Chapter 6 : Which was the dream? Is any of this real? Why can't I wake up?
- Cloud
"Hey wake up!"
Cloud sat up and looked round the room. "What's going on?"
"This is no time to be taking a nap." Cid yelled at him.
"What's going on?" Cloud repeated as he stood up.
"Were nearly at Neo Midgar." Cid pointed out the small window and headed out of the room. "So hurry up and get ready."
Cloud stood there for a moment realizing he was in the Highwind. 'Did Tifa and the others bring me aboard? What about the Lifestream?' He walked out of the operations room and headed towards the bridge. 'What happened to Sephiroth?'
"Your awake." Tifa ran up to Cloud when he reached the bridge.
"Yeah, why are we going to Neo Midgar?" He asked.
"This is no time for jokes Spike." Barret grumbled.
"Huh?" Cloud stood there confused.
"We're nearly there so get ready." Cid took the Highwind off autopilot and steered it in.
"Ok we've been over this before but lets make sure we all know," Tifa stood at the front of the bridge. "Team A, Vincent, Rude and Elena you are to sneak in through the subway system underneath Midgar, Cid will drop you off first." She handed Vincent a map of the underground.
"Team A? What's going on?" Cloud whispered to himself. 'And what are the Turks doing here?'
"Team C, Barret, Yuffie, Red and Cait are to attack from the opposite end of the highway from Team B which is Me, Cloud, Reno." She handed Barret the city map.
"Huh, why do I get paired up with you again?" Barret stared and Yuffie who just replied by sticking her tongue out at him.
"Cid and Reeve will stay aboard the Highwind and give us air support." Tifa handed the last map to Cid which had the main defenses ringed in red. "Just shoot the things in the red circles."
"I know dammit," Cid snatched the map off Tifa. "I'm some dumb ass kid."
"(Sigh) Any questions?" Tifa turned to everyone else but they all stayed silent happy knowing what to do. "Well then, lets get into position."
Everyone headed out the exit except Cid who continued to pilot the jet and Cloud who stood there completely baffled by what was going on. "Hey Tifa." He ran after her into the engine room.
"Hmm?" She stopped and looked at Cloud.
"What's going on?" He asked for the third time now.
"Cloud like Barret said this is no time for jokes."
"I'm not joking what's going on?"
"Are you feeling ok?" She walked up to him putting her hand on his forehead. "Your really warm."
"Just tell me what's going on."
"(Sigh) Ever since you fell in that Lifestream you haven't been well" Tifa took her hand away. "Is it affecting your memory?"
Cloud shook his head. "Memory? Look just tell me what happened to Sephiroth after he dropped me into that pool."
"Pool?" Tifa stared at him puzzled and shocked. "You must be joking Cloud that was weeks ago."
"Weeks ago?" Cloud couldn't believe he was been told this. 'How can it have happened weeks ago?' "Look just tell me what's going on, maybe it will jog my memory."
Tifa didn't understand why Cloud wanted to know, she had told him twice already. "Ok... I'll try, when Sephiroth dropped you in the Lifestream he stood there and said something about becoming whole again but I didn't understand what he meant."
"Whole?" Cloud didn't understand. 'What was missing?'
"After a while something came back up and attached its self to Sephiroth, I'm not sure what it was though." She scratched her head. "It was kinda green and slimy."
"What did he do after that?"
"He just smiled at us and left." She shrugged.
"That's it?" Cloud looked puzzled. "He didn't do or say anything?"
"No nothing." Tifa was confused just thinking about, it was the first time she had really given it any thought since then. "It was like he'd already done everything he wanted."
'What was it that came back up?' Cloud felt even more confused than before. 'Did it come from me?'
"Shortly after you returned up from the Lifestream and we took you back to the Highwind to recover, do you remember anything after that?" She asked but Cloud just shook his head.
"A few weeks later something happened in Neo Midgar, an army lead by some female commander stormed the city and took control." Tifa continued.
"Female commander? Who is she? What does she want?"
Tifa shook her head. "We don't no, anyone who has approached the city has been shot on sight. After a while the army that took control of Neo Midgar started to attack Junon."
"Did they succeed?" Cloud was beginning to wonder if the Lifestream had messed his memory up, he couldn't remember any of this.
"No, the Junon army held them off but now it's turned in to a full scale war between Junon and the army controlling Neo Midgar."
"This isn't good." Cloud walked up to the small window and looked out towards Neo Midgar, small flashes of lights could be seen in the dark through out the city. "They're already fighting."
"Junon staged a full scale attack an hour ago, they're loosing." Tifa walked up and joined Cloud. "The Turks were asked, well, paid by the Mayor of Junon to help take out the commander of this army."
"And I take it we volunteered to help?" He asked.
"It was your idea." She gave Cloud a worried look. "You still don't remember?"
"What was the last thing I did before I met you all in on the bridge?"
Tifa gave him another worried look. "You told everyone to get ready for the worst and to make sure everyone's equipment is in working order, after that you said you wanted to rest and you walked off to the operations room. You don't remember any of this?"
"No nothing... Maybe you were right perhaps it's just the Lifestream playing around with my head." He shrugged.
"Well," Tifa put her hand on his shoulder. "Get better soon ok?" Cloud nodded and the two headed out to meet the rest of the group.
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"Ok that's Vincent's group gone." Cid voice came over the intercom.
Cloud and Tifa reached the docking bay.
"What kept you?" Reno walked up to them.
"Just filling Cloud in." Tifa explained, Reno gave her a confused look wondering what there was to fill him in about.
"Team B get ready," Cid's voice came over the intercom once more. "I'm landing on the main highway so hurry up and move before we become a sitting target."
The Highwind flew in and set down long enough for Cloud, Tifa and Reno to head down the ramp onto the highway. Once off Tifa gave the signal and Cid flew off to the other end of the city.
"This army you told me about." Cloud turned to Tifa. "Where did they come from?"
"We don't know." She shook her head. "It's like they just appeared out off know where."
Cloud went back into his thoughts still confused about what was going on. He walked up to the edge of the highway and looked over into the city. The highway was set way above the actual city, there were two huge stretches of road that went to the No.1 and No.5 power plants, then a road went round the entire city joining the rest of the plants together, the two main roads though joined up at the middle to the Mayors building. The Mayors building it self was massive, similar to the Shin-Ra building of the old Midgar, Reeve had decided to copy quite a lot of it's design to make things easier.
Cloud glanced over the edge of the highway, from here he could see most of the city below. The small flashes of light Cloud had see back on board the Highwind were still present and he could also see most of the buildings in the city were either destroyed or on fire. "What the hell is happening?" He muttered. Parts of Neo Midgar was still under construction and was around another two or three years away from been fully completed, but now it looked like everything would have to be started all over again.
"It looks like the citizens tried to put up a resistance." Reno walked up beside Cloud. "It didn't do them much good."
"Why is she doing this? What does she want?" Cloud shook his head. 'I feel dizzy, after all I did trying to find Aeris and now this.' He felt his anger rising. 'After all that it turned out that it wasn't her after all, just some stupid joke by that freak Sephiroth.' Cloud griped the handle of his sword tightly, since his Ultima weapon had been destroyed he had to go back to his old buster sword. 'That's a though too, what's his role in all this?'
"Let's get a move on." Cloud continued to stare at the riots below for a few more seconds and then started down the road, the highway was cluttered with abandoned cars and trucks.
"Cid say's he just dropped off Team C." Tifa ran up beside Cloud and switched the Phs off. "We need to attack at both sides to catch them off guard."
"How well are they defended?" Cloud continued running.
"We don't know," Tifa glanced back to check that Reno was keeping up. "Like I said before, anyone who has come close to the city has been killed. The Junon army outside seems to be keeping them distracted though, enough to let us slip in anyway."
"Wonderful." As Cloud spoke a burst of fire came from the direction of the mayors building.
"They've spotted us." Tifa and Reno took cover behind an abandoned car while Cloud stepped behind a lamppost hoping it was big enough to cover him.
Cloud closed his eyes. "I have a really 'bad' feeling about this."
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"Hey keep up you two." Elena crept down the side off the tunnel keeping to the shadows while Rude and Vincent followed a little further behind.
"Elena you shouldn't move too quickly," Vincent grabbed her arm. "If there are soldiers down here we don't want to rush into them."
The three had managed to sneak in to the subway system after been dropped off from the Highwind. The subway was wide enough to have two trains pass through it and still have plenty of room to spare. The tracks led around the entire city in a ring and then cut through the middle and passed through the private subway station below the mayors building.
"Look I'm a Turk so I know how to work on a covert operation." She replied.
"Well I was a Turk too so take my advice and slow down." Vincent said firmly.
"Look don't think you can just go round giving me orders, I'm not part of your stupid little club remember." She raised her voice.
"Hey who's down there?" A voice echoed down the tunnel.
Vincent gave her a cold look and Elena stopped talking.
"...." Rude taped Vincent on the shoulder and pointed to some boxes across the tunnel.
Vincent nodded and grabbed Elena's arm pulling her with him as they moved over to hide.
"We should be safe here." Rude whispered.
After a few moment's two soldiers walked by on patrol, luckily they didn't see the trio hiding. One thing that did interest Vincent were the eyes of the soldiers as they went by.
"That was close." Elena whispered.
Rude nodded. "We should leave before they come back." He and Elena stood up while Vincent remained still, lost in thought.
"Hey what's up with him?" Elena asked.
"Those were soldiers." Vincent announced.
"Yeah no kidding, who do you think we came here to fight?" She snapped.
"No I mean those were SOLDIER's, as in Mako infused SOLDIER's." He stood up.
"You mean like the kind Shin-Ra use to make?" She looked at him puzzled. "But all Mako research is now illegal and all the reactors have been shut down."
"Well either way those 'were' from SOLDIER." He stated.
"This makes things much more difficult." Rude leaned against one of the boxes.
"I know, if the entire army is made from these Mako improved fighters then we stand little chance of beating them." Vincent didn't even notice the approaching footsteps this time.
"Hey you there!" A bright light shone on top of Vincent and the others as five SOLDIER's stepped out, their guns aimed straight at them. "Don't move!"
Before Vincent even had his fingers around his weapon a rifle was pointed at him just a few centimeters away from his face, he had no choice put to slowly raise his hands in the air.
The leader of the squad approached them. "Vincent of Avalanche, Elena and Rude of the Turks." He examined the three while his men took away their weapons,
Vincent had no choice but to let them, he could probably take out 2 maybe 3 of the troops but the last 2 would kill him easily. "I was told that you would difficult to find, but it seems that the commander over estimated your abilities." He took out a Phs.
