Dedication this round is to Cloudy Strife, Final Heaven Discord member, for giving me some ideas about Cloud/Sephiroth/Jenova in the Shinra building.
Chapter 33. December 14 (AM), εуλ0007
Cloud woke, not with a slow rouse into wakefulness, but an electric jolt of – something.
The dreams. Few images, detached from each other, but the sound broke through, reverberations still hammering through his brain. Come to me, the words whispered with feeling, a summons he hesitated to resist.
At first, it seemed nothing had changed. He was still in the Shinra cells, leaning uncomfortably against the cold steel wall. Across from him, Tifa was sleeping surprisingly comfortably, considering.
He didn't notice at first, the dull lights of the blackened hallway blurring with the ruby lights of the cells, little differentiating inner from outer space. A thin sliver of green breaking it up was his first clue; and even as his eyes rapidly adjusted, it took longer for his brain to catch up.
"Tifa," he loud-whispered, jumping to his feet and hustling to the cot, shaking her awake as firmly as he dared. "You've gotta see this. The door's open."
She snapped to attention, his mako-bright eyes two reassuring stars in the darkness, as her own vision adjusted, taking much longer then his. Turning, she took in the now-open door, the silent empty hallway beyond.
"How?" she asked. "Is it a trap?"
"Probably," he replied. "But it's the best option we have right now."
She nodded, sliding off the bed and stepping past him through the door. He glanced past her, seeing the crumpled guards, clearly dead. Cloud tried not to be unnerved with which gentle Tifa flopped over the guard's body, rummaging through his blood-crusted uniform. Straightening, she lifted a set of keycards with a smile of victory.
He quickly matched the numbers to the doors, handing one to Tifa. "I'll check on the guys, you get Aerith." She nodded, loyally all-business now, as focused as Cloud. Or perhaps just desperate to get out.
Aerith woke up groggy, confused, from dreams of green and a sky she'd never seen, to gray and gloom encroaching on her. "Wh- what's going on?" she dribbled out.
The red of the hallway lights reflected in Tifa's eyes, making them burn like embers against her pale, luminescent skin. "Shhh," the other woman cautioned. "We're escaping."
Escaping. That one trigger word…. Aerith had spent all her life escaping. Perhaps one of these days, she'd manage to escape for good. "I'm ready," she whispered back, carefully rising to follow Tifa out.
She was barely out of the door before Barret was pressing her familiar staff into her hand. Taking it gratefully, she closed her fist tightly on its filigreed length, its cool and balance comforting in her hand.
"They were so lazy, they just had our weapons piled up right outside. Didn't think we'd be able to get out so easily. Shinra security," he snorted.
"We wouldn't have," Tifa reminded him. "We still don't know WHY we were even let out."
Cloud and Red were crouching by a dark patch on the floor, motioning them over. "It's.. not just the guards. I didn't notice it all at first. It took Red to sniff it out in the dark."
"A whole trail of blood." The animal remained calm, unperturbed. "Quite a lot of it. Someone would have had to really have dragged a body through the corridors to get something like this." He motioned with his nose to where the black smears extended into the dark passage ahead, continuing around the corner past their line of sight. "And something else mixed in. Unfamiliar, and quite unpleasant. I find it all rather unnerving."
"Then it IS a trap, obviously," Tifa fretted. "Someone wants us to follow them."
"Well, that's a bit ridiculous, don't you think?" All eyes turned to Aerith as she continued. ' I mean, we were ALREADY trapped/ But I agree, we're e being pushed to do SOMETHING. Might as well follow it and find out."
Cloud nodded, concentrating. "Not like there's a lot of other options anyway. Go back to the cells and wait?" He slapped his sword on his back, the metallic clang echoing uncomfortably in the silence, and began trudging down the hallway Red had already started down. Behind him, he sensed his companions following.
Blood. So much blood. A little didn't faze Tifa, but this much, smeared along the floors, the walls, even the CEILING. "You okay?" Barret asked her gently, as they entered the brighter lights of the lab proper.
She nodded, wondering if anyone but Barret could read the obvious on her face. She hoped dearly that most employees had already been gone for the night, steering clear from crumpled clothing concealing irregular lumps.
Following the trail up the stairwell, it finally veered up a grand staircase, and as they climbed, bright lights flooded her vision, leaving her blinking uncomfortably. Alarmed, she raised her fists, realizing her companions were tensed and ready as well.
