A/N: Here's Chapter 9. Hopefully the formatting for this chapter came threw, for some reason doesn't like centered text or italics when you import the file over from Word...

Chapter 9

Cloud drove through the many piles of debris and old run down houses that had once been called the slum districts of Midgar. Years before, this area would be filled with people who were too poor to live on the upper plates, but now it was merely empty and lifeless. As he drove, he couldn't help but feel that the open black holes coming from the dilapidated buildings were looking at him with hunger. Above, what remained of the upper plates shut out all light and sight of the sky, though large gaps were present that let Cloud know that the storm was getting close.

There weren't many ways to get onto the upper plates and those that were closest to the edges of the once great city were dismantled and shut off so no one could wander in and get hurt. Before, Cloud had made his way to the upper plate by following Kadaj up several broken power conduits and a column from the old church, but those were long since removed for the same safety concerns. The only path up to the upper plates and the Shinra Building that was his destination was the old train system that wound its way up the central column.

Cloud had forgotten how large the city was, but after driving for several minutes that seemed to stretch on forever, he finally reached the central pillar. The large column was still intact and appeared solid, but since it was over a mile wide Cloud figured that the havoc wrought by the Meteor didn't have much of an impact on it. However, the old latticework of train tracks that coiled up the column looked far worse.

Many of the supports were warped, and from the vantage point at the bottom, he could see that several of the rails were warped and hanging loosely, some even swaying back and forth. But as bad as it looked, this was the only way Cloud knew of how to get onto the upper plates, and since time was off the essence, he threw caution into the wind and began to drive up.

The trip up the railway was bumpier than Cloud liked, but after an excruciating two minutes, he reached what had been the tunnel that passed through the plate and emerged on the upper side. At this point, the level of damage that Midgar had sustained became painfully apparent.

Cloud tried to navigate through enormous pieces of loose steel that had fallen and crushed portions of the tunnel, but he soon reached a narrow path that Fenrir wouldn't fit into. He didn't like having to leave Fenrir so soon, but it couldn't be helped. After he killed the motor and rested the motorcycle on the kickstand, Cloud opened the sword compartments and removed the main blade, which now had two others attached, and then chose the remaining long blade with the serrated back. For a moment, he thought about taking the only two blades that were left, the shorter swords that had ratcheting grips, but he felt confident that four swords were enough. He then closed the compartments and continued up the path.

Several spots were difficult to navigate, but before long, Cloud emerged into the open and looked up at what remained of the Shinra Building.

The building itself was completely destroyed; all of the windows were shattered and the metal sides were all covered in a thick layer of soot from the fires that raged after Meteor was defeated. Cloud remembered seeing the massive fires that raged across the plates. Though they were devastating, it was almost beautiful, in a hypnotically dangerous sort of way. Nanaki had made the comment as they surveyed the damage from the Highwind that the flames were purifying the city. If the flames did purify the city, they missed the dark secret that lay underneath.

Thunder echoed and reverberated against the metal and concrete skeletons of the city. Before the sounds died away, the rain began to fall, pelting Cloud as he began to walk towards the once grand entrance hall.

The rain became heavier and heavier, and by the time Cloud entered into the old building, the rain was falling with a heavy roar. Cloud briefly shook the water off of his spiky hair and then looked around the massive room. Though he knew that the building would be in horrible shape, he had no idea just how bad it would look. Now that he was standing here, he was shocked at just how destroyed it looked.

All around the once dirt free floor were large and heavy chunks of concrete, all which had fallen from the floors above. The staircase to the left that went up to a landing was completely blocked by rubble, and the one on the right was covered in smaller debris. Shelke had said that the entrance was in the basement, but Cloud couldn't see where the basement entrance was with all of the rubble around.

With the intent of getting a better look, he went up the flight of stairs and looked down at the first floor. None of the old lights in the building worked, so he reached into his pocket and removed a small flashlight. When he turned it on, the bright blue lights hit the lobby floor below and he quickly scanned the room. Now that he had some light, it wasn't hard to find what he was looking for. Behind what had once been the reception desk was an area that looked as if the floor panels were removed. Cloud climbed down the stairs and went to look at this new hole.

