Disclaimer, etc.

-----------------------
Final Fantasy VII: Children of Jenova

Chapter 12

There was absolutely nothing left of Cait Sith III that could be salvaged.
While the moogle was
still more or less in one piece, it wouldn't function without the cat.
Reeve was understandably
depressed about the whole thing. The Cait Sith robots were, he figured, the
closest thing he'd ever
have to children, at least for now. While Shera tried her best to cheer
Junior up with large
quantities of cream soda, Reeve sat in his office trying to force himself
to get some work done.
And it was damned hard to do that when all he could think about was getting
the new Cait Sith up
and running as soon as he could.  

"The hell with it," he said at length, flinging a sheaf of paperwork in the
general direction of his
"out" box and rubbing his forehead. Reno and Rude looked up at him.

"You shouldn't be here anyway." Rude picked up a few leaves of paper that
had sailed onto the
floor and put them where they were supposed to go. "Go home and get some
rest. This place can
take care of itself for a night or two."

"I know." Reeve sighed, stood, and gazed out the window. "I just feel like
I should be doing
something."

"You've done plenty," Reno replied. "I talked to your secretary a while
ago. She said you've been
spending the night on this damn sofa for the last six days, and you would
have last night too if we
hadn't showed up." Reeve started to protest, but Reno cut him off. "Working
yourself to death
isn't going to help anyone. Shit, at least go home and order a pizza or
something, okay? Or does
the thought of eating still make you wanna hurl?"

Reeve snickered. "I'm fine now, thank you very much." His stomach growled
audibly, almost on
cue. "I guess it won't hurt anything..."

       *			*			*

There was something about Nibelheim that Cloud hadn't liked ever since the
day Sephiroth had
gone insane; something intangible, like a bad smell so faint it was only
noticeable on a subliminal
level but causing the stomach to turn all the same. The whole town wore a
mask, it seemed...a
veneer of normality covering something malformed and misshapen. Nibelheim
had spawned more
than its fair share of nightmares. Sephiroth's nightmares. Vincent's
nightmares. Cloud's
nightmares. And gnawing away at Cloud's mind was the fear that the town had
given birth to yet
another nightmare, this time his own son's. And strangely enough, the words
that came out of
Cid's mouth upon their arrival summed up his feelings to a T.

"I hate this goddamn place," Cid muttered, shaking his head.

Cloud nodded and swallowed dryly. "You can say that again."

"So where do we look first?" Tifa was watching the summit of Mt. Nibel
intently, as was Vincent.
"The reactor or the mansion?"

"We'll split up." Cid lit up a cigarette. "Tifa, you know those mountains
better than any of us, so I
think you should take some folks up there and have a look-see at that
reactor. The rest of us'll
check out the mansion."

"Fine with me." Tifa nodded. "We might have company up there..."

"I'll go with you," Elena volunteered. "I'm in the mood to pound on some
Shinras." This drew a
nervous chuckle from the lot of them.

"Me too," Barret said. "They got some explainin' to do about all this
business."

Yuffie looked at the mountain...tall, steep, creepy. Then she looked at the
mansion...not as tall or
steep, but much creepier. This was going to be a difficult decision. "Oh,
hell. I'm going to the
reactor. When I want to see a haunted house, I'll go to the one at the Gold
Saucer."

"Hey, at least this one's free," Cid quipped. 

"Stuff it," Yuffie shot back. "I had nightmares about those Ying and Yang
freaks for a month after
we picked Vincent up. At least on the mountain there'll be enough light to
see what the hell is
coming at me."

"Okay, okay." Cid held up a hand to shut the ninja girl up, snickering
under his breath. "You guys
be careful. We don't know what's up there. Call if you find anything
weird." And with that he
started heading for the Shinra mansion, trailed by Cloud, Red XIII, and
Vincent. 

As he walked toward the imposing structure, Cloud became aware of
something, some force,
some presence tugging at him, and he stopped in his tracks. "He's in there.
I can feel him."

"Who?" Vincent asked, eyeing him warily. Something was wrong. Very wrong.
He received no
answer to his question; Cloud simply stood rooted to the spot he occupied,
staring at the door of
the mansion. By now, Cid and Red XIII had realized that something was up
and they too stopped
and watched Cloud carefully.

"Calling me..." Cloud shook his head violently, trying in vain to clear it.
"In there."

"Shit, not again..." Cid groaned. He grabbed Cloud by the shoulders and
shook him gently. "Hey!
Cloud! You in there? C'mon, Cloud, don't go wiggin' out on us now..."

Cloud blinked. "In there...?" He shook his head again. "Yeah...me and
Zack...they kept us in the
basem--the basement...?"

