Disclaimer: I do not own in any way the characters associated with Star Wars or Final Fantasy VII. They belong to their respective owners such as Lucas Arts and Square-Enix. Original characters that may present themselves in the course of this story belong to me. The guest character known as Resia Tomebar respectfully belongs to Elvenluver.
This is a Star Wars/Final Fantasy VII crossover fanfiction which takes place two years before Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope and during Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.
Silver Mercury
Chapter Twenty: J-E-N-O-V-A
The Shera's landing had been rough, but successful nonetheless. "You're all clear blondie," had been Cid's confirmation, "so hurry your ass up!" Cloud didn't need a push forward to oblige. As soon as the ramp was opened, Fenrir's engine roared and Cloud was once again speeding through the wasteland, his destination: Midgar.
He kept his eyes on the distant ruins, but a good part of his attention was focused on the sounds of the Shera's propellers as the airship quickly flew away from the area. It was just as well. They hadn't seen the bounty hunter again, but they were still expecting him to return, and Edge was heavily guarded by the Imperials. His friends were anxious and desperate to join the final battle, but Cloud feared that the airship would be ambushed if they stayed too close to the scene.
Final… Cloud contemplated the word. It held a heavy double meaning. As soon as they had spotted the three motorcycles from above, AVALANCHE instantly knew that they belonged to none other than Kadaj and his two clone partners, paving their road to Reunion. If he failed to stop them, it really would be the final battle after all, one that he would not see victory to. If felt like the fateful night they dove into the Northern Crater to fight Sephiroth – a race against time, yet time seemed to slow for the most important moments of their lives.
And even if I do stop them, Cloud thought as he kept an eye on the tire tracks left behind by Kadaj, how many lives will be lost to the Empire afterwards? What if this isn't the final battle at all?
"One thing at a time," he muttered to himself. There was no use in trying to tackle their problems all at once.
He reached the ruins sooner than he thought he would, and without any Imperial interruption, to his surprise. Cloud expected Midgar to be swarming with stormtroopers, but then again, hadn't Kadaj, Yazoo and Loz already been captured by the Empire? How had they escaped?
That strange tingling sensation made the tiny blond hairs on the back of his neck stand. Instead of questioning the feeling, however, Cloud attempted to understand it. It allowed him to discover a whole new perspective thought: The Empire came here in search of Sephiroth. The Empire is aiding Kadaj.
Cloud was surprised by his deduction. Usually, he only questioned possibilities, but this time he had embraced it, even without evidence to prove it's validity. As Fenrir slid down the giant slope that encircled the slums of ruined Midgar, Cloud decided that he needed to take some time off to contemplate all of the hyper-sensitive feelings and senses that had been occurring to him recently.
When all of this is over, he promised himself.
Ruins had collapsed and barricaded one of the paths to Sector 5. Kadaj's motorcycle tracks ended just before the giant pile of rubble. Cloud sighed with some frustration as he brought his own vehicle to a stop. He closed his eyes and exhaled deeply, ignoring the loud rumble of the motorcycle engine beneath him.
"Where could they have gone…" he asked himself. Midgar was enormous, and there were plenty of places to hide. It was obvious that Kadaj had caused the collapse to keep others from following in his pursuit, but now Cloud had to search the hard way, only able to guess at where Kadaj might be.
Okay, think. You weren't far behind, they can't have gotten that far… Cloud was pressed for time, but he felt strangely calm, calmer than he ever felt. All he needed were his instincts…
Cloud's eyes snapped open. A feeling jarred inside of him, almost as if someone had punched him in the stomach. He couldn't quite explain it, but it was as if he could see, no, feel a flame being snuffed out…
"The church?"
Cloud made a U-turn on Fenrir. Whatever was happening, it was definitely occurring in the Sector 5 church, and while the main road was blocked off, there were always shortcuts.
Considering they haven't been blocked off either. Cloud hoped that for once, Kadaj had underestimated him.
Within moments, Cloud found the church, his hope fulfilled, but he hesitated. Something was wrong. The church usually gave off a specific feeling, almost like a presence of peace and sanctuary. The only thing he felt from the building now was darkness, evil – and it wasn't foreign to him.
Vader! Cloud realized. His instincts had led him into a trap, and it may have already been too late to recover from his mistake. I can't take him on alone…His sword would be sliced instantly by Vader's weapon, and the Dark Lord's powers would render him immobile. Cloud instinctively touched his throat, remembering his first encounter with the Sith Lord. He wouldn't stand a chance.
Maybe if I call Tifa and the others… Cloud shook the thought away immediately. The idea of seeing Tifa at Vader's mercy… or any of his friends…
Cloud's grip tightened over the handlebars of his bike. "I can't stop now. If I die… well, no one can say I didn't try."
