Chapter 6 – Returning.
The door slowly creaked open, jarring the exhausted Tifa from her sleep on Cloud's shoulder, and a red cheeked and dishevelled looking Aerith stumbled through the door, followed closely by Zack, whose hair had also seen better days. Tifa moved to mumble something about their appearance but was swiftly silenced when she noticed the gleam from the ring on Aerith's finger. As she struggled to find adequate words, Cloud simply nodded in quiet respect to his comrade and offered his congratulations to Aerith, who was herself struggling to form sentences. Elmrya had offered them all some celebratory drinks and tried to calm Aerith down a little, but nothing would help. It soon became apparent that there weren't enough beds to go around, so Cloud and Tifa eventually bid the young lovers goodbye and made their way to the local inn, their temporary accommodation at Shinra Tower being neither appealing or practical. Tifa had partaken of one too many celebratory drinks, and as such the journey was a little more fraught with danger than absolutely necessary.
The next morning came all too soon for Zack, who couldn't bring himself to look at the message waiting on his phone right away, too busy enjoying the tranquillity in the arms of his fiancée that he had more than earned. Rolling out of bed and reaching for his phone on the nightstand, he flicked it open and sighed. The message was a demand to report to Shinra Tower immediately. So much for time off to rest and relax. Aerith stirred next to him as he pulled on his boots, still bleary eyed and paying the consequences for her celebrations the night before.
"I'm sorry about this. I'm supposed to be on vacation, I know. Trust me, unless this is of life-or-death importance, I'll be busting some skulls in for this." he muttered, trying in vain to get his hair to look presentable again.
"I'm sure it's something important. Don't worry. Go. They must need you."
"I'll be back as quick as I can."
With that he gave his fiancée a kiss goodbye, and shuffled down the stairs still muttering various curses about various higher-ups within the company. She heard the familiar sound of his sword being returned to the straps on his back, and he was gone. She rolled over and stared at the shining band on her finger, knowing that it hadn't just been a wonderful dream.
Shinra Tower was surprisingly quiet when the two Soldiers arrived, neither looking especially happy or even awake. Cloud had finally adjusted to his new uniform and was no longer fidgeting as they made their way up to the Soldier floor of the tower, still trying and failing to shake off the after-effects of recent events. Tseng was waiting for them when the elevator finally came to a stop, his suit immaculate as always, made all the more apparent by the Soldier's uniforms being in somewhat poor condition.
"Good morning gentlemen. I trust you slept well?" he said, his voice as cold and emotionless as the early morning mist.
"Tseng, this had better be important. You have no idea what you just interrupted." Zack grumbled.
"Sorry for having to cut your vacation so short, but this is critical. We've got one final mission we need the two of you to attend to before we can all relax. You know things are tense here. Believe me, if there were any other way, we would have taken it."
"Just get to the point so I can get out of here, please."
Tseng smirked and led them to the briefing room at the end of the corridor. He knew exactly what was going on. It was common knowledge that Zack had requested a large credit transfer and gone to see Aerith shortly afterwards. It didn't take a genius to put two and two together. And even if it did take a genius, Tseng happened to be one anyway. The automatic doors slid open and the holographic display sprang to life, displaying an all too familiar image.
"Genesis. So you found him then. Save your explanations, you want me to go take him out, right? So he doesn't blow the cover story, threaten company stability, or do anything drastic to any more Shinra executives. I'll get my gear."
"You're correct, Zack. Our Intel department has located former Soldier Genesis, and we need him eliminated. You're to take Cloud with you for observational training, find Genesis, and take him out. By professor Hojo's calculations his degeneration should be nearing critical levels. If he is planning an assault against us, he'll have to make his move soon. We'd rather take him out quietly to avoid yet another public relations disaster."
"Where exactly are we heading?"
"Gongaga, actually. Reports stated he was in the area checking out the new reactor site, maybe planning to sabotage it. We've got teams on standby close by in case anything does go wrong with the reactor, but they'd be no match for him. We need experience on this mission, Zack. Besides, we thought you'd appreciate the chance to tell your parents the good news."
