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: Sigh...
I rule the midnight air
The destroyer
I shall soon be there
Deadly mass
I creep the steps and floor
Final darkness
Lamb's blood painted door
I shall pass
Creeping Death
--James Hetfield
- Chapter 24: Prison Break
The little ninja's frantic inquiry and subsequent panicked gesticulations were a stark contrast to Tifa's relaxed reply in an attempt to settle her younger comrade.
"Yuffie, calm down... I have no idea. They took him away a few hours ago. Us and Jethro were placed in this same cell but we were all eventually separated."
Before their conversation could continue, a sudden screech of terror caught their attention and the duo redirected their gazes to the door of the room where the new battle was raging. It appeared that a woman had been trying to escape the clutches of some sort of deformed monstrosity. The wretch was a human-sized, parasitic-looking beast that Tifa recalled encountering back in the old ShinRa Headquarters after Jenova had run amok in the building. It appeared as if the fiend was under the control of their enemies, unfortunately.
The victim being attacked was with NMI, and was being continuously punctured by her assailant's several tentacles in a horrifying manner. Luckily for the girl, the monster was forcefully kicked off of her by a fellow Mage before further damage could be done. As the bleeding young woman was tended to by her comrade, Yuffie finally used the correct key and practically threw the cell door off of its hinges to greet her long-lost friend with open arms. The two sole female members of AVALANCHE embraced one another whole-heartedly, the younger leaping up and clinging onto the raven-haired martial artist like a child would to her mother.
Quite frankly, Tifa was somewhat surprised at such jubilation displayed by the little ninja, unaware of the hidden depression the emotionally vulnerable young teenager felt during the last week for losing the only people in her life she considered her friends in an almost sequential period of time. Yuffie's inner turmoil stemmed from an ominous uncertainty for a hazily ambiguous future, a heart-crushing pessimism that first eked out it's ugly head with the devastating, untimely murder of Aerith Gainsborough and snowballed in mass upon the simultaneous incapacitations of Barret Wallace, Reeve Tuesti, and Nanaki of Cosmo Canyon. Tifa's bewilderment did not hamper such a tender moment, though, and she returned such unconditional affection with just as much genuine enthusiasm.
The fool's hope Yuffie persevered with that even the little ninja sometimes found herself questioning was finally beginning to pay off with their reunion, a sliver of optimism that the Wutaian princess anticipated would hold her over for the rest of the journey down the sure-to-be long road to ultimately ending this entire ordeal. A stray bullet ricocheted off the wall mere inches away from the hugging couple and they immediately returned their minds to join their bodies back in the situation at hand. Tifa dropped Yuffie back down to her feet and they both analyzed the scene before them.
The very room they both stood in had broken out into pandemonium. The vicinity was now filled with brutal melees between the rebel affiliates and NMI gang members. Their firearms either destroyed or spent, the warehouse guards were forced to engage the blue-tinted raiders in hand-to-hand combat, the fight having broken up into various small duels of personal strength that probably encompassed the entire building. With the hormone-driven Junon punks being so innately adept in brawling through months of trial-and-error first-hand experience on the city streets against rival gangs, they were naturally gaining the upper hand and were slowly but surely besting their opponents.
"Who's who?" Tifa inquired, unsure of the allegiance of the parties involved.
"Well..." Yuffie started, raising an awkward finger at the seemingly blood-thirsty members of Norté Magus, Incorporated. "The guys dressed with a lotta blue are with this gang that we got on our side..."
"How did you manage that?"
"Well, turns out Rude had a cousin in this gang and--"
"Wait, what? Rude? As in, Rude of the Turks?!"
"Well, technically they're not Turks anymore..."
"I can't believe this..." Tifa sighed while running a hand through her hair due to hearing such unexpected news. Honestly, she was still sour at the Turks for everything they had done, particularly the whole Sector 7 catastrophe they were responsible for that needlessly claimed the lives of hundreds of innocent people. "What's next? You going to tell me that Sephiroth's waiting outside for us in an escape car?"
"I don't blame you for feeling that way. Imagine how I felt when they first showed up! Hey, maybe we can save this for later, yeah?"
