Cloud woke up in a haze of confusion. Thoughts raced through fast through he head that he couldn't get a hold of them. He sighed and opened his eyes. The ceiling looked vaguely familiar. It was made of wooden slats suspended over rough hewn beams. He looked to his right and sat a nightstand with a small lamp set on it. He looked to his left and saw Tifa curled up next to him, her arm draped across his chest. It was then he realized he was wearing someone else's red flannel pajamas.
"Tifa, wake up," he said as he gently touched her shoulder. Her eyes slowly opened.
"Hey there," she said with a slight grin.
"Uh…what happened?" he asked after a long pause. Tifa frowned slightly.
"I'm not sure," she replied, "I remember a flood."
"And then?" he prompted.
"And then…nothing," she replied. Cloud put his hands behind his head and returned his gaze to the ceiling.
"This is the old fisherman's house," he mused.
"Nice peejays," she said as she ran a hand along his collar. Cloud moodily sat up.
"I had a dream about her again," he said his eyes looking haunted.
"I know," she said. He turned to her, surprised.
"Did I say something in my sleep?" he asked.
"Cloud it really happened," she said as gently as she could. Cloud put his hands to his face and began rubbing his temples.
"I don't understand," he said staring into some private hell.
Tifa sighed and climbed out of bed and noticed the cotton nightshirt she was now wearing. She stretched her arms over her head and opened the shutters. Light flooded into the small room. A small crowd was gathered outside near a large fish skeleton suspended from a gibbet. The old man padded over to the window.
"Did you sleep well?" he asked.
"Yes, thanks," she said, "What happened to us?"
"Apparently, someone snuck into the underwater reactor and blew it up," said the fisherman with a hint of amusement.
"Really?" asked Tifa innocently. Cloud joined her at the window.
"How did we get here?" he asked.
"Mister Dolphin dragged you two back to shore," said the old man, "Be sure to go thank Priscilla." Cloud nodded glumly.
"Your clothes are over there," said the old man gesturing to a chest of drawers, "They were soaked, so I leant you some of mine."
"Cloud, Cloud!"
A young girl with dark skin wearing a red dress pushed open the door and hugged Cloud around the waist, nearly knocking him off balance. Her brown hair was tied back with a green ribbon.
"Yippee!" she exclaimed, "I knew you'd come back for me!"
"Priscilla!" said Cloud, too much in shock to react.
"Phew you smell like tobacco," she said wrinkling her nose. Tifa leaned over and patted her head.
"Hello there," she said cheerfully.
"Hands off, he's mine!" said Priscilla, clutching Cloud defensively.
"Ok, but invite me to wedding," said Tifa winking to Cloud, who rolled his eyes impatiently.
"We don't have time for this," he said, "We have to find Vincent."
"What happens when we do?" inquired Tifa. He shook his head.
"I don't know," he said darkly.
"Do you think that we really saw…," began Tifa hesitantly. Cloud gingerly broke free of Priscilla's grip.
"We'll find out," he said grimly.
He walked towards the door. Tifa caught his arm.
"Cloud," she said quickly.
"Don't try to stop me," he said intently.
"Yes, but shouldn't you get dressed first?" she asked.
Far above in Junon the Turks stood in a line in front of a desk in a large spacious room. Behind the desk a wall of glass afforded a spectacular view of the ocean below. Desks with computer consoles were arranged in four vertical rows along the room.
"What do you mean he blew up the reactor?"
Elena swore that she could hear Reeve's shouting all the way from Midgar even without the speaker phone.
"It was a surprise to all of us," she said in a subdued tone.
"We should have never trusted him!" snarled Reno.
"I still don't get it," said Rude rubbing his chin.
"What's to get?" asked Reno with a sneer, "The guy was always a nut case."
"No more than you," countered Rude with a smirk.
"Shut up both of you!" snapped Reeve, "Go launch all submarine units!"
"What for?" asked Elena curiously.
"Check out the rubble of the reactor," said Reeve testily, "And drag whatever is left of Vincent's carcass to me!"
