Remnant of Dreams
©®™ Lt. Commander Richie
Disclaimer: Apologies for the odd-ness of the chapter. The timing included. And wouldn't you know it? A few chapters back, I totally jinxed it. I'm not on my way to Sakuracon, and I won't be going until tomorrow. Oh well, all's well that ends well, I suppose.
Chapter 11
Everything seemed familiar to Mira as she opened her eyes. The ceiling, painted pink with blue stars and a big smiling white moon, was cast in shadow and streaked across with moonlight. A mobile twisted lazily over her head, little cartoon Chocobos dancing about in a circle. She crowed with delight, reaching up for the stuffed birds with hands that were much smaller than they should have been. But she still couldn't reach, so it was with a bit of difficulty that she rolled herself over, got onto her hands and knees and then pulled herself to her feet to once again grasp for the birds.
A sudden crash outside her room resonated around the walls, a few pictures stacked on the dresser rattling slightly. Slowly, Mira used her unwieldy feet to turn around and face the door that had been behind her. Fingerpainted pictures were taped up over the surface, one that looked as though it had her name spelled messily in it surrounded by foam hearts that held it stuck to the door. Another crash sounded, and this time the door flew open and a woman with a long black braid fell through. The blue lines on her clothing were cracked and leaking mako, the scarf around her neck stained with what looked like blood.
Ariana Leirbach staggered to her feet, her Third-Class SOLDIER sword still clutched tightly in her hand. She slung herself into a habitual stance, and pointed the sword towards the door. The night, which had been clear originally, was now a mess of roiling clouds and lightning arching back and forth.
"You are a coward, Ariana." A woman hissed, standing just outside the room and just outside of Mira's field of vision over the walls of her crib.
"I don't care. Weiss knows that I can't just carry out an order that involves killing children!" Her black braid whipping around, Ariana turned to the crib behind her. "Stay there, honey." She said, her face a smiling wreck as blood trickled from a cut on her forehead. Her eyes wide, Mira watched mutely as her mother spun around once more and ran her thumb across a yellow piece of Materia inset in the handle of her sword. With an incoherent yell, a massive blast of lightning flew from the weapon and out into the hallway, nearly blasting the woman in the darkness into little bits.
"And yet you want to be elite." The woman's mocking voice was still there, though, echoing around the room like the thunder outside the window that seemed to get worse and worse as Ariana got angrier and angrier. "Your aim leaves everything to be desired, Ariana. You'll never become a Tsviet like this."
"I don't care!" In an instant Mira was snatched up from her crib, held tightly to her mother's chest with one arm as the other held her sword forward. "I don't care about becoming a Tsviet anymore!" Ariana clutched her daughter tighter as the woman speaking paused at the door. In the dim light, occasionally accented by sudden lightning flashes, two long sets of metal claws were illuminated with a shine. The little girl looked away from the extremely scary sight, squeezing her eyes shut. All of a sudden Ariana dropped her to the ground, and rain began to pummel her mercilessly. Looking up and opening her eyes, Mira was surprised to find herself looking at a roiling mass of dark clouds that occasionally flashed with lightning. Her hands were no longer the size of a child's, but rather the size they normally were. They were the tiny hands of her stunted growth, a four-year-old's hands in much need of a growth spurt.
"Weiss is angry. I thought we had gotten over your little bouts of defiance, but apparently I was wrong in assuming such." The speaker had long silver hair, glowing blue lines tracing up and down her black leather coat and rain making loud plinking noises as it fell against all the metal that adorned her stick-thin form. "You're a Tsviet, Ariana the Drear. You will act as such, and any more refusal to follow orders will be met with lethal force."
"If defying orders means keeping my daughter alive and away from you, so be it." Ariana stood proudly, despite the blood slowly trickling from a gash in her side, her old sword clutched tightly in both hands and leveled at the silver-haired woman. "So take your orders and go tell Weiss to stick them where the sun doesn't shine."
