Raul tested the restraints before they were used on the remnant. If -he- couldn't get out of them, then there wouldn't be any surprise escapes. Three separate sets had been muscled out of before they found ones that he agreed were suitable. He also warned them about the guns, and the blades they had been lined with but it Cloud simply nodded and admitted he was familiar with them. They ended up encasing the remnant's hands in cement, just as an extra precaution.
After a behemoth of a man named 'Azul' had escaped and rampaged through the facility, Reeve had seen fit to include some reinforced cells in the redesigned compound. Vincent had personally tested them, and it was assured that it would take more than Yazoo was capable of to get free. They had divested him of the wallet and phone he had been carrying before settling him inside the cell, closing and locking the door as the slender remnant started to come around.
He was less than talkative, sitting slumped in the corner and staring blankly out at anyone that looked inside the window with his faintly glowing green feline eyes.
"Is that what my eyes looked like, in the reactor in Nibelheim?"
Cloud nodded. They were standing in the surveillance room and watching Yazoo through the monitor. "It was worse, though. Brighter glow. Are you sure you want to do this?"
"If I back out now, I will have removed the dye from my hair for nothing." A silver brow arched as the clone turned to face the blond swordsman, adjusting the black leather coat with its silver pauldrons. It fit him uncomfortably well. "Loz was more talkative. This has a better chance of working with him, if we can find him."
"I was more talking about your own eyes. Nibelheim showed us that it's physically possible, but..."
"I have to do something. If that means work myself into just below a frothing rage to have half a chance at finding out what was done to those children, then I owe it to them to try." Raul reached up to feel at his bangs, before shaking his head. "Perhaps I can convince him that I am Sephiroth."
"No, he's too smart to trust that. From what you said, he attacked you as soon as he worked out you don't have it." Cloud frowned faintly. "If he attacks you, be careful."
"Don't worry. I have an idea."
The door opened to let the clone into Yazoo's cell before closing and locking behind him. Both were silent for a long moment, sizing up the other with matching feline eyes.
(They were hurting children.)
"Yazoo." Raul broke the silence first, eyes narrowing. "Where is Loz going."
(This wasn't one of his people. In fact, this worthless maggot had killed two of his people. He had no reason to be nice.)
The remnant predictably didn't answer, staring unblinkingly at the clone. A slight curl of one hand put a barrier over the outside of the door before he strode forward and reached up, tilting the camera so that it was oriented towards the wall instead. He stepped back towards the door, pulling slightly on his gloves as he contemplated Yazoo. The focus had sharpened. Good, he had his attention. He spoke softly, with a measured cadence.
"You know who I am. You know what I have done. While I may have convinced these fools that I have changed..." He could feel his lips pull into an amused, smug smirk even as he tilted his head. "... I know, that you can feel my presence regardless of how hard I try to mask it. Like static. A restlessness in the air."
(A bluff. Static was what it felt like for him, he had no proof the other felt the same. It was only proven by the slight widening of the remnant's eyes. Eyes that had undoubtedly held laughter as they executed Lisandra in the surveillance room. Dried tear tracks had been found on her face. Clearly they had gloated to mentally torture her before ending her life.)
"You are a Remnant. I made you, to be a vessel of my rebirth. But as I am already here... I don't need you, now do I. I could simply tug, simply call Loz here, but you know how he gets, and I would much rather speak with him without these temporary measures trying to eavesdrop." Raul leaned forward, voice quiet as he let a smirk play about his face. "So tell me, Yazoo. Where is Loz going."
Fists pounded against the barrier outside, dull thumps audible along with muffled, raised voices.
(Holly had been the other staff member in the surviellance room. She had been found stretched out, hole blown out through the back of her head. Presumably, Yazoo had put the barrel in her mouth. The broken ribs and skin under her fingernails had proven that she had fought back. Or tried to, at least.)
The remnant shrank back against the wall as malice seethed palpably through the air, jaw clenching, before he opened his mouth.
"I can't believe that worked." His eyes hurt. It felt as though he had spent far too long reading a book, and he tiredly reached up to rub them.
"I can't either. Reno said he should be here soon with your hair dye." Elena sat on the armchair, watching where the clone had slumped back on the couch in his rooms. "That was turk-worthy, I think. We caught all of what was said on the microphone, but you turned the camera away so we didn't get to see anything."
"There wasn't anything to see. Standard tactic. If the camera can't pick up what I do, then that indicates I am willing to do things that should not be caught on surveillance."
