Don't own a thing, only the twisted plot comes from my twisted mind...
Thank you so very much for the reviews, they really make me try harder when writing!
WARNING!! SPOILERS!! The plot follows the game pretty much, at least in the beginning, but I'm not gonna write it all. Anyone who reads this has probably played the game already... and if you haven't... shame on you!
Also, contains swearing.
Blood of the Innocents, part II
Chapter one: The trouble with Shin-Ra.
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"All right, ladies, line up in front of the Don!"
Aeris tried not to let her nervousness show as she stood in the Don's office with the two other girls. The room was large and richly decorated, full of expensive carpets, statues and plants. Two small fires burned behind them, and in front of the three girls was a huge, wooden table. Behind it sat the Don, eyeing them with interest and obvious lust. His two workers stood behind him, grinning and staring at the girls.
At least Tifa was there, by her side. Her presence was always an encouraging effect, on all of them. Aeris wasn't that much older than Tifa, but the green eyed girl was wise beyond her years, and could converse with the spirits of the land. Tifa, on the other hand, was full of energy, and ready to throw herself into any danger.
They didn't know the third girl, but Aeris was confident that the Don would choose either her or Tifa over this prissy, giggly and fluffy thing that blushed between them. All the girls he got must be like that, the two members of Avalanche were a fresh change. Even though they were dressed in clothes just as exposing. She was wearing a low-cut, bright red silky dress while Tifa was dressed up in a blue top and miniskirt.
Suddenly the blonde, plump Don jumped onto the table, smiling so that his molars showed. "Mmmm mmm! Good, splendid!" The man jumped down, in front of the three girls, and walked around a bit, checking them. "Now let's see, which one should I choose? Hmm?"
He stopped in front of the giggly thing who posed for him provocatively. "This one?" The Don smiled at her but moved soon to Tifa. "Or this one?" From the corner of her eyes Aeris saw her smile. One of them had to be chosen, so that they could find out why the Don had sent his man to find the Avalanche. But she still hoped that he wouldn't choose her. The man was greasy, annoying and disgustingly dominative towards the women. The flower girl sucked in a deep breath and smiled when the man walked over to check her out.
To think that just a few years ago she had been living happily with her parents, far in Icicle Inn. Then one day, when she had gone to visit the city of the Ancients, her mother's race, they had come. Shin-Ra's men, the townsfolk had said when she had returned to her empty, burglared home. Her childhood memories were torn to shreds, photos and videotapes stolen, her father's books and notes gone... all that she could have lived with, but they had taken her parents as well! Her way, the way of her mother and her people had always been one of peace, but it had been pure rage that had burned in her when she had left her hometown for Midgar.
Once there, it hadn't taken her long to figure out that her parents had probably been taken to the Shin-Ra headquarters, but getting in there herself was another thing. She had ended up in the slums, living in an abandoned church, the only place in the whole town where she could find any kind of connection with the earth and spirits. Sometimes she even heard her mother, but the whisperings were quiet and broken, like she was muffled or far away. She kept telling her to get out, as far from here as possible, as it wasn't safe. But Aeris couldn't leave them. She stayed in the church, grew flowers there and sold them in the slums, to get gil to buy food. Somehow she managed to survive. One day she'd met the Avalanche. And now she was here, ogled by an annoying little man.
"Woo hoo, I've made up my mind!" The Don suddenly exclaimed. Aeris kept smiling, even though the man's eyes were still on her. "My choice for tonight is... THIS sweet-looking girl!"
The frilly girl beside her was clearly disappointed when the Don pointed at Aeris. The flower girl kept her smile up and blushed at the look the blond gave her. 'Don'ttouchmedon'ttouchmedon'ttouchmeplease...'
"Ooh I love shy chicks! Yeowza! You can have the other ones!" The Don told his workers, not giving the girls another look, and eagerly motioned for Aeris to follow him to his bedroom. "Well then, shall we go my pretty?"
Aeris nodded, still smiling, and threw Tifa a quick look. The fighter nodded, ever so slightly, and smiled at the man called Kotch who was already guiding her out of the room. 'Oh Tifa, please hurry...' she thought as she followed the Don.
