hell because of you and your allies.” He then pulls up again and adds with a fretful frown. “But I’m surprised that you would come to see me again and by yourself. What is the nature of this visit?”
“No need to thank me. We would have done the same regardless of your status. Though…” Given the chance, he brings it up, “Where are your associates? I believe we sent you all together to Chenfu with an escort pair. But just a moment ago, one of the guards told me they left a while ago. I don’t think we’ve heard back from them in a while.”
Though it seems like a simple enough question, Shigesaki is clearly perturbed by something. He instead hesitates over how to explain and even turns to the oracle as if searching for answers. She in turn says nothing, but nods as if she were granting him permission to speak, oddly enough. So he turns back to the other to answer in a rather careful manner.
“My associates – that is, those who accompanied me to this town – are safe. Because the Oracle requested my audience in private, they’re being held in a certain safehouse elsewhere in the meantime. However…” He lowers his head, looking almost guilty over it as he explains, “I cannot say the same for some others who were unable to escape with us. We had little choice but to leave them in Midgar.”
Zangan blinks in surprise, at first not quite catching onto what he means, but then his face darkens as he comes to a grave understanding and he offers a sympathetic frown. “I see. My condolences, sir.”
“Truth be told, since we arrived home, we agreed to speak of nothing of what we witnessed in that prison and split off to avoid garnering any more attention on ourselves. I haven’t heard back from them since we did. Furthermore, as I arrived in Chenfu, I was informed that the Oracle of Wutaia was already in town and was even requesting an audience with me.”
“The two of you met last week as well?”
“Yes. It was around then that she explained the current situation around her religious order, as well as the complications that arose since her meeting with Her Radiance… Er, that is, Ruby-dono, I believe she goes by these days.”
“Complications”, indeed. Now that Zangan thinks back to his first encounter with Ruby at the Leviathan Shrine, he recalls telling her and her friends of his tale and when he brought up his past connections with Wutaia before he was forcibly ousted. Even though he didn’t expressly warn her about the order, the look on her face showed she may have made up her mind right then and there. Granted, he didn’t expect such an aggressive response that would lead to the utter annihilation of one of their esteemed national treasures, but he at least anticipated that the oracle’s hopes of an alliance with their idol would rightly be dashed. Though in her haste, Ruby did not leave Wutai in any meaningful peace or stability, perhaps it was a blessing in disguise that she left the people with a firm reality check.
Keeping those opinions to himself, though, he simply nods back and gives a short reply: “I was informed as well that she met with the oracle, but it doesn’t seem like they came to any particular consensus at the time.”
“Yes, that seems to be the case, unfortunately. But at the very least, Ruby-dono may have elected to stay out of this country’s affairs for the time being.” Shigesaki also passes a cautious glance toward the oracle again. “Even Izayoi-san has not been able to contact her since.”
Izayoi has been quiet amid her own thoughts while she has been listening to their conversation, but now prompted, she also speaks up, “It is upon her waiting judgment that we of the Order of Wutaia serve, but until she speaks again, we shall continue to spread her good name for the betterment of our people and our proud nation.”
Zangan passes her a suspect glance. Even after all the time that’s passed since his departure, he still feels a lingering sense of irony at hearing the order’s ever recited mission. He certainly can’t fault her for devotion to the cause or even her faith in said idol, but the issue lies in all the consequences to the numerous sacrifices she has chosen to overlook.
Though he doesn’t say a word, she seems to catch onto what he may be thinking. Rather than address that old debate again, though, she moves on. “But setting that aside, I have been meaning to hold an audience with both of you gentlemen. Though I have come to rely less on my powers of clairvoyance more recently, whenever I do, I have continued to bear witness to some terrible omens, not just for this country, but also the world as a whole. A dark cloud, a calamity of great evil, awaits us on the horizon and threatens to engulf everything as it draws near. I fear it cannot be stopped by anything less than divine intervention – namely, from Rubia-sama herself. When She will return, Her guiding light shall disperse this cloud and free us from fear and mistrust.”
Speaking of which, he raises the question, “In other words, did you wish to speak with me in hopes that I would be able to reach out to Ruby-dono?”
Izayoi lowers her head just slightly so that her face is shaded under her hood, almost as if trying to hide a subtle smile. She then lifts it again and returns to her usual stoic composure. “You are within reason to believe so. But rest assured, I do not see you as the one who will reach her directly. Instead, you may have come to meet someone who can find her.”
Though he isn’t sure who she could be referring to, he is reminded of the request he made to a certain cat king. If he’s able to find Cloud and them again, they all may yet have a chance to keep the peace and fend off this “great evil” as the oracle claims.
“While her disappearance has brought us much concern as well, we will hold out faith and leave it to Her Radiance to make the final judgment when the right time comes. Though grave is the danger, there is still time before it is upon us. Regardless of what such conflicts have arisen between our respective parties, it would be utmost imperative that our people set aside our differences so that we may be able to defend this land against any and all threats to come.”
Zangan nods slowly, having little to disagree there, but folds his arms in contemplative thought. Nonetheless, he still has to state for the record, “But while we wait on Ruby-dono’s return, we can at least address issues as they come.” He then adds, with a stern glare toward the priestess in particular, “And we can start from this issue of the trafficking ring still in operation.”
“…” Though Izayoi makes a frown as if tempted to argue, she maintains composure as always. “I’m sure you have plenty of questions for us, Zangan, but we may not be able to answer them all at this time. However, there are more urgent matters to address, especially in light of what Shigesaki-san has witnessed from his recent escape.”
Zangan raises an eyebrow to how she’s avoiding the topic as always, but he does agree that he’s been anxious to learn about that too. “Very well. What has happened since?”
Now with everyone’s eyes on him, Shigesaki has his own eyes glued to the floor, nervous to be put on the spot. He knew things would eventually come to this, but earnestly hoped that they would be kind enough to drop the matter if he was too hesitant to say. Even now as they watch him, he’s tempted to hide behind another excuse and excuse himself, but he knows that even if he were to leave, there’s no guarantee that the guards outside will let him go.
So with a stiff upper lip, he begins, “There is so much that I would like to say, but I will try to keep things brief.” He looks back up and tries to put on a brave face. “Things have become even more complicated with Shinra, but there’s more to the public flaunting or bowdlerizing than just on the surface. I would even go as far to say that a dastardly plot has been developing in the shadows of both governments, but is only privy to the highest authorities.”
Zangan returns him a wary frown. “Both governments? Does this have to do with the smuggling ring’s operations too?”
“Yes, but that is just a piece of the bigger picture. This plot goes much deeper than many of us previously anticipated.”
“…”
“It’s hard to believe any of it unless one sees the signs for himself.” Shigesaki turns away again with a grim, almost pained expression. “As risky as the experiments we’ve once conducted under the name of Project Moonlight may have been, they’re practically child’s play when compared to the deranged minds of the scientists at Shinra. In my time locked away in Midgar’s underground, I’ve been forced to watch some truly abhorrent tragedies play out that should never see the light of day. There really is no limit to how far their experiments have gone and this maddening pursuit of ‘science’ will not stop even if it means feeding every unfortunate soul to an ever insatiable demon hidden in their depths.”
“Excuse me? What do you mean by an ‘insatiable demon’? What exactly has Shinra been keeping secret?”
“I’m not sure what it really is, to be honest, or if it has a physical form. I can only say it is a… ‘phenomenon’ of sorts. All I know are from rumors that once passed by the prison during my stay, and they coincided with the continuous removal and cycling in of new inmates to replace the emptied cells. But whatever that thing is which they are creating, it must involve gathering as many subjects infected with ARC as necessary. I suspect they even intend to let the subjects go free and spread it further like a virus.”
Zangan blinks, his eyes grown wide and disturbed. “What!? You mean they are inducing a plague upon their own people? But why? What would that accomplish?”
Shigesaki shakes his head. “Who but the heads of Shinra HQ can say? I can only assume it would grant them an advantage somehow should war eventually break out, but I don’t know how they would be able to safeguard against the worst should it come to infect their own forces.”
He shakes his head in disbelief. “Unbelievable… I knew tensions were reaching at the brink of war, but this goes beyond just political conflicts or competition over resources. We could have an actual epidemic of an unprecedented scale the way things are going.”
“The substance has been routed through the black market these days, given the outward tensions between the countries, but this was not always the case. Long before the war, when the two still engaged in free trade, ARC was one of the primary imports into Wutai, presented under the guise of ‘medicine’.”
He returns to frowning, with a once buried suspicion rising to the surface again, but keeps listening.
“This was allowed by both parties to encourage open relations. Little was known about the detriments of utilizing it and its purported efforts covered a vast array of symptoms and illnesses. It wasn’t until Project Moonlight was greenlit and well underway in our young scientific program of the day that further research revealed the horrid truth behind the substance’s secondary effects. However, while both parties were aware of the alleged source, Shinra had been keeping another secret from the world regarding that source’s true nature.”
“Its true nature?”
“Yes.” Shigesaki sits forward and solemnly brings his hands together. “The true nature of ARC is that it is a contagion first and foremost, mutated from the DNA of a certain white dragon. It is naturally inclined to spread as far and wide as possible to convert all it touches to its own and gather up a massive force to amass control, presumably with full allegiance to its origin.”
“It’s meant to be a contagion? But…” Growing more perturbed, Zangan points out, “Previous cases of victims being infected haven’t led to sudden viral outbreaks. It was only a very recent discovery. In fact, I was just informed earlier today that an outbreak has hit the latest refugees held at Zhongyuan. Yet you’re suggesting that this is not a new incident?”
“While there are no public records of past cases, we can’t confirm it didn’t happen either. It’s possible that ARC has been spread asymptomatically all along and we were none the wiser. Sadly, we have yet to find a way to prevent its spread; needless to say, make any potential treatment. We aren’t even sure to what extent it can be transmitted. Contact is the most obvious method, but it could also just be an airborne disease. However, simply cycling the material out into the open air doesn’t get rid of the substance. It will continue to exist in an inert state and travel until it reaches another host. This, of course, isn’t limited to humans. And over the long history of the ARC trade, the risk of open-air contamination has always been a possibility since the beginning.”
The more he learns about it, the more Zangan feels like his voice is slowly leaving him, followed by a cold, frightful chill that sets in. To think that the “great evil” that the oracle feared would come about in such a manner. This goes beyond a mere smuggling ring; if true, much of the world would have already been contaminated over these 25 or more years. No wonder the planet has slowly been weakening over time.
Shigesaki sits back up, but lets out a troubled sigh. “I believe that is the ultimate goal of Shinra: to utilize such a force for their own purposes and crush any and all competition as they see fit. However, it is a fool’s errand to trust that such a power can really be contained by any one faction.”
He fires up his resolve again and nods back in firm agreement. “It is absolutely foolish! If this is all true, then we have no option but to confront Shinra about their atrocities. This cannot go on, or the rest of the world will be swallowed up by their madness as well!”
“Yes, well…” The other man remains uncertain as he turns back to the priestess with a rather troubled look. He then posits another possibility, “Izayoi-san and I were just discussing another option we may still have.”
“Another option?” Zangan turns to her as well with growing unease.
Izayoi been quiet for a while as she listened to the conversation, but clearly has something else on the mind. Now given the floor again, she takes her chance to tell it straight, “Wutai will not fall back nor falter. We can meet Shinra at their level and even exceed them.”
He now understands where that unease came from. “Izayoi-san… With all due respect, what do you possibly mean by that?”
“Is it not clear yet? I believe I said it just a moment ago. Her Radiance’s light will guide us through this dark cloud.”
He frowns impatiently. “I heard that, yes. But while we wait for Ruby-dono to return, we must take the initiative and address these matters with Shinra before everything goes out of hand! Surely even you must agree there?”
“Indeed. However, I am also aware of the ASR’s mission. You all still believe that these matters can be resolved through further deliberation.”
“As any reasonable person would believe, yes. Is there something wrong?”
She slowly shakes her head. “It is very naïve. If it were that simple, the Shinra Company would be the least of our concerns right now.” She also offers forward a hand as she proposes, “Nay, we must approach the issues through more direct means. If they wish to draw both our nations into a pointless war, so be it. They will only reveal their own follies to the world and be swallowed up by the very evil they have come to pay allegiance.”
Zangan stares back at her in disbelief, not surprised that she would argue against his approach, but genuinely worried that she could be so nonchalant about something like war. And with the dredges of that old debate rearing its ugly head once more, he is also reminded of the other big reason why he came to leave the Order of Wutaia in the first place.
Even Shigesaki is disturbed and tries to plead with her, “Izayoi-san, I know how the current political climate is in this country, but are you sure we really don’t have any other option but to engage with them in such a manner? Tensions aside, to let matters be decided by official declarations of war is too extreme a stance… even considering your current position.”
However, the oracle returns them both a cold stare like it’s not up for debate. “And where do you think this nation has been led since that weak-willed fool of a shogun at its head? Deception at the hands of the enemy that lured us into a false sense of security in which we were tricked into believing we were on equal terms, but were simply made the scapegoats of a diabolical, inhumane scheme under the guise of ‘scientific progress’. And once the façade was exposed, the ensuing chaos in leadership led directly into a brutal, unforgiving onslaught of nine years in which the enemy took every opportunity to flaunt its military superiority.”
“…”
“If Godo really had what it took to lead this nation, he would not have allowed this terrible series of events to come to pass.” She likewise gives Zangan a stern glare. “And if only there had not been you, who initially planted the seed of doubt in his mind that we would be entering an ‘impossible’ fight, perhaps things could have turned out much differently.”
He returns her a just as stern look of his own. “And if I hadn’t warned him of what I’d seen during my travels abroad, he would have made the grave mistake of underestimating them. If anything, it was more unfortunate that my message was largely blocked by agents of the NRSA of the time from reaching the ears of his fellow lords.”
“Hmph.” Izayoi shakes her head. “And here we are again, cycling through the same tired old arguments. Even after all this time, I see you’ve yet to come at the issue with a clear, unbiased mind, Zangan.”
“With all due respect, I could say the same for you, Izayoi-san. You, who not only allowed for the greenlighting of Project Moonlight, but even continue to perpetuate the ‘diabolical, inhumane scheme’ that you so described. Just what about this whole operation is remotely justified!? That Wutai engage with Shinra using the same evils they’ve committed as a show of power? That we pursue war as revenge for the pride our nation lost in its wanton pursuit of glory regardless of costs? Just so you can humor the possibility that the current government be overthrown and you be reinstated as empress? I say this with the best of intentions: ‘Perish the thought.’”
The two enter into a stiff silence, where neither one is willing to give way to the other. And in the ensuing quiet, Shigesaki looks between them nervously, as if unsure which side he would rather take. However, as soon as he takes another look toward Izayoi’s cold, almost emotionless expression, he wavers again as if there is some real fear in his eyes. Then, with a grim frown, he breaks through the ice to specifically address the other man.
“Zangan-san. While I understand many of the concerns you may have, I also agree with Izayoi-san that we must be decisive. After all, what are we to do when we find ourselves in the face of overwhelming odds, confronting an enemy that refuses to see its wrongs and continues to threaten peace, all for the sake of maintaining its iron grip of control over the rest of the world? Wutai no longer has the luxury to sit on its laurels and wait out the storm when the storm is already at our proverbial doorstep.”
He turns back to the official with a more sympathetic frown. “Shigesaki-san, I’m aware there are too many unknowns at this time to know what would be the best way forward. However, I implore you, please don’t entertain this mad plan of waging war with our experimental subjects. It will bring nothing but ruin, with particularly heavy casualties on our side, to see these living beings be forcibly resurrected as the undead!”
But the man lowers his head and replies with a grave but firm tone, “…If that’s what it takes, then so be it. Wutai has already fallen once; we cannot afford to falter even once from here on out.”
To think that even after he had been broken to this extent, Shigesaki would still push ahead with the same arguments that his supposed doppleganger currently at the capital had been advocating. Zangan had hoped that he would have learned something critical that would sway him otherwise, but at this point, even he realizes that he is preaching good will to those who have already abandoned their humanity. Now all that remains in their hearts are basal desires of self-preservation at any cost and hatred stemming from some perceived injustice upon them. Is this what Wutai really needs at its helm? The country would sooner implode under its own instability, and Shinra would need to find a new target to show off their new experiments.
Izayoi lets off a quiet sigh. “Zangan, it’s much too late to make those arguments. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and now of all times, we must move forward with all the tools still within our disposal. Otherwise, there would have been no point whatsoever to all the sacrifices we have allowed to happen over these 25 years.”
Zangan goes quiet as well, but his face darkens as the reality of the situation finally sets in metaphorical concrete. Then, if words can no longer reach the government, what else can an organization committed to peaceful interventions do as their opponents on their home soil can override them at any time? There’s no more leeway to hesitate or wait and observe if any other options will arrive eventually. He must make a decision now and adapt as the situation changes.
As shrewd as ever, Izayoi is already considering her next steps as if she could effectively read his thoughts. She warns him, “I welcomed you to join this conversation so that you may be informed as we are, but it seems we are still unable to come to a fair agreement over our respective approaches. Rest assured Wutaia and the NRSA have no intention to interfere with the ASR’s mission, but should you attempt to interfere with ours, we will have no choice but to have you detained.”
Zangan fires back with a suspect glare. “Is that it, then? Did our previous escorts for Shigesaki-san get detained on your orders for ‘interfering’?”
“It’s unfortunate that things would have to come to this, but as Shigesaki-san said, we cannot allow any obstacles to stand in the way. The war agenda will push forward as planned.”
“And what if everything comes crashing back down!?” Zangan demands, now incensed enough to drop the courtesies. “Izayoi, this is just madness! Wutai doesn’t need even more burdens from the costs of war!”
However, his earnest pleas ring hollow. The oracle raises a hand to her attendant, who in turn pulls out a radio transceiver she had been keeping on her person and reports to their ranks outside.
She speaks calmly and gently, almost as if totally unperturbed by anything that was just discussed, “The discussion is over. Guards, please take Zangan-san away to the main penitentiary. He will join his fellow members there until further notice.”
As if a number of the black-suits standing out there were waiting for this moment, they barge into the room with guns and knives at the ready. Even their captain Iwai arrives bearing some brass knuckles on full display as he playfully spins a pair of handcuffs around one finger.
“Nothing personal, Zangan-san, but when our guests of honor say something, we follow their word. You’re coming with us.”
In all honesty, Zangan isn’t the least bit surprised to see that these supposed guards aren’t actual police at all. It was obvious there was some kind of blatant corruption going on that would allow members of the yakuza to act as government agents and associates, and now that he’s met a couple of the leaders, everything has begun to fall into place. And while he isn’t intimidated by this sudden display of force, he reconsiders letting loose and throwing hands. He is still undergoing investigations into his missing ASR people, so if they can just lead him directly to them, that will make things much easier. They may have a bit of a messy exit later when they have to leave, but who knows what else he can uncover while he’s here? Might as well take the invitation as it comes.
So, without a word but a wary stare, Zangan offers forward his hands and lets himself be cuffed and taken away. He passes a glance behind him as they leave, noting that the expressions on his opponents’ faces have yet to diverge from their stubborn, asinine agenda. There will come a time when they will be dealt with, but for now he will play along quietly.
It’s not a long walk from the town hall to the main penitentiary just a couple blocks down the street. All things considered, even with this less than pleasant company, keeping quiet and obliging orders does at least put him out of range of the yakuza captain’s wrath. The same could not be said for another of his men who would immediately break out a cigarette as they stepped outside, only to get a smack on the back of his head from the captain who scolded him for not adhering to the townsfolk’s rules. It does feel a little odd for the smokers to be penned up inside a building rather than be free to walk around, but as most of the residents here are part of the cult, they have a rather strict policy against vulgarities like smoking or drinking alcohol in public. Funnily enough, it actually helped to keep the city streets looking quite clean and welcome, even with all the strangeness going on.
In any case, Iwai politely shows their prisoner inside and the moment they are all out of public view, the yakuza return to their shadier behaviors and let up on the courtesies. While the captain himself doesn’t handle Zangan too roughly, he still lets his men shove him into a half-empty cell among the inmates already present. And as the cell door shuts on him, the dim lighting in the cell reveals a couple familiar faces in here, as well as a few other surprising unexpected ones.
“Master Zangan!?” one of the former escorts cries out. He’s a young man with a bit of a lop-sided hair cut, with one side’s bangs a bit longer than the other.
“Master, what are you doing here?” the other one does likewise. He’s another young man with a simple buzzcut.
Zangan smiles at last. “To find you two, of course! Good to see you’re still doing alright.”
“Uh, well… ‘alright’ is putting it lightly, I guess,” the first one admits with an awkward frown.
“We’re sorry that we haven’t been in contact lately,” the other explains in his stead, “But the cult really has gone overboard with how far they’ve taken this whole trafficking plot. We didn’t have any chance to reach out when even the regular civilians are also taking part.”
“They got in the way when we tried to escape, which only made it easy for the yakuza to get us and throw us back in,” the first man mutters bitterly.
Zangan’s eyes widen in concern. “Even the civilians? Have they been informed at all of what’s really been going on?”
“Doesn’t seem like it. They probably just heard from their leader that we’re ‘misguided victims’ that must be quarantined to avoid ‘breaking the peace’ or whatever they say.” He scoffs, adding, “Heard some even suggest re-education, but clearly no one’s even bothered to check on us while we’re stuck here.”
He frowns, growing disturbed again. “I see… Well, there’s not much we can do for them while their beliefs are so steadfast. We’ll just have to regroup with the rest later and spread the news. Hopefully when the truth comes out, there may be some unfortunate souls that we can still spare.”
“Yeah… hopefully,” the other one remarks wistfully.
In the meantime, Zangan addresses the other issue at hand, “Incidentally… Who is this other company that you all are keeping here?”
Now that he turns to the other several men locked up with them, he finds some oddly placed characters: Shinra agents, to be precise, judging by the pins on their lapels. While two of the men just seem to be emissaries from Midgar, they are also joined by one other man who is dressed in all black, reminiscient of the Turks. He sports a bristly stache and also has donned on a pair of tinted green shades, though his weapon has been confiscated at the moment.
“I had heard that some Shinra envoys went missing a while back, but I hadn’t imagined they’d end up here,” Zangan notes aloud.
To which, the Turk in the green shades replies coolly, “There’s way more that you probably haven’t imagined would be the case.”
He nods back, taking no offense. “That’s fair. Are you open to talk? We may be able to share some vital information.”
Though the Turk looks wary, he then nods back. “…Take a seat. We could be here for a while.”
He obliges and takes a seat on the floor before him. “Oh, no worries. I don’t intend to leave without uncovering as much as I can.”
~
When Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge arrive at the outskirts of Zhongyuan in a flash, they’re disturbed to find the place in a frantic mess. While they knew they might run into some kind of trouble along the way, they were expecting more of the “sneaking around” type of action to avoid the vigil of some corrupt government agents or potentially even some smugglers themselves. Instead, they meet some kind of scene like out of a fantasy land that’s been warped into some kind of twilight-themed horror show. The refugees they were told about are out in plain sight, alright, but they’re all trapped in these big, shiny, translucent bubbles floating up in the air that seem to have taken them prisoner. It’s almost like they just came out of one hell to end up in another. Adults and the few adolescents among them are panicking, screaming for help, thrashing at the deceptively thin walls from inside to no avail, and yet their voices cannot be heard. Others seem to have slumped over as if they had given up or even fallen unconscious. As for the government agents or alleged smugglers that were expected to be around, not one has remained on standby. Maybe it’s only expected that these unfaithful types would abandon the victims in their time of need, but it’s startlingly abysmal behavior for every last government employee to flee when they’re meant to be on duty. The entire place is still in uproar as a number of hardy residents and volunteers who are still around have desperately tried to try to crack the bubbles to no avail and are repelled with every attempt.
“Hurry! Hurry! More victims are passing out!”
“But we can’t break them! Whatever those things are made of isn’t anything I’ve seen before!”
“Then can we break it with magic?”
“I dunno! Do you see any materia lying around that we can use!?”
Meanwhile, as the trio hurry into town, they’re likewise aghast to see the horror show up close.
“You gotta be kidding me! What is this!?” Biggs gasps.
“They need our help!” Jessie declares without a second thought. “Let’s go!”
“Y-yeah!” Wedge agrees.
But to be honest, none of them have any remote idea of how to help. Shooting at the bubbles doesn’t pop them or even affect them in the slightest. Casting magic does just as much; same with any powerful explosives lobbed at them. Even trying to touch them only pushes back like there’s some mystical magnetic effect. No matter their attempts, the bubbles continue to drift peacefully and glisten faintly as if merely basking in the light of the evening sun. Then, in her rush to retrieve other materia, Jessie pulls out the transmuter by accident, but stops to consider what she can do with it.
“Wait! Wait! Stop attacking, it won’t work!” one of the male volunteers cries out.
“We’ve tried to hit them with all sorts of things already, but it doesn’t do anything. These bubbles are just indestructible!” another follows suit.
Biggs grits his teeth, growing frustrated. “Then what do we do? Where did they even come from?”
A third female volunteer answers, “We don’t know, but just a while ago, there were some weird sea monsters that showed up at the coast!”
“Sea monsters?”
“Yeah!” the first man then answers instead, “They looked like giant whales or something, but they weren’t normal whales! They then started shooting these bubbles everywhere!”
“But for some reason, only some people were hit and trapped,” the other man follows up, “We thought we were gonna be hit too, but the bubbles just passed through us without doing anything.”
Wedge’s eyes shoot wide. “Huh? Why only some? Which ones?”
“I’m not sure, but I think it’s only the recent refugees that were sick that got caught.”
“Only the sick ones…?”
Now that they’re starting to piece the situation together, the Avalanche squad slowly come to a dreadful realization. Some of the latest refugees coming in from Midgar were reported to be sick with symptoms that sound like the effects of ARC-related treatments. And now some giant sea monsters come in to shoot magic bubbles that trap the sick and keep them sealed in so tight they don’t even have much air to breathe. In other words, whatever has brought this on them doesn’t want them freed or even alive. The only things they can think of that would specifically be targeting anyone with ARC or Ruby’s magic at this time would be… the planet’s Weapons.
Now the trio also jump into panic. “W-whoa! No way!” Biggs exclaims in disbelief. “It can’t be those things that are after us too, right?”
“W-what? Really? They’re already here!?” Wedge whimpers.
Jessie makes a grim frown. “I knew they were gonna chase us after using Ruby’s materia, but to think they’d get here even before we did…”
Of course, their reactions leave the volunteers very confused. The first man asks, “What are you all going on about? Do you know what those monsters were?”
“Er, sorry to tell you, but we might have an inkling. If that’s the case, we shouldn’t stay here too long…”
“…?”
Getting right to business, she then suggests, “Say, does anyone know if there are any materia being stowed in town or somewhere nearby?”
But the others all turn to her with just as puzzled looks as earlier. The first man replies, “No. If we had any materia here, we definitely would have tried to use them.”
“Really? Not a single one?” Biggs also asks, folding his arms, “We heard from some reliable sources that there could be some materia smuggling going on in this town.”
The second man shakes his head. “There might be rumors going around, but we’ve been living here for the past few days to help recover the refugees coming from Midgar. Not a single materia that we could find even after scouring the ruins.”
The woman adds, “If there were any, they must have been taken somewhere else. But we’re not sure where.”
Wedge scratches his head. “Could the smugglers have used a different port town, then?”
Biggs shakes his head too. “I doubt Wutai would have too many of them where the ring could work in the open. And only Zhongyuan was burned down recently, I think?”
The first man nods and answers him, “Yes. It’s terrible loss that the public doesn’t know about yet, but we’ve have been looking into possible causes or perpetrators. We haven’t found who did it, though. And it’s hard to say if it was a natural disaster since there were no thunderstorms that were supposed to have come around lately.”
“Hmm…”
“Well, whatever happened here, I don’t think it has to do with the refugees now, right? They’re an entirely different group of people,” Jessie suggests.
The second man sadly replies, “That’s true, but it is unfortunate that this town is still being plagued with all sorts of bad luck. It’s like whatever greater power out there is out to get anyone here who’s got the short end of the straw one way or another.”
“Don’t say that. I don’t want to think about what this town’s people could have been involved in to bring the wrath of any divinity,” the woman laments with a shudder. “Things are bad enough that even our religious zealots are saying that Rubia-sama has abandoned us or something…”
To which, Jessie cuts in with a sudden remark of reassurance. “Don’t worry. We know Ruby and she’ll definitely come around when she’s ready. But we have to make sure the place is suitable for her to return safely.”
“Huh? Sorry, who are you talking about?”
Jessie looks like she’s about to spill, but decides maybe better to save it. “Um… You know what? It’s pretty complicated. The point is: the one everyone calls ‘Rubia-sama’ is actually a good friend of ours.”
“W-what!? You know an actual divinity!?” she gasps loudly.
The first man raises an eyebrow. “Who are you people? You show up all of a sudden and claim to know something about the strange sea monsters that attacked our people? And you even say you know Rubia-sama?”
“Yeah… It’s a lot to take in, I know,” Jessie admits with a sheepish grin. Her grin reverts for the more confident, though. “But you can trust us! We’re also on the ASR’s side and we’ll do whatever we can to help these victims!”
“You’re with the ASR?” The three volunteers exchange cautious glances, still a little unsure of what to make of their odd visitors, but at least they don’t seem to be enemies. The first man turns back and nods. “Alright. If there’s anything we can do to help, let us know. We’re also members and were posted here to keep an eye out for any shady activity.”
The second man points out with a disappointed frown, “But since the monsters showed up, all that activity ran off since the refugees were caught up in all this.”
“Yeah, I can imagine…” Biggs mutters just aloud.
“But what do we do now, guys?” Wedge asks his teammates, “If we can’t break them out of these bubbles…”
“We’ll just have to find the source of them and stop them!” Jessie answers without hesitation.
“Um, Jessie? But if those monsters that caused this are the same ones that we’ve been running from…” Biggs begins.
“And we can’t even dent whatever magic they’re using, what chance do we have against them?” Wedge follows up.
“Well, I’m not gonna just stand around and wait! People are gonna pass out if they’re left in there too long!” Jessie turns back to the volunteers. “You said they appeared from the ports, right?”
“Um, yes,” the woman answers, a little startled. “That’s why we’ve been evacuating everyone inland, but there are still more of those bubbles out there that we don’t know what to do about.”
“Then, that’s where we’re going,” Jessie concludes, looking off toward the open waters in the distance. She whips back to her partners and draws her weapon in hand. “Come on, guys! While we’re here, we might still be able to make a difference!”
“Hey, wait! Jessie!” Biggs calls out.
But she’s not arguing anymore. She’s off and running before Biggs and Wedge can stop her, so they hurry after too. Along the way, like with the bubbles they’d seen so far, there are plenty more that have trapped people inside and some even have caught more than one person in a single swoop. Out here, there are way more captives who have already passed out and others who have gone limp even if they are still breathing. There are even some bubbles that caught more than one person in a single swoop. The rest of the remaining residents have already been evacuated inland for the time being, so regrettably no one has stayed to watch over the hapless victims.
But as the trio approach the port, they finally manage to make out the shape of some massive creatures skimming the surface as if they were still patrolling the waters. They really do look like giant whales at a glance, but the ominous glow coming from their huge eye sockets indicate a very different lifeform.
“So those are the things?” Biggs raises a hand over his eyes and gives a scan around as he makes a quick count. “There are about three or four of them, at least from what I can tell.”
“They don’t look like the one that attacked Midgar, at least,” Wedge observes.
“Maybe these ones aren’t on the same level?” Jessie proposes. “We might be able to shoo them away and see if they’ll let our captives go.”
Biggs frowns back. “Jessie, I know we might have a bit of Ruby’s magic with us, but what are we gonna do against them? Just blast them with spells?”
She looks over their current materia stock. “Well, the only ones we have with her emblem are the Warp and Divination Materia. We gave away that Fire to Zhijie, after all.”
“Can’t we just make more?” Wedge asks. “You still got that transmuter, right?”
“Of course.” She looks back to the purple orb still slotted in on her gun. “But I was thinking instead of fighting, maybe we could try to arrange some kinda deal?”
He blinks. “A deal?”
Biggs raises an eyebrow. “What? Are you gonna try to talk with them?”
Jessie nods back. “At first I thought we only needed it to talk with the victims, but maybe Ruby might be able to help us with these things too.”
“Um, you sure about that, Jessie?” Wedge nervously points out, “Wouldn’t they not like it if we’re using Ruby’s magic on them?”
“It’s not like we’re trying to hurt them or anything, just open up a channel so we can communicate. If it works for people, maybe it’ll work for things that the planet made too. We’re part of one big system anyway.”
“Okay… Hope you know what you’re doing.”
“And if not, we’re warping outta here before things get rough, right?” Biggs also suggests.
“Probably better we don’t just abandon these people, but yeah, if we have to,” Jessie replies with a serious nod.
To make sure she’s not coming off as too aggressive, Jessie now detaches the purple orb in question from her weapon and slots it back in its holster. With just the orb in hand, she then walks up toward one of the docks to get closer. And to be sure they’ll be able to leave together, Biggs and Wedge join by her side. Now that they’re this close to the water, though, they quickly notice just how huge – and honestly intimidating – these whales really are. But no point in getting cold feet now. They’re already here; time to make it worthwhile. Jessie clutches the orb in hand, makes a quiet prayer in hopes that Ruby might be able to hear it, and raises it up in the air.
“Ruby, let’s do this. Here goes…” she whispers.
Despite the materia being an Independent rather than a Magic or Summon, it seems to react just by itself to Jessie’s intent and begins to glow faintly. And the very moment another materia with Ruby’s emblem has been activated, the strange creatures take immediate notice. The waters begin to stir and grow turbulent as not three or four, but an alarming seven of the giant whales known as Drifters begin to surface within the bay to answer their internal alarms. Whatever the materia did, it sure caught their attention and they don’t look happy to know an obvious threat is being presented right in their faces. The closest of the Drifters bellows angrily with such an expulsion of air that it nearly knocks the trio off their feet.
“W-whoa! I don’t think they liked that!” Wedge cries.
“Jessie! Get back!” Biggs shouts.
But Jessie hesitates to move just yet. With the power of the materia activated, she also starts to hear some other voices even amid the angry bellows of the Drifters.
“Drop the orb!” “It’s dangerous!” “The plague will only grow worse the more you use it!” “That anomaly is not to be trusted!” “Break away and you can still be spared!”
Bombarded by these warnings from some otherworldly place, she freezes still with fright, completely at a loss for words and unable to process them all. It’s just like how her dad warned her. These voices of the planet really don’t like Ruby for some reason. But for them to react like this just by a mere attempt at contact? Just what is going on?
