Off-Short W.R.O. Facility: Surface\
The wait
was unbearable. Yuffie called the
elevator and watched its slow decent, listened as the gears ground slowly to
life. She found a cure materia and used
it to ease her wounds while she had the time and, when the elevator finally
arrived, dropped the materia beside her and climbed onto it. She didn’t wear the Lotus uniform
anymore. By that point it would be
impossible to hide.
She pressed
the button on the platform and felt the elevator lurch. The soldiers which were scattered there before
had left. A few materia carts were still
there, tipped and stripped of their contents.
She found a handful of materia left behind in each but none that were as
good as those waiting for her on the surface.
On the way
there were shallow cracks in the glass tubing.
A battle had raged, she was sure.
Maybe Daisy caught them on the way up.
Maybe she won. Maybe she
lost. Yuffie began pacing to keep
herself busy and to keep herself from screaming for the elevator to move
faster.
On the
surface she found Daisy, left unconscious beside the elevator opening, gun
dismantled, burn marks across the uniform they left her in. A lone helicopter, black and green in color,
made elegant circles around the platform.
Even from so far down below, Yuffie could see Oliver hanging out the
door, watching her as she watched him.
Yuffie
screamed and went for her hiding spot, finding her shuriken there and throwing
it with all of her strength. It twirled
through the air, following the helicopter’s gentle arc and leaving a thin gash
across its outer plating. After making
contact, the shuriken spiraled through the air and slid to a stop a few feet
away.
The
helicopter broke its pattern and sailed away, and Yuffie fell to her
knees. She had betrayed the W.R.O.,
sailed out into the middle of the ocean on a stolen boat, infiltrated the
facility, and Oliver still got away.
Hollis was some consolation, as were the captured Lotus, but she wasn’t
sure it was worth it.
She took a
deep breath then and wiped her eyes, and she pushed herself back to standing
and told herself that it was done. She
told herself that whatever else it might have been, it had to be worth it, and
then she went and fetched her shuriken before going to Daisy.
Daisy was
breathing and not injured badly. Judging
from the placement of the burns, as well as the lack of damage to her skin, she
had been healed afterward and left unconscious.
Whatever the Lotus were doing, Oliver didn’t want Daisy involved. Yuffie wondered if he lied to keep her safe
and told his allies that Daisy was dead.
“Yuffie?” Daisy opened her eyes slowly and winced. With Yuffie’s help she sat up, and she had to
shake her head clear before she could speak again. “Oliver!”
She reached for her guns and found them in pieces beside her. “What in the...Yuffie! Where is he? Where is Oliver?”
Yuffie
stood and looked out toward the sea, where the helicopter had disappeared. “He got away.
Thanks for that, by the way.”
Daisy’s jaw
went tight. She collected her guns and
began putting them back together.
“Hollis, on
the other hand. Well, let’s just say, I
put him down. Hard.”
“Well, at
least...” The elevator groaned and
started its slow crawl down. Both Yuffie
and Daisy stopped and watched it disappear from view, and then Daisy looked up
at Yuffie. “You put him down, huh?”
Yuffie
grimaced. “Oh. You have GOT to be kidding me!”
Yuffie
stood before the elevator while Daisy went into hiding. The asphalt beneath them shuddered as the
elevator groaned to the surface. It
stopped loudly, steel locking into place and holding the heavy cement platform steady
with Hollis at its center, bruised and crazed, and snarling like a beast.
She held
her shuriken beside her at the ready.
The materia glowed dimly, but it was all she could do to keep it
attuned. The battle below had left her
drained of energy, and she hadn’t the time to recover even an ounce of her
strength. Hollis looked in an equally
bad way, swaying before her. Beneath his
sneer, though, he managed to smile. It
was little more than a flashing of teeth.
“You know,
if you lay down and pretend to be unconscious, I’ll play along,” Yuffie said,
and he grunted toward her and started laughing.
“You think
you’ve won. You think that you’re
stronger than me! But I’m a survivor,
you little bitch! I AM HOLLIS!”
“Yes, yes
you are. And you’ve lost. So, play dead before I have to make you dead
for real.”
From behind
her, Daisy came out of hiding, weapons ready.
Hollis looked crazed to her, more a wild animal than a person by this
point. She could see something burning
in his eyes, feel heat swelling around him as he staggered forward. The cement was melting under his feet.
“Don’t
worry, Dais. He’s got nothing.”
Daisy
cocked her guns and kept them steady.
“Yuffie, I’m not so sure.”
“He’s big,
but he’s dumb, and he...”
