Bloodwitch Raven: Well, I still have to prep for the first scene of the movie, so that's what I'll do. Reno and Arien are still in for some bit of action (and oh angst! Well, for Arien. Not Reno. He's too busy to mope) and so are the rest of the crew.
Echo the Ethereal Swordmaster - well, I was a day behind... I really didn't know how to write this chapter until the very last minute. But I actually like this chapter, so I think it paid off.
Chapter 36: The Black and the White
The silvery consciousness did not die.
It had very nearly died; the green light hurt it, hurt it on a level that was not conceivable to those who occupied the mortal world. But the benevolence and the pulsing life of the Lifestream hurt the silvery entity, and it screamed a voiceless scream, cursing with its very being every single living thing that had gone to fuel the green warmth. It felt itself disintegrate, each life clinging onto every particle of itself, ripping it apart, cancelling every morsel.
Down, down, down it went, the green flow carrying that which it called Mother, and the silvery consciousness chasing after it, desperately trying to save it. The Mother did not like the green flow. It despised it. It was the anathema of it, and it would not forgive, it would not forget. The Mother hated this world, sought to destroy it, only to be foiled by the one who had once borne a piece of her, and bore it still. She had thought him malleable, but the living things were ever a puzzle, and it refused the call, instead fighting her scion, and destroying him.
The Black watched, guiding the silver and the one they called Mother, navigating the labyrinthine flow and trying to direct it to where he wanted it to. It had lost its memories long ago, of the faint recollections of the very few friends he had, the memories of the wind and the grass, the taste of a Banoran apple, the deafening claps of thunder and the feeling of the rain on the face. Those things had been claimed by the Lifestream long ago, and he had willingly surrendered it, finding no meaning in keeping them. And as he travelled through the planet, he found that the darker thoughts of men did not really disappear, but instead lingered in the green flow, like a taint that ran through the veins. Thoughts of envy, destruction, despair, wrath, greed, those things pulsed through the Lifestream along with what could be called the better side of man, and the Black found refuge in them.
He had wanted to tell the man who had destroyed him that he was yet not powerless, that he existed, that all the darkness mankind suffered was because of him. But for that, he needed a separate entity to act as his agent. And so he had created the Silver, a primitive, larval form of his own conscience, modelled after the image of a boy he had seen within the Lifestream, because he could not remember what he had looked like. The Lifestream had devoured that memory long ago.
And so he was ready.
But the White was strong, far stronger than what he had expected, fighting him with a resilience had had nor foreseen. So he was rather preoccupied with the White.
Although I do have the upper hand still, thought the Black. She offers no offence, and I am ever putting her on the distance. Now, I just need the mother-
The Silver was a still a larvae form of the Black, and the Black was well aware of it. He could feel the many larvae that had once been his brothers, including the one they called Cloud Strife, who had once defeated him out of pure dumb luck. It was difficult to fight against the planet itself; life pulsed strongly in this world, despite all the corruption the one called Shinra had wrought. And unlike death, life proliferated, spread, even from a single grain.
Unlike the Silver, the Black was fully immersed within the flow of life that coursed throughout the planet, and had found itself a refugee within its flow. And so he could easily offer sanctuary to the Silver.
It was easy to goad the Silver, to direct it to somewhere safe, so that it could recuperate in peace. And recuperate it would need to do in haste; the consciousness had shredded, the thin threads tattered, its identity melting away. He looked at it with distaste. Weakness was not a favourable trait, and it would need to be stronger to save the Mother, to carry out the Mother's wishes.
The Silver curled up, if it had limbs to speak of, and waited in a cocoon of black liquid. The Mother waited with the Black, quietly, but not with patience, for the Silver to recuperate, to recover, to knit itself again, so that it could re-emerge, to do the work needed. The Silver was terribly afraid, afraid of being alone, afraid of being left behind. It was afraid of the dark corners, it was afraid of the green light, the vibrant, vivid life that filled the world. It was afraid of the beautiful redheaded woman who had recently passed this way, finally disappearing into the Lifestream, and it was afraid of the redheaded man, so vibrant, wild, mercurial. It was afraid of those who walked the land, and wept black tears, while harbouring black thoughts of destruction, of killing, of ending those lives like small candles being puffed out.
The White also watched, waiting, but patiently. It noticed the silent cries of the Silver, but it could not reach out to help, and frustrated, the White could do nothing but wait for the right moment, for her friends who still lived to make the right choices and preserve what the planet had worked on to make it flourish for so many years. It listened to the flow and ebb of the life, heard its pleas, its fears, its joys, and knew that the battle was not yet over.
