Emerald Crisis--Final Fantasy VII--Disc One, Mission 2

Midgar Barrens: W.R.O Hunter’s Lodge\

            Outside of Midgar and only a few miles shy of Edge was the Hunter’s Lodge, the unofficial name for the W.R.O. Materia Hunter’s base of operations.  It was a small, squat Shinra military bunker abandoned after the Jenvoa War.  Like all things Shinra, the W.R.O. picked it up and repurposed it.

            From a distance, it looked like a series of square buildings dug into the dusty red earth of the Midgar wastes.  Since moving in, the Hunters had done little to repair or upgrade the exterior walls, leaving them wind blasted and worn.  The interior had been left in similar disrepair, save for a vault built into its base where materia is held before extraction to the W.R.O. HQ building.

            Hunter philosophy was that every base is disposable.  They are a nomadic force, moving where the trouble was.  A central base of operations, while logistically sound, was financially unreasonable considering how small the Hunter force was and how frequently they moved. 

            Despite their humble foundations, the Hunters were quite successful.  Everywhere they went, materia smuggling rings were broken down and the materia they coveted and sold was confiscated and distributed to proper authorities.  Dangerous materia was kept off the streets, while medical materia was made readily available wherever resources accommodated.

            Much of the lodge itself was located underground.  Here, a series of tunnels connected rooms that once served as bunks for Shinra soldiers.  They were made into offices for what few onsite Hunter work there was to be done.  A handful of agents stayed, too, rather than pay rent in Edge.  Yuffie originally intended to do the same until Tifa offered her a room.

            Yuffie didn’t visit often.  She found the narrow halls of the Lodge oppressing and the dim lightning worse.  Daisy was there almost every day, to check on new information, resupply, and write reports.  She enjoyed the paperwork, which was why Yuffie worked with her so often.

            Daisy was a few years older than Yuffie, dark-haired, dark-eyed, and gentle.  She joined the Shinra military at a young age, as many people did, with dreams of a better life.  While she was an expert marksman, she never saw combat and was grateful for it.  When she joined it was with romantic aspirations of protecting people from monsters or bringing them the light of industry.

            That didn’t last long.  She quickly learned the true motives of Shinra, and the atrocities they committed, atrocities hidden from the public eye in the name of progress. That was when she filed for a desk job, and she was lucky to get one.

            After the war, Daisy turned her efforts toward rebuilding.  She believed in the W.R.O. and its mission, and since she was a former Shinra soldier, she viewed it as her responsibility to set things right.  Yuffie often reminded Daisy that she was a soldier in name only, but that didn’t do much to ease her guilty conscious.

            They arrived at the lodge in the early afternoon.  The asphalt danced in the midday heat.  Yuffie nearly fell from the passenger seat in her scramble to get out of the car.  It took everything in her to keep from vomiting again.  The distance between Edge and the Lodge, while short by most standards, was another reason Yuffie didn’t visit often.

            She was still nursing an upset stomach on the way in the front door, and Daisy was good enough to help her along.  They took a series of long, winding corridors with bare, chipped walls to the cafeteria.  They had already sent the information to Shelke, but Daisy decided she wanted to visit the lodge to eat and do her own research.

            They had just reached the door when a petite, bespectacled blond woman approached them, calling their names.  “Um.  Excuse me.  Ms. Kisaragi.  Ms. Kisaragi, could I bother you?”

            Yuffie, who had been holding her stomach up until then, leaned against the wall and looked up.  “Canary?”

            “Uh.”  Canary shifted, adjusted her glasses.  She normally worked the front desk, but the girls had taken the back entrance.  She was a mousy young woman who seemed perpetually scrambled.  It always surprised Yuffie that Canary would ever follow the hunters anywhere around the world, but every time they moved, she moved with them.  “Yes,” she said, “I’m sorry to bother you, but Mr. Reed would like to see you.”

            Yuffie sighed and rolled her eyes.  “Oh, great.  What now?”

            “I’m sorry.  I didn’t think to ask.”

            “You’re fine, Canary.”  Daisy helped Yuffie up and took her by the arm.  “Come on, I’ll go with you.  It’s probably about what happened at Wasteland anyway.”

            Yuffie groaned as Daisy dragged her forward.  “Or we could ignore the old guy and focus on our work.  Our real work.  I’d prefer that over his lectures.”

            “He gives us our work, which means that sometimes, our work is to listen to his lectures.”

            “I just want to make it known that I disagree.”

            “Fine. Disagree.  Just do it quietly.”

            Daisy led Yuffie through the halls by the arm.  In the back of the facility, closest to the materia vault, they find the program director’s office.   Mr. Reed was a tall, stout man with a trim beard and short, dark hair.  He wore a fine, blue suit with a light blue tie and polished leather shoes.  His name plate, too, was polished and sat gleaming on his desk when they entered.

            When he saw them, he sighed and showed them to their chairs.  His office, relative to the offices in the building, was larger but still quite small by conventional terms.  His desk was stacked high with paperwork and stuffed with file folder.  He had an older computer purring, loudly, on his desk, which he stared at as they settled.

            “Ms. Gould, I didn’t ask for you.”

            “I know,” Daisy said as she eased into her seat.  She had to force Yuffie into the other one.  “But, I thought that since Yuffie and I are partners, it wouldn’t hurt for me to present.”

            He gave her a long, tired stare, and then nodded.  “Fine, if you insist.”  He stood from his desk and folded his arms behind his back, but only after smoothing out his jacket.  “It won’t hurt for you to hear what needs to be said, I’m sure.”

