Pain and darkness. These were not unfamiliar. What he had not expected was his brother's face, blue eyes open and alight, mouth smiling.

"Weiss!" Nero shouted, stumbling forward. "Weiss!"

His brother did not answer, only watched as Nero staggered toward him.

"Together at last," Nero gasped, collapsing against him. "I won't leave you again. Never, Weiss…"

Weiss' smile turned cruel. Nero gagged on the sudden surge of pain, vomiting acid into his mask as Weiss' fist rammed into his stomach. Cracked ribs splintered, and Nero sagged in his brother's grip.

"Weiss?" he croaked, pleading. Weiss stared down at him coldly. Releasing his hold, he let Nero drop to the floor.

"I'm finished with you."

Nero held up one hand, reaching for him, but darkness swam before his eyes, blotting out the scene.

"Weiss!" he screamed, "WEISS!"

Nero started awake, body convulsing painfully as he coughed. Around him the mako lapped cool and purple-black, deep and silent as the sea. Rather, he imagined the sea to be deep and silent. It was as fathomless as the mako pool, but salty. The comparison probably wasn't that far off.

He didn't remember warping down here. He must have done so instinctively after the battle with the...creature. At first he'd thought it was the man in the red cloak, the man with his face. But no, the cape had actually been a pair of folded wings, and a creature with a crest, and claws, and a face like death had attacked him. Nero had never lost to anyone but Weiss or Rosso before. It was not a feeling he enjoyed. He assumed he must have lost because he was injured and hiding in his mako pool in the caverns far below the lowest point in Deepground. Even the Restrictors did not know about his secret hiding place. He was safe here, free to rest and recover until he could fight again.

It had been a dream. Only a dream. Weiss had never been cruel to him before, there was no reason for him to start now. Weiss had been hurt too, hurt by the demon creature, as had Rosso. If ever he crossed paths with it again, Nero vowed that this time, it would be the demon cowering in pain and not himself. Or it would be, as soon as every indrawn breath stopped hurting.

There was no ceiling left to their bedroom. Indeed, there was no roof left to the barracks at all. Virtually everything was gone. There were a few rooms still intact, but even these had suffered incredible damage. Even from such a low vantage, he could look down into the smouldering pit that had once been a hub of activity around Reactor Zero. The reactor was gone too. Overhead, above the smoke and mist of trapped moisture, the sun hung stark and too bright like a bare lightbulb in an empty room.

Nero squinted up at it, feeling that Azul have oversold it somewhat. It hurt his eyes even if he looked away. Rather than squint at the sad remains of his home, Nero slipped into the nearest shadow. Nero didn't dare try to warp somewhere. It would be a bad idea to try to appear in place that might not exist anymore. Instead, he wandered through the darkness, trying to find familiar slivers of light, slices of paint color, or hints of specific furniture, but most of these keyholes into the world of light and mass had vanished. Nero could only assume they had been crushed by the fallen reactor.

There didn't seem to be anyone or anything down in the crater. The reactor was gone, perhaps the mainframes had gone with it? Deepground had been vast. Azul had told him once that the city beneath the ground was every bit as large as the one above. If that were true, it might be possible to widen his search without risking setting off his microchip. Unconsciously, Nero rubbed at the nape of his neck with one hand. He'd had the little bit of wire and plastic for as long as he could remember. Every Deepground citizen had had one, from the Tsviets all the way down to the Mothers and children. Should anyone wander past the borders, the chip would detonate, killing its bearer instantly. Nero had often wondered if his shadows would allow him to escape without tripping the chip's detonator, but he'd never been brave enough to test it. There was, unfortunately, only one way to find out.

If this was freedom, Nero wanted no part of it. Lost and alone, he stumbled from shadow to shadow in a desperate attempt to escape the constant light, the ceaseless noise. There were so many people on the surface, yet none of them were Weiss or Rosso, or Azul or Argento. Azul had once lived on the surface, he would know how to get along up here. Behind the Restrictor's backs he had told them about the sun, the wind and fresh breezes that blew in from the sea, carrying the taste and the scent of salt. Azul had grown up in Costa Del Sol; a place in Nero's mind that was one-third, yellow sand, one-third blue sky, and one-third blue ocean. However, this wasn't Costa Del Sol, this was Midgar, and it was nothing like the surface Nero had constructed in his imagination from Azul's words. It was, to say the least, somewhat disappointing.

After days without food and precious little water, Nero had to admit that he hadn't any idea what he was doing. He had vague memories of outdoor survival training, but most of that had involved exactly what he was doing now: how to keep from being seen, and to keep from dying of exposure. There hadn't been terribly much about how to keep oneself fed by any other method but killing monsters, and there weren't any monsters around here. He had no need to build a shelter, he had the shadows in which to hide and to sleep. The darkness was the safest place for him. Even in Deepground, those fresh from the surface had been terrified of him, and so Nero took great care not to let anyone see him. Asking for help would do nothing but provoke a panic, perhaps even an attack. Unless he could find the others, he would have to do this on his own.