Cloud accelerated, Fenrir roaring as it charged for the church's heavy front doors with the front wheel high up in the air. It fell on the doors, slamming them open for Cloud, but he found himself veering the bike away sharply as an entire wooden pew flew his way. It crashed into a hundred splinters on the stone wall behind him.
"You are a traitor! The Emperor granted us safe passage to Reunion!"
Yazoo stood on the bed of flowers, his weapon aimed at Vader, who stood tall and imposing in front of the altar, the glow of his lightsaber staining the white church walls a faint crimson. Cloud found Loz's limp body hung over one of the pews, a stab wound clearly visible through his back.
"Only one of you is needed," Darth Vader declared, and then his lightsaber flew from his outstretched hand, spinning in a way that made the glowing blade look like a thin red disk as it went for Sephiroth's gun-slinging clone. Yazoo reacted with a single gunshot in retaliation, but it was too late. The shot missed, and Yazoo's head was cut clean off, his body slumping to the floor like a headless rag doll.
There was no blood, but Cloud could only gape as the clone's head rolled his way and Vader caught the lightsaber perfectly by its hilt. Cloud pulled out his assembled sword from Fenrir's compartment. The giant weapon he used against Bahamut the day before was heavy, but reassuring nonetheless. He remained seated on the motorcycle.
"Strife," Vader hissed. The sounds of his breathing apparatus echoed against the walls, making them seem much more menacing.
Cloud scanned the area quickly, but other than Yazoo and Loz's corpses, only he and Vader occupied the church. "Where's Kadaj?"
"His location is irrelevant as far as you are concerned."
Cloud tensed in his seat on Fenrir. "You don't understand! I need to stop him before he brings Sephiroth back!"
Darth Vader raised his lightsaber in front of him. "Then allow me to release you from that burdening responsibility." The Sith Lord was suddenly upon him, and Cloud had only seconds to escape, evading the lethal blade by swerving the motorbike out of the way and racing it to the complete opposite side of the church, but Vader did not chase him.
The Sith Lord stood with his arm outstretched towards Cloud, and Cloud lifted his sword in a near panic that Vader was going to choke him, but he felt no pressure on his throat. Instead, the fragile building shook, and Cloud felt as if he were standing in a trembling house of cards.
His instincts kicked him in the gut, so to speak – he still had no other way to describe it – and Cloud sped the motorcycle away again, ducking his head and narrowly avoiding the large marble column behind him that collapsed over the bed of flowers. Rubble fell around him from the roof. The top end of the column wound up falling through a large hole in the church's destroyed wall, the pillar creating a ramp-like exit out of the place of worship.
Did he cause that with his powers? Cloud briefly wondered, but did not have time to ponder it for very long. Something beneath the fallen column snapped, and suddenly the bed of flowers was being flooded with water.
'Flowers? How nice. You almost never see them here in slums,' Cloud's memories whispered to him. The water rose quickly, already reaching his ankles. Vader took no other action, seeming to regard the rising water level with some hidden emotion.
So there had been a water mane under Sector 5 all along, Cloud realized, his thoughts briefly drifting to a young woman who preferred to dress in pink – a beautiful, yet mysterious green-eyed flower merchant. The church, in spite of Vader's presence, was no longer feeling so dangerous.
Vader could feel what was happening. He felt the Force pulse all around him, more so than when he first felt it upon entering the church. Midgar was, for all intents and purposes, a dead city, but the church in which he found Yazoo and Loz pulsated with life. He felt the Lifestream everywhere, a strange, yet soothing power that seemed to overwhelm the church, but it was not the dark side. It seemed to be the very opposite.
The water was at Cloud's knees, but then a single stand of liquid started to rise of it's own accord, twisting through the air and joined gradually by other streams of water. They entwined into a thick mass, nearly as tall as Vader himself, but then it suddenly exploded into a fountain that sprayed the entire church with droplets heavy enough to force Vader to deactivate his lightsaber to save it from short-circuiting.
Cloud was soaked, but the water was surprisingly cool and refreshing. The water seeped through his clothes, cooling his skin. He felt a tingling sensation on his left arm, not at all uncomfortable, and he tore the long sleeve off, watching in astonishment as the black Geostigma sores seemed to merely dissolve away, revealing healthy fair skin, as if the disease had never ailed him.
Water touched the bodies of Yazoo and Loz. Instead of floating in the rising pool of liquid, they dissolved into pure energy that looked no different than the Lifestream. The particles of green light rose to the ceiling and eventually evaporated into nothingness. Loz and Yazoo and returned to the planet. They became one with the Force.
A pressure in Cloud's mind seemed to have lifted. Cloud felt as if he had been holding his breath for a very long time. By some insane miracle, his Geostigma had been completely cured by water. The irony of it all was almost outrageous.
