Disclaimer: Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy X are copyrighted to Square Enix.
Word Count: 2544
Pages: 8
AN: Sorry everyone, I promised to some people that this chapter would come out sooner, like last weekend, but football (soccer) season has started and I have four practises a week (I play semi-pro) and I'm helping out with the house league program as well, and also my summer course (not summer school...extra class in university) has started. Thanks again to everyone who C2'd or alerted my story. Thanks to reviewers: Stormie, yunalesca13, Tiri Li, WolfenDragonfly, Sakura Lisel, and Midnight Phase.
Y's night was eventful. Her sleep was filled with dreams. They were her memories to be more exact.
She remembered the wave of emotion that she experienced ever since his return. She was in blissful disbelief, unsure if she was dreaming, and questioning his tangibility. Was he going to disappear again? She didn't think so, but regardless she wanted to enjoy every moment possible with him for as long a time that they were blessed to be together.
The night she was reminiscing on was one of the many that she and her love spent together at the base of their favourite palm tree on the beach by Besaid. The large leaves above them swayed slightly in a breeze that made the heat of Besaid's night comfortable. She was lying with her back against TJ's chest; their forms fitting together in such a perfect manner that it seemed they were fated so, as it destiny carved them for each other. She leaned her head back and looked up at the celestial body hanging over them.
"Wow," Y said in a soft voice, breaking the comfortable silence, "Do you see that star?"
TJ raised his head off her shoulder and gazed at the black blanketing the sky. He saw what she was referring to: a brilliant ball of light blazing across the dark canvas, behind it a tail of streaking luminosity.
"It's beautiful," he answered, "But no where as stunning as you are."
She smiled and rewarded him with a passionate kiss. Stopping to catch their breath, the blond had a look on his face indicating that he had just thought of something.
"Hey Yuna," he began, "How would you like to tour Spira with me all over again? We can enjoy the sights without having to worry about any obstacles like last time. I never got to fully appreciate the landscape."
She smiled. "I would love to…Tidus."
She awoke with a sudden start, with that name on her breath. Sitting upright she repeated the name several times to herself before taking in her surroundings. She saw that she was in a cube-like, metallic, 4 sided room that hosted the bed she slept on and some kind of apparatus that held a ball of light, illuminating the entire room.
She saw Tidus sleeping beside her, but she could not figure out how they got into this room.
'What happened yesterday?' she thought.
The blond next to her was awakening, disturbed from his slumber by her sudden movement. She nudged his shoulder to rouse him faster.
"Tidus wake up."
He groaned at first, but then bolted upright with a grin on his face. "You remembered my name!"
"How could I forget it? What I don't remember is how we ended up in this room!" She replied, bewilderment evident on her face.
Now it was Tidus's turn to look confused. "Well, Cloud and Tifa saved us, but we ended up getting captured while trying to escape."
"Cloud? Is that a person? Wait, what do you mean saved?"
"I'm not too sure but we woke up in these huge glass cylinders and nobody could remember their past. Neither could you. Not even our names. I still can't remember anything before yesterday."
She sat in silence, mulling over everything he told her. She paused a moment, recollecting the events of yesterday and recalled their attempted escape.
"But you said you knew my name. Tidus right? Could you remember yours?"
"You told it too me in my dream. Well, I was dreaming but it was really my memories that were coming back…my name is Yuna."
"Yuna," he smiled to himself, softly repeating the name, "It's lovely."
She smiled.
"Could you remember everything? Like how we ended up here?" Tidus inquired.
"Well almost everything. I can remember my whole life up until your return."
"My return…? But you have no idea how we ended up here?"
"No," she responded, "I remember us getting married, but not you proposing, or anything after the wedding. I guess that would indicate how we got here, seeing as we're still wearing our wedding attire." She had on a small, puzzled smile.
Playing with the ring on his finger, he mused over the idea of being married. He was worried.
"Can we get out of here?" She wondered.
"No, the door is locked."
"I guess we have to wait."
When Cloud awoke, he was no longer sharing the bed with Tifa. He stretched before sitting up to see he was sprawled out on the floor. He looked up at the bed where Tifa dozed peacefully. He turned his head to glance behind him to see that the door was open.
Jumping to his feet, he tried to wake his friend but she just groaned and remained in her dormant state. He walked to the door and popped his head out the door to see what caused the door to unlock. He noticed the guard at the end of the hall lying in a pool of dried blood.
