Chapter Text
Natalie was floating in place, Midgar was the sky. She twisted her body against nothing, easily righting herself for Midgar to be the ground.
There were bits of city everywhere. Whispers everywhere.
A great, dark, purple thing, with glowing internals through its webbed details. It had arm like appendages coming out of a center, with parts trailing below like legs. The shorter of the appendages had a great glowing ball that interacting with floating objects like it had it's own pull of gravity.
'That, is it.'
Enough objects floated in the sky around her, that Natalie could get to one and jump off of it towards the things. There was a greater density of pieces of city hear the thing. That would give her more to travel on.
She whipped her sword out and down in front of her, splitting the object traveling towards her. Cutting it in half with a burst attack from her, for either half to keep traveling past her sides. She got over the shock of the split quickly. She had to act before she could think, to stay alive around so many hazards. 'Live now, figure out the rules as you go.' She told herself.
Launching herself onto another object, she moved with foot and sword. There was too much movement and impact of objects to slow down enough to cast a spell.
After less than a minute of transiting towards the purple-thing, she found a stretch of road enough to run down. Dozens of whispers circled the piece of highway, creating a tunnel to travel into. She slapped a haste on herself. Giving her more movement and more momentum with which to push off, aiding her travel towards it.
"Is this you will?" she asked the Whispers. "Forward?"
They did not reply or pay her notice.
With the storm winds gone, she slipped her goggles to her forehead. There was no pre-dawn light here, while she watched for movement as she proceeded.
She searched the skies for Sephiroth. Another Jenova form. Fighting. The sound of Barret's gun. Or the sight of any of the others. There was only forward to the giant thing, in the sky over Not-Midgar. She was not one to run away from the problem, at least not anymore.
The road moved as if she was on a playset held by bored children as their little toy raced along it. She gave up searching for others and watched for things to respond to on the gravity of this shattered road.
She leapt back from more things landing in front of her. She leapt over them and raced forward as things landed behind her. She did not look back.
She saw things suspended in mid air, that she could leap from piece to piece, to an even larger piece.
It felt like no time at all when a large, and broken-up, section of highway appeared and had it's own gravity. There would be no more leaping across the sky of this other place.
Whispers circled some of the pieces, while the tornado of whispers was still distant in the sky. With no clear guide of where to go, Natalie kept moving and searching for the others. 'Just keep moving. Just keep moving.' She reminded herself. Screaming into the wind "AERITH!" and "CLOUD!" "TIFA!" "BARRET!" "RED!" over and over again. Each name in turns. The sky was the dark of night with that green cast to it she had gotten used to over Midgar. The whispers were grays and the ground planes were similar. The tornado of Whispers was back-lit by purple clouds and lightning. Of the giant purple mass she was running into, instead of away from.
Then there was the big thing in the sky, with arm-like appendages and almost no head-shape. Clawed and lit on the inside with more of that Jenova-Purple that Natalie had come to recognize, and despise.
'I used to like purple.' She thought. Now the color had become associated with that thing, that force, that had ruined everything. With Jenova, and it's related entities. Natalie had no idea if Jenova was behind this mess. But they had followed Sephiroth into that portal, on Cloud's lead. What else could it be? But something, somehow, related to Jenova?
Natalie was able to leap to another broken piece of highway, as if gravity had normalized here. She looked for color, anything other than dark blue, green or gray. Aerith's red and pink or Red's red-orange fur would stand out against that more than any other. But Natalie would count it a success to find anyone in this other place.
"LEE!" she could hear over the windy air.
Natalie faced the wind as it blew across her, looking for the source of the noise.
"NATALIE!"
Now Natalie could see it, a thin swirl of whispers obscured the very red and red-orange she had been looking for. Sliding her goggles up to her forehead, she made the final running-jump to clear the distance between the two sections of road.
Aerith's section was level with Natalie's.
Any SOLDIER could make that jump, and Natalie was no different, only separated by more Whispers, as the three of them were finally on the same section of pavement. Natalie imagined that they were walking normally on a broken section of road, and not a floating section of road in the sky above other-Midgar.
"Aerith! Red!" Natalie cried over the Whispers separating the three of them.
Natalie drew her sword and made a few slashes of her own, taking care as Red leapt about, slashing with his front claws.
Without having any real impact on the Whispers, they all dispersed. Again Natalie thought that they left when they wished, not when Natalie wished.
"You found us!" Aerith said back, as she and Red tried to fight off the Whispers from surrounding them. Aerith no longer had to shout over the wind.
