Section 5

 

Red XIII stared blankly at the message before him, unsure of what exactly he could do about it. Cosmo Canyon had been destroyed by a creature so powerful that it had thoroughly leveled the entire town, leaving only a skeleton of the buildings that had majestically risen from the canyon walls. The observatory was gone, crushed beneath the weight of a black dragon. All the remained of his grandfather were simple memories of laughter.

He didn’t know what to do.

He was torn between righting two wrongs. He was needed at Cosmo Canyon as the son of Seto. He was needed to protect the town should the horrible creature that resembled Ultima Weapon return to wipe out the remaining inhabitants. But what use was protecting the town against an undefeatable foe? Alone, he could not destroy the evil that had ravaged the town. Why bother trying?

He knew that his reasons were wobbly at best. He could not neglect his hometown because he knew it was impossible to do so. He would do it because it was the right thing to do, regardless of the price of imminent failure. But, he was needed here.

Cloud Strife needed him to help get free from the clutches of a mad scientist and his equally mad creation. Tifa needed him there, if only for the moral support that she could gain by merely having his presence at her side. His friends needed him, and his friends were more like a family than anything Cosmo Canyon held for him. The town was only a few acquaintances who loved Bugenhagen more than they would ever love him.

He was torn between love and friendship and an ever-increasing sense of duty toward the remaining denizens of Cosmo Canyon. Both sides needed him, and he could not decide who needed him more, those who had already lost everything or those who were sure to lose things in the future to come.

It suddenly became clear.

He could do nothing at Cosmo Canyon, at least not anything besides easing a few frayed nerves with his presence. Even Bugenhagen had said that he must follow his own destiny, that he was the son of Seto, not Seto himself. And then, he knew that his destiny was no longer within the confines of a small town locked within a canyon. It was something much bigger than that, something that could not be housed in that town. He would protect the canyon; it was his duty. But he did not need to protect it now. There was nothing there now but a few dying dreams and shattered hopes. He was needed here.

He was needed to help save Cloud. He was needed to save the love that Tifa held for the young man. He was needed to save the friendships that he had come to realize he could have. His friends needed him more than any strangers he could ever meet. He would not abandon his friends as they had not abandoned him. They were the only family he had, and he would be damned if he were to lose them now.

He stood up, letting the small piece of paper fly away in the wind and out into the debris of the buildings of Midgar. He watched as it floated on a breath of air before it disappeared into the darkened shadows marring the rubble. Clouds crept over the sun, darkening the world. As thunder rumbled deep within the confines of the clouds, he dismissed the letter, wishing he could forget it ever came. His destiny was no longer locked by a few words hastily scrawled on a torn and scorched piece of paper. He slowly walked into the Seventh Heaven, the place he now knew he belonged.

Reeve stared at the readouts on his computer, though he was not thinking about that. He was pondering over what he had told Tifa and the others… and what he had not. He was wondering if keeping the little secrets from them made him no better than the original Shinra employees, if it made him just as bad as Palmer, or Scarlet, or – he shuddered – Heidegger. He hoped not.

What he had not opted to tell them would no doubt have nothing to do with their little escapade into Hojo’s labs. Shinra was unofficially split down the middle. There were those employees who wanted him to change Shinra and supported him in his decisions for the company’s reform. On the other side, there were static characters who would much rather have another Rufus or Heidegger to run the company. It hadn’t been serious for a long time.

Now it was.

The static employees were now threatening to split apart and take most of Shinra with them. With Reeve at the company’s head, it would be hard for them to get away with little more than a few funds and the thousands of employees that supported them. Of course, if they were to find a way to take him down from the chain of command, problems would start. They could easily place one of their operatives as president in his place, and the world could end up with another President Rufus on their hands.

This trespassing on Shinra property was just what the static employees wanted; it was a legitimate excuse to get rid of him, a way to expunge him and all his work from the company for good. They could arrest him on breaking and entering, either give him a trial or not, and put him away for the rest of his life. This little operation could provoke the worst case scenario for Shinra and Midgar.

All they needed was one little, tiny excuse and move on it before he could cover his tracks. The alternative, of course, was leaving his friends out to dry. He couldn’t do that, not when they had finally opted to trust him. Which was why he needed to be extremely cautious. He wouldn’t get caught, especially when he was needed as he was now. He could not afford to get caught.

The red light emanating from the computer monitor blinked to a more cheerful green. Reeve broke from his dismal thoughts, cracking his knuckles and stretching his back. "We’re in," he whispered. Only the silent office answered his words.

Reno stared at the balding man in front of him over the top of his sunglasses, his brow furrowed in skepticism. He promptly ignored a lock of red hair which fell over his forehead and into his line of sight. "You want us to do what?"

Nygel wrung his hands as his gaze drifted to each of the four Turks in front of his desk. The one which had spoken, attired in a dress shirt with the collar open and a bland, but meticulously cared for, navy blue suit, Nygel guessed was Reno. He carried about him a roguish air that went well with the careless way he wore his suit. A small glint in the light when he shifted position revealed what Nygel had already surmised: he was armed and dangerous.

"Say what, old man?" Elena asked, brushing a hand through her blond hair. Unlike her compatriot, she was prudently dressed. Her jacket was buttoned instead of hanging open, and the collar of her shirt was neatly pressed and buttoned. Her hair was cut short to her ears and at an angle. A bulge near her waist suggested she was also armed.

Rude did not say anything at all, nor did he hide that he was armed. Seated in a chair against the wall, he rested his feet against Nygel’s desk, wiping clean a handgun with a piece of white cloth. He glanced at Nygel through his sunglasses once before returning to his task.

The newest Turk, Raice, also kept his mouth shut, opting to let their new leader, in light of Tseng’s little accident, to handle all the business. He looked back to Reno, his eyebrows raised in a silent question, barely visible in the long locks of hair framing his face. He ran a hand through his light brown hair, scratching at the shorter hair toward the back of his head as if to ask "Is this guy for real?".

Nygel cleared his throat. "I would like for you to break into my lab and steal a small piece of Black Materia from its confines – "

"No, no, no, no, no!" Reno exclaimed, exhaling sharply. "The last time we got into a little charade with that stuff, we lost Tseng. This is a totally unacceptable job. We cannot afford to lose any more of our numbers."

"But I need your help! If she gets a hold on this materia, it would be the end of the world for sure!" Nygel insisted, standing up from his chair.

"Look, the last time this stuff got out into the world, it didn’t all go to hell. What makes you think that Strife and his cocky friends won’t stop it again this time?"

