Before Crisis 2: The Crisis
CHAPTER 41 – THE GREAT SEPHIROTH PLAN
January 9th [ ν ] - εγλ 0008
Tseng thought about turning around as he stared at the door with trepidation. He had been standing at her doorstep for three minutes, unsure of what to expect and why he was even feeling this way. Just ring the damn doorbell, you coward.
After one final sigh, he rang the doorbell and felt his heart rate increase. He cursed to himself silently and realized how much he was shivering in the cold, although most of it came from his nerves. Granted, it was freezing in Kalm and the clothes he wore wasn't enough to keep him warm. Without his suit, he could maybe learn a thing or two on how to dress more appropriately.
Thankfully, his nerves had calmed a little by the time the door was opened. Elmyra froze as she recognized him in his street clothes, a mix of surprise and alertness in her blue eyes. The aging woman had bags under them and wrinkles on her forehead, and her brown hair had faded to a lighter shade with grey streaks.
"Tseng...?"
His mouth opened but for a moment, no words came out. He didn't even know how to begin. "I... I came to see how you were doing."
"I... um," the woman hesitated, "Would you like to come in?"
He nodded and slowly walked in, making sure to keep a safe distance as she led him to the kitchen.
Rufus gave a long look at Reno and Rude as they met him inside the conference hall. He stood at the front doorway with his arms crossed, making it look like he'd been waiting impatiently for their arrival. Only Heidegger and Palmer were seated at the table, as Scarlet was standing close to the President and Reeve on the opposite corner of the room.
"What'd we miss?" Reno asked in a casual tone. Glancing around everyone, he found something odd about Scarlet's appearance. "Ma'am, what happened to your face?"
"Tch... fuck you," she turned away from him, embarrassed. The bruise was on her left cheek was easily noticeable, despite her efforts to cover it up.
"Excuse me? I was just wonderin' what happened..."
"Enough, Reno," Rufus demanded hastily. "Now's not the time to be worrying about people's faces..."
"Sir, do you require our assistance?" Rude cut in.
Rufus shook his head. "You're both already aware of the Rocket Plan. I'm not too keen on it... but since we've already started making adjustments to the Shinra 26, I suppose we have no choice but to just roll along with it. I was thinking the Huge Materia could be used for the Mako Cannon..."
Reno snapped his fingers. "Exactly what I was thinkin'!"
"The cannon can't launch into space, Mr. President," argued Scarlet.
"No, but it can certainly reach the North Crater, can it not?"
Suddenly, a big grin appeared on the woman's face. "Of course, Mr. President. In fact, I've already come up with a plan to get rid of that energy barrier."
"...Go on," Rufus didn't sound excited. After the failed execution and Highwind hijacking, his confidence in Scarlet and Heidegger had dropped considerably.
"I call it the Great Sephiroth Plan," she said enthusiastically. "We'll proceed with the plan as soon as we destroy the Meteor. The Huge Materia will be used in the Rocket Plan, right? So we'll use a different method to power up the Sister Ray. And what better way than to move it to a different location?"
"...A different location?"
"Kya haa haa haa haa! To a place where Mako is abundant..."
"The Promised Land?" Heidegger made a wild guess.
She scowled at him. "No, you idiot."
"Midgar?" Reeve spoke up and another smile crossed her face. "You want to move the cannon to Midgar?"
"Exactly," she nodded. "We'll power it up with our Mako Reactors. And once we rid of that barrier, we can send in the Shinra Army and kill Sephiroth."
A momentary pause settled in as everyone thought about the plan in silence. "Not a bad idea, actually," Reno commented first.
"Uhhhhh..." Palmer cried out, "How are we gonna move the cannon to Midgar?!"
"Don't worry about that!" Scarlet waved him off and looked across the room. "Reeve will figure that out."
Reeve remained silent for another moment. "I... uh, I don't know about this," he stuttered a few times. "Obviously, it's a huge risk... to Midgar and its Mako Reactors. Moving the cannon will also leave Junon defenseless against Weapon. What do you think, President?"
Scarlet sighed in annoyance. "Oh, come on..."