Hollis
started flowing. Heat distorted the
world around him, folding the light and blurring it. His body shifted like the tide as it rose
into the air. The hairs of his face and
chest sizzled and cindered as he opened his right hand, exposing burnt,
blackened flesh and a large, red materia shining brightly.
“You think
it’s over? Fine! If I die, so do you!” The materia floated over his head, and he
held his hands up, as if trying to control it, but the light it cast was too
much. It swallowed him in roaring
flames. From within the flames he
shouted, “Come, Neo Ifrit!”
A burning light appeared, the
materia its origin, and burned runes into the sky. Smooth, writhing circles appeared all around
Hollis swallowed in light, and smoking sigils blaze into being. Nearby boxes erupt into flames. The air around the facility sizzled and steamed. The runes then shattered, and Neo Ifrit
appeared.
It landed
on the platform in front of them, demonic in appearance, grey skin stretched
tightly across its muscular body. It stood
on two goat-legs. Black ivory horns jutted
from its crown, flames rolling and writhing across their gentle curves as they
boed in the back. More of this ivory
sprouted from its shoulders. Flames
crawled across its body, blue on the surface and white against its flesh. The cement beneath its feet bubbled and popped,
and Yuffie could hardly keep her eyes open as she stared at it.
The steel
canisters beside it softened and collapsed.
Each step left a trail of liquid stone, orange in color. High above, Hollis laughed dry as his skin
blackened and flaked. “This is it,” he
said, “This is the end! True power in
the hands of the people! Enough to
topple even the W.R.O.!”
Bits of
steel fell into the ocean, steaming as it made contact. Yuffie and Daisy took refuge at a distance,
hiding out of sight behind a large, metal beam.
The heat was pervasive; the steam in the air made it worse. It was hard to breathe and harder to see, but
at the center Hollis blazed like a small sun.
Neo-Ifrit moved forward dutifully, seemingly without purpose, just
content to burn.
“Yuffie!
What do we do?” Daisy was shaking. Her guns were hot in her hands and growing hotter
with each passing second
“We’re
going to...to...” Yuffie wiped sweat
from her bow and peeked around the beam.
It was hard to look straight into the light. Even with the steam fogging her vision,
Hollis and his summon shined so brightly that it hurt. Vaguely, she could see Hollis’ form, hanging
slack, suspended by the magic. She sat
back. “I think Hollis is down, which
means the summon is out of control. We
need to stop the summoning, even destroy the materia if we can. Most of all, we need to get it from Hollis.”
Daisy
nodded and lifted her guns. “I could
distract it?”
“No. With the heat it is giving off your bullets
will melt before they even land.”
“Right.” Daisy paused, stared. “Wait, how in the world would you even know
that?”
A weak
smile. “I’ve fought my fair share of
beasties over the years.”
Daisy
groaned.
“Hey, we
can do this.” Yuffie spied a W.R.O.
sniper rifle with a gutted sniper beside it in the distance. “And I know
exactly how. You’re a good shot,
right? What am I saying? Of course you
are! Get that rifle and get as far away
as possible. Train it on the materia
and, whatever you do, don’t fire until you see the signal.”
“Okay.” Daisy holstered her guns and started
away. She stopped and turned to Yuffie,
taking her by the hand. “Wait, what’re
you going to do?”
“I’m going
to distract it?”
“How?”
“You’ll
find out when I do.”
“Okay. And the signal?”
Yuffie
laughed. “Hadn’t thought that far
ahead. I’ll find out when you do.”
“This is
crazy.”
“This’ll
work.”
Daisy took
a deep breath, squeezed Yuffie’s hand.
“Good luck.”
Yuffie
winked. “Don’t miss.”
They
parted.
Neo-Ifrit
stalked the surface. The area around it was burning and warping, parts of it
sinking down and collapsing into the boiling water below. Boxes blazed or melted into piles of burning
plastic and ash. The entire facility was
ablaze.
Within the
smoke was a flash of light and shards of ice came sailing in. They melted harmlessly despite their
magic. More followed, each larger than
the last, but none had the intended effect.
Yuffie
appeared above, sailing through the smoke.
Magic gleamed around her body, heat eating at her barrier, which did its
best to protect her. Her skin was pink and
raw and sweat beaded and fell from her, glistening on descent and sizzling as
it made contact with the air. She landed
behind Neo-Ifrit, feet sinking into the boiling cement, and fired an arc of
lightning that danced across the hair on the beast’s back.
It turned,
regarded her, roared, and charged.
