Chapter 9: Shroud of the Fallen Angel

"I think they were caught by the Shinra," Barret grumbled.

Cloud paced back and forth in front of the elevator on the 66th floor. Red was lying on the floor next to the chair Barret had planted himself in. The big man's leg was bobbing up and down; if he had been up, he would have been pacing, too.

"We can't be sure," the ex-SOLDIER said, stopping to look out the window. Had they already left? Maybe they were at Aerith's house, waiting for them. "We're sure to run into them. They wouldn't leave without us." Would they? Cloud was sure he was capable of escaping the Shinra Tower on his own, and both Barret and Red had proven themselves more than capable.

The elevator light flicked on, and a shrill ping signaled the arrival of the elevator on the 66th floor. Cloud turned to face it, and was more than ready to chew on Tifa for a minute or two, but his open mouth met up with a hard right hook.

Rude cracked his knuckles and stared down at Cloud. The ex-SOLDIER's world was filled with bright silver spots that danced in front of his face. "Was it fun for you?" the bald Turk asked. He wore the same dark blue suit all Turks wore, but his was neat and trimmed, right down to the carefully folded cloth in his breast pocket. Cloud thought Reno actually used his to blow his nose.

Tseng stood behind Rude, who had pulled a gun on Barret and Red. "It's hard to imagine a bunch of shit heads like you have gotten into the Shinra Tower like this," Tseng said, his voice dripping with acid. "But the tour ends here. The president is anxious to meet with you all."


Cloud and the others were led single-file up to the stairs to the top floor of the Shinra Tower, where President Shinra himself sat behind the huge steel desk that ran in a semi-circle almost across the entire room. Tifa was already in front of the desk with her hands lashed behind her back and a sour look on her face. "You got caught too, huh?" she asked, wincing.

"Where's Aerith?" Cloud snapped at the president. Mopping his bald head, President Shinra shrugged and stood up out of his seat. "In a safe place."

He shuffled around to the other side of the desk, a smug smile on his face. "She's a very special girl, you know. The last of the Ancients. It is her that will lead us to the Promised Land."

"Dream on!" Barret roared, spitting at the president. "What the hell's the Shinra gonna do when they find the Promised Land anyway?!"

Red was about to speak, but the president started instead. "The Promised Land…is the resting place of the Ancients. Or rather, the Cetra," he added, nodding a head to Red. If the crimson beast was startled in any way, he didn't show it. "That girl will lead us to the Promised Land, a land with boundless amounts of Spirit Energy."

Barret's eyes shot to the size of dinner plates. "If there's Spirit Energy," he muttered, "then…there's gotta be Mako! Good God, there's gotta be tons of it!"

Turning to face the big man, President Shinra smiled and nodded, folding his hands behind his back. "Correct. And that is where Neo Midgar will be built, the pride of the Shinra!" A bright gleam lit up his eyes, and Cloud scowled. Either he's real sure of himself, or the thought of all that Mako's made him just wacko.

"Our meeting is over," the president said, beckoning to the back of the room. Rude and Tseng shuffled AVALANCHE out of the president's office and stuffed them into the elevator. "Wait just a goddamn minute! I got a lot more to say to you!" Barret roared. But the elevator cut him off.

President Shinra watched the sleek doors close, and stuffed his hands down into his pockets. The Promised Land…even if it is a legend, well…legends have to begin somewhere, right? His low, bellowing laughter filled the entire building, and he did not stop until the tears were freely flowing down his face.


Cloud was pacing again, this time in the tiny cell he and Tifa shared. She was lying on the bed, half-asleep and staring at the ceiling blankly, to keep Cloud's pacing from making her a nervous wreck. The ex-SOLDIER finally gave up, throwing his hands into the air and dropping to the floor. He sat up against the wall and let the cold steel sink into his skin. It felt good; this building was too warm. The entire city was too warm, thanks to the blanket of smog that hung over it.

"Think we can get out of here?" Tifa asked suddenly. Cloud shrugged, and leaned his head back against the wall.

In the cell next to them, Barret and Red sat staring at their reflections on the wall silently. It was the big man, though, who first broke the silence.

