By: Sephiroth
Chapter 1—A Broken Silence
After the defeat
of Sephiroth in the Northern Cater, peace slowly but surely returned to the
Planet—for some time. At last, Cloud
and his friends were able to relax.
Cloud, Barret and
Tifa were hanging out at the 7th Heaven. They practically lived in the downstairs lounge. The bar itself had been closed, since they
didn’t need to make anymore money: they acquired at least 2,000,000 gil from
their travels. The three of them were
lying on sofas, talking about their comrades, who had all gone their separate
paths.
“Cid told me he
was going to keep flying in space,” Tifa explained. “I believe Cait Sith was going to sponsor him, since he worked
for Shin-Ra.”
“Don’t you be
sayin’ that name in front of me!” yelled Barret, furious. “I told ya, I’m tryin’ to forget them
assholes!”
“Sorry,”
apologized Tifa. “Anyway, Red XIII—”
“You mean
Nanaki,” Cloud interrupted.
“Whatever. He was going back to Cosmo canyon to see his
grandfather, as we all expected.
Hopefully, it wasn’t hit too badly from Meteor…”
“I’m sure
Bugenhagen’s fine,” said Cloud. “Meteor
destroyed Midgar, but it was repaired by the Lifestream, remember? If Cosmo Canyon got hit at all, the
Lifestream would have restored it too.”
Yeah, I guess
you’re right,” Tifa agreed. “Let’s see,
who have I missed…oh yeah! Yuffie and
Vincent! Yuffie went back to Wutai, and
will probably continue to be a Materia thief.
And as for Vincent, I’m not sure.”
“And why do you
know all this and we never heard about it?”
Barret asked.
“I dunno,” Tifa
said. She looked down at her
watch. “Man, it’s late. I think we could all use some sleep.” She reached over to the light switch and
turned it off. “Good night, you two,”
she said with a yawn.
“Later,” replied
Barret.
Cloud said
nothing. He was already asleep.
That night, Cloud
had a dream. He dreamt that he was
being lifted up, high into the air.
Then he stopped, and set his feet down and was able to stand on the
winds. He walked forward, looking down
on the Planet miles below him. He then
approached a gate made of sparkling gold.
Cloud felt a light breeze at his back, and the gate slowly opened, not
making a single creak. On the other
side he found a garden…no, it looked more like…a flower bed…someone was there…
“Cloud!”
“Cloud, get up!”
“Cloud, say
something!”
Cloud struggled
to open his eyes and saw Tifa and Barret trying to get him to wake up. His whole body ached, and he wanted to know
why.
“Wh…what
happened?” he mumbled.
But his own
question was answered once he sat up and gazed upon the horror that had made
rubble out of Tifa’s 7th Heaven.
Chapter 2—Death From Above
It was Jenova.
“Jenova!” Cloud burned up with rage. The Mako in his eyes glowed, a bright,
fluorescent blue. “What’s she doing
here?”
“No time to
explain!” Barret cut in sharply. “We’ve gotta stop this @&?#! before it
destroys the rest of Midgar!”
The three of them
sprung to their feet and began charging toward the monstrosity. Jenova had her back turned to them, and was
firing a volley of lasers down upon several victims, who were screaming and
running from the rain of terror.
However, Jenova sensed a threat behind her, and quickly turned to face
Cloud, Barret and Tifa. Leering at
them, an evil grin appeared on her face.
“Ha ha ha
ha!” Her voice boomed and echoed into
their brains. “So, you’ve come back to
oppose us once again. Well, this time,
it won’t be such a walk in the park for you.
Meet my new form—Jenova SHADOW!”
Her body did
resemble a shadow: she was very dark, darker than the deepest blackest, most
remote alleys of the Midgar Slums. She
was also somewhat translucent, in the same way that a shadow is. But the three heroes did not have much time
to study this, as Jenova sent out a telekinetic wave at them, lifting them
several feet into the air and slamming them into the hard, cold concrete. Cloud got back up quickly, unsheathed Ultima
Weapon, dashed toward her, then leapt high into the air and brought the blade
down on top of her. Jenova reeled
backward but quickly recovered. She
then lashed out at Cloud with a black tentacle. It wrapped around him and started draining his power, giving it
to Jenova. Barret counteracted by
firing several rounds from the Missing Score into the tentacle, severing
it. The part of the tentacle wrapped
around Cloud unraveled and lay limp.
