Monsters
Vincent was in the Turks' office with Rufus as they had been about to head out for training when Veld stepped from his office and called, "We have an incident to respond to—a monster break-out from the Labs which sent most of them to other random floors. Cloud informed me he's gotten started since he apparently saw them bolt, so the rest of us need to organize an efficient hunt. I've called some Turks back from other tasks, but up front, Derin and Ansha, I need you in our communications center to let us know where there are problems to deal with throughout the building. Doriss, you can head out as well to see if any are outside the building—your hooks will be best for that."
The three gave agreement and headed out, so Veld faced Vincent and said, "You two aren't wandering around the building in this situation."
"Could I go with Vincent to watch, or to help a little as practice?" Rufus asked suddenly, and Vincent wanted to pinch the bridge of his nose.
"Does Cloud know if Reeve's safe?" Vincent asked of his friend.
"From what I gather, the monsters probably couldn't have gotten in anywhere but on floors fifty-nine and below because, knowing him, they were in the stairwell," Veld answered. "But I'd be all right with you doing a sweep of the upper floors with Rufus, if you want to make sure he's all right."
"I would," Vincent agreed. "Shall I assume sixty and up?"
"Yes. Let me know if you find anything," Veld agreed, giving the two a nod.
"Good. Let's go, Rufus," Vincent agreed, spinning to leave—only to stop as a message came in to Veld's PHS which caused the man to hiss. Turning back to Veld with a frown, he waited for the man to explain what had caused the response.
He didn't have to wait long as the brown haired man commented, "You might have to take up more than just the upper floors, Vincent. And I'm going to have to get in touch with Lazard. Apparently, Fuhito and the Restrictors are here in Midgar, and Heidegger is with them. Head out and I'll let you know what's next on your list once I've got a better idea myself."
"Fair enough," Vincent agreed with a nod, then headed away, motioning Rufus to follow him. Once they were in the stairwell, Vincent asked the sixteen-year-old, "So, is Dark Nation here and trained enough to fight?"
"Um...I snuck him into my office because I was going to be getting a lesson from Verde later today, but he should be good for battle even if he's not fully trained yet," Rufus answered cautiously.
"We shouldn't have much trouble by going up, but if you're going to have to come back down with me, too, we're taking him with us. That will also justify him to your father when you can't hide him anymore—this is known as picking your best time and method to reveal something you can't keep hidden forever. It also simplifies all our lives at the moment, and will keep you safer in a real combat situation." Vincent paused for a moment to eye the startled younger man, then added, "And Rufus, I'm not going to try to keep you from the truth. There's no glory in battle, just death and suffering. Don't ever enter it lightly. This time, we're protecting civilians who can't fight to protect themselves, but this won't be true in every battle."
"Okay," Rufus agreed, swallowing hard as he realized the gravity of the situation.
Nodding, Vincent returned to the task at hand and proceeded up the stairs to check the executive floors. All of the doors were securely closed, right up to sixty-six, and a note to Reeve affirmed they were fine. However, at floor sixty-seven, one of the doctors, a brown haired woman with glasses who he believed was known as Doctor Rayleigh, was leaning on the doorjamb, near to passing out from blood loss. Rufus gasped and ran forward to support her weight and ease her to the floor in the hall, and Vincent knelt beside them as he cast healing on her arm and side, which had clearly been sliced open. By a blade.
After the first round of healing, her eyes mostly cleared and she looked up at him in a bit of a daze, then whispered, "That thing is no child. That thing is no human, not even a clone of one."
"Wait—it wasn't monsters that injured you?" Rufus blinked in surprise as Vincent felt a sinking sensation.
"I'm still alive because the terrified monsters accidentally dragged me out of the way of the strike," she answered softly, lips pursing as she struggled not to cry.
"Who—or what—did this?" Vincent asked her quietly, applying more healing to her.
"There was a—I guess a clone of Sephiroth?" she began, then shook her head. "I hadn't thought much of the tests Hojo was running because my project isn't related to that. But just now, when I looked at that boy's eyes...There was nothing but malice, only cold, cruel glee. The General—I had thought him cold, but now—his warmth is so obvious when put against that child's...And I really don't think he is one, or he's one with no soul...I can't go back after that—I probably won't live long if I do."
"Where is the boy now?" Vincent asked in alarm. It was too soon!
She shook her head. "I don't know. I think he was going to come back after doing something..."