Rufus stayed silent for another moment, his eyes narrowing at the man. "That's why it's your job, as the Head of Urban Development, to make sure nothing goes wrong." Surprisingly, he seemed sold on the Great Sephiroth Plan. "Our SOLDIERs and Roboguards will find a way to defeat the remaining Weapons. We'll first carry out the Rocket Plan and then work on relocating the Mako Cannon to Midgar. I want that rocket ready in two days."
"But..."
"Quit it, Reeve!" Heidegger yapped in anger. "Complaining's all you do these days and we're tired of it."
Rufus nodded along, for once in agreement with Scarlet and Heidegger. "If there are no further objections, I'll end the meeting here."
"..."
Satisfied by the silence, he clasped his hands and shifted his attention to the Turks. "Rude, you're headed to Rocket Town, correct?"
"Yes sir."
"Reno, the Underwater Reactor?"
"Yep."
"Good," the President then turned to Heidegger. "And the troops have already been dispatched to Corel."
"Yes sir."
And then, he went back to the Turks. "How's Elena?"
"She's alive."
"Good," he nodded in understanding. "We won't be seeing either of you in a few days, so take care." Pausing briefly, he ran a hand through his hair and faced the door. "I'll go ahead and address the public now. They're getting restless..."
Elmyra gathered at the kitchen table after preparing some tea. She smiled at the man across her, studying his changed appearance as she leaned over to pour him a cup. Tseng sat still, looking down on the table and avoiding eye contact for the moment. It had been a while since their last meeting, and he figured that she, like many others, was still used to his older hairstyle of a ponytail.
"Mr. Reeve told me about your injuries," she began with a worried look on her face.
"I see..." Tseng's voice faltered as the aroma of tea filled his senses. "Did he say anything else?"
She nodded silently, only to turn away with sorrow in her eyes. Tseng observed her expression and kept quiet, his mouth ajar and frowning. Elmyra had gone through so much and it bothered him that he didn't know how to console her. But it had been his actions, his company's actions, that had led to her pain that was her daughter's death. Perhaps he didn't have the right to console her in the first place.
"She never hated you," she finally spoke; her tone was surprisingly neutral. "Even though she said it, time and time and again just because you worked for Shinra... but then even after the way you treated her in the end... she never hated you. And believe me when I say that even now, she wouldn't hate you..."
Tseng studied her words carefully, and again found himself at a loss of words. She definitely had a lot more to say than he did. "I... I cared for her deeply."
"Yes," Elmyra nodded as she lifted her cup for a sip. "That is why she was able to live freely for so long. You kept her safe from your own company. You gave her freedom your company wouldn't have given. And so... I wanted to say..."
She trailed off as tiny footsteps were heard racing down the stairs. Following her gaze, Tseng looked over his shoulder and saw the little figure bustling into the scene, waving a colorful paper in her hand.
"Ms. Gainsborough! Look what I drew," shouted Marlene, only to stop in her tracks as she noticed Tseng. "Umm... aren't you the guy that kidnapped Aerith?"
The man nearly cringed at her words. "Damn, your memory is quite remarkable."
"Marlene, no..." Elmyra shook her head dismissively. "He's the guy that protected her."
"Protected?" the girl squeaked. "But mister, you're part of Shinra, are you not?"
"That's right."
"So you're a bad guy?"
He remained still and silent but didn't take his eyes off of her, choosing not to nod or shake. Elmyra was also looking at her, not Tseng.
Bewildered by the lack of response, Marlene turned to Elmyra, Tseng, and then back to Elmyra, repeating the process multiple times as her head turned left and right and back and forth. "Papa said that Shinra's not letting him save the world," she spoke again, her curiosity refusing to be ignored. "Does Shinra want the world to die?"
"...No, Shinra's doing everything they can to save it," Tseng corrected her.
"But that rock in the sky," she pressed on, "Didn't Shinra do that?"
"No, that was someone else. But Shinra made Sephiroth, so you're not completely wrong."
"Sephiroth? Who's Sephiroth?"
Tseng shook his head. "You haven't been following the news, have you?"
