Final Fantasy VII (c) Square Enix. Character design by Nomura Tetsuya. No profit is being made out of this fanwork.
x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x
Sojourners
x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Look beyond where hearts can see.
Now that they were properly united, the four men found themselves comfortably seated inside the space shuttle's cockpit area. There was an air of sombre silence hanging over the party. Which was only broken when Zax sighed and spoke up.
"And so in summary, you knocked everyone out, found the controls, got familiar with them, commanded the ship to lock up all the Bazookas, and then rode down back to the Planet with a motorcycle? Ugh..." The SOLDIER held his head in his hands. "Did I get something wrong?"
"I didn't ride down in a motorcycle, Zax, that was just the ship pretending to be one since I wanted a form of transportation I was more familiar with," Cloud clarified.
"Was there a need to drag that floating mobile prison along with you, though?" The SOLDIER retorted, then grinned. "Or maybe you were just trying to act cool, huh?"
"The Chancellor and his lackeys were inside, and I was going to use it to threaten the rest of the Bazookas on Round Island into surrendering," Cloud answered, his face showing slight exasperation. "How was I to know you guys had already done that?"
"I don't know, this ship seems to be able to do just about anything and everything," Zax turned and glanced around at the room they were in. There were panels upon panels of information floating all around them. And if he just thought hard enough, the panels nearest to him would blink and display information related to what he had wanted to know. It was downright creepy.
Cloud had to resist the urge to roll his eyes. "Of course that's not true, Zax. Yeah, so it reads your thoughts and displays it... but you can turn that off if you want, you know. And it can only do what the pilot tells it to do. That's hardly anything and everything."
"Same difference, same difference," Zax snorted, then fell into a short silence. In the meantime, a large panel flickered beside Zax, which was visible to everyone present, and it showed the unconscious Bazooka rebels being housed in their individual prisons on the ship's dungeons. The SOLDIER eyed the panel with a forced smile. "Yeah, exactly. Thanks for throwing out my thoughts for the world to see," he finally mumbled. Abruptly, the screens around Zax vanished. The SOLDIER grinned. "Oh, so you really can turn it off!" He laughed. Turning back to face the others after that, he asked, "What are we going to do about those guys we caught?"
"The ship's system has a list of names, pictures, and information, which it can use to identify each and every person," Cloud explained, and a panel beside him blinked to life to show scrolling information about the Bazookas. "I think the Bazookas managed to somehow get the ship to work for them, though it would seem they never got to utilise it to the full."
"So this ship is not pilotable by just anybody?" Vincent asked.
"I think it is," Cloud answered. "Otherwise, how would the Bazookas have used it all this time? I think... there are different levels of control, depending on how... synchronised the pilot can get with the ship," he frowned slightly. "Anyway, I've already instructed the ship to drop off the men at their hometowns once they are awake, according to the information on the list."
"There is no telling if they will band together for another stint like this again, if you let them off so lightly," Sephiroth pointed out.
Cloud nodded. "Yes, and that's why the ship will be sending all the bigwigs to Coralissimo. Since the biggest wig was originally from there anyway. The Imperator will deal with them accordingly. As for the rest of the men... what can they do without leadership, and most importantly... materia?"
It was a reasonable line of thought, so the men fell back into silence, pondering the events of the day.
"It's been a long day," Cloud eventually said. "The ship will be on autopilot while it sends all the rebels back home. Why don't we all take a rest for now? Once the ship delivers everyone, we'll be going back to the Seers for a final confrontation. And this time, there will be answers."
The way Cloud had said it left no room for discussion. Zax was the first to get up from his seat, stretching like a cat. "Okay, and I guess the ship's gonna show me to my room or something, huh?" He asked in jest. Only to have a bright red arrow appear in front of him, pointing towards a certain direction.
"Apparently, it furnishes instructions in consideration of the other party's intelligence, too," Sephiroth smirked, when he saw the arrow.
Zax stuck a tongue out at his superior. "I hope you get a yellow bricked road!" With that parting shot, he exited the room, dutifully following his arrow guide.