The hole was most definitely designed when the building was constructed, and there was a small metal rung ladder that led down. Several strips of caution tape were strung over the area, all of it having the distinct red logo of the WRO on it. Cloud moved these out of the way and jumped down. His boots made a loud clang when they hit and the sound seemed to echo throughout the lifeless lobby.

Cloud then began to walk down this new path, and soon he regretted not bringing the short swords since the hallways were rather a tight fit for him if he had to use his larger sword. At first, Cloud seemed confused. All of this appeared to just be a basement and not an entryway into a large secret installation, but he continued on. As he walked, his heart began to beat slightly faster. It wasn't that he was afraid that he would encounter something that he couldn't handle, but it was the inner child within him that became nervous that something would jump out of the shadows at him.

The hallways were eerily silent, only filled with the sounds of his boots and his own breathing. The three-foot circle of light produced by his flashlight shown on the grime-covered walls, and as he walked he soon saw dirt-covered glass that looked into small service rooms. Judging by the look of the machines, Cloud figured they were either heating and cooling systems, or old plumbing pumps. The doors that led into these rooms were electronic, and since the building hadn't had power in a while, they didn't move. Several times Cloud encountered a sealed doorway, but after prying at them with his sword, he was able to get the doors to move along their tracks and force them open. The last door that Cloud had to force his way into opened up into a large storage room, though there was nothing in there now.

Cloud looked at the ceiling and saw that it was covered in what looked like a metal grating, and before he could figure out what this was for, his light picked up on the hulking wreckage of two large security robots. At first Cloud reached for his sword, but he soon realized that they had been destroyed long ago. As he passed, he noticed that they were shot and had distinctive three round holes that formed a triangle. Cloud lightly smirked as he recognized the craftsmanship of Vincent.

On the far side of the storage room there was another door, but what was on the wall next to it finally gave him a glimmer of hope that he was on the right track. It was a security card reader that had a sign bolted above it.

Authorized Users Only

All unauthorized personnel found in this area will be terminated.

Beware

Cloud tried to put his fingers into the crack in the door to see if it would open, but it was firmly in place. He didn't have a security card or anything like that to open the door, and even if he did, there wasn't any power in the building. While he tried to think of something to do, he mindlessly hit one of the keys next to the card reader. Suddenly he pulled his hand back as the key grid slowly illuminated with a blue flickering light that stayed constant after a few seconds. Oddly enough, the old building must have had some sort of backup generator or power source that was still active.

The keypad had alphabetical keys and numbers on it, but Cloud had no idea what the password was to get in. Remembering that Shinra had once used the word MAKO as a password, he typed it in and hit enter, but the keypad only flashed red twice before it went back to blue. Cloud scratched his head as he tried to think of what it might be, and when he looked to the floor where his flashlight beam was at, he saw a piece of paper. When he picked this up, he instantly felt rather stupid.

WRO Personnel:

The password is Deepground

Cloud entered the name of the hidden facility and was rewarded with a green flash. Behind the door, Cloud could hear an elevator being brought up to him. Though the sound itself wasn't really loud, it cut through the silence and seemed to be the loudest thing Cloud had ever heard.

The doors opened, and Cloud had to shield his eyes from the bright fluorescent lights that were inside. The interior of the elevator was a stark difference from the rest of the basement facility. The walls were lined with carved wood, and the floor was a highly polished marble. Cloud was sure that when Shinra was up and running, this elevator was kept spotless, but now he could see several dirty boot prints that were left by the WRO salvage teams that had entered after Deep Ground was defeated.

After he entered the elevator and hit the only button he could, the doors closed and the elevator began to descend rapidly. As he waited for it to reach its destination, Cloud regretted not looking at the maps that they had recovered concerning the entirety of the underground facilities. But at the time that they found them, only Vincent was in need of them and Cloud was too busy trying to fight off all the Deep Ground soldiers.

