I woke up, and promptly regretted doing so. I felt like I had been hit by a bus, or possibly a train. Every single part of my body ached.
There was something unnervingly familiar about this situation.
When my eyelids parted in reluctant slow-motion, a strange sight was revealed. I stared at the craggy shapes in the distance for what must have been several minutes before I could make any sense of it. Eventually I concluded that I was lying on my back and observing the ceiling of a cave. The rocky surface was lit by an eerie, greenish glow coming from somewhere on my right. I lolled my head in that direction, but couldn't see much from the cave floor.
I propped myself up on one elbow and squinted at the light. I couldn't see the source; it emanated from somewhere below the ledge I found myself on. What was this place? My memory was fuzzy and full of holes, but I was pretty certain I had never laid eyes on this cave before.
"Lass? Is that you? I don't believe it!"
I swayed my head in the direction of the boisterous voice and could only stare in bafflement as I saw a black and white cat hop off some kind of huge... round... thing. A pink blob with wings. The cat padded up to me on its hind legs and came to halt right in front of my face, giving me a better look. It was a plush cat, with a small crown, a megaphone and a red bow around its neck.
Great. I was hallucinating.
"It is you," it cried, too loud even without the aid of its megaphone, and leaned forward with its little plush paws – no wait, gloved hands – on its hips. "How'd ya get here, lass?"
While I gawked at the creature and tried to figure out why my delirious mind would produce a talking toy cat, a man in a tattered red cape took a couple of steps towards us. A flash of gold drew my attention to the claw that was his left hand, and when I looked up at his face, I saw that his eyes were red.
Oh yes. Definitely hallucinating.
I was dying, and this was the result of my mind being unable to cope with it. That was the only sensible explanation. The explosion hadn't been quite enough to kill me and now I was experiencing some kind of weird limbo state between life and death. These were the delusions of a dying brain.
"You know what it is, Cait?" the red-eyed man asked in a low voice as emotionless as his face.
The toy hopped around to glare at him.
"She's not an 'it'. She's a 'she'!"
"Yeah? How can ya tell, ya damn Shinra puppet? It looks like a fuckin' heap of metal scrap! A damn creepy one too, if ya ask me."
An opinion firmly declared by a huge, burly man with a gun instead of an arm. This was just getting better and better.
Behind the two, I could see a tiny girl holding some kind of weapon with giant spikes sticking out in every direction, an older one with long legs and longer hair, and a blond guy who even had Reno beat when it came to ridiculous haircuts. There were more, but my vision was getting too blurry. Maybe there was a problem with my helmet. Or maybe it was, you know, the dying.
"It's a woman in an armored suit," the cat huffed, then swirled back around and knocked on my visor. "Come on, lass. Open up and show 'em!"
"What are you?" I asked, having finally found my voice.
The rational part of me was convinced that speaking to figments of my imagination would only make things worse, but I decided to ignore it. It wasn't like rational sense had anything to do with the current situation.
"Holy shit!" the girl with the spiky thing shrieked.
"Whoa!" Mr. Gun-arm shouted.
"It speaks," said the mercifully quiet voice of...
My jaw dropped, while my eyes goggled out of my head. The pleasant voice belonged to an enormous, red, cat-dog creature. That talked. And was on fire. Christ, my mind had gone off the rails.
The artificial cat tutted and shook its head.
"Sheesh, hit your head or somethin'?" it asked me, ignoring the other comments. "You know who I am. You've seen me! Well, my pictures, at least."
Now that the toy cat mentioned it, it did look familiar. I had seen that grinning face before. My forehead scrunched up in concentration while I examined it closer.
"Reeve's drawings," I concluded, speaking mostly to myself.
"That's right!" the plushie exclaimed with much glee. "Now show us your pretty face already!"
Well, considering what else my mind could have conjured up, a sentient toy was relatively harmless. I pushed my unwilling body up to a sitting position, trying my best not to mind the way the humans of the party reached for their weapons, then raised my hands and released the helmet's airtight lock.
"Yikes," the cat said once I revealed my face, flinching back. "Got yerself into trouble, did ya?"
"You could say that," I mumbled, taking the helmet in one hand so I could prop myself up with the other. Getting up hadn't been such a good idea. My vision was swimming and I could have sworn the toy and its bewildered companions were drifting farther away from me. Several voices were speaking, but I could only make out the one closest to me.