Natalie looked about, for more trouble, or any sign that they section of road was moving. "I haven't see the others yet."
"There are very few landmarks in this place," Red said, pointing his nose at the big thing in the distance.
Natalie and Aerith looked as well. "Looks like trouble." Natalie said.
"Then let's trouble it before it troubles us." Aerith told them.
Natalie nodded, pointing the way to a piece of road that floated into view, connecting their bit of road to the way forward, closer to the giant Whisper-thing.
"Red," Natalie told him, "Lead the way. "If you smell the others, go there."
He nodded and ran off after that new section of road, straight for trouble.
"Aerith, I'll get the back, in case there is more than that for trouble here."
Aerith ran after Red, calling behind her to Natalie, "I can take care of myself Lee."
Natalie didn't argue with the other woman's sass, as she took up the rear of the three of them. And they ran off after Red.
- - -
The three of them had to fight there way past three smaller Whispers, compared to the big one. They were large for normal Whispers.
They evaporated into existence around them. Fifteen to twenty-feet tall. Instead of legs they had a skirt-like below-waist.
One's interior light was red, it had a giant, red glowing pointed arm-like appendage. And a shorter one that did not end in a vicious point.
Another was orange-yellow, with arms that ended in what looked like-gun arms. If Barret's ekg cannon arm was any guide.
The third was turquoise interior-lit. It had an arm that ended in a normal hand. With something on it's curved end that looked like a cross bow.
They fought, hard, and entirely too long for Natalie's comfort. But between their summons, and they way all three of them had come, they managed to make the three large Whisper-knights run off elsewhere. Leaving the three of them to continue looking for the others.
Aerith led they way to the next section, where they could drop down to a large section of parking lot. "There! I see them!" She pointed over and down to where they could run or slide down to Barret, Tifa, and Cloud. Who were fighting those same three Whisper-knights.
"Go!" Natalie pointed for Aerith and Red to go first. So she could watch their backs. Natalie was not absolutely sure that those were the same Whisper-knights, or if more could appear and attack them from behind.
Aerith and Red joined the other three, with Natalie behind, as the red one was finished off by Cloud.
Natalie could see the giant Whisper shudder, as one of it's arm-looking appendages broke apart.
"Hang on!" Aerith came up from behind. Red with her.
"Aerith!" Tifa said.
The stump from the Arbiter glowed and sparked. Streams of light traveled to the group, touching their minds.
Natalie saw a vision without pain.
An older Red XII, or his father, ran down a dusty path. Rocky hills to the side. Two pups of his race raced after him. The vision followed to point to where they were going. The vision cleared.
Natalie had questions for Red, they all did. But in the moment all their minds were clear, Red could only shake his head. Saying in a moment, without words, that any questions would have to wait. If he ever planned on answering them.
One of them had questions anyway.
Barret turned to Aerith, "What the hell did I just see?"
Natalie looked at Red. Red deflected with a riddle, "A glimpse of tomorrow if we fail here today."
Natalie opened her mouth to speak, to ask her own question. When Cloud's head moved, noticing something.
Cloud looked behind them.
Looking up, Natalie Saw the Arbiter's other arm come for them.
The split as the ground plane they had been standing on broke apart and separated.
Cloud, Barret and Red picked themselves off of one side. Natalie, Tifa, and Aerith were on the other.
The ground rocked beneath them and the larger Whisper knights reappeared.
They fought. The fight raged on. As the Whispers wore down to nothing. They battered the staggered bodies of the things. To harm to largest one.
The longer arm came off now.
With the fighting at a pause. Natalie prepared to see something.
The head of the Arbiter glowed with that spark of Aerith's light. Streams traveled towards them. Showing them the future the Whispers protected.
Some sort of broken-up meteor approached the planet. The vision showed it from behind. As it entered the atmosphere.
A giant sphere, with the back blown out, streams of red connecting the shards to the whole.
Tifa spoke the Aerith and Tifa, "This can't be our future..."
Tifa's musing, with Natalie ruminating. Missed the red large whisper swing in to slash at Tifa.
Cloud appeared, sword out, blocking the blow that had caught both women unaware.
'What is going on here?' Natalie thought.
The larger whisper retreated.
Barret and Red had found their way over.
Aerith had her own words, "The future is always a blank page."
A purple claw thing came from the Arbiter again. Summoning the three Whisper knights back.
"Them again!" Barret shouted, "The least they could do is give us a little breather!"
"I say we split up." Cloud told them. "Take 'em down at the same time."