“Jessie! Move!” Biggs’ voice snaps her out of it.
He and Wedge snatch her by the arms and pull her out of the way as the frontmost Drifter plunges back into the water with a great splash that would have engulfed them all if they hadn’t jumped out of range in time. By now, Jessie is so stunned and overwhelmed by the opening of the channel that she’s barely able to stand up straight. The voices are still coming and they’re practically scolding her.
“The anomaly was the source of the plague since ancient times!” “It was the very entity that released a great evil on the planet!” “We cannot allow its influence to spread!” “Leave the orbs and run! We shall contain the newly infected!” “This is your last warning!”
Contain the newly infected? What in the world? Why is the planet so bent on getting rid of anyone or anything that even has anything to do with Ruby? What about her is it that they’re so afraid of?
“Jessie! What happened? Snap out of it!” Biggs pleads.
“Turn off the materia or something! Throw it away!” Wedge shouts, frantic.
“Let’s get outta here!”
Throw it away…? Ruby’s materia? The stuff that she entrusted with them herself? How can they just dump her and her trust after all that they’ve been through with her?
It’s a bit too late for them to start running. The Drifters have begun to swarm in an excited flurry of waves which rock and overtake the docks, flooding the entire near coastline. And then several of them poke their heads out from the surface and they start blowing bubbles from their maws; very big bubbles like the kinds that they had seen just earlier. They launch a rough stream of the bubbles toward the town as if trying to contain the perceived threat, and the bubbles travel incredibly fast through the air for their size as if a great gust was pushing them forth.
“Jessie! Warp us!” Biggs yells.
In her panic, she fumbles to reach for her gun, but ends up dropping the Divination Materia, which bounces lightly as it hits the ground and rolls off.
“Ack! Wait! Come back!”
He grabs her and pulls back. “Forget it! We need the Warp now!”
“But that’s…!”
“Guys, watch out!” Wedge calls to them.
All in all, in their scramble to get away, the stream of bubbles easily overtake them and rush through the open streets like a flood of their own. However, as one of the residents from earlier had mentioned, only those that have been afflicted with the particular curse of ARC – or anything with Ruby’s insignia – would be captured. So while one of the bubbles seem to envelope the trio entirely, its magical properties allow it to pass through harmlessly and instead, it is only the Warp Materia that had been slotted in Jessie’s gun, as well as three tiny materia shards set in the transmuter, which are dislodged and swept up inside. Likewise, the Divination Materia that had seemingly escaped is caught by another nearby bubble that also traps it inside. And then, as the wave of bubbles travel past without further incident, the empty ones quietly pop as if they were normal bubbles and silence returns to the streets.
In their panic, all three of them drop to the ground, as if they were expecting to have died then and there, but then realize that they’re actually unharmed. They pull back up and exchange confused glances, wondering what had just happened, but then Jessie panics again when she spots two of the big bubbles containing some floating glowing pieces within them.
“Hey!” she wails, distraught and upset. “What the hell!? That’s not fair!”
“Wait! Did the bubbles snatch up all of Ruby’s stuff we had!?” Biggs exclaims with a gasp.
“Oh, no! Ruby!” Wedge squeaks.
“We have to get them back! It’s the only contact we have with her!” Jessie declares.
She climbs to her feet and rushes over to bang an angry fist at one of the bubbles, but as before, she’s simply repelled again. As Biggs and Wedge join her, though, they’re a bit lost as to what they can actually do at this point. Jessie is practically throwing herself at the bubble over and over, trying to claw at it to even try to scratch it, again to no avail.
“No! No! NO! It can’t end like this! We still have a chance, dammit!” she screams.
“Jessie…” Biggs calls softly to her.
“We can’t lose her! Not after we’ve come this far!”
“Jessie?” Wedge also calls, getting more worried.
“Ruby! Can you hear me? Don’t stop fighting, okay!? We’re not giving up so you can’t either!”
“…”
By now, both guys fall quiet as they aren’t sure if even their words are reaching her anymore. Jessie whips out her gun again and fires on the bubble over and over, but as always, it has no effect. Whatever has happened, it’s become clear that the planet’s forces always had some kind of power to hold over even their beloved VIP miracle worker. And just like that, a mistaken assumption and miscalculation later, the last traces of Ruby that had been with them were taken and imprisoned.
“We’re not… giving up…” Jessie gasps, having exhausted herself at last, and she drops to her knees as she begins to tear up in utter frustration. “Not yet… Not ever…”
“Jessie,” Biggs speaks up again, “Let’s fall back for now. We’ll figure something out to free her.”
“…” Jessie doesn’t answer, but she’s shaking her head as if still in shock.
As a despairing silence comes over the trio, they pay little mind to the Drifters in the distance. The huge whales begin to settle down again, as if their alarm has been quelled in the meantime, and sink back beneath the waves and disperse. Not all of them take their leave, just in case there are any other signs they must keep watch of, but then there was only one or two that stick around out of sight. From here, they will await the coming of their commander, so to speak, who will deliver the final decisive blow.
However, it isn’t all that quiet for long. In the distance, they can also hear the sounds of engines rushing on over, and a couple of off-road vehicles appear around the corner in plain view, screeching to a halt in the middle of the coastal lot before the docks. A number of people climb out to survey their surroundings, and a different unexpected group also step out to follow suit. However, unlike most others who seem to be fellow Wutaians, this other group is made up entirely of foreign black suits and an odd pair of cat and moogle.
“Oh! Biggs and Wedge! Jessie too!” the cat gasps loudly while the moogle gives him a lift onto his back.
“Huh? Even they’re here…?” the redhead in black comments.
“What the… Cait Sith? And the Turks!?” Biggs jerks back with a flinch.
“What are they doing here?” Wedge asks, getting fidgety again.
But at this point, Jessie doesn’t even look up to see them come over. She’s feeling a little too out of sorts to bother to care.
“By the Gods! It really is you!” Cait Sith exclaims in excitement as Moogle bounces on over carrying him. “How did you get here?”
“Uh, we had a way to warp around for a while there…” Biggs tries to explain, but his eyes trail toward the bubble nearby. “But it’s kinda out of our hands now.”
“Huh? What’s this?” Cait glances around the big bubble, noting that there seem to be only a few small objects contained inside. “Materia?”
“It’s a Warp Materia,” Wedge points out. “Ruby gave it to us to help us get around.”
“Eh!? Did ye just say ‘Ruby’? She’s been with you? Where is she?”
But before they can explain more, they’re cut them off by some clamor. It seems some of the ASR members who arrived with them went off to examine the docks to check around for any other people who had just to evacuate. Now, they’ve come rushing back in a panic.
“Hurry! Let’s go!”
“It’s coming!”
Though confused as they are to see all the commotion around them, they’ve run out of time. The last of the Drifters have vacated as well as a new even more massive threat approaches from the distance. The waves are disturbed yet again and slosh around even more violently than before. Even the whole area starts to tremble beneath their feet and the tremors, though light at first, quickly intensify.
“W-w-what!? What’s going on!?” Cait cries.
“A quake? Now?” Reno grumbles in disbelief.
“No, wait! At the coast!” Rude points out there.
To everyone’s shock and horror, something does come bursting out of the sea. It is a massive and very blue biomechanical creature – one that dwarfs even the Drifters from earlier – which is decked out in ancient magic armor and sports fins that could cover entire blocks of the town. It has most of its face covered by a large scarf-like piece of its armor that tapers down into a sharp point almost like a beak, but its huge, bright yellow eyes are honed in on the bubble-fraught scene before it. Even with its face covered, it lets out a rumbling roar that likewise shakes the surrounding land.
Sapphire Weapon, deployed.
Chapter 86: The Tempest Breaks
Notes:
Wow, I didn't take a whole month this time and I still wrote nearly 20k words again. Anyway, we're back to the episodes of Yuffie and Sonon since I had to cut their character arcs into two parts. Initially I was concerned that I wouldn't have enough content to share in this chapter since it came out of expectations last time, but instead I realized once again I should never underestimate how much content I can come up with at the drop of a hat.
But with this chapter, we are gradually moving into the chapters where everything will start to blend together and the two alternating chapter arcs will become one before we enter the finale. And you can be sure to leave it to a certain pair of sword-rascals to get us on that road.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Where could Yuffie be? Cloud scans the skies over the expanse of the Da-chao Mountains. Though the place hasn’t changed since he previously visited, as this scene from a memory would be just a few years prior to the present, it is a different kind of feeling to be able to see the entire range from up here. If there was anyone treading along the mountain paths at the moment, he would catch them right away. The problem, though, is if the captors he’s looking for are hiding in a cave, and at a glance, he doesn’t see anyone around.
Okay, what else can he try? If he can’t see them, maybe he can track a scent, though from this high up, he would need to call upon Fenrir’s help to further expand his sensory capabilities. Unfortunately, the wolf doesn’t seem to be available at the moment. Cloud’s been trying to reach him so far, but it’s like his voice has been muted or something. Whatever is going on in this realm, it’s blocking out all other interference. Could it just be because of the ongoing trial? Then again, why was he able to call on Fenrir before when he tried to challenge an Ifrit-possessed Barret? Was that situation just a special exception?
In any case, it’ll probably be easier to catch wind of something if he’s down on the ground. Cloud quietly falls through the air and slows his descent with a couple quick aerial jumps before settling down to earth once more. Now that he looks around, he’s stopped upon the hand of one of the giant statues that line the mountains, specifically the southwest-most one. As he descends the arm, he notices there are some cave openings off to the west, but which one should he check first?
As it happens, though, he’s broken out of his thoughts when he instead catches wind of some shuffling of feet and voices coming round his way. He quickly ducks back behind an arm of the nearest statue and keeps his ears keen.
“Man, what a disaster… Ms. Sera was furious that the meeting was a failure. I can still hear her voice yapping in my ears.”
“And now she wants us to free the hostage? I don’t get it. After we went out of our way to hide her out here too.”
“Maybe she got some other plan in the works? I heard that Sephiroth’s been searching the other towns for our deserters so he’s been preoccupied. That just leaves us ground troops to scout the capital in the meantime.”
“Yeah… Too bad we ended up with the short end of the stick. Ms. Sera isn’t even a division commander and yet she acts like she gets to order us around.”
“Well, she was picked by the uppers for this sabotage mission. No idea what she did to win favors, but apparently she really wanted to make a name for herself.”
“Hmph. Don’t we all? Except that we’re stuck pretending to be Wutaian and hiding in the shadows where no one would notice us.”
“Hey, it’s way better than being out on the front lines fighting off Wutai’s main force.”
“Yeah, I guess…”
The two soldiers, despite being dressed in Wutaian uniform, clearly don’t look or sound Wutaian. By the sounds of it, they’re enemy plants under orders of that fake envoy named Sera. In other words, if anyone would match the description of the captors who are holding Yuffie hostage, it would be them. Cloud remains hidden in the shadows even as they pass by, but stays back for now. He’ll wait until they lead him right to where they’re keeping Yuffie and then he’ll jump them.
They shortly lead him to the face of the statue he had just stopped at and one of them whips out a remote switch. With the tap of a button, something in the background begins to move and the entire area also begins to shake. Unexpectedly, the face of the giant statue seems to pull forward as if being moved by some hidden mechanism and reveal a sizeable hollow within the head. It’s tiny by room standards, but there is just enough space to fit several people, especially if they’re trying to film something in the dark.
“Mmmf!! Mmmrgh-mmmf-mmmhhp! MMMHHK!!”
There’s only one person being held inside. Little Yuffie tries to scream, but she’s been gagged by a small hand towel stuffed in her mouth. She’s also strapped to the back wall of the statue’s now protruding face and struggling to pull herself free, but the cuffs are just too tight. She’s looking a bit red in the face, probably from all the distress and frustration, but it could also be that there isn’t much air circulating in this hollow, aside from some tiny holes in the pupils of the statue’s eyes that have been roughly bored open. Though Cloud has no idea what kind of history this statue represents, even he has to wince when he notices them. Whoever set up this hidden “cave” here?
The two soldiers free Yuffie from the wall, but one of them throws her down again when she tries to kick them, while the other drops down to cuff her again. She scowls from behind the cloth gag, but now that she’s looking at the road outside… Huh? She swore she saw from the corner of her eye someone else who was out there. Was she just seeing things?
“Bwaaagh!!” the two soldiers suddenly scream. They’re sent flying with a single swing of a huge red blade and go for a tumble down the mountain slope.
Seemingly out of nowhere, Cloud has shown up to cut Yuffie out of her cuffs. With her hands freed, she rips out the cloth in her mouth and lets out a few dry coughs.
“Cloud!?” she exclaims.
Giving it a quick twirl in the air, he sets his sword back in place and offers her a hand. “You sure are lucky, huh.”
But rather than take his hand, she swats it away and gets up to her feet by herself. Even while she’s dusting herself off, she also gives him a stubborn glare. “What are you still doing here? I told you and that idiot to get out! Stop messing in our affairs!”
Cloud fires back an annoyed look. “What’s with you? Not even glad I helped you out? Your dad’s been worried sick, you know.”
“I know! I’ve known all along! It’s always the same story every dang cycle! Dad is too busy with the war to watch over me, so I sneak around to find out what I’m supposed to do, and then something awful happens and I get caught by Shinra or whatever and I’m out! I dunno how many times I’ve had to restart the trial and I’m sick of it!” Her rant aside, she points a threatening finger his way and adds for emphasis, “But that’s why you should stop butting in! This is my trial and I don’t need you to save me!”
“So says the kid who was just taken hostage…”
Still steaming to herself, Yuffie stomps off for the open road as Cloud follows after her to make sure he doesn’t lose sight of her again.
“Where are you going?” he calls out. “If you wanna get back to the capital, I have an easy way there.”
“And I told you, I don’t want your help! I don’t care anymore! Every time I try to do something to fix things, they never go my way! It’s like the whole thing’s rigged and every time I try again, things stop making sense! Heck, I wasn’t even supposed to be here!”
Cloud raises an eyebrow. “So why are you?”
Though he was just curious, the question makes Yuffie stop in her tracks. When he looks at her again, though, she seems even more upset than earlier, but still grants him an answer.
She grumbles just aloud, “…Because I got caught by those Shinra plants. They dragged me out here to film some dumb hostage video.”
“Huh?”
She also sighs. “It’s so sad… Me, the ultimate ninja and single White Rose of Wutai, swiped off the streets and held hostage like some chump! It’s so stupid I can’t believe I let my guard down.”
Though he doesn’t say anything, she only grows more upset and kicks some dust around in a huff before she settles down again.
“Those fakers weren’t even that sneaky about it. I was just leaving the catacombs when I ran into them and they pretended to be part of my dad’s guard. Thought it was weird it was just two of them, but I was already tired from my search and didn’t want to argue. They said they would take me home, so I tried to ditch them and then they hit me with sleeping gas! Ugh. The oldest trick in the book…”
“Huh? The catacombs? What were you looking for?”
“My materia, of course! If you must know, I’ve kept a secret stash of all the materia I collected over the years from my worldly travels! There were quite a few of them and I would have shared them with you guys, but…” She shrugs. “Ruby and the rest of ya didn’t seem to have problems for a while there, so I didn’t bring it up.”
“But isn’t this memory from a few years ago? Would you still have all the materia you collected?”
“I dunno, but I had to give it a try!” She then growls as fearsomely as she can muster. “But when I finally found the place, I couldn’t find it! I can’t believe it! Someone dared to take MY materia!? Who would even know that I was keeping them there? Argh! It pisses me off!”
Cloud makes an alerted frown. “They’re all gone? The whole stash?”
“Yeah!” Yuffie throws out some rapid-fire jabs in the air. “Ooh, I’m so mad! When I find the thief, I’m giving them a full-circle wallop! Roundhouse kick! Knock them off a cliff or two!”
“Hmm… So you still don’t know which Summon it is that started this trial, huh?”
“That’s the other annoying thing! I thought if I could just find my stash and see which red materia was missing, I’d know it would have to be that one! But now I’m back to knowing squat!”
He folds his arms and mutters aloud as he drifts off into thought, “Then, if it isn’t through materia, how would you and Sonon be able to reach the Summons…?”
“I have no idea!” She pouts and drops into a huddling crouch. “It’s so unfair. Why can’t that old bag just give me a hint or something? She didn’t tell me much aside from how I’d be part of a ‘trial’ and threw me in here, and now I can’t even go back to that black void to ask her again. Man! What am I missing?”
“…”
“Whatever this trial’s supposed to be about, it sure knows how to knock me down a peg or two… but why do things always get harder the more I try? Am I supposed to do something different or the same or what?” She shuts her eyes and clutches her head. “What am I supposed to learn from this? To stop trying!?”
On that thought, Cloud breaks from his own to answer, “Shouldn’t it be the other way around? No matter how hard things get, you have to keep trying.”
Though he doesn’t get an answer right away, he then notices that she’s starting to tremble. As he steps closer, he realizes she’s even started to cry.
“…I can’t do this anymore. I give up! Enough already! Whatever trouble Sonon is in, he’s on his own!”
“H-hey, Yuffie. Come on. Isn’t it too soon to give up?”
She drops to the ground in a slump. “It’s never too soon in this place. The whole thing’s an impossible mess. I don’t even know why I’m still here.” She curls up again and buries her face against her legs. “Well, who cares. Just let the whole world restart…”
As if it were reflex, Cloud gets a little twitchy, but rather than fret from worry, he does with resentment. He’s heard enough of people wishing for an end to everything. Rubia, Ruby, even Tifa for a moment there. He knows it’s so easy to say; he’s had his own moments too. Yet, every time he hears it from someone else, it still stings. Their feelings of helplessness just remind him of his own and he hates ever having to come back to that. He feels like he should do something, step in before things go down that way again… but what can he do? He’s never been able to reach Rubia at all, and by the time he noticed, he was too late to help Ruby. At least he barely managed to save Tifa, though it was more like she saved herself. All he did was confuse her into a whole mess and almost led to her disappearing. And now, in the midst of a country’s history he doesn’t know much about, he understands even less about what Yuffie and Sonon have been through. Even Sonon knew something about Zack that he didn’t. So what purpose does some outsider like him have to be here…?
Just as the two are wallowing in self-pity, though, another cataclysm arrives to interrupt them. Out of nowhere, a massive burst of energy erupts from the pagoda in the distance and shoots out into the heavens, parting the stormy clouds that had once overseen the city. However, it is not a call to end the storm, but bring a new one. The pillar of intense light and energy expands outward and begins to take shape into a much more serpentine form. Once the light fades, the mighty, translucent azure serpent appears in the skies over Wutai and lets out a great echoing roar that makes the very land tremble beneath him. And with that mighty roar, the seas out at the coast begin to stir and slosh violently as the storm breaks. Both Shinra and Wutai forces still left at the shore are promptly swallowed up by the indiscriminately thrashing waves as they flood far and fast.
“What the- Leviathan!?” Cloud gasps. “He doesn’t look right…”
Yuffie was caught off-guard by the explosion of energy, but once she sees the terrifying sight, she just sinks back into her slump and turns away again. “…Looks like the ‘end’ is finally here. About time…”
But Cloud is practically panicking. “Forget that! What happened to Sonon? And Zack? Godo was there too.”
“…”
“Yuffie! Snap out of it! We have to go find them!”
“What’s the point!?” she snaps back, throwing up her arms. “Even Leviathan’s here now! We super-ultra-mega messed up! No point trying to fix this round. We’ll just get brought back here anyway, so let’s get all that over with!”
“Stop saying that! You’re just gonna get trapped in time! Same with me and Zack, for that matter. We weren’t part of the trial to begin with.”
“Can’t you just jump back in like how you did in the first place?”
“No! We can’t jump out once we’re in! And if we don’t do something about Sonon, we’ll lose him too! Do you really want that to happen?”
She blinks away a couple tears, growing disturbed, and turns back to him. “Huh? How? I thought he’d be stuck here with me.”
“Yuffie, take it from me: Every time the trial ‘restarts’, things are always going to be a little different. I saw how bad things got when we found Barret and we could’ve lost him to his own trial if Aerith didn’t intervene in time. But she’s busy right now. We can’t risk losing you guys either!”
“Aerith? Wait, is she not with you guys?”
“No, Zack and I were the only ones who jumped here. The others went off to find Vincent and Cid.”
“Wha…?” By now, Yuffie is only getting even more confused, but at least she’s now riled enough to stop moping. “What the heck, guys! Why’d you split up? If Aerith’s not here, then what do we do?”
“We do what we can! We don’t have time to set up another plan anyway. Things are getting complicated since Rubia’s gone missing and who knows where Sephiroth is… the real one, not the one from here.”
“Ugh, what the hell. So I don’t even have time to mope anymore? God, this sucks…” she complains, but hastily wipes away her tears and gets back to her feet. “Fine, I get it! I’ll figure something out… But I haven’t figured out who my Summon is yet. Shouldn’t we get that settled first?”
“Ask your dad. He was keeping the Leviathan materia for Sonon, so he might know something about yours too.”
Her eyes nearly pop out of her head to hear that. “What!? Damn old man! He knew all along?” She also snarls with renewed spirit, “That’s it! I’m dragging the truth out of his teeth if I have to! Take me there!”
Cloud is a bit surprised by her abrupt heel-face turn, but since it’s a welcome change, he doesn’t question it. He nods back and calls up another magic circle at their feet, taking them for another warp back to the pagoda. If things get any more chaotic, he might have to call on Fenrir’s full support, assuming he can even reach him from here.
~
However, by the time they arrive, they find the room much emptier than expected. Sonon is gone, Zack is gone, and Godo is alone. He is seated on the tatami mat where he had been standing and seems to be meditating in silence over the recent troubling developments.
“Old man!” Yuffie yells all of a sudden, disturbing him from his thoughts. “What are you doing!? There’s a God thrashing over our heads and you’re just sitting here!”
“Yuffie?” Godo opens his eyes and nods toward them in approval, but maintains his solemn expression. “I see. You certainly keep your promises, Cloud-shi.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” Cloud replies. “What happened to Sonon? And Zack? We saw Leviathan show up over the city and looks like he’s going wild.”
The older man gives a distressed sigh. “I was afraid that this would happen, but it seems Sonon isn’t ready to be the bearer of the great Leviathan’s will. It is yet too soon.”
“Did it happen because you just gave it to him? Like, would that be against the rules of the trial?”
“No, he was unresponsive as when you’d left. Instead, something else greatly disturbed him and brought him to desperation.” Godo lowers his head in shame. “I will admit that it was partly due to my own carelessness.”
“Huh? He was desperate?”
Yuffie blinks too. “Couldn’t handle Leviathan’s power, huh?”
“Sonon was passed out, so it was Leviathan who exerted His will in the boy’s place.” Godo turns back to them with a stiff upper lip. “You see, we had an unwelcome intruder. He should not have been here and yet…”
Cloud snaps to attention. “Who was it?”
“Sephiroth.”
With that one name, he shocks both of them to attention. “What?”
Godo’s expression hardens into suspicion too. “However, it wasn’t the Sephiroth of the past who was part of this memory. No, this other man, wherever he had come from, had an entirely different objective – to capture Zack Fair, seemingly under the command of a greater power.”
Cloud feels his nerves racked like he was just struck by a bolt. “So he really showed… But under someone else’s command? And why Zack? What would he have to do with anything?”
Yuffie simply looks confused again. “Uh, yeah. What’s up with Zack? Weren’t you with him?”
He turns to her. “Yeah, but I just left him to watch over Godo and Sonon so I could head out and find you.”
“And now he’s gone… because of Sephiroth?”
He winces as if those very words stung like sharp needles. “Sounds like it.”
“Why did you bring him along anyway? Or did he want to come?”
“He did. And I figured he could be a big help since he was here during Wutai’s last stand. I guess he must’ve had some guilt carry over, since this time he wanted to help turn things around. So we interfered with Shinra’s raid on the fort and even ran into Sephiroth from the past.” He looks off with a grave frown. “But something wasn’t right about that Sephiroth, like he already knew what was happening even beyond the scope of this trial. But for some reason, he left us alone and even gave us a hint where we could find Sonon.”
Yuffie’s eyes blink wide open. “Huh!? If he knew that much, then he was obviously an outsider! Why’d you let him go?”
“We didn’t have a choice. It’s not like defeating him here would change anything about the real one.” He also adds, gritting his teeth, “Before he left, he warned Zack that the ‘Gods were watching’. We didn’t know what he meant at the time, but he made it sound like there was going to be some kind of divine interference.”
She stares back like he said a bunch of nonsense. “The Gods? Like the other Summons or something? But isn’t this Leviathan’s realm?”
“I thought so too. I’ve been trying but haven’t reached Fenrir since earlier, so I figure he would have some control over that.” He makes a sullen groan, swearing to himself under his breath. “Didn’t think Sephiroth would just take matters into his own hands. I shouldn’t have jumped away…”
“Hmm…” Then, with a pensive frown of his own, Godo raises the point, “While it’s not unheard to have certain characters of significance be aware of events outside of these memories, I had the impression that the one I met just now and the one you may have run into are not the same.”
Cloud blinks in surprise and looks back to him. “Huh? How do you figure?”
“For instance, the two’s objectives would have differed. The one exclusive to this memory would simply have a particular role to fulfill over the course of the trial. However, the one that just arrived not only had access to the tools that govern the system – a power granted only to the masters of these spiritual realms – but he was even aware of Minerva and gave her name.”
“Minerva…?” He blinks again in disbelief, recalling something he had read before, “The Goddess that stands for the planet’s will? What would she have to do with Sephiroth… or Zack, for that matter?”
Godo takes another moment to contemplate, but then shakes his head and replies, “Unfortunate, but I don’t have answers for you regarding anything beyond the scope of this trial. After all, I am merely a reproduction of the man you see, made expressly by the will of the Summon that oversees this memory.”
Cloud can feel his heart sink in disappointment. “Of course.”
The older man looks out the window with the same solemn face. “Regardless, it’s clear that what has transpired here has enraged the great Leviathan. He always expected to take Sonon’s body as his vessel regardless, but because the boy was not ready, the divine spirit has completely overtaken him in a feral rage.” He turns back and lowers his head again as if in apology. “I’m afraid I can do no more to break him free. If you can, please do what you must to save him.”
“Yeah, we’ll try… something.” That said, Cloud clenches up his fists with regret. “…Damn it. Was there really no way to avoid this? I know he wanted to protect you, but that was so reckless. Shinra already had access to ARC weapons at this point, so he should have let me take the blow. I’m immune thanks to Fenrir anyway.”
Godo nods slowly. “That is simply in his nature. I would have expected nothing less of my star pupil to come to my defense.”
“Yeah…”
By now, the conversation has gone on into the depressing and the two men fall silent in their respective lamentations. And yet, as the third one standing by, Yuffie looks between the two in disbelief and grows even more impatient with them.
“Oh, for the love of… ARC, again? How many times does he have to be in the same exact situation!?” She takes a stomp. “Ugh, never mind! If Sonon’s in that much trouble, then let’s go! We have to stop him!”
Cloud gives her a disapproving look, but agrees with her on one thing: “Not ‘we’. I’ll go.”
“What?”
He turns back to Godo. “Sorry, sir, but can I leave Yuffie in your care? At this point, I’m the only one left who can challenge Leviathan.”
“Oh, no, you don’t!” Yuffie shrieks indignantly. “I’m as much part of the trial as he is! I’m coming too!”
“Hell no. You’re not in fighting shape right now and you still have to find your own Summon. You’ll only get in the way.”
“Shut up! Just ’cause I’m a kid doesn’t mean I can’t fight! And as for the Summon, I can figure that out on the way!”
“Weren’t you going to ask your dad about it, though?”
“Yeah, I was!” Yuffie whips back to her father and demands, “So you know what’s going on, right? Which Summon am I supposed to be looking for? I tried to find my secret stash, but it wasn’t there!”
But Godo returns her his ever stern frown. “Yuffie, do you expect to conquer this trial if I simply gave you the right materia?”
“Of course! I’ll make it work somehow!”
He shakes his head. “No. You’ve seen how Sonon reacted. We can’t have you losing control to another as well.”
“Oh, you shut up too! Unlike Sonon, I know how to control myself! Just give me the materia and get out to safety or something! Cloud and I will handle him!”
Godo then passes the exit a quick glance. “…Speaking of Cloud, he seems to have left.”
“What!?”
By the time Yuffie notices, Cloud is gone. He had her temporarily distracted and rushed out the door on his own.
“Cloud, you asshole!” she yells as she hurries out the door too, but he’s already out of sight. “He just ditched me!” She stomps her feet in protest. “Stop underestimating me, dammit! I can handle my own if you’d let me!”
Meanwhile, Godo calmly gets up and walks up to her. “Yuffie.”
“What now?” she scowls, swinging back around.
“If you must insist, I can show you where your stash has gone.”
“Huh?” She narrows her eyes in disbelief. “Wait. It was you who stole my materia?”
Godo gives an amused snort. “Your materia? I believe you acquired materia at my personal request in the first place.”
“Shut up, old man! It’s my materia because I found it!” She also points a threatening finger. “Anyway, hurry up and show me where it is and I’ll let you off this time!”
Rather than keep arguing, Godo turns away for the stairs inside and beckons her to come. “Very well. This is an emergency, after all. Let’s hurry.”
She’s already zipped past him as he begins to descend, but she at least waits for him to follow after.
~
Back outside, Cloud has hopped up to the rooftop of the pagoda to get a better vantage point. Yet, the great serpent looms overhead in the skies, still far out of reach. Without access to Fenrir’s full power, how can he reach Leviathan up there? Well, he still had to try. He pulls up the holographic GUI once again to take a quick peek and see if he can’t find a hint or reference to what he can muster from here. However, as with all previous times, he has no idea of what this mysterious text on his screen says. Damn it. Why couldn’t Fenrir have at least taught him what language he’s using? He can’t speak “Runes” or whatever this is.
That being said, there is one message on display that reads in clear English: “One of the current objectives is missing. Run a test of available debug tools?”
He stares at it, plainly taken aback. This is a new message. If the objective’s missing, can’t they just abort or something? He can’t find the option, though. Might as well run the test to see if it’ll do anything. He hits the button on the left among two hoping that it is the confirm action, and to his temporary relief, the screen changes to a blank terminal as the relevant data is loaded in to begin the debugging process.
And seemingly out of nowhere, he’s jumped by a faint but familiar voice that echoes from afar. “Cloud… can you hear me?”
He blinks. “What the… Fenrir?”
“Good. I’ve been trying to reach you for a while, but it seems our connection is weak in this realm. Perhaps the state of emergency has allowed other permissions as a temporary measure.”
“Fenrir, can we merge? I want to stop him, but I can’t reach him from here. I need your help.”
“You already have the power. I am ready to fight when you are.”
“Huh? But I tried calling on you earlier and you didn’t answer. What’s changed?”
“Leviathan’s status. Normally when a Summon’s power is unleashed before the bearer can wield it properly, the session may be mark ‘failed’ and the trial restarted. However, as this particular trial is overseen not by one but two Rulers of the Realms, the other still retains some degree of control over the current course. In other words, I may be able to contact you now, but I cannot guarantee our connection will remain stable. We are still at the whims of the other Ruler.”
Cloud nods. “Then we’ll finish this quick.” He looks back up to where Leviathan looms and declares loudly and defiantly, “Let’s go, Fenrir!”
Fenrir lets out a vehement howl in agreement and Cloud meets with the familiar rush of spiritual aura, bursting in an explosion of light and magic as several times before. He sees with unclouded focus and bears his sharpened fangs, and with a single superpowered leap, he launches into the sky.
While Leviathan has raged, the seas have begun to flood closer and closer to the city gates, swallowing up even more troops and Shinra mechs on the ground. As there isn’t any particular target that they can reach, everyone is in panic and helpless to avoid the rushing floods. Adding to the fear and confusion is the fact that the young famed Shinra general who was supposed to be present has mysteriously vanished. Likewise, so have the particular dissenters that he was meant to pursue. It’s like the moment Leviathan arrived on the scene, any and all the potential threats that could feasibly have stepped up to challenge him were promptly removed so he may unleash his full fury.
However, Leviathan did not account for one little thing: given the current session’s pending status, the usual security measures are down and this has let in a certain guest spirit who also hungers for battle. Before the serpent realizes it yet, the figure of another man suddenly flashes within his proximity and lets out a massive slash wave that carves its way up the serpent’s body from below. Leviathan screeches in pain and with utmost indignance. Though the slash doesn’t cut as deep as that from the other rogue swordsman once before, this one comes with a thin dressing of unmeltable ice. It has all the hallmarks of a foreign divine power’s interference, and that is the one thing that infuriates Leviathan the most: these outsiders coming into his realm and acting in a way that defies his personal order. He already removed one problematic suspect, so why has another shown up!?
Before the serpent can thrash out at him, Cloud dashes through the air to avoid the incoming tail strike and charges back in to lay another winding slash that seems to coil itself around the serpent’s otherwise immaterial body and freeze it solid. Nevertheless, Leviathan refuses to remain locked in place by magic or otherwise and breaks free with a simple twist and snap motion that flings off the icy coating. And before his target can back away again, he blasts him with the full weight of the atmosphere in the form a giant stream of water.
Though Cloud narrowly dodges the incoming blast, he then notices that the stream doesn’t simply dissipate in the distance. Instead, he swerves back around and flies at him again as if it had homing properties. No matter where he dashes toward, the rushing waters loop around and pursue him as if it were its own serpent given life. It lunges and snaps at him with its translucent “maws” and chases him out of the city. And in his haste, Cloud realizes a bit too late that he’s come a bit close to the coastline. Seizing his chance, Leviathan roars again and calls upon the power of the waves to shoot up and surround his target before he can run away again. In the final split-second, Cloud whips up a whirl of ice magic to shield himself, but it’s already too late. The waters clash upon him like blistering spears that are able to plunge through even the toughest ice and strike their target clean. The next thing he knows, he feels faint, coughs up blood, and shortly plummets into the sea below.
But Leviathan isn’t done with him. He takes an aggressive dive and pursues his prey further underwater. This is his realm and he is going to make an example out of this miscreant once and for all.
~
While the battle over dominion goes on, Godo takes Yuffie to one of the last places she would have thought they would go: home. As it turned out, after several cycles in which both Yuffie and Sonon struggled to come to terms with the objectives of their respective trials, Godo eventually took matters into his own hands and located the relevant materia himself. While it did mean he would be temporarily absent from the front lines, this war was already drawing to a close at this point and what was due to follow would be the factioning of the shogunate; as well as among the regional lords with whom he once shared the country’s bounty. In any case, all that matters would come down to the potential of their young rising stars.