A silence followed, then Rufus asked her, "Are you fit to walk after some of Vincent's healing? If we have to go back to lower floors, we can drop you off at the Turks' office—you'll be safe there while Veld works out how best to handle what happened to you."
The woman carefully flexed her previously sliced open arm and probed her side gently, then offered, "I could try...maybe if I leaned on one of you?"
Vincent had been thinking Rufus would allocate him to the role, but then the Turk blinked in surprise as the blond man said, "Vincent's our primary combatant, so you'll have to lean on me, if that won't be too awkward for height?"
"It shouldn't be..." the Doctor murmured, and Rufus gave agreement, then began helping her up. Vincent reacted almost on instinct alone to help them, then let Rufus and Rayleigh shift to walk, her good arm around his shoulders and the blond's holding her up around the waist so he could avoid the worst of the damage to her side.
"Ready?" Vincent asked. They both agreed, so he looked at the woman and said, "Tell us if you need to rest—we first have to go up at least as far as sixty-nine. You should be able to sit there with Rufus and Dark Nation while I check on the President, then we can use the elevator to head back to the Turks' floor."
At her agreement, Vincent led the way upward, suddenly feeling like they weren't quite safe—something must have gone upward after all, then started coming back at the smell of blood. As they were passing the door on sixty-eight, Vincent motioned them to stop, which they did, and he focused on his senses, trying to pick out the direction of the threat, which had just increased significantly.
Suddenly, he spun and looked up at the narrow opening in the middle of the stair railings, lifting his gun to shoot as a pair of scythe-like claw-blades shot down at Rufus and the Doctor. The bullet struck true and the thing's head was largely just mush as it collapsed to the ground—it was obviously a relative of the Headhunter bugs around Mideel. At least it hadn't been able to do any harm, and it didn't feel like any other threat was nearby, though the type of monster it was would have been problematic for anyone not prepared.
"...Primary combatant," Rayleigh commented in tired amusement as he turned to look at the two of them.
Rufus chuckled at the words. "I am sincerely thankful he's on our side."
Vincent's brow rose, but he said, "Regardless, if you're fit to keep moving, we should do so. This area should be safe now, but with a damaged Lab door, there's no guarantee."
Both agreed and they kept heading up.
MB
Angeal and Zack had been sent to the floor of the building where it looked like the majority of the monsters were, which was the floor below the Weapons' Labs, even as Sephiroth and Kal had been sent down to handle something in the Slums. They had started clearing, one from the stairs and the other from the elevator; Zack had cheerfully volunteered to run the stairs, since he had so much spare energy, anyway. Angeal had let him, since he knew Zack's skills were actually phenomenal once he put his mind to a task, and with the added mentoring, the younger's skills had improved to an impressive degree, not unlike Kunzel's had with Genesis.
As he worked from his side, Angeal once again felt thankful Genesis had told him to snap up Zack while he could, because it had been a good match. And honestly, he had the impression that Genesis had told him to because it had happened in the lifetime the man had already lived through, but had taken longer. In the changed circumstances, though, it may not have happened at all if Genesis hadn't told him to do it, because more than one First had told him they wished they'd been quick enough to get Zack—there wouldn't have been a 'later'.
Five monsters in and he realized most of the damage on the floor was apparently the result of two different 'dog' packs fighting over territory. Reaching up to scratch the back of his neck, he amended that to a 'dog' pack and a 'tiger-dog' pack. And while the 'dogs' were plenty strong, the 'tiger-dogs' were down-right terrifying. By his skills, they weren't really 'dangerous' to him, but they were—all of them—imbued with elemental powers normally only found in Materia, and next to none of them had anything like true control of them. The most intensive powers seemed to come from the 'tiger-dogs', where it was more like the difference between a Fire 3 and a Flare. The 'dogs' tended to cast Fire 3, while the 'tiger-dogs'...
Then he came across another small, snarling group, and sighed as he saw a 'winged dog' and a 'scaled dog' in the group. The former was with the 'dogs', and the latter was with the 'tiger-dogs'. Hojo and his experiments...
Eliminating them and helping a secretary out from under an over-turned desk, he kept going. More and more across the floor, he was seeing odd combinations with dogs, and an occasional something else...But then he had to ask, why this floor? There was nothing in particular there, it had no food source, and it wasn't especially sheltered. These monsters had seemingly picked a random floor to gather on and fight a territory battle over. While he wasn't an expert on monsters or animals, he was from a farming town and knew this wasn't the kind of place they claimed as safe territory. So, why?