"Yo," he began, and Red looked up. "Aerith is an Ancient, and the real name of the Ancients is the Cetra. Is that right?" Red shrugged. "I don't know too much 'bout all that…I only heard about it in stories an' stuff. But what I do know is that I can't, hell, I won't let the Shinra take it!"

Barret jumped to his feet. "Yeah! I'm recruitin' new members for AVALANCHE! Me, Tifa, Cloud, an' Aerith!" He lowered his arms and looked down at Red. "How 'bout you?"

Sighing, Red lied back down and twitched his tail. Barret's enthusiasm fled, and he dropped back onto the floor. "You're so damn boring," the big man grumbled.

On the far side of Barret's cell, Aerith sat on her cot and played with the end of her braid. She wished sometimes that she wasn't an Ancient; or at least, the last one on the face of the earth. Always running and hiding from the Shinra. It was simply no way to live a life. She wanted to live quietly, maybe find a nice boy like Cloud and settle down. Only it seemed Cloud wasn't too fond of staying in one place for too long; she even heard him pacing next to her cell in his own.

Her mind wandered, and she began to think of Tifa. She was nice, and they had gotten along well enough. And she had known Cloud far longer than Aerith. But she also wanted to be with Cloud. Aerith didn't hate her for that; she could hardly help how she felt. It still gnawed at her, though.

Aerith sighed. Why'd she have to fall in love with the boys that caused her trouble? Cloud was a lot like Zack, in that respect. Another sigh escaped her lips; she wondered a lot where Zack was. Cloud was too much like him for comfort. Maybe she saw her old boyfriend in Cloud, and that was why she liked him so much. If that was it, she decided, she was just being silly. You can't relive the past, she told herself. "Mother…what am I going to do now?"

"Aerith? Is that you?"

Aerith snapped up off her cot and pressed her ear to the wall. "Cloud? Is that you? Oh, I'm so glad you're all right!"

"Hey, I'm your bodyguard, right?" Cloud said with a chuckle. That was surprising; Aerith had never heard him laugh before. Shrugging, she shut her eyes and leaned up against the wall. "And…the deal was for one date, right?"

"Oh, I see how it is," another voice said bitterly.

Aerith nearly choked on her tongue, and she jumped back from the wall. "Tifa! Is that you?"

"Excuse me," Tifa said through her teeth. Aerith was glad the wall was there to hide the red that bloomed in her face. Even so, she took another step back and turned away. "Aerith, I have a question," Tifa added after clearing her throat. "Where is the Promised Land? Does it really exist?"

"I don't know for sure," Aerith said, surprised at how level her voice was. "All I know is…the Cetra are one with the Planet, speak with the Planet, and will unlock the Planet."

She was sure that produced some confused looks and befuddled blinks. "Well, what does that mean?" she heard Cloud ask. Aerith shrugged and sat back down on her cot. "I'm not sure," she whispered. "The only person who might is my mother, and she's been dead a long time. I used to speak with her spirit, in the church."

"What does she say now?" Tifa asked. The creaking springs said she had also gone back onto her flimsy bed.

"The only place I could hear her was at the church," Aerith said back. "The rest of the city is noisy, and crowded. She said to me, though…that someday, I'd get out of Midgar and find my Promised Land." After which, she was silent.

In the opposite cell, Red stared at the reflections on the wall and blinked. The cold fire in his eyes was gone, replaced by a soft, placid look. As he watched himself in the mirror, he could see the reflections of his past stare back at him. Grandfather…

"Grandpa, huh?" Barret said, chuckling. Red's heart leaped up into his throat. Had he been thinking aloud? He turned to Barret and tried his best to appear calm? "What's so funny?" he asked.

"Nothin'," the big man said with a smile still on his face.

Cloud listened to Barret and Red for as long as he could. Eventually, sleep overcame him.


Help me…free me…now, wake up!

Cloud's eyes snapped open and he nearly choked on his own heart as it flew up into his throat. After settling himself, the ex-SOLDIER got back to his feet and stretched. Hard steel floors were not meant to be slept on, he thought as he worked a cramp out of his back. Still, the breeze from the door was nice. Wait a second, breeze? Cloud looked to see the cell door wide open.

