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sahbibabe · 4 years

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Hello! Hope you're having a wonderful day. I have a request, if that's okay with you. Can I have a soulmate AU 1#? The one about the craving? With Rufus? I was thinking, Rufus with a poor soulmate who craves the expensive foods he eats but doesn't have the money to buy them and sometimes doesn't even know what she's craving because it probably doesn't exist where she lives. I'm sorry if it's too detailed. It's okay if you don't want to do it. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Here you go! I hope you enjoy! Tell me if you liked it and if not, what I can improve on! Thanks for requesting, hon! ♡

THE FIRST TIME IT HAPPENED, you were sitting in Seventh Heaven and trying to ignore the excited chatter and boisterous energy around you. You had just ordered what would be your meal for the night and the next morning─it was all you could afford, given your meager salary as a scrap collector. Tifa had given you a hefty discount, since you helped her out a lot by finding spare parts and fitting them to the building when she needed it, but you sometimes suspected it was out of pity.

Your dinner─a plate consisting of two pork chops, rice, and a small salad─had cost you twenty gil. In the eyes of some, that was cheap, practically a penny out of their pockets; but for you, that was half your salary gone, and you rationed out the rest through cheaply packaged ramen that ran for one gil at the market. You weren't very healthy as a result, but Tifa did her best to meet at least some of your body's nutritional requirements with what you could afford to buy. She had even slipped you a free slice of pie and a beer, said it was on her for helping out with watching Marlene, and disappeared before you could argue.

When you couldn't afford even ramen, you bought food replacement tablets. They were cheaper than even those packets of noodles, could be gotten anywhere, and worked well enough to keep your appetite low as long as you didn't burn off too many calories working. Compared to you, Tifa and her group were well off, and they bought more food than they could handle. They didn't even box the rest up; Tifa would, though, and stow it away for later for them. It made you angry, and a little jealous.

So when you had gotten the barest sip of your beer and tasted the most exquisite flavors you had ever been privy to in your entire life, you felt your mind go white trying to catch up with it. You had never tasted this before, whatever it was─it was strong, and tasted like pizza smelled, but it was… off, more potent.

Your sister, before she married and moved topside, had told you about this; that people, when they were a certain age, tasted what their soulmate was eating. She also had said sometimes people have threads, others have telepathic thoughts, and even names on their arms. There was no real rhyme or reason to it, she told you, but it helped narrow down the selection pool to general salaries. Whatever that meant.

The taste still lingering in your mouth, you looked down at your pork chops in disappointment, knowing you would not get the same satisfaction out of your food. You ate with a mechanical slowness, forcing yourself to appreciate what you got and to savor it. The beer and pie was only a little satisfying, mostly to your sweet tooth, but as you were walking to the bar to pay Tifa, the taste changed. Your soulmate was taking dessert, it seemed, because all you could taste was the cloying sweetness of strawberries and sugar, something tart or somewhat bitter.

Your stomach felt very, very empty.

You paid Tifa and she rung up your receipt.

"How was the pie?" She asked, her eyes bright. Keen on conversation. "Did you like it? You were pretty slow tonight."

"I'm sorry." You took the receipt from her and stuffed it down your bra with a sigh, too lazy to flip open the button lapel at your breast. "I just got my first… soulmate taste thing. Whatever you call it. I wish I could have enjoyed it more, to be honest."

"Really?" Tifa motioned for you to sit down. Clearly you weren't going anywhere until she got all of the details out of you, haven't experienced it herself yet. "Tell me all about it and I won't get offended."

"I'll take that," you laughed. Your stomach clenched uncomfortably, tasting the delicious dessert your soulmate was having but confused when nothing came down. "I don't know about the main course, but the dessert had fresh strawberries… I remember those from when my mom would steal them from up topside. Sugar. Something bitter, but with its own sweetness. I've only ever eaten ramen and your food my whole life so I can't say what it was."

You hadn't noticed that Cloud had taken a seat one over from you until he spoke.

"That sounds like the Soireé up top." When you blinked at the long absent merc with confusion, he elaborated grudgingly,"A lot of Shinra execs would eat it. It's a dessert. Strawberries and blueberries. I overheard a conversation about it. Sounds like what you were describing."

"Oh, so they must have money, then, to eat topside," Tifa gasped. "I wonder who it could be!"

"I don't know." You shrugged and rubbed your stomach, grimacing at the twang of pain. "Well, I'll head on home now. Thanks for the pie, Tifa. Just call if you need anything."

"Sure thing, [Name]! Get home safe."

For the next five years, you suffered with your soulmate's eating habits, and over time, you got good at determining when they ate. Their favorite food seemed to be some kind of soup that had very little flavor, but their palette was large and vast. They ate three times a day, ate a snack inbetween, or drank some gods awful concoction of chocolate and bitter powder that you couldn't stand and took days to get out of your mouth.

In those five years, you had gone from lowly scrap collector to the illustrious Madame M's secretary and student. She boarded you and fed you extremely better food than you had ever eaten before, supplied you with a far more generous salary because she liked you and treated you like a daughter, and even helped you get healthy and into physical shape.

You could massage someone's hand like nobody's business, or even do the poor man's massage, but what you really specialized in was a unique method of acupuncture that stimulated relaxation and blood flow. Madame M had deemed you successful enough to take your own clients, but refused to let you take hers; you had to gather your own.

So topside you went, clothed in traditional garb as she had told you, with your hair pinned up and decorated with jewels from Madame M's prized collection. She had given them to you with a proud smile, along with some rather serious looking adoption papers that would allow her to become your official mother. Even at twenty-nine years old you had cried like a baby and hugged her. She didn't even tut like she normally would and hug you back.

But as soon as you were topside, you couldn't resist it.

You tracked down the restaurant that sold the Soireé.

When Rufus woke up tasting strawberries and blueberries in his mouth, he sat ramrod straight in his chair. At his feet, Darkstar whined and nudged his knee, but he ignored it and focused more intently on the flavors playing on his tongue.

It was the unique taste of a Soireé.

Over the years, he had tasted many things, things that he had looked up and found belonged to the slummers, then the middle class elite, or the oriental flavors of Wall Market cuisines. None of it had ever come close to touching the foods that he ate or the indulgences he found himself to favor, but this was the first time he had ever tasted something so expensive from his soulmate.

A slummer no more, it seemed.

He raised an eyebrow and hit a number on a rotary phone his father insisted on keeping. "Tseng."

"Yes, Mister President?"

"Find out who's eating a Soireé at Vallei Astra."

Tseng was very, very quiet for a few moments. He wisely didn't question it. "Yes sir. I'll be back with you in a moment."

She sat on the back patio facing a genuine ray of sunshine. The manager had escorted him to her with a sickly smile, sweating bullets, and mumbled under his breath the entire time while he did. Rufus had quickly made him leave once he got sight of his target.

She wore the oriental styles of the Wall Market; a black kimono, a dark purple obi, and brilliant red and white cranes and dragonflies sewn into it with a careful hand. A very expensive piece of silk indeed. She wore true jewels in her hair, a far cry from a slummer's jewelry, and from behind, wore her hair in a high bun with some strands left to dangle around her shoulders.

He had seen Madame M once, when she answered a personal call for his father. She had left the building in a rage, but he had heard her yelling at him when the massage had been finished. Her obi har been untied when she left. Rufus could only assume his father had been attempting to make her his mistress.

This girl, her student, was bound to be a spitfire.

He straightened his tie and stepped outside. A pair of cool, calm [color] eyes turned and regarded him, a plucked eyebrow raised, as if asking who dared to interrupt her dessert. Even sitting, she looked down her nose at him.

Oh, yes, he would enjoy every part of this… Starting with those eyes.

#final fantasy #final fantasy 7 remake #soulmate au #soulmate #rufus shinra x reader #rufus shinra

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buffaloborgine · 4 years

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An over-review and (many) theories of FFVII compilation - Part V

Part I: The Timeline - https://buffaloborgine.tumblr.com/post/624717906149818368/an-over-review-and-many-theories-of-ffvii

Part II: The Fated Trio(s) - https://buffaloborgine.tumblr.com/post/624817710806827008/an-over-review-and-many-theories-of-ffvii

Part III: To be or not to be - https://buffaloborgine.tumblr.com/post/625180368648159232/an-over-review-and-many-theories-of-ffvii

Part IV: LOVELESS -https://buffaloborgine.tumblr.com/post/625631759219015681/an-over-review-and-many-theories-of-ffvii

Part V: The Culprit

Before I get on with this part, let’s all agree (again) on one thing: The timeline of FFVII Remake was a mess even before Cloud comes back to Midgard in the beginning of it, as I have explained in part I.

