Edmund grinned down upon the loyal people who had come back to Shinra.
They would help restore his ally to its former glory! He turned to James,
who nodded. Taking a deep breath, the crowd quieted, intent gazes on Edmund’s
face. And he wouldn’t have it any other way.
“Good followers of Shinra! I have called you here today so that you
can help rebuild Shinra to its former glory! So help me, and show me what
you are made of.” Edmund said, smirking down at the people who were cheering.
This couldn’t get any better. What gullible fools they were. Not that he
cared. They were going to help him get back to the position of being under
the glorious influence of Shinra with their help! He turned back to James
and said, “Find your squad soon; I want to get rid of Avalanche as soon
as possible. And be on your toes, Avalanche is sure to be here.” James
nodded, and headed down to the crowd of people. He was internally disgusted.
He no longer had the luxury of thousands of trained soldiers to pick from,
and was left to scavenge big people who thought they were so tough. James
sighed, and began the very painful selection from the meager group he had.
“So you’re telling me that Cloud, Yuffie, and me are ‘Saquri’. What
in the world is that?” Christy asked, and Nanaki sighed. They had been
over this countless of times, but it seemed Christy didn’t want to believe
she wasn’t human. Everyone was silent, Tifa eerily so as she twisted her
shirt nervously.
“But don’t you remember Aunt Grace? Mom always said she was ‘special’,
so is it really that hard for you to believe?” Cloud asked, and Christy
sighed. She guessed she had just like being plain old human, blending in.
She shuddered in remembering what her older brother had told her happened
to that kind hearted Cetra, Aeris. She didn’t like the thought of being
experimented on like a common insect or something.
“I guess not. But why wasn’t I aware of this earlier?” Christy asked,
and Nanaki gave her a wolfish grin. He flipped to a certain yellowed page
in the beat up book, and nudged it front of Christy, Cloud, and Yuffie,
who had been eerily silent throughout the whole thing. Sephiroth looked
at the book with interest, raising an eyebrow at its contents, while Tifa
looked away, like the Saquri’s writing pained her.
“Read this.” Nanaki said, leaning back, and Christy flustered. Everyone’s
eyes had rested on her, and she was embarrassed, even if she loved being
the center of attention.
“‘Ginga has finally sprouted from the moist soil of the giving planet.
The high priestess Kisargi has proclaimed today will be a holiday, and
everyone was laughing and having a good time. It was so beautiful, even
the planet seemed to rejoice. It was singing a tune I hadn’t heard since
I was a small child. All was right with the world until an evil shadow
fell upon the festivities. The birds stopped singing, everything was eerily
quiet, and we felt the tremor pass through the frightened planet. It had
come, the plague foretold in the prophecies. The akuma we would dub Jenova
later in life had arrived.’” Everyone had been silent when Yuffie had read
that part of the journal, staring intently at the young ninja before them.
Nobody could quite place their finger on it, but something in her had awakened,
and when Yuffie looked up, her usually mischievous eyes held a glint of
burdening knowledge in them. Nanaki smiled knowingly, and turned to Barret
suddenly.
“Now Barret, I want you to read this part.” Nanaki said, tapping a
claw on a random paragraph, and Barret grinned. It should be easy right,
if Yuffie had read it. But instead of seeing similar words, they all blurred
together, looking like a two year old had scrawled messily in it then colored
over it.
“How am I s’posed ta’ read this?” Barret asked, and Nanaki looked at
him with a knowing smile that Barret wished he could wipe right off his
face.
“You’re not. That was Saquri Yuffie just read.” Nanaki said, and Yuffie
looked at him in shock. She had just read a language that most couldn’t?
It had just looked like plain English to her…
“If that’s Saquri, how come you can read it?” Cloud asked, curiosity
getting the best of him. Nanaki sighed, closing the book, signifying that
wasn’t a subject that would be discussed now.
“It has little meaning. Now we have more allies for our cause.” Sephiroth
stated flatly, looking at Christy who was still looking at the book, awestruck.
Such a dingy looking thing couldn’t possibly be from the all powerful Cetra.
Christy looked at Tifa, going to ask her if it was true, but the Ancient
seemed far away, her eyes clouded with hidden pain.
James grinned down at his new team he had formed. The name Poison had
been chucked out the window and had been replaced with the name, Jenova’s
Children, for his mother. He grinned evilly. He felt her strong presence
vibrating, calling out to him, saying the time was almost near for his
revenge. His grin went wider. Before he would rescue mother, he would get
his team into shape.
The first one was named Chris, and he was a master with the scythe.
He was a loud character, with brown hair and hazel eyes, and his appearance
didn’t match his personality, well, in James opinion.
Then there was a girl, named Malanda, and she was something to behold
with magic. She had ice-blue-blonde hair, and cold brown eyes, and she
was quiet, which James saw as a blessing. Having two loud-mouthed punks
was more than he could handle.
‘Blade’, as he called himself, was blond and had blue eyes, and like
Chris was loud. Even though, he was a good fist fighter and was mighty
handy with a gun.
There was another guy whose name was Brad, brown hair and brown eyes,
he recognized him as the one who had ‘delivered’ that girl Christy to him.
His specialty was the sword, which he had named some weird name that he
didn’t care to remember.
The next to last girl was named Natalia, and she was very talented
with a rod, and she had spunk. She had purple hair with gold/hazel eyes,
and he was sure that her hair was dyed. Not that he cared.
He turned to last girl, Lucy, who had dark hair and green eyes. She
was the friend of ‘Blade’ and he liked her. She was nice, not brash like
Annita, but she still had an attitude. She was good with an electrical
whip, which was deadly indeed. James smiled evilly to himself; knowing
that Mother and Annita would be pleased with this little group. He could
grow to like this team…
“We attack now, right?” Yuffie asked, as the others gathered in Reeve’s
office. Reeve had been told about the current situation, and was looking
thoughtful. Mostly everyone felt that Reeve should have a say if they should
destroy the Shinra loving company. After all, it was kind of his jurisdiction.
“I suppose you can attack, but don’t you want to know our current situation?”
Reeve stated, and everyone glanced uneasily at each other. There was more
bad news…? “It seems that Shadow has a group of silent assassins. Bigger
than the Turks, and more ruthless. They don’t get paid for killing, they
love it.” Reeve stated, and Christy looked up.
“What does this have to do with us?” She asked, and Cloud looked at
her silently, an eyebrow raised as if to ask, ‘don’t you know?’.
“Everything. If we destroy Shadow, very dangerous people will come
after you. I would personally like to know everything about this group
before I send you to battle out Shadow.” Reeve stated, and everyone else
nodded in agreement. Leave it to Reeve to be logical.
“So what are you proposing?” Nanaki asked, and Reeve sighed, rubbing
his temples, as if trying to soothe away the headache that was coming from
thinking about troubling matters too much.
“I think,” Reeve said finally, “that one of you, I think Yuffie would
be best,” Yuffie smiled happily, “to send to the rebuilding Shinra building
and try and get files.” Reeve ended, looking up for support, and from Yuffie’s
beaming face, he knew he had her support.
“It seems the practical thing to do.” Sephiroth stated, and Christy
agreed instantly. Cloud looked at them both, wondering why his sister seemed
to agree with anything the silver haired general agreed with. Barret nodded
silently. He didn’t care how they got there, as long as they got to destroy
Shinra once and for all.
“So how do we do this anyway? I mean, we need a distraction, don’t
we?” Reno asked, furrowing his eyebrows as he thought.
“Oh, distraction. I have what you need.” Everyone turned around, to
see a familiar figure, a smirk curving her lips.