            Yuffie sat curled in her seat, still holding her stomach.  She watched him pace behind his desk quietly, sorting his thoughts, and when he turned on her, he glared.  “What’s wrong with you?”

            “Motion sickness,” Daisy said.

            “Oh, yes.”  He leaned forward on his chair.  “Quite the agent, aren’t you?”

            Yuffie shrugged.  “Not everyone can sit behind a desk all day.”

            His eyes narrowed, and he stood again and resumed his pacing.  “Enough of that.  Let’s review your work lately, Ms. Kisaragi.  In particular, your most recent escapade, where you involved yourself in a bar brawl at a known criminal location.”

            “Okay, how in the world did you hear about that already?”

            He stopped on point and smiled grimly.  “So, you don’t deny it?”

            “No,” Yuffie said, and Daisy pinched her wrist.  Yuffie recoiled and frowned.  “Ow!  What? It’s not like he would believe me even if I lied.  Anyway, I didn’t do anything wrong.  We were there gathering information.”

            Reed raised single eyebrow.  “With your fists?”

            “Sometimes the only way to get the best information is to beat it out of someone.”

            Daisy pinched Yuffie again and then folded her hands on her lap. “Director Reed, I assure you, in this situation, Yuffie did her absolute best to operate within mission parameters and reacted accordingly only due to a shift in said parameters.”

            “So you’ve said before,” Reed said.  “You said it during the car chase through Edge.”

            “What,” Yuffie said, “Was I supposed to just let them escape?”

            “You said it during the warehouse fire in Wutai.”

            “Hey, turns out fire materia makes things burn.”  Yuffie nudged Daisy, who glared at her.  “I’m right here, aren’t I?”

            “And you said it in Junon, when she got drunk and captured by the enemy.”

            “Okay, now that,” Yuffie paused, “That was not my greatest moment, but we made it out okay, didn’t we?”

            “And there is your problem, Ms. Kisaragi.  You always make it out.  You rely on others to clean up the messes you’ve made, and you always end up making it out with the story, don’t you?”

            “I don’t think that’s a problem,” Yuffie said, leaning back in her chair, crossing her legs and arms in a sulk.  “You just want to string me up.”

            “Sir,” Daisy interrupted, with another glare at Yuffie.  “With all due respect, I was on each of these operations and was just as much involved as she was.  So, why am I not being reprimanded like she is?”

            “Because, you’re solving the problems your partner causes.” Reed sighed.  “Which is commendable.  But, were it not for her reckless behavior in the first place, you wouldn’t need to clean up after her like a mother with a child.”

            “Sir, again, with all due respect, I don’t think that’s fair.”

            “Oh, it’s definitely not fair,” Yuffie said, her body sinking into itself in an effort to keep from throttling Reed.  “What would be fair is if he focused on his paperwork and left the real work to professionals.”

            “Professionals.” Reed laughed.  “You mean childhood materia thieves turned ‘heroes’ because they knew the right people.  That sort of professional?”

            Yuffie stood and glared with balled fists.  “And where were you during all of that?  Hiding and cowering with everyone else?”

            “I was working with the Director to evacuate people from the city, what you were supposed to be doing rather than floating around with your friend, Mr. Valentine and taking credit for his successes.  But that’s what you do, isn’t it?  Throw yourself into the middle of things and claim victory after it’s all over.”

            “Sir,” Daisy said, but she was cut off by a glare from him.

            “Listen, Ms. Kisaragi.  You are a member of the Hunters, which is a W.R.O. operation.  We are not at war with monsters anymore, and we shouldn’t act like it.  Your actions don’t save the world.  They just cause trouble for the organization at large.”

            “I stop bad guys!”

            “You cause property damage and hurt people in the name of your own personal crusade,” Reed said.  He held her gaze, even as she glared at him, and met it with a glare of his own.  “According to officers on the scene you were threatening the young men at the bar.  And what did you get for it?”

            Yuffie prepared to move on him but felt Daisy grab at her wrist.  She took a deep breath.  “Well, sorry, but we got information.”

            “And I hope it is worth the trouble that it has caused for the W.R.O. and the peacekeeper wardens.”  Reed stood tall and adjusted his jacket again.  Then, he pulled out his chair and took a seat.  He returned to his computer and started filling in paperwork.  “I just wanted to warn you, Ms. Kisaragi.  I won’t be overlooking your antics anymore.  What good will you had coming into this is all used up and the Director can’t protect you forever.”

            Yuffie scoffed.  “Listen, I’ll worry about that when you actually get the guts to stand up and take a shot.”  She turned to the door and yanked it open.  “Come on, Daisy, we’ve got work to do.”

            Daisy stood and bowed to Reed.  She muttered an apology before turning to chase after Yuffie, closing the door discreetly on her way out.

-Disc One-

            Yuffie led them down the hall until it became clear that she had no idea where they were going.  Daisy took lead then and led them through long, dark hallways to Lodge’s cafeteria.  On the way, she glared back at Yuffie over her shoulder and found the shorter woman walking with her arms behind her head, pretending to nonchalant.

            Yuffie met her gaze.  “What?”

            “You.”  Daisy huffed.

            “Listen, D, I didn’t say anything to him that he didn’t have coming.”

            “He’s your boss, Yuffie.”

            “He’s your boss,” Yuffie said.  “I’ve been at this way longer than he has.  And besides, he’s a jerk.”