With no warning, Cloud squirmed free of Cid's grasp and took off at a full
sprint for the doors of
the mansion.

"Goddammit!" Cid spat, and he and Vincent turned and gave chase. Red XIII,
having the benefit
of two extra legs, was able to get into the mansion much faster, but by
then Cloud had already
vanished, presumably to the upper floor and toward the entry to the
basement.

The mansion was untenanted by monsters now; Vincent had taken care of the
creatures that had
once filled the mansion proper during his stay there. Whether the
subterranean levels were
likewise unoccupied was unknown, however. Truth be told, the silence of the
upper levels was
making Cid nervous. He thought he would almost prefer one of those mutated
Ghiro-whatsies
swinging at him to this uneasy quiet.  

Almost.

They reached the stone door that led to the mansion's underground level
just in time to see
Cloud's spikey blonde head descending the spiral staircase to the basement.
Red XIII wrinkled his
nose and looked around nervously. Vincent did likewise.

"I smell blood," Red muttered, scanning the floor. "There."

Cid followed the beast's gaze and at length he saw a sword abandoned on the
floor. Other than its
large size and the drying blood that stained its steel, there was nothing
particularly unusual about
it. "Shit. Let's go."

*              *              *

Each step Cloud took toward the library was an act of sheer will. It was as
if he were watching
himself take that walk from some far-off place, as if on a movie screen.
With each step, he heard
the crunching sounds of gravel and a few unfortunate insects shifting under
his feet; under that he
heard his heart pounding and air passing in and out of his lungs, and under
that...the voice. -His-
voice. Whether it was real or all in his mind he didn't know, and didn't
care.

/Made in my image.../

The door to the library stood open; the tenuous glow of a single lamp
illuminated its opening.

/My servant...my puppet.../

A faint cry of "Cloud!" from above wafted into his ears, but did not
register.

/Come to me./

As Cloud stepped numbly into the library, a new voice came to him. It was
the voice of a grown
man, but Cloud recognized it as his son's immediately. "D--Dad..."

"Zack..." Cloud's gaze fell upon a figure curled in a ball beside a stack
of mildewed books. He
wore ill-fitting SOLDIER armor stained with blood; one shaking hand
likewise sullied clutched at
his spiky white hair and pulled absently at it. He looked up at Cloud with
eyes that glowed the
same color as the blood that dried on his hands and his armor. "Zack...what
are you doing?"

"Tell me, Dad...tell me the truth..." Zack swallowed audibly. 

Cloud drew a shaky breath and knelt down next to his son. "About what?" He
touched Zack's
shoulder, and Zack shrank away as if Cloud's touch had burned him.

"Meteor."

*			*			*

"Oh, God." Tifa's hand unconsciously went to her mouth as she stared at the
bodies of the two
dead SOLDIERS that lay outside the Nibel reactor. One had been neatly run
through with a
sword; the other had not been dispatched quite as neatly. Yuffie was
turning a distinct shade of
green at the sight.

"Maybe I shoulda gone with the mansion," she said in a very small voice. 

"Get a grip," Elena snapped, not sounding half as tough as she'd hoped to.
"Whoever did this is
obviously not in his right mind." She looked up at the door of the reactor,
which was slightly ajar,
and shuddered. "We going in?"

Tifa nodded. "We've got to get to the bottom of this." With that, she
ascended the stairs that led
to the reactor and stepped inside, followed by Elena, Yuffie, and Barret.

Barret took a look around, then pointed his gun-arm toward the pod room.
"You guys hear
somethin'?"

"Now that you mention it..." Elena frowned. "Someone's snoring in there."
She reached under
her jacket and withdrew her pistol, and then she slipped past Barret and
Tifa and into the pod
room. "Oh, shit."

"What?" Tifa followed, stopping dead in her tracks as Elena pointed her
weapon at the source of
the snores. There was a fairly young woman lying on her back, her head
pillowed on a folded lab
coat. Her sleeves were pulled up, and clearly visible on her right arm was
the Roman numeral
XIX. Next to her lay the Masamune. Without a word, Tifa dashed across the
room and hauled the
woman off the floor, using the bun on top of her head as a handle. "Where
the fuck is my son?"
she growled into Vail's face.

Vail grimaced and hissed in pain as Tifa held her up by the hair. "Take
your hands off me, girl..."

"You're lucky she ain't already tore your goddamn head off, Vail," Barret
spat, aiming his gun-
arm at Vail. "You better start talkin'. Where's the boy?" 

"'Boy...'" Vail laughed softly. "Oh, if you could just see how he's
grown..."

