Anonymous
I could hear a helicopter flying through the air but that it, nothing else. Even as I was coming to I knew I was fucked. My mind took its time pulling itself back together but I tried to keep still. My eyelids twitched and I opened them slightly to get an idea of who was with me.
Two Turks and Aerith, not counting the pilot. I did recognise them as the two Turks who tried to grab me before I joined Avalanche. I couldn't see where we were exactly because I knew if I turned my head they would know I was awake. I wasn't running the risk of them knocking me out again. I didn't even know if they had anything else to knock me out with, bar a blow to the head. I knew I needed to get out of the situation I was in and I needed to get Aerith out as well.
The helicopter eventually landed and the rotors came to a halt. I could hear them moving, people outside moving, and the doors opening.
"Take them to Hojo. Rude, carry her she's still unconscious," I heard one of them say. I heard Aerith objecting and, when I opened my eyes slightly, I could see about three soldiers and another man in a black suit. One of the soldiers took Aerith by the wrist and pulled her off the helicopter while the third Turk with sunglasses lifted me and threw me over his shoulder. I opened my eyes a little more to check my surroundings. A helicopter pad on that was high up on a building. I'm going to have to time this right if we're getting out of here.
The soldiers and the Turk took us into an elevator and I doubled checked how many were actually there. It had been reduced to two soldiers and the Turk carrying me. This was doable. I could get us out of here.
I flipped myself over the Turk's shoulder, hooking my leg around his neck and twisting around and bringing my other leg around. I pulled him down and tossed him over. I vaulted back up and elbowed one of the soldiers in the face and kicking the other in the chest. The Turk grabbed me from behind so I jerked my head back into his face. He didn't loosen his grip so I ended up triggering my life force into my hands to blast him off me. When the doors opened I grabbed one of the soldier's guns, got Aerith, and rushed us out the elevator.
We had arrived on a floor that looked like a lab, some of the workers gasped and remained frozen in fear. I kept the gun on them and looked for the stairs. I quickly spotted the sign directing to them and we ran. I kept checking over my shoulder to make sure we weren't being followed.
"You okay?" I asked Aerith when we got to the stairwell. She took a deep breath and nodding, following me down the stairs.
"I'm fine," she answered.
"How did they get you? Is Marlene okay?" I questioned as I was pretty much leaping down the stairs.
"She's fine, she's with my mom," Aerith said. "I said I would only go with them if I could take Marlene somewhere safe. She's fine, don't worry."
"The others? Barrett, Cloud, Tifa?"
"I saw them at the pillar, but we left before it collapsed."
I didn't want to think of the worst but I could only assume they were dead.
"Okay, Aerith where are we?"
"The Shinra building on the Upper Plate," well that's ironic considering this was where I wanted to be to start off with. "How are we getting out of here?"
"Aerith... I don't know," I said and looked at her as we hit the bottom of the stairs. The sign took us to level sixty. Fucking hell this was a big building. "I'm making this up as I go. Get over there." She headed away from the door as I approached it slowly, taking hold of the handle and swinging it open, coming face to face with half a dozen soldiers aiming their guns at me.
I opened fire on them and forced them to scatter, managing to take out three of them. I heard one call for back up and I ran to the seats and vaulted over them, firing at the soldier and then ducking behind more seats. I spotted a fireball from the stairwell and Aerith ran out after she hit the soldier with the fire.
"Over here!" I shouted and she ran over, crouching down behind cover with me. I was running low on ammo with this gun so I belly crawled over the guard I shot at and took his gun. I then started hearing more gun fire. "Shit, that's the back up."
"Surrender yourselves now. It would be a waste if you were killed after all this trouble," I recognised that as one of Turk's voices. "Put down your weapons and come out."
"Let her go! It's me you want she has nothing to do with this!" Aerith yelled.
"What are you doing?" I hissed.
"Trying to get you out."
"It's both of us, okay? We're both leaving here," I told her then started to call over my shoulder. "We're not surrendering!"
"This is not a negotiation. Step out from your cover. Now." I looked at Aerith, who shook her head.
Before I could do anything a canister was thrown over to us and gas started spewing out of it. We both started choking, tears started streaming from my eyes and I could barely breathe. That was when the soldiers surrounded us, grabbed Aerith, and tranquillised me to render me unconscious.
I don't know how long I was out but I had woken up in a cell. It wasn't long before several security guards came in, handcuffed me, and escorted me down to an empty room with a wall mirror, two chairs and a table between them. They sat me down, still handcuffed, and two guards stationed at the door. After a few moments a Turk entered the room. It was the one with black hair from the Slums. I think I could remember his name. I waited for him to sit down, clasping his hands together and resting them on the table.
"Tseng, was it?" I asked and watched his face for a response. He kept his eyes set firmly on me and barely moved.
"So you know who I am," he said. "The problem is that we don't know who you are... at all."
"A problem with your information?"
