Vincent and Shelke left for the lab, and her boyfriend was gone with them too, now she was left alone with the others. Everything was quiet between her and her friends who haven't seen her in a long time. Her hand on her lap, her eyes avoiding direct contact with theirs. 'how am I going to start the conversation with them?' The though stayed in her mind for a while now; maybe she should start simple "So… How are you all?" that's a good way to start things off.

"Well, we are adjusting better after the Deepground incident" Tifa replied as the others were exchanging glances at each other. "But one question, what's wrong with your legs?" she had noticed that Aerith avoided using her legs at all since they met at the construction site. She was either using the float materia or was carried by Zack the entire time.

"Um… well, I can't use them anymore" Aerith said bluntly, trying to sound as natural as possible but there was still that sad tone in her voice. Everyone sat silent, feeling sorry for bring up the subject. They would like to ask her more about it but they didn't want to risk upsetting her more, and she soon noticed that and elaborated "Sephiroth damaged my spine when he stabbed me in the back."

"Man, that must suck being grounded" Yuffie pouted resting her head in her hands and placed her elbows on the table "Can't you do anything at all?"

Caith bobbed her head "Watch it little lass! You're hurting the lass' feelings!" he lectured the young ninja.

"It's ok; I'm not upset about it" Aerith smiled, hiding her sadness about the fact that she was a burden to everyone now. She had explained to Zack about her concern, and as a solution, he gave her the only float materia in existence on Gaia. Sure it was an experimental one, and sure she knew it was only temporary, but at least he tried to make her feel independent.

"May I have a closer look at that materia you used?" Reeve politely asked her for the object, which she did. He carefully examined the dark colored sphere along with Shera and Cid.

"It's so beautiful, and the fact that no other materia can cause its host to float against gravity is just incredible" Shera mentioned with Cid nodding.

"Yeah, it's going to be difficult to fix this unless we have a materia expert" he added, setting the toothpick in his mouth "Maybe we could make you one of those advanced wheelchairs till this one's fixed."

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

DeepGround City, Lab facility...

At the abandoned lab that Zack and Aerith woke up in days ago. Shelke had already started the SND process while Vincent and Zack looked around the lab in search for clues the later might have missed.

"So… Vincent? Um, how did you meet Cloud and the others? You don't seem like a social kind of guy, no offense" Zack asked casually trying to get along with the busy looking Goth guy.

"He and the others woke me up" Vincent said after a long pause, not making any eye contact with Zack at all.

Zack nodded, though he couldn't imagine exactly how that happened. Somehow it reminded him of the man he accidentally found asleep in a coffin back at Shinra Mansion during his and Cloud's escape. But since he didn't take a very good look at said man, he wasn't sure if Vincent was the same guy or not.

He eventually shrugged the thought aside and looked around for some clues that he missed on his first round. Vincent was over at the ruined old office, going through all the papers that Zack read over before. As for the girl that came with them, she was over at the central computer looking like she was asleep sitting up. He had to do something other than standing still, so he explored the part of the lab he didn't go through when he woke up.

He avoided the broken floor steels that blocked his path and entered to the dark part of the old lab. He suddenly came to a stop after hearing the sound of some digital beeping that was somewhere ahead.

'Is it a bomb? I sure hope not.' He thought as he crept carefully towards the source of the noise. When he finally arrive at the source his expression relaxed, turns out that the beeping was coming from a portable materia fusion chamber and it appeared operational too. He studied the machine a bit closely to understand its function, rotating the device slightly to see the torn off instruction papers on the sides. Then he carefully unplugged the machine and took it with him back to his companions.

"So found anything?" Zack walked over to the young woman and strange man that seemed like they were discussing something important.

"Yes, we found the project reports that were missing, and it explained a lot" Shelke reported to Zack, then she noticed the device in his hands "What's that?" she asked looking over at the device in his possession questionably.

Zack simply smiled as he replied, "Just something to help Aerith."

"I see, if that's everything then we should head back to the others." Vincent concluded and was first to head for the exit. Leaving Zack chasing behind to carry the somewhat heavy machine.

Shelke stood her ground for a bit, glancing back at the central computer she was hooked up to not long ago. "I feel, that we might have missed something important. For one, your not connected to the rest of the server. Why was that?" she murmured to no one. This was a bad omen, and she knew it. But there was no way to prove her sixth sense right, for now, that is. All she could do right now is hope that her gut was wrong as she made her way to the exit and join the boys back at the bar where the others all awaited their return.