As usual, C&C/MST appreciated, flames trash-canned, standard disclaimers
apply.
-------------------
Final Fantasy VII: Children of Jenova
Chapter 14
In the three days following Cid Highwind Junior's plunge into the
Lifestream, the Highwind circled the globe several times, lighting
somewhere each time another geyser popped up...and it was popping up a
lot. In fact, Rocket City now boasted a brand new lake right outside the
city limits for that very reason. It wasn't terribly large, somewhere in
the
middle between the "lake" and "pond" classifications, but it was there all
the same. During the day it sparkled like a pale emerald; at night its
faint
glow could be seen from the city, casting an eerie green light over the
nearest houses and shops. Cid had taken the Highwind here upon hearing
of the new lake's formation in hopes of finding Junior washed up on the
shore; he had taken it to Mideel for the same reason; he had taken it to
old
Midgar for the same reason again. Each time he came up empty.
Three days. /How long could someone survive in there?/ Cid wondered,
standing on the deck of the Highwind and watching the world slide by
beneath his feet. /Cloud and Tifa came out okay, but they were only there
for a few hours.../
No.
Junior was alive. Cid would not allow himself to even consider the
possibility that she wasn't. He refused to believe that she had saved his
life
at the expense of her own. Especially not with Shera sitting in Junon
bawling her eyes out. Giving up on Junior was simply not an option.
Surprisingly, Cloud and Tifa felt pretty much the same way. Cid had fgured
they'd want to try to track Zack down first, and truth be told, he thought
it
was damn selfish of him to be flying all over the world to every
godforsaken burg on the map hoping his daughter had washed up
somewhere and done so alive when poor Zack had that...that thing in his
head. But they understood. And they were willing to help. Even Elena was
torn up over Junior's disappearance; she had indeed been trying to get to
the crack on the ground to help pull the girl out of there and she hadn't
gotten there in time. Cid wasn't sure, but he thought he might have heard a
sob or two coming from the blonde ex-Turk an hour or so after the
accident.
* * *
The first thing she needed was something to wear. The lab coat she found
in the pod room would have to do for now...no shoes, nothing to wear
under it. Her predecessor had left nothing. But the coat would do. In its
pocket, she found a pair of dark glasses which she perched on her sharp
little nose. As soon as she did that, the cell phone in the pocket of the
coat
begain to ring. She pulled it out and stared at it for the space of three
rings,
then she flipped it on. "Yes?"
"Vail?" Scarlet, as always, sounded rather pissed. "I thought you told me
that kid was dead. Some fruit loop matching his description is wandering
around in Branford with Sephiroth's goddamn sword and looking dazed
and confused as we speak. Is there something I should know about this
guy, Vail?"
The new-and-improved Vail swallowed audibly. "I thought I'd taken him
out of commission." She took a quick look around and saw that the
Masamune was not where her predecessor had left it.
"You thought wrong." Scarlet snickered. "You're a chip off the old block,
Vail. You and your old man both, losing control of your goddamn
experiments. I'm sending the Turks out after that nut and when they get
done with him, you're going to be scraping his remains up with a spatula.
Got it?"
Vail sighed. "Yes, of course."
Scarlet was silent for a few minutes. "Vail, I want you to do something
special for me. If you do, I'll forget about this little business with your
botched experiment."
"Name it."
"Well, I have a perfectly good gas chamber here, I have someone I want to
stick in it, and I've got nothing good to use on him."
Vail frowned. "What's wrong with cyanide?"
Scarlet laughed, and Vail winced and held the phone a few inches away
from her ear until the cackling subsided. "Too quick, too painless. I want
you to whip something nasty up for me to pump into that gas chamber. I'm
talking slow and agonizing death stuff. Right up your alley."
Vail raised an eyebrow. "Send someone to pick me up and I'll get right on
it. Out of curiosity, who is it you're planning to execute?"