If the office was richly decorated, the bedroom was even worse. Expensive tapestries with very educative images hung on the walls, huge lanterns lighted the whole room, a mirror ball hung from the ceiling for goodness' sakes, soft carpets covered the floor, and in the middle of it all stood The Bed. Impressive enough to deserve capital letters, it was covered with satin pillows and covers, and the colourfully dressed Don lounged on top like a cherry on an ice-cream plate. His chubby face was red with excitement and exhaustion. 'It must have taken a lot out of him to just climb on the bed...' she thought.
Aeris stood in the corner, pretending to be shy. They had agreed that if either one got in with the Don, the other would come and help interrogate the man. She'd have to distract him until Tifa got rid of the other two men. And definitely NOT the way the Don wished to be distracted!
"We're finally alone... all right, sweetness, come to daddy!" The man had had enough to breathe and was now on the bed on all fours, staring at her and wiggling his body in a way that was probably supposed to be alluring. Aeris swallowed, smiled and took a few steps closer.
"You're so cute, I never get tired of looking at you! Do you... like me too?" The Don said, licking his lips.
Aeris wondered if she could take out the man by herself. "Umm..."
"You don't like me?!" The man was taken back and appeared hurt by her less than enthusiastic answer. "There... there isn't someone else, is there?"
"Yes, his name is Barret." Aeris said the first thing that came to her mind. Barret was the leader of the Avalanche, a small resistance group that stood against Shin-Ra and all that the company stood for. He was a fierce man from North Corel with a gun where his right arm and hand had once been.
"No way!" The Don's face fell at the answer, but them he seemed to realize something. Aeris hoped she hadn't made a mistake. "Barret? That sounds familiar..."
She was still wondering whether she should tell him the truth when the Don's face brightened at the realization. "Oh yeah, yeah... one of the people I was finding out about... Apocalypse."
"Avalanche." Aeris corrected but wasn't sure if the man heard her.
"In sector seven, in the slums... but how do YOU know that?" His head came up now, and this time there wasn't lust in his eyes anymore. Aeris took a step away but straightened her back. She had dealt with worse in the slums. Standing up to this travesty of a man was nothing.
"Because I am one of them." She said with a quiet, steady voice. The Don sat up quickly, glared at her, this time checking her for weapons, and started to scream for his guards. The flower girl took another step back and quickly scanned the room for any kind of weapon as the door opened. But in stead of the guards...
"Unfortunately, no one will come to your help." Tifa said as she stepped in, once again in her usual clothes in stead of the blue, silky skirt, top and high heels.
The Don backed away to the head of his bed, looking from one woman to the other. "What is this?!"
Tifa strode to the bed, and Aeris came to stand beside her. "Shut up, we're asking the questions now!" The fighter snarled and pointed at the man with her fighting-glove -covered hand. "What did your assistants find out? Talk! If you don't tell us..."
Aeris lifted her foot on the bed and leaned towards the man, smiling as he sweated. "...I'll rip them off." That obviously hit the man where it hurt, as he shuddered and paled a few shades.
"No! Not that, I'll tell you everything!"
"So talk." Tifa ordered and winked at Aeris.
The Don wiped sweat from his forehead and licked his lips. "I made them find out where the man with the gun arm was. But that's what I was ordered to do."
"By who?" Tifa urged the man on.
"No!" He shook his head, determined not to say another word. "If I told you that, I'd be killed!"
"Talk! If you don't tell us...I'll smash them!"
The Don swallowed and looked at the girl's steel-studded gloves and steel covered boots, not suspecting for a second that she was just trying to scare him. "Fine, fine, it was Heidegger of Shin-Ra! The head of public safety maintenance!"
"Heidegger? Shin-Ra?! What are they up to? Talk! If you don't tell us..." now she threw an especially wicked look to Aeris, "...we'll chop them off and play ping-pong."
Aeris had to fight back the laughter as the man started to babble again.