Zack glanced over at Cloud as he concentrated unerringly on Tseng's every word. "No offence to Cloud here, but if it's that dangerous shouldn't his training wait a while? I can't be fighting at my best if I have to watch his back too. No offence, Cloud. But Tseng's right, only a trained Soldier could take on Genesis and live."
Cloud knitted his hands together and looked over at Tseng, his eyes aglow with focus and a confidence he had lacked until recently. "I'm guessing I'm more of a supporting role, helping with the evacuations and dealing with any lesser threats while you take on Genesis."
Tseng nodded in admiration. "Correct, Cloud. It wouldn't be wise for you to take on Genesis until your training is complete. You're tagging along mostly to observe, learn, and support as necessary. Chances for field training like this don't come up very often."
Zack nodded his understanding and downloaded the mission profile onto his phone to study on the journey to Gongaga. "What about Cloud's equipment? I haven't even started training him on weapon and materia use yet."
"We've got the standard stuff waiting in the storage room. Standard Soldier sword, a few materia to choose from. It'll have to be on the job learning, but then he shouldn't be in much danger anyway. As far as our agents could see, the only hostile element in the region was Genesis himself. I'm sure he can handle a few fiends without any assistance. Anything else you need before we set off?"
"Just a word in private."
Cloud slipped off to the storage room to collect his new equipment, and Zack locked the door behind him. He took a deep breath and turned to face Tseng, who stood still and silent by the holographic display.
"Aerith said she was being followed while I was away. You know anything about it?"
"She's an Ancient, Zack. Probably the last. She is of great interest to Hojo. The men following her are under my command. I wanted to make sure she was safe for you. I know you care for her, Zack. Trust me, she won't come to harm as long as I have anything to say about it."
"Just make sure Hojo stays away from her. I'm not having her dissected in his lab so he can make another Sephiroth. This company has done terrible things to innocent people, Tseng. I'm starting to wonder if I'm in the right place."
"You joined Soldier because you wanted to be a hero. So ask yourself. Are you a hero? You made First Class, but there's more to being a hero than badges and rank. Sephiroth was a hero to many. But were his actions in those final hours heroic? While you're away, take a long look at what you think a hero is, Zack. I'll keep an eye on your fiancée while I wait for your answer."
Cloud withdrew the long steel sword from the storage unit on the wall, gazing at it silently. This was the real mark of a Soldier. Grunts were only given assault rifles, tasked with spraying bullets indiscriminately at whatever their superiors wanted dead. Soldiers were more efficient, given weapons which required skill and precision. Most of those who made it as far as First Class chose their own weapon to best suit their needs, not to mention add their own style to the many news articles published about their deeds. Cloud had dreamed of having a sword like this ever since he was a boy, growing up in Nibelhiem, swinging around a stick, pretending he was a great hero like Sephiroth.
He gripped the blade with both hands and swung it like had the stick all those years ago. The blade was surprisingly light and easy to use, cutting the air like it was just a stick. He dodged and weaved as he fought the imaginary fiends that had been defeated many times in his youth, the sword becoming like an extension of his arm. It felt natural. It felt right. More so than any rifle ever had. He was born to wield a sword.
He swung again and shockwaves pulsed down the blade as it impacted with an identical copy, held aloft by Zack, a smile on his face.
"Looks like you understand the basics. At least I won't have to babysit you."
Cloud lowered his sword and placed it in the straps on the back of his uniform before reaching into the locker to retrieve the small brown package inside. Four faintly glowing spheres awaited within, the basic starter set for amateur materia users. He already knew what they were. Fire, ice, lightning and the healing magic Zack had used back in Nibelhiem. He had studied materia use before, but had never actually been given any. Materia were far too rare and valuable to give away to mere grunts, after all.
"Just hold it in your hand, focus all your thoughts on it, will the magic to come, and it will. It takes some getting used to, but there's plenty of time, we can practise on the way. Anything you wanna ask before we set off on your first official mission?"
Cloud paused and thought for a few moments.
