“Transcending Reality” by: Emerald
Eyes
Disclaimer: I actually owned Final Fantasy at one point but
Rufus Shinra held me at gunpoint and made me sell it to him so he could make
lots and lots of money, so don’t sue me! Sue him!(sorry,
Rufie!) O_o
“Soon the night will take me and
save me from my pain. Cloak me in cold darkness and help me lose your name…”
–Stabbing Westward (and since the quote reminds me so much of Vinny, I decided to take this next chapter back to the
It was cold, it was dark, and it was almost dawn.
The only light in the room was the miniscule flame emanating
from a small candle, shedding its pale golden light among the myriad of books
scattered carelessly on top of the old wooden desk.
Alone in this unperturbed darkness of the mansion’s basement
was Vincent Valentine. His crimson eyes assiduously scanned the pages of the
book before him. He was searching. He didn’t know exactly what he was looking
for, but he would know what it was when he found it. Day after day, night after
night, he would keep on searching. He needed to know what Hojo did to him… what
he did to her. Lucrecia was the reason he kept
himself locked up in the basement.
He mechanically leafed through the aged paper, trying to make
sense of Hojo’s illegible handwriting. Skimming past various entries dated over
thirty years ago, and stumbling upon more recent ones, he came across names.
Some of whom he recognized, some who he did not. But none of them were the name
he wanted.
Setting the volume aside, he stood up from the old rusty
chair to look at the vast collection of books on the metal shelves before him.
He randomly picked out an old tome, noticing the thick layer of dust
accumulated on top. A row of letters could barely be seen underneath all the
grime.
Curious, Vincent imprudently blew the filth off the book. He
tried to stifle a cough as dirty clouds of dust filled the room. Not wanting to
repeat the mistake, he wiped the rest off with his hand.
As his palm left the book he took in the cryptic title with
interest. THE ETHEREAL PROJECT, the words spelled out in bold capital
letters.
Sitting back down in the chair he opened the book and began
to skim the pages. Unlike the other journals he had read, this one piqued his
interest. Yes, it wasn’t too unlike the other ones, with its half-illegible
sentences scribbled in haste. But it wasn’t the words that made him so inquisitive, it was the meaning of what they said.
He thoroughly read the scribbles, losing all meaning of time
and his original quest. <What’s written in this book can’t possibly be
accomplished, can it?> He thought skeptically, <What Hojo’s
written suggests that he’s found a way to travel through time or to another
dimension…>
^_^_^_^
“All right,” Alex said as he stepped up to the door of the
His two companions, one native to the planet and one not,
watched passively as he picked the lock on the front door.
A click was heard, signifying that he had succeeded. He
pulled a flashlight out of his jacket pocket and turned it on, illuminating the
waning darkness. He pushed open the door and disappeared into the interior of
the old house, Rufus Shinra and Seifer Almasy following close behind.
^_^_^_^
<There it is again!> She thought, <it
sounds like footsteps.>
It was not the first sound that Fujin
had heard all night. She tried convincing herself that it was all just her
imagination, but this time it definitely was NOT.
Lying completely still in her bed, holding her breath,
fearing that the slightest sound would attract whatever was making the noise,
she attentively listened for the noise again. The attempt was rather futile
thought, being that Raijin was snoring lightly in the
bed beside hers. But as she heard the footsteps she was almost positive it
wasn’t Vincent. The man had a way of sneaking up on people when they lease
expected it. Someone else was in the house.
Getting up, she reached for her shuriken that gleamed softly
in the moonlight. Trying not to let fear get the best of her, she cautiously
peeked around the side of the doorframe. Nothing but darkness greeted her eyes.
Taking a deep breath, she deftly maneuvered her way down the
hallway. Finally away from her posse’s snoring, she confirmed the footsteps and
thought she also heard voices. Reaching the end of the hallway and coming to
the foyer, she waited behind the bend, gathering courage before she faced the
unknown around the corner.
Fujin rounded the corner with
celerity… and ran straight into someone else!
She screamed and the man before her let out a surprised
gasp. She brought her shuriken down on the man, who barely ducked in time to
avoid the attack.
“Shit, Lady! You almost killed me!” the man said, staring
wide-eyed at the silver-haired girl. Fujin returned
the look with an equal amount of fear in her eyes.
