Chapter Text
‘I’m telling you Aerith, the odds of anything being alive in that place are slim to none,’ Barret sighs, tugging the reins of his chocobo impatiently, ‘What do you think you’re going to find besides more of the same crap? Nothing.’
‘Not with that attitude we won’t,’ Aerith pouts, ‘What’s gotten into you?’
‘Maybe I’m just sick of forking out Gil we don’t have to take a trip out to Nibelheim that makes no sense!’
‘Would you have preferred I bring Tifa?” Aerith asks patiently, green eyes pinning him down, ‘Or should I have come on my own?’
‘No, I mean, I’m just saying.’
Aerith raises her eyebrow.
‘You,’re right,’ He concedes, ‘Leave no stone unturned and all that jazz.
Barret and Aerith made an unlikely, but extremely effective, team.
The two of them had crossed paths in Sector Five, an Avalanche mission gone awry had led him to seeking refuge in an old church, an old church that just happened to be her makeshift garden.
Aerith stood out among the yellow lillies like some kind of nymph, and slung spells at Shinra troopers like a bat out of hell, instead of taking him home, she took him to her house, and the two of them along with her mother who almost certainly has buried some bodies in the garden her daughter so diligently tends to, saw eye-to-eye on a few things.
Like Shiner’s research division, and a missing SOLDIER she’d been looking for for some time. It wasn’t long before the two of them made waves, and not long at all before they’d escaped Midgar altogether.
Aerith’s mum Elmyra, Barret’s daughter Marlene, and his own splinter cell of Avalanche had upped sticks and moved to Kalm, Tifa’s bar flourished through the night, and by day, it provided them a privacy and safety.
They’d been targeting research centres for the last year, freed a few would-be lab rats and put more than a few out of their misery when they were too far gone.
None of them had been Aerith’s man, but each lab came with more questions and images Barret wishes he could unsee. The kind that seep into his dreams and have him waking up in a cold sweat.
Nibelheim manor had some rumours surrounding it that, if they’re true, would make everything else look tame.
The whole building was Professor Hojo’s private lab, which was a goosebump inducing concept on its own, the sicko who experimented on Aerith’s birth mother and kept her captive for years, the one who was responsible for taking soldiers and dunking them in mako until they were SOLDIERS. The one who carefully crafted every drooling, stumbling robed mess of soldier they’d run into on the road. The man that, given the opportunity, Aerith would kill herself.
It made sense she wanted to go after him, Barret supposed, and if things got messy, it wouldn’t be the first time. He’d be there for her.
Like always.
Nibelheim was creepy, and not in the way they expected.
From what Tifa had described, the place should have been in ruins, burnt to a crisp and left behind. But the only burnt thing was the bread from the bakery in a thriving little mountain village.
A thriving little mountain village that didn’t take kindly to strangers poking around asking questions, the innkeeper said, in no uncertain terms, that they had one night’s grace before they were no longer welcome. Not that it mattered.
They wouldn’t be here in the morning.
The moon was high in the sky when Aerith and Barret scurried out of the village and up the hill, following the winding, rocky pathway to Nibelheim manor. Flanked by trees on all side and looking like something from a horror movie, Aerith summoned her fleeting familiar, a little pink butterfly, and sent it to scout around the manor.
Leaving a trail of pink glitter in its wake, the little creature returned, perching on the tip of its caster’s nose, Aerith nodded as the familiar faded away, ‘There’s no one guarding the doors, I say we let ourselves in.’
Barret scowled, raised is gun, and followed the girl with the pink dress into a den of vipers.
Shinra Manor was probably beautiful, once upon a time, spraying entry ways and chandeliers made of finely cut glass that was more cobwebs than crystal now, old sheets strewn over furniture that was probably hand carved from the wood of an ancient tree and coated in the sweat of a monk, or whatever rich people buy.
