Chapter 10: Bloody Blade, Crimson Memories
Kalm was something different from the slums of Midgar. The town was large, clean, and healthy, something that the dilapidated towns beneath Midgar had never exhibited. The people there were hardworking, honest folk, unlike Midgar's slum populace, who often seemed to be creeping in the shadows, hiding in fear if they weren't trying to kill and steal their way to survival. The town itself reflected this different attitude, displaying a simple innocence in its structure and cleanliness. The people themselves were simple, or as simple as they got in that day and age. With the exception of the small Mako reactor in the center of town – barely taller than the houses surrounding it – there was no trace of Shinra presence. For Zell, Quistis, and Rinoa, it was a breath of fresh air after the pollution of Midgar. But for Squall, who had grown up in the squalor and corruption of that metropolis, it was a bit alien. For Red, who had never liked bipedal creatures much anyway, it meant nothing to him.
They picked out an inn near the city entrance that looked nondescript enough, a place that tended to cater to travelers going to and from the big metropolis beyond the horizon. Squall paid up front, the rooms not being overly expensive, and Zell plopped down a bit of extra cash so the owner of the small inn would ignore Red's presence with the group, before they went upstairs.
The room they had rented featured a quartet of beds, as Red would not be needing one, after all. Rinoa immediately flopped down on the nearest bed, virtually sighing with relief that the trek was over. Quistis and Zell sat down on a couple of other beds as well, equally relieved to be able to rest. Red lay down near the window, basking in the sunlight filtering through, and squall leaned against one of the walls, considering the story he was going to have to tell concerning Sephiroth.
"So, let's hear it," Zell asked after a moment, propping his head up on an arm that itself was balanced on his knee. "What's so important about getting out of Midgar and after this Sephiroth guy that you had us pulling away from giving Rufus the beating of the century?"
Squall considered the question, and looked around to his comrades. Zell was obviously interested, and Quistis even moreso, judging by her expression and what little she knew about his past that had changed him. Rinoa perked up, also intrigued, propping herself up on her elbows and raising an eyebrow quizzically. Even Red seemed mildly interested.
"I haven't heard much about him," Rinoa commented. "Just stories about the Wutai war from so long ago. But then, Shinra's always kept a tight lid on his story, haven't they?" Squall nodded.
"It was about a year ago," he began, starting at the beginning of the long story. He looked out the window, but his eyes did not fix on the buildings beyond, instead looking back across the stretch of time. "I was on a delicate mission, and I was serving along with Sephiroth. None of you are in the Shinra military, so you don't know this, but its pretty common practice for them to declare a high-ranking soldier or SeeD dead and pull him aside for black ops. That's what happened with the all Turk members we've fought so far. I'm pretty sure that was what had happened to Sephiroth, as I'd heard he was killed long before I was assigned to work with him."
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Squall sat back among the crates, ignoring the incessant drumming of rain upon the truck's metal roof. He tried to find a comfortable spot among the piles of crates filled with food, weapons, ammunition, and other supplies. Behind the crates, near the window connecting to the truck's cab, were a trio of regular Shinra soldiers, playing a game of cards. One man groaned, while another, a huge soldier almost too big for his armor, laughed and collected his winnings.
Across from Squall, perched easily atop another crate, sat a tall, imposing figure. A black cloak shrouded his body, fastened across the front of his bare chest by a quartet of straps. Beneath this he wore a simple pair of loose black trousers and boots. He wore his silvery, long hair dangling down past his waist. It was clean, but somewhat messy and unkempt. Behind him, also perched on the crate, was an impossibly long no-dachi, the long, slender curved sword sheathed. His eyes were closed, but if they were open, they would have shone with the trademark glow of a member of SeeD.
"Hey, either of you guys want in on the next hand?" asked the big soldier to the two specialists. Squall glanced back over his shoulder and shook his head. From across, only a slight ripple in the white hair told the soldier that Sephiroth, too, had declined. The soldier shrugged and went back to dealing out his cards.
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"We respected each other," Squall explained. "We didn't know each other long enough to be friends, but at least I knew I could trust his judgment. He didn't talk very much, and neither did I. Since I never really made much of an effort to make friends even in my own unit, there weren't really any problems. I sort of looked up to him, actually."
"What was this mission you were on?" Rinoa asked.
"There was a Mako reactor leak in the mountains around a backwater town called Nibelheim," Squall explained. "We were assigned to go there and assess the situation. There were reports of monsters attacking people and the disappearance of a search party in the mountains. The crew at the reactor was not reporting in, so we were scrambled to protect Shinra interests and technology. We were to go in, deal with the problem, and if the monster situation seemed to be too far out of hand, we were to call in a sterilization team. We couldn't let word of the problem leak; Shinra didn't want the bad PR to get out."
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"Not too much further," the big man commented, dealing out another hand. "Once we get there, we just need to keep the town under control while you Seed boys handle the heavy lifting, right?"
"Clean-up is our duty," Sephiroth clarified quietly, his tone resonating with a soft power, like steel wrapped in velvet. "You simply keep things secure in the town once we arrive, and back us up as we move through the mountains."
"What about the lost civilians?" asked the third soldier. Sephiroth shrugged.
"They're likely dead, or, if enough Mako is released, they may have succumbed to Mako madness." The soldiers grimaced, as did Squall. Mako madness was never a good thing; if one was exposed to too much raw Mako, it had an unhealthy effect on one's sanity, often driving people insane. Some were simply rendered catatonic; others homicidal.
"If we do encounter them, shoot to kill," Squall advised. Sephiroth nodded assent.
"It's the only mercy we can give them," he stated, and the soldiers reluctantly nodded.
