Cleaning Up

The trip through floor sixty-seven and back up the main stairs to sixty-eight had been both quick and quiet. Well, as quiet as it could have been with alarms blaring. It didn't take long for Doctor Crescent to get to the computer she needed, which turned out to be in a small room off the main hall, and Stroud just watched the rest of what happened in amazement. From the computer, the woman could check the other locations to make sure everyone (there were four 'department heads' within the Science Department) was in place, then she started typing in codes.

When she finished, the console pulled up a split screen showing four different camera locations, all on floor sixty-eight. In one, nothing of note was happening, but in the other three, monsters the likes of which Stroud had never seen before were attacking either each other or uniformed members of Deepground. Then, in one screen, a monster fell from above and three other monsters started ripping it apart, making Stroud blink and look at other screens with that particular monster on it.

With the one which had fallen from above, there had only been three of that metal-plated Wolf-like creature, and five people in the Deepground uniform. One of those was clearly not really human, either. Well, more accurately, that one was starting to look more like a semi-humanoid squid or octopus in a pale purple-ish color, it was sprouting so many tentacles. And the other monsters, the ones not metal-plated and Wolf-like, apparently seemed to take offense to the tentacled one, attacking it viciously. And in most cases, only the Wolf-like one was attacking the other monsters, or being attacked, though there were a couple exceptions where other kinds of monster attacked each other.

"So...Why are those Wolf-like ones an exception?" Stroud asked cautiously.

The woman apparently knew what he meant and said, "Those are metamorphose experiments from Deepground, Stroud. They aren't actually monsters, and didn't originate in our labs."

Then, before Stroud could reply, he had to blink, because a light which had passed through the first, empty zone, began crossing the second screen—and anything it touched was vaporized. His jaw fell open as the red beam, whatever it was, mercilessly swept through the second, then the third, then the fourth, zones in order, and nothing but a clean floor (or other objects) was left behind. Then he looked closer at one screen and realized a woman from the Science Department was still there, and was just pushing herself up from where she'd hidden behind a crate when the fight had broken out.

"Wait—what?" Stroud asked in shock.

"DNA recognition," Doctor Crescent smiled, turning to look at him. "Because it's a Science Department safeguard—we had intended it be used if the monsters went on a rampage—we 'taught' it to recognize the Department's registered staff. That's part of why four of us are needed to activate it, and we all have to give approval to run the cleansing in the same area. Also, we can only use it in one area at a time, not in the whole Department or more than the one area. We were assuming we'd also only need it for a problem which would be contained in a certain area. For the purposes of the Deepground—invasion—of our Department, it happened to be useful."

"And the tentacled one?" Stroud asked curiously, shivering at the Science Department's level of security.

"Someone with far too many Jenova cells," she informed him. "But I'm also sure a few monsters made a break for it, so walk me back to the meeting place, if you would."

"What meeting place?" the Turk blinked, but drew his blades again as she stood and headed for the door, even as the screens went blank of their own accord.

As they stepped into the hall, she pointed into the Department and said, "Near where we met Hojo. Once we get back there, I'll direct you further."

Obediently, Stroud took the lead, still feeling wary. He hoped the walk would be as calm as the first because he still wasn't sure of his ability to fight properly—only to turn a corner and find something almost cat-like and spiked jumping at him. He reacted instinctively without hesitation to cut it down, though it turned out to be more durable than that and just got slammed against one wall of the hall with a wicked cut along its side and its shoulder. Blinking, Stroud turned to face it, braced and with his blades raised, letting it know he was going to fight if it attacked again.

It snarled and jumped at him a second time, so that time, he aimed to pierce, not cut. One dagger, he shoved up into its ribcage, and the other he angled upward to hit the bottom of the chin and up into the brain. That time, even though one of its paws managed to scratch his arm, its aggressive attack stopped almost immediately and it went limp. He kicked it off his daggers so it could fall to the ground, Sensed it to make sure it was dead, then looked over at Doctor Crescent—

Who was smiling at him rather happily.