"What are we going to do?" Elena whispered.
"I don't know." Vincent could tell the SOLDIER's were watching his every move, making a quick one would most likely cost him his life.
"No he's not here," The leader talked into the device. "Very well." He switched off the Phs.
"So what are you going to do?" Elena snapped. "Take us to her and be prisoners?"
"Hahaha not at all." He laughed.
"So what are you going to do?" She asked, a more worried tone in her voice.
The Soldiers handcuffed them and stepped away to the other side of the tunnel. Three of them took out their rifles.
"You three are not important, I have orders to kill you now before you become a problem." The squad leader took his position next to the three Soldiers. "On my command."
"You can't be serious!" Elena screamed.
"You're just going to kill us outright?" Vincent asked, if he was worried his face or voice didn't show it.
The leader laughed again. "What do you think the entire point of this war was?"
"I don't understand." Vincent replied.
"This war on Neo Midgar and Junon was all just bait to get you and your followers out into the open." He smiled. "And now it seems that you have walked right into the trap. The only one the commander wants alive is a man named Cloud Strife." The three Soldiers raised their rifles and took aim at Vincent, Rude and Elena. "And since none of you are him, your time is up."
Rude tried to get free from the cuffs but found no luck in doing so. 'This really is it, there's no way out.'
The leader held out his hand. "Ready...Aim..."
Vincent closed his eyes. 'I guess it is finally time for me to repent for my sins. I just hope everyone else figures this out before its too late.'
"Fire!"
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"There are too many of them."
Cloud and his group pushed their way forwards down the highway as they were covered by enemy fire, they took cover behind anything strong enough to withstand a bullet.
"Did they know we were coming?" Cloud asked.
"How could they? We only made our plans a few hours ago." Shouted Tifa, the gunfire was deafening.
"Come on I see an opening." Reno grabbed Tifa's hand and pulled her to the side.
Cloud followed and saw the gap between the cars, from there they could move in between the vehicles until they reached the mayors building. 'So this female commander is in charge of the army, taking her out should cause a break in the chain of command making it easier for Junon to take out the rest of her army.' Cloud dodged in between the cars, the odd bullet whistled past his head. 'How can they be so accurate, they can't see me.' Who ever these soldiers were, they were well trained and highly skilled.
"That's strange..." Tifa shook the Phs.
"What is?" Reno crouched down by her.
"I can't seem to get hold off Vincent's group." She pushed the buttons on the device but only received static bursts.
"Maybe its because they're in the tunnels." Cloud joined them and kneeled down.
"But they should have reached the mayors building by now, it's not that far from their drop off point." She gave up and put the Phs back in her pocket.
"Well anyway now all we have to do is reach those doors and head for the lift" Reno pointed to the large glass doors leading into the building. "Right?"
"Yep, according to the Junon military they have been tracking transmissions from that area, so it's most likely that the commander is in one of the higher floors." Tifa confirmed.
"Then lets go." Reno stood up.
Tifa lead the way through the cars until they reached the last one, from there it was about fifty meters of open ground to the front doors.
"We need a distraction." Cloud pointed to the soldiers who were still firing upon them. "Otherwise its gonna be impossible to get past them."
Reno glanced round and what he could use. 'Just throwing a rock isn't going to work, I need something bigger.' He continued to look round. 'One of these cars going up in smoke would be useful but their too far away from the guards.
Tifa tried the Phs again while Cloud was checking his materia to see if he had anything big enough. 'Fire, bolt, comet and cure. Its not enough.'
"Hey help me out here." Reno started pushing on the car in front of him. "If we can get this close enough then send a spark down the fuel line it should give us a big enough distraction."
Cloud and Tifa both nodded and ran up to help push. "On three," Reno shouted. "One, two, three!" They all pushed and the car slowly moved forwards towards the soldiers and as the wheels got moving it started to pick up speed.
The soldiers noticed the movement instantly and started to fire at the vehicle. "Were nearly there, you two head for the doors I'll light things up here." Reno pulled out his nightstick and switched it on.
"What about you?" Tifa refused to move. "You'll be killed."
Reno smiled at her. "I knew you'd miss me,"
She gave him a serious look.
"Look I'm not going to die, as soon as this thing blows I'll be right behind you."
"Tifa he's right, we have to go now," Cloud grabbed Tifa's arm and a pulled her. "If we don't none of us are going to make it."
"You better be right behind me." She shouted.
After that they both shot out from their cover and sprinted towards the doors, the soldiers all turned and focused their fire on the two.
"Just a little closer..." Reno pushed the car as hard as he could and watched as the soldiers took notice of Cloud and Tifa. 'That'll have to do.' He opened the fuel tank and took a few steps away holding up the nightstick. A burst of electricity hit the car igniting the fuel and exploding the vehicle, Reno was thrown back from the explosion but he soon got back onto his feet. He ran as fast as he could towards the glass doors, he could see that both Cloud and Tifa had made it inside and were hiding behind the reception desk.
The ground floor of the building was mainly only a reception area, again Reeve had copied a lot of the design from the old Shin-Ra building except this time the room stretched up hollowing out the building making it like a huge doughnut. In the middle of the room was a set of stairs that led up to the second floor of the reception area, up there was the lift that they needed to use. Around the back of the stairs was the back entrance that Barret's group was suppose to use. The lifts on the second floor went up to the top floor, one great big column was made to house them as it stretched up all the way to the top of the building and on each of the floors was a corridor that lead to the lift column, over the railings of each corridor you could see all the way down to the bottom of the reception, even from the 59th floor.
"Here he comes." Cloud pointed at Reno. There were a few soldiers in the reception area but they hadn't seen Cloud or Tifa enter and now they were too busy watching the explosion from the car outside.
"Come on hurry up." Tifa whispered.
Reno reached the doors and pulled the handle to open it, but as he did one of the soldiers from outside had seen him run across to the building and he took aim at Reno's back. Reno stepped through the door and tried to catch his breath.
"What took you so long." Tifa crawled over to him.
"Hey, I'm here aren't..." He was cut off.
Tifa's eyes widened as she saw the red stain form on Reno's shirt.
"...I?" Reno dropped to his knees, his face turned white.
Tifa made her way over to him as fast as she could but it was too late. "Oh god no!" Reno collapsed into her arms and closed his eyes.
Cloud pulled out his cure materia and quickly followed Tifa. She laid him of his back and opened his shirt, blood poured out of the hole in Reno's chest as she tried to cover it with her hands. Cloud cast his magic on the wound but as soon as the green light faded the wound opened up again and the blood continued to flow out, he put his fingers against Reno's neck. "I can't find the pulse." He tried again but still found nothing.
"It can't be..." Tifa's eyes filled with tears.
The front doors shattered from gunfire causing Tifa's mourning to be cut short, Cloud pulled her back and took cover under the reception desk. "We have to go."
"But, but we have to do something!" She tried to run back to Reno's body but Cloud kept a firm grip on her.
"Tifa! In a few seconds this place is going to be over run and we will all die!" He shouted.
Tifa clenched her fists not wanting to agree with him even thought he was right. She nodded and wiped the tears out of her eyes. "Let's go."
Cloud lead the way around the desk and headed over to the closest door, ducking behind anything that kept them out of sight of the trigger happy soldiers. They were just about to reach the door when two of the soldiers jumped out and blocked their way. Cloud drew his sword but hesitated as he looked at their eyes. "Mako?"
The two took advantage of Cloud's shock and leapt forward knocking both Cloud and Tifa off their feet, Tifa recovered instantly and jumped back up running into one of the soldiers with her Beat rush, while Cloud swung his sword round and slicing into the other soldier's leg.
"Aghh!" He fell to his knees and took aim at Cloud with is rifle.
Cloud stood up quickly keeping out off the weapons aim but at point blank it wasn't going to be easy, the rifle fired but he managed to deflect the bullet with his huge sword. Cloud raised his weapon and thrust it into the fallen soldier ending the battle.
"One down." Cloud looked round and saw Tifa perform a Somersault on the second Soldier, slamming him into the wall and then finishing him off with another Beat rush. The soldier collapsed on the floor, she had easily broken most of his ribs with that last combo.
"Let's move." She pushed the door open and ran through, Cloud followed quickly behind.
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"Hey what's wrong with Cait?" Yuffie kicked the stuffed animal.
"What's wrong?" Red sat down next to the motionless Cait Sith.
"He's not moving." Yuffie continued to shake Cait. "Nothing."
"What are we waitin for." Barret ran back when he realized the others had stopped following him.
"Cait's not working." Yuffie scratched her head puzzled.
"Try calling Reeve on the Phs, maybe he's having difficulties controlling him." Red suggested.
Barret nodded and took out the device pressing the buttons, after a few moments a burst of static came through. "The hell?"
"What's wrong?" Red asked.
Barret pressed the buttons again but got the same response. "All I get is static." As they had reached the back entrance to the mayors building Cait Sith had shut down for some unknown reason and now Cid's Phs was on the fritz, Barret couldn't help but feel uneasy about this.
"Try the other groups." Said Red, Barret tried to call Vincent's group but was once more greeted by static.
"What the f^£k is going on?" He shook the device rapidly. "Piece a junk."
"What about Cloud's team?" Red was becoming worried.
Barret tried the last button and after a few rings he heard Tifa's voice. "Tif you there?"
"Barely," He could hardly here her voice over the sound of gunfire. "This whole place is going to hell!"
"Are you ok? We can't get a hold of Cid or Vincent."
"Nether can I," Barret heard a cry as Tifa spoke and nothing came after.
"Tif! Tifa you there?" Barret's heart jumped up to his throat. "Tif?"
"Oh God, Cloud been hit. Barret were at the third floor, the stair's to the left of the reception desk, hurry up and get over here!" She shouted.
Barret heard a click and the Phs once again threw out static. "What happened? Tif?"
"What? What's going on?" Yuffie had a worried look on her face.
"Tifa's in trouble, Cloud's been hit and we have no idea what's going on with Cid or Vincent's group." He explained. "We gotta hurry."
"The guards don't seem to have noticed us this way," Red scanned the street. "What ever the Junon and the others are doing they seem to have the entire army's attention."
"Then lets get going before they come after me!...err I mean us!" Yuffie tapped her foot nervously.
"She's right." Red agreed. "We have to move while we have any advantage."
