Fic: FF7 - One Last Battle
Mar. 2nd, 2007 04:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tripoverhercatsSo, this all started with a small rant over at fanficrants Here about Celes from FF6 and how she's not a wimpy pushover. She is infact very close to being a female version of Sephiroth (only... sane). I nthe comments was a mention that Celes had been used in a crossover fic as being Cloud's mother, only the author casually whacked her off as per canon.
She'd have given him one hell of a fight. Mentions of writing ficcage were discussed and damned if a bunny did not hop up, tug me on the leg and loudly demand to be written.
Now.
If you're not familar with Celes, she was experimented on as a small child with magicite enhancements, making her an elite... Magitek Knight (and you thought I was gonna say SOLDIER). When wielding a Rune Sword, she can absorb spells and turn them into MP for her use.
So, here is the fic.
Title: One Last Battle
Author: Tripsoverhercats
Warning: Character Death, Crossover FF6 and 7
Something was not quite right. The woman paced back and forth in her home, a half dozen tasks all left unfinished. Nibelheim had always been a little... fey to her, she'd long since determined that the reactor up in the mountains resonated with her Magitek altered genes like an ill-tuned guitar. Almost the same, but not quite. But ever since the arrival of the SOLDIERs things had become increasingly strained. She hadn't missed the fact that the leader - the great General Sephiroth - had vanished into the Shinra mansion, that his First was growing increasingly worried... and that her son was apparently in the middle of it all. Celes Chere Strife was not a happy woman. Not at all.
She had never figured out precisely what had led to her arrival on this world nearly eighteen years ago, but then with the amount of power that had been flung around in the final battle with Kefka she was amazed that she'd lived at all. She'd looked for some way back, but her travels proved futile and settling in the little mountain town where she'd been stuck through a very long winter seemed like a passable retirement. She'd never entirely fit in here and after Will had died - she honestly missed the man still - Celes found that she was too busy trying to raise Cloud to think about leaving.
She'd tried to dissuade her son from his dream of becoming a SOLDIER, but he'd inherited quite a bit of her late husband's stubbornness (not to mention a little of her own). He hadn't written her back in two years and he hadn't come to see her after he arrived... even though she recognized him right away despite his hiding under a helmet. She didn't know what all went into becoming a SOLDIER, but seeing the too-bright eyes and too quick motions of Sephiroth and his First... she was glad that whatever gifts Cloud had inherited from her had not manifested.
Celes made another turn, chafing at her arms in irritation. Wrong. Things were feeling more and more wrong, all morning she'd felt that someone was speaking, just on the edge of her hearing. Calling...
Whump.
A sudden tingle of powerful magic was quickly followed by an explosion, the shockwave shaking the frame of her house and two of the windows cracking. Shouts and screams rose from around the village and then she felt the magic again.
Whump.
Celes closed her eyes for a moment, prayer wasn't a strong suit for her, but she sent up a brief plea that Cloud was still alive. Two strides brought her to the front wardrobe, a single well placed thump opened the panel where she'd kept her sword. She hadn't used it for much more than the occasional dragon slaying for a very long time, but it came to her hand like an old friend. Pity about her housedress, but sometimes you went with what you had. She stepped out the door and into the fire.
People were beginning to run frantically around to little avail, Celes saw. There was a sudden high scream, she turned to see steel flash and a body fall... her eyes lifted to a figure of silver and black and maddened green. "I don't know what you think you are doing," Celes shouted, her voice snapping his head up and around to pin her with his eyes, "but this is MY home and you are going to stop, now."
He didn't grace her with an answer, she supposed she did look faintly ridiculous, a housewife waving a sword about, without a trace of materia or armor in sight. His hand raised in an idle gesture and she felt the pull of magic. Her sword flared in sympathy, runes glowing redly for a brief moment and the spell arced into her, energy flowing through her, filling her with power. He'd thrown quite a whopper there. Celes gave him a short, vicious smile and raised her free hand, power gathering and she shot a spell of her own back into Sephiroth. He stepped back a bit, more out of startlement than damage. Well, that had been more to get his attention.
