Twenty-four hours prior.
'Oh... What do we have here...' an eerie high pitched voice was coming from the darkness.
There was movement in one of the corners of the room. It made Claire Crescent's body freeze.
'My pretty precious specimen...'
There was a jolt of pain from her belly and suddenly liquid trickled down her tighs.
Shit!
Her water had broken.
A man stepped into the light.
A gaunt bepectacled man with greasy black hair and a plain white Shin-Ra labcoat.
He looked strangely familiar.
'Professor Hojo?' Lightning asked confusedly. Somehow he was the last person she would have expected.
What exactly was he doing here?
Was Shin-Ra still operating? Were they gathering their staff again? Reactivating their reactors?
Somehow it was the only thing that made sense.
'Glad to have you here my dear.' the professor in his labcoat simpered. 'You should have brought your charming husband.'
It was eerie somehow, the way he spoke to her, the way he looked at her as though she were something to eat.
It made Claire Farron shiver.
Her body cramping up with the first few contractions that were initiating the delivery of her two kids, it made Lightning clutch her belly even tighter, made her emit a desperate painful groan.
The professor caught on instantly.
'Don't worry we'll have that problem solved in no time.' he said not unkindly as he let her back to the metal walkway, supported her back to what once had been the reactor control chamber and over to one of the operation tables that stood there in the midle of the room.
For Lightning the short journey suddenly seemed to be endless.
'You've arrived here just in time it seems.'
Looking at the blank cold steel surface of the operation table Claire Crescent couldn't help but hesitate.
Could she trust professor Hojo?
Lightning wasn't sure.
Sure. Sephiroth hated professor Hojo. But Lightning didn't even know why. Hojo was his father, he had told her, and Claire Crescent had assumed it was simply some weird father son conflict.
They had never really talked about him.
And yes. The professor was a weirdo. An excentric. He had a funny creepy air about him.
Still. It had been him who had kept her alive back then. Him who had performed the jenova cell transfusion. Him who had brought her back from the dead.
Surely he could not mean ill towards her.
And besides, she wasn't sure she had any other choice.
With Sephiroth having gone back to the woods and the next street miles away from her, there was not exactly anywhere else she could go if she didn't want to give birth to her kids among a pack of dogsters.
The muscles of her uterus tightening up again, Lightning felt herself stumble forward, the intensity of the pain making her grab on to the surface of the operation table in order to keep herself upright.
Professor Hojo was at her side immediately.
Shit it hurt.
She had to give it that.
'How long have the contractions been coming.' Hojo asked, his voice calm, concentrated, businesslike.
'I .. I dunno.' Claire panted.
'They only just began.' she answered truthfully.
It made the professor give a confirmative nod.
'Don't worry my dear, it will all be fine.' he told her as he helped her up onto the table.
'We'll have this sorted out in no time.'
There was another contraction surging through her body and Lightning lay down onto the cold surface, back pressed against the stainless steel plate, hands grabbing the edges of the tabletob so hard her knuckles turned white.
'Well, well, well, it's all in order.' professor Hojo muttered when he withdrew from one of the cabinets with a syringe clutched in his latex gloved hand.
'What...What is that?' Lightning asked through gritted teeth.
'Just a little sedative.' the professor informed as he injected it's contents into her arm.
'It will ease your pain a bit.'
Claire Crescent found she could't wait for it to kick in.
Lightning woke up with her body sluggish and numb.
It was an improvement in so many ways.
Still... Feeling a little desoriented, it took her some time to realise that she could not get up, was infact bound tightly to the operation table.
What was going on?
Had she lashed out? Had she thrown a fit?
Suddenly she couldn't remember.
Couldn't remember anything after getting that injection in fact.
That damn thing had knocked her out for good.
Her eyes scanning her surroundings, her vision a little out of focus, Lightning took a few more minutes to realise she was still in the reactor's main control room. Found professor Hojo occupied in front one of the workbenches, where he was busy wrapping something in cotten blankets.
There was a high pitched tiny wail, and some weird muttering from Hojo's mouth.
It took the pink haired warrior several more minutes to realize that her belly was gone and that the bundles on the workbench were her children.
Her living breathing newborn children.
If only she could see their faces...
'Are they alright?' She asked somewhat weakly. Her head still somewhat woozy, somehow it felt hard to speak.
The professor turned around, grinning a big fat smile at her.
'Oh yes, they are.' He told her. 'Healthy and strong and chipper. Two perfect little boys.' he announced somewhat proudly
It made Claire Crescent relax a bit. Made her lie back and close her tired eyes.
Her kids were fine.
They were healthy and awake and fine.
Wait... Had he just said they were boys?!
Ohw... She had known from the beginning...
A weird kind of joy, of happiness exploded somewhere in the deaths of her stomach and flooded her revaged body, let her relax her tired muscles helped her to forget the pain.
It was over.
Her kids were there and fine, and she hadn't even been conscious during the whole ordeal.
All was well.
And it had all gone so much better than she would have thought.
If only Sephiroth were here... If only he could see them... If only she could see them herself, feel them, hold them close.
Yes, she had to touch them, had to press them close to her.
'Can I hold them, please.' Claire Crescent muttered weakly, tried to lift her restrained arms.
