Vincent shook his head at the sight: At the base of the Sister Ray, Aria sat amongst a handful of young WRO soldiers, laughing at an unheard joke. In the face of imminent danger and unavoidable loss, she smiled. He wanted to pull her to him and absorb some of her light. He settled for a round of cheers as the soldiers noticed his approach.
"Man of the hour. What took you so long?" Aria asked, dropping from the edge of a concrete staircase. He noticed that she never let her left foot touch the ground.
"You didn't meet aerial Deepground soldiers?" he asked, still irritated by the nuisance he'd faced on his way to this meeting. She rolled her eyes.
"Of course they have aerials. Of course they do. Let's get into HQ before I have to meet them for myself."
"What happened?" he asked directly, looking down at her leg. She sighed.
"My glider got hit, and I couldn't land it softly. A crane broke my fall."
"And her ankle, Sir," a bolder soldier added. "We bound and cured it, but…"
"It's just stiff. I'm fine."
He nodded and faced the complex. "Shelke says we can only reach Deepground from the top plate. These were your stomping grounds more recently than mine. What's the fastest way up?"
"Through the tunnel. Follow the train tracks in, and they'll take us to some stairs inside the complex. We'll make our way to the top eventually. If you look closely," she said, pointing to a distant wall of industrial windows hanging over the broken plate above, "you can see where we'll come out. Despite the open air drop of a couple hundred feet, that's actually ground level on the top plate. The old loading bay of HQ."
"Stay here. I'll take a few troops in first, make sure it's clear to the top, then call you up. We may have bigger battles ahead of us than whatever waits in those stairwells. Rest a while longer."
She exhaled and leaned back against the base of the cannon, crossing her arms. "Fine. I'll give you half an hour, then I'm coming up after you. I am fine, though."
"I know you are. Two of you come with me, two stay here," he said, addressing the quiet volunteers. They split themselves quickly, two heavily-armed soldiers leading the way into the tunnel, while the remaining ones began patrolling the perimeter of the cannon. In the quick moment of solitude, Vincent stepped closer to Aria, brushing a streak of ash from her cheek. His eyes met hers in a loaded gaze before he lowered his lips to her ear. She held her breath, awaiting the words that he whispered into her skin.
"Please be careful down here. Don't get these two killed. You're getting sloppy."
With that, her tension shattered into laughter. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him hard.
"Get out of here. See you up there."
He nodded and turned toward the tunnel.
Fifteen minutes later, he had reached the street level of the top plate, and stood just outside the massive room Aria had point out, grids of windows framing the broken city beyond. At the sight of three bodies of WRO soldiers just inside the door, he stepped back into the hallway, motioning his two followers to return to the secured stairwell. The air of the complex grew heavy and oppressive, igniting his senses as he braced for something worse than the few soldiers he had just so easily defeated.
He flipped open his phone and connected to the line.
"Cleared it out already?" Aria asked, sounding anxious to join him.
"Yes, but...something isn't right. It's too quiet. There are fallen WRO stacked in a heap. Someone is here."
"Is it her?" she asked, cutting him off.
"I don't know. But-"
"I'm coming up."
"Aria, no. Stay there. If it is her, I don't know where she is...or what she's capable of."
"Vincent-"
"Stay. There. I'll keep the line open."
He closed the phone, keeping its speakerphone feature activated, and making him fully aware of the curses he otherwise would not have heard on the other end. After a single deep breath, he stepped through the doorway.
His instinct had not failed him. Rosso dropped from a crate to greet him. For a fleeting moment, he wondered if she shared her sister's preference for perching.
"Ah...still alive I see," she said, pacing in front of him. Her eyes were cold as they traveled up and down his body. "And you call yourself human."
He bristled at the verbal jab, then cooly replied, "More human than you."
Her eyebrows raised at the remark. "Ah, more human than I?" she asked, laughing. Her arms extended as she fired back, "Tell me something I don't already know, darling. I'm a Tsviet: I traded away my human weaknesses for power long ago. 'Tis the path I've chosen, and the path I'll tread until I've sucked all life from this pitiful world," she shouted.
This was not your choice, he thought.
"And I'm not going to let you get in the way," she said, lowering her arms to step past him, her gaze boring through him. "You've lived long enough, Vincent Valentine. And I'll make sure you don't come back this time…" from the corner of his eye, he saw her draw her long gunblade, its razor edges glittering in the dim light. She gritted her teeth to finish the thought:
"...by slicing you into pieces!"