Another round of "kya ha has" burst forth from the phone, and Vail
grimaced again. "I'm planning a little experiment of my own. I want to see
how much more cooperative Junon's citizens will be with Shinra once their
beloved governor goes down for a dirt nap."
* * *
Raven did not particularly look forward to beating on Archer's door to tell
him the Turks were needed. On one occasion she had walked in through his
unlocked door just in time to see a very drunk Kain and an even more
inebriated Archer dragging a passed-out Stuart off to the john to give him
a
swirley. On another visit, she had not paid attention to where she stepped;
she unwittingly brought the rather slim heel of one of her pumps onto the
neck of an empty beer bottle, which rolled quickly out from under her foot
and her foot, in turn, flew out from under her. She had hobbled around
with a sprained ankle for a week after that little mishap...and of course
she
had worn her usual short skirt that day. When she came to her senses again
some ten minutes later, Stuart had been sitting in the corner holding a
paper towel to his bleeding nose and blushing. There was some nameless
force attached to Archer's domicile that seemed to compel people (mainly
Raven, sometimes Stuart) to inadvertantly make complete asses of
themselves.
Today it was unusually quiet at the Archer residence, and that scared the
hell out of Raven.
She knocked softly on the door, and when she got no reply she tried the
knob. Unlocked. /I'm probably going to regret this later,/ she thought as
she opened the door and stepped inside.
Archer sat sprawled on the couch, wearing nothing but a pair of sweat
pants, with a magazine over his face. Soft snoring emanated from under the
magazine, and Raven heaved a sigh of relief. Asleep. No Kain and no
Stuart in sight. "Hey, Archer. Wake up."
"Mph," Archer replied and began to snore again.
Raven's gaze drifted to the coffee table, where there sat a glass of ice
water. An evil grin spread over her face. Silently, she crept up between
the
sofa and the table. With one hand she picked up the glass, and with the
other she gently pulled the waistband of Archer's pants as far as she could
without waking him...and then she dumped the contents of the glass, ice
and all, down the front of Archer's trousers.
"YAAAAAAH!!" Archer seemed to levitate for several seconds, after
which he leapt up off the sofa and danced a ludicrous jig around the living
room trying to shake ice cubes out the legs of his pants. "What the hell
was
that for!?"
"I tried to wake you up the conventional way," Raven replied, unable to
mask her amusement as Archer continued to hop and prance around,
kicking wildly and sending ice cubes skittering across the floor. "Look, I
gave you a chance. Where are Kain and Stuart?"
Archer shook his right foot, dumping an ice cube onto the floor. "Home, I
guess. Why? We got a job?"
Raven nodded. "Vail's little pet busted out of its jar the other day, and
now
Scarlet wants us to hunt it down and get rid of it."
"You mean that kid!?" Archer stopped hopping and looked at Raven like
she'd grown a third eye. "And Scarlet's putting US on it? Jeez."
"Yeah, well. That 'kid' wasted two SOLDIERS at the Nibel reactor and
now he's wandering around in Branford scaring the straights."
Archer could have made some snide remark about those last few words,
but he thought better of it and closed his mouth at the last possible
second.
"And what's Vail doing about this? Sitting on her pale white butt?"
"Actually, Scarlet's got her set on some top-secret project at the moment.
I'm sure I could get her to spill it to me, though." Raven grinned evilly.
"Let's go get Kain and Stuart."
Archer nodded and headed off to his bedroom to change into some dry
boxers and throw his suit on. He really didn't want to think about how
Raven might intend to convince Scarlet that the Turks had a need to know
about Vail's side project. Sure, he'd laughed like a hyena when he'd found
Heidegger strapped to a chair with Raven's holster belts, but later on he
realized what Heidegger must have been expecting her to do...and that
thought made his toes curl up and his skin crawl.Yeek.
* * *
For once, Heidegger had done something right.
