Aerith appeared through the treeline of the Moogle Village atop her blazing white Chocobo, and exclamation points popped up over every Moogle's head.
TIfa, Barret and Yulan followed the action bubbles floating in hammerspace to find Aerith, her brow furrowed in worry. She dismounted and Tifa threw a hug around her.
"Ohmygosh are you alright?"
"Yes. Close call. We won't have to worry about that last reactor though. I took care of it."
Tifa blew her bangs out of her eyes with relief.
Cloud emerged from the Inn, having collected his sword, and found Aerith a sight for sore eyes. Aerith lit up as they went for each other, but she stopped on a dime. Cloud cocked his head.
"What?"
Aerith remained still for a long moment.
"Something's wrong."
He paused.
"What, with me?"
"…Take out your sword."
Cloud stared perplexed like he couldn't believe what she was asking. He shrugged and unsheathed his Buster Sword. A black glowing orb with an indigo umbra emanated from the last Materia slot.
"What is that, Cloud?"
"Just an ability orb."
"For what ability?"
"I…dunno yet."
"Where did you get it, Cloud?"
"Hold up. Why are you so interested, all of the sudden?"
"Cloud, where did you get that!"
"What does it matter where I got it?"
"It matters!"
"Why are you acting like this?"
But Tifa jumped in with a slightly more delicate observation.
"Cloud, why are you holding your sword sharp side up?"
"Alright, that's it!" Cloud pointed his sword out in a wide circle. "Everyone stay the hell back and get off my case! You're all acting exactly like he said you would and I don't know what to think anymore. I don't know if I can trust any of y—"
Red jump-slammed his head into the side of Cloud's sword, knocking the Materia orb out of the slot. It rolled away on the ground to the middle of their circle, leaving a sizzling burn mark in its track. Barret cocked his arm-cannon and pointed it at everyone.
"Nobody. Move. A Muscle. No one's touching this thing. No one's going near it. There's something real smelly about it. Look how it's got us fighting, ready to kill each other."
They all froze in a fulminating sense of dread, creeping up their spines all at the same time.
Yulan crouched at the edge of the circle, prowling like a cat. She plucked a dandelion from the grass and threw it onto the orb. It shriveled up in a plume of dust.
"It's a Death spell," she proclaimed in her raspy voice. "One-hit KO. Insta-kill."
The collective breath was sucked from the lungs of the party members. Cloud exchanged horrified glances with Aerith. Now he knew exactly what the orb was.
Black Materia.
Cloud shook his head at the revelation. They would have all been dead right there in a matter of seconds, right where they stood. Cloud came so close to doing Sephiroth's bidding, and he didn't even have to try.
A long moment of stasis, and Cloud took a step.
"Hey—"
"It's okay."
He eased up to the orb, held his hand over it for a long moment, and picked it up like a hot potato. It pulsated in pissed off prion-flashes, but otherwise went limp in Cloud's hand.
"What are you going to do with it, Cloud?"
"I know what we're going to do with it."
The next thing they all knew, they were on a skydeck thousands of feet in the clouds. They'd chartered an airship to a place everyone thought Cloud was crazy to want to visit even as a tourist. The Bermuda Triangle loomed below them in a harrowing cyclone of furious storm clouds and thunder caps. Black and purple coalescence swirled in a mixed paint can of hydrostatic rage.
Cloud crouched on the top railing like a predator, scanning the void, waiting for the opportune moment. He drew his sword, timing the heat lighting as a thunder bolt flashed, and leapt down into the fray.
His SOLDIER training kicked in as he flared his arms out, arcing his body to catch the updrafts. Gathering himself in to shoot down through radial cloudbursts, he beheld a fantastic electrical conflagration. And from that surge of ecstatic pulse beams emerged the gaping maw of a grand dragon.
Phantasmagoric, anathematic, vehement, the harrowing dragon roared a reckoning of prophetic obliteration. The Eidolon Bahamut had been challenged to battle. Cloud called a claymore from his Fusion Swords menu, diving down toward the beast.
From the airship deck, the party watched in nervous bewilderment, barely breathing. Red whimpered with paws on the railing. Even a dog knew when something was insane. They saw primal flashes and bursts of fire jut out from the clapping thunder flares. Explosions and guttural roars shook the atmosphere the airship rocked upon. In a last fulminating blaze, the dragon burst forth from the clouds, flying to heights with the airship.
The party leapt back in awe as the gargantuan wingspan of a divine drake blotted out the last bits of sun, casting a colossal shadow over the ship and the land below. And on his horned cranium, Cloud rode like a warrior, triumphantly holding his victorious sword that glowed with an orb of Black Materia.
[Received Summon: Bahamut]