The Song of Eternity
Canto 3
The Return of Sephiroth
Verse 7
The WEAPON Project
Returned from the darkness,
He goes alone to warn the others.
They go to stop the new threat,
To find much more than they expected.
Vincent opened his eyes and stared into the bright sunlight. He squinted the eyes nearly closed due to the brightness. He struggled to his feet and checked himself over as he adjusted to the bright light. Gun, materia, all my body parts… He went over the mental checklist in his head as he began to notice the jungle around him. Chaos? He tried to contact the demon through the mental link they shared, wondering if the demon escaped the lifestream with him. Grrrr… He 'heard' the demon in his head, then finally regained all his sight.
"Mideel," he said as he saw the huge pool of lifestream a few feet in front of him. "Keep?" he called out to the surrounding area, trying to find his ally. He spotted a chocobo tied to a tree several feet away and walked over to it. There was a note tied around its neck.
Valentine,
By the time you read this, I will be long gone. I expect that I will be able to occupy Sephiroth during the time it takes your crew to stop that WEAPON. I will strike this evening. This is one of those gold chocobos, I stole it from some guy up north and brought it here. Get to the others and go after the WEAPON. It is operational. I cannot stop both it and Sephiroth at the same time. Until we meet again Vincent.
Keep
Travis Starmore
Vincent climbed onto the back of the chocobo and quickly rode off in the direction of Junon. He concentrated on his riding and was making good time. What do you think of the situation Valentine? Vincent frowned when he heard the voice of the demon in his head. "Be more specific," he replied to the open air. Either one. The WEAPON and your son, or the two of us being free. Vincent thought to himself for a while, then replied to the demon. "I trust Aeris. We'll stop the WEAPON, then go stop Sephiroth if he is still alive. Then maybe we can be free of this existence." We needed each other Valentine. I needed a body and you needed strength. "I could have lived a normal life before you Chaos," Vincent stated before falling silent and riding faster. I am not exactly crazy about out current mortality either, human.
"What the hell is that?" Cid swore to Shera and Nanaki as they circled the air above Nibelheim right after taking off to take Nanaki to Junon. Nanaki looked out the window to see an unexpected sight. Someone was riding a gold chocobo over the plains at incredible rate towards Junon. Someone with a red cape.
"Set it down Cid, that is Vincent," Nanaki explained as he realized who it was. Cid brought the plane down roughly near Vincent as he rode, spooking the chocobo. Vincent gathered his things, let the chocobo go and climbed into the Tiny Bronco. "What happened to you and Keep?" Nanaki questioned him after they took off and he realized they were missing the bartender.
"He's gone to take care of something," Vincent replied cryptically. "We need to go gather the others, we need to strike a factory tonight. I'll explain more once we regroup," he stated before closing his eyes and dozing off.
"What the hell's going on here vampire?" Reno swore as he stumbled his hung over self into the meeting room back in Junon. Vincent and the others sent him dirty looks as Rude and Elena smacked him and sat him down.
"Reeve, where is the WEAPON project taking place?" Vincent asked Cait Sith.
"Errr, don't know who told you about that. Cloud told me to take care of it and we were to only ones who knew," the cat replied with Reeve's voice.
"I never told anyone," Cloud said defensively.
"I found out on my own. Now tell me what they have done and where it is going on," Vincent said as he looked at the cat and moogle.
"Sephiroth started it a couple months ago, dragging all the remains of the five WEAPONs to the old Temple of the Ancients and trying to get them in working order. He has some incredible knowledge of biomechanics and has the four he recovered almost working. But, as Cloud ordered, I had my people put some self destruction switches in them, so they aren't really a problem. I got taken off the project a week ago, Sephiroth was getting suspicious and pulling people off the project."
"We are going down to that factory tonight, to destroy it," Vincent said as the others looked at him in disbelief.
"Vincent, we do not have that capability. We are still outnumbered by the SOLDIERs, and we don't have enough materia yet to stand a chance when Sephiroth gets word of the attack and comes after us," Cloud explained as he rubbed his forehead.
"Sephiroth will be busy tonight," Vincent stated. "In the lifestream, several things happened. One was that Aeris talked to me and showed me that Sephiroth has recovered the Emerald WEAPON. We cannot let him get that WEAPON operational. The second was that he is not really Sephiroth. Sephiroth's body has been rebuilt by techno WEAPON from another dimension and the Jenova cells in Sephiroth's remains allowed him to take control. Third is that Keep is from the aforementioned dimension and came here to kill the WEAPON. Aeris seems to think he is strong enough, but only if we can keep the WEAPONs away long enough. I am not repeating this, its hard enough for me to understand and I had it explained in greater detail to me," he finished as the others stared at him with blank looks on their faces. "He is striking Sephiroth tonight, so we have three hours or so to get to that island."
"Three hours! Shit! I don't have the Highwind anymore, Valentine! I gotta go get that damn plane started up," Cid shouted angrily as he grabbed his Venus Gospel and ran out of the room.
"Are you sure about all of this Vincent?" Cloud asked him as everyone was getting ready to grab their things and catch the plane.
