FanFiction.Net - unleash your imagination 
mobile edition|
Author of 11 Stories |
Started: 7th March, 2008.
Finished: 9th Match, 2008.
11th March: Minor edits made. Thank you to Shelke414 for her concrit.
Disclaimer: The only thing I own is my copy of Dirge of Cerberus, bought legitimately.
Chapter One
In the wake of Omega's defeat, the World Regenesis Organization found themselves busier than ever. They had suffered heavy casualties in their battles with Deepground forces, their headquarters all but destroyed, but the people of the Planet looked to them for safety and reassurance that the threat had passed. Giddy with victory and feeling invincible, surviving soldiers scoured the Deepground complex and surrounding Midgar in search of any remaining enemy forces. But for one almost fatally wounded man, they came up empty handed…
But in the week that had passed between Omega's initial defeat and the start of the searches, several people had come and gone in Midgar's broken streets. And as exulted as the W.R.O. was with their victory, they could not bear to think that another enemy might stalk them so soon. And so it was that no one applied any real thought to the total absence of Deepground's presence a mere month after their appearance. No one thought that it was strange that there had been no bodies discovered in their excavation of the collapsed mako reactors or the surrounding areas. Even heroes need to rest, after all.
And so it was that Reeve Tuesti applied himself to rebuilding what had been destroyed and replacing what was lost. Vincent Valentine gathered up the shards of his former life and tossed them away, facing his future with a lighter heart. Ex-Tsviet Shelke Rui turned her back on the last decade of her life and moved towards the light, determined that the darkness would never claim her again. Beneath the WRO headquarters, in a heavily guarded room spared by destruction, a Deepground soldier slept, recovering from his horrific injuries.
And below Midgar, something bided its time, waiting for the right moment to emerge.
xxxxxxx
Access denied.
Yuffie Kisaragi, Champion of Earth and Sky, self-proclaimed Conqueror of Evil, heir to the throne of Wutai and ninja extraordinaire glared ferociously at the unhelpful computer screen and wondering if Reeve would reimburse her if she chose to smash the machine with her Conformer. Turning the idea over in her mind, picturing the computer as a sparking pile of metal at her feet, and then considering the situation, she discarded the idea with regret. There was just too much drain on resources.
…She did not just think that. No, really. Yuffie Kisaragi would never in a zillion years think like Reeve Tuesti. Even if she was really tired and it took less energy to remember something he said than to form her own words, because Superninja Yuffie did not get tired by sitting in front of computers trying to hack in to databases. No, Yuffie got tired beating up monsters, saving the world, and liberating materia from unimaginative owners, and…cool things like that.
Man, she was tired.
"I think it's time to call in the cavalry," she muttered, pulling her mobile phone from her pocket and steeling herself to dial the number. For a moment, she regarded the keypad, the looked back at the computer. Put the phone down.
Password?
xxxxx
Access denied.
Picked up the phone again, stabbed the appropriate buttons and clapped it to her ear. One ring. Two.
Clicking.
"Shelke speaking."
Yuffie swallowed. She didn't hate Shelke, exactly, but she did dislike her. It was hard for Yuffie to forgive someone who called a sibling a fool when said sibling had just sacrificed themselves to save your life. Tifa insisted that Shelke simply had trouble expressing her true reactions. If she seemed callous or uncaring, it was because she was emotionally stunted and couldn't express herself properly. Yuffie was still debating whether or not to buy this.
But she wasn't about to let on. "Hey, Shelke!"
"Yuffie Kisaragi." Shelke sounded slightly disappointed, and Yuffie felt another stab of dislike. Probably Miss Ice Queen had been hoping for Vincent. "Is there something you required?"
"Yeah, actually, I could use your help." Yuffie congratulated herself on making the statement sound natural. Leviathan, she hated admitting she needed help. "Reeve put me in charge of getting data out of the Deepground system, but I can't get past the firewalls. Can you do one of your Sinappy Net Whatevers?"
"Synaptic Net Dive," corrected the ex-Tsviet. "It would take me several hours to construct a working apparatus."
"But you could?" pressed the ninja.
"I could, yes."
"Then get down here!" Yuffie injected some laughter into her tone. "Reeve wants this stuff ASAP!"
"I shall meet you there," said Shelke coolly, apparently not concerned by Yuffie's discourtesy. Then she hung up.
