Chapter 3: The First Night
Cloud and Tifa walked into the new town as the newly acquired tents were being put up. They were pleasantly surprised by the level of organisation among the survivors.
"Wow," breathed Cloud. "It looks like we might not be needed in this part of the city after all."
A rushed looking man with bent glassed saw them and jogged over. "Hello, my name is Olton. I'm in charge here at the moment. Can I ask why you are here, we could do with some help."
"Hey slow down," suggested Cloud. "We're here to help, but it looks like you've already been helped somewhat."
Tifa had been looking at the people; they were of mixed ages and a typical bunch of Midgar folk. Except Midgar residents were never this friendly or open. "I can see that someone has been through here with a cure materia. The bloodstained clothes and lack of injuries show that."
Olton looked at Tifa, impressed by her deductions. "Well done, we have had outside help. A mysterious girl came through here earlier with some mastered cure materia. She saved our lives and we are all very grateful towards her."
Cloud looked at Tifa. "I guess someone beat us here."
"We still have plenty that needs doing. All of our residents are currently very busy and we need someone to go over to sector 5 to help any survivors there."
Tifa scratched her head. "I thought sector 5 had been flattened by the plate from above, we saw the damage from the outside."
Olton shook his head and explained the situation. "The plate above sector 5 split into three pieces before it fell. This crushed the inner and outer parts of the sector but left the middle section relatively undamaged. If you have some cure materia we encourage you to be on your way there now. This time is very important, quick actions can save lives. Follow me, I'll show you a path that we think leads to the centre of sector 5." The black man gestured and the duo followed.
Cloud decided to take a moment to equip his materia while Tifa asked Olton about the town. The leader of the group that had saved the world laughed inside when he realised that few people would believe their stories of how they beat Sephiroth. He brandished his Ultima weapon in front of him, the sword that had fatally wounded his nemesis earlier that day. It was finally all over, the madness was finished.
Cloud realised that all of the materia slots on his sword were empty so he looked into his bag to grab a cure materia.
"What the?"
"What's wrong Cloud?" asked Tifa.
"My materia, it's all gone! Every single piece is gone! All of my summons, my command materia, cure materia…everything!"
Their eyes connected and they both uttered a name familiar to the group. "Yuffie."
"When I get hold of her I'm going to have to do something very unpleasant to her, something so nasty I don't even know what it is yet!"
"Calm down Cloud, I still have my materia. You can use one of my cure materias."
The trio stopped at a crossroads. "This is as far as I have time to take you," admitted Olton. "I've got work to get back to. If you just keep going straight you should come to an old church…"
"We know the one." Interrupted Tifa before Cloud could say anything. "Thanks a lot for your time. Oh, by the way, we sent our friends to other towns to ask for help. By tomorrow you should start to get some supplies."
"Oh thank you very much!" squealed the man in a way that made Tifa back off. "We were in need of more food and equipment for shelter, thank you again. I'm very sorry, but I really have to be going now. Good luck and goodbye!"
Cloud and Tifa waved and then headed off towards Aeris's church. "Was it just me or did you find that guy, you know, a little weird?" asked Tifa.
"He seemed fairly normal to me, but then again we have just met a lot of very strange people recently." Soon they were at work amidst the ruins of sector 5, healing the survivors and directing them towards Neo-Midgar.
~ ~ ~
Iona walked out of a bungalow and nodded to Jess. "This whole neighbourhood is in very good shape, all of these houses are habitable. I even found one with a family still living inside!"
The small cluster of houses stood near to the outside edge of the sector. They had a suburban feel to them; this was one of the richer neighbourhoods under the plate. Now grass was beginning to grow in some of the cracks in the pavement, adding colour to the once grey area.
"This looks like a good place to set up another small town," suggested Iona.
Jess nodded and then added; "I used to do a little research on the history of Midgar and I think this was where one of the original towns were. Before it was assimilated by Midgar and renamed sector 3, this town was called Arikara. How's that for a name for this place?"
