Final Fantasy VII: The Story 2nd Instalment
Emerald Princess of Vernea
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Two thousand years ago, an object of extraordinary mass and power fell down from the skies and crashed into the Planet. The resulting collision caused the lands to ripple and rise, forming into treacherous mountain peaks that crossed the continent. Earthquakes cracked the land, forming deep canyons, and the temperature dropped to unbelievable levels, making it almost impossible for anyone to live there.
When the tremors ended and the land began to settle, the Planet began to draw up energy to heal its terrible wound. It gathered up the essence of the Lifestream to the source of the wound—a deep crater that was formed by the collision. The Lifestream surged into the open wound, covering it like a soothing balm.
Now in the present day, the Lifestream continued to flow around the northern crater, found in the centre of Gaea's Cliff. The jagged mountains became a natural barrier to all who tried to reach the northern caves, keeping the wound a secret so that no one would see the Planet's pain. The only ones aware of the Planet's cries were the Cetra, the ancient race of the past, and those susceptible to the Planet's voice.
As the northern lights rippled in the night sky, the Lifestream flowed and swirled around the crater. It surged from the centre of the crater like a geyser, sending showers of sparkling blue-green mako energy falling to the ground. It formed into a vast pillar of light almost as bright as the stars that shone in the sky. A second pillar of mako encased the first, moving in horizontal rays around the crater's perimeter.
Thick layers of smoke and icy mist seeped from the crater's edge. It spread across the ground in whirling tendrils, blocking most of the path from view. A single path led down the inner slope of the outer crater and into the mist, disappearing amongst the sea of white.
As Cloud and the others watched, a gush of mako energy burst up from the depths of the crater, rising so high into the sky it surpassed the mountain's peak and rose high into the sky. It was as though the Planet was desperately trying to heal its wound… as quickly as possible. Cloud and his friends stood and stared at the pillar of light, their hearts beating in time to the Planet's pulse.
Cloud stepped up to the edge of the crater. He placed one boot on the edge of the rocky cliff and raised his hand to his face, shielding his eyes against the light. "An old crater…" he breathed. He looked around at the tall crater before them. "Something fell out of the sky and crashed down here… Leaving a scar on the planet."
Something moved behind him as Vincent stepped up onto the ledge and looked down at the Lifestream. "It's amassed a vast amount of energy to heal itself," he said.
The gunman's face was impassive, giving nothing away. Whether he felt the sensation of life that came from looking into the Lifestream, no one could say. Those crimson eyes, as red as the cape that covered him, showed no hint of emotion.
"Sephiroth took that energy," Cloud said, "and is trying to use Meteor. Next time the wound won't be so small."
One by one everyone turned their eyes to the sky. The sky was dark and dotted with stars. Those stars were plentiful, tiny glittering specks against the endless ocean that was the universe. The northern lights, rippling waves of green and blue, swept over them and made them twinkle with colour. Everyone was thinking the same thing. Which of those thousands stars would Sephiroth use to collide with the Planet?
No, they each thought. Sephiroth would not get the chance to use Meteor. They would enter the north cave, find Sephiroth, and retrieve the Black Materia. For Cloud was right: if Meteor were summoned, the Planet's next wound would not be so small. For the Planet's next wound would kill it.
With renewed vigour the eight companions proceeded down the crater's inner slope. The path they used led steadily toward the mist, making it effortless to reach the end. The Lifestream that flowed around the crater gave off a surge of warm heat, warming their chilled bodies. Pretty soon they had forgotten about the icy winds of Gaea's Cliff and were moving down the path at speed, focused on their task.
When they were halfway down they spotted a cloaked figure walking across the path. It was another of the black-caped men, heading down into the crater. The man staggered as he walked, and thick layers of ice and snow clung to his cloak. He shivered, his feet moving slowly as though every step was an effort. When Cloud and the others approached him they could hear his heavy, laboured breathing, rasping breaths coming from frozen lungs. They reached him just in time to hear him gasp out his last words before he fell dead to the ground.
"…B, back… to… Sep… …i… roth…"
Cloud and his friends gathered around the man's lifeless body. As they watched, the man's body rippled and gurgled beneath the velvet cloak. Then the cloak fell flat, the body hidden within it returning again to the Planet. Without a word, they moved on.
