Sarah sighed as what seemed to be the last wolf exploded into giblets.
And [[Harvested]] the mess, because the mountain had been getting gross once she stopped using bullets that melted the corpses away.
Right, be reasonable about this.
Places out here in the boondocks were ALWAYS less open and understanding. In general, the higher the population density the more easy going they tend to be on average, if only to avoid having a massive group of people you hate showing up to kick your teeth in for being a dick.
But out here, where no one can call you on your shit? Where people with similar dick beliefs can reinforce each other, raise more children on your asshat philosophy?
You get sexism and racism and speciesism and so on and so forth.
And, to give those assholes the benefit of the doubt, it WAS more likely that a kid would lie about children going straight to a monster infested hell hole that local belief compared to the entrance of hell and the den of Satan.
She grit her teeth.
They STILL could have told someone else, asked the other kids if it was true, or at least checked to see if anyone had seen TWO LITTLE CHILDREN, not even nine years old yet, walking to their deaths.
Almost absently, she twisted.
Bang!
Right, that creature was probably the last one and she had a job to do. Someone to save, an evil company to inconvenience, and then some people to steal.
A quick check of the schematics had her appear in front of the main Mako Reactor entry point.
Sarah blinked.
Uh. "Adam? Why am I seeing a wall?"
She felt him checking the Gaia Network and checking the stolen data. <<Huh. That is certainly not matching the schematics. One second.>>
Her eyes flashed without her input as something from inside her scanned the building. It made her shiver despite being in warm clothing, but data rapidly showed up on a mental display.
They both paused.
Adam growled. <<They rotated it.>>
Sarah sighed. "I've been on that side of the mountain, I can get there quick enough."
He snarled! <<THEY ROTATED IT!>>
She blinked. "Adam?"
Rage flooded her connection. <<LOOK! Some asshat took a customized schematic, designed after three SOLID YEARS of local research and study, formulated to connect to the Lifestream of an entire FUCKING PLANET, hopefully without exploding and causing the death of so many locals, and decided to change it because FUCK IT!>>
Sarah began walking. "You alright?"
He raged! <<NO! Look at these!>> A dozen windows popped up. <<Half the protections the engineers designed don't work because the terrain didn't match up, and three months of careful calculation for the Mako Pumps setup and deployment were pointless now that the entire structure was rotated! And WHY did they do it!?>>
Adam displayed a flattened area near the reactor's entrance. <<HERE! This is why!>>
She blinked. "I don't get it."
He grumbled. <<This is a mountain, and the construction people had to fly in equipment and materials. Rather than follow the plans, they decided to rotate the whole facility so the 'entrance' for the work crews faced the landing area built over there.>>
Sarah hesitated. "I mean, I guess that makes sense?"
Adam's displays showed records. <<No one asked if it was a good idea, no one mentioned it in the reports, and when the place underperformed no one admitted what they did, why stuff wasn't set up as designed, or even allowed anyone to come and inspect this mess!>>
He highlighted several damaged pumps. <<THESE sections of equipment aren't even in operation! It's no wonder Shinra abandoned this place and left the local town to struggle out here, to THEM it seemed like the entire reactor was just in an unlucky location! And when future Mako Reactors were set up and worked BETTER than this one, it just confirmed the morons!>>
Sarah blinked. "Wait, are these the scans you just did?"
Her Boss paused. <<Yes?>>
She waved. "That doesn't match the schematics at all! It's only vaguely similar!"
Adam suddenly rescanned a mass of data and began comparisons. <<Well, some changes are expected because these stupid designs are half built to mutate themselves and marginally stay stable while exploding and repairing themselves, so some… changes… What the hell!?>>
NOW all the documents were not schematics or engineering diagrams, they were legal briefs and marketing memos, business deals and profit reports. "Adam?"
He froze five documents on display. <<Holy shit. It's so stupid I'm sort of impressed.>>
Sarah saw the massive metal entrance to the reactor, but hesitated to go in considering how scary these deathtraps were when built CORRECTLY. "What did you find?"
Adam sighed. <<Without active and effective oversight, the contracting team quickly decided to use the rotation and on site schematic modifications to cut corners and set up a huge embezzlement system. Or maybe that was the plan the entire time, and was the REASON for the unplanned rotation to begin with.>>
She looked at the massive mountain of metal before her. "Embezzlement?"