"Psychological warfare."
"Still, where did you get the coat on such short notice?" Said coat was draped over the table, leaving him shirtless as he went from rubbing his eyes to rubbing his temples. "I would have thought anything resembling Sephiroth would have long since been burnt."
"Umm... When you first got here, some people were dressing up to mock you in the barracks. We confiscated it, a wig and a foam sword." Elena smiled slightly as the clone huffed a soft laugh.
"I was unaware that they made wigs that long."
A knock on the door preceded Reno as the red-headed turk bustled his way in with a shopping bag. "Your savior has arrived! You owe me for this, bud."
He felt better once his hair was black. Elena had helped him dye his eyebrows while Reno made snide comments. Rude had arrived by then and relieved Elena as the clone wove the beads back through his bangs to weigh them down. It wasn't long before the report came back that they had located the cave system that Yazoo had divulged. Apparently, Vincent wanted to talk to him about it, and was waiting in the secondary debriefing room.
It was a short walk. He trusted the turks not to go through the contents of his room while he was gone the same way he trusted a cat not to knock a glass off of the edge of a table. It was fine, however. It wasn't as if he had anything to hide, and had long since resigned himself to whatever random configuration Reno planned to re-hang the pictures on his walls.
(They meant well. They had meant well when they had called him out to lift a vehicle off of Elena. They had meant well when they had ambushed him with paintball guns. They probably meant well by trying to see how many colour pellets they could stuff into the shower head. He had seen the way Elena's eyes had guiltily glanced over towards his bathroom, after all.)
Pushing the door to the debriefing room open, the clone stepped in and nodded politely towards the ex-turk that sat at the end of the table.
"Sit." A golden claw gestured to the empty chairs. Brows furrowing, Raul picked one and settled into it. "I want you to understand something."
The clone remained silent, waiting for Vincent to continue. He was familiar with needing a moment to choose the best way to say something, after all, and mentally braced for what it might have been.
(Was what he had done in the cell considered out of line? He hadn't tortured, physically harmed, or even touched the remnant. He had barely threatened him.)
"Lucrecia... Is inside that cave."
(Wait, what?)
"She tried to kill herself, because she failed to protect her son. She was infected with Jenova cells, and unable to do so. She retreated to the cave, and sealed herself inside a mako crystal."
(My mother-)
"His mother, is still alive." Raul knew his face was carefully blank. There wasn't much he could do about it, even as he clasped his hands together and set them on the table. "You said that she had killed herself."
The ex-turk simply inclined his head. It was as good as a full nod from anyone else, and silence stretched between them.
(He could see his Mother. His -real- Mother. He could ask her why Hojo, why had she agreed to bring him into the world at all, whether or not she had known what would happen. He always thought she must have, considering the reports he had been able to uncover indicated his exposure to Jenova had happened in the -womb- of all places. He could ask-)
(She had Jenova cells, too. Maybe... Maybe it had infected her, and turned her crazy, the same way he had been tainted.)
(He wasn't Sephiroth, he was not the one that had burnt down the mansion.)
"She knows that Sephiroth is dead. I... Do not think you should go."
The clone settled his gaze on the table. It was glossy enough that he could see his reflection, could pick out the glow of his own eyes.
"Why is it," He picked the words carefully, before continuing. "That everyone eventually lies to me."
"This does not make you special. Everyone lies and is lied to."
Raul found himself agreeing with that. At least it made him feel less personally betrayed.
Tseng still hadn't changed the start code for his car. The clone knew because it fired up once he punched it in, though the roar of the engine drowned out the sound of the trunk latch releasing. It was only when Raul put the car in reverse and twisted to back out that he caught sight of a tired looking Reno sitting on the back of the back seat, trunk open behind him as he sipped a chillaid juice bag.
"... Reno." Raul felt as though he had done a good job of keeping any signs of how he had almost proverbially leapt out of his skin out of his voice and posture. "What are you doing here."
"Dissuasion of Unlawful Theft duty. You?"
"Attempted Unlawful Theft."
"Look, bud, none of us here can actually -physically- stop you if you try and go, but we wanted to give you one last chance to change your mind. You've read everything we got on Deepground and Hojo's experiments." The turk sipped the juice box, elbows perched on his knees as if he was a teenage miscreant instead of a grown adult man. "Crescent's the first physically stable female with Jenova cells."
"You think... That instead of a Sephiroth clone, she might be a Jenova clone."