Shoving the phone back into her pocket, Yuffie retrained her glare on the computer screen.
"That wasn't polite, Yuffie." The ninja felt herself freeze momentarily
"Hiya Reeve!" she said cheerfully, spinning around in her chair.
The W.R.O. commissioner regarded the head of his intelligence gathering with one raised eyebrow, and Yuffie felt herself slump under his gaze. Reeve was one of the few people in the world that had the ability to make Yuffie feel ashamed of herself.
Having let the silence hang for a handful of seconds, Reeve said, "I know you don't like Shelke, but you must at least make an effort to be polite."
"I did," muttered Yuffie sullenly. Then suddenly, she shouted, "You should be more angry with her! She didn't give a damn about her sister, when Shalua - "
"Stop it." Reeve's face had tightened at the mention of Shelke's sister, and Yuffie understood that she'd crossed a line. She felt her heart constrict remembering that she had planned to set them up when Deepground had been put down. But then Shelke had come along…
"I didn't mean…" she said softly. The silence stretched. "You probably gathered," she began awkwardly. "But I can't get past Deepground's firewalls. That's why I called Shelke."
"You think she can get the data?" Reeve's voice was still flat.
"She's got a better chance than me," said the ninja honestly. "These guys were really serious about keeping their secrets."
"I can't believe that they managed to keep it a secret," Reeve said tiredly. "It was huge, and all under Midgar!"
"Yeah, well… Shinra was pretty good at covering stuff up," muttered Yuffie. She heard the door whoosh, signalling Reeve's departure, and turned back the computer.
Password?
An SND into Deepground's systems… Am I capable of handling what I will find? she wondered. Records of experiments conducted (including those conducted on her), individual files on soldiers… Was she capable of an immersion in the hell she had only recently escaped? Could she bring herself to act as the conduit for the data that had nearly destroyed her sanity?
The answer was yes. She could. And more importantly, she would do it not because she was ordered to, but because she wanted to. Because it would assist her friends.
Shelke smiled and stood, feeling her heart warm at the thought of helping the people who had already done so much for her.
"What was that about?"
Cloud Strife was standing at the door, looking curiously at her.
"Yuffie Kisaragi requires my assistance," Shelke replied. "Reeve has put her in charge of obtaining a data dump of Deepground's systems."
"Do you need a lift to the WRO headquarters?"
"As long as it does not inconvenience you, Cloud Strife," she replied, inwardly glad she rarely had to ask for anything in this house.
"It's no trouble," Cloud assured her. "I have a delivery to make out that way." He examined her attire. "I have to eat - why don't you go get changed into some warmer clothes? You'll get cold riding a motorcycle in those." Shelke glanced down at her new attire - a sleeveless vest and short skirt.
"I believe you are right," she mused. "Please excuse me." She hopped off the stool and made her way upstairs. From the dresser within one of the guest rooms - which Denzel and Marlene had both taken to referring to as 'Shelke's Room', as though her stay would be permanent - she removed a pair of long, loose pants. Beneath it lay her old Deepground uniform, neatly folded. Feeling strangely nostalgic, Shelke brushed the smooth material with one hand. She would probably never wear the garment again - it represented too much pain - but she had decided to keep it.
"How proud I was the day I was allowed to wear a customized uniform," she murmured. Within Deepground, only the 'coloured' Tsviets had been permitted to wear an outfit that deviated from the usual uniform - except in cases like Nero the Sable's, when the outfit had to be changed according to some unusual situation.
Shaking off the memories, Shelke changed swiftly, putting on a long-sleeved white shirt under her vest to protect her arms from chill. Glancing in the mirror on the inside of the closet, she examined her reflection gravely, nodded once, and then left the room again.
Cloud was standing by the door, finished with his meal. He, too, nodded his approval of her outfit and led her out to the motorcycle, his deliveries already packed into pouches on either side of the bike. He passed Shelke a helmet and gestured for her to climb up behind him.
"I've told Tifa you'll probably be staying at the headquarters overnight," he told Shelke as he pulled his goggles over his eyes. Without waiting for an answer, he revved the bike's engine. The ex-Tsviet wrapped her arms tightly around Cloud's waist, and off they sped.