"Hey, Ang!" Zack grinned cheerfully from down the hall, breaking him from his thoughts and making him look up at the younger man with a smile. "Have you noticed how strange this is?"
"You mean, completely the wrong type of territory for them to be fighting over?" Angeal asked in reply, joining him to head down the last hall, where there was snarling and pained yelps from further down—a fight between monsters.
"Yeah," Zack agreed. They both then paused for a moment in surprise as they heard something which sounded like a puppy yelping down a long pipe. "And I think there's pups down there, and one of them just ended up in a vent or something."
"...We'd better stop it," Angeal sighed, wondering how in the world they'd track down the pup before it died in the vent. "Before any more end up in places we can't reach easily."
They quickly reached the room the noise came from—and paused as they saw a badly-injured 'tiger-dog' standing between a mixed group of other 'dogs' and 'tiger-dogs' and a 'winged dog' with...a 'tiger-dog' pup curled up under its feet? Another glance around showed the discarded remains of two other pups, both dead.
"Um...Weren't the 'winged dogs' and the 'tiger-dogs' on opposite sides?" Zack voiced what he was thinking.
"...The two packs' Alpha Male and Alpha Female...And the rest of the packs don't like that mix," Angeal sighed tiredly with realization.
"That would make sense—they weren't fighting over territory, they were fighting because they're rivals while these ones are trying to kill the pups," Zack commented.
At that moment, the injured 'tiger-dog' (probably) male jumped at the others closest to him, lashing out with all the force (and something akin to a Flare spell) he could, and single-handedly eliminated about half of them before one got a lucky bite into the side of his neck. As he went down, Angeal instinctively jumped forward and slashed at the remaining monsters surrounding the (probably) mother and pup. Zack quickly followed him, and between them, the 'dogs' of both factions were quickly eliminated.
When they turned back to the mother and pup, she had laid down in exhaustion with the pup curled tightly against her belly, but seemed placid enough as she just waited.
Finally, after a pause, Zack asked, "Okay...So, what do we do with them, when they don't seem eager to attack? Could we, like, pull off letting them go, or take them in like Kunzel did with the kitten?"
For a long moment, Angeal eyed the white-gold, 'winged dog' (1) with almost feathery fur and the small, orange pup with black stripes and a white belly (2). The pup was clearly scared, and its mother was tired of fighting to protect them, weak, and probably mourning her dead pups in whatever way she was able. He wasn't sure how animals or monsters mourned, but he knew they felt losses like any human did—it hurt. After what had been done to them, was it really fair to just eliminate them?
Honor said 'no'.
"Let's see if Lazard will back us to keep them. In theory, we can each claim one, but we won't need to separate them because we room together, so it would make sense. But we still need to let the others know to look for a missing pup in the vents."
"Sure," Zack grinned, moving over to sit cross-legged on the floor by the two. The female shuffled a bit, but when he didn't move closer or try to touch them, she settled again—and Zack blinked as he asked, "Hey, does that pup look like it's got a Nibel Wolf mane?"
Blinking, Angeal joined Zack to eye the little one, then turned to look for the other (unfortunately dead) pups and commented slowly, "A tiger-dog with a mane, a white Guard Hound-like pup, an orange and black winged pup...Do you think the one that fell down the vent is more like a Nibel Wolf pup?"
"Huh...It might be, if the parents would actually originally have been a Guard Hound and a Nibel Wolf..." Zack commented thoughtfully. "I guess it's our turn to work out names for pets, then!" he suddenly grinned cheerfully. "Did we need to go to another floor?"
"Only if someone else couldn't get to the others faster, but we had the lion's share of the monsters here," Angeal answered. "I'll ask Lazard, though."
"Sure thing," the younger black haired man agreed, still smiling, so Angeal pulled out his PHS.
MB
Cloud was just heading back towards the stairs on floor fifty-one when a voice he never wanted to hear again said with amused malice, "Hello, Cloud."
Spinning to face the speaker, he saw a child-Sephiroth around his age gazing at him with that cold, cruel smile. The pupils of his eyes were narrowed more like a lizard's, and there was no mistaking him.
"Sephiroth...The Nightmare..." Cloud almost hissed out, hands gripping his blade and combat star in a death grip. He knew after fighting him so many times that even a short 'interlude' wouldn't be easy, and he was terrified of a serious attempt to kill him. Only long experience fighting the man kept him calm enough to face him and keep thinking, but that didn't make it easy.
