"Please remedy my confusion
and thrust me back to the day.
The silence of your seclusion
brings night into all you say.
I'm counting nocturnal hours
drowned visions in haunted sleep.
Faint flickering of your powers
leaks out to show what you keep.
Pull me down again and guide me into pain.
Spiralling to the ground below
like autumn leaves left in the wake
to fade away."
—Opeth, 'The Drapery Falls'
Chapter 11
Ashes and Ghosts
"I didn't touch it, I swear!" Yuffie shouted back.
The young ninja girl was engaged in a heated argument with several of the other Avalanche members, most prominently with Nanaki, who seemed uncharacteristically antagonized by what had just occurred.
"Don't lie to us! We all saw you grab that materia!" The crimson beast growled back at her. The others joined in, assailing the young girl with a barrage of angry words and harsh remarks.
"What were you thinking?"
"Always messin' with things you shouldn't.."
"Once a thief, always a thief!"
"Goddamn shit-for-brains little kid!"
"That's enough!" Cloud shouted angrily, interrupting them. The others quieted down immediately, looking over at the group's leader. It wasn't often that the blond swordsman raised his voice, but when he did, others listened.
"I believe her." Cloud said, looking critically at the others. Nanaki grumbled, but said nothing else. The red-maned beast walked off, pacing around the gate again.
Cloud looked over at Yuffie. She was red-faced and close to tears, frustrated at being treated like a child. "I was reaching out to touch them.." she explained dejectedly, eyes lowered to the ground. "...but the gate went dead before I could get a chance... ok?"
"So what, then?" Reeve asked. "Why would the gate just shut down like that?"
Tifa shook her head. "It could have happened for any number of reasons." she replied sullenly, breaking off from the rest of the group.
"Look, let's just calm down." Cloud said, trying to bring some clarity and control back to the group. "We've gotten out of tighter spots than this one."
"What, being stranded on an alien world, you mean?" Cid replied sarcastically.
Cloud shot the pilot a look, but didn't reply. He turned his attention to Nanaki. "Red, how long has it been since the gate started working?" he asked.
Nanaki walked back over to the rest of the group and sat down. The half-lion pondered the question for a moment, before replying. "About forty-eight hours, I think.." he estimated. "Come to think of it, right now it would be just around two days exactly since it became fully active." he stated. He looked up at the others, realizing what Cloud was getting at.
"Some sort of timer, you think?" Reeve asked.
Nanaki lowered his gaze to the ground, considering this new idea. "It is possible that that the gate will only remain active for a certain amount of time.." he replied. "Something projecting this kind of energy would almost certainly be an incredible drain on the planet's lifestream.." he muttered, mostly to himself, trailing off.
"But the real question is, how do we activate it again?" Vincent pointed out.
Cloud looked over at the rest of the group, crossing his arms. "For now, let's assume we're stuck here." he replied. "We'll have to deal with this situation as it plays out."
He tilted his head to one side, quickly doing an inventory in his head. "We've got some provisions in the buggy. They'll keep us going for a few days, at least." he said. He turned his attention towards Cid, who was lighting up a fresh cigarette. "Cid, what about the Highwind?" Cloud asked. "Is it going to be a problem, leaving it like that?"
"Nah, put it in standby mode, that thing'll stay airborne for a couple o' months, at least. Wear and tear notwithstanding, of course." Cid replied nonchalantly. "Right now, I'm more worried about it being stolen than running out of fuel an' crashing."
"All right, so no immediate worries." Cloud surmised. "But we're going to have to find a way back sooner rather than later."
"Well, it ain't gonna do us no good jes' standing around here yakkin' an' freezin' our butts off." Barret complained.
"Yeah, I mean, since we're here, we might as well go off and explore for a bit." Reeve said. "That's what we came here to do anyway, right?"
Cloud nodded. "We'd better do a quick scouting trip on foot, first. Then we'll come back here and form some kind of plan. No sense in wasting the buggy's fuel just yet."
There was a general murmur of agreement amongst the group. "All right. Let's go see the sights." Tifa said.
