Start Date: March 21, 2023

Windwillow

The bold text is, as usual, a flashback.

Final Fantasy VII

Aerith's sacrifice hadn't been in vain. Through various means, Cloud had discovered that her invocation of Holy had been successful, and that it ought to have cast itself by now and destroyed Meteor. It was impeded, however, and removing that impediment became their top priority. That is, unless another situation arose that deserved their undivided attention...

Chapter Forty-Nine: Midgar Burning

Scene One

After boarding the Highwind, the team assembled in the conference room, called together by Cait Sith. Reeve really didn't want to have this conversation, but not addressing it could be even worse than meddling in Shinra's affairs outright. He was the only one there privy to Shinra's secrets, but he knew that couldn't last forever. As his friends took up their seats, back in Midgar, Reeve reluctantly continued to walk towards the executive meeting with Rufus that would set Shinra's actions in stone. It wasn't one he was looking forward to...

Cait Sith's cat body hopped onto the conference table and slowly paced back and forth across it. Once Reeve himself had calmed his nerves, Cait Sith plopped down on his seat and sighed. "Okay. The situation is this: the Sister Ray is all that Shinra can do to damage Sephiroth or WEAPON. Next issue: it's powered by Huge Materia. So, without any Huge Materia..." said Cait Sith hesitantly. He gathered his courage and turned towards Vincent and nodded. "You know what I'm about to say before I say it... They need a new power source to fuel the Sister Ray."

A grim scowl crossed Vincent's face as he placed his face in his hand and deduced what would come next. "Huge Materia is some three hundred times as powerful as normal materia, so..." he began hesitantly, "They're going to need an unholy amount of Mako to power the Sister Ray..."

"Yeah..." sighed Cait Sith. He shut his eyes tight and folded his arms over his chest, unwilling to make the jump to the actual plan itself. Once he'd opened his eyes, he looked to each of his friends in turn, wondering how many had deduced the scenario.

"Midgar..." Barret hissed.

"Yes, they're going to transport the Sister Ray to Midgar and use its reactors to power a shot capable of breaking through Sephiroth's barrier, after which the entirety of the Shinra armed forces will invade the North Crater and battle Sephiroth, meaning..." Cait Sith moaned as he buried his face in his hands, "they'll be marching head long into a slaughter fest and drain the Planet at the same time. The only way we can stop them is to stop Sephiroth first. But, we don't have any way inside his barrier, and they do. And that's what they plan to do within a day or so..."

It was unbelievable. They actually thought they stood a chance? Even a clone of Sephiroth butchered its way out of Shinra HQ and murdered every living thing it encountered from one continent to the other. Human arrogance was one thing, but believing that any number of foot soldiers stood a chance against the mutants Sephiroth must have waiting bordered on insanity. What would happen when the barrier came down? What would come out of the crater? There was no telling whether Sephiroth had plans to slaughter everything still alive before Meteor fell. Opening the barrier might just play into his sinister schemes, and just one scheme had seemingly condemned the entire world to be slaughtered by Meteor. What kind of genie would they be letting out of the bottle?

"Those damn idiots... They got the power to fight, and we got jack?!" snarled Barret. He flexed his arms and slammed his fist onto the table in rage. His powerlessness had finally sunk in; he could do nothing. "If anyone does something, it ought to be us!" he said forcefully.

Cait Sith's mechanical cat quietly lifted its body up and walked towards Barret. He narrowed his eyes and folded his arms, as if deciding whether to say something. And it was time he did. "Whoever does the deed still has to deal with the consequences. I've been meaning to say this for a long time, but..." Cait Sith began. He shut his eyes for a moment, then opened them to stare through Barret's soul. "Shinra's terrorism... Is that the only terrorism that needs to be condemned?" he asked darkly.

Astonished, Barret grabbed Cait Sith by the body and drew him close to his face, which was clearly oozing fury. "What the hell are you babbling about?!" Barret snapped. "Shinra's the only terrorists that..." Once he realized what he was about to say, Barret dropped Cait Sith and drooped in his seat. "Oh, God..." he choked.

"Yeah... It's well past time we addressed this," Tifa said plainly. After taking in a deep breath, she laced her fingers together and bowed her head. She closed her eyes tight, shuddered, and once she'd opened them, there were the faintest traces of tears in them. She still remembered the day Sector Seven fell, and it still gave her nightmares, the words that the members of AVALANCHE had said in their final moments.

"You folks bombed Sector One's reactor a few weeks back... and is that acceptable as well?" wondered Cait Sith.

"We did that to save the Planet!" Barret roared, nearly climbing over the table to grasp at Cait Sith. He was stopped cold by Tifa, who abruptly shoved him back into his chair. Barret, astounded, opened his mouth to speak but never got the chance to. The look in Tifa's eyes silenced him.

"There were a hundred and twenty three people that died in the assault," said Cait Sith firmly. "Every last one of them had friends, a family, and stories that never got to be told because you got gung ho and lashed out like a child at what you hated the most. Shinra's sins... your sins... Blood is always red no matter why it's shed and by whom, so how are you guys any holier than we are? Terrorism for a good cause leads to the same as for a bad cause: it causes suffering. The members of AVALANCHE who died in Sector Seven had to have realized what you obviously haven't... Their deaths are on your hands as well, Barret."

"You son of a... Don't you dare say that I killed those three!" snarled Barret. Though he ambled to his feet and lunged for Cait Sith, Tifa took his arm, twisted it behind his back, and slammed him into the conference table hard enough to crack it. "Tifa! You're defending this bull?!" he croaked. With all the strength in his massive body, Barret attempted to break free, but with no success.

"They knew!" Tifa shouted, the intensity of her words immediately silencing Barret. As she continued to tremble more and as she tightened her hold on Barret, Tifa grit her teeth and forced back her tears. "Biggs... Wedge... Jessie... You don't know what they said during the attack!" she snarled. "Wedge barely got to speak to us before he died! Biggs stayed behind so he could die beside us! And Jessie nearly ripped her heart in half because of what we did!"

"Let me go!" ordered Barret. He continued to struggle even more, and very nearly managed to break free. "That was for a good cause! That was for the sake of the Planet!" he screamed. "Don't try and rationalize this cat's bull-"

After hardening her fingers, Tifa drove Barret face-first into the table, with enough force that he immediately ceased to resist. "We killed a hundred and twenty three people! We did! I did!" Tifa snapped, narrowly restraining herself from tightening her fingers and cracking Barret's head open. As he struggled beneath her, she fought back her tears as she remembered the events of Sector Seven and the pain that she'd seen in her friends' eyes in their final moments. "Don't you realize what it feels like to lose someone because of someone else's hate?! It's what Shinra did to us! Our actions, for whatever reason, caused the deaths of innocent people as well as people we cared about!" Tifa loosened her fingers and lifted her hand from Barret's head, turning to Cait Sith with a dark glare as Barret sunk back into his seat sore as hell.