"Awright, I say we bust on in there and attack head on." Barret raised his gun. "We get in there and save Cloud and Tifa."
"And Reno." Red added.
"Yeah, fine." Barret didn't really care about the Turk.
"What!? Are you crazy?" Yuffie yelled. "Didn't you hear the amount of gunfire in there? We'd be dead in seconds!"
"Fine what do you suppose we do?"
"Err well..." She trailed off.
"I think we should meet up with Tifa before we attack, from the sound of things they may need our help." Red explained.
"Aaaah fine." Barret turned to face the mayors building. "We sneak in from the back and move round to the stairs, Tifa said she was on the third floor there."
"Ok." Red confirmed. "But what about Cait Sith?"
"We can't carry him," Said Barret. "He'll just have to stay here."
Red nodded and they started to sprint down the highway as fast as possible, once closer to the actual building they could hear the gunfire inside.
"Things sound bad in there." Yuffie put her back to the wall. "Their still alive, right?"
"With this much gunfire it seems that someone is still alive." Red reassured her but even he was beginning to worry.
"Has anyone ever been here?" She asked. "Which way is it to the stairs?"
Barret kept his attention to the door. "There are a set of stairs in the middle of the room to the third floor but Tifa said the stairs we want are through a door to the left of the reception desk."
"Ok, we ready?" Red looked at Barret who nodded and put his hand on the door. "On three."
"One," Barret griped the handle tightly. "Two," Yuffie got ready to sprint straight to the back of the stairs not wanting to become a human target. "Three!"
Barret threw the door open and the three charged through, the ground floor was completely over run with soldiers but their attention seemed to be on something outside the front doors.
"What are they looking at?" Yuffie asked.
"Who cares its just what we need." Barret grabbed her arm and dragged Yuffie only with him and Red. They ran up behind the set of stairs that led to the lifts and took cover, the soldiers seemed to be heading outside. Yuffie's curiosity got the best of her and she crawled to the edge of the stairs.
'What's so interesting outside?' Side poked her head around the corner and as soon as her eyes locked on to the flaming wreckage outside her eyes filled with tears. "It can't be!"
Barret and Red turned round to see what Yuffie was doing.
"What are you doin? Get back here!" Barret crawled over to Yuffie to grab her but he couldn't help peeking around the corner too. "We have to keep movi..." Barret's jaw dropped.
Outside the soldiers were gathering round and searching a flaming wreckage, but when his saw the half burned side panel with Cid's female mascot on the side, the reason why Cait had stopped working and why they could get in touch with Cid had become more obvious.
"It can't be." Red joined the two and looked round the corner.
"The got Cid and Reeve." Yuffie pulled her self back, she couldn't look at it anymore without bursting into tears.
"Aww man this is terrible." Barret lowered his head. 'The guy has a kid coming, Shera's gonna be heart broken.'
"There's nothing we can do here..." Red shook his head. "We have to help Tifa and the others while we still can."
Barret and Yuffie waited a moment and both nodded. "Yur right, we gotta help them."
They made their way over to the stairway door, the soldiers were still watching the fire outside giving Barret and the others a good enough distraction, even if it was the death of two of their friends.
As they reached the door Yuffie noticed two soldiers on the floor dead. "Looks like they came this way." She held her shuriken tighter, on the other side of the door gunfire could be heard.
Barret stood up to the door and kicked it open, after taking a quick look he opened fire with his machine gun catching the soldiers off guard. Yuffie quickly followed and threw her shuriken at one of the soldiers hitting him in the chest, Red quickly followed and pounced on another biting at his throat.
After a few seconds the skirmish was over and the three stood there in victory, Yuffie walked over and pulled her shuriken out of the fallen soldier. "Hey look at this." She kneeled now and examined the soldiers face.
"What?" Barret clipped another magazine in his gun and stared at the soldier.
"His eyes," She pointed to them. "They're glowing."
"You mean they're infused with Mako?" Red walked over and studied him.
"Mako? Don't you need a reactor to do that?" Barret growled. "All of those dam machines have been shut down."
"Well one of them hasn't," Red confirmed that they were Mako eyes. "Either that or another one has been built."
"Red is that you?" Tifa's voice echoed down the stairs.
"Tif?" Barret ran up the stairs to the third floor, passing at least eight dead soldiers on the ways, each filled with countless bullet wounds. Cloud was propped up against the wall holding one of the soldier's guns, blood seeped out of a large cut in the side of his chest. Tifa sat at the top of the second flight of stairs and gave Barret a slight smile, her body was bruised and cut all over.
"Oh gawd are you guys ok?" Yuffie ran past Barret and kneeled down beside Tifa.
"Were fine, although if you guys hadn't come we would have been finished." Tifa stood up but nearly fell straight back down as the blood rushed to her head.
"You look like you've been through hell." Barret helped Cloud stand up. "Where's Reno?"
Tifa stared down at the floor unable to bring any words to her mouth, Barret nodded putting his arms around her and she buried her face in his chest and started sobbing.
"Have you got in touch with the others?" Cloud asked.
Red shook his head. "We haven't been able to get through to Vincent's team, Cid and Reeve though... they... didn't make it."
Cloud nodded and limped over to the next set of stairs.
"So what's the plan?" Tifa pushed away from Barret's chest and wiped her eyes. "What do we do now?"
"More will be on their way soon." Red looked down at one of the fallen soldiers.
"These are Mako SOLDIER's," Cloud kicked one of them. "They're even stronger than Shin-Ra's kind."
"I noticed," Barret agreed. "They take a lot of firepower to bring down."
"But where did they come from?" Yuffie sat on the steps above.
"I don't know." He took the soldier's ammo and put it in his pocket, Cloud's sword rested in the chest of one of the soldiers below, after awhile he and Tifa had been over run and hand-to-hand combat was impossible.
"So what's the plan then?" Tifa repeated. "If there are more coming it's going to be a bad idea staying here."
"Tifa's right we have to move." Cloud agreed.
"We should head up." Red suggested. "We came here to find the commander, she's most likely on the higher floors."
"But if we all go up then we will be cornered by anyone who comes up after us." Cloud pointed out.
"Your right Spike," Barret turned and took a few steps down the stairs "So me, Red and Yuffie will watch your back's, you two head up and find the commander."
"It should work," Red followed Barret. "Most of the army seems to be outside fighting the civilians and Junon soldiers."
"Yeah good plan." Yuffie agreed. 'I'd rather stay down here than go fight whoever's in charge of this bunch of freaks.'
"Then it's settled." Cloud turned and stared to walk up the stairs. "We'll call you on the Phs if we need backup."
The group split in two and Yuffie and Red headed down the stairs. "Hey Spike."
Cloud turned and saw Barret looking up at him. "Yeah?"
"You guys come back alive you hear me."
Cloud smiled. "Yeah, you too."
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Cloud waited for Tifa at the door to the 10th floor, so far the climb up had been uneventful.
"Do you really think anyone's up here?" Tifa asked climbing the last set of stairs to reach Cloud. "It's so quite."
"If only the commander is up here then I doubt she will be making much noise." He waited for Tifa to catch up and then continued to travel up the next flight of stairs.
"Your right," She felt a chill go down her spine. "It's just so creepy you know, we came in here and there was no end to them, now... nothing."
"I know what you mean." Although Cloud was confident that the commander was higher up in the building he couldn't shake the feeling that they were walking straight into a trap.
They reached the 30th floor and Cloud looked back at Tifa who was struggling to keep up. "Perhaps we should rest here."
Tifa just nodded and sat down next to him at the top of the stairs, she rested her head on Cloud's shoulder and closed her eyes. 'Cid, Reeve, Reno they're all gone.' She forced herself not to cry again. 'How could this be happening? We were smart, we had our plan. This all feels like some bad nightmare, I just want to wake up.'
Cloud let Tifa rest on him as he thought about everything that had happened in such a short time. His memory of the time between fighting Sephiroth and waking up aboard the Highwind was still missing and now he had lost more than just that. 'After all we've been through, how can things end up like this?' The cut in his chest kept Cloud in a constant state of pain but he push it to the back of his mind making it bearable.
The building was 60 floors high and Cloud doubted that they could climb another 30 floors and still be in top condition to fight. 'Hell I'd be surprised if we could put up a good fight even now.' "Perhaps we should take the elevator from here, if there are no soldiers above the ground floor then it should be safe to use it now."
Tifa nodded and sat up. "Your right, I haven't heard anything from below so I guess Barret and the others haven't come into any trouble."
They stood up and Cloud pushed the door open to the 30th floor. A long open corridor stretched out with many different doors, at the end though was the one that lead to the center of the building. Cloud walked along and opened the door at the end, normally this place would be full of noise from the work been done but right now everything was in silence. He stepped through the door and walked out onto the open corridor, he looked over the side of the railings at the ground floor and could see that there was no one around. 'This place was crawling with SOLDIER's when we came up here, where are they now?'
They walk down heading for the lift, there didn't seem to be anyone in the building anymore. "What the hell is going on?" Cloud asked. "Where are all the soldiers?"
Tifa felt the same way as Cloud. 'Its bad enough been chased by a bunch of Mako infused freaks but this is some how even worse.'
Cloud was the first to reach the elevator but before he could push the button he heard it moving up on its own. 'Not good.' He took a few steps back and aimed the rifle at the metal doors, Tifa stood beside him and seemed to have the same idea. The lift stopped at the 30th floor and the doors slide open, inside Cloud counted six soldiers all fully armed, the one at the front held his arm up and smiled at Cloud.
"Mister Strife," He took a few steps out of the lift and his men followed.
Cloud heard some movement from below and he looked over the railings again, on the ground floor he could see at least 20 soldiers come out from hiding, their guns aimed him as soon as he look over the side. 'Oh f^£k.' They had walked straight into a trap.
"Mister Strife," The soldier repeated, Cloud turned his attention back to him. "As you can see you are out manned and out gunned."
Cloud could see by the look on his face that the SOLDIER was enjoying his victory.
"Now if you wouldn't mind coming with us." He held his hand out. "The commander is waiting."
Cloud took a few steps back towards the door, Tifa followed keeping her eyes fixed on the SOLDIER's weapons.
"(Sigh) I wouldn't do that if I were you." The soldier looked disappointed at Cloud's decision. "My orders are to bring you alive, the commander is waiting above to meet you." He smiled. "But if you struggle I have permission to use force." The rest of the soldiers raised their guns.
Tifa swallowed heavily. "What are we going to do?" She whispered.
