Author's Note:
So this chapter took a bit longer than I wanted it to. Several life events happened back-to-back, but if there's anything I've learned over the years it's how to maintain discipline with writing. Still, I'm glad to see that some people are enjoying the story so far, and hopefully the next chapter doesn't take so long to get made.
For over fifty years Nibelheim served as the home to the original mako reactor, but even before that the town had already endured a rich yet troubled history. Mt. Nibel, a land once rich and lush with life and greenery thanks to the abundant flow of mako coursing through it had long captured the interest of Shinra's eccentric founder. Initially he'd believed that mako could be utilized to craft weapons the likes of which the world had never seen. While he was correct in his belief, it was merely just one facet of the vast potential mako energy had to offer, potential that the founder would never live to witness. However even decades after his death, the ripples of his pursuits still lingered.
Following the events of Meteorfall, the Mt. Nibel mako reactor had been permanently shut down and left to rot. Ecologists and planetologists alike found that further studies of Mt. Nibel after the reactor's decommissioning to be, as the lead reacher stated in their report, 'an ecological travesty from which the region will never recover'.
The reactor's endless siphoning of mako energy had tapped so deep into the planet, that the Lifestream had cut itself off from the region entirely. Five years later, the Lifestream still exhibited no signs of returning. Mt. Nibel was in effect a festering gangrene, rotting away day-by-day, piece-by-piece as the dwindling supply of mako left behind by the Lifestream wasted away. The same study projected that within thirty years Mt. Nibel would collapse in on itself and in turn destroy Nibelheim in the wake of its destruction.
So what was a withering and dying town good for if not to serve as a home for the withering and dying?
In the wake of Shinra's collapse the SOLDIER program stood as one of its many remaining legacies, but also its least enduring. It was no secret that SOLDIERs were subject to degradation. Their bodies and minds alike would falter, breaking down until eventually once promising young men and women were nothing more than decaying shells of their former selves. However it wasn't until after the collapse of the Shinra Electric Company that the true cause of the degradation process became known.
That truth alone broke the minds of so many who were barely clinging to the fringes of their own sanity.
Cloud looked up to the water tower looming overhead as he approached the town alongside Yuffie, Vincent, and an escort of WRO soldiers. He couldn't help but wonder how long it would be until he too ended up like them; until he ended up like his very home. Devoid of life, devoid of hope, and beyond salvation.
"I suggest we check in with the asylum first to ensure there's nothing out of the ordinary already occurring," Vincent said.
"Yeah," Cloud nodded slowly. "That sounds good, I think."
Vincent took a step toward Cloud and appraised the SOLDIER with a stern gaze before moving on and striding past them.
"Is it just me or does Vincent seem… I dunno, off?" Yuffie chimed.
"Maybe," Cloud replied with a nonanswer. "It doesn't matter, let's just keep moving. We need to hurry."
"What chocobo bit your butt?" Yuffie muttered to herself.
"What was that?"
"Nothing."
When the group passed through the gates of the town, they were met by the town commissioner, a short and slightly pudgy man with weathered features and sunken-in eyes. He approached them with a weary gait, calling out to them as they drew near.
"We received word that there'd be inspectors coming to town. Although…" He looked past the three of them and toward the contingent of WRO soldiers. "I can't say I expected you to bring so many soldiers with you," he fidgeted his hands together. "With all due respect, I don't believe we have the capacities to accommodate all of you."
Cloud glanced up and down the main square of the town, finding that the buildings were in various states of disrepair, and steady trickles of water cascaded along the water tower. The few buildings that didn't appear to actively be falling apart were boarded up, and the streets were empty save for a few asylum workers escorting weary groups of patients that trudged along like ducklings following their mothers.
"We'll make due," Cloud said. "We'd like to start by doing a quick inspection of the asylum. There haven't been any odd occurrences lately, have there? No sporadic episodes from the patients, no aggressive mood swings or anything like that?"
"No," he shook his weary head, his old eyes not shifting from Cloud. "Not a thing," he turned on his heel "Come with me if you would, please? I'll show you the state of our asylum."
Yuffie gestured for the WRO soldiers to wait outside as her, Cloud, and Vincent followed the commissioner inside one of the buildings along the edge of the town square. As soon as they entered, there was an oppressive weight of dread that bore down upon them.
