A/N: I'm stopping changing Aerith's name to Aeris from now on. I got tired of doing it, and it was her original name anyway, so if you have a problem, eat my shorts. ;p Clorith: Did I forget to write abot Cloud offering to take her up on the Highwind? Whaaat! Noooo! That was such a fave of mine! I'm sure I must've put it in this story somewhere... Oh well... /cries/
Thanks for all the reviews and the faves so far! You guys rock my socks off! Literally! Muah! -Ludi x
-oOo-
: Chapter Three : Costa del Sol
The New Continent greeted them as the Shinra boat docked in the bay of Costa del Sol. A tropical resort, it seemed that this would be the perfect place Rufus to spend his first days as President. However, this was not to be the case.
As Cloud and the others got off the boat they had to hide quickly in order to remain unseen by the President. It was easy to execute this. There were plenty of holidaymakers lazing about the port, and they had all gathered round to peek at Rufus' arrival. Rufus himself did not seem too pleased. His trip had been an entire disaster: Sephiroth had killed his men, and apparently AVALANCHE had been on board too. Cursing at a simpering Heidigger, he demanded that all these problems be rectified immediately.
"You are serving me now, not my father!" he reminded the bumptious Head of Public Safety Maintenance. "And I want you to sort out those rebels and Sephiroth at once!"
"Yes, sir. Of course. Yes..."
Rufus looked irritated as his helicopter landed to pick him up.
"Is that all you can do, give me one-word answers and fawn over me? Get out there and do your work!" He climbed into the helicopter. "I shall be over-seeing the Mount Corel Mako Reactor. Make sure you have some results by then."
Heidigger called after him eagerly as he flew away.
"Yes, sir, at once sir..." The whirr of the wings, however drowned out his words and he turned on some of the tourists beside him, shaking his fists at his fall from favour.
After this little by-play, after which Heidigger disappeared off to sulk, Cloud and the others could finally relax.
"Ah, sun, sea, sand," Tifa sighed. "What more could I want?"
"The other thing you forgot?" Barret joked slyly, digging Cloud in the ribs with his elbow. Cloud pushed him away and rubbed his stomach.
"Just 'cos you're getting none, Babs," he shot back sarcastically.
"What the hell's got into you?" Barret retorted defensively. "Here we are, in the middle of Sun City, and you're actually moanin'?"
"By the way," Aerith cut in, "where did you put that sailor suit you stole Barret?"
"I've still got it. Why?"
"Aah, you looked so cute in it!" Tifa chimed in. "Why don't you put it on again?"
Barret looked like he was on the edge of a temper tantrum.
"What the f -? Would you girls quitscrewin' around!"
"They're not screwing with you Barret," Cloud replied sardonically. "You looked exactly like a bear in a marshmallow suit."
Barret exploded.
"Yeah, that's right, laugh at the big man! Y'all just a bunch o' kids wastin' my time! Screw you guys, I'm leavin'!."
He stormed off into the Costa del Sol town, leaving the others behind him. Tifa shrugged.
"Well, I'm going to find the beach and do a spot of sunbathing. You coming, Aerith?"
Aerith shook her head.
"I think I'll pass this one up, Tifa. I'm feeling really tired. I think I'll find an inn."
"All right." Tifa turned to Cloud. "Are you coming?"
"No. I think I'll go and wander round the stores for a while," he replied.
Red shook himself.
"This heat is really getting to me," he growled. "I'm going off to find a shady spot and cool off."
They all parted to go on their various excursions. Cloud wandered into town and looked around him leisurely. Costa del Sol was an extremely beautiful place. Palm trees lined the golden cobble-stoned streets, and the white buildings were illuminated in the glittering sunlight. In the distance, the heat waves could be seen rising from the ground in blurry weaves. Every so often, groups of sun-tanned tourists would sidle past, dressed in bright, cool colours, shifting through the town like tropical flowers. The sky above was a complete and pure ultramarine. Shreds of almost indistinct cloud drifted torpidly across the great expanse of glossy sky. Cloud breathed in in quiet contentment. After all that travelling, this was definitely a welcome reward. He strolled through the air-conditioned shops and cafes, and with the money he had earned from back in Junon, he managed to buy a few items of armour and potions for further use. Then he decided to find the inn, and perhaps the others also.
