Explosive Reminder
About a week after Ed had talked with Percia about going to Banora, she informed him that she actually had a valid reason to end up there. Both President and Lady Shinra had suspicions that Hollander, who had been fired with the introduction of Deepground, had returned to his lab there and was doing, by extension, illegal experiments. Of course, the President assumed those would be for the purpose of working against him, so one of the Hounds would be sent with her, but Lady Shinra was more of the opinion that he was simply going freelance. That also allowed for the option of him working with Fuhito, and someone needed to find out what he was up to. She was being sent later that week, with Lakis.
Incidentally, the same day she was leaving was one of Ed's outings with Yufi, Shelke, and someone else approved to be with him (Kariya that day). After a few very mild winter days (which meant there wasn't much snow around), the weather was nice and no one had to deal with any snowfall or slush. It was also the same day Lady Shinra had one of her rare meetings away from the Shinra building, though the client in question was reliable in meeting her at a restaurant with private rooms which was in Sector 8 and not too far from LOVELESS Avenue. The only reason Ed knew which one it was happened to be because it was also right across the street from the clothing shop they had gone to, and they had seen her and Vincent go inside.
Even though Ed was good wearing virtually anything by then, he was starting to recover, and that meant going out more, also to places where more formal attire was needed. To date, they'd kept it mostly to casual or semi-formal locations, but there was no guarantee he would never get invited (or dragged) to a more formal place—Genesis, Rufus, and Sephiroth all frequented such places, and there had been twice when Rufus had been his minder with Yufi and Shelke. Both times, Rufus' venue had not turned out overly well, because while both girls were pretty much ignored in their respective uniforms (Yufi in either the Turk or Academy one, and Shelke in the Academy one), Ed had no such thing.
Both girls and Elicia were having fun looking around the shop while Kariya helped Ed find some nice clothes and get them tailored right in the shop. Several times, the girls had returned to Kariya with bits of jewelry from the women's section of the shop, and he had to remind them they were there for clothes, not jewelry. The attendant helping the girls found those exchanges highly amusing, and the one working with Ed clearly did as well, though she kept it hidden better.
Elicia didn't ask for anything, mostly just admiring things, but Ed decided she needed a red bow for her neck when he saw her beside the shimmering ribbon while she looked through them. That had amused both shopkeepers and Kariya. It still took around three hours to find a few things for Ed and have them tailored, and by then, both Yufi and Shelke had each picked a nice dress—and Shelke had managed to plead her father into buying one particular piece of jewelry for her. While the clothing all went into bags, Shelke's new pendant and Elicia's new bow were put on right away, making both very, very happy.
As it turned out, they were leaving around the same time Lady Shinra and Vincent were, and paused to watch them get in the car (limousine, actually) with Carbuncle. The limo pulled into traffic as the small group headed leisurely in the direction of the Shinra building—only for everyone to instinctively flinch and duck as an explosion sounded. Sirens started blaring, and everyone could hear something burning, so rose to find the source. It only took a moment to realize one particular vehicle had been reduced to a scorched frame, everything flammable in it burning, as several cars around it had taken damage. Elicia was stiff on his shoulder, eyes wide and shocked, but by the twitching of her ears, she was probably sending data back to Lucrecia and Reeve.
"That's Lady Shinra's car!" Kariya gasped after a moment.
Ed blinked as Yufi and Shelke nodded to each other and jumped out into the street, where traffic had stopped completely, quickly getting to the limo, where Shelke began using Ice to put out the fires while Yufi started looking for a way in. She found a place near the back door on one side, then used her combat star to wrench it open, still having some trouble with the fire. She called both their names, and apparently heard something under all the noise, because she pushed her way into what was left of the back of the vehicle.
By then, Kariya had led Ed and Elicia to the limo and had joined Yufi to try to clear more space while Shelke was trying to get the fires out. The problem was the open gas tank—it would keep burning until it had no more gas to burn. Her use of a fuel car rather than a Mako one surprised him a great deal, but oddly, that fact may have been what saved her life just now (and Carbuncle, of course, who had been sent into recovery).
He gave a faint sigh and told Shelke, "The gas tank is open and burning—that's why the fires can't go out. If you can put the gas and the fire burning it directly into stasis, you should have an easier time getting the rest out."
"Where do I aim?" she asked, still working.
Well, that was an interesting reply. It strongly implied she already knew how to put an elemental property into stasis. Shaking that off, he told her, "Usually, under the car, near the middle. Sometimes it'll be closer to the front or the back, but usually the middle-ish."