Finally, the ubiquitous pale green glow of mako-powered light jogged her memory, she realizing what it must be – the panoramic view of Midgar outside. They were at the top.
"The whole floor for one office. Fancy," Aerith idly observed.
"Nothin' but the best for the lord of the assholes," Barret announced, loud as always. No one much seemed to be heralding their arrival, anyway. He peered out the smaller windows behind them. "Gotta be able to look down on the people you're shitting on."
Approaching the desk, perched above the raised dais like a throne – Cloud was the first to notice, though Tifa's eyes followed him almost immediately. A figure, slumped on the desk – the steel length of a sword, protruding through his chest, eyes already dead bulging above it.
President Shinra, dead before them.
And for a moment, a vision shimmered into view – a wall of silver hair framing a face of cruelty, cat-slit pupils set in mako-green irises.
With a final jerk, a heinous smile, Sephiroth yanked his word from the President's corpse. The wound, so clean and sharp that no blood yet bubbled out, but fatal nonetheless.
Acid rose in Tifa's throat. She could almost taste the feeling of her fingers wrapped around that sword's hilt. Wishing she had been the one to deliver that killing blow, turning next to Sephiroth to finish him as well. Memories swam in her eyes, blood and fire and fear intertwining… She shook her head, forcing composure, and Cloud was there, severe, looking back at her…
"Sephiroth." The one word hung between the two of them, no more acknowledgement needed.
For a long moment, no one responded; finally, Barret spoke. "Well, shit. You mean he's some kind of a good guy?"
"He… no!: Tifa would believe that over her own dead body. Cloud's face reflected her own icy grimness. Looking at the others, she considered. They were united in their hate for Shinra… but she and Cloud were the only ones carrying a grudge against Sephiroth. The famous SOLDIER. The hero of Wutai.
The destroyer of Cloud's hometown, of her life.
Aerith wondered. Sephiroth. A man who thought himself an Ancient… But he'd been killed. An unknown threat, now risen again, and the Planet could tell her no more than that.
"He might have done the world a favor, but we have yet to ascertain his true motivations," Red astutely pointed out.
"Besides," Aerith volunteered, looking around anxiously, "there's the President's son." A man she'd never run across as a child, but who had borne a particularly strong desire to bring her in, only Tseng's mysterious protection and the need for her cooperation keeping her free. "We don't know how long ago this all happened. Rufus could be here any second." He'd be there in a hurry to take over the mantle of the father he had always despised. She was already anticipating the familiar roar of a Shinra helicopter in the background.
She shivered. They hadn't escaped yet.
"I've never actually been up here, she continued, "but I know there's only a helipad outside, and just a communications antenna above. We'd better backtrack to the elevator and try to get out of here." But even as she said the words, she realized the whir of a helicopter hadn't been her paranoid imagination.
Running outside, whipping winds greeted the party as the blades of the bird churned the air above the tarmac. They should be going, Cloud knew. But as the helicopter slowly descended, he found himself driven to see the man in question – see the face of the enemy, the new head of the Shinra empire.
He realized none of his companions moved to leave, either.
Anger…. Before him, the ultimate figurehead, symbol of all he had lost… all of them, really, but he was the one best equipped to exact vengeance. Behind that, a small part he was denying… an affinity, perhaps nothing more than the voice of his own bruised ego, thirsting for the imminent battle, to take the power Shinra itself had given him and turn it back on their own.
Justice, really. This was his fight, and his alone. And those behind him were his to protect. Shinra would squash most of them without a thought, but Aerith… she was the one they really wanted.
SOLDIERs were supposed to protect; the man before him had created them to destroy. This was his chance to prove otherwise.
"Barret," he called behind him. "Take Aerith and get her out." Tifa, Red, he trusted to hold their own; he hoped he wasn't mistaken. Vaguely, he heard Barret arguing with him, heard his own voice asking Barret, I'm asking you, do me this favor… but his mind's eyes had already narrowed onto his opponent.
Tifa, pausing to look back at him, visibly torn between obeying and staying, leaving the memory her beautiful eyes before she, too, turned and ran.
Rufus just smirked, cool-steel exterior like the twin guns in his hands, as he dismissed his own guards with a flick of his hand after Cloud's companions – far more arrogance, and much less argument back.
