The Fifth Act, Chapter 26
Title: The Fifth Act
Rating: T for violence.
Summary: FFVII Time-travel. Gen. Cloud has an accident with a Time Materia.
Author's Note: This chapter was a pain in the neck to get right during editing, but in the end, I've become a little fond of it. ^_^ Hopefully you like it too.
Previous Chapter
__________________
The Fifth Act
Chapter 26
__________________
Genesis had never liked the look of the ShinRa warehouse outside Banora. His hometown - tranquil, green, sleepy Banora - was supposed to be nothing but dumapples trees and stately wooden houses. The giant grey warehouse, tucked between the rolling hills, served as nothing more than a painful eyesore.
Now it had become sinister. This was the first time he’d returned ‘home’ since contracting and then being cured of degradation, and the sight left a surprisingly bad taste in his mouth.
They skirted the edges of town, observing Angeal’s house from a distance. Having made no progress in a week of searching for Strife, they’d been forced to turn their attention to their other wayward colleague instead. They’d seen no sign of their friend in Banora yet, and Genesis was ready to call it a day and return to Midgar, but Sephiroth insisted on being thorough.
“Angeal will be fine,” Genesis hissed. “He’s put in for leave. It’s Cloud we have to be worried about. Two weeks are already up - he’ll be officially listed as a deserter!”
“But we don’t even know where to begin with Cloud. We do know where to start with Angeal,” Sephiroth countered. “And Lazard hasn’t sent out a notice yet.”
Grumbling, Genesis followed in the General’s wake as they circuited the modest dwelling. “We’re still wasting our time. He obviously isn’t here.” At least, the red-haired Commander hoped he wasn’t. He certainly wanted to find his friend again and haul him back to ShinRa where he could keep an eye on him, but none of the scenarios in which Angeal might be prompted to visit Banora were good ones.
Not that Sephiroth knew that. “We don’t know for sure. We should ask around town. Speak to people directly instead of relying simply on observation.”
“You can.” Genesis crossed his arms. “I’ll be fine right where I am, thank you very much.”
“Don’t be childish. Don’t you want to find Angeal?” Sephiroth scolded.
“Of course I do.”
“Then why are you being difficult?”
Genesis fidgeted and scowled.
“This is your hometown, isn’t it?” A trace of wistfulness laced the General’s tone.
Right, Sephiroth didn’t remember his childhood. Perhaps a mercy, knowing what he did now. His friend would be spared the pain of the knowledge that he was nothing more than an experiment - that they all were. Genesis didn’t think he would be able to maintain his composure if he were to walk through this town now, if he were to meet his so-called 'parents' who'd sired him for no reason other than to create a super-soldier, whose selfish experimentation before his birth had so very nearly condemned him to an early death.
They had played with his life, long before he possessed any sort of awareness or means to defend himself. That he had been ignorant of it until recently did not make their sins any lighter. In Midgar, he could safely ignore it, and pretend it didn’t happen. Here, it was more difficult to contain the resentment.
How must Angeal feel in this situation? He held such pride in his family, in that sword that had been passed down through the generations. The betrayal would be so much sharper.
So to Sephiroth, all he said was, “It’s my hometown, but that doesn’t mean I’m fond of it.”
"You don't even want to see your family?"
Genesis took a deep breath, and managed what he felt to be an extraordinarily calm, "No. I do not."
Sephiroth gave him a puzzled glance - no doubt recalling the many childhood anecdotes he and Angeal had shared over the years. Strange how a little context could colour those happy memories black. Where once they brought comfort and nostalgia, the mere thought of them now left Genesis feeling oddly discomfited. How did they not see it, even as children? Why hadn’t they thought anything amiss with the doctor’s visits or special tutoring? None of the other children went through it. It was the whole reason why he and Angeal had become friends!
The silence between them stretched, and then Sephiroth nodded, apparently coming to some sort of - probably inaccurate - conclusion. “Very well. You keep watch here in case, and I’ll go asking around town.”
“Fine,” Genesis grumbled. He supposed he could handle hiding in the bushes, if it meant he didn’t have to walk through the streets and greet people like nothing had changed. Just because he’d escaped death, didn’t mean Angeal would. If his friend died because of this whole fiasco, Banora would burn.
He pulled out his leather-bound copy of Loveless to pass the time as Sephiroth played detective, keeping an ear out for any sign of movement from Angeal’s old home. The beautiful words and familiar story went a long way in soothing his agitation. He didn’t tire of the poem.
“My Soul corrupted by vengeance,
Hath endured torment,
To find the end of the journey in my own salvation.
