Midgar
-One-by-one, the reactors around Midgar come to life.
-The reactor in the middle (I have to assume that’s reactor 0) spews a massive lifestream into the sky, and that stream draws on the reactors encircling it.
Smells like Omega time.
-This actually looks a lot like a rift opening in the MMO “Rift.”
-The lifestream starts to solidify and take shape HOLY SHIT WTF LOOK AT THAT!
Note the tiny city of Midgar below Omega for scale.
-THAT’S OMEGA??????? THAT’S GORGEOUS. THAT’S BEAUTIFUL!! GIGANTIC! And if you’ve read my prior playthroughs, you know there’s nothing I love more than a giant monster.
-We see Vincent inside of Omega briefly. He turns into Chaos, erupts out of his mouth or something, and starts flying circles around Omega. A red halo in the sky above the green monstrosity.
-Vincent tries to dive in on Omega, but gets repulsed by a barrier of some kind.
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Deepground Lab
-Shelke is out and about from her container.
-She seems to have a plan in the works. Omega is made up of lifestream, and thus made up of souls. Shelke may be able to use her data powers somehow.
-Uplink successful. Commencing “SND,” and I have no idea what that could be. Slice ‘n’ dice?
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Omega
-Great visual as we see Shelke’s blue-tinted virtual form soar down from the sky and dive right into Omega’s mouth – or whatever likely could pass for his mouth.
-Following Shelke lets us see inside Omega. Dark green, with black tendrils inside. Souls maybe, or perhaps just Omega’s natural defenses?
-They entangle Shelke, snaring her from her path, but she still reaches… someone? All we see is hands in a glowing white robe. The woman says: “Here,” and hands Shelke something. A white orb.
-….that’s not Aeris. That can’t be Aeris. Right? Lucrecia may be more likely, but she doesn’t sound like Lucrecia. And Aerith is the protector inside the lifestream. Hm.
-The glowy woman’s voice doesn’t ring a bell to me immediately.
-The view switches to outside Omega. He starts to pulse with blue electricity-looking stuff.
-A white orb erupts out of him, and those black tendrils chase it through the sky.
-OH! The orb that erupted out changes form briefly to Shelke. That orb is what data!Shelke looks like in this form. She escapes Omega’s tendrils and crashes against Vincent, hovering in the air.
-A woman appears before him, handing him a white orb: “Take this, Vincent.”
I think she’s Lucrecia, [later edit: and on looking at the screenshot, I think this too] but it happens quickly. I wonder if she just gave him the protomateria back.
-Chaos!Vincent hovers, beating his wings with the moon behind him.
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Flashback – Shinra Lab
-Turk!Vincent is in a mako container. Lucrecia is outside, panicking because Vincent seems to be fading or decaying or something.
-Hojo starts to taunt her as usual, but Lucrecia has none of that. She starts screaming at his implications that she’s abusing or misusing Vincent, “You’re wrong, you’re wrong, you’re wrong!”
-Um. What just happened? We flashed from Vincent in the containment tank to Vincent lying on the floor as Hojo stands over him, cackling and holding a gun.
-Black screen. Scattered memories from Lucrecia it seems. “You had his eyes.” “I didn’t want to remember.”
-I’m starting to see. She feels she acted recklessly because she kept seeing Grimoire in Vincent, and tried to ignore him and treat him coldly, without care because she didn’t want to think about Grimoire and her responsibility for his death.
-Back to the lab. We’re back to the memory where Turk!Vincent is in the mako container.
-Back to the black screen of scattered memories. “I’ve done it.” “Born of the lifestream.” “Stopped tissue decay.” This must be when she succeeded in strengthening Vincent’s body.
“But instead was…” “Born from the Chaos that took him.” The sentences and words come fast. We see Chaos’s face flash in the mako container.
-Chaos starts thrashing around in the containment lab. Then as Lucrecia is screaming for it to stop, a white glow appears on the ground and Chaos stops. The protomateria?
-Flash forward. Turk!Vincent still in the mako container, Lucrecia is shaking Hojo while he remains calm.
…Her son?????? Is Hojo forcing her to work by holding her son captive? Where did a son come from? I feel like I’m missing something obvious.
Like, did Lucrecia have a son with Grimoire? (No, I don’t think for a second that she’s Vincent’s mom, but I’m wondering if there’s a younger son hidden away somewhere in Hojo’s tender clutches.)
-Another black screen. Another flash of random words as Lucrecia’s mind and memories seem to break down. A bit reminiscent actually of Zack’s dying moments in Crisis Core. Memories and thoughts she stored online.
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Next time: Lucrecia’s legacy.
