Journey Eleven – Collision
The party have arrived at the core of the Northern crater interior, after some scouting the Lost Eden MA Jehovah has done searching and must have taken nearly half a day to travel to the 'centre of the Earth'. The on-foot party seemed to have put the entire effort in, though inside the mecha, the two individuals were not.
"I've never been to a place this beautiful and yet, this is where Jenova is currently hiding." Aerith amazed with wonder, while looking at the mako walls.
"And she is the only source we've got to find the truth." Sephiroth reminded her that their personal objective was not forgotten. "How long we've reached our target, YESHUA?"
"I am calculating approximately five hundred metres away, Master Sephiroth." The robot teen replied with a second to hesitate. "However, I am sensing the 'other' Sephiroth is somewhere near too."
"…"
"Okay, guys this is it." Cloud called everyone to a grind halt to where the deep mako lake is. "Once we get in, there is no way to get down and we'll have to escape A.S.A.P, once we're destroyed Jenova and Sephiroth once and for all."
"Got it!" Yuffie happily shouted.
"Right." Red XIII and Barret replied.
"Let's give them hell!" Cid cried.
"Okay." Tifa said simply.
"I'm nervous, but I'm ready." Aerith remarked in confidence.
"…just give me signal, when you're ready cloud." The One Winged Angel said, positioning his arms to the controls.
"Affirmative. Activating offence mode." YESHUA replied unemotionally and without indecision.
"Then, good luck everybody and let's go!"
Without a moment to wait, they dived down to the green mako lake.
Several minutes later after the first party.
"Hmm, looks like that MA Jehovah and the others went down there." Astaroth observed, while looking at the tracks. The two covered-strangers were outside their mechas, apparently in invisible mode somewhere there. "Perhaps it would be wise of not letting our MAs down here. Who knows, if the lake is going to damage them or what?"
"Aaw, that's a shame to me!" Bellima sulked a little. "I can't bring my beautiful Sakura down there and introduce the people!"
"Well, it would be impossible to bring my Slyver down there and ruin my controls. So, how are your skills outside the MA?" The green stranger took both of her arms from inside her lime green sleeves and threw them to the nearest rock, causing it to split into tiny pieces.
"Good. Now how about your sword skills, 'Bone Angel'?"
"Sigh. You always love weapons of all kinds." He summoned his favourite swords, Murasame and Muramasa, onto his hands and like a samurai in a movie, the Fallen Angel did a quick cross slash to the nearest rock and a few seconds later, it split into four parts. "Still powerful and accurate as always."
"Now, shall we get going? I don't want to wait here forever."
And so the two strangers dived into the lake again for the party. Disrupting Jenova and Sephiroth's plan, just for the sake of 'Master' – the white stranger.
Several minutes later. 'Kami-Kaze' cockpit
"Whoa!" Yuffie exclaimed, looking at the green shimmering lake. "Is this where Jehovah dived to!"
"I wonder how deep Aerith and Sephiroth have got into anyway." Leon nervously, yet unusually remarked.
"Hey, guys!" Bach exclaimed which he distracted the two people from the Heart Star System, via the projection screen. "Just tell us, if your friends and Eliza's robot are in there!"
"Fine! Leon, you know what to do!"
"Sigh." Despite his bitterness he never got control of 'Kami-Kaze', Leon typed via the holographic keyboard, to which he got used to the alien technology quicker; few seconds later and the sound and the appearance of a holographic screen indicated the result. "Turns out we're in luck. They're inside the green lake, though there around eight and nine more people and I don't know about this, but there is a spot saying 'MA Jenova'."
"MA JENOVA!" Everyone, but Yuffie and Leon, exclaimed in surprise when he mentioned 'MA'.
"That's impossible!" Eliza shouted in fear. "I thought that was just some myth about the 'Lost Eden Rogue MA'."
"So, it assumes Aerith and Sephiroth haven't told us the whole truth and that explains why they were so quiet in the Vatican." Adrian now clearly explained the situation, while getting out his scrolls from his sleeves. "I'm going to sort this mess out and see what the heck is going on!" And he dived into the lake.
"ADRIAN!" Bach shouted as he dived second without hesitation.