“You gotta be kidding me. You really took my stash home?” Yuffie grumbles. “Where’d you put it? I didn’t see it anywhere last time.”
“Of course you wouldn’t. If it were that simple, you would not have faced the necessary struggle.”
“Man! I hate how these things are always about the ‘lessons we learn along the way’. Why can’t we just jump right to the kickass parts? I’ve been here long enough anyway! Doesn’t that count for something?”
“Surely, you must also recognize that it is because of your haste that you have failed to progress further, yes?”
“How is it my fault that the trial’s conditions keep changing!? Don’t try to justify it when the Gods make up excuses or push goalposts! They didn’t have to make things this annoying!”
He lets off a quiet sigh. “Even now you fail to see the purpose. Perhaps a more direct approach would be needed after all.”
“If by ‘direct approach’, you finally let me fight, then yes!”
“…”
Despite his lingering concerns, Godo calmly proceeds into his room, followed by his excitable kid, and hits a secret switch panel hidden in the back wall. As easy as a click of a button, the wall opens up to a small cove just big enough to hold a single chest. And as promised, he opens it up to reveal the hidden materia stash.
“Finally! Come to Mama!” Yuffie darts in to dig through it herself, but he stops her. “Huh?”
“Allow me,” he insists. With just one reach inside, he picks out the relevant red materia and reveals it to her. “Here.”
She stares in awe, but also in a conflicting mix of disbelief and slight disappointment. “Uh… Isn’t this Sylph?”
“Indeed. It was none other than the Fairy Queen who approached you.”
“What?” Her jaw drops. “Oh, come on! Why am I a freakin’ fairy when Sonon gets to be the awesome water dragon?”
“You are certainly a whimsical one, that’s for sure,” he muses aloud. “The element of wind would best suit your future course.”
“Don’t give me that faux wisdom talk! What the hell!” she snaps back. “So the one who’s been messing with me is a fairy, huh? Ugh. Stuff like this is taking pranks a little far, you know!” She throws out a few rapid jabs in frustration as she keeps pouting, “What is Sylph even doing here in Wutai anyway? I remember I found her during one of my trips overseas, so she’s not a native, right?”
“Perhaps her earliest origins did not begin on this island, but rest assured, she definitely has her place in our land’s history. And you have none other than your friend Ruby to thank.”
“Huh?” She whips back around, a little lost. “Ruby?”
“Or should I say, her predecessor Rubia. Do you remember the creation myth with her and Leviathan?”
“Uh, yeah.” She folds her arms. “I did my research on my own since you were always telling me not to dig up those archives. What’s the deal anyway? They’re just a bunch of old scrolls, aren’t they?”
Godo frowns to himself, looking displeased with something that he’d rather not get into at the moment. “Well, let’s just say it was inconvenient for anyone, not just you or me, to bring attention to them. The old scrolls told a truth that conflicted with the primary historical narrative at the time, and that narrative was critical to the hegemony of a certain group in power for several decades prior to the start of this war.”
“What? You mean the former empress and stuff? I heard they got ousted after the war too, after the new government formed.”
“Yes… It’s much more complicated, so you’ll have to forgive me for sparing you from the rest for now.” He moves on to the main point, “I brought up Rubia because it was her who brought Sylph’s materia to the Da-chao Mountains in the first place, where I had first come upon it myself in my youth.”
“You found it out there? Why?”
“As it turned out, it was a gift from her to Da-chao-sama to represent her graduation from her studies here.” Meeting her blank expression, he explains further, “You see, she had many different mentors across the ages, as part of the training regiment that her father placed upon her since her youngest years. However, Leviathan was one of the most challenging of regiments she had to face on her journey. It took her a long time before she finally could master the art of elemental bending and ascend beyond the material into the ethereal. In other words, it was by Leviathan’s training that Rubia truly embraced the power of light that she once thought as a curse.”
“Huh. She thought the light was a curse? But normally light magic is all about holy stuff, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but much of Rubia’s history was plagued by contradictions. That was but one that she struggled to accept.”
“Hmm…” Yuffie scratches her head. “Okay, so where does Sylph come in, then?”
“Throughout Rubia’s journey, Sylph watched over her progress and acted as support when she had to recover from her battles. Thus, she gave the young Rubia a special pendant that would bless her with a respite of healing through the worst of pains.”
“Aha! So that pendant had Sylph’s materia?”
“That’s right. It carried her magic and elemental essence in a tiny orb, and its power and size grew as it gathered experience as Rubia did. Eventually, once she learned to overcome Leviathan’s regiment, Rubia no longer needed that pendant and left it behind. Leviathan agreed to keep it for her, in case she would ever come back for it. However, as he is an entity of water, it would be unfit for his realm to host materia of a different element. So, to make sure it would not fall carelessly into the hands of anyone unworthy, he left it in the care of the Garuda of the mountains.”
She blinks in surprise, but then nods along as she catches on. “It was with the Garuda? I mean, I guess they’d know a thing or two about wind magic.”
Her father nods. “And that brings us back to you, Yuffie.”
“Huh? Me?”
“Even given our current predicament, I took the time to tell you the tale of Rubia for a reason. I hope you will take this tale to heart and really understand what there is to learn from it, as well as how it relates to your specific trial with Slyph.”
“Uh…” She simply stares back incredulously. “Sorry, but I don’t see how Rubia leaving behind materia has anything to do with me. It sounds dumb, if anything! What was she thinking, leaving behind something that precious? Is she an idiot?”
He makes a disappointed frown, but decides not to keep pressing the issue. “In any case, the answers may come to you in due time. For now, though it troubles me as a father, I will let you join Cloud and challenge Leviathan.”
“About time you came around! Sheesh.” She rolls her eyes. “But yeah, yeah, I get it. Things just gotta get worse before they get better and all that.”
“Stay strong, Yuffie, and persevere. There will be many challenges awaiting you, even beyond the scope of this trial, but I trust you will be able to overcome them. For you are the future of Wutai…”
Before he even finishes his last sentence, though, Yuffie is already on her way out. “Thanks for the materia, Pops! Catch ya later, maybe when we’re back on the surface!”
Godo watches her disappear out the door, but doesn’t give chase. He simply lets off another sigh and shakes his head, and continues to mumble aloud to himself. “…When that time comes, I can only hope you’ll be able to serve as the mediator in our complex web of government affairs. But that will be saved for another time…”
~
Intense, suffocating pressure. Leviathan is truly within his element underwater, and Cloud is taking the full brunt of it right now. It’s not just that he’s been trapped in the serpent’s vise-like jaws, he feels the immense water pressure around him like it’s crushing against him from all sides with all the vitriolic intent of its commander. Cloud can barely hang on as he feels his breath escape him bit by bit until he has none left to give. Damn it… It can’t end like this. He still needs to get out and find Zack and Sephiroth.
Fortunately, he isn’t alone. A kindred spirit within him likewise refuses to be defeated. And as Cloud’s consciousness fades, Fenrir is forced to take the helm. With a ferocious snarling roar, the old wolf unleashes a violent burst of intense pressure of his own, expanding outward and completely counter to the waters around him, and begins to boil his vicinity away into steam. Before Leviathan can make anything of this sudden change in temperature, that fiery aura rushes forth and slams into the serpent, knocking him back up and out of the sea. The body of his prey has become too hot to keep latching onto and the serpent is forced to release him with a steam-fraught cough. And in that moment of hesitation, Fenrir lashes out with a vicious crunch upon the serpent’s exposed neck, tackling him through the skies once more and back toward the capital.
Unfortunately, this is not what Yuffie wanted to see. She hurries out from the Kisaragi mansion grounds with anxious excitement, only to stop in her tracks the moment she witnesses a terrifying clash of enormous deific beasts terrorizing the entire city from above. She ducks for cover again as they come swinging by a little too close to the buildings, and that azure tail crashes into her neighbors’ houses as it passes. While Leviathan still retained enough self-control to not directly attack his home base, all bets are off now that he’s enraged beyond reason. He thrashes back constricts himself around the wolf in an attempt to choke him again, but Fenrir refuses to let go since he first chomped down. The two wrestle in an equally stubborn gridlock as they throw themselves against each other and accidentally wreck their surroundings even more.
“What the hell, guys!? Sonon! Cloud! Stop it already!!” she screams at the top of her lungs.
But in the ensuing chaos, neither beast can hear the wails of the humans scrambling for safety beneath them. Trying to break free, Leviathan screeches again to call upon the tidal waves to rush on over. However, unlike the frantically sloshing waves from before, they are much more precise in design and aim. Giant water spouts spiral out from the shores and hurl themselves inland to skewer his intended target like lances, but Fenrir’s flames won’t be smothered no matter how much water is poured. The wolf utters his own threatening growl, and kicking off some nearby wreckage, throws himself back in a flip that lands in a suplex that crashes just outside the city gates in a massive explosion of steam. Unfortunately, the explosion itself is strong enough to knock the gates askew and they collapse too. And even then, neither beast is willing to yield from their own grip.
This can’t be happening. Yuffie stares in disbelief at the devastation around her and she gets agitated too. She has to stop them, to get between them and knock them both out of the city before they cause any more mutual destruction. She rushes back to her mansion grounds and ducks into the hangar, where she snatches the handlebar of a hang glider. Though it used to just be a leisurely item for her when she was little, she came to find it rather useful to get out of town fast whenever she needs it. Even in this tiny body, she still got her techniques down, so with an aptly timed Windstorm, she runs and blasts off into the sky after the ongoing titanic brawl.
However, it very quickly occurs to her that this may not have been the best idea. While she could reach them this way, the moment she dares to fly near, the very tremors from the beasts’ struggle shake the winds around her too and she loses control. Rather than hang up on regrets, though, she lets go and lets the winds carry her glider away to a safe distance while she takes a dive and clings onto Leviathan’s dorsal fin. She barely has time to jump away again as the serpent is thrown to the ground again by the angry wolf who is trying to crush the serpent’s windpipe with a forepaw. In return, Leviathan keeps crushing the wolf’s neck, even despite the waters of his bodily form being boiled upon contact. And in their midst, Yuffie leaps into position upon the serpent’s head to kick at him to get his attention.
“GUYS!! Stop it! STOP FIGHTING!! You’re just wrecking everything!!”
Again her words are drowned out by the roars of the beasts. With his naturally slippery scales, Leviathan manages to slide himself out from under Fenrir’s forepaw and throws his weight back to knock the wolf onto the ground instead. Unfortunately, Yuffie doesn’t have the chance to find another place to cling to when she is thrown off by the hurling motion. And as she falls right between the two, with little awareness of her presence, both beasts open their maws at last and prepare to clash once more.
Yuffie shuts her eyes on instinct and she curses the name of the Summon that brought her to this point. But mere moments before the beasts’ strikes come to meet, she too blacks out in an instant.
~
It’s back to the pitch darkness. When she realizes she doesn’t seem to be falling anymore, Yuffie opens her eyes again and is disappointed to meet nothing all around her. With an exhausted sigh, she curls up into a quivering ball and buries her face in her arms. In the end, after all that she tried, it happened again. She failed. And now the only thing that awaits her is the next cycle where time is reset and she’s gonna be stuck redoing everything from the start.
But then again, who knows at this point? Things just don’t work out no matter what she does. Even if Cloud said that they should do what they can, what can they do? What does any of it matter? First Sonon lost himself and even Cloud followed after, and then everything went to shit real fast. Even if she wanted to ask them or anyone else for help, this stupid trial was always rigged against them. If anything, it feels like his interference just made things worse. Things were bad the last few cycles, but now it’s an absolute mess this time. Where will things go from here? What else must she suffer through? And why keep struggling…?
Her eyes begin to well up again. For once in her sixteen years of life, Yuffie Kisaragi officially gives up. She’s had enough. So what if she can’t go back to the surface? She might as well not bother if there isn’t any way there.
“…Easy there, child of Fate. It’s too soon to conclude the trial.”
Oh, for the love of… No, you know what? Forget it. The Gods are a bunch of dickwads! Why should she share any love for them? It’s their fault that they got into all these problems in the first place! Not just here in the Lifestream but also up there when they had to deal with Ruby and Rubia’s problems too! Maybe Rubia was right all along. This world is dumb and it has to go.
“I understand your frustration. When all seems lost and impossible to comprehend, mankind oft turns to escape to be free of its responsibilities.”
“…Ugh. Shut up already!” She looks back up with welled-up eyes and glares at the incomprehensible darkness around her. “I don’t care anymore! I’ve had it with you all! Leave me alone!”
“Do you really believe that? Does the frustration of loss not hang heavy over your heart?”
“Of course it does! But what do you want from me!?” She gets back to her feet and takes a defiant stomp. “First you tell me that I’m supposed to ‘save’ Sonon, but you don’t ever let me find him or even help guide me to him! You want me to keep fighting, but I’m back to being a little kid again! I’m forced to deal with freakin’ Shinra at our doorstep too, and everyone working for Dad is out to get me and lock me up so I can’t fight! And every time the cycle restarts, whenever I think I’d know what’s gonna happen next, the formula changes on me so I don’t know what’s going on anymore! What is any of this supposed to teach me, huh? That you Gods are so stuck-up that you can’t recognize how much people struggle just by existing!?”
“…”
“I can’t stand it. I hate that I ever agreed to anything. I thought beating this trial would be a cinch, and that we’d jump back out to the surface with everyone else…” She drops back down into a slumped sitting position. “But if everyone has to undergo unfair crap like this, then who would be out there waiting for us? For me?”
“…”
“I know I’m not the strongest fighter. Maybe I am the fastest, except for Nanaki, but that doesn’t matter if my hits don’t do much. And I got ninjutsu and materia in spades, but that doesn’t matter if I can’t use them. But I figured that if I at least had grit and determination, I’d be able to conquer any kind of trial… But this has just turned out to be one big slog that doesn’t go anywhere.”
By now, Yuffie has grown even more irritated at Sylph’s silence, but rather than lash out again, she’s too tired to keep yelling. With a tearful harrumph, she curls up again and buries her head in her arms.
“I don’t want to go through another pointless cycle… Please, just leave me alone.”
“…How unfortunate. Even now, you still don’t see your path ahead.”
“…”
“Let me ask you: Why do you think the main objective of your trial is so deeply tied with Sonon?”
“…”
“And why is it that every time you try to meet him, you cannot reach him in time and he falls to a deep sleep until the next cycle?”
“…Why are you asking me anything? I told you, I don’t know,” she grumbles without lifting her head.
“I ask because throughout your previous attempts, you have yet to take the chance to slow down and reflect over these questions.”
“What chance… You never gave me any.”
“Is that true? Come every cycle, you would find yourself away from battle, held by ally or enemy alike. Was there no time at all to think it over?”
“…”
“Or perhaps, you were simply blind to the real predicament that you were facing and unable to forge a new path.”
“Ugh.” Yuffie pulls up again and shouts back, “Will you stop yapping!? Why are you telling me this now? Kicking me when I’m down? Just kill me already and get it over with!”
“Dear, dear…” There’s a brief but meaningful pause. “Though it may be a different era, some things really don’t change after all…”
“Huh?”
There’s even a subtle chuckle. “Rubia and I had a very similar discussion long ago.”
“…” She grumbles under her breath. “You’re treating me like Rubia? If she had a mentor like you, no wonder she wanted to end the world.”
“She certainly had her rebellious moments… But if you must know, Rubia later conquered all the trials she had to undergo.”
“Yeah? Must be out of spite.”
“Perhaps… but spite and anger can only take one so far. In the end, what gives a person the drive to push forward is a goal or dream to follow.”
“You really saying I don’t have a goal or dream, lady?” She growls. “I’ll have you know, I’m the ultimate ninja and the only White Rose of Wutai! It’s been MY dream to bring Wutai back to its former glory! And I can do it with or without the help of Gods or whatever!”
“My, my. And just a moment ago, you were speaking as if the world was coming to an end.”
“Because that’s what it feels like!” She narrows her eyes in suspicion. “But I know your types. You’re just gonna go on a long-winded lecture about dreams and ideals and reasons to fight and all. But in the end, it’s all just platitudes and words that don’t lead to action.” That said, she also barks back with reinvigorated spirit, “That’s why I always take things into my own hands! If no one’s gonna get things done for some reason or excuse, then someone has to take the reins! Someone has to keep fighting since those old losers and fogeys just sit back and twiddle their thumbs, waiting on something good to happen! I can’t stand this version of Wutai! It’s not the country I grew up learning about! What happened to our national pride? Wutai used to be one of the greats of the world too and now it’s just… sad.”
“Indeed… In the end, everyone’s time is limited and it is the young who will take charge of the future. I can see your resolve to fight has not yet waned even after your failures up to now.”
“Yeah? If you see it, then let me pass the trial already! Or what else am I missing?”
“However, everyone also has their limits and weaknesses. Are you aware of your own? How much burden much you bear alone?”
“Huh? My limits…”
“I believe your friend, the one named Ruby, once told you in the past. That true strength comes not from one with great power, but from that which one shares with others.”
Yuffie finally settles down again as she seriously reconsiders her current standing in all this. That’s right, Ruby did say something about that. But at the time, Yuffie kinda blew her off since that coming from her didn’t seem to hold much weight. She was a literal dragon God amongst men. What did she have to worry? But then, little by little, Ruby ran into trouble. She kept running into trouble, and even when they tried to get her to come clean, she couldn’t come out with all the secrets she was keeping. And in the end, they were all too late to stop her from throwing away her own life.
But what about Rubia? She always wanted the world to end, hoping that her eternal suffering would eventually stop, but every time she tried to reach for it, something would go wrong and she’d end up right back in the cycle time and time again. At first, Yuffie thought she really was just that stupid and hardheaded to not know what she should do, but the more she thought it over again, Rubia’s struggles were all from the natural consequences of her actions. The more she tried to fight to destroy, the more others would try to stop her and push her back to square one.
So is that it? Is that the lesson she’s supposed to be getting now? That she’s trying to fight, but for the wrong reasons? Then what reason should she be fighting for? And why does Sonon have anything to do with it?
Now that she’s reminded of the guy, she never really thought much about their whole dynamic. Who was Sonon to her? He started off as some guy that so happened to be a student under her dad. And they ended up on the same mission together. That was it, she figured. Once they were in and out with the ultimate materia, they’d just be strangers and that was just fine with her.
But of course, the “ultimate materia” wasn’t even in Shinra’s hands; it was Ruby herself. And she showed up in the nick of time to not only help Yuffie out with those underground freaks, but even break the curse over Sonon and bring him back to his senses. And then, he just stuck around all this time… So many times, whenever Cloud and the others needed to split up, he’d always be around to keep an eye on her or something. Though, she’s the boss so technically he serves under her.
Though, now that she thinks about it, she’s also been treating him like he’s a nuisance who just gets on her nerves a lot. There were plenty of times that she was tempted to ditch him, but then she actually got worried about him if she didn’t know where he was. So, she does care about him in some way, at least. But it’s just how she’d care about Cloud and the rest too. They’re all friends, after all.
It’s just… when it comes to Sonon, it doesn’t feel like they’re just friends. They have a certain dynamic that isn’t like how she’d treat Cloud or Ruby or even Nanaki. But she definitely doesn’t think of him like that either. Ew, no way. If anything, as much as he denies it, the way he looks at Ruby is definitely suspicious. She wouldn’t want to get in his way anyway.
No, really. Who is Sonon to her? More than a friend, but not a lover. But their bond is something… Almost like… family?
Yuffie freezes up as soon as she meets the realization. Oh, God, no. Is that it? Does she really think of him as her brother? Argh! Just because he studied under her dad doesn’t mean he’s part of the Kisaragi clan, come on!
And yet, the more she thinks about it, the less she can manage to squirm her way back out of it. So in the end, she’s still stuck with Sonon no matter where they go or what they do. But at least they don’t always get in each other’s way. If anything, they really do work together and support each other like siblings. And didn’t Dad mention before that he was an orphan? He and his sister. So it’s not like he’d know any other parents.
Ooh, that does it. The more she thinks about it, the more annoyed she gets. All this time, she couldn’t meet him – or rather, the Summons wouldn’t let them meet – because she didn’t think of him as anything more than a subordinate. But they just wanted the two of them to get along, huh?
“…Now do you understand what you must do?”
After her long period of introspection, Yuffie is nearly spooked by the incoming voice, but now she no longer feels so angry. She’s still a little spiteful, for all that Sylph put her through, but at least she now sees a new possibility for an end to this trial. She at last wipes away any traces of tears and climbs back to her feet.
“I… think so. So that’s how I’m gonna ‘save’ him, huh? I gotta remind him what he’s fighting for too, and tell him to stop sacrificing himself like an idiot. You’d think the shtick would get old at some point.”
Though Yuffie can’t see a face in front of her, Sylph’s tone seems pleased. “Very good. Then this moment of stillness was not for naught.”
“Okay, I’m ready. Take me back there. I’m gonna put a stop to their dumb fight. We’ve all wasted enough time anyway.”
“We leave the rest to you, young one.”
“And stop calling me a kid! My name is Yuffie Kisaragi, Materia Hunter Extraordinaire and Ultimate Ninja Warrior! Don’t you forget it!”
Sylph doesn’t respond anymore, but what follows speaks for itself. Yuffie is then enveloped and bathed in a white glow, which grows to such blinding intensity that she has to shut her eyes. But when the light fades and she can open them again, she finds that she’s not only back to her present self, but she’s even charged up with an overflowing aura that is faint to see but obvious to feel. And with that, she closes her eyes again and thinks back to the last moments of consciousness.
~
The next moment, Yuffie wakes up again, out of the black and into the open air. She is here in the moment once again, about to fall between the clashing jaws of two enormous titans ready to kill each other. Well, not on her watch. With the power blessed upon her, she calls on the winds to come to her aid. They surround her in a wild whirl of energy, and it’s so aggressive that it even catches the attention of the two beasts below. Before they can make sense of it, though, they’re both smacked point-blank by the ensuing blast of wind that even knocks them both out of each other’s grasp, sending the wolf tumbling on land and the serpent tumbling into the flooded shallows. Now that they notice the third participant, they both stop still as they try to process what they’re seeing.
Yuffie isn’t just back to her normal appearance; she's practically glowing with magic. She’s now dressed in a bright red martial artist’s suit and even sports a pair of florescent yet speckled red-orange butterfly wings. Even her hair has grown out a bit and she’s taken up a pair of twin-tails. And armed with new resolve, she’s ready to stand on business.
“SONON! CLOUD! WAKE UP!!”
With blitzing speed, she vanishes from her place, almost invisible like the winds, and whirls around their heads so fast that the two beasts begin to spin and grow dizzy. It’s also the fairy dust that she’s sprinkled over them that has knocked them sleepy, but they would have been knocked out soon enough just from all the whirlwinds. Unable to fight off the encroaching sleep spells, Fenrir and Leviathan finally collapse to the ground together with a great thump and sink into the beach’s soft sands. With that, the battle has come to an end. The two terrifying spirits placated, they take their leave of their hosts and Cloud and the young Sonon reappear.
Cloud lets out a few coarse coughs and stirs awake again, finding himself beached ashore. His head is so fuzzy and he’s still disoriented like he’d just been interrupted from sleep. And why does he feel so exhausted like he’d just taken a beating?
“Sonon! Don’t drown on me!” Yuffie’s voice snaps him to attention. She drags the hapless boy, who is a li’l younger than her at this point, out from the pool and throws him onto drier land, but leaves him to cough and sputter as he recollects himself.
Now that Cloud pulls himself up to sit and sees her new form, he stares in utter shock and awe. That’s… Yuffie, right? Looks like she managed to pass her trial after all. But he wasn’t even there to see it happen. What was he doing? The last thing he recalls is rushing up to the skies to challenge Leviathan, and they went back and forth for a bit, but it didn’t seem like he was gaining much ground. Then, he got knocked away into the sea and… And… huh? He can’t remember. As he lets his thoughts wander, it finally hits him that he must have been overtaken again. He must have blacked out and the damn wolf ran wild in his place. He grits his teeth and pounds the sand in frustration, but doesn’t bother to complain to Fenrir again. The wolf’s heard it all already anyway.
Meanwhile, Sonon catches his breath and pulls back up, only to flip onto his back with an exhausted exhale. “Ugh… What happened? Where am I?”
Yuffie stands over him with hands on her hips, disappointed. “The beach outside of the capital.”
“The beach…” He peers over to her and blinks several times, looking lost. “Yuffie…?”
“Yeah, it’s me.” She lets go and glances back toward her beautiful wings with an annoyed frown. “Not the look I’d normally go for, but I guess I’ll take it.” She turns back and explains matter-of-factly, “Anyway, I’ve passed my trial. Now it’s your turn.”
“My turn? What was I…” He racks his head to remember and at last it hits him. Sonon sits up with a start, crying, “Ah! Master Godo! How is he!?”
She gives a snort. “He’s fine. Went back home after you passed out.”
“O-oh… I see.” He lets off a sigh. “Then I’m glad. I was able to protect him after all.”
“Oh, sure, maybe he’s fine. But can’t say the same for the city…”
He blinks. “Huh?”
She folds her arms and coldly peers off for the ruins in the distance. “Talk about living a nightmare. Never seen things get wrecked this bad.”
“What?” His eyes dart over to the city and gasps in horror. “What happened!? Why is the capital like this? Did Shinra overrun us?”
“No, that was you!” she huffs, jabbing him in the forehead with an accusatory finger, and he flinches. “Because of your slip-up, Dad had to give you the Leviathan Materia right away. Then something happened with the real Sephiroth, you freaked out and turned into Leviathan. But then you couldn’t control his power and went wild!”
“I…” He sinks into a deeply disturbed mood. “I became Leviathan… and went wild?”
“Yeah! You and Cloud!”
The other guy winces like a kid who knows he’s in trouble. “…Uh. What’d I do?”
She whips over to him with a fierce glare. “You tell me? You became Fenrir, but on fire for some reason, and tried to kill Leviathan! Fought so hard, you guys wrecked the whole place!” She gives him a look of disbelief and presents a hand forward demandingly. “What happened? I thought you had control over him!”
“…” Cloud hangs his head in shame. “Sorry. I was just trying to stop Leviathan, but he was tough. Threw me underwater and I must have passed out, so Fenrir took over. That fire form was all him.”
“Hmph. You were saying how I would just ‘get in your way’, huh?” She clenches up the hand and throws up a fist. “You’re darn right. I had to butt in because you were being stupid!”
“…”
She lowers the fist. “I also got to talk with Sylph about the whole mess and convinced her to let me borrow her power. So that’s why I look like this. I got between you and threw your sorry asses apart.” She folds her arms again with a snooty frown. “You two should be grateful! What do you think would have happened if I didn’t pass in time, huh?”
“…Yeah. Thanks, Yuffie,” Cloud mutters just audibly.
“If you’re gonna thank me, at least put some effort into it!” She swerves back to Sonon to continue to scold him, “And then there’s you! Now what are we gonna do about your trial?”
Sonon honestly looks devastated, feeling he’s already a lost cause. He looks at his hands, still in shock, and clutches his head. “I… I don’t know. I thought I did enough to complete my objective, but…”
Cloud turns to him to ask, “What was your objective anyway? Finding Leviathan’s materia?”
He shakes his head slowly. “No. I had no idea the materia was with my master. I just had to make sure he was unharmed throughout the course.”
Cloud blinks back. “Oh. So that’s why you insisted on intervening the meeting with the envoy.”
“More like the fake envoy!” Yuffie interjects. “Who sets up an important diplomatic meeting like it’s some underground casino type beat? They even had some fake Wutaian soldiers kidnap me. Everything about it is shady as hell!”
Sonon turns to him and answers, “Yeah. So when we got there in time, I thought I was finally able to complete the mission, but…” He looks back down at himself. “It doesn’t look like I proved myself worthy to Leviathan. When I got his power, I didn’t know what to do with it, and the next thing I knew, I blanked out.”
Cloud nods with his sympathies. “To be fair, you probably had a bad reaction after seeing Sephiroth show up out of nowhere and kidnap Zack.”
“Oh, that’s right!” Now reminded, he asks Cloud too, “What happened to them? Where is Zack?”
The other sinks back into gloom. “I dunno. Godo said Sephiroth took him away. If he could just do that, who knows where he’s been hiding all this time…” He clenches up a trembling fist, still cursing his own carelessness, but lets it go with another sigh. “But forget that for now. You have to focus on your trial, Sonon. You’re still not back to normal.”
“Yeah, I noticed.” He looks back at his hands. “But what do I do now? I protected Master like I was supposed to, but I’m still missing something?”
“Really? You still don’t get it?” Yuffie grumbles. “Don’t make me spell it out for you.”
He looks back up to her, genuinely confused. “What do you mean?”
She throws up her arm toward the capital once more. “How about that whole mess? You were the one who caused it, so you gotta figure out how to make it up to Pops and me!”
“Ah… O-of course. You’re right.” Embarrassed and ashamed, Sonon climbs onto all fours and takes a kowtow. “I’m really sorry, Yuffie. I promise I’ll put my share in and work even harder! I’ll even swear on my life: It doesn’t matter what I have to do or how much it’ll kill me, I won’t disappoint you or the Master ever again!”
“And stop with all the ‘how much it’ll kill me’ talk!” she groans. “You think I came to see you work yourself to death again? As if that’s helped you get anywhere!”
He blinks blankly. “Uh… I guess not.”
With a hand on her hip and the other pointing his way, she states matter-of-factly, “Listen, Sonon! You know what’s your problem? It’s not that you’re not working hard enough. You work too hard that you lose the point! Stop throwing yourself at your problems and be smarter about it!”
“What do you mean ‘smarter’? Haven’t I been going about my missions dutifully?”
She rolls her eyes and waves it away. “Puh-lease. Is sacrificing yourself your ‘duty’? Are you just gonna be our meat shield for the rest of the journey?”
“Uh…” He sinks back down. “It’s not like I want to do that, but…”
“Then don’t!” She also clenches up a fist with a determined stare in his face. “Seriously, I’ve had it with you always trying to play hero and messing up! It’s left to us to have to clean up after you. How about you stand up for yourself for a change?”
He hangs his head in shame. “Uh… right. Sorry to be a burden.”
“If you’re really sorry, then be more careful! And think about yourself more! How can you be my backup if you’re down?”
“…”
Yet, her rant aside, Yuffie also settles down and gets to the point, “…Look. I know I’m being harsh, but I don’t want to see you get yourself in trouble ever again. You’re not just some guy I know, or a fellow student under my dad, or even a pal to hang out and bet on chocobo races with. I took a while to think over it, but now I know who you really are.”
“Huh?” He’s a bit taken off-guard by that last claim. “Uh, who do you think I am…?”
“…” Though she’s a little embarrassed to admit it, she takes a deep breath and steels her resolve. “You’re basically the brother I never had.”
“…”
Sonon stares at her, now taken completely by surprise. After all this time, from the moment he first heard about her from his master to the first time he met her, he long accepted his fate to forever be treated like some servant or subordinate to his master’s daughter. But now, within a strange variation of a memory of their homeland, he comes to hear her say something completely out of his expectations. Frankly, he isn’t sure how to feel about it. He just never thought it would happen.
But as the realization begins to sink in, he too grows embarrassed. His face flushes up and he gets a little jittery as he avoids her line of sight. “…Your brother, huh?”
“Yeah…” Yuffie likewise avoids his eyes to spare herself any more embarrassment as is. “I said I hated being treated like your little sister, but I get it. You lost your real sister to the war and it must have been torture to have to relive those memories again. That’s why you were always looking out for me, right? Even if I couldn’t replace her, at least if you could make sure I was safe, you’d be able to honor her memory.”
“…”
She also rubs her head awkwardly. “So, um, sure. If you want to make it up to her, I don’t mind how you see me. As long as you got my back, I’m cool.” But to drive home the point, she still looks at him head-on. “But like I said, you have to make sure you’re ready to have my back! You know how it bit Ruby in the ass with how she kept hiding secrets until it was too late to help her! Don’t let it happen to you too!”
“…” Again reminded of their shared cause, he takes a deep breath and lets it out, and nods back solemnly. “You’re right, Yuffie. I haven’t really been working all that ‘smart’, have I?” He meets her at eye-level and swears an oath, “That’s going to change from here on.”
She raises an pumped-up arm as if expecting him to meet her hand. “Oh, you’d better bet on it! That’s a promise you’re not breaking on my watch!”
“Of course.” Feeling his confidence return at last, he can even smile again. He returns her a firm clasp of her hand, and she even helps pull him up to his feet. “I can’t be letting down my little sister, after all.”
She fires back with an annoyed glare. “Technically, you’re younger than me right now. I’m back to normal while you’re still a kid.”
He lets off an awkward chuckle. “Yeah… I guess. But don’t worry. I’ll be back to being the older one after we’re done here.”
“Yeah, yeah, save it for when you’re actually done.” She whips back to Cloud too. “You too! What are you waiting around for?”
While Sonon dusts himself off, the two then notice that Cloud has been more than quiet since they woke up. The latter helps himself up as obliged, but keeps a rather forlorn expression on his face. Even though Yuffie was mostly scolding Sonon, he also feels some of the weight from her biting words. After all, just when things were going bad and he tried to be the big hero again, he messed up so badly this time. For him, it’s not just about Wutai. They barely got that much time together and now someone dear to his heart is missing again. It especially hurts since he was dreading this moment for so long and when it finally happened, he’s still finding it hard to believe it did. He doesn’t even feel pissed off anymore; just empty.
Even Yuffie softens up a bit to be reminded of his latest loss. “…Hey, Cloud.”
“Yeah?” he replies, but still stares off idly.
“Was Zack like a brother to you too?”
“…” He blinks, a little surprised she’d ask him that, and turns to her with a thoughtful nod. “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”
She then raises up her determined fist and catches it in her other hand, brimming with a confident smirk. “Well, then we’d better clean up here so we can go get your bro back! Don’t wanna keep him waiting, right?”
Though he still has all his fears and dread hanging over him, she has a good point. No use moping over it now. They have to keep moving. He nods back and grabs at his sword’s grip. “Right. Let’s go.”
She pivots toward their next direction and points. “Okay, guys! Back to the city. I can take you there quick! Hang on for a sec!”
“Huh?”
“Whoa! Yuffie!?” Sonon gasps.
“H-hey! Wait!” Cloud complains too. “I can just jump there myself!”
She barely gives them a warning before they’re swept up by her whims. With a whip of her arms, she calls upon the winds again. All three of them are quickly and abruptly lifted into the air and carried off, riding a torrent of air that has materialized in an instant, and though they’re in for a rough tumble along the way, they’re in no danger of falling off.