In reply, Tifa simply slammed Vail face-first into the nearest wall,
busting her lip wide open. "I
don't see anything funny about this, you sick bitch. Now I'm going to ask
you again. Where. Is.
My. Son?" Tifa punctuated each word of that last interrogative by further
introducing Vail's face
to the wall.

"Who knows?" Vail shrugged, reaching up and wiping her bloody lip with the
back of her hand.
"He was pretty mad when he broke out. Killed those two SOLDIERS. Did a good
job of it too.
Don't know where he went after that. Now let go of my hair before I start
getting angry with you,
girl."

"Tifa, just waste her already!" Yuffie spat. "She's not gonna talk anyway."

Vail narrowed her eyes at Tifa, who still gripped her hair tightly. "I'm
not going to ask you
again."

"For once, I have to agree with Yuffie." Elena scowled. "I think we'd be
doing the world a
favor."

"No." Tifa shook her head. "Not until she tells me what she did to Zack."

"I just accelerated a process that had already begun." Vail smiled thinly.
"The Jenova cells in his
body were already awakening. I just gave them a little push."

Yuffie glared at her. "I'd like to give this cross a little push up your--"

"Supposing I DID know where he was, and supposing I WOULD help you, which I
think you
know I won't, it's already too late."

"What the hell are you talking about? Too late?" Tifa shook Vail like a rag
doll. "What's
happening to him?"

Vail let out a raspy laugh. "I think you know exactly what's happening."

Infuriated, Tifa screamed and threw Vail down onto the floor hard and
kicked her in the robs as
hard as she could. Vail coughed once and spat blood onto the floor, and she
shot a chilling glare
at Tifa.

"You really shouldn't have done that." Vail stood up on rubbery legs...and
began to change.

*              *              *

"Goddammit, Cloud--" Cid, Vincent, and Red XIII sprinted down the corridor
that led to the
Shinra mansion library. "The hell you think you're doin'..." Cid skidded to
a halt in the doorway of
the library; Red XIII almost collided with his legs as he did. "Oh my God."

Neither Cloud nor Zack took notice of the new arrivals in the room.
"Zack..." Cloud croaked as
the fully-grown Zack's blood-colored eyes drilled into him. 

"He showed me things, Dad," Zack said. "Things you didn't tell me about. I
have to know." 

Cloud bowed his head and shivered. "Sure."

A heavy silence blanketed the room, and after what seemed like a small
eternity Zack spoke once
more.

"Did you give the Black Materia to Sephiroth?"

"How do you know about--" Cid began, but Vincent cut him off. 

Again, Cloud took no notice. He sighed heavily, unable to meet Zack's
burning gaze any longer.
"Yeah...yeah, I did."

Zack gave a short choked cry. "Then he was right...so what about Aeris? Is
there something you
just sort of forgot to tell me about that too?"

"No!" Cloud shook his head. "I told you what happened--"

"I SAW what happened!" Zack roared, rearing up from his hiding place like a
cobra, and Cloud
staggered back. "I saw it! YOU KILLED HER! He showed me!"

"Who showed you, Zack?" Red XIII edged forward, and Zack finally took
notice of him. "Who?"

Zack stood up unsteadily, still clutching at his head. "It doesn't matter.
Doesn't..." He stumbled,
caught himself, and shook his head. "Get out of my way."

Cloud desperately reached out for Zack's arm, catching it in both of his
hands. "Zack, for God's
sake, listen to me--"

"Don't touch me!" Zack snatched his arm away from Cloud and shoved him
hard, sending him
sprawling onto the stone floor. With that, he shut his eyes and tightened
his fists; and as Cloud
had seen Sephiroth do before, he rose into the air and vanished in a
blinding flash.

Cloud slowly dragged himself to a sitting position; Cid let out a shaky
sigh and leaned heavily on
his spear. "Goddamn," he finally said. "Sephiroth...he's in Zack. The son
of a bitch is in Zack."

The only words spoken in reply came from Cloud.

"I'm sorry." Cloud dropped his forehead onto his knees. "Zack...I'm so
sorry..."

*              *              *

"Oh my God, what the HELL'S wrong with her!?" Elena screeched as Vail
changed. "What the
hell's going on!?"

"Jenova," Tifa replied, her voice barely above a whisper. 

Vail--or the thing that had been Vail--now towered over the group. Her skin
was the color of a
rotting apple, and what had been arms just moments before were now long
segmented tentacles
that terminated in a pair of three-fingered clawed hands. Two more pairs of
the tentacle-arms
sprouted from her torso, and her legs fused together into a long serpentine
tail. Another three-
fingered hand appeared on the end of this tail. The tail whipped around
with lightning speed, and
the hand on the end of it tangled itself in Tifa's hair and lifted her off
the ground.

