Chapter 34: Clouds of Fire

"It is not safe here…" Red XIII finished saying after a lengthy sniff.

"But you just said that there was moogles around?" Tifa said.

Suddenly, there was a great shake in the ground. The marshy water started to boil, sending up venomous gases. Clippers, large crab like creatures, emerged from the once silent wetlands, clacking their huge claws. Stampeding like frightened cattle, they rushed past Cloud, Tifa, and Red. The fumes were getting thicker as fire started to burst from the ground. The marshes were collapsing.

{Cloud. Come to me. Insignificant beast, your death will be by my hands alone.}

Cloud turned behind him. The once misty skies became alive with red and black. Great pillars of fire tore through the muddy earth, letting loose the poisons of the swamp left in the bogs. The cattails and marsh grasses were swaying in the fiery blaze. Everything was tense.

"Cloud! We have to get out of here!" Tifa shouted above the blasting rocks

"Cloud! Lets go!" Red XIII roared.

Cloud watched the skies light above. A thick, brimstone fog was rolling in. "…I…I can't. I must stay and face him."

Tifa and Red XIII looked at each other, and then back at Cloud. Tifa held out a hand to protest, but Red shook his head.

"He must do whatever he can to rid himself of this…"

"Cloud! We won't leave you behind, but… if you really want to do this alone…we'll meet you at Burmecia." Tifa shouted.

Cloud nodded just as great chunks of earth flew into the burning sky. He then turned his back on them, and waded into the walls of fire, untouched.

Tifa's eyes began to water. Distant memories were flying at her like missiles. Crater. The Jenova Reunion. Sephiroths massacre of Nebelhiem. Was Cloud… becoming Sephiroth? Red grabbed Tifa by the leg with his mouth and flung her onto his back. He may have been a book reader, but he was strong and fast. The two rushed out of the burning marsh, across flaming fields and finally into the Lachenta wetlands.

Unbeknownst to them, an entire ring of fire was forming around Burmeica. Tifa and Red would have to cross Gizamalukes grotto, and then the eternal rain fields before arriving at their destination.

Once Tifa and Red were out of earshot, Cloud looked into the heavens and shouted a calling into the clouds of fire. "COME AND FACE ME SEPHIROTH!"

** *

Cid, Barret, and Yuffie found themselves sliding down a flashing steel pipe. Several colors were lighting and dying within. Neon blue, Red, Yellow, Green, and Black lights. It was as if they were in a techno nightclub slide. Sliding at an amazing speed, the trio had yet to notice the thumping electric music. This and the whale song. Suddenly after a while of gradual descent, the slide just dropped straight down, causing even Barret to scream with surprise. But with animal instinct, Barret stuck his legs to the side, causing him to slow down and eventually stop. Since he was in the front, Yuffie and Cid fell onto his broad back. The lights were still illuminating themselves across AVALANCHES faces.

Cid let out a sigh of relief. "What the hell is this?!"

"Looks and sounds like a nightclub." Yuffie answered.

"Dis some sick idea of a slide or something? Dat Judgment foo is gonna pay!" Barret said.

"I hope that Freya and the rest our ok." Yuffie whispered.

Joining the thumping techno beat, a high-pitched voice came on. {"Get on the floo cus it's burning like fire! And when I say kick your legs higher!"}

"What the ^&%$ is that supposed to mean?!" Cid asked.

Barret looked from the side of brilliant party walls into the darkness below. A smlight shaking was felt and a plume of heat started rising.

"Oh shit… Climb!" Barret shouted.

{"Kick your legs higher!"}

Cid, being last in line, scrambled to get up the slide of the tube. Being a mechanist, he had to do this kind of thing a lot while working on the Shin-Ra 26. But he wasn't his young monkey self. Yuffie, being a ninja and smaller than Cid, quickly leaped around the old pilot and started making her way up like a spider monkey.

{"Kick your legs higher!"}

Barret scrambled up the side at his pace. Desperately looking for an exit.

{Get on the floo cus it's burning like fire! Get on the floo cus it's burning like fire! Get on the floo cus it's burning like fire! And when I say kick your legs higher!"}

"Damn this song is annoying!" Cid shouted as he tried to find an air intake or something, but was constantly blinded by an illuminating light. The fire, as it was presumed, was now visible and rising up the tube, shattering the light bulbs as it rose.

"Here's an exit!" Yuffie yelled, kicking in a loose panel and rolling in. Cid leaped in, followed by Barret.

A fast paced drumbeat came over the speakers. The trio found themselves in a rectangular room, lighted the same way as the tunnel had. The same song was playing. There were places on the ground that lit up on certain beats, like a dance trainer.

