The Future Imperfect
AN – Well, a lot of this dialogue is taken straight from the game. It kinda has to be, as there is a lot of heavy discussion in this section! And the story doesn't make sense if we skip it. But I have woven some unique dialogue in there in case you were planning to jump the section.
Chapter Sixteen
Angeal stood at the side of the small room they had taken Cloud to, trying not to take up too much space with his large frame. It was proving difficult, both he and Barret were hardly petite and yet had, for some reason, decided to cram into the same corner of the room to try to stay out of the way while the girls tended to Cloud. Barret was sitting on an old sofa whilst Angeal stood next to him, arms folded across his chest while he leant on the metal wall. Tifa and Aerith were hovering over the prone form of Cloud who was lying on the only bed while Red was waiting patiently near the door.
The room was utilitarian. All steel grey fixtures, made for convenience and not for comfort. Even the bed was a dark mattress within a square steel frame. A basic curtain segregated a washing area in the opposite corner to the room than the one in which he was standing. All told, it was a drab and cold space, with the exception of a large patterned rug on the floor and the wall next to Barret. That particular wall had been covered in bright, colourful images of what were mainly plants but with some animals and other things mixed in. The images had been drawn and painted on in bright colours, bringing life to the dull space. It was almost hypnotic in its vibrancy. Angeal had wanted to ask about it, but Aerith had been too concerned for Cloud and Angeal hadn't wanted to disrupt her with unnecessary questions.
When Cloud had collapsed, Aerith had immediately directed Angeal to carry him away from the lab into this room. It was close to the doors they had followed Hojo in by originally, though at the time he hadn't noticed the unobtrusive corridor. The grey door melded so seamlessly with the walls of the lab he still wouldn't have noticed it apart from the fact that Aerith led them directly to it.
His attention was drawn by Cloud murmuring softly, eyelashes fluttering as he regained consciousness.
"Cloud!" Tifa exclaimed, leaning over him in concern.
"Oh thank goodness, you're awake!" Aerith let out a relieved sigh. Cloud sat up slowly, looking around at the room.
"You ok?" Tifa asked him.
"Yeah," Cloud looked around at the room. "Where are we?"
"Where I lived," Aerith explained, turning to look at the pictures on the wall. "When I was still a child."
Cloud shuffled to the edge of the bed and rubbed his face, Tifa watching on with concern. Red's fiery tail flicked lazily from side to side as he kept his gaze on Aerith.
"Maybe you should rest a little longer," Tifa said to Cloud, who shook his head.
"Seems like I've rested long enough. How long was I out for?"
"Not long," Angeal replied. "Maybe half an hour, at most."
"Still," Cloud frowned in annoyance, directed at himself. "You lived here?" He asked Aerith, looking up at the mural.
"My mom and I stayed here, years ago when I was just a little girl. The room looks exactly the same." She reached out on hand to gently brush the mural. "Every morning, they'd come to take my mom away." She said quietly, not turning around. "I remember crying here alone."
"Aerith," Cloud started, the girl turning around to look at him. "Before we break out of here, talk to us. There is so much we don't know."
Aerith gazed at the floor, seemingly warring with herself, before giving a curt little nod and facing them all. "I'm a descendent of the Ancients. That's… pretty much it, really." She tilted her head to one side. "Oh, but just so you know, that's not their actual name. They called themselves the Cetra."
"We who are born of the planet, with her we speak, her flesh we shape. And to her promised land shall we one day return." Barret intoned in a low voice as he stood up from the small sofa. "By her loving grace and providence may we take our place in paradise."
"You know it!" Aerith exclaimed.
"Yeah, well, honestly I thought that part was just a fairytale."
Aerith huffed out a sigh. "Shinra thinks it's true. They've been searching for the promised land for a long time."
"And they think you can lead them to it." Tifa stated. "Can you?"
Aerith shook her head with a smile. "Nope. Someday, maybe, I'll find it in me. But now? Not even if I wanted to."