"Hmm." Tifa nodded in accord. "C'mon, we still gotta find Cloud and get outta here."
"Wait, where's Vincent?!" With that, the two female AVALANCHE members waded through the mayhem until they saw Vincent at the farthest end of the room still clashed in his duel with the blade-wielding secretary.
Vincent rapidly fired his long rifle at the evasive SOLDIER, who dodged and deflected each shot. Once Vincent temporarily ceased his bombardment to reload, the secretary seized the opportunity and dashed up to the gunslinger to deliver her own payload of lightning-fast attacks, a series of vertical and horizontal swipes that flowed in a succeeding, rapid cadence. Vincent twisted and turned, narrowly avoiding each and every superhuman cut until he was forced to hold up his Death Penalty to halt an energized downwards slash, effectively locking the two of them in a face-to-face, shaking stalemate.
The female SOLDIER took a glance to her side at her rival's reinforcements, Tifa and Yuffie. They were approaching fast, so with a final glower at the caped marksman, she took a quick jab at his face which distracted him just enough for her to reset her Flying Sickle's position and instantaneously follow-through with a final, empowered uppercut that split his trusted long rifle in half. The last thing the secretary saw of her adversary was the awe of disbelief in his eyes before she kicked him away with her high heel and made her escape by spinning round and cutting through the concrete wall behind her. She dropped some sort of flash-bang and disappeared into the hallway from sight.
Unaffected by the blinding flare, Vincent sighed in disappointment at the two pieces of his once-dependable long rifle he held in either hand. He placed the remnants of his weapon on the floor, knowing that there would be no time to repair it, nor could he bear the burden of carrying his destroyed weapon around in such a hostile, mobility-dependent environment. Reliability aside, the Death Penalty had been gifted to him by Lucrecia Crescent of all people, but those were all compunctions he would have to chastise himself for later.
"Are you okay?" Tifa asked the gunslinger as she ran up with Yuffie.
Their eyes were squinted, still recovering from the flash. Vincent stood and silently nodded after he quickly scanned both of his comrades for any signs of injury.
"Who was that?" Yuffie inquired of the swordswoman.
"No idea." Vincent responded. "But with our luck the way it's been lately, I doubt that's the last we're going to see of her."
--
"Gah! Ow! Urgh! Waaaaaagh…! Oof!"
"…I take it you're Cait Sith?"
Cait Sith slowly looked up at a pair of legs, his vision still blurry due to the long drop from the ceiling air vent above. He raised his gaze higher as it began to recalibrate and made out the figure of a blonde woman.
"That's right, lass!" he replied, jumping up. "Beatrice the spy, I presume?"
"Correct." She answered back in a serious demeanor while walking up to a console. "Come on, the computer's right here and we don't have much time."
"Leave it to me!" he said while jumping up on the stool.
The robotic feline unwound a thin cable out from his wrist, plugged it into the USB port of the laptop, and began to download the pages he manually browsed through using the keyboard.
"Any trouble?" Beatrice asked with her hands in her pocket.
"Nope, I should be finished in a few minutes. There seems to be a lot of documents, most of which are irrelevant and useless that I have to filter out. Did you find anything out yourself?"
"Well, from what I've overheard from Don Corneo's secretary, Havern Glaire, is that they're basically trying to rebuild ShinRa. They've got some sort of board or committee of surviving executives or totally new people set up somewhere that's apparently in charge of this whole operation."
"Any possible motives?"
"My guess is that's its for the money. They seem to have continued the search for the fabled Promised Land the old company started, which would make sense because this place is supposed to be made of pure Mako or have infinite deposits of it, right?"
"So the legend goes."
"They must really believe in it to go the these lengths, given what Cetra lore contains. I kept overhearing people around here refer to how they've hired some people to… 'relocate something.'"
"Any clue as to what this 'something' is?"
"No idea. It seems to be top secret because of how ignorantly Glaire and Corneo spoke of it. Zeb Mahonney appears to be the only one who knows about all this."
"According to this, Zeb's the one who hired the hunters you mentioned."
"Does that say what they're searching for?"