Cloud reached out and grabbed her arm. "We run." He spun and headed for the door as fast as he could, dragging Tifa behind him. He kicked the door open and ran through, a few bullets flew past him just barely missing.
Tifa followed Cloud not asking any questions as he dragged her down the corridor and thought the door to the stairs. As they started to climb the next set, Tifa heard heavy footsteps running up after them, she shot a glance down the side of the stairs and saw another group of SOLDIER's coming up from below. 'Where did they come from? What happened to Barret and the others?'
Cloud looked up ahead and saw more of them running down the stairs towards him, he glanced round and saw the corridor that lead to floor 32. "This way." He threw the door open and headed through.
How can this be happening?"
"I don't know there's just so many of them." Cloud ran down the corridor dragging Tifa behind him.
"Where are we going?" She asked trying to keep up with Cloud.
"We need to reach the main office she's most likely waiting there." He burst through the next door out into the main hub of the building running down along the open corridor, shots were been fired at them from the lower levels. "F%£k they can sense where we are." A bullet grazed Cloud's head as he dropped to the floor.
They both crawled along the floor the elevator was their only chance, the stairs were blocked off by the SOLDIER's it would be impossible to get past them all. The doors opened up behind them, Cloud turned and fired the gun hoping to by a few precious seconds. Tifa had called the lift and dragged Cloud inside while he was still firing. "Top floor!" He shouted. She punched the button and the doors slowly shut, bullets flying through the gap until it closed.
The elevator shook and started to move up. Cloud could hear gunshots been fired below, the fight was still going on. Still sat on the floor he leaned against the side of the lift staring up at the ceiling. "Cloud."
"What?" He rolled his head to face Tifa, blood was dripping down the side of his face from the bullet wound.
"Do you think everything will turn out ok?" She was propped against the wall opposite the doors. The blood in her hair made it stick to her back and legs, her arms and legs were covered in bruises and cuts but she still managed to let out a simple smile.
"Yeah." Cloud pushed on his legs lifting himself up. "Everything's going to work out in the end, it.. always does." The gash in his side split open a little more as he stretched his body out causing Cloud to feel dizzy from the pain.
The elevator slowed to a halt as it reached the top floor. "Ok from here it's straight ahead down the corridor to the Mayor's office." Cloud pushed himself off the wall and began to walk to Tifa.
"Ok on the count of three, you ready?" Tifa braced herself for the run while Cloud just nodded."
"One,"
"Two," He pressed one leg against the wall ready to push off but as Cloud began to say three a shot burst through the door forcing its way straight through the metal. Cloud fell to the side feeling droplets of warm blood hitting his face as he fell to the ground, the bullet had missed him but then where did the blood come from. 'Tifa!'
Cloud hit the ground hard but he did not take notice of the pain, he quickly crawled over to Tifa but it was too late. The bullet had hit her in the heart, her eyelids were closed, Cloud press his head against her chest listening for a heart beat. '... Nothing.'
He looked at her face, feeling the same pain he had 2 years ago on that terrible day. "This can't be... " He whispered. "It's not suppose to end like this, not after all we've done, all we've been through, all we've sacrificed." He lifted her up hugging Tifa's lifeless body tightly, his arm were shaking out of control. "I won't let it end this way. Not now!"
"Do you have to act so pathetic?"
Cloud looked out of the lift and stared at the figure stood in the middle of the room. She had no distinct features, her armor was like none Cloud had ever seen, her face showed no emotion.
"W-Who are you?" Cloud said still shaking. "Why are you doing this?"
The female laughed. "What you don't recognize me?"
The mayor's office was mainly just a huge wide open room, it looked at lot like president Shin-Ra's office. "Who are you?" Cloud repeated, lowering Tifa's body back down to the floor, stood up and walked out of the lift into the office.
She shook here head. "Perhaps I should change into something more familiar." The commanders body rippled as her clothes, face even her weapon began to change its form. The gun stretched out becoming a long thin sword, her clothes filled with black as if been consumed by some unseen darkness, her hair grew longer and changed to a light silver as her face changed to fit the new form of the body. "Is this better?"
"Y-you? Sephiroth? But how." Cloud shouted. "How are you here?"
"Don't act so surprised."
"Why did you do this!?" Cloud shouted, his rage built up inside of him.
Sephiroth shook his head. "You still understand nothing." Once again his body began to ripple and change, this time the body became smaller and slender, the clothes changed to a soft pink and the hair wrapped round and filled with a light brown colour, tying its self off with a pink ribbon. "How's this?"
Cloud couldn't believe what he was seeing. "Aeris?"
She shook her head again and began to walk up to Cloud. "How can you be so blind?" Her hand filled with a green glow. "You're always going to be a failure, aren't you Cloud." She brought her hand round and the Ultima spell hit Cloud dead on, throwing his body across the room.
"You can't be her." Cloud choked ignoring the pain as he stood back up.
Aeris walked up to Cloud again. "Why not? Why can't I be the very same Aeris you meet so long ago." She smiled and cupped his chin. "That's right. Its because of you." Another Ultima spell was cast on to Clouds chest but Aeris held on to his neck making him endure the full force of the spell.
Cloud coughed brining up blood, his vision began to blur slightly. 'I-I can't take this much longer.'
"You Cloud Strife failed to save her." Aeris smiled at him at let Cloud's body fall to the floor. "Your so weak, can you remember her face? The few moments before she died?" She kneeled down to be level with him. "You remember don't you, they were filled with trust, just before that cold, long, sharp blade cut straight through her body."
Cloud shook his head as if trying to deny his past. "I-I..."
"Oh it felt so good to be finally rid of the annoying brat." Aeris grinned and stood up. "The way the sword just slid through her like butter, I couldn't believe how easy it was. It left quite a scar." She pulled the dress open a little and showed Cloud the fatal wound on her chest.
Cloud felt sick, he wanted it to just end. "Y-You, it was you."
Aeris lifted Cloud up once again. "You're finally begging to understand." Her body began to ripple for the last time, only this time it took the shape of her real form.
Cloud watched in horror, he knew who it was as last. 'Jenova, it was her all along, ever since the beginning, she was there.'
"After all this time I finally get my revenge of you." Her limbs stretched out and took an alien form, the clothes dissolved into her body. "After two thousand years of waiting I will finally have my revenge on you."
Jenova threw Cloud across the floor and walked over to the desk. Cloud got a good look at her, she looked different from when he had seen her back in the Nibelheim reactor, and every part of her body seemed to be... complete. "You held the last of my original cells in your body and because of that I thought I had no chance of becoming complete, but..."
She picked up a small object off the desk. "Once you killed Sephiroth, his body returned to the Lifestream but my cells could not, they separated from his body and I could finally reabsorb them back into myself, I also gained all the power he had once possessed. After that the only cells missing from my body were in yours, and now I have them back." She smiled. "Now I'm whole once again, I'm stronger, faster and more powerful than you can even imagine, and you my dear Cloud, you are finished."
'That's what came back up from the Lifestream, that's what Tifa saw.' Cloud struggled to stand up but he managed it. 'Those cells must have been from the original strain found by professor Gast, she needed them to be complete.'
"You and this entire planet hold no purpose for me now." She held up the small object and clicked a button, a small light began to blink.
"What do you mean?" He struggled to speak.
Jenova walked out onto the balcony outside, her form was now like a dark angel, her every movement was a graceful as the next. "I came here a long time ago to take this planets Lifestream and to absorb it, but ever since that time I have been in hell because of you."
Cloud followed Jenova outside, the city was in flames as her army continued to destroy everything in sight. "But now Cloud, I'm going to cut my losses and leave this pathetic world, but as for you," She turned and faced him. "You and this entire planet will be destroyed and I will make sure that your Lifestream never returns to the universe, I will destroy every last trace of you Strife! Your entire existence ends here!"
"You can't... I wont let you." Cloud raised his gun and fired but the bullets just shattered as they hit Jenova's perfect form.
"Fool." She laughed. "So how does it feel Cloud?"
"What?"
"How does it feel to know you failed?" She grinned. "You failed that witch Aeris, you failed your pathetic friends and you failed this entire planet. And now your world will end from the same energy that created it." Jenova's body raised into the air and Cloud was helpless but to just watch. "Enjoy the show." She pointed into the sky before disappearing.
Cloud fell to his knees. "It's all over, I was just too weak." He looked up into the sky and saw a thin green beam of light that was focused on the top of the building. The beam grew bigger and bigger until it swallowed the entire city, Cloud continued to stare up into the light and thought about all those he had failed. "I'm sorry."
The light pulsated and hit the city, the buildings shattered into nothing and the city was destroyed but beam continued to force its way through, causing a final and fatal blow to the planet. The very Lifestream of the planet set fire erupting into flames and the planet let out its final cry as it lit up the void of space in one final explosion.
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Cloud felt the warmth around him, he opened his eyes and saw nothing but the soft green glow of the Lifestream. In his hand was the shattered Ultima weapon, the wound in the side of shoulder was still fresh. 'What happened? I'm I really here or is this a dream?'
He continued to fall through the green liquid moving further and further away from the physical world. 'Which was the dream? Is any of this real? Why can't I wake up?'
Hours passed by and Cloud still fell further into the Lifestream, he felt as if it would never end. 'Maybe this is it, this is all that's left.' After some time his strength left him and Cloud could no longer stay awake, he closed his eyes once more and let the darkness take him.
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Cloud's senses came back to him but his eyes remained closed, he no longer felt like he was drifting. His head rested on something soft and warm, after all the pain he had been through it felt so strange.
Something brushed through his hair and rested on his head, Cloud dared himself to open his eyes, but he feared what would be there. He felt someone's warm breath on his face, his curiosity overpowered his fear and he opened his eyes.
"Hey."
Cloud just stared at the figure, his gaze was fixed on those soft green eyes. He tried to think of something to say but his thoughts flew around his mind too fast to keep hold of.
"Are you feeling better?" She asked stroking Cloud's hair.
"...Its ...its you." Cloud whispered. "Is... is it really you?"
She smiled and nodded. "You should rest."
Cloud smiled realizing that his body was completely drained of energy. "Yeah." Cloud agreed but he still tried to keep his eyes open for as long as possible, just in case this was some cruel dream, he wanted to enjoy it for as long as possible before he woke up.
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Note: This took me a little longer than expected but then again I didn't really expect it to be as long as it turned out to be. This is probably the strangest chapter in the story but everything will be explained in the next one. Thanks to silver-twilight for the review and I will have chapter 7 up hopefully a little faster.
