He stood up. Cloud gaped as his son slipped one of the materias from the slots and dropped the handle of the sword into his hands.
"What are you doing?" the older man hissed. Caleb glanced down at his father and smiled back softly.
"I'm a child of fate," ha answered in a husky whisper. "I have to finish this and save the planet."
The ex-mercenary blinked and watched in awe-struck silence as the young blond strode forward, clenching the materia in his hand. As he stepped closer to the two women, the orb let out a soft, fire red glow that steadily intensified as he drew closer to the white aura surrounding Angel. At the sound of his feet, Ayden turned halfway around to look at him.
"You as well?" she lifted an eyebrow, her gaze shifting back to the brown-haired girl. "It won't make any difference how many people you have or what spells you use--I know everything, and soon, I'll have your abilities as well."
"Not this time, Ayden," Caleb responded through gritted teeth; his head was pounding in rhythm to the pulsating light of the materia in his fist. "If you want my powers so badly, I'll let you have them." She turned around fully to stand before him, her arms crossed firmly across her chest. Her eyebrow raised higher, until it disappeared under the feathered brown bangs hanging over her forehead.
"Then let me have it," she sneered.
"You asked for it," he replied.
With a sharp crack, Caleb's fist convulsed and the red materia globe shattered into tiny pieces. Flames brighter than the sun sprang up instantly and engulfed his body and Ayden leapt back in surprise. Cloud screamed and dropped his old sword, scrambling to his feet. A tongue of fire lashed out and slapped him in the chest sending him reeling back. He blinked, stunned, but kept his distance. This was a controlled fire. From within the pillar of red, orange, and yellow, Caleb's cry rang out into the hallways and up the broken spiral to the crystal roof, shattering the reminants of the glass stairs and reverberating off the glowing shell walls. The experiment winced and covered her ears with her hands, stumbling back into Angel. The other woman stood unmoving as the white energy from the mystery materia rose up and flowed out around her, mingling with the fire energy. Fierce golden bolts of light crackled into existence where the two auras met and began to travel hungrily across the stone floor. Cloud dodged and ducked the shocks, pressing his back flat against the wall and staring at the three figures in the center of the power storm.
"Caleb!" Vincent tried to call over the howling winds that spiraled up from the ground and found that he couldn't approach them without being pushed back by a firm, transparent white wall. Nanaki craned his neck, trying to pierce the veil of light with his sharp eye.
"All I can see are three figures! I can't tell who's who anymore!" he yipped.
"Cloud! Can you hear me!" Vincent tried again. "Can you see what's going on over there?"
Ayden forced her head up, the long brown hair that belonged to Tifa Lockheart whipping violently in the wake of this new power. Through the haze of red light, she could just see the figure of a man. His hair was blond and waved wildly about his head as crimson tears leaked burning tracks down the sides of his face. It was all she could make out because the boy was no longer human, he was transforming into...
"The Phoenix..." Cloud whispered. Caleb threw his head back and let out another inhuman shriek, wings of pure flame bursting in a spray of blood from his angular back, an array of golden and rainbow feathers cascading out behind his body. His eyes narrowed, became as red as the fire around them, blood of the same color dampening the small, scale-layered feathers that began to pop out of the very pores of his skin.
"What kind of power is this...?" Ayden took a step back and Angel was there. Her arms came through hers and wrapped up tight, pinning the clone's back to her chest. "What the--!" She writhed and twisted, trying to buck free of the hold, but the arms only pulled tighter, straining her neck forward and her arms back. She howled in indignance and pain.
"Caleb!" Angel screamed.
The Phoenix turned its red eyes to her and crooned soflty, the sound floating on the air like a melody. Then its head turned to look over one wing at Cloud Strife, who stood plastered against the wall behind it. It sang again, and the ex-mercenary jumped.