It was not long before they finally reached the end of the slope. The sea of mist created by the Lifestream lay before them. A fusion of cold and warm air rose from the earth and made their skin tingle. Serrated columns of rock stuck out of the ground, the mist swirling around them in gentle waves. The path slanted toward the northern crater in the centre, rising above the mist toward the tall, rocky mass.
Cloud took the step and plunged feet first into the mist. The mist rose to his waist, parting as he entered and then clinging to his body like water. The effervescent air was warm against his skin, pulsing gently. Light showers of mako fell in tiny droplets from the sky as the Lifestream surged from the crater.
After taking a few guarded steps to make sure the mist was safe to walk in, Cloud signalled to his companions. Tentatively they dived into the mist, exclaiming as they felt its unusual warmth. Tifa walked easily through the gaze and stood beside Cloud.
The time has come to settle things with Sephiroth, huh?" asked Tifa. When Cloud nodded, Tifa sighed heavily and turned away. "I, too, have lost many things because of Sephiroth," she said. She turned back suddenly, her face resolute. "Let's go!"
Together the companions advanced through the mist. They moved slowly at first, for the mist, while thin, clung to their bodies and held them back. But as they moved further the path began to slant upward, taking them out of the mist until it was far beneath them, a swirling mass of white amidst the jagged rocks.
Before long the path had risen high above the fog, taking them on an uneven road toward the crater. Rivers of mako energy flowed far beneath them as the Lifestream gushed up from the crater's depths. Those rivers eventually formed into one giant ocean and gave the mist an eerie green hue. They could no longer see the bottom—if there was one. This is what the group tried not to think about as they journeyed along the path—the long drop below.
Up ahead the path came to a sudden end and branched off into two different directions. The first path was short and came to a dead end a little below them, while the second continued to head for the crater.
Another black-caped man was nearby. His body trembled with cold and fatigue as he tottered uneasily down the shorter path. Red XIII, seeing him heading for the cliff's edge, hurriedly leapt down onto the short path, but he was too late to save him. Before the hound could reach him, the black-caped man stepped off the edge and fell down into the Lifestream below, his body splashing into the water.
Saddened by his inability to save the doomed man, Red XIII sat back on his haunches and howled.
While the hound howled, Cloud jumped onto the path to pick up an object the cloaked man had dropped before plummeting to his death. It was an orb of red materia. As soon as Cloud's fingers closed around it he felt the Bahamut materia left behind from their battle in the Temple of the Ancients shake gently in his wrist armour. Neo Bahamut… Bahamut's other form… was contained in this materia.
They hurried on. The path became more broken and disjointed as they walked, sometimes ending entirely and forcing them to double back. In some cases they had to jump over large gaps in order to continue moving forward. The closer to the crater they got the colder the air became, as a chill wind caused by the movement of the Lifestream began to blow.
There were more of the black-caped men in this area of the maze. Like their two predecessors they also staggered with weariness, barely able to see the ground in front of them. One of them, his mind lost to the numbness brought on by the cold, did not notice the path turn away from him and he walked off the edge. His friends did not get much farther before they collapsed, their bodies dissolving into the earth.
The eight friends hurried through the network of broken paths. They looked up the crater's outer wall. Parts of the wall had broken away over the two millennia it had been there, and they could see the side of the Lifestream barrier as it streamed out of the Planet's core. The group came to a stop and stared in awe at the mako wall. The mako glowed brightly and they were unable to see the centre of it. Cloud looked around in wonder, before his gaze turned to the sky. He jumped, startled.
"That's……!!!"
While Cloud and his companions travelled on foot through the winding and broken paths of Gaea's Cliff, others were taking a more direct route to reach the crater. A powerful airship flew high above the ground, its many lights acting like a beacon in the night sky. The airship's many propellers whirred noisily as it flew through the air. Its destination was the same as that of the travellers below: the Northern Crater. As it approached the colossal wall of mako, the airship began to reduce speed.