"Sorry, but no. The topic is marked as 'classified.' Hmm, sounds like Zeb is up to something that the others don't know about."
"It's interesting… well, he does outrank the other two."
"Outrank?"
"Yes, from what I have eavesdropped, Mahonney, Corneo, and Glaire are like, officers or overseers in this whole operation. I think this warehouse is supposed to be some sort of impermanent installation, which would explain the lack of an automated security system. They probably never expected people like us to get on their asses, y'know?"
"Hmm, that makes sense. This file tells me that this place is just an outpost that houses the troops who watch over the underground Mako Reactor here in Junon. In relation, the Midgar rebel base was established to oversee those eight reactors, and the one near Costa del Sol… well yes, you get the idea."
"Now that I think about it, the reactors being reactivated makes sense for them to find this Promised Land of Mako."
"What are you thinking?"
"Extensive tests showed that ever since Meteorfall, the flow of the Lifestream changed and all the reactors around the Planet, which were established over Mako wells, can no longer access the Lifestream since it moved."
"And yet they can produce just enough Mako to create portable generators to sell."
"Right, meaning there's probably a very small and limited reservoir of residue or remnants underneath each reactor that was left over when the Lifestream changed it's flow. It's obviously not going to last, which would establish a good motive for finding the Promised Land just to access the infinite Mako. Perhaps Mahonney's mercenaries are looking for this Promised Land."
"It doesn't seem likely. Jethro told us that Zeb wants to somehow bring back Jenova to reunite with his family."
"What? That doesn't make any sense."
"Tell me about it. He's gone insane, y'know."
"Oh, that explains it. Then it sounds like he's exploiting the assistance from Neo-ShinRa to meet his own ends."
"He's looking for Paradise, they're looking for the Promised Land…"
"How's it all coming along?"
"I've got a long way to go, but for safety I'll send what information I've obtained so far to Madison's laptop." He then froze for a few seconds until a brief, digitalized tone rang. "Okay, finished. Now I'll move on to the next batch of info. A bit of good news--what I've just sent is enough incriminating evidence to show everybody that's part of the anti-AVALANCHE group the truth behind their leader! When everyone finds out they've been following an organization of Neo-ShinRa aspirers, AVALANCHE should finally be off the hook!
"Oh wait," Cait Sith paused while continuing to type, "Here's something--a ranking structure of some kind. Zeb's in charge of the Midgar base, Corneo of Costa del Sol, and Havern Glaire, in addition to being Corneo's subordinate, spearheads this Junon garrison. Judging by her knowledge of everything, Glaire looks like she's some sort of archivist within this organization. I'm guessing Zeb, Corneo, and Glaire are like regional bosses, and whoever is really in charge of everything are in Modeoheim, though there's not much information on them.
"Hmm…" the animatronic cat continued. "We have names for Zeb's mercenaries. There's three of them--Yazoo, Kadaj, and Loz. He supplied and financed this trio with equipment and weaponry." He froze momentarily before he widened in shock the eyes that he didn't have. "Good heavens! This document right here details everything! A couple more minutes and I'll send this next batch! Hopefully everybody else is having as much luck as we are, right?" He waited for an answer, but all he could hear was the muffled sounds of distant battle and the clicking of his rapid typing. "…Beatrice?"
He stopped and looked behind him to see she was not there. He jumped down from the seat and took a couple of steps forward, ever vigilant for any sign of the blonde Turk or something that would indicate there was trouble. He was so wholly engrossed in surveying the area that he never knew what hit him. After the sound of a slash from a sword, the very last thing the little robotic feline ever saw was his artificial vision suddenly split right down the middle with his sight speedily hazing in a static fuzz. The sides detached to opposite ends before everything faded to black forever.
--
Madison kicked the first guard in the shin and immediately threw a knife into the chest of the second guard several feet away. As he fell down while screaming in agony, the female Turk pulled out another blade in an underhand grip and uppercut-slashed the first sentry on his chest with her right hand. She concurrently performed a clockwise spin into a reverse grip and lacerated her foe across the midsection with her left hand. Finally, she reverted into a classical grip and thrust the tip deep into his stomach. She let go of her victim, who fell limplessly to the floor, and finished by kicking the writhing second guard in the neck without so much as a look.