"They won’t be able to. You don’t understand – "

"No!" Elena declared, her voice cold. "You don’t understand. Tseng was killed in the search for your Black Materia. That isn’t going to happen again."

Nygel ignored her comments, his gaze boring into Reno. "They won’t be able to stop the destruction this time," he said curtly, his voice dripping with menace, "because one of their own will be the cause."

"What are you talking about?!" Elena demanded hotly, glancing to Reno and back to the doctor. "You crazy, old coot!"

Reno glanced once at Elena, silently cursing her before he slowly nodded, a realization coming to him. Nothing showed on his indifferent face, of course, but he was stunned nonetheless. He wasn’t entirely sure what this loony doctor had done to Strife with his genetics lab full of funky fluids and mad scientists – he didn’t particularly want to know – but he also knew it wasn’t his business. Turks were to do the job, no questions asked.

"We’ll take the job," he said slowly. Elena glared at him but did not speak, unable to bring herself to disagree with her leader in the open. Her arguments would come at a later time. "We’ll get you your Black Materia."

"Don’t bring it to me," Nygel urged, panic filling his words. His mind raced as he attempted to find the name of a man who could keep the materia safe without using it to his own ends. "Bring it to… bring it to Reeve!"

Reno arched an eyebrow, clearly dubious, but he shrugged. "Reeve, right." He turned away from the doctor, heading to the door of the small office, Elena at his heels. Rude and Raice both stood up, the former leading the rookie through the two chairs and to the door first. Rude followed suit, his handgun now shining in the florescent light.

Nygel walked from around his desk, knocking into its corner. "W – wait!" he said, reaching a hand out as if to stop the Turks by his sheer will alone. "You’re going to do this job for me?" he asked tentatively, slightly unnerved when Reno ignored him and walked out the door. Elena glanced back at the doctor and frowned before walking out. Raice didn’t even give him a glance.

Rude stopped and looked over his shoulder, his gun in hand. Sliding a clean magazine into it, he gave the doctor a small, twisted smirk. "How good is your security?" he asked quietly before following in his compatriots footsteps and out the door, leaving Nygel alone.

Tifa glanced at the people seated in the small room underneath the bar of the Seventh Heaven. They were all impatient and apprehensive, all ready to go. That is, of course, except for Cid. The pilot was sitting in a chair leaning against the wall, snoring softly. Tifa shook her head. Always sleeping at the most anxious times.

She wrapped tape around her left hand, flexing her fingers experimentally. When the tape was to her liking, she ripped it off with her teeth and set the roll of tape. The action won the attention of her comrades, both Red XIII and Barret looking to her expectantly.

"Alright," she said, sighing as she stood. The rest of the people stood in unison. She stretched her muscles and heard a slight crack. "Let’s get outta here and get Cloud."

There were nodded agreements and mumbled, but spirited, statements. Barret grinned as he grabbed his gun arm with his other hand, his muscles bulging. Red XIII had a feral grin painted on his face as he headed to the ladder. Cait Sith jumped up and down on his oversized mog, his megaphone in hand. The only one missing was Cid. And, of course, Cloud.

The pilot leaned forward in his chair, letting it come to rest on all fours with a dull thud. He stood noiselessly, running one gloved hand back through his hair, oblivious to the fact that it settled in a total disarray. He held his other hand out to Tifa. She took it warmly.

"Good luck, you guys," he declared, his voice grim. "Come back alive and well."

"Don’t worry," Tifa responded. "We will. And we’ll have Cloud with us." She looked away as the hurt broke through the bright shining in his eyes. She tore her gaze away from him. As she mounted the ladder and climbed up toward the bar of the Seventh Heaven, she whispered, "Let Cloud be with us." Not for the first time since his disappearance, she doubted the validity of her own words.

Cloud almost jumped out of his skin when the door to his cell burst open, hitting the wall with a resounding clang, the noise ripping him from sleep with a startled yelp. Doctor Nygel Huiji rushed in, gasping for breath. He did not close the door, but instead sunk to his knees in front of Cloud, his head clutched in his hands.

"Forgive me so that I may end my cursed suffering and die in peace," he pleaded, his words slurring as he panted.

Cloud frowned. "What are you talking about? You’re not making any sense."

Nygel shook his head, slumping dejectedly, staring forlornly at the floor. "I have destroyed the hopes and dreams of the children of this world. Forgive me so I will no longer carry such a heavy weight upon my shoulders and promise me that no one else in this world will sink as low as I." He sighed, a miserable exhalation of breath. "Promise me that you will see that the children are birthed in light and live there happily and die there happily. No more failed experiments, no more insanity. Promise me you’ll stop this madness." He looked up into Cloud’s blue eyes. Surprising the young warrior, he grabbed the other’s hands. "Promise me this, and I will repent; you will know the little black secrets that plague me."

Cloud did not answer, staring at the broken man kneeling before him that was grasping him as though he were a life-line. "I can’t make promises that I might not be able to keep," he said at last. Cloud thought he saw a tear trickle down Nygel’s cheek. "I can only promise that I will try, that I will do whatever is in my power to carry out your wish."

"Thank you," Nygel declared solemnly, his gratitude more heart-felt than the simple words would allow. He closed his eyes against the bright light of the cell, wishing that he could close his eyes against the horror that the world was now, the horror that was the future he no doubt had created, and the horror that plagued the past. If time would stop, he could shrivel up and die, silently disappearing into the eternal black and allow one man to have peace. The world would be without happiness because of him. The world would be forever cursed to wallow in its own river of hate and insanity because of his meager existence, the journey he had made to make it to this day, and the mistakes he had made along the way. He would not let the insanity win.

He would not create another Sephiroth.

"You are a puppet…"

"Security on the first floor has been nullified," Cait Sith reported, glancing up once as the small red light on the security camera blinked before settling into an unlit hue. Tifa nodded, skulking around the corner of the hallway, glancing at the many doors lining its walls. This could be an endless search, completely futile. The entire mesh of laboratories and offices was a maze of infinite corridors and stairways. They could be lost forever. Fortunately, getting lost wasn’t a choice.

"Which way?" she asked, her voice barely a harsh whisper. Cait Sith shrugged apologetically.

"President Reeve wasn’t too clear on the layout of this place. I don’t think he knows," he responded, sitting down on top of his mog.

"@$%*," Barret growled. "Ya tellin’ us ya don’t know where ta go?"

