Cetra Reunion: Chapter 1
Of Living TruthCopyrighted to Astian Leslie Hannan. 2004.
Disclaimer: The characters contained within this fanfic, Cetra Reunion, are entirely fictitious and in no way resemble people in real life. All resemblances are entirely coincidental. Square-Enix owns all rights to the characters and locations of Final Fantasy VII. All other characters and locations belong to me.
Author's Notes: In this chapter we see Rufus found by a squad unit of ShinRa, that survived the attack of Meteor. They are searching the rubble for any survivors of the tragedy. What they find is more than what they expected. Read on.
A small, almost inaudible sigh escaped the lips of the scrawny man who lay under a pile of rubble. Dirty and delusional, this man had not seen the light of day since the moment he had ended up here. Of course, that was not surprising, in the least. Though he had to commend the infernal creature that had sent him to this shallow grave, for in doing so it had actually extended his life. Meteor, which had wrecked havoc on the upper levels of Midgar, had only managed to destroy that which resided above the plates. The destruction had missed those that had retreated to the slums. Who ever would have thought that the derelict section of Midgar could become so useful. It was a miracle he was still alive.
However, there was nothing good about the situation that he could fondly regard. Another painful gasp escaped his lips and racked his body. He could feel the damage to his body. It felt as if he would never see the light of day again. Despair had hit him numerous times, as he had remained trapped down here. Yet not once had he wept.
His legs had been crushed under steel plates that had fallen from above. His chest had been pinned to the ground by a crossbeam that had fallen from above landing on top of him, crushing the air from his lungs. He considered himself to be quite lucky indeed. At least he wasn't dead… yet. But he knew death would come for him eventually. There was no way he could possibly survive down here for a prolonged period of time without sustenance to sustain his prime motor functions.
The man could feel his body shutting itself down. His breathing came in small shallow breaths. It had been a week since he had ended up down here. The only reason he was still alive was due partly to the fact that some pipe that had supplied the plates with water had burst under the attack and was showering down around him, allowing him to partake in its essence. It would soon come to an end though, as the water supply dwindled. Everything came to an end eventually, even life.
The man's mind turned once more back to the events that were prelude to his imprisonment by a city that he had taken advantage of. The images were so clear that he could recall each and every detail without fault. It all came back to him…
…A voice bellowed through the loud speaker to the right of the office desk located high up in the ceiling.
"Sir, we have a problem!" a voice boomed.
The president of the ShinRa Electric Power Company sighed; the voice belonged to none other than Heideggar, the head of the warfare department and the Turks. He delayed his response, pondering what his reply should be. The President's slender finger found the intercom button and pressed it, the slight pressure draining the blood from beneath his neatly trimmed nail.
"Yes? What is it?" the president asked. Annoyance laced his tone. The fat man on the other end had experienced first had the consequence of irking the young man. And soon, he would suffer once more.
"…The north… can't … see? Weapon … way. Gya-ha-ha!" the connection went faulty and dropped out as lights flickered in the building. A slight tremor alerted him to a potential earthquake or something worse. The north? What could that idiot possibly have been speaking of? He brushed a hand through his hair in agitation and strode over to the window.
At first his reflection off the polished window greeted him and he had to strain to see past his irresistible form. It eventually became clear. Far in the distance, yet looming quite large over the plains stood one of his worst fears that had awakened on the site that would have once been made Neo-Midgar. It was Weapon, and it did not look happy. The President's eyes opened wide as everything slowly began to take shape and sink in. The large shoulders of the creature groaned as they opened. The sound was so loud that it could be even heard within his office, and made the windows rattle.
The creature leaned back a little, bracing itself against the energy gathering to its shoulders from the sunlight that glowed high above. The nimbus of light increased as it filtered into the apparatus mounted between the cavity that had opened up in the beast's carapace and formed into small beams that suddenly launched forward, directly at Midgar.
"Shit!" The man yelled, though he was not one to usually use such obscenities. He took one slow step backwards, followed by another, nearly tripping over his feet, the beams of light racing straight for him. He was frozen on the spot and knew that if he did not act fast, he would die. Using his fast reflexes that he had become well known for, the man raced back to his desk and behind it where a trap door lay under the floor beneath the oaken piece of furniture. His slender hands found the catch and furiously worked at it until it gave way with a satisfying click. The hatch retracted in on itself giving the President reason to be grateful that not all the devices in the building ran on the primary source of power; Mako.
The first bolt screeched past the building shattering the glass all along the right side of the office. The crystalline shards collapsed inward tinkling as they fell to the force of the power that Weapon had released upon him. The President of Shinra had no second thoughts about whether or not the tunnel had been maintained against such an emergency. He pushed away from the floor and towards the shoot that had been revealed when the hatch had opened.
The angle of the escape tunnel was sharp so that he fell nearly vertically for a few feet before connecting with the smooth metallic surface that ran off at an angle, below. Above him the first bolt hit the building with such a jarring, bone shattering impact that it shook the very foundations of the structure. Flames raced down the tunnel after him barely missing his back as he flew out the end out over the abandoned slums of Sector 6. The tunnel had not been completed. He fell from a height where flames gushed out of the exit tunnel down towards the hard unrelenting earth that embraced him in a pile of moist wet garbage.
Debris followed soon after, giving him no respite. It crashed around him in a deafening roar. The man crouched, covering his head with his arms yet it was not enough to protect him. He became crushed under the objects that once comprised his home. Pipes burst and gas lines exploded. If he were to survive this, he would be a very lucky man…
…And he had. His eyes opened once more to view the prison that had engulfed him. Dust shifted causing him to go into a painful coughing fit. He wished that he could find something sharp to use to end his life, but his searching hands only found smooth edged objects and items of disinterest. It was futile.
Then it came to him. A muffled sound that cried out in the distance. It must have belonged to someone that had survived, but he wasn't about to get his hopes up. He had experienced like instances in the past that had built up his hope, only to dash it as an egg would lose its yolk when smashed against stone. He was not about to allow this instance to fill him his with the possibility of salvation.
"Is anyone out there?" a voice called. The crunch of something underfoot alerted him to a presence, this time closer. Rufus' heart raced with anticipation. What if it wasn't false this time? What if it was a reality? He struggled against his constraints and yelled out. To his disappointment all that he managed to summon from within was a small choked up sound that didn't even resemble human speech. Yet it did have the necessary effect.
"Hey! Over here! I have found something." The sound of boots stepping carefully upon shaken foundation moved closer to him until a shadow passed over his face. "It's him! He's alive!"
The voice sounded overjoyed but he really couldn't care. The pain was becoming almost too much. He just wanted it to all end. He wished to be away from here.
"The President's alive? What is he doing down here?" Another voice asked a second pair of boots tracking their way through the rubbish.
"Who care. If we save him, we'll be well rewarded!" The first voice responded. The President could feel the weight lift slightly from his legs. The voice, distinctly belonging to a male, was attempting to free him.
"Jesus. Look at this place." A third voice rang out. It was far deeper than that of the other two and the sound of a rifle being shuffled from one shoulder to another indicated that these were soldiers. "It would take a miracle to rebuild Midgar."
The first voice chimed in, cutting out all other forms of conversation. "Nothing will be rebuilt if he dies here. Shinra is in collapse. Heideggar and Scarlett died in the Proud Clod, and the other executives are too scared to publicly show their faces. There will be no more Shinra if President Rufus dies."
There was no more speech, which implied that perhaps the only response was an affirmed nod to the comment. A smile curved Rufus' lips as he felt the weights being shifted from his body. He would survive another day and he would rise like the Phoenix of Fort Condor to take back his company and invoke fear upon the world.