The exterior hallways of the compound had gone quiet, save for the few screams of terror coming through an occasional speaker. Vincent followed the headquarters' winding corridors inward, searching for any sign of Reeve. In a corner near a fire exit, he found two bodies of WRO soldiers, crumpled into one another. Their armor had been badly damaged, deep clawlike wounds covering their chests and arms. Their posture indicated that they had died during a frantic escape attempt. From what they had fled, he could not tell. A chill threatened his spine, but he kept on, one boot clicking softly in front of the other.
The speakers went quiet, their random screams silences by a force he preferred not to consider. But then, his preference had not mattered much lately.
From around the corner he'd just turned, heavy footfalls echoed, announcing the approach of a massive blue beast. It stopped at the sight of him, filling the hallway with a deafening roar. As Vincent's hand reached for his gun, his thoughts escaped his mouth.
"What the hell?"
The beast began its approach, each clawed foot sending shockwaves through the floor. A soft voice to Vincent's right identified the monster.
"Azul."
He jerked out of his momentary trance, finding Shelke and Shalua standing at his side, apparently on their way to an escape as well.
At the name, the beast attacked, making an inescapable dash at them. As it set its sights on Vincent, the gunman pulled the trigger. The bullets made little difference once it had locked eyes on its apparent target. Shalua acted quickly, leaping in front of the behemoth in a counter attack. Its claw struck out, tossing her easily away in a heap.
"Shalua!" Vincent cried, moving toward her. The beast would not allow it, and before he could defend himself, Vincent found himself sliding against the floor, his shoulder jammed into his ear.
Shelke watched the beast calmly, anticipating no personal danger. Her mistake left her, too, reeling from a swipe of the massive claws. She recovered more quickly than her company, and faced off against the beast with a wave of her hand. As Vincent stood, he caught the glimmer of a shield in the air. The beast froze in place, as Shelke spoke in her signature monotone as her eyes glowed orange.
"The extreme potency of this shield materia is comparable to that of your barrier field, Azul."
At this, the beast emanated a glow bright enough to blind Vincent. After blinking against it, Vincent saw that the Azul he had recently defeated stood in the beast's place, looking down at his fellow Tsviet, contempt in his face.
"Shelke, why do you stand in my way?"
Lowering the shield, she sighed. "I had to protect myself. You were trying to kill me."
He grunted in understanding, his features unchanged. "Then now is the time," he said darkly. He then swung at her again, the animalistic nature of the attack reconciling his identity with that of the beast in Vincent's mind.
"You're no longer required," Azul explained, as Shelke darted out of his grasp. "You're no different from the others. Your weak body is nothing without Mako. Your only skill is collecting data from inside a virtual reality. It makes me sick to even think of you as a member of the Tsviets. Weiss has ordered your termination."
She frowned. "Weiss?"
The name had begun to grate on Vincent's nerves. It had started to acquire the same fear and reverence as a previous General's.
"Your mission was to identify and locate the keeper of the protomateria. That is why we uploaded the doctor's data into your neural network. But now we no longer need it and we cannot let it fall into the hands of the WRO. Your fate has been decided, Shelke. It is time for you to return to the planet."
He straightened his back in preparation for the attack, then froze again. Shelke had cast another shield around him, realizing that her ties to Deepground had truly been severed. In a single moment, Vincent could see the spread of genuine fear move through the young girl. The wideness of her eyes spoke of a panic not shared by her sister, who sprang into action, grabbing Shelke's arm and slamming her palm into a button near the fire door. It sprang open long enough for Vincent to run through before Shelke resisted her sister's grasp. Shalua turned to look down into her sister's small face.
"We have ten years to catch up on. I'm not going to let this end here."
The words hit Vincent's ears just as the metal doors began to close. His legs were moving before he could recognize the expression on Shalua's face as she turned to look at him. Her prosthetic arm wedged the doors open, planting her on the wrong side of the barrier.
Vincent called her name, then raced back and grabbed the left door, his fingers quickly aching against the strain of the emergency closure mechanism. Small sparks flew from the prosthetic as it failed under the strain. To suppress the pain in his arms, Vincent focused solely on those sparks, watching as they flickered to life and faded away in only a second. He did not hear what was said between the sisters, nor the growls of the monster awaiting its prey. Instead, he watched tiny electrical lights dance before his eyes until Shelke passed through the opening and the prosthetic finally gave. The doors slammed closed with a cold finality, and for a brief moment, he could only stare at the seal, his fingers mindlessly flexing to regain feeling. A small voice snapped him out of the daze.
"Why would she…"
He looked to the young girl, now more wide eyed and youthful than ever, her Deepground training having failed to prepare her for this onslaught of affection and its painfully sudden loss. The thought crossed that just about any of his friends might know how to comfort this child. Tifa would embrace her; Cid might encourage her bravery. Aria would know how to conjure a few meaningful words. But such techniques were not in his repertoire. Instead, he exhaled, grabbed her wrist, and fled the scene.
Flying down the hallways toward the main lab, Vincent tried to stay in the present. He tried to focus only on inhaling and exhaling each breath. But his mind insisted on weighing odds and drawing conclusions. He nearly shuddered at the fleeting thought, The wrong sister died. The girl aligned with the group currently taking over their planet should not have outlived the one fighting to protect it. But he could not harbor much resentment for the tiny wrist caught between his fingers. Shelke had been taken by Deepground against her will and at a sadly young age. They kept her chained to them by stunting her growth, forcing her to depend on them while she served them. He tried to push these sympathetic realizations away, but only found a suitable distraction when they finally entered the nearly-destroyed lab and found Reeve sitting on the floor. His eyes were closed, defeat written across his features. They opened slowly at Vincent's approach.