Cloud knelt, low on stamina.
Tifa noticed this and pointed her hands at him. A sparkly field of energy then surrounded
Cloud, and suddenly his strength was restored.
Thanks for the Cure 3, he wanted to say, but had no time to do so, as
Jenova was throwing fireballs at them now.
Tifa was hit by several of them, but she withstood them like a granite
statue. She then retaliated by
performing Beat Rush, Somersault, Waterkick, Meteodrive, Dolphin Blow, Meteor
Strike, and to finish it all off, delivered a Final Heaven. Jenova was almost knocked over but remained
standing. Tired of getting pounded on,
Jenova gathered magical energy then cast Freeze on each of them. Surrounded by icy rocks, the trio was unable
to harm Jenova any further.
“Can’t…break…outta
this!” Barret was overworking his bulky
muscles to try to shatter the ice.
“Ha ha ha ha!”
Jenova laughed, her voice echoing through the ice stones they were trapped in. “You fools are going nowhere. Now that you are helpless, I can continue to
go about as I please.” She turned to
Cloud. “You…why are you so
imperfect? Some clone you turned out to
be. Anyway, I’ve had enough of
this.” She then began to gather lots of
magical energy. “Now, to finish you
off…FOREVER!!!” Green sparks shot out
from her and formed a gigantic green mist of destruction. It was Ultima.
Chapter 3—Salvation
The Ultima,
strangely enough, never hit them.
Instead, Jenova let out a horrible, ear-piercing scream. Then she turned red, and slowly
vanished. Jenova was dead—for good.
The ice
surrounding Cloud, Tifa and Barret had melted suddenly, leaving the three of
them dripping wet. Then the earth shook
a little. Something heavy had landed on
the ground. The trio turned around to
find the Highwind in front of them.
Jumping out of it were several figures: Cid, Cait Sith, Red XIII, Yuffie
and Vincent.
“Hey, you’re all
here!” Cloud yelled with excitement.
“How did you find us?”
“Well, I was on
one of my space missions,” explained Cid, “and when I looked down on the
Planet, I saw a big-ass explosion! I
zoomed in, and found out that it was you guys fighting that @&?#! Jenova. I then rounded up everyone else and we flew
over here.”
“But you guys
never could have made it here that fast!”
Barret said.
“True,” said Red
XIII,” if we didn’t have Time Materia on hand.
We used Haste on ourselves and cast Slow on everything else, meaning we
were going at approximately the speed of light.”
“And I used Turbo
Ethers on everybody else to prevent them from running out of magic power,” said
Vincent.
“Okay,” remarked
Tifa, “but there’s one thing I still don’t understand: how come when Jenova
cast Ultima, it never hit us?”
“Reflect, duh!”
Yuffie exclaimed. “I cast it on you
guys right before you got hit with Ultima.
That’s why Jenova died instead of you.
You would have been toast if my quick thinking and superb skill hadn’t
saved you. So, you’d better thank me.”
“And I used
Remedies on you to melt that ice surrounding you,” Cait Sith explained. “We should get back to the Highwind
now. You can tell us all about what
happened once we get there.” And so, they headed back toward the great airship.
“Hey!” Yuffie
shouted. “You never thanked me!” But
she soon forgot about the rudeness of the others, because upon merely looking
at the Highwind, she felt sick to her stomach.
“Oh great,” she
muttered to herself, “here we go again.”
Later on in the
day, Cloud, Tifa and Barret told the rest of the group what happened, just like
Cait Sith said.
“So she just came
out of the sky and started destroying everything?” inquired Cait Sith. “Why would she suddenly reappear and try to
destroy you now?”
“There’s only one
reason I can think of for that,” Tifa answered. “To avenge Sephiroth.”
“Damn!” Cid said
suddenly. “That’s the fifth time she’s
died! Don’t those ^&@?#$! Jenova
cells ever stop working?”
“Actually, I
think they have,” Cloud said. “The
cells probably can’t keep someone alive indefinitely…and I don’t feel her
presence within the Lifestream anymore.”