With that, he vanished behind a stack of crates, Cerberus itching in his palm.
Several stories below, violet eyes stared up into distant windows now flashing with gunfire.
In her earpiece, she heard Rosso's voice, taunting Vincent as she pursued him across the bay.
"Let's see what kind of man you are," the disturbing accent cooed between gunshots. Vincent never responded; Aria listened intently to his breathing as he darted from column to column, trying to line up a non-lethal shot while simultaneously avoiding a more deadly attack.
At one point, the gunfire stopped, and Rosso's voice became clearer in the momentarily silent arena.
"Do you know why they call me The Crimson, darling?"
Vincent remained silent.
"Let me show you!"
From her post in the slums, Aria watched fiery orbs begin flying across the room. From their direction, she tried to guess Vincent's distance from the Tsviet. The task became much easier as the line crackled with the sound of an unnatural explosion. She recognized the sound of his gauntlet scraping across the floor and drew a sharp gasp. As much louder gunfire rang in her ear, she caught an indignant cry from Rosso and relaxed. He was back on his feet.
The lightshow in the bay windows was impressive and captivated the attention of the only three people in the city who seemed to notice it. When it stopped suddenly, Aria sat down on the concrete steps behind her, eyes locked onto an open cargo bay door. A pained howl screeched through the earpiece, though she guessed she might have heard the scream without it.
"Someone...stronger...than, than," Rosso choked out, seemingly failing to catch her breath. Vincent still said nothing.
"Absurd. Absurd!" After a long pause, and what Aria thought might have been a low laugh, Rosso continued, "Our time here together is done. But the mighty Azul awaits. I shall not grant you the pleasure of killing Rosso the Crimson."
Below, Rosso's sister stood again, watching as she stepped out of the bay, onto a precariously connected bit of concrete dangling over the massive drop to the slum floor.
"No one will ever stand above me," she said, as flashes of red perforated the concrete at her feet. "No one. No one! NO ONE!"
Above, Vincent could only watch as the Tsviet began descending, the ground crumbling from beneath her feet, a deep laugh filling the air where dust could not.
He pulled his phone from his pocket and spoke evenly. "You're watching this?"
Aria's voice was quiet. "I am. Vincent...thank you. For not...thank you."
He sighed, eyes locked on the new hole in the ground outside. "I'll see you inside."
"I'll be there."
As Vincent approached the Shinra building, he answered the ringing phone.
"Vincent Valentine, you have separated from your team again. I have momentarily closed her access to this line."
"She's saying goodbye."
"To her sister," Shelke responded.
"You knew?"
"I have noticed the way she looks at me...and at Shalua. I knew Rosso. While they are not identical, they share traits. Is Rosso...dead?"
"She was alive when last I saw her."
"Then Aria Marx must use extreme caution. Rosso is merciless. She will strike, given the chance."
"She knows this. How do I reach the entrance to Deepground?" he asked, wanting to change the topic. His eyes scanned the front of the heavily damaged tower while Shelke offered vague direction.
As she discussed the multiple entrances to the building, Vincent lost his focus on her small voice. The air around him thickened, deadening the distant sounds of gunfire, engines, and helicopter blades. Before he could comment on the change, a wave of inexplicable pain rushed through him, causing him to double over.
His vision blurred briefly before turning black.
In his next moment of awareness, he felt far from his body, detached, and surprisingly comfortable with that. He heard a beastly growl from deep within someone's throat, but could have sworn it was not his own. His physical form was miles away, but in need of his control. He trudged darkness to regain his consciousness, wading upstream against a sharp wave of discomfort.
His eyes flashed open as he drew a sharp breath.
"What's going on? Why is...Chaos…"
Shelke answered through the phone that now lay on the ground.
"The protomateria helped you control Chaos. Now that you've lost it, your mental state has become extremely unstable."
He touched his chest thoughtlessly as Shelke reminded him how Rosso had removed the protomateria. After several deep breaths, he heard a familiar voice.
"Chaos. While a part of you, the entity exists independently from the rest of your body."
"Shelke?" he tried to confirm, recalling her presentation on the Shera. Still, he could not stay rooted to reality as Lucrecia appeared in front of him, explaining the purpose of his demon.
"Chaos, harbinger of anarchy."
"Lucrecia?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper. She could only be an image, though he did not know what projected it. His head spun as she spoke directly to him.
