30: Have You Ever Seen Me?
"Dream a little dream for me."
-----
"Saristis! This is awful! How could we fail so quickly?! It makes no sense!"
"It makes perfect sense. You realize who we were up against, right? General Sephiroth. The legendary bloodhound of Shinra, powered by Jenova. Perfect sense. Really..."
"How can you squat there and just accept this?!"
"I'm not accepting anything. Our goal's been achieved."
"I'm calling bullshit, Sar. It'll mean nothing if we die here, nothing. Did you not see what happened on surveillance?"
"Sir, I'm afraid I must side with Emerson in this regard. Our militia's flopping. Against one man. Granted, we still have materia but if previous summoning hasn't stopped him then, will it stop him now? Unlikely. We're sitting ducks down here, sir. I propose we abandon everything and run while we still can. Perhaps, perhaps it's just that, all that Shinra does is destined to fail. And former employees are not exempt from that fate."
"Kit, I'm hurt. Yes, this was a fool's errand to begin with. But go across the hall; see what we've obtained, what we've done. We should hold on to that. With a little more time, we can become absolute masters of our fates. Promised Land, Neo Midgar, it could all be ours…"
"The Shinra dream."
"A very bloody dream."
"Blood, sweat, tears. To get it, we've got to give it. A fitting credo for our lifestyle, hm?"
--
Aerith, I heard him. I heard him call back to me. So he's nearby. He's here and he's come for me. But…now what?
I saw the cream-skinned woman standing in front of me, almost right under my chin. She looked skeptical above all else, her arms crossed, her eyes abnormally narrow. It was obvious she knew Sephiroth was coming. A ruckus rumbled above, no doubt he at his destructive best. Both sad and overjoyed, my body buzzed to life, a buzzing that actually moved me. But I could feel things holding me back, tearing my skin and terrorizing the Lifestream trapped with me.
"... mngh..."
I wanted to move. I had to move. But the pain was like death igniting a hundred times over and over again, deaths not my own, but excruciating all the same because they happened inside of me. Exaggeration or not, I felt like every fiber of my body was being torn away one by one. My eyes grew hot with the ache for tears but I felt nothing warm and wet streak down my cheeks. Only the coolness of Lifestream touched them.
Snap.
--
"Sephiroth! There's-"
"The Planet must have called something," uttered Sephiroth, kneeling low to the ground. His eyes darted up to the descending cloud of dust and debris shaken from the ceiling, then quickly brought them back down. "Something large."
"What do you think it-"
"I don't care. We're almost there, we can't stop now. Go." He glared intently at the shadow, urging it ahead.
An odd will clung to the air, bullying to pull Sephiroth off his endeavor. Jenova's shock still wrought havoc, but now, with this unexpected tug of energy, the parasite felt compelled to advance up and down his flesh. Hidden currents crackled just below the surface of his skin, begging to split it and grow something alien in its place. It was almost too much to bear now. His right eye didn't feel the same anymore. Streaks of old blood flooded his eyesight, disorienting him.
"Mother, you think you can... dominate me?" he groaned, then chuckled. "I can't…"
He plunged to his knees, panting and clutching his chest. Alarmed, Lucrecia's shadow knelt beside him, running a shifty arm along his. Sephiroth's eyes lulled upwards, growing uncomfortable as he gazed into its faceless head.
"Hang on for just a little while longer. I know you're strong. Maybe too strong but... Drana's just up ahead. She'll make it all better."
"Why are you trying to console me?" he demanded suspiciously.
"You know why, but you can't admit it. That's fine with me. But still... come on, get up."
Sephiroth's pauldron abruptly popped and cracked down the middle with the uprising of a bony thorn. He groaned lowly, his clawed hand moving to grasp his shoulder fired with pain. It became clear that Jenova knew her end was near, justifying the need to quicken her takeover. It saddened him to see one of former power like her reduced to such a low. Just like him.
He chuckled again, getting to his feet.
"Go back, ghost," warned Sephiroth. "I want to go to her on my own. And if you dare come with me, so help me, I'll find a way to destroy every last particle of you."
"But I-"
"For your own good, take me seriously." He stared at the shadow longingly, then the corner of his mouth curled into a lopsided grin. Without another word, he dragged onward down the lonesome hallway, carefully sidestepping fallen debris.
