"So, yes, I think I'm pretty safe here. No one comes to this end of the city, anyway."
Reno furrowed his brow and leaned back in the leather chair across from Rufus's white sofa. The President leaned casually against a stiff armrest, his legs bent to his side. He could not have appeared less concerned.
"These people...these soldiers will. If it suits them, they'll do whatever it takes."
"You said you saw the leader. What did he say?"
Reno sighed and scratched his wrist, trying to quickly make sense of the short broadcast. "It was just a threat. He didn't mention anything in particular. Just said it was time to 'cleanse' the world. Rid it of…" He noticed Rufus's neck stiffen in anticipation.
"Of?"
"The tainted. 'The pure will be spared for the cause. The tainted will be hunted down...exterminated.' They were rounding people up in Kalm, but I don't know if they were 'clean' or not."
"And how do they determine who is tainted?" Rufus asked, though Reno could see the answer in his eyes.
"I don't know what the technology is. I don't know how it works, but their helmets have lenses that can identify people. Most people, I guess."
"Most people, or all people?"
"Anyone tied to the lifestream, it seems."
Rufus sat up and rested his forearms on his knees. "I see."
Reno shrugged. "I mean, what does that even...matter…" He felt the eyes narrow on him.
"They don't see her. They don't know what she is. We do."
"We do?"
"Perhaps she can reach places others cannot. Infiltrate their system, whatever it is. And you heard Elena's story. What she did on the Northern continent. She fought so hard for the title, let her have it."
"The Guardian? But...that was with Jenova."
"Yes, enhanced by it, perhaps. But we all have our gifts. What if she still has that strength? We know she still has the audacity."
"And? What if she does?"
"Then she's an invaluable asset. We have to keep her going on this thing. Don't let her disappear."
Reno sighed. "Not a problem. She's personally invested."
Rufus tilted his head, his expression sending a shiver even through Reno. "Why?"
"Don't know. Something about Restrictors telling her she's not alone. She's trying to look back into Project G. Some kind of family connection?"
"That's impossible. And Valentine? Why is he involved?"
Reno sighed. "I don't know. He could just be following her. But he told us that one of the leaders, some giant with blue hair, told him that they'd see each other again. Is that supposed to be a personal promise or just a general threat? I mean, I don't know why they'd care about him."
"Maybe he's more valuable than we give him credit for. Though it seems unlikely."
"I'd have said the same about thousands of people up and disappearing, but these are strange days. What do you want me to do? Stay here?"
Rufus shook his head. "I have plenty of security here. If it seems too dangerous, we'll move to Healin. Go help them get to the bottom of this. Figure out what she's getting at with Project G. I'll have the old files pulled and do some reading."
"No, don't do that," Reno objected immediately. He recovered quickly, "I'm going by HQ on my way out. I'll grab them, and do some reading while those two pull a plan together. I was around for some of it, you know? First hand. The files will spark my memory. You just focus on your own security. And maybe send a check in the WRO's direction."
Rufus flashed a look of indignance at being reduced to his money, but sat back, knowing Reno would not let him down.
Vincent struggled to open his eyes against the vision that cycled in his mind. He saw Hojo shoot him, experienced the first awakening after his introduction into Shinra experimentation, then watched Lucrecia gaze into his Mako tank before the images repeated themselves. After watching the scenes three times, he was able to pull himself back to consciousness, and understood what had sparked the memories.
He was locked in another Mako tank, this time within the WRO headquarters, recovering from the wounds inflicted by the red soldier, and another female scientist awaited in the lab. She released him, and soon after, completely altered his understanding of Lucrecia's work.
Shalua assessed his healing, then commented on the beast that had scared off the red Tsviet.
"You mean Chaos?" he asked, now understanding his sudden blackout.
She froze, then paced in excitement. "Your body harbors the Chaos gene? That explains your relationship to Dr. Lucrecia Crescent. Were you the product of one of her experiments?"
He broke eye contact, reeling from the wave of memories newly thrust upon him. "Experiments?"
"I'm sorry; that wasn't what I meant…" she began, realizing the impact her few words had made.
"Wait," he interjected, raising his hand, "Lucrecia was researching...Chaos…"
Too many pieces of this new story were missing for him to fully understand. Shalua rushed toward the computer that sat on a long desk opposite the Mako tank.
"You didn't know...In her research thesis, 'The Planet's Pulse,' she refers to Chaos as one of the sentient xenoforms residing among us. However, her theories were so abstract that no one in Shinra took her seriously." She continued her explanation with enthusiasm, pacing the room behind him, but stopped upon noticing his bowed head and distant gaze. "Are you alright?"