The laughter that came next was enough to make Mira nearly curl into a ball and wish that everything would be alright. But it wasn't, and the woman's laughter was so grating and so malicious-sounding, that she couldn't help but whimper and try to make herself as small and as unnoticeable as possible.
"I doubt that Weiss would order his brother about so willy-nilly." She said, a smirk that exposed pointed canines forming on her pale, thin lips. "After all, darkness is Nero the Sable's forte." The woman continued on nonchalantly, as though Ariana hadn't just jumped at her with a yell and a swing of her sword. The two exchanged blows in a shower of sparks, silver hair flicking about as the woman in black whirled around and tried to take Ariana's legs out from under her with the edge of her shoe. But with her braid flipping out and catching her assailant in the face, she evaded the razor-sharp swipe and brought her sword down on the silver-haired woman's head. It barely connected before the woman threw it back with one of her gauntlets, lightning flashing and making all of the scene glow for a moment.
"You were always weak." The woman said, watching as Ariana stepped back several paces to gain her footing, only to slip on a wet piece of cardboard and have her already injured leg fall out from under her. "Now, if you tell me where she is I may just let you live. You may loose a few pints of blood, but what's that between friends?"
"Mira's probably half way to what's left of Banora by now. She runs as fast as her father, you know. You'll never catch her; not in those heels." Ariana tried to lift her sword so as to lift herself up on it, but the silver-haired woman kicked it from her and out into the street.
"Don't lie to me, Ariana. I hate it when you lie." She sneered, adjusting one of her gauntlets that had been knocked slightly askew in the fight.
"C'mon, Milorr. You know as well as I do that the girl can get through anything, and the gates into the Slums and out of here count. I'm betting she's already out." Behind the trashcan, Mira fought back a whimper. Not because she was cold or that she was scared, but that her mother really did believe that, and she was wrong.
"Then I will kill you, and head the search party for her." Flexing her fingers, Milorr smiled wickedly at the sparks thrown into the wet air by the grating metal.
"You don't have to do this, Milorr." Ariana struggled to get to her feet, favoring her injured leg as she wiped blood from her eyes. The two women stared each other down, metal shining in yet another flash of lightning.
"Sorry Ariana, just following orders." Milorr's tone was almost mocking as she raised her gauntleted arms above her head, her Haste Materia shining brightly in the darkness. Lightning flashed brightly one last time, coming down dangerously close to the silver-haired woman and making the asphalt turn an angry red and bubble.
"Milorr, no!" In a flash of blue Haste and a spray of blood, Mira's eyes snapped open and she bolted to her feet.
With a mighty crack, the eight-year-old smacked her head on the underside of the low gardening table in the greenhouse she and Yuffie had dove into. She swore violently, using several words she may or may not have heard Cid yelling while in her presence. Tears leaked out of the corners of her large eyes as she sat back down, cradling the back of her head with both hands.
"You alright there, kiddo?" Yuffie gently pried the girl's hands from her head, shifting aside spike after spike of messy black hair to look for any bleeding. But still Mira continued to cry, finally curling in on herself and sobbing into her knees. The Kunoichi wrapped both arms around the little girl, hugging her close in an effort both to muffle her noise and to calm her. Still she carried on, finally wriggling around and grasping the front of the Ninja's Moogle poncho so as to sob into her shoulder. The action sent her Four Slots sliding down to her elbow, clicking against a metal watering pail and turning it just enough that it made the piece of Blank Materia, now visibly a very light pink, turn towards the roof of the greenhouse and catch just barely enough light from a flash of lightning to make it shine.
"Hey," Yuffie began, pulling the eight-year-old from her shoulder and wiping her tears away from her cheeks with both thumbs. "Whatever is wrong, I'll make it right. Okay?" Mira shook her head at this, hiccuping a few times before drawing her knees to her chest and staring blankly ahead with her glowing blue eyes.
