Chapter 7

Sky Holes

The sun was setting; it would be dark in a little while. Vincent and Tifa stood silently side by side on the ridge overlooking the big black construct that had so single-handedly threatened to destroy them all. Vincent staring as if in hopes of its walls holding some answers and Tifa in hopes of it just disappearing altogether and saving them all the trouble.

Most of the black creatures—or "Shadows" as Wymond told them they were called—had gathered around the building, surrounding it. It seemed like they might be guarding it. Vincent figured the Shadows thought of the building as their home base, now that the outsiders had vacated they wanted it back. Rarely had they been attacked by the black creatures, the Shadows, but when they were it was small attacks the largest groups consisting of only three.

It was a relief to quickly learn that Wymond's Masamune Blade could in fact kill the monsters. Out of all of them he was the only who could really damage the things. The guardian told them that it was possible for them to be killed by conventional weapons but it took a great deal of damage to do so. It was probable that if the entire group were to attack one together they could easily destroy it. It also helped that Vincent's powerful revolver knocked the Shadows off their feet when he shot them.

In large numbers the black creatures might be a danger but a small group could easily be dispatched, especially with Wymond attacking.

"I know we've been through a lot," Tifa said breaking the silence, "but do you get the feeling this one might do us in?"

Vincent turned his head slightly to look at her, "I think whatever being that controls fate needs to stop screwing us over."

Tifa looked at him and after a few moments laughed, "Vincent's the one that says what we're all thinking, that's different."

"I would think by now some of us deserve a break," Vincent said.

Tifa laughed again.

"What?" asked Vincent.

"Before, that was just so out of character for you to say," Tifa said, "it sounded funny coming from you."

"My jokes aren't funny, but things people normally say are," Vincent muttered and shook his head, "it's really not worth it."

"Yeah, I know," Tifa said, "it's hard not being so dark and anti-social."

"I might take that as an insult if it weren't true," Vincent replied.

"Yo, Vince, Tifa, get down here, now!" yelled Barret.

"Don't call him Vince!" Tifa yelled back and headed down the ridge.

"That's my line," Vincent murmured and followed her.

The two rejoined the group who now sat in a circle around Cid starting a fire, the group now included Rufus Shinra whom Reno had brought back. Elena and Rude had been sent off by Rufus to research something that involved finding cures for diseases, like the Geostigma, from Mako and couldn't get in contact with them.

"Should have brought some damn Materia for this instead of doing this shit the old fashioned way," Cid complained.

"I have to take your airship," Wymond said.

Cid looked up from the started fire, "For what?"

"This is what we called you down for," Barret said to Vincent and Tifa.

"I just got a message from Aeris," Wymond said hurriedly.

"How's it going on the other…dimension…end…of things?" asked Reno.

"Something's gone wrong," Rufus said instinctively.

"Someone interfered with the trip to the future, they're in the past," Wymond said. "She's hoping I'll know what to do, but without knowing who it is that's causing the interference I can't do anything."

"The Forgotten City," Rufus said, "you can connect with other times better there."

Wymond looked at Rufus, "How do you know so much?"

Rufus looked to the rest of the group, "A…uh…series of unfortunate incidents allowed me to learn many things about the Ancients."

"The same series of incidents that allowed you to end up in the condition you were in I suppose?" asked Wymond.

"Well, it could have been much worse," Rufus said, "I could have been blown up completely so just having all my limbs is fine with me."

"So the Forgotten City it is," Cid said, "right now?"

"The longer they stay in the past the more dangerous it becomes for both them and us," Wymond replied.

"Well, let's get the hell outta here then," Cid said.

"Someone should stay and watch the building, just in case…this…Ancient Black thing…shows up," Reno suggested.

"Reno and I will watch the construct," Rufus said.

"I won't need very many people, I don't expect much resistance," Wymond said.

"Cid, you fly the Highwind, Tifa and I will accompany Wymond to the Forgotten City," Vincent said. "The rest of you should set up a watch for the building and the Shadows."

Everyone nodded and appeared to have accepted Vincent as something of a leader when Cloud was gone even though the last time Cloud had been absent Cid had been chosen as replacement leader. Tifa, Cid, Wymond and Vincent boarded the Highwind leaving the others behind.

"I'm not sure about all this time travel stuff, but you sure this won't warn whoever's causing the problem?" asked Cid.

Wymond looked at him, "Only the Cetra can use the Forgotten City in such a way. This person would not know that I know who they are."