"He may have escaped," pointed out Elena thoughtfully.
"Then look for him," replied Reeve, "And post guards on the Highwind."
"Anything else?" asked Rude. They heard a deep sigh at the other end of the line.
"Just call back with good news next time." Then they heard a beeping dial tone. Reno hung up the receiver on the cradle. He glanced at Rude.
"He didn't fire us," he said tossing a ten Gil piece to him. Rude caught it mid-air.
"Drinks are on me tonight!" said Rude with a small grin.
In the docks near Junon, Shinra soldiers in blue with matching helmets boarded a half dozen submarines, all painted a generic gray. They submerged and drifted down towards the sea floor. Their floodlights snapped on, scaring away small schools of fish. Carefully they made their way in formation to the blacked scattered hunks of metal littered across the sea bed. They fanned out and began using robotic arms mounted on the nose cones to retrieve debris. One of the subs followed a debris trail that led it far from the others. Once it was far enough away, it fired up it engines full power and sped out to open ocean.
The sun shone brightly down on the hamlet of Wutai. A cluster of five ancient wooden buildings rested on stone foundations, crowned with sharply peaked black slate roofs buttressed by wooden beams painted bright red. They were partitioned by gracefully flowing canals spanned by small curved footbridges. In the distance to the west loomed a tall five story pagoda, surrounded by the pine forest. To the east loomed a mysterious collection of giant statues carved from a cliff face, universally known as the Daochao.
The door to a pub opened and a young woman strode out carrying a tray. Her dark brown hair was cut short and she was wearing a short sleeved jade green dress with a dragon curling up one shoulder. She lifted the lid off a giant pot resting to the left of the entrance and threw the tray in, then skipped cheerfully across the footbridges to a house on a hill. She climbed up a short flight of stone steps and then turned left up another flight leading to the entrance to her house. Something was amiss, she thought as she reached the door. She walked over to a window and peered in. The inside of the house was dark but she caught the whiff of cigarette smoke. She drew out a four pronged boomerang and leapt though the window.
"Hi-yah!" she yelled as she tackled the man in the darkness. With surprising force he kicked her off.
"Get off me you minx!" griped a familiar voice. The girl's arm froze in mid-throw.
"That you Cid?" she asked.
"Damn straight!" snapped Cid lighting a match, which lit his face with flickering shadows. Yuffie Kisaragi gasped and the cuts and bruises decorating his eyebrow and cheeks.
"What happened to your face Jichan?" she asked. Cid snorted.
"Don't call me that!" he groused sitting down again, "I'm too young to be your grandpa." Cid yelped as she poked one of his cuts experimentally.
"Wow, you got beat up good," she said appraisingly.
"No shit," he said retrieving the cigarette from the floor and relighting it. Yuffie giggled and raised the shutters. Sunlight flooded into room, illuminating the small square table and cushions resting rice straw matting on the floor. A screen with a moonrise over mountains separated the front of the room from the futon area in the back. The sunlight glinted off the metallic claw decorating the left arm of a man sitting in the corner. He was dressed in a black tunic and pants, over which he wore a long red cape with a high collar that hid most of his lower face. Both his right eye and arm were buried under mounds of white gauze. Yuffie's jaw fell open.
"Forgive us for intruding like this," said Vincent bowing his head slightly, "We ask for your indulgence." Yuffie knelt in front of him, her hands resting on her knees.
"Vincent-san!" she exclaimed in horror, "You're burnt!"
"It looks worse than it is," said Vincent carefully, "But I appreciate your concern." She started to raise her hands to him, but then dropped them to her sides again.
"I was so worried about you," she said looking down, "And you never came to visit me."
"You could have visited him you know," said Cid leisurely as he blew a smoke ring.
"Can it Jichan!" she snapped. Her dark eyes opened wide when she felt a bandaged hand rest on her shoulder. She looked up to meet Vincent's foreboding gaze.
"Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated," he said softly. She gingerly rested her hand on top of his.
"You bet!" she said brightly, "What do you need?"