"Who are you?" She'd impressed him enough to speak and he'd brought his blade up into a guard stance. Good, he was taking her seriously now. She bared her teeth in a sharp smile.
"Someone who's taken down madmen before." She came up into a matching stance and began to circle towards him. Sephiroth's eyes narrowed briefly and then he lunged.
Steel crashed.
-----------------------
Zangan was doing what saner people would not, run towards the flames and screaming. But he was stronger than the townspeople, if there was something that could be done, he was one of the few people here who might make a difference. He rounded the corner of a building to the town square and froze, eyes taking in the scene before him.
The flames and fallen bodies he expected to find, though there were not quite as many as he'd feared. General Sephiroth had been setting off little warning bells in his mind these past few days, something had not been right with the man the few times he'd been seen after going up to the reactor. But he still had not expected this… this slaughter. Nor had he expected that Celes would be standing up to him.
Zangan had know that the Widow Strife was not an ordinary townswoman, her eyes were too sharp, her movements too well trained. More than once on his habitual patrols around the village late at night he had run into her doing the same thing, though she had not invited him into her home until after her son had left for Midgar.
"My son has had the burden of being different, of me being an outsider." She'd told him. "The others will talk, you being here. He didn't need the burden of perceived shame." Celes had been blunt, Zangan had found it almost refreshing. They spoke of many things, though she never said exactly how she'd come to possess such martial knowledge and eventually they shared a bed now and again. She'd been right, there was talk, but the small and petty remarks about a woman too long alone rolled off of Celes like water.
She was faced off against Sephiroth now, looking small and absurd in her plain dress - already rent and bloodstained - and Zangan assessed the battle before him quickly. Celes was fast and skilled, but she was smaller, her reach far less, older… she was alive now only because she was fighting an entirely defensive battle. She'd be dead in under five minutes unless she had aid. He took a step forward. The General's eyes flickered to him, his free hand lifted and materia blazed on Sephiroth's bracer. Zangan braced himself for whatever magic was about to strike.
Only to see the spell arc sideways into Celes, her sword glowing. A wash of green magic flickered over her, wiping away the wounds she already bore. "Zangan." Her voice was flat. "Don't distract me."
Don't squander the time I'm buying for you and the others.
He didn't like this. It went against his training, his ideals, his nature. But this… this was not his fight. He turned to drag as many people away as possible, leaving her behind.
-----------------------
Zack didn't know how things had gone so wrong. So stupidly wrong. This had all the earmarks of a good mission, time away from Midgar, a bit of a challenge, a chance to see Cloud's hometown… and now he was racing down from the mansion with Cloud on his heels towards rising black smoke and panicking people.
"Zack… what's going on?" Cloud panted as the younger boy ran hard to keep up with Zack. "Why… why is…"
"Save your breath, Cloud," Zack replied distractedly. "I don't know." Sephiroth had glared at him, called him a traitor, been rambling on about Ancients and his mother… Zack should have dragged him out of that whacked out library days ago.
"Hey! Hey you! Are you sane!" The shout came from a group of people fleeing the area, the martial artist that had set up shop here and been teaching Tifa broke off from them and approached Zack and Cloud cautiously.
"How can anyone be sane at a time like this?" Zack shot back, eyes flicking up towards the town. "Where's Sephiroth?"
"Back there, doing his best to kill everyone." Zangan gave Zack a penetrating look. "Mrs. Strife is holding him off, but she won't last long without help!"
Mrs. Strife? Zack blinked stupidly at the man for a moment. Cloud's mother? Cloud… who was standing right next to him… he heard Cloud's breath suck in sharply and the trooper was dashing towards the town square without a word. Zack cursed and shot off after him, leaving Zangan and the others behind. SOLDIER speed had him overtaking Cloud, a handful of leaps and he was suddenly there, looking at what had to be the most surreal sight in his short life. A woman near middle age - in a dress! - wielding an odd sword and facing off against Sephiroth.
How could anyone be sane at all? He leapt one last time, his Buster sword swinging free.