“S-sorry,” she managed to choke out. She couldn’t see much
of the man before her, but the minor details stood out. He had blonde hair that
was combed back neatly and his posh white suit made him look like someone of
great importance.
The blonde composed himself as Fujin
let the shuriken drop to her side. It seemed as if he was about to speak, but
instead another voice called from below.
“Rufus?” the voice asked, “You okay?”
“Yo, Shinra!” a second voice
called, “What the hell happened?”
Fujin paused. The first voice she
did not recognize, but the second voice…
“SEIFER!?” she asked hopefully to the darkness.
There was a moment of silence before the voice answered, “Fujin?”
Smiling, she broke into a run, almost knocking the man
before her off his feet. Sprinting towards the source of the voice, she called
out again, “SEIFER!!!”
She rushed forward, embracing the knight. Seifer laughed as he hugged his friend back.
“Damn, Fuj, what are you doing HERE?”
the perplexed teenager asked.
“BRIGHT LIGHT,” the girl explained, “WOKE UP HERE.”
“What’s going on, you know?”
The two members of the Disciplinary Committee turned their
heads to stare up at the owner of the voice.
“Raijin!?” the knight asked,
“You’re here too?”
Raijin’s eyes widened in disbelief as he stared back at the blonde. “Holy shit! It’s Seifer!”
Soon Raijin was at the bottom of the stairway and had carried out a greeting similar to Fujin’s.
“Seifer, who are these people?”
the man Fujin had collided with asked as he walked
down the steps to meet the other four in the foyer. The three Disciplinary
Committee members had been so caught up in themselves that they had forgotten
the other two men standing in the room with them.
“Rufus Shinra, meet my posse: Fujin
and Raijin.”
They exchanged greetings and a few questions were asked
before the inevitable came up in the conversation.
“What happened to you, Seifer? I
really want to know where we are and how you got here, too,” Raijin asked.
“YES. EXPLAIN.”
^_^_^_^_^
And so he did explain, with the help of Alex, who filled in
on the more elaborate parts of the story.
On the other hand, Rufus Shinra sat on the steps and quietly
thought about the events that had happened over the past several days. It
seemed like only yesterday he was giving orders and was head of a company that
was renowned worldwide. And to him, it WAS only yesterday! But as he was
walking through the quiet alpine village, he noticed something: the absence of
mako power.
<It really has been several months, hasn’t it?>
He wasn’t naïve. He saw how Alex was looking around town, keeping a lookout.
Not many people were around at
Hearing his name come up in the conversation, the president
was lured out of his morbid thoughts.
“…I don’t know, Raijin!” Seifer’s irritated voice reprimanded, “Why are you asking ME!
I just know that he’s some military dude that tried to kill the planet! Why
don’t you ask Alex… or Shinra over there!” He pointed
a finger in the general direction of the steps.
“Huh?” the older blonde asked dumbly.
“Sephiroth?” Seifer
answered.
“Oh,” the blonde started, “He was a first class member of an
elite military force called SOLDIER…”
And so the president tried to explain what everybody that
lived on his planet already knew, delving into a significant part of ShinRa’s past, and how the feared General helped the
company win many battles during the war with Wutai.
He explained how his actions in war made him one of the most famous SOLDIERs of all time… and then explained what drove the man
to insanity, and what caused him to summon Meteor.
All members of the unlikely party listened attentively to
his story as they climbed down the rotted, winding staircase that led to the
secret lab in the basement. The three from
Seifer Almasy
led the way despite his unfamiliarity with the place, gripping the flashlight
with one hand and his gunblade in the other. The
miniscule light desperately tried to burn away the dust and darkness with its
powerful beam. The irascible knight was becoming increasingly agitated with the
creepy air to the place, and interrupted the president’s story insolently.
“Hey Shinra!” he complained, “You own this place, right? So
why don’t YOU lead the way?”
“Yes, I do own it,” the man replied matter-of-factly, “but
I’ve never actually been in it before today.”
“So why am I the one in the lead?!” he argued back.
“Because,” Alex responded from the depths of the darkness,
becoming annoyed as one of the myriad cobwebs flew into his face. “You’re the
one who went down the stairs first.”
Sighing in consent, the gunblade
specialist returned to following the wooden spiral steps, avoiding the broken
and more rotted pieces. Finally reaching the bottom of the hole, he ventured
into a cavernous tunnel that was off to the side as he silently wondered if the
darkness would ever end.