Cloud wondered if that arrogance would be his demise.
Rufus stared down this cocky, self-sure young SOLDIER. Ex-SOLDIER, he claimed, as if there could be any such thing. With the mako running through their veins – once a slave, always a slave. He would enjoy putting this bastard in his place.
"Just the two of us," he issued the challenge. His faithful guard dog heeled at his side. "Well. Make that three."
Cloud salivated for the one-on-one, craving the visceral experience of wiping the dirt with Rufus Shinra. "Let's dance, asshole." And Cloud struck.
Running down the grand staircase to the elevator that was their best way out, Aerith suddenly froze. Startled, fearful, she had an overwhelming urge… "Wait. Someone needs to stay here and wait for Cloud."
Without missing a beat, Tifa answered. "I need to be the one to stay. You heard Cloud, you need to get out." Barret, true to his word, was already dragging Aerith away. Aerith met Tifa's eyes, exchanging a long look fraught with meaning; and they departed, leaving Tifa alone on the 69th floor.
Above her, the clashes of the battle between Cloud and Rufus vibrated through the walls, echoed through the cavernous room where she stood. Paralyzed, she wanted to run back up to Cloud, but knew right now she'd only be in the way.
Abruptly, the noise ceased. Tifa realized she was half-panting despite not having moved an inch. Had Cloud beaten him? She craned her ears, and for long anxious seconds… nothing.
Then a quake, gunshots hear, and out the window a helicopter banked and rose – a white blur she didn't need to see clearly to identify, hanging off the rail.
She didn't think any more. She ran…
Rufus, escaped, the fight an unsatisfying draw; Cloud left staring up as he was whisked away, hanging nonchalantly off its rail, rapidly becoming a white speck in the deep-dark of the night above.
He turned to run back inside, after the others, but as a final fuck-you, the helicopter showered bullets over him; even deflecting the bulk with the flat of his blade, he found himself pushed step by step backwards…
…he hadn't realize how far until he felt the creak below him, slashing back to the Sector Five reactor as the ground broke apart beneath him. Grasping frantically, he caught the edge of the protruding beam above, clinging with his right hand as he swung in the whispering winds high above the ground.
Idly, he realized he still clutched his word in the other; it hadn't occurred to him to let go. He hung there, undecided; it was no further than the drop from the plate. But there was no welcoming bed of
Flowers at the bottom; no encouraging words telling him to let go.
He felt the beam wobble, his glove sliding a couple inches further towards an uncertain fall. Gripping the sword's handle, he weighed his decision, knowing there were only seconds left – drop the sword and grab on tight…
His fingers loosened.
Out of nowhere, running steps on the tarmac above. A slide, like rubber on asphalt, and suddenly above him -
The beautiful, welcome face of his savior; the worry he'd seen in her eyes as she left, now bringing her back.
He couldn't have been more glad to see her.
Braced on the remaining structure, Tifa stretched forward, grabbing his wrist, just as his glove came loose from the beam. The metal fell away, tumbling hundreds of meters to the ground below. He never heard the impact.
She broke into a smile of welcome and relief, and even in their precarious situation, she spared a moment for chiding tease. "You've got to be better than this, if you're going to play the hero."
He gave her a slender, resigned frown; but inside his heart leapt with gratitude and pride and amazement, even dangling seventy stories above the plate. Her second hand wrapped around his right fist, gently drawing him back up.
Only a moment to spare to look at each other, reassuring themselves they were both alive; Cloud had never wanted so badly to kiss her. But now was not the time.
Together they rushed back inside, reversing the bloody path down the main stairs. Despite the fight, his launch over the side of the building,, he was barely out of breath, and Tifa couldn't help but admire the fact. "Rufus?" her one-word question, realizing she hadn't even thought to ask.
"Gone," his equally terse answer. The main elevator loomed ahead; he grabbed her hand to pull her in. He pushed a button; Tifa anxiously watched the numbers counting down.
"How are we going to get out?" she asked, hoping he had a plan.
He did. The bell dinged, the doors opened, and they stepped out into Shinra's showroom.
Bikes, cars, TVs. Legacy of Shinra's technological domination. "Do you know how to drive?" he asked.
"Of course!" she answered. One of the many miscellaneous skills she'd acquired in passing, surviving her years in the slums.