[If you don’t agree with that, or haven’t read part I, then this part will have a lot of problems to argue, so just go read part I again, please]

“The most useful form of time travel is to go back a year or two and rectify the mistake we made.” - Matt Lucas.

Whoever decided to go back and wreck the timeline of FFVII must have their purpose and it is shown clearly in Remake: To change the flow of events and defy destiny.

To Aerith, if she could stop Sephiroth from becoming the one who calls down the Meteor to destroy the Planet then she can change her own destiny. At the end of the highway, it is Aerith, who actually shows sympathy to Sephiroth, saying “They.. Their words... They don’t reach him. All these moments and memories, precious and fleeting... they’re like rain rolling off his back. And when they are gone, he won’t cry... or shout... or anything.” Instead of trying to fix other things, Aerith knows that Sephiroth is the main cause and that if she can fix him, then everything will not happen the way they were supposed to.

To Sephiroth, if he can manipulate Cloud sooner than he did in the original timeline then Cloud and the team won’t be able to stop him from destroying Gaia, therefore he can reach his true aim, becoming God. We can see Sephiroth trying to reach out to Cloud very early in the game, just right after Cloud is back to Midgard, then the moment Cloud meets Aerith, etc; what Sephiroth does is emphasizing his influence on Cloud, telling Cloud that his purpose is to save the Planet, asking for Cloud’s help. By changing his method to approach Cloud, Sephiroth is trying to fix his “fault” so as to defy his destiny.

But then, let’s be honest, do you believe that the mess in FFVII Remake is caused by either Sephiroth or Aerith, or even both?

We already know that Banora still exists on the map since Shinra didn’t bomb them because the poster of Banora White juice in Midgar. We also know that Tseng had his hair down before the time Before Crisis actually happened, thanks to the flashback cutscene of Elmyra. Also, the Wutai War is still going on. Therefore, if there is someone who actually messed up the timeline, that must be someone who knows about the events of Crisis Core and Before Crisis, and that can’t be neither Sephiroth nor Aerith.

So why I am so certain about that?

- First of all, Banora. There is no point for Sephiroth to actually try to prevent the bombing of Banora, he doesn’t even know about it, or if he does, he wouldn’t mind. It has been shown in Crisis Core that after that event, Sephiroth doesn’t even mention about it, he doesn’t care. It also is no problem to Aerith, she may know about Banora, but does she know about it being bombed? Aerith can sense when someone entered the Lifestream, but she doesn’t know exactly where they were; or she may get the knowledge about it after she entered the Lifestream, but even if she knows about it, does she needs to actually prevent it? No.

- Secondly, Tseng. The best I could come up with the scenario for Tseng to let his hair down before the events of Before Crisis is that Veld was never a Turk which leads to Kalm never got bombed wrongly and Veld lives a normal life with his family (or maybe Kalm was still bombed and Veld died along his family in it, causing the whole Before Crisis event never happened). Sephiroth may know about those events in Before Crisis, but he never actually had any significant part in it, and he doesn’t care about the Turks so there is no point for him to fix this. Aerith knows about Tseng, and yes, she could want to fix Tseng’s destiny, so let give Aerith some possibilities here.

- Finally, Wutai War. The fact that this war is still going makes it impossible for both Sephiroth and Aerith to get involved in this. Sephiroth was the hero of Wutai War and Aerith obviously wants peace, not war, both of them have no reason to let the war continue.

Then, the question is, if neither of them is the culprit behind the mess in Remake, then who is?

Well, the culprit must have all the connection to the three events above, also, must be someone who has already died in the original timeline so they are in the Lifestream and can manage to manipulate the Lifestream, or must be someone that is still alive after Dirge of Cerberus (the last point in the chronological line of the original timeline) and has a connection to the Lifestream so they can manipulate it for the time travel. By doing a quick short, we narrow down the list.

- Vincent is alive after DoC but he seems fine with the result of DoC so he doesn’t need to travel backward for anything.

- Zack is tied to all of those events above but as the end of Remake, he is surprised that he is alive, so it means that he is no culprit.

- Angeal could be the culprit, because he is the type of person that wants to fix things and save people, but exactly because of that, if he is the culprit, he would want to end the Wutai War.

- And finally, Genesis. We see him still alive after DoC, he is closely tied with Banora, there is no proof that he needs to fix Tseng but we know that he does know a lot of things about the Turks (due to the way he talks to Tseng in the factory in CC), and as for the Wutai War, Genesis was jealous with Sephiroth about being the hero, so by keeping the war continue, Genesis could prevent their relationship from faltering apart. Also, he did say that he will come back, and I believe he will.

In conclusion, I believe it is Genesis would be the most possible to be behind the timetravel;ing trainwreck in Remake, because he has the most reasons to do it. (Also the Stamp mascot, as it is shown in Remake that there are two different Stamp puppies in two timeline, it is obvious that the mascot is changed between different timelines. And besides, why a puppy? As we know Zack is referred as "Zack the puppy" by Angeal but from whom did we know about that? Angeal's mom, and then Genesis)

Thank you for reading, this is basically the last part of my theory, maybe there will be more, but for now, it ends here.

#FFVII #FFVII Compilation #FFVII Crisis Core #FFVII before crisis #FFVII Advent Chidren #FFVII Dirge of Cerberus #Cloud Strife #Aerith Gainsborough #Sephiroth #Angeal Hewley #Genesis Rhapsodos #Zack Fair #Tseng #theory

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agrinsosardonic · 3 years

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Stream of Conscious Vampire AU

It’s like “What we do in the Shadows” meets “Final Fantasy Seven.”

Tseng, Reno, and Rude are three vampires living in the modern world. Tseng is, by far, the oldest. Original death sometime in the early 1300s A.D. But he can’t be sure anymore. He was changed by a dashing, blonde, vampire--saved from near death when a plague decimated his village. Unfortunately, his maker vanished as quickly as he appeared. Leaving Tseng to learn the ways of the vampire. Tseng is the maker of both Reno and Rude.

Next is Reno, who’s original date of death is unknown as he keeps changing his story. One day, he caused the black plague before he was bored. The other day, he started the Salem Witch Trials because he thought, “it was pretty unfair everyone hated just the vampires.” Tseng can not confirm, nor, deny these stories as he was drunk when he turned Reno. as he says,

“That’s the only way I would allow myself to suffer eternity alongside him.”

Finally, Rude, the youngest. Original date of death, the 1920s after Reno set his sights on him. However, Rude put up a good fight against the red-headed vampire, and Reno started to think of other things he wanted to do with Rude. Unfortunately, Reno accidentally mortally wounded Rude-as is usual for one of Reno’s lovers. And Reno, too lazy to do it himself, got Tseng to turn Rude. And Tseng agreed, because,

“At least I no longer have to suffer alone...”

The three live in a suspicious mansion in the middle of the city. As modernity took over, the three vampires assimilated to their surroundings in order to blend in more effectively.

They had been living a peaceful existence feasting on the residents of this little island. Until the Vampire hunters showed up.

And by far, the best of them, Cloud Strife, just goes nuts on this city of vampires trying to avenge the death of his brother- Zack. He’s doing a pretty excellent job until he encounters Reno.

They engage a brutal battle. Until Reno, even in his wild, yet efficient fighting style, starts to falter. He manages to halt Cloud’s attack to talk to him. And if nothing else, Reno has a silver tongue able to convince the pope to sin. He rationalizes that Vampires are doing the same thing as humans. He even suggests that his method is more humane than the meat industry. And he does have a point. So Cloud starts to question his existence but can’t move forward knowing his brother was murdered by a vampire.

So Reno, lacking any loyalty to his kind, or morals, and kind wants to fuck the hot vampire hunter, makes a deal. He’ll help Cloud find the vampire who killed his brother, and in exchange, Cloud doesn’t tell his vampire hunter buddies where Reno and the others are living.

Cloud agrees.

And they bang in the dark, damp alley.

#cleno #turks as vampires #shower throughts #i have no idea #i don't need anymore wips

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rosaguard · 4 years

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AERIS GAINSBOROUGH RP PLOTTING CHEAT-SHEET!

Want new-and-exciting plots for your character? Long to reach out to more of your followers, but don’t know where to start? Fear not! Fill out this form and give your RP partners both present and future all the of juicy jumping off points they need to help you get your characters acquainted.