"You're...small..." The Nightmare child commented, sounding highly amused.
If anything, that was worse than the cold malice.
"Yeah...Look who's talking," Cloud snorted derisively. "Because last time we met as adults, you were almost a foot taller than me, and we're now just about at eye level."
The Nightmare's brow furrowed slightly, then he looked down at himself before looking back at Cloud. "I suppose that's true," he agreed genially. "But be that as it may—I just had to see you again, Cloud. You still didn't answer me from last time—what do you treasure most, so I can have the pleasure of taking it away?"
Snorting and laughing, Cloud actually let mirth at the absurdity cause his eyes to close, though he didn't completely let down his guard. When he finally stopped laughing, child-Sephiroth looked mildly annoyed, so he said, "I did answer it last time. It's not my fault if you chose not to pay attention. What's wrong, losing your touch?"
The taunt caused child-Sephiroth to snarl and launch himself at Cloud in a fierce attack—an attack Cloud met and matched with his new combat star. But, as they fought, Cloud's child body's lack of training began to show, and it slowed him down just that little bit which became the defining factor in the match. They had already destroyed several walls and pillars by then (thankfully nothing load-bearing), and several of the people who worked on the floor stopped cleaning up after the monster attack to watch them in something like amazed horror.
Cloud had one chance, and only one—Materia. And casting at the right timing would be a trial when he was already tired. Not good. Though, fighting The Nightmare could never really be classified as 'good', but...Even just a moment!
The moment never came as a sudden patch of ice (Hex? Tifa?) grew under child-Sephiroth's feet, causing him to yelp, slip, and fall as a sudden, random burst of power from the clone side-swiped Cloud—and knocked him into the nearest wall. A moment later, the blond boy realized it wasn't a wall, it was a vent, and he'd just been sent hurtling to the end of it head-first. Striking the back wall of the vent hurt and made him momentarily dizzy as he reached up to clutch his head (he was glad he could wear the star like a shield) as he tried to ease the pain away.
Then, the vent apparently turned on and the surface he'd been laying on dropped out from under him, dropping him into free-fall...head-first, in a space definitely not big enough to turn around in.
Fuck Sephiroth's luck, and fuck his own lack of it!
Opening his eyes quickly, he tried to assess what he could in the darkness. It was possible to fall right to the first floor that way in some vent shafts, but he needed to stop before then. Switching his held blade—the one he'd had separately the whole time he'd been clearing monsters—to the same hand as the star, he seized another blade and pulled it free, then shoved both out sideways so they cut into the sides of the vent. He winced at the screeching of metal cutting metal, and knew his hands were going to be in a world of pain for some time as he struggled to hold them tight against the resistance. However, it only took a few moments for him to come to a 'screeching' halt, where he just held himself for a minute as he tried to calm his breathing.
Okay, wild ride aside, he now had some control over the situation, so he tried to think of the best way to proceed—only to realize he heard pained whimpering and whining from nearby. It sounded like it was coming from one of the crossing vents just below him, so once his breathing and head had settled enough for clear vision, he could make out the vent the sound came from. Had one of the monsters ended up in the vent somehow? Would any of them even fit in it?
Easing his grip on his blade handles, he pulled one free and stuck it into the vent wall further down, then did the same with the other, like walking down a ladder. Well, if one was doing so up-side down on their hands. If he wasn't careful, the blood rush to his brain could make him pass out, and the only reason he wasn't struggling as much as a normal person (well, other than acrobats and gymnasts) was the Mako in his system. In the meantime, the vent would let him flatten out, assuming he could get to it, and was suddenly glad the vent was on at the time—the air flow was definitely helping keep him steady.
It only took about a half a dozen of those 'blade-steps' before he could reach the vent, so pulled out the blade on that side and put it down on the bottom of the vent, then turned his feet to the wall opposite the vent and pulled out the blade on that side to put it down beside the one already down. Carefully letting go of the blades, he pushed them further down the vent with one hand (the other was still holding him up) and against the wall, then got his star off and pushed it over to join them. Once those were out of the way, pulling himself into the vent was much easier, and it only took him a moment to set the blades back in place on the star and move forward down the vent with just it in his hand.
And at least being only twelve years old meant the vents weren't as tight as they'd been when he'd been an adult, so he could crawl properly on his hands and knees.