He stepped forward into the gaping entrance that led to the
laboratory beyond. However, he did not get far. Somewhere in the depths of the
darkness around him the familiar “click” of a gun being cocked could be heard.
“Don’t move,” a dark voice ordered from the shadows.
Seifer froze solid, awaiting
further instructions from the gunman hidden beyond his sight.
“Discard your weapon,” the voice ordered again.
Almasy hesitantly dropped Hyperion
on the dirty floor beside him, the others following Seifer’s
example with their own weapons. The gunman released
himself from his sanctuary in the shadows. Seifer
gaped at the man that held him at gunpoint: Raven hair carelessly fell onto his
extremely pale countenance despite the red bandana that tried so desperately to
hold it back. The dark gunman was dressed completely in black, from the long
trench coat that covered his body to the combat boots that covered his feet. A
rather disturbing feature of the man was the metal claw that ominously made its
presence known from the left sleeve of the gunman’s coat. But even more
disturbing than that were the deep crimson eyes that beheld a deep hatred to
the world.
“VINCENT?!” Fujin
asked wildly, staring openly at the gunman.
“You KNOW him?!” Seifer
spat out surly.
“Yeah,” Raijin explained, “He’s
the guy that lives here, you know?”
“He LIVES
here?” a surprised Alex asked. Vincent wasn’t in the familiar attire Alex knew
from the game, but he was definitely staring at the same ex-Turk. But he didn’t
think the man actually lived in the place.
“Why didn’t you warn us about this?” Seifer
asked the dark-skinned man.
“I forgot, you know?” the man answered back dumbly.
Vincent carefully locked eyes with the people before him,
his gaze lingering on Rufus.
“I thought you were dead,” he scrutinized the blonde
suspiciously, his weapon now pointed to Rufus instead of Seifer.
Rufus merely shrugged, “So did I,
Mr. Valentine.”
The ex-Turk seemed unperturbed by the president’s cryptic
answer. “Why are you here?” he then asked stoically.
“Because I’m not the only one that has supposedly come back
from the dead,” the president responded, “As it turns out, a certain professor
that used to work for me happens to still be alive. And I’m afraid he might
have found a way to revive Sephiroth.”
To one that didn’t know the dark man very well, the man
showed no reaction. But to one who knew what to expect, an extreme change in
emotion took place. The crimson fire in the man’s eyes seemed to grow at the
mention of the dreaded professor. “Hojo!?” Vincent
asked heatedly, “I thought Strife killed him off!”
“Yeah, well apparently he’s back,” Alex responded, “He has
some kind of new experiment going on. It has something to do with alternate
dimensions. That’s why we’re here. We’re hoping to find some information on it
in the library.”
Normally Vincent wouldn’t believe such a story, but the
coincidence it shared with the document he had been reading only moments before
created a slight nagging feeling in the back of his mind. “How do you know
about Hojo’s… ‘invention?’”
“Because the Professor guy sent him his ‘invention,’” Seifer responded for Alex.
Vincent turned to the other man clad in black, “Is this
true?”
“Yeah,” Alex said, reaching into his pocket to retrieve the
device. Vincent became alarmed and aimed the gun at the unwary man.
Alex, upon realizing his mistake, explained himself before
Vincent would fire. “Whoa! Don’t shoot! I’m getting Hojo’s invention! I’m not
stupid. I wouldn’t try to pull a gun on an ex-Turk!”
Vincent was still precautious, but lowered his gun slightly,
allowing the man to reveal the device. “This is the device Hojo had invented.
In a blink of an eye it can take you to a totally different world, a totally
different place. Hojo had sent this one to me about a year ago. I didn’t know
what it was or what it was even capable of. I’m not from this dimension,
Vincent. In fact, the only one that is happens to be Rufus.”
Vincent glanced askance at the group of people, dubiously
scrutinizing all of them. He threw a baffled look towards Seifer.
“You mean you’re not…?”
Seifer smiled complacently,
satisfied that he had managed to kill the man’s apathetic façade. He shook his
head. “Nope. I’m not from here at all… in fact, I don’t even know where the fuck I am!”
There were several moments of uneasy silence before Rufus
finally spoke. “I strongly suggest you let us search the library.”
“Yeah,” Seifer added, “Hojo
somehow used his little experiment to revive this Sephiroth guy.”
“He revived Sephiroth!?” the ex-Turk asked frantically.