"Sephiroth!"
-----------------------
Cloud felt useless. Again. Weak. Worse than that terrible week when he'd tried for SOLDIER, only to have the test mako shot send him into a convulsive fit. He'd wanted to come back to Nibelheim a success, to show that he could be great. He'd come back a common trooper - no one's idea of successful - and had done his best to stay out of sight. He'd seen his mother watching him though, knew that look on her face. She'd known, but he just… he just couldn't face her calm acceptance of what was.
He'd never understood why she'd been willing to settle for so little… not when he'd snuck out late at night and seen her practice with her sword, the one he was never allowed to touch, the one that was gleaming red now as she faced off against Sephiroth. His mama. Zack had leapt into the fray, fighting alongside her giving her a chance to step back, raise a hand and cast spells. He hadn't even known that she'd owned materia, he couldn't even see where she was keeping it.
Materia.
Cloud cursed himself. Stupid, stupid, stupid! He may have only been a trooper, but he'd been issued a materia for his rifle. It was an Ice, with only the first spell unlocked, but that was fine, he'd never been too good with materia anyways. It was hard for him to cast, but he could. He could do something. He sighted down his barrel and concentrated hard on the materia, willing the spell to strike out against Sephiroth.
It arced into his mother instead. He nearly screamed in despair, couldn't he do anything right? Mama looked back quickly at him, she didn't seem hurt. "Cloud, keep that up. I need the energy." She went back to her battle, barely missing a beat.
His hands shook and Cloud spent a moment simply in disbelief… it hadn't been what he'd intended, but it had… helped. He shuddered and raised his rifle, concentrating on the small globe nestled in the stock, firing the spell, this time at his own mother. Cloud could almost feel it happen this time, the energy being pulled apart and absorbed. The third time he almost understood it. He never had an opportunity for a fourth spell.
"Enough," Sephiroth snarled and seemed to blur. Zack went flying, the SOLDIER slamming hard into a house, stone cracking under the force of his impact. His sword lashed out, clashing against his mother's twisting, catching, and her stance was broken. Sephiroth spun his long blade back, impossibly fast and mama was flying too, halfway to where Cloud was, blood everywhere. She landed hard, her sword falling from her hand, the red glow flickering away, exchanged with the horrible red spreading far too fast over her body. A very quiet and detached part of Cloud's mind knew that she'd been cut almost in half.
The rest of him was screaming in rage and horror. He ran to her, rifle falling away as he slid down next to her. This couldn't be happening, that wasn't his mama's eyes wide open and sightless.
"Why!" Someone was screaming, it might have been him. "Why! My family! My town!" Sephiroth was barely even looking at him, turning instead to finish off Zack where the SOLDIER was still lying stunned. Everything was burning, inside and out. Cloud reached out and grabbed his mama's sword. It flared in his hand… burning… burning…
The world went red.
-----------------------
Zack didn't like lingering out side of a town while Cloud went in to get supplies, but even three months after Nibelheim burned he was still wary. There'd been no official news, no bounty posters put up, nothing. Not that Zack thought Shin-ra would advertise that their Silver General had gone bastshit insane, that a SOLDIER 1st Class had gone AWOL along with some faceless trooper, but they didn't need to take chances. He knew that they were being looked for.
He just hoped that they had no idea of what had truly happened, Zack still was trying to piece it together. Cloud's mom… she'd done things he'd never even known was possible, things that were beginning to manifest in Cloud. It was almost like he was becoming a SOLDIER, only without the mako. Cloud's reflexes and strength were increasing, he'd probably be able to give a 3rd a good fight these days and that wasn't even factoring in that unsettling sword.
As near as Zack and Cloud had been able to determine, so long as Cloud held the weapon, he just… ate magic. Like his mother had. Two weeks ago, Cloud had spontaneously cast an Ice spell. Both of them were more than a little freaked by it, Zack was wondering if Cloud and his mother were those Ancients that Seph had raved about… Seph.