Not only were there sixteen highly trained SOLDIERS awaiting his orders,
there were some two hundred regular army troops, two rather large
gunships floating around off the coast of Neomidgar, and since Palmer's
little accident, two squadrons of fighter airplanes. Some of them were old
Stingrays and Vipers that had been brought out of retirement, a few were
the experimental jets Palmer had been working on. All of them had been
fitted with cloaking devices.
For once, he had done something right and for once, Scarlet took notice.
She seemed to be in a very jovial mood lately; ever since she had made
final
her decision to reclaim Junon she appeared much happier. Of course, this
meant that she laughed a lot, which meant that Heidegger spent a lot of
time plugging his ears and wincing. She laughed even more now that she
had Vail concocting some sort of chemical weapon in her labs. Heidegger
didn't need to ask who Scarlet intended to use it on. The screams of Vail's
guinea pigs told him all he needed to know about that; there was only one
person in the world Scarlet hated that much.
* * *
Vincent found Cid on the deck of the Highwind as it cruised over the ocean
toward Junon once more. He stood there, staring out over the blue water,
gripping the railing tightly. His hands were, as always, covered by thick
leather gloves, but Vincent was sure that under them Cid's knuckles were
white.
"The Lifestream seems to be calming down finally," Vincent said as he
stood beside Cid, who merely nodded at his words.
"She's out there somewhere, Vincent." Cid drew a deep sigh. "She has to
be."
Vincent blinked and tried to think of a way to phrase what he was thinking.
"It's been three days. We've looked everywhere. She's an intelligent girl.
If
she does come out, the first thing she'll do is try to contact you."
"You're leadin' up to somethin'," Cid muttered. "And I don't think I'm
gonna like it."
"We need to get back to looking for Zack." There was no response from
Cid other than a furrowing of the brow, and Vincent continued. "It's been
three days. He could be anywhere. We have no idea why Sephiroth came
back or what he's planning, and the longer we wait to resume our search
for him--"
"You want me to give up on her already?" Cid snapped, angry fire flaring
in his eyes. Even Vincent had to take a step back in the face of such
wrath.
"How the hell am I supposed to do that when it's 'cause of me she's--" Cid
snapped his mouth shut as Vincent continued to stare him down.
"Is that what this is about?" Vincent asked softly, and Cid just ground his
teeth in reply. "You blame yourself for this?"
"Vincent, I have one nerve left," Cid said, teeth still grinding. "And you
are
getting on it."
Vincent pretended not to hear. "What about Shera?" Cid flinched as
Vincent's words struck that very tender last nerve. "She needs you."
Cid ground his teeth a bit harder. One of his hands drew up into a fist.
"What do you think she's doing while you're--"
"Shut up, Vincent."
"--running all over the world looking for a daughter that might already be
dead--"
A red haze obscured Cid's vision for a fraction of a second, and he spun
around and did something he never thought he would do to any of his
friends...especially not to Vincent. When he came back to his senses,
Vincent was holding one hand over his bleeding nose and trying to shake
the cobwebs out of his head. "Shit," Cid wheezed, unable to believe that
he'd just decked the guy he considered one of his closest friends. "Oh,
shit.
I'm sorry. I'm really sorry, Vincent."
Vincent shook his head. "Don't apologize. My words weren't exactly kind
ones." He dug in his pockets, found a handkerchief, and wiped his nose on
it. "But I still think it's time we returned to our search for Zack."
"I can't do it." Cid sighed deeply again. "When we get to Junon I'm getting
off the airship and me and Shera are going home. I can't think straight
enough to do much of anything besides get in the way. I want you to take
care of my ship."
"Cid--"
Cid held up a hand. "Don't try to talk me out of it. You guys don't need
me slowin' you down. I just--I need some more time."
Vincent nodded. "Should I tell the others?"
Cid thought about it a minute. "Tell 'em after I'm gone."
* * *
Kain raised an eyebrow. "How'd he get loose, anyway?"
Raven just shrugged. "Busted out, apparently. Vail says she heard a
commotion in the Jenova room, and when she opened the door to check on
the kid he bolted and took that sword she'd been hauling with him."