"Who knows, maybe we'll find some way to turn this thing on again." Yuffie said hopefully, motioning towards the gate as the others began to head out.
"Yeah, and maybe we'll find a fuckin' all-you-can-eat restaurant out here, too." Cid remarked sarcastically, as they began to wander down the desolate streets of the ancient city..
No matter how hard they tried not to think about it, the sheer vastness of the fallen city, and the extent of its ruin weighed heavily on everyone's minds. The trail of demolished buildings seemed to go on forever, and the signs of destruction were everywhere. Thousands of small craters lined the scarred earth, filled with debris from the surrounding wreckage. Though some still remained, most of the buildings surrounding the wandering group had long been reduced to ashes, the mark of some apocalyptic event that had taken place ages ago.
The buildings that remained consisted of the familiar sight of coral-reef structures, similar to those of Ajit, mingled with other, more symmetrical constructions. Small buildings sat next to former skyscrapers, whose hollowed remains still reached for the heavens. Statues, monuments and pillars stood scattered everywhere, some still intact, but most destroyed or in advanced states of decay, slowly falling apart as the centuries crawled on.
They all kept wondering what could have caused such devastation, short of a full-scale war. But what they found most disturbing about the place was the stillness. Aside from themselves, there was no discernable movement. No sounds to be heard. No stray animals wandering around in the vicinity. No birds in the sky. No people. Nothing.
Absolutely nothing..
The sight continued to instill fear and awe into the group as it moved quietly through the city's empty streets. Even Cid, whose extensive vocabulary of colorful language would usually allow him to make some crude appraisal of the situation, was unusually silent, carefully taking in his surroundings along with the rest of the group.
"The architecture is unmistakably of Cetra origin," Nanaki remarked as they passed through the empty streets of the city, stealing the others' attention momentarily. "but.. this looks different, somehow. Older."
As they walked on, they noticed several statues placed here and there, marking the entrances to the inner areas of the city, as if the praetorians of a bygone era. The statues resembled child-like angels, holding out one hand, a sad expression etched on their stone faces. The few beams of sunlight filtering through the thick clouds in the sky shrouded the statues in pale halos of light, catching small particles of dust as they swept through the air, lending the motionless angels an eerie, life-like quality..
"Ajit looks like a colony compared to this." Nanaki spoke up again, observing his surroundings enthusiastically. "This is more like..."
"..A homeworld." Vincent finished for him. Nanaki purred slightly in reply, but said nothing else.
"Where are we heading, anyway?" Reeve asked.
"Yeah, I was wonderin' about that, too." Barret said. "There's nothing but dust out here, far as I can see.."
"Wait, what's that?" Tifa asked, pointing in the direction ahead.
Looking in the direction that she was pointing, the others spotted what she was referring to. From where they stood, they could just barely make out a large building in the distance that, unlike any of the others around them, reflected the light of the sun back away from it, illuminating its surrounding area, as if it were made of glass... or crystal.
"What is that?" Reeve said. "Some sort of palace?"
"Whatever it is, it's still largely intact." Nanaki remarked. "And it's clearly an important landmark of the city."
"Let's go check it out." Cid said. With no objections voiced, the group altered its course slightly, heading towards this new discovery.
Cloud, noticing that Yuffie was keeping a short distance away from the rest of the group, moved up next to the young ninja girl. "Hey, you ok?" he asked.
Yuffie sniffled slightly, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. "..Yeah." she replied sullenly.
"Look... I know you didn't.." Cloud began.
"I've messed everything up, haven't I?" Yuffie cut him off, still not meeting his gaze.
"It's not your fault." Cloud replied in a reassuring tone of voice, placing a hand on her shoulder. "And we'll find a way back." he assured her. "I promise."
She looked up at him, smiling. It was a faint smile at best, but he could tell that she was at least feeling a little better. She brushed away a couple of stray strands of hair from her eyes, looking up at him again, more directly this time.
"Um.. about last night.." she began.
"Hey, Cloud. I've gotta ask you something." Cid said, tapping on Cloud's shoulder, cutting off their conversation.
"What is it?" Cloud asked, sounding slightly irritated at the interruption.