"Yeah. Can you teach me how to do that spinning trick you do with your sword?"
Gongaga was a small village, south of the Golden Saucer amusement park on the western continent, buried deep within the forest. Shinra had discovered that the trees grew exceptionally tall there thanks to an unusually high concentration of mako energy in the soil, and had of course decided to build a reactor there. The locals hadn't been too thrilled at first, preferring to stay with their simple lives. But Shinra had eventually convinced them to allow construction to begin. Most of the building work was in the final stages, with the reactor due to be brought online in a few months. Still absent the eerie green glow of the other reactors around the world, the cranes and other machines could be seen from far away, towering over even the tallest trees.
The Shinra troop transport, dropped close to their target by airship earlier that day, carrying the two Soldiers and the last of the extraction team sent to assist any necessary rescue operations came to a halt at the edge of the forest, its passengers disembarking and stretching their limbs out of entropy. The extraction team had been ordered to stand by somewhere close, just in case anything went wrong, while Zack searched for the rogue Soldier Genesis.
"Cloud, you're with me. You won't learn much staying on the sidelines. Just stay out of trouble if you can, OK?"
Checking their equipment one last time, making sure their weapons were sharp and ready, the Soldiers ventured forth into the forest, the path through the trees strangely quiet in the early afternoon. A soft breeze wound through the trees, now starting to lose their leaves as winter approached. Zack took the lead, the colossal Buster Sword resting on his back, with Cloud following close behind.
"So this is your home town, Zack?"
"Sure is. I'm a country boy, just like you. That's the village up ahead. Look, I hope you don't mind but I'm gonna kinda disobey orders here and drop in to see my folks before I go to the reactor. They'll never know."
As they entered the village, the handful of people going about their daily tasks barely even looked up. Shinra people on Shinra business. Nothing to do with them. Zack barely recognised any of them. He had been away for years, so it was hardly surprising. The village seemed mostly unchanged. Stone huts, simple wooden bridges stretching over the shallow stream, farmers tending their fields on the outskirts. Simple country life. Just the way he remembered it. His home was just the way he remembered it too. The mishmash of different colours in the bricks, the dark grass growing by the door, everything was exactly how he left it all those years ago. He opened the door and edged gently inside, Cloud waiting just outside.
"Mom? Dad? I'm home. Anyone here?"
A woman came rushing in from the back room, her face flustered, stunned rigid at the sight of her son, now grown to a man. She began to cry, tears of joy streaming down her cheeks as she embraced her only child for the first time in years.
Although her head felt like it was about to implode, Tifa endeavoured to drag herself out of bed. She missed Cloud already. Everything sank in as she realised she had no plans. Nowhere to go, no job, no family. Her first day of a new life had left her feeling hollow. She had never been to Midgar before, and the big city was more than a little overwhelming. Where should she start looking for her future? How do you begin a new life without even the ashes of the old to build upon?
A knock at the door jarred her from her contemplation. Must just be the inn staff. Cloud wouldn't be back for hours at the earliest. Off on his first mission as a Soldier. She staggered to the door, still woozy from the events of the last couple of days combined with the excessive consumption of alcohol the night before. The scar across her midriff ached, but to their credit the Shinra medics had done a good job making it as invisible as possible. Wrapping her jacket closer around her, she opened the solid wooden door to have her suspicions confirmed. The innkeeper stood in his pastel suit, waiting patiently with a smile.
"Ms Lockhart, there is a messenger here for you from Shinra, he requests the pleasure of your company."
Oh joy. More interviews, no doubt. More trouble. More medicals. More heartbreak. Still, since there was little else to do she may as well hear him out. She simply nodded to the innkeeper as he smiled and went about his duties, made her way down to reception with a sigh and mentally prepared herself for more bad news.
The suited man stood waiting for her was not exactly what she had been expecting. His wild red hair presented an air of mischief that clashed badly with his tailored suit and polished boots. His smirk only made things worse. He looked like an accountant that dreamed of a career in rock music. Despite being an emissary for his company, his attitude was one of relaxed flirtatious fun.