When the elevator doors opened, Cloud stepped out and was surprised to see a room that was undamaged. In a way it was rather creepy, since they were exactly like the ones in the upper stories of the Shinra building. All of the lights were on and the facility only looked as if the workers were on a lunch break. It was if Cloud had stepped into another world when compared to the dark and destroyed basement he had just left.

Along the walls were several posters of the old Shinra Company logo, and a punch card clock for the employees that must have worked in this area. Cloud had no idea that so many people actually knew about the facility, but he also assumed that any employees that worked down here must have seeked refuge from the Meteor within the safety of this underground facility. What happened to them after that was anyone's guess.

Cloud saw a hydraulic doorway that exited this room, and after confirming that there was nothing of any value to him in the room he was already in, he walked out and into the next area. When the door opened, Cloud paused and saw that it led to a large open area with a bridge connecting Cloud's door with another. For a moment, Cloud just stood there, taking in everything that he was seeing. Above him he could see what must have been the foundations for the Shinra building, and there were several large pillars that went from the distant floor below all the way up to the foundation.

Cloud figured that all of this was in the central support column of Midgar, but whether he was now below the ground level or somewhere inside the column above the slum districts, he couldn't tell. To him, it was a rather impossible miracle that somehow kept all of this a secret.

After getting used to the large expanse below him, he crossed the bridge and entered into the far doorway. Once he entered this doorway, he found himself in a room that had multiple display cases. Inside these display cases were samples of materia in their natural state. As he looked at them, he had a strange jumbled memory come back to him. For a moment, he almost remembered that it happened a certain way, but that soon disappeared and he remembered it the way it really happened.

He was standing in a cave in Mount Nibel, nervously shaking after falling off of a bridge that had collapsed. The other Shinra MP was lost, but he luckily was pulled off of a cliff by his friend Zack. Inside the cave, Tifa, who was much younger than she was today and was wearing a cowboy hat, was looking wide-eyed at a large formation of crystal that was glowing with a pulsating beat. Zack was there too, trying to figure out what it was. A third person was also there, and when he turned around, he briefly looked at the fountain and then looked at Zack. Even though it was a memory, Cloud had the strangest feeling that the third person briefly looked directly at him. It was Sephiroth.

"A Mako fountain. It's a miracle of nature," the silver haired man that Cloud would soon learn to hate said.

"It's so beautiful," Tifa said in a dreamy far off voice. "If the Mako Reactor continues to suck up the energy, this fountain will dry up too," she added with an obvious hint of regret. Sephiroth stepped closer to the fountain and lightly reached up his hand to it, but he didn't touch it.

"Materia. When you condense Mako energy, materia is produced. It's very rare to be able to see materia in its natural state…"

Cloud came out of his memory-driven trance and continued through the room and turned a corner. On this side of the room, more display cases were standing, but these held manufactured materia orbs. Briefly out of curiosity, he read some of the small plaques that held information about each one.

Some of them were mastered versions of the more common materia, but others were more rare ones. One of these was a summon materia, and the plaque said that it was a Masters of the Round. Cloud remembered that they had acquired one during their fight against Sephiroth, but it conveniently disappeared soon after. Cloud knew where it went of course, but he had no need for it anymore.

He was about to continue down a corridor when something caught his attention from the corner of his eye. There was a small door nearly hidden in the wall. On this door were small letters that said Level 5. Cloud smirked as he went up to the door and tried to figure out a way to open it. There wasn't a keypad like the other, only a small hole that looked like it went to a special key. Along one of the edges of the door, it looked as if someone had pried it open before. Cloud then pushed the tip of his sword into the doorjamb and pried it back. With a loud screech, the door slowly slid open enough for Cloud to grab it and force it open the rest of the way.

Once the door was completely open, it revealed a long dark passageway that ended with another door. Cloud walked through the corridor and when he reached this door, he was surprised to find that it opened without him having to force it to. Beyond it was another bridge over the abyss and once Cloud crossed this, he found the final door. This door was much different than the rest.