"Hooo you're serious, aren't you? Oh boy, oh boy... I'm not fooling around here either, you know... Shin-Ra's trying to crush the Acoustics, and want to infiltrate their hideout. And they're really going to crush them... literally! By breaking the support holding up the plate above them!"
"Break the support?!" Tifa and Aeris both stood back and looked at each other in horror. This couldn't be real! Even the Shin-Ra wouldn't kill thousands of people just to stop their small group.
The Don smirked, seeing their confusion. "You know what's going to happen, right? The plate'll go PING, and everything's gonna go BAMMM! I'm just glad their hideout's in sector seven and not here in sector six."
"They're really going to wipe out the sector seven slums? We have to go there now!" Tifa said. Aeris nodded, and they started towards the door. But the Don stopped them with a shout.
"Just a second!"
The fighter whirled around angrily. "Shut up!"
"No wait! It'll only take a second. How do you think scum like me feel when they babble on about the truth?"
"They've pretty much given up on life?" Tifa suggested, both of them anxious to get back to the slums.
"Buzzzz!" The Don screamed happily, pretending to press a button. "Wrong!"
Before neither could move, he jumped to the other side of the bed and pulled a lever that had been hidden behind curtains. The floor dropped away from underneath them, and Aeris and Tifa fell into darkness.
He sat on a high ledge overlooking a glowing pool of the Lifestream. It illuminated the whole large cave with green, the light coming from below, drawing out sharp edges of the cliffs and boulders. The pool was slowly eating into the solid rock, melting it, moulding it into softer shapes. He threw a rock into it, watching the lazy ripples it made. Watching the glowing green had amused him. Five years ago. Now it was getting on his nerves, the calmness, the slow but steady progress it made.
/Slow and steady, son. That is how we must proceed./
Those were her words, spoken into his mind almost five years ago, when the injustice and cruelty of the world had still burned brightly in his head, controlling his every action. He had obeyed, and let time move on whilst they planned the destruction of those who were responsible for the Cetra's deaths.
But five years was a long time to spend in a cold crater, with no one else except the voice in your head. He had always preferred solitude to great masses of people, but this kind of isolation felt like a punishment.
She had spent two millennia trapped in the arms of the planet itself, she had learned to be patient. She could wait for a few more centuries if it meant that she could get her revenge. He was patient, also, but he had been brought up by humans who only lived for some decades. It was hard for him to see things exactly as she saw them, to plot on the same timescale. Hojo had told him that he would life longer than simple humans, a lot longer, but he was still so young, a soldier, ready to die the next minute, used to quick decisions. How could he suddenly learn to think things in centuries?
And the basic plan was so simple, he couldn't imagine why they couldn't just go out now and fulfill it.
Get the Black materia and summon Meteor with it.
She couldn't go and get the Black materia, for obvious reasons. It was kept safe in a faraway island, in a place called the Temple of the Ancients. He couldn't get it either, not when the reason for getting it was so clearly for the bad of human kind. The Cetra had without a doubt guarded it against the likes of him. Therefore they needed someone to get it for them. She had told Hojo to take care of it. Sephiroth hadn't trusted the scientist, but had to admit that the mad man knew what he was doing. The professor had created the perfect puppet for them to carry out what they couldn't do.
Crash the Meteor into the planet.
This was simple. Just summon the Meteor, sit back and enjoy the armageddon.
Attain godhood.
Sephiroth wasn't quite sure how this was achieved, Jenova had kept quiet about it thus far. But all in all, it was a simple plan. There wasn't really that much to do. Just sit and wait for things to move on. Sit. And wait.
Simply put, Sephiroth was bored out of his mind.
She had taught him so much during the first two years, how to control his innate powers, how to become more powerful, both in body and spirit. He had learned to cast simple spells without materia. He had learned spells that usually needed much more experience than what he had. He had learned to fly.
But what was all that if he had no one to share it with? He had no one to talk to, to spar with, or just BE with. He could only watch those who he had once thought as friends and other people he had known. He would agonize for hours whether to spy on their lives or not, miss seeing them and wonder what was happening in the world outside, but when he'd eventually take a peek at them, he was soon filled with hatred as he watched the traitors.