"Aeris told me. I am sure," Vincent confirmed.
"Good enough for me. Everyone, grab your weapons, materia, armor, lots of elixirs, whatever you can carry, we'll split it up in the plane!" Cloud shouted as everyone split of in different directions, knowing this was the best chance they'd get.
"Shera, take the stick, I gotta go with them," Cid ordered before bailing out the back of the plane with the others. They descended to the ground quickly. Vincent and Barret were shooting at whatever guards spotted them during the entire descent. They all landed loudly on the steel roof of the building as the alarms began to sound.
"Move it people!" Cloud shouted as he took off with Tifa. They split up into three other groups and all dropped down on each of the four sides of the building. The Turks landed near a window and straightened their suits. "Reno, look at that," Elena motioned as she looked through the window.
"Crap, what the hell happened Reeve?" Reno said under his breath as Rude broke down the door and they rushed in to try to stop the inevitable.
On the other side of the building, Cloud and Tifa were engaged in a battle with a group of SOLDIERs. "You call yourselves SOLDIERs?" Cloud shouted the challenge as he dropped the nearest combatant. "You are nothing when the field is even!" he screamed as he blasted the closest one with a blast of fire. Tifa delivered a punch to the SOLDIER she was battling, causing him to drop like a stone. "Omnislash!" Cloud shouted, causing Tifa to dive backwards, knowing what was coming next. When he was done, he helped Tifa to her feet.
"Ewww, you're all bloody," she stuck her tongue out at him.
"It's not mine," he replied as they walked to the door.
"I know…. It's grosses than if it was yours," she laughed as she opened the door and peeked inside. "Reeve!" she shouted as she ran inside.
Barret and Nanaki dropped to the ground a minute after Vincent silently attacked the dozen SOLDIERs there. "We could have helped, you know?" Barret pointed out.
"They were not a threat. It was best that only one of us used his strength," Vincent reasoned. Valentine… something is wrong here. Vincent frowned and rushed to the window of the building. "Shit!" he shouted as he shot out the window and dove through, followed by the others.
"Yuffie, Cid, we might have a problem here," Reeve's voice came out during the battle between Cait Sith and a SOLDIER.
" 'the hell're you talking about cat," Cid grunted as he speared a SOLDIER.
"There aren't any explosions coming from in there. That is the problem," Reeve explained.
"God damn it Reeve! You better not mean what I think you mean!" Yuffie yelled in anger as she slashed her opponent and dove through the door. The others followed closely behind her and reached the inside of the building just as a huge explosion rocked the inside of the building, sending the walls flying outward and the ceiling sailing skyward.
"He found the self destruct switches!" Reeve's voice carried over the remains of the building as the eleven heroes crawled out of the rubble to their feet. "The WEAPONs are active!" Reeve's voice was drowned out as the WEAPONs roared and rose to their full sizes from their underground repair pits. The Ultima WEAPON rose into the sky and took off to the north, leaving only four WEAPONs to battle the heroes.
"This is not good Tifa," Cloud admitted as the rebuilt Emerald WEAPON rose from the ground and positioned itself in front of them. "Think it's as strong as before?" he whispered as he fingered the Knights of the Round materia in his sword.
"I don't know, probably not, it just got fixed up," Tifa guessed from the patchwork repairs done to the exterior of the WEAPON.
"I have the level 1 Knights of the Round Tifa," Cloud told her. "Cid has the mastered one and Rude had the Master Summon." Cloud took an attack stance as Tifa finally realized the predicament they were in. Cloud ran forward, striking at the WEAPON with all his strength, then being driven back by the WEAPON's ray attack. "Only one summon… this isn't gonna work," Cloud admitted as Tifa helped him to his feet.
"Which one is that?" Reno asked as he readied his nightstick.
"Diamond," Rude replied as he adjusted his shades.
"What's the plan?" Elena asked as the WEAPON prepared to attack them.
"Summon," Rude explained as he produced the Knights of the Round materia.
At that time the WEAPON unleashed an energy wave on the three Turks. The three braced themselves but felt no damage as the wave died down. "…" Reno said nothing as he checked himself over and shrugged.
"…" Rude replied.
"…!" Elena chimed in as they realized the WEAPON had silenced them.
Cid, Yuffie, and Cait Sith stood ready to fight the Ruby WEAPON. "Alright, ya big piece of junk, time to head back down where you came from!" Cid shouted as he unleashed a Knights of the Round summon on the WEAPON.
LET ME OUT! Vincent ignored the demon as he, Barret and Nanaki traded blows with the Sapphire WEAPON. They half repaired head of the WEAPON kept grinning at them as it unleashed several small energy blasts at the heroes. Valentine, let me out! "Quiet demon!" Vincent shouted as he unleashed a fury of gunshots at the WEAPONs exterior as Nanaki blasted it with Ultima.
The WEAPON counterattacked them, send all three of them flying backward into the remains of the wall of the factory. Nanaki growled as he got up, Barret swore, and Vincent did nothing. Chaos on the other hand….