"'Kay, thanks," she agreed, then her brow furrowed. A moment later, some of the worst fires around the bottom of the limo went out, and soon after, as she was getting the rest under control, Kariya helped pull Vincent from the vehicle. The man was carrying Lady Shinra in his arms, and Yufi followed them. Both Lady Shinra and Vincent had some pretty serious burns, and Yufi had gotten some while trying to get the other two out. Even Kariya had some on his hands as he'd tried to work with the heated metal to open space.
The woman was unconscious and struggling to breathe, so Ed moved forward and knelt beside Kariya and opposite Vincent, making both look at him in surprise. "All of you are hurt, but she needs the fumes cleared from her lungs first," he explained. "There's no Materia spell capable of doing that." Their eyes widened in alarm, so he held a hand up in a 'wait' motion. "I can. But I can't do it while healing other injuries, and depending on how bad it is, I may not be able to do anything else—it's possible I'll use up all my energy on this."
"Do it," Vincent said without hesitation.
Nodding, Ed held a hand close to the woman's chest and closed his eyes to pull on the arrays and sub-arrays he needed. He knew what kind of light show it would produce, but there was nothing for it—she couldn't be left, the fumes needed to be cleansed from her system. It had been work for him to learn this particular set of arrays, but his reason for having done so always made him shudder—every time Sephiroth became 'the Nightmare', he invariably burned some town or other to the ground. Yes, many of them didn't have time to die of asphyxiation due to fumes because they died from sword slashes or blood loss instead, but about half of them died from asphyxiation.
While working out these arrays had been both difficult and painful, the number of people whose lives it had saved since had more than made up for it, and now, he was using it to save Lady Shinra. He activated it and let it run its course; while the initial activation didn't take much energy, he needed to keep feeding it energy until it finished cleaning things up. With how delicate the lungs were (only the eyes and brain were more delicate), it took time to clean them up, even using magic. Holding a spell for even thirty seconds took a massive amount of energy, and the only thing he could be thankful for was that the duration of this spell changed depending on the person's needs.
However, when he had passed the thirty second mark, he began to question what had gotten into her lungs to require more than a standard fire fume victim would. Then, it passed to a minute, and he frowned faintly as he said quietly, "Check the car for something toxic..."
The presence beside him—Kariya, he remembered—rose and moved away, and he kept working, hoping now that his energy would hold out long enough to clear her lungs. Vaguely, he heard Elicia give a worried, wordless whine. At nearly two minutes, when he really only had a few dregs of energy left, the casting finally stopped, and he sagged to the ground, nearly unconscious from exhaustion, as Elicia jumped from his shoulder. He registered Vincent whispering in relief, "Thank Bahamut!"
A hand rested on his head as Lady Shinra said softly, in a raw, rough voice, "Thank you, Edward..."
"I can heal some of the worst of everyone's injuries, but I already used a lot of energy to put out the fires," Shelke offered, sounding subdued.
"Save it for those two," Yufi called over, obviously at a bit of a distance, and her voice muffled.
"Yes, some of the worst," Vincent agreed. "Don't go overboard—we already have two people we can't move easily."
"Sure," Shelke agreed, and Ed guessed both Vincent and Lady Shinra got some healing for some of the worst burns.
And he realized he was hovering. It was the same sensation as when he'd heard Veld's name that one time, where he should have been unconscious, and he sure couldn't see anything or move, but he was still aware of his surroundings and could hear what was going on. The sensation was never pleasant, and he wondered if it was a variant of being comatose. At least he knew he'd managed to clear Lady Shinra's lungs of whatever had harmed them so badly.
Then he heard Vincent say, "Yes, the explosion was Lady Shinra's limousine, though we managed to get out in time, and there was some help nearby—Kariya, Ed, and the girls. Lady Shinra can't move on her own right now, and Ed's unconscious, maybe comatose. Can you get us a lift back to Shinra Headquarters and prep the Hospital Wing for us?" A pause followed, then he said, "That will help. I don't think there were other injuries, just property damage. It was obviously targeted to Lady Shinra." Ed realized he had to be talking on his PHS. After a second pause, the man breathed in relief, "Thanks. We're at—"
Ed tuned out the location Vincent recited in favor of trying to work out what kind of poison could have rooted so strongly in her lungs so quickly, and came up blank. There was no drug or poison capable of doing such a thing so quickly. Well, he supposed mustard gas could, but that would have been agonizing and shown very real signs of burning, rather than just poisoning. No, this didn't make sense, like he was missing something. And it felt like it was something important.
He heard Vincent ask, "Did you find anything, Kariya, Yufi?" and turned his attention to the reply. Around then, he also felt Elicia curl up against his chest.