With a sigh he stood up and teleported himself to the large cave he thought of as his 'home'. It was where he slept, when he slept. He didn't really eat anymore, she kept him alive. She and the power of the Lifestream, so near to them.
It was where she sat, on a high pedestal, watching with her dead eyes.
Sephiroth walked past her, to an alcove where he could be alone, where he could watch the world in peace. He was never really alone, she could talk to him any time she wanted, but she had learned that when he was there, he wouldn't answer. So she left him alone.
He called out the power in him and the pearly wall in front wavered and started to swirl with colours. He sat down on a cold pedestal and wondered who he would spy on today. A small smile crept upon his lips when he thought of a victim.
Hojo had drawn their attention to her, not even realizing it himself. He had kidnapped her parents and now she was trying to find them, and him. She was an Ancient, she and her mother were the last ones alive. Not counting him, of course. Sephiroth liked to watch her as she had struggled her way to Midgar and into some sort of a rebel group. They had actually piqued his interest when they started to blow up the reactors in Shin-Ra's fabulous city. He wondered if they were going to destroy another one, and was slightly disappointed to see that she wasn't in a reactor.
Concentrating a little, he could recognize the girl's friends, the young fighter woman and a tall, muscled man with a gun as his arm. He had been surprised to see that captain Highwind and her woman Shera were a part of this group as well. He was with them now as the four of them were running in a stairwell which looked very familiar to him. Sephiroth frowned and his eyes grew wide when he recognized the Shin-Ra Headquarters. He had almost forgotten the place, and all the bad memories that came with it. But why, why were they in there? What was going on? What had he missed?
He watched with amusement as they reached the highest public floor and how they struggled their way to the higher ones, even with the help of the puppet mayor. He leaned forward when they found the duct leading from the men's room to the conference room. Zackery had spied the suits many times... but he pushed the Soldier out of his mind with a quick flash of anger and watched closely when he saw familiar faces.
Reeve was explaining something, but a few words from the president cut him off and silenced perhaps the only man who really had only the good of the Midgarians in mind. Palmer went into one of his hyperactive spells but the president silenced him as well. Sephiroth wondered what they were talking about and regretted that he couldn't hear anything. He wasn't powerful enough for that. Sometimes he could hear the Ancient say a word or two, but never when he wanted to.
Reeve was talking again, trying to make a point, but it seemed that his words weren't listened to. Heidegger laughed, he could recognize that from the large man's wobbling stomach, and shuddered at the thought of the loud horse laugh. He could also feel the room grow quiet as everyone turned to the door to see Hojo walk in. Sephiroth leaned closer and watched the professor who didn't sit down, only stood at the head of the table and gave some sort of a report. He cursed when he couldn't hear or even read the man's lips.
Aeris, Barret, Cid and Tifa glanced at each other and the flower girl leaned closer when they saw the professor walk in to the conference room. This was the man who had kidnapped her parents and destroyed her peaceful world.
The president cleared his throat. "Hojo. How's the woman? And Gast?"
"As a specimen? I'm still in the process of comparing her to other data we have of her kind. It would have been good to get the daughter as well, but... Gast is a great help, he's ready to do anything I tell him to. As long as I promise that his wife and daughter won't come to any harm." The professor chuckled and shook his head. So far, he hadn't agreed to anything.
"How long will the research take?" The president asked, glancing at the others quickly. Most of them seemed uncomfortable in the professor's presence.
"Probably 120 years. It's impossible to finish in our lifetime. Or in the lifetime of the specimen too, for that matter. That's why we're thinking of breeding her. Then we could create one that could withstand our research for a long time. Even if we'd find the daughter, we'd eventually run out of specimens." Hojo sounded like he was talking of simple, short-lived animals or insects. His words made Aeris and the others want to rip him apart.
"What about the Promised Land? Won't it hinder our plans?"
That made the professor think, while the others stared at him, as if afraid to speak. "That's what I need to plan. She is strong... and yet has her weaknesses." He laughed and shrugged. The president gave an uncomfortable smile and leaned back in his chair.