Cloud's mako-ladden eyes glanced up and down the rooms, taking in the sight of men and women alike trudging about the halls without aim or purpose. One stood by a window, their body tilting and swaying just slightly as they stared outside with eyes not too dissimilar to Cloud's own.
"As you can tell," the commissioner said. "Most of them remain perfectly docile. The degradation has greatly hindered their mental capacities, and has also made them physically weak. We try to keep them active by taking them on walks around the town and ensuring they get some degree of exercise, but—"
One of the patients stumbled as the group walked past them. Cloud reached out to catch them just before the patient completely lost their footing. Hoisting them up, the SOLDIER helped stabilize their weary body the best he could.
"Hey, you okay?" Cloud looked at the patient. Their light blue eyes drooped and their mouth hung slack-jawed, giving no more than a faint moan in response.
"Nothing can fully stop the degradation," the commissioner continued. "Nurse, could you help Mr. Harker to bed? I think he needs some rest."
"Yes sir," a nurse replied as she took the frail man out of Cloud's grasp and gently guided them into the communal bedroom ahead of the commissioner and the others.
"So nothing can stop it?" Yuffie asked, her eyes sullen as they stepped into the next room, looking over the line of beds filled with patients, their bodies still clinging to life with hollow minds.
"Nothing," Cloud was the one who answered, his gaze kept directly forward as he followed the commissioner. "The degradation will take its hold on everyone who's been infused with Jenova cells eventually. Some just endure it longer than others."
"Wait," Yuffie blinked. "Doesn't that mean…" she felt a firm hand atop her shoulder. Her eyes shifted to find Vincent standing next to her. He said nothing, but merely shook his head. That was all he needed to do to get the message across.
Cloud kept moving forward when at the edge of his peripheral he came upon a catatonic man lying in one of the beds with his arms outstretched atop the thin white sheets. In large, bold print tattooed onto their shoulder, Cloud read out the number '10'.
"Wait, is that…"
"Oh?" the commissioner stopped to look over at the tattooed patient. "Yes, him. Number Ten. He's a bit of a special case. He was found washed up on the shores of a small island in the Northern Continent not long after Meteor appeared. Did you know him?"
"No," Cloud shook his head. "Not really. It's just… has he always been like this ?" Cloud gestured broadly toward the tattooed man.
"For as long as he's been in our care, at least." the commissioner replied, glancing down at the comatose patient.
"You said he was a special case," Cloud replied. "What did you mean by that?"
"He has a, how should I say, peculiar form of degradation?"
"Peculiar?" Vincent was the one to speak this time. "How so?"
"As far as physical capabilities go, Number Ten is perfectly healthy. I'd go so far to say that on a purely physiological level, he's practically superhuman."
"Doesn't look very superhuman to me," Yuffie said, leaning over the tattooed man, looking into his eyes that stared vacantly at the ceiling above as a small trail of drool trickled down the edge of his lips.
"Take a look for yourself," the commissioner said, taking hold of one of the patient's muscular arms and lifting it carefully with both hands. "He's been bedridden for almost five years, and his muscles haven't even atrophied. In all my time here, I've never seen anything like it before."
Yuffie reached out and poked the patient's bicep. "Holy crap! That thing is like rock solid!"
"Indeed it is," the commissioner nodded before lightly resting the arm back on the bed. "Unfortunately while his body may be in perfect form, his mind is gone."
"Gone?" Cloud spoke up.
"Gone," the commissioner repeated.
"Why do you think he's different?"
"We have no clear answer right now, unfortunately. It could be that there's a genetic component to it, or perhaps the process in which they were infused with Jenova cells was different from the others," he let out a sigh. "Perhaps if we were a research facility we could glean some insight from them, but our priority is to keep our patients comfortable, not pick them apart to see what makes them tick."
"Uh huh," Cloud took a step closer to the tattooed man, staring deeply into the number on their shoulder. The patient laid on the bed unmoving and showed no signs of life aside from the faint wheezing of breath escaping their lips, left trapped in a perpetual slumber Cloud knew they'd never awaken from.
As he stared down at them, a terrible thought wormed into the forefront of his mind. For a moment, though brief, Cloud wondered if this was how the degradation would reveal itself in him as well.
Suddenly, something floated by the edge of Cloud's vision. It was dark, like a formless shadow, but it was something more than that, something that filled him with the same sense of primal dread he felt when he saw Jenova's finger in Junon. However when he reared his head he found nothing there, nothing more than a window peering out to the looming shape of Mt. Nibel high above.