"Morning. Got a message for ya from the boss. Asked me to tell you your funding has been set up. Here, this card's got pretty much no limit. Doesn't bring your town or your family back, but at least you'll have all the comforts."
With that the young man handed her a credit card, which she slipped into a pocket on her shorts, resting her hands on her hips as she stared back at him. She couldn't shake the feeling that he was checking her out. "Is that all?"
"Officially, yeah. The director asked me to check up on you in an unofficial sense too, to be honest. There must be a lot you wanna ask. I can't answer everything, of course. But if there's anything you wanna ask..?"
Tifa looked upon the red haired man and couldn't help but wonder what his angle was. Still, what was there to lose at this point?
"What do I do now?"
The young man sighed. He knew this was coming. He could see the hate in her eyes. And he didn't blame her. After everything the company had done to her, the president himself should have been the one coming down to beg her forgiveness.
"I know you've lost a lot. What I'd do is look at this as a fresh start. I know that doesn't help but you've got no limits now. That card can't be maxed, we'll cover any expenses you encounter. You can go anywhere. Live wherever you want, do whatever you want. That's gotta count for something. We can't ever make up for what we did to you and everyone else, money can't fix things like this. But at least you can be comfortable while you figure it all out."
With that he flicked the red hair out of his eyes and made to leave, stopping briefly at the door to offer her a smile, and left her to her thoughts.
Gongaga was perfectly peaceful, considering he had been sent there on a supposedly dangerous mission. Cloud took a deep breath, enjoying the taste of the country air, feeling the breeze on his face, thrilled that he no longer had to keep his face hidden under his old grunt helmet. He looked around to see the simple country life he had come from. Zack had been right, this was a lot like Nibelhiem had been. Simple folk with simple lives. Farmers tending their crops. Kids playing in the stream running by the house. Animals going about their business in the forest on the outskirts of town.
He tried to stay vigilant. Zack had told him to keep watch. So while his uniform might be a little more snappy, his duties were much the same so far. He kept a watchful eye on every action taken around him. His hearing was surprisingly acute after years of trying to hear what was going on through the thick padding of his helmet. He kept his hand close to the sword on his back, ready for action if he was needed.
A scream from the edge of town split the calm, and Cloud drew his sword on pure reflex. He peered round the edge of the Fair family home to see the source of the commotion. Several small children were running into town, one young man with a cut above his eye. A swarm of emerald bugs the size of motorbikes charged into town behind them, likely disturbed in some way by the children playing in the forest, the hum of their wings sending the villagers running for cover. Cloud knocked on the door and called for his companion.
"Zack, Kimara bugs are attacking the villagers. I'm going in."
With that he charged towards the swarm, sword raised, ready for action. He ran the tip of his index finger across the glowing green materia placed carefully in the hilt of his sword, focussing his thoughts on the power contained within as Zack had told him. Feeling a tingle in his hand, he saw in his mind's eye the power of the Ancients coming to his aid, and before his eyes the air surrounding his initial target began to solidify. The power of magic drained the heat from his enemy, chilling it to the bone as pure white crystals began to form around it. As the bug tried turning to face him, it froze solid, and was sent crashing to the ground, its wings not designed for lifting solid blocks of ice. As he passed his target on his way towards the swarm, Cloud swung his new sword and smashed the block of ice into a thousand pieces, sending fragments of what was once a fiend to the four winds.
The swarm took notice of their fallen comrade and several of them broke off from the attack on the villagers, surging towards him as he readied himself for further combat. The leader of the formation spat its sticky web towards him, but years of battle as a grunt had taught Cloud how to survive. He dodged to the side and slashed at his attacker, his razor sharp blade splitting flesh and bone with no effort at all. The fiend impacted with the floor with enough force to kick up a dust cloud, its blood staining the ground as it breathed its last. Another fiend came in on the attack, raking at Cloud's exposed arm with its sharp mandibles. His reflexes proved more than a match for the simple intellect of the bug as he ducked under the attack, the chitinous mass impacting harmlessly on his protected shoulder as the cold steel of a Soldier's sword was thrust deep into the underbelly of the ill-fated attacker.
