Before Crisis 2: The Crisis
CHAPTER 39 – INTO DARKNESS
January 8th [ ν ] - εγλ 0008, 11:00 AM
The execution had been a disaster. Junon was damaged, casualties were caused, and Tifa and Barret, the people wanted dead by Shinra, had escaped their clutches in the midst of all the confusion. Somehow and someway, the rest of AVALANCHE had managed to hijack the Highwind, sailing it far and away from the city after picking up the two fugitives. They had also taken a handful of Shinra's crew members with them, although it was believed that the crew had simply rebelled against the company.
The following morning, Elena found herself overlooking the destruction of Junon's Level 2 Branch. She was left alone after Heidegger had sent Reno and Rude on a mission to Nibelheim. Reno had told her to spend the day helping the Rescue and Investigation Unit. It was a necessary task, given the amount of debris and the dozens of bodies that had yet to be found. But she didn't want to do it. She wanted to be like her colleagues, taking on the bigger missions. Why couldn't they just take her with them?
Elena sighed as she scribbled some notes on a clipboard. She'd been here for three hours on an already long day... another wasted day. The world is ending. Why can't we all just enjoy what little time we have left? She was aware of the selfishness of her thoughts but she couldn't help it.
Her musings were interrupted by the sound of her PHS. Pulling it out of her pocket, she was surprised to see Heidegger's name on the screen. Her eyes squinted as she answered the call.
"Sir?"
"Head to the detention center immediately. We have an emergency."
"Huh?"
The next thing she knew, Heidegger had already hung up. She had no idea what he wanted of her, or why he had to cut the call short, but there was an emergency and for once he needed her assistance. With no time to waste, she put her clipboard down and made her way to the elevator.
"Palmer, we have arrived at the reactor."
Putting away his PHS, Rude hopped off the helicopter and walked towards Reno, who stood at the entrance of the Nibel Reactor. Accompanied by a small team of Mako Engineers, their mission was to extract Huge Materia from the Mako inside the facility. The extraction was a long process with high risks of Mako poisoning if performed incorrectly, and it didn't help that Huge Materia was so dense, being three-hundred thirty times heavier and more powerful than regular Materia.
At first, the Huge Materia project was led by Scarlet, who had planned to use it to fuel the Roboguards designed to kill Sephiroth. But with Meteor hanging high in the sky, her plans had changed drastically over the last week. Palmer had informed her that the Shinra 26, a long-abandoned rocket that never launched, was still functional and could perhaps be used to destroy Meteor with the Huge Materia loaded inside it. Heidegger was impressed by the man's suggestion. The three executives were now working together on this plan, with no intentions to inform Rufus until collecting their first Huge Materia.
Scarlet had already searched the Midgar and Gongaga Reactors with no results. The Nibel Reactor just happened to be the next stop, and she was certain that the Mako Engineers would be able to find it. Her team and Palmer were responsible for overlooking the search and redesigning the Shinra 26.
Reno took a deep breath and looked up at Meteor, waiting for Rude to come as the engineering team unloaded equipment. They hadn't been able to discuss the executives' plans in detail, having flown to Mount Nibel on separate helicopters.
"Using a rusty old rocket to destroy a rock five hundred times its size..." the redhead began dryly. "A plan that just screams failure."
"The Huge Materia is pretty damn powerful," the skinhead mumbled.
Reno turned to him with a frown. "You don't think it's better if we use it to break the barrier? That way we can get in Crater and fight Sephiroth..."
"Defeating Sephiroth won't necessarily destroy Meteor."
"And destroying Meteor won't stop Sephiroth from re-summoning it."
Rude shook his head. "Meteor isn't something you can just summon over and over again."
"Yeah? How do you know?"
"I don't. But you do need spiritual energy to use the Black Materia. Lots of it."
Reno raised a brow. "Defeating Sephiroth won't destroy Meteor?"
"Not sure about that either," Rude shrugged. "This whole plan could be for nothing, but you never know. It might just save the world."
After everyone assembled, Reno led the team up the stairs to the interior. Beyond the security door was a spacious, dimly-lit facility, with metal ropes and ladders leading to lower depths. Pale green fumes rose up from the Mako below, polluting the rusty air with a familiar, Midgar-esque odor. The doorway to the laboratory was visible at the far end, on a narrow pathway one level down, accessed via a chain ladder. Installed next to the doorway was a control box, which allowed the user to adjust the reactor output, and begin step one of the extraction process.
The Nibelheim Incident was all Rude could think about as he made his way to the control box. It was this very building where Sephiroth had turned traitor after learning about the experiments that created him. The liquid of Mako below was where he'd fallen to his presumed death, and never heard of again until his recent return.