"I shall make my move too," Vincent stood gracefully, turning down the corridor that Zax had just walked out to. Sephiroth rose to his feet as well, and was about to follow, when Cloud stopped him.
"Sephiroth, wait," Cloud called out. The General turned around to glance quizzically at the mercenary. Standing up, Cloud said, "I need to talk to you about something." At this, even Vincent paused and turned around to look over his shoulder. "Alone," Cloud continued, looking at Vincent in the eye when he said it. They communicated silently for a few seconds, before Vincent broke eye contact and shrugged, going on his way.
Sephiroth waited until Vincent turned the corner before walking back into the pilot's control room. "What is it?" He asked.
Cloud frowned, not knowing where to start. "Let's walk," he eventually said, pointing toward a part of what Sephiroth had thought was a wall, but was actually a door that had suddenly zipped open. Cloud walked through it, and although Sephiroth did not know what was on the other side, at least Cloud had not said 'let's mosey' or something equally aggravating, so he followed.
Stepping through, the General saw that it was a wide corridor with glass windows on both sides, displaying something incredibly out of the world. Glancing out on one side, he could see scorched earth, cracked and peeling, beaten into submission by the naked sun's searing heat and merciless rays. On the other side, there was nothing but a blanket of snow as far as the eyes could see. A scarlet moon glared down angrily at the forlorn terrain, up in the darkened, starless sky. These places were certainly not found in Gaia; not that he knew of, anyway. Turning to Cloud, who had come to a stop a fair distance apart in the long corridor, he waited for answers.
Cloud turned around to look at Sephiroth. "Do these places look familiar to you?" He asked.
"No," Sephiroth answered. "And they are not places on Gaia, are they?"
"Apparently they are scenes from the ship owner's original home planet," Cloud said. "You sure they don't look familiar at all?"
Sephiroth thought long and hard, searching through every nook and crany of his memories. Finally, he shook his head. "No. And I am quite certain. But why do you ask?"
At this, it was Cloud's turn to become silent. He shifted his weight around uncomfortably, and hesitation was evident on his face. "What do you know of Project S?" Was his question, when he found it in himself to speak.
Sephiroth was, of course, surprised that Cloud even knew about Project S. Nevertheless, he answered. "An experiment on enhancing the human body by manipulating the subject foetus from conception," Sephiroth repeated by rote what he had been told. "Apparently with mako, and other organic compounds."
Cloud's face twisted into something like disbelief. Then it relaxed slightly. "I'm surprised you even know this much at this point of time. But you're right. Mako and those 'organic compounds' you spoke of played a large part in the project. Mako is available everywhere on the Planet, obviously. So why do you think the project only had one case file on its record?"
Sephiroth knew what Cloud was getting at. "I assumed the scientist who championed the project had purposely refrained from repeating it because of the difficulty of the method... but I suppose you are trying to tell me that the organic compounds he used... did not originate with the Planet?"
For a while, Cloud chose to remain silent. He stared at a vague spot on one side of the glass windows displaying the desolated terrain of another planet. Then slowly, he turned back to Sephiroth, and said, "Hojo did use something from another planet. Because these 'compounds' were limited, he couldn't do it on the thousands of people he probably wanted to, but he did have other subjects. It wasn't just you alone; although the effects on the others did not appear until a long time after you... were not there anymore. In the most severe cases... the subjects could completely synchronise with the alien parts inside them. I sometimes wonder if they absorbed the memories as well, because they seemed so adamant on making their home planet's history repeat on our Planet..." Cloud paused. "But I guess that answers my question. If the one and only successful subject has no recollection, then the ones that came after probably had no idea either, huh?"
"Is this another one of those things you are not supposed to tell me in case I go back in time and completely derail history?" Sephiroth raised an eyebrow. Normally, he would be panicking by now that someone had such intimate knowledge of the project that practically gave birth to him, but for some reason, he felt comfortable discussing it with Cloud.
"I guess you can say that?" Cloud was not entirely sure himself. "I think it's pretty unlikely Gaia's nice enough to let you remember anything when you return, but can't be too safe..."