Zack had recovered enough from that hit to see Cloud run Sephiroth through and nearly get himself torn apart in exchange. The first Cure spell he'd cast on Cloud had been absorbed… fortunately he'd let go of the sword for the second to take effect, just in time. Zack had left Sephiroth lying where he'd fallen, left Cloud's mother, left it all. He'd grabbed Cloud, the sword and hid. By the speed that Shin-ra had arrived, Zack felt it'd been a damned good decision.
He looked up as spiky blond hair came into view. "Hey there, get everything?"
Cloud nodded, "Yeah. Still nothing in the papers."
"Probably won't be, kid. Ready to move?"
Cloud nodded silently and Zack gave him the best smile he could. He wasn't sure where they were going to end up yet, but he'd figure that out as they went.
-----------------------
He woke. The world was green. A familiar view, one he'd never been fond of. His eyes slowly tracked around seeing the familiar fixtures of the lab under Nibelheim. The second mako tank was also full, but the figure floating in the condensed Lifestream was unmoving. By that assortment of organs drifting alongside the body, it never would again. An efficient method of storing dissected pieces in stasis. Motion caught his eye, he turned to see a familiar face.
"Hmm, awake at last? Yes." hands fiddled with the controls outside his tank, he waited patiently as the mako drained away. "Not how I expected this to go… unforeseen contamination, months of delay." Spectacles glinted as the man turned to look at the figure in the second tube. "Fascinating specimen, pity."
The door hissed open and he stepped out, feeling the last of the mako sheet away. Mother stirred in his mind, her call began to rise again. There had been too much delay. His mind replayed the last moments. He had miscalculated there. He would not do so again.
"Where is Strife?" Sephiroth asked his father.
Hojo turned to look at him as if there was something faulty. "Right there of course," he gestured at the tank. "I see I'm going to have to run some tests."
So. The scientist did not know. He wouldn't be needed then. Idly, Sephiroth reached out and snapped Hojo's neck, his father fell to the floor with a startled look. The one other tech in the room made a squealing sound and fled. No matter, he'd deal with the vermin later.
Sephiroth stepped up to the dead woman floating in the tank, hands pressed lightly against the curved surface as he looked into the empty sockets that once held eyes. "Your son. We will find him, Mother and I."
And then they would kill him. No more mistakes.
-fin
(yep, that's all I got folks!)
She'd have given him one hell of a fight. Mentions of writing ficcage were discussed and damned if a bunny did not hop up, tug me on the leg and loudly demand to be written.
Now.
If you're not familar with Celes, she was experimented on as a small child with magicite enhancements, making her an elite... Magitek Knight (and you thought I was gonna say SOLDIER). When wielding a Rune Sword, she can absorb spells and turn them into MP for her use.
So, here is the fic.
Title: One Last Battle
Author: Tripsoverhercats
Warning: Character Death, Crossover FF6 and 7
Something was not quite right. The woman paced back and forth in her home, a half dozen tasks all left unfinished. Nibelheim had always been a little... fey to her, she'd long since determined that the reactor up in the mountains resonated with her Magitek altered genes like an ill-tuned guitar. Almost the same, but not quite. But ever since the arrival of the SOLDIERs things had become increasingly strained. She hadn't missed the fact that the leader - the great General Sephiroth - had vanished into the Shinra mansion, that his First was growing increasingly worried... and that her son was apparently in the middle of it all. Celes Chere Strife was not a happy woman. Not at all.
She had never figured out precisely what had led to her arrival on this world nearly eighteen years ago, but then with the amount of power that had been flung around in the final battle with Kefka she was amazed that she'd lived at all. She'd looked for some way back, but her travels proved futile and settling in the little mountain town where she'd been stuck through a very long winter seemed like a passable retirement. She'd never entirely fit in here and after Will had died - she honestly missed the man still - Celes found that she was too busy trying to raise Cloud to think about leaving.
She'd tried to dissuade her son from his dream of becoming a SOLDIER, but he'd inherited quite a bit of her late husband's stubbornness (not to mention a little of her own). He hadn't written her back in two years and he hadn't come to see her after he arrived... even though she recognized him right away despite his hiding under a helmet. She didn't know what all went into becoming a SOLDIER, but seeing the too-bright eyes and too quick motions of Sephiroth and his First... she was glad that whatever gifts Cloud had inherited from her had not manifested.