"But even if you could that land belongs to the – well, you and your people. Shinra's after it because they believe it's rich in mako, mako they ain't got no right to claim." Barret stomped over to the corner Angeal was still waiting in and muttered some deprecations against Shinra under his breath that made Angeal's eyebrows raise. "Alright, new plan. Y'all take Aerith and get out of here, I'm gonna go bust me some Shinra heads."
"Barret, wait. You can't do that." As Aerith spoke, some of the ghostly hooded figures appeared in the room, drifting lazily around the ceiling. Angeal stood up straighter, eyes alert as he tracked them around the room.
"These assholes again! Probably some Shinra science experiment." Barret readied his weapon but didn't fire.
"Whispers." The quiet voice had everyone turning to Red, whose single yellow eye was watching the ghosts float around above him. "Perhaps best described as arbiters of fate. They are drawn to those who attempt to alter destiny's course and ensure that they do not."
"Like… capital D, Destiny?" Tifa asked, eyes wide.
"The flow of the great river that is the planet, from inception to oblivion."
"And you're saying that that flow is somehow… fixed?"
"Yes. For it is the will of the planet itself."
"So," Barret creased his forehead in thought. "So, if we're destined for a bleak future, these whispers will keep us on that course? Now wait just a damn minute!"
"That doesn't make sense." Cloud interrupted suddenly with a frown. His arms were crossed across his chest and he seemed to be deep in thought. Everyone turned to him. "I'm not saying you are wrong," he reassured Red. "You sound like you know what you are talking about but… if these whispers are here to keep us on our course regardless of the outcome, and they are sent by the planet, then what about them." Cloud gestured to Angeal, who watched the blond intently. "Why would the planet also send them forwards in time, or to a different timeline altogether, just to have the whispers interfere? Surely the point of them coming here was to change their destiny? Yet, if I'm understanding correctly, the whispers would not allow that to happen."
"The planet sent us here?" Angeal asked curiously. "How would you know that?"
Cloud scratched the back of his neck with one hand. "I… someone suggested it. They said I should ask you for more details," he told Aerith with a shrug. "Said it was more your thing."
Aerith's eyes narrowed. "He did, did he? Well, I'm not certain, but I don't think that he was wrong." She pursed her lips. "There is something I am missing…"
"Wait, wait, wait. Where y'all getting this from? You with your cryptic 'friend told me' bullshit, and you knowing all this shit despite you being a Shinra lab-rat-dog!" Barret gestured wildly around the room. "Shit, if it weren't for the obvious evidence of the big guy over here," he waved his gun at Angeal, "I'd begin to think y'all had a screw loose!"
"I'm not a rat-dog." Red stated firmly, tail flicking in agitation.
"Could something else be controlling the whispers?" Angeal asked as he tried to puzzle it all out. "Though who would have the kind of power to influence Destiny?" The whispers increased in number and speed as he spoke, surrounding Aerith in a tight circle but also dashing around the room at large.
"Yes!" Aerith cried out from amongst the whispers. She was trapped in the middle, cowering away from them but still passionately trying to get her message through. "That's exactly it. The Shinra Electric Power Company isn't the real enemy here. It started with them, sure, but I promise you there's a much bigger threat. I just want to do everything in my power to help. All of you, and the planet."
"Aerith, what are you not telling us?" Tifa asked in concern. The whispers were intensifying with every word she spoke, becoming more and more agitated.
"I'm lost in a maze and… every step is taking me further from the path. Every time the whispers touch me, I lose something. A part of myself."
The whispers almost blanketed Aerith from view completely. Angeal stood up straight as he prepared to help, but instead Tifa stepped forwards and gently pulled Aerith out of the centre of the ghostly forms.
"It's ok," Tifa said with a smile, her arms still holding the other. "We'll find a way out together."
The girls exchanged a warm smile. Angeal was still thinking deeply about what he had heard, but he was startled from his reverie as a pair of screens mounted high on the wall near the door burst into life with a crackle of static.