"How dare you barge in here screaming at me about your precious son after
what you did seven
years ago?" the Vail creature hissed. "I felt every blow, every slash,
every wound you and your
friends inflicted on my brother." The tail whipped again and the hand
released its grip, sending
Tifa flying and crashing against an empty pod. "And believe me, I intend to
return every single
one of them to you."

"Say what!?" Barret stammered. "Brother?"

"I think she's talking about Sephiroth," Yuffie replied as Tifa picked
herself up slowly. "Yeah,
that'd explain a lot about the bitch."

The Vail creature turned its glowing green eyes on Yuffie and glared at her
for a second before
lashing out at her with one of its clawed hands. "Watch your tone, little
girl." Yuffie barely leapt
out of the way in time, the creature's talons still raked across her thigh
and slashed into her flesh.
She cried out in pain and fear as she hit the ground, landing painfully on
the fresh wounds, and a
red haze obscured her vision. She staggered to her feet as the creature
lashed out at her again; this
time she was ready for it. She let out a yell and swung the Conformer in a
wide arc, neatly
severing the taloned hand from the tentacle as it passed. The hand dropped
to the floor and
clenched once, then lay still. 

"Oh, grossness..." Yuffie groaned as the Vail creature opened its mouth and
screamed in pain. "You
okay, Tifa?"

Tifa charged at the creature, throwing her shoulder into its midsection and
knocking it down. She
threw herself onto it, raining punches down onto its head.

"I guess that means 'yes,'" Yuffie muttered.

"Goddammit, Tifa, get off the bitch so I can get a clear shot in," Barret
grumbled. Elena steadied
her shaking hands and aimed carefully.

"Tifa, get out of the way," she said through gritted teeth as she too
waited for an opening. 

Tifa didn't seem to hear Barret or Elena. She continued to bash the
Vail-thing with her fists,
cursing up a blue streak as she did (even Cid would have paled at some of
the epithets she hurled
at the thing), and it wailed as she clobbered it. In desperation, it reared
up like a snake, spilling
Tifa onto the floor...and giving Barret and Elena the opening they were
waiting for. Both opened
fire; the racket of Barret's gun-arm and the sharp crack of Elena's pistol
reverberated through the
pod room as they pumped round after round into the creature's head and
body. At last it keeled
over, an insectile buzz issuing forth from its mouth as the life left its
body.

Elena ejected the empty magazine from her still-smoking pistol and replaced
it with a full one. "Is
it dead?"

"Bitch better be dead," Barret replied, prodding one of the creature's
tentacles with the toe of his
boot. It did not move, and he let out a sigh of relief. "Everyone okay?"

"Oh, just great.," Yuffie hissed, searching through her pockets for a
Restore Materia and coming
up empty. "If someone's not too terribly busy, I'm bleeding here."

Tifa nodded and cast a heavy Cure spell over Yuffie's bleeding leg,
completely erasing the
damage. Just as she was putting the Materia away, the PHS phone chirped in
her pocket. She
flipped it open and turned it on. "Hello?"

"Tifa, it's Cid." Cid's voice was flat and dry, and Tifa knew that tone
well. It meant that
something bad had happened. "You better get down here right away. I think
Cloud needs you."

"Cid, what happened?" Tifa sat down hard on the floor. "Did you find Zack?"

There was a long, uncomfortable silence. "Yeah, we found him. Tifa--" Cid
paused uneasily.
"Tifa, he's Sephiroth. He...shit, Tifa, I'm sorry..."

Tifa hung up silently, hot tears forming in her eyes, and Barret sat down
beside her.

"What happened?" he asked softly. "Tifa, what'd Cid say?"

Tifa shook her head. "We've got to get to the mansion," she managed to
croak before she broke
down.

"Okay." Barret put an arm around her and helped her up. "Let's get out of
here."

Tifa nodded and sniffled, and Barret guided her out of the reactor. Yuffie
and Elena followed
silently.

The Masamune remained where Vail had dropped it. A few minutes after Tifa's
group left the
reactor, the giant sword began to shimmer...and then it vanished in a white
flash.

---

Author's Notes: Ding dong, the bitch is dead! Vail finally got what was
coming to her. I think this
is probably going to be the second darkest chapter of the whole
thing...poor Cloud...yes, Ying and
Yang did freak me out. I wish I knew what the hell the designers were
smoking when they
dreamed up that pair of spastic freaks; actually, Ghirofelgo (you spell it)
kinda gave me the creeps
too...damn, I usually have more to say than this...but I guess this one
kinda speaks for itself. 

--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