~
As she said, it’s a quick flight to the middle of the city near the Kisaragi residence. While she lands neatly and effortlessly, the two guys drop like logs with a heavy thud, though are otherwise unharmed, and pull themselves up. But now that they’re here, they’re disturbed to find the place has been overrun by machines and foreign troops. The last vestiges of Wutaian soldiers are trying to push back, but since their leader has disappeared, the ensuing chaos has led to a disheveled front line and unfortunately, even the most righteous fighters would begin to question what to do.
“What the!? I thought Leviathan destroyed Shinra! What are they doing here?” Yuffie cries, outraged.
Cloud blinks again. “Did we somehow jump into a different memory?”
“No way! I don’t remember crossing any magical light boundary!”
Sonon grits his teeth, anxious. “Then what happened? And what about Master Godo?”
“Let’s go find him! He took me home, so he should still be there!”
Yuffie leads the charge through the latest wave of enemies, and thanks to her new powers, she makes very short work of this lot. At this point, the regular ground troops and drones are nothing but trash to be flung away by tempest winds. Cloud likewise can blitz the heavier Sweeper-types with a single wide slash and knock them flying too. If anything, Sonon is feeling a bit left out since he hasn’t quite achieved his peak potential yet, but at least tries his best to keep up. All in all, any remaining traces of Wutaian troops fall back as soon as they see this almighty guard take their place.
It’s not much further ahead when she leads them to the Kisaragi residence, but likewise there are Shinra troops and mechs around here too, as well as several masked Soldiers – all of which seem to be 2nd-class at most, since a number of notable 1st-classes had already defected even at this earlier point in the war, thanks to a certain other rogue swordsman. But regardless, they’re no match for the combined powers of two raging Summons. And while Fenrir’s ice and flames had been muted for a while there, they now come freezing and blazing altogether, stirring up a whirlwind of magic which winds could even rival Sylph’s own – until she gets serious, of course. However, between the torrential gusts and the split tracks of ice and fire, the resulting battles do leave the streets looking a little worse for wear.
“Dad! You in here!?” Yuffie yells as the three barge into her house.
However, there’s no response from the man. Though most of their attending staff have already fled, there are still two others, one of whom is an old man who was once a trusted advisor to Godo in his younger years, who willingly remained to not burden the others. The other is his personal female assistant, a woman also in her middling ages, who has sworn utmost fealty to serve him even in death.
“Lady Yuffie? What are you still doing in the capital?” the old man mutters as she comes barging into his room.
“What? I could ask you the same thing, Old Man Kamade! Even Ol’ Onabe is here. Why didn’t you guys run yet?” she argues.
“Hmm…” The elder simply stares somberly out the window by his table, tea cup in hand. “There is a time and place for everything, as there is an end to one’s time and the beginning of another. All exists in a cycle to heed the planet’s natural flow…”
“Oh, no, you don’t! Now’s not the time to wax poetry!” Yuffie pivots back to her companions. “Cloud! Get them out to safety! Sonon! You’re coming with me!”
“Huh?” Cloud stares hard at her. “Why are you ordering me around?”
“Just do it!” she snaps back. “Besides, isn’t this Sonon’s trial? You’re freakin’ Fenrir! Get outta here, you’re gonna be in the way!” She even gives him a quick shooing motion.
He looks almost insulted and tempted to argue, but decides against it to avoid getting scolded by her again. “Fine. But where do I take them? The city’s flooded with enemies and the shores are still flooded.”
“Anywhere that’s high and far enough from the city, then!”
He rolls his eyes, but obliges. “Got it.” He marches over to the table without another word, though his face’s scowl suggests plenty.
“Eh? W-what’s the meaning of this? What are you…?” the old man begins to utter.
Before the elders can object anymore, Cloud throws out a hand and fires off a magic circle around them and takes the missing couple with him to a relatively safe location near the last fort that didn’t fall to ruin this time. And now, it’s just Yuffie and Sonon who remain to scour the grounds. However, try as they might, they can’t find the man in question, though at least it looks like the hidden materia stash has remained where he last left it.
Sonon turns to her with a worried look. “Yuffie, that was the last room… Do you think Master Godo got away in time? Or could he have been captured?”
She throws up her arms in frustration. “I dunno! Pops always told me not to worry about him, and then he gets himself caught up in some stupid crap anyway! It’s more than just a bad habit by this point!” She gives him some side-eye. “Starting to see where you got it from.”
He decides not to argue there and instead moves on, “Well, he’s not here anymore. Where else should we look?”
While the two take a moment of silence to consider their options, though, they’re shortly interrupted by some nearby tremors and the sounds of something very big and heavy stomping around. There’s even the voice of a woman yelling over the noise of the chaos of Shinra troops in panic, as if she were speaking through a megaphone.
“Get yourselves together, you simpletons! Find all remaining threats and destroy them! They can’t hide forever knowing their precious shogun is about to be executed!”
“What!?” Yuffie shrieks.
The ninja pair dive back outside to discover the source of the noise: a giant Shinra mech – looking similar like a giant headless stick figure with lanky-looking metal arms great for grasping and crushing, a design similar to another menacing machine from Shinra’s inventory. In other words, this is the Carry Armor prototype, henceforth dubbed “Claw Armor”. Unlike its would-be successor, though, it’s a slightly smaller and more nimble design that is useful for capturing objects or targets and immobilizing them through electric shock; not that unlike a stun gun, but much bigger and potentially lethal. And to the pair’s horror, it looks like Godo has already been captured. He’s unconscious and is being held in one of the machine’s claws. The machine’s movements are jittery and jostling erratically, making it look like it’s a little too excited by machine standards, and it’s accompanied by a certain infamous fake envoy on the ground.
“Master Godo!” Sonon shouts.
“What the hell, old man! You got caught that easily!?” Yuffie complains loudly.
The agent known as Sera now casts aside her radio mic and turns to them with an amused scoff. “Well, look here. As I thought, they’d come running right to us.”
“You again!?” Yuffie growls, whipping out her petite crane from her pocket that unfolds and transforms into a great silver-white shuriken. “I’ve had it with you! Stop popping back up like you’re relevant! And get out of my house!”
“Release Master Godo!” Sonon cries again. With a fire in his heart, he brandishes his staff forward. “What kind of envoy are you!? You’re not getting away with this!”
“Hmph. Still stuck on that?” Sera waves a hand nonchalantly. “If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m not actually an envoy. I couldn’t care less about any ‘peace talks’. This war’s all but over anyway and Shinra can just reap the rest from the ruins.”
“Who even are you anyway? You’re not dressed like a Turk,” Yuffie points out. “Actually, you look more like those freaks from the underground…”
“Excuse you, little girl,” Sera scoffs back. “At least I’m not dressed like an Christmas elf. And what’s with the butterfly wings?”
“Shuddap! I didn’t choose this look! And even if I am, I can throw your ass out of our land and offa this planet with just a flick of a finger!” Yuffie narrows her eyes as she demonstrates with a flick of her finger, though she doesn’t unleash any gust.
Regardless, Sera is battle-ready as always. She draws out a pair of blue-highlight pistols from her belt and raises them their way. “We’ll see about that after I’ve unloaded you two with ARC-mako. Trust me when I say you won’t even feel a thing by the time it’s over…”
“Ugh, ARC again? Is Shinra just a manufacturer of all kinds of sludge by this point?”
“Never mind her, Yuffie! We have to save him first!” Sonon calls out.
“I can see that!” she bites back, but before she gets ready to chuck her weapon, though, she pauses and reconsiders. “Wait. Sonon, you said your trial’s objective was about keeping Pops safe, right?”
“Yeah?”
She swerves back to Sera, taking a stand beside him. “Then, you handle that thing! I could always wreck it, but I can’t be interfering with your trial now. You figure something out.”
“What? But I…” He looks back down at his hands that are now firmly gripped upon his staff, and despite his smaller stature, he finds that resolve from earlier. “Right. Leave this to me!”
“And think about how you fight! Don’t just run in!” she warns him.
“Y-yeah…”
“Ha! Don’t even try!” Sera barks back, waving her pistols threateningly. “If you hit this mech even once, you might as well say good-bye to your dear leader! Claw Armor will counterattack with a vicious electric shock that will discharge straight through any captives in its grasp!”
“What?”
“Argh! That’s so dirty!” Yuffie complains too. “Shinra really is nothing but grossness all the way down! You all suck!”
But Sera argues with them no more. With just a single wave of her hand in Claw Armor’s direction, the machine stops jostling and stands at attention. With just a blink of its red light at its pinhead and without a single siren, it unfolds an opening near its head and fires off a powerful laser.
“Whoa!”
The ninja pair easily dodge out of the way, but the laser carves its way into the ground below, leaving a stark black trail of burnt ash. And with that attack standing in as their signal, the two launch an immediate counterattack. While Yuffie guns for Sera, Sonon guns for the mech with a fiery roar. Despite how prepared she usually is, Sera is nearly blindsided when Yuffie suddenly vanishes. True to her word, the ninja prodigy blasts and knocks her opponent away into the sky with just a single flick of her finger, stirring up a tornado that is somewhat reminiscent of Cloud’s own Finishing Touch. But rather than simply let her drop back down, Yuffie flies up in pursuit and delivers a nasty series of blows with her shuriken even while the tornado churns, and drops back to the ground with a light step as she sees the bloodied body sail far and away.
“…Well, that was anticlimactic. How about you talk less shit and do more next time?” she calls out with bragging aplomb.
Meanwhile, it’s a completely different story for Sonon. He certainly holds his own when it comes to avoiding Claw Armor’s lasers and attempted swings, but every time he tries to land a hit, the strange machine simply jostles and swings around, but doesn’t seem to be heavily damaged. Instead, Sonon then tries aiming for the arm that holds Godo captive. However, the moment he lands the blow, Claw Armor releases a short electric discharge into its claw. Though Godo is unconscious and doesn’t scream, Sonon can see the poor man get electrocuted by the way his body spasms.
“Master!?”
That single moment of hesitation is enough to distract him. With surprising litheness, the strange machine then jumps back out of range again, swinging itself over a nearby wall and begins to flee.
“Hey! Get back here!”
Sonon pursues after it as they leave the Kisaragi residence grounds, but Claw Armor continues to dance erratically as if it were taunting him. Still, every strike he makes knocks it about, but likewise it simply spins back around to counter with its own strikes. And on top of that, something worse is soon to follow. As it turns out, Sonon’s attacks were doing damage, but Claw Armor has been keeping track of the count as well. Once it hits a threshold, it begins to charge up something inside its body and announces a countdown from 5. The sudden blare of its alarm startles the boy before he can finish his latest strike. Though he doesn’t want to heed the words of an enemy, the mere potential risk of a devastating counterattack makes him hesitate just for a moment.
“Sonon! Watch out!” Yuffie yells his way.
She’s just caught up with his fight on her wings, but stays back a little longer before she decides she has to jump in. Seizing its chance, Claw Armor lunges for him with its free claw hand, and though Sonon tries to block with his staff, he’s nearly crushed in that metallic grip.
“Sonon!! What are you doing!?” she screams, though is more annoyed than legitimately worried. “You coulda dodged that!”
Nearly crushed, except for a little gap to spare. Though Sonon is captured, thanks to some careful positioning of his staff, he has managed to block the claw’s grip in such a way that spares himself a free arm. He slips that arm out from the iron claw’s grip to reach around one of its digits and seize his staff in both hands. Just as the machine is about to throw him about violently again, with a neat little trick called leverage, he throws his own weight with the motion and gives the staff a quick twist at the same time. The mere momentum of the motion puts undue strain on the claw’s rotary joint and he can even hear it creak uncomfortably as metal part grinds against metal joint.
Well, it’s one thing if this were Carry Armor, who would be designed to avoid such silly issues as this with a much smoother ball-joint mechanism, allegedly. But as this mech is merely an early prototype who would eventually be discontinued in the near future to be replaced by the superior design, it isn’t so lucky.
By sheer happenstance, Claw Armor’s claw locks up in response to the strain and for that brief instant, it loses control of its claw. Using the momentum to his advantage, Sonon swings himself right out of the claw’s grip as he’s thrown up and breaks free, flipping through the air and landing on his feet with a quick catch by a hand.
But the fight isn’t over yet. Claw Armor blares an alarm when it realizes it’s lost control of one of its claws and tries to recalibrate itself to fix the issue. But this is the opening that Sonon needed. He blitzes the other arm that the mech has temporarily neglected, and with an extra-charged smash, he finally snaps through the lanky metal arm that held his master. As Claw Armor’s alarm continues to wail and it struggles to recalibrate itself given the new damage it’s received, Sonon lands neatly to the ground, carrying the freed Godo on his back. He sets the older man aside to let him rest off his wounds, and turns his attention back on the meddlesome machine.
By this point, Claw Armor has begun to go haywire. It fires off indiscriminately a series of lasers that scorch the area around it, but by now Sonon’s already read onto its attack pattern and deftly avoids them. He rushes back in for one last time with a Limit Break he’s been waiting to drop: Amid an elegant dance with staff, in homage to a certain great serpent, he ravages the mech with a vicious assault of pinpoint, precise blows that could make man or machine alike lock up and be immobilized. In the case of machine, though, it tends to malfunction and break down without further ado. Let this new move be dubbed “Way of Water”. By the time Sonon lands back on the ground and twirls his staff behind him once more, Claw Armor stops moving altogether and instead explodes in a burst of its own discharged electricity.
Still watching from a safe distance, Yuffie folds her arms, looking rather judgmental, but then on second thought, relents and gives a clap of her hands as if impressed. On one hand, she cannot believe the ridiculous series of happenstances that had to be for this guy to escape out of a supposedly inescapable situation by himself. On the other hand, for a guy who’s often pretty unlucky, maybe he’d have some good luck come by to help turn his fate around. Whether or not Ruby was even aware, there had to have been someone who was clearly watching over him since the beginning. Maybe Leviathan isn’t as stodgy and old as he appears, to be able to hold that level of foresight.
“Master Godo!” Sonon calls out. He hurries to the older man’s side to check on him again.
“Oh, yeah!” Yuffie jumps on over to catch up with him. “How is he?”
Godo is still out cold, it seems. Strangely, he doesn’t seem to have a single scratch on him. As Sonon drops down to check the man’s pulse, he lets off a sigh in relief to find that it’s still there. So he’s alive, but he might have been knocked out since he was captured. He did also take a bit of a beating there for a bit while taken hostage.
Sonon turns back to her with a solemn frown. “He’s alive. I think he’s been hurt, but I don’t see any obvious wounds or injuries. Is it all internal?”
“You mean, like he was tased or something?”
“I don’t know. I know that mech had some kind of charged attack, but knowing Master, he wouldn’t be taken out just by that.”
“Hmm…” She folds her arms and raises a suspect eyebrow. “So how did he get captured? Cloud already freed me, so there’s no way anyone could hold anything over him. And I doubt he’d just turn himself over to the enemy.”
Sonon flips the man over on his side as well to keep looking. “Nothing on this side either… Huh?” Just then, he notices an easily overlooked detail in the back of the man’s robe and points to it. “Hey. There’s a hole here, but it’s tiny. Did it get caught on something?”
She snorts, looking disappointed, and casually asks as if it were some in-joke privy to her, “Did he run into a tree branch too?”
He frowns, still looking concerned. “He wasn’t at home when we searched, so he might have been trying to escape Shinra, but got caught by that agent.”
“But isn’t that weird? You’d think he’d be able to defend himself just fine against some wannabe Turk. It’s not like she was all that tough anyway…” But as she thinks back to the opponent she just trashed, her face turns for the disturbed. “Wait! Didn’t she say…? Oh. What? No way!”
“Huh? What’d you figure out?”
She whips back to him. “I just remembered, that freakin’ lady was armed with ARC-laced bullets! So she coulda got him!”
His jaw drops in horror. “What!? Then…” He turns back to his poor master and his face grows dark. “No…”
“Dammit! Why him too!? It was annoying enough with Sonon!” She grinds her teeth in renewed fury. “I would beat her up again, but I took her out so fast it wasn’t even satisfying.”
The boy drops to all fours, muttering to himself, “How could this have… No, it’s only expected. I messed up. He left himself exposed because of me. Because I couldn’t control Leviathan…” He clutches his head in growing desperation. “I couldn’t protect him. I… I failed the trial…”
Before he goes down that path, Yuffie snaps at him to get his attention, “Hey, Sonon! Don’t forget we’re still here! It’s not like we’ve blacked out and gone back in time again. Don’t give up!”
“But what now… What do we do if he’s turned out like this?”
“Um…” She looks back to him, a little frantic herself, and looks around to get some ideas. In the end, she also drops down and gives him a rough shake. “Hey, old man!! Wake up! Snap out of it!”
Sonon doesn’t even look her way as she does. He’s too distraught in his own thoughts.
“Come onnn! How can you also be in trouble!? You’re not that old yet, are you!?” But failing to get a response, she opts to change tactics. “…Ugh. Fine. How about this?” She brings her hands forward and calls upon Sylph’s magic to her aid, and surrounds Godo with another white magic circle. The man is shortly enveloped in a soft glow of healing, but though she lets the magic run for a bit, there doesn’t seem to be any response from him. “Hello? Hey, Dad! Come on! Is this even working…?”
“…”
“…Argh! I don’t get it! How the heck did Ruby do it?” Frustrated to her wit’s end, she lets it go and turns away to throw an angry fist. “Man! Okay, now what? Do we call back Cloud? Can Fenrir do something?” She also turns back to check on the boy beside her and makes a sympathetic frown for him. “Um… Sonon?”
Sonon keeps an empty-looking stare at the body as the last traces of hope seem to fade from mind. After all these workarounds and even with Cloud’s help in this cycle, he’s gone right back to where he started: never actually being able to reach his master and fulfill his obligation. All that chaos they went through and in the end, nothing’s changed. He’s exhausted himself so much that he never even questioned the whys of this trial, only that he must fulfill it by any means. And now, he finds himself as directionless as ever. So what was it all for? Almost feels like this is just his entire fate by this point.
Even Yuffie’s getting worried. She gently prods him in the shoulder. “Sonon… You there?”
Despite his broken heart, he pulls himself into a more appropriate kneeling position, legs crossed and seated in dogeza fashion, and brings his hands together in prayer. If there’s anything that he can at least be grateful for, it’s that even if he’s a lost cause, he won’t have to worry about Yuffie being trapped in his hell with him anymore. Maybe he’ll get his time eventually, but that clearly isn’t now…
The girl beside him grows antsier the quieter he gets until she gets heated again. She grabs him by the shoulders and shakes him violently too. “Sonon!! Snap out of it already! Didn’t you just say you wouldn’t let me down!?”
“But… I’m just…” he mumbles, but struggles to find a proper reply.
Before their argument can go full swing again, though, they’re startled by another white flash of magic in the vicinity, and they hear a familiar voice call out: “Yuffie! Sonon! You okay?”
“Cloud?” Yuffie blinks and snaps to attention when another chance at hope comes to mind. She lets go of Sonon and beckons the other one. “Cloud! What took you!? Get over here!”
Now the guy comes into view, running to catch up with them. He gets worried himself when he sees the man who’s down and stops on by. “What happened to Godo? Is he okay?”
“No, he’s not!” she snaps back frantically, “Hurry and help him! Ask Fenrir if you have to!”
“Fenrir?” Cloud legit looks taken aback. “Didn’t you say he’d get in the way? So I sent him off.”
“No, no! Get him back! Dad’s been hit by ARC!”
“What?” Catching onto the urgency, he drops down to check on him too. “He doesn’t look hurt, but looks like a bullet hit, alright.” He looks back to the others. “Was it that Shinra agent again? Did she shoot him?”
Yuffie turns back to her father with a genuinely sad face. “Seems like it. Got him in the back too. Probably didn’t even have time to get away…”
“Hold on. Let me see if I can find anything…” Cloud steps away and opens up his personal GUI again, but like with previous memories they had intervened in, that ever persistent and tiresome message pops up yet again, warning him, “Play cannot be paused while the trial is in session.” After a few frustratingly moot swipes of the screen, he finds he can’t get rid of it. What the hell? Now that he thinks about it, even Fenrir’s voice has gone quiet again. What’s going on?
At that moment, he is met with another deep, echoing voice entirely. It’s not one that he immediately recognizes, and yet at the same time, he also feels full familiarity with it. In fact, it speaks aloud, not just to him, but to all three of them: “Be at ease. Thou hast already fulfilled thy role. Henceforth shall be determined by the strength of the Awaited One’s resolve.”
“W-what?” Yuffie stammers, also taken by surprise. “Who was that?”
Sonon freezes up too. He knows this voice. It’s none other than the one who brought him to this battleground amid the land of memories. After a long silence, he finally speaks up, “…Leviathan.”
“Huh? Really!? He’s back?”
Cloud dismisses his GUI with a sigh. So that’s why he couldn’t hear Fenrir anymore. Leviathan’s presence has returned and the wolf got kicked out again.
Rather than be amazed, though, Yuffie raises a fist in the air and snaps out at the disembodied voice, “You got some nerve! Showing up this late when the show’s over! What are we supposed to do from here? We didn’t just fail the trial again, right? I already talked with Sylph too! You can’t flunk us!
But the old serpent’s voice remains unperturbed as if it were business as usual. “There is much undone as hath come to pass, but there lyeth yet one path forward that the Awaited One may taketh… I speak, of course, of thou… Sonon Kusakabe.”
Sonon immediately snaps out of his daze and out of habit even salutes him with both hands. “Y-yes, milord? What do you mean?”
“Afore we arrive at thence, we are yet to answer the question hence. I shall ask thou here and now: For what hast thou been fighting?”
“Huh? I…” He certainly didn’t expect such a question, but now that he’s been put on the spot, he realizes he doesn’t know how to answer it.
“Thou believest thou hast ‘failed’, but what hast thou been seeking? Thou hast found not thy purpose thus far. ’Tis not merely duty to thy mentor that thou must serve.”
“What?” He blinks again. “But didn’t you say I had to protect Master Godo in the first place?”
“Yes, but intended as the start to your journey. I have warned thou prior: ‘Do not miss the forest for the trees.’ Do not be caught by the trivial and neglect the greater. Thou hast a mission far greater that thou hast yet to complete.”
“A mission far greater… Don’t be caught by trivial things? Am I looking too close…?”
He lets his eyes trail off from the older man before them and toward their surroundings. Though the streets are now empty of any enemies, allies, and civilians alike, the land itself has been ravaged by the thralls of war and divine wrath. However, the capital of Wutai still stands despite everything and there is still room to recover.
“Thy home, thy nation, thy land… This scene of ruin is no mere illusion. ’Tis a foreboding of the times to come.”
Before Sonon can answer him again, though, Yuffie’s indignant scream cuts him off, “What!? No! Shut up, old fart! That can’t be right!”
Cloud raises a hand her way. “Uh, Yuffie?”
“Don’t just call it ‘foreboding’ and leave it at that! What do you mean Wutai’s gonna be in ruins? It’s not like it’s being attacked right this instant, right? We still have some time to fix things, don’t we?”
“…The worldly scene in present day hast yet to decay to ruin, that is true. But the ruinous future draweth ever closer. Thy time is slowly but surely running out.”
“Then don’t say it like that, geez! And like I was saying, we’re all gonna be ready soon! And once we’re out, we’ll find Ruby too!”
As soon as she mentions the name, Sonon blinks again, looking like he’d just come upon some sort of epiphany, as if he had been missing some kind of link all along. Though he had been a shivering mess for a bit there, especially when Leviathan’s voice suddenly popped in, a great wave of relief washes over him like his fears had been cleansed away. Of course, how could he have missed something so obvious? It was literally written into their country’s history. There’s even a yearly festival when the Celestials would be honored and worshipped, even with the people’s distrust in the religious order growing day by day. Ruby, like her predecessor Rubia, has been waiting for a chance to return to Wutai – specifically to set this country straight. She once saw something in this nation that even the people living there have long forgotten. Even though she may not have been a native, her heart has been with them since the beginning.
So what has he been doing? The answer was obvious and he missed it the entire time.
In turn, Leviathan has been keeping tabs on his inner thoughts all the same, and it almost brings the old serpent the slightest relief to see progress at last. But just to confirm, he speaks to him again, “…What is thy answer, Awaited One?”
“…” By now, Sonon has regained his confidence and resolve and is no longer trembling or caving under pressure. He takes a stand and brings his hands together for another salute; not thoughtlessly out of habit, but with full intention. “I am no mere foot soldier serving the former shogun or the new provisional government. My name is Sonon Kusakabe. Though at the moment I have no title in particular, I stand to bear the long-lost spirit of Wutai, to bring my home and my people into a prosperous future. Wutai has suffered long enough in war and fear and confusion, and this must change for us all to be able to see that future.”
Though the voice has no face to it, Leviathan’s tone shifts for one much more at ease. “Excellent. I see the path forward hath been open all along. Go forth and seize the future, Sonon. I will be there to join thou.”
And with his piece given in full, Leviathan’s echoing voice fades into ambiguity, but his presence remains strong by their side. The next moment, Sonon finds himself being enveloped in a bright white yet warm glow, and as soon as the light fades as well, he’s returned to his present age as well. But like with Yuffie, he’s also a little different, having taken on a marine blue tinge to his skin, which has now also been shielded by beautiful translucent sapphire scales, and a breath that can take air even within water. He also sports a set of streaked fins running along his back and limbs where his armor has not bound him down. Even his ears and cheeks have gained fin flaps of their own and he’s adorned with a pair of long whiskers, to boot. Though his face is largely unchanged, he brings forward a new sense of authority with that vigilant stance, his staff still held firm by his side.
Yuffie stares in awestruck silence for a moment before her face contorts into confusion and then outright cringe. “…I don’t believe it. You look even dorkier than you ever have.”
Sonon feels a little slighted by that comment, but rather than get upset, he folds his arms with a smirk and plays along. “This coming from the Fairy Queen of Idols?”
“Hey! At least I still look like a martial artist! What the heck are you supposed to be, a Sahagin reject?”
He balls up a hand into a fist and thumps it proudly against his chest. “Like I told Leviathan… I’m the Spirit of Wutai.”
“Shuddap! You’re only saying that because he fused with you! You’re still the big dork I’ve always known, Sonon!”
But despite their playful banter, the two’s competitive glares quickly turn into childish delight and they share a genuine laugh together and raise fists for a friendly bump.
“Anyway, like Leviathan was saying, the world’s in danger and we gotta get back there to save it! No point in stalling around here anymore!” Yuffie throws up a fist into the air too. “About time too! I’m sick of this place! Get us out, Cloud!”
But though they have returned to high spirits, when they turn to the third one, their excitement very quickly fizzles out. As relieved as Cloud is to see Sonon finally pass his trial too, the dark pall over him that had been hanging since earlier has yet to be drawn away. He was momentarily watching Sonon to get a look at his new hybrid form, but that aside, he’s turned away to mull over the rest of his worries again.
“Cloud?” Sonon calls to him.
“Cloud. Hey.” Yuffie walks over and waves a hand in his face, which finally snaps him out of his funk. “What are you waiting for? We’re ready, so let’s go find Zack!”
“Ah… Right.”
Though Cloud nods back, he looks exhausted like he’s somehow lost his fighting spirit instead. Nonetheless, he whips up his trusty GUI once more, and to his relief, the pestering message from earlier is gone. It’s now replaced with a more welcome message that reads: “End current session and return to the Nexus?” And without missing another beat, he casually slaps the button to confirm and the three are whisked away into the black.
Notes:
Despite all the action in this chapter, it's still one of the funniest in recent memory
- Obviously, given the events of Wutai in the present, there's no feasible way that we'd be able to return to the Da-chao Mountains for the rest of the story without it feeling like a detour, so I decided to bring it back one last time. And of course I never forgot about that one funny part in the OG, during Yuffie's sidequest, where Corneo apparently had a controller to be able to flip his captive brides-to-be upside-down. I never quite understood why that happened or how it'd work on these giant ancient stone statues, but sure, let's just say Wutai has its share of odd secrets. Naturally, I decided to pay homage to that and just give that statue a whole secret cavity, perfect for any hostage-takers.
- I intended to hint at it back in chapter 84, but there is a subtle difference between the Sephiroth that Cloud and Zack met and the one at the end of the chapter who showed to attack and kidnap Zack. For one, while the past Sephiroth did have knowledge shared with his present self, he was like all other characters in the scene and just a reproduction. But boy, did he find it fun to mess with Cloud again, lol. Here, I have Godo spell it out clearly just so we're all on the same page, but good on you, reader, if you caught it before!
- I also left this extra detail about Fenrir's appearances and interference in the Summon Trials up in the air previously, though I had already planned to explain it back in chapter 80 after Barret woke up. Still, I felt it would have gotten in the way since there was already enough to talk about, so I let it slide until here where it would be front and center. Basically, Fenrir can only interfere when the overseer in question goes feral since any rules that would have been put in place for a given trial would be temporarily voided until the overseer returns to form.
- I also had several variations for the scene in which Yuffie acquires the Sylph Materia, but in the end, I felt it force me to write a longer fight scene between Leviathan and Fenrir if she had to undergo yet another trial with the Garuda. So, I simply opted to reference them and left it to Godo to explain the tale of Rubia.
- Regarding Yuffie's conversation with Sylph, I initially intended to make a parallel to Tifa's own with Shiva previously and leave it on a somber note, but unlike Tifa, Yuffie's hot-headed personality steered this conversation right into a comedic tone every time I tried to write it, so I decided to let Sylph play along as a partner in a kind of skit. It's also a much shorter moment of self-reflection, leading right into her realization that she actually likes Sonon more than she thought. It's very cute and I have no regrets.
- Finally, I've been waiting to reveal Sylph's appearance! There's a very good reason why I didn't ever show Sylph being summoned even though she could have been, since at the time during the first Wutai arc, I hesitated over exactly how to describe her. She's one of those Summon-lites over the FF series who has changed drastically in appearance depending on the game, and I had a hoot when I discovered that she basically looked like a Miku Hatsune cosplayer in red from FFXII: Revenant Wings. Previously FFs simply had her look like a traditional grass sprite/fairy, which did not fit Yuffie, so I opted for the former. The butterfly wings are just an added bonus to make her look like she's obviously a fairy, but time will tell if Yuffie will keep those wings or switch up her appearance.
- Ngl, I legit didn't know prior to writing the part with Sera and Claw Armor how things were gonna go down. I knew I had to make her some kind of boss at the end of this chapter, but she really isn't a significant character. She originally was a scrapped concept character, after all, so I had nothing to build off of, other than her undying loyalty to Shinra. I just came to the conclusion that she might as well be a nepo-hire at the company who so happened to be in the good graces of Scarlet, but is otherwise incompetent despite her projected confidence. Hence why Yuffie's fight is so quick.
- As a compromise, I introduced the prototype to Carry Armor, Claw Armor! I figured it would just look like a reskinned Carry Armor, but since this is technically the past, it had to be a different machine. I also had to write it in some way that Godo would be in trouble, and the only mech from OG that can capture people came to mind, so I went with it.
- Finally, on Sonon's transformation: What can I say, but: Leviathan's a giant eel, so now Sonon is a fishman. I did briefly consider an alternate scenario where Sonon could have been a merman instead, but I knew the sibling banter had to stay. I think he looks cool either way.
Chapter 87: Flight of the Mutagen
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Chadley has never been one to approach Professor Hojo by himself for a number of reasons. Despite his unassuming stature and figure, the mysterious man seems to emanate an eerie, intimidating presence wherever he goes. Just being around him gets people nervous, like being in the presence of a most dangerous predator that no one knows for sure when he would ever snap and let all hell break loose. Though he generally keeps his activities under the utmost secrecy, one way or another, there are always rumors suggesting that anyone going missing at any point is in part due to something that Hojo is involved in. But everyone simply holds fast in the belief that whatever – or whomever – is next in line of his sights isn’t going to be them.
For another, the two share a complicated relationship. From his earliest moments of consciousness, at least that which was artificially born from some state-of-the-art AI, he has always known the professor as his “creator”. He was once a simple virtual assistant of Hojo’s while the latter oversaw several classified company projects over the years, but after a while the professor stopped relaying information directly to him. Hojo insisted that the boy leave HQ and gather information about the world on his own, such that would help further his intellectual development and independence. Though Chadley definitely appreciated his newfound freedom, he suspected that there were probably some things about the professor that he didn’t want the boy to learn. And yet, Chadley never questioned him or probed further; not so much fearing that he’d get his memory wiped or anything, but rather dreading that the truth would be too uncomfortable to deal with or let be.
However, the time has come for him to realize that he can no longer ignore the truth. Over his travels following the wake of Ruby and team, he came to discover to what degree of influence that the Jenova Project, and by extension Project Immortals, has had on the world at large. Though Ruby and her friends never even suspected it, Chadley was able to tag and track her after meeting her and Cloud on their revisit to Midgar, and though he would be unable to pursue them as far as Wutai, he at least could tell their general vicinity and the gist of the situation as it developed wherever they roamed. And even he would have to come to the conclusion that much of the information around Ruby and Rubia’s shared past would have been kept under lock and key under Hojo’s watch.
Now that he’s arrived in the professor’s office hidden away somewhere in Sector 0’s underground, he discovers the place is empty, but the primary computer sitting in the back of the room still seems to have been left on, as if it were accessed not long ago. Strange. While the professor can have his absent-minded moments while lost in thought, he usually wouldn’t be so careless as to leave his system so vulnerable. Granted, it’s not like people can just walk into his office. Chadley was able to unlock the door via an automatic sensor that confirmed his identity upon touching the door handle. The built-in security would have triggered an alarm otherwise. So did the professor leave in a hurry? Well, while there are plenty of files and folders left out on the desks, they’re neatly stacked in a certain order amid the clutter. Perhaps he just left to fetch something and would return soon?
In the meantime, it shouldn’t hurt to take a look around, right? Chadley gives a clap of his hands and the lights turn on at his command, though knowing Hojo, he wouldn’t have the brightest lights in his office anyway. The ones over the table sitting near the door are bright enough, but the rest of the room is lit up with much fainter lights set in the floor that line the walls of the room. Well, it’s nothing that Chadley is a stranger to. He helps himself to the large and imposing but fairly comfortable chair sitting before the multitude of computer monitors, and easily gains access with a few taps – he is the professor’s personal assistant, after all. He also hooks up a headphone-mic set and begins to speak with MAI on the other end.
“MAI, can you do me a quick favor? Can you relay the live footage from the security camera just outside this office’s door? Just so we can check if the professor is returning or if anyone else is passing by.”
“Roger that!” comes the cheerful reply. “Is there anything in particular that I should be looking out for?”
“No, but if something unusual happens, let me know right away.”
“Unusual, huh? In other words, that includes suspicious personnel that wouldn’t have access to this area unless accompanied by some that would, right?”
