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The soft mattress and sheets molded around the last of the Cetra as she laid flat on her back upon it. Her slender hands were cradling the Keystone, emerald eyes fixated on it as information poured into her mind. There was a connection to it that she felt strongly about, despite the fact that she never once laid eyes or was even aware of it until recently.
The choice she had to make was a heavy one. Would they get rid of the Keystone or would they claim the Black Materia for themselves? Both sides made valid points when they had discussed what to do.
Her thoughts drifted from the subject when she heard her PHS ring and looked over to the nightstand. She picked it up and looked at the number. It was her adoptive mother's. If Aerith remembered correctly, she had a date tonight with a man she met not too long ago.
Aerith had been slightly pushy in getting her to agree to the date, but only because she could tell her mother was fond of the man from their limited interactions. That was a good thing, given that she was home alone now. Her adoptive mother deserved to be happy, and if someone else could give her that then Aerith would happily give them her blessing.
She held the phone up to her ear after picking up. "How was your night, Mother?"
The voice that came from the other end wasn't Elmyra's. "That really depends on you, Ancient."
No… no, please no, Aerith silently pleaded as her chest grew tight and a weight plummeted into her stomach. She recognized that voice from Costa del Sol. It was Heidegger. The man who'd nearly killed her friends and captured her was calling from her mother's number.
"Where's my mother!?"Aerith said in a panicked tone as she rose off the bed. "What have you done to her!?"
"She is unharmed at the moment. But how long she stays that way depends on you," Heidegger said. "You've given us a lot of trouble and I am feeling less than generous, but I am not unreasonable. So long as you comply, no one will suffer needlessly."
Aerith took a forceful, staggering breath as her fingers tightened around the phone. "What do you want?"
"In approximately thirty minutes there will be a small aircraft landing outside of the Corel Settlement," he said. "You will be on it and will bring that Keystone to lead us to the temple where the Black Materia lies."
Her breathing hitched. "You don't know what you're going after. That materia is dangerous."
"If I wanted your opinion, I would have asked. Be outside the Corel Settlement in half-an-hour. If we see any of your companions, your mother will suffer for it. Am I clear?"
"… Let me speak to her first," Aerith said. Some small part of her was hoping, pleading to Minerva that it was a lie he'd taken her. "Once I have, I'll go without telling anyone. But I need to know she's still alive before and after I do this."
The phone line clicked and the amount of ambient noise increased. She could hear him telling someone to speak, so Aerith figured that he must've put it on speakerphone. When no response came, Aerith spoke first.
"Mother, are you okay?" Aerith's voice was heavy with concern as her heart stilled. "Please, say something. I just need to hear that you're okay… please?"
"…I'm fine, Sweetheart," Elmyra said over the line. "Don't worry about me."
Aerith exhaled her held breath and the regret held back by her fleeting hope came rushing forward. "I'm so sorry! I didn't want you to be involved in this!"
"Aerith, do what you think is right. I'm not—" Before she could finish her words were cut off and replaced by muffled sounds. They'd gagged her.
"Thirty minutes, outside Corel. Alone." Heidegger warned a final time. Then the line went dead.
Tears began to sting Aerith's eyes as she pressed the phone nestled between her fingers against her forehead, as though to pray. Heidegger had taken the woman who raised her after the death of her birth-mother. She couldn't lose Elmyra to Shinra too, but handing over the Black Materia would put the entire Planet in danger.
"What do I do?" she asked quietly. "Mother… Zack… what do I do?"
No voice reached her ears from the Lifestream, only the hollow silence as she began to weep at the conflict between her duty and her family. Yet, for a brief and fleeting moment that spanned a heartbeat, she felt there was a gentle pressure weighing on her shoulders. Like a set of comforting hands.
Resolve found purchase within her as Aerith made her decision. She drafted a letter telling the party what was happening and would leave it here for them to find, since they wouldn't allow her to leave if they knew. Shinra wouldn't kill her since she was too vulnerable, so she begged them to save her mother instead of her in the writing.
Then she took off all of her equipment and materia. The White Materia that rested in her hair, a treasured possession of her people given to her by her birth-mother, couldn't be allowed to fall into Shinra or Hojo's hands. She could trust the people who accompanied her to this point to hold onto it, so long as Sephiroth didn't get his hands on the Black Materia.
That done, Aerith departed in silence towards the meeting point.
[-oOo-]
"So they blamed you for what happened to Lockhart?" Crimson asked, sitting across from Cloud at a small table. The Golden Saucer had a surprisingly wide-selection of food for them to choose from, with her choosing to enjoy a light soup and bread as she listened to Cloud speak of his childhood.