"Hey wake up!"
Cloud sat up and looked round the room. "What's going on?"
"This is no time to be taking a nap." Cid yelled at him.
"What's going on?" Cloud repeated as he stood up.
"Were nearly at Neo Midgar." Cid pointed out the small window and headed out of the room. "So hurry up and get ready."
Cloud stood there for a moment realizing he was in the Highwind. 'Did Tifa and the others bring me aboard? What about the Lifestream?' He walked out of the operations room and headed towards the bridge. 'What happened to Sephiroth?'
"Your awake." Tifa ran up to Cloud when he reached the bridge.
"Yeah, why are we going to Neo Midgar?" He asked.
"This is no time for jokes Spike." Barret grumbled.
"Huh?" Cloud stood there confused.
"We're nearly there so get ready." Cid took the Highwind off autopilot and steered it in.
"Ok we've been over this before but lets make sure we all know," Tifa stood at the front of the bridge. "Team A, Vincent, Rude and Elena you are to sneak in through the subway system underneath Midgar, Cid will drop you off first." She handed Vincent a map of the underground.
"Team A? What's going on?" Cloud whispered to himself. 'And what are the Turks doing here?'
"Team C, Barret, Yuffie, Red and Cait are to attack from the opposite end of the highway from Team B which is Me, Cloud, Reno." She handed Barret the city map.
"Huh, why do I get paired up with you again?" Barret stared and Yuffie who just replied by sticking her tongue out at him.
"Cid and Reeve will stay aboard the Highwind and give us air support." Tifa handed the last map to Cid which had the main defenses ringed in red. "Just shoot the things in the red circles."
"I know dammit," Cid snatched the map off Tifa. "I'm some dumb ass kid."
"(Sigh) Any questions?" Tifa turned to everyone else but they all stayed silent happy knowing what to do. "Well then, lets get into position."
Everyone headed out the exit except Cid who continued to pilot the jet and Cloud who stood there completely baffled by what was going on. "Hey Tifa." He ran after her into the engine room.
"Hmm?" She stopped and looked at Cloud.
"What's going on?" He asked for the third time now.
"Cloud like Barret said this is no time for jokes."
"I'm not joking what's going on?"
"Are you feeling ok?" She walked up to him putting her hand on his forehead. "Your really warm."
"Just tell me what's going on."
"(Sigh) Ever since you fell in that Lifestream you haven't been well" Tifa took her hand away. "Is it affecting your memory?"
Cloud shook his head. "Memory? Look just tell me what happened to Sephiroth after he dropped me into that pool."
"Pool?" Tifa stared at him puzzled and shocked. "You must be joking Cloud that was weeks ago."
"Weeks ago?" Cloud couldn't believe he was been told this. 'How can it have happened weeks ago?' "Look just tell me what's going on, maybe it will jog my memory."
Tifa didn't understand why Cloud wanted to know, she had told him twice already. "Ok... I'll try, when Sephiroth dropped you in the Lifestream he stood there and said something about becoming whole again but I didn't understand what he meant."
"Whole?" Cloud didn't understand. 'What was missing?'
"After a while something came back up and attached its self to Sephiroth, I'm not sure what it was though." She scratched her head. "It was kinda green and slimy."
"What did he do after that?"
"He just smiled at us and left." She shrugged.
"That's it?" Cloud looked puzzled. "He didn't do or say anything?"
"No nothing." Tifa was confused just thinking about, it was the first time she had really given it any thought since then. "It was like he'd already done everything he wanted."
'What was it that came back up?' Cloud felt even more confused than before. 'Did it come from me?'
"Shortly after you returned up from the Lifestream and we took you back to the Highwind to recover, do you remember anything after that?" She asked but Cloud just shook his head.
"A few weeks later something happened in Neo Midgar, an army lead by some female commander stormed the city and took control." Tifa continued.
"Female commander? Who is she? What does she want?"
Tifa shook her head. "We don't no, anyone who has approached the city has been shot on sight. After a while the army that took control of Neo Midgar started to attack Junon."
"Did they succeed?" Cloud was beginning to wonder if the Lifestream had messed his memory up, he couldn't remember any of this.
"No, the Junon army held them off but now it's turned in to a full scale war between Junon and the army controlling Neo Midgar."
"This isn't good." Cloud walked up to the small window and looked out towards Neo Midgar, small flashes of lights could be seen in the dark through out the city. "They're already fighting."
"Junon staged a full scale attack an hour ago, they're loosing." Tifa walked up and joined Cloud. "The Turks were asked, well, paid by the Mayor of Junon to help take out the commander of this army."
"And I take it we volunteered to help?" He asked.
"It was your idea." She gave Cloud a worried look. "You still don't remember?"
"What was the last thing I did before I met you all in on the bridge?"
Tifa gave him another worried look. "You told everyone to get ready for the worst and to make sure everyone's equipment is in working order, after that you said you wanted to rest and you walked off to the operations room. You don't remember any of this?"
"No nothing... Maybe you were right perhaps it's just the Lifestream playing around with my head." He shrugged.
"Well," Tifa put her hand on his shoulder. "Get better soon ok?" Cloud nodded and the two headed out to meet the rest of the group.
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"Ok that's Vincent's group gone." Cid voice came over the intercom.
Cloud and Tifa reached the docking bay.
"What kept you?" Reno walked up to them.
"Just filling Cloud in." Tifa explained, Reno gave her a confused look wondering what there was to fill him in about.
"Team B get ready," Cid's voice came over the intercom once more. "I'm landing on the main highway so hurry up and move before we become a sitting target."
The Highwind flew in and set down long enough for Cloud, Tifa and Reno to head down the ramp onto the highway. Once off Tifa gave the signal and Cid flew off to the other end of the city.
"This army you told me about." Cloud turned to Tifa. "Where did they come from?"
"We don't know." She shook her head. "It's like they just appeared out off know where."
Cloud went back into his thoughts still confused about what was going on. He walked up to the edge of the highway and looked over into the city. The highway was set way above the actual city, there were two huge stretches of road that went to the No.1 and No.5 power plants, then a road went round the entire city joining the rest of the plants together, the two main roads though joined up at the middle to the Mayors building. The Mayors building it self was massive, similar to the Shin-Ra building of the old Midgar, Reeve had decided to copy quite a lot of it's design to make things easier.
Cloud glanced over the edge of the highway, from here he could see most of the city below. The small flashes of light Cloud had see back on board the Highwind were still present and he could also see most of the buildings in the city were either destroyed or on fire. "What the hell is happening?" He muttered. Parts of Neo Midgar was still under construction and was around another two or three years away from been fully completed, but now it looked like everything would have to be started all over again.
"It looks like the citizens tried to put up a resistance." Reno walked up beside Cloud. "It didn't do them much good."
"Why is she doing this? What does she want?" Cloud shook his head. 'I feel dizzy, after all I did trying to find Aeris and now this.' He felt his anger rising. 'After all that it turned out that it wasn't her after all, just some stupid joke by that freak Sephiroth.' Cloud griped the handle of his sword tightly, since his Ultima weapon had been destroyed he had to go back to his old buster sword. 'That's a though too, what's his role in all this?'
"Let's get a move on." Cloud continued to stare at the riots below for a few more seconds and then started down the road, the highway was cluttered with abandoned cars and trucks.
"Cid say's he just dropped off Team C." Tifa ran up beside Cloud and switched the Phs off. "We need to attack at both sides to catch them off guard."
"How well are they defended?" Cloud continued running.
"We don't know," Tifa glanced back to check that Reno was keeping up. "Like I said before, anyone who has come close to the city has been killed. The Junon army outside seems to be keeping them distracted though, enough to let us slip in anyway."
"Wonderful." As Cloud spoke a burst of fire came from the direction of the mayors building.
"They've spotted us." Tifa and Reno took cover behind an abandoned car while Cloud stepped behind a lamppost hoping it was big enough to cover him.
Cloud closed his eyes. "I have a really 'bad' feeling about this."
________________________________________
"Hey keep up you two." Elena crept down the side off the tunnel keeping to the shadows while Rude and Vincent followed a little further behind.
"Elena you shouldn't move too quickly," Vincent grabbed her arm. "If there are soldiers down here we don't want to rush into them."
The three had managed to sneak in to the subway system after been dropped off from the Highwind. The subway was wide enough to have two trains pass through it and still have plenty of room to spare. The tracks led around the entire city in a ring and then cut through the middle and passed through the private subway station below the mayors building.
"Look I'm a Turk so I know how to work on a covert operation." She replied.
"Well I was a Turk too so take my advice and slow down." Vincent said firmly.
"Look don't think you can just go round giving me orders, I'm not part of your stupid little club remember." She raised her voice.
"Hey who's down there?" A voice echoed down the tunnel.
Vincent gave her a cold look and Elena stopped talking.
"...." Rude taped Vincent on the shoulder and pointed to some boxes across the tunnel.
Vincent nodded and grabbed Elena's arm pulling her with him as they moved over to hide.
"We should be safe here." Rude whispered.
After a few moment's two soldiers walked by on patrol, luckily they didn't see the trio hiding. One thing that did interest Vincent were the eyes of the soldiers as they went by.
"That was close." Elena whispered.
Rude nodded. "We should leave before they come back." He and Elena stood up while Vincent remained still, lost in thought.
"Hey what's up with him?" Elena asked.
"Those were soldiers." Vincent announced.
"Yeah no kidding, who do you think we came here to fight?" She snapped.
"No I mean those were SOLDIER's, as in Mako infused SOLDIER's." He stood up.
"You mean like the kind Shin-Ra use to make?" She looked at him puzzled. "But all Mako research is now illegal and all the reactors have been shut down."
"Well either way those 'were' from SOLDIER." He stated.
"This makes things much more difficult." Rude leaned against one of the boxes.
"I know, if the entire army is made from these Mako improved fighters then we stand little chance of beating them." Vincent didn't even notice the approaching footsteps this time.
"Hey you there!" A bright light shone on top of Vincent and the others as five SOLDIER's stepped out, their guns aimed straight at them. "Don't move!"
Before Vincent even had his fingers around his weapon a rifle was pointed at him just a few centimeters away from his face, he had no choice put to slowly raise his hands in the air.
The leader of the squad approached them. "Vincent of Avalanche, Elena and Rude of the Turks." He examined the three while his men took away their weapons,
Vincent had no choice but to let them, he could probably take out 2 maybe 3 of the troops but the last 2 would kill him easily. "I was told that you would difficult to find, but it seems that the commander over estimated your abilities." He took out a Phs.