Cloud was snapped back to reality when he, Yuffie, and Vincent heard a shrill alert chime from their phones. The three of them reached into their pockets and looked down at the screens where they were met with a text message.
"Watcher Alert: The target has altered trajectory. Target is now moving toward the Mt. Nibel mako reactor. WRO operatives advised to adjust course and intercept."
"Shit," Cloud growled.
"Why would they go there?" Yuffie said. "Isn't that reactor shut down?"
"All the more reason for us to hurry," Vincent replied, his cloak flourishing as he turned around and made his way to the door. "I'd rather not wait and see what Azul plans to do with it."
"Yeah," Cloud looked over to the commissioner. "Sorry to cut this short, but we gotta go," he took a few steps and then stopped before looking over his shoulder back at the commissioner. "You should probably bring all your patients inside."
"Wait," the commissioner called out to the group as they hurried away. "What's this about the mako reactor?"
"Nothing to worry about!" Cloud shouted back, still running for the exit. "Just make sure all the patients are inside and everything will be fine!"
Once the three of them were back outside in the town square, they were greeted by a WRO captain who gave them a rigid salute. "We've received an update from Junon tha—"
"We know," all three of them replied in unison.
"Just keep the town secured," Cloud said. "We can't move a whole squad of troops up the mountain. It'll be faster if just the three of us go."
"Make that four of us," a deep voice boomed. Cloud, Yuffie, and Vincent shot their glances toward Barret's bulky form as he approached, wearing his signature jacket overtop the bandages wrapped around his chest as he fastened a rotary barrel machine gun to the slot on his right arm with a satisfying click and snap .
"You sure you're up for it, Barret?" Cloud asked. It wasn't until after he finished speaking that Cloud realized the pointlessness of his question.
"Hell yeah, I'm sure," Barret's tone remained cool and collected as he threw on his black sunglasses. "I've got about three-thousand rounds-a-minute of payback for that big blue punk."
"Well let's not waste any time," Cloud nodded. "Let's go." With that, the group headed past Shinra Manor and toward the winding path leading to Mt. Nibel. As they passed by the rickety metal gates around the manor, Vincent slowed his pace for just a moment, gazing upon the decrepit estate before catching up with the group.
XXXXX
The heavy wooden doors of the Sector 5 church creaked open, the midday light shining through the widening crack, reflecting off of the pool near the altar where flowers once bloomed. Tifa let the doors hang open as she entered the empty church and took a seat at the front pew.
With a soft exhale she pulled out her phone. She knew Cloud still hadn't messaged her, but she couldn't resist the compulsion. With a sigh, she looked at the screen for just long enough to see that there were no new messages, and then put it away.
Tifa lowered her head, staring down at her red boots. Her fists clenched as she felt her nails dig into her palms. There was a soreness in her stomach that gradually moved into her chest. It felt like a sickness building its way up inch-by-inch before finally settling just below her throat. The soreness tightened, and she heaved as a hard sob choked its way out of her. Fighting it as she might, the heat in her eyes welled up and a steady stream of tears trickled to the white wooden floor beneath the soles of her boots.
Why did it still hurt so much? Why was it that even after so much time it still caught her like this? She had lost her own father , the man who raised her, cut down before her very eyes, and yet she could move on from that. So why was it that a peculiar flower girl from Sector 5 who she knew for all of a few months so hard for her to move on from?
"Damn it, Cloud…" she wept. "Why can't you just let this go so it can stop hurting so much?" She felt a pang in her chest. She knew that wasn't fair to say. It wasn't his fault for her feeling this way, but in that moment she wanted nothing more than for the pain to go away.
"I'm not interrupting anything, am I?" a woman's voice called out from the back.
Tifa shot up in the pew and quickly wiped away the tears before turning back with bloodshot eyes to see a middle-aged woman carrying a bouquet of yellow lilies with her. Her light blonde hair shimmered beneath the light, betraying the telltale signs of gray peaking through.
"Elmyra!" Tifa stood up, still brushing her arms against her face. "No, I'm sorry. I was just leaving." Swallowing what tears she had left, Tifa hurried down the aisle toward the open doors.
"Just stop, Tifa." Elmyra's words were soft, equally so was the grasp of her hand on Tifa's shoulder as the woman tried to pass her by. Yet even with a light hand, it was more than enough to halt the bartender dead in their tracks. "It's okay. It's alright for you to be here. God knows, I've found Cloud here in worse states than you before."
