Two
years later…
“Hey,
Infalna, I got the video camera up and running, now you’ll never have to
repeat a single thing to a meeting,” Gast called down to his wife.
Infalna
appeared at the top of the stairs a few minutes later, slowed by her immense
belly, “That’s wonderful, dear.”
Gast
went to his wife and put his
hand on her stomach, “How many more weeks?”
She
laughed, “Just one, and how many more weeks for you?”
He
tilted his head to the side and then laughed, “Very funny.”
She
put her arms around him and gave him a squeeze, even though he was a little bit
softer around the mid-section, due to her cooking, then he had been when she’d
met him, his face still held the intelligence of a knowledgeable scientist.
He
kissed her gently and led her over to the middle of the room, “That’s the
camera up there in the corner,” he said, pointing.
Infalna
nodded and he went to turn it on, “Now Infalna, I want you to talk about the
Weapons you mentioned to me.”
She
rolled her eyes, “Alright, the Weapons are four giant creatures that will
spring forth from the planet if it ever feels its life is being threatened, they
will kill anything they feel is dangerous. At
this point and time, any town with reactor, sucking energy out of the planet,
would be destroyed.”
Professor
Gast smiled and leaned against one of the walls that were not in view of the
camera. She was absolutely perfect,
beautiful in every way. Even
pregnant, the thought of her bearing his child, made him love her even more.
And the race of the Cetra would live on for at least another decade.
‘At
least another decade,’ he
thought silently. Professor Hojo was
nosing into his research. His unborn
child might be the last Cetra ever to be born.
Hojo would get to it if he could. He
would find a way to get Infalna and the baby.
Gast
sighed, he had tried his best to keep Hojo away from his research, always
suggesting new things to the President for Hojo to go do in far corners of the
world. But Hojo was determined to
gain control of the Cetra research. He
would go to any costs.
Gast shuddered, remembering that letter he’d gotten from his assistant back in Midgar only two years earlier.
My
dearest friend and mentor Professor Gast,
I fear great danger for you and your new
wife. Hojo refuses to be sidetracked
any longer. He has begun reading
through your many journals, the ones you sent back to me for documentation.
He spends all his time in the mansion, alone, never coming out or seeing
anyone. Except for your lab
assistant before me, Lucrecia. He
sees her quite often.
She gave birth to a child about ten days ago.
I saw her so rarely that I hadn’t known she was with child
until after. Everyone assumed that
it was Vincent, the Turk, because he disappeared shortly after she became
pregnant. I do not know how I dare
say this, but I suspect foul play. Hojo
hated Vincent, he made that no secret, and getting rid of him would definitely
push Lucrecia into Hojo’s arms. So
Hojo must be the father of the unexpected baby.
I did not, however, write to tell you of the infant, not in total anyway.
I wrote because the samples of JENOVA DNA have gone missing, not all of them, but a noticeable
amount. I know not where they have
gone, but I suspect something awful. Something
inhuman.
And this brings me back to the infant child.
I have seen it only twice, when helping Hojo find something in your
journals. The baby boy is developing
at a startling rate. He isn’t any
bigger then the average child, but he shows much more intelligence.
He understands words, is almost able to speak them.
If you’ll note earlier in my letter, he was born last week!
I fear that Hojo has tampered with him medically.
Perhaps even genetically, if you get my meaning.
If the child doesn’t begin walking before the week is out, I’ll eat
my hat.
Further evidence on my theory is that
Hojo fired Lucrecia early this morning, she left an hour ago.
She had to be carried out by guards because she was sobbing
uncontrollably. I didn’t see the
baby; my only guess is that Hojo wouldn’t allow her to take him, but then
again, why would he give up his newest scientific experiment?
I leave off there, wishing you and your new
wife every happiness and that you stay out of Hojo’s plans whatever they may
be. Watch Infalna closely; guard her
at all times. You, as a scientist,
know that the fact that she’s the last Cetra is intriguing, and the fact that
she is so beautiful makes her twice as valuable to any man.
If I hear of anything, I will write.
The best of luck to you and Infalna
from your devoted Assistant,
Sincerely,
William
A. Burchwick
“Jonathan
love, did you hear anything I just said to you?”
Gast looked up and found Infalna standing in her
place at the center of the room with her hands on her hips.
She looked thoroughly annoyed. Gast
had the decency to blush slightly, “I’m sorry, I was thinking of something
else, what was it you were saying?”