Be sure to tag the players whose characters YOU want more cues to interact with, and repost, don’t reblog! Feel free to add or remove sections as you see fit. Template here.

mun name: summer. ooc contact: feel free to message me through IMs or asks. discord is reserved for friends and more serious plotting.

who the heck is my muse anyway?

aeris gainsborough is one of the main protagonist from final fantasy vii and the last living cetra, an ancient race that is able to speak to the planet directly. when she was only an infant, aeris’ father, once the former head scientist at the shinra company, was murdered so that aeris and her mother, ifalna, could be captured. the first seven years of her life were spent as a prisoner in the shinra building so her and her powers could be studied closely for shinra’s own selfish gain. eventually, her mother was able fight her way out of the shinra building but was fatally wounded in the process and the two were eventually found on the steps of the sector five station by a widow named elmyra gainsborough. knowing that aeris was finally in safe hands, ifalna leaves her daughter with a heirloom, the holy materia, before she passes on to join the lifestream. in the years following her mother’s death and being adopted by elmyra, shinra would continue to track her movements but mostly let aeris be as she got older.

the use of mako, an energy source that was drained from the planet’s essence, would also rise in prominence during this time and various groups formed to oppose shinra’s methods. the most notable and active group were the eco-terrorists, AVALANCHE, and aeris’ life changes completely when one of its members nearly crashes on top of her in her church. a short walk to sector seven ends with aeris adventuring through a red-light district, midgar’s sewers, and finally kidnapped by the turks. feeling responsible for her capture, cloud, tifa, and barret break into the shinra building and are able to rescue the flower girl before hojo can use her and another innocent creature ( red xiii / nanaki ) for another one of his twisted experiments. once she is safe, the group’s attempt to escape fail and they’re locked away….only to be mysteriously freed where they discover that nearly everyone in the upper floors of the building murdered, including president shinra himself.

while the group mostly intended to save the planet by destroying shinra, aeris and the others soon learn that there is an even greater threat to the planet: sephiroth. due to be wanted in midgar, the ragtag group of strangers leave the city in order to search for the elusive former general in order to figure out his intentions. this moment jumpstarts aeris’ journey of self-discovery and learning more about her ancestors ⎯⎯⎯⎯ something that she had deliberately avoided until now. as she the group continues to travel the world, aeris slowly begins to not only understand her role as the last cetra but she finally learns of the true purpose of the heirloom her mother had given her all those years ago…

things you should know:

aeris does not die in my portrayal. my blog is canon divergent and is meant to explore how she ( and the story as a whole ) would change if she were to live. i’ve already written about what the differences between the events at the city of the ancients are in my blog canon.

the original game will always be my base. with the remake coming, there will more than likely be changes that i’m willing to adapt to but her personality will always remain faithful towards the OG in case the remake is not. i also pick and choose which parts of the compilation ( crisis core, advent children, etc. ) i wish to acknowledge.

aeris can ‘hear’ other planets too. she might not fully understand what it’s saying as its words might sound muffled or completely like gibberish to her but she can hear it.

my aeris is brown. when describing her in a thread, please don’t describe her skin as pale or white because it is not. she is the equivalent of a south asian woman visually, not western like nomura has stated she’s designed to be ( here is an example of her skin tone if it helps ).

what she’s been up to:

main verse: after being rescued from shinra, aerith��quickly becomes a new member of the AVALANCHE crew once they decide to leave midgar. during this period, she and the others travel across the planet to hunt down sephiroth and uncover his true motivations for seeking the promised land. until aeris, along with tifa and barret, leave the main party to travel to the city of the ancients alone.

where to find her:

sector five church: aeris’ home away from home is an abandoned, dilapidated church in the sector five slums where she has managed to do the impossible: make flowers grow in the slums. children often visit her to play in her church or help tend to the flowers while she’s away.

the upper sectors: towering over the slums is the plate that holds the foundation of midgar. despite popular belief in the slums, people of various wealth live on the plate - from the middle class to the most wealthy. it is the flower girl’s main place of business and you’re most likely to find her selling flowers on loveless avenue in sector eight.

the highwind: despite the wounds earned during the clash at the city of the ancients, aeris remains with AVALANCHE until the end. once meteor is finally summoned by sephiroth and tifa and barret are rescued in junon, the others return to icicle inn to retrieve aeris. after cloud is found in mideel, aeris remains at the hospital to be treated by its doctor while tifa watches over their comatose leader. after cloud returns to his former self, she mostly stays on the airship whenever they leave to fight.

current plans:

kill sephiroth / save the planet: this is pretty straight forward to be honest.

desired interactions:

if the ff rpc wasn’t so d-e-a-d, i would mostly say canon interactions? i would really like to go more into her general feelings regarding well…everything post-stabbing. it would be a difficult time for her since she’s just been stabbed, she failed to protect the planet, etc. ( there’s also processing what happened at the temple of the ancients: tseng might be dead, we know he’s not, but she thinks so and cloud attacked her ).

more friendships / family / whatever. i’ve actually haven’t gotten into shipping until like…the past year? it’s been nice but also want to make sure all my interactions aren’t just romantic.

this section will be updated™ over time.

things that bother me:

receiving starters about aeris’s flowers or something related to flowers. while it might not seem like a big deal to you, imagine receiving 6 starters and four of them were about the same exact subject. it’s just…really boring so please don’t write about her flowers unless it’s something you really feel is unique enough.

having your muse ‘save’ aeris. unless we’ve discussed this and i’ve agreed to it happening, don’t write it for me. aeris is not weak. she does not need your muses’s protection unless she asks for it. in the original game, she states multiple times that she can handle herself and gets visibly annoyed when people underestimate her: cloud: you gotta be kidding. why do you want to put yourself in danger again? aeris: i’m used to it. cloud: used to it!? ……well, don’t know… getting help from a girl… aeris: a girl!! what do you mean by that!? you expect me to just sit by and listen, after hearing you say something like that!? // cloud: how could I ask you to go along when I knew it would be dangerous? aeris: are you done?

literally everything about crisis core!aeris. having her entire design be retconned because a guy told her he liked pink on her is bad. having him be the one to suggest she sell flowers when she literally lives in straight poverty is bad. having her spend four years writing letters to the equivalent of a high school crush is bad. having so much of her relationship with cloud taken and recycled for zack ( falling in her church, just one date, etc. ) is bad. having her, a person that is literally connect to the planet and has limit breaks that deal with nature itself, be scared of the sky is not only bad but stupid. none of this means that i hate zack as i would still be willing to write ze.rith if there’s chemistry but it would have to be heavily plotted and discussed.

tagged by: no one, i rewrote an old one i did.

tagging: anyone who wants to.

#❀ . ━ ❛ take your time ❪ ooc ❫ .

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nautilusopus · 7 years

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The Number I

Chapter 4: Before We Do Anything Else Though Let’s Talk About Math For Forty-Five Minutes

Very nervous. The more I post, the more I box myself in with potentially bad unworkable ideas that I won't be able to back out on in the middle of chapter 20. Oh well!

Things are gonna start moving pretty quickly from this point on once the setup finally wraps up. Very nervous about that too.

God this thing’s probably ridden with typos again.

Thank you again to @cateringisalie, @fury-brand, @limbostratus, @auncyen, and everyone else I bothered to write this dumb garbage.

Four years after meteor-fall and Cloud Strife still isn’t himself. The thing that haunts him comes always at the same time… and when it does, on a distant far-off world, a needle moves. Twisty AU. Warnings for future chapters.

The click of the door to the decontamination airlock opening up was what woke up Aeris, and she quickly gathered up the few possessions she had brought with her and nudged Tseng awake. Cissnei was already awake somehow, and had already proceeded through ahead of her. Aeris was quick to follow -- the room was cold and humid, and an automated notification from the intercom had notified her that the other half of the team were on approach and would be using it in an hour or so.

The last airlock on the way out led into a small antechamber that would open up into the main facility. Aeris stepped out through the door, and it clicked shut behind her. Aeris looked down the long hall that stretched out in front of her, and began to lead the way down it.

"It's hard to believe it's all real," said Cissnei from behind her. "I guess someone had to be the person that realised you could actually send people into space, but it's still..."

"I guess so," she replied, heading deeper into the compound and passing through the first ring, mostly containing supplies, and into the second, containing living quarters for the crew. "All the numbers check out in the simulations, anyway." Another luxury they had now that they didn't the first time around.

They branched off into their own rooms, laid out like the spokes of a wheel. There were ten in total, though only six would be occupied. Aeris dropped off her candies in one of the rooms, claiming it as her own, and quickly followed after Tseng and Cissnei.

The next ring in was the biology lab. Tseng was already unpacking his briefcase onto the desk provided. The whole thing seemed almost too big for just one, maybe two people, and this section of the building alone probably had as much money sunk into it as the next three rings combined. Who needed eight different kinds of microscopes? Tseng did, apparently.

It had several doors leading into the next innermost ring, the medical ward; close enough to the labs for quick response in case of accidents, deep enough into the facility to prevent more of them through potential biohazard leaks. Hopefully.

