pThe abrupt transition from the dark cargo bay of the iHighwind/i to the harsh flourescent light in the Shinra holding cell made Reeve's "awakening" even more disorienting than usual. He sat up with a wince and slowly worked out the cramps that his muscles had developed while he had leaned unconscious against the cold metal wall. iNext time,/i he vowed silently, iI'm making sure I'm comfortable before I do this./i
pAs he stood and took his bearings, he realized that things were not as they had been when he had left, exchanging his true body for the one of plush and steel that he wore to interact with the members of AVALANCHE... or what ihad been/i the members of the ecoterrorist organization. Now... well, that last scene, if nothing else, had proven that the vigilantes had become much more. iThey're heroes, now./i Reeve thought with a growing sense of awe. iWe're all fucking heroes, off to save the world. But first, to get out of this cell.../i
pIt was too silent. iThat/i was what had been bothering him. He moved to peer through the bars, but as he leaned against the door, it slid open. He yelped and tottered, struggling to keep his balance. Tihat shouldn't have caught me that off-guard./i he realized. iMy reflexes have changed./i How many times has Cait Sith fallen down, lately? None, of course. At first he had been clumsy in the puppet's form, but now, he moved with ease... an ease that he seemed to be losing in his flesh-and-blood form. The implications were disturbing.
pHe stepped out of the cell. Still, the silence lingered, only the faint hum of machinery. There were no guards in sight. iWere Scarlet and Heidegger really killed when we destroyed that ridiculous walking tank of hers?/i (iWe./i a silent part of his mind whispered. iYou said "we." Not "AVALANCHE," not even "Cloud and the Gang." "We." Who are you? Reeve or Cait Sith? Shinra executive or terrorist collaborator?/i) iI'm me!/i he thought back at the insolent mental voice. iThey know who I am, now, and they accept that! There's no reason I can't be both!/i The mental voice just chuckled darkly. He pushed it aside, and walked down the hall, self-consciously smoothing the wrinkles out of his suit as he walked.
pThe silence of the place sent chills down his spine. The Shinra headquarters that he had known had been a place of bustling activity at all hours of the day. Reeve of all people knew. He had practically ilived/i in his office, at times, and often saw it far more than he saw his suite in company housing down the block. iNot to mention my parents' house, where I still technically "live".../i He stopped suddenly with the thought (and did he stumble again, just a bit, as he did?) "My family..." he whispered. He had not heard anything of them since Weapon's attack. Besides, had Cloud not told them all to go home? His pace picked up, and soon broke into a dash for the elevators. iOut of service./i He found. iDamn. Have to take the stairs./i
pHe felt naked making his way down the sixty-six flights of stairs unarmed. It had seemed silent, yes, but who knew what lurked around the next bend? iA/i true iShinra employee would never think something like that. Not of our own headquarters.../i Reeve shook his head. iNo. Stop that. It's just that there have been an awful lot of strange things running around, lately. If I managed to escape that easily, who knows what strange creations of Dr. Hojo's are loose in the building?/i Walking, down and down. Floor 66, where so many meetings had been held, where he had made his last stand against Scarlet and Heidegger that had gotten him hauled off to a detainment cell. Floor 65, where that beautiful model of his precious Midgar had been housed. Floor 64, the lounge, where he had frequently come to get away from work, if only just to have a cup of cappuccino with other employees... He read the numbers and knew each floor. The building was like an old friend to him, yet he was too frightened to even set foot outside the stairwell. He tried to stop thinking about it as he walked, but it was futile in the end.
pFinally, he emerged from the lobby (unguarded) out into the nighttime streets of Midgar. The city was in chaos. Throngs of people ran mad in the streets, shouting and cursing. Broken glass glittered like thousands of tiny jewels in the light of burning buildings.
p"Death to Shinra!" one man shouted, and Reeve barely dodged the brick he heaved towards the glass front of the Shinra Company headquarters. Soon, others joined him with similar cries, words hurled at the establishment that had promised them the world and Meteor, the threat that had taken all hope away. Reeve slipped into the crowd, feeling dazed and numb. It was too surreal.
pAt first he thought that he would be a target, a fairly young, well-kept man in a nice suit, obviously a Shinra employee. Yet he was almost sure that he caught glimpses of other familiar faces in the crowds, in corners with bottles of liquor, and once, fleetingly, in a broken crumpled lump in the street. He turned away, feeling sick. He had seen death plenty of times through the eyes of Cait Sith, yet seeing it here, smelling the smoke and blood and the terrible, terrible scent of burning hair and flesh, he realized that in many ways the puppet had truly been a shield between him and the realities of the world, even before he had joined the outlaws as a spy or otherwise.