"Can I see that thesis?" he asked quietly.
"Unfortunately, no. It was never submitted to the Shinra database. All I know is what I recovered going through the archives."
It was then that Reeve entered the lab. He immediately sensed the confusion, and asked Shalua to fill him in. She began the story at finding Vincent lying in the rain.
Aria knocked on the last of her neighbors' doors and sighed at the anticipated silence. Of nine doors, none seemed to have people behind them. Their entire building had either been evacuated or abducted. She returned to her own and slipped inside.
Her first stop was the bathroom, where she washed her face and looked into the mirror. Uncharacteristically uncertain eyes looked back. She sighed and stepped back into the living room, a glance at the mantle clock telling her she had half an hour before the rendezvous. Her mind wandered as her legs moved. A drop of rain on her arm brought her back to awareness; she faced the exterior closet. A fresh wave of frustration came over her, irritation at the trend of missing information in her life. She hated that she did not fully understand this new global threat, that she could not make the connection between the Restrictor and Project G, that she did not know where hundreds of missing people had gone...that she did not know what was in the black box.
She swung the thin door open quickly, letting it bang against the balcony's railing, and dragged the armory box from the closet. The rings carefully lining the top tier of the case held no charm for her this time. She plucked the Protect ring from its foam casing and slid it into her pocket before pulling the compartment apart to reveal the white cape beneath. Her fingers slid through the material quickly, pulling out the small box it protected.
The box creaked softly as it opened, revealing a sapphire blue metal ring tucked in an aged slip of paper. Her agitation faded as she realized the space she had just invaded. Still, her curiosity fueled her fingers as they unfolded the thin slip and read the delicate, faded script.
For the nights you cannot sleep. May this bring you the peace you deserve. Yours, LC.
"You're right, Vincent…" she whispered to herself, "This is not mine."
Reno nodded once at the figure approaching the sidewalk. She nodded back and pulled down her hood. Stepping under the awning of a closed-down cafe, Aria pulled out her cell and glanced at the empty screen.
"Everything okay?" she checked, anticipating Reno's answer.
"Yep. More security than he knows what to do with. Your end of town?"
"Empty, but physically intact." She decided against mentioning Cloud. After a beat, they simultaneously leaned against the brickwork of the building. Reno grinned at their shared training kicking in together, the urge to protect their backs now instinctual.
"So, what can Rufus do for us?" she asked, scanning the streets for a familiar form.
"Not much right now. He's sending some more resources toward the WRO, but they don't seem to have much of a handle on this, you know?" He paused, turning his head toward the center of town, then back to her. "How long do we wait?"
She glanced back at her phone. "I don't supposed he called you…"
Reno laughed.
"How far is the WRO building?"
"About ten blocks. It's set off by itself."
She nodded, holding down a key to dial Vincent. The line only crackled in response. She tried twice more, visibly growing agitated.
"I can't get a thing. No busy signal, no ring."
Reno checked his own watch and nodded, unbuttoning the cover to his holster. "Let's go."
Each watching opposing sides of the alleys they passed, the pair began walking toward the WRO. It was the sound of distant gunshots that made them run.
Arriving at the edge of the property, Reno took a knee, pulling down on Aria's arm to make her do the same. They surveyed the compound, noting the multiple entrance points of the Deepground soldiers.
"He's caught in there," she decided.
"If so, he's not alone. That place is always crawling with troops. Look," he said, pointing to a massive figure leading an attack on the garage entrance, "that must be that Tsviet, Azul. Good god, he's huge."
"We have to get in there," she said to herself.
"Well, sister, unless you got an army in your pocket, I'd suggest we wait until this herd thins out. We can't get around the building without them noticing us, and we certainly can't take them all on at once."
"You can't get around them. I can. You said those visors don't register me."
Where Reno winced, Rufus would have grinned. The redhead did not like the prospect of sending her in alone.
"Well...shit, I guess you're right. I'll wait back, you tell me when it's clear. Don't go near Azul- no way would that beast spare you."
She inhaled deeply and nodded once. Within a minute, Reno was watching her watch Azul blast open the main entrance from behind a concrete barrier. His eyes darted from her location to the main entrance, to the diminishing number of DeepGround soldiers in lot. His jaw clenched when she caught one from behind, tearing the helmet from his head as she had done in Kalm and knocking him unconscious with the top of her knee.
