Beyond Paradise II

Disclaimer: I do not own Yuffie, Vincent, or anything/anybody else in this fiction, they belong to Square Enix. I also don't own previously established fictitious characters such as Moira, Zeb, or Jethro. They were created by the original fan fic's author, tolerant. This is not an "official" sequel by the original author, more like a tribute by me since the original has been discontinued, unfortunately. I am not affiliated with tolerant in any way, shape, or form (other than being a fan, of course).

Author's note: My 10th Chapter! Also meaning the 20th overall chapter for the epic Beyond Paradise saga! Rejoice! :P

The light that is not light is here
To flush you out with your own fear
You hide, you hide, but will be found
Release your grip without a sound
'Cause we hunt you down without mercy
Hunt you down all nightmare long
Feel us breath upon your face
Feel us shift, every move we trace

All Nightmare Long
--James Hetfield

- Chapter 20: All Nightmare Long

"How'd you guys fair?" Madison asked the disguised Vincent and Yuffie as they approached her, Elena, and Cait Sith on the collection of simple couches in their inn's lobby.

The modest foyer was empty save for the pair of Turks, the trio of AVALANCHE members, and the middle-aged woman seated behind the reception desk writing something on a piece of paper. The couches were arranged in a semi-circle in front of a small, cozy brick fireplace, an unusually high-class choice of sophisticated decor for such an arguably cheap lodgings house. They could see through the glass-paned entrance that the street lights were finally on, a pedestrian or two walking past the inn's front every once and awhile.

"Well we were snooping around the top levels of Junon looking for any clues..." Yuffie started while stretching out on the far end of the couch opposite of the female Turks. "We tried restaurants, some back alley shops, even this one bar. That bar was just the worst! Nut jobs from all over seem to congregate here in Junon! There were these drunk idiots that tried to cause up some trouble, right, which is weird because who the heck would go out drinking that much in the middle of the day, but well anyways, I was like, 'gross-ness!,' and was just about to give 'em a piece of my mind when Vinnie stopped me and scared 'em off with his creepy glare he does, but then we were the ones that got kicked out, which is just totally unfair, can you imagine that? So we moved on and asked around these stores but got nothing, then we walked passed this group of schoolgirls who started checking Vinnie out, which was funny cause we just kept walking while they called out for his number and stuff, and I was all like, 'rejected!', then we--"

"Yuffie!" Cait Sith interrupted the hyperactive ninja. "Take a breath, lass!"

"O-oh, sorry..." Yuffie apologized, her cheeks flushed red with embarrassment as she realized she had gotten carried away with her ramblings. The fact that everyone was staring at her with a perplexed, dumbfounded look on their faces did not help to unredden her face, either. "I kinda had a lotta coffee..."

Yuffie seemed to realize the very uncharacteristic way she was just acting, a performance that would normally be done by typical gossipy high school drama queens with nothing better to do than to drag on and on about cute boys and expensive make up, two girly-girl things she could care less to talk about, as she was much more interested in adventuring, materia-hunting, and proving her skills as a heroic shinobi of her proud homeland of Wutai to the world. With an inward sigh, Yuffie blamed the way she was behaving due to the inordinate amount of time she spent wearing the prissy, tight clothing she was forced to don as a disguise, finally making a mental note to never, ever, act that way again.

"Umm..." Yuffie restarted, calming herself down back down. "Well anyways, we got a tip about some suspicious guys who bought machineguns at this weapons shop. The owner said they were at a warehouse, and there's like, 5 major warehouses here in Junon so we checked 'em all until we found their little hideout."

"What happened?" Elena questioned.

"The place looked as if it had just recently been abandoned, with the dusty imprints of crates and stuff left behind, but luckily someone came back for some papers in the office. And I managed to pickpocket his satchel to take the documents!" Yuffie exclaimed as she shot up and made a triumphant superhero pose, bragging about her ninja skills.

"Heh, excellent work." Madison smiled, trying her best to hide the comical discomfit she felt from the enthusiastic teenager's silly, flamboyant idiosyncrasy. "So yeah, uh, where's the documents?"

"Oh yeah." Yuffie remembered, tossing the manila envelopes on the coffee table in front of them. "It's a bunch've records on everything they've been doing!"

"Nicely done, you two." Cait Sith commended as he reached out for the envelopes to give them a look-see.

"What about you guys?" Yuffie inquired of the female Turks. "Find anything out in that fishing village place?"

"Well, there's good news and bad news." Elena replied, causing the disguised Wutaian teenager to pout.