Tifa blinked. She wanted to say something, but no words could escape her as Aerith's mother guided her back to the front pew with a cool hand on her back. After Tifa had taken her seat again, Elmyra walked over to the edge of the pool and gazed into her reflection.
"You know, I always kept telling her not to come to this rickety old place. I was worried that one day the roof was going to collapse on her." Elmyra tilted her head up toward the hole in the ceiling that brought down a beam of light into the pool. "Which, well, I suppose it did," she said with a small smirk. "But she wouldn't listen to me. Nope, not Aerith. She was always going off and finding herself on some sort of adventure." She gave a small smile and lowered her head back down. Without another word, she released her grasp on the bouquet and watched as the yellow lilies scattered about the water below, floating atop the surface as they drifted aimlessly.
"It's funny," Tifa said as Elmyra walked over to take a seat next to her. "I always hear about how much she loved this place, but I never actually got to visit it with her. By the time I first stepped foot in here, she'd already…" Tifa stopped herself, starting to feel the soreness in her stomach again.
"Just know that my daughter would've been happy that you came, even if it was without her here," Elmyra said, gently rubbing Tifa's back. "How are you, dear?"
"I'm fine, I think," she nodded. "I've just been thinking about her a bit lately. It happens sometimes." Tifa wiped away the last bit of stray tears on her cheeks. "But you don't have to worry about me. Besides, it's not fair for me to act like this, not right now."
"Why?" the middle-aged woman replied. "Because I'm her mother that means you somehow don't have a right to grieve? I wasn't the only one who loved Aerith, you know."
"I know, it's just…" she shook her head and stood up. "No. This isn't right. I'm just being stupid right now. I'm sorry, Elmyra. I'll leave you be."
"Tifa," there was a bite in Elmyra's tone that made the black haired girl go rigid, stopping dead in her tracks. "Sit down, and let me tell you something." Tifa hesitated for a moment before returning to her seat, keeping her knees firmly together and her hands resting in her lap. "When my husband died in Wutai, I was up for days crying over him. It hurt more than anything that'd ever hurt before at the time, and in that hurt, I had some awful, terrible, rotten feelings eating at me. I was so mad at him for getting killed out there, mad at him for even enlisting in the first place. I must've called him every foul name you can think of while crying myself to sleep."
"Did you feel bad about it?"
"Of course I did!" she replied. "I was in pain, and that pain made me say things I never really meant, made me feel things that I knew were wrong, but if I'd just bit my tongue and held it all in, that wouldn't have done any good for me or Aerith. So please, Tifa," Elmyra placed a hand over Tifa's. "Speak your mind, and don't be afraid to say what you feel."
"The truth is…" Tifa looked down at Elmyra's hand and sighed. "Even though I only knew her for such a short time, there was just something special about Aerith that I could see the moment I met her. In spite of all the things going on around us, those days traveling the world with her were some of the greatest moments of my life." Tifa felt the soreness rise up into her chest again, but this time it felt manageable. "But even though I miss her, there's this part of me, a very small part of me that can't help but be a little bit jealous of her."
"And why is that?" There was no hint of judgment in Elmyra's voice.
"Cloud loved her," she said. "He still loves her. Even after all these years, she still has his heart in the palm of her hand," Tifa lowered her gaze. "I know that Cloud doesn't feel the same way that I feel about him. I accepted that when…" Tifa bit down on her lower lip. "Well, I guess that's not really important." She shook her head. "What matters is that Cloud has so many people who're here for him, people who want to help him, but no matter how hard he tries to move on, all he sees is that empty spot where she used to be."
"Tifa," Elmyra lightly squeezed her hand. "There's nothing wrong with what you're feeling right now, but it's not your job to make Cloud move on. That's something he has to do on his own."
"But he can't ," Tifa said. There was a long silence between them as Elmyra shifted her gaze toward the pool and nodded her head.
"I'm afraid you might be right about that," Elmyra replied, pulling her hand away and looking up to the rafters as the light coming in from the hole in the ceiling went dark as the overcast swallowed the warmth of the sun. "Even so, you can't be putting your life on hold just because Cloud can't let go."
"But how can I do that when I see how much he's still hurting?"
