Planets' Protector
chapter one
Cloud closed the last drawer of the file cabinet with a sigh. Deciphering progress reports, notes and analyses of experiments interspersed with Hojo's personal ramblings was not his idea of fun. Absently tugging at the harness holding Ultima Weapon and the Buster Sword at his back, he gathered up the stack of files he though worth saving and went to find Yuffie. The ninja had long since grown bored with the paperwork and bounced off – literally – to search for materia and other small valuables.
It had been a couple of weeks since Reno's call, and Cloud was pleasantly surprised that they'd already found the second lab. There hadn't been much by way of directions in the documents Reno had sent and when they'd last spoken the Turk had admitted he expected the two of them to be busy till winter set it. Hojo was nothing if not a paranoid, possessive bastard and he would not have appreciated the idea of others using his research. Quite frankly, Cloud was grateful the labs hadn't been booby-trapped to self-destruct unless one had the proper access codes.
He had meant to go alone; not particularly eager to have an audience if the labs triggered any suppressed memories from his time in Hojo's care. He just wanted to find and destroy the labs as quickly as possible. If there were anything he thought Shinra could safely have then he'd give it to them but, as he'd told Reno, he was no scientist and he might misjudge things. In the end it was simply too risky to leave the labs intact for Shinra to pick and choose what to squirrel away. Better to erase them.
Attempting to explain all of this to Yuffie had been rather futile; the girl was as eager a materia hunter as she'd ever been, and had happily informed him that she was going with him.
And now that they were here, he found that he didn't mind the company. Even if her presence meant he had to put off that rematch with Reno.
Cloud held back another sigh.
He wasn't sure why he felt so at ease bantering with the redhead; they certainly didn't have a pleasant history. After Sephiroth and Hojo it had just seemed silly to hold grudges. Vincent had told him a thing or two about the consequences of joining the Turks, and Reno's options had been very limited when the order to destroy the sector seven pillar came. And considering Cloud had handed over the Black materia to Sephiroth he didn't have much room to throw stones.
Maybe it's because he reminds me of Zack, Cloud mused as he glanced into the first storeroom. No Yuffie. He closed the door and continued toward the next. They both live in the now, both act perpetually cheerful… The line of thought faded into nothing and he felt his heart clench with familiar guilt and longing.
I thought I was done thinking about him in the present tense.
It was a relief to open the second storeroom and see Yuffie.
"Hey, look at this!" she exclaimed, turning around to wave an armlet at him. "It's got three materia slots, and all of them are linked! Have you ever seen anything like it?"
Putting his papers aside, Cloud took the armlet and examined it carefully. "No, I haven't. I can't recall hearing it was even possible to link more than two slots." He shrugged as he handed it back. "Not that my memory is reliable."
Yuffie aimed a fist at him, scowled when he deflected the blow. "None of that," she said sharply. "If I wanted to hear the angsty brooding I could have talked Vincent into coming. By now he'd probably thank me for getting him off the Highwind, anyway."
Cloud smiled. "Aren't you forgetting something?"
Dark eyes narrowed suspiciously. "What?"
"I was the one asked to do this. You are the one tagging along," he pointed out smugly.
Yuffie gaped at him. "I am not! I'm far better than you at finding things and seeing if they're valuable or not, which means I'm the one doing the real work. You're just supposed to watch my back in case Hojo left any nasty surprises behind. – Not that I need watching, of course," she added belatedly.
Cloud's smile widened a fraction. "Of course not," he agreed. "You just wanted help to carry all the materia you're sure he hid away."
Yuffie laughed, slipped the armlet into her pack, winked at him, and went back to searching. Shaking his head at her antics, Cloud joined the search.
The boxes turned out to contain a lot of armlets and daggers, some slotted and some not. None of them had more than paired slots, though, and Cloud was left wondering what the intent of that armlet had been. To enable a single support materia to work with two magic ones? To give double support to one magic materia? He could easily see the advantages of either option, but he had no way to know if it had worked in practice. The fact that only one armlet had been made spoke against it.
He cast a wary glance toward Yuffie.
Slotting a combination to see what would happen didn't seem wise as long as there was a risk of it unbalancing the materia, and in Cloud's experience, mako in any form could be unpredictable.
Weighing a dagger of odd, green-tinted metal in his hand, he frowned as something about it teased his memory. Setting it down he picked up the stack of notes and reports he'd liberated from the filing cabinets and leafed through them, searching for anything to jog the memory into the forefront. Minutes later, he nodded to himself.
Mako added during the forging… mako added in different stages of refinement or during the blending of an alloy… mixed results… further testing needed.
"These will have to be destroyed," Cloud said aloud, bringing Yuffie over to peer into the open boxes.
"Why?" she questioned, picking up the green dagger. "Seems like good craftsmanship to me."