She paused as if to listen for further danger, but the sound of distant firefights muffled by layers of parallel concrete prompted her to enter the door the two sentinels were watching over. Elena rushed up with her gun and gave her partner a nod. Madison kicked the door inwards and they both rushed into the tiny room. Probably no bigger than the size of a hotel lavatory, the first thing that caught their eye was the blonde-haired leader of AVALANCHE sleeping peacefully in a bed to their right. The two female Turks looked at each other and blinked. They turned their heads back at the sleeping man, a long period of mutual silence dominating the scene as they pondered what they should do.
"…Go wake him." Madison whispered while she nudged her younger colleague.
"No way! He doesn't know we're on his side. Last thing I need is for me to tap him on his shoulder and have his first instinct to rip my heart out of my chest!"
"Well… okay." For the first time, Madison herself seemed nervous. She took a sigh and thought that maybe calling out to him while keeping a safe distance would work. "Hey! Hey, wake up!"
"Strife! We're here to help! Wake up, we need to get out of here!"
"...Throw something at him."
"What? You throw something at him!"
"Okay, fine." the sable-haired Turk conceded while looking around. She bent down and picked up a large pebble off the floor and lightly tossed it at the blonde swordsman. It hit his temple with a light tap, but he remained unstirred. "…Goddammit."
"Okay, this is ridiculous, we're wasting precious time here. Let's just go up to him and wake him up, alright?"
"Alright."
There was long period of silence as the two Turks remained still.
"...Alright, for real this time, okay?"
"Right."
There was another lengthy pause. Before they could do anything else, a blast reverberated from the external hallway, followed shortly thereafter by a man screaming, his shriek in approaching crescendo as if he had been thrown through the air. After hearing what sounded like a body hit the exterior wall outside the room, the two women shot their heads out the doorway and saw an NMI writhing on the ground next to the guards the two female Turks took out just a few moments before. A massive gash ran along his waist up to his shoulder and he was bleeding profusely from such a deep mortal wound. A roar of elemental fire then screeched around the corner and was cut off by what sounded like a blade puncturing flesh.
"Something…" Elena started in a low voice while slowly looking over to Madison. "Something bad is coming. Come on!"
They ran across the corridor and ducked into the opposite doorway, another one of the useless, empty rooms that seemed to make up most of the vicinity. They heard the clacking of high-heeled shoes amble down towards the squirming Mage. The corridor split into a three-way intersection and the two female Turks were positioned in a way that they could not see the mysterious foe standing before the half-dead gang member, save for the person's shadow.
Despite his odds, the dying Mage raised his hand with a strained grunt. The Materia on his gauntlet began to glow as he attempted to attack his foe. He was adamant in finishing the fight one way or the other, but after having lost so much precious plasma, his arm limped and dropped weakly to the ground before he could perform his final chance for a retaliatory strike. He panted heavily, his breath gurgling from all the blood that was probably obstructing his throat, but he continued to glare daggers at the adversary before him.
The shadow loomed silently over the helpless man for a few more tense seconds before the two Turks heard their unseen enemy scoff in amusement. The clattering of the high heels resumed again and the ebony-skinned woman sauntered past the mortally-wounded young man, finally coming into view. The Turks peaked through the tiny opening they creaked in the door and saw that she was dressed in formal business attire and had an oversized double-edged sword tied to her back with a makeshift strap. She entered the room where Cloud was and walked out with the unconscious blonde leader in her arms. She disappeared down the hall and the two Turks stopped holding their breath.
"Hey…" started Elena. "You don't think… he was spirited away, too?"
"I'm a little more concerned by why she didn't attack us."
"Huh?"
"She knew we were here. Yet, she did nothing."
"Hey!" They heard a voice broadcast over their combat frequency, probably one of the NMI members. "The warehouse guard guys are retreating! They just stopped shooting and ran off."
Madison thinned her eyes as a thought crossed her mind, finally widening them in surprise as she spoke into her earpiece. "This is Madison of the Turks. Everybody get out of the warehouse now, there's most likely a bomb in the building."