"This," Kariya answered, obviously showing something to the other man. "Activates with heat and all. Only problem is, by itself, it's pretty much harmless."
"Then why are you showing it to me?" Vincent asked in confusion. "If it didn't cause the problem—"
"That's not what I said," Kariya replied in a dry tone.
Yufi cut in with, "It's a two-parter. Lady Shinra had to've been breathing in the other part for a long time for the fumes from this one to have mixed with them so quickly and caused intense poisoning. Weirder still is that Vincent's still almost always with her, but nothing affected him. If it was in the air—which it has to be—and they're almost always breathing the same air, how did the fumes not affect him?"
"...How long would it take to get this result?" Vincent asked tersely.
"Depending on frequency and length of exposure, it could have been as short as two weeks or as long as two months. Less than two weeks and the results would have been much reduced, but more than two months and the first round of fumes would just start dissipating, also leaving much more mild reaction," Kariya explained. "I'd guess around a month, but again, the question becomes when and how? We got a lift, by the way?"
"Lazard is going to get Eonna and a few SOLDIERs to retrieve us in a chopper," Vincent replied, heaving a deep, tired sigh. "This was a close call..."
No one answered him, and various emergency personnel began arriving just then to help clean up the mess. It was only when the helicopter arrived that Ed felt his mind let go and let him fall into blank darkness.
FoWD
He woke suddenly and sat up sharply, incidentally tossing Elicia onto his bed with a shocked yelp. Right then, however, he was more focused on trying to force back the reaction to the nightmare he'd just been having. Nightmare? Right...It was reliving a memory, a very bad one. He had so much fodder for 'nightmares' in his own memory that he rarely had an actual nightmare with elements to it which he'd never experienced personally before.
Admittedly, though...even though he recognized all of the pieces to this one, it had actually been partially a real nightmare, because one part of it had been the Nightmare burning Lady Shinra to death. The other part had been the agony he'd actually felt, and his death in that dimension, when the Nightmare had burnt him to death. Few things were more painful or prolonged than that. It became more haunting and horrifying by the accurate recollection he had of Sephiroth having laughed as he burned, and that had been in both dream scenarios.
At least he knew the reason for this one—the incident on the street. Since it looked like he was in his own room, everyone had felt it best he wake somewhere familiar and non-threatening. Elicia climbed onto his shoulder and started purring as she rubbed her head against his cheek repeatedly, and he found it helping to calm him. He hadn't been in a full-on panic this time, but he hadn't been all that far off...and he had a sudden desire to eat fish. At first, that threw him, as he had no idea why he'd pick that instead of his only remaining sweet treat which had no bad memories attached.
Then, he remembered being part cat and part crane, both creatures which ate fish.
Damn, he hadn't even realized how much fish he'd been eating lately, or asking to eat when he had been given a choice.
The door to Kariya's room opened, making him look up, still wide-eyed and breathing hard as he tried to banish images and memory pains of the flames from his mind. Rather than Kariya, the one who stood there was Doctor Crescent. She took one look at him and asked, "Need a hand? I can give you a mild tranquilizer—standard medicine for high-strung emotion."
He gave his head a shake, then closed his eyes and leaned his head on Elicia's side, letting the small body's purring vibrate straight into his head. Purring wasn't something he'd previously thought of as a calming factor, but it worked wonders. If he had the capacity to purr in hybrid form, did that mean he'd be able to calm himself down if Elicia wasn't there? That aside, her purring, her furry little presence, helped a whole lot in pulling him down from the panic and horror of the nightmare. The phantom pains were the worst, though.
Several minutes later, he opened his eyes again, seeing how she had sat beside him on the bed in the meantime. When she met his gaze, she smiled and said, "It's good to see you able to handle it yourself. Well, with a little help." At the last, she nodded at Elicia, who had settled on his shoulder and was just sitting still now as she purred.
"Where's Kariya?" he asked cautiously.
"All of them except Shelke are in the Hospital Wing with burns," she replied. "I expect Kariya and Yufi to be released today—you slept for around thirty-six hours. Vincent and Lady Shinra will need more time. I can't thank you enough for what you did for her, clearing out her lungs—we'd never have been able to finish the process of fixing her without that. We're still trying to work out how she was poisoned but Vincent wasn't, but for now, she'll recover. Do you know who would have done that?"
"It's more a question of who had the access," he told her dryly. She blinked in surprise, so he clarified, "The only people who have such access to her are SOLDIERs, Turks, and now Deepground."
"...This was another of their attempts on her life," the woman assessed flatly.
"We don't have proof, but I think so," he agreed. "But this is a first. Usually, there's a limit to their capacity for discretion, but this time, they seem to be just as capable of underhanded plotting as the President and Lady Shinra herself."