"Good job," she told him, then reached over for his arm, pulling it towards her to see the wound before casting healing spells on him. Unless he missed his guess, one of the spells was a Poisona or Esuna.

"Was I poisoned?" he blinked in surprise.

"Yes, you were. That particular type of monster has a tendency to use poison as a last resort before it dies. If you aren't aware of that, you'd end up dead within about two hours," she informed him, letting go of his arm. "All done. Let's keep going."

Gulping slightly, Stroud heaved a faint sigh and kept leading the way, right through the purged area of the Department. The woman who had been left there had acquired a notepad somewhere and was roaming the cages, taking notes, but gave Doctor Crescent an absent wave as they passed her. Stroud could handle a lot of things, but for the woman to be so damned calm she'd gone right back to work after what she'd just been through—he began to wonder if scientists qualified as human beings. A glance at Doctor Crescent reminded him some of them, at least, were indeed human beings.

Then he heard snarling ahead, so picked up his pace—and when he turned the corner, paused for only a moment to assess the situation. Ranic was fighting off three of some sort of monster with rather long arms and stocky bodies, and he was losing ground, though it looked like one was poisoned and dying quickly. So, he picked the target most out of Ranic's reach and attacked it from behind, again defaulting to stabbing the monster, both blades through the lungs. He wasn't really sure where the heart was—but with how quickly that one fell, he'd probably hit it.

Knowing that, he jumped for the next one, aiming to stab it the same way and in the same places. As it fell, Ranic blinked at him for a moment, then turned back to the monster he'd poisoned and aimed to stab it through the two front eyes of four. It also died very quickly at that, which produced an almost lazy clapping sound from behind Ranic.

Both Turks turned to face Hojo, who stopped clapping and commented, "So that would mean Stroud's rehabilitation is indeed progressing in a positive direction, yes?"

"I believe so, though it probably helps that the monsters aren't human," Doctor Crescent replied, her tone dry. Then she frowned and asked, "So why do you remember Stroud's name but no one else's? Because I'm sure you called Ranic 'Subject D' earlier, and you still call the others Subject S, G, A, and E when you think I can't hear you." The words caused Ranic to gain an expression which Stroud could only call a cross between amused and angry, though he himself was surprised by the words.

"Stroud isn't my experimental subject," Hojo replied flatly. "And since you don't have him registered by any Subject code, I don't have anything else to call him."

Doctor Crescent sighed and said, "We really need to break you of that habit..." She then faced Stroud and said, "Well, let's keep going, Stroud. We still have two others to meet up with."

Stroud and Ranic traded looks, then shrugged and fell in together ahead of the two scientists to lead them the rest of the way to the room they were supposed to meet the other two department heads. When the two scientists had them wait in the hall while they stepped inside, Ranic and Stroud took places on either side of the door.

"So you're getting better?" Ranic asked him curiously.

"Yeah, some," Stroud agreed. "Well, Ele—sorry, Riona—said it would probably be a very long time before I'd be able to assassinate someone, but she felt sure I'd regain my ability to fight fairly quickly."

"Yeah, she mentioned that," the auburn haired Turk grinned. "Or rather, Sonna and I watched her ream out all the other students for thinking badly of you for mostly not helping in the fight against AVALANCHE and the Wutains. It was utterly hilarious."

Stroud made a face and answered, "Not that I'm fond of being someone's entertainment when I'm not there..."

"Oh, the hilarious part was how she lit into them for being so immature and just plain stupid, not anything to do with you directly," Ranic replied. "But it made me curious enough to check the report, and—she was entirely right to say it. Anyone getting tossed into this field with an incident like that would need time to recover."

The blond Turk paused to think about that for a minute, then asked, "Even you?"

Ranic sighed faintly and shook his head. "I don't count. I—saw some really horrible stuff growing up, death, torture, all sorts of crime...All I could do was watch until I found this needle, the same one I use to kill people with now. I was...maybe around ten when I killed for the first time, and it was my own parents and older brother I killed because no one else could, or would, stop them from committing those crimes. I've already been long since desensitized to what you went through—if anything, I'm mentally damaged worse than you are because it doesn't affect me."