Tifa approached the monitors just as they burst into life.
A bald man with a pointed moustache and a matching grey beard came into view, shortly followed by a round faced young man wearing shoulder pauldrons and a red bandana.
"Hey guys! Long time no see!"
"Wedge?!" Barret called out, pointing to the screen. Angeal tried to place the name, before eventually remembering the unconscious form they had helped Barret carry to Sector Five. He looked again at the screen incredulously, if this was the same young man then his overnight recovery was astonishing.
"You're here?" Tifa's voice echoed his own surprise.
"I'm feeling much better thanks to Elmyra's cooking." The youth said with a smile, rubbing his stomach. Aerith startled at the mention of her mother and Tifa exchanged a bemused glance with Barret. Angeal assumed the Leaf House had sent Wedge on to Elmyra to find out about where his friends had gone.
"Is Biggs here too? Jessie?" Barret asked.
"No, they still can't move around too good so they stayed behind. Oh, but that's not what I wanted to talk to you about! Listen, any moment now…" He broke off as the building shook underneath them.
"What was that?" Tifa cried, trying to maintain her balance. "An explosion?"
Angeal had crouched automatically to absorb the shock as he listened to Wedge speak. "HQ is running the show this time, they're raising hell to try to flush out the President."
The camera was wrestled off Wedge by the bald man. "This complicates matters." He said urgently. "That explosion just now put the whole building on high alert!"
"So now we're trapped in here?" Tifa sounded like she was on the verge of panicking.
"No need to panic little lady. You can still move freely in Hojo's laboratory."
"Make your way to the roof," Wedge cut in. "An Avalanche chopper will come to extract you."
"HQ's bailing us out?" Barret questioned. "I doubt it, not after all the shit we've pulled."
"I asked them really nicely!" Wedge confirmed with a smile. "Like, super-duper nicely. Just get to the roof, ok?" He held his thumb up with a grin, giving a quick nod before the feed cut off.
"Now, I dint ask him to do any of that." Barret said contemplatively, his hand resting on his hip.
"Yeah, well I'm glad he did." Cloud replied. Angeal rolled his shoulders as they prepared to move.
"What did he mean by HQ?" The SOLDIER asked curiously. Red also looked up with interest at the question.
"We're just a small splinter cell of Avalanche really," Tifa explained. "Well, Barret and I are. Cloud's a friend and Aerith…"
"I'm just a flower girl from the slums." She said with a smile and a wink at Angeal. Cloud shook his head at her fondly before leading the way out of the room.
Aerith and Barret led the way along the corridor, Angeal bringing up the rear with Cloud. "We need to get to the roof, right?" Barret asked as they walked along.
"We can take the same elevator Hojo did." Red responded, and they found their way back to the room where they had freed Aerith. Reaching the observation room, they made their way to the elevator at the end. This time, there was no sign of any problems for Cloud that Angeal could see. But just before the doors closed on the elevator, Cloud's attention was drawn by something outside in the corridor. It was so quick that if Angeal hadn't been closely watching Cloud, he wouldn't have noticed.
"Something the matter?" He asked. Cloud snapped his gaze to Angeal and shook his head.
"Nothing."
Angeal frowned but let it go, promising himself that he would stick as close as possible to Cloud from now on. At least until they reunited with Genesis and Sephiroth and they could take it in turns.
When the elevator opened, it was to a part of the laboratory that Angeal had never been in. He'd only heard about it in rumours. The restricted levels of Hojo's laboratory, otherwise known colloquially as The Drum. He stepped out at the back of the party, eyes roving around the vast space. It was spherical in shape, stretching at least two floors above and below their current position. The walkways ran inn circles along the outer rim, surrounding a void that showed just how big the chamber was. In the very centre there was a large pillar topped by a glass mako tank. Large tubes stretched out from this central pillar, running along the ceiling and into the walls or dropping down and trailing across the floor down below.