"Good thing we packed Mako protection," commented the soldier who had lost last round, patting one of the crates. "Don't want to-"
The truck suddenly flipped over, with no warning whatsoever. Crates, boxes, and men flew through the air as the vehicle flopped on its right side, the driver screaming something about a monster. Squall was smashed between a crate and the right wall, but he flexed his muscles as the boxes tumbled to a halt around him and pushed it off. Beside him, Sephiroth had caught a box and held it from crushing another soldier, while the big man helped the last one out from underneath a box that had pinned his leg. The men glanced around quickly, checking the rest of the truck, when a deep, bone-chilling roar sounded somewhere outside.
"Sounds like one of our monsters," Sephiroth commented quietly, pulling his no-dachi out from beneath a crate. He rested the sheathed sword across his shoulders and looked to Squall, who nodded.
"You three check the driver and secure the truck," Sephiroth ordered. "You, come with me. We'll deal with this." Squall nodded and dropped a hand to his gunblade, suddenly glad that he had kept the weapon strapped to his hip. Sephiroth kicked the rear doors of the truck open and stepped out into the driving rain, a momentary flash of lightning highlighting him. Squall stepped out as well as the thunder caught up with the lightning, blasting the night. As the explosion rolled away and left only the sounds of rain pattering along the dirt and ringing on the truck, Squall scanned the area around them.
"Where is it?" he asked quietly, and Sephiroth looked up, pointing with his right hand. Squall followed the finger, and saw something dark moving above, its wings beating the night air and keeping it aloft.
"Dragon!" Squall exclaimed, seeing the mighty, slender serpentine beats flying through the air, its wings fanning out wide. Another blast of lightning lit up the night, and Squall saw the muscular body, the open jaws filled with sharp teeth, and the spiked tail of the beats as it circled above.
"What's a dragon doing here?" Squall asked, and Sephiroth shook his head.
"The Mako must have lured it," he replied. "They normally avoid human territory, but the presence of life energy has brought it here. It won't leave this region for a long time. Thus it represents a threat to citizens and Shinra personnel alike. We must destroy it." Squall nodded, drawing his gunblade as the dragon did a quick wingover and dove toward them. Sephiroth took his sword down off his shoulders, but did not draw, instead closing his eyes as his right hand closed over the handle of the blade.
"Shimarara battouryuu," he whispered as it came in, and then, right before the dragon was about to smash into Sephiroth, Squall saw the blade flash out. An instant later, waves of soft, rain-soaked dirt and mud flew into the air as the dragon crashed into the ground, roaring a thundering protest of pain, its one remaining wing beating the ground as the other dropped to the dirt twenty feet away.
The dragon rose, fires beginning to lick the edges of the beast's mouth. Its head lunged forward, fires erupting in a thick, concentrated line that struck Sephiroth dead center, enveloping him in flames.
If Sephiroth even noticed the fires, he didn't show it, instead raising his bloodstained blade, dripping in crimson rainwater, and stalked forward. The dragon roared a second time and lashed out with its tail, the muscular appendage striking at Sephiroth hard enough to crush steel. The tail smashed in and then the dragon roared again in indescribable pain, the severed tail flying past Sephiroth with its own forward momentum. The green-eyed warrior strode in, deadly and inexorable, raising his sword, and then the blade cut once more.
The dragon's head flopped to the dirt, and the rest of its body an instant later, blood pouring out from the sliced neck and into the ground, nourishing the plants.
Squall looked upon the dead beast, and then to Sephiroth, who stood impassively before the slain monster. He turned his eyes toward Squall and nodded, before gesturing back toward the truck. He turned and strode off into the rainstorm, and Squall followed him a moment later, circling the dragon's ripped body.
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The others listened with wide eyes as Squall related the dragon's death.
"Sephiroth's strength and power are far beyond any legends you may have heard. His skill was incredible. I wasn't even able to raise my weapon to help him as he cut the dragon apart. He was not an enemy to be taken lightly."
"Cutting up an adult dragon in only a few seconds," Quistis commented, shaking her head. "It's hard to believe."
"We righted the truck after we returned and drove on into the town," Squall continued. "We arrived late in the afternoon, after the storm had passed. Nibelheim was quiet, and we could smell the fumes from the Mako even that far out. It was bad enough that the soldiers had to don gear to protect them from the fumes. No one came out to greet us. They might have been afraid of the monsters, though they were probably more afraid of us . . . ."
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"I like this place," one of the soldiers commented, surveying the small town. "Nice place. Kinda the reason that some of us joined the army, you know? Keeping little places like this safe from trouble is rewarding in its own way, don't you think?"
"Whatever floats you boat, man," another replied, scanning the area cautiously. "I'm not too keen on this place myself, actually."
"Too quiet," the last soldier, the big one, added.
"They're afraid," Sephiroth replied quietly. "Of everything. A lot of the people here are missing in the mountains, dead or worse. You," He nodded to the first soldier. "Keep a watch here at the city center, on top of that water tower. You two survey the town and report back here in an hour."He turned to Squall. "You and I will question the townsfolk and see what has happened, and the extent of the knowledge of this leak."
The group's members nodded and fanned out to their assigned tasks. As the soldiers surveyed the area, squall took in the small town. It was quiet, almost deathly quiet, the painted white houses ringing the water tower in the town center seeming ominous, somehow. The people that lived within were less cold and silent, somehow relieved that there were actual people with authority present. He didn't mince words when he told them of the probabilities of the dead men and their intentions; they were there to kill the monsters and fix the leak. None of them appeared to have the symptoms of Mako madness, not yet, at least. There were reports of monsters nearer to the Mako reactor, but that was largely speculation; no one who had actually seen the reactor had come back alive.
Sephiroth found much the same information, and the surveying troops reported that the town was safe enough; no monsters had come near the town itself, and they had seen none of the missing men, except for a single humanoid figure a great distance off in the mountains beyond the village.