"Do you feel the same way, Tifa?" asked Reeve from behind his mechanical doll's eyes. All traces of the happy-go-lucky Cait Sith had faded solemnly into its master's own solemn will. "Do you understand what it feels like to be responsible for someone else's suffering? I bear that burden every day I wake up and put on my suit. How does it feel to be on the flip side of the moral coin?" he asked coyly.

"You know what? I finally get you," Tifa snapped. "You stay with these creeps so you can mitigate some of the damage they do. I believe that you're carrying the burden of Sector Seven just like the rest of us, 'cause you couldn't stop it. You haven't given up yet, and neither will we. We all still have a chance at redemption... and, you know what?" Tifa took in a deep breath of air, cleared her lungs, and narrowed her eyes at Cait Sith. "I finally believe that you protected Marlene. I forgive you for what you did to her. And I don't say that lightly," she said calmly.

Back in Midgar, even in the midst of his co-workers, Reeve only barely managed to fight back his tears. After managing to swallow his emotions while dealing with the Shinra executives in real life, Reeve's mechanical body bowed politely to Tifa, with gratitude. "I accept your apology..." Reeve said plainly. "But that wasn't the reason I called you here. WEAPON is en route to Midgar as we speak."

After throwing Barret to the side, Tifa's fingers tightened around Cait Sith's neck as she angrily shook his feline body back and forth with intensity that would have outright killed anything organic. "Say that first, jackass!" Tifa screeched. "We went through all those tender moments and I apologized to you and the whole time you've been holding back on us?! You lousy little-" Upon realizing that she was making a scene, Tifa unceremoniously dropped Cait Sith's body and left it to fall limply onto the conference table, where it only barely began to function again. "Uh... Yeah, tell us more..." she whimpered.

Reeve had nearly bugged out of his skin when he was assaulted by Tifa and only barely managed to keep his true body from screaming out in terror. Once his heart had begun to beat again, he laid a hand to his face and choked out an expletive, something he had to do quietly so that no one else could hear. "Diamond WEAPON is on its way to Midgar right now, straight from the location of Sephiroth's barrier," hacked Cait Sith. He only barely managed to squeak out the words from the mechanical cat, flustered as he was. "They're going to fire the Sister Ray straight through both WEAPON and the barrier at the same time. Problem is, we have no idea whether the cannon will be effective in the first place... Shinra might be bleeding the Planet dry for one shot worth squat," he growled.

"There isn't any time to waste! We have to get to Midgar now!" Cloud declared as he rose from his chair and turned towards the bridge. He stopped as he watched Cid stand in his way, gripping his lighter and a cigarette. "What the hell's your problem?!" he snapped.

Cid snapped his lighter open and put the ember to his cigarette and lit it. He took in a deep puff, exhaled, and jabbed his thumb back towards the bridge. "We've been en route to Midgar for quite a while now," he said smilingly. "As long as you don't ruin my baby, the Highwind's yours to command. Now, let's go bust up WEAPON, beat the hell out of Shinra, and finish this crap."

Scene Two

There wasn't any time to discuss and certainly none to waste. The team hustled onto the bridge, where Cid's crew had begun preparations to move towards WEAPON. Diamond WEAPON, however, uncaringly trudged through the murky oceans on a collision course with Midgar. Its mighty legs lifted one after another, each step displacing a huge amount of sea water as the bio-mechanical beast continued onto its destination. The Highwind followed close behind it, but with a massive burst of air, Cid was forced to take the helm and manually direct it away from Midgar. This he only barely managed to do, however.

"Son of a bitch!" screeched Cid. He used all the muscle and spirit in his body in an attempt to right himself, and somehow managed to drag the Highwind out of the massive upswell of pressure. "The damn thing's destroying my ship!" he snarled, wiping the sweat from his brow.

"No... Look closer," Vincent muttered. As he held his face in his hand and watched the wind quake as if it were a body of water being beaten with a stick he could only wonder what kind of force they were about to encounter. How powerful was the Sister Ray? "We're being drawn in. The Sister Ray is gathering so much air pressure together that it's sucking us all up in a huge vacuum... Before it fires on WEAPON, it's absorbing air so forcefully that everything - including us - is being drawn towards the cannon!" he exclaimed forcefully.

Cid's eyes widened and his cigarette fell from his mouth as Diamond WEAPON's shoulders began to quake. Its shoulder blades detached, revealing a line of tooth-rimmed cannons that forcefully shot a massive barrage of energy towards Midgar. Midgar's defenses, however, were prepared; all the reactors in Midgar shut down for a moment as every ounce of Mako in the city poured into the barrel of the Sister Ray. As Midgar went dark, there was a titanic rumbling as the cannon belched out a monstrous burst of energy that shot towards WEAPON. WEAPON, however, had already launched its own offensive, and as the Sister Ray's blast penetrated WEAPON and zoomed off into the distance, Diamond WEAPON's assault peppered Midgar with scores of fire balls that exploded far in the distance, from farther back than any of them could see with their naked eyes.

What began as a cough quickly became a scream as Yuffie frantically dug her nails into the side of the deck in an attempt to hold herself steady. In the end she managed to ride it out, but after the chaos had subsided she immediately fell face first onto the floor. She finally staggered to her feet, drunkenly stumbling like a newborn fawn, let out a whimper, and dropped to her knees. "Was that really a good idea?!" she screeched, gripping her head in both hands with terror. "I mean, firing everything at WEAPON! You know, I... I mean..." She stared down at the crumbling corpse of Diamond WEAPON beneath the ship, screamed, and dropped to her back in horror. "WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED?!" shrieked Yuffie.

In the aftermath, the Highwind had only narrowly managed to stay in flight. Like at the North Crater all of its windows had been shattered and the bridge was in disarray, but this time everyone had been able to brace themselves in time to keep standing. As the din faded and the sky cleared, Red XIII stared down at the seas below and received a horrific shock: the ocean itself had parted, ripped a hole straight through WEAPON, and driven far to the north beyond the horizon. Vincent saw it as well, and stared dumbly at Cid, who wordlessly navigated the airship far northbound. They found in the cannon's wake that the North Crater's barrier had been broken, and in fact had ripped open a large chunk of the crater itself.

Tifa attempted to stay standing, but failed and dropped to her knees. She was stunned silent, though she eventually gathered herself and stared back at the ruined crater. A fragile smile crossed her face. They could get to Sephiroth now! Her elation was, however, cut short by a sharp crackling that dropped her back to her seat. She whirled around the bridge in search of what had caused the noise, and settled on Cait Sith's moogle, which had begun to twitch and writhe uncontrollably. It seemed to be malfunctioning, but in a way she'd never thought possible. It seemed like the moogle itself would fall apart judging from how violently it shook.

"What... the hell...?" choked Tifa.