"When those things came at us through the gate.. just before that happened, you said 'something's coming'." Cid meandered verbally. "How'd you know?" The pilot asked.
The others, noticing their conversation, turned their attention to Cloud as well, waiting for his answer. Cloud thought about Cid's question for a moment. "..I really don't know." he finally replied, shrugging. "All I know is... I could feel it."
The others waited for him to elaborate. Cloud sighed. "I haven't felt anything like that since.." he paused. "...well, in a long time, anyway." He finished abruptly.
The truth was, he hadn't experienced a feeling quite like that since the whole Meteor incident. He clearly remembered having the same feeling of discomfort whenever he had been in the presence of Jenova. As time wore on, he had almost forgotten what it was like. But now it felt as though something were slowly awakening inside of him again, in the presence of their new enemy. And he didn't like that feeling one bit..
"Well, maybe we'll know for sure what it is if we meet more of them out here." Yuffie remarked.
"Actually, I have a hypothesis regarding that." Nanaki spoke up, walking up next to them.
"Which is?" Vincent asked laconically.
"As you know, one of the astonishing properties of Jenova cells is that they will do whatever they possibly can to keep their host body alive, in the interest of self-preservation. This in turn grants a given host's body incredible regenerative abilities." Nanaki began. "Another one is their adaptability towards different species, as well as their ability to mutate rapidly." The red-maned beast continued. "And the third and most fundamental one is their behaviour towards one another, when they are displaced. When separated, these cells will intrinsically be drawn back towards each other, such as when an appendage is severed, for example. You all remember the events that took place at the Northern Crater, I trust. The so-called 'Reunion'.."
"Are you going somewhere with this?" Cid asked impatiently.
Nanaki ignored the comment, eyeing Cloud critically. "What you're experiencing is most likely some kind of "cell resonance". The Jenova cells inside your body and those of the other beings infected with them are "calling out" to each other, if you will, in an attempt to reconnect."
"You mean this will happen every time something contaminated with Jenova cells comes near him?" Reeve asked, pointing at Cloud.
"Seems like it." Nanaki answered.
"So we've got an early warning system, huh? Cid remarked sarcastically. "That's good to know."
Cloud resisted the temptation to roll his eyes, and simply kept on walking.
"What do we call those damn things anyway?" Barret asked.
"Those monsters that attacked us?" Tifa replied.
"Yeah, I mean, we gotta call'em something." Barret said.
Tifa thought about this for a moment. "Greys." she said simply.
"Greys?" Reeve repeated, uncertain.
"Yeah, they're not quite black, so 'greys' seems about right." Tifa explained. "Besides, it's short."
"Works for me." Cid replied.
They walked on for a short while, after deciding on the new name of their new foes. The skyline grew murkier as they progressed further inside the city, as black rain-clouds slowly gathered in the skies above them.
"It's getting dark.." Tifa pointed out.
"And damp." Yuffie added, as the first drops of rain fell on top of her head. She looked up at the sky, catching a few more droplets in the palm of her hand. It was quite clear that they were just a small portent of things to come, as the sky was quickly turning black, and the last rays of sunlight were fast fading from sight..
Vincent spoke up suddenly. "Verily, shadows do gather 'round us, obscuring the paths we trace, forged so long ago. We must tread lightly, as we walk through the ashes of empires, so as not to disturb the ghosts of the past.."
Tifa glanced over at her fiancé, a bemused expression on her face. "Poetic." she replied. "What was that?"
Vincent made a dismissive motion with his claw hand, shaking his head slightly. "Nothing. A book I once read.."
The others looked as though they were about to comment further on the gunman's habit of making obscure quotations for no apparent reason, when the rain started pouring down on them heavily.
"We can't stay out here in the rain." Reeve said. "We'll get drenched."
Cloud sighed. "All right, we'll take shelter in one of these buildings.."
The blond swordsman motioned them towards the nearest building. There were no objections to be heard from the rest of the group, who were already getting cold, as well as lightly soaked..
They headed into one of the buildings that still seemed reasonably stable, hoping that it wouldn't come crashing down over their heads the minute they entered. The air inside felt heavy and cold, and the place itself emanated a brooding aura, one of emptiness and loss.