            “You push his buttons.”

            “He pushes mine.”

            Daisy stopped at the cafeteria door and had her hand on it when she turned to face Yuffie.  Her other hand rested on her hip.  “And you don’t even try to make it better.”

            “He’s a paper-pusher.  I’m the one doing all the real work.”

            “You are the one who’s making all the real work harder for all of us,” Daisy said.  “Whether you realize it or not, we all aren’t heroes from the good old days, Yuffie.  Some of us haven’t saved the world three times over and are just trying to do the best we can now, and we can’t do that without resources.  Resources that he is in charge of procuring.”

            “I…”

            They entered the cafeteria and come to a stop.  Across the room, sitting alone with an open folder and a tray in front of him was Oliver Sykes.  Daisy went quiet when she saw him and smiled faintly as he made eye contact with her.  He waved them both over.  “Well, hello, you two,” he said as they approached.  “I thought I saw you around here.”

            “Oliver.”  Daisy adjusted her jacket and tightened her ponytail.  “Yeah, we’ve been, um.”

            “Arguing,” Yuffie said, slumping down at the table.  “We’ve been arguing.  And heya, Oliver.”  She reached forward and took the fruit cup from his tray.  She had the lid off and the fruit halfway into her mouth before he could speak.

            Oliver was a good soldier, quiet and industrious.  He worked alone most of the time, and even when on a team operated largely in isolation.  For those reasons, he got along well with Yuffie.  Neither intruded on each other’s efforts.

            He was also quite easy on the eyes.  Though short, he was stout and had eyes so green they looked mako-infused, save for lacking the signature glow. Even without that sort of enhancement, he could hold his own in a fight, too.  Yuffie had seen him spar with other soldiers and was impressed.  He won far more often than he lost.

            As they settled, Oliver shut his folder and set it on the seat beside him.  He took off his glasses and tucked them into his shirt.  “What were you two arguing about, if I may ask?”

            “The usual.  Reed’s up my ass, and Daisy thinks I should let him make home there.”  Yuffie poured the rest of his fruit cup into her mouth and then tossed the empty remains onto his tray.  She caught Daisy staring and lifted her eyebrows in response.  “What?”

            “Anyway,” Daisy said, sighing her frown away.  “What were you working on? We’re not interrupting, are we?”

            “No.”  Oliver smiled, and it showed his dimples.  “No, just found some smuggling in the Kalm area.  It’s nothing major, but I’m looking into it.  How about you two, how did last night go?”

            “Smooth,” Yuffie said.  Daisy gave her another look, and Yuffie met it again.  “Seriously, what?”

            Daisy rolled her eyes.

            “Daisy stepped into steal the spotlight, as usual.”

            “So, she saved your rear,” Oliver said, and Daisy laughed.

            “Sure, you can call it that if you like.”  Yuffie leaned forward and, without him noticing, took his roll from his tray.  By the time he realized what she had done, she had eaten half of it, so he sighed in defeat the slid the rest of his food over to her.  She responded with a cheeky grin.

            “Anyway, today we followed up on a lead,” Daisy said.  “Which, in turn, led us to another lead, which is why we’re here.”

            “Doing research,” Oliver asked, leaning forward on his elbows and doing his best to ignore the way Yuffie ‘ate’ his food.  He wasn’t sure she even chewed.

            “Grabbing lunch,” Yuffie said between bites.

            “Yuffie has Shelke doing the work,” Daisy said.

            “You know, you always say that with a tone.  Like you don’t approve.”

            “That’s because I don’t approve.”

            They looked at each other, and Yuffie shrugged.  “If you have a resource, why not use it.”

            “She actually has a point,” Oliver said.  “What’s your lead for, anyway? If I may ask.”

            Yuffie gave a great big swallow. “Some guy over at Wasteland dropped a name,” Yuffie said.  “Emerald Lotus.  Sound familiar?”

            Oliver paused, scratched his chin, shook his head.  “Nothing. Sorry.”

            “Damn.”  Yuffie burped and shoved the tray away while Daisy grimaced.  A chime sounded from her bracer, and she stood from the table with a half-wave and skipped across the room, finding privacy near the awning overlooking the barrens.  She stared out the window, at Edge rising in the distance. “Well, hello.”

            “Yuffie Kisaragi.”

            “Who else would it be, Shelke?”

            “I have information for you.”

            “On the Emerald Lotus?”

            “What else would I call you for, Yuffie Kisaragi?”

            “Sarcasm,” Yuffie said, smiling.  “You may yet become a real girl after all.  So, tell me something good already.”

            “The Emerald Lotus is a type of medical plant found in the Wutai region.  In small doses it is known to have regenerative effects, though ingestion of its leaves can, in large doses, cause minor auditory or visual hallucinations.  This is caused by…”

            “Shelke.  Shelke!  I know this already.  I’m from Wutai, remember?”

            “Yes,” Shelke said, “In ancient Wutai cultures it was adopted as a symbol of both regeneration and metaphysical ascendance. The oldest texts sometimes use it to symbolize rebirth.  According to the myth of…”

            “Shelke, do you have anything about the Emerald Lotus that I want to hear about.”

            Shelke paused for a moment.  Yuffie heard typing, clicking, and then, “An anti-WRO organization calling itself the Emerald Lotus has become very active in the Midgar region in the past two years.  It is believed that they began as a group of small-time crime rings focusing on minor criminal activities such as extortion, bribery, and materia smuggling.  Recently, however, while crime has reduced sharply, the severity and scope of crimes committed has increased proportionately.  That is to say, they are becoming organized.”

