Claire Farron was sent on a mission a few days after her encounter with Sephiroth on the top of HQ.
Shin-Ra had apparently decided that she had fully recovered.
Thinking about what had happened that night on the heli pad Lightning could have facepalmed herself again and again.
She still couldn´t understand what had driven her to act like she had.
In retrospect, Genesis´s sudden interference with whatever it was that had been going on between her former mentor and herself had saved her neck. She owed him. Big style. She could only fathom what would have happened if he hadn´t interrupted their private "sparring". It was undoubtedly something she would have regretted by now.
Yes. She would have made a complete fool of herself.
Allowing her self control to slip away like that... Her body´d been on autopilot again.
She´d lost control again.
First the thing with Zack. And now this.
It seemed to be happening more often lately, her emotions suddenly controlling her body. First that agression and now this... Whatever this was exactly.
No, her behaviour that night had been inacceptable.
She had to make sure nothing like it would ever happen again.
Still... Her thoughts kept wandering back to it, back to him. Lightning couldn´t help it.
She knew she needed it to stop, this stupid infatuation or whatever it was. She knew she needed to forget about him. There was no way anything good could ever come from it. But it was no use.
Trying to forget about him suddenly seemed harder than ever.
She fortunately hadn´t had to spend time with the silver haired General alone since then, and yes, she was already dreading their next private encounter.
He had to have noticed something.
The way he´d looked at her...
Had she actually touched his face? Claire Farron wasn´t sure.
Either way.
It was bound to be awkward.
Even more than usual.
Yes. She was happy to leave Midgar with Zack and Tseng this time, the perfect opportunity to avoid the general it seemed.
They were safely seated inside the heli carrying them near Modeoheim where Wutai rebels had assumedly converted an abandoned Mako reactor test station into a hideout. It was their job to investigate whether these rumors were true, then infiltrate and annihilate the opposing forces.
It wasn´t going to be an easy task.
Her former experiences with the Wutai hadn´t been something to laugh about. Lightning wasn´t going to make the mistake of underestimating them ever again.
She knew the heli would drop them off somewhere in the wastelands between Modeoheim and Icicle Inn. Somewhere north of the test reactor. They would have to make the remaining distance by foot, they couldn´t risk being detected. It wasn´t exactly a jolly prospect, but somehow the pink haired female couldn´t help but marvel at the view.
Getting up from her seat she moved over to the open cargo door, the chilly air biting her face as she took in the scenery: White plain fields of snow stretching endlessly in every direction, the setting sun painted the sky in beautiful oranges and pinks and purples. The many pretty colors reflected by the thick white blanket covering the lands below making it twinkle like crystal, she could see a range of mountains towering in the distance like ice cubes in a drink.
All those colors albeit beautiful, suddenly stirred uncomfortable feelings somewhere deep inside of her, her mind associating them with something terrible, something dreadful and horribly painful...
Not having regained the memories from the beach of Costa del Sol Lightning somehow failed to get the link.
Pushing the unpleasant thoughts away, she found it was the calmest scenery she´d ever laid eyes on.
Probably the most appeasing landscape that existed.
Leaning forward she took it all in.
The colors, the crispness of the air, the chilly winds, the last rays of the warming sun, when suddenly there was a high pitched hissing noise, followed by a deafening bang.
The heli gave a mighty jolt, causing her to lose her footing.
White.
Orange.
Pink.
Purple.
And then... Darkness.
When she woke up everything hurt.
Her brain momentarily unable to form a coherent thought, the only thing she perceived was pain.
Fuck... What happpened?!
It took her a few minutes to realize where she was, to remember that she had been assigned a mission near Modeoheim.
The last thing she knew being standing in the door of the helil she figured she had to have fallen out or something.
But where was the heli?
Where was Zack?
Where was Tseng?
What had happened?
Her surroundings slowly swimming into focus, she tried to get up into a sitting position. Suddenly that casual motion seemed like hard work.
Deciding that she needed to get herself together she made it up onto her legs. It wasn´t exactly an easy task either. The corners of her vision darkening, she threatened to fall. It was a miracle she managed to stay on her feet.
Her vision finally clearing, she took in her surroundings.
Snow and ice everywhere.
Great.
She slowly climbed a small hill to try and make out her position, but it was no use.
There was nothing but snow wherever she looked.
The mountains in the distance were her only means of orientation.
There was no sign of a crash or a fight or the others.
She knew they wouldn´t have left her there like this. No. Something terrible must have happened. She was sure.
Feeling the chill creeping into her bones the pink haired first class took out her phone to read "no service".
That stupid thing...
It was kind of funny how she actually never used it and now that she wanted to, it didn´t work.
Things were getting better and better by the minute.
An icy wind brushed her cheek and she realized it was freezing cold. And getting dark. Fast.
