Final Fantasy 7: The Hojo Clone
By Co V Schuler
Part 2: The Second Cetra
Chapter 14 (Continued a few hours after the end of Chapter 13)
President of Shinra Inc. Tanner looked at Scarlet. She was laughing about something but he didn't understand what she was laughing at. "Kya ha ha ha ha! We got it back! I knew we could and this time it will be even better!"
"Scarlet, what are you laughing at? Please tell me…NOW!"
She stopped laughing and then smiled ruefully. "We have rebuilt the Proud Clod, the Anti-Weapon fighter!" Tanner's head sagged to his shoulder. "Why the hell are you so excited about that?! Avalanche defeated it once, and that was with the best firepower that we had. I was watching from a nearby rooftop. You miserably lost."
Her grinned faded and she asked, "You mean no one has told you yet? We have another Huge Materia! And we have equipped it onto the new Proud Clod! And BEST of all, we know where Avalanche is!"
Tanner jumped up. "Where are they and how do you know?"
Scarlet looked at him and said, "They are in the village Kalm, that false convoy plan worked. They are busy with the Neo-Midgar rebuilding. Apparently they think that Neo-Midgar is worse than the new Mako Atmosphere process."
Tanner smiled. "Good. Then they are dead and that is the last of Avalanche."
Scarlet stopped smiling again. "Well…they aren't exactly dead." Tanner sat back down and said, "How couldn't they be? We sent over four hundred men and twelve tanks! They couldn't have survived the ambush."
"Well…lets put it this way. No one survived the ambush…but no one survived the ambush." Tanner then understood…, "Oh. Then we have four hundred+ casualties. That won't make people very happy." Then he looked her in the eye and said with a tone that put chills down her back. "We don't know if they are still alive…do we?"
Scarlet looked at the floor. "Well…no," she replied quietly.
Tanner's face went to pure bitterness. "Siege the town and then bombard it with heavy artillery. And send your new Proud Clod to look for survivors."
Scarlet's smile returned and she said, "Yes sir!"
*
Cid woke up. He was in a field. A field full of flowers and…
"How did I get here?" He sat up and recognized the field. This is where the summon fight happened. And I lost and…I died?
Cid jerked up, cold sweat drenching him. He was in a room. A prison room, he could tell by the looks of it. Cid got up out of the bed and thought, didn't I die in the torture room? He sat quiet for a minute and realized he could hear the ocean, and ships moving around.
Junon Prison. Cid sat back on the bed. So I got captured…but I thought I died. Suddenly the door opened and in came Heidegger. Cid sneered. "Let me out of here." Cid knew it sounded corny, and knew it wouldn't happen, but he wouldn't let them think he was afraid.
Heidegger started laughing. "Gha ha ha ha ha ha! Why should I do that? You sniveling Avalanche traitor. I should kill you right now!"
"Didn't I die already?"
Heidegger stopped laughing and said, "Yeah…but I wanted to kill you myself. So they revived you." Heidegger leaned close to Cid and Cid could smell his breath; it smelled like alcohol. "And when I kill someone, it takes a long, long time. Gya ha ha ha ha!"
As Cid made a disgusted face, Heidegger punched him in the stomach. Cid fell to the ground and acted like he was hurt. "Ow! That hurt!" Then, in one swift move, he sweeped Heidegger's fat legs and Heidegger fell to the ground. Two Turks that Cid did not know were outside the door came inside and punched Cid so hard that he flew back into the wall, cracking it.
"Now that really did hurt," he mumbled. Cid got to his feet and said, "I've killed Turks before… I'll kill 'em again."
A dark-skinned Turk stepped forward and faster than you could blink sent a kick into Cid's stomach; he flew back and cracked the wall behind him as he hit it. Oh shit, he thought as he lost consciousness.
*
Cloud was sitting up in bed, his back up against the wall behind it. Barret was sleeping next to him, Cloud hoping he wouldn't wake up. When Barret found out that Marlene was nearly beat up, he went berserk and killed two people in the town before Red XIII knocked him out. Two people dead, even after Cloud had killed all the guilty people…slaughtered all the guilty people.