"That's not an easy question to answer," Elmyra replied, lowering her head. "It's always hard to see the people we care about hurting like that, especially when it's buried underneath a layer of tragedy," her gaze lifted as she looked Tifa in the eyes. "But you and Cloud, the two of you share a special connection. I see it every time you two are together. You're one of the most important people in the world to him."
"You really think that?" Tifa asked, leaning forward a bit.
"Think it? I know it! He told me himself."
"Really?" she blinked. "When?"
"Right here in this church a few years ago," she answered. "I found him crying in a heap on the flowerbed. Never before had I seen someone so strong look so vulnerable." Tifa scooted a bit closer to Elmyra, listening intently. "He still blamed himself for what happened at the time, and I'll never forget the words he said to me."
"What did he say?"
"He said 'Why did I deserve to have someone like Tifa by my side, but Aerith didn't deserve to have someone better than me by hers?'."
"Cloud…" Tifa felt a sharp pain burning at her eyes, but managed to keep it at bay.
"You mean a lot to him, Tifa, a whole lot. Just be sure to remind him of that every now and again and he'll come around when he's ready," Elmyra said. "But until then, take care of yourself, okay? Make sure that you're finding happiness."
"I will," Tifa nodded, the faint edges of a smile creeping along the edges of her lips. "Thank you, Elmyra. I think I really needed to hear that."
"I'm always happy to help," she replied as Tifa got up from the pew.
"I'm going to head back to 7th Heaven. Would you like me to close the doors on the way out?"
"No," Elmyra leaned back against the pew. "I like leaving the doors open. I feel like it's the way Aerith would want it; open and welcome for everyone, no matter who."
"Will do, then." Tifa nodded. "Thanks again, Elmyra. Be sure to stop by sometime, Marlene always loves seeing you."
"Sure thing," The blonde haired woman said. "Goodbye, Tifa."
"Bye, Elmyra."
As Tifa's footsteps treaded down the aisle toward the open doors, Aerith's mother closed her eyes and sucked in a deep breath. Even with the flowerbed gone she could still smell the faint creamy scent of lilies in the air.
"You were always worthy of being by her side, Cloud," Elmyra whispered.
XXXXX
The path leading to Mt. Nibel's mako reactor had always been treacherous even when Cloud was a boy, and the desolation the region had endured since it was abandoned by the Lifestream only served to make it worse. The ground was broken and fractured, and the cliff faces crumbled after withering away beneath their own weight as the very composition of the mountain broke down.
"This sort of shit makes me want to cry," Barret said, shaking his head. "Even after everything we did, some things just can't be saved." After letting out a deep sigh, Barret looked to Cloud. "Anyways, you're the local. How're we getting to the reactor?"
"Good question," Cloud replied, putting his hands on his hips as he looked up at the looming carcass of a mountain overhead. "Most of the old trails are probably long gone by now. So we'll have to improvise."
"We'll have to improvise quick," Yuffie said as she looked down at the tracker, watching the red dot inch its way closer to the mako reactor. "Blue boy is moving fast."
Barret peered over the ninja's shoulder and peeled down his sunglasses. "How the hell is someone that big moving that fast through all this?" He looked up to the perilous jagged mountains above.
"Let me see," Cloud grabbed the tracker and read over the path Azul was following, then looked off toward Mt. Nibel, plotting out the route in their head before finally piecing the puzzle together. "He's using the caverns," he said. "There's another entrance that'll cross paths with him. Follow me, and we'll try to cut him off at the junction."
"They won't like, collapse in on us or anything will they?" Yuffie asked as Cloud started moving.
"I don't know," she couldn't help but find Cloud's honesty alarming. "But we can't let him get to the reactor."
"Damn straight." Barret said as he and Vincent followed behind Cloud. Yuffie remained hesitant, but with no other choice, she relented and hurried to catch up with them.
The caverns of Mt. Nibel were a labyrinth of twisted caves and crevices that were impossible to navigate safely, which was precisely why all the kids of Nibelheim loved to venture through them back in the day. Unlike the exterior of the mountain, it appeared that not much had changed to the caverns since Cloud last stepped foot in them when he was a kid. Whether it was because the deterioration of the region had yet to reach the inner foundation of the mountain or because the caverns were closer in proximity to the remaining mako reserves, he wasn't certain. All that mattered was that they had a clear path to Azul.