Infalna smiled then turned it upside down into a
forced frown, “I was asking if you would like to videotape the birth here and
now, my water just broke.”
Gast jumped swiftly into action, “Oh!
Get downstairs, I’ll get the extra sterile sheets, hurry love, you
don’t want the baby to fall out in the middle of the floor!”
Infalna smiled at him, “You’re such a silly
man.” She walked over the stairs
and gripped the handrail tightly; her breathing caught up and came out in a
hiss.
Gast ran to her, his arms slipping around her,
resting lightly on her stomach. Her
fingers found his arms and she dug them in until tears welled in his eyes,
“Infalna, I love you.”
Her breathing slowed and her fingers released his
arms, “I love you too, and I’m telling you now that any pain I inflict on
you or anything I say that’s rude, it isn’t me.
It’s the pain talking.”
Gast kissed her already sweating forehead and
helped her down the stairs.
Later, with Infalna and their new baby girl tucked
into the downstairs bed asleep, Gast stole up to the attic to check the readings
on his specimen. JENOVA had been in
his attic for about two years, floating endlessly in a large containment tank.
He’d taken Infalna up to see the creature a couple times, but his wife
preferred to forget the thing was up in her attic.
Gast never asked her why, he knew, JENOVA was the reason for her entire
race being wiped out. He was
perfectly all right with JENOVA being there; after all, she was trapped in a
permanent drugged state. She
hadn’t spoken into his mind since he’d first found her, when she’d offered
him power, information, the world. But he knew that promise wasn’t meant for
him, it was meant for whoever was supposed to find her later on, good thing for
Gast that he found her first.
Gast checked the computer screen, all her readings
were normal.
‘Really.’
Gast blinked at the graph that showed her
brainwaves. It had jumped almost at
the exact instant he’d heard a voice in his mind.
He turned the machine off and opened the control panel; everything seemed
to be working just fine…
‘It’s
not the machinery, Professor.’
Gast stumbled backwards away from the tank,
gasping for air. He knew that voice,
he’d always thought in some part of his mind that he’d hallucinated it, but
now…
‘It’s
not all in your head either.’
Professor Gast turned the machine back on, and
after moving his lips around in search of forming words, he finally spoke, “Is
that you? What do you want?”
‘I
want what everyone wants when they feel trapped by their lives, their emotions,
a cage perhaps…’
Gast stared blankly at the blue skinned creature
in the containment tank, her eyes shut as they always had been, her mouth set in
a faint line, making you wonder if she had teeth.
Or eyeballs, hidden away.
‘Such
a dense man, makes one wonder how you became a scientist…’
Gast swallowed hard, “You want out?”
‘Yes.’
He shook his head furiously, “No, I can’t let
you; you caused so much pain to the planet before, so much death.”
‘Yes.’
Whenever she said ‘yes’, she dragged out the
‘S’s’ like a snake. He was
almost crying now, still shaking his head, “You aren’t even supposed to be
awake, you’re supposed to be drugged, my sensors would have warned me if your
injections were wearing off, or if the formula was low.”
‘Such
primitive equipment you have, Professor.’
Gast looked over his monitors, she shouldn’t be
awake.
‘But
I am.’
He pretended he didn’t hear her at all.
‘But
you do, your wife does too, and your new baby girl…’
“You leave Infalna and the baby alone,” Gast
cried, whirling to stand in front of the prone, dead looking figure, “Infalna
got away, whatever you did to the Cetra, all those years ago, she got away, you
couldn’t get her then, and I won’t let you now.”
‘You
dare to stand in my way? I will have
all I want, I will do what I want, and you can’t stop me.’
Gast slammed his fists against the thick glass,
“NO!”
“Jonathan?”
He looked up at Infalna, standing at the top of
the stairs. She held a blanketed
bundle in her arms, her eyes filled with concern, “Jonathan, what are you
doing?”
He stepped away from the containment tank, “I
won’t let her.”
He crossed the room to Infalna and kissed her
deeply. Infalna smiled at him,
“You’re in a mood, aren’t you?”
He nodded, taking the infant in his arms gingerly,
“Come on, let’s go downstairs.” He
began descending, not waiting for her to follow, “How would you like it if I
told the President to send someone over to get that creepy virus?”
Infalna smiled, “I’ve waited for you to say
that for two years, dear.”