Lucrecia's brow rose and she asked, "You're putting Lady Shinra in the same category as her husband?"
"In this, she is, she just does it for the right reasons," Ed replied in a dry tone. "She wouldn't still be alive if she couldn't see most of his plots for what they are, and even put into place her own retaliation and safeguards. That doesn't make it bad—it's a skill like any other, and how a person chooses to use it defines the person, not the skill. It's still generally cunning, or underhanded plotting."
Lucrecia had to laugh at the words, but then she sighed faintly. "We managed to get all of you back here without issue, including the bags you had with you. All of those bags are here right now, since you were the only one going home right away. As I said, I'm expecting Kariya and Yufi to be ready to return today. In the meantime, how soon can you summon back Carbuncle? While we have a couple Turks guarding Lady Shinra's room, Deepground obviously has ways to bypass them."
Closing his eyes and reaching for Carbuncle's arrays, Ed found they were accessible again, so pulled on them and sent it directly to 'wherever Lady Shinra was' so it could appear there. He felt the form solidify in approximately the correct direction from him to indicate the Hospital Wing, so opened his eyes to meet the Doctor's gaze again. "I just sent it back to her. As for how long it took Carbuncle to recover, I'm not sure, but I don't think it reached a usable state very long ago."
With a nod, Lucrecia agreed, "Likely not, though I would really just have to take your word for it. Thank you again." She then motioned at the shiny, red ribbon around Elicia's neck and asked, "What's that?"
"A pretty bow for a pretty girl," he replied in amusement, and Elicia chirped happily, making Lucrecia blink slowly at the small robot.
"I had no idea she could make a sound like that..." the woman blinked. "Did she need a bow?"
"I felt like getting her one," Ed shrugged. "And because she's an AI, she can learn almost anything. That was just her 'wordlessly' mimicking how Shelke chirps when she talks." Elicia nodded at the words, affirming them.
"...Well, I'll be damned. I'm never going to underestimate the Cait Siths again," the woman said reverently. She then gave her head a shake and asked, "Do you want me to stay here until Kariya and Yufi return?"
"Um...Just let Tifa know I'm awake so she can feed me, and I think we're all good until they come back," he answered with a small, wry smile. "And tell her I want something with fish in it."
"Fish?" the woman blinked.
"Cat and crane comfort food," he replied, that time actually feeling amused, and she chuckled.
"I'll do that, then. In the meantime, all you need to do is rest. I'm still working on what to do to fix some of the other issues your body is still having, but I'm also not especially rushing those. We'll get there—they don't need to be done tomorrow."
"Why is that?" he asked curiously.
"Because in the scope of what was wrong with your body, the biggest things causing you the most harm are now as fixed as we can make them," she answered plainly. "While the rest will still need to be addressed, the relative harm they do to you is miniscule, and your body—and mind—is in a much better place now than it was. The smaller issues are going to be largely delicate and isolated, so it's actually better to not rush them now that your body isn't on the verge of breaking down. Is there something in particular you want me to focus on first?"
"Uhm...Was there anything else affecting my mental ability or my emotions?" he asked cautiously.
"Anything causing you pain—even pain you no longer notice—affects those things through stress," she pointed out dryly.
"I mean a more direct impact on them," he returned in mild annoyance.
She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. "I believe there was one issue tied to your sight which somehow ended up following an incorrect route through your brain. If I remember the test results correctly, those were crossing right through a section of the brain controlling focus. Should I work on that, then?"
"Probably, if there's a way to fix that," he agreed. "I want my own mind back, fully and properly."
With a nod, Lucrecia agreed, "I'll focus the next phase of therapy on that aspect, then." She rose and turned to go. "Try to stay in bed, or at least largely in one place, today, all right? You're still recovering the energy you used, so you still need the rest. Tomorrow, you should be able to go back to normal, with only a little tiredness and minimal weightedness of limbs. Tifa will be here soon with something for you to eat."
"Okay, thanks," he agreed, laying back down as she left, even as she was pulling her PHS out of her pocket.
"...She didn't ask about my nightmare," he realized in mild surprise as Elicia shifted to curl against the side of his neck, her fur tickling his ear.
"It was pretty obvious what it was about and why you had it just now. They'd have been more surprised if you hadn't had one," she answered in amusement.
"Smarty-pants," he replied in vague amusement, closing his eyes to rest again.
He only realized he'd fallen back asleep when he felt Tifa shake him awake to give him his meal. She looked vaguely amused, and even Ansha—waiting at the door to the room—seemed amused by how quickly he'd fallen back into sleep.