            Yuffie glanced back at where Daisy and Oliver were flirting.  “Anything else?”

            “Their influence is growing.  It seems they’ve become quite influential in the Kalm area and even reach Junon.

            “Kalm, huh?”  Yuffie stepped outside, into the fresh air.  She breathed deep of it before leaning onto the patio railing.  “And what exactly is their beef with the WRO?”

            “Official transcripts of captured and interrogated members claim their leader, calling himself only Lotus, is against any form of larger, extranational governments.  He speaks loftily of an anarchist society of equals, living with absolute freedom, free from government oversight and uses lingering fears of Shinra to gain support.”

            “Sounds like scum.”

            “Perhaps, but his organization is growing quickly.”

            Yuffie nodded.  “People are still scared of all that crap, especially with the Deep Ground stuff only a few years back.  Anything else?”

            “The Emerald Lotus are holding a rally tonight, in the ruins of Midgar, sector four.”

            “Sector four.”  Yuffie stood from the railing and returned inside.  “Sounds like I’m taking Daisy somewhere nice tonight.”

            “Be careful, Yuffie Kisaragi, and contact me if you need anything.”

            “We’ll keep you posted.  Thanks, Shelke.”

            “Yes,” Shelke said, and she cut the call.

            Yuffie returned to the table and stood quietly, hands on her hips, smiling until Daisy and Oliver acknowledged her.

            “Uh oh, Daisy, that looks like trouble,” Oliver said.

            “That is trouble,” Daisy said, and she crossed her arms.  “What did Shelke say?”

            “She said that you need to dress up nice, because we’ve got two tickets to an Emerald Lotus rally in sector four, but they’ve got a dress code.  Bummer, but she thinks we should crash.”

            “Does she think that, or do you,” Oliver asked, and Yuffie shrugged.  Oliver shook his head.  “Didn’t Reed just get onto you for sticking your nose into this?”

            “Oh, yeah,” Yuffie said thoughtfully.  “Huh.  Guess I forgot about it because I don’t care?  Yeah, it’s probably because I don’t care.”  She looked at Daisy.  “You in?”

            “I’ll be there,” she said, and Oliver shook his head again.  “What can I say? She’d be lost without me.”

            “Aren’t you the martyr?”  Yuffie waved and turned to leave.  “I’m going to train until then.  You two lovebirds have fun and Daisy, sweetie, I’ll see you tonight.  Don’t leave me hanging.”

            “I’ll be there,” Daisy said, and she waved over her shoulder.  When she turned back to Oliver, she found him frowning.  “What?”

            “She’s going to get you killed one of these days.”

            “No,” Daisy said, and she laughed.  “She’ll get herself killed long before that.”

The Ruins of Midgar: Sector Four\

            Daisy drove them to the outskirts of Midgar, with Yuffie hanging, half-sick, over the side of the car.  They stopped just outside of the sector-four fence, half-flattened during meteor fall and blackened by the heat of the Sister Ray’s backfire.  Parts of the chain link had melted away altogether.

            Massive spires of debris gleamed in the sunlight and jutted from the earth, remnants of crises past.  Every sector bared their scars proudly during the day but seemed haunted by night.  Yuffie considered that perhaps nausea was influencing her perception and could find no argument to the contrary.

            They parked in the shadows, among the debris, and then waited for nightfall.  Both found disguises.  Yuffie work a dark jacket with her hood up and a pair of loose pants belted tightly around her midsection.  Red-tinted shades completed the ensemble and effectively covered her face, or so Daisy claimed.

            Daisy wore a bright green vest over a tight black sweater and a pair of brown pants with deep pockets.  She kept small two small sidearms attached to the vest and kept her vest zipped tight.  Like Yuffie, she kept her face covered with sunglasses and also wore a big, brown hat with the bill angled low.

            The remaining streets of sector four were long, narrow, and littered with decay.  Up close the fractured remains of the plate towered over them, gleaming faintly where the moonlight touched them and crusted in dust farther below.  Bones lay scattered around them, tattered clothes hanging from some.  The air smelled strongly of oil and ruin.

            Yuffie kept her eye down as they passed.  Daisy grimaced at their surroundings before turning her attention ahead, at the lights appearing in the distance.  “That must be where the rally is.”

            “Must be,” Yuffie said quietly.

            “Now, don’t look anyone in the eye.  And don’t talk.  You’re famous in all the wrong circles, so they might recognize you.”

            “Daisy, please.  I know how to infiltrate a place.  I’m the great ninja Yuffie, remember?”

            Daisy sighed.  “So, you keep saying.”

            “What?”

            “Nothing, nothing at all.  Just be careful.”

            “I feel like you’re talking down to me.  Listen, just because I get motion sickness—a lot of people get motion sickness, you know.”

            “Yes, yes,” Daisy said.  “It’s not the motion sickness.”

            Yuffie stopped and lowered her glasses to reveal a glare.  “Then what is it?”

            Daisy stopped, too, but she shied away.  “It’s that, sometimes, in your excitement, you can sometimes be a bit, well, theatrical.”

            “Name one time, ever, that I’ve been,” Yuffie made quotations marks with her fingers, “Theatrical!”  Her fists came to rest on her hips as she really gave herself to the glare.

            Daisy sighed.  “Nevermind,” she said, and she hurried forward.