She needed to find shelter.
It was the first thing that came to her mind.
Her instincts taking over, she dragged herself what she figured had to be south, judging from the position of the sun or rather the last sunrays. She remembered their drop off being somewhere north from their target destination. Not having anywhere else to go, she figured she might as well continue with the mission.
Setting off with the last blink of light vanishing from the horizon, Claire Farron began her hike.
But with the darkness came the cold.
Feeling the temperature around her dropping rapidly, the nights out there apparently even colder than the days, she found her breath misting out in front of her and the cold air stinging her lungs, felt the palms of her leather gloved hands getting chilly, her fingers and toes slightly numb already.
She knew she needed to find some place to rest for the night soon or she was so done for.
So she went.
And she kept going and going and going.
Around her the vast emptiness of the ice desert stretched endlessly.
Her hands and feet aching with cold, ignoring the pain, she continued onwards.
It took her some time before she realized she wasn´t going anywhere.
Exhausted and weary, her muscles refusing to work under these low temperatures protesting painfully, she slowly let herself sink to the ground. Her back to the slope of yet another snowy dune, she curled up into a ball, shivering, her every cell freezing, her body hurting so much she could barely bear to breathe.
Oh she was so done for.
She told herself that they were probably searching for her. That they would find her. Eventually.
Trembling violently, she tried to think of something, anything, to keep her mind busy, forcing herself to stay awake because, she knew, she just knew: once she´d fall asleep she was doomed.
However no comforting thought came to her mind.
She didn´t know how long she lay there, the dead silence broken only by the pumping of blood in her ears pressing in on her, while breathing became more and more difficult, more of a bother really than a vital body function.
She´d always known she would die on a SOLDIER mission. But in fight... As a hero... Not like this.
Anyway... She hoped Zack and Tseng were okay. She really did. Especially Zack.
Zack...
The overall pain of her tormented cells morphing into a throbbing numbness, soothing her, a stray thought told her she should start being scared by now, but fear seemed to have become a concept floating somewhere beyond her immediate reach.
She wondered whether somebody would find her in time.
Maybe nobody was looking for her at all...
Maybe nobody cared...
Somehow she couldn´t blame them.
The feeble remainders of her body heat leaching out into the surrounding snow, she realized her body had stopped shivering some time ago now.
Sephiroth´s words echoed in her head.
Yes.
She couldn´t help but notice how pathetic she was.
Simply a delicate, tropical organism whose range was restricted to a narrow sunlit band that girded the earth at the equator, her physical shell unsuited for an harsh environment like this, doomed without the comforts modern technologies offered.
Unable to consciously move a muscle anymore, she felt her mind slip away.
She tried to fight it, but only halfheartedly so.
In the dephts of her minds another voice was talking to her now. An high pitched alien voice.
It told her not to worry, to just go to sleep.
That she would be alright.
That nothing could harm her.
She didn´t bother to contradict.
In the end the fatigue would win anyway.
"Let´s just leave, it´s no use." Genesis tried to reason with the others. "We don´t even know where she landed. We´ve been searching for hours now and haven´t found a trace of her!"
"I don´t understand..." Zack Fair mumbled, sounding crestfallen.
He was wrapped in a thermal blanket, warming his hands on a steaming cup of tee.
"She was there with us in the heli. I don´t know what happened. Everything went that fast... At the time I came around she was gone... Just gone..."
General Sephiroth Crescent could hear Zack´s voice breaking at the last part, indicating that he was about to cry.
Fuck that lad could be such a pussy sometimes...
He guessed Angeal approved of his pup displaying his emotions like this instead of bottling them up inside, but the silver haired general himself just thought he was a pussy.
They were in SOLDIER after all!
"She must have fallen out before we crashed. I remember she was standing by the door." Tseng clarified, shaking his head discourgingly.
"We´ll find her." Angeal assured the crybaby, resting his hand on Zack´s shoulder reassuringly, before putting on a thick fur coat on top of his uniform he turned to exit, hopping off the military supply truck which´s cargo area had been transformed to resemble a small common room.
"I´ll send the Turks out for her again too." Tseng decided, signaling Reno and Rude to look for her again, using the helicopter the two had arrived in.
"I wonder what caused our heli to crash like that..." the general said, his voice sounding as if he didn´t wonder at all.
Yes. He already had a pretty good idea what had happened and he knew all the others were thinking along the same line. That was the reason they had been sent there in the first place, to investigate and destroy the cause of this "accident", not to search for a lost comrade.
He caught Zack looking up at him from the corner of his eyes.
"I don´t remember what happened... Everything went so fast..." he said again.
Sephiroth hated it when people repeated themselves over and over. Did the crybaby think he was incapable of remembering things he had heard only seconds ago?!