“Exactly. Thanks, MAI.”
Though MAI’s smile doesn’t usually come with a chime, this one does. “You got it! I’ll keep a dedicated guard up. And you’re ever welcome, Chadley!”
While MAI’s voice disappears once more as she changes to monitoring mode, Chadley proceeds with his investigative perusal of the most recently accessed or modified files in the database. To his surprise, though there are several that have been accessed, there seems to be only one that has actually been modified. And more interestingly, every one of these previously opened files relate to a certain topic that has been grouped under the name “Project Radiant”. It’s not a secret even to lower-rung staff in R&D that the professor has been busying himself with looking into the mysterious white dragon that has been all over the news some days ago. However, very few people would have the administrative access to the complete history of the true name of this project.
As it turns out, the Jenova Project was not the original name of the system of projects categorized under that project name. Professor Gast Faremis was the top scientist of Shinra leading the way of discoveries, and his team’s initial encounter with the white dragon of legend earned the megaproject its namesake. It wasn’t until a few years later that he and his team would discover Ifalna, who initially was happy to help decipher some old Cetran texts, from which gave the name Jenova. Unfortunately, it wasn’t until much later that Ifalna would reveal to the naïve scientists that Jenova was actually one of the worst omens in her people’s history, but by then the name stuck around. Nonetheless, in his personally signed reports, Gast preferred to refer to it by “Project Radiant” or “Project R” for short. Ever since Hojo took over, though, that name has only remained among these old papers now lying around his office.
Chadley opens up the recently modified file and finds that it’s a log of various milestones and achievements reached over the course of the project’s lifespan. Despite Project R, and subsequently Project Immortals, falling into the shadows of the more openly lauded Jenova Project, Hojo has actually been keeping up with progress. As the project was still in its early stages, the former President Shinra requested that R&D reproduce the beast in such a way that she would still be servile to the company, and yet despite their best efforts, Shinra’s top scientists would meet with little practical result over the following three decades. No matter what they tried, it seemed like the dragoness’ strange DNA would not cooperate or abide by their rules even if it were completely isolated and detached from any other organic system. It was too prone to mutation and obfuscation of its own data to be usable – with one exception. As Rubia was once the only remaining bearer of Jenova’s viral plague since ancient times, her cells came to work in tandem with Jenova’s own. And thus, only by merging the two were the scientists at the time able to keep a set of her cells stable enough to be transported and delivered unto hands working on the adjacent Jenova Project.
However, as wise practice, Gast still kept a single pure strain of Rubia’s cells in case they would ever have a use for it in the future. And since that sample came to be under Hojo’s supervision, also with permission from the former President Shinra, he’s been busy putting it to work in his private experiments. Whether or not the dragoness reborn would remain pure or a Jenova-hybrid didn’t matter to him; he just needed her to be obedient. After all, wouldn’t it be nice if he could be the one to one-up Gast in this regard? And on that thought, he also insisted on working by himself to be absolutely sure this creature would heed his word and only his word.
Chadley stops short as he comes to the end of the logs. While progress has been steady over the past few decades, the messages come to a rather anticlimactic end. Gast tended to be a little more descriptive with his updates as opposed to Hojo, but since the latter took over, he’s done a bang-up job of making the logs look indecipherable to anyone but himself. And at the very end, Chadley finds the final update that was added just a few days ago.
“Era μ, Year 0007, Month 7, Day 4: Reconstruction complete.”
That’s it; that’s the whole update. Chadley can’t help but feel a little disappointed, but that is how the professor usually writes his reports. The real question is, if this “reconstruction” is already finished, why has Hojo been so preoccupied? It’s been so hard to find him lately, even for his assistant. One would think that something of this magnitude should be reported to the higher-ups right away, instead of keeping it as a one-off memo for himself. Or is there something else that must be done before it can be revealed? Nevertheless, Chadley hesitates over reporting this issue. While it may be the responsible thing to do, he knows the professor too well to dare to get in his way.
Just as Chadley is deliberating over this dilemma, he gets a little spooked by MAI’s voice popping into his ear out of nowhere: “Chadley! Heads-up!”
“W-what? Did you find anyone?” he asks, alarmed.
“Oh, there’s nothing out of the ordinary from the security camera’s view that I could find. But I did find something else pop into my dashboard! It’s another message from the virtual vigilante herself, Ruby!”
Chadley snaps to attention and fits on his AR glasses. “MAI, please show me the message!”
“Gotcha.”
MAI relays the message from her dashboard onto his and it pops up onscreen. It’s a bit longer of a message than the last ones, where the contents are of a much graver, more urgent nature.
“I knew he would try something desperate. I hacked his system to stop him from activating the release process remotely, so he left to meet with his modified clone of Rubia. However, this one is tainted with Jenova all over, who is by now just a puppet of Tiamat. As tempting as it is to let him be eaten or anything, I worry that he’s also done something to himself so he’s not going to disappear entirely. We have to stop him from awakening her.
But I know your predicament, Chadley. Don’t bother to find Hojo or you’ll just be putting yourself in danger. For now, I’ll grant you and MAI access to the exclusive Bahamut Prime materia. It’s still a build in progress, though, so I suggest you keep working on it to make sure it is stable enough to be used. Keep it safe for me, okay? Look for Reeve Tuesti in the meantime; he’ll be able to help. When Cloud and them are back, they’ll be ready to receive it.
- Ruby”
Chadley stares a little longer at the message and reads it over again just to be sure he didn’t mistake anything he went over, but he’s still in disbelief. Though he figured Ruby would have plenty of answers for him, he didn’t realize how far ahead she’s been planning and all from who knows where. And to think that she would entrust something of this level of importance with him of all people! He’s always rearing for an exciting adventure and all, but he never thought he would come to be a part of something much greater. He only has a peripheral grasp of Tiamat’s lore, but even he knows that this goes beyond just Shinra and Wutai. He may actually have a chance to help turn this world for the better.
“Oh, Chadley! Heads up!” MAI butts in again to report, “I think I see some strange people in some kind of uniform coming this way! By my estimations, they appear to be members of Deepground. I wonder what they’re doing here?”
“Ah! Right. We can’t stay here too long. Let’s get going, MAI… quietly, of course.”
“You got it! Moving to silent mode.”
Chadley hurries to exit out of any and all opened files or directories and sets the computer to shut down before he scuttles right out of the office without a trace left behind. If he’s anything, he’s quick to be wherever he’s needed. But who would have guessed that his next stop would be the department of Urban Planning? Miss Ruby sure knows how to pick them.
~
An abject disaster. One of the planet’s Weapons has arrived upon the shores of Wutai, hovering over the once ruined town of Zhongyuan. Though it is not specifically targeting this country in its moment of internal turmoil, it is not here to the people’s benefit either. The Drifters who had acted as omens of the disaster soon to come have all fled as Sapphire Weapon rose from the sea. Its glowing yellow eyes now hone in on one of the town’s ports where the Drifters left plenty of marked captives set for erasure.
“Why are we always caught up in this kind of shit with you guys?” Reno groans.
Not waiting to have an argument, though, the Turks are right outta there, along with a freaked-out Moogle zipping ahead of them clasping a wailing Cait Sith atop. Panic strikes the whole crowd and people regardless of their allegiances flee the scene together. But while Biggs and Wedge are ready to blow the joint too, they’re appalled that Jessie has yet to move from her spot on the ground.
“Jessie! What’s wrong!?” Biggs yells.
“Are you okay!? Can you stand?” Wedge calls out.
The two hurry back to her side to check on her and help her up, but she seems to have sunken into a deeper depression than they expected. It’s as if witnessing the last vestiges of her hopes and dreams being taken from her has also taken away her will to keep fighting. How did they ever come this far so fast, only for everything to come to a crashing halt just like that? It’s not fair.
“Jessie, snap out of it! We have to go!” Biggs tries again.
She shows little resistance anymore, so they manage to pull her to her feet and away with them. But as they were among the last to leave, they’re a bit late to avoid the start of the collateral damage. Sapphire Weapon rises high from the sea to move into position, unhinges its mouth guard to reveal a huge set of bared teeth, and charges up a great big beam upon the location of interest.
“Waaaah!!” Wedge screams, for himself and his companions.
It’s way too close for comfort. Sapphire razes the entire portside of the town with a single giant blue laser and zigzags up along the main streets leading to it, resulting in an enormous line of explosions that set the whole eastern end of town ablaze. Unlike with a city like Junon or Midgar, heavily fortified thanks to Shinra’s extreme militant defense, Zhongyuan is a humble town like many others and holds no such luxury. In an instant, the buildings and pavement alike are blasted apart as if they were just hit by an advanced carpet bombing. And in that same instant, almost all the strange magical bubbles containing the unfortunate prisoners have been eradicated with nothing left to their names.
Though they were knocked away by the ensuing shockwave, the trio somehow managed to avoid the worst. They’re a little banged up from being sent in a tumble along the roughed-up road, but at least they’re okay enough to get back up. But as Jessie holds herself up by her arms, she looks back at the absolute devastation in horror. All that mayhem, just from one attack. As expected, the planet’s Weapons were no pushovers, but it almost feels like it’s overkill for Mother Gaia to send one of her own children to destroy what was already a defenseless site of ruin. And yet, it would be a necessary step, as little else but Her strongest would be capable of erasing what She long saw as the last remnants of one of the worst threats in this world’s history.
“Biggs! Wedge! Jessie! Are you all alright!?” Cait Sith cries. He’s back again riding Moogle, who is a little sad after getting a smart scolding from the cat king for bolting before everyone was out. That said, Cait himself is still flustered beyond belief and his eyes keep darting between the three and the giant monster which shadow still looms over them.
“Ugh… somehow,” Wedge answers.
Biggs and Wedge climb back to their feet, clutching and massaging any aching parts. Jessie has yet to get up, though, and is still staring with empty eyes at the great conflagration not too far from where they landed. It was bad enough that this town got razed before by some unknown perpetrator, and now even the planet’s own has had its hand in the town’s upheaval. It’s as if the very Fates themselves saw how doomed this place was long before anyone ever thought to settle here.
However, even with all this destruction laid bare, Sapphire Weapon doesn’t back off just yet. Overly cautious and suspicious, Sapphire Weapon scans the area once more to search for any traces yet to be cleared. It did a pretty thorough sweep with its laser earlier, so is there anything remaining?
But there is one. The bubble that happened to hold Ruby’s traces seems awfully lucky for something without its own will. In the ensuing series of explosions, the pressure wave somehow knocked it away just out of reach of the rest of the bursts and it began to spin wildly in the air, floating further inland and away from the rampage on the shore. It even bounced along the rooftops of some nearby buildings before they were blown apart and shortly came to a slow and a rest just another block north of where Cait and company are now.
“What is it doing? Is it searching for something…?” Jessie mutters to herself in disbelief.
“Never mind that! Let’s get outta here!” Biggs pleads. He and Wedge help her up to her feet too, but she doesn’t run with them. “Jessie, come on! What now!?”
She looks around again and now notices the oddly rogue bubble nearby, still floating about and totally untouched. “Wait, is that…?” She gasps aloud. “It is! It’s Ruby!”
“What?” the others reply altogether.
What, indeed? How in the world did that happen? The other bubbles would not have moved from the Weapons’ attack and yet this one did as if it were intending to defy its higher command. With a menacing growl, Sapphire charges up another great beam to blast it out of the air. And yet, the next blast somehow misses and the bubble simply glances off of the laser as it flies past it.
“Wait, guys! We have to help her! She can’t avoid it forever!” Jessie shouts before they can get going.
“What are you talking about!? We can’t deal with that thing!” Biggs argues.
“But we can’t leave her behind! We promised!”
“But what can we do?” Wedge whines, shivering. “We can’t even reach her from here!”
“Yeah! If she’s really our miracle worker, she’ll find some other way to come back! We have to go!” Biggs pleads again.
“But…” Jessie grits her teeth as her eyes well up again from frustration. “When will that be…?”
Though the others can’t answer that for her, Cait Sith speaks up again. He slaps a hand over his chest and declares, “Leave it to me! I’ll get her back for ye! You all hurry and get out!”
“Cait?”
“What? But what can you do all by yourself?” Biggs asks, disturbed.
But he insists, “Remember, I’m just a stuffed toy. If I’m broken, I’ll still come back! But there’s no replacing you! You gotta stay safe, ye hear me!?”
“Cait! Thanks! We won’t forget ya!” Wedge wails with tearful joy.
With no more intention to argue, the guys rush away tugging the still distraught Jessie with them. Pumping themselves up to leave no further regrets, Cait Sith and Moogle exchange a firm clasp of their hands and charge into battle once more. Just as the Weapon is ready to launch its third beam in the ground, the spunky duo zip in with ridiculous cartoonish speed to catch up and crash into the bubble, knocking it out of the way.
By now, Sapphire Weapon is beginning to lose its patience. It has never run into this situation where these magic bubbles, specifically designed and programmed to remain still while undergoing the erasure process, could even escape the incoming attacks. It now turns its attention on the two new targets in its sights that are clinging to the rogue bubble and taking it along for a ride. It unleashes a mighty roar their way that knocks the bubble into another spin, leaving poor Cait and Moogle in a wild whirl that likewise knocks them dizzy. However, when the Weapon throws out one of its massive tentacles to swipe at them, the bubble gets squeezed for a moment before bouncing off again and keeps spinning through the air once more. It tries swiping again with its other tentacle forward but the same happens. It tries again and again alternating between its strokes, all to little avail. Even Cait Sith is in disbelief that they could be knocked about this much while still not being harmed too much. Poor Moogle is looking sickly, though he doesn’t have any stomach acid to throw up.
Sapphire Weapon has had it. Though it is the king of the seas and would not be bested even by the most remarkable ships of modern humanity, it can do little about a very slippery bubble that refuses to abide by its internal programming. That’s the drawback of having flippers instead of claws; can’t easily grasp something so round. Funny how the planet never designed it with suckers on its tentacles. So Sapphire must resort to the unthinkable. It vents with an enraged roar and pulls back into the sea, only to launch itself from the waters and throw its entire weight over the portside ruins.
“Oh. That’s nae good,” Cait mutters in the shadow of the beast.
The Weapon crashes into the land, flattening any and all buildings that still stood, and the impact spews a terrifying wave of concrete, wood, and metal dust that floods through the open streets, burying everything in sight. Thankfully, the former citizens of the town were long gone so they wouldn’t have to witness the remains of their home disappearing altogether. But while the Weapon’s assault doesn’t level the entire town, leaving the most inland edges relatively unscathed, the drifting dust reaches as far all the same. Zhongyuan has moved on from being a ghost town to a town graveyard.
Everyone who had been present – the ASR members, civilian volunteers, the Turks, and the Avalanche trio – somehow managed to escape to the edge in time, but the roads leading into the town’s eastern and main districts have been blocked by wreckage or are otherwise inaccessible thanks to the toxic dust still lingering in the air. Of course, no one dares to head back in. There would be no one remaining to be saved anyhow.
The dust clouds aside, the air outside the town remains heavy. In the end, there was nothing that could be done for the refugees that were trapped and subsequently erased by the Weapons’ aggressive advances. The most the volunteers and ASR members in attendance could do for them was to remain on standby, if only to provide some company before they would be doomed. Even the Turks are troubled by this turn of events; as sad as it was to witness the deaths of many before their eyes, what stings more is the fact that their only hot trail so far has suddenly gone cold. No town to search, no ARC victims to question, and no signs of their infamous ring remain. Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie have gone dead silent, staring in utter disbelief at the resulting damage and casualties from just one attack from the planet’s forces. Cait Sith went out like a trooper, and sure, he could just come back as another one later, but it still hurts to see him go. And worst of all, they’ve lost what little contact they still had with their precious VIP.
“Cait… he…” Wedge whispers amid a gasp.
Biggs looks over the ruins, wide-eyed, and back to the place where they last saw him. He clenches up a fist tight. “He really went… He sacrificed himself for us.”
Wedge bites his trembling lip. “But he said he’ll be back, right?”
“Right, so we don’t have to worry about him. But…” Biggs’ eyes then trail over to the gal beside them, and Wedge follows suit.
Jessie doesn’t utter a word and simply stares at the empty space where only a crater of ruin is left. She doesn’t look particularly freaked out, but those empty eyes of hers only show exhaustion. So what was all that about? Ruby’s grand return bringing in flying sparks of renewed hope? After such a dreadful week of silence from their friends, things turned around on a dime and finally looking up. They had such a kind and friendly magic genie in the palms of their hands, and they were ready to take on the world – literally. And then, before they even knew what was happening, they lost it all in a single fall, beneath the weight of a frightful colossus. So that’s it, then? Those sparks would just die out as soon as they touched the ground? What an awful joke.
Sapphire Weapon lies still for a moment longer, but then it begins to push itself off the ground and slide back into the sea. Where the last magic bubble and the cat and moogle pair clinging to it had been is no more. It seems its last-ditch effort to slam them somehow worked, even if it did result in more destruction than necessary, though as far as the Weapons’ purpose is concerned, this is merely natural consequence. Had they not been programmed for this specific mission to focus all efforts on tracking and capturing the rogue Remnants, they wouldn’t have bothered to tip-toe around any live casualties in the first place.
However, unbeknownst to even Mother Gaia, a strange quirk of fate no longer within the predestined course has come about. Sapphire Weapon’s eyes that once glowed with a terrifying power have flickered out ever so briefly, only to light back up not with a threatening warning of yellow, but a much more amicable white. The Weapon lumbers slowly and almost awkwardly as its recast eyes scan its environment, observing the degree of devastation with alarm. So this is the power of the planet… at least, just a touch of the whole.
“By the Gods… Or, rather, Mother Gaia! Isn’t this a tad much just for one wee little rogue spark, Grand Missus?” comes a familiar accented voice.
All three of them flinch at the same time when they hear it. “…Huh?”
Now the rest of the crowd around them grow confused and are looking around, but no one seems to find any sign of the source of the voice. “What the?” “A voice?” “Say, doesn’t it sound familiar…?”
“What the heck!” Elena blurts out, “Wasn’t that the cat? Where is he?”
“Better yet, how?” Reno grumbles aloud, “No way he was able to escape that hulking hunk of metal. It fell right on him!”
“But there’s no mistaking it. That was definitely Cait Sith’s voice. The Scottish accent is a dead giveaway,” Rude notes.
“Maybe he got buried in the rubble?” Elena suggests.
“Maybe. But it’d be hard to imagine that we could hear him from here.”
“He’s gotta be somewhere out in the open, then…” But as they reconsider the possibilities, Reno gets a weird itch in the back of his mind, like some crazy thought is rearing its head at last, and out of curiosity, he looks up toward the beast looming over the town. “…No. You don’t think…?”
Rude raises an eyebrow. “Hm? Reno, what is it?”
Now that everyone’s attention turns back to the Weapon, they now realize something seems to have changed about it. Sapphire Weapon has stopped acting aggressively and instead looks just as confused as the rest of them. It sways to and fro in a jittery way, almost as if it were fretting as it looks over the ruins. It also raises its fore-tentacles in the air again, but doesn’t swing them on the attack. If anything, it looks down at itself like it’s seeing something completely out of the ordinary.
To everyone’s shock, including the beast’s own, Sapphire wails with the same high-strung energy as a certain Scottish folk cat, “Wait! What am I doing up here!? What happened? I coulda sworn Moogle and I were crushed flat!”
And just like that, the entire tense atmosphere goes up in smoke as everyone else is stunned speechless, if the silence would last but a moment.
“Cait Sith!?” the Avalanche trio squeal together.
“What the hell is that!?” Elena screams.
Even Rude’s shades slip off the bridge of his nose. “No way… How…?”
Reno takes another second to pull his jaw back in place. “Oh, come on… What is with these guys!? Are they all just freaks of nature like Ruby? Is she contagious!?”
“Cait! Is that you!?” Jessie cries as she frantically races back into town.
“Hey! Jessie!” Biggs calls out.
He and Wedge race after her to make sure she doesn’t get caught up in anything worse. The trio climb on over some amount of rubble with some grappling guns Jessie held in reserve all along, and they manage to find a suitably flat area out in the open in plain sight of the beast.
“Cait! Can you hear me!? Are you okay!?” Jessie tries once more.
“Jessie! We can’t be out here! We’re too close!” Biggs complains through gritted teeth.
“But Cait’s still around somewhere, isn’t he?” Wedge asks, though he’s just as twitchy.
“I know we heard him, but…” Biggs looks up toward the giant overhead, a cold sweat coming over him. “He can’t be… up there, right?”
Wedge stares back. “What? You mean inside that thing?”
“I dunno! He’s small enough to fit in its cracks, I bet!”
“I guess…?”
“Cait!! If you can, please answer!” Jessie cups her hands over her mouth and yells. “Where are you!?”
Again, the familiar voice emanates from somewhere near. “Jessie? Biggs and Wedge too! I’m way up high, it seems… You all look so tiny from here.”
Now, the lumbering beast turns its sights upon the trio, who freeze up in panic, but when it doesn’t move toward them, they realize that they’re not actually in danger.
“Cait! If you’re okay, then come on out!” Wedge curls up a hand before his mouth and calls out too.
“You still good? Everything in one piece?” Biggs asks likewise.
“Aye. I’m… sure in a piece, ye can say,” Cait Sith replies, but his voice echoes like he were speaking through a megaphone that he isn’t even holding. “But I wouldnae thought I’d ever stand over everyone meself! Now this is a view if I’ll ever get one!”
“Huh?” both guys mutter with blank stares.
Jessie watches the titan carefully and then suggests, “Guys, I don’t think he’s in any hole… He’s out in the open.”
Now they turn to her with those stares. “Huh??”
They all turn back up toward the strangely friendly monster, who is again flailing its fore-tentacles about, but not in a threatening way; way more playfully than anything. And then, it settles down and sinks back into the sea with just its head poking out as its curious white eyes peer down on them.
“Eh… Cait Sith, or whatever ye can call me now, present and ready to go!” answers the friendly voice from unseen speakers of the blue giant.
Now it’s Biggs and Wedge’s turn to snap back in shock. “WHAT!?”
“What the hell? When were you able to do that!?” Biggs blurts before he can stop himself.
“Cait! You’re freakin’ wild!” Wedge cheers. “You really took it over?”
“It was so strange, fer sure!” Cait agrees, careful not to nod his head at this size. “One moment, all I saw was darkness from the shadow of this giant and I was all but ready to say my prayers and call it a night on this here copy. And I did black out for a bit, that much is true. But I didn’t stay down! The next thing I knew what was whatfor, I found myself in control of the giant itself!”
“Wait. But if you’re okay, then what about Ruby? Where’d she go?” Jessie gets right to the point. She looks around the giant mech once more, but doesn’t see anything else out of the ordinary. “Is she in there with you?”
“Ah…” Cait goes silent for a moment and then comes out with it, “To be honest, lass… I don’t know. There was no way I could stop the giant from squashing that last bubble.”
Like a candle wick going out, Jessie’s anxious anticipation goes dark too. “No…”
Wedge blinks and his jitters return. “Wait. Then, she’s…?”
Cait then adds to stress, “But I won’t say I didnae at least try to reach out! Just moments before I went black, the bubble popped even before everything crashed down on us and I must’ve fallen onto some of those materia shards. So, if I’m a bettin’ cat, I wager something musta happened between us!”
Biggs narrows his eyes in disbelief. “What? Then did her materia really do something?”
“I know nae a smitch of her ways, but I feel that I must’ve triggered some kinda reaction. Like, I didnae ever think I could jump bodies into a new host! But that’s how it’s turned out.”
“Whoa…” he mutters, still blinking in disbelief.
“Wicked…” Wedge echoes his sentiments.
“Hey. Then, does that mean what I think it means?” Jessie asks on with her excitement returning to her, “Is Ruby’s power still with you? Can you reach her from in there somehow?”
“Oh, well…” Cait pauses and then answers, “I dunno if I can do much, but I’ll give it a try anyway! But eh, no promises that it’ll be too soon.”
“It doesn’t matter how long it takes! We just need some way to get to her!” She raises up a pumped-up fist. “Cait, do your best! We’re leaving her to you, okay?”
“Uh, right! Leave it to me!”
“In the meantime,” she adds, swerving back to her companions, “We still have a job to do, guys! We have to keep looking for more materia for her!”
Biggs and Wedge blink blankly again and share nervous glances with each other. Biggs then asks her, “Uh, sure. But I think we lost Ruby’s power since it got swept up earlier. How will we spread it?”
“Like I said, we’ll leave her to Cait, but we can keep gathering up materia. Remember why we came back to Wutai? It wasn’t just to see our HQ guys again.”
“Oh, yeah!” Wedge nods along and raises his own fists, ready to pump himself up too. “The more the merrier, right? And when she’s back, we can just juice them all up at once?”
“That’s the idea!” Jessie returns him a thumbs-up and her signature smirk. “Now let’s go! The ASR could lend us a hand there too. Let’s catch up and spread the word!”
“Well, I guess it wouldn’t hurt,” Biggs admits, rubbing his head.
Like she’s gone a total 180, Jessie has regained her enthusiasm from earlier this evening. Before they can stop her, she hurries back the way they came and hops off the fallen slab of concrete, and they’re off chasing after her again. Cait Sith watches them go with an odd mix of relief and yet a little regret. While he’s glad to see they’re back to their usual selves, he can’t help but worry about himself now. He said he’ll do something so they won’t worry, but he’s struggling to figure out the rest. After all, if Ruby’s power activated on its own, how can he return the favor to someone whose whereabouts or even how she’s operating are total unknowns?
Unfortunately, he doesn’t have much time to loiter and think over everything. From high in the skies and not too far in the distance, a great roar rings out that hits him like a jolt. It seems this blue giant has some built-in system that can register what such a roar means – namely, a call to action from one of its most fearsome allies.
“W-what? What was that?” Biggs asks, stopping short of climbing down another wall.
All three of them look back up above them and let out a collective gasp as the tiny figure of something flying their way grows bigger and bigger until another massive shadow looms over the town. The big, black, scary dragon mech is back and it’s more furious than ever.
“I-i-it’s that thing again!?” Wedge squeaks. “The one that was at Midgar!”
“What!? What’s it doing here!?” Jessie whines too.
“Egads!” Cait Sith cries in fright, pulling away from the shore, but rather than flee, he stands his ground and raises those huge tentacles up. “Get back, everyone! I’ll cover for ye!”
“Thanks again, Cait! You’re a lifesaver, bro!” Wedge yells a quick remark.
The three scurry away as fast as they can while Cait takes up a defensive pose as he awaits the incoming threat. Ultima Weapon has finally returned to the surface after its cleanup job and is fully ready for battle. However, it’s not here to strike at what clearly are ruins. It screeches angrily at the now rogue Sapphire Weapon instead. Before Cait can make heads or tails of the situation, he’s come face-to-face with Ultima, who rushes and rams him with outstretched claws.
“Cait!?” Jessie whips back around and gasps.
“Leave him! We gotta get outta here!” Biggs exclaims more as wishful thinking than a real plan.
“Good luck, Cait! You got this!” Wedge offers his wishes too.
“Er… E-en guarde, ye no-good knave!” Cait tries his best at a warcry.
The two titans clash, Ultima’s aerial charge against Sapphire’s impregnable guard, and the shockwave of the impact blasts away a wide radius of debris and throws the sea into a frenzy. Since Sapphire is of such an imposing size that isn’t in the least dwarfed by the other Weapon, it isn’t blown away by the head-on collision, but it pales in comparison to Ultima’s speed and ferocity. The latter thrashes with blow after blow, and its sharp claws can tear through even its fellow Weapons’ armor with enough effort. But Cait counters through the barrage; commanding Sapphire to lash out with its tentacles and wrap its foe tight to immobilize it. However, as he soon finds out, this was a terrible lapse in judgment. Without missing a beat, Ultima opens up its chest cavity and charges up its Ultima Beam.
“Y-yipes!!” Cait squeaks.
With incredible litheness not exactly characteristic of such a colossus, Sapphire loosens its grip in such a way that sends its foe into an abrupt spin, sending the beam awry and shooting up into space. Yet, the former still doesn’t release its hold and instead regains its armlock around its foe’s neck from behind. Ultima even looks shocked – as shocked as a mechanical single-expression beast could look anyway – as it now finds itself captive and unable to shake off its target. It spreads its wings and forcefully propels itself up into the air to break free, and still the other refuses to let go. In growing frustration, Ultima’s eyes glow bright as it switches modes from attack to defense. It then launches on all thrusters that blast the surrounding seawater dry. Though it’s slow going at first, it begins to float into the air, carrying the massive hulk of Sapphire with it out of the water.
“!?”
With a terrifying, piercing screech in triumph, Ultima takes off for the skies once more and far away from Wutai, headed eastward. Even with Sapphire’s weight greatly slowing the other’s speed, Ultima keeps pushing onward and gradually speeds up despite its burden. Then, it’s as if it’s back to normal, pushing mach speeds, and in mere minutes reaches well across the western continent.
Yet, despite this extraordinary display of strength and persistence, it understands it is not in position to be able to take out its target by itself. A Weapon is a Weapon, is a Weapon, after all. The five primary titans are all generally matched in size and power, with certain degrees of specialization among them, specifically designed to cover all different regions of the planet. And what Ultima gained in aerial mobility and speed, it had to sacrifice in long-term stamina. It can’t keep up these speeds for much longer and Sapphire’s constriction will likewise take its toll, crushing its prey like a giant squid on the hunt. So, to compensate, the Weapons would resort to a backup plan in times of emergency. Ultima gives another mighty roar from the pits of its soul – a call to arms and to unite.
~
Around the world, the remaining Weapons answer the call. From the depths of the western continent, Ruby Weapon bursts from the sands near the Gold Saucer with its own metallic roar, its giant claws raking through the dunes and outstretched in the air. By the shores of the eastern continent, Emerald Weapon launches from the deep sea, responding with a reverberating bellow as it breaks the surface, and rises into the air as well on its powerful thrusters. And still traversing the snowy lands of the northern continent, Diamond Weapon screeches a discordant tone as it leaves behind a trail of disheveled ice and rock and approaches the cliffs, ready to leap into the sea to join the fray at last.
Ultima Weapon soars far and first meets Ruby Weapon, who positioned its claws in just the right way to snap and latch onto the rogue Weapon as Ultima zips on by. However, Sapphire refuses to let go of Ultima even as Ruby tries to tug it off, and the three enter into a stalemate of tugs. Despite Ruby’s own legs being well ingrained in the bedrock of where it stood, even the bedrock begins to give way to Ultima’s desperate attempts to flee, so Ruby too begins to being pulled along to the edge of the continent. Realizing that it’s come too close to the sea, though Ruby on a last-minute recalculation decides to let go rather than let them all fall into the water. Disappointed and betrayed, Ultima screeches in indignance as it soars off again, still lugging Sapphire with it.
Next, Ultima soon reaches across the Meridian Ocean to where Emerald has been waiting out at sea, floating ominously over the water’s surface as if it were somehow levitating with an anti-gravity field. However, unlike Ruby Weapon, who at least has claws that it can use to latch onto its target, Emerald has its massive wings like that of a fighter jet. So the moment Ultima approaches, Emerald does what it does best and charges up a massive light beam from its sharp maws. Upon seeing this, though, Ultima reacts immediately and veers midair to avoid the incoming blast. However, Emerald pursues the rogue target by pivoting its beam after them and nearly sears off one of Ultima’s own wings. Further outraged, Ultima screams at Emerald and takes off once more, leaving the green giant to close up its maws and slowly sink back into the sea without another utterance.
Finally, Ultima zooms up north to meet Diamond Weapon, who is now trudging its way through the northern ocean to eventually reach its intended destination on the eastern continent where the lands have rotted most. Finally, a Weapon who can actually latch its claws and do some damage! Except there’s just one problem: Diamond is actually the slowest of the bunch. As Ultima swerves on by and circles round and round, screeching at it to do something, Diamond takes a moment to be able to lock onto the intended target, not in the least helped by Ultima’s increasingly erratic movements. But once it unfolds its many doors to reveal a body fraught with hidden cannons, it fires off a sweeping barrage from all openings. While not all energy missiles hit, a good chunk land where they should. Unfortunately for Ultima, it too is in the way and is likewise bombarded. Both Sapphire and Ultima disappear into a cloud of sparks and smoke as Diamond relentlessly unloads its fury.
Ultima Weapon has officially reached its end of patience. With an outraged roar, it bursts out of the smoke and rams right into Diamond Weapon, who while caught off-guard, clutches and takes the incoming tackle head-on. However, as mad as Ultima is, this instance of improv is actually to its team’s advantage. Now in Diamond’s clutches, Sapphire can no longer escape. And with a clever switcheroo, Diamond grasps at Sapphire’s head and menacingly crushes it, letting more sparks fly.
“Ow! Owowowow!!” Cait yelps. Even being a spirit possessing another, he can’t escape the perceived pain.
But that’s the opening they’ve been waiting for. In that bout of panic, Cait Sith loses his own focus and loosens his grip on Ultima, who can finally break free and slip out. Ultima likewise elbows Sapphire in the chest that easily dents its thick armor plating and lashes out with a double kick from two of the legs on one side. With Diamond still grasping Sapphire’s head tight, Ultima’s following barrage of thrashes tear through the rest of Sapphire’s armor until it snaps apart one of its mighty tentacles. In turn, Diamond throws in its own karate chop with its free claw right into the jugular, cracking metal joints and ripping energy sinews.
“Gah! Mayday! Mayday! We can’t last! Abort! Abort!!” Cait whines, but sadly he has no other allies to plead for help.
Whether or not the original Sapphire Weapon would still be conscious at this state, if it were, it too would realize the futility of continuing this fight. Its body is all torn up, its life essence is dissipating rapidly, and even its glowing eyes falter and quickly fade. And so soon after it was deployed, Sapphire must shut down to conserve what little energy reserves remain. Likewise, Cait Sith yowls in agony. Even if it isn’t his own body, he feels something like a splitting headache while being spun about like a top. If only he could reach out and clutch his own head… Wait. Reach out?
Oh, yeah. Didn’t he do just that with Ruby earlier? Even just the will to reach out a hand that doesn’t exist was able to produce some result. Maybe he can just try again.
And the moment Cait has his revelation, he makes his leap of faith, disappearing out of the body of Sapphire as Ultima comes in with one final barrage of Shadow Flares to blast apart the scrapped Weapon. As the light from the explosions fades, Sapphire’s heavy plating finally gives way and there are gaping holes strung all along its battered body. At last, Sapphire Weapon is no more and the last flickering glow of its eyes fades entirely. Confirming that their target is offline, Diamond then releases its grip and casually tosses the broken heap aside into the waters beside it, making a grand ol’ splash. Neither Weapon even bothers to watch the remains of their former ally disappear under the waves.