He entered the one repaired elevator and set it to descend, glad that no one else would see their commissioner panicking. He had done his best to keep a lid on the fact that the WRO was imprisoning a Deepground soldier at all - only a select group of trusted guards and medical personnel knew about their captive, and Reeve planned to keep it that way. If it was discovered by anyone else…
The heart of the problem, Reeve thought wearily as the elevator doors opened and he stepped out, was his own reluctance to just execute the man and be done with it. Deaths in battle were one thing - but killing a captive in cold blood was quite another. On the other hand, he was mostly certain that this particular soldier was far too dangerous to leave alive.
As he reached the one-way glass that allowed him to see into the room that housed the soldier, Reeve wondered why the man couldn't have just been dead when they found him. It would have made things so much easier.
"How is he?" he asked the nurse, who was typing up something on a computer.
"His condition is stable," she replied. "It's not getting any worse."
"But it's not getting any better, either?" Reeve studied the bandages wrapped around the man from shoulder to waist. Spots of blood were already beginning to show through the outer layer.
"No sir." The nurse sighed. "The wounds just won't heal. We've tried everything we can…"
"I suppose that at this point, we should just be grateful that he's unconscious," said Reeve with an attempt at his usual good humour. "Things will start getting tricky when he wakes up." The captive had been found almost a week ago, and hadn't stirred once. If it wasn't for the various monitors registering life signs, Reeve would have thought the man was dead.
"I just wish we could remove that metal," muttered the nurse, frustrated. "But it's all connected up to his nerves, and there are veins wrapped around it, and everything… We might kill him if we tried to take it out." She tossed a tired grin at her boss. "Times like this that we miss Doctor Rui, huh, commissioner?"
Reeve grunted agreement. He missed Shalua's assurance with this kind of matter. She would have known what to do. "Keep me informed," he told the nurse, taking a last glance at the man. "And need I remind you - "
"Not a word to anyone, not anyone," recited the nurse with an indulgent smile.
Reeve chuckled despite himself. "I really must stop that," he said, regaining some of his good humour. "I'm becoming predictable."
"Just a little, sir."
"Thank you for the 'lift'," she said, pulling off the helmet. Despite the fact that her legs felt weak and rubbery, her voice was steady.
"You're welcome," said Cloud. "Just call when you need a ride back - or ask Reeve about arranging something."
"I shall," replied Shelke, promising herself that she would never do anything so foolhardy as ask Cloud Strife for a ride ever again. She made her way up the steps, carefully navigating the weakened concrete. She heard a motorbike engine start up behind her, and breathed a sigh of relief as the deep rumble faded away into the heavy silence.
At the main door, hastily repaired, Shelke paused and carefully examined the exterior of the building. Many of the windows showed signs of temporary repairs, and the walls themselves were blackened and cracked from explosions and gunfire. She sighed again, this time with regret, and made her way to the doors, which opened as she approached. In many ways, the lobby that she walked into was in worse shape than the outside of the building - this had been the site of one of the bigger battles. Little of the tiles or walls had survived unscathed, and entire sections of the walkway had collapsed, weakened by the battles fought on or around them. Several members of the WRO paused as they noticed her, their eyes a mixture of confusion, curiosity and outright mistrust.
She could not blame them for their caution. After all, she was a former Tsviet.
"Excuse me," she said, approaching the closest one, a young woman with short sandy hair. "Do you know where I might find Yuffie Kisaragi? She has requested my assistance."
"Yuffie? She's down in Doctor Rui's old lab." The woman's eyes were more curious than mistrustful. "Do you know the way, or would you like me to show you?"
Shelke considered. She knew, roughly, where her sister's lab was, but there had been so much confusion… Azul's reappearance… Shalua's sacrifice… She doubted that she could find the room without becoming lost.
"I would be grateful if you would show me the way," she said, finally.
The woman bobbed her head almost eagerly. "OK, come with me." She led them up the walkway and entered a corridor on the second floor. "You're Shelke, aren't you? Doctor's Rui's little sister?"
Shelke nodded. "I am Shelke."
"Is it true that you were with Deepground?"
"Yes, I was allied with Deepground." Shelke paused, then added, "I was a Tsviet."
"Really?" The woman seemed surprised. "I heard that Tsviets were Deepground's elite warriors…" Eyes widening, she added hastily, "No offence or anything, I just - "
"None taken," replied Shelke, unruffled. "The Tsviets were indeed Deepground's elite - I was their… 'tech support', I suppose. It was my duty to locate the Keeper of the Protomateria. After my mission was complete, my colleague, Azul the Cerulean, was under orders to terminate me in order to keep the information I had uncovered a secret. My sister saved me."