Scene Three

Diamond WEAPON no longer existed, or at least for the most part. Its titanic corpse, with a hole the size of a full city sector in its center, had finally begun to sink beneath the ocean. But in its wake, there were several earth-shattering changes: Sephiroth's barrier had been destroyed, a huge chunk of the North Crater ripped from existence... and a fierce attack on Midgar that had left hundreds dead. Shinra HQ was riddled with huge holes that were soaked in flames, and the building itself had been nearly destroyed on the upper levels. With no way of reaching Rufus, whose office was at the top floor, Shinra's operations seemed to be at an end.

As Cait Sith's moogle continued to wriggle and warp, red static crackled from its entire body. Finally, the entire construct spewed smoke and dropped lifelessly to its side. The cat itself had escaped unharmed, as did the rest of the bridge crew, but the damage that had been done to the moogle seemed irreparable. As red lightning and golden fire crackled around the moogle's head, a loud amount of white noise began to fill the bridge. Upon hearing the voices that echoed in and out of the receiver, Tifa realized what was going on, and although she was horrified she was also prepared to listen in on Shinra's executives directly. While the white noise increased in intensity, she narrowed her eyes and put her hands on her hips with a sigh.

"It's about time we heard it straight from the horse's mouth... Who are you, you jerk?" she hissed.

No matter how many times he dialed the number, Heidegger only received static. Once he was convinced there was no hope, he snapped his phone shut and put his face in his hand. "The connection's gone..." he muttered absently.

Through all the chaos and havoc, Scarlet reacted in a very unexpected way: a sinister sneer coated her face, warping it into a reflection of her twisted soul. Reeve watched her make the face, but all he could do was grit his teeth in disgust. "That means one thing, right? The President's dead," Scarlet asked coldly. Heidegger nodded and burst out into laughter with his companion, who was unable to hide her ecstasy through her wicked laughter.

"Will you two imbeciles just shut up for once?!" Reeve snapped, bringing Heidegger and Scarlet back to their senses. After inputting a few commands on his keyboard, a hologram appeared that showed several charts and diagrams that quickly silenced the two executives. "That's right..." he snarled. "The Sister Ray is recharging."

"That's impossible!" screeched Scarlet. "The cannon has to cool for at least three hours after it's been fired, or else it'll explode! What the hell is going on, Reeve?!"

Reeve's fingers frantically danced on his keyboard, culminating in a video feed that displayed Hojo's twisted smile. Unable to restrain himself any further, Reeve pounded his fist onto the table. "You idiot! Stop the cannon immediately!" he screeched. Hojo remained disinterested, further infuriating Reeve, who again pounded the table. "That is an order, you disgusting freak! Shut it down now!" Reeve ordered frantically.

When Hojo's sneer widened, Reeve's blood ran cold. "First you strip me of my executive privileges and now you ask me to follow your orders? Forget it," Hojo snarled, a sinister smile widening across his evil face. "Sephiroth wants power? I intend to give it to him. Sacrificing every ounce of Mako in Midgar ought to please him," he smirked. As he gave a wink, Hojo cut the connection completely.

There was no way he could contain his bodily functions now. Reeve grit his teeth and whirled around to face Heidegger and Scarlet with a look of desperation on his face. "Prepare the army for a full-on assault of the cannon's mainframe!" he ordered. "We don't have time to..." Slowly, as he looked back at the executives' faces and Reeve realized that he was powerless now, a thin dribble of blood dripped from his lips where he'd bitten them. "Y-You stupid... You stupid fools! What the hell's wrong with you?!" Reeve screeched.

Scarlet slapped Reeve hard on the cheek, leaving a red welt in her wake. "You've been removed from command, effective immediately!" she sneered. She was utterly horrified when Reeve returned the gesture, and she grabbed him by the tie in rage. "Don't you dare touch me!" Scarlet snarled. Receiving his blow was almost as damaging to her ego as Tifa's slap had been. "You... You-"

"You stupid hag! This is more important than your worthless vanity and Heidegger's stupid incompetence!" Reeve snapped. He smacked Scarlet's hand away and grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her back and forth. "Cloud and the others are on their way! If you interfere with them, you're even more retarded than you act!" he growled.

"Kya-ha-ha-ha! Then it's official! I can test out my most powerful weapon against those goons after all!" Scarlet cackled. She snapped her fingers, summoning several Shinra grunts that grabbed Reeve and restrained him. As they dragged him from the room kicking and screaming, Reeve used a few words that can't be printed before his connection went dead and the moogle ceased to function altogether.

Scene Four

"Hey, come back to us!" called Cloud. He rushed towards Cait Sith and lifted his motionless body from the floor to his face, shaking the cat's body back and forth repeatedly. "We need you, you idiot!" snarled Cloud, his teeth gritted. "If you don't have anything better to do, then talk to us!"

Cait Sith's eyes slowly opened, revealing that his consciousness had returned. Cloud lightly plopped him to the ground, where he dropped to his back, readjusted himself, and gave an unceremonious grunt. "I've lost all executive power..." sighed Reeve as his cat's head drooped. "Anything I can offer just went kaput... You've lost your connection to Shinra."

While Reeve reeled, he vaguely noted that someone was standing over him. Rather menacingly, at that. "Secret's out, Reeve... Now I know who to pulverize when we get to Midgar," Tifa said darkly. She flexed her knuckles and hardened her fingers, to Cait Sith's horror. "I won't hurt you too bad, but you've still got some justice coming..." she growled.

Even though he was caged up in Midgar, Reeve couldn't help but flinch. He knew full well that Tifa was capable of fulfilling her promise. "I get it, I get it! I've done a lot of bad stuff, I know!" Reeve groaned. "You can slug me when we're done, but right now, that doesn't matter! I'll let you punch me when we're done, but right now, our top priority is stopping Hojo!" he insisted desperately.

Tifa softened her fingers and crouched down next to Cait Sith, her face ashen but devoid of blood lust. "You're damn right he's got to be stopped!" she snapped. She took in a deep breath and guided Cait Sith's cat to its feet, sighed, and lifted herself to her feet. "How do we get inside Midgar?" asked Tifa.

"The usual channels are out... Can't go through the upper crust or the slums..." Reeve said glumly. "Any way there is to HQ is going to be flooded with troopers. I can honestly say I have no idea what to do next..."

The sound of flint pierced the air, causing everyone to turn to Cid just as he ignited his lighter. He put the ember to his cigarette, took in a deep puff, and his face twisted into a smile that everyone present did not like to see him make. "We can prepare eight parachutes in 'bout five minutes..." he said with a smirk. "If we can't go by ground, we go by air."

"Okay, that's it, I call bull! This has to end here!" Yuffie screeched. With her entire body quaking, she grabbed her head with both hands and shrieked. "There's not a chance in hell I'm jumping out of this piece of scrap and flying in mid-air into enemy infested territory!" she screamed. Turning to Cloud for backup and receiving none, she fell to her knees and let out an unholy shriek of frustration. "You people really are going to kill me! I am so getting back at you all for this! Gawd!" shrieked Yuffie furiously, her fists balled and her chest puffed.