Not by a long shot.
The next morning, Axil had gone back to his place, and Reno was lounging around in the apartment, while Arien was arguing with Tseng on the phone.
"No, sir, it is not humanly- no, I said, I can't!" she nearly yelled. Reno watched, amused at her obvious discomfort at having to say no to her superior. Reno never had any problems saying no to his superior, so didn't quite understand why Arien was so averse to saying the word 'no' to Tseng. "Of course, sir, it would have been possible if the servers had been up at full capacity. As of right now, there are only three towers standing out of eight." She swallowed a sigh, then responded with an affirmative, then ended the conversation, only to follow it by a frustrated shout of "arrrgh!"
"Problem?" Reno asked, grinning, bobbing his head to the rap music that he was listening to as he flipped through the channels. Arien threw her head back onto the back of the sofa with a defeated air.
"Tseng wants me to do something that could've been done… if it was back during Shinra's full-powered technological heyday! Which is so not right now." She suddenly jerked forward. "We hardly have running mobile services. This is going to take three years, not three days."
"And we don't have three years, I'm guessing."
"Bingo." She saw Reno's expression. "What?"
"Just a thought, but how many motion sensors do we have?" He bobbed his head again. Red hair shook.
"We had a whole bunch of them in the military warehouse. Why?"
"I have a plan."
"I hate it when you say that," she grumbled.
"Ya know you love me," he grinned. "Where's the phone?"
Arien found it next to her, and threw it to Reno, who caught it, and dialled. He pointed at his ear then waved his hand downward as he listened to the calling tone. Arien got up and lowered the volume as he listened. "Yo, boss," he said cheerfully, "So DeVir said she can't do it, right? Listen, I've an idea."
Tseng must have said that he didn't like it when Reno said that particular phrase, since Arien had to bite down a grin as Reno whined that this was the second time someone had said that to him today. "Yeah," said Reno, suddenly serious, "listen, how many motion sensors do we have?" He nodded to himself. "Great. Listen, if we can get them up in the perimeters of the place where the kid kicked the thing off into the stream, then DeVir can track the movement of the thing. That way we won't need to hijack five towers that don't exist and try to do a miracle."
"Huh. Why didn't I think of that?" Arien mused out loud. Reno pressed a slender forefinger against his lips, hissing "shh". Then he went back to the phone.
"Sure. Sure thing… yeah. We'll leave right away. Can we take a flier? Yeah, I promise I won't crash it. Yeah. Gotcha. Thanks. I'll have DeVir take the an extra belt, just in case." He hang up, then drummed his fingers against his thigh. "Get up," he said. "We have a job to do."
"Care to brief me or are you just going to do it on the fly?"
"While doing shit on the fly's really my style, I'm pretty damn sure you'd probably lose your head over it and panic so I'll brief ya." He grabbed the keys off the coffee table and tossed it into the air. "C'mon. We gotta get to Healin in an hour and a half."
The drive to Healin was the roughest in Arien's memory. After loading up the SUV with all the motion sensors they could find in the warehouse - which amounted to five boxes, full of them, plus a box that Arien suspected was a machine gun - Reno took off at a world cup pace as if he was a racer. Reno's driving was reckless at best, but apparently he had forgotten all senses and he drove through the badlands as if there was a monster chasing after them. And as he drove, he briefed her, which, in her opinion, wasn't really a briefing at all. It was extremely lacking in the sort of information she needed, and she had never been the kind comfortable with missions that wasn't planned down to the last letter. His plan was simple; land in the icy plains, drop down to the tunnels, set up motion sensors, then after they were online, track the motions of any solid object within the Lifestream. If something solid came along the way, then that was where JENOVA was.
"How would we know it hasn't floated out into the ocean?" Arien asked dubiously as Reno stepped on the gas.
"Easy. The flow wasn't that quick. It's still there for a few days, at least. Oh, you need to set up the gun."
"The gun? The one that you loaded into the car?" She looked puzzled. "Why? I thought the chopper already had fire power."
"'Cause, I nearly lost my eyeball to the freakish silver-haired twit the last time I was there. Bullets probably won't do jackshit to the thing in the long-run, but if it can run around right after getting hit in the face with a fifty calibre, then we're fucked anyway. And the last time I used the mounted gun, it did jackshit. We need bigger calibre."
"I need a payraise," Arien grumbled.
