CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: GETTING OFF SECOND GEAR

Fenrir purred expectantly, waiting for its rider's next command. But it was only given a very simple order – to go to sleep. One turn of the key, and the monstrous motorcycle drew its last heavy breath.

Cloud removed his goggles, putting them on the handlebars. Another morning, another delivery completed. The greatest hero of the Jenova War had now become a humble postman. But even heroes needed to have a day job when they weren't out saving the Planet. Tifa had rebuilt her Final Heaven pub. He had set up Strife Delivery Services, a little security and transport company.

He stepped into Elmyra's house, leaving his boots at the doorstep. With the exception of Vincent, who had left for Nibelheim, and Cait, who was on a "secret mission" of his own, everyone else from AVALANCHE was here. They were supposed to have gone their separate ways a week ago, but then the Turks had come. They had stayed behind afterwards to repair the house (even Yuffie, who admittedly had to be press – ganged into service), and within a few days, the house was as good as new.

Tifa and Aerith were in the kitchen, preparing lunch. Barret was upstairs, carrying out some renovation works. Cid was in the hall, reading the papers, adding to the mountain of cigarette butts in the ashtray, and Red was just, well, sleeping away. Yuffie had left the house early this morning, supposedly to try out her skills on some unsuspecting Kalm Fangs, but more likely, to cause the equally unsuspecting shopkeepers a lot of grief.

Life had returned to normal. At least, for a little while. But this couldn't last for very long. Shinra was still in business, and sooner or later, it would have to be stopped. But right now, all he wanted to have was a beer.

Cloud was quickly greeted by the delightful smell of battered chicken frying away in the pan. But they would not be eating meat this time, not when Aerith was in charge of the cooking. A vegetarian would have no qualms about eating anything she prepared. But at the same time, even an obligatory carnivore would be hard – pressed to tell that what he was eating was not the real thing. She could work wonders with seitan or gluten meat like no other.

Tifa was waiting for him at the kitchen doorway, dangling a can of Zolom before him. "Looking for this, Cloud?" She tossed the beer to him.

"You bet it." He pulled off the ring and swallowed a mouthful of the bitter brew. "I never knew that repairing ATMs was part of my job description. Wasn't I just supposed to deliver the cash boxes?"

The pub owner grinned. "We're superheroes, remember? We're supposed to be capable of doing anything and everything. So what did you do in the end?"

"I just gave it a good kick. Cid always does that whenever he can't fix something. And guess what, that machine actually started working again."

The new couple's work – related conversation was interrupted by a long, hard knock on the door.

"Leave the cooking to me, Aerith. I can't let you get away with doing all the work!" Tifa told her, "Oh, and if it's the Turks, tell them that they're finally starting to learn some manners."

Tifa need not have worried. There were no blue – suited spies waiting at the door, but just a tall, fair – haired boy.

"Morning, Denzel! How are you today?"

"Right now, I'm thinking of getting a new job. Passed a message to a really creepy guy living at the inn. I just said hello to him, and he looked at me as if he was gonna eat me for breakfast. I'm not getting enough hazard pay!" the boy complained.

Aerith smiled. "Oh! He's Sephiroth, and he's harmless. He just looks at everybody like that, but he doesn't really mean it."

"Anyway, is Marlene back yet? I wanna show her a few funky moves I learnt!" Denzel showed her a skateboard called the Twilight Town Grinder. Besides being a source of endless fun for children and teenagers, and an endless source of annoyance to adults and the elderly, the skateboard also served as an efficient and convenient method of conveyance in large urban areas, allowing delivery boys like him to send out all of their letters and parcels in record time, racking up the gil swiftly.

The Ancient looked at the grandfather clock in the hall. "She'll be quite late today, since she has a few things to do after school, so why not have lunch with us in the meantime?"

Denzel rested his chin on the skateboard, considering her suggestion. "Nah, I think I'll paste a few posters while waiting for her. There's going to be a really cool event called "the Struggle", and I'm the one who's going to put up all the ads! Why don't you take part? We're tired of seeing the same old guys beating each other up!"