"Hey! Someone shut the damn panel!" Cid yelled. Being a pilot, he knew that the fire would fly in when it caught up with the panel. Barret quickly agreed.

"There's a door!" Yuffie said. "Gawd, we're saved from this music!"

The door immediately locked. Barret shot a couple rounds into the steel door but nothing happened. The drumbeat ended.

{"Get on the floo cus it's burning like fire! And when I say kick your legs higher!"}

Hot gas was blown in from the floor, heating the ground. The dance panels lit up.

"The grounds heaten up foos! What do we do?" Barret started to sweat.

"Call me a %^&*in numbskull, but I think this a dance club. Shera and I visited a damn thing and I failed miserably." Cid shouted.

Yuffie began to place her feet on the panels when the lit up. Doing so caused the heated gas to dissipate a little.

"Guys! Like, we gotta dance to open the door!" Yuffie smiled.

"That's the STUPIDEST thing I ever heard!" Barret and Cid said in unison. Heated white gas once again was pumped into the floor.

Like drunken fools in a sauna, the three members started to try and place their feet on the panels. Needless to say, Cid is a lousy dancer, especially to techno music.

{"Kick your legs higher!"}

Yuffie was actually a good dancer. Well, at least she could get her legs high enough to please the gas machine. Barret was a great break dancer and that helped a little.

Glowing sticks projected from the already dark lit walls. They began to turn, bringing lights around the whole room.

"Remind me to never to go to a dance club again if we survive this thing!" Cid moaned.

** *

Irontail Fratley was an adventurer. As a dragoon knight of Burmecia, it was his job to protect it from alien threats. When EON first attacked, he had sent Freya to Alexandria to get help. But after a fierce battle with the lives of many lost, he lay in the ruins of the Burmeican temple, reflecting on his life.

It had been almost an entire day since he fell where he was and the spawn left. Irontail had a broken back, a broken leg, three broken ribs, and massive wounds about his body. But for some reason, he would not die. The EON spawn, which left long ago to battle the airship fleets, simply could not harm the rat. But his fellow men, HIS men, had all fallen to the claws of the mutated. His famous hat now lies on a rock near him, letting his long blonde wind blow in the hot wind. He clutched his lance every time he could feel pain.

("Sir! They've broken in!") Fratley could hear his men, shouting as the intruders broke through the massive gates of Burmecia. Light pelts of rain fell onto his face, disabling him to close his eyes and just stop trying.

("There's too many of them! We can't hold them back!")

Not since the Alexandrian armies of mages had so many fell. Fratley wasn't even around at the time. He had suffered amnesia and forgot who he was until he found Prince Puck.

("Quickly! To the evacuation route! The soldiers will buy time for you!") Fratley remembered the king telling the civilians to go. He couldn't remember if they made it out or not.

(" Fratley! There are only twenty men left! What do we do?!") He had made the mistake of ordering them to stay and fight. All of them perished before the hordes. Fratley turned his head a little, enabling him to see through a hole in the roof. The Burmecian hand stood tall and black in a wave of rain.

At least his love Freya was still alive. And now he would die and never see her again. A tear fell from his eye.

"Hello?" A female voice rang in the background. Was Fratley going delusional?

"F-Freya?" Irontail spat out blood as he coughed his loves name.

Into his blurry vision came a human girl, about 14 or so.

"Bu the planet! Are you alright?" The girl asked. In her had, she held a baby moogle.

"Alas, I am… dying. I am of no use to anything right now. Will you do me a favor, little girl?" Fratley asked.

"Sir?"

"Would you take my lance, and rid me of this life that I hang from?"

Memoria kneeled down onto the cold stone floor. She placed her warm dry hand on the Burmecian's forehead. "I can not do this for you, Irontail. You're kingdom still needs you."

"My kingdom has no need of me. I have failed it…"

"Nonsense. Your old king would never allow such a thing!"

Fratley looked surprised. "How do you know what the late king would have done? He is dead, by the hands of the Alexandrian army so many years ago."

"I know him well, Irontail. He would not want you to lie dying on the ground, regretting everything you have done in life. What about Freya?"

"…You are right, dear child. But I still lie here. Death awaits me, and there is nothing I can do to stop it."

Memoria placed the baby moogle on Fratleys wounded chest. She placed her hands together and looked skyward. In a bright flash, Irontail no longer carried the wounds of battle, but a heart eager to live.

"What have you done?! Who are you!?" Irontail was extremely surprised.

"Hush. I know you have many questions, Irontail. I am simply Memoria. If you truly appreciate the gift I have given you, you will find your true love in the bowels of EON."

"EON?"

"The thing that has killed all of your men."