Chapter 4
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Forty Years Later
Beep. Beep. Beep. A cool tingling sensation in her arm slowly brought Mayla back to consciousness. She hadn't opened her eyes yet, but she could hear the sound of movement all around her, along with what sounded like guns cocking. That doesn't sound so good, she thought groggily to herself, not quite wanting to open her eyes yet and see what was awaiting her. However, the medicine going into her arm was doing a good job of waking her up quickly, so it wasn't more than a minute before she finally opened her golden eyes.
The bright light made her nearly shut them again, but she squinted through to see that she was in the same tank as before. However, she was sounded by a fairly large group of people with guns wearing a uniform that she didn't recognize, and she was definitely not in Hojo's lab. She blinked a few times as her eyes adjusted before looking around. It was a fairly large and well lit room, and off to the side was a black-haired man with a small beard wearing a blue suit. "At ease, men," he commanded, and the soldiers all put their guns down by their side. They still held them at the ready though. He must be their leader, Mayla thought dully to herself, somewhat anxious to know where she was and what was going on.
"I'm going to let you out of that tank now, alright?" the man said to her with a kind smile. "Don't be alarmed, and try not to do anything rash." The winged girl simply nodded and watched as the man typed in a few commands to the computer. Within seconds, the liquid from the tank began to drain away. Mayla staggered and fell back against the glass, her muscles weak from the medication and disuse. Regardless of her initial stumble, she righted herself again fairly quickly and took off her oxygen mask, also gladly removing the IV from her arm.
It was at this point that she finally noticed something very important. She wasn't wearing any clothes. Mayla let out a small scream of surprise, embarrassment, and dismay before quickly trying to cover herself with her hands and wings. Her face turned a deep crimson as she sank down to the bottom of the container in an attempt to further cover and diminish herself.
The man approached the now open tank and silently offered her his suit jacket to cover up with, which she gladly and rather quickly accepted. "Alright men, she seems harmless enough," he told the others behind him. "Go ahead and wait outside while I get this young lady checked up." They all nodded and exited the room as he instructed. "Sorry about that," he said as he turned back to her, smiling kindly once more. "Not all of Hojo's experiments are so harmless, so it was a necessary precaution." He offered his hand to help her out of the tank. "I'm Reeve by the way."
"Mayla," she replied quietly, not looking him in the eye as she accepted his hand to get out of the tank. She was still thoroughly embarrassed about being seen naked by so many people. All of them men at that. "Where am I?"
"You are currently at the WRO headquarters," Reeve replied. She arched an eyebrow at this, but he continued on. "We found you along with several other of Hojo's 'specimens' stored in a hidden underground lab in Midgar. It's a miracle that the place hadn't been destroyed."
"What's the WRO?" Mayla asked slowly, still not really having a clue as to what was going on.
"It stands for World Regenesis Organization. We've been working to rebuild the world after the Meteor incident."
Meteor? What the heck? "… Just how long have I been out for?"
"I'm not sure. Let me find out." Reeve walked back over to the computer and began typing away. After a moment he paused, a look of shock flitting across his features for a second before he turned back to her. "According to the data from your tank, you've been sealed in there for about forty years now."
oooooooooooooooooo
Ring. Ring. A gloved hand reached down and fetched the cell phone out of its holster. "…Hello?"
"Vincent, it's Reeve. Could you come down to the WRO headquarters? I have something that I wish to speak to you about. I already called the others and they should be here soon."
There was a brief silence before the scarlet cloaked man responded. "I'm on my way." He shut his phone and slid it back into its holster before walking off. He had been to visit Lucrecia again, although he did so a lot less often since the incident with Deepground. Still, there was no harm in occasionally paying his respects to the woman he had loved, even if his life had finally moved on now. Reeve's phone call had him concerned though. What could possibly be so important that he would have to tell us in person rather than over the phone? I guess we'll just have to find out.
ooooooooooooooooooo
"So what's this all about?" Yuffie asked impatiently, her arms crossed in front of her. Nearly all of the former members of Avalanche were currently seated around an oval table (except for Vincent, who was standing in the back and Nanaki who was sitting on the floor), waiting to hear why exactly Reeve had called them together once more.