"Yep. You said you get static from bein' near the Remnants, so we're worried she might trigger something and make you go nuts. Cloud and co're up at the North Crater, trying to figure out what's going on. There's talk of the Bad Sephiroth emerging soon, if the remnants get their hands on any of Jenova's cells." Reno's eyes wandered for a moment, trying to find an empty trash can within line of sight.
"Then we cannot allow Loz to get to his destination." The clone's eyes narrowed.
"Vincent's already gone ahead to head him off. You got nothin' to worry about. Hes turk-trained." Target acquired, and with a final slurp the red-head emptied the juice bag and crumpled it up, lobbing it in an easy arc into the trash. "Besides, what if Yazoo breaks out?"
"I have confidence that you and Rude would be able to handle the situation."
"What happened to all that 'unenhanced people are squishy' stuff you were spouting before, eh?" The turk looked back at him, grinning. "C'mon, Stephen. We need you here."
He wished he could say he had decided to stay. In the end, he had politely requested that Rude open the garage door and left them both shaking their heads as he drove off. There was no unnatural compulsion to go, he wasn't needed, and yet...
(He would be stronger this time around. He wouldn't lose the way his past self had. He would prove, if only to himself, that he was stronger than that. This was just him... Protecting his honour. Soldier or not.)
He had to go. He had to -know- if Vincent was right, if he could be a better Sephiroth. It was the piece of the puzzle that was missing from Nibelheim.
The drive to Junon was uneventful. He was surprised to learn that passage was already booked for him on the ship, and the envelope with the tickets inside also bore the a letter detailing the rental parameters of one of Reno's chocobo's that had already been arranged for him in Costa del Sol. It also instructed him to leave the car behind, and he could see the wisdom in that considering he was going to have to traverse mountains. The unspoken support despite his decision to leave put a smile on his face.
He made good time after leaving Costa del Sol on the black chocobo that had inventively been named 'Coal'. The GPS on his phone helped him navigate, and it was two more long days of riding before something winged swooped down out of the sky. He had already drawn his sword and braced defensively on the chocobo before it touched down a short distance away and folded its wings. It seemed to wait for him to approached, and when he didn't skated along the ground to come closer.
"Raul." The name was rasped out, and it took the clone a moment to realize that without the rasping, almost burbling echo, it sounded like...
"... Mister Vincent?"
"You seem determined." Faintly glowing golden eyes narrowed. "Tseng called to say you were en route. You refuse to return?"
He nodded once, before the winged form shook its head and turned away, the appendages on its back unfolding and stretching out.
"Keep up, then."
It was... Beautiful. Growing greens framed by the blues and whites of the waterfalls. Rainbows formed by the light catching the spray in the air. The transformed turk folded his wings, a point of monstrosity in an otherwise peaceful-seeming area and gestured to where a post had been added that he could hitch his borrowed chocobo to before taking a few steps and settling into a floating skate towards the larger waterfall. It didn't take long for the clone to settle the bird and lay down some greens before following along.
He could feel it now. A faint tug on his consciousness, that wanted him to go into the cave. It reminded him of the Sleeping Forest, and all at once he balked.
"... You can always go back."
Turning, he followed Vincent's glowing gaze towards the chocobo, away from the pathway that led behind the waterfall, away from the subtle call. It was tempting.
(He had to see her. Both of 'her'. His Mother, and his Mother.)
(He didn't remember who his mother was, but he was fairly certain she was neither a scientist nor a space parasite.)
"I can, but I won't. I have to know. If... If I start raving about destroying the world..." Glowing green eyes met and held glowing gold, before the ex-turk nodded and hefted an unusual gun with a barrel shaped like a cross. A flick to the side and a quiet click, and the end of the barrel shimmered slightly. The clone was fairly certain that whatever 'ammunition' it took, it only required the gesture to reload.
"Did you mean it, when you said I could be a better Sephiroth?"
"Every word. That, is what makes you special."
The clone nodded, squared his shoulders and proceeded into the cave.
I really should be focusing on my actual work, but then Reno popped out of the trunk and stared at me.
Thanks goes out to tocasia for the review! I also don't understand how nobody's written anything similar to this in the past. The good clone theory's been floating around for -years- by now. Still, I'm glad I started with it instead of my alternate ff7 story which might come into play, oh I dunno, whenever I get bored of this one I suppose. It gives me a pre-existing groundwork and character before I implement the next disaster.
Back to work I go!
-KD