Cait Sith nodded slowly, shrugging. "We’ll eventually wind up somewhere." Barret cursed again and barely kept from rounding on Cait.

Red XIII’s tail twitched in thought as he glanced down both sides of the corridors. "Where would they be holding Cloud? In some sort of cell block, wouldn’t you think?" There were nodded agreements. "I’ve been here before, when I was Hojo’s prisoner. He built in low-security cells in the eastern wing of the facilities."

Cait Sith nodded in agreement. "That’s right," he agreed. "President Reeve was held there during his imprisonment by Shinra. He never got a good look at his surroundings, though. He won’t be able to direct us there."

Red XIII walked to the front of the group, his paws padding softly on the hard floor. "I can get us there," he declared, glancing up to Tifa.

"Go, Red. We’re counting on you," she said, her eyes wide with hope. As Red XIII started the group down the hall, he suddenly knew that he had made the right choice. His destiny lay in wait for him with his friends, not in a ruined town. They needed him. His lips pulled back in a tight grin. He had finally realized how much he needed to be needed.

Yuffie Kisargi slowly walked through the debris, quiet as a cat and as careful as a mouse. She placed her feet tentatively, her black eyes scanning the shadows around her, seeing everything, missing nothing. She was on the hunt, determined and grim, letting nothing stand between her and the wealth she sought. She was looking for materia.

Her shoes crunched unexpectedly on shards of glass littering the floor of what she guessed used to be a laboratory. She stopped, her keen ears listening to the silence. She could only hear her own breathing. She continued her task. This one little trip could make her rich. All she needed was to find the stash.

The Oritsuru clutched tightly in her hand, she slowly opened drawer after drawer, searching them quickly and efficiently. And, finally, she came across one of the greatest caches she had ever found. Nestled tightly into make-shift slots in the desk drawer of the small office connected to the laboratory were sixteen shimmering globes. Sixteen little spheres that meant money and power for herself and her father. Wutai would be prosperous again.

She quickly stuffed the materia into her small backpack, glancing at each of the glimmering globes. They shimmered in greens, reds, yellows, and blues, each alive with their own little magic or summon or command. And each and every one of them mastered. Her heart raced as she glided from the darkened room and back into the hall.

"Aeris Gainsborough is using you to an extent far greater than that of anything Sephiroth could have done," Nygel declared, his voice low. "She is using you to attain all of her evil needs; she is using you to make the Promised Land."

Cloud frowned, his brow furrowed. "What are you talking about? I don’t get it. How?"

Nygel sighed, his eyes still staring into the floor of the room. "That’s where my little deed comes into play. I cloned the materia." At Cloud’s incredulous look, he continued. "It is possible. I cloned the Black Materia that Sephiroth used for his little charade with Meteor. Aeris uncovered it, and now she has had me clone it."

Cloud’s frown deepened further. "What happened to the original? She didn’t like it?"

Nygel chose to ignore the sarcasm dripping from Cloud’s tongue. "You are the original. At least you are now. You were infused with it."

Cloud’s mouth dropped open in shock. He had been infused with the Black Materia? What? He groaned, letting himself fall back onto the cot, his head in his hands. How could that be possible? Why had life played such a cruel deed on him as to give him the cursed gift that had nearly destroyed the world? It couldn’t be true. But a little voice in the black of his mind, the voice he so easily dismissed as his own little piece of insane psyche, told him it was. He knew it was.

"Why?" he asked, searching the bland ceiling for any trace of an answer. None came. There was no rational explanation for this course of actions. There could never be a rational explanation for any actions that were done out of pure lunacy."Why me?"

Nygel shook his head. "You were the only one left of the Jenova Project. Hojo devised such a procedure in which a subject would be heavily infused with Mako to the brink of poisoning. It was neccessary for the subject to be able to withstand the infusion with the Black Materia."

Cloud’s eyes flashed hotly with anger. "You... you did that to me?"

Nygel nodded. "Five years ago. You and your friend Zack were taken from the reactor and brought to Midgar. You would have surely died from your wounds had we not found you." Cloud was too shocked to say anything; he couldn’t think. Nygel took a deep breath. "The loss of Sephiroth meant the loss of the Jenova Project, of all the hard work, and the loss of the Promised Land. Hojo wasn’t willing to accept that. I devised a new project on a whim, based on an Ancient’s text that spoke of a Destroyer. Hojo chose you for this experiment because you had killed his son. He deemed you extremely powerful."

"I didn’t-"

Nygel raised a hand. "It didn’t matter. Hojo had his mind made up. The next five years were spent slowly infusing you with highly concentrated amounts of Mako. It destroyed your memories, ate into your mind, which at the time, we considered a nice side effect. Your friend, Zack, helped us to keep you under control, and helped you to keep a grip on reality. Before we could complete the experiment, before we could infuse you with the cloned Black Materia, you escaped with Zack’s help. Hojo was not pleased.

"After you were gone, we tried a number of other failed experiments. Nothing else seemed to work. For some reason, you seemed to not only survive the infusion process, but retain your sanity. After Hojo’s death, I knew that I had to finish his work. The only way for me to create the Promised Land was to reacquire you and finish the job. I cloned Aeris to help control you. And now... I’ve created a monster." He didn’t look to Cloud, wondering at the thoughts of the evil the young man was thinking. God, how could he be so blind? What had he done? "You asked me why," he said. He cleared his throat sadly. "Because you are a puppet," he reiterated, his voice cracking. "Because you are to abuse the power of the Planet to destroy the Planet. Because you are to be the murderer of mankind and kill all those whom you love and those you’ll never know. Because you will become – "

His voice cut off in a gunshot.

" – my Destroyer."

Cloud glanced at the source of the new voice, finding himself staring into the cold, hard face of his tormentor once more. Nygel fell to the side, blood pouring from the large hole where a portion of his brain had once been. Cloud felt the bile rising in his throat and forced himself to look away from the bits of brain and fragments of skull littering the floor lest he find himself sick. Blood pooled on the metal floor.

His gaze wandered upward, pausing on the smoking revolver help within the hand of a woman who had once been sweet and caring. It was not the same woman he had known. She was merely a clone, a shadow of the love that that woman had carried. His blue eyes found her green, and he found himself almost unable to quell his fear.

Aeris cracked a smile.

 

"Which way?" Tifa asked, her eyes darting down the narrow corridor. Red XIII seemed to be leading them in circles, though they were no doubt following a trail seen only by his keen eyes. He didn’t respond, only turning sharply down an identical hall. "Where are we going?!" she demanded.

