9
Meteor
Aerith's dream that night was a dream like none other: filled with hundreds of refracted images. Her surroundings and her own reflection multiplied into shards of the same shape and color without form, spinning and turning. Half kaleidoscope and half funhouse, Aerith fell into an infinity of shadows and light.
And then she saw the cascading silver threads of hair and mottled, leathery black. With them came the green of eyes. They were not her own. She knew this to be true for their streaks of color and feline slits.
He emerged from beyond the auburn of her hair, but to her eyes, it could have been the orange of hellfire. The serpentine figure glided across the deep brown carpet, past the dining room cuckoo clock. He hovered above her couch.
It was not a dream.
Aerith's eyes popped open with the alertness of having been awake but dreaming. He was in front of her, not a vision, but a flesh-and-blood man, if he could be called that. The tortured scream of his soul was inhuman.
In the near black of the night, the dark mass of his torso descended on top of her, crushing her abdomen. A leather-bound hand clasped her mouth. Through the binding of his body and hands, his touch burned. Her synapses fired a frenzy of distressed signals, all telling her the same thing: she needed to run. She needed to get away.
His voice rasped. "Where is it?"
Aerith flailed, her brain unable to focus.
"I need it and you must know where it is. I see you in my dreams. You see me in yours." He gripped her throat. "Where is the Black Materia? Where?"
Aerith's hands clasped feebly at his face. He refused to flinch but the bare skin on skin of their contact deepened their connection for fleeting seconds. She felt how her touch hurt him.
He could kill her. He would kill her. It was his destiny for she was his inverse. He was her own personal devil.
"This is your last chance. I will kill you, you know it. Your life means nothing to me."
His hand relaxed. "I don't know…" Aerith whispered. She resisted the tears, but they came nonetheless.
"Then I shall dismantle you. Before I have completely finished, perhaps you will tell me what I need to know."
"I don't know anything!"
"Then I will at least enjoy myself in the process…"
Aerith tried to scream. His right hand clenched her face and muffled her. His left clenched the mottled dress she slept in. It was one of her last possessions.
He ripped it down to her navel.
As Aerith struggled, she realized he balked. His eyes locked onto the pale, iridescent orb dangling from her neck, between her splayed breasts.
"Aerith!"
Sephiroth stood. Tifa Lockhart's bare foot glanced across his face. She punched and he caught one hand and then the other. Then he squeezed.
Tifa flinched. Her face masked intense pain.
"So… you live, Tifa Lockhart." Sephiroth smirked, but then he noticed a quirk of her expression; her eyes track something behind him.
He had not heard his approach. Sephiroth released Tifa's hands and leapt in time to evade the buster sword. Cloud sliced and thrust. Sephiroth drew the Masamune and parried. As he parried, Aerith realized, at four heads above Cloud, Sephiroth hovered in mid-air. An outreached hand and flick of his wrist and Cloud spun backwards, slamming hard into the log wall.
Cloud stumbled to his feet. "Sephiroth!" Aerith felt many emotions within Cloud. Hatred and fear ruled.
Sephiroth lifted higher towards the ceiling. "Are you going to run away again, Cloud?"
Cloud's voice crackled with frenzy as he screamed. He angled his sword across his face and charged.
Tifa turned. "Cloud, no!"
Sephrith raised his hand towards Cloud and then drew it to his chest, as though he pulled an invisible cord between the two.
Cloud gasped, yanked through the air. A moment later, he was impaled on the Masamune.
Tifa screamed.
Cloud gritted his teeth and grabbed the Masamune with his bare hands, pushing himself back along the length of the sword. Sephiroth watched, bemused, and chuckled. Cloud slid off the tip of the sword and landed with a dull thud onto the ground.
The sound of a Gatling gun reverberated through the small common room. It hurt Aerith's eardrums.
Sephiroth turned with a start and swooped across the room, skimming the wall. Tracer rounds followed. An enormous throwing star forced him to swoop higher. Barret stumbled into the living room, gun-arm raised. Yuffie followed. Cid came a moment later.
A black and silver flicker ascended to the sky like a rocket. Pieces of timber fell in his wake. He stopped in mid-air a hundred feet above.
Sephiroth raised his voice. He must have. Aerith could hear him as clearly and loudly as when he was two feet in front of her. "You may know nothing about the Black Materia, but that bauble of yours… I greatly desire that as well. If I need to, I will take it from your smoldering corpse."
The house began to crumble around them.
Sephiroth lifted high into the air. Through the opening in the roof, he could see the flower girl. He willed the building to collapse.
The calm and peace of the evening air enshrouded him: it's king and champion. It anticipated his command as did the silenced creaking of crickets and flow of the Lifestream.