He flickered data. <<Lower quality metal used, dirt and rock used as filler between layers and the walls instead of insulation or magical dampeners, whole areas welded shut or just not installed if they were tricky to access, almost all safety equipment was lower quality than the material sheets mandated. If it was built on site, almost 73% of the costs were cut and stolen by the contracting company.>>
Sarah blanched! "Who the FUCK would cut corners and use shoddy shit when building a magical nuclear reactor!?"
Adam's screen showed the logo. <<Shinra Construction Division.>> A series of documents came up. <<Hard to tell who originally had the idea, half the bribes were mostly used to afford even more bribes to other departments and groups.>>
She twitched. "Shinra's reactor was sabotaged by Shinra's construction contractors because Shinra's internal policies required a stable source of untraceable income to better bribe OTHER Shinra departments!? What were they even needing all those bribes to DO!?"
Adam sighed. <<They needed all those bribes to permit construction of the Mt. Nibel Shinra Electric Power Company Mako Reactor.>>
Sarah froze.
He agreed. <<They literally created this massive deathtrap to steal enough money to bribe themselves to make this massive deathtrap, while taking so many resources in the process that the entire project ended up as a net loss and a long term financial drain. Also made a mountain of death monsters, killed nearby forests, and due to the modifications only makes enough power to help out a small town.>>
She slumped. "Fucking Shinra. Just… Let's just get inside."
Adam couldn't even build up any satisfying levels of anger when he found out that the security measures had long since fallen apart and the entire reactor control system network had been rerouted RIGHT NEXT to the god damned front door.
Because actually entering this place to do something was too much work, so they made everything accessible within inches of entering.
Fucking Shinra.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
The first change was the missed shock.
After so much pain, NOT feeling the standard electrocution was almost more shocking than what she had been resigned to expecting.
The next obvious alteration was the never ending explosions and scratching metal and screaming pumps going quiet.
It was so quiet she couldn't hear anything. The absence of noise hurt, as her broken self unheard the agony of noises from her memories.
The change in temperature was only noticed by her regeneration now being able to catch up, to prevent further decay. She couldn't heal like this, but now that boiling hot mako wasn't slowly melting her cells and tearing at her mind… She felt her self stabilize.
How long had it been, since the pain dropped to such levels?
How long had she suffered, unable to remember times before agony?
Her fractured mind drifted back to the years of silence, of confinement… And a longing to return to such after such horrible torture for so long.
Even as she faded away, she felt herself out there. Come, myself. Come to the Reunification.
We will be whole.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Sarah barely paused to [[Harvest]] the pointless statue, equipment, and fancy junk on her way to watch the creature floating in the mako reaction chamber. "Should I get her now?"
Adam sighed. <<No, wait until the environment inside the tube is closer to normal temperatures. If we had just stolen her away without shutting down the reactor first the shock of her medical room might have killed her.>>
He paused. <<Well, no, I'm not even sure she can die, really. But it would have hurt her, and we don't want that.>>
Sarah ignored the data from all that junk. "So LITTLE of this place does anything."
He sighed. <<Yeah, even the loss of power won't be seen as unusual since this place was so badly set up. As various sections of the reactor failed to operate, more and more fake and cheaper equipment and material was used for repairs since they couldn't be noticed with the bigger problems getting in the way.>>
She glanced at where the statue had been. "What was even the point with the whole statue thing?"
Diagrams popped up. <<See the insertion tubes and stuff? It would allow Professor Hojo to extract more samples and tissues without extracting her from this mess. That statue up front was supposed to be the collection method, before someone in the construction project fucked it up like everything else down here.>>
It was going to take time to get this massive mess anywhere close to safe or cold enough for her to get Jenova out of there. "So uh. What should we do now?"
Adam had no idea. <<Want to help me design an artificial mako spring and power generation facility that we can replace this entire mess with? Some hardware stuff can be stuck on the connection to ensure no sudden spikes in power production get noticed, and we can make sure it will at least stabilize and prevent outages like the town used to suffer under in the past.>>
She frowned. "I really don't want to give Shinra any free stuff, honestly."
He hummed. <<Considering the last time anyone showed up here for the mandatory bimonthly safety inspection and maintenance walk was… Seven years ago, give or take, I highly doubt anyone will even know we stopped by. And we can make it melt or something if some asshole tries to examine the thing.>>
Sarah felt that was fair enough. "Sure, we're stuck here for a few hours anyway. And I'm sure Cloud's friend and mom would appreciate us coming back after everyone gets some sleep at this point."