"That concludes our meeting."
They all left swiftly, not saying one word to each other. The red-clad woman looked up at the vent and the four of them instantly pulled back, but she was just smelling the air and soon left.
"...that bitch Scarlet..." Barret muttered and added a few chosen words about the red-clad woman's virtues, or the lack of them.
Cid moved uncomfortably in the tight vent and looked at the flower girl. "They were talking about your parents... right?"
Aeris nodded and bit her lower lip. She hadn't liked what she had heard, and was more determined to free her mother and father than before.
"Let's follow them." Tifa suggested and they started to crawl back towards the men's room. They ran quickly but quietly out and followed the professor up to the next floor. There they found themselves in a huge room full of boxes and specimens in glass jars, labeled and stacked in neat piles. Hojo talked for a moment with his assistant before heading to the back of the room. They heard some of the words, not daring to step closer.
When Hojo was gone they sneaked out to the middle of the room where a large, red beast was locked in a glass cylinder. Tifa walked up to the glass and tapped it, repeating the words she had heard Hojo call the creature. "Precious specimen...? Is it going to be used for a biological experiment?" She turned to the others who came carefully closer. Aeris took a few steps ahead to see where the professor had gone.
"There's a lift there... let's follow him!" The flower girl said, grabbing her fighting staff tightly. The others nodded and followed her, giving the red beast one last look. It stared back, intelligence glowing in its one remaining eye.
They realized that they would be in anyone's clear sight even before the lift stopped in the upper floor, but a sneak attack was out of the question when Aeris saw her parents in the middle of the laboratory.
"Mom! Dad!" She shouted and ran out of the lift as soon as she could get the door to open.
Ifalna was in a similar cylinder to the one below, shaking her head when she saw her daughter, joy and fear battling on her face. Professors Gast and Hojo were outside the tank, watching her, but Gast turned when he heard Aeris.
"No! Aeris, get out while you still can!" He shouted, eyeing the other professor and the man in the laboratory's control room. But Aeris only ran towards them, followed closely by Tifa, Cid and Barret.
"We're getting you two outta here!" The leader of Avalanche growled as he aimed his arm towards Hojo. The scientist just glanced at them and snorted.
"Outsiders... are you going to kill me? I don't think you should. The equipment here is extremely delicate. Without me, who could operate it? Not dear Gast, not without my passwords and knowledge. I've made myself quite irreplaceable."
Barret growled and waved his gun-arm at the man futilely while Aeris hugged her father, staring at her mother over his shoulder. The professor was sobbing, holding her as if he was trying to shield her from the world.
"I recommend you think things out logically before you make any rash moves." Hojo said, watching Gast and Aeris, smiling. "So this is your lovely daughter? How kind of her to spare us the trouble of having to search for her..." the professor shrugged and turned towards the control room. "Well, there's time to take care of you later. Now, bring in the specimen!"
Ifalna turned in the tube to see the red beast rise through a hole in the floor. She started to scream in fear, making Aeris scream for her. Gast ran to shake Hojo from the collar of his labcoat.
"You bastard! You promised they'd be safe! You promised!"
"Dear Gast, you made me promise but I never did. Just... think of this as lending a helping hand to an endangered species... both of them are on the brink of extinction... if I don't help, all these animals will disappear."
Cid swore and gripped his spear tightly while Tifa stepped forward, flexing her fists. "Animal? That's terrible! She is a human being!"
"You're gonna pay!" Barret roared, aiming his gun at the professor and then at the cylinder, where the beast looked like it was going to attack Ifalna. She had backed against the glass, begging to be let out.
"Barret! Can't you do anything?" Aeris pleaded, tears in her eyes. The dark man nodded and aimed at the top of the cylinder.
"Awright!! Screw delicacy and step back!"
Hojo screamed at him to stop but Barret opened fire, and the cylinder began to glow. Gast shielded Aeris with his body and screamed for Ifalna while Hojo ran over to the door.
"Wh... what are you do-- oh! My precious specimens!"