"When did you get so vicious?" he asked under his breath, finally standing and making his approach. He caught up to her as she had pulled the visor down over her eyes, her face disappearing behind a bright blue line.
"So, is this a sheep in wolf's clothing?" he asked, breaking his survey of the entrance to glance at her new look.
"I don't know," she replied, nodding to something behind him. "You feel much like a sheep?"
He turned, catching a DeepGround soldier just as he raised his gun, and disarming him with a quick flick of the EMR. He mimicked her action, swiftly pulling the helmet from the soldier head and down onto his own.
"No, I don't suppose I do. Now why are we wearing these?"
She nodded toward the left side of the building, where a ladder protruded from a cement-encased tube. "I was hoping we could get in through the basement. And don't these things have some nice night vision?"
Inside the massive building, Vincent still reeled from the briefing on Lucrecia's studies. He choked back the bitter sting of old wounds, freshly opened by his recent enlightenment. He had no time to process the sensation, to make sense of the new description of his role in her life, before alarms sounded in the lab. Turning to the monitors on the wall, Vincent, Reeve, and Shalua watched as DeepGround soldiers approached various entrances to the building.
"What time is it?" Vincent asked.
Reeve's eyes widened at the question. "What? What does that have to do with anything?"
Vincent did not ask again. Shalua answered.
"Half past three. Got a date?" she asked sarcastically, eyeing the security doors that closed in succession down the long hallways on the screens. "It's DeepGround. It was a matter of time, I suppose."
"Well, who better to serve the WRO than survivors of the Stigma? We're a natural choice. People want to repay the planet for sparing them, and now they're being hunted down," Reeve muttered through a tight jaw. In response, Vincent simply headed for the hall, gun drawn.
The soldiers could not put up much of a fight; he'd encountered more organized SOLDIER troops not so long ago. This group's movements felt hasty, rushed, a sense of urgency leaving them vulnerable to his silent, quick approaches. He cleared hallways fairly easily, his heart barely racing. The building went quiet as soldiers dispersed on the many different levels, leaving the main hall abandoned at his time of arrival. Shalua had also made her way to the center of the building and had fought off a soldier of her own when he approached. Her one open eye narrowed in his direction as he stepped toward her, and she raised her pistol.
"Don't move!" she commanded. Vincent froze, waiting for the hammer to fall. Instead, a small girl appeared behind him, stepping to his side. He shivered almost imperceptibly, then stepped to Shalua's side. He could only watch in silence as the scientist confronted her lost sister.
"I knew it...Shelke."
The childlike girl replied mechanically, "I have no acquaintances in the WRO."
"We've both changed so much," Shalua sighed, then corrected herself. "No, you haven't changed at all. Not in ten years."
A glimmer of recognition flashed in the girl's eyes, then faded as she turned away.
"Shelke, it's me! Shalua. I've been...I've been searching for you for so long." Shalua exhaled heavily and approached her sister. She was met with an electric beam of bright orange heat.
"It doesn't matter who I am, or who you are. My current mission as a Deepground soldier is all that is relevant."
Vincent reached for his own holstered gun, but Shalua persisted.
"No! It does matter! Even though ten years have passed, you're still Shelke, my only sister."
Vincent shivered again.
"Ten years...has it been that long? The day they came to take me away, I was told I had potential. But those words were only a precursor to a decade of suffering. They manipulated my mind until I was a shadow of my original self. The pain, the fear...for ten years I lived in a hell far deeper than any you could imagine. But...look at me. I should be nineteen this year. If I don't receive my daily dose of Mako, this body wouldn't last a day. However, I don't consider myself the least bit unfortunate. Except...that for so long, I held onto a foolish thread of hope that someday someone would come to save me."
Shalua collapsed to her knees. Vincent felt his chest tighten as connections became clearer in his mind. He wanted his thoughts to stop crystallizing. He wanted to unlearn this history lesson. He did not anticipate Shelke raising her weapon toward her kneeling sister.
"It's time to put the past behind us."
Before Vincent drew his gun, Reeve slipped through an elevator door and bolted into the room.
"Stop this!"
"Reeve Tuesti," Shelke announced.
"So, you are Shalua's younger sister...Look at her. She has given more than her arm, more than her eye. That's the price Shalua has paid for fighting Shinra the last ten years. She has put her life on the line time and time again...all to find her lost sister."
The sister in Vincent's mind had not fared quite so poorly. But then again, she hadn't always fought the good fight.