Elmyra rolled her eyes and sighed. "Oh dear..."
As Reno stood at the submarine dock, looking as bored as ever, he reflected back on the events that led up to the Planet's current state. Notably, it had been exactly one month since the Turks were nearly disbanded and executed, and in two days it would be a full month since the destruction of Sector 7. Reno hated thinking about what he'd done. It provided no comfort to think he was the one guilty of mass murder, even though he knew for damn sure he wasn't.
All in all, time was passing as it always did. Today and tomorrow, however, was going to pass very slowly.
He'd been ordered to patrol the Underwater Reactor, standing and waiting at the dock while the Mako Engineers carried out their search for Huge Materia. Problem was, the reactor's compression chamber had actually been damaged by a torpedo courtesy of Emerald Weapon, and was in need of repairs before the extraction process could begin. The repairs were taking a while and it annoyed Reno that the extraction process was going to take longer than usual. The time required to extract Huge Materia was proportional to the reactor's Mako capacity, and the Underwater Reactor just happened to be the largest on the Planet.
He gazed ahead at the Shinra Sub and stepped forward, wondering if he should take it for a spin to kill some time. After all, he was a licensed submariner and the one responsible for transporting the Huge Materia to the surface. He took another step forward... and froze at the thought of Emerald Weapon, appearing out of nowhere and shooting down the submarine. Although the Shinra Sub could outrun Weapon, Reno wasn't nearly as comfortable being underwater as he was in the air. No, not today.
Returning to his waiting spot, he tapped his EMR against his shoulder impatiently and wondered if Rude was just as bored as he was.
The afternoon sun shined down on Rude's face as he looked up at the massive, Mako-powered rocket. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen any kind of spacecraft. Designed by Cid Highwind, the Shinra 26 at one point was the pinnacle of Space Exploration. But after a mishap prevented the rocket from launching, the Space Program was canceled and all the funding for the department was pulled. With the company no longer focused on Space Exploration, Rude had wondered for a long time if the Shinra 26 would be used again.
Located on the upper region of the Western Continent, Rocket Town was a small town that was founded only after the failed launch, where several rocketeers involved in the project decided to settle around the area. Its population had increased gradually over the years, but the settlement was still too small for Rude's liking. Unfortunately, he was stuck here for the next two days. Modifying the spacecraft into a missile sounded like fun, but like Reno, he too had specific orders to simply patrol the area.
A steel gate had been built around the launch pad to prevent unauthorized personnel from entering. Moments after the Rocket Plan was revealed on Shinra News, dozens of civilians had gathered just outside the gate where Rude stood. The townspeople didn't seem too satisfied with the news, believing that the rocket should be left alone as it had long served as a monument for their hometown. On the other hand, non-residents of Rocket Town who came to visit were excited to see the plan in action.
Rude grunted in annoyance as more and more people assembled at the gate. Did they not have anything better to do? The rocket wasn't launching today. He didn't even know where they were coming from, considering that Rocket Town was quite literally in the middle of nowhere. The rebuilt town of Nibelheim was populated with actors and the next closest settlement, Fort Tamblin, was a boat ride away. Maybe Rocket Town wasn't as small as he thought.
His musings were ceased by the buzzing of his PHS. It wasn't a call or text this time, as his eyes squinted at the sight of an email sent by Palmer. Reading the not-so-positive subject line, he opened the email with the utmost caution.
Subject: Terrible news!
Message: The Huge Materia in Corel has been stolen by AVALANCHE! I'm so sorry! - Palmer, Head of Shinra Space Exploration
Rude stared at the message in confusion, only to realize that the contents of the email wasn't as bad as who it had been sent to. It was revealed, after expanding the list of recipients, that hundreds of people, maybe even thousands, had received this exact same message, including SOLDIER 1st Class Sephiroth, some random guy named Mukki, and even the late President Shinra. Palmer, senior executive and perennial idiot, had accidentally sent a confidential email to everyone on his contact list. "Are you kidding me..."
But... AVALANCHE again? Why?
A/N: Meh. I suck at writing. Things should get more interesting, though. Thank you for keeping up with this story for so long.