"Sheesh!" Alda sighed, whilst getting her Crane and Sparrow out from her belt. "The things you do, boys! Always diving into dangerous situations, without some time to think!" And she dived into the lake.
"Hey, wait for me!" Eliza shouted as, she too lunged herself to the green liquid.
"Sigh." Vincent said with just one word and dived into there.
"Oh God!" Leon anxiously cried. "Yuffie, you're not going to dive with 'Kami-Kaze'!"
"Oh yes I am! I'm going to test this baby out!" The ninja-girl excitedly exclaimed as she controlled her arms, nearer to the green material.
"YUFFIE!"
"Hold on tight, Leon! 'Cause Kami-Kaze's is coming to rescue them!"
Jehovah cockpit
"Something's wrong." Sephiroth sensed this presence, as he used his left hand on the holographic screen to detect anomalies outside the environment.
"Sephiroth, what's wrong?" Aerith asked with concern.
"Jenova's not coming here. She won't come out of the cave." Then, he noticed a red warning sign and there, it says 'WARNING. DANGEROUS ANOMALY DETECTED.' "What the…?"
"Sephiroth, you don't mean…"
"Yes. She brought the 'insane-me' to us, because we've brought Jehovah here."
"Jehovah…"
"Yes, Aerith?" asked the young girl's voice.
"Do you know a way to avoid Jenova's 'boy' and confront her, without letting our armour damaged?"
"I do not know about that, but I think I can recognize his weakness."
"Okay. Cloud."
"Yes, Aerith?" The blonde swordsman replied, while looking at the mecha's outer appearance.
"Can you distract Sephiroth, while we confront Jenova?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Seph sensed something wrong, so he was doing for detection and turns out she sent out her puppet."
"What!"
"Yes, but there's…" However, she never finished her sentence as a sudden wave of attacks; a black blur came from nowhere and attempted to destroy the Lost Eden MA, though thankfully, with Aerith's quick thinking to pull out the large Masamune and the One Winged Angel's defensive position, the black blur, became the once General himself.
"I know you're in there, impostor!" He snarled, while pushing his Masamune to the mecha. "Just come out of there and…" Unexpectedly, a pin needle pierced his back end of his shoulder.
"Well, well, Astaroth." Sneered a familiar female voice to Aerith, Sephiroth and YESHUA. "Look likes Master and you are right; the once Great General is pretty powerful." And appeared, the two strangers from above.
Jehovah cockpit
"It's Astaroth and that mecha girl! What are they doing here?" Aerith confusingly asked as she looked at the two strangers. Sephiroth, though still following the same suite as her, was concerned.
"They might want to disrupt our plan, but…"
"Hey, One-Winged!" The Fallen Angel shouted to him, while being constantly defending from the 'other' Sephiroth. "Leave this 'other' One Winged Angel to me! You go on ahead and confront Jenova!"
"What? You're saying we should follow your orders? What happened to your 'dark' side and the fact you nearly killed me?"
"There's no time to explain! Just go!"
Did the One Winged Angel have no choice, but to follow Astaroth's order? He couldn't understand why would he say such a thing? Are he and that green stranger just enemies to them? Come to think of it, that green stranger, her voice sounded familiar to her mother.
"Sephiroth! We need to move on!" Aerith exclaimed. "Cloud and the others are distracting the green stranger and we need to be quick!"
"Right." He replied and after he shook his head, saying that the confusion should leave aside in a time of danger.
CLASH!
"Who the hell are you and why did you disrupt my meeting with Strife and that 'clone'?" the 'other' Sephiroth snarled, while thrusting Masamune to Astaroth's defence.
CLASH!
"I'm just a gatecrasher, waiting for someone like you to be the bait." The Fallen Angel smirked as Murasama and Murasame contacted every thrust.
CLASH!
"Then get out of my way!"
CLASH!
"I wish I would, but I have a favour for him and he doesn't like my job unfinished."
CLASH!
"Grr. Just tell me why do you like something in the way?"
CLASH!
"You see, I'm a Fallen Angel who likes to take the lives of many types of Angels, including yours!"
CLASH!