"What the hell is this place?" Barret asked, looking around.
"Hojo's treasure." Red replied. "Shinra's darkest secret."
"What I wouldn't give to burn it all down." Barret twitched as though going to do it there and then.
"You would probably be doing the planet a favour." Angeal muttered, looking over the railing that surrounded the walkway they had emerged onto. At the very bottom of the room, dissected by the tubes that ran like umbilical cords from the centre, lay human sized pods all nestled together like a clump of spider's eggs. Angeal shuddered, pulling back, no longer wondering what might be inside but with a sinking suspicion that he knew.
From the landing by the elevator there was but one path they could take. They moved around the outside of the sphere for about an eighth of its circumference before the walkway bridged to the central pillar. Cloud was the first to start crossing, but soon his footsteps slowed as he saw the thing that was being held in the tank in the centre.
Angeal had a strong stomach, but the image before them made even him feel queasy. In the tank there was a humanoid figure, yet not human at all. Shapely female legs led to a narrow waist but the skin sheened blue and purple, scales dominating the top half. Tubes were attached at multiple points, include a large central one where the belly button would have been if it was a human. It had no arms, but rather protrusions from the back that looked like a warped version of birds' wings. The head seemed to be missing entirely, though a steel helmet could have been covering it up.
"What is that?" Barret's voice showed the level of disgust that Angeal felt.
"Jenova." Aerith stated grimly. Angeal blinked, that name was familiar. Where had he heard it before?
He didn't have time to think about it for long. Cloud clutched at his head again, drawing concerned glances from everyone. Tifa moved to his side in concern as Angeal kept his focus on the blond.
"Cloud?" She asked, gently touching his right bicep. Her eyes lifted forwards towards the tank and she gasped, stumbling backwards. Instantly, Angeal could see why and he reached for his sword, only to pause. He frowned at the vision of the man in front of them, silver hair drifting down the back of his customary black leather coat.
"Sephiroth?" He asked, confused. The last he had seen Sephiroth he was being led away by Heidegger with Genesis. "What are you doing here?" And where was Gen? Sephiroth didn't acknowledge that Angeal had spoken in any way, still simply standing with his back to them with Masamune held lightly in his left hand. Red snarled and Aerith grasped her staff tightly. Angeal, standing behind both, was aware of their reactions but didn't understand.
At least, he didn't understand until Sephiroth turned around.
The man in front of them wore an expression that Angeal had never seen on his friend before. It was a cold, detached amusement; as though he were looking down on lesser creatures than fellow human beings. Sephiroth's eyes never strayed to Angeal but only sought out Cloud. His lips quirked up in sardonic amusement as Cloud stumbled, one step at a time, towards him.
"Tell me," Cloud gasped out as he tried to keep his balance on the gantry. "Is it really you?"
If anything, this Sephiroth's grin grew wider. He focussed his gaze more and Cloud staggered, both hands clutching at his head and then his left arm in pain.
"Don't deny me. Embrace me."
It was the words that spurred Angeal into movement. The tone that the imposter used was nothing like his Sephiroth. His friend. That someone could wear Sephiroth's skin and use his friend's visage in such a way broke him from his shock and he leapt forwards and grabbed hold of Cloud's shoulder. In doing so, he prevented the blond from getting any closer to Sephiroth. Sephiroth smirked. "A touching reunion."
"I don't know who you are," Angeal snarled. "But you are not him."
Finally, Sephiroth turned his gaze onto Angeal. "Oh, but I am. I am what he can and will become." With that, the green eyes flashed and Masamune arced through the air. Cloud leapt forwards, his blade raised, to find the gantry disappearing beneath him as Sephiroth cut it away. Angeal turned to leap backwards only to find the section he was standing on also disappearing beneath him. With one desperate lunge, he grabbed both Tifa and Aerith under each arm and pushed for the side, but it wasn't enough. All three of them hurtled down into the depths of the drum with the destroyed walkway falling around them.