And Your eternal slumber,” he murmured, tracing over the words in his mind, again and again and again.
There were so many interpretations to be explored. So many endings to contemplate.
Genesis had wanted the tragic ending. Cloud wanted the perfect ending. Sephiroth wouldn’t share his answer.
Which ending did Angeal want, now that he knew the truth?
A sharp knock on the door of the house jolted Genesis from his reflection. Sephiroth had almost finished the rounds, apparently, if he’d finally reached the Hewleys’ place. After a moment, the door opened, and the General spoke for a moment before disappearing inside. Angeal’s mother Gillian, by the looks of it. Partly his mother too, apparently. He felt uncomfortable at the knowledge. He’d been fond of Mrs Hewley as a child. She’d always offered such wonderful baked treats, and was full of kind and gentle words, and never scolded them when he and Angeal tracked mud inside the house. Yet she’d been instrumental in the whole miserable affair.
He didn’t hate Banora completely, but knowing what Angeal was going through… it was confusing, and he avoided contemplating it too deeply.
Bored now, and anxious to occupy his attention with anything other than his conflicting feelings towards his hometown, Genesis kept a lazy eye on the house for any sign of movement. No raised voices, so Angeal wasn’t hiding inside.
None of this would be necessary if either Cloud or Angeal would just answer their PHSes. Even worse, there was the question of why they didn’t answer - whether it was because they didn’t want to talk to them, or if it was because they couldn’t.
Genesis couldn’t decide which reason he preferred.
He plucked a blade of grass from the ground and shredded it with his fingers. Then frowned at the mess on his gloves, and brushed it off.
He stared at the dumapple hanging over his head. Probably another two weeks before it would be ready for picking. The skin was still a sickly shade of white.
He checked his hair in the reflection of his rapier, and freed a stray leaf from the auburn strands.
Finally there was movement. Genesis snapped to attention as Sephiroth left the dwelling, and made a quick series of hand gestures that could be misconstrued as the SOLDIER fiddling with his sword harness. Message received, the Commander backed away and circled around to the east. They were going to meet back by the truck.
The General, not needing to be subversive, made it there first. Genesis wrinkled his nose as he left the cover of the trees to join him. “You smell like dumapple pie,” he groused.
“If you wanted a piece, you should have come inside. Angeal’s… mother-” The word hung awkwardly on Sephiroth’s lips. “-asked after you.”
“No need. I was having a fabulous time crouching in the bushes. You could have lingered for seconds,” he snapped.
Sephiroth, annoyingly, either didn’t register his sarcasm, or chose to ignore it. “I found out something of interest. Angeal has been seen in town, though not for the past couple of days. His mother said he’s been spending most of his time over at the warehouse.”
That ugly ShinRa warehouse. Knowing what he knew now…
Labs. So he’d been right. Angeal was here because of degradation.
Sephiroth paused and looked back - Genesis had failed to notice him walking in that direction. “Aren’t you coming?”
“After you,” he retorted with a mock bow, hopefully covering up his moment of hesitation.
It was a short walk to the warehouse from the edges of town - at a run, it would only take a minute, and at their cautious gait, took only five. Soon they stood before a featureless grey block, fenced in with barbed wire.
“The gate must be on the far side,” Sephiroth surmised.
“Are you suggesting we go through the front door? I thought you were a SOLDIER,” Genesis mocked, and before the General could reply, drew his rapier and sliced through the wire in one sharp sweep.
“Admit it - you’re just too lazy to walk around,” the General chided, but pushed back the fencing and followed Genesis inside anyhow.
Somehow, the grass within the borders of the fence looked duller, even though it should have received just as much sunlight and water as the rest of Banora’s fields. The large bunker doors stood ajar, a dark mouth to the interior. Yet nobody stood guard.
Eerie. "Something isn't right."
Sephiroth drew Masamune. "I agree. We should proceed with caution."
They crept towards the entrance now, but within a few steps of the building, halted. "Urgh." Genesis held a hand over his nose, but could not entirely block out the overwhelming stench.
Sephiroth continued forward, surveying the dark warehouse with a critical eye. "There was a battle here."
Hurrying to catch up, Genesis joined him at the entrance, mentally cataloguing the sight before him.
Cement, spiderwebbed with cracks. Twisted metal cages, the bars curling towards the ceiling like grey, broken fingers. The still silhouette of an enormous, hulking war machine, crouched awkwardly on a damaged leg. No doubt the cause of the rest of the carnage.
