Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Price for a Memory ❯ Beginning of the End ( Chapter 24 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

24.

Both men were gagged, bound and blindfolded. Sephiroth was forced into what looked like a straight jacket, while being roughly shoved about by six burly SOLDIER’s.

Cloud felt himself being dragged along cold and unforgiving floors. The chains on his wrists cutting into his still overly sensitive flesh. His tired aching body couldn’t fight back as he had been previously cornered in Sephiroth’s room. The gun to Cloud’s head had halted Sephiroth’s actions despite his wounded and useless hand.

Those six SOLDIER’s carried Sephiroth over their heads down the deserted corridors, keeping their grip tight even as the 6’2 male struggled and writhed against his restraints.

His guts churned. Was this it? Were Cloud and himself about to be ripped apart after such a short time?

Cloud seethed behind his restraints and blindfold. The male carrying him had betrayed him. What he once thought was a friend was nothing more than a lap dog for Hojo. When he got his hands on him, he would kill his ‘friend’.

Hojo’s voice finally boomed over Sephiroth’s screaming to be released.

“Ok men. In here. You two there? Follow me bringing them in with you.”

Cloud heard all the other men file away from what he could only surmise was a lab.

Sephiroth felt his body being thrown to the floor. His head cracked off of the cold stone below him with a sickening crunch. Before he could even try to think about grabbing Cloud and running, he felt a second blow to the head followed by a needle with burning liquid piercing the flesh on his arm.

Cloud heard Sephiroth being thrown to the floor. He stood in silence, trying to work out where he was.

His head buzzed painfully. He thought he had shaken that feeling. He felt his eyes twitch behind the blindfold.

A blow to the back of his head and a syringe being emptied into his blood stream blanked his agitated mind. His body numbed and stilled. He fell to the floor almost lifeless.

------

Both men’s eyes slowly cracked open. For the first time, they could see their surroundings. Both lay atop sterile tables, bound, strapped and chained down.

Sephiroth tried moving his fingers. They still felt numb. The sensation of pins and needles showered his flesh. The same feeling one gets if they sit in their foot too long and it falls asleep.

Loud, frightened, clearly anguished breaths came from about four feet away. Sephiroth forced his head to turn to the side only to widen at the sight of Cloud on the next table.

His body lay rigid. Muscles bridled under the pressure he caused himself. Tears cascaded down Cloud’s deathly pale cheeks. Sweat trickled down the petrified contours of his beautiful body.

A heart monitor beeped all too fast behind Cloud’s table. Various other wires and tubes were stuck into said blond’s flesh.

Sephiroth grimaced at the still increasing heart rate of the blond.

“He’s going to give himself a heart attack.” Sephiroth thought to himself.

Cloud’s head slowly turned round jerking back and forth a couple of times.

“H-help m-me….”

“What the fuck has he done to you?!”

Sephiroth recognised all of Cloud’s symptoms. Just like his first mako injection, only, ten times worse. This time, Cloud would die if his heart rate was not stabilised.

Cloud’s teeth chattered together violently as his body was racked with violent shivers. His body was thrown into spasms and thrashed around brutally, despite the restraints.

“Cloud! Get a hold of yourself! Please!”

Sephiroth’s plea fell on deaf ears.

Cloud was too far gone with mako poisoning.

Evil, sadistic chuckling crept behind the two men. The face of the voice came into the light, followed by his two accomplices.

“Hojo! Why did you do this to him?! He will die!”

“I have to make him as powerful as you my dear boy, or this will all be in vain.”

Sephiroth growled at Hojo before turning his attentions to the two males that had moved around in front of him and Cloud.

“You! I thought you were Cloud’s friend?! Reno was it? I will personally see you destroyed!”

“All part of my job…..General!” Reno hissed out Sephiroth’s title, making it the most venomous sounding title on the planet.

The dark skinned male standing beside Reno said nothing. He just stared silently at the convulsing Cloud.

“Such a beautiful creature. No wonder you claimed him as yours Sephiroth.”

Sephiroth whipped his head back round to see Hojo run his fingers through Cloud’s sweat soaked hair before chancing his arm by running his finger tips down Cloud’s face and neck, pressing roughly into the lovebite Sephiroth had made earlier that night.

“Don’t fucking touch him!!” Sephiroth roared while pulling at the restraints on his body.

However, his efforts were fruitless. Chains tore into the skin on his arms. The leather that bound his legs over and over again burned his pale flesh.

“Let us go!”

A sharp intake of breath shook both Sephiroth and Hojo from their anger at each other. Cloud’s body struggled against the restraints as his chest heaved painfully. His eyes blazed bright green as they bore into Sephiroth’s skull.

Previously rigid body softened and fell awkwardly onto the table below him. Cloud’s face froze in a state of shock. His eyes fell dark and filled with death. His chest ceased to rise and fall.

Cloud had flatlined. He was dead.

Hojo shot across the lab leaving Sephiroth yelling at Cloud to wake up, even though he knew he was dead.