It had looked like this door was opened in the manner of the others, but now it looked as if it was welded shut. Recently stuck onto it was a warning sign.

Warning! Do Not Enter!

This door sealed shut under the authority of Commissioner Tuesti

World Regenesis Organization

Cloud knew that he had found the storage room the Reeve had mentioned; now he just had to figure out how to get in. At first, Cloud tried to find a weakness in the welds, somewhere that he might be able to jam his sword into and pry the door open like the others. But he soon found that the WRO Corps of Engineers had done their job thoroughly, so there was only one option left to him.

Cloud stepped back and raised the Tsurugi high above his head. Soon, the blade became engulfed in iridescent flames of energy, and Cloud powerfully brought it down with a tremendous crash that burst the door off of its hinges and sent it flailing into the room. Cloud then stood relaxed and entered the storage room.

Inside, there was a thin layer of smoke from his method of entry, but the multiple array of objects that were stored on the walls were undisturbed. Cloud walked slowly as he read the small name cards under each object. At first, it reminded him of some strange exhibit of a wandering circus. There were Guard Hound fangs, Marlboro tentacles, Tonberry eyes, Zombie Dragon claws, Behemoth horns, and many other strange items that Cloud wondered if they even had uses. But on one of the display shelves at the back, he found a sealed glass medical vial about six inches tall that contained a strange lifeless cloud of black. The nametag below this said, "Jenova Cells- First Harvestation." Cloud grimaced to himself as he picked up the vial and looked in at the black substance. Hojo must have kept the first cells that were collected, and added them to this strange menagerie of the macabre. To himself, Cloud thought that the cells looked dead, but then again he didn't really know what living cells should look like. Now that he was finished, he turned around and was glad to put the strange storage room behind him. But when he stepped back out of the doorway, he stopped dead in his tracks and saw a massive behemoth man standing on the opposite side. Cloud quickly drew his sword from the harness and entered a battle stance.

The large white haired foe that was the very same that had broken into the Mideel Data Facility smirked, and readied himself with his long dual bladed sword. From behind him, Cloud heard an annoyed sounding voice that had a lazy drawl to it.

"Abrams, why do you always stop in the middle of the way?" By now, Cloud could see who was speaking. A much shorter man with red hair now stood beside the giant who was obviously named Abrams. When this red headed man saw Cloud, he briefly looked him up and down and then focused on Cloud's eyes.

"Ah, what have we here? A SOLDIER? Now isn't that interesting?" Cloud sneered and raised his head slightly to speak. At this, the red head made an amused sound and pulled out two identical sais from behind his back.

"Who are you?" Cloud growled at the two. The red headed man sneered and opened his eyes wide as he responded. Cloud was surprised to see that both of his eyes seemed to emit a faint red light. Abrams was still standing in his fighting stance, but his eyes began to burn a brighter pale blue.

"Ah, but now that is a deep question, isn't it? I'm surprised to find a member of SOLDIER that is capable of thinking in such a way," the red head said before he broke out into a menacing chuckle. His larger companion finally moved, but only to shift into a different position.

"Enough of this, Owzer! This worm has the vial!" Abrams bellowed with a deep reverberating voice. Owzer's red eyes burned with an intense fire at this, and his joking manner soon disappeared.

"I'm afraid we'll be having to take those from you boy!" And with this, both men lunged at Cloud.

Cloud was surprised at the level of speed they both had. Before he had time to properly react, they were both on him, quickly swinging their weapons for a killing blow. Cloud had barely enough time to bring the Tsurugi up to parry the massive blows from Abrams, while he had to jump back to avoid the stabbing motions made by Owzer.

Abrams had driven Cloud back into the storage room, and Owzer had oddly jumped back onto the bridge, pulling away from the fight. For whatever reason he did this, Cloud could now focus primarily on the gigantic Abrams.

With loud clangs from their metal blades, the Tsurugi deflected the blows from the double bladed sword. The two edged weapon was slow to wield, but this was hardly noticeable in Abrams's hands; but Cloud could still see it and he used it to his advantage.