"What's happened?" Cloud muttered to himself, before turning back inside and gently shaking Tifa awake. "Tifa! Wake up!"
"Cloud? What's wrong?" she asked.
"Something's happened outside. The door's open."
"Come on then! Let's get out of here," She grabbed his hand and ran out dragging him behind her.
She stopped at the dead guard, lying face down in his own blood.
"He must have the keys on him. Let's free the others."
Tifa tentatively searched the pockets of the guard making sure to avoid getting the blood on her. Before long she stood up holding a set of key cards.
"You go free the others, I'll keep watch," Tifa commanded as she threw the key cards to Cloud.
Cloud ran to the other doors and tried each card until he found the appropriate one for opening that door. He repeated the process until all occupants were freed and shaken awake. When he had exited the last room with Barret and Nanaki trailing behind him, he saw that the group had already met up with Tifa and the cluster was buzzing with energetic conversation.
When he arrived, the 'Ancients' seemed to be making introductions to Tifa. Cloud stepped in next to her right as a woman just finished introducing herself as 'Lulu'.
"Did all of you regain memories of your pasts?" Cloud asked.
"Everyone except me," the nameless blond from yesterday spoke up. "But Yuna told me my name is Tidus."
The woman with the shoulder length hair who was awoken with Tidus introduced herself as Yuna.
"This is like the time we all thought Tidus lost his mind cause he got to close to Sin," A man with orange hair that curled up vertically in the front contributed. "Except now, I don't think he can actually remember anything, ya?"
"So for certain he has no memories this time?" a short blonde girl asked.
"Positive. I can't remember anything before yesterday. I have flashbacks when I see or hear something familiar. Other than that…nothing…" Tidus answered.
"Odd. When we rescued you guys, I asked the assistant I threatened why you all seemed so dazed and he said that none of you would have memories. But he mentioned that the memory loss was only temporary and you would regain everything within 24 hours." Cloud pondered.
"As much as I'd like to get to know you all I think we have to cut the introductions short to only names, since we still have to get out of this building in one piece," Tifa interrupted.
"Right, well I'm Rikku. Hiya!" a short blonde girl informed enthusiastically.
A blond guy with an eye patch covering his right eye introduced himself as Gippal, while another blond man, who was significantly older than the rest of the group, said his name was Cid.
A silver haired woman and a platinum haired man established there names as Paine and Baralai respectively. Holding Aerith's hand was a small blond boy.
"This is Shinra. He's a bit shy." She said while having a look on her face that stated that no one should be insensitive enough to say anything about the boy's name. Out of the corner of his eye, Cloud saw the name on Barret's lips as the large black man inaudibly whispered.
Lulu introduced herself again along with her husband, Wakka, the man with the orange hair that challenged Cloud's hair in defying gravity.
The blue furred being did not speak when it became apparent that it was his turn for an introduction so Yuna did it for him, "This is Kimahri of the Ronso tribe."
Red XIII registered the information in his head and decided to ask his blue companion about his people at a later, more appropriate time.
Tifa quickly introduced the Midgar crew and then they were on their way. Red XIII ran ahead while Barret declared he would clean up in the area before joining up with the rest of them.
Paine picked up the dropped sword off of the fallen guard and the five individuals with weapons, Cloud, Tifa, Tidus, Aerith and Paine, went in the front while the rest of the group followed from behind.
They met up with Red XIII in the lab area in front of the dome that held Jenova…except now Jenova wasn't inside it; the cell's wall was destroyed and the chamber was empty.
"It seems that the specimen went up to the next level using the service elevator." Red XIII observed and took off after the escaped being.
Cloud and crew went up to the next level in groups of threes where they found the orange lion-wolf battling with several escaped Hojo experiments and specimens and armed ones of the group jumped into the fray to assist him.
Cloud brought his sword down on a creature that looked like an upright, sarcoline (1) carrot called a Vargid. The vegetable fiend was cleaved in half, falling into two detached pieces.
Tifa attacked a Brain-Pod and broke the glass that encased the lobe while Aerith followed up her hit and rammed her Mythril Rod into the cerebrum effectively destroying the floating abomination.
Tidus was assisting Kimahri with a Zenene. The morel feline's hindquarters was being held down by the large, blue furred being as the blond assaulted the fiend's neck with his sword, decapitating the monster. Paine was cutting down Vargids and slid her Hardedge through a Zenene's throat as Red XIII finished with the last remaining monster.
They stood before a dead assistant looking at the blood surrounding the body.
