Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VII, Advent Children, or any of their characters.
Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
Yazoo and Loz approached the old lab. The guards on the outside immediately scattered upon their arrival, fearing for their lives. Fortunately for them, the two silver haired men were in more of a mood to just get this over with, and ignored their presence all together.
"I assume this will not take long?" Yazoo questioned in a bored tone.
"No. The head should be in the back of the lab." Loz gestured for Yazoo to follow.
The two entered the lab, making their way through the mess the creatures had made in their from Kadaj and Loz's last visit. They finally reached the back only to find the door sealed off. Loz repeated his youngest brothers previous actions, and ripped the door right off its hinges, throwing it aside effortlessly.
" There." Yazoo pointed to a large glass tank, containing a severed, mutilated head. "That, I would assume, is JENOVA's head."
Both of them stared in awe of the creature's head. It was almost humanoid, with pale hair that appeared to have been chopped abruptly. Its flesh seemed to take on a bluish tinge, but it was apparent that all of its blood had been drained.
Yazoo pulled out the Velvet Nightmare and shot the glass, allowing the oddly coloured fluid, obviously a combination of mako and various other substances, to flow onto the floor. He reached inside and snatched the object of desire, ripping it free of anything it had been hooked up to.
"Now, let's return to Kadaj." The oldest one muttered, and both nodded at one another. They walked out of the damaged building at a leisurely pace, ignoring the panic their presence had caused. Several people stared at them in horror as they headed for their mode of transportation.
Yazoo assumed these people weren't used to failed experiments walking down their roads with the severed head of a planet-threatening parasite. However, he didn't really care what they were used to. He shouldn't have even felt anything at all about these people. Why should he? He was nothing more than a pathetic creation of some whack job that ceased to exist now. The mere thought of being created caused his current mood to switch to being foul and bitter.
They were just about to mount the bike, when a voice rang out to them.
"And just where to you think you're going with that?" A redheaded man, with his hair tied into a ponytail spat at them. He clutched the rod he had been holding tighter.
They took notice of what they recognized to be a Turk, a former bodyguard to the President Shin-Ra. Then the two took further notice to the taller, bald-headed man next to him, whose eyes were covered by the dark sunglasses in front of them. His hand seemed to be anxious to pull the trigger of the gun he was pointing at them.
"Who do you think you are? You're nothing more than a lowlife without work now that Shin-Ra is gone. Don't delay us any further, or you will die." Loz pounded the Dual Hound into his right hand.
"I am Reno, and this here is Rude. I'll have you know that what you are holding belongs to us." The man who called himself 'Reno' sneered at the older of the two creations, obviously unaware of the power these men possessed.
"Do you think we care what your names are?" Yazoo growled at him, raising his gun blade to the two former Turks who stood in their way.
" Obviously you do. You asked." Reno gave him a smirk, and then pointed the rod at them both. "Now, hand over JENOVA's head."
"No." Loz simply muttered at him.
"Then die." Rude began firing bullets at them, while Reno tried to trap them with a pyramid from the rod.
One of the bullets managed to catch Yazoo in the shoulder, causing a wave of pain to rush through him. He fired a few shots of his own, while clutching his shoulder in agony. The pain was added on to the still closing wounds that Kadaj had put into him, and although he too healed faster than a regular being, he still took longer than his companions.
Loz was far too fast for Reno to succeed in trapping, and he merely struck the man to the ground. He grabbed the head of JENOVA from the ground where Yazoo had dropped it in his pain, and waved Yazoo over to the motorcycle. Both of them jumped on, and Loz quickly started the engine. The younger of the two fired a shot or two at Rude, and they sped off with their prize.
"Damn, they got away." The redhead got up and punched the ground in frustration.
"So what do we do? Now they have the head, the source of the GeoStigma virus..." Rude, although you couldn't see his eyes obviously had a look of great worry passing onto his face.
"We have to find a way to stop them, before there's an outbreak. This could be serious. No. This IS serious." Reno looked towards the motorcycle in this distance, its figure growing smaller on the horizon.
"They have it." Sephiroth's voice suddenly blurted out of Cloud. With a look of confusion, the former members of AVALANCHE turned to face the blonde.
"Have what? What the fuck are you talking about?" Cid grunted at him.
It was morning, and the group had since made their way onto the High Wind, which was now up in the air. There was fortunately enough room for everyone on the huge airship, even though many of the children feared the thought of flying.
Barrett, who was holding his sleeping 'daughter', spoke up. "So now what are we gonna do? Fly around all the time hopin' they won't be able to catch our asses? We can't run forever!"
"They have JENOVA's head." The ex-general made the issue at hand known.
" What do you mean?! Are you crazy, how would you know?!" Yuffie stared at him.
"I can sense that JENOVA's head is being moved. I was, and in a way still am, connected to her mentally for a long time after all. My assumption is that our enemies have retrieved it, in order to restore her physical self."