Yuffie kept an eye on the tracker as their position grew closer to the red dot. At a glance at least, it appeared Cloud was right; they'd be running into Azul soon, very soon.
"You think he knows we're here?" Yuffie asked.
"Without a doubt," Vincent answered, unholstering his tri-barreled pistol. Barret kept directly behind Cloud, keeping his gun arm aimed ahead while the SOLDIER held a gloved hand on the hilt of his Fusion Sword. As they neared the junction, everyone stood at the ready. The red dot was almost right on top of them and getting closer by the second.
"Where the hell is he?" Yuffie looked up from the tracker, trying to take in the dark surroundings of the cavern. "It says he should be right he-"
The rattling of gunfire shook the cave as the darkness lit up with trails of yellow fire as bullets crashed around the party.
"Oh crap!" Yuffie squealed as she and the others leapt out of harm's way, barely avoiding the barrage of bullets crashing into the cave wall directly behind where they'd been standing just mere seconds earlier.
After diving to safety, Cloud looked up into the darkness. Even with his mako-enhanced vision he could still barely see more than an outline of his adversary. However, the amber shimmer of Azul's eyes pierced through the darkness like the eyes of a feral predator. Yet though he wielded the eyes of a hunter, Cloud sensed that they weren't Azul's prey.
After firing off another spray from his cannon for good measure, Azul's eyes shifted away into the darkness as the sound of rushing footsteps echoed throughout the cave.
"He's trying to get away!" Cloud shouted, scrambling to his feet in pursuit. The others weren't far behind. Barret and Vincent open fire on the fleeing target only for their shots to bounce off of the shimmering light of the barrier spell surrounding the Tsviet.
"What's wrong?" Barret shouted. "Afraid to fight now that I'm packing iron, too?" There was the briefest flash of a yellow gaze shrouded in contempt, but it vanished into the darkness as quickly as they appeared.
Cloud didn't lose pace. In a full-on sprint he shot down the long cave in pursuit of Azul. In spite of their immense size, the Deepground soldier was remarkably swift and deceptively nimble. Their long strides kept them ahead of the group, and if the others did start to catch up, a short burst of high caliber rounds was enough to slow down Cloud and the others.
"Get back here!" Cloud commanded, but it was a waste of breath. In the distance he could see the shimmering glow of daylight piercing the darkness. They were nearing the exit and were still no closer to stopping Azul.
Gritting his teeth and pushing as hard as his body could take, Cloud darted toward the light, seeing the hulking silhouette of his target come into form as he neared the exit. Drawing his massive sword, Cloud skidded along the dirt as he overtook Azul and passed through the threshold leading to the outside. He dug his blade into the ground to bring himself to a halt before shooting up in front of Azul with his weapon raised, blocking their path as Vincent, Barret, and Yuffie came in from behind.
"It's over!" Cloud shouted, tightening the grip on his weapon. The SOLDIER was almost certain that he could actually perceive a sense of uncertainty in Azul's expression. It appeared he finally had the upper hand. "You can either give up willingly, or…"
Cloud's vision faltered for a moment. He swore he saw something pass through his vision; that same dark, formless shadow from before. It should've been nothing more than an idle distraction, noise so easily tuned out by his well honed senses. Yet it still left him stunned for a moment, a brief moment, but a moment nonetheless.
Seeing his opening, Azul delivered a mighty boot to Cloud's solar plexus, sending him barreling off the side of the mountain. Cloud reached out to grab the ledge, but the withering integrity of the mountain caused it to crumble beneath his fingers.
Azul watched from above as the SOLDIER plummeted, bouncing and smashing into the rocky terrain before finally landing square on his back, his Fusion Sword lodging itself in the ground next to him.
There was no time to relish in the moment. Instead Azul looked toward the deactivated mako reactor in the distance, realizing it was no more than a hundred meters away. With a mighty leap, he jumped off the ledge and landed on a narrow, jagged path leading to the reactor.
Vincent, Yuffie, and Barret ran out of the cave not long after and looked down the ledge to find that Cloud was still moving, albeit slowly.
"Hey, Cloud!" Barret yelled, his booming voice shaking the mountain. "You alright?"
"Yeah," he replied, using his sword for leverage as he struggled to his feet. "Don't worry about me, I'll be up in a minute! Just don't let Azul get away!"
"Roger that!" Barret replied. He turned to take aim at Azul, but before he could open fire, Vincent yanked his arm back. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
"His barrier will shield him from your bullets. At worst they might even bounce off and destroy the path. Then we'll have no way to reach him."
