DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN FF7 OR ANY OF ITS CHARACTERS

Chapter Sixteen

The party members backed up against the wall, looking around frantically for some way of escape, knowing that if they didn't find one they'd be dead in seconds.

"Don't we have any Limit Breaks?" Reno yelled.

"Just mine and Rude's!" exclaimed Barret.

"We're &$%^ed," said Cid, tossing away his cigarette and gripping the Venus Gospel in both hands. "Time to die fighting."

"FIRE!" the lead soldier commanded, and the six of them responded in unison.

Things seemed to move in slow motion as the super soldiers fired their weapons, and the heroes dived to the floor to avoid the first round of bullets, with the exception of Cid who defiantly stayed on his feet, miraculously avoiding being shot. He was therefore the only one who saw the doors behind the soldiers flung open, though he couldn't make out who was in the darkness beyond. Was it Cloud? Had he come to senses at last and returned to help them?

As he saw the four dice rolling out of the darkness towards the feet of the super soldiers, Cid knew it wasn't Cloud. The soldiers, preoccupied with reloading their weapons, hadn't seen Cait Sith's dice, and Cid watched with bated breath as the four small cubes rolled to a stop.

Four sixes. Unbelievable. The chances against it had to be about –

"BRACE YOURSELVES!!" Cid yelled, diving behind a wooden bench and covering his head with his hands, hoping the rest of the party were in similarly protective positions.

The huge explosion shook not only the laboratory, but the very foundations of the Junon harbour. Chunks of falling rock and other debris fell on top of the heroes. Vincent was the first to get back to his feet.

"The soldiers have been destroyed!" he shouted. "Quick! We must get out of here!"

The party scrambled to their feet, Cid and Reno supporting a slightly dazed Barret, and ran to the exit.

"What happened?" they heard Yuffie demanding. "Who set off the bomb?"

"That wasn't a bomb, it was Cait Sith's Limit Break!"

"But Cait Sith isn't here!"

"Yes he is! Don't you remember Reeve had brought one of the early prototype Cait toys to the Highwind for Marlene to play with? He must have found out we were in trouble, and sent Cait down to help us!"

"Of course!" Tifa exclaimed. "But what do we do now? Where's Hojo and Cloud?"

"They could be anywhere," said Elena.

They emerged from the darkened secret corridor into the main passage that led down to the underwater reactor. Red put his nose to the ground, then nodded towards the elevator, "They went this way!"

The heroes crammed into the elevator once more, and Tifa punched the button for the upper level. They ascended in silence. Once they reached the top, Cid threw the door open and they hurried out, looking for any signs of their enemy. Red sniffed the ground, "There are too many scents. I cannot tell which way they went."

"They won't have gone down to the dock, that's a dead end," said Tifa. "They must have headed back to the airstrip, the way we came."

They ran along the Junon path, retracing their earlier steps, each with only one thought on their minds: get Hojo. Up ahead they noticed something lying on the ground, a dark unmoving shape, too far away to tell what it was. Only Vincent and Red, with their inhuman vision, could make it out.

"Oh no," Red gasped, the hairs on top of his head standing up in apprehension.

"What? What can you see?" asked Cid.

"It is bad," said Vincent.

As they got closer to the object, they could see what it was.

"Oh no. Oh no! Reeve!!" Tifa screamed.

They clustered around the fallen figure of Reeve, lying on his front, completely motionless in a pool of his own blood. A short-bladed dagger protruding form his back told them how he had been attacked.

"Reeve? Are you all right? Can you hear me?" Tifa said anxiously, kneeling down beside him.

"He's gone, Tifa," said Barret.

Reeve wasn't quite gone. At the sound of their voices, he raised his head a few centimetres and croaked, "Ho…jo. Stabbed….me. Don't worry…about…Marlene. She is…safe…"

He slumped forward again, as if the effort of speaking had taken the last of his remaining strength. Tifa put her fingers on his neck, looking for a pulse, but there was nothing. Yuffie cried into Tifa's shoulder. Vincent narrowed his eyes and said, "Yet another of our friends is dead because of Hojo. How many more lives will he take?"

"None – not if we can help it!" Cid declared. "Reeve's given his life to save us, so we'd damn well better do something about it! We're gonna move out! Right now!"

He turned and broke into a run towards the airstrip. The others followed him, Reno pausing only briefly to take off his blue suit jacket and place it reverently over the dead form of Reeve. There would be time for them to mourn him properly later.