It was not long before he neared the inn. Beside it was a large, impressive looking building with a spacious polished wooden porch. No one appeared to be inside it, though many visitors were eagerly taking pictures of it with their cameras. Shaking his head in bemusement, he entered the inn.
It seemed that Aerith had already booked everyone into a room, so he walked up to the top floor and into the bedroom. Aerith was lying on the nearest bed, gazing out of the uncurtained window at the row of blue that was the morning sky. Cloud sat down on the bed next to hers and spread out the items he'd bought on to the duvet.
"Any sign of Barret?" he asked her, wiping sweat from his forehead.
"Oh, he's in the bathroom, trying on that sailor suit. He told me not to tell anyone. Oh well."
Cloud examined one of the bottles of potion closely.
"Do you think this stuff is as good as your magic?" he asked her. She turned her head to face him.
"You know, I'm really not sure. You see, sometimes my powers come easily to me. Other times they don't."
"Aerith, I still can't believe what you did back there on that ship."
"Why?"
Cloud shrugged.
"I guess it's because of this screwed up world we live in."
She looked confused.
"What do you mean?"
Cloud shifted his elbows on to his knees and knotted his hands together.
"Everything now is so advanced, so technological. And yet, everyone still uses magic.It's not because magic is something that we love and respect. It's because it's a necessity. It's a necessity because it generates money and benefits the higher-ups. The sad thing about it is, we don't have any real understanding of what magic and Mako really is. It's as Sephiroth said back in Nibelheim: we've lost the ability to use it, and we have to resort to artificial manufacturing of the stuff. And yet there are still people - you and Sephiroth - who are capable of all these things that us ordinary people lost long ago. It's as though...you're a remnant from the past."
She laughed lightly.
"Believe me, I'm not that old. I'm only twenty-two." Her voice turned more despondent. "Cloud, I've been thinking...maybe I should do what Sephiroth told me to do and forget that I'm an Ancient."
He stared at her in alarm.
"Why!"
She sat up slowly and smoothed her loose hair back thoughtfully.
"I don't know. I think...I'm afraid of what I am. But it's impossible for me to forget. My mother always reminds me." She looked out of the window and closed her eyes, then opened them again. "I've always wanted to be normal, in a way. But what's always stopped me was my fear of being the last. But I'm not."
Cloud swallowed hard.
"Listen Aerith, you are the last." She looked at him inquiringly and hehastened to explain."Sephiroth, he's insane. What he wants is to rule this Planet. His visions of grandeur have blinded the true purpose of his being. There is no way he'll fulfill the real aspirations of the Cetra. Therefore..." He shrugged his shoulders. "You're the last one to make sure the Cetra complete the mission."
As she listened to his words a smile appeared on her face and she seemed suddenly enlightened.
"Cloud, you're right!" she looked out of the window again. "I must do this, for the sake of my ancestors. I must seek what they sought, even if it kills me!"
At that moment the door was flung open and Barret stumbled inside.
"God, it's hot here, isn't it," he complained.
"Hey, Barret," Cloud began jeeringly. "I thought moaning wasn't for 'Sun City'."
Barret shot him an evil glance.
"Oh, don't you start again Mr. Cloud-boy."
"Why, didn't your little sailor boy outfit fit you?" Cloud returned, unable to resist taunting him.
Barret looked as if he were about to burst for a split second, and then he simply just clamped his mouth shut and sat down heavily on a bed.
"I oughtta pump yah fulla lead, you know," he uttered vindictively. "Sometimes you act like a real Shinra pig, you know that?"
"Whatever you say, Barret."
Barret pulled a face and walked to the window. The frustration in his expression did not disappear.
"Just look out there! This is unbelievable!" Cloud got up and peered out on to the massive house next to the inn that Barret had been pointing at.
"Yeah." Cloud shrugged. "It's a gigantic house that all the tourists are taking pictures of. Big deal."