Inside the airship's command centre, Rufus Shinra walked leisurely across the deck. He stopped at the front of the deck and peered out of the glass wall that safeguarded the deck. Around him, Scarlet and Heidegger stood watching, their eyes hungry as they took in the sight that lay before them. The endless stream of mako energy, borne of the Lifestream, was fast approaching. Rufus Shinra stood straight with a sigh, a contented smile on his lips.
"So, I finally found you," he said, smiling.
Beside him, Scarlet began to laugh. Her hideous, screeching 'kya ha ha' laugh made everyone on deck cringe and shrink back stiffly. Her laugh was heard all through the upper decks, echoing and returning to the bridge louder than before. Turning to face the ship's crew, she laughed again, louder than before but just as painfully.
"This is incredible……" she said when she could speak. The Head of Shinra's Weapon Development glanced at Rufus, her blood-red lipstick stretching as she smirked.
In the middle of the deck, Heidegger, Head of Public Safety Maintenance, took a step forward so that he could see the wonderful view. When his eyes fell upon the endless surge of mako streaming up from the crater, his bearded face lit up. "This is the Promised Land the President has been searching for!!" he exclaimed. A chuckle shook his large body, though he remembered to restrain his own dreadful laugh.
Rufus turned away from the window and faced his two employees. They could already taste the gold in their mouths and feel it weighing down their pockets. Rufus, on the other hand, could already taste the power. Sephiroth had led them to the Promised Land, the purest source of mako ever to be found on the Planet. With this endless source of energy, he would control the populace of the planet.
"But," said the new President, his face cold, "I'll be the one who gets it."
He turned back to face the window. Scarlet and Heidegger could have their money, if they wanted. All Rufus wanted was the power that came from owning all the mako the Planet could offer. His father had tried to use his money to find the Promised Land, and ended his search with Sephiroth's sword in his back. His son, fed up of his father's greedy ways, took a different route. And it seemed he had succeeded.
Deviously, coldly, Rufus smirked. "Sorry, old man."
Standing apart from the rest of them, at the far end of the deck, was Hojo. The Shinra scientist had his back to everyone on deck, as though he cared little for the mako wall as it loomed before them. In fact he did care little, for his mind was on other things, other theories that were coming together. Rude stood nearby, though the silent Turk paid no attention to Hojo as he chuckled ominously beneath his breath.
"That land is no one's," the scientist mused to himself. No one heard him speak, for he spoke quietly and to himself. "It's where the Reunion will take place…… They will all gather here……" Hojo raised his head and looked up at the metal ceiling, the image of the Reunion forming in his mind's eye. "I wonder if we will see…… Sephiroth?" Then Hojo laughed quietly, his shoulders shaking in his excitement.
After seeing the Shinra airship approach the crater, Cloud lowered his gaze and turned to face his friends. They all stared up at the airship in alarm. If the Shinra had arrived already, that meant that they were rapidly running out of time. They had to enter the crater and find Sephiroth before the Shinra did!
Turning away from the airship, the eight friends began to race down the path toward the crater's outer wall. The airship above them slowed and lowered its great bulk down near the edge of the crater, landing on a large, overhanging piece of rock on the other side of the mako wall. As the Shinra disembarked from their airship and made their way toward the entrance of the crater, Cloud and the others ran down their own path toward the mako wall.
When Cloud and the others arrived at the mako wall, they saw two more men dressed in black capes approaching it. The wall's outer barrier flowed across the rocky path in regular waves, pulsating in time to the planet's life-beat as it surged up from its core. The black-caped men did not seem to notice this wave of energy, which seemed very much like a coloured wind, and walked right into it.
The moment their bodies touched the windy barrier they were thrown back, hurled with immense force back across the path. The sickening crunch of bones breaking and shattering could be heard as they landed on the rocks. They rolled to a stop at the feet of Cloud and his companions, who looked down at the hooded men in horror. Though their faces were invisible, they could sense the pain the men were in as they gasped and rasped their last breaths.
"Uph… Se… phi… roth…" groaned one.
"Wh-…who……a," gasped the other. The laboured breaths then stopped and the bodies of the two cloaked men disappeared, along with their cloaks.