"Let's see if we can't get a better view from up here." Cloud said, motioning upwards.
The building itself was quite tall, reaching more than a dozen floors upwards. A hollow wind echoed off the coral walls of the building, creating a ghostly wail that echoed through the stairwell as they ascended the steps of the spiral staircase. Finally, they reached the top, some fourteen floors up.
One side of the wall had almost completely collapsed away, along with a section of the floor, leaving a large gap where the front of the building should have been. The gaps and tears in the walls let the wind in, causing the Avalanchers to shiver from the cold. But at least they were dry for the time being. The group spread out across the floor of the dilapidated building, settling down to get some rest, trying to stay warm.
Barret sat with his back against one of the walls, tinkering with his gun-arm, leaving tiny screws and bits of metal laying scattered on the floor around him. Cid leaned up against one of the pillars in the room, resting his spear under his arm, rolling up a fresh cigarette. Tifa and Vincent sat together in one corner of the room, comfortably huddled together under Vincent's cape. The pair seemed to be in a world of their own, only vaguely aware of the others around them. Cloud, meanwhile, walked over to the rift in the wall, taking in the view of the city from their new vantage point.
Yuffie, Nanaki and Reeve sat in the middle of the floor. They had put together some tinder from their back-packs, and were now trying to start up a fire. Reeve sat in front of their makeshift fire ring, holding up a red orb. Yuffie sighed. Having already attempted once to light their kindling, without much success, the young ninja girl sat cross-legged on the floor, playing marbles half-heartedly with her materia.
"It's strange.." Reeve said. "It feels so weak." Try as he might, he couldn't get the fire materia in his hands to produce more than a small flicker of flame.
"I believe there is a rational explanation for that." Nanaki spoke up. "It seems as though this planet's lifestream has been severely drained." The crimson beast hypothesized, tilting his head on to one side. "It won't conduct well to the use of materia. I doubt we can use any of it here."
"Not even curative materia?" Tifa asked, looking up.
Nanaki shook his head. "I'm afraid not." he replied.
Cid, who was lighting up his newly-made cigarette, glanced up. "Great, so we're back to the fucking stone age." he commented.
Nanaki grumbled. "Let's put it this way." he said. "We'll have be more careful to avoid injuries than we have been."
Cloud stood at the crumbling edge of the building, arms crossed, looking out towards the horizon, as the rain kept on falling. Yuffie looked out over at him. He seemed more focused now than he had been in the last couple of days. Sharper somehow, as if the events of the past few days had awoken him from some deep slumber. She wasn't sure if she liked him better this way, though. Whenever he became focused on something like this, he also became distant somehow, cold and detached..
"There's something there.." Cloud said suddenly.
"What?" Cid asked, walking over next to him.
"Look.." Cloud pointed into the distance. "There's something moving down there.."
Cid looked out into the dusk outside, straining his eyes to see. In the murkiness below, he could just barely make out several figures moving about. He looked back over at Cloud, who was eyeing the pilot intently. The rest of the group gathered around them, trying to see as well. There was something moving around down there, all right..
"Let's go." Cloud said, looking over at the others, heading towards the stairs. The others snapped up their weapons and equipment, following him back outside.
The group quickly exited the building, weapons in hand, heading in the direction in which they had spotted the roaming figures. The rain had subsided from a heavy downpour into a light drizzle, but the sun had sunk completely below the horizon, making it difficult to see much beyond the few buildings surrounding the group.
"It's them." Cloud said to the others.
"You feelin' something?" Cid asked. Cloud nodded, but said nothing more.
As they walked on, they reached a large crater filled with debris, in which a lone figure stood still near the bottom. The Avalanchers moved down into the crater, carefully approaching the figure, which was slowly coming into view.
The wolf-like grey turned around, snarling as it spotted its pursuers. More greys appeared along the rim of the crater as the Avalanchers brandished their weapons, preparing to take on the monsters encircling them.
