Chapter 4: Sunrise
Cloud yawned and stretched himself. That had been the first proper nights sleep since his battle with Sephiroth in the Northern Crater. He sat up and looked around, he could see that Tifa was already up.
"Morning Cloud, how did you sleep?"
He looked up at the girl and thanked her for the breakfast she had made for him. "I slept well thanks, I had this wonderful dream…"
Tifa raised an eyebrow, had Aeris been telling her the truth? "Who was in it?"
Cloud looked at her as if it was obvious. "Why, you and Aeris of course." Tifa decided to leave it there, Aeris wouldn't have visited Cloud in a dream if she was also there, would she?
Cloud attacked the small meal that had been so lovingly prepared. "Get ready Cloud, we've got more work to do today."
The warrior stood up and equipped himself with his sword and materia. "Ready Tifa?" The pair looked at each other and gave a quick nod before heading out into the fresh air to search for any more people trapped under the rubble.
"You know, Cloud?"
"Yea?"
"Are you happy that it's all over, that the world has been saved and that our work is done?" Tifa wanted to know how Cloud felt about what she feared was coming next without telling him about it.
"I suppose so, I don't think I'll miss all of our battles that much but…"
"So what do you want to do now?"
Cloud looked at Tifa with a slight shine in his eyes. "I'll tell you once we have this mess sorted out."
Tifa began to think about Cloud's words and what Aeris had said, perhaps Cloud was thinking about settling down…with her!
The scene looked no better then last night, except that there were a few more blades of grass scattered about the city. "We should've brought Red along," commented Tifa. "He would've been useful for finding the trapped people."
They carried on their search.
~ ~ ~
Iona slowly woke up. She snapped her eyes open as her training had conditioned her to do and tried to stand up, she quickly found that she was still weak and fell back onto the soft mattress she had been sleeping on.
Soft mattress?
Then she remembered the last moments before she collapsed, what had happened afterwards? She could remember the power flowing through her, was that the power of her new summon?
"But it still had not been enough."
Iona looked around again; she was alone in a tent. Who had said that? Whoever it was, they were right. Neo-Midgar is still not strong enough and she might not always be around to protect it. What was missing? The people had fought bravely to her recollection, but they lacked training and had only basic materia and weapons. That was what she had to see to.
A figure opened the door to her tent and walked in, she recognised him as a boy she had saved from a collapsed tower block. He was very lucky to be alive, as were most of the others she had saved.
"Miss Versailis, you have recovered!" he beamed at her.
"What happened after I passed out?" she replied quickly.
"Well, the raiders had attacked suddenly and we weren't doing well until you turned up. That summon was amazing Iona, it really turned the tide in our favour! After that the remainder panicked, they tried to get away but kept fighting even after we asked them to stop. Almost all of them were killed, a good fifty or so but…" his voice trailed off.
"We took heavy casualties didn't we?" The boy nodded silently. "Let me up, I want to see what's left and help. Has someone been using my 'cure' materia?"
The boy shook his head. "No way miss, we wouldn't dare to take your materia."
Iona sighed. "If people's lives are in danger, you have to help them. Feel free to use my materia to help people if I am unable to." She slowly stood, shaking on her feet.
"Let me help you, miss Versailis." The young boy walked over to her and put one of her arms over his shoulders to steady her. "You really should rest some more."
"Don't worry about me," she complained but he led her on.
The once calm town of Neo-Midgar was now a scene of further destruction. Craters littered the landscape and there were bullet holes everywhere. Most of the tents were either torn or burnt down and the building they had been using for meetings had now collapsed too. In the middle of the town the deep cuts from Iona's summon were still visible, a small scar in the landscape of concrete and dirt. The survivors of this assault were still busy, trying to get the town operational again. The dead had clearly been taken away, Iona wondered what the townspeople had done with them. At the side of the ruins of the headquarters a small fence had been erected, inside three chocobos trotted around. 'They must have been found after the fight' she thought.