"Hey, are you okay? You don't look so good."
I snorted softly at being on the receiving end of a plush toy's concern, then blinked hard several times to rid myself of the black spots dancing before my eyes.
"Yeah? I don't feel so hot either."
With that, my arm buckled under me and I passed out.
The ground was shaking.
I woke with a start, arms flailing out to find purchase. As soon as my eyelids flew open, I realized I had been mistaken. I was in a moving vehicle, not another earthquake.
"Gawd! Whatcha doing back there? Trying to give me a freaking heart attack?"
I squeezed my eyes shut with a grimace as the shrill shriek pierced my eardrums. There was something familiar about the voice. I could have sworn I had heard it before.
My eyelids snapped wide open for the second time in less than ten seconds and I found myself staring at the round, childish face of Girl With Spiky Thing. I tilted my head back to peek at the person beside her. Although I couldn't get a proper look, lying on the back seat as I was, the ratty black hair and the high collar of his red cloak was enough to identify the man I had seen in her company earlier. My mouth fell open.
"You're... real?"
The girl rolled her eyes theatrically.
"Duh, of course I'm real! I'm Yuffie Kisaragi, the Single White Rose of Wutai and Ninja Extraordinaire!"
There was only one part of the litany that registered properly, but that single word stunned me to the core.
"Wutai?"
I jerked up to a sitting position, ignoring the way the girl recoiled in response, and shoved my face against the side window. The glitter of icy plains filled the view, framed by snow-tipped mountains. Beyond them, tinting everything pink with its glow, was Meteor. It was huge now, covering most of the sky with its red jagged surface.
"Gaia," I breathed.
Dozens of emotions crashed into me at once. Disbelief, joy, fear, relief, guilt, and many, many more. I struggled to contain them all, taking deep, ragged breaths to keep my composure.
"Uh, Robogirl? You're kinda freaking us out here. I mean, I'm cool, but Vincent's getting worried."
I looked over to the front of the vehicle just in time to see the blank glance the man sent his chatty companion, although she was too busy ogling me to notice. The girl didn't bother hiding the distrust on her face.
"Cait told us to bring you along, but if you're gonna go all weird on us, I'm gonna dump you in the snow and tell the driver to floor it."
"Hey, I–I can't allow that," another man in the driver's seat stammered. The girl ignored him.
"Cait?" I asked.
"Yeah, Cait Sith. He seemed to know ya."
Cait Sith? That sounded like something out of my grandfather's stories. In fact, the damned toy cat in my dream had even spoken like my granda.
Ohh, hang on... If these two were real, then it really had spoken. And so did... I could feel myself go pale.
"Uh... Cait Sith is the, um, toy cat?"
"That's the one. Bloody loud and annoying for such a tiny thing."
I marveled at the way Yuffie spoke of a walking, talking stuffed toy as if it was an everyday occurrence. Then again, I had just spent the past weeks in the company of man who had turned himself into a human-alien hybrid. I was in no position to judge.
"And the... The other cat?"
"You mean Red? What about him?"
"He speaks too?"
"Yeah, I know," she grinned. "Kinda blows your mind at first, right? He's all right, though. A bit quiet and speaks hella slow when he finally opens his mouth, uh, maw I guess, which really, really winds me up, but he's a nice guy. Cat. Whatever he is."
"Oh."
Yuffie's nice-cat-guy endorsement notwithstanding, I was glad neither feline had joined us on our road trip. I had a hard enough time coping with this incredible turn of events as it was.
Her expression was taking a turn toward nauseated.
"Uh, hey, maybe you could, you know, do something about your face? It's kinda icky."
"Excuse me?"
"There's blood on it," she explained with a grimace. "Like, loads. It's pretty gross. Hang on, I think I've got something you can use."
She dug around inside the poncho-like garment she had bundled up in. Only now did I notice the hood was decorated with two buttons that resembled eyes. I wondered if the effect was intentional.
"Dammit, I know it's in here somewhere... Just a sec... Aha! Ta-da!"
Yuffie triumphantly held up a small pocket mirror, then handed it to me along with a water bottle and a small cloth. Once I looked in the mirror I could see her point. Dried blood was smeared around my nose and on my forehead. It must have been caused by Sparky's blast, or rather, the abrupt landing a second later. Maybe even James, I speculated, remembering the copper taste in my mouth after his strike.