“No Cloud! Don’t dare die! Please Cloud!”

Again but with increased fervour, Sephiroth struggled against his restraints. His bones popped and cracked with the ferocity of his movements. With a guttural roar, his left arm broke through the chains. He reached shakily across the small gap and grasped Cloud’s right hand in his.

“Y-you’re freezing….”

Hojo shot back to the men with the only thing that could resuscitate the blond.

“No! Don’t touch him!”

“You want him to die Sephiroth?”

Sephiroth gripped Cloud’s hand tighter as Hojo placed a syringe filled with that same purple liquid over Cloud’s chest, right above his heart.

Sephiroth cringed when that thick needle pierced his lovers delicate skin. He squeezed Cloud’s lifeless hand tighter.

He could feel his own energy, what was left of it draining fast. Blood dripped from his arms and ran down the legs of the table, settling on the floor.

Blood seeped from the small puncture wound on Cloud’s chest as the pallid purple liquid drained from the syringe and into Cloud’s heart.

Seconds felt like hours as Sephiroth sweated bullets. His eyes, unblinking forgot all about the other two men, scrutinizing him in that room. All he could focus on was Cloud.

The room fell silent. Sephiroth heard his own impaired breathing. His body shook with pain. But still, if he could save Cloud. He would. He would break free from these chains and save the male he, dare he think it, loves.

With an ear piercing scream, Cloud’s body shook itself back to life again. His heart rate immediately picked back up threatening to repeat it’s first failure. His eyes stared into Sephiroth’s. Not quite mako green, not quite the shimmering white, but a terrible off colour in-between.

“Cloud? I know you can hear me in there. Please, calm down. I….I can’t lose you. Not when it took me so long to find you.”

Hojo took the blond’s quaking shoulders and forced the lithe young male back onto the table.

“Calm down boy. Calm down or my experiment will be a failure.”

Finally, Cloud calmed down some. His screams of anguish halted and his breathing slowed down along with his heart rate. His body slumped back onto the table. He turned his head once again to look at Sephiroth.

Eyes identical to his own stared into his very soul.

“S-Seph? W-where are w-we?”

Sephiroth closed his eyes and turned his head to the other side of the room. His eyes caught sight of another male lying unconscious atop an identical table. He just and no more spotted the raven hair spilling over the side.

“I see you’ve spotted my next experiment?”

“Let Zack go. Cloud too. You just want me.”

“No can do my boy. Zack Aegis here? This fine creature of both beauty and strength will be used for my latest batch of mako. It may be too potent for his body to handle, but we shall see.”

Sephiroth looked at Cloud before his eyes blazed with fury.

“Hojo! You fuck! You almost kill Cloud for some damn mako experiment?!”

“Mako? No, no, no. You stupid fool. I said the mako tests were for your good friend over there. I need the two of you to give life to the experiment I began almost seventeen years ago. The two of you will give birth to the next generation of SOLDIER’s. I had to poison Cloud to bring his power, both mentally and physically up to the same level as yours. However, since your power is off the charts Sephiroth, I had to guess. Cloud is one lucky boy to have survived.”

Both men remained silent. Sephiroth tried his damnest to click everything he had found out in the past weeks into place. It was all starting to make sense.

“The two of you are the most beautiful and powerful creatures to ever walk the planet. Both received your beauty from your fathers no less. I wanted the two of them to be the first to place me atop my deserved glory, but alas. Both Vincent and Genesis ‘vanished’ before I could complete the preparatory stages of the experiment. However, their offspring shall do.”

Cloud’s eyes widened to saucers. His father? He was subject to this? Well, some of this?

“Did you say….Genesis?”

“I did Sephiroth. You remember him right?”

“I remember what you did to him! You sick bastard!”

“I had almost given up hope of recreating the most powerful warriors until this boy here showed up. I knew I had seen him before but I just couldn’t place it. It wasn’t until I saw the footage of him attacking you in the lab that it was confirmed to me just who he is. You have the same wing as both Sephiroth and Genesis! I couldn’t believe my luck. The two I needed, right under my nose. The fates smile down upon me this very day.”

Both Cloud and Sephiroth stared at Hojo before shrinking back when he started walking over to them.

“It’s all over Spiky.”

Cloud craned his neck to see the source of the voice.

“R-Reno?! Why?!”

“Part of my job. You never wanted me. All you could see was Zack and Sephiroth! I saw my chance to beat both you and him so I took it.”

“Y-you bastard!”

Reno scoffed slightly before turning away and moving to where Zack lay unconscious.

“I don’t care anymore.”

Cloud growled at Reno’s heartless statement.

Hojo’s voice broke the now palpable silence once again.

“I’ll bet the two of you are wondering why you are strapped to the tables in such a fashion? Naked, with your legs forced open!”

“Because you’re a sick, twisted pervert!” Cloud screamed at the black haired man.