pHe remembered when he had first realized his strange ability, in his hometown of Kalm. He had been a young boy with a mind for engineering and economics, and quite a bit of natural talent with materia. Then, when he was sixteen, he had woken up in the center of a disaster zone that had once been his room. At first he had been accused of sleeping with materia (something he had done, at times, if only because he did not want to let his most precious possession out of his sight...), but it had soon become apparent that he had somehow managed to do the damage with nothing but himself. His parents kept it silent, however, and took him to see a local scholar of the paranormal, who proclaimed Reeve's "ability" to be "telekinesis," and sent him off with a warning to be more careful in the future.
pAnd careful he was. Slowly, he learned to channel his ability, and even when he joined Shinra Corporation and became a tech on the Midgar Project, he was learning to reach farther and farther with his mind, though extending his "reach" beyond his line-of-sight took considerable concentration. The breakthrough came when he was twenty and, on a dare, he took control of a plush moogle which he gave to a young woman who he favored named Elena. She had been training to be a Turk, at the time... Rare, for a woman. That had been when he learned that, if he let himself slip farther into the working, he could not only control inanimate objects, but isense the world around them/i. It had been... educational, to say the least. In more ways than one.
pEventually, he had created the persona of "Cait Sith: Fortune-telling Robot,"a black-and-white cat riding a moogle (a throwback to that first prank) and frequently used it not only to gather information, but to simply get away from the world of Shinra and Midgar. Eventually his superiors found out, hence his being used against AVALANCHE. Little did he know he would end up joining them, and then, at the Temple of the Ancients... How much that small plush form had meant to him, how wonderful it had felt to be trusted, the look in Aeris' eyes...
pHe tore his thoughts away from the past, making himself focus on navigating the ruins of the city. At least his position had gained his parents a home in the Upper City. He hated to think of how the slums below had fared, if the city itself was so terrible.
pAt last he came to the building where his mother and father lived, and it was blessedly quiet in comparison. Still, he hurried to the door, and, when he found it locked, knocked. There was a long pause, and then the door opened a crack. From it peaked a gray-haired woman with frightened, tear-stained eyes, his mother. "Reeve!" she exclaimed, then half-turned to call back behind her, "Honey, it's Reeve! He's safe!" He heard his father's grumble from deeper in the house, and felt his own eyes wet. iThey/i were safe.
pHe came inside, and hugged his parents thoroughly. It had been too long, and though he hated to come to them at a time like this... "Mother." he said, breaking away from her embrace, "You know about Meteor, yes? And Sephiroth?"
pHis mother nodded. "Of course. Who doesn't know? It's the end of the world, they say." She sighed and looked away. "You always were more worldly than we, Reeve. Tell me, is it true?"
pReeve closed his eyes. "Not if I can help it."
pShe smiled. "I knew it! So the Shinra ido/i have another plan!"
pHe slowly shook his head. "No, Mother. Not Shinra. AVALANCHE."
pHer eyes widened. "AVALANCHE? The ones who destroyed the Number One Reactor? But they're terrorists..."
pReeve nodded, then slowly shook his head. "No, Mother, they're good people, and they... we have what it takes to take care of Meteor. All we have to do is take out Sephiroth, the source of all of this."
p"The SOLDIER..." she shook her head. "The world has changed, hasn't it?"
p"That it has..." Reeve trailed off. "I have to help them. Using my... my power."
pHis mother nodded, seeming unsurprised. "I always knew you had it for a reason."
p"I'm going to be... well... I'll seem like I'm asleep for a while. I'll probably wake up every once in a while, but if I don't..." He closed his eyes. "If I don't wake up, get out of Midgar. Take shelter in the mountains. You might be safe, there."
pShe sighed, and hugged him once more. "You will wake up, Reeve. I believe in you. Go lie down in your room, and I'll bring you some soup, if you're not..." she paused, "...gone yet."
pHe smiled slightly. "Thank you."
pHe walked to the back of the house, into his room (he knew that his parents used it as a guest room, but it was, in all of their minds, "their son's room") and found himself troubled. The furniture was from the old house in Kalm, though this house was lit by Mako power rather than with oil lamps. There, that bed, was the same bed that he had awakened in that night his power had broken free. There, that desk, he had held it together as he glued it back together with that same power. If Shinra HQ had not been home to him, then this place surely must be. Yet it did not ifeel/i like home. Why?