Holy water, he called it, and for a moment he forgot all about Darth Vader. Cloud could only feel Aerith's presence. He did not know whether to laugh or cry.
Vader did not need to see it to understand. The Force was at work inside the church in a manner he had never encountered before. All he knew was that it belonged to the light, and he had every reason to deem it a threat, if necessary, but for the moment it only seemed to heal the Geostigma disease.
On it's own, Vader realized, of the Force's own accord. There could be no one else behind it, after all. There were no more Jedi, and Strife had little to no knowledge of the Force.
But it was all a distraction, and as remarkable as the occurrence in the church was, Vader had a Reunion to witness. As Cloud examined his Geostigma-less body, Vader leapt onto the column and ran up the makeshift ramp out of the church. Kadaj was still in Midgar, he sensed, somewhere nearby.
Cloud noticed Darth Vader's departure and quickly sat himself back on Fenrir before the water could completely submerge the vehicle. The ascent of the liquid seemed to slow, but he didn't want to take any chances. As he followed Vader's path up the column-ramp, Cloud left something behind in the church that allowed him to feel a confidence he hadn't felt in over two years.
The last droplet of water from the fountain spray landed with a gentle splash into the pool.
Let's go, Cloud
Kadaj's entire being seemed about ready to explode with the fury and anguish building up inside of him. His brothers were dead. He felt their consciousnesses end through Mother's cells. The cells she had given to them as gifts seemed to be no more. With them died another part of Mother.
Yazoo had screamed traitor in his mind, and before Kadaj felt him return to the planet, his older brother sent him an image, the image of the traitor. Vader.
You will die today, human, Kadaj promised, and he hoped that Vader could sense his thoughts as clearly as Kadaj could see the Dark Lord approaching from far away. From the roof of one of Midgar's buildings, Kadaj paced anxiously, wanting nothing more than to tear the Emperor's puppet limb from limb.
Puppet…Kadaj stopped and stared with some horror at the box he had been clutching in his arms. Mother was speaking to him again, reminding him of his role. She told him to be patient. Revenge would come. His hatred would meld with hers, and it would be Mother that would engulf the world with her wrath. And when the world was nothing but a dying sore in the empty fabric of space, she would devour other worlds. In her he sensed a hunger for calamity that would never be sated. In that moment Kadaj felt a deep love for his Mother. He would do as she asked, despite his role, despite his function in her ultimate plan. He wanted to see her destroy it all. He wanted to see her achieve the god-like power she had always wanted. He wanted to see her happy.
"I'm here with you, Mother," he whispered lovingly into the broken crack of the box, "so don't worry."
The sound of an engine. Kadaj glared behind him where a motorcycle approached from below on one of the ruined highways. Vader was coming from another direction, but the vehicle was nearer, of course, because of its speed. A blond haired relative dismounted from the motorcycle, brandishing the largest sword Kadaj had ever seen. He grinned.
"Brother!" he called out to Cloud. "I'm finally with her at last!"
Cloud's bright blue gaze hardened. "So what's going to happen now?"
Kadaj looked to the box cradled under his arm with a fond gaze. "Mother will tell me."
Cloud sighed inwardly, thinking back to a time when he might have answered the same way, though not of his own free will. "I guess a remnant wouldn't really know."
Sephiroth's clone shrugged. "So what if I'm a puppet?" The materia in Kadaj's arm began to glow and Cloud could see the energy being gathered around him. "Once upon a time…"
"…you were too!"
Vader had arrived just in time to witness Kadaj hurling streams of lightning at Cloud Strife.
Shin-Ra Headquarters. A mere whisper of an echo of the company's once lavish past.
Emperor Palpatine descended the ramp from his personal shuttle. The lone skyscraper in Midgar's ruins was over seventy stories high, and the cloaked Emperor stood upon its roof. A gale blew through the folds of his heavy black robes, but they were nothing compared to the winds at the altitudes of Imperial Center's tallest edifices. He came to observe, merely to observe, and when the time was right, he would move closer to the scene, to make sure that he was the primary author of the next few pages of history.
His apprentice was far away still, but Palpatine could sense his power surging. Lord Vader was confronting Kadaj once again. There was another factor involved, meddling with their affairs, but Palpatine wasn't concerned with that. He was quite certain that Vader would rid them of the little pest.
And I have not forgotten about Lord Bane's law, my servant, thought the Emperor. Should you survive this day on New Korriban, you would have proven yourself once again worthy of the Sith Order.
The scarred visage of the Emperor tightened as he smiled deviously. He had given them all, including his apprentice, the impression that he had only come for Sephiroth. Yes, the young warrior was an integral part of his scheme, but if Vader defeated him, his plans would still run accordingly. The Emperor would win regardless.