Eight parachutes were swiftly gathered and set into place on the backs of each member of the team, and the lot of them assembled on top of the airship to prepare to jump. Although Yuffie attempted to argue one more time, Cid brusquely shoved her off the end of the Highwind and the rest of AVALANCHE jumped after her. As Yuffie spiraled through the air spewing obscenities that would make a sailor cry, the entire party continued to fall towards Midgar at breakneck speeds. In unison, they pulled their cords and their chutes activated, and the eight of them dropped to the ground relatively unharmed in the center of Sector One.

"You people are out of your God damn minds!" shrieked Yuffie as she grabbed her parachute and awkwardly tossed it off of her with all the strength she could muster. She staggered to her feet, grabbed Cid by the scarf, and attempted to curse him out. Before she could, her face dropped as low as her knees as she watched a small army of Shinra infantrymen swarm out from the city itself. Yuffie turned frantically between Cid and Cloud in an attempt to beg for help, received nothing, and with a shrill screech she snatched her weapon from her back and stumbled into a fighting position. "I'm so going to get you back for this!" she screeched madly, mania having taken full control of her body. "You can't even imagine what I'm gonna do to you freaks for putting me in this position! Gawd!"

Cait Sith clumsily detached the parachute from his moogle and stumbled back on top of it, shaking all the way through. "Those two idiots have the entire Shinra army under their command..." he stuttered. "And with Midgar under martial law... We're going to have to fight our way through all of these troopers if we want to get to Hojo! We have to get to the underground tunnels ASAP!"

As he detached his parachute, Cloud cast it away and walked towards the oncoming army. He turned his eyes to each of his friends, all of them in turn. Barret detached the hatches of his Gun-arm, Vincent cocked his revolver, and Red XIII slid into a ready position. Cid drew his spear, Cait Sith readied his megaphone, and Tifa hardened both her fists jet black. Cloud lazily lifted his hand to his back and snatched up his blade, tapped it to his shoulder, and formed a crackling mass of nuclear energy between his fingers. He stretched his legs, worked out a kink in his neck, and a grim smile crossed his face. The army was in full view. Armed with rifles, swords, and spears, as well as a number of other weapons, each of the infantrymen prepared to engage AVALANCHE in combat. Cloud narrowed his eyes and tightened his grip, and slowly took a single stride towards the enemy army. One step turned to two, two to three, and with a roar of confidence AVALANCHE charged head long into the enemy's formation.

Scene Five

What followed was a long, bloody battle that seemed to go on without end. Luckily, most of the bleeding came from the Shinra soldiers. On and on came the army of Shinra infantry, swords and guns clashing with the weapons of the eight members of AVALANCHE. Finally, after what seemed to be an endless influx of grunts, the once mighty soldiers of the Shinra army lay mostly dead or dying on the streets of Midgar's first sector. Eight warriors sheathed their weapons and tended to their injuries as preparations were made to attack HQ through the underground railway system.

Yuffie triumphantly stood atop a pile of troopers, her foot placed squarely on the head of one of the aforementioned troopers, and she was as usual having far too much fun. "Oh, hell yeah! You see that?! You must have seen that! I just busted out a can o' whoop-ass on these stupid goons, that's what happened! I know, I had to do most of the work, but hey, you guys took out a few, too!" Yuffie cackled madly. Her celebration was cut short when Tifa smacked her in the back of her head. "You little..." huffed Yuffie, but upon seeing Tifa's glare, she quietly groaned and muttered a few obscenities beneath her breath, stomped her foot, and hung her head in defeat. "Okay, so maybe I didn't take out that many... meanie," she muttered gruffly.

As she touched up her wounds, Tifa gave out a huff of exertion and fell back against a wall, panting heavily. The fight had taken more out of her than she'd expected. Tifa stumbled drunkenly to her feet, adjusted her glove, and wiped a streak of blood from her mouth. Looking around, the others were in similar condition. Fortunately, they'd brought along a couple of first-aid kits that they used to mend themselves back into fighting formation.

"So... ugh... What comes next?" Tifa choked.

"The underground tunnels are right up ahead," Cait Sith said. He'd also brought along a few tools that Cid had used to repair his moogle. After hopping back atop his steed, Cait Sith waddled a ways away and pointed towards a large, steel doored bunker. "The entrance is right through-" He was quickly silenced as Cloud drew and deftly swung his sword three times, cutting open the doors into shreds, then leaned back against a light pole and sheathed the massive blade as the doors fell into ruin. "Yeah... That'll work..." Reeve muttered.

The underground maintenance tunnels stretched out like a wide network of ant hills throughout the lower crust of Sector One. Traversing the tunnels took the team through several dank passageways and rotten sewage tunnels, but fortunately there didn't seem to be any monsters roaming around below the crust. It was a long, exhausting journey, however, and by the time they'd crossed several meters of underground chambers Yuffie was totally ready to call it quits.

"Ugh! Gawd, it stinks... What kind of idiot put this here?! Urban planning my ass!" Yuffie huffed, hacking all the way through the tunnels until they reached a large maintenance chamber. By then she'd had enough. She dropped to her back and let out a shrill shriek of pure frustration. "This has to be the end of the line, right?!" she screeched.

"It might be..." Vincent muttered. When Yuffie hacked and glared at Vincent, he nonchalantly leaned against a pipe and pointed towards the darkness ahead. "It will be, if we don't take care of that thing..." he said darkly.

Yuffie wearily lifted her head and looked into the next chamber, didn't like what she saw, and skittered to her feet in a frantic panic. From the final passageway came one of the resident mutants of the Midgar underground, a titanic, muscular purple beast that walked on all fours. The Behemoth was easily twice the size of the whole party put together. Its mighty claws dug deep into the rotted pipes beneath it, and its fangs oozed a sickening green foam that, when it dropped to the ground, dissolved the ground like it was acid.

"Oh, holy God! That thing's going to eat us!" screamed Yuffie. The panic in her voice and the moistness under her armpits was fully apparent. This was all too much for her to take, and she wildly turned to escape. She stopped on her heel, however, and skidded to a halt in full view of the Behemoth's oozing fangs. It was by far one of the most horrific things she'd ever seen, and while she wanted to run away as fast as her legs could carry her, she thought back to Mideel, when Ultimate WEAPON had attacked and she turned her eyes back to Cloud and Tifa. A cold chill ran down her spine and all the sweat glands in her body seemed ready to revolt, but as her teeth chattered and her eyes glazed over, Yuffie hesitantly looked back at the Behemoth and whimpered pathetically.

I... I was going to fight to protect them then... I've got to be out of my freaking mind! This sucker's gonna chew my arm off! But... Y'know... Gawd, am I an idiot! It's time to grow up and show these guys that they can depend on me!

It was probably the stupidest thing she not only was going to do, but the dumbest thing she'd even thought of. Yuffie unsteadily staggered back towards her friends and looked back at Cloud and Tifa one more time. Slowly, hesitantly, she turned back to look at the looming beast before her, and the idea seemed even worse than she first thought. Swallowing her terror and gathering her courage, she reluctantly reached behind her and gripped her shuriken. One final look at Cloud and Tifa ended as Yuffie drew her weapon and held it out in front of her, to the amazement of her friends. Vincent couldn't help but chuckle, and nearly burst out laughing as he snatched up his revolver and loaded its barrels with ammo.