Celes made another turn, chafing at her arms in irritation. Wrong. Things were feeling more and more wrong, all morning she'd felt that someone was speaking, just on the edge of her hearing. Calling...
Whump.
A sudden tingle of powerful magic was quickly followed by an explosion, the shockwave shaking the frame of her house and two of the windows cracking. Shouts and screams rose from around the village and then she felt the magic again.
Whump.
Celes closed her eyes for a moment, prayer wasn't a strong suit for her, but she sent up a brief plea that Cloud was still alive. Two strides brought her to the front wardrobe, a single well placed thump opened the panel where she'd kept her sword. She hadn't used it for much more than the occasional dragon slaying for a very long time, but it came to her hand like an old friend. Pity about her housedress, but sometimes you went with what you had. She stepped out the door and into the fire.
People were beginning to run frantically around to little avail, Celes saw. There was a sudden high scream, she turned to see steel flash and a body fall... her eyes lifted to a figure of silver and black and maddened green. "I don't know what you think you are doing," Celes shouted, her voice snapping his head up and around to pin her with his eyes, "but this is MY home and you are going to stop, now."
He didn't grace her with an answer, she supposed she did look faintly ridiculous, a housewife waving a sword about, without a trace of materia or armor in sight. His hand raised in an idle gesture and she felt the pull of magic. Her sword flared in sympathy, runes glowing redly for a brief moment and the spell arced into her, energy flowing through her, filling her with power. He'd thrown quite a whopper there. Celes gave him a short, vicious smile and raised her free hand, power gathering and she shot a spell of her own back into Sephiroth. He stepped back a bit, more out of startlement than damage. Well, that had been more to get his attention.
"Who are you?" She'd impressed him enough to speak and he'd brought his blade up into a guard stance. Good, he was taking her seriously now. She bared her teeth in a sharp smile.
"Someone who's taken down madmen before." She came up into a matching stance and began to circle towards him. Sephiroth's eyes narrowed briefly and then he lunged.
Steel crashed.
-----------------------
Zangan was doing what saner people would not, run towards the flames and screaming. But he was stronger than the townspeople, if there was something that could be done, he was one of the few people here who might make a difference. He rounded the corner of a building to the town square and froze, eyes taking in the scene before him.
The flames and fallen bodies he expected to find, though there were not quite as many as he'd feared. General Sephiroth had been setting off little warning bells in his mind these past few days, something had not been right with the man the few times he'd been seen after going up to the reactor. But he still had not expected this… this slaughter. Nor had he expected that Celes would be standing up to him.
Zangan had know that the Widow Strife was not an ordinary townswoman, her eyes were too sharp, her movements too well trained. More than once on his habitual patrols around the village late at night he had run into her doing the same thing, though she had not invited him into her home until after her son had left for Midgar.
"My son has had the burden of being different, of me being an outsider." She'd told him. "The others will talk, you being here. He didn't need the burden of perceived shame." Celes had been blunt, Zangan had found it almost refreshing. They spoke of many things, though she never said exactly how she'd come to possess such martial knowledge and eventually they shared a bed now and again. She'd been right, there was talk, but the small and petty remarks about a woman too long alone rolled off of Celes like water.
She was faced off against Sephiroth now, looking small and absurd in her plain dress - already rent and bloodstained - and Zangan assessed the battle before him quickly. Celes was fast and skilled, but she was smaller, her reach far less, older… she was alive now only because she was fighting an entirely defensive battle. She'd be dead in under five minutes unless she had aid. He took a step forward. The General's eyes flickered to him, his free hand lifted and materia blazed on Sephiroth's bracer. Zangan braced himself for whatever magic was about to strike.
Only to see the spell arc sideways into Celes, her sword glowing. A wash of green magic flickered over her, wiping away the wounds she already bore. "Zangan." Her voice was flat. "Don't distract me."