Sephiroth hardly cared about what Gaia was or was not going to do. Instead he asked, "What was the point of bringing up the project, then? Am I perhaps to assume that the alien organic compounds used by Hojo are somehow related to the owner of this ship?"
Cloud gawked for a moment at Sephiroth's perception. He recovered quickly enough, coughing to draw attention away from his loss of composure. "Yes, and let's leave all the sordid details out for now. Have you noticed anything strange since stepping onboard? Any faint buzzing in your ears or something like that?"
Again, Sephiroth silently concentrated on his senses. Eventually, he shook his head. "No. The ship is quiet. And it feels quite peaceful."
"I see," Cloud nodded. "I browsed through a few of the ship's memories with the Bazookas while on my way down. Apparently, they were not able to fully utilise the ship because of what they complained was 'noise'. Something was 'buzzing' in their ear and interfering with their connection to the ship's controls. I assumed it was because the ship considered them foreign, though not necessarily belligerent. I have some of those organic compounds we were talking about just now too, which is why I hardly heard any buzzing and could control it better than them. But you - you grew up with those cells. You could probably do it better than me."
Of course, Sephiroth was extremely curious about what Cloud meant when he said he had those 'organic compounds' as well. But he decided to settle something else first. "So you mean you will let me have control of the ship?"
"Yes, but I had to make sure you wouldn't use it to destroy the Planet first," Cloud said gravely. Without missing a beat, he continued, "Since the ship obviously responds better to us, the chances of it belonging to the same planet where the source of our 'organic compounds' were from are quite high. Who knows what the original owner might have programmed the ship to do when it assumes it has stumbled upon one of its kind? I'm trying to avoid anymore unforeseen circumstances here, unless you want to be stuck in this time period forever."
The General made no comment on that, only shifting his weight so that he now faced the window displaying desolated snow plains. "Should I even question why you are going to allow me to drive this thing around, then?"
Cloud shrugged. "I've realised that Gaia can't reach you when you're synchronised with the ship. Not even a whisper. After all that Gaia's done to pull you and Zax here against your wills... let's just say I'm a fan of poetic justice and leave it at that, shall we?"
This made Sephiroth look over his shoulder. The duo shared a knowing look. Then the man turned back, smirking openly.
"Sounds like a plan to me."
x-x
"Vincent," Cloud said, as he stepped into the room his fellow mercenary was ruminating in. "Just to let you know, I'm going to hand control of the ship over the Sephiroth after the deliveries."
One could see Vincent's eyebrows rising way past his hairline, though nothing could be seen beneath the bandanna swathing his entire forehead. "And the reason being?"
Cloud was glad Vincent had not simply shot him with a tranquilliser upon that announcement. "The reason is, I've just about had enough of this entire thing."
Vincent blinked. "And the Planet?"
"Oh, I'm sure she doesn't agree," Cloud shrugged.
"And what do you intend to do about that?"
"Nothing?"
"This was the machine of the Crisis, Cloud," Vincent pressed on. "And you're giving it to her son? What if he destroys everything you've been trying so hard to protect all this time?"
Cloud looked at Vincent in the eye. "He won't."
"You sound very sure."
"Actually, I'm not," Cloud shrugged again. "But everyone deserves a second chance, don't you think?" He said meaningfully. "What's the worst thing that could happen, anyway?"
As the silence stretched, it was obvious both men were imagining the worst possible scenario happening.
"It's about trust, Vincent," Cloud broke the silence first. "He had that, and then he was betrayed. He never fully believed anything else again after that - not even when Zax tried to help. And the people around him - they trusted him to do a good job - they trusted he'd kill, maim, command, and conquer. But there was nothing else. Nobody trusted he had feelings like other humans. Nobody trusted that he was just like the rest of us. He didn't have to do anything else other than fight - they would do the rest for him. Who would not have subconsciously gotten on a pedestal after all that treatment? Why would he have bothered to reach out, if he wasn't allowed to be curious about anything? I want to trust him, even though I don't actually /want/ to. I need to know that I've done something rather than nothing, even though I know it's already too late for all that now. Do you understand, Vincent?"