"What are we going to do?" Elena whispered.
"I don't know." Vincent could tell the SOLDIER's were watching his every move, making a quick one would most likely cost him his life.
"No he's not here," The leader talked into the device. "Very well." He switched off the Phs.
"So what are you going to do?" Elena snapped. "Take us to her and be prisoners?"
"Hahaha not at all." He laughed.
"So what are you going to do?" She asked, a more worried tone in her voice.
The Soldiers handcuffed them and stepped away to the other side of the tunnel. Three of them took out their rifles.
"You three are not important, I have orders to kill you now before you become a problem." The squad leader took his position next to the three Soldiers. "On my command."
"You can't be serious!" Elena screamed.
"You're just going to kill us outright?" Vincent asked, if he was worried his face or voice didn't show it.
The leader laughed again. "What do you think the entire point of this war was?"
"I don't understand." Vincent replied.
"This war on Neo Midgar and Junon was all just bait to get you and your followers out into the open." He smiled. "And now it seems that you have walked right into the trap. The only one the commander wants alive is a man named Cloud Strife." The three Soldiers raised their rifles and took aim at Vincent, Rude and Elena. "And since none of you are him, your time is up."
Rude tried to get free from the cuffs but found no luck in doing so. 'This really is it, there's no way out.'
The leader held out his hand. "Ready...Aim..."
Vincent closed his eyes. 'I guess it is finally time for me to repent for my sins. I just hope everyone else figures this out before its too late.'
"Fire!"
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"There are too many of them."
Cloud and his group pushed their way forwards down the highway as they were covered by enemy fire, they took cover behind anything strong enough to withstand a bullet.
"Did they know we were coming?" Cloud asked.
"How could they? We only made our plans a few hours ago." Shouted Tifa, the gunfire was deafening.
"Come on I see an opening." Reno grabbed Tifa's hand and pulled her to the side.
Cloud followed and saw the gap between the cars, from there they could move in between the vehicles until they reached the mayors building. 'So this female commander is in charge of the army, taking her out should cause a break in the chain of command making it easier for Junon to take out the rest of her army.' Cloud dodged in between the cars, the odd bullet whistled past his head. 'How can they be so accurate, they can't see me.' Who ever these soldiers were, they were well trained and highly skilled.
"That's strange..." Tifa shook the Phs.
"What is?" Reno crouched down by her.
"I can't seem to get hold off Vincent's group." She pushed the buttons on the device but only received static bursts.
"Maybe its because they're in the tunnels." Cloud joined them and kneeled down.
"But they should have reached the mayors building by now, it's not that far from their drop off point." She gave up and put the Phs back in her pocket.
"Well anyway now all we have to do is reach those doors and head for the lift" Reno pointed to the large glass doors leading into the building. "Right?"
"Yep, according to the Junon military they have been tracking transmissions from that area, so it's most likely that the commander is in one of the higher floors." Tifa confirmed.
"Then lets go." Reno stood up.
Tifa lead the way through the cars until they reached the last one, from there it was about fifty meters of open ground to the front doors.
"We need a distraction." Cloud pointed to the soldiers who were still firing upon them. "Otherwise its gonna be impossible to get past them."
Reno glanced round and what he could use. 'Just throwing a rock isn't going to work, I need something bigger.' He continued to look round. 'One of these cars going up in smoke would be useful but their too far away from the guards.
Tifa tried the Phs again while Cloud was checking his materia to see if he had anything big enough. 'Fire, bolt, comet and cure. Its not enough.'
"Hey help me out here." Reno started pushing on the car in front of him. "If we can get this close enough then send a spark down the fuel line it should give us a big enough distraction."
Cloud and Tifa both nodded and ran up to help push. "On three," Reno shouted. "One, two, three!" They all pushed and the car slowly moved forwards towards the soldiers and as the wheels got moving it started to pick up speed.
The soldiers noticed the movement instantly and started to fire at the vehicle. "Were nearly there, you two head for the doors I'll light things up here." Reno pulled out his nightstick and switched it on.
"What about you?" Tifa refused to move. "You'll be killed."
Reno smiled at her. "I knew you'd miss me,"
She gave him a serious look.
"Look I'm not going to die, as soon as this thing blows I'll be right behind you."
"Tifa he's right, we have to go now," Cloud grabbed Tifa's arm and a pulled her. "If we don't none of us are going to make it."
"You better be right behind me." She shouted.
After that they both shot out from their cover and sprinted towards the doors, the soldiers all turned and focused their fire on the two.
"Just a little closer..." Reno pushed the car as hard as he could and watched as the soldiers took notice of Cloud and Tifa. 'That'll have to do.' He opened the fuel tank and took a few steps away holding up the nightstick. A burst of electricity hit the car igniting the fuel and exploding the vehicle, Reno was thrown back from the explosion but he soon got back onto his feet. He ran as fast as he could towards the glass doors, he could see that both Cloud and Tifa had made it inside and were hiding behind the reception desk.
The ground floor of the building was mainly only a reception area, again Reeve had copied a lot of the design from the old Shin-Ra building except this time the room stretched up hollowing out the building making it like a huge doughnut. In the middle of the room was a set of stairs that led up to the second floor of the reception area, up there was the lift that they needed to use. Around the back of the stairs was the back entrance that Barret's group was suppose to use. The lifts on the second floor went up to the top floor, one great big column was made to house them as it stretched up all the way to the top of the building and on each of the floors was a corridor that lead to the lift column, over the railings of each corridor you could see all the way down to the bottom of the reception, even from the 59th floor.
"Here he comes." Cloud pointed at Reno. There were a few soldiers in the reception area but they hadn't seen Cloud or Tifa enter and now they were too busy watching the explosion from the car outside.
"Come on hurry up." Tifa whispered.
Reno reached the doors and pulled the handle to open it, but as he did one of the soldiers from outside had seen him run across to the building and he took aim at Reno's back. Reno stepped through the door and tried to catch his breath.
"What took you so long." Tifa crawled over to him.
"Hey, I'm here aren't..." He was cut off.
Tifa's eyes widened as she saw the red stain form on Reno's shirt.
"...I?" Reno dropped to his knees, his face turned white.
Tifa made her way over to him as fast as she could but it was too late. "Oh god no!" Reno collapsed into her arms and closed his eyes.
Cloud pulled out his cure materia and quickly followed Tifa. She laid him of his back and opened his shirt, blood poured out of the hole in Reno's chest as she tried to cover it with her hands. Cloud cast his magic on the wound but as soon as the green light faded the wound opened up again and the blood continued to flow out, he put his fingers against Reno's neck. "I can't find the pulse." He tried again but still found nothing.
"It can't be..." Tifa's eyes filled with tears.
The front doors shattered from gunfire causing Tifa's mourning to be cut short, Cloud pulled her back and took cover under the reception desk. "We have to go."
"But, but we have to do something!" She tried to run back to Reno's body but Cloud kept a firm grip on her.
"Tifa! In a few seconds this place is going to be over run and we will all die!" He shouted.
Tifa clenched her fists not wanting to agree with him even thought he was right. She nodded and wiped the tears out of her eyes. "Let's go."
Cloud lead the way around the desk and headed over to the closest door, ducking behind anything that kept them out of sight of the trigger happy soldiers. They were just about to reach the door when two of the soldiers jumped out and blocked their way. Cloud drew his sword but hesitated as he looked at their eyes. "Mako?"
The two took advantage of Cloud's shock and leapt forward knocking both Cloud and Tifa off their feet, Tifa recovered instantly and jumped back up running into one of the soldiers with her Beat rush, while Cloud swung his sword round and slicing into the other soldier's leg.
"Aghh!" He fell to his knees and took aim at Cloud with is rifle.
Cloud stood up quickly keeping out off the weapons aim but at point blank it wasn't going to be easy, the rifle fired but he managed to deflect the bullet with his huge sword. Cloud raised his weapon and thrust it into the fallen soldier ending the battle.
"One down." Cloud looked round and saw Tifa perform a Somersault on the second Soldier, slamming him into the wall and then finishing him off with another Beat rush. The soldier collapsed on the floor, she had easily broken most of his ribs with that last combo.
"Let's move." She pushed the door open and ran through, Cloud followed quickly behind.
__________________________________
"Hey what's wrong with Cait?" Yuffie kicked the stuffed animal.
"What's wrong?" Red sat down next to the motionless Cait Sith.
"He's not moving." Yuffie continued to shake Cait. "Nothing."
"What are we waitin for." Barret ran back when he realized the others had stopped following him.
"Cait's not working." Yuffie scratched her head puzzled.
"Try calling Reeve on the Phs, maybe he's having difficulties controlling him." Red suggested.
Barret nodded and took out the device pressing the buttons, after a few moments a burst of static came through. "The hell?"
"What's wrong?" Red asked.
Barret pressed the buttons again but got the same response. "All I get is static." As they had reached the back entrance to the mayors building Cait Sith had shut down for some unknown reason and now Cid's Phs was on the fritz, Barret couldn't help but feel uneasy about this.
"Try the other groups." Said Red, Barret tried to call Vincent's group but was once more greeted by static.
"What the f^£k is going on?" He shook the device rapidly. "Piece a junk."
"What about Cloud's team?" Red was becoming worried.
Barret tried the last button and after a few rings he heard Tifa's voice. "Tif you there?"
"Barely," He could hardly here her voice over the sound of gunfire. "This whole place is going to hell!"
"Are you ok? We can't get a hold of Cid or Vincent."
"Nether can I," Barret heard a cry as Tifa spoke and nothing came after.
"Tif! Tifa you there?" Barret's heart jumped up to his throat. "Tif?"
"Oh God, Cloud been hit. Barret were at the third floor, the stair's to the left of the reception desk, hurry up and get over here!" She shouted.
Barret heard a click and the Phs once again threw out static. "What happened? Tif?"
"What? What's going on?" Yuffie had a worried look on her face.
"Tifa's in trouble, Cloud's been hit and we have no idea what's going on with Cid or Vincent's group." He explained. "We gotta hurry."
"The guards don't seem to have noticed us this way," Red scanned the street. "What ever the Junon and the others are doing they seem to have the entire army's attention."
"Then lets get going before they come after me!...err I mean us!" Yuffie tapped her foot nervously.
"She's right." Red agreed. "We have to move while we have any advantage."
"Awright, I say we bust on in there and attack head on." Barret raised his gun. "We get in there and save Cloud and Tifa."