Don't squander the time I'm buying for you and the others.
He didn't like this. It went against his training, his ideals, his nature. But this… this was not his fight. He turned to drag as many people away as possible, leaving her behind.
-----------------------
Zack didn't know how things had gone so wrong. So stupidly wrong. This had all the earmarks of a good mission, time away from Midgar, a bit of a challenge, a chance to see Cloud's hometown… and now he was racing down from the mansion with Cloud on his heels towards rising black smoke and panicking people.
"Zack… what's going on?" Cloud panted as the younger boy ran hard to keep up with Zack. "Why… why is…"
"Save your breath, Cloud," Zack replied distractedly. "I don't know." Sephiroth had glared at him, called him a traitor, been rambling on about Ancients and his mother… Zack should have dragged him out of that whacked out library days ago.
"Hey! Hey you! Are you sane!" The shout came from a group of people fleeing the area, the martial artist that had set up shop here and been teaching Tifa broke off from them and approached Zack and Cloud cautiously.
"How can anyone be sane at a time like this?" Zack shot back, eyes flicking up towards the town. "Where's Sephiroth?"
"Back there, doing his best to kill everyone." Zangan gave Zack a penetrating look. "Mrs. Strife is holding him off, but she won't last long without help!"
Mrs. Strife? Zack blinked stupidly at the man for a moment. Cloud's mother? Cloud… who was standing right next to him… he heard Cloud's breath suck in sharply and the trooper was dashing towards the town square without a word. Zack cursed and shot off after him, leaving Zangan and the others behind. SOLDIER speed had him overtaking Cloud, a handful of leaps and he was suddenly there, looking at what had to be the most surreal sight in his short life. A woman near middle age - in a dress! - wielding an odd sword and facing off against Sephiroth.
How could anyone be sane at all? He leapt one last time, his Buster sword swinging free.
"Sephiroth!"
-----------------------
Cloud felt useless. Again. Weak. Worse than that terrible week when he'd tried for SOLDIER, only to have the test mako shot send him into a convulsive fit. He'd wanted to come back to Nibelheim a success, to show that he could be great. He'd come back a common trooper - no one's idea of successful - and had done his best to stay out of sight. He'd seen his mother watching him though, knew that look on her face. She'd known, but he just… he just couldn't face her calm acceptance of what was.
He'd never understood why she'd been willing to settle for so little… not when he'd snuck out late at night and seen her practice with her sword, the one he was never allowed to touch, the one that was gleaming red now as she faced off against Sephiroth. His mama. Zack had leapt into the fray, fighting alongside her giving her a chance to step back, raise a hand and cast spells. He hadn't even known that she'd owned materia, he couldn't even see where she was keeping it.
Materia.
Cloud cursed himself. Stupid, stupid, stupid! He may have only been a trooper, but he'd been issued a materia for his rifle. It was an Ice, with only the first spell unlocked, but that was fine, he'd never been too good with materia anyways. It was hard for him to cast, but he could. He could do something. He sighted down his barrel and concentrated hard on the materia, willing the spell to strike out against Sephiroth.
It arced into his mother instead. He nearly screamed in despair, couldn't he do anything right? Mama looked back quickly at him, she didn't seem hurt. "Cloud, keep that up. I need the energy." She went back to her battle, barely missing a beat.
His hands shook and Cloud spent a moment simply in disbelief… it hadn't been what he'd intended, but it had… helped. He shuddered and raised his rifle, concentrating on the small globe nestled in the stock, firing the spell, this time at his own mother. Cloud could almost feel it happen this time, the energy being pulled apart and absorbed. The third time he almost understood it. He never had an opportunity for a fourth spell.
"Enough," Sephiroth snarled and seemed to blur. Zack went flying, the SOLDIER slamming hard into a house, stone cracking under the force of his impact. His sword lashed out, clashing against his mother's twisting, catching, and her stance was broken. Sephiroth spun his long blade back, impossibly fast and mama was flying too, halfway to where Cloud was, blood everywhere. She landed hard, her sword falling from her hand, the red glow flickering away, exchanged with the horrible red spreading far too fast over her body. A very quiet and detached part of Cloud's mind knew that she'd been cut almost in half.