"You don't believe her, do you?" Stuart asked, and Raven shrugged again.
"I wouldn't trust Vail any farther than I could throw her with my pinky. I
think she's got some agenda of her own with that kid, and Scarlet's
looking the other way as long as she gets good results everywhere else."
Raven smiled thinly. "Honestly, I think Vail is nuts. But she does what
she's supposed to and she does it well."
"I don't think 'nuts' even begins to describe her." Stuart frowned. "What
the hell's she doing with Sephiroth's sword, anyway? You--" He looked
thoughtful for a second. "You don't think she cloned him, do you?"
"I don't know and I don't care." Raven replied. "What I do know is that
her pet project is roaming the streets of Bradford and freaking people out,
and we're supposed to go take him out before the shit hits the fan and we
end up having to launch another coverup like the one in Nibelheim all those
years ago." She swept her gaze from Stuart to Kain to Archer. "Any more
questions?" A collective shaking of heads answered her. "The chopper's
waiting. Let's move."
* * *
Night was falling in Branford. A lone figure sat in the alley between a
Materia shop and a bar called Annie's Hangar. Resting in his lap was the
handle of a giant sword. Scattered around him were various and sundry
Materia. He had gotten them for free; one glance at the storekeeper and
he'd gotten all he wanted, taking one of each while the shopkeeper sat
gibbering in his chair. Now Sephiroth Obscura sat in the alley trying to
fit them into the
slot in the sword's handle, without much success.
Gravity? "No..." He tossed it aside.
Deathblow? "No..." Toss.
Lightning? "No, no, no..." Toss.
He growled softly and took a good look at the slot. It hadn't been there
before. These Materia didn't fit. They were too small. The Materia that
went here was different. A different Materia. A special Materia. A...yes.
That was it.
Sephiroth smiled. There were certain advantages to living in this body.
Certain
ties were strengthened. His servant. His puppet. His father.
Sephiroth Obscura chuckled softly and sat back against the wall, closing
his
eyes.
* * *
Deep inside Mt. Nibel, there was an unusual natural phenomena known as
a Mako fountain. Basically, it was a pretty rock that sat there putting on
a
nice light show and making pleasant noises. The "pretty rock" in question
was actually a large hunk of Materia in its infancy.
About a week before, the streams of Mako energy that had once drifted
aimlessly upwards had begun to shift. They now swirled in a tight
clockwise spiral above the raw Materia. At the center of the swirling
energy, something was beginning to form. A slender object was beginning
to take shape; a long, thin thing that vanished into the stone.
The Planet was building something. As it worked, the stone hummed
contentedly.
* * *
A weary and frazzled Cid stepped onto the bridge of the Highwind as it
drew nearer to Junon. He sat heavily on a bench and lit up a cigarette.
"How's your nose?" he asked Vincent, who chuckled softly.
"I've had worse." He looked up at Cid. "Have you reconsidered--"
"Nah." Cid shook his head. "Anyone got any ideas where Zack's holed
up?"
"I finally got back into Shinra's computer system," Elena said with a tired
sigh. "But I can't make heads or tails out of anything. The stuff I -am-
digging up is encrypted. It could take a while to crack. My gut tells me
they're getting ready to pull something big. There are an awful lot of
messages bouncing back and forth between Scarlet and Heidegger and
Scarlet and Vail but like I said, I can't read them. Now this is scaring
the
hell out of me, because Vail is dead. I saw her go down. But she's firing
off
e-mail just as nice as you please."
"She was a clone," Cloud replied. "Maybe she saw this coming and built a
spare, just in case."
"I wouldn't put that past her, Cloud." Elena rubbed her eyes; they were
tired and red from staring at that little screen for too long. "I'm going
to
need some time to crack this code they're using. And I have a bad feeling
I'm not going to have that time."
"What about Zack?" Tifa said. "Any ideas where he went?"