There were two more rings, increasingly smaller, both separated from the sections in front and behind them by airlocks, containing a veritable jungle of computers and machines and detectors that might not ever get used. The idea was to never have to outsource anything they might find outside the facility and have it all done in-house.

Aeris took a deep breath and steeled herself in front of the airlock door of the second-to-last ring of the building, glancing at Cissnei, who nodded, not entirely sure what to expect.

"Excited?" she asked.

"Yes. Nervous, too. My feet are tingling a little."

"That could also be because we're pretty much on top of the generator right now," said Aeris. The entire thing was buried underground and heavily insulated, but the sheer amount of power on tap still made the whole area slightly charged with static.

"...Is that safe?"

"Yes," said Aeris grimly. "They wouldn't have let us build this place without getting it reapproved sixteen times. See for yourself if you don't believe me." And with that, she pushed open the door.

It seemed an unimpressive enough space upon first glance -- several computers along the outer wall, a large screen built into the inner ring. Desks, a whiteboard, and a couple servers.

Slightly more unusual was the rack of towels, and the raised metal disc about two metres across, covered by a glass panel and wired up to one of the more formidable computers in the room.

And of course, the large tank in the centre of the room. That too.

Aeris ran a hand over the side of it, suppressing a thrill of giddiness. It came up to her chest in height and was twice as wide, with a lid that was presently closed over the top. There were ten times as many wires leading from this one as there were the metal disc, and in particular three thicker ones were linked to the screen mounted on the wall.

"Spooky," remarked Cissnei, also staring at the tank, unwilling to touch it. "You're not worried?"

"Even if I was, it wouldn't matter." Truth be told, she was immensely worried. The simulations guaranteed no risk, sure. The lab rats they'd used in the trials seemed to be doing okay, sure. There would be five other people in the room with her in case something as stupid as her flipping over and choking on neuroconductive fluids happened, sure. The medical wing was intentionally right next door, sure.

A wild thought crossed her mind as she considered just jumping in the tank right now before she got cold feet. She even went as far as tipping up the lid. It was empty at the moment, of course, the drain in the bottom clearly visible. That would change in a matter of days, or perhaps hours if they were fortunate enough.

"It's exciting, too," she said after a moment, closing the lid. "We may as well get started with setup. Have everything running for when everyone gets here."

"'We'?"

"You could help, I guess. Get everything switched on and running."

"I am not touching the devil tank, though."

Aeris put her hands on her hips and frowned. "It won't do anything, even if it were on. You aren't in it, and we haven't picked a signal to replicate."

"What if you're wrong?"

Aeris gave the tank a firm pat on the lid. "Then we learn a valuable science lesson. Come on, give me a hand with the contact disc."

They worked for several hours after that. While a good majority of the simpler functions were automated, the instruments themselves weren't. Most of it wound up being staring at loading screens, waiting for systems upon systems to boot up. At about six hours into prep, Tseng joined them, having finished his work in the biolabs.

"You seem busy," he said, glancing over the pair of them. Cissnei had been pacing in circles around the room's circumference and seemed to have somehow managed to annoy herself with it, and Aeris was staring at a monitor watching driver 56 of 1189 load, a thin stream of drool of going down her chin.

"We're sciencing. What have you been doing?" Aeris shot back defensively.

"Much of the same thing," he admitted. "You aren't accomplishing anything at the moment. Neither am I. We may as well retire for the time being."

"Isn't this important?" objected Aeris, as Cissnei all too willingly went right for the door.

"Yes, but we're not supposed to be doing much without half the staff present anyway," she said. "Eat something."

"Fine, but I'm staying here," said Aeris. "I'd like to get a head start on finding a good anchorpoint. If they like, they can tell me to pick a new one when they get here."

Their meals consisted of prepackaged rations. They could have been quite a bit worse, considered Aeris as she dug into some sort of precooked meat pie-esque thing. She had offered the gummy bears and allsorts again, and no one had been particularly interested.

After another half hour of waiting for the system to be fully online, the light beneath the glass-covered disc flickered on as Aeris sat at the computer next to it and began to enter in a string of numbers -- the data from the first bridging experiment.

Once it was determined that the planes of reality they had discovered more or less had atoms the way they were understood in their own, there came talk of visiting said planes using the same technology. The process was simple, in explanation anyway. Safely sending a remote-controlled drone through to another universe had been considered, but ultimately was impossible -- there would be no way know what was on the other side without observing it, and there was no way to observe it that didn't involve sending a billion dollar rover through and hoping it didn't come out on the other side miles underground, or in the vacuum of space. The method considered by the late Dr. Gainsborough involved energy signatures -- the human consciousness was really little more than electricity, and if there were a point of reference on the other side that they recognised and had already mapped, one could use that as a jumping-off point to send their own signal through.

The problem with that, however, was the same catch-22 with the drones; there was nothing for them in the other dimension to see if there was anything for them in the other dimension.

That, and the fact that it sounded ridiculous and essentially ended her mother's career.

Eventually, she and her husband (nee Dr. Gast) had decided someone would have to be the first one in the pool. The effort had been privately funded, unsupervised, and ultimately, fatal.

People had died for these numbers.

It wasn't until three years ago that Aeris realised that they must have succeeded directly prior to the whole thing quite literally blowing up in their faces. The data was garbled enough that it had nearly been discarded, but it was there, and she had worked through it all herself, filtering out distortion, correcting for bugs, and deciphering what she could from burnt papers.

They had their signature, and with it their waypoint.

The glass-covered disc flickered on a few moments later, and pinpricks of light began popping up on its surface. All of them were instances of the pattern they had identified. Some were steadier than others. Most of them didn't remain fixed for more than an instant, and were limited in scope. She sifted through the options, watching them flicker in and out of existence, until she zeroed in on the most consistent one she could find. Good scope, steady source, very few variations. Perfect.

She scooted over to another computer and began running the calculations for it. It would probably take a lot longer on her own, but a head start was still a head start, and Cissnei and Tseng probably had a limited understanding of particle physics and the numbers that went into it anyway.

She was about five hours deep into her work before she turned to look at the disc again and swore.

The waypoint she'd been setting up calibrations for had terminated, she realised. All of them had. She could continue, but the results would be skewed with the signal truncating as it had. Perhaps she could wait a while and see if it picked up anything else.

She got up to retrieve the container of allsorts, and noticed another waypoint. Very steady, decent scope, but not particularly strong -- it had barely registered at all.

It was better than nothing, though, and five hours wasted was still five hours wasted. She scrapped the work she'd done for the first point with a heavy sigh and began on the next one, this time frequently checking to see if it was still there.

She peeled her face off the desk sometime later, not having realised she had fallen asleep. At some point someone else had left another ration pack next to her. She picked it up and went back to the outer ring to the living quarters.

Cissnei was there waiting for her. "It's about time you left that room. They're getting out of decon in ten minutes."

"Who? Oh." Aeris wiped a drool stain off the side of her face and allowed Cissnei to lead her around to the other side of the ring. "Where's Tseng?"

"Asleep," said Cissnei. "He probably didn't want to admit he was still nauseous in front of the project's head."

"I'll get him. You can say hi for me," she said, and started off down the hallway again.

"Should you be here if you're in charge -- okay, goodbye," she heard Cissnei say behind her.

By the time she got back with a decidedly less-put-together Tseng, Cissnei already appeared to be having a conversation with the three men that had just arrived, and Aeris paused uncertainly for a moment.

The first was clearly who the Netherlands had sent, what with the blond hair and blue eyes and the significant height advantage he had on most of them. He seemed mostly content to watch the others. Perhaps this was because of the language barrier, as Cissnei was presently engaged in a conversation in German with the second man. He seemed to be the oldest of the three, a few years older than the blond man, his black hair streaked with grey in places, and Aeris was fairly sure she recognised him from the meetings. She could tell even through the reserved, formal way he carried himself that he had been dying to talk to someone all day.

Aeris was half convinced the third was an intern that had wandered in by mistake. He was significantly taller than all of them and oddly musclebound for a physicist, and looked about as young as she was. He hadn't stopped fidgeting with the sleeves of his scrubs and was clearly bored out of his mind. Her mind went back to the dossiers after another moment -- by process of elimination, the lab in Hawaii had sent him over.

Cissnei paused mid-conversation and turned to Aeris and Tseng, who quickly made an effort to straighten the collar of his shirt.

"Dr. Gainsborough aus dem Vereinigten Königreich Großbritannien und Dr. Tseng aus der Volksrepublik China," said Cissnei, gesturing to each of them as they exchanged handshakes. She turned to Aeris. "Dr. Angeal Hewley from the Federal Republic of Germany, Dr. Lazard Deusericus from the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and Dr. Zachary Fair from the United States of America."

