FF7 Heartstrings
Vincent Unleashed
by TacomaSquall
Part Eight:
The Highwind winged its way toward the City of the Ancients. On the upper deck of the airship, Cloud looked ahead toward the destination they neared, in answer to the world's need. The sky, wracked with looming storm clouds that were closing towards the airship, seemed to match the dark and foreboding mood that Cloud Strife found himself in. Here we are, trying to find a way to do the impossible – bring Aeris back. Somehow, the most powerful of Vincent's Limit Breaks has been liberated, and we need to find some way to contain the ravening monster, who is powerful enough to destroy any Summon we try to use against it. We seem to be repeating history. The last time we tried to save the world, we barely succeeded, and that was with the help of these Summons. Without them, can we save the world again?
He frowned. There was something wrong with the idea of resurrecting their dead companion. Cloud wasn't sure why, but it seemed to his eyes to be following in the Jenova Project's footsteps just a little too closely. Sighing, he turned to go belowdecks. He wanted to have a conversation with the people that helped Nanaki against the Hellmasker.
* * * * * *
Mideel. Once a bustling small town, it had been devastated by the eruption of the Lifestream from beneath the town proper. All that remained of the town after the fateful day which saw the town's destruction were some ramshackle homes made from flotsam, and a small shop on a ledge that overlooked the now-quiescent Pool of Souls.
However, the destruction of Mideel as a town had not ended its prosperity. As Meteor neared, and in the aftermath of the near-destruction of the Planet, scores of people, disaffected by ShinRa's techno-theocracy, moved to Mideel Island, to live in harmony with the Planet. Scattered throughout the jungle were dozens of small dwellings, made by guiding the natural life of the jungle, rather than subjugating it to mankind's plan.
Boko stepped to the Pool of Souls and gazed into its depths, looking at its reflection. A beautiful full-grown chocobo looked back, notable for its snow-white plumage and golden eyes. "Wark!" The white chocobo mouthed a reply, but try as Boko might, the chocobo never could hear its reply.
Boko loved looking at the beautiful white chocobo, which only appeared when it looked into the Pool. Boko did not realize it was looking at its reflection.
"Such narcissism." Lord Chaos appeared behind the chocobo. "Order has its way with you – for seeing perfection, you do little but gaze, enraptured by the vision."
The chocobo, alarmed, looked at the gigantic demon. It started to edge backwards, fear ridding it of the ability to squawk a warning cry to the residents who lived nearby.
Chaos saw the bird's retreat and smiled cruelly. "Not today, my bird-brained friend." Reaching deep within himself, the mighty Mako-twisted avatar of anarchy called upon the powerful magics he had developed alongside his brother. He called forth the hellish energies of Black Cauldron, which appeared before him. The Cauldron bubbled and roiled, before spewing forth a wave of miasma that hit the chocobo like a hammer.
The dark energies blasted into the chocobo, attempting to simultaneously transform, miniaturize, poison, disorient, mute, paralyze, and somnify the bird. Boko shrugged off the malignant after-effects of the Black Cauldron. In the pain from the injuries it sustained, Boko found its voice. It screeched in rage, and called forth the attack that dissuaded every foe that ever attacked the chocobo – the Chocobuckle - and fled.
An enormous chocobo materialized. It bounced once, and then a second time, in front of Lord Chaos. Surprised, Lord Chaos was unable to avoid the huge chocobo before it fell onto the demon. Chaos went down until the massive chocobo's weight before it vanished from existence.
Lord Chaos regained his feet and looked for the white chocobo. It had fled, and was no longer in his sight.
His search for the missing chocobo was interrupted by the sounds of humans arming themselves and rushing to face him. He smiled. You may have escaped, little bird. The people here, however, will not profit from your escape.
He turned to face the woman who ran the shop overlooking the Pool of Souls. She hastily loaded a shotgun and fired it at the demon. The pellets ricocheted from his hardened, violet-ebon hide.
Chaos called forth the Satan Impact. He laughed with glee as the ledge, shop, shopkeeper, and all, collapsed into the Pool of Souls. Still laughing, Chaos spread his dark wings and took to the air.
"Fight or run, Mideel! Those are your choices. Either way, death will find you today!"
* * * * * *
Cloud knocked stood in the Highwind's passageway outside one of the staterooms. Nervous, he raised his hand and knocked on the door.
"Who is it?" A dulcet voice asked from the other side of the door.
"Cloud Strife. I need to talk with you." Cloud sighed. Something about the woman and her two companions had been nagging at him ever since they boarded the Highwind with Nanaki. Maybe he could get some answers.
There was the sound of a latch being opened on the door, and then the door was opened from the other side. Cloud found himself looking down at the Frogman. "What do we owe the honor of a personal visit from AVALANCHE's head honcho to?"
"We need to talk." Cloud paused, and then asked, "Can I come in?"
"Of course." Cloud could hear the slightly sardonic lilt to the Frogman's voice. The Frog stepped aside, permitting Cloud to enter the cabin.