Tifa stepped forward toward the barrier. As she approached the wind picked up, blowing her dark hair around her face. The young fighter stared into the wind. The wind blew in regular waves, picking up and then slowing again to almost nothing. When the wind was quiet she could see the path on the other side, heading for the crater. Curious, she picked up a loose stone from the ground and hurled it at the barrier when the wind was low. As she predicted, the stone passed straight through. Turning back to the others, she explained her theory.
"We need to cross when the wind is calm, or we'll get swept off!" she warned them.
Following Tifa's advice, the group gathered together at the edge of the mako wall. The wind had picked up again and was blowing swiftly across the path. They could feel the heat of the mako as it blew past them. After a minute or so the wind began to die down. When it fell silent, the group charged across the path. They made it just in time, for the moment they passed through the wind immediately picked up again.
"What WAS that…?" asked Barret, stopping to look back at the wind barrier as it blocked the path. The wind died down a few seconds after they passed through, returning to a calm breeze. It surprised them how fast the wind changed when they approached, as though the wall knew someone was trying to break its barriers.
"A shield…" said Cloud, gazing up at the mako wall. "The Planet is trying to protect itself against those who would try to break through and harm it. Like Sephiroth." The ex-SOLDIER took a few steps away from the mako wall and looked up at the crater. It was no use. He could not see the Shinra airship anywhere. Shaking his head, he turned back to his friends. "Let's hurry," he said. "We haven't much time."
They continued down the path. As they reached the end of the path they were on and jumped down onto the next one, they were met with a most astounding sight.
There were figures marching steadily up the path. Nearly a hundred men, they figured, though it was impossible to be sure. All of them were dressed in the long black robes of the men they had seen on the mountain cliff, the Temple of the Ancients, and in Nibelheim.
In the Gold Saucer they had thought there to be only thirteen of them, Red XIII presumably the last of them, but now they saw that they had been horribly, horribly wrong. The figures filled the entire path, which stretched up into the distance toward the second barrier of the mako wall.
Cloud and the others began to make their way through the throng of men. The men were moving slowly, tottering on their legs as though they were barely aware that they were walking. They were careful not to touch the men if possible, afraid of catching whatever it was that was making them like they were. The men were muttering to themselves as they walked. Murmurs of 'Sephiroth', 'Reunion', and 'Jenova', could be heard from every direction. Some of the men collapsed as they walked, while others lost all sense of direction and walked off the edge of the path. No one tried to help them, no one tried to stop them. Not a single one of the cloaked men even noticed those standing beside them, so focused they were on making it across the path.
By the time Cloud's team reached the second barrier, the number of black-caped men strolling up the path had nearly halved. The exertion of their journey from wherever they had started had taken its toll on the majority of them and they died on the spot with Sephiroth's name on their lips.
The next mako wall they reached was more difficult to pass than the first one. This second wall not only had a barrier of wind, but also a pulse of mako energy that shot across the path in irregular bursts. It appeared at erratic intervals, appearing when the wind was blowing and when it was calm. It took precise timing in order to pass through the wall unharmed. They eventually managed it, and ran on.
They had to climb up a rocky wall to reach the next path, which rose a good few feet above the previous path. They climbed up the wall and walked through a haze of mako, they suddenly came to a stop.
Sephiroth was on the path before them. The large soldier stood with his back to the group, facing two more of the black-caped men who had somehow made it through the second barrier. Sephiroth had his sword in his hands, stained with red blood. As they drew near they could hear Sephiroth speaking to the two men, his voice carrying above the roar of the mako walls around them.
"This is the end…" Sephiroth was saying to the two black-robed men. "For all of you."
In a single swift movement, Sephiroth raised his masamune and slashed it in front of him. A second later the two robed men fell back away from him and tumbled over the edge of the path. Their robed bodies fluttered down and splashed into the sea of glowing mako below. They did not even cry out in pain. Sephiroth lowered his sword. Fresh blood dripped off the shiny edge of his sword's blade.
"Sephiroth!!!" Sephiroth turned his head slightly. Cloud ran up and stopped behind him, his hand around the handle of his Buster Sword. But the soldier did not turn. Cloud, growling deep in his throat, stepped closer. "This is the end!"