Sephiroth ordered them to rest up that night in the only inn in town, and the next morning they were off, assembling north of the old, abandoned mansion Shinra had built north of the town, between the mountains and the village proper. The soldiers donned protective gear to defend against the Mako fumes, but neither Squall nor Sephiroth needed them. Squall's junctions protected him, and Sephiroth explained that Mako was not harmful at all to his body.
The mountains north of the village were a strange, alien landscape, consisting of black, marble-like rock formed into strange, twisting shapes, like blazing tendrils of black fire that had been frozen in time. There were no plants or other life forms; in fact, there was nothing at all in the bleak landscape, just emptiness and a frigid, chilly wind that cut into the group's soul. None of them complained however, and instead trudged on through the narrow passes and paths of the mountain. Within a couple of hours they were deep into the range, winding up along another mountain.
"The maps state that the reactor is a quarter mile from here," one of the soldiers said, checking a map he was carrying. "We should find a rope bridge spanning a gap that will work as a shortcut."
"Scout out the landscape," Sephiroth ordered to Squall, who nodded. He moved a bit ahead of the group and took a path along their trail that led higher up on the mountain. From his greater vantage point, he could see the top of the distant reactor poking between two more twisting spikes of the mountains. He scrambled back down and reported, to which Sephiroth nodded. They moved on, the three soldiers taking the lead, Squall at the rear and with Sephiroth in the middle.
The soldiers rounded a bend and stumbled to a halt, as standing before them was a man. A big, burly man, dressed like a villager but with blood running down the side of his face and staining his torn shirt, a handaxe in his grasp. The man turned toward them, his eyes blank. His mouth hung open, trying to mouth words.
"Hey, are you okay?" the lead soldier asked, lowering his rifle. The man stumbled forward, moaning pitifully, the axe trembling in his hands. "Hey, get the medkit, we have a survivor-"
"Get down!" shouted the big soldier as the man neared him. The villager suddenly screamed out something in hate and fury and raised the axe. The soldier he was aiming for leaped back, landing on his butt as the blade sliced the air before him. The big soldier rushed forward around his falling comrade and swatted the infected villager with his rifle butt, throwing the man down.
"Sir," the lead soldier reported over his radio. "We've encountered one of them." Behind them, Sephiroth nodded, closing his eyes.
"Remember what I told you," he stated calmly. "These people are without hope. The only mercy we can offer them is a quick death before their sickness or starvation takes them."
The mad villager began to rise, and the lead soldier hesitantly raised his rifle. He shook his head slowly as his two comrades followed suit.
"Hyne rest your soul," Squall heard Sephiroth whisper as the rifles opened up, tearing the dying, insane villager apart and throwing him to the black dirt. A few minutes later, after the soldiers had moved the dead man's corpse off the path and into a sheltered spot where he could rest in peace, they moved on, none of them saying a word.
Two more twists and turns in the mountain had them within sight of the bridge. Only, instead of seeing just a wooden suspension bridge there, there were a dozen and more people milling around, many clad like villagers, but some in the gray and blue uniforms of Shinra reactor workers. The small mob was only fifty feet away, and as one, they turned toward the newcomers, marching forward, some on unsteady legs. All of them held weapons of some kind, anything from crafted axes and sickles to simple iron bars and rocks.
"We'll have to cut through them," Sephiroth stated.
"More at three o-clock!" shouted one of the soldiers. Squall looked that way, to his right, and saw a dozen more figures coming around another bend in the mountain, all equally armed, and more of them dressed as Shinra personnel. Squall surveyed the area, listing their options. They could retreat back down the path they had come, or try to blast through the group ahead. They couldn't go to their left; there was a long, sloping hill leading down to the ravine the bridge spanned. Sephiroth, however, did not opt for any of these.
"Destroy them," he ordered, striding forward. "You four deal with the group on our flank. I will dispose of our enemies ahead." Squall recalled his felling of the great dragon, and did not doubt he would have an easy time of the insane villagers and Shinra workers.
"Line up," Squall ordered the soldiers, and they did so, forming into a short line, facing their enemies. Squall took up a position on the left end of the line.
"Pick your shots," he stated. "Head or chest. Make them quick." The soldiers nodded in understanding and shouldered their rifles. Squall focused, and then, as the soldiers fired a single burst each, he opened up with a blast of magic. A fireball ripped into one man wielding a pitchfork, throwing him to the ground, and two of the maddened Shinra workers collapsed. A third groaned in pain, blood flying from his shoulder, but moved on, raising an iron bar like a club. Behind the bend, more Mako-poisoned men emerged, weapons clutched tightly.
Then without warning, the front rank surged forward, running aggressively. The soldiers fired again, and two more infected madmen collapsed. Squall sent a blast of magic into them, a mass of frigid air that dropped two more, and then one of the insane villagers pumped his arm, hurling a sickle through the air. A scream sounded beside Squall as he stepped forward into the advancing force, his gunblade cleaving one man's head off. The big soldier joined him, raising his rifle and smashing the butt across into a villager's face hard enough to pulverize it and bend the stock.
Behind the pair, one of the soldiers grabbed his wounded comrade and pulled the sickle from his left shoulder, and tried desperately to stem the blood flow. Squall parried a club blow and stuck his left hand into his opponent's face, blasting him hard with a bolt of lightning that hurled the man back into his comrades. Beside him, the large soldier batted one man aside with a huge arm and emptied his magazine into another pair of enemies. They were doing well, but too many of the suicidal, homicidal Mako-infected men came on.
A bolt of incredibly bright electricity tore into the front ranks of the force of madmen, hurling many off their feet and granting the pair a momentary reprieve. Squall spun to the bolt's originator, Sephiroth, who stood with a bloodstained blade in hand and a dozen enemies cleaved behind him.
"Retreat!" he shouted. "There's too many!"
"More coming up the rear path!" shouted the other soldier, tending his comrade and watching the path behind them as more victims of the Mako madness came on up that path.