A jagged hurt clawed at my chest and I quickly slapped that thought away.
Clenching my jaw tight, I moistened the cloth and wiped the stains off my face. A wan face, I noted, with deep shadows under the eyes. My stay on Earth had taken its toll in more ways than one.
"You said you were taking me somewhere?" I asked once I was done, glancing out of the window again.
"We're going back to Midgar. Cloud and the rest of AVALANCHE are gonna stop Sephiroth, but Reeve needs help getting people out of the city. Meteor is right on top of it and it's already making things fall apart."
Reeve! Maybe I could contact him directly now that I was back on Gaia. I had to try. I snapped my head around and scanned the backseat, only now registering that a part of my suit was missing.
"Where's my helmet? I have to check something."
"It's right there," the girl said and pointed at the floor of the snowcat, in front of my seat.
"Thanks!"
I pulled the helmet on and clicked it into place, then turned off the external speakers and released a long sigh. I could see Yuffie watching me with curiosity and suspicion through the tinted one-way visor, and I allowed myself to close my eyes and just breathe for a few moments. My mind was already busy, putting together the pieces of this strange puzzle. I liked it that way. As long as my brain focused on the intellectual challenges of my situation, I could ignore the emotions.
Before I could dwell too much on the very subject I wished to avoid, I told Sparky to give me a full systems check.
"I-i-initiating systems check. Suit status monitoring, online. User status monitoring, online. Co-co-communication interface, online. Electromagnetic shielding, at forty-three percent. High impact a-a-armor, at fifty-three percent. Power-assisted mo-mo-movement, at sixty-eight percent. Automated medical systems, a-a-activated. Wa-wa-warning. Power at thirty-two percent. Ma-ma-major exoskeleton damage detected. All external sensors, disabled. Sy-sy-systems check complete."
I made a face at the suit's sorry stammer, but according to the report, the vital systems were still functional. It would have to do.
With a deep breath, I opened the channel Reeve had used during my previous visit.
"Reeve? Reeve, come in. Are you there?"
Nothing, except the buzz of static. I told Sparky to boost the signal and tried again, then again. My heart nearly skipped a beat when a voice came through, faint but familiar.
"Reeve here. Tess, is that you?"
The intensity of the relief that washed over me took me by surprise, making my fingers tremble inside their gloves. I had missed the smooth son of a gun.
"Reeve!" It came out as something between a sigh and a sob. "It's me. I'm back."
"Yes, I know...you all right?"
Even through the distortion and breaks in the transmission, I could hear his concern. It was such a welcome change after the antagonism and distrust I had been subjected to for so long.
"I'm... I'm fine. Sparky needs some work, though."
Physically speaking, it wasn't a lie. Now that I thought about it, I felt much better than the first time I had woken up. The jump must have been less taxing than the first time, or maybe the suit had decided to give me another shot of healing juice while I was out for the count.
"Tell you what, once...over, you can tell...I'll fix Sparky up as good as new. I'm afraid...complete chaos here. We're evacuating Midgar."
"So I heard. I can help. I've done that sort of thing before."
"Thanks, Tess...appreciate it...like to say it isn't necessa...truth is, we need every...willing to help. Tell Yuffie and Vin...bring you to Shinra HQ and find Reno. He and...Turks are helping out, too."
The interference was getting worse. I was fairly certain I had gotten the gist of it, though.
"Get to HQ, find Reno. Got it."
"Great. I really...it. I'll see you when...over. Stay safe."
"You too, Reeve. See you soon. Tess out."
Reno. The other lovable bastard I thought I would never get to see again. I leaned my head back against the seat, a weary smile on my lips.
"Hey Vince, you think Robogirl died on us? She hasn't said a thing since she put that helmet on and now she kinda fell backwards and stopped moving."
That had to be the worst stage whisper I had ever heard. With a sigh, I reached up and removed the helmet, making the girl jump in surprise in the process.
"I'm not dead yet."
Yuffie clutched her chest in a dramatic gesture and shot me an irritated glare.
"Gawd, don't do that! You are trying to give me a heart attack!"
I suppressed a smile and was on the verge of relaying what Reeve had said, when I remembered something the girl had said. AVALANCHE. The terrorists that been all over the news for blowing up reactors and had clashed with the Turks on several occasions.