Moving almost completely silently, the ex-SOLDIER stalked to the doorway and peered outside. He almost lost what little food the guards had given him when saw the still-fresh corpse of the guard lying in a pile on his chair. It might as well have been a pile, anyway; he was covered in deep, bloody gouges that ran from his shoulders to his knees. A thick trail of blood slithered off down the hallway, and deeper claw marks had sliced through the steel walls like they had been warm butter.

Swallowing, Cloud ducked his head back inside and took a few deep breaths. He slowly woke Tifa, who crawled up out of her cot and poked a head outside. She barely managed to stifle the cry that almost escaped her lips.

"I'll get the other keycard," Cloud said, squatting next to the guard and removing his key ring. Tossing one to Tifa, he ran down the hallway and swiped the keycard in Barret's cell door. As soon as it slid open, Red was on his feet, snarling.

"Yo," Barret muttered sleepily, "what the hell's goin' on Cloud? What're you doin' here?"

"No time," the ex-SOLDIER said, casting a nervous glance outside. "Just come on." Shrugging, Barret got to his feet and stepped outside. Red barked at the bloody corpse in the corner and lowered himself down into a crouch, twitching his tail.

"What the hell," Barret said softly, moving over the guard. "What coulda done this?"

"I'll take the lead," Red said in a low growl, and bounded off after the trail of gore. Aerith came out of her cell with Tifa, and both girls looked at the guard, then to Cloud. "We should follow," he said, pointing down the way Red had gone. "Barret can stay here and hide the body." The big man snorted and rolled his eyes when they ran off, but wished them luck, regardless.

Red bounded down the hallway, wrinkling his nose and sneezing. What on earth could leave such a horrible stench? It smelled of death, decay, fear, and anger, all rolled up into one sharp, bitter smell. He had seen his fair share of battle, but they were nothing like this. Shinra's Third Class of SOLDIERs had been tossed aside like rag dolls, most with their necks broken on impact with the walls. Any that had survived the throw had had their guts spilled across their boots seconds before dropping dead. Blood and bodies had been smeared across the wall like a great red tapestry.

The trail banked right and went into Hojo's lower laboratory area. There, Cloud saw the "JENOVA" tube had been completely ruined. The door lay in a twisted heap halfway across the room, marked again by deep claw marks. The pink fluid that had kept Jenova in stasis was all over the floor in a bright puddle that made Cloud's head spin, mixed with the blood of the lab assistant who lay not too far from the wreckage.

Red led the others up the elevator to the lab area on the next floor, where the carnage only got worse. More of the Third Class and the Second Class commanders lie in piles at every few feet, with looks of unbelieving horror glued to their pale faces. Cloud would have bet anything that the entire building smelled like a flaming morgue.

Past the lab, the trail led upstairs to the floor beneath the president's office, where more office workers lie dead where they had stood probably not more than an hour ago. The entire building was deathly still and silent; not a thing even dared to stir. More than once, Cloud caught himself holding his breath and tensing, as if expecting a heavy blow from behind. At least he had gotten his sword back. He had found it clutched tightly in the cold dead fingers of one of the Second Class commanders on the last floor. It almost felt as if it wasn't his anymore. Cloud hated that feeling.

Shrugging it off, Cloud followed Red up the stairway and burst into the president's office with his sword halfway out of its magnetic locks. He saw President Shinra giving him a baleful glance, and that was right before he dropped his head onto the table. It was then that Cloud saw the huge, curved blade sticking out of the president's back. It wobbled in the air for a moment, and then came to a dead halt as it settled deeper into his spine.

"He's dead," Barret said breathlessly, coming up behind Cloud. "The President of Shinra, Inc. is dead."

Cloud simply gaped at the dead president, and at the sword that stuck out of his back. It can't be him, he thought, even though his head was spinning and hurt like crazy. He's dead. I saw him die.

Barret barely caught a hold of the small, fat man that rushed by from behind the president's desk, and held him tightly by the arm. Palmer squealed in the big man's tight grip and began to babble. "D-don't kill me! I got something for you! Which one of you is Cloud?"

The ex-SOLDIER turned to face Palmer, whose fat face was absolutely livid with fear. "It was him," he said, wiping his bald head. "Sephiroth!"

