The child of the mountain
Chapter 01
February 9, 2006: started fic. Let's see where it takes me to, considering I only have one scene clearly planned, and it's a long way in coming.
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Once upon a time, there was a young man called Zack. He was part of SOLDIER, a military organization that existed once upon a time, and he was so good at it he was 1st class. This SOLDIER organization was created, organized and maintained by a conglomerate called Shin-ra, that once upon a time owned most of their world; they didn't always have to do nice work or even work at all (since not a lot of people bother you when you own most of the world), but Zack was very satisfied with his paycheck and lack of jobs to make up for the aforementioned paycheck.
After all, the paycheck and free time, along with the SOLDIER status, let him freely indulge in the favorite pastime of most young men 19 years of age: womanizing. And as it happens in most stories that start like this, womanizing turned his life upside down.
It all started with, gasp, a girl. Girls are truly evil, despicable creatures.
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This specific girl was a poor 15 years old orphan that had been adopted by a poor woman and made a living out of growing and selling flowers in the middle of the garbage dump called slum where all the poor people lived – once upon a time. She was pretty, though, so it made up for all that, was what Zack would tell himself after meeting her for the first time; it also made up for the gil he spent buying a bunch of flowers when he didn't even like flowers. Dumping them on the kitchen counter, he tried to make noodles and failed when he slept through the timer alarm, so he called take-out and ate some weird wutaiese food he didn't find particularly tasty, but it was an interesting experience.
He didn't really think much about the flower girl. Actually, after dumping the flowers on the counter, he didn't think about her at all, and he'd blink at the flowers come morning, wondering where they came from, and dump them unceremoniously in the trash can. A few days later, he ran into her selling flowers again, and felt sort of guilty, so he bought some more flowers. He also flirted a little more, and she flirted a little back, and giggled, and it was good. Coming home he stuck the flowers in a glass to keep himself from throwing them away again, and proceeded to not think about her at all again.
Then he ran into her again. They got along well, and after running into her five or six times he started to think about her at home, too. Just a little, but it was something.
One night, he felt a lot of pain in his joints. He had horrible flashbacks of his father telling him pain in the joints was sign of a change in season, then fell asleep. Sometime later he'd wonder if his body knew things were going sour.
He had actually just overexerted himself in the gym, though.
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In the Shin-ra headquarters, a meeting was beginning.
"What happened?" asked Reeve, while brushing away the remaining cinders from Scarlet's shot folder.
"There was a cockroach!" squeaked her, smoking gun still in her shaking hands, and Reeve located something that looked suspiciously like a fried cockroach in the middle of the scattered ashes.
"You'd think someone would have set up a bomb or something, with that noise," sniffed Rufus, trying to ignore it as Heidegger's fire extinguishing maneuvers showered both Reeve and Scarlet in white smoke.
Someone coughed from the doorway, and Shin-ra's Department Heads all made their best to look like they were behaving properly. The President simply ignored the icing on two of his subordinates as he made his way to the big chair, cigar in hand, while Hojo shuffled to another seat as he walked in as well.
They sat on their respective chairs at the same time, and somehow it sounded so ominous that even Rufus couldn't help feeling a chill.
"I have interesting news," said the President.
And the room remained in the most complete silence until Hojo cleared his throat. The one with the news was not the president, after all.
"You must remember the… underground fountain recently found in the cliffs to the south of our city," he started. "And the similarly built and shaped structure in the Condor Mountain Area."
A pause for effect, in which the remaining Heads just stared at him. He nodded to his papers in his usual skittish manner.
"After extensive research from my department, we have connected those two structures with the recently captured specimen from Condor Mountain and her… abnormal capabilities."
Another pause.
"After some coercion, the specimen was willing to share knowledge on the two structures in topic. The results are… impressive."
Another pause, in which Hojo glanced up at the President with a grin, as if the two had planned a practical joke that was about to start. The other Heads shuffled; a grinning Hojo was not a sight for the weak of heart.
"The two structures, unlike our initial beliefs, are not remnants of an ancient civilization. In fact," he grinned wider, "they're not at all man-made, as was confirmed by four different research teams."
The other chairs didn't seem particularly impressed by that, except Reeve, who raised an eyebrow. "Are you saying that two stone basins, adorned with crystals of unknown origins and properties, can be spontaneously created by nature in two completely different, and completely hidden, places?"
"Not only two," Hojo's grin widened. "Our specimen specified seven of them, in fact. All over the world."
"And why would that concern us?" asked Rufus, supported by Heidegger's and Scarlet's puzzled nods.