Tifa had watched him do it, too. He went through about fourteen men as if they were butter. Four swords had gone through him, one still in him for a few minutes. And I never even realized it until someone pointed it out, he thought. What is happening to me? And Avalanche?
Cloud had killed over three hundred men the night before, slaughtered them without even thinking about it. Nanaki said he had over thirty gun wounds on him before he was mostly healed. What is happening to me, Cloud silently asked. I've become a monster, a freak like Sephiroth.
Cloud winced at the thought of Sephiroth. I've become a monster like Sephiroth and Lee.
Cloud looked down at his bandaged ribs and legs. Here and there, all over him, were bandages and small bloodstains on them. "You had over thirty bullet wounds," Red XIII had said.
"Knock, knock," a whisper came from the door. Cloud looked up and saw Tifa. She had been through a lot lately. Nearly getting hurt a few hours ago, thinking Cloud didn't love her when Aeris came back for a week. Cloud whispered, "Hey, are you all right?" They were being careful not to wake up Barret. She walked over to him and gave him a glass of water.
She nodded. "Marlene isn't though. She won't speak to me. She just stares at the floor when I come into the same room."
Cloud looked at his shoulder, a strange pain coming from it. "I'll come down there in a few minutes, okay? As long as you are okay, Tifa. I…I'm sorry that I took off this morning, when you came looking for me. I…" He stopped talking.
"That's okay, Cloud. You are alive and I am alive…and so are Barret and Nanaki."
Cloud nodded. Tifa left the room and he listened as she tried to talk to Marlene. What is happening to me? He looked at his chest and wondered how he couldn't have known that there was a sword there earlier.
The pain came to his shoulder again and he used his other arm to pull up the sleeve. "What in the world…" His shoulder was turning colors, not glowing but slowly changing colors. It was like a dark rainbow. When Cloud first saw it, it was turning purple.
He breathed again and thought, just a bruise. He watched it for a few more seconds, and to his horror, it started turning green. Then a small sliver of color, light green, emerged from the little bruise of colors on his arm. It traveled down his arm and when it reached him elbow, a small hole formed from a blood vessel and-
Cloud gasped. The light green color…it was from the…Lifestream?!
Cloud looked back at the bruise; it was now pitch black, and sweating like ink. Only the sweat was black and purplish. What the hell is happening to me, he asked again. The sliver of green then shrunk back into his arm and disappeared. Leaving the hole it had reformed to bleed. Then Cloud lost consciousness.
*
A few minutes later, Tifa heard Cloud coming down the stairs. She looked up at him and smiled. He had saved her from being…she shivered. That horrible man…that evil horrible man.
Marlene was sitting on a sofa, looking at a Mako-powered TV. Cloud frowned at the TV but didn't say anything. He walked over to a cabinet, opened it, and pulled out a lot of napkins. Tifa was watching him and raised an eyebrow. "You okay Cloud?"
He looked at her and nodded. "I'll be right back down." Then he disappeared back upstairs with about fifty napkins. Tifa shook her head and looked at Marlene. It was so sad. She was only six or seven and she had a taste of the real world.
Upstairs, Cloud pulled off his shirt and looked at the inky bruise. He started wiping it with napkins, trying to soak up the…black sweat. At first, it seemed to work, but after another minute, he realized that it was just producing more.
Crud, he thought. What is this…blood? No, it couldn't be blood…
Cloud gave up and just hoped that it would dry over and stop making more. He put his shirt back on and-
The hole in his arm! It was like two seconds of pain and then it disappeared and I conked out… Cloud almost fell down. Aeris…what…
Cloud sat down on the bed and put his head in his hands. "What is happening to me," he asked quietly. "Aeris…what is happening to me?"
Then the thought hit him. "Aeris," he whispered. "Did you do this to me?"
He heard someone calling his name and he went downstairs, the thought of Aeris doing this to him was improbable…but it could very well be true. But how?