"... I guess I'll wait with Drana."
--
Vincent found himself tempted to go back outside and see what caused the tremors that nearly brought a whole floor down on him. But he was already in too deep to turn back now. Between keeping a safe distance behind Sephiroth and mopping up the weird glowing men who where still left moderately standing, he had a bit of a hard time maintaining his pace. They seemed to crawl out of the woodwork, gibbering, flailing and quickly changing into misshapen beasts right before his eyes.
Drana's Spirit energy seems to work faster than normal, he thought.
Unlike Sephiroth and his being powered almost directly by the Planet, the playing ground was plenty uneven for Vincent, but only without his saving grace, materia. Fire with fire, naturally. But it merely kept them at bay, rather than destroying them completely.
"They're not important," he told himself. "Just keep going."
--
The solitary image of a dormant cauldron sat in the middle of the corridor. Bells of confusion and alarm rang furiously in Sephiroth's body, but the confusion prevailed over everything else. Yes, it was a summon set up to impede his path, but the thing made no attempt to attack. He saw the red materia glowing as it was wedged into a crack in the wall, with a tiny device attached to it.
"Remote control…" He squinted at the apparition sitting there, debating on whether or not to just pass through, or destroy the materia. In subtle conclusion, Sephiroth raised his left arm, though with Jenova spreading ever more over his body, it stung terribly. "Let's see what you really are…"
A pinprick of light flashed from the tip of his index finger.
Shadows darker and larger than Lucrecia billowed up around the cauldron for a time before vanishing back into the hall's dim red light. This summon wasn't a normal one. Lowering his arm slowly, Sephiroth fell breathless. Jenova shrieked and bristled through his distorted limb, throwing him off-balance, and ultimately off guard, as well.
"Ungh!"
His hair swirled over his face as his legs flew up in front of him. Not even given any time to recover, his body twisted upside down in mid-air. Pressure wrapped around both his ankles and wrists, keeping his limbs spread wide apart.
"General Sephiroth, I'm surprised to see you hanging around," uttered a voice from somewhere up the hall.
"Jokes like that ask for your demise," Sephiroth hissed, struggling to get his coat out of his face.
"I know. Really, I wish Hojo taught you a sense of humor."
"No sense of humor can save you from me."
The voice made a sound of disapproval, then replied with, "Shinra should have made it a prerequisite for employees never to have families in the company. With you as the shining example. Lucrecia, Hojo, Gast, the Ancient, and a whole slew of others, even the president himself, as well. But I guess dysfunction is the spice of life.
"This is quintessentially our last stand. Well, before we make a run for it. I'm kind of tired of running, though."
"I'm tired of you running, as well," said a dismal Sephiroth. "Just give her to me and accept your deaths peacefully."
"Hades," murmured the voice.
Clouds of noxious color began to gather around Sephiroth, causing his coat and hair to billow calmly about him. At first, he smelled nothing but the mold and dust of the old corridor, but gradually, a stench like death and rotting filled his nostrils. Offering himself the benefit of the doubt, the pure Lifestream within would save him from whatever trick this summon was about to pull. If not, he was going to suffer a bit more than being drowned, impaled, or falling to a mindless disease.
"I'd like to keep that thing," the voice admitted softly. "For us painfully normal humans, it'll be our Neo Midgar. You see?"
"She's mine."
"Now it's ours. We find, we keep; you lose, you weep. Fair, right?"
Sephiroth finally caught a glimpse of his offender in the shadows. The smug faced scientist with the red hair, arms crossed and smirking as if he had the upper hand. He was a fair mirror of Hojo in his stance, which boiled his blood beyond reason. He hated to suffer humiliation at the hands of a weasly doctor, not again and not like this. He bade his time, bit his tongue, let the hate and anger fester.
"I dare you to hate me after this... Know that I was doing it to get you back."
He closed his eyes, though even in the darkness behind his lids, the toxic colors sickened and dizzied him. But it wouldn't be enough. He had more of the Planet on his side than did the summon itself. He would break free. And…
"I'll kill you."
"Oh?"
-
"Sephiroth... stop…"