However, one complication solved in such spectacular fashion simply leads to another. Just as Ultima is ready to resume protocol and take its leave, it senses a disturbance coming from the other Weapon. As if some internal alarm had just gone off, Diamond suddenly wails loudly as if frightened, or as if its system too has been compromised. It breaks out into a frenzy and begins to attack the nearest body, which happens to be Ultima. Rather than take any more chances, the latter acts immediately, countering with another prepared barrage of Shadow Flares that make Diamond disappear into another cloud of sparks and smoke. But that alone isn’t enough to settle anything. Though it didn’t escape unscathed, Diamond becomes just as enraged and returns fire with its own missiles. With magic deflecting magic, the two titans then rush one another to meet in a cataclysmic clash that rocks the very seabed beneath them. Turbulent waves fly out in all directions and travel so far that even the usually peaceful shores near Kalm are stirred up. If things continue like this and the other Weapons arrive to join the fray, there’s no telling what level of mayhem would ensue.
Nevertheless, the course of Fate is a whimsical one and their attention is going to be redirected yet again. Out in the distance, overlooking a massive gray and green metropolis, stands the largest cannon that humanity has ever constructed. A city-wide alarm is blaring as the cannon prepares to fire. In anticipation of the incoming Weapon attack, Midgar has already shifted from peacetime to wartime protocol and the entire city is now under lockdown. While Ultima’s previous attack was repelled, Shinra was expecting it to return at some point, so the president issued a brief warning to all residents that they would be rerouting the energy from the reactors to the giant cannon in case they would need it. And now with not just one but two of their pesky nemeses right in their line of sight, the opportunity would arise with perfect timing.
Rufus stands beside his desk, looking out the window at a marvelous sight to behold. It’s not every day that anyone would get a front-row seat to the planet’s forces suddenly experiencing a mutiny in their ranks. He’s accompanied by Heidegger and Tseng, who have been watching the scene with him with growing disturbance.
Heidegger gives him another salute and asks, “Mr. President, the cannon is armed and ready. We now await your order.”
Rufus gives a cool flip of his hair and then mutters aloud a single word, “Fire.”
To which, Heidegger reveals a sinister grin and nods approvingly. He promptly barks the order into his radio, “Fire the cannon!!”
The mako cannon begins to charge up. Energy reserves from all available reactors surrounding the city transfer their loads into the base of the cannon and the open barrel lights up with a terrifying green-white glow. The moment the transfer is complete, all lights around the city go dark, and the cannon manually shifts from passive to active mode. Given just a moment of silence amid the darkness, it’s then broken by the loud sound-breaking discharge of light. The cannon fires a gargantuan laser that would put even those from the Weapons to shame; so powerful that it recoils nearly a third of its own length as it does. The two Weapons in the line barely have time to react. Being much faster of the two, Ultima launches out of the way as the laser narrowly misses, but Diamond is not so lucky. The laser blasts straight through the unfortunate Weapon, knocking it so far back it loses its underwater footing and falls back into the sea to join its already deceased ally. Rather than fight for its fallen comrade, though, Ultima suddenly breaks character and turns tail in panic. Charging up its speed once more, it launches so fast that it breaks the sound barrier, disappearing to somewhere on the southeast end of the world.
But the beam is so powerful that it continues shooting through the skies, just barely skirting past over the Northern Crater. It would even have gone flying out into outer space if not for some unexpected interference. As if there were some strange warping of spacetime from the depths of the now empty crater, blackish streams of energy launch into the air and grasp at the incoming projectile like many tendrils wrapped tightly about a discarded branch. And like parasitic vines, they drain the energy from the branch until it too disappears amid the black streams gathered at the center of the crater’s depths. And in total deathly silence, the desperate flickering light of the runaway energy quickly fades into darkness.
~
Yet, problems only continue to plague the planet one after another. Though it got away from the direct impact of the cannon fire, Ultima’s movements grows more and more unstable even amid clear skies. Its once glowing red eyes are also faltering, flickering in and out between a glowing red and a faded maroon, until its light finally gives out. As its consciousness fades away, it loses its flight path, descends through the air near one southeastern island, and crashes head-first into the shore, digging into the craggy ground. It happens to stop just west of the forested cliffs outside of the town of Mideel.
It seems to have shut itself down to prevent any worse shortages. Then, after just a moment of stillness, it regains power from its reserves and reconfigures its settings. However, now that it has restarted, it has found a completely new algorithm to follow. Its eyes do not load in the original red, but instead are overwritten by a friendlier white, though its pupils are still thin. As soon as it realizes it can move again, the Weapon pulls itself back up and sits down on the rough ground, letting all four of its hind legs rest.
And out of the blue, a certain Scottish accent pops out from its hidden speakers: “…Whew! What a rush! Just barely made the jump in the nick o’ time.” He takes a pause, growing worried again. “But there’s a bother too. Can’t believe Shinra really went and popped a shot at us… Is Midgar gonna be alright like this? No, better yet, is the planet gonna be alright?” He also looks down at his new body with a slight touch of regret. “I ne’er thought things would get this messy. All I wanted was to help Ruby and then before I knew, one thing led to another…”
He starts to look around and find his bearings again, and tries to take a stand. Legs seem to be working. He raises his arms up and confirms they are mobile. Lastly, he checks those great wings and they unfold just fine. Well, at least Ultima Weapon doesn’t seem to be too damaged from all the fighting and the crash just now. He then turns upward toward the sky, which is an otherwise open blue sky with the occasional clouds adrift in the far distance. Though it looks like such a peaceful scene, he can’t help but feel a tinge of sadness and especially loneliness.
He turns back down and drops on his well-armored belly upon the ground, but lets out a sigh that instead comes out as a high-pitched squeak, almost as if it were a whimper from Ultima. “Oh, man… So what now? Every time I try to reach Ruby, I just end up hoppin’ to another body. If this keeps up, I might not be able to ever get back to me own…” He pauses again as he recalls the devastation from Zhongyuan with a shudder. “Eh… Nah, scratch that. If I go back now, who knows what more disasters I’d bring. And those other Weapons are still out there and all. I can’t even jump back to Midgar without soundin’ the alarms.” He lets out another sad whimper. “Looks like I’ll be stuck roamin’ the world as a vagabond after all…”
But now amid silence once more, he takes another moment to think it over. Why did any of that happen? From the moment Sapphire Weapon attacked Zhongyuan to Cait’s last moments of consciousness, he didn’t have any solid plan. The only thoughts that were running in his head were to keep the beast distracted and to get Ruby’s traces freed. Well, there wasn’t much he and Moogle could do. They were crushed flat before they could make heads or tails of anything.
Ah, Moogle, the poor lad. He was only trying his best to help. And truthfully, Cait doesn’t have to worry too much going forward, since the other him still has loads more extras where they came from. But it’s still sad to think how fast they went this time, and so soon after he got split from Cloud and everyone. Even sadder now that the cat king is all alone, this time without even his trusty steed. Ultima may be a frightening thing that can well stand on its own, but there’s no replacing a good friend.
Friends, huh… How are Cloud and them doing now? Ever since they somehow managed to stop Sephiroth and Meteor, they’ve just disappeared from the surface of the planet. Cait suspected for a while that they might have been buried somewhere in the crater or maybe even fallen into the depths. It was such close call they had, especially how Sephiroth had taken them out so easily. So what did happen that they were able to turn it all around? Did they even turn it around? And was Ruby really there with them after all?
Speaking of Ruby, she’s the real enigma out of everything. Even knowing that she is no longer able to meet them in person, she still has some way to stick around. The way that Jessie and them were acting, it was like she didn’t leave them at all. Granted, it’s not like they knew what was going on in the crater, so they may have been totally unaware that Ruby was actually… Well, can he even say it for sure? What is “death” to a being like her or Rubia? Either way, be it mere delusion or genuine hope, it never really felt like she was ever going to be gone forever. In a way, she’s almost like him, only without the plush body.
So where has she been? Was she around to help him with Sapphire too? Now that he thinks back to the moment before he blacked out, there was something weird he noticed. He swore he saw the bubble carrying her traces burst before Sapphire landed on them. It wasn’t because of anything he did, was it? He and Moogle were clinging to it tightly, but that’s about it. It somehow burst on its own.
As much as Cait Sith would like to keep contemplating in silence, though, he’s shortly interrupted by some noise around him. A LOT of noise, actually. It’s like there was suddenly a mass of voices that sprung out and were clamoring in his ears and it startled him. But now that he looks around, he doesn’t see anything weird.
No, wait. The wild animals in the region are panicking and fleeing in all directions. In the distance closer to the town, geysers begin to blow. And now that he picks up on all the weird vibes, he gets a feeling that something’s big coming. It’s coming from below.
Out of the blue, the entire island of Mideel begins to tremble and quake. Even with a body like this that can easily be airborne, Cait instead panics along with all the fauna around him. He quickly realizes that he should probably take flight and launches into the air. But worried for the townsfolk nearby, he flies on over to check.
Well, that’s a mistake. The moment the citizens of Mideel see a giant black metal dragon appear over their skies, they’re understandably thrown into a frenzy. Things were wild enough that the earthquake hit them out of nowhere. But at the very least, the people here are well acquainted with earthquake responses. Mideel is no longer the backwater village it was once, but with proper instruction from the local officials, most of everyone quickly evacuates.
However, there are always some stragglers that don’t make it out. As the quakes intensify, buildings topple fast and the ground even begins to crack open. From the cracks come an outpour of green-white light that bathe what remains of the town in an eerie green glow. This isn’t a normal earthquake after all; this is an outburst of Lifestream, likely in response to the Weapons’ arrival.
Oh, goodness. He really shouldn’t be here. Taking his cue, Cait flies off again to leave the town in peace – well, as much as they have left, anyway.
As he goes, though, Cait can’t help but feel sorry for those poor folks who are crying for some others that didn’t quite make it out, but in this form, he’s not equipped in the least to perform any rescues. The most he’d do is pick up some slabs of rock or metal, but with the quakes still going, that’s not a lot of good it’ll do. He returns to the crash landing site and settles back down to the ground, even while the quakes are still going. And then, as suddenly as it had arrived, the earthquake then settles into silence. Maybe when all’s said and done, he should learn to keep to himself and stop interfering…
Fu-SHEEN. Pling. Crack.
“AAAAAHHhhh!!” Cait wails.
In turn, Ultima roars in pain. They’ve been completely taken off-guard and struck from behind. Cait was completely blindsided by not one but two great slashes that strike him in the form of a huge X, piercing straight through the armor like it were merely paper. They also seem to be accompanied by some familiar tessellating shapes that briefly appear, but even without them, the blows would have left a mark anyway. And before Cait can reach out a “hand” to try to rein in Ultima, it’s too late. The Weapon drops to the ground with another loud boom and goes dark.
When the dust settles, two stoic figures appear from what seem to be some loose traces of Lifestream that had yet to settle back into the depths. With everyone in town gone far away, their footsteps are the only sounds in the vicinity. And then they begin to speak.
“If you hadn’t taken your sweet time picking up Zack, we wouldn’t have been late!” Genesis barks angrily at his unwilling partner. “Now look at this mess! We’ve lost three whole Weapons in one fell swoop!”
Sephiroth pays him no mind and is more interested in the wrecked body of Ultima. “…So the spirit of Cait Sith was out in the open all along,” he muses to himself.
“At least the remaining two Weapons are the most resilient of the bunch. The problem is, they’re also the least likely to respond,” Genesis continues to grumble. “Honestly! Who even asked for them to have their own personalities? It was always just asking for trouble!”
Sephiroth now approaches the beast and sets a hand upon one of the forelegs. “And the trigger would be from Ruby’s power…” A grim frown crosses his lips. “Hmph. That girl really is too generous. Such divine blessings shouldn’t be so freely distributed.”
By now, Cait Sith’s lingering spirit has gone silent and is even drawing a blank. Too much has happened too fast for him to process what is going on anymore. The last vestiges of his consciousness are fading away. But perhaps this is for the best. At least he won’t have to worry about this monster roaming free.
With a wordless spell, Sephiroth opens up the course of Fate to be rewritten once more. The tessellating translucent blue shapes appear around his hand and spread out to envelop the broken body of Ultima whole and extract its essence and identity from the background data. From there, he initiates the transferal process and draws out the rest of Ruby’s Remnants from this relabeled object of interest. And with but a few ten seconds, the process is complete. He dismisses his magic interface and steps away, leaving the remains of Ultima as a lifeless heap.
All the while, Genesis is still complaining to him, “Hurry up! We’re on a tight schedule! Who knows what else those fools have been doing roaming free with the anomaly’s traces.” He folds his arms with a scowl of gritted teeth. “And not to mention, there was that thing that just happened around the crater. We really are cutting things a little too close. If I hadn’t been held up by the likes of you, I would have completed this mission by now.”
“I’m finished,” Sephiroth replies flatly. “Should we make a quick stop by Wutai or head straight for the crater?”
“I’ve had enough of you lollygagging in Wutai,” Genesis seethes. “It was just supposed to be an in-and-out job and instead you stuck around to watch a wolf and a serpent duke it out! What was that about taking the mission seriously?”
He glances off. “It can’t be helped. Being stuck in a hamster ball leaves much to be desired.”
“Oh, shut up! You are currently an inmate on probation and you will follow orders as your commanding officer gives them!” He then gives a threatening point in his face. “We’re dropping by Wutai now only to tie up any loose ends. You will remain by my side while we’re there and then we’re headed straight for the crater once we’re done. No further questions.”
“And yet, all Sapphire Weapon had to do was pick up a few materia, and look where that ended up.”
“It only got that bad because of your delay!” Genesis snaps back, but then shakes his head. “Ugh, I don’t have time for this. We’re going.”
With a snap of his fingers, he calls upon a dual-cast of warp spells for the two of them and they vanish into light like from whence they arrived.
~
As tumultuous a day it’s been for the planet, things aren’t so easy for the people living on Her either. Back at Midgar, the backup power reserves have kicked in and light gradually returns to the city as some semblance of normalcy returns to everyone’s lives. However, the city will remain in lockdown until further notice. Up in Shinra HQ, Rufus watches the result with a touch of disappointment on his face, but nonetheless nods to himself and turns toward his attending men.
“Results are… adequate, I suppose. We may missed the intended target, but we at least got rid of one of those threats. I highly doubt the other is going to return any time soon, so we ought to be spared from firing another shot. The cannon will need time to cool anyway.” Despite his cool tone, he still raises his hands and gives a polite clap. “Good work, everyone.”
While Tseng lets off a relieved sigh, Heidegger lets out a proud guffaw. “Ha! Planet-shmanet! If that’s all ‘nature’ can bring to the table, then we’ve got nothing to worry about! Come what may, the Shinra Company will stand strong against all elements!”
Nonetheless, Rufus looks a little troubled over something. “On the other hand, there’s now an even bigger concern that we have to address.”
Heidegger stops short mid-laugh and quiets down, raising an eyebrow. “Huh? What’s that, sir?”
“Namely, what happened for the planet’s own to turn on one another.” He glances toward the window again. “You’d think something like this would have been impossible, so there had to be some kind of interference.”
“Hmph.” Heidegger casually waves it away. “Not to worry, sir. This is clearly natural consequence for scrap that’s well beyond its expiration date. Nothing that we wouldn’t be able to fend off.”
“Be that as it may, there’s no telling what could happen from here on out.” He gives him the same cold expression. “Especially given that the Weapon that went rogue came from the far west; in other words, Wutai. Don’t you find that suspicious?”
The moment that name is mentioned, the other man is stirred right back up. “Uh… Yes! You’re right, sir!” He folds his hands behind him and stands at attention. “Clearly, those Wutai devils are up to no good as always! They must have committed some grave misdeeds for even the planet’s forces to attack them.”
Rufus puts a hand to his chin and considers aloud, “Whether it’s coincidence or consequence, it’s a pretty convenient turn of events for us. For a while there, their provisional government could keep up the excuse that they haven’t been harboring any weapons to maintain the ceasefire.” He then drops his hand and lays it forward. “But now with these monsters going wild on their land, they’re all but exposed. Though it’s not exactly clear what the objectives of the planet’s Weapons are, they’ve been following a trend of attacking places with a lot of subjects that were involved in either the Jenova or Immortals Projects. It wouldn’t make sense for them to target Wutai if they didn’t host their own share.”
“Of course!” Heidegger raises up a trembling fist with an almost exaggerated scowl, teeth bared. “They truly know no shame, to dare to drive the planet to madness! If we hadn’t responded to the threat immediately, who knows what disaster would have befallen the people of Midgar! Nay, the rest of the world! We cannot allow them to get away with this!”
“…” Paying the man no mind, Rufus continues to deliberate to himself. “Of course, we still have to be careful. It wouldn’t help us if they aerate out records from our old ARC trade trails in retaliation, for instance.” He reconsiders their options and then turns to the other in attendance. “Tseng.”
“Yes, sir?”
“I heard there was a bit of connection trouble with the Turks earlier. Have you managed to resolve it?”
As if prompted, Tseng salutes him and gives his report, “Yes, sir. Reno’s group called in just before you called me here. It seems the brief lapse was due to some interference from a Wutaian insurgent group called the Anti-Shinra Resistance. They were tailing the trail of escaped prisoners when they came upon the home base of the group, but were captured momentarily. Then, the ASR was alerted of an incident at Zhongyuan, so they were able to escape during the rush and reestablish contact.”
“Hmm. That town was the one that got burned down, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. It seems the insurgents were involved in trafficking operations there as well, including of certain ‘refugees’. I believe these people may have included some of the prisoners that were being held in our facilities.”
Rufus raises an eyebrow, looking impressed. “Well, that makes things easier. Did they find out if the ASR were involved in the envoy kidnappings as well, or was that a different party?”
“They didn’t stay long enough to look into that, unfortunately. It’s likely the ASR’s current leader may have some information about that, though they weren’t able to tail him, as he left the base shortly after they arrived.”
“Would he be returning any time soon?”
“We can’t confirm that at this time.”
“Pity.” Rufus glances off to reconsider their options so far and looks back. “In any case, as investigations continue, we’ll have to wait for further updates. It’s too risky to play the aggressor at this time, not until we locate the missing representative.”
Heidegger then raises a hand and speaks up, “Sir, if I may ask…?”
He turns to him too. “Yes?”
Heidegger lowers his hand again and stands tall as he gives the question, “Given that we already have recordings proving the existence of the imposter, shouldn’t that be evidence enough of their crimes? This man was none other than the one who was originally involved in their ARC-related program, and yet they continue to pretend otherwise and uphold him as some paragon among their Parliament. Surely, if we publicize it, they wouldn’t have room to argue?”
Rufus shakes his head. “No. It’s circumstantial evidence at best and not the nail in the coffin we need. There’s still room for them to deny that their program is still active, after all. Likewise, an insurgent group on Wutai’s grounds, while useful information, can easily be dismissed as a third party that’s not involved with the nation’s government. We need to either capture the actual representative himself again or anyone from a government agency that he’s been in direct contact with lately.” He glances off and even throws out, “It certainly would be simple if we could also locate our missing envoys, but that’s another story.” He looks back and states for the record, “As I was saying before, our opportunity is close, but it’s not here yet. We will keep waiting.”
Heidegger looks a little less than pleased, but he doesn’t keep arguing. “…Understood, sir.”
But just as their discussions seem to be wrapping up for now, they’re shortly met with a latecomer who now barges into the office. Scarlet is accompanied by a couple loyal guards as always, but she seems particularly irked over something.
“Mr. President! Pardon the delay, but you’ll need to hear this.”
Heidegger frowns her way. “Really, now. You have some nerve to show up late after we rang for you, Scarlet! And here I thought you of all people would be on time!”
She folds her arms and scoffs back, “Spare me the lecture, Heidegger. If you weren’t aware, I was busy searching for the responsible parties after our latest materia development mishap. But something else came to my attention that was more urgent.”
“Hmph. You still haven’t resolved that mess? As if we don’t have enough problems to mind…”
Scarlet ignores him, sets a hand by her hip, and addresses Rufus directly, “As I was saying, sir, it seems something’s gone awry in R&D. It seems our resident Head Professor has gone missing for a while now.”
Rufus raises an eyebrow. “Missing?”
Scarlet shrugs. “He hasn’t been answering his calls and no one in the whole department seems to know where he’s gone.” She sets her hand back to her hip and gives a disappointed frown. “I was expecting to have a meeting with him sometime since it was his proposal that we collaborate with Project Immortals, but then he goes and disappears on all of us. Surely, this isn’t just another case of his ‘unpredictable’ schedule running wild again? It’s happened often enough that he could count as shirking his job!”
“…”
She puts a hand forward as she suggests, “Mr. President, by any chance, you wouldn’t know where he’s been hiding lately, would you? Or otherwise, perhaps we should send out a scouting party for him, preferably with Soldier.”
But to everyone else’s surprise, Rufus simply shakes his head. “There’s no need. I’ve already been notified of his behavior. He’s still on company grounds as usual, but has insisted his current work requires the utmost secrecy. Supposedly, it will be revealed in due time.”
Scarlet makes a derisive scoff. “Well, that settles it, doesn’t it? Then, would you mind contacting him so he actually return to his office at some point? He can’t so exclusive that he’s only available to the president and no one else!”
“Unfortunately, even I don’t know when he’ll be ready. He’s kept me in the dark regarding most of the details of his other ‘secret pet project’.”
“That being?”
Rufus honestly looks tired to have to keep talking about this. Instead of divulging, though, he simply turns away for the window again. “As I said, that will be revealed in due time.”
“Hmph!” By now, she’s gotten quite impatient. Still, heeding company code, she doesn’t take out her anger on her superior. She keeps a stiff upper lip and replies, “Then, do let me know, sir. His personal affairs can’t possibly be more important than the rest of ours.”
But that said, the moment she turns off for the door again, she’s angry enough to slam it shut on her way out and it nearly hits one of her accompanying guards as they scamper after her. Heidegger watches her go with an unamused and honestly unsympathetic look, but decides not to comment on it.
He instead turns back to the president with another salute to excuse himself as well. “In any case, sir, we’ll be on standby awaiting your call as usual.”
And with that, he too takes his prompt leave, grumbling something inaudible under his breath. Once again, only the Turk remains faithfully with the president.
Tseng turns back to Rufus to ask further, “Incidentally, sir, didn’t you also have a question you meant to ask the professor?”
The latter turns around again and nods back. “I did and I asked.” He also lets off a sigh. “Truthfully, I wish I didn’t.”
Tseng raises a concerned eyebrow. “What was the matter?”
Rufus then admits, “I don’t know what really happened to him, but the man is now incomprehensible, spouting nonsense about some calamity from the ‘Outer Realms’, as he put it, and whatever secret he’s learned about Ruby. Something’s been happening to him while he’s been working on this other project and it doesn’t look good. I can’t help but worry that he may be digging in too much…”
“Hmm… I understand it may be a classified topic, but what is the nature of this project and why must it be kept secret?”
Upon being reminded, he actually looks a little deflated for once. “In short, it’s being kept secret for the rest of our sanity.” He turns away again and now returns to his seat behind the desk. “We really opened Pandora’s Box with that damn dragon. Whoever knew that ‘Project Radiant’ would lead to a potential world-ending threat like that…”
Tseng blinks in surprise. “Um, sir…?”
“At this rate, the closer we creep toward war, the more inevitable the outcome.” Rufus sits back in his seat and reaches a hand aside. Dark Star is sitting up and at attention beside him and he gives the dog a soft head rub, but his face remains grim. “I hate to admit it, Tseng… but I’m starting to regret informing Ruby about the Immortals.”
“…” As it’s clear the president is unwilling to divulge much more than that, Tseng decides to respect his privacy and not question any further. He nods back and gives his salute too. “In the meantime, I’ll be keeping tabs on Reno and them. They ought to be coming in with more updates soon.”
“Let me know ASAP.”
“Will do, sir.”
But just before Tseng takes his leave as well, he too gets a call. He gives it a check and realizes it’s from none other than Rude. Rather than take this call elsewhere, he answers it here.
“Rude, what is it?”
Rufus’ attention is immediately piqued and he lends an ear as well.
Tseng goes silent as he takes the message and nods slowly. He then replies, “…I see. This is quite unexpected, but perhaps we can use it to our advantage anyway. For now, you may resume investigations into Shigesaki. The president’s still awaiting his capture in any case.” He then hangs up the call and turns back to Rufus.
The latter sits forward at his desk and folds his fingers together in anticipation. “Well?”
Tseng answers, “They’ve located the three missing members of Avalanche. It seems they arrived in Zhongyuan not long ago and spurred on the whole incident with the Weapons. Unfortunately, Cait Sith seems to have sacrificed himself as a distraction during the ensuing chaos, but they currently have those three tracked. They’re also working with the ASR, it seems, though they don’t know where the group’s leader is at the moment.”
Rufus narrows his eyes in disbelief. “…Incredible. Those guys really know how to mess up in the most spectacular of ways, don’t they?”
“What’s our next move, sir?”
“The fact that they’re back in Wutai can only mean one thing: Avalanche definitely has support there…” he muses aloud as he reconsiders their options, and the stress on his face seems to be alleviated just a bit. He then answers him, “Make a call to the viceroy of Wutai. We have some delightful news to share and I can offer a few suggestions if they don’t want this to escalate to war.”
Notes:
I'm so glad we actually don't know that much about the Weapons. I can come up with so many ideas just around them, some of which may have been inspired by some Gameshark madness from way back.
My planning process is in shambles
- Though this one is a bit of a (relatively) shorter chapter, I had to rewrite it many times over because I struggled to find proper breakpoints throughout. So much action packed into one, one leading right into another; but it's still a lot to get through and I know not everyone reading is gonna be blazing through the chapters in one go. Kudos from me if you do, though!
- I legit didn't know a number of plot points that would go in here before sitting down and writing this chapter. Even while I made my initial outline, I changed the course multiple times after. Among those things were:
-- Chadley's infiltration of Hojo's office
-- How Cait Sith would go from plush toy to the fully unleashed Summon
-- How the clash of the Weapons would even go
-- Shinra's response to the clash of the Weapons, leading directly into the mako cannon being fired
-- Sephiroth and Genesis' return via the Lifestream from Mideel
- So, uh, pretty much the whole chapter was improv, lol. This is the direct consequence of my stubborn adherence to twin-running plotlines leading into the finale. I have to come up with events that more or less feel like they're happening around the same time. It is both a blessing and a curse.
- I came up with all kinds of headcanons for the Weapons over the years, like how Ruby Weapon doesn't like water, how Emerald needs anti-gravity magic because it's too dang heavy otherwise (it's not weak to Gravity, but it's one of the easiest ways to cheese that boss given its HP), and how Ultima is the most ill-tempered and impatient because to defeat it in the OG, you had to chase it all over the world until you whittled its HP down. Why Diamond is relegated as the slowest? Well, look at how slowly it moved when it attacked Midgar. I know it was crossing an entire ocean by foot, but still.
- It was Sapphire Weapon that I had the least idea about because the only thing we saw from it in the OG was how it barely scratched Junon and then got its head blown off. So, I figured to show at least some respect, I had it rampage for a little before it would become the butt of every other joke I had about the Weapons. Things got a little vicious there, though, and I kinda feel bad.
- Fyi, my comment above about "Gameshark" is referring to a series of fun videos from GarlandtheGreat on Youtube. He's one of the OG FF7 experts and guide makers, as well as challenge runners from back in the day. He doesn't upload much these days, but everything on his channel is still up. And one of the things he did between challenge runs was play around with cheat codes, where he completely broke down the game into its individual parts and pixels. Also, he replaced Cloud's model with all kinds of crap on the world map including the submarine, the Gold Saucer, and my personal favorite, Ruby Weapon. Naturally, all these objects not designed to move normally on land don't move very fast as the player avatar, but seeing Ruby Weapon run over and through the mountains no problem, only to be stopped by rivers is too funny.
- On that thought, I hope I didn't spread any confusion in this chapter around Ruby and Ruby Weapon's names. Ruby, my OC, wasn't named after the Weapon to begin with, but it is a nice coinkidink that they both hate to drown.
Chapter 88: Sharing the Dream
Notes:
Pardon the delay. A few health issues about my folks came up one of these weeks and we had to get that settled.
Anyway, here we are: Episode of Cid. Let's just say I had some difficulty writing this chapter and I will get into why in the other notes below. But long story short, I really had to get creative while Square left my boy with nothing but a thin veneer of what he used to be in Rebirth. I'm not gonna have final judgment on the new Cid until the third game is out, but that's probably not gonna be in a while, so come relax in my timeline for a bit, friends. He may be an asshole, but he's our resident defenestrator. ;)
Here's the list of chapters I have revised to a noticeable degree (more than a few words or a sentence).
As of 7/9/25
- 9 Added more depth to Ruby's mischief before the raid began and fixed the general flow of conversations
- 11 Added a new scene w/ Ruby & Nanaki about his voice change
- 18 Added more description to Ruby's materia when Yuffie found it
- 19 Added more description to Ruby's broken wrist guard
- 21 Added a brief scene with Cloud and Nanaki in his bedroom and a bit more to the legend of the falling star
- 24 Added more leading action to Bottomswell's appearance
- 30 Added more description to Ruby's materia when one of the Turks took Elmyra away for questioning
- 51 Rewrote Ruby's description of Geostigma and Cloud's reaction
- 56 Relaxed Nanaki's voice around Ruby while they explored in the Northern Cave
- 60 Reworded Sephiroth's reaction to the kiss to be a bit more consistent with the later reveal of his inner thoughts
- 64 Reworked the scene where Nanaki revealed his true voice to everyone
- 70 Corrected the news about Jessie's gang's whereabouts
- 80 Rewrote Barret's and Nanaki's reaction to Zack's mysterious return and how Aerith refers to him
- 81 Reworded the descriptions of the kappa-like bartender at The Happy Turtle
- 83 Swapped chapters 83 and 84
- 84 Revised some of the dialogue with Sephiroth at the outskirts of the fort to be clearer; also updated all instances of the "Five Mighty Gods of Wutai" to "Five Saints of Wutai" to match a detail from Crisis Core
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“…Uh, where are we?” Yuffie asks, looking around in a bit of daze.
Now that Cloud has brought her and Sonon along, they find themselves standing in some black room where there are many familiar and estranged people lined up in rows that extend well into the dark distance. Though however realistic they may appear, none respond even when she gets in their faces. She’s almost spooked when she taps her own model and a certain message box pops up to prompt its destination, but she gives a disappointed huff and closes it with another tap.
Sonon is likewise confused why he isn’t lined up with the rest of their friends, but decides not to question it. He turns back to Cloud to ask instead, “Is this where you met the others?”
“Yeah…” the guy replies with a hollow tone. Without explaining anything further, he starts off for that glowing red triangle off in the back. “Come on, this way.”
Yuffie and Sonon exchange blank stares and hurry after him, though Yuffie takes one last spin around to peek at the other rows just to check if she could identify any others. To her disappointment, aside from the front row featuring their party members and a few oddballs, the following rows seem to be centered around people of Midgar. Maybe Wutai has its own section somewhere? Well, whatever. She’s not here to mess around with whatever this place is.
The moment Cloud’s hand touches that strange triangle, though, the three are immediately transported to a different location entirely. This one is a much more homely place, lit up faintly by a lone lamp that sets the room in a yellowish glow. It looks like a compact apartment room, where the entry foyer is directly connected to the living room, where a single large couch sits before the flatscreen TV. It’s not turned on at this time, though a humble video game console sits on the long coffee table before it.
Yuffie’s eyes scan the shelves, full of various game boxes and game-related merchandise, though she doesn’t really recognize any of it. She stops short when she catches eye of an extremely detailed figurine set among the collection. It looks like miniatures of Cloud and Sephiroth posed like they’re flying at one another looking ready to throw down, but Cloud’s outfit and even his sword are a little different. And yet, Yuffie’s interest is quickly waning; even among the stuff that seems to be related to their party, there’s not a single orb of materia among this clutter. The tiny model of the Temple of the Ancients doesn’t count.
“…Huh. Is this where Rubia’s been?” Sonon remarks, somewhat impressed. “This is a lot more modern than I expected her den to be.”
Yuffie peels her eyes away from the shelves after an empty search. “Who knew a Summon would be such a nerd? This feels more like something Ruby would set up.”
“This is Ruby’s apartment,” Cloud then interrupts them.
They both whip back to him. “Huh?”
But he doesn’t look at them as he explains, “She’s not here, though. We’re still figuring that out.”
“It doesn’t look like anyone’s here,” Yuffie mentions too. “You said you guys split up to find the others, right? Aren’t they back yet?”
“Guess not.”
“…”
They fall into an awkward silence. Though they’ve tried to keep spirits up thus far, Yuffie and Sonon have started to catch on that Cloud isn’t in the most talkative mood right now. He isn’t even looking their way and is staring off into space. His attention is clearly elsewhere and they have a good idea of where.
Sonon politely offers, “Hey, uh… maybe you ought to sit down somewhere and take a rest? You’re looking a little burnt out.”
Yuffie also suggests, “Yeah. Sleep it off if you need to. We can wait for them here.”
Cloud doesn’t reply right away, still forlornly staring off like he didn’t hear them, but then turns back to them and nods quietly. “I’ll be upstairs. Call me when they’re back.”
“Sure,” she answers.
He takes his leave and saunters up the stairs, disappearing around the corner for the next flight of steps. As he rounds out into the hallway leading to the guest bedroom, he passes a quick glance toward Rubia’s room a little further down, but lets it be and steps inside this one. He gently shuts the door behind him and takes his great sword in hand, setting it down to lean against the classically fashioned wardrobe near the door. And without a second thought, he heads right for the bed and drops onto it with a grunting sigh.
To be honest, he isn’t really sure what he should be feeling right now. As much as Zack’s absence hurts, he knows the guy wouldn’t want him moping over him or anything. And besides, Rubia’s probably the one in more dire straits right now. She literally turned into materia. He reaches into a pocket and draws out the faintly shimmering purplish-black orb, which is still swirling with energy preserved with her essence. Cloud stares at the orb with empty eyes, but his mind is all the more conflicted.
On one hand, they owe it as much to Ruby to watch over Rubia for her and he’s all too familiar with Fenrir’s ancient nostalgia to ever disregard her. But feelings aside, the fact remains that she is the child of Tiamat. Her transformation earlier was proof enough that she would always be within her mother’s control. And this single materia seems to be the key to Tiamat’s reawakening, so they can’t possibly bring it back to the surface. If Cloud didn’t happen to snatch it from Zack earlier, who knows what would have happened to her if she ended up in Sephiroth’s hands.