“What?” Cid
nearly jumped out of his seat. “You’re
sayin’ you can ‘feel’ if someone’s dead or not? Man, you just keep getting’ weirder and weirder.” Then, without even saying good night, he went
off to bed in his quarters.
“I believe Cid
has the right idea,” Red XIII said. “We
should get some sleep, and then Vincent can tell the rest of you what he told
me. Good night.”
Tifa and Cloud
exchanged puzzled looks. What did he
mean? Without another word, the
remainder of the group went off to bed.
Chapter 4—Vincent’s Discovery
The next morning, everyone ate breakfast quickly because they were
all anxious to hear what it was Vincent had to say. Now that everyone had full stomachs, they were all ears.
“Friends,”
Vincent said, then hesitated before he finished his sentence. “I saw Hojo not too long ago near the
Northern Crater. He looked rather weak,
and he had reverted back to his human form.
I saw him climbing down into the crater. I believe he was looking for his son. I don’t think he ever got news that we slew Sephiroth. If Hojo wasn’t looking for him, then there’s
one other thing I can think of that he’d be doing down there: making his way to
the center of the Planet to do the same thing that Sephiroth tried to do and
suck the very Lifestream out of the Planet.
I suggest we follow him.”
Silence
ensued. The rest of the party was
completely shocked, not just because Hojo was still alive, but because Vincent
hardly ever said more than a few words at a time. Finally, Yuffie spoke.
“How the heck’s
Hojo still alive?” she asked.
“He injected
himself with Jenova cells, remember?” Cloud replied.
“Oh,” Yuffie
muttered, but then quickly ran off. She
was feeling sick to her stomach again.
“Vincent’s
right,” Cloud continued. “We should
follow Hojo immediately. Who knows what
kind of scheme he may be up to.”
“Already got that
covered,” Cid announced. “I’ve set the
Highwind directly on course to the crater.”
A couple minutes
later, they arrived at the giant hole in the ground. After landing next to it with a thud, they each selected some
Materia to take along with them just in case, then jumped out of the Highwind
and slid down the slippery outside of it.
They followed the spiraling path down into the depths of the crater,
fighting the occasional monster along the way.
Cloud easily dispatched of most of the creatures with the Ultima Weapon,
not to mention that he had the 4x-cut ability at his command. They finally found the evil scientist close
to the bottom, near the center of the Planet.
“Stop right where
you are, Hojo,” Cloud said bravely with his sword unsheathed, “and tell us what
it is you’re doing down here!”
Hojo turned
around and sneered at the sight of his pursuers. “Oh, great,” he growled, “not you guys again! How did you find me here?”
“There are more
important things for you to worry about right now, &#?@$(!” Cid told
him. “What the hell are ya doin’ here?”
“I—I was
searching for something,” Hojo mumbled, “but I seem to have already found
it. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”
“Not so fast!”
Cid rushed forward and impaled Hojo with the Venus Gospel. “What was it you were looking for?” Cid
ordered. “C’mon! Answer me!”
“I’ll never tell
you,” Hojo gasped, running out of air after getting his lungs pierced
through. Filled with anger, Cid flung
Hojo off his spear and into the gaping pit that led to the center of the
Planet. Hojo’s figure became smaller, smaller, smaller…until he was no longer
visible.
Chapter 5—The True Planet
“You sure did
show him!” Yuffie exclaimed.
“That was
awesome!” Cait Sith said.
Soon everyone was
celebrating Cid’s spectacular display of homicide. Everyone except Cloud.
“Hold on a
minute,” he said, trying to shut everyone else up. When everyone was silent, he continued.
“Hojo said that
he found what he was looking for, meaning we got here too late. So, I think our next order of business is to
find out what he was searching for.”
“He was searching
for me,” said a cold, dark voice. The
ground began to shake violently, and someone began to rise from the gaping pit
leading to the center of the Planet.
When the figure was visible, the group could see his long, silvery hair
and his fierce green eyes. He wore a
black cloak and carried a long sword that gleamed even though there was no
light for it to reflect. They know
immediately that their worst nightmare had returned to haunt them: Sephiroth.
“No…” Cloud
gasped.
“You were too
late in attempting to destroy me,” said Sephiroth in his eerie, unworldly
voice. “I had already become one with
the Planet, and a self-sufficient God at that.