Cloud just shrugged. He had some nebulous idea what Sephiroth Obscura
was up to, but it floated just beneath the surface of his consciousness,
barely unreachable.
"He may be trying to finish what he started seven years ago," Red XIII
offered quietly. "We don't know what happened to the Black Materia after
he called Meteor. I hope not, but..."
Cloud's head snapped up all of a sudden.
/Cloud.../
"What?" Cloud snapped, shaking his head. He waited a few moments, but
the voice did not come again. Red XIII and Cid watched him warily. Tifa
laid a hand on his shoulder.
"What is it?"
Cloud shook his head again. "Nothing...nothing. I thought I
heard...nothing."
/Cloud.../
An image came into Cloud's mind. The walls of the Northern Crater
collapsing after Sephiroth's defeat. The wave of Holy energy exploding
from the crater. A small black orb sailing high into the air, borne on the
shockwave of the explosion, coming to rest far away and rolling into a cave
on a small round island.
Round Island.
Cloud opened his eyes. "I know where the Black Materia is."
* * *
Sephiroth Obscura opened his eyes and scowled as four shadows fell into
the alley where he sat. He did not appreciate the interruption, although
two
of the shadows' owners had the eyes of his mother's puppets. He took note
of this; it might be useful.
The woman spoke first. "Look what we found. Vail's pet project."
The second, a blonde man with two strange-looking knives, rolled his eyes.
"Let's just get this over with."
The puppets just stared at him. They knew who he was. Oh, yes. They
knew. The woman drew her firearms and levelled them at Sephiroth
Obscura's head. "Fine with me." Her fingers began to tighten on the
triggers...and then both pistols were knocked out of her hands by the slash
of a long sword--but not the Masamune. The sword in question was long,
broad, SOLDIER standard issue, in the hands of a thin man with short,
neatly combed brown hair.
Archer's eyes bugged as he watched Raven drop her pistols and hiss in pain.
The sword had caught the back of her right hand, leaving a shallow but
painful-looking
gash in its wake.
Kain dropped his sword in shock. "Stuart...what the hell are you doing?"
Stuart swallowed dryly, sword still held out in front of him, ready to
strike
again. "Get out of my head," he whispered, eyes still locked with
Sephiroth's.
"Oh, shit." Archer groaned. "C'mon, Stu, pull it together..."
"Can't--" Stuart shook his head fiercely. The blood-red eyes in front of
him
would not release their hold on his brain or on the Jenova cells drifting
through his body. His hands raised the sword once more and began to
swing it directly at Archer's head...and stopped just as the blade touched
the top of his hair. Kain's hands had clamped down on Stuart's, trying to
wrestle the huge sword away from him as Raven scrambled for her pistols.
Archer's knees gave out as he realized that he'd been just millimeters away
from having his head split in two like a coconut and he dropped to the
ground, shaking.
"Goddamnit, Raven, shoot that son of a bitch!" Kain screamed as Stuart's
hands began to slip out of his, pulling the sword back.
"No, no, no--" Stuart whimpered, trying to make himself release the sword
he held. His fingers would not listen, and he sobbed weakly as his hands
drove the blade forward.
Raven trained both pistols on Sephiroth's head once more and pulled both
triggers.
Kain lost his grip on Stuart's hands.
A blinding flash filled the alley.
When Archer's vision finally cleared, he took a look around him. Raven
still stood there, aiming at empty air, smoke rising from the barrels of
both
pistols. Two roundish chunks of masonry had been blown out of the wall in
front of her. Stuart stood staring at the ground in front of him, shaking
and
whimpering "no, no, no" again. His sword lay at his feet, its blade stained
with blood from the tip almost to the hilt. Archer followed Stuart's gaze
and saw Kain...
Kain lay face-down on the pavement, one hand clutching his stomach,
blood soaking the ground around him. His eyes were open, but they saw
nothing.
"Oh, shit," Archer croaked again. "Oh, God."