He turned, halfway down and smiled back up at her,
“Coming?”
She nodded, “Yeah, just a second, I came up to
grab that big quilt.”
He glanced to the side, the quilt was well on the
other end of the attic away from JENOVA, no harm could be done, “Okay, be
quick about it though, I’m going to put her down in her crib, you have to come
make sure I do it right.”
Infalna nodded, smiling, and watched him disappear
downstairs before walking over to his equipment.
He’d explained what each one did about a million times, she knew where
everything was. The machine that
read JENOVA’s brain waves was still as she walked up to it and looked at the
last part. There were peaks and
valleys all over the place in the space of ten minutes.
JENOVA had been active, no longer drugged into comatose.
‘Just
because you escaped my plague upon your people does not make you immune to
me.’
“You think I don’t know that?”
‘You
are brave for one who is all alone in the world.’
“I’m not all alone, I have my daughter, and
even if she never has children, you failed to wipe us out completely, you missed
two generations.”
‘You
will suffer, she will suffer, she will never have children, I’ll see to that,
she will be the last of her kind some day, and she will die.’
Infalna’s eyes filled with tears, “Why do you
do this? Why did you back then?”
‘Revenge.’
“What did the Cetra ever do to you?”
‘They
refused to accept me. My own people
excommunicated me, and the Cetra; the ever-lasting, all knowing race of perfect
people wouldn’t show any compassion for an outsider that was a little
different. I merely proved that they
weren’t as ever-lasting as everyone thought.
It was all too easy to infiltrate once I knew what kind of disguise to
wear. Even then they suspected me…
No one could accept me because of what I am.’
Infalna put a hand up to the glass, not touching,
but close, “You are pure evil.”
‘Yes.’
She suddenly felt cold all over, her arms breaking
out in goose bumps, “You want to destroy the planet.”
‘I
want to rule the planet.’
“No,” she shook her head, much like her
husband had before, only calmly, “The planet is good, you are evil, to rule
it, you have to take the good and make it evil, if the good dies, the planet
dies. It will fall apart and be
destroyed.”
‘Yes.
But when I use my weapon, it will be said as rule the world, deceiving
him into thinking he could be powerful only strengthens my victory.
He will think he is fighting for his own glory, when really he is only a
puppet for mine.’
“Your weapon will be dead, once the planet has
died,” Infalna pointed out.
‘But
he won’t know that until it is too late for him to stop it.’
Infalna walked to the machine that regulated the
drugged fluid that JENOVA was suspended in, “I think you need to be
stopped.”
‘There
will be those that try, but I will deal with them as they appear.
I will have my weapon for them to play with as well.’
“I’m going to go now.”
‘Your
husband is sending me away, I will see him dead.
He will…’
The voice trailed off as Infalna tripled the dose
of formula being injected into JENOVA’s blood stream.
Infalna grabbed the quilt she had wanted and went
downstairs to join her family.
‘She
may be trouble, she’ll try to change my weapon, mold him differently… she
underestimates me… naive Ancient… Professor Gast was not the one that was
supposed to find me, the one that will help, the one that has helped, will
arrive soon enough however.’
The blue eyelids opened for a moment, staring,
watery vision, but open. The
eyeballs were a startling jet black next to the pale blue skin.
A small smile formed across the mouth before the eyes closed and the
mouth slackened again.
‘Then I can have my fun.’
Ten
days later…
“The land called
Knowlespole refers to the area around Icicle Inn...”
“…the Cetra began
planet reading…”
“When the Cetra were
preparing to part with their beloved land, it appeared.
It looked like out dead mother and dead brothers, showing us specters of
their past. It was the crisis from
the sky… Jenova. It appeared as a
friend, deceived them, and gave them the virus. The Cetra were attacked by the
virus, went mad, and turned into monsters, which is why there are so many.
Then it approached other clans of Cetra, killing all it could.
A small number of surviving Cetra defeated Jenova and confined it…”
“…the planet
produces Weapon.”
“Planet cannot fully
heal itself as long as Jenova exists.”
“Weapon cannot
vanish; it remains asleep somewhere on the planet…”
Infalna yawned loudly.
Gast stopped at the top
of the stairs and laughed, “All right, I get the point, no more taping today.
Take her while I turn off the camera.”
She accepted the tiny
blanket wrapped child with relief, “No more for the rest of the week, I’m
exhausted with the sound of my own voice speaking of such things.