Red glanced back at her over his shoulder. "There’s a small cell block near the laboratory Hojo once held me in. It’s the only establishment I know about in this building which is capable of holding anything larger than a dog."

Tifa shrugged. "Sounds like the place," she commented, absentmindedly. Cloud was in her reach, only a little further and she could be reunited with her love. But why did he almost kill Cid? her mind asked. She had no answers for the question. What if he’s insane? No, she would not think about it. If he was insane, she could help him. She had helped him before this and she would again. It was her duty to him, her obligation. She would not live to see her love suffer, and, if he truly regretted the action, she could help him deal with the pain. She loved him. Nothing he did could ever change that.

Was she wrong for loving the man who could run his friend through without blinking? She shook her head sadly as she continued on down the corridor. She didn’t know.

 

"You guys ready?" Reno asked, glancing behind him. He rubbed his eyes, letting the sunglasses which had sat on his forehead fall back over them. He adjusted the glasses, setting them straight before turning to his colleagues.

Elena nodded curtly, cracking her knuckles in anticipation. He frowned. He hated that. Ever since Tseng’s unfortunate "accident", Elena seemed intent on annoying him. Nothing outright, of course. Just the little buzz of a mosquito in his ear every now and then. He made a mental note to pull her aside for a small conversation after this job was done.

Rude grinned grimly, loading shells into a mean looking shotgun, his bald head gleaming in the florescent lighting. He had been ready for this since he had left the humble doctor’s office. He glanced down the sights before nodding. "Ready."

Raice, their new rookie, just shrugged, straightening the jacket of his navy blue suit. "Ready as I’ll ever be," he muttered, his voice low. Reno frowned, attempting to look through the dark glasses covering the young man’s eyes. His gaze was met only by the glare from the lighting. He wondered what the man could possibly be thinking.

"Why are we doing this?" Elena growled, her hands planted firmly on her hips. Her cheeks were rosy with anger, a frown marring her near perfect features.

Reno gave her a sharp glance, silencing her as he pulled his handgun from the holster nestled in the folds of his jacket near his waist. "Elena, my dear, when are you going to learn?" he asked, unable to keep the irritation from surfacing in his voice. "Ours is not to question why; we just take out the garbage." He glanced at the remaining Turks once more before heading to the door of their office. "Let’s go."

Aeris motioned the guards to grab Cloud with the nose of her gun and an air thick with menace. They walked around the dead body of her creator, oblivious to their bloody footprints as they stepped into the red pool forming around it. They hauled Cloud to his feet and pushed him to the doorway.

"Just cooperate with this," she hissed to him as he began to struggle, pointing the gun at his temple. Cloud drew a short breath. "I wouldn't want to have to shoot you." With that, the guards dragged him out the door.

Aeris did not tuck the gun away, for she knew that something was happening. The balance of power was slowly shifting and not in her direction. The fools actually believed they could rescue Cloud. Her grip tightened around the handgun. She would not give him up, not this time.

"Hurry up," she growled. "We’re going to have visitors, and, by the time they get here, I want us to be gone."

The guards pulled Cloud down the hallway and into the laboratory where the doctor had previously spent his time and came face to face with their adversaries. Aeris frowned, raising her gun up to the level of her eye.

"Too late."

Tifa stopped short when she entered the laboratory, almost choking in surprise. Barret ran into her, pushing her further into the room, Cait Sith coming up behind him. Red XIII walked around her legs, his tail twitching in menace, a growl emanating from his throat.

"Aeris," Tifa hissed, her teeth clenched. He was right, she thought, looking over the woman standing across the room from her. She looked like Aeris done to a tee, but there was something different about her entire demeanor that was reminiscent of Sephiroth. The first conversation that they had had pertaining to this incident came back to her in a rush. "You know who?" "I thought I did. Now I’m not so sure." This was not the Aeris she remembered. Where Aeris had been spring and summer, this woman in front of her was the bleak winter. She was a complete stranger.

Tifa turned her gaze to the entire meager group standing in front of her. There was another familiar face in that group. Her eyes found Cloud’s and his hers. There was hurt in those eyes, the hurt she had promised herself she would relieve, even though she was unsure how to do that. She glanced at the bloody bandage wrapped around his thigh, her jaw setting in anger. What had this witch done to him? She raised her clenched fists.

"Is that all you got?" she asked, nodding her head to her gun and the two guards intent on restraining Cloud.

Aeris merely shrugged. Her hand came down on a small button hidden on an experiment table. Immediately, red lights flashed and an alarm blared. The frown on her face inverted into a wicked smile. "No."

Yuffie’s head snapped up at the sound of the alarm. She couldn’t have made a mistake. She was the best materia hunter in the world! How could the best make the mistake of setting of a simple perimeter alarm?

She began running. There was no time to find out how she had tripped the alarm. This place would be crawling with Shinra any minute. She rounded the corner, her eyes flicking to a red sign above a door.

Exit? Far too easy! She knocked the door open, and stopped mid-stride, almost falling over in surprise as a dozen guns trained on her with the simultaneous click of hammers being cocked. She frowned. "Something tells me this ain’t an exit," she declared, hefting up the Oritsuru.

Using the materia, she cast a fire spell, letting the flames catch on papers and the bodies of guards who got too close. The sprinkler system turned on, an automatic precaution against fire, and a new set of alarms rang through the building.

And then, all hell broke loose.

Reno silently cursed as the alarm resounded through the empty corridors. What fool was attempting to break into the laboratories? What could possibly be of any value to any people other than those obsessed with the secrets of genetics? He groaned, forcing himself not to slap his forehead in his stupidity.

"Okay, people. Look’s like our merchandise is a little hotter than we thought," he declared as he slowly rounded the corner, making sure the ejection chamber was clear on his automatic handgun. He pushed open the door to the laboratory from which they were contracted to steal the Black Materia. "Let’s get in there and grab it during all this $@#&."

Nobody responded with affirmatives or negatives or even a nod or frown, everyone taken aback by the sight that lay before them in the laboratory. Smoke filled the air, and water pelted down on them as they entered the large lab, another alarm ringing over the perimeter alarm. Guns began firing, a constant volley though no one knew who was firing at who, and all the Turks instinctively ducked for cover, bringing their own arms to bear and shooting back at their unknown assailants.

All hell broke loose.

The room was dimmed to the point were it was mostly shadow, mainly dark.