And what a sight it was. Endless cages, sometimes stacked two or three times high. White feathers and tufts of grey fur littered the ground. Black pools of dried blood formed puddles around the cages - some still containing the corpses of monsters.
He’d wager all of them were dead - shot, almost certainly. Some of the bodies had dissipated into the lifestream, but other lingered unnaturally, almost as though they’d been rejected by the Planet.
“Specimens,” Sephiroth noted. “I wonder why they were slaughtered.”
A very good question. But after discovering first-hand how ShinRa’s Science Department treated human life, not so surprising. “It doesn’t matter. We should find Angeal.”
Sephiroth didn’t let it go. “Were they dangerous? Or perhaps there was a virus,” he speculated.
“If it were a virus, they wouldn’t have left this mess here with the door open.” Genesis breezed past, impatient to leave behind the unpleasant odours and grotesque sight.
“If Angeal has been coming here…” the General continued as he followed along, but Genesis paid him no mind as they left the warehouse and entered a maze of corridors.
“Haven’t you noticed?” he snapped. “There’s nothing alive here.” The entire place reeked of death, and their voices bounced eerily down the deserted hallways. He slammed open a door. An empty office, filled with dusty filing cabinets. Continuing on, he swung open another door. This room was cleaner - a cot made up with blankets, and a worn leather bag sitting on the end of the bed. It looked familiar. Hollander’s. So he was here after all.
“What happened?” Sephiroth mused, still stuck on the mystery as though he hadn’t heard his friend’s replies at all. “Was it-”
Genesis froze when the door to the next room crashed open. “Sephiroth! Look at this.”
Against the wall rested a familiar sword.
Sephiroth reached his side in moments, and frowned. “That’s Cloud’s sword.”
“And his materia,” Genesis breathed, running up to the precious stockpile on the floor. Next to it sat a sleek black PHS. When he flipped it open, the low battery warning flashed at him. “His PHS, too.”
This meant…
Damn him to hell, this meant that Sephiroth’s theory about Angeal and Cloud’s disappearances being linked turned out to be correct after all.
“Cloud would never leave his sword behind willingly.” Sephiroth’s tone was grave.
No. And that the materia on the ground outnumbered the available slots on his sword meant somebody had gone through his pockets, too.
Genesis was beginning to get a bad feeling. “Cloud hates labs.”
“Yes,” Sephiroth murmured in agreement. “…We should keep looking. He might still be here.”
Yet door after door turned up no sign of the blond. The end of one hallway opened into a sight that made Genesis’s gut clench, however. A white room, clearly ransacked. It wasn’t the overturned trolley or gutted computer that caught his notice, though - it was the sight of a cold, steel table with strips of leather dangling from the sides like useless tassels.
Sephiroth picked up one of them somewhat gingerly. “These were ripped. Only a SOLDIER…”
Minerva, he hoped it had been Angeal and not Cloud. The blond might be strong, but he still wouldn’t be able to rip through those thick leather restraints without significant motivation.
Logic said otherwise, of course. Angeal had been seen coming and going from the warehouse. One would think he wouldn’t be doing that right after ripping out of restraints.
A distant clatter caught his attention, and Genesis jerked, ears straining. “Did you hear that?”
Sephiroth dropped the torn restraint. “It came from the end room.”
They dashed out. A lonely lightbulb swung in the air, pushed by a faint breeze.
Feet pounding down the hallway, they continued on to the source of the noise. Sephiroth drew Masamune and kicked open the door… then came to an abrupt stop.
Running at almost full-speed, it took all of Genesis’s enhanced reflexes to brake in time. “Don’t just stop in the middle of-” The words died on his lips.
Hollander, sitting by the window on a chair, arms dangling by his side. His bushy hair quivered, stirred by the faint breeze from the shattered window. His head was slumped, thick glasses almost sliding off his nose.
His lab coat, stained red by blood.
Two perfectly round holes pierced his torso. It didn’t take a Turk to figure out what happened. Bullets, fired at close range. The scent of gunpowder lingered faintly in the air, almost buried under the cloying metallic smell of half-dried blood.
Genesis could scarcely believe it. Hollander. He held no love for the man - the portly scientist being no doubt the source of his and Angeal’s suffering - but he’d still known him his whole life. The notion that he was now gone, forever…
Sephiroth removed a glove and stepped closer, pressing two fingers against the man’s neck. “Dead,” he confirmed.
“How long?” he wondered. Strife’s sword. The broken restraints. Angeal seen going to and from the warehouse. Hollander, shot dead in his own laboratory. It didn’t paint a promising picture.