As the main group approached the village, a flash of light sparked into being in the centre of their formation, and deadly chain lightning leapt between them, scorching flesh and boiling blood, sending the entire group to the next world in agonising pain for their final moments. Cloud turned to see his comrade Zack holding one of his own materia, the eerie green glow refracting off the polished silver of his sword, making the grin on his face look a little sinister. He charged into the fray, leaping through the air like gravity held no sway on him. Bright blue energy surged around his mighty blade as he sent it slamming into the ground. The energy waves coalesced into a brilliant blue bolt of pure power, ripping through a line of his foes, obliterating them entirely. As the energy wave dissipated, it send out smaller shockwaves into anything close by, stunning another group of fiends just long enough for Zack to slice them to ribbons.
The attack halted, the fiend numbers decimated within moments. The few that remained may not have been the smartest creatures, but even they knew when they were doomed. Turning for the forest, they flew as fast as their wings could carry them, escaping to fight another day. Cloud looked to his friend, but Zack merely shook his head. It wasn't worth pursuing them.
Cloud wiped the blood and ichor from his sword with a small rag kept in a pouch on his belt, and returned the blade to its sheath. Surveying the scene, he saw that casualties amongst the townspeople were limited to mere cuts and bruises. Zack knelt by the child with a cut above his eye, the familiar emerald glow of his healing magic billowing forth from his palms, flowing into the open wound, binding flesh and skin back together again. The young boy smiled at him, and ran to his family. His mother stood by the family home, smiling at the dark haired Soldier she remembered as a youngster much the same as her own offspring many years ago. Quiet returned to the forest town as people returned to their business, tending their fields.
Zack looked towards the towering fist of steel beams deep within the forest that was the reactor under construction. Genesis has to be there. It was the only target of any value in the area. Gongaga was an unremarkable town in the grand scheme of things. The people were simple farmers, the town held no real strategic location on any map. Its only point of interest to the wider world was the rich veins of mako energy pooling beneath the town, which the reactor was to draw out as an energy source. Genesis' ultimate goal was to halt his degeneration, or at the very least cause as much chaos as possible towards those who had inflicted it upon him. Either way, the reactor was his destination.
He stood atop a flat-topped tree trunk in the town centre and called for attention. The villagers eyed him suspiciously for a few moments, but many recognised his flowing dark hair from years ago, remembering that he was one of their own. A small crowd gathered around him, some drawn by loyalty to the town and all who were raised there, others by sheer curiosity at what a Shinra Soldier could possibly want.
"We have reason to suspect that the reactor is under attack. It may be nothing, but if the reactor is compromised, it could cause a disaster. For your own safety, Shinra troops are on standby on the outskirts of the town to assist in your evacuation. Carry only what you need, and make your way to the edge of the forest until this has been dealt with. My colleague and I have been sent here to investigate and deal with the problem. We'll be as quick as we can. You'll be back home in no time, but for now it'd be best if you get out of here, just in case."
With that Zack leapt down from the stump and signalled for the extraction teams to do their jobs. He beckoned Cloud over and looked again upon the reactor, a frown creeping across his usually cheery expression.
"I need you to help get everyone out of here. These extraction guys aren't exactly combat experts. If those fiends come back then it could be all sorts of trouble. Keep an eye on my folks for me, ok?"
Cloud nodded solemnly, reading between the lines and the hidden truths in his friend's eyes. The extraction teams were capable enough, certainly able to repel a few measly fiends. Zack felt the need to face Genesis alone. After all, they were the last of the First Class Soldiers of old. The trifecta of Genesis, Angeal and Sephiroth had been the very core of Shinra's military might, with Zack trailing behind until Angeal's death. The scar on his cheek seemed to burn at the memories, but Zack had to press on. After this, it could all be over. He would be free to settle down with Aerith, with no more worries. Without any further words between them, Zack moved down the forest path that led to the construction site, his heart as heavy as his sword at what was surely to come.