Its lone occupant didn’t mind; he liked it that way. The light was often times an annoying, persistent irritation, especially when he was trying to sleep. But he had dimmed it to the point where it was not an intruder, but a warm friend with whom he could share a comfortable rest. It was at the point where it warded away few shadows, yet it guarded the room in a silent vigil.

It did not ward away enough shadows.

Skulking deep within the dark, two shadows lay in wait. They had been given a mission; they would carry out their mission in the dark, where they liked it the best. Light revealed identities and truths, but the darkness hid all from prying eyes. The shadows raised their weapons. It would be over soon. The mission gone. And they would lay in wait for the next. They never failed.

They pulled the trigger.

The occupant fell to the floor, emitting a strangled yelp of surprise.

Shots fired. Once. Twice. It was over.

The victor stood alone in the doorway, a red cape, the color dark maroon of blood in the dark, slapping at his heels. In his hand was the smoking gun that had destroyed the shadows and earned him his victory. He stepped into the room. The door closed.

"Tifa!" Cloud called, an urgent note in his voice. He struggled to get away from his guards, oblivious to the water running down his face and dripping off his chin. "Tifa, help me!"

The guards would not relent, holding him tightly even though they were all thoroughly soaked. One brought the butt of his gun jabbing into the gunshot wound on his leg in a quick, decisive action. Cloud fell to his knees with a cry of pain, his leg refusing to hold his weight up any longer. He collapsed into the puddle of water covering the lab floor, a red tint slowly taking over its lucid clarity.

Tifa’s head snapped to Cloud when he called her name, and her first reaction was to get to him. There was only one thing standing between her and her love. That obstacle was her hate.

"Why are you doing this?" Tifa asked, the menace so thick on her tongue that it couldn’t be cut by the Ultima Weapon. Aeris merely gave the other woman a shadow of a smile, her gun not wavering.

"I like Cloud, and I don’t like you," she declared curtly. She slowly cocked back the hammer on the revolver. "I could say that knowing you was a pleasure, but I wouldn’t want to have to lie to you."

Tifa grit her teeth. "Bite me."

The strange shadow returned to Aeris’ face. "No, I won’t bite you, but I will shoot you. May you never find peace after death." Her finger slowly squeezed back on the trigger. A shot rang out over the din.

 

Reeve cursed, reading the text on the monitor as quickly as he could before the words were scrolled off of it. The system had locked him out shortly after a perimeter alarm had begun to blare. All pretense of stealth gone, he now attempted to manually enter the password, though he had no idea what it could be. He had no time to use any number of illegal programs to find the encryption key; his friends needed him now.

How could he let his friends down like this? The entire facility was now crawling with Shinra troops and guards, and he could do nothing to even hamper their arrival. No locked doors, no jammed elevators, no obstructions. By pushing him from the system’s main CPU, he had no access to any functions. But he couldn’t abandon his friends, even if it meant that he would get caught with them.

He typed in another password.

ACCESS DENIED.

Reeve cursed again, pounding his hand down onto the tabletop. He had run through all the most common passwords, trying to break into the lab’s systems. What could possibly be the mad doctor’s password? His jaw set, it didn’t even have to be a word, just a string of characters. His search was fruitless.

He cracked his knuckles. Only a few more tries. He would have to get out of the system after this, lest they track him back to his own personal computer. He frowned as another password was rejected. One more, and he would leave.

What would a crazy cloning doctor want? What would be his purpose? What had been Hojo’s purpose? He bit his lip, keying in the first thing that popped into his mind.

PROMISED LAND.

The text stopped scrolling passed the screen and a cheery, smiling face greeted his efforts, the red lights on the monitor reverting back to their normal green. Reeve’s frowned inverted into a grin. Access Granted, he read silently. Thank you, drive through. He set back to work.

Reno stood, his wet sunglasses holding back equally wet hair and pulled off a well-aimed shot at his target. If he hit, he could be a savior. If he didn’t… well he didn’t want to think about that. He followed that shot with another just to make sure.

Aeris felt the revolver being ripped from her hand, followed by excruciating pain. She instinctively clamped her bloody hand against the side of her abdomen, her gaze landing on her assailant. She watched him raise his gun to take another shot at her and finish the job. She frowned, gaining up the energy to snuff him from his meager existence. She never got the chance.

Tifa rammed into her from her side, knocking her to the ground. Reno hesitated, moving the aim of his gun back and forth as Tifa and Aeris rolled and slipped on the wet floor. He frowned, becoming angry enough just to shoot at them both, regardless of who he killed.

The decision was ripped from his grasp as one of Strife’s guards saw his intentions and opened fire on him. A round of bullets from his machine gun sprayed over him, a few hitting their mark. Pain enveloped him as he fell backwards, hitting the ground with a thud muted only by a splash and the chaos. He did not cry out. He did not acknowledge his pain, nor did he attempt to claw his way to cover. He let the warm water from the sprinkler system fall over his face and into his open mouth. His sunglasses fell from their perch on his head. Blood as red as his hair fanned out beneath him.

His gun skittered from his reach.

Cait Sith cowered behind the largest desk in the laboratory, unable to attack an enemy with a long range weapon without getting shot himself. So he used materia. Even the use of that was limited. He didn’t want to hit Tifa or Barret or even any of the Turks that had joined the fray, apparently on their own side, with a stray bolt of lightning or a fire spell.

He was vaguely aware that Reeve had given the AI part of Cait Sith, him, the brunt of the control. There was rarely a moment when Cait Sith didn’t know what to do. In this type of chaos, he had found one of those moments. He was caught between using his materia freely and possibly injuring friends or just hiding. It seemed as though he had no purpose.

From his vantage, however, he did see Aeris holding Tifa at gunpoint, and he did see the roguish, red-haired Turk standing near him, taking careful aim. He fired two shots, distracting Aeris. Tifa tackled the other woman as the Turk attempted to correct his aim as the women rolled on the floor. Bullets spit at him before he could attain his aim or duck for cover. The Turk fell, the gun skittering to Cait Sith.

I gotta do something! he thought, his mind racing. He checked the materia in the slots of his glove. Restore… I can help him. He picked up the gun. Slightly apprehensive, he lead his mog into the fray, ducking as bullets whizzed over his head. He jumped from atop the mog and into the puddle which now served as a floor, glancing at the Turk.

Calling on the power of the materia, he cast Cure, allowing the green aura to envelope the unconscious man laying in the water. The gunshots slowly began to heal, the blood-soaked portions of his suit the only evidence that they ever existed. He was not aroused.

"What are you doing?!"