"You can't make this one right." The Kunoichi was alarmed at the amount of resignation in her tone of voice, making the little girl sound like a slightly higher-pitched and squeakier Vincent. It could have been cute, save for the hurt that emanated from the eight-year-old much like the sorrow that had originally come from the scarlet-clad gunslinger that was her somewhat-adopted father. Suddenly Yuffie whirled to face the door, nearly hitting her head on a terracotta planter in the process. A crash, much like that of two cars being forcefully united with both each other and a stone wall, made the floor of the greenhouse shake ever-so-slightly. All was silent for a moment, before the Ninja slunk out from under the gardening table and peered out of one of the broken greenhouse panes. It was raining heavily, the drops mixed with sleet and a few little bits of snow, but besides that it was totally clear.
"They're gone." The Kunoichi said, using her one gloved hand to smash the rest of the glass out of the window. Mira slowly crawled out from under the gardening table, peering out into the night. She yelped in surprise, however, as Yuffie grabbed her around the middle and hoisted her through the window, before following the little girl onto the slick shingles. Together they made their way to the edge of the roof, where the Ninja once again grabbed the eight-year-old and hoisted her up, before jumping down to the ground and landing in a crouch. Both of them, absolutely soaked, quickly made their way to the window of the Piano Room.
"The window's locked." Mira tried pushing up on the window, yet it wouldn't budge. Yuffie rolled her eyes and shook her head, before reaching in through the freshly-broken window and flipping the catch of the lock. She barely got her arm out of the way before it sprang open, what was left of the glass shattering to the floor and onto the quickly-softening ground outside. Quietly laughing, Mira grabbed ahold of the windowsill and pulled herself up and into the room with a grunt. Yuffie followed silently, jumping first from the windowsill to the floor and then from the floor to the ajar hallway door. Someone began yelling in the foyer, followed by a sharp yell that sounded more masculine than anything.
Yuffie slunk down the hallway to the door into the foyer, motioning for Mira to follow her. The door was already open, and in a lightning-quick movement and a slight puff of smoke an empty scroll lay at the eight-year-old's feet and the Kunoichi was already hiding behind the only remaining staircase. Frightened, the little girl put one glowing eye to the wide area uncovered by the open door. What she saw, however, was enough to make her stumble backwards and clasp her hands over her mouth until she hit the wall.
It was Vincent, and it was Rosso the Crimson. The woman was splattered with blood, dark blood that just barely glowed to Mako-enhanced eyes, and in her hand she held a large and bright purple piece of Materia with what looked like a galaxy inside of it. A corresponding pool of blood was beginning to puddle around his body, the glow slowly becoming more noticeable until it was probably visible to the normal eye. Mira slid down to the floor, hugging her knees to her chest and biting the side of her hand as hard as she could to keep from screaming. Her ribbon fell, wet and frayed, onto her forehead, but she didn't even begin to notice it. She rocked back and forth, trying so very hard not to scream, even though she knew it was true.
Vincent was gone. Just like her mumma, and Kyra, and all the other kids that had been taken by the Remnants. And this time, she knew, he wouldn't wake up.
Oh noes! Deepground has the Protomateria, Yuffie's about to spring into action and Mira's having a heart attack! Or maybe an anxiety attack. Or maybe just a panic attack! But either way... Some of the trailer has been incorporated! Just why the hell Ariana Leirbach was so sorry when she saw Vincent in Penance HAS BEEN EXPLAINED! Kinda. Ya know, Tsviet, kill him and take the Protomateria, learned his innermost secrets so as to take him down... That kinda stuff.
OH YEAH! And this whole chapter was written solely on hype from watching the Crisis Core ad twelve times in one day. Four separate times on three different channels! The Odin summon looks EFFING AWESOME! Not to mention Crisis Core coming out in the US has gotten my FFVII hype back. Just in time for the con, ladies and gentlemen!
Lt. Commander Richie is OUTTA HERE, MAAN.