The dark mahogany floors and ornate cornices were interrupted by a set of metal double doors when they found the elevator, it stuck out like a pimple on the tip of your nose, ugly and painful and not meant to be there.
Barret hit the button with the edge of his gun, and the doors slid open.
Downstairs, or underground, they seemed to descent for a long time, was completely different from the manor above, metal gates and glass tubes lined the walls of various labs, testing rooms, and operating theatres. No matter how many Shinra labs they break into, Barret has never been able to get used to the smell. It’s cloying, sits in the back of his throat and sets up camp, and later, no matter how hard he scrubs his skin he can still smell it. Mako, formaldehyde, blood, fear.
They searched for a long time, longer than they usually liked to spend in these places, but it just seemed to go on forever, Barret wondered if she should have tied a rope around his waist when they set out, to make finding the way back easier, when the sound of footsteps snapped him to attention.
Grabbing Aerith and diving behind a stack of metal crates just in time for a man in a white coat to come out of one of the rooms they hadn’t explored yet, holding a checklist and wiping his hands on his jacket.
Aerith cast a sleep spell as easily as blowing a kiss, and the man went down like a sack of shit, cracking his head on the wall as he fell.
‘Oopsy,’ She shrugged.
‘Asshole probably deserved it,’ Barret grumbled.
That was when he thought to glance over the clipboard.
Feeding and Medication Regiment
. Subject C - Mako infusion & Sustenance + harvest brain tissue
. Subject V - Leave food by chamber door DO NOT ENGAGE
. Send Subject Z files to HQ
If time allows, Professor Hojo would like a full suite of tests performed on Subject C including bone barrow, this is to be done without anaesthetic and specimen is to be monitored for brain activity. If no response, apply electricity.
‘Those sick fucks.’
Most of the list has been checked off, to Barret’s disgust.
‘Let’s go see if we can find them,’ Aerith grabbed his arm and guided Barret away, and if she accidentally kicked the scientist a bit on the way past with her boot, neither of them said anything about it.
While the rest of the facility seemed to be abandoned, with lights on half power and computers on standby, the room the scientist had come from was definitely used. The whole thing glowed a sickening green as pure mako lapped at the side of the tanks that lined the walls, machines hummed and beeped, and there, in the middle of the row of tanks, floated a person.
Naked and covered in hastily stitched up wounds, limp and floating in green, blonde hair drifting around his face like a halo, eyes closed and face slack.
‘Subject C,’ Barret read the label on his tank, ‘Shit.’
Aerith ran an appraising eye over him, he looked around her age, leaner than he should be but muscular in a way that she’d seen before on the fallen SOLDIERS they’d saved, it was all chemical, “enhancements” on the body that slowly unravelled the soul. The boy floating in front of her had a nasty wound like a Y on his chest, puckered and raised where the mako was accelerating healing despite the stitches.
‘We’re here to help,’ She placed a hand on the tank. Relieved and disappointed all at once that this person wasn’t the one she was looking for.
Their first rescue attempts involved a lot more broken glass and brute force, smashed in tanks that set off alarms and called guards, but now they knew how to open the pods on the computer, thanks to Jessie.
The mako drained from the pod and the boy went limp, as the glass opened with a hiss, he came tumbling out into Barret’s arms with a groan.
‘Easy there, we’ve got you,’ He cooed as Aerith passed a towel from the shelf.
Acid green eyes that honest to god glowed blinked blearily as he whimpered, trembling lightly even as Barret tucked him up against his chest.
‘We gotta get outta here.’
‘What about anyone else?’ Aerith blanched.
‘You read that paper he had, he’s sending information about a “subject Z,” yeah? I reckon we have a better chance of taking whatever files we can find and getting the hell outta dodge, regroup, find out where they transferred your boy.’
Aerith cast a glance at the trembling mess in Barret’s arms and nodded.
With an armful of files and a handful of their own to deal with, the next step was getting out of Nibelheim altogether.