            Yuffie followed shortly after, saying, “Hey!  Don’t you walk away from me,” but Daisy did just that and ignored her.

-Disc One-

           

            Up close the lights were blinding and gave off a great deal of heat.  A stage had been set up, freshly built in an area cleared of wreckage.  Enormous chunks of steel—remnants of the upper plate, Yuffie was sure—were stacked high around it for added privacy.  Standing out front were two guards, both wearing dark green vests with a golden emblem across the chest.  The emblem was of a flower.

            People gathered in the clearing, pooling before the platform.  They talked quietly in the dusty heat of the night, their voices amplifying each other and creating a thunderous murmur.  Yuffie approached confidently, with Daisy trailing, and they passed the guards without issue.  Inside, they hugged the rear and talked in hushed whispers.

            “Think this is the place?”

            Daisy nodded.  “It couldn’t be anything else.”  She looked back at the entryway.  More people were following them in.  They seemed to appear from the darkness, coming from all sides.  “This isn’t some small gathering.  Look at the headcount.”

            “Yeah,” Yuffie said, grinning.  “Been a while since I fought an entire army.”

            Daisy frowned.

            “I’m kidding.”

            “You better be.  We’re here to gather information, nothing else.”  She whispered this with as much authority as she could, which wasn’t much.  There were people around her on all sides.  Increasingly, it was growing harder and harder to keep their conversation private.

            “I know, I know, and I’ll get it done.”  Yuffie pointed at herself.  “Ninja.”

            Daisy’s frown deepened.  “It’s a good thing I brought my guns.”

            “Oh, you worry too much.  Now, go.  We shouldn’t be seen together.  Pretty girls like us, we’ll draw attention.”

            “Be. Careful.”

            Yuffie grunted and slipped into the crowd, disappearing among the bodies.  She found a place upfront and surveyed the stage.  It was stable but shoddy, thrown together from the mess that was there, she was sure.  The lights buzzed, but the loudest sound was the whirring of the generators powering them.

            From the corner of her eye, Yuffie spied Daisy in the back.  Attendees were still gathering but there was little room left.  Anxiety moved through the crowd like static.  Everyone was one edge, excited to hear what the Lotus had to offer, each interested in the cause.

            Yuffie was anxious to hear it, too.  She gave furtive glances at those around her, nodded gently when she made eye contact, and she did her best to be discreet without being suspicious.  The people here wanted the same thing as her—to see what the Emerald Lotus was and what it would do.

            The only difference was, Yuffie planned to stop them.

            As she listened, Yuffie learned more of the people gathered there. Each had complaints about the W.R.O. and voiced without restraint.  There was no fear there, no fright that they might be heard.  Every word was met with agreement or else parroted by others around her.

            The people here didn’t like the W.R.O. or what it represented.  They viewed it, at best, as an inconvenience and, at worst, just another Shinra.  Every aspect was criticized, including the Materia Hunters, and at times Yuffie found herself agreeing.

            Under W.R.O. rule the distribution of materia was tightly controlled.  These efforts were intended to curb the usage of dangerous materia.  After Shinra’s fall there was so much chaos.  People who had been stripped of freedom, some kind and some cruel, found themselves without shepherds in the storm that was the new world, and in such times people grow wild.

            Some of the things Yuffie saw in the field justified the Hunters for her.  She found rings of women ensnared by manipulate materia and used for unspeakable acts.  She found fire or lightning materia weaponized by thugs and criminals who were harassing local towns.  In one particularly gruesome case ,a Wutai veteran was murdering tourists to the area by using ice materia to freeze them alive and watched the life leave them slowly.

            But the people didn’t know about that, and they never would.  W.R.O. politics was built around order, and anything that spoke any sort of failure on their part was kept quiet.  Worse still, were some of the policies instituted that the people did know about.  Most notorious was the cure materia shortage.

            After Shinra’s fall, materia became a commodity.  While materia occured naturally in nature, much of the materia bought and sold was manufactured and distributed originally by Shinra itself or otherwise mined by them.  Without Shinra there to produce the raw goods, the stock dwindled and could no longer meet demands.

            In short, there wasn’t enough cure materia for everyone.  The W.R.O. solved this problem by tightening control of cure materia and then cutting distribution altogether.  They set up clinics, which were free to start but operation costs were too steep.  A cost was instituted to pay working operating these clinics, and soon after prices increased.

            Soon, the W.R.O. clinics became one of the biggest money-makers for the para-military organization, and they were also one of its major public faces.  Among this crowd of refugees and rebels who feel betrayed by the new government, the clinics were also an example of everything wrong with the W.R.O., and listening to their complaints, Yuffie couldn’t find herself disagreeing.

            Still, despite her understanding, the complaints eventually bled together into a cynical white noise.  She stayed close to the stage and stared straight ahead, waiting for the real Emerald Lotus to appear.  The people around her were prospects and that meant, from her experience, they were about as close to the actual organization as sand was to glass.

            A few minutes passed and then there was movement in the crowd.  The soldiers outside moved in and were joined by other Lotus soldiers.  Over a dozen of them took places among the crowd.  A few worked in the shadows to turn up the lights, and Yuffie could just see them as formless shapes moving in the darkness.

            A group of lotus soldiers stepped onto the stage, led by a tall, thin man with a dark mustache.  They all wore the green lotus uniform, but he has his open, revealing a toned and slightly scarred chest underneath.  He had a tattoo on his left pectoral of a behemoth.