"And how do we proceed with this one?" Cid asked shakily.

"Spread out and attack at all angles..." said Cloud grimly. "If it can only hit one of us at a time, the others can attack from the flank and the rear! Okay, everyone, look lively and pray that we have enough juice to pull this off!"

Barret brashly opened the hatches of his Gun-arm and opened fire at the Behemoth. While the bullets struck, they accomplished nothing more than tickling the beast and ticking it off but it gave the others time to move into position. The party quickly broke up into several groups, both to the sides and behind the Behemoth. Tifa, Red XIII, and Yuffie dashed to the left side of the monster, with Cloud, Cait Sith, and Barret taking the right. Cid crouched down and vaulted high into the air, landing behind it, leaving Vincent to take the front. Even if they had all the angles covered, however, the Behemoth was still intimidating enough that Yuffie slightly wet herself as she narrowed her eyes at the Behemoth and began to quake. Still, this was her moment, God damn it, and she intended to make the most of it.

Okay... How do those two do that Materia Fusion stuff again?! Mix Aero with Aqua...

Yuffie closed her eyes and took in a deep breath, gripping her shuriken in front of her in both hands in a cross formation. Calming herself as best she could, Yuffie surged both of her materia into her weapon on opposite ends and focused on connecting them in the center of the shuriken. A ring of multicolored light formed around her shuriken, creating what looked like a vertical halo connecting all four blades into a single circle. With one final breath, Yuffie gripped her weapon with both hands and expelled all the mana she could manage, causing a colorful light to slowly emerge from the eye of the shuriken and painting a deranged smile on her face.

All Creation... I can do it too, guys!

His thoughts traveled back to the caverns beneath Cosmo Canyon, back when the Gi Nattak had attacked. In the moment he'd acted instinctively, spurred on by the desire to protect Bugenhagen from the specter, but now his thoughts broadened to include not only Bugenhagen but his friends as well. Red XIII opened his mouth wide and shut his eyes tight, and slowly air pressure began to flow into his esophagus until it felt like his throat would burst. Even then, somehow, you could tell that there was a smile on his snout.

Cosmo Memory... Grandpa, Father... I am Nanaki the Warrior!

The light from Red XIII's mouth flooded into his snout and Yuffie's energy encircled her weapon, and then the two of them launched their strongest offensive ever. By combining their power, the two of them released enough energy to tear a hole in the Behemoth's left leg, leaving a huge gash from the top of its flank to the back of its claw, and the mighty beast let out a horrible shriek before hurling its tail at Red XIII and Yuffie. The tail never connected, however, as Tifa hardened her leg and slammed it into it with enough force that she was able to hold it off long enough that Red XIII and Yuffie were able to scamper to safety. She couldn't disguise the grin on her face even if she'd tried as she dug her fingers into the floor and skidded to a halt.

"Getting stronger all the time!" chortled Tifa proudly.

Next was the right. Cait Sith breathed in with all the force his artificial lungs could muster before screaming out a huge burst of sonic energy, which was matched by Barret launching the strongest air bullet he could create. The two attacks combined ripped open a huge hole in the Behemoth's right arm, the sound of shredding flesh and creaking bone cracking their ears open. Because the Behemoth had lashed its tail to the left and was repelled, it took its mighty tail and swung at the attackers that had mauled it. Imbuing the Buster Sword with all the elemental energy he could muster, Cloud swung his weapon at the incoming appendage, which managed to slow the tail but was unable to stop it. Another combination attack from Cait Sith and Barret, however, when combined with Cloud's slash was able to repel the Behemoth's tail. The Behemoth was staggered but still deadly, however. It opened its maw wide to reveal its nasty fangs, and a massive amount of energy began to slowly swell in its mouth. Before it could launch its breath attack, however, Cid vaulted high above the Behemoth and stabbed his lance through its mouth, causing the energy to combust and spew out from its nose, mouth, and ears.

While Cid vaulted high and retreated from the Behemoth's back, Vincent's task was to snipe the beast's brain to finish it. As he raised his weapon to aim, however, the Behemoth slammed its remaining limbs to the ground to anchor it, opened its mouth, and released a flaming burst of white hot energy that Vincent was unable to evade. The Flare cut shreds from his cloak and ripped open a small hole in Vincent's bandana, but by using all the force in his body, Vincent was somehow able to remain standing. In its final death throes, the Behemoth opened its maw wide enough to almost dislocate its jaws, reared back, and readied for the final blow. Vincent was well aware that another breath attack would consume all the mana left in the Behemoth, a force strong enough to take him out in a single blast. The amount of energy it gathered in its mouth would be enough to incinerate him without leaving a shred remaining, but taking the Flare had wounded him enough that he dropped to one knee, exhausted, and his revolver dropped limply to the ground in front of himself. Through his fear, all he could manage to do was wipe the sweat from his brow and smirk.

"No energy left... no way to evade... I guess this is it, eh?" he murmured. So, that was it. He was done.

"Don't you remember what I told you then? Never give up!"

He recognized the voice right away, and it swelled Vincent's body with power. Somehow grasping the energy he was sure he lacked, Vincent snatched up his weapon, aimed, and fired a shot at the Behemoth's throat. The critical hit cracked its skull open and caused its entire head to burst into flames from the Flare combusting inside its throat before the headless creature fell dead to the ground, soon joined by Vincent. His friends quickly ran to him, but he caught himself and fell to his knees, exhausted. Even though he remained awake, however, it still seemed like a dream, though he had the presence of mind to holster his gun as he smiled.

You said it while I was asleep, didn't you? Lucrecia...

Scene Six

The fight with the Behemoth had taken such a toll on the party that they were forced to stop and rest. While everyone was proud of their contributions, it was Yuffie and Red XIII who were most impressed with themselves. The both of them had pushed their powers to the limit and found new ceilings that they had yet to surpass, and for Yuffie especially it was particularly satisfying. Her thoughts, as she propped herself up against a large pipe, drifted to her father and his teachings, the training he'd given her in ninjutsu that she'd almost totally forgotten. After she started to breathe again, she couldn't help but smile as she wiped the sweat from her brow.

"Guess I was listening more than I thought..." she chuckled. With her insane behavior reined in, her clarity of mind was a welcome change from being a raging maniac. "Bet you ten thousand Gil I get to rub it in your face once we're done here, you old wind bag..." Yuffie chortled. Now she finally had something for him to be proud of.

Once they were clear of the Behemoth's remains, the party found that it only took a few more chambers before they reached the end of the tunnels and entered the underground railway. After that, however, there didn't seem to be much of an idea about where to go... "How much longer is it gonna be?!" Barret heaved. He bowed his head and hacked up a bit before dropping to his seat. It felt like every bone in his body ached, every muscle burned, and on top of that he had a splitting headache.