It was no use.
She couldn't move an inch.
'Please, just for a moment.'
'I think better not.' professor Hojo said decisively.
'What...? Why...?'
Suddenly it made no sense.
Why shouldn't she hold her kids?
Wasn't that what mothers were supposed to do after giving birth?
Lightning wasn't sure.
Then again she felt weak. So infinitely weak. Maybe Hojo was concerned for her wellbeing?
'Please, just once.' she choked out, trying to lift her leaden arms again.
'I really think it's better this way.' the professor told her as he made to pick the two wriggling bundles up into his arms to then walk over to the door.
It made Claire Crescent's body flood with adrenaline.
'Wait... Professor.. Please!'
Suddenly her voice was firm, was strong, was panicky.
He was leaving, was leaving with her kids!
It made her exhausted body trash and wiggle, push against her restrains as though her life depended on it, made her belly hurt excruciatingly.
'Shhhh- Shhhh- Shhh...' the professor soothed from the other side of the room.
'You are weakened. You should not exert youself like that.'
It made Lightning weakly fall back against the steel.
'Professor, please, where are you taking them?' she muttered as she tried to look over at professor Hojo, tried to sneak a peak of her precious little children.
It was no use.
All she could make out were their blanket wrapped bodies, their faces hidden in the shadows of the professor's hunched gaunt figure.
'They cannot stay with you, my precious.' He informed in his eerie high pitched voice.
'They are destined for far greater.'
'Greater?' Claire Crescent didn't understand.
'Oh yes? Weren't you aware?' the professor cooed. 'Your children are not ordinary, nor will they ever be. '
Lightning could only stare.
'They are prototypes of supersoldiers, the first of their kind really.' the man on the other side of the room explained. 'They are excellent starting marterial to build an army, an army of alien cell degenerated killer machines. Of perfect controllable super warriors.'
Claire Crescent felt her blood run cold.
What was this all? Another wicked Shin-Ra scheme, some plot? Were they going to take her children from her and use them for another wutai war?!
No, that couldn't be. Shin-Ra was gone. Was no more. She had seen it on the news, read it in the newspaper. The announcements, they'd been blared from all the radios, from all the podcasts, had screamed at her from every headline, every poster, every banner. Shin-Ra was gone. Or where they?
Was there a chance they had been operating from the underground all that time, planning a comeback?
It certainly seemed possible. Sounded like something Shin-Ra would do, definitely.
Still. Somehow none of it made sense.
'With your children's help we'll create an army. We'll finally end this war, once and forever.'
the professor said, a weird maniac glint creeping into his slitted catlike eyes.
Yes. Now that definitely sounded like Shin-Ra.
And still. Those haunted creepy eyes... Suddenly they seemed strangely familar, seemed intimate, seemed like home. They reminded her of Sephiroth.
The thought of it made Lightning shiver.
'But professor Hojo. Surely you cannot mean to do this.' the pink haired woman pleaded, appealing to the professor's sense of humanity.
Well. There was not exactly a lot of humanity left in the bespectactled scientist to begin with...
'You do not have to play along with this. You can choose a different path. We all can. We all did. You could come with us. Live with us. Watch them grow up instead of let them fight in a war. They are your grandchildren after all...'
It made professor Hojo emit a crippling laugh.
'Oh my dear girl. I was never Sephiroth's father.' he disclosed in his cold pittyless voice.
'But I killed the man who was.'
It made Claire Farron stare at him with big blue mako eyes.
'I would have been Sephiroth's father, I definitely should have been. I actually thought I was. But the ungrateful bitch of his mother... She decided to find love elsewhere.' the professor said, sounding rather spiteful, bitter.
'Ran off with that turk. Vincent Valentine. Well. I can tell you, it didn't do them any good.'
It made Lightning swallow. Swallow hard.
Rendered her perplexed and speechless.
'It doesn't matter now. We didn't need her after all. Look how far we have come now. Even without her.' the professor got himself back on track.
'All those achievements, all those accomplishments, all those findings. Finally after all this time we will fight again. And this time we will win. This time we will finish this war. A war that had begun two thousand years ago.' the bespectacled man disclosed.
'The war between us and humanity. Finally it will be decided in our favour. This planet will be our's. Our's alone. And your children will lead us to the promised land.'
Those last few lines of his, they made Claire Crescent freeze, made the blood in her veins run cold.
No.
She had been mistaken.
This wasn't about Shin-Ra or any reclaiming reactor plans.
This was something else entirely.
This was...
No.
It couldn't be...
Looking up in Hojo's eyes again she realized why they were so familiar.
They hadn't reminded her of Sephiroth. Not specifically. They had reminded her of herself, of the Jenova spawn she had encountered in the forests.
And it was then and there that suddenly she felt it.
A weird kind of impulse, a powerful urge really, making her want to close the distance to him, to approach him, to come closer, the strange familar pull that made her want to step up to him, reach out to touch, to feel, to melt together and become one as it should have been from the beginning.
The reunion.
Professor Hojo gave a knowing smile.
'Don't worry, you can leave it all to me, all the strains of motherhood the responsibilities of upbringing and education, you will not have to concern yourself with any of those mundane things. I will help them fulfill their destiny. And you too. Finally our time has come.'