"You'll have to defeat me first, but at the moment, I'm winning!"
CLASH!
"Heh. We'll just see about that."
However, meanwhile, the rest of the party was still in confusion and yet still fighting against that rude green stranger, with all the 'dancing' evasion and pin throwing. Cloud tried his best to his her, but this was particularly difficult as she was such a seducer to most men and pin throwing skills are more troublesome than Yuffie's.
"Aaaawww, Astaroth got my place of fighting Sephiroth." Bellima hollered, while dodging Tifa's fist and Red XIII's strike.
"Who the hell are you and why are you disrupting OUR fight against Sephiroth?" The brunette exclaimed, whilst attempting to kick the green stranger's face.
"Heh, heh. That's so funny you should ask. Call me the 'Deadly, yet Beautiful Belle Bellima." She evaded and counterattacked with more pins at her.
Yuffie threw her large shuriken to Bellima, but it ended like a boomerang, heading at the kunoichi's direction. Barret even tried shooting at her, but to avail as the green stranger cast 'Protect' around her body.
Bellima, is it? Cloud thought as he incarnated a few words to cast 'Fire3' Tsk! She's a fine lass, if only she would get out of our way! Then out of the blue, a scroll that appeared from either above or nowhere fired to Bellima's direction and caused some considerable damage. What the? Now, there's more coming? What on Planet does this have to? He looked up at that direction and saw a male Chinese person falling gracefully fast.
"CLOUD!" shouted a familiar voice to the blonde swordsman and once he turned his attention to another, Vincent was there to add another confusion. "DON'T WORRY ABOUT HIM AND THE OTHERS FOLLOWING, WORRY ABOUT YOUR HEALTH!" What followed him is the other party and after that, a swarm of monsters.
Adrian focused his attention to the green stranger, as he let out a huge wave of scrolls behind his back and fired a kick to her.
WHACK!
"Dammit it, girl!" The Chinese exclaimed with rage in his eyes. "Tell me where Aerith, Sephiroth and YESHUA are, you sick person!"
WHACK!
"If you mentioned the one Astaroth is fighting, he's right over there." She replied happily and sarcastically, while counterattacked his waves with more pins at him, though thankfully he shielded himself with the surrounding scroll.
WHACK!
"Not him, you fool! I meant them and don't you even dare joked about them!"
WHACK!
"Oh, my mistake. They went to see Jenova for a little conversation about Lost Eden."
WHACK!
"What! Are you telling me the truth, woman?"
WHACK!
"Hmm, I don't know about that, so you have to ask them." Then, she threw a whole load of pin needles surrounding the young Chinese person and the environment they were in, including the fight of Astaroth and Sephiroth.
Jehovah was nearly there. Meeting with her sister that cut off every communications with her and once 'she' reached the destination, the MA stood still, until 'she' saw her. A beautiful, yet so alien sister appearing, reaching out her slippery tentacles and her 'wings' and she was two times taller than 'her'.
Hello dear sister. Jenova hissed as she confronted the mecha. I thought you went away and sealed in the egg.
Jenova, I'm not here to talk to you about that incident. Jehovah 'telepathically' pleaded to her. I've brought some people who wanted to know your involvement.
WHAT! I don't need them! Why do you always follow these pathetic humans in your metal body?
Please listen to them! They want to expose the truth to the whole galaxy! Afterwards, Jehovah automatically opened 'her' hatch, by the appearance of a young woman, who looked like that Cetra brat to which she 'ordered' her son to kill and behind her, a silver-haired person with a wing on his back. These are the ones who want to talk to you.
"Sephiroth, I'm scared." Aerith worried, yet using her courage to see this alien.
"Aerith, I'm the same as you." The One Winged was scared too. "However, that doesn't mean you should shut out your courage. You have to use this and your heart to win over the opponent." Unexpectedly afterwards, he saw her hand gripping as hard as she could on to his pale, yet so smooth hand and he blushed a little on his cheeks.
"Thank you, Sephiroth. You've been giving me courage to do that."
"Uh…you're welcome, but be cautious. Should Jenova attempt to harm on us, get back in the cockpit and defend ourselves."
"Right."