Rude then thought about the Jenova Reunion Theory, Zack and Cloud... even Tifa, who was apparently a witness at the time Sephiroth had gone mad. She'd been badly wounded, much like all the townspeople of Nibelheim, only to become the only known survivor to have somehow avoided Hojo's clutches. Little else was known about where she'd gone afterwards, and how she came to join AVALANCHE five years later. She'd been a constant target of Shinra for a while now, evading death one way or another, from the Nibelheim Incident to Sector 7's destruction... and miraculously, yesterday's failed execution.
Rude had told Reno what he'd done, admitting that he and Reeve were a key factor leading to Tifa and Barret's escape. But he'd made it clear that he had nothing to do with AVALANCHE taking control of the Highwind. Reeve, on the other hand, was definitely responsible for the hijacking. It had become obvious to Reno and Rude that the Head of Urban Development had turned into a double agent, being the only executive who believed that Shinra and AVALANCHE should work together to stop Sephiroth. After all Reeve had done and acted in favor of AVALANCHE, Reno and Rude were surprised that Rufus, Scarlet, and Heidegger weren't aware of his double-agent role.
"Output set to low power. Energy level's at twenty-three percent."
A heavy mechanical sound blared throughout the facility as Reno twisted one of the valves on the control box, forming a metal grid just above the pool of Mako. After that settled, he faced his team and pointed to the bottom. "Alright, boys. Make this quick."
Something seemed off when Elena stepped out of the elevator. Main Street was quietly empty, its streetlights were flickering, and some broken glass was spread along the sidewalk. She pulled out her PHS and called Heidegger as she peeked through the broken window of a shop. Unable to find anyone inside, she looked across the street and spotted a lone Shinra infantryman, patrolling the area.
"Excuse me..." she approached him calmly. "Is there an emergency?"
The infantryman gave a puzzled look. "Emergency? What emergency?"
"Something's going on at the detention center."
"I'm afraid I have no clue what you're talking about, ma'am."
"...Never mind," Elena shook her head and continued down the street, slightly annoyed that Heidegger hadn't answered her call.
The detention center was just around the corner. But she stopped in her tracks when a small group of civilians suddenly appeared from the corner, rushing past her in a panic. Her eyes widened as she watched them disappear, unsure of which building they had come from. Thinking quickly, she opted to continue to her assigned destination, hoping to find anyone she could talk to along the way.
Pushing the door open to the detention center, Elena felt her jaw drop immediately.
"Oh god, oh god, oh god..."
Lying flat on the concrete floor was the corpse of a Shinra officer, his head hanging loosely over his blood-stained chest. What happened here?
The gruesome sight had nearly knocked her off-balance. Taking a moment to catch her breath, she jumped away from the trickle of red and turned on the light of her uniform. Anxiety rushed through her as she pulled out her pistol and looked around her surroundings, noticing a nearby door beside the reception desk. Seeing nothing else in the room, she moved forward and slammed the door open, leading her to the prison block.
The first thing Elena noticed was the empty cell to her right, its metal bars coated with a strange pink substance, dripping onto the floor. She sprung backwards in horror, only to find herself stepping into a puddle of pink, the resulting splashes leaving a stain on her pants. Shock crossed her face as she noticed some more red stains on the floor, along the row of cells. Looking ahead, she found the corpse of another officer at the end of the hall, his lifeless form slumped in a seated position against the wall. She gripped her gun tighter and made her way down the hall, approaching the body with the utmost caution.
Elena froze when she sensed a soft murmur, and to her left was a door to the women's washroom. Leaning her ear towards the door, she could hear the nervous breathing of two or three people, and another whisper she couldn't quite make out. Realizing no danger inside, she moved the door open with as little force as possible. The nervous breaths suddenly turned into cries, and then screams.
"Ah!"
"No, please! Stay back!"
"There's no danger!" she yelled back, her voice alarming with emotion. "Elena of the Turks here!"
Inside the washroom weren't two or three people, but a full assembly of unarmed employees, both men and women. Elena immediately counted eight of them, all jammed together in the tight space, and several more hiding in the washroom stalls. The employees rose from their cowering position upon noticing the blonde Turk, who stood before them with cautious eyes.
"What's going on here?" she called out.
"Y-you don't know?" a young woman spoke up, stuttering and trembling. "T-there are monsters 'round here! Everywhere...!"
"Monsters!?" gasped Elena, pulling herself closer to the group. "Where are they?!"
"We don't know if they're still 'ere...!"