Raven slowly slid her pistols back into their holsters and turned around,
paling at the sight that greeted her. "Stuart...what the fuck did you do!?"
Stuart just stared at the body in front of him. "No, no, no..."
"I think he's lost it." Archer stood up unsteadily. "Now what?"
"Now we go home." Raven bit her lip. She would not cry. Not here. Not
now. "Someone has a lot of explaining to do."
* * *
The Highwind touched down in Junon. Again, a van was waiting to carry
Cid to Reeve's house, where a deep crack in the front yard was cordoned
off by yellow DANGER streamers tied to waist-high wooden stakes. The
oak tree was gone; a knee-high stump sat where it had been. Cid averted
his eyes as he passed the crevasse and stepped inside.
Reeve sat on the sofa idly fiddling with a metal skeleton, roughly the size
and shape of a cat's. He looked up at Cid and sighed. "Shera's in bed. She
finally fell asleep about five this morning and I didn't have the heart to
wake her up."
Cid nodded. "Workin' on the new Cait Sith already?"
"Yeah. I think right now trying to get him up and running again is the only
thing keeping me from going bugshit." He set the skeleton down on the
coffee table. "Any luck?"
Cid just shook his head. "I need a favor."
"Sure." Reeve nodded. "Name it."
"Can you have a chopper give me and Shera a ride home?"
"Of course--it's probably not my place to ask, but why not just take the
Highwind?" Reeve felt in his shirt pocket for his cigarettes, drew one out,
and lit it.
"I need to go home for a while." Cid rubbed his eyes. "I got a lot to think
about, and I'm no good to the others like this."
Reeve nodded. "I don't know what to say."
"Don't worry about it." Cid started to head for the bedroom, then he
paused. "I thought you should know this. Elena thinks Shinra's up to
something, but she can't figure out what. You better keep on your toes.
Anything weird starts happening, you get on the horn to Vincent right
away."
"Believe me, I will."
After Cid left with Shera, Reeve picked up the metal cat skeleton and went
back to adjusting the hip joints. It had been a long time since he'd had to
build a whole new body; the upgrade from Cait Sith II to Cait Sith III had
been nothing more than a swap of the "brains" of the robot. He almost had
it perfect when the phone rang, jarring him out of his concentration and
causing him to drop the tiny screw he'd removed from the joint. "Ahh,
hell..." He knew he wouldn't be able to find that thing in the carpet
without
a flashlight and a magnifying glass, and he made a mental note to buy a
magnetic screwdriver as soon as possible. He picked up the phone and
cradled it between his chin and shoulder as he hunted for the missing
screw. "Yeah?"
No reply.
"Hello?" Reeve scowled at the phone. "Is someone there?"
Click. Dial tone.
"Damn kids," Reeve muttered. He slammed the phone back down and
resumed his search for the screw.
- - -
Author's notes: Who's crank-calling Reeve? Wrong number? Maybe,
maybe not...will poor Stuart ever be the same again? I don't know about
you, but if some asshole made me do one of my best buddies in I'd be
pretty well messed up for life...speaking of the new Turks, I've added a
new Archer pic to the CoJ art gallery (can be reached in roundabout
fashion from my Cid shrine, URL as always in long-ass
.sig)...Archer=bishounen ^_^...sorry it took so damn long for me to write
this, RL was interfering :}
-------------------
--Sailor Solathei
"Ice...snacks...and--fifty gallons of BEER!? What kind of life does she
lead, anyway!?" --Shinji Ikari
"Hang on to your drawers and don't piss in 'em!" --Cid Highwind
"A brand new ML to blow up! Wai!" --Zen
--------------------
Happiness is a belt-fed weapon
--------------------
Sailor Solathei's Cid Highwind shrine (still under very heavy construction)
http://members.xoom.com/ssolathei/cidshrine.html and the Cid Highwind Otaku
Ring: http://members.xoom.com/ssolathei/ring.html