In Deepground, there had been people to look after himself, Weiss, and Rosso when they were young: nurses, tutors, and later drill sergeants and commanding officers. Although they'd all become officers in their own right, there had always been people to take care of them. Yes, they'd had to keep their rooms and uniforms neat and maintain their weapons, but outside of that, none of them had any real idea how to care for themselves. Fending for oneself was turning out to be infinitely harder than Nero had ever thought possible.

Had Weiss and Rosso been with him, it might not have been so hard. They'd been separated during the final battle, though the details were foggy in Nero's mind. Nero didn't mind that Deepground was gone. He would not miss the Restrictors, or the Punishment Pole, or watching his brother and sister be hurt because of him. What he hadn't counted on was the loneliness, the sheer desperation of being on his own.

Azul was gone, as was Argento. What had become of Weiss and Rosso, he had no idea. He looked for them even as he looked for food, for bits and pieces to repair his suit and mask, for anything that might be useful. He had no money, not that he could have wandered into a store to buy anything. Everyone knew him as an unholy freak of nature, a demon from the underworld thirst for human blood. Nero wasn't quite that hungry yet, but the knowledge that it was a possibility ate away at him from inside.

There was a routine, he learned, a rhythm to the way things happened on the surface. The city never truly went to sleep, but most people did their business by the light of the sun. They brought things in, used them, and put what they didn't need outside in metal or plastic bins. Some of these were quite large. Some of them, they put food inside. Almost as soon as they did, Nero took it out again. How anyone could want to throw it away was beyond him. It was delicious! It reminded him of the times he'd raided the Mothers' garden and shared his ill-gotten gains with Weiss and Rosso.

Weiss, Rosso, Azul, and Argento… They had to be around here someplace. Perhaps they too had gotten out. Then again, perhaps they'd be buried and trapped, unable to get out. Most of the common areas had been crushed, or badly compromised structurally. Going through all their hiding places was taking longer. There were so many, he'd never stopped to think about how many bolt holes and safe corners they'd managed to find down there; places the Restrictors could not see. The only problem was that with everything collapsed, Nero couldn't see either.

He could see a fair bit from up here. Many of the houses had flat roofs, with high ledges that made a nice bench to sit on. Most people up here went to sleep when the sun went down, but it was impossible for Nero to function during daylight hours. There was too much risk of being seen, and the bright light hurt his eyes. Rather than watch the sun go down, he watched it come up. One of the delivery men had caught sight of him and dropped the food he'd been carrying- something called 'pizza'- and run. Nero has salvaged the box and eaten what was inside. It was easily the best thing about the surface so far. Over the edge of the jagged horizon of rooftops and chimneys, the sun was climbing higher and higher into the sky, staining it red and gold and orange. Rosso would love this. She loved colors. He would find her soon, and they could all watch the sun together. Azul could teach them how life up here worked. It'd all be okay, just as soon as he found them again.

"Sable?"

Nero jumped and looked down, prepared to dive into shadow. No one called him that except the troops, and all his troops were- wait.

"Dixon?"

"Good gods, it is you!" she exclaimed, looking up at him in open-mouthed shock. "The hell're you doin' up here?"

"Watching the sun," he told her honestly.

Nero slid into shadow, alighting in front of her. She was fatter than the last time he'd seen her, and wearing a uniform of soft gray. A second soldier stood at her elbow, staring at him in undisguised terror.

"Jameson, this's Sable, my old CO," Dixon said by way of an introduction.

"Hello," Jameson said rather blankly.

"Hello," Nero replied, nodding politely. Turning to Dixon, he asked: "What are you doing here?"

"Walkin' patrol. Got a job." He tried not to fidget as she looked him over.

"You're a mess," she announced. "Where you stayin'?"

He shrugged and gestured vaguely at the rapidly fading shadows.

"When's the last time you ate?"

"I had pizza?" From the look on her face, it was obvious she disapproved.

"Guess it's true about some men," she mumbled, mostly to herself. "Helpless on their own."

Nero felt this was a bit unfair. After all, she had come from the surface, he had not.

"C'mon with us," Dixon offered. "I work for the WRO now. They'll see you get a fair shake. Bet they'll have a spot for you too."

"Do you think they would know where Weiss and Rosso are?"

"They ain't with you?"

He shook his head. "No."

"Yeah, they'd probably know. Even if they don't, they'll probably be able to help you find them."

"Okay."

"C'mon," she said, smiling. "You come with us."

Feeling as if he'd found a friend at last, Nero fell into step with her, walking toward the heart of the city. His own shadow loomed before him in the light of the new sun, pointing the way. With any luck, it would lead him to his family.