Barret growled furiously.
"Geez! You think you're so smart, but you're kinda stupid for a first-class member of SOLDIER!" He pointed vigorously at the building opposite them. "That mansion over there just happens to be President Shinra's summer residence! It costs a whopping 3,000,000 Gil!" He narrowed his eyes as he frowned down at the ecstatic crowds of holidaymakers. "It really drives me crazy to think that that old slimeball bought that villa to parade around to those dumb tourists. He actually had the nerve to charge people to visit it!"
There was a sort of bitter anger in his air as Barret finished his sentence and looked down momentarily at his right arm. Where his hand should have been was that hulking gun, a mass of cold, unfeeling metal. Cloud wondered, not for the first time, how Barret had ended up with this handicap, and what exactly the big man felt about it. Silently, he withdrew from the window feeling guilty.
Aerith, noticing the awkward vibes in the air, jumped up from the bed cheerfully.
"I think I'm up to that sunbathe now," she exclaimed lively. "Anyone coming?"
Barret shook his head numbly and did not revert his gaze away from the window. Cloud looked at him warily and decided that it was best if he left. He did not particularly want to stay in this uneasy situation: and besides, he suspected Barret would rather be by himself.
"I'll go with you, Aerith," he offered in a low voice. They walked quietly out of the room and out on to the main street.
"Poor Barret," Aerith sighed. "Sometimes I feel so sorry for him. He tries so hard and all he gets is this."
"Yeah. I think there's something he's not telling us," Cloud remarked, shielding his eyes from the sun.
"Probably..."Aerith replied passingly, and Cloud thought, as he watched her, that she had something to hide also. In fact, he realised that most of them had anyway. They passed a homely little street corner where some of the local children were kicking a beach ball about. In a shady crook between two adjoining houses, Red was lying down, half asleep.
"Red!" Aerith called, waving to him. "Are you coming to the beach with us!"
Red opened his eye lazily but did not move otherwise.
"I don't think so. If I stay out in the heat too long, my nose goes all slobbery."
Aerith giggled.
"Okay, suit yourself!" She turned to Cloud with a sunny expression. "Isn't Red cute!"
Cloud pulled a wry face.
"I don't think he'd appreciate that remark, somehow." He gazed at her. "Aerith, until this moment, I hadn't noticed that you had such white skin."
"So?" she passed him a chagrined look. "I don't like sunbathing."
"So why are you going then?"
"Because I need to speak to Tifa."
"About what?"
She cocked her head to one side humorously.
"Oh, nothing. Just girly talk."
"Oh." Cloud replied knowingly. "I think here in real land it's called gossip. Don't worry, I know you girls can't live without it."
At that remark she bestowed him with a playful punch on the arm.
The beach was littered with people, and the sand that Cloud found himself walking on was boiling hot. The sea was a carpet of vivid turquoise blue, and it was virtually impossible to tell where the ocean stopped and the sky began. White foam lapped gently at the skirting of the sand, swishing in and out with a mellow sound that was almost drowned out by the low murmur of the tourist's voices. The persistent calling of the gulls circling the air echoed on the refreshing breeze that came wafting over the blanket of aquamarine water.
"This is paradise," Cloud murmured, closing his eyes and failing to shut out the sunlight ."I've only seen these sorts of places on TV."
Aerith agreed with him wholeheartedly.
"Yes. I still can't even believe I'm here!" She suddenly gripped his arm and began waving frantically across the beach. "Look, there's Tifa!"
Tifa was half-sitting, half-lying on the golden sand, her elbows propping her up. She'd tied her long dark hair up into a pile on her head, and though she was facing away from them, Cloud could tell she seemed preoccupied with something. He cupped a hand to his mouth and called to her.
"Hey, Tifa!"
She did not hear him, but several other people about did. Cloud was confused.
"Why didn't she hear us?"
"She's probably thinking," Aerith replied, doubtfully.
They sauntered over toward her, but she still seemed to be unaware of their presence. Cloud came up behind her.
"Hey Tifa, lookin' good!"