"Caleb...?" he asked uncertianly. Yet another wavering note from the large firebird. Its body took up the entire entrance to the hall, stretching halfway out into the altar room, its feathers spread and falling over the sides and into the pool of water below. The Ultima Weapon suddenly rose up to Cloud's eye level and he watched silently as a stray bolt of electrical power struck the crystal blade and popped the remaining materias out of their slots. The sword lowered to waist level and Cloud took the offered handle, looking up in confusion. "I don't understand," he pressed. "What is it I can do--?"
Cloud.
He pasued.
Cloud, please.
His blue mako eyes abruptly opened wide and he looked past the grand Phoenix to the two struggling women, at the one snarling and lashing out in anger. The woman with the cold green eyes and the sickly pale skin. "Tifa...?"
Oh, Cloud... I've missed you.
"Tifa!" he cried and started forward.
No!
She was there, the woman he once knew. With her gentle face and soft amber eyes, her arms extended to either side of her beautiful, slender, absolutely perfect profile. She took a step forward, toward him and away from the lights, her expression both sad and joyus.
"Tifa...!" Cloud whispered. She approached him and he was heedless of the actual woman still struggling against Angel's hold. All he saw was her, all he sensed was her presence. She had come back to him.
Cloud, my love, you must listen to me.
"Anything, everything, just please, don't leave me again," he begged. Her hand came up to his face and touched his cheek; it slipped through his flesh, but all he felt was the feather caress of her fingertips. She smiled sadly.
I have to. I'm sorry.
"No!" he instantly began to sob. "No, not again! I can't take it again"
Listen to me, Cloud.
"Yes," he choked on the word.
Caleb is now the Phoenix, and Aeris is helping Kali use the Holy materia to hold the clone in place.
"Aeris?"
She has been guiding them the whole way. They need your help.
"I can't help! I'm nothing, I have been nothing, ever since you--"
This is not the time to doubt yourself.
"But it's the truth!"
I know I've put you through so much, and I'm sorry. But you can't let Caleb and Kali die in vain. The experiment will soon break hold of the binds; you need to destroy my body in order to stop her.
"NO!"
Cloud-
"I WON'T!"
Please, let me rest now... Let me rest until the day you return to my side. Cloud...
Cloud Strife squeezed his eyes shut and wailed, the sound actually pressing down on the light in the chamber. The electricity crackled and the white and red auras began to withdrawl.
"Cloud!" Angel grunted. The Phoenix screeched at him. Ayden screamed curses and threw her weight to one side, knocking Angel off balance. "CLOUD!"
Cloud!
The firebird lifted itself up and shot toward both women, phasing into a hot beam of red light that penetrated their chests and sent them both tumbling. The white aura flashed and Angel was up like lightning, one hand in Ayden's hair, the other twisting her arm around to press against her back. She wrenched the clone to her feet and hung on. Ayden's now-terrifyed eyes found the ice blue orbs of the former prisoner.
"You wouldn't..." she gasped, a weak laugh forming in her throat. "You wouldn't dare kill your wife a secon--"
Cloud rammed the sword up into her abdomen. She choked. Angel instantly let go. The two women fell to their knees simultanieously as bright green mako ran from one and dark red blood from the other. Cloud took a staggering step back as the red beam followed their downward motion and came in slowly, condensing around them in a filmy red glow that glimmered like rain at sunset. Experiment 819720--Codename: Ayden fell forward, the Ultima sword running even deeper into her body, to the hilt, ripping the gaping hole in her torso wider. Angel fell back the opposite way and landed on the cold stone floor, her own blue eyes dark and lifeless. The red glow around her intensified and Cloud watched silently as tears streamed down his face and his only son reappeared in his lover's arms, looking for all the world like a content, sleeping child. His hand came to rest against her chest, atop her heart, and her eyes blazed to life. The open hole in her body quickly regenerated until there wasn't even a scar left and she moaned, her head turning to the other side and her hand coming to rest atop Caleb's filthy blond hair.
"I love you," she whispered gently.
"I love you too," he responded with a small smile. Cloud slowly knelt beside his late wife's desecrated body and cried as Vincent and Nanaki sprinted over and the last tendrils of energy faded to nothing in the empty space. It was over.