"For starters our materia," suggested Cid as he tapped ash into a white porcelain vase. Yuffie's expression fell. She had hoped to keep her materia collection longer.
"Please bring me the Death Penalty and the Princess Guard," suggested Vincent quietly. Yuffie nodded and bounded down a staircase leading to the basement. They heard her rummaging around, moving boxes and sliding walls. Cid rolled his eyes.
"You really sure you want to drag the brat into this?" he asked.
"We have no choice at this point," said Vincent morosely, "We are at her mercy." They sat in silence for a while. Finally Yuffie returned with a long case and a wrapped up bundle. She set the case in front of Vincent. He unlocked the snaps and lifted out a long dark gray rifle with a cylindrical barrel mounted on a square stock. A small rectangular tag with red tassels dangled from the sight mounting, emblazoned with some characters. Vincent ran his claws along the stock and lifted the tag.
"What does it say?" he inquired. Yuffie suddenly became bashful. She held the bundle behind her back and rocked back and forth on her heels.
"I…it's for good luck," she finally said. Vincent broke the gun open and looked down the barrel. He then removed some bullets from a small bag in the case and loaded it. He snapped the gun shut and holstered it on his belt.
"Thank you Yuffie," he said.
"Um, Vincent-san, are you sure you need this?" she asked, holding out the long bundle. He took it and unbound it, revealing a long metal pole with golden wings adorning one end. Its surface was decorated with delicate etchings.
"What do you need it for?" she asked.
Vincent and Cid wordlessly exchanged a pained glance. Vincent's gaze drifted to the back room behind the screen. Yuffie walked around to the futon area and had to put her fist to her mouth to stop from crying out. Curled asleep on the futon was a young woman with long auburn hair that fell in long bangs on either side of her face. She was wearing a dark suit and tie that was several sizes too large for her. Yuffie staggered backwards.
"Is this some kind of sick joke?" she said on the verge of tears.
"Perhaps in the cosmic sense," replied Vincent, "But she is my responsibility now."
"How can this be?" she asked, bewildered. Cid sighed.
"Shinra made a clone of her," elaborated Cid, "Well of several people, but she's the one we saved." Yuffie looked between them, adrift.
"She is just a shell of the person you knew," said Vincent dully, "An empty vessel."
"Why would you let them do that?" she asked numbly.
"I need her," said Vincent bluntly.
"For what?" asked Cid. Vincent stared at them in sullen silence. Yuffie's face suddenly lit up.
"It's Lucrecia, isn't it?" she demanded, "You want to save her!" Vincent looked as if she had punched him in the stomach.
"I want to free her from the chains of this existence," he said, "It's the only thing I can still do for her."
"She made her choice long ago," reminded Cid.
"I could have stopped her," said Vincent flexing his claws angrily, "But I gave up on her too easily."
"So that's what this is all about?" said Cid angrily, "You're just using us to ease your own guilt!" Vincent dropped his head.
"Yes," he said after a long silence, "Choose to help me or stop me, but choose quickly." Cid and Yuffie looked at each other helplessly.
"I'm going to ask her," she said going back to the futon area. She leaned over and gently shook the girl on the shoulder.
"Wake up Aeris," said Yuffie gently. The girl slowly sat up and looked her way. Her emerald eyes transfixed Yuffie, as if she could peer into her soul. Her innocent expression was kindly but vacant. Yuffie felt a strange chill.
"Can you hear me?" she asked nervously. The girl merely smiled back at her blankly. Yuffie frowned and turned to Vincent.
"Vincent-san, what's wrong with her?" she asked tensely.
"Nothing is wrong with her," said Vincent hollowly.
"We found her like this," said Cid wearily stubbing out his cigarette. The girl suddenly stood and walked out the front door. Vincent followed her after hesitating for moment. A few minutes later Cid and Yuffie walked outside together. They saw the girl running down a flagstone path running through her backyard garden, chasing a yellow butterfly. Vincent was sitting under a tree, watching her intently. Yuffie glanced up at Cid.
"Are you going to help him?" she asked after a long while. Cid nodded.