Pausing to blink in surprise, Stroud had to take a minute to process the words, then asked, "So why don't you ask for help?"

Shaking his head, the other trainee Turk answered, "Once it's done, this isn't the sort of thing that can be undone. It's not something that registers as 'trauma' to me, just as a simple fact of how I live, a result of how I grew up. That I even recognize my way of thinking isn't quite right means I'm about as 'recovered' as I can be."

Shivering, the blond answered, "I hope I never end up being that cold."

"You probably won't," the auburn haired Turk answered with a faint smile.

Stroud just blinked, then fell silent to think about what he'd just learned.

FoWD

Rosso and Fenrir had made good time around the Upper Plate, and every time she'd found some members of SOLDIER or Deepground who were both alive and sane, she told them to ask Lazard for directions to another place. Sometimes, that had been after she and the giant wolf had killed the insane members of Deepground, and at others, it had been because she'd gotten there to the insane ones just being finished off. More than once, though, something she saw in the city had given her pause, and both she and Fenrir had actually stopped to watch for a minute or two.

One of those had been Donnel, Kariya, and Doriss handling some of the insane members of Deepground. Another had been the two Turks left behind after Nero had somehow exploded with void power. Then they had paused to watch Argento, Sephiroth, a blond man she didn't know (he fought with a spear), and an airship hold off some monsters coming from outside the city. The worst one had been when she'd found Nero again—only for Genesis to dissolve him and land right in the middle of the single largest group of Deepground members she'd ever seen anywhere in Midgar.

When she'd looked more closely, she'd realized there were two factions there, and the breakup of forces became pretty obvious. Some Turks, SOLDIERs, and the sane members of Deepground she's been deferring to Lazard were fighting against the insane members of Deepground who had gathered outside the Theater. When Genesis had landed in the middle of the insane ones, she'd actually wondered if he'd survive—until she realized he was a fucking powerhouse at a level she could only compare to Weiss. When he wasn't restricted to his sword skills, she felt even Weiss would have trouble against the red haired man.

Seeing that she wasn't really needed in the main battle, she instead looked around for interference—and found some in the form of a few Deepground groups she'd missed earlier heading towards the Theater. "Let's handle them, Fenrir," she said to the Wolf, who turned to look.

"That would be a sound action," the Wolf agreed, then jumped, carrying her and himself down to the first of those groups.

"So, do you stop here and protect the civilians, or do you attack them?" she asked the group they had just landed in front of. They had halted as soon as they saw her.

However, even though two stepped back, the rest chose to attack her and Fenrir, so the two went into attack mode. In some ways, it surprised her that she and Fenrir fought together like two well-oiled gears, like they had been doing it since she'd just been a baby. On the other hand, there had been some who commented on how she'd fought a lot like a lone wolf. While she'd thought it was just an easy comparison, she now wondered if the people who had said it had meant it more literally, given how well she was fighting alongside an actual wolf, Summon or otherwise.

When the battle was over (in only a couple short minutes), she sent the two others to help at the battle outside the Theater, then she and Fenrir headed to the next group. The process of events repeated itself at every one of them, with varying numbers of members stepping back from fighting her, though in one group, no one stepped back—they all chose to attack. After a total of five groups, she was finished and paused to think for a minute.

"They still need a sweep after," she commented thoughtfully. "And that would be hard in the Slums. Maybe we should see what's happening there?"

Without answering, the wolf sprang into motion, running for the edge of the Plate. When it reached it, the wolf dove right off the edge, making Rosso give an involuntary squeak of surprise and clutch the fur at Fenrir's neck tightly in her free hand (her swallowtail was in the other). A few moments later, Fenrir landed on the ground easily in a crouch, then rose and spun to run into the Slums in Sector 8. Since Fenrir normally knew where trouble spots were, she let him take her to the first one in the area—there obviously was one by the fact that he seemed to have a destination in mind.