Before she could respond, her PHS finally sounded. Waving dismissively to the frightened group, she answered Heidegger's call without the slightest hesitation.
"Sir, what's going on?"
"Hojo has escaped the detention center."
"Hojo?!"
"Yes, find him!"
"There are monsters here!"
"Kill them!"
"Have you notified the army?"
Elena clenched her fists in frustration as Heidegger hung up on her once again. Putting away her PHS, she equipped her fighting gloves and turned to the group with a serious look. "Stay here. I got this."
The pool of Mako had been drained and transferred to another compartment of the reactor. All that remained inside one of the chambers was a massive heap of solid, crystallized bits, conjoined and densified to make a shiny blue color. Reno and Rude weren't expecting the color change from green to blue, but they had no doubt that whatever they were looking at was indeed the Huge Materia.
"That didn't take long... at all," said Reno, clearly impressed by his team's efforts. "I was expectin' it to take the whole day."
"The hard part is getting all of it out," replied Rude.
Reno looked up at the upper levels of the facility. "Ey! Throw that bucket down here, will ya?"
A pulley had been mounted on the railing of the topmost level, consisting of a rope and three large buckets. The Huge Materia was so heavy that a pulley system was the best way to carry it out of the facility.
As Rude and the Mako Engineers began to load the buckets, Reno pulled out his PHS and called Palmer.
"Hey hey!" the executive greeted excitedly. "What's up?"
"We found the Huge Materia."
"Wonderful! Head to Rocket Town right away."
"Not so fast," Reno cut him off. "Scarlet wants this shit in Junon for inspection."
"That's great!" Palmer remained enthusiastic. "Wanna go celebrate afterwards with a nice cup of tea? My treat!"
"...No."
Elena gulped at the sight of the mutated creature, hovering about in the narrow passage. Six yellow eyes watched her cautiously, its flimsy gelatinous legs carrying the weight of its green plump head, shaped like a giant squid. The rookie gripped her pistol and fired as smaller tentacles began to sprung out of the creature, pink mist spewing out of its red pores.
Clearly influenced by Jenova cells, the monster wasted no time charging at its attacker, unfazed by the arriving bullets. Elena backed away with a jump, only to find herself deathly close as the monster's longer tentacles reached for her arms and pulled her back. She fired blindly in the struggle, hoping for the bullets to hit the eyes, and she held her breath as the poisonous mist coated around her. Moments later, she found herself thrown to the end of the hall, her head crashing hard on the concrete wall.
Elena fell to the floor, clutching her head and looking for her dropped pistol. The monster appeared dazed with its leftmost eye busted open, and took a few seconds to locate its attacker at the far end. Unable to find her gun, the rookie pulled out a handful of grenades, and from her knees, proceeded to chuck them at the approaching creature. She managed to get to her feet, only for the tentacles to reach over and slap the grenades out of her hand. Explosions erupted as they hit the concrete, and Elena, despite being on her feet, was certain she felt a bone crack in her left ankle. The monster used its tentacles to carry her again, and this time tossed her high in the air.
Her fist took on the glow of Materia and she plunged towards the creature, allowing gravity to pull her down with breakneck speed. She heard a loud squeal as her fist struck its target, and she looked up to see the monster staggering from side to side. It let out another squeal of agony, clearly struggling to stay upright, and charged at her with weaker speed. Easily dodging its swipes, Elena cartwheeled away from the monster and pressed the Minerva Band on her forearm. A blue haze gathered around her arm and shards of Ice magic shot out of her palm, piercing the flesh of the monster.
Her breathing calmed a little as the monster collapsed to the floor, pink puss oozing from its open sores. Elena stood tall with her back slouched over, only now realizing the damage she'd suffered from the fight. Falling to one knee, she began to limp her way down the hall, her head dizzy and throbbing with pain. She picked up her pistol along the way and heard sudden footsteps around the corner.
She looked up and saw a Shinra infantryman, standing before her with a shocked expression. Moments later, two more appeared behind him.
"What the...?"
"The monster... it's already dead?"
"Did you kill it?!"
Still breathing heavily, Elena gave a faint smile and murmured, "It's done."
"Whoa... you're a badass!"
Just as the words left his mouth, a monstrous roar erupted behind her. Raising their rifles, the infantrymen looked around cautiously before one of them ran forward and motioned his cohorts to follow. Another monster?
"Waaaahhh!"
"Ma'am, watch out!"
Elena turned around, only to feel the impact of something hard, smacking her forehead with a sudden force. Darkness took over her as she fell face-down on the concrete.
A/N: Next up... forget it. Chapter 40 will be short. (On a side note, parts of Chapters 1 and 15 have been rewritten.)