The flower girl laughed. "I'm not very good at games. Gardening's a much more relaxing hobby. Hmmm… hang on a second, will you?" She headed into the kitchen, reappearing shortly with a round container in her hands. "A little something just in case you get hungry along the way."

The boy cracked open the lid, and his eyes went wide as he saw what was inside the lunchbox. "Wow! Thanks, Aerith! That'll make my day!" He tucked the package into his satchel and hopped onto the skateboard. "See ya later, Aerith!" With a flick of his foot, he was gone.

Aerith closed the door. At that moment, Cid snorted, spitting out the remains of his latest cigarette, adding a fiery, smoking peak to the ever – growing mountain of ash. The source of his indignation screamed in bold black print, "Heidegger and Scarlet found guilty of crimes against humanity, to get life without parole."

"Hmph! Too bad they don't execute people anymore, like the bad ol' days! Let's see if these #+/& will still say "Gya ha ha" or "Kya ha ha" when they meet a Dueling Griffon face to face!"

Aerith frowned, emptying the contents of the ashtray, defusing the man – made crisis before it threatened to overflow and cover the entire coffee table with hot, impotent ash. "I think it's better that way. No one ever deserves to die, Cid, no matter what they've done in the past."

Cid snorted, crushing his newspaper and tossing it away. "Oh, I knew you'd say that! Yeah, why don't we forget that these &#!? killed thousands of people and ruined even more lives? And while we're at it, why don't we tell these guys that they can do what they $λ≠ want, and we'll just toss them into the slammer when they're done, rather than giving them some real punishment?"

"Cid, don't you think there's been enough suffering in this world already? If we want all these terrible things to end, we should start treating everyone else a little better – even those whom we really don't like. Killing them won't make our lives any easier to bear, forgiving them will."

The airship pilot gave the Cetra a hard look. "You're saying all that just because you like that genocidal maniac, and you don't want us to #!)¶ him, right? You're too nice for your own good, girl. If I were you, I'd take that rod of yours, and stick it high up his ¥ tailpipe!"

Aerith shook her head in denial. "We're not an item, so don't get any ideas! He's trying very hard to be a good guy now, why not give him a break?" But the slightest hint of colour had crept into her cheeks. "Well, I'll talk to you later about this. I've got to get back to the cooking." The girl hurried back into the kitchen.

It was not long before lunch was ready. Cid gave Red a kick in the rump, while Barret lumbered down the stairs with a grunt. Attached to the large man's arm socket was a huge array of tools, from a circular saw to a power drill, and even a welding iron. He pushed a button, detaching his toolkit – arm and replacing it with an artificial hand more suitable for grasping a fork or spoon.

Tifa and Aerith placed several huge bowls on the dining table. Wutaian food was on the menu today – chicken katsu don! Everyone quickly took their places, so green were the peas, so fresh was the egg, so sweet was the short – grained rice, so light and crispy were the (mock) chicken cutlets. Everyone immediately started tucking in, except for the Ancient, who picked up the telephone, dialing a number.

The front door suddenly slammed open. Yuffie had returned, holding a large metal chest under one arm, grinning from ear to ear. Clearly, she had been up to no good again. "Hey! How come no one told me that lunch was ready?"

"You're just in time," Aerith reassured her, "In fact, I was just about to call you." However, the princess had already forgotten that perceived slight, rushing to the table, preparing to make short work of her meal.

Today's lunchtime conversation centered around one of their absent friends.

"Too bad Reeve can't eat with us more often," Tifa noted, "We don't even see much of Cait Sith nowadays."

"There's not much we can do, I'm afraid," Red replied, "Ruling half the world isn't easy. But I wonder if he's taking his responsibilities too seriously. He spends virtually all of his waking hours in the office."

Reeve, formerly a Shinra director, had been recently elected as Commissioner of the World Regenesis Organisation, a new democratic government set up to replace the power vacuum caused by Shinra's destruction. Now, he was entrusted with the task of managing the numerous towns and cities under the WRO's protection, while trying to develop an ecologically – friendly solution to Mako power. Nowadays, whenever he spoke with his former comrades, it was strictly about business.

"That's why I said 'no' when Reeve asked me to become mayor of Nibelheim," Cloud added, "I like the carefree life a little bit too much. Besides, I have too many bad memories of that place. But your job doesn't seem too hard, Cid."