They each gave a polite nod at the mention of their names. The blond man, Dr. Deusericus, smiled. "It's an honour to work with you on this project, Dr. Gainsborough."

"Likewise, and Aeris is fine," she replied. "It'll be too stuffy if we keep up the titles the whole time we're here." She turned on her heels again and began to move back towards the sleeping quarters. "Well, get yourselves in order. We've got a lot of work to do."

The tall one, Fair, blinked in surprise, but if he would have said anything she wouldn't have heard it, already on her way towards the fifth ring, unable to keep the grin off her face.

"So, uh... that went well, I guess?" Zack watched the project head disappear around the corner and went back to messing with the sleeves of his uniform.

"Swimmingly," came Lazard's voice behind him, sounding somewhat amused as Angeal heaved a heavy sigh behind him. Zack had decided almost immediately to be on a first-name basis with everyone he was in decon with. Lazard had tolerated it good-naturedly, more or less. Angeal had responded by looking at him exasperatedly and accidentally-on-purpose not hearing him on occasion.

"So... Ange. Can I call you Ange?"

Zack received another stern look.

"Angeal, then. It's unprofessional to ignore your coworkers, Angeal."

Angeal sighed and proceeded down the hall to the living quarters.

"This relationship's off to a great start," said Zack, heading after him.

"You can't blame us for wanting to maintain a professional environment," said Lazard.

"Yeah, but we're basically bunkmates now," said Zack, looking at one of the identical white doors Angeal had just disappeared into. "Can you imagine spending a month at a time living with someone you couldn't stand? Like a girlfriend, but you can't dump them, because it's her house, and also you've lost the keys, and there are no windows and neither one of you can leave without causing an international incident."

"That's... certainly colourful," said Lazard.

"Tell me about it," muttered Zack, and picked a room at random.

It was fairly minimalist -- a bed in the corner, with a couple pillows and some blankets. He'd have to see if there were any more pillows in the supply section.

He spent a full two minutes just sitting on his bed and staring at the mirror over the sink in front of him -- it was the first time in a month he hadn't had any cameras pointed in his face. His jaw ached from the constant need for a "winning smile". He scowled at the mirror over, which was immensely satisfying, which involuntarily made him smile again, which started the cycle over.

A knock on the door dragged his attention away from the mirror. "They're setting up for the first round," came Lazard's voice. "You're needed in the fifth ring."

Zack got to his feet and stepped outside. "What, already?"

Lazard began to lead him back. "Yes, already. Apparently they'd been taking care of the preliminary work over the last day or so. Nothing left to do but start."

Zack took his time making it through the facility -- he spent a few minutes watching Tseng and Lazard hurry around medical, and offered to feed the five rats they had available to them, until Tseng had to shoo him away when he tried to take one out to pet. He probably shouldn't be getting attached to something that he'd have to watch get dissected, but then that was why he wasn't a biologist.

Another two airlocks led him into the fifth ring, where Angeal and Aeris were already deep in conversation, with Cissnei mediating between the two. Aeris was the first to greet him.

"I don't recognise you from the meetings," she said eventually. "So you're... Zax?"

"It's Zack," he grumbled. "That's a typo. And... yeah. Cosmologist. I was kind of a last minute addition."

"How last minute?"

"Try three weeks. They briefed me on the way over."

Aeris frowned, and he quickly continued. "That big scary room one door over? That was my design." She continued watching him, which he took as a sign to continue. "Partially my design, anyway. They figured, y'know, since I built it, they might as well have me operate it too. So, I'm here!" He waved. "Hello!"

"So how's it work, then?" A test. He hoped it wouldn't be like this the entire time he was working.

"The last one just ripped a hole open in spacetime for stuff to be fed through. It was, uh... brilliant, I'm sure, but wound up with some... casualties," he said, crashing into every single elephant in the room on the way to his desk. "That one just tears the hole at you."

"That sounds lethal."

"Oh, it is," said Zack, shrugging. "But by then you're in another universe. Kills you and brings you back before the laws of physics have time to realise you're dead."

It finally got her to look away, at least. "Well, welcome to the project, Zack."

"You too," he replied, turning back to his own screen and hiding a grin. Test passed, first name basis achieved.

Everyone spoke very little during the first part of setup. Deusericus, after getting set up in the medical room, had joined Tseng in observing everyone else until they were needed. Hewley, thank god, was finally present to help fine tune the calculations she'd made in a hurry and without much sleep, with Cissnei helping to translate the occasional communication or two -- it seemed he understood some English, but spoke very little of it himself. That left Fair hovering over their shoulder, apparently making Angeal nervous.

After a while, Aeris spoke up again. "I'm still sort of surprised they have someone else this young on the project," she said. "I was involved from day one, and I recommended Cissnei. What's your story?"

"Maybe they thought it'd be good publicity or something if they sent someone from Mauna Kea." He shrugged, leaning on the desk. "Genius from a poor family, y'know. Makes a good Lifetime movie. I don't think it's bragging or anything to say I'm pretty photogenic, either."

Aeris frowned. "You're awfully up-front about it."

"Hey, I said that was one of the reasons," he said, looking mildly offended. "You don't think I got my doctorate off a basketball scholarship, did you?"

"Well, you can show me," she replied, and passed him a set of papers. "Help get the overlap signal set up."

Zack looked through them, still looking mildly stung. "What's this from? I thought we'd never done this before."

At this Angeal spoke up, and Cissnei began translating.

"'We've never done this with a human before. We have tested the process on rats, using a weak partial signal. We know it's nonlethal as long as one doesn't choke and drown, and we know some kind of connection has been made, but the rats can't tell us what they're experiencing, what they've seen, or what the process is like,'" she relayed. Angeal then addressed Zack directly. "Ten days, ten rats. All fine."

"How does that work out for you?" he asked Aeris. "You'll be comatose, right?"

"That's what this is for," chimed in Deusericus, gesturing to a large screen that seemed to be more heavily wired up to the tank than the others. "This will be the first test to make sure it works."

"...And if it doesn't?" asked Zack.

"It has to," said Aeris, tying her braid more closely to her head in a bun. "They didn't tell you much, did they?"

Zack shrugged. "They went over the math itself, and the work I'd be doing. And the gateroom. Y'know, making sure anyone that goes in there comes back out in one piece. Not so much about the hell tank."

Cissnei pointed, looking triumphant. Aeris quickly continued, cutting her off.

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-eight," said Zack. "You beat me by a year, looks like." He grinned, and Aeris again for a split second wondered if he mightn't have been an intern.

"Did you want to be here, or did they just send you over?" asked Aeris. "Why are you involved?"

"Well..." he scratched his neck. "I mean, of course I wanna be here. It's really exciting, you know? I wanted to be a part of it. That's why the rest of us joined, right Lazard?" he said, turning to Deusericus for support.

"Something like that," said Lazard, clearly amused at the familiarity. Zack had probably been doing that all through decon. "There are many reasons. The challenge, the honour for one's nation, having something nice on one's retainer..."

"And that's why you're here?" said Aeris, leaning away from the computer screen to let Angeal have a final look.

"More or less," he replied. "There's a suit for you on the examination chair. I'll meet you inside in five minutes for a physical before we start."

Cissnei flashed her another thumbs up as Aeris stood and left the room.

Lazard emerged ten minutes later following the physical, with Aeris behind him. After confirming she was in decent enough shape to not have a heart attack midway through the process, she had changed into what appeared to be a cream-coloured wetsuit, with silvery spots of conductive foil running down the spine. She'd tied her braid back up into a bun (showed them about her ribbon being work-inappropriate), and hauled herself up to sit on the ledge next to the lip of the tank as she watched it slowly fill.

She sat patiently as Lazard enlisted Cissnei's help in attaching electrodes to spots on her head and neck, as well as several more sensors monitoring her vitals. She very slowly slid her feet in -- the fluid itself was slightly viscous, and had a silvery tint to it -- and felt them drag through it with a bit more resistance than water. It had been diluted somewhat, and gallium generally wasn't known for being poisonous, but Aeris couldn't help but think of pitcher plants.

They passed her sealed oxygen mask and helped her secure it to her face. Apart from air, there would also be a mild sedative mixed in, enough to keep her from unconsciously thrashing around and flipping herself over. She and Cissnei flashed another thumbs up, and Aeris carefully lowered herself into the tank. The fluid had been heated slightly, but she still shivered as she carefully positioned herself to float on her back.

"The first set's active," she heard Tseng say from somewhere to her right. "Count down from ten."

Aeris felt her thoughts skip a beat, and she felt as though they were sagging slightly, leaving a small space underneath them. The large screen flickered on.

The sedative began to kick in, and the sagging smoothed out, leaving the space within reach. Aeris focused on it, and began to count.