"In that case, ultra big boy's all mine!" Barret raced off with Red behind him.
The red giant Whisper-knight flowed after Barret. Cloud leapt up to engage it. Keeping it from pursuing the other two. "Bring it on, bitch!"
Natalie swung her sword in a bored slash, starting to cast Haste again.
Cloud leapt back from his slash of the red one. The green and orange ones flew to join it.
And again they went.
With the Whispers defeated, Barret's gun flashed with a technique that finished off the giant purple whisper. He fired a large blast at it's very core.
More light, more streams of light. The Arbiter flashed with a white light that filled everything.
The next vision was a moment.
Sephiroth moving slowly towards Cloud.
Cloud bringing up the Buster Sword to bear.
The hero, the villain, the glow behind the scene brightened until everything was white all over.
Natalie was only more confused at what she was seeing, at what the people in the visions were doing.
The Whisper knights bent over and disintegrated into their own lights. They did not create visions.
"Did we beat 'em?" Tifa asked.
"Think so," Aerith offered.
Natalie stood ready for what came next.
The Whispers returned again, they merged into a form similar in size to Bahamut.
Cloud summoned Ifrit to fight it. Five against one. Though it was a very tough one.
As they wailed into the Whisper, the big whisper shuddered.
"Cloud called out, "Barret! Now!."
"Ain't no stoppin' us now!" He shot the core again.
Another stream of light, another vision.
White trees, green grass.
A large pond in the foreground and mid-ground. The vision was too bright to see who or what was in the middle of the pond. A pale shape was held by a darker shape in the center of the pond. The vision swung around to a building reminiscent of a conch shell. The vision went white.
A tear moistened Natalie's cheek. She did not know why the sight of the silhouette of the seashell in the background, or someone being lowered into the pool in front of it made her sad. If she had not been fighting a Whisper-Bahamut with the others she would have retreated into her music. Instead she had to lean back on her adrenalin and continue fighting. A question on her lips on why that vision suddenly crashed her with sadness.
Shaking her head clear, Natalie wiped the tear away. 'This is what I need to focus on! The right now! Not the maybe-later.'
She was angry that she was letting her feelings, mysterious or otherwise, get to her and distract her. She watched the giant Whisper stutter closer to her fighting with Cloud and the others. They could attack it directly now, not just Barret and his longer-range gun-arm.
As it slowly came in closer to attack them. Natalie was distracted.
"We're defying fate. But on who's orders? We followed Sephiroth in here. Who's fate are we defying?'
Natalie brought up her sword to attack the approaching giant thing. The sooner this ended the sooner they could all rest.
That one giant Whisper took a long time to struggle in it's death.
Barret and Red came back to them, no longer needing to be up close to the Arbiter.
Natalie waited for the next piece of the future they fought. The stone in her gut made her sick. 'Who's fate are we defying in fighting this?' She continued to ask herself. As had as the last few fights had been, the stone in her gut got heavier.
Wave after wave of explosion of light hit the arbiter as it broke up.
Natalie felt hunger and anxiety disappear, her mind and arms refreshed. A last touch of the giant one gave them the rest they needed. And the light touched their minds.
The light cleared, Natalie was not in a vision, she as in a white place. They stood on water. A heavy breeze went through, eddies and twists giving no clear direction.
The breeze faded to nothing.
Cloud asked Aerith, "Where are we?"
She shook her head, she had no words.
Natalie looked down to the ground, they stood on water. "What..." She had been somewhere like this once before.
Words bubbled up to her in her memory, 'Wind sails over the water's surface...' Her neck prickled.
Of all the things she could think of. Certain words came back to her 'I will come back to you.'
Cloud gasped and started breathing hard.
Aerith looked at him curiously.
Natalie gritted her teeth, just thinking about Sephiroth sickened her.
Natalie could now see the green tinge to the background of the white.
Red came from above, washing downwards. The red of some meteor came into this place. The white turned to red to black.
Barret, "What the hell is this!?"
Red spoke up, "This is-"
The water was gone, they stood on a piece of wrecked cement and rebar. The sphere of Meteor about to touch down came down on them. It was so bright, so hot.
They stood on a piece of wrecked cement as pieces of city ripped apart from the gravity of Meteor.
A heavy wind blew across them.
The words of Loveless came to her out of order, 'Of Sacrifice, at world's end.' She thought 'but who or what would be the sacrifice to save us now?'
Out under Meteor, as Cloud beheld the black streams that centered on something. Natalie looked as well.