"Shit," Barret growled, lowering his aim as the massive figure continued toward the reactor. "Then let's get a move on!" Hopping down from the ledge, Barret led the group as they dashed across the treacherous path.
Down below, Cloud pressed his hand against his forehead and dug his fingers into his hair. His head was splitting, and not from the fall, either. This was something different, but what the cause was he couldn't tell for sure. Gritting his teeth, he took in a few deep breaths and looked up to the reactor. He'd have to get a move on if he wanted to catch up with the others. He just hoped there'd be enough time.
As Azul climbed the steps leading into the abandoned reactor, he heard a whirring sound cut through the air, closing in on his head. Raising his cannon up, he used the long barrel to shield his face as Yuffie's shuriken collided into the reinforced metal.
"I'm not one to be taken by the same tactic twice." He said, looking over to the three. Yuffie called back her shuriken using a magnetic materia linked on her glove while Barret and Vincent kept their weapons trained on Azul.
"Listen here, Blue, there's two ways we can handle this," Barret said. "We can do this quiet, with you putting down that cannon of yours and coming with us peacefully. Or we can do this loud," he smirked. "I really hope you pick loud."
"You are, if anything, persistent," Azul said, reaching for a device strapped to his waste. "However," the screen on the device lit up in Azul's giant hand, reading out the words 'SIGNAL ACQUIRED' .
"Barret!" Vincent shouted, his crimson eyes wide with an uncharacteristic amount of concern as his pistol started to glow with a purple hue from his despell materia. "Shoot now!"
There wasn't a moment of hesitation between the two as they opened fire on the massive Deepground soldier, but Azul needed no more than the time it took for his thumb to press a button. Even with Vincent's materia, Azul's barrier lasted more than long enough to see his task complete.
The ground trembled as the dormant mako reactor hummed to life. Barret, Vincent, and Yuffie all struggled to keep their footing as they stumbled from the series of violent quakes reverberating through the mountain. Barret's arm swung wide of its target as he fell back just as Azul's barrier dissipated.
"Damn it!" Barret tried to line his shot back up, but before he could place the massive man in his sights, the mountain quaked again, this time more violent than before. The vent at the top of the reactor spewed forth a thick haze of blue as the monument to Shinra's hubris sucked in what little mako remained of the region. "What the hell have you done?!"
"I've opened the gates," Azul said, looking up to the blue smog blotting out the sky. "Now the pilgrimage to the Promised Land can begin."
Along the ledge near the reactor, Cloud dug his fingers into the plateau and pulled himself up after finally having caught up with the others. The SOLDIER's mako-ladden eyes gazed upon the reactor with awe as the ground trembled once more, but this time it wasn't the reactor's doing.
"Do you hear it?" Azul said, holding his massive arms out to his sides. "Do you hear she who commands the planet?" A terrible force stirred beneath the earth as it rushed toward the surface in a fierce tide that roared with malevolence. The blue smog venting from the reactor shifted in color as its hue morphed into an inky purple before burning in the darkest shade of crimson.
Cloud's heart ceased and cold sweats poured down his face. As much as he wanted to deny it, he could hear her, and her presence brought with it an oppressive air of despair that brought him to his knees.
The lid blew off of the reactor as a surge of flowing red coursed out of the machinery, its tendrils reaching out and wrapping the reactor in a cold embrace, coating every inch of the facility along with Azul in its dreadful aura.
"What's happening?!" Yuffie looked over to the others hoping to find an answer, but only saw equally perplexed gazes underlied with fear from her companions.
The red aura thickened until all semblance of the reactor vanished. Then from out of the crimson, Azul stepped forth, and he brought hell with him. Following in his wake a squad of soldiers emerged from the red haze. Clad in armored gray jumpsuits and cyclopian helmets with a single blue eye that shimmered as the light of the sun reflected off their lenses, they kept their weapons at the ready as more and more soldiers emerged from behind them.
The sound of their boots stomping across the desolate landscape was soon drowned out by the hum of helicopter blades as several aircraft flew in from the thick cloud of red. It was as if the wicked entity enveloping the reactor had ferried an entire army straight to Nibelheim. Cloud and the others could do little more than watch in awe as the insurmountable wall of death edged ever closer to them.
Deepground was here, and they marched for war.