"You're kidding me, right? Running a town and being admiral of the fleet ain't like dusting crops, kid! I wonder how that guy can deal with all that #(! everyday!" Cid lit up yet another Malboro cigarette, eager to distract himself from thoughts about his working life.

And what was happening across the table? Apart from Aerith, no one would willingly sit with Yuffie when it came to mealtimes; even after years of being schooled by the greatest masters in the fine art of deportment and the subtler points of being a proper Wutaian woman, everybody agreed that her table manners were unbecoming of a descendent of a great and ancient house. She did not gobble her food like a barbarian, nor did she fool around with her cutlery or make loud noises when eating; but her behaviour at the dining table was just as reprehensible as her kleptomaniac habits.

One of Aerith's peas rolled away from her bowl, but it was not fated to travel very far; the wayward vegetable soon found that its great little escape was doomed to failure, and it was promptly speared on a fork and sent to its final destination. A little piece of egg quivered in protest as it was deported from its rightful place, transferred to an unfamiliar region, across the wide, checkered expanse of the dining table.

"Ah, yes… fullness!" Yuffie sighed contentedly, leaning back in her chair. Aerith merely smiled. She never had any leftovers whenever Yuffie dined with her.

Cloud suddenly heard a familiar tune begin to play… it was the same song Tifa used to play on the piano when she was younger, and it was in the sheet music for this melody that Zangan, her former martial arts instructor, had hidden a secret manual that had taught her the Final Heaven limit break. But Tifa was not on the piano this time. A persistent tingling in his pocket alerted him to the source of the music. It was his PHS, and it was playing a preset ring tone to alert its owner to an incoming call.

This PHS was a very new model, called the FOMA P900iv. Unlike the older phones he had previously used, this was not a brick with buttons on it, but a sleek black and silver gadget tiny enough to fit into a child's hand.

Taking the still - vibrating mobile phone out of his pocket, he flipped it open to answer the call, and was surprised to see the name of the caller on the LCD display. Holding the PHS to his ear, he listened intently for several minutes while the others looked on, and they did not fail to notice that as the call went on, he had begun to square his shoulders and narrow his eyes, staring very hard into the distance.

He rotated the clamshell lid on its hinge, until the display screen lay on its side for easy viewing. Whoever had called him had sent him a video recording, and now he was playing it back on the PHS. Another minute went by with the caller's voice speaking softly to Cloud.

"I think everyone should look at this," he finally announced. Now he had to connect the phone to the TV, so that he could play the MMS he had received. But how was he supposed to do it? He began to look around the cabinets, hoping to find the dark corner to which he had banished the box and the instruction manual for his phone. But all he found were some scuttling spiders, distraught at their hiding place being discovered. Everyone else had moved to the living room, leaving their empty bowls behind. They were all waiting for him. The mercenary groaned inwardly. Performing an Omnislash was easier than rigging that phone up on the television.

Cid clucked his tongue somewhat condescendingly, and started to explain how to connect the device. With every word he spoke, the living room became more and more polluted with inky puffs of second – hand smoke.

"Pah! What's the ₤+($ problem? If you don't know jack shit about connecting these &(# things, leave it to the professionals! This one goes here, and that one goes there! Even that #(§ little pest can do it, ya know!"

"Hey!! Listen here, old freak, I'm not a '#(§ pest'! I'm Yuffie Kisaragi, the greatest ninja of all time, the White Rose of Wutai, descended from none other than Rikku the Dancing Queen!"

Reeve had given the new PHS to him only very recently, and Cloud had not quite completely understood all of its functions. But he was lagging quite far behind already; the younger Yuffie knew practically everything about that phone by heart, and Cid (who had (finally) married a rocket scientist) took immense pleasure in pointing out his lack of savvy when it came to new technology.

Despite the heated exchange between Yuffie and the ageing pilot, Cloud managed to hook up his 3G phone to the telly. MMS was still a rather new thing, and the video they saw on the small screen was grainy and somewhat pixilated, but it was clear enough for them to notice what was going on.

"Cloud, the situation's gotten worse since I left town. More people have gone missing at Mount Nibel. Everyone in Nibelheim is getting nervous. They're barricading themselves in their houses.