"Why can't it ever just be nothing but the good news for once, why does there always gotta be bad, too?" She thought to herself with a sigh. "What's the good news?"

"We got some more leads and even have an informant we've arranged to meet tomorrow morning that's going to help us scout out the possible rebel hideout." Madison answered. "On top of that, the people down there seem to idolize AVALANCHE, rather than hating you guys like everyone else on the entire Planet seems to. They respect you guys for your acts against ShinRa, the company they despised for taking over their quiet village years ago by building this city over it."

Idolize?! Finally, some appreciation! That must be the best news I've heard in weeks... I don't see how any bad news could hamper that... Yuffie thought optimistically, though with some cautious objectivity. "So then, what's the bad news?"

Elena dropped her face to stare at the floor with her eyebrows knitted in ire as if foreshadowing what was about to be revealed. "We found out Don Corneo is involved in all this."

Vincent's human hand was already clasped over Yuffie's mouth, knowing that the mere mention of the perverted pimp that had tried to have his way with her would cause the fuming princess to shout out impulsively. Her cry of startled umbrage that would have drawn unneeded attention to the group's discussion was effectively mumbled by the marksman. Once he was sure she realized she had to remain quieter, he let his hand go and returned to sit on his solitary armchair.

"What the hell does Don Corneo have to do with all this?!" Yuffie demanded in a hushed, gravelly tone while leaning forward to the two Turks. "I thought he was dead!"

"I don't know why he's still alive!" Elena replied in a matching voice while also leaning forward, perturbed just as much as the little ninja that shared her captivity up against the face of Da Chao by Don Corneo. "I thought he was dead, too!"

"I was sure his fat ass was toast after Rude shot him in the back and Reno sent him falling off the freakin' cliff!!"

"I know, right?! As soon as I heard--"

"Hey, focus!" Madison snapped in a timbre similar to the irate women's speech. "Anyways, we don't know what he's got to do with this yet. One of the people in the village we interviewed said she had seen him on a street corner conversing with some armed people from the protest group before getting into a car and driving off further into the city." She turned to the robotic feline that was seated beside her, who was quickly reading the papers he held. "Back to business... hey Cait, what are those documents about?"

"Outpost locations, station numbers... overseas assets... routes of munitions transports..." Cait Sith read off out loud for the benefit of his listening teammates while storing the figures into his database for safe keeping and future reference. It's marshmallow muzzle slowly dropped in bewilderment as if registering yet another shocking revelation. "...Mako reactors!"

"Huh?" Elena breathed, arching her eyebrows. "Mako reactors, what about them?"

"The rebels are using Mako reactors!" Cait Sith cried out in a whisper before shooting a glance towards the only other person in the lobby, the receptionist seated behind the desk across the room from them. She appeared to have dozed off from the lack of business and had her head rested over her folded arms on the desk. Despite her rather loud snores, the animatronic cat chose to remain cautious and continued in a hushed tone. "That's how they're funding their entire operation! They've somehow rebooted the reactors from Midgar, Modeoheim, and the underwater one here in Junon, as well as a secret underground one somewhere north of Costa Del Sol that I've never heard of. They're selling the Mako they harvest from the reactors!"

"Hmm..." Yuffie pondered, her face looking off into the figurative distance as she went into deep thought, recalling how she had wondered why the neon lights and street lamps around the abandoned Sectors were still fully powered. "So that explains why the Slums were still powered and stuff... everything was on because the Mako Reactors were still running!"

"Precisely." Cait Sith said while standing up, handing the pages he had finished analyzing to Madison before moving on to examine the next set of papers. "Even after everything we've done, there still remains people who would continue to drain the Planet of it's precious Lifestream..."

"But wait, how are they selling the Mako?" Yuffie queried, crossing her arms and tilting her head in question. "If they directly wired their customers to the reactors, it would just cause a lot of suspicion, wouldn't it?"

"According to this," Cait Sith started as he quickly scanned the documents he held, "They take the Mako they reap from the reactors and store them in portable generators."

"Huh?" The princess asked. "What do you mean, 'portable generators?'"

"They're like miniature reactors. Anything requiring electricity to run can hook up to these miniature reactors and be powered by them. They're filled with a supply of condensed Mako."

"Think of them like Materia, Yuffie." Madison added, simplifying Cait Sith's explanation for the teenager. "Materia is crystallized Mako, meaning they are made out of Mako, or hold Mako within them. These portable generators are somewhat similar, because they hold Mako, as well. But it's a limited supply in each generator, so their customers would have to buy more generators to continue powering themselves."

"Oh, I get it." Yuffie nodded, understanding everything. "So the rebels have constant business, just selling off generator after generator."