It awaited his divine judgment.
Sephiroth felt the flow of mako through his body communicate with the plants; the flowers; the trees; the animals.
Kalm was quiet and tranquil. A few restless souls from a ways down the street awoke to the sounds of chaos in Tellah's home. Most rested peacefully. Wisps of glowing green crept through the earth, dancing across the face of the town.
Sephiroth clenched his fists.
Then he condemned Kalm.
The wisps of green exploded in sparks and flame.
Sephiroth closed his eyes. He felt the flames spread from grass to brush to homes to human flesh. Fire and screams reached his ears. Cruel rapture flooded his senses as the flames swept souls back to the life force from whence they came.
Sephiroth's eyes widened. Amidst the chaos and flame and death, he felt a strange flicker of life energy not far away. He swooped to the wood shed beyond Tellah's home.
Wedge prodded Vincent. "I said don't move."
"Do you want us both to die? The town is burning. It's under attack."
"The hell's going on?" Wedge peeked through the cracks of the wall and watched the spread of glowing orange and green. He turned to Vincent. "You know, don't you?"
Vincent remained silent.
Wedge grumbled and stepped away from the wall. "I guess we're not good if we're dead, huh?"
Those were the last words he ever spoke.
A black and silver flash shattered the hardwood wall to his left. Silver flashed. Wedge's torso flipped over and away from his legs.
Sephiroth swung his sword. Centrifugal force splayed blood and gristle across the ground and wall.
He and Vincent Valentine met each others' eyes. They knew each other without having ever met.
"You have your mother's eyes," Vincent said.
Those monstrous eyes revealed surprise. "So you are…"
"I am."
"Why are you with these humans? A hostage. No, you did not oppose them. You are living as one of them."
"I was."
"How dare you condescend yourself?"
"You're one to talk. I am what you pretend to be."
"You obviously choose to share their fate." Sephiroth arched his hands into the air as the mako-induced flames outside rose higher: a conductor signaling a crescendo. "Can you not hear the sorrow of the planet?"
"I've had hearing problems for years."
Sephiroth lowered his hands. The roof fell. Splinters and timber fell On Vincent. Skin tore. Bones broke. Hundreds of pounds weighed upon him.
Sephiroth turned and walked out away through a sheen of fire. "My new world has no place for the deaf."
Flames and tickling, screaming wisps of green life crept in from the forest.
Vincent was trapped.
Kalm burned. Sephiroth stood at the center of its flaming purgatory, washed in searing heat and sparks; winds nearly hot enough to cook flesh. He smiled as the all-consuming flame spread. He laughed as points of life vanished in its wake.
And then from the house of AVALANCHE, silver blue light flashed.
Sephiroth turned. Two hundred feet away, ice crystals spread across every tendril of wood fiber and shattered. In the center of the house's skeleton, AVALANCHE crouched in a pocket of brittle, carbonized lumber. What little remained of the home crumbed away in the breeze. Through plumes of steam and smoke, he saw green eyes that matched his own; auburn hair and the tattered fabric of her torn dress blowing in the killing wind. Her arm glowed, the dying flicker of active materia.
Impossible. He channeled the spiritual core of the planet. No spell cast from common materia should have been able to nullify the force of his magic.
Cloud Strife was prone on the ground, possibly dying. Tifa sat by his side. The two older men and the Wutainese shinobi hovered nearby. Aerith Gainsborough stood. She was no longer afraid.
It was his turn to be afraid. "Who are you…?"
"I'm Aerith."
As she was now, she would be the death of him.
Sephiroth brought the Masamune to bear and angled it towards Aerith. He started to run. He ran faster and faster until his feet left the ground.
Light flashed. A concussion powerful enough to knock the wind out of him punched Sephiroth backwards.
Sephiroth looked up. It was not the half-Cetra, Aerith. She looked as surprised as he felt.
The bespeckled old man with wild hair and a beard of pure white approached. His bathrobe dragged across the dirt and ground.
Sephiroth stood. "What…?"
"Barret! Cid!" Tellah yelled over his shoulder. "The keys to the truck are under the floor board. Get out of here!"
Barret hobbled to his feet. "You crazy summabitch! What are you thinking?"
Tellah sneered. "This spoony bastard's mine!"
Sephiroth rose to his feet. Another spell flashed. Sephiroth parried it with the wave of his hand. "Your parlor tricks will not work on me again, old man."
Tellah closed his eyes in concentration. Materia glowed bright.
Sephiroth covered the hundred feet between them within a second.
Tellah would have slumped to the ground if not for the sword through his chest holding him up into the air.
The old, dying man chuckled. "I guess I couldn't do it in the end."