The rest of him was screaming in rage and horror. He ran to her, rifle falling away as he slid down next to her. This couldn't be happening, that wasn't his mama's eyes wide open and sightless.
"Why!" Someone was screaming, it might have been him. "Why! My family! My town!" Sephiroth was barely even looking at him, turning instead to finish off Zack where the SOLDIER was still lying stunned. Everything was burning, inside and out. Cloud reached out and grabbed his mama's sword. It flared in his hand… burning… burning…
The world went red.
-----------------------
Zack didn't like lingering out side of a town while Cloud went in to get supplies, but even three months after Nibelheim burned he was still wary. There'd been no official news, no bounty posters put up, nothing. Not that Zack thought Shin-ra would advertise that their Silver General had gone bastshit insane, that a SOLDIER 1st Class had gone AWOL along with some faceless trooper, but they didn't need to take chances. He knew that they were being looked for.
He just hoped that they had no idea of what had truly happened, Zack still was trying to piece it together. Cloud's mom… she'd done things he'd never even known was possible, things that were beginning to manifest in Cloud. It was almost like he was becoming a SOLDIER, only without the mako. Cloud's reflexes and strength were increasing, he'd probably be able to give a 3rd a good fight these days and that wasn't even factoring in that unsettling sword.
As near as Zack and Cloud had been able to determine, so long as Cloud held the weapon, he just… ate magic. Like his mother had. Two weeks ago, Cloud had spontaneously cast an Ice spell. Both of them were more than a little freaked by it, Zack was wondering if Cloud and his mother were those Ancients that Seph had raved about… Seph.
Zack had recovered enough from that hit to see Cloud run Sephiroth through and nearly get himself torn apart in exchange. The first Cure spell he'd cast on Cloud had been absorbed… fortunately he'd let go of the sword for the second to take effect, just in time. Zack had left Sephiroth lying where he'd fallen, left Cloud's mother, left it all. He'd grabbed Cloud, the sword and hid. By the speed that Shin-ra had arrived, Zack felt it'd been a damned good decision.
He looked up as spiky blond hair came into view. "Hey there, get everything?"
Cloud nodded, "Yeah. Still nothing in the papers."
"Probably won't be, kid. Ready to move?"
Cloud nodded silently and Zack gave him the best smile he could. He wasn't sure where they were going to end up yet, but he'd figure that out as they went.
-----------------------
He woke. The world was green. A familiar view, one he'd never been fond of. His eyes slowly tracked around seeing the familiar fixtures of the lab under Nibelheim. The second mako tank was also full, but the figure floating in the condensed Lifestream was unmoving. By that assortment of organs drifting alongside the body, it never would again. An efficient method of storing dissected pieces in stasis. Motion caught his eye, he turned to see a familiar face.
"Hmm, awake at last? Yes." hands fiddled with the controls outside his tank, he waited patiently as the mako drained away. "Not how I expected this to go… unforeseen contamination, months of delay." Spectacles glinted as the man turned to look at the figure in the second tube. "Fascinating specimen, pity."
The door hissed open and he stepped out, feeling the last of the mako sheet away. Mother stirred in his mind, her call began to rise again. There had been too much delay. His mind replayed the last moments. He had miscalculated there. He would not do so again.
"Where is Strife?" Sephiroth asked his father.
Hojo turned to look at him as if there was something faulty. "Right there of course," he gestured at the tank. "I see I'm going to have to run some tests."
So. The scientist did not know. He wouldn't be needed then. Idly, Sephiroth reached out and snapped Hojo's neck, his father fell to the floor with a startled look. The one other tech in the room made a squealing sound and fled. No matter, he'd deal with the vermin later.
Sephiroth stepped up to the dead woman floating in the tank, hands pressed lightly against the curved surface as he looked into the empty sockets that once held eyes. "Your son. We will find him, Mother and I."
And then they would kill him. No more mistakes.
-fin
(yep, that's all I got folks!)