“It can't have been more than a day, or his body would have returned to the Lifestream," Sephiroth pointed out.
“Perhaps whoever…” Genesis trailed off, hairs on the back of his neck rising. Someone was watching them.
A whoosh of air blasted their backs. They whirled as one, swords drawn, but the doorway they’d entered through remained empty.
“Just a breeze?” Sephiroth speculated.
A lone, white feather drifted into Genesis’s line of sight. He snatched it from the air. Feathers, here?
He glanced up, and everything he thought he knew tilted upside-down.
"Angeal!"
There, high in the rafters, perched his oldest friend.
Sephiroth followed his line of sight. “…Angeal?”
And from his back sprouted by a massive white wing, as long as he was tall.
“So you found me.” He had the gall to sound somewhere between amused and resigned.
“That’s all your have to say for yourself?” Genesis snapped. “You vanish without a word, Cloud goes missing, you don’t answer your PHS, and now you’ve… you’re…” He gesticulated wildly. He couldn’t say it. Was too horrified by the sight.
Hollander never told him degradation could result in that. Gaia, what were they now? Did this make them monsters?
Sephiroth, perturbed, but too professional to voice it, gestured towards Hollander’s prone body with Masamune. "Did you do this, then?"
“What if I did?”
An uncharacteristically cagey response from their old friend. Sephiroth took it in stride. “It’s not exactly honourable behaviour.”
“Honour, huh?” He somehow managed to look pensive, crossing his arms as he dangled above their heads on a support beam, wing fluttering lightly for balance. “I find myself wondering where the honour in this world has gone. These days, I see nothing but monsters.”
Genesis couldn’t be deceived - Angeal had never been a good liar. “Don’t play us for fools. Who really killed him? You wouldn’t use a gun to do it.” Wouldn’t do it at all. Angeal had motive to keep Hollander alive - motive much, much stronger than revenge for his current state.
“Does it matter? He’s of no use to anyone, now.”
“What’s going on, Angeal?” Sephiroth asked. “What’s happened to you? And where’s Cloud?”
A tense silence stretched between them, before Angeal sighed, and admitted, “Honestly, I don’t know. He could be anywhere by now. When I woke up, he was already gone.”
“So you were the cause of Cloud’s disappearance then,” the General deduced.
“I didn’t want to, but there was no choice. Because of the degradation… I was desperate. Stupid. Wasn't thinking right.” He shook his head. “I don’t get it, Genesis. How did you get better?” His wing stretched to its full span, and several more feathers floated to the floor. “Did you get one of these too, in Wutai?”
Sephiroth turned to stare at him, but Genesis ignored him, gazed fixed solely on his oldest friend. “It never got that far,” he murmured.
“I see. And you never saw fit to tell us.”
“It wasn’t your business then!” he snapped.
“Not our business? Not our business that you were dying?” Angeal accused.
“Dying?” Sephiroth echoed, looking alarmed.
His fists clenched, leather creaking over his knuckles. “It was private.”
“Then you understand why I went on leave, then.”
Put like that, he did understand, but didn’t want to admit it. Not when he’d spent two weeks cursing his PHS and came back to this wretched little town to find his friend only to discover this. “But that fails to explain Cloud. What happened to him?”
“I said I don’t know,” Angeal countered calmly - too calmly, for someone with a wing coming out of his back. Always the levelheaded one. He addressed Sephiroth then, “Hopefully he got out okay. If what Hollander said is true, you’re the best bet for finding him. Although I guess there’s a range issue…” He trailed off, sending the General a contemplative glance, then shook his head. “I have trouble believing it, honestly. He doesn’t look anything like you.”
“What do you mean?” Genesis couldn’t even take delight in Sephiroth being confused, because he fared no better.
Angeal just shook his head once more. “Sorry. I promised him I wouldn’t tell.” He looked terribly old all of a sudden. “After everything- I can at least do that much for him… We had him all wrong. I never should have-” He cut himself off, and instead continued, “You should find him. Lazard won’t list him as a deserter. Hollander made sure of it.”
At least they had that much. “And what about you?”
Angeal gave him a weary smile, stood up on the support beam, and abruptly took off through the broken skylight.
“Angeal! Wait!” Genesis rushed to the shattered window behind Hollander, heedless of the broken glass. He couldn’t leave yet! "You need to know! For degradation, there's a c-"
His voice caught in his throat at the sight of his friend with one large, white wing extended. Rising into the sky.
Leaving them.
Three friends go into battle. One is captured, one flies away...
Glass tinkled behind him. "Genesis." Sephiroth looked grim. "What is all this about 'degradation'?"