"At first," interrupted the President, and five heads immediately turned to him, "our main interest was the crystal. According to Hojo's research…"
Hojo nodded, straightening his glasses. "Despite not appearing in any radar whatsoever, a sample of the crystallized substance was confirmed to produce a great amount of energy. No means have been found to harness this energy so far, and the results of our research haven't proven satisfactory… yet. It can't be used as materia, and all attempts at powering any kind of appliance with it resulted in severe malfunction of said appliance."
The President nodded, turning to the others. "You must remember the occasion of our capture of the so-called Holy Maiden from Condor, and the confirmation of her unnatural powers."
He puffed out a lungful of smoke. "Despite our initial expectations, I didn't have any hope of finding a profitable use for her capabilities… but after heavy questioning, she revealed a story that would be considered nothing but a fairy tale, if we didn't have proof of it in our hands." He smashed his cigar against an unsuspecting ashtray. "You have a summary of our findings regarding the Holy Maiden and her relationship to the fountains in your folders. You have five minutes to read it."
He glanced disdainfully at the blackened remains of Scarlet's folder and set back to wait.
After five minutes of Scarlet peeking over Reeve's shoulder, they were all a lot more interested. After some more discussion, they had the sketchy beginnings of a plan, and after two hours of debating they had a complete strategy.
"Call the Turks," finalized the President. "We definitely need our Miracle Girl from the slums, now."
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At the same time Shin-ra's top guys decided to lunge for the Miracle Girl, Zack was buying flowers from this same Miracle Girl.
"I've been wondering," he started, blinking down at his flowers while trying to think of a conversational topic, "how do you grow flowers in this dead place that is Midgar?"
"I have mad skills," she winked.
They giggled. Yeah, their conversations were usually this silly.
"Seriously, now, I still don't know where you live," Zack tried again, scratching the back of his head. "I'd think we know each other for long enough to disclose this kind of information."
She just shook her head. "Nope, I don't think meeting you now and then in a span of three weeks is long enough," she smiled sweetly.
Zack wilted.
"But since you're making such a sad face," she continued, winking, "I think I can tell you where my work base is located."
Zack perked up.
"Hm, so you are curious about my flowers, aren't you?" she smiled again. "In the Sector 5 Slums there is an abandoned church. There's a pretty strong hint in that church," she winked again.
Zack wilted. "…a hint? You want me to play detective? That's evil!"
She smiled again, looking down to fiddle with her flower basket, and Zack was suddenly attacked by a feeling that she wasn't happy. He quickly ran his own words back in his mind, but couldn't see how they would sound anything worse than playful, then she smiled up again and the feeling laughed awkwardly, waved an apology and then sprinted away.
"Here is another hint," she said, giving him a white flower. "You'd better investigate it well…"
Zack held the flower awkwardly between two fingers, and almost dropped it when she stood on the tip of her toes to kiss his cheek. Then she took advantage of his full body paralysis to turn away with a smile and go sell her flowers somewhere else.
The first thing he thought when he was able to think again was: wow, I'm such a stud, go me. And the first thing he did when he could move again was grin from ear to ear and skip back to his house, thinking about waking up an hour or so earlier the next day to search for this abandoned church.
Oh, the flirting was going well, but he never expected her to make the first move. And Zack entertained pleasant thoughts of having a girlfriend for longer than a month until he noticed an old guy staring at his flowers like he had never seen such a thing in his life.
He blinked down at the old man, and the old man blinked up at him with a start.
"I-I'm sorry, young man," he said in an asthmatic voice, "Those are some pretty flowers you have there."
He grinned, and Zack grinned back out of politeness.
"I-I… rather like the white one you have there," continued the old man.
"Which one?" asked Zack, turning the bouquet over to the side with most whites. The old man looked alarmed.
"T-t-that one!" he pointed, with a shaky hand, the one the flower girl had given him for free. "B-be careful…!"
"Oh, this one!" Zack pulled the specific flower. "It really is pretty, isn't it?"
"It's called Midnight Frost," said the man, in a sudden business-like tone. "I'll buy it from you for ten gil, young man."
Zack just blinked at him.
The old man squirmed. "Fifty gil?"
Zack blinked again.
"A… hundred…"
Zack glanced down at the flower, trying to find anything special about it.
"…two hundred!"
Wait, remembered Zack, this is a clue for my next date. Then he felt silly for some reason.
"Three hundred!"
But then again, thought another part of his brain, you can just search the internet for info. It's not like that one has a hidden note or something, you searched just now.
"Five hundred!"
What was the name again? Midnight frost, right?
"A thousand!" squeaked the old man, and Zack offered the flower to him, grinning.
"Sold!" and the old man walked away with eyes filled with tears, holding the flower like it was glass, while Zack pocketed the extra thousand with a shrug. He didn't really think a thousand was a lot, but for a gil-worth flower given for free, it was something.