A familiar man jogged over to her, his suit was even tattier then before and he had a shirt wrapped around the end of one of his arms as a makeshift bandage, it was now a deep and dark shade of red.
"Olton, you're alive!"
She tried to run over towards him and he rushed forwards to catch her as she fell again. He was able to support her with his one good arm. "It's good to see you again," he said. She smiled back at him.
"So, how bad was it? How do you feel?"
Olton pushed his twisted glasses up and frowned. "They got us good, about half of our people are seriously injured and there were a number of deaths. The worst of it is our supplies, our food tents got burnt down in the crossfire and now we have enough to last us two days tops."
Iona took in the news with a grave look on her face, Olton could see her mind working at a frenzied pace as she made plans to try and cope with the logistics of the problems at hand.
"Hey!" added Olton. "Don't ware yourself out, we need you as a leader. There is some good news ya' see."
Iona paused for a moment. "It has to be something pretty amazing to save us…"
"It's just what we may have been hopin' for. Ya' see yesterday I met this couple who were coming into the city from outside to help people, kinda like you. Anyway, they said that they had friends who were goin round the world trying to organise help. They even said we should expect the first lot to be hear by today!"
"So we will get help from outside sooner then we expected..."
"Exactly. Now you just go back to your tent and rest some more, I'll help to sort this lot out."
"No way, look at you!" exclaimed Iona. "You need a rest far more then I do." The two tried to stare each other out until the boy intervened.
"Look, why don't you both take a rest? I'm sure us officers can sort everything out. Both of you'll be a lot more useful to the group if you've had a proper rest."
They both looked at him. "What was your name?" asked Iona.
"My name is Quinn Vig miss." Iona was made to remember her brother Quinn; she wondered where he was, had he survived?
"You've got a good mind Quinn, I'm sure you'll go far." The two leaders gave each other a nod and retired to their 'quarters.'
Their rests were interrupted half an hour later by the roar of landing planes.
~ ~ ~
Delvin sat in the overcrowded bar in Kalm with his two surviving colleagues. They had gotten some sleep and were now pondering their next course of action. The leader rubbed his arm where Iona had struck him with her sword; it would be a few more days before he would be able to go into battle again.
They sat in gloom, wondering what to do. The two healthy members of the group had already silently relieved half of the occupants of the bar of their valuables; the money would come in useful.
"How about them?" suggested the younger 'Rider of Darkness.' She nodded over towards a table in the other corner where two men and a woman in blue suits were sitting.
"Are you nuts?" suggested the other one. "Those are the Turks! No one steals from them successfully. I think we should be happy with what we've got."
"Is that a challenge?"
"No, you'd have to be an idiot to even try it."
"Either that or be as good as me."
The young raider stood up and began to make his way around the room. "He's lost it," commented the other one to Delvin.
In the meantime the Turks were also looking gloomy. They had lost their employers and their city, the world had been saved and they had lived thanks to the mercy of AVALANCHE. That was part of the problem, no one ever showed the Turks mercy, they never needed it. Now they were also lost and alone.
"How about the Gold Saucer?" suggested Rude. "They could do with some hardmen."
"But the Gold Saucer is shutting down, haven't you heard?" replied Elena. "They were already going out of business after Shinra collapsed, with Midgar gone, where will their customers come from?"
The defeated Turks turned back to their drinks, except for Reno who turned to face the man trying to creep up behind him. "Can I help you at all?" he asked angrily.
The raider looked about sheepishly. "No, no. No problems here." Then he casually returned to his table.
"Well, perhaps we should just go to Junon. There's obviously no work for us here," added Rude. "Perhaps someone there will need our… services."
Then Delvin began to hear the voice again, the voice he now blamed for the disaster.
"If you seek power and revenge head north. There you will find what you seek, if you are not too weak…"
"What the hell are you?" he demanded. "Why should I listen to you?"
"You know it makes sense, there is no other way. I am your best hope."
Delvin realised that his friend was staring at him.
"What?"