Barret's bullets had the desired effect. The door slid open right in front of Hojo, and the red beast leaped out and on top of the scientist, pinning him to the floor.
"Ifalna!" Gast shouted and ran into the chamber. She had fallen on her knees but he helped her up and out into the laboratory. They noticed that the floor was sliding down again, but paid it no mind as Aeris was in their arms the next second.
Hojo struggled to get out from underneath his previous specimen, making scientific comments all the while. The beast shook its large head and turned to Cid and Tifa who watched the happy family reunion. Barret had gone to the cylinder, watching the hole in the floor. "He's rather strong. I'll help you all out." The specimen suddenly said with a clear and even voice.
"It talked!?" Tifa exclaimed, stepping curiously closer to the beast. Cid, on the other hand, took a step back.
"I'll talk as much as you want later, miss. Now we have other things to think about." The beast said and nodded towards the lift, where a monster was rising through the hole.
"Aeris, get yer parents and get out of here! We'll take care of this bastard!" Barret shouted and opened fire on the thing. The flower girl nodded and guided her parents to safety.
Hojo, momentarily forgotten, scooted away from them all.
Tifa looked at Hojo's ex-specimen, still intrigued by the speaking beast.
"What's your name?"
"Hojo named me Red XIII. A name with no meaning whatsoever to me. Call me whatever you wish." The beast murmured and called up a fire spell to fight the monster. Tifa nodded and joined the fight as well.
Watching the battle was interesting. These rebels weren't as bad as the usual anti-Shin-Ra groups he had come across in his days in Soldier. There had always been people, more or less determined to get rid of Shin-Ra and his empire, but most of them decided things were fine as they were after someone got hurt. But this small group, they fought like they meant it. Four people, attacking the headquarters? He had been skeptical but impressed when they had found a way to eavesdrop on the board meeting, and had wished he had been with them when they found Hojo's laboratory. And now the fight with the monster and its ... well, he guessed that they might have been it's ... cubs. Offspring, whatever. Ugly, nevertheless. But they fought them with practiced ease and order, even though the girl soon backed away and ran after the small family, no doubt to see that they were all right. Seeing that the rest could take care of the monsters he concentrated and followed the girl, soon seeing her join the flower girl and her parents. They talked quickly, motioning with their hands a lot, and stayed away from everyone's sight.
Soon the rest joined them as well, and after more talking they started to make their way back out of the headquarters. Sephiroth guessed it wouldn't be that easy, not now when there were people who knew that they were there, and smirked when he saw two familiar faces.
"So... the Turks are still alive..." he muttered and cocked his head when Reno and Rude cuffed everyone and guided them away from the elevators. Three troopers took the flower girl's mother and started to lead her to another direction, which made professor Gast go almost ballistic. Sephiroth didn't remember the man but knew that he had been the master mind behind the project he had been the product of. The man who was to blame for his sorry existence even more than Hojo. He watched without any kind of emotion how Rude knocked the man senseless and ordered three troopers to take him somewhere, away from his wife and daughter and the group of rebels.
The Turks walked their captives to the president's office, Reno poking them with his electric rod. The weapon wasn't on, but the jabs still seemed somewhat painful. The red-head had bandages around his head and arm, but Sephiroth had no idea what had happened, nor time to think about it as the group stopped in front of the president's desk. The sight of him made Sephiroth almost growl. The old man hadn't changed a bit, maybe gained more weight, and gotten more annoying. Still, he wished he could have heard what they were talking about. Shin-Ra looked too pleased with himself.
"You bastard! What did you do to my mother? And where is my father?" Aeris shouted, tears in her eyes. She had gotten her parents back, only to lose them again. It would have been a bit easier if she'd known that they were together, but the troopers had taken her back towards the laboratory and him to a completely different direction.
Barret fought with the cuffs that had locked his mismatched hands behind his back and growled while Cid muttered obscenities and tried to kick Reno when the Turk poked at him with the electric rod, just to tease the pilot.
Tifa and Red stood close to each other, Rude keeping an eye on both of them. The red beast was also growling, the fur of his neck standing up with his dark mane.