Vincent had been listening quietly, and now he remained quiet as well, so that he could think. Finally, he acquiesced, saying, "All right. And needless to say, you'll be in charge of stopping him again, if anything happens, right?"
Cloud almost laughed out loud at that. "Vincent, when was I never?"
"Just making sure," Vincent said, a ghost of a smile on his face.
Cloud smiled as well. "Your trust in me pushed me to go on even when things felt pointless sometimes too, you know," he could not help but blurt.
"I know," Vincent replied pleasantly. "Because it works both ways."
x-x
The next morning, the ship was still busy gallivanting around the Planet, dropping former Bazooka trainees back to their hometowns. Cloud walked into the control room - which had become their impromptu gathering hall of sorts - to find Vincent and Zax poring over a game of something that looked like chess but was not quite chess.
"Zax," Cloud gasped without thinking. "You can play chess?"
Zax turned away from the board, blinking at Cloud. "It's not really chess. Some board game from the home planet of wherever this ship came from. Hey, it's really cool!" He gleefully informed, picking up a chess piece and slamming it down on another area in the board.
The board lighted up and the piece combusted into dust.
"See?" Zax pointed. "If you place it on the wrong terrain, it'll be destroyed! This game allows you to literally destroy your own pieces! How cool is that?"
Vincent made no remark, only moving his own piece to another spot. The piece grew into a mouth and swallowed the other piece that was there.
"Okay," Cloud sighed. "I don't need a headache so early in the morning. What's happening? Is the ship on track?"
It was Vincent who replied. "Yes, it is. We should be able to reach the Seers by early noon today."
"All right," Cloud nodded. Then the next most logical question: "Where's Sephiroth?"
This time, Zax answered. "Stepped into the wall over there just a while after we started our game," he gestured at the 'wall over there', which was the spot leading into the corridor Cloud had been talking with Sephiroth the previous night.
"Right," Cloud nodded. "Thanks."
Zax' response was to move a chess piece, which spontaneously combusted again. He cackled in glee.
"Are you trying to win the game, or let me win by decimating all your pieces in the most spectacular ways possible?" Vincent's amused question was the last thing Cloud heard before the wall zipped open and he stepped through, into the slightly dimmed corridor.
As he took a step forward, the wall slid shut silently. True enough, Sephiroth was standing there, staring at the side of the wall depicting the moon with his arms folded across his chest. He appeared deep in thought, but when Cloud moved closer, he suddenly spoke.
"When you first discovered this room, did you ever wonder what the owner of the ship preserved the scenes in this chamber for?" He asked.
Cloud blinked. In fact, he had never wondered about it before, merely assuming that her goal was to destroy all the planets she went to, and so these were just stark reminders. "No, I haven't," he admitted. "So what's your conclusion?"
"Hmm," Sephiroth mumbled. "It does not make sense. If she had been escaping her home planet because of its desolation, why would she constantly remind herself of the desolation itself?"
"What if the owner of the ship wasn't a good person?" Cloud asked quietly.
Sephiroth looked at him. "So you think these scenes were preserved for some malicious purpose?"
"I don't know," Cloud shook his head. "But it's not something we should rule out."
"Hmm," Sephiroth made that thoughtful noise again. "I think it's highly unlikely."
"What makes you so sure?"
Sephiroth actually frowned at the question. "The mood - for the lack of a better description. This ship, it feels calm, Cloud. It does not look or feel like a war machine. I've been looking through whatever information I have access to, and computers do not tell lies. The original pilot kept these images for a purpose. But I am quite sure it was not for something malevolent in nature."
Cloud considered that option. It sounded logical enough, and it was something he could not have thought of, where he came from. "I think you can find out once you become main pilot. This ship has a few layers of information stored in it, and I can access all but the final layer. Which just so happens to have the oldest data and control over certain areas in the ship which I don't even know where to start looking for. And since all passengers only have access to files the pilot has..."
"You are banking on the possibility that I may have access to whatever other treasures this ship may conceal," Sephiroth stated, as the corners of his lips quirked upwards in obvious amusement.