The greys poured over the crater's rim, rushing towards the group of humans in their midst. Their attack was met with a flurry of steel as sword, spear and shuriken carved their way through the approaching beasts. Vincent, Barret and Reeve drew their guns and fired away relentlessly at their attackers, creating a hail of bullets, killing numerous greys before they could even reach their prey.
Nanaki pounced one of the beasts, taking it by surprise, sinking his fangs into its neck, tearing out its jugular. The animal below him quickly went limp, as he released his grip and moved onto the next one. Tifa narrowly dodged an incoming attack by one of the beasts, then stopped a second one cold as two of the greys leapt at her simultaneously. Thinking fast and acting even faster, she grabbed each of their heads in mid-air, smashing their skulls together, shattering them instantly.
The Avalanchers wore through their attackers quickly and confidently. Having fought these beasts before, they knew better what to expect from them. But as they fell, more greys kept coming, trailing across the rim of the crater, replacing the ones they had just killed. They were simply becoming too many for them to handle..
"We're surrounded!" Tifa called.
The group stood huddled in a circle at the bottom of the crater, weapons held outward, fending off their attackers as best they could.
"There's too many of them!" someone shouted from the other side of the group.
Cloud cursed under his breath, his well-worn buster sword pointed out towards the approaching greys, There was nowhere they could escape to from here. All they could do was hold their ground..
Suddenly, the greys simply ceased their attack. The sable beasts stood still, watching their prey intently.
The Avalanchers stopped as well, realizing that their assailants were holding off. Then they noticed it. The faint hints of ragged breathing, that of a much larger creature, looming over the bloodied battlefield that the crater had become. They could barely believe their eyes as the imposing being descending into the crater.
Cloud's heart froze when he saw it. There was no mistaking the blackened shape before them. The grotesque, deformed half-wings rising from its back, the tentacles spiralling from its body in every direction, the protracted face, forever contorted into a perpetual, insane death-grin..
...Jenova.
Nightmarish visions of the horrific experiments he had endured six years ago flashed across his vision, the agonizing moments spent submerged in the suspension chamber, hours upon hours of extreme shock treatment, the drugs being pumped into his veins to keep him sedate...
...The moment of his infection with the Jenova cells.
A sharp pain shot throughout his veins as the parasite entered his body. "A gift from God... you should be thankful." The pale-faced scientist's words echoed throughout the room, as he withdrew the needle..
The pressure inside of his head was agonizing, overwhelming, feeling as if thousands of needles were being pressed into his skull all at once. The pain was too much to bear, causing him to fall to his knees.
The pain subsided. He was back inside the suspension tank, surrounded by the cold, viridian liquid.
Shadowy figures stood on the other side of the tank, clipboards in hand, dispassionately observing him. They had no faces. Their voices were nothing but distorted nonsense.
Despite being submerged, he could still breathe. There was no motion inside the chamber, except for the gentle swell of the liquid surrounding his prone body. Try as he might, he couldn't move an inch..
In the back of his mind, he thought he could almost detect a faint noise, just outside the range of hearing.
"..."
The figures were gone. The solution he was suspended in was slowly becoming murkier, as another liquid seeped in from below.
It was blood. His blood.. seeping in, but from where? He couldn't move. It was getting harder to breathe..
The noise was getting louder..
"...oud."
As if someone were calling to him from far away..
The blood plasma filled the tank. There was only the red now. He was suffocating.
"Cloud!" Yuffie's voice came, loud and sharp, bringing him back to the present. He could feel someone's hand on his shoulder. The blood washed away from his vision, and he could see clearly again.
He looked up to see the Jenova being, its massive black body towering over him and the others. The alien being remained still, studying the group of people before it. It had not yet made any move to attack them, it seemed..
Cloud drew in a lungful of air. The feeling of discomfort he had felt earlier was stronger now, much stronger, nearly overpowering. But he could move again. He quickly reached out for his sword, hefting it again, his hands trembling ever so slightly as he rose unsteadily back to his feet.
The greys backed away, retreating behind the tall Jenova creature, as if being ordered back by it. The animals reluctantly abandoned the crater, leaving just the Avalanchers and it. The Jenova being smiled grimly at them, its feelers and tentacles unwinding as it arched forward, preparing to attack..