"A futile death is foolishness; not heroism."
He was still smiling. His materia still glimmered. "In that case, die Shinra asshole."
A strange current of energy flowed through the air. Strong negative energy interfered with his own. Mako sparked and flickered. Sephiroth sensed the presence of powerful magic.
What sort of materia was that anyway?
Light spread across the ruined town square of Kalm. It was not light from the glow of fire and mako.
It was a light from above.
Sephiroth looked up as orbs of luminous plasma showered from the heavens.
Cid ran his fingers through his hair, from golden blond tips to darkening roots. He watched the sky light up across the remains of the street. He saw the mako flames sputter and flicker. "What the motherfucker was that?"
Barret felt for more soft spots in the floor board. "Tellah was always messin' around with materia. Elemental crystals. Special 'potions.' He was into all that New Age shit. If he ain't alive, that motherfucker's gonna pay!"
"We've gotta get the hell out of here, Barret," Cid said. "Yesterday."
"Cloud's going to die," Tifa cried.
Cloud sat upright from the scalded remains of Tellah's home. "I'll be fine, Tifa," he said. And then he coughed up blood.
Aerith reached out to Cloud, concentrated on forging a mental connection.
Cloud snatched his hands away. "No."
"I'm going to save you," Aerith said.
Cloud's eyes were frantic. "You're not touching me!"
"This is only to help you," Aerith said.
"I don't care what it's for," Cloud said. "I'm not letting you do to me what you did to her."
Tifa gave Aerith a puzzled look. "Cloud… She's trying to save your life."
"Use your materia, Tifa," Cloud said. "Do it before it's too late. I won't let her… I won't let her…"
Aerith frowned and slid away.
Barret punched through the half-crumbled floorboard with his mechanical arm for the fifth time. "I've got it! I've got it!" He raised the truck keys into the air.
"Then let's get the hell out of Dodge!" Cid said.
Aerith caught sight of the smoldering wood shed. "Wedge! Vincent!"
"It's over," Cid said. "They ain't comin' out."
Aerith stood and began to sprint.
Tifa was distracted from the process of casting a spell of healing only long enough to call out to Aerith once.
Aerith remembered the shed being right beside Tellah's house, but no distance that length had ever seemed so long. It could not have taken her much time to reach it, but in such a short span of time, so many thoughts had never raced through her head.
Nothing piqued whatever sixth sense she possessed quite like fresh death. She sensed when her foster father died. She sensed when her lover died. She sensed when every one of the hundred-plus souls in Kalm died. She felt the Lifestream increase in volume, as though growing large enough to swallow her whole.
The rain of fire and light from the Eastern sky would have blinded her if she had stopped to stare. She did not stop; would not stop. She knew he was still there. He was wounded, but still alive. His tormented soul screamed at a feverish pitch.
Within the burning shed, Aerith made out the peculiar energy signature of Vincent Valentine's soul. He was alone.
Biggs would be crushed.
Aerith concentrated on the ice materia in her grasp. She got lucky when she took notice and thought it strange that Yuffie kept a sack of materia under her pillow the night before. It had taken a few minutes to find it in the crumbling chaos of the house, but it had saved her life and maybe everyone else's lives.
Her ice spell smothered the shed. She maneuvered the spell carefully, weaving the crystallization of wood fiber around Vincent until the ambient cold of absolute zero smothered the last of the flames.
The wood crumbled. Vincent watched her with hot crimson eyes. Nothing human had eyes like that.
Human or not, he was injured badly, pinned beneath now-shattered timber; bleeding and broken.
Aerith reached out to him. "Take my hand."
Vincent scowled. "Shouldn't you run for your life?"
Aerith heard Tifa and Cid calling her name.
"Take my hand," Aerith said.
"You're a stupid and overly-trusting human."
"Take. My. Hand."
Vincent reached out and clasped her hand. She pulled him towards her and he grimaced.
Aerith slung his arm across her shoulder and hobbled towards the others. They had loaded into the back of Tellah's truck.
Tellah's spell ended. The place where he and Sephiroth stood smoldered.
She had never even gotten the chance to get to know the old man.
Aerith walked faster. Vincent hobbled after her. The surviving members of AVALANCHE beckoned her from the truck. This walk was even longer than the last.
Aerith pushed Vincent into the back of the truck and jumped in after. Without the bright lights from above, only the eerie red and green glow of Kalm burning illuminated their surroundings. It was hard to see. Aerith stumbled in after Vincent. She brushed against Barret. He was not happy. Not at all. She could tell that even before he spoke. And then he did speak.
"Why'd you bring him?" Barret said.
Cloud sat upright. He breathed uneasily. Tifa looked exhausted from the concentration of her healing spell. "Wedge didn't make it," he said.