Well. This was awkward.
It occurred to me that I should probably have been more worried about my current situation, but the fear just wasn't there. Whether this was due to becoming jaded after everything I had been through since I first landed on this world, or if it was because it was hard for me to take these two as a serious threat; that was something I could ponder later. For now, I just decided it best not to mention my Shinra associations.
"How long until Midgar?" I asked.
"Oh, hard to say. It depends on how bad the weather has gotten around Midgar. We'll be at Icicle Inn in a few minutes, where Reeve oughta have a bird waiting to take us to Kalm. From there, it's maybe a couple of hours in a truck to Midgar. We should be there early in the morning."
I noted the way her face scrunched up in distaste at the word bird. The ninja girl wasn't talking about a real bird, was she? They did ride birds here, and in a world with talking toys and cats, anything could be possible.
"You don't seem very excited about the... flight?"
"Motion sickness," she explained with another unhappy face. "I get it from most things, I mean, I already barfed because of this snow car thingie while you were out of it, but being in the air is the worst. I've never been in a helicopter before, but I'm pretty sure it'll make me barf again."
Delightful. This was going to be one hell of a trip. At least it wasn't a literal giant bird.
The place names Yuffie had mentioned meant nothing to me, except for Midgar, so I had no idea where we actually were on the planet. Somewhere up north, judging by the snow and the biting wind that nipped at my face as soon as I stepped out of the snowcat. It had been a long time since I had been glad for the waste heat the suit generated. Back home, it had been more of a problem to keep it – and its user – cool enough. I had never had a reason to switch off the cooling system before.
Icicle Inn turned out to be a small collection of cozy-looking cottages. Golden light from their windows pooled on the white blanket covering the ground, beckoning any poor souls stuck outside to enter and partake of the warmth inside. As tempting as it was, our goal lay elsewhere. We were rushed into a helicopter waiting just outside the village, its blades already chopping the air at a lazy rate.
The sun had set, and while Meteor provided more light than a full moon, I wasn't able to make out much of the landscape below once we were in the air. Pity. I had never flown in a chopper before either, and would have loved to make the most of the trip.
Conversation was out of the question, considering Vincent's reticence and the fact that Yuffie soon lost her chattiness due to motion sickness. Fortunately, I was exhausted enough to catch some sleep. It was better than spending who knows how many hours alone with my conscience. Besides, I knew I would need it.
By the time I woke up again, we were landing in Kalm, another quaint little village. The early rays of the sun revealed rustic buildings topped by blue shingles and pretty cobbled streets, like a scene straight out of a fairytale. However, the idyllic atmosphere was marred by hundreds of Midgar evacuees pouring out from the backs of canvas-covered trucks and huddling in the streets.
Vincent observed the sight in silence with what seemed to be his usual cool aloofness, but even the bubbly Yuffie was subdued. Her jaw was set and her eyes shone with a determination I hadn't expected from the young girl. I got the feeling I wasn't the only one who had witnessed such hardship before.
She perked up once we were in the back of one of the trucks heading back to Midgar for another load of refugees.
"So, Robogirl, who are you? I assume you have a name. Though, actually, it would be pretty cool if you really were called Robogirl. Are you called Robogirl?"
Yuffie was seated opposite of me, propping herself up in a half-hunched position with her hands on the edge of the bench and kicking her feet back and forth. Rather long and skinny legs, fully revealed thanks to the tiny shorts she was wearing. Her midriff was exposed, too, now that she had discarded her poncho. Talk about jailbait; the girl looked about fifteen. How had she become involved with a terrorist group?
"I'm Therèse FitzEvan. I'm a biologist."
I had forgotten the reaction researchers received on this planet. The ninja girl instantly stopped her kicking and she eyed me with a look of dismay.
"Biologist? As in scientist? Like Hojo?"
Had that man single-handedly ruined the reputations of honest scientists on the whole goddamned globe? Even Vincent roused at that, sending me a piercing stare with those unnatural blood-red eyes of his.
"No," I said curtly, crossing my arms and turning away to watch the receding townlet of Kalm on the horizon. "Not like Hojo."
"You've met him."
The short sentence, spoken in a low, gravelly monotone, was more of a statement than a question. It must have been the first time Vincent spoke to me. In mild surprise, I turned my head back to the man.