The general realized he felt irritated and on edge.
They were no closer to finding Light than they had been 5 hours ago and although he knew there was practically nothing that could pose a threat to her out there with her Jenova enhanced body, the lack of any kind of life sign from her side made him feel uneasy.
"We were struck by anti-aircraft fire..." Tseng suddenly said, nursing a cut on his forehead.
"I´m sure of it." the Turk added determinedly.
All the others turning to give him incredulous stares, the silver haired first class had already expected something like that.
The debris at the crash site hadn´t exactly pointed toward an accident.
"It appears to have come from the direction of the reactor..." Tseng said carefully.
"The Wutai have apparently been waiting for us."
"No way!" Genesis threw in. "Where would the Wutai acquire weapons such as this?"
Well... The redhead had an interesting point there.
How had they gotten access to arms like that? Until then they had been fighting Shin-Ra with guns and lances, sometimes monsters. But they hadn´t had modern weapons like flak guns or anti aircraft missiles.
The fact that they suddenly had, was very disconcerting.
Until now their outmatching numbers hadn´t really posed a threat.
Technologically superior, Shin-Ra had been able to deal with them no matter their numbers.
There wasn´t much you could do to harm a mega corporation like Shin-Ra when you were armed with sticks and stones, but if they had somehow managed to obtain modern weapon technology...
"Let´s just go back to the crash site, maybe we will find some clues there." the general said, getting up from his seat and setting out into the cold night.
There still was work to do.
They searched for Lightning all night until the weather turned against them.
Returning to the safety of the truck, they met to re-discuss the situation.
"We should stay in here, until the conditions get a bit better..." Genesis decided.
Zack Fair giving an audible sigh of despair, Sephiroth watched the redhead looking the pup dead in the eye.
"There´s no use in searching for her in that blizzard out there! We´d probably get ourselves killed as well!" Genesis reasoned.
"What do you mean `as well´?!" Zack thundered, getting up from his seat.
"You don´t think she´s... That she´s... " he trailed off at the last part.
The redhead not eager to answer whatsoever, Zack, in search for support, looked over at Angeal.
The latter just avoided his gaze.
"But..." the puppy stuttered, his lower lip trembling slightly. His brain seemingly unable to process the information it had just received, he hesitantly turned to look at Sephiroth.
The general could see the tears in his eyes as pleadingly he searched his face, probably waiting for some kind of confirmation.
The general didn´t know why he was looking at him anyway.
Sephiroth just shook his head.
"No I don´t think so, Zack." he said encouragingly.
"I think it takes a lot more than a snow storm to kill a First Class like Lightning." he added, watching Zack´s eyes widen in surprise.
Yes, the pup probably hadn´t expected him to be somebody to have much optimism to share (which was a good thing too, because he definitely was not).
The others shooting him reproachful glares, General Sephiroth Crescent found he didn´t care.
They were clueless anyway.
It was the morning of the next day that they found the place where her body must have hit the ground. There were traces of blood in the snow as well as tracks leading away from it.
"She must have been here..." Sephiroth said more to himself than to anyone in particular, as he crouched down to investigate the spot where Lightning´s blood had tinged the snow crimson.
His eyes following the direction of her tracks he figured she must have taken south. Stupid girl. She had probably indented to carry out this mission alone.
Heavy footsteps approaching from behind, he suddenly sensed Angeal´s presence somewhere next to him.
"Sephiroth... Maybe it is time to abort this search..." the burly first class said.
Not looking up to meet his gaze, the general continued to stare into the distance.
He knew his friend had a hard time finding the appropriate words to express what he thought he had to say.
Sephiroth wished he´d just skip it. He knew what he was about to say anyway.
"I just don´t think there is any chance that somebody could survive a night out there..." his comrade began carefully.
"It´s less than - 10 degrees or something... If she´s still out there then she´s probably... She very likely hasn´t made it, Sephiroth." he continued, his voice serious, as he was trying to make his comrade accept what he thought was the truth.
"No. She´s not dead..." the general told him determined, his eyes still fixed on the horizon.
He could tell Angeal had a hard time telling him all this.
He had to think he had gone crazy letting the others search for her like that.
"It´s freezing cold... There aren´t exactly many places to hide out here." Angeal Hewley insisted, trying to talk some sense into his first class general.
Sephiroth detected pity in his voice, sensed his kind blue eyes monitoring him carefully, waiting for his reaction. He knew his friend wanted him to accept that there was no use in continuing their search.
The general just shook his head in denial.
He knew she was still out there somewhere and he certainly wouldn´t leave this place without her.
"There is no chance she could have survived..." Angeal persisted.
It was starting to get on his nerves.
The silver haired man slowly shook his head again.
Angeal didn´t understand. How could he?