That was not what Cloud was banking on, but it sounded like a nice excuse. "Why not?" Cloud mused aloud. "I'm sure someone out there, some time down the road, would appreciate some alien relics enough to shell out a fortune for it. And then maybe I can finally retire and live the rest of my life in peace." Of course, his deadpan manner lent no credulity to his words at all, and that made Sephiroth chuckle a little.
"How should we go about this handing over of control thing?" Sephiroth got back into business. "Is there some grand ceremony I should attend?"
Cloud almost glared at the man. "Are you always so chipper in the morning?" He grumbled. Nevertheless, he continued, "It's not complicated at all. I tell the ship what to do in my head as usual, and it just happens. Like this."
Suddenly, the scenes of desolation flashed and melted away. On one side, a brightly lit field of what looked like flowers and food took over the bleak image of parched ground. On the other side, the moon now smiled upon a beautiful lake surrounded with towering greenery.
Cloud gawked rather conspicuously. He had not expected something like this to happen immediately after passing control. In fact, he would have been less surprised if the ship had simply suddenly self-destructed. He slowly turned to look for Sephiroth's reaction.
There was not much to see on Sephiroth's schooled features. However, the man spoke up soon enough. "You were wrong, Cloud," he said, derailing Cloud's thoughts as he wondered what he was wrong about. Sephiroth continued, "The original pilot didn't keep these images because she wanted to remind herself of the pain."
Cloud reached into the ship's now fully opened database and saw for himself the rest.
"She went on a journey to find a way to restore her homeland," Cloud remarked matter-of-factly. Now this was a scenario which he had not even vaguely considered. "The imagery was supposed to change when she stepped into this chamber. That was what she wanted to remind herself of." A pause. "And when she found the Ancients here, she thought she could finally achieve her goal, but..."
"They weren't amenable," Sephiroth nodded. "And when she failed to convince them to follow her even after trying everything she could, her desperation eventually drove her into insanity."
"I," Cloud started to say, "I've never imagined... that she would have a story to tell, too."
Sephiroth frowned. "You knew the pilot of the ship?"
"Not personally," Cloud shook his head. "Through the legends and stories. Well, this is probably not the best place to discuss that, but I'm glad. Sort of glad... that I found this out. I guess I should say thank you for that, huh?"
Sephiroth did not respond verbally, merely tilting his head slightly in acknowledgement. "I suppose we should be joining Zax and Vincent out there soon. The deliveries are almost done and we will be on our way to the Seers sooner than initially projected."
"Of course, the machine just had to speed up when you took over," Cloud smiled a little. But he complied and turned around to walk back out into the cockpit area, and he was followed soon by Sephiroth.
Once outside, Cloud declared, "We'll be at the Seers' place soon!"
Zax wasn't listening. He had just moved one of his chess pieces into yet another unsuitable territory, causing it to be buried by a landslide. He threw his head back and laughed happily.
Vincent looked up when Cloud made the declaration, but soon his attention turned back to the board again. He shook his head. "I don't actually need to do anything," he was saying. "He's doing a good enough job of destroying himself without any interference."
And just as Vincent finished saying that, Zax took his final piece and tossed it onto a slot marked as a rushing river.
They watched as the piece was swept away by the simulated current and subsequently fell down a torrential waterfall. It never resurfaced.
"This game is cool!" Zax decided, turning around to grin widely at his audience. "When we get back, you've got to somehow get Shinra to build something like this, General Sephiroth!"
"I am a general, not a game designer," Sephiroth reminded him.
"Yeah, but you can pull some really long strings," Zax reminded him right back.
"Zax would make a good instructor for such games," Vincent quipped.
Before anyone could say anything else, the ship shook violently.
"Do you think it's asking us to shut up?" Zax asked, after a long pause.
"Actually," Cloud sighed, "we've just arrived at the destination."
"Ah, right," Zax nodded. "I knew the ship can't be that smart."