"C'mon! We can take it!" Cid shouted, readying his spear, charging towards the alien being. The others followed, brandishing their weapons, skillfully evading the hefty being's attacks as they rushed it.
Even with the odds of eight to one, the Jenova creature was no easy opponent, proving much more difficult to handle than the greys. Reeve and Tifa failed to react in time as it made a hard sweep with one of its large feelers, knocking them down to the ground. Yuffie barely managed to dodge out of the way as it blasted out a stream of toxic plasma though the vesicles in its face. Cloud sliced through one of its tentacles as it lashed out against him, but was struck by another, its epidermal needles tearing away at his flesh as it grazed his upper arm.
As they fought the Jenova creature, striking and firing away, doing their best to avoid its counterattacks, they saw something that made them all stop dead in their tracks..
Another Jenova being, identical to the one they were fighting, sidled up next to it.
And then a third one, closing up behind them..
"Holy fucking hell.." Cid muttered, looking around to see the group surrounded by the three enormous beings.
"It's an army.." Reeve breathed in sheer disbelief at the sight, as the Jenova beings began to move in closer..
"We have to get out of here.." Cloud thought. "There's no way we can take them all at once. Not here."
"Split up! Get out of here!" he called to the others. Following his order, the Avalanchers quickly split into three groups, each heading in their own direction. Cloud, Yuffie and Nanaki ran up between the two Jenovas right in front of the group, narrowly dodging their attacks as they rushed back out of the crater. Cid, Barret and Reeve took to the right, while Vincent and Tifa ran left, hand in hand.
The three groups joined up again as they emerged from the crater, with the three Jenova beings in tow. Cloud lead the group into a narrow alley between two skyscrapers. The group ran quickly through the narrow space, emerging in a street block of wartorn buildings.
Heading down the street, Cloud looked for a place for them to hide. "In here!" he called, motioning towards a set of buildings adjacent to them on either side. The front sides of the buildings had been gouged away long ago, but parts of the walls remained, just large enough for a small group to hide behind. The group split up again, with Cloud, Cid, Barret and Reeve entering the building on the left side, and the rest of the group taking the wall on the other side.
"Stay down." Cloud told the others. He winced as he placed his right hand over his left upper arm, examining the wound there. It didn't look too bad, he decided, and in any case, it would have to wait..
He peered carefully over the wall of the building behind which he and the others were hiding. One of the Jenova beings had followed them. The large creature sidled casually through the street, in search of its prey.
Cloud sighed, closing his eyes, leaning heavily against the stone wall. The thought kept playing in his mind, over and over again, as they hid. "An army. A Jenova army.."
Then he heard something. A child's voice, calling from the streets. His eyes snapped open. He quickly peered over the wall again to see what it was. A small girl, clad in tattered white robes, was wandering the streets, calling out what sounded like someone's name..
"What the.." he breathed. Cid, Barret and Reeve looked up over the wall to see what he was staring at. Cloud saw that the group in the other building had noticed the girl as well, and they seemed just as confused by the situation.
"What the hell?" Cid cursed. "What's that kid doing there? Is she crazy?"
Cloud scanned the rest of the area quickly. The Jenova creature stood at the far end of the street, its back turned to them for the moment.
"It's going to spot her.." Cloud thought. "And then.."
Cloud saw the hulking creature began to slowly turn around. Without a second thought, he made his move..
"Hey, where the hell are you going?" Cid shouted, as the blond swordsman climbed back up out of their hiding place, running towards the wayward child in the street. He quickly snatched the little girl up in his arms, narrowly dodging into the other group's hiding place in the opposite building just as the Jenova creature cast its gaze in their direction.
Cloud sat next to the others, the little girl held firmly in his arms. The group waited tensely, collectively holding their breath as the Jenova sauntered up to their hiding place. They could hear the creature's ragged breathing as it prodded the building inquisitively with its feelers, leaning further down to examine the area..