pi"Find that something inside, something to fight for."/i the words drifted back to him, and he found himself momentarily on the verge of tears. iI found it long ago, my friends. I fight for the Planet. I fight for Midgar. I fight for/i you. He settled in, feeling his body relax into the familiar softness of the bed he had known since boyhood, and sent his mind questing towards the iHighwind/i. Towards ihome./i
pAs he stood and took his bearings, he realized that things were not as they had been when he had left, exchanging his true body for the one of plush and steel that he wore to interact with the members of AVALANCHE... or what ihad been/i the members of the ecoterrorist organization. Now... well, that last scene, if nothing else, had proven that the vigilantes had become much more. iThey're heroes, now./i Reeve thought with a growing sense of awe. iWe're all fucking heroes, off to save the world. But first, to get out of this cell.../i
pIt was too silent. iThat/i was what had been bothering him. He moved to peer through the bars, but as he leaned against the door, it slid open. He yelped and tottered, struggling to keep his balance. Tihat shouldn't have caught me that off-guard./i he realized. iMy reflexes have changed./i How many times has Cait Sith fallen down, lately? None, of course. At first he had been clumsy in the puppet's form, but now, he moved with ease... an ease that he seemed to be losing in his flesh-and-blood form. The implications were disturbing.
pHe stepped out of the cell. Still, the silence lingered, only the faint hum of machinery. There were no guards in sight. iWere Scarlet and Heidegger really killed when we destroyed that ridiculous walking tank of hers?/i (iWe./i a silent part of his mind whispered. iYou said "we." Not "AVALANCHE," not even "Cloud and the Gang." "We." Who are you? Reeve or Cait Sith? Shinra executive or terrorist collaborator?/i) iI'm me!/i he thought back at the insolent mental voice. iThey know who I am, now, and they accept that! There's no reason I can't be both!/i The mental voice just chuckled darkly. He pushed it aside, and walked down the hall, self-consciously smoothing the wrinkles out of his suit as he walked.
pThe silence of the place sent chills down his spine. The Shinra headquarters that he had known had been a place of bustling activity at all hours of the day. Reeve of all people knew. He had practically ilived/i in his office, at times, and often saw it far more than he saw his suite in company housing down the block. iNot to mention my parents' house, where I still technically "live".../i He stopped suddenly with the thought (and did he stumble again, just a bit, as he did?) "My family..." he whispered. He had not heard anything of them since Weapon's attack. Besides, had Cloud not told them all to go home? His pace picked up, and soon broke into a dash for the elevators. iOut of service./i He found. iDamn. Have to take the stairs./i
pHe felt naked making his way down the sixty-six flights of stairs unarmed. It had seemed silent, yes, but who knew what lurked around the next bend? iA/i true iShinra employee would never think something like that. Not of our own headquarters.../i Reeve shook his head. iNo. Stop that. It's just that there have been an awful lot of strange things running around, lately. If I managed to escape that easily, who knows what strange creations of Dr. Hojo's are loose in the building?/i Walking, down and down. Floor 66, where so many meetings had been held, where he had made his last stand against Scarlet and Heidegger that had gotten him hauled off to a detainment cell. Floor 65, where that beautiful model of his precious Midgar had been housed. Floor 64, the lounge, where he had frequently come to get away from work, if only just to have a cup of cappuccino with other employees... He read the numbers and knew each floor. The building was like an old friend to him, yet he was too frightened to even set foot outside the stairwell. He tried to stop thinking about it as he walked, but it was futile in the end.
pFinally, he emerged from the lobby (unguarded) out into the nighttime streets of Midgar. The city was in chaos. Throngs of people ran mad in the streets, shouting and cursing. Broken glass glittered like thousands of tiny jewels in the light of burning buildings.
p"Death to Shinra!" one man shouted, and Reeve barely dodged the brick he heaved towards the glass front of the Shinra Company headquarters. Soon, others joined him with similar cries, words hurled at the establishment that had promised them the world and Meteor, the threat that had taken all hope away. Reeve slipped into the crowd, feeling dazed and numb. It was too surreal.
pAt first he thought that he would be a target, a fairly young, well-kept man in a nice suit, obviously a Shinra employee. Yet he was almost sure that he caught glimpses of other familiar faces in the crowds, in corners with bottles of liquor, and once, fleetingly, in a broken crumpled lump in the street. He turned away, feeling sick. He had seen death plenty of times through the eyes of Cait Sith, yet seeing it here, smelling the smoke and blood and the terrible, terrible scent of burning hair and flesh, he realized that in many ways the puppet had truly been a shield between him and the realities of the world, even before he had joined the outlaws as a spy or otherwise.
