LYDIA DEETZ AND FINAL FANTASY 7
Capítulo 16: Revelations
Under the direction of Cloud, the group headed north and finally came to a kind of archaeological dig. The scientists, who were a mixture of archaeologists and paleontologists, told them they saw a woman with their friend's description, who entered the forest.
The group entered the forest and as the scientists warned them, they were lost.
“Don't worry, with my sense of smell we can get out of here," Percy reassured them and turned into a cat.
“I hope your sense of smell gets us out of here because my sharp snout is unbalanced in this place," Nanaki excused himself.
“Don't be afraid Rintintin, my nose is magical and I can trace Aerith's magical aura as she possesses certain magical traits.”
They arrived at the ruins of a city, this was nothing like what they had seen before, the structures, although few, were of a respectable size and were built according to a biological pattern, trying to imitate the living structure of nature.
Percy rushed to where Aerith's trail led him. It grew strong as they walked down stairs that seemed to lead to a reservoir of water.
Aerith was in a kind of roundabout with columns and above it was Sephiroth who was already falling on her with his sword drawn.
Percy flew to Aerith, but the speed wasn't good enough.
"Faster!" he thought in milliseconds and suddenly huge wings sprouted on his back, but the speed wasn't enough.
“MAX SPEED!” shouted the winged cat and his flight increased at a dizzying rate.
The winged cat held the girl and threw her at her friends.
“PERCYYY!” Lydia shouted as she saw Sephiroth piercing Percy's body with his sword.
Sephiroth, with a flick of his sword, threw Percy's battered body into the water and then vanished into thin air, but not before leaving another monster to fight the group.
The monster was another part of Jenova and began to attack them, yet he was no match for the entire mini-army in front of him.
Lydia was holding Percy's inert body and the other members of the group were comforting her, so a meowing sound was heard and a cat began to walk down the stairs.
Percy's body began to turn to ashes and the cat coming down the stairs turned into a cat boy. It was Percy!
The other members of the group didn't believe their eyes and tried to ask Lydia what the hell was going on, but the girl went upstairs and hugged Percy.
“I have seven lives left," said Percy as he hugged Lydia, "damn Beetlejuice, damn Sephiroth, because of them I've already lost two lives.”
Lydia explained to the group that Percy could not die so easily because he had several lives, but she was still dismayed to see her boyfriend's dead body.
“Aerith, what the hell were you thinking coming to this place alone?”
“I only wanted to stop Sephiroth," the florist defended herself.
“Did you even have a plan?” Jesse asked him, and Aerith bowed her head in shame.
“I don't believe it, how can anyone be so stupid!” Yuffie suddenly shouted, and Cloud got angry and came up to Aerith and stood between her and the girls.
“Forgive me!” I just wanted to protect Cloud, because, every time Cloud confronts Sephiroth he suffers! Aerith said and then she started to cry.
“Aerith, forgive me, you almost died because of my weakness," said Cloud, and everyone looked at him in surprise, because the blond man was not fond of speaking so gently.
“Cloud, I... I don't want to see you suffer.”
“And I don't want anything bad to happen to you," said Cloud and then embraced her, making the oldest members of Avalanche open their mouths by surprise.
“I almost lost you and I, well, I couldn't stand it," Cloud said as he got up and tried to put on a bad-boy pose again.
Tifa saw everything with tearful eyes, but also with a smile as neither Aerith nor Percy died.
“Lydia, did you see how Cloud softened up and then went tough again?” whispered Percy.
“Yeah, that means he's acting this way on purpose?” Lydia whispered to him as she shook her head. “Oh Cloud, no wonder you don't talk much, but they'll find out that you're really a good boy and not the bad boy you pretend to be.”
“I think it's too late for that," Percy said with a chuckle.
“Where are we going now?” said Cid, who started smoking his filthy cigar.
“Not in front of Lydia," Percy warned him and tore the cigar from his lips and threw it in the water.
Cid was furious but Wedge stepped in to stop a fight.
“We better go to the village of Icicles," Wedge said with authority, "according to what Cloud told us, we can find information about Sephiroth there.”
Cloud grimaced, he did not know why Sephiroth's voice told him that he would go there, but shaking his head, he decided it was best not to think about it.
.
.
The group, after buying clothes to withstand the cold weather of Icicles, headed there. Once the seaplane reached the coast, everyone headed for the village without any setbacks, except for the occasional attacks of the local wolves.
Lydia trembled despite the warm clothes she was wearing, so Percy turned into a cat and climbed on her shoulder. Then his whole body stretched out and covered Lydia's torso and back, like a hairy vest.
“Thanks Percy, I feel better now," Lydia thanked him while the rest of the group looked impressed.