"Up the bridge, now!" Sephiroth ordered, and Squall nodded. He stepped forward, grabbing the wounded soldier and hoisting him over his shoulder, and they ran for the bridge, now clear thanks to Sephiroth. A sickle flew past, and a hand axe's handle clipped Squall's shin, but they ran on, to the wooden suspension bridge. Sephiroth bounded up, followed by the two soldiers, and Squall took up the rear with his wounded cargo. The insane villagers and workers continued to pursue, storming onto the bridge after them. As the first few charged up, the bridge began to creak and wave, and the ropes began to tear.
"Hurry!" Sephiroth shouted. "The weight is going to snap the bridge!" They stepped up their pace, rushing as fast as they could. Another axe whipped past, missing Squall but slicing into the rope on the right side.
The bridge jerked, and Sephiroth threw himself to the wooden boards, clutching them with all his might. The two Shinra soldiers did the same, and Squall began to do so as well, when the bridge flipped over vertically. One of Squall's hands grasped the hand of the wounded soldier, while his other grasped a crevice between two boards. Behind them, the Mako madness-inflicted people toppled off the bridge and into the ravine below.
Above them the remaining cord began to creak and tear as well.
"Brace yourselves!" Sephiroth shouted, an instant before the rope above snapped, and they plummeted into darkness.
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Squall had survived with little more than scraped knees, managing to angle himself around so that the soldier was on his back. Squall had hit at an angle, his feet taking the brunt of the impact and then falling forward, his knees scraping along the ground. He and the soldier had rolled along for a second before coming to a stop. Squall rose and scanned the area, and the soldier stood up shakily, his wound even worse than before. Squall immediately focused and called up a healing spell, the magic mending the soldier's nasty wound. It took a few more spells before the soldier was stabilized.
By that time, footsteps along the path heralded Sephiroth's approach, the other two soldiers with him, looking battered but otherwise fine. After a quick check on their condition, Sephiroth nodded.
"It could have been worse," he commented. "We should get moving. According to the maps there's a series of tunnels running through the mountains that will take us up to the reactor. Once we handle the situation we'll head back to the town."
"We'll have to take the scenic route," one of the soldiers commented, resulting in hoarse laughter.
The first tunnel was very close by, merely fifty feet down a narrow path. According to Sephiroth's map, it looked like this one led straight to the top of the mountain near the reactor, with a few other tunnels intersecting and a couple of larger chambers en route. The first few parts of the tunnels were dark and foreboding, and the group had to activate flares in order to see. But then, as they continued up the tunnels, the areas ahead seemed to grow brighter and brighter. Soon, the flares became redundant as the tunnels glowed as brightly as day.
Squall and Sephiroth stepped through a passage and suddenly found themselves in a brightly-lit chamber, shining with an ethereal light. Strange types of moss and plants seemed to be growing in the vaulting chamber, and at its center was what seemed to be a stalagmite in the midst of a clear, pure pool of water. However, the stalagmite seemed to have been formed of crystal, not simple stone, and cut off at about chest height. There, on top of that mound of crystalline rock, was a perfectly formed gemstone, burning with an inner blue fire, seeming radiate pure primal energy and perfection. It was not cut, but rather naturally formed, a rough, jagged stone exuding nature's majesty in tangible waves of power.
"A Mako fountain," Sephiroth commented as they crossed the chamber, looking in awe at the source of power. "I didn't expect to see one here. Mako energy rising up out of the earth like magma from a volcano. This sort of thing is rare, and only happens underground."
"What's that crystal on the top?" one of the soldiers asked.
"Materia," Sephiroth answered. "Naturally forming, from Mako energy. Normal materia is formed by compressing Mako energy inside reactors. It's a byproduct of the process, but requires tremendous amounts of Mako energy at high pressure to do so. For such materia to have formed naturally, the fountain would have to be overflowing with Mako. Now I see why Shinra built a reactor this far into the mountains." He nodded toward the walls.
"If we were to cut through these walls, I have no doubt we'd find the piping used to draw the Mako out of this mountain just beyond. I understand why this reactor is so important now. Shinra uses the Mako extracted here for other parts of its empire. There's no way that tiny town below could use this much energy."
"We haven't seen any power lines," Squall commented, and Sephiroth shrugged.
"Probably hidden," he replied. "I don't think the people of Nibelhiem would appreciate their mountain being exploited as an energy source." he reached forward and tapped the natural materia. "Hmmm . . . what type of magic does this one produce? It would be interesting to find out."
"Yeah, how does it produce magic anyway?" one of the soldiers asked.
"You're in the Shinra military and you didn't even know that?" Sephiroth replied derisively. "Materia, being produced by the natural energies of the earth, provides a direct, tangible link to the world's Mako energy. This length allows us to call forth energies depending upon the type of materia we wield."
"That energy's magic?" the soldier asked. Sephiroth chuckled darkly.
"I know a man who would skin you alive for calling it magic," he replied. "He always laughed at what he called such silly words for what man had not yet learned enough to explain."
"Who was that?" Squall asked.
"Doctor Akira Hojo," Sephiroth stated. "A weak-willed, pathetic man who lives only for his science, assigned to take over the work of a much greater man. But come, we've dawdled here long enough. The reactor should be just above us."
Indeed, within a matter of minutes, the quintet had found their way up through the tunnels and out into the chilled night air of Nibelhiem's mountains. Up ahead, they could see the gray tower of the Mako reactor. Sephiroth nodded a she saw it.
"Too large for that tiny town," he commented. "Even the one we built in Kalm should be larger. You three," he added, pointing to the soldiers. "You three stay outside and keep watch. We will go in and determine the problem." The soldiers saluted as Squall and Sephiroth neared the reactor, going up a flight of steps that led into a small hatch, the only entrance to the facility.
The leaked Mako scent was even worse inside, stuffy and concentrated. The chamber was perhaps forty feet wide, with dozens of catwalks and spanning struts stretching across the expanse. Far below, Squall could see a roiling pool of Mako energy being processed.