Cait Sith looked up at the new voice, startled as the loud sound of the backfire of a shotgun filled his ears. The shell missed him, almost clipping an ear as it sailed over his head. The mog gave a distressed "ugh" before falling to the floor, the smell of burnt, wet stuffing filling the air over the scent of discharged gunpowder.

Without looking back to the bald-headed man with the shotgun, Cait Sith turned around back to his mog, the unconscious Turk forgotten. Tears filled the cat’s eyes as he saw the gaping hole in its stomach, the stuffing of the big animal falling out of it. Cait Sith could only hug his mog and cry.

Tifa landed a punch square on Aeris’ jaw, feeling satisfaction when the latter’s head snapped back with the blow. Nonetheless, she grabbed a handful of Tifa’s long, brown hair, latching onto it and pulling hard. Tifa couldn’t stop a cry from emerging from her lips as she kicked the other woman away.

"You bitch!" she screamed angrily as Aeris fell backwards and let go of the handful of hair. She stalked over to Aeris who was slowly standing, the water dripping freely from her disarrayed hair and pink dress. She smirked.

"I’m a bitch?" she asked, her voice twisting with malice. "You’re the one who doesn’t have the good will to admit Cloud loves me and not you. Why don’t you go back to Johnny?!"

Her words stung Tifa to the core, hurting her deeply but fueling her anger. She frowned, her face set hard in her anger. "What did you say?"

Aeris’ smirk widened as she straightened up all the way. "You don’t have the grace to go crying back to Johnny!" A blue rod materialized in her hand, and she lunged at Tifa, swinging wildly with it. Tifa barely managed to jump out of the way, almost losing her head in the process. She hit the ground hard and rolled up onto her knees, a sinking sensation hitting her in the gut.

"Get him out of here!" Aeris shouted, her staff dissipating in a swirl of blue light. Cloud was hauled, struggling to his feet, his mouth open in a silent yell for help. The guards pulled him from the chaos into a fire escape, Aeris running out after them. The doors burst open, Shinra guards filing into the room.

Tifa looked for any member of her party. "Barret!"

 

Even in the system, there was nothing he could do.

Reeve found he could not hinder the Shinra guards coming into the laboratories without also hindering Tifa’s escape. Locked doors swung both ways. Cait Sith was no longer in any position to do anything; the AI was not responding to any of his commands. There was no communication between them and no way of letting them know the danger in which they were entering. All he could do was watch.

The monitor in front of him displayed everything the security cameras were recording at the moment. The battle in which his friends were engaged was not leaning towards their favor. And it was about to get worse. Much worse.

In the hallway outside the door to the lab they were in, more than a dozen Shinra soldiers were milling. Their commanding officer barked a silent order, and they knocked open the door. Every soldier that could fit into the large lab did, immediately taking both Cait Sith and Reno, by the looks of it, into their custody.

Reeve could do nothing to help win their battle. He could, however, do something to win his own fight against the remnants of Hojo’s genetics faction. Quickly he began to upload a virus into the system, a virus that would crash the entire CPU of the laboratories. He was vaguely aware of his own door, which he had locked, being knocked on rather violently. There was no time to pay attention to it.

His eyes watched the small bar fill in on the message box, silently urging it to increase faster. The door rattled in its frame. Reeve glanced up at it, sweat rolling down his forehead into his eyes. His gaze returned to the monitor.

"Come on," he whispered, wringing his hands, wishing there was some mystical force which would make the upload time decrease to nothing faster. There was no such force. The lock broke, and the door fell into the office with a crash.

Reeve reached for a gun, shooting at the door until there was no more ammunition left to shoot. There were no cries of pain. In the silence that followed, the only sound that could be heard was his own haggard breathing. The bar slowly continued to fill.

Guards filed into the room, their own guns drawn and ready to kill anything that moved. Reeve stood, tossing the gun to the floor at their feet. The guards flanked him and pulled him away from the computer, letting an all too familiar figure get to it. Reeve’s eyes narrowed.

"I should’ve known you would be behind this," Reeve declared, his teeth clenching in distaste.

Scarlet merely laughed. "Yes, you should have known." Her eyes landed on the computer screen. VIRAL UPLOAD STATUS: 98% COMPLETE. She frowned, grabbing the mouse and clicking the cancel button. The message box disappeared. "Uploading a virus into Shinra’s –" she smiled, "into our mainframe? Naughty, naughty." She ran a hand through her hair, setting it back into its place. "Take the traitor away. Let him wait for his friends when they arrive."

 

"Barret!"

Barret looked from their impending deaths to Tifa as she called his name, the rapid fire emanating from his gun arm cutting off and leaving a ringing in his ears. Red XIII growled a warning beside him. Barret’s eyes found Tifa’s.

She jerked her head to the fire escape which was slowly swinging closed. He nodded, aiming his gun arm at the guards coming in from the door. "$@#*!" he shouted, watching as even more flooded into the room.

"I can agree with your profanity," Red declared, futilely shaking his fur free of water. Only more rained down on him from the sprinkler system. The guards surrounded Cait Sith and the unconscious Turk laying beside him. "It’s too late for them now," he said, barely blinking his eye. "Let’s go."

"You’re a cold bastard sometimes, ya know that?" Barret asked, though the question was purely rhetorical. Red merely shrugged. "Yo, Yuffie! Haul ass!" Yuffie Kisargi had been the last person Barret had expected to haphazardly run across during this mission. Her appearance, however, had proven to be the distraction they needed to escape from Aeris’ stalemate. He made a mental note not to yell at her later.

Yuffie looked up at the mention of her name, giving the Shinra in front of her a slash of the Oritsuru across his throat. The body toppled to the floor, the head barely hanging onto the neck. She nodded her understanding, jumping over the body of the dead guard and heading to the steel door at one end of the laboratory. Cait Sith was already surrounded by the Shinra, but she had no time for remorse.

Her eyes landed on the glittering black sphere decorating the floor where a desk had been toppled. Materia? She couldn’t tell. She had never seen materia that color before which meant that it was decidedly rare. It was on her way to the exit. Surely it wouldn’t hurt for her to pause, pick it up, and then leave.

She palmed it before following Barret and Red out the door and into the dark night.

Elena frowned when she saw someone who looked remarkably like Aeris pushing Strife out the fire escape. Her frown deepened when she saw Tifa and the rest of the AVALANCHE pussies follow her. Why weren’t they given the order to leave? What was Reno trying to do? Let the Turks take the blame? She traded angry glances with Raice.