"Exactly." Madison affirmed with a little smile. "But that just leaves the question of who's buying their Mako?"

"Seems like everybody is." Elena chimed in, nose buried deep in the papers she held. "Patrons in Gongaga, Icicle Inn, North Corel, all these tiny villages and rural municipalities... oh, and we've got a name, too." She showed the heading to the raven-haired Turk seated beside her. "One 'Havern Glaire.' Apparently, she's the author of these documents. Probably a secretary or something, considering the topic of these records."

"...Doesn't all this seem a little odd to any of you?" Yuffie speculated. "Er, odder than it already is... Look, what I mean is, these anti-AVALANCHE guys are obviously a lot bigger and organized than we originally thought, right? Doesn't it seem strange for some ragtag group of people looking to get revenge against a little gang of misfits like us to be this freakin' organized? At first, we encountered the rebels, right? They were understandably ragged in both organization and equipment, but then here we go in Midgar, and they've got this huge arrangement going on with alarm systems, trained guards with machineguns, vehicles and a leader that seems a little to detached with his group's goal, which is supposedly to kill us, right? Though he's been like, too diplomatic and stuff... Er, I don't know if I'm making any sense..."

"No, no, that was all surprisingly inquisitive, lass!" Cait Sith reassured. "Now that you mention it, it does seem a little odd. There has to be much more to this group than meets the eye. No simple ad-hoc collection of random townsfolk seeking petty vengeance would be this enterprising, especially on a scale as large as this."

"I also remember overhearing this guy back in Midgar talking about having joined the group for all these totally wrong reasons, hearing horrible actions that we never even did! It's like someone's been spreading rumors about us to gain more support for the rebel group or something."

"Okay, let's say there really is some clandestine institute behind all this," Madison started, "It would make sense, you know? Putting everything you guys just said together, also the thing with Moira taking out our members and still trying to get to the rest of us, adding that along with the radical relentlessness these guys are going through to wipe out AVALANCHE... if you ask me, it sounds like whoever really is at the top of all this is after us because... they want us out of the way, for some reason."

"But why?" asked Elena.

"Perhaps..." a deep voice spoke up, prompting everyone to turn their gazes towards the previously silent gunslinger, who had been seated by himself on the wooden lounge chair at the head of the circle of discussion, his arms typically folded over his chest and that same blank countenance of apathy painted on his face. "...It's because we're the only ones that can stop whatever it is that they're planning to do."

--

Yuffie and Vincent returned to their tiny room after the debriefing and subsequent lengthy wait for Reno and Rude to return. After an hour of waiting and trying to reach the two missing men via cell phone, an act that repeatedly gave a busy dial tone in response, Madison suggested the two AVALANCHE members get some sleep. The two female Turks remained seated on the couches in the lobby, Madison dozing off and Elena staying awake for the first watch, vigilant for both the clown girl and the hopeful arrival of her fellow Turks.

Maybe we'll get lucky and they'll never come back… Yuffie snickered to herself while plopping face-first down on her claimed bed, her mental gibe aimed a lot more towards Reno rather than Rude.

Rude may have been a Turk, but he knew when to keep his mouth shut, a polar opposite of the red-haired clown. Cait Sith followed in after Vincent and shut the door, making his way to the center of the room. It had been agreed upon beforehand that the animatronic feline would watch over his two fellow AVALANCHE members so they could both rest simultaneously without taking turns of keeping watch for Moira. To keep it fair, the next night it would stand guard for the female Turks, then the male Turks, and rotate accordingly.

The original idea of Cait Sith staying at home base during the day time to relay any information between the investigating parties was scrapped in lieu of the aforementioned new night watch strategy, as the robotic cat would need the daylight hours to power down himself. Watching idly as Yuffie lazily kicked off her shoes and muttered something about being so tired she would just shower in the morning, Cait Sith sat down with it's legs crossed parallel from the middle of the two beds. Vincent set his hat on the nightstand between the two beds, unbuttoned his long-sleeve, and laid his shirtless back down onto the cold bed. He threw the covers over his legs, just under his waist like he always did, seemingly not uncomfortable at all despite the low temperature of the room.

"Sweet dreams, you two!" Cait Sith bade his two friends a farewell before they both departed for the dream world.

A lethargic grunt from the exhausted princess was his only reply before the lights went out and his sight converted to a dark shade of luminous green, the animatronic cat's night vision. Wrapping herself vigorously in the folds of her thin blanket, Yuffie fell asleep almost instantly. An immeasurable amount of darkness passed by before the area around her faded into a familiar scene, the same dream she had been undergoing for the past four days now. Yuffie cuffed her hand on her forehead like a visor to shield her eyes from the brilliant light above. Yuffie's eyes then slowly adjusted to the darkness straight before her and the brightness overhead.