            Mustache took center stage and scooped up the microphone.  He tapped it and listened to the speakers whine.  The people backstage adjusted the audio while the crowd held their ears.  Yuffie winced.

            “Hello, everyone,” he said.  His accent told that he was from Junon, but it was light, which meant he travelled.  He moved easily and with a limp.  Yuffie figured him for a former Shinra soldier.  “It is truly wonderful to see so many of you here, so many who can live with open eyes and opens hearts.  On this site, not long ago, a war was fought with human lives, for human lives.  Shinra monetized us and enslaved us with their ‘mako energy,’ and they burned any who disagreed, and the W.R.O. is barely different.  Same system, different suits.”

            The crowd murmured a polite cheer, and all around her Yuffie could feel the energy changing.  It was hardened and stirred, galvanizing from a disorganized discontent into a focused force. 

            “But tonight, will be the beginning of change, true change.  Tonight will be a revelation!  The Emerald Lotus is here to help you, not to see, but to act.  We will change this world, and we will cut away your shackles and return to you the freedom taken by a money-hungry government that wishes only to control you.  We will show you that your freedom was never truly taken at all, only hidden away behind a mirage of lies and false institutions.”

            A storm of applause greeted this, and Yuffie could feel the bodies around her moving. The lights and heat surrounded and suffocated her as the bodies moved.  They swayed and clapped, and they listened raptly to his every word.

            Silence settled, and Yuffie could hear even Mustache’s footfalls as he paced across the stage.  “I am but a man, as all of you are but men, but together we are more.  The Emerald Lotus is not an organization but a body of people working toward one future, one unified goal—a free world for all.  We are a vision of what could be, of what should be, of the end of a corrupt empire that has grown from Shinra’s ashes,” he said.  “The W.R.O. is a disease and we?  We are the cure.”

            The crowd cheered again and grew wilder by the minute.  Mustache smiled at the chaos he sewed and lifted his hand.  Silence fell, and he lifted the microphone once again to his lips.

            “But I go on.  I am here not to incite you to rebellion—no, that is not my job.  For I am like you, all of you, who have come from broken homes, from broken lives taken from us by the broken people chosen by those sheep too weak to break from the herd, but I was saved, as you all will be, by our true leader, but the one man who hears our voice, who sees our suffering, and who knows how to fix it.”

            Mustache stepped back and extended his arm, and a man appeared from shadows.  To that point, Yuffie didn’t see him, and she was stunned by his sudden appearance.  He moved liquidly from the shadows, draped in a flowing green robes richly embroidered.  He had his hood up, trimmed with golden fabric.  A mask covered his face, expressionless white, with thin, dark slants for him to see from.

            Mustache smiled at the awed silence of the crowd and handed off the microphone to this man, who seized it and stared out at the people.  He rose it to his mask, and he spoke.  His voice was rich and smooth but had an energy to it that bespoke youth.

            “Long ago, before Shinra and even before materia, the ancient people of Wutai used a single flower to cure all of their ails.  It was small and thin, with eighty tiny petals. It grew in the shallows of ponds, floating across the surface like a shooting star and had a blossom in the center of the deepest green.

            “Once upon a time, it was used by men and women of the tribes there to heal wounds and fight disease and, in certain rituals, to give visions of the future.  As time passed, and technology advanced, this practice was left forgotten, living only in myth or parable, but in truth it was once a primary regent in the ancient potions, used to heal small lacerations or ease suffering.

            “That was the Emerald Lotus, and just as it healed, so shall we.  We will cure this world of the lies and corruption that spoil it, and we will lead it toward a new future, one of mended wounds that were once left to fester by corporate greed and hunger for power. 

            “Brick-by-brick, the W.R.O. has recreated everything they destroyed in Shinra, and we have let them do it.  Shinra burned down my home, enslaved my people, tortured my body in countless ways before leaving me to die.  Now, Shinra is dead, and a new taskmaster has risen in its place.  It claims to be different, but I do not see my home returned.  I do not see my family avenged.  All I see are the same crimes committed, but now people accept them with open hands.

            “I am no leader, I am the Lotus.  I am a simple vision, a spirit of righteous change conjured by all of you.”  He pointed to the crowd as he spoke, and everyone held their breath.  “You suffer under Shinra’s ghost no more.  The W.R.O. uses honeyed lies to hide their poison, but you will not swallow.  The seeds of rebellion are planted and ready to flower, and it is our hands which will pluck the ripened fruit and eat of it freely.

            “It is for you that I exist.  I am a simple Lotus, waiting in the water to be consumed by a sick and dying world, by a sick and dying people.  So, trust me, trust in the vision I give you and, fight alongside me.  For only if we fight will we be truly, truly free.”

            There were no applause, not even a cough.  When Yuffie turned to see the crowd, she found them in awed silence.  They didn’t simply watch him.  They worshipped him.  They saw in him everything that the W.R.O. promised but failed to be.  They saw in him every complaint, every hunger, every pain, and every hurt, and they saw in him the way to take it all away.

            “And now the sad truth.  We are fighting a war, and we are fighting it to the death.  The W.R.O. has grown fat and drunk on its power, and it does not want to let go.  There are those so indoctrinated that they willingly let these slave-masters leash them like dogs and parade them about, eating scraps discarded from the table because they lack the resolve to rise and take them for themselves.

            “Violence will happen.  It is unwanted but inevitable.  Words have not worked and will not work, not against those so sick with greed that they cannot hear.  The pen is no mightier either, for our enemies can see only the gil they stand to make, not the text which we write.  No, weapons will be our font, and our message will be left in flame and in blood.  This flesh is necrotic, and we must cauterize it before we can heal.