"Only one person managed to survive those attacks. Before he died, he told me that some grey – skinned humans ambushed him. They were tall and thin, with long claws – just like the Mako monsters you described to me.

"Those creatures didn't just manage to escape from the reactor core – they were set free, probably by the same people who restarted that reactor."

As he spoke, they could see him looking away from time to time, as if he was worried about being ambushed in the middle of his monologue.

"I saw a man in the foothills about an hour ago. He was with a group of the Mako monsters, and they appeared to be taking instructions from him. That man had silver hair, and he was dressed in a black cloak. I believe he was a Sephiroth-clone, one who survived the Reunion.

"I'm going to enter the reactor right now and see if I can find him. I have a very bad feeling about this –"

The camera suddenly panned upwards, letting its audience have a good view of the gray, cloudy sky. The speakers trembled as a loud braying noise echoed throughout the room, followed by the thunderous bark of Cerberus. A large clawed foot filled the screen, and there was nothing left but static…

But the static quickly resolved itself into the face of a careworn, middle-aged man dressed in a blue trench coat, sporting a tiny goatee.

"Cloud, are you there?"

"Right here, Reeve."

The WRO commissioner heaved a sigh of relief. "As you might've guessed, something's happened to Vincent. It's been two days since he left for the Nibel reactor, and we're getting really worried. Bigieu sent out a search party a few hours ago, and they found a lot of dead Mako monsters, and Vincent's phone… but no trace of him."

"Vincent? I don't think those creatures would've gotten the better of him. But that silver – haired man sounds suspicious. Another Sephiroth – clone…" Cloud frowned.

"Well, I'll need your help on this one, Cloud. Right now, I've got my plate full. What's happening at Nibelheim isn't an isolated incident. I've gotten reports of people vanishing from Midgar, the Edge and even Junon. Some of them later turned up dead, and there wasn't anything recognisable left of them. It's all I can do to prevent a mass panic from breaking out."

"Fine. I guess I'll have to go back to my old stomping grounds and dig him up again. Time for a little traveling."

"Yo, mush! Aren't ya forgetting somethin'?" Barret interjected, shaking his metal fist at the TV. "Don't forget my Marlene and the little ol' lady here! You want 'em to get mauled like the others?"

"Don't worry, Barret, I'll be sending two companies over to make sure that nothing like that happens. Just get over there and see if Vincent's all right."

"These little boys n' girls of yours? They'd piss their pants and cry for mama if they even see a fraggin' Shinra guard dancin' in the buff!"

Cloud looked at the house, reminded by the fresh paint and shiny new marble tiles of the carnage that had recently occurred. "All right then. Barret, you can stay put. Kalm will need you if anything happens, and I wouldn't be surprised if Shinra comes back here. The rest of us will go to Nibelheim." Seeing nods of approval from everyone else, he turned back to the television.

"It's settled, then. Reeve, thanks for the heads up."

"Will do, Cloud. Keep in touch." The image of the WRO commissioner disappeared, replaced by the FOMA's digital display, showing everybody Cloud's new mobile phone wallpaper – a portrait of the legendary guardian spirit Fenrir.

"Get the Highwind ready, Cid. We've got a quest to begin."

"What the $ + do you mean, get the Highwind ready? The Highwind's ALWAYS ready!" Cid thundered.

"OK, everybody, get packing! Meet up at the Highwind at seven." He watched Cid, Red and Yuffie leave the house, while Barret went upstairs to continue his repair works. He then noticed that someone had disappeared... yet again.

"Where's Aerith?"

"Gone to get a friend of hers. She said we'd need his help," Tifa replied, looking as if she'd just sucked a lemon dry.

"A friend, huh? Not that friend, I hope." Cloud gave her an equally sour look.

All paths led to Midgar. All roads stemmed from Midgar. Dark, gloomy, seedy, the megalopolis had been one giant monument to the mechanical age, a reminder of an industrial revolution that had traded its vigour for stagnation. Meteor had come, and laid waste to Midgar. A new age had just started. The old days had come back. This was an age where man would return to live with the Planet, where machines, or to use the ancient term machina, would once more be mastered by man rather than be his master. The leaf had been turned over to a more chthonic age.