The group arrived in town and one of the villagers told Aerith that she looked just like a woman who used to live there.
“What happened to that woman?” Aerith asked.
“It was terrible, Shinra's men arrived with a scientist, I think his name was Hojo. They broke into Professor Gast's house, killed him, then took his wife Ifalna and their newborn daughter, no one knew what happened to them.”
Aerith felt her legs fail, but she was held up at the last minute by Cloud.
Cloud asked the man where Professor Gast's house was and then they went to that place.
The group entered the house, which was actually a laboratory, which was still operational despite the weather and the abandonment.
“Look, here's some kind of old video," said Cait, and then he put this in a player for everyone to see.
The video showed them Professor Gast's theory that the planet used the lifestream to heal itself from potential damage such as a meteorite collision.
“Then the northern crater was the result of a meteorite impact," said Dyne.
“And the planet is still recovering from that disaster," continued Vincent.
The video also showed Aerith's real mother, Ifalna, telling the story of her race. Apparently Jenova came from space and invoked a meteorite that created the northern crater, then was defeated by the Aerith race, but at a high price. The video also explained how Hojo confused Jenova with another member of Aerith's race.
Aerith was shedding tears at the sight of her mother's image and Cloud comforted her.
Professor Gast and Aerith told how the planet created several giant monsters called Weapons to destroy Jenova, the people of Aerith destroyed Jenova before the planet resorted to freeing the monsters Weapon, but according to Ifalna, the giant monsters still lived, in a state of suspended animation, waiting for the moment when Jenova appeared.
“But we're already up against Jenova, so why didn't the monsters show up?” Biggs asked, but no one knew the answer.
The video showed how Hojo arrived at the lab and ordered Gast's death, and also took his recent wife Ifalna along with her newborn daughter.
Aerith collapsed and started to cry.
After leaving the laboratory they were confronted by one of the members of the Turks. Cloud, who wasn't in the mood to fight, decided to let the woman beat him.
“You and Sephiroth are connected in some way, and what happened to our boss is also your fault," said the woman and then left the place.
The group had to reach the northern crater, but the road was like a treacherous maze, so they turned to Percy for help and arrived safely at the base of the gigantic crater. Seeing that it would be dangerous to climb they asked Percy to take them and the poor cat had to do it, but this time he did it one by one and not at the same speed as before.
The caves were a veritable labyrinth and to the cat boy's disgrace, Percy had to help the group, luckily the effort paid off as they discovered that Sephiroth had left the Black Materia lying around.
“Nya, I guess I'm even with my karma now, with my law of triple strength, with my law of equivalence of exchanges!” Percy shouted happily.
"So let's charge it!” said the cat boy with a malicious smile and the other members of the group looked at him frowning.
The group felt that their luck was changing and they went to take the Black Materia, however, it was not abandoned, but a huge dragon had defeated Sephiroth and was now guarding the precious object.
The dragon was strong, but thanks to Lydia and Percy's tactics he was easily defeated and friends got the Black Materia.
“I have seen Sephiroth defeat dragons like this with a single stroke of his sword," Cloud said with awe, "I do not understand how he could be defeated.”
“Perhaps the being we thought Sephiroth was not," said Nanaki, pointing to Jenova's remains that were devoured by the monster.
“Jenova is not supposed to be so powerful that the planet created the weapons to destroy it, in fact the entire Aerith race succumbed to achieve this," Yuffie replied.
“So far we've never faced Jenova," said Jesse, "only parts of Jenova.”
“Did Sephiroth then give the materia to this part of Jenova to take care of, and then was it defeated by the dragon?” Tifa asked, but no one knew the answer.
The group took the Materia and continued their journey to Sephiroth.
The friends came to a high place, but they were not alone, several men covered in black cassocks and babbling the name of Sephiroth were also present.
“Look Lydia! How funy they are! Can we keep them?” Percy asked her, grabbing one of the hooded men.
“Sephiroth... go to... Sephiroth, call...”
“Percy, let go of that man!” Lydia urged him, but the cat boy was already starting to check it out.
“How strange Lydia, this guy has a tattoo on his arm, it's number 23," Percy said looking closely at the number.
“Go... to Sephiroth... go... go...”
“Percy let him go” Lydia insisted again.
“All right, Lydia," Percy agreed and let go of the hooded man, but he took two steps and made the perfect lemming fall into the abyss.
“But don't let him fall either!” Lydia scolded him.
“Then what do I do? All these guys seem to have played a lot of the lemmings game for their own good and now they have the spotlight fused," Percy said.
“Lydia is right, grab those guys," Wedge ordered, but the task was impossible because of the steepness of the place and the suicidal attitude of the hooded people.