"Much better then any number, it has more of an atmosphere."
Jess kicked a stone and watched it bounce down the road. "I hope no one who lived in these houses comes back and complains when they see we've turned them into a small town."
"Don't worry about that, those people abandoned their homes I don't think any of them expected anything to be left." Iona grabbed Jess's arm and pulled her back in the direction of the centre of the city. "Come on, we have to tell those we rescued about their new homes!"
~ ~ ~
Delvin Spanton watched the sun as it descended. The air was still dirty, dust from the meteor event hung in the air making a haze and blurring the sunset. He swung his chocobo around and made it face south where he could see a flower beginning to grow. Delvin looked over his sleek black shotgun and brought it up, the 'lightning' and 'haste' materia shone in the evening light.
'Better test this thing,' he thought as he fired, leaving a small crater where the flower had once been.
"Nice shot boss." Delvin turned his chocobo around again to see his deputy and wife, Annette, clad entirely in black leather and atop another mountain chocobo.
Delvin coughed and opened up his gun. "Gotta keep practising ya know." He looked over his 'tribe' of raiders, a good fifty escapees from the slums all riding stolen yellow or green chocobos. He had named his group 'The Riders of Darkness' but the name had never really caught on. Most of them were just looking for a way to survive, but he was also enjoying himself.
"So, come on. Get yourself ready," he ordered his wife. Delvin made his chocobo trot over to the front of the assembly of riders while he re-loaded his shotgun. "We'll be moving out in an hour and we don't know quite what we'll be facin'. Our recon teams have told us that this lot are armed with materia, so watch yourselves but remember that this is just more to steal. It will be dark, but we will have the element of surprise." He twirled his gun round and herd it click shut. "Remember to check your weapons before we leave, soon your lives may depend on them."
~ ~ ~
"How long have we been trapped in here now?" asked the new president of Shinra.
His secretary glanced at her watch. "It has been about 12 hours since we found that the door refused to open. Unfortunately we have still had no success with breaking through and the area has had to have been abandoned due to the heat based weapons heating the metal walls to dangerous temperatures."
Michael Saldana leant back in his comfortable chair. "How about supplies and all of our other systems?"
The secretary flipped a page over on her clipboard and then pushed her wheely chair over to a monitor and typed a few commands into a keyboard. "Almost all of our other systems are fully operational. We lost all of our external sensors during the event and also lost all of our power feeds from the Mako reactors. Fortunately the Shinra no. 27 is undamaged and is ready for use in case of a worst case scenario. The equipment has been checked and the ship has been re-fuelled. Our weapons and materia are all accessible and we have enough supplies to keep us going for another week."
"Surely we have some heavy cutting equipment somewhere?"
"Our inventory claims that we have some but we have still been unable to locate it."
Saldana dismissed her with a wave of his hand and got back to planning the recapture of the outside world. 'Fortunately the infrastructure already exists for us,' thought the president. 'The loss of Shinra must have left a huge power gap, we have to fill it before some other group does!'
~ ~ ~
When the sun set, it became very dark in sector five very quickly. The plate had previously kept it dark, but lights from the houses had always lit the way. Now there was only the glow of Tifa's battery powered torch beneath the open sky.
"Cloud, we aren't going to find any more survivors tonight. We have to get some sleep and continue tomorrow morning."
Cloud looked into the darkness around him before giving up and agreeing with Tifa. "Fine, we'd better be finding a place to spend the night in then."
Tifa shone her torch higher and they realised that they had come to Aeris's church. "Looks as good a place as any," commented Cloud.
"Cloud, are you sure you want to sleep there? Won't it...bring back memories?"
Cloud put a hand on Tifa's cheek and brought her head round to face him. "Only happy memories, don't worry about me. Sure I'm sad that she's gone, after all I…anyway there aren't any other safe buildings around here."