Aerith shook her head.
Barret pounded the truck's bed with his mechanical arm. Just then, it lurched into gear. "Hang on tight!" Cid shoulted from the driver's seat.
They had to hold on tight. The truck's axle hopped across the dirt and uneven ground as it careened off far faster than it was meant to be driven on uncivilized roads.
Barret pointed at Vincent. "Why'd you bring him then? Why not just let Sephiroth finish the job? Less for us to worry about."
"We still have the toughest stretch of the trip," Tifa said. "We need that insurance."
Aerith did not make eye contact with Tifa. She would betray her lie.
"Once we're to safety, he's swimmin' in the bay of Junon," Barret said. "If he becomes a liability when we get there, you're dead, Lockhart."
Signs of life returned to Cloud's face. He bolted upright.
"AVALANCHE is over with, Barret."
They all turned to Yuffie, surprised to hear her speak.
"What?" Barret said.
"You heard me," Yuffie said. "It's over with. We lost half our numbers in two weeks. We had to flee Midgar. We're probably never going to be able to go back…"
Aerith's heart balked.
"And it'll be only by the grace of the Goddess if we make it off this continent," Yuffie said. "We're going to Wutai. You want to keep fighting Shinra from there? What's left of my clan would be glad to help. Like hell you'll be calling the shots though."
"What're you tryin' to say, Yuffie?" Barret said.
Yuffie smirked one of her dark, angry smirks. "You're not the boss of us anymore."
Barret's mechanical arm retracted. A gun barrel appeared. He aimed at Yuffie.
Tifa flipped to her bare feet, ready to pounce. Cloud, still battered and weary, grasped his sword. Yuffie crouched.
Barret looked left and right. "I can take out a couple-a-you before you get me. Wanna try? You think I got anything left to lose?"
"Marlene," Aerith said.
Barret turned.
"She needs a father, Barret," Aerith said.
Barret's eyes narrowed. "Don't gimme that. This is all your goddamn fault."
"I know," Aerith said. "I know. If there's some way I can make it right, I will."
Cid banged on the truck's rear window. "No shooting on the pickup truck, assholes! I'm tryin' to talk to my contact in Junon."
Barret continued his staring-contest for another minute. He blinked. He lowered his weapon.
Cloud's hard face softened. "We're just a bunch of folks on the run now, Barret. I'm sorry…"
Barret lowered his head and bawled.
Aerith felt Vincent flinch beside her. "You're hurt," she said.
Vincent grumbled.
Aerith pressed her hand to Vincent's face. She closed her eyes and focused her heart on forging a link between him and her.
Aerith felt herself drawn; pulled into him. It was a stronger feeling than with Sephiroth, but then, they had only touched. If the soul could experience physical pain, hers did in that moment.
Aerith found herself repelled back against the truck.
He rejected her psychic connection. A strand of the Lifestream bound all living things and resided in the souls of every man and woman Aerith had ever encountered.
Except Vincent.
Yuffie leaned back. "What the…?"
Vincent was smug. Too smug. "Just use materia."
In the driver's cab, Cid concluded his conversation with his "contact" in a low voice. "In about a day. Can you meet us…? Okay. Gotcha. … I know. Alright. I'll see you then, Cissnei." He hung up his PHS.
"What's the deal, Cid?" Yuffie said.
"There's this girl I met in Junon back in the day. She's an AVALANCHE sympathizer. She'll get us aboard that ship to Wutai."
"Can we trust her?" Yuffie said.
"I trust her more than just about anyone," Cid said.
Aerith stared absently behind as Cid drove them on the long road to Junon. She was aware of Cloud staring, but when she turned to look at him, he avoided her eyes and pretended to be looking elsewhere. Then Aerith remembered her torn dress was half-open down to her naval. She tried to secure the top of her dress without drawing too much attention to the act.
Aerith was not unique—she was not the only one whose sole article of clothing in the world was in disrepair. Yuffie read the situation reached into her backpack, and tossed out navy blue cloaks of a sheer material to the others. Aerith did not know for sure where she got them, but she seemed to remember them in Tellah's closet. Whether they had been taken before, during, or after the incident with Sephiroth, she did not know.
The faces around her were desperate, dirty, and bruised. The reality of all that had happened settled in and a sickening feeling overcame them in unison. Tifa slipped beside her. Aerith glanced at Vincent and then her. They carried out a brief conversation in looks and gestures.
"I don't want anyone else to die, Aerith," Tifa said. "I'm sick of all this death."
The last bright glimmer of Kalm disappeared behind the horizon. All that remained was a vanishing rose glow at the crest of the northern sky.