While sitting boredly in the train home, it suddenly came to Zack that the flower's name was the supposed clue. His face glowed all shades of red; and when he stepped in his apartment, he had already made up his mind to find the church before midnight, whether his clue was wrong or right.
It was just as well that he did not search for info on the flower; he did not have the displeasure of finding out he had sold for a thousand gil a flower that was worth three hundred times that sum.
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It was 11:40pm when Zack finally found the not only abandoned, but half-destroyed church in Sector 5. He explored the area with the stealth of a man who survived Wutai's ninjas, then verified the fact that the church itself was the Flower Girl's work base after smashing a few flowers, oops. After that, he hid in between two pews to settle in for a few minutes' wait, and promptly fell asleep – as customary whenever he found himself in a horizontal position without a girl to busy himself with.
Sometimes he wondered if he was narcoleptic, but he always forgot to look further into it by the time he woke up again. This time he wouldn't have the opportunity to ask a doctor either – in fact, this time would be the time his life would be screwed, not for the first time, nor for the last. Problem is he'd lose the health plan.
A sudden, snapping explosion of a sound caused him to crack the seat of an old pew with his head as he jerked awake. War instinct kept him hidden and quiet even as he winced, eyes tearing up, and before he knew it, he had shrunk under another pew, checking his materia as he took in the sound of running feet, shots, panicked screaming and fighting. He bemoaned the lack of his Buster's weight on his back.
A willowy, graceful silhouette walked in from the main entrance, furtively, followed by a much clumsier and unsure figure. The two threaded carefully between the debris and broken wood, walking, Zack noticed wildly, right in the direction of his hiding place, and a pair of brown boots stopped right in front of his eyes.
Someone knocked on the pew's seat.
"Hey, Zack," a feminine voice whispered. "It's me, Aeris. You can come out."
Zack checked his memory bank wildly, and suddenly remembered the flower girl had introduced herself the third time they met. He couldn't remember if he had said his own name in return or not, but right now it was unimportant – for he suddenly remembered something else.
He was hiding under a pew because he was on a date.
Kicking the pew up, he jumped on his feet, grinning. "So there you are!" …was what he was about to say, but couldn't.
Aeris was lovely, really. Hair pulled up in a braid, a brown short-sleeved jacket, a pink dress and sturdy leather boots, along with a backpack, a bangle with some cheap materia and a metal staff with two empty slots, the kind you can shrink to hide against a leg and pull up with a "HA!" when your enemy thought you were cornered. Her face was serious and drawn.
Wait.
Waaaaaaaaait.
Surely she wasn't there to kick his ass. Womanizer or not, he wasn't nice to girls when they started the fight, but he didn't want to break her nose or anything. He glanced at the other figure, hoping it wasn't her angry boyfriend.
It was a middle aged woman, her hair pulled up in a knot, an old dress with a still dirty and somewhat wet apron over it and a backpack. She looked both angry and terrified.
He hoped fiercely they weren't going to try to beat him into marriage.
"Confused?" asked Aeris, finally smiling.
"Yes," Zack's wit failed him.
"Yes," echoed the middle-aged woman.
Aeris motioned to a pew close to her flowers. "Here, sit down. We have some time. Not much, but hopefully enough."
The two followed her to the specified pew, Zack wondering what was going to happen to his date, while the middle-aged woman wondered what was going to happen to the forgotten leftovers. The three sat, and promptly the church fell into such a deep, ominous silence, that Zack could hear the sounds of scuffle and screaming moving to the next sector without any strain to his ears.
He glanced at Aeris, wondering if she'd tell him what the hell was up or not, but she simply stared at the dark silhouette of her flowers, face once again drawn in concentration.
Suddenly, a dark blue suit materialized right by him. "…Zack?"
Zack jerked to his feet so quickly that, had he been under a pew, it would have broken in half. And it was with that jumpy disposition that he stared in utter disbelief at Tseng's face, while Tseng stared in utter disbelief at him.
How Tseng manage to slither so silently through a whole sector and into the debris-filled church, all the while dragging Zack's Buster Sword with both hands, was simply a testament to his mad Turk skills.
The mad Turk turned to Aeris, dot-eyed. "So… this is why you wanted me to bring this specific sword." Aeris nodded, and Tseng wordlessly handed the sword to its owner.
Zack just made a mental note to talk to his doctor in the morning. (This is where his lack of health plan will affect him most.)
"Now can any of you tell me what's going on!" the middle-aged woman bursted, and Tseng just nodded to Aeris, before turning to the woman.
"Mrs. Gainsborough, I'm sorry to inform you that you'll have to be relocated and remain under heavy supervision for your own security. As for your daughter," he glanced towards Aeris, "I'm as much in the dark as you are concerning her future plans."
