Picking up all three babies into her arm's was not exactly an easy task, as was carrying them trough the bowels of the reactor.
Still. Lightning did not stop to complain. Not even once. It was clutching them tightly in her arms that she made up the stairs, stairs carrying them upwards, back to the surface.
Soon they would be free...
Up the narrow staircases and through endless dimlit corridors, she had almost reached the exit, could already sense fresh air coming from up ahead when suddenly she heard some voices.
They had reached the reactor control room, were back to where Lightning's nightmare had begun and the path ahead was there and clear, the memories of her way in still fresh inside her mind, but somehow Lightning couldn't move, found she couldn't breathe.
There he was.
Professor Hojo.
The lunatic maniac.
Working on the tank in the middle of the main reactor chamber, busy attaching tubes and and cables. Claire could see him through the observation glass pane.
The crazy old bastard brabbling to himself, busy with no doubt some new cruel invention of his, Lightning found herself step up to the glass.
She could leave now and take away the kids. Could gather Sephiroth and the others and return to erase Hojo and his entire secret laboratory.
Or she could end this now.
Before the fool could wreak more havoc. Create more damage really.
What if in the meanwhile Hojo came up with a new plan to create an army for himself, what if he created more of the giant beast, those jenova spawns?
Lightning and her friends, they wouldn't stand a chance. Not even if they all deployed together.
No, there was really nothing for it, was no time to loose.
She was weak, she was aware. Was in no condition to fight really. Had three tiny babies with her for whose lives she was responsible.
Still.
Her opponent was an old gaunt man. Walking with a limp. And mentally impaired too, as it seemed.
Surely she could overpower him, couldn't she?
But his eyes... His eyes! Something deep inside her warned.
Yes those eyes, the burning desire to link up with him, the thrill of the reunion...
Professor Hojo shared her cell degeneration. Lightning was aware.
He was still an old man. And she might have been weak and injured, but she was still in her prime. And what was more, she was skilled, was trained. Had fought in countless different battles, had been trained for years. Professor Hojo was a scientist who had spent his life working at a laminar flow workbench.
Yes. There was only one right thing to do.
She had come to end this. And she would end it now.
It was quickly that she hid her kids away in one of the cabinets that lined the room, was determinedly that she picked up the toughest looking piece inside the openstanding toolbox she could find, was taking a few deep calming breaths, that she reattached the adhesive tape that ran around her middle.
For their freedom.
For her family.
For all of mankind.
For humanity.