They arrived at the airstrip at full speed, only to see Hojo's getaway plane already moving down the runway.

"There he goes!" yelled Cid. "Kill the damn son of a &^$%*!!!!"

Barret pointed the Missing Score at the fleeing aircraft and opened fire. Vincent took careful aim with the Death Penalty and fired, denting one of its wings. Elena primed a grenade and flung it at the plane, but it landed a few yards short, causing no damage. The aircraft picked up speed and performed a successful take-off as it left the runway, climbing into the sky and disappearing from the sight of everyone but Red and Vincent.

* * *

They found the Highwind flying in a lazy circle a few miles south of Junon. Marlene saw them approaching and threw down the rope ladder. The ship was travelling slowly enough that they climbed on board without difficulty, and Cid ran to the bridge. Marlene ran to Barret and he hugged his adopted daughter, reassuring her, "It's OK, honey, we're all right."

"What about Uncle Reeve? He went to save you and left Cait Sith flying the ship! Is he OK?" she exclaimed.

"Uncle Reeve…Uncle Reeve won't be coming with us any more," said Barret sadly. "I'll tell you about it later. Daddy needs to talk with the others just now."

The party congregated on the bridge where they found Cid bringing the ship back on to a normal flight path.

"I see now what happened," he told him. "It wasn't Cait Sith who threw the dice down in the lab – it was Reeve. He must have left Cait here with some basic instructions on how to fly the ship. That explains why she was just circling round endlessly when we found her."

He pointed to where the Cait Sith doll stood unmoving, its hands still on the ship's controls.

"It must have been deactivated when Reeve died," said Red.

Cid nodded, "That's my guess."

"What about Hojo?" asked Vincent urgently. "Can we follow his ship?"

"Count on it! If my new engine can't outrun Hojo's piece of junk I'll never smoke again!"

He put the engines to full power, heading in the direction they'd seen Hojo's ship taking, and found themselves going west. Before long, Hojo's ship was in sight, just above the horizon.

"We don't want to outrun him," said Tifa. "We just want to keep him in sight. If we get too close to him, he might panic and do something regrettable."

"Like kill Cloud?" Reno suggested.

"Yes, like kill Cloud. We've got to find out where he's headed, then sneak up on him."

"I don't understand what happened to Cloud," said Elena. "It was like Hojo had taken control of his mind."

"I was wondering that too," said Tifa. "It was exactly like the times before when Sephiroth and Jenova took control of him."

"But they're both dead," Barret argued. "It can't have anything to do with them."

"Perhaps it can," said Red. "Think about it. Jenova is dead, but Cloud's body still carries some of her cells. As does Hojo's. Do you remember when we met Hojo – or his clone – on top of the Mako cannon? He told us he'd injected Jenova cells into his own body."

"So Hojo and Cloud both have some Jenova cells," said Reno. "So what? Doesn't make Jenova any less dead."

"No, but that might be the method that Hojo is using to control Cloud. If Hojo injected Jenova cells into his own brain – this is all highly theoretical, of course – it is possible that he might acquire the ability to control other small pockets of Jenova cells."

"Such as the ones inside Cloud?"

"Yes. Obviously it isn't as easy as that. After all, most of Cloud's body is still his own cells, so it would be difficult for the small number of Jenova cells to take over. But all Hojo would have to do would be to weaken Cloud's resistance, make him suggestible enough, then he would – but this is all highly theoretical, of course – be able to take over Cloud's mind."

"What do you mean: 'make him suggestible enough'?"

"I mean that Hojo would simply need to offer Cloud some arrangement that he might agree with. Because Cloud's natural instinct would be to defy Hojo in any way he could, this would make it extremely difficult to take over his mind. But if Cloud agreed to a suggestion Hojo made, it might open the way for Hojo to take control of his mind. Of course, this is – "

" – all highly theoretical," Reno and Cid chimed in.

"That would explain another thing," said Elena. "Remember I said that Hojo had some kind of transmitter in his brain to control the super soldiers? What if he's controlling them with their Jenova cells, same as Cloud?"

"Yes," said Red thoughtfully. "Yes, that sounds reasonable."

Yuffie interrupted, "But what deal could Hojo have offered that Cloud would have accepted?"

Barret shrugged, "Dunno, kid. I can't imagine Cloud agreein' to anything that crazy %&£$er suggested."