Contemplating wether to fill him in or not, the general finally turned to face him, sighting in defeat once he came to look into his kind blue eyes.
Poor Angeal...
He certainly wouldn´t take the news lightly.
"What if I told you there is...?!" he general said, his voice low as he considered his next words carefully.
His comrade looking at him questioningly Sephiroth found the burly first class´s eyebrows rising up as quickly he explained to him what had really happened that night.
The night Lightning had died in his arms.
The night he let Hojo get his way.
The night Lightning was implanted with Jenova cells.
He watched his comrade´s facial expression change from surprise to confusion and then to horror, as finally he began to understand, his complexion slightly paling as patiently he listened to everything the general had to tell him.
General Sephiroth Crescent dearly hoped his friend wasn´t going to give him one of his famous lectures about honor and whatnot.
He was so not in the mood to take his bullshit right now.
"Does she know?" Angeal asked after a few minutes of silence.
Sephiroth had given him the time to let all the information he had provided him with sink in.
Kind blue eyes boring into his own in what he could only describe as a very stern way, Sephiroth knew his comrade was already guessing the answer.
"No..." the general replied, averting his eyes, his voice barely a whisper.
And he was so not intent on letting her find out. Ever.
Claire Farron couldn´t believe her luck when waking up from the probably most uncomfortable night of her life she opened her eyes to the most beautiful sunrise ever.
The snow beneath her reflecting the first rays of the sunlight made the dunes around her sparkle like diamonds.
How in Gaia´s name had she managed to survive that night?!
Trying to move her stiff muscles, her body only reluctantly responding to her brain´s commands, it took her some time to get into gear.
Once she managed to get up, she made her way up another snowy dune to check on the vicinity.
There was no trace of the heli or any Shin-Ra search party but she could make out the outlines of a valley carved into the rock of the towering mountains a few miles away, the monstrous steely walls of what had to be the reactor test station rising from it´s depths.
It was her who discovered the lair of the enemy.
Yes. The wutai had transformed the test reactor into a military base and there where thousands of them milling about in the snow, armed to the bone with what seemed to be the latest trends of Shin-Ra weapons.
There was no way they could wipe them out just like that anymore.
No.
The Wutai forces had been growing, proliferating like a tumor really, their numbers had multiplied by hundreds.
And they were preparing, mobilizing, for their last battle.
Spying on them for some time, Lightning watched them load containers. Containers filled with weapons. Containers bearing the Shin-Ra emblem. Yes. They were carrying Shin-Ra weapons indeed. Were in fact equipped with the latest creations of modern warfare.
She briefly wondered how they had gotten hold of them in the first place and in such quantities too, it looked as though they had taken control of one of Shin-Ra´s weapon production sites.
Deciding that there was nothing she could do there, the female first class sneaked away, eager to bring as much distance between herself and that deathtrap of a test station as fast as possible.
She knew once they found her, enhancements or not, she was as good as dead.
Having lost orientation, she found herself near the small village of Modeoheim some time later, the once vacated place now transformed into a Wutai military base as well. Enemies busy moving around like ants, she felt like being trapped in a nightmare.
Shin-Ra was screwed.
If they were going to attack them with all that, they were screwed!
No. President Shin-Ra wouldn´t be pleased with her revelations, that much was for sure, and Lightning wasn´t either.
Having seen enough, she decided she needed to get out of there as long as she still had a chance to. She needed to get away from that army of cohorts now, before they would get wind of her presence. Needed to make it back to Midgar to report to Lazard.
She was the only one who knew after all.
Adrenaline kicking in she stumbled through the snow. Back into the direction she thought she´d come from.
It took her miles before she finally heard the familiar noise of heli rotors.
It was the first time in her life that she was relieved to see Reno.
It appeared Lazard had organized a search party to retrieve her after all.
She instantly told them to turn and leave this place.
If the Wutai found them they were all dead.
Claire Farron was surprised to find a little base camp set up only overnight and she was even more surprised to learn that it was set up to find her.
She was greeted by Zack who, pale as a sheet, came racing towards her to tackle her with a tight hug the second that she entered. Holding on to him tightly Lightning felt his chest heaving with sobs.
„I thought I´d lost you..." he whispered into her ear, his arms around her closing even tighter.
„I thought you were dead..."
„I´m still here." the pink haired female reassured, giving her friend a bright smile.
„How the fuck did you manage to survive out there?!" the young man asked, amazement written all over his face.
„I don´t know Zack... I really don´t know..."
Letting her eyes wander the crowd, Lightning found the rest of the party staring at her in disbelieve. Angeal Hewley monitoring her every move like a hawk, it took some time for her to realize that they had all thought her dead.
Well at least most of them, she thought.
General Sephiroth Crescent didn´t seem surprised at all.