Obligatory Disclaimer:

I don't own any characters (or anything else, for that matter) you recognize from Final Fantasy VII, they are all the property of Tetsuya Nomura and/or Square-Enix.

Author's Note: Probably the shortest chapter of them all so far, but one of my favorites. :) Yay, it's almost the weekend!

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"You fool! That woman is more important than you can imagine!" Nereid leaped on the man with a ferocity so violent it surprised the other members of the party. She sunk her tusks into the man's throat. It was of no use, however - the man was already dead. The instant he had tossed Alcestis out the ropeway car, three bullets simultaneously sunk into his flesh. Vincent was angry. The man's corpse was immediately perforated by three more bullets - Elena, Tseng, and Yetta.

The party was on their feet, the other passengers cowering in their seats. There was a cry from a child who had been frightened by the gunshots.

"Where did Reno go?" Tseng asked.

Rude blinked, and looked towards the open door of the ropeway car.

-~-*Å*-~-

Reno was not sure what had possessed him to hurl himself out of the car after her limp body. She was as good as dead. But something had made him leap through the door after her, his hands outstretched.

As the air rushed passed his body, he made a couple quick estimates: there was approximately eleven seconds until Alcestis hit the ground, and twelve until he did. The sand should give way under their weight for the most part. Surviving the fall was not impossible. It was not the fall that concerned him.

It was the WEAPON.

She hit the ground, her body unharmed - she had been completely limp. Reno hit the ground, having gone limp himself. There was a crunching sound under his right arm – the pain lanced through his side and he was almost certain he'd cracked a rib.

He had landed closer to the Saucer than Alcestis had. He dashed back to grab her, and found that the sand was already opening up beneath her. His heart hammered. It was impossible. She could not die. Could not. A claw was appearing in the sand, inches away from Alcestis' body, moving slowly but surely toward the inevitable. She was done for, her body to be ground up and spat out like the stones he had tossed into the sand earlier. It was so close to her. He was nearing her. There was no way he could make it, no way...

Except that his arms scooped her up magnificently, cradling her against him, her body as limp as ever. He thought he felt her pulse.

She was still alive.

He took off running, dragged down by the extra weight, hindered by the lancing pain in his side, hampered by the sand slipping beneath him, spraying up behind him every time his feet hit the ground. He twisted his head just enough to peer behind him. The claw was coming ever closer. The WEAPON in its entirety was beginning to emerge from the sands, its long, monstrous arm appearing, then its shoulder. He swallowed, realizing his eyes were as big around as they had been the day he had first realized Meteor was in the sky, realizing his fear of the imminent end was just as gripping now as it had been then.

He ran towards the Saucer, feeling the subtle vibrations in the ground. They were growing nearer. He could hear the beast's thick breathing, the awful sucking sound it made on the air as its head breached the surface, the sick rasping noise as wind rushed past its jaws. There was a door. A ground door. No one must ever use it, he realized. It was probably boarded up. But it was there.

His legs burned. He was unaccustomed to running through sand with an extra 130 pounds in his arms. The pain in his side increased as he strained his muscles to keep hold of her. He gripped her all the tighter, his fear of dropping her intense. His breathing was ragged, quick. He felt a nasty cold sensation snake through the pit of his stomach.

Cold, never-ceasing fear.

And a heat growing in his chest.

Hope.

He continued running. He felt the WEAPON's breath on the back of his neck...

He rammed his right shoulder blade into the door with all his forward momentum, using his body as a shield for Alcestis from the shattering wood.

To his surprise, the boarded door gave way, sending sharp hunks of wood flying across the room, and they spilled out onto the floor. He scrambled further into the barely-lit storage room, dragging Alcestis with him. The WEAPON reached its claw in after them a few times before giving up its pursuit and sinking into the sand, a deep growl rippling through the ground. Reno dragged himself over to Alcestis' unmoving body, and realized that he had a huge burning sensation in the back of his shoulder. He put his hand on the offending area, and pulled it back to find blood. He turned his head as much as he could, and found that a piece of the door had lodged itself in his back, the old wood leaving a great many splinters next to his spine. He grimaced, and gasped as the full pain of it hit him. The adrenaline had blocked it out before, but was now wearing off. The burning in his back became searing, joining with sharp, stabbing pain of his side to pulse with a greater, even more unbearable agony.

But he was alive. That was something.

He draped an arm over Alcestis before passing out entirely.