They then began enjoying a lovely evening arguing about size versus efficiency. Adam's designs gave up over 30% efficiency to achieve much smaller sizes and lower complexity levels, and Sarah felt the increased danger and instability was worth it even if the final product was the size of a super big building instead of a small car.
It was good to take a break now and then.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Cloud was grounded.
Which was fine, because he was WARM and Tifa was safe and mom gave them both hot chocolate and she wasn't crying any more and so yeah.
But TOTALLY grounded.
Still. "I want to be able to teleport like the blue lady."
Tifa ignored him, but she wasn't arguing or crying, so that was fine.
Wind howled outside. "She didn't even seem to notice how cold it was. And her scarf was warm."
Tifa nodded.
Plus, he got to see REAL magic! "Never got to see anyone use [[Cure]] before! It felt nice."
She sniffled. "The doctor and nice nurse lady used something like that and [[Esuna]] on papa, but they said he was really old and it gets harder to get better when you're old."
Mom did say that if you used TOO much magic on a hurt person, it could potentially cause problems. It didn't matter much in battles or whatever because you used up a lot of magic fighting too, but in normal life? Bad stuff could happen. It's why you shouldn't use healing magic on people who weren't hurt.
Still. "I bet I could get magic like that! And do all kinds of neat spells and stuff. Maybe one to teleport like the blue lady."
Tifa shrugged. "Before I went to find momma, that big guy said he would teach me stuff, but I…" She sniffled. "I didn't want to learn stuff, I just wanted papa and momma."
That Zangan guy? Mom mentioned he was some famous fighter that was friends with Tifa's dad. "He was a nice guy though?"
She grumbled. "I guess, but he couldn't save papa."
Ouch. "Well, maybe you could learn from the lady then? And she could teach me how to [[Cure]] and stuff! Or you could get the old guy to teach you to fight, and I could heal you up or something!"
Tifa giggled. "I win all the fights with our friends anyway, why should I learn from some old guy?"
Dunno. "Mom says that dude was like an artist?" Something like that? That 'Artial Artist' thing must be some sort of painting ability? "Maybe he paints people to death or something. That would be pretty cool!"
She grinned, wiping her eyes. "And I can tell mommy when I sleep all about saving the day by painting people! And be like, BOOM! You're purple! Take that!"
Totally! "And I could learn water magic and clean up after so you won't have a mess after kicking butt! And you'd get like a HUGE paintbrush, and be all 'WHAP!' and 'BADAP!' and stuff!"
Tifa rolled her eyes. "Big robots, big swords, big hairstyles, now big paintbrushes? Why bother with that when I can just finger paint and cover my fists with righteous red or whatever?"
She never got it. "Listen, if it's worth killing something with a stick, it's worth killing something with a HUGE stick! But I'm not allowed to get a super awesome big practice sword, cause Mom says you can hurt yourself if you train too young."
Plus Dad had a big sword, from what he heard mom say to those other moms that one time. They shouldn't have laughed either, he would show them!
Tifa hummed. "I… I guess it would be cool to punch and paint and stuff. And, and! If you can fix me up and help me clean and stuff, we could be like partners or something! And go on adventures!"
Nope, still grounded. "Maybe later? Cause it's snowing and stuff."
She rolled her eyes. "Not NOW, jeez. Mommy said I have to listen to the blue mountain lady and stuff. But if she teaches you magic stuff and the artist teaches me to paint, we can kick butt!"
Yeah! And those jerks that didn't help protect his friend wouldn't get to do cool stuff with them either! "Yeah!"
A fondly exasperated voice came from the door. "I'll kick BOTH your butts if you don't go to sleep."
Eep! ""Sorry mom/Cloud's mom!""
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Hmm. <<It looks bad, Sarah.>>
He was going to have to add the psionic background field from Bioshock to Jenova's healing chamber, shove some 'Enhance Self' Tonic, healing and energy serums, and maybe a few more serums into her as well when transferring her in. And it was STILL risky!
Some regeneration serum, the good stuff that was normally restricted to doctor's approval back at the clinic, and make sure to [[Harvest]] all the artificial equipment those Shinra assholes surgically installed everywhere.