Tifa stared into his face sceptically; she could see the pain there. Aeris had been one of Tifa's best friends when she was alive; Tifa found it hard not to like her despite the situation. She knew that Cloud loved Aeris, but she also knew that Cloud loved her. It was a dispute that had never been settled.
"Come on then," sighed Cloud as he walked through the entrance archway. "I've got the sleeping bags in my pack."
Tifa followed him in, shining her light around to get a good look at the place. She had only been here a few times before, once or twice with Aeris. It still looked the same with the hole still in the roof from where Cloud fell in. The flowers looked beautiful when illuminated, with the reactors no longer sucking up all of the life energy around Midgar the flowers grew well by themselves.
Soon the pair were tucked up, it was a fairly warm night and they had a lot on their minds, but both of them were very tired after the events of the last few weeks, especially the last two days and soon drifted off to sleep.
~ ~ ~
The lookout sat on the roof of an old shop near to the edge of Neo-Midgar. Mae Haaker was originally from Wutai and she looked very Wutaneese. She had come to Midgar three years ago to seek her fortune. She didn't find it but found a loving husband and a reasonable job working for Shinra. When meteor came, she wanted to spend her last hours by her lover's side.
She had survived by a few centimetres; he had not been so lucky.
Now she sat, illuminated by the burning torches set up around the camp, listening to the noises of the night. It had been a long time since she had heard silence, Midgar was never quiet. The wildlife had not yet returned to the area and Mae had a very good sense of hearing so she could hear the sound of the approaching chocobos. She listened carefully for a few seconds, the crackling of the flames suddenly seemed too loud. Realising that it was better to be safe then sorry, she stood up and shouted out at the top of her voice. "CHOCOBOS ARE COMING!"
Groaning noises could be heard from the camp as some people got up to inspect the situation. Olton used his pocket lighter to light another torch and have a look outside of the city. The chocobo riders were faintly outlined, but even he could hear them now.
"GET UP EVERYONE!" he yelled. "RAIDERS ARE COMING!"
The town suddenly began to spring to life. Some people were in sleep too deep to be woken up by even the commotion, but most of the officers were about and grabbing their materia, ready for battle.
Mae craned her neck to get a good look at the attacking army. "I can see about thirty chocobos heading this way sir!"
There was the sound of a shotgun being fired, and Mae's chest exploded sending blood everywhere.
"$*&%!" shouted Olton. "Someone cure her now!"
The ground shook as the flock of chocobos closed in. A militia formed by the gate to the city, materia at the ready. "On my word," began an officer. More shots fired out, some hitting the officer giving commands. The chocobos were now illuminated by the torchlight. "Fire at will!" shouted another officer.
Then the sky lit up as various spells were cast.
~ ~ ~
"Tifa."
Tifa sat up and looked around her. Who had been calling her name? She stood up and peered into the darkness of the church around her. When she turned around she could see a light, a green glow. It was getting larger as its source was getting closer.
"W-who's there?" she questioned.
"Don't worry, it's only me."
Tifa's mind began to spin as she realised who it had to be, despite all logic. "It can't be…"
"This is just a dream Tifa, there is no need to be alarmed. I'm speaking to you from the lifestream, I've been watching you and Cloud for some time now."
"Aeris?"
The figure was now clearly visible and stood directly in front of Tifa. She was still wearing her favourite pink dress that she had died in.
"I miss you, friend. But why are you in my dream and not in Cloud's? I'm sure he would be the logical choice for you to talk to."
"As I said, I don't want to disrupt your lives too much. If Cloud saw me how do you think he would feel? He would be heartbroken again, that would make me unhappy and if Cloud was weeping over me again, I'm sure it would make you unhappy too. No one would benefit, so I am talking to you. You must promise me not to tell Cloud unless the situation becomes critical. Much as I may want to talk to him, the end would not be worth it."
"Always the noble one, eh? Don't worry, I can keep a secret. But you probably know all about that, after all I told Cloud the truth when we were in the lifestream! But what do you mean by a critical situation? What's going on? I thought it was all over, wasn't holy supposed to sort out all of the loose ends?"