"It looks like it leads up to here…" the lion-wolf panted. "Whatever did this left a trail."
A sanguineous path weaved itself up to the next set of doors. The group followed the path of blood and cadavers through the doors leading them up to the 69th floor. The blood continued up one set of two spiral staircases. They walked up one staircase and they arrived in the President's office.
They were presented with the scene of President Shinra behind his desk, skewered on a long katana piercing his back.
Barret could be heard coming up the stairs behind them. He broke the silence induced by astonishment: "He's dead…the leader of such immorality is dead…"
Tifa ran behind the large circular desk. "Then the sword must be…!?"
"Sephiroth's!!" Cloud exclaimed.
"…Sephiroth is alive?" Tifa asked.
"…only Sephiroth can wield that sword. I supposed he is then."
"Who cares who did it!? The fight is over now!"
At this point the tubby, round man that AVALANCHE saw earlier at the board meeting popped out from behind a pillar and made a run for the door.
Before he could get far Cloud and Tidus seized him by the arms.
"Please…please don't kill me!" Palmer stammered.
"What happened?" Cloud inquired.
"Seph…Sephiroth. He came…"
"You saw him?"
"Yes, with my own eyes!"
"You really saw him?" Cloud pushed.
"Huh? Yes! Why would I lie to you at a time like this!? I heard his voice too!" Palmer babbled. "He was saying something about not letting us have the Promised Land."
"Now what? Does that mean the Promised Land isn't just myth? What does it mean? Is Sephiroth going to save it?" Tifa inquired, her voice filled more with malice than curiosity.
"Is he good then?" Barret added.
"Save the Promised Land? I don't think so." Cloud scoffed. "No way is he good. I think he wants the Promised Land for himself for different reasons."
A whirring sound coming from afar distracted the group enough for Palmer to break free from Cloud's and Tidus's grasp.
A helicopter appeared in view from the window that covered the entire curved side of this buildings level.
"Rufus! Fuck! I forgot about that bastard," Barret profaned.
"Who?" The brunette spoke.
"Vice President Rufus. The President's son." explained the large man.
"Is he a better man than his father?"
"Only one way to find out!" Cloud ran for the door that led to the exterior of the building with the others trailing.
They sprinted to the front of the large balcony overlooking Midgar and halted when they arrived at the helicopter where Rufus was speaking with Palmer.
"So Sephiroth was here…" the President's son muttered to himself before addressing the group in front of him. "Who are you all?"
Cloud hesitated a minute before replying: "I doubt that it's necessary. There are too many of us for formalities."
"No matter, I am Rufus, the new president after the death of my father." He gave a lopsided smirk to the group before continuing.
For a man who just lost his father, Rufus was downright gleeful. There must not have been much love between the father and son Cloud figured. Rufus then went into a spiel about the differences between how his father controlled the world and how he will take up the position. It had bits about how his father depended on money whereas Rufus decided he would use fear to control the people because he is too lazy and stingy to go about it in a different way. In short, Cloud lost interest early in the speech.
"Y'all both like making boring-assed speeches though!" mocked Barret.
Sniggers could be heard among the group. Cloud was focused on this new threat however.
"All of you get out of here! I'll meet up with you after I'm through with him." Cloud ordered.
"Cloud! That's stupid. It'll be easier with more people." Tifa chided.
"Fine. Tidus and Paine, would you mind assisting me?" Cloud requested. "The rest of you get out of the building. Barret, Tifa, Aerith and Red XIII can protect you."
The group moved back inside and ran down to the 69th floor when Aerith stopped.
"Cloud…" she mumbled, "I…I want to wait for him."
Tifa turned and went over to the flower girl. "…I'll wait for Cloud! You need to get out of here, you're the most wanted. Everyone get to the elevator!"
"Good luck."
"You too, it may get rough from here. Equip any material you have. It may also be wise to give any spares to some of the rescued."
Standing before the doors waiting for the lift to come up, Aerith turned to the others and decided to take Tifa's advice.
(1) Sarcoline: flesh-coloured (I decided to define this word for any of you who don't know what it means. Not even MS Word recognized it...it said I was wrong...even google asked me if I meant meant something else...but it is a real word, google it and it'll give you links to define it)
AN: I'm sorry again that this chapter also lacked action, but I had a little. I said I'd have them out of the ShinRa building in this chapter but it was becoming kind of long so I split this chapter into two. So review and I can update sooner!
I'm not updating 'til I get 5 or more reviews for this chapter.