Only Yuffie, with his ninja reflexes along with Percy and Nanaki, who had animal reflexes, succeeded in stopping some men, but the hooded ones twisted to free themselves and continue their suicidal march.
Suddenly Nanaki howled loudly and snuck out behind Tifa.
“Nanaki, what's wrong!” Tifa said strangely, but Nanaki did not respond, trembled and began to moan in fear.
Everyone in the group approached Nanaki who was still in that sorry state.
“What's wrong with Nanaki?” Barrett asked, but nobody knew what was wrong with his friend.
“Take it easy, Nanaki," asked Vincent in his characteristic calm voice.
“The hooded ones... were... were... were Cloud!” Nanaki shouted and began to moan.
“Explain yourself," said Dyne.
Nanaki told them that he took the hoods off three of the hooded men in order to control them better and saw that two were the same as Cloud and one was a guy like Cloud, but with black hair.
“I also took the hood off one," said Yuffie and described a guy who looked like Cloud but had black hair, the same as his friend described.
“What's going on, who are these guys and where did they come from?” Cid cried cursing more than ever but was interrupted by Sephiroth who mocked them.
The group wanted explanations, but Sephiroth spoke only cryptically.
“So you have feelings, too?” Sephiroth muttered in surprise at Cloud's reproaches and then vanished from the place, so the group had to face another part of Jenova.
After defeating the monster, the group wanted to descend to the crater, but Nanaki was very scared.
“All right, Lydia, Percy, you guys stay with Nanaki until we get back," Wedge ordered.
The two boys wanted to accompany their friends, but they could not leave Nanaki alone, so they accepted.
Wedge asked them and the group descended towards the crater.
The three friends waited for the group to return and Nanaki, who felt better, apologized.
“Don't worry, Nanaki," Percy said. “Look, take the Black Materia for your care.”
Nanaki accepted happily and as soon as he took the Materia, a thick mist covered the three friends.
“What is this mist, I can't even see my hand moving it in front of my face!” exclaimed Lydia worried.
“What's going on, Lydia, where are you!” shouted Percy.
“Cloud, why did you come back? Where are the others?” They heard Nanaki say. Lydia and Percy shouted loudly at him, but apparently Nanaki couldn't hear them.
The fog lifted and the two boys saw Nanaki lying on the ground unconscious. When Nanaki woke up, he told them that Sephiroth told him everything.
Sephiroth actually died years ago when he went mad and burned the town of Nibelheim. It wasn't Cloud, it was Zack who killed Sephiroth, who fell into the lifestream. Sephiroth, however, did not fuse his body or consciousness with the lifestream, but wandered like a ghost and arrived at the northern crater where he hopes to be revived thanks to the help of the Black Materia.
“Then who were we chasing?” Lydia asked in surprise and Nanaki responded, trying to be as brief as possible.
The "Sephiroth" they were after was actually a part of Jenova who could change form and who was looking for the Black Materia to give to the true Sephiroth. He was able to control Jenova because he had been implanted with Jenova cells since he was in the womb. In fact, he could control every living thing that had Jenova cells implanted in its body, and those were the hooded ones, who were just clones of Cloud and Zack.
“Did he also explain to you about the clones?” Percy asked anxiously, and Nanaki continued to speak.
Zack, after being wounded by Sephiroth, rescued Cloud who was in Nibelheim. The blond man covered his face with a Shinra helmet because he was ashamed to return to his hometown because he was not able to be part of the elite of the Soldier as Sephiroth or Zack, but was a simple third category enforcer, that is, the lowest rank of Shinra's forces.
Tifa was rescued by martial arts master Zangan, while Zack and Cloud tried to flee but were captured by the Turks. Hojo destroyed the real Zack and Cloud and made several clones of them. However, a Zack clone rejected the system and rescued a clone of Cloud and tried to flee the scene. Zack's clone was killed, but the Cloud clone managed to escape in Midgar.
Lydia and Percy were open-mouthed but then recovered and decided to go to their friends along with Nanaki.
The three friends arrived at the rest of the group, who were with Rufus and Hojo, who also arrived at the site.
Apparently it was all over, Cloud was controlled by Sephiroth and the blond man himself handed over the Black Materia to Sephiroth who came back to life. To make matters worse, the monsters of the planet: Weapon, woke up from their lethargy with the aim of destroying JENOVA and their puppeteer Sephiroth, unfortunately, would destroy the humans in the process.
Rufus offered the group a ride on his ship and they had no choice but to accept. They had been saved from being crushed by the awakening of Weapon, but then cursed Rufus captured them using sleeping gas.
CONTINUARÁ...
ns 15.158.61.20da2