A duel between the Jedi's chosen one, and Jenova's chosen one. Palpatine grinned maliciously with anticipation. Unless they managed to kill one another at once, Darth Sidious would either keep his prevailing dark knight, or gain a seraph of destruction.
Cloud leapt out of the way of Kadaj's lightning attack, but was then thrown back by some invisible force. When Cloud stood again to face the clone, Darth Vader had already appeared, attacking Kadaj with his lightsaber. Kadaj seemed to be on the offensive, however, moving faster than Cloud had ever seen him fight.
I don't understand, he realized as he stared at their duel. Why is Vader fighting him if the Empire is here for Sephiroth? Wasn't trying to kill Kadaj a little contradictory to the cause?
Unless he has his own agenda, thought Cloud. It was all the more reason to become involved. Cloud ignored the pain in his back from being thrown by Vader's powers and charged towards the scene, flanking Kadaj. The clone jumped high up into the air, and Cloud had to roll away from the cutting path of Vader's lightsaber. Both the Sith Lord and the blond swordsman found Kadaj ascending a higher building.
"Stay out of these affairs Strife," Vader commanded. "They have nothing to do with you." Vader leapt after Kadaj, reaching incredible heights with just one bound.
Cloud shook his head, running a hand through his blond spiked hair. "What're you kidding?" he muttered. I was thrown into all of this a long time ago.
He smirked then. Reason number two to become involved. Cloud ran towards the building, and jumped into the air after them. It wasn't difficult to catch up. He had learned a while ago that if he needed to jump a discouraging distance, all he had to do was gather enough momentum or energy by running or by some other means. Having a Mako enhanced body helped matters as well.
When he found them it was on the roof, Kadaj dodging attacks by Vader. Cloud saw Vader levitate a large piece of concrete and as it flew for Kadaj, the clone completely obliterated the object with a short burst of his lightning materia. As bits of rock flew everywhere, Cloud jumped into the conflict, his sword clanging with Kadaj's two-fanged katana. Their combat became a fast-paced dance around the roof, Cloud's large weapon countering Kadaj's speed. As Kadaj fought, Cloud was able to use the size of his sword as a shield. Kadaj could not find an opening.
The battle moved to another, taller building, but neither of them realized how high up they were ascending. Kadaj was no longer on an offensive, not with both Vader and Cloud pursuing him. The balance would only shift when Vader felt the need to try to knock Cloud away from scene, either with his powers, or an attempt to slice him in half with his lightsaber. Kadaj fought with only one arm, the other protectively clutching the box Rufus had kept from him, so he needed every opportunity to escape in order to protect Mother.
But where am I supposed to run? When is the right time or place for Reunion?
Not yet, he felt in the deepest part of his mind. It was Mother speaking to him. Soon, but not yet. Kadaj needed to keep following his most basic of instincts. His own blood seemed to pull him towards the center of the city, where the headquarters for Shin-Ra used to be. As he crossed gaps and dodged blades, faint memories of sterile rooms and humans dressed in white crossed his mind, but those thoughts were meaningless when compared to the very strong need he felt to reach the center of Midgar. His blood seemed to boil in an almost painful way, but Kadaj knew that it was only Mother's cells trying to guide him. He needed to remain vigilant.
The chase continued until Kadaj stopped on one of the tallest structures. They were closer than ever to the original Shin-Ra building, the ground a frightening amount of meters below, with nothing but sharp scrap metal and rubbish filling the blood-stained dirt and pieces of the divisional plate that still remained in tact to separate the city from the old slums. Kadaj waited. It was almost time.
When Cloud and Darth Vader found him, they only stopped to stare, rather than fighting one another again. Kadaj, beckoned them forth with one gloved hand, and both fighters were hesitant. Suddenly, Kadaj tossed the box into the air behind him. Vader and Cloud ran forward with a start, but Kadaj had followed right after Jenova's capsule, catching it and tearing open the box as he fell. Souba was forgotten as he merely let it slip out of his grip, the blade joining other emotionless pieces of metal below. The package discarded, Kadaj clutched an unseen object in his hands close to his chest. Time seemed to slow for the three of them.
"My Reunion…" he murmured, his gaze full of maniacal glee. "Bet you're dying to watch…"
As Kadaj fell he pushed the object into his chest and groaned, feeling pain erupt throughout his entire body. The paleness of his face became marred by a numerous amount of tiny black veins that crept upward towards his brain. The closer he fell towards the earth, the more relaxed his face appeared, his eyes closed and his expression a passive submission to the powers that were Jenova's. His feet touched the surface, seemingly without the heavy impact or force that physics usually warranted when objects fell from overwhelming heights.
Darth Vader felt a surge of the dark side and sensed a disturbance in the Force, but Cloud Strife was the first to act.