"The problem is likely a valve or pipe," Sephiroth stated as he stepped out across the expanse directly in front of him, walking cautiously on a narrow catwalk. Squall followed, equally careful. Eventually, they came into sight of a set of stairs, but they appeared to have been collapsed. Undaunted, Sephiroth scanned the area and spotted a chain dangling from one of the catwalks nearby, dropping lower to a wide catwalk below. He stepped over to it and began to descend. Squall followed a second later.
They dropped down a minute afterward on the wide catwalk, one end festooned with instruments. Squall started to walk toward them, but Sephiroth held up a hand, looking below.
"This pool," he called. "It's too big for Nibelhiem."
"Looks like you were right," Squall answered. Sephiroth shook his head.
"But it's too small for leeching out energy and transferring it," he added. "Far too small." He looked up, surveying the interior of the chamber, and spotted bundles of piping leading to the walls around a door across the chamber, previously invisible to them from above. He waved Squall to follow, and he did so. The door was locked, but Sephiroth wrenched it open with one hand and stepped into the chamber beyond.
The metal of the room was painted blood red, and the chamber was constructed like a staircase, four tiered levels rising up, each about six feet high. On each of those levels was a set of a half-dozen stainless steel pods, each with a round, porthole-like window on the front that glowed an eerie blue-green light. The piping that ran from outside into here connected with the various pods and equipment around the chamber. The Mako smell was almost overwhelming in this chamber.
"This must be where the leak is," Sephiroth stated quietly. "No wonder they couldn't fix it. It was sealed off." Sephiroth strode up the stairs between the tiers, looking curiously at the pods.
"What are these for?" Squall inquired, to which Sephiroth shrugged. He paused, then turned in the second tier, stepping in front of one of the pods.
"Here is the source of the leak," he said, crouching in front of a bent pipe and a twisted valve. He quickly righted the valve and, gripping the pipe with both hands, straightened it. He then stood, and scanned the room once more.
"Find the ventilator," he ordered, and Squall nodded. Within a couple of moments he had located the control panel for the ventilation system on the first tier and had activated it. Within seconds the Mako smell had vanished. Sephiroth sniffed the air, satisfied. He began to walk past one of the tanks and glanced into it. It was a glance, Squall would later reflect, that would change the course of history.
He paused, and then slowly turned toward the window, eyes widening. Squall noticed this and began to approach.
"I . . . I see," Sephiroth whispered. "So, this is what all the energy is being used for. Quite brilliant, Hojo, but this will never put you on the same level as Doctor Gast. In fact, this just goes to show how truly insane you really are."
"What is it?" Squall asked as he neared Sephiroth. The green-eyed man glanced to him, and then pointed. He stepped back and allowed Squall to have a look. The younger SeeD was too short, so he had to pull himself up to see, while Sephiroth stepped away, looking across the rest of the chamber.
Within the pod was a shape, indistinct at first, but as Squall focused, he saw the twisted face, the broken and reshaped bones poking out the top of its head, and the pallid, gray skin. After several long seconds, he finally realized what it was in there, and let go of the pod, gasping in horror.
"Human," he hissed. "That thing in there. It's . . . it was human."
"Prisoners, likely taken in the Wutai war, or criminals, mutated into monsters," Sephiroth answered, distracted. "Long-term exposure to moderate levels can do that. Hojo must be experimenting with dosages and intensity . . . ." He looked up to the top of the room, to where the stairs ended, and froze. There was another door up there, sealed tightly and secured as well. Imprinted on the wall above the door was the word "Jenova." Sephiroth stared at the word for a long time, not moving, eyes locked open in an expression Squall had never seen on the ultimate warrior's face: horror.
Squall yelped in shock as Sephiroth swept his sword free of its scabbard, roaring in terrifying fury. He spun around, slashing the blade through one of the pods. The swords passed through effortlessly, and the pod exploded with a brilliant blue-green light, the fires of Mako burning moments later where the destroyed pod had once stood. Not finished, he spun again, screaming that inarticulate cry like a tortured demon, and severed the pod on the other side of the stairs, barely missing Squall.
"No! Jenova . . . ." he cried, and struck apart another pod. "Was I . . . Was I created this way too? Am I a monster?"
Sephiroth stood there in the burning chamber, the room that was a monument to insanity, and watched Sephiroth as he stood there, eyes wide and chest heaving from both the exertion of his attacks and the shock of what he had considered.
Squall had no answers for him.
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"So, Shinra was producing monsters?" Zell growled. He punched the floor furiously, but he didn't have his ki focused, so he didn't do too much damage. "Damn, everything I hear about them makes me hate 'em even more!"
"We had to take the long way back to the town," Squall continued to explain after Zell's outburst. "It was morning by the time we arrived. We sent a report to headquarters, and then myself and the soldiers went to sleep. But Sephiroth seemed to disappear. We woke up late in the afternoon, and when we tried to find him, one of the villagers explained that he had seen Sephiroth head into the old mansion north of town."
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They stepped in, sweeping the room with their rifles, and Squall followed silently. The entry chamber was vast and luxuriantly appointed, but was dark and brooding, very quiet. A stale stillness filled the air, but not as stale as Squall would have expected. Someone had come through here earlier. White light shined down from the windows on the far side of the entry hall, but was somehow muted by grayness of disturbed dust in the air.
"All right," he ordered quietly, surveying the room. It was wide, and featured a staircase in the center leading up to a balcony above. Two large, double doors were set along the eastern and western walls of the lower floor, and two more were set on the upper walls, connected by the balcony. Everything was, or would have been, beautiful, but the thick dust settled over everything served to make it seem dull and ancient. The old mansion had been used in ancient days as a place for Shinra to conduct research, but had been abandoned for decades.