"We have to head southwest... but other than that..." sighed Cait Sith.

Tifa rustled around in her pack and withdrew a small, round device. She input a few commands and a 3D hologram of Midgar emerged from it, just the same as she'd used several weeks beforehand. "Tell me where the Mako Cannon is and I ought to be able to triangulate it... Man, I never thought I'd use this again..." she muttered weakly.

"Let's see... The Mako Cannon is here," Cait Sith said as he pointed to a mark on the hologram, which caused it to zoom in to a smaller portion of the map. Tifa wearily did a few calculations and pressed a button that displayed a small text screen. "Looks like it'll take twenty minutes to reach at our present speed..." he sighed.

"Oh, I'd wager it'll take a bit longer than that," came a voice from behind them. The party immediately jolted awake and turned to a location further down the railway, where Reno, Rude, and Elena slowly approached them from. Reno stretched his neck, dusted off his suit and gave a two-fingered salute. "Howdy, folks!" he said cheerfully.

Barret immediately opened the hatches on his Gun-arm and lifted it at the Turks, but he was simultaneously batted down by both Cloud and Tifa. Trembling, he snapped his weapon closed and gave Cloud the middle finger. "And that was for what, exactly?!" he snapped.

Although they'd swatted Barret's attempt to battle down, Cloud and Tifa prepared to fight themselves. Cloud snatched his sword and tapped it idly to his shoulder as Tifa hardened her fist, but although they positioned themselves firmly between the Turks and their friends, neither of them took any aggressive actions. Elena walked forward quietly and drew her pistol, aimed it at Cloud, and narrowed her eyes. Although they all squared off against each other as menacingly as enemies ought to, Elena silently lowered her pistol from targeting Cloud.

"And you're backing off, why, precisely?" asked an incredulous Reno.

"I talked to Tseng in the hospital..." Elena said darkly, to the confusion of her fellow Turks. "Telling him that the flower girl was dead was probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do. And you know what?" she asked, her voice slightly cracking. "Seeing him cry for the first time... Watching that was even harder."

Shinra's finest surgeons had been called to tend to Tseng's wound, and like the doctors who treated Tifa years before, the surgery went off without a hitch. As he lay in the hospital recovering, however, his only thoughts had been of Aerith, hoping and praying that she'd made it out of the Temple alive. When Elena entered the room with her eyes averted, he certainly suspected what she was going to say, but it didn't make it any easier to actually hear it.

"Sephiroth killed her?" Tseng choked. Elena solemnly nodded. Slowly trembling, Tseng lifted a hand to his face to restrain his emotions, but failed and began to sob. Although he'd known she was in danger, the news that she'd been murdered was more than he could bear. "Oh, God..." he croaked. Losing her was almost unbearable, reflected in the fact that his tears wouldn't stop flowing. Even for a man as tough and hard-faced as he was, this was just too much.

Elena's face quaked as she watched Tseng cry, but she managed to maintain her cool. She was a professional, after all, and she couldn't afford to act like the naive rookie she had been acting like forever. "When we were up north... I let Cloud go," Elena said plainly. Would he yell at her, fire her? "If you want to reprimand me, I'm fully prepared to be-"

"I won't blame you," said Tseng, to Elena's amazement. Using all the strength he had in his body, he quietly suppressed his tears and fell to his back in bed with a feeble breath. "I was enlisted to collect her for Shinra. But... Every time I talked to her, she was just so sweet and honest to me that every time I somehow 'failed' catching her. As the years went by, it became friendship..." he sighed. He lifted his hand to his face and laid his palm on it, grit his teeth, and shut his eyes tight. "You asked me once why pointing a gun at her was worse than slaughtering thousands of people," said Tseng tersely. As he lowered his hands to his side the initial pain had passed, but the agony had only just begun. "It was because when the time came, I couldn't disobey my orders. That's the reason," he choked.

"But... Tseng... Sir..." Elena stammered, her words shaken by doubt. She'd never seen Tseng cry before. The thought that the strong, invincible boss she'd always seen had now degenerated into this weighed heavily on her heart. "Did I... make a mistake when I let him go? I mean... I... I gave up, because you and the flower girl..." She hesitated suddenly, unsure of what to say next.

"He didn't say a word..." Elena murmured. After a brief period of hesitation, Elena quietly holstered her gun. This was it. This was enough. "Is it okay if I defy orders again?" she asked softly. "If you two want to stop Cloud, do it yourselves. I won't hold them back."

"Dirty little coward!" Rude snapped. He turned to Elena and reared back to smack her, forcing to her to flinch and raise her arms in self defense. "You call yourself a Turk, you little punk?!" he snarled. "How many times do I have to-"

"I don't want to fight either," Tifa said boldly, something that caught Rude's attention and stopped him cold. As he lowered his hand and turned to look at Tifa, she kept her fist hardened, but lowered it to her side. "I really thought we'd fight back at Rocket Town, but when you backed down, it really set me thinking. If we'd fought then, we'd always be enemies... But you did exactly what I hoped you would: you didn't fight me."

Although he was shaken, Rude did his best to conceal his surprise. At Rocket Town he'd been ordered to fight Tifa. But somehow, for some reason, he couldn't bring himself to strike her. For someone who'd always followed orders, it was something he never understood. "You gave me your drink in Wutai, remember?" Tifa asked softly. "And you helped rescue Yuffie... and I already knew you had a crush on me. It isn't mutual, but..." She hesitated, shrugged her shoulders and gave a sheepish smile. "I felt that fighting you would make us both lose something we could never get back," said Tifa softly.

Now unable to hide his discomfort, Rude folded his arms over his chest to think. He lifted his arm and reared back at Elena again, then clapped her on the shoulder and nodded, much to Reno's shock. Rude quietly adjusted his sunglasses and stepped away, leaving only Reno to bar the party's path. With a scowl on his face, Reno snapped open his weapon and aimed it at Cloud's head. His eyes, hard and focused, narrowed as Cloud stared back at him with the same intensity.

"You do realize that if we back down now, we're finished with Shinra... right?" Reno asked darkly. As he and Cloud continued to stare at each other, the intensity in their eyes continued to escalate. Reno shut his eyes and tapped his weapon to his shoulder, then stepped away from the party and gave a two-fingered salute. "You know what?" he chuckled, snapping his weapon shut and shouldering it. This was enough for him, too. "I quit."

As Tifa's fist loosened and Cloud sheathed his sword behind his back, he carefully approached Reno with a stiffened look in his eye. The two stared at each other for a few moments before Cloud offered his hand to Reno, who took it and shook it. The three Turks silently walked past the party, not saying a word, but stopped just as they passed the last of them. They took two fingers, extended them, and collectively tapped their foreheads before turning to leave. While the rest of the party stood in mute amazement Cloud quietly stretched out his fist to Tifa, and she proudly bumped it.