"Born before the planet dies, he shall gather together all life for Omega's journey to the sea of stars. That is Chaos, and he slumbers inside of you. I'm so sorry." She walked toward him, eyes tinged with a pain more real than any projection could manage. He reached for her.
"You must fight him. I don't want you to die!" she cried before flickering into nothingness. With a loud crackle and a burst of white noise, the connection died. The sight of her vanishing elicited an ache in his chest that he knew was not related to any protomateria.
"Lucrecia!" The cry was instinctive. He had not meant to speak at all. Yet, the pain in his chest ate away at his silent demeanor. Perhaps, he chanced, he was growing unstable.
He turned back toward the Shinra building and dropped onto one of the stone steps at the entrance, taking a moment to gather his thoughts, while trying not to let the prospect of what was happening on the lower level take them over.
The dust took several minutes to settle, as parts of the ground above kept slipping from their holds and plummeting onto the pile of rubble. Aria watched the pile intently, eyes darting from one minuscule movement to another, looking for signs of life.
"Do you...do you intend to dig her out?" asked one of the WRO soldiers. Aria did not answer for a long moment, then subtly shook her head.
"I don't know," she admitted. "I mean, that would be...potentially dangerous. I couldn't ask you to do that."
"Then let's go. I don't think she's getting back up."
She nodded, but kept her eyes on the broken concrete. "Head up. I'll be right behind you."
The pair of soldiers glanced at one another, then back at Aria. She broke her gaze to look at them, offering a glimpse of the redness to her eyes.
"Go."
They did not protest, and they soon disappeared into the quiet tunnel. Aria stepped onto a block of cement, lifting herself for a better view of the mess.
"Rosso…" she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "Penelope…" Her voice grew louder, and she repeated the name twice more, pulling concrete rocks from the pile with an intensity that neared desperation. She did not know exactly what she wanted to find. While she worked, her mind considered the best outcome: Finding Rosso on the verge of death, ready to be saved from the rubble, ready to abandon Deepground. It seemed unlikely. The next best option was to find Rosso just alive enough to hear an apology. Even this felt selfish.
Aria had begun to sweat with the exertion of digging through the rubble. Her arms burned under the weight of the cement rocks and for an instant, breaking a vow she had made to herself many years ago, she wished she could command materia to help her in this process. A minute in, she recognized the madness and stepped away from the massive pile, dropping to her knees in front of it.
"Penelope. I don't know if you can hear me...or even if you could, if you would recognize me, remember me. But I remember you, and I recognized you immediately. I recognized mom's widow's peak and dad's chin. I didn't recognize the hatred and anger in your eyes, but I understand it. I can't imagine the pain of being taken from our family, of coming to realize that no one would come looking for you. But I didn't know. I thought you were… If I had known, I would never have agreed to take on your name, your identity. I would have taken the experiments, the Pure Strand research, I would have embraced it if it would have meant looking for you, keeping you alive, bringing you back. But I just didn't...I was just a kid, too. Penelope," she paused, taking a deep breath, wiping a stream of tears from her cheek, "I'm sorry this happened to you. I'm sorry I lost you. I'm sorry I lost them. They were killed because of me… because I couldn't just stay put." She lowered her head, closing her eyes tightly. "I'm so sorry we couldn't know each other."
A small rock slid down the edge of the pile, punctuating her speech. The silence that followed pounded in her ears until she had to stand to step away from the fresh tomb.
"I will come back. I will find you and send you off with decency. I'll take you home, I promise."
At that, she swallowed hard and turned toward the tunnel, deciding steadfastly against turning back for a last, desperate look, and consequently missing the few small rocks that slid quietly down the rubble.
"I'm here. Let's go."
Vincent stood, watching Aria approach, and saw that she did not seem to notice the small fires burning all over the former Shinra headquarters. She did not seem to notice much.
"You're alright?" he asked quietly. She nodded, blinking away any remaining tears and drawing a gun.
"I'm fine. I swear, I'm alright. I said some words, made some promises, and I'm ready to go. Let's get in there."
He rolled his shoulders back, quickly deciding against telling her about his blackout. Instead, he simply turned and faced the building with her.
"Have you heard from Shelke?" he asked. She shook her head. "Me neither. She cut out a while back. I think we're on our own. We have to find the president's entrance, an elevator. That will lead us to Deepground."
"What are we waiting for?"