Numbers began appearing on the screen, neatly typed: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

"Spooky..." she heard Zack mutter. She was sure Cissnei would probably be inclined to agree.

"Now up from twos," came Angeal's voice. On a new line below the first came 2-4-6-8-10. Ready.

"The screen's online. The main set's coming in two minutes," said Lazard. "Good luck." The lid was closed over her, leaving her in complete darkness.

The large screen was essential for two of reasons -- once she'd made contact, she'd essentially have no knowledge of her surroundings, and no way to communicate in the event of an emergency. There would be no way to take notes, either, lacking a presence any more physical than electrical signals, and vital information could be lost due to simple human forgetfulness. The screen doubled as both.

A microphone in the lid of the tank directly over her clicked on, and Zack's voice wafted through, echoing slightly in the confined space.

"We're sending a partial at first, to see how you handle that," he said. "Just keep talking to me until you can't."

"Shouldn't a doctor be doing this?" said Aeris. The sedative had fully set in, and the warm water (well, some of it was water) she was suspended in made it feel a bit like a hot tub.

"Lazard's looking over your vitals right now and Cissnei's on translation duty. Besides, I am a doctor," he replied, and she could still hear the toothy grin in his voice.

"So 'm I."

"Well, then we're fine. You've got twenty seconds. Can you count for me?"

"Nineteen, eighteen, seventeen, sixteen..." Spots of light began to appear in her vision. Minor hallucinations, something they'd expected. She made a note of it on the screen for them to go over later. The darkness in the tank suddenly seemed a lot bigger. Zack was saying something else to Tseng, and she could hear them all moving around her. The lights began flashing faster, and she shut her eyes.

"...four, three, two --"

Once, when she'd been four years old, Ifalna Gainsborough had taken her daughter to the zoo. It had been the height of summer, and while Aeris would have likely preferred to stay outside staring at the ostriches all day, her mother had successfully managed to corral her into the indoor deep sea exhibit after she started turning pink. One of her earliest memories was looking through those tanks, and coming across the informational video about dead fish, drifting to the abyssal zone at the bottom of the ocean, where there wasn't any light, until something much bigger and stranger than it snapped it up.

It was unimaginably deep here -- and at the same time, empty. It was absence, and yet she felt something incomprehensibly huge around her, and there was nothing around her at all, because here was nothing. She felt the nothing pass through her, and a low, deep noise began getting louder, like howling wind, even though there was no noise, and no wind.

Suddenly there was something, actually, and she was stunned she had missed it before. She was clearly seeing something, but for some reason her eyes didn't want to focus on it -- because of course, she had no eyes, and she was looking at nothing that existed, as far as her brain was concerned. Everything seemed distorted and distant and somewhat dreamlike.

She was in an enclosed space. That much she could make out. There was ground beneath her, and noises that she couldn't properly hear around her, because of course she wasn't hearing anything, there was nothing to hear.

She was here. She was looking at another world.

She began frantically taking stock of everything around her that she could see, which was not a lot. She wasn't entirely sure where the signal they'd overlapped with had come from, and she found she was unable to look around freely. Maybe an anchored point? That didn't make sense.

There was, at least, solid ground, or something that looked like it anyway -- that was already a promising start. She couldn't "see" particularly well, and every few seconds they plunged back into darkness, but the space around her seemed more or less Euclidean, though she would know for sure when she traversed it herself.

She was interrupted about thirty seconds later with the realisation that her chest hurt. That wasn't right, was it?

The pain got worse, and she made a note of it. Ten seconds later, she saw a tank lid slide open above her with a concerned Lazard leaning over her and offering her a towel. She tore off the mask and took deep breaths of air, even though she hadn't had any trouble breathing before.

She pulled herself out of the tank. Zack was still staring at the screen, looking gobsmacked, as was Angeal, whom Cissnei was translating for in a low, rushed voice. Tseng looked almost ready to express an emotion.

"You did it," said Zack. "You really, actually did it. Holy shit..."

"That's not workplace language," she said.

"We just discovered another planet in another universe," said Cissnei, also busy staring at her notes, "I think we deserve a 'holy shit' or two."

"Feedback," said Tseng brusquely. "We gave you two minutes. Tell us everything you can."

Aeris hesitated for a moment, wiping the accumulated moisture from her face with the towel, getting her words in order. "...It was a bit scary," she said. "I... saw something. Almost definitely objects and not hallucinations. Couldn't move for some reason. It sort of felt like I was choking."

Angeal turned around. "The partial?" he asked. Aeris shrugged.

"Can't think of any reason otherwise. Your head stayed above the surface the entire time," said Lazard.

"There's other issues we need to fine tune," said Zack, finally turning away from the note screen to look at Aeris, thumbing back towards it to direct her attention there. Prominently displayed was

minor hallucinations look like lights

very dark here, spatial distortion or limited human perception

amazing sol4igroundηdid232 lλわooks enclosed struχ24ure cave meれt maybe sign2αλわ111 yos1れ deの twowall 33tΘ1子14 metrρe供 unmer

hurtπ痛ain 6chest mine

Aeris frowned. "That's... not what I wrote."

"We figured as much," replied Lazard. "You're lucky we managed to parse the last bit. That's a safety concern we need cleared up before we try this out in full. Get cleaned up and meet us back here to disseminate our findings."

A couple hours later, they had discovered most of the difficulties had been due to it being a "test run" in the first place. The choking sensation had its roots in the same problem: higher brain functions had registered, leaving the more basic ones behind.

They'd been deemed unnecessary and a waste of power on a test run.

"Maybe you don't need to breathe, but your brain thought you did," explained Tseng. "Just as it had decided you had no nerves with which to move. Easily fixed."

Other issues lacked the necessary data for them to do much more than guess. Strangely enough, the pattern they'd used to get here seemed to be missing parts of it, snuffed out by Aeris's own, yet the signal had been more or less maintained. And there was the matter of her notes.

"I took measurements of what I saw," she explained. "Don't know how accurate they were. There shouldn't be that many numbers."

"We don't know what's making it do that," said Zack. "Shouldn't we -- "

"No" interrupted Aeris. "We're doing the next run tomorrow, and it'll probably clear up with the rest of the issues we had when we do it for real."

"And if it doesn't?" asked Tseng.

"Then we do it anyway. I'll just have to remember everything until we get it worked out." She was met with silence. "Think about it. Do we have any alternative? We've come this far."

Angeal said something else, and it took Cissnei a moment to tear her eyes away from the note screen, realise he was talking, and relay it to everyone else.

"'We keep going. We've made incredible progress, and we're about to make more. Would it be possible to do it with the lid off, and watch you directly?'"

"Probably. Maybe a bit of sensory bleed, but I can keep my eyes shut," she replied. "I'd say we do the next run today, but I don't know if I want to be drugged twice in one go."

Angeal said something else.

"'It's all about finding the path of least resistance. From our end, at least. We have a limited understanding of physics that --' I didn't translate that for you. How did..." Cissnei trailed off, looking between Aeris and Angeal, who sighed.

"I felt it would be prudent to allow you to continue translating. I assumed there was at least one other person in the group that would also require your skills," said Angeal curtly. "Clearly no one else thought the same."

"...You spoke English this entire time," said Cissnei slowly.

"Yes."

"Everyone here speaks English."

A chorus of affirmatives from the group.

"I -- why am I here, then?!" she sputtered.

"I assumed someone else would need the help," said Angeal.

"So did I," added Tseng.

"...If it helps, I know Spanish," offered Zack, scratching his neck. "If you wanna leave, the airlock's that way."

"Well, perhaps I don't!" she huffed. "Perhaps I am going to stay here anyway so you can all continue to spare my feelings!"

"Actually, maybe you have to!" said Aeris brightly. "You already went through decontamination. Going back out off schedule counts as an emergency. It could set off an investigation and stall the project for weeks. Maybe even months."

"...Thank... you?" said Cissnei after a moment, considering whether or not this was a good thing.

"You're welcome," replied Aeris. "The drugs have made me very tired, and I'm going to take a nap." Which is what she did.

The next two days were spent processing their findings and fine-tuning the tank for their first official launch. There unfortunately wasn't much data to go on about the other universe from the trial run, so most of the focus was on Aeris herself and the tank. Lazard had decided that the lid could be opened mid-process as necessary, but that the lights should remain dimmed. Cissnei would be watching the entire time ready to pull the plug at the first sign of distress, a position that she was determined to take very seriously out of resentment. Angeal and Zack would both be working with Aeris herself to focus on refining the overlap signal. Tseng had been largely quiet the entire time. Aeris walked up behind him and cleared her throat.

"Anything we should know about?" Aeris probed.