"Could this just be an accident?" asked Vincent.

"The only other way this could have happened is if Aeris made a mistake," Wymond said, "and she is no novice to time travel. It is extremely rare for a Cetra such as herself to perform such a simple task incorrectly. I have no doubt this is someone else's doing."

"Wait, hold on," Tifa said, "you're saying Aeris can time travel whenever she wants and she doesn't need that machine in the building?"

"A Cetra that has returned to the Lifestream is one of the most powerful beings that could ever exist," Wymond said. "There isn't much she cannot do."

"Then why did she use the tube and the machine if she didn't need it?" asked Tifa.

Wymond looked around hoping for one of the others to say it, they didn't, "Well, I…was kind of hoping that would be apparent."

Cid tried to hold back a laugh but failed and Tifa looked at him, "What?"

Cid shook his head and stifled the laugh.

"I don't get it," Tifa said.

"She…" Wymond looked around for help again, "well, she, I believe she did it for the same reason she decided to use only one tube."

"Oh," Vincent said, "I hadn't thought of that."

"Thought of what?" asked Tifa.

"I…" Wymond shook his head, "I don't see how I can make it anymore clear without saying it."

"I think he's trying to say she did it to be close to Cloud," Cid said through another laugh.

"Well, yes, that's…what I was trying to convey," Wymond said awkwardly.

"She wouldn't do that," Tifa said.

"I guess there aren't many good dead candidates for her, if you know what I mean," Cid said still laughing.

"The competition in the Lifestream is kind of dead, I guess," Vincent said.

Cid laughed harder, "See now that was a good joke!"

Vincent shrugged.

"Well, I don't see why you would be so surprised," Wymond said, "is it not obvious?"

"Is what not obvious?" asked Tifa.

"That…Aeris…well, you know," Wymond said and shook his head, "alright look, is it not obvious that Aeris likes Cloud? I haven't had a conversation in around three hundred years just give me a break okay?"

"It was never really made that obvious," Cid said, "but you could guess at it."

"Considering how little time they had to explore such a possibility I doubt it would be that obvious to Cloud as well," Vincent said.

"Yeah, I'm sure if Sephiroth had stabbed me Cloud would've just kicked me off into the water and then continued on," Cid said smiling.

"The incident with the Meteor would have been much simpler if that were the case," Vincent said.

Cid looked at him.

"Uh…of course had that happened...who would fly the Highwind?" said Vincent quickly.

"Thank you," Cid replied.

Tifa smiled at Vincent who just turned back to stare out into the darkening sky. The Highwind was running at almost maximum speed and everything within view blurred past them.

Suddenly something caught the corner of Vincent's eye, he looked and whatever it had been was gone.

"Did you see that?" asked Wymond, Tifa and Cid looked at the guardian confused.

"I saw something," Vincent said moving around the bridge to get a better view of the outside.

"Wait, there, what's that?" asked Tifa.

Straight ahead and off into the distance was a strange looking black cloud, there was just enough light left in the sky that it was noticeable. Had it been nighttime it would have been completely camouflaged.

"That can't be good," Cid muttered.

Then the cloud slowly seemed to be sucked into itself and started to swirl in a circular motion. After only a few seconds the swirling cloud became a large black spot in the sky in front of them.

"This can't be," Wymond said.

"What's wrong?" asked Tifa.

"Sky Holes," Wymond replied, "distortions in time, it's far too early. It takes time for a paradox such as this to appear."

"How bad is that for us?" asked Cid.

"The Holes themselves are only dangerous if you run into them," Wymond said.

"So we can avoid them," Cid said.

"It's the things that manifest inside the Sky Holes that are dangerous," Wymond finished.

"Oh, well what the hell lives inside one of those…" Cid was cut off with his answer. Out of the black hole appeared a huge creature that was at least twice the size of the Highwind. It was completely black with huge wings. It flew upright unlike a bird, as if it was standing straight up in the air. The creature's massive wings flapped slowly, which looked strange because the creature was so big it would have been thought the smaller wings would need to flap more to keep it airbourne.

"…for fuck…" Cid muttered, "what the hell is that now?"

"Another Shadow creature," Wymond said, "a more advanced species than the ones you fought on the ground."

"Can we hurt it?" asked Vincent.

"It works on the same principles as its smaller ground-based counterparts," Wymond said, "it is somewhat stronger and will take a massive amount of conventional weapons at once to damage it."

"How massive exactly?" asked Cid.