"I'm so ashamed," he said quietly, avoiding eye contact. "I am supposed to be a hero of the Jenova War. But look at me." His eyes fell upon the ruined console across the room, wires arcing with electricity.
Vincent stepped nearer to him, understanding his despair all too well. "Don't take all the blame." Reeve turned to face him, but his eyes remained on the floor. Vincent continued, "Reeve...you're not thinking of giving up, are you?"
Reeve's eyes raised as a faint half-smile turned up the corners of his mouth. Vincent knelt to look him in the face.
"I used to be nothing but a stone in the river of time. But three years ago, it was you and the others who taught me I needed to move ahead."
"Vincent," Reeve started, then stopped before he could protest to the comparison. Vincent quietly stood and stepped away, moving toward the adjoined lab. Shelke followed silently.
Within an hour, two WRO soldiers entered with Shalua's heavily damaged body on a stretcher. All without speaking, they cleaned her wounds, placed her into a Mako tube, and exited the room, leaving Shelke and Vincent to stare at her suspended form in equally pensive wonder.
"There you are," a familiar voice called out. Vincent turned, finding Yuffie entering the room with far less cheer than usual. She ignored the lack of greeting and perched on a cabinet across from the tube.
"I talked to the men out there...they say she won't wake up. She suffered too much trauma to her head. Unless there's some kind of a miracle, she's not...not…"
His silence cracked her cool and she leaned forward with her voice raised.
"Vincent! You were there! Why couldn't you save her?!" Her small fist slammed into the countertop.
He looked down, caught off guard by the directness of the question. It came in the same words he'd repeated to himself for the last three years, but its subject was a different scientist.
"I'm sorry," he answered quietly. Yuffie sighed, her anger cooling at the tone.
"No, I didn't mean to…"
Shelke, who had silently listened to this exchange, stepped forward, eyes distant. An answer had clearly already formed in her mind.
"She was a fool."
While Vincent simply frowned, Yuffie leapt from the counter and closed the gap to Shelke with a hard slap across the face.
"You have no right to call her that!" she shouted, while Shelke kept her head turned away. "You don't know! You don't know what…"
Vincent placed his hand on Yuffie's shoulder, separating her from the quiet child. He understood her anger, but she did not understand the damage that Deepground had done to this girl. Shelke broke the silence by repeating her earlier question.
"Why...would she do something so..."
Fed up with the unsympathetic girl, Yuffie stormed out of the room, leaving Vincent alone to help her make sense of her loss. He considered the question carefully, having witnessed this phenomena more than once.
"Before, when I asked Shalua what she was searching for, she answered, 'for her reason to live.' It was you, Shelke. You were her reason to live."
"So? I don't understand how someone could give her life for that of another," she replied, trying to put these pieces together. "Do you understand, Vincent Valentine?"
He turned away, looking at the floor while his mind slid backward through time. "I can't answer for your sister, but...when a person has someone they care about that much, giving their own life is sometimes the least they can do. And maybe...that's what makes us human."
"Someone...they care about…"
"Although," he added, as images of Reeve, Cloud, Cid, and Aria flickered through his thoughts, "it seems like there are a lot of people around me who don't need a reason to risk their lives for that of another." He turned to face her once more.
"And are you…" Shelke began, stepping forward, then tripping over her own boots and stumbling. The moment he caught her shoulders with his hands, the girl froze, eyes glassy and focused on nothing in the room. He said her name once, but she did not seem to hear.
The pair stood connected for a long moment, while he wondered if, at any moment, she might turn on him. She did not, though, and eventually she grew aware of her surroundings again, muttering, "Why are her data fragments responding?"
As she did so, she stepped away to face the door through which Reeve quickly marched. He stopped short, squared his shoulders, and looked to his friend.
"Vincent, I agree with you. This is not the time for us to give up. But...I need to know something. Those data files you recovered from Shina Manor, are you sure there are not any more?"
"I'm sure."
"I see. Well...the Omega report. The file was incomplete. To make any sense of it, we're going to require the other half. If possible, I wanted to know more about our foe before we launch our attack on Midgar."
Shelke turned, then timidly asked, "Are you speaking of Dr. Lucrecia Crescent's findings?"
"Yes, but how did you…"
"A large quantity of her mnemonic data fragments has been uploaded into my neural network. It was my prime directive to use this data to locate and retrieve the protomateria."
Vincent arched an eyebrow at the reminder.
"However, not only was the data incomplete, but part of her consciousness started interfering with my thought process. It was believed that the missing fragments may have been the reason for this. I can attempt to upload the WRO's files on the Omega report. By combining it with the data I possess, you may obtain a clearer picture of what you will be up against, and perhaps...I can regain control of my mind."
Just as Reeve looked to Vincent for an estimation of Shelke's credibility, Yuffie's suddenly-chipper voice called out over the few remaining crackling speakers.
"Reeve, Vincent! You'd better get out here!"
Upon exiting the headquarters, Vincent immediately recognized the buzz in the air. What he did not anticipate was that the roar of the airship would increase twenty-fold as a fleet arrived over Edge. He watched the skies as a particularly large, glass-fronted ship took the lead, eventually lowering to the large parking lot outside the building. Yuffie took off for the ship, running toward the reunion with its pilot. He followed with Reeve at a slower pace, though his heart beat quickly in his chest.