Chapter - 14: To the Pits of Hell
The Highwind swayed left and right as its pilot attempted navigating the dark storm. Ahead were the mountains, and coming down the peaks were four tornados, whipping around, hurling everything in their path. The pilot darted right, around one, then left, between the next two, the last one nearly took off the tail, but they managed to stay in the air.
"We aint gonna make it in one piece!" Cid told Cloud as they stood in the control room and looked out through the windshield.
Cloud mulled it over a moment and then saw more funnel clouds. "Land the ship! Make an immediate emergency landing near the foot of the mountain ring there at the crater!" he pointed out the window.
The ship lurched hard and then went down, scraping the floor of the world. It finally stopped as they coasted into a patch of trees at the foothills of the Northern Crater.
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"That could have gone better…" Yuffie moaned from behind one of the control consuls where she had fallen.
Cloud rose from under a collapsed shelf. "There it is…" He looked up at the Crater above with wide eyes.
They all gathered next to him and looked up.
"Whoa boy, never thought id see that again." Cid mouthed, half under his breath.
"Cid, you, Tifa, Red, and Yuffie wait here and work on repairs. Me, Sephiroth, and the rest will scale the crater." Cloud announced.
"Getting used to the whole leadership thing again, eh ya spikey headed jerk?" Yuffie teased.
Cloud smiled briefly. "Move out!"
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The wind roared violently as they climbed the snowy peaks.
"I wonder how Wutai is this time of year!" Reno shouted over the wind at his friend.
"You'll have time to party when we get outta dis damn place." Barret yelled up as he gripped a rock with his robotic hand.
"If we survive even!" Vincent called out from the side.
"Don't get pessimistic on us Vinnie!" Reno smiled as he continued on.
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Cloud exhaled deeply as he took one last jump and flew over the top. The top of the ring was calm, as it was inside the worse of the weather. Looking down was the pool of green Lifestream as he remembered leaving it two years earlier when the ledges collapsed.
"Little help here!" Cait Sith yelled out.
Cloud moved and grabbed his fluffy arm, yanking him up top. After a few minutes, they all stood there, looking at the pool.
"It's been so long I almost forgot what it would look like!" Cloud said as scraped his foot in the snow.
"What now?" Rude asked as he looked down and pushed his sunglasses tight on his head.
"Maybe…" Cloud mumbled to himself.
He pulled the gray orb from his pocket, the combination of the Black and White Materias. He held it aloft in his palm.
"Hope…" Sephiroth muttered.
Cloud nodded and hurled the orb into the Lifestream below. A few moments passed, then all of a sudden, the liquid started to swirl around and around, eventually forming a huge vortex.
"There's our gateway!" Cloud pointed. "You guys wait here and make sure nothing happens. Me and Sephiroth have to face Jenova alone."
"Why the hell did you drag us all out here then?" Reno yelled.
Cloud started, but Barret cut him off. "Jus shuddap, were 'ere to make damn sure nuthin goes wrong out here!"
Cloud smiled and jumped in. He spun around and around before being pulled under and into the center tube of air. Sephiroth leaped next, and also went right in.
"I…I can't." Vincent stood right on the edge, his pointed boot tips hanging over.
"You can't what?" Barret asked.
"I don't care anymore if it's dangerous for me, all of this is my fault, my failure." he ranted. "I'm going!"
Before anyone could react, he jumped high into the air and glided right for the center.
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Inside the vortex was a round circle of space, surrounded on all sides with green, glowing Lifestream. Cloud rocketed down at supernatural speeds. Sephiroth caught up fast and flew right next to him. Shortly later Vincent joined them.
Soon they could see a blinding white light as they came to a halt and fell out onto a surface. The ground was slick with green fluids. Then the light winked, and they saw everything. A structure made of green crystalline, somewhere deep inside was Holy, on the front was Jenova. Below the waist, she was a bundle of serpent-like tentacles that wrapped all around and through the structure at the heart of the planet, constricting and sucking its life out.
Her upper torso was vaguely humanoid, two arms with six claw-like fingers on each. Her face was feminine, but it shifted as if her true self was nothing but a shapeless piece of clay to be molded. Each of her appearances is only an illusion of a true form that does not exist.
Wrapped in the green crystal-like Lifestream itself, were Kadaj and Kane, one of each side of the massive Jenova body that rest on the structure. The three of them were unable to tell if either was alive, but Kadaj's sword was still impaled in his chest.
"So, Vincent, what do you think you can do without Jenova cells?" Cloud asked as he un-shouldered his sword.
"Nothing." Vincent responded as he pulled his gun out. "But if I get killed, then that's one second that you're lives are not in danger."
"She is calling to us, now is the time." Sephiroth mouthed as he unsheathed Masamune.
"If we die, then the planet is doomed." Cloud said as he took a step forward. "This is the final conflict, this ends now, good or bad there is no escape."