“I don’t think Hojo ‘revived’ him,” Rufus explained, “I
think he just saved him before he could die.” All eyes turned to stare at the
ex-president at the remark. “Think about it. He did the same thing to me. He
just transported me out of my office just as the explosion hit the building. He
probably wanted to test his new invention before he took a chance using it on
Sephiroth. Tell me, did any members of AVALANCHE actually check to see if he
was dead before they left him there to rot at the northern crater?”
“There was an explosion…” Alex mused.
“Yes,” Vincent agreed, “We barely had time to make it to the
Highwind before an energy blast of mako destroyed the
place. And because Sephiroth was still alive that might explain why Holy didn’t
do a good job on destroying Meteor.”
“It didn’t?” a confused ex-president asked.
“No,” Alex said, “the Lifestream was the actual thing that
saved the planet.”
Vincent lowered his gun slightly and examined the group one
last time before leading them into the library.
Seifer noticed that the man still
did not holster his weapon. <He doesn’t quite trust us yet.>
The group filed into the room, spreading out to observe the
strange equipment scattered about the lab. Seifer
noticed a rather ominous looking operating table, stained with aged blood and
the assortment of strange looking gadgets, also bloodstained. His eyes fell
upon the two glass tanks; taking note of the strange glowing, green residue on
the inside. <God, what the hell happened in here!?>
Vincent handed a thick novel-like book to Alex, explaining
to him some of the things he had been reading in it before. Alex took the book
from the ex-Turk and started to leaf through it, looking for anything that
indicated what Hojo had in mind.
The crimson-eyed man, his eyes still warily watching
everyone in the room, pulled out a PHS from his coat pocket and dialed a number.
There was a pause before the person on the other line spoke.
“Hello?” the voice greeted.
“Strife?” Vincent asked.
“VINCE? Is that you?” a surprised Cloud asked, “How
convenient! I was just about to call everyone. I have to tell you some bad
news, though,” he continued dejectedly, “I think”—
--“You think Sephiroth may not be dead,” Vincent finished.
There was a pause before AVALANCHE leader spoke. “Hey!” he
replied confusedly, “How did you know that?”
“There are some people here with me that claim they’re
involved in the whole thing.”
Cloud waited a moment, letting the information sink in. When
he finally decided to speak, his answer wasn’t all that intelligent. “REALLY?”
he asked.
The ex-Turk ignored the spiky-haired man’s gratuitous
question and told him what he wanted done. “Strife, I want you to call
everyone. Tell them about Sephiroth. Get Cid to take everyone to Nibelheim on
the Highwind. Meet me at the ShinRa mansion.”
“Okay, I’ll get right on it!” the leader replied curtly and
hung up the phone.
Seifer was fidgeting, the essence
of the room making him nervous. So when Alex said he had found something
useful, he was grateful for the distraction.
The azure-eyed man read out loud the passage scribbled on
the old paper. From what he noticed, the writing looked fairly new. It wasn’t
dated, but unlike the other ones, the ink wasn’t faded at all.
“’I now know for certain that my son will fail at his
task on this planet,’” Alex read, “’AVALANCHE had defeated me at the
mako cannon in Midgar, thus spoiling my plans. Of course they all thought I had
died when the explosion hit the ShinRa building. Those fools! The Jenova in my body won’t let me die that easily.
“’I have tested the device on the ShinRa President,’”
he read, “’The experiment was a success! It is
still unstable, but I believe that I can make the correct modifications to the
device to make the calculations more precise. I should be able to get to the
Northern Crater in time to stop AVALANCHE from destroying Sephiroth! I know of
a perfect little place where he will be able to fulfill his destiny. This
planet doesn’t have any kind of defense against his superior ability, and the
lack of ‘magic’ makes this place more vulnerable to his actions…’”
“I have a bad feeling about this,” Seifer
commented.
“AFFIRMATIVE,” Fujin agreed.
Alex reluctantly read the rest of the passage. “’The
planet’s advanced technology will not hinder my son, and I am convinced that he
will easily accomplish his task.’”
“That last part didn’t sound too good, you know?” Raijin said glumly.
But Alex was lost in his own thoughts… <No magic…?
That sounds like…>
“Earth,” he whispered, fearing that the insane SOLDIER had
already inflicted damage on his home.
End Ch. 7 at 04.22.01.