With eyes squinted against the winds, she looked at the purple light in the middle of the black streams-like-chains.
A halo of purple with only an outline of a form and streaming long hair.
"Sephiroth." Cloud said.
Natalie did not disagree. Gritting her teeth again, the stone in her gut had become a storm. He had come back to her, to them. She could not do this and wanted to run, to leave. To go back home to the North Pole. Even while in this utter mess.
Streams of black, particles that reminded Natalie of the Whispers, came in from around the meteor and encircled Sephiroth and the purple light limning his form.
The black streams pulled and pulled at the meteor, gathering the comet and the firestorm that had issued from it. The whole fiery ball was pulled into a single point. The brightness of the purple dimmed.
The sky above, no longer filled with a meteor, was merely a thickly clouded sky.
Above the point of purple, a break in the clouds coalesced into light. Sunlight shone on the disintegrated floating city of Not-Midgar.
With a downward swipe of Masamune, the purple glow was gone.
Sephiroth floated above them. Looking at them.
'All I want to do right now is be literally anywhere else. Than to see him again.' Natalie wanted to wail, to run to the closest thing she had for a home, in the North. She felt useless. She was a storm of emotions. She wanted to be held, be loved. No one around her looked in the mood for anything but a fight. That mood included Sephiroth and definitely Cloud. Natalie could tell by the set of the blond's shoulders.
Over there, Sephiroth raised his hand, large chunk of the city, including half of the ShinRa building, rose behind him.
Now that they had defied fate, there were no whispers to Stop Sephiroth from stopping them.
"No." she said weakly.
Sephiroth pointed at them, the building pieces started moving towards them.
They ran, they leapt away from that platform or were thrown.
The battle they were here for had begun.
Refreshed with magic, Natalie could not summon in the chaos she jumped from, cut through, or Gravity'd onto.
She searched for others. Everything was gray and dusty. Everyone here was not a gray or dusty building.
Sephiroth wanted to stop Cloud, the 'biggest threat' in the room. Natalie felt an after thought. She could still fight though.
But they were better together, so she searched for better together. Perhaps she could confront her mixed feelings for Sephiroth together. She did not want to think of what would happen if the man found her alone.
"Red!" She cried to the Red-furred form.
"I smell Cloud!" He told her.
She leapt after him, from piece to piece. They tracked the wind.
They could hear the yelling of a giant-gun armed man. "Barret!" Natalie yelled.
"I see them down there!" Red pointed to a larger chunk. Barret led Red and Natalie to a floating Sephiroth. Cloud, Tifa and Aerith fought him already.
Sephiroth, inexplicably wearing a single black-feathered wing, raised the Masamune as wraith-sized Whispers surrounded him.
Natalie understood what she was seeing. Sephiroth had finally achieved what Genesis and Angeal had figured out for themselves. Become more than what they had been before. Gaining a wing, Natalie still did not understand how. But she did not puzzle on it for long, joining the others in fighting the taller man. Feathered or not.
A bolt of purple lightning shot up into the sky and meteor started to climb down to them.
"Sweet dreams," Sephiroth promised of them.
The sword in her hand was as much thought as she could allow while focused for battle. There were others in the duel, her focus on the fight left too little of Natalie free for her to get distracted around Sephiroth. Her adrenalin was her best tool for bottling her emotions in this moment.
Sephiroth floated in the air above them. Somehow hovered aloft with his one wing. Giving Barret a target.
Switching to spells, Natalie went into support mode. There was only so much room for people to attack Sephiroth directly.
"It's over," Cloud gave one more swipe.
Sephiroth stumbled and clutched his chest.
'Is it over?' Natalie thought, doubting that.
Sephiroth gathered himself and Whispers left his form to buffet them.
Barret shot over their heads, stopping Whispers Sephiroth had summoned.
Sephiroth swung Masamune at them, he was not done.
"We can do this." Aerith encouraged, "We can. We can change it-make it right."
Sephiroth leapt high and sent more whispers at them.
Aerith cast a Thundaga to protect the group. Natalie only used her sword to keep the Whispers back. Her Mana was nearly depleted. Even after the weird rest she, and probably the others, had received earlier. Fighting Sephiorth took everything, every tool, every spell.
"We can change it!" Aerith encouraged them, "Make it right!"
Natalie thought, 'but at what cost?'
Cloud leapt away from them, and towards Sephiroth.
"Go!" Barret yelled.
Cloud went up and up the pieces. Crashing down onto Sephiroth. There was an explosion of Whispers. Then a burst of light.
- - -