"And Reno." Red added.
"Yeah, fine." Barret didn't really care about the Turk.
"What!? Are you crazy?" Yuffie yelled. "Didn't you hear the amount of gunfire in there? We'd be dead in seconds!"
"Fine what do you suppose we do?"
"Err well..." She trailed off.
"I think we should meet up with Tifa before we attack, from the sound of things they may need our help." Red explained.
"Aaaah fine." Barret turned to face the mayors building. "We sneak in from the back and move round to the stairs, Tifa said she was on the third floor there."
"Ok." Red confirmed. "But what about Cait Sith?"
"We can't carry him," Said Barret. "He'll just have to stay here."
Red nodded and they started to sprint down the highway as fast as possible, once closer to the actual building they could hear the gunfire inside.
"Things sound bad in there." Yuffie put her back to the wall. "Their still alive, right?"
"With this much gunfire it seems that someone is still alive." Red reassured her but even he was beginning to worry.
"Has anyone ever been here?" She asked. "Which way is it to the stairs?"
Barret kept his attention to the door. "There are a set of stairs in the middle of the room to the third floor but Tifa said the stairs we want are through a door to the left of the reception desk."
"Ok, we ready?" Red looked at Barret who nodded and put his hand on the door. "On three."
"One," Barret griped the handle tightly. "Two," Yuffie got ready to sprint straight to the back of the stairs not wanting to become a human target. "Three!"
Barret threw the door open and the three charged through, the ground floor was completely over run with soldiers but their attention seemed to be on something outside the front doors.
"What are they looking at?" Yuffie asked.
"Who cares its just what we need." Barret grabbed her arm and dragged Yuffie only with him and Red. They ran up behind the set of stairs that led to the lifts and took cover, the soldiers seemed to be heading outside. Yuffie's curiosity got the best of her and she crawled to the edge of the stairs.
'What's so interesting outside?' Side poked her head around the corner and as soon as her eyes locked on to the flaming wreckage outside her eyes filled with tears. "It can't be!"
Barret and Red turned round to see what Yuffie was doing.
"What are you doin? Get back here!" Barret crawled over to Yuffie to grab her but he couldn't help peeking around the corner too. "We have to keep movi..." Barret's jaw dropped.
Outside the soldiers were gathering round and searching a flaming wreckage, but when his saw the half burned side panel with Cid's female mascot on the side, the reason why Cait had stopped working and why they could get in touch with Cid had become more obvious.
"It can't be." Red joined the two and looked round the corner.
"The got Cid and Reeve." Yuffie pulled her self back, she couldn't look at it anymore without bursting into tears.
"Aww man this is terrible." Barret lowered his head. 'The guy has a kid coming, Shera's gonna be heart broken.'
"There's nothing we can do here..." Red shook his head. "We have to help Tifa and the others while we still can."
Barret and Yuffie waited a moment and both nodded. "Yur right, we gotta help them."
They made their way over to the stairway door, the soldiers were still watching the fire outside giving Barret and the others a good enough distraction, even if it was the death of two of their friends.
As they reached the door Yuffie noticed two soldiers on the floor dead. "Looks like they came this way." She held her shuriken tighter, on the other side of the door gunfire could be heard.
Barret stood up to the door and kicked it open, after taking a quick look he opened fire with his machine gun catching the soldiers off guard. Yuffie quickly followed and threw her shuriken at one of the soldiers hitting him in the chest, Red quickly followed and pounced on another biting at his throat.
After a few seconds the skirmish was over and the three stood there in victory, Yuffie walked over and pulled her shuriken out of the fallen soldier. "Hey look at this." She kneeled now and examined the soldiers face.
"What?" Barret clipped another magazine in his gun and stared at the soldier.
"His eyes," She pointed to them. "They're glowing."
"You mean they're infused with Mako?" Red walked over and studied him.
"Mako? Don't you need a reactor to do that?" Barret growled. "All of those dam machines have been shut down."
"Well one of them hasn't," Red confirmed that they were Mako eyes. "Either that or another one has been built."
"Red is that you?" Tifa's voice echoed down the stairs.
"Tif?" Barret ran up the stairs to the third floor, passing at least eight dead soldiers on the ways, each filled with countless bullet wounds. Cloud was propped up against the wall holding one of the soldier's guns, blood seeped out of a large cut in the side of his chest. Tifa sat at the top of the second flight of stairs and gave Barret a slight smile, her body was bruised and cut all over.
"Oh gawd are you guys ok?" Yuffie ran past Barret and kneeled down beside Tifa.
"Were fine, although if you guys hadn't come we would have been finished." Tifa stood up but nearly fell straight back down as the blood rushed to her head.
"You look like you've been through hell." Barret helped Cloud stand up. "Where's Reno?"
Tifa stared down at the floor unable to bring any words to her mouth, Barret nodded putting his arms around her and she buried her face in his chest and started sobbing.
"Have you got in touch with the others?" Cloud asked.
Red shook his head. "We haven't been able to get through to Vincent's team, Cid and Reeve though... they... didn't make it."
Cloud nodded and limped over to the next set of stairs.
"So what's the plan?" Tifa pushed away from Barret's chest and wiped her eyes. "What do we do now?"
"More will be on their way soon." Red looked down at one of the fallen soldiers.
"These are Mako SOLDIER's," Cloud kicked one of them. "They're even stronger than Shin-Ra's kind."
"I noticed," Barret agreed. "They take a lot of firepower to bring down."
"But where did they come from?" Yuffie sat on the steps above.
"I don't know." He took the soldier's ammo and put it in his pocket, Cloud's sword rested in the chest of one of the soldiers below, after awhile he and Tifa had been over run and hand-to-hand combat was impossible.
"So what's the plan then?" Tifa repeated. "If there are more coming it's going to be a bad idea staying here."
"Tifa's right we have to move." Cloud agreed.
"We should head up." Red suggested. "We came here to find the commander, she's most likely on the higher floors."
"But if we all go up then we will be cornered by anyone who comes up after us." Cloud pointed out.
"Your right Spike," Barret turned and took a few steps down the stairs "So me, Red and Yuffie will watch your back's, you two head up and find the commander."
"It should work," Red followed Barret. "Most of the army seems to be outside fighting the civilians and Junon soldiers."
"Yeah good plan." Yuffie agreed. 'I'd rather stay down here than go fight whoever's in charge of this bunch of freaks.'
"Then it's settled." Cloud turned and stared to walk up the stairs. "We'll call you on the Phs if we need backup."
The group split in two and Yuffie and Red headed down the stairs. "Hey Spike."
Cloud turned and saw Barret looking up at him. "Yeah?"
"You guys come back alive you hear me."
Cloud smiled. "Yeah, you too."
______________________________________
Cloud waited for Tifa at the door to the 10th floor, so far the climb up had been uneventful.
"Do you really think anyone's up here?" Tifa asked climbing the last set of stairs to reach Cloud. "It's so quite."
"If only the commander is up here then I doubt she will be making much noise." He waited for Tifa to catch up and then continued to travel up the next flight of stairs.
"Your right," She felt a chill go down her spine. "It's just so creepy you know, we came in here and there was no end to them, now... nothing."
"I know what you mean." Although Cloud was confident that the commander was higher up in the building he couldn't shake the feeling that they were walking straight into a trap.
They reached the 30th floor and Cloud looked back at Tifa who was struggling to keep up. "Perhaps we should rest here."
Tifa just nodded and sat down next to him at the top of the stairs, she rested her head on Cloud's shoulder and closed her eyes. 'Cid, Reeve, Reno they're all gone.' She forced herself not to cry again. 'How could this be happening? We were smart, we had our plan. This all feels like some bad nightmare, I just want to wake up.'
Cloud let Tifa rest on him as he thought about everything that had happened in such a short time. His memory of the time between fighting Sephiroth and waking up aboard the Highwind was still missing and now he had lost more than just that. 'After all we've been through, how can things end up like this?' The cut in his chest kept Cloud in a constant state of pain but he push it to the back of his mind making it bearable.
The building was 60 floors high and Cloud doubted that they could climb another 30 floors and still be in top condition to fight. 'Hell I'd be surprised if we could put up a good fight even now.' "Perhaps we should take the elevator from here, if there are no soldiers above the ground floor then it should be safe to use it now."
Tifa nodded and sat up. "Your right, I haven't heard anything from below so I guess Barret and the others haven't come into any trouble."
They stood up and Cloud pushed the door open to the 30th floor. A long open corridor stretched out with many different doors, at the end though was the one that lead to the center of the building. Cloud walked along and opened the door at the end, normally this place would be full of noise from the work been done but right now everything was in silence. He stepped through the door and walked out onto the open corridor, he looked over the side of the railings at the ground floor and could see that there was no one around. 'This place was crawling with SOLDIER's when we came up here, where are they now?'
They walk down heading for the lift, there didn't seem to be anyone in the building anymore. "What the hell is going on?" Cloud asked. "Where are all the soldiers?"
Tifa felt the same way as Cloud. 'Its bad enough been chased by a bunch of Mako infused freaks but this is some how even worse.'
Cloud was the first to reach the elevator but before he could push the button he heard it moving up on its own. 'Not good.' He took a few steps back and aimed the rifle at the metal doors, Tifa stood beside him and seemed to have the same idea. The lift stopped at the 30th floor and the doors slide open, inside Cloud counted six soldiers all fully armed, the one at the front held his arm up and smiled at Cloud.
"Mister Strife," He took a few steps out of the lift and his men followed.
Cloud heard some movement from below and he looked over the railings again, on the ground floor he could see at least 20 soldiers come out from hiding, their guns aimed him as soon as he look over the side. 'Oh f^£k.' They had walked straight into a trap.
"Mister Strife," The soldier repeated, Cloud turned his attention back to him. "As you can see you are out manned and out gunned."
Cloud could see by the look on his face that the SOLDIER was enjoying his victory.
"Now if you wouldn't mind coming with us." He held his hand out. "The commander is waiting."
Cloud took a few steps back towards the door, Tifa followed keeping her eyes fixed on the SOLDIER's weapons.
"(Sigh) I wouldn't do that if I were you." The soldier looked disappointed at Cloud's decision. "My orders are to bring you alive, the commander is waiting above to meet you." He smiled. "But if you struggle I have permission to use force." The rest of the soldiers raised their guns.
Tifa swallowed heavily. "What are we going to do?" She whispered.