"Oh…" There was a short silence. "So you switched sides?"
Shelke thought about that for a while. "At first, I… In order to locate the Keeper, the neurodata of another scientist was uploaded into my neural - into my mind. The data interfered with my normal thought processes… But people were 'counting on' me, and I didn't want to let them down - so I ended up fighting against Deepground, yes." Shelke mentally reviewed her story and wondered if it had made any sense to the woman walking beside her.
"Weren't you afraid of what they'd do to you? The other Tsviets or whoever?" Apparently it had. Shelke wondered if the woman was used to sorting out incoherent stories.
Shelke recalled Nero, amused by her show of defiance, and her long, shielded immersion in his darkness. "Terrified," she admitted. "I knew exactly what they could do to me if they chose."
"But you went ahead and helped us anyway." The woman smiled at her. "That was really brave."
Shelke smiled uncertainly, unsure of how to respond. The rest of their journey was made in companionable silence.
"Well, here we - " the woman began, just as both females heard a stream of yelling in Wutainese coming from within. For several long moments, Shelke and her guide simply stood there, taking in the unfamiliar words.
"I believe we have found Yuffie Kisaragi," remarked Shelke. "I am grateful that you showed me the way."
"Oh - it's no trouble," the woman assured her. "Good luck with whatever it is you're doing!" Waving a hand in farewell, the woman set back off down the corridor at a jog.
Shelke stepped forward, the door opening, to behold Yuffie banging her fist on the desk beside the computer and shouting what sounded like a string of vilifications at the unfortunate machine. Patiently, the ex-Tsviet waited for the ninja to pause for breath.
"Is this a bad time, Yuffie Kisaragi?" she asked when Yuffie finally fell momentarily silent. The ninja spun around so fast in her chair that the momentum dumped her in a heap on the floor.
"Ack! Stupid floor!" Apparently the shock of the cold tiles had made her revert to Common. "…Hi, Shelke."
"Greetings," said Shelke calmly, extending a hand to help Yuffie up. The ninja pointedly ignored it and got back to her feet on her own. Shelke withdrew her hand without emotion. "You have had no luck?" she asked, glancing over to the computer screen. Access denied Access denied Access denied scrolled repeatedly up the screen in bold red letters.
"No," muttered Yuffie. "Stupid firewalls." She glared at Shelke, clearly irate. "Are you going to help out, or what?"
"I did tell you that it would take me several hours to construct the apparatus for an SND," Shelke reminded her.
"Then get started, would you?" Yuffie plumped herself back down on her chair, and resumed glaring at the computer screen. "There's another console over there - " she pointed without looking, " - and Reeve dropped by earlier with some materials."
With an inward sigh, Shelke moved to the other computer, sitting down and opening a programming command line. The most difficult part of the SND was persuading the 'home' system to allow the equipment that would project her virtual self into the network. After writing the code, constructing the equipment was actually the easy part.
She set to work.
It was a new feeling, relatively unfamiliar, but utterly undeniable. He no longer felt that he belonged in this place, locked away in the darkness to keep himself from the rest of the world. Funnily enough, this might have been one of the few times in his life where he really did need to keep himself away from the rest of the world.
Vincent was justified in sometimes feeling like Fate's favourite chew-toy.
Carefully skirting the massive crater made by Rosso the Crimson's fury, Vincent only had to look at the state of the main room to know that his hopes were long shots at best and complete foolishness at worst. But on the other hand, he had nothing to lose - nothing at all.
Finding the spiral ramp, he began to descend, praying that he would find what he was looking for.
The little 'And need I remind you -' 'Not a word to anyone, not anyone,' is of course from Trickster's Queen by Tamora Pierce. I won't make a habit of quoting other things (at least, I hope not), but it just seemed appropriate for the situation.
Finally, I should probably make several warnings: One: this story is going to involve a lot of Shelke. I know that a lot of people don't like her - if you don't, that's your prerogative - but I don't want to hear it. Hate her all you want, but don't do it around me. Two: This story will involve serious crack, of the brain-breaking kind. Be prepared.
That's all for now. I hope you enjoyed, and please leave a review!
ReadingChick