The president stood up and shrugged. "They're in a safe place. You're the last surviving Ancients... the Cetra." He started to pace while Cid snorted and pulled at his hands, muttering something about too much Mako in the brain. Reno poked him in the back again.
"Didn't you know? They called themselves the Cetra and lived thousands of years ago. Now they are just a forgotten page in history. Except for you, young lady, and your mother." Shin-Ra continued, pacing a bit, clearly getting into his own words.
Red turned his head a bit towards Aeris, watching her. The mother had had something in her scent, something unlike normal human beings. Could they really be members of that race?
The president went on, apparently not really caring if anyone listened to him or not. "Cetra, or the Ancients, will show us the way to the Promised Land. I'm expecting a lot out of you two."
"The Promised Land? Isn't that just a legend?" The red beast asked with his low voice, aiming the question both at the man and to Aeris. He noticed that the girl shook her head, just a bit.
The president, missing this, shrugged and laughed. "Even so, it's far too appealing not to pursue. It's been said the Promised Land is very fertile... and if the land is fertile..." he spread his hands and turned to the captives, like a teacher waiting for an answer. Barret was the first to say it out loud.
"...then there's gotta be Mako! You bastard..." he growled and started to struggle with the cuffs again.
Reno poked at him while Shin-Ra continued. "Exactly. That is why our money-making Mako Reactor is necessary. The abundant Mako will flow out on its own. That is where Neo-Midgar will be built. Shin-Ra's new glory..."
Cid swore loudly and Barret added a few of his own words as well. "Quit dreamin'!" The gun-armed man roared, leaning towards the president who seemed unimpressed. Reno laughed and turned his rod on, waving it in front of Barret and Cid's faces.
"Watch it, boys!"
"Really, didn't you know? These days all it takes for your dreams to come true is money and power." Shin-Ra said matter-of-factly and walked to stand in front of Tifa and Red. He looked at the both of them for a moment and shrugged. "Well, that is all for out meeting."
A wave of his hand told the Turks to take the prisoners away. Reno gestured with his rod for them to start walking, and they obeyed, staying away from the crackling electricity. Only Barret remained in place.
"Hold it! I got a lot to say to you!" He shouted at the president but Rude, almost as tall and maybe even stronger, dragged him away with the others.
Shin-Ra took a few steps to follow them, smiling with a dangerous glint in his eyes. "Oh yes... if there's anything else... talk to my secretary."
Sephiroth hadn't heard one word about the conversation, but could figure out what had been said. No doubt the flower girl had asked after her parents, and Shin-Ra must have bragged about his money and Mako, and how he could achieve anything with them. The man was so intolerable, so caught up in his own little world where everything came to him if he only said a word. He thought he could rule over everyone, and do anything he wanted.
Shin-Ra had ruled him, as well. All those years. Gast and Hojo had made him, but it had always been the president who approved the projects, who said what could be done. A kinder man, one who would stop to think of his actions and not only what he could gain with them wouldn't have let anyone do to a living thing what had been done to him. He had to tell himself that. All humans couldn't be that cruel.
/But they are, my son. Remember, they are the traitors. They killed our kinfolk. Show them no mercy./
Sephiroth snorted and, eventually, nodded. He had heard those words so many times during the last years he did believe them. The humans were below him, below her. They were less than worms. But still, some of them...
Glancing at the image of the president who once again sat behind his desk, he thought about the injustice of it all. This fat worm ruled half the world, while Jenova and him, the true rulers of this world, sat here in a cold cave. With a wave of his hand, Sephiroth let the images drift away and closed his eyes. A smirk crept on his face when he thought of something fun to do. Jenova had only told him not to meddle in the puppet's life yet, leave that to her, but she hadn't said anything about the other ones...
A.N: This bit was delayed due to schoolwork. But now that's over, and it's the start of summer! ...and work. Still, should have more time to write!
I don't know why Word keeps doing this, it refuses to show the document as I've edited it, and squeezes the text together... sigh
That was the first chapter, the next one is gonna follow the game as well but I intend to go offroad after that... bear with me!