The Jenova creature waited for a moment, inspecting the outside of the building. Then, seemingly satisfied, it began to move away. Cloud breathed a heavy sigh of relief, leaning against the wall, completely drained. It hadn't seen them..
Tired as he was, it took him a moment to notice that the little girl had escaped from his grip, and was now sitting between him and the others. Yuffie, Vincent, Tifa and Nanaki all stared at the child with a look of curiosity.
She had clear, blue eyes and pale blonde hair, tied up into simple wind braids at the back. She was dressed in a tattered and dirty white robe, and simple brown shoes. The girl whispered something to them, speaking in a language that they could not understand or recognize. The words sounded fluid, yet hard, as if those of an ancient tongue.
A moment passed before the realization dawned upon them...
...they were face to face with a living, breathing Cetra.
"What the hell was that all about?" Cid asked, peering over the wall behind which he and his group hid.
"Uh... Cid?" Reeve spoke up, tapping the pilot's shoulder. Cid turned his attention towards him, followed by what he was looking up at..
The other two Jenovas stood before them, having followed the first one into the street.
"Oh, fuck." Cid breathed.
The four of them got up and ran away as the two creatures began to attack their hiding place, smashing up the building, sending the walls around them crumbling down. They rushed out of the building just in time to escape certain death from the falling enclosures.
"Damnit!" Cid cursed, seeing that they had been cut off from the other group. "We have to get out of here!"
"What about the others?" Barret asked.
"We have to go back and look for them." Reeve said.
"Not now, goddamnit!" Cid replied, as they kept running down the empty street. "They'll have to take care of themselves." he added irritably. He would rather not leave his friends behind, now that it was pitch-black outside, and certainly not with those things wandering around, but he knew that they would probably stand a better chance of escaping in smaller groups rather than a single large one.
With that in mind, he and the others kept going more or less blindly in the same direction they had taken during their escape.
The three Jenovas had gathered in the street, examining the wreckage of the building they had just demolished. On the other side of the street, the remaining Avalanchers waited tensely as the three beings slithered past them, making to leave again. As they headed back out towards the far side of the street, one of them paused, turning around. It moved back up to the wall that just barely kept the group of six hidden, peering inside the building. It halted all of its movement suddenly, waiting. The other two Jenovas in the street turned around as well..
"They've spotted us.." Cloud thought.
"Run." he whispered, looking over at the others. "now."
The others scrambled to their feet, rushing out of the building. Cloud got up to his feet, taking the little girl's hand and pulling her away just in time as the three Jenovas ground the foundational walls of the building into dust, sending the floor above them crashing down over their heads. They narrowly dodged out of the building just in time, within inches of being crushed by the collapsing floor.
Outside, the Jenova creatures gave chase to the group, moving surprisingly quickly for their size. Cloud quickly hoisted the little girl into a piggyback position, breaking into a run as he caught up with the others.
The Jenovas chased the group to the outskirts of the area. The city streets gradually gave way to an empty valley, cordoned off by a steep cliff wall. Despair filled the group as they realized that there was nowhere else to run. Their backs were against the wall. The three Jenova creatures had them surrounded, and they were closing in, moving more slowly now, as if taking some perverse pleasure in their hunt..
Vincent loaded his rifle, firing away at the three Jenovas, severing their appendages and wounding them. Cloud drew his pistol, and fired away as well. Yuffie joined them, having thrown her shuriken, she fired away with her magnum pistol, getting jarred back violently, unused to her weapon's heavy recoil. But it wasn't enough. They needed someone else to back them up..
"Tifa, where's your gun?" Cloud called, reloading his weapon.
"I..." Tifa hesitated, realizing that she had left it behind on the airship.
"Damnit.." Cloud cursed, holstering his gun as the Jenova creatures drew nearer. He unsheathed his sword, preparing to do his best to protect the little girl behind him as the three alien beings made to attack the group.
Suddenly, a voice called out above them. Before they knew what had occurred, a figure clad in white descended in front of them, jumping from the cliff. The figure landed in between them and the Jenova creatures, sinking its staff into the ground below. The ground cracked as the staff smashed into it and, in the blink of an eye, a wall of flame rose from the earth, circling the group, scorching the Jenova beings, slowly burning them alive. Despite the flames, they made no sign that they were in any pain, or fazed by this attack in the slightest. They kept on walking through the fire, closing in on their prey..