"That is why I have broken my silence to talk to you. Holy may have destroyed meteor with the help of the lifestream and me but ultimately it failed. Holy was supposed to destroy all threats to the planet, it deactivated all of the remaining weapons but only managed to shut down Shinra's Mako reactors. The main problem is Jenova…"
"So it isn't over." Tifa looked down at the floor and felt very tired again.
"Holy was supposed to destroy all traces of Jenova, but Cloud's continued existence is proof enough that it failed. Sephiroth may be gone, but the planet feels that more of Jenova's cells are out there somewhere. We know that Jenova will strike again, but we don't know how, when or who."
"So I just have to stay on guard for now?"
The flower girl nodded.
"Aren't you bitter at all? He loved you, you know."
"I know, but look at the way things are. Besides, I'm not the type of girl to hold a grudge."
"You are too nice, you know that?" giggled Tifa. "If you had lived though, Which one of us do you think Cloud would have chosen?"
The ethereal Aeris put her hands behind her back and leaned forwards in her traditional pose.
The two girls laughed as Aeris began to fade away. "Wait, you said you had two messages from the planet!"
"Goodbye Tifa, the other message is for all of your group but only you can hear it for now. It is short, only two words."
All that was visible now was a green mist. "Goodbye Aeris." The mist vanished and two words hung in the air.
"Thank you."
~ ~ ~
Iona had been sitting on the porch of one of the houses, staring up at the stars for the first time in her memory. The night sky had always been obscured by the plate above and the lights were too bright in the city to be able to make anything out anyway. This meant that she was awake when the flashes of light began. She stood and turned towards Neo-Midgar.
More flashes came, now faster then before. She recognised them as spells, Ice2, Bio, Fire3.
Iona rushed back into the house to pick up her sword. 'It has to be a raider attack,' she thought.
"Light!" She lit up the area and began to run back to sector 4 with her sword held in front of her. 'I hope Jess and the others in Arikara will be fine while I'm gone.'
The materia made it bright enough for Iona to see as clearly as day; this let her run as fast as she could without worrying about tripping over any of the debris that still littered the roads. 'I have to help them!'
~ ~ ~
On the other side of the world it was still early morning. A golden chocobo ran into the town with a half asleep ninja on its back. Being intelligent and not one to hold a grudge, the chocobo decided to wake its passenger.
"WARK!"
The call woke the passenger and some of the late sleepers in nearby houses. Yuffie, of course, fell off of the chocobo's back and landed on her back on the ground of her hometown. She quickly stood up and a huge grin crossed her face.
"I'm back!" she shouted out. "And I have a lot of materia."
She took a deep breath of Wutaneese air, picked up her pack (which was full of materia) and began to walk over to her father's house.
Some townspeople watched her go by; she waved triumphantly at some of her old 'friends' when she saw them staring at her from their windows. Yuffie was happy, she had saved the world and got her hands on a large amount of powerful materia. Now she could walk through the streets of her hometown with her head held high, and hopefully gain the respect of all of the inhabitants.
"Godo, I'm back!" she shouted as she walked into the large house. Yuffie then ran down the corridor looking for her father. She found him in his room practising wielding his sword.
He glared at her and then asked, "So what happened? We saw the sky light up when we expected meteor to strike, what became of you and your friends journey to the northern crater?"
Yuffie began to talk excitedly and quickly, waving her hands about in her enthusiasm. She explained all about the end of Shinra, Sephiroth and Midgar and about how she got most of the group's materia.
"So Midgar is no more?"
"Yes, Cloud sent me here to ask you and the rest of Wutai to help the survivors. You know, like, food, rescue workers and stuff."
Godo looked at his daughter with some pride. "You have done well. With Shinra gone Wutai can be free once again, we may even be able to expand to distant shores. This materia will come in very useful in the future."
