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I told you I'd make it up to you. But it gets better….
Chapter 17.
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The ground around us splintered and shook. We prepared ourselves for the end.
But the end did not come yet. Jenova apparently had not yet had enough fun with us.
Black spirits appear out of the ground. They were dark, translucent ghosts, almost like something out of the Ghost House in Gold Saucer. There were at least twenty of them, and they formed a crude line in-between Jenova and us. Barrett jumped up first. "I'm not gonna let some damn ghost scare me. DIE!" With that he fired his Pile Bunker. His shots went right through them. He then used his Earth Materia and cast Quake 3 Enemy All. The rock around the twenty ghosts broke apart and crashed around these ghostly apparitions, but to no avail. Cid then moved forward and cast Bio 3, followed by Hades…this time the ghosts squealed with glee. But a wave of Jenova's web arms signaled that the wait had ended. The twenty ghosts surged forward and unleashed a maelstrom of various spells. Lightning, Fire, Earth, Poison, Gravity, Ice, and Comet, just to name a few. Our bodies seemed to fall apart. I cast Full Cure on myself and then cast Ultima on all twenty of them, hoping maybe to get lucky with this powerful spell.
Again they laughed. One actually spoke to me. "That tickled!"
I couldn't believe it. Here we were, the six of us, completely helpless to Jenova and her twenty little ghostly goons. Cait Sith was no more, and it seemed to me that the only person that would survive this encounter would be Vincent, who had never showed up.
"I'm glad Vincent isn't here…at least maybe he will be left to maybe figure out some way to destroy Jenova and Sephiroth…" I said. Cid looked up and then chuckled. "Speak of the devil…" We all looked up, and were completely taken aback.
There was Vincent, suspended high in the air, his Death Penalty gun cocked. He looked down on us, spread out his arms, and then his whole body glowed green. In a triumphant blast, our bodies were hit by the mother of all heal spells. For probably the fifth time in this battle I felt my body completely renewed, but this time it wasn't just me who felt better, it was everyone.
We sprang to our feet ready for the next wave of attacks.
Vincent yelled at us from above. "You cannot harm these creatures. They are other-worldly. So I think it's time we fight fire with fire. Just stand back."
With a wave of his cape, Vincent completely disappeared. We smiled. We all knew what this meant.
But we were left speechless. We had expected Galian Beast, Death Gigas, or Hell Maker to appear. But instead we saw a dark purple demon with red eyes and red wings take shape right before our eyes.
Immediately this new form of Vincent's muttered, "Chaos Saber…" and twenty transparent scythes slashed the twenty ghosts flying about us. They all disintegrated before our eyes. Then Vincent's new form turned on Jenova. "Satan Impact…"
Where all our previous attacks had failed, this one seemed to do the trick.
A giant skull with red eyes appeared out of nowhere and smashed into Jenova. Jenova hit the ground so hard she actually fell through the rock that she had been standing on and then crashed through several more with tremendous force and speed.
We all closed our jaws and gapped up at this new Vincent in a mixture of amazement, gratitude, and terror.
He peered down at us. "This is my new ultimate form. I call it, Chaos."
"But how did you manage to hit her so hard when even my Omnislash didn't pierce her skin?" I said. He responded by saying, "Sometimes it takes a devil, to fight a devil."
With that he swooped down and pursued Jenova into the depths of the lifestream.
Several minutes later, the Vincent we all knew appeared before us. His cape was torn, and he was licking a few wounds, but he said calmly, "Jenova…is not a threat anymore."
We all screamed in jubilation and ran to hug him. Yes, even I hugged him, as weird as that sounds. I don't think he was used to this, because he had the weirdest look on his face as we thanked him for saving our lives.
Eventually it came time to finally find out why he had stayed behind. Tifa, Red XIII, Barrett, and I were all very interested in what he was going to say, but Cid and Yuffie interrupted him. Cid said, "We knew Jenova was going to be %$#& tough. She had always been a real %$&, so Yuffie and I called Vincent before Red XIII could get a hold of him, and told him to follow us, but at a distance." "It was the ace up our sleeve," Yuffie chimed in. "And it worked pretty well. If Vincent hadn't showed up when he did, we might all be dead." "And if I had been here when you all first attacked Jenova, my Chaos form would not have had the effect it did, because Jenova would have prepared for it," Vincent added.
I turned towards Cid. "You planned this?" "Damn right I did." He said arrogantly. Red XIII said, "Wow…I never realized just how intelligent you are, Cid." "That's because he isn't," Tifa said. We all laughed, except for Cid, who looked like he was going to skewer somebody with his spear.
But we did not rejoice long, there were other matters at hand.
"Sephiroth…" I said, cursing under my breath. I looked at the dark red light that had once been the white materia, and now encapsulated Sephiroth. I pulled out my sword and jumped down to ram it into Sephiroth. Red XIII stopped me though. "Cloud, no! Not yet! If you destroy the white materia now, the resulting explosion will kill us all!"
He was right. With every step I took towards the corrupted white materia I could feel its wild, uncontrollable power. It made my whole body vibrate with energy. If I were to puncture the white materia in the attempt to destroy Sephiroth's body, the energy released would blow the Final Dungeon sky high and us with it.
"Then how are we supposed to kill him?" I asked. Red XIII bounded down. He then, using his paws like hands, undid one of the red materia from his necklace. He then gave it to me. I immediately recognized it.
"This is the red materia you were telling me about. The one that appeared next to you after your dream and the one you have no idea what it does." "Yes it is," Red XIII said. "But I have since figured out what it does. This is the miniature white materia. Remember the materia that Aerieth had a long time ago? The one that she always had in her hair, and had no idea what it did? Well, that's the same one." "But this is red, not white," I said. "And it was lost in a lake after Aerieth was killed." Red XIII smiled. "Yes it was, but maybe Aerieth's spirit went and retrieved it…" I didn't respond. I only stared at this miniature version of the corrupted white materia.
Red XIII continued. "Everything that happens to the white materia happens to this miniature version of it, as well as visa-versa. If you can use your power to purify this miniature white materia, then the actual white materia you see before you will also be purified. They are linked. And when the big white materia is purified, Sephiroth, who is the embodiment of everything impure, will be destroyed, once and for all."
"But why me?" I asked him. "Two reasons," Red XIII said. "First off, you're the only one strong enough in spirit to pull this off. Secondly, the rest of us have been in the lifestream almost an hour now. If we don't leave now, we run the risk of getting lifestream poisoning." With that he bounded off. The others were quick to follow him out, and I soon found myself alone with the miniature white materia in my hand, the giant white materia in front of me, and Sephiroth's face, starring coldly back at my own…