"There's no specific calculation," Wymond said, "just…a large amount."

"Hold on, let me know if this'll do it," Cid said lifting a metal cover on the control console to reveal an almost comical looking huge red button. Cid slammed his palm down on the button and new controls and buttons appeared where Cid controlled the ship.

On the outside the Highwind went under some other transformations. Spots opened up all over the airship and out of those spots protruded weapons of all kinds. Some were high-powered machine guns that could fire up to 3000 rounds of ammunition per minute. There were also a number of launchers that could fire a constant stream of highly explosive missiles. Among the large number of weapons that appeared suddenly on the ship was one huge launcher that protruded from the bottom of the ship and pointed straight toward their enemy. This weapon was the newest Cid had added to the Highwind.

The big weapon had the ability to fire five-missile bursts in rapid succession. The damage caused by this weapon alone usually resulted in more damage than all the missile launchers and machine guns mounted on the ship were capable of.

Cid had turned their means of transportation into a veritable airbourne weapon of mass destruction.

Tifa looked to Cid in shock, "When did you get all this stuff added to the Highwind?"

"Upgrades here and there, you know," Cid said with a shrug and looked to Wymond, "think this'll do it?"

Wymond looked a little surprised, "I think you could possibly kill ten of these creatures with this aircraft."

"That what I like to hear," Cid said ominously, "because I intend to blow this bastard out of the air!"

Vincent grabbed a chair beside him, "I suggest you all hang on to something."

Cid let out a growl and fired the airship forward at full speed…what one might call ramming speed because if the guns didn't work Cid had every intention of impaling the thing.

The Shadow creature saw the object flying at it at high speed and was about to attempt to blow it out of the air when the object fired first.

The first wave was the ship's machine guns, a massive wave of bullets slammed into the Shadow creature and immediately the force of the weapons started pushing the creature backward in the air.

If the Shadow had intended to retaliate in any way it was interrupted by the sudden wall of missiles that hit and exploded on every possible part of the Shadow's body. When the black monstrosity had suddenly become more of a large ball of fire and smoke the huge weapon started firing its volleys of missiles.

The first five missiles flew into the encompassing cloud of fire and smoke and then exploded adding to the chaos that was the product of the Highwind's relentless weapons. Finally, the machine guns ran out of ammo all along the ship and the missiles stopped firing. Cid flew the Highwind right through the residual cloud of destruction and came out the other side without so much as a bump let alone a nose dive into the monster.

"Hell yes, that bastard is dead!" Cid yelled, "wasted a whole lot of ammo on it but it is in pieces!"

Cid turned the Highwind in a one-eighty to view its handiwork. The Shadow creature was still in the air but its wings started to slowly stop moving and where its back had been was now a very large hole, the hole which was also in the creature's stomach that they had flown through to get by.

"Impressive," Wymond said.

Cid ran a hand over the control console and smiled, "Nothing she can't go through, I guarantee."

The Shadow finally dropped out of the sky and as soon as it hit the ground began to sizzle as if being put in extremely hot water. After a few moments the monster was reduced to nothing but black steam and was gone.

"How many more times do you think you could do this?" asked Wymond.

"I can reload my weapons fully right now, but to do it a third time I'm gonna need to stock up, why?" asked Cid.

"A weapon this powerful would be very useful to battle the Ancient Black," Wymond said, "how quickly can you find the supplies to stock your ship for a third attack?"

"Anytime tomorrow, loading the ship up will only take a few minutes most of it's automated," Cid said, "it's the cost that's the problem."

"Gil is not an issue," Wymond said. "You talk to your supplier I will handle the currency."

"You got a lot of Gil I guess?" asked Cid.

"Not right now, but I, like all guardians of the Cetra, have the ability to manipulate things," Wymond said.

"You're saying you can turn things into Gil?" asked Cid.

Wymond nodded, "It is an ability given to guardians in the event they must use currency to survive a situation, a situation such as this. I can use any solid object to create Gil."

Cid smiled, "That's one hell of a helpful trick. So what, you need like a bunch of rocks or something?"

"One large rock will also do," Wymond said, "I can make as much Gil as the equivalent of how many particles are inside that rock."

"That's a lot," Cid muttered.

"Yes it is, we should talk about how much you need later," Wymond said.

Cid turned the ship and headed toward the Forgotten City. They made their destination in a few minutes and Vincent quickly turned to Cid.