"You three take the east wing,"Squall said. "I'll take west. Keep in contact with the radio." The others nodded and moved out. Squall hesitated briefly, drawing his gunblade before moving to the western side of the building. Something was very, very wrong about this place. Squall couldn't place it, precisely, but he imagined it was what it would feel like if someone had transformed dark, evil insanity into a liquid and soaked it into the walls. There was a vague malevolence here, pressing in on him constantly.
He found an old drawing room on the west side that dominated most of that segment of the mansion, complete with an ancient piano. Nothing noticeable in here, he noted as he turned around and headed back out. He had almost reached the door back into the main hall when the radio he was carrying beeped. He paused and checked it.
"What is it?" he asked, not bothering with radio protocol.
"Sir, we spotted him," one of the soldiers spoke. He paused, a deep buzzing barely audible. "He was headed up to the second floor."
"Follow him," Squall ordered. "I'm on my way." he rushed outside and saw the soldiers moving up the staircase slowly. Squall followed them up.
"In there," one of the soldiers whispered as he caught up. "He went into that bedroom down the hall." Squall nodded and took the lead. He reached the door, gunblade in hand, and tapped the door open with his weapon. Squall took a quick step in, and froze, confused.
No one was in the small bedroom.
Squall walked in, scanning the environment, but saw nothing. The window was firmly latched, and looked as if it had not been opened in many years, judging by the dust on it. Sephiroth couldn't have left this room.
"You certain?" Squall asked the soldiers as they followed him in, and the one who'd spoken nodded. Squall frowned and looked about, now suspicious. The reactor had shown Squall that Shinra had a lot of secrets they liked to keep, and he hadn't seen anything yet to show where the laboratory they supposedly had here was located.
Squall then noted the far wall, which was largely unadorned, and walked over to it. He tapped his gun blade's flat side forcefully against the wall, noting the solid ring of solid craftsmanship. He moved down a couple of steps, continuing to tap.
By the third tap, he had hit a hollow ring of stone on blade, and nodded. He glanced around looking for a switch, but after a moment, shook his head. He pointed a hand at the wall and launched a magical blast of ice at the wall, freezing it. Then, he smashed it with his gunblade, shattering the frozen stone to reveal a hidden passage beyond.
"You three stay up here and keep this entrance secure," he ordered, stepping into the passage beyond.
It was a narrow stairwell leading down, a cylindrical passage lined by light wooden steps that seemed to have been specially treated to avoid rotting. The passage seemed to be soaked with that stale, rotted air, but as with outside, it seemed that a bit of reasonable freshness had found its way in here. Someone had passed through before. Squall slowly descended down the steps, keeping eyes and ears open. Far below, he could see the solid dirt and rock floor that the passage led to, far beneath the earth's surface. Squall gripped his gunblade tightly, consciously aware that he was alone in this place that reeked of evil and madness. He hadn't care much about Shinra before, but now, here, in a place that teemed with evil, his disposition toward the company was wavering.
After about a minute, Squall had reached the basement, stepping out into a dimly lit passage. He advanced cautiously, aware of the flickering candles along the sides of the stone tunnel, and more than once he had to watch his step as he bumped small stones. He paused after kicking one of them, noting its lightness, and bent down, examining the object.
The SeeD recoiled in horror. It wasn't a stone; it was a human skull.
Squall hurried on, pausing near a solidly locked wooden door. He didn't bother to go through; he heard nothing beyond that passageway, and the door was securely enough locked that it would be difficult to get past. Sephiroth hadn't gone that way. That left one last door at the far end of the hallway. He neared it, and noted faint light from beneath the wooden portal.
It was unlocked. Squall cautiously pushed it open, and found himself in a strange laboratory, the walls lined with books and two large capsules set up along the far wall, filled with fluid up to about man-height, tangles of cables connected to the rears of the devices. He heard a faint shuffling to his left, and saw another passage leading in that direction, lined with shelves filled with old books and lab reports.
"Dates are marked out," murmured a quiet voice, that of Sephiroth. "X day, X month, X year, preserved biological specimen discovered in geological stratum dating at least two thousand years." Squall crept around to the passage and peeked in, seeing Sephiroth standing in the middle of the chamber, silent and brooding as he clutched one of the lab reports.
"X day, X month, X year, Reactor approved for use in Nibelheim for research and storage purposes. Subject moved to labs under Shinra Biological Transportation Order # 200312-AR.. Doctors Joeseph Gast, Hans Odine, and Akira Hojo, plus staff, approved for research on properties of the biological sample known as 'Jenova'. Turk Director Tashibana Tseng is to provide a Turk security detail to maintain security over the potential research into the Ancients that Jenova could bring. Authorization for human experimentation with Jenova cells pending."
Sephiroth paused, closing his eyes, and turned his head toward the ceiling.
"So," he whispered quietly. "Gast, you never told me. Why did you have to die before I could learn the truth?" Sephiroth turned his head back down. "The only honest scientist on the Shinra payroll . . . ." He trailed off, and looked back to where Squall stood.
"What is it?" Squall asked, stepping toward him, but Sephiroth shook his head.
"Nothing that concerns you," he barked quickly. "Go, wait outside. I'll return once I'm done here . . . ."
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"He stayed down there all night," Squall said, quietly. "If I'd known what he was reading, I would have never let him continue, but I was unaware of the knowledge Shinra had accumulated in that library of evil. It changed him, and not for the better. He never left at all that night. Never once did the lights below go out. He kept reading and reading. The four of us waited, almost until dawn, before we heard it."
"What was it?" Rinoa asked quietly, listening intently.
"Laughter."
