"Aeris is an Ancient and the real name of the Ancients is Cetra. The Ancients know where the Promised Land is and Shinra is searching for that Promised Land, but I only heard stories about the Promised Land. I don't know if it really exists. Is that right?" asked Barret.
Red XIII didn't reply and made no response to Barret's explanations. Barret continued.
"Shinra believe that the Promised Land is full of Mako energy, which means if Shinra get there, they'll suck up all the Mako energy and all the land will wither away. The Planet's gonna get even weaker. I can't just leave it be like that. I'm recruiting new members. Me, Tifa, Cloud…and Aeris too. How about you? You could be a valuable edition to the team," said Barret, thoughtfully, glancing at Red XIII.
Red XIII seemed reluctant to answer, and he went to the other end off the room, laid on the floor, yawned sleepily, and didn't answer.
Barret sighed as his enthusiasm fled.
"You're so goddamn boring, fool," muttered Barret.
Red XIII made no answer or reaction to this and laid on the floor, thinking to himself about his past.
"Grandpa…" sighed Red XIII, deep in thought.
"Grandpa!? Ha, ha, ha! Grandpa, huh? Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Barret, with a snort, apparently rather amused.
Red XIII'S heart leaped up into his throat. Had he been thinking out loud? He quickly turned to face Barret and tried his best to appear calm.
"What's so funny?" asked Red XIII, confused and annoyed.
"Nothing," replied Barret, quickly shaking his head, although he was still chuckling a bit.
Meanwhile, Cloud was in the middle room with Tifa, trying to figure out what to do to escape.
"Do you think we can get out this building, Cloud?" asked Tifa, curiously.
"Of course we can, what would be the point of breaking into this building if we couldn't break back out again? Just leave to me," said Cloud.
"Cloud, you're so brave," whispered Tifa, smiling.
On the far side of Barret's cell, in the left cell, Aeris sat on the bed and played her ponytail, thinking to herself.
She sometimes wished that she wasn't an Ancient.
Or at least not the last one alive on the Planet, anyway.
Always running and hiding from Shinra, it was no way to live a life. She wanted to live quietly, maybe find a nice boy like Cloud and settle down.
Only, it seemed like Cloud wasn't too fond of staying in one place for too long; she could even hear him pacing back and forth in his cell, next to her own.
Aeris's mind wandered for a while longer, and she began to think of Tifa. She was nice, and they had gotten along well enough. And she had known Cloud far longer than Aeris had. But she also wanted to be with Cloud.
Aeris didn't blame Tifa for that; she could hardly help how she felt. It still gnawed at her, though. Aeris sighed wearily.
Why did she always have to have an interest with the boys that caused her trouble? Cloud was a lot like Zack, in that respect. Another sigh escaped her lips; she often wondered a lot where Zack was.
Cloud was far too much like him for comfort. Maybe she saw her old boyfriend in Cloud, and that was why she liked him so much. If that was it, she decided, she was just being silly.
You can't relive the past, she told herself.
Nevertheless, Aeris walked over to the wall, where Cloud was at the other end.
"Cloud, are you there?" asked Aeris, urgently.
Hearing Aeris from the other side of the wall, Cloud quickly rushed to the wall while Tifa lay back down on the cell bed, listening quietly.
"Aeris, is that you? Are you safe? Are you alright?" asked Cloud, concerned.
"Yeah, thanks Cloud, I'm alright. I knew that you would come for me. I'm so glad that you're alright," said Aeris, smiling.
"Hey, I'm your bodyguard, right?" said Cloud, with a chuckle, grinning.
"What time is it?" asked Aeris.
"No idea, I guess it'll be dawning soon. Aeris, have you been crying?" asked Cloud, suspiciously, having heard some distressed sounds from the wall earlier.
"Yes, but it's nothing. Just a dream," said Aeris, quickly.
Cloud didn't reply. He could tell that Aeris was hiding something but knew it wouldn't do any good to argue.
After a moment of silence, Aeris spoke again, but she sounded a lot more cheerful this time.
"The deal was for one date, right?" asked Aeris, grinning.
"Oh…I get it. I see how it is…" muttered Tifa, sounding somewhat irritated, getting off the bed and standing up.