"I see. So we need to prevent this from happening obviously." Nanaki lifted his head from his paws, and stood up from his laying position.
" Precisely. JENOVA was a parasite, as you may know. And most parasites spread disease. JENOVA is no different. She... IT spreads a virus called GeoStigma." Sephiroth commented.
"What exactly does this... GeoStigma do?" Tifa asked, almost afraid to hear his answer.
"Not even I know that." The ex-general said simply.
Cloud took this chance to come through. "We should put a stop to them before they spread this virus and resurrect JENOVA. Cid, land this thing in the safest place you can find. Vincent, you, and I will all go after them."
"I'm coming too." Tifa declared.
"No, you'll stay here." The blonde said sternly. "It's dangerous."
"You can't stop me from coming, and I am going to come along with you. I might be able to talk some sense into Yazoo." She blushed slightly at saying his name.
"If you MUST come along, then you will stay back. I don't want you getting hurt again." Cloud cautioned her, and they all felt a sudden jerk as Cid carelessly landed the ship into a clear area.
"WHAT THE HELL?!" Barrett cried as he was thrown off balance, and the sleeping girl in his arms awoke.
" What's wrong, papa?" She asked sleepily, rubbing her eyes.
" Nothin' Marlene, just this morons faulty landin'..." He glared at Cid.
"That was a perfectly damn good landin' and you know it!" Cid cracked at him.
"Let's not argue, let's just get going." The blonde grew irritated, and waved for the three others to follow him off the ship.
" Tifa!" Marlene ran up to the older woman, who turned to face her.
"What is it?"
"Are you going to see the nice man?"
" Mhmm."
"Say hello to him for me, ok?" Marlene asked her with a smile.
Tifa responded with a look of false cheerfulness as she nodded, " Alright. Good bye everyone."
The four of them waved their good byes and headed off the air ship to find the three silver haired men, and stop them once and for all. Fortunately, it didn't take long for them to meet their enemies, even though there were only two of them.
" Strife..." Loz muttered, bringing their vehicle to a stop just infront of the people who sought them.
"So you managed to retrieve JENOVA's head. Well done." Vincent said sarcastically.
" Actually, security wasn't much of a challenge, considering they ran at the sight of us." Yazoo commented, remembering the guard's terrified faces.
"You fuckin' loser. First you run away from your brothers and come snivelling up to us like a dog, and then you go crawling back to them like the scum you fuckin' are. Make up your mind, you shit head!" Cid barked at him.
"We would prefer it if you didn't refer to us as brothers. We aren't after all. You see, Yazoo and I were created many years ago, and ended up as massive failures to Shin-Ra Inc. Apparently, we were sealed in mako for twenty-three years, and then Kadaj released us, being the only true child of JENOVA left." Anger seemed to flare up in the older mans eyes as he explained to them what they had learned of themselves.
" You're pissing me off, let's get this over with." Cid readied his spear while speaking.
At the same time, Cloud drew his sword, Vincent readied his gun, and Tifa prepared to use her combat skills.
"You seriously think you can stop us?" Loz questioned them, his face suddenly showing amusement. "Though we are failures, we were still created as super-clones of Sephiroth, which makes us more powerful than you could ever imagine..." He readied the Dual Hound, which crackled with an aqua energy, as he tried to intimidate his foes.
Yazoo didn't even bother to comment, but instead ran at Vincent. He held his gun blade up to block a swing from the man's artificial arm, and attempted to land a blow in on his abdomen with his foot. Vincent jumped back gracefully, amazed that even though he was clearly wounded, Yazoo would actually present a challenge.
He smirked under the cloth in front of his face, and shot at Yazoo. The silver haired man dodged the shot in a display of his own grace but Tifa delivering a high-kick to eliminate the Velvet Nightmare from his grip prevented any gunfire from him.
"So you're in on this too?" He averted his attention to her, before grabbing her. Tifa was surprised by him grabbing her, but obviously after what he had told her earlier and the gentleness of his grasp, he wasn't going to harm her. He tossed her to the ground as softly as possible, and turned back to Vincent whom had already reopened fire on him. Dodging even more bullets, Yazoo sighed. These people were persistent.
Cloud flung himself at Loz, swinging his blade with all his might. The buster blade met his opponent's weapon, and to his shock, didn't even make a dent in its metal. The silver haired clone thrust his metal covered arm forward, knocking Cloud onto the ground. He was taken off guard by a blow from Cid's spear, but it didn't really faze him much as he turned and grabbed the shaft of the object. He ripped it from his flesh and hurled Cid backwards with it.
"Fuck, did you even feel that?" The pilot got back onto his feet at the same time Cloud rose.