Tifa apparently didn't hear him. She was looking off to her left, a distracted expression on her face. Cloud waved a hand in front of her eyes, puzzled.
"Tifa, are you all right?"
She did not take her eyes away from whatever it was that she was staring at.
"Cloud, look over there," she said quietly. "Do you see what I see?"
Both Cloud and Aerith moved their eyes to where Tifa was looking. Sitting on a chaise-long deck chair not far off was a bowed, dwarf-like figure, surrounded by tanned, bikini-clad women. Aerith gasped.
"It's Hojo!"
Tifa almost looked relieved.
"At least I know I'm not seeing things!" she breathed. "But I never knew Hojo was such a lady's man! How odd."
Cloud stood up straight and placed his hands on his hips.
"I'm going to have a word with our flirtatious doctor over there."
"What if he calls security?" Tifa looked up apprehensively.
Cloud threw aside the idea.
"Hey, he might be able to tell us where Sephiroth's headed. Come one, you two, let's check it out."
The three of them made their way across the sand to Hojo's little group. He seemed to be having a snooze, but it was impossible to tell with his dark-tinted glasses. As Cloud approached, one of the women noticed him and smiled provocatively his way.
"Hi there, cutie. You looking for something?"
"Yeah," Cloud replied brusquely, ignoring Tifa and Aerith's irritated glances. "Is that Dr. Hojo there?"
A look of disappointment filled the woman's face. "Oh," she answered stiffly. "You know the Professor?"
"That's right. Can we speak to him?"
The woman, throwing a haughty scowl in Tifa and Aerith's directions, leaned over the chair and whispered into Hojo's ear. The old man looked startled.
"What?" His raspy voice still managed to ruffle Cloud. As the woman explained the situation to the old scientist, Hojo lifted his glasses on to his forehead and shot a quick glance at Cloud and the others. When he had satisfied himself that he knew who they were, he waved to the women to go away.
"Leave us for a minute."
The women seemed annoyed at being sent off and looked at Cloud in displeasure as they trudged away with their bottles of lotion and towels in their hands. When they'd all disappeared, Hojo looked up at Cloud.
"Don't take this the wrong way," he smirked unapologetically "but we of the Shinra's Head Council are often given leave to go on little trips such as these. Quite refreshing, wouldn't you say?"
"Well, I'm glad Barret's not here to hear all this," Cloud remarked dryly. "He'd probably have shot you by now."
Hojo ignored the statement.
"And you, my dear boy, I remember you. You're Cloud." His eyes passed over Tifa and Aerith. "Ah. Tifa Lockheart, you've brought her along too. And even better - the Ancient!"
Aerith looked at him in exasperation.
"I'm Aerith Gainsborough! You could at least remember my name!"
"Oh, is that your name?" Hojo scratched his head, a smug look on his face. "And how is your mother, Aerith?"
Aerith seemed vexed.
"My mother's dead. Didn't you know?"
Hojo gazed up at her in mock surprise.
"What! Ifalna, dead! And I never even got to say goodbye!"
Tifa stooped over him threateningly.
"Just cut the crap, will you!"
Hojo glared at her and then appeared to settle down.
"So," he mused, "Dr. Gast's prize specimen, Ifalna, dead...how funny life seems!"
Aerith questioned him eagerly.
"Hojo, please tell me something. You knew my mother. Did she tell you about Jenova and Sephiroth? Did she tell you how we could join them? After all, we are all of the same blood."
Hojo began to laugh harshly.
"For an Ancient, you are very naive!" he grinned at her, "You know the answers to your questions already. You must seek inside yourself. That is all I can tell you."
Cloud spoke up.
"Where is Sephiroth?"
Hojo's golden eyes flicked up into his with a malicious, intelligent clarity. He began to speak to Cloud in a soft, serious voice.
"Why are you after Sephiroth, Cloud?"
The way in which the question was spoken sent such a sense of fear and foreboding into Cloud that for a moment, he found it difficult to answer. When it finally passed, he became angry.
"Why do you think! Because he's a murderer, plain and simple!"
