Cloud
Strife groaned weakly, sitting up and opening his eyes. He had to
blink a few times to assure himself that he really did have his eyes
open because it was pitch black, wherever he was. Things skittered in
the darkness around him as he tried to remember how he had gotten
into this position. Tifa...no, Arina–the clone. And Barret's
clone. Cid and Cait Sith in a cave...he had been taken. Hit pretty
hard judging by the size of the lump on the back of his head. But
where exactly had they taken him?
He stood. "Now where in the
heck–!"
CLANG!
He fell back down, cursing and grabbing
his already-throbbing skull. "OW!"
Cloud reached up and felt
cold metal above him. He lowered his hand to his right and felt
slightly separated iron bars. A cage. He was in a cage!
"This is
great..." he sighed, moving so he was on his knees; also as not to
smash his head on the low ceiling again. "Now what am I supposed to
do!"
"Cloud...?"
The whimpering voice came from
somewhere on his left. He inched over to that side of his prison
until his knee struck the bars. He paused, listening with his breath
held. There was a possibility it had been...
Louder:
"Cloud?"
"Who's there?" he called cautiously. The gasp
from the mystery person was audible. He heard shifting, then a cold
hand was groping about his face and chest. He let it touch him,
familiarizing himself with the gentle caress of the trembling
fingers. He reached out with his own hand–or so he assumed; it was
still too dark– and grasped it.
"Tifa?"
The sigh of
relief was close to him, very close. The hand tightened around his,
pulling him till he was almost pressing against the bars. The person
came just as close, and Cloud could feel scant, shaking breaths
washing across his left cheek.
"Cloud, it is you! How did you
get here! Did you come with the others!"
Cloud wanted so badly
to believe it was Tifa he was so close too; the clones had imprisoned
her in the same room... But he was highly aware that it could have
been a trap. He pulled back and slowly slid his hand from hers.
"No.
I was brought here."
"You too! That clone, he calls himself
Damien, he looks exactly...like you."
He could hear in her voice
she had suddenly become aware of what he had.
"I was kidnaped by
your clone and Barret's. But man, can your double hit hard!"
She
laughed, but it sounded small and forced in the awkward darkness.
After a moment, she moved and he heard a sharp bang.
"OW!"
Cloud
shook his head. If this was the clone, she would have known not to
hit her head on the cage roof. Still, he wasn't taking any
chances.
"You okay?"
"No! How come you didn't warn me
about that!"
"I thought you heard when I hit my head
earlier."
"Yeah, well..."
He listened as she shifted
around the confined area, exploring the same space he had. Then he
realized she was grunting softly, and became nervous.
"Tifa...?"
"I
think...I found a way out of this thing."
She grunted again and
something creaked. There was a pause, then the creak got louder. Tifa
gasped and a sound of screeching metal echoed in the blackness. Cloud
gritted his teeth but waited silently. Tifa grunted one last time and
something clanged hollowly as it struck the stone floor.
"Cloud!"
she sounded excited. "One of the poles in my cage was loose! I
could probably fit through here..."
"Be careful," he
replied, "you may get stuck."
"I know my boobs are big, but
I'll fit."
"..."
Yeah, this was the
real Tifa.
Cloud waited. She sighed, sounding farther away and
something cracked.
"What was that?" he called.
"My back,"
she sighed in relief, and he heard her walk over to somewhere in
front of him. She groped about but bumped blindly into something. It
clattered.
"Hey! What the–!"
"What?" Cloud hated
being left in the dark like this (now it was literal).
"I walked
into this huge chain..." she trailed off. There was more silence.
All of a sudden something began to crank. Cloud listened as the chain
rattled and the gears continued working. With a groan, the cage
around him lifted and he stood up tentatively. No roof.
"You did
it!" he cried, still unsure of where she was.
"Told you so,"
she replied, and he wandered toward the sound of her voice with his
arms extended. He felt her own arm, then traced his fingers down its
curve and to her hand. Their fingers entwined as she leaned against
him.
"I'm glad you're here, Cloud."
"Come on; we'll
be fine," he smiled, and hoped she knew it.
Her hand tightened
on his and they started forward; he stopped, because there was a
voice coming closer.
"Who is it?" Tifa huddled closely to him.
He backed up to where the cage had been, releasing her hand.
"Stay
there."
"What! Cloud–!"
"When I tell you to, I need
you to release that crank you just wound."
"But...but..."
The
figure stepped into the room.
"I can't believe I'm stuck
baby-sittin'!" it was a man's voice. He stopped because he,
too, had sensed something. "Hello?"
Cloud took a deep breath:
"Hey, &#!"
The voice was suddenly very scary-sounding:
"WHA–!"
"You heard me! Come get me, you !#!"
Cloud
knew he was stretching it. He was surely going to be ripped to shreds
if he wasn't fast enough. He heard the clone coming and could see
him in his mind's eye: arms extended, eyes glaring lethally. It was
Barret's clone, Waylon. He came like a hound from hell and Cloud
jumped, leaping over his head, somersaulting in mid-air, and landing
crouched where he assumed the edge of the cage would reach.
"Tifa,
now!"
She cried out and the chain clicked loudly. The entire
thing came crashing down so fast, the gears of the crank exploded
beneath Tifa's hands and she yelped in surprise. He heard Waylon
turn to come at him. The bars fell between them with a sick crunching
noise, and the larger man screamed painfully. Cloud couldn't see
what happened, but he suddenly got the feeling that his intention to
trap the clone had gone a little further. Tifa stepped over to him
and made a choked noise in her throat.
"Oh, Cloud...!"
Waylon
twitched beneath the mangled bars of the collapsed cage, his bright
green eyes staring up at them eerily through the blackness.
"They'll
come..." he grunted heavily, his voice sounding garbled by some
type of liquid. "They'll come for yeh...an' there's nothing
you can do to stop 'em..."
His head hit the stone floor. A
puddle of mako spread out from under his figure, creeping up to Cloud
and Tifa's feet as they stood watching in stunned silence.
Something dropped from the top of the cage and landed at Cloud's
feet and he stooped to pick it up: a large orb by the feel of it. He
felt Tifa groping at him again, and he took her arm and raced out the
way Waylon had come.
"Don't you think we should have done
something else! Now the rest of them will come and–"
"Haven't
you learned about these guys!"
Tifa stayed silent as they
reached a chamber lit by soft white and blue light. Stopping to catch
their breaths, they looked around. Cloud recognized the place first,
but Tifa screamed and dropped to her knees.
"No! No!"
"We're
in the Forgotten City..." Cloud mumbled, his eyes roving over the
extravagantly-carved walls and crystal staircases. Then he pulled the
orb he had picked up from his pocket. It was a brilliant
greenish-white color that shone like the Holy materia Aeris had
always kept with her. Aeris... Cloud looked up at the pulpit where
he had seen her for the last time...where Sephiroth had started the
horrible chain of events that had followed. But, as he had this
memory, it wasn't Sephiroth with the sword he saw, but himself. And
he remembered Tifa's dream–the one she had told him a few nights
ago.
"It wasn't Sephiroth...it was you."
In her dream, he
had killed Aeris; only it hadn't been him, it had been his clone.
Cloud suddenly felt the urge to go to the top of the altar, to see
one last time where Aeris's blood had been spilt. He clenched the
glowing orb in his right hand and raced up the crystal and stone
steps to the central point in the City of the Ancients–the key to
the Promise Land.