Much like they'd been doing on the Plate, they kept doing in the Slums, though they ended up having to add criminal activity to the list of things to stop. Their only saving grace was the fact that many fewer criminals were stupid enough to try robbing anyone during the chaos. Personally, she thought that was because they remembered their buddies having been mercilessly killed only three weeks ago for exactly that reason, so most weren't going to try their hand. For the stupid ones...Well, they were as dead as the previous ones, and as all the insane Deepground members.

Then she found the major hot-spot in the Slums, by Corneo's Mansion, just in time to see an obvious non-combatant fry a many-parted monster and several members of Deepground. "Wow!" she gaped, wondering how the other woman had just found the strength to do such a thing—it was at the same level of skill as Genesis showed!

"Minerva's Beloved Child is indeed a powerful force, even as primarily a Healer," Fenrir commented in a pleased tone.

"Okay..." she blinked, then watched a small child throw herself on the 'healer' to hug her. What was that little girl doing there? Then, she saw Weiss in the group and gave a nod. "We're free to go, Fenrir—this is being handled."

Without a word, the wolf took off for another place. Once again, she had to question Deepground's definition of strength, because that non-combatant would have been able to mop the floor with most of Deepground. For someone who looked like she'd never even set foot on a battlefield or held a sword or gun, that said a lot.

FoWD

Lady Shinra felt tired. Rarely was she required to be so active in a single day, and it had worn her down. Sitting in the garden at the Gainsborough home with friends around her was a great relief, and she had managed to coax Alba to sit beside her once Nina had left. It seemed the Cuahl was well aware of children and their tendencies, and hadn't wanted to be close to the young girl to avoid becoming a cuddle toy to her. And Janelle was absolutely certain that had been Nina's intent, the only thing stopping her an apparent respect for the woman which she didn't seem to have for anyone else.

"So, Edward, what does the situation in the city look like to you and Minerva now?" she suddenly asked him, and Ifalna looked up in surprise from where she'd started mixing...probably an herbal mixture for tea.

He blinked at her for a moment, having obviously drifted off into space, then made a face and said, "Well, most of the deaths aren't specific enough for me to pin-point, but for the ones I can...There are some SOLDIERs dead, but not too many right now, and most of those actually happened at about the time you would have been falling from your office. Azul and—very recently—Nero are dead. So are a large majority of the members of Deepground. Civilians have died, but in any place where someone could heal them, they did."

He paused and closed his eyes with a small frown, and she realized he was either trying to find something in the general data he was receiving, or he was talking with Minerva. She could never tell which it was, but it normally also meant he had more to say, so she let him sort it out on his own time.

Finally, the blond young man commented, "The losses more specific to you are—odd. And one of the losses I can see specifically is one I'm not sure I should be upset by or relieved by."

"Why's that?" the woman asked him in mild surprise. That was rather contradictory.

He sighed and said, "I never told you which of the Restrictors it was who kidnapped me that one day." Janelle blinked, wondering if she wanted to hear this. "It was Veld who did, and he was both the leader of the Restrictors and the only one who kept any ability to think properly. He's one of the ones who died recently, in a way which can't be undone. After the first time he snatched me, he came back to visit twice more, wanting more information or a way to fix something—he destroyed Jenova's main body and one of her strongest anchors in this dimension."

"I see," Janelle sighed. "I daresay you'll have to work that one out for yourself, but you may want to keep in mind that it's possible, and acceptable, to feel both emotions, rather than just one. And the other deaths?"

"Um...Anki and Illis. Both were killed by Nero, Illis only a short time before Nero himself died," Edward explained. "Mayor Domino, Palmer, and Heidegger."

At that, she became alarmed and asked, "What became of Scarlet and Reeve?"