The ship summarily teleported the SOLDIER out of the cockpit. A video image showed him appearing a few metres on top of the canopy of a large tree. Thereafter, there was a lot of free falling, branch breaking, yelps and finally a loud thud.
Cloud looked suspiciously at Sephiroth, who was poker-faced.
"Did you do that?" He finally asked.
Instead of answering the question, Sephiroth smiled mysteriously. "The Seers await us," was the only thing he eventually said, before teleporting everyone out of the cockpit as well.
This time on firmer ground, of course.
x-x
"All right," Cloud managed to find a stone table to slam his hands on in the Seers' chamber, and did just that. "I'm not going to even blame you for forcing us to do your dirty work for you. But tell us - honestly, please - are you really capable of sending them back to the past, or are you just stringing us along?"
The Seers exchanged glances. Some of the minor Seers actually breathed out audible sighs of relief. It appeared they had been expecting a grand showdown of words and perhaps some kind of demolition. The Great Seers then said, "We are certainly pleased that..."
"No, stop," Cloud shook his head. "Just tell me yes or no. Please."
The Great Seer looked a little petulant that his grandiose speech was interrupted. Nevertheless, he continued, "Yes. We can send them back."
"But do you want to?" Vincent asked.
"The Planet has informed us that the threat has been neutralised," the Seer confirmed. "Their continued existence here will only serve to upset the delicate equilibrium of time and space, so yes. We do want to send them back. This has been a risky venture for us as well, if you must know."
All four warriors glanced at each other as they digested that. "So what's the procedure?" Cloud finally ventured to ask.
"I thought we needed the black and white materia for it," Zax interjected, before the Seers could reply. "Which we were supposed to be getting in our last trip out, if I might remind you."
"The fact is," the Great Seer cleared his throat, "you have always had it with you."
A stunned silence followed.
Broken only when the chocoboes, who had followed the foursome into the Temple, warked rather loudly.
Cloud stared at the two birds for a long, long time. Finally, he sighed and declared, "I feel stupid."
"I had a feeling," Vincent quipped, but did not complete his sentence.
"I thought so," Sephiroth nodded.
"I err... what's going on?" Zax blinked.
"It's them," Cloud answered, pointing at the two birds. "They have the materia. Or rather, maybe I should say they ARE the materia?"
"I didn't know there were chocobo-shaped materia," Zax blinked again. The black chocobo warked as if in indignation. "And it warbles like one, too."
"I didn't know that either," Cloud agreed. Turning back to the Seers, he asked, "And are we supposed to equip them like normal materia and hope the ritual or whatever you're going to perform will somehow work?"
The Seers actually had the audacity to look quite amused by the suggestion. "No," one Seer finally said, "we'll have to extract them from the birds first, of course. Materia is a medium, and while inside the chocoboes they cannot act as the medium they are supposed to be."
"Putting aside how many laws of nature this whole thing violates," Zax, who was beginning to get the picture, said, "HOW then are you going to extract the materia out from them? It's not going to result in any dead birds, I hope?"
The others, having not thought about that possibility, narrowed their eyes at the Seers. While the birds had been two parts clingy and seven parts helpful, they were also one part adorable, and no one - not even hardened warriors - would stand for seeing cute and helpless creatures die for their sake! Never!
"No dead birds," the Great Seer confirmed, upon feeling the air freeze up. "Look beyond where hearts can see, my friends, and you will find there is nothing to worry about at all."
A green glow had slowly surrounded the two chocoboes, lifting them gently into the air. Surprised, the birds flapped their wings and warked for help. In the next moment, however, the glow intensified and blinded all present for a split second.
When the piercing light subsided, all that was left were two chirping, normal-looking baby gold chocoboes, and two luminous materia on the floor in front of them.
Vincent, who was the closest, walked forward and retrieved the two materia. The two chocoboes were in a slight daze, so he left them alone for now. He examined the two materia. The power held within could be felt. He turned towards Cloud, and nodded at him.
"They are the real black and white materia," the Great Seer smiled down at the four. "You can all return to where you belong now."
x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x
07sep2011
the review reply system is quite hard to use now, so apologies if i don't reply to your reviews. :(