Scene Seven

The Turks had seemingly been the last obstacle to Hojo and the mainframe. Traveling through the tunnels took another twenty minutes as Tifa had estimated, and once they saw the light of day they finally believed that their troubles were over. That notion didn't last long once they saw the titanic red cyborg that was waiting for them just outside the tunnels. It was monstrously large, as big as the Behemoth was. Clad in red armor and armed with a number of firearms scattered all across its torso, arms, and back, it turns out that they had one final obstacle to deal with.

Cloud wasted no time in taking point and drawing his sword, standing between his friends and the cyborg. As he narrowed his eyes, he watched as the cyborg's chest hatches opened and the machine's hand lowered to reveal two unwelcome guests: Scarlet and Heidegger, who as usual were cackling with their ridiculous laughs. Cloud tapped his blade to his shoulder and slid into a ready stance as Barret rushed forward and opened fire. The cyborg's arm shielded Scarlet and Heidegger just in time, carrying them just out of the line of fire. Barret shouted out a couple of nasty words as his hatches closed and his fist began to shake. Heidegger was the first to speak, his throaty laughter befouling the party's ears.

"With Rufus dead," Heidegger said smilingly, "Shinra belongs to us now! It's time we started a brand new chapter in the history of the company, and we're the ones who will do it!"

Cait Sith charged up from behind Cloud and stood beside him defiantly. "Shinra would be better off commanded by a conglomerate of retarded monkeys!" Reeve snapped. In his captivity, he couldn't help but crack a smile. These two were absolutely ridiculous, and leaving Shinra in their hands was a recipe for disaster. "At least they might practice good hygiene," he said smilingly.

"You have no further place in Shinra, Reeve! It belongs to us now," Scarlet laughed haughtily. "There's going to be a complete restructuring of the company, with this buffoon and myself as co-executives! We hold all the power, now! Rufus isn't around to boss us about like errand boys, so this is our era now!" she cackled.

Slowly, Vincent stepped forward and walked beside Cloud. He stopped next to him, turned, and stared deeply into Cloud's eyes. "Can I move forward?" he asked softly. "There's business for me up there," said Vincent coldly. Cloud, immediately understanding his words, smirked and nodded.

As Vincent walked past him, Cloud stretched his neck and called out, "Give the bastard hell for us!" Vincent only smiled and continued to walk towards the stairway to the mainframe. Cloud silently placed his sword on his shoulder and confidently beckoned for Heidegger and Scarlet to come at him. Vincent has his own battle, and they had theirs. "Wanna try me?" he grinned.

"I didn't excuse you, you worm!" Scarlet snarled. She snapped her fingers and one of the rifles on the Proud Clod's arms began to move and twisted to aim at Vincent, who continued to walk past them undaunted. With a sinister sneer, Scarlet prepared to snap her fingers one more time. One short salvo would shred the bastard to bits.

"Hey, bitch!" Tifa called to Scarlet, which caught the femme fatale's attention immediately. A bright smile crossed Tifa's face as she hardened her fist and held it up to her face with her middle finger extended. "Want me to slap your other cheek?" she asked confidently. "Just as long as you don't show me your ass cheeks," grinned Tifa, a delightful sparkle in her eyes. "I definitely don't want to have look at your mud flaps."

Her face flushed with rage, Scarlet whirled towards Tifa and snapped her fingers, causing the rifle she'd aimed at Vincent to narrow in on her. The gun fired, but Tifa easily did a back flip and escaped the salvo unharmed. As Tifa skidded back to a stop, Scarlet finally realized that she'd been baited. Before Heidegger could retort, Scarlet angrily smacked him on the cheek. Now even more livid, she and Heidegger retreated back inside the Proud Clod and engaged their offensive systems. When her camera narrowed in on Cloud, and when he confidently flipped her off, Scarlet furiously activated the Proud Clod's arm-mounted machine guns. Several thin streaks of light concealed their vision of Cloud, however, as Yuffie swung her weapon and diced through the steel like a hot knife through butter. After she'd sliced the machine guns to ribbons, Yuffie gleefully landed on top of the Proud Clod's forearm and stuck out her tongue at the pair. Heidegger angrily took command and swung the other arm at Yuffie, but she simply leapt off and allowed the cyborg's arm to whack its counterpart. The inside of the Proud Clod trembled, and Scarlet angrily slapped Heidegger.

"Fool!" Scarlet snarled. "You played right into their hands!"

"Shut up, you old hag!" retorted Heidegger. "You did the same thing with Lockhart, what, thirty seconds ago?!"

Although Heidegger and Scarlet nearly came to blows, they felt an ominous rumbling when several members of AVALANCHE damaged one of the Proud Clod's legs and caused it to fall to one knee. Before either of them could blame the other, Cid appeared on their view screen with his spear extended. Cid jabbed his lance straight into the Proud Clod's camera, which immediately disabled their video feed. An audio feed immediately began to function, with Cloud's voice taunting them: "Next comes the other leg!"

The pair experienced a great rumbling, and they realized that the second leg had been severed by Cloud. Enraged, Scarlet snapped open the machine's hatch to see what was happening and was horrified to find Tifa standing above them, her elemental infusion invoked on her right fist. Tifa reared back and slammed her knuckle into the head of the Proud Clod, creating a chain reaction that broke the cyborg open from the top down, its pieces cracking and crumbling to the ground with an unceremonious thud. As they staggered from the Proud Clod, Heidegger and Scarlet dazedly dropped to their knees before falling onto their backs. To their horror, they found that they weren't alone. Cloud with his sword lifted, Tifa with a hardened leg raised, the last sounds the two heard was a sickening cracking noise: their skulls.

Scene Eight

The top of the Sister Ray's mainframe was a hodge podge of tubes, pipes, and wires, having been thrown together hastily in Shinra's need to quickly set the Mako Cannon up to be ready to fire. While it was sturdy, you couldn't call it very stable looking. The main computer for the mainframe was situated high above a series of stairways, which lead down farther into the heart of Sector One, and Hojo sat in his seat in the center of it all performing calculations for his final experiment.

"Hmm... The energy is at eighty-three percent already..." muttered Hojo, mostly to himself. "It'll be at least half an hour before the cannon can fire..." he cackled. Slowly, Hojo hoisted himself to his feet and typed in a few more calculations before lazily tilting his head over his shoulder as Vincent slowly, maliciously stepped forward across the catwalks on his way towards Hojo. A sinister smile crossed Hojo's face as he turned further to speak to Vincent. He'd been waiting for this just as long as Vincent had. "Have you come to exact retribution on me? For what I did to Lucrecia Crescent?" Hojo asked softly, his smile sickeningly widening.

"Don't you dare speak her name," Vincent hissed as he angrily drew his revolver and narrowed it between Hojo's eyes, as his own tightened as well and a grimace crossed his face. Hearing Lucrecia's name from this disgusting freak was unacceptable. Not here, not now. "Your tongue defiles it," he snarled. "So, if you want to keep a brain between your eyes, I suggest you choose your next words very carefully."