Yuffie thought about his words for a moment. "Are you planning something?" she inquired. "I hope you're not going to take advantage of all of the poor people who used to live in Midgar."
Godo laughed. "Don't worry dear daughter, I will make sure that we send aid to them. And I will make sure that they know who sent it."
~ ~ ~
Delvin slowed his chocobo down as he re-loaded his gun. The battle was not going as well as planned. The defenders were more heavily armed then he had expected and were not giving up, despite their heavy casualties. The Riders of Darkness were making progress, the defence lines had crumbed before them, but now individuals were fighting his men, surrounding individual chocobo riders and blasting them with a variety of spells and weapons. He had lost almost half of his men already.
Delvin focused on a dark man who seemed to be giving commands. The rider kicked his chocobo and it sped towards Olton. Olton saw Delvin coming and raised his Bio materia, but he was too slow.
"Bolt2!"
A thunderbolt hit Olton's outstretched hand, giving him a strong shock. Delvin then raised his gun and shot Olton's hand off.
Iona ran into the scene of chaos just as this happened. Her sword already outstretched she screamed inside with anger but ran forward silently as her training had taught her.
She saw the unshaven raider pick up the semi-conscious Olton by his shirt. "Put him down now!" she demanded.
Delvin's only response was to re-load his gun, but Iona was faster then he thought. She ran up to him and leaped up, slashing his arm with her sword. The light materia on it still glowed brightly and so made the turn of events even more surprising for him. Delvin dropped his prisoner from pain and shock, clutching his right arm where she had struck him.
"You'll pay for that you bitch!" he shouted over the roar of the battle. One of his riders came up behind her, but she merely spun round and decapitated him, leaving his chocobo to run off in a panic.
"Leave this one to us darling," suggested Annette, flanked by three riders on either side.
"Cure 3 – All!" shouted Iona during her reprieve. A green glow appeared over all of her wounded people, healing them dramatically.
Delvin looked about in a panic; he had not expected anyone like her.
The seven riders charged with their various weapons aimed at Iona while Delvin fumbled in his bag to try and find some cure materia to use on his arm.
"Use your summon materia Iona"
Iona didn't question the suggestion, instead she brought her sword above her head with the point facing upwards and called the power forth unto her attackers.
"Ultimate End!"
Everyone in the area paused what they were doing as the summon began, large amounts of energy were discharged as the knights came forth and all began their devastating combination. Each blow was far more then enough to send a chocobo and its rider into oblivion.
When it had finished there were deep cuts in the ground where the chocobos had been. The huge use of MP had exhausted Iona and she collapsed.
Delvin stared at the spot where his wife had been just a moment ago, still not believing what he had seen. She was gone, Annette was no more. Delvin felt his ever-present rage reach a new peak. That red hared woman would pay for what she had done. He pointed his gun at her and fired, but one of the townspeople jumped in the way of his shot and was hit instead.
"She saved my life…now I repay the favour…" he murmured as he died.
Now more people stood between him and her.
"Get out of here now! Or face the consequences!"
Delvin's quiet voice of reason spoke up from amidst his bloodlust. His men had lost, he had to run.
"Retreat!" he shouted, firing another shot in Iona's direction. It hit an officer, but her comrades returned fire.
Delvin felt fear as he was pursued towards the exit. It was all that girl's fault; he would be back and have revenge, if only there was a way around her immense power!
They were no match for the speed of his chocobo and soon he was back out in the barren wasteland that extended for miles around the city. Only two other riders followed him out.
"What happened back there boss?"
"We got annihilated!"
Delvin looked at them, still not fully comprehending the enormity of the calamity that had just occurred. "That girl," he snarled. "Is the source of all of our troubles. Come, we must get to Kalm to try to recover. I am so tired that I cannot use my materia and I need to get this arm seen to."
The defeated raiders urged their chocobos through the night towards the nearby town of Kalm that had been overflowing with refugees before meteor had even struck.