~ ~ ~
Cait Sith wondered what he would tell his friends. How could he tell them that he had been working on automatic for the last few days? And that he hadn't received a command from Reeve for as long? Cait Sith had no idea where Reeve was and was worried about him. Technically Cait knew that he was just a copy of Reeve, but that didn't stop him from feeling worried.
The halls of power in Junon had been filled with a number of confused people. The Shinra Corporation had ceased to exist officially but there were still a large number of people who thought they were working for Shinra. After all Shinra had run Junon, so once the main branch of the company had collapsed the officials running Junon just carried on in the name of Shinra. Cait had all of Reeve's knowledge so was able to access all of the systems and organise a rescue team quite quickly.
Now Cait sat on his stuffed moogle and watched the city he had once thought of as home from a window of the 'Trafalgar,' a ship built to the same design as AVALANCHE's Highwind. The ruins looked foreboding, but he knew that he had to lead his teams around the area, even into the city, to search for survivors. As the ship brought out it's landing gear he caught a glimpse of the cluster of tents which was Neo-Midgar.
"It looks like there seems to be some sort of organised group down there," he commented to the nearby rescue workers.
Back in Junon Cait Sith had been forced to pull rank against some of the other officials. Fortunately news of Reeve's arrest had not made it to Junon, and as his location was unknown, for all intents and purposes Cait Sith was Reeve.
One of the Shinra managers standing near to him held his head with one hand. 'How could the remains of Shinra be ruled by a creature like this?' he thought.
There was a shudder as the airship finally came to a landing. "Come on, we're here!" The three other ships, also from Junon came to safe landings nearby, the other ships had different designs, they looked smaller and bulkier and were all coloured a dirty brown.
Cait noticed that the ground beneath his moogle's padded feet had a few blades of grass growing in it. 'I suppose I should have expected this after the reactors were taken out,' he thought.
He watched as the well-trained troops marched out of the ships in their Shinra uniforms, there had even been a few squadrons of SOLDIERS in Junon which now fell under Cait's command. They also arranged themselves in front of their new leader. Cait waited for them to finish and then began to speak.
"You have all already been given your orders so I expect you to carry them out properly. I know many of you may have had friends or family who had decided to stay in Midgar, but you have to remember your training and follow the procedures. Now get to it, we have people to save!"
The assembly saluted and then marched off towards the city. Cait Sith and some of the high ranking officials of Shinra got into an all-terrain buggy which had been transported in the 'Trafalgar'.
"Where are we going president Cait Sith?"
"I saw a tent town from the air, I want to meet this group. They probably would be a good group to start giving our supplies to." Cait nodded (or rather the cat did) towards the trailer which held the first batch of their food aid, mostly consisting of canned food. "We want to make a good name for ourselves with these people, they feared the old Shinra. We need to regain their trust if the company is to recover."
"Yes sir!"
The buggy headed off towards sector 4, overtaking SOLDIERS on either side.
~ ~ ~
Jess was worried. She had woken up to find that her new friend had disappeared. After asking the various people they had saved yesterday she gained no new information as to where Iona had gone, until she asked one young man…
"I don't know about Iona, perhaps it was something to do with those explosions coming from sector 4…"
"What explosions?"
"During the night, there were sounds of a battle coming from sector 4."
Jess quickly made the connection. Neo-Midgar had to be in trouble, so Iona had run off to help it. "Can you lot sort yourselves out for a bit?" she asked.
"What?"
"I have to see Iona, I have to make sure that she is alright." With that Jess started to run towards sector 4, sprinting down vaguely familiar paths.
~ ~ ~
Iona and Olton stood side by side to welcome the buggy as it rode through the gates. They suddenly changed stance to be more aggressive when they saw the Shinra logo on the side of the buggy and the suits that sat inside.
"What the hell is that?" asked Olton pointing to Cait Sith.
"Don't worry," boomed a voice over a megaphone. "We're the head of the rescue team!"
The buggy screeched to a halt in the dirt and the occupants hopped out. "Hello," greeted Cait. "I'm Cait Sith, the new president of Shinra. We now plan to be a helpful and caring company and to start we want to help you."