His outfit of leather, straps and golden metal was absurd to the point of being comical, but something about his countenance was so deeply unsettling that laughter was the last thing on my mind. Maybe it was the lack of life, of the smallest spark of spirit. Even the smell that clung to him was stale and cold.
"Yes," I confirmed with some reluctance. "He... did tests on me." My lips twisted into something resembling a bitter smile. "I was deemed unworthy of further study."
"I see."
Something flickered in those impassive eyes, so briefly I wasn't sure I had seen it at all. I looked back toward the scenery to hide the unease it inspired.
"You were lucky."
A somber mood descended with the man's final comment and put an end to the brief exchange. The rest of the drive was spent in silence.
A convoy of trucks passed by, full of pale, frightened faces fleeing from Midgar. I could have joined them, I supposed. Ditched the suit and become yet another homeless evacuee who had lost all their official documents in the disaster. What a perfect opportunity to hide from Shinra. I could have fled to the sticks to do whatever people did in the countryside on this planet. Raise chocobos. Make terrible home wine from purple apples.
Hah. Wishful thinking. It was far more likely that I would lament and starve among strangers for a few days until Meteor struck. No, thanks. If these were my last days, I would rather spend them with people I cared about, doing something useful.
When we arrived at Midgar, throngs of people were waiting for the trucks to take them to Kalm. Yuffie had informed me that we would reach the plate using the only train still running, but looking at all the people around us, it seemed like an impossibility to reach the station, much less get a seat on the train. However, my fears proved to be unfounded. The crowds parted willingly at the sight of Vincent; grim and gaunt, with the tattered cloak billowing around him as if it had a life of its own.
As I should have realized from the truck ride, the evacuees were taking the train down, not up. Yuffie, Vincent and I got a whole train car to ourselves. The train dashed through tunnels and narrow passages banked by concrete walls, so I didn't see much of the city on the way.
The first thing that caught my attention upon disembarking was Meteor. Up on the plate, with the ground far below us, the sky was dominated by that red orb. It seemed that if I wanted to, I could just reach out and touch its surface. How insignificant we were, we small beings cowering beneath it in fright. How could anyone hope to survive the impact? How could the people of Gaia possibly deflect the blow?
A hot breeze tousled my hair and filled my nostrils with dust and smoke. I lowered my gaze, at long last seeing the streets of Midgar before me, and felt my chest constrict violently. The awaiting refugees had already swarmed onto the train, leaving behind them a desolate stretch of pavement, unreal in its sudden stillness. The remains of skyscrapers, once reaching proudly toward the sky, now jutted out of the ground like rows of broken teeth. Right behind them, Shinra's headquarters loomed, still exerting its authority over the cityscape despite being nothing but a smoking corpse.
I had never seen the building from the outside before, but I recognized it right away. I stared at the colossal building, in awe of both its size and the havoc wreaked upon it. A strange sensation welled up inside me, a prickling emptiness I couldn't define. That place had been the site of some of my most harrowing experiences, but it had also been the only excuse for a home I had known on this world. The only home I'd had left.
The train whistled and wheezed to life behind us.
"Come on, Robogirl, standing around isn't gonna do any good to anyone. Let's go!"
Swallowing hard, I tore my eyes from the devastation and pulled on my helmet as the three of us began to walk the short distance from the station to the ruins of Shinra HQ.
Well, limp, in my case. The left leg of my suit had been damaged somewhere along the line and twisted my walking out of synch. The small squeak that sounded with every step didn't exactly improve the situation.
Looking down over my crippled suit, then out over the battered cityscape, a wry smirk appeared on my face. We made a fitting pair, Midgar and I. Perhaps I had ended up in the right place after all.
A/N:
I've tried to stick to canon with this story, except for maybe playing a bit fast and loose with the timeline. It's fun, working within the constraints of an established storyline to see where you can take it. At this point, however, it all becomes a huge mess. The final events of Meteorfall have been retconned so many times that it's pretty much impossible (for me) to form a complete, sensible picture of it from official sources. In the end, I threw up my hands and decided to go with my own version based on two facts: Vincent and Yuffie aren't present after the final fight in the end movie of FF7, and according to DoC, they left early for Midgar to help with the evacuation.
crossyourteez: Haha, thanks! Got to work with the facts: she's a scientist, not a fighter. ;)
Thanks for reading!