"Reno!" she bellowed, barely able to here her own voice over the alarms and gunfire. "Reno!"

Rude pulled her to her feet, startling her considerably. His face was calm behind his sunglasses, apparently oblivious to the beads of water that ran down them. In his other hand was the shotgun. She pulled her arm away from him.

"What’s he trying to do?! Get us all killed?!" she demanded, ducking as a bullet shot by her head too close for comfort.

In response to the shot, Rude nonchalantly brought the shotgun up, aimed quickly, and fired a shell into the swarm of guards entering the room. When he saw a guard go down, bringing a buddy with him, he began to walk to the fire escape. Raice turned decisively and followed on his heels.

"Reno’s out of commission," Rude said coolly, not turning to face her.

The blood drained from Elena’s face as her gaze ripped to the ground. Bodies littered the floor, adding a crimson tint to the water that rained down from the ceiling. Most wore the green of Shinra guards. All were dead.

Then, she saw him. He was surrounded by the Shinra, laying on the floor next to the blubbering Cait Sith character Reeve was always playing. Her throat constricted, and she could feel the tears burning her eyes. She ignored them as she hurried after Rude and Raice. Now was not the time for tears. She would cry later and in private. A Turk did not cry.

Now there was only time for anger. Tifa and her cronies had caused Reno’s death by their appearance during a simple breaking and entering. When the alarm had gone off, Reno had not been correct in assuming it would be a proper distraction to divert the attention off of their own actions. If Tifa hadn’t shown up, there wouldn’t have been an alarm. No alarm meant no guards, and no guards meant Reno wouldn’t have died.

Elena ground her teeth in anger. Someone would pay for his death. Tifa would have to answer to her, and when she got through with Tifa, she would beg for her own death. Now was the time for vengeance. The tears could come later when there was only anger and nothing to use it on but herself.

She opened the door and walked out of the room.

 

Cloud stumbled down the metal steps of the fire escape, stepping awkwardly on the side of his combat boot. Pain flowered through his ankle as he fell forward, struggling futilely to maintain his balance. He knocked into the guard in front of him and hit the steps.

They landed in a heap on the parking lot’s hard concrete floor.

Cloud rolled over, a groan escaping his mouth. He scrambled off the guard and onto the cold concrete, gasping for breath and closing his eyes against the pain canvassing every pore in his body. He was going to feel that little fall in the morning. He was really going to feel it. He let his head fall to the side, trying desperately to ignore the soggy clump of hair marring his vision. His hair was ruined. He groaned again. It would take days to repair.

He hoisted himself up to a sitting position, pushing the drenched lock of hair behind his ear. A bead of water ran down his forehead, and he wiped it away indignantly, his eyes landing on the guard laying face down in front of him. The man’s neck was twisted at an impossible angle, his eyes wide and unseeing. Cloud blanched.

Licking suddenly dry lips and thanking his lucky stars, he stood, grabbing the metal railing of the fire escape for support. The other guard was noisily clumping down the steps, his rifle to bear. Cursing, Cloud began making his way along the fire escape. When he ran out of railing, desperate to escape, he ignored the jolts of pain running up and down his leg and began to run. He would make it to the road if it was just by pure will.

It wasn’t really running, but more like limping in the general direction of the main road away from the laboratory. Hunched over, his face twisted in agony, he dragged his right leg in a futile attempt to run. He could probably walk faster when he wasn’t injured. The voice at the back of his mind seemed to mock his futile attempt. A dead slug could beat me to the road. Can’t even freakin’ run! He frowned in disgust at his thoughts. What was he thinking?

"Gonna make it," he muttered over and over again, mostly in spite of that twisted voice filling his ears. The twisted voice which was painfully reminiscent of Sephiroth’s. You weak, pathetic loser. Can’t do anything. Can’t fight for anyone, only for yourself. Can’t even do that anymore. You’re going to die here, you weak, pathetic, weak, weak, weak-

No! He would make it. He would beat the voice in his mind as he had beaten Sephiroth. "Gonna make it!"

With each word he was a step closer to freedom, a step closer to destroying all that which was once Sephiroth. The voice would lose to him. He was the eternal winner. No one could defeat him.

A spray of gunfire startled him, and he tripped, the wind leaving his lungs in a rush as he hit the ground. Ignoring the teeth jarring pain in his leg, he pulled himself along, the scraping of his wet clothing against the concrete filling his ears. Obscurity began closing in on his vision. He set his teeth in determination, reaching forward for the surface of the concrete, somehow finding the strength to get his feet under himself and push himself up.

He… would… not… lose.

I own you. If I want you to lose, you will lose. You puppet!

He wanted to fight. Cloud screamed in anger as he stumbled to his knees, his hands squeezing his temple as if that could somehow snuff the voice in his head. "No!" He wanted to fight...

The laughter reverberated through his head as the blackness overran his vision. He had let Sephiroth win. His head dropped to the concrete.

Tifa slammed the door of the fire escape open, oblivious to the fact that it almost swung back and clipped her in the head. She grabbed the railing and started down the stairs, skipping most of them freely. She almost tripped and stumbled down them more than once, but she did not care. If they didn’t get Cloud now, she wouldn’t know where to even begin looking. Losing him was not an option.

"Tifa, wait!" Barret called, pushing the door open again before it had time to latch. He ignored the water beads covering his entire face as he ran down the stairs, his large boots making more than enough ruckus to wake the dead. Red XIII ran through the open door, pausing only once to shake the water from his fur in a spray. He kicked the excess water from one of his hind legs before bounding down the stairs after Barret. Yuffie, a grin painted on her face due to her success, skipped after.

"Tifa!" Barret called, a curse coming to his lips as he saw the flashing lights of the Shinra reinforcements coming to the laboratory. She ignored him.

Her gaze landed to where two Shinra guards were loading Cloud’s unconscious form into the back of a fairly small van. Aeris, a sloppy bandage wrapped around the wound on her hand, was loading a clip into a handgun, obviously confiscated from one of the guards. When she saw Tifa coming, she raised the gun and aimed.

Tifa instinctively ducked as the bullets crashed into the railing of the fire escape and into the brick wall that was the side of the Shinra building. Aeris kept them all under cover, firing freely at them as she backed into the truck. Cloud was thrown rather unceremoniously into the back before the guards hopped into it after him, slamming the door shut. Aeris gave a final shot before jumping behind the steering wheel and driving off.