...before finally collapsing to the ground. The death-grins on their faces the last thing that remained, as their charred bodies crackled and boiled, turning into ashes.
The intensity of the flames gradually subsided, and the walls of flame surrounding the group faded away. The figure in white, an old man, stood up again briefly, before collapsing against his staff, exhausted from the effort. Cloud and Vincent rushed over to the older man to help him to its feet, but he pushed them away, shouting at them in the same language as they had heard the little girl speak earlier. The man stubbornly raised himself to his feet, refusing any help.
The Avalanchers regarded the man who had apparently just saved them. He looked to be in his late forties, and was clean-shaven, with short, grey hair and sharp features, despite his age. He wore similar robes to those of the little girl, although his seemed to have been taken slightly better care of. The man held a gilded staff in his right hand, adorned with what seemed to be a large piece of materia. All in all, the man exuded an aura of authority, even regality.
Examining the group that stood before him, he seemed to recognize the little girl among them. The girl walked out of the centre of the group and towards the old man. He spoke a few words to her in a tone of voice that hesitated somewhere between worry and anger. The girl replied to him with a few words, nodding.
He then turned his attention to the strangers facing him and the little girl, his expression stern. He spoke some more words to her in their language, eyeing the strangers before him warily. The girl replied to him again, sounding somewhat alarmed, as if he might do something if she did not explain the situation correctly. She spoke to the old man for a while, gesturing towards the Avalanchers, explaining something to the old man with simple, child-like gestures.
The man listened to her for a while, then walked up to Cloud, who stood at the front of the group. The older man appraised him and the others for a moment, before turning around, heading back inside the city. He gestured for them to follow him, without further words.
"Where are they taking us?" Yuffie whispered to Cloud.
"I don't know, but any place is better than here right now." Cloud replied.
"But what about the others?" Tifa asked, concerned.
"I'm sure they'll be all right." Cloud answered, hoping that he was right. "Let's stick with them for now" he replied, motioning towards the two Cetra.
Cid sighed loudly.
"Well, shoot." he said, scratching the back of his head. "There's no way we're gettin' across this."
Cid, along with Barret and Reeve, stood opposite a river of black water. On the other side of the river lay the crystal structure they had seen earlier. But as of now, it was completely unreachable.
They had briefly considered swimming across, but the thought of getting even more wet than they already were had quickly nullified that idea. In addition, there was something about the river that struck them as being odd, the way it seemed to move much more slowly than water should. It looked oily and thick, and there seemed to be something moving underneath the surface, if it was not simply their imaginations playing with them.
Crossing the river was definitely out of the question.
"Maybe we could inflate the buggy's tyres, use it as a raft?" Reeve suggested. Of course, he knew that meant going back to fetch the buggy first.
"Nah..." Cid replied, looking out over the black, swelling mass, shaking his head. "We need wings."
"Well, we ain't about to grow those, if that's what ya mean." Barret replied grumpily. "I don't see no point in hangin' around here."
"All right then, first things first." Cid said. "We go back to the buggy an' wait. See if the others come back, or maybe if they're already there." he shrugged. "If not, we go out again an' look for'em when day breaks."
Barret and Reeve looked at each other, nodding, and followed the captain back towards the gate that had brought them to this world.
Cloud, Yuffie, Vincent, Tifa and Nanaki followed the two Cetra over to a block of buildings that still seemed relatively stable. The old man and the little girl headed inside one of the buildings, with the Avalanchers in tow. Inside the building, they headed down a long, fragmented staircase, moving down into the basement area.
Down in the basement, the old man reached for a torch hanging from the wall next to the staircase, and motioned for the others to follow him. He moved over to the far wall, pushing a thick slab of rock out of the way, revealing a tunnel, leading further down..
Cloud and Yuffie looked at each other, as if to say, "What choice do we have?"
With no other clear alternatives, they and the others followed the two Cetra into the tunnel, heading further down into the cold earth.