Cloud shrugged. "It is, but the metal has been mixed with mako. According to the notes, they were trying to find a way to infuse materia properties in the weapon itself and remove the need for slots or materia." He paused, turning the idea over. "I can see the advantages – no risk of a well placed hit damaging the slots, elemental or status attacks that your opponent won't be expecting – but the disadvantages would outweigh them."
"You'd be locked on a single kind of attack, unable to adapt to different enemies," Yuffie agreed. "And I don't see how you could pull spells out of mako. You SOLDIER boys wouldn't have needed materia if that were true, right?"
Busy studying a second blade, trying to feel what it was supposed to do, she thankfully didn't see Cloud flinch. He appreciated the fact that she didn't tiptoe around him the way Tifa and the others did, afraid of setting him off in one way or other, and the last thing he wanted was for her to start guarding her words. Yuffie wouldn't be Yuffie if she didn't speak her mind. And sentimentality aside, he needed to get used to hearing words that made him think of Zack, and what he himself had done to avoid remembering the sacrifice that kept him alive.
"True enough," he said, relieved that his voice was steady. "But even so, I don't want to give Scarlet any ideas. She has enough of those as it is."
Yuffie grimaced. "That's one bitch I'm sorry we didn't kill." Having lost interest in the apparent failure, she put the dagger back in the box and wandered over to the far wall. "I'll take these shelves."
Cloud made an affirmative noise. He was reading the files again, trying to find a mention of the three-slotted armlet.
Yuffie rolled her eyes at his distraction, but her lips curved in an affectionate smile. There were times when his composure slipped and Cloud seemed so young. She wondered if she was seeing glimpses of the boy who had gone to Nibelheim, the boy Cloud had been before Sephiroth and Hojo got to him, the one who never really got the chance to grow up. She would never ask, not wanting him to withdraw into himself the way he did around Tifa. No, Yuffie had no need to question him. When he acted like an older brother, she treated him like one. When he acted like a younger brother, she treated him like one.
That's what Tifa doesn't understand; you have to take people for what they are, not what you want or imagine them to be. And if you can't do that, then you're a poor excuse for a friend.
She shook her head, dismissing the contemplative line thought. While not half as scatterbrained or thoughtless as Avalanche believed her to be, she didn't like to brood the way Cloud and Vincent did. She was a woman of action and comfortable with the fact. Someone had to be an optimist, after all.
As she reached for the first box, the ground shook, cracking the floor and sending her stumbling into the shelves. The impact was enough to dislodge one of them and Yuffie cursed as it fell down onto the next shelf, setting off a chain reaction that brought all of them to the floor.
"Yuffie!"
She gave a nervous laugh as she glanced at Cloud, ready to apologize, but the worry clear on his face silenced her. Sometimes, knowing how much she mattered to him was humbling.
"Are you okay?"
The smile came easily. "Yeah. The only thing bruised is my ego. Any idea what happened? It was almost as if someone cast a Quake, but we're alone out here."
Cloud shook his head, taking a moment to see for himself that she'd been honest when she said she was uninjured, before he answered. "I'm not sure. The Lifestream runs deep here, so there's no reason for…" He trailed off, eyes focusing on something behind her. Yuffie turned to look, surprised to see a lever on the wall previously hidden by the shelves.
"Any idea what it does?" she asked, already lowering the handle.
Cloud didn't have time to answer before a part of the left wall swung inward, dislodging a lot of dust but moving silently as if the hinges were still regularly oiled.
No expense spared even when you're acting outside Shinra's knowledge. How very like you, Hojo. Cloud smiled wryly. As if there were enough money in the world to make you anything more than an imaginative sadist.
He was suddenly grateful for the familiar weight of Ultima Weapon and Buster Sword at his back. He'd felt a right fool for being unable to leave Zack's sword in Wutai, and even his loyal fluffball of a gold chocobo had given him a plaintive wark at the extra burden, but he just couldn't. Finding this secret within a secret made him wonder if that feeling had been a premonition, not simple paranoia. In either case, their presence reassured him that things had changed – six years ago he could barely wield the Buster Sword and now he carried twice its weight easily. No matter what Hojo left behind, it wouldn't be able to kill him.
You'll do great, Spike, Zack-memory whispered.
Yuffie looked from the doorway to Cloud uncertainly. "I can have look first, see what's there."
He shook his head. "No. If Hojo hid any living experiments, I need to see them for myself, without forewarning. I have to get past that fear."
She gave him a knowing look. "You're planning to go back to Nibelheim, aren't you?"
"I… I want to know exactly what he did to me." Cloud met her eyes steadily. "I'd rather find the files myself than hear the short version from Reno."
"And of course it never occurred to you to let someone else go in your place." Yuffie sighed at the surprise that flitted across his face. "Let's finish this and get out of here, then."