"No!" Tifa screamed, jumping from the fire escape and onto the concrete parking lot. She ignored the jarring pain that ran up her legs as she began running after the truck. She pushed herself to her limits as the truck pulled away. Her lungs burned, her legs pumping as she reached for the doors of the van.

Her fingers brushed it.

It pulled away.

She staggered to a stop, her breathing harsh and heavy. They had fought so hard. She would not lose him now. Her gaze landed on the guards coming into the parking lot, their motorcycles rumbling as they sped across the ground. Tifa raised her hands in apparent surrender, her mouth moving in a silent spell.

"Tornado!" she yelled, her voice barely rising above the howling wind she had summoned. The blast knocked the Shinra guards from the motorcycles, sending the machines falling to one side and sliding toward her. Even before the spell had worn off entirely, she was running to the fallen vehicles.

She ignored the bloody Shinra guard on the concrete, fumbling for his gun, as she pulled the motorcycle up and mounted it. She revved the engine, pushing off and starting toward the exit of the parking lot.

"Tifa, wait!" Barret ordered, his voice rising above the sirens. She screeched to a halt and motioned for him to hurry up, an urgent expression on her face. He ran, hopping onto the motorcycle behind her.

Yuffie pulled up beside Tifa, having recovered her own personal motorcycle from where she had stashed it. The side car, normally reserved for her father or her stash, depending on which was present, was now occupied by Red XIII. The red beast looked only slightly uncomfortable and more comical than anything else, sporting a black helmet on his head. Yuffie wore a similar helmet, her backpack tightened securely on her back and her small tinted goggles over her eyes.

"Let’s go and bring Spike home," she declared, pulling away from Tifa and speeding out of the parking lot, oblivious to any traffic rules she had just broken. Tifa was chasing her almost before she had started out of the parking. The two motorcycles sped after the van holding Cloud, leaving behind the flashing sirens, alarms, Shinra building, and Cait Sith. Tifa only glanced back once.

 

Elena followed Raice and Rude down the fire escape, ignoring the squishing of water in her shoes with every step she took. She tried to be nonchalant about leaving Reno behind in the hands of the Shinra, but found that the more she thought about what they had done, the more she felt her calm slipping away. Outward calm defined a Turk. She would not let her anger show through; she would not let her sorrow be evident.

She clattered down the stairs of the fire escape, silently thankful when her feet touched the solid concrete of the parking lot. She was closer to leaving and closer to forgetting about Reno. Guilt gnawed at her, and she felt the uncontrollable need to go back into the laboratory and get him, single-handedly if need be.

But from the amount of blood that had stained through his shirt and his jacket, she knew he couldn’t be alive. Not many people could boast they got up after receiving wounds like that. He hadn’t moved; he hadn’t even taken a visible breath. He had to be dead. The thought did not lessen her guilt. She didn’t know if he was dead. She wished she did. She had a fervent wish that he was. What the Shinra might do to him if he wasn’t…

She holstered her hand gun, slipping it under her coat. She wouldn’t think about that. She began walking, running a hand through her wet hair. Water droplets splattered to the ground, darkening small circles where they hit the concrete. She stopped walking as Rude and Raice both turned to her.

Rude breach loaded two more cartridges into his shotgun, glancing up at her above his sunglasses. He was oblivious to the fact that water was still beaded on them and the fact that it was night. Elena frowned. Come to think of it, she had never seen him without his sunglasses covering his eyes. She dismissed the thought.

"What do you want to do?" he asked, closing the chamber of the shotgun with a click. Raice glanced at him before turning his gaze to Elena.

"What are we supposed to do?" Raice frowned. "We don’t have a leader anymore."

Elena gave him a sharp look, cutting off his next words. She bit back her regret and guilt, a grim tone forcing its way into her voice. "This is where we walk away."

And they did.

"Watch where yer goin’!" Barret screamed, ducking behind Tifa as best he could as she haphazardly sped down the deserted highway. "Foo’ woman driver! @*&%!"

She ignored his bantering, engrossed in catching up with the van. The motorcycle she had stolen from the Shinra guards did not seem to go fast enough, ever behind the dark van as if an invisible shield kept them apart. Ducking into the wind, she pushed the motorcycle to an even faster speed.

"@#$%!" Barret couldn’t prevent himself from clutching Tifa tighter, engulfing her waist in his large hands as they almost clipped an old bug puffing along the highway. He glanced over his shoulder as the bug grazed into the protective railing and grimaced. "You’re gonna get someone killed!"

Tifa shook her head, her long brown hair flying in the wind. "I’m trying to save someone!" she shouted, her voice barely audible over the noise. The motorcycle inched closer to the rear end of the van.

They were almost there. They were in a hair’s-reach of the rear doors. It wasn’t like that particular fact made a difference, but it somehow seemed to symbolize that they were attaining their goal. They could not stop or even slow the van from the rear, but somehow they would stop it. They would stop it.

Tifa would not let him go, now. Not after they were so close to be reunited and not because some crazy clone had decided to make him her prize. There wasn’t anything that could stop her; she was the unbeatable foe, and nothing could stand in her way.

Or so she thought.

A dark shadow covered the moon, breaking the flow of the pale rays of light and darkening the ground. And at the same time, Tifa could almost feel the desperation and despair as though it were a tangible thing. She could almost taste the foul putridity rising like bile in the back of her throat. And for a moment, she lost herself in this gloom as though she were drowning in the stagnate waters of a fetid swamp covered in the decaying matter of all those who had preceded her into its depths. An uncontrolled shudder wracked her body.

The shadows thickened and the wind picked up, carrying on it the stench of death and the intoxicating aroma of fear. The motorcycle screeched to a halt, and Tifa found her hands shaking too badly to do anything about it. She had not felt this much hopelessness, she had not felt this much evil, since the Northern Cave when Cloud had given Sephiroth the Black Materia. She never wanted to feel this way again. Never again.

And, yet, here it was.

Tifa, tears brimming her eyes, could only watch as the source of the unrealized horrors of the world unfolded before her, sailing in a downward spiral to the ground, the phantom of the night. Obsidian talons enclosed around the van, ripping into the metal, before the evil incarnate pushed itself off into the night, taking her enemy with it.

Taking her love with it.

There was nothing she could do except watch as the horrific nightmare carried her love into the black, a sense of emptiness filling her core. She had lost her love to a phantom. She had lost Cloud to another. Tears burned her eyes. She wouldn’t cry.

Her heart wrenched painfully within her breast. He was gone. They had lost.

But she would not cry.

© 1998 by Junj.

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