In specific, he recalled how he struggled to get along with the other kids in Nibelheim. Eventually he saw them as far more immature than himself, probably due to being a single child living with only his mother. Tifa was the person he was closest to as a child, having been neighbors with her family.
However, when her mother died, Tifa tried to climb the mountain under the belief that she could see her again and Cloud accompanied her. The bridge snapped and the girl fell into a coma. It was lucky that neither died, but it seems Cloud took the lion's share of the blame.
"Yeah," Cloud said. "I probably didn't help things with how I acted back then. But things between me and the others only got worse after what happened to her. I decided to leave for Shinra when I was just above the age of acceptance to join SOLDIER, but things didn't work out. I was ashamed to show my face to the others when I returned as an infantryman after that."
And then Sephiroth snapped and went on a killing-spree, went unsaid. Neither one wanted to bring that up at the moment. Nothing would be gained from it. Still, it was good that he was regaining more of his childhood memories.
"You should hold onto those memories, Cloud," she told him. "Those are yours alone, and not something Jenova can take away or manipulate. Let them be your anchor if Sephiroth tries to manipulate you through them again."
Cloud closed his eyes, leaving his expression pensive as he gathered those thoughts. While he did so, Crimson found that the brief pause in the discussion gave her time to picture just what Cloud was like as a child. It was different than what she expected, but given everything he'd gone through she imagined it played a large part in shaping his current persona.
Cloud's eyes opened after his moment of reflection and he addressed her. "What was it like for you?"
Crimson blinked. "Hm?"
"Growing up, I mean," he clarified.
"Hmm…" She stirred the soup with her spoon in thought at how to answer that question. "In all honesty, there's really not much to my past in general. I grew up in an orphanage before being inducted into the organization and undergoing training in my youth. "
"Younger than I was when I left Nibelheim?"
She nodded. "The company usually makes it a habit of searching for people with certain skills and behaviors. Age stops being a factor when someone with exceptional talent is found. And very few people with happy families are capable of doing what's required of us, but orphans are easy targets since they've all but been abandoned by society. Careful words and just the right amount of attention will have them buying into what they're told as long as you make them feel wanted."
When they wanted her to join, they told her she had talent and wanted to nurture it so that she could make things better for everyone through the company. For Crimson those words were something that held a lot of weight. She put her heart and soul into the training and took to it exceptionally well.
"Since they got to me early, I was the youngest to join," she continued. "But I didn't really didn't trust anyone until the other members managed to loosen me up somewhat. There were more of us back then, all from different walks of life and personalities. But they went into exile sometime ago."
Their help would be useful, all things considered, but she didn't know where the others were now and didn't have any way to contact them either. When Tseng burned their records to allow them into exile under the pretense of being KIA, he'd done so well enough that she couldn't pick up a trail even if she wanted to. Whatever life they were building now free of their shackles to Shinra, she imagined that it was probably something more lax than what she was doing now.
She forced away the meaningless thoughts on the other exiles to focus on the conversation. "Cloud, have you given thought to what you're doing when everything is over?"
"You mean after we've dealt with Sephiroth?"
"Yeah." Their journey couldn't continue forever after all. They'd deal with Sephiroth, but then they wouldn't have much of a reason to travel together. "Having something waiting for you at the end will act as a motivator to push you forward. I have a lot to make up for, so I was planning to help Aerith for some time. What about you?"
Cloud crossed his arms and lowered his head, eyes furrowed as he contemplated his future beyond their current mission. Crimson hoped that it would involve her in some manner, but he already said he didn't have an answer for what she told him before. Likewise, it wouldn't be fair for her to expect him to return those feelings in the end.
Before he could think of anything, Yuffie ran up to their table. There was a distressed look in her dark-brown eyes. "Aerith is gone!"
"What do you mean?" She handed Crimson the letter that Aerith had written. Her stomach dropped as she read it, and pieces started falling into place. She turned to Cloud and handed it over to him, giving him a second to read.
His furrowed eyes turned angry. "Damn it. They're holding her mother hostage."
"Cloud, you go find Lockhart and Nanaki. See if you can pick up her trail." Crimson rose to her feet and then turned to Yuffie. "Go find Vincent and have him meet me in my room. Tell the other two to load up the plane with what we need and Aerith's belongings. Have them do it without attracting attention."
"Okay, but what are you going to do?" Yuffie asked.
"The only way for them to know about the Black Materia and Keystone is for them to have overheard us in my room. Nanaki and Cloud's senses would have picked someone up if they were close. That means a bug was setup. If I find it, I can determine if the one who did it is still around."
That said, she made her way back to the room at a brisk pace, thinking on the contents of the letter while dialing Kunsel's number on her PHS. She was halfway there when he answered. "Aerith's mother was kidnapped."