She allowed him to be first through the door, because sometimes there was no arguing with that martyr complex, and he was better than her at close range fighting anyway. But when Cloud froze a few steps into the room she hurried forward to see what had shocked him.
"What in Hades' name is that thing?"
Cloud shook his head mutely, cautiously moving towards the giant stone circle. It felt wrong, somehow. Not as wrong as Jenova had, but similar. Like it didn't belong…
"There's power there," he murmured, ignorant of Yuffie's head snapping around to stare at him. He approached the circle slowly, waiting to see if it would respond to his presence before placing a hand against the cool stone, studying the symbols carved into the smooth surface. "It's not of this world."
Very good, Protector.
Cloud spun around to face the one who'd spoken, startling Yuffie.
"What's wrong?" the ninja demanded, right hand gripping the Conformer. "What do you see?"
Looking at the brown-haired, green-eyed woman robed in green, past her superficial likeness to Aeris, Cloud had to try twice before he found his voice.
"Gaia."
Yes. She smiled at him; gentle, caring, and a bit superior. A mother's smile.
"Gaia?" Yuffie repeated, face pale. "What does she want?"
"I don't know yet," Cloud replied, his eyes directing the same question to the planet.
You did me a great service, Protector. Something even the Cetra failed to. You destroyed the Calamity.
He raised an eyebrow. "That was some time ago. Why bring it up now?"
Gaia regarded him with solemn eyes. You know I am grateful to you. We've spoken of it. She sighed. That is why I regret having to ask more of you.
"More?" Cloud questioned. There seemed to be an awful lot of people wanting favors all of a sudden.
Space is vast and I am not the only planet in it, young one, Gaia explained. We do not talk easily or often, my sisters and I, but we are connected. Many of them are in pain, asleep as I was, unable to wake and heal themselves.
"What could I do?"
"Wait just a minute –" Yuffie began, outraged, but Cloud silenced her with an impatient gesture.
You were long in the Lifestream, Protector. You know it affected you, changed you further than Jenova already had. You can speak with me as only the Cetra could and you can wake my sisters. Wake them and protect them until they are strong again.
"You are going to send me to other planets?" He briefly wondered if he sounded as skeptical as he felt.
Not without consent. Gaia looked rueful. I would prefer to keep you here, so I will not be alone, but that is not for me to decide. You are a puppet no longer, and we cannot force any action upon you.
Cloud considered that, weighing the urge to help against the whisper of Zack that told him never to trust blindly. "Why now? Why is this so urgent now when it wasn't a year ago?"
There are other enemies than Jenova. Lesser beings not of her race but of like mind. Alone they are weak, but they are numerous. Gaia's face twisted into a hateful expression. They have discovered what Shinra did; the strength of the Lifestream. They must be stopped before my sisters are damaged beyond healing.
Cloud hardened his heart against her. "Why should I help them? I have no obligation to other worlds."
A bargain, then. Name your price, and we shall meet it.
He stared at her, at a loss.
Gaia smiled. Your heart speaks clearly even when your mind does not. You will have your reward when my sisters are convinced of your ability.
Cloud looked over at Yuffie, struck by the frustration and apprehension on her face. He owed it to her, to Zack, to himself, to be certain what he was committing to. Forcing himself to set hope aside, he asked, "All you want is for me to wake them?"
Wake them, speak with them, protect them when they are unable.
"And if I do this, you will … I mean, you really can…"
We can, and we will. I promise you, we will keep our bargain.
"How and when do I leave?" Cloud asked simply.
I will open the gate and my sister will receive you. Gaia gestured at the circle. I will give your friend time to leave before I bury these tainted places.
"Will I come back?"
That, young one, Gaia smiled, is up to you.
Cloud nodded and turned to Yuffie. "She wants me to wake her sisters, planets that are being drained of mako and occupied by creatures as evil as Jenova." He gave her a wan smile. "At least they'll be easier to kill than she was."
"Why you?" Yuffie asked, dark eyes intent. "Why does it always have to be you?"
"Last time was my fault, and this time there is only me. No one else can speak to the planets."
"I wanted to believe you were imagining things, or that you were talking to… him, but I knew. Leviathan help me, I knew." Her expression grew resigned. "It wouldn't have mattered if I said anything, would it? You're never going to turn your back on someone who needs you."
"I'll come back," Cloud promised. "I have to do this, but I'll come back. I... You're family to me."
The gate opened; glowing energy exploding toward them before smoothing out to fill the circle.
"You'd better go, Yuffie. Gaia said she will bury the labs once you're outside." He hesitated, then pulled her close, resting his cheek against her hair. "I'm sorry."
She hugged him fiercely before pulling back with a wry smile. "No, brother. I'm sorry."
She twisted out of his grip and even his enhanced reflexes weren't enough to catch her before she dove through the portal.