Both her and him braced themselves for the deadly appearance of Jenova, as she stepped closer to the two individuals.
So, you must be the people who pilot that wretched sister of mine! She 'telepathetically' hissed to them. Just, tell me why you're here, before I'm sending you and her to the scrap heap!
"You see, Jenova. I've found this archive my father's been researching and he mentioned you and the involvement in Lost Eden."
LOST EDEN! That wretched place those fools ripped my body off and positioned to that loathsome metal body! I wouldn't even dare talked about it!
"But please! There is a government or something that likes to hide the truth from us and I want to expose it with the help of Sephiroth, the One Winged Angel and the others."
Sigh, if you insist. But once that finished, I'll make sure you won't come near me again.
Suddenly, all seem to be quiet, until Jenova's body surrounded Jehovah and 'her' pilots to a surreal place. A location that has lost of its past – Lost Eden. Buildings of tall and futuristic was covered in nature as well and the scene moved to some time later, where the chaos has begun; in the lab, where the three sisters were used as the mechas. Then, Sephiroth noticed even strange.
"No, it can't be…" He whispered in surprise. "Why is my mother with that person?"
"Sephiroth…!" Aerith sadly remarked, but then looked at his mother. Something even confused them. In a few seconds, they saw a brief glimpse of Sephiroth's mother, with the baby, the One Winged Angel himself, on her arms. Then another person appeared to them, a male at least in his early thirties with pale skin, brown eyes and a girl-ish medium length, dark brown hair and in such poor health, injected the baby with a deep crimson liquid into his soft skin. His only words, before the catastrophe, was this:
"Forgive me my son, but you must not let anyone take that key I'm giving to you. Lucrecia, this is your only chance to flee from this place, get to the secret basement and activate the machine."
"But, wouldn't that leave you and take me and him to the future?"
"Yes, but at least I can save the world and not let anyone dared to put their foot in. Now go! There's no time for it." And he coughed up blood from his mouth.
At that time they were back at the present and both Aerith and Sephiroth were in quite a shock that her father was half-right. Of course Jenova was involved in Lost Eden, but that does not mean he actually told her about that person, Lucrecia and Sephiroth in there.
Now that I've give you the proof, it's time to say goodbye forever to dear Jehovah.
"Wait a minute!" Aerith shouted to Jenova. "I thought you said you're not going to harm us."
True, but only to Jehovah and the ones that are piloting 'her', including you!
"Aerith, get back in the cockpit!" Sephiroth exclaimed as he already noticed Jenova's tentacles was targeting on the poor defenceless woman, then pulled her to safety and the hatch closed, before the tentacles hit the torso of the body.
Jehovah cockpit
The impact the tentacles hit on, caused quite a stir to the cockpit, where Aerith and Sephiroth still clutching on to the controls.
"Master Sephiroth, Miss Gainsborough, you must quickly leave the premises." YESHUA's voice called without emotion. "Jenova has grown into rage and there is ninety-nine point nine nine percent that MA Jehovah will be completely defenceless.
"Well, I'm not having Jenova take the chance on taking the advantage of that." Sephiroth was now ready as he positioned his arms onto the controls and Aerith, meanwhile, was ready for Masamune to pull out when given the order. "YESHUA, increase defence on the MA and when I give the signal, get that gun of yours onto Masamune."
"Yes, sir."
"I hope that we'll survive the battle." Aerith nervously, but ready to determine said and her face, not any more fear, but courage is with her.
"No…we must survive the battle and then expose the truth to the others. For the sake of your father…and my mother."
Seconds before Jenova's tentacles hit to the puny MA, Jehovah quickly evaded the oncoming attack and then counterattacked her with missile feathers at her.
You think those feathers would have an affect on me, dear sister? Snarled the alien woman as she used her tentacles to protect herself. That is truly pathetic… Unfortunately for her words alone, she did not noticed on after the missiles, Jehovah already got Masamune from 'her' back, slashed one of the tentacles and she was in a lot of pain as she screamed in pain. That hurts! I'll won't forgive you!
Every few minutes, Jenova tried to break Jehovah's shield, but for the mecha 'herself', her shield would not last much longer than anticipated.