Next chapter
Rating: T for violence.
Summary: FFVII Time-travel. Gen. Cloud has an accident with a Time Materia.
Author's Note: This chapter was a pain in the neck to get right during editing, but in the end, I've become a little fond of it. ^_^ Hopefully you like it too.
Previous Chapter
__________________
The Fifth Act
Chapter 26
__________________
Genesis had never liked the look of the ShinRa warehouse outside Banora. His hometown - tranquil, green, sleepy Banora - was supposed to be nothing but dumapples trees and stately wooden houses. The giant grey warehouse, tucked between the rolling hills, served as nothing more than a painful eyesore.
Now it had become sinister. This was the first time he’d returned ‘home’ since contracting and then being cured of degradation, and the sight left a surprisingly bad taste in his mouth.
They skirted the edges of town, observing Angeal’s house from a distance. Having made no progress in a week of searching for Strife, they’d been forced to turn their attention to their other wayward colleague instead. They’d seen no sign of their friend in Banora yet, and Genesis was ready to call it a day and return to Midgar, but Sephiroth insisted on being thorough.
“Angeal will be fine,” Genesis hissed. “He’s put in for leave. It’s Cloud we have to be worried about. Two weeks are already up - he’ll be officially listed as a deserter!”
“But we don’t even know where to begin with Cloud. We do know where to start with Angeal,” Sephiroth countered. “And Lazard hasn’t sent out a notice yet.”
Grumbling, Genesis followed in the General’s wake as they circuited the modest dwelling. “We’re still wasting our time. He obviously isn’t here.” At least, the red-haired Commander hoped he wasn’t. He certainly wanted to find his friend again and haul him back to ShinRa where he could keep an eye on him, but none of the scenarios in which Angeal might be prompted to visit Banora were good ones.
Not that Sephiroth knew that. “We don’t know for sure. We should ask around town. Speak to people directly instead of relying simply on observation.”
“You can.” Genesis crossed his arms. “I’ll be fine right where I am, thank you very much.”
“Don’t be childish. Don’t you want to find Angeal?” Sephiroth scolded.
“Of course I do.”
“Then why are you being difficult?”
Genesis fidgeted and scowled.
“This is your hometown, isn’t it?” A trace of wistfulness laced the General’s tone.
Right, Sephiroth didn’t remember his childhood. Perhaps a mercy, knowing what he did now. His friend would be spared the pain of the knowledge that he was nothing more than an experiment - that they all were. Genesis didn’t think he would be able to maintain his composure if he were to walk through this town now, if he were to meet his so-called 'parents' who'd sired him for no reason other than to create a super-soldier, whose selfish experimentation before his birth had so very nearly condemned him to an early death.
They had played with his life, long before he possessed any sort of awareness or means to defend himself. That he had been ignorant of it until recently did not make their sins any lighter. In Midgar, he could safely ignore it, and pretend it didn’t happen. Here, it was more difficult to contain the resentment.
How must Angeal feel in this situation? He held such pride in his family, in that sword that had been passed down through the generations. The betrayal would be so much sharper.
So to Sephiroth, all he said was, “It’s my hometown, but that doesn’t mean I’m fond of it.”
"You don't even want to see your family?"
Genesis took a deep breath, and managed what he felt to be an extraordinarily calm, "No. I do not."
Sephiroth gave him a puzzled glance - no doubt recalling the many childhood anecdotes he and Angeal had shared over the years. Strange how a little context could colour those happy memories black. Where once they brought comfort and nostalgia, the mere thought of them now left Genesis feeling oddly discomfited. How did they not see it, even as children? Why hadn’t they thought anything amiss with the doctor’s visits or special tutoring? None of the other children went through it. It was the whole reason why he and Angeal had become friends!
The silence between them stretched, and then Sephiroth nodded, apparently coming to some sort of - probably inaccurate - conclusion. “Very well. You keep watch here in case, and I’ll go asking around town.”
“Fine,” Genesis grumbled. He supposed he could handle hiding in the bushes, if it meant he didn’t have to walk through the streets and greet people like nothing had changed. Just because he’d escaped death, didn’t mean Angeal would. If his friend died because of this whole fiasco, Banora would burn.
He pulled out his leather-bound copy of Loveless to pass the time as Sephiroth played detective, keeping an ear out for any sign of movement from Angeal’s old home. The beautiful words and familiar story went a long way in soothing his agitation. He didn’t tire of the poem.
“My Soul corrupted by vengeance,
Hath endured torment,
To find the end of the journey in my own salvation.