"I know," Kunsel said over the line. "My contact was with her when it happened. He was knocked out after seeing a woman whose appearance makes me believe that she's part of the Deepground. It seems the theory of it being involved with Shinra is panning out."
"I bet Heidegger's acting on his own again," Crimson said. "Reno mentioned Gongaga hadn't been a target for the Turks, and Heidegger hates that division because they aren't completely subordinate to him."
"And the lack of troops would likely encourage the use of hidden assets," Kunsel added. "Hojo would be necessary since he's the foremost expert on the procedure for SOLDIERs. Neither are well-received by Rufus at present either."
"We can leverage that information later, but we need to focus on the Gainsboroughs now." Letting them take Aerith was unacceptable and they were too far from Midgar. Kunsel was already there and he had his ways of infiltrating places. "Can I trust you to save Aerith's mother while we go after her?"
"Yeah. I'm on it." The line cut there with no more to be said as Crimson entered the room and began to search for where the bug had been placed. She was expecting some level of professionalism to be behind it, despite their laxness, so she ignored the obvious places for the moment and started where she would place them. She got it on her fourth try, nestled within the power outlet, behind the covering and hooked into the building's power source.
The fact that it was linked into the power-supply meant that it was for long-term observation. The overall construction and design was familiar. And, given that it had a short-range transmitter, which meant their spy had to be in the facility.
Vincent silently arrived in the room and crouched down next to her, running his eyes over the construction. Crimson didn't doubt he'd come to the same conclusion as she did. They then exited to the room, where they ran into Cloud, Nanaki, and Tifa.
"Any luck?" she asked.
"She's gone," Cloud said. "We followed her scent trail until we reached the point where it ascended. They've taken her."
"I also picked up numerous scents reeking of mako," Nanaki added. "They were similar to that of our assailants a few nights prior."
"We found a bug hooked into the power supply," Crimson said. "The placement makes me think it was planted by a Turk, but that division rarely cooperates with Heidegger since its part of a different chain of command from his, unless ordered by the President. And Kunsel says that he's on the outs with Rufus. That means either someone is going behind Tseng's back or they've been spied on somehow."
"That's not important right now," Tifa said. "What matters is getting Aerith back. We need to go now."
"The others are working on getting the plane up," Yuffie said as she entered the hallway from what was Aerith's room.
"But if we leave without figuring out the spy, we can't come back here and lose one of our safe havens," Crimson said. "It has to be a member of the staff, but they must be wearing a disguise or we would have recognized them by now."
Vincent opted then to speak. "There was a faint scent on the bug that seemed fragrant." Crimson shot him an inquiring look. "My sense of smell isn't on par with Cloud or Nanaki, but it is sharper than most. If Nanaki can pick it up then we can track the scent."
[-oOo-]
Tifa walked alongside Nanaki as she made her way through the Golden Saucer in search of the spy. Following the trail of the perfume was easier said than done given the number of people around, and they were in a hurry at that. Along the way she had to occasionally flash a smile or wave at someone who had seen her in the coliseum to earn the Keystone.
They came to a stop at the Terminal Floor, when a woman dressed in an employee's outfit with brunette-colored hair neared and Nanaki's head jerked towards her. Was it her then? Her body posture didn't seem hostile and she didn't seem like she was getting ready to run away to avoid being caught.
Tifa called out to her to be certain. "Pardon me, but can I have a minute of your time?"
"Oh, if it isn't the Battle Square Champion?" the woman said, willingly approaching them. "What can I do for you?"
Tifa flashed Nanaki a quick glance, who shook his head. It wasn't her. But she had at least come into contact with their spy if there was a hint of the scent lingering on her. "Do you know an employee that may have been observing me or my friends while we've been here?"
The woman grimaced. "Oh… this employee didn't cause you any trouble, did she? I told her to not bother Dio's guests, but she's new and—"
"No, no," she lied. "I… just wanted to ask her what perfume it was that she wore. My pet seems to like it and has been trying to track down the scent. I don't think he'll settle down until he finds the source."
Nanaki turned to her with a slightly raised brow in annoyance, but said nothing. He didn't like being treated like a pet, she knew that much. But that was the cover they'd gone with while here and if it works then it works.
The woman didn't seem to notice Nanaki's irritation as she reached down to pet him on the head before pointing towards the entrance of the Event Square. "She's in Event Square alone, doing a bit of extra work after that last play."
"Thank you," Tifa said before walking towards that entrance along with Nanaki. When they were out of earshot she apologized. "Sorry about that, Red. I had to play it up."
"I shall tolerate it for the sake of retrieving the Shamaness," he said. Then he sniffed the air and nodded. "The scent is indeed more concentrated this way. Send the message to the others."
She pulled out her PHS to send word to the others. The sooner they wrapped this up, the sooner they got back Aerith.