--
"…There's most likely a bomb in the building."
"You heard her!" Rude shouted out to Reno. "We gotta finish this now!"
The gigantic arachnid before them was heavily damaged, but as lethal as ever. It was now stampeding randomly around the room, knocking over the towering shelves and spilling their contents all over the floor in it's attempt to weed out the hiding Turks.
"Easier said than done!" Reno called back after jumping out of the way of a falling barrel of green paint. "How do we kill this thing?!"
Rude grunted, unable to think of an answer. While under pressure, he desperately scanned every nook and cranny of his location and every inch of their damaged titanic foe, trying to formulate some sort of strategy. By chance, he caught sight of a little waterfall of rubble crumble down from the ceiling above. The debris fell due to the metallic monstrosity's sporadic, earth-quaking thrashing. A significant amount of dirt blanketed the top of the mechanized spider, much of which found it's way into the iron exhaust pipes protruding from it's roof. The gigantic beast faltered and momentarily convulsed as it appeared to filter out the obstruction in it's twin chimneys, giving the bald Turk the hint he needed.
"Reno! The pipes!"
"What?"
"The pipes on it's head! They're the weak spots, throw one of your grenades in there!"
"I can't, I'm out!"
"Damn… cover me, I'm goin' in!"
Reno finally pulled out his gun and precipitously fired at the colossus's side to gain it's attention. As it turned to launch another wave of it's acidic streams at him, Rude took his chance and leaped off the low shelf he had already climbed on top of, reaching about halfway up of the motorized monster. He almost lost his grip, but he immediately pulled himself up and swiftly climbed to the top of the beast where he stuffed his last grenade into the elongated tube.
He heard the explosive rattle down the cylinder before he leaped off the side of the robotic arachnid and rolled safely on the ground below. The grenade detonated and caused a chain reaction of minor explosions that dotted the entire exterior of the oversized spider. It trembled uncontrollably before finally slumping to the ground in a fiery mess of melting metal.
"Haha!" Reno cheered exultantly with a wide grin as he pumped his fists to the air in triumph. He then gave a congratulatory thumbs-up to his partner, who merely stood erect, patted the dust from his uniform, and straightened his tie in a calm manner. "And now we claim our prize, yo."
The two simultaneously turned their heads to the unconscious Don Corneo, who was still comically sprawled across the concrete floor with his limbs facing off in all directions. With time of the essence, they rushed up to the corpulent individual and peered down at him.
"C'mon," Rude said while bending down and gripping the knocked-out don. "We gotta get outta here, fast."
With a strained heave, they both picked up the obese man and had most of him placed over Rude's staunch shoulders, with Reno supporting some of the burdensome weight. They turned to start back for the door, but stopped in their tracks. They were surprised to find a thin woman dressed in professional attire eyeing them suspiciously while standing in a neutral fashion mere yards away from them. With her hands on her hips in a slightly timid demeanor, she would have looked pretty normal and harmless were it not for the large splotches of blood stained across her clothes and the huge sword strapped to her back.
"…What do we do?" Reno asked in a whisper as he leaned close to his colleague.
As if an answer to his inquiry, the woman sighed, unslung her blade, and held it out in front of her in a stance ready to attack. Rude immediately dropped the Don from his shoulders and put his gloved fists up as Reno crackled his electrified baton in a threatening modus. With lightning speed, the woman dashed to their side, stopped right behind them, and slashed her weapon in a horizontal arc at neck level before the duo could even react.
The two Turks froze with their eyes bulged and jaws dropped in shock, assuming that their existence had been ended. They expected that at any moment, the world would spin as their decapitated heads dropped down to the floor. It took them a full five seconds to realize that they were fine and for the sound of the metallic clank that saved their lives to register in their minds. When they spun around, the first thing that caught their eyes was the bright sheen gleaming from the brilliant green steel of the sword they recognized as the blonde AVALANCHE leader's Ultima Weapon. Cloud Strife was no where in sight, however. Instead, there was another blonde young man with bright blue eyes holding the handle of the blade.
"Jethro…" the ebony-skinned woman growled as she slowly lowered her Flying Sickle.
