Yuffie knew a lot about Materia. She had been hunting it down and stealing it for years, after all. She had learned that a number of monsters liked to collect Materia almost as much as she did, including dragons, who often lived near natural Materia wells. Many monsters just collected it because it was something shiny, something pretty, but dragons and Yuffie were similar. They collected it because it was powerful. Many of the dragons in the mountains of Nibelheim had a sizable pile of Materia in their caves, that they used to make their own magic even stronger.

Then she'd heard about Mount Draco. It was near Mount Nibel, and like the name said, was supposed to be covered in dragons. At least, it had been once. Since then all but one had moved away or been killed. The one that was left was supposed to be immensely powerful, and as far as Yuffie was concerned, that meant Materia. It could only be reached by going over the mountains on foot or by Chocobo, because no airship could land and there was no road for any vehicle. Yuffie spent three days carefully making her way over the mountains, until she was there. She decided to rest at the foot of the mountain before searching for the dragon's lair.

When she woke in the morning, she was surprised to see a human shape near her tent. She scrambled for her weapons.

"Who's there?" She said to the shape.

In the gloom and mist before dawn she couldn't make the shape out very well. It didn't reply.

"Hey!" She tried again. the shape didn't even move. She cautiously neared, and gasped in surprise when she saw it was a person. Or had been. It was a man, dressed in tattered rags, covered in moss, dirt, and lichen. he was petrified, staring in shock at his own hand. The details of his face were worn, a few cracks were visible, and he looked like he had been there for decades judging by how he had sank into the grass and some plants were growing up his legs. He had a sword in his other hand that was broken in half and rusty. Yuffie was surprised to see that just his body was stone, and not his clothes, weapons, or armour.

"Whoa..." Was all she could say.

Then she realised. there was nothing around here that petrified. The nearest monsters like that were hundreds of miles away! She checked her gear, finding a single soft. Soft could undo minor damage to a petrified person, like a crack or something growing on it. She hoped her ribbon would be enough to stop whatever had got him from getting her, if it was still around. Carefully, she applied the curing potion, and the man screamed as he turned back.

"...What?" He said, confused. He still looked at his hand, then at Yuffie. He tried to raise his sword, but it simply disintegrated into rusty shards.

"Hey, I just saved you!" Yuffie protested.

The man looked in confusion at the remains of his sword, then the rest of his body. Most of the things that had been growing on him were still stuck to him, but not attached as such. As Yuffie had hoped, the soft had undone the minor damage he had suffered from the ravages of time. It seemed though, long term statuefication had left him very confused.

"You did?" He asked.

"Yeah. how long were you there?"

"What year is it now?"

"Hh, 2008?" She said. the man froze in horror.

"Fifty years..." He whispered. Yuffie felt a chill go up her spine when the man spoke again.

"Run. get away from here. I thank you for rescuing me, now do yourself a favour and get away from here!"

"Why?" Yuffie asked.

"Because if you don't run now, you'll never get the chance! forget the Materia! If the dragon's still here you're doomed if you even look at his horde!" He said.

Before Yuffie could reply, a distant roar echoed forth. Though obviously far away, the man yelped in fear and began to flee.

"Hey, wait!" Yuffie said as he ran.

"No! I'm not standing trapped for fifty more years!" He yelled as he vanished into the gloom.

Yuffie stood confused for a moment. The roar had been quite far away, she knew for sure, and she wasn't going to let what happened to him stop her. There was Materia here, she was certain. No dragon was stopping her from getting at least some of it

***

He wasn't the only one, Yuffie soon found. As the sun rose, the mist faded, and revealed the small patch of rocky grass at the base of the mountain was littered with statues. Some looked new, like a squad of shinra soldiers with just a little moss growing on them, or a woman looking in triumph into an empty sack who looked like she was only petrified recently. Others looked a little older, with moss and lichen growing over their forms, their clothes torn, ripped and faded, any weapons showing signs of rust.  Some looked much like the man she had rescued and that had fled. A few even had birds nests on them, and most had birds mess on them. Clearly, even mountain birds perched on statues. Yuffie almost laughed at this, but the fact these were still people stopped her.  She walked past the statues, heading upwards.

As she climbed the mountain, the statues generally looked older and older. So far, Yuffie had seen at least thirty people who had been here for goodness knows how long. She hoped none of them were conscious, especially not some of the ones that had suffered serious damage. She had a good guess what the strange pile of rust and rocks she found had once been.

But what she also noticed was a lot of the statues seemed to have pleased looks on their faces, and were carrying or at leashad been carrying something. One odd fresh looking statue of a young man halfway up had a sack over his shoulder and a smug look on his face. Whatever had petrified him had got him grinning from ear to ear. The sack had been torn open by a claw, and whatever had been in it was gone.

She stopped after a few hours, on a small patch of the mountain that she still had to share with a pair of statues. So far, at least fifty. Some looked like they had been here for centuries, but that meant all these other people had still climbed up, knowing what was ahead.

"...So do I." Yuffie said to herself. She recalled what the man said, and wondered if maybe that was a good suggestion after all.

Yuffie looked at her temporary stone companions, a man and a woman. The woman wore the rusty flaking remains of some armour and chain-mail, and held the stub of a sword long since rusted to nothing. Her boots had almost completely rotted away, and she had a number of cracks across her legs. The remains of a cloak were over her shoulders, tattered and mouldy. The man was in a similar situation, his clothing deteriorated and discoloured, full of holes and covered in mould. Both had their share of lichen, moss, bird droppings, and in the woman's case, a long abandoned nest perched on her head. Some of her long hair seemed to have been snapped off to make the nest.