They made it to Healin in record time, thanks to Reno pretty much ignoring every driving safety precaution ever invented, and then Arien was literally sprinting toward the door. Elena was at the door, with a messenger bag. "Extra clips, emergency rations," she explained as Arien took it. "Let us know when the motion sensors are online. Good luck."
"Thanks," she mumbled, then began running back. Reno was mounting the machine gun to where it was supposed to go. Arien took a glance at it, then grinned. "You got the M2?"
"It's a classic."
"You couldn't get something newer, like the Gau?"
"Hey, ma deuce's like an old sock. It fits right, it's trusty, and it's a damn good gun." He drilled the screw in, then moved to the other side. "Alright. Got the extra stuff?"
Arien patted the messenger bag slung across her shoulder.
"Good. Let's go." He slid into the pilot seat, and then switched everything on before Arien managed to close the door. "Prepare for take-off." Then he skipped pretty much the take-off communication sequence - there really wasn't any point anyway, as there weren't any aircrafts in the air these days - and took off.
They flew across the water, heading north. The steady hum of the engine was a drone in Arien's ears, and Reno had a habit of talking a little loudly while on the chopper - apparently he didn't ever remember that the microphones attached to their headsets picked their voices up well enough without having to yell - but all in all, it was a peaceful ride, so different from the reckless speed-racing that Reno had done on the way to Healin. There weren't any missiles getting launched, or a big monster trying to crash into them. She checked the contents of the bag, found an emergency medical kit, and smiled. Elena was becoming rather prepared for these things, for which she was thankful. You never really knew what happened in these 'away' missions, and it didn't hurt being prepared. She also found ski goggles, some emergency rations, and other knick-knacks that a Turk might occasionally need. She slid the goggles on, then yanked it down so it'll dangle around her neck. She checked the frequency they'll be on, made a contact with Healin, reported that they were on their way, and then the white plains was in the view, reflecting the sunlight and directly glaring into her face. She must have missed the Icicle Lodge area completely while she was reporting.
As one they both slipped their goggles on. "Now, where the hell was I the last time I was here?" Reno mumbled. "Can ya see anything?"
"What exactly am I looking for?"
"Well, a big scorch mark, actually." He shrugged when Arien turned her head so quickly to look at him her ponytail swished. "What? Tseng shot us down. We literally had to jump out mid-air or go down with the chopper, okay? Made a real big bonfire."
"Well, I'm not seeing it," Arien murmured, then her vision found what they were looking for. "Oh wait, yes I do. It's to the east." There was a big scorch mark and debris scattered around like a marker, marking where the chopper had crashed, shot down by the missile Tseng had launched only a day or two before. The flames had all died, but it was like a black acne in the white, pristine field. She thought it was almost symbolic of what the Turks were; a blemish in the society.
What the hell.
Reno swerved the helicopter. "Where… oh, I see it," then he squinted behind the goggles. "Hey, are those footprints? Or is that a random animal track mark? I really fuckin' hope it ain't some monster."
"Hang on." Arien pressed her forehead against the side window, trying to look down. The marks were faint, but they looked like shoes, wide on one end and narrow on the other, repetitive and alternating as if someone had walked away. "Errr, those are… they look like footprints, all-right. It's faint. It must have snowed."
"Great. Which way is it goin'?"
"Straight ahead, two o'clock."
"All-right, we'll land in a few minutes."
Reno made a smooth landing; then they were hauling out the motion sensors from the back of the helicopter, which Reno had packed into the duffel bags while in Healin. They shouldered the bags, and then they were off, trekking in the snowy plains to get down to the tunnels. Snow crunched under their feet as they walked, breaths coming out in white plumes. But their mako-enhanced bodies were extremely resilient to harsh conditions, so it'd be some time before the coldness kicked in and their bodies began shutting down. And even then, it'd take longer than usual for them to actually get hypothermia.
And then Reno found a hole. He wasn't sure if it was the right one, but he was fairly certain they all connected under the ground anyway. "Let's go in."
Tossing the duffel bags into the snow, the two Turks slid down into the hole. They'd get back up by a folding ladder this time, which they'd leave by the hole; Reno took a pistol from Arien, a loaded M1911, then shot. The paint ball exploded on the wall, marking where they began.
"All-right," Reno said, "now what?"
"You don't know what to do next?!"
"Not really. I do stuff on the fly, remember?"
Arien sighed. "First step would be to map this place," she said. "Hopefully it won't take too long."
"Or it might take a week."
"That's the way to keep your optimism up," said the Turk sarcastically. "Let's go. We're wasting daylight."
"True that," said Reno, then grinned. "Meet back in two hours."