You cannot ever destroy my body completely, for it will regenerate
rapidly. Now that I am the Planet, I am invincible. Unstoppable. Immortal. And you are all
helpless, worthless life forms that I as the Planet do not need. I don’t even need this Planet itself,
because I am the Planet. In fact, this whole universe means nothing
to me, so I will obliterate it entirely.
Once this universe is gone, the Promised Land will be mine.”
“Are you
finished?” Barret remarked. “Or should
I blow your head off now?” He didn’t wait for an answer. He fired continuously right at Sephiroth’s
head, but the bullets went right through him.
“It’s apparent
that you weren’t listening to what I said,” Sephiroth continued. “Very well, then. I shall destroy you all without the help of Meteor. But first…” he turned to Cloud. “We must finish what we started.” The two of them were instantly warped to a
black void, the same place that they had faced-off in before. Everyone else was still inside the
crater. Seeing that he had no choice
but to fight Sephiroth, Cloud rushed toward his opponent and thrust the Ultima
Weapon into him. Sephiroth felt no
pain. Maybe I need magic to beat him,
Cloud thought to himself. He cast Flare
on Sephiroth. Nothing happened. He cast Comet 2 on Sephiroth. Nothing happened. He even cast Ultima on Sephiroth. Nothing happened.
“Ha ha ha ha,”
Sephiroth laughed. “Is that it?” Immediately, he summoned Supernova, which
nearly crippled Cloud. Now Sephiroth
was summoning something else.
I’ve had enough
playing around,” he told Cloud. “This
ought to finish you off.”
Cloud was
suddenly sucked into another dimension.
Sephiroth had summoned Knights of the Round. One by one, the knights appeared, some attacking Cloud
physically, others casting spells on him.
Then King Arthur arrived and practically sliced Cloud in half. He was as good as dead.
Chapter 6—Damnation
But Cloud wasn’t
dead yet. In fact, he was still
standing.
Sephiroth burned
up with rage. “How…how could you have
possibly lived through that?” Sephiroth shouted, shocked. “Hmmm…I didn’t think I’d have to resort to
my extreme Limit Break, but you leave me with no choice.” He pulled out his sword, glowed orange, and
yelled, “Omnislash S!!!” He dashed
toward Cloud and sliced him 99 times.
Cloud was undergoing severe torture.
The attack never seemed to end and when it finally did, Cloud collapsed,
lifeless.
“Hm hm hm hm…heh
heh heh heh…ha ha ha ha…HA HA HA HA!!!!!”
Sephiroth laughed maniacally as he warped himself out of the dark void,
leaving Cloud’s corpse to lay there for eternity. Raising up his arms, Sephiroth slowly sucked the remaining
Lifestream from every single living organism—and the Planet exploded.
“Cloud…”
“…Cloud, wake
up…”
Cloud slowly
opened his eyes. Lifting his head up,
he found that he was lying in a flowerbed floating in the sky. And sitting next to him…was Aeris.
Cloud could not
believe his eyes. “A…A…Aeris! How did you—”
Aeris cut him
off. “It’s you who came here. I’ve been waiting for you ever since I was
killed.”
Cloud understood
now. “But…what about the Planet?”
“There’s nothing
that can be done now,” Aeris said sadly.
“The Planet has been destroyed.
Soon, Sephiroth will annihilate the rest of the universe. Sephiroth has won…in a sense.”
Cloud looked
perplexed. “In a sense?”
“Sephiroth
destroyed the human race. That was one
of his goals. But his other
goal—finding the Promised Land—shall never be attained.”
“Why is that?”
“Because…this is the Promised Land.”
Cloud was
astounded. “So…we won too, in a sense,
right?”
“Yes.”
Cloud was now
incredibly happy, since he knew that he was in the Promised Land, not to
mention being able to be with Aeris again.
Soon after, Tifa, Barret, Red XIII, Cait Sith, Cid, Yuffie and Vincent
came to the Promised Land. The group
was together again…forever.
The only person
who wasn’t happy was Sephiroth. He was
forced to live in a void of nothingness for his endless life. With nothing left to destroy, Sephiroth had
trapped himself until the End of Time.
The End