"Havern Glaire." Jethro said brightly with a composed smile. "Why am I not surprised to see you involved in all of this?"
"Save it." she spat before launching herself at him.
They engaged in a chaotic display of whirlwind swordplay for some time before she jumped back next to the pair of confused Turks. She put her hand to her ear as if listening to a transmission and she slung her blade to her back.
"What's the matter, my dear?" Jethro asked in a relaxed manner complete with his trademark smirk while resting the blade over his shoulder.
"We'll have to continue this another time." she proclaimed coldly before bending down and effortlessly lifting up Don Corneo, cradling him in her arms.
She sprinted for the metallic shutter that led out to the loading bay. She flung her unconscious boss over her right shoulder and then cut the grating wide open with one fell sweep of her sword. The entire surface collapsed to the ground, revealing an awaiting helicopter hovering just outside once the dust settled. She tossed her Flying Sickle to the rebel leader, who was leaning outside of the chopper's cabin. Zeb caught the weapon by the handle and then sat back down as the helicopter lowered enough for Havern to leap up and enter the passenger area along with the white-haired man. The helicopter dropped somewhat from such an impact when both Havern and Corneo hopped onboard, but remained steady. With little hesitation, they took off into the air out of sight.
"They have Cloud." Jethro sighed disappointedly. He had seen the unconscious leader of AVALANCHE laid down on one of the seats in the chopper before it left. "Fantastic. They're not going to like that."
"Who's not gonna like that?" Rude asked.
"Why, the other members of AVALANCHE, of course."
"You're with Kisaragi and Valentine?" Reno asked.
"I guess you could say that. I'm sure they have located Miss Lockhart by now. She was left pretty much unguarded the last I saw."
"Wait a second..." Reno thinned his eyes in thought, recalling the name Havern referred to this man by. "Aren't you one of the prisoners we were supposed to rescue?"
"Apparently so, though I was able to break free from my captors using the disorder you all managed to create. I must say, I'm quite grateful for that."
"…You're a SOLDIER, aren't you?" Rude suddenly inquired.
Jethro blinked, but eventually sighed in defeat. "Ex-SOLDIER, 2nd class. I guess it's much too obvious now to hide."
"Hide?" Reno tilted his head in question. "Why would--"
"Perhaps this could all be saved for a safer time. There's a bomb in this building that's about to blow at any second."
"Damn, I forgot! Let's haul ass, yo!"
The trio jogged briskly for the opening, but they didn't get far when the whole warehouse was suddenly racked by a massive explosion that blew up in another part of the building. Though some distance from the epicenter, the three men nearly lost their footing from such a violent earthquake.
"This whole place is coming down!" Reno cried out as the ceiling and walls around them began to collapse.
"Just run!" Rude shouted back before he and Reno broke into a sprint for the exit as fast as they could.
Everything began caving in and chunks of debris started obstructing their escape hole. As if that wasn't enough, Rude glanced behind him to see streams of fire shoot out from both doorways and begin to fill the cavernous room with it's deadly flames. The bald Turk knew it wasn't just an ordinary bomb that had detonated. It was some sort of special explosive that was designed to slowly engulf it's boundaries in a hellish inferno to ensure the eradication of it's intended targets.
"We're not gonna make it!!" Reno screeched in frustration once noticing that the fire was catching up and the hole was nearly shut.
They raced as quickly as their feet could take them. The sound of their leather boots rapidly clicking on the concrete was nearly drowned out by the howling screech of the blazing sea of death that was surely about to overtake the trio. Just when all hope seemed lost, the two Turks realized their feet were no longer touching the ground. Now, the soles of their shoes felt like they were melting from intense heat.
With astonishment, they turned their heads and found that Jethro was in-between the two of them with a solemn, determined expression painted on his face, his eyes fixated on reaching their only exit. He had the both of them under either arm, taking wide leaps in a stride that was twice as fast as the two Turks could have ever hoped to run. Roaring flames dominated the edges of their vision until it all disappeared in the advent of their escape.
Author's note: I really hope this all turned out okay. I just hurriedly spliced this into separate chapters.