"Tifa!? Tifa, you're there too!?" said Aeris, surprised, and jumping a step back from the wall in shock and embarrassment.
"Well, excuse me! Aeris, I have a question," said Tifa.
"What?" asked Aeris, curiously.
"Does the Promised Land really exist? And if so, just where exactly is it?" asked Tifa. Cloud listened intently as well.
"I don't know. All I know is that…the Cetra were born from the Planet, speak with the Planet and unlock the Planet. Then the Cetra return to the Promised Land. A land that promises supreme happiness," explained Aeris.
"What does that mean?" asked Tifa, puzzled.
"More than words…I don't know. I'm not sure. The only person that might know is my real mother, and she's been dead for a long time. I used to speak with her spirit in the church," replied Aeris.
"Speak with the Planet?" repeated Cloud, confused and bewildered.
"Just what does the Planet say?" asked Tifa, also somewhat confused.
Aeris hesitated for a moment, and then shook her head.
"It's full of people and it's noisy. That's why I usually can't make out what it's saying," replied Aeris.
"Do you hear it now?" asked Cloud.
"I only heard it at the church. That was the only place where I could hear it. My mother…that is, my real mother…said that Midgar was no longer safe anymore. Someday, I'll get out of Midgar, speak with the Planet, and find my Promised Land," explained Aeris.
"I'll help you get out of here, I promise. But for now, let's all get some sleep," said Cloud.
"Alright, but I don't see the point. We're probably gonna be dead by tomorrow anyway," muttered Barret, from the other end of the opposite wall.
Red XIII also spoke from the same room as Barret.
"Reserving your strength is always wise. After all, you never know when there might yet be a chance for an escape," said Red XIII, calmly.
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Meanwhile, President Shinra was still sitting calmly on his throne-like chair in his room on the 70th floor. He was thinking about his plans for Neo-Midgar, and he was very sure that AVALANCHE would not bother Shinra any more, and was no longer a threat.
He was planning to have them all publicly executed.
President Shinra planed to find the Promised Land and build another city there (Neo-Midgar) with a lot of Mako Reactors to suck up all the Mako energy in the Promised Land.
The more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea. He sat back down in his chair, and was about to smoke another cigar, when suddenly, he spotted something in the air, from out the building's 70th floor windows, coming straight towards him.
It appeared to be a man-like figure flying in the air coming straight towards the building. The figure appeared to be in a black cape, which covered his face and most of his long silver hair, which flowed behind him, and he was carrying a huge, long, and very sharp and powerful sword.
President Shinra was terrified, alarmed and very surprised, and he started to run away, when suddenly the figure burst straight through the window, smashing the window to pieces so loudly that it sounded like it had just exploded.
The figure came straight towards President Shinra, with his sword raised firmly in his hand as he swung it down at him, and President Shinra screamed, but the scream was quickly cut short by the man's sword.
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Meanwhile, the next morning, Tseng got into work as usual and suddenly found Shinra headquarters to be unusually quiet and empty, unnervingly so. Instead of going to the Turk's base, he decided to investigate.
No one was around, which was unheard of around here given the hour of the day. He took the elevator up to the 66th floor. From there, he climbed the stairs up one more level.
Exiting the stairwell, he immediately saw, with horror, several dead bodies, lying in red pools of their own blood. Blood stained the entire floor, and the rooms were piled with hundreds of dead bodies of Shinra employees.
The whole place was littered with blood; mutated dead bodies and severed limbs, so much so that it made the usually calm and casual leader of the Turks suddenly feel sick and nauseated.
"(No, Cloud and AVALANCHE couldn't possibly have escaped and caused so much mayhem), thought Tseng, looking around in horror, at the carnage around the building.
There was blood all over the walls like red paint. Impossibly deep gouges were slashed permanently into the walls in large, bold streaks. The walls had been sliced through as easily as if they were warm butter.
Tseng followed the trail of destruction, bodies, limbs, bones and blood all the way to Hojo's laboratory, and quickly pulled out his shotgun from his pocket, feeling a chill down his spine, his heart beating hard in fear and tension.
The whole floor was deathly quiet and still.