But that’s the issue: they can’t keep it here forever either. Sephiroth is still out there and he could always return to seize it when they least expect it. Or at least, that’s how it feels like. But no, that’s not the whole story, is it? Not once since they’ve arrived in this apartment has anyone run into him here. For a while there, even the people of the Lifestream didn’t hear a thing about him. It was like he disappeared off the face of the planet. And then, only after they entered Yuffie and Sonon’s memories did Sephiroth show himself for the briefest of moments. He entered a Summon’s realm so freely like he could always have done it. He had every opportunity to pursue the materia… and yet he didn’t even ask them about it. And why focus on Zack? Sephiroth took his sweet time to show up and only did so to capture him, specifically? But aside from Zack’s weird “resurrection”, what could he do that would be such a threat?
Cloud’s hand drops lazily back to the bed and he lets off a frustrated groan. After all this and that, learning more and more about the history of this world from Fenrir and the Summons, in the end, they’re still no closer to figuring out what’s actually going on with that madman. He’s always been sort of an enigma, but he’s gone and become an outright abstract existence with how little his actions have made sense. First, there’s his connection with Ruby that no one has figured out yet. Then, there’s the mystery of how he’s even become this powerful in the first place. Surely, it wasn’t just because of the Jenova cells in him, right? He wouldn’t have a reason to keep chasing Ruby if that were true.
Then again, whatever happened to Jenova? The first time he saw her, her freakish headless body was being kept in Hojo’s lab at Shinra HQ, but then it went missing – probably because Sephiroth let it out. But after that, she just disappeared entirely. It wasn’t until they visited the Nibelheim Mansion and they found Ruby having her freakout that Jenova attacked, though at the time it felt like it was just an illusion. Then next, it was after Sephiroth struck down Rubia that Jenova returned in rotting flesh. And after that, it was at the Northern Crater, where she and Sephiroth worked together to trap and rub out every last one of them. They would have succeeded too if not for some timely divine intervention.
Thinking about it, when exactly was it that Jenova came to have that sort of power; to be able to “hack” reality as she saw fit? Was it when Sephiroth gained that power or even earlier than that? And if it’s the latter, then how…?
Just as he’s running over the facts so far, by some unspoken link with Fenrir’s memories, he’s suddenly met with a firm and grave reminder of the events leading up to the Calamity from the Skies. It was back in a time when Rubia and Fenrir committed many a sin and stirred chaos and swept murder, culminating in the eventual summoning of Meteor, which happened to invite Jenova to this planet. The two then waited in hiding to revel in the ensuing chaos as Cetra turned upon one another and exposed themselves to a humanity that had also been misled by Jenova’s whims.
Cloud’s lips purse with a bitter grimace. That’s right; in the end, it was Rubia’s fault. Hers and Fenrir’s, though the latter only did so in deference of the former’s wishes. At the time, Rubia had gone full renegade and wished for the world’s destruction. But was it simply because she was rebelling against the world that abandoned her, or was it because of something else that she was aiming for?
While he’s been lost in thought, though, he’s stopped paying any mind to the materia in his hand. Unebeknownst to him, it begins to glow ominously, and when he’d least expect it, it sparks with an intense electrical shock that catches him off-guard.
“Gah!!”
He immediately drops it and squirms in pain, clutching his hand tight, and the orb bounces and rolls off the bed. But the pain in his hand doesn’t go away; instead, he feels his nerves sting furiously as the pain migrates through him. It travels up his arm, past his shoulder to his neck and even upward still to his face, specifically his eyes. He tosses and turns, groaning with teeth clenched like his jaws were locked, until he rolls himself out of bed onto the carpeted floor. Everywhere is pain and it won’t stop. Though he’s already shut his eyes tight, they flare up with piercing heat as if they were actually being burned. His ears are likewise pierced with an echoing screech as if he’d been hit with the screams of thousands of damned souls. And yet even amid all that, he can still make out one more ominous warning from a deep, echoing growl that he’s heard just a few times prior, but is one that he’ll never forget.
“…A lesson never learnt is a lesson ever due. ’Tis the fool’s wish to ignore the signs. The planet hath been and shall always be the enemy.”
Oh, for crying out loud, not this again. Why is this happening? Why does this keep happening? Why does this old hag always have to come out and haunt him specifically!?
“All who defieth her rule, they are befallen to the trap. Thy comrades whom the planet has deigned unfit to life, she eraseth. Thy enemies who heed the planet’s beckoning, she welcometh. ‘Justice’ is but the iron claw by which the victors rule.”
Argh… Shut up already. You and your stupid ‘children’. Rubia’s not gonna come back to you. She hates you. Fenrir hates you. And at this rate, even Cloud has stopped tuning her in… or at least he tries not to, but the voices grow louder still.
“But worry not, mine children, for the time is nigh. When cometh the eclipse, Rubia will be unbound from that foolish cur and will sound the call. We shall rise again and reclaim Our rightful throne over this forsaken world! Death and despair to the Planet Guardians! This shall be the new age of dragonkin!”
The damned souls roar and cackle with cheer and excitement, but Cloud only gets angrier. Without thinking, he slams his burning fist into the floor in a vain attempt to beat out the pain, but all that does is make it worse. Even while he’s convulsing, he’s snarling viciously like he’d taken on the wolf’s temper, but this isn’t the work of Fenrir. The wolf’s voice seems to have vanished, drowned out amid all the clamor. Even when he clasps his ears tight, they won’t be silenced. He lets out a vehement scream in retaliation, but the noise simply drowns out his own voice.
He can’t bear it anymore. He’s going faint. But as he lies on the floor prone, his sore hand still throbbing, he can feel the soft vibrations of the floorboards outside the door moving. He’s just barely conscious as the door swings open again.
“Cloud!?” Yuffie squeals.
“Hang in there!” Sonon cries.
They rush to his side and carry him onto bed, but Cloud can’t hold on. His sight fades to black as the cacophony dissipates into a wordless static noise.
~
A while back, just as Cloud and Zack would disappear into Yuffie and Sonon’s memories, the rest of the party had been reviewing over their plan of operations. Aerith instructed Tifa, Barret, and Nanaki not only on how to open up the magical GUI – it appears upon the user’s will as long as one has been granted the access – but also how to navigate it and enter commands. Particularly for Nanaki, as he doesn’t have hands, he also learned how to use it via voice command if necessary.
Aerith claps her hands with a satisfied smile. “And… that’s about it, I think! To be honest, I’m still learning the system myself, so there might be some things that I missed.”
Tifa returns her a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, Aerith. You’ve done more than enough. Being able to work with this stuff is a life-changer.” She looks back down at her own hands with a sense of wonder. “Who ever knew that being blessed by the Summons would involve working with computers?”
Barret scratches his head, still looking a little confused. “Yeah. Boggles the mind, really. Makes ya wonder if all this tech that humanity invented really was from our own genius or was just taking a page outta their book all along.”
Her smile falters a little and she gets pensive. “Yeah, weird to think, huh? All this time, we thought magic was something entirely a spiritual thing, and that using materia was basically borrowing the essence of the planet… but maybe we don’t understand all that much about this planet after all.”
Barret folds his arms and joins her with a scrunched up face. “Seriously. Who woulda guessed that the planet would work like some kinda digital system to it in the first place? Like, what does this all mean for us? Have we just been living in a simulation the whole time or something?”
She looks off, growing quieter. “Um… I’d rather not think about it like that, but I guess we can’t know for sure.”
“Oh, uh.” Catching himself before he says too much, he relaxes and clears his throat. “Mind you, I didn’t mean how ‘nothing’s real’ or anything. We’re still here and all, trying to help Rubia and get Ruby back too. It’s just weird knowing that the magic we’ve been using all along has some kinda super-advanced tech behind it.”
Tifa doesn’t reply, but she turns back with a concessing nod.
Nanaki tilts his head curiously. “Hmm… Well, while I wasn’t ever in Midgar back then, I do remember how Grandpa used to work for Shinra as a scientist. I can only guess what they discovered about the Lifestream and how to make use of its energy, not just as a collection of living souls, but also as a tangible thing. Maybe it was just an inevitability that we’d learn how the Cetra used to do it.”
Barret nods back. “Yeah, good point. The Cetra must’ve lived on this planet for ages long before us humans took over. They probably had all the time in the world to develop their tech.”
Aerith nods too, bringing back a bit of cheer. “And now, some of that awesome tech is at our fingertips! So let’s make the best of it and put it to work, shall we?”
The other three turn to her with their own determined looks. “Right!”
Tifa reminds the other two as well, “So, we’ll leave Cid to you guys and hopefully we won’t take too long with Vincent. Once Cloud and Zack are back with Yuffie and Sonon, that ought to be everyone.”
Barret brings forward a confident fist and flashes a grin. “And we’ll finally be outta here and back in the game! These Summons sure were a pain about it, though.”
With that fair exchange, the two pairs split off to get to work. While Aerith and Tifa approach Vincent’s model, Barret and Nanaki stop before Cid’s. With a few taps of the message box, their respective pairs vanish out of the dark and into the light once more.
~
Blistering heat and smoke, so much smoke. The bright red, overheated metal weakens and creaks. The rocket has touched ground too soon after its launch was interrupted and it begins to tilt, but by some miracle, it has yet to collapse entirely. However, the landing pad is much too hot and dangerous to approach. While the observing crew remain on standby with extinguishers on hand and await search-and-rescue planes to bring the mass floods of carbon ice, the onlooking townspeople have been thrown into disarray. The day when the people of Gaia would finally be able to escape the planet’s grounds and fly into outer space would not be this one.
This is the scene that Barret and Nanaki come upon the moment they enter this fateful memory. Troubled by the panic around the rocket, they rush on over to find the crew on standby keeping back any more daring or curious onlookers.
“Stay back! It’s not safe!”
“What happened here!? And where’s the Captain!?” one of the townsfolk cries.
“Yeah! He didn’t come out yet, did he!?” another echoes sentiments.
While the crowd continues to worry with the present crew unable to answer, from a watch tower nearby, another member of the rocket’s crew makes an urgent call to the rocket’s cabin. “Captain!! Come in! Can you hear me!?”
But the Captain is unresponsive. After a tense silence, there’s instead the sound of something further inside exploding from the surrounding heat and pressure. Even if the launch had been successful and went accordingly, there was always the chance that a certain oxygen tank would have failed catastrophically anyway. And then, there’s nothing more but the sizzling flames that can be heard over the intercom.
But Fate is a strange thing sometimes, for it to be able to give way to stronger wills. Now that they have a good idea of what’s happened, Barret and Nanaki waste no time to jump into action. Ignoring all warnings, they burst through the crew’s cautionary line and race right over to the landing pad. As the rocket leans ajar, its sole exit door has been sealed shut from the intense heat practically gluing it in place, so no mere mortal could wrench it off without the proper tools. But these two are no longer mere mortals. Upon the thought, Nanaki launches the ground beneath them into precipices to give them the needed boost, and carrying that momentum, Barret smashes through the door with his gun-arm burning with even hotter fire. Needless to say, the once stubborn metal hinges give way and fly off and they land right inside.
“Cid!? Ya in here!?” Barret calls out.
“Cid!! Answer if you hear us!!” Nanaki follows suit.
But as they make their way up toward the cabin, they find it empty. Apparently the Captain has already ditched and gone somewhere. But surely, he didn’t rush deeper inside where the rocket is clearly overheating, right?
Well, they would shortly get their answer. As they climb on down to search on, Nanaki catches wind of it. There’s the sound of someone pounding on another door from the engine room below.
“Barret! Here!
“WHOOOAAAHH!!”
Barret tackles down the door with just as much force as he dealt the last. The engine room is a mess; one of the tanks did just blow up and has covered much of the room with rapidly evaporating liquid coolant. But because of that, the flames that surround the room have been partially quelled, bringing the room’s temperature to a more reasonable level, though the temperature deviation has also created a stir of turbulent air currents from the combative flames. But not to worry; they’re on convenient timing. They happen to find the guy they’re looking for standing just beside where the door last held.
Cid, about ten years younger than usual, is looking startled to see the door just fly open and is understandably aggravated at the same time. He’s also a little red in the face and sweating up a storm from being holed up in here for a bit, but is otherwise unharmed. However, he’s not alone. He’s carrying a young woman over his shoulder and she’s passed out.
“The hell? What are you guys…?” he begins, but before they can answer, he cuts them off again. “No, save it! We gotta get her out first!”
“This way!” Nanaki barks over the roaring flames. “I can build us a path!”
Barret lifts the woman’s other arm over his shoulder and he and Cid hurry on out to catch up. Nanaki waits for them by where the exit door had once been, and once they’re all accounted for, he leaps back out. But before he even reaches the ground, he calls up the ground to meet his feet instead. And with such grace making him look almost like he were a creature in flight, the earth shoots upward just high enough to form a descending stairway of pillars, upon each one he lands safely and elegantly all the way to the ground. Barret and Cid bound down the steps together as if in perfect synchronicity and reach the ground safely with the woman mostly unjostled. With his job done, Nanaki howls and recalls the earth, returning the pillars to their places beneath them.
All the while, the crowd of onlookers have been watching in stunned silence. What in the unscientific hell just happened there? It’s as if two powerful sorcerors just appeared out of nowhere to perform a rescue with utmost precision and efficiency beyond what any normal human could muster. The entire thing happened within a few minutes, almost like a casual drive-by pickup. Nonetheless, they’re snapped back to reality when they hear the Captain’s angry yells.
“Quit gawking and make way! We got a man down! Where’s the doc!?”
The crowd immediately disperses and the attending crew all salute him as he rushes on through, still carrying the woman over his shoulder. Barret intended to keep helping, but Cid hurries off on his own even without his friends. Puzzled, Barret and Nanaki follow after him and they all shortly arrive at the nearest clinic in town that’s just a couple blocks away from the Rocket Town inn and tavern. Inside, the attending staff respond right away without a word from Cid and help him take the woman inside to an empty bed. While they tend to her in the room, he waits outside in the hall, too anxious to sit down on the nearby bench.
It’s not long after that the only doctor on scene arrives. And after a tense few minutes as the doctor and a couple attending nurses give the patient an overview check-up, they then come back out in the hallway to report to him.
“You can rest easy, Captain. She’s in stable condition. I think she has a few shallow ice burns and may have passed out from heat exhaustion, but it’s nothing she couldn’t recover from. Give her a good few hours of rest and she ought to be fine.”
Cid lets off a deep sigh in relief. “…Thanks, doc. I’ll leave her in your hands then.”
With that settled, he steps back out into the waiting room where Barret and Nanaki, as well as a few of his fellow rocket crew have been waiting.
“Captain! How’s Shera?” one of them, who looks to be a younger Guillermo Vela, asks for the others.
Cid replies, “She’ll be fine. Just passed out from exhaustion.” He also adds a little more bitterly, “Worked herself to the bone just for our whole damn dream to come crashing down…”
The silence turns for the awkward as the rest of his crew sink along with the mood. Though no one wants to say it aloud, they all have to agree that things have turned out for the worse. Though it’s a great relief that they didn’t lose anyone despite the accident, the fact remains that the launch was already on shaky grounds even before they began countdown. Never mind that they’ll have to wait another six months or so for the next one; Shinra was already showing signs of retiring the space program altogether since they’ve been undergoing a massive lay-off of staff. Now these remaining loyal members are the only ones that are still available to attend today’s launch. After this, who knows what will happen.
“But that aside…” Cid now turns to the two other unexpected arrivals. “The hell are you guys doing here?”
“We’re here for you, man,” Barret answers plainly. “Looks like you were gonna get fried in there if we didn’t drop by in time.”
“Bah.” Cid waves it away. “It wasn’t as bad as it looked. I totally coulda busted outta there on my own. I did it a few times before.”
Barret and Nanaki blink in surprise, exchange equally lost looks, and turn back to him. “Say what? Whaddya mean ‘a few times before’?”
Nanaki adds, “Did you come upon this sort of memory in a previous cycle, Cid?”
“…” Though Cid does make a look like he’d like to talk more, but he passes the rest of the people around them some cautionary glances. He looks back to them and points a thumb behind him. “Hey. Let’s take this somewhere private.”
“?”
He turns back to Vela and the others and waves a hand signal, and without saying a word, his men seem to understand and leave him to it. He then heads out to the lobby and out the door, with Barret and Nanaki tagging along.
“What’s this? You got some kinda secret you can’t even tell your guys?” Barret asks.
“I’ll tell everything when we’re not out in the open,” comes Cid’s curt reply.
He now takes them to the house that he shares with Shera and steps inside. He hastily beckons them in as well and shuts the door behind them, and takes another cautious moment to fold the blinds on some windows. And finally, he turns back to them.
Cid gives off a tired sigh before he begins. “Okay, first things first… Is it just you guys here? Where are Cloud and them?”
Barret nods back. “Just us. We split up to look for the rest of ya. Cloud and his pal Zack went after Yuffie and Sonon, and Aerith and Tifa went after Vincent. So that left us to look for you.”
He makes a somewhat amused snort. “So I got saddled with the leftovers.”
Barret frowns. “The hell’s that supposed to mean? You think a guy who just got his ass saved would be more grateful.”
“Heh.” Cid reveals a smug smirk and waves it away. “Nah, but jokes aside, thanks. Good to know I wasn’t forgotten.” He also adds to clarify, “But just so you know, I wasn’t that bad off. I coulda shown a few tricks myself if you guys didn’t jump in first.”
“Sure you coulda…”
“No, really. I’m not just talkin’ shit.” He raises a hand up as if to give a demonstration. “Not sure if you can see it or not, but I got it. The Guardian’s Blessings, or whatever this weird aura stuff is.”
To that, Barret and Nanaki are taken so aback they almost back up. “What? Then… you’re done already?” Barret begins.
Nanaki follows up, “You’ve passed your trial? Who is your Summon Guardian?”
And Cid simply answers, “Ramuh.”
“R-Ramuh?” Nanaki tilts his head curiously. “Oh, wow. I didn’t expect you to be Ramuh…”
He raises an eyebrow. “Huh? And what about it? Don’t got enough ‘spark’ for ya?”
“No. I just thought since you’re such a good jumper, you’d have something wind or sky-related.”
“Hah. Dropping bolts from the heavens is as good as it gets, don’t ya know?” Cid swings his hand up and drops down a fist as he describes it, “I fly high and rain down vengeance. Sounds like a fit to me.”
Nanaki nods in understanding. “Hmm, I see. That does make sense when you put it like that.”
That said, Cid’s smirk falters and he gives an annoyed grunt. “But he sure didn’t make it easy. Last I remembered, after we all got split up, I woke up in the middle of #$^&-all nowhere and heard only his voice. Said some cryptic crap about overcoming a trial and dropped me right into this old memory where I had to relive the worst pain of my life over and over.”
Barret nods along, feeling quite sympathetic. “Oh, we know that feeling. These Summons sure are somethin’ if not assholes first.”
“Damn right. Like, I get what they’re goin’ for and all, but you’d think they’d at least give better hints for their slapdash, making-shit-up drama. Almost feels like I’m acting in a show and hafta follow a script or somethin’.” Cid grinds his teeth as he grumbles, “Kinda like I’m just the butt of some sick joke.”
“Yeah…” Barret then brings up again, “So how’d you beat it so fast? We just saw you were trapped in that rocket. Or was that not a part of it?”
“Nah, it was, but like I said, I’ve been through it a few times already. The first couple times, I struggled for sure. Legit had a panic attack thinking that Shera mighta been in some kinda danger.” Cid scratches his head as he thinks it over. “Weird thing was, every cycle I went through was a little different. Most of the events happened as I thought they would, but there was always something off. Like, she had all kinds of symptoms from the incident and I lost track of which had what. But she was always gonna be okay…” He looks aside as he mutters aloud, “I had to be there every step o’ the way to make sure she’d be okay.”
“Hmm… So was that the objective of your trial? To protect this person?” Nanaki asks as well.
“Protect her, huh…” Cid looks up for the ceiling as he takes a mental dive back into some of those relived memories and blows a small whiff even though he isn’t smoking. “Hey, ya guys got a minute? I don’t mind telling what happened. I’ll even keep it short.”
Barret folds his arms. “Well, sure would help to know how ya did it. Kinda unfair that some of us went through all kinds of hell just to overcome ours, and here you are just chillin’ at home after playing hero.”
“Hmph. If it makes ya feel better, at least you didn’t have to face off with Midgar’s legal courts.”
~
In an earlier time, shortly after Cid found himself amid his old memories of Rocket Town, he was frazzled beyond belief, to say the least. One moment he was lost in the darkness, and the next thing he knew, he was back to that fateful day when the ol’ Shinra No. 26 failed to launch. More specifically, he awoke with a start back in the pilot’s seat of the rocket’s cabin and was met with a terrible smell of overheated engine that nearly winded him. But whether by experience or simply instinct, he knew exactly what he had to do. Taking no chances, he rushed down to the engine room to rescue a certain young scientist.
However, he didn’t see much relief even after he and his crew sent her off to the clinic. While Shera would ultimately be able to recover, the entire mission was jeopardized beyond recovery. The rocket needed repairs pronto, but though they could finish them in preparations for the next launch six months later, that future project would never arrive. Later that day, Palmer arrived with a squad of troops to cordone off the rocket for “criminal investigations” and to announce the news in person: namely, the shutdown of the space program and reallocation of the entire crew. They weren’t just being denied another launch; the team was straight up being dissembled. But that wasn’t what they were told before the launch! Didn’t the president say before that he’d consider future plans for the space program regardless of success or failure? Cid vehemently objected, but it wasn’t like yelling at Palmer would net any useful results. If he could get any headway, he’d have to speak with the president directly and set the record straight.
However, that was the extent that Cid could press the matter from his original timeline. As much as he tried to play nice and trust in the process, he never got any satisfactory answers. Bureaucratic red tape was more or less the norm with this company and the president was certainly a very busy man, but the way the Captain’s requests for even a single appointment would constantly be stalled or outright denied would drive anyone up the wall. So after his impatience reached a fever pitch, he simply gave up and went home empty-handed. But that may have been his biggest regret moving forward. The longer the space program was ignored, the more bitter and agitated he grew. He eventually dropped his usual courtesies and lashed out at anyone who rubbed him the wrong way. Even his old crew hands weren’t immune to being scolded out of the blue, though they were used to being ordered around.
Unfortunately for Shera, she became the prime target for his most meaningless outbursts. In the aftermath of the crew being disbanded, Cid couldn’t even bring himself to visit them out of town. Whether it was by his vicious temper or his anxiety about the future, he could never sit still and had to keep his distance. In the end he was one of the few people who remained in Rocket Town, along with Shera. But the distance only made him more unapproachable. It was around then when his smoking habits, once just a passing hobby, devolved into chain smoking, and he once got into a little trouble with debt collectors after one too many underground casino games. With debts mounting on him, he had little choice but to mortgage his old house and move in with her. But their relationship grew rougher over the years he stayed. Though he never dared to lay a hand on her, he’d blame her and storm out of the house over the most trivial of inconveniences, only to come back way late when everyone else was long asleep. And yet, she’d still stay up to wait for him and welcome him back all the same.
But what was it all for? He knew it wasn’t really her fault. It was always those bastards up high in Shinra who refused to take his calls or pleas for a second chance. But he couldn’t vent at them, or he’d risk way more than just his own job. He always knew that Shera would be an easy scapegoat for problems since she’d always just take responsibility regardless of whether something was her wrong or not. It was a legitimate problem that he always wanted her to work out on her own. But his vicious temper would flare up even before he’d realize it and she’d be subject to some nasty insults and guilt-trips hurled her way. It was no wonder that she’d never stand up for herself, but by then he was just too tired at life to care anymore.
Enough of the pointless, uncontrolled anger. This time, he’d take matters into his own hands and go straight to the source. After they got shoved out the door, Cid didn’t bother to argue like he once did. With just a quick farewell to his men for now, he was gone and headed home, where the Tiny Bronco awaited his next flight. His next stop was Midgar, straight to base at Shinra HQ.
Though, unbeknownst to him, the first cycle of memories would only be the beginning of his struggles. But damned be not the man who would meet only failure, but the man who would give in to failure. No matter how many times he would have to reset and try again, he would never let up and never let her down again.
~
The Shinra Company was as obtuse a corporation as he always knew them to be. Like clockwork, he’d run into the same ol’ red tape time and time again. The president’s secretary would give him the usual bullshit about waiting in the queue that never seemed to end. But he wouldn’t have to waste time here. If the prez was always in a meeting, then surely he’d be able to find him in person coming out of the conference room on the 66th floor at some point, right? So he sneaked on by and happened to catch a meeting in progress. Since it wasn’t any of his business, he didn’t want to eavesdrop, but he couldn’t help but get an icky feeling that they could have been talking about the recent launch. Still, the meeting room was sound-proofed so no word could escape and he couldn’t just barge in. Though he once heard a rumor that the room’s air vents were directly connected to those in the nearby bathrooms, it’d be a stupid idea to climb into them. Besides, who’d link the ducts from the bathroom to the conference room without some kind of filter in-between? He may be an aerospace engineer and not an architect, but that’d be a sanitation disaster.
He did end up having to sit and wait around the corner, but eventually when the meeting was over, the grumbling complaints of some of the executives taking their leave was as good a sign as any for him to make his move. It so happened the prez was one of the last to leave, as he was making a quick call to his secretary to review over his current schedule.
“Mr. President! Glad I caught you here!” Cid called out. “I just got a quick question!”
“Hm?” President Shinra, the former, looked less than pleased to be interrupted at this time. He at first ignored the unexpected visitor and continued speaking with his secretary. After he ended the call, he faced the other with an impatient scowl. “Sorry, but you’ll have to excuse me. I don’t have time for idle chatter.”
“I know, sir. Just one question.” Cid got right to it: “Why is the space program shutting down? Sure, the launch messed up, but the rocket’s still intact. It won’t take us that long to repair and get it ready in six months.”
“This again…” The president rolled his eyes and turned away. “Like I’ve told Palmer, we’ve put better use to the budget than squandering it all on some extremely risky space venture. Now, I must be going.”
“But at least give me a good reason!” he pleaded. “This launch was what our whole livelihood was building toward. And now me and my team are just being cut off cold turkey and getting split up? I don’t expect to convince you otherwise, but please, I just need to know why. We weren’t told anything.”
However, the president was already beginning to walk away. He casually brushed him off with a blasé suggestion, “If you have more questions, talk to my secretary.”
“W-wait!” Cid still pursued him as he was headed for the elevators. “Please, sir, I promise I won’t keep bothering you. I just need an answer.”
The president whipped back around with an annoyed look. “And I just gave you one. If you continue to pursue me with questions, I will have to call security.”
Cid grit his teeth, but held back on venting. He came so close so far. He wasn’t about to let this opportunity slip by. But the prez really wasn’t listening. So what could he say to catch his attention? He had to hurry, since the man was ready to step into the elevator.
And then, while he racked his brain for ideas, one would come to him in a flash of inspiration. Hey, wasn’t there a time when Ruby suggested that there was some deeper conspiracy? Though he really didn’t want to resort to such accusations, especially without any hard proof, he was running out of options. Though bringing it up could have landed him in hot water, he had to take the gamble.
Just as the president was about to step into the open elevator, Cid spoke up again, “Sir, by any chance, was there some kinda cover-up going on with the manufacturer for the tank we replaced?”
The president stopped in his tracks and turned around with a suspect glare of his own. “…What are you suggesting?”
“I’m just saying, it was pretty suspicious that it had to be switched out just a few days before launch. The test results leading up to it were just fine, and all of a sudden, one of the oxygen tanks malfunctioned? Though I’m not exactly a part of the QC team, one of their people was always concerned with how rushed the whole process was.”
“…”
That being said, he didn’t want to press too hard in case he’d be suspected of something else. He then explained, “Again, I’m not saying there was anything shady going on. I just want to know if it had anything to do with your decision to cut off the program.”
“…” The president turned away again, but rather than walk away, he opted to make another call to his secretary. “Change of plans. Let’s shift the next appointment to tomorrow. I have other business to attend to right now.”
“…?”
And with that simple command, the prez ended the call and turned back to him. “Well, it’s come to my attention that there may be some grave misunderstandings going around the Aerospace Division, so I would rather we settle this as soon as possible. Come with me to my office. We can discuss things in private there.”
“Wha… I mean, really, sir?” Though he wasn’t expecting much of a response, he was at least glad to see they were getting somewhere for once. Cid flashed a relieved grin. “Okay! I’ll be there. Thank you so much, sir! I promise it’ll be over quick!”
President Shinra remained as wary as ever, but he let the young man climb aboard the same elevator ride. While Cid was a well-respected and esteemed member of Shinra’s Aerospace Division, he was no department head and technically only had regular employee access, so he wouldn’t have been able to get to the upper floors of HQ. It would be a big help if the president could just lead him there. And even with the proper access, the elevators actually only went up as high as the 69th floor, to the executive suite. It was by one final flight of steps up until they’d arrive at the top.
However, before they would begin discussions, the president told Cid to wait inside, as he had one last stop to make before he’d get settled. Though confused about what he should be expecting, Cid nonetheless obliged. The president didn’t take too long before he’d return, but when he did, he wasn’t alone. Cid was taken aback when he saw the president accompanied by a squad of troops. It seemed the latter called security just in case anything would go awry.
“Be mindful, this is only a precautionary measure,” the president calmly assured him. “As this meeting wasn’t a part of my schedule, it’s standard protocol to take the necessary steps to ensure things go smoothly, don’t you agree?”
“Urf…” Cid grunted, but he couldn’t argue.
The troops remained on standby near the stairwells while the president moved to take his seat at his desk. And now that they were ready, he would lead the conversation as always.
“I remember now. You would be the one the entire division would call ‘the Captain’. Mr. Cid Highwind, I presume?”
“Uh, yeah. That’s me.”
“I understand there’s been much concern floating around the division concerning the space program and the slashed budget. Unfortunately, as I mentioned before, we currently have no plans to continue funding it as we had been. The recent mishap and failed launch was a factor in our decision, but was simply a symptom of the greater issue.”
“Greater issue?”
“Yes. Namely, that this launch should have been cancelled in the first place.”
“W-what?”
The president sat back in his seat, looking rather relaxed for what he would say next. “It wouldn’t be the first time either that a launch that was set to go ahead would run into some logistical errors during manufacturing. Of course, Palmer being himself, he had little idea of what was proper and signed off on the deal even without any further background checks.”
Cid raised an eyebrow. “You’re throwing him under the bus, then?”
“Nevertheless, his negligence aside, that is the extent that I would be willing to concede. Whether or not the errors arose from the manufacturer’s or distributor’s side or from some illicit tampering of equipment elsewhere, all that is still undergoing investigations.”
Cid narrowed his eyes at attention. “What? There really was some kind of tampering?”
“Allegedly, of course. I have yet to hear the full report, but I did catch an interesting piece of news.” Shinra then tapped a finger on his desk as he suggested it, “I’m sure you’ve been made aware of the incident, where a certain person was found in the engine room during the launch, yes?”
Cid felt some kind of stone sink in his gut. He really didn’t want things to come to that, but he also knew that it would have come up at some point. “…Yes, sir.”
“Needless to say, that would have been against protocol. She had no obligation to remain in there and was effectively trespassing. If there has been some degree of tampering involved, it’s only expected that she would become the prime suspect.”
“…” As much as he’d like to, he couldn’t argue there either. Goddammit, Shera. Even when it wasn’t your fault, you got rolled up in shit like this.
“Of course, I recognize that she isn’t a registered member of your crew, so her actions don’t reflect directly upon you and your team. However, as the investigations stand so far, that woman is at best a liability for the Aerospace Division as a whole. It would be in everyone’s best interests that she be let go. There’s a high likelihood that she could be arrested, after all.”
“Wait a second, sir. I know she isn’t really on my crew, but she’s been helping us for the longest time. I’ve spent long enough with her to know her, and I swear, she isn’t the type to do anything shady. She wouldn’t even dare to bargain a better deal if she’s being ripped off, for crying out loud! Let me talk with her! I can get the story straight.”
But the prez denied him. “Mr. Highwind. I explicitly stated that she isn’t a registered member of your crew, so you are likewise under no obligation to speak for her. If she must give a statement, then it will be to the police.”
“But there’s gotta be a misunderstanding here! Shera wouldn’t tamper with anything, even if she thought something was wrong!”
“And supposedly, if she thought something was ‘wrong’, would it not be standard practice to send in a report well in advance of the launch? But instead, she placed herself at the scene and was duely responsible for the launch’s failure. Either way you look at it, it’s suspicious behavior.”
“Ugh…”
Shinra folded his hands together upon the desk and stated matter-of-factly, “Listen. I know it’s a hard pill to swallow, given the sudden news that you and your crew are being disbanded and transferred elsewhere. But it is imperative that the program be shut down, at least for the time being. The serious neglect and grave transgressions against this company’s safety standards cannot stand as they are. Though we were spared a grievous homicide this time, we don’t need another incident like it. That is my final stance on the matter.”
“…”
“Now, do you have any other questions, or can we declare this matter settled?”
Cid clenched up his fists, but he didn’t dare raise them. What was he supposed to do in this situation? If he just stayed silent, there was no telling that he’d ever get another chance like this. But he wouldn’t get anywhere by complaining any more either. But he couldn’t let it go. As much as he’d get riled up just seeing Shera, he couldn’t stand the idea of returning home and seeing her gone or taken away in handcuffs. No way in hell. He had to do something.
To his silence, President Shinra then relaxed his hands and sat back in his seat again. “Your time is up.” He even gave him a dismissive wave. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll have to reorder my schedule thanks to this brief interruption…”
“Mr. President.”
“Hm?”
Cid stared hard at him in the eyes as he declared, “If you gotta arrest someone, then take me in. Leave Shera alone. She did nothing wrong.”
“…” At first, the president made a puzzled look as if wondering if the guy had gone mad, but then another idea seemed to spring to mind. He let off an amused scoff and then humored him a little, “And under what pretenses should we have you detained? Am I to assume you’re confessing to conspiring with the tampering?”
“I don’t care what you call it. Shera was only down there because she was worried about me. I was the one who called off the launch anyway. As the captain of the No. 26 crew, I bear responsibility for any negligence that I overlooked, whether it was from my team or any other.”
Shinra stroke his chin thoughtfully as a new string of ideas came to mind. While this certainly wasn’t what he was expecting, it also wasn’t exactly out of the way either. The sooner they could clean up the whole mess, the better, and getting rid of one of the leads on the program could be the ideal excuse they needed to liquidate the whole thing and rid the asset leak off their spreadsheets.