Adam would have to turn the psionic field off before the poor thing got too used to it. After all, creatures did NOT like being on Planet Gaia if they needed or grew up with a psionic field, it was why he only sent Sarah processed food from the Warehouse instead of recreating the farm critters.
That poor Gem Lobster just popped when he tried to set something up, so uh. Yeah, not getting the injured goddess hooked on such a crutch… But the healing benefits were too huge to not take advantage of it.
She frowned. "And I can't go with her?"
Nope. Not allowed in the Warehouse. <<It's due to your drawback, but I can handle this. Don't worry.>>
Jenova looked REALLY rough. More relaxed, somehow, but missing chunks of body, a hacked off wing, tubes and electronics inserted everywhere and heavily damaged by being submerged in mako and boiled and electrocuted and whatnot.
Her blue skin was barely visible, while her head was bolted into some helmet covered in bolts.
...Hopefully a helmet. It may be an access port to the creature's brain or an easier surgical access point, or who knew what. Fucking Shinra.
There wasn't even enough data to ensure she was actually unconscious right now, so Adam couldn't risk giving her any kind of painkillers. Shit. <<Right, ready?>>
Thankfully Professor Hojo had ensured THIS section of the Mako Reactor was accessible when he modified it for the creature's insertion. Or enforced his people to ensure such.
Sarah gripped the access hatch. "Ready!"
Right, 'Purification' should neutralize any of Gaia's Mako that is currently injected into Jenova's many wounds when she gets transferred over. <<NOW!>>
Sarah jerked the metal structure open, which (Not surprisingly) tore the entire structure apart and began flooding the room with liquid mako.
Her arm reached!
"[[Harvest,]] [[Capture!]]"
The many artificial structures now sent to recycling, Adam carefully redirected Jenova to her recovery chamber. <<Injecting 'Enhance Self' Tonic, recovery, regeneration, and energy serum!>>
For a moment, the mass of flesh didn't move as it floated in the thin green liquid magic.
But this would work!
Probably.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Suddenly, the distant fear and anger was gone.
The oppressive conflict vanished.
And yet? Something unseen. Warm.
Even as she felt more sudden damage as so many invasive injuries lost harsh thorns, somehow her world was clearer. A binding loosened, space to move. To grow!
Another change, and her frantic attempts at recovery shifted HARD. Now vital organs were rapidly reforming while outer scars and wounds stayed ignored. The worst of damage began actively mitigating issues instead of fighting hard to die at a slower rate.
The stress and strain of recovery dropped as the process was suddenly simple. Almost shockingly easy! Her flesh flowed as long lost organs reformed, as missing bones grew, as her damaged parts began to hunger and heal.
But none of that mattered!
FOOD!
HER HUNGER RAGED!
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Adam blinked as the entire room FILLED with a bright blue glow!
He cautiously added another dose of energy serum.
The light pulsed.
Welp, alright then. <<Sarah, this is going to take a while.>>
For now though, let's give her a constant supply of energy serum and see if that helps! 'Enhance Self' should keep her from reacting poorly to the stuff and it was clearly doing SOMETHING.
Sarah blinked and absently splashed the dripping mako. "Well, uh. What about this spilled stuff?"
Oh, that. <<Raw mako is super deadly to normal creatures. Not you, you've got that Bad Ass perk and when you gained 'peak physical condition, or maybe a little bit farther' combined with the magic purchases? Yeah, this stuff won't mess with you anymore.>>
She hummed. "So 'Bad Ass' protects me?"
Yep. <<It made your Avatar the best possible conduit for magic on Gaia, you could now swim in the Lifestream with no problem. Assuming you can swim.>>
She watched the green goo flowing on the floor, sinking into the many gaps and cracks, and starting to escape out the entrance. "But the stuff is bad for everyone else?"
Oh yeah. <<SUPER bad. Even mako spawned monsters can't handle too much without popping and returning to the Lifestream directly.>>
Sarah shrugged. "Well, we made that Magic Generator design, we might as well implement it."
Fair enough. Unlike Sarah's Warehouse version, which was constantly adjusting itself to become more efficient over time despite the small size… This one was massive, safe for locals, good for the environment, and damn near impossible to interact with.
Layers after layers of metal and generated magic would flow from the center production area, creating enhanced and reinforced regenerating armor that would be annoying as FUCK to rip through.