Not again… Her thought echoed like speech around her, bouncing off imaginary walls.

A freezing hand slid along her shoulders, causing the Wutaian ninja to twirl around. Her eyes searched for the being, scanning the blank void that ran on forever, only to find more darkness. Another cold hand slid down her leg and Yuffie stumbled away.

Stop it! Get away from me! The scent of dust and dried jasmines engulfed her five senses and she felt the same cold fingers on her cheeks.

The voices suddenly came at her in full force. Countless hundreds begging her for freedom, peace and liberation from the agonizing blackness. Yuffie let out a terrified shriek as the cold hand grabbed her ankle in a painful death grip. It pulled her down to drown into the inky water the floor beneath her had become. The disembodied ethereal hands surrounded Yuffie, grabbing at every bit of her and pulling her apart. She tried to scream, but she choked on the shadows instead.

She somehow found herself free from the river of sorrow, and opened up the eyes she did not even know she had closed. The princess stared in wonder at the field of dead flowers that she was suddenly in the midst of, watching as a figure across from her rose up through the lifeless vegetation. The surrounding area was dotted with dilapidated steel structures and concrete rubble, a new addition from the last few dreams she had. From experience, she already knew the figure in front of her only looked like Aerith, but was actually Moira in disguise for some reason.

The little ninja figured that the same thing would happen again before she woke up--the thing with the thorns, the enigmatic riddle of a threat huffed by the female jester, things like that. Though, there was something about 'Aerith' that seemed different, a slight change about her that Yuffie could not quite put her finger on. She would never be able to explain it, but she seemed somewhat familiar. Almost comforting.

Why does that damn clown girl insist to bring me here? This is supposed to be the Promised Land? It looks more like Aerith's flower patch from the church. Hell, this 'Promised Land' kinda looks like Midgar.

As soon as she said that, the figure abruptly morphed into Moira. "Bingo."

--

Now finally alone with his thoughts, Vincent exhaled before finding himself in the middle of the howling nihility of Chaos' existence. The guttural cachinnation he heard echoing through the nothingness came from none other than his four demons, all laughing ribaldly at the gunslinger who had been wearing such an out-of-character outfit complete with the ridiculous hat all day long.

"Shut up…" Vincent respired in annoyance as he crossed his arms in the middle of the black void. "Chaos, you know I've been lenient with all of you, and look what happened." The gunslinger was referring to the Galian Beast incident back in Midgar. "I want some answers, Chaos. I believe that was our arrangement."

Chaos simply licked it's lips as it hovered around the mental vision of Vincent in a circular pattern. Every second that passed, he could feel pangs of pain pulsating throughout his body, telling him that his demons in his body were more powerful than ever and were harder to supress. Rather than stuffing them back into their holes, Vincent simply attempted to dissuade the monsters within him from invading his conciousness for fear of losing the winged fiend's favor.

He hoped his pleasing of the demon would result in getting some long-awaited answers, but the gunslinger could not be sure whether Chaos would be true to his word or was merely attempting to trick it's host into letting down his guard enough to allow the winged monster to take over and wreak havoc as it so pleased.

"Moira's still out there. Don't you know how to destroy--"

Before he could finish, as if by cue, the representative visage of the colorful clown girl flashed before Vincent's eyes. She was floating as high as the winged fiend above, her lips still pulled back into her sickening smile that seemed to bask the furthest recesses of the perpetual abyss with it's vile malevolence. After some minutes of aimless drifting, a quick, infernal coruscated bolt irradiating an indigo afterglow engulfed the sky that was not there and shot straight through the puppet.

Vincent watched as the clown girl fell before him, slumped into a candid pile. As the gunslinger observed the female jester's corpse, he noticed that it was completely lifeless, nothing but a mere children's doll laying before him. A tiny platinum object landed beside the multihued toy, falling down from the sky like a meteorite.

"Hmph…" Vincent sighed at the chunk of mythril, cursing himself in hindsight for not realizing the obvious sooner. Thankful that he was alone in his mind where no one would ever hear what he was about to quote, he suddenly found himself thinking of what the little ninja would say in such an epiphanous situation. "Duh…"

Author's note: Vincent saying "Duh…" Oh yeah. I went there. VV Questions, comments, reviews, criticisms etc. always make me a better writer. Till next time, I gotta study, grr…