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Squall opened the partially cracked door into the lab, advanced slowly but firmly, gunblade drawn. He turned down the passage Sephiroth had been standing in, only to see piles and piles of discarded books and lab reports scattered along the hallway. The passage at the far end opened into a large study, with even more piles of scattered books, many simply thrown aside as if the reader had been filled with growing mania as he had continued reading. Behind a massive oaken desk, in the center of the chamber, sat Sephiroth, laughing to himself. But this laugh lacked mirth and joy, instead being a laugh of darkness and grim understanding. Slowly, he closed the very last book that had adorned the shelves and hurled it across the room. The tome smashed against the wall, pages flying everywhere.
"What did you find?" Squall asked as he stepped into the room. Sephiroth stopped laughing and looked up at him, eyes narrowing.
"Oh, you," he said dismissively. "One of the traitors."
"What?" Squall asked, confused not only by his words but also by his tone, which had been spoken entirely as a matter of fact. Sephiroth lowly stood, drawing his massive no-dachi, but leaving the blade in its sheath. He eyed Squall with utter contempt.
"Ignorant, like all your kind," he hissed. "You know nothing, not of your past, or how you were once part of a glorious legacy. Thousands of years ago, there was a race of people known as the Cetra. They were a species in tune with the land and the earth. They journeyed across the earth, searching for ultimate happiness, never staying in one place for long for fear of the injury they might cause to the planet. But some of them tired of the nomadic existence. They grew complacent, and stopped moving about, instead simply becoming sedentary and remaining in one place, living off the land and its resources." Sephiroth pointed the sheathed no-dachi at Squall. "
"They were your ancestors."
"How does that make me a traitor?" Squall demanded.
"They lived off the land the Cetra tried to cultivate. But by not moving, they began to lose their powers with the earth and the world, and felt less in tune. And thus, they fed more upon the earth, and in turn lost more power. The Cetra were left alone to wander while your ancestors grew fat and complacent in their places. They had no chance when disaster came."
"Disaster?" Squall asked. "What kind?"
"Not even Shinra knows," Sephiroth replied, gesturing to the piled volumes behind him. "I've perused all the books but found nothing. All that is said is that a great disaster came from above and that the Cetra were almost entirely wiped out, while your people hid like the cowards they were. Now, all that remains of them," he threw a lab report down across the desk, "are in these reports."
"What does this have to do with you?" Squall asked, and Sephiroth laughed viciously.
"Because I am Cetra!" he proclaimed. "They created me. They found a surviving Cetra in the earth's depths in the far north, and took it out. They revived it, took its cells, and from its superior genetic structure, created the ultimate living weapon. Constructed, cell by cell, from Jenova, by Doctor Gast, Hojo, and Odine decades ago.
"Me. I was the weapon. That Cetra was named Jenova, and the lab reports here state that the creature is sealed away in suspended animation in the reactor, behind the very door that bears her name." He fixed Squall where he stood with those green eyes, glinting with the light of madness.
"Now stand aside," he hissed. "I'm going to see my mother."
Squall was then flying, smashed against the wall by Sephiroth's left hand as he backhanded the SeeD out of the way and strode down the hall. It took him a long moment to recover from the hit, and stood, shaking his head. Squall snatched up the radio as Sephiroth vanished.
"Get out of the building!" Squall ordered, rushing after Sephiroth. "Sephiroth's gone insane! Get clear!"
The soldiers answered with confusion, but obeyed, rushing clear of the house as Squall chased Sephiroth upstairs. He managed to get up to the second level in time to see the village go up in flames, and people scattered, screaming in terror. A black shadow stood in the center of the inferno, and Squall rushed outside, gunblade in hand.
He found himself in the middle of the blaze as he went outside, the baking heat of dozens of burning homes surrounding him as he dashed through the fires. He passed the Shinra soldiers, one of them badly wounded, and another helping an injured woman escape the massacre. Squall heard screams from the far end of the village and rushed in that direction, only to find he was too late. A dozen villagers had been mercilessly slaughtered by Sephiroth, their bodies cloven apart. Squall scanned the hellfire, and then spotted a figure near the north side of the village, walking through the fires as if they were not even there.
A group of villagers, wielding axes, sickles, and pitchforks, rushed at Sephiroth, but he disposed of them almost casually, slicing them apart like rag dolls. After the last man had fallen, Sephiroth turned around and surveyed the village in all its destruction. His piercing green eyes met Squall's, and he smirked slightly, before turning away and striding through the fires to the north.
Squall pursued.
Hours passed, and Squall ran through the mountains. He followed Sephiroth's trail easily enough, as the few surviving Mako-infected villagers and workers had tried to challenge Sephiroth on his way, and were slaughtered brutally. He had taken a winding, aimless route, but Squall pursued relentlessly, a lion on the prowl for his prey. Soon enough, he found his way to the reactor, gunblade out and seeking blood and vengeance on the man who had so casually murdered an entire village.
The reactor was the same as before, Squall saw, as he entered and prowled through the noisy structure. He descended to the same level as the door to the Mako pods, and stepped in, to find them all sliced apart. The door to Jenova's chamber was torn off and thrown aside callously, and beyond, Squall could see Sephiroth., standing in the middle of the chamber.
He rushed up the steps, brandishing his blade, and leaped into the room, weapon trembling in his grasp. Sephiroth stood with his back turned, in the middle of a darkened chamber, filled with strange white barrels. Before him, atop a pedestal, was a metal statue of bone-white metal, depicting an angel.
"Sephiroth!" Squall roared a challenge, and the silver-haired figure paused, glancing back at him.
"Mother," he whispered quietly. "They're back again. Those maggots, those pitiful humans who stole everything." He looked to Squall. "You don't understand what she is, do you? With her power, wisdom, and magic, Jenova, my own Mother, is destined to rule all." He suddenly spun, and grabbed the white metal statue. "But you, you want to take it all away! I won't have it!" He wrenched the massive statue away, tearing it free of its hidden piping and hurling it aside. Beyond was a smoky, black-filled tube of glass, man-sized.
"Come, Mother, he whispered. "Reveal yourself." For several long, empty seconds, nothing happened. Then, a faint blue light began to illuminate the tube, revealing the creature within.