Cloud nearly choked on his tongue. It was impossible! Sephiroth was dead! "Oh, he's far from dead," Palmer said, shaking his head. Cloud blinked' had he been speaking aloud? "He came in here and killed the president! He said something about not letting us have the Promised Land."

"So he's a good guy, then?" Barrett asked, easing up a bit on Palmer's arm. "He's on our side."

"Not likely," Cloud croaked. "Sephiroth a good guy? No way. I've seen Sephiroth…he's not with us."

The sound of whirling helicopter blades made Palmer's head turn to the huge window in back of the office. Squealing again, he shifted out of Barret's powerful grip and fled for the doors. The big man spat and watched him go, cursing. "Damn it! I forgot about Rufus!"

Cloud turned to face Barret, who was starting to load up his gun-arm. "It's the president's no-good son of a bitch son," he growled. His face loosened out of his scowl, though, when he saw the huge sword sticking out of the president again. "Y'know, I heard stories about Sephiroth, once. I heard he was stationed somewhere far away now. Man, he didn't cry or bleed, or any of that stuff. The dude wasn't human, Cloud."

The ex-SOLDIER gazed at the long, slender blade of the Masamune for another moment, then sighed and ran outside. A landing pad had been built outside, and a helicopter was just dropping onto it when Cloud got outside. The door slid open, and a boy not much older than Cloud with a bright shock of blonde hair jumped out and pulled Palmer aside. His bright white suit was tossed about at the cuffs by the sharp rotors of the chopper blades, as was his hair, which he kept brushing out of his face. Finally, he ushered Palmer up onto the helicopter and turned to face Cloud.

"Well, he said in a soft voice, just barely heard over the chopper. "Who are all of you?"

Cloud swallowed and took a step forward. "I'm Cloud Strife, former SOLDIER First Class!"

"I'm with AVALANCHE!" Barret shouted, echoed by Tifa.

"A flower girl from the slums, Aerith said, her normally soft voice, now iron hard.

"A research specimen," Red shouted over the roar of the chopper blades.

Rufus Shinra looked over the five of them and smirked, putting his hands into his pockets. "What a crew," he muttered. "Well, I'm Rufus, the new President of Shinra, Inc."

"Yer only president 'cause your old man just died!" Barret snapped, shaking his gun-arm at the new president. Shrugging, Rufus leaned up against the concrete railing and smiled. "True. But I'm still president. I'll even let you hear my inaugural speech."

"The old man tried to control the world with money. It seemed to have been working. The populace thought that Shinra would protect them. Work at Shinra, get your pay. If a terrorist group attacks, then SOLDIER will help you. It looks perfect on the outside. But…I do things differently. I'll control the world with fear. It takes too much to do it like my old man. A little fear will control the minds of the common people. There's no reason to waste good money on them." Rufus clinched his fist and gave a short, cold laugh.

Tifa narrowed her eyes and shook her head. "He likes to make speeches…just like his father."

Cloud glared at Rufus, who smirked at the ex-SOLDIER and met him look for look. How he could be so calm at this time was beyond Cloud, and he supposed it really didn't matter. "Barret, get Aerith outta here," he said, not taking his eyes off Rufus. Barret started to contest Cloud's call, but Cloud cut him off. "There's no time, Barret! Listen! This is the real crisis for the planet! Just do what I say!"

Grumbling, Barret led Aerith and the others back inside, save for Cloud. The ex-SOLDIER and new president stared at each other for a moment before Rufus broke the silence with another chuckle. "Why do you want to fight me?" he asked, shrugging.

"You seek Sephiroth, and the Promised Land," Cloud said coldly. Rufus nodded and pursed his lips, sighing. "I see. Did you know that Sephiroth is an Ancient?"

The ex-SOLDIER blinked. An Ancient? Is that why he was trying to keep the Shinra from the Promised Land? "It doesn't matter," he said, shaking his head. "I can't let either Sephiroth or the Shinra have the Promised Land."

Rufus pulled a sawed off shotgun from inside his white blazer and whirled it on Cloud, pulling the hammer back. "I guess this means we can't become allies," he said. Cloud unsheathed his sword and snarled.


Yeah, sorry to leave you hanging. Anyways, all comments and suggestions are appreciated, and I thank you all for reading. Hopefully, the next chapter will be up a little quicker. Real life keeps on interfering.