"Good. Hate for you to have to figure it out on the way." His tone was flat, but there was a sparkle of mirth in his eyes, the goofy self within that always charmed her. Cloud motioned to a small three-wheeled pickup; a Shinra trademark, common above the plate for its size and maneuverability. "No keys. Push-button ignition."
"What about you?" she asked over her shoulder, as she opened the door and slid neatly into the driver's seat.
"Don't worry. I got this. Just grab the others." She nodded, one finger neatly starting the engine. It roared, and she looked frantically around for Cloud.
It was a distant rumbling, the growl of another motor, that first alerted her… the motorcycle roared past her, settling to an ever purr as he paused at the top of the stairs, all brazen SOLDIER confidence, looking perfectly at ease on the Hardy-Daytona.
She hadn't even known he COULD ride. He turned back, his eyes meeting hers, giving her a quick nod that said I know you can do this, Tifa, just follow me.
And she knew she would. Anywhere.
Surrounded. Now way out.
Barret told her to go. This bear of a man, so eager to protect; she was glad Marlene had ended up with a father like him. And she wanted the girl to keep that father, not have him die in a pointless last stand against Heidegger and his troops.
"We stay together," she told him, resolute; but as she heard Heidegger give the order, save the Ancient, but kill the others, she wondered if any of them could escape.
A noise from the floor above, and all heads, Shinra and AVALNCHE, turned as one.
Barely remembering to breathe, Tifa rumbled down the stairs, disconcerted as the truck jumped and jolted, splashing into the main foyer to see troops scattered by Cloud's first charge. Slamming on the brakes, she called to her friends, they rushing to clamber into the cab and bed. Aerith shared a grin of victory with Tifa as she plopped into the passenger seat, slamming the door closed – and with a jerk, they were off.
Before her, she saw Cloud and the bike lurch forward, gunning the motor before she had time to be afraid, heard Aerith calling for everyone to brace, brace themselves and glass was shattering – tires slamming on asphalt at the bottom of a three-story fall, Shinra-made shocks absorbing most of the impact but still she felt her jaw slamming into her brain, heard Barret's gun firing behind her – Cloud just at the edge of her peripheral vision, barely holding the handlebars as his sword swing out in wild yet accurate arcs, their Shinra pursuers going down in a spray of sparks and oil, feeling Aerith's tension radiating through the cab –
- adrenaline finally winding down as they screeched to a stop on the jagged edge of the broken highway ahead, a shattered remnant of a feeble attempt to connect the plate and slums.
The wreckage of Shinra's latest giant mech lay burning behind them, a wild fight that had pushed Cloud to his limits against the giant, the tiny motorcycle darting in and out to finally wear the monstrosity down. He hoped dearly that was the last enormous robot he'd ever have to see.
Stepping out of the cab, Tifa saw the first rays of sun rising over the mountains of the east, signaling the end of their long overnight in the Shinra building.
The wind that brushed their faces was warm, the heat of the remaining reactors blowing over them. Tifa remembered her surprise when, after the cool mountain breezes bearing just a touch of heat from Nibelheim's own reactor, she came to the humid mug of the undercity. Had five years of her life flow n by so easily?
She stared ahead. Sector Seven destroyed - Shinra after their heads – there was nothing for her to go back to now.
Traveling was not what she wanted to do – probably because she'd never been given a choice. Time and circumstance had brought her to this scrapheap of a city and with some friends – her head turned to Barret, the only one of those that remained – she'd carved out a life here somehow.
But she'd never stopped missing home. Not just Nibelheim, but home. Midgar had just been a placed she'd lived for a while.
Home… that was all she really wanted. A place of her own, to stay and breathe. Love. A family. Close to her heart – the only things she'd ever wanted for keeps. Something she'd once taken for granted, now something she'd give anything to have back.
She hadn't realized she'd been staring at Cloud until he looked back. Eyes bluer than the sky that was brightening before her. The one piece of home that had come back…
A promise kept late, but perhaps now was when she needed it more than ever. She'd been fine on her own, then with AvALANCHE - then Cloud came along and changed everything. Cloud himself, perhaps a signal that it was time to move on; he being there made the leaving easier.
She'd stay with him, wherever he went.
She had nowhere else to go.
"What will you do now?" she asked. He paused, thinking. "I need to settle things with Sephiroth…. He trailed off, eyes looking for something unseen on the horizon.