            “So, we fight.  We take our futures from those who would shepherd us against our will.  We wage this final war, and we free ourselves from the cages built around us long ago.  We become the heroes they claim to be, the heroes we were always meant to be, and we tear down this wall of lies so that we can truly, finally, see reality.”

            He went quiet again, and this time they cheered.  It was a sea of flailing limbs and Yuffie spied Daisy in the back, looking pale and frightened.  They made eye contact, and Yuffie was sure she looked the same. 

            The two of them traded nods and Yuffie sunk into the bodies.  She moved smoothly through the masses and stopped only when the crowd went quiet.  Lotus was speaking again before she could turn.

            “I am glad that I have your support.  Now, for the first step.  Before we fight, we should send them a message.  A declaration of war, and I know just the message to send.  Yuffie Kisaragi, if you could help us with that task.”

            She froze and stared into his mask, and she could almost feel him smiling.  The bodies around her parted, giving her a long, narrow view of the stage.  He watched her, microphone to his mask, stone-still.

            “I knew you were here,” he said.  “How could I not recognize you, hero of the Jenova War, supposed savior from the meteor fall, leashed and collared and trained to attack on command.  Have you come here today to sniff me out?  To devour me before we devour your beloved master?  Are you afraid I might share the valuable materia that you have worked so hard to keep out of the hands of those who truly need it?”

            Eyes were trained on her now.  The soldiers in the corners had left their post and were moving through the crowd.  The bodies around here went still, stiff, all watching with her uncertainty, in awed fright.  They shifted only as they were shoved about by the enemies moving through them.

            Yuffie tugged her hood back and tossed her glasses to the ground.  “You know, this is embarrassing.  I get recognized everywhere I go.  Price of being famous, huh?”

            “Must be,” Lotus said.  “Why are you here, hunter?”

            “Just taking a look at your little club here.  I was thinking of joining, but I don’t like the outfits.”

            “Ah.  But you stayed long enough to memorize the faces of those here so that you can take our families from us as we sleep.”

            “Please,” Yuffie said.  “You’re painting some kind of picture here, but you’re not a very good artist.”

            “Art has always been subjective,” Lotus said.  “But, enough.  We know your rhetoric and I know your rules, and I will not be subject to them.”

            “No, you want to play by your own rules, get everything in the world without a care for the people it might hurt.”

            “I want only to do what is right, based on my own conscious and not on the pockets of those who would make me their slave.  I will not bow to some new dictator, nor kiss the boot of one who kicks me down.”

            “I’ll be kicking you in a second.”  Yuffie noted how the crowd was thinning around her, how the soldiers were making wide circles about her, ready to strike but afraid to make the first move.  “Listen, all of you.  The W.R.O. just wants to help.  It just wants to create order!”

            “And why does the W.R.O. have to create order?  Why can’t we do that on our own?  Why do they need to control how we live?”

            “Oh my-You’re ridiculous, you know that?  You’ll just take anything I do and say and turn it against me!”

            “Easy to do when you’re so wrong,” Lotus said.  “But, I understand.  You’re a good dog.  Reeve has you well-trained.”

            Yuffie growled.  “Keep talking and you’ll see just how well-trained I am!”

            Lotus laughed.  “And what will you do?  Assault me, as you did the patrons of the Wasteland?  Look well, everyone, this is the W.R.O.’s true face.  Force in the face of opposition.  If you can’t buy them, then you intimidate them.  The problem here is, Yuffie, I am not afraid of you.  And I will not bow to anyone.”

            “Oh, I don’t know.  I think I’ll have you on your knees in a bit.”

            Yuffie charged.  The soldiers around her broke holding pattern, but they didn’t know how to move.  They were hesitant and slow, and they could do little more than watch from the sidelines as she made her approach.

            At the stage she jumped and flipped through the air.  At apex, she pulled a materia from her pocket and felt it draw from her body.  A spark of electricity jumped from the sphere and made an arc toward Lotus.  It died before reaching him.

            He stood still and watched her descent.  She drew a knife from her other pocket and brought it down toward him but hit empty air.  He side-stepped the attack and kicked her hard in the chest, knocking her from the stage and onto her back on the ground.  She used the momentum from her fall to roll backward and onto her feet, and she staggered to a stop.

            Lotus watched her from the stage.  In one hand he held the microphone.  In the other, he held a small handle with a little red button on the end.  The button glowed dimly beneath the floodlights.  “Surprised that your materia failed you? Don’t be.  We’ve found a solution to our materia problems, one which will level the playing field.  We call it a materia jammer.  When activated, all materia within a fifty-foot radius is rendered useless.”

            Yuffie scowled.  “Doesn’t matter.”  She yanked her jacket off and dropped it at her side.  “I don’t need materia to knock your ass up and down that stage.”

            “Yes.  You’re quite the fighter.  Overcame the five gods of the pagoda on your own.”  Lotus tossed the jammer to a tall, dark woman standing nearby and then dropped the microphone.  He leapt from the stage and landed ten feet away from her, staring into her eyes.  “We’ll see how long you last.”

            Yuffie threw her dagger, and he kicked it away.  He undid his cloak, revealing a loose, black gi underneath, and folded the cloak carefully before leaving it on the stage.  When he turned, he still had his hood up, and he tucked it into his mask before meeting her eyes.  “Yuffie Kisaragai, daughter of the great Gotoh Kisaragi, leader of the Wutai, highest of the five gods.  I had thought you were better than this.”