Despite all that had happened, this former megalopolis had never ceased to attract visitors, savoury or otherwise, even in more modern times, even today, never mind the unceasing rain which had turned the remnants of the city into a toxic muddy metallic soup. After all, Midgar was the place where all journeys started, the place where dreams came alive. Every epic and heroic adventure always involved this city in one way or another.

Now, someone had returned to the unholy city, driven by his own quest. He was heading to the heart of the dead beast, the Babel that had been the Shinra Electric Power Company's headquarters. What he sought resided not in any of the sixty – odd stories of this edifice of hubris, but deep below the deadened land, in a forgotten part of the Planet, populated by the wretched of the earth, those whom the world had been so quick to bury.

He entered the Shinra building from the front, through the only entrance that was still open. The doors, made from exotic hardwoods, fitted with gold and platinum decorations, had been stripped away long ago by men who desperately needed money. The once opulent reception hall, with its velvet – upholstered chairs and plasma projection screens trumpeting Shinra's ever – increasing profit margins, and the showrooms which displayed the company's latest makes of Mako – powered cars and motorcycles, had long been looted clean, replaced with cigarette butts, discarded syringes, rotting food and human waste.

He strode quickly through the hall, the vagrants who sought refuge in the ruins running from him like terrified rats. At least the lifts on the mezzanine floor were still working. Amazingly enough, they could still go up, but not to the top stories, which had been destroyed by Diamond Weapon. But they could also go down… if you used the proper key.

The journey itself took a full ten minutes, as the lift plummeted thousands of feet, past the Upper Plate, past the slums, and finally, through layers and layers of rock and reinforced concrete, towards what even the Shinra directors would not dare to discuss save with hushed whispers. Towards the MD Level. Not even the former President knew this little shortcut. He too had to use a series of cargo lifts, enter a converted train station, and pass through a deserted sector of the undercity before being able to access this floor.

With a satisfying chime, and the failing of the flickering light, the lift doors opened up into deep space. However, the monotony of darkness was quickly broken by a constellation of angry red pyreflies, covering every part of the visitor's body, as if a great plague had suddenly afflicted him. Granted, this phenomenon was anything but naturally occurring, but it meant that he was just a few steps away from the full realisation of his very existence.

"I come to cleanse this land."

The pyreflies, hearing the passphrase, disappeared one by one, leaving him alone to the darkness once more… that was, until the lights came on.

"Hail Weiss!"

An officer, dressed in a gray cloak, spoke for the assembled men. "Welcome back, commander. Deepground Company Ohka awaiting orders." The DG troopers shouldered their weapons, and as one, saluted the visitor.

A crooked, wolfish grin crept up the visitor's face. "Bring me to the DTD!" he commanded. The officer bowed. Weiss had instructed all of them to obey every command from this man as if he himself had ordered it. And whatever Weiss ordered, they would follow without question.

The officer led him down passageway after passageway, each made of the same darkened metal panels, wide enough only for two small men to walk abreast, lit only by a series of tiny bulbs turned to their dimmest settings. Several shadows seemed to glide past them, recognizable only as human from the luminous blue stripes on their armour. It was not long, however, before they reached the end of the tunnel complex.

He stood before the threshold of nirvana, the gateway to ascension. This door had no handle. This door had no keyhole. It was the door to darkness. How would he open this strange door? Only a special key could open it. His heart alone would unlock its secrets. And once this door was opened, that which lay within would never be sealed away again…

"Memory of Xehanort."

Once more the visitor stared into the void itself. He had sought the darkness, and he had descended into it. He had been there for goodness knows how long, with no reason nor rhyme for his wanderings. But he had seen his light on the far side, and he had had resolved to seek out the dawn, to find the core of the worlds which constituted his universe, his heart of hearts.

This room had been Hojo's private vault, a secret place that no one, not even he, the Professor's protégé, the magician's nephew, had known of. Indeed, if not for the scientist's assimilation with Jenova's consciousness, this place would have remained a secret for all time.