"I can," said Tifa morosely. "When Cloud passed me in the lab, I heard him say 'there is only one person I need, and Hojo will bring her back to me'. He must have been talking about Aeris."

"Aeris…" said Vincent.

"Can Hojo bring her back?" asked Cid dubiously.

Red shrugged, "Cloning her body would be easy enough, providing he has a sample of her DNA. Whether or not that would bring back the Aeris we knew and loved, I do not know. It is possible the DNA of an Ancient contains more than physical genes, but it is beyond my knowledge."

"Even if it's possible, Hojo is probably lying," Reno said. "He needed something to convince Cloud with, and that was the best thing he could think of."

"I'm not so sure…" said Vincent. "I knew Hojo better than any of you, and he was never a man given to bluffing. If he told Cloud he could bring back Aeris, he was probably telling the truth. Or at least, he thought he was."

"If it's possible…" Tifa said in a whisper. "Aeris…we could bring her back from the dead…"

"What about Reeve?" asked Yuffie.

"No, he isn't – wasn't – an Ancient. It would only work for someone like Aeris."

Cid spoke up, "We're approaching the western continent, kids. Looks like Hojo's going to Nibelheim."

"The Nibel reactor," said Tifa. "Do you think it was Hojo who attacked us with the poison darts?"

"Unlikely. As far as we know, he was in Midgar," said Red.

"We can ask him when we catch up with him," Barret growled. "Though it would give me great satisfaction for me to send him to his grave straight away."

"I would ask that I be the one to kill him," Vincent said grimly.

"He's just landed at the Nibel reactor," Cid reported. "I'll land somewhere in the mountains so we can approach on foot."

They touched down on a flat open space about halfway up the mountain range, not far from Mt Nibel.

"OK," said Cid, killing the engines. "We need a plan. Any suggestions?"

"Our first priority has to be to free Cloud from Hojo's control," said Red. "Killing Hojo would do the trick, but that might be hard with Cloud on his side. And there may still be some super soldiers left to contend with."

"Is there some way we can disrupt Hojo's mind control?" Yuffie suggested. "I know I don't know anything about it, but still…"

"I don't see how," Cid frowned. "It's not like jamming an electronic signal."

"Why don't we hit Cloud with some kind of sedative?" Elena suggested. "It'll knock him out and keep him out of harm's way during the battle, then he'll be back to normal once Hojo is dead."

"There's still the super soldiers."

"True…"

"We should just take the place by storm and overwhelm Hojo," Barret suggested.

"Too risky. We might end up having to kill Cloud to get to Hojo."

"I have a suggestion," said Vincent.

"Let's hear it."

"Going back to Yuffie's earlier idea…about disrupting the mind control. I was thinking…Hojo uses the Jenova cells in his brain to control small pockets of other Jenova cells in his soldiers?"

"That's right. Well, that's what Red reckons."

"What would happen if we were to introduce a large number of Jenova cells into the vicinity of Hojo? Would his Jenova cells be able to cope?"

"It would depend on how large a number you are talking about," said Red carefully.

"Are you suggesting what I think you are?" asked Tifa.

Vincent shrugged, "I don't know what you're thinking. But my suggestion is to find some of Jenova's remains, and bring them with us, to throw off Hojo's control."

"That might work," said Red, the excitement in his voice growing. "Yes, that just might work!"

"But where do we find Jenova's remains?" asked Elena.

There was silence for a few moments. Then Tifa suddenly looked up and said, "The ocean liner that used to run between Junon and Costa del Sol. When we fought Jenova there, part of her limb was left behind. We left it there, as far as I remember."

"…in that case I have bad news," said Rude. "It came to my attention during my time in the Midgar police force: that ship was sabotaged and sunk somewhere in the ocean a month ago. We'll never find it."

"You forget," said Cid. "We have the submarine from the Junon underwater reactor. The sub's scanning equipment should help us find the sunken ship."

"Don't forget the Shinra building laboratories," said Red. "I doubt any part of Jenova is still kept there, but it is still worth a look."

"We might also find something in the Forgotten City," Vincent suggested. "Where Aeris died. We fought another of the Jenova incarnations there. I don't remember if any of her body remained, but again…it is worth a look."

"Right," Cid agreed. "That's three places to search. We don't have much time, so I'll have to drop off people at different sites. We mustn't slip up! Everything depends on us finding some piece of Jenova's stinking corpse and bringing it back here to defeat Hojo!"

Red nodded sagely, "More so now than ever, failure is simply not an option."