Something told him to leave, but as a Turk, Tseng wanted to stay strong and courageous, and not back out. And as he entered the lab, four hideous creatures he'd never seen before suddenly attacked him. They must have been Hojo's specimens and they were somehow on the loose.
Skinny, pale orange bodies wriggled, large red eyes gazing back at the Turks leader. One of them knocked Tseng down with a blinding light.
Tseng's eyes ached slightly but in self-defence, he tried his best to subdue his adversaries. The creatures' bodies were rather frail, and one shot with his gun killed one of the monsters instantly.
But while he had killed it, the others moved in. Tseng took a few steps back after feeling a sting in his thigh. His vision was clearing, but he was unwilling to take chances with these monsters.
Green light burst from the ground at Tseng's feet as he reached for a Materia equipped on his gun, and it quickly flared to life in a bright green glow. A bolt of lightning then suddenly appeared out of nowhere as a result, and killed one creature and had also killed another.
In retaliation, the last remaining monster executed a self-destruction suicide, causing a force powerful enough to slam Tseng against the wall. The leader of the Turks quickly got back on his feet. He wasn't wounded or injured, but the attack left him feeling a bit drained.
The fight had preoccupied him, and yet he knew that the creatures were not strong enough to cause that much destruction, and so they were not responsible. It wasn't until it was all over and his head cleared that Tseng realized that Jenova had been busted out of its holding tank.
Tseng suspected that the creature had been pulled from the tank by the one who had caused all the destruction, and was dragged out of the lab. And there were still more bloodstains leading up and into the stairwell.
As Tseng ran up the stairs, he noticed that even more people were lying dead on the other floors above, blood all over the floor and walls of those floors too.
Tseng quickly reached the end of the stairs, and he quickly ran straight onto the top floor, the 70th floor.
Tseng quickly ran along the 70th floor, and burst straight into the president's office, only to have his worst fear confirmed, as his eyes widened in shock and horror at what he saw right in front of him.
President Shinra was dead, in a pool of his own blood, with blood also being splattered all over the walls and on the big desk. There were limbs and organs all over the floor too.
Still behind the desk, the slain President's mutated and bloody body was slumped over, and Tseng spotted the murder weapon, a long, sharp, deadly, slender sword, that was sticking out of his back.
Somehow, the sword seemed very familiar to Tseng.
It definitely wasn't AVALANCHE'S doing, Tseng concluded. None of them possessed this sword, and could not possibly cause this much destruction without being caught. He also found no logical reason as to why the group of terrorists would make off with the body of Jenova, either.
With those suspects out of the way, Tseng couldn't think of who else might have been responsible for the vivid scene of gore and death on the top five floors.
And since Jenova had no hands, and therefore could not use the sword, it could not possibly have been behind the president's death, either, or even behind the deaths of all the employees on the previous five floors below.
Tseng quickly ran out of the room and entered the limited-access elevator on level 70 with his mobile phone in his hand. He wasn't stupid enough to hang around where the powerful deadly unknown thing may still be lurking around.
He decided to phone Reeve. After a few seconds, Reeve came on the line and Tseng urgently spoke.
"Reeve! Something terrible has happened! The President is dead, hundreds of Shinra employees have been brutally and viciously killed, and the headless Jenova specimen is missing!" said Tseng, urgently.
"What!?" shouted Reeve, in shock and disbelief.
"There's no sign of Hojo, either. I'd say he's the prime suspect, strange as it may seem. But the long sword in the president's back might just rule him out. Hojo's pretty weak psychically, after all, and the sword seems to be extremely heavy. And some slimy creatures attacked me when I entered his lab. But I don't think it was them either, they were far too weak to cause that much destruction," said Tseng.
"Hojo? His precious specimens? I really don't know about any of this," said Reeve, bewildered and still in shock.
"I'm on my way down to your office. Just wait there. Watch out for any danger," said Tseng.
Tseng hung up, put his mobile phone away and boarded an elevator and went down to Reeve's office a few floors below.
Tseng arrived there and entered Reeve's office, where Reeve was sitting at his desk. Tseng walked up to him.
"We should alert Vice President Rufus. I assume that he doesn't know?" asked Reeve.
Tseng nodded, and took out his mobile phone again and phoned Rufus to tell him what had happened.