Cloud reached out and grabbed her arm. "We run." He spun and headed for the door as fast as he could, dragging Tifa behind him. He kicked the door open and ran through, a few bullets flew past him just barely missing.
Tifa followed Cloud not asking any questions as he dragged her down the corridor and thought the door to the stairs. As they started to climb the next set, Tifa heard heavy footsteps running up after them, she shot a glance down the side of the stairs and saw another group of SOLDIER's coming up from below. 'Where did they come from? What happened to Barret and the others?'
Cloud looked up ahead and saw more of them running down the stairs towards him, he glanced round and saw the corridor that lead to floor 32. "This way." He threw the door open and headed through.
How can this be happening?"
"I don't know there's just so many of them." Cloud ran down the corridor dragging Tifa behind him.
"Where are we going?" She asked trying to keep up with Cloud.
"We need to reach the main office she's most likely waiting there." He burst through the next door out into the main hub of the building running down along the open corridor, shots were been fired at them from the lower levels. "F%£k they can sense where we are." A bullet grazed Cloud's head as he dropped to the floor.
They both crawled along the floor the elevator was their only chance, the stairs were blocked off by the SOLDIER's it would be impossible to get past them all. The doors opened up behind them, Cloud turned and fired the gun hoping to by a few precious seconds. Tifa had called the lift and dragged Cloud inside while he was still firing. "Top floor!" He shouted. She punched the button and the doors slowly shut, bullets flying through the gap until it closed.
The elevator shook and started to move up. Cloud could hear gunshots been fired below, the fight was still going on. Still sat on the floor he leaned against the side of the lift staring up at the ceiling. "Cloud."
"What?" He rolled his head to face Tifa, blood was dripping down the side of his face from the bullet wound.
"Do you think everything will turn out ok?" She was propped against the wall opposite the doors. The blood in her hair made it stick to her back and legs, her arms and legs were covered in bruises and cuts but she still managed to let out a simple smile.
"Yeah." Cloud pushed on his legs lifting himself up. "Everything's going to work out in the end, it.. always does." The gash in his side split open a little more as he stretched his body out causing Cloud to feel dizzy from the pain.
The elevator slowed to a halt as it reached the top floor. "Ok from here it's straight ahead down the corridor to the Mayor's office." Cloud pushed himself off the wall and began to walk to Tifa.
"Ok on the count of three, you ready?" Tifa braced herself for the run while Cloud just nodded."
"One,"
"Two," He pressed one leg against the wall ready to push off but as Cloud began to say three a shot burst through the door forcing its way straight through the metal. Cloud fell to the side feeling droplets of warm blood hitting his face as he fell to the ground, the bullet had missed him but then where did the blood come from. 'Tifa!'
Cloud hit the ground hard but he did not take notice of the pain, he quickly crawled over to Tifa but it was too late. The bullet had hit her in the heart, her eyelids were closed, Cloud press his head against her chest listening for a heart beat. '... Nothing.'
He looked at her face, feeling the same pain he had 2 years ago on that terrible day. "This can't be... " He whispered. "It's not suppose to end like this, not after all we've done, all we've been through, all we've sacrificed." He lifted her up hugging Tifa's lifeless body tightly, his arm were shaking out of control. "I won't let it end this way. Not now!"
"Do you have to act so pathetic?"
Cloud looked out of the lift and stared at the figure stood in the middle of the room. She had no distinct features, her armor was like none Cloud had ever seen, her face showed no emotion.
"W-Who are you?" Cloud said still shaking. "Why are you doing this?"
The female laughed. "What you don't recognize me?"
The mayor's office was mainly just a huge wide open room, it looked at lot like president Shin-Ra's office. "Who are you?" Cloud repeated, lowering Tifa's body back down to the floor, stood up and walked out of the lift into the office.
She shook here head. "Perhaps I should change into something more familiar." The commanders body rippled as her clothes, face even her weapon began to change its form. The gun stretched out becoming a long thin sword, her clothes filled with black as if been consumed by some unseen darkness, her hair grew longer and changed to a light silver as her face changed to fit the new form of the body. "Is this better?"
"Y-you? Sephiroth? But how." Cloud shouted. "How are you here?"
"Don't act so surprised."
"Why did you do this!?" Cloud shouted, his rage built up inside of him.
Sephiroth shook his head. "You still understand nothing." Once again his body began to ripple and change, this time the body became smaller and slender, the clothes changed to a soft pink and the hair wrapped round and filled with a light brown colour, tying its self off with a pink ribbon. "How's this?"
Cloud couldn't believe what he was seeing. "Aeris?"
She shook her head again and began to walk up to Cloud. "How can you be so blind?" Her hand filled with a green glow. "You're always going to be a failure, aren't you Cloud." She brought her hand round and the Ultima spell hit Cloud dead on, throwing his body across the room.
"You can't be her." Cloud choked ignoring the pain as he stood back up.
Aeris walked up to Cloud again. "Why not? Why can't I be the very same Aeris you meet so long ago." She smiled and cupped his chin. "That's right. Its because of you." Another Ultima spell was cast on to Clouds chest but Aeris held on to his neck making him endure the full force of the spell.
Cloud coughed brining up blood, his vision began to blur slightly. 'I-I can't take this much longer.'
"You Cloud Strife failed to save her." Aeris smiled at him at let Cloud's body fall to the floor. "Your so weak, can you remember her face? The few moments before she died?" She kneeled down to be level with him. "You remember don't you, they were filled with trust, just before that cold, long, sharp blade cut straight through her body."
Cloud shook his head as if trying to deny his past. "I-I..."
"Oh it felt so good to be finally rid of the annoying brat." Aeris grinned and stood up. "The way the sword just slid through her like butter, I couldn't believe how easy it was. It left quite a scar." She pulled the dress open a little and showed Cloud the fatal wound on her chest.
Cloud felt sick, he wanted it to just end. "Y-You, it was you."
Aeris lifted Cloud up once again. "You're finally begging to understand." Her body began to ripple for the last time, only this time it took the shape of her real form.
Cloud watched in horror, he knew who it was as last. 'Jenova, it was her all along, ever since the beginning, she was there.'
"After all this time I finally get my revenge of you." Her limbs stretched out and took an alien form, the clothes dissolved into her body. "After two thousand years of waiting I will finally have my revenge on you."
Jenova threw Cloud across the floor and walked over to the desk. Cloud got a good look at her, she looked different from when he had seen her back in the Nibelheim reactor, and every part of her body seemed to be... complete. "You held the last of my original cells in your body and because of that I thought I had no chance of becoming complete, but..."
She picked up a small object off the desk. "Once you killed Sephiroth, his body returned to the Lifestream but my cells could not, they separated from his body and I could finally reabsorb them back into myself, I also gained all the power he had once possessed. After that the only cells missing from my body were in yours, and now I have them back." She smiled. "Now I'm whole once again, I'm stronger, faster and more powerful than you can even imagine, and you my dear Cloud, you are finished."
'That's what came back up from the Lifestream, that's what Tifa saw.' Cloud struggled to stand up but he managed it. 'Those cells must have been from the original strain found by professor Gast, she needed them to be complete.'
"You and this entire planet hold no purpose for me now." She held up the small object and clicked a button, a small light began to blink.
"What do you mean?" He struggled to speak.
Jenova walked out onto the balcony outside, her form was now like a dark angel, her every movement was a graceful as the next. "I came here a long time ago to take this planets Lifestream and to absorb it, but ever since that time I have been in hell because of you."
Cloud followed Jenova outside, the city was in flames as her army continued to destroy everything in sight. "But now Cloud, I'm going to cut my losses and leave this pathetic world, but as for you," She turned and faced him. "You and this entire planet will be destroyed and I will make sure that your Lifestream never returns to the universe, I will destroy every last trace of you Strife! Your entire existence ends here!"
"You can't... I wont let you." Cloud raised his gun and fired but the bullets just shattered as they hit Jenova's perfect form.
"Fool." She laughed. "So how does it feel Cloud?"
"What?"
"How does it feel to know you failed?" She grinned. "You failed that witch Aeris, you failed your pathetic friends and you failed this entire planet. And now your world will end from the same energy that created it." Jenova's body raised into the air and Cloud was helpless but to just watch. "Enjoy the show." She pointed into the sky before disappearing.
Cloud fell to his knees. "It's all over, I was just too weak." He looked up into the sky and saw a thin green beam of light that was focused on the top of the building. The beam grew bigger and bigger until it swallowed the entire city, Cloud continued to stare up into the light and thought about all those he had failed. "I'm sorry."
The light pulsated and hit the city, the buildings shattered into nothing and the city was destroyed but beam continued to force its way through, causing a final and fatal blow to the planet. The very Lifestream of the planet set fire erupting into flames and the planet let out its final cry as it lit up the void of space in one final explosion.
___________________________________
Cloud felt the warmth around him, he opened his eyes and saw nothing but the soft green glow of the Lifestream. In his hand was the shattered Ultima weapon, the wound in the side of shoulder was still fresh. 'What happened? I'm I really here or is this a dream?'
He continued to fall through the green liquid moving further and further away from the physical world. 'Which was the dream? Is any of this real? Why can't I wake up?'
Hours passed by and Cloud still fell further into the Lifestream, he felt as if it would never end. 'Maybe this is it, this is all that's left.' After some time his strength left him and Cloud could no longer stay awake, he closed his eyes once more and let the darkness take him.
___________________________________
Cloud's senses came back to him but his eyes remained closed, he no longer felt like he was drifting. His head rested on something soft and warm, after all the pain he had been through it felt so strange.
Something brushed through his hair and rested on his head, Cloud dared himself to open his eyes, but he feared what would be there. He felt someone's warm breath on his face, his curiosity overpowered his fear and he opened his eyes.
"Hey."
Cloud just stared at the figure, his gaze was fixed on those soft green eyes. He tried to think of something to say but his thoughts flew around his mind too fast to keep hold of.
"Are you feeling better?" She asked stroking Cloud's hair.
"...Its ...its you." Cloud whispered. "Is... is it really you?"
She smiled and nodded. "You should rest."
Cloud smiled realizing that his body was completely drained of energy. "Yeah." Cloud agreed but he still tried to keep his eyes open for as long as possible, just in case this was some cruel dream, he wanted to enjoy it for as long as possible before he woke up.
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Note: This took me a little longer than expected but then again I didn't really expect it to be as long as it turned out to be. This is probably the strangest chapter in the story but everything will be explained in the next one. Thanks to silver-twilight for the review and I will have chapter 7 up hopefully a little faster.