"Oh, they're fine so far. Doctor Crescent and Professor Hojo, too," he assured her, though she wasn't sure knowing Hojo was well was a good thing. On the other hand, the blond across the table from her had made the point that this one seemed to be significantly different from the vast majority of his past incarnations (other incarnations?), so maybe it was safe to keep him around.

"And who else has passed on?" she asked after a pause to assess the fact that the decent people were still around.

The question produced an odd look from Edward before he sighed faintly and shrugged. "I don't know how, but apparently, President Shinra is dead."

First, she blinked. Then she blinked again as she tried to process the fact that her husband was officially deceased. Suddenly, the reality of that fact hit her and she felt like a heavy weight had been lifted off her so abruptly that it made her dizzy.

"Well," was all she could manage to say.

"So what are you going to do now that he's not there to control things?" Ifalna asked, and Janelle focused on her for a moment.

"Who isn't?" Gast's voice came from behind them, making them look to see that he'd come out with a tray of snacks. When he saw their eyes on the tray, he moved forward and set it down on the table, then said, "Courtesy of Elmyra. Who isn't around now?"

"Apparently, my husband managed to die in this mess," she answered, giving her head a small shake, then looking at Edward again. "And you have no idea how that might have happened?"

Shaking his head, the blond replied, "There are a lot of ways it could have. Usually, it's something inane, like he gets crushed under something or caught in his own death trap. Sometimes someone kills him. The feel of his death this time sort of implied the latter. I can't be any more specific. And Ifalna is right to ask—what will you do now?"

"Put Rufus in the position of Presidency and start working to fix the problems my husband created," she replied dryly, smiling in some amusement as he blinked. "I loathe being in the public eye. While I know, and always knew, I would need to be to some extent by marrying Marius, I much prefer being only the Vice President and largely outside public view. I work better in the background, after all. And Rufus very much enjoys the publicity."

The blond snorted at that, then offered, "It would be a good idea to get Reeve started on producing alternate power sources, then."

"That's one of the first things on the list," she agreed. "But what do we do with the rest of Deepground and my late husband's experiments? Or is that something I need to work out myself?"

"Oh, no, that's actually easy," Edward offered, that time giving her an amused look. "These are the ones who were sane to start with, and the Restrictors are now all dead. Their leaders are Weiss, Rosso, and Argento, who are the reason so many are still sane, and all three of them are still alive. They can easily become a standard faction of SOLDIER, and the experiments can even still be done, but under different terms—for example, only letting volunteers undergo them."

"That would just cause more torture, though!" the woman stared at him, wondering how he could say that.

Shaking his head, he told her, "That's not the complete truth of the matter. If someone really wants something, not only does it usually work right, it's a lot less painful. As long as they're aware it'll hurt like a sonofabitch and still choose to do it, even the Lifestream and Minerva don't count it as torture, and it doesn't harm anyone. The harmful part is when they do that sort of thing to people who don't know what will happen to them and don't have a choice in the matter. Torture is only torture when you aren't willing."

Her brow furrowed in confusion, so he pointed at his shoulder and leg where the scars from his prosthetics had been. "Lady Shinra, I was eleven when I got two cybernetic implants to replace two missing limbs. It hurt worse than anything I'd ever felt before, but the choice had been mine, and despite the pain, I never associated it with torture. It was that very thing which gave me my life back, helped me reach my goals. There are reasons people may want to undergo those experiments, so you can't just discount them. Even Minerva agrees with that perspective and way of handling things."

"That's true," Ifalna added before Janelle could respond.

Realizing the Cetra woman wouldn't say such a thing unless it was true, she sighed and told them both, "Then we'll work out how to make them viable members of SOLDIER. Without Jenova, though, we'll have trouble proceeding with the program."

"It seems to me that Mako combined with the experiments done in Deepground would fill some of that gap," Gast told her in amusement. "And you've been complaining about the Infantry's poor training for decades. Now might be a good time to have the Turks start rectifying that."

"True," she agreed, the shift in the situation suddenly fitting together in her mind. She smiled as she realized it wouldn't be so hard to make the transition after all.