"Keep the Highwind in the air," Vincent said, "if something goes wrong we're going to want a quick exit. Wymond, Tifa and I will go into the city and come back as quickly as possible. If you run into anymore of those flying Shadows try and avoid it and come back for us if you can."

"I'll be here," Cid said.

Vincent nodded, "Let's go."

Cid dropped the three of them off and took to the skies again; they entered into the city and quickly followed Wymond.

Whether it was some sort of twisted humour or just coincidence their destination turned out to be the exact same spot where Aeris had been killed. Wymond made his way across to the exact spot while Tifa stopped and looked around for a moment.

"It's been a while since I've seen this place," Tifa said.

Vincent was silent, not sure exactly how he should add to that.

"Does it make you sad at all?" Tifa asked.

Vincent was silent again.

"Being here, remembering, does it even affect you?" she asked.

"I…" Vincent was about to say when he was cut off.

"I'm going in the water, keep an eye out for any trouble," Wymond said to them and the two nodded. The guardian then promptly jumped into the water and floated just below the surface.

Vincent turned back to Tifa as if in an attempt to try and answer her question but decided instead to walk to the water's edge and look in at Wymond. Tifa stood and watched Vincent silently doing as she had done many times: accepting silence as an answer from Vincent.

Over the course of less than an hour she had been told indirectly that Cloud was in love with another woman, which of course Tifa had more or less suspected of Aeris and Cloud, and had a crisis that could involve the end of existence itself. So far it hadn't been such a good day overall for Tifa. After all that Vincent's usual dark and silent personality began to get on her nerves. With her becoming further and further away from Cloud she had hoped to find more of a friend with Vincent. Though over the time she had managed to spend with him he hadn't really changed all that much. It was her fault Vincent had started his attempt at telling jokes, that had given her some hope that maybe she could change Vincent altogether. Vincent, however, was still just Vincent.

Vincent looked back briefly at Tifa, knowing that another person in his position would try and answer her question. After spending a lot of time observing people he could tell well enough that Tifa was sad, the reasons behind it were unknown but he guessed it was a mixture of their situation and where they now stood and the memories connected. Vincent looked back to the water and for the second time that night something appeared in his peripheral vision. Vincent looked suddenly in the direction of the disturbance and saw, again for the second time, a huge black object, this time under the water.

"What now," Vincent muttered trying to get a better look at the dark object. It was clear the thing was moving at a slow pace, but toward Wymond. Vincent wasn't taking any chances. "Tifa, stay as far from the water as you can!"

Tifa looked up to question Vincent but he had already dived into the water. She immediately noticed the large black thing moving toward Wymond and Vincent, and picking up speed.

"Oh no," Tifa said.

Under water, Vincent swam to Wymond and grabbed him. Vincent looked to the thing coming toward them and knew he was right to grab the guardian. Even through his blurred under water vision he could make out the massive creature. It had a head similar to a bird with a hooked beak and the rest of its body was mostly its large wings that apparently propelled it through the water. Vincent guessed this was another Shadow creature.

Vincent quickly propelled himself and Wymond toward solid ground, Wymond, probably confused, was kicking in the water making their trip much faster than it would have been had it just been Vincent.

Vincent had Wymond out of the water and on dry land.

"I hope you got all the information you needed," Vincent said.

"Yes, I did, what happened?" asked Wymond.

Vincent opened his mouth to answer him when something grabbed his crimson cloak in the water and dragged him under the surface.

"Vincent!" Tifa yelled.

She watched the black thing move away in the water, obviously dragging Vincent with it. Then suddenly the Shadow creature stopped and seemed to be having trouble swimming. Flashes could be seen under water which Tifa could only assume was Vincent's gun going off.

"He can't kill that thing alone," Wymond said drawing his sword. Before the guardian could move the creature suddenly stopped moving. After a while it began to slowly drift away.

"No," Tifa said.

"It got him," Wymond muttered.

Tifa ran toward the water but Wymond grabbed her, "Don't, giving it another enemy to kill won't help things."

"He might still be okay!" Tifa cried.

"If he was okay he would still be fighting," Wymond said quietly.

Tifa stopped struggling against Wymond and just stared off into the water…just like that…Vincent was gone.

"He can't…" Tifa muttered.

"Come on, let's get out of here, there may be something else like that one around," Wymond said.

Wymond was almost carrying Tifa away as she stared blankly at the water. Only a few minutes ago she was thinking about how much his personality annoyed her and now he was gone.

"Vincent…" Tifa said hopelessly.

He didn't respond.