pHe remembered when he had first realized his strange ability, in his hometown of Kalm. He had been a young boy with a mind for engineering and economics, and quite a bit of natural talent with materia. Then, when he was sixteen, he had woken up in the center of a disaster zone that had once been his room. At first he had been accused of sleeping with materia (something he had done, at times, if only because he did not want to let his most precious possession out of his sight...), but it had soon become apparent that he had somehow managed to do the damage with nothing but himself. His parents kept it silent, however, and took him to see a local scholar of the paranormal, who proclaimed Reeve's "ability" to be "telekinesis," and sent him off with a warning to be more careful in the future.
pAnd careful he was. Slowly, he learned to channel his ability, and even when he joined Shinra Corporation and became a tech on the Midgar Project, he was learning to reach farther and farther with his mind, though extending his "reach" beyond his line-of-sight took considerable concentration. The breakthrough came when he was twenty and, on a dare, he took control of a plush moogle which he gave to a young woman who he favored named Elena. She had been training to be a Turk, at the time... Rare, for a woman. That had been when he learned that, if he let himself slip farther into the working, he could not only control inanimate objects, but isense the world around them/i. It had been... educational, to say the least. In more ways than one.
pEventually, he had created the persona of "Cait Sith: Fortune-telling Robot,"a black-and-white cat riding a moogle (a throwback to that first prank) and frequently used it not only to gather information, but to simply get away from the world of Shinra and Midgar. Eventually his superiors found out, hence his being used against AVALANCHE. Little did he know he would end up joining them, and then, at the Temple of the Ancients... How much that small plush form had meant to him, how wonderful it had felt to be trusted, the look in Aeris' eyes...
pHe tore his thoughts away from the past, making himself focus on navigating the ruins of the city. At least his position had gained his parents a home in the Upper City. He hated to think of how the slums below had fared, if the city itself was so terrible.
pAt last he came to the building where his mother and father lived, and it was blessedly quiet in comparison. Still, he hurried to the door, and, when he found it locked, knocked. There was a long pause, and then the door opened a crack. From it peaked a gray-haired woman with frightened, tear-stained eyes, his mother. "Reeve!" she exclaimed, then half-turned to call back behind her, "Honey, it's Reeve! He's safe!" He heard his father's grumble from deeper in the house, and felt his own eyes wet. iThey/i were safe.
pHe came inside, and hugged his parents thoroughly. It had been too long, and though he hated to come to them at a time like this... "Mother." he said, breaking away from her embrace, "You know about Meteor, yes? And Sephiroth?"
pHis mother nodded. "Of course. Who doesn't know? It's the end of the world, they say." She sighed and looked away. "You always were more worldly than we, Reeve. Tell me, is it true?"
pReeve closed his eyes. "Not if I can help it."
pShe smiled. "I knew it! So the Shinra ido/i have another plan!"
pHe slowly shook his head. "No, Mother. Not Shinra. AVALANCHE."
pHer eyes widened. "AVALANCHE? The ones who destroyed the Number One Reactor? But they're terrorists..."
pReeve nodded, then slowly shook his head. "No, Mother, they're good people, and they... we have what it takes to take care of Meteor. All we have to do is take out Sephiroth, the source of all of this."
p"The SOLDIER..." she shook her head. "The world has changed, hasn't it?"
p"That it has..." Reeve trailed off. "I have to help them. Using my... my power."
pHis mother nodded, seeming unsurprised. "I always knew you had it for a reason."
p"I'm going to be... well... I'll seem like I'm asleep for a while. I'll probably wake up every once in a while, but if I don't..." He closed his eyes. "If I don't wake up, get out of Midgar. Take shelter in the mountains. You might be safe, there."
pShe sighed, and hugged him once more. "You will wake up, Reeve. I believe in you. Go lie down in your room, and I'll bring you some soup, if you're not..." she paused, "...gone yet."
pHe smiled slightly. "Thank you."
pHe walked to the back of the house, into his room (he knew that his parents used it as a guest room, but it was, in all of their minds, "their son's room") and found himself troubled. The furniture was from the old house in Kalm, though this house was lit by Mako power rather than with oil lamps. There, that bed, was the same bed that he had awakened in that night his power had broken free. There, that desk, he had held it together as he glued it back together with that same power. If Shinra HQ had not been home to him, then this place surely must be. Yet it did not ifeel/i like home. Why?
pi"Find that something inside, something to fight for."/i the words drifted back to him, and he found himself momentarily on the verge of tears. iI found it long ago, my friends. I fight for the Planet. I fight for Midgar. I fight for/i you. He settled in, feeling his body relax into the familiar softness of the bed he had known since boyhood, and sent his mind questing towards the iHighwind/i. Towards ihome./i