"Actually, yes," Tseng admitted. "It's not really concrete. More of a guess than a hypothesis, but... the reason we're able to recognise the signal as a familiar pattern is... I think, partially because it's organic in nature. That must have been what the late Dr. Gainsborough was identifying."

Aeris paused to consider this. "How do you know?" she asked.

"Brainwaves. Or something like them."

"...Is it intelligent?"

"That's difficult to say," said Tseng. "It could be an intelligence we lack the scientific knowledge to comprehend, but based off what we know about biology on Earth, no. Very little, if any brain activity. If there was, there would've been interference the entire time. Some sort of animal, most likely."

"Definitely bigger than a microbe, though?"

"Definitely bigger," agreed Tseng, and it was clear he was trying to downplay his excitement.

"How big did you feel?" asked Zack.

Aeris considered this as well. "I don't really know. It was hard to see, and everything was kind of numbed."

"Y'know, if you want someone else to go in for you --"

"You're volunteering?" she interjected, her eyes narrowing slightly. Zack held up his hands.

"Hell no. You wouldn't get me into that thing for a million dollars. Which is maybe how much they're paying you to do that anyway, so a billion. I thought maybe someone else could volunteer, though."

"It's really not that bad," she said. "A bit unsettling, maybe, but it passes quickly enough."

"You can swim in the hell bathtub all you like, then," returned Zack, turning his chair around to face her.

"I will," said Aeris, "and it'll be groundbreaking for everyone, I'm sure. Now come help me compile this. There's something here Angeal says might be a bug, and we'll need to do the next run perfectly or risk falling behind schedule." She opened the container on the counter to her left and tapped it with her pencil.

"Gummy bear?" she offered.

"Thought you'd never ask," interjected Angeal, reaching over the both of them. It was about time, she supposed.

#the number i #forfdorfsorf #spitegarbage #WORDSWORDSWORDSWORDSWORDS HOPE YOU GUYS LIKE TECHNOBABBLE

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omegasquire · 7 years

Text

Rose Gold: Ch 9

Cloud walked with Zack down a relatively empty street. Though the civilians were starting to come back, most of them were probably still in hiding. Seeing them and the state of the harbor made him feel guilty even though this wasn’t his fault.

It was.

He spotted a few men on the lower tier hauling some of the dead monsters into the back of a truck, likely to be disposed of in a discrete area. The slices that dismembered the monsters were clean, as if someone had taken a ruler and drawn along its edge. Cloud had a feeling he knew whose work this was: Sephiroth. Who else could be so precise?

He glanced at Zack who was also watching the workers. Zack was also clean in his attacks, though Cloud couldn’t remember if they were on par with Sephiroth’s. The Buster Sword was completely different from something as slender and refined as the Masamune.

“That’s gotta be Sephiroth’s work.” Zack looked at him. “I bet you can tell, too, huh?”

Cloud looked at the crew again. “Yeah. He has a certain method of fighting.”

He’d learned to anticipate each strike, familiar with the advantages and disadvantages of Sephiroth’s sword. But anticipation didn’t equate matching speed or skill. He remembered how he had pushed himself to keep up with Sephiroth’s speed. The chase in the ruins of old Midgar had his heart racing like mad, his eyes always searching for Sephiroth.

Always, his eyes were searching for Sephiroth.

“Yeah, he does.” Zack chuckled and looked at him. “Do you use all six swords in a fight?”

“Not unless I have to.” Sephiroth was the only one who made him use all swords at once. Cloud generally got by with just one sword, maybe two if he needed to. “First Tsurugi’s basic form is enough.”

“First Tsurugi, huh?” Zack’s tone was thoughtful. “You’ll let me take it apart, right?”

It wasn’t something he thought about on a conscious level, but First Tsurugi had only ever touched his hands. Having someone else handle his sword was like touching a part of who he was.

Zack would be able to look into the core of who he was, a skeletal frame with nothing special within, made whole only when all his jagged pieces were pressed together. Cloud was a bit apprehensive about being laid bare before someone else, even if it was just his sword. Zack was the one who asked, though, and he had a hard time saying no to Zack.

Cloud nodded.

Reeve followed the small dot as it weaved its way along a stenciled map of the harbor. He had sent Cait Sith after Zack and Strife to monitor them while the rest of the team remained on the premises. It looked like the pair were making their way back, though Zack was taking the scenic route.

Sephiroth remained in the room with him, head bowed over a screen of his own. They were feeding the information they had gathered to Midgar. While Sephiroth was contacting the others of AVALANCHE, Reeve was delivering his information to Shinra.

Much of Shinra Company was under heavy reformation, but those left were playing a careful game of restoring the balance. Many had their doubts about the company, but there were few other sources that could support such a large task. If Shinra Company had any hope of surviving, it had to adapt.

Now, more than ever, they needed their cooperation. With Strife -- Cloud -- in their midst, everyone had to be on the same page. That included letting Rufus and the Turks know what was going on.

Reeve hoped they could work together in this. Rufus had a stubborn streak and cold grip on what he perceived was his, but under the right motivation, he was a strong ally. He was a man who hated showing weakness, much like certain key members of AVALANCHE’s ragtag group.

It was still clear in his memory when Rufus had turned up alive after the assault on Shinra Building. They made it in time to save Rufus’ life, but not without some casualty. One of Rufus’ legs received enough damage he had to use a cane when he walked.

Rufus, proud as he was, pretended it wasn’t a burden but an accessory to his image. How he managed to pull it off Reeve didn’t know, but he could respect the younger man for that.

Now they just had to find a means of working with Rufus on getting to the bottom of this madness. While damaged, much of Shinra Building was left intact. Parts of Midgar couldn’t say the same, but at least the casualties weren’t as severe as they could’ve been if they hadn’t acted as swiftly as they had. It was a constant race against time back then. Their lives were on a short countdown, faced with a threat they weren't certain they could defeat.

This situation felt just the same. Cloud was supposedly going to fight with them, but it wasn’t clear if that was beneficial or a hinderance. He was obviously fighting a battle they had no control over, and if this was a battle of endurance and will, it was uncertain if he would win.

Reeve was alarmed when Sephiroth suddenly grabbed Cloud. He hadn’t expected Cloud’s eyes to turn green, and the sight of them was unnerving. The image likened to Strife’s eyes, how they had the same green tint and narrow pupils. In that instant, Reeve saw their enemy, and it was hard to shake the image off despite Cloud’s eyes changing back to blue.

This was a war they would be facing on two fronts: whatever Jenova attacked them with directly, and Cloud. Cloud might be innocent of Strife’s crimes, but it was already made clear Jenova was inside him, and if Jenova managed to win over Cloud, then they would be facing yet another apocalyptic event.

Reeve dreaded the possibility.

They couldn’t do anything about Jenova’s external approach right now, but they did have Cloud with them. At least they could work to solve the issue there. Sephiroth played a vital role in keeping Cloud in check.

Zack, too.

Reeve slid his finger across the screen and switched windows. He saw through Cait Sith’s eyes Zack and Cloud were talking. With the audio muted, Reeve could only watch the display of emotions and gestures made between them. Whatever they were talking about drew out a small, hesitant, but definite smile from Cloud.

Reeve had to smile a little himself. Zack had that charm to him that drew others in. It was hard to get mad at him -- or stay mad at him even when it finally happened. From the looks of things, Zack was sure to twist their unexpected guest around his finger.

Feeling eyes on him, Reeve glanced up and saw Sephiroth looking in his direction. It wasn’t exactly him the man was focusing on, but the screen before him. That unreadable expression was ever present on his face, making Reeve wonder just how hard it was for Sephiroth stomach this. No doubt the old General would rather kill Cloud than tolerate his presence.

Reeve switched to the report he was dictating. It would go straight to Tseng, who would pass it on to Rufus. Tseng was another unfortunate casualty in the attack on Shinra Building. He suffered scars on his face -- a feature that reminded Reeve of the previous leader of the Turks -- and damage to the right side of his body when he protected Rufus. The man had been incarcerated for months, but once he was on his feet, he, like Rufus, didn’t let his handicap stop him from carrying out his duties.

Really, the Turks were something else.

“They’ll want to meet him, but taking him to Midgar will bring monsters to the city...”

“It’s better than staying here. We didn’t expect there to be an invasion on the harbor, and Junon isn’t properly equipped to guarantee the people will remain safe if it happens again.”

Reeve tapped the screen to send off his report. “At least it was better than the Highwind; you have no means of defense there. It’s fortunate the attack had been on a small scale. Do you think this is Jenova testing us?”

He lifted his head. Sephiroth’s gaze was on the windows, a slight frown evident between his brows.

Reeve frowned as well. He didn’t want to think of it this way, but if this was just a tease, then what was the real assault going to be like? What did Jenova have waiting for them? For Cloud?

“If Cloud...” Reeve broke off and thought better of continuing his current train of thought. “Zack and Cloud are on their way back. If Zack doesn’t take any detours, they should be back in a few minutes.”

“Good. We’ll leave when everyone’s gathered.”

“Of course.”

Tseng stood a polite distance behind the President, retaining a centered stance that belied his injury as he waited for the other man to respond. He’d just received Reeve’s report and handed it to Rufus. He was patient as Rufus digested the information, using that time to do the same.

The mountains had hidden the beacon of light that heralded Strife’s arrival yesterday. To hear that the son of the Calamity was walking the planet’s surface was staggering news. Not only that, Reeve attested Strife was innocent of the massacres. He’d sent with the report a video recording of Strife’s talk with Red and Cait Sith, as well as what they had learned of him during the conversation in Reeve’s office, as evidence of the differing personas. Tseng didn’t know what to make of it, but he had his skepticisms.

“This is interesting.”

Tseng pulled himself out of his thoughts at Rufus’ musing. “Sir?”

“Cloud Strife among the living, and not only that, he’s foreign to this world. Don’t you think that’s interesting?”

“I find it concerning. Even if Strife is a stranger, we should be cautious of this turn of events. An attack on Junon happened because of him.”

“It’s inevitable. Whether he’s Jenova's offspring or not doesn’t matter. If their theory holds, Jenova will come. She wouldn’t snub a chance like this.”

“Shouldn’t we eliminate him? Regardless Aerith’s testament, he’s going to cause destruction.”

Rufus looked at him over his shoulder, lips turned into a smile. Genial as it appeared, Tseng knew the cunning in its shadow. “This is an opportunity for us to see the evolution of the planet. I admit our actions aided in its deterioration, but with Strife’s advent, it could turn around. The world will commit to a new course. We should help it along.”

Tseng knew it wasn’t solely for the planet’s sake the President would offer his assistance. Rufus always had layers to his plans, and while Tseng didn’t know all of them, he could take a fair guess and surmise the young man found this situation entertaining. Rufus would doubtlessly play his part as benefactor, but for his own personal reasons.

That slyness made Rufus a unique and dangerous employer, certainly a far cry from his father. The former President was very bullheaded, more keen on plowing his way through obstacles and flashing money where need be. Rufus found crafty ways around the obstacles and when he couldn’t obtain what he wanted on his own, he utilized his pawns to their utmost.

“Yes, sir.”

Rufus turned back around, facing the windows. Tseng took his leave and headed back to the Turks’ headquarters, sliding his keycard to pass through one of the various security mechanisms that assured no unwanted company could gain access to Shinra Company’s secrets. There waited a few of his faithful subordinates, their attention turning from the main monitors to him as he entered.

“Boss?”

Tseng glanced at the monitors and saw the feed from Reeve’s report looping. He faced the other Turks: Reno, Rude, Elena, Shotgun, and Cissnei. The others had been spread out to other parts of the world, leaving them six at Midgar and its surrounding territory to keep everything secure. They had lost a great deal of their team over the years, some even falling victim to the chaos of Strife and Meteor. It had hurt them greatly to know a few of their members had been corrupted by Jenova, and the civil unrest put a strain on everyone.

Tseng controlled what he could, and constantly suffered from the guilt of being unable to save everyone on his team. He knew the others didn’t fault him for what happened, but as their leader, it was still his responsibility to assure they made it out okay.

“The President wants us to help the General and his guest when they arrive.”

Reno straightened up. “Whoa, whoa, we’re talking about Strife here.”

“I know, but that’s what he wants. We’re to support Sephiroth and the others as they fight the threat on the planet.”

“You mean Strife.” Shotgun’s brows rose, her hand on her hip.

Tseng shook his head. “No. Jenova. The attack on Junon will likely recur here. We don’t know on what scale, so we are to secure the city. This is to remain as contained as possible. No infantrymen or SOLDIERs. The less the people know, the better.”

“It would cause widespread panic if they figured out Strife was alive, same or not,” Cissnei murmured.

“Yes. We’ll need to stay alert until we learn more. Spread out and keep your eyes open for any threat. Radio in if anything happens. I’ll be with the President when they arrive.”

There was a chorus of affirmatives, the team leaving to split up and cover as much ground as they could of what remained of the broken metropolis. Rude was the last to go, stopping next to Tseng. When Tseng looked at him, Rude nodded at the screen.

“The others of their team. Tifa Lockhart and Barret Wallace. Do they know?”

“Most likely, but that isn’t our concern.” Tseng studied the other man. He knew the question before it was asked. Rude had a bad habit of being interested in the wrong women; he had taken a liking to Tifa. “...I understand, but what happens between them is their affair. Keep your emotions under control.”

Rude nodded and left. Tseng waited for the doors to close and the locks to tumble into place before looking at the monitors one more time. He still recalled those days when their only concerns were rebels and a petty war. The escalation toward global disaster threw everyone off kilter. He didn’t think anyone had regained that balance yet.

Would Strife’s return help or hinder that process?

Cloud sat with Zack at the benches, the interconnected blades of his sword scattered around them. Upon returning to the Highwind, Zack took him aside so they could look at First Tsurugi. It was a little nerve-racking, but he let Zack take it apart.

Zack had done so with care, laying out the different swords after studying them. The knot in Cloud’s stomach slowly unraveled as he watched. Zack didn’t make too many comments on them, just quietly admired each piece before setting it aside.

There were times when he saw intrigue light up Zack’s eyes and he would take an extra minute to marvel at the sword. He reminded Cloud of when he’d first crossed upon First Tsurugi. He had marveled at it, too.

When he’d finally retired the Buster Sword and turned it into a monument, Cloud felt naked without a weapon. He felt himself stripped bare, left with just the core of himself. He had laid to rest Zack’s overlapping personality along with his sword, so it was time to find him. Find something that was solely his, that spoke of who he was, and made him whole.

That was First Tsurugi. His sword.

Cloud’s eyes traced the deadly curve of the blade in Zack’s lap. They were like secrets only he knew and understood, visible only when he was made to show them. He remembered the fight with Sephiroth when all six blades had separated. They’d unfurled like a flower, each sharp petal like a part of who he was. All the insecurities, the doubts, the imperfections -- they came together as one when at last he’d brought down the final strike. Then, just as they’d fitted into a single piece, they separated, piercing the roof around him.

In retrospect, he supposed that was who he was. A man whose life had fallen apart over years of turmoil, and came together when he'd finally found peace with himself and his shortcomings.

Was this the part where he fell apart again? In this foreign land?

Reaching out, Cloud lightly slid his fingers along the handle of one of the blades. He still didn’t know what metals his sword was made from, but they had incredible durability, perfect balance, and just enough weight to settle comfortably in his hands.

“Where did you learn to use large swords? Me?”

Cloud pulled his hand back. “No, you never taught me any sword fighting, but for a while you had a lot of influence on my technique. As I traveled, I developed my own style.”

Zack turned the sword over in his hand, pointing the tip up toward the ceiling. “I never thought of dual wielding before.” He grinned. “Show me sometime.”

Cloud looked at the main blade of his sword. “Sephiroth wouldn’t like that.”

Zack grimaced and lowered the sword to rest across his lap. “Well...”

“Can we expect you to fight against Jenova?”

Cloud whipped around at Sephiroth voice. The room was without doors, offering no signal to warn someone was coming. He straightened his spine, conscious of the difference in positions as he remained seated while Sephiroth towered over him.

“Yes.”

He held Sephiroth’s gaze. He would fight to his dying breath against Jenova. He’d done it before, he would do it again. The same went for Sephiroth.

“You can have your sword if you help us, but if you betray us, I will cut you down.”

Cloud’s eyes narrowed. “I won’t.”

They locked stares, a silent challenge and promise passing between them. Cloud knew Sephiroth would hold true to his words, just as Cloud would hold to his. Though it discomforted him to fight alongside Sephiroth, he would bend for the sake of Gaia. He couldn’t hope to get anywhere if he didn’t reach common ground with the man.

“Zack.”

“Yeah?”

“Undo the spell and give him his sword. We’ll be landing in Midgar shortly. If Jenova is after you, then we’ll be facing more monsters.” Sephiroth’s expression matched Cloud’s. “Don’t make me regret it.”

Cloud didn’t respond.

A sudden slap on his shoulder jarred him; he looked at Zack in surprise. The man was grinning at him. “This is great! I can’t wait for you to fight with us, Cloud. This is how it’s supposed to be. All of us together. You two on the same side.”

Doubt ran through Cloud, but he didn’t argue. Zack was happy. He’d make an effort for him as well and tread this dangerous path with Sephiroth.

#{ rose gold }

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