Sephiroth turned to look at Cloud. His glowing mako eyes glared at Cloud with a knowing malevolence, and the beginnings of a sneer tugged at the corner of his mouth. When he spoke it was with the softness and care of a loving parent, but carried with it a restrained sense of malice.
"You're right," said Sephiroth. He looked down at his gloved hand, smiling as he gazed upon the leather that covered his flesh. When he clenched his hand into a fist, the thick leather creaked. "This is the end of this body's usefulness."
Without warning a wave of dark light suddenly swept over Sephiroth's body, moving from the feet up and casting a dark shadow over the soldier's leather-clad form. His silver hair turned black. White armour became shrouded in shadow. Pale skin was enveloped in darkness.
The last to change was Sephiroth's eyes, which continued to glow even as the darkness covered his face until they too vanished in the gloom. Then, in the blink of an eye, Sephiroth suddenly vanished. It was so sudden that it startled the group, who were not prepared for this sudden act. Cloud ran forward to where Sephiroth had stood. There was no trace of the soldier anywhere. He had completely vanished.
"He disappeared!" exclaimed Cloud in disbelief.
"He might still be nearby……" said Tifa, coming to stand near Cloud.
The eight companions stood still and glanced around the path. The air around them seemed to dim and darken, as though after two millennia night had finally pierced through the sea of mako and reached the ground. They looked up and down, and left and right, and then up and down again. But Sephiroth was nowhere to be seen.
Then, a voice began to speak out from the shadowy depths, making the group jump. At first they thought it was Sephiroth's voice, but they soon realised that it wasn't. The voice spoke smoothly and eerily, whispering like a spirit in their ears.
Our purpose is to deliver the Black Materia to our master.
Cloud looked up in surprise. The voice seemed to come from all around him, as well as inside him. It spoke in his head, in his heart, and in the very air.
"Our…?"
Those who carry Jenova's cells…Another voice had spoken, different to the first one. But it still was not Sephiroth.
"Master…!?"
More voices were joining in. Now there were a multitude of different voices, laughing and joking mockingly from their hiding places… wherever they were.
Of course… Sephiroth. Heh, heh, heh…Suddenly, from above them, Sephiroth appeared. His masamune was in his left hand, its blade seeming to glow and glint in the green light of the mako. He hovered above the group, unseen, before he suddenly swept down at them. Before anyone had time to look up, Sephiroth struck. He swung his sword, striking everyone with the flat of his blade in a single movement. Everyone instantly fell to their knees, shocked and stunned.
Struggling and shaking, Cloud climbed to his feet. Sephiroth stood before him, his arms spread wide, not facing him. In his right hand he clutched a piece of Jenova's mutilated body. Blood dripped down the pinkish skin and onto the floor. Sephiroth turned to face Cloud, and rapidly swung his sword. Cloud did not move, even as the blade stopped mere inches from his stomach. Sephiroth smiled wickedly. Then he lowered his sword and flung Jenova's flesh forward.
The marred flesh landed at Cloud's feet. Cloud watched as it flopped about on the gravely floor, his face twisted in disgust. When he looked up Sephiroth was gone, the only sign of his presence being a small, fading wisp of cloud.
Turning his attention back to Jenova's flesh, Cloud slowly drew his Organics sword. He steadied the unusually designed blade of the sword over the flesh, preparing to strike and kill it before it had a chance to form into Jenova. But something halted his hand and made him wait. Then, as regular as clockwork, the flesh began to convulse and bubble, expand and stretch, forming into the familiar figure that was Jenova.
But this Jenova was different. The pinkish flesh had been drained of colour, leaving it a frightening, deathly black. The sight of this new form took the others by surprise, causing Yuffie to scream and Cid to drop his spear onto the ground. Everyone backed up, alarmingly afraid.
Only Cloud remained where he was, his sword still steady in his hands. He raised his eyes slowly up to look at Jenova. Then he pulled his sword back and lunged.
Emerald: I rewrote the ending to this chapter to make it better, and I think you'll all agree that this works better. Thanks to those who offered me links to the FMVs I needed—I really appreciate it! I found the FMVs myself after much searching, but it's so nice that some of you took the time to help me out!