"The problem is that we don't have any," Tseng continued. "You arrive in Midgar with no way to identify yourself, you set off the security measures on the trains because of it, then you proceed to escape into the Slums and evade capture from two Turks, you resurface working for Avalanche and then attempt to escape taking on highly trained personnel in addition to another Turk. Your skills are exceptional but there are no records of you ever being in the military." A pause in his speech. "In fact there are no records of you at all. We took a sample of your DNA while you were unconscious. You don't appear on any of our data bases. There is no information on you. No name, no family, no birthplace, no medical records. Nothing. By all means you don't exist... yet here you are."
Because I didn't exist in this world. Not until about three weeks ago.
"So... who are you?"
I looked at Tseng. I looked him dead in the eye. We had a steely stand off, neither of us blinking, neither of us shying away from the other's gaze. They had no idea who I was. Absolutely no clue. I smirked a let out a small chuckle.
"Wouldn't you like to know?"
"Don't try my patience," Tseng said, eyes narrowing.
"Or what? You can't make me talk," I said. "You don't have anything; you can't threaten me to talk, you can't torture me, you can't do shit. You have nothing on me, and even at that the only people who knew who I was were in Avalanche. But you had to go and drop the Plate on them so... tough luck, huh?" I felt a lot bolder with the power of animosity behind me. They had no idea who I was or what my agenda was. All they had was that I was with Avalanche. Tseng, even though I saw a slight hint of frustration in his eyes, remained composed.
"Under normal circumstances we would have members of Avalanche, and of any organisation who opposed Shinra, executed without hesitation," he said, "regardless of how anonymous they appeared to be. But these aren't normal circumstances." They way he said it put me on guard more.
"What do you mean?"
"We had orders to find and secure the last remaining Ancient on Gaia, the woman who was taken alongside you," he said and adjusted his tie. "Only now we find that she isn't the last remaining Ancient at all... she's one of two."
"I have no idea what you're going on about," I said.
"Lie all you want, but your DNA showed multiple similarities to other Ancients we had on record, as well as Miss Gainsborough's. Not exact but enough to confirm you as an Ancient," Tseng watched my face as I just stared at him, utterly confused. "You seem shocked by this."
"Probably because I have no fucking clue of what you're on about," I answered.
"Then I suppose we should let the professor explain," he turned to the guards. "Take her back to her cell until Hojo's ready for them both."
I got thrown back into a cell by myself and I knew there would be guards hanging outside to make sure I stayed put. Not that I could go anywhere but the door I came though. The cell had no windows just cold metal walls. I had no idea how I'd get out, where Aerith was, and was stuck in a stupid little room. I noticed that my bag was on the bed, I was surprised they let me have it. I checked inside, my other set of clothes there. I suppose I'd be better changing out of my Besaid clothes. They were still damp anyway.
I didn't feel better after I had changed. I was just stuck now with no idea on how to escape and I hated it. I was beyond frustrated at this point and I put my back to the wall with a harder thud than I intended. I sighed and slink down to the floor to sit. I really didn't have a clue right now.
"Christie? Is that you?" I heard Aerith's muffled voice through the wall behind me. I turned around and sat facing it.
"Yeah it's me," I answered. "You okay?"
"I'm fine, how about you?"
"I'm okay. Did they question you too?"
"No, I've been in the labs for most of it," Aerith told me. "Mostly blood and DNA tests but they didn't say anything to me."
"Why do they want us?" I asked in hopes of getting a decent answer.
"You don't know?" Aerith asked. "We're the last Ancients... and here I thought my mother and I were the last ones."
"What is an Ancient? I have no idea what any of you are talking about when you say it," I said.
"You really don't know? But you... you can channel the Lifestream," Aerith said. I was just getting confused.
"That's my life force, I've always been able to do that."
"Your life force is the Lifestream," Aerith reasoned. "I saw you use it in the elevator on the Turk. You are an Ancient."
In a sense maybe I was. I started to think try piece everything together in my head. The Shinra Company were clearly founded by Shinra the Al Bhed, who discovered that there was potential in harnessing the Farplane's power as an energy source not long after the destruction of Vegnagun, a machina that actually was using the Farplane's energy to do just that. Clearly he found a way to actually do that, or his descendants did, and built the Reactors and cities that relied on them. But then how did the Ancients come into it? How far ahead in the future was I?
Unless the Ancients were people who were more attuned to the planet's energy like the Summoners were. Everyone in Spira had some affinity with the world and the pyreflies and some were stronger than others, like the Guado and Summoners. Maybe that's who the Ancients were? Who Aerith descended from? Who I was?
But that made no sense. I was always under the impression that this was a different world from Spira. But then how does Shinra connect to it?
"Christie?" I snapped out from my thoughts and took a deep breath in.
"Sorry it's... a lot to take in. I never knew," it wasn't a complete lie. In fact it wasn't a lie at all.
The doors opened and the Turk Tseng came in. He stared me down as I stood up, then looked at my bag on the bed.
"And how did you retrieve your belongings?" He asked.
"You tell me, they were left there," I answered. Tseng said nothing in regards to it and motioned the guards to grab me.
"Professor Hojo is ready for you both now."