So, he graciously obliged. “Very well. If you insist, Mr. Highwind. I applaud you for your courage.” He also asked, just out of curiosity, “Though, if I may ask, what led you to do this? You’d willingly give up your entire hard-earned reputation and career just for a coworker? The two of you don’t have a shared background prior to being employed here, if the records are accurate?”
Finally given a chance to be a little smug, Cid proudly seized it. “With all due respect, sir… I don’t intend to explain myself to you.”
“Hmph.” In any case, the prez had enough of his audience. “Then, I’ll be expecting a formal resignation letter from you later, preferably as soon as our agents are finished reporting back. Such a shame that it had to come to this, Mr. Highwind, but you did ask for it.”
“Tch…” As tempted as he was to keep gloating, Cid kept the rest of his would-be smart remarks to himself. There’d always be a time later when he’d finally be out of this weird-ass place and back on the map.
“Guards, please escort him out and take him to the station for questioning.”
“Sir!”
The three guards saluted him at once and hurried to grab and shove Cid out of there, but the latter simply shook them off and walked out on his own.
~
Down at the station, the ensuing interrogation would be a rough one, though it wasn’t anything that the sharp-tongued Captain couldn’t take or dish back, for that matter. Even when a couple of the Turks would arrive to question him as well – Red-tail and Shades were some punk-ass upstarts back then, where do they find these kids – he always denied that there was any tampering on his or Shera’s end, but likewise insisted that if anyone made an honest mistake, he’d take responsibility anyway. In the end, the interrogations came to little headway between their tense stalemates, and though they couldn’t ever crack him, Cid quietly let himself be turned in on the condition that Shera be let off.
It was around this point where the cycle of his memories would end abruptly the moment he would be locked away, almost as if the session were providing a warning that he was going about things the wrong way. And yet, he refused to even sidestep anywhere else along this path he’d chosen. With every following cycle, he would return to similar events with the same answers each time. No matter what despicable schemes or conniving faces he would be forced to meet, he wasn’t gonna sell out anyone on his crew, and though the president gave him a hard time about it, he included Shera in that crew. Even if the conditions of the trial were gonna keep changing on him, Cid Highwind, in an ironic twist, would become the mountain that refused to bow to the winds.
He expected the same regurgitation of combinations on the latest cycle as well as he was yet again thrown into the slammer as times before. But he didn’t care; he stopped caring since the first time it happened. That would have been the end of it and he would keep brigading against his own Summon if he had to. But perhaps not all was moot. Something in the background was proceeding quietly, and for once after being locked up, he would be surprised the trial continued and he would finally be granted an opportunity of a way out. And it would be by none other than the woman he was so obstinately fighting for the entire time. He probably should have expected she’d show up at some point, but he was still surprised to find her in the visitor’s room this time, sitting across the window from him. She was looking pale and her glasses fogged up, almost like she had been grieving.
“Cid… I heard that they locked you up after I was let go,” Shera said quietly. Her eyes were glued to the countertop before her rather than on him.
Cid sat lazily on the stiff chair they provided him. “Oh, you’re already out? Good for you,” he muttered.
“Y-yeah…”
An awkward silence came over the room with tension so thick even the ticking of the clock felt like it was lagging. She took her glasses off and gave them a quick wipe with a hankerchief and set them back in place.
“You turned yourself in, didn’t you?” she asked.
“Why’d you think that?” he retorted with a rhetorical question.
Now she looked back up with her tired eyes. “I’m so sorry. If I wasn’t there, you wouldn’t be caught up in this mess.”
“Pssh.” He gave a dismissive wave and looked away. “Not like you’re the one who blamed me. They just did their thing and decided to hold me accountable instead.”
“Cid…” She hesitated again over how to put it and then came out with it, “Please. If there’s anything I can do to help, let me know. I can’t bear to see you in here.”
“What are you so bothered about? Now you have the house to yourself and no Shinra agent’s gonna come knocking. Sounds great to me.”
“…”
Another awkward silence came to pass. As the seconds ticked by, though neither one looked to be budging, Shera grew more and more restless to Cid’s cold shoulder.
“It’s a little too quiet, to be honest,” she admitted.
“…Too bad.” Cid still didn’t look at her and instead leaned back in his seat. “Can’t help ya there.”
“Did they at least give you a date? How long will you be held?”
“Uh…” He scratched his head. “They gave me a week, I think.”
“A week…” She frowned. “Not much time, but I’ll see what I can do in the meantime.”
“Huh?” Now that caught his attention. “What are you gonna do?”
She looked right in his face and stated firmly, “I’m going to look into the incident. I’ll try to find as much as I can to help your case, and I’ll even try to get you the best lawyer around. Hang tight, okay?”
“…” He remained unimpressed and let off a groaning sigh. “There you go again.”
“Huh?”
“Look at ya. The dude who was always beating ya down for this and that finally got locked up and you’re still frettin’ over him. Think maybe you oughta care about better people…”
But that only upset her further. “Cid, don’t be like that. You don’t deserve to be locked up for anything. I’m sure there was some kind of misunderstanding and I’ll try all I can to prove your innocence.”
He returned her a stubborn glare. “Shera, please. Even if you found some critical evidence that could blow the whole case outta the water, it won’t matter. Because I know what’s really going on behind the scenes.”
“What’s ‘really’ going on…?”
“Yeah.” He folded his arms and cast aside a grim look. “The company really didn’t want this launch to happen, but it almost went through anyway. And if it weren’t for someone putting her life on the line, the rocket probably woulda been outta this world already… and me with it.”
She sank back down. “I-I’m sorry…”
“What’re ya apologizin’ for?” He shook his head and kept going, “Anyway, since the launch got cancelled last minute, they had the perfect excuse to find a scapegoat. And for a moment there, they mighta thought you would fit the bill.”
“A scapegoat?” Her eyes widened. “But why would they need to blame anyone? Wasn’t it just a manufacturing error? That can’t be blamed on anyone, right?”
“Maybe. But the bigwigs definitely wanted someone else to take the blame. And since I was the front guy, they picked me for the hell of it.”
“Cid…”
He looked back to her with a hard stare. “So don’t go blamin’ yerself for anything, alright? That’s just how things turned out.”
Still, she wasn’t satisfied with that answer. She pleaded again, “But that doesn’t mean you should just let it happen! What happened to you, Captain? It’s not like you to give up so easily!”
“Give up? What am I giving up on?”
“Huh? But…” Her worried face turned for the perplexed. “What about your dream? You always said you wanted to be the first man in space.”
“Ha!” He let off a derisive scoff. “What about it? I still got it. I got all the time in the world now anyway. Not like Shinra’s gonna send anyone else into space with the program gutted.”
“Uh, maybe not…” She brought back her determined frown. “But will you really be okay with this? Just waiting months, even years off your life in prison? What if they don’t let you back on the program down the line because of this mark on your record? You can’t live that down, can you?”
“Like hell I’m gonna waste my life in here. I’ll break out on my own if I have to.”
“What? No! You’ll just get in more trouble!”
“Doesn’t matter. Either way, my ties with Shinra are done. Even if it takes me ten, twenty, thirty years? Whatever. I’m gonna achieve my dream one way or another, with or without them.”
“Cid, what are you saying? Do you have some other way there? Like some other company or group that offered…?”
“Who knows.”
She slumped a little to hear that flat reply. “Then, isn’t it a little hasty to jump ship? Shinra may not be the best look right now, but at least maybe if we keep things moving smoothly-”
“Shera, for crying out loud!” he suddenly snapped, startling her a little. “Don’t you get it yet? This company’s rotten to the core! They ain’t gonna let me go just ’cause you play nice with ’em! And if you keep pushin’ it, they might find some excuse to knock you off the payroll too!”
“But…”
“I get it. I know how crazy I sound now, talkin’ big about dreams when I’m stuck in the slammer. But I still got my guts and glory to depend on like I always have. So what about you?”
“Huh? Me?”
“Yeah.” He now leaned forward with a stern stare in her face, as if trying to read her. “What are you gonna do from here? You just got let go and all charges dropped, right?”
“Um, it seems so, yes…” she began, but then added, “But it’s not worth it if you get locked up instead!”
“Shut up! Don’t tell me what’s ‘not worth it’! Better it’s me than you any day!”
“Cid! Please, calm down and think about this. I’m sure there is a way to have all these charges dropped…”
“And then what? Who else are they gonna find to scapegoat, huh? Sure as hell ain’t gonna be any o’ my guys, dammit!”
“O-of course not. They didn’t do anything wrong either.”
“Exactly! It’s not about who did what wrong. This is just company politics, plain and simple, and someone’s gonna get gutted for those fatass pockets of theirs.” He grinded his teeth as he grumbled, “Shoulda read the signs from the get-go and quit earlier. Piece o’ shit company down to the wire…”
“…” Shera looked like she still had something more to say, but then held back and let off a sigh instead. “Oh… What should I do now? If you end up jumping ship and leaving Shinra…”
“Ain’t it obvious? You still got a safe spot on the board. That means you can stay and they won’t hold anything against ya. So you keep doing what you do best.”
She looked back to him with such a sad look that she could just start crying again. “But I can’t be at my best. Not without you.”
“Huh?” He was genuinely caught off-guard with that last comment. “What are you talking about? You’re the one who was always being careful when the rest of us dingnuts were doin’ whatever we wanted! You’d go way further if we weren’t always makin’ a mess for you to clean up!”
She lowered her head again. “That’s only because you were always there to inspire me.”
“…” He was about to keep arguing until she dropped that line, and then all wind in his sails went dead.
“Cid…” She shyly peeked back up to him. “Do you remember the promise we made? Back when we were still fresh hires.”
“…” He turned off again, but nodded along as he recalled. “Yeah. I was a dumbass back then, telling everyone and their dog that what my dream was. I just really wanted to go to space.”
“But it was a beautiful dream. It still is and it can come true. At least, that’s what I truly believe.”
“…”
“Cid, whatever path you take from here, I know I won’t be able to tell you otherwise.” She then looked at him in the face, even while he was avoiding her sight. “But please, no matter what, take care of yourself first. If anything were to happen to you that would get in the way of achieving your dreams, I…” Her voice drifted off for a moment, but she hardened her resolve and said it aloud anyway, “I wouldn’t have a dream to live for either.”
“…Shera, you…” But he found himself at a loss for words. Though he always figured that she would be the type to shrug off insults no matter how he threw them at her, he never really caught on that there was a particular reason for it. After all, she was nice to everyone, not just him.
“So, please.” She pleaded as earnestly as ever, “Let me help. I’ll do what I can to get you out of this mess. As long as you keep holding onto that dream, I will too. Let’s reach it together someday.”
“…”
Cid fell silent for a little longer. Here was Shera, sitting before him in the detention room across the window, looking as serious as she’d ever been and her determination was starting to phase on through the glass to reach him. She was the one gal on the observation crew – not even the same crew that would man the airship he was so fond of – that was always so persistent with tagging along with just about anything he got involved in and at times, he grew to hate how clingy she was. After all, any time he had some bright ideal in mind, she’d shut it down with facts and logic and left him grumbling about how troublesome things were. But after a while, he just got used to the way things were between them and took her words for granted until they slipped right past him most days.
And then, launch day finally arrived and for a moment there, it felt like nothing could go wrong. But then something did, and everything that followed was just a downhill tumble that never seemed to end. Just as he was ready to throw out everything on the line and jump at the challenge head-on, just like old times, he finally realized where all that haste led him, right into the trap that was waiting for him. And there was no way for him to dig himself out of that hole.
But in truth, he wasn’t really alone. He always had people around him to help him, sure, but not everyone could be there for him all the time. So when he’d dropped into this hole and thought he’d reached his dead end, he heard a voice call to him and drop down a helpful rope for him to climb. It was a voice that he took for granted and never repaid, but it was always there waiting for him.
At last, the icy wall between them collapsed with a thunderous boom. Cid could no longer pretend he didn’t care. He did. He always did. Ever since they first met in that employee lounge by accident, he knew he found a trusty confidant in her. And yet, over the last ten years, he abused that trust and gave back too little in return. And as a result, the weight of his guilt that had been building over all that time eventually had to come crashing down on him.
In his frustration, he slammed the desk with both fists and startled her again. “…Goddammit! What the hell am I doing!?”
“C-Cid? What’s wrong?”
He took a moment to calm himself and relaxed his hands. He then turned to look at her in the eyes once more, but rather than with his usual cold scorn or disdain, he offered a much more genuine and heartfelt warmth, coupled with a refreshing sense of relief.
“Shera, I’m sorry. Even if it hasn’t been that long for you yet, for me, it’s been ten long years of pretending that I was anything but a persistent shitstain that Shinra ignored. And over those years, I never even looked at you like an equal. Even though you were always there minding my every step to make sure I was still okay.”
“…”
“I treated you like shit even though I was the dumbass all along. Compared to me, you’re a freakin’ saint. And a real genius who got there on hard work and everything.”
“…”
“Shera. I believe you. You were right all along.”
“Um, about what?”
“The oxygen tank. Number 8, was it? That was the problem.”
She lowered her head in thought and nodded back. “…Yes.”
“If it weren’t for you, I probably wouldn’t even be here right now. I just can’t believe it took me this long to realize it.” He clasped a hand over his face with a groan, directed at himself. “And it was also the thing that sprung the trap that woulda ended me for good…” He paused and then added, “Well, it would have if it wasn’t for you.”
“Cid…”
“Shera, thank you. And again, I’m sorry. For all the rough-edging I gave ya or might’ve given ya.”
“…”
After the incredibly thick tension that sat in the air for so long, it at last began to dissipate. Like a great weight was lifted from her shoulders, she couldn’t help but feel grateful – grateful to be vindicated, of course, but more importantly, to have earned his trust again after so long. It came as such a shock too that Shera wasn’t sure how to react at first, but then she started to tremble and tear up herself.
She also revealed a genuine smile of her own. “Y-you’re welcome, Cid. And thank you too, for being an inspiration.”
He nodded back and let off a satisfied sigh as he sat back in his seat. “…Well, with that outta the way, what should we do now?”
“Hmm…” She put a hand to her chin and thought it over again. “Well, as I said, I could help you investigate into the incident. Even if Shinra sent the Turks and all those men to search the rocket, I don’t think they would have the expertise to know what exactly went wrong. Sometimes, you’d need an expert to distinguish these minute details.”
Without a second thought, he flicked out a thumbs-up. “Damn straight. Go show them how it’s done.”
Shera’s eyes glistened with hope and she nodded back enthusiastically. “Okay! Hope you don’t mind if I borrow a few of your guys while I do?”
“They’re all yours. Not like I’d be able to talk with them from here.”
“Right. Well, let’s try to get you all back together, shall we?”
“Yeah…” He paused and then added one last compliment, “If it’s you, I know you’ll do it right.”
“Heh. Thanks, Cid.”
“Now, get outta here! I’m damn exhausted just from sitting on this shitty metal chair!” he complained loudly as if hoping the guard standing outside his door would hear.
She let off a chuckle and held onto her smile. At a glance, it was like any other amiable smile she would give, but this time there was something different. It would have been a blink-and-you’d-miss-it kind of distinction; a glint in her eyes that seemed almost unlike her, as if she knew something else she hadn’t let on just yet. She got up as he jumped from his seat, but before she’d take her leave, she called to him again.
“Oh, Cid?”
He whipped back around. “Yeah?”
She reached into her pocket and drew out a bright red materia orb. “I think you’ll need this too.”
He stopped short and stared at the orb. “The hell is that? Materia? They won’t let me bring my own toothbrush! You think I’ll be able to use materia in here?”
She giggled again. “It’s not just any materia. It’s the one you need to pass your trial, remember?”
“Huh?”
Before he could make sense of what was happening, she pressed the materia against the glass window, and like she somehow cast a strange magic, the orb passed right through and fell into his hands. And the moment it touched him, Cid was met with a sudden jolt of energy, like a bolt of lightning, that ran through his entire body and froze him still. But this wasn’t any ordinary Thunder spell. He wasn’t hurt by the jolt; if anything, he felt empowered. And the next thing he knew, he blanked out and heard a familiar voice of a certain ancient elder greet him.
“The contract is complete. Well done, Cid Highwind. May you and those you care be blessed for times to come.”
And then, Cid blanked out for a good while. Even though he still didn’t know what was going on, he got the feeling he was in good hands.
~
Back to the present, still resting in Shera’s home, Cid has been staring off at the ceiling as he recalls the events from the beginning of the entire cycle. He now looks back toward his companions who have been hanging on his every word so far.
“If Ruby’s our resident miracle worker, then Shera’s practically a Goddess in disguise. She not only got my old crew back together again, they finished up their investigations pronto and uncovered something big that the prosecution overlooked. Submitted into the record even before discovery came to a close too. It was such a big deal that even the most bone-headed lawyer out there could have made a comeback victory… if it even went into trial. The moment the prosecution found out their mistake, they offered to settle it out of court. I got bailed out and the whole case was dropped.”
Barret folds his arms, a bit perplexed at that sudden turnaround ending. “Huh. So that was the point of your Summon Trial? You just had to make it up with your woman?”
Cid scowls, looking more done than upset. “Hell would I know? Ramuh didn’t say shit to me before or after, and he put me through the wringer that went on like a broken record before he even let me see her, that bastard… But eventually something must’ve ticked and changed his mind.” He lets off an exhausted sigh and comments sarcastically, “Musta gotten tired of my shit and settled with a happy ending. Good #%&@$^ riddance, I say.”
“Damn. That’s all it took? Maybe I shoulda just done that myself…” Barret mutters to himself, but he still looks relieved to hear it. “Well, whatever all that was about, good to see another of us who got through the trial relatively peacefully.”
Cid shakes his head and scoffs back, “Believe me, it took all I had not to crash out at any point. Like, if I had to see the former fatass prez’s dumb face any more than I had already, I woulda turned his office inside out and chucked him out the window with the trash! But I had to bite every bullet; for Shera’s sake and for the sake of our crew. Happened enough times that I was starting to wonder if I was just going numb.”
Barret looks off, being reminded of his own trial again, and nods along. “Rough times, man…”
Meanwhile, Nanaki who has been listening quietly and attentively is happily wagging his tail to hear some good news for once. Though, yet another question comes to mind. He tilts his head curiously and asks, “By the way, Cid, what was the evidence that turned the case around?”
“The faulty oxygen tank itself. Since it didn’t blow that time, Shera and team were able to look into the labels put on it from its manufacturer and discovered that it was all kinds of off. Like it was some kinda amateur attempt at faking details and just copied word and digit from another tank’s label. But it’s a big deal that each tank has a unique ID of its own for the manufacturer’s inventory record keeping and all that. Usually it’s not the most important since they’d all come together in a package, but this time it did matter, since it was obvious the tampering came from the manufacturer’s side, not ours. So when they found out the shoddy copy, the prosecution’s own ‘expert witness’ dropped out and they didn’t have a case anymore.”
Nanaki blinks blankly, looking like he didn’t really understand all of that, but nods along anyway. “I see.”
“Anyway, long story short, Shera’s amazing and I was the biggest dumbass to not see it.” He rubs his head awkwardly and then lets off a sigh. “Took me dropping into the Lifestream and meeting wunna the Summons just to get it. And after all that crap, in the end I know it’s just ‘practice’ for the real deal.”
“The real deal?”
“Yeah.” Cid then shows the most determined look in his eyes yet as he declares, “I gotta get outta here and head back to the surface. I have to see Shera in person and tell her ‘I’m sorry’. She probably never showed any signs that she was pissed off or anything, but I know deep down that she’d always been hurting to see me wastin’ my life away. She’s constantly fighting in her own way and it’s only fair I let her know she’s doing just fine.”
To that, Barret shares his own smirk in agreement. “Exactly why we’re here, man. We all got someone to see later.” That said, he also raises the other hanging question, “Hey. If you’ve already passed your trial, then what’re you still doing here?”
“…” Cid doesn’t answer right away. He takes a deep breath and lets it out, and then with a stoic expression, replies, “I asked Ramuh a favor… just something for me.”
“Huh?”
“What did you ask him?” Nanaki asks as well.
He raises a hand and balls it up into a fist, and a certain spark flares up in his eyes. “I really wanted to make it up to Shera right away, but he told me I had to wait until the rest of ya finished with your trials and all. So, I asked him if I could have a few ‘practice runs’ with her, going over these memories again and again where I got to play hero and save her a buncha times.”
“…”
By now, Barret and Nanaki’s awe and respect are shortly quashed with a more judgmental feeling.
“H-hey. Don’t give me that look,” Cid growls back. “It wasn’t my fault you guys took your sweet time! What the hell was I supposed to do? Sleep through it all? Even I’m not that lazy.”
Yet, Barret gives a sigh and nods. “Nah, I get it. If I had the chance, I woulda done the same. Even though I went through all kinds of hell over all those cycles, at least I got to see my girl again every time.”
Nanaki looks between the two and then admits with his more sagely voice, “I would have to agree as well. There’s no limit to how far warriors will go for the people they care about.”
“Ha!” Cid lets off a sharp laugh and grins back. “Oh, yeah. Didn’t ya have a fiancée or something?”
Nanaki reverts right back to his usual voice. “Oh, you remember? Yeah! It was so nice of Ruby to bring Deneh over. Felt like forever since I got to see her again.”
“Yeah, good for you…” Now that he mentions the name, though, Cid is also reminded. “Speaking of that kid, what’s going on with Cloud and the others? Have they found Ruby yet?”
Barret goes back to frowning, more out of concern. “Nah. We’re still working on it. We split up to look for the rest of ya first. And since you’re doing fine now, we can get going.”
“Yeah, I guess we can…” Cid then peers out the window as he unfolds the blinders.
“Hm? Something else bothering ya?”
Through that window, he watches the road in the direction of the clinic. “…So, I know I said I was passing time waiting on you guys, but I’ll be honest: there was one other thing I really wanted to do before I go.”
“What’s that?”
And as if on cue, he spots a plane flying into town in the distance, coming bearing a very noticeably placed Shinra logo. Cid hones his point-precision glare and reaches for the door knob. “I gotta kick Palmer’s ass.”
“Huh?”
He utters no more, but the spark in his eyes burns even brighter than ever. Before they can stop him, he swings it open and charges on out onto the open road for the clinic.
“Hey! Cid!” Barret yells, to no response. “What the hell, man!”
“He just ran off.” Nanaki simply watches him go, getting a little worried, and turns back to Barret. “Should we try to stop him?”
Barret makes a concerned grunt, but decides against it and shakes his head. “Hmm… Nah. He really needs some time to vent.” He also brings up, “Besides, didn’t he say he asked Ramuh for this? Guess this could be like some kinda victory lap.”
“Hmm, maybe so…” Nanaki stands back up with a somewhat anxious look. “But I think we should still check on him, just to be sure he doesn’t stir up too much trouble.”
“Yeah, probably wouldn’t hurt.”
They give chase and fortunately the road is clear and direct enough for them to lead right back to the clinic they had come across earlier. But by the time they arrive, Cid seems to have disappeared somewhere. They instead find the building barricaded by Shinra troops who are keeping out a crowd of bystanders. Though the people are just concerned and asking questions about the launch that was so abruptly stopped, the troops are in no mind to answer anything.
“What’s going on!? Why was the launch cancelled?”
“We saw the Captain come this way! I think he was carrying someone!”
“What happened? Was anyone hurt?”
“Stay out! Anyone who tries to enter while Mr. Palmer is in will be charged with criminal obstruction!” one of the guards barks loudly over the voices.
“That goes for the rocket field too! Anyone caught sneaking around there will be persecuted!” another guard follows suit.
“Who’d want to get close to the rocket now!? It’s tipping over like it’s gonna fall!”
“Can’t you Shinra people do something? It’s not safe leaving it that way!”
“Shouldn’t we be evacuating? What if something else blows?”
As the tensions mount between the soldiers and the civilians, the air feels so thick with electricity that a single spark could set off a blaze. However, no one would have expected that the spark would be literal. Having heard plenty enough, one brash guy comes bursting out of the crowd with a very sharp spear and a mighty warcry.
“MOVE IT!!”
“Huh!? Hey, isn’t that the Captain?”
“Captain! What are you doing!?”
It isn’t really much of a fight, so to speak. Blessed with Ramuh’s lightning, just Cid’s charge forward unleashes great sparks that electrocute every enemy that dares stand in his way. He moves so fast that even Barret and Nanaki have trouble keeping track of his movements, and he promptly disappears into the clinic once more.
In the meantime, Palmer had just arrived shortly and was busy questioning the clinic staff about Shera’s condition – or rather, pressing them to hurry up with the diagnosis so he can leave the arrest warrant with her. The clinic staff assured him that they were working as quickly as they could and that he could just come back later, but he insisted that he get this done now without any further explanation. But his goofy, oblivious grin shortly turns to aghast horror when the doors to the patients ward suddenly burst open with radiating sparks. The tubby old man dives behind a table that is comically too small to hide him, and from behind it, he peeks out and is frightened to see the latest intruder.
“PALMEEERRR!!” Cid roars like thunder. By now, even his eyes are glowing with power.
“G-g-guards! What are you doing!?” he blubbers, “Don’t just let anyone in! Stop him!”
But no guard outside has been left unscathed; not that anyone could possibly catch Cid when he’s in max rage mode. He blitzes across the hall as fast as lightning, seizing Palmer by his lapel in one hand, and by his sheer momentum, rams his unfortunate target through the nearest window and flings his quite the distance onto the open road, spooking some civilians nearby.
“Mr. Palmer!?”
“Sir! Are you alright?”
Despite being a normal human without any particular enhancements, Palmer doesn’t die outright from that blow. He is bloodied and battered, but is still able to pull himself off the ground. To his relief, there are some more troops that have arrived upon hearing the call for backup. However, his relief is quickly replaced with fear once more when a sudden streak of lightning blasts them from an otherwise clear sky. He jumps back and squeaks in fright to see the fallen blue uniforms that had just been standing mere moments prior. Before he can scramble away, though, an ominous presence nearby makes him freeze up. His worst nightmare stomps out toward him, wielding a spear glowing with magical charge.
Now that he gets a better look at his adversary, he only panics more. “C-Cid! Is that you? Why are attacking me!?”
“You had it coming, ya bastard.”
“What do you mean!? I didn’t even say a word to you yet!”
“Shut up! I know what you’re up to!” Cid snarls. “You came here to arrest Shera on false charges and get rid of me and my crew! I’m not gonna let you off easy!”
“Bwuh!? How’d you know all that!?”
“I’m the Captain and this is my town! I know everything that goes around here!!”
“W-w-whaaat!?”
Palmer promptly gets a hard kick in the face that knocks him flying again. But even amid his groans of pain, the old man still has one more trick up his sleeve. He hastily reaches into his pocket and hits a switch on some kind of remote.
“Huh? The hell did you do?” Cid barks at him, but the latter forces a sly grin even amid his pain.
Off at the outskirts of town, the plane that had arrived earlier as his ride responds to the call. But rather than simply have auto-pilot activated, something strange takes place instead. The pilot of the plane who had dozed off for a moment is shaken awake as the vehicle begins to jolt erratically. He manages to jump ship in time just as the plane runs off on its own and takes for the air. And the moment the plane lifts off high enough, it begins to transform mid-flight.
By the time it reaches the grounds a little ways off from the clinic, the plane is no longer just a plane. It has turned into a huge yet plump bird-like mech that crashes onto the scene. With a hoot and holler, Palmer cheers on the mech that was specially prepared for him.
“Go, go! Iron Wings! And get me outta here!”
The mech responds to his voice and picks him up, dropping him right into the cockpit’s seat upside-down, and the door shuts up tight. And like a mirror to Palmer himself, the mech also bounces around playfully until Palmer scrambles to right himself in his seat. And now, Cid finds himself face to face with a random as hell, dumb-looking metal chicken stomping around on his home turf. Needless to say, he’s rightly pissed off that something like this would even be a possibility. These Summon Trials really are just another excuse for an improv bit, aren’t they?
This whole “fight” is just one big joke anyway. Even while Palmer giggles madly to himself while the mech shifts into combat mode, Cid seems surprisingly calm standing before the supposed menace. Rather than stab the thing with his spear and get it over with, he instead stands it up beside him and helps himself to a cig pack from his pocket.
“Sorry, Cid, but you made a big mistake attacking me! Iron Wings! Blast him to smithereens!”
In turn, the mech unfolds an impressive array of guns and canons from under its wings. However, Cid has been waiting for a while to unleash his trap. The clouds in the sky that had been sparse had been gathering now rumble dangerously above and the static charge in the air has built up strong and is ripe to strike. So the very moment Iron Wings is about to fire off a single volley of charges, Cid simply raises his unlit cigarette in the air. The next moment, a massive bolt of lightning blasts the exact spot where the mech is standing, incinerating it in an instant. The heat is so intense up close that even stray static is enough to light his cigarette.
But now that Cid brings the cig to his mouth, he pauses for a moment before he takes a whiff. Rather than keep it there, though, he lets off a sigh and takes it out and crushes it in a hand to put out the light. He then walks off to find a proper cigarette disposal bin in a nearby building. Thinking about it, if Shera were here, she’d probably tell him to quit smoking. Kinda hard of an ask at this late stage, but it’s not like he’s never dealt with bearing the brunt of withdrawal before.
By the time he’s finished, he heads back out to find that his other two pals have finally caught up with him. “Yo, Cid! There you are!” Barret calls out.
“Cid! Is everything okay?” Nanaki asks.
“Huh? Of course I’m okay!” Cid snaps back. “Didn’t you see how I blasted that bitch in one go? It didn’t even get to fire.”
“No, I mean…” Nanaki turns to look at the building he’d just entered. “You went into the inn looking like you were in a hurry. Did you have something else you had to do?”
Barret frowns. “Come on, man. Enough with all the errands or whatever! I thought we were gonna get outta here?”
“Ugh, I know. Get off my case.” Cid casually waves a hand. “Just had to dump my pack of cigs.”
“Your cigs?”
“Yeah. Figured I wouldn’t need them anymore when we’d get back. Shera was always on my ass about my health and all.”
“…”
Barret and Nanaki exchange confused looks, almost like they had missed a scene at some point. Still, they don’t bother to question it.
Barret moves on, “Anyway, we spent long enough here. Who knows what’s going on with Cloud and the others? They might be back already!”
Nanaki also recalls, “Not to mention, the longer we stall, the more likely Rubia may be at risk.”
For once, that catches Cid’s attention. “Huh? Rubia? Ya mean Ruby’s other version? What’s up with her?”
“We’re not sure, but it seems like she’s been transformed into the Black Materia.”
“W-what!?” Cid nearly stumbles backward in shock. “What the hell, guys!? Why didn’t you start with that!? We got no time to waste, then!”
“That’s what I’ve been tryin’ to say, man!” Barret huffs. “But you just ran off before we could!”
Cid immediately calms down. “…Ah. Yeah, sorry about that.” He rubs his head awkwardly. “So, uh, you know where’s the exit?”
“Right here. Gather ’round.”
As Aerith had instructed him, Barret calls up the magic GUI again. As the trial has concluded, the message box is much more receptive to input, so they’re all whisked away the moment he hits the confirm button.
Notes:
The variations on this chap have been all over the place
- To preface my jumbled thought processes, I had a completely different chapter outlined before I scrapped everything and rewrote it from scratch. It wasn't that the previous draft was bad or anything, but there was something fundamentally missing and a lot more pointless meandering into random conspiracies.
- The main issue was Cid's background from the OG that didn't really lend itself to a whole lot of "trauma" I could use to delve into his character like I had done with the rest. This man was absolutely a menace and abusive as hell to Shera, but otherwise was the one guy I could rely on to give me a good laugh at the end of the day. It was that sense of delight that sang to my child self that I felt I needed to rekindle somehow.
- So in the previous draft, I had a greater focus on Cid getting blackmailed by some even shadier group than even the likes of Shinra, but that led me to a rabbit hole of degeneracy that I felt I couldn't really justify to leave in just one backstory I came up with. Besides, knowing Cid, he (and Shera) just find some way to legally destroy this group anyway.
- I then pivoted to making that group Shinra anyway, but then I realized I had to explain why the company would go out of their way to actively sabotage this rocket launch as if they were fully intending to have Cid killed off in a metal contraption, which didn't make sense at the time because he was a young rising star who didn't do anything wrong yet. Hence why it led me to settle on just some vague "logistic error" which truth Midgar's courts couldn't easily solve, or wouldn't bother to solve.
- I also very much wanted to show Cid's degradation in a light that was both understandable and relatable, but I also didn't want this chapter to be bogged down by details over his entire ten years. I decided to do a lot of telling and just showing here and there, so we wouldn't be trapped in the writing slump that I was in.
- The highlights of this chapter were definitely the scene in detention between Cid and Shera, and the chaos that would come to pass when Cid crashed out on Palmer of all people. Though I really wanted to have him strangle President Shinra, that old fogey's long dead and it'd be out of the way to put Cid on a one-man crusade against Shinra HQ, even if he is a God now and it's in the magical land of the Lifestream.
- I absolutely had to show Cid and Shera's relationship as the main focus here. If there's one thing I've learned about abusive relationships from my personal life, it's that it's never simply a case of "he/she deserved better". Shera did not put up with Cid's lashing over these years simply because she was nice. She absolutely had a thing for Cid to sacrifice herself that much and he really was the idiot to not realize until way late in the game. But here, I made it extra obvious that she would follow him to the ends of Gaia so even he would understand.
- I also wrote Cid to be a way more sympathetic character who was actually aware of the situation and guilt-ridden because of it, but the guy was also corporate-fucked for ten years. I don't need to have worked that long for any one company to know how shit that can be and how badly it ruins people's social skills. He just happened to get mad at everything instead of depressed.
- I also always found it way funnier to think that Cid moved in with Shera and not that she was simply rooming with him under some arrangement by Shinra. So I came up with an excuse of Cid getting into gambling debt and had to sell his old house. Imo, if anyone in the party would run into some kind of adult degeneracy, it would be this guy.
- As for why I had Cid crash out on Palmer, this was one of those things the previous drafts didn't hit: my funny bone. I also randomly came up with a giant metal chicken on the spot because while I did consider the giant frog mech from Rebirth, Palmer and his posse would have arrived in Rocket Town by air anyway, so I had to go with a chicken. It still fits Palmer if you ask me.
- The whole fight expanded to the point that it ended up more epic than funny, but I'll take it. Cid lighting his cig by lightning was too awesome to pass up. Ironic since he decided to just not smoke for once.
- Last but not least, if you're wondering what's going on with Cloud and Tiamat at the start, I'm saving that for a future chapter, so please look forward to it.
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