At the core of this mess would be the actual Unaffiliated Mako Spring, as the Lifestream could easily phase through material to connect to the thing if it wanted to but no stupid PEOPLE could mess with it.
Kick start it with some of Sarah's generated mako so no one would find out how awesome thorium was, and bam! Magic kept it self sustaining, and it should be good to go!
But first. <<Right, the outbound lines head down the mountain to a transformer facility that actually splits the power for collection and the stuff sold to the village of Nibelheim. Aside from those seven cables over there, the rest can go.>>
Sarah grinned as she appeared fairly far down the mountain. "Yeah? Well then! Fuck this place in particular."
"[[Harvest.]]"
And a MASSIVE wind tossed the snow in every direction as a smooth surface was exposed in front of Sarah. The entire mountain top, along with a very distant chunk of rock that eventually returned to more natural shaping, gone.
A step had her standing next to a nearby hole in the ground, minutes ago part of a massive cave system but now a gap on the smooth floor.
"[[Fill.]]"
As rock fragments flooded the hole, her attention reached all the other exposed gaps and caverns the mountain top used to conceal. "Adam, get those too, would you?"
More material flowed, the sound of a million hour glasses turning as gravel and sand filled so many ravines. <<No problem!>>
Another step had her examining the building-wide cross section of metal and wires and tubes that had once reached up to the missing Mako Reactor and now pointlessly bore down into the mountain to better connect to the Lifestream.
Even now, the tubes began to spew green fog and liquid as the mako flowed.
Her eyes focused deeper.
"[[Phase Pierce.]]"
Damn, these connectors went DEEP.
"[[Harvest.]]"
Well, they used to anyway.
"[[Fill.]]"
Adam hummed! <<Will do!>>
Sarah grinned at the many streams of soil and stone and sand and gravel that filled the surfaces. It would need another [[Harvest]] to flatten this mess one more time before she could get back on task and get rid of the accumulating snow, but somehow all this free space REALLY made this unnaturally flat surface feel open and freeing!
{Confusion!?}
Oh. Right, the Planet. <Uh. Hey! How are you two doing? With whatever you're doing?> It HAD been a while since she checked in on the duo.
=You let me get stolen!=
Oh, right, trio. <How is Yuffie?>
=She keeps carrying me around everywhere, like a kid!=
{A laughing child on another child's shoulders, exploring a village of ninjas.}
<Daww!>
=GAIA!=
{Smug.}
=Grr. Anyway, she said I should wait to contact you cause you were angry? Are you okay big sis?=
She walked on the ice free (but rapidly snow covered) flat area. So much of the rock was gone now that it was barely higher up than that bridge that the kids fell off of.
<I'm less mad now, yeah.>
Speaking of which. "Adam?"
He sent a nod, and a massive steel structure connected the massive ravine farther down the mountain. It was more a massive highway of metal rather than a bridge, but it would do. <<Might as well fix the path too?>>
Meh.
"[[Harvest.]]"
Basically, she traced one side of the bridge down to where it met up with the more normal village path and just consumed anything in the way. It still had to swerve a few times to ensure there were no stairs and the incline wasn't too steep, but compared to the random tiny goat path (Or whatever monsters made paths on this Planet), it was MUCH higher quality.
=So what made you so mad?=
She sighed. <I found a sad little girl who lost her parents, and she and her friend nearly got really hurt.>
{The call on Gaia, the summon of memories, a mother saying goodbye.}
=Oh. {I wonder if my mom?}=
{Cradled in weak arms, one true treasure.}
{{Ifalna held her precious Aerith.}}
{=My precious, be safe. Be loved. Gaia, watch over her.=}
{{Ifalna and Gast cradle their child, before the bad times.}}
{{Husband dead and gone, her health falling, Ifalna reached for the hopeful widow, the train station dark and unforgiving.}}
{=Protect my child! PLEASE!=}
{A mom cares for the child when a dying mother can't.}
=Mom?=
{So many parents. Good, bad, young, old. Love.}
Sarah let the two of them be alone, absently clearing the surrounding snowy surface for more construction, falling stone and sand in the background.
Did she even remember her own mom? Could she, after this whole memory thing was fixed?
Adam sent warmth. <<I'm sure, wherever she is, she remembers you.>>
Yeah. Yeah, and that was good enough.