Soon after, he came to a section of the vent with a path forward and a path up, but no path down...and a—Nibel Wolf pup (3)?—was laying at the bottom of the vent below the downward path, whining and shaking from pain. As he crawled over to it, not really sure what to do, it turned to look at him, then shuffled over to lick his face, clearly pleading for help. Dropping his head to the ground with a groan of realization (if he healed it, the bloody thing was going to become his 'pet'!), he also knew he really couldn't leave the little pup. Especially not when it whined in sympathy and licked his head.
Sighing, Cloud sent healing to the pup, which produced a happy and thankful yip and another lick, then tried to figure out exactly how he was going to get out of the vent. It didn't take him long to realize there was really only one way to go—down the straight path he was currently on. So, nudging the pup forward ahead of him, he began crawling down the vent in that direction, until he could see the light of a room beyond a vent grate, realizing as they got closer to the light that the pup was more golden and orange than it was brown. No existing maned wolf breed had that color of fur...
And then he heard Scarlet shout in alarm, "Let me go!" It was coming from the room he was heading for!
While he should have been more worried about The Nightmare, if he hadn't followed Cloud yet, he probably wasn't going to, and right then, he actually didn't care—he was more worried for Scarlet's safety than his own because she was a non-combatant.
So, he slid his star onto his arm like a shield, grabbed the pup in the same arm, and shoved forward, pushed the grate off the vent, and threw himself into the room head-first, landing on his free hand in a tuck-and-roll motion which brought him to his feet. As he was rising, he had already dropped the pup gently onto its feet beside him and turned to scan the room.
What horrified him was that Scarlet's dress was torn and three men surrounded her—it wasn't just one. She was shaking and struggling to hold back tears as their hands had frozen in very inappropriate places at his entrance to the room—
He didn't think, just jumped forward to attack with lethal force. Two were dead in a blink as he put blades through their throats, but one bolted from the room. He'd have followed, but a sob from Scarlet made him turn back to her, set his weapon down, and hug her, wishing his suit jacket wasn't tailored to a child's body. She clung to him and wept on his shoulder, and the pup joined them to lean against them, though he wasn't sure if it was just looking for warmth or legitimately offering comfort. It could have been either or both.
Pulling out his PHS, Cloud managed to activate the the tracking signal and type in a message to Veld, saying, Send one of the Lady Turks to the signal from my PHS—after falling into the vents, I don't know where I am. And tell her to bring along something for Scarlet to wear.
It only took a moment for him to get back the message, Eonna will be there soon. With a sigh, Cloud just turned back to Scarlet to wait.
A stray thought came to him that maybe he'd had the stroke of good luck this time, because if he'd never ended up in the vent, or falling down it and finding the pup, he'd never have been here just now to help Scarlet, either.
Notes:
Just so everyone knows, this incident (the Lab break-out in general) was ALWAYS going to happen, and the only real difference brought on by my muse insisting on pets is how there were pups and how a few of them survived. So, here's the break-down of the obvious pets in this chapter.
Pet skills won't be named unless naming them comes up in the story.
(1) This winged dog for Angeal was Anasazi Darkmoon's idea, but with some modification. In Crisis Core, Angeal had created a winged dog with his A-cells, and it was a protector the player never fought—there are no stats on it. While I took the general idea, this one is different, because it was created in the Labs as a genetically modified (likely spliced) Guard Hound which is less 'armored' and more like a normal, furry animal, just with a few scaled patches and white-gold fur. Its wings are also both proper, full-sized wings in white. She's got a range of abilities from various sources, but 'light' or 'psychic' skills in general are her primaries.
(2) Phoenix offered some Pokémon-ish creatures and some sort of dog for Zack (with him being called a puppy, that sort of makes sense—and yes, that means Zack is going to take the puppy). I decided if I'm playing with Lab experiments anyway, the most likely way to get any of the Pokémon options was by crossing a Nibel Wolf and a tiger to produce a 'Growlithe'...actually, it more accurately produced an 'Arcanine', since these ones don't evolve. That's in looks only, and while it has some fire-based abilities, it also has some FFVII abilities and some lightning ones.
(3) Both Morganna Saphire Raven and Anasazi Darkmoon wanted Cloud to have a Nibel Wolf pup, so this golden pup with orangy hues is now his. Other than its coloring, it looks like a Nibel Wolf, but its abilities are vastly different, including it having the ability to poison anyone it attacks and being able to cause a localized earthquake (which exists as a monster ability in both FFVII and Pokémon).