He looked at the stacks of arch files strewn all over the floor. These were the true records of all of Hojo's experiments with the Jenova cells. Sephiroth, Cloud, Zack, and a slew of other people, including the visitor himself – their files were all there. The copies kept in the Science Department network, and in the President's safe, were nothing but clever forgeries.

The visitor went towards a large freezer, which had faithfully thrummed away all this time. He opened the lid, and with his bare hands, removed a tiny phial stored within its chilly recesses. This had been the end result of the Star Scar Project – a biological weapon composed of Jenova cells, a lesser version of the great plague that had brought the Cetra low millennia ago. However, things had changed. Geostigma, potent as it was, would no longer be needed.

Replacing the phial, he looked around the large room once more. In a bell jar was a disembodied arm, cut off just below the elbow, immersed in slimy – looking preservative fluid. A sticky note with a rather quirky message was attached to the jar. "I hope you don't mind me making some… special modifications to your award-winning experiment! Hahahahahahaha!"

On the floor was a finely – woven carpet, a warm chestnut brown in colour, incredibly soft to the touch. He flipped the carpet over, finding another sticky note. "Such a pity! I was looking forward to many more happy years with you and your little hybrid!"

All these little curiosities were no doubt fascinating and worth studying in greater detail, but what he was searching for was nowhere to be found. After all, Hojo was ever-paranoid, forever worried about someone else stealing his precious research. He wouldn't have made things easy for his rivals.

But Hojo had surpassed himself this time. Most people would have expected his greatest treasure placed inside the eye of a needle, concealed within an egg, secreted within a duck, which was inside a hare's belly, the hare being locked in an iron chest, buried at the foot of a great tree on the Island Closest to Hell.

However, the mad scientist had simply hidden it in plain sight – in a large cardboard shipping box marked "Test Tubes". The visitor almost ripped open the box, hurriedly pulling out handfuls of styrofoam peanuts and plastic bubble wrap, throwing aside the racks of test tubes inside, until he came across a briefcase made of silvered metal.

Like the door, the container had no latches and no locks. Like the door, it was password-protected. But he knew the password. Hojo had always prided himself for being an inscrutable keeper of secrets, learning everything, giving nothing in return, speaking in riddles, every word meant to mislead his rivals. But he had given up the knowledge that he had most jealously guarded, the things that mattered the most to him, and in such a straightforward manner too.

Hojo had adamantly refused to share any of his secrets with him. Now he knew everything the dead man knew, thanks to just a few words spoken into the mad scientist's ear, and one simple injection. What irony.

"Birth by sleep."

The briefcase clicked open, and blinding light flooded the visitor's face. He put on a pair of gloves, gently removing a black box from the briefcase, careful not to do it the slightest violence. His anxious eyes ran many times over the yellow tape seals that secured it, until he was absolutely confident that his treasure was intact. He crooned at it, stroking it tenderly. A florescent tear streaked down its cold, shining surface.

"Mother! Mother! Oh! Oh, oh…oh…!"

He had found his light at last. His heart. He was an empty shell no longer. Now he would be a complete being.

It was many hours later before the cloaked figure departed the Shinra building, riding a black – armoured motorcycle, one hand on the handlebars, the other holding the black box close to his heart.

However, the visitor's departure had not gone unnoticed. From the waist – deep swamp rose a man in a drysuit, a pair of field glasses in hand. Stepping onto an island of twisted girders and concrete slabs, he unzipped his drysuit, careful not to let any of the murky water splatter onto his black designer jacket and dragon leather shoes. He began to comb and gel his hair, making sure it fell over his shoulders in just the right way. As he finished grooming himself, the scenery behind him seemed to shimmer slightly, before suddenly turning opaque, revealing a shadowy mechanical beast. No sooner had he disappeared into its belly, did it become one with the concrete jungle again. With no more noise than the whirring of a hummingbird's wings, the Tiamat, the newest and most stylish of attack helicopters, was gone.

It was time for him to come back from the dead too.

Author's Notes:

How long has it been since the last update? My last update was 10 Mar 04. A lot of things have happened in the FFVII universe since then. I lost interest in this work for quite a few years, and was never really motivated into continuing things until lately. But for those of you who've read my stuff from the beginning, thank you for your faith ). I hope you like this chapter. It's been a very long time coming!