"What do you make of this?" whispered Olton to his leader.
Iona shrugged. "We need all the help we can get." She turned to Cait. "Thanks a lot, if your intentions are what you claim. We are in need of food desperately as we have just lost most of our supplies to raiders." Iona thought for a moment. "There is a favour we would also like to ask of you."
"What?"
"Well, we had heard that Shinra had dissolved and so have made plans to put this mako reactor to use. We were wondering if we could have your permission and help to get it working again."
Cait frowned, or rather tried to but he hadn't been designed for it. Cait had seen all that AVALANCHE had and knew what the mako reactors did to the planet.
"I'm sorry," he began. "But Shinra not longer supports the use of mako reactors."
The other Shinra officials gasped in surprise, Cait had not mentioned a radical idea like that to them yet. One of them stepped forwards. "With all due respect Mr. President such a dramatic policy change would have to be reviewed by…"
Cait cut him off. "I have seen things in my travels which have changed my mind about the use of these reactors."
Iona was shouting inside. 'Shinra were back?' 'They were against mako reactors?' 'This ruins my plans to use the reactor to create materia for my people. How can we survive in this new world without a source of power and materia?' Iona spoke up.
"How then are we to restore power quickly to this town?"
Cait didn't have an easy answer to that. "Don't worry miss…"
"Iona Versalis."
"Miss Versalis, we will help your people providing they continue not to use the mako reactors. You will be supplied with an alternative sometime in the future. Until then remember that that the reactors still belong to Shinra." The Shinra delegation was now negotiating about their new president and how to make him change his mind.
"We are looking forwards to working peacefully with Shinra in the future," concluded Iona through gritted teeth.
~ ~ ~
"Did you hear that Cloud?" asked Tifa as the airships came down.
"Yes, It sounds like Cait actually did something well for once, those airships could only have come from Junon."
Soon they met up with a group of SOLDIERS. "Hey!" shouted one of them. "I recognise you, you-you're Cloud Strife!"
The squad turned to the spiky hared hero. Cloud jumped in surprise. "SOLDIER's? I thought you lot disbanded with Shinra!"
The squad leader looked at Cloud with a puzzled expression on his face. "Shinra never disbanded, we've just been a little disorganised over in Junon for a while. Anyway, Cloud Strife and Tifa Lockheart you are both wanted for terrorist actions against Shinra...""
'What was this?' thought Cloud. 'Didn't Cait remove the rest of AVALANCHE from the wanted lists of SOLDIER?'
"Look there has to be some kind of misunderstanding here," began Tifa as she stepped forwards. "Shinra was finished, the company folded didn't you hear? We saved the world you know!"
"Surrender now or prepare to fight!"
Cloud began to get very worried. He and Tifa were good, but even they would have a hard time against a whole squad of SOLDIERS at once. Cloud rushed over to Tifa and grabbed her arm. "EXIT!" he shouted.
There was a flash and the two of them found themselves running away from the SOLDIERS.
"If I had my best materia, they wouldn't be a problem!" shouted Cloud. "I'm going to have to get even with Yuffie for this!"
They kept on running away from their pursers until they found that they were in the centre of the city. They collapsed onto the floor to catch their breath. Before either one could speak they were startled by a loud buzzing noise. It was coming from a solid metal doorway that sat embedded into the base of the central pillar of Midgar. As they watched in silence a line began to appear as sparks shot out. They sat mesmerised as the cut moved along the side of the door and began to form a doorway…
~ ~ ~
President Saldana stood in his suit with his arms crossed as he watched the engineer use the cutter on the doorway.
"We're almost through sir!" exclaimed one secretary.
The guards stood waiting, ready to react to whatever was outside. The corridor fell silent as the line of cut metal met itself in the doorway. The engineer in the protective red overalls gave the door a solid kick and everyone held their breath as the segment of the doorway fell outwards. They all covered their eyes for a moment before their eyes got accustomed to the natural light and then they began to step forwards and out into the world.