"I'd think it was obvious to you," said Aeris simply. "I'm going to enlist Zack's help and lead them away."
Zack couldn't remain gaping anymore.
"H-hey, how come I'm the last one to know this?" he looked from Aeris to her mother to Tseng and back to Aeris. "What the hell is going on? Is this why you asked me to come?"
Aeris just nodded, and Zack was about to open his mouth and complain loudly when the sound of scurrying feet reached his ears, and he turned sharply to the church's entrance.
His eyes narrowed, but then relaxed. Just a cat.
With a crown.
And a cape.
The cat walked up to Aeris and nodded. "All's ready!" he sing-sang. "We can depart any minute now. You might find this useful," he handed Zack another backpack (his new one, he recognized), which the young man accepted in mute stupefiement, and then turned back to Aeris. "So you left the poor guy in the dark? Just like you to do that."
Aeris giggled, shaking her head. "I meant to come earlier and explain, but it wasn't possible…" she fiddled with her backpack's zipper for a second, then added, more seriously: "How much longer do we have?"
"Ten minutes at most," said the cat, in a completely different tone of voice and manner of speech, to Zack's further surprise. "Tseng, you go do your stuff. Mrs. Gainsborough," the cat turned to the woman, squeezing her hand in an oddly human gesture, "I know this is sudden, but everything will be explained in due time. Tseng will take you to a safe place for the time being, then we'll hopefully be able to talk again. Now go, it's not safe here."
Mrs. Gainsborough stood up, staring wide-eyed at her daughter, and the two suddenly embraced. Without another word, the mother took her backpack and followed Tseng out, their footsteps soon disappearing.
The cat turned to Zack. "I'm Cait Sith, it's a pleasure to meet you!" it chirped, suddenly sounding as if it had injected an illegal amount of sugar into its system.
"Aah," answered Zack.
"Do you think it's a nice thing to experiment on humans?" asked the cat, in the same hyper voice.
"Aah!" Zack blinked.
"Do you think it's a nice thing to kidnap pretty girls, lock them in labs and drug and implant and cut pieces off them?" asked the cat again, index finger pointing up.
Zack glanced from the cat to Aeris, who just smiled ruefully. He had a feeling he should be feeling horribly indignant, afraid or angry at what the cat was telling him, but he just felt like he had been hit over the head with a few too many beer bottles. Still…
"Hell no," he said. After all, you don't cut pieces off people if they don't try to cut you first.
He suddenly heard a gunshot, and was blocking it with his sword before he even noticed. Turning to the church's entrance, he suddenly felt another beer bottle crashing against his brain. Turks.
He turned to Aeris, who just widened her eyes in that scary way his mother used to favor when she wanted to keep him from saying something stupid. Looking back to the now approaching Turks, all of them armed and looking as smug as ever, his brain finally shook the beer and shards off and started working again.
Tseng, of all people, was backstabbing the Turks – and Shin-ra at it.
And Shin-ra was the thing that was trying to kidnap Aeris, to experiment on her, lock her in labs and drug her and implant and cut pieces off her.
The Turks had surrounded them. Reno was tapping his rod against a shoulder, smirking; Luciolle, always serious, simply cocked her gun and aimed; two of what were apparently newbie Turks assumed their stances, the serious guy with fists clenched while the long-haired girl brandished a shotgun, grinning almost maniacally.
Four Turks against a girl.
And they were going to experiment on her, lock her and drug her and implant and cut pieces off…
Suddenly hit by the wrongness of it all, Zack grabbed Aeris by her waist and lunged for Reno, who he knew was the most incompetent Turk by default, and didn't need to do much more than looking threatening to make the redhead dive out of the way. Shrugging the feeble thunder attack and dodging some scarily accurate shots by a hair, he followed Aeris' pointing finger to a small side door, climbing the rickety, half-rotten stairs five steps a time while the crazy shotgun girl rained bullets on them.
In no time he found himself on the roof, where the crazy cat seemed to have magically teleported to ahead of them, and, after hearing more shotgunning downstairs, the threesome started over to some nearby roofs, running like crazy until the church, the Turks and the Sector 5 were safely far away.
Zack set Aeris back on the ground, then stared at her for five minutes while his brain tried to recover from the beer bottles.
He had run into it on pure gut, and now bye-bye paycheck, bye-bye health plan, bye-bye free time and bye-bye date. Not only that, but he was on Shin-ra's shit list, for sure.
"I'm screwed," he said.
"Sorry," she giggled.
And this is how the story begins.
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February 20, 2006: FIRST CHAPTER OVER OMG. Now for rereading and making sure it's not too crazy.