"Cid, now!" He called. Both of them charged Loz and managed to knock him to the ground. Cloud brought the point of the heavy blade to his opponent's throat. "Give up?"
"Not likely." He was answered by a sharp kick to his stomach.
The blonde staggered back, clutching the spot where he had been hit. A small trickle of blood flowed from his mouth, which Sephiroth used his left hand to wipe off.
Vincent and Yazoo had managed to disarm one another, and were now engaging in a close-range, hand to hand fight. Tifa watched as Yazoo seemed to be literally trying to cause Vincent harm, and she started to worry that maybe he really had turned on them.
He delivered a blow right to the side of Vincent's head, and grasped his throat viciously. Vincent gasped for air, and felt the circulation of oxygen being cut from his lungs. Yazoo let out a low laugh as he watched his opponent struggle.
"You are going to die now." He stated, increasing the already vastly strong grip he had on the man's throat.
" That's... what you think..." Vincent growled. His eyes flashed blood red, and before Yazoo had a chance to comprehend the situation, Vincent had changed into a gigantic, purple bat-like creature. It opened its salivating jaws and roared in fury.
"What a nice trick. I should show you one of my own." Vincent watched through the form of Chaos as Yazoo grasped the head of JENOVA from its place on the motorcycle. He reached into a pocket of his trench coat and produced from it a small, razor sharp knife. He plunged it into the parasite's head, and withdrew it. The knife now glinted with a slime-like substance.
Chaos roared and flew swiftly at him, ready to slash him into pieces. He abruptly stopped his flight as Yazoo ripped through his leathery, purple flesh with the dagger. A smoke like substance poured from the wound and Vincent reverted to his normal state, eyes wide with shock. He soon found that he couldn't move, and that his body was rapidly losing power.
"I call my trick GeoStigma. Hope you like it." He laughed.
Tifa got to her feet and practically flew over to Yazoo. "What are you doing?! He could die!" She said, glaring at him through teary eyes.
"Hmm. I thought after I threw you aside you would stay out of the way. I guess I was wrong. Please don't, or I'll have to perform my new trick on you."
" What's wrong with you?" She slapped him. "You're supposed to be with us! And now you're trying to kill us?!"
He raised a gloved hand to his face and smirked at her as he felt the stinging spot her hand had connected with. "Don't worry. I didn't inject the virus at its full potential. Your friend will be fine in a few days... At least I think so, anyway."
Tifa stared at him in disbelief. He merely ignored her look and faced the battle going on between Loz, Cid, and Cloud.
However, all of their attention was averted to elsewhere, Kadaj dove in from seemingly nowhere. His hand was glowing blue, and was wrapped tightly around Cloud's throat. He laughed wickedly, as he felt the bones in his victim's neck begin to weaken.
Cid took a stab at him with his spear, but the JENOVA possessed man simply snapped the metal shaft of the object in half with his free hand. Cloud felt Sephiroth take over and felt energy gathering in his left hand. In a burst of white light, Kadaj was knocked back.
The blonde gasped for air, and watched as the younger man got up as if nothing had even happened.
"DIE!" Kadaj spoke, his voice surprising everyone with the fact that it was not only his but JENOVA's. Before he had a chance to fling himself at Cloud again, Souba in hand to deliver a fatal slash, Loz was standing there beside him.
"Kada- I mean master... We retrieved the head of JEN-..." He was silenced as Kadaj drove him into the ground by throwing him, and his body hit the dirt ground with a sickening crack. The young silver haired man focused a ball of blue energy into his hand and threw it in Tifa's direction.
She screamed, but her noise was stopped when she felt someone else slam into her, taking her down with him into the ground. The laser-like beams flew past, narrowly missing them by inches and took out what ever was unfortunate enough to be in their path.
Tifa looked up at Yazoo, whom looked at her with concern. "Are you alright?" He asked, his voice soft.
"I... I think so..." She choked.
"Good. Let's get you out of here." Yazoo got up quickly, taking Tifa into his arms. She blushed slightly at his embrace but her thoughts were cut short by the sound of Cloud crying out in agony.
" CLOUD!" She screamed out to her friend, but the man holding her wasn't letting the struggling girl escape. She fought with his hold on her, but he wouldn't let go.
" Relax. Cloud will be fine, as will your other two friends. Don't worry about them right now, worry about holding on." He picked up JENOVA's head and tossed it off the bike, leaping onto it with the girl. He started the thing as quick as possible, driving off like a maniac.
Tifa simply clutched onto Yazoo, tears falling from her eyes. "Cloud... Vincent... Cid... No..." She couldn't help but worry for her friends as she watched the distance between them grow farther apart.
A/N: Meh, that's it for now. Hope you enjoyed it. Thank you all for reviewing! I appreciate it! Sorry I had to cut this one off so suddenly, but I'm tired and hungry, so... Yeah. I'll post more soon. R&R!