"Yeah, I want to see how this plays out," he remarked, "How about you?"
"Vincent-san is still a prisoner of Lucrecia," she said coldly, "If he can free her, he will free himself."
The girl finally caught up with the butterfly and clasped her hands around it. She quickly ran back to Vincent, who stood up as she approached. She opened up her hands and revealed the smashed wings stuck to the palms and stared down at them, puzzled. Vincent rested his claws on top of her hands and closed them again.
"This will kill Cloud," said Yuffie sadly.
"He already knows," replied Cid, "He's coming after her." Yuffie debated quietly what Cid meant by that, but decided to ask a different question.
"If she's not really Aeris, what is she Jichan?" asked Yuffie.
"I don't know," said Cid now giving up, "If I had known we'd be opening Pandora's Box, I would have never…."
"Let's call her that," she interrupted.
"Call her what?" he asked. But she was already walking away.
Back in Midgar Reeve decided his office looked much better in total darkness. It allowed him to meditate on how things had gone wrong. All he had wanted was to make Shinra a company he could be proud to work for. But somewhere along the line he had gone astray. He furiously pondered how he had allowed that to happen.
"Of course!" he said, sitting up suddenly, "It was Vincent all along!"
"Glad you finally figured it out," said a sarcastic voice in the dark. Reeve felt the hair on the back of his neck rise.
"Who's there?" he said, fighting down his panic.
"What am I, an orphan now?" said the voice, sounding wounded. Reeve snapped on the desk lamp. The light faintly illuminated an enormous white moogle, with pointed teeth and tiny bat-like wings. Its huge hands rested on the far edge of the desk. Sitting smugly on top of it was a small black cat with a white belly and face. It was wearing a crown and carrying a blue colored megaphone.
"Cait Sith!" said Reeve, his eyes bulging, "How can this be happening?"
"Simple," said the cat hopping on to the desk top and striding over to him, "You called me."
"I did?" he asked letting his head drop into his arms. His wondered if he was going mad. Cait Sith dusted off stack of books and sat down.
"Spare me the breakdown pal, 'kay?" muttered the cat sympathetically, "We've got to work to do."
"But I created you!" snapped Reeve sitting up suddenly, "I control you!"
"You created me to be everything you wanted to be," said Cait Sith waving a paw. Reeve dug his fingernails into the blotter on his desk.
"Get out!" he yelled venomously.
"Gee, here I am trying to help and all I get is abuse," griped the cat.
"You can't help me," said Reeve, his shoulders slumping.
"Let's help each other," suggested Cait Sith, "What's your number one problem?"
"Vincent," said Reeve automatically.
"And how do we find him?" prompted the cat. Reeve frowned and slowly sat up.
"We can't," he said making a tent of his fingers, "There are too many places for him to hide."
"So we wait for him to come to us," said Cait Sith, "We just need to know where to wait." Reeve's eyes lit up with fire.
"Of course!" he said, "You're a genius!" The cat smirked as it leaned its face close to his.
"No, we are," it said cheerfully before walking back to the moogle. Reeve chuckled quietly as he reached over and shut off the light.
A lone gray submarine made its way along the sea floor. It reached the shoreline and veered towards an underwater cave. It passed through a long dark tunnel, the spotlights illuminating the gracefully curving rock formations. As it got deeper into the cavern, it drew closer to a round chamber, eerily lit from sunlight above. It surfaced to float on the surface of a small mountain lake. A tall waterfall splashed water onto a shallow beach at the far end. The top hatch of the submarine popped open with a hiss. Cid leaned out and inhaled deeply. He frowned slightly as he heard a familiar rumbling noise. He stared up and gaped at the Highwind floating directly overhead. After slamming the hatch shut again, he dropped down the ladder to a cylindrical chamber below. Vincent swiveled his chair away from the control banks.
"Crap, we're screwed," said Cid wearily as the depth charges hit the water above them. Explosions rocked the small ship and nearly flipped it out of the water. It landed upside down as the second volley of charges detonated around it. The submarine broke in half and settled to the bottom in pieces.