“Silly boy. Now Sephiroth, it doesn’t take a genius does it? You were supposed to be mine. However, that sharpshooter Vincent! Well, I will have my sweet revenge on him for stealing the lovely Ms Crescent away from me!”

Cloud’s eyes widened further. Now everything was sliding into place. That woman who gave them their last injections and how she was so cryptic with Sephiroth. The missing files on one Vincent Valentine. The case of nothing about who was now named Genesis Strife. Tears stung at the back of his eyes. Cloud knew the two of them would not make it out of this alive. If they did, they would go crazy just like his father supposedly did.

“Hojo? Please….just take me. Let Sephiroth go. Please. He is too weak already. Just let him go.”

“Hmpf! A little blood loss and a couple of broken bones are nothing to the great General of all of ShinRa! However, you will come down from that cloud pretty quickly Sephiroth!”

Sephiroth looked like he was about to say something, however, before any words could escape his mouth, Hojo cut in once again.

“You see those two canisters over there? I have already created the artificial wombs. All I need is a little, well, large donation from both of you. The subjects will grow five years in the space of a few short months. Then they will be mine! Ahh, both my children. Riku and Sora will lift me atop the pantheon of genius! All the world will cower at my two most powerful SOLDIER’s. Now, brace yourselves boys, for this is really going to hurt!”

Sephiroth paled when he heard the two names. The two from his dream.

Cloud too paled. He had seen both Sora and Riku in a dream he had. He saw Sora fall at Riku’s feet in tears.

Creaking machinery shook the two males from their musings. Both looked above them. Two huge machines began their agonisingly slow descent towards their prey.

Both machines were the same size and shapes as the bottom halves of their bodies.

Sephiroth chanced to look inside his. It looked just like a torture device. Needles, tubes, grips, vices and a phial filled with bubbling condensed mako.

“Fuck!”

Cloud watched in terror as the contraption got closer to him. He fought his hardest to get free. He screamed and shouted but his yells fell on deaf ears. His restraints cut into his arms and legs as his doom came closer.

Sephiroth squeezed Cloud’s hand so tightly, Cloud felt his hand may break and drop off.

“I’m sorry Cloud.”

He looked at the blond with fear, sorrow and sadness etched in his eyes. Cloud stared back wide eyed. He shook his head. That said it all.

The machines closed over the two males bottom halves. Both let out strangled cries. They felt like their insides were being ripped apart.

Needles drilled into their most sensitive flesh. Their legs were roughly clamped and forced farther apart.

Sephiroth threw his head back and grit his teeth together. He wouldn’t scream. He wouldn’t succumb to weakness. Even if his body was being ripped to shreds. He would not scream!

He looked over at Cloud. Said blond’s eyes still on his. Pain etched in that beautiful face. Cries of sheer agony escaped Cloud’s lips as his unblinking eyes never left Sephiroth’s.

Sephiroth felt a burning sensation behind his eyes. It pushed to the surface the longer he looked at Cloud. That beautiful little creature being subjected to this….torture.

Throwing his head back once again, Sephiroth cried out in agony as twenty year old tears flooded from his eyes, cascading down his cheeks.

Blood dripped out from under the machines. It flowed down the table legs and ran through the cracks on the floor.

Needles drilled deeper into both males most sensitive flesh.

Mako was released into their bodies at steady intervals. Both their eyes blazed shocking green. Their pupils vanished completely. They could no longer see their brutal torture.

Clear fluids travelled up the tubes which extended from the two machines and into the canisters lying dormant about ten feet from them.

Green lights on both machines blinked on and off as both fluids mixed with those already present.

Without warning, both threw back and roared nothing coherent. The whole room seemed to shake as their power climbed to uncharted new levels. Both males hands still connected painfully tight.

Blood spattered all over the lab as Sephiroth’s wing erupted from his right shoulder, followed quickly by Cloud’s from his left.

Reno, who couldn’t look previously, glanced round at the sound of the two males screaming. His eyes widened as both their wings flew out from their bodies.

“No way……”

Hojo rubbed his hands together as the two males in front of him succumbed to their full power and literally gave their all to his experiment. His future.

All that could be taken was taken. Cloud and Sephiroth lay half dead atop the tables. Their restraints were loosened. There was no need for them any more.

Both lay shivering on the cold, hard metal tables.

Still they never let go of the others hand.

“Take them away. Heal them. Bind their wounds. They have so much mako in their bodies they don’t even know their own names at present. Both of you know what to do.”

“Yessir.”

“Now go! I have much work to do.”

Cloud felt like he was floating. He felt like he was flying away. He felt almost dead and the feeling was wonderful.

Reno glanced at Cloud in his arms. He couldn’t help that painful tug at his heart when Cloud moaned what sounded like Sephiroth’s name in his drugged state.

“Dammit Cloud.”

Rude had roughly slung Sephiroth over his shoulder. It would take longer to heal the General. His left arm and right leg were broken. Blood dripped continuously from his many wounds.

Crimson and black feathers were all that was left in both males wake.