"I wish I knew what got you." She said to them. They didn't reply. she moved up the mountain, leaving the two statues behind.

***

A few hours and even more statues later, she found a cave entrance, with a Materia well right inside. Then it hit her. Monsters! Sometimes dragons had monsters help guard their caves! They even brought monsters in from far away sometimes. Or maybe it was a completely different monster, one that only lived here. She hoped if it was something new and not widely known about, she could handle it. She made sure she still had her ribbon, just in case.

She walked into the cave, and was surprised to find it teeming with Materia wells. None had any fully formed Materia in them, but the cave glowed with the light from each fountain of Mako that leaked from the rocks. This had to be it. Yuffie kept moving, carefully in case the dragon or the mystery monster was around, and  then she found it. A hole leading to cavern, with huge piles of Materia. More than Yuffie had ever seen in her life. In her surprise at this sight, she almost ran straight in before she remembered the risks and waited. Nothing moved. She slowly entered, and neared a pile of the Materia.

"Okay, how do I do this?" She asked herself.

Ppick out good ones and risk being caught by the dragon or monster coming back? Just grab a sack-full and run? She quickly resolved the issue, by just filling her bag and bolting.

She did not notice the green Materia that watched as she did so. Nor did she noticed when it teleported into the middle of the pile she grabbed.

***

She ran down the mountain much faster than she had climbed it. It took her nearly two hours from the pair of statues where she had rested to the cave. She stopped back there half an hour later, exhausted from running downhill. She was tempted to check what Materia she had grabbed, but wanted to be sure she was off the mountain before she even risked it. Ribbon or not, she had seen too many of the statues to want to take a risk. After a rest, she started running down the mountain again and less than an hour later, she was back at the base of the mountain. She grinned. there was no sign of anything following, or around her ready to ambush her and try to turn her into another member of the rockery

Now she felt safe, she looked at the statues once more and wondered if there was something she could do for them. She had used her only soft on the man, who had probably just ran for his life and for all she knew hadn't even escaped the area yet, if at all. Then she realised maybe she could help some of these people out. sShe put the Materia down, not seeing a green one work its way up to the top. She then pulled out her phone and tried to get in touch with someone.

The only person who answered was Tifa.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Tifa, it's Yuffie." She said.

"Yuffie? I thought you were in Cosmo?" Tifa asked.

"I was, but I'm in Nibelheim just now."

"Where?"

"Mount Draco."

"...You're where?" Tifa said, sounding worried.

"Relax, I'm not stealing any Materia, I was just looking."

"You had better have been. Don't you know about that place? No one who ever went there to get Materia has come back." Tifa said.

"Yeah, yeah. I know why. They've all been petrified by something."

"Petrified? How?"

"No clue." Yuffie said. Tifa sighed.

"Well, if you're just looking, get away fast. And if you have tried to steal anything, leave it and get away."

"Gawd, you sound just like the guy I turned back." Yuffie said.

"You rescued someone?"

"Yeah, but he ran away. I was calling you to see if you can maybe send help for the other people here?"

"All right, I'll try, but you really need to get out of there, now. And leave any Materia you took!" Tifa responded harshly

"Alright, Alright! I will! Bye." Yuffie said, hanging up. She then giggled.

"Yeah, right, like I'm gonna ditch all this Materia! Tifa doesn't know me very well I suppose." Yuffie said to herself. She looked around and saw nothing. Time to see what Materia she had. She opened her bag, seeing a pile of various Materia. She scooped up an armful.

"Hey, a summon Materia! Tifa must be nuts if she thinks I'm leaving this!" In her arms she held three Materia, one yellow, one green, and the red summon Materia. She then heard a noise and glanced up. There was nothing there.

"Ha, I'm getting paranoid too..." She said, smiling as she realised the fears were unfounded. Nothing was around. Whatever had petrified these people had missed her.

She didn't see her ribbon fall off. She didn't see the blue glow surround her body. She didn't see the green Materia grin...

'Best get moving.'She said to herself.

Then she realised she hadn't spoken. She tried to move. She couldn't. She panicked, and then saw the green Materia float out of her arms. in the mirror reflection of the airborne gem, she could see herself stare back. Instead of pink flesh, there was only grey stone. She was petrified, just like the others on the mountain.

'Uh oh.' She thought.

The Materia had been a mimic, she realised. That explained how everyone else had fallen for the trap as well as how she had. They had carried it right out. She stood there with little choice but to do so, the Materia floating in front of her for a while as if taunting its victim, before she heard a roar. A very close roar. The floating Materia dropped back down, and a dragon landed in front of her.

It was massive. It had a mouth big enough to swallow her whole, and legs as thick as tree trunks. She really wanted to run, even though she knew running from a dragon this much just meant she'd be incinerated on the spot... If she'd been able to run, of course. She then saw the dragon carefully pluck the Materia out of her bag, and from her arms. and then it left. It took her a while to calm down from the terror of what had just happened, a statue or not. It was then  that she realised her predicament in full. If Tifa didn't get around to sending people soon, or at all, she could be here a while, and she didn't like the idea of a bird building a nest on her head... or from her hair for that matter.

And she also realised, somewhat a little late, that her fears about the other statues being conscious were obviously confirmed. She hoped she wasn't going to get confirmation of just how conscious some of the older ones would be...