And Your eternal slumber,” he murmured, tracing over the words in his mind, again and again and again.
There were so many interpretations to be explored. So many endings to contemplate.
Genesis had wanted the tragic ending. Cloud wanted the perfect ending. Sephiroth wouldn’t share his answer.
Which ending did Angeal want, now that he knew the truth?
A sharp knock on the door of the house jolted Genesis from his reflection. Sephiroth had almost finished the rounds, apparently, if he’d finally reached the Hewleys’ place. After a moment, the door opened, and the General spoke for a moment before disappearing inside. Angeal’s mother Gillian, by the looks of it. Partly his mother too, apparently. He felt uncomfortable at the knowledge. He’d been fond of Mrs Hewley as a child. She’d always offered such wonderful baked treats, and was full of kind and gentle words, and never scolded them when he and Angeal tracked mud inside the house. Yet she’d been instrumental in the whole miserable affair.
He didn’t hate Banora completely, but knowing what Angeal was going through… it was confusing, and he avoided contemplating it too deeply.
Bored now, and anxious to occupy his attention with anything other than his conflicting feelings towards his hometown, Genesis kept a lazy eye on the house for any sign of movement. No raised voices, so Angeal wasn’t hiding inside.
None of this would be necessary if either Cloud or Angeal would just answer their PHSes. Even worse, there was the question of why they didn’t answer - whether it was because they didn’t want to talk to them, or if it was because they couldn’t.
Genesis couldn’t decide which reason he preferred.
He plucked a blade of grass from the ground and shredded it with his fingers. Then frowned at the mess on his gloves, and brushed it off.
He stared at the dumapple hanging over his head. Probably another two weeks before it would be ready for picking. The skin was still a sickly shade of white.
He checked his hair in the reflection of his rapier, and freed a stray leaf from the auburn strands.
Finally there was movement. Genesis snapped to attention as Sephiroth left the dwelling, and made a quick series of hand gestures that could be misconstrued as the SOLDIER fiddling with his sword harness. Message received, the Commander backed away and circled around to the east. They were going to meet back by the truck.
The General, not needing to be subversive, made it there first. Genesis wrinkled his nose as he left the cover of the trees to join him. “You smell like dumapple pie,” he groused.
“If you wanted a piece, you should have come inside. Angeal’s… mother-” The word hung awkwardly on Sephiroth’s lips. “-asked after you.”
“No need. I was having a fabulous time crouching in the bushes. You could have lingered for seconds,” he snapped.
Sephiroth, annoyingly, either didn’t register his sarcasm, or chose to ignore it. “I found out something of interest. Angeal has been seen in town, though not for the past couple of days. His mother said he’s been spending most of his time over at the warehouse.”
That ugly ShinRa warehouse. Knowing what he knew now…
Labs. So he’d been right. Angeal was here because of degradation.
Sephiroth paused and looked back - Genesis had failed to notice him walking in that direction. “Aren’t you coming?”
“After you,” he retorted with a mock bow, hopefully covering up his moment of hesitation.
It was a short walk to the warehouse from the edges of town - at a run, it would only take a minute, and at their cautious gait, took only five. Soon they stood before a featureless grey block, fenced in with barbed wire.
“The gate must be on the far side,” Sephiroth surmised.
“Are you suggesting we go through the front door? I thought you were a SOLDIER,” Genesis mocked, and before the General could reply, drew his rapier and sliced through the wire in one sharp sweep.
“Admit it - you’re just too lazy to walk around,” the General chided, but pushed back the fencing and followed Genesis inside anyhow.
Somehow, the grass within the borders of the fence looked duller, even though it should have received just as much sunlight and water as the rest of Banora’s fields. The large bunker doors stood ajar, a dark mouth to the interior. Yet nobody stood guard.
Eerie. "Something isn't right."
Sephiroth drew Masamune. "I agree. We should proceed with caution."
They crept towards the entrance now, but within a few steps of the building, halted. "Urgh." Genesis held a hand over his nose, but could not entirely block out the overwhelming stench.
Sephiroth continued forward, surveying the dark warehouse with a critical eye. "There was a battle here."
Hurrying to catch up, Genesis joined him at the entrance, mentally cataloguing the sight before him.
Cement, spiderwebbed with cracks. Twisted metal cages, the bars curling towards the ceiling like grey, broken fingers. The still silhouette of an enormous, hulking war machine, crouched awkwardly on a damaged leg. No doubt the cause of the rest of the carnage.
