Second Chance

Back to the Lab

With Vincent, Shelke and Zack had left for the lab; now, she was left alone with the others. Everything was quiet between her and her friends who hadn't seen her in a long time. Her hand on her lap, her eyes avoiding direct contact with theirs. 'how am I going to start the conversation with them?' The thought stayed in her mind for a while now; maybe she should start simple, "So... How are you all?" that's a good way to start things off.

"Well, we are adjusting better after the Deepground incident," Tifa replied as the others exchanged glances. "But one question, what's wrong with your legs?" she had noticed that Aerith avoided using her legs since they met at the construction site. Instead, she was using the float materia or was carried by Zack the entire time.

"Um... well, I can't use them anymore," Aerith said bluntly, trying to sound as natural as possible, but there was still sadness in her tone. Everyone sat silent, feeling sorry for bringing up the subject. They would like to ask her more about it, but they didn't want to risk upsetting her more, and she soon noticed that and elaborated, "Sephiroth damaged my spine when he stabbed me in the back."

"Man, that must suck being grounded," Yuffie pouted, resting her head in her hands and placing her elbows on the table. "Can't you do anything at all?"

Caith bobbed her head. "Watch it, little lass! You're hurting the lass' feelings!" he lectured the young adult ninja.

"It's ok; I'm not upset about it" Aerith smiled, hiding her sadness about the fact that she was a burden to everyone now. She had explained to Zack about her concern, and as a solution, he gave her the only float materia in existence on Gaia. Sure it was an experimental one, and she knew it was only temporary, but at least he tried to make her feel independent.

"May I have a closer look at that materia you used?" Reeve politely asked her for the object, which she did. Then, he carefully examined the dark-colored sphere along with Shera and Cid.

"It's so beautiful, and the fact that no other materia can cause its host to float against gravity is just incredible," Shera mentioned with Cid nodding.

"Yeah, it's going to be difficult to fix this unless we have a materia expert," he added, setting the toothpick in his mouth "Maybe we could make you one of those advanced wheelchairs till this one's fixed."

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

DeepGround City, Lab facility...

Since Zack and Aerith's departure from the lab days earlier, nothing had changed so far. Shelke had already started the SND process at the main terminal while Vincent and Zack looked around the lab in search of clues the latter might have missed.

"So... Vincent? Um, how did you meet Cloud and the others? You don't seem like a social kind of guy, no offense," Zack asked casually, trying to get along with the busy-looking Goth guy.

"He and the others woke me up," Vincent said after a long pause, not making eye contact with Zack.

Zack nodded, though he couldn't imagine exactly how that happened. Somehow it reminded him of the man he accidentally found asleep in a coffin back at the Shinra Mansion during his and Cloud's escape. But since he didn't take a very good look at the said man, he wasn't sure if Vincent was the same guy or not.

He shrugged the thought aside and looked around for some clues that he had missed on his first round. Vincent was over at the ruined old office, going through all the papers that Zack had read. The girl with them was over at the main computer, looking like she was asleep sitting up. He had to do something other than stand still, so he decided to explore part of the lab that he didn't go through when he woke up.

Zack avoided the broken steel floor that blocked his path and entered the darkest part of the old lab. He suddenly came to a stop after hearing the sound of some digital beeping that was somewhere ahead.

'Is it a bomb? I sure hope not.' So he thought as he crept carefully towards the source of the noise. When he finally arrived at the source, his expression relaxed. The beeping came from a portable materia fusion chamber and appeared operational too. He studied the machine closely to understand its function, rotating the device slightly to see the torn-off instruction papers on the sides. Then he carefully unplugged the machine and returned it to his companions.

"So found anything?" Zack walked over to the young woman and strange man who seemed to be discussing something important.

"Yes, we found the project reports that were missing, and it explained a lot," Shelke reported to Zack; then she noticed the device in his hands. "What's that?" she asked, looking at the device in his possession questionably.

Zack simply smiled as he replied, "Just something to help Aerith."

"I see, if that's everything then we should head back to the others." Vincent concluded and was first to head for the exit. Leaving Zack chasing behind to carry the somewhat heavy machine.

Shelke stood her ground for a bit, glancing back at the central computer she was hooked up to not long ago. "I feel, that we might have missed something important. For one, your not connected to the rest of the server. Why was that?" she murmured to no one. This was a bad omen, and she knew it. But there was no way to prove her sixth sense right, for now, that is. So all she could do right now was hope that her gut was wrong as she made her way to the exit and joined the boys back at the bar where the others all awaited their return.