It was female, obviously, with blue-gray skin. Its shape was curvaceous, a perfect woman's figure. It appeared to be bound within the tube, its hands pulled behind its back and ankles tied together, and was frozen, inert. Its face was empty, a woman's visage but with no life. Silver hair, matching Sephiroth's dangled beneath a metallic helmet, connected to a strange computer behind the tube.
"Is this it?' Squall asked, advancing. "This is your mother this alien?"
"Yes," Sephiroth replied, turning. "Once Mother awakens, it will begin. Our ascension to ruling this world and wiping it clean of your kind. Shinra tried to stop it, but they have failed. It all begins tonight."
"No," Squall denied. His gunblade rose into his hands. "No. Those people you murdered . . . I will not let that go unpunished. You have to die, Sephiroth." Squall closed his eyes momentarily, and as Sephiroth raised his no-dachi, unsheathing it, Squall took a step forward, wading in . . . .
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"And that's it," Squall whispered.
"What?" Zell protested. "That's it? What kind of bullshit is that? What happened next?"
"I don't know," Squall replied honestly. "I can't honestly figure that out. Sephiroth, by all rights, should have killed me, or I shouldn't have gotten away intact. But I did. I don't remember what happened next. All I do know is that the next thing I remember is waking up in a village called Gongaga, further down the coast from Nibelheim. I was pretty torn up. The people there took care of me, though it took me a month or so to recover from my injuries. Sephiroth must have hurt me pretty severely. Ever since then, I've been acting as a mercenary. I came to Midgar looking for mercenary work, and that's when I met Zell."
"So, Shinra believes you're dead?" Rinoa asked, and Squall nodded.
"I paid off a hacker to do some poking around in Shinra's personnel files," he explained. "He found that Shinra had never even acknowledged the mission's existence. I was reported killed in action. No obituaries, even for the regular soldiers, who weren't even acknowledged as existing. Sephiroth is also reported dead, but that was nothing new."
"Sephiroth is supposed to be dead," Quistis said. "But they reported him gone over a decade ago. Like you said, he could have simply been pulled aside." Squall nodded.
"So, what is he wants?" Zell asked. "To wipe out all humans?"
"That sounds like his plan," Squall replied. "I intend to find him and put a stop to him."
"What about Shinra?" Zell added. "You know they'll be after us too." Squall nodded again.
"We can't leave Shinra alone," he replied. "They'll be dogging us every step of the way. Make no mistake, this won't be easy. But it's all we can do. Once we've finished up with Sephiroth, we'll deal with Shinra."
"Damn straight," Zell replied. "I'm with you on that."
"Same here," Quistis added with a nod.
"I'm going too," Rinoa added. "If what Sephiroth says is true, if he is and Cetra, like me . . . Maybe he'll have some answers." Squall glanced to where Red was, still basking in the sunlight.
"As I have said," Red added quietly from where he lay. "I will walk with you at least until I see my homeland again."
"Then its settled," Squall finished. "We'll rest here and then move out in the morning." The others nodded, and began to go about the process of settling down for the night. However, as Red watched them, he paid careful attention to Squall.
What a fascinating story, he mused.
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Ah. Yes. Its done. Took me long enough. Gotta clear all the stuff out before the big huge battle in Gunblade, anyway! But ya'll a re much blessed. After all, you get TWO chapters, on the same day, and they're both huge! Madness!
There were a lot of differences, especially int he people infected by Mako. Note the RE4 references in there, as the insane workers and villagers are essentially like the villagers from Resident Evil 4.
This chapter also saw a lot of Sephiroth fighting, and showing my take on him. He's rutheless, murderous, and a killer, and not innocent in any way. He revels in massacre. There won't be any redemption for him in my fic.
Anyway, what else? Not much. Pay attention carefully in this chapter, you'll pick up on some big clues to the future. Then again, maybe not. I'm all too subtle sometimes. XD
Anyway, the shout-outs.
-Angel-Brokensorrow: Heck yeah, I loved it when in Bets of Both worlds, Daz would put FFVIII references and scenes in. I always read his killing of the X-ATM092 and I thought that it never worked without Quistis gunning it down. Then, I had this crazy idea in which the Warthog from Halo would be one of the vehicles they rode in during the escape, and well, heh. The rest is history.
Laguna does have a big role in this. Very big. Even more influential than his role in FFVIII, I think. His hand has already been felt throughout the story. Pay careful attention to the clues I leave. The story has only just begun.
-Kaiser-Kun: Argh. Before I forget. "Tonfa." A tonfa is basically a police nightstick, like the clubs the Shinra MPs use in the game. its actually a Chinese weapon, but is very efefctive and used by police forces around the world. Any police baton I usually refer to as a tonfa.
Anyway, glad to see you've gotten some inspiration. Selphie's nunchaku will be very similar to the one in Gunblade: long metal bars with a laong chain, used both for swinging and for hand-to-hand combat. And i agree, squall fits on a bike even mor ethan Cloud. Like Aaron, I suggest you read "The Omega" by Daz Shier. Posisbly the best FFVIII fanfic, ever. I laughed, I cried, and the ending just...wow. I truely felt closure with FFVIII's story after that. (even if he never did get to explain why Squall was the only one who could kill Draven...oops, was that a spoiler? XD)
You may be interested when it comes to the gunfighters here....XD Airship will likely by Highwind.
-Daniel Wesley Rydell: Very good guesses, I do have to commend you on them. Like i said, your logic is one I began to follow in my story, but began to shift it to accomadate more, and also to add in that wonderful element of surprise. Sorry for the lateness in the updates.
-Arnath Nightblade: YES! Red is in it! I loved Red, he was one of my favorites, and I couldn't find anyone quite capbale of replacing him. Summons may exist, but will likely be FFVIII summons, not FFVII ones.