Installment 3: Ninja's Prospect
"Neo-Materia," the scientist was studying the glowing crystals embedding into the cavern walls, "The knowledge and wisdom of the ancients is held in materia, but these do not hold the knowledge of the Cetra. Instead they hold the force of Jenova. No, of the calamity that fell from the sky. Jenova is only the name given to it by Professor Gast. Old fool..." he reached to touch the bright crystal. It shined brighter than original materia, and had mixtures of different colors and shades to it. He reached for a green magic materia with red stripes running through it.
"Dr. Makira... they're ready," an assistant addressed. The Dr. turned and nodded his head with a devilish smirk across his face. The assistant turned and signaled the workers.
Cloud was leaning against a wall with his arms folded as workers scurried about with tools in hand. Lights were already strung up around the twisting caverns. Workers quickly surrounded the body of the Behemoth that lay in the middle of the bright green river. The river was lined with blood from the beasts' skull, giving off a light red glow. They soon strapped the body into a crane, but were not able to act as the body started to resonate with the glow of the stream. In flash the body scattered into particles of light and was absorbed into the stream as if it were feeding it.
Dr. Makira smirked and started heading to an elevator lift. The workers were left puzzled and confused without an idea of what to do next. Followed by two assistants dressed in pure white lab coats he approached Cloud.
"Mercenary," he addressed; Cloud looked up at him with bored and calm look.
"You may take your leave; Shinra is sending soldiers in your place. The foreman above has your payment."
Cloud walked by without saying a word, but was stopped when the Dr. spoke to him again, "And mercenary one last thing..."
"Please, just Cloud?"
Dr. Makira smirked, "Cloud, tell Tifa to stay close to Denzel. We wouldn't want anything to happen to him, now would we?" Cloud simply stared for a moment, and then walked off into the lift. He reached the ground above taking notice to a young black haired girl with a large shuriken at her hip. She turned and waved with great excitement. A grin managed to escape his cold demeanor as Cloud noticed her bright smile.
"Cloud! I got your message! Barret dropped me off a couple of minutes ago!" she wrapped her arms around his broad yet small shoulders. He pushed her off gently looking into her smile with a cold response, "Where's he at now?"
"He headed into town with Marlene," she pointed to a trail of tire tracks, "but, I didn't come here to talk about Barret." she slipped on a pair of goggles, "What'd you find?"
"New materia, I'm sure you'll like it." Cloud looked around, "Where's that team of Geo-Scientists you had with you,"
"They stayed behind in the Mythril Cave to continue research down there. Besides this is all me..." she started heading toward the gaping hole as Cloud turned toward the foreman.
"My payment," Cloud held out his hand. The foreman looked up from a sheet of paper, "Damn merc," he slammed the money into Clouds hand, "1200 gil, now get lost," the foreman walked off. Cloud walked to his bike, he looked up into the sky. The sun was beaming down, Cloud took a deep breath, "It'll be good to be home for awhile"