And soon, after a good few hours on putting on a good fight, the mecha had lost 'her' defence mechanism and even the Masamune Wing Gun was not fully charged.
Even your best abilities wouldn't stand a chance against me. She laughed evilly as she raised up her remaining tentacle. Sayonara, dear sister. And let it fall heavily.
Jehovah cockpit
'WARNING. DEFENCE SYSTEM IS AT ZERO PERCENT. PLEASE RETREAT THE AREA.'
All over again this warning has heard and what has worse, is that YESHUA had failed to charge up the gun at maximum capacity.
"I apologise for the error I have produced." He replied.
"YESHUA, you did the best you can." Sephiroth calmly remarked, but with bitterness that Jehovah lost 'her' defence power.
"At least we can end up as being as the martyrs of truth." Aerith tried to smile, but she felt gutted that she couldn't expose the truth. Then, unexpectedly when the two saw the large projection screen surrounded them, a very large shuriken-like weapon appeared from nowhere and sliced Jenova's oncoming tentacle to the ground. "What the…?"
"Phew! I'm glad we're here to save you from death!" exclaimed excitedly that familiar voice.
"Yuffie…?" The screen pops up and Yuffie, along with Leon, appeared to Sephiroth and Aerith.
"Hey, how do you know I was here?"
"Yuffie, Leon! What are you doing here? I thought you were looking after Hollow Bastion!"
"Apparently, we were concerned you two and that robot guy left the Vatican and into deep trouble," Leon sighed at the end. "But then both Yuffie and I got involved."
"Hey Aerith, Sephiroth, check out my new toy!" And both looked in astonishment. This might have been another MA in sight, but its structure is partially made in Gummi technology mixing with Yeager engineering, despite the cool colour combination of green and deep silver to give a more futuristic look. Not only that, but the Gummi MA's body was shaped like a humanoid kunoichi, complete with two strands of aesthetics wires.
"Yuffie, I hate to say what beautiful craftsmanship the company has built," Sephiroth explained with astonishment "but Jenova's still alive."
"What! Oh sh…"
With Jenova's rage still going up in pain, both of the mechas dodged 'Ice3' and despite Jehovah's defence system, Masamune glowed so brightly and with the joint attacks of 'her' and Kami-Kaze, they went straight onto Jenova's weak spot and instant death to her…
"ARCHANGEL'S BLADE!" Aerith and Sephiroth shouted in unity.
"KAZE DIVE!" Leon and Yuffie shouted in unison as well.
Soon, everything became a blank canvas to everyone, including the fight outside the battle between Jehovah and Kami-Kaze.
Author's Note: Phew! What a way to do with so many characters into one chapter. And I shall never do that again, because I mean I'm not really good at multiple characters all dizzying around a single area. BTW, if you are left wondering what happened to the battles between Astaroth and the 'other' Sephiroth and Cloud's party versus Bellima 'versus' Bach's party, do that in your imagination from your head, because I'm concentrating more on the AeriSeph scenes, hence this pairings' focus. And yes, really not good at the action scenes, so with the words from Narnia creator, C.S. Lewis (well, not really his words, but you know what I mean)…
'Do that in your imagination, where you can control how long you want the action scenes to be.'
Right, on another note on the Advent Children trivia, if you have watched the whole film and the cast credit section, if you look at a closer inspection, you should notice that alongside the voice actor and actresses, you should notice that Aeris's and Sephiroth's name (along with Zack on the top) are in the middle and bottom respectively. What's so interesting about it is that they both appeared last and I'm thinking Square Enix might have silently like them as a couple (laughs like an idiot, but then realises there readers who are confused about this trivia)!
Umm, that was completely random from me and any reviews (NO anti-AeriSeph ones and flamers please, those ones are putting me off the self-esteem stuff) are most welcome and big thanks to Lily Silver, Black Malva and Tishannia (finally got your name right) for supporting me throughout the ages.
EXTRA! Haikus for the fans!
Sephiroth
The One Winged Angel
So powerful and so great
Too bad he's so soft
Aerith
Beautiful woman
Too bad she is mistaken
For a Cetra Clone