            “I’m just rusty.”

            “Let’s give you incentive then.”  He pointed to the corner and Yuffie saw Daisy standing straight, her weapons discarded.  A blonde stood behind her, eyes glowing green and holding a sword to Daisy’s throat.

            Yuffie sighed.  “Really, Daze?”

            “Yuffie, I’m sorry!”

            “Yeah, yeah, just sit tight.”  Yuffie widened her stance and turned back to Lotus.  “I’ll mop this guy up quick.”

            Lotus laughed.  “You think highly of yourself, don’t you?”

            “You’ve done your homework.  You should know.  I’m an old veteran.”

            “Yes, you were.”

            “Oh, man, am I going to enjoy punching that mask into your skull!”

            “Then do it.”

            She charged again and swung hard, but by then he wasn’t there.  He moved a small, discreet circle around her.  She met him coming around, bringing her left fist back at him, and he ducked under it.  This continued, strike and evasion, strike and evasion, looking almost like a dance.

            Yuffie stepped in, tangled her right leg in his, and tried to punch for the head, but he caught her by the fist and twisted her around.  He moved to pin her against the stage, but she twirled in the air and used her momentum to twist his arm back.  Flowing with her movements, he spun, too, and then kicked her in the side, knocking the air from her.

            She stumbled into the stage and glared at him.  The blow was glancing, and adrenaline kept her going.  She was hurt, but it was mostly bruised pride.  He was smiling behind his mask, she was sure.

            He bounced on his feet and laughed.  “Weren’t the people of Wutai supposed to be good at hand-to-hand combat?”

            “Shut. Up!”  Yuffie kicked high and missed wide.  She spun on heel and kicked overhead, and Lotus caught her by the ankle and threw her to the ground.  She landed in the dust and rolled to a stop before pushing off and continuing her assault.

            Her next swing landed her in his grasp.  She drew another knife and swiped at his face.  It left a shallow scrap across his mask.  He moved too quickly, too fluidly for her to pin down, and at this point it was becoming clear that he was toying with her.  He tossed a handful of dust into her face and twisted the dagger out of her hand.

            She staggered back, coughing and rubbing dust from her eyes, while he walked a small circle around her.  He held the dagger between his hands, regarding it casually as he spoke.  “Truly, I am disappointed.  After all, you were a hero.  A legend.  Or so you remind people but, it seems, like most legends, you’re mostly fiction.”

            Yuffie’s eyes burned, but she was angry, so she swung wildly.  Each time she could feel his body just outside of her reach.  He moved around her, but his presence remained static, and it kept her swinging, kept her mad.  Finally, he stopped retreating and met one of her swings with a kick to the gut.  This one hurt for real.

            “Or, maybe it is that your time in captivity had dulled your fangs.  Have your masters pampered you with shiny things?”

            “Big talk for someone who is doing nothing but dancing around my attacks,” she coughed.  “What, afraid to break a nail?”

            “Yuffie,” Daisy shouted.  “Don’t!”  The woman behind her had adjusted the blade.

            Yuffie saw Lotus look back, and then look forward again.  “Fine,” he said.  “This game has gone on long enough.  Watch, everyone, as I end a legend.”

            He made toward her, and Yuffie dug in her feet.  Years ago, before the Hunters were put together, Tifa helped Yuffie to sharpen her hand-to-hand combat.  They studied together, and Tifa taught her a secret that no one else knew.  It was a part of the school of martial arts she learned as a teen.

            The attack was called the school’s Death Blow.  It was a forced critical strike.  To do it right, Yuffie had to wait and put all of herself into one blow.  The attack was to be swift and discreet and, if she was lucky, it would end the fight immediately.  The key was stance and force.

            If it hit, the damage would be catastrophic, and Lotus would be eating his mask.  If it missed, then Yuffie would be wide open and without time to react.  Either way, the battle would be over.

            She could hardly see him, but she could feel his approach, hear his footsteps.  When he was closed, she aimed for his chest.  She took a small step with her right foot, and she braced herself.  With both hands, she struck with lightning force, and she hit nothing.

            He danced around her again, grabbing her by the arms and redirecting her energy.  She couldn’t react in time to stop it and found herself being thrown, face-first, into the stage.  Her nose cracked and flesh parted.  Blood gushed and filled her mouth.  It painted her chin red.

            She spiraled around toward him and didn’t respond until he landed a blow into her gut.  She backed again, into the stage, and then pushed off without thinking.  She couldn’t breathe and her legs were giving out.  She fell into him and felt pain in her left shoulder.  He had sunk the dagger into her.

            Lotus held her up, one hand under her right arm and the other holding the dagger.  He released her and let her fall into the dirt, where her blood was pooled.  He stood over her, covered in blood that, briefly, she thought might be his and then reality caught up to her.  She coughed and stared blindly into the inky black sky.

            He leaned over her.  “I won’t kill you, because I have a message,” he said, and he stepped onto her face and pushed it into the blood and the dirt.  “So, listen, and listen well.  Tell them that I am coming, and that there’s nothing they can do to stop my revolution.”  He pulled his foot back and kicked her.

            Her head jerked to the side and the world spun.  A trail of blood was spread around her.  Everything was glaring and white, and then her vision started to fade.  The last thing she saw before she blacked out was Daisy with a blade sticking from her gut.