The blue-clad man cleared his throat before answering her question. "I'm sure you all remember quite well the Deepground incident from two years ago." Everyone nodded silently, waiting to see where this was going. "Naturally after the fact investigations were made to see if Shinra had any other 'surprises' hidden somewhere that could pose as a large threat. Nothing was found- until recently." He paused for a split second before continuing. "While looking through the records of human experiments conducted by Shinra scientists, there were a fairly large number of Hojo's that had suddenly been marked as 'failures' and said nothing more. Originally it was assumed that these subjects had been eliminated, but apparently that was not the case."
"So you found a bunch of botched up humans then," Barret interjected. "What does that have to do with us though? Are they a threat?"
"That's what we've been trying to find out," Reeve replied calmly. "Our current plan of action has simply been to release them one by one and see what happens."
"What kindda #$%*& up plan is that?" Cid exclaimed, cigarette nearly falling out of his mouth. "Might as well release a bunch of mini Sephiroths on us!"
"I say just get rid of the things while you can," Yuffie concurred, nodding her head. "There have been enough deaths due to Shinra's creations as it is already."
"These experiments were all prior to the Jenova project," Reeve replied calmly. "I'll admit, our initial reaction was to eliminate them as well, but as three of you here can attest to, not everyone Hojo experimented on turned out for the worse." Nanaki, Cloud, and Vincent stayed silent while Yuffie hung her head guiltily. That had completely slipped her mind.
"So, I take it that you've started letting them out then," Tifa said thoughtfully. "What exactly has happened?"
"We've done four of the 'tamer' looking ones so far. Unfortunately the first three were out of their minds and quite dangerous. They had to be eliminated right away, and I'll admit that it took quite a bit of effort to do so. There were many injuries among the WRO members."
"What about the fourth one?" Vincent asked from his spot in the back of the room.
"She's mentally stable, and as far as we've seen is fairly harmless. We've been keeping a close eye on her just in case, but so far it seems rather unnecessary. Though I'll admit that she was quite a bit shaken to find out how long she had been out for."
"How long?" Yuffie asked curiously.
"Forty years. The girl's actually pretty close to Vincent's age, but she doesn't look a day over twenty."
Cloud decided to finally speak up at this point. "So what exactly is it that you need us here for? I'm sure if you just wanted to fill us in you would have simply called."
Reeve hesitated for a moment. "Well, as I said before, so far we have only released four. The reason that we've halted there is because the others that we found are quite a bit dangerous looking. Frankly, I've asked you here for your help. Several of my men nearly died with just the first three, and I don't think they could handle some of the others by themselves. Once again, although it might be wiser just to dispose of them before hand, there is still the chance that some of these creatures are still sentient and capable of living out a fairly normal life outside of a lab."
"So, you want us as executioners then," Vincent said flatly.
"If you want to put it that way, but really just more as back-up in case things go… awry."
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Forty years… Forty flippin years. What the hell, how can I be fifty-six already! Mayla thought to herself, moaning internally. Reeve had provided her with a small and cozy room in the headquarters (though she didn't miss the fact that there was small camera watching from the corner). She had to admit though that it was a giant improvement from Hojo's lab. She hadn't realized how much she had grown to despise the color white after all that time. The butterfly girl had been quite a bit surprised to see herself in the mirror too. She hadn't aged much during her forty year sleep, but her body did appear to be that of about a twenty year old now. Ok, obviously whatever Hojo did to me has slowed down my aging. So, forty years to ages four years, that's about ten per year. So, for my body to become like a 60 year old will take another… four hundred years. Damn! I'm gunna be old! Provided I die of natural causes anyway, she amended to herself dryly. She folded her wings around her and took a good look at them. Although long since healed, you could still see the scars from the bullet holes if you looked closely enough. Damn Turks and their guns. Such a trigger-happy lot they are…
The ebony-haired woman sighed and lay back on her bed, staring up at the ceiling. I'm going to have a lot to catch up on…