The cabin itself was fairly sparsely furnished. There was a bed, centered along the right wall of the room as someone entered. A small nightstand stood on the side of the bed, toward the outer hull of the airship. A lamp was bolted into the nightstand, adding the ability to have light illuminating only a portion of the room, instead of its entirety, as the overhead light, borne in a three-armed chandelier, did. A shuttered porthole, currently closed, was located on the outer wall of the stateroom.
A bedroll had been laid out near the outer wall, and the Sahugin that accompanied the woman and Frogman was sitting on it, his mind lost in contemplation of something. The Sahugin held his sheathed blade hilt-upwards, in front of him.
The woman was seated upon the bed. She had taken her black hair out of its bun. Cloud noticed there were a few streaks of gray within her raven locks. Her hair stretched, unbound, to her waist. Her face was lined with sorrows, but was still pretty. Her features bore the slight angularity that marked residents of Wutai, and her eyes were slightly almond-shaped. Her body was curvaceous without being voluptuous. Somehow, she seemed familiar to Cloud…
"Have I seen you before?" Cloud asked softly.
She shook her head. "No, but you were my brother's friend. My brother was a SOLDIER First Class –"
"Zack!" Cloud exclaimed in surprise, "You're Zack's sister, Maiji!"
She nodded. "And you are the man he gave his life to save."
Cloud raised his hands, as if to fend off a blow. "I –"
She cut him off. "It's a good thing for the Planet that he did. If it had not been for you and your friends, Meteor would have killed all of us." She smiled wanly at the hero. "You and your friends accomplished the impossible."
He sighed. "We did what anyone else would have done, if the tables were reversed." He paused for a moment and then brightened. "You know, Zack never talked about what his childhood was like. What was he like when he was a kid?"
Maiji smiled. "He was younger than I, by nine years, so he always seemed something of a nuisance. He was a good boy, just a little headstrong. He wasn't a bad boy, but he was just as likely to get into mischief as any child."
She took a deep breath. "I moved to Gongaga when I was fifteen years old…"
Cloud listened to Maiji tell the story of her and her brother until the Highwind arrived at the City of the Ancients.
* * * * * *
Vincent stood transfixed. He stood with one leg ahead of him, and the other planted slightly behind. Both legs were bent slightly, to give him a stable point of balance to shoot from. He stood in a firing range, where dozens of targets daily met their end to hone the skills of ShinRa security staff. He looked downrange, where a series of custom-made wood and metal targets had been demolished by the weapon he held in his hands.
At the far end of the firing range, about 1200 yards away, he could make out a target, upright. In someone's idea of a joke, it was a two-dimensional picture of Sephiroth. He leveled the Twilight Scope, and looked down the barrel's length, looking through the sighting reticle of the scope that was bolted along the top of the carbine. His brow furrowed in concentration, as he nudged the weapon on line before pulling the trigger.
There was a high-pitched whine, and beams of light stretched out toward the target. Where each beam of light struck the target, made of the same metal that was used for the hull plating of the Heidegger-class attack submarines, the metal deformed from the impact of slivers of tungsten-steel alloy accelerated to four times the speed of sound by magnets within the carbine's barrel. The figure bent under the onslaught of shards, and finally ripped at the shoulders after taking about 50 hits.
Standing next to Vincent, Rude smiled. "The weapon is a gauss carbine. It is powered by a small crystal of Bolt Materia. You can turn the selector from full automatic, which can harm even combat vehicles, as you see here, to packet fire, which releases a packet of ten slivers for each pull of the trigger. You can even set the selector to single shot, which is only advisable if dealing with soft targets."
"What about ammunition?" Vincent looked at the Turk suspiciously. Why is he helping me? I can't believe that they wouldn't keep such a powerful weapon for their own plans.
"Each magazine carries a total of fifty slivers, which can be emptied within half a minute of fully-automatic fire. We have a total of ten magazines fabricated." Rude grinned. "The armorer will be with us to help make more rounds for your gun."
"Why did you give this to me? Why not use it yourselves?" Vincent stared at Rude levelly.
"We can trust that it won't be misused by you. Otherwise, we would destroy this weapon. In the wrong hands, it would be disastrous." Rude was grim. "However, it will give you the best chance of fighting against the enemies we know you will be facing."
"Who are they?" Vincent was now perplexed.
"He calls himself Lord Tenarrus. We have received information that he is the one who is using your demonic alter egos to bring AVALANCHE together, where he can kill all of them in one stroke." Rude frowned. "He was the one who took you into the ruins of Midgar."
"How do you know this?" Vincent demanded, his voice rising in anger.
"We got lucky and found out." Rude continued. "One of Tenarrus' lieutenants wants to be rid of him, so he let us know Tenarrus' plans. We will be waiting for Tenarrus when he springs his ambush on your friends."
"Where do we need to go?" Vincent smiled. "I need to pay him back for the pain he inflicted on me."
Rude smiled back at Vincent. "First, Vincent, you need to go and lay an old ghost to rest. "You need to face Lucresia one last time."
End of Part Eight: