Final Fantasy VII: Lifestream - Book 2: Aftermath

EIGHTEEN

I led Cloud and the others out of the lift and back to the 68th floor, the scent of blood strong in my nose. Like the lower level, the lights in this place were either flickering or had gone out entirely, leaving many shadows as we made our way down the hall to the second elevator. The doors along the way were still mostly closed, but some had large dents, and a few others had all been torn from their hinges, the rooms inside ripped apart by Hojo's escaped specimens.

We encountered a few of them on our way down the hall. Zenenes. Four of them sprang out from a ruined, sparking doorway to our right, snarling and clawing. Four-legged things with brown fur, bright orange manes, spikes along their spines, and apelike faces. One leapt at Aerith, its jaws gaping open, but I slammed into it with a low growl of my own and swiped at it with my forepaws.

The zenene and I went tumbling across the hall, but I didn't let up. I continued fighting as my friends did the same, cutting and smashing and shooting at the monsters with weapons and spells. But the zenenes had magic of their own, fireballs they hurled at us. One of them singed my fur a bit as it flew past to blow a hole in the wall, but I shook off the pain and retaliated with a fork of lightning that threw the monster into a nearby door. It didn't get up again.

There were still three other zenenes, however. And as with H0512, they were able to spew a cloud of poisonous vapor at us. But as soon as they did, Cloud motioned for the rest of us to fall back as he raced into the toxic green fumes, his friend's gift again shielding him and leaving him unaffected by the creatures' venom. He cut down two of them in a matter of seconds before they even knew it while Barret and I brought down the third with lightning magic and gunfire as the girls tended to our wounds with healing magic and potions.

When it was over, we moved on, taking the second lift to the upper level of Hojo's lab. There was more blood here, the trail leading onward from the testing chamber Aerith and I had been in earlier. Jenova had, just as I'd thought, used the specimen transport elevator to come here. Bodies lay scattered around the room, ripped apart much as those we'd seen earlier had been. It was eerily quiet as we made our way across the room. The trail led to a door on the bottom right. We were just getting close to it when I pulled up short.

"What is it, Red?" Cloud asked. "What's wrong?"

I glanced at the far side of the room. "I hear something. Someone's alive in here, Cloud. Over there."

Rapid, frightened breathing. It was coming from the corner on the other side of the testing chamber. I led the others over there, and in the gloom of Hojo's half-lit lab, I spotted someone crouching almost out of sight beneath the overhang from the enclosed second level. One of the aides who worked here. He was crouching, trying not be seen, and held his bloodied arm as he shivered.

I glanced at Aerith. "Can you help? He's wounded."

"Of course," she nodded. "Tifa?"

Tifa reached out to the man in his tattered lab coat. "It'll be alright. My friend's gonna help you, okay?"

He shivered but lifted his arm. "A-Alright..."

"Just hold still a moment," Aerith told him gently as she focused on the Restore materia. "This won't take long."

While the man did as she had instructed, Aerith cast the spell, and its healing magic swirled over him in a cluster of bright blue and green sparkles for a moment before dissipating. In its wake, the slashes in his arm slowly knitted themselves closed.

Aerith smiled. "There you go. How's that?"

"Better," he said. "Thank you. You're the Ancient, right?"

"Yeah, that's me," she answered.

The aide continued. "I thought I recognized you. Look, I... I'm not your enemy. I can prove it—you've got a keycard, right? I can update it so you can access the top two floors. That's where the president's office is. And where you're going, too."