And what a sight it was. Endless cages, sometimes stacked two or three times high. White feathers and tufts of grey fur littered the ground. Black pools of dried blood formed puddles around the cages - some still containing the corpses of monsters.
He’d wager all of them were dead - shot, almost certainly. Some of the bodies had dissipated into the lifestream, but other lingered unnaturally, almost as though they’d been rejected by the Planet.
“Specimens,” Sephiroth noted. “I wonder why they were slaughtered.”
A very good question. But after discovering first-hand how ShinRa’s Science Department treated human life, not so surprising. “It doesn’t matter. We should find Angeal.”
Sephiroth didn’t let it go. “Were they dangerous? Or perhaps there was a virus,” he speculated.
“If it were a virus, they wouldn’t have left this mess here with the door open.” Genesis breezed past, impatient to leave behind the unpleasant odours and grotesque sight.
“If Angeal has been coming here…” the General continued as he followed along, but Genesis paid him no mind as they left the warehouse and entered a maze of corridors.
“Haven’t you noticed?” he snapped. “There’s nothing alive here.” The entire place reeked of death, and their voices bounced eerily down the deserted hallways. He slammed open a door. An empty office, filled with dusty filing cabinets. Continuing on, he swung open another door. This room was cleaner - a cot made up with blankets, and a worn leather bag sitting on the end of the bed. It looked familiar. Hollander’s. So he was here after all.
“What happened?” Sephiroth mused, still stuck on the mystery as though he hadn’t heard his friend’s replies at all. “Was it-”
Genesis froze when the door to the next room crashed open. “Sephiroth! Look at this.”
Against the wall rested a familiar sword.
Sephiroth reached his side in moments, and frowned. “That’s Cloud’s sword.”
“And his materia,” Genesis breathed, running up to the precious stockpile on the floor. Next to it sat a sleek black PHS. When he flipped it open, the low battery warning flashed at him. “His PHS, too.”
This meant…
Damn him to hell, this meant that Sephiroth’s theory about Angeal and Cloud’s disappearances being linked turned out to be correct after all.
“Cloud would never leave his sword behind willingly.” Sephiroth’s tone was grave.
No. And that the materia on the ground outnumbered the available slots on his sword meant somebody had gone through his pockets, too.
Genesis was beginning to get a bad feeling. “Cloud hates labs.”
“Yes,” Sephiroth murmured in agreement. “…We should keep looking. He might still be here.”
Yet door after door turned up no sign of the blond. The end of one hallway opened into a sight that made Genesis’s gut clench, however. A white room, clearly ransacked. It wasn’t the overturned trolley or gutted computer that caught his notice, though - it was the sight of a cold, steel table with strips of leather dangling from the sides like useless tassels.
Sephiroth picked up one of them somewhat gingerly. “These were ripped. Only a SOLDIER…”
Minerva, he hoped it had been Angeal and not Cloud. The blond might be strong, but he still wouldn’t be able to rip through those thick leather restraints without significant motivation.
Logic said otherwise, of course. Angeal had been seen coming and going from the warehouse. One would think he wouldn’t be doing that right after ripping out of restraints.
A distant clatter caught his attention, and Genesis jerked, ears straining. “Did you hear that?”
Sephiroth dropped the torn restraint. “It came from the end room.”
They dashed out. A lonely lightbulb swung in the air, pushed by a faint breeze.
Feet pounding down the hallway, they continued on to the source of the noise. Sephiroth drew Masamune and kicked open the door… then came to an abrupt stop.
Running at almost full-speed, it took all of Genesis’s enhanced reflexes to brake in time. “Don’t just stop in the middle of-” The words died on his lips.
Hollander, sitting by the window on a chair, arms dangling by his side. His bushy hair quivered, stirred by the faint breeze from the shattered window. His head was slumped, thick glasses almost sliding off his nose.
His lab coat, stained red by blood.
Two perfectly round holes pierced his torso. It didn’t take a Turk to figure out what happened. Bullets, fired at close range. The scent of gunpowder lingered faintly in the air, almost buried under the cloying metallic smell of half-dried blood.
Genesis could scarcely believe it. Hollander. He held no love for the man - the portly scientist being no doubt the source of his and Angeal’s suffering - but he’d still known him his whole life. The notion that he was now gone, forever…
Sephiroth removed a glove and stepped closer, pressing two fingers against the man’s neck. “Dead,” he confirmed.
“How long?” he wondered. Strife’s sword. The broken restraints. Angeal seen going to and from the warehouse. Hollander, shot dead in his own laboratory. It didn’t paint a promising picture.
“It can't have been more than a day, or his body would have returned to the Lifestream," Sephiroth pointed out.