"Oh, my... You seem to be mistaken, Vincent Valentine. I am but a humble father, dedicated to providing my son with the power that he needs..." said Hojo, throwing his arms up with a twisted smirk on his face. "Aren't all fathers supposed to look after their children? Protect them, nurture them?" he asked coyly.

"You were never a father to anyone. Least of all to the scientific atrocity you unleashed on the world," Vincent snapped. Seeing Hojo's look of disinterest, Vincent silently cocked his gun and put his finger on the trigger. "I've come to take it all back..." he snarled. "Lucrecia... the world, and... and myself," Vincent said quietly. He closed his eyes briefly, though when they opened they burned with incredible heat. When he said he would take himself back, he meant it. The stain of Hojo's deeds had to end, here and now. "This ends now," said Vincent coldly as his finger inched towards the trigger.

At first Hojo merely cracked a grin, but it soon degenerated into another attack of deranged laughter. Hojo finally managed to compose himself enough to raise his hand to the side of his head. "You expect killing me will stop the Sister Ray? Right?" He rapped his knuckle lightly, and a thick tapping sound accompanied the vision of a sickly green barrier separating Hojo from the Mako Cannon's controls. He had a barrier up that would prevent Vincent from reaching the console, until he'd dealt with Hojo first. "You're right, in fact! However..." Hojo rustled around in his lab coat and withdrew a long, crusty syringe. "What if you can't kill me?"

"Y-You... You wouldn't..." Vincent choked. He certainly already knew that he would.

"I've devised a special cocktail of pure Mako energy and genetically altered Jenova cells... So, when I do this," Hojo said coldly as he stuck the needle in his arm and injected whatever was in the syringe into his blood veins. While at first there was no change, slowly, dark blood veins began to pulse from Hojo's neck and face, sickeningly black, and Vincent immediately opened fire. Before the bullets could strike, however, Hojo's lab coat ripped open, and a thick wall of blood-red thorns absorbed Vincent's attack. The thorns continued to multiply, coiling around Hojo's entire body as well as slithering to surround the entire mainframe. Soon the whole space was covered with mutated black thorns, thorns that coiled around the area and consumed Hojo's entire body.

"You're a sick freak!" snarled Vincent as he opened fire full-force.

To his shock, however, the bloody thorns absorbed the bullets and stopped them in mid-air, coiling around them before crushing them with enough force to detonate the gunpowder. The thorns, however, only warped and reformed into their previous state before they lashed out and seized Vincent by all four limbs. Although he attempted to struggle, Hojo's gnarled protrusions quickly coiled around his legs and arms and hoisted him prone into the air. To Vincent's horror, the thorns seemed to pulse with blood, then parted to reveal Hojo in all his mutated glory. He was almost more of a tree than a human, branches coiling across his body like blood veins and large sores covering his face, which was even more twisted than it usually was. Hojo's torso split off from the vines and formed a new, vaguely humanoid body that situated itself right in front of Vincent. Hojo's eyes opened slowly, revealing blood-red sclera and blackened pupils, and soon a malicious smile etched itself across his warped face.

"Here we are, hmm? Now is the final hour, the hour where my life fades and is then reborn as a plague descended upon humanity!" Hojo cackled. He lifted his hand and flicked his wrist to reveal five horrific claws where his fingers ought to be. "Sephiroth is the future of Gaia. I am but a scribble on his etching board. So, Vincent Valentine... I am prepared to end my experiment..." he growled, his claws extending almost like scalpels. The smile that crossed his face was the stuff of nightmares, and would have made Yuffie wet herself again. As he steadily approached Vincent struggled with all his might to break free, but failed, and Hojo came to a stop directly in front of his target with an even wider sneer. "The one that bitch Lucrecia Crescent defiled," Hojo snarled.

With all four limbs bound and no hope left, Vincent had quietly resigned himself to his fate. There was nothing more that could be done; Hojo had finally won the war between the two of them. Once he heard him speak her name, however, he could feel all the blood in his body run cold. His heart went still, then began to beat with a nearly audible pulse. Gritting his teeth, Vincent's eyes closed shut and all the breath in his body went null. As Hojo reared back, however, he was knocked off balance by an unholy scream that burst from Vincent's lungs and widened the monster's eyes. Vincent's form began to warp, almost like Hojo's had, but quickly reformed into a black-skinned, muscular body that ripped apart the thorns and cast them away. Two ebony wings burst from Vincent's back and as Chaos broke open from Vincent's body it tightened its right arm and plunged it straight through Hojo's heart. Once he had the thorns immediately began to wither and die, and Hojo's body reverted to its normal state.

Still impaled on Chaos' arm, Hojo choked out black blood and a pained expression crossed his face. Even so, his laughter was even more deranged than ever and his smile remained sickening even as blood oozed from his mouth. Somehow, even after having a claw shoved into his chest, Hojo's smile was still sickeningly wide. This was it. This was the proof he needed to fulfill his destiny one day. Her thesis really had been right.

"Chaos... Fascinating!" Hojo choked as Vincent withdrew his mutated arm, which immediately reverted back to his normal bodily state. Blood spurted from his sneering mouth, and Hojo dropped face first to the ground, dead. Even in death, however, his smile never vanished, even as a pool of black blood oozed from his mouth.

With the thorns destroyed, Vincent snatched up his weapon and fired twice at Hojo's control panel, causing it to crackle and explode into shards. The remnants of the barrier fell to the ground, utterly broken, though Vincent noticed that the console itself remained more or less intact. Vincent turned his eyes to Hojo's corpse and a trembling hand lifted his weapon's barrels at Hojo's skull. Killing him a second time? Would it even be worth the bullet? After a brief period of thought, Vincent removed his weapon from Hojo's head and silently descended to meet his friends in the ruins of Midgar. He never, however, noticed that one of Hojo's fingers had begun to twitch...

Author's Notes

Whew... That took a while. Let's get to the relevant points.

I wanted to make the three boss battles something special. I put all the choreography I had in me into these fights, and to be perfectly honest I'm hoping that the final battles are even better. Similarly, I enjoyed writing the Turks scene. I wanted to give those three the closure they both needed and deserved. It's like with AVALANCHE's final scenes in Chapter 8 and the camp fire in Cosmo Canyon in Chapter 32- everyone should have their moment in the sun.

Hojo's funky-ass transformation is a bastardized mutation of Alexander Anderson's transformation from Hellsing, along with a little of Exdeath from FFV and Younger Toguro from Yu Yu Hakusho. I considered mimicking the boss battle itself, but I wanted to try something different... Plus, I had to include Chaos in some way, and as usual, I just figured this was cooler. Might not have phrased it the way I intended, though... my mental image for this battle was pretty messed up in the first place...

And here we are at the final point in the story... Two chapters and it's over. Most of Chapter 50 is my own BS, and Chapter 51 is the final battle at the North Crater. There, again, I want to throw in some big boss fights to let everyone go out in a blaze of glory. Oh, and Bahamut shows up in the final chapter. It's time to tie up that loose end, as well.

... Oh, there's a five chapter epilogue too. Did I forget to mention that?