Hojo began to cackle once again and Cloud was instilled with such rage that he caught him by the collar of his shirt and shook him.
"What are you laughing at? What's so funny?"
Hojo glared up at him, holding his gaze with his two coldly glittering eyes.
"Have you ever felt," he began in a low, smooth whisper, "that something is calling you, Cloud? That you need to go some place?"
Cloud gritted his teeth. These words, what did they mean? Why did they sound so right?
"No!" Cloud let go of Hojo's collar, threw him back. "I don't feel anything like that! I don't know what you're talking about!"
Hojo sneered and rubbed his neck, an unconcerned air about him. He began to mutter to himself in a distracted fashion.
"...find Sephiroth...west...Mount Corel..."
Tifa looked puzzled and irritated.
"These scientists! All they do is talk to themselves all day long. He really makes me sick!"
Cloud glanced down at the decrepit figure on the chair, whose face suddenly seemed far away and lost. Cloud felt a wave of disgust toward the man wash over him. He spoke to Hojo with contempt in his voice.
"Thanks, old man." He turned to Aerith and Tifa. "I've had enough of this. Let's go back to the hotel."
The three of them trudged back up the beach and through the village. They didn't get back to the inn as quickly as they might have, for two reasons. The first was that Tifa and Aerith insisted on checking out the local boutiques and ended up spending hours looking at clothes Cloud knew they would not buy. The second was the fact that Cloud was lost, deep in his own thoughts.
It was Hojo. Cloud could not get the man's words out of his thoughts. He did not understand at all what the scientist meant, nor what he was up to. The subject troubled him greatly. He had not known that he would have reacted in such a way to words that Aerith and Tifa would obviously have summed up as a mad scientist's gibberish. And yet, to Cloud, the words had held such a depth to him. And then, there was something else that had suddenly revealed itself to him. He realised that he needed to talk to Red.
It was high noon by the time they entered the inn again. Barret and Red were in the room, chatting. Cloud addressed them as he entered.
"You lot had better get some sleep. We're going to Mount Corel tomorrow."
Barret raised an eyebrow at him.
"Tifa, Aerith, what is he going on about?"
Tifa shrugged.
"I'm as clueless as you are, Barret."
"Listen," Cloud threw himself on his bed gratefully. "We're heading for Mount Corel straight off tomorrow morning. I heard Hojo muttering that Sephiroth was there."
Barret sat up.
"Hojo? That creep's here!"
"Look, don't worry about it." Cloud reassured quickly. "Let's just concentrate on Sephiroth for now, and not personal vendettas."
"Are you sure he wasn't talking rubbish?" Tifa asked cynically. Cloud shook his head.
"I'm sure of it, Sephiroth's headed west."
Barret looked at him hopelessly.
"You have some weird kind of intuition, Cloud," he muttered. Cloud passed over the remark. He turned to Red.
"Red, there's something really important I have to ask you."
Red glanced up from his place on the floor.
"What is it?"
"You see," Cloud began, "I noticed you had this tattoo on the side of your left front leg."
Red looked undisturbed by the question.
"Yes, most of them are the signs of my tribe. Others are the scars of battle wounds. Why?"
"Then how do you explain this one?" Cloud bent over and pointed to Red's left leg. On it was a prominent tattoo that read 'XIII'. Red wore an expression of unconcern.
"You mean that tattoo? No, that's not one I originally had. I believe Hojo put it on me."
Cloud grimaced in satisfaction that he'd found the right answer.
"That's why he called you Red XIII, right? Do you know why he put it there?"
Red began to look troubled.
"No," he replied shortly. "No, I don't know."
Aerith spoke nervously.
"Cloud, why is it important?"
Cloud thought better of answering her question. He lay back on the bed, and recalled a not too distant memory. He remembered a man, who he'd seen in the Sector Five slums the morning he and Aerith had gone to Wall Market. At first, he'd thought he was just a normal drunk. But now, something more sinister had emerged.
On his arm had been the tattoo; 'XII.'
Next: The group learn a bit more about the mysterious Barret's past...