“Perhaps whoever…” Genesis trailed off, hairs on the back of his neck rising. Someone was watching them.
A whoosh of air blasted their backs. They whirled as one, swords drawn, but the doorway they’d entered through remained empty.
“Just a breeze?” Sephiroth speculated.
A lone, white feather drifted into Genesis’s line of sight. He snatched it from the air. Feathers, here?
He glanced up, and everything he thought he knew tilted upside-down.
"Angeal!"
There, high in the rafters, perched his oldest friend.
Sephiroth followed his line of sight. “…Angeal?”
And from his back sprouted by a massive white wing, as long as he was tall.
“So you found me.” He had the gall to sound somewhere between amused and resigned.
“That’s all your have to say for yourself?” Genesis snapped. “You vanish without a word, Cloud goes missing, you don’t answer your PHS, and now you’ve… you’re…” He gesticulated wildly. He couldn’t say it. Was too horrified by the sight.
Hollander never told him degradation could result in that. Gaia, what were they now? Did this make them monsters?
Sephiroth, perturbed, but too professional to voice it, gestured towards Hollander’s prone body with Masamune. "Did you do this, then?"
“What if I did?”
An uncharacteristically cagey response from their old friend. Sephiroth took it in stride. “It’s not exactly honourable behaviour.”
“Honour, huh?” He somehow managed to look pensive, crossing his arms as he dangled above their heads on a support beam, wing fluttering lightly for balance. “I find myself wondering where the honour in this world has gone. These days, I see nothing but monsters.”
Genesis couldn’t be deceived - Angeal had never been a good liar. “Don’t play us for fools. Who really killed him? You wouldn’t use a gun to do it.” Wouldn’t do it at all. Angeal had motive to keep Hollander alive - motive much, much stronger than revenge for his current state.
“Does it matter? He’s of no use to anyone, now.”
“What’s going on, Angeal?” Sephiroth asked. “What’s happened to you? And where’s Cloud?”
A tense silence stretched between them, before Angeal sighed, and admitted, “Honestly, I don’t know. He could be anywhere by now. When I woke up, he was already gone.”
“So you were the cause of Cloud’s disappearance then,” the General deduced.
“I didn’t want to, but there was no choice. Because of the degradation… I was desperate. Stupid. Wasn't thinking right.” He shook his head. “I don’t get it, Genesis. How did you get better?” His wing stretched to its full span, and several more feathers floated to the floor. “Did you get one of these too, in Wutai?”
Sephiroth turned to stare at him, but Genesis ignored him, gazed fixed solely on his oldest friend. “It never got that far,” he murmured.
“I see. And you never saw fit to tell us.”
“It wasn’t your business then!” he snapped.
“Not our business? Not our business that you were dying?” Angeal accused.
“Dying?” Sephiroth echoed, looking alarmed.
His fists clenched, leather creaking over his knuckles. “It was private.”
“Then you understand why I went on leave, then.”
Put like that, he did understand, but didn’t want to admit it. Not when he’d spent two weeks cursing his PHS and came back to this wretched little town to find his friend only to discover this. “But that fails to explain Cloud. What happened to him?”
“I said I don’t know,” Angeal countered calmly - too calmly, for someone with a wing coming out of his back. Always the levelheaded one. He addressed Sephiroth then, “Hopefully he got out okay. If what Hollander said is true, you’re the best bet for finding him. Although I guess there’s a range issue…” He trailed off, sending the General a contemplative glance, then shook his head. “I have trouble believing it, honestly. He doesn’t look anything like you.”
“What do you mean?” Genesis couldn’t even take delight in Sephiroth being confused, because he fared no better.
Angeal just shook his head once more. “Sorry. I promised him I wouldn’t tell.” He looked terribly old all of a sudden. “After everything- I can at least do that much for him… We had him all wrong. I never should have-” He cut himself off, and instead continued, “You should find him. Lazard won’t list him as a deserter. Hollander made sure of it.”
At least they had that much. “And what about you?”
Angeal gave him a weary smile, stood up on the support beam, and abruptly took off through the broken skylight.
“Angeal! Wait!” Genesis rushed to the shattered window behind Hollander, heedless of the broken glass. He couldn’t leave yet! "You need to know! For degradation, there's a c-"
His voice caught in his throat at the sight of his friend with one large, white wing extended. Rising into the sky.
Leaving them.
Three friends go into battle. One is captured, one flies away...
Glass tinkled behind him. "Genesis." Sephiroth looked grim. "What is all this about 'degradation'?"
Next chapter