Hello Darling, how are you?”
The baby squealed and
waved her tiny arms at her mother.
“We really should
consider a name for her, we can’t just keep calling her Love, Darling, Little
One, she needs something for other people to call her when she gets older.”
Gast turned away from
the computer after turning off the camera, “Well, let’s name her Love,
Darling, or Little One.”
“Seriously now, think
of something sweet, but not embarrassing for a child to have, yet… angelic,
just like her,” Infalna smiled down at her daughter.
“All right, I’ll
think on it.”
Twenty days after the birth of the baby…
Infalna stood in the
center of the room, holding her baby, completely ignoring the camera that was
supposed to be recording her planet interpretations, “I wonder what dangers
await her…”
“Never say that!
I will protect you and Aeris, no matter what!” Gast put his arms around
them both for a family hug, “You and Aeris are my only treasures, I will never
let you go.”
“I feel so much
better now, darling. If I hadn’t
met you—” she was interrupted by a loud banging on the door.
Gast’s head snapped
up at the sound, clearly irritated, “Who could that be, I was just about to—
DAMN! How dare they intrude on our
“private time” together!”
“I’ll send them
away at once,” Infalna said, setting Aeris in her bassinette before going to
the door.
“Who the devil—”
Gast sputtered.
Opening the door a
crack, Infalna screeched, “It… It’s them!”
Hojo walked into the room laughing, “I’ve
been searching for you Infalna… or should I say Cetra!” He
walked past her, followed by guards, “Long time no see, Professor Gast.”
“Hojo, how did you
know?” Gast found it very hard to believe what was happening.
“Believe me; I had to
turn over a stone or two to find you…” Hojo smiled evilly.
“William
Burchwick?” Gast guessed, remembering the letter and the fact that another one
never came.
“Dead,” Hojo said,
unfeeling, “Two years I waited, that’s how much I wanted this new
sample…” He broke off into
laughter again.
“New sample, you mean
Aeris!” Gast grabbed Hojo by the neck but was quickly dragged off by soldiers.
“Hmmm…
Aeris… What a nice name.”
Shrugging off the
soldiers, Gast stood strait, “That’s it, I’m severing all ties with
Shinra. Hojo, please leave.”
Infalna fell to her
knees, “Please, Aeris has nothing to do with it!
All you want is me, right?”
Gast looked startled,
“Infalna!”
Hojo laughed down at
the woman, “I need all of you for my experiment.
You understand, don’t you, Professor, we can change the future of the
planet.
“Don’t worry
Infalna, I’ll take care of this,” Gast said, going to help her.
“Please don’t put up a fight, I don’t
want any harm to come to my precious
sample. Mmmm?
What a funny looking camera, Guard! Destroy
it,” Hojo motioned a man forward.
The man shot it,
completely forgetting that the audio ran from a different place in the room,
which was still recording.
“Be careful with
her,” Hojo said, laughing, “…what are you doing, Professor?!”
“Infalna, take Aeris
and run!!”
She snatched Aeris from
her bassinette and ran for the door while Gast fought the guards off.
One seemed to remember they each had a gun and pulled his.
Gast doubled over in
pain as a bullet hit his chest, “Eyaaaahh…”
Infalna turned, her
eyes locking with her husbands, “Darling…!!!”
Gast sputtered, holding
his chest, coughing up blood, “…oh, and uh…don’t forget the child…”
Infalna screamed as he collapsed to the floor.
Aeris, waking up, screamed shrilly, echoing her mother.
Hojo ignored the
mourning woman and began examining the nearby computer, “Hmm… a video, the
Ancients, Weapon, a mountain of knowledge, thank you Professor!”
He chuckled as he stepped over his former colleague’s prone form.
There was a slight
click as the audio tape ran out of time and clicked off, unnoticed by all in the
room.
Infalna crouched by the
man she loved, tears mingling with the blood on the floor, “I love you… I…
I’ll protect Aeris, until I die, I’ll protect her.”
“Come on already,”
Hojo snapped, stomping out into the freezing night.
“Don’t you touch
me!” Infalna screeched when one of the soldiers went to grab her arm, “I
need a few things from downstairs, follow me if you like, but don’t you dare
touch me!”
She hugged the still
crying baby, whispering soothing words, and headed down the stairs.
Onward to Part 4!!