Her eyes were soft, as he glanced to her once more. Regretful. He could see she wanted that too, the two of them united by that hate – but she'd had five years for that desire to mollify and fade. He'd had five years to… what? He still couldn't remember what happened in those five years, leaving the Nibelheim incident, Sephiroth, as fresh n his mind as if it had been only a few weeks before.
Those missing years… that, more than anything, was what he wanted more than anything, to pay back Sephiroth for.
He let Tifa fill his vision; thought of finding her again, unsure if she had even survived. Well, more than almost anything.
Barret cleared his throat. "I don't know about Sephiroth, Shinra, whatever. I'm lost. It's all so fucked up. He scratched his head with his left hand, thinking how long he'd had to go without the missing right – and remembering how he was once so in favor of Shinra, he was angry all over again. "Maybe I'm just out for revenge."
Marlene, he thought. His little girl. How he wished he could return to her; she was his world. But he also knew he needed to help make the world he wanted her to grow up him; the dilemma tore his heart apart, only consoled by Marlene's permission for him to go, the little girl so often wise beyond her years. Yep, his little girl was something special, all right.
"I need to get back home. I have been away for far too long," added Red.
Aerith examined their latest companion. One of the guardians of the Planet, though on a different wavelength than herself – still, both the carriers of a great burden. And recipients of Hojo's sinister desire to exploit it.
"Does it matter?" Aerith found herself the last to speak. "We've all got reasons to move on. Not like any of us will be going back to Midgar." Shinra did not like to leave loose ends. Two terrorists. Two desire captives for Hojo – she shuddered – and Cloud, Ex-SOLDIER, one of their own gone rouge. Would Shinra let their valuable property loose so easily?
Zack, how did you manage to get away?
"I… have to learn. About the Ancients. About who I am. About why Shinra thinks they can use me…" And maybe, just maybe, she would find her promised land somewhere along the way.
After all this time, could she, deep down, be afraid to truly find it?
Red nudged her hand. "My people know such things. Perhaps when we get there, they can help?"
"Thank you, Red." She resisted the urge to pat his nose. "There's nothing left for me her now, anyway. My mother was getting ready to leave too. " She saw Barret open his mouth, then stop himself – and it pleased her to see the man so concerned for his daughter. Kalm was probably where Elmyra would go – but she didn't want to tell Barret, knowing they couldn't afford to wait. "You can trust my mom,. She'll take good care of Marlene, don't worry."
Barret nodded, gracefully. "I owe the both of you more of a debt than I can hope to repay."
No, it's I who owe you, she thought. You ,and Tifa, and even Cloud. Drifting forward on other thoughts… Cloud… My other mother. She told me one day… I thought I'd found a promised land once, but it came away like mist. Can lightning strike twice? Or is this some fairy tale I've constructed from regrets and reminders of what once was?
And Tifa… Aerith saw her out of the corner of her eye. Her caring for the other woman was not in doubt, mixed with her worry for Cloud, the need she felt to look out for them both.
At Cloud's right, Tifa sighed deeply. "I guess this is goodbye to Midgar…"
"Good riddance," Cloud added.
Aerith couldn't bring herself to say the same. For all the tragedy and unpleasantness Midgar held… love could be found there too. But her promised land, her land of supreme happiness and joy… was still somewhere on the road in front of her..
She looked back at the city of mako behind them, then forward to the sky ahead.
The sky… the sky… and the boundless, terrifying freedom it represented… He was supposed to be the one to show me. Not to leave her to brave it on her own. She shivered, wishing she could go back and hide under the sheltering steel forever… but it was time she faced her fear, readied for the unknown journey.
"Goodbye, Midgar," she said to the rising sun. "Goodbye."
Author's Note: So, at this point it remains unknown whether Rufus is going to be an important character in the story or not. What might be planned for him? Guess what, this author doesn't actually know. Or, to be more accurate, she has several ideas and is undecided. But characters have this nagging habit of deciding for themselves they want to be included (I'm looking at YOU, Cissnei!) so who knows.
Also, I've noticed when I post multiple chapters at a time, people sometimes miss the first ones. A couple updates back there was a double. If you missed the first one (December 12, 0007 (AM)) you missed a very important chapter. Also, this update is a triple so make sure you don't miss out!