Quickly Cloud swung the Tsurugi back and forth with his right hand, all the while holding onto the vial with his left. Abrams was becoming painfully aware of the handicap his weapon was giving him, but when Cloud was ready to strike a heavy blow to gain the upper hand, Abrams kicked Cloud hard in the stomach, sending him flying back into the wall.

When he hit, his grip on the vial loosened, and Abrams quickly tipped the vial onto the edge of his blade and flung it over his back where Owzer caught it.

Cloud stood back up, and now that his left hand was free, he quickly pulled out the other sword that he had with him and now brandished two blades. Abrams let a dry sneer cross his face, and with a swift fluid motion, he twisted the handle on his double bladed sword and separated the two blades; he too now brandished two blades.

Without wasting another moment, Cloud sprang forward and attacked Abrams. In a blindingly fast manner the two exchanged blows, one after the other, creating sparks that flew in every which direction.

Cloud soon found a gap in Abrams's defenses and he swung down hard with both of his blades, knocking the big man over. Without giving him another thought, Cloud sprung forward and attacked Owzer, who had now placed the vial of cells into his traveling bag. With both of his hands free to fight, Owzer quickly swung his sais around and began to block Cloud's attacks.

Over and over, Cloud swung hard at Owzer from all directions as they battled on the bridge, but every time Owzer blocked the blow. Cloud then swung down hard with the long thin blade in his left hand, but Owzer caught it between his two sais. In a simple twist, Owzer had snapped the blade out of Cloud's grasp and the blade went flying and lodged itself into one of the other support pillars.

Cloud then jumped back and put both hands now on the Tsurugi. As he jumped towards Owzer, he was suddenly broadsided by Abrams's massive right fist, and Cloud went flying over the edge of the bridge. In the air, Cloud was able to collect himself and he turned back around to get ready to jump off of a pillar and get back into the fight. But as he was about to do so, both Abrams and Owzer held out their fists and shot a powerful blast of materia induced lightning his way.

Cloud was barely able to avoid the majority of the blast by jumping out of the way when he hit the pillar, but the amount that hit him sent him falling down into the chasm below. As Cloud fell, he saw his other sword sticking out of the pillar and he was able to arrest his fall by grabbing onto it. When he looked back up at the two, they were getting ready to attack again, but several ricocheting bullets bounced off of the railing in front of them and they retreated back towards the entrance.

For a moment, Cloud merely hung there catching his breath, but in a swift motion, he kicked off of the wall, pulling his sword with him, and barely was able to reach to edge of the bridge. He was about to pull himself up when the familiar pointed gold boot of Vincent Valentine appeared in front of him. Cloud looked up and Vincent offered him a hand up.

Once Cloud was safely back on the bridge, Vincent motioned towards the exit with his head and looked to Cloud.

What did they want here?" Cloud let out a frustrated sigh and placed both of his swords back into his harness.

"They were after a vial of Jenova Cells that was stored here." Cloud then realized that the last place he had seen Vincent was in Junon, where he said he was going to stay. "I thought you were in Junon?"

"Hmm," Vincent said as he nodded. Before he continued, they both began to make their way out. "I followed those two from there. I think they might be the leaders of the Returners. What were you doing here?" Cloud shrugged and explained everything.

"Interesting. We'd better head for Junon. With a bit of luck we might catch them, but I wouldn't get my hopes up."

"You think they might do something in Junon?" Cloud asked as they boarded the elevator.

"From what you tell me, Reeve's planning on fighting the Returners. But if your suspicions are correct, they could be walking into a slaughter."

When both of them were back outside where the thunderstorm was raging harder than ever, Cloud opened his cell phone and called Reeve. After a few rings, he answered.

"Cloud? Were you able to get it?"

"Yes and no. Listen, I don't know what they're planning on doing, but I don't think you should attack the Returners in Junon." There was a long pause on the other end before Reeve answered.

"I'm sorry Cloud, but the attack has already begun."