Flames kicked from its heels as it rocketed forward, leaving a trail of
smoke in its wake. Yuffie flipped to one
side, found hold on a wilting bar of steel, and ran up the side of it, leaping
through the air to another bar, this one connected to a crane, and sprinted
along its length, too.
The metal
was soft enough that it bowed beneath her feet. Hollis glowed just above her
and, from where she was, she could see him.
The oppressive heat distorted the light all around the facility, casting
prisms and warping the area into a city of cinder and smoke. The glow of the materia had nearly burned
away the surface of Hollis’ skin and started on the layers underneath. His head was lulled, but the magic was still
there, drawing succor from his life force.
Another
roar, and Neo-Ifrit followed her into the air.
She ran higher, away from it, but the crane was sundered by the beast’s
approach. As it fell from under her, she
jumped and made a lazy spiral before grabbing hold of the materia with her bare
hand. Even with the barrier her skin
began to blister.
She braced
against Hollis, using his burnt shoulders as foundation as she pulled up on the
materia. It was held in place, locked by
ancient seals that scalded her flesh for the effort. Finally, with a grunt, she managed to
dislodge it and toss it into the air, and as she did, she screamed Daisy’s
name.
BOOM! The bullet dissolved on the way. Neo-Ifrit
followed the materia in the air and caught it, cradling it with both
hands. As it reached acme, Yuffie used
the last of her strength to jump. Heat
and flame peeled away at her barrier, and Yuffie felt the very last of her
strength going. Clutching the jammer
tightly in her hand, she turned it on. “One last time!”
Yuffie
watched the bullet pass her. She watched
the graceful spiral it made, carrying it through the air, watched it make
contact with the materia and chip the surface, watched it drill into the very
core of it, and watched as Neo-Ifrit flickered and faded in an explosion of
fire. Then, she fell.
Her skin
burned. All of her burned. Then, she was in water. It made the burns across her flesh come to
life. She opened her mouth to scream and
was instead greeted by a lung full of heat.
Her vision dimmed. She remembered
seeing the fading light, the falling body, and the lingering flames. Then,
nothing at all.
-Disc One-
Yuffie woke
up coughing, the salty sea water being forced from her lungs. She hurt everywhere, but some pains were
worse than others. Then she tried to
move, and then everything hurt equally.
She opened her eyes to find smoke and fog and people all around
her. A medic was tending to her and
Daisy. Nearby, more medics scrambled to
save what few Lotus and W.R.O. had survived to this point.
Two men
lifted Yuffie onto a gurney and then lifted the gurney. They wore white uniforms with W.R.O. patches
on their sleeves. She could smell
burning flesh and, after a few seconds, realized it was her. They took her to a nearby helicopter and fixed
her onto it. The medic who was attending
to her returned and checked her eyes.
“Sir, she’s
awake.”
“Good.” Reeve stepped into view. He was wearing a military assault vest with a
W.R.O. patch sewed across the chest. He
had a gun strapped around his shoulder.
Judging from the look of it, they didn’t see combat. As he approached, he looked her over, looking
worried and exasperated, and that is when she knew that she had won. She smiled at him as best she could, and he
frowned in return. “I hope you’re happy
with yourself.”
“Always,”
she said. “Where’s Daisy?”
“She’s
alive. Injured, but not as severely as
you are.” He sighed and smoothed back
his hair. Then, he traced his beard with
his fingers. Above an airship drifted
into view, blocking the sunlight. The
smoke and fog cleared as it hovered overhead, exposing swollen balls of
once-molten steel. The air still felt
warm.
Reeve
sighed. “Yuffie, you have no idea what
you’ve done here.”
“I stopped
them.”
“You
destroyed an important W.R.O. facility.”
“I
destroyed a Shinra facility that had a W.R.O. makeover. And how long have we been doing things like
that by the—ow.” She tried to move but
found herself strapped in place, so she settled for glaring at him. “Reeve, what is happening here?”
His frown
deepened. “Yuffie. I’m sorry, but you’ve done something
unforgivable, and I can’t turn a blind eye to it. Between this and the attack on HQ…”
“I had to
do this.”
“You could
have trusted me with this.”
“Yeah,
because trusting you has gotten me so far.”
“You’ve
crossed a line!”
“You
started over the line!”
“Yuffie!” They
both went quiet. Around them, people
worked diligently. The airship glided
out of view. The sunlight returned, and
the smoke and fog with it. His jaw was
tight, and his eyes steady. “I can’t help you this time. Yuffie, this is a W.R.O. military ship. You’re under arrested for treason against the
W.R.O. and the people you swore to protect.”
-Switch to Disc Two-
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